uldum

June, 3 1/2 years ago

T’e rain was coming down sideways in  warm sheets durin’ a summer lightning storm. Lantern light illuminated our features as he lit t’e wick in t’e darkened inn room. It smelled of cedar dust and mildewed quilts.

The horizon was beautiful. It was that perfect light that is summoned at a twilight hour, where the world suddenly infuses with rich hues of red and yellow. The sweltering heat was oppressive for the hired workers and it showed in each droplet of sweat that stained their dirty brows.

The Lady Knight did not possess a similar issue. Her reanimated flesh remained as ever cool and resilient from the suns glare. She leans low, her darkened skin a contrast to the tan sand that chases her boots in tiny spinning whirlwinds. The darkening skyline marked yet another successful day at the site. She has uncovered a fragment of the urn. Her black fingers slide over the gentle ridges of the carved stone fragment with a smile on her painted lips. She appears pleased and the goblin overseer sags with relief.

I had finished my focus training my body was completly covered in sweat, I was about to leave for a bed when my master walked towards me I nodded to him. "Well Zulrohk...After that encounter with your sister and some advice from someone I think im going to have to up your training, so ive put together a test that im hoping will make you stronger." He smiled and gestured for me to follow I didnt object but was worried about this "Test" he spoke of. He led me to the mages tower in Stormwind where he pointed at one of the mages that nodded and walked towards us "This fellow here is willing to help by teleporting you to where your test will begin... are you ready?" I frowned under my full helm but nodded. "Good... alright *he gestures to the mage* Goodluck." He said smiling, Why do I get that this is going to be painful I thought.

The gauzy curtains fluttered as a stiff wind pushed through the square window, bringing with it the smell of the morning’s catch and the faint calls of Ramkahen fisherman as they plied their wares.

Saviero’s nose twitched.

He had kicked off the sheet that covered him sometime in the night. He yawned, then rubbed his eyes until his bleary vision cleared. A quick glance to his left confirmed the presence of a woman curled up next to him with her soft hair on his shoulder. She slept on her side with her arms tucked close to her body; a defensive posture. Even in sleep she wore a frown.

Saviero watched her, wondering what nightmare she was reliving at that moment. He decided not to wake her yet. Let her sleep a little more. Gently, he slipped out of bed and padded over to the window and leaned on the sill with both elbows. A curtain of loose, coppery brown hair fell across his shoulders, obscuring his vision of the sleeping Koina.

Continued from Building a Mystery, part 2.

The recent past.

Sinobel laboriously swam through the darkness, as she had for…as long as she could currently remember.  Weights seemed to dangle from her arms and legs; but she continued to struggle, not knowing which way was up or which way was down.  She had picked a direction what felt like years ago and was going with it, sluggishly but with determination.

A distant, murky glimmer caught her attention.  She puzzled at it, but her body angled toward it involuntary, like a flower toward the sun.  The closer she got, the more she began to feel herself, feel the confines of a physical body, and remember…but she was so heavy, so very heavy…it would be so much easier to sink away into oblivion…

He leaves presents in his wake.

Dust shaved from temple stone, mountain roots, and bone,

Sandy, coarse reminders in my pockets and between sun-burned toes-

That I might take him with me.

"The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name."     ~Theodore Roosevelt

The autumn sun was setting slowly over the lazily rippling sea as Thuaynel Dawnstrider’s personal yacht drifted up to the Sunsail Anchorage.  Warden stood beside him, fur bristled and beady eyes attentive to the surroundings.  He looked like Thuaynel felt but would not show; on edge and fearful.  But he must be strong, lest those who had been brave and loyal enough to accompany him to the docks in defiance of Viridel and their own patron's ex-wife.

It was a small enclosed area with dark, thick shadows that hid bodies pressed more tightly together than anyone was comfortable with.  A dense fog - the conglomeration of a dozen scents - lingered in humid air that would not accept that night had fallen and therefore it should be cooler.  The acrid smoke would linger on the clothing and in the hair of anyone who dared to enter this cavernous lair.  Her own nostrils flared as she breathed it in, but she could not do otherwise:  she was pressed as tightly against the stone wall as she could feasibly be and hidden as deep in those shadows are possible.  The young sin’dorei woman stood and watched with jade eyes so wide that their glow made even the thought of hiding impossible.  Her pale neck worked slowly as she swallowed again, her jaw ached from gritting her teeth so hard, but she lifted her chin in silent defiance of a truth she could not escape.

Aelberyn was, at this moment, more terrified than she had ever been in her life.

The sand rose and fell in soft rivulets, circling the dunes that lay east of the temple. The heat was significant, though she could not feel it. The dark elf lowered herself to study the markings along the wall. Living memory etched into stone with careful detail. The people of Ramkahen preserved. Not unlike him. Her constant shadow. Her comrade with his pervasive brand of justice and hidden fears.

