Stairway to Somewhere (Multicross SI?)
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26. Spying on the Adventure in the Borderlands
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"No more adventures for Lirath?" My Caster asked me with a hint of glee tainting her voice. A small smile sneaked itself onto her expression as she coaxed foreign images into the air—her divination skills had risen once more with my advancement of magical theory.
I gave the image currently floating in the air a side-long glance. It was my little sister's group—and somehow also my fiancee's group at that—and they were fumbling around in some dank cave part of the expansive underground caverns system near Stratholme. And they were having trouble with… kobolds. "I would prefer more to stay home and 'tech up' as it were. Build some towers and defenses and play the long game… I have some time."
"I remember a Lirath with a sense of urgency to grow and improve. What happened to that Lirath?" She sauntered over and draped herself on my shoulders.
This made it hard to concentrate. Medea's scent wasn't exactly floral, and she didn't put on anything overwhelming, but there had to be some alchemical mixture or magical formula, because I felt my heart beat faster and my blood rush… I almost wanted to lick the air to take in more of her smell. "I am still working on preparation for my next adventure. The Scrolls of Meitre had been disregarded for so long, but there was a temporal elemental I want to consult with before I go."
The video in the air changed angles, from the overhead view of the seven elves surrounded by what looked like a hundred kobolds in some shaky cave that looked like it could collapse at any moment from a big spell or hit to the walls to focusing on Lyandra Sunstrider. "And why did you allow your sister to approach her first then, beloved? Would it not be best for the first in her heart to be you?"
"I will be the first in her heart. But love is not a race, and this is especially so in a… large group." I didn't shrug her off, but compared to the topic of discussion, my work seemed rather dull. Or I just liked to hear the sound of my voice. "Most of my previous steps have succeeded. She didn't approach me on her own accord in Silvermoon, but in hindsight, I think that's for the best. Even when she's feeling like she is at the bottom of the world, she will still have standards and a line she won't cross."
"So what is it then? Hm… I think I can guess it. By tying Alleria to Lyandra, she would not be adverse to further affections and a… larger group. But isn't that silly? Your King Anasterian has a harem, and so many ancient nobles did as well," She counted off with her long, slender fingers.
It felt nice, tickling and coaxing, to have her fingertips run across my skin. More so when she scratched lightly and ran her fingernails through my scalp. I closed my eyes and turned my attentions entirely on my Caster at this and leaned back, her soft bosom cushioning my back. "Everyone has a role in this family. Alleria wishes to lead, but she doesn't like making decisions. You, on the other hand, are a manipulator. You like to love me, you like to serve me, but more than anything you tend to tunnel vision on individuals and want to play with them like puppets. Lyandra, on the other hand, is a masochist underneath her girl-next-door demeanor. She delights in serving… she becomes frustrated with being the 'team mom' and so readily handed it off to Caperian."
"Alleria does like to be more forceful than you… so it is to shape her then?" My Caster tapped her chin in wonder.
I turned to face her, only to see a playful look. She knew that I knew that she knew, but she wanted me to say it. She was the better manipulator, and a better schemer in these petty things. I should have known. "Say I offer her something for her affections, or devotion, or servitude, or simple attendance in the family. No matter how generous I am, after emotion mute as they do over time, the resentment will eventually rise. I could make her love me. I could twist her mind into being utterly loyal. But where's the fun in that?"
"… that is to say you don't care about her enough to twist her mind, isn't that it? You were so ready to leap to sink your fingers into my soul, my Master, and even your Little Sister fell victim to your whims…" Medea chortled in a manner befitting a princess.
"You could interpret it that way." I allowed, "Or you could say that I am no longer the little boy I used to be. I believe in myself more."
"Just another step to arrogance, from another point of view," She pointed out. "Do you think letting her feel like she was the one who chose to be part of this relationship rather than you offering it to her directly is enough? Too much of your plan hinges on this…"
"Even if I fail, she can't forget me, and she can't forget Alleria. Lyandra is not so jaded that she is immutable yet." I tinkered with what I had in mind for her for a moment before pausing. "She'll come around soon enough. Zoom back out, I wasn't paying attention to them for the last two days while they were doing their menial chores, what happened?"
The vision veered for a moment, blurring as we looked elsewhere.
When it finally stopped, we ended up looking at what looked like a troll wearing an elf mask. It was like one of those costumes that people put on in those meta-events in World of Warcraft that were silly mirrors of real world holidays, this one in particular looking especially horrendous.
I boggled at it for a second when I realized that the troll was actually in the middle of Nallorathinum. He was standing on a wooden crate and shouting the sort of thing that most doomsday prophets shouted about, but interestingly he was actually preaching some kind of amalgam faith that fused the highborne belief in the Sunwell and the troll voodoo and loa into something that he called the 'Dark Sun'.
For a moment, I didn't know what to think about this, but then I realized that this must have been the Sun Cult that was rumored to have started spreading around in the borderlands. I looked over at Medea suspiciously.
My Caster shrugged haphazardly, "The mask is magical."
"Is that why everyone acts like he is a normal elf?" I deadpanned.
She nodded, "Moreover, he was the one to give Alleria and her friends their lead. I do believe that they are not the first group of adventurers who have been lured into those caverns, into what I do believe you experts call an ambush."
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Fucking Warcraft, and its silliness leaking at the weirdest times.
