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Let Darkness Come - Illidan Stormrage - 06-27-2016
Illidan slipped through the dimensional rift, warglaives in hand, unsure of what awaited him on the other side. The Dark Portal that took him to Outland spat him into an inhospitable world, teeming with warped beasts and roaming inhabitants that flew into a rage at the sight of him. No such threat stood before him here. Illidan breathed out sharply, but he didn't relax his muscles as he took his first steps into the new plane.
A cold wind bit into Illidan's skin, bidding goosebumps to rise. It howled about him, carrying the familiar scent of decay, a faint staleness against what should have been fresh air. The dry stalks of grass, a green so pale that it appeared grey when swinging to the breeze, crunched beneath his bare feet. Miserable clouds swirled over the sky, permitting sunlight in small but extreme measures; the silver light that burned fierce around their edges signalled the sun's only ingress. A solitary structure loomed on the horizon, perhaps an ornate castle, but it was hard to tell from his vantage point.
Illidan gripped his warglaives tighter. His vast experience with corrupted magic told him instinctively that this land was not untouched by its influence. He started across the grassy plain, head swinging from side to side. The power of Gul'dan's skull dangling from his belt overrode the local trail of dark magic to a large degree, like a constant scream muffling a distant sobbing. Yet that sobbing only sounded muffled because of the distance; its strength was immense. A speck of flickering red on the horizon, no matter how small from his point of view, could still be a towering forest fire.
The Burning Legion? Illidan continued walking, straining his senses beyond the line that dashed the sky from the earth. No, it wasn't. He couldn't tell how he knew, but he did. Despite not originating from the Twisting Nether, it was not at all dissimilar. Necromantic energy was the closest and simplest to pick up on, but it ran deeper than that. A great darkness dwelled here, but what it was or what it swore allegiance to was unknown.
Illidan furrowed his brow as he kept moving forward. To a large extent, he had never lost his independence even after absorbing the Skull of Gul'dan. In every case that he had ever seen, including the dreadlords and even man'ari, when a being surrendered their will to the Burning Legion, it was lost for all time. Their only desire was to follow Sargeras's directive, and all memory of their previous lives drowned beneath the 'gift' of the Legion. Yet after his transformation, Illidan had never lost his freedom. Sure, he had worked with Kil'jaeden to assist the Burning Legion, but more often than not it was a goal of mutual benefit. Destroying the Lich King was one. Saving his own skin was another. And once that couldn't be guaranteed, Illidan barricaded himself in the Black Temple on Outland and rallied his own army to his side, in case the man'ari general returned to claim him. Perhaps he'd grown more impatient, faster to act, even crueller, but always Illidan.
He spared a glance at the skull at his side. The unadulterated power that oozed from it gave Illidan the ability to crush a dreadlord with relative ease, though it forever altered who he was. Right now, as he trudged through a thin veil of fog that settled over the grassy field, he was still a night elf. His torso was forever branded by the unholy tattoos of Sargeras, letting him tap into the bottomless magic of the Twisting Nether, and where his once amber eyes sat now burned with green orbs of fire, but he was free of the demonic taint that Gul'dan's essence had bestowed upon him. But of course, he was also absent the brilliant strength as well.
Here was a chance for Illidan to return to who he once was. Who Tyrande wanted him to be.
But did it matter, even in the first place? His independence clung stubbornly after the transformation; never had he become a slave to the Burning Legion. Yet had it affected him in a way he hadn't considered? Even if it had, it hadn't been overt. Nor did it apparently matter here anymore, since he didn't know where the hell he was anyway. If he was still on Azeroth, he had never seen these strange realms, nor would it make sense that his demonic traits had been torn from him.
When he pictured Malfurion's face as he returned from Felwood all those years ago, when he recalled how his pleas had been ignored right out of hand, it stoked an old but burning fire. The fire that made him submit to Sargeras before the Sundering thousands of years ago, the fire that ordered him to forge a different path than the one being forced upon him.
Yet as convinced as he was that he would feed on Gul'dan's power once more, his hand stilled above the rounded bone when he went to grasp it.
It wasn't going anywhere. He would do it later.
Further he travelled, until the portal fell beneath the horizon. A tall wooden fence, its posts sharpened at the top, rose up to his right. Two watch towers thrust above the jagged line, one at either corner of the barrier, with men in leather armour propped on the wood railing, staring out into the dreary fields. Humans. Worthless. He'd sooner barter with the Burning Legion than deal with those ineffectual, spongy creatures. His spectral sight had noticed something through the barricade though. Blotches of moving yellow. The humans had resorted to raising the dead. At least that was the sensible answer. If the undead had penetrated their perimeter, Illidan would expect to hear much more commotion from behind the wooden stockades.
Illidan bared his teeth. Stupid. Necromancy was a fool's errand. Even though Illidan had dealt with demons before, the concept of the living dead offended him on a visceral level. The stench of stilted skeletons, flesh sloughing off them as they rotted on their feet, churned his stomach. Their empty eye sockets offered a window into their soundless thoughts. Their lack of individuality and battle sense made them little more than fodder, sent in to choke the enemy lines rather than offer any decisive benefit. At least demons knew the value of self preservation.
