The Forsaken's Search

Day One

I have attempted to delve into the maelstrom that is the Twisting Nether, with little success. All I have to show for my findings are a headache and a drained mana pool. My assistant and wife Ira is currently in the process of reconstructing the spell circle for a second attempt later today.

Second attempt: still nothing, and my headache got worse. The strain on my mana pool wasn’t as bad as before, but that’s because I cut the spell early. I’m currently looking over it to see where it can be improved on, since this one isn’t doing too well. Ira’s gone to get a mana potion from the apothecary before he closes shop.

By Sylvanas, has it really been eight hours? Note to self, improve scry spell speed in the near future. This amount of time being spent on resetting the spell is unacceptable. One more try with the new spell, then it’s off to recuperate for the night.

Third attempt: This spell can rot with the Lich King’s corpse. I’m going to have to pay a visit to Stitches to re-attach my arm and the right side of my face now! Ira’s currently laughing her head off as I write with my off-hand.

I think I should just have her rewrite this entry into something legible.

Back on topic, the spell was a complete flop as described above. Tomorrow I’m reworking the spell from the ground up, because Jared apparently didn’t want people modifying it at all. Upon attempting to use the reworked version, it jammed itself on its own lines and exploded. Violently.

On a related note, I need a new spell circle, floor stones, blast shield, protection runes, counterspell runes, ceiling, walls, and an easily accessible fire extinguisher for Duran. His library next door caught fire after the spell teleported itself.

Day Two

After reworking and reviewing the spell six times over, we are ready to try it. I am now only waiting on the construction crew to finish up my lab, which will be a process that’ll consume the rest of the day. Testing the spell tomorrow, having a couple hours off now.

I closed the book, and rolled my right arm in its socket. Stitches did good work, even if he was a tad slow in more than one way. Must come from being an abomination sewn together from various piles of flesh and sinew.

Standing up, I walked off into the winding tunnels that made up the Apothecarium. Here, mages, alchemists, enchanters, warlocks, and all sorts of Forsaken converged to work on the latest in magical breakthroughs, potions, and plagues. The tunnels themselves were quiet and dim, with the occasional sounds of something groaning or dripping in the distance to break the monotony. A black rat would rarely scurry across the dark cobblestones, or a spider would crawl along the ceiling and being weaving a web laced with green ooze.

Don’t ask me what the ooze is, nobody knows anymore. I tried figuring that out once and I got seventeen different results from a single sample.

Passing through an archway, I emerged into the lively traffic of the Undercity. Skeletal horses drew carts along the dimly lit, grand hallways, and various auctioneers shouted their wares and goods. Plain merchants offered various artifacts of probably mundane natures, sold various fungi that were probably only safe for the dead, or sold a variety of books for the common man. Rarely, I saw one of the living nudging their way through the traffic, trying to complete their business as quickly as they could.

I pushed my way to the central hub, a simple round room with a bank in the middle and a variety of services surrounding it. Here was the highest concentration of merchants or artisans, most of them of the Forsaken variety. Below the stone bridge I was on, a ring of viscous, glowing ooze stagnated around the central spire. Four staircases lead up to it, then four more led away and farther up towards the merchants and elevators to the surface.

I wasn’t sure where Ira was, except that she was looking for a nice place to dine later tonight. We hadn’t been able to have nearly enough time together, what with all the work that had been dumped on us. I narrowed my eyelights as I scanned the upper ring for a diner that might be considered fancy. For the Undercity, anyways.

Ira was waving to me from the upper levels, standing in front of the inn. I smiled, waved back, and made my way up the staircases through the sea of varying undead of all shapes and sizes.

Literally. There were other Forsaken like me, who could pass for almost human, to skeletons whose flesh had rotted away long ago, to hunched-over ghouls creeping along, to spirits who had no corporeal form to speak of. Stitched abominations to skeletal liches to semi-angelic val’kyr were an uncommon sight in the main halls, but not unheard of. An adventurer death knight rushed past me, black plate armor clanking and rattling all the way down the stairs.

I ignored the masses, more focused on getting to my wife. We were one of the few couples that had married in life, then continued on into undeath. More often when that sort of thing happened, one of the spouses would become horrified, or one of them would simply pass on, or something went horribly wrong and they came out as mindless dredges, or other horrific fates like that. It’s even more amazing considering the method of our deaths, which I’m not about to divulge.

Ira ran up to me, giving me a warm hug and a kiss. As warm as the dead could be, anyways. I returned both, holding her tight against me and letting my head bury itself in her black hair.

“So,” I asked, still hugging her, “I see you found a place.”

