Lordaeron

All t’ings considered, it was a lovely sort of chapel. Smallish, wit a thatched roof tha’s long since caved under weight of snow an rain and an ‘eavy past tha it couldn’t bear. T’ere’s a sadness tha ‘angs in t’e air in Lordaeron; but out ‘ere, tucked ‘ard against t’e white capped mountains an softly fallin’ snow, it adds a still beauty tha yeh cannae capture most anywhere else.

Me boots is loud, crunchin’ t’rough t’e snow as I come off t’e overgrown pass. Almost lost it a few times under white powder as I’d veered off from t’e Thorondil River an inta starlit night. A lantern would’ve only drawn attention from all manner of unrestful t’ings out ‘ere, an I’ve got me ‘ands full as it is.

I lifted gloved fingers fer t’e iron gate as another ball of snow ‘it me square between t’e shoulders. From t’e balance of it, they’d packed it wit stones. A chorus of children laughin’ from t’e edge a t’e darkness sounded be’ind me. I turned me face over me shoulder, peerin inta empty night. Poltergeists. Wee snots ‘ad followed me t’e ‘hole way, jeerin’ an pullin’ at me boot buckle’s, slurrin’ an cursin, whirlin’ past me ‘ead in frigid blasts of screamin’ wind.

“Bugger off,” I growled inta t’e empty darkness. T’e snowfall twinkled back at me. “Yer goin’ ta ‘ave ta do much better’n wee pranks ta scare me off.” Brave words. I vaguely wondered ‘ow true t’ey really were as I turned back ta t’e chapel an pushed open t’e gate against a bank a snow. A crumblin’ stone wall lined ‘allowed ground in a pretty ring tha edged right up against t’e mountain base. In t’e starlight it loomed large an proud; a forgotten bastion guardin against t’e ‘orrors tha rose up and left a bloody wake across t’ese lands.

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy."    ~John Adams

Just when I had grown to savor the comforting sensation of solid ground beneath my feet after so many weeks of being tossed about on gryphonback, I find the seemingly stable ramparts of the grand capital of Lordaeron quaking beneath my feet like so many loose leaves.  It’s hardly the first time in my ‘prestigious’ career as a soldier that I’ve found myself tossed onto my face and covered with rubble.  It IS the first time it’s happened inside a fortress deep within lands the entire army had considered safe territory.

    "Captain Jamesen! Captain Jamesen!" The courier tore through the camp, rushing past soldiers preparing for war. His sights were on the hill which overlooked the small camp. Atop it, a single tent with various officers and important looking men standing around. The courier, a young boy, ran up the hill still slick from the morning's rain. He stopped at the entrance to the tent. "Captain Jamesen! Message for you sir!" The boy said excitedly.
    The flap of the tent opened, and out stepped the Captain. His build was that of a seasoned warrior, but with his younger features, he looked like an average soldier. He looked down to the young boy, and slowly kneeled down to his height. "Careful now boy. What is this message?" The Captain asked.

The dawn and dusk struggled in the unending battle, claw and tooth bare, blood streaking the massacre in the skies, reflecting the horrors upon the sacred ground below.  The barks and screams had faded away, for the most-part.  A few screams of pain, a few cracks of bone, a few roars of flame.  Deep, echoing bells.  Hallowed bells.  Forsaken bells.

Blood matted his eyes shut, his vision already blinded by the mud-packed hair that hung before his sealed eyes.  His chest rose and fell, stinging with an impishly playful squeal of pain, coming from shattered ribs.  It was a pain that was easy to get used to.  The kind that kept your feet on the ground, pushing you forward, as you strove to live.  He didn't feel that pain.  He didn't feel anything.  He was empty.  Cold.  

Aerella arranged the bundles carefully, tying the straw together with short pieces of rough twine. After years of practice, she'd gotten fairly good at making a miniature approximation of the Wickerman from her youth in Lordaeron. Her lips pressed tightly together as she remembered what the festival had been, before the Forsaken had perverted it into their own twisted independence day.

She had been back in Brill, visiting her brothers. Young Prince Arthas and Lady Jaina had overseen the ceremonies outside the palace in the city, the girl mage's magic lighting the Wickerman and signaling the harvest festival's true beginning, the turn from the summer season and preparation for the long winter.

