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| Details |
| Author: | Luridel |
| Summary: | A teenage boy arrives at the Warlock Ethics Bureau with a plea for help. Jotz Stopdots and Zath Tyrrell see to the situation immediately. Contents may include: fel, blood, fire, lies. ~8.4k words. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
The front door to WEB's Stormwind office opens, and a young man steps inside. Or perhaps he's a teenage boy - he looks like he might be in his late teens, seventeen or eighteen. He has dark circles underneath his near-black eyes; he looks like he has not had a good night's sleep in a very long time. He is thin in a way that speaks to malnourishment, and his body is covered from the neck down in black and dark purple clothing: a black shirt and purple pants with tall black boots, and long black gloves. The boy looks like he has been through some secret hell, and has only just re-emerged into the world.
The reception desk on the lower floor is manned by a gnome with a charming forelock of inky hair that curls over his forehead; the desk itself is sized for humans, and so he sits on a specially made chair so that he can see over it. He is dressed neatly in black and gray, and he has a well-kept moustache.
"Good afternoon," he says pleasantly. His voice is high pitched but not shrill; there is something soft and almost wistful about it. "Welcome to the Warlock Ethics Bureau. How may I assist you today?"
The boy approaches the desk and looks grimly at the receptionist. "I can't pay you," he says grimly. "But I need help. Will the bureau help me anyway?"
"Are you a warlock?" the gnome asks politely, reaching for a notebook bound with spiral wire.
"Yes, sir," the boy says politely. He looks young to be a practicing warlock.
The gnome eyes him dubiously for a moment, but then just nods politely.
"My name is Jotz," he says. "I'm the executive assistant for the Board. I will be more than happy to help you find the assistance you need. There are a number of services that our organization provides at no charge to warlocks, so depending on what you ask of us, we may be able to oblige. Of course if you join our organization, that range of services expands considerably, but let's start with the problem and I'll see what we can do for you."
The boy nods, his expression bleak. "My master summoned a succubus and failed to bind her properly," he says. "The sayaad has enthralled him and taken over our household. I want to bind her myself and trap her so she can't return to the Twisting Nether." He gives Jotz a challenging stare.
One of Jotz's eyebrows slowwwwwly climbs toward his hairline, but his expression otherwise does not change.
"I see," he says. "I would say a rogue sayaad qualifies as an emergency situation, and we'll need to make it a priority. You of course will not be charged for rectifying the situation your master has caused; in fact we're grateful to you for alerting us. This calamity is just the sort of thing the average citizen expects of warlocks, you know, and just the sort of thing we're attempting to convince them is not a foregone conclusion when one undertakes the study of demonology."
He turns to a fresh page in his notebook and writes on it in Gnomish - whether the boy is familiar with Gnomish or not, it's obvious that Jotz's penmanship is exquisite despite the speed at which he writes.
"Can you give me your name, and more details about the current status at the household? No need to spare me any horrors; please be as accurate as possible."
The boy nods, but none of the tension goes out of his body. There's still a wariness to him, a lack of trust, like a stray cat unsure if the food left out for it is a trap. "Thank you, Mr. Jotz. My name is…"
There's an obvious hesitation. "Nil," the boy says finally. "My master's name is Cassius Beaumont. The sayaad goes by Aelva. She killed my mother and dismissed all the household servants. She has been," and here the boy grimaces, "playing house, I suppose. But she has access to any information my Master might have had in his office, as well as whatever she may have asked him to tell her. My master works as a scribe for Stormwind Keep. There is a possibility that the sayaad may have access to information that I don't think should return to the Twisting Nether to be shared with the Burning Legion."
Jotz's other eyebrow rises to join the first.
"Well, this is quite a situation, isn't it? I believe we may have to summon Lord Tyrrell. You may wish to cover your ears a moment."
Jotz grabs the handle of a bell on his desk, gives Nil a moment to brace himself, and then gives it a vigorous clanging. A faint thumping is heard from upstairs, and then hurried footsteps.
'Nil' puts his hands over his ears, but not completely, not wanting to miss any information. He quickly covers them the rest of the way when it turns out to just be a bell, and then rapidly lowers his hands.
A young woman with brown skin and dark brown hair touched with red comes hurrying down the stairs as fast as she can. Something in her gait suggests that she's a bit tipsy or that perhaps her legs have fallen asleep slightly, but she's making her way as best she can leaning on the rail.
"What is it, Jotz?" she says with an edge of impatience to her voice. "I'm trying to do some research, and it's time sensitive."
"If it isn't too much trouble, Mrs. Hazan, I require your help summoning Lord Tyrrell," Jotz replies. "Rogue demon situation that could be very bad if it gets out of control."
"Oh," she says, blinking. Her gaze shifts over to Nil. "Hello there. Yes, I can help with a summoning. Let's make it snappy."
Jotz begins the summoning ritual, and young Mrs. Hazan beckons to Nil to help.
"Thank you, ma'am," the boy says, stepping towards the portal. He doesn't know Lord Tyrrell personally, but the willpower he adds to the summoning ritual himself is clear, focused, and strong, allowing Jotz to direct it towards the target he has in mind.
