The Perils of Worldly Wizarding

[King Ghidorah]

Chatterly didn't like wizards.


The reason for his antipathy was simple: Wizards, by definition, were intelligent - though not necessarily smart, which to Chatterly was a very important distinction - and they were inveterate busybodies. You'd walk into their tower, or cottage, or manky little shop, and pay good money for a tincture of invisibility and some seven-league boots, and without fail they would be scrying on you the very moment you left the door. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd finished with some piece of difficult, messy work only for a magical interloper with a smarmy look on his face to step out of the shadows triumphantly tsk-tsking. 

The first few times, he'd gone along with whatever byzantine demands they'd offered in exchange for silence - and, admittedly, cultivated some useful contacts along the way. However, he'd figured out very quickly that outside of the floating city of Dalaran there were very few wizards (sorcerously-inclined Primes excepted, naturally) who could actually do much about it if a sufficiently skilled and determined individual wanted to - in a strictly non-magical sense - make them disappear. 

Fortunately for both Chatterly's patience and the health of the already-thin wizarding population, the Duke eventually hired a hedge-wizard to serve the court of Harnburg, which meant his agent could get most of his magical needs attended to in-house - a fact which made Chatterly predisposed to like the new arrival . 

If only the man wasn't such an asocial little tit. 

[King Ghidorah]

Still, whether or not the mage had any native charm, he was a valuable resource, competent in his chosen profession and not given to unwarranted panic. Chatterly respected that, so when Hezekiah Sugman, court wizard to the Duke of Harnburg, sent word that he needed to speak with him immediately, the spymaster didn't waste any time.    

The wizard's chambers were in the algae-sodden catacombs beneath the castle, under the Northeast corner of the Duke's Keep. Chatterly was short enough that at the low ceilings weren't a concern, but it was still very unpleasant: the building's foundation was below the level of the nearby lake, and it leaked like a sieve. Water dripped from slime-covered masonry and rippled ankle-deep around Chatterly's boots as he made his way down a stone corridor, breathing through his mouth and taking care not to touch the walls, gloves or not.  The mire gurgled and hissed continuously, draining through unseen grates in the floor.  After several minutes of increasingly irritated wading, the agent came to an iron door with a single stone step at its base, raised just high enough from the floor that it could be opened without any water passing the threshold. It swung open at his approach. 

A hoarse male voice called from within, "C'mon in, Slick." 

Chatterly frowned, but he did as he was bid. 

The wizard's study was originally intended as a storage vault. It was the only dry room in this section of the catacombs, large and dark, lit by the glow of a single crystal ball, and several bowls of burning incense placed haphazardly about the room on shelves and chairs. The pungent smoke drowned the smell of algae and rot that spilled in through the open door with the burnt-metal-and-grass-clippings scent of whatever mystic potpourri Hezekiah preferred. The slate-tiled floor was covered with half-completed diagrams describing curves and angles of dubious significance, nearly invisible in the flickering light, but was otherwise bare. There were several wooden tables, scrupulously clean, a chest of drawers in one corner, and a variety of shelves pushed flush against the walls. Chatterly took a very professional non-interest in what those shelves contained. 

In the middle of the room sat Hezekiah, cross-legged on top of a seemingly mundane boulder which he'd had the guards haul in from the cliffside, with a crystal ball in his lap. The man was skinny and young, barely out of his teens, with hair the color of copper wire and a meticulously groomed and briaded beard that hung nearly to his knees. He liked to dress in bright blue and yellow coveralls, and he owned the most constantly-bloodshot pair of meteor-crater eyes that Chatterly had ever encountered. They were horrible, but made it nearly impossible to look away from the mage's face.  

"I still don't understand," said Chatterly, closing the door behind him, "why you insist on living down here. His grace the Duke offered you a tower, and yet you choose to have your study in the most inhospitable corner of the entire Keep!" 

Hezekiah shook his head. "Don't do towers, Slick. Bad associations. Underground - belike, that's the place to be. Decievers can't see you down here. Ya got any gum?" 

Chatterly's lips pulled into a thin line. The incense was beginning to give him a headache, and the mage's conversational peculiarities weren't helping. "No." 

The wizard shook his head. "Too bad, Slick. A well-prepared fella should always have some gum. Check this shit out."  He waved a spidery hand over the crystal ball, and the tiny image within expanded, projected into the empty space between the two men by rays of hazy light. 

It was of King Ghidorah, in his full three-headed glory, soaring through the air above a post-industrial city in some nameless continuum, blasting golden lightning left and right. The ground erupted in his wake, shattered by his mere presence.  

