Agents and Plans

Once again Volkmar was summoned to Stormwind Keep, and once again his escort marched alongside the larger escort of Calia Menethil on their journey through the streets of Stormwind City. Though this time the slight curiosity by handfuls of people they received in the earlier morning was replaced by crowds of onlookers, some with eager excitement, others with apprehension. By now rumors were certainly circulating around the city, the citizens were looking for answers and figures who would ease their worries. But Volkmar was not here to ease their worries, instead he had concerns of his own that he wanted to address, claims that were made to him that went against all logic, though there were a few possibilities he could imagine, he needed to be certain.

While the youth of Stormwind gathered and watched the arrayed military forces of Stomwind, Ironforge, Gnomeregan, and Gilneas, the passing Volkmar took stock of their war gear and the discipline of the troops. The soldiers varried wildly, enough so that Volkmar found himself unimpressed, however each of them was certainly well equipped. Of the gear he was familiar with, most of the men were equipped not just with a few pieces of plate with gambeson, but full mail with a few peices of overplate and signs of an underlayer of gambeson. While simple hand weapons and swords made up the vast majority of the men's armaments all of their weapons looked rather well maintained, and some looked impressive in their own right.

And while the basic line soldiers milled about their archers, crossbowmen and gunmen all worked with their weapons preparing a diverse array of rather standard to odd looking versions of their tools of war. Also gathered were a series of priests and lesser magic casters who mulled around many not wearing gambeson, but either patches if mail or maybe a plate of armor here or there on their bodies they seemed to instead place their faith in runes and their own skills particularly compared to the other soldiers about them.

But lastly and most intriguing for Volkmar was the grand display of machinery that seemed to be brought forth for the coming war. Large Steamtanks and rows of smaller, yet far more mystifying machine spiders which reminded Volkmar of the mechanical steeds he had seen at the Imperial college but perhaps larger and equipped with weapons of some kind. There were even Gyrocopters and a fleet of airships that the Grand Theogonist could see as passed on his journey to Stormwind Keep.

This time the throne room of Stormwind Keep was far more palatial than when he visited the day before. Of those assembled there certainly were far fewer than earlier in the week when the near entirety of Stormwind's nobility, and all the various representatives of Stormwind's allied state, but Volkmar was now better informed and could certainly note the importance of everyone else currently in the room.

Of course there was Anduin King of Stormwind and High King of the Alliance, behind him to his left stood Genn Greymane King of Gilneas, and to the High King's right stood General Hammond and Mathias Shaw head of the Stormwind Intelligence agency, Stormwind's sole intelligence group.

Next were among those already present were the representatives, or leaders of the Allied states and forces of the Alliance. First among them was Muradin Bronzebeard who stood to represent all the Dwarves. Next was Gelbin Mekkatorque, the small creature stood as the leader of the Gnomes, what such diminutive being intended to contribute with such warriors, magic and machinery already in Stormwind's possession Volkmar could only guess. Both the shorter beings stood at the foot of the Dais for Stormwind's throne.

After that, standing just behind the pair was a Night Elf that Volkmar assumed was placed in charge after Maiev and Jarod both left the city days ago. And just behind the elf was a creature that others had told Volkmar was Farseer Nobundo who had been one of the few Draenei, or something similar, to clash with the Vampires of Sylvania and return alive. The presence of someone who knew what they faced gave Volkmar some extra hope for the Alliance in the coming battle.

Across the way stood Grand Admiral Jes-Tereth whom supposedly served as the Alliance's fleet leader, though Volkmar had scarcely seen her involved in the decision making process thus far. Next to her Sky Admiral Rogers whom had commanded the sky ship fleet that had rescued himself and Anduin from the Orc city.

Besides the two women stood a pale Azerothean elf. Volkmar felt a sense of unease looking at the creature but recognized his form from the statues dedicated to her and other heroes of Stormwind at the city's gates. This was Alleria Windrunner, and as far as Volkmar understood she was the wife, as strange as it was, to the Paladin Turalyon who also commanded a force called the Army of the Light, though when the rollcall would reach her Volkmar would learn she was serving duel roles today.

Then there was Volkmar and Calia and their entourages who had just enteted, and still they were not the last to arrive. Following after the Grand Theogonist came a large group of Paladins all wearing golden armors and blue and silver heraldry that featured a silver hand or fist. Leading these knights, was a woman who refused to remove her helmet showing severe disrespect that Anduin seemed to just ignore, Volkmar would have to note the womam's disrespect but stay silent for now. The herald then announced her as Justicar Julia Celeate of the Order of the Silver Hands. Shortly after the Silver Hands came the High Priestess and after her Lord Darious Crowley a man who seemed glare slightly at Genn though not with hate or resentment, but rather as two long time rivals might glare to one another acknowledging their continued struggle with one another.

While Volkmar noted the history the two clearly had, he had neither the context nor the care to try and work that into his analysis of the Alliance's courts. And with the last of the lesser leaders and aids of note Stormwind Keep closed its doors and what was to be the final meeting before the Alliance began what they were already calling the fourth great war began.

"Thankyou for gathering. I've made my decisions. Starting now we're abandoning all plans to retake Gilneas, any resources we were going to use for the retaking of the Kingdom will be reallocated to the new plan for retaking Lordaeron." Anduin began, though his announcement wasn't met with universal agreement.

