The rays of sunlight streaming through the gap in the curtains of my room was the first thing I saw when I woke up. Particles of dust hanging in the air, evidence of the lack of housekeeping. Or maybe not. The housekeepers were only mortal after all, they couldn't see the things I could. Next thing I was aware of was a high pitched, yet obviously male voice trying to get my attention.

"Master, it's time to get up," it said, my groggy mind taking a moment to process the voice as one of my demon familiars.

I groaned, and I tried rolling over; it was too early for this shit. The sun was up, but just barely enough to crest the tops of the buildings across the street. I attempted to pull the covers back over my head, but was stopped by said familiar.

"Aztog, you know damn well that I hate mornings. If you wish to live, shut up and let me sleep" I grumbled back at him. It was an empty threat and we both knew it. I loved all my familiars too much to intentionally harm them. This has been a routine of ours for decades; since demons don't need sleep, he would keep watch while I slept. Even in the safety of the inn, you could never be too careful. The only creatures I could rely on not to betray me were my summoned minions.

"Yes, I know very well that you hate mornings, however this is important. You have a letter." He said with a chuckle.

I looked over at the little shit; He had a narrow face that tapered to a slight point at his chin. Long ears with an earring in one ear, long horns, and his electric blue eyes had vertical slitted pupils, with black sclera. His skin was a pale bluish grey, and he had small wings that he could use to fly short distances. He was about 2 and a half feet tall, average height for a toddler. If he ran out of mana and couldn't cast his firebolt, he had natural weapons in the form of razor sharp claws and fangs. I'd once seen him cleave a fel boar in half that had gotten too close to our camp one day.

"Oh really? It had better be fucking important, like from the king or something." I said angrily. If it was anyone else besides the commander of the alliance, they could damn well wait until I got more sleep.

"Close, but not quite Master. It is the Winter Queen of Ardenweald." He said.

"God dammit, that means I can't ignore it. I might be one of the most renowned members of the covenant, but she's still the queen." I said, sighing. There goes my morning of sleep.

As I got out of bed, I took another look around the room; while nothing should be out of place with Aztog keeping guard, it never hurt to be vigilant. It was just how I remembered last night, despite the large amount of ale I'd had in celebration of our latest dungeon crawl. The room wasn't massive, but it was still a decent size. A bed, dresser, desk in various corners of the room, and door to the en suite bathroom was all that was really in it. While it wasn't much, it was all the room needed, and it was all good quality. Fitting, considering it was a well known tavern in the capital city of the alliance, Stormwind. Most taverns were barely better than shacks, or tents set up near the battlefield. Getting dressed, I went to the bathroom to do the usual necessities of being awake at this god awful hour.

"Well now that that's over, what time is it anyway? Can't be much later than just after sunrise" I asked my familiar, slightly more awake now.

"It is almost noon, my lady," he said with a grin.

"Bullshit" I said with a scowl

"If you do not believe your most loyal minion, you can gaze out the window yourself" he replied, while still grinning at me.

Sure enough, he was right. Dammit I hate it when he's right, he never lets me live it down.

"Quit your snickering jackass, to me this is early" I said as I picked him up with my magic and flung him across the room to land on the bed. I had never been a morning person, even after my centuries of life. Being a void elf, we lived a very long time. I wasn't sure how I managed it, you'd think after so many years one would get used to having to get up in the morning. Nope, not how that works apparently.

Plucking the letter out of his hand as he flew away, I headed out the door and downstairs to the common room. Once downstairs, I found a random seat that wasn't occupied and called out to the innkeeper.

"Allison, can you grab me some breakfast? I'm starving." I hollered at her as I started looking over the letter.

"Sure thing Sleeping Beauty" she said while laughing at me.

