#phoenixfall

——

Keylorian walked through the portal, pacing on the other side as his stomach lurched. "I want to talk to Nelanth," he muttered.

They arrive in the top floor of an old run down elven tower in the mountains somewhere in east Quel'thalas. The sky outside shimmered hinting that a barrier covers the place they've arrived in. The round courtyard is fenced in and the door is petrified. There are many arcane guardians here, who immediately sound the alarm and focus their weapons on the elves.

Iviaen raises his hands, "Phoenixfall Brightblaze 934276813."

Keylorian freezes.

The arcane constructs pause and a young man's voice speaks up, "Brightblaze, where are... Why have you... You know what? I'm not even going to ask. Disabling defenses."

Iviaen exited the room and moved down to a lower room, to a bookshelf, and pulled a book, which opened a door, "Please, speak of this to no one."

The monk nodded and tore a strip of cloth off of his shirt, blindfolded himself, and carefully made his way down the stairs.  He bumped into Iviaen. "Sorry."

They arrived at a big metal door, the door opened and Iviaen stepped inside. He led Keylorian by the hand, "So... we need a scan for tracking devices, a shower, some clean clothes, and contact with the outside world. And I need you to detonate my old charms and issue new ones."

Keylorian followed Iviaen meekly, the scrap of Zan's shirt still tightly gripped in his other hand.

The voiece of a  young man could be heard sighing. He lead them into an apartment and pointed to the bathroom, "You can take your blindfold off, mister. Bathroom is over there. There are scrambling barriers over this place, both magical and technological, so any tracking devices you're wearing won't work here."

Iviaen turned to the young man, who wore goggles with several magnifying lenses up on his forehead. He had a sort of awkward look to him, black hair, purple vest. Iviaen spoke to the young man, "I also need a map of where you got the SOS from me from and the location of my other charm if it's still signaling. We need to get back there and save some people."

An elderly magistrix slipped into the room, her silvered hair up in a conservative bun, she wore typical mage robes, "It's unusual to have outsiders here. Against protocol. What's going on, Brightblaze?"

Keylorian had removed his shirt and blindfold when the woman entered, and barely caught his trousers before they fell to the floor. He stepped into the bathroom, shut the door, and completed disrobing.  The sound of the shower was the next thing that the occupants of the apartment could hear.

The monk emerged five minutes later wearing a towel and holding the muddy trousers, which he placed in the hamper.  He was running a long comb through his hair.

Iviaen rubbed his head, "Please tell me you've been in contact with Duskhallow."

The Magistrix deadpanned, "Yes. Of course."

"Contact him again. He needs to meet with me," Iviaen replied. He then took a deep breath, "We were captured by the people I told you about. They were going to turn me into an owl and Keylorian there into a crane. But yeah, they might have tracking on us, and two of ours are still trapped there. We can't go to the others until we're sure we won't compromise their sanctuary."

"Duskhallow, when we saw him, thought you had evacuated," she paused and looked Keylorian up and down, "Now he's a very handsome man, I wasn't expecting eye-candy," the old Magistrix replied, a sly smirk on her face.

The young man's face twisted with horror. Eew, grandma sex. He turned to Keylorian, "Do you know your robe size, mister?"

"Not right offhand. It's been a while since I wore robes. Large?" he answered. "Just go by the shoulders and you'll be fine, son." He nodded politely to the Magistrix, and managed a courtly bow after his hair was combed.

The young man shrugged and headed off to another room and returned with standard issue mage robes, and pants, and a belt. He also held out a set for Iviaen, who had spare robes and gear stored there, "Brightblaze, you reek. Go get a shower man." Iviaen sighed, "Get Duskhallow here." He hit the bathroom.

The young man turned and left the room.

The Magistrix looked to Keylorian, "I suppose since you're here, I could explain all of this and extend an invite to you to our organization."

Keylorian took the robes, pants, and belt. "Thank you." he said, then nodded affirmatively to the Magistrix with a smile. "Allow me to dress, or would you rather I stand here in a towel?"

The Magistrix turned away, "Oh. Excuse my manners. It's been a while since we had visitors."

He nodded and also turned away, letting the towel drop and pulling on the trousers first, then the robe. Last came the belt. "I'm just glad the lad didn't ask me my shoe size. I honestly cannot remember," joked Keylorian as he hung the towel on a drying rack.

The magistrix spoke, "I'm Lady Phoenixfall. I'm with the Reliquary, and I'm tasked with running this sub-branch of the Reliquary and this facility. Uncreatively, it's called Phoenixfall. We specialize in the detection, recovery, and stoarge of archaeological artifacts that go beyond museum pieces."

"I'm Keylorian Dawnraker," he replied. "Well met, I hope."

"Well met," replied Lady Phoenixfall.

"I'm a retainer for Warden Pyreanor," said Keylorian.

The young man can be heard cackling manically in the next room, "BOOM!" Wherever Iviaen's two earrings were, they've exploded.

——

Back in the infirmary where the duo previously awoke:

A priestess sat at the bedside of the druid in the infirmary, monitoring his healing. There was a loud beeping noise from the medicine cabinet behind her and she sighed, "What now?" The beeping accelerated and then the cabinet exploded, its shell landing on the biohazard bin. She screamed, and fainted.

