Amelette and the Magic Buttplug

Puffy white clouds above the Forbidden Reach parted like curtains as a winged form dove towards the island. Amelette felt a thrill as she glided through the clear afternoon sky. The nightborne mage had been to the Forbidden Reach a few times before and was already looking forward to exploring the mysterious Zskera Vaults below. The sun was high in the sky by the time the drake set down on the shore of a small island on the western part of the Reach.

Amelette slid off the back of her drake, landing lightly on her feet and dusting herself off before pulling her drake rider's goggles up, holding her bangs and keeping her hair from falling over her eyes. The youthful-looking mage loved the explorer's look it gave her, though she had opted to wear her typical bustier and skirt, both of a rich wine hue, accented with tasteful gold accents.

The deep red of her outfit brought out her violet-blue skin and contrasted beautifully with the light grey of her shimmering arcane tattoos. She knew she was positively stunning and loved to flaunt her physique whenever she could. And while her outfit showed off a lot of skin and an enticing amount of cleavage, it remained incontrovertibly elegant, a testament to the talent of Suramar's fashion designers.

Amelette had worked hard to develop her magical abilities and to keep herself in shape, and she knew it was all worth it with the stares she got in public. Much to her dismay, however, there were few people around to notice her flamboyant arrival and she pouted briefly.

It seemed that the heroes and explorers of the Horde and Alliance had already moved on to the Zaralek Caverns. She scanned the beach down below for a little while before her gaze landed on a ship some ways off, flying the red flag of the Irontide Pirates.

Amelette approached the beach, careful to avoid any obstacles that might ruin her outfit. While the magic woven into her outfit's fabric enhanced its durability somewhat, a sharp rock or a particularly thorny branch could doubtlessly damage it. Her drake stayed behind, watching her patiently. She gave it a reassuring pat before moving on, unrolling a map of the Reach to see where the Zskera Vaults were located.

Great... right next to the damn pirate ship she thought, briefly comparing her current location to the map. A sigh left her lips as she rolled the scroll up, slipping it into her bag as she began looking for a path down to the vaults that didn't involve her having to interact with the pirates. She doubted they'd let someone from the Dragonscale Expedition just wander into the place when there was probably quite a bit of treasure to plunder from the place, still.

Her silver gaze scanned her surroundings, settling upon an outcropping of rock that would most likely offer her a better vantage point to spy on the pirates.

Focusing her gaze on that outcropping, Amelette closed her eyes for the briefest moment, visualized herself landing atop it. Her tattoos flared, the arcane power within them feeding into her spell, allowing her to blink a fair bit further than would have normally been possible. She reopened her eyes to find herself transported to the exact spot she had wanted. It wasn't such a great distance, but she didn't want to risk ruining her outfit to get there.

Amelette brushed a stray strand of snow-white hair out of her eyes and looked down at the pirate ship with a grin, getting on her elbows and knees to observe them. She wiggled her hips and butt excitedly as she thought of the best way to approach the situation. Of course, she could most likely blast them with her vast arsenal of spells from this distance or blow up the powder kegs in their ship, but she didn't want to simply murder them. They seemed like they were having fun down there, and besides, they hadn't done anything wrong that she knew of. Certainly not anything worthy of her ending their lives, at least.

From her perch, she could see pirates hanging around the ship, clearly relaxing in the early afternoon sun. She considered the best way to infiltrate the nearby vaults unnoticed, wondering if her invisibility spells would last long enough to do so, given the distance that needed to be covered.

She was decent enough at running long distances, but she hadn't the longest legs nor was she the fastest.

She furrowed her brow, thinking of a solution. What should I-

"Oi!" a gruff voice bellowed from behind her. "I mean - Yarrr! You dere! Surrender yer booty!"

Amel jumped with an "eep!" instinctively blinking backwards to the source of the voice, right next to two massive Kul Tiran men, obviously pirates by their attire.

"What the-" the first one said, just as the second began raising his cutlass to strike at the nightborne mage who had just materialized between then.