Tanaris
“I see Golems. Lots an' lots o’ Golems.”

Evadine voiced what the other Dragoons felt as they looked on the crumbled remnants of the Valley of the Watchers. Outside the tomb, sandstone golems moved in a regular marching pattern, heedless of the motley group that stood far enough away to keep them quietly on their endless patrol.

Stormwind
Various Dragoons prepared themselves in the Hall. Laelan coated her daggers with poison. Wesley checked the large gun Alynore had made for him as his raptor watched. Nelenna stroked Rex’s fur, keeping the worg calm. Reggie shifted on his feet, face set in a scowl as he toyed with a portal rune. Evadine checked her medical kit for the umpteenth time.

Pinapple straightened and saluted as Harrigan approached the squad. None of them had slept much in the last few days but the commander seemed particularly on edge, the angry bruise on his face echoing the barely controlled emotions of the man himself.

Continued from Building a Mystery, part 1.

Time passed differently in the mysterious deserts of Uldum.  A second seemed like hours, and hours dragged on like days.

Sinobel mused as to how long she’d been a ‘guest’ here, busying herself by the fire deep in the depths of the cave.  Her desert-dwelling captors - Wastewanders, by the look of them - ambled about, seemingly at ease; but she knew they were keeping a watchful eye on her every move.  She snorted.  They had been holding her here and testing her skills and abilities, and all because she'd been using some sacred oil?  It just didn't make sense.

Sinobel hummed to herself absently, looking at her reflection in the waters which kissed the port town of Mar'at. 'My hair's grown long, and I hadn't even noticed' she mused as she ran her fingers through the strawberry locks, the dark blonde tinted as it was with henna.  She stared at herself, at her hair.  The reddish tones marked her connection to those myseterious desert folk who had changed her life so very much over these last few weeks.  She didn't look like the same person she used to be, and gods knew she didn't feel like it. 

She was starting to like herself and her life again.

The chill from the wind crept down his spine as he surveyed the surrounding land with a smirk on his face, seeing nothing in the distance but a far off sandstorm. He rode up to a caravan camped out for the day, his watchful eyes counted six people running around like roaches caught in light. As he approached he saw an elderly tauren hunched over a fire-pit franticly trying to start a fire before the sun retired for the day. Sath dismounted his horse patting it gently before grabbing the reins leading it towards the camp, as he walked up behind the old tauren he stood up towering over the elf, the tauren grinned making his scarred ugly face surprisingly uglier.

"What do you want?" the tauren spat, his voice terrifying.

"certainly not to trade bitterness." Sath grinned back mocking the old tauren. He was not amused with Sath's wise remarks, he glared at the elf.

"Listen here you little pink shi--" he was cut short by a grey haired orc,

It all started with that intoxicatingly pleasant oil from the Mar'at bazaar.

...

She should have suspected it was a gateway to the unknown and thus TROUBLE, when she asked the merchant about the ingredients.

"A base of equal parts olive and almond oils, with...primarily the essences of bergamot and vetiver."

Sinobel glanced askance at the interpreter.  The streets of Mar'at were crawling with them now that the Ramkahen had opened their cities to outside trade and commerce.  They attracted so much business, and those who could translate the language of the Tol'vir who hadn't yet learned to converse was most lucrative.

He nodded plesantly at her, waiting.

"Primarily?" she asked in clarification.  The merchant, grinning, growed something at the translator.  "Yes, he says the other ingredients are...inconsequential."

Cerwis glared at Reggie as he tried to take her pen away, “I need to finish this report. Let me finish this report and then I'll take the stupid drugs and sleep.”

Her husband frowned at her, “You've been trying to figure out how to end it for the past thirty minutes, it will still be here when you wake up in the morning, get some rest.”

The sun burned at my eyes relentlessly. I suppressed an overwhelming desire to yawn; I'd been up for longer than I liked. Still, Elune gave me Her strength and courage, and my discipline would not be wanting.

I had been Sentinel-Priestess for the Nightblades. For their inheritors, the Nightsabres, I was a Sentinel Captain; my life to be spent safeguarding my Commander.

It always had been reserved for that purpose, since I'd become her friend so many millenia ago. Broken-winged Aktarin Shadowsong..

My soul sang in the vaults of my mind to see her so much at peace now. The aid of her friends and comrades had somehow mended that scabbed wound within her, and at long last, she had learned what I had known all my life: how to feel the commands of the Goddess. I could heal my Commander even now, by the will of the Mother, but I had little need to, for she now could bring the touch of the Mother to salve her own flesh and bone.