The world spun crazily as she opened her eyes, and for a moment Biara could see nothing but a gray blur. Her head ached miserably, but she felt otherwise mostly intact. As she blinked her eyes, her vision came into focus and she saw tall grasses waving in front of her face. She was laying on the ground on her side, and she rolled over slightly until she was on her back.
Above her, the sky was a strange pink color, and it took several minutes of studying it before she realized she was looking at shielding that the Ethereals had put in place to protect structures from stormstrikes in Netherstorm. Once she came to this conclusion, Biara sat up slowly, letting her body adjust to the leftover bits of magic that were flowing through her. She noticed to her distaste that all of her clothing was wet down to her undergarments, and her hair was soaked and lay lank against her chilled skin.
"Fantastic," Biara murmured to herself. "Even so, it is far preferable to being dead I suppose."
She slowly got to her feet, brushing some bits of grass that were stuck to her wet clothes off before checking her surroundings. As she had first determined, she was indeed at the Stormspire in Netherstorm, and she could see several Ethereals in the distance standing amongst the structures there. She was off in a small clearing in the foliage, with tall grasses all around her waving gently in the breezes within the contained environment.
"I'm not going to ask how or why, I'm just going to go home. Kyli is probably worried sick," Biara said to no one. She brought her hands up and began to chant, opening a portal to Silvermoon. The portal flickered to life in front of her, the golds and reds of Silvermoon calling to her. Without hesitation she stepped into it, intent on heading home.
As she contacted the portal, Biara knew immediately that something was terribly wrong. A wracking pain arced through her body and she felt as if she was being bent and crushed by incredible forces. Pain rose up to swallow her and blackness claimed her as her portal malfunctioned.
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With a familiar dull ache in her head, Biara opened her eyes to see nothing but a gray blur. She took a deep breath, letting her body adjust for a moment before looking again. Tall grasses waved in front of her face, and she blinked in surprise to find herself laying in the same spot on the soft soil. Above her the flickering pink of the Ethereal shields continued to repel lightning strikes from the hostile environment outside.
"Okaaaay, that's a little strange," Biara murmured as she sat up. She again brushed bits of grass from her soaking wet dress and took stock of her situation. She was indeed in the exact same location she had just awoken in previously, and as she rose she saw the same Ethereals in the distance standing amongst some of the structures of the Stormspire. As she stared at them, she realized that they were standing and moving in the exact same way they had been the first time she looked at them. An eerie sense of deja vu filled her as she realized she was staring at the exact same scene.
"I don't know what is going on here, but if a portal doesn't work I will have to do this the old fashioned way and travel to the nearest Horde outpost," Biara said to herself. With this thought in mind, she brought her hands up and cast a spell, causing a ball of fire to hover in the air before her. She quickly stripped off her clothes down to her undergarments, standing nearly naked in front of the fireball and letting its heat warm her skin and dry her hair. She held her clothing up one piece at a time, drying each item before the flames. Once everything was dry, she donned her clothing again and set off at a brisk walk, heading for the elevator that would lead down from the top of the Stormspire.
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Biara had traveled for many hours before the strange suns and moons of the Outlands began to sink below the horizon. True night never came to the twisted remnants of the shattered world, but it would soon be dark enough to sleep. Biara had walked for quite some time, and was feeling tired and hungry and in sore need of a rest.
Finding a relatively secluded spot amongst the broken and destroyed remnants of rock that made up Netherstorm, she spoke a few words of magic, summoning a carpet down between two tumbled boulders. With her bed in place, she turned and began drawing wards in the broken soil, setting up defenses to protect her from any of the wandering creatures that roamed the desolate wastes.
Once she was satisfied that her rest would be undisturbed, Biara sank gratefully down on the carpet, sighing with relief. She pulled off her boots, letting the cool air soothe her aching feet as she leaned back on the carpet. With a few more spoken words of magic, a plate of delicious food appeared next to her, conjured up with a spell. Beside it sat a decanter of wine with a tall glass nearby. Biara poured some of the wine into the glass, holding it up in mock toast.
"Well, here's to a little unexpected vacation!" she said cheerfully, sipping the wine before moving on to the food.
Once she was full, she pushed the plate aside and sank back on the carpet, sighing with relief and closing her eyes. As she drifted off to sleep, her last thought was that Netherstorm was not all that bad. At least the sky was pretty.
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The world spun crazily as she opened her eyes, and for a moment Biara could see nothing but a gray blur. The familiar dull ache was back in her head, and she took a moment to allow herself to recover. When she opened her eyes again, she saw tall grasses waving in her face.
This time she sat up abruptly, extremely alarmed. As she looked around, she recognized the same little clearing at the top of the Stormspire that she had awoken in the last two times. She looked down at herself and as she had half-expected, she was soaking wet again, her boots back in place on her feet.
"What in the nether...?" she murmured, rising quickly. Sure enough, in the distance were the same Ethereals talking amongst themselves, the feeling of deja vu even stronger now as she came to realize that they were in the exact same spots and moving the same way they had been before.
A feeling of panic set in as Biara realized she was being returned to the same spot in time each time she attempted to leave. She examined herself closely, studying the magic within herself to see if she could determine the cause. There was something off about the flow of energy around her, but she could not immediately identify it. It was as if her magic were shifted just out of reach of her scrutiny, and it was a bit unnerving.
Not knowing what else to do, Biara began to look around at her surroundings more closely, trying to discover what it was about this particular spot that kept drawing her back. The little clearing appeared to be normal, with no magic within it and nothing out of the ordinary. Biara took a deep breath and closed her eyes, reaching out to feel for magic nearby.
There! There is a powerful temporal force beyond the grasses just to the east.
Still soaking wet from her dip in the ocean, Biara strode across the clearing, parting the grasses with her hands. A thrilling shock ran through her as she saw what was beyond them, and she gasped aloud before stumbling back and falling to her knees.
Beyond the grasses she had seen a device, made both of technology and magic. It was not just any device though, it was a device that she had helped build. A device meant to manipulate time itself, that had been powered with her magic and keyed to her blood and the blood of one other in an oath of friendship and magic.
But that was not what had made her gasp, not what made her freeze in indecision. Standing by the device had been two people. One of them was a gnome, his hat so familiar to Biara that she could easily picture it simply by closing her eyes. The other person....the other person had been a Sin'dorei with bleached blonde hair that was wearing ragged clothing as if she was a pauper.
Biara knew though, knew that the elf was not a pauper and that the blonde coloration of her hair was not natural. Instead, it was a noblewoman who had disguised herself so that she could meet with her friend, a gnome, to work on a secret project with him. Her hair was that color because she had been cursed.
She knew these facts most intimately, because the gnome had been Jazari, and the elf had been....herself, Biara Dayfire.
The shock of knowing that she was stuck in time, and that she was so near to her own past self, was enough to make Biara's eyes roll up in her head as she fainted. Without a sound she sank to the ground, blackness claiming her again.
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When her eyes opened later, the tall grasses waved slowly in the breeze once more from her place on the ground.
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