Red Sun White Tower

Before Vereesa left, she had said, "The next time we meet, I'll have caught up with you, Shane." Sure enough, she did not come the next day. Instead, Shane received a bracelet.

"Miss Vereesa said to give you this." The messenger was an elven child. The little girl looked at Shane curiously. "The grown-ups say everyone in the Dawnblade is bad, but Miss Vereesa says you're a good man. But why do you look like just an ordinary elf to me?"

"You're right. I'm just an ordinary elf." Shane gave the little girl two slices of apple pie. "Where did Vereesa go?"

The little maid took them and bit into one. "She went to train. I heard she's going through the toughest training there is. This is delicious! Miss Vereesa told me about it before. It's so good. You really are a good man."

"There's plenty more. Take your time." Shane gave the girl the apple pie he had originally prepared for Vereesa. "Tell Vereesa I'll miss her."

"You grown-ups are so mushy, but I'll pass it on." The little girl left happily. Shane had been promoted from an ordinary elf to a good man.

The bracelet Vereesa had given him consisted of twelve arcanite prisms strung together on mithril wire. Each of the six faces of every prism was set with a small ruby. Shane put the bracelet on his wrist, returned to the house, and spread out the mage tower plans in his study.

The mage tower he intended to build was cylindrical, with five floors above ground and three below. From bottom to top, they housed the energy center, construct workshop, storeroom, hall, members' quarters, library, alchemy laboratory and magic item workshop, and chief mage's residence.

The plans included everything from the overall design to individual floor plans, designs for essential equipment, and explanations of how that equipment worked. They amounted to a standard textbook.

Arcane energy conduits, which Shane had never seen in the Sun Sail Harbor library, were clearly laid out before him in the plans.

Ley line energy flowed from the energy center through the arcane energy conduits to every corner of the mage tower. Embedded in its outer walls, floors, and partitions, they kept the tower running much as the heart and blood vessels sustained a human body.

The mage tower's exterior had the dark gold finish elves favored. After some thought, Shane changed it to his preferred white, accented with dark gold inlay.

"But there's no observatory." Shane picked up his pen and copied the overall design onto a sketch. He removed the original rounded dome, replaced it with a ceiling, and added a hemispherical glass enclosure above it to serve as the new dome. He left a cross-shaped opening in the glass for mounting an astronomical telescope.

In the detailed floor plan, the glass dome was connected to the ceiling by guide rails. The telescope's base was installed at the center of the dome and connected to it by six metal struts. Rotating the base would turn the glass dome with it through a full three hundred and sixty degrees.

The observatory's basic design was complete, though he had yet to add any decoration. Something still seemed to be missing. Shane studied the overall design's top, side, and front views.

"Hmm... it looks like a crayon. That's awful!"

Looking over the design again, he realized he could move the passages between floors outside the mage tower, winding upward around it like a snake, predominantly red with gold trim. This would give every floor a terrace extending out from the tower. It looked much better.

The view from above still looked awful, though. Shane added twelve red terraces around the observatory's edge, making the top view resemble a red sunflower. The glass dome formed its center, while the terraces spread outward like petals.

"What do you think, Eye of Truth?" Shane was fairly satisfied with the revised exterior.

"The user has not altered the internal functional design. A very wise decision. The design embodies thousands of years of accumulated knowledge from the elven community to which the user belongs. Its functional structure is already highly refined and requires no changes."

Shane understood that much. "What about the exterior, then?"

"This device finds the exterior quite elegant, but recommends minor adjustments using the golden ratio. However, no matter how beautiful the user makes it, to someone with a wicked mind, it will still be a crayon. The only difference is whether it has decorations."

"Why couldn't you leave out that last part? Shut up!"

"As you command."

Shane still took the Eye of Truth's advice and adjusted the curves and shape using the golden ratio. The revised plans reached his mentor's desk the next day.

