(Closed. Fellen & Zaeram. Might open if asked. PG13)

[Feljager]

Something Other than Love is in the Air.



Fellen had never quite understood the habits and behaviors of humans. They belonged to such a short lived species, their lives passing in the blink of an elven eye, that almost everything they seemed to pursue looked to be distinctly tinged with that sense of absolute finality. They ran around day after day, manic when they were not inebriated or asleep, chasing dreams they would never live long enough to realize, or slaving to others that were caught in a similar fruitless quest. So when they took to celebrating something seasonal and trivial the demon hunter could only observe and ponder.



Their spring ceremonies particularly perplexed him. The Lunar Festival he understood well enough, as that was elven in origin, but the celebration of love, with heart decorations and indulgent candies and confections, was awash with humanities design. He had been assigned to Stormwind, as there was a terse alliance between the Illidari and the races of the Alliance of Azeroth, and was happy to comply to that command issued to him by Kayan, but he still walked the city streets with a sour expression and avoiding the happiest of the celebrants during this festival period.



The air was sick with perfumes and disgustingly sweet odors. The residents were acting like children or morons, though Fellen really didn’t see the difference between those two categories. Goblin and gnome vendors peddled trinkets and gift wares from wagons or hastily erected stands, and that was the most egregious aspect of the whole situation. That supposedly intelligent adults, of all races, were placing any trust in a folk as shifty and untrustworthy as either a goblin or a gnome, when what was being purchased often either went into the mouth or onto the skin, was categorically beyond him. Goblins least of any. At the very least the gnomes were descendants of the Titan-forged Mechagnomes and therefore bore within them a tiny spark of something at least somewhat noble. Fellen had no idea from where goblins originated but he knew nothing of them until the last few decades and that in itself indicated they were beneath contempt and well beneath consideration as anything other than a distraction.



At least at any other time than this.



As he and his partner walked the streets of the Dwarven Distinct he watched as a couple, of all repulsive things a human male and an elf female, so little more than beastiality really, purchased some kind of potion from an otherwise upstanding goblin peddler. They exchanged their monies, more than a handful of gold was passed over, and then went off snickering and chortling about how it would feel good from her to make love to him for once. This made the couple and the goblin snicker like idiots and it made Fellen glare at them in disbelief.



How would a potion facilitate the impossible? Was she going to sodomize him with the bottle? He doubted this as the container had little by way of necking and was heart shaped with a bulbous symmetry and almost nothing in the form of a neck and spout. Besides, that was horribly inefficient even for an elf that was clearly of so little self worth and intelligence that she lowered herself to gleeful fornification with an animal.



However there was such enchantment being bandied about in those Love Philtres that were being passed off to unsuspecting, or perhaps suspecting, purchasers that this potion might well produce some as-of-yet unstated alteration. Something that would allow a female to penetrate a male.



The Terrorguard within him stirred. He turned his attention inward and considered the caged and bonded seed that empowered him. Something familiar. Something ancient and unspoken. He tightened the chains that held the creature in place and memories oozed out like blood from a wound clenched too tightly in a tourniquet.



Sayaadi.



Demons of the Burning Legion.



Creatures of the Twisting Nether.



Seductresses and interrogation specialists that delight in misery caused by mental anguish and emotional torment. They who have lied and deceived every race outside the Legion and even most of those within as well. They had an ability such as this. A transformative capacity to attain truly hermaphrodite characteristics.



His face contorted as this information came to him. Rage seethed to the surface and his perpetually glowing body tattoos surged with emerald electricity. His glowing jade gaze, artificial entirely as he had ripped out his organic eyes when he became a hunter of the Fel, burned with an angry light. He loathed nothing as much as the Fel and all those that consorted with it. He knew not what lay within this potion but he was going to find out before the Legion, and the insidious Sayaadi, infected three quarters of the population of Azeroth with some vile brew concocted out of succubus juices.



He motioned to his companion, the Red Shark called Zaeram, a subtle nod of his head and horns at the diminutive goblin seller to determine if she had seen the exchange and had stumbled upon the same suspicion. Perhaps he was mistaken. It could be feasible that through alchemical and enchanted means a goblin could produce something like the effect Fellen had envisioned in his warped mind. But the alternative was too horrible to contemplate and wherever the Fel concealed itself a demon hunter was obliged by very purpose to tear it out of its hiding place and burn it into oblivion.

[Zaeram]

Zaeram was only a step behind her Master, observing all around her, and much like Fellen she wasn't too terribly impressed with what she was seeing. To her this was one more festival that just seemed like all the other festivals that she just didn't understand. It was all so alien to her, why celebrate... anything? All this sound and fury signifying nothing in her mind and maybe it was because of how she was raised she realized as her childhood and much of her adulthood until she became a demon hunter was... unconventional to say the least. There were no festivals where she had grown up, there was no celebrating anything unless the Mistress was in the mood to do so and usually that involved... The Red Shark snarled to herself turning her thoughts from that dark path which garnered her a frightened glance from a gnome passerby as he hunched over and scurried out of her sight faster than he would have done otherwise. No, she didn't understand it and she resigned herself to the fact she never would and that was probably for the best all told. She had never had a 'normal' life and she never would, it was as simple as that, anything more would invite a path to her ruination in more way than one and Fellen had taught her to be stronger than such silly base desires. 

Trying not to curl her nose as they passed yet another goblin perfume stall squirting people with their dubious samples, it was starting to give her a headache as it was messing with her highly specialized sense of smell. Occasionally she'd cover her nose and snort trying to clear her sinuses, but it was getting impossible to keep to clearer air as a cunning or idiotic goblin handed a perfume gun to a human child with a mischievous grin and was given license to go give others 'samples' for him. Lovely. Luckily her hideous and dangerous baring kept the kid from trying to nail Zaeram or Fellen with the malodorous liquid, but it didn't stop him from fouling up the atmosphere around them. While both she and her Master were into torture in more ways than one, this was above and beyond even for her especially with her shark-like ability of tracking scents that a bloodhound would be envious of. 

