by Milton Garby
There were just a few problems. Namely, she needed four fully grown red dragons to complete it.
Sara tore off some sheets of the notebook and wrote down the necessary reagents on it, then distributed them to four of the cultists. "You four, you're in charge of gathering these materials. Meet back here once you have it all." Her belongings were slung onto the bed, so she walked over there and fished out a few bags of gold coins, tossing one to each of them. "This should be enough to purchase it all. When you're done, come back here. The door will remain unlocked. In the meantime, everyone else!" She pointed to the others, including Higris. "We're going dragon hunting."
"My lord, are you certain this is wise?" Higris whispered from behind a snowbank.
My lord. She could get used to that. All the same, she flattened him to the ice with her magic and silenced him. 'Shut up, you idiot!' she said with telepathy. 'Do you WANT the dragon to hear us?'
'My apologies. I was just wondering if, in your current state, you can manipulate dragon thoughts at all.'
She scoffed internally. 'Dragons have larger brains and different cultures, but they're Titan-made like all the rest. It's simple.' Sara directed her telepathy over to the warlock in their group, a human man by the name of Toman. 'Get your felguard ready.'
Getting to the dragon was the hard part. Finding a dragon nest in Dragonblight was surprisingly impossible, unless she wanted to break into the Ruby Dragonshrine. They were expertly hidden, especially with the demon invasion. This one's nest was hidden in the mountains bordering Dragonblight and Wintergrasp. It had been hell finding it, and even more hell staking out in a hidden position waiting for the broodmother to return and check up on her eggs. But that was behind them. Now, she just needed to put on her acting skills. And hope that she could manipulate her levitation spell well enough to give the illusion of being able to walk.
They weren't currently within eyeshot of the nest. They were hidden in the snowy mountains, dressed in thick jackets to ward off the cold. The dragon's nest was hidden in a plateau a few turns away from where they crouched, cloaked with distraction gems.
Sara rose, silent as the grave, and readied herself. She turned around. There, Toman's felguard cracked its neck and grinned at her, baring a mouth full of needle fangs. The demon hefted its axe.
She held up her fingers, showing three. Then two, then one.
The demon roared and charged her, swinging its axe in a lazy arc. Sara stepped back, purposefully just not enough, and braced herself. The axe came up along her stomach, and the silver metal effortlessly sliced through her clothes and into the flesh beneath. The searing cold of Northrend was replaced by fiery pain and warm blood after an instant, and she screamed bloody murder, running away from the demon, towards the dragon nest.
She gathered breath in her lungs and screamed. "Help!" She turned a corner, ignoring the way the cut on her stomach burned and bled. The demon charged at her, knocking her off her feet and into the icy snow walls. Sara grunted, the wind knocked out of her. She was certain her right arm was broken by the landing, but that was fine. It'd made it more believable.
Sara kept running, the felguard keeping a leisurely pace behind her, laughing sadistically as it chased her. She got another narrow slice along her back, expertly avoiding anything important, and then she turned a corner in the mountains and saw the dragon's nest.
It was as if a pocket had been cleared away in Northrend's weather. The clearing had not a snowflake in sight, and was instead matted with fertile grass and overly vibrant flowers. All around it were dragon eggs, arranged into groups of two or three. They were nearly as tall as Sara herself, dull red and spiked. All in all, Sara had to estimate there were around two dozen of them. Sitting in the middle of the clearing was a red dragon, a veritable mountain of muscle and power. She was the spitting image of the blue dragon she'd seen months ago, except her scales were like the sunset, and the spikes on her legs were like amber instead of icicles.
"Help! Please help!" she shrieked, putting as much terror and desperation into her voice as was reasonable.
The dragon was on all fours, wings extended fully with a snarl on her face. The dragon looked her way as she ran with a felguard on her tail, and the dragon's slit pupils grew even thinner. "Mortal!" she called out. "Duck!"
