After the events in the Emerald Dream, certain words spoken by Malfurion Stormrage about the confrontation with the Nightmare Lord had gotten mixed up with general gossip between Alliance adventurers and the unnamed tower in Ashenvale had started being called the Guardian Tower.
As Jaina teleported in, she mused that Harry would probably like the name. According to Luna, the man had a fondness for dramatic-sounding names. Aegwynn had just seemed amused that the title she and her son after her had once borne had been effectively usurped by someone who hadn't been endowed with the power of the Council of Tirisfal.
Then again, her chamberlain was also continually amused by Harry's romantic pursuit of her, so her sense of humor was suspect. She had not pointed out that Jaina was joining in on the rescue mission, but her smirk spoke loudly enough.
The fact that Jaina was only joining because leaving Harry in Azshara's hands was far too dangerous, and because the… Battle Harem… was missing its main offensive magic user with Harry gone, was ignored.
"You're early." Arko noted as soon as she made it to one of the tower's common rooms.
"I couldn't focus on anything else, so I figured I might as well come over." Jaina admitted.
It was a common issue she had. It was fine once the action started, but the wait was murder on her nerves.
"Then we might as well get ready and go." Luna decided. "Whatever distraction Harry has planned, he said that he should be able to set it off with a reasonably large margin of error."
"Sounds good." Jaina nodded, mostly just relieved that she wouldn't have to wait for several more hours before they set off.
"Alright, then strip naked so I can make you as smooth as a baby's butt."
"Wait, what?"
XXXXX
"Was that really necessary?"
Jaina had never considered herself or humanity in general as being a particularly 'hairy' species (and boy was she glad that Harry wasn't here to make any stupid puns), so being completely denuded of hair left her feeling a lot more exposed than she thought it should.
"Probably." Jessir replied with a note of humor in her voice. "Harry also needs his body hair removed to put on the Black Carapace."
The Black Carapace, a thin layer of alchemically treated and melted dragonhide designed to cover a person's body and grant them a facsimile of a dragon's innate magic resistance. Jaina wouldn't argue that it was a marvelous invention, but the full body hair removal required to wear it seemed a bit suspect to her. Luna had insisted that the Black Carapace would otherwise pinch and pull and be generally distracting… then rambled off into a pondering tangent if that was Jaina's kink, at which point she had agreed to it out of sheer embarrassment and to shut her up.
"Even if he puts it back later." Arko broke in, grumbling.
"He is better with chest hair and you know it." Colette's own tone was argumentative and stubborn and reminded Jaina of how she and her brothers could get when quibbling over some petty issue that none of them intended to budge on.
"Lies." Jessir sniffed. "Smooth chests are the best."
"I'm on Team Chest Hair myself." Luna added sagely. "What about you, Jaina? Do you prefer men with smooth chests or hairy chests?"
Unexpectedly put on the spot, Jaina floundered. Her only lover had been Arthas, who had what could at best be called 'thin, light fuzz' on his chest – the men of the Menethil dynasty had never been known for their bear-like physiques. This really wasn't a question she had any intention of pondering in any depth, or answering for that matter, but the expectant gazes of five women – even Garona looked curious for some reason! – were exerting a lot of peer pressure.
"I don't really have an opinion on that." She evaded.
"We'll have to try it both ways at the post-mission orgy." Luna simply nodded as if it was an accepted fact that Jaina would be hopping into bed with them after they got back. "I'm pretty sure he had his body on hair growth mode before our last mission, so he should be nice and shaggy by now."
Right, their efforts in the Emerald Dream had dragged on too long for them to wear the Black Carapace, so they had gone without. Jaina had heard a few speculative conversations whether or not Harry could have overcome Azshara if he was wearing it. The overall consensus was no, but the girls couldn't help but think of what ifs. That wasn't important right now, though.
"I'm not joining you for any post-mission orgies." She said sharply. "Or any orgies at all. Or having sex with any of you for that matter."
Jaina had a feeling that if she didn't keep making this clear, she would one day wake up with either Luna, Harry or both of them in her bed with the 'innocent' excuse of 'you didn't say we couldn't'.
"But life-affirming post-mission sex is good for you!" Luna's distressed tone reminded her far too much of how her mother had sounded when she first heard that her relationship with Arthas hadn't worked out. It had the same note of well-intentioned concern in it. "You really shouldn't miss out on it. Even if you don't do it with us, you should do it with someone!"
How is this my life now? The young archmage despaired. "Luna, please don't concern yourself with my sex life."
The confused furrow of Luna's brow heralded an unintentionally cutting comment like 'you have a sex life?', so Jaina nearly slumped with relief when she was saved by the only male of their group.
"Is that our destination?" Maraad asked, pointing downward.
The poor draenei paladin sounded like he desperately wanted the answer to be affirmative, which Jaina couldn't blame him for. She wanted the same thing.
"I think so." Jessir said, narrowing her eyes at the dusty red landscape of Durotar below them. "Yes, I definitely see the coastline."
"Thank the Light." Maraad muttered under his breath and Jaina agreed.
Thrall was already waiting for them and put all of his cultivated charisma into greeting them, especially with the sole draenei in their party. This time, Jaina could only hope and pray for the best. She had warned Maraad about Thrall being an orc and in turned warned Thrall about Maraad's eminently understandable hatred of orcs. Both had individually agreed to step lightly, but this was their first meeting and could still go bad.
Fortunately, Maraad did nothing more rude than give a surly grunt to the shamanistic Warchief, which didn't even count as actually rude in orc culture, and they were able to move on.
"Neptulon has agreed to give you his blessing to traverse the seas, which will allow you to reach the naga's underwater kingdom safely and swiftly." Thrall was explaining. "Should you manage to slay Azshara, then he will consider the debt settled, otherwise, you will owe him a favor."
"That seems fair." Luna nodded.
"What kind of favor?" Arko was far less sanguine about it.
"He refused to specify."
Which was, of course, the worst kind of favor.
"I suppose it can't be helped." Colette shrugged philosophically. "Are we ready to go?"
There was a chorus of affirmative statements and Thrall nodded. "Very well, then I will cast the blessing."
Jaina had experienced Thrall's shamanistic magic in the past, but Neptulon's Blessing was significantly more powerful than any of the blessings of the lesser spirits and elementals that he had laid on her before. As soon as it settled over them, Jaina felt that she could traverse water even easier than land.
"Ooh, that's nice!" Luna giggled. "My turn!"
The priestess of Elune laid her own blessings on the group, making them all visibly fade into the shadows despite being out in the open in overly sunny Durotar. Hopefully it would be enough.
"That's that." Luna nodded in satisfaction. "Just remember the rules when we get there. No fighting, no killing and no spellcasting of any sort."
"Garona is in charge and if we get spotted we run away. " The Arko, Jessir and Colette chorused, though they didn't seem pleased with that last part.
