“BENEATH THE HELM” Justicar Albireo, a free spirited man stuck with a cursed helm. CHAPTER 1 It was a rather uneventful day for Nora so far, as she visited Ms. Potts shop in the Dwarven District. She would usually go there on breaks to gossip around and hear the latest “news” going on Stormwind’s streets. The smith lady who was otherwise pretty grumpy would change her mood completely every time she saw Nora, who reminded her of Dahlia, her mother, a close friend whom she missed greatly. The two of them would talk for hours endlessly. But not today. A few minutes after Nora entered the shop, they were interrupted by one of the footmen who announced promptly that he had a missive for the shieldmaiden. Facing the unusual situation, Nora gave her goodbyes to the couple who owned the shop and moved outside to read the letter. The contents of it were pretty clear: she had to assist the Alliance in defending the keep in the Arathi Highlands – orders from her senior commander in the Order. The Order of the Silver Hand doesn’t usually take sides in the war – at least not officially – but being founded by former Alliance heroes and leaders is a bias they can’t shake off so easily. Despite not showing their true colors explicitly, the commanders would move their pawns behind the curtains. It was war after all. And it would be the first war Nora had ever fought in. She was still a novice in the Order too, very much trying to prove her worth to the veterans, so refusing to obey the command would most likely result in sanction. So, even though she was nervous, she took to heart her mentor’s words and after grabbing her bag and supplies, she took a gryphon ride to Stromgarde Keep. The trip was pretty smooth – she was used to long distance travel because as a novice in the Order, most of her missions were simple delivery of objects and missives. Besides that, she had great synergy with most animals since she was a kid and the gryphon wasn’t different. The animal would calm down and visibly rejoice at her touch and a simple pat on the neck every now and then was enough to keep it focused throughout the entirety of the trip. Nora landed at Stromgarde as the sun was setting. Most peasants who worked there were packing up to rest while the soldiers were coming out of the barracks to their posts to stand guard during the upcoming night. “The Horde hasn’t made a move in a couple of days” , she overheard a couple soldiers talking. As she approached the main building she was greeted by one of the lieutenants of General Hughes, whom she was supposed to meet. “Ms. Nora?” - he waved. Nora nodded and moved towards him. “Ms. Nora, welcome to Stromgarde. I am Lieutenant Charles and I’m here on behalf of General Hughes. He instructed me to accompany you to your quarters and explain your position.” “Hello and thank you, lieutenant. I hope to provide the assistance the general seeks.” – she replied. As they walked together inside the main building, Charles explained that her main focus should be on assisting and healing the wounded. The priests were exhausted since the last battle a few days ago and couldn’t keep up with the amount of wounded soldiers. The lieutenant guided Nora to her quarters, where she dropped her bag and the rest of her belongings and then the two of them moved to a wide room where the wounded were being treated. After a brief explanation, he left her to attend to other matters inside the keep. The room had at least twenty bedridden soldiers, some of them visibly beyond saving. Nora frowned at the situation. She had no idea what war was truly like. For a moment she was just standing there in the middle of the room, lost in thoughts, observing the tired priests try their best to heal the soldiers, but not knowing what to do. But again, her late mentor’s words echoed inside her heart and she focused back up. Nora looked around trying to choose one of the bedridden to attend to. Her eyes glanced at one peculiar individual, who despite being wounded was still wearing a helmet. What Nora assumed was his armor was resting on the corner of the bed – plate chestpiece, boots and what looked like a hoodie – which was odd because the helmet was still on. Puzzled by the look of him, she got closer to take a good view of his situation. The subject was bare chested and had a somewhat large lion tattoo on the left side of his torso. The lower body was covered in a white blanket and Nora safely assumed he was wearing undergarments underneath. The man was quite bulky, his arms were very toned and muscular. Some small scars were visible over the other side of his chest, at close range. Despite being in excellent form, Nora judged the man to be around 30. On the outside, the man looked fine. Still trying to find the issue, Nora skimmed through his whole body laying down there with her sharp eyes one more time. There really were no visible wounds and the blanket which was covering his lower body was clean, no signs of blood. “You could at least say hi” – Nora’s analysis was interrupted by his crusty voice as if the man hadn’t spoken in days. “I’m sorry! Hello!” she answered instinctively, a little flustered. “Are you the new recruit?” – asked the man, probably guessing by the puzzled look on Nora’s face. “Yes, sir! I came here following orders from General Hughes.” - Nora answered promptly. “Excuse me, sir. This may hurt a little.” - she continued. She then moved her hands over his chest and started casting a spell in a very low tone, almost whispering. Despite the words she was “ muttering ” being inaudible and undistinguishable, it became clear it was a