"What! You're abandoning us again!" Lord Crowley shouted and before he could say anything more Justicar Julia put a hand before him to calm the man before turning to Anduin.

"Anduin, I believe the people of Gilneas deserve to have their homes returned to them just as much as anyone else. In a way moreso than the people of Lordaeron who already sleep with their own roofs over theie heads. Why make this decision?" The woman's voice was hard and had a muffled metalic ring as she spoke through her helmet.

Instead of Anduin, Genn stepped forward. "Anduin, if I may?" The Alliance High King nodded and the King of Gilneas then spoke.

"Gilneas is a trap. While we had already chosen to make the Kingdom a secondary priority over protecting the rest of the Alliance, Sylvanas has manouvered her own forces and supplies to invite us into experiencing a false victory within Gilneas, we would then of course push towards the Greymane wall while reinforcing our troops in Gilneas..." The man sighed, "Only to be met by the hordes of the Skaven. And there is enough evidence, circumstanceal as it is, to suggest that she has some plan to then cut off all naval routes of escape. Either then she would use magic disruption to prevent any portals for resupply or retreat, or even unleash the Blight."

At that there was some gasps, Volkmar not wanting to make a show of himself tapped the foot of the man next to him, Captain Günther. Who first startled then catching the hint spoke up. "Forgive my ignorance on the matters of ummm, Azer... Azerothean warfare, but what sort of Blight is this?"

While some present seemed more incredulous or scandalized, others seemed to look at Günther with pity. Anduin himself then spoke up to answer the question. "Its a cloud of poisons, and plague. death is all but guarenteed and if a cloud of it were to slip through a improperly warded portal the effects on Stormwind could be entirely unacceptable."

"Hmm, sounds like the stuff a Dwarf was complaining to me about when he was recounting when he last fought the Skaven while we were drinking in a beer hall. Said they used some stuff that sounds similar, but apparently it mostly hit their guys." Günther mused aloud much to Volkmar's displeasure, and the the confusion of the Rieksguard who couldn't understand what we being said.

Anduin then rose a eyebrow. "Tell me captain how does your nation deal with these Skaven."

Günther paled, but the question was directed at him and Volkmar couldn't yet intervene for the man. "Well to be honest we kinda don't. We just sort of pretend we don't know about them, and they convince themselves that we aren't worth the time. If they thought we were actually a threat they'd probably attack and cause some irreversible damage."

Now Grand Admiral Jes-Tereth stepped forward. "Your majesty, lets return to the matter of the war. I am certain we can adopt ways to handle the Skaven when we need to."

As the Grand Admiral spoke Genn seemed to politely cough into his hand and Anduin's eyes widened for a moment before he straightened himself. "Your right Admiral. Back to the matter of our warplan. We launch our invasion of Lordaeron by sea, Stromgarde will provide support and launch our secondary invasion of the kingdom. Meanwhile our main forces with the Seventh Legion will land north of Lordaeron. Either we will take the Whispering Coast or the Northern shore. From there we will sweep south east, or south to Brill. Then from there we take Undercity, and liberate the Ruins of Lordaeron."

The room was a mix of shock or people being moved by the Young King's bold plan, Volkmar wondered how confusing it had to be that everything in this Lordaeron kingdom shared the same name. Still Anduin was now riding the wave of those assembled anticipation and Volkmar was eager to see how the King followed up, to judge what Kind of King Anduin was.

Next Anduin stood dramatically clenching his fist and bringing it to his side. "From there we will being Sylvanas to justice for all she has done! And when everything is complete I will announce the restoration of the Kingdom of Lordaeron with Calia as steward until her daughter or another suitable heir is ready to take up the crown and the menethil name and legacy. Now Volkmar raised an eyebrow, 'another suitable heir' that had implications both for the petty and power hungry, and foreign kingdoms like his beloved homeland. It also suggested that Calia's presumably living daughter was somehow not suitable for the crown. That meant the Grand Theogonist had research to do.

"Grand Admiral Jes-Teteth, we have four days before the fleet will be at sea. At that time I expect the ships to be fully stocked and loaded. Your Captains will also receive their destination orders after we have entered the open seas." Anduin ordered to his Grand Admiral dictating her time table to her. Honestly it was ambitious, if Stormwind and all the Alliance forces were professional armies and didn't need any more muster and drill time it would still take five days to load so much onto a fleet ans have them properly set sail.

"My ships are already prepared your majesty, it would only take us two and a half days to load the armies." Volkmar balked...even if the ships were already perfectly stocked for the journey, just less than three days, the woman had to be making a boast.

Anduin seemed almost dismissive when he replied. "Then take the extra time to double up on supplies and to ensure the security and preparedness of your sailers, marines, and griffin riders. We're not going to get the element of suprise against Sylvanas, but we can hit her where it counts and hit her far harder than she expects. If only we had some more support." Anduin whispered the last part, but Volkmar caught it even though others seem to have missed what the High King said.

Then Anduin straightened. "As for the war order and plan. Calia, I agree with your sentiment. The people of Lordaeron have been given a cruel hand by fate. This campaign should be focused on removing those influences that keep the people of Loedaeron divided against one another and reunifying them under a single flag once again. So in that vein I want to implement what you had suggested, but at the same time I wish to have Volkmar and everyone's help is entirely uprooting what Sylvanas has entrenched, the people of Lordaeron deserve to begin anew. Volkmar, because these Vampires likely hide in Lordaeron won't you help us cleanse them as well?"

