Looming Presence

I’ve altered this journal to write itself. At this very moment, I’m walking about the outskirts of Stormwind, the journal hanging at my side, closed. I’ve enchanted it with an inscription rune; death knights are all familiar with runic magic, and even though I haven’t practiced it since inscribing my brooch pin with Bolgrim’s rune, I still know how to do some of the simpler enchantments. This one is a transcription rune – put simply, so long as the journal stays close to me, it will automatically record my thoughts and etch the words into the pages like runes, before filling in the indented pages with magically conjured ink.

I’ve found myself in a rush the past few days, and I rarely can calm myself long enough to sit down and write, but creating and inscription rune is a fairly quick and simple process, so I looked to it as an alternative. I must continue this log of events, and my nerves will not keep me from fulfilling that task.

Still, things may get jumbled and distorted at times – it’s hard to control which thoughts I want transcribed, and which ones I don’t care for, but as of now, this is the best solution, and I will try my best to keep things in check.

Even now, as I pace about the darkened academy pathways, the cool night breeze whistling and howling like wolves, I know the Defias are watching. I can sense them, lurking in the shadows, peering out at me from hidden rooftops and vantage points. I cannot deny their looing presence, and yet, I must remain unaware and ignorant to their prying gaze.

After what happened, it’s becoming increasingly hard to restrain myself. I can feel myself shaking, my fists clenched in anger. All I want to do is turn around and let my anger break free, tear them out of the shadows and watch them burn.

Yes … watch them burn. Set them alight and choke them, snap their necks and watch as their eyeballs shrivel and wither, their skin liquefy and melt away to sore red flesh. Tear them apart, spill their blood and kick them into their own pool of molten, mutilated flesh. I will not let them die – no, I’l keep them alive the entire time, drink in their screams, and only then when their vocal cords are charred and useless, will I allow them the release of death.

Only then, will I be satisfied.

…

…

…

But I can’t. I can only pace and fantasize, waiting for the day when the Defias come.

When they do, I’ll make the most of it …

…

After what happened in Westfall, David and I made it safely back to Stormwind without any interruption, and we’ve been resting here for three days now. We were unable to bring … to bring the corpse back with us. He was too heavy, and we had to move quickly. David’s horse had been captured, and we had to hoof it – speed was of the utmost importance at the time and even though I so desperately wanted to bring the body back for a proper burial, we simply couldn’t manage it. We had to leave everything there, in that field.

When the wind blow just right, on nights like this, I can still feel the same breeze I felt in that field, still see his cold unmoving form. I want nothing more than to tell him I’m sorry, and even now, I feel like I’m continuing to fail him.

Still even though we were unable to bring him back with us, we recovered the Defias plans and handed over the scrolls, the blueprints for the magic poisons, to the Stormwind Guard, but I kept Bolgrim’s journal. David is a reputable, fairly high ranking priest – he’s feeding the Stormwind Guard info directly from Bolgrim’s Journal, but we’re keeping the source a secret. This journal is my family’s legacy, and now, it’s mine.

My friend died writing parts of this journal. I can’t willingly hand it over. Even so, Stormwind needed to know of the impending attack, and so it is that David is acting as an informant.

…

Three days. Seventy Two hours from now. That’s how long before the Defias make their grand move on Stormwind. This is an attack years in the making; Bolgrim has concept plans and exact dates for this attack in his journal.

One Thousand Eight Hundred and fifty Defias – that’s how many Bolgrim predicted, how many were slated for this offensive, on a city of nearly 200,000 with a standing force of ten thousand Alliance soldiers.

There are no specifics on what the Defias intend to do, what their goal in all of this is, but whatever it is, it’s going to be bloody, and I fully intend to kill every last one of them.

Warlocks aren’t made for protecting like paladins are, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try. I will not let anyone else die.

He deserves that much of me.

Requiem For A Paladin

I fear this may be my final entry. I can no longer feel anything, even the pain having given way to this insufferable, icy numbness. I do not have long. I must finish my journal; where were we?

Ah yes, the lift …

When I reached the surface, and the elevator lurched to a stop jarringly, I was forced to take notice. My eyes jolted open and I readied myself for the arduous journey ahead. Without Ida’s portal, it would take me nearly a day to limp all the way back to Stormwind, and that was provided I didn’t get caught by the Defias in which case, I was finished. I had no strength left to fight.

As the metal doors in front of me creaked open, slowly pulling themselves aside, I struggled to my feet, my overspent muscles begging me to sit back down and rest. I considered their offer, but declined with a grunt of pain and acknowledgement; I had to make it back to Stormwind, no matter the cost.

I braced myself, steeling my nerves as I stood up. The blinding, radiant light of the sun flooded into the elevator, forcing me to hold a hand over my eyes, such was its intensity. The whiskers of golden light emanating from the sun refused to be stopped by my hand though, slivers of luminsescence bleeding past my arm, and even my eyelids when I shut my eyes in an attempt to drown out the sun’s glow.

Legs trembling, I stumbled forward, blinded by the sun, attempting to keep my balance. One step flowed into another, and in a few moments I was a good few paces away from the safehouse lift behind me, the sun’s blinding ray’s receding enough for me to squint and be able to see.

The lift shut behind me with a metallic grind, and I silently shuddered at the thought of being trapped down there, like Bolgrim was. I didn’t have time to linger on such thoughts though, so I simply pushed them aside in favor of more useful, optimistic ones.

I looked up into the air, closing my eyes and taking a deep, lasting breath, confident that I could do this.

