Chapter 91: Legends Beneath the Sea

The naga's scales didn't have the strong fishy smell of real fish scales. There was only a faint, hard-to-describe scent. Unless you paid close attention, it almost smelled like the salty damp air of the sea.

Naga hadn't always been monsters of the ocean depths. Like the elves of Quel'Thalas, their ancestors had been Highborne nobles of the ancient Kaldorei Empire. In fact, their status had been far higher than that of the Sunstrider ancestors of Silvermoon's royal family.

They had been Queen Azshara's most loyal followers. As the end came, these guards and close attendants stayed beside her until the very last moment, when the imperial capital, Zin-Azshari, collapsed and most of the city sank beneath the sea.

To take revenge and rebuild her empire, the queen struck a bargain with the ancient Old God N'Zoth and became his servant of darkness. Her followers were reborn just as she was. That was how the naga came to be.

But most naga alive today weren't the same Highborne who had followed Azshara ten thousand years ago. They had hatched in the breeding grounds of the naga empire beneath the sea.

These later generations held a much lower place than the nobles who had first gone down with the queen. No one cared much whether they lived or died. They weren't very different from a collection of sea monsters used as slaves and servants.

Still, their blood undeniably came from those first Highborne. They had inherited their magical gifts and intelligence, and you could see many elven traits in them.

Jess opened the bag and smelled the peculiar scent of the naga scales again.

For some reason, he found himself getting a little addicted to it. It wasn't even a pleasant fragrance.

Stories about mermaids could be heard along nearly every coast and on every island. Fishermen, sailors, and people who lived by the sea told of meeting lone mermaids on the shore or out in the water. Drawn in by their beauty, a man might fall in love with one, or even sleep with her. Many men who met mermaids disappeared afterward. Even those who returned to shore couldn't stop thinking about the enchanting women they'd seen.

In those stories, it was always a man meeting a mermaid. You never heard of a woman falling for some handsome merman. Why was that?

Because mermaids didn't exist in the first place. Those men had all encountered naga. And male naga had frightening heads like crocodiles or lizards. They probably weren't very attractive to women on land.

After all, male naga had been created from the beginning as war machines for the queen and the other high-ranking sea witches.

And the reason those sailors were so drawn to the supposed mermaids might have been this strange scent.

Jess knew exactly what he'd encountered. He'd even killed the female naga himself. Yet smelling her scales again still stirred some strange, primitive urge in him.

The real Azeroth was a world full of desire and killing.

Jess took one last deep breath, then tied the bag shut.

Speaking of which, that old soldier at the waystation—could the woman he called his wife have been this naga?

A poor soldier had been lured in by a mermaid from the sea, thought he'd found true love, and decided she was the one he'd spend the rest of his life with?

Should Jess go back and ask him?

He'd nearly lost his life after being lured over there. He was certainly angry about it.

But storming into an army camp to pick a fight with a soldier? He'd have to think carefully about that.

His one bottle of Shadow Protection Potion was gone now. He had no plans to cause any more trouble for the murlocs. What if he ran into a murloc warlock who knew shadow magic? He'd be in serious trouble.

Besides, murlocs had all kinds of spellcasters—elemental casters, shadow mages, water mages, and more. None were particularly powerful, but they had plenty of tricks.

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To tell the truth, the jolt he'd taken from that orc shaman had left him with something close to a fear of lightning. Without proper preparation, he wasn't taking another risk. Surviving the naga had been hard enough.

If Ursula asked when he got back, he could say he'd found nothing and had nearly been killed by murlocs. Or he could hand over a naga scale and ask whether it was worth anything. An alchemist might be interested in scales like these.

As for these pearls...

Jess picked up the string of beads and looked it over. It seemed like an ordinary pearl bracelet, not something that would fetch much money by the sea.

"Hey, Saeno."

"Master!"

"Can you tell whether these beads have any special enchantment? Something that increases a person's mana, or makes spells stronger, or anything like that?"

"Can't tell at all, Master!"

Jess slipped the pearl bracelet over his wrist. It felt pleasantly cool against his skin.

If he couldn't sell it for much, he wouldn't sell it at all. It was proof he'd fought a naga sea witch alone.

A naga sea witch...