Jaina wasn't pleased with it either. Harry could be annoying, but they had to get him away from Azshara. He knew far too many dangerous things and if they failed then the task would get an order of magnitude harder.
"Before you go…" Thrall broke in cautiously, looking at the half-orc assassin. "Garona, know that the Horde would welcome you if you wish it."
Damn it, Thrall! Jaina despaired in the privacy of her own mind.
She knew that he felt that honor compelled him to make the offer, but would it kill him to be a little more sensible about it? Garona was far too politically divisive a character for her to be openly associated with any faction, even more so than would be typical for an assassin of her skill. Thrall's sense of honor would dangerously ramp up tensions between the Horde and the Alliance again if Garona accepted the offer.
"I prefer to stay independent." Luckily the half-orc was both more pragmatic and genuinely not interested in joining the Horde. Maraad also simmered down from his reflexive anger.
Thrall looked neither surprised nor disappointed, simply nodding in understanding. "Then I wish you the best of luck. May the spirits guide you well."
There was little more to say after that and they plunged into the ocean. Neptulon's Blessing immediately showed its worth, allowing them to move at incredible speed, breathe easily underwater, not be affected by the mounting pressure as they went ever deeper and have a perfect awareness of their surroundings even as the sunlight vanished.
At this rate, they would reach the naga's kingdom in a matter of hours. Hopefully, whatever Harry was doing on his end would provide a sufficient distraction to help them pass unnoticed.
XXXXX
"It is time, land dweller."
Harry sighed as he turned to face his interlocutor. She was a tall female with a magnificent double crest running from her head down to her tail. A deep blue with a purple underside and wearing adapted armored robes to accentuate her appearance further, she was quite beautiful and exotic.
Too bad that she was a raging cunt with a fanatical lady boner for Azshara.
"Pashmar, darling, it would gladden my heart if you would finally deign to use my name on this auspicious day." He said dramatically.
Pashmar of the Queen's Court, mage representative of Azshara, hissed like an angry rattlesnake. "Get moving!"
Harry chuckled and ambled casually into step with her, standing close enough to be considered either pushy or romantic. It was the former, but he was pretending it was the latter.
Was it a good idea to be pissing off one of Azshara's chief minions? Probably not, but she was just so easy. Pashmar took it as a personal offense that he hadn't immediately recognized Azshara's glory and prostrated himself before the Queen of the Deep. Since getting along with this woman was impossible, he'd decided to tease her instead.
As a bonus, he was pretty sure that Azshara also found it funny to see how enraged he could make Pashmar in their limited interactions. If she didn't then she'd send one of her – relatively speaking – more mellow minions.
Harry mourned the fact that he had never learned any love poems, especially the long ones. Reciting one of those right now would be an excellent way to pass the time. But alas, he would have to make due with other distractions.
"Oh my word this tune is annoying,
Yes I know it's really annoying,
I can't get this song out of my he-eeeead!~"
"What are you mumbling?" Pashmar demanded. "Stop it!"
But Harry would not. Instead, he raised his voice and sang proudly! With a snap of his fingers an auditory illusion accompanied it. It could be called 'music' only if you were feeling immensely charitable.
"Make it stop this tune is annoying,
I gotta go to work in the morning,
Now I'm gonna be hummin' it in my be-eeed!"
"Be silent!" Pashmar roared, dispelling the simplistic 'music' that he had conjured.
"Oh my word this tune is annoying…"
It was getting hard not to laugh as Pashmar's deep blue face started turning a strange purple-green. Was it actually possible for a naga to suffer a stroke from sheer rage? If it was, then this would do it, so really, he was doing it for Science!
The walk down continued and Pashmar tried to rush, but Harry took a leisurely amble, forcing her to slow down. From her perspective, he was sure that it must have taken an eternity to arrive at their destination, but Harry was having a grand time. Not just at seeing the results of his 'singing', but also because the two of them got into a magical arms race with the auditory music illusion. Spell and counterspell flew, becoming more and more complex as one tried to make his magic unbreakable and the other tried to prevent it from taking hold.
The fun had to be briefly paused when they passed through the Darkest Depths, where the Blackwater Behemoth lurked. Not because Harry couldn't find a way to make himself heard underwater, but because the monstrous anglerfish was kinda stupid, short tempered and only listened to Azshara.
As soon as they were passed it and entered the region of the palace called the Traverse, though, the song started right back up and didn't stop until they arrived at the lowest level of the Eternal Palace. Below the naga construction and in the titan complex called the Last Prison, where N'Zoth was held.
Azshara and the rest of her chief minions were already there.
The general of her armies, Abyssal Commander Sivara. A crabtaur that wielded both a trident and powerful magic.
The Radiance of Azshara, a creature he had seen only once before. It was an arcane elemental created from the willing sacrifice of one of her handmaiden's souls. A frightening show of both Azshara's abilities and the insane devotion she inspired.
Pashmar's martial counterpart, Silivaz. Just as much of a cunt as she was, and just was fanatical in his loyalty.
There were two non-naga present as well, the Void aberrations Orgozoa and Za'qul, agents of N'Zoth ordered to help the Old God's ally, but undoubtedly loyal to him first. Harry didn't expect them to survive the opening moments of the pending betrayal.
The last verses of his annoying tune echoed in the vast chamber. If one was feeling whimsical, you could almost call the silence that followed it embarrassed. Or maybe incredulous.
"I didn't know you could sing, Harry." Azshara commented with half-lidded eyes. It was only thanks to months of interaction with her that he was able to spot the amusement in her eyes as they flicked over to Pashmar, who had a visible crackle of agitated magic around her. "Have you been holding out on me?"
"I didn't want to torture your ears." Harry replied magnanimously.
"Yet you make no such consideration for my dear Pashmar?" She raised an eyebrow.
The naga in question visibly straightened up and puffed out her chest in pride. It was sad how someone that powerful in her own right could be such an asskisser.
"I know that her fondest wish is to be the best minion she can be, so I thought I'd give her some mental fortitude training." He lied.
"How generous of you."
"Enough!" Za'qul interrupted, his voice scraping away at the sanity of all who heard him. "It is time to free the master."
"Silence!" Azshara snapped out, giving the abomination a glare. "Know your place, Za'qul."
There was a tense silence, but then the aberration bowed its head. "My apologies."
Harry made a cracking motion with his hand, accompanied by a loud snap of air. "Whipped!"
The aberration rounded on him, tangible madness twisting the air around him, but he didn't speak again.
"Harry, please contain yourself." Despite her words, Azshara wasn't looking too upset with him.
"Sorry, it's just hard to contain myself when I see someone's tentacles so twisted up." Harry nodded towards the glowering Za'qul. An impressive feat, considering his lack of eyes… unless you counted that thing on his shoulder.
