There is a curious affliction suffered by members of large organizations, should they not interact with the world outside of their organization for too long. They begin to see the organization as the entirety of their world. It becomes difficult to understand the concept that the organization is not all-encompassing and that most people rightfully don't give a shit about you or what you think. This is especially pronounced in leaders, who begin to see the organizations they lead as extensions of their ego and take dismissals of their authority personally.
It was one of the main reasons why you could never trust a politician that didn't live among his constituents. Empathy was a limited resource, reserved only for one's immediate community even in the most empathic. Anyone who claimed to care about people on the other side of the planet was selling something, scamming someone, playing at sainthood to feed their own ego, appeasing a sense of guilt, or any number of other ultimately self-serving purposes.
This pontification was relevant, because the Kirin Tor was in a snit. To be fair, the Kirin Tor had been in a snit about him for almost as long as they had been aware of his existence, but they were snitting extra hard at the moment.
As it turns out, making bargains with eldritch Void entities and creating bodies for them was upsetting for some people. There were 'concerns' and he had received a summons to Dalaran to discuss them. Rhonin's wording had been polite and it had indeed been a request, but he was old enough to read between the lines. The leader of the Council of Six was under considerable political pressure to impose some kind of control over him.
In other words, the rest of the Council, and very likely some high ranking archmages not on the Council of Six, wanted to use this opportunity to bring him to heel. It was so adorable it almost made him want to coo at these youngsters trying to play political games.
As if Harry hadn't already made enough connections and stockpiled enough political clout to get away just about anything that was reasonably explicable. That was another problem with not getting out into the world enough – you lost perspective on which other forces had to be taken into account. The more fundamentalist and rigid mages of the Kirin Tor had overreached, and they didn't even know it yet.
Harry replied to Rhonin's letter with a polite confirmation that he would be there at the appointed time. It had been a long while since he got to amuse himself by frustrating a group that fancied itself the magic police.
On the appointed day, he teleported into Dalaran with all his wives and their dragon nanny. Garona had been invited as well, but the half-orc had declined, citing discomfort with being around so many mages. She had instead preferred to stay at the tower and looked after the moonlight dragon whelps instead, who by this point were almost big enough to be called proper drakes, if very small ones.
"Welcome to Dalaran, Lord Archmage." Greeted a very perky brunette with a big smile. "I am Apprentice Belana. The Council of Six sent me to escort you to the Violet Citadel."
Harry smiled back, amused that they had managed to find someone so… flight attendanty. "Lead on, then."
Belana smiled again and turned around, walking briskly towards the Violet Citadel.
"Aren't you going to follow her?" Arko asked, her brows furrowed in confusion.
"You're still no good at sensing magic, even at this range?" Jessir asked her old friend with a bit of pity in her voice.
"What magic?" The paladin demanded indignantly.
"I would guess that he confounded that poor apprentice." Colette chuckled. "That was mean, Harry."
"And quite rude." Aurastrasza frowned.
"She'll be fine." Harry dismissed, throwing his arms around all four of them and squeezing them together. It was a tight fit. "More importantly, let's go sample the delights of Dalaran!"
"Wooo!" Luna cheered happily and Della gave a soft woof at the prospect of treats.
"But what about your meeting?" Aurastrasza protested, though she let herself be led off.
"They shall wait at his pleasure, no doubt." Colette responded, snootily sticking her nose in the air, understanding exactly what he was doing.
It was rude, yes, but it was necessary, otherwise the Council of Six might get the idea that they could summon him whenever they wished. Much like training a dog, politicians needed constant negative reinforcement in order to behave themselves.
Harry had sometimes pondered a democratic system where the voters would have to decide which politicians were to be hanged every year, but had never gotten a chance to implement it.
Maybe one day, but for the Council of Six, a three hour wait and the utter ruination of their schedules would suffice for now. Jaina and Rhonin would unfortunately get caught in the crossfire, but that was simply an occupational hazard.
XXXXX
Dalaran was quite a nice city, with plenty of amusing distractions. They tried out the foods, bought some knick-knacks and watched a very determined fisherman catch fish from the Dalaran Fountain. One would think that there wouldn't be any fish in a city fountain, but it was in fact full of mutated fish that ate magic.
That you couldn't see any fish no matter how hard you looked, yet the fisherman seemed to catch an infinite amount of them, was particularly noteworthy. The man had solved world hunger while hunting for coins the hard way.
They saw Belana several times, but a mere apprentice wasn't going to be able to find them if they didn't want to be found, so the poor girl was almost in tears from the stress by the time Harry decided that he'd goofed off long enough and approached her, leaving the girls to find an inn for them to stay in overnight.
"Is there a room where I could change into more appropriate attire?" He asked once they were in the Violet Citadel.
"Yes, of course." Belana quickly nodded, giving his clothes a once over. While he wasn't dressed badly, it was casual. No doubt she was expecting him to put on a fancy formal robe for a meeting with the Kirin Tor's leadership, the poor girl.
She led him to what was probably some kind of guest room and left him to change.
Off went the silk shirt, nice pants and leather boots. On went a black T-shirt with 'My Magic Rod is Bigger Than Yours' printed on it, a pair of loud blue-orange Hawaii-style shorts with coconut trees backlit by a sunset, and a pair of lime green crocs. The entire outfit was made specifically for this meeting, designed to inflict transdimensional horror upon the Council of Six. He didn't even take his socks off.
Belana's gaping expression told him that it had the intended effect.
"Alright, I'm all set." He proclaimed cheerfully.
"The C-Council will speak with you in the Chamber of Air." The apprentice stuttered, spinning around so that she didn't have to look at him.
"Groovy." Harry briefly cringed and decided that using boomer slang was going too far. Maybe it was the years that his soul had spent marinating in the Westerosi Old Gods soul gestalt, but that had caused him almost physical pain to say.
"Right through here." Belana gestured to an imposing archway, visibly relieved to be done with her task.
"Thank you." Harry took her hand and gallantly pressed a kiss to her knuckles, which he knew was clashing horribly with his clothes. "Study hard and you, too, will one day be able to torment poor apprentices."
