AZEROTH 3

Carl stood at the edge of the forest, the monastery building in Northshire Valley standing behind him. Inside the forest he could see level 1 and 2 diseased wolves roaming around aimlessly.

Was the disease addling their minds? Were they acting so aimless because of the game-like elements of this world forced them to?

Carl shrugged. Their nameplates were yellow, indicating they were neutral and wouldn't attack unless attacked first. The quest he received indicated he needed to kill 8 of the diseased guys, so Carl summoned up the Blue Orchid from inside his inner world space.

Carl easily held the two handed plain style claymore looking sword in his right hand. Earlier on he had thought that the Ashbringer style look had made it stick out a little too much for a low level character, so he disguised the Blue Orchid to look like a normal sword.

Before instigating combat, Carl cast Frost Armor on himself, and smiled a bit at the faint air of frostiness that seemed to wrap him up in a hug. It felt so good, probably because of his extraordinary affinity for water and ice.

He then cast the Seal of Righteousness, a Paladin buff that would increase his damage.

Then, just by looking at the nearest diseased wolf and thinking of it, a fireball formed and sped to impact on the wolf's side. Snarling, the creature lunged at Carl, snapping at him. Using his sword, Carl redirected the things jaws away from landing a hit.

Carl's eye twitched in irritation when he saw that his health still took a hit, losing a couple hp. The couple of hp lost was a drop in the bucket, but that wasn't the point. This game like world was clearly messing with him. He had parried the attack, preventing it from landing on him, but still took damage.

Angrily, Carl slashed the wolf with the Blue Orchid. The wolf dropped dead in front of him. Looking at the corpse, Carl calmed back down quickly.

Touching the body, Carl found another game like element. Some fur and teeth popped out of the body. Looking at the corpse, which didn't look any different prior to looting the body, Carl expressionlessly picked up the items and put them in his storage.

Carl had quite a few properties in the world, and he had seen that they were doing business since he had watched them depositing money into the inter-world account that Uncle Pennybags gave him from the Monopoly world.

By now his accounts were quite large, and he had tens of thousands of gold. So keeping the items from these kills that could only give him some few coppers was actually a waste of his time. But…it just felt right to sell off the loot from his first kill. Kind of like the tradition of saving the first dollar someone earned in their business. He would keep the couple coppers he got from his first loot in a frame in his office.

Carl spent a moment more looking at the wolf while thinking over a few conjectures he was developing in his mind due to the combat. After a moment Carl continued to quickly kill the rest of the wolves needed for the quest. Soon enough he fulfilled the quest and turned it in to the quest giver.

A golden light flashed and surrounded him. He sensed an incremental increase in his magic. Looking at his character screen, he saw that he was now level 2. Carl went inside the building and found an empty room where he sat down and started meditating on the differences he felt in his magic, now that he had leveled up.

After some time, he rose to his feet with a thoughtful look on his face. Putting away his thoughts, he exited the building and continued the next quest, killing some rat faced Kobolds behind the building.

He had the Yamato invisibly hovering over him, so it was recording all the information about him and his magical level up as he quested. Collating the information recorded by the Yamato with his personal meditation and sensation would give him that much more information to work with.

Once he finished the quest killing Kobolds, he once more leveled up. Carl returned to the room inside the building and meditated once more on the feeling of leveling up.

There were two basic things that Carl had encountered in this world that greatly caught his interest. The first thing was how, even though he was dodging and parrying the wolves and kobold's attacks, he was still taking damage, as well as how he couldn't yet kill them in a single hit.

The idea had sprouted in Carl's mind that this was how the world's magic manifested. Every creature seemed to have magic inside them, flowing and shaping them. The level system seemed to be an outward indication of how strong their magic was.

And even their physical attacks were imbued with magic. Which is why their attacks could still do damage to him. Even when he physically blocked the attacks, the intent based magic of their attacks still landed on him, damaging his HP.

This led Carl to believe that even the Warrior or Rogue classes, which were ostensibly physical attack classes, used magic. The fact that they leveled up and gained strength or agility simply showed that their magic was inwardly focused so it enhanced their bodies and physical attacks, rather than outwardly expressed. As was the case for Mages who could cast Fire and Ice spells.

The second thing that had caught Carl's attention was the regimented level system that magic took on here. It actually somewhat reminded Carl of how the Profound Cultivation practices were. They too had levels in each Profound Realm. As the cultivator gathered more profound energy and enhanced themselves, their bodies were altered to be able to handle more energy and be stronger and sturdier. And each level was considered a sort of plateau, a new level.

