Zaas

Larosa advanced with unsteady legs, her arms lifting her short sword to attack the target dummy infront of her.  She could barely see the wood and armor plated contraption through the beads of sweat and tears in her eyes as she lunged forward, weapon sharp and gleaming in the soft gnomish electrical lighting.  What should have been a healthy war cry was a strangled croak as the Night Elf weakly followed through the swing of the short sword.  Her battle blade bounced of the armor of the target, there was barely any power behind what should have a devastating neck wound.

"Blame the rum, the past few hours in the morgue ..." Larosa thought to herself as the target blurred out entirely and she began taking quick hiccuping breathes, "Blame the fact you just spent all night closing out ... No lying through my teeth about what happened from the moment I left the Keep to answer a dead woman's summons."

Simultaneous with...

He bounced and bashed against harder objects; he couldn't get his bearings, couldn't control his downward course.

Had Camyra been able to Blink herself to solid ground? She'd tried to take him with her...

He slammed into something solid, something jabbing in through his side, and stopped moving. Far above him, the sky seemed to be burning. Beyond the pounding of blood in his ears, he heard a roar that shook the world more than any of the elements had before.

Larosa held her breathe as she waited for the last drops of ink to dry on the page.  She carefully put her calligraphy brush onto it's ceramic holder and let the air escape her lungs in a sigh of relief as she looked up at the ceiling.  A little over a month later and she was finally done, and with time to spare.

The Night Elf smiled as she began rubbing her sore fingers.  She was planning on give this to him right after the toast and on the actual date, she was arranging for a shipment of "supplies" to be delievered. 

Zaas Glados Devereaux. Sixteen. Troubled childhood. Matrix conversions. Arcanomatics research.

The dark-skinned girl perched on the edge of her seat, either incapable or unable to relax into its considerable comforts. She was, as always, dressed properly and with as much skin covered as the weather would allow. Given Dalaran's atmospheric controls, this meant she was covered from chin to feet in thick, sturdy frostweave perhaps two shades lighter than her skin. Her feet were, as always, covered in sturdy, leather riding boots. Her hands were, as always, folded calmly in her lap. And her expression was, also as always, composed into a neutrally polite mask.

Her hair was still shaved.

"The shadow evidences an experienced intellect in a virus."

"Wha?" I can't seem to understand, or speak, or open my eyes. "Whzzere?"

"He's coming around, slowly," says a different voice. Lower... male? The first a woman?

"Yes," she replies. "This subject is similar to the others. Infection parameters consistent, thus the time to recovery is based on individual resilience."

"What... happened?" I manage to creep my hand up my body slowly, wiping at my face as if it could pull away the heavy headache, which tastes like something died and rotted while it was eating my head.

"You were sick," replies the male voice. "And crazy."

"I feel sick."

Dame Theryl Miller-Duskwind

As per request of one Corporal Devereaux,

Commander Bennet Harrigan,

It is with apology and a heavy heart that I tender my resignation from the Silver Dragoons.  For happy years now I've been able to call the Dragoons my family and am blessed for the home I've found with them.  In the light of my transgressions resulting in a grievous break in protocol, however, I feel this action necessary to prevent further questioning of the unit command's capabilities.

With regards,
Corporal Delphiee Marie Callaghan

 Cerwis paced. Well, more like shuffled, it was hard to pace with a gimp leg. It had been a whole day and a half with no contact from either party. 

Right. Time to call Zaas and see what she could do. Cerwis sat at her vanity and lit another cigarette, sliding her comm-stone from its place near the mirror. That conversation had gone simply.

Zaas had said that Lirriel was with Reggie.

Lirriel was with Reggie.

Oh. Suddenly, no contact made perfect sense.

My scowl returned as I left the Heroes' Welcome.  Lord Vinguld's note had been alarmingly terse, just "I need you." and nothing more.  He'd let me in on what'd happened, Iloam's demon had gone nuts and half-eaten one of Vinguld's toys.  Then Drakys had made things worse by calling in Ixiwhatsits.  So we had some problems.