Finally the little boy misstepped on a cobblestone that jutted out a bit too much and Zaeram had been watching for just such an opportunity as she flicked one of her clawed fingers summoning a little bit of fel energy that invisibly zipped to the perfume gun he held and knocked it out of his loose grip due to his mind being more on his near-trip. The gun 'jumped' out of his hands and if she had calculated the trajectory correctly, she watched without moving her head as the gun sailed through the air and broke on one of the wooden pillars of the goblin's perfume stall. There the bulb holding the noxious liquid broke as it all landed on and drenched the goblin peddler who had given it out in the first place, even getting in his beady little eyes.

The small creature howled in pain over the fluid burning his eyes as a very small malicious grin bloomed on the Red Shark's face, not that anyone would know she was smiling over that considering she was facing the opposite way the whole time and rapidly moving away from the offending area still trailing her Master. Thankfully they moved into an area of cleaner air as a light breeze blew through letting her take a breath and finally manage to clear her sinuses to her relief. However her relief wasn't to last that long as she sensed her Master become focused and concerned with something as she drew up closer to him to look in the direction he was. There was yet another stall selling some sort of potion that people seemed readily interested in and with a tentative sniff she realized thankfully it wasn't perfume. She watched a female draenei purchase a vial of this concoction and then giggling foolishly she ran back to another female of the same species as the two kissed, the vial held between them lovingly as if it was their child.

Cocking her head she used her superior hearing to zero in on them over the crowd's din as they giggled and talked, "So use it now or tonight?" the first said with a flirty look towards the other.

"Ooh, let's go on the boat ride first through the canals and maybe after that? I am curious but I want to be ready for it too..." the other cooed as they shared a kiss.

The first grinned like a cat that had stolen all the milk in the creamery, "Mm, sounds good, or I could drink it in the boat and give you a double ride around Stormwind..."

Perking a brow Zaeram quickly put two and two together as she realized what the potion did, it let the female change her reproductive anatomy apparently. 

How... odd. And people thought she and her Master were sexual deviants - which they were, but they evidently were rather vanilla when it came to liking and sticking with the anatomy they were born with.

Looking to her Master she caught his silent query as she regarded him for a moment and then followed his unspoken logic that this might be fel-based. It wouldn't be the first time such things had been done, warlocks often summoned demons to distill essences from them, why even Lord Illidan had done such things to make his fel orcs back in Outland. Although Illidan had done it to fight the Burning Legion, not give people a strange thrill for gold and she could see how this might get out of hand if not investigated. Nodding to Fellen signalling she understood, she put a hand lazily on the hilt of one of her two swords showing her readiness to follow him in finding the source of this bizarre concoction. First she figured he'd want to 'speak' with the goblin peddlers, but she waited for his lead...

[Feljäger]

She confirmed she was of a like mind, at least regarding there being possible Fel afoot, and then her instincts clicked in and her hand slid casually to the hilt of one of her weapons.

He smirked at her, flashing a fang and flicking the loop in his lower lip at her for a passing moment. Amused more than anything else.

They were partners, in more ways than one, as Fellen occasionally introduced her to others as ‘his wife’, but they truly could not be more different. Indeed they were well matched; fanatical, ruthless, addicts to pain and artists in its delivery, beats that had dominated their demon seeds mostly due to the fact they were already more monstrous in many ways than the beast from which they cut out the meal of a heart. But for all that they continued to walk in very different worlds.

She was a warrior first and foremost. A hunter and a slayer of the Fel. She was as far beyond him in raw power as he was beyond the humans they currently slummed with, and that guided most of her actions. She craved combat and bloodshed the way he craved privacy and the gentle flow of blood carefully and artistically liberated from a screaming victim. She was already ready for, and always seeking, a fight of some kind. He was always ready for, and always seeking, his next victim.

They were both predators but they hunted different prey. They were drawn to different thrills. It was why he was the master and she was his student. It began even before they took the demon blood and became Illidari. It was true that he was grooming her but not as a replacement, per se. She couldn’t possibly replace him, as she was nothing like him in that respect. He cultivated pain and domination of others they way she mastered battle and dominated her enemy.

The key difference in them was that she had an enemy. That was solid and unquestionable. She was a fanatic, an Illidari, for vengeance against the Burning Legion as much as for the sake of sacrifice and the salvation of life. Fellen didn’t have the same kind of enemy. Oh, they did share the Burning Legion, all Illidari had that in common, but he wasn’t a slayer of demons as an act of vendetta. His enemy was not just the Legion or Sargeras. His enemy was, in many ways, the races of Azeroth themselves. They were his victims. He didn’t hate the Legion for what they did to him… he hated the Legion because they showed him he was not the worst thing in the universe. That his righteous crusade, before the War of Ancients, was a hoax he perpetrated upon himself. That his reality was a lie and that he was a fool. He had never, and would never, forgive that insult. If he couldn’t be the monster, the pinnacle predator of elvenkind, then he would make sure the real monster and the real predator was destroyed. The Legion became his new victim pool. He would become the worst thing by preying upon what was proven to be worst thing in the cosmos. He would rise above them all and burn them to the foundation and stand the pinnacle monster in all creation… right before he was cut down.

“We only just got out of the stockade,” he reminded her softly, under his breath enough for her to hear, or any other elf, but would be just illegible whispers to most others.

“Get a sample of this potion, pay for it, and then attempt to intimidate the goblin enough to reveal his supplier or the crafter than supplies him.”

She would replace him some day. At least in some capacity. So she had to learn these ways without him. Of course if he did die so long before her she would not be pulled out of the classification she currently held within the Illidari, that of a front line killing machine, to do what he did and stay behind as merely a reservist. No Illidari commander was that stupid to let so precious a weapon go unused. Regardless she needed to be put into positions to think as he did, to use his tactics and apply his skills, for the possible day when she might have to do so without him being there to watch and advise.

“Give me your weapons,” he then said flatly as he held out his hands.

