For some, recovering from tragedy as much as they had experienced is a sombre, sobering time. They hold a candlelight vigil, with paintings and pictures on a shrine, leaving gifts of flowers or notes. They might find the faith to pray, or loneliness enough to hide themselves away to come to terms with such things privately. But here in Suramar, among those high towers that face the stars, they handle things their own way. With arcwine and games and music that stretches into the long night.
And for others, they get to work.
Erin sat in a quiet booth overlooking the rest of Mirage, an ironically accurate name for such a place considering the city they stood in. She’d been in sleazy speakeasies, dangerous dives, hometown bars full of students fresh out of class and even the ever-busy Octopus. But this place was different, and it fit Erin’s aesthetics perfectly- or maybe it was the other way round. Polished and immaculate, every surface was enchanted with magical displays of various exotic creatures. Erin’s table displayed a phoenix in vivid glory, as it soared silently and exploded with brilliant colours. Clearly, dragons had gone out of fashion in the past few years and the ever-hungry Suramari upper class had moved to their next obsession. It wasn’t just them here, though. An illusion of her own wasn’t entirely necessary. Since the war, some locales in the city had become more open to the idea of other peoples, even those from the Alliance. Especially with the influence of Dalaran so close by, curiosity trumped politics, as long as you do your best to blend in. Erin wore her hair bright, that red she had chosen as a show of individuality, of change from her old self, and a challenge to those who underestimated her. She sat comfortably in a long black dress which she could only hope was flattering, and swirled her arcwine, having already spied the shadow that grew in the corner of her eye and came next to her.
“You took your time.” She scoffed and took a sip, not wanting to take her eyes off the room. He was a high elf, just about as tall as her but of a fuller build, and she tried to not pay attention as he adjusted something under his sleeve which she could only assume was a cuff link. “Blame me for trying to make this authentic. You think those illusions will hold?” He glanced at her, and Erin patted the bottom of her heels with a flat sort of thud, her hand colliding with a space that would fit the shape of a normal shoe. “We’ve got about an hour before it goes melty on you. Let’s get this done?”
A waitress came by and offered them another arcwine, and from the platter Erin took two and placed them solely in front of herself. The energy of the evening was only getting started, as new groups of people poured in and filled out the remaining tables and spaces across the room. Erin spied a far table, behind a man who had just lost a crippling hand at poker, and set her eyes on the individual.
“I’ve got them.” She nodded.
“Where?” Her companion asked, desperate to lock eyes before losing them again. Erin pointed and guided his sight to a woman with silver hair and purple eyes. “Are you sure? Plenty of women look like that nowadays. Trust me, I’d know.”
Erin snapped her fingers to recall a small photograph and showed it to him. It was her for sure. Silver hair, purple eyes. Only the girl in the picture was dead, with all the hallmark signs of her mana being drained straight from the marrow.
His brows furrowed but soon stood up, ready for action. “Keep an eye on me?”
“I can come with you?” Erin asked, but a hand rebuffed her. “You’ve done your job.” He said. “Now let me do mine.”
Erin watched as he slid across the floor, an unstoppable aura of sheer confidence in his own good looks surrounding him. She couldn’t fault him for that. He was the perfect bait. He sat down across from the woman, and didn’t skip a beat.
“Sollan Suncrown. I’ll buy you a round?”
Erin couldn’t hear the whole conversation from across here, but by the fact he bought her a whole bottle of arcwine and found her laughing at whatever awful jokes he must be telling, she almost worried that maybe she was mistaken and had just inadvertently set him up with his next date. But Sollan moved quickly, and had taken her by the hand before following her into a privately booked room on the corner of the tower.
Erin mumbled to herself with her eyes sealed on the door.
“Come on… don’t make me wait.”
And she did not have to wait for long.
CRASH!
Erin could hear a window shatter and raced into the room from her seat. Amid pieces of exploded glass and a broken table, Sollan stood and grappled with the woman as she tried to leap through the window. From his sleeve extended a long thin band of runecloth, sigils glowing with silent magic running down its length as it coiled around the woman.
“See?” Sollan smirked at her. “I remember when we caught this one back in the day. Tracked it halfway across Northrend to find it. But I know all its tricks now. A Manadrinker disguises itself as its intended victim before it hunts.”
“Can you seal it then?” Erin glanced at the Manadrinker, seeing an uncanny resemblance to that poor woman from the photo but with no spark behind her eyes, only a pale magical aura.
Sollan drew a piece of parchment from his pocket with his free hand, and began to incant from it.
“Silence the song, tie the threads…”
“Seriously?” Erin shouted. “You didn’t think to prepare it beforehand?”
