Chapter 81: Azeroth 6

The Dark Portal loomed behind Carl, glowing eldritch green on the edges of the portal. In the center it looked like a deep space view with a slowly rotating star field. The longer someone looked into the portal, the more it felt like they would uncontrollably fall into the depths of space.

The massive stone platform the Dark Portal rested on was occupied by Alliance and Horde forces. The Alliance was positioned on the left side, while the Horde forces were on the right. Carl could see the uneasy glances going between the two forces as they kept vigilance against the other side even while they battled the demons. But their main attention was the battlefield directly ahead.

The chaotic battlefield had the corpses of many Fel Demons, 12 foot tall red skinned demons that had armor covering their bodies except for their torsos. They were led by 18 foot tall demons that had digitigrade legs, a tail, and a dark purplish skin.

The Alliance and Horde forces were working together to kill the constantly attacking demons. The healers kept the joint forces alive, while the demons didn't have any healers of their own.

Some distance away stood a 45 foot tall centaur like demon called a Pit Commander. He stood on four muscular legs, his blue scaly skin looked particularly thick and difficult to pierce. The blade the pit commander carried was at least 20 feet long. Fortunately he simply stood back, ordering his demonic forces to attack.

After looking over the battlefield for some time, Carl made his way to the left to use the flight master to fly to Honor Hold. While flying Carl looked over the landscape of Hellfire Penninsula. There was a good reason it was called that. The ground as far as he could see was red and lifeless. In many of the crevices in the ground flames sprouted up, burning off some fuel leaking out from underground.

There were demons and corrupted life forms everywhere Carl could see. There were occasionally placed disturbing dark iron constructs that had sickly green crystals floating over them. Inside was the swirling eldritch green energies of small portals. A consistent flow of demons was exiting these smaller portals.

Some of the demons that exited these portals made their way to the battle field around the Dark Portal. Some milled about aimless in the immediate vicinity of the portals. And some were spreading out to the rest of the peninsula.

Yes, with the corrupted and destroyed landscape, Carl could see how it earned the name Hellfire Penninsula.

Carl landed beside the inn in the walled fortress Honor Hold. Directly in front of him was a large building that had been destroyed. Only the foundation still stood, while some of the support timbers were still smoldering.

There was a tense atmosphere of readiness to do battle in the warriors that were going about their duties in the keep. These warriors and soldiers were grimly going about their duties in order to prevent the invasion of demonic forces that would destroy their homes and families.

Carl was once more struck by the strange dichotomy of this world. The inhabitants were real people, with real lives, hopes, and expectations. But at the same time, there were many game like magical features, as well as the influx of the adventurers who seemed to be connected to a video game in another world.

This strange dichotomy made it difficult for Carl to figure out just what he should feel about the world. While the goals of the Alliance and Horde factions to protect their lives and their families were admirable, and he could understand just where both sides came from, Carl found that he didn't really care much about them. At most he felt the factions were useful for him.

The only people that he really cared about in this world were the members of the Silver Dragon Flight. They would be joining him in each world as his faction, his people. As a result, Carl only really cared about making his Dragon Flight strong. The Alliance and Horde were useful for those goals, but otherwise he didn't care too much about them.

He wasn't sure if that made him heartless or not. He wasn't even sure if he cared that he didn't really care.

Carl's moment of introspection was soon over. It was time to quest.

He first made his way over to the inn and set his hearth stone there. Being able to teleport directly back to the inn would be more convenient for completing quests. He was still hiding his extra abilities for the time being and acting as a regular adventurer.

He then reported to the commander of Honor Hold, a human by the name and title Force Commander Danarth Trollbane who gave him two quests. There were important missions that needed to be carried out to eradicate demonic forces. Carl first made his way to the east to report to Sergeant Altumus.

As Carl approached the area where the Sergeant was, he saw two guard towers on either side of the road. The tower on the north was completely demolished, only the foundations still stood. The tower on the south had one of its walls smashed in.

A dozen large green meteors came streaking down from the sky, impacting the ground with great force. The meteors then stood up and became 15 foot tall demonic golems made of stone and wreathed in green fel fire that began attacking the Alliance forces that were gathered to protect the eastern approach to Honor Hold.