He veered away from the settlement. Its existence had taught him two valuable things, at the least. Firstly, there was some sort of external unholy presence in this land, as his own powers had led him to suggest. There would be no need to erect such a looming palisade, nor dabble with animating corpses, if the cloud blotted landscape held no dire threat. Secondly, this power yearned for the humans that cowered behind their meagre defenses. More souls for their armies? Food?
Illidan was still a demon hunter. Anything with the scar of dark magic was his domain. It all sprouted from the same insidious root. If this land was infested with it, then he would root it out and banish it. And then he would install himself. It's not like the humans would stop him.
With the human settlement at his back, a fresh yellow trail floated in the air before him. It wound through a sparse collection of crooked trees, branches speckled with greying leaves, and out the other side, out of sight. Illidan followed the serpentine line at a brisk pace as the remaining necromantic energies dispersed. He charged through the trees, flicking pebbles into the air as he ran, the tough soles of his feet impervious to the rough terrain.
Through the other side of the copse, Illidan emerged. The sulphuric path left by the undead dissipated. Their march had been too long ago; the leftover energies had broken down. Irritating. Illidan sighed. At least the freaks had been close to the human settlement. Without anything else of value in this foggy field, it must've been the reason for their journey. If he camped nearby, there was a good chance they would return.
Illidan's sight tracked to the earth. Three bodies lied prone, resting face-down in red puddles. Their leather armour had been shredded in places, revealing bloodied scratches beneath. One still clenched a nicked sword in death. A film of residual yellow covered the corpses, no doubt the result of the shambling zombies that Illidan had been pursuing. Placing a warglaive on the ground, Illidan probed one of the dead men. The flesh had gone pallid and icy to his touch.
The night elf grabbed the man's arm and flopped him onto his back. His dull eyes rolled into the back of his head. A crimson bite mark ruined the skin around his neck and stained the protective clothing below. Several more incidental scratches and wounds ran up his arms and chest, though his leather armour hadn't been compromised like the others. The bite wound was the obvious culprit of his death.
Illidan grasped the man's face in both hands and stared at him. There had been cases in the past where he had learned a corpse's last thoughts by interrogating it with his telepathy, but those cases were few and far between. If the death had been recent, sometimes he could glean residual information from their quiet minds.
As he tried to pierce the dead man's last thoughts, the corpse's eyes rolled forward and gazed directly at Illidan.
The night elf tensed and backflipped off, snatching his warglaive in the process. Landing on both feet, weapons extended, Illidan bathed in his hatred as the bones of the lifeless bodies cracked, hauling themselves to their ungainly feet. Their jaws hung open, backs slouched, arms dangling from bowed shoulders. Their vacant stares sent a shiver through him.
Such creatures didn't feel pain or fear, two aspects of an opponent that Illidan revelled in exploiting. The undead's defeat relied upon disabling them by slashing off limbs or destroying the head. And that was no problem for a warrior as skilled as himself.
Illidan sprinted at the vile horrors, blades at his sides, ready to engage the men now turned into their very enemy. Since shedding his demonic form, his body moved swiftly, with more agility than he was accustomed to. An alien sensation, but one that instinctively felt right, and a few moments later he fell back into his old skin.
The undead shambled towards him, their movement stilted and awkward at first, but each step brought with it renewed vigour, as if they were learning how to use their bodies for the first time. In a sense, they were. Their long, blank expressions belied the ferocity that they would tear Illidan apart with if he was too clumsy.
The first zombie lurched at Illidan, reaching for his exposed torso. Illidan rolled to the side and carved through its waist, sending a spray of grey-red blood in a gory arc. Two hunks of dead-flesh slumped onto the ground, separated.
The next corpse clawed at the night elf, hobbling forward like it was about to lose its balance. Illidan moved to the back foot, raising his warglaives at the repeated evisceration attempts. Even though it was a man with ordinary cuticles a few hours ago, an undead man's hands could strip through skin and muscle like a butcher's cleaver. Illidan, unfortunately, knew this from experience.
The night elf backpedalled. The desperate flailing may have been bad technique, but the urgency and aggression present in each swipe negated that requirement. Skill didn't matter when a creature could disembowel with its bare hands and was only an arm's length away. The zombie threw caution to the wind, if indeed caution was a term it could comprehend, and barrelled forth faster. Illidan felt a short stab of panic in his gut, but it quickly vanished beneath a hammering fire of his hatred. Even if it was short lived, the former Lord of Outland didn't feel fear. Ever.
Illidan clenched his teeth and his rage ordered a solution. No more backing away from the problem! An idea rose from the itch at the back of his mind, and he snatched it unreservedly. The night elf balled his fists and stuck the blades forward as the zombie swiped at him again. The edge of the demon forged steel parted the hand from wrist in a clinically efficient movement, sending the severed part floating across the air before thudding to the ground. Unfazed by the loss of a hand, the possessed cadaver hurled another attack with his other limb, only to lose it at the elbow. It pushed forward, flapping its oozing stumps as if nothing was wrong. Illidan stepped into the zombie's lunge and swept upwards, its head slicing clean open from chin to scalp with a slick, wet slurp. It collapsed backwards, feet hinged beneath its back, grey matter spilling onto the grey ground.
