Shh, I'm Trying to Think Here [Warcraft][Others][SI]

[d.fish]

This a parody (satire, whatever, I'm too uncultured to know the difference between the two), so anything you recognize is probably intentional (maybe?). This a comedy (I think), so don't take it all that seriously, because it won't take itself very seriously unless it's trying to make you loose your balance (or pretending to be smarter than it really is). I think this keeps developing in a worse and worse direction (crack crack crack), but I can't seem to stop... help me out (send help. pls.)?

It's warcraft x crossovers, btw with SI sprinkled on top, but not in the prologue... because the prologue is just for setting the tone, sort of? Maybe just to get you in the mood. I need help on this, or maybe I just need help. Hm. Never thought of it that way.

(SEND HALP. Can't finish all this crack on my own.)

Note 2: It is suggested that you skip the Prologue if you want to get to the actual story.


~~~

Prologue​

King and Queen Menethil the Second of First Lordaeron Castle, were proud to say that they were perfectly happy, thank you very much. They were the first people you'd expect to be hosting anything group related or celebratory, because they enjoyed and were obligated to leadership, which in many cases turned out to be pandering.

King Menethil was the King of a kingdom in the north called Lordaeron, which was the breadbasket of the continent. He was an infirm, aging man with hardly any blonde hair remaining due to his age, although he did have a magnificent mustache belying his wisdom. Queen Menethil was thin and blonde and had nearly twice as less muscles as the next woman, which came easily since she was stranded and sick in bed since a complication midst her second pregnancy. The Menethils had a small daughter called Calia and in their opinion there was no finer girl anywhere.

The Menethils had everything they wanted, but they also had a new bundle of joy arriving, and their greatest excitement was to announce it to their kingdom. They didn't think they could bear it any longer to keep their little Arthas a secret, but the last few tumultuous years have left the political situation unstable. Why, anything could happen, from the unkindly Alterac rebels in the mountains rising up in arms to strange, old men arriving at their doorsteps to tell them that their children were to be wizards, to go with the far older man to this castle, where they will have sweets and learn magic. The Menethils shuddered to think what the war exhausted populace of the rival powers in the dissident nations of Gilneas, Stromgarde, and Quel'Thalas would say if he began to train a new heir for the throne while holding the reins to the Continental Alliance. It seemed like any day now that the nations would be set off and do something that everyone would regret shortly afterwards.

When King and Queen Menethil woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. King Menethil hummed as he picked out his most boring crown for work, and Queen Menethil gossiped away happily with the courtiers as she snuggled a giggling Calia into her high chair.

None of them noticed a large, ragged and disease-infested raven flutter past the window.

At half past eight, King Menethil picked up his scepter, pecked Queen Menethil on the cheek, and tried to kiss Calia good-bye but missed, because Calia was too shy for such nonsense and quickly hid away behind the legs of a young courtier by the name of Daval Prestor.

"Little lass," chortled King Menethil as he stepped out of the dining room—they hardly ever used the actual dining hall for family breakfasts with only the occasional guest after all. He got into his wagon and rode off towards the church for the ceremonies he usually presided over.

It was on the corner of the first street into the noble's quarter that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar — a raven reading a map. For a second, King Menethil didn't realize what he had seen—then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a raven standing on the corner of his castle wall, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. King Menethil blinked and stared at the raven. It stared back. As King Menethil around the corner and up the road, he watched the raven in the reflection of a noble's window. It was now mouthing the word, "Nevermore"— no, was just cawing; ravens couldn't talk or make signs. King Menethil gave himself a little shake and put the raven out of his mind. As he rode toward divine quarters he thought of nothing except an upcoming celebration of the Alliance he was hoping to plan for hosting today.

But on the edge of the Nob's quarters, parties were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam caused by this broken axle or that fallen cargo, he couldn't help noticing that there was a very strangely dressed person about. A person in a cloak of raven feathers. King Menethil couldn't bear people who dressed in unsanitary clothes—the getups you saw on refugees from Azeroth! He supposed this was just one weirdo. He drummed his fingers on the side of his car and his eyes fell on the weirdo standing quite close by, yelling to the populace of the end times and waving around a rather nicely crafted raven-headed staff in a threatening manner. This was causing quite the scene. King Menethil was enraged to see that a couple of his citizens were being harassed by the man; why, that man had to be older than he was, besides! The nerve of him! But then it struck King Menethil that this was probably some silly stunt —this was probably the work of one of the dissident states…yes, that would be it. Paying them mind in a reactionary way would only be falling into their trap. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, King Menethil arrived in the Church of the Holy Light, his mind back on party games and sultry entertainers.

King Menethil always sat with his back against his iron throne of melted orcish weapons. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on reading holy scriptures that morning. He didn't see the ravens swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the streets did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as raven after raven sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an raven that size even on the battlefield. King Menethil, however, had a perfectly happy, raven-free morning.

By noon, he was in a good mood and he'd forgotten all about the ravens until he passed a group of them next to the baker's. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn't know why, but they made him uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn't see a single person noticing. It was on his way back past them, clutching his royal scepter, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.

"The Menethils, that's right, that's what I heard—"

"—yes, their son, Arthas—"

King Menethil stopped dead. Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whispering ravens as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.

He rushed his driver back across the city, hurried up to his castle, snapped at his chamberlain not to disturb him, seized his scrying device, and had almost finished activating it to call Dalaran when he changed his mind. He put the crystal ball back down and stroked his mustache, thinking… no, he was being stupid. Menethil wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Menethil who had a son called Arthas. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his son was called Arthas. Lianne was the one who named him, after all—King Menethil certainly wasn't going senile in his old age. Artie'd just been born. It might have been Arthur. Or Mordred. Or Horus? Brutus? Judas? Whatever the case, there was no point in worrying Antonidas; he always got so upset when he was distracted from his work...

… As the monarch of Lordaeron fell into an uneasy sleep that night, the ravens flocked to his window. They cawed and watched in silence, casting a long shadow over the castle, as if some ill thought metaphor for the raven-themed wizard who caused the last few wars that shook the entire continent. King Terenas Menethil the Second fell asleep with a final, comforting thought that perhaps he was just being overly paranoid, and that the disagreeing powers would not need a flimsy excuse such as his newly born son to split up the once united and cooperating kingdoms. Nothing bad could possibly come from a single child after all, especially one as adorable and kindly as his Arthas. His son, who would be the king of the northern regions... his son, who held the new promise and hope for the kingdom to recover from the devastating wars; yes, Arthas would lead humanity into a new age after he passed on...

… Well, he wasn't exactly wrong, per say.

In truth, nothing like the raven had ever been seen in the northern kingdom. As no more eyes winked and all but the most dutiful guards passed onto the sandman's realm, a swirl of myth and magic swam about the ravens, and they coalesced into the form of a man. This was the raving lunatic who disappeared as mysteriously as he had arrived to the capital. Nothing like this man had ever been seen in the capital before this day either.

Oh, certainly, there were the odds and ends of crazies who raved about the end times approaching. They weren't too off, be they insane or simply charlatans, since after all, there were giant dragons swooping about, multiple warbands of orcs and demons and ogres and trolls and all manner of stranger beings roaming the battlefields, and the most powerful nation in the south had not yet started to recover from being shattered by conquest. Yes, these signs pointed to doom and gloom; if not the actual end times, people were depressed enough from all the death and fighting.

But where were we? Ah, yes, as the stark-razing lunatic began to rise to his full height, he stared into his clear reflection in the moon-lit glass windows below. Though his stony expression told no tales with not so much as a quiver at each and every sound in the night, the reflection's eyes twitched and bemoaned a hurting mind.