The same thing seemed to be happening here, but with Magic instead of Ki or Profound Energy. So Carl was very interested in learning the secrets of how to develop a Magic cultivation system.

The magic of this world seemed to be focused on battle as a means to level up a person's magic and body. With each enemy defeated, a person gained a small amount of magic or Experience Points to fortify his body with. The people of this world could also offer someone small amounts of magic through issuing Quests. Once the quest was complete, the gathered magic imbued the quester's body.

And when they accumulated enough magic, they leveled up, which meant they were able to handle more magic, causing their bodies to become stronger, or making their available mana pool for spells larger.

Carl once more communicated mentally with the Yamato to be sure it was getting good readings of the changes in his body as he leveled up. Records and scientific methods of analyzing data and changes were an excellent way to guide his discoveries.

Despite the need for personal experience and practice to be capable of wielding the esoteric forces, a regimented and logical way of attacking problems could help shorten the journey of discovery.

Once Carl was assured that the Yamato was still getting good data, he left the room he was meditating in and continued questing. There were more Kobolds out there for him to kill and loot, slowly upgrading his magic a bit at a time.

XX

The massive wooden gates of Stormwind were opened outward. The stone towers on either side of the gates had a large lion head carving glaring out, daring any intruders to make trouble inside the city on pain of death. Blue lion head banners were hanging from the towers.

A faint smile was lifting the corner of Carl's mouth. Seeing the city in real life in front of his eyes was very different from seeing it on the screen of a game. Especially since the game had such an impact on Carl's life in his original world, traveling to the real world setting engendered such interesting feelings.

It would have been a more touching moment if it wasn't ruined by the sounds of combat and loud cursing and swearing behind him. Especially that one guy who kept yelling "ROFLMAO!!" over and over.

Turning around, Carl looked over and watched dozens of Alliance player characters engaged in duels outside the gates.

They were loudly talking about their adventures, about who they thought would win the duels, about various topics of the game.

One of the topics that caught Carl's interest was the opening of the Dark Portal. The Dark Portal was located in the Blasted Lands, which were in the southeast of the Eastern Kingdoms continent. The Dark Portal opening was what signified the start of the Burning Crusades expansion, opening up the floating continent of the Outlands for exploration.

From the talk, Carl realized that the opening of the Dark Portal happened when he had woken up above the exit cave of the Deadmines a couple of weeks ago.

'Damn, I'm pretty far behind the curve level wise.' Carl thought. He had spent the previous day doing all the quests he could in Elwynn Forest and Goldshire, the Alliance town there. He was now level 10. But all the highest level players were already level 60 when the portal opened. At least, according to how the game had gone.

And now, with the Dark Portal opened, the max level had gone up to 70.

Without more data, Carl wasn't positive if those level caps from the game held true here in this game-like world or not. But what he did know, is he had to pick up the pace if he wanted to catch up to the front runners.

A pop up notification appeared in Carl's vision at the same time a challenge flag was thrust into the ground in front of him.

[BubbleHearth wants to duel you. Do you accept? Yes/No.]

Carl looked over and saw a level 60 paladin in full PvP gear (player versus player) jumping up and down and turning around randomly.

He selected 'no'. Why would the weirdo even propose a duel against a level 10?

'What was I thinking about before the interruption?' Carl thought.

A pop up notification appeared in Carl's vision at the same time a challenge flag was thrust into the ground in front of him.

[BubbleHearth wants to duel you. Do you accept? Yes/No.]

Carl's eye started twitching. Looking over at the paladin, he saw the guy was naked except for his drawers.

[Bubblehearth dances with Carl.]

Another notification popped up as the nearly naked Paladin began dancing with him.

Carl selected 'no' on the duel invite.

A pop up notification appeared in Carl's vision at the same time a challenge flag was thrust into the ground in front of him.

[BubbleHearth wants to duel you. Do you accept? Yes/No.]

Carl began grinding his teeth, selected 'no' and began running to the gates of Stormwind. Inside the city the strange Paladin couldn't continue challenging him to a duel.

Once inside, Carl resumed walking, relieved to be away from the crazy naked Paladin.

After some thought, he remembered what he had been thinking about.

The thing that was causing Carl concern was that, since he had a new dragon body that hadn't been trained up, he needed to re-train it on Ki and Profound Cultivation, in addition to spending time leveling up. There were too many demands on his time, so he needed to fix the problem.

