Cross-Faction

*Somewhere within the Eastern Plaguelands men and women were dying. Their eyes wide in betrayal and horror, disbelief even. A singing blade with no mercy cut down both man, orc, dwarf, gnome, whatever donned those colors.*

"Look at you, child, the would-be wielder of souls...you cannot fathom the power that lies at my command!"

The woman ignored the deep voice rumbling in the front of her mind as she froze several of the Dawn in place, their faces sealing in the horror of one rogue Ebonite slicing through their marrow.

"You desire to serve Azeroth by ridding it of the Scourge. You do fine, but you cater to the Alliance. You are not true members of the Horde. MY Horde. Good bye, traitor."

With those words, a howling wind of plague and frost froze a cadre of Orcish calvarywomen and shattered them in place.

The rozzer tries the door as he walks past. Two minutes until he reaches the end of the block, two minutes that seem to last forever. As soon as he’s around the corner, I’m moving. The key works perfectly and I’m in, I lock the door behind me and crawl behind a desk. Another eternity and I hear the door rattle again. I count to twenty and head for the safe. And stop dead.

The watch in my pocket is buzzing like a wind-up toy. There’s strong magic here. I turn my head and squint, seeing what I fear, the faint wavering that means the safe is warded. At the least, someone will know when they’re disturbed; at the worst, they might trap me here or paralyze me for hours.

*At the floor of the frigid Citadel, the two Ebonites stood together in silence.*

"Behold the binding of sacred and corrupt! The forging of Shadow's Edge, a weapon of untold potential! Bind it to your will and you shall wield unspeakable power! Fail, and your soul shall forever be its slave...."

*She stared at the weapon, exquisite in design. "Perfect for soul-extraction, perfect for my dominion over mine enemies!" She thought.*

"Listen well, Dutchess. IN accepting this weapon, your fate is sealed. Overcome or succumb. I have placed your feet upon this path. You are therefore my responsibility. Should you falter, I am duty-bound to deliver you from this life. Remember my words, Sin'dorei. and do NOT fail."

*Irihapeti stared at the Highlord of her Order with a gaze that could shatter a thousand suns.

In the rearmost alcove of an underground cavern, lost to time and to the memory world, in the cold and the pitch black dampness of eternity, an elf and a gnome and a mechanical squirrel stood in awe of the sight before them.

Well, the elf did anyway.

We've only arrived home from our weekend holiday early this morning, but I decided to come in to the office as some sort of show of support. I can't say it's a strong one, really. Mostly I'm a warm body and the lanterns are glowing, but I'm useless to any sort of actual work. Ace is in the lobby and there's tea and coffee brewing while she tackles the bulk of everything I'm not doing. There's all sorts of letters and scrolls on me desk to go through, and an unusual parcel wrapped in brown paper addressed to me from one Ixinane Stormcren. I'm avoiding that one.

The rain outside is keeping the office a bit chilly. I watch it come down sideways in thin, icy sheets of grey needles. The docks outside the window are slippery and miserable and most the veteran workers 'ave good enough mind to stand under Port Authority awnings an' nibble on hot fried sausages or chips until the dark, angry clouds pass over.

I pull me mechano-guitar into me lap and lean over briefly to flip on the amp. An electric pop fizzes to life and fills the quiet office with a low, expectant hum. Leaning back into the comfortable leather of me captain's chair, I cross me boots at the ankle on the windowsill and adjust the guitar to a lazy angle in me lap. Me fingers slide along the metal strings and pluck out a few tentative notes I've been putting to a song I've been writing off and on while my mind wanders away from the work I'm avoiding.

  Hayo! Its Shorok Morien, Mist Walker again. With Real ID available if any one out there wants to talk to me on Wyrmrest Accord. Just message my account and I'll give you my E-mail. I understand that its a poor chance that any of you do. But still! Hope every one is enjoying there game!

I’ve spent three days watching Mister Ellison’s office, day and night, taking turns with Ned Crabbe so we get some time off. We have a pretty good idea of the routine at this point; opens at nine, closes at seven, everyone leaves promptly and the manager locks up. There’s no watchman, but the beat rozzer passes by every nine minutes. The office is a storefront with big plate glass windows looking onto the street which is a bit of a nuisance. I sum all these things up as I watch the manager hop down off the omnibus. I hop down right after him and follow, hoping he doesn’t decide to stop for a drain on the way home.

