90. Backups

I waited for the fungal person to respond or react in any way other than shock at being spotted and caught immediately.

She understood Kalimag, fortunately, with her stuttered response; now, proper talking was a different beast. And I would prefer it to be without a hitch.

Being on good terms with the local population was almost always favorable, and she really didn't strike me as a warrior. She was probably a child equivalent, one too curious for her own good.

It wouldn't be surprising if that were the case. Cubs tended to make dumb choices from their lack of experience, not stupid, but dumb. There was a difference.

The balance was just nigh-impossible to get right.

"I-Im Khj'ula…" She squeaked out, halfway in and out of the mycelium bush, "...tall creature of many things yet in harmony…? You are their Primus, yes? Or are they food? I'm from Sporeggar and a sporeling… one of the few remaining."

'Huh, funny… she is calmer than I thought and very naïve…' I hummed, lowering my head so that our gazes met more easily. She was absolutely tiny.

My size was always awkward when I wanted a conversation that didn't imply I could maul my interlocutors. And I certainly didn't want to be here; I was genuinely in wonder.

"Then, pleased to meet you, Khj'ula. This was my student whom you saw. I hope there is no lasting… bad experience. Dryads are well-meaning to the children of nature, but they can be very excitable. And no, the people following me aren't my snack bag." I said, and Lilin dared to look bashful and smiling at once.

Now I realized my faux pas; they were children of Cenarius, and dryads were anything but innocent. It was a mask. They were extremely persistent and only recently understood that it wouldn't work with me.

So I ignored my dryad student, and my focus remained unwavering on the sporeling as she had called herself. And by the words given in Kalimag, I could guess a few things, but it was better to ask later.

Kalimag wasn't just words with definitions; it was entire sentences in one word that shifted with inflection, intent, and emotion. It was alive.

"Why are you here, Primus Ohto? I followed you for days before you set foot in the Fallen abandoned village… You don't appear to be like those legless monsters and green horrors, even if your long-eared people are somewhat familiar. It's odd. Bizarre. I'm curious. Why are they following one of the likenesses of a Sporemound?" Khj'ula said with a tilt of her large head that nearly made her fall.

'Sporemounds?' I internally questioned, but left it sitting there.

And yes, she was adorable, alright, very reminiscent of a treant sapling. And she didn't feel wholly incomparable to one for something that wasn't a spirit.

This chunk of a planet was becoming increasingly interesting with each new discovery.

"To track and save one of ours that went on a personal crusade to hunt the master of the above… we are merely following her trail. Those legless monsters are nagas, a pest from our world. I'm sorry." I explained.

"Nagas… urk, I don't like the name. Fitting for water hoarders and kin eaters. And that is no problem, the orcs are worse, and we know what they did. You must be their predators." She let out, sticking her tongue out in disgust, which prompted a cooing noise from Lilin.

However, my student shifted to a serious tone immediately afterward, and with a nod of agreement, entered the more diplomatic phase of this brief first contact.

"You can say that we track and eagerly exterminate those abominations. And they are draining the water of your swamp. We can help you, and you help us back?" A worthy proposal from all angles.

It wouldn't be done with a snap of claws, but we had Ancients ready for siege warfare and several Wild Hunt squads, each with a complete set of diverse skills. We were prepared for most eventualities.

"You can?! I mean… I can take you to the Sporeggar Primus for an audience. He should be delighted! Friends are rare and good friends rarer." She let out a sigh, and as we spoke further, I learned quite a lot.

"The nagas don't hunt us, not anymore. Some did and succumbed in agony after eating us." The sporeling said vindictively and went on, "Only Zang's corpse and our family have such rights, but our larger cousins are too hungry because of those same legless."

Zang was some form of deity, one of the three Sporemounds of the Evergrowth. It was amusing that she compared me to them.

I suppose I was a composite of many things, and I noticed an increment in multiple parameters within my cellular composition. I was far from anything like them, though.

Still, now that I had a name for that plant life I had revived, it couldn't be anything else, and Evergrowth was fitting.

This entire biome was the product of a similar, if diluted, life form. At its peak, it must have been truly incredible, probably not much weaker than an Old God.