The only reasonable answer for this lack of time, in order to accomplish all of his goals was to use the Heavenly Time Pearl.

Previously, in the Dinosaur Gauntlet world, he had inexplicably been banned from gathering Profound Energy from the world, so he had used his inner world's supply of Profound Energy solely for leveling up his cultivation.

But here, in the World of Warcraft, he didn't have that ban. So he could use his inner energy to power the Heavenly Time Pearl to level up his Ki and Profound Cultivation without too much time passing in the outside world. Then he could spend all his time leveling up.

With his decision made, Carl continued towards his destination while enjoying the look and feel of Stormwind. The statues looming over him alongside the bridge into Stormwind proper were well crafted and loomed appropriately.

Carl passed over the bridge and found himself in the Trade District. He ignored the sellers and stores, and made his way directly to the inn. He was going to rent a room, but found that the Inn was one of his properties. Chuckling a bit inside, he still "rented" a room, which set his hearthstone point to Stormwind.

Once he was in the room and locked the doors with orders not to bother him for the next day to the VIs, Carl entered time compression and began training immediately. By now, on his third time of training up a body and having trained hundreds of students, it was a very well known routine, so he easily and smoothly made speedy progress.

XX

The next morning, in an empty room in an inn in Stormwind, a light flashed and a figure appeared.

Looking around the room, Carl saw that it was empty and relaxed a bit. He left the room and checked in with the managing VI about how business was going in Stormwind, and if there was any information they had gathered from the other properties around Azeroth.

The VI was actually pretty good, and passed information he had overheard about the various areas around Azeroth, and some of what people learned and found. Every little bit of information was important, because Carl couldn't assume that everything would be like in the video game. There were bound to be differences which could trip him up.

One of the good things about the managing VIs was that they could communicate with each other, so they had a wide gossip net spread everywhere. Everything they learned in the various cities was passed on to Carl.

He learned from the VI that he had inns in all the major cities of the world on both the Alliance and Horde side, as well as the goblin cities of Booty Bay, Ratchet, Gadgetzan, and Mudsprocket. He also had inns in Shattrath City, which was the main hub of adventuring in the Outlands.

Carl made sure that the VIs would be especially aware of any information concerning the enemies he gained from the Hunted drawback. Especially any word on where the captured Silver Dragon Flight members were kept. He wanted to rescue them, or at least avenge them, before he left this world.

Leaving the inn behind, Carl made his way to the Dwarven District in Stormwind, where he found the Blacksmithing and Mining trainers. Paying a nominal fee, he was quickly made an apprentice Blacksmith and Miner, instantly gaining the basic knowledge of blacksmithing and mining inserted into his mind.

With the air of testing his luck, Carl made his way over to the nearby Engineering trainer, and paid the fee. Much to Carl's delight, he was able to learn engineering as well.

That was one way in which this world, for Carl at least, differed from the game. In the game, each player character could only learn two main professions. But now Carl had three professions learnt.

He swiftly made his way to the Old Town district and learned Cooking, Skinning, and Leatherworking. In the Trade district he picked up the Fishing skill. In the Cathedral Square he picked up First Aid. And in the Mage Quarter he picked up Herbalism, Alchemy, Tailoring, and Enchanting.

Carl knew that in this expansion there was also the Jewelcrafting profession, but at this time he would have to go to Exodar to pick up the skill. So Carl made his way back to the Trade District and looked around. Very soon, he found his target.

"Hey, I'll pay you some gold to open up a portal to Exodar for me." Carl's target, a level 64 female mage, blinked at him for a moment when he suddenly talked to her.

"How much?" HunnyManaBuns asked Carl.

"How does 10 gold sound?" Carl replied.

"Sounds great!"

Carl soon got a party invite, accepted, and passed the 10 gold to HunnyManaBuns. She then opened up a portal to Exodar, and Carl entered the portal.

[Send me a message anytime you need a portal!] HunnyManaBuns enthusiastically told him over the party chat.

[Sure thing.] Carl lied. Once he leveled up a bit, he wouldn't need any help with the portals. He was a mage himself, after all.

Carl looked around at the crashed space ship that was now Exodar, the city of the Draenei. Seeing that he arrived safely, he left the party group.

Carl looked around curiously at the glowing city ship. The Draenei's knowledge of artificing with crystals had allowed the thing to fly away from their doomed home in the Outlands, and crash landed here in Azeroth.

