#trinklin

Continued from... Reptilian Interrogation Part 2

Lightning struck in the distance. This was a common occurance, to such a degree that it was bordering upon annoyance. Deep within the mines, however, the sound was at least muffled.

Dinaer sat upon the hard stone floor, sifting through some discoveries, with a few books open before him, mostly handwritten by himself, as notes from his conversations with the Pandaren fellow known as Cho. Before him, at the mine's wall, both Zig'garath and Cavrissa used their strength -- and in Cavrissa's case, unique characteristic of having multiple arms -- to hack away into the stone, and uncover what had been lost.

Khalaena sat off nearby, also dusting off, and inspecting some relics found in the mines, the tiny observer known as 'Eyeball' hovering over her shoulder, and watching. She never got used to such a demon, and Dinaer did not know why it, above all the others, disturbed her. Regardless, it seemed interested in her, and often tried to play with her, which only served to distract and disturb her further. At least, that's how it looked from Dinaer's perspective.

The corpses of Mogu, Saurok, and Zandalari lay strewn about within the mine shaft, polluting the air with the scent of blood and filth. Choham, and a plethora of imps patrolled the shafts to make sure no reinforcements interfered.

Amidst his studies, a metal gate pushed from under the earth, forming an arch before him. The gate filled with fel light, before Trinklin, Wiksillin, and a few other imps arrived, with proof of success. Part of the artifacts he was looking for.

"Good," Dinaer said. "I was afraid the delay in our travels, due to Vol'jin's rebellion, and our attention needed elsewhere, would have allowed these artifacts to fall into Garrosh's hands. The last thing he needs is more information on flesh-crafting. I dare say, his only support these days will come from the lives he's wrought himself with this power. We must keep it from him."

Cavrissa chuckled.

"What's so funny."

"Why, you, master. You sound so ... noble." and she managed to work a sneer of contempt into that word, as if the word itself was disgusting all on its own.

"Hmm, indeed. Amusing, but I assure you, I care not whether Garrosh remains Warchief or not. The status of the Horde means nothing to me, so long as it does not hinder the link to my contacts within the Sunreavers and in Silvermoon."

He set his writing tools down, and beckoned to Trinklin. "Come, let us have a look at this artifact you found, and see if that filthy Saurok was telling the truth."

Dinaer would take the artifact from the imp, and compare it to the artifacts before him, as well as to the notes he had opened up before him. His eyes scanned back and forth, and his hand brushed over one of the objects. The three -- one in his hand, and two laid out before him -- would collide with each other, as if blown together by a strong gust of wind, and seemed to solidify themselves into a single object. A writhing swirl of energy began to envelop the object, even extending to wrap about Dinaer's hands. He examined himself, as this occurred, a bewildered yet mystified expression upon his face. Soon, he motioned one hand out, to the side, the energy leaping from his arm, and snatching onto one of the Mogu corpses. The body lurched into the air, as if struck by the crackling lightning from outside, and soon came back down to the ground, standing upon his feet. The power wreathed about Dinaer's arms slowly faded away. The Mogu opened his eyes, which were now glowing with a sickly looking light. He gazed upon Dinaer, and shouted out.

"Intruders in the mines! Slay them all in the name of the Thunder King!"

A whip lashed out around his neck from the shadows, thorny edges grating on his throat, only moments ago refilled with air. It seemed he would be brought back to life, merely to die a second death...

"Disrianna!" Dinaer shouted. "Heel!"

The Mogu would be brought down to his knees, his breath choked upon, as blood spilled from his mouth. A delicate seeming foot would press to his back, to keep him down. Dinaer stood, and approached her and the Mogu. For a moment, he kept silent as he stared at Disrianna firmly. After a time, he would look down at the Mogu.

"I have squeezed the life out of your body once already, so rest assured, I can do it again." Dinaer stated firmly, before whipping a hand back to the object that had moments ago filled his body with an unknown power. "Explain what you know of that object."

The Mogu looked sharply at the object, his eyes widening briefly before he corrected his expression. "Why should I tell you, puny elf?"

"Do you know how I knew to look here for this object? You know what it is. You know where I've been before here. The Saurok told me where to find it. And I did not make it easy on him. I can make you talk through the same means, so unless you feel like suffering pain for weeks and weeks until you crack, you can simply speak, now."

"You will not escape what lives beneath the Vale."

"For an ancient race that forged an empire through skillful and intelligent use of fear ... you are stupid."

"I shall crush you, worm!"

Disrianna's whip tightened, scraping more flesh from his neck away, and ushering forth a gurgling sound as more blood spilled over his neck, and from his mouth.