Volkmar shook, indeed he was wracked with rage. Anduin was asking him to help this undead with her twisted vision. The dead belonged in their graves with their souls safely in the embrace of their gods. To dare actually think the dead should be allowed not only to keep walking this or any world but to pretend to live alongside the living, was there no greater insult to the memory of those passed and to the Gods themselves?

"No, I stand for the Empire and for Sigmar. To put myself behind such a foolish venture goes against my oaths! I will observe your battle, but I will take no part in aiding the undead no matter what semantics you use to try and paint the act as virtue." Volkmar then turned to leave.

Clearly most of the room was upset with the Grand Theogonist's claim and action. Most shouting at him to stay or throwing their own snide insults. Though a few voices, like that of Sky Admiral Rogers seemed to take to Volkmar's defense.

"Ummm, Sirs if I may?" Volkmar stopped and turned. Still planted where he stood Captain Günther was looking over his shoulder at Volkmar as he spoke dropping back into Reikspeil. "Sir, ich diene Kaiser Karl Franz. Ich bin Ihnen nicht verpflichtet, wenn es unserem Kaiser besser dient, erlauben Sie mir, sie an Ihrer Stelle zu beraten. (Sir, I serve Emperor Karl Franz. I am not beholden to you, if it serves our Emperor better allow me to advise them in your place.)"

"Nimm fünf Ritter. Ich werde diese Farce nicht mehr zulassen. (Take five Knights. I will not allow any more for this farce.)" Then Volkmar turned back to Anduin. "I will follow you and watch this war, but I will not support such madness as what your proposing the Empire has persisted for thousands of years and in that time the dead have never once ruled over us. Mark my words, you are dooming the people of Lordaeron." And with the final proclamation Volkmar left Stormwind Keep, a variety of conused stares tracking him while others now turned to Captain Günther.

He fumed, storming through his chamber, a small lesser thing that showed his humility but was in no way worthy of him. His spies really thought that two vampires mating interested him, of course they were plotting something with Sylvanas! They clearly had laid eyes upon him, he the Horned Rat's greatest servant, they had to know that he represented the greatness of the entire Skaven race all in one individual. He needed to know what scheme the Vampires were doing! How did they plan to try and soil his glorious image before Sylvanas eyes thus leaving it to the other Skaven to spoil the infliltration and further ruin the gloeious Underempire's holdings on Azeroth with their own idiotic bumbling.

"Wait-stop... maybe I should-should let that happen. Not my fault that others were too dumb-stupid to succeed...but wait. If i fix others mistake-failures wouldn't I prove that I am smarter-better than them all?" Of course for the great and mighty Thanquol greatest of all Skaven making his own scheme-plans because he had to account for so many rivals and enemies.

The Gotrek and Felix certainly must have followed after him to Azeroth, after all they had singularly dedicated their lives to foiling his plans. Even now they must be plotting and telling the Alliance-things lies about him to convince them to sacrifice themselves against Thanquol's incredible might...and his brilliantly lead armies they would have to go through to then see his amazing might. And the other Skaven clearly were filled with jealousy towards Thanquol, after all they weren't born as Grey Seers not with nearly even a quarter of the Horned Rat's favor. And the Vampires were...well creepy blood drinking Vampires, being a little, tiny, completely insignificantly absolutely terrified of them was entirely acceptable.

Then there were these stupid Azeroth-things. The Horned ones dared to try and loom over Thanquol while Boneripper has not been allowed into the room, see if the stupid Cow-thing tried to do that again when Boneripper was there. Worse yet though the stupid Cow-thing had tried to speak to Thanquol, the Council of Thirteen, and the Hornes Rat's greatest agent and the voice of the Council on Azeroth.

Then there was the weird blue, tusk thing, it seemed suitably stupid that Thanquol wondered if he could trick it into working for one of his brilliant all knowing scheme-plots. Normally Thanquol would naturally manipulate the weak mind of the dumbest creature in the room, dumbest after the mind rotted Pestellens of course, but the Orc seemed oddly smart and was weirdly worked up about the success at the big elf-tree that they had burned to the ground. Did he want to chop them all with his axe, Thanquol's brilliant strategy of having Ikit burn down the tree was truly brilliant, but the Orc apparently couldn't understand that, stupid Orcs.

Then there was that elf-thing and those dead-things, they showed Thanquol the proper deferrence to one so superior as himself. Truly their brown-nosing would get them far as his servants, seeing that they know of his greatness and gave him proper reverence unlike the heretics who followed Blistrox.

But then there was the fat Gobo-thing. Where all the rest of the Horde were stupid-dumb and made for great scapegoats... would clearly be at fault for any of Thanquol's plans, as Thanquol always knew and was responsible for suggesting the idea, correctly, first. Never mind the long dead, jealousy filled underling who had tried ro suggest Thanquol's entirely original thought first. So long as the Skaven flew the Horde banner, they could steal from the Horde, and have the horde give them stuff in exchange for things, and the Horde would help make them stronger while bearing the blame for any failures of those lesser incompetents who always were trying to blame Thanquol for their failings.