He carried only a single dagger on his side. A far cry from the massive warglaives he sported into combat. The weapon was little more than a tool for Fellen. A device crafted and perfected for fine cuts and the flaying of flesh. Not a combat or defensive weapon. Zaeram, again, was not cut of the same cloth and she seldom went anywhere without her principle weapons at her side. Which was expected, as she could be called upon at a moment to enter combat, but it also was something of a crutch for her as well. Intimidation did not require weapons, and in some situations they would only result in the long term as a negative. So here she would need to apply her skills without turning by instinct to her blades.

For the time being he was still the master. His command was law. In time that may well change, but not this day.

[Zaeram]

"We only just got out of the stockade."

Instantly her hand was off the hilt of her sword like it had become a white-hot brand scorching her palm, but no other facial tick or body language escaped in conjunction with her Master's reminder as if her hand had never been on the sword in the first place.

"Get a sample of this potion, pay for it, and then attempt to intimidate the goblin enough to reveal his supplier or the crafter than supplies him."

Again, her angular visage didn't seem to register the command on any level except for the slight but firm nod of her horned head towards Fellen as she started towards the goblin stall in question but his hand jutting out stopped her dead in her tracks.

"Give me your weapons."

Quickly she unstrapped the sheaths that held her bone swords and handed them over without any hesitation on her part of any sort, she was too well trained to disobey however deep within her a small inner part of her quavered. Finding it quickly she squashed it reminding herself that this was just another part of her training as set by her Master. One day she'd have to do such things alone, thus she must take every advantage to learn from him while she still could. One day she would become the Master, but not yet, not yet, although she was eternally grateful to Fellen that she'd never again be someone's 'Pet' ever again. He was making her stronger, better and hopefully one day she could do the same to another - do her part to make sure there'd never be a person made 'Pet' to a demon 'Owner' again.

Once more she set out toward the stall of dubious wares and regarded the small green creatures that ran the operation with giant noses, ears and grins that made even the ugliest demons seem elegant in comparison with them. Briefly wondering where on Azeroth they had originated as they truly did not look like any other race on this world which almost made her wonder if they were demonic transplants, but her special vision gave lie to that thought. As she drew closer beady eyes trained on her accompanied by a ridiculous grin that was condescending trying to masquerade as hospitable. Zaeram smiled back in a mockery of trying to be personable but she knew full well what showing off her shark teeth did and it was far from friendly.

The goblin balked at her fishy grin for just a brief moment and then recovered but she knew he realized who the bigger predator was here in this exchange, still his bravado in garnering a sale shown through as he launched into his speel, "Greetings my Lady Illidari! Interested in some assistants in spicing up your love life - not that I'd gather it's all too boring to begin with."

Zaeram snorted as she allowed a small smirk to grace her thin, cracked lips, "Yes, I am particularly interested in the potion you sold to the draenei lady not just a moment ago..."

His greed was palatable, "Ah! Yes, our special, selling like hot cakes, be glad you came up now as we're almost out," he wasted air speaking as he reached down and produced the vial of the potion in question for her to inspect with her 'eyes' only it seemed, "Fifty gold and no refunds, Gumman and Co is not responsible for permanent mutations and for erections longer than four hours, consider it a bonus or seek a healer immediately."

The legal-ese the goblin yammered off just made her grin get bigger as she wondered if they actually thought any of that was important in the long run or not. Would the Burning Legion be stopped by such Without missing a beat, she moved suddenly, making the goblin jump slightly as she then slowly produced her money purse from out of nowhere and then counted out the gold slowly without her eerie gaze ever leaving the green shyster.

"Mm, sounds like a deal, but I must ask, can I speak with the maker of your fine products? I need to check if there’s anything in there that might mess with… my condition,” she said as she put an arm between her gold and him protectively.

While the smaller creature was highly unsettled by her, if not downright scared, his eyes narrowed as he seemed to sober up and just waggled the vial knowingly at her, “One would think,” he said softly, “For someone that drank demon blood and grew all sorts of appendages, that one little potion that adds just one more wouldn’t be that big of a deal to you. You want it or not?”

Zaeram growled low realizing words would not get information out of this one save for brute force which she couldn’t do especially since she just got out of the gaol with her Master not very long ago, but shoved the money in his direction making him jump once more and snatched the vile vial out of his hands before he could do or say anything else and stalked back to her Master. Handing the potion over to Fellen she actually looked slightly nonplussed, not that it would be remotely noticeable to anyone save her Master that knew her better than anyone living currently.

Finally she spoke quietly so only her could hear, “I could not get them to say their supplier, but they did say their company name which is not on their marquee, a Gumman and Co.”

[Feljager]

Fellen pretended to ignore the exchange but his elven ears were alert and focused in on the conversation. As an outside ear he was keenly aware of the tone of the goblin's voice, the tempo with which he spoke, and the nature of any possible subtext. As his first time to ever pay such close attention to the way a goblin spoke he was immeidately struck with the overall lack of subtext. What little there was came as overt as if he was just stating it aloud. He also hardly measured his tone or cadence, such that his emotions were bore on his sleeve and were as clear as the large and bulbous nose on his misshapen face. There wasn't any effort to hide information, and when he was pressured, though his trepidation was obvious, his focus remained squarely on the art of the deal. He had something to sell, people wanted it, and he didn't need to hunt for customers. He knew what he had and he wasn't about to waste time trying to make a hard sell when an easy dupe was always just around the corner.

His partner went soft on the goblin but he had insisted she do so. If her presence, that stuck fear into the goblin's heart, could not move him to be reveal information than there wasn't anything more she really could have done. There wasn't anything more Fellen could have done. Either the small, green, misshapen creature had no information to give or he was focused enough on his goal of profit that a threatening face was as easy to dismiss as any other.

Fellen surmised it was a combination of the two. The peddler didn't know anything, probably because he didn't need to, and he was totally focused on making as many sales as he could.

Buy or don't buy. It didn't matter to him.

Again the demon hunter had to extend a grudging respect to another of the shorter lived species. If all goblins were made of the same stuff perhaps the Illidari could use a few of them as allies. They clearly had similar business acumen to the gnomes with far less annoying habits. If they were trustworthy had yet to be seen but his preliminary exposure currently seemed promising.