healing spell by the soft golden glow that came out of her hands. The man seemed oddly uncomfortable while she was casting the spell, but didn’t look like he was in pain. “Hmm, you seem to have two broken ribs and one of them is severely damaged.” - she said as she took her hands off his chest, the glow on her hands now gone. The man grunted, clearly unimpressed and maybe a bit relieved as he rested his head on the pillow. “I will have to perform a more complex healing spell but don’t worry! You should be brand new by tomorrow!” - she said with a smile. The man didn’t seem happy to hear that, but it was hard to tell any emotions because his face was mostly covered by the helmet. “Why don’t you take the helmet off? Perhaps you are hiding from someone?” - asked Nora trying to lighten the mood with a joke. “Turns out my sister thought it would be funny to glue it to my head when I was sleeping.” replied the man. Confused whether or not the man was joking, Nora decided not to press the subject. “I’ll be back.” - she said with a serious face. CHAPTER 2 Nora walked in a hurried pace to her quarters and opened the door with the key the lieutenant had given her earlier. She grabbed the bag with her belongings and started looking for a smaller container her friend had given her many years ago. It was a special ointment that when applied would help catalyze the healing process of bone injuries. It also had the special property to accelerate the growing of nails and teeth for some odd reason. She took the container and left the room, forgetting to lock it on her way out. A few moments later, she arrived at the man’s bed. He was pretty much laying there in the same position she had left him. “Hey! I never got your name. I’m Nora.” “Albireo.” “A pleasure to meet you, sir. Well, first I will rub some of this in your chest area, then I will begin the healing session.” The man sighed in displeasure. “Shouldn’t you do a dance or something too? I didn’t know priests were acting like shamans these days.” “Sir, I am a paladin, not a priest.” - said Nora, visibly upset. “It’s worse than I thought then. You might as well be a forest witch using all that mumbo jumbo.” “Sir, this is merely a catalyst, the healing process doesn’t depend on it. I’m just trying to make it faster so you can leave this place and be actually useful.” As the words came out of her mouth, Nora felt the rudeness of them and immediately apologized. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to say you’re useless. I take it back, my apologies.” “Nah, you’re right. Let’s get it over with.” said Albireo, resting his head back on the pillow. Nora opened the container, which immediately exhaled a powerful scent which impregnated the whole room. The nearest bedridden soldier started coughing. She was expecting a funny remark from Albireo but he remained silent. She sat sideways on the bed next to the man and dropped about seven droplets of the ointment on her left hand and rubbed it against her right hand for what seemed like an eternity to Albireo. After that, Nora gently pressed her hands against his arm and rubbed some more, now against his rough skin. Even though she was trying to focus on the healing procedure, Nora couldn’t help but notice the man’s physique. He had impeccable form: his pecs looked like they were sculpted by the Titans themselves, his arms were big and toned and the six-pack abdomen was proof that the man was a very active fighter. As she was rubbing the ointment on his skin, Nora was already wondering what was underneath that blanket. Her mind completely wandered as she followed with her eyes and her right hand the shallow trail of hair that went from his belly button to his private parts. Alb cleared his throat, interrupting Nora’s trance. “How long does this part take?” he asked. “We’re almost done!” she replied, startled. Nora then stood back up, grabbed a towel and soaked it in a shallow bowl of water on a table nearby that was used to store all kinds of medicine. She cleaned her hands from the oily ointment with the wet towel. A few minutes later, she moved back to the bed where Albireo was laying and sat next to him again. With her eyes closed, she pressed her hands on the area of his torso that was internally wounded and began casting what seemed to be another healing spell. Her hands were faintly glowing. As the bone structure healed, it was not a painless process however Albireo didn’t seem to make much of an expression besides some occasional grunts here and there. After what seemed to be about ten or so minutes, Nora’s hands stopped glowing which seem to indicate that the healing session was over. “This was considerably smoother than I expected.” - she said with a surprised look. “Thank you madam non-priestess. Now if you will excuse me I have to go somewhere unrelated to a mysterious letter.” - said Albireo sitting up and getting ready to get up. Still confused about how the man had mysterious healing powers, Nora got even more interested when the man mentioned a mysterious letter. “What? What letter? What are you talking about?” - she asked. “Are you a spy? Because if you are, you do as bad a job as Mathias Shaw... imagine being the best spy in the world and everyone knows who you are.” - Albireo asked her back in a sarcastic tone. Despite being somewhat disrespectful, Nora laughed at the man’s remark. Now that she really thought about it, it was kind of odd how famous the master spy was inside and out the Alliance ranks and even among the Horde. “No, I’m not a spy! But if it’s a confidential matter, I better not know about it. You should