But with the Vampires here, and the Cow-things, and other underlings plotting against him Thanquol needed his own plots against these enemies, and against the Alliance, and of course Gotrek. That damned dwarf-thing was always hunting him, it was possibly the only non-Skaven smart enough to realize the majesty that is Thanquol!

But Thanquol only had lots of servants, while Ikit had weapons, and Blistrox had lots-lots more servants. He needed a way to make more servants, or make his servants lots better than the weaklings that serve those self centered fools who were dragging down Skaven-kind by daring to try and diminish his glory.

"Errrrr, head Hurts." The Grey seer barked while reaching into his bag of warp dust...only to stop. Swiftly he checked his stock, then rechecked it. There was lots-lots more Warp Dust yesterday, who would dare steal-take from Thanquol!?

He huffed, he puffed, he shook in pure outrage looking into the measly few handfuls of warp dust left in his bag as he grabbed some and swiftly inhailed the burning essence of magical power, it's essence flowing through his body.

He was running out, he needed MORE, and he needed it now! So Thanquol left his chamber, while the other Skaven had been told that they were to remain in certain areas, he was a Grey Seer and thus above such restrictions. So while the other Skaven remained hidden away or were out in the fields of Azeroth dealing with the terrors of sleeping under a open sky like surface dwelling slaves, Thanquol instead boldly walked through the street and markets of Undercity, keeping just out of sight so as not to awe too many with his illustrious presence and certainly not for fear of being caught.

The entire city felt familiar yet alien at the same time. More like the sewers just beneath the surface of a man-thing city, yet far more expansive. All about there were the clear signs of the dead-things going about their business with other Horde-things attending to other buisness. All of it was far too orderly and oddly not densely populated enough for Thanquol's tastes, and just as annoying he couldn't find any warpstone tokens to... acquire, for his personal use.

Damned thief must have snorted over half his stash in a single night, and now he was left with no way to track the theif, as his spies were worthless, and he couldn't find anymore warpstone to grind into powder. He needed more-more but he didn't have any more-more!

Thanquol slipped into a section of the Undercity that was now even less populated. If only he had more servants, or ones who powerful enough to bring him the heads of his enemies, while of course being vastly too unintelligent to ever question his impeccable wisdom, but of course not incompetent.

"Эй, мин саныахпар, эн миигин сыыһа сыаналаатыҥ дии саныыбын. (Hey i think you short changed me.)" For some reason this deep voice drew Thanquol's frantic mind's focus narrowing his wide focus and myriad thoughts all onto the singular point of the exchange taking place just a short distance away from a main thoroughfare and from where Thanquol was staying just out of sight.

"Суох, ааҕан- суоттаан көр: биэс төбө, уон икки үрүҥ көмүс, биэс сүүс алтан. (No, count again five heads, twelve silver and five hundred copper.)" A lone undead responded to a large robed Orc who had a female Troll with a large axe at his side and another female Undead much further back closer to Thanquol who seemed to be more interested in tending to her bow.

"Мин этэбин: манна биэс сүүс медяков суох! Албын- көлдьүн санааларгын тохтот, эн миэхэ биэрбит уон медяктаргын биэр! (And I'm saying there isn't five hundred copper here! Stop trying to cheat me and give me the ten copper you owe me!)" The Orc was practically roaring into the face of the undead while holding the five heads, while his companion said nothing and their undead ally sighed frustratedly.

The Undead then stood up saying in an annoyed tone. "Сөп, Батол, оннооҕор бухааҥкаҥ килиэп атыылаһар кыаҕа суох, ону таһынан паараны тутан ылаҕын, просто оставься, то оставься, или чахчы да создаюсь себя себя? (Oh come on, Bathol, you can't even get a loaf of bread for ten copper, besides I bet you miscounted, just let it go, or do you really want to be dragging Scarlet heads around with you all day.)" The Undead female then grabbed the five heads shoving them into the chest of the other undead.

Now the Troll breeder-thing spoke in it's own annoyed tone to the Undead female. "Онон, бу олус чэпчэкитик сыһыаннаһыахпыт дии санаабаппын, үлэбитин сарсыҥҥы сырыыга хаһан кэлиэхпитин ким билэрин буларга ыарахан этэ. (Kersti, I don't think you should be taking this too lightly, work's been hard to come by, who knows when we're going to be laid next.)"

The female Undead just shrugged before spitting back a rather spiteful response. "хмм, Ло ' джи билбэппин, баҕар, сэрии ытыллан, түүлээх эт наада буолуо, эн курдук придурктар остуолуттан өлөргө бэлэм буолаарай. (hmmm, i don't know Lo'jie, maybe when a war breaks out and they need more cannon fodder willing to die for table scraps like you to nitwits.)"

The Orc then rose up a magic glow in his eyes. "Ону хомунуҥ, иккиэн. Сарсын көрсүөхпүт, староста, эйиэхэ үчүгэй наҕараада баар буолуо диэн эрэнэбин. Уонна, сөпкө төлүөххүт диэн эрэнэбин. (Stow it both of you. See you tomorrow headman, hopefully you have some good bounties. And hopefully you pay us right.)" And then with a wave the trio of warriors left the Undead holding five heads.

Astonished Thanquol rushed forward. "What-what was that? Tell-tell me now-now why they give you heads?" The Grey Seer demanded looking at the five heads held by the undead.

