Nirahsa's Workshop

I definitely like that you can hidde things like shoulders now adays, since I do love the more minimalist aesthetic for classes like Monk, and certain character archetypes.

I don't know if Nythriia would join the Wardens if given the oppurtunity or not, since she is a tad reluctant to put herself under the direct command of another. Though if the Wardens did start recruiting Demon Hunters into their ranks after the war with the Legion finished Nyth would certainly make a good one given her overall mentality. Being a 'sour butt' about things as I'm sure Daphnyr might say.

The skies above the Isle of Dorn had been relatively quiet ever since the fall of Dalaran. Xal’atath’s goal having been achieved. The remains of Dalaran smoldered upon the shores with dwindling arcane energy, but other than that the day seemed as serene as any other.

Until a disturbance began to flicker hundreds of feet in the air, a crackling orb of lightning coalesced before a crack resounded like manmade thunder. Before a ship burst forth into existence, lightning crackling upon the hull briefly.

It looked to be about the size of an Alliance destroyer if not a little bit smaller, violet sails shimmering iridescently against the light. Including two wide flat sails extending out from the hull in a position that would normally render them under water if not for the ship being held aloft by some magical or technological means.

The backend of the underside of the hull was equipped with engines and technology that would make one wonder if the ship was watertight at all.

A variety of other gadgets ran across the vessel including what appeared to be multiple turrets for defense as well as ports for broadside weaponry. However, the overall size of the ship suggested it wasn’t primarily designed as a warship at all even though it was probably quite formidable due to its engineering wizardry.

At the wheel of the ship was a blue skinned Draenei sporting goggles that hid her eyes, Nirahsa was the captain of this vessel, built in collaborations with Drogar and Finkswitch the Vespira was a one-of-a-kind ship.

Nirahsa swung the wheel to portside, causing the rear engines to flare as the ship banked and began a long turn towards the left as it moved inland, slowly heading towards the city Dornogal in the distance.

A dwarf called out gruffly from the deck, “Teleportation jump successful Captain, this be Khaz Algar!”

“Very good Noldric, yes yes!” Nirahsa stated in excitement, this had been the first time the ship had done a completely blind jump with the teleportation generator. In that no one onboard had been to where they were going, relying entirely on provided cooridinates. “Let’s take inventory of our cargo!” “Aye Aye Ma’am,” Noldric turn and headed off to carry out the instructions. The Vespira only had a small crew, relying greatly on technology to do a lot of the heavy lifting that people would normally have to do on a regular seabound ship. Though there were still lots of things that needed people to be done. Not to mention maintaining the machinery!

After Jaina had returned to Stormwind and warned the Alliance of the threat posed by Xal’atath, Nirahsa had gotten the Vespira ready to depart as quick as possible. Loading her up with anything that might be helpful for the survivors as well as a small contingent of Alliance Soldiers to help render aid and provide some additional protection. The Alliance Taskforce was still underway but due to the Vespira’s ability to jump it was able to arrive much more quickly.

Nirahsa had also been motivated to move more quickly because Dacianna had been in Dalaran when Xal’atath attacked. And while she was certain the Daci was perfectly fine, she still couldn’t help but be worried about her. Which had caused Nira to really depart as soon as possible, even though she’d have tried to leave quickly to bring some additional aid either way.

A horn could be heard sounding within Dornogal in the distance, which indicated they had been spotted. Though Nirahsa didn’t know if they would shoot first or not, she still decided to not spook them more incase no one was around to let them know the Vespira wasn’t hostile.

“Reduce speed Merzi, we’ll land close but outside the city all slow like, so we don’t spook anyone, yes yes!”

The draenei Merzi gave a nod before she adjusted the main engine output, bringing the levels down and having the Vespira slow to a crawl as Nira began to have the airship slowly descend via reducing power flowing through the billowing sails.

Zepira looked over Dornogal, her fel green eyes observing the Earthen along with the horde and alliance members that had come to the Isle.

She had to admit that Xal'ataths move that had taken out Dalaran had been expertly done. She sowed chaos while effectively moving her plans forward, whatever they were.

