Elyrin Wintersprout

In front of us, the treacherous naga transformed into an upright-standing tiger. It wore red robes that looked like something combining features of an expensive bathrobe and a suit that an aristocrat would wear for the royal ball. A white-furred face bore black stripes and an eerily human-like smile full of childish mischief. The creature's palms or hands were attached backward, which only amplified the dream-like bizarreness of its appearance.

A shadow priestess, by the looks of it, screamed in rage. She summoned forth darkness that enveloped the tiger's body. Naga mages that stood nearby threw their magic barely a second later. Spells of electricity, fire, frost, void, and pure arcane energy approached the creature and all of them failed.

It wasn't counterspelled: magic distortion did not happen during the spell formation but rather right before attacks touched the feline.

It chuckled while using a dart instead of a toothpick. The same kind of dart I found on the beach, the same kind that was used to kill the naga leader. Was this being our ally? I couldn't imagine what it would take to defeat a foe with that kind of magical power.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?" The shadow priestess howled with desperate anger.

"I'd like to know that as well," Kank added in an irritated tone.

Male playful voice gave a reply. Tone soft as silk. Intonation melodic as a bird's song.

"I'm afraid I won't give an answer that is certain, though I'll greet the guests from far away. I am nothing but the man behind the curtain, that prepares the stage for true stars of the play."

"Poetry after murdering someone. This certainly makes him a villain!" Amused, Helor whispered to the rest of us. "That and the fact he is also a demon."

Well, that was all the confirmation we needed.

"Lok-Narash!"

"To Arms!"

Human and Orc commanders both gave orders in their birthright tongues.

The confused naga started to also prepare for aggressive action one after another.

But there was no fight after that: we saw only the blinding light filling the building and our consciousness fading to darkness.

xxx

Never in my life have I felt nausea stronger than the one I was experiencing when I woke up. Only after emptying my stomach, I was able to notice being knee-deep in snow. Snow?

"Where in Eluna's name are we?" I muttered while trying to look around me.

Everyone who was present inside the palace seemed to have been transported there. Members of the Alliance, Horde, and the naga forces were spread around me at random. Most of them were in a condition no better than my own.

After a very frustrating and agonizingly slow attempt at organizing ourselves, we were able to regroup. The sea dwellers were scattered in between us but neither group had any strength left to fight. Our foes were taken as prisoners as a result of them being outnumbered three to one and not through any kind of struggle.

The place we found ourselves in was a winter-touched forest of some kind. Local pine trees didn't look like any species that I've seen before. They had strong thick roots and grayish black bark. From the cloud-veiled sky snow was steadily thickening the layers of white that hid the pines.

Not only people got teleported there. Everything was seeded with wooden pieces of barricades, crates, cannons, and other machinery brought to the battle, stony pieces that got detached from giants' ruins, as well as clots of tropical moss and vines.

While trying to set up the camp we discovered a troublesome development - magic stopped working. Or to be more precise, it stopped working in the way it typically does. It all began when one of the mages wanted to start a fire and couldn't. Distraught by the news every other spellcaster began experimenting with their abilities and it didn't work either.

Shamas, druids, priests, and a few practitioners of voodoo began to lament that they could no longer "feel" the sources of their respective powers. This, of course, led to the spreading of visible concern among them that each tried to hide with varying success.

Me and other masters of arcane were dealing with the situation somewhat better because we quickly figured out that minor spells such as Arcane Barrage or Fire Blast can be cast using arcane in the environment. The bigger problem, however, was our inability to tap into our inner supplies of mana.

In normal circumstances, magical energy would behave like water that can be scooped in the right amounts for whatever purpose. Now, though, mana clustered into strange clots of energy of equal size. Since I couldn't come up with a better analogy I would describe them as very sturdy pudding or in other words as something malleable in nature but always striving to return to its original shape. In the end, we just couldn't force arcane energy to retain the form needed for spellcasting as it constantly slipped into a state of passivity.

After a very heated and admittedly fruitless discussion, none of the magic users could come up with a better idea than each of us finding an unoccupied place for meditation and practicing in hopes that someone will stumble upon a solution.

At the same time, non-casters were instead occupied with setting up a camp on their own.

That is why I've been sitting alone near a campfire wrapped in borrowed wolf's fur for almost an hour.

"Curses!"

I took a deep breath and tried to push away the frustration. Anger wasn't productive at the moment. Despite that, this whole situation reminded me of a similarly unpleasant time in Dalaran. There I stumbled upon the fact that many spellcasting practices taught by Master Cathidan me were disastrously outdated. Trying to fight against already developed metaphorical muscle memory cost me months that could've been spent on things of greater value.

Interestingly enough, one of such habits was related to the problem at hand. I originally learned to gather the mana required for a spell separately from casting itself while practically everyone around knew how to perform both those actions in one swift motion. Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe I had stumbled upon a problem of the opposite nature: I was trying to do things fast when patience was required.

"Well, it won't hurt to try."

I took an approximate amount of energy clots needed for the spell and tried to merge them into a bigger singular one. After holding it together for a second or two I stopped feeling any resistance. With cautious optimism, I released my magical grip on the resulting portion of arcane. It held together.

Out of curiosity, I waited for five seconds, then ten, then a minute. It looked like that thing could retain its form for a long time. Then I casted Prismatic Barrier once more. The spell seemed to work as intended.

"I guess even outdated practices have their merits."

Triumphantly I strode towards the camp and made a mental note to thank my teacher upon returning home.

Author's note:

And thus Elyrin learned about the spell slots. Mechanically speaking in this crossover spellcasters of WOW universe use something similar to the Spell Point Variant Rule, i.e. they transform sorcery points into a required spell each time they cast anything. Shen'dralar magic in that context is considered outdated because they have to transform SP into SS with a bonus action each time while Humans and High elves figured out a way to skip that step a long time ago.