Nobles

Thousands of meters above the churning, unforgiving sea west of Stormwind City, Lothar and his squadron of griffin riders were tearing through the sky like a bat out of hell, desperately trying to keep pace with Duke's lead griffin. The wind screamed past their ears, threatening to rip their cloaks to shreds.

"Is this cock-and-bull story actually true?" Lothar bellowed over the gale, his voice raw.

Duke, barely turning his head, shouted back, "When my Naga scout whispered the news into my ear, I didn't even stop to tie my boots! I shot straight to you and His Majesty Llane. We need to haul tail, or we'll be scraping those noble numbskulls off the barnacles!"

When Duke had burst in, huffing and puffing, claiming the noble fleet was under attack, Lothar's first, gut-wrenching thought was, "That sneaky devil's finally gone and done it himself!"

It was as plain as the nose on your face. Duke, a fresh face in the Stormwind nobility, had always been at loggerheads with the old-money crowd. Even the Brando family, who had a beef with Duke hotter than a dragon's breath, wouldn't even acknowledge his existence at a formal dinner, let alone consider burying the hatchet.

These nobles? They'd smile to your face while sharpening a shiv behind their back, all while maintaining an air of detached superiority that would make a Lich King blush.

If Lothar hadn't been blessed with the iron blood of Emperor Thoradin and the rock-solid friendship of King Llane as his personal force field, he'd probably be rotting in some forgotten alley of Stormwind City, just another piece of forgotten trash.

Duke… Lothar trusted him, mostly, but trying to figure out what was going on in that man's head was like trying to nail jelly to a tree.

But with the Orcish Horde knocking on their front door, Duke had no reason to pull a fast one on him and Llane, fabricating a noble attack just to yank Lothar's chain.

Lothar grumbled, but he had no choice. He had to save these puffed-up peacocks. After all, in every human kingdom, nobles were considered the bedrock of the nation. There was even a pompous saying among the upper crust: "The useless common folk can drop dead like flies, but as long as we, the wise and brave nobles, stand, even if the kingdom crumbles to dust, we can rebuild it from the ashes!"

Lothar wanted to leave them to the sharks, but duty, that nagging little demon, had him by the short hairs.

Anduin and Duke were the only aces up Llane's sleeve, especially since Stormwind's navy was about as effective as a wet noodle.

"Duke, weren't your Nagas supposed to be babysitting this fleet?" Lothar pressed, squinting against the wind.

"Oh, come on, Lothar!" Duke scoffed, rolling his eyes. "I've got a hundred-odd Nagas and a few thousand trash-talking Murlocs! This stretch of ocean is nearly a thousand nautical miles! What, did you expect them to cover it like a blanket? I sent 'em, sure, but by the looks of it, we're gonna beat 'em there by a country mile."

The attack on the noble fleet had been a massive blind spot for him and every high-ranking official in Stormwind. It wasn't so much a blind spot as it was that the Orcs' relentless assault had them all running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

Just thinking about it, it was a no-brainer: a fleet with a skeleton crew, hauling thousands of years of noble family bling? It would have been weirder if it hadn't attracted every pirate and scoundrel from here to Booty Bay, right?

Lothar clamped his jaw shut, his face a mask of grim determination mixed with exasperation. He followed Duke, his squadron of thirty-plus griffin riders a silent, formidable shadow.

Duke, true to his word, didn't play any games. He flew a straight shot, like an arrow to its mark.

They arrived an hour after the Bloodsail Pirates had started their little party with the noble fleet.

The scene below was a complete dog's breakfast. Lothar couldn't make heads or tails of it.

More than twenty Bloodsail pirate ships had formed a loose circle around the central battle, but they seemed hesitant to get too close. In the thick of it, almost every two pirate ships had a Stormwind warship sandwiched between them, locked in a brutal, bloody hand-to-hand brawl.

The pirate ships on the periphery were caught between a rock and a hard place. They couldn't fire their cannons without hitting their own men, and sending in reinforcements seemed like a suicide mission.

Because the real stars of this melee, the ones stealing the show, weren't the noble's private guards, nor the Bloodsail Pirates, nor even Duke's Nagas and Murlocs. No, the main event was a horde of demons, radiating heat like a forge, tearing through everything in their path.

