Through the Scourge-infested squalor of the Ghostlands murk sped a rider on a mount - two pairs of irisless azure eyes blazing opalescently into the dark. The tail plume of a great blue-feathered raven god, two cubits long and a third as wide, whisked back and forth as the beast was urged on by its rider's hooves. Brilliant jeweled baubles hung from its neck by moonsilver chains, spurned gifts from Elune herself; a pixie in the form of a drowsy archangel sped behind - genius of the rider.
The sindorei miliita and civilians alike took notice of rider and mount and recoiled; they dared not engage her. And so the paladin sped unmolested through the swamp, Anzu's talons barely touching the stagnant water as it raced over through the darkness, driven on by the holy fervor of the rider, on to the blemished but brilliant lands of Eversong Woods.
Here the brilliant sun still shone brightest on Azeroth; idyllic meadows gave pasture to glorious dragonhawks and hawkstriders, and the sindorei made their home. Onward the hooved paladin sped to her destination: an affluent mansion outside the Silvermoon city limits.
Arriving, she dismounted, and with a swift gesture pulled the baubles from the unresisting raven's neck. Anzu disappeared in a puff of smoke, and the paladin silently passed the baubles to her human page, an awkward ten-year-old mute orphan who hid in her long shadow.
Aestu took in the view, deeply inhaled the sweet, fertile breeze of Eversong, and for a moment, she felt once more to be the sindorei that, for a surreal three months, she was. To the party grounds she walked, over Saltheril's magically manicured lawns. She outstreched her hand and wordlessly her page passed her a gold-embossed invitation, signed by "Saltheril" and covered in delicate blood elf poetry. Poetry that Aestu once found amusing but of course could no longer read. She held up the card with thumb and forefinger at the bouncers, two young sindorei men, tanned bronze and with light open swashbuckler shirts; they waved her through as if the sight of a blue-skinned, goat-legged, buff and busty crusader arriving, standing a head taller than either of them (and with horns a hand's length higher still) was nothing unusual.
Again Aestu waved and the servants brought her what she had come to enjoy: delicious suntouched wine, from Saltheril's private reserve. Uncorking the bottle she inhaled the aroma then took a sip, and began to pace about the premises, her mind wandering.
The click-clack of her hooves seemed to echo a tad too much and her rumination was rudely broken; looking about, Aestu spotted the cause. Across the sunny promenade in came a massive carriage draped in silk and drawn by unicorned queldoreii steeds, the magically enhanced scions of Arathor's gift to his people's sometime allies. And for a moment as the click-clack of her hooves countered their own, Aestu could feel the visceral sindorei revulsion for what she was: a hooved, horned being from another world, eyes shining with the Light of Argus, her smooth blue face and curvaceous buttocks offset by her facial tentacles and tail.
Yet the sindorei guests did not mind Aestu. Nor did they attempt to address her in conversation or even take note of her presence. Whether this was an odd space/time paradox caused by yet another bug, the result of the gnome's odd invention that had once not only turned her into a sindorei and again into a draenei, but had seemingly changed reality itself such that she seemed to have always lived each respective life, or the influence of fel magic, magically fortified alcohol and insidiously addictive bloodthistle, the paladin could not know.
Aestu helped herself to the appetizers, minced lynx. She picked up a leaf of bloodthistle, hestitatingly brought it to her blue snub nose, and sniffed very slightly. ...Nothing. No buzz. Only an unpleasant numbness.
She waved to a blood elf servant; he put on a drugged grin, and sidled over, his limbs gelatinized by his addictions. Aestu gestured and he handed over a sealed bottle of suntouched wine. She repeated the gesture again and again and just as if it were the first time each time, the servant pulled bottle after bottle from a nearby crate and handed them to Aestu, who in turn passed them wordlessly to her page. The boy packed them neatly in Aestu's designer bags.