My breath suddenly caught in my lungs though, my whole body tensing up and screaming out in anguish as I suddenly felt a jarring, sharp pain radiating out from my chest, forcing me backwards. I felt weak, so terribly weak, as if the life itself was draining from me. I stumbled backwards, legs threatening to give out, my eyes shooting open in shock. I looked down at my chestplate, weakly reaching up with both of my arms in disbelief as I realized what had happened.

I had been stabbed.

The short, stout dagger now lodged firmly in my breast had punctured my armor without pause. The hilt of it crackled faintly with dark, black streaks of electricity.

Anti-Magic.

It was no surprise to me then, that it cared little for my armor, made of the magical metal truesilver. I took short, shallow breaths, trying not to disturb the blade, to make it as still as possible. Blood seeped out of my armor, past the edges of the dagger, and trickled down onto my breastplate, the vivid red contrasting sharply against the gleaming silver.

I hit the ground hard as I fell, unable to stand, and suddenly, I was staring up at the sun again, shrill ringing in my ears, able to hear my own labored heartbeat. I tried to move, but found myself unable to. I just lay there, gazing up at the sun, helpless.

The shuffling of feet, frantic and excited, echoed in my head, and all of a sudden I could see sets of leather boots out of the corner of my vision – two on each side of me. One knelt down next to me, and as soon as I caught the flash of red out of the corner of my eye, I knew exactly what had happened; I had been too slow.

I willed myself to look at him as he examined me, his face not more than a few inches from mine. His complexion was fair, but he was covered in dirt, grimy and unwashed. He looked at me, and I looked back. We stared at eachother for a moment, my weak, fading eyes clashing with his. They were hard and dangerous, the look of an outlaw about him.

But I knew what he truly was, for it wasn’t his eyes that disturbed me, no, I had known many dangerous men in my life; it was the red, cloth mask he wore ’round his face, tied like a desperado’s, concealing his mouth.

” Should we tell the overseer?” one of them mumbled to another.

“The overseer? Thissere’s one’a them paladins. We gotsa ta tell Vanessa herself,” another replied, his words reaching me, but in my weak, sapped state, I did not fully comprehend them.

“Aight, then. Finish him, and then let’s git movi-” one began, before being cut off mid sentence.

A terrible, shrill hiss cut through the air, overtaking all other sounds as one of the pairs of boots off to my left vanished in an explosion of vivid green light, a trail of smoke wafting over me as I heard a loud crash to my right. Frantic shouting, hasty commands yelled in desperation took over as I shifted my gaze, forcing myself to look to my left, where the hissing sound had come from.

Another hissing shriek split the air, and another pair of boots was violently thrown from the ground, leaving only a smoking crater where they had once been. The crater smoldered with green fire, and acrid, foul smelling smoke drifted off of it, reaching out to my nostrils. I smelled sulfur in the smoke.

“Daggers out boys! Hit her! Hit her!!” I managed to decipher one of the men saying, a desperate urgency in his voice. The sound of metal being unsheathed reached me, shortly followed by the low whine of something streaking through the air at high speed, ripping the air asunder to reach its target. More shrill shrieking, more fiery, green explosions rocked the ground around me. More sulfurous smoke.

More chaos bolts.

I heard someone gasp and gutter in pain, and shortly after one final explosion rocked the ground. A body flew like lighting across my field of vision, landing squarely across my stomach, piled across me, knocking the wind out of me. Jolt of aching sharp pain resonated throughout me as I attempted to recover, catching my breath and attempting to sit up, to shove the limp body off of me. I weakly reached over to the body’s hand, attempting to push it away, but something caught my eye.

There, emblazoned across it’s palm, was a single, black cog. He was, or had been, part of the Defias Brotherhood, as I had suspected. He and the others, were the ones that had gotten me right in the chest with that throwing dagger. They were the patrol Ida had warned me about, and in my deteriorating state, I had been to slow to avoid them, having taken far too long to limp back to the elevator.

But in that moment, as everything came together, as I shoved the body off of me, I heard a familiar voice echo in my mind.

“Git up, we gotta move!”

Was that … no, that was impossible, but again, the voice called out, this time closer and more urgent.

“Get off yer arse, we’ve got a city to save!”

I turned to my left as  sat up, the sun nearly blinding me as I did so, but through my squinted eyes, I could see a single, stout, silhouetted figure.

It came closer, its gait awkward and labored, one of its arms clutching it’s stomach, the other outstretched, offering me a hand. As it came closer, the silhouette fading, features coming into clarity, my vision adjusted, and my eyes widened as I realized who it was.

The traces of green hellfire still lingered about the fingertips of her outstretched hand, streaks of arcing green energy crackling faintly as they faded.

“Well, you just gonna lay there and bleed out, or are we gonna finish this?” Ida said, looking down at me with her usual emerald green eyes.

I was dumbfounded, simply staring at her in disbelief through my muddled senses.

She … came back for me? 

But she left me to die, left me to Bolgrim. What in the name of the Light did she want with me now? To kill me, finish the job herself? Was that it?

I should’ve lashed out, should’ve used the last of my strength to strangle her. But I didn’t, the gleam of metal catching my eye, forcing me to look at her stomach. There was no blood, but there, stuck in her gut, was a dagger, it’s hilt crackling with dark energy.

I looked up at her, meeting her gaze. She was trembling, her hand wobbling uneasily as I gazed into her green eyes. We spoke no words, but I think we both understood what the other was saying, both understood the gravity of our situation

Her eyes flickered, and icy, misty blue poked through for a split second. Her disguising spell was failing, the anti-magic dagger lodged in her negating and nullifying the magic flowing through her little by little. Even if she yanked it out, anti-magic was like a virus – once it had you affected, it wasn’t leaving you alone for a good long while. Only very powerful priests knew how to counterspell anti-magic.