——

Lady Phoenixfall sighed, "That's Westalin. He was a lost child of Quel'thalas, a ward of the state with a talent for magic and technology and a distinct lack of standard social skills. He was assigned to the spire for his apprenticeship and a number of Magi wanted him because of his talents, though several viewed him as needing social grooming, to break his wild spirit. We fought over it, and that fight turned financial. I alwas win at financial combat." She had a smile in her voice, "I won the bid war. He got the money, I adopted him, and he's grown up here with all the magical knowledge and toys a tinkering magic genius could want, without the demands for social behavior and politics that Magi so often get involved with."

Keylorian smiled, "Excellent. I'm an engineer, myself."

Lady Phoenixfall turned to face him, "Is there anything I can get for you? I've heard that the place you and Brightblaze live was raided." She laughed, "Brightblaze brought us many nullboxes for storage. Things that were suspicious, powerful, potentially dangerous, stolen from an evil Magistrix. They're stored away here for now."

Keylorian sighed. He really wanted a bottle of whiskey. "They fed us shortly before the escape attempt.  They still have Pyreanor and Silverblade."

"Silverblade? I thought he was dead," Lady Phoenixfall tilted her head.

"No," replied Keylorian flatly.

"Wonderful. When you see him, tell him Lady Phoenixfall sends her regards," She turned and moved into the room where Westalin sat, he was hunched over part of his desk toying with miniature blood golems, "Has Duskhallow been summoned?"

"Yeah," Westalin replied.

"They made him into something more than what he was, and he escaped, but he was taken during the raid along with myself, Pyreanor, and Brightblaze," replied Keylorian as he followed her into the room where Westalin sat.

On the screen of Westalin's console was a map of Azeroth, shilouettes, with two red dots where the sos/detonations were, "There."

Keylorian refrained from looking at the screen. Instead, he touched the wall tentatively, as if to reassure himself that it was there.

Iviaen joined them in the room, at the console, "Hmmm."

The big metal door to Westalin's console room opened and a very dissheveled Dalaen Duskhallow entered, his hair back in the five braids and him back in his normal robes, "Yeah wh--" He stopped when he saw Iviaen, "... Oh."

Keylorian looked over to Dalaen. "How long has it been? How are my sons?" he asked, a tone of urgency in his voice.

Dalaen rubbed the back of his head, "Maybe eleven or twelve days? Your sons are well but worried. We're locked out of the Pyreanor for now."

Westalin looks at Keylorian then grabs a funny looking mechanical handheld device and holds it up level with Keylorian's head, then lowers it down, down, down, until it's at his ankes, the device starts beeping as it gets closer, "Hmmmm. What do we have here?"

Keylorian watches the device.  "This is where I wake up shackled to a wall again, isn't it?" he mutters.

Westalin pulled the magnifying lenses down over his goggles, "No. Not quite. Come with me, Mister." He walked back into the apartment area.

Keylorian frowned and followed him back into the apartment area.

The young man put another device up by Keylorian's legs and pressed a button. The device? A combination nullifier/emp, fried the anklet, dispelling the stealth and shutting the device down completely, "Okay. Got it."

"How do you get it off?" asked Keylorian.

He looked at the anklet. "Nevermind, get me some snippers." grumped the monk.

The kid took a look at it, "Mmmmmmm. Snippers will work. I think it was on there by magic and an electromagnet." He moved back into the panel room and grabbed a lock cutter, "Try this." He then turned to Iviaen and started the same scan, with the ankle. Beep.

Dalaen sighed, "So we're missing Pyreanor and Silver... blade? The bird guy? The other bird guy, the red horny one, has been kept sedated to keep him from going nuts."

Keylorian takes the snippers and fits the jaws around the ankle bracelet, then snaps them closed. Crunch.  It falls to the floor.  He makes his way into the bathroom and washes his ankle off again, then returns.

"Ashelar'thor, yeah. Nuadathiel."  he says softly, "He was holding the portal open and subduing the druid when it all went.  I have something for Tyan, but it's not really good news. Pyreanor was behind me."

Iviaen moved into the apartment room and the device got cancelled. He moved in and grabbed the snippers, and cut it off.

Westalin blinked, "Bird men? Like harpies with dicks?"

Keylorian sighed. "Not exactly, but close enough," he replied.

The monk hands the carefully folded scrap of Zan's shirt to Dalaen, "Tyan needs this, to know that Zan is alive."

Dalaen took the scrap of the shirt and looked at it, "I can relay it, yeah. If you're free of tracking devices we can go see them personally."

Arcane magic arced at the Magistrix' fingertips. She etched a map on a blank piece of parchment and slipped it in a folder along with some other paperwork

Westalin handed Iviaen a pair of new phoenix charm earrings, complete with the little chains they hang on, "Man. You've lost all your jewelry Iviaen. That's gotta suck."

Iviaen shrugged, "It can be replaced."

Keylorian nodded. "I do. I want to see Talethiel, too," he replied.  He pocketed the cloth, his hand shaking.  Perhaps he was really free this time, and... The look of hope passed from his face and his ears flicked backward briefly. The monk bowed to the Magistrix and to Westalin. "Thank you for your kindness and hospitality." he said.

The Magistrix handed Keylorian the folder, "Here's a map and some paperwork. Please destroy the paperwork if you aren't interested. Be well."

"Thank you," Keylorian replied.

Iviaen headed for the door and put the phoenix earrings in his ears as he went, "Thanks."

Keylorian took the folder and followed Iviaen.

Within the folder is an invitation and lots of paperwork regarding the organization. Also the map. Once they're back up to the top of the tower, Iviaen raised his staff and summoned a portal.