Leaving her to ponder that bit of wisdom, Harry stepped into the so-called Chamber of Air.
It was quite the imposing room, seeming to be little more than a ring suspended high over the world, an impression no doubt reinforced by the fact that Dalaran was now a floating city. The entrance that Belana had led him to terminated right in the middle of the ring, seemingly on top of a small circular platform a good six feet lower than the ring carrying the Council of Six, so that his head was just over their foot level.
What an incredibly transparent power play. Was subtlety really so lost on Azeroth's mages? The whole point of the elevation difference play was to cause subconscious disquiet in the victim and put them off their game. This was just pissing people off and insulting them.
"Neat illusion you have here." Harry said casually, floating up until he was the one with the height advantage. "Jaina, Rhonin. How's life?"
"What in the world are you wearing?" Jaina asked, her tone suffused with incredulity.
The illusion on the room concealed her into a shapeless cloaked figure, but he was not so easily deceived.
"Do you like it?" Harry affected the tone of someone proudly showing off. "My people wore clothes like these to important meetings."
It was an obvious lie and he was daring them to call him out on it. That would result in a lengthy digression that would further degrade their dignity because they'd let themselves be goaded into a pointless argument. Of course, the other choice was to simply swallow the insult that was his outfit.
Dismissing him as they would to anyone else was not an option, since he wasn't the one that had asked for this meeting. Truly, he who gave less shits had more power.
"It is certainly… colorful." Rhonin was obviously holding back a snicker. Good on him.
"Enough." Another archmage said sternly. "Archmage Harry, we have asked for your presence here because we have concerns over the magics you casually dabble in."
"Dabble?" Harry archly raised an eyebrow. "Archmage Karlain, I do a fair bit more than dabble."
His knowledge of the other man's name seemed to give him pause.
"You know who we are." It was not a question, but a statement.
"Archmage Karlain, Archmage Modera, Archmage Ansirem Runeweaver, Archmage Aethas Sunreaver, and of course my good friends Jaina and Rhonin." Harry rattled off nodding in the direction of each person. "Even if I have little regard for the opinions of others, you are at least relevant enough that I must factor you into my plans. You may dismiss the illusion hiding you, it's just silly when I already know who you are."
Annoying as it might sometimes be, this was not a world where he could afford to completely dismiss the existence of any potential ally or opposition.
"You believe yourself wiser than the Kirin Tor?" Archmage Modera asked, more curious than confrontational. The illusion hiding her vanished as she spoke, revealing a grey-haired woman that nonetheless still looked to be in her early twenties. She was actually closer to seventy, though.
"Well, I am older than all of you combined." Harry shrugged.
Age didn't actually equate to wisdom, and he'd personally met plenty of people who got less wise with age. Experience was always valuable, but continual reinforcing of old thought patterns and declining neuroplasticity made the mind rigid and inflexible. Take magic out of the equation and a human who naturally lived to three hundred would be completely incapable of accepting changes to his world view.
It was why brainwashing was best done during the formative years.
Even with magic to keep his brain malleable, Harry knew that his imagination was not what it used to be.
But the Council of Six didn't know any of that. Not only had there been no studies done on the brain and mind, but Azeroth was so overcrowded with sapient species, some of them functionally immortal, that spotting a pattern of irrationally stubborn old people would be nigh impossible.
"Truly?" Aethas Sunreaver, the only high elf on the Council of Six, asked skeptically.
"I must be closing in on my first millennium." Harry replied cheerfully, knowing that the elf was only a few centuries old.
"Harry, how much time have you been spending in your temporally dilated workshop?" Jaina asked, even more exasperated than before. "The last time you mentioned your age, you estimated it to be closer to nine hundred."
"A lot." He answered honestly. "Azeroth's war machine is hungry for materials that only I can make, and there's so much to research."
"The burden on you would be less if you shared it." Archmage Karlain pointed out flatly, no doubt already knowing the answer.
The man was an alchemist of considerable renown and Harry had no doubt that he had been trying to reverse engineer some of his work. Too bad for him that much of it relied on scientific knowledge that was not available on Azeroth.
"That would reduce the amount of leverage I have over the world's politics." Harry pointed out right back.
"You openly admit to extorting the leaders of both the Horde and Alliance?" Ansirem Runeweaver, a portly bearded man, raised a bushy brown eyebrow.
"Nothing so crass." Harry placed a hand across his chest with a very fake look of shock. "I am merely giving them what they want and need. Don't be mad just because I'm better at it than you."
"It is not your contribution to the war effort against the Undead Scourge that concerns us." Archmage Modera spotted the derail and corrected it. "What concerns us is your use of corrupting magics and dark powers, notably your creation of a body of flesh and blood for the powerful Void entity known as Xal'Atath."
Hmm, maybe this would be harder than he'd expected if they refused to be baited into childish arguments.
"There's no need to be concerned, Xal'Atath is no longer on Azeroth."
"Where is she, then?" Rhonin asked seriously.
"Far away." He admitted openly. "Part of the deal I made with her was to send her to a different universe as soon as the last of the Old Gods was slain. She was a crafty one and knew that many would seek to destroy her after she was revealed."
"And you agreed to such a thing?!" Ansirem Runeweaver's voice was censorius.
"It was a good deal." Harry pointedly didn't mention the extenuating circumstances. "We won't need to worry about Xal'Atath again."
"No, but the innocent people of the universe you sent her to will." Jaina was apparently still upset about that.
"About that… If she ended up where I suspect she did, then her presence can only make life better for any innocents there."
Part of his deal with Xal'Atath had been that he would not open any portals to that accursed galaxy if he determined that the risk of anything spotting him was too high. That had allowed him enough wiggle room to alter the ritual so that it had no specific target location. Instead, it would be a 'like attracting like' sort of situation.
Now, he had no proof of where Xal'Atath was likely to be drawn, but he could make some educated guesses. The question was, had it been a good idea or not?
…
Eh, it would be fine. Probably.
XXXXX
Meanwhile, in another universe…
Xal'Atath had been wrong. Or to be more precise, Harry's memories had not painted an accurate picture.
Her last wielder used the Void to protect his mind, which was a large part of the reason for why she had been able to look so deeply into it. But even so, his memories were not perfect.
