by Milton Garby
"Alex, give me the detection wand. Thank you. Alrinn, take Higris…" She forgot the next person's name. "… him, him, and her. Head over there with the scrubber and arcanometer, get a reading on the leylines. Fardol, please stay far away. Right there's good." She pointed at the next group of people and assigned them their own instructions, had someone hand her a notepad and pencil, and finished dividing up their work. She made extra certain not to have groups with only the Twilight's Hammer in it, and as a precaution: "You all know what to do. If you see someone screwing up help them get it right," she said. "Don't tiptoe around calling people out," she said with a glare at Higris. She quickly whispered into his mind, 'Don't screw this up.' She giggled a bit when he gulped nervously.
They separated, and Sara took the detection wand in hand. The detection wand was a work of art. It was a rod of pure arcanite, with a wide cone of clear crystals on the end. Intricate runes were woven all along its length. Normally, magical signatures were impossible to just 'acquire'. Someone had to force mana into a detection mechanism, and in the process their magical signature would be taken. The same, obviously, couldn't be done for a location. The detection wand was the answer.
Once activated, it would get a reading of the surrounding mana on its own, without any input. There would also be nobody affecting the magic with their biology, so the rules of reading a person's signature were vastly different than reading a region's signature. For one thing, there were five variables instead of four. It was also incredibly stable, and even with her faceless magic Sara could ingest the wand and it still wouldn't pick up a mote of magic from her while doing its readings.
It was also incredibly expensive and portals played merry hell with it.
A little spark of her shadow magic got it running, and slowly the clear crystals filled up with scintillating arcane magic taken from Astranaar. She flipped it over and began reading the tiny readout runes, writing down the raw data on her notepad.
"Fifty-seven point two, eight point three, negative fifty point oh, five point five, and fifteen point eight," she muttered, writing down the last of the numbers. Another flash started the draining procedure, emptying out the detection wand's crystals so it would be ready for another use.
Sara's own part was done, so she spent the better part of the next hour walking around helping the mages and warlocks in training operate the delicate magical devices, making sure they didn't blow anything up, gathering as much data as they could. Nether density, ley line friction, et cetera. Analyzing all the numbers could wait until she returned to Stormwind. For now, it was experiment time.
Fardol Brighthammer
Fardol Brighthammer wasn't an idiot.
You didn't get into Paradox if you were. You had to be smart, strong, you had to be able to work in a team, you had to be able to adapt to situations rapidly.
Ever since he'd laid eyes on Sara he knew something was horribly wrong with the young lass. There was just something not right with her brown eyes, no matter how friendly and cooperative she'd behaved. Fardol had seen his fair share of psychopaths and he knew one when he saw one, with the cocksure way she carried herself, so confident in her ability to single handedly smack down a dozen members of the Twilight's Hammer.
He could only feel sorrow for Leira for having been wrapped around Sara's finger.
And then she'd used her magic on him. Hoo boy! Being part of a guild that trailed right behind the Kingslayers had gotten him knocked around with more shadow magic than he cared to admit. That spell she'd used on him was like getting ice water dumped on him, ice water filled with crawling maggots. The Light practically flew to his aid, held at bay by naught but his will.
Garden variety antisocial disorders didn't explain that.
It wasn't typical shadow magic. He knew the difference. Whatever was wrong with that young woman, it was horrific. Leira must not've been on the path of the Light, if the draenei didn't notice. Or maybe she didn't care, having grown accustomed. How long had those two been friends?
Sara was aiding – in a ways – the Twilight's Hammer. Her shadow magic was so unnaturally cold. She refused to glance at him and the Light kept warning him about where she was. Currently, she spoke with a group of humans about one of their magical doohickeys, far away from him.
He needed to get to Leira and speak with her. More importantly, he needed to speak with the mages and warlocks with Sara, warn them about the Hammer since Ms. Smithers clearly wasn't doing so. If she wasn't going to handle the situation then he would.