How Illidan managed to miss any sound from behind he couldn't guess, but a pair of rotting arms caged around his neck, and a new weight pressed down on his spine. The night elf dropped his warglaives and hands went straight to the forearms tightening around his throat like a vice. He pulled, feeling the pallid skin tearing beneath his fingers, but the supernatural strength in the arms would not budge. Each breath became a labour, forced through a narrowing tube, wind wheezing in and out. Illidan's arms bulged with effort, muscles straining against an impossible force. Every moment weakened Illidan and seemed to strengthen the undead body clinging to him.
The world grew blurry. His breaths came in short, sharp gasps, lungs burning and screaming for air. The very grip he held on his body seeped away, the energy in his arms bleeding into an unseen drain. His legs wobbled and his knees gave way to the weight above. A gurgling hiss echoed close in his ear, far too intimate a place for a decaying corpse, but even that sound barely registered. Illidan looked up, fighting the lethargy soaking his body. The sunlight caught on the tip of one warglaive, the other end stabbed into the ground. One idea sauntered into his flagging mind, almost so quietly that Illidan didn't understand it.
One chance left. Illidan choked down a final burst of oxygen before the zombie's forearms shut it completely. Holding his breath, the night elf dug fingernails into the undead's yielding flesh, pumped his legs and roared as he flipped the body off his back, over his head and down towards the ground. Illidan collapsed, and tried to breathe.
He wheezed in thick, coughing and spluttering as his lungs ballooned in and out. Sense swiftly returned and Illidan pushed himself upright. The undead freak stared at him dispassionately, arms outreached for his violet flesh, the warglaive impaled through its diaphram. Grey-red blood coated the blade, running down in rivulets into the torn wound of the zombie's chest. Illidan growled, hands shaking, disbelieving that this mindless drone snuck up on him and almost choked the life out of him. Face scrunched, rage rushing like lava through his mind, the night elf seized the other warglaive and lashed out at the undead's throat. The gnashing head plopped to the ground. The reaching arms flopped and went limp.
Illidan snatched the head by its stringy hair. Even without a body, it glared at him, teeth bared and biting impotently. Just looking at the unholy abomination rose the bile in his throat. Illidan dragged the head on the ground as he approached a tree and swung it with all his might into the trunk. The head exploded in a mess of skull and brain fragments. A proper end for such a grotesque nightmare.
It shouldn't have been such a chore to have killed those undead. Only moments ago, at least it seemed like, he was fighting Maiev Shadowsong and her traitorous band of mercenaries. His power swelled in him, the demonic strength of the Burning Legion scorching the earth, inflicting agony on his enemies. Without it, a mere corpse had almost strangled him to death. He coiled his fingers about the Skull of Gul'dan once more, feeling the pulse of dark magic infused within, almost like a calming heart beat.
Something clamped around his ankle. Illidan snapped his attention to his foot. A crawling torso latched onto him, its eyes wide and milky white, teeth bared for a sample of night elven flesh. The legs some distance away lay still.
Illidan snarled and slammed the heel of his free foot into the zombie's skull. It shattered like greasy, wet glass beneath his heel.
He spat on the cleaved torso. "Come back from that, freak."
Illidan wiped the slimy remains of the undead's brain on the grey grass and stood still. The yellow corruption hung in the air like a fog. Were these bodies left in waiting, ready to ambush the next creature with a pulse to stumble by? Or had someone reanimated them when Illidan reached them, even right now watching him from the shadows?
Illidan focused. His spectral sight allowed him to see anything around him without direct line of sight. He pushed his senses out, but found nothing other than the trees and re-murdered humans.
The acrid fumes steaming from the festering corpses stung Illidan's nostrils. Holding his breath, he shoved the impaled body off his warglaive and pulled it free of the ground. The pale pink blood on the blade carried the pungent odour as well. A creek or river nearby would be ideal to cleanse the sticky fluid from his weapon.
Now that the adrenaline was winding down, Illidan breathed deeply. A peace suffused his chest, and his muscles loosened. The calm after a battle welcomed him like a warm blanket, but Illidan sharpened his eyes, surveying the field around him. He still found it hard to accept that there was no one behind the attack, that it was a random trap set to kill a random person.
"Those are interesting blades, my purple friend."
Heart skipping a beat, Illidan spun with his stained warglaive thrust before him, gripping the handle with both hands. He eyed the twin of the set, but it was out of reach. His gaze snapped back to the owner of the voice.
A figure in a black cloak stood before Illidan, the hood masking the face. A gold trim ran down the edges of the cloak, and two thin hands clasped the sides to the figure's chest. While it hid his appearance, as the voice had been unmistakably male, the hunched posture and thin silhouette promised a spindly or perhaps emaciated shape covered by the fabric.
"More interesting than you know," Illidan said, his voice low. "Would you like to test the edge against your skin?"
The man threw his head back and laughed, a cackling and high pitched sound that put Illidan in mind of a witch. The cowl fell back and revealed an elderly human male, balding, with thick tufts of white hair above the ears. He dropped his head back and grinned, displaying tiny yellowed teeth. His eyes gazed at him, wide and bloodshot, like a maniac.
"Now now, you wouldn't hurt a frail old man like me?" he said, smiling like he was anything but.
"What do you want?" Illidan shot back. "I've very little patience right now."
Those wild eyes twitched. "Never seen a man ... or whatever you are ... take on the undead with such ease. Quite impressive."
You obviously weren't paying attention, Ilildan thought, but he decided not to vocalise it. Instead, "how could you have seen it? No one was here."
