Triktaal

Foulness within and black betrayal. My soul is stained with demonic magic. It grows stronger, while the elements I draw on rise against us. How long can I hold it back?

I stumbled in blinding darkness until he took my hand.

He can see the Light clearly.

While he still hopes, I will not despair.

"Going north, you said?" Credence asked, lifting the green-and-blue bracers from the table and handing them to Echo, a note of curiosity in her eyes.

"Not that far north," Echo answered, with a soothing smile.  "Not that far, hopefully ever again.  Just up into Quel'thalas, to deal with the Amani.  Haven't been up there, myself, but most of the Scions have been.  You know, I don't think I've dealt with trolls before - at least not a whole tribe, not like this.  Should be interesting."

My study of relics brings me to that great old wall.

As I sift the dust and fragments, I find my own crest, fallen from armor I once wore.

I take a news clipping out of my pocket, staring at it, and the crest.

I came looking for history.

This place holds my history too.

I opened one sticky eye and looked out, as usual, on Hadeel's mess.

It looked like she'd come in from wherever in Creation she'd been this time and dumped her stuff in a heap on the floor.  At least she'd managed to get out of her armor before she fell asleep.  I prodded the chain hauberk that lay crumpled by the bed.  It was stained with dirt, ash, and blood of unguessable origin.  Couldn't the little slob at least clean her gear?

Oh well.  I dragged myself upright and stretched.  Muscles weren't sore, and that was sad.  Too many days of inactivity.  I needed to get out and run, or fight, or something.  I wished Hadeel would exercise too, but that wasn't likely - little miss "I can turn into a ghost wolf and move like the wind itself".  Sun filtered in through the crack in the shutters, and I flung them open and let the fresh air in.

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 cold pervades everything here: The air that snaps at our lips as we breathe, the bright clattering of weaponry and armor, the low rumble of crunching ice beneath our feet.  The spire is brittle and threatens us with its tenuous surface; if our boot-heels catch the edge, shards break away, whirling down into darkness.  It would have us fall, tumble away from the icy throne and the evil we seek to destroy.  But we cannot fall.  We will not fall.

He will not fall.  Melersian Corinth is one with the abyss, despite the voice of amusement often rising from behind his mask.  How much is he still human?  He will not fall.

She will not fall.  Beisel Goldthread sets a dwarven table, feeds us with laughter, then disperses in a puff of shadow.  How can a shadow be smashed or broken?  She will not fall.

I touch the little cut on my neck, the least wound I have received in months.  Half of an inch long, it appears as a mere translucent line across my skin, hardly opening any chasm to flesh beneath.  It does not require a bandage.  I smear a thin salve over the incision; it will probably close by nightfall.

The assassin's sharp knife had hardly nicked my skin, not nearly deep enough to grant his poison's passage into my bloodstream.  His attack had been awkward, thrusting between my neck and my heavy shoulder-armor, having to leap for my height, grabbing my hair with his unarmed hand in an attempt to pull me back and down while slicing deep and true.  He could have cut my throat; he could have left me bleeding out and poisoned on the lawn.  He could have killed me, no more than ten steps from the entrance to my home. 

I let bowstring loosen, abandoned weapons. The sporebat lingered in the fresh spring night.

I shed my armor upon entering, death and plague left behind.

I went upstairs, my hair at my shoulders, every step one step closer.

I took her in my arms and lifted her up.

One step closer.

The Professor had fallen.

I entered through the back door.  The maid's face, when she saw me, fell open like a sheet to a gale-force wind.  I found my voice, caught in my throat as it was, and rasped out hoarse words.

“Tell the lady of the house I am home.  Tell her not to come down.  I will see her in the morning.”

The maid nodded, her eyes still wide and fixed upon me, her mouth a thin line.  She turned away swiftly.  If she spoke words from the place of her expression, Cassie would know not to come down. 

I did not prop my polearm against the wall, or set my bow where I usually did.  I did not touch anything.  Another maid and a houseboy came into the pantry, their faces as wan and eyes as wide as the maid before them. I stood without moving.

“I need three vats of hot water.  One with lye, one with vinegar, one with soaps.  I need a pitcher of warm oil and one of boiling water, crushed icecap in each.  A fire in my den.  Many hot stones.  Many towels.  Many -”  My rough voice broke, and I swallowed back the interruption.  “Chamber pots.  Many of them.” 

((Since there are spoilers about Yogg-Saron's dialogue, I've hidden this behind the cut.))

Dalaran is known for it's wine.

And at the Hero's Welcome, they don't seem to mind if you put your hooves on the table. 

I've been marching for a long time now. I haven't stopped getting up and heading out every day, not since Durnholde, even when Kast re-formed the Scions. I started marching double-time when he showed up again. I have the feeling I'm still in retreat. The forces of the scourge seem a lesser obstacle than settling down and finding someplace to fit in again at times, but that's not really it. I could go back to Shattrath if I wanted to quit. The Scryers would laud me as a hero for the rest of my life, and even the aldor admit a grudging respect for my actions in the Shattered Sun campaign, even if I hung up my armor and lay in the World's End with six hired women until I died of booze. No, I'm not ready to quit and it's not because I don't fit anywhere.

"I SAID that Archmage Alturus would like to speak with you right a--aahhck!" Apprentice Tasserel's voice trailed off into an odd little squeak as Amara's armored thumb pressed slowly into his windpipe.

"This," the warrior said, holding the smaller man beside him by the neck without looking up, "is a beer. Specifically, a lager."

Amara Niall sipped his beer before glancing at the man he held. He eased his thumb up, allowing the apprentice to gasp for breath, then continued to educate the young mage. "Dwarves prefer ale, and Stormwind has always been a town for wines, but this is a good old-fashioned Lordaeron-brewed lager. It was a gift from the pretty white-haired lady over there, who happens to be a bronze drake, because she appreciates my help from time to time."