World of Warcraft®

Any city the size of New Stormwind has to have very secure facilities for the imprisonment of anything from a murderer to a demon. The Vault is the name of the city's most secure prison. Set on its own artificial island, surrounded by the canals which lace the city, the Vault is reputed to be absolutely escape proof.

The prison's defenses include not only a unit of heavy infantry permanently stationed within it, but several dozen powerful wizards who maintain the network of wards which allow them to watch anything going on inside the prison or near its outer walls. Other wards serve to keep people outside from getting in, or people inside from getting out.

Within the secure prison itself is an even more secure wing, reserved for the most dangerous offenders. Its passwords change daily, its guards are paid more per month than most people make in a year and its defensive wards are checked daily. Housing everything from demons, Horde warlords, rogue wizards, powerful undead and extraplanar creatures, the Secure Wing was placed beneath the broad canals of Stormwind, making escape even more unlikely.

It also made the cells notoriously damp, despite the presence of the wing's dozen or so fireplaces. Guards huddled near them any time they weren't actively on patrol. No matter how big the fires were made, nothing ever seemed to quite dry out.

Noikona, recently arrested for attempting to stab a son of a !@#$% named Imperon Showdah, had her blanket pulled up over her horns and wrapped around herself in a futile attempt to use her own body heat to dry out her blanket before she lay down for the night.

Most inmates in the Secure Wing only had to worry about the damp and the near-constant noise of guards and other inmates. Noikona, however, could feel every spell and ward that made sure no magical jail breaks were attempted by the inmates. She couldn't use any of her own magics and the prison's spells made her teeth ache.

Her missing finger ached as well. It wasn't right. Imperon bloody Showdah had a couple of his goons hold her down while he took one of her fingers and a few weeks later she ends up in prison because she cut him. It wasn't even a very bad cut. He'd deflected her attack with a hasty defensive spell.

Right or not, she was stuck in the small cell, sitting on the lower of the two bunk beds. At least she didn't have a roommate right now. Her previous roommate was still in the infirmary recovering from having her as a roommate. She wrinkled her nose. He'd left plenty of his stench behind so she wouldn't get lonely.

Or maybe it wasn't his stench. Not all of it was. Noikona dubiously eyed her evening meal. It sat on a tray that had been pushed through the slot at the bottom of her door. From what she could tell, it consisted of a half-rotten apple, a bowl of mush and a brick of...a brick. The brick was moldy. The only real food she'd had that day was half a dozen Winter's Veil cookies a visiting friend had brought her.

Instead of thinking about dinner in all its horrifying variations, Noikona closed her eyes and thought pleasant thoughts. She imagined Imperon Showdah's smiling face. Then she imagined strangling the ugly bastard with both hands. Happy thoughts. She could almost feel his neck in her outstretched hands.

"Aside from the obvious 'murdering me' what are you thinking about?" The voice was so surprising that Noikona jumped. That would have been dangerous even if she'd been standing up. The ceiling wasn't very high above her head. Sitting on the lower bunk bed meant she cracked her head, and her horns, on the bed above herself and fell back against the back wall, briefly dazed but still squeezing her eyes shut in a vain attempt to deny the existence of the voice.

Noikona's teeth suddenly itched more. Even with a headache exploding in the back of her head, she noticed that her teeth itched more. "When I open my eyes, you had better be a hallucination." She opened her eyes. Imperon stood just out of arm's reach. He was smiling that same pleasant smile with just the hint of insanity behind it. His left hand was held down at his side with his cloak covering it.

He was wearing some variation of the same black on black on black he always did. He had the same slightly-battered hat he always wore. He looked far too solid to be a hallucination. She could have asked him how he got in. She could have demanded that he help her get out. She could have done a lot of things.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Noikona sprung forward, hands reaching for Imperon's throat. He brought his left hand out from beneath his cloak and Noikona had a brief vision of a dull grey, metal rod in his hand. The tip of the rod lightly touched her elbow as she barreled forward. Pain exploded up the length of her arm and she shrieked as she fell backwards onto her bunk.

