Garona tilted her head, as if the concept of "king" had just slapped her across the face and run off laughing.
Llane, still smiling like a schoolteacher trying to explain algebra to a goat, said gently, "If in your... um, worldview, the supre leader of a tribe is called a chieftain, then yes, I suppose you could call the chieftain of the Storm Clan."
Garona paused. Then she tilted her head the other way, like a confused puppy listening to a magic trick.
"No," she said flatly.
Boom. One word. It hit like a hamr to the ego. You could almost hear Llane's dignity deflate with a sad trombone noise. This ti, it was Lothar and Bolvar's turn to choke on their laughter like they were trying to smother it with an invisible pillow.
Llane instinctively gave himself a once-over, checking if maybe he'd grown a clown nose or if his royal robe had turned into a tutu.
"...Why not?" he asked, trying to remain regal, but the desperation in his voice cracked through like bad plaster.
"Because you're weaker than Anduin," Garona replied with the earnestness of a child announcing soone farted. "And you're even weaker than the male next to you."
She jabbed a finger at Bolvar. "In our tribe, only the strongest warrior leads. You'd be lucky to be in charge of fetching drinking water."
Llane.exe had stopped responding.
To be fair, the king wasn't weak. The man trained every day like he was expecting a duel with a dragon before dinner. He could probably out-bench-press the monarchs of the other six human kingdoms combined. But put him next to Lothar—the living embodint of a steel hurricane—and yeah, the difference was night and nuclear dawn.
Duke privately thought that if the first wave of paladins hadn't gotten their Holy Light cheat codes, none of them could've even scratched Lothar. The man was past his pri and still looked like he could solo a battalion before breakfast.
Lothar, sensing that the social situation had turned into a burning haycart careening off a cliff, decided to change the subject before the king's pride imploded into a black hole.
He cleared his throat and said, "Well, we humans don't choose leaders based solely on brute strength. It's more... nuanced. Let's circle back to that later. For now, you said you brought Khadgar's body?"
"Ah. Yes," Garona replied.
The door opened, and in ca Khadgar's "corpse," floppier than a cooked noodle. Despite being dead, he had no rigor mortis, no pallor, no ominous sll. The dude looked like he'd just taken a really hard nap after pulling an all-nighter.
Lothar crouched down, checking for breath. There it was—a faint puff from the nose, like a whisper from a ghost trying to keep secrets.
The court wizard leaned in, cast a few spells, and frowned. "He's dead. His soul's gone. Demon magic..."
Everyone went stiff. Even Lothar could only nod grimly.
Then Garona, as casual as soone reporting a broken toaster, said, "Before his soul got yanked out, Khadgar left a ssage."
"A verbal ssage?" Llane asked, eyes narrowing.
"Yes. He said divh's body was probably possessed by a demon. It was divh who opened the Dark Portal and brought us orcs through."
"WHAT?!"The air cracked with tension. Llane and Anduin recoiled as if soone had dropkicked their worldviews. Duke had just ntioned raiding Karazhan, and now this green lady strolls in and casually drops a bombshell confirming every word? Convenient much?
For a mont, they all eyed Duke like he might peel off a mask and reveal he'd orchestrated this whole saga like a Saturday morning cartoon villain.
Duke? He didn't flinch. He stood there stone-faced, as if he were just a decorative coat rack in the royal hall. He didn't need to explain himself—he was a ti traveler, dammit. If a guy who knew the future couldn't milk it for credibility, then what was even the point of reincarnating with foreknowledge?
Whether they worshipped his supposed master, the mythical Thousand-Hand Death God Walker, or just thought Duke had prophetic nose hairs, it didn't matter. As long as the spotlight hit him, he'd bask in it.
But the real problem—how to raid Karazhan and turn the Mad Mage into history's greatest cautionary tale—was only just beginning.
As if on cue, Garona pulled out a magic book.
This was no bedti reading. The book oozed an unsettling aura, bound in dragonbone and stitched together like it belonged in the Forbidden Section of a forbidden library inside a volcano.
Its surface rippled with arcane waves, distorting the air like heat over molten lava. It seed to gulp light like a hungry void, creating a localized black hole of mystery. When people looked at it, they got a chill—not from fear, but from relevance. The book whispered to everyone's instincts: Your fate's in here, buddy. Better pay attention.
And if you stepped back even a ter? Nothing. No whispers, no aura. Just a dead lump of parchnt. A classic bait-and-lure enchantnt.
"This is..." Llane's court wizard adjusted his spectacles like a squirrel spotting a god.
Garona handed it to the guards, who carried it over like they were holding a dragon egg about to hatch fire and lawsuits.
Inside, the book was loaded: not only travel logs and star charts, but full-blown blueprints for the Dark Portal. Khadgar had even bookmarked key pages like a thoughtful librarian facing Armageddon.
The court wizard skimd it, eyes squinting. "It's legit. But one question: out of Karazhan's hundred-thousand magic tos, how in fel's na did Khadgar find this one?"
Garona blinked. She didn't understand their suspicion. "Khadgar said—if I bring this to the chieftain of the Storm Clan, he'll believe it all."
Everyone looked at her like she'd just declared gravity optional.
Duke spoke up then, his voice smooth and tid like a curtain drop.
"Maybe this was the Council of Tirisfal's contingency plan. I can't believe they'd just get caught with their robes down. They had to leave behind a backdoor."
Llane and Anduin stared at him like he'd just handed them a divine cheat code. Duke: advisor, oracle, living plot device.
The old wizard perked up. "Yes! That tracks. I'd heard rumors—divh summoned the entire council to Karazhan under the pretense of a major demonic threat. Then he locked them up. But...how do we prove this?"
Duke held out a hand. "May I examine the book?"
Llane nodded, intrigued.
Duke paced with the book like a scholar—or a con artist about to pull off the world's most arcane card trick. He couldn't read the text; it was written in ancient, triple-encrypted Elven runes. Not even most elves could read it without getting migraines and sha.
He was stalling. Waiting for sothing. Anything.
Casually, he brought the book closer to Khadgar's left arm—
Flash.A hooded phantom materialized out of thin air, its silhouette flickering like bad reception on a haunted television. It reached toward Khadgar, who suddenly began to glow—his left arm lighting up like it rembered sothing his soul hadn't.
The old court wizard gasped. "By the Light! That's the Mark of the Council! It's their call sign—a soul beacon that links back to their fail-safe! Wait, wait—is that... could it be... Alodi's trace?!"
"Alodi?" Llane asked, breathless, Anduin practically vibrating beside him.
Duke smiled, ever so faintly.
The real ga was only beginning.
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