(Written with Kaneka's player)
(This is Jon Chess' perspective. For Zane's story, see https://www.patreon.com/posts/ghost-part-1-24070775 )
"I am ready now," replied Jon. He watched with a barely concealed impatience while Kanaka made with the "white mice and pixie dust" routine, opening a teleportation portal to Dalaran. Jon stepped through, and felt his gorge rise... however convenient, his body did not like teleportation. Kaneka joined him, and closed the portal, leaving the two of them in Dalaran. Together, they made their way to the house of Phredaria, Jon's friend and colleague.
After quickly closing the portal, Kaneka followed Jon closely through the streets of Dalaran. She had to keep her chuckles to herself as she watched him walk wearing only the hospital gown. This was a serious mission. To be honest, she was a little excited to finally be meeting Phred. She'd heard so much about her, even stayed in her home for a spell. She would finally be able to put a face to the name.
Phredaria opened the front door, her words already streaming a mile a minute.
"Jonyou'reOKhowdidyouohshityoudidSaDaibloagainFelDAMMITJonwhydidn'tyouwaitI'mgoingto kllthatwarlockbutIamgladyouaren'tdead!" she said, taking a huge breath.
"Phred, this is Kaneka Hillyard. She's going to help me track down Zaneryn," Jon said, omitting her role in Joh having obtained the narcotic. "I don't have anything that might help with a locator charm, though. Maybe you and Kaneka might be able to figure something out while I go and get some clothes on?" Without waiting for an answer, Jon headed up the stairs to his cache of supplies.
Kan blinks at the mile a minute scolding Jon got, almost glad she wasn't on the receiving end of that. She smiles at the woman, extending her hand for a shake. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you Phred. I've heard so much about you."
"So [i]you[/i] are Kaneka! Jon has often spoken about how smart you are and your talent for magery, but he didn't mention how lovely you are..." Phred enthused, looking up from her scant four feet of height. Phred had large, round, seemingly-innocent eyes the color of stolen emeralds, and wild-shirt-cropped pink hair. She wore simple comfortable Netherweave trousers and tunic, both only a little scorched around the edges.
"Jon said you really liked my library!," the pint-sized Gnome continued. "You must please feel free to borrow anything int eh library of the lab! And stop by frequently - now that my professor disappeared, the Stormwind Academy seems to have lost all interest in forensics, so they stopped paying me... so I am home a lot more, now, either in my lab or my bench."
A faint touch of color covered Kaneka's cheeks as she smiles at Phred. "Oh, I loved your library! Thank you for letting me loose in there." She chuckled softly. "Jon gives me more credit than I'm due."
"Are you sure you mean our Jon Chess?" Phred said, giggling. "Jonny is not precisely a charitable sort... you should hear him when he gets on a roll - he has a tongue sharper than a Kul Tiran fishwife, so he does!" A measured look came into Phred's eyes. "in fact... never mind. may I get you some tea? Jon keeps my little home well-stocked... its a side benefit for his traveling far and wide on business. And to being his oldest friend and colleague!"
"I would love a cup of tea, thank you." Again her smile grew for the diminutive gnome woman. "You've known him forever then, have you?"
"Oh yes," she called over her shoulder. "We first met when Jon was hired to investigate a series of murders in Theramore, and Jaina asked that I consult; she was such a bright spark, y'know, when she took my Forensics class in Dalaran. He was so... dark-tempered then, but with a little help he caught the murderer... um... and the murderer was killed while trying to escape." Phred put the tea kettle on the heating brazier to boil. "Lady Jaina always suspected that Jonny had let the blighter resist arrest so that Jon could kill him; he was a Kul Tiran scion of Waycrest in exile so the most Jaina could have done would to have banished him from Theramore. Come to that, she may have been right - Jonny always felt bad when he knew someone was guilty as sin but the evidence wouldn't support a conviction., especially after... after Kes died at Theramore."
Kaneka followed Phred into the kitchen, leaning against a counter. She quirked a brow at the mention of Kes and fished through her brain to try and remember the name. She knew she'd heard it before. "Kes was Jon's......fiancé, correct?"
"Captain Kestralil was the Captain of the Blackblade, and Jon's first actual lover... I don't think they were ever engaged... well, of course, they were often engaged... in shenanigans," she said, opening a large jar of a tea mix. She started a pot of milk to heating, and took down a glass jar of honey, setting in in a pan of water to warm. "I don't know, but I think she was Jon's commanding officer in the..." her voice lowered, as if afraid to speak the words in full voice. "...the Theremore espionage service."