"Regardless of his rudeness, Za'qul is correct to say that it is time." The Naga Queen said, notably not saying that it was time for. With a wave of her hand a long box appeared and opened, revealing the Bladestaff of Atiesh, taken from him so many months ago.
"Oh yes, come to daddy." Harry purred and wiggled his fingers at the bladestaff, causing it to leap into his hand. Then, just to further annoy everyone and possibly make them underestimate him, he rubbed his face against the azerite-infused wood. "Did you miss me, baby? I missed you."
He could have probably recalled the bladestaff at any time, but what would have been the point? It wouldn't have helped him escape and letting Azshara think that she could keep it from him might be valuable one day.
"Are you done?" Ah, looks like the Queen Bitch of the Sea ran out of patience for his antics.
"Not quite." He responded, sitting crosslegged on the ground and laying the bladestaff over his lap. "I'm going to need to attune myself and Atiesh properly if I want to release the lock on this prison. "It should only take me a few hours of meditating."
He could definitely do it faster, but he needed to buy time for his girls to get here. He could sense them moving thanks to the lifebound bracelets, but they were still far. Plus, it would give him the opportunity to calm Azeroth down. With N'Zoth so close, and being separated from the Heart, he hadn't been able to commune with her. The slumbering titan didn't understand what was going on and was afraid. The last thing he wanted to happen was for her to panic and think that he was actually betraying her. That would suck.
XXXXX
Neptulon's Blessing was pretty neat. It made swimming kind of like flying, except the water was actively helping them move. They were making excellent time, and with the lifebound bracelet as a compass, the darkness of the deep ocean couldn't confuse them.
It took them only a few hours to get from the eastern coast of Durotar to the middle of the ocean. Even this deep, they could still feel the maelstrom roiling above, but that was secondary to the sight of Nazjatar before them.
The naga kingdom was illuminated by both magical lights and some kind of bioluminescent coral, making it visible from miles away. Azshara's palace wasn't hard to find, either.
It was almost more akin to a wizard's tower than a palace. Thin and spiraling, Luna thought that it kind of looked like a conch shell crossed over with Sauron's tower from the Lord of the Rings, right down to the orange glowy crystal spire. It was definitely an evil lair.
According to Harry, the visible parts of the palace were mostly residential, with all the good stuff being underground. Her bracelet was telling her that underground was where her wayward husband currently was.
Luna gestured to the others to approach slowly and they started swimming towards the palace/tower. One of the downsides of building underwater was that, if you could get around the water problem, it was possible for enemies to approach from any direction.
Harry had communicated that Azshara was arrogant and overly reliant on her ability to sense her territory and that seemed to bear out. There were practically no guards keeping watch, making those that were out there easy to avoid.
Of course, their party did have an advantage.
The Tears of Elune was not an artifact meant to facilitate flashy displays of magical might. It did not shatter the earth, sunder the seas, put up invincible shields or bend time and space. Its' domain was in dreams and possibilities, things that could be.
Harry had warned that any active spellcasting would be detected, but already established spells slipped past Azshara's detection. By the same token, simply entering Nazjatar would also be immediately detected, but once inside they could move around with relative impunity.
With the Tears of Elune, that wasn't an issue. Luna used the titan artifact's power to blur their astral presence, making them seem like just another part of the sea. In this way, they were able to slip past Nazjatar's borders without immediately pinging on Azshara's conscious mind.
Still, there was tension as they passed within the borders of the naga kingdom, but no spells were hurled their way and no enemy forces converged on their location, so it must have worked. The gates of the palace were also unguarded, a display of arrogance that worked in their favor.
The inside of the palace/tower was surprisingly dry, despite there being seemingly nothing to hold back the seas, not even a spell. Luna realized that she had never questioned how Harry was surviving underwater for so long and apparently the answer was that he hadn't been.
Ah, no wonder Neptulon was angry, if Azshara had wrested this much control over water from him.
Garona immediately pointed to the sides and led the way with a quick and controlled skulk that wouldn't have made any noise even if her boots weren't muffled. The others followed, not nearly as expertly, but Luna had made fuzzy one piece body stockings with a silence enchantment for those of them in armor so that there would be no clanking. It looked silly, but it did the job.
The entrance hall of Azshara's palace was quite grand, vast and lit up by many bioluminescent plants that left it in a state of eternal twilight. The centerpiece was a great dais that led to a doorway which, according to Harry's directions, led deeper into the palace. Around the circular edges of the room were smaller doors that probably led to the upper floors.
The vast room wasn't empty, unfortunately. Multiple naga, probably nobles judging by their clothes, were slithering around it and socializing. All of them were likely decently powerful, which would make fighting them problematic even if they could afford to do so.
Garona once again took the lead, skulking through the shadowed corners and using the various pillars and decorations to hide. If she was alone, making it through the room would probably be a cakewalk, but there were seven of them.
Luna held on tightly to the blessing of Elune associated with her darker facet, the Shadowmeld. In this deep place so far from the sky, the presence of the Moon Goddess was weak, but nothing could sever it completely. Their group darted from shadow to shadow whenever Garona signaled them to move, the half-orc-assassin being the most attuned to any eyes watching them. When not moving, they became one with the shadows and vanished completely from sight. In this manner, they managed to slip past the reception hall and deeper into the depths of the palace.
The next room was some kind of fountain/garden with an ugly fish statue in the middle, again made circular. The room was much smaller than the entrance hall and had even more naga nobles miling around. Progress through it was painfully slow and tense and Luna could feel Arko, Jessir and Collete's heartbeats thundering through the bracelets on her arm.
It took them over an hour to get past it, mostly because a pair of naga noblewomen had parked themselves literally three feet away from their hiding spot and gossiped in their slithery version of the night elf language for a good thirty minutes, preventing them from reaching the helpfully obvious path deeper into the palace. It was similar enough that Luna was able to catch a few snippets, and it seemed to be a riveting conversation about a fashion faux pas made by another noblewoman the other day.
Apparently, some things were the same everywhere.
"I thought they'd never shut up." Colette murmured quietly as they prowled through the passageway.
This hallway was carved directly out of the rock beneath the ocean floor and visibly not meant to be traversed often. As such, it was empty.
"Silence!" Garona hissed before anyone could reply. "No talking. Stay focused."
Colette visibly shrank at the chastisement, but Luna understood. They were all nervous and anxious to get their man back, but Colette was the youngest by far and the past several months must have felt much longer for her than it did for them. Not to mention that she'd already lost everything once, so the fear of losing more must be close to the surface.
There would be plenty of cuddles in the near future.
Progress was achingly slow. None of them dared rush, so they treated every step as if it might be the one that screwed them over. Worse still, with there being seven of them, they couldn't always fit into every shadow and had to move in short, staggered bursts.
And in the end it all proved completely unnecessary, as they encountered nobody before reaching the next major room.
