Lich King

Agony.

All encompassing, all consuming anguish.

She thought at first that she'd fallen unconscious – so brief was the warm respite.

The tender kiss of death had been stolen away.

The entire place shook, and rattled with the bombardment of heavy weaponry. He looked up from under the ragged hood that draped down over the dwarf's weary eyes. The Undead servants went passing by swiftly, only for the sound of their demise to echo down the hallway, and soon he saw a color he didn't believe, and heard a voice he thought he'd long lost.

"Well, Well. Looks like the might General is still in one piece, don't know how the hell you survived, Stonebreaker, but it's time. We're taking ground quickly, The Lich King's time is running short....Tell me. Can you fight?" Knowing full well the answer, his hand motions and a few soldiers brought in a medium sized chest. The dwarf got up and slowly paced over to it, opening it up slowly. His eyes staring down for a moment, he tossed the old ragged cloak off his shoulders. His hands tugging two large axes up out of the chest. He gripped them tightly, a simple nod coming to him. "Give me 5 minutes tae get this armor on....And get the fack outta my way."

I shift in the saddle, five miles from Warsong Hold. Dusk lowers his head, the slip and clatter of his barding ringing in the Borean stillness, as he seeks rare fodder among the lichens. The wind is sharp and relentless along my right side, blowing down from the North.  As I sit waiting, it reminds me.

This is my first return to Northrend since that night.  The cold wind feels both fresh and familiar, ruffling the fur of my cloak's collar and seeping through the layers of my clothing.  I am wearing leathers beneath the warm hide on my back, and carrying only my axe and my crossbow.  I have not come here to make war.  The war is over.

The war is over.

They arrived alone, in pairs or small groups.  Slowly trickling through the portal to stand exposed at the top of Icecrown.  Snow swirled around Elrin's legs and his cloak drug a thick line in it as he strode to greet them.

He ran his eyes over them as they checked their gear and said their prayers or passed their hands over each other, sharing blessings and gifts.  Chapped lips cracked again when he shoved his second-to-last cigarette in between them, lighting it with a snap of his fingers.

They were ready.


Arthas pumped his legs faster, flying across the icy top of Icecrown and leaving Tirion Fordring encased in a block of ice behind him.

Amara stood ready.  He gave Elrin a curt nod just before Arthas slammed into him, bowling him over as he scrabbled for a hold in the icy ground.  Elrin stepped quickly, turning aside Frostmourne with a curving sweep of his polearm.

Trust is your weakness...

It's too damn cold up here.

((After a few months of missed or short raids due to real life events and after a welcome break for the Meet and Greet, the Ghost Scions finally got another full night of attempts on The Lich King...and guess what happened?  Big grats to the best little raid team out there.))

((The events in this blog took place between late May and mid-June 2010))

The days after meeting with the Marquis Vinguld and Hakkajin to discuss how to save Faraji were mostly lost to me now. Most of them I ‘ave no recollection of at all. I had fallen asleep at some point, and the evil in Ythgar’s runesword had sank her hooks into me well an’ good – cracking me mind open and turning me into a babbling, Scourge-obsessed nutter. There were a few vague memories, but they might ‘ave been nightmares or just fragmented images still floating around in me subconscious. I thought I remembered seeing Ixinane, like an angel washed in red light, in a back alleyway that stank of rotted trash. I remembered countless days of fighting side by side with Ythgar in the frozen North, an army of death knights at our command as we pushed further south, slaughtering everything in our wake. I remembered falling asleep in his lap, me arms curled around his thick waist, as I let sleep embrace me. 

The first solid, real memory in days was when I woke up. Me body didn’t ache with fatigue. It felt like I must have slept for hours an’ hours. I felt relaxed, bloody fantastic even. I was lying on sheets so fine that they felt like pure spider’s silk. The pillows under me head were as soft as clouds - enormous, fluffed and lightly scented with some sort of flower. The mattress neither too ‘ard or too soft, and lifted so high I felt like I could have been floating. I could hear birds singing but there wasn’t light in me eyes. It was as I lay there, enjoyin’ the quiet, that I realized it was quiet. The voices were gone. I let me mind wander, searching for them, purposefully calling fer their answer – but there was only the blissful, peaceful silence. Finally! Me lips had curved in a smile against me pillow as I stretched, loosening back and calf muscles that had been cramped with stress for far too long, when I heard the soft breathing in the room. Not asleep, just relaxed into a resting cadence. Deep breaths into a large chest – male, obviously – but so very subtly whistled through thin nostrils over mustache. Ythgar.  

