Book III: The Harrowing

  A Demon's Soul Is a Heavy Burden

  "-. Medivh .-"?

  The Redridge Mountains were a poignantly appropriate location to begin atoning for the collective failure of Azeroth. These mountains were a jewel and a bulwark in one, warding off the unnatural heat of the Burning Steppes to the North and isolating the blighted Deadwind Pass to the south. At the same time, their center was an idyllic region of rushing rivers, towering elms and rising elevations. On the western bank of Lake Everstill was the town of Lakeshire, one of the more prosperous settlements in Stormwind Kingdom. To it was connected Elwynn Forest by way of the Three Corners crossroads, which also led to Brightwood and the Lakeridge Highway, all the way to Stonewatch Keep.

  East of Elwynn Forest but northeast of Brightwood and south of the Burning Steppes, the Redridge Mountains were half-way home and half-way back to the home-away-from-home that the demon used him to destroy.

  Look at him speaking in metaphors.

  'What have you done?'

  Turning his thoughts away from the echo of Anduin's voice, Medivh morphed into a giant condor and took flight. He spent the next while scouting around for another gnoll cave, then a murloc village when his first idea didn't work out, and when that failed he doubled back and unleashed his frustration on the pack of wild boars he'd spied. Anything to distract himself from falling into that contemptible memory again. It was almost enough to make one stay transformed longer than it was safe.

  After being possessed by a demon it was almost tempting, to give his mind permanently over to animal instincts. Perhaps get stuck as a beast forever, his mind steadily degenerating into the genuine article until he forgot he was ever a man. Forgot all about the evils he was used to commit by a monster. The ancient druids did that sort of thing, didn't they?

  It's a sign, Medivh reasoned, forcing himself back on task. Gnolls might have migrated, but the murloc absence is not so easy to explain. Lakeshire was a large settlement but nonetheless tiny compared to the lake itself, it was a very long and deep body of water, one of the largest natural water formations on the continent. You could walk around it for days. As a result, there were several murloc villages along its more marshy and reedy banks, one of the most optimal habitats in the region.

  There were even rumors of a 'sea' monster, which Medivh had initially thought was his quarry before his mystical instruments disproved it. The power readings he was following were higher in the mountains. He still double-checked because he wasn't the sort of fool that all other mages on Azeroth insisted on being. It turned out to be a threshadon, an enormous long-necked subaquatic reptile whose jaw strength could crush armor and snap bones… and which was the best thing that could ever happen to murlocs, actually, because those subaquatic dinosaurs were very territorial herbivores.

  Just one of those long-necked reptiles warded away all other competitors or predators murlocs might have to deal with, which practically guaranteed that the murlocs of Lakeshire were on a continuous population boom and thus constantly migrating to set up new settlements all through Redridge.

  After scouring these mountains for so many weeks, Medivh was now in an area where there were none of those insipid creatures, despite a fairly sizable waterway and secondary lake being here. Even if you argued that maybe the creatures just missed it or never got around to it, the odds were against it – murloc eggs could easily get up here through predation. Just a few of them left behind from the prey of the hawks and vultures living in these mountains would populate the area in short order. That was why he took a condor shape himself, anything smaller could have been gobbled up.

  Something should have stalked me anyway, a newcomer not bearing their scent or plumage should have been a threat to their territory, but nothing. Birds are thin or outright absent in this area as well, I must be close.

  The thought brought with it a hope that was as grim as Medivh's spiteful resentment towards everything that drove him here.

  You would think that there would be some major change to his thought patterns, after expelling the possessing entity that had apparently been parasitizing him since birth. Medivh had had doubts it had really happened, he still doubted it was his own doing since it seemed more like the demon overreached when he committed his atrocity on New Year's day. Medivh certainly didn't recall any spiritual clash before Anduin's voice woke him up amidst the corpses.

  He'd still be in Kharazan, pretending to his steward Moroes that he was fine while actually stewing in paranoia over being possessed unknowingly, if he hadn't seen with his own eyes that the entity had left him. Gone off to hijack semi-natural disasters to manifest a flame-faced colossus in the sky to taunt the Prophet with. And get smote for the sheer audacity. No, Medivh was sure, now, the creature was no longer in him.

  Whatever it may or may not have boasted during its mass-murderous tantrum in Stormwind Keep – which Medivh was going to avenge himself thoroughly for – the Archbishop had pressed Sargeras so much that it exhausted itself in retaliation. The lives of Llane and his wife and practically everyone else Medivh had ever bonded with other than Anduin were not a fair price, but they must have allowed the Guardian's power to finally expel the monster.