Sara listened and threw herself to the ground as the dragon snapped open her colossal jaws. The seeping chill of Northrend was blasted away in an instant as a fireball blew outwards and sailed over Sara's back, slamming into the felguard and sending it back to the nether. Sara wasn't worried about it trying to contact its superiors about her plan. After all, she'd mind controlled the demon.
She pushed herself up on her arms as the dragon approached, collapsing into the form of a high elf with red hair and fiery robes. "You are very lucky, young one." The shapeshifted dragon stopped closer to Sara and helped her up. "You are hurt, hold still. I will heal you." Sara braced herself for the nausea, but still struggled keeping down her lunch as the dragon's nature magic washed over her and healed the injuries. "There. Are you alright?" the dragon asked in a motherly tone.
Now!
Sara's magic filled the dragon's mind and, at the same time, she wriggled out of the reptiles' loose grip. The shapeshifted lizard's eyes went wide in horror... for just a moment. Then they glazed over as Sara went to work, twisting and breaking, threading and pulling at her mental lines. In minutes, it was done and she relaxed her magic, inspecting the brainwashed dragon. Her levitation spell evened out, and she floated up a short distance.
"Follow me, and stay in your mortal form."
She nodded, a distant look in her eyes. "Yes, master," she murmured, following Sara as she returned to the others. The dragon behind her smelled disgustingly of life magic, but the toasty warmth radiating from her made up for it.
In no time, Sara was back near the snowbank, dragon in tow. "See?" she told her minions. "Not a thing to worry about. She fell for it hook, line and sinker." It wasn't a perfect plan. Demons rarely showed up on their own, and what would a mortal be doing in the mountains running from a stray demon? But red dragons were so goody-goody by nature, and Sara hadn't allowed her time to think things over.
"Alright," she said, turning on the dragon. "Here's the deal. I need you to bring three others of your kind into this vicinity, each about as powerful as you. One at a time is preferable. Bring them here, I'll enslave them, and then you'll get another. Do this without rousing any suspicion, understand? Don't go for armies, go for personal friends." If dragons even did that. She didn't know their culture.
The dragon, still in elf form, nodded. Then she shook her head hard and the distant look in her eyes was gone. "Understood, master," she said. "It will be done." She walked a safe distance from them and transformed back into a dragon. The red looked down at Sara. "Would you also like me to bring food and water, master?"
"We have plenty with us. Just bring three of your kind here without rousing any suspicion. Act natural. Now go."
She dipped her head and rose to her hind legs, wings flapping. Then she took off, still beating her wings and forcing Sara to shield her face from the wind. Then the dragon under her control flew off into the distance.
Turning back to her minions, she grinned. "Well, that went well," she said. "Now that we aren't in danger of being spotted by her, let's set up camp. Higris, Fanos, get a fire going. You two, no I don't know your names. You get the tents up. Your three, once the fire's done start making dinner. The rest of you, take this time to relax."
Now that Sara had some time off, she could wander around and take in what was going on. She wasn't strictly touching the ground, but she was close enough that the power of Yogg-Saron still rushed into her body, empowering her every spell. Her heart hammered in excitement. This was happening. She was actually going through with this. She could still stop whenever she wanted, the others were firmly mind controlled by her, but then what? Besides, she didn't want to stop. She wanted to see this though.
&n
bsp; She wanted to be a god again.
Dinner was made before the red dragon came back. Sara treated to herself to some mutton stew, perfectly spiced so that it tickled her nose. It filled her stomach and radiated warmth throughout her being. Then the dragons came back.
They were taken by surprise as the two giant lizards dropped in. The one she'd enslaved shifted back to her mortal form, but the other eyed their camp warily, still in his true form.
"Helistrasza, I don't understand. Your eggs are fine and these mortals seem perfectly al... right... " he said, trailing off when Sara abruptly forced her powers into his mind. He bowed his forelegs and dropped his head near the ground, breathing harshly through his nostrils. The lines of his thoughts raced to try and push Sara out, but he was trying to fight the wrong type of mind control, so she wasn't deterred at all. In no time, it was done.
