Disclaimer: The characters and settings created by Blizzard Entertainment Inc in this story are owned by their creators. I do not claim them as mine in any way, shape or form. I am not receiving monetary profit from this story and no copyright infringement is intended.
Note: Oh God, I did it! We're not at the finish line quite yet. But I pushed through a whole bunch of updates just now as you've seen. I have to say, I deeply enjoyed weaving Opal back into this story in a way. Wasn't she lovely and spooky? And she gave amazing, blunt advice to Turaho just like she did to her brother at the end of the first fanfic I ever wrote on this site. Memorieees 3
Hope you guys are enjoying. I think we've got 4-5 chapters more to go. Then I can reach my goal of finishing this and focusing on some of the other stories this year!
Chapter 31: We Do it All at the Venture Co!
Bonnie hopped up with a smile ready, but a trio of vigilant Sentinels reacted immediately, training their handscythes onto all of the little women. Bonnie calmed down once more, looked wary.
Actually, they all had on these little matching safari hats. Shocking to see them there, but also somehow less shocking that the old gang looked like they were on an extended safari-themed bachelorette party. But I digress.
And Alessandre, the man-in-charge, he was now standing by his wife. Al seemed mostly focused on my being alive and well again. Though one couldn't be sure, because he was holding his wife Opal's hand and she was busy attempting to smile and bite his earlobe. He wasn't stopping her, either.
I cleared my throat in an obvious way.
Opal cleared her throat, too. "Oh, good. You're up."
I kept staring at them. Opal nuzzled Al's dark cheek instead, then donned a more demure smile.
Alessandre came forward, leading his wife over to say goodbye as well.
It took us men a while to admit that we liked each other. That's what Opal accused us of.
Al grunted, "I don't have a man-crush on him."
"He used to be good friends with a Tauren, way back at the beginning of time. You remind him of Denkan."
Old habit, though I was tired and couldn't have cared, "…Last name?"
Opal said it before Al could stop her, "…Runestalker." She smiled, very pleased with having embarrassed her husband. Well, she would have been sure it was for a good cause. Women who truly love you are unafraid of doing that. Meydiri used to…
Meydiri.
Opal was still talking, I drifted back into the sound of her voice, "…And of course a triumvir rogue of Darnassus wouldn't allow himself to become so attached without good reason. Al looked you up when this whole thing started. You and your family bloodline. He sent word, through me, to have his rogues do it."
Alessandre looked down at his boot. Or, he was looking at my hooves.
"You know, it's crazy. Illidan did the same thing to me. And that Dannox guy at the Sunthraze Estate—Actually, do you know him?"
"Hell no."
"Okay." Though, that very strong reaction suggested that maybe Alessandre did. Anyway…
"Al, I'll tell you like I told the other Night Elves that have been falling in love with me." I grasped his shoulder, feeling unusually cheeky considering the horrors I'd seen of late. "I'm not Denkan."
Al agreed with me. He was almost apologetic, "No. Definitely not."
Opal lifted her pearl-white chin, "Yet the ancient bloodline flows and meanders, but comes right back to you, Runestalker. And if anyone knows how important a family bloodline is, it's-"
I nodded, "Night Elves? So we're racially-inclined to work together. I'm destined to…" I wasn't sure what to say in front of the Goblins, "Owe you, because you saved me. Even risk the stability of my faction. And, your own. Horde and Alliance working together, way out here? Well, lat least no one can see us."
Opal winked. "Not really. I was going to say the Shademoons, the Banes, the Shadowsteps… our family clan. We appreciate bloodlines, back home." Opal waited until it seemed to sink in. She wasn't talking about Darnassus. "And, apparently, there's also a Troll side of our family as well. I met him, he's a shaman."
Al nodded, "A fine shaman at that."
Opalbane squeezed her husband's arm. "We protect our own. We know that wars and battle lines don't always make that easy."
I shook my head and horns at Alessandre, "I don't know if I can do what you asked me to do. What we discussed, back while I was ill. I do remember it."
"But you will try and help. And you will see, in the end, that we are on the side of justice."
"Mrs…" I still didn't know her last name, eventhough she must have said it. Grief, it fatigues you. "Mrs. Alessandre. Things are never that easy."
Opal kept speaking to me, though Al and I were supposed to be doing our goodbye. "When you begin to believe that goodness is hard, and tangled and impossible-and those are Kael'thas' lies, by the way… Well, you'll start to believe anything."
"Opal—"
She let go of her husband, took a few steps back to let us have our final words together.
I warned Al, "I may break her heart, if you slip up and come after me again like we were doing at the start of this whole thing. I have to finish this mission. I don't know if we both want it finished the same way, though."
