Death Never Dies

by Milton Garby

  Archmage. How would she do it? There had to be something she could figure out, something that hadn't yet been discovered. But the only things Sara could think of were so far beyond her ability it was staggering. Charting out the density of the Twisting Nether around Outland. Investigating the leylines under Karazhan and their relation with the tower's ghosts. All of it was simply too complicated for her. She'd never get to be an Archmage at that rate. Never have the prestige, the ability to find out -

  - that's it!

  Sara came to a stop, and whipped her body around to make her way back to the Mage Quarter.

  That was the answer. Sara's shadow magic was... different. She'd have to be an idiot not to have noticed and, given that her magic needed Archmage authority to access instead of Magister, the higher ups knew as well. If she could figure out the difference, or at least have it point her in the right direction...

  But how? She didn't have the authority to view her own magical signature. Only Archmages did. She needed to think, and she needed to plan.

  As Sara arrived back at her home, she went over to the mailbox and fished through the letters inside. She put back the ones that weren't hers, but then found one addressed to 'Sara Smithers' and took it in hand. With that done she went inside, found her suite, and locked herself away in her room. She looked to her left at her pet squirrel in his cage, muted and running around in eternal panic, and allowed herself a chuckle at its misfortune. She went over to her desk and drew out a few pieces of paper, as well as a pencil. Before she began furiously scribbling and planning though, she opened her letter and read it.

  Dear Sara,

  Hey there, hope you're doing well! Grats on winning the dueling tournament this year, you really deserved it. Wish I could've been there to see it. I'm doing fine, things are pretty calm right now in the Chimes. Oh, except for one thing. I'm going out on a mission after I send this letter, gonna track down some badies and see what they're up to, ya know? Should take about a month or two, so I won't be able to reply to your letters. Please don't send a bunch of letters each week, okay? Just send a big one near the end. Sorry in advance for not being able to spend Hallow's End with you.

  See ya in a month or two.

  Sincerely,

  Leira Vindalis

  Sara quirked her mouth. "Well, stay safe Leira," she whispered before tucking the letter off to the side and turning her attention back to her prior task.

  Mental magic. That was, in laymen's terms, what was different about her magic. She didn't know the why or the how of it, but Sara's dark magic took to mental magic like a fish to water. She needed mental magic, but she needed it to be ongoing. She needed an... an enchantment.

  She opened one of the drawers and fished out a gemstone. She placed the blue Sparkling Stormjewel on the desk in front of her and inspected it, turning it over and over as she pondered what the enchantment would look like. Once Sara had a good idea, she began sketching it on the paper. First by drawing a brain, then highlighting roughly where the lines she needed to influence would be. The spell needed to be perfect. She couldn't adjust it on the fly, once the enchantment was in the gem it was in the gem.

  The magic needed to reach out to anyone within sight. It needed to affect them if they were looking at her. Making the spell identify when they were watching her specifically was too complicated, so she scribbled down an angle comparison mechanism. After that it was some trickery focusing on attention and memory. She finished writing down the spell, then looked it over several times to be sure she'd gotten it right.

  "Alright, no time like the present," she muttered as she took the gem in her hand. Sara called up her shadow magic, enough to form smoky multicolored orbs but not enough to become a thick, pervasive purple. She began filling the blue crystal with intricate lines and pathways of magical instructions, forcing the gem to subtly realign its internal structure to accommodate the spell and tinting it until it was indigo. It took well to it; she'd chosen the Sparkling Stormjewel precisely for its calming effect on the soul, and the ease with which it soaked up her enchantment confirmed she'd made the right choice.

  After an hour of analyzing the spell, Sara stepped back and held the gem to her face. The enchantment was inside, all that was left to do was feed it magic so it would activate. It was the difference between making a candle, and lighting it. She held her magic to it... then quickly stopped.

  "Oh, oops. Stupid," she said to herself. Her magic coursed through the gem as she hastily applied an exception clause; she didn't want the distraction magic to affect herself, after all. "Alright, now it's ready." She closed her fist around the gem and fed a portion of her colossal mana pool into it. Once she opened her hand and stopped the flow of power, the jewel glowed brightly, like a miniature sun as it radiated magic outwards from itself. "Perfect."

  Time for a test run and, if it worked, she could move right on to the second stage of her plan.

  With the enchanted crystal in one hand, Sara left her home for the third time that day. Once out in the streets, the effects of the crystal began to radiate outward. The roaming mages and warlocks were too far for her to make out if they'd been affected, so she glanced around for someone to test more directly.

  She found her target in the form of a young woman, a mage in training if her simple blue robes were anything to go by, walking hurriedly down the street like she had somewhere important to be, and she had to be there five minutes ago. Sara walked towards her path in order to cut her off. Once she was in the mage's path, she waited for the brunette to reach her and then began backpedaling.

  "Hello," she told her. "My name's Sara, I'm guessing you're new here?" The other woman made no indication she'd heard Sara at all and continued on forward. Sara stepped to the side and huffed. "Hmm. Rude. Fine." Complete success.

  She pocketed the gem and, before letting go, forcibly pulled the magic out of it to make it inert; no need for it to be making everyone ignore her quite yet. Sara decided to roam around and find the address she would go to at night.

