Karp
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Diplomacy 101: Chapter 33
🕑 Added 2024-08-04 21:52:50 +0000 UTCAN: Going forward, High Elves will be referred to as Blood Elves per Kael’s rebranding.
The crowd in Sunstrider Square was electric.
It was well past midnight, yet tens of thousands had refused to turn in for rest.
Kael's speech had ignited a fire in many citizens, driving them to pledge their support for King and country. (Despite Kael refusing the crown.)
The Prince had struck a chord with those who had lost everything, and had nowhere to go.
When your house was in ruins, your wife, your children, your parents, grandparents, and grandchildren were all dead, murdered by grotesque zombies…any normal man would cut off his own arm if he could spite the bastards who did this to him!
This feeling of revenge, and inconsolable rage was more potent compared to a regular Humans loss, considering that these family and friends had been by their side for hundreds if not thousands of years. For the average Elf, they never thought there would be a day when they could die, so long as they remained inside their city, protected by an impenetrable magical barrier.
Reality, however, proved that for all their smug superiority, the Blood Elves were mortal, same as any race.
The anger, rage, and ferocity of a normally mellow people was beginning to awaken. Like a dragon aroused from its slumber, these ancients were taking shape into dangerous soldiers.
Already, impromptu training dummies were being set up, and old bows were dusted off from the Rangers armory.
Books were handed out, and Elves began to study tomes that they hadn't read in thousands of years.
Five veteran sword masters who had practiced some Arcane magic Blinked from place to place as they engaged one another in a demonstration of the mixture of melee and magic.
Many mages who could not cast anything more complex than a fireball/frostball were drawn to this demonstration. Blink was considered an intermediate spell in terms of difficulty. If they learned it, could they flit across the battlefield like these masters?
Rangers imbued their bows with mana, demonstrating the difference between regular arrows, and Arcane Shots.
Regular Elven arrows were powerful, able to pierce deeply into most targets. However, not only did Arcane arrows have incredible stopping power-able to easily pierce a set of Alliance soldier plate armor-but the Rangers managed to guide the arrow mid flight via his connection due to the mana. The ranger shot an arrow above a mannequin's head, then he muttered some words, and the arrow glowed, then dropped 3ft, right into the slit of the target's helmet.
One paladin was giving a sermon to a group of praying citizens. He showed them the ultimate Light skill: Bubble. Encouraging the citizens to strike him, many shot arrows at him, or even launched a firebolt or two, however, the Paladin was unharmed.
After witnessing this survival feat, many Blood Elves who were studying dusty old pages went over to learn from the Paladin.
The Royal Guard was out in force as well, demonstrating their spellbreaking ability. The way they fought, they drew the surrounding mana into their limbs and weapons, and moved their double bladed glaives with such fluidity, it looked like they were dancing.
For Varrus, witnessing these people show off to train was like watching House Vandercross train to push the Undead menace out of their lands all over again.
Except there were many more high level experts at this training venue, and it felt almost something like a convention with all the different disciplines showing off.
Hell, even Rho'dan was getting into it, and showing off the quality of enchantments of his gear, and taking on all challengers. Already, a few dozens of the more mana hungry inclined had flocked under the Vandercross banner to sign up.
Varrus shook his head in awe at how many people were willing to put their lives on the line. Varrus had thought he was inspiring, and that the people he had managed to initially recruit were impressive. However, all it took was a few words from Kael, and tens of thousands had become near fanatical in their quest for vengeance. No wonder Kael had canonically recruited 15% of the total surviving population to go to war! Despite his faults, the Prince was charismatic.
Whether these big numbers were due to a larger venue, Varrus couldn't say, since he had personally saved well over 10,000 people, yet less than 500 of them stuck around (500 being only 5% of 10k).
But what this large recruitment drive did show Varrus was respect, and love for the Sunstrider name.
This respect for the Sunstriders only served to contrast with his Vandercross name. Varrus’ father must be like that one politician who served in office for 80% of their life, and refused to go until they died in their seat.
On the flip side, the people truly did love King Anasterian, and some of that love rubbed off on Kael.
If Varrus had to liken this case to a real world scenario, it would be like when Agustus inherited all of Caesar's estate after Caesar was murdered. The people hated the Senators, but adored Caesar’s heir.
While the current reformation of Silvermoon wasn't the same, it wasn't any less dramatic.
Already, Varrus had unwittingly slain two of his chief primary political rivals, and ascended to literally the second highest office in the land.
He was practically above censure, and along with his fellow councilors, could write the laws that bound the fates of more than 100,000 lives.
Varrus’ only worry-politically speaking-at the moment, was who was the one who had ordered, or convinced Dakar to levy those accusations against him? Was it the same figure who had launched that powerful Arcane arrow at his back from the Troll War? Or was it a separate party taking advantage of him?
Whoever this enemy of his was, they were cautious. Varrus would have to watch his back for potential assassins, as well as carefully monitor his forces. He felt like he had grown too big, too fast.
