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74. Budding Repellant
🕑 Added 2025-07-15 15:54:16 +0000 UTC"You seem elsewhere, little brother, far more than usual. I know you have a strange saying, 'sleep is overrated,' but we are ursine. Sleep is part of our existence." The growling voice of Ursoc snapped me out of my thoughts, and I smiled faintly.
"But it is. I certainly need rest, but I can go days without it, with little adverse effect. And when I do, I can continue some of my work in the Dreaming." I said, grasping the offered honey beer of his personal stash and creation.
I twirled the barrel-sized cup at the tip of my claws for a second that seemed to stretch eternally, observing bubbling, creamy, golden liquid within before taking a swig.
The smell was divine.
The fuzziness, burn, and harmonious sweetness of the liquid as it went down my throat were utterly delightful, too.
The Bear of Might was among the best brewers ever to walk Azeroth, if not simply the best.
He picked up on it in its infancy when the first sapient organic life emerged, and his skill showed continuous improvement over the multi-dozen millennia of his life.
Biomantic creations only improved what was already perfect, customizing the ingredients to an extreme, transcending even beyond.
This cup alone was priceless, and unlike every regular alcoholic beverage… I felt its effect without the amount drunk needing to be twice the amount of blood in my body.
It was great. Better even.
There was a reason furbolg alcohol was in such high demand in the Wild, and Ursoc's personal brand was among the greatest rewards for the Wild Hunt.
They were more than alcohol; those were elixirs and potions warped into one.
"Riddles are useless to me, Ohto. Since Wyrmrest and the ensuing visits over the past weeks, something has been on your mind. You know, you can tell the upstart lizards to fix their own mess." The Mighty Bear intoned, sitting right next to me as we stared at the rising sun from Hyjal Summit.
It was a beautiful sight, one common after a meeting with the Wild Council as they were usually scheduled at midnight. And they lasted hours, long enough for us to reach the first morning light, if not more.
And I stayed longer, reviewing my handwritten notes of what had happened. I wasn't absent from the wider world and its happenings, but I have spent significantly more time in laboratories lately.
I needed to.
"I could, but when they fuck up, everyone is concerned. You know what awaits us. And you know, we get that too. They are moving their scaly rumps before it's too late, with Ahn'Qiraj. I got a lot of magical lore from them too…" I trailed off, taking another gulp of divine beverage, my mind sharpening from its mystical property yet simultaneously buzzing pleasantly.
I unfolded one of my backpack compartments from my bark carapace and tapped a dragon scale-bound crimson tome at my hip. I closed it soon after.
It was about the art of Blood magic. Arcane and Life, well, Arcane to Order Life in a way that was primarily forcing things. It was comparable to Nature magic, but one was of Life first and broader.
It was a common theme with Arcane and a big part of how Chromatus was created.
I couldn't do this type of magic, not as it was written, but there were a lot of fascinating theorems and concepts. Still, I took it as a fact that it was directly tied to bloodline and, more broadly speaking, genetics.
The more I learned, the greater the mess the chromatic dragons became than I had initially diagnosed.
Dragonflights did interbreed, but by design, only the magically strongest factored in the type hatched. It was quite fascinating, but that wasn't the point.
It was also heavily frowned upon culturally, killing any chance of an exception from emerging through evolution.
So there was no 'hybrid.' Until now, that is. Even if I hardly considered any deserving of that appellation, given that they were barely alive. Blood magic took, at best, it shaped and shared, it never created.
The chromatic dragons were flawed from the beginning, and that was the least problematic part of their fucked up physiology.
"They want a tool of war with you as its architect. How ironic of them." Ursol proposed, even if it was more of an affirmation, one that I proved right moments after.
"More or less. Alexstrasza is all wishy-washy about it, but that's what they are. I would put failsafes in place, but even if we succeed, it won't be a pretty outcome. But the dragons hired me for a job, not wax philosophy and poetry, they do that plenty enough." I shrugged helplessly, with a smile tugging my muzzle.
"Then let's break a bit of that monotonous routine you have walled yourself in, brother! Let our fangs and claws clash freely, draw blood, and maul to our wild hearts' content, that should clear the fog of your mind! Show me the might and wisdom of the Bear of Resilience!" He brazenly declared, chest puffed and titansteel claws manifesting like gloves on his paws.