"Something Opal and I have already discussed many, many times in my career. Don't worry about my wife. That's my job. Yours is to watch out for me. You know, if you ever make me come after you…"
I didn't want to have to kill him, either. Gods and Mu'usha above. So much death.
Alessandre sort of winced, whatever it was happened so fast. In the next moment, he offered his hand for me to shake. That part was solid, clear.
Well, damn me if I'm not going to shake the hand of a Night Elf man who kept me alive, behind enemy lines at that, and had no real good reason to.
I gripped Al by the wrist, and we shook hands in the old way, made it good.
I still tried to keep our plans discreet, in front of so many people watching, "I'm not the only one who can get you close to… you know who. You could go yourself, if you wanted. You really don't need me."
"Not so. I'm depending on you right now—"
"Alessandre Shademoon. What does Faltheriel Darkweaver have on you?"
He reddened. "That's classified."
"Hrmph." I squinted my eye at him. "I'll find out you know, before the end of it."
"Turaho, you'll be fine. And you don't have to think of it as helping the Alliance."
"Just betraying the Horde?"
"When you stand with the Alliance, you stand on the side of life and hope."
"And when you stand with the Horde you protect the defenseless. The misunderstood. The condemned. The ones the Alliance has condemned-"
He raised empty hands at me, "We don't have to agree. We really don't. It's just a job that needs to get done. A vital one. Horde, or Alliance… I still believe that Kael'thas stands outside of all that. He only cares about himself."
Always, all the time, rogues are trying to outmaneuver you. That moment was no different than any other. Even if I disliked Kael'thas, was that a reason to just up and cull him at the end of this? What happened with… with Meydiri. it only convinced me further about doing things legitimately, by the book. Saving Greatfather Winter, then organizing a trial. Real justice. With evidence, and witnesses. I wanted everyone responsible tried and punished the right way. That meant rounding everyone the hell up, and fast.
Al looked sincere enough now, though, "Please make your next move… very, very carefully Turaho. Alright?" He clapped my shoulder, then stepped aside.
"I will. I'll get into… the closet that you can't. I'll deliver. But you'd better be ready on your end. This will be a joint handover." I pointed at him, "And don't double-cross me. Alright? This is too big for that foolishness."
"Never." He saluted me.
The Night Elves let me hobble back to the strange green and murloc, quilboar looking little people who'd sloughed from as far away as Mulgore to come find me. I was beside myself that Bonnie had managed it, with all her friends, too? Honestly, I was touched.
Well, Bonnie had used her shady Venture Co. connections and called in Fitzsprocket's various cartel favors, but the Night Elves didn't need to know all that.
The last thing I remember seeing when we left the island, was Opal placing hands on either side of her husband's face. Reassuring him with some tough pep-talk. He nodded at her, she insisted once more, and then he smoothed down her shoulders, really assented to whatever she'd said. Probably about their real limitations, and his real possibilities against those odds. His strengths that she knew so well, that she loved so much. And then, her telling him never to worry. It's what great women do. Then she kissed Al, held him.
How nice.
It was the first time in a long time that I remember feeling… not jealous of a couple. Someone like Al needed someone like her.
But what I did hate now was, if things with retrieval got really hairy and I decided that I needed to side with Kael'thas after all? I was surely going to have to confront Al. It might even be a deadly confrontation. And good men shouldn't die over something like that, covering some rich guy's butt.
Yet, that's the way the world goes. Ask any Pathfinder.
No, now I was a Paladin, a Sunwalker. What would a Sunwalker do?
Bonnie looked up at me doe-eyed after we got in the boat. It was motorized, if you can imagine. Her small friends knew what to do, got me settled with a warm blanket across my lap, pulled the cord to fire up the engine, got it rip-roaring across the water, took care of everything. They used a special spotlight to cut through the mists and find our way back to shore. I guess we were far, far to the south of the coast of the Ghostlands.
Bonnie sat across from me on the little boat. "You alright, Turaho? I was screamin' and freaking out listenin' to that mahble I had for you. Like all night. You never heard it? Fitz was saying get to the sub so we can get you some ammo. But we were too late. Almost too late."
And how. I should have guessed she wouldn't be able to stay away. Great girl, that Bonnie.
She sighed, "Welp, the Night Elves have saved ya, but they still wanna skin ya. Then again, the Horde wants ya ta cover up for Kael'thas, right? Did he do it? And Kael'thas is powerful, but he's a fink! And a freak—"
"Uh…" I wanted Bonnie to stop. I also worried about her watching whatever I had decided to watch, and listen to, in the royal, um… bedroom. It was the one maybe-nice thing about my mission, that fun little Saturna sideshow. Seemed so tasteless and pathetic, looking back.