A large worgen appears through the portal, dressed in elegant black clothing and a flowing cloak that badly suits the summer weather. Its fur is jet black, almost seeming to devour the light in the room, except for a silver streaked "goatee," and its eyes shine a luminous pale blue.
Almost immediately upon appearing, its form resolves into that of a gaunt, ghostly-pale gentleman with a white streak in one eyebrow and in his black hair just above it.
"This had better be an emergency," he says.
"It is, sir!" says Jotz. "Cassius Beaumont has gone awry summoning a sayaad, and it has taken over his household and may have access to some privileged information."
Lord Tyrrell mutters Beaumont as well as some words that are extremely unprofessional, and yanks on the cuffs of his gloves. He turns his attention to the young man. "And you are?"
"Nil," Jotz says. Then adds quietly, "The sayaad killed his mother."
Tyrrell's expression goes from downright icy to completely blank and inscrutable in the space of about a tenth of a second.
"Shall we take a walk?" Tyrell asks Nil.
Upon seeing a worgen up close and in person for what happens to be the first time for the boy, his eyes go wide in awe and curiosity for a brief moment before his face takes on the same guarded look as before.
Nil takes a small step back and nods politely to the other summoners. "Thank you, Mr. Jotz, Mrs. Hazan." He gives Tyrrell a wary, evaluating look, and nods. "I appreciate your assistance in this matter, Lord Tyrrell."
"Do you need my assistance, Lord Tyrrell?" Jotz asks politely.
Tyrell, on his way to the door, looks like he's about to say no, but then he doubles back.
"Yes," he says. "Please accompany us in case we need to summon further help." His gaze drifts to Mrs. Hazan. "If you're quite finished rifling my files, perhaps you could keep an eye on the reception desk?"
"I'm not-" the young woman begins, then thinks better of it. "Yes, sir," she says, and then sits awkwardly down on Jotz's custom-made chair.
Nil has no belongings to gather. He bows his head to Mrs. Hazan and follows Tyrrell out the door, holding it open for Jotz.
Once outside, Nil takes the lead towards his manor and says, "The sayaad may have noticed that I'm gone. As I told Mr. Jotz, I would like to bind her myself and then seal her in some way so that she cannot return to the Twisting Nether. Will this be feasible?"
"Possible, but not simple. How much do you know about demons, if anything?"
"I had two years' worth of education on demonology and the fel before I bound an imp," Nil says. His tone is polite, and very carefully controlled, but he stands up to his full height of five feet and eight inches as he speaks, hoping to be taken seriously. "My master has neglected my education as of late. I found the binding circle and incantation that he used to call the sayaad in my Master's books, but I don't know if it has an error or if it was he who made the error himself by his own failure in execution."
"This could be a good opportunity for you to learn from his mistake for theoretical purposes once this is all over," Tyrrell says, keeping up a brisk pace down the street that Jotz is struggling to keep up with. "But for now it's irrelevant; the milk is spilled as it were, and now we are in an entirely different situation. As I'm certain you're aware or have inferred, there are reasons we bind demons to our service straight from the Nether rather than from here - the sayaad, since it is on the same plane as we are, will be aware of the binding circle as it is being drawn, and will likely attempt to interfere, which makes the process exponentially more complicated."
Nil nods. "That's another reason why I didn't attempt this on my own, sir," he says.
"You were wise to come to us," Tyrrell says crisply, letting Nil lead but nearly treading on his heels in his urgency. "Sayaad vary in power, so the first thing I'll need to do is get a read on just exactly what manner of creature we're dealing with before I decide if we need to summon additional help."
Jotz is sweating now, between the heat and trying desperately to keep up with Tyrrell's strides, but he does not complain.
"She is capable of disguising herself to appear human," Nil says. "She generally takes the form of a dark-haired woman." He makes no effort to slow down for Jotz's sake, but as they're crossing the bridge, he glances at a pandaren playing a musical instrument he doesn't recognize out on the bridge between the Dwarven District and Old Town and does a double-take. He has never seen or possibly even heard of the pandaren.
"Pandaren," Tyrell says, though he wasn't even looking at Nil when he did his double-take. "New members of the Alliance." Without even a pause to acknowledge the change of subject, he continues. "If this sayaad can take other forms, then it's no lesser member of its breed. We'll have our work cut out for us. I assume it did not attempt to enthrall or control you personally?"
"Not to my knowledge," Nil says. "I believe the answer is likely no, because I am still capable of acting against her, I know her for what she is, and I despise her. My master is entirely under her thrall and will undoubtedly be uncooperative should you attempt to act against her. He doesn't let anyone in, but we may be able to sneak in through the kitchen door."
"Do you have any idea why Beaumont attempted to summon and bind a sayaad in his personal residence rather than using the proper safeguards and protocols in an approved summoning area?"
There's a second of hesitation before the reply, although Nil keeps moving. "Lord Tyrrell, my master never told me that there were approved summoning areas. I summoned and bound the imp under his instruction well before the formation of your Ethics Bureau."
