”When meeting foreign powers for the first time, be polite and do not rush things if at all possible. Allow the other party to form his or her opinion about your faction at their own pace. Rushed decisions are rash decisions, and adds the risk of the other party deciding to dislike you just out of spite for being rushed.
Always have a moderate amount of food and drink close by. An embassy negotiates on its stomach and lack of sustenance leads to unrest in any gathering.
Always have plenty of maps at hand. Maps are beautiful to look at during boring conversations and having them instills a sense of importance in attending delegates and makes them more tractable to your proposals.
Try not to kidnap foreign heads of state.”
Excerpt from ”A Dwarven Treatise of Elementary Diplomatic Conduct” (working title ”Diplomacy for Dummies”).
The midnight watch was close when they sighted Theramoores faint lights in the distance. The wind was blowing hard from the north and whitecaps would have been visible everywhere were it not for the looming darkness of the sky, black with massive clouds boding ill for any captain foolish enough to be caught under their gaze.
Captain Davey Bonecarver lowered his looking glass and nodded to Sylvanas who had just stepped onto the quarterdeck.
”I reckon we ’ave a quarter-glass or two before we’re about to enter Theramoore Bay south of the town.”
”Very good, captain. Prepare the longboat for me. I will approach as openly and visibly as possible and negotiate safe passage for us into the bay and signal to you when it is safe to approach.”
”Aye, wouldn’t want to find out firsthand if these Alliance fellows have cannons ashore. But ye best hurry, my lady. Whatever business ye’re going to ’ave, that storm isn’t going to wait for it. I want to have us either safe and sound in the bay or well off the coast by then.”
Sylvanas nodded.
”Signal us if the winds grow too strong, with a lantern waved in circles. I will signal back if you can approach or return to the ship.”
The ship carried two boats of which Sylvanas was now taking the largest. Seven ranger were with her, all banshees and fully armed but brushed and polished to their best. It was a shame it was so dark, for it was a rare sight to see that band of brigands look so smart, Sylvanas thought almost fondly.
The waves nearly upturned them as soon as they pushed away from the ships hull and only after altering their course half to the north could they begin to make progress towards the harbour. Every cloak was soaked through in a minute and they were regularly showered every time a new wave crashed into their fore. The light of their lantern looked pitifully small in the night and just as Sylvanas wondered if she should wave it to call attention to them a particularly large wave crashed over them and tore the lantern with it into the churning waters.
Sylvanas could have sworn several times that they were going more backward than forward but at long last the boat slammed into a thick post of theramoores dock, seemingly half filled with water at this point despite the the frantic bailing of the rangers aft of their rowers.
Anya tossed a line to Sylvanas, or a head spring or whatever it was captain Bonecarver insisted it was called, and after a nearly being swept away by the waves several times they had secured their little vessel. Sylvanas leaned down and helped her rangers climb out, or more like heaved them up on the pier by herself. They had lost a quiver and a couple of bows to the storm, and the strings of the rest were likely unusable despite the oiled leather sleeves that protected them from more normal amounts of rain. As Sylvanas rose from helping Clea up as the last one, clanking steps caught her attention and half a dozen city guards in the typical Alliance mail and plate armour were running up to them.
”Hold it!”
”Stay right there!”
Sylvanas rose to her full height and took an unneeded breath to compose herself. She was unimpressed by the soldiers apparent skittishness but she would not let herself be distracted now.
”Greetings. I am…” Sylvanas began in her clearest Common, almost shouting to be heard over the wind.
”You be a smuggler I reckon, skulking in the night like this!”
”Or a spy, sergeant!”
Sylvanas flinched. What? What were they thinking, that a smuggler would moor at the docks in the middle of a storm and without carrying any goods?
”Sergeant! They’re undead!”
”The undead! The undead are here!”
”To arms!”
No…
”I wish to speak to Lady Jaina Proudmoore!” Sylvanas declaimed, more and more desperate to retain a semblance of control over the situation. ”I assure you we have no hostile intentions against Theramoore!” She stretched her arms along her sides and sprawled her fingers to indicate that she was unarmed.
”They’re undead assassins, sergeant!” one voice called out, frantic and apparently panicking.