"You added an observatory without changing the overall height. Very good," his mentor said after his first glance. Shane was a fifth-ring mage, so his mage tower was limited to five floors above ground. Height was not merely a mark of status. Keeping a mage tower functioning properly was no easy task, and the taller it was, the harder it became. That was why height limits corresponded to a mage's ring.

"The exterior is quite good, too. It seems you're gradually coming to understand aesthetics. An arcane spellcaster with no sense of aesthetics can never be called a master." His mentor sounded proud of that remark, though from what Shane had observed, his mentor's aesthetic sensibilities were no different from those of an ordinary elf. Naturally, he would not say so.

"Red Sun White Tower." That would be the mage tower's name once it was completed. "In the language of flowers, the sunflower represents the sun, which fits our traditions perfectly. White is the tower's main color, so the name is very apt. The plans will be sent off for a cost estimate. Once the budget is approved, the clan will help you recruit a construction crew. You won't need to worry about purchasing materials or anything else. Go back and thoroughly study everything in these plans. It will help you a great deal."

"Thank you, mentor."

Shane returned to his residence to study. The most essential subjects were the design of the ley line energy-gathering core and the maintenance of arcane energy conduits. With the Eye of Truth's help, understanding and memorizing them was easy, but practical work was another matter. Shane would never claim to have mastered the knowledge merely because he understood what was written. The ley line energy-gathering core embodied the elves' arcane technology. Understanding its design alone would not allow him to manufacture one independently. The materials science involved was itself a closely guarded secret; otherwise, Shane would have been eager to try.

After a few days, the budget was approved, and the amount gave him a fright: one hundred and fifty thousand gold! How long would he have had to grind crocodiles nonstop in his previous life to earn that much?

The clink of gold could put even devils to work. Within three days, the construction crew was assembled: two sixth-ring mages from the clan, twenty-two engineers, and fifty support workers.

The two mages thought little of Shane's decision to go to the Ghostlands. Silvermoon City had the Sunwell, and serving a master could earn them an energy allotment for large-scale experiments.

Shane had plans of his own that he could not reveal. A sapling that weathered storms outside would always grow stronger than a flower sheltered in a greenhouse. Although the two mages belonged to the same faction as he did, they remained no more than nodding acquaintances.

Over those few days, Shane retrieved the construct Taigo from the factory, its armor plates fully replaced, and recorded Silvermoon City's teleportation coordinates. He commissioned an engineering workshop to make the telescope's tube, base, and drive mechanism, paying with public funds. Once everything was settled, the group set off.

He had left Windrunner Outpost alone, but returned with an entourage. The little outpost became a construction site. Sylvanas had been notified beforehand and was not surprised. As a Windrunner, she showed the two Dawnblade mages no warmth.

That very evening, however, she slipped into Shane's room.

"Someone who's supposed to be poison does have his uses after all." Sylvanas made herself at home, taking over his bed while Shane practiced his spells that evening. She lay on her side with her legs stacked, her hand brushing along her thigh, seemingly by accident.

Shane dismissed the spell in his hand. He was not about to believe Sylvanas was trying to seduce him.

"That's what Alleria said. I saw it-that bracelet was a gift from Vereesa, wasn't it? Lucky man. Just wait for the day you wake up laughing even in your dreams. Though that day is still a long way off."

"What happened to Vereesa?" Shane heard the implication in her words.

"Vereesa joined the Farstriders."

Shane knew the Farstriders by reputation: the elite among elite rangers, long regarded as the bravest and most honorable elves. They lived like ascetics and ventured onto the most dangerous battlefields. Their mission was to defend the distant borders of Quel'Thalas and protect the interests of high elves throughout Azeroth. Their supreme commander was granted a unique title: Ranger-General of Silvermoon City.

"You're one of them, too..."

"Yes, I'm a Farstrider, and so is Alleria. Vereesa has set out on the path every Windrunner takes, only much earlier than usual. It seems someone has had quite an influence on her."

There was more than curiosity in Sylvanas's eyes now. Shane felt he was in danger of being devoured.