World of Warcraft®

For eight days Noikona had scouted the outside of the tower called Mahr Carreg. The Tower, that was how the Ocheliad and other locals referred to it whenever they weren't using its name. Yet the massive edifice was no simple tower. It was rectangular at the base, over a mile long across the front and half that deep before it connected with the sheer cliffs on the north side of the high mountain valley where the Ocheliad ruled.

Noikona had found it almost too easy to gain access to that valley. Signing on with a merchant caravan headed that way was easy. Leaving the caravan once it reached the town just south of Mahr Carreg - called New Wilder by the locals - hadn't even made her stand out amongst the caravan guards. Half a dozen others had taken their pay and gone to try joining the Ocheliad.

Joining up with the Ocheliad was not amongst Noikona's goals, though she'd briefly considered it as a method of getting close to her stolen finger. A few questions directed at the other former caravan guards made it clear that she would have to take months of her time just to get through the winnowing process before she could even be considered as a recruit. Besides, if she was accepted into the Ocheliad she would be required to kneel before Imperon and swear allegiance to him; which was just what he wanted anyway.

Instead she'd rented a room in an inn and spent the next eight days scouting. Some of her scouting was easily done. From the window of her rented room she could see Mahr Carreg. Even miles distant from the town of New Wilder, the tower loomed massive, far taller than any almost any other she had seen. Its lower third was built against the cliffs, but it soared so high above those cliffs that Noikona was certain she saw clouds drifting below its tallest towers.

Towers. Mahr Carreg barely narrowed as it reached for the sky, but like some supremely giant hand it had a multitude of fingers. More than one tower grew from the sides of Mahr Carreg, giving it almost the look of a far off mountain range with many sharp peaks. It looked to Noikona to have five main towers, once it grew above the cliffs.

There was one central tower that was, perhaps, larger than the other four. The others were not all of one size and stone buttresses, large enough to themselves house rooms and halls, connected them to one another, giving the whole thing the look of what would happen if half a dozen castles were smashed into one another and their pieces got tangled up together. Their orientation was no doubt important to the wizard who ruled there, but Noikona only cared about them in order to find out which one held her finger.

"It weren't that big when the boss first came," an old man had said when he'd seen Noikona eyeing the tower that first day she'd arrived. "Wasn't more than a child's toy the day after the boss planted it in the ground. But it's kept on growin', it has. Seems bigger every time I look at it."

Upon further questioning, the old man had proven to be Ocheliad. Former Ocheliad really, as he'd retired a decade earlier. But he'd been there when Imperon first appeared, claiming the valley for his own and recruiting a band of mercenaries the man had been with at the time. "He recruited everyone. Mercenaries, local trolls like those blues fellers over there," he'd said, pointing at a trio of ice trolls who were slouching their way down the street. "Orcs that were holdin' out after the second war. Dwarves, gnomes, anyone who didn't run fast enough." He'd laughed at his joke.

Noikona hadn't cared about that. She wanted to know about the tower. Did the old man know how it was built? Had he been inside it?

"Built? Bless you, girlie, it weren't built, it were growed, like the biggest corn stalk ever! I helped dig the hole! Right down to the stone that makes the mountains we dug...humans, trolls, dwarves, even the boss and that big lizard of his. Down at the bottom he put another stone. It were odd, bein' round with carvin's on it.

"We dug that hole to bury a rock! Whooee...we sure complained that night. Sore backs, bleedin' hands, tired as anythin' and the boss just put a rock there and made us bury it again. Took a month, but rock poked out of the ground where we dug like the first sign of a young tree, or a corn stalk! A month after that you could walk inside a room, like a carved cave. Six months later we were all sleepin' inside it and every day there was another room. Weren't more than a year and it was taller than the cliffs! Never quit growin', neither."

Noikona hadn't thanked the old man for the stories but she'd bought him a drink before leaving. That seemed to please him. The real scouting had begun then. She'd expected to have to find a way over the massive walls which stood in front of the tower, but getting through had been easy.

(Continued)

She'd simply walked through the open gates. The gates were guarded, but carts and foot traffic alike flowed past them in both directions without the guards giving anyone a second glance. Noikona had no doubt they were looking for trouble, but she was just another draenei and the sight of her didn't get any guard to take notice.

