Runs In The Family

When I first reached Ida’s door, I knew that it wasn’t going to be as easy talking to her as I’d originally thought. I proceeded to raise my free hand to knock on her wooden door, the fine carved timber engraved with strange markings, runes I realized, but far too late to do anything about it.

In my frustrated, angered state I was hasty about entering her abode and speaking to her, and so when my hand came down on her door, I was thrust backwards violently by an invisible force, slamming into the stone wall behind me with incredible force. I crumpled to the ground with a metallic clatter, somehow managing to hang onto my sword as the runes carved into the door pulsed with a deep purple glow for a moment, before flickering into darkness once more.

As I sat there, rubbing my sore, groggy head, I managed to notice the little, circular shaped rune engraved into the stone wall beside Ida’s door, and fearing what had just happened might reoccur, decided to not touch it.

However, as I managed to pull myself up off the ground, the door in front of me swung open hastily, nearly smacking me right in the forehead, but before I could even react, there was a strong hand around my robe’s collar, and I was yanked down and inside forcefully without even a moment to gather myself. I could hear the door slamming shut behind me as I stumbled over my own feet inside my robe, struggling to stay standing as the thick hand released me and let me stand at my full height.

“Why din’t cha just use tha doorbell?” Ida’s stern voice registered with me as I regained my composure, clearing my blurry vision and centering my focus on her. She was standing before me in her usual, casual purple robes with the little silver skull pin, hands on her hips, looking up at me disapprovingly with her piercing emerald eyes.

I couldn’t help but shrink before her, despite being nearly twice as tall as her. Her size belied just how intimidating she was. To make matters worse, I suddenly realized what she had meant, searching in my mind for what she had meant by “doorbell”, as I had not seen any such thing, or so I thought.

It was the little circular rune off to the side of her door.

I mentally facepalmed, resisting the temptation to sigh outwardly so as not to be disrespectfull, instead suppressing it and doing so inwardly.

“I’m … I’m sorry Ida,” I managed to stammer out, shifting uncomfortably as I noticed I was still holding my Truesilver Champion awkwardly in one hand. I nonchalantly propped the sword up against the nearest wall, smiling indignantly as Ida’s chastising eyes bit into me. She rolled them as I sheepishly unhooked my breastplate’s straps, setting it down on a small wooden table beside the door behind me.

It was about that time that I realized Ida’s dwellings were rather … plain, to say the least. I let my eyes wander, taking in the small room quickly, unable to find anything out of the ordinary. Just a small bed tucked away in the furthest corner to the left, with the walls all along the right side covered in bookshelves, while on the left side, a small workspace had been thrown together. A messy desk, lit by candlelight with a sturdy wooden chair beside it took up the left side of the cramped room while the center of the rectangular dwelling had a quaint little mat laid out with fine pillows for sitting.

Truth be told, at the time, in my delusional, somewhat angry stupor, I had been expecting demonic incantation circles and at least a few wild imps running about, incinerating sacred texts with green hellfire. Its funny how old prejudices surface when you’re angry, and despite your better judgement, you believe them to be true in that moment of frustration.

But again, as with the first time, Ida proved to be surprisingly normal, upsettingly so even. The more time I spent with her, the more my exaggerated views of warlocks deflated.

Maybe they really were just normal people.

In a way, it took some of the magic out of it for me. Warlocks were supposed to be like unicorns; rare, and doggedly hunted for one reason or another.

“So, whuts ‘appenin Northrend boy? Ya look like ya’ve seen a ghost,” she spoke, her piercing eyes softening a bit as she noticed my startled expression.

If only she knew.

“Ida, we need to talk. Right now,” I said as confidently as I could, shaking any gnawing thoughts of being angry at her from my still paranoid mind.

“Uh, well I whas kind’ve in the middle oh somethin’ but …” she said, glancing over her shoulder at a stack of dusty books on her desk beside a pile of disorganized papers before continuing, “… I suppose I can spare a moment.”

“Perfect. Look, there’s been some strange stuff going on lately. Have you, y’know, felt like you’re being watched, at all?” I inquired as quickly as I could, my eyes darting about the room, scanning the shadows for movement.

“I dun’t think so, no not really. Are you, feeling alright?” she replied with a question of her own, her eyes sweeping over my disheveled black hair, scanning the frazzled look in my eyes with surprising tact.