Show of Strength

We have been given our marching orders. The head shed… commanding officers as it were… have decided that our humiliating walk through the city of Orgrimmar was not enough to show we wish to assist the Horde. No… now we must go out into the world and fetch or exterminate at the whimsy of whoever crooks a finger in our direction. It’s galling really.

"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?"

                The sky was crystal blue like him.

                Or rather, like his eyes; the ones that swirled with a mixture of righteousness and compassion, that burned with drive to protect those close to him. Or was it contempt and scorn for the Unholy? She couldn’t remember. She was slowly losing his face; he had been gone so long, leaving her with nothing but his last words of scorn and contempt:

                “Don’t you see?! You are the very thing that will tear this world apart!”

Journal entry 1

I am no one.

My brothers and sisters speak daily of their pasts and how they blame the Lich King for stealing something precious from them.

They speak of revenge, lost lovers, families, and homes they may never return to.  It's a form of therapy for them, speaking of what they lost so they may try to go forward to build their new lives.

Some drown themselves in the drink or the battle field.  Others try to go back home, reclaim what they can of the past.

I can't

'Shall we prepare it for you, my lord?'

Muscles contract painfully. Unable to move. Unable to breathe! Cold seeping into her very bones and mind.

Four months ago....

Next!

Step up. Stand. Wait.

Next!

Step up. Stand. Wait.

Next!

I sighed, listening to the cheerful banter across the room. Conversations were hushed around me, obvious looks of distrust sometimes cast in my direction. I took another long pull of my beer, wishing for the hundredth time it would help me escape. The flavor, dim as it is now, only reminds me of what I lost.

"Hi! I'm Bubbles. Can I sit here?"

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan contemplated the tulips.

Tulips are not delicate flowers. Like goblin rockets they drive themselves up through the cold soils of spring, piercing rainsoaked earth reach skyward, trailing thick stems and heavy leaves. When at last waxy petals open, they do not reveal any delicate plumage within, but rather only the essentials: pollen-tipped stamen arching forward to spread life and beneath, beyond a ring of brightness like the treasured sun, a blackness so keen as to reflect the blue sky above.

Red was a good color.

It was the color food was inside. It was the color this food was outside. Pointless cloth bits, chewy leather bits, annoying metal bits. This food knew it was food, didn’t try to hide.

Lazhira liked that.

"Madam Ambassador?"

"Yes?"

"The letter you were expecting has arrived."

"Yes, thank you.. Please put it on the desk."

"Yes, madam."

Raenne sat at a small table, tucked away in a tent in the Argent Vanguard. A few small candles provided light and warmth, and a white kitten was curled up around a lantern, but there was room for little else in the tent. The outpost of Argent Crusade power in Icecrown was more about function than style, and she stayed here only when she had important business between the Ebon Blade and the Crusade. Dalaran was far more comfortable as a permanent residence.

Taneel stepped onto the small ledge, blood soaked his armor, the nerubian’s claws had left many gashes on his skin, but his armor had been more than enough. He’s two huge blades were strapped to his back now, the beach had proven enough of a path to slip into the center of the Lich king’s domain, and as he crested the hill, he finally saw what that meant.

A Name

Kill them.

Kill them all.

The man jerked awake and shot straight up, too startled to notice his surroundings. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkened room around him, but features slowly started to appear to him. A curtain-hidden window, a dresser and shelf, a pile of armor--his armor! He started to rise, but his entire body felt like it was cast in lead and he quickly slumped back down.

Before he could attempt to rise again, the door cracked open and a withered old man peeked in, then pushed the door open and hobbled inside. "You're awake now, I see." The old man said with a smile, and the irony became apparent when he widened his eyes slightly to reveal that he was quite blind. "You'll have to imagine my surprise when my sons found you and your young friend on the road..."

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.

“Blaumeux the Black Rider,” snarled what was left of a broken man, whose blood and comrades decorate the floors of Naxxramas. Desperately the crusader clung to his shield, the white of his so vivid in the sea of red and shadows. He could not fall, not when he was last when so many others have died to get him this far. “I will…”

“Crusader, your life is mine!” She cried in retort, her stallion rearing and she brought down her wraith. Hand extended and fingers spread, a void zone bloomed it’s nightmare below the man. It consumed him, the shadows shivering in pleasure within the zone. Always hungry, almost aching, and always with that terrible want.