Inside had been...almost surreal. Mahr Carreg's size messed with perception and Noikona was shocked to realize that the outer walls were more than a mile from the front of the tower itself. To her left an entire forest grew. She'd seen the trees from out front, but had assumed the land behind the walls was higher than in front. It wasn't.

She stood on the largest parade ground she had seen upon Azeroth. It ended abruptly at the western edge of the tower and a line of trees large enough to have come from Ashenvale began there. Rumors that Imperon had convinced some rebel druids to give him his own druidic grove were no longer rumors for Noikona. She wondered if he was crazy enough to have asked for a world tree as well, but in truth she didn't want to know. Some of those trees were large enough to...no, she had a mission and it didn't involve trees.

To the east of the tower were many other buildings. Some had clear purposes, with vast chimneys belching out black smoke as foundries and smithies did their work. The smoke seemed to vanish as it rose into the air, leaving Noikona wondering how much magic was being used there.

Between the buildings and herself, Noikona saw many training rings and lines of archery buttes. Ocheliad recruits and full members alike trained there and Noikona wished fervently that she was able to get to her finger and leave again without a fight. With several hundred fighters visible just in training, she did not think she would do well with a frontal assault.

That was without considering the crowd that ebbed and flowed across the parade ground. Very few headed towards the druid grove, but between the three points of the tower itself, the training and production facilities to the east and the gates to the south, Noikona had to step lively to avoid being caught up in traffic.

She also had to step lively to avoid snow balls. Aside from the paths cut through the parade ground, the snow as a foot deep or more. While further south in Stormwind, snow was a rarity, it seemed that the Ocheliad lands were still in the grip of winter.

Snowball fights were common, and audience participation was mandatory. Noikona threw a few in retaliation for those thrown at her, and she told herself it was only to keep from raising suspicion. After a week of tramping back and forth across the open territory trying to find a way into Mahr Carreg, Noikona came to one inescapable conclusion.

The only way in was the front doors. As tall as the front gates to a walled city, the tower's front doors stood open and to Noikona's eyes they looked no better guarded than the gates she passed so easily every day. Surely, though, Imperon did not leave his home so easily infiltrated. He was a paranoid wizard convinced of his own immortality and infallibility, after all.

Other doors on the front of the tower gave Noikona pause. None were on the ground floor, so finding out what was beyond them was difficult. The entire tower was featureless below the third story. Stairs, almost as broad as the entire front of the tower, lead up to a broad landing that ran the length of the tower and even curled around its side on the east.

None of those doors were as large as the great doors in the center, most were only wide enough for two people at a time to enter. A steady stream of Ocheliad used one door, almost as far west as the grove. Noikona had no intention of using that one. She didn't see anyone who wasn't obviously Ocheliad or known to Ocheliad using that one. She even saw Ocheliad she recognized from Stormwind.

Including one tall, broad kaldorei who'd held her down while Imperon relieved her of one finger. Tullison. When she'd first seen him, her hand had instinctively gone to her weapon before she'd checked herself. Surrounded by other Ocheliad, it was the worst time to consider revenge. She would wait until after she had her finger. His presence almost made her hope she did have to kill people to escape. Especially him.

On that eighth day she stood in front of those doors, looking into the most improbable entryway she had ever seen. Long enough that it might just go all the way back into the cliffs behind the tower, and wide enough that you'd have to shout to be heard from one end to the other, the room's size was the least strange thing about it.

(Continued)

Great pillars rose from the floor, each looking like a tall tree with no branches lower than twenty feet off the ground. There were dozens of them that she could see. Some were small, others were quite large. The trees reached to...where the ceiling should have been, but instead they simply ended like usual trees and above them Noikona could see an open sky and clouds. An unseen sun shone down on the massive hall, illuminating the room far better than torches or lanterns would have done.

The entire room, if room it could be called, looked as though someone had built a building around a forest. Pathways curled between the trees and grass grew between the cobbles that marked those paths. Somewhere, Noikona heard the sound of a running stream.

Partly in an effort to get a better look at the odd - and plainly magical in nature - sight, Noikona stepped into the room. People passing her gave her small smiles an even some giggles. The locals were used to such a reaction from newcomers.

Moving from outside to inside the great hall was a passage between worlds. Outside it was still winter, as the snow clinging to Noikona's hooves reminded her. Inside it was Spring. The air was cool, but that unseen sun warmed her skin. Birds sat in the trees, singing sweetly. Squirrels chased each other through the trees.