I blinked, but a second later, a feral grin split my muzzle, and my bark cracked with a dry boom. The beer in my mug was drunk in one fell swoop as I stood up.
"Wait!" I said, and my back shifted. The Great Bloodwork, as the Blood Magic book was called, and most of my belongings were placed on the ground. Then I burrowed them in a deadly nest of moving roots.
I wouldn't want to damage anything after all.
"Done… Not too many tricks, I suppose, that would spoil the fun, wouldn't it?" I asked for my four serrated vines, which unfolded before whipping the air and rattling.
"Less talking, more fighting!" The Bear of Might bellowed and was on me in a split second. His legendary weapons cut through the wind, forcing me to jump back to dodge by a hair's breadth.
Then that was a yes. An understandable one, my last breakthrough in using bees only made it worse. Not that big brother was exactly honorable by human standards when it came to fighting.
Testicles were as good as any target to bite, so bees weren't a problem. But that meant no running away to kite or continually harassing from a distance.
These were my usual go-to tactics for winning against him with any degree of certainty.
It was tedious and frustrating for everyone involved, though. So I braced myself as Ursoc's left paw, three times the size of my head, slammed on my shoulder plate, cracking it open.
Pain bloomed as my bones rattled from the impact as I was, for all intents and purposes, flung like a ragdoll. All my weight was hot air against his unrestrained strength.
My airborne state was short-lived; my vines snapped to the ground, digging deep trenches as they dragged me down in an instant before lashing out like guided harpoons at the bigger bear.
Ursol rushed forward, regardless of the cuts, his titansteel faceplate shielding his eyes, ears, and nose from most of the harm. Even as I tried to target those weak points, he made sure to remain unpredictable, and if he couldn't, he would parry or dodge.
Any wounds done otherwise were predominantly scratches.
They were lashed with toxin cocktails and lacerating thorns, but to him, those were merely irritating from both his size and semi-divine biology.
A common problem with techniques of that variety against less squishy targets.
The moment of impact was inevitable, his greater bulk, speed, skill, and strength making the exchange one-sided purely on melee. Feints were seen through, suicidal charges were anticipated, and taken advantage of.
I was a simple cub against the Bear of Might as a warrior. But the biggest problem was that he knew me like the back of his paw. We had spared a lot over the years.
However, my wooden shell held on strong, and when it failed, the wounds received were either inconsequential or healed faster than they were earned. Whereas for Ursoc, they piled up little by little.
One bite here, one slash there, and one laceration above. His auburn fur was wet with blood.
Still, I was suffering as well, sap and blood made my black fur and the verdant moss and colorful garden of my bark take on their shades. The wounds may not last, but I didn't break the conversion of energies.
This was a losing tactic at the rhythm we were going.
'Go, my murderous little ones!' I commanded, mana pulsing to an area of my back that had been recently added to house my new tool more comfortably for me.
The raging buzz of many thousands of pairs of wings came forth from the dry bark above where my vines grew—beehives in designed wood compartments coming to life.
They were my vorpal bees, or one of the first working prototypes. They could listen to three things: be passive, be aggressive, but not to me, and retreat to enter torpor. However, there was a lot of improvement to be made; for now, it was shoddy at best.
They were small, a smidgen larger than ants, yet their mandibles, forelimbs, and stingers were sharper than any mundane blade and lashed with a potent neurotoxin.
And they were all tied to the brains of multiple far, far larger flightless 'queens' I was connected to through my mycelium filaments. It was an elaborate trick to mimic mind control through pheromones and magic.
It worked well enough for this situation, though.
They dove on Ursoc from my retreating form, taking the form of buzzing black clouds. They slipped through his armor, skittering in his furs like fleas and crawled into orifices to sting and dig flesh like parasitic maggots.
That would have incapacitated most opponents right here from sight alone. Though my opponent was a Wild God, and of all of them, he was the Mighty Bear.
His body was supernaturally resistant, even among them, and his sensory organs were doubly so.
As such, the swarm was substantially less effective, but that was normal. The vorpal bees were designed to maim agile, fragile targets, such as mages and assassins.
And he was the bear of bears. Bees were never going to pose a mental hazard. But they were an inconvenience; my adoptive brother couldn't rid himself of them with me maintaining the pressure.
"Crafty as always, Ohto! But that's not enough!" Ursol bellowed through the cacophonous buzzing with pride and bloodlust.