Carl saw that Sergeant Altumus was too busy fighting the demonic constructs to give him his quests, so he charged forward on his Paladin mount, and joined in the fight. Blue Orchid easily sliced through the demonically enhanced stone, lopping off limbs and severing heads. When enough damage was done to the constructs they collapsed into a pile of rubble.

The battle lasted only a few minutes until the demonic constructs were destroyed. Carl looked over the soldiers who had various wounds on their bodies. He took a moment to cast a few healing spells on the soldiers before talking to Sergeant Altumus. She gave him a quest to kill a certain number of demons to the east to ease the pressure on their forces.

As Carl traveled east, he saw his way was blocked by demonic hell boars. They were eight feet tall at the shoulders, their eyes were glowing red, and they just looked wrong with bony spikes coming out of their shoulders. Twisted by fel magics, they attacked anything that came near them.

Carl didn't avoid them and used Blue Orchid to kill the hell boars. He swiftly chopped off their heads and skinned them before moving on.

After riding for some time, Carl found a valley that was inhabited by a number of demons. There were smaller four foot tall imps that were playing with fire. There were the meteor constructs waiting their turn to attack the base. And there were 12 feet tall demons with bat wings spread behind them overseeing the operation.

Carl spotted a large group of the demons together in one place. It was the perfect set up. He summoned his magic and began channeling a Blizzard in the area the demons were in. The demons Carl targeted were immediately affected by the sub arctic temperatures and found it difficult to move quickly. The large hail stones Carl summoned rained down on the demons, damaging them more and more.

The demons trying to get to Carl couldn't get out of the area of the Blizzard before they turned into corpses. Carl smirked a bit at the effectiveness of his magic. He looted the bodies of the paltry amounts of silver they had on principle, and looked around for his next set of victims.

The next few groups died just as easily as the first, and Carl was soon traveling back to the Sergeant to report the success of the quest.

And the reward for success, besides a piece of gear, was more work! Carl followed the Sergeant's directions to an outpost that was monitoring demonic activity that needed help in their operations against the forces arrayed against them.

[Jayne: We just wiped out all the Defias thugs in Moonbrook in less than five minutes and have to wait for them to populate again before we can get our quest quota. It's so boring waiting here!]

[Fausic: Then go to the coast and do some fishing while you wait.]

[Jayne: But fishing is even more boring than waiting for a respawn!]

[Jeff: Run! Run! Run! We're killing them too fast in the Deadmines and have to run to keep up with the tank! Slow down tank dragon bro!]

[Stovos: No.]

[June: Our healer has a particular hate for Quilboars, so she's forcing us to do Razorfen Kraul over and over again. I don't know when she'll be satisfied with killing these guys.]

[Rubiana: Only when they are fully eradicated.]

[June: …but they respawn...]

[Hilda: I swear, these irradiated monsters in Gnomergan are disgusting. Thank goodness I picked the Hunter class so I don't have to touch them.]

[Fromie: Yeah, she's even forcing the rest of us to do her looting for her.]

[Hilda: And I love you all for it!]

[Goram: Horde tried to ambush us in Stranglethorn Vale again.]

[Jonah: Lord Carl was right to warn us of the area. It's a hotbed of fighting between Horde and Alliance forces.]

[Donner: It was pretty funny to see his surprised face when the rest of us popped out of nowhere and he was burned to death by over 10 fireballs.]

[June: Aww…you didn't invite the rest of us to the party.]

[Goram: The next time we get ambushed, I'll inform you right away. I can't guarantee they'll still be alive by the time you get there, though.]

[June: Thanks, it's the thought that counts!]

[Whent: If I ever have to do another run of Temple of Atal'Hakkar, it'll be too soon. The amount of backtracking we have to do, running up and down stairs, is just too much!]

[Buron: Hey, at least you get to practice your skinning, right?]

[Whent: Yeah, but it's a bit morbid to be skinning other dragons.]

[Buron: Nah, you can't think like that. They're too dumb to be dragons, they're just beasts. Besides, think of what our soft hearted ways led to in the past.]

[Whent: Yeah, you're right. Still…/shrug]

[Lyria: Hey, does anyone have any leftover thick spider silk? I need a few more pieces to level up my tailoring. Let me know if you want anything in exchange.]

[Chromalie: Yeah, I got some, I'll send it your way. I don't need anything at the moment, but if I do, I'll let you know.]

[Lyria: Thanks! I owe you one!]