report to the lieutenant or the General himself.” "Uh? Who? Sorry, I just escorted a girl I met, as I told you I have to go on a super duper secret mission, this has nothing to do with the Alliance." At this point, Nora was considering the man had some serious brain injury. Either that or he was being awkwardly suspicious. In any case, she let the man get dressed and left the room, bringing with her what remained of the ointment. She decided to keep an eye on him for the time being, and if her suspicion was confirmed she would report to her superiors. Getting back into the hall where her quarters were located, she noticed the door was open. Nora couldn’t recall if she had closed the door or not, so she approached the room with caution. The room was empty but she could tell something was off. After checking the bathroom, behind the small locker and underneath the bed, she sighed in relief and closed the door. CHAPTER 3 As she put the ointment container back inside her supply bag, Nora noticed something was missing. It was her father’s old pocket watch, the only item she had left of him, which depicted a picture of the family when he was still alive. She searched everywhere in the bag but could not find it. “Someone must have stolen it!” - she thought. The pocket watch was still probably the most valuable item in her bag so it was not surprising that the thief chose to take it. However, having something stolen inside a military building on the first day of the job was certainly unexpected. Either way, it was pretty late in the night so she decided to report the theft to the lieutenant in the morning. There was a small bucket of clean water near the privy outside right next to her quarters, so she grabbed a towel and soaked in the water. She then took the bucket and brought it inside her room. As it was quite late and only the patrol was up and running inside the keep, she didn’t need to pay too much attention about being seen. Back inside her room, she put down the water bucket and sat on a chair next to the window. The moon was full and visible through the window, for its light was enough to illuminate most of the room. Nora undressed herself, first taking off her slippers which were tied in stripes around her feet, followed by her top, skirt and lastly her underwear. She soaked the towel on the water bucket and washed her face and her body. As she was taking her time cleaning herself, she remembered the man she met today at the medical wing. Although quite mysterious, given his identity being hidden by the helm, Albireo was definitely a treat. Nora closed her eyes and remembered the touch of his bulky arms and chest, the moment when her hand nearly got to somewhere inappropriate. With her eyes still closed, she let her lustful thoughts take over. It was natural for a woman that age to feel the high that came from her sexual drive, but Nora was nothing short of a nymphomaniac. She had an insane amount of intrusive thoughts and sexual fantasies but it was certainly a side of her she didn’t like showing around to everyone. Only a handful of people knew about this as it was a constant struggle inside her mind to keep those thoughts contained. However, being now alone and relaxed, she allowed the thoughts to take control. Nora threw the wet towel over the corner of the bed and began caressing her own breasts with her right hand while touching herself down with her left. She kept her eyes closed to bring out the memory of the man with the lion tattoo and bit her lips as she traced down her beautiful curves with her hand. As her pussy was now visibly wet and her large nipples were increasingly hardening, she rushingly stood up and started looking for something inside her supply bag. And she found it. It was a gift from one of her gnome friends she got about a year ago, a red rubber dildo. Her boobs squeezed together as she held the dildo in both of her hands and reached forward towards her pussy. Nora gently slid the dildo up and down her wet labia, casually twisting the ribbed enclosure across her clit. She quietly exhaled as the sensations rose in her body. Soft moans of delight began slipping from her mouth. As it was very late, she didn’t want to be too loud, so her moans were almost silent gasps. Not much long after she reached climax and collapsed on the bed. CHAPTER 4 Awoken by the sound of the birds outside the window, Nora remembered what happened last night and blushed nervously. She dressed back up and made her bed before leaving the quarters on her way to the dining hall. Many soldiers were there having breakfast and talking loudly, but she noticed a man who was in the corner on a table eating by himself. It was Albireo. His helm was hard to mistake it for. Nora moved towards him and greeted the man with a question: “Good morning, Albireo. Did everything go well with your super duper secret mission?” “Shhh. Nobody knows!” - said Albireo, making a gesture with his hand for Nora to be quieter. Nora saw an opportunity in the fact that the man was eating by himself to learn more about his suspicious activity or at least to understand why he was making such weird excuses to be left alone. Attractiveness apart, she was truly curious about him, especially after last night where he manifested his healing powers. “Well, do you mind if I join you at this table? I really don’t know anybody else here.” she asked. “Do I look like I own the table? I don’t care.” - he shrugs. Hearing that, she dusted off the seat opposite to where Albireo was sitting, straightened her skirt and sat cross legged. There was a plethora of different fruits at