  Which only made Medivhs' dark thoughts all the more stark, because if they were the same now that he wasn't being influenced by the Lord of Demons anymore, that meant he'd developed them all on his own. They weren't demon bias, they were the result of Medivh's own common sense. Common sense he most certainly wasn't going to disregard, now that the demon had taken away everyone else whose better sense Medivh had been comfortable bowing to.

  Curse everyone else for seeing this as a vacuum, as if the mass death of everyone with a brain somehow meant he now owed it to listen to imbeciles.

  Dalaran. The Tirisgarde. The Council of Tirisfal. Even his own mother!

  Not one of them saw the signs? Not a single one of them, not each of them alone or all of them together, never at any point did they cotton onto the fact that he was not himself?

  He could understand the City of Mages, they were the fools who invited the Burning Legion into the world to begin with. Worse, they were so inept in the face of the consequences of their own actions that they needed to go begging for guidance from the elves.

  The elves! They certainly pulled their weight stemming the worst of the consequences of Dalaran's stupidity. But at the same time they committed a sin that, while not actively contributing to the harm, was almost as ruinous in ignorance: they somehow were completely incapable of conceiving of a solution other than 'fight fire with more fire'. Human mages came to them with confessions that they overused the Arcane until it tore holes through the fabric of reality, and their answer was 'more arcane overuse in one place'?

  Where was the logic? Where was the forethought? Where were their priests when then they created the Council of Tirisfal? Where was the Light in their problem-solving?! It was an idiocy that no one could be forgiven for, not even the elves. Especially the elves!

  And then the Tirisgarde! They were created to hunt down Aegwynn when she went rogue, never mind that she only did so because she grew suspicious of the Council. She believed that the council was abusing its power by manipulating the politics of the human kingdoms, and she was completely right. Just like she was right to stay aloof from them even after the Kirin Tor overthrew the Magocracy, one needn't more than point a finger at Alterac's New Year's day to prove it.

  The most elite order of magi, girded with relics and armaments that could diminish the Guardian's incredible powers, the Tirisgarde were considered the elite mage-guard of Dalaran. But what did they accomplish after their years of training? Nothing! Aegwynn ran circles around them, and then they found Kharazan and now both Aegwynn and Medivh himself ran circles around them. What was even the use of reporting the location of their home? What use were the Tirisgarde at all, if that was the best all of them together could accomplish?

  Even after wracking his memory Medivh only recalled two Tirisgarde names, other than his father who was the only one who actually achieved what he was sent to do. One of them was Tarthen, who was only notable for how swiftly he was crushed despite having Ebonchill in his hands. The other was Laith Sha'ol, and while he did nearly kill Aegwynn, he only did so by nearly dooming the entire world to eradication. It was a good thing that the Prophet had dealt with that sword, because Medivh might have felt compelled to go after it instead of this, then where would he be?

  All these questions had been infuriating when they were still rhetorical, but they had only become more so since they stopped being rhetorical.

  The worst part was that Medivh couldn't even blame it all on the holier-than-thou Silvermoon. The elves very well might have meant to bring in the priests, only for Dalaran to hem and haw like the imbeciles they insisted on being to this very day. Why? Because the Magocracy of Dalaran was too busy being excommunicated by the Church of the Holy Light at the time of their greatest idiocy, precisely on account of having torn holes in space-time. Through which demons had made it into the world to terrorize people in and outside of Dalaran. Again!

  Unforgiveable!

  I wish my father was still alive.

  Nielas Aran must have been the only mage with common sense in the whole of Azeroth, which was likely why the demon saw to it that he died early. Medivh wanted to hold it against the man, that and how he insinuated Medivh into the family life of the Stormwind Royal Court. Medivh had plenty to hold against everyone else, how likely was it that this one man, that any man would be truly faultless?

  But Medivh couldn't do it. What kind of person would condemn a father for dying for their son? Who wouldn't want their son to be friends with Prince Llane Wrynn and Anduin Lothar? It certainly worked out for Stormwind, at least for a while, even if some of the problems were caused by Medivh and his friends' own making. All because of that time when Medivh, Llane and Anduin were out on the road in Stranglethorn Vale, and they were ambushed by three jungle trolls.

