Warcraft Aggression

This bit of fun came about from a game mechanic mishap I ran into.  
By ran into I mean, "I left the felguard on aggressive after Zul'Farrak."  
Three furbolgs wandered into his aggro radius, one glitched and took off into the entire camp, and the felguard happily followed. I was mining, by the time I turned the camera to see what the hell was going on, the stupid demon was nearly dead and had about ten furbolgs on him.  
It stuck in my head and unfurled into a mini-story.  
Whee.

_"A raging felguard is reckless, but not stupid. It coordinates well with its allies, and usually obeys orders (if it can hear them over its deafening battle cries). A felguard loves battle, sometimes refusing to flee from a combat that it believes it has a chance of winning. Demonic generals know and accept this limitation, and plan their strategies accordingly." [1] _

Calleo cast his Felguard, Shaadhun, a quick, but stern, look before turning his attention back to the lump of unearthed ore, "Stay here, and keep alert while I-"

"-dig around in the dirt like a kobold?" Shaadhun finished, somewhat unhelpfully.

"Funny. Just kill anything stupid enough to try and stick a spear in my back."

The demon was bored.  
No, bored didn't quite encompass the entire level of this; it was bad enough that his Master had a tendency to make him sit around the house and watch accounting work being done, but this was just intolerable.  
They had passed several furbolg, human, and troll encampments over the past few days in Grizzly Hills.  
Passed.  
Just passed.  
His master, evidently, thought his bank balance to be on the low side and had decided to remedy the situation; people, as he recalled being told earlier in the day, would pay stupidly high amounts of money for dirty, uncut ore or for the refined bars.

Shaadhun leaned on his axe, scanning the hills and surrounding forest for anything more interesting than a Sin'Dorei digging around in the dirt for bits of rock. He laughed a bit, recalling how bizarrely fastidious Calleo was about being clean considering this hobby. The demon found it equally as amusing that Calleo removed his gloves to mine as he didn't want to risk tearing them on any jagged bits of ore.  
This habit generally resulted in the Warlock's hands being scraped up quite a bit at the end of a day of mining, which was, Shaadhun mused, perhaps why his Master insisted on always wearing gloves.

Calleo paused to shove a bit of cobalt into his bag and narrowed his eyes at his servant, "Quit staring at me, it's unnerving," he turned back to what looked to the demon like little more than a lump of dirt and resumed prodding at it with his pick axe, "You're supposed to be keeping an eye out for any of the disgusting inhabitants of this place, of which I am not included being that we're only visiting; I don't want them near me, most of them likely have fleas or Fel knows what else crawling on them."

"There's nothing here! There hasn't been anything but two rabbits and a few slightly curious eagles."

Calleo stopped and turned, still staying crouched on the ground, and pointed toward the horizon, "There are furbolgs over there; I've seen at least one come up over the ridge, and there's smoke from a fire." He looked back up at the demon who was towering over him, "and if you could ever be bothered to take a look at the map I've got, you'd notice that we're damned close to one of their actual villages, not just some miserable little encampment."

The Warlock turned, and pointed in the opposite direction, "And behind us? There's another camp of them, only those appear to have white fur instead of brown, not that it seems to make a difference in the level of hospitality offered toward things that aren't furbolgs. Perhaps," Calleo now turned his efforts back to extracting more ore from what he'd found, "if you'd pay attention instead of complaining and whinging, you'd have noticed that."

Shaadhun shook his head, glaring down at the back of his Master's head briefly, before doing as he was told and keeping watch.

Minutes later, Calleo heard the familiar dull thud of his demon's axe connecting with something fleshy followed almost immediately by an arrow bouncing off of a bit of exposed rock just to the left of his head. He whipped around, flinging a curse in the direction that the arrow's trajectory indicated its owner had been standing, and noticed that the felguard was...not there.

Not gone, he could still hear the demon, but it was no longer standing right next to him.

Calleo stood, and immediately regretted doing so as he could now quite clearly see where it was that his demon had run off.

Straight into the center of the village.

Cursing to himself, he threw a death coil at the furbolg that had been stupid enough to try and shoot him, and followed that up by lighting it on fire and sending it running properly blind. The Warlock grabbed his staff, almost as an afterthought, and hurried to join his felguard.

Assessment of the situation found itself limited to roughly two seconds, if not less.  
Calleo had three distinct options: He could run like a frightened rabbit, he could stand there and watch the felguard die, or he could take command of the situation at hand.  
The first two options, in his mind, were not viable; the first being just flat out humiliating, and the second all but guaranteeing his own death.

