NOVEL NEXT Chapter 40
While most of the blue dragonflight was preoccupied with stamping out the stubbornly persistent corruption in Northrend, Vasyrgos was tasked to return to fulfill his obligations to Kyle as Valoghan the court mage. Partly to glean any further information from him, partly to protect him especially after the dreadlord’s infiltration, and partly to continue deciphering his mysterious insight.
Discovering that Stromgarde had indeed been tainted had been unpleasant news, and for a moment Vasyrgos wondered how fast his sire would raze the kingdom down when he informed the Aspect of Magic about it. Surprisingly, Malygos had been content to delegate the matter to a different party altogether, still being distracted with personally interrogating the captured dreadlord.
According to Saragosa, Malygos’ consort and regent now that he’s secluded himself again, the Aspect of Magic was still working on refining a more accurate detection spell to finally flush out the dreadlords, but he was confident that their presence was absent from Stromgarde. Which meant that they would be catspaws or subverted cultists, which - while not entirely harmless - was something that could be given a lower priority.
“Our lord hopes that once the prisoner’s secrets have been fully unraveled, the source of both the infestation in the north and the outbreak in Stromgarde would be found and snuffed out,” Saragosa informed telepathically.
“Would the demon survive long enough for that?” Vasyrgos had to wonder, knowing Malygos’ mercurial temperament.
Saragosa gave a mental shrug. “It has been silenced, so as to not offer any distractions. Lord Malygos is being very…clinical with his dissection.”
“It is good that Lord Malygos has something to fully focus his mind on,” Vasyrgos deadpanned, earning a pulse of a similar sentiment from the prime consort.
“We’ll have to be thankful that, if nothing else, the demons have reinvigorated our lord.”
With most of the more experienced red dragons (or what’s left of them, more accurately) still busy with their own interrogation of Onyxia for information on Deathwing, and the green dragonflight remaining as aloof as ever from the petty matters of the physical realm, Vasyrgos had to rely on more mortal means to keep Stromgarde in check.
Not to say that he didn’t appreciate what talents he got. The gnome Pelton, while being specialized towards more direct arts, had enough experience to serve as Vasyrgos’ sounding board, even if his duties as steward couldn’t afford him much time to aid in actual spellcasting.
On the other hand, Kyle’s potential new mate, Jaina, had enough natural talent and instinctive grasp of magic to be of tremendous use. She learned the spells he taught her almost as easily as if she were a blue dragon herself, and her eager curiosity almost tempted Vasyrgos into giving mentorship a try. Still, Jaina’s aid in scrying had allowed Vasyrgos to at least confirm that Stromgarde’s debasement was limited to its capital city.
Caution from Kyle kept them from delving any further, as the boy had a point about potential magical traps. Vasyrgos wasn’t much versed in mortal politics, but he had to agree that the buildup in Stromgarde was a bit too obvious. So while he brainstormed potential ideas that might offer an arcane means of slipping past hypothetical threats, Valoghan the court mage attended to his king’s as he should, and watched as Kyle tried to use more mundane methods of dealing with Stromgarde.
“King Terenas shares your concern, your highness, but Lordaeron has too many commitments right now to take immediate action,” the envoy to Lordaeron, Jacob, reported. “Letters of protest have been delivered in regards to the apprehending of their traders, similar to King Genn and Lord Admiral Daelin, but for the time being Lordaeron’s priorities lie elsewhere.”
Apparently the kingdom was suffering a succession of bad luck, from plagues to orcs to an existential crisis for its famed paladins.
“How bad is the plague in the west?” Kyle asked with a grave frown.
The diplomat gave a curt nod. “The Withering Plague is slow to spread, thankfully, but it is highly persistent. It is more debilitating than lethal, but the region of Silverpine Forest is suffering a sharp decline in productivity. From what I understand, priests and healers are struggling to find the root of the infection, as every time someone is cured from their infection, they would fall prey to the plague again mere weeks or even days later.”
“No possible suspects?”
“Initial thoughts were that it is something in the water or food, but both were quickly ruled out; the lands and wild beasts were not afflicted, so local water sources could not be the cause.”
“And food?”
Jacob shook his head. “The region draws a good portion of its food from Gilneas, and traders from there say the plague is absent there. Local plants have been tested by herbalists and alchemists, with no signs of rot or disease. Last I heard, they are seeking out a vermin that might be either infecting the food stores like mites, or directly infecting the populace and livestock like mosquitoes.”