((Continued))

For a moment she just glared at him. He smiled back at her. "It's called a sensation rod. They have all sorts of uses. This one is for disciplining unruly students."

"I am not your student." Noikona growled. For weeks, ever since he took her finger, Imperon had phrased everything he'd said to her as if he was her mentor and she his student. She hated him for that almost as much as she hated him for taking her finger.

He wagged one finger at her. "You are learning from me, miss Noikona. That makes you my student. You're a very stubborn student, though. That's why we have sensation rods and all the other tools I keep in my basement. In one of them. I learned a long time ago not to store tools near Ardam. He lives in a different basement." The wizard took a moment to look around the bare stone cell. Noikona would have jumped him again, but he kept that metal rod in plain sight and with her arm still screaming at her that it was broken although she could tell it wasn't, she had no desire to see what a second dose would do.

"I am not learning a thing from you." This time she just about spat out the words. "I am going to kill you. Give me my finger back."

"No. It's not your finger anymore. Now it's my property. Don't worry, it's in good company and kept very safe. You'd have an easier time breaking out of this prison than you would breaking into my home to retrieve what was once yours and is now mine."

At that moment, Noikona truly despised the wizard. He'd twisted her up and gotten her to attack him in public. In front of Thysbe and other patrons of the Recluse no less! He wasn't here just to talk to her. "What do you want, Imperon?"

The wizard smiled broadly as if she'd just answered a question correctly, or maybe learned a new trick. "I want you kneeling at my feet, miss Noikona. I got a letter from our mutual acquaintance, Liore. Someone in his employ...a 'K.P." I believe, has asked me to quit trying to retrieve Azheira. Your story about her has been confirmed. The blood elf I met at the Armistice Ball is, however unlikely it seems, actually one of my Ocheliad."

When the wizard stepped closer to her bed, Noikona began to scoot away from him before she stopped herself. Letting him see her act the least bit nervous about him felt worse than whatever he might try to do.

He sat down near her hooves, as if she'd moved to allow him the room. "Your letter to Liore informing him of my interest has...stymied my goals. You lost a finger over it and you should be thankful I didn't take a lot more than that." He leaned towards her and brazenly placed one hand on her knee. "Don't bother eating dinner. I'm going to have you released soon."

Then he grinned. "But here's your lesson for tonight. You're here because I want you here. You'll leave because I want you to leave. Here, or not here, it doesn't matter. There is no place you can go that I can't reach. There is no place Liore can hide Azheira that I cannot breach. The strongest walls, the most powerful spells..." Without warning he lunged forward and Noikona instinctively tried to pull back, but his grip on her knee tightened. All at once, he was looming over her. "I am Imperon Showdah and I will have what I desire! Everything I desire. Remember that, miss Noikona. I could take you from here tonight and no one would ever see you again. Do not get in my way. I have taken you on as a student as one method of solving the problems you've given me. I can choose other, less pleasant methods."

Before Noikona could formulate a suitably scathing reply, even before she could punch him in the face, Imperon stood and put his back against the very back wall of the cell. "Consider kneeling at my feet the next time you see me. It would put me in a better mood."

Behind him, the cell wall vanished, peeling backwards as if it was made the skin of a fruit instead of a stone wall. Behind it Noikona saw a room whose walls were covered with weapons, armor, jeweled necklaces and a thousand other things. Two cages caught her eye. One held a succubus who lashed her tail back and forth and bared her fangs at Imperon's back. The other stood open, and empty. On a pedestal near them was a finger...Noikona's finger.

"I'll kill you!" Noikona leaped off her bed even as Imperon stepped backwards, across the threshold that separated her cell from his...trophy room? She charged him and he winked. The wall folded back into place and she crashed to a halt narrowly avoiding running into the wall. It was as if he'd never been present at all. The itching faded back to the usual level Noikona was used to. Annoying, but ignorable if necessary. "I will kill you." She said to the wall. And she would. No matter what it took.