The money was exchanged and Zaeram returned. She was not entirely pleased with herself. The situation had left her mildly confused and unsure of herself. He took the potion in his hands, the same heart shaped container of clear glass with the milky pink and slightly viscous fluid within, and then regarded his protege with a smile that was genuinely pleasant. He was ever only pleasant to Illidari, and usually less so to anyone besides Zaeram. They were well matched after all and he did genuinely care for her. Few friends were ever made or kept within the Illidari, their lives were too dangerous and extreme for such liberties, but none of them could survive on their own. Only Illidan seemed so blessed, as was his right as a creature that moved worlds and upon whom entire the destiny of an entire world was dependent.

He nodded gently to her words and leaned closer to her so his whispering would be heard by no other, not even another elf nearby.

"You did well. This one will not be intimidated short of a blade. I am proud of your efforts."

Those that knew Fellen well were always assured of one fact. If he spoke to another Illidari his words were always honest. He did not lie to his own kind and the Illidari were his people now. He may not speak at all, as silence spoke volumes from such a being, but if words came from him in Demonic, the language of lies for all born of the Fel, then his veracity and honesty were above being questioned.

He was proud of her. He was always proud of her. She was his masterpiece. She was a masterful killing machine with the same sense of devotion to their cause that Fellen carried. She was better than him in all ways he could measure. His only field of expertise that was superior to hers was his level of the deplorable. He could get inside a victims head, scoop out what would torment them the most, and then find very creative means to force them to confront that horror. His skill at pain, of all kinds, was seldom approached and rarely surpassed. It was not a skill he would teach her. I was not a skill he could teach her, as the sense of it had to come from within and from a place of darkness that hungered for misery and thirsted for the destruction of others.

All demon hunters suppressed and wrestled with demons. One they consumed that was born in the twisting nether and several others they brought with them when they cut out a Felborn heart and bathed their souls in that tainted blood. His was that hunger for the destruction of others. He controlled it by turning it against the Burning Legion and against those foolish Illidari that thought they could contain something as powerful as an Eredar but clearly had erred at the onset.

He held the potion and looked at her. His Zaeram. She was a marked beauty in his fel-flecked gaze and no other aside of Illidan was as important to him.

"Let us go," he said a little louder. Nothing he said now was beyond an eavesdropper, if anyone in their presence could even speak Demonic of course. "I sense nothing Fel from this potion as yet but we need to be certain."

[Zaeram]

At first Zaeram wasn’t entirely sure how her Master might reprimand her for her failure and while he could get very creative with his punishments she knew she had tried to do as he said and he was not her former Mistress. Fellen didn’t punish without cause unlike the demoness that was now trapped within her as her fel seed. His nod was reassuring but when he drew closer she tensed oh so slightly as his hot breath tickled her ribbed ear with his soft words.

"You did well. This one will not be intimidated short of a blade. I am proud of your efforts."

Turning to ‘look’ at him, she stayed on guard, not relaxing but not sure how to react. Usually when he praised her it was after a strenuous session of training between the two and even then words of praise were still hard for her to take. Due to her background she didn’t understand them, they had always been used like weapons against her, praise didn’t always mean what it did on the surface in the eredar world as if they were used something bad was coming her way and fast. Zaeram didn’t understand love, not like these ‘normals’ swirling around them celebrating a festival to the emotion, she knew she didn’t understand it and for the most part she was fine in living a life without it as it was something she saw that got in the way of what must be done overall, or at least when she seen the romantic attachment take hold in others.

Fellen’s words again made her feel… odd. Her chest tight and her face flush which thankfully didn’t show thanks to her shark-like skin, and she wasn’t sure what to do with such feelings. Thus she calmly breathed out of her nose and tried to stuff them away as now was not the time or the place to do anything with them. Once more she reminded herself, they were monsters and monsters do not love, they killed and sacrificed so that others may continue to love and have stupid celebrations about it and that was quite simply, that.

"Let us go, I sense nothing Fel from this potion as yet but we need to be certain."

Nodding she looked ready to follow him to wherever he directed her to go although his words made her cock her head to one side like a bird as she wondered how he’d test the potion. However it wasn’t her place to ask out loud as she just waited for his next series of orders or for him to start walking again and she’d just fall into step behind him, guarding his back, with or without her swords as she wasn’t about to be so rude to ask for them back. Fellen was her Master after all and she didn’t question him in the least.

[Feljäger]

His apprentice was stymied by praise, it was an antithesis to her, something alien and negative within her past. A balm too soothe just before another brutality was heaped upon her. Eredar made his efforts as a monster look like the babbling play of an infant by comparison. Creatures such as the Eredar is why he became a demon hunter, their mastery of misery was leagues more refined than his own, and he had been practicing his arts of pain and torture for tens of thousands of years. She was a product of torments that robbed her of positivity. He related to this and despite her reactions he would not cease the behaviors. He didn't give her praise very often, because seeking praise was weakness and reduced the true focus of a student, but when it was due he would not be remiss.

She nodded and he held his hands out again, returning what was taken so she may be armed. It served him no good to prevent her from being the masterful weapon she had been molded into, and those weapons were a tool of beauty and death in her hands.

Then he turned and lead her back to the hidden quarters that the Illidari currently used within the parapet that was provided them by the Lords Council and the King of Stormwind. A facility too small for them by a head, that smelled of old gun powder and the lichen that crumbles stone and mortar, and was difficult to climb down into for the nature of the square portal being only sufficient for a human and their stature being that of former Kaldorei.

Despite the effort and discomfort the pair wriggled down into the old powder rooms of the rebuilt park quarter and began their investigation.

****************************************************************************************

The next morning Fellen and his companion were out again with a new mission.

The potion proved to have no Fel taint but through conversation they came to the conclusion that the goblin probably was not the only dealer and his potion of transformation was probably not the only such alchemical concoction on the market. There was still a possible threat of rampant Fel corruption and it was something that they simply could not allow. They needed to seek out as many variations on the theme as they could. As many potions as could be located, as many mixtures and permutations on the mixture as existed, until they could be confident that the trade in such formulations was not being exploited by the evil that every Illidari was devoted to destroying.