The undead looked at the rat before him with suprise. The creature was suprised at the presence of the rat with horns on its head squeaking out demands at him while waving a stick in front of his face. Fortunately the creature was squeaking in common, though it kept falling back to some other harsh language.

"It was the job I gave them. Their adventurers, most often you can pay them to do things like risky deliveries, or maybe an simple assassination,you know, typically petty work, but sometimes they're doing stuff like high risk missions in wars, or big vital tasks that can shape the future, but usually thats just the famous guys, I work with the low level adventurers, typically putting out bounties for Scourge, or Crucaders, sometimes the RAS wants some live test subjects that sort of stuff." The undead explained.

"And they just do-do this for you?" Thanquol demanded to know, already his mind jumping to some uses for people like this.

"Well no I have to pay them, like that group, their last job was worth plenty of silver." The Headman showed the rat some of his coins. Honestly the Skaven were a weird new novelty, no one really knew much of anything about these newcomers to the hoard, but he had heard rumors.

Thanquol looked at the Headman's hand, he was paying these adventure-things in worthless man-thing tokens. Thanquol coughed trying not to laugh, these adventure-things would kill-kill, fight-fight for worthless metal tokens! And swiftly plans rolled through Thanquol's mind, surely the Great Horned Rat had revealed this secret to him alone, he could use these stupid Adventure-things to his advantage, after all he still had plenty of the man-thing tokens left over from previous schemes, and he could use these ignorent fools as his servants, and they would be too dumb-dumb to scheme against him, limiting the potential number of rivals trying to sabotage his greatness.

"Mmmm, call them back-back! Give them job-job from me." It took Thanquol plenty of time searching through his pouches, but eventually he found a Crown that was still on his person, he didn't remember why he had the coin always on his person, maybe he had cursed it or something to spite that greedy human puppet he had been using at one point, not that it mattered.

But Thanquol presented the golden crown to the headman. "I have job-task for you-them. First get me Warpstone! NOW-NOW!"

The Undead blinked in surpise trying to process the request but certainly finding the prospect of getting paid in gold right off the bat intriguing. "Umm Warpstone...right... what is that?"

Damned dead-thinga with their rotted brains, did Thanquol really have to remind them what Warpstone was. Still working with incompetence was better than being sabotaged by jealous rivals who didn't understand their place beneath him. "Warpstone magic rock, green-green color. Falls from sky-sky, comes from warp rifts. Need my magic rocks!"

The Headman nodded taking the rat's offered coin. "Sure, I'm sure i can get one of them to find that." While certainly he didn't have a clue as to what that Warpstone was supposed to be, he had worked with just as vague requests for far less in the past, at most that would take five silver out of the whole gold coin he was being paid. But this rat obviously expected a second job to be done for this payment.

Thanquol then rummaged through his pouches eventually finding some of the trinkets he looted off a dead man-thing recently and brought up a second bag of man-thing token's that he had never bothered to count to present to the headman. "Now-now second job-job, sneak-theif take-steal from me. Certainly spying on me, find-kill them...reclaim stolen warpstone. More pay-give more warpstone, yes-yes?"

The Headman's eyes lit up as he opened the bag, Thanquol of course could manipulate such stupid creatures so easily and the thing obviously recognized Thanquol's greatness because it immediately said. "For this much gold and silver, sure thing boss, umm for the request though... what's your name?"

Thanquol froze, the damn stupid thing knew of his greatness, yet didn't know who he was? Just how stupid were these Azeroth-things? Well that would be no matter, he'd remind them of who he was as many times as it took, so long as they did the job for how absurdly cheap as just some man-thing tokens and they did it up to his standard. "I am the mighty Thanquol chosen of the Great Horned Rat himself, voice of the Council of Thirteen! Know-Remember it well-well dead-thing!"

The Headman watched as the grey rat infront of him spread his arms wide shouting his name before delving into grandiose squeaking clearly on some sort of speach or rant that probably would have been impressive, if delivered in a language he could have understood. Still this Thanquol character was paying, and paying excessively well, twelve gold, and eight hundred silver, and who knows how much copper. While he had paid less, the rat clearly valued the Warp stone stuff a lot, probably only paying more for the security about the possible theif or spy because if he was a leader of the Skaven, then there was cause for alarm as there might be an Alliance spy around looking to ruin relations between the Skaven and the Horde

"I know a number of guys who'd be happy to work on this for you boss, well have your warp rock and your spy found in no time" Thanquol didn't hear him, the rat was too busy squeaking out his speech...they must be a incredibly formal species or something.

"Thus only I-I stand above all things as the greatest Skaven to ever walk this world, standing above all that lives-walks!"

Reviews:

Guest 1: Much trembling of abs and lusting over Anduin's soft voice...guuuuh, he's just so sexy, make me gay daddy fuck boi anduin! your just so GOLD!