His fangs bared in a manic grin as I parried smash from his left paw, forcing me back as I used my magic to break my limits. My expression wasn't different.
"You say, but who's bleeding?!" I shot back, jumping from the momentum of his strike. The vines of my back tensed as I redirected myself onto his back and bit his nape hard.
Bees angrily danced around us like a storm as he slammed his back against the rocky side, splintering the wall as if it were a bunch of dry sticks.
Our spar truly began there and became progressively more violent yet relatively restrained. We weren't aiming to kill each other, even if it might appear that way.
We could take punishment like very few could, even more so for me.
It was a long and bloody battle that lasted till the moons truly vanished on the horizon and the sun was a fourth of the way through the sky.
Only to come to an abrupt end when both of us, caked in easily half a hundred litres of our own warm and dried blood and sap, as the third of our trio came with a bemused look.
We didn't spot him at first, too entranced in our combat until the ground we stood on became akin to water, yet harder than any mundane metal, as two massive bear jaws of stone ensnared us.
"That was impressive, now if you please stop reshaping the local topography for the day." Ursol chided, but he was clearly enjoying himself from the rock, looking down on us.
A rock with plenty of large roots, I may or may not have used to make him trip as he strutted toward our still-entrapped selves.
All grace was gone; his burning golden eyes were wide open as he planted his muzzle first in the bloody mud. His glowing azure now marred in crimson and debris, the elemental prison broke down right after as a last insult.
The first to laugh was his twin, deep and resounding like the howling fjord, yet thoroughly exhausted from our lengthy battle.
The second was torn from my throat, equally spent but more measured, finally, after a baleful glare, the Bear of Wisdom to his namesake chuckled.
Yet his eyes promised vengeance. He could try; I was ready.
Alas, moments like this, whether with them, my parents, or little siblings, were rare, and our situation with the Kingdom of Ahn'Qiraj only made it rarer.
After the Horde became violently acquainted with them, the bugs quickly abandoned stealth.
Cenarion Hold had been next on their list, but unlike what they did with the Horde, we were amply prepared with Agamaggan, our army, and extensive Wild Hunt squads always on site.
This was the most expensive military expansion since the Wild's inception, with even Gilnean worgen having heard through the Newmoon pack willing to partake in it to repay their debts.
And it wasn't only them; the scale of the threat and our influence made the natural world move as one in a way that only the Burning Legion's invasion had.
Mountain giants, faerie dragons, treants, and wildkins, all allies of the Wild yet without a Representative, were seen.
Dragons were present as well, though of the Green and Red Dragonflight only, with a sprinkle of the blue.
Bronze dragons knew better than to show up unless they gave us the two remaining shards of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands. We knew they had one and knew where the last one was, given that the blue dragon entrusted with it had mysteriously died.
They weren't our mortal enemies, but the trust was shattered when they betrayed us. Us being the correct term, the kaldorei were of the Wild and founding members.
It didn't matter if this was a proverbial necessity to save Azeroth. And those dragons were unwanted, unneeded, and would prove untrustworthy allies anyway. There was nothing worse than that.
Based on research into the biology of the qiraji and silithids, past experience, and observations, the results were self-evident.
The first clash with them had been brutally one-sided, and a counter-invasion of their tunnels began immediately. It was a victory, but far from the end; in fact, it was foolish to celebrate it.
Ahn'Qiraj's claws ran deep and stretched far; we had hundreds of kilometers of tunnels–at best–to find one of the breaches in the Scarab Wall from Cenarion Hold. It was exceptionally short compared to anything else.
The entire desert of Silithus became a warzone, as was above and so below. After the first hive to open, dozens followed in rapid succession.
But Cenarion Hold held strong even against the endless tide of chitinous warriors, enslaved titanic constructs, and modular beasts. It was a veritable meat grinder, or so I had heard and read.
I hadn't participated in the battle.
Not for a lack of wanting, but my time and efforts were better used in research. My deal with the Dragon Queen was beneficial in that regard.
A submissive and living Chromatus was what she wanted, but the knowledge I received in the process was invaluable.
I discovered much on my own, but I reached limitations long ago in terms of how fast and safely I could advance. Even with students helping, the foundation was mine.
Twenty millennia worth of magical lore and some of the greatest magical researchers in the history of Azeroth not only expanded but reshaped this foundation far beyond what I would have ever achieved.
Most were theories at the time, but many of them had an immediate impact on the current war.