First problem was disposing of the body.  Normally, I'd have considered dumping it off the edge.  Between the fall and the scavengers there wouldn't be much left by the time anyone found it.  Problem was, the girl's father was a mage and we needed to make sure no one tried any scrying or other funny stuff.  What we needed was a reason for the family not to look into things.

She looked over the handwritten transcript of the conversation she'd listened in on again, thinking. What would Zaas do with her when she'd outlived her use as a tool? Cerwis knew that was what she was, merely a Pawn on a chessboard. 

Met a woman; she wanted me.

Told my fiancee; she wanted in (later).

Am I the luckiest man alive?

Not yet.

Not even with the third girl, willing to do anything I say, totally trusting.

This world isn't safe, and I'm dumb enough to care.

I have people watching each of them.

Just in case.

A pile of dead trees has accumulated on my desk. Somewhere between the forest and here, it all got mashed and mixed with water into pulp and woven into thin sheets and covered with the remains of some of it which burnt up before getting wet. Or, when I blink the words out of my eyes, the words on the pages come into focus again. The piles of paper still bespeak the death of at least one great old redwood's equivalent weight of dead tree. My contacts and acquaintances - I hesitate to call them "friends" while laboring under the weight of nigh-infinite documentation - provided me with enough information on various subjects to choke an army of clerks.

Of course, while I was insane, my seceretary quit.

Theraesia von Haller was pacing.  Four steps up, four steps back, pausing once in a while to cast a baleful glance at the crumpled papers that covered her desk.  It had been literally weeks without a good lead, and now ... now she'd been deluged with a formless mass of possibilities.  Chance?  Possibly; but she'd been at this long enough that she doubted that.

It was a war.  She'd told Zaas that, even though she doubted the girl had really understood.  It was a war, one she'd been fighting longer than Zaas had been alive, and Stormwind was just one more battleground.

She stopped and sat down at the desk, looking at her notes.

Subject 1:  Unknown male.  Seen talking to Subject 2.  Possible SI:7 connection.  Possible half-elf.  Later seen talking to Cerwis in unknown language.

"How did you find me?"

As she asks me that, Lady DeWynter sets her cup of tea on its saucer, then puts both aside on a small table beside her chair. She seems especially slender and drawn, and not as tall as I remember. Her face is set in frown lines, and the squint-lines by her eyes are not from laughter. Since she is not made up at all, the gray streaks in her black hair are in full force as well, and even the strands with color seem thin and brittle. Her elegantly conservative black velvet dress with pearl buttons is the thing of most substance about her.

"The housing market in Stormwind isn't what it once was, what with the zombie invasion," I explain. "And of course, all the soldiers and adventurers leaving for the north. So really, it was quite easy to find out who had recently purchased a suite. I knew the minimum standard you would put up with, mother."

"Welcome back, Ambassador," says Tricia Stockman, the chipper thirtysomething customs clerk at the Stormwind Dock and Customs Offices.

"Thank you," Amara replies, accepting his papers back after Tricia has stamped them. "I'm glad to be back."

"Oh yes, it's good to see your legal troubles all cleared up."

"Mm, yes, well, just makes another few documents for you to approve," Amara shrugs with a smile. Since there's no line at this time of day, he leans on the desk. "I bet the whole deal made good gossip for your girls over coffee."

Tricia favors him with a coy smile, arranging various papers into piles and drawers. "A little legal drama is certainly more interesting than the usual grind checking shipping manifests. Though we had a little excitement with that, recently."

"Oh?" Amara asks, raising his brows with interest.

Zaas Glados Devereaux was not anxious. Not precisely. Neither was she pacing nor acting in any other way that may translate to 'nervous'. In fact, only someone schooled in the fine art of Understanding Little Zaas (of which there were maybe three players and not a single one of them was present to observe) would have noted any sign of nerves. There were there, but they were tiny. How she rubbed her fingertips together for they cooled when she became stressed. How her spine was so straight that she might as well have had an iron rod placed through it.
Never mind that most of that stress was self-appointed for none of the parties on whose behalf she was about to present her (their) case knew what precisely she was planning. No one truly did, which was rather the point. If she surprised her listeners enough, she might well get one or two of the things she was intending to ask for.