It was a vast open chamber with the pathway spiraling around it, currently empty but any mage would be able to sense that it was a nexus of magical energies designed to fulfill a purpose of some kind. It felt like something that Harry would have in his workshop. There were also plenty of walkways leading in sideways directions, which if the comparison was correct, might lead to more specialized workshops.
"Where do we go?" Garona asked, barely audibly. They were huddled in a dark corner, despite there being nobody around.
Luna pulled out the map she had drawn with Harry's instructions and squinted at it. Nope, even squinting, it looked nothing at all like what was actually in front of them. Still, some educated guesses could be made.
"I think these are the Halls of the Chosen." Luna whispered back. "We have to go all the way down, past the Font of Radiance and then through the Blackwater Depths. Harry said that there was some kind of powerful elemental guarding the passage, but that he would arrange for it to be gone. We'll still have to sneak past the big fish in the Blackwater Depths, though."
They all knew this already, having gone over the plan dozens of times, but repeating important information never hurt anyone.
"I'd still like to know how he could manage to arrange anything." Jaina grumbled very quietly. That part in particular had struck her as very suspicious.
"If he actually seduced Azshara, then I'm not sure what I'm going to do." Arko whispered back in agreement.
Garona looked like she was about to order for more silence, but Luna put her hand on the half-orc's shoulder. They needed to vent a little tension. Garona looked briefly displeased but nodded all the same, moderating her response to a mere handwave.
"We move down here quickly, but stay low to the ground." She instructed. "Voices will carry here, so no talking and no sound. Keep your eyes up and if you see anyone wander out of the side rooms, find a shadow or curl up in your cloak."
Their cloaks had also been swapped out. Instead of being stitched with runes of protection, they were chameleon cloaks that would blend in with whatever was around them. Not as good as invisibility, but you could never have too many layers of stealth for a mission like this.
At Garona's signal, they started moving, staying in a crouch next to the safety railing on the inside of the spiraling path. Being big was a detriment for once and poor Maraad had to practically crawl on all fours because of his digitigrade legs, but they made it to the bottom mostly without incident. There was only one scare when a naga sorcerer wandered out of one of the side rooms to contemplate one of the lines of power running into the central chamber, but they huddled down in their cloaks and went unnoticed.
Thankfully Harry's directions still held even if the map turned out to be useless and the path towards the Font of Radiance was obvious. The Font itself was essentially just a pool of water that didn't look very important without the elemental that was supposed to reside in it, but anyone with a lick of magical potential could have sensed the power crackling inside it. The group gave it a wide berth as they moved deeper into the palace.
"Looks like we won't be encountering any more naga from here on out, but stay sharp." Garona said quietly as they progressed into another tunnel hewn out of the rock.
"Harry didn't have any more solid information to give us on what we might run into below this point aside from the Blackwater Behemoth." Luna backed her up.
"It's going to be Old God minions, isn't it?" Jessir asked unhappily.
"Probably."
Harry did say that this place was built right over N'Zoth's prison and that Azshara was allied to the monster. It would make sense for the thing's minions to be present in the deeper levels.
"I don't like this." Jaina spoke up. "For Harry to be brought so far down into her inner sanctum, he must have come to some kind of agreement with Azshara and there's not a lot he could be doing over N'Zoth's prison."
"Have a little faith in our man, Jaina." Luna encouraged. "I know his morals are a bit flexible, but he always does his best to work for the betterment of the world."
"Don't casually include me in your harem." Jaina's protest was routine and lacked the heat it used to have. Progress! "And how can I not worry? He was probably given quarters in the upper parts of this palace, from where we could have snatched him away and fled easily. Instead, he's having us descend all the way to the bottom."
"You fear betrayal?" Maraad asked with a frown. "That he intends to present as to Azshara as a show of loyalty?"
"Nope, impossible." Luna said firmly, shaking her head. Harry didn't do those kinds of betrayals.
"I agree, that doesn't sound like Harry at all." Arko nodded.
"To me, this feels like the set up for an ambush, with us as the ambushers." Colette noted. "He may have feigned agreement to free N'Zoth and intends to have us strike Azshara and her cohort in the back at the moment of triumph."
"Now that does sound like Harry, right down to the spite inherent in raising someone's hopes only to smash them." Jessir snorted.
"I do love his observance of proper foreplay." Colette sighed dreamily.
Ah, poor Colette. With her not being bisexual and Harry missing, there had been no one to scratch her itches. Maybe they should let her go first once they got back to the tower?
"Right. Well, if you all are sure about this then let's keep going." Jaina shook her head.
XXXXX
Azshara kept a calm and regal air with the ease of millennia of practice, letting none of her anticipation show. Soon, the long farce that was her 'alliance' with N'Zoth would be finished.
It had taken quite some effort to get to this point, much more than she expected. Retrieving Xal'atath, the Blade of the Black Empire, from the surface had been simple enough. The powerful and ancient entity bound within a dagger held within it the essence of the other, stronger Old Gods. The perfect tool for assassinating N'Zoth.
Convincing Harry to help her, however, had been a chore.
Azshara had expected that the young mage would quickly fall under her influence upon their meeting. Every bit of intelligence she had on him suggested that he was not terribly concerned with morality and respected power, so she thought it was a reasonable assumption. To say nothing of his lechery.
But no, he had remained unmoved. Neither her beauty nor her power had awed him into submission, so they had fought.
The battle went as expected, although he had proven a crafty one, pulling a few tricks that would have caught many a lesser mage off guard. Azshara had been impressed enough that she decided he would be given a grace period of good treatment to repent his ways before she resorted to less civilized means of gaining his cooperation.
Of course, that was before she was able to get a good look at his bladestaff and the titan artifact embedded within. He had enchanted it in such a way that only one who worked towards the interests of the slumbering titan within the planet could wield it, and then booby trapped it to prevent any meddling. His mastery of spellforging was such that it would have been difficult even for one such as her to break the enchantment, but it ultimately didn't matter. She could sense the trap and Elune's blessing laid atop it, and knew that tampering with it would be fatal.
Infuriating, but it forced her to abandon any thoughts of torture or coercion. Harry knew it, too. He might not have showed it overtly, but she could practically taste how smug he was about it. To this day she could not fathom why he would willingly limit himself with such an enchantment, as it seemed to wildly contradict his character.
Thus began the long dance to bring him over to her side. Azshara was a gracious host even to her enemies, which Harry actually wasn't. He was someone she was courting as an ally, so he was given excellent treatment. Just about anyone would have been won over.
Except, of course, for those most interesting and troublesome people. People like Tyrande Whisperwind and the Stormrage twins. She was still a bit peeved by their rejection of her.
At least Harry made for an amusing guest. His probing for a means to escape had been subtle and she had allowed it so as to make him realize the futility of it, and his teasing of her subjects was certainly better than the silent sulking done by Tyrande when she had been a captive.