Kaneka nodded her head as she watched and listened. "Espionage huh? No wonder he's so good at what he does. He's been doing it for a long time."
"...that, and what he likes to call 'taking pieces off the board'. After Theramore, he vanished completely, wearing his Rook uniform all the time. After about a year, he joined the Alliance Recon forces in Northrend. he still won't talk about that year, but I think a lot of the Horde died."
"No problem with the Horde dying. I'm just glad he made it out alive." Kaneka slid herself onto a chair, remembering the Rook uniform that she had put on so many times in secret in her room at the Blue Raven, a little smile on her lips. Room #9 had been Jon's, and where he had kept spare leathers.
"Yeah, me too... but that was the beginning of when he started referring to the Rook as if he wasn't Jon wearing the uniform," Phred said. "Tea is ready!" Phred added the tea mixture to the boiling water, let it steep, and added the team, milk, and honey to the large white porcelain mugs. She paused, and then prepared a third cup for Jon. "So... you are going with Jon? I'm glad - maybe he'll be more careful if it's not just himself he's risking."
Kaneka nodded. "Yes. I'm going to look after him, not the other way around. I know he isn't entirely happy about my going with him, but... I don't care."
Phred chuckled. "Good for you!" The gnome lass looked down at her mug and said "I always wanted to be able to go with Jon on a mission, but I am... not good in the field. I am glad he has a capable friend like you to make him behave... and good luck with that, by the way!" Phred stood. "Now, what can we think of for a tracking device.... usually I'd use the Law of Contagion to use something that had belonged to the Scout, but Jon doesn't appear to have anything but his memories."
Kaneka 'Hmmm'ed' into her mug of tea, thinking. "Is there anything else that you know of that ties them together? Other than his memories?" She took a sip of the tea. Oooh, it was good! "Perhaps some trinket he gave her?"
"Well, he gave her an amulet in the form of a chess piece - a rook. It added her to his comm link," Phred said proudly. "I did the enchantment, using a tiny shaving off Jon's anchor pendant, which is his comm link. But Jon said that she has n't been using since her disappearance... if they took it from her, it could be anywhere, and not with her. Of course, if she is dead, it could be on the body... maybe if we track the amulet in a chrono-progressive nature? So if you took a tracking charm to where she disappeared, it would track where it had been, and not the current location? That way, you could see if and where it and she parted company? Worst case, if we recover the chess piece, we can do a second locator charm using it, as it is connected to [i]her[/i]!"
"Hmmm. Or, maybe...and I don't know if it'll work, maybe I could modify my portal to fix on the sliver of Jon's charm in her's...." She trails off as she thought.
The sounds of Jon coming back downstairs interrupted Phredaria's chain of thought, and the gnome flinched when Jon entered the kitchen. Jon was wearing his Rook uniform, midnight blue cuir boli leather armor festooned with small pouches and concealed weapons. The helm was heavily stylized and looked like the head of a bird of prey. Phred had hoped that after the last incident, where a Shadow Priestess had merged the Jon Chess persona with the Rook persona, that she had seen the last of that aspect of Chess.
After the destruction of Theramore, the Rook personality had become stronger and more distinct from Jon's main identity; when Jon was in character as the Rook, he was a ruthless, unsympathetic harbinger of death and destruction, only appearing when the Alliance military gave Jon assignments that required brutal butchery. When the Crimson Cabal had captured and tortured Jon, trying to brainwash him into becoming a Ren'dorei serial killer, the Rook had actually become its own personality, finishing the disassociation that Jon had subconsciously started to deal with those kinds of assignments. Phred did not think that it boded well that he had chosen this set of leather armor for the search for Zaneryne.
Having been lost in thought and sipping her tea, Kan blinked back to reality when Phred flinched. Kaneka turned her chocolate-colored gaze toward the stairs, her brow furrowed briefly. She'd never seen this particular outfit of Jon's and judging from Phred's reaction, perhaps it wasn't a good thing that she was seeing it now. She did have the good sense to not make comment about it though. With a quick clearing of her throat, she spoke. "Jon, Phred and I were talking about how to use your anchor charm as a kind of... beacon, to try and get a bead on where Zane's charm is at. It could perhaps give us a starting point as to where to look. That is, unless, you have a starting point in mind?" Kaneka took a sip of her tea, her gaze flickering between Jon and Phred.
