NOVEL NEXT Chapter 36: Chapter 36
After his morning training, and shared breakfast with Syra, it was time to get down to business.
Alone in his office, Varrus planned out his itinerary for the day.
First things first, he wanted to level up his Smithing skill, and begin the reconstruction of Silvermoon. By firing clay into bricks, and constructing nails, door hinges, etc, he would be able to quickly amass the materials necessary for construction. At the same time, the grind to 100 Smithing would be taken care of rather easily.
Varrus was the insane bastard who would forge thousands of iron daggers to reach max level in Skyrim, so he knew that while it perhaps wasn't optimal to grind crafting bricks, he would be helping his community. If he went the iron dagger route this time around, he;d be rather embarrassed, who would need 40,000 iron daggers?!
Fortunately they had an architect on standby, and Varrus' mass production of bricks would go to good use. Rebuilding Silvermoon was important, but it had to look the part too. He didn't want to haphazardly throw up the same boring gray he had left behind on Earth. This was once a city of beauty, and if he was going to live here for centuries, it would become beautiful once more.
Next, he was going to interrogate Dakar, and see what exactly was going on with Koren's brother. He couldn't exactly be mad at the guy for what happened to his father being murdered in front of him and everything. But if you were going to freak out against anyone, do it against your brother. No one told him to drink the Vandercross brand kool-aid!
Koren was a strongly devoted follower who's loyalty seemed in part, contingent upon Dakar's safety. In all honesty, Varrus found such devotion disconcerting. True believers were a little terrifying. They might act a certain way, or perform certain acts that go beyond the scope of their orders because they interpreted the leaders' will to have deeper meaning than there actually was.
For example, a police chief could order his subordinates to hold someone overnight.
The devotee might choose to interpret this as a 'by any means necessary' decree, and go so far as to kill or maim the prisoner if they tried to escape.
A normal person obviously would call for help, and restrain the prisoner, placing them in handcuffs if they attempted an escape.
Devotees for that reason, were a double edged sword that Varrus was reluctant to wield. On one hand, they stroked his ego, and made him feel important. Eager to follow orders, they made getting shit done much easier. On the other hand, they could at times act absolutely mental, and create enemies in their zealotry when no one is out there trying to draw heat to themselves.
On the whole, Varrus was happy to have Koren-and by extension the entire air force of Quel'Thalas-in his pocket, because unlike these fantasy people hyper focused on horse warfare, and trapped in medieval times, he understood the value of aerial superiority.
So it wasn't exactly a bold statement to say that Varrus wasn't enthused about interrogating his brother, Dakar.
That was his upcoming morning in a nutshell. Afterwards, he had two more important meetings.
Varrus had a lot on his plate today, including a double date lunch with his wife, Kael, and Jan'alai. It was during that meeting that he planned to convince Kael to focus on cleaning up Quel'Thalas of the Undead instead of charging head first to the south in a mad quest for vengeance.
That boy needed the help of supporting friends around him, but Varrus couldn't show much affection for fear of his continued sanity at home. However, that didn't mean he couldn't help his friend mend that broken heart with love.
Depression was a serious thing for many people, and if he could help his friend through this difficult point in his life, then Varrus would be pleased.
After lunch, there was some time to kill, and Varrus intended to play around the Dead Scar, and see if blasting the shit out of it with Light magic would do anything.
If some lame red lizards could heal the plagued land in one of the WOTLK cutscenes after the battle of the Wrath Gate, then Varrus theorized he had a good chance of curing this diseased land himself.
Just thinking about the Red Dragonflight pissed Varrus off. They could've saved the world from the Scourge and prevented Archimonde's return in one day's hard work!
Their breath attacks were attuned with life energy, and were the natural weakness to Undead. It was like a Charizard using flamethrower on a Bulbasaur, the Undead would perish in one attack!
Instead, the dragons in Warcraft seemed to be more meddlesome than helpful.
Empowered by the Titans (practical gods of order in the Warcraft universe) the dragons-canonically-were going to fuck over the world hard in the next 10 years.
The Green Dragonflight created and oversaw an alternate dimension called the Emerald Dream. It was a place that influenced all life and growth on Azeroth. They were due to experience a serious bout ofVoid corruption sometime during Vanilla WoW, and would throw the entire planet's ecosystem out of whack.
The Blue Dragonflight was led by an insane Dragon named Maligos. He planned on hoarding all of the magic on the planet, denying it to all other races. This made him pretty much public enemy #1 to the Blood Elves, and in WOTLK, a war involving the Alliance and Horde would see him slain.