A smile, perhaps genuine, perhaps not. "And how would you know? Checked behind every tree over there, did you? See me approaching on the horizon while you were neck deep in corpses?"
Illidan frowned. "I'm not about to justify myself to a wrinkled old buffoon, especially a human. I'll hear no more of your prattling."
"Wait!" the geriatric shouted, hand raised. The skin around his fingers was paper thin, exposing the smallest veins that snaked through them. "You ... are you hunting these ... demons?" He motioned to the dismembered bodies.
"What concern of it is yours?"
Sparse eyebrows slanted over his gaze. "I've ... lost many. Many to these ... necromancers." He spat. "Friends, family ... they're heartless. Nothing is sacred to them."
Illidan lowered his warglaive.
"If you are exterminating them, I can help. I know where one lives. It might even be the necromancer who pulled these puppets' strings." The wild and eccentric stare was gone. The skin around his eyes tightened and creased.
"And why come to me for help?" Illidan said. Distrust. Always.
The old man shrugged, his cloak bobbing. "Why? Did you see how you sliced and diced those undead? What can Darkshire do? Nothing! They can barely hold their own town together. Every time they send an excursion out, they only add to the undead numbers! That's why I don't live there, don't trust them. Not to mention that they use necromancy themselves. How can I feel safe in there? At least out here, I know I won't be eaten in my sleep by a supposed protector zombie!"
Something didn't add up. Illidan searched the area immediately after the battle, and no one was within twenty metres of him. Yet, if there was any corruption in this old fossil, his spectral sight couldn't detect it. The lingering yellow cloud hovered over the corpses only; not so much as a speck appeared on the cloaked man. However, if he really did know the location of a necromancer, that information was worth the company of the relic. From one necromancer, he could find out where the next was. Build a chain, pursue each link, and shatter each one until they were all gone.
Illidan retrieved his second warglaive and clicked his fingers. They dissolved into black puffs of smoke, returning to the pocket dimension he bound them to. While deadly implements, they were hardly practical to carry around.
"Here's the deal, human," Illidan said, studying the old man's face for any telling reactions. "You will lead me to this necromancer you speak of. You will tell me everything you know about them. Once we are close, you will leave and I will deal with them. Alone. Do I make myself clear?"
The old man smiled and pulled the cowl over his hairless scalp. "That sounds agreeable. Anything for revenge."
Illidan frowned at that. Anything for revenge... That's something he would say.
RE: Let Darkness Come - Illidan Stormrage - 06-30-2016
The next few hours, or at least what seemed like it, consisted of Illidan following the footsteps of the altruistic old hermit. Question after question left the geezer's pruned lips, undeterred despite Illidan's firm resolution to ignore them. Nonetheless, he would turn around, sometimes walking backwards, while he poked and prodded the night elf. Eyes wide, running up and down his length, they would sometimes halt at random points. Once, his eyes settled on his waist, another on his pointed ears.
The chattering continued on as the sun slipped almost unnoticed over the horizon, the clouds blocking most of the descent. Stars broke through odd pockets of cloudless sky but the wind marched on, eventually painting over them again in fluffy grey. Crickets chirped, the only sound other than the travellers' footfalls and one-sided conversation to impose on the silent twilight. No absent moaning or shuffling feet arose on their journey, but Illidan twitched his ears, straining his hearing beyond the geriatric's ramblings in case it did.
"Well you ain't human, are you?" the cloaked grandpa said, and chuckled. "Not with skin like that, or ears pointing out like a cat's!"
Illidan clenched his jaw. The irritation built in the back of his skull, swelling the space between bone and brain. Was this worth it? The old codger had dragged him far enough. Surely he could pick up the trail of the necromancer from here? A fleeting concern wondered what would become of his elderly guide if he abandoned him, but the next moment it was forgotten.
The night elf halted. A cool wind sauntered over his back and shoulders as a weak, silvery light climbed behind the ceiling of clouds. "Enough, you old fool. I will not tolerate any more of your questions! Either shut up for the rest of the trip, or be gone! I can find my way without you, I'm sure!"
"Oh, is that right?" the old man snapped back, his wrinkled smile dashed. "How are you gonna find a necromancer with that blindfold on?"
Illidan hadn't revealed the details of his spectral sight. It was one of the most intriguing mysteries in the universe, at least to this foolish codger. "How'd you kill a bunch of undead without looking at them?" "Why don't you take off that blindfold? I bet you could see a lot better without it!" "How haven't you tripped over your own feet yet?" The questions almost drove Illidan to thump that bald scalp.
"I'll manage." Illidan sieved the words through clenched teeth. "Besides, an old man like you should be wanting to run from here. It'll soon be dangerous."
The old man's scowl reversed. He slapped his hands and chuckled. "And miss the sweet, sweet moment of vengeance? Boy, I'd rather die on my feet right now than miss that!"
Illidan balled his fists. "That could be arranged."
"All right, all right." The elderly man faced forward and spoke over his shoulder. "Just answer me one question, just one, and I'll stop talking until we get to the necromancer."
"I'm not one to believe in miracles."
"Just one, all right?" The crickets blared into focus as the old man went quiet for a moment. "What are you? You aren't human."
Illidan groaned. The old bastard wouldn't cram his mouth shut until he got something. His race was innocuous enough.
