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Azeroth Adventure Journal - [ 04 ]
🕑 Added 2023-10-16 09:38:34 +0000 UTCAn annoyed groan left my mouth as I stirred, sleep was easy but now as wakefulness decided to annoy me I had to deal with bothersome things such as my aching side from sleeping on rough stone and the feeling of dread as the fact that I'm in a cell, under a keep and inside a dungeon all slammed into me.
I wish I at least knew who I am.
I thought wistfully, information didn't intrude on my mind this time but something else seemed to brush against it at my question. Unlike previously it wasn't just 'facts' being engraved into my memory but more a... suggestion. A suggestion that made me confused but with a shrug I decided to go along with it.
Can't hurt to try it, Status.
My eyes flew wide as I tried to slap away the floating blue letters that sprung into existence right in front of my face but all I managed was slap myself in the nose as my hand easily went through the letters. Now with my eyebrows twitching from irritation, I waved my hand in front of my face, my hand still going through the letters as if they weren't there, as if I was hallucinating but I didn't think you could read hallucinations just like you couldn't read in dreams but I could read these for sure.
They were beautiful letters, more painted than written and they shined in a soft blue glow.
Basic Information:
[Name: Elyndra]
[Race: Quel'Dorei / Highborne Elf] [Epic]
[Sex: Female]
[Age: -- ; Body Age: 12 years old]
[Status Effects]
[Active Skills]
[Physical Traits]
[Racial Traits]
[Traits]
[Skills]
[Potential]
[Class Progression]
I squinted at it as I read through the information, I already knew all of that. I don't remember there being anything about a blue window like this in the survey but then again I didn't remember about half of it so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to say this is because of that.
From the words under my age which turned out to be 12, I got the feeling that I could wish them to expand and they would, out of curiosity I mentally opened the first one.
Status Effects:
- Geas: "Do not kill the innocent."
- Geas: "Save Azeroth."
- Selective Amnesia [Legendary]: You remember all that one being in a faraway place once knew of the World that is Azeroth, you merely have to ask the question in your mind and the answers will be extracted from that being's database of knowledge. This Status becomes available the moment the Dark Portal opens on Azeroth.
What do you meeeeeaaaaan??!!!! Fuck you too blue words.
I slapped the blue window away and it obediently closed this time, not that it stopped me from fuming. I knew what a Geas was the moment I first read the word and I also instinctively knew that there was no way to break these Geases. Which meant I'd have to abide by them, the first one wasn't too bad and while it could be annoying at times but what made me livid was the second one.
'Save Azeroth'
Two words but they described an impossible task, how the hell would I save a damned planet that was in the middle of a celestial tug-of war between six pantheons of being so powerful they could obliterate me with a misplaced cough. I really hoped there wasn't a penalty for failing, I could just do my best and maybe somehow survive it if I was especially lucky but if I got killed if I failed then I was as good as dead.
Sure many powerful beings also wanted to 'protect' the planet but then came the philosophical questions, what do 'saving' and 'azeroth' mean in this context? Azeroth was a World Soul but not one like the Titans despite them really wanting her to be, would letting Azeroth awaken as a Titan mean I saved her or the exact opposite? I didn't know, which was what made that Geas such a pain. And the lack of context. Fuck you blue window.
I blinked as I caught myself, where did all that annoyance and irritation come from? I was sure I'd have felt some of it but... this was far too intense.
"Ughhhh," I slumped back onto the floor, "annoying..." I murmured, "Why is everything so difficult?"
Still...it'd be good to know whether this window knows something I don't...maybe there is something I don't know about myself in there.
Physical Traits:
- Contortionist [Uncommon]: Your flexibility reaches what most would call extreme. Your body is able to be folded into all manners of positions.
- Bombshell [Epic]: Your Body instills lust and arouses others. Fat collects in all the right places whilst lean muscle mass builds easily in your legs, glutes, abs, and back.
- Beautiful [Rare]: Your body is just simply sculpted to near perfection. Your best features are displayed as lush, inviting, and alluring. A terrible choice if you don't like to be the center of attention.
- Magic Fiend [Epic]: Your physiology has been altered from being bathed in mana or magic. Allows you to go into a state of Overdrive fuelled by your mana.
- Overdrive [Epic]: Amplify your strength, speed, intelligence, and reflexes at the expense of mana for a short duration of time. The amount relative to the mana expended.
- Arcane Eyes [Epic]: Your eyes may zoom in on distant objects, radiate with a faint purple or blue glow, have detailed sight and can sense non-elemental arcane mana-based energies.