While the backwards blink had entirely been accidental, Amelette seized the opportunity and placed a hand on either pirates' shoulders, tapping into the magic reserves that remained within her tattoos. With a crackle of arcane power, both men fell asleep, falling harmlessly to the ground.

She eyed them for a moment. Of course, her invisibility spell wouldn't last long enough to sneak past the other pirates and enter the vaults... but perhaps it didn't have to. She grinned impishly to herself before bending down and removing the smallest man's outfit. His buccaneer's clothing would doubtlessly be too large for the smaller nightborne, but it would have to do.

Amelette shivered with excitement as she stripped out of her mage's robes, folding them neatly and placing them in a bag. She would miss the protective charms of the garments, but it was necessary to maintain her disguise. Amelette quickly shimmied into the outfit, adjusting it around her curvy figure. She felt incredibly exposed in just the breeches and vest, but it would have to do for the time being.

The sleep spell wouldn't last long enough for her to properly accessorize, much to her chagrin.

Alright, here we go.

Amelette shifted her hips from side to side experimentally, testing out the fit of the outfit. The leather felt strange against her soft skin and even the belt itself was a little too large as it sat upon her hips. It was miracle those pants even held up at all. With a smile on her face, the nightborne mage began the slow walk towards the vaults, taking the same path through the trees that the two now-sleeping pirates had most likely taken when they had come upon her.

She passed several pirates along the way, humans mostly, though there appeared to be a decent amount of non-human folk as well among them. They laughed and talked about various things with nary a care in the world, their jests and boasts loud enough to cover Amelette's soft steps through the sand, and she couldn't help her eyes widening when she heard one of the pirates describe how she'd bedded three tauren simultaneously during one particularly adventurous night in Ratchet.

The mage's ears turned red with arousal as she imagined the scene, though those thoughts were quickly dispelled when she came upon the Zskera Vaults themselves.

None of the pirates were currently guarding the doors. Perhaps they'd tried getting in and hadn't succeeded? The ship wasn't far from the vault doors, though. Fifty feet, give or take.

She nodded to the pirates sitting around their campfire, trying to appear as though she belonged.

"Ay, where's Barry and Gary?" one of them shouted towards Amel before biting into a great piece of succulent-looking meat.

Without much surprise, their hungry eyes wandered over Amelette's abundant curves, her considerable chest barely filling out the enormous pirate's tunic she'd pilfered off Barry or Gary.

"Haven't seen them since yesterday, I think," the nightborne answered with a shrug.

One of them, a female dwarf, nodded and bit into her meal, "Aye, they got stuck inside the vaults, I reckon. Feckin' spiders everywhere in there."

"I... uh... I should go look fer them," Amelette said, trying - and failing - to come up with a convincing pirate accent, her eyes briefly looking over the entrance to the vaults, the incredibly tall doors slightly ajar already, most likely from previous exploration attempts.

"Right," the dwarf said around a mouthful of food, "Try not tae get yerself killed. Hate t'have another death on my conscience."

Amelette nodded and walked away from the group, towards the doors. She didn't dare say another word, to avoid blowing her cover.

"Hey, I don't think I've seen you around here before," shouted a voice from behind her. "Don't recall any night elves being part of this particular crew..." he added, obviously not knowing the difference between a Shaldorei and Kaldorei.

Uncultured, Amelette remarked inwardly as she continued walking up the wide steps to the double doors, not even looking back to see who was talking to her.

"Stop!" the man behind her continued and she could hear his footsteps getting closer.

Amel pretended not to hear.

"HEY! We got an intruder!" a new voice shouted.

This time, she did recognize the voice. Either Barry or Gary had woken up from her sleep spell and had come running down to the beach to warn his friends.

She stepped into the vaults and spun about, quickly spotting a nearby chain that allowed her to close the massive stone doors behind her. She wasted no time in doing so, surprised at the ease with which she could pull on the heavy-looking links. For such an ancient mechanism, it still worked splendidly.