Xal'Atath had expected the universe he knew as Warhammer 40,000 to be horrible and wretched, but knowing it and experiencing it were two very different things. It didn't help that she had not arrived on Necromunda as she wished.
The planet was known to be important, densely populated, utterly miserable for the majority of its inhabitants and quite far away from most enemies. Had she taken care, it was unlikely that she would be bothered until she had gotten the lay of the land and became ready to act.
But because of Harry's last minute change to the ritual, which was really her own fault for not thinking to demand that he report any such changes ahead of time, she did not arrive in Necromunda. Instead, she arrived somewhere far, far worse. In fact, Harry's memories designated it as being unequivocally the worst place in the galaxy, bar none.
Xal'Atath had arrived in Commoragh.
This was a problem because Commoragh was host to trillions of suffering souls who desperately yearned for a peaceful oblivion, many of whom had been kept in a state of unending torment for millennia, and her own nature compelled her to give it to them. The power gained from gorging on so many souls was immense, but so were the consequences.
"Disjunction opening in the Corespur!"
"The Darkness had taken Aelindrach!"
"The Legions of Excess are beating down Khaine's Gate!"
The screamed reports from panicking Drukhari reached her from all across the Dark City. As it turns out, using any kind of supernatural power in a realm already as unstable as Commoragh was a bad idea. It was doubly a bad idea when the nature of the power was anathema to the sensation-addicted daemons of Slaanesh. Needless to say, things had gotten… a little out of hand, and Xal'Atath could do nothing except continue gobbling up every soul that offered itself to the Void in hopes of peaceful oblivion, because the situation was well past the point of de-escalation.
XXXXX
In the highest spire of High Commoragh, Asdrubael Vect, Supreme Lord of Commoragh, watched his realm fall apart with seething rage and frustration.
Disjunctions opening up everywhere, supernatural darkness swallowing the slave pits, torture halls and flesh markets, opportunistic rivals slaughtering each other by the millions, helspiders surging from forgotten chasms to feast on Drukhari flesh, daemons popping into reality…
For more than five thousand years, the Archon of the Kabal of the Black Heart had reigned supreme since his plot to overthrow the useless noble dynasts of Houses Xelian, Kraillach and Yllithian. And for thousands of years before then, none had escaped his plots.
Now he had been undone by some unforeseen invader who was mad enough to use psychic powers in Commoragh, apparently uncaring of the consequences.
And the worst part was that he didn't even know whose name to curse.
XXXXX
Back on Azeroth…
"What do you mean?" Archmage Modera asked suspiciously. "How could the presence of such a powerful fragment of the Old Gods improve anything?"
"Because by the standards of that universe, Xal'Atath barely registers as evil. In fact, there is a better than even chance that she will be regarded as a savior." Harry shrugged. "Either way, we won't be seeing her back in these parts for a small eternity at the very least. Now, did you want to talk about anything else? I'd like to get all your complaints out of the way in one meeting."
Jaina sighed and Rhonin hid another smirk in his beard, but the other four archmages seemed to find his dismissive attitude annoying. Finally.
"There is no denying that you have done much to defend Azeroth from the threats assailing it." Ansirem Runeweaver began carefully. "Since the fall of Medivh, there has been no Guardian of Tirisfal, and you seem to have taken that duty up yourself despite not being endowed with the same power. Given what happened to the last Guardian, you can surely understand why we might be uneasy with what Archmage Proudmoore has reported of your activities."
Oh, was that the angle they were going for? Not bad.
"You can rest assured that my wives would slap the sense back into me if I started going off the deep end."
Luna had tutored them on their wifely duties, most of which had nothing to do with sex or housekeeping. Arko was taking her duties as a paladin of Elune particularly seriously and carefully keeping track of his projects. If he was unable to convince her that it was a good idea, then it was put on the backburner. Thankfully she was also a rather violent creature, so it was rarely an issue.
"It is good to hear that you have the wisdom to allow someone to oversee your efforts, given the dangerous work you do." Archmage Karlain said, leading up to the point they had no doubt wanted to get to in the first place. "The Kirin Tor would be put much at ease if you would allow one of our number to stay as a guest at your tower and do so in an official capacity."
They all subtly tensed, obviously bracing for a harsh rejection. Harry's amused smirk confused them. "Jaina already has free access to my tower, and I tell her more or less anything she wants to know."
Because despite their fears, he didn't have much to hide. The real trick wasn't to hide your more controversial research, it was to set the situation up in such way that people had to accept it. And to push boundaries one inch at a time until everyone just shrugged what you were doing off.
"Archmage Proudmoore is currently busy liaising with Lord Kalecgos in our efforts to unify the efforts of the Blue Dragonflight and the Kirin Tor." Archmage Modera said diplomatically. "On top of her responsibilities as the ruler of Theramore, she will not have time for another important task."
"Liaising, hmm?" Harry teased, looking at the young woman in question. "Is that what they call it these days?"
"Shut up, Harry." Jaina grumped, blushing.
The rest of the council notably didn't react and he knew exactly why. Jaina was, in fact, the perfect woman for the job of spying on him for the Kirin Tor. He'd already demonstrated a lot of trust in her and their friendship was well known.
Alas that she was also the perfect person to liaise with Kalecgos. Just like him, others had noticed the new Aspect of Magic's romantic interest in Jaina, because people gossiped. If that went anywhere, it would be a massive boon for the Kirin Tor. None of them dared suggest it for fear of causing offense and ruining everything, but there was a reason why marriage alliances were a thing. Rhonin's own marriage to Vereesa Windrunner had brought a contingent of high elven rangers into the Kirin Tor, the Silver Covenant, which acted as an elite military force for the otherwise very much academic organization.
The Council of Six was not going to do anything to possibly jeopardize the unification of the Kirin Tor and the Blue Dragonflight. If that happened, they would have a Titan-granted authority over magic use on Azeroth, even if only by proxy.
Or so they thought. Harry had a feeling that Jaina wouldn't be quite so onboard with this political agenda if she realized it. Maybe she did realize it, but since nobody was actually saying anything, it was impossible to do more than suspect it.