My mouth twitched violently as I read the two Traits starting with a 'B', who the hell wants to be a bombshell? I'm just going to make myself sell for more as a prisoner.
Then my eyes widened a bit as I read through the last two entries, I knew of the Magic Fiend Trait but not that it allowed me to go into Overdrive and I had no idea it was only because of a trait that I could see the mana shining in my engraved rock. With a bit of excitement, I squinted and focused really hard on a single stone brick on the opposite wall, suddenly the wall was only a centimeter away from my face.
"Eeeep," I yelped as I threw myself backward but as my head moved my vision moved a thousand times faster, brick flew past my vision a hundred every second as if I was flying through the air faster than any bird had a right to.
I heaved as I closed my eyes and blessedly I couldn't see the cells in my eyelids, it was only then that I realized what happened and I couldn't help but blush in embarrassment. I felt my ears droop in a sign of meekness as I opened my eyes again and thankfully the wall was as far from me as it should be.
A sigh left my lips as I sank onto the floor like a sack of potatoes, my legs splayed around me in an M shape. I should check the other windows too.
One window already gave me a useful ability, well, more like made me aware of it but it was almost the same to me. Arcane Eyes wouldn't help me break out of here but Overdrive might and I only checked a single window so far so there might be something else useful hiding in there, something that wasn't like 'Bombshell'.
Racial Traits - [Race: Quel'Dorei / Highborne Elf] [Epic]:
- Arcane Balance [Epic]: Mastery of mana, using it, storing it, and cultivating it is second nature to you.
- Arcane Torrent [Rare]: Silence and siphon the mana of all enemies within reach for a short duration.
- Mana Addict [Detrimental]: You will need to feed on mana often or succumb to the debilitating effects.
- Arcane Affinity [Rare]: Enchanting weapons, armor, clothing, or artifacts come easy to you.
- Scholar [Rare]: Your ability to research, develop knowledge, and discover the truth and fundamentals of a subject is unparalleled. You find it easy to learn, and you will adapt to new concepts and knowledge much faster.
I didn't really know what the grades and colors next to the Traits meant but Rare should be rather good, I mean, Rare things were good, right?
Arcane Balance was a good one but I think every High Elf like me should have it, if not the same grade of it. Arcane Torrent caused a grin to spread over my lips, I was so going to steal the magic of the humans holding me captive.
The realization that I'd be beaten up even then was like a bucket of cold water being dumped on my head, it didn't help much that I could steal their magic and mana if the dumb humans didn't have any in the first place.
I skipped Mana Addict for now, I knew all too well how fucked I was if I didn't have Mana to nom-nom all the time so I didn't want to be reminded of it.
Arcane Affinity could be useful but only if I knew how to do any of those things, enchanting was a profession and I know absolutely nothing about it even if I poked my mysterious font of knowledge which should be that 'Selective Amnesia' thingy, wasn't amnesia when you forgot things? But I was getting new things stuffed into my head by that thing. Whatever, weird names for weird things I guess.
Just as I was mentally hovering over the next button to open my so-called 'Skills' the heavy wooden door rattled and the distinctive sound of the large iron key turning in its rusty keyhole echoed through the dungeon. The blue window flew right out of my mind as a new wave of fear twisted my stomach into a tight knot, I bit my lips as I stared towards the bars where I imagined Blackmoore emerging from any moment now.
The door was painfully slow to open and the wait was almost worse than what I thought would come, I wished he'd damn hurry up as I was getting a heart attack here but that'd probably earn me a whipping or something similar.
"Urgh," I heard a soft grunt as the door creaked open, it was feminine but maybe I've just had too many Orc grunts and growls and normal humans just sounded feminine in comparison. "Get the torch you lazy fuck."
Female for sure.
I heard another pair of footsteps scramble forward, heavier than the presumed woman who spoke up and then the flickering lights went crazy as the shadows jumped around chaotically, in essence, someone picked up the torch.
For a change I somehow managed to keep breathing even as I heard the two pairs of footsteps along with the torch approach my cell, they passed Thrall's without a word and a moment later I had to shield my eyes as the torch's light glared me in the eye.
"So you are the one I have to teach," the woman said sourly and I peeked at her between my fingers, she was tall, taller than most humans I saw so far if not taller than Thrall. She had her hair in a short bob cut which made it so that her brown locks halfway covered her right eye of the same color, as for her face...it was average, even just looking at her the only distinctive thing about her was her height and the slightly bleeding scar running from her left eye to the edge of her mouth.
"Get up," she said, "open the damned door already."
The man behind her who I could barely make out with the torch shining in his face stepped close to the bars and fiddled with some keys. In the meantime, I got to my feet as I was told, somehow just that she was a woman made me a bit calmer so I didn't have a problem with fear paralyzing me like with Backmoore.