  None of them were hurt badly, but Medivh fainted after casting several spells, and fell into a coma on the eve of his fourteenth birthday. A coma which he crashed out of at the end of a nightmare in the middle of the night, evil dreams where he pictured figures giving chase through deep chasms. In a sweat, Medivh had stumbled into his father's room, and when his father touched his brow, the power his mother had given him – or so they thought – awoke.

  By all rights Medivh's possession should have happened from birth, if not earlier. Seeing as Sargeras had stitched himself into Aegwynn's womb, the fact Medivh still ended up as his own person instead just an empty body for Sargeras to inhabit straight up was a miracle.

  That Sargeras didn't seize control from conception… The more optimistic explanation was that attempting to expel the native soul would've set off the Guardian's powers, which were too great to overcome. But the more likely explanation was that it would have killed the foetus, or later the baby, which was against Sargeras' interests. Hells, maybe the demon just didn't want to be vulnerable or risk exposing itself when he was a helpless babe, unable to control his own bowels, never mind walk or talk.

  No, the demon was smart and waited for when Medivh first exerted himself and the Guardian powers awoke. When Medivh was at his weakest mentality and spiritually, guaranteed to be unable to control the powers of the Guardian, it all would surely have been the demon's for the taking… if not for Nielas Aran. The man managed to prevent the creature from annihilating Medivh's soul and taking wholesale control of his body. And he did it without even knowing what was really happening, by finally doing what everyone else should have been doing the whole time: he asked the priests for help.

  Yes, it took a hundred of them combining their Light with his father's arcane magic to contain Medivh's power, and his father still died and Medivh was in a coma for ten years after that. But it was clearly the solution everyone had been looking for.

  So what did the Council of Tirisfal do? What did Huglar and Hugarin do? What did his own mother even do? Did they go to the Church to ask for assistance? Did they go to the Archbishop to explain the great scope of their fight against extra-mundic enemies? Did they offer Alonsus Faol or any other cleric membership in the Council of Tirisfal, or hell, even the measly Tirisgarde?

  Of course not! Better to just continue sniping at each other while Aegwynn cavorted around with her Blue Dragon friend, and Huglar and Hugarin spied on Medivh for the rest of the Council back in Dalaran.

  Medivh wouldn't even feel that antagonistic about it if they'd actually been half-way good at their job, but they got not a single inkling of his demonic possession! They just thirsted after the Guardian's powers so much they attributed everything to it, and to the runaway Guardian Aegwynn's influence. Never mind that Nielas Aran practically raised Medivh all by himself. Never mind that Medivh supposedly inherited the Guardian's powers when Aegwynn still had them. That should have been enough of a clue by itself!

  It was enough to make Medivh wish Huglar was still alive just so Medivh could kill him himself. As it was, Medivh would just have to bide his time until he cornered Hugarin for some answers. The man's explanations would decide whether he left that meeting alive or not at all.

  Medivh would use the time in between to practice his kowtowing, because the Prophet, at least, would be upset with him if he unilaterally executed someone he went through such trouble to save. By all rights Medivh should have gone to prostrate himself before him already, him and the Archbishop both, but he… was too ashamed to go to them just to grovel. And not from pride, he was all out of that.

  It was for the same reason why he left behind Atiesh, the Greatstaff of the Guardian – he had to prove himself worth the bother, to himself and everyone else. By his own merits, instead of handouts like his whole life had revolved around, good and ill both. Pretty words might earn clemency, especially from the two kindest men in the world. But redemption wasn't so easily bought, and it couldn't be swindled either. Medivh had to believe that, because if even the afterlife was broken, he would lose what sanity he had left.

  And so he was here. Trawling the Redridge Mountains in the hopes that what he might find here, what he hoped his magic readings and half-conscious dreamwalking pointed him towards, would be worth it. Something worthwhile. Something worthwhile to atone with. The beginning of his quest to atonement, at least. Being the one whose hands and might murdered your best friend and his family and entire royal court was bad enough, but to know he'd been the Burning Legion's door all this time? More so than the fools up in Dalaran?

  It could not be borne, but perhaps the struggle he'd endure on his self-imposed quest would make him worthy of being looked upon as more than this wretch with too much unearned power. Perhaps it was all still folly and the best he could hope was to be killed so his powers went to someone worthier, mayhap the Prophet himself…

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  But Nielas Aran hadn't raised a fatalist, and certainly not a quitter ready to throw himself on his own sword.

  No, if he were alive, Nielas Aran would headslap Medivh with the most ridiculous of eyerolls and tell him to go and make something of himself until he became someone worthy again. Worthy of being bestowed the missing part of what should have been among the Guardian's Powers all along, as opposed to just the Arcane – the Holy Light of Creation that would have solved everything, and only couldn't do it now because they'd wasted too much time empowering the enemy.

