A Real Drengr 3 (Patreon)

“Urp! Hrgk!”

I gently patted the massive, fur covered elbow next to me while making sure I was both upwind and not close enough to the rail to catch any of the backsplash of the seasick tauren woman I was comforting. Northrend’s shore was two days behind us, and the druidess had been miserable that entire time.

“You need something?” I asked as the current bout of seasickness seemed to fade.

“I will be fine,” she said as she took a deep breath. “Please pass my apologies to Miss Xiulan. It seems that my seasickness still remains.”

“You sure?” I checked. “I can see if there’s anything in the ship’s reagents that might help with your nausea.”

She chuckled, “I have already checked, mint leaves do not help as much as I would like and while I trust Sami to stand at my side in combat, I possess caution regarding her… ‘experimental remedies’.”

Considering the fact that my parts down there were still suffering from the “side effects” of the drug she’d injected me with, I completely understood. Patting her elbow again, I was about to head to a different part of the deck, when a glint of moonlight on metal caught my eye. Taking another look, I pointed to a ring on one of her massive fingers.

“Is that draenite?” I asked. I hadn’t had much opportunity or reason to work with the gemstone from Outland, the cost of importing it was a bitch, but I did recognize it.

Her head turned from looking out over the ocean to the ring I’d pointed out. Her eyebrows rose in surprise, “Indeed, I am surprised you recognized it.”

“I’ve loved making things since I was a child, so whenever there’s a new resource to work with, I make sure to keep up on it. How’d you get the resonances between the Fel magic suffusing the metal and the Light magic in the gem to work harmoniously?” I asked, gently guiding her to the deck below so I could grab my notes.

“It was not simple,” she admitted, her expression perking up as she ducked to fit through the doorway. “Most samples of draenite are so close to concentrations of fel magic that they become brittle and difficult to work with. The few sources of draenite that are not rendered brittle by that become so as it is touched to wrought fel iron. The sudden exposure to fel energy causes the gem to crack, rendering all of the work done on the gem previously in vain.”

I pulled out a chair for her in the room I’d claimed. Poorly sized for a tauren though it was, she accepted it with a surprising eagerness as I set my sheets of parchment on the table between us along with a pair of ink pots and quills. Grabbing myself a clean sheet, I readied my quill and asked, “Is the draenite that was already exposed to fel magic weaker? And considering how much fel magic was used in the Shattering of Draenor, I’m surprised that there’s any draenite that hasn’t been exposed to fel magic.”

“It is rare, but there are sections of Outland, particularly in Terokkar, where you can find the occasional sample. But surprisingly, the concentration of Light magic in the stone is no more or less stronger or weaker before or after exposure to fel. The trick to using draenite and fel iron in the same project is care and patience as you gently work the gem into the desired shape,” she said as she looked up from my page and smiled. “The results are well worth the effort, I assure you.”

“Can I see?” I asked, gesturing for her to hand me the ring.

Her smile grew even wider, and she slid the ring off her finger. I held it delicately between my thumb and forefinger, marveling at the smoothness of the stone and the way the light reflecting off it danced across my skin. Gently tapping the surface, I felt the pulsating magic within the stone and the subtle, yet powerful, scent of the fel magic in the metal.

“That is very cool,” I said, watching the Light in the shimmering stones dance back and forth.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile as I returned the ring to her. “It is one of my favorite pieces.”

“Why didn’t you just pick a stone without Light magic instead? Or use a metal that wasn’t so suffused with fel?” I asked, my eyes scanning the rest of the ring. There were no other gems embedded in it.

She chuckled softly, drawing my attention to her lips. I could feel my pulse quicken as I took in the sight of them, their inhuman shape no less attractive. She ran her tongue over her teeth, something I found incredibly sexy, and said, “One does not make crocolisk stew when all one has is plainstrider.”

“Fair enough,” I said, my voice a touch higher. I shook my head and said, “I’m sorry, I only just realized I never got your name. I’m Peter Seru.”

“It is quite alright, Sosho Riverwind. I am pleased to meet you, young man,” she said with a gentle smile. I’d call it motherly, if it weren’t for the odd quirk to her lips and a smokey look to her eyes. A look that made me feel… comfortable, but at the same time wanted, needed. Like there was a job to do, but that I could do it.

“You seem quite knowledgeable in jewelcrafting,” she said, pulling me from the distracted moment my mind was in.

“Yeah, I fell in love with making things when I was a kid, but couldn’t settle on any one thing,” I answered the unasked question, leaning back slightly. “I studied pretty much every form of making things I could find. I’m not specialized in any one thing, but I’ve found a knack for combining different disciplines together.”

