Verisimi

“Get away from her!” 

Onyxia ignored me and approached Verisimi. 

"I always feel better when there's a dwarf around," Echo said, sitting back in her chair after swallowing a particularly refreshing mouthful of ale.  Decompressing with Credence on Friday nights had become a cherished routine: a light supper on the table, plenty of ale, and a patient smile accompanying a listening ear. Her sooty armor hung on its rack, far enough away that the scent of creosote didn't tingle their noses, and her bare feet rested in Credence's lap. As those kind fingers worked the tension from her toes, the ale tempted further musings from her lips.

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.

((Hey everyone! Totally OOC post, but some people asked for information about the baby!

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.))

It had taken a long time and the elements had been patient. But everything had fallen into place with the efforts of Oshan, Nuadhu and the de Montvalle sisters who she had recently met. She was standing at the entrance to the lair of a creature of earth that was so powerful that she could feed off it's essence. The only issue was that it needed to be defeated since it was not going to give it up willingly.

It had even been a challenge to get to the mouth of this cavernous walkway. The Horde had not seemed interested in letting them pass into this place unharmed. It did not bring them joy, not all of them at least, to cause destruction and harm to the Horde. But the Horde had stood in their way and no Orcs or Trolls were going to stop them from fulfilling the dying wish they had determined to obey.

I didn't go to Lorith Stonegarten's funeral. I spent the evening with Shar, going out to dinner in Dalaran and celebrating the ring she had me put on her finger, the promise of our future together and the life that lay before us. I didn't want to think back those many months ago to Arathi, to my own fumbling ineptitude with the weapon in my hands – compared to her. And none of us could save her, none of us could do anything but watch her die.

((I needed to write this before the event passed too far behind but I wasn't as inspired as I wish I could have been.  Title stolen from Zao.  The conversation with Anka took place too long ago for me to remember it exactly))

I found the crossbow in Utegarde Keep, amongst the piles of weapons the Vrykul store in their halls. Small for them, it was most likely kept hooked to a drake-rider's belt to be pulled forth at need; in the hands of a draenei of my stature, it is the perfect size. I have taken it apart in order to clean it.

A scrollcase is delivered to the home of Verisimi Ironoak and Pugnose Sharpaxe, containing a carefully rolled ledger-page and a short letter:

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. 

Race

            “Hurry up, ya fat fuck! I got seven kills up on you!” Elrin shouted as he sliced his way through another zombie. “Wha’ are ya takin’ a nap, ol’ man?”

            Hron’s heart thudded in his chest. Thump thump thump. The joints in his arms and legs were on fire. They had been at it for almost six hours, just killing wandering undead. The pains were the worst, here in Icecrown. The ghouls didn’t help, either, of course.

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.

Submitted by Pugnose on Sun, 2007/04/01 - 10:33am. 

They say tha' promises are easily made n' easily broken. But methinks tha' a person o' character will nae make a promise lightly, but bury it in his heart n' make it a part o' his person. Ta keep a promise is ta do jes tha', keep it n' not just let it float away in tha wind. Today, I make a promise ta Verisimi Ironoak, one tha' I will keep in me heart 'til the Light calls me inta itself.

I promise ta love yeh 'til the very end, Ta be yer husband, brother n' friend. I promise ta stay true, no matter tha cost, Even if'n it means me very life may be lost.

Submitted by Pugnose on Thu, 2007/02/15 - 10:06am

She was waiting for him.

 The afternoon was quiet as Pug chewed on the tip of his pipe, as was his habit. The morning chores were complete, and the only sounds were the bleating of the goats and sheep and the chorus of moos from the cows, mixed with the occasional barking of orders from the farmhands. Stonefree was a good farmhand, an able employee and as trustworthy as a dwarf should be, Pug thought to himself. Things will be left in capable hands while I’m away…for just a little while.

I don't need to open my eyes. As I awaken, I smell first the sharp crisp dampness of outside air, reminiscent of healthy green. A ways off, a little stream sends up watery sounds, and above, the leaves of overhanging branches rustle. I am chilled, though warm in places, warm everywhere my body touches hers, where her arms wrap around, where my cheek rests against her chest. Breathing in, my lungs fill with her scent, of herbs and leather and fatigue and sweetness, and I don't need to open my eyes.

I have been dreaming. A long night of dreaming.

Their tabard is of a tree with all its leaves shorn off, yet still it stands. I should have known those roots go deep.

The cloth hangs now between my fingers, and in the deep light of evening those bare branches are hardly seen on their inky ground. Now and again I feel a tear, a frayed edge of the garment, a hardened place where blood has dried. I have not washed and mended it yet, Lord Elrin Kast's tabard. But I will.

Little loose, Lorith thought with a bit of a frown, sucking on her diamond tooth. Whatever healing she had received after the second run-in with the Syndicate – and their bloody steamtank – had soothed any pain away, but her arm remained a little stiff and this... well, she didn't like her diamond tooth being loose. It wasn't exactly something she wanted to leave in the Hillsbrad dirt, should it get knocked out.

Lorith whistled softly to herself, looking out over the darkening Arathi hills. The sunlight had a way here of easing over each grassy round, highlighting the yellow straw on top, that defied the melancholy of the day. She rocked back in her boots some, her eyes tracing a subtle route around stone and hillock, up towards Thoradin's wall. If they left now, with the sunlight withering, they would reach the Syndicate encampment just at dusk – enough light left to reveal the enemy but enough darkness fallen to conceal themselves.

We arrived in Arathi two nights ago now, late in the evening, and didn't even bother with tents or fires. In a small hollow in the land, overlooked by standing stones and withered trees, we edged our bedrolls up against some rocks, Shar and I sleeping close together for warmth in the chill fog. When the morning light touched our eyes, we woke to see the others, all of them moving slowly but deliberately, now beginning to gather wood for fires, now beginning to set up campsites, now beginning to order our stay in the hills for the mission to come.

Ta'Srith sat and patiently drew on her right hand. She drew with the tip of a sharp knife, face reflecting nothing of the pain she felt as she carefully drew elaborate runes into her own flesh. The welling blood was daubed away only when it overflowed the channels she carefully cut. Her hand trembled beneath the knife, the only sign of how painful it was to carve these sigils into her skin. She leaned back for a moment, glancing up at the past before her eyes. Seated on a boulder, looking at mountains... the mountain behind her. Sitting on the flanks of Hyjal. A faint smile crossed her lips and she whispered words of arcane power, letting raw magic sear the sigils into her hand. The blood bubbled in the channels, and burned the patterns permanently. She flexed her hand and arranged her thoughts correctly. Molten rock sprouted from the sigils to encase her fist, developing into lava coated spikes.