This immediately calls into question the timeline: if Nil had been studying the fel for two years before the sayaad's summoning, just how long ago was she summoned? Nil has not said.
"As to my master's reasoning, all I have is speculation, if you would like to hear that?" Nil adds. He nods politely to the pandaren as they pass on the bridge.
"Yes, please speculate. Your master is going to be in no condition to argue one way or another, I suspect."
When it seems to Nil like he himself is not under threat for breaking the rules, he does not hesitate to throw his master under the cart. "Arrogance," he says. "Or perhaps he didn't want his wife to know." Nil has still not mentioned that his master is actually his stepfather, and the wife in question is Nil's mother. He chooses which information to disclose carefully, it seems, based on whether or not it will benefit him.
"This is the sort of thing that makes our job at W.E.B. very, very difficult," says Tyrrell between clenched teeth. "I hope you weren't too attached to your master. We'll find you a better one."
Nil glances towards Tyrrell with an evaluating look, and whatever he sees there makes him nod with the barest hint of a smile. "I would appreciate that very much, sir."
Tyrrell continues to follow close on Nil's heels, with Jotz desperately attempting to keep pace and mopping at his brow with a black handkerchief. The perfect curl that adorned the gnome's forehead has gone a bit droopy, trailing over one eye.
"For the record," Tyrrell says, "I am the founder of the W.E.B. and serve on its board. I am also the Count of Drakewatch, in Redridge, and a soldier of the 7th Legion. If you're able to help us resolve this in a manner that demonstrates that warlocks are adept at policing their own - rather than the opposite - you may ask of me a favor of your choosing that it is in my power to grant."
Nil nods solemnly. "I hope to do just that," he says. Despite his apparent youth, he seems quite serious.
The manor home they approach is a little run-down. The roof needs repairs, and the flowerboxes on the front windows contain only dead leaves and stems. The curtains are drawn over the windows. Three rolled-up newspapers languish on the front porch.
"This way," Nil says, and leads the two of them around the side of the house to the servants' entrance. Near the door is an empty delivery crate.
Tyrrell glances at the newspapers on the porch. "This happened three days ago?" he says quietly as they move around the house, as though attempting not to be overheard by anyone inside. His voice takes on a velvety, soothing quality at this volume, but it's difficult to say if that's intentional.
Jotz, after giving his face one more good wipe with his handkerchief, whips out his little wire-bound notebook and takes a few notes.
Nil shakes his head. "This must have happened two years ago, sir," he says very softly. "I haven't been outside."
Tyrrell stops so abruptly that Jotz runs into the back of his legs. Tyrrell does not react to this collision. His glacier-blue eyes narrow and fix on Nil.
"There has been a sayaad running loose in Stormwind for two years?" he clarifies.
Nil flinches and shrinks in on himself, hugging his midsection. It sounds very bad when Tyrrell puts it like that. All of a sudden he is looking not at the confident teenage apprentice but at a boy who has been forced to grow up far too quickly, who has been neglected and alone for two years, and who has finally, finally gotten up the courage to ask an adult for help. His eyes fill with tears.
Tyrrell leans in closer, his gaze sharp and intense, but when he speaks, his voice is the softest and gentlest it has yet been.
"This is not your fault," he says. "I need you to understand that whatever has happened, you are not responsible for it, and even if you were… I have no intention of punishing you in any way no matter what I uncover. The reason I need you to understand this is because what has happened here might be very, very bad indeed. And I need you not to be afraid to tell me the whole truth, to answer any of my questions to the best of your knowledge without leaving anything out. Do you think that you can do that, if I give you my word that you will not be punished in any way no matter what the truth may be?"
Nil rubs at his eyes with gloved fingers, blinking the tears away, and puts on a brave face again. At this proximity, Tyrrell can watch the careful reconstruction of the facade as Nil gathers his composure and forces it back into place. Eyes dry, he looks up and says, "Yes, sir."
"You said you haven't been outside the house since the sayaad was summoned. Can you tell me why not?"
His tone remains soft, his manner intense but non-threatening.
"She threatened me," Nil says, looking down. "She said she would know if I left. She has some of my mother's personal belongings that she's holding hostage, and once in a while she throws something of hers in the fire to make a show of it if she notices I've been neglectful of my household duties."
Tyrrell nods, his expression inscrutable.
"And did she herself come and go from the house? Were there people in the city that she interacted with regularly that you know of, besides your master?"
Nil hesitates. "If she ever leaves, it's when I'm asleep. I do have to sleep sometimes. I try not to. But she doesn't… go outside." Nil hesitates, then clarifies, "I hang up the laundry to dry on the back balcony, which is technically outside. And the master and I went to Mother's funeral. So I did leave the house once."
Tyrrell taps a fingertip thoughtfully against his lower lip, narrowing his eyes and gazing off over Nil's shoulder.
"It is possible that something in the summons prevents her from leaving the premises. Your master - does he still do regular business in the city? Or has she forbidden him to leave as well?"
