//------------------------------// // The Unusual Mage and the Investigation // Story: Seekers of the Epitaph: World of Azeroth // by Xarmar13 //------------------------------// Back in Elwynn Forest, Sophia continued following Bella and Jaqueline from the treetops. A group of Defias bandits ambushed the duo on the way to Goldshire but the two of them handled the pickpockets without much effort. The paladin and warrior arrived in Goldshire and made their way to the local inn to spend the night. Sophia transformed herself into her human form and followed the two inside. Thankfully she had enough coins that she looted from the bandits who attacked her earlier to spend a night. She was glad that she was able to get the room next to Bella and Jaqueline. She kept track of the thoughts of the two to find out where they were going. While Bella’s mind was preoccupied with crafting some leather and chainmail armor, Jaqueline’s mind was restless with eagerness to get to Westfall and test her skills against stronger bandits. Since she wasn’t going to get much else from their minds, Sophia decided to contact Twilight through the psychic network. “Hey Twilight, do you have a plan? I don’t think we’re going to be making a lot of progress on this while Stormwind is a puppet government controlled by an evil noble.” “You’re right, that’s why I’ve sent Fayt to the Magical City of Dalaran to tip them off to a threat to the throne of Stormwind and the possibility that the regent might be under a mind control spell. They might not take it seriously, but as long as they send someone to investigate you can ultimately lead the investigation to the noble. Let’s just hope we can find some evidence to expose her. “Why would you even have Dalaran send an investigator anyway?” Sophia asked. “Twilight theorizes that the reason we can’t get a read on one of the targets is because a powerful magical field is blocking all scrying spells and two places on Azeroth are currently reading such energies," Midnight answered. "One is on an island that was part of the supercontinent ten thousand years ago and getting to that island would be very troublesome at this point in time. We are hoping that she is in Dalaran which is being protected by a similar field while the denizens there rebuild it after it got leveled by a powerful demon lord during the Third War.” “Oh I get it, you’re hoping Dalaran will send the target to investigate the potential threat. But aren’t the chances just as high that they would send almost any one of them as well?” “Not necessarily Sophia,” Thanatas interjected. “Cut the link to headquarters temporarily and I’ll explain why.” Once Sophia cut the link, Thanatas continued. “One thing to know about being a member of the Craft family is that you are aware of the fourth wall. While there are those outside of our family who can perceive the fourth wall, for us it’s simply a family trait. “Now, if the target really is in Dalaran then if they are supposed to show up at this point then they will. This is because the plot of this universe is dependent on that person showing up to move forward else the story of this universe would begin to stagnate and that’s not what we want.” “So basically, the chances of her coming here from Dalaran are nearly one hundred percent unless the plot isn’t ready for her yet?” Sophia concluded. “Precisely. In time you will learn what is and isn’t supposed to happen. It will make your duties much easier.” “Okay, thanks for the explanation.” Sophia then reopened the link to Sphere. “Sorry about that, secret family business. So if she does come, do you want me to try to observe her too?” Twilight and Midnight decided to ignore the “secret family business stuff” and continue instructing Sophia, “See if you can get her to meet up with Bella and Jaqueline. If those three can form a bond with one another it will make things easier for us in the long term.” “Understood.” Alterac, a mountainous region in the center of the northern portion of the Eastern Kingdoms continent. Once home to the Kingdom of Alterac, one of the numerous human kingdoms during the height of the Kingdom of Lordaeron’s prosperity, now it is but ruins in the snowy mountains. At the base of the Alterac Mountains, overlooking Lordamere Lake which sits on the border between the Alterac Mountains, Silverpine Forest and Tirisfal Glades was a magical dome that sat in the middle of a ruined town. The ruins were not abandoned, however, as many humans wearing purple uniforms and robes bearing the symbol of an eye and three arrows pointing downward on their chests were putting efforts into rebuilding the town outside the dome. Their efforts were often hindered though as forsaken often attacked the unfortunate mages. Within the magical dome the great magical city had been mostly rebuilt after it was demolished years ago. Within a small library atop one of the numerous tall spires around the violet city sat a high elf who was busy studying one of the magical tomes needed for her education before she graduated from being an apprentice to Archmage Rhonin to becoming an agent of the Kirin Tor, the elite of Dalaran. Unlike their purple-skinned, nocturnal ancestors, high elves were shorter than the inherently tall night elves and their skin was almost white. The hair colors of high elves were more relatable to humans. Like the night elves, high elves had a magical source that fueled their immortality, a magical font called the Sunwell. Sadly, the font was destroyed when the Scourge desecrated it. The young blonde high elf, who was given the name Stellaglim, or Stella by Rhonin, was a prodigy in magic. She received top marks in her classes on the various forms of arcane magic taught within the halls of Dalaran’s academy and was on her way to surpassing some of the more notable mages to walk the streets. Stella