So when they managed to successfully pull someone across, the result was not what they expected yet they had an idea of what to do about it.
"We could always just tell the guy his girlfriend died before we could bring her over."
"Uhm, right. No, this might be his elder sister or something. Too old to be his girlfriend and the way her body reconstituted with all those injuries - died in combat. Probably not best to have her undead or Forsaken or anything of the sort."
Even among Warlocks, there was the occasional voice of sanity. Which would have surprised any number of them.
Zeesal the Weasel was a Voice Of Reason within the warlocks. He'd gotten into Warlockry because it was a path to power he didn't see getting a lot of takers and he thought he could make a decent amount of money from it.
He'd been right. He could rent out the Imp for destroying garbage, the little thing enjoyed that sort of thing so it was win-win. The voidwalker could be rented out to look spooky. It hated that, but it hated everything so that wasn't much a difference. The succubus could be rented out... well who was he to deny that different strokes for different folks?
After all, he'd been born a goblin until he decided to switch factions and went to a little place in Booty Bay that did transmogs. Go in a goblin of the Horde, come out a gnome with no criminal background and debtors chasing you.
"Look I know a couple of priests, they'll do a raise cheap - especially if I explain it's related to that kid in the guild."
"That's true, most guild members cut prices for other guildies," mused a goblin Warlock.
Zeesal nodded. Just good business sense. You watch my back, I watch your back, you cut 10% off prices to sell me - I kinda do the same sorta thing in return. You wanted good relations with the people you were counting on to pull your keester out of the hellfire pit when things got nasty.
"Good job, foxgirl!" said Naruto to the little foxgirl kunoichi battlepet as she piroutted and posed.
"She has some very odd attacks," noted his opponent, a blonde girl with green eyes and pointed ears. "Oh wait a minute. I'm supposed to say something more dramatic aren't I? How about 'You have won this time, but next time I shall stand the victor'?"
"Are you sure you're with the Horde?" asked Selraiha, the night elf monk shaking her head at the whole thing.
"Horde - meh, alliance - pfeh," said the blood elf. "I just wanna have some fun without getting involved in the politics, is that too much to ask?"
"Uhm, can she do that?" asked Naruto.
"I've never heard of it before," admitted Selraiha. "Other than some groups like the goblins out of Gadgetzan and Winterspring."
"Officially I'm with Darkmoon Faire. We're setting up not far from here, you should totally go!" said the blood elf, rooting around in her backpack briefly, then pulling a voucher out. "Here ya go! But I warn you, I'll be ready for you next time and you'll taste my nail polish of your defeat. Waitaminute, that didn't come out at all right."
Selraiha couldn't help but agree with that last part at least.
"Damn," said the blood elf. "I really need to work on my snappy comebacks."
"Maybe I can help with that," said Naruto, figuring he couldn't do that much worse.
"Heya, you is that Jiraiya guy, right?"
Jiraiya blinked and looked way down at the gnome with the peaked wizard's hat perched jauntily on his head. "Yes?"
"Gal over at the hospital we got in a summons, she's got a really bad case of reincarnation sickness, musta been dead awhile," said the gnome. "Name's Zeesal by the way. We is in the same guild."
"Every so often the translation effect doesn't seem to completely work," confessed Jiraiya. "What's going on?"
"Warlocks have a spell to summon people who don't resist the summons," tried Zeesal. "Requires an emotional tie, trinket, or something like that. So we tried to summon that Naruto-kid's girlfriend to cheer him up and all."
"That could be bad," said Jiraiya. "She's an active duty kunoichi."
"Yeah, well, if they resist - we get back a certain feedback that the spell failed and the 'why it failed' thing," admitted the gnome. "Anyhow, we got a corpse."
"She's dead? Oh, that'll REALLY cheer him up," said Jiraiya.
"Nah. Gal's name is Kushina Uzumaki," said Zeesal. "We revived her and she's giving a bunch'a stuff like some captured soldier. I promised I'd try to get you if she'd stop terrorizing the nurses."
Jiraiya had frozen at the name, paused, and then nodded. "Yeah. I think maybe I should. Lead the way."
"KAI!"
Jiraiya let Kushina run through two other dispels for genjutsu, plus throw a pillow at him. The henge didn't dispel, as he didn't currently have one running. Instead he used the time to check out the hospital room.
Clipboard imbedded in wall. What looked like...
"You didn't kill a nurse did you?" asked Jiraiya.
"Noooooooo," said Kushina. "She wasn't human and she had this needle."
"Draenei or elf or gnome?" asked Jiraiya.
"A wha?" asked Kushina.
Someone out in the hallway supplied an answer. "Draenei. 1st level priestess. Got hit with a clipboard."
"Ah," said Jiraiya, picking a segment of horn off the floor and handing it off to one of the staff hovering out there. "She might want this back."
"Jiraiya," said Kushina. "I was dead. What exactly is going on here?"
"It's a long story," said Jiraiya. "Can I get a chair in here? I promise she won't use it against any personnel this time."