The boy then handed Aestu a runed, bejeweled ring, fashioned of translucent elementium and emblazoned with the seven-rayed oculus of the Kirin Tor. Aestu placed the ring on her ring finger, brought it to her lips, and closing her eyes, whispered a single word into it.
She opened her eyes to look out from the buzz of the Legerdemain Lounge onto the mile-high pa*%*@ts and banners and glass-smooth cobblestone byways of Dalaran. Out and down the street she strode to her favorite haunt: the engineering bay. Horde and Alliance alike on their fanciful mounts walked by. A few recoginized her and waved or saluted, and she politely nodded back recognition.
Amongst the surreal - and mostly functionless - whirrs of the engineering bay could be heard the hissing fans and gears of her mechanical mailbox. Aestu braced herself for the horrors that lay within - then with both hands forced open the mailbox's side lid.
Out poured dozens of mails, the mass of paper and wrapped packaged clogging the aperture all the way back into the device, the letters and bundles landing in a mass at her hooves all the way up to her ancillary ankles.
The page, knowingly and stoic, handed Aestu a bottle of suntouched wine. Aestu took it and with her army knife uncorked and took a deep, deep swig. She feared her mailbox worse than the vilest constructs of the Scourge.
From the toolbox hanging from her waist Aestu pulled a pencil, and with an accountant's practiced hand she used the butt of the pencil to tab through the mails, one by one...
"Your auction of Plans: Dawnsteel Shoulders has sold for ninety-nine gold pieces..."
"Aestu, vile creature, I hope you choke on your own tentacles..."
"Dear Aestu, I humbly request to be allowed to join your band..."
"Your auction of Soulcloth Shoulder has sold for three hundred gold pieces..."
"Lady Aestu, I seek advice on the way of the paladin..."
"Aestu, you're gross..."
As Aestu went about her work - counting out gold pieces, filling out merchandising paperwork, writing replies to various persons, now and then taking a swig from the bottle - it took a lot of the delicate wine to get a draenei soused, considering how hard they drank their liquor (the humans believed water was not even known to them), she suddenly felt a sharp, clammy tug on her tail.
"Eeep!...the tail is not for you to tug!" Aestu barked in harsh, heavily accented Common.
The armored gnome smiled. "You're MY goat."
"I am not!...what business have you, Poob?"
"Your friends are gone."
"Friends?" Aestu leered at the two-foot ball of saronite armor and pigtails. "You mean...THEM."
"Ah, yes. Tempest. Now the Space People. That countryman of mine who once made you a blood elf - he has sent them into the Twisting Nether?"
Aestu smirked. "Really? Anad to think how they called it an act of cowardice! That I had so few friends amongst the Alliance!"
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
Aestu stepped outside the engineering bay and cast a cynical gaze at the massive gilded statue in the center of Dalaran. The statue put up by...Tasty Beverage, the deceptively whimsical name chosen by the newcomers, adventurers who had used the same doorway Aestu herself and now the Tempest warband to travel between realities. They had vanquished the Lich King, they had won the acclaim of all - and they had issued a challenge to Tempest, a challenge they had cowardly fled from...Tempest, so long used to be unchallenged, so furious that these OUTSIDERS had stolen their glory - now had in turn stolen someone else's...because the "fabric of reality is weak in this realm", yes, clearly so weak this fabric, it supported many other able bands of adventurers...
"I suppose it's true. The skilled stay. The mediocre don't."
"Hey, they're rly gud!"
Aestu chuckled. "Better to be first in Goldshire than second in Stormwind..."
Not far away, Commander Zanneth was raging hard. It seemed like some sort of massive joke. Every two and a half hours, he found himself rolling up his cot and putting all his personal effects into a box for transport to the fallback position. He had stopped even bothering to pack shirts. Why? He had been quite proud of his collection of fine shirts before being assigned command of Winter Operation Grasp Winter Grasp, only to "lose" one each battle in the chaos of the inevitable retreat. He had exercised such care proudly setting up his personal effects in the Titan chamber the first time they had captured the fortress. When they had been overrun, he had planned for an orderly retreat - made sure all materiel and personnel were accounted for.