He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the way his back cracked and his motions stopped abruptly as he got up half-way. It was the sort of unholy pain one got in the spine from having laid down too much for one's life, only to attempt to stand straight and stretch for the first time in years. He was wearing long robes, a brown cloak that swept the ground, adorned with silver armored shoulders lined with raven feathers, and a giant ruby clasp holding it all together on his chest, in the shape of a knife-long beak, and high-healed, leather boots—very stylish and trendy, some ten years ago. His eyes were light, bright and sparkling with power under his dark cowl, and his lips twisted into a disgruntled frown that so many elderly put up when approached with an actual task to complete, as if too used to things going his way. This man's name was Magus Notchrismetzens Garystuspawning Walkingplotdevice or, as he liked to be called, Medivh.

But that was only what he was known as for most of his life, his secrets were never publicized in the open. The man who stood there was but two personas of the person known as Medivh. Unlike most who suffer from multiple personality disorders, Medivh knew exactly what he was doing and what was happening to him... after all, not everyone could reach the peaks of power as he had and still be only as insane as he.

As he stared into his reflection, Medivh's anguished and aggressive whisper echoed through the higher towers of the castle, "We wants it, we needs it. Must destroy the precious. Corrupt it. Compel it. Control it. They protect it from us. Sneaky little humieses. Kindly, gentle, good!"

"No. Not my humieses!" The Medivh in the reflection—the true Medivh who had been so suppressed by the wicked Sargeras within his own body—whimpered.

"Yesss... humieses, good!" Hissed Medivh back at Medivh, "You cheated them, hurt them, lied to them! They know you evil!"

Medivh shook his head, "Humies our friend!"

"You don't have any friends, Medivh," said Medivh harshly, "nobody likes you!"

"I'm not listening... I'm not listening... I'm here to help... I want to help..." Medivh cradled his head and tried to turn away, knowing it would do nothing against the voice in his head, in his heart, and scarred and carved into his lingering soul. "I'm going to help..."

"No one will listening..."

"They wills!"

"They do not know..." Medivh cackled at the torment he inflicted upon Medivh, at Medivh's pain and confusion and at the indecision that weighed down on Medivh's heart. "They will not know of the prophecy..."

"They can. They will... They have to..." Medivh protested, "It is foretold! And it is tradition, like killing giant rats, holding dying loved ones, and the big, bad villain!"

"... but, we is the big, bad villain."

"No! We... we's dead," Medivh whimpered.

Medivh cocked his head to a side curiously and not revealing his intentions completely, "Oh? Are we really? Yet here we are. We trying to change fate. We trying to do."

"We trying to do good!"

A shoe flew up from one of the opened windows in the nobles' quarters, which did not exactly hit Medivh or even the stained-glass window he was dialoguing into, but it did smash a window, caused a cat to howl, and probably landed on a homeless fellow. "Shut it up there, some of us are trying to sleep!"

Medivh turned towards the source of the sound and poked his finger towards the disgruntled noble. The noble was a newt.

"No!" Medivh protested, but it was too late. Another boot was conjured above the newt, squashing it.

"Murderer," Medivh teased.

"Go away!"

"Go away?" Medivh asked mockingly. He strutted about with a wicked grin on his visage, and from a chortle grew his laughter, all the while Medivh began to cry.

"I will... I will change the fate..." Medivh promised. "I will tell them the prophecy. I am the prophet!"

Medivh snorted nonchalantly, "And tell them what prophecy? That the world will end? That the devourer of worlds is coming, that his herald is already here, locked in an icy cage? That the world is older than any of them know? That contrary to popular mythology, it did not begin as a paradise? That for untold eons, demons walk the world, made it their home, their hell? But in time, they lost their purchase on this reality? That only then was the way made for mortal animals, for humieses? That all that remains of the Old Ones are vestiges, certain magic, certain creatures...? Ha! Tell them! See if they will believe!"

"They will believe! I believes in the them who believes in the prophecy!" Medivh howled back as Medivh ended his spectacle of a rant on a crescendo. His body shivered in the cold as he looked down on the babe who would one day be prophesied to bring unspeakable change to the world. He knew Arthas Menethil would one day flip the human kingdoms upside down, and with it, somehow, bring about the survival of the world. But how? "He is the chosen one! He will believe!"

"You are foolish to believe in good and righteousness, Medivh," Taunted Medivh. "Remember where it got you last time? Wasn't it better to just end this precious world, like the other one you condemned to annihilation...?"

Tears nearly welled in Medivh's cracked, old eyes. "I did not know about Draenor! It was a retcon!"

Medivh hissed, "Silence! You know not of such things! But if you want to influence fate, why not just a nudge here, kill a babe there...? Perhaps things would actually turn out for the better, Medivh?"

"... You are a monster," Concluded Medivh, for there was definitely no way that killing Arthas Menethil while he was just an infant could change the course of history for the better in any way! "Leave now, and never come back!"

"No!"

"Leave now, and never come back!" Medivh repeated to his reflection, as if the mantra were a spell.

Medivh screamed in frustration at Medivh's incessant will to remove Medivh from Medivh's mind and his influence from his actions.

"LEAVE NOW! AND NEVER COME BACK!" Medivh shouted, just before dodging another boot that flew up from a different noble house (the Prestors, a minor house of no note, that would probably disappear into the annals of history without causing any change).

Medivh was silent. There was no Medivh, only Medivh.

"We told him to go away... and away he goes, Arthas!" Medivh whispered down at the now-clear glass window. "Medivh is free! Medivh will watch over Arthas, over the humies, over the kingdoms. Medivh will tell when time comes, and you will believe... Medivh will save precious, precious world from evil..."

A breeze ruffled the neat hedges within the gardens of the Castle Lordaeron, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect a titanic battle of wills between good and evil to happen. Arthas Menethil rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on a disease-covered raven's feather beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was the prince, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by the start of celebrations of his birth that King Menethil had ordered so hastily just hours previous, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being hugged and cuddled by his sister Calia.. He couldn't know that at this very moment, a creepy, old man older than his father and planning to take him from his home in a dozen years in the future was watching him at this very moment in secret behind many layers of magic and secrecy, whispering in hush, "To Arthas Menethil — the King in the North!"

…

… Did you think that was the protagonist of this story? Did you think this was about crazed, old, and wrinkly Medivh? Or perhaps you thought this was all about the future of Arthas. Perhaps you even thought this was about one of the other people mentioned in this prologue already.

But no, this is not.

For you see, they aren't all that important at all. After all, I'm the important one, and you're here to read about me, even if you didn't know it yet. You see, this is the story of a self insert. Yes, it's that type of story, but you've gone too far to escape now, so read on...

 

[Xicree]

Ah Fishie SIs... I await the delicious tears.

 

[d.fish]

Ah Fishie SIs... I await the delicious tears.

Click to shrink...

Any thoughts on the prologue?

 

[Xicree]

Amusing. The Medivh/Gullum bit was my favourite bit. Looking forward to more.

 

[d.fish]

Amusing. The Medivh/Gullum bit was my favourite bit. Looking forward to more.

Click to shrink...

Yes, I always thought that was kind of stupid how Sargeras turned Medivh but not really but kind of yes but kind of no. METZEEEN...

 

[Legend of Ruina]

I'm sorry but judging by the title and the tags I'm not sure if this is a serious fic or not. I mean there's that question mark on the last bracket set of the title and looking at the tags it seems like this might just have the SI doing literal crack instead of metaphorical crack. In all seriousness it's an enjoyable first chapter.

 

[kinglugia]

I need a drink.

 

[d.fish]

I need a drink.

Click to shrink...

Scotch? Whiskey? Purified mana filtered through a neutron star aged to the end of time in a Ygdrassil wood casket?