  That was, perhaps, the only irony in all this that was more sweet than bitter. Thanks to the Archbishop and Anduin, the demon's departure hadn't been as orderly as it might have liked. Some things were left behind – thoughts, memories, information. Information that Medivh himself had uncovered but had been removed from his memory and into the demon's, until now.

  They were fragments, passages, feelings of arrogance and malice and vague memories that weren't much by themselves. But together they'd cut years off Medivh's search for a way to definitively fulfil the Guardian's duties once and for all, to put an end to the threat of the Burning Legion for good.

  After all, what better way to do it than to use the Legion's own patsies against it?

  A shame that he'd have to break a few eggs on the way, but seeing as he'd been the first to be cracked open and made part of the scramble, Medivh could at least go forth with no hypocrisy. If anyone on this world could be said to be more trouble than they were worth, if anyone could be said to have been granted more power than they'd earned above and beyond even Medivh himself, it was these.

  "Are you lost, little human?" rumbled the voice of the massive reptilian silhouette shifting in the shadows, just beyond the mouth of the cave Medivh had now stopped in front of. "Or perhaps you've wandered too far looking for a meal, not knowing there's a point past which you're more likely to become one."

  "Am I supposed to jump at shadows?" Medivh scoffed, looking as hunched as a man could under a cloak of raven plumes. "If you're going to pretend to be some inhuman beast, you could at least pretend to grunt and snarl like a gnoll, not talk like an old man. Or is your trick to pretend to be some decrepit sage, whoever you are?"

  "As opposed to walking into a claimed den and posturing at shadows? Truly, you humans get more arrogant by the generation."

  "Arrogant?" Medivh scoffed, all the while channeling his power into the ground, just bare trickles lest his mother sense him like only the Guardian could. Their power made them count as the same person for an annoying majority of arcane phenomena, enough that they were actually aware of each other's location all the time if they didn't take pains to hide themselves. And that was before scrying and sympathetic magics got involved. He was in no mood for interference from her, that was why he left Kharazan well before she came looking for him there. "At least I'm posturing out in the open instead of huddling in the dark like some bandit."

  "Arrogant and rude, one is under no obligation to offer goodwill to every passerby, much less one as impolite as you." The dark shape moved. "Even less so guest right."

  "Guest right? In a dusty cave in the middle of nowhere? Don't make me laugh."

  "I do not know why you would provoke me, much less in so obvious a fashion, but I can see words will not see you off. Very well, I will oblige you."

  The dark shape rose. It was enormous, much more so than Medivh had expected. As it came into the sunlight, the sun cast it into sheer, colorful relief. Scaled hide that shimmered in the sun like countless rubies, a long neck with an arc as graceful as it was noble, and its ridged head took in the intruder with golden eyes that gleamed with great wisdom. It all made Medivh's gorge fill with disgust. Wisdom, pah! If anyone could be said to have been granted more power than sense to use it with, above and beyond even Medivh himself, it was accursed dragons.

  "I see you are a mage of some power, so I will ask you but once," said the creature. "Leave this place and forget you ever found it."

  "Oh?" Medivh wondered if trying to be subtle was a fool's gambit after all, it often seemed to be the case with him. "What gave me away, the robes?"

  "The fact you are here despite the spells to direct away all questing minds. Few mortals would be resistant to them, never mind all of them combined, yet you seem to have barged right through, rude twice over that you are."

  It was all Medivh could do to keep weaving his power under the earth. He hadn't noticed any spell trough the ambient energies, either the dragon was bluffing or the Guardian's power skewered right through them like so much else. It was why he didn't bother with magesight most of the time, outside academic interests. Any magic likely to affect him was the sort that was so powerful as to be visible with the naked eye. Even then, he'd yet to see a passive effect he couldn't just power through, the power he inherited was such that lateral-thought spellcraft was almost always a waste of effort for the Guardian of Azeroth.

  It was still a lapse of course, that he walked into a trap, or several of them if the dragon was truthful. How fortuitous that lateral-thinking spellcrafting was precisely the weakness he was here to overcome.

  "Are you expecting a countdown, little mage?" the dragon demanded. "Do not make me waste my breath lest you invite my other one, I assure you, you will not enj-"

  "COME FORTH!"