While he truly only trusted the old guard who had been with his father since the beginning, and solely used them as his liaisons, many of the House Guard saw him channeling King Theodan from LOTR while defeating Dar'Khan Drathir, and Varrus was certain some of them would eventually prove trustworthy.
While Varrus was busy considering how to best manage his house, and admiring the Blood Elves' newfound passion for revenge, he felt it.
The dark, nighttime sky erupted with an arc of green lightning.
Clouds came rolling in, and the air became thick, and muggy. Every breath felt dirty, like he was directly inhaling smoke created from a coal power plant.
The earth briefly rumbled from a small earthquake, causing some of the training Elves to fall over, or miss their target.
Green lightning streaked across the horizon to the south of Silvermoon, and great tears ripped the sky apart.
The green energy ripped, pulled, and finally tore a scar open.
Within the other side of the scar, hot, sickly sweet energy tickled Varrus’ nose. Small whiff of Fel green mana entered his pores giving him a slight high.
Rapidly blinking his eyes at the maddening phenomenon, Varrus checked his status to see what had been effecting him like this.
[(Temporary/Minor) Fel Touched: Increase Spell Power 5%]
Varrus hissed as the implications of the buff made itself known. If this was only a small hit of Fel, how powerful would the boost be if he went full on Fel Elf? 100%? 1,000%?
He could see why Kael had given in to the green stuff!
The way Blood Elf physiology worked, they could consume any kind of magic, and adapt well to it.
Honestly, Varrus was tempted to see if he could create the ultimate being by mixing all of the energies, but that path may lead to exploding into a rainbow cloud of dust.
However, given his UI, it wasn't as if he didn't already possess magic from different schools. He already possessed Death, Holy, and Arcane, possibly even Fel depending on where some of the Daedra summons came from.
This infusion of multiple energies certainly deserved further exploration, however, for now, Varrus had to concern himself with this scat in the sky.
If he was right, this should be a portal created from Archimonde.
Varrus never knew that Archimonde went this hard, but he was the number two demon, right behind the big bad himself. So it wasn't implausible for Archimonde to be on this level.
What shocked him was that Archimonde was seemingly going off script by opening a portal here. In his impression, the demon should be destroying Dalaran, then go on to sack Lordaeron to increase the Scourges numbers, before leading an attack on the Night Elves.
The only thing different Varrus could think of as to why Archimonde would do this was…Kith'ix!
Of course! The Legion was hell bent on destroying everything and anything related to the Void.
It had only been a day since the Old God minions' defeat, but Varrus could still feel faint echoes of Void energy radiating from that beach.
The portal began to fluctuate and shimmer, then out of it, more than 50 giant flaming rocks the size of an SUV came thundering down.
Although the portal closed, it was little comfort as the Infernals seemed to home in on the square, aiming for the densest, most populated groups.
While most Elves were panicking, Varrus noticed that Kael, Rhommath, and most figuratively speaking ‘high level’ characters were composed.
All around him, his supporters and true believers wore looks of hope, and encouragement.
Syra flashed him a smile, to which Varrus confidently replied.
‘Welp old boy, don't fuck this up!’ Varrus nervously thought to himself.
It was just fifty extinction ending meteors, was all. Nothing to worry about!
At least there was time to react, Varrus mused to himself as he scanned his spell list looking for another miracle to pull from the hat.
Although they were fast, the Infernals had a long way to go, giving Varrus and the rest at least one to two minutes of preperation.
In all honesty, taking a closer look, the Infernals were moving at cinematic speed, and might even take up to five minutes to impact.
It would seem that Archimonde enjoyed making a spectacle of things, and that dropping his big unstoppable rocks of flaming doom stretched over a few minutes was the sick mustache twirling evil that Varrus had come to expect from a Blizzard villain.
Fortunately at this point, Varrus had both Spell Power, and access to Master tier Destruction spells. Between him, Kael, Rhommath and the other Archmages, they should be able to stave off this attack.
Looking at his spells, there were quite a few good options for targeting enemies in the sky. Considering the demons were attributed to fire, he decided to go with spells that had a chilling or electric effect. Of the ones that interested him, Howling Blast, Static Dome, and Twister were all great options.
Howling Blast was a jet of icy wind that could freeze these hunks of rock frozen solid. Then when his perks kicked in, break them apart into harmless piles of sludge.
Static Dome seemed to be a defensive type spell that created a net of electricity in an area, and could condense into a globe of pure electricity.
Twister spoke for itself. If there was any great enemy to giant flying rocks, it was a giant wind tunnel.
So Varrus decided to hell with it, and cast all three!
Performing the silly looking dance that all Master tier Skyrim spells required, Varrus took about 3-5 seconds to fully charge up, then unleashed a Howling Blast.
As soon as Varrus’ hands released the spell, a jetstream of pure icy wind gushed up towards the sky.
Frozen chunks of air fell from the sky, yet the Howling Blast wasn't slowed in the slightest.
Thick like a Kamehameha wave from DBZ, the ice-blue magical attack met one of the falling Infernals in a cacophony of light and sound.
