Scarlet, the Color on the Bottom of my Boot Pt. 2

Tharan's leather lined boots sent echoes through the cathedral's entrance hallway as his feet slapped with care upon the tile. Ranek's steady, powerful steps sent subtle cracks working their way through marble wrapped in velvet carpet but the Sergeant paid such trifling matters little mind. " ... after all, I would prefer if traces of the Absolution were not left so plainly for others to see. It is bad enough my test involving the Templar was witnessed by most of Icecrown. Some may ..."

The techpriest slowed his steps as he passed the threshold into of the Onslaught cathedral's hallowed archway. Hallowed, perhaps at a time long forgotten. But no longer hallowed in the presence of the Onslaught's blasphemous Raven Priests. That thought was not what slowed him, however. The stench of spilled blood filled the air. That was by no means a new scent and Ranek's actions at the cathedral steps were enough to turn up the strongest nose. Tharan was merely surprised to find the pews and columns strewn with bodies. Fire licked at crimson tapestries and Tharan raised the eyebrow of his true eye. "Curious ... I don't remember seeing any ... "

He responded quickly to the action and was proud to see Ranek respond as well. From the techpriest's waists was drawn a slender saber, the kind of sword ment for hacking and thrusting but not for rending armor. Still, there was a strange hum that worked its way through the blade and it shimmered with an ethereal hue. I will always appreciate those smugglers, he mused.

"Show yourself, foe of the Onslaught, for we may have much to discuss. Who knows, our names may be bought without bloodshed!" Tharan was still uncertain as to the combat effectiveness of his mechanical arm and had no intention of testing it outside a controlled environment.

"Why?" Ranek responded. "Bloodshed's always worked before."

"Well keep your axe grinding in case it comes to that." Tharan whispered before steeling himself beneath the archway and waiting with a patience tempered by the Holy Light.

"Foe of the Onslaught indeed!" She paused letting her musical voice rebound off the marble tiles until it echoed so much it sounded harsh. "Unless you are the one which I seek I advise you to turn around, nothing but death await those who are not the techpriest." Tess hissed appearing in between the pews, her sword dragged leaving a long rend in the rug. By no means in any position to attack the two figures standing beneath the archway, she just fixed herself a safe length from the large bulk and it's robed counterpart. Her emerald eyes betraying her instantly as to what she was, they were bright filled with the curiosity only youth could possess. Tess narrowed her eyes, the tips of her ears were numb from the cold draft, her hands were sweating inside of her gauntlets and her nose wrinkled from the overwhelming scent of blood and smoke.

"Are you him? Are you the techpriest?" She asked, it almost sounded childish as if potential awe had over taken her for the briefest of moments.

Tess tensed up again at once though when her eyes came to rest on the hulk of what she could only guess was a man, it whined and grind as weapons ladened it's body down, it urged her to cower and attack at the same time, it inspired hate and fear... against her naturally urges she dug her sword tip a little farther into the carpet to resist the urge to see how far her blade would sink into it's armor.

Her gaze went back to the robed man with the peculiar sword and let the awe in his form calm her once again as she waited for a reply.

     “You will find I am not one who willingly follows the demands of others,” Tharan responded quite plainly. He flashed a sideways glance at Ranek and found the Sergeant merely surveying the room with a look of disappointment in his eyes as if he alone wanted to coat the ground of the Onslaught Cathedral in the blood of those accursed traitors. Tharan felt some sympathy in that regard. “But I am also a proud one at that.”
     Tharan took a step forward without fear or doubt and tossed back his hood, revealing the ever expanding metallic half of his face. Golden hair fell around the polished steel that wrapped its way about the back left of his skull. Red light poured out of the mechanical iris and Tharan reflexively grinned. His hand unoccupied by a blade twitched as if he meant to stroke the cold metal. The steam-whistling digits of his back-mounted arm flexed in preparation of possible confrontation. “I am the techpriest.”
 

There was no fear, no repulse or disgust, it was strangely inspiring. Technology... a tool in it's purest of forms. A tool combined with not just a human but the light itself, one of the most powerful forces in Azeroth at the moment, all bundled together in this creation. Tess breathed ever so lightly. "Amazing..." Her feet began to carry her forward, slowly, deliberately. She looked up at the techpriest, he was after all a head higher than her. "I've heard of your work... needless to say, it drew my curiosity." No fear, no he wouldn't respond to intimidation and he would hardly respond to her being afraid. She paused for a moment, she didn't know what to say, she wanted to power he had. She didn't know how to get it, she didn't know how to get it and get out alive.

Tess glared up at the priest between her helmet, that narrow rectangle of skin between the lower part of her helmet and the bronze her hair.

"You..." She didn't realize something, her hand was moving up, encased in a cold blue gauntlet, it rose higher past her head and almost touched the techpriest metal face before jerking back under her conscious control again. "... what does it take?" She breathed.

"To wield such power?" 

    A curious feeling worked its way through Tharan Kiloth. Never before had someone treated him as a source of reverence; put him on a raised dais as if he were the Holy Light himself. And in the face of it all Tharan felt ... righteous. Righteous to the point that his grin widened considerably.