 

[d.fish]

Chapter 1


Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary (as most of us in the modern era do, because of how the internet has induced such insomnia upon us, to stay awake for hours into the dawn), over a many a quaint and curious volume of cat pictures and boobs—I turned to a new series that someone in the comments of one particular picture of a particular set of luscious breasts accompanied by a cute kitten, a series called Wilfred.


You might think it a non sequitur—irrelevant information that I am just throwing at you to confuse you my dear reader—but it is actually relevant (or at least at the time I thought it was relevant). For you see, it is a retelling of traditional and culturally relevant Australian tale, of how Frodo Baggins hallucinates a dog being in a man suit in a dog suit talking to him about all sorts of things, and getting into rather hallucinogenic adventures with Kuzco, Giuseppe Salvatore, Iknik Blackstone Varrick, and a whole cast of colorful characters. It is perhaps one of those great shows that can be enjoyed while on all sorts of substances, such as what I was (probably) sniffing at the time (Magic the Gathering cards tend to bring both that high and the feeling of nostalgia to me, which is far better crack than crack, in my honest opinion).


But you see, there was a whole hypnotic feel to the show. I had only watched one episode, and I felt like I was doing every drug imaginable. Well, maybe I had watched all four seasons—I couldn't rightly remember. And there I sat in my office, with my elbows plopped on my mahogany desk and my eyes staring into the overly bright screen that was the only source of light in the room that doubled as a private office and a study. The show slowly put me into a trance, and while I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as if someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. It came in ones and then twos and then three, fours and fives.


They increased, like the beating of my heart. The sound of it like a drum, like in that story, of the murderer who hid the body in his house, yet his conscious and his guilt had led him to hear the beating of the slain heart. It came loud and it came soft, from not just the door but at my sides.


I looked right and I looked left, yet not a single being was in sight. Only darkness, flickering shadows, and nothing more.


Next you might guess that I claimed to remember distinctly the date and time, but all I could tell you was I was high. High like a kite or perhaps, I was merely seeing unseen sights. First came the rapping, then came the pounding, and finally came the clicking. Why were my fingers moving with no comprehension, when I had not commanded them anything? But the clicking did not come from my clicky keys, but from all around me, in the shadows from beyond sight.


I saw then, a spider on my keyboard, bathing in the light like a cat would nap on my laptop. Its red, hourglass shaped marking on its back was so enticing to the eye. Then came another, then came another, until the darkness was but spider. They once said bees and wasps and flies were fierce, but perhaps they have never seen spiders.


Ah, and as the darkness took me, caused by hallucination, the piles of white snow around me, or the shadows that were spiders, or something else within my clear and clearly sane mind, I heard but one voice, "Wow, you died a messed up death."


I peered up in the direction of the light, but it was blinding and I saw nothing. "Who are you," I had to ask.


"Your auditor, I suppose," came the bland reply, as if repeated already a million, million times. It was bored, that much was clear, and clearly as unhelpful as hell could be. "Sort of like your tax agency, or a bunch of lawyers out to get you, you know what I mean?"


I did.


"Just how did you get so high on life? Are you... hey, pay attention," I heard a snap. It snapped at me, and then it slapped.


I shook my head, only to see I had none. In fact, I had no eyes or nose or lips to speak of... to scream with, or the cry from. "What?" I asked, as meek as could be.


"You're one messed up case," It stated. "Now stop wandering off."


"I'll take that as a challenge," I replied. And so I sped, quickly through what I knew was a crossroads, a limbo, a restaurant at the intersections of the highways of the multiverse, and perhaps just a step into the afterlife.


"Hey!"


I did not turn, nor could I look over my shoulders. I had none. But the sights I took in were too amazing to comprehend, but it was sort of like that one comic that I had read, some dozen years prior... it had a special saying for the experience of death. Something, something, death, something, something, changed your life, growing up, or something like that... did I get that right? But if you were curious, I could try to explain what I saw.


First there was a galaxy, or at least I thought it was one. There was a tacky guy there, dressed in bronze, wielding a rainbow studded glove, and then he became a pleb. Wait, no, it was a crossroads for sure this time. They were just the two-laned roads that local roads had in rural America, with stop signs and everything. At the center of it all, I saw a milk shake.


It was delicious, though I think it belonged to someone else.


"You're not supposed to eat that!"


It was peach-flavored.


"Get back here! Someone, help! It's an escaped soul!"


And it was delicious.


"Ow! It bit me! How the bleeping bleeps did it bite me?!"


Come to think of it, auditors taste like lawyers.


And as I flew down the celestial river and into the cosmic highways, dodging the speeding space dust and drunk drivers (they are everywhere, everywhen), I couldn't but help notice a giant, sexy woman picking me up from the upside down ground. Wait, was I in Australia? See, this was exactly what I meant when I said that Wilfred was relevant somehow!


She was pretty in the sense that she had the sort of wild, styled hair iconic to the 80's and 90's, dressed in black silks and leathers, with pearly teeth and porcelain skin, and a most luxurious ankh hanging at her throat. Somehow, I knew her name was Death, and she was boundless, forever, and... what's that word that I'm looking for? Ah, well, it couldn't be some kind of title for her kind, so who cares, right?


Her lips perked in a smirk, but something told me that her expression—while belying amusement of someone up high—was also of one that told me she had just picked up something like a cum-rag and clearly detested with thinly veiled disgust what she was looking at. Hey! That's me, you're looking at!


"You know, I'm usually pretty lenient about this sort of thing," She said after a moment.


And Death had all the rights to be, as she was just as inevitable as human greed. And I said so to her, if only to make her frown, as if this kind of minuet, insignificant, and most importantly human concept were so beneath her... him... it... whatever, Death. "Also, you're hot."


"... thanks."


Then I broke from her grip, and left. After all, she was only Death. I was no wimp, if I died, then I ought to just walk it off. You know, this was the sort of thing people got better from all the time, after all.


"Hey!"


"Smell ya' later!"


So there were a lot of different universes and planes and realities and dimensions and timelines to choose from, yet I could only choose one. After all, I was too drunk and too high to remember where home was, so it was best to find some place where I could sleep death off first before I sought home, right? This was common sense, after all. There were all sorts of colors and patterns swirling around in some cosmic centrifuge as I jumped down the proverbial drain of the Limboic bathtub, and I saw all sorts of maids. There were head maids and big sister maids, little maids and maids in masks, and there was even a combat butler-maid, if that made any sense. Well, a long story short—skipping over all the unnecessary details—I arrived at a nice plane and world, where at least it wasn't a ball of fire or just about to explode with only one child somehow miraculously being shot out into space and the rest of its inhabitant locked in some kind of phantom... area. Definitely not a zone, but I could see how someone might call it that.


As I fell through the skies, a sticky note slapped against my face. It ripped itself from me after a moment, and a paper clip materialized itself on top of it, with freakish googly-eyes and thick, thick eyebrows. Did I mention how thick those eyebrows were? Thick. "I see you are attempting to reincarnate into a body. Tell me, are you a boy... or a girl?"


Are you bleeping serious?


"I'm a girl, obviously. But a penis would definitely change my perspective on the world, you know what I'm saying?" I added truthfully.


"I see that you are a boy, is that correct?"


"No! No! NO!"


"Confirm that you are a boy?"


"NO!"


"I didn't quite get that," The paper clip spoke after a moment of nothingness. The blank stare of its enormous eyes bore into my soul and I shivered in fear at how soulless this artifact creature was. How horrific must its creators be to make such an abomination? "Are you a boy or a girl?"


"... A girl."


