Magister Luminash Dawnwing

A Sort of Landfall

Luminash’s eyes snapped open, and he winced. The first thing he noticed was the pain, the scrapes, the bruises, the feeling of warm blood only beginning to dry. The next he noticed was the ground beneath him. It was rocky, barely concealed by damp sand, jutting stones and coral all around. Shakily, he pushed himself to his feet, the sharp stone digging into his hands and knees as he pushed upwards.

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The hull of the Zandalari ship creaked around the magister as he climbed the ladder from the hold to the upper deck. Many of the other Thalassian personnel who were part of the Regent Lord’s retinue accompanied him directly on Blightcaller’s flagship. Luminash had been relegated to one of their new allies’ ships as a last-minute tagalong. In truth, he was thankful. The open sea was more pleasant, more inviting, without the ever-present gloom of the Forsaken’s vessels.

On the deck, Luminash was greeted with a stiff sea breeze, and air heavy with salt. He approached the railing, gazing out over the expanse of the sea, and narrowed his eyes.

His sense of some Titanic power was not wrong. The gentle tickle in the back of his mind, the pull that had brought him to this point, had grown stronger as the days at sea passed by. Now, it consumed nearly all other thoughts, a shriek, a cry of pain, a warning, and it grew closer. He had not felt this urgency since he stood in Silithus and watched as the world bled in the shadow of Sargeras’ blade.

Luminash’s reverie, however, was quickly interrupted by shouting from the lookout, ears pricking up at the refrain carried across the ship in Zandali:

“Alliance ships spotted!”

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The magister stumbled forward a ways,making his way up a slope nearby, following pinpricks of light in the distance. As he climbed, he came nearer to those points, the stars, until he at last came to the opening of a cave and rested against the stony arch of its mouth. The sky above was dark with night, stars shining down. Down to where, though, he could not say. He had no recollection of his ship making landfall, only open ocean, and casting the sails to the wind in flight from the Alliance.

He must certainly be close to the water still. He could hear the ocean, the ground around him smelled of salt and the sea, and the crevice from which he had ascended was home to many small tidepools. Most likely, he thought, the ship had caught a reef as it fled peril behind, heedless of peril ahead.

Taking a breath, he lowered himself to the ground, back against the cave mouth, head still foggy.

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The wind whipped Luminash’s hair as the ship forged on, cutting through the waves, salt spray wetting the deck. Its sails were filled with wind, the crew filled with panic and purpose as they hurried about, readying for conflict. The Alliance, it appeared, outnumbered the meager Horde fleet immensely.

Luminash, however, paced the deck calmly, laying his hands on the ballistae as he passed, arcane power surging from his fingertips into the armaments. He was useful, in his way, despite lack of experience as a seaman, to be sure. His mind wandered, all the same, back to the urgent pull, growing more violent by the second.

Suddenly, the pull ceased. Luminash nearly tripped in surprise, his head shooting up and looking around. The rest of the crew was doing the same. There had been a sound, of some sort, deep below, a rumbling from the depths.

Then, they fell.

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The sea had given way entirely, in that moment, the magister began to recall as he shook the haze from his mind. Whatever had happened in the meantime, he was now apart from the fleet. Perhaps all the others were, too. Perhaps there simply was no fleet left at all.

He raised his eyes, taking in the fullness of his surroundings. In the distance, he saw the wall of water raised around the seafloor, and shook his head in disbelief.

“What did I let happen to myself now…”