elves she was and is and might have been

Way back in 2011, Millya of Manalicious* was doing 5-minute sketch portraits (batch 1, batch 2) for her friends, and I requested a portrait of Kaelinda**, thinking that I might use it for digital coloring practice…

Eight and a half years later, I’ve finally gotten around to doing that.

drawing by Stacey Landry; colors by me

~*~*~

* I miss Manalicious and still regret that I didn’t ever commission a watercolor portrait of one of my characters, even though I wouldn’t actually be going to BlizzCon…

** because I’d already gotten a Millya portrait of Kamalia, which has been my Gravatar ever since

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gratuitous art post: Close To You

Why do birds suddenly appear
Every time you are near?
Just like me, they long to be
Close to you.
— Burt Bacharach & Hal David, sung by The Carpenters

I was sitting in a long meeting earlier this afternoon and this wandered out of my pen and onto my notebook page. Apparently Kaelinda’s relationship with her Special Friend back in Silvermoon City is at the stage of mutual longing, yet mutual trepidation about actually expressing the feeling.

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A Day in the Life… ( Z and Cinder’s Blog Challenge)

The morning sun filtering through the curtains of the suite of rooms which she’d been given in the Hall of the Guardian awakened Kaelinda from a jumbled dream of Silvermoon before Arthas, Silvermoon after Arthas, the Dawnstrider estate in Eversong Woods, and a certain someone* waiting for her to come home again. Sighing, she slid out of bed, tidying the bedclothes with an unvocalized handflick cantrip that she had been doing for so much of her life that she did it now without even consciously thinking about it. After bathing, dressing, and eating a simple breakfast of fruit, nuts, and quark** that she kept stored in her rooms, she went downstairs to the morning meeting of the Council of Tirisgarde.

Kaelinda was not entirely comfortable with her role as the First Conjurer of the renewed Order of Tirisgarde. It had only been a few short years ago that the Magisters of Silvermoon had granted her the rank of Magistrix, after all, and she hadn’t yet taken on even one apprentice. Until the Council was able to determine the cause of and cure for Meryl Felstorm’s debilitating illness, however, she would have to take his place.

First, the Council received the daily petition from an Emissary from one of the peoples of the Broken Isles. Next, Archmage Melis reviewed the notices she’d received in the past day about errands that required the skills of the other Archmages of the Council. They usually ended up assigning those errands to Kalec, Ravandwyr, Esara, or Millhouse, while Kaelinda requested that Archmage Modera accompany her. Then the Council discussed with Grand Conjurer Mimic the training progress and needs of the Apprentices and Invokers. There were potential improvements to the Hall to be considered with Chronicler Elrianne, armor and talismans to be requisitioned with Minuette, and the Focusing Crystal to be charged by Conjurer Awlyn and her staff. When all of these tasks were done, Kaelinda met with Modera to review the notices about various errands or opportunities throughout the Broken Isles. They selected which errands they would do to fulfil the petition of the Emissary, then decided if they wanted to do any of the other errands, as well. The business of the Council frequently took up most of the morning.

Sometimes, Kaelinda went back to her rooms to take lunch by herself. Sometimes, she went to the Purple Parlor with other Mages from the Hall of the Guardian. Sometimes, she went to the Ledgerdemain Lounge with her Sin’dorei relatives. Occasionally, she went to the Filthy Animal with her Tauren friends. Despite the revolting name and the outrageous rumors about Chef Lon’gomba and Gnomes, the food there was really quite decent — provided you ordered something off of the establishment’s traditional menu. There were two new sections on the menu since Dalaran had moved to the Broken Isles: Pandarian cuisine and Broken Isles delicacies. Actually, the Pandarian cuisine was also decent, but anyone who dared to order something from the Broken Isles menu frequently got a badly burned mess.

After lunch, Kaelinda usually did one of two things. Either she and Edirah delved into the the vast library in the center of the Hall of the Guardian, hunting down more information about Felo’melorn, Aluneth, Ebonchill, and the Mages who’d wielded them, or she worked on sewing projects*** in her rooms. Today, she decided to embroider another section of the elaborate decorations on the Imbued Silkweave Robe she was making.