With The Dark Crystal perk he purchased, Carl was able to understand all the artificing he saw around the city. Many of the items were simply there for lighting. But others provided life support functions, support to keep the ship from falling apart, heating, a public announcement function, and many others.

Carl spotted a guard nearby and asked for directions, and soon found himself possessing the Jewelcrafting profession.

Before leaving the city, Carl made his way over to the Auction House. Since he had so much gold, there was no real reason not to make use of it to make his journey easier. When he talked to an Auctioneer, they brought out a graphic interface for Carl to use to search the auctions.

Carl soon found a Gnomish Army Knife, and purchased it for 11 gold. The knife was something made by Engineers, and it could act as a multifunction tool to replace a skinning knife, mining pick, blacksmiths hammer, Flint and Tender (starting fires for cooking), Gyromatic Micro-Adjuster (Engineering), and Arclight Spanner (Engineering).

Carl then searched the auction and found four more Travelers Bags for his use, though they were only 16 slots each.

He knew he could use his pocket dimension or Warehouse to easily store anything he needed, but it just felt right to purchase the bags. He could only blame his many years of playing the damned game for his need to even have the bags in the first place.

Scanning the auction house, Carl soon purchased at least one of every crafting material there was. He was going to add them to his Farms and start producing crafting materials while he was busy leveling up.

He stopped by the mailbox and picked up everything he purchased into his bags.

With everything done in the city that he needed, for the time being, Carl ran up the ramp to outside the city and started making his way east along the road on Azurmyst Isle towards the Azure Watch.

When he was out of sight of the city, and no one was around, Carl summoned up the stealthed Yamato to hover over him. Opening up his map, Carl smirked as he saw on his map all the nodes of herbs and mines being shown. With a thought, all the mines and herbs being shown disappeared from his map. A thought command then brought them back. Various skinnable creatures then showed up on the map, before disappearing with a mental command.

While he was in time dilation, Carl had figured out how to have the Yamato send data to his magical HUD. With the Yamato's scanners, it could keep track of everything within the zone Carl was in, and send that information to him, to be displayed on his map. That would save Carl a load of time in trying to find the quest mobs he needed, crafting materials, or being aware of incoming enemy players that might make his life difficult.

Opening up the portal to his Warehouse, Carl soon added all the materials he bought from the auction house to his Farms, and instructed his VIs to start producing them. He would be adding the various animals of Azeroth to his farms soon, so that he could use them to gather crafting materials for Leatherworking and Cooking.

Exiting the Warehouse, Carl started making his way over to the Azure Watch to pick up some quests to help him level. While he was traveling Carl made small detours to grab copper mines and pick various herbs. While his Farms could make the materials, he wanted to level up his gathering skills since they would give him small boosts to his abilities.

Within no time, Carl had arrived at the small town and gathered the available quests. Looking at his map to see where the first group animals he had to kill were, Carl got started.

XX

Carl landed inside the Deadmines dungeon instance. He moved forward, and looked behind him to see four more figures materializing.

[Hey guys.] Carl said in party chat.

[Welcome.] Igottotems, a Draenei Shaman started jumping around in circles.

[Sup noobs.] Ikickpuppies, a Human Rogue joked while immediately entering stealth.

The Night Elf Hunter Radablast pointed at his cat pet, while the Gnome Mage Plainyogurt started dancing.

Carl felt the corner of his eye twitching. If he ever needed more proof that the adventurer heroes were somehow connected with a bunch of people sitting at their desks playing a game, it was how these guys were acting.

But just because a large number of these yahoos were only playing a game didn't mean that it was only a game for Carl. Especially since his Silver Dragon Flight would be following him to different worlds, it was very important for Carl to advance quickly and get stronger. And if he had to make use of a bunch of random players to help him run dungeons, then he would.

While Carl was confident in his strength and abilities, the first time he went in a dungeon he wanted to be sure he wouldn't be overwhelmed and killed. These enemies in the dungeons were elites, which meant they had a lot more health and hitting power than a normal mob at the same level.

So until Carl was sure he could solo these dungeons, he would test the waters with a full party.

Igottotems was the healer, Carl would be the tank, and the other three were the damage dealers.

As the Paladin tank, Carl had a shield in the left hand, the Blue Orchid (which currently looked like a one handed bastard sword) in the right hand, and he was decked out in mail armor. He had on his Righteous Fury spell to attract the aggression, or aggro, of the mobs.

After buffing the group, Carl moved ahead of the group, using his Paladin attack spells to aggro the Defias laborers in the first part of the mines.