When I opened my eyes, we were staring back at the group again. If I were more honest, I would have said that they didn't look too bad. A lot of them were relevant characters in the Burning Crusade expansion of the game, so in an alternate timeline, they would have survived for another three thousand years before being dunked on by random scrubs.
The leader of the group was still Thaladred. He was tall for an elf at a bit over two meters, and he was the second largest in the entire group. He stood a bit far from the rest of the group, which allowed him to spin around like a top, or a kid in a playground, but it seemed to work well for him in his now dulled bronze full plate. His axe cut through nearby kobolds as if they offered no resistance, so it was probably magical in nature.
While Thaladred charged in the front, the actual brains of the operations was Caperian. This blue-haired beauty of an elven lady stood far back and wore the purple and white robes of a fully graduated mage, in contrast to the blue and white robes of a mage apprentice that Lyandra wore. Caperian wielded a wand that seemed to leak sparkles shaped like stars, and every so often, she would hurl a fireball. Her fireballs were nothing like mine, taking her around twenty seconds to cast and looking like slow-moving flaming basketballs instead of what were fireballs in my mind. However, after my time at the academy, I knew that this kind of fireball was popular and the 'orthodoxy' for mages in this era.
Dark blonde curls fell over Lyandra's eyes, she looked rather pretty in the, well, Taylor Swift sort of way, but elfish. Almost plain, but not really. Almost a bombshell, but not really. She wasn't as thick as Caperian, nor as cute as Alleria, but she had the sort of childhood friend sort of charm. She also held a large, gnarled staff, which she used to cast a spell of light while occasionally whacking any monsters that got close. While the light spell was simple in nature, she didn't have any off time and was actually maintaining it throughout the entire time they had been dungeon crawling through the underground tunnels. Elves really needed to learn how to use torches, for fuck's sake.
Actually, they no longer suffered from lacking any front lines while Thaladred went ahead and did his own thing. This was because the knight named Sanguinar actually had a shield. He stood a little taller than Thaladred, but he wore iron chain and scales rather than a full set of bronze plates. However, his shield was still a large turtle shell shaped piece of bronze, like a hoplon that ancient Greeks used.
Behind Sanguinar stood Telonicus, who ditched his slingshot. That was probably smart, considering how dark it was and how densely packed they were in the tunnels. He was liable to hit someone who didn't enjoy it like Thaladred did. Perhaps Caperian and Sanguinar were just as crazy as Telonicus and Thaladred were, but they at least didn't want to be hit by rocks in the back of the head. Telonicus had opted to carry a knife and stab out every so often.
Wait, where was Alleria… oh.
There she was.
Alleria and Kael'thas were arguing with each other, almost oblivious of the situation they were in. Alleria must have been growing a bit too self-confident because she wasn't meeting any challenges out in the world. I made a note to bully her ruthlessly in bed when she returned.
However, Kael'thas was actually being a little dipshit. He didn't notice how close he had been to getting hurt, and it had been only because of his somewhat more competent teammates that he was relatively unscathed so far.
"What are those two arguing about?" I pointed at Alleria and Kael'thas. "Give me some sound."
Medea looked at me with a look that expressed her reluctance.
"What?"
"If you're sure…" She sighed, and the waved upwards.
"BIG FIREBALLS ARE THE BEST!"
"NO, SMALL AND FAST ONES ARE BETTER!"
"BUT THE BIG ONES EXPLODE EVERYWHERE!"
"IT'S NOT ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE FIREBALL, IT'S HOW YOU USE IT!"
"… oh, shut them up." I scowled.
At that moment, Thaladred shouted something. The group was starting to become exhausted, and their supplies, ammunition, and even bandages were running low.
This caused Telonicus to toss his only bomb up cross and into the ceiling, triggering a massive explosion of fire, shrapnel, and rock. At the same time, Caperian and Lyandra worked together to conjure a wall of ice as the group ran ahead to plug the tunnels. It was an inelegant solution that didn't solve anything, but for the moment, the group survived biting off more than they could chew on.
Surprisingly, Lyandra matched Caperian in her spellwork, such that her icewall supported as much of the tunnels as Caperian's did. I didn't know the girl had it in her, good on her for growing up as a mage… not that she seemed to notice.
They scrambled and ran out of the tunnel, huffing and sweating all the while. By the time they reached the exit, the sky was getting dark and they decided to camp out on a hill not too far away from the tunnels, in case any stragglers followed them. That was probably an excuse. They were too exhausted to trek back to town, anyway.
As they ate their rations for the evening, they came to a group decision to confront the 'elf priest' in Nallorathinum.
How droll.
Still, I couldn't help but feel a little happy for them, getting some headway in their first real quest. I waved at Medea, "Don't forget to record all of this. My Little Sister's first adventure… ah, it'll be so embarrassing for her when we bring out the pictures in a thousand years."
"I'm already on it, Master!" My Caster gave me a thumbs up, before showing off the collection of recordings she'd been making of Alleria's group.
I paused mid-step and squinted at her collection of discs—the sort of recording technology grown from Resident Evil Earth and the remnant technology of the Titan Keeper facility that the gnomes had come out of. I could see some of what was on those discs… some of those discs contained other moments of other people…
Wait, one of those was me bathing…
"Medea?"
"… Master?"
I patted my lap. "Bend over."View This ThreadUnread Watched T