Carl chuckled as he looked over the chat logs while he was waiting for a monster to respawn. He had distributed hand held pads that let his Dragon Flight communicate with each other, which included discussion boards and messaging. His people had taken to it quite well.

It was a constant source of amusement to Carl to look over his people's interactions with each other.

In the cases of some of the rescued dragons, they had some serious hate brewing inside for the creatures their captors had induced to attack and torture them. As long as that aggression was aimed at the enemy, rather than being bottled up inside, Carl didn't have a problem if some of them were a little zealous in attacking certain dungeons.

The various groups of Dragons and Dragonspawn had been working hard to level up. They wanted to catch up to Carl and attack the various high level dungeons and raids. The loot they could get from there would give them ideas on how to craft better gear, enchants, and other enhancements.

Contrary to his initial expectation, none of the rescued dragons wanted to curl up at home and focus on crafting. That was the habit and behavior that got them captured in the first place because they were too weak. So while they still had a passion for their craft, they had a hunger for strength. They refused to be victims a second time.

It wasn't something that Carl discouraged. For them to gain a sense of security, they needed that sense of control over their lives and destinies that personal strength gave them.

Putting away his own hand held pad, Carl pulled out Blue Orchid and snuck up on the giant bird that had just appeared. A few moments later Carl put the loot away in his bags and summoned his mount. He was pleased that he would have some chicken wings to barbecue tonight.

With dinner plans taken care of Carl travelled south to the Auchindoun ruins. He was about to enter the Sethekk Halls dungeon. He had a couple quests to complete there, which should level him up to 68.

The mausoleum ruins looked like it had been through a war, the structure was damaged and falling apart. Carl rode in through one of the ruined doorways and climbed the stairs to the outer ring. From there he had a view of the central circular area that had been excavated and was at least 100 feet deep.

There were at least four levels in the original structure where the Draenei had once laid their dead to rest. But that was all smashed now, leaving behind ruined destruction.

There were four dungeons in Auchindoun. To the North was the Mana Tombs. To the South was the Shadow Labyrinth. To the West was the Auchenai Crypts. And to the East was the Sethekk Halls.

The dungeon Carl was running today was the Sethekk Halls. It was full of the avian Arakkoa species. The humanoid birds stood between 6 and 8 feet tall. Looking at them, Carl wondered if they were similar to what some dinosaur species would have evolved to if they evolved to be a humanoid species. They had some mannerisms that were incredibly similar to many of the dinosaurs Carl had hunted the past.

The similarity between the Arakkoa and the dinosaurs actually made Carl want to hunt them even more than before. He made short work of the various patrolling groups of Arakkoa. Carl began each fight from stealth and then used a few Rogue and Paladin spells to finish off the rest. Occasionally he threw in a few Mage spells to keep his attacks varied.

It wasn't long before Carl was fighting the first boss, Darkweaver Syth. Carl didn't give him time to summon any of the elementals that he usually did. He died too quick to use his abilities.

Seeing how quickly he had finished off the boss, Carl was pleased with the combination of abilities that having multiple classes gave him. It was a lot of fun to play with as he fought the various enemies.

He could sneak up on them, stun lock them, blast them, stun them again, freeze them, disappear through the Rogue's Vanish, and do it all over again.

With the first boss dead, Carl continued on to the next room, clearing out the groups of birdmen before climbing the stairs to the second level.

After clearing out the second floor, Carl came to the final boss of the dungeon, Talon King Ikiss. Carl's Ambush ability wasn't enough to down the boss, and immediately after Carl took off nearly half his health, the boss brought up a bubble that made him immune to damage for a short time.

Carl saw that Ikiss was charging up a large explosion spell, and remembered this from the game. With a few quick steps, Carl positioned himself behind one of the nearby pillars. The arcane explosion spread through the room, but was blocked by the solid stone pillar Carl hid behind, so he took no damage.

Charging out from behind the pillar, Carl used his fire spells, boosted by the Golden Crows flames, to roast the Talon King. A few moments later, the boss dropped dead. Carl collected a spell caster cloak and trousers.

The pants were the Trousers of Oblivion, which were part of a five part set. Carl smiled at seeing that. The ability to create a set of armor that enhanced each other and gave more enchantment bonuses the more pieces of the set one wore would be worth studying and replicating.

There was a chest at the back of the boss room that contained a single key that was used to open the locked gates that led to the Shadow Labyrinth dungeon. With that key in hand, Carl made plans to run that dungeon next.

