Warcraft: Twilight Grove

Year 25, Day 3

The first thing we did was back away very, very quietly. That was a rather large, rather dangerous looking dragon, not to mention that the books I’d read had implied that dragons on this plane were both a lot more intelligent and a lot more powerful than the ones I was used to. They weren’t just giant, flying, fire-breathing, magic-resistant lizards, but were also intelligent, could shapeshift into some of this plane’s sapient races, use magic, and had access to also sorts of powerful and exotic magical abilities depending on their subspecies.

Only once we were well out of sight, and hopefully too far for it to hear, smell, or otherwise sense us, did we stop to plan. I erected a silencing charm in case its hearing was even keener than we suspected and Kent cast an Order spell that made it harder to sense the presence of magic. Neither of us were sure if the precautions were necessary, but an abundance of caution seemed prudent when dealing with an enormous magical killing machine with mostly unknown abilities.

What we eventually came up with wasn’t what I would call an amazing plan, but it seemed reasonable enough to me. The dragons around here were apparently sapient, unlike the bestial wizard-killers I was familiar with. Thus, it bore to reason that we may be able to negotiate with the creature, rather than be forced to engage in combat.

Cinder wanted to just fight it and be done with things, but I was less confident in that idea. Even back home, a dragon was a serious threat to a trained wizard. If you did have to fight one, it was advisable to bring a large group, and dragon handling was one of the most highly paid and dangerous professions that modern wizards engaged in.

There was a reason that Hogwarts’ motto was Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus––never tickle a sleeping dragon. Sure historically it had much more to do with not angering particularly powerful and legendary wizards as opposed to actual dragons, but it was a good rule of thumb either way. Both sleeping dragons and old wizards had a tendency to light things like say, you and all of your companions, on fire when you poked them one time too many.

Dragons here were apparently even more dangerous. They had all the same abilities as the ones in my original plane––flight, magic resistance, enormous strength, and firebreath––as well as their own abilities. At least back home you were just dealing with a particularly intelligent animal. Here, there was a thinking, magic-wielding mind beneath that scaly hide.

Did I think I could kill a dragon? Probably. Did I want to chance it? Absolutely not. If things turned sour, all four of us were immediately using the emergency portkeys I’d prepared and getting out of here. However, the prospect of a willingly-given Blueprint and whatever fascinating secrets this creature possessed were far too alluring to give up on this easily.

However, as we continued to argue about the specifics of what we were going to do, Cinder raised a rather excellent point. How close did I really need to get to that tree in order to bind it as a land? Because, depending on the answer to that question, it was entirely possible we could take care of that first and only after attempting to speak with the thing, once we’d already secured our primary objective.

The answer to that question was that I didn’t really know myself. I’d bound Slaughter Swamp from a central location, but I’d gained Shadowcrest as a land while wandering the grounds outside the manor itself. With both the Tower and the Memorial, I’d been near the center of the area, but, like Shadowcrest, I’d finished binding Beacon while outside in the gardens.

Thus, our plan evolved. First I’d try to get close enough to the great tree to bind the area as a land without bothering the dragon. Whether that worked or not, we’d than attempt to negotiate with the dragon and see what came out of it,

We were just preparing to put that plan into motion when Kent, who’d been oddly quiet the entire time we’d been discussing our options, finally decided to say something. “I think there might be something wrong with that dragon. I was watching it as we retreated, and its sleep is restless. It tosses and turns, and I can see a shadow on the fringes of its mind and wrapped around the light of its soul.”

I turned to stare blankly at the man. “And you didn’t say anything about that before because…”

He shrugged. “I was not certain it would be relevant. Perhaps this is simply how dragons are, or, as you mentioned previously, some side effect of this plane’s system of magic. Perhaps it is a shadow mage, or necromancer. You did say that the local dragons can learn magic much like humans can, did you not?”

I considered his words. “Fair enough,” I said eventually. “Something to keep in mind if things do take a turn for the worse.”

“Indeed. If we are unable to converse peacefully, there is something I’d like to attempt before we flee. With your permission…”

If it was Glynda, or especially Cinder, two people I did not have ready access to, I probably would have said no. But Kent, even if his Blueprint was damaged, was someone I saw frequently back home and could easily regain if something did happen. “Sounds good. Though if it doesn’t work, we’re going to get out of here as fast as we possibly can. Keep your portkey close.”

“Of course.” He held up his wrist, displaying the length of string tied around it. It was a portkey I’d made just a few minutes ago, designed to take him back to our little home in Darkshire. “I remember what you said.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

Things started off rather well. We made a wide circle around the outer edge of the valley, where green grass and trees gave way to bare stone and shrubs that looked like they belonged in the rest of the forest, not here.