We lingered there for a good moment, looking at each other, both of us looking at the daggers stuck in us. I knew, and I think she did too, that this was it.

As an undead, the only thing keeping Ida alive, was powerful, necromantic magic. That short length of enchanted metal lodged in her gut had sealed her fate.

But despite everything – my rage, my feeling of betrayal, my trepidation, deep down, I knew we wouldn’t get far, even if I did take her up on her offer. In that moment, both of us realizing our mortality, I decided to die a happy death, one without regret or hatred in my heart.

I reached up taking her hand with my own, and together, we hobbled off down the same, dusty road we’d come in on.

I was right though, we didn’t make it all that far before Ida succumbed to her wounds, despite having taken the dagger out. We reached the spot where her portal had been, but it had vanished, and she didn’t have the strength to summon up another one. After Ida was stabbed her demonic portal back to Stormwind collapsed – anti-magic really did nullify all forms of magic.

We stumbled off into one of the fields of wheat together, and that is exactly where we are now, still waiting for the reaper to collect. I tried to heal her after she took the dagger out, but between the anti-magic afflicting both me and her, I don’t think it did much.

I’ve still got Bolgrim’s journal, and Ida is still carrying the Defias scrolls, the plans, so if anyone does end up finding this, please – get everything back to Stormwind, tell Varian, the king. He’ll take care of it.

…

To my mentor, Tirion Fordring, I have only this to say: I tried, I gave it my all, but I just wasn’t ready, I just wasn’t strong enough.

Tirion, please know that I regret nothing, and that everything I’ve done was of my own accord. You were the greatest master, the most wise mentor I could’ve ever asked for.

I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to live up to your expectations.

And to Ida … I forgive you. I know you were scared, but I know you’re so much more than just some evil, heartless undead. After all, you did come back for me, for what it’s worth. Thank you.

…

Off in the distance, I’m able to see a lone rider, his horse galloping towards me, the sun silhouetting him. Whether his intent is to help or harm us, I do not know, or care. Either way, he won’t be accomplishing much. Perhaps the rider is of my own imagining, Death coming to collect.

Even now I feel my muscles tensing, my lungs refusing to inhale another breath. I am numb, icy, and cold.

This is it. I am not afraid anymore, and I do not regret my choices. As I close my eyes, I have only one last thing to say.

Truth is powerful. Truth is sacred. Have the courage to seek it, as I did.

 

Laying Low

I’m nearly caught up to current events now, all I have left to record is the  three days after Ida told me about the safehouse. We still haven’t ventured out to it quite yet; we’re waiting for the weekend so our instructors don’t miss us.

Anyways, after Ida told me of her grandfather’s link to the Defias Brotherhood, showed me his skeleton key she still had, my spirits were instantly renewed. However, she quickly morphed it back into her robe pin, securing her garments once more.

“We’ve gotta lay low fer the next few days. Just … just forget about it for now. In the meantime, just catch up on yer werk, get everythin’ squared away fer this weekend. I’ll get a portal up between here and Westfall by Friday so we can get there and get out quickleh. We can’t afford to get caught passing into Defias territory. We do this quick, we do this stealthy.”

She left my quarters right after that, turning to get my work sorted out. I’d finished all of my history assignments, plowed through my mathematics, and even managed to complete most of my Low Common lingual work. Even though I desperately wanted to just disregard my academic studies, Tirion had paid my tuition in full to attend Stormwind Academy. I had to focus on my initial goal, even though the Defias Brotherhood’s return was … enticing, to say the least.

I groaned in frustration, organizing all of my completed work into their appropriate class satchels, the Defias still on my mind as I absently prepared for my round of classes the next day.

After I was finished organizing, I pulled out my Low Common work, managing to polish it off in under an hour, sitting at my candlelit desk. The work wasn’t hard, just tedious, although I debated whether or not much of the Low Common grammatical rules we were being taught even mattered. A paladin was to be as smart as they were strong, but even so, most of what we were learning in Low Common just seemed arbitrary and useless.

Regardless, I was happy to be finished with it, the drab work managing to take my mind off the Defias long enough for me to settle into a groove as I turned to the last batch of work I had left to do; creative writing.

To say I was behind was an understatement.

Textweaver Gounis was a friendly instructor, and her assignments were open ended and permissive in terms of subject matter, but I have a bad habit of writing too much, and in such a class where assignments are fast and frequent, it tends to be a negative.

Despite my quirks as a writer, I flipped open my notebook, concentrating my holy magic into a telekinetic field around my quill as I flopped down into my bed, exhausted. I didn’t care if it was cheating, I needed to catch up and was far too tired and absentminded to focus well enough to scribe my words traditionally.

And so I lay there through the night, silently transcribing my thoughts into words with my holy magic as I slowly drifted off into a dreamscape filled with rogues and the Defias, my troubled mind plagued by the many questions I still harbored.

Laying low wasn’t going to be easy.

Ties To The Past

I sat there, dumbfounded, staring at Ida blankly. I heard her without listening, unable to compose a response. She could tell I was shocked, and thankfully broke the awkward silence herself.

“Look, I know you think we can make a difference.  I know you think that just because you’re a paladin you can go around fixing everyone’s problems, saving everybody from everyone.”

“Hey! I do not think that just bec-” I managed to begin, shaking myself out of my stupor before being cut off.