After one dizzying half-circle on his griffin, Lothar's face went from grim to ghastly pale.

If the Bloodsail Pirates had unleashed these hellish fiends on Stormwind's nobility, Lothar would have belly-flopped off his griffin without a second thought to deliver some righteous fury.

But it was painfully obvious: the ones getting their rear ends handed to them were the Bloodsail Pirates.

The blue-skinned, hulking demon guards, gleaming menacingly in the sun, swung massive axes with a terrifying grace. They cackled like madmen on the pitching decks, gleefully butchering the Bloodsail Pirates whose morale had clearly gone south.

The scene was like a butcher, bloody cleaver in hand, chasing a panicked hog cornered in a pigsty. The hog's demise was just a matter of time.

So, the nobles had brought the demons?

But then Lothar's eyes caught sight of the many noble private soldiers and their lifeless bodies strewn across the decks. He knew then that this wasn't as simple as black and white.

At that exact moment, Duke was practically doing a victory dance in his head.

Bingo!

This whole glorious mess? All his handiwork!

He'd spent three months, working through Makaro, secretly gathering juicy civilian gossip about Stormwind's nobles, then meticulously cross-referencing every last detail. After piling up enough evidence of their crimes to sink a battleship, he'd drawn up a hit list.

Naturally, Fam Brando and his entire brood were at the top, followed by all their sniveling allies.

As a time-traveler, Duke knew these greedy, spineless, money-grubbing nobles like the back of his hand. He knew exactly what they'd do when their gilded lives were on the line.

Duke had been waiting for this day like a kid waits for Winter Veil.

After the Dark Portal ripped open, he'd quietly pulled some strings, reaching out to the Bloodsail Pirates lurking in the murky waters of Stranglethorn Vale. Playing the part of an ambitious noble steward looking to get his slice of the pie, he'd tipped them off about the nobles' priceless, ancient treasures.

Duke had even paused, briefly, wondering if he'd accidentally dragged the Stormwind Navy into this. For a fleeting second, he hesitated, not wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

But then, by some stroke of divine luck, the universe handed Duke another golden opportunity.

It was a bunch of nobles, supposedly rescued by Windsor from the depths of Karazhan: Baron Lavoul Luger, Count Crispin Ference, Lady Dorothy Millstipe, Countess Catriona Warninde…

Duke knew every single one of these clowns.

Why?

Because these chumps were originally sub-bosses under the second boss, Moroes the butler, in the "World of Warcraft" dungeon of Karazhan!

In Duke's twisted mind, when he first clapped eyes on them, they were already walking dead. Take Rafael Luger, for instance; he could bust out a Paladin's Sanction skill. He was supposed to be the future father of Jules Luger, the deputy mayor of Darkshire in Duskwood…

Duke had figured this out the moment he'd popped out of Karazhan. He simply couldn't wrap his head around how these guys, who were supposed to be glorified speed bumps in a demon-infested tower, had waltzed out of Karazhan without a scratch.

Duke had seized the chance to cozy up to a few of them, just like he'd used his "system elves" to sniff out that something was rotten in the state of Medivh, who was clearly possessed by Sargeras.

Duke nearly burst a gut laughing when he saw the "Boss Template" pop up in his retina, complete with a big, flashing "DEMON" label plastered over their heads.

That's right, these demons were Duke's ace in the hole. They guaranteed that even if some super-sleuth detective with a magnifying glass the size of a dinner plate dug up evidence of his little arrangement with the Bloodsail Pirates, Llane wouldn't dare lay a finger on him.

The nobles had brought the demons themselves. When you invite a wolf to dinner, you can't complain when it eats the guests, can you?

Perhaps, the deeper this rabbit hole went, the more Stormwind would want to sweep the whole "most of our nobles are actually demons" catastrophe under the rug. After all, this whole scheme was a tightrope walk; if one little thing went sideways, Duke's carefully crafted reputation would go up in smoke.

But once Duke pulled off this "Perfect Murder" to its glorious conclusion, he'd create a perfect ending, one that would benefit the entire kingdom, even all of humanity. And once that goal was achieved, the truth about this little murder would be buried deeper than a dwarf's treasure.