Family War

*Feralas, near the broken city of Eldre’Thalas*

Braeth’el nodded at the apprentices that were gathered around him, the circle of Sin’dorei standing in a complex magical symbol that had taken shape over the last hour. Wearing form fitting leather combat armor and festooned with daggers, he looked ready to go to war, and in a sense he was. From the studded metal on the knuckles of his gloves to the leather headband that partially protected his head, he was prepared for battle.

On the other side of the magical circle, Rayleth nodded back at him, the now-senior mage taking a deep, shaky breath as he prepared himself for the task to come. He’d grown in his craft over the years, no longer the weak and easily startled apprentice he had once been. But then, Biara’s influence on people tended to harden them against adversity, or kill them outright. It wasn’t surprising to Braeth’el that the mage had agreed to the plan today. Rayleth wanted closure, they all wanted closure, and it was time to put past debts to rest.

“Begin,” Braeth’el said in a calm voice, his authority keeping the mages from giving in to their fears. It was not every day that one assaulted the sanctum of a powerful sorceress after all.

On the command, Rayleth brought his hands up, the others following suit as they began to chant. Magic began to sputter and flare in the center of the circle where they stood, the power of each Sin’dorei adding to the growing spell and creating complex patterns in the air in eye-searing colors. The was an audible groan as the magic began to pierce the veil between where they were standing and their secret, hidden destination.

It had taken weeks to prepare this spell. Painstaking days of carefully studying the residual magic that Biara’s spells had left behind. Being intimately familiar with her, Rayleth had lead the effort, going through all the belongings she’d left behind to try to find a way to trace that which could take on different forms and shapes at will and a person who had been using magic for untold centuries. Finally, though, they’d had a breakthrough, and with that breakthrough they had set forth on this plan to trace the faint hints of Biara’s old magic in the place she had last been confronted so they could follow her wherever she had gone.

So they could find her hidden sanctuary.

The spell flickered and flared as it encountered wards defending the destination point. They had accounted for this though, had expected that Biara would not have prepared her strongest wards in a place that was physically inaccessible. They had gambled, and by the grin on Rayleth’s face, Braeth’el could tell they had won that bet. There was a loud crack in the air as a spell countered another, and suddenly the space in the center of the circle exploded into the shape of a glowing portal.

“Quickly! We need to attack before she prepares her defenses!” Braeth’el shouted. He drew a dagger and darted into the glowing magic, Rayleth and several of the apprentices following quickly behind.

Light flared and then suddenly they were in the center of a highborne sanctuary, somewhere deep within the ground. The antechamber where they found themselves was large and circular and clearly designed as a central portal room for the elaborate sanctum. As Braeth’el blinked away the dizziness from the teleportation spell, he immediately laid eyes on a Draenei woman who was staring at them with her mouth agape, her light gray skin contrasting sharply with her red hair. Her voice was musical as she spoke, her tone shaky, “I-I am Sunii, welcome to-“

Braeth’el gave her no time to finish, one of his daggers flying out and burying itself in her throat. The apprentice mage gurgled and slumped over, and Braeth’el stepped over her dying body. He felt bad that he’d had to kill her, but none of Biara’s apprentices in this place could be allowed to live; they could set off deadly traps and wards that would kill the Sin’dorei raiders. Behind him, several of his own apprentices stumbled through the portal, Rayleth trailing after them. The dark haired Sin’dorei blanched as he saw the dead Draenei, but they had little time to contemplate the situation as the sanctum was already coming to life in defense against the intruders.

Rumbling could be heard coming from several of the openings, the sound familiar to Braeth’el and likely signaling the approach of arcane constructs. They had only minutes to kill Biara and get free of her sanctum before they were overwhelmed. “I want two apprentices at each opening. This passage over here looks like it heads deeper in and we’ll go this way first. We’ll pull back if the defenses prove too strong.”

The apprentices did as Braeth’el instructed, and he and Rayleth darted down a corridor, two additional apprentices following after. Behind them the sound of spells flaring could be heard as the first of the arcane constructs tried to retake the portal chamber. Ahead of them, the corridor wound onwards, the elegant marble stones lit with magical lights. Rayleth murmured the words to a spell and a lattice of blue magic flowed over the ground ahead of them, instantly coalescing on warded traps built into the passageway. Braeth’el grunted his thanks as he adeptly jumped past them, heading onwards.