Fardol made his way to a bench and sat, humming a tune his Ma had sung to him when he was a kiddo. He was almost completely inconspicuous. The only thing notable about him was his enchanted netherweave bag carrying his armor deep within its cloth.
There was of course the Burning Legion invasion. But he knew when to follow his gut, and his gut insisted that there was something much more than just an Archmage thesis going on here. He had to stick around and perform reconnaissance on Sara, then report back to his guild. Warn Leira too. If she was spying on the Twilight's Hammer then she was firmly under 'enemy of my enemy' rules – as was Sara, for the time being at least.
At the moment he was busy trying to place where he'd felt her brand of shadow magic before. It certainly wasn't fel magic. There were a few possibilities and one of them, given where they were going, was unsettlingly likely. He didn't want to even consider that likelihood, but damn it all he had to. It was his duty.
If Sara somehow wielded Old God magic, then it would certainly explain a lot. Her mannerisms, the hidden disdain for everyone around her would fool all but the most trained eyes. Though it certainly didn't explain why she was at odds with the Twilight's Hammer. Perhaps she held no loyalty to the Old Gods, merely had their magic. That didn't make sense either. The foul power of the Old Gods didn't leave mortals disobedient to their cause.
Maybe she hadn't wielded it that long yet. Fardol didn't know. There was so much he didn't know, but he could figure out. He just had to needle Sara and Leira a little under the guise of concern. It wouldn't even be that hard, since he was concerned.
If Sara wanted to manipulate everyone around her, then perhaps it was time for her to have a taste of her own medicine.
Fardol Brighthammer
"Hey there lass, Maria was it, can I talk with ya?"
The warlock turned from her spellbook and looked down at him. "Hmm? Oh yeah, Fardol right? Watcha need?"
"I need to talk to ya in private. It's pretty darn important." He gestured outside of the inn with his head, and she nodded. Clapping the book shut, Maria followed after him to the outside of Feathermoon Stronghold. To one side, the ocean sprayed them with salty air, and to the other side the lush jungles of Feralas opened up, the sound of hooting mammals and buzzing insects forming a writhing background noise. Despite how late it was in the year, Fardol had to constantly wipe the sweat from his brow. He led Maria a safe distance from the inn so they could talk without the Twilight's Hammer knowing.
They had come to Feralas in their journey to rest up, and Sara had decided on a longer break than usual. Once the magical readings for the area had been taken, they'd all been given a few hours to themselves. To Fardol's immense relief, the cult had taken the opportunity to seclude themselves and start praying to the Old Gods in secret.
On the one hand, it meant he still hadn't been able to talk to Leira about Sara's power. On the other hand, it meant he could talk to everybody else.
They stopped near the outskirts of Feathermoon Stronghold. The Sentinels watching the entrance gave them both one look each, but beyond that didn't say a word. Once there Maria turned to him. "So what's up?" she asked casually.
"Alright now, there's quite a few things about this expedition ya probably need to learn about so I'm gonna explain it now. When Sara was preparing to come here, she was attacked by the Twilight's Hammer."
Maria's gasped and her left hand flew up to cover her mouth. "That's horrible!"
Maybe. He nodded.
"Aye it is, but it gets worse. The Hammer had wanted to threaten her into bringing them along. I think you can understand why they'd want ta get in close with C'Thun's body, ya know? Sara though, from what she says, turned the tables on them, and got them to pay her quite a bit of gold for her expedition in exchange for bringin' them along."
Fardol waited for the implication to sink in to Maria's mind. When it did, she gasped. "You don't mean to say that..." she breathed, trailing off.
He nodded grimly. "Aye, I do. Twelve of the people following with us are in the Hammer. The only exception is that the draenei with them is part of another guild, spying on 'em."
"Really? What guild is she part of?" Maria narrowed her eyes. "And how do I know you're not lying?"
He grimaced. "As to the first, I do not know I'm afraid. And I get that you're worried but come on miss." He batted his eyelashes. "Would I lie to you?" She stared at him, and he laughed. "Oh, I'm just pullin' yer leg. Here." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his fist sized insignia, of an open eye with whited out pupils. "This here's my insignia, proud member o' Paradox right here."