With the dungeon cleared, Carl ran outside to turn in the quest before teleporting back to Stormwind. He had reached level 68 and had some class trainers to visit to upgrade his spells.

With a flash of light, Carl appeared in the Mage tower in Stormwind. Looking around, he saw several adventurers present, talking to the Mage trainers or simply passing through due to being teleported.

"Greetings mage. Shall I provide you with further insight into the world of magic?" Maginor Dumas cheerfully greeted Carl when he approached. The balding Mage trainer was dressed in a blue robe with gold trimmings. The large blue jewel on a headband over his forehead always gathered Carl's attention and he couldn't help but stare at the head piece.

"Yeah, I've just hit a new level and need some upgrades." Carl answered, a little distracted by the large stone that was just so eye catching. Maginor Dumas soon pulled out a list of spells he could train.

Looking over the list, Carl was pleased. There was Invisibility that would have Carl fade into invisibility over 5 seconds. A good spell for escaping from people he didn't want to talk to at boring parties.

A new rank of his Blizzard area of effect spell. Conjuring a Mana Emerald that was basically condensed mana. Later on in combat, if he was running out of mana to cast spells with, he could pop the thing in his mouth and the stored mana would enter his reserves.

A Mana Shield that would absorb damaging attacks and spend his mana instead of losing his health.

After learning the spells from the Mage Trainer, Carl exited through the large circular arcane device that had a permanent portal leading out of the tower. He soon mounted his charger and made his way to the Cathedral Square where the paladin trainers were.

After entering the Cathedral of Light, Carl made his way to the left vestibule.

"May the light protect you." Lord Grayson Shadowbreaker greeted Carl when he approached.

"Greetings. May the light shine down on you." Carl kept his grin firmly off his face. He definitely wasn't thinking of the song Shine by Collective Soul when interacting with the trainer. Nope.

A moment later Lord Shadowbreaker had taught Carl new ranks of the Exorcism spell, Frost Resistance Aura, Seal of Wisdom, and Hammer of Wrath.

Exorcism was a holy damaging spell. Frost Resistance was useless for Carl, but useful in helping any party or raid members avoiding cold damage. Seal of Wisdom made it so each of his melee attacks would restore his mana. And Hammer of Wrath was a finishing move that would hurl a Holy Hammer at an enemy that was low of health to do holy damage.

Carl liked playing with the Hammer of Wrath as if he was Thor, God of Thunder.

'Maybe one of these days I'll get my own Mjolnir…' Carl thought hopefully.

After learning all he could from the Paladin trainer, Carl made his way through the canals of Stormwind to Old Town, where he soon tracked down the Rogue trainer.

"You look like the type I should watch my coin purse around. Something I can help you with?" Osborne the Night Man casually stated. The man was dressed in stereotypical swashbuckler gear with a knife on each hip. He had a dark mustache and a soul patch gracing his chin. In other words, he looked like a rogue.

"And if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black." Carl smirked at the man. "I'm here for some training."

"Of course you are."

Carl soon looked over the spell options and bought the new ranks. There was Anesthetic Poison, which coated his weapon and did Nature Damage to those afflicted with it.

A new rank of Backstab increased the amount of damage done with the attack.

Rupture was a bleeding damage over time finishing move that used up combo points as the fuel for the spell.

And finally there was an Instant Poison that also did Nature damage.

After Carl spent his gold learning the spells, he took his leave of the Rogue. While he had had some interesting conversations with the various inhabitants of Azeroth over the past several weeks, he really had nothing to say to the trainers beyond learning what they taught him.

As Carl was riding towards the Trade District, he noticed some furtive movement in the corner of his eye. Slightly turning his head, he saw two figures duck into an alley after vigilantly looking around.

The unusual activity piqued Carl's interest. So he immediately dismissed his mount and entered Stealth. Silently casting a sound and scent blocker on his body, he activated Sprint and dashed after the two figures that had caught his attention.

He caught up with the two just before they entered one of the houses tucked away in the maze of alleyways in Old Town. Carl immediately cast a listening charm on the two figures before the door closed. He then flew up to the roof of the house and sat down cross legged, waiting for further developments.