But he had remained resistant to her charms, until she had finally been forced to concede that he would not be swayed or sufficiently impressed to swear himself to her. That concession was most irksome and something she intended to rectify in the future. After all, Harry knew several things that she wanted for herself, his ability to open N'Zoth's prison was merely the most immediately pressing one.
"Alright, I'm ready." Harry spoke suddenly. He stood from his meditative position, cracked his neck and stretched out his limbs.
"At last, the master will be free." Za'qul rejoiced.
Free to die. Azshara thought viciously, though none of it showed on her face.
XXXXX
The Void aberrations had fortunately been of the mindless and dumb variety, so slipping past them had been easy enough. Now they were finally at the very gates of N'Zoth's prison, perfectly positioned to decapitate the naga leadership in a single, decisive strike.
They had to make it count, or else they would die for certain, so they waited for Harry to signal them, trusting that he had the best understanding of the situation.
"Alright, I'm ready." He declared and rose, hiding a gesture towards them in his stretching.
That gesture was a closed fist held at head level, universally recognized as 'hold!'
Confused looks were exchanged, but nobody dared speak. At this range, even the slightest whisper was too risky.
"At last, the master will be free." The big tentacled brute all but gloated.
The Battle Harem, plus guests, tensed, anticipating the order to attack at any moment. The enemy was never more vulnerable than when he was certain of victory, after all. But to their horror, Harry actually started opening the lock on the Old God's prison.
Now the exchanged looks were panicked. Jaina looked like she was about to launch the attack and Maraad, Jessir, Arko and Colette weren't far behind. Garona had more self-control and knew the danger of committing to a course of action out of panic, but she was tenser than a steel cable.
Luna spread out her hands to block everyone from doing something precipitous and quietly mouthed 'wait' to them. She had no idea what was going on either, but trusted Harry to have a plan.
For a moment, it looked like they would ignore her, but her pleading look did the trick and the others settled down, though the tension only kept ratcheting higher as the ancient titan locks turned and no sign of the attack command came.
XXXXX
Reality began to warp as soon as the final seal faded and the final lock opened. N'Zoth's power seeped out from his prison and Ny'alotha, the Sleeping City, began to awaken. If allowed to reach fruition, the dreams and wishes of the Old Gods would merge with physical reality and the Black Empire would once more reign over Azeroth, as it did in primeval times before the arrival of the titan Pantheon.
Beyond the pyramids of black stone, the vast form of N'Zoth took shape, making a noise of triumph that grated against the sane mind.
Harry knew that it was time to move. With a twist of his hands, the sharp end of the Bladestaff of Atiesh flashed up and bisected Orgozoa. The creature was basically a mindrape octopus and as far as it knew, it had been placed close to him by Azshara so that it could do its thing after he broke the seals. What it didn't know was that it had been placed there so he could kill it more easily.
His 'betrayal' came as a surprise to both N'Zoth or the Old God's closest minion, Za'qul. Not that it happened, they had expected that, but when it happened. Everyone had been watchful for what kind of trick he would pull to get out of releasing N'Zoth and slackened their watch when the expected betrayal didn't happen.
Za'qul still turned to kill him, but the momentary delay was enough. Azshara's minions shredded him before he could do anything. As for the Deep Queen herself, she drew the twisted dagger called Xal'atath and slashed it at the air.
A great rent opened in N'Zoth's carapace, the Old God unable to defend or resist the power condensed within the Blade of the Black Empire. He roared in pain at the grievous wound inflicted upon him and uncountable Void aberrations crawled out of the very walls and floors to defend their master.
Harry took another moment to surreptitiously signal his back up to wait some more, then began unleashing his magic against the foe. Trump cards were supposed to be held back until the crucial moment, after all.
"You know not what you do. Only I can show you the path to power." N'Zoth boomed, verbally and mentally.
"I don't take advice from mutated sea food." Harry retorted, weaving a golden firestorm infused with Light, burning away scores of aberrations.
"Press on, we will get no second chance!" Azshara commanded imperiously, filling the sky with arcane explosions and shredding hundreds of N'Zoth's lesser minions.
"You will regret this betrayal, Azshara." N'Zoth threatened. "Your nightmare will never end."
The chaff made way for more powerful minions. Twisted things of eyes and tentacles and bulging flesh. Ugly, but powerful. They probably had names with apostrophes in them.
"Gird your minds, my servants! I forbid you from succumbing to madness!" Azshara decreed, making more slashes across the air with Xal'atath even as she fought off the magics of N'Zoth's minnions.
Her sycophants roared their acknowledgement and fought with renewed vigor, crashing against the tide of Void aberrations furiously.
Feeling the tendrils of reaching madness scrabble against his mind, Harry wanted to say that he was surprised that worked, but he really wasn't.
"Blessed is the mind too small for doubt." He couldn't resist mocking. That quote was appropriate far too often.
"Loyalty to me is a blessing indeed." Azshara bantered back, unbothered by Sivara's pained screaming as one of her crab legs was torn off by a huge double-headed dog-thing with extra eye stalks growing out of its back.
Boss of the year material, truly.
Harry had no time to give a retort as everything around him blurred and became indistinct, foes becoming friends and vice versa. The magic had the flavor of illusion, but more powerful than anything he had ever encountered before, powerful enough to actually reject reality to an extent. That… could be troublesome.
"Your mind smells delicious!" A voice buzzed in his ear. He recognized the buzzing inflection of an aqir, though he couldn't see it. "Embrace the madness."
He had been hoping to hold the surprise in reserve longer, but he really didn't have time to play mind games with an oversized insect. Not in the middle of a chaotic battle like this.
"Now, ladies!" Harry bellowed even as he turtled down with a defensive spell. He didn't dare cast anything offensive while under the effect of this illusion, as he couldn't even trust his sense of distance and direction.
Moonlight blanketed the battlefield and made the Void aberrations screech in pain. A gurgle sounded in his ear before cutting off, along with reality wavering back into what it should be. In the back, behind some meat shield, he spotted a gaudily colored aqir with an arrow stuck in its face.
Colette and Arko crashed into the front lines with their greatswords, along with an unfamiliar draenei male smiting things with a crystal hammer and Holy Light. Garona was nowhere to be seen, which was as it should be, and Jaina came to stand next to him alongside Luna, already conjuring up punishing blizzards.
"Harry, it is rude for a guest to invite more guests without asking permission from the host." Azshara chastised, seemingly completely unruffled by this turn of events, but he could practically taste the irritation in her words.
"Sorry for intruding!" Luna's apology, on the other hand, was 100% genuine and held not a trace of disingenuousness. "But you did take our man without asking first."
The lack of barbs in the reply caused the closest thing to a mental stumble he'd ever seen from the Empress of Nazjatar. Figures it would be Luna that would manage to pull one over on her, even if Azshara would sooner endure a century of torture than admit it.