"Oh shit. Paradox?" The blood drained from her face. "So... shit! The Hammer? And Sara's - holy shit! I can't believe she'd do something so stupid!"
"Hang on, ya know Sara?"
"We grew up in the same town together, she's the reason I'm a warlock in the first place," she said with a little flicker of dripping darkness along her left hand. "So what about the Hammer? What are we going to do?"
"At the moment Sara needs them to carry the equipment, but she's shown not a lick of interest in actually keeping them from the Old God's corpse. She's all talk when it comes to that, so I'm takin' the initiative. The plan is, once we're inside Ahn'Qiraj, we're gonna ambush them. I have no problem doin' most of the heavy lifting when it comes to that, but I could use your help in setting them on fire once we need to."
Maria looked like she was going to be sick. "Wait wait wait, you're asking me to... to kill them?"
Damn it, he swore internally. It was hard to remember that most people in the magical sciences didn't do much battling, especially the greener ones. Living alongside the casters in his own guild had made him forget that most warlocks and mages weren't that keen on taking lives these days. "I'm not askin' ya to do anything that makes ya uncomfortable. All I need to know is if you'll be willin' to at least help me. Shoot a few shadow bolts to distract them and the likes. I don't put much stock in Sara's abilities despite how confident she is so - "
"Sorry to interrupt," she said with a light cringe. "But Sara's actually pretty strong, she's not bluffing. Like, I remember when we were like eight years old or something and in school, she brought a frog back from the dead."
"That's new," he whispered to himself. "She can make undead?" he asked her.
Maria shook her head vigorously. "Oh um, no. I mean she actually brought the frog back to life. Ribbits and all, I almost threw up when she did."
"That's... certainly something. Though it's not immediately important. I've already spoken ta everyone else comin' with us about the Hammer, so it won't just be the two of us against eleven of them. All you need ta do is wait for my signal, that sound alright?"
Maria nodded, though the way she bit her lip said a lot about how comfortable she was with the idea of fighting. "Well I guess - I mean I can't just let - it's the Hammer, right? Holy shit, I can't believe I'm really going to - "
"Hey now miss, relax. For now let's just head on back and pretend nothin's wrong. I asked you about some magical doppelgingers and you tried to explain it ta me, sound good?"
"Yeah," she said with a gulp. "S-Sounds good. Just act natural."
He turned away from Maria and they went their separate ways. He couldn't imagine what must've been going through Maria's head, poor thing, but at least now he had everyone on his side. Didn't much like swinging around his authority as a member of Paradox, but it needed to be done. Though there was something Maria said that really unnerved him.
Sara could resurrect the dead.
On one hand, that was great news for them. If she could bring back frogs when she was just a wee girl, then surely if any of them were fatally wounded she could just revive them good as new. It was quite the safety net. On the other hand, what did that mean for her powers?
Miss Smithers almost certainly had the magic of the Old Gods. And if Maria was to be believed in that she could manipulate death itself, then there was only one known Old God whose power fell into that domain...
Fardol shivered. Just what had he gotten himself into?
At length, the time came to depart from Feralas for Silithus, and he couldn't dispel the pit in his stomach as they lined up next to the hippogriff master. That at least went without incident. One by one - Sara going first, as always - they took a hippogriff and flew off to the south, streaking out of sight within minutes. After her went the high elf Higris, grinning all the way, followed by the rest of the party until Fardol was the only one remaining.
He approached the kaldorei woman and, after some pleasant small talk, he was situated on the hippogriff and off into the air. He'd decided to let his mount rest a bit, so public transportation it was. Within minutes he was high in the sky, looking around at the ocean and the verdant forests. Fardol Brighthammer decided to look behind him at the retreating Feathermoon Stronghold... and gasped.