We stopped once we were on the opposite side of the huge tree from where the dragon was sleeping, hoping its bulk would shield us from the creature’s senses, and began to very slowly move deeper and deeper into the valley. There was no path here, nor glowing flowers, forcing us to very carefully pick our way between the trees and their dense roots in the murky darkness. It wasn’t pitch black, but between the thick canopy of leaves, the curse leaving this area in eternal night, and my general inexperience with woodcraft, it was rather slow going.

Every minute or two we stopped and I felt for the earth with my Spark, trying to get a sense of the area around me. It didn’t work particularly well, but after a few attempts I began to get a feeling of needing to go further, so it seemed like my makeshift trick had worked.

By the time I finally felt like I was in the right general area, we were uncomfortably close to the tree. We were less than half as far away as we’d been when we first saw the dragon, close enough that, were we on the opposite side of the grove, it would be all but on top of us. I could see the dragon's tail occasionally twitch into view around the trunk, and each time it did we all held our breath, hoping that it was still sleeping and not just about to get up to investigate its surroundings.

We also found another interesting part of the grove that we hadn’t been able to see previously. There was a raised stone pool nestled amongst the roots of the great tree, the gray stone covered in carvings and decorated with a small arch and two T-shaped stone ‘columns’ that reminded me of totems. There was a small wooden bench beside the pool, as well as a small basin on a stand.

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The water inside the pool was glowing with a pale blue light, illuminating the area around it. It was filled with powerful magic that extended into the ground and then joined with the magic of the tree. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but I was definitely interested in finding out. It looked like it would make for a fascinating potion ingredient, or perhaps the component for some manner of ritual.

That, however, could wait. Trusting Glynda and Kent to watch over me, I knelt down on the soft grass and closed my eyes. The ground beneath me was loamy and slightly moist, exactly the sort of earth that most magical plants preferred, and I carefully wiggled the tip of my wand through the grass until it was buried in about an inch of soil.

I slowly pushed my magic into the earth, extending root-like strands down into the ground. After less than a foot, I found the roots of the great tree, vast currents of nature magic flowing through them and swiftly washing away the small bits I’d sent down through my wand.

I frowned slightly and changed tactics. Instead of growing down, I grew outward like the grass. Magic moved through my wand and then out into the surrounding soil, covering only the surface layer but slowly expanding out from where I was kneeling.

This was only my second time trying to do this intentionally, but I’d gained a lot of experience using my Spark in the past months. Magic flowed from my spark, down my arm, through my wand, into the ground, and then slowly returned to me using my palm resting on the grass as a conduit to flow back towards my spark.

It took about fifteen minutes before I finally felt the connection form. I exhaled sharply as a flash of awareness shot through my mind. Roots reaching down deep into the earth, slowly winding around veins of solid blood. The faint vestiges of sunlight drifting down onto my leaves. Countless blades of grass and leafy branches stirring in the wind.

Then it passed and I stumbled backwards, pulling my wand out of the ground and falling on my butt. I blinked rapidly, trying to recenter myself––binding lands always felt strange––and Glynda helped me rise to my feet with an arm under my shoulders.

I took a deep breath and turned to the others. “Okay, I think it worked. Let’s––”

The rest of my words were lost beneath the loudest roar I’d ever heard. The air quaked and the earth trembled, and something enormous shifted, scales scraping against hard bark. The tail, which had been flicking in and out of view this entire time, slammed against the great tree like a whip, barely scratching the bark but producing an ear splitting thwacking noise that spoke to just how hard that casual blow had been.

The roar cut out suddenly as quickly as it had begun. The dragon snarled, a thunderous, bestial noise that the magic of my Spark somehow translated into words. “No! No!” There was another impact and the tree shook slightly.

The dragon cried out, its voice pained. It began to say something, but before it could finish a single word its voice was replaced by a mindless roar of fury with no more meaning behind it than the barking of a dog.

The four of us exchanged looks. Glynda raised her hand, displaying the string tied around her wrist. “It does not sound like it's in the mood for talking. Should we…”

Cinder also raised her hand, but hers was wrapped around a bow of black, molten glass. “Or we could go with my idea.”

“Kent?” I asked. The dragon was moving. We could all hear it, even if its bulk was still hidden behind the trunk of the tree. Its footsteps shook the ground and shifting of its wings were like sails snapping in the wind.