The first group came over, and Carl began swinging his sword, killing them with one hit. The damage from his Consecration spell attracted the rest of the group to him, but they died before they got to him.

Carl looked around, a bit shocked at being able to one shot them.

He knew he had been killing the normal mobs out in the world with a single hit ever since he upgraded his gear and spells from the trainers, but he didn't expect to kill elite mobs of the same level as him with one hit, or a couple ticks of his damaging spell.

Looking over at the four player heroes, they didn't look like they noticed anything unusual. Shrugging, Carl figured he could finish the dungeon with them first.

He looted the bodies by kicking them and moved along the path of the mines, killing the various Defias bandits. The party was moving quite smoothly, and the fast pace kept anyone from pausing to talk or joke around. Too much anyway.

The first Boss was the Ogre Rhahk'Zor. He stood a couple feet taller than Carl, naked except for the red loin cloth and bracers he wore. There were two Defias bandits that came with him, but Carl dropped his Consecration spell and they dropped almost instantly, along with the dps' attacks.

The Ogre died before he could do much damage to Carl. The notable item they looted from the Ogre was Rhahk'Zor's Hammer, a two handed mace weapon that only added some stamina.

Another game like element showed itself at that point, as a loot roll option appeared in front of Carl's face. He could roll Need, Greed, Pass, or Disenchant on the item. Carl hadn't raised his Enchanting skill up too high yet, since he was only level 21 and couldn't keep learning more until he leveled up more. Carl figured he could always use more enchanting materials, so he selected Disenchant.

Carl moved through the double doors that opened on the death of the Ogre and continued killing mobs. A few moments later, everyone in the group had selected an option for the loot rolls.

He didn't win the roll, the Hunter had rolled need and won the item. Carl rolled his eyes. Hunters always wanted weapon loots.

A short time later, Carl saw a fork in the path, and went left. He found the rare mob Miner Johnson, who died immediately. He dropped a nice shield for Carl, which boosted Strength and Stamina. Carl rolled need, and a short time later he lost the roll.

The healer Shaman had rolled need as well and won. Carl sighed in exasperation. Joining the group was already getting to be more of a hassle than it was worth. But he was determined to finish up the dungeon first, then he would never group up with a randomly selected group of noobs again.

Since Miner Johnson hung out in a dead end, Carl turned around and led the way to the other fork in the mines path, killing the various Defias bandits along the way. He soon enough came to a large room that had enormous timber lying haphazardly in front of the door. There were Goblins standing around the edges of the room, and a large mechanical Shredder robot on two legs piloted by the Goblin boss of the room, Sneed.

Carl began attacking the various Goblins around the room, and was hit several times with an ability that was annoying the hell out of him. Even though he could one shot these guys, they could still stun him with an axe toss. Carl was wishing he could learn that spell / attack.

In retaliation he began using his Paladin spell, Hammer of Justice, to stun them.

They soon engaged the boss, and a few hits from the group broke the mechanical shredder. Sneed dropped out of his machine, only to die a few seconds later.

Sneed dropped some cloth gloves that the Mage won, and Sneed's Shredder dropped a dagger that the Rogue won, even though the Hunter also rolled need on it.

Another door had opened on the death of Sneed, so Carl quickly lead the group through, killing their way to a large foundry room. There was a ramp that led to the left and downwards, and in the middle of the enormous room was a giant kiln filled with molten metal.

The foundry room was filled with Goblins. Some of them summoned up mini mechanical shredders before they died, which made the fight take two seconds longer than it would have. After cleaning up the room, the fight against the Goblin boss Gilnid went easily. The only annoying thing about the various Goblins were their Molten Ore ability that nearly halved his movement speed for 10 seconds before fading away.

He dropped some leather pants that the Hunter won the roll on, while Carl moved into the next passageway that opened up.

They were back in the tunnels that looked like a rough mine, with more Human Defias bandits. At the end of the passageway, they found a locked door that had a cannon pointing at it. They had picked up a barrel of gunpowder in a short side tunnel, so the gunpowder was used on the cannon to blast open the doors.

A few Defias pirates showed up, and were summarily killed, along with their ill tempered parrots that tried to peck his eyes out.

Behind the blasted door was a cavern whose bottom was filled with water, likely from the nearby ocean. A large pirate ship sat in the water, and some docks lead to the left where a ramp was extended up to the ship.