Nil glances at the side door. "He's missed a lot of work, but he still goes when he's physically up to it. I was telling the truth to Mr. Jotz - he does work at Stormwind Keep. But he doesn't… attend social events any more, he doesn't stay out late, he doesn't go for walks."
Tyrrell strokes his neat, silver-flecked beard thoughtfully.
"It seems likely that if he is still coming and going, it is because the sayaad wills it. Sayaad are the intelligence agents of the Legion. If it's like the rest of its kind, it would be curious and extremely sociable, and unlikely to stay indoors. It would likely wander about and make great use of its ability to change forms in order to gather information for whatever its purposes may be.
"But if it cannot venture out of the house, it would need to send its thrall outside if it was curious about anything at all beyond the walls, or wished to make any sort of mischief. It would not stay indoors for such long stretches of time unless it had no other choice, I suspect. If so, planning its downfall will be easier, because it would mean we already have it confined, at least to an extent."
"I wasn't present at her summoning," Nil says irritably. "So I don't know how he managed that."
"That's all right," Tyrrell says. "I can likely figure it out myself." He considers the servant's entrance, then peers down to examine the box outside. "Jotz, perhaps you could wait here by the door? At least one of us should be outside if I'm correct in my assumption that it cannot leave the property. I'll need the boy with me as he's familiar with the house. If I send an Eye out, or if an hour passes without your having heard from us at all, please send a courier to Lord Ference at the House of Nobles and have him discreetly send some of his Cobalts to find out what has occurred."
"Yes, sir," says Jotz, making a note of this in his little spiral notebook. "Do you have a successor in mind for your position on the board, should the worst occur? I''ve asked before, but you've never-"
Tyrrell gives him a withering look.
"I'm sure it won't be necessary, sir," Jotz says with a little bow.
"Mr. Stopdots, I have stood against a demon-possessed Horde, been struck on the head with the falling rubble of Dalaran, and crawled from the belly of an Old God. I think I can manage one sayaad playing house."
"Sorry, sir."
Tyrrell glares at Jotz a moment longer, then turns to Nil. "Shall we?" He gestures gallantly toward the door.
Nil looks deeply impressed. He carefully turns the doorknob and sighs in relief when it opens - no one locked it while he was out. He slips inside first, looking around the kitchen, then beckons Tyrrell inside after him.
The overhead lights are off, and the curtains are pulled over the windows. There is a single candelabra on the counter, candles lit with glowing green flame that has not burned down the wick or melted the wax. Classic warlock decor. The food preparation areas are tidy, but cobwebs hang very close to the ceiling. There is an open doorway that leads to a grand dining room, and in that room, the plates on the table have not been cleared. No one is in there at the moment, or so it appears.
Tyrrell lays a hand firmly on Nil's shoulder, a sort of nonverbal be still a moment. He himself stops breathing entirely, seeming to listen with his entire body. Then his form warps and stretches, shifting quietly but somehow visibly painfully. His hand, still on Nil's shoulder, grips slightly tighter, becomes larger and clawed, and loses one of its fingers.
Nil holds very still, looking at Tyrrell in fascination.
Transformation complete, Tyrrell lifts his coal-black muzzle and silently sniffs the air. Given the unrelenting blackness of his clothes and fur, his lambent blue eyes are the only part of him clearly visible in the dimness of the room.
The kitchen smells strongly of lemon-scented soap, and the primary individual's scent in there is Nil's. It seems that this is not a place where the house's two other residents spend much time at all, and a place that Nil works hard to keep sanitary.
Cassius and Aelva's scents are much more obvious in the dining room. There are only two places set at the table, one with only crumbs and the other with some remnants of breakfast.
Tyrrell's stomach rumbles audibly. He ignores this and shifts back into human form.
"They are not nearby," he murmurs. "I will need you to lead the way cautiously through the safest path to where you anticipate finding them at this time of day. My overall plan is to attempt to subjugate the sayaad, and failing that, to slay your master while you retreat to another room and attempt a proper binding circle. It will likely have formed a twisted sort of attachment to its human pet, so his death will distract and weaken it and make subduing it easier. Do you know how to draw a proper binding for a sayaad, or shall we go over that first?"
"What I have to go by is my master's notes," Nil whispers. "And I don't know if those are… accurate. Let me just… show you…"
Nil brings a chair over to the kitchen counter and climbs up on top of it to reach a high cabinet, then lowers himself down as silently as he can with a leather-bound journal in hand, which he opens to show Tyrrell.
If these are indeed his master's notes, the journal is both informative and troubling, because if this is the binding that Cassius used, it should have worked. He may have made a change at the last moment, mispronounced part of the incantation, or had a flaw in the binding circle, but none of that is evident in the notes.
Tyrrell frowns and looks through the notes once, twice. The second time, a gloved fingertip trails over the page as though to keep his eyes from skipping over anything. He frowns again. "The error is not here," he says. "Something must have gone awry in the execution. If you follow this to the letter you should be all right." He hands the journal back to Nil.