One example was pollen engineered to plug spiracles, essentially nostrils for insects. It was through those holes they breathed.
The pollen disintegrated when in contact with too much moisture and did little while airborne, to a certain point of course. Cases of suffocation among our force were avoided like this, for the most part.
It was undeniably dangerous.
But when a grain of pollen landed, and the airflow and moisture were stable, things got interesting. It would expand and attract fellow spores, repeating the process till no space was available.
That was how the asphyxium flowers were fertilized, and they mimicked spiracles.
So, for pollen, a random qiraji's breathing holes and a patch of asphyxium were one and the same. It was profoundly twisted and amusing, fitting for bastards like them.
These made entire areas where the flower grew death zones for unprotected qiraji and still unadapted silithids.
But it was limited, at certain points humidity became too high like when the terrains became organic-like. Still, it helped defend captured territories and the fruits were sweet and edible, so that was a plus.
I didn't have the precision to do that before. The biomancers I taught were enough to spread the fruits of this shared labor.
That was only a fraction of a whole to combat the Kingdom of Ahn'Qiraj. Those flowers were effective, but our foes weren't mindless or limited in tactics.
Supplies and people were flowing en masse from the Dream Portal down there. But it wasn't the only place where the Old God army bloomed like cancerous tumors, literally in many ways.
They were certainly far less in scale, but they were up to Durotar.
From this fact alone, virtually everywhere from the Scarab Wall was potentially infested. As the weeks passed, this became increasingly evident.
Kalimdor was swallowed in a storm of angry skittering and mandibles, with only Mulgore, the Stonetalon Mountain, and North of the Wild's domain spared. For now
Thousands of tunnels created a web of fleshy interior and organic structures, a blight on the land and life from which Ahn'Qiraj could attack freely and move their own weapons. They could come from anywhere, and some of their weapons would do far worse than kill.
Among them were giant sandstone gemstones capable of directly attacking and influencing the minds. Resonating Crystals was their appellation directly ripped out of a qiraji prophet's brain by yours truly.
Ethics was the farthest from my and my students' concerns when it came to dissecting every part of those creatures, even more so when it was a mind raping specialist.
And those gigantic hovering orange crystals were horrific constructs, doing what the Qiraji prophet did but on a massively superior level.
They had a dual purpose; they served as beacons for the silithid hive minds and as instruments of despair to the weak and unshielded, where their minds would be twisted into tools.
Yet those were scarce and static; they were predictable, if extremely dangerous, all the same.
No, the most significant problem we faced, aside from our inability to cause permanent damage to Ahn'Qiraj, was the scale of the war and the lack of effective intelligence. We were vastly outnumbered and blind.
That was predicted after the first silithid sighting; we had to ally with the Horde, not to win, but to limit the cost for said win.
And the same was for them–needing help, not winning–unless they bombed themselves to annihilation fighting the bugs as some kind of pointless pyrrhic victory.
The urgency of the matter led the Horde to contact us first. It was an envoy of Thrall requesting to deal with those creatures. That had been the main discussion of this Wild Council.
Magatha, Zak'ji, and I were voted upon after the first's proposal to speak with the Warchief on neutral ground in the Barrens.
This led to the presence of the three of us studying a giant airship with the Horde flag proudly displayed as it landed in front of us.
Exiting it was none other than an armored orc with a distinct warhammer strapped to his back hadn't seen in nearly six years, Thrall, the Warchief. His face was grim.
He was followed by an old tauren I hadn't seen in equally as long, with a grave expression, Cairne Bloodhoof, leader of the Horde taurens. His eyes widened when they landed on me.
I hadn't seen the two that followed, but I recognized them: a goblin with a plethora of gadgets and trinkets, Monte Gazzlow.
The uncontested leader of Goblinkind and apparently the least problematic on an individual level.
A dubious claim.
The last was a far smaller troll than I was used to, with markings of various Loa, Vol'jin, Chieftain of the Darkspear. He was the most influential leader of the troll tribes in the Horde.
To say the tension was sky high would be an understatement.
And the following warriors, shamans, and others who disembarked after didn't help. There was a lot of glare and scowl between them and our own soldiers and adventurers.
Today wasn't likely to be a bloodbath, and the first to burst the bubble was Magatha. And she cut straight to the point.
"You have asked for a meeting, so we came, Thrall. You seek an alliance against a shared enemy, as we do; let us speak of the terms."