Carl led the way along the docks, killing all the pirates. At the base of the ramp leading to the ship was a large treasure chest. When Carl approached the chest, a large dark Tauren with one of his horns cut off appeared out of nowhere and thunder stomped, stunning the group for a couple of seconds.

The moment Carl regained control, he immediately slashed out and used his judgment on Mr. Smite. A moment later, the humanoid cow-like Tauren was dead under the group's combined attacks. Carl won the roll for a one handed axe, Smite's Reaver. The weapon promptly turned into a shard from being disenchanted and fell into his bag.

Carl lead the way up the ramp and through the ship, killing the various Defias Pirates as they went. They arrived at the top, and immediately killed a large Goblin Pirate, Captain Greenskin, who dropped a magic staff that the Shaman won.

Inside the nearby cabin, Carl attacked Edwin VanCleef, the Defias Kingpin. A few of his men showed up and attacked, but soon fell to Carl's Consecration.

Carl didn't even bother rolling for the leather chest piece that dropped. He took an unsent letter from the body that started a quest, as well as getting VanCleef's head to turn into the quest giver back at Sentinel Hill.

Jumping down the other side of the ship, the group soon killed a Murloc boss named Cookie. Carl won the Cat Carrier item that dropped off him, and ignored the wand that also dropped.

He immediately used the item to get a Siamese cat pet.

[Whooo! That was great! Let's do it again!] The Rogue immediately said in party chat.

[Same.] The hunter said.

Carl decisively left the group and teleported out of the dungeon, back to Sentinel Hill at Westfall, where he had queued up for the dungeon at. It was one of the menu functions that the game like world gave him. He could queue for a specific dungeon and find party members to join him for the dungeon run.

"Never again will I go for a random pick up group." Carl vowed.

"What was that, Paladin?" Gryan Stoutmantle asked Carl. Carl was standing at the base of the defensive tower that made up the military base in Sentinel Hill in Westfall, and the commander of the base, one Gryan Stoutmantle, was standing nearby.

"Oh, nothing." Carl absently replied. "By the way, I've taken care of VanCleef." Carl handed over the head of Edwin VanCleef.

"Very good, Paladin! This will help us in the skirmishes we have with the Defias Dogs." Stoutmantle exclaimed before handing over the reward for the quest. Carl chose a pair of mail leggings that increased his strength and stamina.

With all the quests done in Westfall, Carl used the Gryffon flight service to make his way to Stormwind to turn in the quest that he got from the letter that he got from Edwin VanCleef's body. He learned a bit about VanCleef's history, and how he used to be a part of the stonemason's guild. When the nobles refused to pay wages to the workers after they rebuilt Stormwind, but tried to bribe him with a government job if he would sell out his brothers in the stonemason guild, he stormed out of the city with his men and started the Defias Bandits, raiding and stealing to express their outrage.

The follow up quest had Carl sent to the Stormwind Stockade to question Warden Thelwater about Bazil Thredd, who was the one of VanCleef's lieutenants.

When Carl approached the Warden, he had some attitude toward Carl.

"What are you bothering me now for!? We're in the middle of a riot in the prison. If all the cells weren't broken open, I'd throw you in one for bothering me!" Warden Thelwater yelled. Despite his hard attitude, the man still completed the quest for Carl and gave out another quest.

"Let's get one thing straight, Carl: I don't trust you. But, with the situation as it is, you probably won't make a difference."

"So here's how it's going to be: go down there and have your talk with Thredd. If you're really on our side, then kill him and bring me his head when the job's done. And if it turns out you're on his side, and don't come out…when we find you, you'll die along with the rest of the maggots."

"Okay, I'll see what I can do about this pest problem you seem to be unable to solve, Warden." Carl snarked back a bit.

Keeping in mind his promise not to go and rely on randomly found players, and keeping in mind how easily he killed the mobs in the Deadmines, Carl entered the Stockades immediately and by himself. The narrow hallways with cells on either side were filled with Defias captives.

Carl began attacking them, a few at a time. The annoying thing Carl found was that they tried to run and grab help when they were hurt enough, so he started using Arcane Explosion and Fire Blast on those that tried to run away. They didn't get far.

He worked his way easily through the mobs, and arrived at a hallway then ran crossways to the one he was in. Directly in front of him was a cell with Targorr the Dread, an Orc Prisoner. The large Orc was dual wielding one handed swords.

Carl started off with a Backstab from stealth for one of the prisoners that was standing near Targorr, which killed the rioting prisoner in one hit. Targorr and another prisoner immediately attacked, which Carl blocked and counter attacked with his sword and fire blasts.