Gyrithrea Nightwing felt the air congeal around her, then melt away from Northrend's prevalent chill into the serene calm of Nighthaven. Her moss-green hair shifted in the gentle breeze flowing from the Lake, and she closed her eyes to feel the stillness which sang to her soul. Stillness? Only externally. With eyes closed, the druid could sense the churning roiling life curvetting about her. The birds singing in the great trees. The does and fawns shyly picking their way through the tumbled overgrowth. Mighty spirits of Cat and Bear prowled along the edges, in sacred groves, and deeper yet, the pulsing life forces of the trees themselves, half awake, whispered like humming motes amid the warm rich darkness.

(( Thank you Hakkajin for this Writing Workshop ))

A man stood, elven by the length of his ears and the glow of his green eyes. The room was dark and simple, a crowd with dark faces, not wanting to be identified, sat in simple chairs that had been placed for them. With a flick of the standing man's wrist what looks to be a capture of an elven woman reading a book in Eversong Woods with an apple in hand appears on an alabaster wall.

"Please turn your booklets now to page three to learn more about this elf."

She babbled like a child- to the Tauren who did not know where his body ended and the floor began, to the Troll who followed his ancestors or his sister, whichever called loudest. Her rush of words to them staled immediately upon hitting the air and grew a brown, sticky film of regret.

“Good morning, ma’am.” The bank clerk gives me a polite smile through the bars.

“Good morning.” I reply, smiling back and sliding one of Cutter’s notes across the counter. “I’d like to cash this, please.”

“Of course.” The man takes the note and holds it up with a frown. “Just a moment, please.” He  steps back from the counter to put his head together with an older man. I am starting to get nervous, wondering what the problem is with the note. Part of me is curious though since if it was reported stolen he ought to be checking a list.

An empty bed beside her. Where is her beloved?

She spent each day in the service of interests other than her own. Perhaps this was why she never questioned the night. When her waking hours belonged to strangers, it seemed appropriate that her dreams should as well.

She did not know them, the subjects of those dreams, nor did she wish to. They were storybook figures- unreal, unreachable, remnants of a lost tale delivered from some long forgotten tongue. Still, there is always a degree of simple comfort in the familiar, and perhaps Lueli drew some strength from the knowledge that, when she closed her eyes, they would be there, waiting for her.

It all began with a fight in the bar.  A troll woman who had seen her share of battles and beds, and an orc who had to duck whenever he entered a building. A few heated words, and push turned to shove, which turned into an all-out brawl. A few well-placed gold coins and the unlikely pair of brawlers managed to put on a show that not only caught the attention of the crowd, but most of the local security as well. The Laughing Zhevra was quickly surrounded by onlookers and Bruisers, long before the usual end of happy hour.

For those of you who know me and have been wondering where I am (you know who you are!), I'm not dead!

This is NOT a "boohoo, I'm leaving WoW, you all better miss me, I want to be the center of attention!" thing. Though being the center of attention is fun if it's good attention. Now, I -might- be leaving WoW but that's going to be explained a bit later in this post.

See, both my laptop and the old "new" desktop I had went kapleueye and won't support WoW. Or Starcraft 2, although on that score, I'm disappointed in the game because I somehow expected more and it just goes to show that I'm more of a MMORPG girl than a strat-game girl.

I've also been job-hunting. Still. It sucks. I hate it. But have to do it.

I figure that I might as well make this official, since it's been all but finalized in the past few months.  I would normally just fade away without a word but I feel that I owe some of you at least an explanation and an honest farewell when I leave.

I haven't played much for the past few months because I made a mistake.  That mistake was that I allowed the RP of one of my characters to be defined and be dependant upon those of another player, so I really shouldn't have been surprised when my character was destroyed by them.  While I've RPed several characters over my career in WoW, this character had been my main for my entire career.  He was there when Anka ran the Leaf, when rogues with guns could shoot as fast as hunters, and there were no flight points into Searing Gorge.  I've tried RPing as other characters since the loss of my main, but my thoughts keep drifting back to the character I should be playing.  But it's only inev

On my way back from the ladies’ I stop and look over the crowd below. The music’s stopped for bit and the dancers are congregating around the bars for a drink or two. I watch for a bit, then look up to study the tiers. There’s Mister Worth with Miss Sophia on his arm, and it looks like he's watching something. I follow his gaze and see he's watching Ned and Bill talk.