Evidently, raw power wasn't where the Void shone, but still. It was the potential that was there.

Alas, Khj'ula knew little else; she was a ranger of some form, a very young one. But that was more than enough.

But one good enough to have gone unnoticed until curiosity had her rat out. Like a treant in a forest, if she doesn't want to be found, she won't be.

To an extent, against a biomancer or any good spellcaster, this affinity wasn't absolute. Regardless, Khj'ula was no expert, and she didn't stay much longer, going back to her race capital.

This left us a few days within this village of Fallen, as the sporeling called them, and we found none alive with further exploration.

However, we discovered skeletons, and the effect of Fel on draenei was brutal, based on my limited knowledge of them and the fact that they looked downright malformed. But I didn't have the complete picture besides that.

I had healed a few, but the opportunity for something more was challenging with Velen around.

He wasn't better in depth or precision as a healer, but he had reach and raw power. He could also revive the recently dead if they were in good enough condition.

Though it demonstrated what a true master of the Light could do, and I understood very little of it, to my frustration.

However, what I did know demonstrated, by a wide margin, that it wasn't very delicate.

It wouldn't be able to reverse the state of the fallen, or even their worst forlorn cousins, the lost ones. If it did, it would be something closer to a rebirth, but that was wholly different given what Lightforged were.

That, we got living ones, well, they attacked first like rabid dogs with the mental judgment of peanuts. They were sad; their brains had suffered far more than their bodies.

They could be healed, but mentally, a new body wouldn't fix the damage done here without decades of care. So we mostly ignored them; little could be done.

A far too common use of those four words, but they were truer than I liked to say out loud. And I wasn't doing charity work.

I didn't hate draenei; quite the contrary, they were fascinating, but also dangerous, pawns to something with unknown goals, yet mighty and fanatical.

Given what the Army of the Light tried to do to Illidan… Brainwashing has long been a method of recruitment. The worst, and not the only one, but the Light was unflinching and stubborn in its work.

It didn't matter that the example in question deserved to be punished; you can't commit countless horrors and be shocked when it comes back to bite your ass.

It will for me at some point. Not now, however, and preferably without a windchime. Regardless, our stay in the Fallen Village was relatively calm, and we were on the move soon enough, our destination Sporeggar.

•••••

Lady Vashj was most displeased by the recent arrival within the Zangarmarsh. How could she not? They weren't simple insects to crush.

It was the opposite; the reopening of the Dark Portal by those disloyal demons had consequences. And she knew far too little of it. Lord Illidan had remained silent, and she dared not disturb him.

He must have foreseen such eventualities. Failures of mortals and immortals were below him, one that varied in particular.

It must be part of his plan, as was the blood elves' ongoing betrayal, going a step further with the arrival of the Alliance.

Apparently, he had been communicating in secret with the blood elves back on Azeroth through artifacts. Vashj hadn't thought of it much till now.

The sin'dorei and the Alliance had miraculously reconciled, more or less, somehow. And with Kael'thas' past growing impatience, like the child he was, he would break his vows.

It truly eluded Vashj; their Lord had told the little prince to wait while he tended to his demon hunter, but the child seemed to lack the mental faculties to grasp even that simple instruction.

In retrospect, given that humans enslaved him, she shouldn't have been surprised. Without her, he would be rotting in a cell or dead.

Such an ungrateful, short-sighted creature, truly. At least that royal runt didn't kowtow to the Burning Legion nor seek it; he was at least clever enough to understand this much.

A dance of that envergur was only possible for Lord Illidan, and a being like him wasn't impervious to the danger posed.

Instead, he couldn't contain his and his people's urge and raided the draenei's strange garden of vessels in haste.

If they had decided to fight, it could have jeopardized the entire plan. Blessed was Queen Azshara; they hadn't, but that was the product of the draenei's unwillingness to lose more life rather than their inability to fight back.

If those vessels had been let loose… the damage would have been great.

She understood little of them, but ships had weapons, always and ever, machinery this advanced would have terrific firepower.

Firepower none knew how to use, and hopefully neither the draenei, but hope was a poor betting path. Now they would regain them as the Alliance from the spies were discussing with Kael'thas.