“Mm-hmm,” she murmured, “it reminds me of our younger days, when we were out exploring the world.”

‘How does a restaurant pull that off? Did the owner just mash a bunch of themes together?’ Slightly confused and more than a little intrigued, I turned my head to look in. It wasn’t anything special, just a hole carved into the surrounding cave with a stone wall placed up to mark it. A partially-rotted door jutted out from its frame ever so slightly, which made my eye twitch just a bit.

“Well, I do recall being in a dungeon at one point or another,” I responded dryly, eliciting a muffled laugh.

“You’ll see,” she sang. Letting go, she skipped -skipped!- into the restaurant ahead of me. I shook my head in amusement as I followed her at a more sedate pace.

That energy was going to be the second death of me. Stepping inside and deliberately ignoring the door’s refusal to shut completely, I made a small ‘oh’ in understanding. I paused to take in the room.

As with most Forsaken-run food places, basically all of the customers were undead, or other restaurant owners looking to get rid of old foodstuffs. Rarely, an idiotic individual or someone on a dare would come in, as evidenced by the one orc, surrounded by a goblin and an elf, giving a disgusted look to his plate. The decor was, again, old and rotted, but it still didn’t stop me from realizing what it represented.

Somehow, the shopkeeper had managed to recreate Dalaran’s finest restaurant, or to me and Ira, the place where I began my not-so-famous journeys across Azeroth. The owner had even managed to get the table positions right.

“Move it, gawker.”

“Oh! Whoops…” I gave a brief glimpse behind me, and saw that I had inadvertently blocked the doorway for a ghoul. I hurried over to where Ira had taken a seat, embarrassed by my social flub. I couldn’t say my face flushed, not having any blood anymore, but that’s what I felt like. “Why did I do that?” I muttered under my breath.

I wasn’t quite quiet enough to escape Ira’s hearing, though. “You still worry too much,” she chided, “even after all these years. Take a break. Go on a vacation. You haven’t taken a day off in how long?”

“Three months,” I mumbled in an even lower voice.

“What was that?”

“Three months,” I said, louder. “But you know how much work there is to still be finished! We’re almost at a breakthrough!”

“And the breakthrough will still be there when you take some time to unwind. You’ve been tense lately, and I’ve been tired. Lets take a break, go on vacation to Un’Goro or Gadgetzan. We didn’t spend very much time there, after all.”

I gave a prolonged exhale. Ira was right; we needed a vacation. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take one until the project was finished. The magus was expecting results soon. “Ira, I know. I’ve been working hard almost nonstop, and it’s getting to me. But this absolutely needs to get done. I can’t budge on that.”

“Forget the magus,” she deadpanned. “He can rot in his grave for all I care.”

“I would love it if he would,” I groaned, “but he’s still the head of research. Lets get him some results, then we’ll go on vacation.”

She huffed, displeased. “Fine. Lets at least enjoy our dinner. The owner even got the menus right, down to the fine print on the bottom!”

And so we ate. It wasn’t nearly as good as the original restaurant, but we both expected that. In all, it was a nice release from reviewing magical formulae and painstakingly aligning runes and circles in just the correct fashion. Reminiscing was had, plans were thought up regarding the few other hours we had left to use, and the orc was a hilarious spectacle as he ran full tilt out the door, closely followed by his buddies.

I feel no pity for him. He knew exactly what he was doing. After we finished, we made our way out the door as well, and weaved through the Undercity traffic for a day of relaxation. It didn’t relieve us of all our stress and exhaustion, but it was nice to not have to worry about anything.

Two hours later, I regretted ever thinking that.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOT WORKING?” came the enraged yell of the magus from down the street, flanked by two of his personal guards. We were sitting at the docks, overlooking a stagnant, artificial river of the green ooze, just enjoying each other’s company when he decided to come out of his office for what might have been the first time in years. The ghost was floating towards us, vibrating and shaking. “THAT PROJECT NEEDS TO HAVE PROGRESSED BY THE END OF THE WEEK!” he shrieked in that rattling, hollow voice ghosts shared.

“I can’t finish anything until my lab is fixed from the explosion that happened earlier! Jared’s the one who hated others using his work!” I yelled back. I did not approve of authority yelling at me for no good reason.

It was this behavior that usually bit me in the rear later on. The magus quivered even more, turning a shade of quickly reddening pink from his usual ice blue. Ira discreetly elbowed me in the ribs, then the magus screamed in my face, “THAT’S NO EXCUSE! GET IT DONE BEFORE I HAVE YOUR FUNDING CUT TO NOTHING!”