"Have you found anything yet?" A deep voice sounded in Carl's ear. He was hearing the voice in stereo from both the spell he cast as well as through the walls. Apparently they didn't have any sound proofing like Carl had expected, making his casting of the spy spell superfluous.

"No, nothing yet." A reluctant and whining voice then said. "But it's not my fault! They are lazy and don't work hard to gather the requested information! It's not fair that I should be punished for their failures!"

"You worked so hard to gain that position with the luxuries you now enjoy. It's up to you to motivate your subordinates to work hard. If you weren't so lax, would they be so lazy? So it is entirely right to punish you for the lack of results." The unsympathetic deep voiced person obviously wasn't accepting any excuses for the "failure".

Carl had a phrase pop into his head "shit rolls downhill". Apparently that was the management model of these people's organization.

"I hear and obey." The whiny voice managed to say through his gritted teeth. "But why the rush? Didn't we have a bunch of-"

"Silence!" The first voice roared. "How dare you question the leadership! It doesn't sound like you are working hard for the honor to be bestowed upon you at all." The deep voice threatened.

"Apologies!" The whiny voice groveled for a few moments. "I didn't mean to question them, I merely sought more information so I could perform my duties better. Please don't take away my hard earned merits!"

"Very well." The deep voiced conspirator finally said after letting the other one grovel for some time. "But be aware that the gift of Eternal Life isn't given lightly. If you continue to fail in your duties, your position will be given to one who can accomplish the assigned tasks. This is your last warning!"

"Yes, yes, thank you!" The whiny voiced human gratefully flattered the other one for a short time before he was cut off.

"Now go! Make sure you have some news to report the next time."

From on top of the roof Carl saw the whiny voiced human exit the house and scurry down the alley. He mentally contacted the VI of the Yamato and had it track the human to his location. He was interested in learning just who his subordinates were and what they were trying to discover.

Carl then felt the magical signature of someone casting a Mage Teleport spell. With only that short moment's notice, Carl managed to cast his own tracking spell that would identify and locate the spatial burrowing to its destination. He didn't want to lose track of the deep voiced one.

Even though they hadn't specifically said what they were looking for or what organization they were a part of, Carl had heard one clue that had tipped him off.

In this world, the humans don't have any real possibility of "Eternal Life" without some extraordinary means. They would have to have an enormous power source somehow attached to them. As such there were no powerful beings that would just give such a power source away to their lackeys as an honor.

The only remaining possibility was that these humans were members of the Cult of the Damned. They idolized the Undead, and thought that becoming undead was Eternal Life. As such, they were "blessed" with the gift only when they had gained some merits in their Cult.

The group of humans who were so enamored with eternal life that they would allow themselves to become monstrous undead abominations was the Cult of the Damned. Carl had an irreconcilable feud with those bastards for what they had done to his Flight.

Even if they hadn't perpetrated the affront against Carl with the Raid, he would never have had soft feelings for those undead worshiping fanatics. In order to attain their selfish desires they were willing to spread plagues and kill off innocent people wholesale. They destabilized the countries they inhabited until war, famine, and plague were widespread. Until only a land of the undead remained.

If anyone in the world of Azeroth deserved his hatred, it was definitely the Cult of the Damned.

That wasn't to say that Carl didn't have other factions that he despised. For example the Iron Horde willingly allowed themselves to be corrupted and enslaved by Demons for a taste of power. They opened the gate for the demonic forces of the Legion to invade their homes, thus destroying everything they were trying to protect.

Carl despised the leadership for their decisions. But the majority of the Orcs of the Iron Legion were hoodwinked by their leadership into agreeing to be slaves. So in Carl's mind, while he would never be soft with them, they were more worthy of pity than of hate.

The Cult of the Damned on the other hand were all unrepentant monsters in human skin. They willingly and knowingly conspired with the undead against the living, which made them the enemy of all life.

And now that Carl had found another tail to follow into the brush, he would take advantage of that to uncover more of the Cult's forces to be eradicated.

Carl silently flew back to the ground and moved away from the area. Once he was sure he was unobserved and alone, he ended Stealth and mounted up to run to his next destination, the Auction House.

Back when he was playing the game, he had never had a lot of gold to willfully buy anything he wanted from the Auction House. He played multiple characters in order to have one with each profession so he could be self sufficient.

But now things were entirely different for him. He was here in his own body, so he couldn't have multiple characters. He had a large stream of money constantly coming his way, so he never worried about funds anymore. With such a large amount of money, if he didn't take advantage of the Auction House to shorten the time he spent on leveling up his profession skills, he would really be wasting his time.