Guest 2: As opposed to that same Death Knight, whose brilliant plan to conquer the world was to ve utterly defeated in every regard, by intentionally permakilling all his best servants, half his army, and having his heart and half his power permanently destroyed, then thinking he could get away by turning a few heroes into his servants "secretly" with witnesses watching the whole thing happen. IF you take so much as 2 seconds to think of any of the "smart" characters on Azeroth and their plans their all morons who compete with fice year olds in terms of intelligence and the five year olds typically win. Hell Kil'jaden's grand plan to invade Azeroth was to do the same thing over and over again expecting different results, and then we have Malfurion who actually won a victory for the Burning Legion...by implementing a plan to stop the Burning Legion, by WoW standard Sylvanas is truly the most brilliant person on the planet. Then you have the old story of Warcraft, and how many of these groups and people were then, while Blizzard decided to dumb down everyone to a five year old level, but they are all supposed to be actually relatively competent and smart...except Thrall the recontectualizations Blizzard made there isn't a moment where he doesn't seem like a hypocrite whose relying on others to carry him on the planning and thinking part.

Guest 3: You wouldn't be wrong, and the more i learn about the actual social structure and am forced to fill in the gaps of how stormwind works because Blizzard refuses to step back from "now kill god with the toothpick Anduin once used making it the Holy destoyer of all evil" and actually have adventurers contribute to the society amd thus world building of Azeroth...well lets just say Stormwind's "Blizzard said its the USA so *insert 'proud to be an American' here*" and the more i hear *insert 'rule bretannia' here* complete with the Nobility claiming all the land and the filthy peasents not being allowed to use any of the resoueces on those lands, just like Bretonnia those filthy evil 100% French and simultaneously 100% British monsters *looks over shoulder to see Leon taking Marrienburg...again... "gods damn it!"*... how else do you explain why a population of stonemasons, carpenters, and construction workers sitting in a forest with large stone quarrys a short distance away can't build a suitable town for themselves. My Contractor Uncle built five houses for his family each time doing it because his wife wanted to change something major about the house, or wanted to move to a new location, and while better off than my apartment living ass, they aren't "rich" either, he just knows people with the skills or has the skills himself, building and doing things gets cheaper the more skills you have or people you know, unless monopolies or governments are involved.

And then there's how the Alliance despite having a space station, several people who apparently have perfect futute sight, and countless versions of clairvoyance never see shit coming, happening, or that sitting out in the open and literally in the way of major naval or land trade routes. So something in universe has to be blinding them to justify the bullshit Blizzard keeps doing to them. (amount of Bullshit Blizzard suprises the alliance with it's like Kryptonite in the 70s Super Friends cartoons, there's more of the shit than there was mass on krypton) and seperate criticism, the Alliance has had a free flying space ship in orbit for nearly 7 years since dragonflight...no one thought "hey lets check out whats on the other side of the planet, that unexplored space that's so mysterious" at all in that time, yet everyone tells me how intelligent, explorative, curious, and wonder seeking the people of Azeroth are, when all evidence points to them being well, I'd be surpised if any of them knew what the limits of the box is.

Guest 4: Its the psychology, which I'll use some real world political and theological terms that aren't going to quite match either but work well enough. The Church of the Light is a monotheistic pantheon, their god must dominate all the rest are evil or unwitting rivals they take pity on, with a globalist worldview that puts next to no stock in the individual nation state or really the individual unless they're some sort of hero Main Character, otherwise nations can come and go and so long as people act vaguely nice to one another and put up with anything from actual life threatening issues to first world problems their tenents are achieved.

For the Cult of Sigmar their are a Nationalist, maybe even Hyper Nationalist Pantheonic faith part of a whole slew of faiths that cooperate with one another, their Hero is Sigmar their God, and so now it is up to individuals to follow his example while defending the holy symbol of Sigmar's will, the Empire itself.

Dragon King of the West: The problem is prioritization, and well, it's the Alliance they beat the "undefeatable...unless you ask them to actually display their competence and power then they're dependent on others to actually make them scary" Burning Legion, they've killed two, maybe more 'Blood Gods', and well per Azeroth's threats...minus the Legion imvasion and C'thun the only way any of the others ever had a chance if even pretending they stood a chance was because the Horde was fighting the Alliance...and they still got their asses handed to them by some hobos in exchange for chump change. So ironically the less Chaos shows themselves the greater the threat because the more arrogant the Alliance will grow, and well Nurgle's Carnival of Chaos is more subtle than many of the Azeroth threats and Nurgle is supposed to be the second most visible Chaos God.

JiggyliFAP: Checks logic against Malfurion, Arthas, Illidan and Sylvanas logic ... that checks out.

The "smaller scale building" like what you as a player actually see not the "oh this is shrunk down" yeah they probably can build all of that increasingly fast...but the cinimatic/movie scale i very much doubt they can build quickly. But the Kaldorei have the benefit of having bases, buildings, and forests that can just get up and move.

Yeah if it wasn't for Bolvar holding back the Scourge deliberately they could use now to get their hands on a lot of quality new recruits.

Shhhh don't mention food prices in WoW there's no food problems like blatantly missing safe/secure farmlands...unlike Mulgore.

The blues probably don't delve into Chronomancy, but they certainly seem to combo best with the Bronze Dragonflight.

Stormwind ironically despite being "moddled off the USA" i never hear 'proud to be an American' when i look at their state policy and infrastructure, however there is a LOT of 'Rule Britannia' complete with needing their..."allies"...to supplement their forces and provide war supplies for a war with all of those forces serving under their commanders regardless of competence.

We have a few possible characters at various levels to follow through a Empire perspective of the events.

As for Anduins nude, quivering Whamstodies bodyguards, they're God-Emperor Anduin's Custodies as he rules over his Imperium of Stomwing in the year 80K. Having Volkmar's imagination poke fun at 40K and the blind worship Anduin seems to get, much to his own chagrin even.