'Just a bunch of jokers, the lot of you. At least come up with some new material' I grumbled to myself as she walked away. Turning my attention back to the letter, I saw that it was indeed from the queen. Classic white paper, with ornate golden script, it simply had my name on it: Alex Felgrave. The only reason I could tell it was from the Queen of the Winter Court was that there was only one person who the magic emanating from the letter could come from. I began to read as I opened the letter:

'My dear friend Alex; I know that you have just returned to the realm of the living, however an urgent matter has come to my attention. I cannot go into much detail in an easily intercepted letter like this, but just know that I wouldn't call you back to the Shadowlands for anything but of the utmost importance. I know it will take you some time to return, as crossing the veil between life and death is no easy thing while still remaining alive. However please do try to return with haste, I do not know how much longer i can keep the situation contained.

Sincerely,

Winter Queen of the Night Fae

Damn. I had just left that damn place, and I didn't think I'd be returning to the realm of death so soon after settling matters there. It was a huge pain in the ass to get back there normally. But thankfully I was no normal elf; while the portals to the Shadowlands had been closed with the death of the Jailer, Zovaal, there were still ways to return. There were two that I could think of from the top of my head. One was to hire a mage that had retained their magical connection with the land of death to open a portal back to Oribos, the capital city of the shadowlands. However this was stupidly expensive now days; upwards of a thousand gold. When the link between worlds was still open, it was very easy to go to and from Oribos, so the cost of a portal was dirt cheap, only around a single gold or so.

While I could certainly afford such an expense, I really didn't want to blow a thousand gold. That left the second option: my last remaining Night Fae Hearthstone. Hearthstones were normally small stones about the size of one's palm that could be magically bound to a certain location. Hearthstones are bound to your soul, so you can only have one of them. When you bind your stone to a new place, the old one is overwritten. The Night Fae Hearthstone is different however, in that you can have the Night Fae one and your normal hearthstone. Almost everyone has a hearthstone, so they are very easy to get; so it was no loss when hearthstones of all the adventurers who had travelled to the shadowlands to retrieve our world leaders, shattered into dust. Almost every tavern has a stockpile of them ready to give out when someone came in who had lost theirs.

The problem with using my Night Fae hearthstone, was that I could never get another one. I was lucky enough to be on the moral side of the veil, so when it closed itself I still kept the night fae hearthstone. It was the act of travelling through the veil that destroyed the hearthstone. So when I used my Night Fae one, it would be gone forever and even if the Winter Queen gave me another, I wouldn't be able to bring it back with me. However since it was the Ruler of the Night Fae herself calling me, I kind of had to accept her summons.

Allison had brought my food while I was lost in thought and I had almost finished my food without even realising it. Aztog had also caught up with me during this time and was looking longingly at the remains of my food.

"Here, take it you glutton" I said, while standing up and throwing some silver on the table.

"Thank you kindly master!" he said with a gentlemanly bow before leaping at the food like he hadn't eaten in 20 years.

'Always the same ridiculous imp' I thought as I shook my head at him with a fond smile.

Walking out the door, the full wrath of the deadly laser that we called the sun hit me in the face. I winced and squinted my eyes, as a void elf, we thrived in the darkness, and the void. While the sun didn't actually do us any harm, I don't know a single one of us that actually enjoys being out in the sun. Before my trip to Ardenweald, I had to get some supplies. I had no idea how long I would be gone, so I needed to stock up quite a lot. I took a look in my lightless silk bags and saw that they were nearly full with useless crap. Since we had celebrated right after the dungeon was over, I hadn't had a chance to sell off my junk.

Thinking about where the nearest shop was, I headed that way. I had long ago memorised the layout of the whole city so it was no problem finding it. After selling what I wanted to sell, mainly junk like various claws, pelts, and rubble; and I mean actual stone rubble, I decided to go to the bank. What business do lizards have dropping stone rubble anyway? They were in a massive cavern with smooth floors and walls. Nothing looked like there had been bites taken out of it. Anyway, getting to the bank I deposited anything I didn't want to sell; gear, scrolls, potions and a few odds and ends that I was going to disenchant when I had some time.