"I hope this isn't all you wanted to show me," responded the agent, taking a handkerchief out of his cloak and folding it over his nose. "I already knew he was terrible - though that shock-wave effect is new. What's your point, Hezekiah?" 

Hezekiah grinned, and his horrible eyes gleamed. "Bug-lady's been talkin' to me in my dreams, Slick. She says Goldenrod's bad news. Says Goldenrod's not just some crumb-bum dragon who likes to break things."  

Chatterly rubbed his chin, the yellow light from the crystal casting shadows on his narrow face. "'Bug Lady'?" It sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite place it.

[King Ghidorah]

"Yeah," said the wizard.  "Bug-lady. Lady's a Moth. Moth's a bug: Accurate, belike. So get off my back 'bout my choice of appellations."

Something clicked inside of Chatterly's brain. He'd heard rumors of a wandering creature which resembled a beautiful woman, but with the compound eyes and wispy antennae of a moth. Supposedly it was a Prime, though the few reports that had reached him through his various contacts had supplied only the most basic of details. It was said to be a powerful healer - unusual, certainly, but hardly a strategic concern. He'd very nearly forgotten about it. 

Hezekiah's claim that this creature - or something else entirely - had been talking to him in his dreams was simply par for the course: Astral communication and related snooping were among the man's specialties. 

"No criticism intended, Hezekiah," Chatterly said. "It's just that I like to know more about the source of a claim than a simple two-word description - especially when that claim regards a powerful strategic asset, even one as volatile as Ghidorah. What can you tell me about the, ah, Bug-lady?" 

The wizards swept his hand over his crystal again, and the image changed, dissolving into a swirling mist of colors. 

"She's weird," he said. "Kinda dippy - But powerful. Might've been a god once - got that former-divine-Prime dream-smell on her. I think -

The image in the air flickered and flowed, solidifying. 

- she's this thing." 

 

The soft light of the crystal described a moth, with a fuzzy black and white body, bright, intelligent compound eyes, fluffy white antennae, and a pair of brilliantly colored wings, orange and red and yellow and black all swirling together in fantastic patterns. The creature was resting on a top of a rock platform, at the center of a circle of black stones forming a twelve-pointed cross. 

Based on the size of the little people dressed in animal hides that were bowing and scraping and dancing around it, the creature was as large as the Duke's keep. 

Chatterly studied the image for a long moment, suddenly aware that it was actually somewhat chilly in the wizard's lair. He pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders. 

"Another one," he said at last. "Giants walk among us, hm? Very well. What did she have to say about or shiny friend?"

Hezekiah's eyes widened even further, if that was possible, and he shifted his weight atop his stony perch. The shifting pictures sank back into his crystal. 

"Bug-Lady said he's not just another greedy sociopath - says he's a genocidal nihilist. Said if he'd come here at the top of his game 'stead of being cut down to size by the Smiler, he'd've rolled right over us just to get his rocks off - and since we let him in the castle, she doesn't understand why he hasn't killed us already."

[King Ghidorah]

Chatterly smiled humorlessly, the expression a mere suggestion in the dim light. "I see. Well, I can't say that comes as a surprise - spend any time at all around King Ghidorah and you'll come away with the impression he's barely restraining the desire to murder practically everyone he meets..."

The smile fled as quickly as it had come. "...Though his being an out-and-out genocidal maniac does put a decidedly urgent spin on our situation. He's growing stronger, and our backup plan is far more expensive than I would prefer... speaking of which, are the potions ready?"  

Hezekiah smiled, revealing very yellow teeth. "Been ready for twelve hours, Slick. Four potions o' Giant Growth and a banishment circle. I sent 'em up to the armory this morning. Did you pick out your stooges?" 

The agent grimaced at the choice of words, but nodded his assent. "Yes... but we still need time to practice - to train. If it becomes necessary to stop him, we're only going to get one opportunity." 

Chatterly clasped his hands behind his back and looked at the floor. The agent began to pace back and forth in front of the wizard, boots tapping softly on the slate tiles, his cloak rippling softly in the dark. 

"As it stands, the plan is to continue to use him for as long as possible: ideally, to truly win him over. We've invested a fair amount of effort in getting the serfs and villains to overlook his... peculiarities. Did your mysterious winged benefactor have anything to say about that?"  

The bearded mage's wild eyes regarded him impassively. " Said it was doomed. Bug-Lady says the dragon's a psycho. Says he doesn't do gratitude, or loyalty, or empathy."

Chatterly stopped pacing and stared into the dark. "Does he 'do' self-interest?"

Hezekiah was quiet for a moment, gazing into his crystal. 

"Belike. If his crazy ass can tell where it lies." 

The spymaster smiled, thin and fleeting. 

"Capital. We might salvage this yet."