"You sure?" asked someone out in the hallway.
"Yeah, I kind of noticed the lack of a chair and the smashed open window," said Jiraiya.
"What happened to my foxgirl kunoichi?!" exclaimed Naruto. "She was standing there and then POOF!"
"I dunno," said the blood elf, scratching her head. "How can you lose one? Maybe she just wandered off or something?"
"No, I heard her squeak and saw her disappear too," said Selraiha. "I'm not an arcanist, but I thought I saw some runes in the light. Might have been some sort of summoning spell."
"I didn't think that sort of thing was possible," said the blood elf, getting up and dusting the seat of her pants off. "I'll ask. We got a battlepet expert with the Faire, he'll know if anyone does. Just don't wander into the forests of Darkmoon Island. There's something nasty out there from what I've heard."
"Well, where to begin?" asked Jiraiya as he took a seat. "You've been dead for fourteen years now. That's a lot of catching up."
"What about Naruto? I heard something about being summoned here and resurrected because of him?" Kushina paused as she considered something. "Not just someone with the same name?"
"No, it's Naruto Uzumaki," agreed Jiraiya. "Let's go with this training trip. I learned that there's a group named Akatsuki which is after the various Tailed Beasts for unknown reasons."
"Unknown?" asked Kushina.
"All I have is rumors, and conflicting rumors at that," said Jiraiya, shaking his head. "Anyway, he'd just failed to pass his first Chunin Exam when I decided to take him on a training trip. We went to Konmei-"
"The 'Land Of Confusion' where only mad ninja go?" asked Kushina.
"I figured the chaos usually associated with that land would throw off surveillance if anything could," admitted Jiraiya. "I've caught glimpses over the years of some weird shadow, not entirely human, spying on me. Others have also spotted it and rumors are all over the place - but I think it has to do with Akatsuki. Might be a member or a form of clone jutsu. Not sure, haven't been able to catch one. Anyway, we headed to Konmei to throw off that sort of thing."
Kushina looked over at where a long-eared head was poking around the corner. "I take it you had some success in that?"
"Class III space-time rupture," said Jiraiya.
"Ouch," said Kushina with a wince. "Contained?"
"Fortunately," agreed Jiraiya. "Someone attempting high-level fuuinjutsu in Konmei IS pretty much a recipe for disaster."
"Disaster never needs a recipe, the ingredients are always at hand," disagreed Kushina.
"Well, that's true," admitted Jiraiya. "We ended up here, in a world named Azeroth in the Eastern Kingdoms in the city of Stormwind."
"'Stormwind'?" asked Kushina. "And this world has..."
"Very different rules and jutsu and abilities," said Jiraiya, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a flask. "See this? If you're seriously injured, you drink one of these and most of your wounds heal instantly."
Kushina had been in the last war between ninja villages. She could therefore appreciate what that little flask of red fluid represented. "Whoa."
"They've got similar things for chakra, mana - which is something of the spiritual energy component, and more." Jiraiya put that one back and pulled out a flask with green fluid. "One of my new friends here makes potions like this as her profession. This one here gives you a boost to stamina. Others make it easier for you to dodge incoming attacks, or increase your strength, or a lot of other things."
"And you're learning such things to take back with you?" asked Kushina.
"Close," said Jiraiya, reaching into another pocket and withdrawing a scroll. "They have a different version of fuuinjutsu here called Inscription. I'm learning that as well as some special jutsu. You've already seen that under certain conditions they can raise the dead."
"Yes, though I was trying not to think too much about it," said Kushina, who noted that Jiraiya suddenly shifted and looked up at some point in mid-air. "Something wrong?"
"Guild announcement," said Jiraiya. "We'll get you into the guild as soon as you've decided... what's a Death Knight?"
"I have no idea," said Kushina.
"Why are you coming up as a Death Knight?" asked Jiraiya. "Maybe because you were dead for so long?"
"I'm a Death Knight?" asked Kushina. "Sounds like an ANBU guard position."
"Ah, here you are," said Dekthena as she looked into the room and then quickly entered. "What was this about a Death Knight?"
Kushina Uzumaki had ascertained this WAS Jiraiya, and looking only slightly older than he had the last time she'd seen him. There were a few more lines, particularly around the eyes and mouth, and if you watched you could see where his movements weren't quite as fluid as he'd managed back then.
After waking up and concluding, apparently mistakenly, that she'd been captured by that freaky masked nin - she'd calmed quite a bit. The fact that a few of the nurses and doctors had been of non-human species helped in the idea that this was another world.
Then there was this... goat-girl?
She'd seen one before before, but that time had been a little frantic and was currently a bunch of barely connected scenes that she couldn't completely recall. This was her first time able to actually take a good look at one of these.
Tall, about Jiraiya's height and perhaps a bit more. Hard to tell with Jiraiya sitting back down. Very human in some respects, the look she turned on Jiraiya when the old ninja wasn't look was clearly the sort of predatory thing that Jiraiya would have enjoyed. Interesting.