With one final bend the corridor opened onto a study, the chamber filled to the vaulted ceiling with racks of books. There were reading desks and chairs, comfortable couches, and a cheery fire going in a grand fireplace where one could relax while reading. Four more passageways led off from the first, and Braeth’el nodded to the apprentices, “Burn the books. We’ll continue this way and see if we can find her.”

The two Sin’dorei nodded, beginning to conjure fire spells and flinging them at the books as Braeth’el and Rayleth continued. They found doors lining the corridor they entered, and Rayleth pointed ahead at one of the doors, “I sense her magic from that door there!”

Braeth’el didn’t hesitate, a boot coming up to kick down the door as he charged into the room. He was met with a shriek as he stumbled into a…bathing room? He rolled his eyes, realizing he’d just barged in on Malandrae Moonwhisper as she was about to bathe herself. At least she was wearing underwear. Immodest, unbelievably sheer underwear, but it was something…

Quickly he charged across the room, grabbing the panicking Highborne by the neck and slamming her against one elegantly tiled wall. She squealed as he held her in place, her breathing rabid and frantic. Braeth’el’s voice was a growl as he threatened her, “Where is Biara? Our quarrel is not with you, but you will tell us where she is!”

“I-I don’t know!” Malandrae squealed. “S-she left weeks a-ago and hasn’t come back! Sometimes she sends messages! P-Please you’re hurting me!”

“Liar!” Rayleth nearly spit in Malandrae’s face. He charged up next to Braeth’el, jabbing the Highborne with a finger, “Tell us where she is! This is her sanctum. There is no way she didn’t leave without telling you where she was going!”

“Ray…” Braeth’el cautioned. He knew enough about Malandrae to know that pushing her like this was not likely to yield results. The fact that she had just stopped struggling and seemed to be in a daze was not a good sign.

Rayleth didn’t heed the warning though, seemingly taking delight in finally doing something about the Biara problem. Finally appearing to be useful to House Sunfire. With a growl he yanked a dagger out of his belt and before Braeth’el could stop him, buried it in Malandrae’s ear, pinning the highborne to the wall. “Tell us NOW!”

Malandrae shrieked in agony, thrashing again for a moment before suddenly jerking and becoming completely still. Blood ran freely both from the wound on her ear, and from her nose now. When she spoke, there was a subtle hint of threat that made Braeth’el’s skin crawl, “You seek the Highborne, but you will find only death. She will come for you. She will not tolerate this slight on her domain. I’d flay your skin off if this was my home…”

Rayleth sneered and reach up, slapping Malandrae hard across the face. Her head rocked to one side, but she made no other move. Her eyes stared blankly ahead, and there was a hint of dangerous ozone building up in the air around them. Braeth’el opened his mouth to say something, but there was a crack in the doorway as an enormous arcane construct attempted to tear the wall apart to enter the smaller bathing room. Eyes wide, Rayleth turned, sending bolts of magic into the animate stone creature. Bits chipped off, but it seemed not to mind overmuch as it continued tearing at the wall.

“Her defenses have activated!” Braeth’el shouted, “We need to get out now. If she was here, she would have confronted us already. I believe Malandrae!”

Rayleth nodded, his face going pale at the ferocious arcane being attempting to get at them. He stepped away from Malandrae’s pinned form and touched Braeth’el’s arm, the two teleporting themselves into the hallway beyond the construct. Together they began to run as a roar of unleashed magic followed after them, the defenses on the hunt now.

They ran back the way they’d come, finding one of the two apprentices in the library dead from a ward he’d accidentally triggered. The other looked pale, but otherwise unharmed, and the room itself was in flames. They gathered up the living apprentice and then ran for it, wards beginning to explode out of the walls behind them.

“Shit! She had this better prepared than we’d thought!” Braeth’el growled as they dashed over flickering and deadly runes on the floor. Behind him, Rayleth said nothing, the un-athletic mage barely able to keep up with Braeth’el’s hardened body as they ran for their lives.

The portal room beyond was much the same as the library, with several apprentices dead or dying and the rest quite ready to leave. With a gesture from Braeth’el they all broke from their positions at once, each darting into the flickering portal and disappearing a moment later. While they hadn’t killed Biara, they had damaged her sanctum, and had given her a black eye that she would long remember. House Sunfire was not to be trifled with.

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Malandrae groaned in pain as the air before her shimmered and a portal tore through space and time. A beautiful, golden haired Sin’dorei stepped through, the portal closing behind her. Her eyes widened in shock as she saw Malandrae pinned to the wall with a dagger, as she smelled the fumes from the burning library beyond. She rushed to Malandrae’s side, her form shifting and taking on the appearance of a highborne with long, flowing silver hair.