It was problematic indeed, but her immediate concern wasn't. Her mission was the control of water within her Lord's domain. It was for reagents, spells, rituals, and much more with the three Illidrassil.

Anyway, it was the kaldorei that proved a hindrance once again, and this wasn't the clumsy and hysterical attack of Maiev Shadowsong. It wasn't kaldorei alone from the beginning.

Lady Vashj could write scrolls about the ridiculousness of this organization, which was mainly composed of beasts and traitors. It was mad, how it came to be was likely even more so.

Demons had spoken of them, particularly of a member among them that was in her territory. A furbolg, or something of the sort, once upon a time, the Wild God simulacrum walking around as it owned the place was no furbolg.

It was the thing that wounded Archimonde, destroying one of the hands of the Mad Titan's eye and living, no, thrived to tell the tale.

That wasn't all; before then, it was a bloodthirsty creature's terrifying satyrs, to the point that they became shivering messes at the mere mention of his sighting.

It was pitiful and pathetic, but it wasn't without reason.

It was a boogeyman of sorts, the Bear of Slaughter, and while she respected very little about the satyrs. This mentality wasn't unique to them; wounding perceived invincibility had shaken the Burning Legion as a whole.

It hadn't been Nordassil's self-destruction that killed the Defiler, but a mortal had wounded him and gained enough time for his death to happen.

And demons could feel fear and pain, very much so; they may be able to die multiple times, but that wasn't a joyful experience.

It was only magnified by the magic used for the deed, outside of the one actually able to make it final.

Ohto was a sadistic being to those he despised. And his hatred for demons was no less than that of any of the Illidari. It was only because his name was used that she realised with dread who he was.



That and there weren't thousands of giant ursines walking in armor that wouldn't be out of place as one of the centerpieces in the Grand Arboretum of Zin-Azshari.

It was a source of both great opportunity and worry; the Legion was licking its wounds and preparing. That gave the Illidari precious time; otherwise, they wouldn't have.

It took the focus away; the raid on the homeworld of the dreadlords, which ended with its shattering, only furthered this. However, now Ohto was in her domain, and if that wasn't bad enough, he had an army.

Vashj did not desire a battle she couldn't win, particularly against a potential ally of convenience. Blind she wasn't, and how the Wild was interacting with the natives was pointing to her death being inevitable.;

Her mission could not end; she refused.

But you don't live to her age and within Queen Azshara's Court by virtue of ingrained idiocy.

With a flick of her upper right wrist, a deceptively plain black jewelry box sitting atop her far more ornate dresser opened.

With a snap of her fingers from the same hand, the glass fragments inside began to float, elegantly dancing and forming a broken mirror that reflected her serene complexion. Her transformation had not altered her beauty; it had, in fact, enhanced it, if she had any say in it.

Pearlescent water manifested on the opposite middle palm, and joined the heart of the shards., And with a final snap of the same original hand, the mirror pulsed and her visage vanished..

It was replaced by someone with far rougher features. He was a kaldorei, or, what once was one, now he was infinitely greater, molded by their Lord to be his perfect agent of chaos and hate.

His skin was a pale purple, breaking the patterns as veins pulsated with pure, liquified Fel that congregated in knots around the hollowed-out eye sockets, hidden by a gilded grey bandana.

The sickly green within was akin to two dim, distant stars shining in tandem with the silver pendant around his muscular neck.

His hair was long, a softer green, and plant-like, contrasting with his whole body and the horns formed from bones, keratin, and roots, which curved inward into thorny branches. He was a paradox, yet everything was where it should be and working as intended.

"What is it, Vashj?" He said curtly, polite and blunt as always, yet clearly disinterested already.

'I will see to fix that pesky annoyance…' She thought, and spoke, fangs showing as she announced the news, "Vandel, I have a large visitor that would prove rowdy… an old friend of yours… I fear I alone cannot contend."

"Be clearer." He cut her off, yet the interest in his voice was as clear as the Well of Eternity under moonlight.

"Then I will spell it out to you. Ohto is here. I require your prece-" She hadn't finished her sentence that Vandel was gone, leaving her to gaze at her reflection–a small smile present–once more.

Now, she had to wait.