Flamefist's blog

In my left hand, I hold pain.

My right holds redemption.

Both are symbols, not reality.

Yet, there is no sharp distinction.

This box is ancient, and speaks only evil truths.

The rosary is newer, inviting only silent contemplation.

I prefer silence.

Truth is overrated.

A letter won't do.

Simultaneous with...

My study of relics brings me to that great old wall.

As I sift the dust and fragments, I find my own crest, fallen from armor I once wore.

I take a news clipping out of my pocket, staring at it, and the crest.

I came looking for history.

This place holds my history too.

Response to...

Okay. Five dummies, set up at Orc height. First...

My hammer swings down, crunching into the wood-and-straw head of one training dummy. I'm already shifting my weight to the side.

...then the flankers would attack. Open them up with the parry, one good stroke for all. And turn...

Three whirling strikes later, the targets have all broken from their posts. I stand and breathe deep a few times, shouldering my weapon.

Feh. The real thing would've rolled with the hit. At least this'll help me teach the form.

Someone walks up to me, clapping. Actually, when I look, it's four guys. I don't know them well, but they're other mercs. I nod to acknowledge them as I mop my brow. I've been working on codifying my fighting methods all morning, which is almost as tough as actually fighting.

From the journal of Amara Niall:

When one walks through a door, the transition from one place to another is obvious and sudden. When walking into a forest from a plain, the transition might be more subtle, with light trees and brush giving way to thicker growth more slowly. A transition abrupt but not obvious is rare, in nature. It is akin to coming upon a sea after crossing much sand, with the sun at such an angle that the sea and sand look alike - and either the sea is still, or the sand stirs like the waves, so they cannot be told apart until the water laps on one’s toes. Or suddenly swallows one whole. Or is the transition the other way, and one suddenly feels heavy upon a grainy shore, and finds that he has washed up on sand?

She won't leave me alone.

"Master Niall, look out, there is-!"

I'm in perfect health.

“Ambassador Niall, there you are!”

An empty bed beside her. Where is her beloved?

Trust is your weakness...

It's too damn cold up here.

(( From Tavlo's post here: http://www.rp-haven.com/forum/workshops/writing_workshop_0 ))

((I imagine it is not uncommon for stray pieces of crumpled paper to blow around in the streets of Stormwind, since the magical cleaning methods of Dalaran or Silvermoon are absent, still failing to replace the likes of "Topper" McNab when someone tips them a few copper pieces to clean the dung off the road. The following contributions to low culture were floating and rolling around the streets of Old Town for a couple of days.))

"Captain, please sit down. I understand you were responsible for the last action inside this past week, when our line crumbled again."

"Yes sir, ah...um... mister..."

"Ambassador will do. According to this report, you tried to hold the base of the plagueworks stairs with less than half the strength of your squad remaining, and you failed to take time to burn the undead to your rear."

"Ambassador, sir! In my judgment, it was necessary -"

"Your judgment is not in question, Captain. I have already determined my opinion on that matter. You are not here to explain yourself, you are here to be educated."

"Sir. Educated on what subject, sir?"

"Your colonel told me you were an Arathi man, joined the Dawn after the undead attacks a little over a year ago. How recently were you made an officer?"

"The shadow evidences an experienced intellect in a virus."

"Wha?" I can't seem to understand, or speak, or open my eyes. "Whzzere?"

"He's coming around, slowly," says a different voice. Lower... male? The first a woman?

"Yes," she replies. "This subject is similar to the others. Infection parameters consistent, thus the time to recovery is based on individual resilience."

"What... happened?" I manage to creep my hand up my body slowly, wiping at my face as if it could pull away the heavy headache, which tastes like something died and rotted while it was eating my head.

"You were sick," replies the male voice. "And crazy."

"I feel sick."

Met a woman; she wanted me.

Told my fiancee; she wanted in (later).

Am I the luckiest man alive?

Not yet.

Not even with the third girl, willing to do anything I say, totally trusting.

This world isn't safe, and I'm dumb enough to care.

I have people watching each of them.

Just in case.

"HEAR YE!" the king's crier announced through the Trade district. "His Majesty has added the following names to the rolls of the Knights of Morgraine, defectors to the cause of the Alliance from the evil of the Scourge! Ji the Gnome, Apathy the Night Elf, Fnord the Dwarf..."

"Can you believe those names?" I ask my banker, John Burnside, as we go over the records for the Order's vault together. "Think their mothers named them that, or they chose them, or it's some sick undead joke?"

"Seach me, Niall," he says. "Hand me back page three."

I shuffle the papers and hand him the one he wants. "There you go. Ah, at what price, immortality?"

"About 30 gold, but go check across the street," John suggests. "Get the price list from Chilton... you did mean a unit of Eternal Life, right?"

There are places you just don't go.

In Ironforge, you just don't go to Old Ironforge. We adventurers don't, anyway. Only dwarves go there, and not your run-of-the mill, or even your elite adventurers. No, only the "pure," old-school dwarves who know the old ways and the secret words go there. Only those who aren't "tainted" by the influence of other races and ideologies. The Holy Light and the quest for true knowledge of the Titans are not subjects discussed in the old tunnels. The Bronzebeards aren't popular among those who inhabit this place, but to their credit their adherence to tradition brings with it the maxim, "the King is the King." They don't take arms against a king whose right is proven lawfully.