He had considered it a minor setback, and when they recaptured the fortress, he had set all his things up again as if nothing happened - folded his shirts and pants in neat little piles, polished his favorite portrait of himself shaking hands with Lady Prestor, and proudly strutted back and forth in front of the place, believing order to have been restored. Hundreds of captures and retreats later, he had in a rage forsworn shirts forever.
Worst of all was the manical laugher of that draenei demolition expert assigned to his brigade. By the Light, and he thought Abrams was annoying.
The nearby Titan teleporter flashed and Zanneth's eyes widened. Another one of those damned goat space people. A female it seemed. His gaze wasn't fixed at her impressive assets, however. Under her ponderous saronite armor and billowy tabard, he caught sight of...a shirt. A most epic shirt. Jealousy inflamed the human commander.
"You there, draenei! I have a mission for you..."
That shirt would be his. Space people be damned.
<< To be continued... >>
<< Continued from last post >>
Snuss hated Wintergrasp.
The snow. The cold. The chaotic skirmishes. Uncontrolled. It was that kind of cold that makes everything seem to move more slowly. When the fighters kicked up dust or exhaled steamy breath, the beads of ice seemed to hang in the very air. [i]This isn't what I'm here for.[/i]
The stoic, beefy Tauren ponderously opened his backpack and pulled out some yellowed papers and a pencil. He snorted once and scratched himself, and slowly reread the papers for the hundredth time. A tauren of few words and great steadiness of character, not given to rash decisions, a warrior who knew the value of study.
BIZZWICK BROS OF DALARAN: REPAIR SERVICES
Reforged shield to remove nicks, dents, bile and pus: 50g 23s 26c
Refurbished epaulets and sharpened novelty tusks on said epaulets: 60g 42s 73c
Removed blood stains from undergarmets: 32g 74s 74c
De-odorized all armor: 63g 27s 84c
Re-sharpened mace: 21g 73s 82c
Snuss snorted again and reread the document. [i]I see what they did there.[/i] But he wasn't one to complain. Slowly, deliberately, he took his pencil and under the line "BILLING METHOD", he scrawled in precise block letters, "Bill To Tempest," his every motion as deliberate and controlled as if he were signing his will and testament, not the same document these goblins extorted gold with day after day. But he was a warrior, not an accountant. [i]Let other people worry about that kind of thing. I'm here to do MY thing. Wait for this to be over, and go in there, and do my thing.[/i]
Snuss raised his mace and took aim at a frost elemental hovering about fifty yards away. His broad, heavy limbs held great strength. He practiced his battle stance as if he had never fought a single battle, betraying his experience. This was a real warrior, a stoic, silent bulwark, uncomplaining, enduring. A few paces away stood one of those little cliques of three female blood elves, engaged in their mischievous and scandalous gossip. In his own skull, Snuss called them "turnip, coriander and pain." Never addressed them by name. He probably weighed more than all of them combined. They waved and cheered at him. Snuss pretended to not notice them, then, with a deliberate gesture, made the slightest nod of his massive head. With cheers they felt gratified at this minor gesture. [i]Less is more. Some people don't realize that.[/i]
A few meters away a blood elf man gazed hatefully at the trio. At one of them in particular, the one Snuss would have called "pain". Now and then cast a furtive gaze at her and scrawled some words down on some stationary at his side then went back to his brooding. Later he would mail her the letter. His spirit burned for her - ah! An elemental wandered up to him and with a single motion of his great polearm he shattered it in a burst of light. He didn't even bend over to search for elemental essences - psh! - but instead merely admired his work. Such skill! But alas, "pain" was gazing not at him but at the beefy tauren warrior with his massive [i]equipment[/i].