Blue. An odd color for skin. The horns and cloven feet were a bit odd, as was the lack of any visible iris or pupil. Wearing an outfit that consisted of some black clingy fabric that clung in all the places that advertised her mammalian status.
"So, she's a Death Knight? Very odd considering you weren't part of the Lich King's forces," said the woman in a very thick accent. "Translation effect?"
"Most likely. Can it be changed?" asked Jiraiya.
The woman shook her head in a human manner, causing a small bell on one horn to chime. "No. There are transmogs, devices to change one's species or some other details, but no one has yet found the proper manner of changing one's class."
"Odd, you'd think that would be easier than species," mused Jiraiya.
"As to that," said the goat-woman, "this involves higher-level magical theory - yes?"
"Okay," said Jiraiya. "I'm all ears."
"Oh, that would be a great waste. As to the theory. This is disputed by some, and the debates in higher academica can be quite energetic. Yet some say that Azeroth is stabilized by ancient devices of the Titans and some Elder Beings," said the blue woman. "That because of that, minor aspects of existence can be altered if one understands the specific math. Some aspects of existence seem more mutable than others."
"Such as with the Polymorph spell I've seen you use," said Jiraiya, nodding. Then he explained for Kushina's benefit. "I've seen her use a jutsu that turns an opponent into a sheep."
"Yes, that's a very specialized example though, and is temporary," agreed the goat-woman.
"So, Dekthena, you're saying that some people believe that these Titan-made machines see everything around us in mathematical terms and stabilize everything from the air we breathe to the chair I'm sitting on?" asked Jiraiya. "What's the competing theory?"
"There are several," said Dekthena. "The 'Matter And Energy Stability Matrix' theory is usually shortened to 'Matrix Theory' and is the one I favor as it explains a number of things that otherwise make no sense. There is one theory, that is more popular with certain members of the Horde than the Alliance, is that everything around us and including us - is merely the dreaming of a mad god."
"How would that explain those of us who came from elsewhere, like Kushina and myself?" asked Jiraiya.
"This theory would have those as false memories implanted by the mad god," offered Dekthena. "Honestly though, I have yet to see any adherents offer better arguments than throwing fire spells at those who disagree with them."
"Political hotheads eh?" asked Jiraiya. "I've met a few like that."
"They are not as bad in that regard as those who are of the 'Darkness Wins' philosophy, which is again primarily espoused by the Horde but also certain nobles here in Stormwind," said Dekthena. "These feel that the Twisting Nether birthed the world through random chaos flux, and that everything will eventually break down and return to chaos. Therefore might makes right, whatever you do today can be justified tomorrow, and that trying to find a mathemagical model that explains reality is doomed to failure as chaos is the sole truth in reality."
"I take it these academic disagreements involve spells that go boom?" asked Jiraiya.
"Quite," said Dekthena drily. "There are other theories, but those are the primary ones."
[Changgui has joined Guild: Ramen Eaters]
Naruto blinked as the message came through, idly smashing a murloc to the grass with his Mining Shovel.
[Changgui level 31, pandaren m, Windwalker Monk skinning/leatherworking]
"Oh," said Kierahl. "That's handy. I don't think we had a leatherworker."
"Probably access to those stacks Zeesal couldn't sell that he stuck in our guild bank was a selling point," offered Selraiha. "Nice to have another monk though."
"So have you decided which path to follow?" Kierahl asked Selraiha, channelling a burst of holy energy to smite a charging murloc.
"I was thinking Brewmaster," said Selraiha. "Though Windwalker looks nice. Since you're around I wasn't going to go with Mistweaver."
"Wha?" asked Naruto, bringing his shovel around again and flattening a kobold who'd been trying to sneak up on them.
"No... candle," whimpered the kobold.
"Brewmaster goes close in and occupies the enemy's attention, dodging or deflecting most of the attacks," said Selraiha. "Windwalker is a damage-specialist, putting the enemy down as quickly as possible in order to avoid getting hit a lot. Mistweaver is the healer path."
"Oh," said Naruto.
"Meanwhile, I'm going with Discipline," said Kierahl. "Been planning that for awhile. I can heal but also defend myself pretty well. Have you decided yet, Naruto?"
"Me?" asked Naruto, who then sighed. "Uhm, yeah. I think so."
"Ninjutsu specialist like your teacher?" guessed Kierahl.
"No, actually," said Naruto. "There's taijutsu specialist, ninjutsu specialist, and summoner specialist."
"Well, you do go hand-to-hand a lot," said Kierahl.
"But a guy I know back home, Rock Lee, is a taijutsu specialist. Don't want to follow his path too closely," said Naruto. "So let's try... summoner."
[Naruto, human m, level 12 Ninja Summoner]
"Ah, you did rather like some of the Hunter's familiars around town," admitted Kierahl.
"Now I just need to figure out what I can get," said Naruto.
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(Posted Thu, 01 Aug 2013 16:34)
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