The season being what it was, and an affront to both of their sensibilities, Fellen realized the opportunity was ripe to test themselves. The city was massive and they were on something of a time frame, as the festival would come and go in due time, and the offering they were seeking might well vanish with the myriad perfumes and candies and other disgusting merchandise. To make efficient use of their time they divided what gold they had and split up.

To save her nose Zaeram was appointed the mage and temple districts. Fellen would cover the dwarven and old town districts and they would meet again at the strike of two in the afternoon to cover the market district. They would have to acquire as many of the products as they possibly could, and by his mandate theft was a totally reasonable alternative to purchase. Any vendor that could not be haggled and charged more than fifty gold for a sample, that also could not have a sample stolen without clearly risking another encounter with the Stormwind guard, would have to be memorized so that they could find other, more violent means, of attaining what they required.

Of course if any potion was found that emanated with Fel taint while in the bottle they could just simply start there... however Fellen also desired a selection of the potions for future experiments.

[Zaeram]

It had been a very long day, and it showed with Zaeram’s sour mood as she stood at the assigned meeting point at the very stroke of two as the bells sounded resolutely throughout the city. There was a small, rough burlap sack at her feet bulging with a multitude of vials with various questionable liquids. While it looked like she had procured quite a few, she only had five vials all told but had also gained a near-hatred of goblin-kind in the process. While she didn’t hate them like she did demons, she was getting there. The clever, greedy things had vexed her to no end this day as haggling was not her strong suit and intimidating them was hard to do when they knew they had the protection of the Guard within the city. If her Master would bring her one right now and told her she could have her way with it, oh she was in the mood for putting on a show in making it squeal and then making it dead.

The day started easily enough, Fellen had directed her away from the stinkier districts thankfully as she did like the Mage Quarter well enough, the grass streets and more natural setting was very attractive to many an elf, even the demon-tainted ones thus she felt strong prowling the soft streets for more peddlers of penile potions. The first stall she had come across was actually staffed by seedy looking humans, which she used her wiles and her cunning to twist them around her claws, until their goblin manager happened to come along and ruined things for her. He had almost called the Guard and she probably gotten one of the humans fired from his job in that he deserted his station in chasing Zaeram for ‘favors’. She was lucky to have gotten away with their product and nothing worse had happened.

It was just the tip the crapburg for the day as everytime she thought she had the upper hand, she did not for one reason or another, the only bright point of her day was when in the Cathedral District she got to see these ‘new types’ of elves that were calling themselves ‘void elves’ or Ren’dorei who were really just glorified highborne, getting ‘escorted’ out of the Cathedral of Light to varying degrees. After one was bodily thrown out she repressed her mirth as she gave the male a slight nod of her head in acknowledgement when he looked in her direction, as if to say ‘welcome to the world of misfits and outcasts.’ Had the Illidari not gotten similar treatment from everyone when they were finally freed by the Wardens? Now it was their turn it seemed and for some reason that just amused the hell out of Zaeram.

Then on the note of being spurned for what she was, there was one stall that curiously refused to sell to ‘her kind’ as they put it. They had seemed like every other potions stall she had went to that day, but she wondered if news of her and Fellen’s visiting these particular stalls had gotten around among the sniveling green urchins and she had blown their investigation. She didn’t make a fuss when the goblin sneered at her in his refusal to sell, instead she let her other senses wash over him and she noted a particular tang developing on her pallet that was very familiar…

The Red Shark had wandered off and found a good place to watch the stall without being seen herself as she took on a vigil for a little over half-an-hour observing and noted she wasn’t the only Illidari turned away or heckled from that stand. Either they just hated their kind, or, they had a reason to fear demon hunters sniffing around. As it drew closer to the appointed time for her to meet with Fellen, she finally withdrew from her vantage point and left to where she now awaited her Master...

[Feljäger]

11’000 years ago Fellen had wandered other city streets. Elun’dris was a thousand times cleaner, a million times more elegant and beautiful than Stormwind, but the basic nature of any city was identical to every other. It was a home. More than that it was a place of trade. Trade of products, the trade of ideas, and the trade of desires. Peddlers of flesh were as old as trolls, as elves, and none of the newer creatures to Azeroth has a private claim to that often secret depravity.

Elves hid it well, dealt in it through innuendo and enigma. They had to. In a population that had no need to count years, as they believed they would be eternal, subtlety was essential. At least before the War of Ancients brought the beast into the world and tainted the games and mysteries of old.

Or perhaps the corruption started even before that age. With the curse of flesh that tainted the Titan-Forged and brought that noble race to its knees.

The younger races, short lived races, hardly had the elegance of older people's. They hid they sins badly, their corruption was as evident as the scent of their waste when the wind shifted just so. Finding peddlers in flesh was simplicity itself. Finding peddlers in toys and aides in the arts of depravity was just as simplistic. It helped that Fellen knew what to look for, he had long ago abandoned the light of city streets and learned to live in the shadows and prowl the underbelly of every population center.

Elves hid it better but they had all the same secrets, all the same shadows, that Stormwind offered. As he scouted the old town district he saw so many familiar sights and tracked so many familiar sounds, and marveled silently how open so many of those darker services were paraded almost right out in the open. The stands and vendors of the more lurid and dubious products were only just off the beaten path, not hidden behind closed doors or in the pockets of shifty individuals down darkened alleys. Perhaps it was the season or perhaps the culture was so seedy that those with nefarious agendas walked so much closer to the common folk. Whatever the reason they made themselves all to easy to locate if one just knew where to start looking.

Old town was largely the domain of goblins with a few gnomes that were selling what he wanted. The two diminutive species seemingly devoted toward competing with each other but in that near monopolized market their competition only helped drive prices up. Of course nothing Fel met his eyes during the search besides warlocks that were not affiliated with anyone he either watched or dealt with directly. Haggling was impossible but for two of the three bottles he purchased there was another aspect that proved worthwhile, thinly veiled threats. One Illidari was of no consequence, there were laws protecting the merchants and their goods, but he was not the only Illidari in Stormwind and even the most ill informed peddler knew that few groups were as tightly organized as the Illidari. He didn’t have to drop much of a hint that if he was not offered his asking price of half the normal gold value then there would be ramifications in the near future, in the dead of night, where no bars and no walls and no amount of guards could save a length and painful death by Fel fire.

