Corruption

((These edits should be mostly properly done for now, at least until I fix the interstitial stuff. Sorry about the mess.))

The cavern was incredibly impressive, nobody could deny that. A team of dwarves had been commissioned just over a year ago to dig a series of tunnels in eastern Redridge, with the entrance being a short cave that only a few paces in was met with steel doors, behind which concealed an elevator shaft.

Of course, an elevator shaft is never complete without an elevator, and this elevator was currently close to two-hundred feet underground and carrying an enrobed, if not a bit fat, human along with a considerably more aged and spindly man, wearing similar robes, though somewhat more ornate, with overreaching shoulders that seemed to threaten the older man's tenuous hold over gravity.

“Brother Wonse, as you may know, we at the order are becoming, hrm, disappointed in your progress. I have been considering suggesting that your funding be cut, considering all that's happened. You stated some time ago that once the sample arrived that we would make a... what is the term you used?” The old man seemed to tremble as he talked.

“Quantum leap, Uncle Devan.”

“Yes, yes, a 'quantum leap' in progress. All we seem to have encountered, however, are more and more delays.” The older man started letting out a hacking cough.

“Progress was being made, including the creation of the Wonsite cylinder, Uncle Devan. However, as I stated at the last Mass, a... number of variables have made themselves known.”

“Yes, yes, yes. These variables. There is one you call the Postman? Yoradarks, was his name?”

Baulam Wonse's left eye started to twitch. The one thing that was constant about this man, he thought, was his inability to pronounce names with more than two syllables in them.

“Yoradash, Uncle Devan.” Baulam shot a beaming smile at the older man that suddenly went cold as the elevator came to a halt. “It seems we're stuck again.”

“Hm, yes.” Uncle Devan's cough became worse, this time falling to his knees. “Ring the serv...”

“The service bell, Uncle Devan?”

“Yes!” The old man started to cough up blood onto the floor, splattering on the lower parts of Baulam's robes.

“Of course, Uncle Devan.” Baulam gave the service bell a good two, urgent sounding tugs. “I think you should see a priest, Uncle Devan.”

“Don't... make such foolish jokes, boy.” Blood dribbled down the man's chin and onto the floor. “I know exactly what this is.”

The elevator started to move again.

“So do I, Uncle Devan. I meant for the tending of your soul.”

Devan's body finally went limp and, almost instinctively, Baulam started to cradle it. Within a few seconds the doors opened, with two other robed men waiting to get onboard.

“Get us a priest!” Baulam said, with a sense of urgency in his voice. The two men looked in horror briefly and helped get the older man out of the elevator, his face now completely white and his body cooling in the chilled air of the underground cavern.

“Uncle Devan?” one of the other robed men said.

“Yes, please hurry.” Baulam said, an worried look in his eyes.

But behind all that, in the corner of his mind, Baulam knew he had saved his project for just a bit more and than nobody had seen the variable he had just made constant. After all, who would question it? An old man succumbing to an unnoticed illness? For a warlock that was incredibly easy to pull off, and Brother Wonse was such a nice, up front man. Nobody would suspect him.

Except that somebody did see. Some many miles away in Ironforge, an elderly dwarf had watched the entire event occur through the eyes of somebody he only knew as “the Nervous One.” And once he finished seeing the event unfold, he promptly wretched all over his copy of “The Lacivious Handmaiden”.