The Art of Telemancy
Silvermoon City, home of the Blood Elves, an elegant city filled with plush comforts and exotic treasures. Within it, one could find any number of people, from priest to paladins, hunters to warriors. The city had become a quiet one over the years, though it still held folk that chose to remain in its walls versus the Horde’s main capital city of Orgrimmar.
In a hidden corner of Murder Row rested a specialized laboratory belonging to the great inventor, Borin Inato. An intelligent and curious man, half of what was once the pride of the Deathblade Clan’s Horde counterpart.
On any given day, he could be found here by members of the Clan, seen tinkering away with various gadgets and gizmos of goblin design. The technology, much to his frustration, had a seemingly innate tendency to explode at random. This led the warlock to keep a number of special spellstones littered around his workbench specifically created to quickly extinguish any fires that happened to break out.
On this particular day, he was working on a new device that would be able to generate a portal to any desired location. As always, he worked with magic and material simultaneously, using his knowledge of fel energies to attempt to enhance the effectiveness of his machines. He hummed to himself, bustling back and forth between different parts on his workbench, putting together one thing and taking apart another, searching for this or that, all in an effort to create this new machine.
Nimiya, a young and bright Blood Knight, often walked the streets of Silvermoon, a shield upon her back and a sword at her hip. While normally she would travel through the city merely to think, or on guard duty, today she had a destination in mind. As she stepped out of the gilded gates of Sunfury Spire, feeling the warmth of the day on her skin, she headed down the ramp into Farstrider Square, on her way to Murder Row, and a certain warlock’s laboratory.
“It’s a beautiful day,” she said quietly to herself. “It’s good to not be in a hurry for once.” She chuckled softly.
Sneaking in full plate-mail armor was not the easiest thing to do, but somehow Karagoth had mastered the art over the years he had known, and come to love, Nimiya. “Surprise,” he shouted as he hugged her from behind. “You off to see my brother again?”
Nimiya jumped, laughing as she was rather suddenly embraced from behind. “Oh! Light above, Karagoth... You scared me half to death.” She wrapped her arms over his and nodded. “Yep. He’s testing out a new invention today. It’s supposed to make a portal anywhere you want! Wouldn’t that be wonderful? To be able to just pick a spot on the map, put in the coordinates, and have it send you there? He said he’s trying to weave in some magic to make it work.”
“Oh lord, is he still at it with that one? He’s been working on that for weeks!”
“Yeah. I was hoping he’d be finished with it soon so we could go on that little trip we were thinking about. Head down to one of the islands south of Stranglethorn? What do you think?”
“He has proved me wrong in the past, but the mages are fairly adamant that you need to follow the ley lines when talking portal tech. They also seem to have that market cornered.”
“Well, yes... I’m not sure why he’s not working with a mage on it, but it’s your brother! Half of his ideas don’t really make sense until he puts them into the world.” She giggled. “Did you want to come with me? Or is it patrol day?”
He frowned. “Yeah, today is my watch day. I’ll be around though.” He showed a faint smile. “I love you,” he said with a slight hesitation. Although he had first confessed his love a few months ago, it still felt like just the other day.
Nimiya sighed softly and pulled him into a hug. “I love you too, Karagoth. Be safe.” She pulled away from him and turned to head toward the lab. As she walked away, she turned her head and shouted back, “If you see Lithelyne, tell her I said hi!” With that, she hurried off toward Borin’s lab. Karagoth went back to his rounds with a smile on his face.
Borin was around his lab as usual, a buzzer sounding as Nimiya walked in the doorway. Borin looked up from his work for a moment, adjusting his goggles. “Ah, Nimiya! What brings you down here?”
Nimiya trotted in happily, making her way to the man she was sure would be her future brother-in-law, and hugged him. “Just wanted to see how your invention is coming. I’ve got all my smithing done for the day, so I was wondering if you needed any help.” She smiled brightly, as she always did.
He chuckled. “Sometimes I wonder why you didn’t go into the engineering field with how much interest you show in my work. No, I have all the extra hands I could ever need. Although I do have to expend a lot of energy re-summoning them if they get blown to bits... Better than a non-demonic experiment subject I suppose!”
“I’m sure that’s the case. But how are you planning on testing your portal mechanism? I know your minions work well as test subjects, but are you planning on sending them somewhere far away by themselves? Knowing that imp of yours, it would wreak havoc as far as the eye can see! Little creature sets any more of my clothes on fire and I swear...” She muttered a quiet string of obscenities before clearing her throat. “But I-I digress...”
“You do bring up one of the main dilemmas I have come across about testing this thing. Nazwen would prove an excellent test subject. I would not send Jaknik, no far too risky.” He turned back to his work fastening this and tightening that. “You arrived at a very opportune time m’lady.” He turned back to look at her. “You sure you are not a Bronze in disguise,” he asked playfully.
“Oh hush you.” She giggled. “You’re going to get me in trouble with Karagoth again. You know how jealous he can be sometimes.” She sat down nearby. “But it’s okay. I think, deep down, he knows you don’t mean any harm with the flirting.”
“He’s just no fun sometimes,” he said returning to his work. “I am almost done. I know it doesn’t look like much but with this last adjustment...” With a final torque of a nut, he heaved over a rather unassuming box and placed it on a table in the middle of the room. “I think I have done it.”
Nimiya looked at the box, her head tilting to one side, curious. “How is it supposed to work?”
Borin proceeded to explain how it worked in less than simple terms. Nimiya was able to keep up with it somewhat, discerning that it required various magics colliding, different grades of gunpowder going off, but not at the same time, causing rifts in space-time. “...and that all hopefully culminates in a stable PERSON sized portal. The void energies read the mind of the one who activates it and if you don’t put the right amount of magic energy into it, you will not like what happens,” he concluded.
The explanation, or attempt at one, was enough to make Nimiya’s head spin. “Remind why you didn’t ask for a mage’s help with this one? That sounds awfully complex for something that could be accomplished by making use of the ley lines.” She ran her fingers over the lid of the box. “Would you mind if we tested it? I’ve been wanting to take Karagoth somewhere where we can have some alone time, and I think it would make a nice surprise, you know?”
He visibly tensed as her hand ran over the top of the unit. “Watch it!”
Nimiya drew her hand back as he shouted. “What?! I didn’t touch any buttons!” She shuddered. “Light sake, you don’t need to shout.”
“It doesn’t have buttons. It takes just the slightest bit of magical energy to activate, that’s why I couldn’t have a mage down here helping me. I got some tips and pointers from them though, so I wasn’t going in completely blind.” He relaxed once her hand was safely away from the device’s lid.
“What, so you think the Light could set it off?” She raised a brow but did not question it. He was the mastermind behind these things after all. “I’ll just... Leave it be then.” She chuckled softly and turned toward him. “So, what do you think? Let our respective significant others know that we’re testing this thing?” An adventurous smile bloomed over her face as she imagined the possibilities such a device could hold, not only for her and Karagoth but for the whole of the Clan.