He waved his hand sharply, sending a jet of reddish light twisting from his hand to what he had to unfortunately claim as his felguard. Calleo shook his head sharply as the spell took hold; he really did detest having to use the spell his former trainers called a health funnel in this sort of situation. When it was necessary, he preferred it being used only when he had a secondary target already planned to use as a siphon that could counteract the effects of the funnel.  
If he were to be perfectly honest when asked, which would be doubtful, using the funnel always left him with the distinct impression that he was going to die. Every second that it was active, it drained more and more of his own being and fed it directly into that stupid, stupid demon who had managed to get him into this mess in the first damned place.

Calleo closed his hand, ending the spell and landing his own siphon on the ugly little furball that Shaadhun was currently in the process of hacking to bits and set about placing various curses (and an occasional bit of fire for good measure) on the nearly dozen or so of the creatures who would just not relent.  
His focus on not only keeping his demon alive, but making sure the other little wretches were also suffering, found itself shattered by the sound of another arrow missing its mark and whistling past his head far too close for comfort. He heard the bow of the creature he'd set on fire twang again, and this time heard a 'thud' but, oddly, didn't seem to feel a thing and couldn't find a fallen arrow anywhere in the path that it would have taken.

By this point, from all the Warlock could see, the felguard had things mostly under control now that the wretched thing had quite literally drained most of his Master's life, and what it didn't have under control was falling over dead rather quickly; Calleo found himself quite relieved by this for the sole reason that he did not think he could manage to cast much else without needing a break. Tapping into his own life for a mana fix, while normally a not-unpleasant way to deal with that sort of thing, was also not an option at this point in time. After all, a mana fix is no good if you're dead.

He swung his staff in front of him as he turned to confront the furbolg that he'd previously lit on fire and that had been recently shooting on him, missing the ugly little thing entirely; not only did he miss, but he also managed to throw himself off balance and off of his feet entirely.  
The singed, mangy, and generally awful looking furbolg pulled back on its bow again, taking the time to aim at the off balance Elf that was now sitting in front of it.

Calleo scrabbled partway to his feet, using his staff as a bit of support, eyes narrowed malevolently at the furbolg, "What are you waiting for? Shoot!"  
He grinned, knowing full well that the beast more than likely couldn't understand him and figuring that if he absolutely had to go out in this sort of embarrassing situation that at least he wouldn't cower from it.

He heard more than saw the felguard's axe connect with the flat, as opposed to the bladed, sides to the back of the furbolg's head, stunning the creature momentarily; Calleo had the fleeting thought of thanking the servant with whom he was exceedingly irritated, but instead used the brief instant afforded by the stunning blow to grab an old mana potion and finish the furry menace off with a proper flurry of curses as the demon ran back to clean up the last of the furbolgs that hadn't yet fallen by either axe or Fel magic.

Calleo finished pulling himself to his feet, using the staff as rather unsteady support on the soft ground, "You—miserable—" he paused, attempting to catch his breath with minimal success. Figuring that he'd not be able to simultaneously berate the felguard and walk over to it, he elected instead to walk, albeit unsteadily, over to the demon and then scream it silly.

Shaadhun paid his Master little mind after the quick, and unfortunate, determination that the Warlock was, indeed, still alive. Instead, the demon surveyed the carnage it had caused with a wide, somewhat disjointed smile.

Reaching his demon, Calleo reached out to poke it sharply in the chest with the hand that was not keeping him upright by holding onto his staff.  
He did, in fact, manage one half-arsed jab to the demon's chest before he ended up just laying his hand flat and using the demon as a support that was a bit sturdier than his staff, "You—just hold that—thought—for one minute..." Calleo laughed, which ended up sounding more like a cough, "—can't yell at you—until I catch—breath."

Shaadhun looked down, giving his Master a bemused look; Calleo, for his part, did not seem to notice as he was not looking in the direction of 'up', "I'm not—in my bloody—sixties anymore, you can't—do that sort of thing—without giving me a bit of advance—notice!" He stopped, raising one finger on the hand that was still curled around his staff in a motion that indicated he needed another minute of an attempt to catch his breath.