"You were saying?"

Gurgles and growls emitted from the Mogu.

"Allow me to explain to your meager brain. You were tools, nothing more. You are no more intelligent than us. Y'shaarj used you, as he has used so many others. Yes, I know what lies beneath the Vale, and let me assure you, I and countless others have witnessed what the actions of the Old ones can do. You fought against the Mantid, did you not know they were also His servants? Now, this relic, it has to deal with flesh-crafting, and from what it allowed me to do to you it , as I can only assume, has to deal with flesh-reviving. Necromancy, perhaps. Explain."

Continued from... A Long Journey's End

Within the basement, a Saurok was imprisoned. Held with chains empowered by fel energy, the Saurok prisoner was incapable of moving. This did not please the beast, but it did not exactly seem to give him any reason to stop trying. His body would shake one way a hair of an inch, and then another, but his breathing showed the truth of far more effort put into his attempts.

“You should take into account, despite the powers of magic the Mogu held, it is by far nothing to be compared to the means of the Burning Legion. Not that I am pleased to resort to their tactics, but …”

His voice drifted off, as he turned from the creature, venturing to a table resting against the western wall of the room. About him and the Saurok, were some of his demons. To one side of the Saurok, stood Zig’garath, his Wrathguard, while on the Saurok’s other side stood Disriana, his Succubus. Upon the table were some papers, and some vials set up in a tray. Some glowed from their contents, while others were dark and empty. Trinklin sat upon the table as well, taking notes. Dinaer turned from the table in time, and faced the Saurok once more. In one hand, he held an empty vial, in the other, he had a syringe, and a bit of rubber cut into a strip.

“Now, mister lizard man…”

“Talis!” shouted the thing.

“Oh, pride in one’s name? How … frivolous. Not unlike an Orc. Perhaps that is why the Warchief seeks out the same magic. He sees in your kind something akin to an Orc. Stupid if you ask me. Dissy?”

A crack of the whip lashed across the Saurok’s face, as Dinaer stepped around behind her, and tied the strip of rubber about one of the Saurok’s biceps. He slipped the empty vial into the syringe, and jabbed the needle in between a few of the scales, and pulled the plunger back, drawing out some blood. Once he had it, he loosened and removed the strip of rubber, and took it and the blood back to the table.

“Now, with that out of the way, shall we get on with the other matters of business? I wish to know why it is your kind rebelled against your Mogu creators so long ago.”

Talis, the Saurok, spat at Dinaer’s feet. Dinaer simply looked down at the saliva for a moment, as if inspecting it, then looked back towards the thing.

“No no, lizard man, I have your DNA already. Zig.”

A plated and heavy demonic fist slammed across the Saurok’s head, turning his face away while cracking scales, breaking skin, and spilling more blood to the floor.

“Do listen more carefully now. I’d hate for you to pass out again before I’ve received my desired answers. Will you not answer?”

“The Mogu are weak. The Sssaurok are strong. They could not… control the Pandaren, without usss. Why ssshould we ssserve them?”

“Hmm… such a simplistic rebellion. Could the Saurok be so simple-minded? They need us, so let’s destroy them?”

“Why ssserve weakness?”

“You stood at the top with the Mogu. They were the rulers of all of Pandaria, and you stood with them, gaining from such. Your only enemies were the Pandaren, Jinyu, and Hozen… the enemies of the Mogu. Now that you rebelled against the Mogu, you have no aide in this whole world. Are you so arrogant that you think you could stand over this whole world? Can you defeat the Mantid? Can you defeat the Mogu? Can you defeat the Pandaren? How can you think you need no allies, when someone ‘weak’ like myself has you restrained and incapable of movement?”

“You have not killed me, sssoft-ssskin.”

“I have not killed you, by choice. I seek answers. Make no mistake, once I have them, you shall die. And if you decide to not speak because of that fact, you will simply be a coward. I would then kill you, and capture another of your kind, to repeat this process. Zig. Dissy.”

A crack and a thud, and a splash. The whip hit over the Saurok’s back, as Zig’s fist hit the Saurok’s jaw, and his blood once more splattered upon the floor.

“Make no mistake. I hold the power here. You have no room to talk big to me. You have no accomplishments to brag of here. You are nothing but an experiment of the Mogu. I dare say I just might entertain having you cooked up as a feast for my demons when we are finished. If I feel generous enough.”

“Wordsss do not ssscare me, sssoft-ssskin.”

“Is that so? Tell me. You were born of manipulative magic cast upon the indigenous lizards of the Vale. Do you retain the capability to regrow your limbs?”