“No! Ah know yer type; David is the same way, and yer both blasted idyits,” she interrupted, her accent becoming more pronounced as her temper began to flare up.

“Just because you’re too afraid to seek the truth, doesn’t mean I’m stupid for trying to,” I fired back, pointing a finger at her accusingly. I refused to back down.

“I’m not afraid ya ponce! We’re talkin’ about a covert organization everyone thought was dead for over a decade; hell, me own bloody grandpappy was one of em’ and I didn’t even know!” she retorted, jumping out of her chair as she nearly began shouting. An incorporeal wreath of green flames flickered into existence around her as her temper rose.

I recoiled a bit, but continued to press her.

“I understand they’re crafty, I understand they’re hard to pin down; I know. Ida, we can’t just let this go, can’t just let them slip away int obscurity again. By the Light, its the Defias we’re talking about here. I have no misconceptions about defeating the entire Brotherhood, that’s a task best left to an army, but we have to at least find out how and why they’ve decided to resurface now if they’ve been in hiding all this time,” I said trying to convince her that investigating was the best course of action.

She looked at me, looked at me for a good long while with those piercing emerald eyes of her, before sighing in exasperation. She deflated instantly as she slumped back down into her chair.

“You Northrend folk aren’t much for subtlety, are ya?”

I shook my head proudly. Another long, drawn out sigh from Ida followed as she straightened herself out.

“Okay, okay. Look, it’s not like others don’t know. The City Guard and most likely the standing Alliance Army in Stormwind are aware of the Defias’ return. They understand the implications of it … it’s why they let us go. To them, all we did by killing that rogue was help to cover the Defias’ return up. It’s obvious they know, but nobody else seems to be any wiser about it. They’re trying to quash the Defias before word gets out,” she said, gesturing with her hands to get her point across.

I digested everything she told me, mulling over the information. I sagged back onto my bed, sitting on the edge. My gaze fell to the floor as I let out an exasperated sigh, unsure of how to move forward. I wanted so desperately to know more about this whole debacle, but I knew better than to get involved in affairs the military was covering.

But … I couldn’t help but think back to the Trade District blaze. All those charred, mangled corpses, followed by my stay in the infirmary, watching all those poor, poisoned survivors writhe and thrash in agony as the reaper came to collect. Those people had families. That little, innocent boy I watched sputter into the afterlife had his family torn from the world. He was torn from this world.

It wasn’t fair. Even if the Alliance Army was going to take care of it, they had no right to cover it up like they were, to deny the survivors information.

They deserved to know.

My face shifted, anger beginning to spread across my features. It was my job as a paladin to stand by the people, to protect and defend them. I was supposed to be their champion. I had to get to the bottom of this, for the sake of all the people who we couldn’t save that day.

Ida apparently sensed my growing anger, and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder as she spoke.

“It’ll be okay. I know how yer feelin’ right now. I know you think you can make a difference by just charging in brazenly. If ya really want ta keep on with this, I know a bettah way we can go about it, but you have to trust me when I say, we have to do nothing, at least for the next few days. We can’t risk the City Guard bringin’ us in again. It’s clear they don’t want anyone to know, and I’m sure they’ll be keepin’ an eye on us for the time being. They only let us go because they assumed we were none the wiser,” she said, her sensible words clashing against my rising emotional frustration.

She did have a point though. Everything she was saying made sense, and I couldn’t refute the simple facts regarding our situation; we were being watched. Whether by Defias spies, or inconspicuous guards, it mattered little. We had to be careful about our next move.

“Like I said, me grandpappy was part o’ the original Defias crew way back when. He was an overseer, a middle ranking official within the Brotherhood. He …. well, he kicked the bucket during his time with the Defias, but he left behind something that may be of use to us,” she said, causing me to perk up in curiosity. I looked up at her smiling wryly at me.

“A safehouse, out in Westfall …” she said trailing off and reaching over to the little silver skull pin holding up her robes and unfastening it for a moment, holding it in her palm triumphantly. I stared down at the little piece of jewelry, watching the silvery piece of metal morphing and changing right before my very eyes, elongating and straightening itself out into a strangely shaped form.

Thaumaturgite. Shifting metal.

“… and I’ve still got his key.”

The Defias Brotherhood

“That’s … that’s impossible, this has to be some kind of mistake,” I said pacing back and forth as Ida looked on somberly.

“I’m afraid there’s no denyin’ it. It has to be them,” she replied, shaking her head ever so slightly.

“That makes no sense whatsoever Ida! The Defias Brotherhood disintegrated over twenty years ago when the Alliance killed Edwin Van Cleef,” I said, turning to face Ida and motioning wildly with my hands. There was just no way it could be them, or at least, no logical way.

“Look, I know it doesn’t make sense, I know they were supposed to be kaput, but the fact o’ the matter is that they’re still kickin’, somehow,” she responded, before sighing exasperatedly.

“But h-” I began.

“I just said, I don’t know,”  Ida said forcefully as she stamped her foot into the ground. A flicker of green fire surrounded her for a split second before fizzling into nothingness. Perhaps it was best to stay on her good side.

I groaned in annoyance, unsure of what to make of everything, trudging over to my bed and falling face first into the plush bed. I sighed in frustration into the soft mattress, barely able to hear Ida dragging my desk chair over to my bed and sitting down beside me.

We both sat there in silence for a good long while, thinking about the implications of all this meant.

The Defias Brotherhood; not since Ravenholdt Manor had there ever been such a massive collection of incognito rogues all working in tandem. It was kind of strange, thinking about the Brotherhood.