In the late afternoon or early evening, Kaelinda and Modera set out to fulfil the Emissary’s petition. When that task was completed, Kaelinda visited Shal’Aran and distributed Ancient Mana crystals to First Arcanist Thalyssra, Arcanist Valtrois, and Chief Telemancer Occuleth. Although she now understood, as she had not realized when she first met Runas the Shamed and the exiled Leyweaver, Lyndras, that the dependence of the Nightfallen on condensed forms of mana was because it was literally food to them — not quite the same thing as the subtle addiction of the Quel’dorei to the flow of mana from the Sunwell — chasing after Ancient Mana deposits while she was in Suramar still made her feel vaguely like she had become a mana-addict again by proxy. If she had the time and physical energy, she would ask Thalyssra what else she could do that day to help the Nightfallen. If not, she would retire to the Hall of the Guardian and spend the rest of the evening studying magic and practicing her spellwork+. It wouldn’t do, after all, to be outperformed by one of the other members of the Order of Tirisgarde the next time that Mimic requested that she participate in an exhibition duel for the benefit of the Apprentices…

~*~*~

* Until just recently, I wasn’t certain what Kaelinda’s romantic status was. She’s begun hinting to me that she’s got a special male friend who lives in Silvermoon City, though where that relationship falls on the scale of “outwardly platonic, but desperately wishing for more” to “married with children”, she hasn’t told me yet (I suspect that it’s more toward the UST end).

** A cultured, thickened and strained, slightly sweetened dairy product intermediate in texture between yogurt and cream cheese; a regional specialty of Eversong Woods.

*** I have more or less always imagined that the 5 – 10 seconds it takes to craft an item in-game only represents putting the final, finishing touches on it. All the real work of the crafting — the preparation of materials, the shaping and assembly of pieces, the meticulous labor of fine detail work — is something that the character occupies herself with when she’s not busy questing — that is to say, when I’m offline.

+ Although I, the player, almost never spend time with the training dummies, I imagine that my characters do practice their skills and train themselves in new techniques regularly. One can’t stay skilled enough to remain capable of being the leader second-in-command of one’s Class Order if one rests on one’s laurels, after all.

~*~*~

This story was brought to you by the challenge of the fortnight from Z & Cinder:

We want to read about a day in the life of your toon. This one is an opportunity to get as creative as you like. You can simply write about what you get up to in WoW each day. Or maybe you would write it like a diary entry from the point of view of your character, telling the story of their day to day life, going in to battle, fighting the Legion… it’s up to you!

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Kaelinda in Azsuna — or — a second 110, at last

Kaelinda dinged 109 doing profession quests at the Darkmoon Faire last Sunday. I didn’t feel like she’d really done very much Legion stuff yet, so where did all that XP come from?

Hmm… she did all of Val’sharah. She did the first chapter in Azsuna and the first two chapters in Stormheim. She did her Mage order hall stuff at level 103 and got all of her Artifacts. She did the Exodar scenario. She did the Tailoring questline up until she got the first quest to go into a dungeon. She picked some flowers — aethril, dreamleaf, fjarnskaggl — and did the first quests for those herbs. And oh yeah, she did a couple of the bonus objective areas in Azsuna while working on the Tailoring and Mage questchains. So I guess that’s quite a bit of Broken Isles stuff, after all. But did she really get almost all of the rest of that XP from doing the Thunder Bluff and Old Dalaran fising dailies until she got the Jeweled Fishing Pole?!

Seeing that Kaelinda was so close to level 110, on Thursday night I decided to go questing with her instead of starting the Legionfall campaign with Kamalia or taking someone to the Thousand Boat Bash. She started by going to Azurewing Repose to help the blue dragons.

At Azurewing Repose, Kaelinda was nearly overcome by the raw, unfiltered mana radiating from the fully exposed ley line.

It had been challenging to break free of the addiction to the flow of mana from the Sunwell, that addiction that she hadn’t even known that she had until the Sunwell was destroyed… She had managed it eventually, sooner even than many Sin’dorei, despite — or perhaps because of — being a Mage and interacting with and shaping mana more frequently and intimately than those with other careers. Once, some years ago, she had gone to the Exodar in Human disguise; she had rapidly fallen into a daze from the haze of mana in the atmosphere there. She had thought, at the time, that she had mastered the addiction, and she had been somewhat ashamed of herself for succumbing so easily. This… this was a hundredfold… maybe a thousandfold more potent and difficult to resist. She struggled to stay focused and clear-headed. It would have been so blissful to just lie down in those shimmering pools, resting her head on the shore, like soaking in a nice hot bath, and dream for awhile.