As he went to answer, of all the times for it to strike, his thoughts turned philosophical. He was a night elf, but ... was he? Thousands of years ago he sided with his species' mortal enemy, accepting the brand of the Burning Legion in exchange for terrifying power. Did that break some sort of spiritual coven not to abandon your own kin? Yet after absorbing the Skull of Gul'dan and halting the parade of undead toward his home land, his twin brother, leader of the night elves, banished him. What did that make him? A night elf who had taken too many wrong turns, misunderstood by even the ties that bind family together? Or a nameless vagabond, twisted by his own failures and dark pacts, searching for redemption that couldn't exist? Maybe even now a demon, thirsting for conquest, the life of mortal simplicities drowned in the thick, unforgiving folds of time?
Illidan drew breath. He was reading way too much into the question. "I'm a night elf. Now no more."
Yet as he finished his sentence, he didn't know if he was demanding the end to the inquisition, or making a declaration about himself.
A sharp intake of air announced an imminent objection, but the old man said nothing.
Illidan spent the welcome peace examining everything around him; the knotted bark of trees and their naked branches stiff in the breeze, the dusty and gravel strewn earth occasionally broken up by crops of brittle grass. Peering into the distance, he caught sight of the castle that shattered the uniformity of the horizon. Silver moonlight caressed its edges but gave no detail from such distance. He would have to find out who inhabited such a magnificent structure, especially in the middle of barren, cursed fields and forests.
"Stands out, doesn't it?" the old man said. Illidan looked at him, and he nodded his head in the direction of the castle.
"Indeed," Illidan said. It was his turn to learn something for a change. "Who owns it?"
The old man slowed down, frowning, crinkled lips ajar. He started walking again as soon as Illidan drew level with him, but that infuriating face remained. "You mean you don't -"
Illidan shoved the geezer in the back. Hard. He sprawled forward, taking several goofy strides in order to maintain his balance.
Standing straight, he pulled on the edges of his cloak. "Hey! Old people aren't as resilient as you young-"
"You are to walk ahead of me, not beside me!" Illidan snapped. The outrage in his chest spread through him like wildfire. How dare he presume to travel with him like an equal! Not to mention that the night elf had lived thousands of years, seeing the rise and fall of civilisations, including his own. Age mattered little in resiliency; if the human had bothered to learn an arcane art of some variety instead of pottering around fields with a hoe and shovel, he might not be so feeble.
The elderly man gazed at Illidan cautiously, as if noticing for the first time that the night elf could indeed fly off the handle, that his cranky protests weren't just hot air. His countenance fell a moment later as if nothing had happened.
"So, as I was saying ..." The geezer cleared his throat noisily and spat a white wad of phlegm out of their path. Disgusting. "That castle on the horizon? Belongs to a man named Count Dracula. Well, from what I hear, he stopped being a man a long time ago." He paused a moment and shot a cock eyed glance at Illidan over his shoulder. "I get the feeling you might not have heard of him?"
Count Dracula ... nothing came to mind. No one from Azeroth or the Burning Legion with such a name, in any case. "Enlighten me."
"You must be new here," the old man said. Illidan sensed a follow-up question, but it never came. "Count Dracula is the ... well, the de facto lord of the Pale Moors. If you didn't know, this ..." he said, spreading his stick arms, " ... is the Pale Moors."
The lord of a dead world filled with monsters. Illidan knew the feeling. He wondered if he used the term 'lord' in the same sense that the night elf had. "Does this Dracula actually do anything here, or does he hole himself away in his keep?"
"Oh, he's plenty active," the old codger said, voice low. "Who do you think's responsible for all these walking corpses? They didn't just get up by themselves now, did they?"
Illidan fixed on the castle again, its black stone outlined by the silvery moonlight. "So Dracula is a necromancer?"
The old man's head bobbed from side to side. "Yes, to an extent. But he's better known as a vampire. Plus he's one of the strongest, if not the strongest Prime in the Pale Moors. He'll shred you to pieces before you notice he's in the room."
"Prime?" Illidan said. "What do you mean?"
"You ignorant on Primes now?" A shrug. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised."
Illidan scowled. The arrogance of the bald human vexed him more by the minute. "Spit it out."
"All right," the old man said. "Primes are special. They're the chosen ones of Omni, the guy who brought us all here. On average, you're much stronger than the others, what's called Secondaries. A Prime gathers something called omnilium, don't rightly know what it is myself, not being a Prime. But I'm lead to believe it's like some form of ultimate magic, that you can create anything you can imagine. Us Secondaries use it as currency in its purest form, but we can't make it ourselves. Primes are like walking banks to us."
Omni ... omnilium ... nonsense words, but with a curious edge to them. A foggy memory came unbidden, of Illidan in duress, listening to a small, featureless child in the middle of a monologue. It must have happened just after the night elf died, before he materialised near that fountain, in the realm as white and blinding as the child. The more he concentrated, the clearer the moment formed in his memory. Omnilium ... a ball of liquid rainbow ... a gateway to desires, a servant of the will.
"Not to mention the best part," he continued, breaking Illidan from his introspection. "You can't even kill a damn Prime! Omni just puts them back together at the fountain! Immortality and access to omnilium ... of all the luck ..."