It was the mention of the Fel that made the two goblins comply. Those that were not warlocks were rightly terrified of the Fel and given that his whole body glowed with the color of that damned power source it was hardly inconceivable that his threat wasn’t valid. Of course it wasn’t valid, it was bluster, but he had perfected the ability to lie millennium ago and profit margin wasn’t worth risking being burned alive in demon fire.

There were three other vendors that were charging far more than he could possibly afford and were not about to lower their price no matter what threats he offered. All gnomes. All clean of the Fel but certainly marked in his mind for visitation later that evening. If they were still around they would find their supplies reduced, prey for a shadow, fish fodder for a demon hunter and his red shark.

It was in the dwarven district that his interest was piqued. He was cruising the edge of the canal that bordered the region of the city when the scent came to him. The distinct and unmistakable scent of the Fel. Muted as all summoned demons always were, lacking the strong odor of the Burning Legion, but a demon was a demon in the eyes of the Illidari. The hunter immediately went to work, summoning his armour and his warglaives for the purpose of the hunt. Instantly he went from a curiosity to the onlookers he passed to something to be avoided if at all possible. He went from a demonic looking elf to a killer of demons and a heavily armed agent of violence.

If he wasn’t intent on the hunt he may have been stunned by the audacity of the gnome warlock. Down a narrow alley, such that Fellen had little room to move and virtually no room for his sweeping slashing weapons, the gnome male and his felhunter minion stood behind a stand that blocked the alley totally.

They both saw the demon hunter coming and immediately the beast intercepted Fellen but did not attack, standing defensively and snarling its maw of razor sharp teeth. The gnome hardly bat an eye however, his confidence was palpable and his disdain of Fellen as distinct as the scowl on his bulbous face.

“We don’t serve your kind here,” the gnome started.

Fellen smirked behind the mask and held his arms at his side, essentially because he had little choice with his glaives being impossible to use as intended in such a small space.

“You do now, Felwhore,” the hunter snarled, prompting the demon before him to growl and step a margin closer.

“Oh? And how are you going to ma….”

His sentence was never finished as the hunter moved with inhuman speed and slashed his glaives up as he leapt up. The beast cleanly cut up through each shoulder and dropping into a black, bloody heap as the Illidari rose. The glaives released, sailing up, lodging into the walls and sticking there as the hunter descended.

In moments the beast was gone, vanishing and returned to the twisting nether, as the warlock attempted to defend himself by casting Agony on the demon hunter. Pain flashed through Fellen but the shudder of agony swiftly became a cry of strained delight. His claws swept down and shattered the stand into splinters as each tiny, chubby, almost childlike arm was seized and wrenched out. It certainly hurt the gnome but would leave no lasting damage. Fellen waited for the spell to elapse as the gnome kicked and struggled but did not cry out, as he had suspected.

“I’m not going to make you do anything, worm,” he growled through his war mask, his eyes blazing emeralds. “You are going to give me what I want of your own choice.”

The gnome laughed and tried to appear indignant and overconfident, but his high opinion of himself had already flagged to near zero.

“Yeah, how do you figure that, demon f*cker?”

The horns that curled up and out of Fellen’s head came forward and he brought the small being up to hold the two faces close together.

“You are not crying out for help,” the Illidari noticed with a starkly snide tone, thicker than even his own disgusted tone while speaking common. “This is a remote back alley, the buildings on each side are old and empty tenant houses, so you are not selling legally. So you want attention less than I do.”

“Yeah,” the gnome replied, still pretending to sound tough and failing miserably. “How do you kno…”

“Boarded windows,” Fellen interrupted and then chuckled. “And the fact I can see through walls you trite little slug. If I had wanted you dead I’d have used my death gaze and burned you and your pet into ashes.”

“Yeah…” the gnome started and then gave up. He was still squirming, needing his hands to cast, and realizing that there was no escaping the iron grip that had captured him.

“You sell a potion of genital transformation?”

The gnome looked angry and confused but refused to answer. At which point the demon hunter chuckled and rolled his head on his neck, a slight popping coming out of the vertebrae that snapped and shifted into place.

“You wouldn’t set up a stand unless you were selling, worm. You wouldn’t be this far back in a tight alley, with the single entrance, and your demon summoned as protection unless you had something you want to sell that you know you don’t want the city guard finding out about, or other criminal elements rolling you for.”

“Yeah? So?”

Another chuckle from the Illidari.

“So do you have a potion of genital transformation?”

“What if I do, demon f*cker?”

A final laugh from the hunter.

“You will sell me this potion.”

The gnome shook his head as if he had heard something else.

“What?”

“You will sell me this potion,” Fellen repeated, in the same tone and with the same cadence as before.

“Are you f*cking stu…”

“Fifty gold. One bottle. You go your way and I go mine.”

The Illidari then set the gnome back to his feet and released the arms. Automatically the demon summoner seemed prepared to cast something else upon the hunter but paused. Fellen didn’t move.

“Are you f*cking serious?”

The horned head nodded but the masked face said nothing.

“Two hundred gold.”

The horned head shook softly from side to side.

“Sixty.”

The gnome brightened and snickered softly to himself as he rubbed his arms and wrists and eyed the demon hunter carefully.

“Why?”

Fellen absently pointed a claw at the ruined stand and the leather bags laying just behind.

“Let’s say I have a thing for Sayaad.”

The gnome beamed a devilish grin but continued to regard the hunter with uncertainty.

“One fifty.”

Fellen shook his head softly and retorted.

“Seventy five. Final offer.”

The warlock scoffed and shook his head.

“My supply, my…”

In a flash the clawed hand whipped out and snatched the gnome up by his throat. Clamping down so that the small figure couldn’t do more than gurgle and gasp for air.

“Seventy five and I don’t crush your worthless little head in my claw and take what I want. You may have the supply but you are in no place to make demands against me. Next time try selling closer to the street.”