What secrets dwelled within the skull of this great being? This wall of meat and steel who stood silently against all foes? He was aloof; he was beyond question; they could never know. Snuss turned slightly. For a moment he thought of the grotesque goblins who did his repairs. [i]I hope I never have to deal with them outside the armorer. God forbid we should fight alongside them. No meat on their bones, the bloodsuckers. [/i]
The trio of pulchritudinous blood elf harlots continued to cheer. One of them met his gaze for a moment. Neither could guess what the other was really thinking. Certainly not the blood elf.
[i]
She could use some fur. And hooves. And, hmm, a tail. With a little bit of fur on the end. And some horns. And...three hundred kilos of good meat. Yes, that would fix her quite nicely. Ah, I can dream, can't I?[/i]
...
Far away on another front Aestu did her thing. Neither her holy vows nor her cynical refusal to participate in the battle, "I've done my part, you don't know how hard it is moving in this cold, everything is so slow, don't you know draenei have warm blood and can't take the cold, it's the cobalt in my veins, you know," Nonetheless she sat on Anzu and rode back and forth, taking jibs at the defenders.
"You there, did you really do THAT to your armor? No, no, you're using the cannon all wrong - you can't even repair it, can you? Here, there you go, it will hold out a bit longer! Repair beams are hard!"
Zanneth (how she hated pinkskins) had given her a most curious assignment. It was the sort of thing Aestu would never take the initiative to do on her own - not for want of initiative! - but nor was she ever one to turn down a polite request.
Aestu was to proceed to...the Forest of Shadows?...and obtain, um, pigtail holders from the Gnomeregan legion that lay beneath the mud, overwhelmed by elementals, Scourge, and the Kokron Guard. Apparently these pigtail holders had some sort of intrinsic value to the gnomes, this was why vendors paid so well for them. And now apparently Valiance Expedition wanted them as well.
Hurling insults at passerbys, Aestu impatiently harried out to her destination. Past the burnt and broken trunks of the cursed trees she sped deeper into the forest; the icy, brackish viscousness of the shallows gave way to permafrost-crusted tundra crisscrossed with dead roots. She pulled the baubles from Anzu's neck; the raven disappeared and once again Aestu passed the baubles to her page, who as always placed them silently in her pack.
She walked about and inspected the ground. Tiny skulls, attached to splayed-out skeletons, some broken and still impaled on weapons of all descriptions, littered the place. Aestu thought she saw the glimmer of a silver pigtail holder and turned. And stopped.
A sharp pain wracked her lower back, a few inches right of where spine met tail. It took her a second to become aware of her predicament. [i]Oh, Light, not this again...[/i]
She gradually became aware she was being stabbed repeatedly. It hurt. Granted, it didn't hurt as much as being slammed in the face again and again by a 200-foot-tall Gronn or a three-skulled skeleton lord or a massive evil robot that kept babbling about force parameters, but it did kind of sting. Aestu reminded herself to buy more sandstone.
Willing her body, Aestu began to slowly turn, turn, turn towards her attacker - a Forsaken mercenary. His hollow eyes and jawless visage glared furiously into Aestu's cute complexion as he stabbed and stabbed with both hands. His vigor faded as Aestu rose to her full six-feet-eight. He stood and gawked. Aestu gazed back.
The rogue hesitated, then lunged at her face with both knives. Aestu raised her hands to her face in a protective gesture. A snap of light and the Forsaken hissed in agony. His attack had left Aestu unharmed but his hands burned. Again he lunged; this time Aestu moved quickly to one side, shifting her weight onto her other hoof. And again. This time Aestu raised one hand and the Forsaken again hissed in agony.
The Forsaken took a step back. Took a good, hard look at Aestu. The infernal black light in his eyes burned in impotent fury. He took another step back. And another. He loosened his limbs as if preparing for a duel. Put himself into a ready stance.
Aestu gazed back and smiled. She turned to one side and turned her butt to the rogue. Slapped it twice then made a gesture at him with her upturned hand and a sort of moaning grunt.