Harry decided to ignore that and focus on the important bits.
"Jaina! I knew you loved me."
"Shut up and fight!" The blonde snarled, uncharacteristically testy. "You could have told us you were planning to have us fight N'Zoth!"
"You'd have argued if I did that." He reasoned.
"Do you have any idea how close we were to attacking? I thought you'd turned evil!"
"Jaina, sweetie, you need to get over this complex you have about people who are romantically interested in you turning evil. It's not healthy."
Jaina made an inarticulate noise of rage and released her frustration in the form of a pulsating orb of arcane energy that passed through the enemy ranks and caused many a bad day.
"Can you two save the flirting for later?!" Arko hollered over the sounds of combat
"I can't help it, Azshara has been blueballing me for months." Harry complained. "I'm pent up like you wouldn't believe."
"You aren't the only one." Colette piped up, sounding disgruntled. "When we get back, you are going to have a lot of husbandly duties to catch up on."
"Darn tootin'!" Luna agreed.
"Who are you to resist me?" N'Zoth rudely interrupted their conversation. "The Void beckons!"
Silivaz screamed with sudden rage and launched himself towards Harry, his glaive poised to take his head off. Well, it would have been poised to do that if his spine wasn't indestructible. Moving to protect Luna and Jaina, Harry abandoned the spell he had been about to cast and moved to intercept. The glaive crashed against his staff and made his arms tremble from the force of it. Silivaz hadn't been chosen as Azshara's warrior champion without reason – there was no way that he was going to win against him in close quarters.
But he didn't have to, because Garona materialized seemingly out of thin air and sank her daggers into the big naga's neck. He fell in a gout of blood, choking and cursing all the way.
"Hmph, his mind proved weak in the end." Azshara dismissed the death of her minion with contempt.
Harry rather thought that the problem was that Silivaz had been fanatically devoted to Azshara and found their banter to be insulting, leaving N'Zoth an easy avenue into his head, but she wouldn't want to hear that.
He made a quick assessment of the battlefield. Silivaz was dead now, but the others were still fighting. His counterpart, Pashmar, was still going strong, playing an odd game of whack-a-mole against some tentacle abomination that looked kind of phallic if you didn't mind the teeth and eyes. Sivara was missing a leg, and had to use her trident as a crutch to support herself, but she had overcome the dog-thing and was likewise now firing spells into the enemy ranks. The Radiance was really going to town on what appeared to be a whole army of aqir. Azshara herself was obliterating vast swathes of enemies, contending with an especially ugly specimen that was literally growing out of the architecture and swiping Xal'atath whenever she thought she could hit N'Zoth.
On the homefront, Arko ,Colette and the draenei paladin they brought along were taking apart a magic-devouring Obsidian Destroyer. Silivaz had been fighting that one as well, until he went crazy. Jessir was hanging back and sniping anything that looked important. Garona had vanished again. Lastly, he, Luna and Jaina were providing both support and magical artillery to make sure that nobody got overwhelmed.
"Only I can save this world!" And it was working, because N'Zoth was clearly getting desperate if he was resorting to that.
"For ten thousand years I have had to listen to your bluster." Even Azshara sounded annoyed. "Begone! This is my world!"
Uh huh, how about no? Harry realized it was time to bail.
"Full retreat!" He bellowed just as the melee fighters killed the Obsidian Destroyer. "Let's get out of here!"
"But we can win this!" Jaina protested.
"Azshara can handle it from here." Frankly, there was every chance that she could have handled it without them, although it would have been much iffier. "I want her nice and busy while we're escaping."
"You doubt a queen's honor, Harry?" Azshara asked in that sweetly dangerous tone that seemed unique to women. "Did I not say I would release you if you helped me kill N'Zoth?"
"You didn't, actually. You only implied it." Harry pointed out even as the Battle Harem (plus guests) made a fighting retreat. "Nice try, but I, too, am fond of using exact phrasing to screw people over while technically keeping my word."
"Hmph." Fifteen thousand years of aristocratic disdain were crammed into that one tiny sound. "You may go, for now, but we will meet again, Harry."
This bitch…. She just had to make it sound like it was her idea.
"Bye bye, Azshara, it was nice meeting you!" Luna called back as they fled, once again totally sincere. "Elune would still take you back by the way, you just have to be a little nicer."
Harry's last sight before they moved back into the upper reaches of the palace was a look of utter fury on Azshara's face as she glared at Luna's back. Apparently, Luna had pushed another button by accident. Incredible.
"So, you didn't get to have sex with her?" Colette asked about a minute into their flight.
"Nope." Harry shook his head. "You could say she was a bit of a cold fish."
Many groans and some giggles resounded through the tunnel.
"How long have you been sitting on that one?" Jessir asked in exasperation.
"Everything down here is wet, except Azshara."
"No."
"She has four hands, but I didn't get a single handjob."
"Harry, stop."
"At first, I thought she'd be into constrictor play, but I was sadly mis-snaken."
"Why did we want him back again?" Arko asked rhetorically.
"Because you love me." Harry smiled widely. "Isn't that right, Jaina?"
"Just shut up and run."
"I do not believe I have introduced myself." The draenei paladin butted in with an obvious derail. "I am Maraad, Garona's uncle."
"Nice to meet you." Harry nodded at him as best he could in the situation. "Did she do anything cute while I was gone? She's surprisingly adorable when she forgets to be stoic."
"We need to stay focused, the danger is not yet passed!" Garona interrupted. Her voice was even and controlled, but she sounded flustered to Harry's ear.
It was good to be back.
XXXXX
Azshara watched impassively as the tremendous bulk of N'Zoth fell and proper reality began to reassert itself. It was the conclusion of a plan long in the works, a plan that had required only the right opportunity to come along. And N'Zoth was truly dead, not just comatose like C'thun. The Old God had left himself exposed and Xal'atath had done the rest.
It was a victory, but it felt tainted. Harry had somehow managed to pull one over on her and that grated. Even now she could feel him and his allies escaping the borders of her realm, no longer truly bothering with stealth.
His knowledge of dimensional travel was valuable, and she wouldn't be opposed to taking what he knew of fleshcrafting either. As majestic as her naga body was, she would like to have legs again. Those plans had been delayed by his trickery, which she would have to remonstrate him for. And that priestess of his… the nerve of her to give such insult.
Azshara took a deep breath and pushed those thoughts aside. First, she would purge all of N'Zoth's minions and consolidate her power. Then, she could start thinking bigger. Now that the Old God was no longer a dead weight around her neck with their 'alliance' she would be able to act more openly. Harry and his ilk would get theirs.
And this time, she wouldn't need to play nice.
XXXXX
"You teamed up with Azshara to kill N'Zoth?" Tyrande's ears functioned just fine, but she had to get confirmation on this.
"That's right." Harry nodded.