And most importantly, the rate of item drops in this world seemed to follow the game rules. In short, the more rare an item was, the rarer it was to drop off of mobs.

So Carl didn't have the time or inclination to spend so much time constantly and mindlessly grinding away on the off chance that various mobs would drop something nice for him.

There were massive numbers of adventurers running around, killing things, getting loot drops. And while many of them kept the items for themselves, even more brought those items to the Auction House to make a profit.

Carl was more than happy to exchange a resource he had so much of in order to get rare items to study and add to his repertoire of enchantments for armor and weapons. While Carl was making do with the drops he got from dungeons and quests for the time being, he had plans.

Plans that made use of the high level drops from the raids in the Outlands to combine enchants and make the best armor he could. He would use the Profound Armor he got from the Against the Gods world as the base. He would add various magical materials and enchants he learned from his various studies and worlds. The resulting Armor would be…amazing.

And while he would have to repeat the upgrade process whenever new raid loots became available, and again when the Wrath of the Lich King expansion opened up and Northrend opened up for exploration, Carl was actually looking forward to the process. Not only had he gained a trait that made him good at crafting, but he gained a taste for it. It was a fun pastime.

Carl had just walked into the busy and crowded Auction House in the Trade District when he suddenly had a thought and almost face palmed himself.

He knew the VI managers of his properties could leave the property and go a certain distance away from the properties in order to purchase items in the nearby market places. So he could assign them the extra duty of watching the Auction Houses in the various cities in order to buy the various things he needed for his research.

Carl mentally went over the list of VIs that were available in a city that had an auction house and started splitting up what items each of the VIs should look for. They didn't have to camp in the auction houses, but they could make three trips a day to take a look and grab anything on his lists.

While Carl had the urge to do an about face and set that system up, he was already in the auction house now, so he decided he would look first, then go set up the orders for his managing VIs.

Scrolling through the selection of gear, Carl found a few pieces that he was interested in. He grumbled a bit at how much the seller had put the buyout option for, feeling that they were being a little too greedy. But he really wanted the items to deconstruct and learn the enhancements, so he shelled out the gold. It wasn't like he was lacking money anyway.

The moment Carl arrived in the Hold, Jayne jumped out of nowhere and began bouncing around him.

"Whachu get?! Whachu get?!" Jayne excitedly exclaimed.

He saw the rest of her party hanging back a bit, looking embarrassed on her behalf, but also excited to learn the answer.

"I've got a helmet that increases stealth detection, a pair of boots that increase running speed, and a staff that heals random party members." Carl chuckled at the girl dragon's exuberance.

All of his Dragons were exceptionally interested in anything to do with crafting, having been influenced by one of their two key traits. But most of them were less willing to let go and show their excitement around their Dragon Lord, Carl.

"Ooh! That sounds like fun! I wonder if the run speed can be applied to our flying speed?" Jayne pondered out loud.

"Well, that's one of the tests I'll leave in your hands, Jayne." Carl offered, pulling out a pair of boots and dropping them in her arms. "Be sure to have the VIs record everything as you experiment, and copy the results to the entire group." Carl called out to her back, seeing as she was dashing to the lab with her new toys.

Carl shook his head in amusement at the girl. It was good to see that her upbeat personality hadn't been crushed by their life in hiding or seeing how the captive Dragons had been treated.

"My lord." Goram bowed to him before falling into step beside Carl.

"How are the parties doing with their training and leveling?" Carl asked.

Goram had proven a good choice in assigning to coordinate with the groups. His long years of working as basically the Hold's steward gave him a lot of practice in assigning tasks and coordinating work.

One or two of the older rescue Dragons had at first balked at having a Dragonspawn assigning them duties. But Carl didn't care about that caste nonsense. If someone was skilled, he would use them in the position they could handle. And Goram was skilled in what he did.

After Carl made his position eminently clear, with a bit of force, the naysayers had grumbled but backed down. He had been keeping an eye on them, to ensure the old Dragons didn't cause issues. But thankfully Carl had been seeing his perks in action. The longer Carl spent around those old tradition minded dragons, the more they seemed to put their loyalty in Carl and the less they questioned the direction he was taking the Flight.