Even though they had devolved into a cutthroat organization of bandits and extortionists over the years, they had much humbler roots, noble even.

Thirty-two years ago, after the Third War against the Burning Legion in the Eastern Kingdoms, most every human settlement of any significance had been utterly reduced to rubble. Stromguarde was pillaged by fel orcs, Strathholme was purged by Prince Arthas, and the entirety of Lordaeron fell to the undead clutches of the Scourge. Even Stormwind, the very city I reside in now, was a broken husk of its former self, the last of its kinds. Indeed, civilized humanity was pushed to the very brink of extinction in those times.

But we survived.

Slowly, architects, engineers and craftsmen rallied to rebuild the city, to restore it to its former glory. It was a hard fought battle, repairing a city of this size with limited resources, and with no outside support from even Khaz Modan, but in the end, the city was rebuilt, stronger than ever. Even to this day, Stormwind stands as a shining example of human ingenuity; a bastion of humanity’s refusal to go quietly.

However, far darker times lay just ahead. The remaining nobility of the city, the king included, refused to pay the craftsmen when they demanded payment. The noble houses of Stormwind were not only struggling financially themselves, but they had believed the craftsmen were rebuilding out of a sense of patriotism, not for payment.

A disagreement soon arose, and in the end, the supposedly just king, Llane, sided with the nobles and refused the destitute craftsmen and masons payment. The disgruntled workforce persisted though, desperate for financial support, and eventually their pestering efforts were met with only punishment.

They were exiled from Stormwind, the very city they had given everything to rebuild. Many wandered off into the vast expanses of wildlands across the Eastern Kingdoms, never to be seen again.

But some, a significant portion in fact, congregated in the nearby province of Westfall, where many downtrodden and destitute citizens of the Alliance resided.

It wasn’t long before the outraged masons and carpenters organized themselves into a resistance. A plot to bring Stormwind’s noble houses to their knees was proposed by a humble carpenter; the very same person who was at the head of Stormwind’s revival.

Edwin Van Cleef.

On that day, the Defias Brotherhood was born. Every member who volunteered to take action against king Llane had their right hand tattooed with a simple, unifying symbol; a single black cog.

For years, Van Cleef pillaged and raided the surrounding areas in Westfall, his motley band of carpenters and engineers slowly evolving into a hardened crew of forlorn fighters who relied on stealth and ambush tactics. Naturally, as mercenaries and soldiers of fortune flocked to this so called “Free Man’s” paradise that was the Defias Brotherhood, its agents began training in the ways and art of the rogue. Over time, Van Cleef assembled a massive network of skilled rogue fighters, spies, and infiltrators.

The time to strike at Stormwind grew near.

The Alliance, and Stormwind especially hadn’t been absent to the rising Defias threat and indeed, they knew what was coming. With the death of King Llane still a secret, the monarch having been slain in combat, Stormwind was desperate to destroy the threat before it could plunge the city back into chaos.

Stormwind silently organized a band of five skilled fighters who’s names are still hidden to this very day. They cut deep into Defias territory, slaughtering rogues and mercenaries savagely, before assaulting Van Cleef’s headquarters in Westfall, the Deadmines.

Within the abandoned mine, Van Cleef had established a central hub of power, a miniature city almost, filled with the best, and toughest, the Defias had to offer.

The band of five adventurers smashed through Van Cleef’s defense in a whirlwind of steel and magic, cutting straight to the center of the Deadmines before the full might of the Defias could respond properly.

Van Cleef, sequestered aboard his beloved ship, the Juggernaut, in the heart of the Deadmines, knew there was no running from judgement. As the valiant adventurers boarded his ship in the Deadmines, the underground river  beneath it churning precariously, Van Cleef emerged from his quarters, and uttered his final words.

“Lapdogs, all of you.”

The ensuing fight was never properly recorded. None of the adventurers lived to tell the tale, but it was later discovered as the Defias’ organization faltered, their network of spies crumbling, their fighters being slain one by one, that the band of adventurers had completed their task.

The Defias Kingpin was dead …

… and that is exactly the reason I simply can’t comprehend how the Defias Brotherhood is somehow still alive. Van Cleef was their everything – their finest warrior, their greatest leader, their motivator and thinker. He was behind everything. Without him, they crumbled and faded into the pages of history with a hushed whisper, or so it was thought.

I picked myself up from where I was laying on my bed, turning to face Ida as I reran the entirety of the Defias Brotherhood’s history through my head, looking for something, anything that might point to their sudden return.

“What do we do now?” I sputtered out in exasperation, unable to think of anything. I was having trouble just accepting the fact that the Defias Brotherhood had returned.

Ida’s gaze fell to the floor as she replied somberly.

“Nothing.”

Scratching The Surface

I’m sitting here in my bed, thoroughly exhausted, and absolutely drained of energy. I haven’t even the scratched the surface of what’s going on here, and its taken me – us so long to get here.

I haven’t cracked this journal open in several weeks, so much of what’s happened recently I’ll have to wrench from the depths of my sleep deprived mind. Seems I’ve fallen behind on my log entries in the time I’ve been gone. I promised Tirion I’d keep up with this journal, so he could have something to gauge my personal experiences in Stormwind by, and by the Light I’m going to keep that promise.

Ida and I have formed somewhat of a mutual bond over these past few weeks, all of stemming from our insane idea to light her room on fire in an attempt to quell my paranoia, which in the end, happened to be justly founded. The rogue we caught that day, the one we thought we killed, and then actually killed opened things up, allowed Ida and I to delve deeper into what was going on.