“Really?” she asked, reaching into a pouch on her hip and pulling out a length of tiny chain. I held out a hand and she dropped it into my hand, asking, “What would you do with this?”

I carefully inspected the chain. It wasn’t ring mail, or anything like that. It was the sort of chain that you’d use for a necklace. The material wasn’t something that I’d done much with, but if I was right…

“Is this eternium?” I asked incredulously.

“Indeed, I am surprised that you recognized it,” Sosho said, leaning back in her chair.

“There’s maybe half a dozen samples of it in all of Dalaran, how’d you find so much of…” that’s when it clicked in my head. “It’s common in Outland, isn’t it?”

“I would not say it is common, but it is far more plentiful in Outland than Azeroth.”

I returned my focus to the chain that would have paid for a major chunk of Lorderon before the Scourge ran through. I could tell that it would hold enchantments much better and longer than any gold alloy ever would, but how best to augment it? I spun around in my chair, reaching over to my trunk and pulling out a bag made from runecloth. Turning back to the table between us, I carefully moved the sheet I’d been taking notes on to the side and set both it and the chain where it had been.

Opening the bag, I pulled out my jeweler’s kit and tools. Followed by stretching my arm in to find the rest of what I was looking for. I ended up reaching into the bag up to my shoulder before I managed to grab it. Smiling, I pulled out the piece of scrimshaw I’d been given by a tuskarr named Saigra. Well, the ivory came from Saigra, I’d done the carving. I don’t know if there was any cultural significance to a tuskarr giving someone one of their broken tusks, but I was grateful nonetheless.

There wasn’t enough eternium for me to make the frame out of it, so I took a moment, looking at the cream white of the carved tusk and the purple of the eternium. After considering, I reached into the pouch and pulled out a small etched sheet of silver. I clipped a few sections out of the silver and closed it around the end of the tusk before clipping a short length of the chain off.

Taking the length of chain I’d cut off, I slid it into the jeweler’s kit and focused. Azeroth jeweler’s kits weren’t the same as the ones on Earth. Sure, the basics of jewelry making were the same, but with the presence of magic it meant that more could be incorporated into said kits. Like, for example, the ability to make what was essentially a microforge in something that fit in the palm of my hand.

Turning the section of chain into a wire took maybe fifteen minutes, the length of time being cut down massively compared to working with an ingot. Taking the newly made wire, I wrapped it a few times around the base of the silver clamp on the carved tusk, before bringing it up, creating a loop to run the chain through, and bringing it down on the opposite side. A few more loops around the base, slipping it under a few of the earlier passes, using the kit to perform a tightening of the wire, and my slapdash, impromptu necklace was almost finished.

Taking the length of eternium chain, I slid it through the loop and closed it off, completing the loop. Narrowing my eyes, I took a deep breath, feeling the ambient magic in the room, gathering in anticipation of the potential in my creation.

I've heard many adventurers talk about how they can feel their environment, how the world around them will hold its breath in anticipation before casting a spell, releasing an arrow, stealing an artifact, or some such thing. This was my version. This was me doing something that resounded with my soul so powerfully that reality itself took notice.

I reached out and collected some of that ambient magic, directing it into my creation. It sank into the ivory, into the silver, into the eternium. I could almost hear the mana asking for directions, wanting me to tell it what it was to do. Focusing my will, the mana followed my directions, threading through the molecular bonds that made the necklace. As it settled into place, radiating out low levels of fortifying and restorative magic. It would need some time for the enchantments to finish settling, but…

Of course, that was when the ship hit a wave that ruined my train of thought. And brought back Sosho’s nausea, her hand flying to her mouth as her eyes widened and danced across the room. I reached over to my chest and pulled out a mageweave pouch before handing it to her. Sosho looked hesitant, before her nausea won out and she leaned over, throwing up into the pouch I’d given her. It was a bag of holding, but all the same, I was so glad it was one that I hadn’t put anything in it yet. I rubbed at her back through her leather and hide armor, considering. It would be another half an hour before the necklace was ready to be used, and from the looks of it Sosho would be throwing up her guts at the next wave.

“Give me a minute, I’ll be back. Go ahead and use that as much as you need to. I’ll see if there’s anything else,” I told her as another heave hit her. She gave a nod, and I headed up the stairs. First stop was Xiania.

She was, as I expected, in the galley when I found her. She looked up from the small plate of dumplings in her hand and asked, “Are you here for a late night snack too?”