Tiny meteors crashed into it, flickering with fel flame as they streaked through the clear sky. One broke through the roof of the inn, sending stone and splinters and dust flying out in a cloud. He couldn't make out many details, but he thought he could see the meteors' remains assembling themselves into towering infernals, as well as other demonic soldiers charging from the narrow path that led into Feralas. No doubt the Sentinels would fight them off, they were the Sentinels after all, but it could mean only one thing.
The Legion had arrived in Kalimdor.
Sara
The mountains towered beneath her, and the heavy rain clouds passed behind her. Had she not used her shadowy barrier, they would've made the trip simply miserable. Now though, she left them behind as her hippogriff descended into the rain shadow of the mountains, into Silithus.
Like many things, Sara had seen the pictures but seeing it for herself was a totally different beast.
Never in her life could she have imagined the existence of so much... sand! It glittered under the sun, white as snow with half the glare, and sandy rocks poked through the veritable ocean of sand like islands at sea. Far to her left Sara saw a vast indentation in the ground bristling with purple and organic colors, with swarms of black moving around within the writhing ground. She knew from her maps that she was staring at Hive'Ashi, one of the few remaining silithid hives on Azeroth. She wondered what the primitive silithid were like up close, how easily she'd be able to twist their thoughts and puppeteer their bodies.
As she flew over the sand and Hive'Ashi drifted past her, the air began to dry and she soon found herself licking her lips unconsciously. Luckily, despite the fact that the southern hemisphere was approaching summer, Silithus was far enough south and the sands were bright enough that it wasn't much warmer than Stormwind. The only gripe Sara had was that the air was so dry that it felt like her throat was festering. A few twisting whirlwinds roared far beneath her, but she was too high up for their power to reach her.
Far ahead of her, past Hive'Ashi, was Cenarion Hold. It stood tall and proud upon the mound of stones it had been built upon. She couldn't make out details currently, having just entered Silithus, but even from so far away she could recognize the watchtower, over twice as high as the rest of the Hold, next to where her hippogriff would land.
As she grew closer, more and more structures came into view. There was another pillar past the dusty architecture of Cenarion Hold, but it had very clearly seen better days. Even with the death of C'Thun and the shattering of the Qiraji armies, the Swarming Pillar had never been fully reconstructed. Though the organic structures growing around
it rotted in the sun and the cyclonic swarms of insects around it were absent, it was crumbled and gaping, forgotten. She couldn't see Ahn'Qiraj though.
As the hours passed and the sun slunk towards the mountains, she came closer and closer to Cenarion Hold. The hippogriff slowed, so the whipping arid winds were reduced to a gentle breeze. By then the sun had dipped below the horizon and a chill began to engulf the desert. She flew down past the watchtower and landed with the hippogriff master.
"Greetings," the night elf said. "I trust your trip was smooth?" he asked.
She grunted out a 'yes' as he helped her down. The moment her feet touched the ground a little shock went through her, forcing Sara to catch her breath. It felt as if the ground vibrated, filling her with subtle energy. She pushed the feeling out of her head and jogged down the ramp of Cenarion Hold.
The Silithus stronghold was unbearably desolate compared to the previous locations she had traveled through. The air was dry and disgusting to taste, but to her relief she saw only one or two people on the way to the inn. Unfortunately, they needed to spend the night since they didn't have anything to deal with the bitter cold of night time Silithus. Luckily however, Silithus was nowhere near as large as it appeared on maps thanks to some distortion effects, and once they got their mounts they could get to Ahn'Qiraj by late afternoon provided they left at sunrise.
She didn't wait by the hippogriff master, not this time. Not when they were so close to Ahn'Qiraj and the Old God within.
The inn was similar to the other kaldorei structures they'd been in during the week of traveling and measuring, but far duller in color and with a thin layer of sand scattered across the floor. She went to the innkeeper and got herself dinner, then sat down to eat. Once she was finished with her cornbread and mutton, she paid some more coins for a heated floor. Sara went through the hallways and turned into the room where she would sleep for the night, then brushed the sand off of her raised section of floor.