Harry was old and cynical enough to know the agenda was a thing even without proof.
"You can rest assured that any mage assigned to such a position would be strictly an observer." Rhonin said diplomatically.
They were all so tense, waiting for him to slam the metaphorical door in their faces. After the way he had insulted them by making them wait and dressing as offensively and as anacronistically as possible, they fully expected him to be difficult and force painful concessions out of them for allowing such a thing.
"Hmm, I guess that's fine." He rubbed at his chin thoughtfully, magnificently ignoring their surprise. "I'll have to review your candidates, of course. The Guardian Tower is not just my workshop, but also my home, and I won't have an outsider disturbing its peace."
"That is perfectly acceptable." Rhonin was quick to agree, obviously relieved to have this entire thing wrapped up without any major trouble. His fellow members of the Council were also pleased.
Except for Jaina, who was suspicious.
Clever girl.
XXXXX
"I don't understand at all." Jessir shook her head, staring at him with her extremely long eyebrows furrowed into a frown. "Why put all this effort into antagonizing the Kirin Tor if you're just going to give them what they want in the end?"
"It's a negotiating strategy, sweetie." Harry chuckled, giving her bare bottom a rub. "They were expecting me to be unreasonable and everything said that I would be. My lack of antagonism after being so disrespectful has them on guard and they'll be waiting for the other shoe to drop, but they're looking in the wrong direction."
It was, in many ways, the opposite of the strategy of opening up with unreasonable demands and then allowing yourself to be 'argued down' to what you actually wanted. The Kirin Tor had essentially been bracing itself to resist his push, and overbalanced when it didn't come by agreeing to give him veto power in their relief.
"And what direction should they be looking at?" Arko asked from somewhere else in the pile of naked flesh.
"Their 'observer' instead of me."
XXXXX
Jaina did not seem surprised when he began rejecting all of the Council's suggestions for reasons both plausible and inane.
Too old, too stiff, too serious, too grouchy, too nervous, too slutty (Stop looking at me like that, Jaina, I'm serious), and a plethora of other reasons. The dreaded unreasonableness that they had feared the previous day had appeared and many began to believe that he had only been so agreeable before so that he could fuck with them now.
Which was when he suddenly switched gears again.
Harry had been stalling until it was time for dinner, at which time he was invited to dine with the Kirin Tor mages. The offer was clearly made out of pure politeness and they didn't expect him to accept. No, they expected him to refuse and return tomorrow for another day of fucking with them.
"Sure, that would be lovely." He said with a smile.
The Violet Citadel's dining hall looked like an extremely fancy cafeteria. There were large tables, small tables, square tables, round tables, booths, benches, chairs… there was even a salad bar!
And in one booth, sitting all alone, was man with long blonde hair, ears too long and pointy to be human, but too small to be an elf. His eyebrows were similarly too big to be human, but too small to be elven. He was, for anyone familiar with such features, a half-elf.
"Let's go sit over there." Harry suggested.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea." Jaina, who had assigned herself as his chaperone for this due to her suspicions, winced. "That's Zaiel. He's… not very friendly."
Yes, Harry imagined that he wouldn't be, seeing as he was the result of an unscrupulous young human alchemist's research into date rape potions. And being a half-elf certainly hadn't done anything to improve his disposition.
As a connoiseur of racial tensions himself, Harry knew exactly how easy it was to provoke a knee-jerk reaction against otherness. It was a hardwired survival instinct built into the threat assessment portion of any animal's brain, designed to act as guide in a hostile world where everything that wasn't 'one of us' was a potential threat, no different from an aversion to brightly colored mushrooms. Azeroth's evolutionary process was very much non-standard, but that particular instinct was as powerful as ever, thanks to the much higher grade of threats.
Anyone who bothered to think about it rationally would conclude that there was no reason to be racist against half-elves. Humans and elves had been allies for centuries and frequently fought together against trolls. They lived in separate regions and had little need to compete for resources. They were morphologically similar enough to find each other sexually appealing, so it stood to reason that they would eventually fuck. Logically, half-elves should have received no more than nonchalant shrugs.
But that was of course asking for too much thinking. The average person spent 90% of their time running on autopilot, and deluded themselves into believing that they were deep thinkers when they barely qualified as sapient. Half-elves were other to both races and thus got shunned from both sides of their heritage. With no impetus to confront this instinctive reaction and reconsider it, such attitudes had centuries to become entrenched and gain inertia. They weren't persecuted or anything similarly overt, but they tended to encounter a higher than average number of assholes over the course of their lives.
There were exceptions of course, such as the children of powerful mixed race couples like Rhonin and Vereesa. The same blind survival instinct responsible for racism against half-elves also told people that it might not be healthy to be racist against kids with powerful parents, go figure. In general the racism was quickly vanishing as otherworldly and extra-dimensional invaders contrasted with the comparatively inoffensive half-elves.
But that was of no help to Zaiel, who had been born before the succession of apocalyptic threats started giving people perspective and a reason to start thinking, whose mother had abandoned him at a young age to return to Quel'Thalas, and who had developed a prickly and abrasive personality that now did more to keep people away than his mixed heritage.
Harry had just known that an organization like the Kirin Tor, where humans and elves mingled, was bound to have some troubled social outcasts among their number, but even he hadn't expected such an exemplary specimen when he started investigating. He had hoped for a loner that would respond well to a welcoming environment, instead he received an angry little bastard with mommy, daddy, and abandonment issues.
Truly, he was blessed with good fortune.
"Sounds interesting!" Harry enthused, making his way over to his target with tray in hand. Jaina made an 'ugh!' sound behind him as she followed.
"Hello there." He said cheerfully, sitting down without being invited. "I'm Harry."
Zaiel gave him a look that was somewhere between confusion and anger, his eyes flicking over to Jaina as she also sat down next to them. "Archmage Proudmoore?"
Even his return greeting was somewhere between grouchy, questioning and begrudgingly respectful.
"Zaiel." Jaina nodded at him with a smile. She was too much of a sweetheart to have ever treated the guy poorly, so she only had to deal with his innate prickliness rather than any personal grudge. "Sorry about bothering you like this, I'm afraid Harry thought you were interesting. My condolences."