At the same time, we made quite a ruckus ending the rogue and we attracted the attention of the Academy Guards. They were clearly disgruntled having to spring into action so late at night, and Ida’s runed door didn’t lighten their mood any when they made the same mistake I did, attempting to knock instead of ringing the doorbell. Finding me, a man, in a woman’s quarters didn’t exactly tickle their fancy either; a paladin and a warlock together, no less. I’m almost entirely sure they got the wrong idea about Ida and I, but at the very least, they didn’t charge us with murder after we were forced into showing them the rogue’s crushed body.

They gave us a stern talking to, and they even brought us both in for questioning the following day, but in the end, we were acquitted for one simple reason. One tiny thing we missed that the coroner thought; a tattoo, found on the palm of the deceased rogue.

A single, black cog.

We were still being interrogated when we got the news. A lone guard strode into the questioning room, something decidedly off about him. His gait was forced and uneven, like he was drunk or just very tired. I caught only a glimpse of his face, but there was something about his eyes, a vacancy that startled me. whispering the info into the interrogator’s ear, before silently leaving. The interrogator solemnly turned to me, and said,

“You’re free to go.”

That was it, I was out of the room and back in my dorm within minutes after a brisk walk back to the Academy. I thought it was over, but I didn’t even know the half of it. Things were just getting started.

Ida came to me the same night we were released, and we congregated in my room this time, but the feeling of being watched still lingered. It wasn’t so overbearing that we felt the compulsion to blow up my dorm, but it was clear with every glance over our shoulders that we weren’t quite past it yet.

“Do you know about the mark?” she asked me.

I nodded, having managed to just barely decipher what the guard who came in had whispered to the interrogator.

“I know what the mark on the rogue’s hand means … I overheard them when the guard came in. Me great grandpappy bore the very same emblem a very long time ago,” she told me somberly, cutting straight to the point as I realized what the cog meant.

I quickly remembered its significance, memories of my preliminary history courses in Northrend surfacing. I suddenly had a terrible sinking feeling as everything fell into place; the Trade District blaze, the rogue spies, even the conjured fire and poison vials. Despite my knowledge, I still wasn’t prepared for what she said next, even though I knew what she was going to say.

“The Defias Brotherhood lives.”

 

Uncovered

“I didn’t mean to kill him, I swear!” I retorted back at Ida who was still busy dispelling the minor, smoldering fires around her room in the wake of her Mass Dispel not being quite as effective as she’d hoped.

At the very least, we hadn’t started a fire we couldn’t control, but the smell of burnt flesh and hair somehow didn’t help to reassure me that this had been the correct course of action.

Neither did the smoking corpse off to my right.

“It’s fine, it’s fine … we couldn’t have known he was an undead,” Ida reassured me, pausing in between to extinguish another smoldering blaze with a flash of white light. Holy magic was dangerous if channeled correctly, but to anything undead, it was incredibly lethal.

I edged over to the motionless body just a few paces in front of me, cautiously approaching just in case he was still alive. I’d heard a lot of things about the undead in my time in Northrend, lopped off more than a couple rotten heads myself. Still, something about the situation demanded my trepidation, and I gave it willingly.

My eyes darted over the length of the dead undead rogue, taking in his twisted, emaciated form. His pale flesh was hidden behind a layer of crudely stitched together black leather, the sparse plates of hide covering only his torso, arms, and shins. His hands were sheathed by torn fingerless gloves, his bony, quite literally, fingers curled up in rigor mortis. Beneath his makeshift armor he wore a simple black workman’s shirt, with similarly dark trousers to match. A penchant for black, like all rogues.

I knelt down beside the smoking husk’s face, his glowing yellow eyes glossed over and absent, his mouth slightly ajar in shock. He had been attempting to flee, hearing our talk of igniting the room, but he had simply been too slow.

I poked his midsection gently, holding my palm up against his exposed neck, checking for a pulse and sighing inwardly in relief when there was no response. I generally didn’t like to kill first and ask questions later, but in my mind at the time, him being dead made things much simpler, provided he actually was.

I swept his motionless form over once more before deciding he was truly dead, and rolling him off of his side and onto his back. As I did so, two vials of reddish liquid clattered out from his belt, the transparent containers sloshing with a strangely familiar, fiery substance.

The same substance the Stormwind Police found at the site of the Trade District blaze.

They had released a photo of the half empty vials in the paper some time ago, and recognizing the liquid, I was suddenly determined to get to the bottom of it all.

I glanced over my shoulder towards Ida, who had finished putting out fires, having moved onto salvaging the slightly singed paperwork on her desk.

Turning back to the strange vials and eyeing them intently, my eyes flicking between them and the corpse. I moved in to secure them both, reaching out to them in an attempt to scoop them up quickly.

It was at that moment that I realized checking an undead for signs of life was beyond stupid.

A clammy, clawed hand wrapped around my arm, gripping me tightly and refusing to let go as sharpened talons penetrated my robe, digging into my flesh. I didn’t even have time to recoil before a massive, swirling bolt of chaos energy zipped past me, slamming into the floor beside me with a hissing explosion.

I shook myself free of the undead’s grip, stumbling backwards frantically as I glanced over to Ida, malevolent purple and green energy swirling around her as she readied another chaos bolt.

“RAAAGHHH!! Impudent warlock, tiresome paladin, you know not of the powers at play here!” the undead rogue shouted in a chilling, raspy voice as he managed to bolt upright, forcing himself to his feet and dodging another chaos bolt from Ida with an agile sidestep.