"That's what I thought," Nil says, taking the journal and clutching it to his chest. "At this time of day—"
Nil is interrupted by the loud ring of a bell, the kind meant to summon servants. He looks over to the bells and notes which one's ringing. "He's in his workroom," the boy says. "I'm being summoned. I should see what he wants, and see if Aelva's there."
"I'll be not far behind," Tyrrell says. "But I'll try to go unperceived, for now."
That said, he begins muttering an incantation under his breath, gesturing with his black-gloved hands as a luminous summoning circle draws itself nearby. A felhunter pops into existence and immediately heels at his side, tentacles twitching inquisitively.
Nil eyes the felhunter with equal parts fascination and wariness. "Yes, sir," he says. He takes an unlit candlestick from near the kitchen door and lights it with a bit of green flame, then quietly leaves the room.
That lemony scent is all over the house, as are traces of the Fel. The boy moves through his own home like a ghost, at first taking the servant's stairs and then passing by a multitude of empty bedrooms that smell stale and unused, with faint traces of individuals long, long since gone.
The boy slips through a door that takes him out of the servants' quarters and into the family's portion of the house. Artwork is hung on the hallway walls here and there: a landscape of Elwynn Forest; a still life of a vase of flowers. The boy pauses for just a moment by a family portrait of the generation before him, and Tyrrell - when he reaches it - might recognize a much younger Count Simon Marchand with his wife Calisca. His eldest daughter Gardenia and son Connor are only children. Chubby, pink-cheeked Gardenia poses shyly for the artist with a handful of gardenia flowers, while Connor, maybe five years old, glares at the artist with his hands balled into fists.
Tyrrell pauses to gaze at the portrait, his eyes particularly lingering on the young Connor for some reason. He makes a quiet, bitterly amused noise to himself before moving on.
The felhunter is very quiet and obedient. Its tentacles occasionally point yearningly in alarming directions, though, such as directly at Nil.
The boy turns the corner at the end of the hallway.
Tyrrell can smell Aelva before he hears her speak, a lavender perfume and the scent of the fel that is difficult to mask entirely. "Boy, you didn't eat your leftovers," says a rich feminine voice dripping with false concern. "You're far too thin. You aren't going on another hunger strike, are you?"
"No, mistress," says the boy. "I've just been busy with chores all day."
Aelva sniffs. "Have you? What's that book you have there?"
Tyrrell, clearly hoping to make use of the element of surprise, abandons caution, shifts silently into worgen form, and leaps around the corner, immediately attempting to Subjugate the sayaad.
"The master left this downstairs," is as far as Nil gets.
Aelva is a good fifteen feet away, standing down the hall in an open doorway. Behind her is a nice upstairs music room - from his angle, Tyrrell can catch a glimpse of a standing harp.
In the moment, Aelva appears to be a human woman with long black hair and fel-green eyes. Her features are striking, similar to the boy's, and it is clear she has deliberately modeled this form after the boy's mother rather than going for a more conventional beauty. She wears a blue and white flower-printed house dress and is barefoot in her own home.
As the purple chains of the subjugation spell begin to wrap around her body, Aelva clicks her tongue in a very condescending way and grabs them in one fist, yanking them free of her body. "Oh, my, who are you?" The form she has taken does not physically change, but she looks into Tyrrell's eyes and attempts to alter the way he sees her. "Hello there."
Tyrrell does not dignify her question with a response, and, slipping off one of his gloves, holds out the naked hand to one side. The felhunter bounds to his side and… bites his hand? This seems to be a response to some unspoken command.
It is not a grievous bite, but something about the pain seems to ground Tyrrell and counteract whatever the sayaad was trying to do to his mind.
Since the slightly less violent version of his plan isn't going to work, he draws his gloved and ungloved hands together, felhound bite visible, and begins to gather flames into them.
Absolutely nothing in his demeanor suggests that he is at all open to small talk with this creature.
A door slams open, and there are loud footsteps from elsewhere in the house: Cassius is on his way. Running, in fact. He's on the same floor.
Aelva's whip lashes out - she wasn't holding it a moment ago, it appears in her hand - and coils around Nil's midsection. She yanks the boy to her, using him as a human shield as she retreats into the music room. "Darling, you brought me a spicy treat this time."
Nil hisses out an agonizing curse, his pronunciation perfect.
Aelva lets out a little "Oh!" of surprise. "You've been holding out on me!"
Tyrrell finally speaks, and the growl of his voice in worgen form resonates as dramatically as his velvety human cadence, but this is something warped and bestial out of a nightmare, its depth nearly subsonic.
"You will wish you had not touched the boy," the nightmare-creature says. And then he unleashes immolating fire toward exactly when and where he expects the approaching Cassius to emerge.
Cassius barrels around the corner and immediately ignites in flames. Four soul shards spring into visibility, hovering near his body. He snatches one and crushes it in his fist, and a barrage of fel afflictions descend upon Tyrrell, far more quickly than if he had cast them one at a time. Pink dust spills from Cassius's hand.