"Ouch, when did you get so catty?" He asked rhetorically, feigning a wounded expression.
"Since meeting you, coincidentally enough." Jaina grumbled.
"You are the new wielder of Atiesh." Zaiel said in a tone of realization.
"That's me, dabbler in dark magics and violator of Violet Citadel virtues." Harry alliterated proudly.
Zaiel showed no sign of amusement at his clever wordplay, choosing instead to stare at him flatly. "And why are you sitting at my table?"
It wasn't really anyone's table. Only high ranking mages had private dining arrangements, but Zaiel had no doubt claimed this little corner for himself and defended it like a territorial cat.
"Most of the Kirin Tor bores me to tears, but it isn't corrupt enough to deserve being treated as an enemy. That leaves me forced to interact with it, but it doesn't mean that I can't find its more interesting members. You are definitely interesting."
"I am not your entertainment." Zaiel bit out, glaring at him.
Harry grinned. "How would you like to come live at my tower and make reports on my dubious magical practices to the Council of Six?"
That caught the guy off guard, leaving him blinking in confusion at the strange turn the conversation had suddenly taken.
"Harry, you said that you wouldn't accept an observer that would disrupt the harmony of your home." Jaina was pinching the bridge of her nose. "That was why we suggested the most even tempered and accommodating mages in the Kirin Tor for the position."
Of which Zaiel was neither, it went unsaid.
He gave her a pitying look in response. "You should have considered what kind of harmony we have. The candidates you put forward would have been eaten alive in weeks."
Not untrue, but not the whole truth either. Those candidates were reasonably well adjusted and not likely to be co-opted.
The best way to deal with spies wasn't to kill them, but to turn them to your side. Zaiel was a fully accredited mage, but still in his teens (even if just barely) and his elven heritage was slowing down his aging. He had shown no hint of disloyalty to the Kirin Tor and by all indications had no interest in researching forbidden magics, but that wasn't the only way to turn someone.
Luna would smell the emotional damage on him like a bloodhound and Harry was an old hand at being a father figure to angry brats with a chip on their shoulder. The Kirin Tor would get their observer, but it wouldn't be one loyal to them, not for long.
XXXXX
The little diversion with the Kirin Tor hadn't been unexpected, but it certainly wasn't the main concern for the Battle Harem. That dubious honor belonged to the impending dinner with Azshara, which could no longer be put off or delayed.
"Are you absolutely sure that we have to do this?" Jessir did not quite whine. Arko just nodded next to her, supporting her old friend's question. They were both dressed in airy skirts and tops made of mooncloth and silver thread, with no sign of armor or weapons anywhere on their person. Their hair was styled in a much more sophisticated way than the norm for modern night elves and they wore ornamental jewelry. Frankly, they looked kind of like Arabic belly dancers, complete with gemstones in their navels.
According to Xal'Atath, this was what favored Highborne concubines dressed like back in the day. Harry had wisely decided to not inform them of that bit. According to the former sentient weapon, dressing them up as ladies of high standing would be seen as a huge insult, because they were not mages.
He was usually all for huge insults delivered without having to say anything, but it was somewhat less fun when there were dire consequences on the table.
The irony was that Xal'Atath told him that Azshara had dressed similar to this back when she was the empress of the Kaldorei Empire, but everyone was too infatuated with her to say anything. Just another way for the overly charismatic bitch to flex on everyone.
"Yes, we do." He shot down their last hopes, not bothering to explain once again why they didn't want to give Azshara any kind of cassus beli to return to a more hostile footing. Truly, having such a powerful foe with a nigh unassailable stronghold was proving to be deeply problematic. He was almost tempted to sympathize with some of the people that had to deal with him in the past.
"Don't worry, it'll be fun!" Luna said optimistically. Unlike the two night elves, her white dress was a one piece and eminently human in style, save for its' twinkling moon-and-star decorations. It was more conservative, but still sexy.
"I suppose it will be, one way or another." Colette chuckled, adjusting her bustline. Her dress was so black that it seemed to absorb light. At the top it looked like a normal dress, but as it went lower it seemed to turn into shadow. The long skirt had a slit all the way up her thigh and reached down to the floor, where it seemed to lost substance.
"Alright, how do we look? Any glaring problems?" Harry asked their small audience. His outfit was naturally the most conservative, simply on account of his gender. Men just didn't have the same curves to show off. Still, the robe he wore would be recognized as a heavily customized version of what a Highborne magister might wear.
The audience consisted of Aurastrasza, Garona, Sacrolash and Alythess, and their newest resident, Zaiel.
"Quite impressive." The red dragon nanny said politely.
"Useless for fighting in, but Stormwind's noblewomen would die of envy." Garona assessed.
"Delicious!"
"Ravishing!"
Not a very informative response from the perpetually horny eredar twins, but he'd take the compliment anyway.
"How am I supposed to tell the Council that you are associating with possibly the most dangerous magic user alive?" The prickly half-elf grumbled.
"Just tell them that I'm researching the social habits of dangerous deep sea creatures." Harry advised.
Zaiel snorted, obviously amused. Heh, and Jaina thought he wasn't a good choice.
"Bye everyone!" Luna said, jumping in to give goodbye hugs, including to a startled Zaiel. "I left a carrot cake in the fridge for you. Be good."
She clearly didn't think it was strange to treat millennia old beings, deadly assassins and prickly half-elf mages like they were her grandchildren. Everyone else did, though.
"Luna, come on, we need to start teleporting or we'll be late." Harry urged her. Only a few seconds late, maybe, but he just knew that their host would be ready with a remark of some kind.
"Blessed Elune, please let me not fuck this up." Arko prayed under her breath.
"Now look at what you've done, Harry." Colette commented, amused. "You gave Arko'narin a potty mouth."
"If your trainees don't start swearing, then you're doing it wrong."
XXXXX
For their entrance, they had been given a one-off ward pass so that they didn't have to swim down to the bottom of the ocean to get to Azshara's palace. Waiting for them was a familiar face, a rather sour one.
"Pashmar!" Harry greeted joyously. "Long time no see. How have you been?"