"Corporal? We are ready for you."

Zaas nodded to the speaker, gathered her notes then paused and carefully inhaled and exhaled. Each took precisely twenty counts with five counts in between.

((References back to this blog of Lirr's. Also, if it's a bit vaguer than usual, it's because I'm thinking of using it as a story for my creative writing class, so any critique would be greatly appreciated before I take it to them to workshop. Some language and at least one horror-flick moment.))

Lormar landed his gryphon on the mountaintop, trying to smooth the dark plummage as it snorted in agitation. He dismounted and let the creature wander as he found a seat on a stone that was semi-warm from the short daylight hours. The borealis shimmered above and for a long moment he just sat there watching it dance across the blue sky as he sipped from his flask. The coffee inside was still warm, and there weren't any kids up here to pretend to be drunk around.

At least not until the meeting tonight, when sweet 'Diva might pass him some burnwine she'd have picked up in the city. It would add to the coffee nicely, and help dull the memories that would try to haunt him when he turned in afterwards.

Besides, some evenings, booze was the only way to get through one of his guild's meetings. Crazy younguns.

Right Honourable, my Lady Mother, with my most humble and dutiful thanks for your Ladyship's bountiful goodness towards me all times, I make bold to acquaint your Honourable Ladyship with such tidings as may interest your Ladyship; and I pray most earnestly that the Most Holy Light keep your Honourable Ladyship in good health.

Theraesia sighed and paused to rub her temple, replying to her mother's letters was a task she avoided as much as possible.  "You're not even fifty, Mother."  She thought.  "Why do you insist on a style that was old fashioned when you where a girl?"

She could hear her mother's reply as clearly as if she were in the room.  "Standards, daughter.  We do not permit ourselves the laxity of current times."

Trark wuffed and scratched at the door. Aerie set the teapot on the stove and peaked out a window, smiling as she saw Lirriel stabling her talbuk before turning to the house. She opened the door for the priestess. “Hey sweetie...” Her greeting faded as she saw the stormy look in her daughter's gray eyes before the younger woman had a chance to look away.

“What's wrong?” Aerie asked while Lirriel looked around the room. “Did you and Drauglos have a fight...?” Trark looked between the two, and then slunk to Aerie's bed behind the curtain in the back of the room.

“No. We're fine.” She turned, hands on her hips, eying her mother. “I know about Lormar.”

Ythgar Vinguld prowled from the repugnant edifice of Stormwind Keep, his lips quirked in a faint smile. His steps took him toward Old Town, and amid the hubbub of the street callers and the yells of washer women, he permitted himself to chuckle once.

(( Multiple photoshoped images ahead, I had to stop working on these, (I am not happy with the last one) or else they never would have been posted. Yes, I am cutting out alot of things, I suggest waiting patiently for Taneel's version for more details. :) ))

"Training is tonight," Larosa reminded herself as she pulled out her pocketwatch.  Lately, it seemed every Dragoon was searching in one way or another for Miss Zaas.  Larosa sighed as she dropped her leather shorts on her bunk and reached for the blue silk uniform.  She put her purple leather vest on underneath the tabbard and quickly headed to the chamber to meet up with everyone.

She walked in to hear Taneel say, "It seems we'll be carrying a shipment of oats."

"Oats?" Larsoa asked.

Feoderan's question was right on the heels of her's," Like the...horse feed?"

((Set last Sunday. Some spoilers for Storm Peak. more about this day shall be forth coming.))

Taneel lay in bed, his arms lightly embracing Asilia. The tail end of the harsh stress and worry that had dogged him since Zaas’s kidnapping seemed to have melted away in her arms. As his exhausted mind sunk into unconsciousness, the day’s events seemed to wash over him.