You're missing a detail on the Scarlett Crucade, they prop up a "son" of Calia and a noble as the next heir, not her daughter born with a common soldier father. Her daughter apparently is still MIA which is weird because they keep also telling us the daughter and husband is alive but at this rate she's going to end up sleeping with Jaina's brother.

Everyone retreated pretty quickly from Darkshore, both in cannon and presumably this story. otherwise how the fuck else would the NE get such a huge foothold without adventurera when they don't have anywhere to support an invasion, "but muh Tyrande" one fucking woman the support structure for a invasion does not make.

While on Azeroth yes you can read about 9 pages of text and know everything there ever is to know about a topic, Volkmar comes from a world where that isn't the case. It actually takes real study, amd hands on experience to learn a subject, and how is he to assume that the Alliance is even remotely honest about their abilities in the books laying out and available to him and the public. Also End of Book 1 covered that, Both Volkmar and Anduin took the same gunship.

And yes, Night warrior BS likely incoming.

Ravenguard0009: Indeed Volkmar had some good self control, helps significantly though that Celia literally was made a undead by the Light in something similar to Lord Kroak, which ignoring for a moment the obvious "its a giant frog", Volkmar would likely hesitate due to the differences from the usual undead and the very different culture...and then "it's a giant frog" and proceed to T-pose on loser frog unable to match the glory of humanity.

While obviously it's because Blizzard "never makes statues or art of characters we never encountered...*cough*Azshara*cough*" they really did us dirty by not having dedications to people from Warcraft 1 or 2 at least...but it seems that, and this is from Blizzard writing, Azeroth forgets and disrespects its past and worships current heroes and leaders as though they were gods.

Well Anduin isn't head of the Church of the Holy Light...they just worship him like a God... Because a Draenei thinks he'll be important later on.

Less Choatic-vs-lawful particularly because how DnD tainted that. But Jarod is more anti-state, where Maiev is full on totalitarian.

But it's an Absurd mental image to see Anduin as that, guy whose voice actor can't even raise his voice to anything more than one on one conversation. "Feeeeoor Theeeee Aliaeaeaence *glass shatters and cats wail*" How anyone on a battlefield could have heard him from anywhere more than two paces away is truly a miracle, I can't wait for Anduin's balls to drop and the lad to get some well deserved weight behind his voice, they don't need to make his voice "deep" but he is so soft and weak, they need to give him presence, less chop and more roll to his voice. The VA even managed to make it work for Blizzard's actual best young King, Mengsk is dead, long live Mengsk!

Hakuryuu: whhhhaaaaat theres nothing wrong with deifying leaders. I mean Lord Savior Obama and God-Emperor Trump both never did anything wrong ever, obviously Kim Jung-il was so perfect he never pooped how can anyone be more perfect than that, and ze Fuhror of Fuhrer's was totally right about everything and was the ideal human being with the single best taste in facial hair, thus why should there be anything wrong with Blizzard diefying Anduin, refusing to replace characters just because he exists, killing of characters who would be his equals and friends so no one can challenge him and having him solve every other nation's internal problems by his own fiat...since he can do no wrong... not like the character would overstay his welcome, the writing and the actor would get tired and we'd watch him run away from the throne...which is terrible if anyone else did it but he's perfect just like the glorious Napoleon in Egypt.

Funny enough despite losing his "advantage in tech" Ikit and Rats similar to him, would thrive against Azeroth since their strength comes from copying other people's tech and then adopting it to their own. Thats basically what Throt does with biology.

BloodRedRoses11: No bad Blood... it's not cringe gay enough. Obviously Volkmar is deeply in love with either Sauske Uchiha, or Illidan Stormrage, now your reading . Maiv X Valkia fic when?

Jak23: oddly I'll take a sort of roundabout way to compare. rather than compare to the "super elf draenei" who are individually already just elves but better im every respect, we first need a measure of what the lightforging process does to boost a individual to see who gets the better boost. And for that I do think Turalyon and the Lightbound are actually good metrics. Turalyon is the leader of the Army of the Light, able to match them... somehow, obviously human, and while a hero paladin actually not a character whose feats are absurdly overblown unlike far too many characters on Azeroth. And while its easy enough to suspect that the light doesn't give a "universal set boost" to it's AoL style followers the Boost given to the Orcs in the Lightbound makes for a decent meteric. And on that the boost given... isn't all that much all things considered, it's still a gamechanger for sure, but for Turalyon, and the Army of the the Light their time fighting demons. The infusion of the Light certainly gives them a edge over their kin, and likely access to a deeper well to call upon for light magics (which thanks to WoW being WoW neither game mechanics matters nor setting/cutscene matters one freaking bit) Even the 40K quote they used for the Lightforged... it's not saying 100 Lightforged are equal to 1000 Draenei, but 100 Loghtforged are equal to 1000 Alliance regular troops, which any Draenei already is going to be worth anything from five to ten or more other men already.