Before I could hear its response, I crashed into the earth. Well, what did you expect when you jump from what might well be the top of the Empire State Building into a Petri dish? I couldn't exactly aim where I was going to land, or which body I was going to possess, or "naturally reincarnate into a body that already had a soul" as they say, or some other nonsense. Quite frankly, I was just surprised I wasn't picking up pieces of my soul that were splattered all over this universe.


"I see you chose to splatter your soul all over this universe. Commencing in five... four... three..." The paper clip was obviously evil. But how could I stop it? It was so obstinate and so difficult to use, like the old software that were dressed in dull grays that people hated so much and... Oh. Oooh. Oh...


Well.


Fuck.


My consciousness rushed forwards and...

 

[a2znut]

PROFESSOR OAK

 

[d.fish]

Chapter 2

I have always felt a kinship to water. Perhaps it is because, for the last few years (or days, weeks, months—I can't be quite sure of the passage of time just yet), I have had most of my soul submerged in water. It is a funny thing to splatter one's soul all over a world, since so much of the Earth-like world is water. Most of this eventually coalesces in the center of the world, in a whirlpool of sorts, so massive it could devour a whole Europe if given the opportunity. But all of this water—be it in vapors or in ice floating up north, or in the water within this magical maelstrom of a whirlpool to nowhere—have no consciousness. I cannot move that which is simply a part of nature, without an interface for my will to be exerted.

That beings me to the one splatter that did get on a person's head—a twelve year old girl's head. It did occur to me that in any other circumstance, what happened to me was like a space whale ejaculating its space whale space semen all over a human populace to further its goals while using the locals by giving them space powers... did I mention space? But alas, I am not a space whale and my soul—while similar consistency and viscosity to some—is not space whale semen. In fact, I do not truly give any powers other than perhaps my own considerable analytic prowess. And truly my mental might is wasted on the youth, as are most things, because currently a creep older man is talking to her about leaving her home with him to go to his castle and 'learn magic', whatever that meant.

"Clearly, he is a pervert," I commented to myself—the other me. After having come so far for so long, I have come to think of this local body as myself. Is it messed up? Probably, but what could one do? At least I walked Death off.

"You did not just call Archmage Antonidas, Leader of the Kirin Tor and Master of Dalaran, the Nation of Magic, a freak!" She hissed back mentally as we smiled vapidly at the most powerful magic using mortal in the world as he continued to talk about the benefits of studying at Dalaran, under him or some such nonsense.

"No, I didn't. I called him a pervert. I didn't call him a freak, I called him a freak," I retorted using different tones for each pronoun of ourselves. There were so many ways I could mess with this common human language of the Alliance in the current situation I was in, and I took every opportunity I saw. One might even call me an opportunist! But I would just call me silly. And by 'I', I mean her, not me. I mean... you get what I mean, right?

"You... I... argh!" She lamented intelligibly.

Sadly, both of us felt the frustration that both of us felt, as did we all emotions. I would have liked to say that I enjoyed her suffering, but I was not that much of a masochist and I certainly did not indulge in self-cutting. But enough of this indulgence in internal monologues, let me start from the beginning so that we can get this show on the road.

I found myself inside Jaina, the third daughter of a seafaring nation's admiralty, but it turned out our body was of the 'easily seasick' type. We are a thin, underdeveloped girl, with a slight red puffiness around our eyes, like a poor girl's makeup, from all the sleepless nights we've endured awake indoors or rocking sickly on ships. It is the sort of feeling of a perpetual urge to vomit with nothing in your stomach multiplied by the sensation of a hangover that has gone on too long with only more alcohol to drink rather than water. This left us too weak to go out and play like normal children, so our only joy in life was staying in and reading. Our dear mother is overworked, having to play administrator and organizer for father as he was off fighting someone else's wars—the incursions of the orcs from the Dark Portal some years ago, from the southern tip of the continent. For reference, we were on the other side. But the sparse memories of them both, haggard and overworked for our sake had left deep impressions on our budding psyche that...

Well...

It is rather difficult to truly introduce ourselves, if we didn't include that we—or rather I—knew exactly where we were. In doing so, we—or rather I—knew that this was or could be all part of a game. That lent some kind of a personal reality distortion field on our perception of the world, or perhaps the rest of my soul was just getting really high from all the spinning and fun in the center of the world.

No, that came out wrong. How do I explain this? I can't, honestly, which is my I don't. I didn't even tell my mom or dad. But if I had to, I guess I could describe this as my special ability (my insanity to see the world through a different lens). We haven't had it for very long—just a week, really, since I'd only just remembered that World of Warcraft was a thing—but… well, you see, this ability definitely isn't going to be a one-off thing. I'll reiterate it in future chapters, I promise. It's like this, you see...

I muttered, "Status."

Name: Jaina Proudmoore
Level: 1
HEALTH: 52/52
MANA: 165/165
STRENGHT: 20
AGILITY: 20
STAMINA: 20
INTELLECT: 23
SPIRIT: 22
KARMA: Error, please contact your administrator.

This window appeared in front of me at the sound of my voice. It wasn't one of those tacky, blue screens from Final Fantasy that we were all too familiar with; it was the sort of character sheet that came with a game, with even slots for me to dress with—so that I could get up in ten minutes, rather than the mandatory two hours as were the norm for girls no longer purely adolescent.

In addition to this, there was a spherical, visor-like feel to the status window, like the type you'd see in Borderlands 2, but with actually not bugged interface that would actually work on a virtual reality helmet. I should know, since I worked on all of the more prominent augmented reality and virtual reality helmets already. I hesitated to theorize that maybe it was because my knowledge on the matter that the windows looked like how they did...

For those of you who didn't know—like me—those status attributes were exactly the numbers for a human mage, of the first level, at the beginning of the game known as World of Warcraft. Now, is anything else in this world like the game? No. Not at all. So how did this happen? The best I could explain of this was that I was still hallucinating... do hallucinogens that affect the soul carry over from body to body?

There were actually many more numbers below these, such as my armor attributes, my over all defensive score—which was then made up of not just my ability to mitigate damage directly, but also from my ability to dodge, to roll, to maintain resilience, and so on—and my differing offensive capabilities. It was multiple pages long, extending to five pages of excel sheets and with a whole book on the background history of the girl known as Jaina Proudmoore. It was the 'hardcore' gamer's happy place and my personal hell, since I found these points of data to be vital to my future yet they were so utterly boring.

"You're not introducing us correctly," Jaina interrupted fourth-wall-breakingly with a small pout that would have looked cute to me, if it wasn't my face pouting at ourselves in the reflection of ourselves on a boat. Yes, we were on a boat—we're going to be on a boat a lot for the foreseeable future, so you can expect this story to be something like magical Asha Greyjoy's chapters. "Who's Asha Greyjoy?"

"Never mind that. If you want to introduce yourself, why don't you do that yourself?" I poked her in the tummy and tickled her... in our mind, of course.

"Hey! S-Stop!" She whimpered like the adorable little bookworm that she was. "I thought you wanted to do it..."

I shrugged our shoulders. "Eh."

She blinked away the painful tears induced by too much tickling and tried to straighten herself. I helped, of course, because how would our plebs think, if they saw their Princess Jaina, third in line for the Admiralty of Kul Tiras, giggling like a loony? It would be pretty awkward to explain to father, too, and he was on the next ship over. So we cleared our throats and turned to the reader and curtsied—I was awkward with it since I never did grow up with this sort of thing, but Jaina was trained for it at a young age, considering the position our nation was in comparison to its peers. She was the graceful one, I was the... uh... other one.