  Or... why wait at all? she asked herself. She stuck her hand back into her pocket and activated the enchantment a second time. Why not just find an Archmage right now? If they are unable to notice me at all...

  Sara grinned to herself and set out to find an Archmage. She knew they tended to make their livings in the immediate proximity of the Wizard's Sanctum, and she'd be able to distinguish them by way of the especially elaborate robes. All she needed to do was grab a bench and wait. So she did, making her way to the area around the Wizard's Sanctum. She found a bench and began people-watching.

  A trio of women sat in a circle, discussing their classwork on arcane flows. A crier for the Blue Recluse made his rounds, advertising the tavern. Mages in training went up the spiral ramp to the Wizard's Sanctum and warlocks in training descended into the depths of the repurposed Slaughtered Lamb. Anybody that looked at her and was close enough promptly became unable to focus on her and, so far as they were concerned, she didn't exist.

  Time went on. Billowing white clouds towered all around her, reaching for the heavens. The sun slowly descended and cast lengthy shadows along the ground. Then, Sara's eyes snapped to an approaching figure. He was maybe twice her age, with the faintest hints of a bald spot in his brown hair. She couldn't see his eye color from her distance, but he had a little stubble of a beard and was clothed in elaborate teal, purple and golden robes as he walked down the street, reading a tome in one hand. He was her target. Now she just had to follow him home.

  She rose from her bench and walked over to him, keeping pace with the mage as he presumably went home. At one point he glanced at her, only for his blue eyes to go dull until he turned his attention back to where he was walking. They turned a few corners, went down a few streets, and eventually the man stopped at a relatively small building. It was about half the size of any of the others, with no more than a second floor and two windows.

  Sara had to be careful. She didn't know what sort of magical wards he ha
d around his house if any at all, so she'd have to move quickly to subdue him once they were inside. The older man opened the door and she slipped in behind him, dodging his arm as he closed the door.

  There were inside the living room, with couches and bookshelves, and a stand that supported a magelight. The Archmage's hands lit up with arcane light, but before he could cast anything Sara struck.

  Her shadow magic lit up purple and engulfed his head. She focused on the lower center of the brain, where the interconnecting lines weren't as thick as in other areas. She identified the part of it that controlled sleep - being careful to avoid the part that controlled breathing - and forced the inactive lines to flare up.

  The Archmage's spell winked out and he dropped like a rock.

  Sara lurched forward and caught him under the armpits, and lowered him gently to the floor. Before she did anything else, she deactivated the enchantment on her Sparkling Stormjewel. Once that was done she directed her shadow magic at him again, concentrating right around the loops and lines that regulated sleep. After a few moments of looking closely, she identified the lines that would allow the Archmage to wake up. She snipped those lines free.

  After that was done, she took a moment to let out the breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding. No magic wards had activated. Either he wasn't so paranoid, or she'd caught him just before he was going to refresh them. Either way, good news for her.

  Stepping back and rolling her shoulders, Sara got ready for the hard part. She focused back on the front part of his brain, and searched for the part that was involved in making friends. In order to see it more clearly, she also reached into his hearing center and whispered soft words such as 'I want to be your friend' or, in his own voice, said 'That person looks like she'd be a good friend' and watched the lines ripple and flare as she did. Sara spoke to him a few more times, then decided she had a good idea of where his friend making lines were.

  So she began changing them. She made new ones, cut old ones, created and killed connections until the Archmage napping at her feet would instantly consider anyone he saw to be a good friend. Half an hour after knocking him out, Sara stepped back and ended her magic, wiping her brow. She reconnected the mental lines that would allow him to wake up, then activated them with her shadow magic.

  The mage jerked awake with a snort, looking up at her. "Oh, what happened?" He pushed himself on his hands, and Sara helped him up with a light grin. "So sorry, I don't know what came over me. Hey, I'm sorry I didn't catch your name."

  "Oh, that's okay. My name's Sara, Magister Sara Smithers. Are you alright?"

  The Archmage's eyes looked left, then right, then widened. He pointed at her. "Oh! You're that Sara! Heard a lot about you. I'm fine, don't worry about me. Here, let me get you something to drink."

  She dipped her head respectfully. "That'd be great, thanks."

  Following him into the kitchen like a shadow, Sara watched him open a few cupboards and take out glass cups and a large jug of liquid. "Sorry, but I only have water right now. I was planning to go shopping tomorrow, so you've caught me at a disadvantage, Sara." He poured a cup and Sara took it, sipping gently. "So anyway, I haven't introduced myself have I?"

  She shook her head and held up a hand. "Oh no, that's fine. Not your fault."

  "Right, well my name is Andrias Dorlan. Pleased to meet you, Sara." They shook hands. "So, what brings you over here to my humble abode?" She opened her mouth, but he held up a hand to silence her. "Ah, let's move to the living room."

  "Sure, sure," she said as cheerfully as she could manage. They took a seat on the brown leather couch facing a painting of Ironforge, Sara to Archmage Dorlan's left.

  "Now, what was it you came here for?"

