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Eli walked out of the temple, carrying a small bowl of steaming, thick soup with him. The tall tales of the trio of friends and their exploits in the ravaged peninsula had lasted them well into the supper hours, and he was now headed outside to check on Tuan. The she-rogue had managed to stay out of sight the entire evening, and the Paladin was admittedly beginning to feel a mite concerned.
He gave himself a moment to peer up at the sky. Here, at the north-western outskirts of the peninsula, the incessant nether aurora sweeping back and forth from one horizon to the next was weaker, leaving the firmament open for what lay beyond. Eli realized that he was looking up at images of alien planets – were they really just images? – and a sky so speckled with diamonds that it felt like he was literally gazing into the great cosmos itself. A single, small yet unnaturally bright sun sat unmoving high above his head, but it didn’t seem to carry the same kind of warmth that the Azerothian sun possessed. If anything, it felt like he was standing on a small, air-vacuumed satellite somewhere in outer space, staring not at a sun but at a naked star, bereft of atmospheric blurs.
He drew a deep breath and lowered his head, blinking to fight off the momentary nausea that had washed over him. No wonder she hates looking at that. Remembering the temple elder’s directions from earlier, he easily found his way over to the open-air smithy.
There wasn’t much of a difficulty finding it anyway. The steady, light ringing of metal being bolted out guided him well enough.
As he came up to the free-standing forge and anvil, Tuan had apparently just finished sealing up whatever she was working on and had plopped herself rakishly on top of the anvil, one foot over the opposite knee, something unidentifiable but obviously mechanical tucked in the crook of her lap and her hands deftly manoeuvring thin engineer’s tools in the tiny contraption’s metal guts.
“Whaddayawant,” she snapped in an even, neutral voice as he stepped close; not so much her usual ornery attitude as simply being thoroughly occupied by her tinkering.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Of Light and Void, chapter 20
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The gryphons soared high above the fel-scorched wasteland. Most humanoid and humanoid-sized creatures were reduced to little more than dirt specks crawling across the reddened earth, and the air rushed past in their ears. The siege tank carriers ferrying the delegates’ and their escorts’ steeds had already rumbled out of Honor Hold by the time Theluin, Eleazar and Tuan had mounted their travelling gryphons and been joined by their flying escort, but they would overtake the transport column swiftly enough as it trundled onwards with ponderous urgency on the dusty road below.
The trip itself was largely uneventful. Eleazar kept trying to keep an eye on Tuan, but with the gryphons alternating positions in their flight formation to throw potential snipers off target, there was little he could do. The she-rogue continued to clench her hands hard into her gryphon’s mane, keeping her head down and never looking up.
The temple wasn’t hard to miss; the peculiar, alien architecture of the Draenei, embellished with glowing sigils and crystalline structures – even in its paltry appearance, the temple was a sight to behold. The gryphons touched down smoothly on a flattened hilltop, the temple’s resident guards holding the great beasts’ harnesses with trained firmness while the new arrivals dismounted. The War Gryphon riders that had accompanied them circled the premise once to ensure no immediate ambushes, and with a departing flourish they wheeled around and vanished back into the sky, returning to the Hold.
The Ambassador was first to greet his erstwhile escorts, reaching out a hand to Theluin who grasped it in kind. “Praise the Naaru, you are well!” The Draenei’s voice and face were as carefully balanced as ever, but his eyes betrayed his relief.
The gryphons soared high above the fel-scorched wasteland. Most humanoid and humanoid-sized creatures were reduced to little more than dirt specks crawling across the reddened earth, and the air rushed past in their ears. The siege tank carriers ferrying the delegates’ and their escorts’ steeds had already rumbled out of Honor Hold by the time Theluin, Eleazar and Tuan had mounted their travelling gryphons and been joined by their flying escort, but they would overtake the transport column swiftly enough as it trundled onwards with ponderous urgency on the dusty road below.
The trip itself was largely uneventful. Eleazar kept trying to keep an eye on Tuan, but with the gryphons alternating positions in their flight formation to throw potential snipers off target, there was little he could do. The she-rogue continued to clench her hands hard into her gryphon’s mane, keeping her head down and never looking up.
The temple wasn’t hard to miss; the peculiar, alien architecture of the Draenei, embellished with glowing sigils and crystalline structures – even in its paltry appearance, the temple was a sight to behold. The gryphons touched down smoothly on a flattened hilltop, the temple’s resident guards holding the great beasts’ harnesses with trained firmness while the new arrivals dismounted. The War Gryphon riders that had accompanied them circled the premise once to ensure no immediate ambushes, and with a departing flourish they wheeled around and vanished back into the sky, returning to the Hold.
The Ambassador was first to greet his erstwhile escorts, reaching out a hand to Theluin who grasped it in kind. “Praise the Naaru, you are well!” The Draenei’s voice and face were as carefully balanced as ever, but his eyes betrayed his relief.
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