Targorr and the other prisoner were soon lying on the ground, dead. There wasn't any notable loot he got from the low level boss.

Carl then took the hallway that ran to the West. At the end of the hall, after wiping out the prisoners, Carl found Dextren Ward. After killing him Carl made his way back and down the other hallway.

At the end of the hallway, Carl first found a large Ogre named Hamhock. Carl blasted him from afar with Icebolts. The slowing effect kept him from being able to reach Carl before he died. It only took a couple Icebolts.

In the cell at the back of the area, Carl found Bazil Thredd. Carl tried to talk to the man, but he just yelled and attacked Carl, so he killed him with a couple Sinister Strikes. Carl didn't even get to use the combo points, the man died so quick.

Carl was starting to get the idea that he was overpowered for his level.

Picking up the man's head, Carl made his way out and turned in the quest to the Warden. He got some information from the Warden about how Bazil was receiving visits from a quiet type man by the name of Maelik. Despite being suspicious of the man, his papers checked out so the Warden couldn't do anything.

Carl took that information back to Baros Alexston, who sent him on to Mathias Shaw, who was the head of SI:7, an information gathering organization of Stormwind. Carl found out that Maelik was an alias for an assassin by the name of Marzon, who had ties to a noble of Stormwind by the name of Lescovar.

Since it was difficult to gather evidence against a noble, Shaw had Carl visit an acquaintance by the name of Trias, whose operations were run out of a cheese shop in the Trade District.

After hearing the whole tale and who was connected to who and what they were suspected of, Trias sent Carl to one of his Gnome operatives named Tyrion who was watching Lescovar. Inside the Stormwind Castle Carl found Tyrion and his spybot construct. In order to draw out Lescovar and Marzon and gain evidence, Tyrion needed to disguise his spybot.

So Carl ended up running outside the city to find a lady named Clara who ran an apple farm. With two fresh apples and three pieces of silk, Tyrion disguised his spybot as a hot female messenger.

It seemed pretty silly to Carl at first, but the moment Tyrion used the apples and silk, a three and a half foot tall robot turned into a five and a half foot hot human female. It had to be magic, of course.

Carl continued hiding behind the tree with Tyrion until Lord Gregor Lescovar and Marzon came to the garden and talked about their plans. With enough evidence, Tyrion had Carl slay the two traitors.

So after a bit more running around to inform everyone of the results of the operation, Carl ended up in front of King Varian Wrynn in the throne room of Stormwind. To the king's right stood the little prince, Anduin. Behind the king was an impressive throne. It looked to be made out of gold, bronze, marble and precious blue stones. On either side of the throne, where armrests would be, were two golden lion statues, snarling and glaring at any petitioners.

After presenting the report to the king, Carl was commended and given a ring with +3 to Strength, Agility, and Spirit, and + 4 to Intelligence, and Stamina.

Overall it wasn't a big boost for Carl, because of how much he had been enhanced by his Ki and Profound Cultivation. But Carl was pleased with the gift. It would give him something to study to understand how to craft the same enhancements into any weapons, armor, or jewelry he made in the future.

Now that all those quests concerning the Defias and Westfall were complete, it was time to go quest in the Redridge Mountains zone. Which meant it was time for a trip back home to the Dragon Flight.

XX

Carl arrived at the Dragon Flight Hold early in the morning, when the sun was just beginning to shine. He interacted with the wards as he entered the hold, noting that they were holding up well and that there were no attempted incursions.

Walking along the halls in his Night Elf form, he soon arrived at the dining hall. The group of dragons and dragonspawn inside the hall was eating their breakfast when Carl entered.

"Lord Carl is back!" Jayne excitedly yelled as she transformed into her Night Elf form, that looked like a 10 year old girl. She jumped over and hung off Carl's shoulders. The other five young dragons soon followed her example, and Carl had six young elves excitedly hanging on him and talking his ear off.

"The room you built is amazing! I've never gotten to go outside and fly before! I never knew how amazing it felt to be able to spread my wings and fly." Jeff excitedly babbled.

"Yeah! Yeah! We can even play tag in the air, it's so fun!" June added on, not to be left out.

"I never knew there were so many different plants and things to see!" Joyce whispered in Carl's ear.

Carl chuckled and listened attentively to the children's talk of the things they learned and played with in the Room of Requirement. The young dragons had been stuck in the dragon hold all their lives, in fear of their enemies attacking them too. So they never got to go out, stretch their wings, and play.