"I can't say I really care much about this world, but I happen to be on it at the moment so... I have a current interest in keeping it intact beneath my hooves," Zepira mused quietly to herself.

Granted Man'ari like her weren't exactly trusted with open arms, not that she blamed people being wary. She was a monster, just a monster that had decided to start killing other monsters now. So mistrust was rather prudent and she could respect it.

(Wanted to write a bit of something for the end of the Draenei Heritage quests for Nira. Kind of exists in a bubble in ways due to going along with the quest and making Nira the Tishanaat.)

“I don’t know why I was chosen for this role,” Nirahsa stated softly as she adjusted her goggles and fidgeted with the attire she was wearing. Earthy tones mixed with purple of the Tishataan garb. It wasn’t uncomfortable in the sense of being poorly made, but the significance of the clothing made Nira uncomfortable like a spotlight had been put upon her.

“Velen has his reasons for asking you do to this, though he may have heard from a few notable Draenei about how it would suit you,” Dacianna stated giving Nira a small wink before she leaned over, delivering a brief kiss upon the tinkerer’s lips.

Nirahsa blushed lightly, “I’ll do my best even if I don’t understand, yes yes.”

“I know you will my bundle of sparks!” Daci smiled before she turned to rejoin the other Eredar at the Tishamaat and partake in the festivities.

---------------------------------------------

Jarred Delmar walked up to the front door of his house as the evening insects chittered and chirped, the moon high in the sky providing illumination for the calm night. He unlocked the door and stepped inside letting out a tired sigh after a long day.

While the war with the horde had ended years ago, Si:7’s work always continued onward to protect the people from threats unseen. Which meant constant investigations, scouting, reports, and filings, things that dragged on and wore one down.

As he entered the kitchen, he slowly unbuckled the dagger sheaths attached to his belt and set them down before spying a note from his wife. He picked it up and scanned through it, she was sorry that she wasn’t awake to greet him but hoped his day had gone well. It was past midnight, so he wasn’t surprised she’d gone to sleep he’d have to catch up with her in the morning.

The human turned and headed into his study, wanting to look over a few notes before turning in himself despite his own weariness. As he entered the darkened room Jarred moved to turn on a light before two fel green eyes opened in front of him making his heart skip several beats.

A gnomish lamp on the desk came on and illuminated the red skinned Eredar that was now staring back at him, a small crossbow in one hand and aimed right at his chest. His hands instinctively reached down for his daggers. “They aren’t there, they’re in the kitchen where you left them,” The female Eredar remarked coolly even as her eyes wandered to a picture of Jarred’s family that he kept on the desk. She picked it up with her free hand looking it over. “How’d you get in?” He asked his body tensed though he doubted he could dodge a crossbow bolt at this range, eyes looking over the red hued woman’s features. Her relatively young looking appearance, several faded scars on the left side of her face, curled ram like horns. He knew he was looking at the legion assassin Zepira who he’d spent a long time trying to help SI:7 find and eliminate.

“You have a nice family,” She remarked before looking back at him. On seeing his lips curl downward into a frown, she continued, “They’re fine. Alive. Asleep.” She gently set the portrait back down on the desk.

“Are you going to kill me?” He asked rather calmly given the situation, like any good SI Agent his mind was trying to figure out how to turn this current conundrum to his favor.

“If I was going to kill you I’d have done it already.” She stated rather plainly.

“Then why is a demon like you here?” His eyes narrowed a bit.

“To talk, but if you do make me kill you, then you will not go alone,” Zepira spoke coldly, knowing that he’d understand her threat quite clearly, “Now have a seat.” She motioned with the crossbow to the chair in front of the desk.

Feeling like he didn’t have much of a choice Jarred sat down.

“Are you a good person Delmar?”

“I think I am, yes.”

“And yet you’ve killed people.”

“Yes, I have,” He replied calmly

“Let me ask you then, Delmar. And the answer to this question will determine how this night ends.” Zepira stated lightly before she leaned forward and spoke slowly but very clearly, “How, does a good person decide, when to kill?”