"I am Jaina Proudmoore, daughter of Daelin Proudmoore, Lord Admiral and King of Kul Tiras, Grand Admiral of the Alliance Fleet. I love my father and my brothers, Derek and Tandred, though I wish Derek would return home and Tanny really ought to stop hiding behind me." She introduced herself with a flourish and a bow, in the sort of sickeningly sweet tone that only a cute, little girl could make when she wholeheartedly wanted to befriend someone. Sort of like what you'd expect from Bubbles in the Powerpuff Girls or one o' 'em darned ponies. "I, bwah? Ponies?"

"You were doing a great job, don't stop now." I encouraged, ignoring all signs of ponies. I knew she liked ponies, but I was ambivalent towards them, since I've stayed some time in Mongolia with horses before this.

We were guided into our room by one of the older sailors, something something, I didn't really pay attention. Nevertheless, I nudged Jaina to continue.

"Mongolia? Where is... Oh, where was I? I really like Mother's bed time stories of the Guardian Aegwynn, so I want to be a great wizard like her when I grow up, so I can help as many people as I can too! Um, but... I haven't seen Mother in ages... Father wouldn't say much about her, while we are still at sea, only that there's no point in going home. Why is that?" She asked, without a clue of what was all happening in the shadows. She's a pure and innocent maiden, and since she was me, I could obviously and truthfully claim that I was a pure and innocent maiden. Ah-ha! She frowned and turned back to the sea, ignoring my interruption and plowing forth with her introduction. It was so cute how hard she was working her little mind to articulate as best to her ability. "We have been sailing for four months now since Father picked me up from the Capital, and we have had several skirmishes against the orcs, but the crew all say that the war was already over, and that we were just cleaning up the messes of the others. Father hates the orcs and reacts especially bad when I ask of him of them, in relation to Mother. I wonder if Mother had encountered orcs before? I do hope she could tell me of them, but whenever there is fighting, they lock me in my room, and all I can tell is the sound... the sound..."

We sniffled.

"Hey, hey, we're a big girl now, we don't cry. Jaina, come on, you know if you start crying, I can't help but cry too, right?" I reached up and tried to wipe away the tears on my sleeve—a move that Jaina was clearly against, as she was brought up to never damage her clothing... rationing during war left a mark on her mentality in that way. Instead, our arm locked—very painful, I assure you—before I relented and she reached up more delicately with a handkerchief.

"Umu..."

"Right so... let's keep introducing ourselves, okay?" I added again. Look, it was either do this or we'd just huddle up in our room now, shivering. Because from the moment we started to now, a skirmish on the high seas had occurred, and we were locked in, and anything to distract us from the sounds of violence, okay? I... after taking this form, I didn't really like it either.

"Um... so... I like reading, and writing, and I like making cantrips for Father and studying. And... well, I'm not really interesting. Why do people want to know about me? I'm nobody special... I'm a burden to Father, to everyone around me... it'd be better if they didn't bring me..." Our knees tucked into our crossed arms and we hugged ourselves in the darkness. The ship rocked again, shaking and quivering as if mimicking our little body's reactions to the sounds outside. The sounds of pain, fear, and rage, they were not hindered by these thin, wooden walls of our cabin.

I sighed internally, I needed something to distract myself, because it affect me so much too. "Look, how about we make a plan?There are a lot of ideas out there, many that are intermediary steps that are necessary to accomplish greater things. It's sort of like how Antonidas might know how to manipulate time itself with magic, but he doesn't have the tools to make the tools to observe the spell, or the many underlying mechanics, such as Dark Matter, the God Particle, and the like. We could... combine magic and my vague memories of technology. Something fun, what do you say?"

"Will we... will we change the world?" We lifted our head, staring into the darkness with but a single candle to light our path.

"Oh... more than this world," I replied. A plan began to form in our head. We tossed it back and forth at the speed of thought, with drawing boards and charts and even the dreaded excel sheets plastered all over our little brain meats. And in the darkness, we plotted and planned, make the world a better place, to help all peoples, to make everyone's lives better, with might and magic—a step that would eventually lead up to the moment we would have with Antonidas later on—and world peace...

… Whether they want it or not. Or else.

 

[Adyen]

Posting it in multiple forums is so smart! Lets me like it multiple times!

But back to the story, it's kinda interesting time for the SI to plop into the world. You gotta wonder if that soul that's in the water is going to eventually be gathered together in the whirlpool and become whole again or something. (And what varied experience that SI got~)

I pity the poor girl who's going to have to grow up with the SI...

 

[Xicree]

Jaina goes to the Library! Archmage Jaina at 10!


So far it's 'Gamer Jaina', 'Gollum Medivh', 'Harry potter Arthas'... This is primed to be quite the explosion ^_^.

 

[Adyen]

Oh hey Fishie, have you ever considered doing an SI of an SI? Something like, what would happen if an SI got plopped in the middle of your Jaina Quest?

 

[a2znut]

but I was not that much of a masochist

Click to shrink...

Lies, all of it.

I found myself inside Jaina

Click to shrink...

Lewd.

STRENGHT: 20

Click to shrink...

Mongolia

Click to shrink...

Mongolia Mongolia, or Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Mongolia? :O

 

[d.fish]

Chapter 3

There are pros and cons to just about everything. The good thing about two minds is that they can be put to use towards a common goal. We both wanted to learn new things—for we found a common ground in the tales of Aegwynn and the study of magical theory—so that goal was one that our minds pursued wholeheartedly. This was rewarded with an exponentially fast comprehension, for two minds are better than one and two minds could remember and utilize far more information than one. But the bad thing about having two minds is that we often do not have a common goal. Even at a young age, Jaina's individuality emerged as an obstinate and headstrong will for the silliest of reasons.

We were in our cabin once again, though due to another battle. For a while, what interested us was the actual composition of the fleet we were a part of. Even though we were the daughter of the Grand Admiral, the chief authority on ships, it seemed like neither of us knew anything about boats (and all I knew from my past life were that ships were sluts). All the terminology that the sailors around us used were foreign and strange, though through some effort, Jaina was able to piece together what was what, with an almost fifty percent accuracy rate... probably.

What we could observe was that we were on one of the three huge ships of the fleet. These were like the carriers of my time, but rather than throw airplanes off of a runway, it just had rows and rows of cannons and guns, in all sorts of shapes and sizes. The one in the middle was commanded by Father, Daelin Proudmoore. Jaina actually did not know 'Father's name, and it was only something we figured out after having eavesdropped on several officer's conversations. I sympathized; I always thought Grandma's name was Grandma, after all.

I'm pretty sure it is, actually.

The other two ships were commanded by Father's most trusted lieutenants, Alverold, Father's protege, and Benedict, Father's best friend forever. We were on Lieutenant Benedict's ship, The Arnold. There was a really strange titles system going about, because of how informal the command structure was. Jaina did not know the reason to this, but I guessed that it was probably because of how rushed the Alliance's formation was, what with the orc-induced apocalypse and all that. In the Alliance's command structure, Alverold and Benedict were actually called 'Vice-Admirals', along with a gnome commander of a gyrocopter fighter squadron that was based on Father's ship and an elf-lady from Dalaran who was there to assist and advise Father on all things magical. In reality, that was just the pomp and glamour that the idiot Terenas Menethil, who knew next to nothing about war, draped on everyone. Father was just Lord Proudmoore, his left and right hands were just Sirs Alverold and Benedict, and the gnome was just Lady Chromie and the elf was just Lady Goldensword. It was all very polite and aristocratic, we thought.

Each ship was crewed by some two to three thousand men to give you some perspective on how massive they were. They were then accompanied by, like, a dozen frigates each. Was I saying that right? These were the smaller ships with three masts and looked like something from the 1800's, somewhat armored in iron but rather crudely. Most of these were actually merchant marines converted into warships, since most of the actual warships were burned and destroyed by dragons at this point. And these were sometimes led by one or two ships that were a little bulkier and a little bigger, though we often noticed ships half their size as well. In total, this entire 'First Fleet' was nearly one hundred vessels large and had ship sluts of all shapes and sizes.