The doors closed and she found herself engulfed in darkness. Amelette heard shouting from outside. While even her sensitive ears couldn't quite make out the words, "cannon" was clear enough to her and she immediately understood their intentions.

The damned fools would rather blast this place open than risk someone else getting their hands on any of their precious baubles...

With a snap of her fingers, Amelette conjured up a globe of light to illuminate the darkened vaults. The room she was in was cylindrical, carved from the stone itself. The structure stretched up into the mountain into which it had been built, high enough that the ceiling was engulfed in darkness. She let out a slight sigh when she noticed that there were no stairs or any other obvious mechanisms by which she could ascend.

"Well... here we go..."

It wasn't the most dignified of starts to an adventure, Amelette decided. The whole place was dusty and almost anything of any value had already been taken. It was quite evident that pirates had been through here a few times at least, given the bottles of grog that littered the place, though the more advanced magic seemed to be holding up well enough against the depredations of time.

It was a long way down to the floor of the room, and the nightborne mage had been forced to find creative ways to ascend to where she was as the pirates below had begun firing their cannons at the door to try and get it open.

After a while, she'd managed to find one of the only doors still locked and quickly dispelled the arcane enchantments keeping it closed. Either age had worn down some of these protections or the things inside were not worth more advanced forms of abjuration.

The inside of the vault she walked into seemed to be some kind of workshop, though there were no tools or anything like that to be seen. There were tables and chairs though, along with shelves that were lined with various magical trinkets.

Amelette picked up a staff that sat on one of the tables, examining it for any potential enchantments. She could only feel the faintest trace of arcane power lingering in the item, but nothing that indicated any special abilities. She placed it back down before going over various magical-looking baubles on the shelves. Most of them, like the staff, only had the tiniest hint that they had ever been imbued with any kind of enchantment. She sighed and considered taking a few random items to take back to the Dragonscale Expedition... Perhaps they would be of use in a museum.

"Great... just what I need..." she grumbled as she turned and started making her way back out.

Just as she was about to leave, however, Amelette felt a tug at her tattoos, as though something in the room was sinking invisible hooks into the markings on her skin. The feeling reminded her of...

By the Nightwell, something's draining me of my mana thought the mage, quickly putting up a barrier around herself to try and distract whomever or whatever was trying to suck the magical energy from her. It reminded her of the mana draining abilities that the Withered possessed, having had a few close calls with the mana-starved elves in the past.

The invisible force continued to pull, however, and Amel scanned the room briefly for its source. Given the size of the circular room, she spotted it instantly, the magical absorption coming from a small silver box. Covered in lunar engravings and visibly elven in nature it most certainly did not belong to this age.

If she was to counter whatever was in that box, she had to act soon. She was already running out of mana and with every passing moment, the pull got stronger. Amelette started towards the box, trying to focus her energies on it, keeping a mana barrier up so that the thing would drain that as a sort of diversion rather than her body's own mana.

Amelette focused on the box and the source of that which was attempting to devour her magical energies and she pulled back at it. Oddly enough, whatever was in there had no magical reserves of its own and the mage found herself pulling at nothing. The invisible hooks sank into her skin like daggers, and she could feel the flow of her magic getting slowed as her power was sucked away.

"Fuck off!" she shouted angrily, and her tattoos pulsed with arcane light as she conjured a transparent ball of force around the box. She concentrated then and clapped her hands together once, causing the containment sphere to close in on itself.

She'd observed such a technique when visiting the crumbling world of Outland. The ethereals that inhabited that place had a love of imprisoning creatures in such spheres, though they often did so with the use of technology rather than simple magical talent. Attuned as she was to arcane forces, copying the underlying formula was a simple enough feat for a mage of such talents as her.

What remained in lieu of the silver box was a simple purplish bead, about an inch across, that spun slowly in place before coming to a halt and settling back down onto the shelf upon which it had landed.

Amelette could feel the remnants of whatever was inside that bead, as well as the tiniest bit of arcane power still within it.

"That should take care of things for a while..." she said to herself, pocketing the bead. The thing was probably worth quite a lot, so it was only natural she'd be keeping it as payment for her work rather than simply giving it away to the expedition.