It didn’t help that Aluneth kept greedily siphoning up the energy.

She had a great deal of empathy for Runas, because he reminded her of those first terrible weeks after the destruction of the Sunwell.

He also frightened her, because he reminded her of what she could have become if she hadn’t been able to begin recovering from the addiction as soon and as well as she did. She was both fascinated and horrified by her introduction to the Nightborne elves at Zarkhenar.

Completing the Azurewing Repose storyline got her over halfway from 109 to 110. That was also a good stopping point, so I continued on Friday.

After she had helped them defeat the Nightborne attack, the dragons sent Kaelinda to meet a ghostly Prince of the ancient Highborne elves, saying that he would be able to help her obtain the Tidestone of Golganneth. Kaelinda had spent many years studying what was known of the Highborne, so she was keenly interested — excited, to tell the truth — to learn about them more directly.

Kaelinda wondered what the rest of the Starlance family’s story was. Where had the children been, that they were not in Nar’thalas when Azshara cursed the city? What careers had Kallistia and Olothil pursued before they decided to become Mages? Or had they been Mages all along, hiding in Eldre’thalas? How had they remained so juvenile youthful over ten thousand years?

Nar’thalas Academy… I loved this place the first time I came through, with Kamalia, and I loved it just as much the second time through. I’ll have to get Kaelinda the Key to its past the next time that Archaeology quest comes up.

Kaelinda continued on and finished the zone after she dinged. The abrupt change of heart of the denizens of Nar’thalas toward their Prince stymied Kaelinda somewhat. For ten thousand years, Farondis’ subjects had hated him for what his defiance of Queen Azshara had cost them. Yet when Azshara confronted Farondis and dangled before him the hope of releasing his people from their curse, he defied her again… and now they suddenly respected him again?

It didn’t seem to make any sense. Could it have been because the revelation that Azshara was behind the Naga made them realize that Farondis cared for them and Azshara did not? And they’d rather be ghosts with a Prince who cared than properly alive (or dead?) with a Queen who didn’t? Or had they entirely misunderstood what Farondis had done and why — for ten thousand years? She would have to spend more time with the Court of Farondis, learning their personalities, history, and culture, to understand this thing.

Of course, Kaelinda was showered with things to do as soon as she returned to Dalaran and her Order Hall. Do World Quests! Go to Suramar! Take the Tear of Elune to Light’s Heart! Continue the Mage campaign! Go to the Broken Shore! I was surprised that she got pushed the Legionfall opening quest — I thought that she would have to complete the 7.0 Order Hall campaign first. She also needs to run the Eye of Azshara dungeon both to get the Tidestone and for her Tailoring quest. Because it was World Quests bonus week, I did World Quests — all the Emissaries that came up, plus a few extras to get to twenty. I had Kamalia send to Kaelinda the Artifact Knowledge catch-up thingy to get her to AK 20; then she spent most of the Order Resources she acquired from WQing to get to AK 25. She very quickly accumulated enough Artifact Power to fill up Aluneth from a handful of traits up to 20-some-odd. I think this AK/AP catch-up mechanism for alts works quite nicely!

So now I will be asking myself each evening: Suramar with Kaelinda, or Legionfall with Kamalia? Or be lazy and just do Emissary World Quests? 😛

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The Sunwell’s Blessing (5/5)

Kaelinda accompanied Karaelia to the Isle of Quel’Danas. “I should very much like to see this prismatic blade fully restored,” she explained, “and it might help your case with Ranger General Brightwing if a Sin’dorei on pilgrimage is with you. It has been some time since I last visited the Sunwell, since its renewal.”

As they approached the entrance to the Sunwell complex, a warden warned them, “Only those who have the Ranger General’s approval may enter the Sunwell Plateau.”