The gnome gurgled and struggled and started to try and cast again when the nearly black hand tightened again and interrupted the spell through pain and lack of air.

“Don’t try that again,” he said with an almost bored tone. “I hunt down and slaughter doomguard and shivarra and eredar. Your spells are a joke and your demon was an idiotic choice. You are wholly out of your class with me, or with any Illidari for that matter, so you can either live and make some money or you can die.”

He released the small warlock and waited. Readied but calm as the figure gasped and choked and glared at the Illidari with a seething rage glowering in his teary and reddened eyes.

“I’ll f*cking KILL you, you f*cking bastard!”

Fellen nodded with a mild, almost bored list of his head, then produced the seventy five gold and held it out in an equally bored manner.

It took several moments of threats and cursing and spitting but Fellen didn’t move and eventually the gnome snatched the gold and motioned to one of the two sacks.

“F*cking blue bottle, you f*cker!”

Fellen chuckled. “Do you really think I am stupid enough to turn my back to you?”

More profanities, more threats, against the hunter that continued to wait the storm out until the gnome stomped over to the sack and threw a featureless blue bottle at Fellen’s head. Again the motion was inhumanly swift and the missile was snatched out of the air with ease, earning him another barrage of insults. All the while the demon hunter sat and endured while he studied the gnome. Memorizing the taint upon him, the dance of the Fel along his tiny form, and the scent of the demons he summoned.

“Fine! You have your f*cking potion! Get flamed and get lost!”

He rolled the bottle around in his hand without looking at it, his stare still squarely on the small foe, and then he lowered himself slightly and with a burst of powerful muscles launched himself upward. Sailing toward the open chasm at the top of the alley. Snatching his warglaive free as he went up and his wings rushing free out just as he neared the apex and then snapping open and catching the air in a powerful downthrust as soon as he cleared the buildings. The expected Agony followed him but he weathered it with a laugh as he moved across the rooftops and left the district. Returning to the storm drain where he had hidden his other potions and discarding his armour and glaives.

He strolled to their appointed meeting place and greeted Zaeram with a nod of his horned head and a silent motion toward his own satchel that clinked with the glass inside.

“Report.”

[Zaeram]

The Shark’s nostrils flared as her Master neared she scented the blood of a demon that was still upon him, he had fought something, but from his unscathed appearance it hadn’t been much of a fight it seemed. However as she focused on him using her other fel-born senses she could see a spell still lingering around him, an agony spell. Interesting. She hoped whoever was so foolish to use such a spell upon her Master had learned the error of their ways and was sad she had missed all the fun. Pity really.

Showing her his bag he ordered her to report as she had already stood up from leaning casually to fully alert in his presence, dutifully obeying as she also held out her burlap bag for him to inspect.

“I procured five bottles, all seem similar to the first one from yesterday,” she spoke low in Demonic, “However there was one stall in between the Cathedral and Mage Districts that refused to sell to ‘my kind’ as they put it. While they were out of the way, they were still in a location that could easily attract the attentions of the Guard. Thus I left and watched them from a distance for a time. At first I thought word had gotten around about our search, but they were hostile toward any Illidari in the vicinity. I caught the scent of fel among them, which was probably why they were fending us off.”

She paused and regarded her Master again with a slight smile, “Seems like you had more fun than I did,” she casually commented, caressing the word ‘fun’ with a playfully jealous purr.

[Feljäger]

She scented the air as he approached, she was largely an olfactory based hunter and her habit of tracking by scent gave her some particular habits that Fellen came to know intimately. She knew there was demon’s blood upon him well before they were within speaking distance.

Such a masterpiece.

She held out her bag and he inspected the contents without removing any of the bottles as she spoke. He nodded, either to her report or to the vials that clattered softly inside her nag, and listened carefully.

“I have three gnome leads to follow up on tonight. We shall wait until nightfall and then investigate these reluctant sellers of yours. The fel is definitely present in some of these vendors.”

“Seems like you had more fun than I did,” she said with a tone laced with bemused jealousy.

He looked up and sealed her bag as he handed it back to her, a slight half smirk tugging the side of his lips.

“No. It wasn’t even a challenge. The fool summoned a felhunter as protection. A voidwalker would have made far more sense against the physical threats he was likely to encounter in the dwarven district. A summoned and weak felhunter. It was a joke. Almost an insult.”

Then he handed over his bag and smirked a bit more.

“However, sense for Fel in that sack.”

Indeed, of the four containers in his sack one flickered faintly with a certain Fel taint.

“The fight was laughable but I was not seeking rewards of such a nature. I was seeking that and I found what I was seeking.”

He dropped the smirk and looked about the scene of the trade district of Stormwind. Thankful he and Zaeram were speaking demonic and very few beings would understand them even if they were overheard.

“Which means that there are probably several groups dealing in Fel tainted potions. We need to search this district and then wait for the sun to set. We have business tonight.”

[Zaeram]

Taking the bag her Master offered her, she searched through it like a bloodhound after a scent, quickly picking out the four offending bottles that were tainted with fel and looked each one over as he spoke to her. She even went so far to even uncork one and sniff the contents trying to determine which demon type this had probably been distilled out of…

“Sayaadi,” she confirmed as she re-corked it and then tested the next and the next coming to the same conclusion, “They all smell similar, either it is all the same Sayaadi or they are related somehow.”

Recorking it all and putting in back in his sack she looked mildly disappointed his ‘battle’ wasn’t more amusing to her twisted senses as she sympathized with his displeasure in a kill that was beneath his skill level. However she seemed to cheer up considerably when he spoke of a possible hunt when darkness fell. The hunt was what she lived for, it was the best part of being what she was to hunt down the demons, the fighting and killing after said hunt coming in a strong second. She grinned wickedly at him, standing at the ready, waiting for him to let her off the chain with anticipation.

“Which means that there are probably several groups dealing in Fel tainted potions. We need to search this district and then wait for the sun to set. We have business tonight.”

Nodding at him she purred in reply, “As you command my Master.”

[Feljäger]

His protege scanned his collection and confirmed his suspicions.

Sayaadi.