”You will stand down and surrender your weapons immediately!” the one that was apparently a Theramoorian sergeant barked. Sylvanas did not miss the trembling of his voice that he tried to hide. ”Prepare to be taken into custody!”
What?!
As if on cue, every dark ranger drew a blade and spread out to protect Sylvanas. It was in every way the right thing of them to do. And in every way the wrong thing. Sylvanas’ vision narrowed, darkness closed in from all around, darkness that boiled and bubbled and wanted her to let go of herself and be one with it, one with her limitless wrath over each and every thing done to her, to the elves, to the Forsaken. Her pent-up frustration tore at its mental shackles, her anguish of being made into a monster and a murderer, of watching helplessly as her envoys were killed without question and her rangers walked away to seek their deaths, of listening to the frightened whispers of Forsaken families hunted like vermin by a world united by only its hatred of them.
Sylvanas could hear faint voices and shouts. Time had slowed to a crawl, every second seeming like an hour.
”…call for support…”
”Back off!”
”…we need mages!”
Sylvanas clenched and unclenched her fists. She tried to breathe, to focus her thoughts on anything at all. But the more she tried, the more they flooded freely.
It was an ambush, it had to be. Was this the plan all along of the Alliance? To starve her of allies until she became desperate enough to risk herself, depriving the Forsaken of their leader? Would the rest of them be hunted and taken down following her death here?
The guards were shouting, there was a commotion now.
They would lose it all. They
had lost it all. They had lost. She had lost. She felt herself falling down into a hole of darkness, darkness in which waited the mocking laughter of the Lich King to welcome back his murderous banshee into the fold. Was that her fate, cruel and inescapable? Was freedom of choice but an illusion for the dead?
She could hear more calling, differently now. There was a flash at the periphery and a new voice rang out, loud and clear and most evidently upset.
”What in the Tides’ name is going on here?!”
Sylvanas could practically taste the arcane magic in the air. Was this their plan then, waiting for their mages to come and finish them? She could agree that it was a sensible tactic.
She was falling deeper into the darkness. There would be no escape.
Not for Sylvanas.
Not for her rangers that she had led here.
Not for Clea, who would never admit how uncomfortable she was on water and would sail to the worlds end for her, but who clung to her arm for dear life when she dragged her onto the quay.
Not for Anya.
Her vision turned red and all the world
burned before her.
And Sylvanas Wailed.
She could see flashes and the shimmering outline of something that a part of her mind knew was a mages shield, but it was a thought that the rest of her could not hear over the anguished and furious scream that rang in her unnatural being.
Boiling darkness formed into tendrils around Sylvanas, smoking and writhing like flames. She closed her eyes and willed them back inside her, falling to her knees and curling into herself as if that would contain her banshee self.
Eventually the last echo of her Wail died down and only the wind and the waves thundered in the night.
She looked up, only to see a lone mage swaying and falling into the ground, hitting her head against the uneven timber of the quay. A human woman in a nightrobe. She did not rise or open her eyes.
Sylvanas senses returned, rapidly now. Her rangers were still there. There was no sign of the Theramoore soldiers. The mage was injured for sure, having lost consciousness from the fall if not from the sheer power of the Wail. How was she even alive?
She heard her rangers cry out and turned around to see the agreed upon signal on the ship far out in the storm. In fact there were three signals, her captain taking no chances.
Sylvanas could feel the wind rising even further. What of the mage? They had to leave, there would be no time to seek out the humans of the city, let alone hand her over in a safe way. She hand’t attacked them, she had arrived late and only shielded the soldiers, saving them from Sylvanas’ Wail. Saving Sylvanas from having even more blood on her hands.
She could leave her here. To die from a wound or injury yet undiscovered or contract pneumonia, if she was lucky enough not to be blown straight into the sea!
She could not do that. Somewhere deep inside her rotten black banshee soul Sylvanas refused to do that.
She bent down and scooped up the mage, carefully cradling the womans head against her shoulder and holding her tight. Her neck seemed whole at least, but she was bleeding from a head wound, smearing the tangled trussels of hair that hung over her face.
”Take your banshee forms! Fly to the ship!”