Kyle gave a hum as he leaned back into his throne. “That’s…troubling. What of the offer about the orcs?”
The envoy shook his head again. “King Terenas is grateful for your assistance, but he and his court are certain that the orcish resurgence will be put down in due time, even with the Knights of the Silver Hand undergoing…restructuring. While the Warsong marauders have grown thanks to recent breakouts, the orcs are poorly equipped and more poorly supplied. I’ve heard of plans to simply cordon the warband and starve them into submission.”
“That’s a stupid waste of time and resources…” Kyle muttered to the approving murmurs of his advisors.
Vasyrgos would have liked to suggest surreptitiously seeking out the orcs and dropping a few fireballs on them, but apparently that might not be a good idea when he voiced it as a joke to Kyle and Jaina.
“With tensions being as they are within the Alliance, King Terenas cannot risk looking too weak,” Pelton stepped in to explain. “It’s one thing to have orcs running amok in Lordaeron, it’s another thing altogether if he lets Alterac come in to deal with the threat…especially if you succeed, with the current state we’re in and the treaty of protection between our kingdoms. This will be a matter of pride and perception, and I suspect Lordaeron would not let anyone tarnish either.”
“Could we use indirect methods to aid them, then?” asked a woman, the overseer of…trade, Vasyrgos remembered.
The gnome gave a light shrug. “They might use some war materiel, but beyond that, it’s only a matter of how much King Terenas wants the orc matter resolved. Lord Uther has put the SIlver Hands into retraining…” Pelton glanced to Jacob, waiting for a nod from the envoy before continuing. “...to face a potential demonic threat, but the king could very well just order them to aid in the hunt for the orcs.”
But he won’t, because of the greater perceived danger the demons had. That, and the fact that the king’s own son, an aspiring paladin, had almost been corrupted by the demons. Mortals or dragons, Vasyrgos knew that such an incident could affect how one judged their options. If not for Deathwing’s hand in the ordeal the red dragonflight went through, Onyxia could be simply kept imprisoned in some pocket dimension for anyone to interrogate at their leisure. Instead, Alexstrasza ensured that the twisted daughter of Deathwing was placed under her dragonflight’s untender care.
Not that Vasyrgos would ever tell the Dragonqueen that she was being a bit spiteful…
“So Lordaeron’s out of the picture,” Kyle concluded with disappointment. “I guess we’ll have to wait for word from King Magni…”
Another court advisor, the marshal, spoke up. “It’d be an damned ordeal for the dwarves if Galen decides to reinforce the Thandol Span.”
Galen. Not ‘King Galen’, not ‘Galen Trollbane’. Just Galen. Vasyrgos absently noted how quickly the disdain against the corrupted new king of Stromgarde took root in Kyle’s courtiers.
At the same time, the disguised dragon pictured a host of dwarves trying to cross the great bridge that connected the northern and southern continents. If the corrupted Stromgardians decided to put up a fortification, however improvised, with the dwarves’ distaste for using magic, it’d be a bloody affair for sure.
“I’m sure that if it comes to it, Ironforge would be open to coordinating with us,” Pelton replied.
“I guess that’s about the best we can get for now,” Kyle said, concluding the topic about Stromgarde. “Now, Lady Cylia, you mentioned before the potential issues about hosting gryphon roosts?”
As the subject changed to that of the Wildhammer dwarves’ offer of providing gryphons as rapid messengers, Vasyrgos had to struggle to keep his attention from veering away. Mortal affairs were not his interest at all.
*****
Korialstrasz frowned into the scrying window. The Withering Plague had proven an annoying mystery. The mortals had dismissed it as a dangerous but ultimately natural plague, when the dragon was certain the latter was untrue. Through his agents’ reports, he had been sure that the root of the disease lay in the food being consumed by the people of Silverpine Forest, but filtering out the exact source had proven futile.
The meat products were the easiest to reject as a vector, as the animals or their processing were easy and transparent enough to track through magic. Their feed, as well as the local harvests, were harder to fully break down, but with diligent work from his agents Korialstrasz could eventually strike the hay and vegetables from the list of suspects as well.
There was nothing in the water, that was much was made triply sure, and the soil within Silverpine was fertile and healthy. Following the rumors of parasites, Korialstrasz had personally soared over the region to cast out a spell, and found nothing but the usual insects and mites and grubs. His agents took samples, and again found nothing of note.
It made no sense. With how the rest of Lordaeron have been left untouched, the affliction pattern matches the signs of an infected local food source, yet there was nothing. He’d spent days and nights casting varying detection spells to pick out any peculiarity in Silverpine Forest, all to no avail. There was nothing out of place in the land, be it in a natural, arcane or Fel perspective.