  "Well, I want to be an Archmage." His eyes twinkled and he gave a quiet mmhmm, motioning for her to continue. "So I figured I could use my own magic as a starting point. There's definitely something different about my magic compared to other types of shadow magic. The plan is I figure out what causes the difference by comparing my magical signature to a baseline, and see where that leads me. Problem is I don't know where my magical signature is."

  Archmage Dorlan nodded gravely. "Well, that certainly sounds interesting. I looked at your magical signature, it was quite the thing. I'm sorry though, but your magical signature is classified. However..." He tapped his finger against his chin. "If you were to somehow receive a copy of your magic signature, and be inspired by it to pursue a certain magical branch and research it thoroughly enough to reach Archmage status, but drop no indication of what you were inspired by?" He grinned at Sara and his eyes twinkled mischievously. "Well, I don't know who'd object to that."

  "Really?" she asked, lighting up. "You'd do that? Oh, you don't have to." She stuck a hand in her pocket and quietly, carefully, began undoing the changes she'd done to him. It'd be no good if he mysteriously started being close friends with literally everyone he saw.

  He waved off her false concern. "Oh no no, it's fine. Say, why don't you head on home, yeah? I'll get the magical signature and put it in your mail, should be done around noon."

  Sara nodded, continuing to undo the changes she'd made. To her fortune, he wasn't moving around too much so it was easy. "I get off work at three, so sounds good. You sure this is okay?"

  The Archmage winked at her. "Hey, if nobody knows." He clapped her on the back. "Well, if there's nothing else?"

  "I gotta get going," she said, taking the hint and finishing up her reversal of the mind magic. "I have an early shift tomorrow, so I gotta get some sleep early," she explained.

  As she stood, so did Andrias Dorlan. "Well, see you around, Sara! Don't be a stranger, feel free to pop in time to time." He stepped forward and hugged her, patting her on the back. She tensed, but allowed it to keep up appearances. "See you around, I'll see about getting you a copy of your signature."

  "Thanks, have a good night." She walked out of his home and, once the door closed behind herself, she gave a light fist pump in victory. "Hook, line and sinker," she whispered to herself before heading home to sleep.

  The next day, Sara went through her morning routine; randomly select a breakfast, scarf it down quickly, clean up her bedhead, then get dressed and go to work before the sun was up. Work was as agonizingly uneventful as always, and given what her 'friend' had promised the day before, she was looking forward to getting out of the inscription shop. She had her lunch break, after which followed three more hours of work, and then she was done. Sara collected her pay and swung by a postboard near the outside of the Mage Quarter, where she kept her advertisements for procrastination cures. There was nothing new in that regards, so she left it and returned to her home.

  She looked into the mailbox and fished around the letters for a bit before pulling one out. Sure enough, there it was. Sara's magic signature, enclosed in a little envelope addressed to her. Giving a low chuckle, she went inside and into her room before opening it.

  There was a letter, where Archmage Dorlan prattled on about how he hoped she got some good research from it and blah blah blah. She tossed it aside and removed the folded up parchment containing her magical signature. She opened it, smoothed it out, and then placed it on her desk for her to look at closely.

  A person's magical signature was a complicated description of how well their body produced magic at various resonance frequencies. The horizontal axis described the magic's frequency, the vertical axis described the quantity of magic produced. Technically there should have been four axes, with the third jutting up from the paper, but in place of that there was simply a color key with various colors describing different heights. Numbers written next to the colors would indicate their place along the fourth axis.

  The paper was pale blue graph paper, with her name written at the top and her magical signature was in the form of hundreds of dots along the graph of various colors. In the corner there was a legend and along the axes were labels and values. Sara looked at the signature, and frowned. "That can't be right,"
she muttered.

  Sara knew what magical signatures were supposed to look like, with some variation on the account of individuals. Hers did not look anything like that. The two dimensional axes were jagged, forming sharp spikes that went up a short distance, back down, then up again to a higher distance, until one of the spikes reached a certain height. At that point it fell back down to a small height and repeated. The colors were all in the upper range for the third axis, and the fourth axis's numbers were all over the place with no discernible pattern.

  "What in the world?" she muttered, taking out a piece of paper and a pencil. She began making two more graphs, one comparing the horizontal axis with the third instead of the second, and another with the fourth instead of the second so she could better visualize them. Those also didn't look anything like what they should've. There was only one thing to do: Sara needed to find who had a magical signature like what she did.

  She made a copy of the original magical signature, then placed that and the other two in a pack. She slung it over her shoulders, along with a waterskin, and headed out to the Wizard's Sanctum. She blended into the crowd and headed up the spiral, and once inside she went through the claustrophobic tunnels, twisting and turning into the earth, until she arrived in the Grand Library.

  The Grand Library consisted of shelves upon shelves of various magical tomes. Tables scattered here and there were occupied by mages and warlocks with their heads buried in books. A smaller shelf near the front provided an index for people to find specific books, but Sara had already memorized the important bits and knew where she was headed.

  She passed several shelves pertaining to arcane spells, fire spells, magic theory, demon classifications, until she came upon a series of tomes consisting of little more than lists upon lists of magical signatures.