"Well, I was going to begin at the destroyed munitions factory in Stonetalon... but tracing her medallion might cut days off, so I'm all for it," Jon said, smiling at Kaneka. "I just do the legwork, you guys are the arcane muscle!". Jon didn't give away the thought that the medallion might be around the neck of Zane's corpse; that at least would be an end to the search. If someone else had it, there could at least be an interrogation.
"Is that her last known whereabouts? Stonetalon? That could help with the location process." Setting her mug down on the counter, Kaneka turned to look at Phred. "So, how should we do this?"
"Yeah, she had located the weapons lab, tracing a stolen shipment of Azurite that the Horde had stolen and was weaponizing.," Jon confirmed. "The Sentinel in charge of the operation called us in when Zane infiltrated as a Sin'dorei - she's really good with disguises - and then went missing. She wasn't found when we raided the place, and that is where I was injured."
Nodding, Kan slipped from her seat. Taking a few steps away from the counter, she turned and held her hand out to Jon. "I'll need your anchor charm please." Jon removed the anchor charm, handing its mithril chain to Kaneka.
Letting the chain drape over her knuckles, Kaneka held the charm tightly in her hand. Closing her eyes, she began to recite the complex spell. Instead of focusing on a location as per normal, she focused on the sliver of Jon's charm in Zane's amulet. Gritting her teeth and squeezing both the charm and her eyes tightly, her chanting became more furious and garbled. Tiny beads of sweat dotted her forehead, her breathing almost labored as she continued the spell.
Jon watched, doing his best to not distract Kaneka doing the working of her spell. Phred seemed to be watching and taking mental notes as if to want to be able to replicate Kaneka's efforts.
Kaneka's empty hand suddenly thrust out before her, the faint glowing of a portal coming together in front of her. Squeezing the charm tighter in her hand, the sharp ends of the anchor digging into her flesh, she focused her energy on the silver. The teleportation portal seemed to flare to life, though looking at it, you couldn't tell exactly where it was leading. "I... I think... I have it..."
Jon waited for the portal to stabilize. "Let me go first, Kaneka... just in case." When the portal stabilized, he drew both of his envenomed daggers and stepped through the teleportation portal. Heaving a heavy sigh, Kaneka opened her eyes just at Jon stepped through the portal. Turning to give a weak smile to Phred, Kan followed suit.
(This is Jon Chess' perspective. For Zane's story, see https://www.patreon.com/posts/ghost-part-1-24070775 )
"I am ready now," replied Jon. He watched with a barely concealed impatience while Kanaka made with the "white mice and pixie dust" routine, opening a teleportation portal to Dalaran. Jon stepped through, and felt his gorge rise... however convenient, his body did not like teleportation. Kaneka joined him, and closed the portal, leaving the two of them in Dalaran. Together, they made their way to the house of Phredaria, Jon's friend and colleague.
After quickly closing the portal, Kaneka followed Jon closely through the streets of Dalaran. She had to keep her chuckles to herself as she watched him walk wearing only the hospital gown. This was a serious mission. To be honest, she was a little excited to finally be meeting Phred. She'd heard so much about her, even stayed in her home for a spell. She would finally be able to put a face to the name.
Phredaria opened the front door, her words already streaming a mile a minute.
"Jonyou'reOKhowdidyouohshityoudidSaDaibloagainFelDAMMITJonwhydidn'tyouwaitI'mgoingto kllthatwarlockbutIamgladyouaren'tdead!" she said, taking a huge breath.
"Phred, this is Kaneka Hillyard. She's going to help me track down Zaneryn," Jon said, omitting her role in Joh having obtained the narcotic. "I don't have anything that might help with a locator charm, though. Maybe you and Kaneka might be able to figure something out while I go and get some clothes on?" Without waiting for an answer, Jon headed up the stairs to his cache of supplies.
Kan blinks at the mile a minute scolding Jon got, almost glad she wasn't on the receiving end of that. She smiles at the woman, extending her hand for a shake. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you Phred. I've heard so much about you."
"So [i]you[/i] are Kaneka! Jon has often spoken about how smart you are and your talent for magery, but he didn't mention how lovely you are..." Phred enthused, looking up from her scant four feet of height. Phred had large, round, seemingly-innocent eyes the color of stolen emeralds, and wild-shirt-cropped pink hair. She wore simple comfortable Netherweave trousers and tunic, both only a little scorched around the edges.