From inside the music room comes the sound of several keys at once being mashed on a grand piano. "Calm down, little boy, and look at me," Aelva's voice says.
Tyrrell completely ignores the afflictions eating away at him for the time being and continues to aggressively pelt Cassius with flame after flame as though Cassius's existence were fire and Tyrrell's fire were water. As chaotic as his flames seem, they do not catch on anything else nearby, seeming only interested in devouring this particular human's flesh as painfully as possible.
This is a losing battle that Cassius Beaumont is fighting, and were he fully in control of his own choices he would likely have chosen to flee right back around the corner he came from and use it as cover. The fanatical light of devotion shines in his eyes as he screams and burns. The one tactically sound choice he makes is that he banishes the felhound before it can reach him.
There's a flash of purple light from the piano room. Aelva steps back out into the hall, now with her whip wrapped around the boy's neck and slowly strangling him. She has shed the disguise, but her succubus form is still wearing a stolen noblewoman's house dress - that was a real article of clothing she took. "That's enough," she says.
The boy, frantically clawing at the whip around his neck, looks at Tyrrell and shakes his head 'no'.
"And yet I remain unsatisfied," the nightmare-wolf growls dispassionately, the green light of a nascent chaos bolt building between his clawed hands as he keeps his gaze on Aelva's screaming pet human.
"You're on fire, pet," she says, and jerks her head in Cassius's direction.
Cassius, now operating under new orders, disappears around the corner. There's the green gleam of a healthstone, but Tyrrell can hear him staggering and whimpering in pain further down that hall as the flames continue to eat at him. He cannot have gotten far.
Aelva places herself in the center of the hallway, making herself a prime target for the chaos bolt. Nil loses consciousness and she drops him to the ground, placing a hoof on his neck.
Tyrrell attempts to breeze past her as though she and Nil are utterly unimportant, razor focused on getting line of sight back to Cassius for his chaos bolt. He seems fully intent on murdering the guy. It almost seems like this might be actually what he came here to do.
There is a crunch of breaking bone as Aelva brings the hoof down. She cannot fully body-block the hall, especially against a charging worgen, but she snaps her whip at Tyrrell as he passes her, trying to catch him about the waist.
To all appearances, Tyrrell is utterly unconcerned about the boy's fate as he disappears around the corner, finds his line of sight, and hurls the chaos bolt at Cassius. The roar he lets out as the spell releases is most likely rage directed at the man he's trying to kill, and of course not any kind of gut-twisting anguish or guilt at all. Since this worgen is, clearly, some sort of heartless half feral monster.
Cassius stands in front of a closed door, his clothes in scorched tatters, hair fully gone, and hands severely burned, clutching a purple stone that he can barely hold. The soulstone flickers with light. Cassius sees his first death coming as it travels towards him, and he screams again. The ragged scream dies in his throat as he drops dead.
Aelva, right behind Tyrrell, reaches out to touch him. "You've been causing such a mess in my house," she chides, attempting to charm him for a second time.
Tyrrell doesn't even turn to look at her. Casually he sets one of his own sleeves afire - catching the fur under it as well judging by the smell - then brings his clawed hands together in front of him, one arm still smoldering, as he gathers himself for another spell.
His luminous ice-blue gaze is still fixed on the dead man, preparing to light him on fire again the moment he self resurrects.
There is a soft purple glow that floods Cassius's body as his wounds heal, leaving him a bald man in scorched clothes. He sits up, disoriented.
Aelva, who is not accustomed to being ignored and is taking it very personally, rushes past Tyrrell to reach her pet.
"Out of my way," Tyrrell snarls in his nightmare voice. He then does what perhaps Aelva would not expect a caster type to do; he lunges toward her and gives her a violent, purely physical shove.
Oh yeah, in addition to being a caster of fire spells he is also an eight foot densely muscled wolfman.
Aelva aims a sharp hoof-kick at Tyrrell's kneecap. "Out of my house!"
Cassius recoils in fear at the sight of Tyrrell so close and begins to scramble backwards down the hall. He is no longer thinking like a spellcaster either.
Tyrrell's worgen hearing can pick up a faint sound from around the corner - a door creaks shut. Either there is someone else in the house, or the boy is up and moving again.
Tyrrell does not visibly react to the sound. He instead drops to all fours and, snarling deeply, little more than a pair of luminous eyes surrounded by a vaguely wolf-shaped shadow in the dim hallway, chases the terrified Cassius in a way that could conceivably haunt him to the end of his days - but luckily it's looking like that might be a haunting of mere minutes.
Cassius scrambles to his feet and runs, but he barely makes it to the end of the hall before Tyrrell catches up.
Aelva chases after Tyrrell, charging at him with her head lowered. She means to gore him with her horns like a bull.
The down side of pretending you don't notice the demonic diva prancing about demanding attention is that it requires you to also pretend not to care that they're charging you. Sharp horns gouge Tyrrell's flank, ripping black cloth and fur and skin. And yet, despite the cursed blood now staining Aelva's horns, Tyrrell does not seem to have felt any pain.