"It's your first time here, isn't it?" Noikona blinked several times and tore her gaze away from the unnatural forest. She looked down to find a young human girl looking up at her with a big smile. The child was a tower servant. Noikona recognized her dress as she had seen many people wearing it over the past week.

"Yes, it is. I have..." Noikona had come up with a good reason for being in the tower, should she be questioned and young girl was more likely to believe her than some Ocheliad guarding a door. "...verbal messages for several officers." There were advantages to owning a tavern in Stormwind where the Ocheliad drank. She knew that they often entrusted messages to couriers when they wouldn't trust them to writing. Showing up with verbal messages at least gave her a chance of talking her way out of trouble.

It was also true, technically. Imperon was an officer of the Ocheliad and she had lots of things to say to him and others, like Tullison. No one hearing Noikona speak would think she was speaking falsely.

"Oh! Ok. You don't know how to find your way around Mahr yet, do you?" Noikona frowned briefly. The girl referred to the tower in a...familiar way. Maybe she'd grown up in the tower, but Noikona hadn't heard anyone else shorten its name that way. "Follow me!"

The girl scampered off and Noikona found herself following along. Fortunately the girl never got out of Noikona's sight and soon she found herself in front of a desk manned by a very bored looking kaldorei who had his feet on the desk and his nose in a cheap, thin book with an inappropriate title and a beyond inappropriate picture printed on the front.

The girl pointed at Noikona and, with great confidence, said "she needs a guide stone." The kaldorei barely gave Noikona one look. He just nodded to the girl in the servant's dress and pulled a small stone on a ribbon from behind the desk. "Give me your hand," he said to Noikona.

Hesitantly, she held out her hand and a moment later the stone was tied atop her wrist. "To get directions within Mahr Carreg you-"

"I'll tell her!" The kaldorei sighed and shrugged before he sat back down and resumed his 'reading.' The girl grabbed Noikona's hand and pulled her a ways away from the desk.

"Just touch the stone and tell Mahr where you want to go. He'll show you the way. Don't worry if it seems twisty. There's lots of places you can't go and he'll make sure you avoid them. By the way, I'm Pika! Master Imperon named me after one of his cousins!"

Noikona blinked several times. This girl knew Imperon? He'd NAMED her? "Are you...his daughter?"
The girl laughed. "No! But my mom works for him and my dad died just before I was born. She asked Master Imperon to name me like he had my older sister. My parents asked him to name her, too. I live here. Who are you?"

"I'm Noikona," Noikona said before she could stop herself. Internally she cursed herself. However innocent the girl was, if she knew Imperon, she might let slip the name Noikona.

"Nice to meet you, Noikona!" The girl stuck out one hand and Noikona bemusedly shook it with her own. "I have to go! Mahr says I'm supposed to be helping clean something up in the kitchens..." The girl leaned in close. "Ardam got loose in there and we can't eat anything until it's all cleaned up." Then she waved once and vanished amongst the trees, leaving Noikona alone except for the kaldorei at the nearby desk who was still ignoring everything around him in favor of his book.

((End story portion, begin closed RP...as always, questions and comments are appreciated.))

The stone felt strange, it felt awkward to speak to it, but noticing others doing the exact same thing gave Noikona some reassurance that it actually worked. With a bit of reluctance she had asked for directions, it directed her to some quarters where she could bed down for the night. Anxiety threatened to overwhelm her as she found a place to sit; she nearly jumped when her pendent began to hum.

Her heart leaped when the voice of Lady Adrazel filled her thoughts “Noikona?”

Noikona paused for several heartbeats before answering “Yes?”

Adrazel spoke “Officer Sangsara is here at the Garrison in Elwynn inquiring about you.”

A scowl crossed Noikona’s face, as she blurted the first thing that entered her head “Sick Ahrune on her”

Adrazel’s reply was curt “Noikona” she continued “She says you've not checked in, in two days. So she's come looking for me. What am I supposed to tell her?”

Noikona paused before answering “So they actually do keep tabs on me after all. I shouldn’t be more than a couple of days. I’m attempting to reacquire some of my property that was taken from me. Surely that can be understood as a valid reason for a few days absence?”