Part 2: Imperon in Prison ((Takes place the day after Noikona was released, with the period of time in which both Imperon and Noikona were incarcerated being skipped for a number of good reasons))

When Commander Coblyn (who'd long ago quit using any other name) had been a very young gnome, he'd survived the fall of Old Stormwind City by becoming a warlock. When he was still a somewhat young gnome he'd survived his first encounter with Imperon Showdah by becoming one of his Lluchduu Ocheliad. When he was no longer a young gnome he'd sold the last piece of his soul to survive the various justice systems he'd encountered by becoming an advocate.

Coblyn was very good at everything he'd ever put his mind to. Between summoning demons, commanding soldiers in combat and getting his boss out of trouble, the last was definitely the most difficult. It was also the most baffling, frustrating and just commonly enough to keep him from forgetting, the single most hilarious job the gnome had ever had.

After serving Lord Imperon Showdah for over two decades, Coblyn had lost track of how often he'd walked through the gates into the subterranean prison called the Vault which sat near Stormwind's heart. The idea of a prison being a city's heart didn't quite fit the city, maybe the Vault was its liver, or its colon.

He'd become quite familiar with the feeling of the Vault's security magics washing over him, suppressing some of his wards and completely missing others. It itched and tickled at the same time. The tickle faded. The itch didn't. The Vault was very particular about foreign magics and Coblyn was glad that, as an Ocheliad, he was protected by magics the old stones of the Vault couldn't even see. If only the itch hadn't been such a persistent side effect.

The smell...that was one thing Coblyn never got used to. It was as if someone had crammed every one of the Ocheliad's many barracks together, filled them with the contents of the Ocheliad's engineering works and let the whole thing congeal for a month.

All the smells someone would associate with too many people packed into too small a space were there. Add in mildew and other fungi from the constant damp as well as the presence of hundreds of conflicting magical wards and spells plus that burning sulfur odor left behind by captive demons and every visit to the Vault had Coblyn wishing he'd brought plugs for his nose.

This was the second time in two days he'd been there, as well. Yesterday it had been for news that his boss had been arrested on charges of theft. The charge was laid down by someone already in the Vault, Noikona. As he walked through the Vault's main corridor - flanked by two Vault guards and trailed by six Ocheliad - he rubbed a hand against the back of his head.

His skull was still tender from where he'd landed on it when he'd fallen off his chair laughing. The very idea of his boss being in manacles amused him on many levels. He'd made the mistake of telling Ardam and then had to have the necromancer chained up and sedated to prevent any attempts at "revolution" while the boss was away. All that while suffering from a nasty head ache.

On either wall, lanterns burned brightly, trying and failing to completely beat back the darkness that came with being completely underground. Coblyn almost didn't need them in the first place. He'd counted his steps to and from the warden's office on many occasions while visiting the Vault to spring one or more of Imperon's Ocheliad from the place. The Stockades on the other side of the city had quit accepting Ocheliad tenants long ago, so they were shipped straight to the Vault, now. If he'd closed his eyes, he could almost, almost, have made it there confidently. Then the lanterns all went out, although there was no breeze to extinguish them.

ALMOST! Coblyn hadn't been looking for a chance to see how well he'd do! There was a moment's confusion as six Ocheliad, two Vault guards and one gnome tried to not step on each other in the darkness. For various reasons, Coblyn was the most motivated to avoid that result.

Giggle. It's a word that usually evokes happy laughter. Children giggle. Babies giggle. The restless undead spirits of evil clowns might giggle too. That was what Coblyn thought of when a very ghastly giggle drifted up the corridor. It carried more than a hint of insanity and happiness that was firmly rooted in the anticipation of enjoying dismembering and consuming its victims.

The lanterns popped back on a moment later. Both Vault guards had drawn their weapons. Coblyn was pleased to see that while all six Ocheliad had their hands on their weapons, none had drawn. Maybe they'd recognized Imperon's giggle as Coblyn had. He still had to pat down the hairs on the back of his neck. They hadn't recognized anything pleasant in the giggle.

((Continued))

"Been happening all day." One of the guards commented. He glanced around as though expecting something to leap out at him. Coblyn had the wicked temptation to shout "boo!"