Immortality? Illidan had thought, perhaps felt, that he already possessed that boon. Absorbing the Skull of Gul'dan's malevolent magic had partly transformed him into a demon, and joined him to their home, the Twisting Nether. The more powerful demons, at least, would retreat to that void after death, their souls lingering and waiting for a new opportunity. Now that the orc warlock's energies were locked away again in his dry skull, hanging by Illidan's belt, that connection may not have survived.
In any case, Illidan would investigate it later. There were more pressing articles of information he thirsted for. "Is that why Dracula rules this realm? His immortality?"
The old man snorted. "He isn't the only Prime. If he was, then maybe. But there isn't anyone strong enough to take him on."
I must meet this Dracula. "Does he accept house calls?"
A loud chortle this time. "If you want his servants to eat you, sure! I appreciate your desire to kill some necromancer scum, but damn!" The old man went silent and peered over his shoulder, a slight smile in his dull eyes. "But ..."
"But what?"
"Well, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't altogether useless on the subject."
Illidan bared his teeth. "Talk plainly or you will find yourself altogether useless."
The old man raised his hands in surrender. "I'm not what you'd call a necromancer, but I haven't survived out in this wilds by luck. I learned enough magic from the ... practitioners in Darkshire to sense the taint that dark magic leaves on a man's soul. When you know what to look for, it's pretty damn easy to see it. Ugly thing, like a disease feasting." When he looked at Illidan's latest expression, he sped up his waffle. "Anyway, point is, I can see it on you."
Perceptive. "What are you implying, old man?"
"Nothing," he said defensively. "Just ... not a lot of necromancers out to kill other necromancers, that's all."
Illidan clenched his jaw and spoke through bared teeth. "I am not a necromancer."
"But you aren't a damn priest either, are you? So maybe you don't want to kill the strongest Prime that ever walked the Pale Moors. Maybe you want to join him."
"Quite the stretch," Illidan responded. "I'm following you to kill one of the bastards, not sign a treaty."
"Of course," the old man assuaged in an agreeable tone, like handling a child in the throes of a tantrum. The lack of respect from him was growing wearisome. "But if you ever did want to join him, or even infiltrate his castle, there are easy ways, and there are hard ways." He cleared his throat and lobbed another loogie from his lips. "Easy way? Take an innocent person and a dead soldier to his gates. Women and children are preferred for the innocent, but you can just take the soldier's head instead of the whole body. A sign of fealty, or so I hear. It should get you into the castle, maybe even get to rest those blind eyes on the Count."
Interesting, if true. "And what's the hard way?"
"Try to kill everyone outside the castle. Those are about the only two ways you'll get an audience with him."
Illidan gazed at the castle one last time. All the evil in this land spread like a virus from that old fort. Once this necromancer was slain, perhaps it would be wise to start sniffing about this Dracula's home.
"You seem to know a lot about Dracula," Illidan said.
The old man's bony shoulders bobbed. "You hear things. I've run from more than one necromancer in my day, and a lot of the time they speak pretty freely. Not much chance in a corpse spilling your secret now, is there?" He laughed, a horrible, high-pitched cackle.
Illidan pressed the geezer no more. He had enough to chew on, and after a few more graphic threats, his travelling companion left him to mull them over in the silence that covered the Pale Moors like a creepy blanket.
"We are almost there," the old man said, sniffing. Time had passed, but how much of it Illidan could only surmise. "Our long journey is almost done."
The night elf stared ahead. He expected to see a house, maybe a dilapidated shack, but more arid ground greeted him. A short way ahead, the earth rose in a small hill, a large stone at its base. Absolutely nothing.
"Where? There's nothing here!" Illidan said. His pride wouldn't handle a wild goose chase well. Already his purple knuckles turned white.
"Over that hill. You better be ready for what's waiting us on the other -"
"Help!"
Illidan pricked his ears. The frantic plea came from nearby but no one save himself and the prying old man were around.
"Gods, save me! I don't want to be eaten alive!"
The night elf used his spectral sight to probe further than the immediate area, sending out a pulse in all directions. Movement behind the rock! Illidan focused there and saw a soldier with his back to the boulder and two rasping ghouls pinning his arms in place, the sickly yellow energy swirling about them. A sword sharp enough to cut through the zombies' gossamer sinew lay on the ground and out of reach.
Balling his fists, two spheres of black smoke formed around Illidan's hands and jutted outwards in both directions. As the wind absconded with the haze, Illidan's warglaives shimmered in the weak moonlight. He rushed towards the rock, seeing the bony side of one of the undead. Most of its skin had been torn from its body, and where it still stuck it hung limply like dried pasta. Thin, papery muscles and ligaments stretched and contracted around yellowing bones, reaching such slender states that Illidan expected them to snap under the pressure.
Over his footfalls he could hear the gurgled moaning of the unholy corpses. The soldier's cries for help had descended into blubbering sobs, so pathetic that it almost made Illidan want to stop and leave the undead to their macabre work. Still, not everyone was as brave and powerful as he was.
One of the reanimated cadavers must have pushed too hard or lost its grip, but the soldier squirmed free from the rock and ran towards Illidan. "Please! You gotta -" His voice stopped when he laid eyes on the night elf and his geriatric companion. "Oh gods ... those knives ... you're not going to kill me, are you?"
"Show some blasted backbone, human!" Illidan shouted, adrenaline screaming through his blood. "Are all your species such spineless cowards?"