Kaelinda sighed. “This is the most sacred place known to the Sin’dorei, but it had been long enough since we regained control of the Sunwell that the guard had been relaxed and it had become much easier for pilgrims to gain entrance. Then Garrosh happened, and the guard here got more stringent again to protect against him trying to use the Sunwell for nasty purposes. Did you know that Regent-Lord Theron was thinking about opening talks with Stormwind for the Sin’dorei to rejoin the Alliance? Then there was that terrible incident with the Divine Bell in Darnassus, and the Purge of Dalaran, and now the guard here is tighter than it has ever been except for right after we reclaimed this place.”

Ranger General Brightwing scowled at them. “You would raise the hopes of our people with tales of Quel’Delar? Without proof of the truth of your claims, I see no reason to take you at your word.”

Karaelia unbuckled the scabbarded sword and handed it to him. He examined the hilt, and his demeanor changed.

“Oh, so you are the one with whom Myralion Sunblaze has been working. Well, then. And Magistrix Dawnstrider, I apologize, I did not recognize you at first. Still, I must verify that you are not trying to hoax our people with a cunningly crafted replica.”

“These have been trying times, of late,” Kaelinda acknowledged.

“I know of a way that we can test this sword,” said the Ranger General. “If you know the blade’s history –” he paused, looking at them in a significant sort of way, and they both nodded. Satisfied, he continued, “then you will recall that it was last wielded by Thalorien Dawnseeker in the defense of the Sunwell against the Scourge. He fell in what is now the Dead Scar, buying time for his regiment to make their own preparations. You will find his remains at the southern end of the Dead Scar on this isle. Visit them, and if his spirit gives you its blessing, I will allow you to enter the Sunwell with this blade.”

~*~*~

Karaelia looked out over the blackened, bone-carpeted Dead Scar and wondered how she would find one man’s remains among the debris. Perhaps the sword would give her an indication of when she had found its former master?

She was glad for Kaelinda’s company. The mage quickly prepared a small seeking spell that would search for armor items bearing the sigils of the Dawnseeker family. She sent it out across the Dead Scar, where it zipped back and forth, hovering here and there for a moment or two. At last it hovered in the same spot for several seconds, then exploded in a spray of firework-like sparks.

As Karaelia and Kaelinda approached the spot, both the sword and the armor-clad skeleton lying there began to glow. A ghostly regiment of high elves appeared. Their commander addressed them.

“We must defend the Sunwell from the enemy at all costs. I am ordering you to withdraw to the Sunwell proper to help prepare the defenses. I will make my stand here and buy you as much time as I am able. Use it well and make our prince proud. It has been a great honor to fight beside you in defense of our land and people.”

The ghostly regiment turned and walked northward toward the Sunwell. The commander faced southward, readying himself — and then he noticed Karaelia and Kaelinda.

“You! Strangers!” he said, “You are not my soldiers. Will you stay and stand with me to face the enemy?” When they nodded, he faced southward again and shouted, “Listen well, Scourge defilers! None of you will reach the Sunwell so long as I stand!”

A death knight on a deathcharger approached, proclaiming, “You will fall as your lands and city have before you. My lord will win a great victory here, and none will remember your name!”

Waves of Scourge assaulted the high elf commander, but with Karaelia and Kaelinda’s assistance, they were all destroyed. The ghost turned to them. “I… I wasn’t meant to survive this attack. Why has this happened? Why have you come here?”

His gaze fell upon the hilt of Quel’Delar. “It’s the sword!” he exclaimed, “Quel’Delar! You possess it!”

Astonishment filling his voice, he continued, “I don’t know how, but the blade has chosen you to be its new wielder. Take it with my blessing, and wield it against the Scourge as I once did.” He knelt before Karaelia, then vanished. The glow surrounding the sword and the armored skeleton rapidly faded away.

~*~*~

“You truly do carry Quel’Delar,” said Ranger General Brightwing, when they related to him what had occurred in the Dead Scar. “This is a great day for all of Quel’Thalas and the Sin’dorei. You have my leave to enter the Sunwell and finish the sword’s restoration. The children of Silvermoon have dreamt of this day for years.”

A warden escorted them into the Sunwell Plateau complex, leading them on a separate path from the one the rest of the pilgrims were taking. They soon reached the Sunwell itself.

At the edge of the Sunwell, a group of pilgrims was listening to Lady Liadrin. Karaelia and Kaelinda sat down to listen, too. The pilgrims nearest to them scooted away, instinctively shying from the evil radiated by the saronite in the blade of Quel’Delar.