The Forsaken charged forth, slashing, hacking, in a flurry of poisoned blades. No witnesses were present and neither participant really saw what happened, but the Forsaken soon let loose an anguished cry and his life essence faded. He fell to the mud, dead once more.
Aestu looked over the corpse.
[i]What a fool. What a waste. ...Man, what a waste. Just to...die...and...lie here...what was he thinking...happens all the time, too...
...what a waste...[/i]
She gave the corpse a long, hard look. An idea came into her head.
A lesser paladin would have walked away. Or removed the loot from the body and left the bones and filth behind. Not Aestu.
She took her army knife and systematically removed the body from the loot. She cut through what, in life, was the Forsaken's carotid artery and voice box. Both hands pressing the blade flat against his neck; with a snap his spongy vertebrae gave way and the head sank into the murk. She pulled up his shirt very slightly; not wanting to undress him, and in the process ruin her prize, she instead pulled his rotted entrails out of the shirt, clawing them out in fistfulls and leaving the rot for the scourgebirds to feast on. She did the same with the pants, snapping his pelvis in four places and pulling the fragments out with his shattered tailbone. Finally she pulled the shirt and pants up from the mud; the rest of the Forsaken's remains sluiced down to the ground. [i]Hm...[/i]
Taking them to the bank of the Wintergrasp River, a few meters short of its outlet into Sholozar, she washed the filth from the clothes. They were made of fine high elf magewave - probably this Forsaken was once a well-to-do citizen of Brill. In his life the clothes had been sturdy and elegant, graceful loungewear; in his undeath, they were rugged and loose, a most excellent shirt and pants for a thug...and now in death....
Aestu unbuckled her armor and passed the pieces to her page one by one. The page mutely accepted them. He displayed no reaction to the sight of the nude woman, took no notice of her strong, broad thighs and wide hips and generous bust. He was too young to have a sense of such things, and anyway, Aestu suspected the boy had some "parts" removed prior to entering her service. Certainly he never spoke, and was puny and effeminate even for a ten-year-old human boy. She had come to regard him as an object, in her own mind she still referred to him as a "nu-ub", Orcish for "peon".
With a snip she made a cut down the front of the shirt, and with another, made a hole in the seat of the pants. She put on the shirt and pants and gazed down at her reflection in the water below. Mmm, most pleasant for lounging, I think....
Her narcissistic rumiantion was broken by the sound of branches and bones being trampled by what she recognized as human soldiers, the [i]clank clank clank[/i] of their Imperial armor audible from miles away.
"HUNH"
"HUNH"
"HUNH"
They caught sight of her. "...Justicar Aestu!" Their leader, dark-skinned with a simple expression, saluted. "What brings you here?"
"Zanneth's orders."
"Us as well! We were to bring back your remains! And, er, your shirt!"
"...remains?"
"Yes, we were told you'd been ambushed - er, it seems you turned the tables!"
"Ah. Ah, yes." Aestu had completely forgotten she was wearing the thug's shirt and pants.
"What was your original assignment?"
"To...collect...pigtail holders...from the fallen gnomes...and return with them..."
"Zanneth is a fool! There's a reason the commander loses half the time! Nothing to do with the cold in the air, the slowness I'll have you know - army gnomes don't wear pig tail holders, you know..."
"So why are YOU here?"
"Hmm?"
"You don't seem the sort to chase a draenei into the forest!"
"Er..." The human lieutenant shuffled nervously. "Well, you see, there's only one way to get the gear, you know..."
"I see. If he told you to jump into Sholozar you'd do it, right?"
"I don't know, Aestu...I just do my thing here in Wintergrasp..."
Aestu smiled. "Perhaps you can secure your promotion." She gestured to her page; he handed over her best purple shirt. She offered it to the lieutenant. "Say you found it here."
"...Are you sure, milady?"
"No worries. I have my ways..."
"I see. And your mission?"