"Same instructions as before," she told the one mortal formed dragon and the one recovering dragon. "Go find another member of your flight, roughly as powerful as you are, and bring them back here. Do not rouse any suspicion, and DO NOT bring them back at the same time as each other. Find a way to work around each other."
They bowed their heads and affirmed her orders. The female dubbed 'Helistrasza' shifted back, making the mountain pass quite crowded, and then the two dragons took off. Hopefully, they'd be back with two more.
Time passed. The sun descended and her minions retired for the night, holed up in tents and sleeping bags. Sara remained awake, hovering just above the ice and staring at the aurora in awe as she awaited the dragons' return. The air still smelled of spices and meat, and far above her, wind howled as it passed through the mountainous border. Her magic supported her with ease, letting Sara go limp as she waited.
Her patience was rewarded. The flapping of wings was her only warning, and she glanced up to see two dragons drop down and change back into mortal forms. One became a human man, and the other a night elven woman. "Alright," the woman said. "Are these the mortals you wanted me to check out?"
That's the new one, she surmised, and minutes later she had three dragons enslaved to her will.
"Go into the tents and stay hidden until I say so," she explained. "Try to minimize noise." They bowed their heads and did as she told them.
Not long later, Helistrasza returned with her second victim, who instantly shifted into an orcish man and introduced himself to her as 'Kelistrasz'. Then she enslaved him too, and everything was ready.
"Everyone out!" she shouted at the tents. There was a clamor, but before long everyone came out. In truth, she didn't need to bring that many of her servants with her, but she didn't want to leave them unsupervised if she didn't have to. "I've got what we came for," she said, gesturing to the four shapeshifted dragons. "Here's what happens next. Pack everything up while I'm talking!" They sprung into action. "We hearthstone back to A Hero's Welcome and get the others. Hopefully they'll have collected the reagents by now. Once that's done, we're headed for Ulduar! We'll take some time to get our gear and supplies replenished, then we're off."
She pointed to the dragons. "The winds up in the Storm Peaks don't like hippogriffs, so the dragons are going to be the ones carrying us. Now, we don't have hearthstones for the four of you so you'll be pairing up. Helistrasza, you go with Higris. Kelistrasz, with Toman. You go with Zefin, and you go with Mira." She fished into her robes and pulled out her own hearthstone. In that time, the dragons got into position with worry tugging on their faces. No surprise, sharing hearthstones was a distinctly unpleasant experience. "On three!" she ordered. "One, two, three!"
Sara placed her palm on the hearthstone, and it began to activate. Her servants all did the same, filling the air with the sound of charging magic. Then they were whisked away to Dalaran, leaving two dozen red eggs with no caretaker.
They reappeared in Dalaran and wasted no time getting ready. They headed up to her room, earning a few odd looks, and entered. To Sara's surprise, the mortals she had sent to gather reagents were already there, sitting on the bed and chatting amicably with each other. There were a few bags on the ground.
"I hope that, since you're slacking off like this, it means you have everything I requested?" she asked as she locked the door behind her.
A dwarven man hopped off the bed and bowed to her. "Rightly so, O Great One." O Great One, I like it, she thought. "Twenty four sha crystals, ten vials of dream powder, thirteen runed arcane rods, one hundred shards each of crystallized shadow and life..." The dwarf rattled off the reagents, and Sara checked them off her mental list.
Soon, he reached the end and she nodded. "Excellent. Gather them up." She made an arm motion at the four red dragons, who were looking around both nervously and curiously. "These are the four red dragons. They'll be transporting us to Ulduar. I want you to go with them and buy whatever materials they need to make harnesses for us so they can carry us. Meet us at the teleportation crystal. We'll be using it to head down to Crystalsong, get a good distance from Dalaran, and then travel the rest of the way via dragon." She clapped her hands, ignoring the spike of pain it sent through her. "Move!"
They sprung into action.
