Acherus

She stood beside a runeforge in Acherus, jotting down poems that had crossed her mind. Known as Deathrose Lithera, she was a poet. A poet whom was also considered the Queen of Death, a feisty one at that.  Often, her poetry was included in her every day vocabulary. The words she used were harvested from The Ashes, a clan of a sort within the Realm of Shadows, that she had belonged to for centuries. Words that the shadowy tormentors had injected into her shrouded mind.

Her blue, silken hair served as a barrier between her blighted face and Acherus, falling curtain-like down her cheeks. Eyes sullen with dark circles and skin a powdery white.

A short while ago, I had a conversation with a strange Quel'dorei Priest. He told me how everyone had a song, and that my song was ending soon. Of course, I thought by this that he was telling me that I was going to die. I returned to Dalaran later that night and entered my room. Velli wasn't yet, as usual. I undressed myself and hopped into bed, thinking about what the priest had told me. I couldn’t die, I thought, because I knew that if I did, it would destroy Velli.

Four months ago....

Next!

Step up. Stand. Wait.

Next!

Step up. Stand. Wait.

Next!

Acherus was as eerie and dreary as ever when the death gate formed. Asilia stepped out of it casting her gaze about the area. She needed to aquire a couple of reagents here, as well as speak to Lt. Feroxx. A small smile forming at the corner of her lips at the last thought, the Death Knight began moving forward heading for the unholy class area. Her cowl obscuring who she was for the most part, she didn't want to have to deal with anyone else at the moment except Feroxx.

The tides of darkness roll down on Light's Hope so fast that I'm not even sure if I'm riding atop the waves or merely being swept along by the current. Regardless, once I hit 'shore' there's little time for much thought beyond keeping myself alive and trying to cut down as many of the Light's defenders as possible. Blades of imbued metals, both honourable and terrible, clash again and again as their owners seek to unmake one another, and through it all the ache around my heart continues to build.

Why am I doing this?

Because it is my purpose and the will of my Lord that this place and all those who call it hallowed shall fall.

We've begun to pull out. The Scarlets' armies from the west are in the midst of arriving to defend what's left of New Avalon. Their numbers are ... The Lich King himself is providing our forces with some of his Frostblood wyrms in order to bring them all down. Things must be getting heavy around here.

I can see them beginning to appear over the northern ramparts of the fortified town as we hold out in the captured tavern in the south. One of the commanders has opened a portal back to Acherus itself, and all of us left here begin to file through one by one.

We're a bit too late to take part in the rain of icy death being visited upon those who seek to defend the town, but we will have our own chances at glory, oh yes... Light's Hope Chapel lies around the mountain range to the west, and it is next in our Lord's sights. Those of us still here are making our final preparations before the command to ride is given.

(( This is a direct continuation of my previous IC entry. - http://rp-haven.com/blog/tarakah/bittersweet_surprise - Parts miiiight not make sense unless you've read that entry as well.
Sorry for the wait, but lately I've been rather busy out-of-game with things like preparing for my term finals. And there was a bit of writer's block on the side, too.))

---

My surroundings drop away, the Scarlet prison shack and its inhabitants fading out until all that's left are myself and the strange shaman, filling in for the man whom I was to execute. I reach for the hilt of my blade so that I can put an end to this - I don't have time for whatever magics the Crusade might have failed to beat out of their prisoners.

I can't grip my blade. My hand passes through the hilt as if it were simply air, and now I know that this is all the product of another one of those damnable hallucinations. They're getting worse.

The shaman raises one hand towards my face. I pull away. Unreal or not, I don't want any more contact with this man than is necessary for me to do what I've been sent to do. I'm not even sure if he can touch me at all, but the answer to that little mystery is not something that I should be concerned with.

"You cannot remember, can you?"

System Status—functional. 

New Programming Directive: [Source: Rivendare] [Order: “Ice Briar”] [#35452]

Immediate cessation of armed hostility against:

Political designation: “Horde, The” [inc. non-hostile “Horde, The” correspondents]

+++Memory Leak Detected+++

Data Corruption

            Extent: High

On arriving at our makeshift command post on the south side of New Avalon, I learn that until only very recently, the Scarlets had been holding one of our own for interrogation. Burning fury fills me, and with nothing in sight to let it out on I can't do much but pace back and forth while my superiors handle the logistics of running an operation of this size right in the middle of our enemy's backyard. I don't have to wait long to find an outlet as the human man called Thassarian directs me to the west. The Scarlets' local chapel lies there, and an entire company of our finest have been sent there to sack the place and bring back any of our bretheren who might still be in the Scarlets' hands.

By the time I get there I discover that I am too late; the rest of the unit had already gone ahead and swept the chapel, finding none of our brothers within.

Knight Commander Plaguefist has some interesting news for me, though.

(( I'm placing most of this one below-cut, cause it's kinda gory and involves braaaiiiiiins. Then again, when your class pet is a GHOUL... maybe it shouldn't surprise so much. ))

I have a ghoul. A ghoul of my very own.

Before leaving Acherus for Death's Breach I had an instructional session with Lady Alistra and her disciples that went over the finer details of raising the corpses of the fallen to do one's bidding. The practice bodies she had brought out for us weren't the most stellar examples of what a proper shambling minion should be; the ghouls had been reanimated and then dispelled again so many times by now that the effects were clearly visible. While it's usual for ghouls to be on the dense side, these ones were a little ... special.

She encouraged us to practice some more with fresher corpses once we were back on the ground, and around northern New Avalon fresh bodies are never in short supply.

I have returned to Acherus in order to prepare myself for another push on New Avalon. The town's proving to be tougher to take than anyone had expected it to be. Scarlet resistance is fierce, despite the fact that we've managed to push through the northern fortifications and in to the town proper.

I'm here to replace the remaining bits of my initiate's garb with more functional pieces of saronite plate for the combat ahead. At the moment, I'm alone in this section of the armory, leaving me in peace as I find my way through rows of armor on stands of all sizes. Though most of it is of Scourge manufacture, there are also pieces recycled from the kits of those who have fallen before. There's no sense in letting it go to waste, after all.

At last I've reached a section festooned with tauren-sized gear of every shape imaginable and a few that probably aren't. The Master Siegesmith's work is easy to identify, as it's all constructed in the same manner, but I find myself looking through some of the more unusual bits on my way over to the shoulders that are rightfully mine. Most of the pieces here are Azerothian works, but the partial mail suit I've stopped in front of... The metals, they are not of this world. They bear a very faint stink of Fel.

As I trace a hand over the heavily battle-scarred chestpiece, it happens again. Another voice has come to talk to me.

The forces of Acherus have been set loose upon the world. An unstoppable tide of death and destruction rolls across the Scarlet lands, leaving behind us bloodied grounds and trails of corpses - sometimes in one piece, sometimes not. Ghouls and geists arrive behind us to 'clean up' the fields of battle, carting away the bodies so that they too shall join in the upcoming fights against their own bretheren.

My brothers and sisters and I have gathered together to prepare for our next push. Havenshire lies in ruins behind us, set ablaze. I am proud to have taken part in its destruction alongside the armies of our Lord; humans, elves, tauren, orcs, gnomes... Enemies in another life, perhaps, but we are all united with a common goal now. The Lich King is an equal-opportunity employer, after all.

Awareness. I am awake.

It's cold here. I can see my breath condensing into mist, but it bothers me not.

There is a pair of boots in front of me. I look up, and find that they belong to a human man standing before me, wearing a near-full suit of pale blue platemail. I have never seen him before...

Razuvious. Instructor Razuvious.

...And yet I feel as if I've known him all my life.