Fan-fiction

Blizzard added a fan-fiction forum over on their official forums a couple weeks ago.  I didn't think much about it, but then they started posting writing challenges.  And, well, my husband is the biggest troll of a troll mage, and a writing topic about portals... yeah.  So here's my first ever fan-fic, posted over here.

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This mage is trying to kill me.

It was supposed to be a cushy, easy job, really. And after I don't know how many months in the steaming Jade Forest, a trip up to Northrend would have been a nice change.

The commander said he wanted an update on how things were going since Deathwing's defeat. I figured it would be a couple weeks on a gryphon, stopping in the outposts across the continent for reports, with a handful of companions in case of any lingering trouble. The priestess was an easy choice - Elaine and I grew up in Westfall together, and I know she's got my back in trouble. She pulled in the paladin, Wilton Stonehammer. The dwarf has set himself up as something of a protective uncle to Elaine, and I can't really complain about that. The commander provided the - well, Elaine and I settled on rogue, because that gnome's hands are just nowhere to be found if not in someone else's pockets.

We were supposed to meet the gnome, Fizzle Stembolts, at Lion's Landing, so Elaine and Wilton and I headed down to Krasarang and eventually got him away from a group of rather irritated soldiers whose pocket handkerchiefs Fizzle had apparently acquired without their knowledge. We were debating how to get up to Northrend when Wilton spotted what could only be a mage, fishing off the docks. Since the dwarf is the best of us at striking up conversations with random strangers (seriously, it's like they're all raised in bars or something), he headed over to see if the mage wanted to go along, or, if not, if we could buy a portal to Northrend off him.

I suppose the archaic style of his robes should have been a warning; he had followed Wilton back to the rest of us after what had looked to be an amiable conversation and introduced himself as Malcolm Sanderson, and he had indeed agreed to go with us. He made some complaint about the quantity of octopus in the waters off Krasarang, and then did that hand-wavy stuff mages do, and a portal popped up on the docks. Fizzle hopped through first, then Wilton, then Elaine, then me, presuming the mage would follow behind us.

I found myself freefalling, blue sky above me and very definitely not the snows of Northrend below me. In a panic I pulled at the cords of the parachute I'd meticulously stitched into my cloak with one hand while I flailed out to catch Chad, the coyote I'd left Westfall with, with the other. Once I was floating a bit more slowly down - really, that parachute wasn't designed for two - I could see the others below me. Elaine was floating down slowly on a puff of cloud, and Wilton had that familiar golden glow of the protective Light around him. Fizzle was moving, but it looked like he hadn't fared as well as the paladin that had apparently landed on him.

Above me, I heard Malcolm say, "H-uh." He was, like Elaine, floating gently down through a simple spell.

"Where are we, Malcolm?" I heard Elaine ask, and I cringed at the tone. Elaine was not happy.

"This should be Dalaran," he said. "Last time I went to Dalaran, it was right here..." Malcolm said.

"Yeah? When was that, the First War?" Elaine snapped. "Forsaken Lordaeron. You've dropped us into the middle of Forsaken Lordaeron."

We had landed in a crater, and weak little remnants of the arcane magics that had moved the city flitted around. Wilton had healed the worst of the injuries Fizzle had taken from the fall, which was just as well, because Elaine, still glaring at the mage, had faded into the shadows. You just don't make a priestess angry.

"I could try again--"

"NO!" the four of us cut off Malcolm.

"We can't very well walk to Northrend, though," Wilton said.

"Look," I said, "the Horde maintain a zeppelin tower just outside the Undercity. If we're careful, we can probably just sneak onto one and drop off over the water in Northrend before it docks."

"Aye, lass, but we have to get to that tower. And there's all of Silverpine and a good bit of Tirisfal between us and it," Wilton said.

"What about the lake?" Fizzle asked. The dwarf raised a brow at him, then thumped his breastplate with his mace.

"Lakes and I do not get along."

"Oh, please," Elaine rolled her eyes, waggling her fingers at him, and Wilton frowned as he floated up about six inches on a cloud similar to the one Elaine was still standing on herself.

"You know I hate this," he said.

"But it works," she said.

"Fine, fine, let's get walking," I said.

"Hm, Lordamere Lake," Malcolm muttered as we started out of the crater. "Rather dull for fish..."