“Malandrae!” Biara said with pain in her voice. “Oh Malandrae, what have they done to you…”

Gently she reached up and pulled the dagger free, catching her friend as she slumped forward and holding her for a moment, keeping her in her embrace. Tears ran down Biara’s face as she realized how close she’d come to losing her friend once again, “Malandrae, who did this to you?”

Malandrae stirred, her voice a choked sob, “P-pink elves did it… T-they hurt my ear. They wanted to find you. There was one with black hair and glasses. H-he stabbed me and used magic…”

Fury began to pulse in Biara’s veins as she realized what had happened and who had done this. Her home, raided once again by her enemies. Her loved ones wounded by violence for no reason. Things could have been left well enough alone, but they hadn’t wanted to put it to rest, and now Malandrae was bleeding and who knew how much had been lost. Gently she sat Malandrae down on the edge of one of the bathing pools, using warm water to wash her ear. The hole was clean and neat, almost like a piercing, and wouldn’t pain her for too long thankfully. The experience on the other hand might stay with her for months, knowing poor Malandrae’s innocent state of mind.

“Sweetie, I need to go and make sure they can’t do this again. I need to stop them from ever coming back here,” Biara said gently. “Once I do, I’ll take you to another place, a safer place than this that they’ve never seen, okay?”

“Please don’t go…please…” Malandrae whimpered.

“It will not be long, and then I will stay with you, I promise,” Biara said gently. She patted her friend on the knee, “Why don’t you clean yourself up, and I’ll set the sentries to taking care of this place okay? I’ll be back in an hour, two at most.”

“O-Okay…” Malandrae said dejectedly. She began to wash her ear again, murmuring to herself.

Biara studied her for a moment, her fury rising further. She stalked from the room, passing over the damage from the arcane construct and through her ruined library. The still form of a Sin’dorei laying amongst her wards told her all she needed to know as she stormed towards her portal room. She passed damage to priceless spells and artifacts, ruination brought to her home while she’d been away. And then she reached the portal room, and saw the still, silent form of her new apprentice, Sunii.

Her blood ran white hot, and magic flared in the air about her, her shriek echoing down the long corridors. Rage the likes of which had not flowed through her in years took hold, and magic enfolded her, blazing hot as she changed her form again and disappeared through a gaping portal.

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Kyliska was lying in bed, reading a book when her bedroom door suddenly burst open and Astariel ran into the room. The little Sin’dorei was in tears, and she hurled herself into Kyliska’s bed and into her arms, crying hysterically. It took many minutes to get the child to stop crying, soothing and patting her back as she got her sobs out. When she finally calmed a little, Kyliska whispered into her ear, “Hush now child, what’s gotten you so upset.”

The answer, when it came, made Kyliska’s blood run cold.

“Mommy is so mad, it’s scaring me…”

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Braeth’el sighed and shook his head, his tone strained, “All we did was make the situation worse, Rayleth. You should have let me handle things. We’re after Biara, not her friends and family members. We’re not beasts like she is. I appreciate that you wanted to take initiative, and that you wanted to take part in a battle and overcome those fears, but what you did was a major mistake.”

Rayleth straightened his glasses, looking deflated, “I’m sorry…I’ll try harder next time to keep it in check. She just made me so mad. How could she sit there and stupidly tell us she knows nothing?”

“Malandrae is a lot of things, and stupid is potentially one of them, but she’s not someone to underestimate and certainly not worth harming. It’s like kicking a puppy, so please restrain yourself next time, okay?” Braeth’el said.

“Fine...I’m sorry.”

“Good. Now then, I’m going to go report in to Kyli and let her know how this worked out. We’ll talk again in the morning to discuss our next steps now that we know you can track her,” Braeth’el replied. He turned, walking out of the conjury room where they had been discussing the raid. The surviving apprentices were all present, each resting or tending to minor wounds. They had lost a few, but Biara’s sanctum was no longer secure and was heavily damaged. Not a complete loss at least.

As he entered the hallway beyond the room, the entire tower seemed to rock for a moment, arcane energies pouring into the structure all around them. He spun, eyes wide as he locked glances with Rayleth.