The Red Dragonflight were pretty much afk after their leader, Alextrasa got turned into a slave, and forced to breed hatchlings for the Orcs during the 2nd War. Varrus figured they must have some kind of PTSD for sitting out the 3rd war, and ignoring the Scourge. While he could understand their reluctance to involve themselves, they were the Guardians of Azeroth. To absolve themselves of the Scourge, was to absolve them of any claimant to the title.
The Bronze Dragonflight supposedly acted as time police, and would kill anyone who messed with the 'proper' timeline. In a twist of fate, the leader of the Bronze Dragonflight, Norzdamu foresaw his own death, as a result, his future self came back in time to cause destruction. Meaning all of the problems that the Bronze Dragonflight faced were essentially self inflicted. Varrus was weary of them the most, and was curious if he would ever fight adventurers summoned by them once he significantly changed the future.
Lastly was the Black Dragonflight. Led by a creature known as Deathwing, his entire flight were corrupted by the Old Gods, and he sought the ruination of the world. In something like 8-10 years, he would erupt from the depths of the earth, and cause tsunamis, firestorms, and earthquakes all over the world.
The five dragonflights had all at one point or another been enslaved by the servants of Fel or the Void, and in the span of a decade would threaten all life on Azeroth.
Personally, Varrus saw the Dragons as more of a burden than anything, and that there was no larger threat to a revitalized Elven lead coalition than the so-called Guardians of Azeroth.
He would have plans for them at some point down the road, and ranting about the Dragons did nothing for his current predicament.
He still had a meeting with the Convocation in the evening after all that, so he'd better get to work now.
Taking a deep breath to center himself, Varrus slowly exhaled, then got up to put his schedule into action.
Taking a step outside his study, Varrus was greeted by two House guards.
It felt strange to have Rho'dan more than a few steps from his side, but he was busy drilling with the rest of the Crossguard in the square that was in front of the Vandercross estate.
The remaining four original Elites had headed out to man an outpost in the Eastern Capital.
Each Elite set up a small base where they could distribute Mana Crystals to the population as needed.
Varrus decided to start with four locations for now to minimize embezzlement. While the remaining members of House Vandercross were loyal, half or more of that loyalty came from the fact that Varrus was the number one mana supplier in all of Silvermoon. Should the pay stop, 95%+ of his followers would desert, and rightly so.
He had been stiffed on pay enough times to never do that to his own people, but he had also worked around enough shady characters to limit his trust until he got to know his subordinates better.
As Varrus walked down the hall and entered the more expansive parts of the estate, he saw crafters hard at work.
The potioneers, enchanters, engineers and inscribers were each given a hallway to work in. Smiths, leatherworkers, and construction workers were placed in a large work shed adjacent to the mansion.
Curiously, there were no jewelers/gem crafters among his ranks. While it made sense for those professions to be important in a video game, this was the 'real world' so to speak, as any magical gem that could be affixed to a ring or amulet could easily be placed by a smith.
The most popular profession amongst the crafters were potioneers. For bored immortals, cooking was the most easily accessible pastime. Alchemy was adjacent to that pursuit, and was a means to unleash new flavors, and experience different mental/bodily states.
Take for example, a frost resistance potion. Any normal adventurer would purchase one if they knew they were going somewhere cold and might die of hypothermia.
A Blood Elf on the other hand would take the frost resistance potion to experience the distinct flavor. To use its effects and do something like boldly go skinny dipping in the frigid north sea, and flaunt their knowledge to other Highborn at the same time.
In fact, most crafters in Sin'Dorei society were hobbyists.
With no internet, people had to go out and talk to people if they wanted a social interaction. Being the smug Elves that they were, they enjoyed showing off their creations, and displaying their skills ostentatiously.
As a result, the crafters Varrus had recruited may be 'amateurs' for the most part, but they were amateurs with centuries if not thousands of years of experience.
Currently, the most popular elixirs being brewed were: Swiftness, Mana, Health, Stoneskin, Arcane (boosting spell power), Firepower (which when slathered on a weapon added a flame effect) and given the most recent war, Trolls Blood potions (which could substitute other ingredients with literal Trolls blood) allowed the user to regenerate like a Troll.
There were many more types of potions being assembled, but the ones that prioritized fighting and surviving against the Undead were the most popular.
Dank smells mixed with savory, sweat, sweet and all other olfactory descriptors emerged from the stinky alchemists hall.
Varrus was thankful and proud of their work, and would one day join them to level his own Alchemy skill tree, but damn was it rank!
Satisfied with their setup, Varrus decided not to tarry any longer, and moved on to the next wing.
Enchanting was the second most popular profession amongst the Blood Elves.
In games, enchantments were used almost exclusively for the purpose of getting a better gear score, and killing the enemy.