could sense someone trying to get through her anti-teleportation wards and traced the magic to her master. She placed a bookmark in the book she was reading and lowered her wards, allowing the mage to teleport into her room. Rhonin smiled with pride at his protege, “Your warding spells are as impressive as ever, Stella. At the rate you’re going you may yet have a spot on the Council of Six one day.” Stella briefly recalled the Council of Six as the leaders of the magocracy of Dalaran who handle the highest levels of government within the city. To be considered for such a position one day was the dream of every mage in the city. Stella giggled at that before returning to the main topic, “I don’t know about that, I simply strive to improve my magic like everyone else. So what brings you to my room master?” “Straight to the point as always, huh? Well, I’m not sure what to make of this but it seems that we had a visitor from the Blue Dragonflight. The dragon introduced himself as Faytagos. He told me about some trouble brewing in the upper echelons of the government of Stormwind. “I would have scoffed at that since we deal in magical issues, not mundane things like government corruption but he also mentioned that the current regent of Stormwind, Bolvar Fordragon, might be under a powerful mind control spell. He believes that it might have been cast on him by one of the nobles making a power play to control the kingdom.” “Is that really enough of a cause for us to be involved?” Stella asked. “Not really, I’m sure they will root out the cause eventually,” Rhonin dismissed. “Right now, we are still trying to rebuild and gather our strength after our city was destroyed in the war a few years ago. But I do believe that we need to start reconnecting with the world and show everyone that the Kirin Tor still lives. Which is why I wish for you to go to Stormwind and represent us as one of our agents. This assignment should be pretty easy. All you need to do is verify if the regent is under a mind control spell. Though I hope he isn’t as it means that the crown prince, Anduin Wrynn, is in danger.” “Wait, assignment?” Stella asked. “I’m still an apprentice, master. I don’t have the clearance to act as an investigator for the Kirin Tor.” Rhonin chuckled, “To be honest, there’s really not all that much left to teach you. You’ve already shown mastery in the schools of the arcane taught here. You’ve aced all your tests and you are already more skilled in combat magic than a majority of the mages in this city. Even Archmage Karlain is impressed and few things impress him. I’d say that you could become an archmage within a few years, provided you get some field experience under your belt. “Which is another reason I want to assign you this mission. I do expect regular reports from you so I can monitor your progress. As for your clearance, you already have the permission from the leader of the Kirin Tor, myself, and the other members of the Council have cleared you for this mission as well. Do you have any other excuses?” Rhonin laughed for a few seconds while Stella blushed a little. All out of excuses, Stella began making preparations for travel to Stormwind. She loaded her pack with reagents she might need for some of the spells she knew required them, she remembered her food and drink conjuration spells which while ephemeral would provide temporary relief from hunger or thirst until she could find real food, she put a bedroll into her pocket dimension in case she had to sleep outside and a map to help her find her way around. Once her preparations were complete, Stella began invoking the long range teleportation spell. The invocation was lengthy and took a few seconds to cast, but it was still the most efficient spell available with Dalaran’s current magical knowledge. Once the invocation was finished, Stella was spatially displaced from the city and appeared at the anchor point in the city of Stormwind. The city was warded to prevent teleportation into the city as a means to prevent enemies like the Horde from invading. At first it seemed unnecessary since the Horde was lacking in mages until the darkspear trolls learned ways to channel the arcane without any formal mage training. When the Forsaken joined the Horde the naysayers were quick to shut up and were suddenly glad that the wards were in place. From what Stella remembered, the anchor point was located inside the mage tower in Stormwind’s Mage Quarter. The room she was in was isolated from the rest of the tower with a single portal acting as an exit and entrance. There were plans to hire mages later and turn the room into a portal hub. Stella walked through the exit portal and followed the spiraling pathway out of the tower and to the ground level at the base of the tower. Her destination was Stormwind Keep where the regent and prince resided. The Keep was on the other side of the city. Leaving the Mage Quarter, Stella crossed a few bridges over the canals of the city and walked the roads along said canals. She took in the sights of the buildings built so close together and the many businesses along the way. She soon arrived at the keep and ascended the steps and entered the building. Upon reaching the throne room, Stella was surprised to find that the regent wasn’t there but Prince Anduin and a black haired woman in dark red robes were. From what she remembered about her from the Dalaran archives, the woman was a noble named Katrana Prestor. There had been some ill rumors about her but nothing incriminating had turned up. The woman eyed the approaching Kirin Tor mage and put on a condescending expression in her body language, typical for a noble. “You are not on the schedule, what are you doing disturbing this court?” she demanded. While she really did not like Katrana’s tone or her expression as they made her