Rayleth looked panicked, his voice cracking as he shouted, “Something’s breaking our wards! I-it knows how to unravel the underpinnings of the estate’s defense spells! We need to-“

There was a crack and suddenly a figure was standing in the room with the apprentices. Braeth’el felt his breath catch in his throat as he beheld her, the impossibility of it slamming against his mind. There, in the center of the room, stood the dead Draenei they had just killed in Biara’s sanctum. Only she wasn’t dead now, and she didn’t have a single wound on her. Her eyes blazed with arcane magic as she met Braeth’el’s stare, and a malevolence the likes of which only one person could have stared back at him.

“Oh shi-“ Braeth’el started to say before an arcane force slammed the double doors to the conjury in his face. He ran up and began to batter them with his fists, but something held them fast.

And then the screaming started.

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Biara had chosen her form well, mirroring the appearance of her dead apprentice, Sunii. All of the Sin’dorei around her stared in shock, taking in her unwounded gray skin and red hair. As was common, a scar was still visible under her right eye but there was little she could do to change that; her real form was scarred, and thus the scars would be seen when she shifted forms using her magic.

The few seconds of shock that the appearance of the ‘dead’ Draenei brought were all Biara needed to begin the slaughter. Arcane magic lashed out, and two Sin’dorei died instantly from Biara’s spells. Another tried to prepare a shield and her magic tore the Sin’dorei’s defenses to shreds before hurling the elf across the room and impaling her on laboratory equipment in the conjury.

With three of them dead, the others put up only a minimal fight. Rayleth managed to hurl a fireball at the Draenei, but his magic flickered off perfectly prepared arcane wards. The creature had come prepared for a fight while his Sin’dorei were recovering from one and had not expected to fight again so soon.

Bolts of ice lashed out, and two more apprentices fell, bleeding on the floor. Biara stepped over them, her hooves crackling on the frozen and debris covered ground as she stalked towards Rayleth. He attempted another spell, and she casually batted it aside with a wave of a hand like a cat playing with a ball of yarn. She brought her hands up, and Rayleth was hurled across the room, slamming against a wall and pinned there by arcane force.

With a smile, Biara stepped closer, coming within inches of Rayleth’s face, “Why? We had something special for a time. I’ve not harmed any of you, and yet you came to my home and killed one of my people. You stabbed that innocent creature who would do nothing to hurt a fly if she could help it. Did you think I would let it go? That I’d not come for you?”

Rayleth coughed, the pressure on his chest making it hard to catch a breath, “We did what we had to do. You betrayed Quel’Thalas!”

Biara snarled, her draenei face leaning forward and whispering into Rayleth’s ear almost sensually, “I am older than Quel’Thalas. Older than this tower. I decide what is right and wrong, what needs to be done with my heirs. Not you. Not the Sin’dorei. No one but me. But you couldn’t leave well enough alone. You had to be a hero and invade my home. This has been done to me before. Let me show you what happens when people take my sanctuary from me.”

Rayleth opened his mouth to speak but it turned into a scream as a dagger slammed through his ear, pinning it to the wall behind him. Blood ran down the side of his face as Biara twisted the dagger, still grinning at him through the guise of a relatively innocent looking Draenei.

“Now, unlike you, I finish the task when I start. You will be an abject lesson to Kyliska not to trifle with me again, Rayleth. I’m sorry it had to be this way, but sometimes heroes don’t come home from battle,” Biara said, releasing the hilt of the dagger and turning to stride towards the center of the room.

Rayleth began to wiggle his fingers, preparing to send a spell at her back when she turned and gestured. He screamed again as arcane forces snapped each of his fingers, “Ah ah. None of that, lover. You had your chance when I first arrived and you failed, just like you failed at everything else. Perhaps if you had been better at pleasing me, you’d be able to live longer than this. A pity.”

With that, she turned again, murmuring the words to a spell. An orb of energy appeared before her, the spell gaining power as it sucked in the mana from the equipment and the bodies in the room. It began to sputter, becoming dangerously unstable.

Biara looked back at Rayleth one last time, her hand slipping into the pocket of her robe and then dropping a small ring on the floor of the conjury. It was gold and red, and glittered in the light of the growing spell, a signet ring of House Sunfire lying on the broken ground of the conjury.

A moment later, Biara faded away, her magic whisking her far from that place.

A second after that, her spell detonated, and everything in the room was turned to ash instantly. Hours later Braeth’el and the guards would manage to tear down the warded doors, only to find burned ruination and a single, perfectly undamaged ring sitting in the center of it all. A clear declaration of war in no uncertain terms.