"Turaho? Whatchya gonna do now?"
"Freak, fink or not… I need to go see Kael'thas, immediately. And talk to him. If I can stomach it. He clearly set me up, with Mey."
"Uh, how?"
I could barely speak it. I tried to keep things in a professional tone, the way I was trained. If I went raging bull I would never finish this mission. "Kael'thas sent me into the Ghostlands alone. I didn't have to go alone. I was supposed to have the full support of Silvermoon while on this mission. I was panicked, I had to act fast. But on his end, there could have only been one outcome, me going up against Mey."
"Which was…?"
"Either I would die or she…" I stopped myself.
"Oh." Bonnie looked down at her little green hands. Then she took one of my fingers and held on. "That is stone cold. That is so cruel, Turaho."
I reached back and checked my rifle, fiddled with it to keep my mind and my other hand busy. "That is who Kael'thas is. And he could trust me to ensure Greatfather Winter wasn't put in any danger. Or, if that spell enslaved or even destroyed Greatfather Winter, that would have suited his purpose as well. Got another problem off Kael'thas' hands. Though I hate to think of the kind of arrogance that doesn't mind the Twilight Hammer Cult, empowered by a Titan, on his own doorstep. Guess Kael'thas was vain enough to believe he could handle that, too."
I cocked my gun. I felt like any gumshoe in one of those black-and-white Goblin dramas on the screen over the bar at The Fitz doing it right then but I was in my stride, I guess. Can't be helped sometimes, looking the hero.
"It is so obvious what Kael'thas did to me, even if there is no proof. He sickens me. There is no word for how much I want him gone, this kingdom out of his hands. Whatever ramschackle arrangement the Blood Knights have going with him now, I am convinced that Quel'thalas would be better off in the hands of someone else, I don't know. Lor'themar. He watched it before when Kael'thas was off and away in Outland, being incompetent."
I looked over at Bonnie, "I really hope that I didn't say anything that I shouldn't have, back while I was with the Night Elves. Alessandre might have heard me yell or say anything while I was in pain or even sleeping, and he'd be right to listen in. I would've done it." I shook my head and my horns, "The thing is, I must have known for a while now what's been going on. The real truth. I did figure it out, but as Alessandre warned me all along, I was being thrown a lot of distractions. A lot. First Saturna and her nice…"
Bonnie got angry.
"Friends, I was going to say. The Knights of the Blood Nexus are, well, my top suspects right now. But they're not totally evil. Bonnie, they're decent, up to a point. As shady as the whole of Quel'thalas is, and Kael'thas most of all, I do think they're really the ones keeping this kingdom afloat. They're keeping Kael'thas mostly good, which is hard to… accept. But they're very talented at what they do. Talented with leadership and the Light in their own way, and I also suspect keeping Kael'thas himself largely on the straight and narrow is a part of that. And of course, they're also skilled with the destructive side their powers, including deception. Blood Knights are skilled at wreaking havoc. I just didn't understand that it doesn't only happen on the battlefield. They'd do anything to keep Quel'thalas alive and thriving. That's what Saturna and the others believe they've been doing all this time." I strapped my other hunting knife back on, "But I'm about to take the system apart."
Bonnie still didn't understand. I should not have told her so much to begin with, really.
"So what are ya gonna say, Turaho? What can ya even say to a dangerous man like Kael'thas when ya finally see him? And he knows yer on ta him! Wait—you said you figured out who exactly did it. You have, haven't you! Who did it?"
I tapped the end of my muzzle, that I did know but I wasn't going to say anymore. "… When I see Kael'thas Sunstrider again, I will tell him that his time is up. No frills, no more games. He and I are finishing this. And the way I'm gonna finish it, Bonnie? That is going to draw the real kidnapper out."
When we got to shore, Supervisor Fitzsprocket was there waiting with a few Venture Co. Bruisers and a pretty smashing –looking steamship. Guns were rigged to the sides, painted smokestacks, everything. I almost lost it.
"You… you let Bonnie go all the way over there with her adorable friends to deal with Night Elf Sentinels and worse, alone in a defenseless motorboat?!"
Megurgle croaked strangely, waggled her webbed Murloc hands in the air, motioning that, at least for her part, she could swim.
Cute. But still, I wasn't having it!
Fitz owned up, "Bonnie said the Night Elves wouldn't like it." He shrugged. "Look, it wasn't easy to let her run off by herself! I barely let her run off and leave Mulgore by herself. I had to offer an all-expenses-paid, ah, trip. I had to wring corporate's necks to make this happen for her last minute, so don't go telling me I'm not brave, that I'm not honorable. I'm as honorable as any Goblin!"
Which meant not at all.