The fanatical sea witch glared at him with the hatred of a thousand suns. "Welcome, honored visitors, to Queen Azshara's Eternal Palace. Follow me and I will lead you to Her Majesty."
"Of course, and while we walk you can tell me about what you've been up to since we fought against N'Zoth together."
While Harry continued to annoy the naga with polite small talk, Jessir leaned over to murmur quietly to her sister wives. "Am I the only one who heard 'I want to rip out your still-beating hearts' when she said 'welcome'?"
"I think we all heard it." Colette murmured back, amused. "Harry must have made quite the pest of himself the last time he was a 'guest' down here."
"I thought we were supposed to be on our best behavior." Arko hissed in slight confusion. "Why is he antagonizing this naga already?"
"He's just being polite." Luna corrected.
Which was within the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Plus, Azshara probably thought it was funny.
The walk was quite long and Pashmar was forced to answer every 'curious' question about the palace and its artworks or else bring shame to her queen by being rude. Still, if the palace had been flooded, the water around her would probably be boiling from the sheer force of her rage.
And the walk was rather long, clearly designed to impress visitors with the palace's wealth and architectural beauty. A standard intimidation/bragging tactic used by monarchs and other powerful people in many cultures and across many ages. Pashmar was no doubt relieved when they finally reached Azshara's private wing.
The Queen Beneath the Tides was lounging on a sofa in a pose that most anyone would assume had been specifically chosen to make her appear alluring and casual for her guests. Harry knew better – Azshara posed even when there was nobody around.
"My queen, your guests." Pashmar said formally, giving a low bow before turning back to Harry and the girls. "Visitors, be known to Her Radiant Majesty, Queen Azshara of the Naga, Empress of Nazjatar, the Light Beneath the Tides."
The woman in question had too much self-control to visibly react, but Harry could imagine her preening as her various titles were listed out. How she hadn't gotten bored of the ass-kissing after over ten thousand years of it he would never understand. Maybe it was an elf thing.
"It's good to see you again, Azshara, have you grown more beautiful since we last spoke?" Harry lightly flirted.
The situation was obviously designed to demean him by dismissing his own status. He had his own titles of course, but he couldn't list them himself or have one of his wives do it, not without looking desperate and awkward. Heralds were around for a reason, and it was to spare rulers from looking like braggarts. Instead of going there, he made use of her permission to be familiar.
If his girls had been jealous sorts that would have been just another trap, but this kind of situation had been anticipated.
"I only ever grow more beautiful." Azshara almost scoffed, slithering out of the sofa and moving forward to loom over them a bit. "I did not get the chance to properly meet your women before. Introduce them to me."
"Of course." Harry agreed easily, moving to Luna first. "This is Luna, who has been with me since we were children. She became a priestess of Elune shortly after our arrival on Azeroth."
"Hi!" Luna waved.
"Well, aren't you a cheery one." Azshara commented, raising an eyebrow.
"Being happy feels nicer than being gloomy." Luna reasoned.
"Indeed." The naga queen's response was noncommittal.
Harry took that as the cue it was and moved on. "Jessir Moonbow, a huntress and one of the first people we met on Azeroth."
Night elf customs regarding names were quite peculiar. Wives did not take their husband's names upon getting married, or vice versa. Many night elves did not even have family names, such as Azshara herself. The whole thing seemed rather inconsistent.
"Greetings." Jessir gave a short, stiff bow.
"So, you decided to take the very first available night elf you met as a bride?" Azshara asked, her tone slightly teasing.
"It was a little more involved than that, but we have no regrets." Harry replied, ignoring the way Jessir and Arko stiffened.
"It sounds like a tale I would be interested in hearing over dinner." Azshara once again hinted that he was to continue.
"If you like." Harry agreed and moved on to the next girl. "Arko'narin, long-time friend of Jessir's and the first paladin of Elune."
Arko simply gave a bow without saying anything.
"A combination of warrior and priestess." Azshara noted. "I don't imagine that the Sentinels and the Sisterhood of Elune were pleased with you. The sad remnants of my empire have become staid and dogmatic under the leadership of Elune's High Priestess."
"You give Tyrande too little credit." Harry rebuffed before Arko could say or do anything… rash. "True, she could have done better, but it was quite a mess that she inherited."
He pointedly didn't say that it was Azshara who made that mess, but it was understood by all present.
"I suppose I must accept that others are more limited than I." The former empress of the Kaldorei Empire acted as if the minor concession was a great act of generosity. "And your last mate?"
"Colette, formerly the High Priestess of the Silver Hand, and more recently, formerly a death knight in the ranks of the Undead Scourge. Now a paladin of the Void."
"It is an honor to meet you, Your Majesty." Unlike the two night elves, Colette was quite familiar with the notion of polite lies.
"Yes." Azshara agreed that it was indeed an honor to meet her. "But did you not have more women in your bed, Harry? I heard tell of a half-orc assassin, a pair of eredar twins, a young red dragon, and a novice mage by the name of Proudmoore."
"One day, I will figure out where you get your information." Harry idly promised. "And Garona is not one of our lovers, she simply lives with us and helps us with our endeavors sometimes. Sacrolash and Alythess put themselves up as collateral in a bet they made with Luna and lost, so they are now sworn to her. Aurastrasza is a nanny we requested from the Red Dragonflight to look after the moonlight dragon whelps we are raising. As for Jaina… I'm afraid the quirks of short-lived mortal races have worked against me with her."
But trust Azshara to call an accomplished archmage a novice.
"Mortals do have many quirks." She noted, as if the ageless and immortal didn't have their own. Quite clearly, she had no idea what he was talking about, but refused to ask and appear ignorant.
Harry suspected that she would research it out of sheer resentment at the idea of being less than another person at anything. How magnificently psychotic of her.
XXXXX
Azshara was actually enjoying herself. It had been a long time since she had hosted a dinner, and never with guests that were not of her own people. Unsurprising, really, given that the night elves had been the only proper civilized race back in the days of the Kaldorei Empire and there were no others at the bottom of the sea.
Harry had shown respect by preparing for it. In fact, he had prepared considerably better than she had expected. His mates had only made some minor missteps that would have seen them mocked behind their backs, but nothing so egregious that it would be worth official censure or punishment.