Undeterred and seemingly oblivious to his injury, Tyrrell finishes what he started and lunges for Cassius's jugular.
It's probably a good thing Nil is in the other room. Even if Aelva ever were to describe the bestial savagery of this attack, Nil would have difficulty reconciling it with the dignified gentleman he'd met earlier. The walls on either side are redecorated for the worse as Tyrrell savagely shakes his head back and forth - then he drops the limp remains of Cassius Beaumont like a used rawhide toy.
Now Tyrrell has a genuinely furious succubus to contend with. "You monster, what is wrong with you," Aelva snarls, lashing out with her barbed tail. "You come into my house, you break my toy…"
Tyrrell casually sets her toy on fire, obscuring the evidence of his exact cause of death, then at last turns to give Aelva his attention. He shifts back into human form and takes out a black handkerchief - rather like Jotz's, does W.E.B. issue these? - to wipe the blood from his face as best he can.
"My absolute lack of concern," he says, his pale gaze already drifting away from her as though finding a more interesting crack in the wall, "for your delusions of relevance to this household does not number among my many flaws. Nothing here belongs to you or ever has, demon. Do run along now."
He doesn't even bother to do a banish spell; he just literally gives a little mundane wave of his hand, as though she were a servant being dismissed.
Aelva does not stop genuinely trying to kill him in earnest. She has a whip, and she's not hesitating to use it. Him reverting to his human form only makes him look more vulnerable.
Tyrell is already bleeding in two places - apparently her whip did catch him as he charged by the first time - and burned (self-inflicted) in another, but he hasn't even bothered to use a healthstone. It's as though he is so impervious to pain he hasn't even noticed. Nor does he seem to notice as the whip tears through the skin of his ribcage. He takes casual evasive maneuvers, keeping some of the strikes from hitting him, but his manner is still that of a man evading, say, a bothersome mosquito.
"You're really not very good at this, are you?" he says, with the first hint of feeling coloring his tone. That feeling, unfortunately, is pity. Poor cut-rate succubus.
"You aren't even fighting back," Aelva marvels. "Do you like to suffer? Some rare humans do. I found one, and you KILLED HIM." She snarls those last two words in Tyrrell's face and then draws her head back. Maybe she's planning on using her horns again, but something clearly distracts her. "What - no!" Aelva cries out. "What are you doing?"
Tyrrell reaches out to try and grapple her, to keep her from dashing toward the source of the disturbance.
"Shall we dance?" he says lightly, as though he is only trying to grab her for a vigorous tango. "Would you enjoy one last spin around your little playhouse, you petulant child? Do choose carefully, as it's the last time you'll be asked if you'd like to do anything. Take a moment to savor that, you hideous wretch." His tone remains light, detached.
Aelva shoves him back, then kicks at him with a powerful hoof. She opens her mouth to say something, and then vanishes in a burst of felfire as she is summoned elsewhere - into the center of a binding circle.
Tyrrell lets out a short, wild laugh, then squeezes his eyes shut as though feeling all the pain he'd deferred all in one moment, plus interest. He quickly produces and crushes a healthstone, its green glow closing his wounds. Then he carefully, visibly sore and with lightly shredded clothing, makes his way toward the sound of the closing door he'd heard earlier.
"Silence," the boy can be heard saying from the other side of the door, his voice cold and confident.
A faint hint of a smile lifts the corners of Tyrell's mouth for a moment. He pauses and lays the palm of his ungloved hand (he never replaced the glove he pulled off during the fight) against the door. Good door, his expression says. Brave door. He's so proud of the door.
Then he takes back his hand, smooths out his expression, and rummages for his glove. Once it is replaced and he has neatened his torn clothing as best he can, he enters the room.
There is no carpet in the music room. In the center of a perfectly-drawn binding circle sits Aelva, her tail tucked around her legs, covering her eyes with both hands. She does not fidget; she has been commanded to be still.
Sitting on the piano bench of a beautiful grand piano, facing outwards, is the boy, who quickly rises as Tyrrell enters. He looks completely healed, although very pale. The journal has been left open atop the piano.
The boy looks at Tyrrell with clear relief. "Sir," he says. He will not give this demon any more information than she already has. "What is the next step?" He moves over towards Tyrrell without taking his eyes off of the demon in the room.
"Information control," Tyrrell says crisply, as though he definitely does not want to cry and hug the boy for three thousand years. "We decide upon a story, and we stick to it as though our lives depend upon it. Here is what I suggest. Your master attempted to summon an Abyssal, which turned upon him and killed him before you heroically banished it back to the Nether. You then came to the W.E.B. to report the tragedy, and Mr. Stopdots and I came to investigate the situation. Upon surveying the scene to be certain the demon had left no dangerous artifacts behind - as Abyssals often do - we decided that it was necessary to give a full and immediate report to the Stormwind Guard. Do you have any further questions or conflicting opinions about what occurred here today? Once we are agreed on the facts, I shall inform Mrs. Hazan as well."