"Good," she said, "come on, close the doors behind us and take the keys back to your Master."
The man didn't answer but as the woman started walking out of the dungeon I ran after her and fell into step a meter behind her. I heard the bars click close as the man once again tried to somehow lock it with one hand as the other held the torch.
I sort of jogged after the woman, she walked so damned fast and my tiny legs couldn't keep up with her long strides without me breaking into a jog every few meters.
We reached the stairs at the end of the dungeon, I took a last glance behind me before I started hopping up two stairs at a time to keep up. I hope I never have to come down here again.
I didn't hear Thrall in his cell so they must have let him out for training while I was sleeping, would I see him up 'there'? What would this woman 'teach' me? I rubbed my hands together to relieve some of the chill that settled into them but it didn't help much with my feet still being bare and constantly pitter-pattering on the cold stone steps.
The last step came without me noticing and I almost planted face-first into the dirt but caught myself on my hands and knees just before that.
"Get up," the woman said coldly as she glanced back at me without stopping.
I scrambled onto my feet and ran off after her, the ground went from being a cold but stable stone to sticky mud. I thought the stone was bad but only in a few steps my legs were coated in cold mud up to my calves but I managed to somewhat keep up with the woman even if it resulted in me slipping and putting on a nice coat of mud over my already ragged clothes.
My mind was focused on just following the tall woman and I only barely noticed the other people walking around and the stone buildings all around me. The woman walked with a goal in mind, her stride confident and I just followed after her as I sometimes had to jump out of the way of some large people.
A few minutes later the woman turned into a small building at the edge of the Keep right next to the large wall reaching up many times higher than even the woman was tall.
It quickly disappeared as I stepped through the doorway, the moment I did I froze stiff as my gaze jumped between the relatively clean room and the...state of my feet and most of my clothing. Then I glanced at the woman and blinked at her brown boots, they didn't have even a drop of mud on them.
"Clean it off," she said as she threw a rag at me and I quickly got to it, I much preferred whatever this woman would do to me than any of them men so maybe I wanted to make a favorable impression on her if I could.
The mud was nasty and I was still brown up to my knees when I was done but it was more like a body paint than a whole set of armor made of dirt.
"Stand here," she pointed to the middle of the room and I walked over, my hands wrapped together as I fidgeted. My gaze jumped around and did its best to avoid making eye contact with the woman now walking around me and looking me up and down.
"Do you know why are you here?"
"N-No?" I answered, a bit surprised at the question so it came out in a stutter much to my embarrassment. A great way of making a favorable impression.
"I've been asked..." she started, her lips curling down, "ordered, to teach you."
I just stared at her, what was I supposed to say? I had no idea what was even happening.
"Ah whatever," she groaned as she slumped into the shoddy wooden chair, " put this on."
She threw a weird piece of fabric at me and I managed to catch it before it fell to the dirty floor, it looked like a long silky black piece of fabric as wide as two of my fingers put together. I just glanced up at her and then down at the cloth, was I supposed to tie my hair up with it or wrap it around my wrist?
"Neck," she motioned around her own which now that I looked had a similar fabric wrapped around it.
I gulped inadvertently, a feeling that I really shouldn't put it around my neck rose within me but a pointed look from the woman made me quickly wrap it around my dainty neck. As I started to fumble with tying it on the fabric shifted and slipped out of my grasp, I felt it tighten almost painfully on my neck next.
In a panic, I tried to pull it off but it tightened even more, then I started to panic for real as my airflow was cut off and the thing started choking me.
“Calm down or it will only stop once you pass out,” the woman said, her voice traced with a fair bit of dark amusement but I was hardly in a state to listen to her.
“STOP!”
My body froze up as tears of frustration welled up in my eyes, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move.
Then the choker relented and went lax on my neck, I still felt it but it wasn’t any different from how it appeared, a soft piece of fabric lightly wrapped around my neck.
I coughed, then heaved as beautiful, tasty air made its way into my lungs and down my sore throat.
“Wasn’t so hard was it?” the woman looked at me indifferently but her previous amusement gave way to a slight…pity.
“Congratulations to you brat,” she smirked down at me, “Welcome to the Syndicate.”
Comments
P3t1
Yep
Valeria_
The [bombshell] 'perk' is cursed more often than it's helpful even in non hell worlds, hope she's able to work around it. Lord knows I'd pick up a disguise kit, hooded cloak and loose clothes as soon as possible, then polymorph.
Han Pol
I overall like this start and wonder how this continues.