Granted, that might be because they were keeping their heads down and staying quiet for the most part, but Azshara knew how hard it could be to convince unruly servants to keep their mouths shut. Many of her own subjects grew arrogant in their service of her, beginning to think they could speak with her voice simply by association. Pashmar had needed to be harshly punished many times before she learned better.
In this particular case, they were keeping quiet because they disliked her and did not trust themselves not to give offense. That could not be allowed. All who set foot in Nazjatar would adore her, such was the will of Azshara.
So she engaged them in polite conversation, asked if they were enjoying the food, inquired about the day to day affairs of her former people, teased out interaction. Little by little, the women relaxed as she created a friendly, welcoming air. The two night elves had no doubt been raised on stories of the evil Azshara, and the former death knight would have heard it from them. But what her enemies liked to forget is that she had won the adoration of the kaldorei with sheer force of personality. She had pulled their scattered and isolationist people together into a mighty empire and been worshiped as much as Elune.
Azshara had not needed to put any effort into charming someone in a long time, but she still remembered how to do it.
Harry knew what she was doing. His lips smiled, but his eyes remained cold and calculating. The inherent challenge of it was as infuriating as it was thrilling.
The meal was long and drawn out, stretching across several hours and multiple courses. Azshara had commanded that full effort be put into it and arranged for entertainment. None would say that she was not a gracious host.
Perhaps the most confusing of her guests was Luna. The odd priestess had no guile in her eyes and was genuinely happy to be here. She should have been the easiest to charm and yet remained the most immovable, in some ways even more so than Harry. It reminded her unpleasantly of Tyrande and her refusal to fall in line ten thousand years ago. Was it Elune's meddling again, or was the girl just like that?
Overall, however, the game had put her in a good mood. When the meal drew to a close, she 'invited' her guests to join her in one of her lounge rooms and had the servants bring some relatively mild alcoholic beverages. That allowed for a bit of conversation on the intricacies of alcohol production at the bottom of the ocean, before Azshara moved it towards what she truly wanted to talk about. It was uncouth to talk about heavy subjects during a meal, but after, when you had a belly full of food and a beverage to sip on was perfect.
"How goes your war against that upstart necromancer?" Azshara asked mildly, sprawled across a large sofa with a bubbly alcoholic concoction in hand.
"Quite well, all things considered." Harry replied in the same kind of mild tone. He had two women on each side of him pressed close. "The biggest problem of the Scourge had always been their sheer numbers and their ability to keep reanimating. My alchemy negates that on a large scale, which has allowed the Horde and Alliance to push the Scourge back to Icecrown. Unfortunately, that fortress will have to be conquered the old-fashioned way."
"With as many champions as we have, we will be able to bring down the Lich King's lieutenants easily." Jessir spoke up, much of her stiffness gone. That one was fond of drink, Azshara had noticed.
"I would not say easily." Colette interjected, a note of warning in her tone. "But I certainly am looking forward to killing Kel'thuzad again, this time permanently."
"I do wonder how you plan to kill the Lich King permanently." Azshara mused idly, running a finger along the rim of her glass and staring at Harry. "That helmet is quite the dangerous artifact. Simply destroying such things tends to have catastrophic consequences in my experience, and is not easily done besides."
The women looked worried at her generous advice, but Harry only gave her a mildly annoyed look.
"I have a plan for that." He said simply.
"You do?!" Arko spoke up, a note of surprise in her tone.
"Yes."
Ah, he hadn't shared this plan of his with them and didn't appreciate her cornering him. How amusing.
"As ever a man of many plans, hmm?" She hummed, a sly smile growing on her face. "How did your last one turn out?"
"You're going to have to be a bit more specific." He replied politely. "I don't know which you think was my last one."
He was still too guarded to reveal any more than he had to. Irritating.
"The one that you needed Xal'Atath for."
"It went mostly alright." He said wrily. "All of the Old Gods are now thoroughly dead, so I suppose I can't complain. Speaking of, I have the dagger back, as promised."
Pity. She had been hoping he would try to keep it for himself.
Harry produced a box and popped open the lid, revealing the twisted dagger. Azshara noticed that it was much diminished from what it used to be, however. Picking it up, she confirmed her suspicion – the dark spirit that had once inhabited the weapon was gone. The dagger itself was still potent, but what made it unique among Void-imbued weapons was gone.
"You have released the spirit within." She noted neutrally.
"Yes, Xal'Atath asked to be freed of the dagger and I'm afraid that I had no choice but to grant her request." He replied.
It didn't feel like a lie, but it was definitely misleading. Taken at face value, One would assume that his nature had compelled him to grant a request for freedom, which Azshara doubted was the truth.
"I see, then you have not truly returned what you borrowed, have you?" She asked with a smile.
"I didn't know that Xal'Atath was a sapient being when I borrowed her." Harry argued. "You know that I can't refuse requests for freedom from people."
She did know that, and yet it still felt like he was trying to mislead her. "You would consider even a spawn of the Void a person?"
"She was able to talk, reason, remember, and feel." He shrugged.
That was not the answer to her question. Azshara's smile widened. "So can many other creatures of the Void, and yet I doubt you would extend such courtesy to them."
"They can put forward a convincing act." Harry corrected. The nerve of him! "Xal'Atath was long separated from her creator and has consumed enough mortal souls to form one of her own."
"Is that so? How curious." Azshara hummed, still smiling. "Where is she now, then? I would be interested in speaking to such a being."
"I'm afraid she left Azeroth for darker pastures."
"You speak of her as if she was a cow." Azshara chuckled.
"She might as well be, with those giant udders." Jessir muttered.
Ah, the human preference for large breasts. Azshara had never understood it, but Harry clearly had it, seeing as both Luna and Colette sported almost obscenely large busts. More importantly, Jessir's slightly drunken comment had revealed something.
"Harry, did you give Xal'Atath giant breasts?" She asked, putting a faint disapproving tone into her voice. It was a tone that had brought hundreds of confident courtiers to stuttering apologies.
Harry, of course, refused to be so easily cowed. "I also gave her a huge ass and hips like tree trunks."