And none of this helped at all, as we drew out a crude picture of The Arnold and tried to label each part. "I'm pretty sure that's the mast. Look how high it is," I murmured into our mind as we traced the long part in the front and center part of the picture.

"I'm pretty sure that is the stem," Jaina replied. Some time ago, she figured that since we were going to be doing a lot of studying anyway, she might as well speak aloud. I told her it was a bad habit to have, but she reasoned that she needed to practice her elocution for when she returned to Boralus, capital of Kul Tiras. "And that's the wrong part too."

I didn't even know what 'elocution' was. "That's what I said. Isn't the stem just a part of the mast?"

We frowned, "No, the stem is the back part of the keel...?"

"Are you joking?" For a moment I thought it was me, but then I realized it was a third voice and it wasn't spoken in our head... even though it sounded so much like my own. We lifted our gaze from our sheet of paper covered in charcoal and saw a lithe, blonde girl shorter than us by a head. Jaina's thoughts zoomed in on the blonde's pouty lips, of how they curled downwards like the expression our younger brother often donned when he had to eat cold vegetables. My focus was on how interesting her ears were—they were thrice as long as mine, like daggers pointed to her back, and twitched with her lips. "The stem is the forward extension of the keel, and that is the central skeleton of the hull. Don't you know anything?"

"Hey, we're just trying to learn this just now," I defended ourselves, though Jaina just wanted to shrink into herself. Children had such harsh ways with words, and though the elf girl before us seemed to be disgusted by us, I bet it was because she thought this knowledge was common sense. "How do you know this anyway?"

She turned her nose upwards, proud like most elves were, and smirked, "I learned it all the moment I knew I had to come aboard. Why, did your mother never teach you?"

Now I felt like I was just kicked in the heart—or rather, Jaina felt it and it transferred onto me. She turned our eyes to our feet and I felt a shiver run from the top of our head to our toes. "I... I haven't seen my mother in a long time. Father is always busy and I didn't... I didn't want to be a burden to anyone else."

The little elf's eyes narrowed and she took on a strange expression as she studied us. She circled us, as if trying to piece together a puzzle, but then just gave up and sighed. Rather than saying anything, she grabbed our paper before either of us could react and snorted upon reading it, "You really need help."

"Tell me something I don't know," We slumped.

"The larger ships here, they aren't frigates, they are ships-of-the-line. Mother said they were confiscated from the mountain rebels... they're older but still useful for firing ballistics from to hit dragons," She offered after a moment, having proven her superiority to us in some kind of silent ritual of childhood. She had the look on her face as if she was reciting something and didn't quite understand half of the words she just said in their correct context.

I was obviously no longer a child, so I didn't get it, but that didn't excuse Jaina for not getting it. Horror dawned upon me as I realized that we were actually loners and social outcasts.

"Oh, um. What about the lower decks?" Jaina asked before beckoning her over to our bunk.

She shrugged as she sat down beside us in our cramped cabin. How come we never noticed that this was a double bunk? "What about them? You should know this at least!"

Jaina puffed our cheeks, "It's just... some times I heard people saying they're lower decks even though they are on the top deck. It is rather confusing."

"Oh, that," The elf girl rolled her eyes. "It's s'posed to mean you don't have a good deck of cards for yourself. You know how sailor play with themselves in their bunks all the time, they gotta play with with their deck of picture cards. I've seen it done all the time, if you got prettier cards, you're upper deck, obviously." She said so with such conviction that even I believe that this was obviously the case.

"Is that what that means?" Jaina clapped, very impressed. She nodded and wrote down a note, 'don't have a deck of pretty cards', and set that aside. "It's so strange that only the officers have pretty decks, I wonder why?"

The elf girl smirked and whispered as if imparting a great secret, "Mother said that's 'cuz 'o the banks have its privileges."

Jaina widened our eyes in confirmation, "Oh... so that's how it is. The officers all have time to go to the bank... so they have money to buy prettier cards! Wow, today I learned so much! Thanks... um..."

"Finn," The elf girl... wait, was she an elf boy? Wow, elves look so pretty, I couldn't tell! Anyway, Finn grinned roguishly, causing me to doki doki, probably. It was probably Jaina though. "Call me Finn, I'm gonna be a cap'n one day... I'm great with the sword."

"Thanks Finn! Um, I'm Jaina, I wanna be a wizard," She introduced us.

"Oh, like me mum!" Finn's eyes brightened and the last bits of haughty superiority disappeared from her expression. I refuse to call a pretty elf anything other than a 'her'. Seriously, they had sparkles! "Er, my mom. She's a sorceress."

"Wow! That's so great, but why don't you want to learn magic?" Jaina asked for the both of us.

Finn shrugged again in that cool and edgy way that she does, despite being a cute as a button elf girl who was also probably only ten years old from the looks of her. "Mom said my Father is a captain. I never met him, but he's out there, protecting us from the evil orcs... I wanna be great like him, and one day, I can walk up to him and say, 'Hey, Pops! Look, I'm great like you!' Yeah... that'd be great."

It was a normal dream for a kid our age, probably, It certainly didn't impress me; I had seen hundreds of these kinds of children already and they weren't anything special. But something in those words struck a cord in Jaina's heart, and she couldn't help but swoon for such a goal. "Why?"

"... Because!" She retorted stubbornly.

"... Because?"

She plopped ourselves onto our bunk and pouted. "You always talk about changing the world and doing this or that... it doesn't matter! I just... I just want to read books, and I want to make Tanny and Father and Mother happy. I want to do that, what Finn said, and... um, make them proud. What's wrong with a goal like that? Why do I have to be ambitionous?"

"Ambitious," I corrected automatically.

"See? There you go again!" Jaina didn't express any unhappiness exactly—she was compassionate enough to even want me to be happy, and proud, of her, even if she didn't say it. She didn't have to.

"You know that if we aren't ambitious, if we don't have these big goals, then we can't change the world. We can't..." What was it that I really wanted? I kept saying these words, and somewhere along the way, even I didn't remember what I wanted to truly accomplish. It was distressing how being so fragmented had caused my drive and will to be splintered.

"And what if I don't want to? I just... I have simple goals. I don't want all that!" And that was that, for a couple awkward and uncomfortable hours, as I stewed over her words. Being twelve, Jaina forgot about it by dinner and was completely in her own world of joy at having a friend on the ship (it turned out we were bunking with Finn for the least couple weeks and we just kept missing each other at every single opportunity... imagine that).

I suppose that was why I had to do some things on my own. You know those kinds of things, taking advantage of my connection with the waters of eternity, so seeped with my soul now, covering and coveting the very magics of the world. These immortal magics which drew the greatest powers of this universe to this single planet, making it a focal point—the very front lines—on the eternal battle between the concept of good and the concept of evil, and all the grays and technicolor in between. That was why that quest finally popped up on my logs...

… I clicked accept.

 

[a2znut]

There are no elf guys to outsiders

 

[d.fish]

Chapter 4



As we stowed away the crude drawing on ships—with a flick of my wrist into my mageweave bag that contained sixteen slots of unlimited space—I blinked away a notification window. It was bothersome, because we've had slight increases induced by unimportant daily tasks such as our mopping, reading, and historical reconstruction skills, and this was yet another of those useless abilities that popped up every so often right in my face; Nautical Terms. This ability offered me a greater chance to 'understanding' sailors and accidentally cursing like one.

These windows were incredibly annoying after the first three times and the novelty had worn off. The awesome part of having your life be a game was to have the unlimited potential that a game offered—the ability to conquer gods and eat three inventories of food... or the ability to conquer three inventories of food and eat gods? It was up to the imagination. No one who enthused about this ability experienced the painful pop ups that occurred to me every few minutes as we swept the floor.

