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The last thing that N'zoth remembered was his laugh, suddenly interrupted as Azeroth herself decided to get rid of him. The pain coming from the beam blasting him, full of Titanic powers had been really awful and he should have been really stupid to not realize that he could have died at that very moment. And it was why he had no other choice but to use his secret weapon if he wanted to survive and thus, he braced himself and retreated his mind towards a smaller part of his body and peeled it off from the main body. Not only did he lose consciousness and the adventurers watched an empty shell being blasted away, but N'zoth succeeded in surviving by using his weakened form of a weird-looking squid that no one would care about.
All he had to do now, was to wait for everyone to leave Ny'alotha without noticing him, and to come back to his senses. After that, he would simply stay in the safety of the Void's realm until he could go back to his previous form.
The only downside to using the weakened form was that he had no idea when he would have enough strength to wake up by himself, and years could easily go by without him noticing, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make if it meant he would survive. It's not as if something would go wrong with that state.
***
The sound of taps against a glass began to bother him. He still had to fully wake up from taking upon his weakened state, and N'zoth wasn't liking that sound that was forcing him out of his restorative sleep, and as he turned around, he realized that something was wrong. He was underwater, but he would have sworn that the last place he had been was a dried place in the middle of his impressive body… And there was no water, at least not enough for him to be completely submerged.
The taps went on and N'zoth carefully opened one of his eyes, exactly on the other side of his body than where the sounds were coming from, and if he had eyebrows on his squid-ish body, he would have probably frowned them. He wasn't in Ny'alotha, but more likely in some kind of mortal's room. He could see a window and behind it, a white and purple city with spires reaching into the sky but he couldn't tell what that place was. Making sure to not grab anyone's attention, N'zoth kept looking around the place, gradually opening some eyes and closing others, and now, he could tell that he was in what seemed to be an office.
"Hello," a smiling voice interrupted his investigations.
Knowing that he had no other choice, N'zoth looked towards the voice and got welcomed by a human, with short greyish hair and sparks in his eyes. Holding on to a pencil, he was the one tapping over the glass of the fish tank and N'zoth regretted not being able to summon one of his former tentacles to snatch the pencil. But instead, as he was sure that his presence in the fish tank was accidental, he just looked back at the mortal with empty dead eyes.
"Good, good, you're awake," he smiled as he pulled a parchment in front of him. "Let's make the presentation, I'm Khadgar."
Perfectly aware that he couldn’t let that human called Khadgar know who he really was, N’zoth ignored the obvious conversation and began to swim in a circle, looking as unintelligent as possible to pass as a random squid creature. Even if the said creature was looking like a mini N’zoth with a lot of eyes all over its body.
“Interesting,” noted Khadgar. “So… To put you up to date, it’s been a week since the end of Ny’alotha and it’s one of the adventurers that took you back here. I asked to personally study you because now that we’re done with the Legion, I want to be ready to fight the Void.”
Hearing that it had only been a week, N’zoth lost his concentration and swam right into the glass and it took all of his willpower not to curse loudly. Yet, he hated how the human was so sure of himself to talk to him like that.
“I had no idea that you could take such a form… It’s almost cute and absolutely non-threatening.”
It was discreet, but all of N’zoth’s eyes twitched at those words.
“Does all of your kind get that cute form?”
Gradually, N’zoth stopped swimming as he realized that he might not have to be the only one to suffer inside a fish tank, and he knew it would make him laugh a lot if C’thun or Yogg-Saron were to be stuck just like him… But he had to resist the temptation if he wanted to escape as soon as Khadgar would turn his back. Meanwhile, the archmage only hummed as he quickly scribbled on the parchment and looked back at the squid-like creature.
“The Old God doesn’t seem to have all of his powers right now,” he observed. “He probably can understand me as he had shown reactions to my words, but he might have lost the ability to speak. He does look stupid though…”
At that word, N’zoth saw red and swam right towards the Archmage. A loud “bong” echoed through the room as he had obviously hit the glasses, forgetting the tank for a moment, and he groaned out loud from the shock. On the other side of the glass, Khadgar smiled widely.
“He’s able to understand me perfectly,” he said while scribbling. “And he’s also really susceptible.”
“I’m going to make you regret your words, mortal!” N’zoth finally spoke, as, after all, it was clear that Khadgar knew what he was doing.
“Ah, good, I finally got you to speak. I have so many questions.”
“And you will get no answers.”
Leaning back against the chair, Khadgar kept smiling and rubbed his hands together. When he first heard of the weird battle pet that one of the adventurers said he had found in Ny’alotha, he immediately guessed that it could be interesting, especially since it was different from the other companions the rest of the group had found. Thankfully, he convinced the adventurer to give it to him in exchange for the promise that Khadgar would never send them on a gathering quest ever again. Now, with the weakened Old God stuck in a fish tank, the Archmage was going to prepare the best counterattack against the forces of the Void.
Even though he knew that forcing N’zoth to speak and give him answers was going to be hard, he was going to try.
“I could convince you to talk," gently said Khadgar.
"Impossible!"
Carefully, Khadgar brought his hand to one of his pockets and discreetly, took out a small rock from it. It was black with bluish swirls inside, slowly moving around.
"Not even if I give you this?"
Khadgar finally showed the little stone to N'zoth and the Old God blinked a few times as he sensed the void energy coming from it. From the speechless reaction, Khadgar knew it was going to work and he opened a little window on the top of the tank and dropped the stone inside the water. As soon as it hit the liquid, the really small Old God swam right toward it and grabbed it with his teeny little tentacles, and sucked on the stone. Now that he was really far away from Ny'alotha, N'zoth had no way to feed on the Void and take back his former form, but with those little snacks, there was hope.
"Where did you find those?" He asked once he had finished consuming the stone.
"I'm simply asking adventurers to get them from me."
"If you bring me more, I might consider giving you some answers."
"Oh, it was just a simple stone," lied Khadgar as he was already aware of the power the stones would give to the weakened Old God, but he wasn't going to let him go back to his full powers.
"I liked it, bring me 2500 of those and you'll get any answer that you wish for."
It was when Khadgar's afternoon went from good to great.