Jarred was silent for a moment before he spoke, “If I think someone means to do me or my family harm, then I will do whatever I can to stop them. But beyond that, it’s a crapshoot.”

“With the Legion, it was always a crapshoot as you would term it Delmar.” The eredar remarked her green eyes briefly darting to the side as if in a brief thought before returning to the human.

“You chose to be a butcherer, I only try to protect my people and my family from monsters like you.”

She eyed him coolly, “Not all of us actually had a choice Delmar. When you’re just a kid and your parents choose for you, then you get raised by monsters to be a monster.”

He scoffed, “Is that suppose to make me sympathize with you? Woe is your terrible plight; I know your record Zepira at least what SI:7 is aware of. How many you’ve killed, and just how you’ve done it.”

Zepira shook her head, “Of course not Delmar, I’m a monster. I was a monster that was kept on a very short leash. But now thanks to the -heroes- of Azeroth my leash has been cut. Now I’m a monster without a cause and for the first time in my life, I have a choice.”

“And what are you going to do with that choice?” Jarred asked rather pointedly while crossing his arms.

She stared at him silently for what felt like an eternity but was really only several seconds before she replied, “I, don’t know. Killing is all I know, but without a reason, it’s pointless. What I do know however, is I want SI:7 to leave me alone.”

“Just like that?” He almost laughed but restrained himself as he didn’t want to inadvertently wake his family up and complicate this situation further.

“Yes, if SI:7 backs off then I can promise I’ll be…good, as you would say. I will also from time to time supply SI:7 with any information I come across regarding actual threats to your, Alliance.”

While Jarred didn’t have the authority to authorize such a thing, even he had to admit that was a very tempting offer. Of course it could be a trick, an in so that she could spread false information to hurt their efforts.

“I would have to bring that to my superiors, but I certainly can’t guarantee what they would decide. As while it is a good offer, legion agents are known to dabble in deception.”

“Yes yes of course, I’m a monster, there’s always the risk that I am lying, and I certainly can’t say anything that would completely prove that I am being straightforward with you given our sordid history.”

The floorboards creaked from behind Jarred, the man whirled around anticipating the ambush as he cursed under his breath. Only to find himself staring at his daughter who was rubbing her eyes looking rather drowsy, “Daddy who are you talking to?”

“Nadia!” He exclaimed turning back around only to see that Zepira had vanished, his desk chair empty. However a moment later he heard the whisper of her words in his ear.

“Take it to your superiors…I’ll be in touch.” The soft words faded into the gloom of the dimly lit room as Jarred shook his head and smiled down at his daughter reassuringly.

“No one Nadia, Daddy is just tired, let me tuck you back into bed.”

Zepira a known assassin of the former Burning Legion has disappeared. While SI:7 would normally bid good riddance to a persistent thorn, there is no information that the Eredar has been killed.

Several SI:7 Operatives who had been trailing the demon were found bound and unconscious after a flare was spotted just west of Honor Hold. According to their report Zepira knew she was being tailed and managed to get the drop on them. The fact that they survived is rather odd, as Legion Assassins are not known to leave survivors except as bait. But no attacks befell the search team that found them.

Since the legions fall organized attacks from their assassins have fallen but many are known to still be operating, attempting to get revenge upon both the Alliance and Horde.

Sathena felt rather conflicted about this, on the one claw there was the elation of having participated in the defeat of 'the enemy'. However on the other hand, there was the remorse of having slain a Dracthyr who until more recently had been an ally. Though she knew whatever she felt probably paled in comparison to Fate who had once been a part of Sarkareth's Weyrn and from what little she knew of her fellow Dracthyr, potentially more.

She glanced back down at the fallen Scalecommander, her mind couldn't help but wonder if this is how the other races felt when having to fight their own, the conflict of realizing what had to be done but the regret at having had to do it. It was a foreign feeling to her, she had been trained as a soldier, to obey orders and defeat the enemies she was set against. Not feel remorse for carrying out those orders, yet here she was with that feeling dwelling in her gut anyway.