“I uh … I-I’m good. I-I just, I’ve been really busy lately. Lot of work to catch up on.”

“Heh, tell me about it,” she said, motioning to the stack of books on her desk behind her.

“Ida, I-I just feel, feel like … something, is happening, like something is going down here,” I said, pausing in between, attempting to find my words as I nervously glanced around the room, fiddling with my hands to try and calm myself down. I considered telling Ida about what had happened to me in the hall, about my run in with a rogue, but at the same time, I had no idea how she might react. Regardless, my intensifying feeling of being watched gnawed at me viciously forcing me to blurt out my next sentence.

“I saw a rogue.”

Silence.

She stared back at me, her soft eyes sharpening back into daggers as she glared at me. She flicked her eyes to the right, then to the left, before refocusing on me and speaking in a hushed whisper.

“Are ya certain it was a rogue? There are a lot o’ shadow priests in Stormwind who keep shadowfiends as pets. People spook easily round these parts, and its very possi-”

“Ida, I’m sure,” I interjected as I saw her attempting to logic her way out of the fact that there was a rogue in our midst, perhaps even in the very room. Rogues had a nasty habit of ambushing their surveillance targets if they felt the jig was up, and they had a stringent policy of never leaving any witnesses. It was clear she was attempting to steer the conversation away from talking about them, just in case there really was one listening in on us.

She glared at me, wordlessly chastising me for being so blunt, but softened up a moment later as she sighed in exasperation.

“Alright, alright. I’ve got this handled,” she said in a hushed tone, before taking a step towards me. “Do you know how to cast Consecration yet?”

I nodded solemnly.

Consecration was a spell Tirion Fordring had personally taught me during my holy spell training regimen in Northrend. It was a dangerous ability, and had been rightly taught to me under Tirion’s watchful eye.

For those not familiar with the holy powers belonging to a paladin, Consecration is a spell falling under the Retribution school of magic, meaning it’s meant to damage and harm, rather than heal or protect. When correctly channeled, it would create a ring of radiating holy flames around the caster, without harming the caster himself.

Of course, there was the problem that it conjured fire,  and we were inside, in a room filled with flammable books. I had no idea why she’d even ask me if I knew such a spell, but I was reluctant to go against her at this point. I was just relieved to have someone on my side for once.

“Look, y’know how me brother is a priest?” Ida inquired hastily.

I nodded in response, my frantic eyes still darting around the room, every flicker of the candlelight causing the shadows to dance fluidly. I tensed up in preparation for whatever was to come.

“Me family stretches back a good long while. I come from a line of priests. When me parents were but wee young-uns, they learned the first tree of the Holy school of priest magic. When I was younger, I was fixin’ to be a priest as well, an’ so I learned it too, just like me folks. I’m not quite as good at it anymore, but I still remember a thing or two, specifically Mass Dispel,” Ida said, shifting around in her spot, before backing up a few steps.

As soon as she said she knew Mass Dispel, I knew what her plan was.

She wanted me to light the room on fire.

In her mind, the plan was simple; I light up the room, forcing any rogue that might be watching us out of stealth since they would be, well, on fire. She would then quickly cast Mass Dispel, extinguishing the magically conjured flames, but giving us a short window of opportunity to jump the rogue before he or she could re-stealth.

I mulled over her crazy plan for a moment, remembering some of the absolutely asinine things I’d done in Northrend. As a mix of shameful, yet somehow hilarious memories surfaced, her plan didn’t seem all that nutty, but we still ran the risk of setting the university on fire.

She could see the obvious doubt in my eyes, and moved in a bit closer to reassure me, drawing my attention to the palm of one of her hands, the center of it glowing softly with bright white light, the signature hallmark of priestly magic.

I cracked a confident smile, and she pat me on the side with her free hand reassuringly, moving back to her spot across from me in the center of the room. Her palm continued to radiate white light as I stepped forward, the light emanating from her hand burning away my paranoia as I convinced myself I couldn’t go on like this, with all this nagging fear weighing me down.

Fire hazard or not, this had to end; I needed my peace of mind, my sanity back, and if we happened to catch a rogue, some answers wouldn’t hurt either.

I looked over to Ida, her determined smile giving me confidence as I began channeling holy energy into my core, feeling my soul begin to ignite, a dim golden aura engulfing me. The air around her shimmered with sparking, etheral green flames as I spoke to her.

“I’m ready, let’s do this.”