    "Are we really wasting time with this?" Ranek growled before quite unceremoniously slamming his armored fist into a nearby column. Dust exploded into the air and the marble pillar shuddered as if ready to snap like a dry twig.

    The techpriest sighed quite audibly at his companion's antics. On occassion they were enough to test his nerves. "I believe Chaplain Olaff tasked you with recruit training, did he not?"

    "I suppose." Ranek shrugged and idly revved the grinding blades of his axe.

    "Would you mind terribly attending to that? I'll settle matters here and clean up your ... recreational time." Tharan nearly shook his head again before weaving a delicate tapestry through his fingers until a window ripped its way through the atmosphere before Ranek.

    Again Ranek only shrugged and stepped through the portal. Satisfied, Tharan closed his fist and collapsed the dimensional rip with a soft crackle.

    "What I would not give to have Reginald ... " Tharan paused and glanced forward, noticing the blood elf and remembering all that had taken place. "My apologies; he can prove to be quite crude. Now, let us walk in the Light and perhaps you may become enlightened." Tharan silently sheathed his ethereal saber and beckoned for her to follow with his mechanical arm.

Tess narrowed her eyes scrutinizing the hulking behemoth as he left but quickly returned her eyes to the techpriest, they observed every aspect of the being storing away details big and small, the extra armor, the foreign blade, the belt of equipment. When he asked her to follow she did, the tabards of the fallen twitching helplessly from their spots tied to her back pack. Devotional text scrawled across tiny lengths of parchment dangled from her armor. Each text proclaiming her service to her Lady Shryn'dael or to the wellness of her Mentor Sinsaira.

Her foot steps were light, the fall of feathers on the ground. "I have many questions to ask you techpriest... if you would allow me of course." She said, her tone diplomatic. Something crossed her mine... what if she one day possessed that armor the hulking human had? Oh how Shryn'dael would appreciate her, she would lead her Lady's people into every battle and it would all be thanks to the techpriest.

This was just the first step though...

  "Know first and know simply," Tharan began as he led the way back out of the blood stained cathedral, "that there secrets of the machine spirit I cannot reveal and there are secrets I have yet to discern."
    He passed into the dim sunlight bathing Onslaught Harbor and, without a second thought, conjured wave after wave of purging fire. It swept across the ground in sheets of the purest white. Those fallen corpses that littered the scene turned to ash and dust and were reclaimed by the cold, lifeless rock of Icecrown. Silently he assessed the elf.
    Tharan made no secret of his loyalties. They laid in the hands of three great powers: The Holy Light, Lordaeron, and the Chaplain Olaff Isenkopf. As such, he was not bound by the necessary prejudice of the Alliance. Rather, he chose his own prejudice. The Orcs and Trolls: mere barbarians to be lain to rest in a bonfire of their own savagery. The Tauren and Night Elves: ancient pacifists that would survive the coming darkness. The Forsaken: wretched traitors of a world-spanning blight. Even the Draenei and Blood Elves were not sparred his hatred, though they were granted reprieve for those who devoted themselves to the Light.
    As such he placed this script-bearing paladin amongst those he would at least feign respect. Without knowledge of her true intention Tharan could form no opinion beyond that. Still, he respected the apparent effort extended to locate him.
    "My name remains my own; thus techpriest is the only call I'll answer. I am pleased to hear your curiousity is peaked, though I must say a mixture of anger and paranoia is boiling within me to know how your curiousity first learned of me. I thought only those among ... " he paused as he nearly spoke the words 'Death Watch' ... " among my order knew of my mechanizations' existence, or at the very least that the mechanizations were born of my specific hand. But you may answer that in due time, as my curiousity is similarly peaked."
    Tharan paused in his purging of the land and turned to face the blood elf, "Now ask your questions and ask them plainly; I have not the patience for a sly tongue or a hidden motive."

Tess paid no time to making herself sly, she looked up at the techpriest and with a bit of kindness in her head decided that she should at least answer his first question. "The titans speak of everybody in there homes, those who travel through them sometimes hear the whispers, they travel to their friends and tell them these whispers, and I listen to these whispers before I kill the traveler and those he's spoken too... your secret is safe techpriest." She gestured to the ashes blowing away in the breeze. "You just removed the last of those who would speak of it openly."

She shifted her armor, in clanked slightly and a few cracking noises were made as dry gore and blood was broken off of joints in the process of moving. "I want to know what you make techpriest, I want to see the myths and fables spoken of only vaguely by the ashes around us." Tess dipped her head for a moment as if drawing breath. "And I want to learn how to use it if it exist... I want to use it to protect my people from the threats that loom and shift on the horizon." Her hand reached up unconsciously and flowed a few inches over his robe tracing the general outline of his body. "If anybody knows the urge to protect their people... it would be you." Tess let the implied 'scarlet crusader' hang in non-existence.

The young elf continues to look up at him, her youthful curiosity never faltering. If anything her intentions were straightforward and -in her eyes- justified.