"You are a perfect—example of why the Pit—Lords are—so bad tempered! I—" Calleo stopped speaking abruptly, "Why is my—hand—wet?" The Warlock finally looked up, at least to the level of his hand, "and what is—dripping on my head?"  
He tilted his head upward, and saw that the demon had its axe, its bloody, flesh-bits and furbolg hair-stuck-to-it axe, balanced on its shoulder in a way that was causing it to drip its gore directly onto Calleo's head.  
In tilting his head back in order to look up, it also managed to drip a good amount of bloody mess right onto the Elf's face.

Shaadhun quickly lowered his axe, unsure of how to react; as his Master was still using him as a support beam, more or less, the only thing of which the demon was certain is that moving would be a very bad idea.

Calleo stood up fully, pushing himself back into that position by shoving off of the felguard, and wiped his face with the hand that had been previously steadying him on the demon's frame.  
This, however, only served to smear more blood across his face; Calleo pulled his bloodied hand back, looking between it, the demon (who he just now had realized had quite a patterning of furbolg blood splattered over him), and the dozen or so dead furbolgs scattered around them.

Calleo continued to look between the three items in question for several minutes, while Shaadhun stood petrified; the demon's wild smile had faded with the realization that he was going to have to deal with his Master at some point and his Master did not look pleased.

Quite suddenly, Calleo kicked the corpse of the nearest furbolg and burst into laughter, "Did you really—?" he gestured to the immediate and surrounding area, still laughing, "And I—and we're both still alive?"

The felguard took a step back, still unsure as to exactly how to deal with the situation at hand, and nodded slowly. Calleo grinned up at him, finally ending the laughing jag, and reached up to pat the demon's shoulder as though it were some sort of unruly puppy that had just destroyed a feather pillow. Shaadhun wasn't at all sure if this was the sort of laughter that preceded something terrible, or whether his Master was actually—laughing.

Calleo, looking as though he was about to dissolve into laughter again at any given moment, pulled his hand back from the demon's shoulder and tilted his head, "It's getting sticky," noting the demon's confused look, he shook his head and laughed again, "The blood; it's drying, getting sticky."

Slinging his staff back over his shoulder, Calleo grabbed a flask full of purplish liquid from one of his bags and emptied it, "Ugh—those things taste terrible," he threw the empty, now bloodied, bottle down onto the ground and turned his attention back to his seemingly stunned demon, "Ready for another round?"

"I—what?" Shaadhun blinked, and hastily amended a mumbled, "Master" to the end of his question.  
"Oh really, don't tell me that you need a rest—"

The demon shook its head, "N-no, no, but didn't you just say—?"

Calleo raised a hand in a stopping motion, cutting the felguard's question off, "I said I wasn't in my sixties anymore; silly thing to say, considering I've got about a half dozen of those awful tasting rejuvination potions from that idiot in Shattrath who trades them for dust," he shrugged, "To be honest, I'd forgotten I had them with me."

"Now," the Warlock clapped his hands together, "Are you good to go, or are you going to make me start without you?"

"...go?"

Calleo pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, "Yes. Go. To the other camp; if you'll recall, I told you earlier that there was another one similar to this over the ridge in the opposite direction."

Once the realization that his Master was not playing some sort of trick on him took hold, the demon's previous, somewhat unhinged grin returned, "Ah, of course, Master, but—there is one thing that you ought to know before we head to the other camp—"

"What?" Calleo kicked another of the dead furbolgs, turning it over, and crouched down to rifle through its belongings for anything of value, "Whatever it is, make it quick before I realize that I'll be paying for not only this but another round of it for the next WEEK and decide to just go back to Dalaran and spend the rest of my life scrubbing bits of furbolg out of my hair."

"There's an arrow through your right ear."

Calleo stopped mid-way through cramming a bit of frostweave cloth into his bag, and reached up to bend his right ear down an angle that would bring it into his line of sight, "Well, I'll be damned—" the Warlock laughed, reaching behind his ear to snap the back end of the arrow off before pulling it through the hole, "I haven't got anymore of them through me, have I?"  
He stood up and looked himself over, "Thought that ear felt a bit heavier than usual. Hm. Suppose I'd have noticed it eventually."

Shaadhun raised a quizzical eyebrow behind his helm and waited patiently while Calleo finished going through the formerly alive furbolgs' belongings.

"Bunch of useless—I suppose there were a few coins and a small bit of cloth; if the other camp of these horrid things needed a reason to be slaughtered aside from existing, their lack of anything useful qualifies, I think," he turned and looked up at the felguard, "Shall we, then?"

The demon nodded silently and fell into step behind his Master.

_[1] World of Warcraft Monster Guide._


End file.