Talis hissed, staring up at Dinaer with a cruel sneer. However, this did not stop him as he withdrew a dagger from his hip. A gloved fingertip trailed along the flat portion of the dagger, lighting it up with fel fire. The dagger was stabbed into the Saurok’s shoulder. Now, Dinaer was not skilled with weapons, and so this took a great deal of effort and time. Eventually, however, Dinaer had managed to sloppily dislodge Talis’s right arm from its socket. He tossed it to the side, bloody and twitching, as the Saurok cried out in agony, flopping to the floor. Sure enough, a replica of the arm, devoid of scales, sprouted out from the shoulder. Bone, tissue, cells, and skin eventually regrew, but the development of new scales would take time.

“So you do. In that case, to cut down on costs, it would be more beneficial to keep you alive. And cut off limbs periodically to feed my demons.”

Talis kept hissing, in too much pain to create any words.

“Shall we speak civilly now?”

A letter from the WATCH started it all...

Hey everybody! Serious question, guys... And this is kind of important. What is the purpose of the WATCH? What is it that we do? Failing a decent answer to that- which honestly I don't have either- what should we be trying to do? I'd like answers to this from everyone, if you'd be so kind; you can give them to me either in the Clan Halls or by Distract. Thanks, guys! -Fish PS: Yes, this is as close to mandatory as anything around here gets.

A response was written, but it started to get to me. Why was this question asked? What is going on behind the scenes? Surely, something is out of balance. As balanced as things on the island get, this was still unsettling. I went into instant-salvage mode. I loaded up Cavrissa and Disrianna with materials to carry out of the WATCH HQ, and take it to the new place of hiding. There are still things in the office, because there is only so much one can carry, but each day I take more. Siwa took it upon herself to help me get away from Kitt after a time.

Amidst my many trips, I was graced with the presence of Horatio once again. He did not come at me masked as a platoon of midgets, but instead, came at me as a group of fanboys, clamoring for stories and autographs. This was a measure of confusion, and ridiculous hilarity. At the same time, boring. Disrianna and Cavrissa started in on them, which was all fine with me. I stood amidst the dropped materials, simply waiting for them to be finished. Much like last time, however, the leader of this group was the Drive, in disguise, revealed only as Disrianna's thorny whip hit him. His disguise faded, to reveal the drive's mechanical exterior.

This, Horatio, is really quite insane. Whoever thought of giving a "mind" to a machine?

As I did last time, I hurled Fel Fire at the machine, melting and damaging its husk. As it burst apart, however, the green energy, known as improbability, soared out of it. Random things around us, stone, leaves, grass, trees, came to life around us, and attacked. I made quick work of a circle on the ground, and summoned up another demon. I had not tried to do this since the last time I dealt with Horatio, so I was merely hoping the weirdly laid out ley lines on the island would connect with the twisting nether properly, to call forth Zig-Garath. Lucky for me, he did emerge, moments before a "glob" of improbability hit the center of my circle. The array shifted, and the energy surged. Out of the circle game hordes of midgets ... and imps.

Trinklin, Wiksillin, and the Wild Imp army under my command emerged, and without a word, began assaulting the midgets. Somewhere amidst the battling mixture of improbability and fel, I lost consciousness. I awoke within the my new hideout, surrounded by my demons. It still needed a lot of work, but, things will be different from now on. Even if I am only being paranoid about the WATCH, my plans shall proceed with much more success. And I must give credit to Trinklin. He commandeered a sliver of Horatio's body, before the rest of it reformed as it had last time.

The early morning had been spent venturing about the usual routes, picking herbs. When he returned 'home', he brought them up to the lab, and set to cutting root from flower, and organizing them into their specific jars and shelving for brewing later. As he was doing this, that tiny little beholder demon flew into the room, a letter clenched in its tiny mouth. He grinned and nodded, finishing his task before swiveling about in his seat and standing up, to pluck the letter away from the demon, and open it as he walked from his lab to the other room.

Disriana was laid out upon the bed in the top corner of the room, resting still. Dinaer kneeled at the bedside, and checked on her once again, brushing a hand over her bared flesh, where bruises had once been. The tenderness of her flesh had seemingly passed since taking his 'antidote'. As he rode from the bedside, he would spy Cavrissa standing in the archway, a single pair of arms crossed over her chest, as the other two pairs dangled at her sides. She grinned widely, as Dinaer slipped over to the other bed in the room, and sat down upon it to read the letter.

"You aren't going to check her insides, to see if she's loosened up? Or perhaps even loosen her up yourself..."

"Don't test me, Cavrissa. Or I'll give you some of that serum as well, and set Zig-garath on you. I assure you, he is much more resilient than any Incubus you could conjure up."