Annoyed and grasping at straws, Korialstrasz refocused his scrying onto a caravan of food-laden wagons bringing food into Silverpine Forest. “Garek,” he reached out to an agent on the field. “Send me samples of food being imported into the region.”
The elf on the other end had a trace of weariness in his mental reply. “Any preferences, master?”
“A general sweep. I trust your judgment on the matter.”
The dragon swept his scrying from the caravan to the town it was headed into and almost growled in frustration. There was something missing in this overall picture, a significant clue that would complete the whole puzzle.
This was turning out to be almost as annoying as having to pry secrets from Onyxia.
It took most of the week for Garek and his colleagues to teleport back pouches and vials of food back to Krasus’ Dalaran lab. From there, Korialstrasz randomly selected samples and tested them as thoroughly as he could. Four different types of dried fish from the Kul Tiras isles, Khaz Modan beverages, Alteraci rye and oats, Gilnean wheat-
Korialstrasz paused with mild surprise as the last item actually triggered a reaction in his detection rite. It was a very weak reaction, but that it showed up at all…
Reaching for more samples of Gilnean grain, Korialstrasz put them through the same spell. Out of the seven samples, three gave off reactions.
Digging further, the dragon found that the grains were imbued with the remnants of life magic. Korialstrasz almost figuratively smacked a palm over his face as he remembered the harvest-witches of Gilneas, primitive wielders of druidic magic. A loose order that was entrenched in Gilnean culture, they used their meager control of nature to bolster harvests and enrich the land.
With the recent boom in Gilnean exports, it’d make sense to see their products laced with such magic. The harvest-witches must have either found a means of increasing their power, or King Genn had organized them for more effective production. But druidic magic was used to enrich life, not drain from it like the Withering Plague.
Korialstrasz was ready to feel frustration at hitting another dead end, but then the unmaking spell he used to banish the examination ritual circle also washed against the grain samples, and his keen senses spotted it: the tiniest slivers of a different, darker magic evaporating alongside the druidic life magic that had enveloped the grains.
Without hesitating, Korialstrasz reached for the other samples and repeated the process.
There.
Just as the life-giving enchantment to the grain was banished, for the briefest moment before it too disappeared there was a barely distinct element of a different magic mixed with it.
It was the breakthrough that he’d sought for. Spurred by the discovery, the dragon began to instruct his agents to gather more grain, while he liaised with some peers from the blue dragonflight to prepare a spell to carefully flay magical enchantments layer by layer.
The first attempt at the spell revealed that the magic of the harvest-witches was not purely druidic as Korialstrasz had thought, and neither was it Fel as he had initially feared.
It was perhaps worse.
Heavily masked by life magic, each grain contained minute concentrations of magic from the plane of death. Small enough that its presence was utterly smothered by the more benevolent enchantments, and would barely alert even the most sensitive of detection wards. And its effects faded relatively fast.
Fast enough that it’d be completely gone by the time it left Silverpine Forest.
Yet taken in large enough amounts, like any trace poison or contamination, it would still have an effect. In this case, it was a leeching property. Not strong enough to kill, but with how prevalent bread and porridge were as food staples, the constant consumption of the contaminated food slowly but steadily bled away the lifeforce of the consumer.
That partially explained why the plague was limited to the region…but what of Kul Tiras? Or the Hillsbrad Foothills to the east of Gilneas? Gilnean exports passed through both regions, and they were relatively close enough for the grain to take effect.
Unless only the shipments to Silverpine Forest were purposefully contaminated.
The question then was why? Why was Genn doing this, what had Gilneas had to gain from this antagonism?
Delivering his findings to his agents to be disseminated to the Alliance, Korialstrasz turned his eyes towards Gilneas. He cast his scrying into the realm…and found his vision rebuffed by a cold presence. Before his arcane sight was blinded, Korialstrasz caught only glimpses of mist that somehow imparted a coldness to the lair from where the dragon scried from.
Wrenching himself free from the spell, Korialstrasz hurriedly alerted his queen, only briefly interrupted by the telepathic burst from Garek that the first cases of the Withering Plague have been reported on the Kul Tiran islands.
Author's notes: I'll try not to make this my last chapter. A bit of a retrospective below if anyone cares for it. TL/DR: Going into this story without a tangible direction, and trying to use the outsiders' POV suboptimally has screwed me over.