  An arcane portal burst into existence behind the dragon, yanking across time and space the creature Medivh had previously summoned and bound in the bowels of Kharazan in anticipation of precisely this moment.

  "▂▃▅▅▅▅▅▅ーー！！"Roared the fel beast, a giant two-headed demonic elemental monster whose green fire spewed from its dog-like maws and flesh everywhere.

  "What?!" The dragon jumped around with such suddenness that his tail scythed down several elder firs as he turned, would've pulped Medivh himself if he hadn't already cast a shield. "You fool, you would summon demons, here?!"

  Much obliged for confirming the importance of this place, Medivh thought grimly as he cast invisibility on himself and fly-hopped past both monsters just as the fel beast attacked the dragon guardian.

  Summoning was a risk, if Aegwynn had managed to get through the changes to Kharazan's wards and was there to feel the spell, she could track the destination, may well be here any moment. But it was a risk he had to take. A normal core hound would've done the job just as well, possibly better against red dragon flames, but he'd have had to take the same steps with it. All else being equal, the irony of turning the Burning Legion's own minions against it was one of very few indulgences Medivh allowed himself anymore.

  The den proved to be surprisingly shallow, barely more than a grotto instead of the cavern system he'd expected to find. It was also completely empty save for a small hoard of riches that his instruments vibrated and flickered least at. Now was time to use magesight, but it showed nothing he didn't expect from a dragon's lair, and so did all other arcane scan spells and exercises. Truly, his Twisting Dousing Rod and Energy Compass were his most inspired inventions. They overcame what Azeroth's best arcane craft could achieve in both search and concealment, all because they looked for power fluctuations in the Twisting Nether, rather than this side.

  If the Council of Tirisfal had properly researched para-dimensional magic instead of burying their heads in the sand, there might be no need for a Guardian at all.

  He found his objective buried three meters deep inside a random patch of the grotto wall that looked like nothing out of the ordinary. The stone fought his crumbling spells, much more than even granite normally would have. The stone had been infused with magic to render it almost indestructible, but nothing that a targeted attack on the Arcane itself couldn't solve. It even had the added benefit of preventing his excess emanations from traveling too far through the damage.

  He could have grabbed the golden disk right then and there, but he could sense even more wards around it now that he was inside them. Not them specifically, but the space they were active upon, the space they held in containment. They didn't extend more than a few meters from the disc, and these ones weren't the sort to put up physical protection but perceptual. The golden disk gave up a ridiculous amount of power just sitting there, inactive. Yet the magic contained the emissions and redirected the emanations into the obscuring wards with almost 100% efficiency. The little that leaked out wasn't enough to make it past the rock wall, never mind the cave to the outside.

  As grudging as he was to admit it, Medivh could accept that whoever had woven these concealment spells was a master of mysticism, more so than even himself. In skill, at least. Certainly experience.

  How good that his expert speculations from all the way back when he set off on this venture turned out to be so accurate.

  "GET AWAY FROM THERE!"

  The angry, panicked roar of the red dragon failed to move him. So did the fire breath that lasted almost thirty seconds. So did the mighty swipe the dragon attempted with his claw after that failed, bouncing back with a shrieking gong. The power of the Guardian was overwhelming on defense too. The only problem with it was that it was impossible to conceal from even the most meager of mystical senses without extremely precise effort like before, which was impossible in combat. But it just so happened that the wards on the gold disk were good enough to contain most of that too, here and now.

  Medivh cast a second shield, a dome that encapsulated almost the entire grotto, and turned to face the dragon that was suddenly trapped in here with him. "I would apologize for what I'm about to do," he told the enormous, panicked creature. All around him, his will wove extensions of those concealment wards as fast as he could comprehend them. Which wasn't as much as he'd have liked to boast, they were flimsy and temporary, but they didn't need to last, just to envelop the cave for a few moments. "But I find myself regretting this very little, now that the time is finally upon me."

  "I do not know who you are, human," the dragon snarled. "Or what doom drives you, but you know not what horrors you toy with!"

  "But I will know soon."

  The beast's chest began radiating with hot, gold-orange power. "You will not touch it!"

  "Not until I'm good and ready, no."

  "I will give you one last chance to turn away," rumbled the beast as it rose above him, wings spreading wide to darken the cave to everything but the glow of its chest, blocking even the light from outside. In the inferno the beast had left behind where the two-headed fel beast had been, just the slag of its armor was left now to melt and sizzle. "The gift of my kind is compassion for all living things, a drive to protect and nurture them, you. To us is given the ability to slay as much as heal, mend that which others cannot, birth what others may not, and love even the unlovable – who surely need such grace more than any other souls. If you would remain among them, turn away and never again seek this object."

