The raid's lead Paladin was supervising yet another cart filled to overflowing with night elf Druids of the Fang being teleported out, when he turned to find the next in line of who knew how many carts, only to see the Party emerging from the caverns instead, apparently having emptied it of the last night elf.
It did him good to see those children safe and sound, laughing and joking and playing with... what in the name of Heaven were those things?!?
The lead Paladin approached, astounded. Partly they looked like small red and yellow dragons, only long like a snake, and those looked like lion's manes. "What are those things?" he blurted out in confusion.
Naruto shot the man a brilliant grin. "They call themselves Spirits of Competition!!"
"Aren't they cute?" Shion enthused, sitting on the back of a giant blue-green turtle that she must have tamed inside of those caverns, her own wormlike dragon flying about above her head.
The lead Paladin practically had a heart attack. His coughing fit lasted long enough for the raid's Priestess to become concerned and cast healing spells on him. "You can't just FIND those things!!" the Paladin shouted, jabbing a finger towards one of the red and yellow dragons. "Only a special people, Blessed of Heaven..." he trailed off mid rant, eyes crossed. Shaking himself, the Paladin looked back to his raid, all of them by now accompanied by the blue and purple winged Hyacinth Macaws, the rarest pet in the world, apart from things that simply could not be obtained by mortal means - only the lad had been finding them by dozens, enough for both the full raid and his own party, with some left over to sell on the Auction House even. He scratched his own under it's chin as it landed on his shoulder and demanded a nut, which he presented it out of his rations.
The boy hadn't even been to the one zone on Azeroth where hyacinth macaws could ordinarily be found.
Eyes went back to those 'Spirits of Competition' the boy's party now all had flying about and nuzzling their faces. That was one of those pets simply unobtainable by mortal agency. You couldn't find them. You couldn't buy them. No quest or achievement offered them. They either came as a direct gift out of Heaven, or they didn't come at all. They had also supposedly come only once, to a far distant people, and that was a long time ago. Frankly, the Paladin had never seen one before, nor had he ever expected to meet anyone who had.
One of the dragon-thingies brushed his face as it flew by him to investigate a flower on the other side of him. He felt strangely honored by the experience.
He also noted that the boy's party were each wearing just about every rare item that could be found in those caverns - this despite the fact that most of those could only be found once, at most, and for each of the five of them to all have their own full sets of those items told the laws of probability to go take a flying leap off a cliff.
Blessed by Heaven indeed.
The Paladin turned and summoned his mount. "Right, Ratchet has fallen and the demon is feasting on its remains. The Alliance is pulling everyone they can out of this area, so it's high time we moved back to safer territory. Mount up."
Boy had insane luck. He could deal with that.
They all followed to obey, one of the children carrying with her a small cage holding a deviate faerie dragon they had found in those caves. It belonged to one of those Druids they'd captured, but they hadn't wanted to leave it behind, and it hadn't wanted to come, so they had been forced to capture it as well.
Circe met them just as they returned to Stormwind, coming in to their room where the girls were cleaning up, pushing Naruto in ahead of her, and dropping a stack of patterns on a chair as she did so. "Okay!" she began cheerfully, "which one of you is the group leatherworker?"
All eyes went to Naruto, who sheepishly raised his hand. In truth, once the girls had explained to him that the people of his home country viewed skinning animals as a distasteful profession, he'd been a little ashamed of that and his leatherworking. Although that did explain why so little leather got used at home, come to think of it.
Luckily, he had an edge over any other leatherworker of his home country in that he could handle all of the dirty tasks using clones, and so avoid the stigma if he was careful, as you can't get dirty if you're not even real.
They could swear Circe's eyes glittered with delight at the revelation that Naruto was their leatherworker. "Oh! That is fun! I could've sworn you were the group tailor..."
At his much less shy nod, Circe's glittering doubled, and she laid a hand on his shoulder. "My dear boy, we are going to have so much fun together. It's rare to find a Mage who is also a leatherworker, but all of your girls can wear leather armor, so... alright everyone!" She clapped her hands, "Strip down to your undies so Naruto can measure you! I have some lovely patterns he is going to try out for each of you!"
Thud!
"That was the sound of Hinata fainting, right?" Circe asked without even looking, as she reached for her stack of clothing patterns. "Never mind, she makes an even better practice dummy that way, and poor Naruto has to level up his skills!"
The sun had set on one of the more eventful days of Azeroth's history. Of course, nothing in recent memory could compare to the day the Kyubi got released and began it's rampage, but considering the Barrens now lived up to their name much more fully than it used to, this day was in the same ballpark.
Considering being in the literal shadow of the Kyubi as just a bit too close, the Alliance armies and many of their outposts, including Northwatch Hold, had evacuated to Theramore Isle, and they loaded all nonessential personnel onto ships to get them out of harms way, then portals got made available to evacuate the rest, just in case they were wrong about Kyubi leaving the Alliance territory alone.
Centaurs had fled from the Barrens, and Ratchet and a place called Crossroads had both burned, and were now as devastated as Ogrimmar itself was, while the Wailing Caverns had all collapsed, so it was good they'd gotten those druids out of there.
But under the leaves of Elwynn Forest that all seemed such a long ways away now.
Naruto sighed and stretched out beside his fishing pole, on the banks of the Crystal Lake behind the Lion's Pride inn of Goldshire, his party relaxing all around him doing much the same as he, girls pulling the occasional fish or frog out of the Crystal Lake's waters while he got mostly crates or boxes.