"Scurnie, from night shift, told me it's been going on since last night, too. Lots of strange stuff. I hear they're bringin' in some new wizards to check the system out." There were no whistles or alarms going on, so the two guards just kept leading Coblyn along as they could see again.

"No wonder they're all still here then. I didn't see Scurnie, but I don't think anyone's gotten to go home. The whole place must be havin' blinkin' lights and worse to keep the night shift here! That laughter, I don't blame the warden one bit."

In the Vault, if everything wasn't in order and settled at the end of a shift, nobody went home until it was fixed. In an emergency situation, that meant everyone was on duty until the emergency was passed. If blinking lights - or worse - had put the warden on edge, the whole night shift would still be here and still on duty. They might get to catch a little sleep in an off duty room, but they weren't going home until the problems were fixed. Or in this case until the problem went home himself.

Wisely, Coblyn kept his mouth shut. If he'd had to guess, or if someone had offered him money to guess, he'd have bet that the 'strange stuff' had started shortly after his boss had been incarcerated. It wouldn't be anything disastrous, but small things would go wrong all the time around Imperon. The more the wizard grinned, the more things went wrong. Unsurprisingly, Imperon's grin made Coblyn very nervous. The gin was almost as bad as the giggle. Actually, now that he thought about it, most things about his boss suggested something bad was about to happen to someone.

Arriving at the warden's office, Coblyn put aside thoughts of what his boss had spent his night doing. He hoped that Imperon regretted his decision to not post bail...but, given that he was now responding to a personal request from the warden to come down and "discuss arrangements for your employer's exit from the Vault" he rather thought that Imperon had been enjoying himself far too much. He always giggled when he was amused. Also when he wanted to frighten someone. Or when he got bored, hungry, angry or tired. Or now and then just to practice. Mostly he giggled at the worst possible moments.

One of the guards who'd been escorting Coblyn opened the office door and vanished inside. A minute passed and the door swung open with enough force that Coblyn was glad he hadn't been standing any closer to it than he was. It might have sent him caroming down the hall like an over sized soccer ball. That wasn't how you wanted to present yourself as an advocate, or an officer in the Ocheliad.

Warden Billasker was in his fifties and as healthy as a man half his age. Unlike Coblyn he still had his full head of hair, though it was just as grey as the gnomes. He was always frowning, grimacing, growling, or bellowing in anger.

At that moment, he simply looked like he hadn't slept in a day. Which he probably hadn't. He also had a black eye, which wasn't usual.The lights chose that moment to go out again. Coblyn doubted it was coincidence.

"Oh damnit all to hell!" The warden sounded more frustrated than angry. "They said they'd fixed the lights at least! Come on, advocate, you know the way." The lights came up again, saving Coblyn the embarrassment of potentially walking into the warden's legs. Or being stepped on.

"Son of a...I'd strangle that rat bastard in his sleep...but that grin..." The warden shivered.

Coblyn empathized. His boss had turned what was, on anyone else, a perhaps annoying expression into one that loudly announced its wearers desire for you to get close enough that he could eat you. "I don't know how he's done it, but...." The warden snapped his mouth shut. "Come into my office, advocate, let's talk about your client."

As a matter of fact, Coblyn had some idea how his boss might do these annoying things to the Vault's different magical systems. He simply wasn't going to mention any of them to the warden. Knowing your way around a prison's defenses could be useful if you ever ended up inside yourself.

The front room of the warden's office was occupied by his trained yeti which sat behind a desk labeled "secretary" busily making a muddle of some paperwork. The remains of a recently devoured meal still remained heaped on the desk.

If the yeti had skills beyond mangling paperwork, Coblyn assumed they had to do with keeping the blazing fire on the other side of the room going. It was one of the few parts of the Vault that didn't smell of mildew. Instead it smelled strongly of yeti sweat, which was considerably worse in Coblyn's opinion.