Your Broom Sweeping Skill has risen one rank to 2! Increased 1% coverage, 1% damage per second, and 1% swing speed. Debris is cleared and disappeared increased 1% efficiency—

Your Broom Sweeping Skill has risen one rank to 5! Increased 1% coverage, 1% damage per second—

Your Broom Sweeping Skill has risen one rank to 23! Increased 1%—

Your Broom Sweeping Skill has risen one rank to 169!—

Your Broom Sweeping Skill has risen one rank...

By this time, if we were still sweeping, I would have expected a single sweep to have destroyed the entire vessel. That it seemed to only add polish and varnish to the wooden deck only added to my questions. I had so many new questions! It didn't help that all brooms had zero base damage, so any increase did jack shit...

Alas, more urgent matters called to my attention.

As Jaina spent her time chattering with Finn on something or another—I turned on my attention for a moment only to hear the words, "Oh, yeah? Well my Father can beat your Father—" and then I stopped. There was no need to pay attention for at least the next hour or three. I was pretty certain that we actually had the same father, though this was a little tidbit that I hadn't shared with Jaina just yet. Instead, there was something nagging me from the corner of my mind, on the subject of status pages and the like.

For you see, unlike most of these new-age classless role playing games where characters were defined by only their weapons and their skills, Warcraft was one of those backwards and backwater games that actually had predefined roles for each class, and even preconceived genders for each too. And it so happened that I noticed we had not chosen a class, and unlike the World of Warcraft, we had a menu for selection... as if we could change it afterwards without forking over twenty bucks or something.

Actually... I didn't know if we needed to pay. What could we pay in? Certainly not money... karma maybe? Souls? I wonder... how much do souls cost? Because I would need to have one to pay for this, if that was the case.

… So then, it has come to this. It is time to experiment.

I dragged the window open in our mind's eye. One of the decent things about having gone around the block in game development, distribution, and overall monetization, was that I already comprehended new ways to play the game that people had yet to reach, such as eye-tracking virtual reality gaming. It was with this method that I was able to navigate the menu without even Jaina noticing the every once and a while odd twitches (this was definitely the laziest way to play a game, I'll give it that).

Name: Jaina Proudmoore
Level: 1
Class: Wizard

I selected wizard to be safe, because that was what we wanted to be. Perhaps we could change the classes in other ways, such as studying or meeting some other class trainers, but we had yet to meet any at the moment.

A description tooltip floated where my gaze lied, 'Wizards are arcane spellcasters who have undertaken intensive study of magic in places such as the Violet Citadel of Dalaran or the Crimson Academy of Silvermoon. They do not channel or create arcane power, but instead use their vast theoretical knowledge of otherworldly forces to harness energies to their will, often storing such energies or even entire spells in their mind.' So... basically like software developers or script writers then? This was most disappointing, because we all knew how long scripting took, especially without any tools to make the tools to make the tools to expedite things.

The paragraph was followed by, 'Wizard Prestige Classes include Dalaran Orthodox Wizard, Syndicate Ninja Wizard, Defias Bandit Wizard, Bloodsail Pirate Wizard, Scarlet Fel Wizard, Blood Wizard, Dark Lady, Archmage...' and the list went on and on and on.

Well, that sounded interesting, but I was interested in the other classes that were listed, since they offered amazing sounding jobs like 'Paladin' and 'Druid', which made no sense for Jaina to be since one was a monastic order at the moment and the other were all trapped in a parallel dimension of Green Peace and PETA.

I loved those kinds of classes that could do just about everything—tanking damage, dealing damage, and healing—whereas Wizards were so limited and lacked the potential to break the system like them. Perhaps it was just the biases formed from playing too many imbalanced Blizzard Activision games or perhaps it was the nostalgia of having played both classes, but I wanted to try those out.

So when a window popped up asking 'Are you sure you don't want to be a Wizard?' I chose yes...

… Except, well, remember how I was using my eyes to navigate this? Well... Jaina turned to Finn. She moved our eyes just enough at the same moment I thought to click, causing us to click 'no'. And then, as if trained by repetition of having clicked far too many 'Accept' buttons without reading the content of my contracts, I kept clicking the button below it. Due to games being unlike monetary transactions, the acceptance trigger was layered right on top of the button I had just clicked.

In short... there was no turning back from being a silly, bathrobe wearing wizard. After all, immediately afterwards the selection drop-down menu greyed out—a rather classic method of showing that it was no longer accessible.

"... shit."

Wait, why was everyone suddenly silent and staring at me? Oh shit, did I say that out loud, in the middle of the dining hall, right next to Father and Finn and just about every other officer in the fleet?

… shit.

 

[Adyen]

Yer a Wizzerd HarryJaina!

Yes, I avoided using this joke in SB, because I'm sure someone else would.

 

[d.fish]

Yer a Wizzerd HarryJaina!

Yes, I avoided using this joke in SB, because I'm sure someone else would.

Click to shrink...

No one did...

 

[a2znut]

Now's the time to put your broomstick wielding skill to use!

 

[Adyen]

No one did...

Click to shrink...

Well, I don't think you have the Harry Potter tag over there either.

 

[d.fish]

Chapter 5



Life took a turn for the surreal. An action bar appeared at the bottom edge of my vision, curved fit the range and depth of my eyes. There were the usual buttons such as the status toggle and a menu toggle for saving and exiting, as well as some other tooltips and options. Perhaps most interesting was that a button that appeared grey filled with color, and a sound effect played akin to the special effects used in Hearthstone, the card game with rather nicely made special effects for a digital card game. This button was the picture of a half-opened book. It was the skills and abilities toggle...

… this was not the time to play around with skills however. Father gaped, "Jaina Proudmoore, watch your mouth!" A stormy expression donned, he completely ignored how everyone around him cursed like the sailors that they were for the past few months right in front of me.

"B-But..." We protested.

"No buts, go to your room without rations, young lady! I will not tolerate your rash behavior like this! You are a pure and innocent maiden and you will stay like so until I am in my grave, you hear me? And all you assholes listening in better back me up on this one, or else!" Daelin Proudmoore added, waving a rapier at the rest of the occupants of the dining hall threateningly.

And he was rather threatening...

Lord Admiral, King Daelin Proudmoore of Kul Tiras
Grand Admiral of the Alliance of Lordaeron
Level <<Skull>> Warrior, Fighter, Paladin, Sorcerer, Hydromancer, Royalty

Those words appeared quite readily as I focused our vision on the green letters that spelled out 'Daelin Proudmoore' above his head, like a set of advanced tooltips that came with most games. It proved for one that apparently we could multi-class, though it was strange because no one around us actually called Father by the title of 'King'... and we didn't have a level in 'Royalty' class. I wonder why...?

"But it wasn't..." Jaina gripped the hem of our skirt in frustration.

But Father had no time for our nonsense. "Go to your room!"

"Hmph!" Jaina pushed our body to hurry out of the hall, stomping all the way. She was rather upset by the way she pouted and how she didn't even bother looking at her new friend, who sat in her seat still with a dropped jaw.

You've been grounded!

You can no longer leave your cabin and social interaction suffers a 100% reduced efficiency. This effect lasts for the next 7 hours and 57 minutes. This effect cannot be dispelled. This effect pierces magic immunity. This effect was cast by Daelin Proudmoore .

… Oh phooey. This is overpowered. Nerf!

"What are you doing?" Jaina grumbled. I could feel the blame and unhappiness at having been grounded shift in a vague sensation from other targets towards me, and not undeservingly so.

"I'm trying to learn magic," I answered honestly.