There was a silence for a long time before Adrazel answered in a tone that expressed she knew exactly what Noikona was up to “You're not doing what I think you're doing, are you?

“It’s mine Adrazel; we both know the dangers that can happen if it’s in the wrong hands. Well IT’S in the WRONG hands.” Noikona replied quickly.

“I understand, but is this wise?”

“No”

“Well, at least you're not in denial”

Noikona stood and began to pace the room “Adrazel, I have thought this through for some time. I have calmed by rage. My plans are not to kill anyone. I feel that this place can feel that. If that makes any sense”

Adrazel noted “Suppose that’s no different than some of our own wards. Are you working alone?”

Noikona looked out her door, “Lady Azheira knows I am here. I had also written Slithengar, asking him to watch over the Recluse while I’m away. I am sure from our past conversations he has figured out where I am.”

Adrazel commented “I am being informed that you are harming your parole situation.”

Noikona sighed “Informing me of the obvious won't deter me from doing what needs to be done"

I’m aware I was just passing it along”

Noikona turned back into the room “What would happen if he unlocked what he has? I am sure he is using it for tracking. How else has he been able to find me so easily?”

Adrazel’s voice came back with unease “I understand what you're trying to accomplish. I am just concerned about what he'll take in retaliation this time.” There was a long pause before Adrazel continued “You do understand.... I don't want to bury you a second time.”

Noikona pressed her hand against the rock wall of the room thinking of something that would put Adrazel at ease “Adrazel, I don't know what power surrounds this fortress, but there is always a contingency. If you feel my life force failing. Summon me. “

In a voice Noikona couldn’t read Adrazel finally spoke “Okay”

The pendant ceased to glow. Noikona sighed deeply. She knew she was on the outskirts of the tower. Would the pendant work deeper inside? Would Adrazel be able to sense her as she continued on? These were questions she just didn’t know. She placed a cloak around her shoulders and left the room. Her eyes looked down at the stone on her hand. She shook her head as she headed away and up the closest stairs.

I hear you wherever you are. A slight vibration accompanied the...sound? It was as much felt as heard. I facilitated your connection to your companion to the south. Normally my wards would prevent outside communication from unauthorized sources. The vibration didn't actually shake anything. Nothing near Noikona moved, but she felt the vibration as if she was...inside the speaker.

Mahr Carreg, the name of the tower. The servant girl who had given Noikona directioned referred to it simply as Mahr. She'd sounded like someone referring to a friend, not a building.

"Can...can you hear me?" She kept her voice down, for some reason she couldn't quite pinpoint.

Clearly. A hint of amusement came with the word. I am aware of everything that goes on in and around me.

"But...I didn't ask anything out loud. I just thought-"

Everything. I always hear you, even if I do not always listen. So long as you wear the talisman you were given I can provide you with directions and assistance should you require it. Continue up these stairs and follow the hallway you will find. Keep the windows to your right, try not to look outside as you do, and you will come to the guest room you desire.

If you will tell me which shift the officers you are carrying messages for are part of I will awaken you at the appropriate time so you can find them most easily. As suddenly as it had first spoken, the voice ceased. Stairs in front of Noikona continued up too far for her to see the top, but light coming down suggested that there would indeed be windows once she reached the next hallway.

People stepped around her as they came down the stairs. Others went up, equally unnoticing of her. Some few had the same stones with them that Noikona had been given. Most did not, and seemed to know exactly where they were going. Very few seemed to find anything about the tower strange as they moved through it, chatting the same way people anywhere else would.

((Continue on, Noikona, or talk more, it's up to you.))

Noikona stared at the stone, her mouth agape. Without thinking she tore the stone from her wrist and let it fall to the ground, leaving it where it dropped. She shuddered as she purposefully walked forward. She began to climb the stairs towards what could only be the light of the windows Mahr has mentioned. The knowledge that her conversation had been heard bothered her. This whole place unsettled her greatly. The vision of the room where her finger resided still shown sharply in her mind, but where in this vast complex was it and had she just made matters worse by leaving the talisman behind?

The windows did appear and the hallway. She continued down noting the rooms that appeared to be guest rooms, but instead of stopping she continued. Her determination shown evidently on her face, but there was much unease within her. She strode forward as if she knew where she was going, always taking pathways that led up.