Carl also liked to think the perk allowed them to open their eyes and see the logic of his actions. The Dragon Flight's numbers were small, having suffered greatly from the Raid all those years ago. They couldn't afford to waste anyone skilled enough to do a job because of caste prejudice.

And Goram had done an excellent job of being both skilled in coordinating everyone, and diplomatic in his wording. So everyone's ruffled scales were finally soothed, and they accepted Goram as the Coordinator.

"The nine groups have been in competition to see which group reaches level 60 first." Goram reported with a smile for the exuberance of the Flight. It wasn't only the Dragons who had their spirits revived due to the changes that Carl had brought. "Everyone is at least level 50 now. Three groups have been especially focused on killing the undead that are plaguing the Ruins of Andor'hal in the Western Plaguelands."

Carl nodded in acknowledgement. Not only could they kill the undead Scourge, they could gain reputation with the Argent Dawn faction that based itself in Eastern and Western Plaguelands. There were bound to be some items they could purchase from the quartermasters of the Argent Dawn that they could use to study the enchantments.

"Three groups have been spending their time in the Un'Goro Crater. Besides doing quests and leveling, they have been focused on gathering various crafting materials available there for their own profession leveling needs."

"Well, if they are staying safe and having fun, that's all that matters." Carl chuckled.

"Indeed. The final groups have been spending their time in the corrupted Felwood Forest." Goram reported.

"I've heard that the Furbolg's of Timbermaw hold have some nice recipes for Tailoring, Leatherworking, and Blacksmithing, so I can see why they would spend some time getting reputation to study those recipes."

"Exactly, Lord Carl. We have already gotten hold of those recipes and have deconstructed and improved on them." Goram let slip which group he was a part of in his excitement, to Carl's amusement.

"Keep up the good work. Be sure you don't forget the necessity of getting stronger in your eagerness to continue practicing your craft." Carl sternly ordered. "And be sure to pass on both my pleasure in your accomplishments, and my warning to the rest of the Flight."

"Yes, Lord Carl." Goram saluted and departed just as they arrived at Carl's quarters.

Carl saw that Mortic was waiting for him outside his quarters with his own reports to pass on. So he invited Mortic into his sitting room, where the rejuvenated Dragon passed on his reports on what the Flight had been learning from their various practices in Crafting.

While the once old Dragon was jumping into leveling and growing stronger, his particular skills still lent themselves more to crafting and learning than to fighting. So while Carl wouldn't excuse him from fighting, he had put the Dragon in charge of their crafting efforts.

Mortic passed on to Carl a report of everyone's professional skill levels, and what recipes they had mastered. After looking over the report, Carl was pleased with everyone's progress. Some of the older Dragons that they had rescued still had high skill levels, but the Dragonspawn and the younger Dragons were basically starting from scratch.

The second half of the report detailed the Flight's continual education efforts. Even with everyone's enhanced abilities and learning skills, 10 years in time compression was not long enough to master even half of what was available to learn, especially when they had to start their education from the beginning.

Since these Dragons and Dragonspawn would be following him between worlds from now on, Carl wanted them prepared for whatever they faced in the future. He couldn't guarantee they would only face a world of warcraft like they were used to here.

If they were put into a modern setting at this very moment, they would probably do just fine because of Carl's education efforts. But before he started working on them, they would have been completely lost and likely making a big mess of things.

"Thank you for the report Mortic. Everyone looks to be working hard, good job. Is there anything you need from me?" Once Carl finished scanning the report, he set it aside and looked at his educational / crafting coordinator.

"No, Lord Carl. Everything I need you have already supplied." The Dragon almost seemed to be bursting from holding in his feelings of gratitude at how good things were now in the Dragon Flight.

"Good to hear. I'll be out soon for the feast." Carl stated with a calm smile.

Mortic heard the dismissal in Carl's words and bowed before leaving his rooms. Carl had set it up so that once a week the entire Flight got together for a feast. It was basically a weekly family dinner to ensure that everyone got together and continued to get to know each other and have the chance to get close with each other.

It was important to Carl that his Flight be of one purpose and be close with each other. Their enemies were all around, and they needed to stick together so they could be strong.

After taking some notes and filing away the reports, Carl changed into his party clothes. While Carl and everyone else was more comfortable in their own Dragon skin, crowding in more than 50 Dragons and Dragonspawn in the same room made for a crowded party.