Death Knights

It isn't fair.

They don't deserve this.

None of them.

I lit votive after votive in the tiny chapel that sat flanked by tall, pruned trees. At each flicker of a new flame's life, I saw the face of another friend...another Sin'dorei.

“Filthy traitor!”

Asilia held up the flask with a sigh, gazing in at the alchemical liquid within. Delicate hands swishing the reddish brown goo around in a swirl, Her heart weighed heavily of late making it hard for the kaldorei to focus upon things she normally enjoyed. Such as flowers and trying to make potions, things had actually gotten so distracting that every mixture she'd made kept exploding eventually. She just couldn’t keep her mind from wandering to thoughts of Taneel. Wondering if he was still alive, and if he was if he’d vanished because of her.

( Awake and Alive )

Delamontre stood up at the end of a large mountain, his arms crosses and the wind blew his long hair leftside, his cape followed as it unocovered his back armor.

"What have you done..?"

"You know the concequences..."

"What in Azeroth were you thinking?"

"You will die sooner or later.."

I followed the path of the warrior, seeking to combat emergent threats against our slow recovery from the tragedy of Gnomeregan.  I stood with Alliance forces when the dread citadel Naxxramas darkened the skies above the Plaguelands, a festering tide of undead sweeping across the entirety of Azeroth.  Overconfident in my ability, I fell to an advancing line of Scourge footmen, thinking the brittle and mindless skeletons no match for my strength and technique.  While my prowess was insufficient to lead me to victory, it earned me consideration for the position of an elite Scourge soldier.

((I'm nomally a stickler for chronology and the order of events being properly recorded, but I didn't study up on the Worgen starter area before Cata so as not to spoil things and they never specified how much time passed between the battle for Gilneas and the Shattering.  So please bear with me, this is my new worgen character. :) ))

Gilneas, some time before the Shattering...

Derekk shifted the sword slung across his shoulder nervously, his gaze scanning the forests for any sign of movement as he made his way down the road.  Ever since he had been attacked, Derekk had made a point of traveling during the day if possible, and always with his sword ready.  Today was no different, beyond the dark clouds threatening rain overhead and the damned bandage on his arm itching fiercely.

I held the solid weight between my fingers.  Heavy…dense enough that a pile of it shorter then I, would weigh far more.  Saronite, such a fascinating stone.

We stand at the edge of the ziggurat balcony and stare at the blighted field below. From this height everything looks so small and insignificant. I can see a flurry of movement from specks that were wandering aimlessly a moment ago. Either our forces are being attacked, or the ghouls are fighting amongst themselves again. I really don’t care either way. I watch until one of the specks—perhaps an unfortunate glory seeker, perhaps a feeble ghoul—falls. The feeding frenzy that follows is over within seconds, and once the victors disperse there is nothing more to see. The way things are going lately, there might not be another show, much less orders, for quite some time. I sigh and turn to my stoic companion. He does not look up, so I move closer. I gently place a hand against his back, and still he does not look up. This will not do.

Xannivard’s grimore lay open next to me, in a rare moment of sunlight littering the landscape of Feralas it was an odd image to see its rays spread across the pages, the book looked as if it should be in permanent shadow. But maybe that was just my opinion…. maybe the book, bound in skin as it was, liked the sun..maybe it needed a tan?.. who was I to judge.

The dark arts are immensely dangerous, requiring complete mental focus in their application.

The mind of a gnome is entirely unlike that of a human, dwarf, elf or draenei.

Why risk ruination by settling for the training of other Alliance races, attempting to employ methods that have been altered to suit a radically different thought process?  The great magic academies may have been lost in Gnomeregan's fall, but the gnomish tradition of teaching lives on.  If you are a gnome seeking to control fel, shadow or necromantic power, Shadowspark Institute is your salvation.

Most survivors of the war in the frozen north have amazing stories to share.  Me, I'm not much of a storyteller, so I think I'll keep my return speech short and to the point.

To the hypocritical death knights, the criminal scum, the duplicitous Horde, and the delusional sycophants of the Alliance who have the temerity to call themselves "heroes" while supporting those first three groups, eternally failing to understand that their half-assed fantasy of peace and understanding only applies to the disgustingly wealthy and powerful ... I have only four words.

          Control.  Focus.  Center in the Light, in my heartbeat.

          Zaraek listened to Zen’s hooves clomping along the path back to Silvermoon and willed the rhythm of his heart to slow, to come in synch with that peaceful, steady beat.  

  I had tried to avoid the situation, getting up before dawn could even reach its fingers forward and caress the sleeping city of Dalaran. I figured if I could get to the flight master fast enough, then I could just hunt on my own, no controlling thick headed marquis to follow. Apparently… nobody sleeps in this blasted city. I rounded the corner, and there, shifting next to the wyverns was the Marquis Ythgar Vinguld, riding atop a rather impressive drake. Damn it.