She turned to the other mortals. "As for the rest of you, my orders haven't changed. It gets extremely inhospitable near Ulduar. Go and gather what materials you need to survive the trip." She fished out a few more pouches of gold. She was running out of the gold left over from her conjuration in Shattrath, but it'd last long enough. "Again, meet back up near the crystal. I'll head there now and await you."
Once everyone filed out, Sara took a deep breath and massaged her eyes. The lack of sleep was starting to make her eyes burn, but she could handle a day or two more if she had to. She'd catch a nap on the flight. In the meantime, she took off her jacket and switched it for one that hadn't been sliced to ribbons by felguard.
She hovered out of the inn and took a look around Dalaran. There was little traffic this late at night, which suited her just fine. As she started to float through the streets, Sara's thoughts began to wander.
Her heart hammered nervously in her chest and her stomach twisted in worry. She was still racing the clock. First of all, she didn't think her actions would remain unnoticed forever, and eventually people would be on her tail. That wasn't something she worried about though, the entire world was focused on the Legion and she had a massive head start. However, she was racing the Legion. With Kil'jaeden's arrival, there was no position Azeroth could hold for long. She was furiously racing him, and while she was confident he had no idea what she was doing, that she could change back before he did too much harm...
... despite all that, Sara worried.
She worried something she hadn't even thought to account for would stop her. She worried that everything was going too easily, so she had messed up somewhere along the way even though the chain of events meant it made sense it was going easily. She worried her health would fail her before she could do it. She worried they wouldn't get the ritual done on the first try and something horrible would happen. She worried about so many things. And she worried over whether or not she even should be doing this.
Sara was afraid. Maybe Leira was right, and she shouldn't do this.
She shook her head and clenched her fingers. No. No time for doubts. Leira was wrong. This was the only way. Screw her methods, Sara was objectively doing the right thing. And besides, she was so... so tired.
She was tired of being afraid, she was tired of losing to the demons, and she was tired of being a human.
This was what she had to do. This was what she wanted to do, wanted so badly it crept into her dreams, wanted so badly it burned in her soul. Sara brought her attention back to Dalaran and kept heading for the teleportation crystal.
Just a few more days. She just had to wait a few more days...
Kil'jaeden
With Moonglade burning behind him, Kil'jaeden took the time to reassess his path.
The major points of interest left were Hyjal, Teldrassil, Exodar, the I
ronforge/Gnomeragon complex, and Northrend. These would all be heavily defended, which was precisely why he was not going to crush them.
While Azeroth was the only world to have ever repelled the Legion, it was not the only one that had ever given them difficulties. In ages past, whenever Archimonde encountered such a vexing world and couldn't muster the resources to summon Sargeras, he went for a different strategy. Burn the crops. Befoul the land. Plague earth and sky so that nothing will ever grow, and simply starve the world's population before sweeping up the leftovers. And that was what Kil'jaeden would do.
He would not get greedy. He would not walk into a trap, believing himself invincible. The Burning Legion's military was now firmly established on the world, so instead of, say, rushing headlong into Hyjal and getting blown up by wisps, or going north to Wyrmrest and encountering all four Aspects, he was going to be patient.
Kil'jaeden had all the time in the world. Duck the Kingslayers, dodge the Aspects. Defile and incinerate Darkshore, Ashenvale, everything, while keeping the mortals holed up in their fortresses. He was going to do this right.
Leira
Leira's head was foggy as she went for breakfast.
She blinked hard as she made herself buttered toast, trying to clear it. She was on some medication, but it'd been bothering her for a while, ever since she'd moved into Shattrath at Sara's request. Must've been allergies or something. Outland had all sorts of native plantlife that you couldn't find anywhere on Azeroth.
The draenei laid the slices of bread on her plate and sat at the table, nibbling on them and drinking her herbal tea. It was supposed to help with her head, but so far it wasn't doing anything. She finished up her breakfast and headed out of her house, locking it behind herself with the key.