The green scaled Dracthyr listened to the exchanged that was made between Fate and Lorellai with the young dwarf trying to give comfort to Fate. Though Sathena couldn't think of anything to say to show solidarity besides remarking that Sarkareth even misguided had still been a Dracthyr.

Soon however the exchange was over and the Meddler group moved to leave the twisted facility of aberrus, where its secrets could hopefully be forever forgotten.

Before she left however Sathena straightened her posture and the young Dracthyr gave a respectful salute towards the fallen Scalecommander. To a worthy foe, and a fallen comrade.

Buff Mode, where you use Ebon Might to buff 4 allies. Where upon you then expend Flame Breath, Upheaval Empowers to extend the time before chain casting Eruption to spend Essence and prolong the buff more. Before you hit the point where the buff is going to run out.

Then you go into Build Up Mode, waiting for Ebon Might to cooldown and letting your Essence pool as much as possible before it does. Basically just casting Living Flame and utilizing any other utility moves you have talented like Prescience to put a crit buff on different group members while trying to trigger essence burst to help give you more resources.

When Ebon Might Cools down you go back into Buff Mode.

This is a bit of an oversimplification since there are ways you can potentially extend Ebon Might more(Though they can end up desyncing ability cooldowns and making the buff uptime more erratic long term), but currently without a lot more Haste and Mastery you can’t get 100% uptime on Ebon Might and Blizzard’s recent changes make it apparent that they don’t want it to be trivial to actually accomplish that.

Important thing with Ebon Might is as it is on the PTR at current you CANNOT use it to extend the buff. As it doesn’t add its time onto the remaining duration it just refreshes it to the duration on the tooltip. Though it does operate on Pandemic Rules so if you do extend the buff long enough that ebon might cools down you can roll over the last couple of seconds.

To note on that, Ebon Might has a base cooldown of 30 seconds, with a base duration of 10 seconds that is increased by your mastery. At 3682 mastery its duration is increased by 14.7% giving it a duration of 11.5 seconds. So it takes a lot of mastery to really increase that duration at the moment. Though your mastery increases the duration of all your helpful buffs. Currently, Flame Breath and Upheaval increase the duration of an active Ebon Might buff by 2 seconds each. Eruption Increases it by 1 Sec, and Breath of the Eons increases it by 5 seconds(It’ll also apply it for 5 seconds if it isn’t up.). With Breath has a base 2 minute cooldown so it only shows up every now and then for extending the buff.

Overall I do find the design idea of Augmentation to be interesting and I am looking forward to seeing how it actually performs in dungeons and raids. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of difference its buffs make to groups. Its current damage is a good deal lower than Devastations so it definitely won’t be brought along for its amazing personal DPS.

And holy moley are some people adamant about how certain things CANNOT exist due to the lore. But what made me snicker was this line someone used to justify why Lightforge cannot be warlocks.

A light forge is a being altered by light and which is basically part of it, it should not be able to use energies opposite to light.

Nevermind Lightforge can be Priests and spec into the Shadow Tree....you know Shadow...Void the polar opposite of the Light that they have been forged with?

End of the day imo, more classes choices is a good thing for the races. Admittedly I do think there should be a few exceptions, but if for some reason blizzard added more races that could be Demon Hunters I’d shrug a move on. As even though I think Dhers should remain BE and NE only, due to the Legion Threat they became Demon Hunters to seek vengeance upon being destroyed. Since the idea of the DHers wasn’t just a class anyone picked up and learned it was something people that suffered terrible loss and tragedy were drawn to Punisher style to seek vengeance and protect the innocent while they themselves broke the rules. And Illidan chose only to train BE and NE.

But if Blizzard does later on go, “Hey now these races can be Demon Hunters and blindly run into walls!” I’d be fine with it as it’s basically just letting people expand into a fantasy that may suit them better because they don’t care much for playing Elves but enjoy making Fantasy Human or Gnome Characters for delving into the game universe.

Lore can be adapted and changed, while it shouldn’t be done on a whim as a structure and foundation is important to any fictional universe. It also shouldn’t be so rigid that you can’t expand upon it or alter ideas that at the time you thought were good but turned out to be too restrictive or not as great as originally perceived.