  "I'm sorry." Medivh wished he was being honest. "But I can't do that."

  "Then I have no choice."

  "It gladdens me," Medivh clawed at the air and grabbed the Arcane weave of the entire cave. "That I am not the only liar here!"

  The red dragon's flaming breath was hot enough to melt the rock, but it was smashed aside and choked back by an onslaught of earth spikes that burst from every surface of rock around them. They broke against the scales on the dragon's chest and back, but the impact was strong enough to smash his maw shut and fracture ribs. The rest of the spikes trapped it in place where it thrashed. The ones that struck its wings and tail pierced him clean through.

  It was a great exertion of the Guardian's might that would normally be plenty enough to flare upon the world's unseen patterns. His misgivings with the Council's 'solution' of 'more arcane disruption in one place' applied to him most of all, save perhaps his mother. But his hasty improvisation of the ward extension worked well enough that any leakage should dissipate well before it reached the edges of Redridge. That Aegwynn wasn't already here meant she wasn't in Kharazan to track his earlier summoning spell either.

  Medivh grew two opposing pillars to keep the stunned dragon's maw shut while he went about turning his hasty ward extension into a more permanent arrangement. It took him a day, and the wards on the disc only stayed solvent because of how well they were made, not through any skill of his own. If not for the immensely vaster importance and potency of the object they were hiding, the ward schema would be his greatest find of his life.

  Part-way through, the dragon recovered enough to unleash a great pulse of magic, clearly intended as a beacon of some sort. It nearly distracted Medivh from the second component in the magic, meant to unravel the disc's wards. Quite explosively. It would not have killed him, but they would have been exposed to the rest of whatever this dragon had for allies. It only failed because Medivh was actively syphoning the power from the wards at that point, which were themselves powered by the disc, so he could reverse his efforts towards reinforcement.

  "That was a very specifically targeted dispel," Medivh grunted, turning to the pained, horrified dragon. "Nothing like the skill set you displayed. Don't tell me…" After a liberal use of his detective means – this time the Fel Dousing tools did not help at all – he found what he suspected: a bronze segmented belt around the joint of the dragon's right wing, previously invisible. A craft of arcane enchantment beyond his own skills, despite all his practice, by the sheer number of different effects woven in a single item. A blue dragon had made this, one well beyond the one that Magna Aegwynn called a friend. "So this is a multi-dragonflight operation. It seems I cannot take any risks after all."

  Accursed dragons, they even made it hard to show mercy. Where was this diligence and competence when it actually mattered, all these centuries?

  "It seems there can be no middle ground solution after all," Medivh told the dragon. "But I should be able to make your sacrifice worth it, at least."

  He got almost three full weeks with the dragon, steadily uncovering the powers and applications of the golden disc one experiment at the time. Three weeks of learning how to tap its powers. Three weeks to learn how it could amplify his own powers. Three weeks to learn how it could be used against and on dragons. Three weeks before he felt ready to move on to the next step of his plan.

  By the end it was a mercy to finally put the mind-broken dragon out of its misery. To both of them.

  At dawn on the first day when he was alone again, Medivh broke the disc free of its chain, moved away with it – and its concealment wards too – used his powers to weave an identical but flawed, failing version of the same wards on the place left behind, took no steps to hide his emanations, and settled down on the dragon hoard to wait.

  It wasn't even noon before his mother finally found him. That was how easily and quickly Aegwynn could detect him, was able to track him when he wasn't suppressing himself to the point where he had to go around like a hapless pilgrim. Even now, in this time frame when it was nigh impossible to get any useful information out of divination spells because of how chaotically the Prophet had upended the fate of the world.

  That was actually why Medivh went on this quest with so few preparations now, literally no better time could exist during which to carry out momentous tasks, without would-be meddlers finding out about it.

  But Aegwynn found him anyway.

  Where was all this skill while Sargeras was literally in her belly?

  Bylaws of Babel (Warhammer Fantasy/40K) and A Backwards Approach to Clarke's Law (Highschool DxD, Inspired Inventor, X-Over).

  original story there, a cultivation story called Enlightenment Doesn't Root in Flesh. Premise is that a guy from earth is reborn in xianxialand without spirit roots or any other cheats under suspicious cosmic circumstances. He decides to reverse-engineer western mysticism from first principles and see how far it can take him.

  here.