"What he means to say is no, we're not killing you," the old man said. "We're here to help."
The soldier turned his head over his shoulder so fast the night elf thought he might have broken it. It snapped back just as quickly. "Then do something about them! Fast!" He sprinted past Illidan but slowed a short distance away, spinning to watch the events from a safe vantage point, legs bent in case he needed to sprint in a hurry.
Illidan squared up to the lumbering undead. These specimens were not nearly as fresh as the three he slaughtered earlier. Flesh was absent in the majority, with only tattered remnants clinging to aging bone, fluttering madly in the frail breeze generated by the zombies' steps. One still wore an eyeball, though it swung like a pendulum on a grey stalk towards the ground; the other stumbled on with two black sockets. As they rose outstretched arms at Illidan, he saw the pointed, almost claw-like endings of the finger bones. Had someone sharpened them?
A few moments more and Illidan would strike. With the paltry, atrophied muscles they possessed, their reactions wouldn't be anything to be worried about. Some necromancers could raise a century-old skeleton and imbue it with the strength and speed of ten men, but these gruesome spectres were little more than wind-up toys. Even now Illidan watched the shadow magic play over and through their bones, thin and lacking substance. It was enough to raise them and bind them to their hungry patrols, but against a skilled warrior like Illidan, they would fall like saplings to his blades.
"Wait," the old man said. He took a step forward and unsheathed his pale arms from the cloak. "Let me handle these ones."
"You?" Illidan said.
"You?" the scared soldier shouted.
"Yes, me!" the geezer said, frowning. "I've learned a few tricks to deal with exactly this sort of situation."
Illidan watched, but didn't lower his warglaives, nor remove focus from the advancing skeletons. The old man swung his arms about in big circles around him, squatting at the lowest point and stretching himself at the highest. The exaggerated motions drew the ire of the skeletons. Gnashing their jaws, they dragged themselves towards the old man, scratching at the air in front of them with dagger fingers.
Sweat built on the bald man's brow as he sped up. Yellow glimmers of light dropped from his fingertips that vanished as soon as they touched the dry earth. More and more fell, and Illidan felt an unseen force swell about him, pressure climbing in the very air. His spectral sight let him see the weak, though unmistakable hints of chaotic magic glistening in those sparks.
The old man touched fingertips and slapped palms together. A sulphuric light flashed for a moment from the impact. The skeletons froze, bones jerking and clacking, and abruptly crumbled into white dust.
Illidan stared at the chalky piles. "You did that. How?"
The old man grinned. "I told you. I haven't eked out a living in a zombie filled marsh without knowing how to protect myself."
Illidan growled. "Necromancy ..." He turned his wickedly sharp blades at the old man.
"No!" he protested. "I don't know anything more than that, I swear! I learned how to sense them, how to unbind the spells that raise them, but that's it! Didn't you see how amateurish the result was? My way completely breaks down their bodies! And it doesn't always work, let me tell you, just on the basic ones!"
Green fire-eyes scanned the old codger. Even around his hands, no yellow smoke existed. If the unbinding spell was as rudimentary as he suggested, this is what Illidan would've expected to see. True necromancers couldn't wash the stink of the fetid curse from his magic sight. Still, it unsettled him to know that trick was up those baggy sleeves the whole time.
"That was incredible!" the soldier shouted right behind Illidan.
The night elf spun on his heel and roared back, senses heightened and edgy from the lack of combat they were promised. "Silence!"
The soldier cowed. "Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to yell right in your ear."
Illidan sighed. How he longed for the empty and quiet halls of the Black Temple, where slaves and servants knew their place. "What were you doing out here, you fool? A few minutes more and you would've been stripped off all your flesh and blood!"
The soldier shrunk past the night elf and picked up his sword. He poked the apex of the blade into the white soot. "My wife ... the other guys didn't want to help me. They said ... they said it was too dangerous. They said I should just give up on her, she's gone ..." He looked up from the disintegrated corpses with a furrowed brow and blazing stare. "But I told them. I didn't care if I had to go out here all by myself. I was going to find her, and bring her home."
The power of love. Illidan felt a tinge of a connection with the human, but his higher breeding and pomposity quickly smothered it. "And where did you think you were going to find her?"
"Over there," the soldier said, pointing his sword at the hill. "On the other side. The necromancer's hut is there. Everyone says it, anyway."
"So you don't even know if you're heading in the right direction?" Illidan asked with far less disrespect than before. It might have been stupid and probably fatal, but bullheadedness in the face of adversity was a trait to be admired no matter where it originated.
The man sniffed and rubbed his nose. "I know enough people who said it's the right way. Beside, even if it's not, I'd just start the search again. I'll find Marie as long as there's breath in my body."
"Admirable, but you were almost relieved of breath mere moments ago," Illidan said. He strolled over to the rock and leaned against it, leading his eyes up the hill's contour. "It's fortunate for you that I'm here to slit this necromancer's throat. If your woman is here, you're free to take her."
The man gazed at the old geezer who had remained uncharacteristically quiet, then to Illidan. His eyes widened with the promise of an ally. "Really? You'll help rescue my Marie?"
"On the condition that you don't get in the way," Illidan shot back over his shoulder. "I won't be saving you from the undead again if I'm busy clashing with a necromancer. I won't have distractions."