He was sitting on a couch in her personal quarters in the Temple of the Moon, with all the women he was intimate with crowding close. It was clear they had missed him.
"That is excellent news." Malfurion said with a small, but very genuine smile. "Despite our best efforts, we have been unable to completely purge the corruption from the Emerald Dream, but with only one of the Old Gods remaining active the task will be made significantly easier."
"Yes." Tyrande had to concede that as being important. "However, I am concerned about Azshara. The naga have been growing ever more active over the past few years and I am not optimistic enough to believe that they will retreat back below the sea now that N'Zoth is dead."
"You're right about that." Harry snorted. "She's been holding back so as to not make that old leech any stronger, but she still considers Azeroth to be rightfully hers. Well, she considers everything to be rightfully hers, but Azeroth is the only relevant issue for us."
"Wonderful." Tyrande didn't often indulge in sarcasm, but the situation warranted it. "This is not something we need right now."
The campaign in Outland was getting especially heated despite her attempts at diplomacy with Illidan. Yes, they had confirmed that he was a foe of the Burning Legion rather than a friend, but his methods…
Illidan always had a problem of using ends to justify means and focusing so narrowly on his goals that he forgot all else. He had refused to share his plans in their infrequent letters, aside from claiming that it was important. Important or not, he was losing followers at an alarming rate. Kael'thas Sunstrider had already been confirmed to have fallen well and truly into the grasp of the Burning Legion and now worked the will of Sargeras from Tempest Keep.
"Don't worry, I have a feeling that Azshara is going to be my problem more than anyone else's." Harry said.
"That's not good either." Jaina spoke up, sitting deliberately as far away from the so-called 'cuddle pile' as possible. Tyrande couldn't blame her. "She absolutely can't be allowed to get her hands on your knowledge of dimensional travel."
"Aww, you do love me." Harry teased.
"Huh?" Jaina verbally stumbled at the strange reaction. "What are you talking about? I just don't want an outrageously powerful evil sorceress rampaging across dimensions!
"Why are you concerning yourself with that?" He asked back, visibly puzzled. "Other worlds are not your problem and odds are that Azshara would eventually bite off more than she could chew if she started trawling through the multiverse with that attitude of hers. She might think she's hot shit, but there are worlds and beings out there that could squash her like a bug. Or worlds where the rules are different and her own knowledge would work against her. Or worlds that are simply too magically thin to support her existence. If I was more of a gambling man I'd happily share that knowledge with her and see what happens."
Well, that was a mildly terrifying notion.
"That sounds like something you would do, though." Luna noted. "Why didn't you?"
"Honestly? Because Azshara is too fucking lucky. Advantages fall into her lap at every turn, she excels at everything and everyone loves her. She's like some insecure teenaged girl's wish fulfillment power fantasy and the only reason she hasn't been the absolute ruler of all Azeroth for the past ten thousand years is because she keeps sabotaging herself out of boredom. As many bad things as can happen when you muck about with dimensional magic, you can also get good things and I'm genuinely afraid that all Azshara needs to do is throw herself blindly into the multiverse and she'd stumble on some depressed primordial god that wanted to pass its unlimited power on to someone. The odds of that happening are hilariously remote, but with her, I wouldn't bet on it not happening."
It disturbed Tyrande greatly to realize that Harry was right. All of Azshara's woes were self-inflicted when one thought about it. Certainly, there had been bad actors like Xavius causing trouble in the old days, but the fallen kaldorei queen was more than powerful and intelligent enough to shut them down. She had simply chosen not to.
"But you just said that you don't care what happens in other worlds." Jaina pointed out.
"Yeah, but I care what happens to me and Azshara holds grudges like a dwarf."
"What is your plan for dealing with her, then?" Malfurion asked.
"What else? When you're up against a cheat character, the only thing you can do is cheat harder."
XXXXX
With the debriefing that absolutely could not wait because everyone was freaking out about Azshara over, it was time to go home and engage in some vigorous skinship with his girls. Before that, however, there was one more thing that had to be done.
Harry ignored Jaina's deer-in-headlights expression as he strode up to her with a determined expression. He ignored her fledgling protestations. He even ignored her attempts to physically hold him off as he wrapped his arms around her and pressed her close.
"Thank you, for coming to help me." He said sincerely.
The heartfelt thanks got her more flustered than the actual hug. "You're still a friend, even if you are strange and annoying."
Harry smiled when he felt her return the hug. That smile widened as his hand drifted slowly southwards and she stiffened in his arms.
"Harry…" Jaina said warningly. "Get your hand off my ass."
"Sorry. I forgot you weren't mine yet." He lied.
"I'm never going to be yours."
"You're too young to be saying never, but don't worry. I'll still be there when you change your mind. I won't even tease you about it. Much."
"Your hand is still on my ass."
"Ah, so it is." He gave it a few squeezes. "Very nice. Do you do squats?"
"Hand. Off."
"How about you squeeze mine back?"
"I'll pass." She said drily and pushed away. "And if you grope me like that again I will forcibly cool you off."
"You've threatened me before, but never followed through." Harry chided. "I can't take you seriously if you keep doing that."
Without a word, she sent a blast of cold magic at his crotch.
"How's that?" Jaina asked irritably.
"Presentation needs some work." Harry said tightly, pressing a hand engulfed in fire to his chilled grapes. "Executed threats are meant to be a show, after all. Solid A+ for timing, though."
"So glad you approve." Her tone went back to dry. "Now get out of here. Your harem is starting to look impatient."
"Mmm." He hummed. "I'll see you again soon."
They parted ways with that, Jaina teleporting back to Theramore and him walking over to his girls and Maraad. Speaking of Maraad…
"Thank you for coming to help me as well, but I'm not hugging you." Harry told him.
The draenei snorted with some amusement. "That is appreciated."
XXXXX
Arko plopped down on Harry's chest in post-coital satisfaction. His shaft was still hard inside her and thus acting as a plug to keep all the hot seed he'd shot into her from leaking out.
"I've missed this." She sighed happily, nuzzling into his chest. There had been no time to badger him into removing the chest hair, but it was a minor annoyance.
"Me too." He replied, using one hand to give her a hug. The other was still lacing fingers with Colette.
They were taking turns. Being generous to their junior, she, Jessir and Luna had let Colette go first, but Arko had jumped him as soon as they were done. Jessir and Luna were engaging in some vigorous foreplay with each other to get ready.
"I was afraid we were going to lose you." She admitted quietly. A few months was nothing for a night elf, and yet it had also been a very long time.
Their relationship was very much out of the ordinary, but Arko had become comfortable with it. More than comfortable even. It felt like home, something that she hadn't truly had since losing her parents at an early age. Jessir was the closest thing she'd had to family for a long time, so it was in hindsight understandable why they'd been so easily seduced by their saviors.
"I'm having far too much fun on this world to allow that." Harry said teasingly, bucking his hips just a little to give her insides a poke.