To my credit, I didn’t flinch when his voice cut cleanly through the background noise of the traffic. We had gathered a lot of onlookers at this point, and he had just barely taken notice. Looking around, he made a dismissive noise before floating off into the traffic, trailed by his two guards. ‘Good riddance,’ I thought. Ira was sneering after him, though it wasn’t long before she rounded on me.

“Why did you do that?” she hissed at me, whispering. “He was about to fire us, and then what?”

“I am not about to back down from a ghost who thinks he can push us around. He’s had it coming for a long time.”

“That was still a stupid idea.”

I sighed in admittance. “I know. And it’s probably going to become a problem in the future. My mood has been ruined as of now. Want to see if the construction crew has finished repairing our lab yet? I could use something to get the ghost off my back.”

She rolled her eyelights. “And ruin our day off?”

“Yes, our day has been ruined. And I might be partially to blame,” she snorted at that, “and I’d like to be able to go on a proper vacation as soon as possible,” I finished.

She didn’t seem as happy as before, but that was understandable. With a tired exhale, she began walking off back towards our lab. I followed her close behind.

One walk later, and Ira was in a slightly better mood as we opened our lab door. To our surprise, the lab was already fixed, floors, blast shield, spell circle, everything. I was about to point this out, when Ira started before I could get a word in edgewise.

“Oh look! How about we get to that vacation a day early?”

“Well…” I started, thinking of ways this could go wrong. Why did the construction crew leave early? They even managed to clean up their tools and scaffolds, something that should have taken them much longer. “Why is everything so suddenly fixed now? I smell a rat, and not a literal one.”

“Yes, it seems strange, but it’s a nice surprise, isn’t it? Or were you hoping to go somewhere before having to come back?”

“No, I’m just suspicious. This should have taken the crew well into the night, and that’s not even counting Duran’s library. Where are the noises from there?”

“His library is through a couple yards of rock and ooze. Come on, we finished the spell. Lets get some results, turn them in to the magus, then we can take off on vacation tomorrow!”

I gave a weary sigh, but conceded. After checking the spell circle for any breaks or deformities, we began the spell. Magical energies, pulled from the Twisting Nether, began swirling around, following the runes and shapes in purple streaks.

Everything was proceeding just as we expected. That’s when everything invariably went wrong. Something… broke would be an apt description, in the circle, and the energies became violent and erratic. Free from their confines, I panicked in an attempt to shut the spell down as purple ribbons and swirls streaked by our heads and into the blast shield around the circle.

I watched as a stray bolt of energy struck Ira directly in the chest, and watched she vanished in a purple flash. A similar bolt hit my face, and everything turned white as I was sucked into the Nether.

* * *

I don’t know how long I was out, but I did know that I was not in the Undercity anymore. I was prone on the ground with a face full of dirt, insects buzzing all around me, and the occasional bird call. The next thing I noticed as I shot up, was that it was really, really dark. Trees loomed above and around me, creating an atmosphere of claustrophobia and dread. Even the plants looked somewhat mean.

I’m pretty sure I wasn’t imagining that face in the tree. I would say I landed in Felwood, but I couldn’t feel any demonic taint in the mana nearby. So where was I… and where was Ira?

“Ira?” I called out into the trees, echoing for a bit before fading into the background. “Ira!” I called, louder.

Panic welled up in my chest, and I swept aside the underbrush as I searched for my wife. Dashing around trees in this dark, dense forest, my imagination coming up with all sorts of terrible scenarios. Trapped in a foreign land, and Ira wasn’t by my side as she was every other time.

“No… no no no! Ira!” I lost it. I began a madman’s sprint through the trees, my cloak catching on loose branches and barbs. The trees became a blur as I focused on getting somewhere, anywhere else but there. I clung onto the dim hope that Ira would be fine, that she would just be around the next tree.

It never happened. Ira wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I burst out onto a path, and nearly ran into a sextet of ponies. I paused in my frantic searching when I grabbed the first one I could by the withers and asked her, “Have you seen my wife!?”

She screamed in panic, a purple hoof flung out into my face, and I fell unconscious for the second time that miserable day.

* * *

“He’s gone?”

“Yes. If Ira had listened to him though, the whole gig would be up.”

“Are there corpses?”

“No. They were teleported into the Twisting Ne-”

“You idiot! I need proof that they died! I need to see their heads on pikes! Until we get actual proof that they’re dead, you are to act as if they’re still alive and could come back at any moment.”

“...Yes sir. We’ll go see if his spell survived the explosion.”

“Good. Don’t disappoint me, or the consequences will be severe. I will have revenge.”