((Continued))

One room over was the warden's office itself which was essentially identical to the yeti's lair except the Yeti smell was almost nonexistent. There were two chairs in the room: the warden's, and one rickety chair for visitors. Billasker preferred that visitors not stick around for longer than they could comfortably stand and very few people were brave enough to sit in the visitor's chair.

"Where the hell is my chair?!" Coblyn noticed the chair's lack almost as soon as the warden did. The warden stormed back into the yeti's lair while Coblyn dragged the rickety chair from its place in the corner to the front of the warden's desk. He heard raised voices - well, voice, it was just the warden yelling at the Yeti - as he pushed the chair against the desk and used it as a step stool to get himself on top of the desk. Pushing a few stacks of paper out of the way he sat himself down and placed his advocate's satchel on his lap.

"-then find it!" The warden's back appeared in the doorway and he pulled the door shut after himself as soon as he was done yelling at the yeti. "Ten years in the Stormwind Guard and now nearly ten as my secretary and the man somehow misses seeing someone steal my chair out of my office!" Coblyn was vaguely amused that the warden referred to the yeti as a man, but whatever eccentricities had lead him to employ a yeti in that position in the first place were more amusing still. How had he trained the yeti to hold a pen?

Billasker saw Coblyn sitting on his desk. "Hey! You can't sit th-oh forget it!" Ignoring the guest chair, the warden walked around to the back of his desk and frowned, realizing that lacking a chair meant he had no place to sit and was therefore standing in his own office while Coblyn sat. He sighed. "What's it gonna take to get your boss out of my prison? All he's got to do is post bail and he's got the money for it!"

Coblyn ran a finger down the top paper on his lap. "Five hundred standard weight gold coins for bail? For a man accused of stealing from a convicted felon? Warden, you know as well as I do that this is insulting. Lord Showdah should not have been asked to post bail. He shouldn't have been arrested in the first place."

"Advocate, I'm not a judge. I don't make the rules, I just-"

"Bungle them, mostly. In just over one full day I've received six reports of misconduct by your staff in regards to my client. Including threats made against hi-"

"He refused to enter his cell until we'd cleaned it! That's not going to happen! Prisoners clean their own cells! Officer Pompeii was just warning him about consequences of misbehavior!"

"Making him stand in the hallway for over an hour while you had empty cells he could have been placed in."

"We had to find and retrieve all of Pompeii's teeth from the damn cell before he'd come down off the ceiling so we COULD put him in one!"

"Theft and destruction of personal property, warden."

"Theft? THEFT! His hat JUMPED ME! I was defending myself and I wish I HAD destroyed that demon-spawned hat of his! If I'd had my sword on me..."

"And finally assault."

The warden opened his mouth to respond, paused, then closed it before saying "can't argue with that one. If there's been a couple more of us we might have gotten him, too." That explained the warden's black eye. "Is he intending to press charges?"

"Doubtful." Coblyn flipped a few pages in the stack on his lap as if considering the matter. "Most likely he's simply giggling over everything. As his legal aide, I am informing you that we are willing to suspend - not surrender - the previously noted charges in exchange for a letter from you to the prosecutor's office stating that you have no desire to incarcerate a nobleman and upstanding member of the business community like the Lord Showdah in the Vault long term. Send a copy of said letter, after I've approved the draft, to every news rag in the city."

Almost before Coblyn quit speaking, the warden replied. He didn't need to consider his answer. "Done. The last thing I want is him here a moment longer than absolutely necessary! Is that all?"

"No. We want immediate notification upon the arrests of any member of the Ocheliad or anyone suspected of being a member of the Ocheliad. No more waiting the maximum allowable time before informing us."

"Fine, fine, whatever! Can we go get your client yet?"

"Sign here." Coblyn pushed a paper with their agreement already written on it towards the warden. He'd thought he'd need to negotiate a bit. Imperon must have spent the past day being quite creative to have the warden be so uninterested in a better deal. Then again, only the first half of their deal had any real weight.

With almost indecent haste, Warden Billasker seized the paper, scanned it thoroughly, then signed it. Coblyn tucked it into his advocate's satchel and nodded. "Let's go convince the Lord Showdah that prison isn't the right place for him."