The man was clutching his cane around the middle, his eyes shut and a gleam of gold slowly accumulating around his hand. He did not respond verbally, instead turning to face the tree with his arm extended out towards it.

“Not yet,” I ordered. “Let Kent try whatever he’s doing, and then we’re out of here. I got the land.”

A moment later, the dragon’s head appeared around the tree. It was even bigger up close, big enough to swallow any one of us whole with plenty of room to spare. However, from this close I could also see what Kent had noticed previously. There was a shadow in the dragon’s half-open eyes, and it's magic, a beautiful emerald green, was tinted with something sickly that reminded me of the eye-searing flash of the Killing Curse.

The dragon stared at us and lowered its head. It took another step forward, more of its body appearing from around the tree, and began to open its mouth. I raised my wand, the word needed to activate our portkeys on the tip of my tongue and a shield spell at the forefront of my mind, but Kent was already moving.

He jabbed his arm forward and an ankh of searingly-bright golden light shot forward, crossing the gap between us and the dragon in a matter of moments. Kent sagged immediately after, the spell clearly taking a lot out of him, but the impact on the dragon was far more significant.

The creature was far too big to dodge such a fast moving spell even if it wanted to. The golden ankh slammed into the space between its two closed eyes, the tilt of its head allowing the spell to pass between two horns and impact directly against the dragon’s scaled hide.

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then the creature froze for an instant before suddenly collapsing, its four stout legs no longer able to hold up its bulk. The earth shook from the impact, leaves falling from their branches and birds perched high above us taking flight.

Before my eyes, a disgusting, twisted shadow was wrenched free from the dragon’s skull, tiny golden ankhs burning into it as whatever spell Kent cast did its work. The dragon’s emerald-green magic flared deep inside it, more pollution being burnt away by its own power and emerging from its hide in the form of murky smoke that rapidly blew away in a sudden wind.

The dragon rolled onto its side, its legs kicking in the air and its head slamming into the roots beneath it. More and more smoke blew off it and I hastily formed a spherical shield around us, ensuring that none of…whatever that was, could touch us.

For nearly thirty entire seconds we watched the dragon writhe and struggle against some invisible foe, aided by the searing, cleansing light of Order. Eventually, it lay still, its chest rising and falling with slow, even breaths and its wings wrapped around its body like massive yellow-green blankets. Its magic looked badly depleted, rivers of glimmering power drained until only streams remained, but there was no sign of that sickly taint left in its body.

There was a surge of magic and the creature’s body warped and twisted. Limbs vanished, scales smoothed out into skin, and its bulk folded in on itself until barely a fraction of its mass remained. Instead, a pale-skinned woman knelt on the ground where the dragon had been moments earlier.

She had green hair the same color as the dragon’s scales, long, pointy ears, and wore a green blindfold over her eyes. She was dressed in something halfway between a dress and a very impractical set of armor. Two huge metal pauldrons covered her shoulders, matching bulky bracers on her wrists, but there was nothing but pale skin between the two. She wore a green armored corset of sorts that looked like some of Zatanna’s crop tops, but while it did have some metal paneling, it left her upper chest and belly completely bare. Finally, she wore a long green skirt held up by a belt around her waist and looked long enough to brush the ground when she walked.

She was also one of the most blatantly magical creatures I’d ever seen with the help of magic-sight spells. Her entire body shone like a tiny green sun, a dragon-worth of power compressed down into the slender body of a lean woman.

She took a long, shaky breath and slowly rose to her feet, leaning heavily on the root beside her for support. “I thought the nightmare inescapable,” she whispered softly, “The strands of life severed.” She looked down at her hands, turning them this way and that. “This is Azeroth. I can still feel the Dream. It was just a nightmare. No. A Nightmare. I must––”

Her magic flared, but whatever she was trying to do failed and she cried out in pain, stumbling forward a step and almost collapsing back down to her knees. She caught herself against the great tree and took several slow, deep breaths before finally looking up and seemingly noticing the four of us for the first time.

“Humans?” she asked blearily. She shook her head and seemed to look at us properly, though her eyes were hidden behind a blindfold so it was hard to tell. “You…you freed me. That golden fire that woke me from my slumber…it was one of you.”

Kent was leaning heavily on his cane, but smiled regardless. Golden light flared around him, a few tiny ankhs rising from his folded hands to orbit around his head. “Guilty as charged. You looked like you were in a rough spot.”

She tilted her head to the side. “That…I did not think such a thing possible. Not by human hands. I…I thank you, human. I do not know what would have come to pass had you not arrived when you did. But that magic…That is not the light, nor the magic of druids.” It wasn’t a question.