Madness

As I was walking out alane
I heard twa corbies making mane
The ain unto the tother did say,
"Whaur shall we gang and dine today?"*

I paced the small inn room. I'd made it Lakeshire as dark was falling and taken a room in a lower class inn, just another anonymous, scruffy sellsword. Not for the first time, I frowned and thought about my next steps. The gold I spent had brought a name, a minor noble and Redridge landowner. Unfortunately, the man had gotten wind of the hunt and had left town in a hurry, accompanied by a Kaldorei.

High Arcanist Theledra of the Blue Dragonflight paced back and forth in her quarters of The Spellweaver’s Victory, otherwise known as the ‘Nexus’ to outsiders – those she derisively dubbed “barbaric interlopers”.  What crudely straightforward terminology they used.  ‘Such lack of vision’ she thought, sneering, as she gazed idly through frostglass windows to the snowscape below.  Her ebon locks, held back from her face with a glinting coil of mithril, shimmered like oil down her back.  The lean form beneath her robes was taut with agitation.  She needed information, and she needed it now!

At last, a curt knock at her door relieved her tension.  “Come” she instructed the visitor, her tone cool and collected.

A human male covered from head to toe in midnight leathers entered, quickly kneeling down on one knee, head bowed to the arcanist respectfully.  “Report” she barked. 

Crouching over the rocky outcropping, Elriech let his long tattered cloak catch the breeze, pushing hair out of his face, he took another swig from a deep auburn bottle, the vile liquid burning his throat. Coughing once, he shivered under his plate armor, letting the drink seep into his veins like the Forsaken madness seeped into the forest around him. He watched, sitting high upon the mountain, behind the High Command post in Silverpine. It was unlike him to step away from his duties, but the Queen angered him, like the rest of his people, hatred fueled the Knight.

"8 vials… 8 vials… 8 vials" said a voice. "8 vials… 8vials". In the darkness sat a man. Or it ones looked like a man.

((Rated mature for murder))

The death knight sat on the balcony, watching over the "workers" that tended to the grapes on the vine. Frost should set in soon, and with frost would come ice wines. Wonderful profit, she'd heard, not that anyone here actually knew a thing about caring for a vinyard.

Idly sliding the beads on her prayer-rope between her fingers, silently mouthing the words to prayers long chanted and indented into her soul — if she even had one — Vanista Nightfire thought.

Unbidden, memories flashed across her mind.

* * *

She had detonated the bitch's own grenade, hitting the ground so the pulse of nullifying magic had streamed overhead. She had heard Shryn'Dael's scream — words that cut off sharply — broken into the sound of shattering glass, crystal, splintering wood and tearing cloth.

Perhaps someone could have called it an “out of body experience” if they had truly known where the young Rogue had come from, but to the body-snatching parasite in question, one body was simply the same as another.

Who is Skythe Hawkins?

Blue eyes stared forward as he leaned against the railing that kept him from falling off the edge. Eyes stared down at the crossroads of the Citadel, perched up near the Argent Crusade who usually left him alone. What they didn’t bother to look at though, was a matching figure standing next to him in the same post.

A giest? A double? The same person, perhaps…

“Reminds you of the good old days, doesn’t it…?”

I stand barefoot on the small mound of earth, my boots in hand. The only thing to mark who was buried here is a small rock, hardly the grand memorial tradition requires. The name of the deceased hovers in glowing script above the meager headstone, but the magic infused in it is fading. A few more days, perhaps a week at most, and the name would be lost. Luckily I arrived before that.

The rules of his existence were simple things, truly.

He could not leave the bounds of the Woods. He could not deliberately destroy the fabric of the prison that held him, though he'd found ways around that precept quickly enough. And, after a daring, rigged gamble, he was no longer allowed to harm Poet when the feeble rhymecrafter entered his domain. Infuriating checks to his power, stumbling blocks at his feet. Chains that held him at barely a fingertip's distance from what he deserved.

But they change. Bending. Tonight, I break them.

  One green light, then another. ........ 

The cold light of a Darnassian dawn filtered through the curtains of Celise's spare bedroom.  She'd been glad to see me and I'd filled her in on what was going on.  She'd agreed to help, now it was just a matter of getting her and Kharris together and figuring out what was up with Iloam.  And that damn mage, still needed to find her.

At least the breeding rituals were starting to unravel.  I'd tried one of the Nightsabre priestesses, she'd nearly fainted when I told her what I needed.  Well, she was young and had flat out told me she'd no experience with that sort of thing; and still a virgin if the rumors were true, poor thing. 

Her mind was a tangled howling forest of crystalline trees each chiming discordantly, their edges slashing and cutting as she tried to find her way through.

The Lady cannot be wrong.. she cannot! One screamed in a voice like rushing water from a mountain creek six thousand, three hundred years ago, in the springtime, beside which she'd lain with her lover's moon-white hair splayed over one pale arm, teasing a pair of smiling violet lips with a ripe rich red berry plucked not an hour before.

The following document was seized from an office rented to the Order of Magicks in Stormwind, pursuant to reports that an individual exiled under pain of detainment and questioning (Amara Niall of the Ghost Scions) was seen at the location. These pages from a journal identified as belonging to him were taken as "seditious materials proving anti-government intentions," and several office aides were arrested for questioning.

Journal of the 11th day of the 10th month, 4th year after my father's death.

Everything I do turns to ashes
You won't have me as a friend
We have no further need of your services

Everything I touch dies
See how you like having me as an enemy
Cast off, just like that

There is that moment when time stops. You’re going along mindful of yourself, keeping the nerves in check, playing it casual while you wear a bloody hole in the rug on the soles of your boots while you can’t stop second guessing if that name will really fit. Maybe we should have gone with something more traditionally Elvish, or something from her family, or thrown all that rubbish out and just picked something completely unexpected and gone with Gregory or Zul’arek. It’s bloody terrifying and exciting all at once, but in a different way than a good pirate fight or hanging by your fingers off some Royal’s terrace while her husband comes home. It’s different.