Thinking back to last night's battle still made his heart race.

It was probably the first time he'd faced an opponent that powerful all by himself. No Gred, no imp—unless that house counted as an ally.

Without the house, he'd probably have died horribly.

Its halls, narrow passages, and rooms had helped him defeat a female monster several yards long.

After packing the naga's scales and claws—all four of those lizardlike claws—Jess took the same route back toward the Furlbrow farm, leaving the burning house behind.

On the way, several wild boars took turns following him for hours.

Maybe they'd smelled the naga scales. Maybe they wanted something else.

They were only animals, but Jess had nothing except a stick and a rusty knife. The blade had even developed a notch when he'd hacked at the naga's tail and neck.

He suspected the bones of a Bloodtusk boar would be tougher than those of the naga sorceress. If one of the animals decided to charge him, getting away without an injury would be difficult.

Fortunately, none of them did. The next few hours passed with nothing worse than a good scare.

Rydol Furlbrow had told him there were several abandoned farms along the road west toward the mines. Jess planned to find an empty one and spend the rest of the night there.

He'd considered going back to the Furlbrows, but the boars had driven him farther and farther away. He didn't want to lead them to someone's home, either. Furlbrow had said he owned a gun, but Jess wasn't entirely convinced he could handle the animals.

So Jess walked another two hours farther west. Only after he spotted another abandoned farm in the distance and the boars finally stopped following did he rest.

He went into an empty grain barn, checked that nothing dangerous was inside, and put down his bag.

"Saeno, I'm going to sleep. If anything alive comes near this farm—or anything dead, for that matter—anything that can move, wake me up. Stay hidden nearby and keep listening. You don't need sleep. Just protect me. Understand?"

"Yes, Master! I'll obey every order!"

The imp cried out excitedly, raced in a circle around Jess, then stopped at the doorway. He leaned against the wall and peeked outside.

Jess sat in the corner, watching him.

He realized he'd come to trust this demon quite a bit, both for running errands and guarding him. At first, he'd always worried the creature might stab him in the back, especially since it kept insisting that its master's death would mean freedom.

"So, Saeno," he asked suddenly, curious, "if I ordered you to attack me, would you obey and hurt me?"

"That's right!" Saeno replied without hesitation. "Because of the contract, Master! An imp cannot break a contract it has made!"

Jess wasn't quite sure what that contract actually meant. Was it a sheet of magically created paper? A rune branded into the mind? Whatever it was, he guessed it had something to do with the summoning spell.

"Then what happens if you break it?"

"A contract with a summoner cannot be broken, Master! I'm a lesser demon!" Saeno chuckled twice. "If I had to explain, it'd be like you trying to fly into the sky! Besides, you treat me well, Master. I don't want to break it!"

So the demon was actually a little grateful to him?

Jess thought about what Gardes had said. Imps had their own tempers and personalities. They liked and disliked things, too. That was why you shouldn't casually replace your summoned creatures. Unpredictable things could happen.

Jess could see what he meant. Summoned demons might cause trouble by twisting their masters' orders. So far, Saeno hadn't done that. Maybe, as the imp said, being a lesser demon meant he simply lacked the conditions or ability to do so.

But treating a demon well? Who knew when this little imp might suddenly die?

There was a saying that you shouldn't name an animal you were raising for slaughter. Once you'd given it a name, it was hard to see it as just an animal anymore. It became a companion, even family. When the day came to butcher it, you'd be the one who suffered.

Jess agreed with that. He didn't want any complicated attachment to the imp. If some sudden attack crushed the little demon one day, was he supposed to hold a funeral?

Take the naga earlier that night. If Jess hadn't ordered Saeno to phase out before the banishment spell, he might have been finished on the spot.

Judging by Saeno's reaction to the naga's Banish, the spell in the real world was certainly more than a crowd-control effect lasting a few dozen seconds. It might mean actual banishment—sending a summoned creature back where it came from.

For demons, that meant the Twisting Nether. As far as a demon living on Azeroth was concerned, it was practically the same as death.

And the imp had needed an order from Jess to save himself even then?

Jess was starting to feel sorry for a demon. He decided he'd had enough of that thought, lay down on the ground, and fell fast asleep.