The battle of titanic warriors, Loken and Thorim, that he and Rose had unintentionally brought to pass. Watching the great green tentacles Loken strike at Thorim had been hard enough without Loken revealing how they’d been played.

But had they? Or had Loken lost his own game when he brought Thorim out of hiding. Only time, and the ventures into the heart of Ulduar, would tell.

Harrigan couldn’t remember the last time he felt this drained.  Weeks of too little sleep, too many miles traveled, too much pain, too many potions, too much plagued air…

and too much worry.

((Running a bit behind due to the Great Midwest Meddler Road Trip...))

This was not good.

Lormar didn't have time to regard the dead whore sprawled across the bed. He was too busy spinning around to parry the knife coming from the assassin still lurking behind the door.

The courier had never, in all his years, had to deliver a message to this part of Dalaran. The inner barracks of the Violet Eye, sanctum for secret agents of the most secretive order within the Kirin Tor. In most places, he would have found some forgiveness for his ignorance. Here and now, he is suspended in the air by a violet diagram of power in front of the door to the apartment he sought to deliver a note to. Setting off the trap was not technically his fault. The device was triggered by the lingering psychic stench of hostile intent left on the message he carried, simply by virtue of what was written on it. Of course, despite knowing full well that bonded Dalaran couriers never read the messages they carry, Amara Niall chose to leave the kid hanging when he read the note. He figured it would be better than killing the bearer of bad news.

"I will send you a souvenir when I am finished.
Should not have touched another man's property."

He wanted to protest. It had been a hard and painful night, how could he leave Asilia to find her way past every soldier the death knight had to throw at them on foot. Another thought let him clam his mouth shut and nod. He had no fallen for Asilia because she was a damsel in distress. She would be as likely as he to make it home alive. More if his injuries and her natural abilities were taken into account. He gave her a kiss and leapt onto his gryphon. He needed to get Jasria help now. Asilia was strong. He would see her soon enough.

He felt the horror of impending doom well up in him as Bennet described the state Delphiee was in. He would find a way, or someone else would. As always, when there was life there was hope.

“Commander Harrigan?”  The door was snatched open before the fifth knock fell, much to the surprise of the guard captain.  Harrigan looked like he’d fallen asleep in his uniform and he smelled of strong liquor, but his eyes were as clear and piercing as ever.

'Gladdie, issat you?' The dark man slumped into the corner of a nameless alley resembled Zaas if the onlooker used a great deal of imagination. Where once they shared a great many characteristics as siblings were wont to, now he looked nothing like his little sister. Where she stood tall, stead-fast and proud with just enough fat left on her to soften the musculature, her brother had a permanently hunched-shoulder stance with his eyes sunken deep enough into his face to possibly be mistaken for a very well-preserved ghoul. Blue eyes, once cold and clear and as brilliant as her own, now gazed at her through a watery glaze. 'Gladdie!'

Zaas Glados Devereaux, once known as Gladiolus Rebecca Crosthwaite, Gladdie to her older brother, compressed her lips into a thin line. Many things ran through her mind from the wailing fear of a girl sent into a world of nightmares to the cool, calculating responsibility to Law. What her face showed was the same calm mask that she displayed for the world at large. 'Arol,' she sighed around the nervous butterflies fluttering in her stomach. Everything about the scene was wrong. And yet, he was her brother, her -blood- and the only living relative she knew of. 'You're high, aren't you.'

It loomed out of the early morning mists like some misplaced monolith, some forgotten obelisk of evil. Hovering over a shattered town, fields filled with only death. Nothing stirred, all was silent, as the gryphon's wings beat steadily. The air itself seemed afraid to move near this great citedal of cruelty. Dunè gripped the reins of his gryphon, guiding him in towards the entrance at the bottom of the structure. Others followed him, fellow crusaders, all on a mission. Into this sad statue of desolation.

It started out well, as they struck into this structure's hidden faculties and many surprises. The Lich's horrid and beastly spiders fell easily, though this quick and crushing victory was soon replaced. These poor Argent Crusaders soon found themselves out matched and ill equiped to deal with the black fortress. Naxxramas.