Aestu smiled reached behind her head with both hands. She undid her own pigtails and held up a pair of malachite pigtail holders. "Gnomes and draenei have a few things in common after all..."
Zanneth paced about nervously.
Damned space people. Always complaining about the slowness. Glory hogs, that's what they are.
"Commander! We found this!"
He turned to see his men holding up Aestu's shirt.
"Ah! Alas, a mighty champion of the Alliance has fallen!"
"No, no sir! She was fine, but, er, we found this there!"
Zanneth's eyes widened. "What?"
"Yes, sir!"
He heard the [i]click-clack-click-clack [/i]of a [i]pair [/i]of hooves and turned to see Aestu, waving at him, one hand on her waist, feeling fine in her repurposed thug clothes. He squinted.
"I thought the cold didn't agree with you, Aestu?"
She smiled. "Dionis a-kar!" So saying, she accepted the bauble from her page; Anzu appeared and roared; in a blue plume she was off to the fallback position.
Zanneth raged as the Horde closed in from all directions.
[i]Damned space people.[/i]
The tall, shapely draenei paced through Dalaran, brooding. The click-clack of her hooves on the pavement alternated with the louder clank-clank of her saronite armor as she made her way to the sewer entrance. As she approached it the unbearable stench of Dalaran's wastewater became increasingly intense - the offal of over a dozen different races, the waste products of magical industry, occasional bits and pieces of dead animals and gnomes rotting in the turbid flow...Aestu kept her eyes averted and aimed squarely at the points of her hooves. She closed her mind to the reek and occupied herself with her own thoughts.
Funny how events repeat themselves. Is it the Light's intent to reward or punish or does the answer lie within me...?
She reached behind her back and pulled out her spindly fishing pole, made of mammoth bone and tricked with gold and jewels, and began casting. Seemed some darn fool lost his arm in the sewers again. Just like every other day...quite impossible to bait an arm, but easy enough to bait for flesh-eating parasites...
Once more the avaricious gnome had convinced her to step through the portal to the mirror universes, this time, to complete what was to be a simple transaction. If the deal seems too good to be true, as they say, it probably isn't, and it proved quite true in this case. Well, partly. It wasn't her gold they were after. And so now...the karmic wheel spun again. At least I save some gold on the other leg of the journey.
Aestu, melancholy in the tedium of fishing, dared turn her eyes up from her hooves to gaze about the maintenance platform on which she stood. Stark and distinct from the filth and decay all about the sewer entrance - so uncharacteristic of polished, gaudy Dalaran - was a freshly printed poster hastily pasted to a wall. The town barker had been in quite a hurry to finish her task; it was affixed sloppily, at a thirty-degree angle, and the upper left and lower middle portions weren't fixed to the wall; under its parchment clumps of excess paste added rough contour to the well-inked advertisement. She pulled back her cast and moved a bit closer to the wall, and read the poster while casting:
HEROES OF AZEROTH
Test your fighting skills at the second annual Azeroth Tournament!
Nominal entry fee affords you prefabricated armor, enchants, and gems for use in the tourament!
Compete against other adventurers, from all realities!
Subsantial regard and monetary rewards for top performers!
Aestu smirked and with a sardonic start turned back to her fishing, her bottle-sized boar tails bobbing. A fighting tournament? Not my speed...I'd rather be slaying a dragon...
Her train of thought was arrested as she chanced to read the next line:
An armored murloc pet awaits all who compete!
Oh, really now...
A smile crept over the avaricious draenei's face. Few indeed could maintain such devotion to the Light and one's own material greed alike. She threw her cast and ruminated.
From all realities, huh...an armored murloc pet...
Two birds, one stone...
She glanced over at her genius, Tyrael, and cast him a smile. She had utter faith that behind his fully concealing faceplate, her guardian spirit was smiling back, as always.
"Wanting for company, old friend?"
Reading on, she noted: it was a team activity. So she'd need a few partners.
From all realities, huh...
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