"Jon said you really liked my library!," the pint-sized Gnome continued. "You must please feel free to borrow anything int eh library of the lab! And stop by frequently - now that my professor disappeared, the Stormwind Academy seems to have lost all interest in forensics, so they stopped paying me... so I am home a lot more, now, either in my lab or my bench."
A faint touch of color covered Kaneka's cheeks as she smiles at Phred. "Oh, I loved your library! Thank you for letting me loose in there." She chuckled softly. "Jon gives me more credit than I'm due."
"Are you sure you mean our Jon Chess?" Phred said, giggling. "Jonny is not precisely a charitable sort... you should hear him when he gets on a roll - he has a tongue sharper than a Kul Tiran fishwife, so he does!" A measured look came into Phred's eyes. "in fact... never mind. may I get you some tea? Jon keeps my little home well-stocked... its a side benefit for his traveling far and wide on business. And to being his oldest friend and colleague!"
"I would love a cup of tea, thank you." Again her smile grew for the diminutive gnome woman. "You've known him forever then, have you?"
"Oh yes," she called over her shoulder. "We first met when Jon was hired to investigate a series of murders in Theramore, and Jaina asked that I consult; she was such a bright spark, y'know, when she took my Forensics class in Dalaran. He was so... dark-tempered then, but with a little help he caught the murderer... um... and the murderer was killed while trying to escape." Phred put the tea kettle on the heating brazier to boil. "Lady Jaina always suspected that Jonny had let the blighter resist arrest so that Jon could kill him; he was a Kul Tiran scion of Waycrest in exile so the most Jaina could have done would to have banished him from Theramore. Come to that, she may have been right - Jonny always felt bad when he knew someone was guilty as sin but the evidence wouldn't support a conviction., especially after... after Kes died at Theramore."
Kaneka followed Phred into the kitchen, leaning against a counter. She quirked a brow at the mention of Kes and fished through her brain to try and remember the name. She knew she'd heard it before. "Kes was Jon's......fiancé, correct?"
"Captain Kestralil was the Captain of the Blackblade, and Jon's first actual lover... I don't think they were ever engaged... well, of course, they were often engaged... in shenanigans," she said, opening a large jar of a tea mix. She started a pot of milk to heating, and took down a glass jar of honey, setting in in a pan of water to warm. "I don't know, but I think she was Jon's commanding officer in the..." her voice lowered, as if afraid to speak the words in full voice. "...the Theremore espionage service."
Kaneka nodded her head as she watched and listened. "Espionage huh? No wonder he's so good at what he does. He's been doing it for a long time."
"...that, and what he likes to call 'taking pieces off the board'. After Theramore, he vanished completely, wearing his Rook uniform all the time. After about a year, he joined the Alliance Recon forces in Northrend. he still won't talk about that year, but I think a lot of the Horde died."
"No problem with the Horde dying. I'm just glad he made it out alive." Kaneka slid herself onto a chair, remembering the Rook uniform that she had put on so many times in secret in her room at the Blue Raven, a little smile on her lips. Room #9 had been Jon's, and where he had kept spare leathers.
"Yeah, me too... but that was the beginning of when he started referring to the Rook as if he wasn't Jon wearing the uniform," Phred said. "Tea is ready!" Phred added the tea mixture to the boiling water, let it steep, and added the team, milk, and honey to the large white porcelain mugs. She paused, and then prepared a third cup for Jon. "So... you are going with Jon? I'm glad - maybe he'll be more careful if it's not just himself he's risking."
Kaneka nodded. "Yes. I'm going to look after him, not the other way around. I know he isn't entirely happy about my going with him, but... I don't care."
Phred chuckled. "Good for you!" The gnome lass looked down at her mug and said "I always wanted to be able to go with Jon on a mission, but I am... not good in the field. I am glad he has a capable friend like you to make him behave... and good luck with that, by the way!" Phred stood. "Now, what can we think of for a tracking device.... usually I'd use the Law of Contagion to use something that had belonged to the Scout, but Jon doesn't appear to have anything but his memories."
Kaneka 'Hmmm'ed' into her mug of tea, thinking. "Is there anything else that you know of that ties them together? Other than his memories?" She took a sip of the tea. Oooh, it was good! "Perhaps some trinket he gave her?"
"Well, he gave her an amulet in the form of a chess piece - a rook. It added her to his comm link," Phred said proudly. "I did the enchantment, using a tiny shaving off Jon's anchor pendant, which is his comm link. But Jon said that she has n't been using since her disappearance... if they took it from her, it could be anywhere, and not with her. Of course, if she is dead, it could be on the body... maybe if we track the amulet in a chrono-progressive nature? So if you took a tracking charm to where she disappeared, it would track where it had been, and not the current location? That way, you could see if and where it and she parted company? Worst case, if we recover the chess piece, we can do a second locator charm using it, as it is connected to [i]her[/i]!"