Then we get to the Grail Knights, they're already Bretonnians who get a ward save already for being able to endure their sick twisted existence as being both French and British at the same time. But more importantly they're already veteran Knights and the magics that are inherent to them are far more subtle. They have the lady's blessing and protection (good little human meat shields that they are) But their blessings are like ironically a lesser version of what benefits Turalyon got through his time fighting for the Army of the Light, they're given extendes lifespans, reinforced bodies, magical/divine protection, and while the tabletop game doesn't recognize the majority of the magical weapons, even codex puts most Grail Knights as either already having found as a questing knight, or later gaining a minor magical weapon (the which doesn't factor into the tabletop because it's not powerful enough to matter) and they gain a natural purifying aura. So the boost Grail Knights get, and their experience would certainly put them above a standard human paladin or even a elf paladin, but against a Draenei the match likely would favor the Draenei, and against a Lightforged or Turalyon (major named character) their opponent would have the edge in both power and experience. Because even with Blizzard bullshiting numbers at people and putting 15 year olds as equals to tens of thousands of years of combat experience *Cough* Arthas should have fucking died *cough* you have got to respect that Turalyon actually did undergo growth and experience gain in his time with the Army of the Light and they were shown to make slight personal growth/xp gains alongside him.

OscuroSignore-51: So Jiggly made a whole response to you but I'll just summerize my own way. So Scourge happened and created the Undead from Lordearon's citizens. Sylvanas betrayed the Scourge because their leader is a rapist of souls, and a slave master who thought he could be the Disney PG version of Nagash. But Sylvanas had like tens of thousands of Undead...vs Hundreds of Thousands maybe millions, so she needed an ally, the only ally available to her was a racist chad who clearly had visions of the dark future Blizzard planned because he figured 20 elves weren't even worth one human, truly he saw all the bullshit WoW was going to bring to Azeroth we all mourn the man who tried to save us all by hanging his elven allies out as bait for the Scourge.

But Sylvanas played some realpolitik and realized the super chad before her whose mere presence made her wish she could still breed, was without a shadow of a doubt going to betray her, but she couldn't assassinate him because his masculine aura meant that all his human troops were blindly loyal to him and would turn into super soldiers should he be murdered...and the non-humans would fight in defense of their human allies if suddenly the humans have zombies noming on their brains... Sylvanas decided to kill them all before they killed her and her Forsaken.

But that ledt the WoW team with a problem, they had just outright given the Alliance the Night Elves for no damn good reason, and the Horde needed a buddy to balance things out. Well Warcraft 3 players did have this fourth undead faction they liked playing who are also evil soulless monsters that you should feel guilty for playing because playing them and Orcs makes you evil you evil monster...so they put the Forsaken with the Horde. but they had another problem, see the Forsaken were once humans who like the ultrachad were all once perfect beings without equal and the absolute paragons of everything good...so cue making the Menethil line good guys who were just too good guy to fight back against a good guy who was forced to pretend to be a badguy by evil undead mind control. Of course at this time the rest of the Alliance didn't realize this because a evil black dragon was using magic to make the alliance only slightly less perfect, otherwise they would have seen that all Forsaken secretly long for their rightful perfect royal bloodline of perfextly good always right and just good guys.

And there certainly wasn't an Asspull by Blizzard to make Calia survive Arthas slaughtering his entire family when he was totally mind controlled by evil to be evil by a mind controlling evil sword. And of course to show how bad and evil Sylvanas is because she has ovaries and rejected Arthas soul rape or something, she then went on to kill Calia as part of Tienamen Square genocide that was complete with her tying a princess to a train track and giving a "i will make everyone everywhere miserable forever" speech... seriously though her "sabotage" of the gathering was so blatant and anything but a sabotage she might as well have been ousted as Warchief and Queen of the Forsaken then and there.

of course Calia being a being of such pure goodness and having God himself standing right there, though people keep calling him Anduin for some odd reason, well she just popped back to life, but the evil of all evil who dared to kill the Chad of Chads used one of her evil Undead arrows, so rather than popping back to perfect human life, she came back as one of those lesser flawed undead things, but rather than the Light hurting her she was so good that the light liked her even as a Undead, because now as a undead she could better understand the people she wants to be good to...

yeah I like Calia, but what Blizzard did to get her to where she is is so many asspulls and part of so many slaps to the face of the Arthas villain legacy that really her whole story i could do without...but she exists and is in a good spot for the BFA storyline. My only real issue is that the whole plot thread continues the Blizzard thread of pretending the Horde players are good, while simultaneously doing their whole shtick of moral stawmaning and assigning evil to the Horde further making the whole faction entirely untenable and further making the "and here comes a horde civil war" all the more blatant and predictable seriously if the next "not warchief" of the horde is even slightly morally grey there will be a third Horde civil war with the Trolls and Tauren leading the rebels...again. And because apparently there are no virtues to Sylvanas as to why the Forsaken would ever follow her because evil yadda yadda yadda, Alliance leaders were just too good for their cruel world, yadda yadda yadda, Garrosh had no reason to start a war he's just Hitler bla bla bla of course the Undead need to have an Alliance member as their "not queen" but as we're also seeing more and more, unless your a perfect god like Anduin, then you're not worthy of being the actual ruler of your state, and you know it so you'll bow down and submit. and people wonder what meta reasons Blizzard would have for making Anduin run away from home.

MadFrog2000: Didn't know that TCG was sperate from Hearthstone, people told me that Hearthstone was just TCG but on computer. Still definitely looking through it all. I might go intomechagin that but likely in a separate story from this.

AN: I settled on using Yakut as the Orcish language in the story.