I scrambled over to the doorway, quickly pouring healing magic into my bloodied arm as I mended my puncture wound, wildly grasping for my sword as another bellowing shout resounded through the room.

“Delusional swine! The Brotherhood WILL prevail!”

The hissing whir of a chaos bolt in flight reached my ears as I whirred back around, my holy sword igniting as I witnessed the rogue take the demonic energy blast square in the chest, sending him flying backwards, slamming into a bookcase behind him. He crumpled to the ground, sliding down off the bookcase limply as the entire piece of furniture toppled forward on top of him.

The sickly sound of crunching bones could be heard as he was crushed, the scores of fluttering books spilling themselves across the room with a terrible din.

I looked over to Ida, extinguishing my sword hastily as we exchanged exasperated looks. We were both deathly quiet, staring into eachother’s eyes as we could faintly hear the sound clomping metal sabatons through the walls.

The Academy Guards had heard the ruckus.

Ida dispelled the crackling dark magic surrounding her in a hurry, before striding over to me, and patting me on the shoulder, both of our gazes shifting back to the bookcase. She spoke in an excited, yet worried voice.

“Think they’ll notice?”

We both chuckled like idiots despite the situation, shuffling over to the door in preparation for the coming storm. We had no time to hide the body, or even tidy up the mess; might as well meet the problem head on.

We both stood there, expectantly waiting as the clomping metallic march grew louder and louder, until it was right outside our door.

“Oh! Wait, Ida we have to warn them about-”

A terrible din rang out from behind the door as metal smashed against stone, the engraved runes on Ida’s door pulsing with purple energy.

” … the doorbell.”

Things were off to an exceptional start.

Watched

I couldn’t take it anymore. The creeping fear, the encompassing paranoia, it was too much, overwhelming in its intensity. I needed to get out. I needed to talk to someone.

I needed Ida.

To say I scrambled out of my dorm like a wild animal would be an understatement. Put simply, I jumped at the ever so slight movement of my own shadow as the gaslight lamp in my room flickered precariously for a moment. Everything went downhill from there.

I dragged my set of armor out from the case underneath my bed, threw on my lightforged breastplate, hastily fastening the leather straps around my abdomen, over my school robes, before literally smashing through my wooden dorm door with a burst of holy power, shattering it into smoking splinters as I sprinted down the hallway, swinging my Truesilver champion (a longsword given to me by Tirion  himself) wildly as the blade burst into holy flames.

In hindsight, I think I might have overreacted.

Regardless, what’s done is done, and while I can’t say my actions were … appropriate, I can say that they were necessary. Indeed, while I was barreling down the halls of the academy in a paranoia induced frenzy, I smashed straight into something, sending me reeling backwards, my grasp on my sword slipping as the righteous flames surrounding the blade fizzled out.

I hit the ground with a terrible metallic clatter, getting tangled up in in the hastily fastened leather straps of my breastplate, and the flowing robe of my casual schoolwear. It took me a second to recover, but as I lifted myself off the ground, my vision still blurry and out of focus from the crash, I managed to catch a glimpse of something moving in the shadows off to my left.

It was only there for a moment, and my blurred vision didn’t make seeing it any easier, but I am one hundred percent certain I saw a shadowy silhouette shimmer and meld into the darkness. Even in my feverish, paranoid state, I knew exactly what was going on the moment I witnessed that smoky figure meld into the shadows.

I was being watched.

No wonder I had felt so schizophrenic the past few days; I was being observed by a rogue the entire time. I was in no rush to get after him, or her perhaps, though. There was no use in trying to chase down a rogue after they had vanished into thin air – very few people had the preternatural ability to detect them, and even if you could track them, it was more often than not a dangerous waste of time that would end with a set of daggers in your back.

I’d known of the enchanted cloaks and mastery of shadow magic rogues possessed allowing them to hide in plain sight, but never in all my life, even during a brief skirmish in Northrend where I was forced to confront one in single combat, had I ever felt this kind of creeping madness, this gnawing feeling of doubt and fear.

Something else had to be at play here. I hate when I have to make myself out to be somehow better than others, but paladins, by their very nature and through the kinds of training we endure, are more sturdy of mind than most others.

Its true, mages, priests, and even warlocks tend to possess the capacity for greater mental acuteness, pushing the boundaries of what is possible within the realms of the mind; but while their minds are like great, looming towers, reaching up into the heavens to pierce the sky, the minds of paladins are more akin to sprawling, impregnable fortresses. One of the many mantras of us paladins is as follows.

An open mind is like a fortress with it’s gate unbarred, and unguarded.

In this regard, it’s very apparent to me now that I had failed in keeping my mind secure, allowing these terrible, crippling thoughts to seep in. At the time, in my still deluded state, I couldn’t help but think of this mantra.

As I got up from the floor, rubbing my eyes to try and make sure I was seeing things correctly, my mind wandered back to Ida, and now, instead of being overjoyed at the thought of talking to her, I was now much more apathetic about it.

The sentiment didn’t last very long. The more I mulled on what was happening to me, the more I thought about the mantra I had learned and repeated so many times over the course of my life, the more I realized that it might be Ida’s fault.

I had opened up my mind to the idea that warlocks were good people too, against everything I’d been taught to believe, and in opening up my mind to such an idea, I’d allowed other, more heinous thoughts to cloud my judgement.

At the same time, I really did believe Ida’s heart was in the right place, even if her methods were less than socially acceptable. As I recovered from my stupor, gathering up my extinguished sword and readjusting my crooked breastplate, I pressed on decisively towards Ida’s quarters. I didn’t know if I was angry at her, didn’t know if I wanted to hug her or reprimand her for compromising my mental integrity, but one thing was clear.

