Do you desire power?

Then, with the strategic cunning of a seasoned chess master, Orgrim Doomhammer would absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt, strong-arm Zul'jin onto that altar. Why? To keep his iron grip on the troll clans tighter than a dwarven keg. And there was no way in the Nine Hells Orgrim would let Zul'jin kick the bucket on his watch. Duke, bless his conniving heart, had played his cards right. He'd bet the farm, and it was paying off in spades.

Gul'dan, the warlock with all the subtlety of a rampaging kodo, had packed up his dark toys and vanished into the night, leaving behind an altar still humming with considerable, albeit slightly tainted, energy. When the rune stone was intact, Duke wouldn't have dared touch it with a ten-foot pole. He wasn't about to risk sending a gaggle of high-strung elf girls into a full-blown, magic-flinging frenzy by messing with their sacred artifacts without a proper invitation, and frankly, he didn't have the magical chops to pull it off anyway.

And when Gul'dan was actually trying to get his grubby hands on the rune stone? Forget about it. Duke wasn't about to pick a fight with a former demigod sorcerer who was now a full-blown, self-proclaimed "Sun-level villain." Plus, Orgrim and his elite troll guard were practically breathing down their necks. Showing up with a handful of elves would have been a suicide mission, a real recipe for disaster.

But oh, how the tables had turned! Things swiped by one enemy were now being "repossessed" by a different set of allies. The unwritten rule of this wild world? Finders keepers, losers weep. If you wanted your stuff back, you had to pay the piper. And even with four Windrunners standing there, radiating righteous indignation, not a single one of them thought Duke was doing anything wrong. They were too busy seething at the Horde.

Duke, ever the charmer, offered a slight, respectful bow to the very important individuals who had materialized behind him. "Archbishop Faol, Uther," he said, his voice smooth as aged elven wine, "thank you for gracing us with your presence." Gul'dan's evil magic was trickier than a greased goblin in a barrel. Duke wouldn't touch that kind of mind-bending, soul-crushing power unless his life, and probably the entire kingdom's, depended on it. To cleanse such profound evil, you needed the big guns, the heavy hitters. And Duke, ever the planner, had personally rolled out the red carpet for two bona fide gods from the Church of Holy Light, even offering complimentary round-trip teleportation services. Talk about VIP treatment.

Archbishop Alonsus Faol, a man whose smile could melt glaciers, nodded serenely. "Let me have a look-see." After a moment, his smile widened. "The Gul'dan you mentioned is indeed a very nasty piece of work, a warlock of considerable power. But I detect a curious restraint in his malice. He didn't completely defile these rune stones. The curse he left behind isn't too deeply ingrained. I can scrub it clean in a few minutes, tops."

"Then I'll leave it in your most capable hands, Archbishop," Duke replied, a bead of sweat tracing a path down his temple. "If it's not too much trouble, please try to keep the noise down." Duke was definitely playing with fire, and he knew it. The Horde's vanguard was less than thirty kilometers away, practically knocking on their door, and the main force was a mere twenty clicks behind them. Any loud bang, any flash of divine light, and the Horde's dragon knights would be on them like a pack of hungry wolves on a fresh kill.

But Duke had to seize this moment, or he'd miss the boat entirely. The high elves' rune array was a magnificent, millennia-old defense system, a tapestry woven from eight powerful runes. Gul'dan, in his infinite destructiveness, had already shattered two others besides this one. The colossal magical energy, painstakingly gathered by these rune stones from the very heart of the land, was rapidly bleeding away. Once this chance slipped through his fingers, it was gone for good. If he wanted to snag these priceless elven artifacts at a bargain-basement price, this was his one and only shot. These rune stones weren't just rocks; they were the culmination of hundreds of years of countless elf wizards and master craftsmen, nearly a thousand years of meticulous debugging. They were, in a word, priceless.

In what felt like the blink of an eye, Faol finished his holy work, a warm, benevolent smile gracing his features. "My part was a piece of cake," he declared. "The real heavy lifting will be restoring the rune lines embedded within them."

Duke let out a long, theatrical sigh. "Ah, yes. That's my problem." Without a moment's hesitation, he yanked open a shimmering portal, shooing Faol and Uther through. If the Archbishop, a living legend, accidentally bit the dust in Quel'Thalas because of Duke's hare-brained scheme, Duke was willing to bet his last copper Lothar would hunt him down and fight him to the death.