“My brothers and sisters,” the Blood Knight Matriarch said, “words cannot describe what I felt upon seeing the Sunwell rekindled. In that moment, the Light revealed to me the truth of the terrible things I had done. Our people had walked a dark path, and mine was among the darkest of all.

It is a strength that we Sin’dorei all share. It is a strength we will need to free ourselves of the addiction ravaging our people. It will be the most difficult battle we have ever faced, but our resolve and the power of the Sunwell will sustain us until we have been restored to our greatness.”

The group of pilgrims applauded, then dispersed. Lady Liadrin withdrew from the edge of the Sunwell, following her own challenge to resist renewed addiction, and sat down on a bench. She closed her eyes and appeared to be meditating.

Karaelia knelt at the edge of the Sunwell and carefully immersed Quel’Delar in it. A shower of light burst forth, sparkling and crackling. A gasp, followed by the “ooh” and “ahh” of a crowd at a Midsummer Fire Festival fireworks show, arose from the pilgrims. The blade began to shine with a pure, clean radiance. It almost seemed to be singing with joy.

As Karaelia reached for the hilt, she could no longer feel the sticky sensation of saronite’s evil pulling on her soul. At the same time, the hilt seemed to be pushing her away with little arcs and pulses of light. Karaelia looked around, saw Lady Liadrin, and understood.

Thalorien Dawnseeker had told her that Quel’Delar chose its own wielders. It had chosen her to bring it here, but now that it was restored and purified, it was not hers to continue to bear.

She knelt before Lady Liadrin. “My Lady,” she began, unsure of quite how to say what she meant.

“Yes, young one?” Lady Liadrin opened her eyes, and Karaelia watched her expression change to awe as she looked over Karaelia’s head and saw Quel’Delar glowing in the Sunwell.

“My Lady Liadrin,” Karaelia began again, and now she knew what she should say, “here is Quel’Delar, the prismatic blade gifted by the dragonflights to your people so long ago and lost in the Scourge attack on the Sunwell. I know not why it chose me and my family and friends to recover it, but now that it is restored, there is only one person who has the right to wield it: you. You, the champion of the Light for the Sin’dorei.”

Lady Liadrin rose to her feet, placing a slightly shaking hand on Karaelia’s shoulder. “Am I truly laying my eyes on the weapon of Thalorien Dawnseeker?” she said, in a slightly breathless voice. “This is a wondrous day for all Sin’dorei. Our people, sin’dorei and quel’dorei alike, have dreamt of this for years. Quel’Delar rises again, as the Sin’dorei rise again and again from the ashes of defeat and betrayal!” Liadrin’s voice strengthened as she spoke, and now as she proclaimed these triumphant words, she stepped past Karaelia to the edge of the Sunwell, reached out, and Quel’Delar leapt into her hand. Liadrin held the prismatic blade high above her head, and the cheering of the elves echoed off of the faraway ceiling of the room.

Lady Liadrin lowered Quel’Delar. Wordlessly, Karaelia handed her its scabbard. As she sheathed the blade and buckled it to her side, Liadrin turned to look at Karaelia directly. “Thank you, Tauren — no, I know you, I have seen you working with my Knights. Karaelia. Thank you, Karaelia, for doing this great service for my people. You have done us, and yourself, a great honor. Light — or how do your people say it? An’she? An’she be with you.”

~*~*~

“So,” said Keija, when Karaelia returned to the farmhouse at Halfhill, “where is that sword we made from that battered old hilt that Kam gave you? I thought you went to the Sunwell to cleanse the taint of saronite from it. What happened? Did you drop it all the way in and lose it at the bottom, or something?”

“No,” Karaelia replied quietly, shaking her head. “I didn’t lose it. I gave it to Lady Liadrin. That sword… it choses its own masters, and once I took it there, and cleansed it, my part in its story was done. It was never really meant for me.”

Around the common room of the house, her sisters’ heads nodded. Kamalia looked up from her leatherworking and smiled at Karaelia. “I knew there was a reason why I felt like I ought to give that hilt to you. Well done, little sister, well done.”