the table inside a basket. She picked the largest apple and gave it a bite. “So, how long have you been here? Why do you seem like you want to leave this place as soon as possible?” “I told you before, I just escorted the girl here, and you're kidding right? Who would want to be surrounded by hairy, sweaty guys? That sounds gay.” “For someone who doesn’t care about the Alliance winning this war front, you sure give it your all when fighting the Horde.” - says Nora as she gives the apple another bite. “It's not like they're very happy to let me pass by.” “In any case, I like people who give their best, even if it’s driven out of hatred. Maybe if you tell me about your mission I can help. In all sorts of ways.” - she says, suggestively looking at Albireo. Before he could say anything, she glanced at the man’s chest, but this time it was covered in armor and chainmail. Nevertheless, still thinking about the late night fun she had yesterday, Nora decided to give it a try and make a move on him. Despite the place looking pretty crowded, it didn’t seem like anyone was watching them as they were having fun on the large table telling jokes and whatnot. Under the table they were sitting, she reached over him with her feet and rubbed it against his inner leg. To her disappointment however, Albireo was fully armored from the waist down. Seeing as that move didn’t yield any positive result, she stood up and went to his side of the table and sat next to him. Her skirt was awkwardly short, her thighs almost completely exposed and contrasted, pressed against the man’s shiny armor. Nora then leaned over him further and put her left hand on top of his leg gently. “So, what do you say?” - she asked. “Hell no!” - replied the man promptly. Albireo then gets up all of a sudden and leaves the room, leaving Nora with a disappointed sad face. “Can’t say I didn’t try” , she said to herself. At that moment, the lieutenant entered the room, making his presence noticed with a throat clearing sound. The soldiers stopped laughing immediately and got up to salute him. As he pointed the soldiers out to their posts, Nora approached him to tell him about the theft in her room. The lieutenant seemed oddly calm about it, as if it was not an uncommon occurrence, which made Nora even more suspicious. He said he would investigate the case and sent her back to the medical room. CHAPTER 5 Nora finished her apple and went back to the medical room. There were still quite a lot of bedridden soldiers, even if a smaller number compared to yesterday. She moved over to one of the wounded soldiers and introduced herself. “Hello, my name is Nora. I’ve been assigned here to provide you the proper treatment so you can be brand new as soon as possible.” “Yeah, I remember you from yesterday. Saw you with the weirdo. Name is Marcus” “Weirdo? How come?” - she giggled as she started preparing the gauze bandages. “You don’t know? No wonder. Well, I’m not much of a gossip but I can tell you that guy is bad news. A young lady like you should stay away from him, for your own good.” - said the man with a worried face. “We were just talking. But what did he do?” - she asked, now a little curious. Nora began applying the bandages to the man’s leg which had a visibly deep sword cut. “Like I said, I’m not a gossip. But if you really wanna know, you can ask the lieutenant about the incident in the Sanctum of Light a few years ago.” Nora decided not to press the man. They kept chatting about his wound and how long it would take for it to heal. Nora gave him an honest diagnosis. After an hour or so, she received word from one of the lieutenants’ men telling she had been assigned for guard duty that evening. Not happy about it, she grabbed her supply bag from her room, making sure she locked it after leaving. The towers were not too far away from the keep. Once she stepped out she could smell a strong smoke. She looked for the source but couldn’t find it, which made her conclude it was probably the Horde burning things outside the keep. The sun would still be around for at least a couple of hours but Nora decided to go early towards the tower she was supposed to watch that evening. As soon as she stepped inside the tower, she was ambushed by what seemed to be two men, she didn’t have time to see clearly. One of them hit her with a precise punch on the neck, which made her faint for a few seconds, while the other seemed to grab her by the legs and drag her half conscious body towards the nearby barn. When she finally woke up, Nora couldn’t make sense of what was happening, her mind still recovering from the knockout. All she knew was that she was tied to a wooden post inside the barn, her only company were the horses. No sign of the attackers anywhere. At that point she realized her bag was probably still on the tower, unless the men took it with them. While she tried to break the rope that was binding her to the post, she was wondering who those men were. They were certainly human. Maybe the Alliance was not only fighting the Horde but also some other faction, or even worse... treason. She needed to report it to the lieutenant immediately! Nora kept trying to break the rope with her own strength. That was when she felt a presence coming from behind her. She couldn’t see who it was. “Who are you!? You should know I will make you pay for this! Traitorous scum!” - she yelled. “Calm down woman, it’s just me.” - said the man, cutting the rope with a knife. It was Albireo, the man she met yesterday. “A-Albireo? What happened? What are you doing here? I thought you were on a mission.” - she asked, very