A Tale of Two Squirrels

[Krilari]

A Tale of Two Squirrels

Sareen's trials and tribulations along the trail of the Techno-mage.

Chapter one: Awakening

Do you feel the energies around you?
That surround you, filling the very air we breathe
Grasp on to that energy, let it enter you
Become a part of you
Only then will you be able to channel it.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Amongst the ruins of a long forgotten troll empire a young woman sat, her arms unfurrow at each side as deep breaths flowed to and fro. Uncommon to her lifestyle, instead of being overpowered by complex mechanicals, she sat alone with nothing but the overgrowth of nature. For the longest of time she had sat here, sometimes pausing to return to her mechanical life, yet time after time she would find herself returning to this very spot to ponder her life… and recently, a new path to follow. In all of her years, this path had been hidden from her, sheltered as if it would be wounded by her very knowledge of her existence. Yet now she knew, she knew full well, and it was only a matter of time before her curiosity got the best of her.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

She sat in the midst of an old hut, whose thatching had recently begun to give way leaving now a small rivulet of rain water to fall by her side. Never the less, this managed to provide on distraction to the engineer who had been so lost in thought.

Do you feel the power?
Good.
Now take this power, focus it into the palm of your hand.
What? You can’t channel it?
Don’t worry… sometimes it can take months, even years to perfect it.
I’m sure you’ll get it soon…

One of her open hands slowly curled into a fist as her thoughts raced. She did not want to wait years, or months, she wanted to delve into this new science, to sedate her burning curiosity. There was no time for patience.

Still, her other hand remained open, flexing on occasion as she desperately drew in all she could into this practice.

Here, this might help…
Put this magic to an emotion.
Take your pick, any emotion so long as you can call upon it.
Emotion….

Her nose twitched, eyes wrenched, figure tensed with displeasure. Oh how she hated to recall her emotions. Love came easily, given she had a caring mate to cling to whenever she pleased… yet love was too tender of emotion… she needed something else… something unstable.

Hatred…

How many years had it been?
It doesn’t matter...
Her father. Her mother. Her village. Murlocs and sea witches… Her missing eye.
Within seconds it had swelled…

“Stupid b***h! You can’t do shit right! Hell you couldn’t even bear me a son, instead giving me this useless rat of a child!” The elder troll pointed a rigid finger towards the young Sareen, who had only recently returned from her substantial head wound. “And you, such a disgrace you are! You were tasked to do –one thing-! –One-! And you can’t even complete that, instead loosing that damn eye of yours. Pah, useless, the both of you!”

Hatred, oh how it burned within. How it swelled to the top…
The urge to kill, the lust for blood. A feral mindlessness had nearly taken over as she arose from her meditation, snarling and howling without half a mind as to her surroundings. Her fists had been bore, yet an odd sight was amongst it all as her left forearm had entirely been enveloped in flickering arcane. Without a single mind as to what its purpose or origin was, she lashed the hand forth, sending the mass of hate-fueled arcane forth towards the river blow, sending a torrent of water shooting into the air above.

[Krilari]

What a sight it must’ve been…

From the depth of Silvermoon’s grand bazaar came stumbling a troll, who struggled with the elven stairs which were all too tiny for her oversized stompers. Never the less she managed her way into one of the shimmering city’s many bars, toting a large burlap sack upon her back along with a number of crimson tomes tucked beneath her arm. Paying no heed to the parties and people of the inn, she stalked up to the bar, bearing an exceedingly brief conversation with the innkeeper, who happily gave the woman a room at a discount if anything to remove her from public view. As she crept up along the ramp, the jovial air of the inn slowly stirred where it had died down at her entrance. Her creeping would continue, carefully stalking about the upper reaches off the inn until she found the room which was properly deemed ‘hers’ for the night.

For this night, the table would become her victim as she laid about purchase after purchase upon the gilded marble stand. First amongst many would be a fresh set of clothing, which in itself proved more versatile than the traditional oil-stained robe that she bore day-in and day-out, shortly after she pulled forth a few articles of scrap cloth, each matching the colors of her new clothes. At that point, she pulled out piece after piece of mechanical components and reagents, each playing a part in some grand schematic which Sareen had memorized a number of months back.

Upon each glove she added a small compartment just below her knuckles and in this installation would be a small rocket, each ready to fire off at a target with nothing more than a press of a button. Moving south, upon her belt the troll installed a trio of frag bombs, each no larger than a traditional grenade yet even still packing enough of a punch to leave a person in one hell of a daze. As she flicked the safety along the belt atop of reassuring herself that each glove was safe, she moved to the final victim of her armory upgrades; her boots. On each of the anklets, she installed a series of tubes and holding chambers which would eventually come to hold a volatile nitrous chemical- a result of hours of alchemy- that would provide her with a decent improvement to her speed… or give her one hell of a kick, should she need it.

At the dead of night she leaned back, arms crossed and a smirk of amusement pained across her lips as all the modifications lay finished before her. At this point her gaze was brought upon the pile of Librans that she dragged home with her. None of them bore any proper title, yet still a bit of browsing earlier proved that each edition covered the beginner, intermediate, and expert arts of arcane manipulation, respectively. From the dead of night to the break of Silvermoon’s golden dawn, Sareen busied herself with the beginner’s study of arcane manipulation, burying herself under layer after layer of flame-flavored text until the disease of sleep crept upon her, succumbing her to the realm of dreams and forcing her down upon her work desk, which for the day would prove to be her pillow and blanket.