~*~*~

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The Battered Hilt (1/5)

The scratched and dented hilt had once belonged to an ancient sword. It had lain at the bottom of Karaelia’s bags for so long that she’d almost forgotten that it was there. Now, as she sorted and tidied her posessions in preparation for joining Archmage Khadgar’s assault on the altered Dark Portal, she found herself pondering whether to continue to keep it, or to discard it along with the pile of items she no longer needed.

She felt reluctant to just throw it away because Kamalia had given it to her years ago, in the waning months of the campaign in Northrend, as a sort of Winter Veil gift.
Ronada found this while she was helping to clear the fortifications at the base of Icecrown Citadel, Kamalia had said, but neither she nor I can use this sort of weapon. I sense a lingering whisper of power in it, though it does not feel much like the elements. It feels more like… An’she, perhaps. Your friends, the… what do they call themselves? Sunwalkers? might be able to help you reawaken the power in this weapon and reforge an appropriate blade for it.

But Karaelia had been too shy to show the battered hilt to Aponi Brightmane or Dezco Dawnchaser, and then the Cataclysm had come. The hilt had slipped into the depths of her bags and she had become too involved in many things to think of doing anything with it.

Now, as she weighed the broken weapon in the palm of her hand, really looking at it for what felt like the first time, she observed that the design seemed vaguely elvish — though she was not quite sure whether it was more Kaldorei or Sin’dorei in style.

Karaelia left the farmhouse and rode around the bend of the Halfhill Road to the stead where Kamalia’s Sin’dorei friends lived. As she approached the gate, the copper-haired Mage, Kaelinda, looked up from the Imperial Silkworms she was tending.

“Yes?” she inquired.

Karaelia handed the Mage the ancient hilt and awkwardly explained how she’d gotten it. Kaelinda examined it with an expression of mildly detatched curiosity for a minute or two. Then one eyebrow shot upward and she summoned a book — and then another, and another, and another — from inside her house with a snap of her fingers. The pages fluttered as she flicked through them, muttering inaudibly. Finally, she looked back up at Karaelia.

“You’re a Crusader, aren’t you? You spent how long at the Argent Tournament, even though the place is horridly obsolete, and never once thought to show this to the Sunreavers?”

“I’d kind of forgotten about it,” Karaelia admitted, “and when I did think of it, I wasn’t sure they’d really be all that interested in an old broken sword. I decided that maybe I would just ask Keija to forge a new blade for it, and then Pandaria was discovered and I never got around to doing that, either…”

“My dear, if I am not mistaken, this ‘old broken sword’ is The Reason why the Sunreavers are still up there in that frigid wasteland, enduring Fordring’s absurdities, after all this time since the Lich King was slain. Whether they realize it or not, they have been searching for this very artifact in the detritus of that awful fortress, and hoping that if they didn’t find it themselves, then whomever else might find it would bring it to them — and your sister gave it to you as a Winter Veil present! Tauren!” Kaelinda shook her head.
“Go, now, to the Argent Tournament and show this to Myralion Sunblaze. I assure you that he will be very interested indeed.”

~*~*~

Karaelia donned her Argent Crusade livery and pressed the sigils embroidered near the hem of the tabard to activate the Hearth spell embedded in it.

Myralion Sunblaze was not in the Sunreavers’ pavillion. “He’s down the hill arguing with those Silver Covenant idiots about some thing the Explorer’s League found in the ice”, Girana the Blooded replied when Karaelia inquired. “They can’t seem to get it out of the ice, and they can’t quite figure out what it is, so they’ve been arguing about it every day for years,” Girana added, rolling her eyes. “If you think you can help them solve the mystery, Light help you!”

To Karaelia’s great surprise, Magister Sunblaze did not seem to recognize the hilt.

“This came from the citadel?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “What was it doing there? This blade is certainly not of Scourge manufacture.” His tone turned curious and musing as he examined the broken weapon. “There’s no mistaking it – this hilt comes from a powerful, ancient weapon, but which one? I do not recognize these particular markings, but we haven’t hit a dead end yet.” He directed Karaelia to take it to the dragons at Wyrmrest Temple.

When Karaelia arrived at Wyrmrest Temple, she found Alexstrasza and Kalecgos sitting atop the ruined summit in their dragon forms, staring moodily out toward the southern shore, their backs turned to the defiled landscape of the Dragonblight. As she approached, they shifted into their humanoid forms, leaving room for her Argent Hippogryph to land.