"Learning magic isn't getting us grounded!" She harrumphed before rolling over onto the other side of our bunk and hugging ourselves more tightly. "Learning magic isn't going around, saying n-naughty words like... like that! And, who even calls it learning magic?"

I frowned. "Then what do people call it?"

She floundered a bit, having never really thought about it. In truth, I never heard people call our studying the 'learning of magic' or something like that. The word 'magic' seemed almost demeaning in that it was the term for explainable, supernatural phenomenons, or it should be, in my opinion. "People call it, um... Father says it is the pursuit of the art when he plays with magic, but he doesn't study it because he's just using inherited power."

"Oh, well, that tells us nothing—wait, what inherited power?" I paused.

Jaina blinked, and thought to me having gotten too tired and thirsty from speaking constantly, "You know, all of the lords of the sea are masters of water sorceries. They can make a fountain of water shoot up anywhere and they even turn the swings of their swords into tides."

"Why don't we have a power like that?"

Jaina looked inwardly at me in suspicion. "What do you mean?"

"If we have a power like that, why don't we learn to practice it? Certainly being a hydromancer would be interesting," I reasoned. "And what do you mean 'what do you mean'?"

"If you're me, shouldn't you know this?" Jaina flipped us up from bed angrily and stalked around the room. All of our voices were turned inwardly, so our sense of sound only heard the loud stomping of our tiny feet against the wooden timbers of our floors and the soft creaking of the ship, protesting against the waves.

There was a moment's pause.

It was then that I searched our memories for knowledge of this, having so foolishly blurted it out earlier without considering the consequences. It was merely a curiosity, but it tripped a reaction within Jaina. The games and the books never spoke of this side of her, nor did they speak in detail of her past and of her then deceased father. This moment's pause was like having been asked "Do you love me?" and then having to pause visibly for a moment to think on the question.

Awkwardness was an understatement when I finally did answer, "... Yes, I know it."

But the thing was, the connection went both ways. As I searched in the brain meats of our vessel for the memories so necessary to answer the question of what was the inherited powers that Daelin Proudmoore might possess, Jaina too felt, saw, and all the other senses sensed the process. Even if she were the forgiving child she was and even if she were to even forget this...

… I had broken some kind of trust. I knew this. Our relationship, from then on, wouldn't ever be the same. Jaina's heart pained to think on this matter. She sighed, concluding, "... You're weird."

That was all she said.

We stood in silence, for nearly five minutes. Neither of us really wanted to say anything, much less move or read or anything else. Both of our focuses, despite splitting the attention of our totality, were turned inwards. Jaina was remembering all the people she knew of in the past, and of how they told false or omitted information like I had done. In part, I was confused what I had unwittingly omitted, but I knew I had lied about things.

I wasn't merely her soul. I wasn't born with her. I wasn't just her. I was the out of context problem and solution that had changed so much of her life already, and yet neither of us knew how.

I couldn't speak up though, because I wouldn't—couldn't bear it—to tell her my story.

… It wasn't like I remembered it all anyway, considering the hell of a trip that I was on before I came to inside Jaina Proudmoore.

It seemed almost stupid now to go back over my skills and study the new skills I had gained with having become a Wizard. Neither of us were in the mood for anything anymore. Perhaps it was right what they said, about negative emotions begetting negative emotions, but it was almost stupid how each of these things were individually so unimportant and small, yet once compounded we couldn't even function without being sad.

Perhaps some fresh air would help.

I pulled us up and towards the door. We were feeling a mite thirsty as well, having spoken so much. It would be an opportune time to pick up a jar of lemon drink. As my hand reached for the door, my body locked. "Uh... Jaina? Let's go get something to drink."

"Alright, sure, why are you not opening the door then?" She replied.

I couldn't open the door.

Our eyes widened at the realization. It was the horrible realization that having the world become a game had downsides to their downsides. Life sucked, and now even our game life sucked.

"I can't. We're grounded, remember?" I bit back testily.

"Well, here," She pushed the door open with the least amount of effort. I couldn't do that with our body. She could. This goddamned body was playing by game rules.

Horror filled my mind.

All the bugs, all the problems, all the restrictions of the world being a game. So I could destroy the most powerful being in the world, but what good would it be if by these rules, I couldn't even open a 'locked' tent flap?

I...

I want off this wild ride.

I want off this wild ride. I want off this wild ride. I want off this wild ride. I want off this wild ride. I want off this wild ride. I want off this wild ride. I want...

"Can you please stop tapping our feet? It's really annoying," Jaina grumbled before taking a large gulp. "If you keep doing that, I'm going back to bed."

"Okay, let's go—" She could open any doors I couldn't, anyway.

"No, wait, I want to go play with Finn."

"Make up your mind, would you?"

"... Okay, I remember last year when I was in Boralus, Tandred wanted us to go play tea party with him and his friends. It sounded really dumb, because there was no tea! But Tanny got to take all my toys for the party anyway. I've always wanted to try it, Tanny keeps saying he's had a lot of fun with the other girls he met at the parties." Jaina rambled on, "Let's go ask Finn!"

"Oh, come on!" I sighed. Having scanned Jaina's memory for more than once, I knew that neither of us knew how to play tea party. How did it even work? And why couldn't Jaina want to play a more normal game that young girls like to play, like 'plan for conquering the world' or something actually fun?

"What?" She pouted.

"... Nothing, just... nothing. Let's go then," I sighed. I could see how this was going to turn out already.

And apparently, Finn never played the game either, but she agreed readily, having been bored out of her mind to have sat through a long-winded dinner.

We sat down in an imaginary circle, using the night stand as our table and our mugs for tea cups. There were no dolls on the ship, so we used a sword on a pillow with a charcoal drawn picture stuck on its hilt for our tea party attendee Cutty Sharpiebites and Finn's mother polymorphed one of the orc prisoners into a kitten inside a glass ball with three holes for our game, so we named her Felicia Sexopants because we were so good at naming things and sexopants were those doubly reflecting navigation instruments used to measure the angle between two visible objects that sailors used, after all, so this party was relevant.

It was while we were cordially discussing Cutty Sharpiebites' rather enormous badonkadonks (the sword was enchanted with both Ice and Fire, making a nice, brilliant golden glow when poked) over deliciously flat lemon drink that I noticed something rather disturbing floating above our head in the reflection cast into our cup.

Jaina Proudmoore (True)
Crown Princess of Kul Tiras
Level 12 Princess

But then there was another character under that...

Jaina Proudmoore (False)
The Self Insert
Level 1 Wizard

… Huh.

Huh.

Huh...

 

[a2znut]

Change your party to exp share instead of individual take already, leech some of that exp off of Jaina before the level difference becomes too great to share.

 

[d.fish]

Change your party to exp share instead of individual take already, leech some of that exp off of Jaina before the level difference becomes too great to share.

Click to shrink...

Who says we're in a party?

 

[a2znut]

Who says we're in a party?

Click to shrink...

You stayed next to someone as a gamer for YEARS and didn't even join a party? How inefficient!

 

[d.fish]

You stayed next to someone as a gamer for YEARS and didn't even join a party? How inefficient!

Click to shrink...

But how would you know to make a party if you didn't know you were separate entities? And how do you know they've been together for years?

 

[a2znut]

But how would you know to make a party if you didn't know you were separate entities? And how do you know they've been together for years?

Click to shrink...

Fact ass-pulling u.u

 

[d.fish]

Fact ass-pulling u.u

Click to shrink...

Well, more importantly, how does she even know how to invite to party? >:3

 

[a2znut]

Well, more importantly, how does she even know how to invite to party? >:3

Click to shrink...

Right click, add party