In the nine hours since leaving the temple for lunch, they had accomplished so much as to make yesterday seem like a dream world. Of course, they had run their escort ragged, chasing Naruto across two continents and associated islands, through portals and denuding parts of the countryside as his party had criss-crossed most of the areas around Stormwind several times practicing their many gathering professions.
But all in all it had been one very good day.
Shion fought with nerves for a while, before she just blurted out, "Hinata? Do you think it would be alright if I were to learn ninjutsu now?" Shion's mother had forbid her from practicing ninjutsu, or any of her guards from teaching her, in hopes she could have a normal life.
Like most such plans, it had been a colossal failure.
The heiress smiled at her friend wanting to share something they all did. So she asked an important question to learn where her friend's skills were, "Do you have chakra training?"
That was important, because that alone took years, and most of the time required for the ninja Academy was spent on acquiring that base ability.
Shion bobbed a very quick, very cute nod. "Hm. Some. It was required for priestess training." You couldn't predict the deaths of your guards, or seal demons, without it.
"But can you sense your own?" Hinata pressed, wanting to be clear where her friend was in her training.
"Oh, yes!" the priestess answered.
Hinata smiled, reaching for a houseplant nearby, "Here, let me show you how to float a leaf."
"Naruto?" Circe's voice called out of the inn. "Do you and your girls have enough fish yet? If so, it's time to come in and learn how to cook them. Afterwards we can go upstairs and teach you all first aid."
Tired and happy, the five trooped in bearing dozens and dozens of fish in each hand, that turned out to be just barely enough to get everyone to learn everything they needed to open up the next level of cooking skill.
Of course, the earthy warlock told him nothing about how he and the girls would be using each other for practical demonstrations of bandaging techniques, oh no! Or that she'd set out a candlelit table for five in a private room so they could eat the fish they'd prepared together afterwards.
Sometimes it was just best not to tell the young they were dating, lest it spook them.
Circe was just in the act of getting them to all dance together after a late dinner when a Whisper came to return to Stormwind and link back up with Jiraiya, as the way the knight told it, "He's finished confession. Now the Priest responds, and as you know training takes only a moment."
"Alright, portal procedures," Naruto called out, collecting his little party so the raid could teleport them to Stormwind.
While they could have used their brand new mount summons, frankly tree hopping was faster, and either one would take minutes they probably didn't have.
The party of youths had just arrived, having stopped to buy Haku a white kitten, when Jiraiya got kicked out of the antechamber with a boot on his rear. "And STAY out!" the Priests shouted.
The youths stood stunned as the old super-pervert rubbed his bruised chin, grinning. "I guess some of my sins were a bit shocking. Who knew?" He tossed an inquiring glance to the Paladin trainer, who slowly shook his head.
"Nope, sorry. I overheard some of what you were confessing in there. No chance."
The Toad Sage picked himself up and dusted his clothes off. "Well, can't blame a guy for trying. What other healing classes are there around here?"
The knight cocked an eyebrow, but gave him an honest response. "You might try being a Druid. I hear they are more in touch with the, ahem, 'natural urges' you seem to enjoy so."
"Eh? I'll think about it," the Toad Sage said dismissively, as he turned back to face Naruto, instantly taking note of the large number of girls that shouldn't be there. The girl presently seated on the back of a giant turtle he could swear was the priestess of Demon Country. And the Hyuga heiress? Wasn't that the daughter of the last Kazekage, and sister of the current one, petting a white kitten?
Jiraiya suddenly paled as he had a horrible, sinking feeling about all of this.
The weary and exhausted lead Paladin of the raid stepped forward to report. "Jiraiya of the Sannin, the boy Naruto who you charged us to protect is unharmed. He and all his Party have also undergone extensive training, reaching twentieth level, gaining all relevant class abilities and completed the appropriate quests. They have all gained their first mounts, reached Expert level in their primary Professions, and their equipment is the best I've seen on anyone that level who doesn't live on and for the Battlegrounds, most of it is blue and enchanted, and they've got thousands of green quality goods on sale in the Auction House. Their activity in Elwynn Forest, Westfall and Redridge has been extraordinarily successful, and they are prepared with all of the appropriate quests to enter the Deadmines, the center of Defias activity and the only bastion of the Defias Brotherhood they have not yet thoroughly cleansed."
"Although what the Stockade will do with the prisoners they're sure to take is anyone's guess, as they haven't got a place to put ten more men, much less hundreds," grumbled one anonymous voice from the back of the raid.
Jiraiya actually fought being coldly furious, drew himself up, and demanded, "And who told you he could leave this city, much less go rushing around..."
"Ah. That would be me," interrupted a voice that threw Jiraiya for a loop. Turning around, the Toad Sage found the Third Hokage seated behind him, near the chapel's altar. "Although, to be fair," Hiruzen Sarutobi continued, sounding amused. "I did not expect when I ordered him to go out to train, that they regard it as normal for the inexperienced to go gallivanting across large portions of several continents for their training. Still, the fault is mine. I hadn't asked."
Sarutobi resisted the urge to tap ashes out of a pipe he didn't have, and gave Jiraiya his 'wise teacher' look, "Oh, and by the way, I hear some of them have learned how to bring back the dead. Isn't that interesting?"
Jiraiya's eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he passed out, falling over like a board.
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(Posted Mon, 03 Jun 2013 03:50)
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