The first hallway curved, preventing Noikona from seeing more than perhaps fifteen feet in front of her. From the outside, no portion of the tower so close to the ground curved on the outside like that. People passed Noikona as she strode along, stepping out of her way in response to her determined look and gait. Now and then someone wearing the Ocheliad tabard would hurry past, at a run and once actually sprinting. The sprinter made a sharp dash towards the inner wall of the hallway and an archway appeared in front of him. He vanished into it, taking a flight of stairs behind the wall and the archway vanished immediately afterward.

The windows...were disconcerting for entirely different reasons. None of them looked out on the parade grounds and valley that Noikona had crossed to get to the tower. None of them looked out on the same vista, either. Some people stood gazing through one window, others jumped from and forth, trying to 'trick' the windows. The latter group were all young people wearing variations on the tower servant uniform Pika had worn.

Now and then Noikona came to another flight of stairs that lead upwards. At the foot of one lay a small stone on a ribbon...the same one Noikona had dropped earlier? A different one?

You dropped this rumbled the tower. Without it, you run the risk of getting lost.

Rubbing her temple she looked at the stone. She bent down picking it up as she spoke “If you’re going speak to me regardless, then why do I need it?”

She continued letting the rock dangle from a finger “Besides are you willing to divulge the information I require?” She shook her head, a wave of awkwardness washing over her as she spoke the rock “You allowed me to enter, unmarked why? For some entertainment? If that is what you seek then tell me where to find what I pursue.” Noikona paused only briefly “A room, a room with two cages. One is occupied the other is empty. The room is littered with items that are found to be valuable to many, to include gems, armor and many other items of interest. In this room is one item in particular that does not belong. An item that was once mine. Tell me Mahr where is this room?”

Noikona leaned against the wall staring at the stone, doubtful it would respond at all.

There is a long pause. Long enough to almost convince Noikona that the tower is not going to respond at all. Then without the connection, my ability to perceive you as an entity distinct from all else is diminished. Guiding you through myself will become more difficult the closer you come to certain warded areas of me.

Again, that long pause, although the floor beneath Noikona's hooves vibrates gently. You will not reach that room today. Nor tomorrow. The room you seek is far from you, where only the master goes. Continue ascending. I will guide you because...it is funny.

“Days?” Noikona said dryly. “I have no qualms with you. I have only come here to retrieve what is my own. I fail to see humor in this. I don’t have the luxury of days.”

Noikona stared at the stone realizing that it was probably a foolish thing to do. Obviously the talisman was merely a focal point and not entirely needed. At least not at the moment, now that she had the elemental’s attention. “I really have no idea of your motivation or what will happen when you tire of my trespass. Haste will only keep your attention, unless you thrive on boredom”

Noikona began to walk forward not waiting for a reply.

Noikona strode forward into the hallway leading up...and somehow found herself stepping down off the last step of a staircase that ascended behind her. The hall ahead of her ended in a crossroads of sort. However she was now in a part of tower where fewer people trod.

In fact, the only other person visible was a truly massive draenei in full black plate mail who stood directly in front of a set of stairs going up. The other doors she could see were either locked, or in one case opened into another set of stairs going down.

There was the faint sense of amusement from the tower.

Noikona could sense Mahr’s enjoyment, but didn’t share in any of it. She dropped the talisman into a pouch at her side as she deliberately stepped towards the draenei. She studied him in detail assuming he was a guard of some sort. Noting that he blocked the only passageway that appeared to ascend, she approached him.

Noikona wore dark maroon plate with piecing blue highlights throughout. Her belt buckle shown with the same blue in which a finely crafted long sword hung from. A large spiked shield hung at her back which clanked against her spiked pauldrons with every step she took. She titled her had at the draenei but kept her gaze steady “Mahr has directed me here, I have need to access the passage way behind you”

Crossing her arms she waited for a response.

The draenei grunted. His eyes ran up and down Noikona and a scowl remained constantly on his face. "I don't know you," he said in draenic. "What is your business here?" He reached over to a stone ledge next to the door, set back in the wall of the tower itself, and retrieved a ledger. Glancing over it he frowned. "Stupid thing wasn't updated today."

Setting the ledger back in its spot the draenei regarded Noikona skeptically. "You'll wait here until today's ledger is brought back." Behind him, the ledger vanished, sinking into the stone beneath it. A moment later it reappeared, rising up again out of the stone.