I shook my head, getting right to the point, “Do you have anything for an upset stomach?”

“Sosho?” she asked, heading over to what looked like a mini pantry.

“Yeah, I accidentally got her roped into a talk on jewelry making, so she wasn’t ready when that last wave… hit…”

Xiulan looked up as I trailed off, her ears twitching and her face focused. That didn’t sound like a wave against the hull, it was too scattered and freque…

We shared a look, and both of us raced up to the top deck, just in time to spot a number of naga climbing up over the side, their wet scales shining in the moonlight. Xiulan immediately conjured up a number of orbiting balls of flame around her and launched a trio of arcane missiles, hitting three naga in the head and knocking them back off the edge of the ship.

“I’ll hold them off, get your weapons and wake up who you can!” Xiulan told me, and I nodded before running back below deck.

There were a few of the crew who seemed to be awake already, a short human woman with her hair in a mess like that iconic picture of Einstein and a cackle like a cartoon witch running past me with Mellia and a draenei woman with a big ass maul and what looked like a bright yellow hawkstrider onesie, as I slipped past them and into my room. I grabbed Truth and was about to run back out when I remembered Sosho was there.

Turning my head, I took in her almost cripplingly nauseous looking form and told her, “Naga raid, Xiulan is already up there holding them off.”

Sosho nodded, stood up, and shoved my helmet into my arms before she ran past me. I stared after her for a moment, surprised at how quickly the nausea on her face disappeared. Shaking my head, I snapped out the word, “Ashj’xi!”

The helmet disappeared from my arms as it and the rest of my armor materialized around me. Taking Truth in hand again, I raced upstairs, an orc woman right in front of me. The deck was covered in naga, myrmidons and casters, while the crew fought them off. The draenei in the neon yellow onesie brought the head of her maul down on a myrmidon, before using her hammer as a balancing pole as she lifted her entire body into the air to dodge a frostbolt from one of the casters.

I admit, that distracted me for a moment, because holy shit that was impressive, but I shook it off and refocused. One of the myrmidons got close to me, its trident held in a guard, and I blocked out almost everything else. I wasn’t some master swordsman, but I was decent, especially since I’d woven a couple enchantments into Truth designed to let me fight above my weight class. Truth can down in a crosscut, the myrmidon’s trident came up in a parry, and the trident was cut in two before the blade bit deep into his chest.

Kicking the dying naga off Truth, I took a breath and threw myself into the battle. I cut down one naga as it slithered towards Xiulan. Took the head off one moving to flank the draenei. Parried a harpoon thrown at Sosho. Cut, dodge, parry, thrust, deflect, avoid, riposte, chop, over and over and over again.

I caught glimpses of the fight going on around me. The orc blasting a caster with a bolt of lightning as wind and spheres of water encircled her claw gauntlets. Xiulan freezing another of the four armed naga solid. The draenei forming a pair of luminescent wings as she leapt and crushed another myrmidon under her maul. Sosho’s sea sickness making a return and vomiting into the mouth of the naga that was in front of her. Mellia dodging between naga with more grace and speed than a mountain lion in the highlands of Alterac. Daz’die absorbing the blood from fallen naga as she threw herself into the heart of the fight.

The battle went on for some time, I’m not sure how long but it was night when the fighting started and it was still night when it ended. I was a little bruised and banged up, but not actually injured. Most of the injuries on our side were on the ship’s crew, and the man who had been in the Crow’s Nest was dead. That was almost certainly why Xiulan and I had been the first to notice the naga.

Sami had the worst of the injured restored with a few waves of her staff, and almost certainly with some gold added to her fee, before heading off to badger the orc shamaness who was wrapping some bandages around some of the other crew members. Sosho, I saw, was heading back below deck with the wild haired human woman climbing over her like a demented monkey. I couldn’t make out the words, but even from this distance I could tell that she was asking a thousand words a minute.

I tried to force away the haze of confusion that settled into my head every time I partook in a fight. I’d made something… it was important but for the life of me I was drawing a blank on both what it was and why it was important. It’d come to me eventually, but until then it was going to drive me batty trying to figure out what it was.

Seeing Jaina walking around on the top deck, I made my way back downstairs. I put Truth back where it belonged, and began to remove my armor. The armor was put back into my trunk as I tried to figure out what I was forgetting about, but I hadn’t had the opportunity to finish removing the padded gambeson when the door to my room opened and a hand grabbed the back of my shirt.

“Come with me!” a crazy sounding voice said moments before the grip on my shirt dragged me out of the room.