Magister Luminash Dawnwing

Shelter on the Hill

“You’re really stayin’ up there?” The gilgoblin asked as she pointed up into the coral-lined crags over Newhome, into the distance, a ruined Highborne tower barely visible hidden in the haze of seaspray.

Luminash nodded, “I am.”

His interlocutor only drummed her feet on the side of the Horde-marked crate she was sitting on, “Huh.“ After a long moment of silence between the two, she spoke up again, too loudly; the magister started at the sudden intrusion on his thoughts.

“You like livin’ up there? Seems like you’d lack for company.”

“What? I…” He shook his head, “I suppose I do, well enough. It is quiet, and allows me to think more clearly. It is also near enough Newhome to resupply, as you well know.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Still, seems weird, is all.” She resumed drumming her feet on the crate, a rhythmic thumping over the distant roar of the sea.

“Hey, Kera, I got the supplies for the mage-man here! We can get goin’ whenever.”

Luminash turned his gaze to another gilgoblin exiting the cave that made up the bulk of Newhome. Following him was a snapdragon on a lead, laden with saddlebags that looked to be made of old sails, near-rotten ropes, and kelp, a crate across its back.

“Care to inspect the goods before we get movin’ here, boss?” The snapdragon handler offered.

Luminash approached the scaled beast of burden and lifted the flap of each bag, peering in, and rummaging about.

“The finest foods we’ve got to offer. And we checked off your list of weird magic stuff too,” Kera added, jumping down off her crate, “Samples scavenged from Zin-Azshari, the shipwrecks up on the crags, and even that Shirakess hole-in-the-ground way up north.”

The magister held in his hand a collection of particularly shiny pebbles, their surfaces dull, but an iridescence peeking out from within, “This is not exactly what I had in mind, Kera, but I will sort through the rest later. I am not entirely sure these are actually…magical in nature.” He cleared his throat, “At all, really.”

“Hey, take it up with my brother. He found ‘em!”

The snapdragon handler skirted around Luminash and patted the crate on the beast’s back. The contact almost seemed too much for the box, its rotting driftwood slats creaking in protest, “All the good stuff is in here, anyway! If you can’t trust Mac’s word, you can’t trust anything!”

Luminash only raised a brow in response as he dropped the particularly shiny pebbles back into the saddlebag, the stones making quite a little clattering as they rolled and bounced off other objects within.

“Well, Mac. I am satisfied enough, at least with the rations and clean water. The rest… Ah, time will tell. Let us depart.”

“On it, boss! C’mon, Kera!

                                                    *     *     *     *     *     *     * 

“Get much trouble with naga up here? Our scouts are turnin’ up tons of ‘em, slitherin’ all over in these parts.”

Luminash was once more startled from his own thoughts by Kera’s questioning. Nearly halfway up the winding trails in the razor-sharp coral-lined crags south of Newhome, and the magister had avoided speaking thus far; his Kelfin companions seemed mostly content to bicker among themselves and take in the scenery, with Mac sometimes handing off the lead for the snapdragon to his sister, running off, and coming back with some bauble or another gripped eagerly in his hands, a grin on his face. In fact, these episodes were often the source of the bickering.

“Mage-man?” Kera prodded, “You alright?”

He nodded at last, “Yes, my apologies. You asked about naga?” He shook his head, “I may be using the ruin for shelter, but it is well-warded, even against their magic. Besides, would they bother with a lone elf, even if they knew I were here?”

“Uh, no disrespect meant here,” Mac interrupted, “But they would. That’s kinda what they do. Bother folks out on their own, mindin’ their own business.”

Kera shot her brother a look as venomous as the snapdragon led along between them, “What my brother means is that you sure you’re doin’ fine alone? It ain’t entirely safe, even on good days.”

Luminash nodded, “I appreciate the concern, but I am well-situated to deal with any situation that may arise. I…” He trailed off for a moment, a distant look in his eyes and a worried cast to his face, “No, I am doing well enough on my own. I work better this way, you see.” He smiled back at the pair, an attempt to reassure the siblings, but it did not touch his eyes; in fact, it barely touched his lips.

“Oh. Gotcha, then. Alright.” Kera replied, her voice soft, a look of worry on her face, one shared by Mac.

The magister kept his eyes forward, seeing neither.

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By the time the trio, and their pack-beast, had reached the shattered spire where Luminash had set up his camp, the sun had dipped underneath the lip of the colossal wall of water in the west, lengthening the shadows and plunging Nazjatar into twilight.

As Kera and Mac unburdened their snapdragon of its saddlebags, which still looked ready to rip open at any time, and its crate, which still looked ready to collapse at any time, Luminash made a round of the tower floor, illuminating his shelter one magelight orb at a time, a gentle touch of his fingers all it took to bring brilliant blue-white light to the deepening shadows.

Once he had lit the final orb, the magister made his way outside, dipping himself back into the darkness that had only grown inkier since he entered. A wave of his hand later, and a swirling blue-white wisp began to trail behind him, a pool of light dispelling the oncoming night as he approached the Kelfin siblings and their unladen snapdragon, waiting patiently next to the haphazard pile they had unloaded.

“Looks…uh, cozy,” Mac said with a grin as Luminash approached, “This a good spot for the stuff, boss?”

The magister nodded in reply, “As good as any. Thank you both for your assistance, and please, relay my thanks to the rest of the Unshackled as well for the supplies.”

“Hey, not a problem! It’s what friends are for, huh?” Kera laughed as she scrambled onto the snapdragon’s back, “Don’t be a stranger?”

“I will endeavor not to be. Thank you, again.”

Mac patted the beast’s neck, “I’ll find some good stuff for next time, yeah? C’mon Kera, let’s let mage-man get some sleep.”

Luminash crossed his arms as the pair departed, one astride the snapdragon, the other following on foot.

“I mean it, don’t be a stranger!” Kera shouted back down the trail as her snapdragon broke into a run, Mac dashing madly after her onto the craggy path below.

Beginning to return to his tower shelter, its broken edifice eerily lit from within, the magister reflected that her last call had sounded more like a plea than a simple goodbye.

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Luminash set a small box, which looked like it once held keepsakes, on his desk in the tower, a monstrous wooden thing with relief carvings of anchors on the sides, salvaged from one of the Kul Tiran hulks swallowed up when the sea gave way to sky. Opening it, he settled in those particularly shiny stones, now bound loosely by a single thread of magic, its glimmer much like the iridescence of the pebbles. Closing it again, he felt something in the pit of his stomach, a wrongness.

Slowly, he turned over his shoulder, and faced a growing darkness as the magelight orbs dimmed, one by one.

“I told you, Magister, that we would meet again.”