It was time to get going to the shadowlands; leaving the city out the main gate, I found a secluded spot. Using a hearthstone was actually quite easy, all you had to do was channel mana into it. As I did so, the thing started to glow a vibrant sapphire blue with motes of white light; same as from Ardenweald. It only took about 10 seconds of channeling before I started to feel a tug on my soul. It was normally not a terrible experience, at least for one who had done it as often as I. However this time it HURT, quite a lot. It felt like my soul was being torn apart, probably because it was. I was entering a realm that the living had no business going to. It felt like an eternity but in reality was only a minute or two, before I found myself unceremoniously dumped on my ass in a place I wasn't expecting.

"Well Aztog, I have good news and bad news.'' I said as I addressed my familiar.

"Yes, I know what you mean. The hearthstone did not take us to where it should have" Aztog replied. As a demon bound to my soul, where I went, he went so long as I had actively chosen to summon him to my side.

"Good news is that at least we are in the shadowlands, slightly bad news is that it landed us in Oribos" I continued.

It wasn't totally a bad thing that we ended up where we did, just annoying. I've never really liked this place, it felt too orderly. Not to mention the Brokers who were always trying to sell you something, get information from you, or otherwise trying to scam you. Even the Keepers of the city found them annoying, feeling like they were crowding and taking over their city. I better get this show on the road, I didn't want to stay here any longer than I had to. Making my way across the city, dodging the Brokers and Keepers alike, I found the teleport pad that would bring me up to the flight deck of Oribos. It was here that I could travel the veil once again to get to Ardenwealed.

"I would like to book passage to Ardenweald" i told the Flight Master after finally finding him. This place was a lot busier than usual.

"Very well, Alex, protector of the Weald" he said with a smile. At least I thought it was a smile. Could never really tell for sure behind those masks of theirs. I had forgotten that I had made quite a name for myself across the realms of the Shadowlands in the couple months that I'd been gone.

I hopped on the Ensorcelled Everwyrm that would take me safely across the veil to my destination with Aztog hanging on for dear life to my cloak. He'd be fine if he fell off... I think. He's a demon after all. The ride there was exactly how I remember, flying up to the gate just hanging there after crossing the endless space below that led to the Maw. Entering the gate we followed the river of souls crossing to Ardenweald after having been judged by the Arbiter that this was their deserved afterlife. It didn't hurt at all this time since I was on the Everwyrm.

Travelling at damn near warp speed, the trip didn't take long, only about an hour, and eventually the wondrous forests of the Night Fae entered my sight. Thankfully I didn't have to walk all the way to the heart of the forest, the wyrm would take me all the way there. And after another 10 or so minutes I landed on the Flight Masters platform where the mounts of the Night Fae were kept.

Looking around, I was able to find Moonberry, I didn't have to look long.

"Alex! It's good to see you" they called out, reminding me how cheerful they were.

"Moonberry, it's good to see you as well, I assume you know why I am here?" I asked them.

"Yes yes, the queen has been eagerly awaiting your arrival" they said, somewhat solemnly. Their tone was unexpected, as I had come to associate them with a bubbly attitude that nothing could bring down.

After flying up to the second level of the heart of the forest where the queen resided, she finally came into view. The queen was massive in size, while still being elegant and refined, she stood a good 20 feet tall. With blue skin, glowing ethereal horns on her head, and with jet black eyes, she could be very intimidating if you didn't know her. However she was a big ol' softy at heart. While she cared deeply about her people, she wouldn't hesitate to rain death and destruction to anyone who threatened her forests.

"Thank you for coming, Alex Felgrave" she said, her voice while not booming, still resounded in my chest.

"Of course my queen, what was so urgent that I had to rush over here?" I asked. I had done quite a lot for the queen, so I was afforded some measure of casualness while speaking with her.

"I'm glad you came so fast. A new dungeon has appeared in Ardenweald." she said gravely.

"Wut?" I said intelligently.