"Good." Colette spoke from the side while Arko took a deep breath to calm down and tell herself that it would be rude to go for round two when Jessir and Luna hadn't even had round one yet. "I am tired of losing people dear to me."
"Then we should get married." Harry's smile widened. "I'm sure that between the two of us we know enough about necromancy to come up with a creative interpretation of 'til death do us part'."
Colette's eyes widened in surprise for a moment, before her more common sultry look replaced it. "Ah, if you want to make an honest woman out of me, than far be it from me to object. My mother, may her soul rest in peace, would have been happy at least."
Arko, meanwhile was a lot more flustered. He had asked before and she and Jessir had kind of… not given a reply. When courtships could last centuries or even millennia, a marriage proposal coming less than a year after their first meeting was extremely premature. Frankly, even jumping into a relationship so quickly was extremely premature, especially such an unusual one. But on the other hand, they hadn't said no either, because the thought wasn't exactly unappealing…
It was just a big decision and the casual way Harry and Luna were treating it was difficult for the two night elves to wrap their heads around.
"Your family were Lordaeron nobility, right?" Harry asked. "It occurs to me that our kids could end up ruling that kingdom once it's rebuilt."
He had looked at her out of the corner of his eye as he had this quiet conversation with Colette. Clearly, he was waiting for her to join in, while at the same time giving her time to think. The lack of pressure to reply made Arko relax, releasing the tension from her spine that she hadn't even realized had crept in.
The former death knight chuckled throatily. "Wouldn't that be something, but I have no interest in usurping the throne from Calia Menethil."
"Wasn't she supposed to be dead?"
"As it turns out, she somehow survived Lordaeron's destruction and made it to Southshore in the Hillsbrad Foothills. One of the restored Forsaken recognized her when he went to visit family and the news quickly spread from there. Varian Wrynn has been pushing for a restoration of Lordaeron under her rule."
"Huh. I've missed out on quite a bit, it seems."
"That you have." Colette agreed and turned her eyes up to Arko. "But I think we've given our cute elf paladin enough time to think. What do you say, Arko? Do you want to get married?"
That last bit was a bit too loud, because Luna's head shot up like a nightsaber smelling a juicy deer.
"Married?" She repeated in a happy squee. "Did you propose again? Jessir, Harry proposed again. Please say yes! We can get Tyrande to do the ceremony and then we can start having babies."
A flushed and flustered huntress crawled out from under Luna and held up her hands as if to ward her off. "Luna, slow down. Arko and I aren't even going to reach the fertile stage of our cycle for at least another five years."
"You're lucky I remembered to cast spells to suppress my divine aspect of male fertility while we were in the Emerald Dream or that wouldn't have mattered in the slightest." Harry revealed with a snort. "I'll be sure to take you there so I can take you there."
"I'm not ready to have children yet." Arko stammered and tried to get off him, ignoring the bad pun in her nervousness.
But he wouldn't let her go, instead moving his hips so that his member stirred up the hot mess he left inside her. "Nobody is ready the first time. By the time you pop out the fourth or fifth, you'll be wondering why you were ever worried about it."
Oh. Oh dear. There was such an easy way around the notoriously low night elf fertility and Harry was clearly intending to abuse it. Arko could practically feel herself turning a dark purple from sheer embarrassment.
"Having babies is great." Luna opined insistently. "You'll love it, I promise."
Arko caught Jessir's eyes and the two of them had a silent conversation made possible by more than seventeen hundred years of friendship. A decision was reached.
"We agree to the marriage. But!" She had to raise her voice over Luna's happy squeal. "But slow down with the idea of children. We aren't ready to put down our weapons yet."
If nothing else, Harry being taken prisoner had made it clear that their relationship was more than just an adventure, so maybe getting married wasn't as premature as the night elven common sense would insist. Harry, Luna and Colette were mostly human anyway, so it only made sense to make allowances for how quickly they lived their lives.
That aside, Arko was by no means willing to lay down her sword and become a mother quite yet, and she knew that Jessir felt the same.
XXXXX
"I hear that congratulations are in order." Adrastia purred, lounging in the doorway of Harry's study.
It was the first opportunity she had to catch him alone since his return and she had to make the most of it. With the end of his imprisonment and the girls accepting his proposal, he would be in as generous a mood as he was ever likely to be.
"And I hear that you want to terminate our arrangement." He replied, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk.
"This is a stressful world you've dragged me to, and you know I'm not good with stress." She riposted airily as she sat down.
Her words were true. She loved complex situations, social tangles with dozens of connections and strings to pluck. A little bit of danger added some spice to it, but Azeroth had far too much danger. To add insult to injury, the complexity was also lower. You would think that with so many sapient races sharing a single world that wouldn't be the case, but in practice it just meant that the internal social dynamics became simple as people closed ranks against outside enemies.
Again, one would think this would make her job simpler, but it wasn't the case. Without social complexity, there weren't many metaphorical dark corners for a spider to lurk. Anything but the smallest movements left her exposed and vulnerable to something bigger and nastier.
"And you're hoping that our long acquaintance will make me generous." He continued, still as neutral as he'd been the whole time.
"You were never one for cruelty and I am of no more use to you." Adrastia admitted. "Call it a retirement gift, if you will, and send me somewhere more to my tastes."
She would miss him, in her own way. He had been a generous patron and only rarely demanded services she didn't want to give. His protection had been reassuring and going without it would be disconcerting for a while, but she just couldn't handle this world.
"And you already got Luna to make you a Philosopher's Stone."
To her embarrassment, Adrastia had proven incapable of mastering enough alchemy to create her own. Fortunately, using one of the stones was simple enough. Not having the ability to make another was dangerous, as it tied her continued existence to her ability to keep it from being stolen, but she would just have to deal with it.
"I know how you are about wasting time, so I thought I would get everything ready." She affected her most helpful tone.
He snorted, not buying it. "Not even staying for the wedding, then?"
"It is probably for the best that I do not. You are starting a new life, having me there will be a reminder of the past."
She just really didn't want to set foot in a temple of Elune. The goddess' tangible disapproval made her skin crawl. Even being here at the tower was uncomfortable because Luna had turned the outside and parts of the inside into holy ground.
"Riiight." He drawled, easily spotting the lie. "You know what? Fine. I just can't be bothered to drag this out. Let's get you booted out of this dimension."
"Wonderful." Adrastia smiled widely. "Do you want to have one last go at me before sending me off? I could put on the secretary outfit or break out the BDSM gear."
"Nah, it's fine. Let's just get this over with."
Ouch. The Black Widow didn't let it show how much that rejection stung. He really was bored of her. Alas, that offer had also been made as a measuring stick to see if asking for a final body upgrade before being sent away was a good idea. It would seem that she would have to do with the old model. Unfortunate, because the regeneration really would have been reassuring to have.