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The Shield Book

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Chapter Six

With no small amount of struggle Ambrose found his footing and clambered up the small hill to the high road. Looking up the slope toward Stormwind he quickly dismissed the idea. “Shadowmore is certain to have the guards on alert,” thought the mage. “I need to get someplace safe and consider my next move. Someplace far away, like Shattrath.” By force of habit he reached for the small pouch at his belt where he normally kept a supply of teleportation runes, chuckling bitterly when his hand found nothing. Colquitt patted down the pockets of his robe, searching for his hearthstone and coming up empty. “Now that's just fighting dirty,” he muttered under his breath.

“Only one thing for it, then,” thought the young man, and he started down the hill toward Goldshire. He was grateful for the wooden staff that had been laid next to him in the graveyard, using it as an ordinary walking stick to steady himself on the cobblestone road. A pleasant exchange with Edison Farley in the Lion's Pride Inn netted Ambrose a new hearthstone, which he instinctively cupped between his hands and spoke into. “May? Are you there?” he asked before remembering that the new talisman had not yet been paired with that of his beloved. With a wry smile he tucked the enchanted rock into a pocket and returned to the streets of Goldshire.

What next, though? Stormwind was still out of the question. The guild hall was inviting, but he dismissed the thought; if he was in trouble, he'd not bring that upon his closest fiends, at least not yet. Running out of ideas Colquitt's eyes fell upon the road to Northshire Valley. He'd been meaning to go by and thank Khelden for sending him that tome on psychic enchantment. Now was a better time than most to do so.

The walk to Northshire went quickly enough as the young man's legs regained their strength. Hurrying toward the abbey, Ambrose was stopped at the entrance by the Marshal. “Hail, mage, and welcome. We're really struggling to keep the worgs at bay this afternoon, and are asking all able-bodied individuals to dispatch their limit of six at once.”

The request caught Colquitt off guard. “Worgs? Hmm, well, yes, I suppose even the war against the Lich King doesn't stop the forces of mother nature.” McBride opened his mouth to interrupt, but Ambrose raised his hand to cut him off. “No worries, my good man. I'll have these worgs dealt with before you can say, er, 'Can you help us with these worgs?'”

Clapping the marshal on the back the mage strode proudly to the edge of the forest and sized up a pack of the wild dogs. “One well-placed flamestrike ought to do the trick,” he mumbled, extending his arms into the correct positions. With a sweeping gesture fire rained from a point a few meters above the ground; at least, it should have, but the worgs snuffled about unharmed baring their razored fangs. “Huh, must not have had the correct angle there,” Ambrose thought and again positioned his arms, being much more deliberate this time. Sweeping with more force than was advisable the mage again attempted to cast the spell, but again was greeted with a calm silence. Three, four, five, a dozen times more he tried, arms flailing like ribbons in the wind, all to no avail. Teeth clenched Colquitt stomped his way into the abbey, accidentally elbowing the Marshal aside on his way up to see the mage trainer.

Bremen was discussing the basics of mana theory with a slender kal'dorei as Ambrose burst into the room. “Khelden, is there some sort of damping field in place today? I'm not able to–”

“I beg your pardon, adept. You will wait in the anteroom while I talk with our sister here.”

Colquitt pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, forgive me Khelden, but you would not believe the kind of day I'm–”

The trainer extended a palm and a gout of fire burst forth, sailing past the wide-silver-eyed elf and stopping just shy of the young man, sending him staggering backward. “You will respect your brethren and masters, adept!”

“Khelden, it's me: Ambrose!”

“I don't care if you're Archmage Haylon Vargoth in the flesh - you. will. wait.” Bremen returned his attention to the increasingly timid looking night elf.

Breaths quickening in panic Colquitt bolted out into the anteroom and leaned heavily on the stone railing, squeezing it as tightly as if he were trying to crush it into gravel. Something was very badly wrong.

Footnotes

  • World of Warcraft has millions of players at any one time - far more than a single server could handle. The game is therefore divided into many realms: identical versions of the game running on separate systems, on which a smaller set of players interact. North America has over 200 such realms.
  • When I returned to the game after a couple of years, many of the friends I'd made no longer played the game. I decided to make a new version of Colquitt on a different roleplaying realm, essentially starting the game over, to see if that would be enjoyable. This is the idea I had for continuing the story: not only had Shadowmore killed Ambrose, but he'd caused the Spirit Healer to return him to a different version of the universe than the one he was from. This solved the problem of being unable to kill someone who can resurrect
  • Just like the experience of remaking the character on a new realm, Ambrose has been returned with all his memories, but none of the powers and items he used to know. Northshire Valley is the area where new human characters begin the game. Marshal McBride is the first quest giver humans encounter, and killing six worgs is the first quest most humans do. Ambrose's magic doesn't work because he's trying to cast a spell this version of him hasn't learned
  • Shattrath City is the largest city of Outland, a separate world from the main setting of World of Warcraft, Azeroth. Colquitt is literally planning to hide in another world until he can get his bearings
  • Mages have the ability to transport at will to various set locations in the game at the cost of a Rune of Teleportation (an item that was made obsolete and removed from the game not long after this story was written)
  • Hearthstones, on the other hand, are available to everyone, not just mages, and allow the character to teleport to a preset home location, often an inn in a city or town. A hearthstone is bound to one destination, but innkeepers can update a hearthstone to their location and have a supply of stones to give to players who don't have one
  • Another game mechanic is whispering, or sending an in-game private message to another player. Someone I roleplayed with came up with the idea of giving hearthstones the ability to convey messages, thus bringing this whisper mechanic into the world of our stories
  • Ambrose is trying to get in touch with Mayda Fadran, his girlfriend. May was played by the only one of the friends I made playing WoW that I've met in real life: Stephanie, who now lives in the Seattle area
  • Guilds are groups of players within the game. Ambrose was part of Shadow of the Moon, a roleplaying guild. In our stories, the guild's home was a large hall in Elwynn Forest
  • A number of things had changed in the game during my absence. Notably, the Lich King had already been defeated, and Kal'dorei, another of the game's races, could play as mages, a class from which they'd been previously restricted

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