A pile of dead trees has accumulated on my desk. Somewhere between the forest and here, it all got mashed and mixed with water into pulp and woven into thin sheets and covered with the remains of some of it which burnt up before getting wet. Or, when I blink the words out of my eyes, the words on the pages come into focus again. The piles of paper still bespeak the death of at least one great old redwood's equivalent weight of dead tree. My contacts and acquaintances - I hesitate to call them "friends" while laboring under the weight of nigh-infinite documentation - provided me with enough information on various subjects to choke an army of clerks.

Of course, while I was insane, my seceretary quit.

"How did you find me?"

As she asks me that, Lady DeWynter sets her cup of tea on its saucer, then puts both aside on a small table beside her chair. She seems especially slender and drawn, and not as tall as I remember. Her face is set in frown lines, and the squint-lines by her eyes are not from laughter. Since she is not made up at all, the gray streaks in her black hair are in full force as well, and even the strands with color seem thin and brittle. Her elegantly conservative black velvet dress with pearl buttons is the thing of most substance about her.

"The housing market in Stormwind isn't what it once was, what with the zombie invasion," I explain. "And of course, all the soldiers and adventurers leaving for the north. So really, it was quite easy to find out who had recently purchased a suite. I knew the minimum standard you would put up with, mother."

"Welcome back, Ambassador," says Tricia Stockman, the chipper thirtysomething customs clerk at the Stormwind Dock and Customs Offices.

"Thank you," Amara replies, accepting his papers back after Tricia has stamped them. "I'm glad to be back."

"Oh yes, it's good to see your legal troubles all cleared up."

"Mm, yes, well, just makes another few documents for you to approve," Amara shrugs with a smile. Since there's no line at this time of day, he leans on the desk. "I bet the whole deal made good gossip for your girls over coffee."

Tricia favors him with a coy smile, arranging various papers into piles and drawers. "A little legal drama is certainly more interesting than the usual grind checking shipping manifests. Though we had a little excitement with that, recently."

"Oh?" Amara asks, raising his brows with interest.

*CLANG* as gauntleted fist strikes armored shoulder.

"Hey, fuck you."

"You pulled it out."

"Yeah, I said we would, didn' I? Actually, ah said we'd die. Don' matter tho'."

"Hey, fuck you too. But thanks for not crapping out this time, Kast."

Later...

"Sorry I delayed our second meeting so long," I said, propping myself in a chair across from the warlock, putting one foot up on another chair next to me. "Things got hairy on the last phase of our Ulduar campaign right after we first met to discuss your troubles."

His bright green eyes look out from under a dark hood. "That is unfortunate. I take it that is now resolved?"

"The seals holding the old god were weaker than anyone thought," I explained, and paused to take a drink of mead before grinning and saying, "We stuffed it back down its hole, though."

Amara "Flamefist" Niall: missing for two days.

His secure Dalaran apartment, provided by the Violet Eye and shared with Arasminna Moonsong (and sometimes Zaas Glados Devereaux), held a half-finished treatise on Val'kyr and the spirit world next to a cold cup of coffee (one sugar, no cream). The five completed pages were scattered on the floor near his writing desk, with one half-finished page marked by a large, scrawled note: THEY DON'T WANT TO HEAR THIS! WHY AM I BOTHERING!?

The Order of Magicks offices in Stormwind and Ironforge kept for warder master-at-arms Niall haven't been visited in more than a week.

The Argent Crusade hasn't signed him in since Friday.

He was seen passing through Shattrath City yesterday.

In the Netherstorm, he is sitting on the edge of a floating rock, surrounded by a crowd of drakes. He stares at the endless abyss and says, "No, Zoyin. I can't go back yet."

This piece of paper can be found posted at Stars' Rest... at the back of the medical tent, often half-obscured by a patient's chart, most likely.

WARNING!

Kilix the Unraveler is an agent of YOGG-SARON! If you do his bidding, you contribute to UNLEASHING THE OLD GODS and ENDING THE WORLD!

The following document was seized from an office rented to the Order of Magicks in Stormwind, pursuant to reports that an individual exiled under pain of detainment and questioning (Amara Niall of the Ghost Scions) was seen at the location. These pages from a journal identified as belonging to him were taken as "seditious materials proving anti-government intentions," and several office aides were arrested for questioning.

Journal of the 11th day of the 10th month, 4th year after my father's death.

((Since there are spoilers about Yogg-Saron's dialogue, I've hidden this behind the cut.))

Look at these People
Amazing how sheep’ll
Show up for the slaughter

The melee before Icecrown Citadel is carnage as usual. My lance passes through the empty skull of another commander, and I pause for a moment to look up at the Citadel's summit. Does this game before your home amuse you, traitor prince?

No one condemning
You lined up like lemmings
You're led to the water

Why can’t they see what I see Why can’t they hear the lies
Maybe the fee’s too pricey for them to realize
Your disguise is slipping, I think you’re slipping

"It would appear that I made a slight miscalculation. I allowed my mind to be corrupted by that fiend in the prison! Over-riding my primary directive. All systems seem to be functional now. Clear."