Aerella sighed and propped her own little Wickerman in the cleaned out fireplace.

Six days out of the week I would walk a half a mile to the mailbox. As I made that walk down the dirt drive, I would drag my fingertips along the length of golden wheat strands that bordered my drive. My fingertips pinched against the neck of the ear of grain, and raised upwards strippin' the ear from thin body, like children do. Then, well, one day I simply didn't.

I woke with a pounding headache which even my Theryl's touch could not truly drive away.

As if my skull were being split from within.

Were I truly living, this might not have been of much concern.. but I am not. A life fashioned through necromancy, Light and fel together woven through my murdered corpse, making it.. and me.. feel as if we lived. And yet I do not. 'Death' is agony, yet it does not kill me. I require mending, or the stolen vitality which my sword conveys. The Light sent racing through me is searing... blinding.. but cleansing strangely. As if the evil I draw from my sword were held at a standstill by the holy power which floods my poor ravaged body as priests and paladins heal me alongside my runeblade's strength in the depths of battle.

Against such grandiose tug of wars between death, undeath and the Light, headaches are a trifle strange.

Upon request, here is the information I have currently been able to find on the subject of Hallow's End. Keep in mind that there are few manuscripts speaking upon the matter and even fewer people seeming willing to talk about it.


Another thing to keep in mind is that the holiday has been contorted by multiple companies trying to make money off the establishments that participate in handing out candy for the occasion. Originally the sweets were a simple gift given between those whom celebrated the holiday, but now it is rather common to see people specifically looking for the treats without knowing the reasons they are handed out.

The loss of a Loved one, is there anything harder to bear?

Take Comfort, and know that your loved one need not leave forever.

The Blessed Light teaches us that our spirits live on, but the sadness of an empty chair at the dinner table or a missing smile, is often too much for a heart to bear.

Dolly Weaver’s Discreet, professional Service will ensure that your grief need not last any longer than you wish.  Your loved one can remain by your side, preserved just as you remember them, bringing Comfort to your heart.

Part Two: Quel'Thalas and Lordaeron

To venture across Azeroth one must choose a starting place, and that proves no easy task. The continents and seas are vast and varied, full of deep jungles and broad deserts, forests of all kinds, mountains, plains, and fertile farmland. The peoples of Azeroth, both native and alien, natural and unnatural, have each left their mark, like indented thumbprints across the rich tapestry of the planet's Nether. There are valleys and peaks and spirals twined together, intermingling and unraveling, shaping and reshaping the world.

((  There is a knock at the door of a cottage somewhere in Tirisfal.  A Forsaken courier makes his delivery.  It is a very large wicker basket, the contents of which are covered with a tightly fastened blanket.  Along with the basket comes a note. ))

Danby, the poor corrugated bastard, refuses to return to the Undercity. He spoke to me yester-day, his distress apparent. "Doctor!" he says to me, pus oozing from his slacking jaw, "I cannot return! I must evacuate my lib'ry! Them dirty dead is poking in where they'd best keep away! If I do not save the books, who shall ever appreciate them as I myself do? Where?; Doctor, I haven't any other place to go! Please come to my aid!" Greasy, yellow tears flowed from his swollen couliflower eyes.

Am I the only one who sees?

They are two of a kind in their mutual misery. 

You weak fools.

You stare at me and fear me, or you hate me. I am the embodiment of all you despise. Sunken cheeks, and that burning unholy glow that says more than I ever could of what I have become. You wonder at my sarcasm. My bitterness.

How dare you.

You cannot even fathom how deeply rooted is my fury. My pain. My grief for what is gone forever now.

No. No, I will not say it so. I cannot think it so. It must not be gone. If it is gone, then the world may be reduced to rubble, to burn as fitting homage on the funeral pyre of something which was once so glorious.

I do not only mourn my wife, my Elsbetta, you see. She is for me the avatar of all that has been ripped away from me by greed, stupidity, and corruption. By the Cult of the Damned. By my own flesh and blood. By corpulent fools in Stormwind's manors.

A gleaming red dollop of paint - that forbidden art of his youth. Red as the blood of a child. Red as the blood of a father, glistening wetly on the palette of an unseen artist.