Are you a gnome who wields the power of fel, shadow or necromantic magic?

Perhaps you're an experienced practitioner of the dark arts looking to talk shop and exchange knowledge with fellow Exiles.  Perhaps you're a novice seeking training in the spirit of the great Gnomeregan schools, untainted by the lesser methods of other races.  Perhaps you fall somewhere between those two extremes.  Regardless of skill level, Shadowspark Institute aims to quietly and efficiently nurture the talents of any gnome who commands energies forbidden and frowned upon.

"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?"

 Have you ever heard of the stories of valiant last stands? Where all seems lost until the very end when the calvary arrives, or heros rally together to live through the night? Well those are the things of fairy tales, and the cold truth about Northrend is that there are no fairy tales made up there...

 To the observant one there are four things in a battle, movement, sight, sound, and smell. In a battle these four things can be divided among two combatants, the attacker and defender, neither one is ever doing the same thing in equal amounts. The attacks is always moving more than the defender, the defender is seeing the blade of the attacker more than the person themselves, one is always making some sound, a attackers war cry or a defender's cries of pain, and there is always blood. The smell of the defeated is always stronger, because more of it lies on the ground.

The movement was Tess on her target, a loyalist death knight screaming orders at a pack of mindless ghouls who drug chunks of saronite from the earth. She bound across the frozen black earth, her striders taking her three times the length of a normal man, she moved like the frozen wind itself, the once-human had naught but time to gaze at his impending death.

 The blackness was gone, and so was the bronze skin that was the last thing she had recalled. Now there was nothing but white, and one brown rectangle in front of her, the white was mottled with the cold and damp snow, Tess could see the outline of snow flakes drifting behind the white. She wanted to move but some unseen force restrained her, she let out a weak groan and a blur of purple was over her face in a instance patting her in the face with a dry cloth. It felt good, something dry, warm, and soft instead of something icy, cold, and hard. Whispers crawled in her ear and curled up in her head filling her with calm soothing thought, the power to move seem to have come back to her suddenly and a two pairs of hands lifted her up, one white, one purple. Tess let her mossy green eyes pick out the feature in a pair of stark white eyes. "You have suffered quite a great deal little child of the blood." The eyes chimed.

Asilia  frowned abit as she held the remains of a shattered vial. Potion residue dotting the walls of her small lab. She was not making many strides at improving her potion making, grabbing a cloth the kaldorei cleans up the mess. As asilia cleans the potion covered burner she feels a very sharp pain burning within her.

"N-not again," She groans to herself, dropping the cloth and grabbing onto her lab table. Wincing as the pain only increases and begins to pulse inside, each wave of pain causing the night elf to spasm. Eventually Asilia collapses to her knees drawing in a shuddered breath she tries to focus, "...damnit."

Tesstirina sat on the back of her raptor letting it bob forward at it's own pace. She felt the presence of a rank of soldiers outside gate, each one was tense and drawn like a bow about to release it's arrow. Tess gave a short nod to Laiyla telling her she was ready to go. This was Laiyla's fight, and her men, Tess was only here for support and to strengthen bonds with Dionysa's people. Having the red tabard of Pox in Astraanar would also be a moral boost to them, and a morality destroyer for the Alliance.

Another foray, different venue; this time the Rising Spirits pub which is also in Silvermoon City. Again with Zero in tow as well as another death knight going by the name of Beefjerky. Why anyone would saddle their child with a name like that is beyond me, but then I don’t know the tauren naming conventions. Perhaps it was a nickname… at any rate; this death knight is unlike any I’ve ever met. He does not possess the pallor of death or an emaciated appearance but rather retains his thick black hide and glossy black horns. He also retains a peculiar sense of humor. The only thing that seems to have been affected by the make over seems to be his ability to control his bodily emissions and his tongue. Zero showed another side of himself, this being his first experience with alcoholic beverages he seemed to delight in trying many different kinds. And I… I found myself waxing poetic. Peculiar behavior for me I assure you.

There are so many things I don’t remember, a few that I do. The things that I remember aren’t quite as they are now. I mean to say they differ from the physical manifestation of what ever it is I’m remembering. It is for this reason that I’ve decided to keep a journal. Perhaps by writing down the bits and pieces of memory and the flashes of realization, I can begin to make since of the muddled existence I now lead.

Marrowbone looked down from the tree where he had spent the day.  One of his dirty claws was locked around a branch as he leaned out to see past the leaves, the other hand held onto the neck of a rough cloth bag.

Darkness was falling and taking with it the last of the living.  They scampered back to their homes and began putting the study locks onto their doors, and making sure their lamps had enough oil to burn though the night.