We needed to have a talk.

Paranoid

I didn’t sleep last night. David was dismissed from the infirmary two days ago. A very sickly, young boy took his place. He was pale as a ghost, hardly breathing, little shallow thumps the only thing denoting that his heart hadn’t yet given up.

He was a shy lad, only eight or nine years old. He told me his name was Jessie, and that his parents had perished in the fire. His clothes were that of the merchant class, noble and distinguished with a flowing shirt and breeches, but the fire had ravaged them, tearing the fine clothing into near shreds and dirtying them with soot and ash. He almost looked like a chimney sweep in his current state.

I attempted to comfort him, even going so far as to diverting as much of my own healing magic to him as possible, but it just wasn’t enough. I wasn’t filtering the poison out of his blood; only priests know how to perform that kind of magic, and as it was, every priest in all of Stormwind was on the verge of collapse from magical exhaustion. All I could do was repair the damage the poison was causing, buy Jessie a little bit more time.

We talked into the wee hours, and I still remember it like a dream, watching the life go out of his eyes as I desperately forced more and more mending magic into him, hoping I would be able to stave it off a little longer.

He died second later, staring off into nothing as his breathing came to a wheezing, grinding halt. I ceased my healing magic, reabsorbing what little residual energy I could from the simple regenerative spell I had cast, and focused on keeping myself alive. Jessie had died facing me, and I found it incredibly unnerving the way his cold, glazed over eyes stared through me.

I ended up having to turn him over, just to stop myself from glancing over at his motionless corpse every few seconds. It was a long night.

In the morning, after several hours of eery silence and the odd glance over at Jessie’s body, the death heralds entered the infirmary, checking each row for motionless patients. One of them would check for a pulse, while the others would stand around him, patiently waiting, circling like buzzards for the go ahead to cart another body off.

Eventually the tall, dark figures clad in black trench coats and top hats came to my row, and consequently, they found Jessie to be lacking in vivaciousness, and a pulse, so they hauled him off with the rest of the dead, with a rough gentleness that is hard to explain. It’s almost like they revile and revere the dead at the same time.

Regardless, it wasn’t long before the death heralds were done collecting their quota for the day, and afterwards, the infirmary felt strangely empty.

I sat up from where I was, and was instantly forced to lie back down. It took only a moment, a brief glimpse around the room, to realize that I was completely and totally alone in the infirmary now.

It was no wonder the early hours of the morning had been so eerily silent, completely devoid of the anguished moans of the sick and dying; they had all already perished.

I couldn’t help but shiver as my veins frosted over at the very thought, combined with the strange emptiness around me. It was a startling feeling.

Thankfully one of the clerics came in to examine me not long after. She was a nice girl, copper skin and beautifully rich black hair with hazel eyes that radiated compassion. The state she was in, however, was something else entirely. Her young face was marked with stress, her eyes were drained of life, and her posture was slouched and tired. She, like every other healer in the city, had no doubt been pushed to her limits, and it was readily apparent in the way she sluggishly trudged about, making as much of an effort as she could, despite the terrible aching and soreness that comes from magical exhaustion; I’ve experienced it firsthand.

After a few minutes of half-hearted examination, and two prescription vials of healing tonic, I was given a clean bill of health, at least for a paladin. Technically, I was still very much sick, and would indeed have already kicked the bucket, were it not for my constant stream of internal healing magic, combined with the cleansing concoctions put together by Stormwind’s Alchemical Health Division. My magic took care of the cell regeneration to replace deadened veins and arteries, while the cleansing brews dealt with diluting and attempting to expel the poison in my blood entirely.

It should also be noted that paladins have a somewhat legendary reputation for simply refusing to die, and perhaps the mythos surrounding my profession spurred this haggard, exhausted cleric to nudge me out the door as quickly as she did. I suppose she figured that I’d be able to take care of myself, and not be stupid enough to ignore healing myself throughout the day. Perhaps she simply took pity on me, sitting in an empty room where dozens had died not long ago. I couldn’t see spirits, but I got the sense that the infirmary was full of them; it usually took the Spirit Guides around twenty four hours to wrangle them all up and put them to rest properly.

Needless to say, I skedaddled right on out of the infirmary as soon I was given the go ahead to leave. I could almost feel Jessie’s presence, his ghost, staring me down as I left, eyeing me with betrayed innocence.

Why did you let me die? I thought paladins were supposed to save lives. Whywhywhy?

By the time I had managed to cross the now dilapidated and charred trade district to the Academy Of Stormwind, I was gasping, and had broken into a cold sweat. I could hardly think straight between the terrible, gnawing thoughts, the chilling presence that seemed to be following me, and the constant stream of rejuvenating energy I had to maintain in order to not keel over and die.

Even now, as I write this journal in my dorm inside the Academy, I feel like there’s something watching me. Its as if the shadows themselves are melding around me, running from my gaze. The paranoia of being watched is beginning to affect me. I’m falling behind on my classwork, and I’m unable to focus on anything.

I have witnessed firsthand the terrifying power of warlocks, faced down the undead, and have even done battle with the Horde, but this creeping feeling, this looking over my shoulder every five seconds is something else entirely. Its not the same kind of fear that comes from the battlefield, its something deeper, more primal and predatory. It feels like I’m the prey, and some invisible predator is waiting for the right moment to tear my throat out while I’m engrossed in a tome of literature.

I am paladin aspirant Sidonus, and I am scared.