The temptresses of the Twisted Nether, the sirens of sensation, the female creatures that used the allure of lusts to draw vapid mortals into sway of the Burning Legion. His seed had told him this could well be the case and here they were confronted with a nightmare come true.

Her nose was notably better than his own, as befitting her particular style of hunting, but he knew fel scents better than most that were outside of the Illidari, so when the bag was handed back he uncorked the same bottle she had and sniffed of the pungent concoction. It was faint but it was certainly there, the scent of a succubus.

Another flickering flame kindled into a faint glow in his memory. A memory for a very long time ago, from before the Sundering. There was the faintest hint of familiarity to the scent such that he paused, drew his brow in the effort to pinpoint the memory, and sniffed at the potion again twice more. Perhaps it was a mistake but there was certainly the most marginal hint of "her" scent to the liquid.

He logged this away for later, as the information was highly speculative and of no use to Zaeram at the moment, as he corked the bottle and returned it to his satchel. He motioned her to follow and then set to the task of scouting out the trade district. He was not being sly with this search, no efforts to move about privately or hold to back alleys, as that struck him as being the height of stupidity.

The district was the hub of almost all civilian activities within Stormwind. Permanent merchants had their shops all across the region. All land traffic came and left through the district as well as all griffin and winged travelers. The bank and the main auction house were both located in the district. It was simply not a place for illicit dealings.

It certainly had a plethora of goblin traders and gnome stands peddling perfumes, treats, and other nauseating goods befitting of the holiday, but nothing that Fellen would ever assume to be a potion of the likes of which he and Zaeram were seeking. Everything was trivial fluff and completely legal, if not grotesque and disgusting to the likes of any self respecting Illidari.

They wandered the streets for several hours, being alert to the subtle signs that a vendor might offer something more risque if pushed, but finding few options that looked promising and none that were in a position to attempt to exploit more clever means to procure such goods. That was the other reason for Fellen's lack of dedication. They needed to scout the district, just to be thorough, but the presence of the city guard was so heavy that the goblins that seemed most likely to trade in potions of transformation could easily ask five hundred gold and expect that price to be paid, as any threats could easily provoke a confrontation with the city guard. He and his companion could ill afford such a public spectacle. So he went about a fairly detailed but entirely cursory examination of the Love Dealers in that district and then called it an evening.

Back at the tight confines of their Stormwind accommodations they sorted and compared notes on the day's acquisitions. The non-tainted collection going into one pile with notes written in Darnassian as to the dealer and the location. His four tainted potions going into a second collection with more detailed notes scribed onto parchment under each of the fel kissed vials, the one gained from the gnome warlock sporting the Darnassian character for "death" in Fellen's bold and angrily angular calligraphy style. They washed themselves, cleansing the sweat of the day from their flesh, without soap or scent, so that they could hunt clean, and then they donned their hunter's attire and slipped out into the deepening twilight.

His battle armour was like everything else about Fellen in that it glowed and burned with a fel green energy and was entirely marked with arcane iconograpy. He wore a battle mask that largely hid his eyes, though the jade glowering of those orbs still shone through the small gaps in the metal plate, and concealed his mouth behind a crimson cloth curtain. The suit was largely leather, cut from a doom guard and cured by Illidari craftsmen, and designed to allow superior mobility and flexibility while engaged in combat. It protected crucial points like forearms and legs and offered some deflection around the torso and head, but largely relied upon his ability to dodge attacks and end a fight before any superior armour might be needed.

His glaives were fairly common for his affiliation. Large sweeping blades, wickedly serrated and hooked, attached to target shields and a triple bladed claw-fist addition. Like his armour the weapons were cut with an arcane pattern and glowed with rippling Fel-force. He was a force majure by appearance and by action as well. He may have paled in comparison to his second but the creature that emerged into the night was certainly no small force of violence and murder.

He rose from the tight portal and immediately stretched out his long and muscular limbs, flexing his back and arms as his scales groaned softly as they scraped against one another. Issuing a growl he let his wings appear and unfurl in a mimicry of his arms, the leather membranes made a fleshy tautening noise that added to his visual and auditory ambiance. The other Illidari that were on station around their modest Alliance granted accommodations nodded gently at the display. Here was an Illidari that was prepared to hunt and to kill. Here was a pair of trained and respected demon hunters that were standing before whatever Gods or demons that may be watching from afar and announcing to all that tonight there would be danger on the wing. Tonight the Illidari would hunt.

No one watching dared question the display. All that were there knew Fellen and were aware he was on special dispensation by Kayn Sunfury himself. He had no authority over any of them but they had absolutely no authority over him and less desire to draw his attention. Every Illidari knew that there were those demon hunters that took a demon seed well beyond most. A demonic essence so corrupt and powerful that risking the consumption (even if the beast could be killed in singular melee combat) would almost certainly prove disastrous and lethal to that prospective hunter. Every Illidari also knew that a large portion of their ilk were drawn to those creatures as they represented personal evils and intimately felt torments that the demon hunter had to face and conquer as a part of the Becoming.

Fewer Illidari knew that some, those that took the seed and did not die during the Transformation, were still deemed too weak to control what they had successfully transmuted. Some other Illidari had to watch these rarer few. Either to put them down if the seed rose to dominance or to guide the potentially powerful demon hunter through the process of dominating something as powerful as a Shivarra or Eredar. Those that knew of this fact also knew that Fellen was one of the hand picked Illidari that performed this task. Fellen was notorious for have only four pupils and only one survivor, though nobody besides Fellen really knew what had happened to his last student, and nobody was asking.

Those stationed in Stormwind knew who he was and knew what he was. They knew what he did and feared that his word in the right ears, as he was also well known to be on the dangerous side of fanatical and all too close to Kayn Sunfury, would have them sent to him for "training". Thus they watched him prepare for the hunt and were glad he was leaving them for a time. They also felt some pity for anything besides a demon that dared get in his way, and they felt a twinge of delight knowing that with the Red Shark at his side there was likely not a demon anywhere in the Elwyn Forests that would survive the evening if it was their prey.

Finishing his display he turned to look at his partner and dipped his horned visage.

"Ready?"