confused. “I was just passing by, and I saw you tied up, and I thought “that girl doesn't look like she likes that kind of thing”. he replied. “O-Oh! In that case, did you happen to see two really suspicious guys in the area when you were coming this way?” - asked Nora, hovering over his shoulders trying to see if there was anyone behind him. Albireo shakes his head. Suddenly, a dart flies towards Albireo from the side in the direction of his neck but with a random and probably lucky unexpected motion the man dodges it, making it barely scrape the side of his helmet. While the couple is still processing what just happened, the second ambusher jumps from the ceiling over where Albireo is, grabbing his arms and trying to immobilize him. Nora lets out a high-pitched squeal in surprise. The ambusher who was hiding on the side runs over and tries to knock her out again, but fails to hit her neck, hitting her face instead. The two of them begin wrestling. While the ambusher tries to keep her under control, she tries to escape from his grasp. The animals begin to get startled with all the commotion. Albireo sees a pitchfork in the corner and runs to grab it. The ambusher who was fighting him tried to stop him but Albireo was much stronger than he was expecting. After getting his hands on the pitchfork, the man uses some sort of magic to infuse it with the Light, making it glow. In one fell swoop, Albireo disarms the ambusher who had just picked up his dagger and knocks him out with the shaft of the pitchfork. The other ambusher, seeing what just happened, looks to abort whatever mission he had and tries to run away, but Albireo throws the pitchfork in his direction, wounding him in the back. Albireo then walks over to him and punches him in the face, knocking him out. Albireo looks back at Nora, who is now getting back up and dusting off her clothes. “Are you ok? I was wondering when those guys were going to show up.” “I’m okay, thanks. Are you? If you knew about them, why didn’t you say something?” "I don't know them, I thought they were roleplaying with you because they suck at hiding. I know it's kinda awkward, is this a guild event? Would it be rude to intervene? Roleplaying is so hard..." “Huh? There you go with your nonsense again! I asked you about them just as you came! Anyway, I hope they’re not dead. They brought me here so I wanted to get some information.” “Nah, they’re just knocked out. Should we loot them?” Nora looked at Albireo with a look of disbelief. “Are you serious?” Albireo crouched to check the ambusher’s pockets for something of value but apparently couldn’t find what he wanted. "Oh man, no mount again..." “But I found this!” The man had a pocket watch in his hand, which looked very familiar to Nora. It was the item that was taken from her bag. “Wait! Let me see that!” She jumped at him trying to grab the object, but Albireo quickly dodged her attempt. “You said you didn’t want me to loot them and now you want it? It’s my loot now.” “Oh, come on! I just wanna see if it is what I think it is!” “Nice try, madam non-priestess.” “I’m serious!” - she said as she kept trying to grab it, while the man simply dodged every single of her attempts. After a few minutes, she gave up and fell on her knees. She looked at him with a pleading face and asked. “Please?” Albireo noticed she was starting to get a little teary so he realized she was probably telling the truth. Maybe it was something of value to her after all. “Ok, fine. Just don’t cry.” She got up and he handed her the object. It was indeed her father’s pocket watch and Nora opened it to confirm if the picture was still there. She sighed in relief and cracked a smile. “This is my father’s watch. It’s the only thing I still have of him. You see? This is him, this is my mom and this is my sister.” - she said, showing him the picture on the inside of the watch. However as she said the word “sister” , her facial expression turned grim again. Albireo didn’t really care about any of that. He had his own problems he had to resolve. Despite all that, seeing the woman happy with the watch made him think it was a good idea to let her have it. “You can have it.” - he said. “No. You were right. You found it. It’s your loot now.” - she said, handing it back to him. “I don’t really care about it. It’s fine.” - he replied, looking away to the outside of the barn, where light rain started falling. “At least let me repay you.” - she said. “We should get out of here before the rain gets stronger. Besides, you have nothing I’m interested in.” - Albireo dismissed her, still looking at the rain. “I could help you on your secret mission! Our wounded are almost all healed, I’m no longer needed here.” “No.” Nora paused for a moment, out of ideas. “I could... give you another healing session. A special one. It will strengthen you.” Albireo finally turned his face towards her. He took a good look of the woman’s face. She was visibly blushing. He scanned through her body with his eyes. Nora had an undeniably attractive body, her breasts were perfectly sized, she was curvy on the waist and the skirt did a very poor job covering her well rounded ass. Her thighs were all exposed and they looked flawless, even to someone like Albireo who had seen a fair bit of women in his time. Noticing the man’s little drop of interest, Nora pressed on. “Come on, we– I mean, you will feel good after. This buff will last for a few weeks. You will be stronger to face the dangers of your secret journey.” Nora advanced on him and started taking off his hoodie. “You know those guys might wake up at any moment, right?”