He stood in the dim confines of the necropolis, feeling the dull anger ebbing a little. When he fought, he was transformed; suffused by life he ripped from his foes, glutted by their dying screams. Soaked in the blood he watch spurt from the bodies of those who dared stand before his blade. It was incandescent... to have stripped away the man he had been and unveiled the demon who lay beneath the surface. Memories of his past no longer existed.. no longer mattered. Memories

A delicate dabbling in an inky pool of paint near the red - just south of it.. carefully mixed of soot and binding. The hairs darkened by the paint as if stained by night itself.

During the daylight, the sun would fall gently through windows stained with a variety of colors.  The rays would carry the colors to the marble floor and paint pictures on the floor of people venerating the Holy Light in various ways.  The massive windows portrayed a variety of scenes, all in which at least one of the Three Virtues played a part.  Aelberyn remembered being an acolyte and tending the nave with other girls, making up new stories that could be put on the windows to join the others.  She knew they never would be made, of course, but it was something to imagine during long hours of dusting and candle trimming.

The candle at last flickers out, dead.

The broken horizon is strangely lit, time immesurable on this dead world.

He still feels the letter, fine paper beneath his coarse fingertips.

The words sink in, bring anger. Niall's fist clenches, but leaves paper uncrumpled.

Why ask father to turn traitor?

Why is the letter signed Kast!?

Jessica strolled through the bazaar, enjoying the pleasant evening. She carried a wicker basket full of tightly wrapped bundles on her elbow, and hummed a merry ditty as she held up her skirt and stepped over puddles. Against the wishes of her husband, she refused to send out a maid to go shopping today and went herself, for it was lovely outside and she desired to get out of the house. Her shopping excursion was a success. She even found some wonderfully fragrant strawberries, though it was still early in the season.

Carkaroth awoke slowly, feeling a dull ache leave his lungs. He was floating in a substance that, he decided after a moment of reflection, was certainly not the sunny lake back home. This deduction was a safe one: this river was frigid, saturated with debris, and assaulted the senses with a foul stench of sewage and rot, whereas his lake was smooth and radiated peace, warmth, acceptance… Had he died? Cark was quite certain of that. He took good care to pick a spot where he wouldn’t stand a chance against the raging, swollen waters.

Memento Mori, Chapter 2

The Beginning

((A glimpse into Yuu's past, enjoy. ^_^))

The blacksmith's foundry on the outer edge of Northdale could be spotted from anywhere in the small town, the pillar of smoke from the chimney a tell-tale indicator of it's position, but to some of the town's residents came to find it through another means. At an hour past noon, the tantalizing aroma of beef stew would creep out of the Haran household next door to the smith's shop, quickly overpowering the smell of coal and ash for the afternoon. As always, the three members of the family hustled about the kitchen, preparing the meal before heading back to work.

With the stink of raw rat on my breath and the slimy f’lassil salve glistening on my naked and bloody body, I began making my way toward Tranquillien in the hopes of finding a healer. 

Eternal rest grant them, let Light perpetual shine upon them.

I don't come here as much as I used to, been busy, and I'm not up in the Plaguelands as much as I used to be. And well, I don't feel the need so much. I guess that's a good thing, even if it does feel a little like I'm betraying them. Hallow's End is about remembering the dead, at least for me anyway. There are seventeen people buried here, I won't ever forget that, even if it don't hurt as much as it used to.

Eternal rest grant them, let Light perpetual shine upon them.

[So while visiting friends and family in Baltimore, I swung by the Baltimore Tattoo Museum in Downtown Baltimore/Fells Point to get my second WoW-inspired tattoo. The Lordaeron symbol I got last summer. The Bloodhawk was done on Monday. Under the break.]

{{ Originally posted 10/30/2005 on the Blizzard forums by Valkyros, level 37 human paladin }}

Valkyros mulled over the name on the list, Sowelu Danae. She had been part of a substantial family in Silverpine, until the end.

Until the scourge.

Until the flight.

{{ Originally posted 10/28/2005 on the Blizzard forums by Valkyros, level 37 human paladin }}

Doric turned to the next page... 

Taneel sat on a high rock overlooking the former kingdom of Lordaeron, it had been only a few years since the land had become this twisted mockery of itself under the plagues influence.  Against his will, he recalled his last visit to this land before the shadow of the Scourge fell upon it.  Skipping rocks with Leaf and Henry, sparring with Volf, and hiding out to avoid work with Kailly.  H