“What brings you here, my child?” asked Alexstrasza.

Karaelia handed the Dragon Queen the hilt, and her eyes lit up. “Look at this, Kalec!” she said. “Karaelia may have found the remains of a prismatic blade!”

“Really?” said Kalec, seeming excited. Then he flinched, as if someone had elbowed him in the side, and his tone changed. “Are you certain you should help, er, these mortals” — his eyes shifted to the side and his eyebrows tightened into a minute glare, as if he was saying something different than what someone else wanted him to say — “with this quest?”

Karaelia looked around, wondering who or what was bothering Kalec. She saw a faint shimmer in the air beside him, and her hand went to the pommel of her sword.

“These blades…” Kalec continued, “they were made long ago when things were… different. Our enemies once turned our strongest weapons against us. What makes you think the prismatic blades will be any different?” He relaxed a little, as if the invisible person beside him had also relaxed a bit.

“Mortal champions have long used these weapons to combat evil,” Alexstrasza replied. Her eyes narrowed as she looked just to the side of Kalec. “I see no reason to keep the swords from this honorable champion.”

“There is a book that you may find helpful,” said Alexstrasza. “It was once in the posession of my consort, Korialstraz, also known as Krasus. He had lent it out to a colleague in Dalaran at the time when…” her voice trailed off and her gaze became distant. After a few seconds, she recollected herself. “I believe the book is still in Dalaran, but after recent events there–” again she narrowed her eyes in the direction of Kalec’s side “–I am not sure who might have it. The best person for you to ask would probably be Magister Hathorel. I understand that he is with Regent-Lord Theron in Pandaria at present.”

Karaelia thanked Alexstrasza and Kalec for their help and activated her Hearthstone. As the teleportation spell began to take hold, she saw Jaina Proudmoore appear at Kalec’s side. Karaelia realized that Jaina must have been sitting with the dragons and turned herself invisible as she approached.

“How can you allow this — this Horde to continue to pursue one of the prismatic blades?” Jaina accosted Kalec and Alexstrasza furiously.

But Karaelia did not hear how the dragons responded, because Wyrmrest Temple faded away and her Halfhill farmhouse materialized around her.

~*~*~

Notes:
I bought a Battered Hilt on the AH near the beginning of Cataclysm. At the time, it was one of the most expensive AH purchases I had ever made. I put it in my bank until I got my Paladin leveled. Even after I got my Paladin leveled, which didn’t happen until mid-Mists, I didn’t do the questline right away.
I finally got around to doing the questline in February of 2015, just before I took my Paladin to Draenor. Thus, I chose to set the story of Karaelia’s experience with Quel’Delar near the end of Mists in the overall timeline. Accounting for the death of Krasus shortly before the Dragon Soul raid and the Purge of Dalaran during the Pandarian campaign necessarily required a certain amount of reworking of the story from how the actual in-game questline goes.
I wrote the first segment of the story around the same time that I did the questline. Then I dawdled over writing up the rest of it until it occurred to me that perhaps I ought to get this story written and posted before doing and writing a story about another major lore questchain.

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art post: early Tauren drawings

This is another of my very earliest WoW-inspired drawings. Kamalia (on the left, with the staff) and Ronada (on the right, with the 2H Mace) look like they are probably in their 30s or 40s, and the email that’s printed out on the other side of the sheet of paper I made the drawing on is dated early October 2007 — about two months after I began playing WoW.

A slightly later drawing, mentally captioned “Shaman or Druid?” because the totems are definitely Shaman, but even then, having leaves swirl about Kamalia’s hands as she cast her healing spells seemed more Druidic than Shamanic (yes, I was glad when they changed the spell effect of Healing Wave to be bubbling water), and she’s wearing the Willow/Solstice/Night Elf Novice Druid style of robe. The Willow Robe has been one of my favorite robes in the game ever since I first saw it.

By mid-2008, I’d created a Tauren of every class Tauren could be — Kamalia’s sisters — and a number of other alts as well, of whom the primary non-Tauren alt was Kaelinda the Blood Elf Mage. Kerisa must still have been under level 40, because she was Feral until she had enough talent points to get Moonkin Form immediately upon changing her spec to Balance. Kamalia was raiding Karazhan by then, and her shoulders in this picture are intended to be the T4 Cyclone design.

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