look like she was throwing the weight of her status at her for no reason, Stella had a mission to do so she sucked up her pride and bowed gracefully to her. “Your grace, I was sent here as a representative of the Kirin Tor in order to investigate a potential threat to the throne. An anonymous tip informed us that the regent may be under the effects of a mind control spell. Would you mind showing me to him so that I may confirm this and be on my way?” Katrana gave the slightest of flinches when the mage mentioned a mind control spell. She did her best to not let that show though. “I am afraid the regent is preoccupied at the moment and cannot be disturbed. You will have to come back at a different time. You will also need to make an appointment next time you make an appearance at the court again.” “Okay, when would be the earliest convenience?” “I am afraid that the earliest that I can address your claim would be next month.” “I see, very well, then I shall look at scheduling a date.” Stella turned around to walk away. Katrana scowled, the elf’s determination to see the regent meant that she was going to be a problem in the future. It was best to try to nip this problem in the bud while she could. And she knew of someone who might. “If you wouldn’t mind listening to a request I have, I might be able to get you in to meet the regent sooner.” Stella paused in her steps and turned her head back toward the noble. “What is your request, your excellency?” “Recently our lands have come under attack by an army of bandits known as the Defias Brotherhood. They can be identified by their red bandanas. Reports indicate that the army appears to originate from the region of Westfall to the west of Elwynn Forest. The region is home to farmers and the filthy, impoverished wastes of space. It would appear that the leader of these bandits, Edwin Vancleef, has been stoking the flames of their hatred toward the government and inciting rebellion. The armies of Stormwind have been stretched thin so we can’t properly deal with the threat. Find out where he is, eliminate him and I’ll be able to get you an earlier date.” Stella had the strangest feeling that the noble was trying to impede her investigation but she couldn’t call her out on that because she had a lot of authority in Stormwind and could make up an excuse to have her arrested if angered. She would have to find another way to meet with the regent. Stella noticed that Anduin’s eyes were repeatedly darting toward a room to his left. Was he trying to tell her where the regent was? If Bolvar was nearby and couldn’t take a few minutes to confirm her investigation, then something was definitely suspicious here. For now, she would play along. The Defias were becoming a problem for the kingdom and couldn’t be ignored. She would probably need to find some people to help her with this since storming a lair of bandits would be a bad idea to tackle alone. After accepting Katrana’s request, Stella quickly yet calmly walked back down the hallway and out of the keep. She needed to get to Westfall to find the Defias hideout so she prepared a mid-range teleportation spell that would take her closer to Westfall. The spell was not very reliable since she had no idea where she was going but the safeties in her spell would prevent her from teleporting into objects. She once proposed the idea of the spell to the spellweavers of Dalaran but was rejected because of the high risk and high mana cost and they didn’t trust the reliability of the safeties. Mostly it was because of the high precision required to arrive where you want to be. That didn’t stop Stella from using the spell herself though and it never failed her once. That did make her fellow mages question whether the elf was normal or not. Stella’s teleportation placed her next to the bridge over a stream that divided Elwynn and Westfall. This proved to be a good news/bad news situation. The good news was that she was where she wanted to be. The bad news was that she chose the worst time to teleport there as a pack of hyena people called gnolls were gathered nearby and formed what appeared to be a raiding party. And they were staring at her. Acting on instinct she learned from those times she got ambushed by her peers, she unleashed a wave of frost which briefly trapped the gnolls’ feet in ice and teleported a short distance away from them. Those spells required no incantation so she could use them instantly. From her new position, Stella channeled a shower of ice shards which pummeled the raiding party and impaled a few of them. One gnoll with a crossbow fired a bolt and grazed her arm, causing her to drop the spell. The gnolls soon broke free of their icy shackles and chased after the mage. Stella was considering using another unusual spell she learned by accident when a blonde human in shoddy armor rushed past her holding a longsword in her hands. With one wide swing she sent some gnolls flying up and away from her while the pointed end cut deeply into the flesh of several more gnolls. The bleeding ones yipped in pain while the unharmed ones pointed their crossbows at the warrior. An aura of light surrounded her as the arrows flew at her and bounced off of her. Stella heard footsteps behind her and Stella looked back to see a female human in ornate purple armor holding out a hand toward the other warrior. Stella quickly realized that the fancy-looking human was a paladin. Stella then looked back at the gnolls just in time to see a few archers aim their crossbows at her. She had enough time to react before they fired by raising an arm which caused some of the road to rise up and block the shots. Stella quickly lowered the road back into place and took advantage of their surprise by quickly muttering an incantation. A moment later the gnolls soon found themselves running around chaotically