Fitz still insisted, "…She's been the queen of this whole operation. She was so worried about you, I had to do it!"
I didn't say anything more about the 'trip' Fitz was describing. I gave Fitz one of my old Pathfinder looks. Fitz knew full well that he'd whisked Bonnie off on some expensive vacation, like she was already his girlfriend, whatever Fitz had decided to tell her or call it on his expense reports. No matter what he told himself, or what he told me back at the holiday party when we were all hiding underneath the table.
So, I'd underestimated him. Fitz did have it in him to go after Bonnie, for real. Not just drag her across the Golden Plain one night to guffaw at me becoming a Paladin. Err, a Sunwalker. Fitz had just been waiting for his perfect moment to pounce. Putting her on his fancy steamship, taking the chance to save her Tauren friend and look like a hero… Yep, he might just cinch it this time. Clever bastard.
He and I waited around until Bonnie got into an argument with one of the steamship engineers about something she wasn't happy with, as she was bound to.
Fitz whispered up to me, "…Eh, still haven't hit that yet." He rubbed his green hands together, "But we got like a day more before the holiday, though. Plenty of time, plenty of time. And she still gots a few presents to open, see? I bought her this skimpy thing. And this diamond-studded-"
I said it again for like the millionth time. "She's playing you, Fitz."
He stopped, sighed. I didn't realize at first that it was with genuine empathy this time. "Hey. About that other uh, matter. Meydiri was a good kid."
I couldn't say anything real about it, yet. I didn't have it in me.
Fitz gave a floppy smile, it didn't last. "And you know, even if she was a cultist, she came through the Fitz often enough. Had her drinks, shared her wonderful personality. Started some epic fistfights that, looking back, were a joy to break up. Real joy. A really… fun gal. We'll all miss her. Ya know, I think we might dedicate a Dabble table to her, think that'd be nice? Or, rename a wing of one of the mines?"
Until it collapsed, killing dozens? And I did have my feelings for her, of course, but she had still chosen to work for pretty evil organization. What an honor… wait, wasn't the Venture Co. already an evil organization? Guess it really would be an honor.
Then, something occurred to me.
I was still afraid to test my voice on the subject, but, "Could the Venture Co… arrange to have Mey brought back home and buried in Mulgore?"
"Sure! Whatever you want. We can do anything, tha whole woiks, white roses, a harpist at the funeral, hundreds a' hired mourners, you just name it. We'll do the recovery operation here, too, get a nice coffin put together and get her safely aboard the cruise ship—err, the steamship. So we can whisk her away the moment yer done here, Turaho. And it'll be on discount—"
I glinted at him.
"Uh well, it's part of this trip too, so… I'm sure the expense report could stretch."
"Better."
"Done." I knew when to take a deal from a Goblin. I shook Fitz's hand. Then, Supervisor Fitzsprocket actually hugged me.
"You're a good Tauren. Ya really are, Turaho."
"I'm gonna be a dead Tauren in a minute. Unless I can get to Kael'thas without him seeing me coming. Neither him nor his Blood Knight guards." Well, Daphne, Pyorin, Fennore, Tempest and Sunthraze were technically Nexites, which was far, far worse... And they wanted to recruit me. I still had to keep that end of it a secret for now, though. I didn't know who it was safe to share absolutely everything with. And I was never sure how much Bonnie and Fitz listened to.
"But I was wondering, Fitz… you guys could probably help with that too, right? The final showdown?"
"Get a big Tauren on stealth mode, right into the heart the Sunspire usin' Venture Co. technology?" Fitzsprocket boggled, but then he was just joshing me, "Eh, piece a cake! Hey, can we steal a few royal jewels while we're in there? I'll need some kinda compensation."
I thought about how upset that might make Saturna, to wake up a few weeks from now and find one of her favorite tiaras missing. Or several.
"…Go for it."
Let's face it, she'd gone too far and messed with the wrong Tauren.
Or the wrong…. Taaaaaaauren. Heh! Remember how Saturna used to say it? Time to settle up at last.
"Wait, Fitz. All except for one important piece… I had time to think while I was out recovering with the Night Elves. I might not have figured it all out, absolutely all of it, if I hadn't had that kind of down time in a way. Down time away from Kael'thas, with no distractions. Which, I suppose in a way, was a blessing." I wringed my hands, thinking, then let them drop at my sides. "Just get it all set up for me alright Fitz? And then I can tell you more once I'm inside the palace. Will that thing have a comm-link?"
"Sure, sure—you want a rocket launcher? An arcane silencer? Crawlin' land mines! We do it all at the Venture Co. I'd like to see Kael'thas blink his way outta all that!"
This time we both went off to plan, rubbing our evil hands together, Goblin-style.