In real life, most enchanting was done to create useful devices, or silly curios. Clothes that changed color, devices that could listen through a Muffle, or an amulet that changed appearance were some of the common inventions. If Varrus' memories could be trusted, there was a famous play about a Elf transfiguring himself with an enchanted amulet to have the appearance of his crushes husband. Needless to say, enchants were incredibly popular to get into, but the learning threshold kept most people at the amateur level.
Even with an immortal lifespan, there weren't many who would want to learn the equivalent of quantum physics in three different languages. Most people settled for simple enchantments, like heat or cold so they could make their own fridge or stove top. Or operate a scrying orb so they could have a zoom call with their friend.
To this point, it could be said that 95% of all enchantments in Silvermoon were for home use, while the remaining 5% were for military purposes.
Right now, there was a mountain of enchanted Troll weapons and gear stockpiled to the ceiling of several palatial sized rooms.
Inside, the few dozen enchanters under Varrus' employ were hard at work disenchanting them.
In Warcraft, enchanting was different from Skyrim in that every magical piece of equipment could be broken down into magical dust or other components.
That magic dust could then be used as fuel to make a new enchantment. Many of the materials needed to enchant items could also be found in mines, or from unique/powerful plants.
Disenchanting other people's weapons/gear however, was the fastest way to get these materials, especially for the Blood Elves who literally did not mine anything themselves, and acquired most resources via trade with the Humans.
One fifth of this material was set aside for Varrus to experiment with. The rest was set to be used on strengthening building materials.
Since he possessed such an incredible level of Enchanting due to the Skyrim UI, Varrus decided he would personally undertake this tedious mission of enchanting every brick, so long as the materials lasted.
Varrus had seen how weak their infrastructure was, and was disgusted that some fire or the brute force of some basic zombies could tear down such a fair city. So he set the enchanters to reinforce the buildings by placing a spell of sturdiness upon every brick.
Should Deathwing, or any other attack come down upon his city, he hoped that this reform would help save the people in the periphery, and maybe even protect those at ground zero.
Nodding at the tired looking enchanters, Varrus nodded at them, and silently left. They still had thousands of items to disenchant, and while in game, your character just wiggled their hands, and boom 5-15 seconds later, it was disenchanted. In the real world, disenchanting was a strenuous mental task that could result in explosion if one became distracted.
So yeah, Varrus had mad respect for the people grinding like that.
The engineers and inscribers shared the same room, as there were only two apiece per profession.
There were actually a sizable number of engineers in Silvermoon, but they were mostly under Telonicus in the Royal Engineer Corp. But it was still nowhere near as popular as the other two crafts.
His engineers were hard at work drawing up designs for buildings, water ways, gardens, farms, and everything in between.
The two inscribers, meanwhile, were studying an old tome, and practicing their calligraphy on a dozen sheets of paper.
Occasionally, the inscribers would collaborate with the engineers, and discuss which inscriptions were to be placed upon finished buildings, and where would be the most artistically pleasing location for the script.
In Highborn society, inscription was the least popular profession. Now in a Dwarf hold, inscribers would hold a venerated position as a rune carver. However, over here, inscribers were seen as the poor man's enchanter.
To an Elf, an enchanted object was more versatile, and the only thing inscribing had going for it, was that it looked fancy. Everyone liked having glowing words on their sign posts, rings, swords, or statues, but how useful was magic cursive when you could learn how to enchant a belt that doubles your size?
Personally, Varrus could see the value in runes/magical text, but in Elf culture, it wasn't highly regarded, and that was reflected by the fact that of his 100+ crafting subordinates, only 2 of them were inscribers.
Varrus shook his head, and moved on.
He had yet to inspect the smithy, and had bricks to cast.
Varrus couldn't wait until he hit max level in Smithing. Just what would be the look on his contemporary faces when he made a brick have Legendary toughness?
Before he exited the house, he passed by one more hallway. Loud noises of pleasure, and screams of ecstasy echoed from each room. This was a place of communal exchange, one Varrus had set up to encourage a speedy repopulation of Blood Elves.
As immortals that had just faced death for the first time in thousands of years, some of these normally prudish Elves became rather freaky.
Picking up the pace so that no rumors of him spending any amount of time here spread to his wife, Varrus kept his head down, and kept his thoughts strictly about forging.
No peeking on super model tier Elves getting it on in the other room. There is only iron!
No listening to that girl who boasted about transfiguring herself into an 8ft tall giantess. There is only steel!
Striding purposefully down the hallway, Varrus kept his mind on the mission at hand!
He could learn how to make Syra temporarily taller (or much shorter) than him another day! Besides...he still had to get his hands on that chef's outfit after all…
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AN: Read FOUR WEEKS ahead of public release at: patreon.com/KarpQQ