For the people waiting for her at the camp, she simply grabbed a handful of useless trinkets, tossing them into a tiny pouch which should have been too small to contain them but did so, nonetheless. A few baubles for those archaeologists back at camp. They'd probably see more value to them than she did.

When she finally heard the doors below shattering open and shouts echoing up the shaft-like structure, she conjured up a portal to Valdrakken.

Too late, she thought with a smirk, gaze lingering for a moment on the shimmering image of the great draconic city that lay beyond the oval gateway.

She stepped through it and the vaults disappeared behind her.

"Highborne in origin," the shopkeeper said, turning the box around in her hands, inspecting every side of it. Of course, after Amelette had described the artifact to her and where she'd found it, she had taken necessary precautions to avoid the thing draining her completely. "Most likely from the era of the Kaldorei Empire's rise, a few thousand years before the War of the Ancients. The protective runes on the box have all but disappeared over time. No wonder it managed to latch on to you in such a fashion."

Amelette did not doubt the woman's expertise in the matter as many of her friends and acquaintances had recommended Eliandra's services. The woman was, without a doubt, a reference when it came to identifying elven artifacts. Not only that, but she was known as a master jeweler, as evidenced by the countless creations that could be seen in display cases around her shop, next to various antiques and magical artifacts.

The woman's knowledge in such matters could only be matched by her beauty. Even the simplest of movements seemed to draw Amelette's attention, her hands, her lips, the swell of that generous bosom, the way she elegantly tucked a loose strand of her meticulously arranged silver hair behind a long ear.

She could feel herself beginning to sweat as she watched the shopkeeper examine the magical artifact, trying to keep her thoughts from straying towards less innocent musings.

The woman's voice was low and soft, and every word she spoke demanded Amelette listen, but not because of their meaning or importance, but simply because the Highborne had that sort of effect on people. A commanding presence that spoke of experience and wisdom, the kind that a mother possessed. The sound of her voice was itself a melody, her soft tone carrying an indescribable quality that tugged at one's attention.

While the concept of a noble class such as the Highborne had been abolished from night elf society after the Sundering and the subsequent reintegration of the Shen'dralar, they had retained much of their ancient culture and ways of thinking, so distinct from what their northern kin had become. They were, in a way, far closer to the elves of Suramar and Quel'thalas, even if their appearance reminded one of the Darnassian elves.

Eliandra finished inspecting the small box before she lowered it onto her counter. Delicately, she opened the silver container, the hinges barely making a sound. It had, surprisingly, no locks, and within it sat a single pink gem, as large around as a woman's fist.

"This..." she said, her voice practically a whisper. "This is a powerful artifact. A Highborne amplifying gem. This should fetch you a small fortune. Haven't seen such a beauty in some time."

Amelette could feel her mouth going dry as she watched the Highborne woman pick the gem up with gloved hands to admire it. It seemed to give off a faint light, a slight glow that highlighted the soft curves of the night elf's figure.

"S-small fortune?" she asked, her voice breaking slightly. She quickly cleared her throat, trying to attempt not to appear too excited by the prospect. Amelette was not poor by any means, but the prospect of a "small fortune" was enough to make her heart flutter in her chest.

Eliandra nodded. "I would assume at least half a million gold pieces for this, perhaps more depending on who purchases it from you."

"And what does it do?" the nightborne asked, eyeing the crystalline artifact warily.

"Usually, one could affix such a gem onto an item to augment its magical power. You have most likely already seen mages do something similar with their staves and amulets," she explained, and Amelette nodded, quite familiar with the concept.

"But that is not what this gem does. Few such amplifying gems still exist," Eliandra said, voice almost reverent as she turned the gem over in her fingers. "This one, instead of focusing your magical energy as it passes through, will take hold of what is already there and enhance it, like a mirror reflecting off of itself, which is why..."

"But then why did it try to devour my mana?" Amel asked, interrupting the Highborne, still not quite sure if she wanted to be rid of the thing or use it for herself.