A wave of fear washed over Noikona for a few brief moments until recognition finally crept into her eyes. Relaxing slightly she commented “A long ways from the harbor aren’t we?”

She took a step forward “If you are looking for my name, I doubt it will be present on your ledger. I am here unannounced but nevertheless it is imperative that I continue on. After all logic would plainly state that I would have perished a long time ago.” She raised her hands gesturing at the walls “I mean come on, do you think Mahr would allow it, if it wasn’t important?”

She tapped her hoof patiently while she tilted her head “So how about it? Will you let me continue?”

The big draenei, Lyov by name, eyed Noikona skeptically. Then he smiled as recognition dawned. "Oh! Noikona! Finally come to Mahr Carreg? Yes, yes! Go ahead. The boss will be happy to see you!"

The stairs lead up, and up, and up. Unlike the other stairs Noikona had encountered in the tower, these neither turned nor came to an end until long past the time when Noikona was certain she should have hit the edge of the tower and fallen out the far side.

Her legs and lungs were both burning with effort by the time the stairs finally did end at a closed door. It wasn't locked and she stepped through into a carpeted hallway and was almost run over by the press of people.

Most of them were either dressed in the uniform of a tower servant or wore Ocheliad colors. Instinctively, Noikona tried to step backwards into the stairwell before the traffic pushed her in some random cirection, but she came up against a bare stone wall.

No one gave her a second look. Most people didn't give her a first look. Servants carried covered platters, or pushed carts with drinks on them down the hall. Others carried chairs and groups of servants, invariably large, strong servants, carried tables. People yelled directions and gestured instructions at people who often yelled and gestured back.

"Turn the table sideways or you won't get it around the corner! Yes, that way! Don't hit anyone with the legs!" An older woman called out orders, managing to raise her voice without ever appearing to yell. "No, no, that carpet won't match the decorations and it's not going to be wide enough for the entry hall...find another and remember the color scheme!" With each order people dashed off to do her bidding even as others lined up to ask questions or receive instructions...but her presence created an island of relative calm where she stood, just outside a pair of double doors across the hallway from Noikona.

Whoever she was, she looked like someone in charge.

Noikona scowled; casually she placed her hand in her satchel wrapping her fingers around the talisman. She spoke quietly “I suppose you think it funny to make me walk all those steps. Surly there was a much easier way”

She shook her head greatly annoyed as she pushed through the throng, her eyes centered on the woman giving orders. She cared not that she bumped and pushed others, she was losing patience. Placing herself squarely in front of the woman, she gazed at her.

“Ma’am, you look busy and I’m in haste will you point me to where I may leave this brouhaha, other then whence I came?”

Pausing mid-order, the woman regarded Noikona for a moment before spotting the small stone strapped to her wrist. "Miss, there are a multitude of directions to go from here, and you're blocking a few of them." She takes Noikona by the hand and pulls her into the next room, away from the traffic. The noise level drops precipitously once the two of them are away from the throngs in the hallway.

Up close the woman was tall, for a human, with crinkles at the edges of her eyes when she smiled that suggested she was older than Noikona might otherwise have guessed. Her servant's uniform was a touch fancier than what other servants wore and her status in the tower was clearly very high. Noikona had bumped into someone who must know her way around and may have been in Imperon's service for quite some time.

Tower servants appeared through the door, following the woman and plainly wishing to speak with her, but afraid to approach her while she's in private conference. Two or three people turned into five or six in short order. "Now then, where, precisely, are you needing to get? Mahr can have some trouble understanding the desires of those of us who only inhabit one place at a time. The master says it has to do with perspective but I think it has to do with being made completely out of the stuff all men have between their ears."

Noikona caught a feeling from the tower, similar to the vibration caused by his speaking, but not aimed at her. She couldn't hear words, but some of his tone came through...the tower was not pleased with the woman. "Don't be petulant, Mahr. You play games with as much relish as the master. Too long spent sharing thoughts with him and that dreadful lizard he calls a familiar. Their combined sense of humor has rubbed off on you. This woman needs directions and..." Another feeling from the tower, giving Noikona the impression that she's just catching the edge of a conversation not truly meant for her. Likely the stone she wears is responsible for it in some way.