as a pillar of fire set them ablaze. To the paladin and warrior’s surprise, while the flames charred the fur and flesh of the gnolls, the fires didn’t start a forest fire but saw the grass grow slightly taller along with a few wildflowers growing in the wake of the blaze. Once the gnoll raiding party was reduced to piles of charred husks, the trio put their weapons away and approached the mage. “Dear, are you alright? Facing down a pack of gnolls like that could not have been easy,” the paladin said. “Yeah, what were ya thinking, takin’ all those things on at once?” the warrior asked. “I can assure you that was completely by accident,” Stella answered. “I teleported myself to the Elwynn/Westfall border and they were already gathered there looking like they were getting ready to attack the nearby garrison when they saw me.” “So yer sayin’ that ya got some bad luck?” Stella turned away slightly and blushed. “I guess you could say that.” “So what brings you here?” the paladin asked. “I can tell from your robes that you hail from Dalaran. Oh! My apologies for the lack of introductions. My name is Bella Cartier and this err…daringly armored companion of mine is Jaqueline Pomerton.” Stella gave a small smile, relieved that she didn’t have to think about the awkwardness of that teleport for long. “Nice to meet you Miss Cartier, Miss Pomerton. I am Stellaglim, but most people call me Stella.” “A pleasure to meet you Stella, if you may call me Bella.” “Howdy, just Jaqueline will do fer me,” Jaqueline said. Overlooking the trio from the trees, Sophia smiled, glad that she didn’t have to do anything to bring the three of them together. She could save her energy for bigger tasks. However, something about the elf seemed off to her. When she observed Bella and Jaqueline, they had some physical resemblance to their past lives such as Bella’s curled hair looking similar to the manestyle of her past self along with her fashionista skills and Jaqueline having long blonde hair along with the accent. Stella looked nothing like the pony she was supposed to be reincarnated from. She looked through the profiles of the targets earlier so she did have an idea of what to look for when it came to their behaviors. While Stella resembled nothing like her past self, she still had the tendency to use unusual spells. This was a mystery to look into later. Stella blinked. She suddenly remembered a case file in the Dalaran Archives from a few years ago that involved someone with the last name Pomerton. She couldn’t look through it since she didn’t have the access privileges though. “Wait, Pomerton? I think the Kirin Tor have a file on that family in the archives. I never got to look at it, but for there to be a file the case had to be magic related.” Jaqueline frowned, “Right, a few years back a passin’ mage from that organization sensed somethin’ weird in me but were never able to get a clear read on what kinda magic it was. Sure wasn’t the Light, never been a paladin in ma family. No magic users of any kind, really.” Stella raised an eyebrow in confusion, “Really? I know that the Pomertons were normally farmers and the first to volunteer for town militias in emergencies, but none of you have ever tried breaking from that tradition?” “Some did, best they could become were warriors or rogues. Magic talent just seems to avoid the family like the plague. Whatever this thing in me is, you mages think its some sorta magic but ah can’t do a thing with it. This thing’s been nothin’ but trouble.” Stella decided not to inquire any further about Jaqueline’s issue and moved on to other matters. “So why are you two here anyway? Are you heading to Westfall too?” “We are,” Bella answered. “Jaqueline feels that she needs to improve her skills as a warrior by taking on the Defias Brotherhood. I need to make sure she doesn’t get herself killed in the process while helping the Kingdom of Stormwind to restore order to its lands.” “I see, I was actually on my way to Westfall at the request of Lady Katrana Prestor to find a way to deal with the Defias.” “Prestor!? That stuck up witch?” Jaqueline asked. “If ya ain’t part of her club of sycophants then ya best steer clear of her.” “Believe me, I want to but she’s also in the way of my main mission to check the regent of Stormwind for signs of mind control spells.” “Ah’d bet almost anything that he is bein’ controlled and Prestor is the one behind it. We should go back to Stormwind and beat some sense into her.” “That would be a very bad idea Jaqueline,” Bella warned. “We have no proof to such accusations and walking up to her to accuse without proof will only end with us being arrested and thrown into the Stockades.” “For now we need to focus on the Defias,” Stella said. “That's all we can do right now. Can I ask you two for your assistance?” Bella smiled, “Of course darling, the more the merrier and the more effective we can be to take out these ruffians.” She takes out a map and unfolds it to look at it. “Once we cross the bridge into Westfall we follow the road south to Sentinel Hill where we can meet the militia in charge of this region.” “Sounds like a plan,” Jaqueline said. “Let’s get outta this forest ‘fore we run into more of them gnolls.” With that, the trio crossed the bridge into the farmlands of Westfall. Sophia frowned as she eavesdropped on their conversation. She had heard something from them that might warrant investigating. She opened a link to Twilight and Midnight. “Did you get all of that?” “Yes, our preliminary scans said that she was completely healthy,” Midnight responded. “We need to run more scans on her and determine the nature of this strange magic within her. For that we will need to switch from distant observation to interaction.” “Great, I was getting tired of acting like a cop on a stakeout. Time for me to introduce myself.”