Cavrissa half growled, half purred.

"Oh you find that interesting? I may just do it. Force him to breed up some sort of new demon with you. Imagine, a four-armed Wrathguard with the ability to slip into the shadows and seduce his or her prey. And we couldn't stop with just one, would have to breed a bunch of them so they could carry on this new breed of demon." What was incest among demons?

Cavrissa in time grew silent.

"Good, now be a good girl and check Disriana's ... elasticity yourself."

Cavrissa gave in, and slipped from the doorway to approach Disriana's side. Dinaer went to reading the letter from Larunae. Apparantly she had gotten herself in trouble, and asked him to give this concoction to Dorian. He had not heard from Dorian in some time either, however, so he wasn't sure how to get it to him. As a cry of delight rose from the other bed, Dinaer stood up, folded the letter back up and slid it back into its envelope, before stuffing it into his robe, and heading back into the lab.

Wiksillin and Trinklin were busy at the table, discussing and concocting a potion of their own. He eyed their work, quietly for a moment, before turning back to his own things. He checked on the results of his experiments with Larunae's blood, widening his eyes after a moment. "Hmm, it looked watery at first, but this..." He began taking a few things from the shelves, and pressing on with the experiments, testing quick adjustments to the blood. "Oh no... this potion won't work at all."

Dinaer set the blood aside, and took down every vial of the concocted cure, and set them down on the table. He began pouring them all, one after another, into a large vat. "I have to make it stronger, otherwise it will not help her at all. Trinklin!" The two imps jerked their attention to Dinaer. "I hate to disturb your own experiments, but I need you to do something. I need you to find Dorian and Larunae. I must know what has happened with them. Miss Larunae had an imp with her as well. She did not look to be a Warlock or Dark Mage, so I want you to find out why that imp is there. If it has caused this trouble for her, I want you to destroy it. Wait!... better yet, capture it, and bring it here, so Dusksinger can question it..." All the while, once he had gotten all the vials of red liquid into the vat, he began spiking it with more roots and herbs. Once he was finished, he set it on the burner, and heaved a heavy sigh. Trinklin bustled off, while Wiksillin looked about, wondering what to do with his time now.

"Wik, go get your brothers. Get them prepared. I don't know what Trinklin will find, but if a fight is on our hands, we shall be ready."

Wiksillin nodded, and bounded out of the room, through the bedchambers, and down the stairs. The cacophony from the bedchambers was heard once more, as Dinaer's thoughts slipped from the brief moment of hectic duress. "Cavrissa! Stop that! What is the analysis."

Cavrissa laid her head over Disriana's stomach, purring. She did not stop, but her eyes flicked up to Dinaer. "She is still tighter than usual, but she's loosing up."

Dinaer growled, and slammed the door closed. He turned and went to one of his lab tables, sitting down, and began to write down his findings thus far.

Name: Larunae Saur'ath

Age: Unknown

Sex: Female

Description: Platinum blonde hair, tall and slim yet taut, caring for a child yet seems untouched by the physical changes of pregnancy (i.e. no stretch marks on her form, breasts not appearing swollen, etc.)

History: First time patient, no prior conditions/treatments

First Entry: Bruises coated her form to a great degree. Poisoned serum ingested caused many side-effects. Serum was a birth control formula, designed to basically make it impossible for an egg to attach to the uterine wall. Never seen something as powerful before. Nevertheless, serum was spiked with a toxin; a rape drug. It did not put her under, but its effects thinned her blood, caused muscles to tighten, and increased sensitivity to injury. This results in easier bruising, and a decrease in blood clotting.

However, upon inspection of her blood, I have found something most alarming. Removing the toxin's effects, her blood is already thin as it is, meaning that even a mild injury could prove fatal for her, if she was not treated. Secondly, she already bruises easily! She was absolutely covered in bruises, but testing the tampered serum upon Disriana proved to create far less bruising than was seen upon Larunae's form. There was a container of herbal ointment on her nightstand, I can only presume Dorian was putting this stuff on her daily, to treat the bruising.

The concoction I proposed to her, has so far, cured Disriana perfectly, baring of course the time factor of a healing body. Undoubtedly, Disriana is healing quicker than Larunae would, simply because of demonic metabolism. However, with the new revelation of Larunae's blood condition, seemingly prior to this serum's toxicity, a second attempt must already be made, if it is hoped to be strong enough to combat these problems.

I move right on, to version two of my concoction. I must make it strong enough to battle the toxin's effects, and strengthen her body to these dampening effects, while not making her immune to her serum, once this all passes.