"Hmmm. Or, maybe...and I don't know if it'll work, maybe I could modify my portal to fix on the sliver of Jon's charm in her's...." She trails off as she thought.
The sounds of Jon coming back downstairs interrupted Phredaria's chain of thought, and the gnome flinched when Jon entered the kitchen. Jon was wearing his Rook uniform, midnight blue cuir boli leather armor festooned with small pouches and concealed weapons. The helm was heavily stylized and looked like the head of a bird of prey. Phred had hoped that after the last incident, where a Shadow Priestess had merged the Jon Chess persona with the Rook persona, that she had seen the last of that aspect of Chess.
After the destruction of Theramore, the Rook personality had become stronger and more distinct from Jon's main identity; when Jon was in character as the Rook, he was a ruthless, unsympathetic harbinger of death and destruction, only appearing when the Alliance military gave Jon assignments that required brutal butchery. When the Crimson Cabal had captured and tortured Jon, trying to brainwash him into becoming a Ren'dorei serial killer, the Rook had actually become its own personality, finishing the disassociation that Jon had subconsciously started to deal with those kinds of assignments. Phred did not think that it boded well that he had chosen this set of leather armor for the search for Zaneryne.
Having been lost in thought and sipping her tea, Kan blinked back to reality when Phred flinched. Kaneka turned her chocolate-colored gaze toward the stairs, her brow furrowed briefly. She'd never seen this particular outfit of Jon's and judging from Phred's reaction, perhaps it wasn't a good thing that she was seeing it now. She did have the good sense to not make comment about it though. With a quick clearing of her throat, she spoke. "Jon, Phred and I were talking about how to use your anchor charm as a kind of... beacon, to try and get a bead on where Zane's charm is at. It could perhaps give us a starting point as to where to look. That is, unless, you have a starting point in mind?" Kaneka took a sip of her tea, her gaze flickering between Jon and Phred.
"Well, I was going to begin at the destroyed munitions factory in Stonetalon... but tracing her medallion might cut days off, so I'm all for it," Jon said, smiling at Kaneka. "I just do the legwork, you guys are the arcane muscle!". Jon didn't give away the thought that the medallion might be around the neck of Zane's corpse; that at least would be an end to the search. If someone else had it, there could at least be an interrogation.
"Is that her last known whereabouts? Stonetalon? That could help with the location process." Setting her mug down on the counter, Kaneka turned to look at Phred. "So, how should we do this?"
"Yeah, she had located the weapons lab, tracing a stolen shipment of Azurite that the Horde had stolen and was weaponizing.," Jon confirmed. "The Sentinel in charge of the operation called us in when Zane infiltrated as a Sin'dorei - she's really good with disguises - and then went missing. She wasn't found when we raided the place, and that is where I was injured."
Nodding, Kan slipped from her seat. Taking a few steps away from the counter, she turned and held her hand out to Jon. "I'll need your anchor charm please." Jon removed the anchor charm, handing its mithril chain to Kaneka.
Letting the chain drape over her knuckles, Kaneka held the charm tightly in her hand. Closing her eyes, she began to recite the complex spell. Instead of focusing on a location as per normal, she focused on the sliver of Jon's charm in Zane's amulet. Gritting her teeth and squeezing both the charm and her eyes tightly, her chanting became more furious and garbled. Tiny beads of sweat dotted her forehead, her breathing almost labored as she continued the spell.
Jon watched, doing his best to not distract Kaneka doing the working of her spell. Phred seemed to be watching and taking mental notes as if to want to be able to replicate Kaneka's efforts.
Kaneka's empty hand suddenly thrust out before her, the faint glowing of a portal coming together in front of her. Squeezing the charm tighter in her hand, the sharp ends of the anchor digging into her flesh, she focused her energy on the silver. The teleportation portal seemed to flare to life, though looking at it, you couldn't tell exactly where it was leading. "I... I think... I have it..."
Jon waited for the portal to stabilize. "Let me go first, Kaneka... just in case." When the portal stabilized, he drew both of his envenomed daggers and stepped through the teleportation portal. Heaving a heavy sigh, Kaneka opened her eyes just at Jon stepped through the portal. Turning to give a weak smile to Phred, Kan followed suit.