That time, the woman rolled her eyes. "Men!" She says to no one in particular before turning her attention back to Noikona. "You need to continue upwards. Your need will guide Mahr in taking you to your destination, although talking to him repeatedly will help too. You can drum something into his mind, made of stone as it is, if you're patient enough. Compared to the master, Mahr's a fast learner." More emotion from the tower, and that time he felt amused, more like she was used to him feeling when he 'spoke' to her.

"Start her here, Mahr." The woman pointed at a nearby wall and it peeled backwards, revealing another stairwell. This one curled up and out of sight quite quickly. "I apologize for Mahr, but he tends to choose passageways that look like something out of a cheap potboiler when he gets in a mood. If he tries giving you the run around again, just remind him that he's annoying Mistress Keller." As she spoke, the woman towed Noikona towards the newly revealed passage. Pushing her inside with firm hands, she added "two things, dear...first, when you see my husband remind him we're eating with the master tonight. Second, if you make the master late for tonight's gathering then you and I are going to have words!" The archway itself vanishes then, leaving Noikona alone with nothing but a tall, narrow flight of twisting stairs in front of her, lit only by barely enough torches to let her see each stair.

Those stairs go on forever. Actually they went on exactly as long as it took Noikona to remind Mahr that he was annoying Mistress Keller. As soon as she did that, the stairs ended and Noikona found herself at the end of a short hallway with only one door at the far side and no side passages.

In front of that door stood a man dressed in a tower uniform as fancy as Mistress Keller's. He looked a bit older than her and his posture and brief bow toward Noikona just screamed butler. "This way, miss," he said, "the master is expecting you."

Noikona strode forward, anger radiated from her. This had not gone the way she’d expected. The tower was just as mad as its owner. She half expected a low rumble of a giggle to start emanating from the walls. Keeping close to the door she stood motionless and defiant. Her original intent had not been to confront him. Especially not here on his own turf. Adrazel’s words kept repeating in her mind “Is this wise?” She had answered truthfully “No”.

The tower’s wards must be screaming by now. It was common to use wards which sensed malicious intent. Noikona didn’t rightly care anymore. Her focus had been her finger, but this changed things. No wards were needed to see the murderous gaze that peered back, burning from her eyes. She had tried to end him twice. Once by mailing him a marvelous gift, it would have been quite a blast for him to have opened. The second had been more direct, but he had managed to dodge her blade.

Her tactical mind began calculating her chances. The factors against her began to mount up. The guard outside, Imperon’s obvious awareness, she wasn’t here to sell cookies and the tower itself. Lastly, even if she was successful, there was no way out.

The man smiled indulgently at Noikona. He slowly pulled the door behind him open and motioned her through. "Whatever your business with the master is, I am sure he will set things right for you."

Beyond the man was the treasure-laden room Noikona had seen Imperon retreat into when he'd visited her in prison. She could see several pillars and the far wall of the room. Every last inch of that wall was covered with what could only be described as treasure.

Weapons, pieces of armor, rows of rings and necklaces, more enchanted wands than Noikona had ever seen in one place before. Statues made of gold silver stood in various places as decorations. Some stood on pedestals and were no taller than Noikona's thumb. Some stood on their own and towered above Noikona. One pedestal in particular caught her attention. She'd seen that pedestal before and it had held her finger. Now it held her finger, cast entirely in silver, looking much less out of place in a room that had so much gold and silver that the very light took on the hue of precious metals.

"Go ahead, miss," said the older man, "the master's in a good mood today, but if that changes him, remind him that Master Keller doesn't want another mess in the treasure room. The last one took far too long to clean up and my back's not as strong as it used to be."

((To find out when Noikona saw this room before, read Noikona In Prison at http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/15699462473 ))

Noikona’s gaze fixated on the pedestal taking a cautious step at first. Her eyes narrowed as she quickened her step until she was within arm’s reach. She reached out, stopping herself and backed away. Too easy she thought to herself. Scanning the room again she took in all the riches, but looked back at what had become of her finger. It’s misshapen form revealing her true nature, now engraved in silver.

Noikona shook her head, taking a step forward again. Her hand, the hand that had been disfigured reached out to grasp what was once her own. She knew she had lost it for her betrayal, a far less punishment that what she would have bestowed on another, but the knowledge that could be gleaned from such a thing must be thwarted. The finger must be taken and destroyed.