Over the course of no more than three seconds, green fire fought for dominance with cold ice, with ice eventually winning the fight.
A chain of perks activated at once, completely draining the Infernal of stamina, in effect deleting any and all of its momentum.
The principle perk, Glacial Prison completely dominated the Infernal, making the work of Howling Blast all that much easier due to the 25% reduction in magic resistance.
[Glacial Prison - Frost spells immobilize targets in a block of ice for 6 seconds, reducing magic resistance by 25%. This effect has a 120 second cooldown, but killing a victim affected by Glacial Prison or Hypothermia immediately ends the cooldown.]
As the Infernal came crumbling down, Varrus looked at his hands with a sense of wonder.
If he was honest with himself, he was the basic wizard who preferred killing all his problems with fire. There was nothing more satisfying than getting that big damage off an explosive combo.
However, he was starting to realize why someone might want to spec into frost magic. Because this shit? Was awesome!
That Infernal was flying down like an old B52 aircraft, big, bad and in charge. But because of the ice magic, it completely lost all of its momentum, crumbled into tiny chunks of ice like what falls out of airplanes, and dropped straight down like a gym bro dropping a dumbbell.
Shaking his head out of his stupor, Varrus didn't let himself conceited, there were still 49 more-Kael summoned a giant fireball, blasting an Infernal into dust as Varrus took stock of the situation-there were still 48 more Infernals to take care of!
As Varrus was preparing his next spell, some of the other Blood Elves began to act.
Mages launched countless Arcane Barrages, and rangers shot out Arcane arrows.
Lor'Themar proved to be the best amongst those present as his rate of fire was simply superior to everyone else. He would create a hole with one or two Arcane Arrows, then hit the exact same spot a second or third time, piercing deep into the Infernals core. Once the arrow landed, it would explode from the inside, causing the Infernal to erupt in a cacophony of green Fel fire.
The rest of the Convocation, however, were severely lacking when it came to long ranged firepower. Composed primarily of researchers and melee combatants, Varrus was the only powerful caster in the group.
Maybe if Koren were here, he could do something about it, however, he had also just lost his dragonhawk companion, so Varrus wasn't too sure on that front.
Of course, Varrus found himself incorrect of his assessment a moment later, when Tae'thelon, the former headmaster of the school that taught beginners magic came levitating over. He pointed his staff up at the sky, and for a moment, nothing much happened.
Then, bright white light began to gather around the tip of Tae'thelon’s staff, and ten seconds later, a basketball sized pale orb of Arcane energy shot at an Infernal, and exploded the Fel golem into rocky debris.
Not to be outdone by the only other councilor with long ranged capabilities, Varrus decided to say F it to the Static Dome, it was Twister time!
Taking a few seconds to cast once more, Varrus unleashed a tornado in the air, and aimed it directly in the Infernals flight path.
Interestingly, this spell also fell under the frost tree, and turned every Infernal it came across into chunks of ice.
Varrus also found that he could let the tornado chase after the Infernal like it had some basic AI like some spells in Skyrim tended to have. OR he could reenter the casting pose, and manually direct where it went.
While manually moving the tornado where he wanted it to go was tempting, Varrus had a much better idea.
Why settle for one Twister, when he could cast multiple twisters!?
Varrus was about to enact his mad idea, when Kael stole his thunder, and unleashed a grand spell of his own.
Two dozen mini phoenixes, the size of motorcycles, left Kael's hands and flew at the Infernals like heat seeking missiles. Brimming with both Holy and Arcane energy, these phoenixes packed an explosive punch! The light generated from their impact was so forceful, it made Varrus put a hand up to cover his eyes.
Once he blinked the spots in his vision away, he saw Jan'alai make an appearance, and utterly crush the final dozen or so remaining Infernals.
Thankfully Varrus had the presence of mind to have his Soul Cloak running once he spotted the enemy on the horizon (as had become habit by this point.) And each Infernal dropped a Common Soul Gem into his inventory. Very nice!
Unfortunately, many of the Infernals were outside of his collection range, so he only managed to snag 17 of the gems, but hey, he’d take it! In this war torn world, he needed all the materials for enchantment he could get!
While he was agonizing over the loss of a few stones, Jan'alai was doing acrobatics in the air, much to the crowd's pleasure.
Performing a loop in the air, Jan'alai received a round of overwhelming applause from the Blood Elves who could do nothing but watch during the fight.
Some who recognized her booed, or wore stone faces, much to the confusion of those around them.
However, when she landed, and transformed back into a Troll by Kael's side, all cheers of praise toward her ceased.
Kael was frowning at his newly dubbed Blood Elves, and it almost looked like a fight would break out.
Talk about awkward!
Varrus was embarrassed for his friend, and wanted to stand up for the helpful Troll, however a side eyed glance at his wife told him all he needed to know.
Sorry Kael, but this will be…character building for you! Helping integrate this girl into your social circle will be great for your relationship…and stuff!
Besides, the most important thing on Varrus' mind was that he very much liked having a happy wife at home. Sorry, but not sorry Kael!