"Is that your preference? Does that mean you do not consider me attractive?"
"That was her preference, and I invoke my rights as a married man to not answer that question."
"I think you're very pretty!" Luna was quick to speak up, as guileless as ever. "I especially like your fins and tentacles!"
"My tentacles?" Azshara repeated, amused. She shifted said tentacles towards the priestess, curious to see how honest she was. "What about them do you find so appealing?"
Showing not a hint of hesitation of any kind, Luna scooted forward and grabbed one with a huge smile on her face. "They're so thick and scaly and wiggly! Do you have to give them special care? Are your hair tentacles softer or more sensitive? Can you control them like these?"
"I have my handmaidens regularly massage them and clean between the scales." She answered, curling the ends around the priestess' wrists. "And yes, my hair tentacles are softer and more sensitive, but I have less control of them."
Luna still showed no sign of being at all unsettled, giggling happily as the prehensile limbs slowly slithered their way up her hands. "So lucky, I'd like to take care of your tentacles, too!"
A priestess highly favored by Elune, coming down to Nazjatar so that she could groom the physical sign of Azshara's rejection of the Moon Goddess? How incredibly amusing, and it would infuriate her usual handmaidens as well.
"Umm, Luna…?" The other three women were visibly less enthused by the idea, tensing up a little but not daring to act more than that.
Harry, on the other hand, simply snorted quietly and rolled his eyes. Clearly, he was not surprised by this in the slightest.
"I'm sure we could arrange something." Azshara said. The irony of it all was simply too much for her to resist.
"Really?!" Luna nearly squealed in happiness, now wrapped up in tentacles up to her shoulders. She squirmed and wiggled in their embrace, clearly ticklish. The sight of it just made her sister wives even more tense, which was kind of insulting.
As if Azshara would be so uncouth as to harm a guest.
"Of course. I am sure that you and my handmaidens will be able to learn much from each other."
XXXXX
Their return home was heralded by Arko faceplanting into the bed with a groan of exhausted relief.
"It's finally over." She moaned into the pillow, barely intelligible. "That was more stressful than any dungeon we ever went into."
"Agreed." Jessir decided to follow her example and also did a faceplant, although she did it on top of her old friend. The paladin grunted at the impact, but otherwise barely reacted.
"Was it really that bad?" Luna asked, genuinely curious.
"I have been invited to private noble soirees before and I must agree, this one was easily the most intense." Colette was more restrained than the two night elves, but she was also visibly glad to sit down in a cozy armchair and ditch her fancy shoes. "Azshara's presence is quite suffocating."
"Yeah, she's like that." Harry could only sigh in agreement. "But at least things went… mostly according to plan."
Arko decided that merited a reaction and turned to the side, coincidentally dumping Jessir off her back. "How can you say that? Luna is going to have go back down there and play handmaiden to Azshara."
"That was one of the things that didn't go as planned." He responded sourly, turning a disapproving eyeball to his first wife. "What did we say about gushing over Azshara's tentacles?"
"Not to." Luna admitted sheepishly. "I forgot. Those drinks were pretty strong."
Harry couldn't even be surprised, nor could he blame her. The booze had been strong, and it would have been rude to refuse. Keeping Jessir and Arko, the two lightweights of the group, from blurting out anything unwise had been hard enough. To say nothing of the fact that Azshara's supernatural charm had been affecting them, even if they would deny it to their last breath.
"Well, it's not all bad. At the very least we bought ourselves some breathing room, even if not in quite the way we'd hoped."
"I still think that relying on Azshara's boredom to keep her at bay is a flimsy defense." Arko continued to grumble. Next to her, Jessir was already on the verge of falling asleep.
Not nearly as flimsy as it looked. Azshara was one of the oldest beings on Azeroth and had the patience to wait for millennia before acting on her plans. She was also trapped in the role of royalty, mostly by her own ego. People that did the same thing all the time for long stretches without any emergencies tended to be… slow. He had been gambling on Azshara not being in any rush to achieve her ambitions as long as it looked like she had all the time in the world. An amusing distraction, such as their little social spars, would tempt her to delay.
Luna getting into it with her love of non-humanoid biology had been something he was hoping to avoid, but it was what it was. She was unlikely to be in any danger from the Naga Queen herself, although her jealous servants were another matter. It didn't take a genius to guess that Azshara was privately gloating over the delicious irony of having a priestess of Elune attend to her, probably counting it as some kind of win over the Moon Goddess. Narcissists were invariably spiteful creatures, and they nursed their grudges as stubbornly as any dwarf. Tyrande's rebellion against her rule had not been forgotten.
Another thing that he came away with from this was the realization that Azshara had not plotted to use Xal'Atath as a way to get at his knowledge. It had not been explicitly stated, but the various little clues and hints pointed away from his earlier conclusion. Xal'Atath had played them both, or at least seized an opportunity.
That was annoying on a personal level, but objectively a boon. It meant that Azshara had less of an investment in the former dagger.
"It doesn't have to hold up forever." He conceded to Arko, unwilling to argue about it. Not like he was super happy about having to play these games either, but Azshara was simply too powerful and too well established to challenge head on right now. Maybe one day he'd be able to point the Horde and Alliance and some other enemies at her, that would be a big enough distraction. "Dangerous as she is, we have more immediate problems that need to be taken care of."
Colette perked up at that. "Are we finally moving against the Scourge?"
The former death knight had been eager to join the fighting. The girls had helped out here and there, but the bulk of the grunt work was left to the Horde and Alliance. With Icecrown Citadel under siege and the champions of the living preparing to invade, it was time for them to join in fully.
As much as Harry would rather not go anywhere near the amalgamated abomination that was the Lich King, he needed to be there so that he could call dibs on the Helm of Domination. If it was left to anyone else, he had a bad feeling that they were going to do something… incredibly stupid.
As the only good-aligned necromancer on Azeroth, not to mention the clout he had accumulated from constantly supplying the mortal armies with undead-destroying alchemical concoctions, he should be able to get away with it. Everyone would naturally want to know that the powerful necromantic artifact was properly contained, but he only needed to have it in his possession for a short time.
"Yes, yes we are."