The boy moves to stand next to Tyrrell and speaks quietly. "I understand what happened here today, sir, but will the Guard want to search the house? Also, what can I do with her? I want to trap her in something so that she's not sitting in my music room for the rest of my life. I have her under control now, but she's going to try to take advantage of any lapse in concentration."
"You have a few options, none of which is simple. One would be to find a place in Azeroth that is sufficiently infused with the energies of the Twisting Nether that the creature could be permanently destroyed there. Another is for me to check on the progress of a colleague of mine who was looking for a way to permanently contain demons - but I have doubts that she ever succeeded in this venture. The last and most unsavory is that you simply take the sayaad with you wherever you go henceforward. Proximity allows for complete control. Unfortunately this means that by the rules of the W.E.B. you would be unable to enter any cities or towns and would need to find a remote area in which to live until the situation is better resolved.
"As for the guards searching - we have all the time you require in which to prepare the house for such a search. You would know better than I what items need to have been tragically consumed in the Abyssal's fires."
Tyrrell casually conjures a few flickers of flame in one hand. Look at him. Look at him. He's the Abyssal now.
The boy visibly shudders at the prospect of taking Aelva with him anywhere. "Do you know of any such places? Or will you ask your colleague? Please, sir, I want her gone."
With that said, he turns towards Aelva. "Do not move from your spot. Do not touch anything. Do not communicate with anyone." He steps out of the room and into the hall. "Can I see his body, sir?"
"What is left of it," Tyrrell allows casually. "This way." He makes a beckoning gesture - that entire sleeve has been heavily charred, showing glimpses of the pale thin arm beneath - and heads out of the music room toward the scene of the murder.
The boy shuts the door behind him and follows behind Tyrrell. When he sees his master's body, he smiles - a small, satisfied little smile. "Thank you, sir. Would you like to borrow any clothing? Are you injured?"
"I will need to change clothes before we alert the Guard," he says, "as the Abyssal is meant to have returned to the Nether before my arrival. But there is no hurry to contact the Guard, as we need time to arrange the scene as we desire in any event. The body will have sat in place for some time as you worried over what to do and decided ultimately to contact the W.E.B. first - due to your trust in our ability to determine if there was any further danger before unwittingly luring the Guard into some sort of trap."
Tyrrell brushes a hand briefly over the boy's shoulder as though he detected some lint there that offended him. It certainly wasn't affection or anything.
"The most obvious thing in the house for the guard to find is the sayaad," Nil points out. "I would… really like her gone as soon as possible, sir."
"I understand that, Nil," Tyrrell says in his most velvety voice. "But our first priority is to ensure that there are no repercussions from this for Alliance warlocks as a whole. You have endured unimaginable unpleasantness for two years without any support; I believe you can endure for a while longer with my assistance."
Again, Tyrrell finds some lint on Nil's shoulder that needs his attention. Such an untidy boy, apparently!
"I shall have Mr. Stopdots fly to Drakewatch, where with the assistance of my wife and Seneschal he can summon us both there. The sayaad will be pulled along with you. You and the sayaad can remain there unobserved and the Guard can do as they wish with the house and remains while we sort out a more permanent solution."
Nil checks his shoulder just in case. "Yes, sir. I should clean the bedrooms before I go, then."
"Take your time. I shall dash outside to inform Mr. Stopdots of our plans. Do keep the sayaad within throwing distance of yourself in the meantime, as unpleasant as that is. The farther you are from it on this plane, the weaker your hold upon it."
"She killed me, Lord Tyrrell," the boy says, wrapping his arms around himself. "I'll never let my guard down around her, I swear. I'll make sure she behaves. But I have to sleep at some point."
Tyrrell puts a hand on the boy's shoulder again, this time leaving it there. His hand is so cold that it's obvious even through the glove he's wearing. He gazes at him steadily with eyes like chips of Northrend ice.
"If the sayaad is near you, it cannot break free of your control even while you sleep. But I will ensure that someone stands guard over you and it nonetheless while you are at rest. Even if I cannot be there personally, the staff at Drakewatch are well trained in matters demonic. I know that you have been left in the care of fools and worse for some time now, but the W.E.B. is an organized, ethical, and skilled group of people in whom you may trust. I do not expect you to believe me instantly based solely upon my word, but let my swift and effective assistance thus far incline you to allow the time it will take to prove my words to be true."
Nil nods solemnly. "I do appreciate your assistance very much, sir. What do I tell your staff and your wife about why I have a demon with me that I cannot dismiss?"
"They will not ask," Tyrrell says crisply. "Those who are accustomed to dealing with me have learned that the fewer questions they ask, the more tranquil their lives tend to be."
"Understood, sir," Nil replies. "I'll see to cleaning the house, then. If you need me, I'll be upstairs on the third floor."
"I intend to help you," says Tyrrell. "Once I have spoken with Mr. Stopdots, I will return immediately. You have chosen your allies wisely, Nil. You are not alone in the world any longer."
With that, Tyrrell's cloak gives a dramatic swirl to mark his temporary departure.