Carl hated his drawback enemies for what they did to his flight, but seeing the effect it had on these young dragon whelps, it especially pissed him off.

"Well, you know that when you grow up a bit more, I'll take you out to explore and have some fun and adventure." Carl promised the young dragons after some time of listening to their talk of their past weeks.

"Yeah! Yeah! Lord Carl promised! You can't forget later!" Jonah excitedly exclaimed.

"Yup, it's a promise. Now why don't you go finish your meal while I talk to the elders." Carl suggested, and watched as the exuberant dragons dashed back to their abandoned meals.

"Welcome back, Lord Carl." Mauret greeted Carl with a smile. The old and grey haired female dragon in elf form sat across from Carl. "Thank you so much for the Room of Requirement. It has made such a difference in their lives. I've never seen them so lively." She continued, looking fondly over at the dragonlings as they continued eating their meal.

"It does our old bones good to see the excitement of youth." Fausic agreed as he sat next to Mauret.

"Welcome back, Lord Carl." Mortic greeted as he sat down on the other side of Fausic.

Carl was amused to see that the way that Mortic addressed him had changed. Probably due to two things. The concrete benefits he had brought to the down and out Dragon Flight brought him a lot of respect, and his increased level and strength radiated from him. The three old dragons in front of him could feel that Carl was already much more powerful than they were.

Looking at their low levels, at only the early 40s, Carl started thinking of ways in which to rejuvenate their youth and help them gain strength. He would have to see how effective cloning could be for the three old dragons. If he could give them younger and fitter bodies and train them up, it would immediately increase the security and strength of the Dragon Flight.

Throwing those ideas in the back of his mind to work on in time compression, Carl began talking about what he had learned over the time he had been gone and leveling up. He hadn't found any information yet about their enemies or where the captured Silver Dragons were, but he was keeping an eye out.

He told them what he knew about the Dark Portal opening to the Outlands, about the Burning Legion, the army of demons that were trying to gain control of the world, and how he would be going there once he leveled up in order to bring back more resources and magical items.

Carl talked for some time about the training he had in mind, and got the opinions of the old dragons who had been around for some time, which had Carl revising his plans a bit here and there.

When Mortic mentioned some of their old trading partners and suggested maybe contacting them, Carl shut that idea down.

"We really don't have enough knowledge about who colluded with our enemies." Carl explained. "Right now, we are secure within our wards. It's giving us the breathing room necessary to once more get stronger. But until we can protect ourselves, I'm not about to let information that we are on the rise to leak out. It would invite another attack."

"Lord Carl is right, I didn't think it through all the way." Mortic mumbled, ashamed at himself.

"Don't worry about it too much. With your help and hard work, we'll regain our strength and take back what is ours." Carl comforted the old dragon.

Once Carl saw that the three elders were once more in a positive and proactive mindset, Carl started giving them some orders on how to adjust their teachings and training.

After the meal was over, Carl called Goram over as the leader of the Dragonspawn to talk about their training, education, and general duties. In that meeting, Carl learned about how the Dragonspawn had been taking care of the meals and providing resources.

When Carl heard about how it was getting harder and harder to provide the needed food with their limited numbers, he almost face palmed that he didn't check on the issue when he was there previously. It didn't take too long to get it set up so the Farms restocked the larder of the Hold so they always had plenty of food.

Carl then spent a week getting everything set up properly for his Dragon Flight. He added many miscellaneous things that would improved the quality of life there. He inscribed many rune schemes to upgrade the facilities.

Preservation spells keeping the food fresh. Cleaning spells everywhere, but especially the bathrooms. Fresh air charms, heating, cooling, and various other small effects.

Carl especially made sure there was more than enough food to feed the developing young ones, who needed the best nutrition to be able to maximize their growth potential. And it just so happened that he had the best materials available for magic and profound energy, which would help develop his dragons to their best capabilities.

When Carl had been in the time pearl, he had also designed and built education units that would work just fine for the dragons and dragonspawn. So he spent time installing those units and making sure everyone knew how to operate them. That would quickly take care of their basic education needs, and introduce them to the basics of the sciences and technology.

The week wasn't only spent in serious business. Carl took enough time to have breaks and play with the young dragons, both in their dragon bodies and in their shape shifted elf bodies. It was a fun time, and it helped Carl get to know the six young dragons quite well.

Despite how much fun Carl had, he knew he had to get working. So at the end of the week, he departed to continue questing in the nearby areas of the Redridge Mountains and Duskwood.