Sollan grunted as his concentration broke. “Let me focus, and…”
The Manadrinker’s form shifted ethereally, revealing its true ephemerally humanoid shape as the bindings on Sollan’s runecloth suppressed its magic, and yet did not diminish its strength enough. The Manadrinker wriggled free and slipped out the window and up onto the top of the tower.
“Damnit! We have to get after it, if it gets away there’s no telling if we’ll be able to find it again!”
Sollan ran up to the broken window and climbed onto an outer railing. Erin took the easy route, finding an angle where she could see the top and teleported herself up there. But by the time they were, the Manadrinker had leapt to another rooftop.
“It’s a good thing I preloaded.” Erin snarked, and grabbed Sollan by the shoulder. “I’ll try get you close again. What’s the range on your thing?”
“About ten feet!”
“Stars, don’t they come any longer?”
“Blame the guy who enchanted it!”
Erin and Sollan warped from tower to tower, building to building, illuminated only by the faint lights of magical parties dancing beneath them and the pale light of a moon they no longer worshipped. At each step Sollan threw his runecloth out from his sleeve only to find the Manadrinker slip out of its grasp. They crossed over the midnight markets who looked up and gasped at the spectacle, until they came to a drop.
The Manadrinker leapt down into a grand garden filled with willows and paved stone paths, and slipped into the crowds of a masquerade.
Erin and Sollan followed closely, making their way past socialites and networkers. The Manadrinker was nowhere to be seen here- if they were unlucky, it could already have taken on a new identity.
“Give me a second…” Erin dragged her feet as she breathed heavily and slid herself up against a pillar to quaff another load of arcwine to restore some measure of strength. “I just need to… I just need to catch my breath…”
But when she looked up, Sollan was gone. Her heart sank. How did she miss him? Damn! Her heart pumped harder and she dove back into the crowds, caring not for the idiot she made of herself as she shouted his name.
“Sollan! I can’t see you! Wh-”
He stumbled out of the crowd and placed a hand on her shoulder, and a finger over his lip, before leading her farther down the garden.
“Where did you go?” She asked, and followed him blindly. “I look away for two seconds and you’re gone!” He held that finger against his mouth again as they walked. “What? Why?” Erin asked as he led her into a quiet alley, just as she realised her mistake. His eyes had no spark.
“You..!”
Erin whirled around and sent a surge of telekinetic energy through the stones in front of her, causing them to rise like a shockwave and blast her enemy away. But as the smoke cleared, it was gone. She felt cold, arcane hands with nails and tattoos just like hers clutching her neck, and turned her head just enough to see a woman with red hair and a long black dress.
Erin felt the magic slowly be drawn from her body. Her eyes blurred, her fingers went numb. She struggled against the Manadrinker as much as she could but she wasn’t strong enough.
She began to fade.
Grrrk!
The Manadrinker reeled as its head was yanked back, a runecloth binding snared around its neck with Sollan on the other end. He wrestled it with both hands, doing his best to not let it escape again. Erin stumbled forwards as she was freed and crashed against the alley wall and bled from her nose violently, but she was conscious and she would not go down without a fight. Sollan was soon overpowered, the Manadrinker yanking the runecloth from its end and slamming Sollan into the brickwork. He dropped the binding, and the Manadrinker tried to flee again, but Erin wouldn’t let it. She levitated the binding from a distance and launched it towards the arcane monster, coiling around it like a snake crushing its prey. For every time it took a step she wrapped it around its legs, every time it ripped the bindings Erin ensnared its arms thrice more, until the entire length of the runecloth binding was spent.
“Sollan, now!”
He grabbed the parchment from his pocket and sung.
“Silence the song, tie the threads,
The woven spell must go unsaid.
Ground the storm, snuff the flame,
And your magic be reclaimed!”
Each glyph running the length of the binding lit up in succession until every single one glowed, until a powerful shockwave exploded out from The Manadrinker and engulfed it in light. Sollan wandered over to the runecloth heap and dug his hand inside to find a pearl of condensed pure energy.
“Finally..” He stretched and slid down onto the floor to rest his head against the wall, and Erin came and sat beside him.
They rested for some time there, slowly recovering. Sollan coughed and stifled a gurgle, before looking at Erin.
“That’s my job for today done.”
Erin washed the blood from her nose and sobered herself up. “You sure? I was gonna go back in there…”
“You’re crazy. You’re insane! You were internally bleeding a few minutes ago.”
Erin shrugged. “Crazy for chasing down a killer magical entity? Sure. But I really would be insane if I just paid a hundred gold to get us into that bar and just have it go to waste. Sucks for you, but you’re the only person I know who’s awake, so…”
Erin was generous enough to give him thirty minutes rest before dragging him back to Mirage, determined to make the most of the City of Night.