“What's he up to?” I wonder, because Fatty Ellison is a big man with connections to all sorts of people and robbing him would be like cutting your own throat, pretty literally.

The sunlight is warm on my cheeks where I lie on my back on a hillside. Surrounded by nothing but the rustle of the summer grasses and the occasional shift of my horse's hoof on the sweet earth. The long slow breaths of my lover curled by my side, asleep, sweat drying on her. Birds wheeling high above in the cloudless sky. Everything has a hazy golden tint, and I wish I could freeze this moment forever, before my mind begins to churn again and shatters the aftermath of perfect emptiness.

When at last she stepped on the planks of Booty Bay, Lueli's muscles were coiled and her head was light. She and the sea has come to an agreement over the years, but ships? They made her want to fall out of her body and let her spirit curl somewhere far away from the sick lurching and keeling of the craft. She still shook with illness as her eyes passed longingly over the inn, but slow, shifting steps took her towards a cramped stall in the the old port authority instead.

A small frame shadowed the front counter. Like many of the initial risen, there was little left of Ruken's face. Rot set in early, taking much of her mouth and all of the Forsaken's nose. The yellow glow of her eyes had faded some time ago. The look she gave the troll had no light in it.

These traits Lueli had long grown used to. It was Ruken's stature that cooled the Troll's blood, for Ruken was a child's corpse.

After I recovered from my little misadventure, I spent some time in the hills. I admit that some level of furious self pity drove me there, 'to be among the other freaks and things heroes try to kill' was how I think I framed it to myself.

I got rather good at surviving, which is really all that matters after a time in any walk of life, isn't it?

The entire place shook, and rattled with the bombardment of heavy weaponry. He looked up from under the ragged hood that draped down over the dwarf's weary eyes. The Undead servants went passing by swiftly, only for the sound of their demise to echo down the hallway, and soon he saw a color he didn't believe, and heard a voice he thought he'd long lost.

"Well, Well. Looks like the might General is still in one piece, don't know how the hell you survived, Stonebreaker, but it's time. We're taking ground quickly, The Lich King's time is running short....Tell me. Can you fight?" Knowing full well the answer, his hand motions and a few soldiers brought in a medium sized chest. The dwarf got up and slowly paced over to it, opening it up slowly. His eyes staring down for a moment, he tossed the old ragged cloak off his shoulders. His hands tugging two large axes up out of the chest. He gripped them tightly, a simple nod coming to him. "Give me 5 minutes tae get this armor on....And get the fack outta my way."

The room was lit in cool blues, a corridor lined on each side with ceremonial and sentimental armors and weapons, as much a trophy room as a functional armory.  Untold millennia of warfare had accrued quite the collection for the Exarch, and there was not a single tool in his arsenal which had not been used at some point or another for the benefit of his people.  Some were exotic, adapted to suit him from the native populations they had encountered on their adoptive planets, and some were standard templates used by those who served in his particular function, be it Vindicator or Exarch.  Each bore his own standard, typically a small pendant on the shoulder, each using a wide variety of materials from the leathers and hides of beasts to metals of such strange properties as to make them lighter than his breath yet as sturdy as the hull on his ship.

Razyel,

Please deliver this to Elrin Kast, agent of the Ashen Verdict.  I seem to remember that you knew him.  Thank you for the favor.

Teledriath

Three riders approached the inn, following the path along the shoreline. The sun was just beginning its slow descent behind the hills, casting Ratchet in a waning yellow light. The reflection off of the ocean waters set the port in an orange glow, and slowly but surely an aura of collective lethargy fell upon the populace.
Leaving their mounts near the side of the building, the three travelers approached the entrance as a unit. An orc and night elf flanked the troll, who seemed the more familiar with the establishment.

The orc was clad in a mail hauberk, cut short above the knee. Her greaves were polished bright, offering a golden glow atop the hardened leather. Her hair was braided in a single strand that draped over her shoulders, bringing to attention the fact that her armor was revealing above the waist as well. She knew it gave her plenty of attention, and she held her spear in a manner where few men would ignore her, yet none would approach.

I made this for comment Tuesday. 

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