"So, what's the plan, hotshot?" Sylvanas demanded, hands on her hips, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Don't tell me, Duke, you're planning on spending the next ten days or half a month here, playing with these... rubble?" Sylvanas, in her mind, wanted to call the completely pulverized rune stone fragments what they were: dust. Each piece was no bigger than a bean. Even if he could somehow piece it back together like a jigsaw puzzle from the pits of hell, what good would it do?

Duke, meanwhile, was having a silent, one-sided conversation in his head. "Alright, System AI, get to work."

"Oh, excuse me, my host," the System AI chirped back, its voice laced with digital sass. "You really are the boss, aren't you?"

"Huh? Is someone there? Where? Why can't I see them?" Duke feigned innocence, looking around wildly, pointedly not at the air in front of him.

"Host, you've completely lost your touch," the System AI complained, its digital voice sharp enough to cut glass. "You weren't this much of a clown before."

"Stop yapping and get to it!" Duke snapped, glaring at nothing.

"Alright, alright, geez!"

A flurry of system prompts exploded in Duke's vision:

"Initiating scan! Analyzing damaged rune stone geometries... Commencing comparative analysis... Mage's Hand, activate!"

Under the utterly flabbergasted gazes of the assorted heroes and hangers-on, more than two hundred ethereal, glowing wizard's hands shot out, zipping across the ground. They scooped up large and small pieces of gravel with impossible speed, then, with surgical precision, began to reassemble them, fusing them together with a special, pre-prepared magical adhesive.

Gavinrad, standing nearby, hammer still clutched in his hand, rolled his eyes so hard they almost got stuck. He looked like he was thinking, My boss is clearly not playing with a full deck.

The wizard's hands were a dizzying blur of motion, crisscrossing and weaving with dazzling speed. At first, Vereesa, the youngest Windrunner and the one with the most insatiable curiosity, tried to follow the frantic movements of Duke's Mage's Hands. Unfortunately, her eyes quickly crossed, and she started to feel a distinct urge to hurl.

Looking like she was about to pass out, Vereesa seized the opportunity to dramatically lean on her eldest sister's shoulder, whispering conspiratorially, "Sister... is your boyfriend actually human?"

A mortified blush crept up Alleria's neck, painting her face a fiery crimson. Boyfriend? Alleria had never really put that word to Duke. While there was definitely something simmering between them, a vague, unspoken understanding, the final, awkward veil had never been ripped away. Being called out so bluntly by her own little sister, in front of everyone, made Alleria's face feel like it was on fire. To admit? Or not to admit? That is the question. To what extent? That's also a question!

Just then, Sylvanas, ever the opportunist, swooped in for the rescue, a smirk playing on her lips. "Humph! You want to pluck the most beautiful and mature blossoms of the Windrunner family? You'll have to get through us three sisters first!"

Vereesa, with the loyalty of a well-trained hound, immediately chimed in, "Yeah! What she said!"

Alleria looked at Vereesa, her sister who shared her striking features but boasted bright silver hair, and felt a confusing swirl of emotions. How was she going to tell her little sister that if they actually pulled off this miracle and saved Quel'Thalas, both she and Sylvanas would become Duke's vassals, as per their very awkward, very secret agreement? She felt a pang of reluctance, a sense of losing something precious, but at the same time, a strange, undeniable feeling that this might actually be a good thing.

While the three sisters were busy having their little family moment, Duke had already finished reassembling the rune stone. A fully rendered, ten-times-magnified 3D runestone pattern suddenly popped into Duke's mind. After comparing Gul'dan's chaotic Storm Altar array with the rune stone's intricate magical blueprint, the system finally spat out a definitive result. This wasn't just magic; this was the culmination of hundreds of years of calculations by thousands of elven wizards. Just as he could deduce an entire spell from a simple magic model he'd just stumbled upon, Duke effortlessly reverse-engineered the complete Storm Altar system from the scattered remnants.

"Alright, that's a wrap!" Duke declared, raising a hand. The newly rebuilt rune stone, now shimmering with arcane energy, immediately dissolved into the wind, its purpose served. He then turned his attention to the remaining, truly enormous rune stone fragments. Duke, with the casual disregard of a mad scientist, practically used Gavinrad as a living, breathing 3D printer, grabbing Gavinrad's arm with a wizard's hand and barking instructions for processing the raw material.

After a solid hour of furious, magical labor, a brand-spanking-new Altar of Storms stood before them, gleaming ominously.

"Young man," Duke intoned, his voice low and theatrical, a perfect imitation of a dark lord, "do you desire power?" He asked Gavinrad, completely deadpan.