Extra followup from Mokvar after he’d gotten back from his dinner break. Faranell’s brother apparently had just met Tirion and the rest last night – he was eating alone at the next table over, so Tirion invited him to come join him, Isilien, and Abbendis. Probably so he could have one more person to yammer on to. Anyway, Mokvar says Tirion and Isilien both seemed to take a liking to Faranell the Younger…erm…Younger and Other… Okay fuck it, hang on.

Okay. Just checked with Fara— OUR Faranell. So the brother’s name is Patrick. Whereas HIS name is Edwin. Yeah, I know, right? I would be a last-name guy too. Anyway, though, that should make this easier.

So as I was saying, Tirion and Isilien seemed to hit it off well with Patrick, especially Isilien. Abbendis seemed a lot more standoffish, with Patrick AND with Mokvar, who ended up sitting with them for a few minutes while they were finishing eating. Related side note – thank GOODNESS Utvoch mostly kept his distance at the bar. A rare moment of sense.

Although…he didn’t waste too much time returning to character once he an Mokvar came back upstairs…

MOKVAR: Hey, did you all know that that guy downstairs is Faranell’s brother?

GARROSH: Yeah, it’s his younger brother, sort of a boy genius in alchemy.

LIADRIN: He’s paying the Faranell of this time a call on his way to study in Silvermoon, where he’s fated to meet his end during the Scourge invasion.

MOKVAR: So…I missed a meeting.

UTVOCH: Holy crap, Faranell, did you know about this too?

MOKVAR: Sorry, Faranell, about how long…wait. <stares at Utvoch>

FARANELL: …

GARROSH: …

LIADRIN: That’s…remarkable.

FARANELL: Um, Utvoch…

UTVOCH: Yeah?

FARANELL: Let me make sure I’m following you correctly here.

UTVOCH: Okay.

GARROSH: Personally I think you’re just pulling the bandage off slowly now, but it’s your call…

FARANELL: You’re asking me if I knew that the man downstairs, who is my brother, is my brother?

UTVOCH: Um, yeah, I guess.

FARANELL: <blinks>

GARROSH: They weren’t frigging separated at birth, fuckwit.

LIADRIN: Utvoch?

UTVOCH: Yeah?

LIADRIN: Go play with the child.

UTVOCH: Oh, okay. <thinks> Wait, it’s pretty late, he’s probably asleep—

LIADRIN: Go check for him.

UTVOCH: Um, okay. What if he’s not th—

LIADRIN: Then check some more.

UTVOCH: Yes ma’am.

Utvoch leaves.

FARANELL: See, you’re starting to fit right in.

She’s actually really good at dealing with stupidity. I might have to see if can lure her away from Silvermoon to come work with me more often. Maybe offer her a promotion or something, although I don’t know how much she would groove on a job other than being head honcho of the paladins up there. Pansy-ass fuckers though they are. Eh. Still might be worth a try.

So anyway, that was last night.

Today, Liadrin and I spent most of the afternoon camping out downstairs watching for the Silver Hand people to do their thing. Finally as we were getting late into the afternoon, the full cast of characters turned up and gathered around one table near the fireplace. Liadrin and I watched as closely as we could without being too obvious about it, but from where we were standing we couldn’t hear much that they were saying, other than a few words here and there. Luckily we already knew from future-Tirion the basics of the meeting.

Mograine was pretty clearly running the show most of the way, and after a bit, while the rest of the group tried to huddle around to conceal what was going on (successfully? not so much), he did the big unveiling and brought out the dark crystal that Tirion had told us about. I couldn’t see it clearly the whole time, but every time I was able to get a clear line on it, there was just something… uneasy about even looking at it. Liadrin seemed even more disturbed by it than I was – or maybe just intrigued. Either way, at that point she wasn’t making much of an effort to hide the fact that she was staring at the thing.

At one point, Mograin took off one of his gloves and showed the others his hand – it was withered and skeletal, exactly like the undead look, only in his case it was just his hand rather than his whole body. Tirion mentioned Mograine being “scarred” by touching the crystal once, and I’ve seen plenty of disfiguring injuries, but this seemed much more creepy.

Eventually the bunch of them started pouring their holy spells in the crystal, and it started to glow and even hum a little, and then finally it transformed from dark to light, just like Tirion had described. By this point, Liadrin was already in full perked-up mode, but I think her eyes lit up a little extra at that. Mograine touched the crystal, it healed his withered hand with a soft yellow glow, and they all went round and round in whispers – so that’s how it started. The Ashbringer wasn’t made yet, but the idea for it was invented, and in a way that was more important. After they were done, Mograine sealed the crystal in its chest again, then seemed to have a pretty intense discussion about something with Isilien and Doan.

At that point the Faranell brothers wandered into the inn, passed by the Silver Hand bunch, and headed upstairs. Having had a chance to get a closer look at them now, I’m not sure why I didn’t realize on my own that they were related – they’ve definitely got a major family resemblance going, especially around the nose, and, hell, they’ve even got matching cloaks going style-wise, blue for Patrick and gray for Edwin.

Anyway, they were only around for a minute, but I was distracted enough by them being there that I didn’t realize that Liadrin had gone over to the Silver Hand boys and was talking to Isilien, Tirion, and Doan now. I was planning to do any talking we needed to do, but whatever. There goes us getting anywhere through charm. Still, it looked like she ended up winning them over by rolling out a few of those flashy paladin spells – Holy Light or Divine Shield, or Holy Hand of Divinity, or Holy Shock, or Holy Shield, or Shock of Divine Light, or Shield of Divinity, or Holy Hell I’m Shocked You’re Holy or the Holy fucking Hand Grenade or WHATEVER the hell those paladin spells are called. Like seriously, take “holy,” “divine,” “light,” and any other two words you can think of, throw them in a hat, and pull out two, and that’s the name of some ability of theirs. And you wonder why everyone gets so sick of them.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, Liadrin was talking to the Silver Hands. Tirion excused himself and went upstairs, so I decided it was safe for me to go join the discussion. Because honestly, I’ve been trapped in enough tedious conversations with Tirion in my own time, I don’t need to treat myself to any prequels. Anyway, Liadrin and Isilien were hitting it off fairly well by this point, although Doan seemed sort of standoffish, and eventually he excused himself too and left Isilien to talk to us by himself.

The long and the short of it is this. Liadrin was able to convince Isilien the she was a kindred spirit as a paladin, and got him to bring her into the know. Isilien, for his part, is all on board with Mograine’s idea to use the light crystal to create the Ashbringer, but he’s also thinking that the crystal might be a source of power that they could draw on to help defend against the undead in other ways. He’s persuaded Mograine to let him and Doan study it for a day or two – just like the Tirion from our time said – and see if there’s any potential there.

For our part, Lidrain’s convinced Isilien that she and some of her friends, myself included, might be interested in the endeavor. He was wary about bringing too many more people into this, but considering he’s working with limited time, he figures he’s not in a position to turn away help. He’s going to spend the day tomorrow working through some ideas with Doan, but then, tomorrow night, he’s invited us to stop by his room here at the inn to put our heads together. So here we go. Coming down to crunch time. More soon.

[Header image provided by Rioriel from Postcards From Azeroth, reproduced here with permission and many thanks. Click here to see the souped-up Postcard version!]