The soldier nodded shallowly and rapidly. "Whatever you say. You fight the necromancer, I'll save my wife. I won't get in your way."
"Good."
Silence, then the old man finally spoke up. "What's your name, son?"
"Gerald, sir. And yours?"
"Milton."
Gerald's dry lips split, the skin stuck and peeling apart from one another. "Milton? The old hermit?"
Milton grinned, his mini-teeth putting Illidan in mind of a shark's smile. "I see my reputation has preceded me."
"You used to live in Darkshire, didn't you?" Gerald said, sheathing his weapon in a faded blue scabbard swinging from his hip. "But you hated what the mayor was doing. You left in a huff. Some people said you were dead."
Milton nodded, a dire countenance etched into his rubbery skin. "I don't much like being away from people, but at least my destiny's in my own hands."
Illidan didn't turn around, still facing the hill, but his spectral sight let him watch, and his long ears hear, the conversation as clear as if he stood directly before them. Gerald began what would surely amount to a hopeless attempt at convincing the old geezer to return to Darkshire. Sure enough, Milton refused, though he spoke with greater lucidity than he had with the night elf when they first met. Maybe encountering a pair of slobbering corpses robbed him of his farcical joviality. Of course, talking to another of his species might have had an effect on the elderly man.
"Enough," Illidan said sternly, cutting Gerald's next protest short. "If the necromancer is as close as you intimate, let's visit him. I'd rather the element of surprise be on our side than his."
Gerald hurried over to Illidan. Lips pursed, gaze steely, hand on heart, he looked at Illidan with fierce veneration. His enthusiasm was commendable, but his greenness in combat, especially against the undead, was going to work against him. The night elf hoped against hope that Gerald would follow his plan; stay out of the fight and search for his beloved.
Illidan pushed himself upright, warglaives gripped in cold fingers. "Coming, old man?"
Milton waddled to the base of the hill with the others. He displayed his gaunt fingers and wiggled them, smirking. "Do you still want me to sit out the fight after you've seen what these babies can do?"
The night elf cleared his throat. His unbinding spell could prove useful as long as he didn't overextend himself. "You will keep the pawns off me, if any rise, while I strike at the king."
The old man seemed happy with that, shrugging and withdrawing his wizened limbs into the cloak.
A well intentioned but inexperienced soldier and a crackpot grandpa who may or may not be a liability ... what fantastic allies. At least the Burning Legion was competent.
RE: Let Darkness Come - Illidan Stormrage - 07-02-2016
A yellow glow hugged the crest of the hill as they climbed, thickening the further they ascended. The necromantic energy in the valley was invisible to Gerald, and likely the inexperienced Milton, but Illidan knew that the brightness from this distance meant that the other side of the hill was saturated in it. Gerald may have been uncertain about the veracity of the claims about the necromancer's location, but the night elf had no doubt in his mind that it was correct.
Although looking ahead, Illidan also inspected his two companions climbing either side of him, though neither were as fit or well-rested as he was. Gerald held his sword in a death grip, his wrists shaking. Face sullen, eyes wide and darting in every direction, he was hardly the image of a brave knight questing to save his true love from the clutches of nefarious evil. It'd be an achievement if he didn't soil himself.
Milton's face also depicted a man under stress, but not because of overwhelming terror. The gradient of the hill lowered the old man to a half crawl, scrabbling at the thin grass with his hands as he hunched over. Spellcasters, and the elderly in general, often lacked proper constitution for travel and battle, and Milton was both combined. Still, even though he thrashed his way up the incline, he did so with surprising vigour, belying his creased skin and bleary eyes.
At the top of the hill, Illidan glanced into the valley below. A veritable fog of swirling yellow energy suffocated the space. Built a short distance from the hill's base was an old wooden cathedral, ostensibly abandoned from its damaged and worn exterior. Random breaks and holes in the planks dappled its outside walls, and most of the once white paint had peeled off or been beaten by the relentless sun into pallid grey. What remained of the glass windows jutted out in spiked daggers, clinging to the rim, while irregular shards lay smothered in dust and grime on the sills. One of the double doors that permitted entry swung precariously on a single rusted hinge, while the other had given up the fight a long time ago.
Illidan strengthened his grasp on his warglaives as his gaze wandered from the defiled cathedral and settled upon the roaming undead. Reawakened corpses of all shapes and degrees of degradation traipsed ungainly back and forth, their subtle moans barely reaching the night elf atop the hill. They appeared to be guarding the condemned building, though none came within ten metres of the hall. If they were indeed patrolling, they either needed glasses or simply were too distant to spot Illidan scouting the area, since none made a move towards him.
Gerald lumbered up the last few sloped steps and stuck hands on his knees, sucking in air loudly. Physical exertion and fear are a bad combination. "Just ... just give me ... a moment ..."
The skin about Illidan's nose grew taut, pulling his upper lip. "Take all the time you need." What a pathetic specimen of humanity. How did a creature ruled by fright and lethargy receive the honour of guarding his kin?
Milton scrambled up to the crest of the hill a few moments later. Though he too panted for breath, he stood upright and surveyed the valley without a care while Gerald, red faced, still wiped the sweat from his brow.
"Looks like the boy's information was good," Milton said with a subdued smile. "As was mine."
Gerald's face was already stained white from the climb, but Illidan swore it paled another shade when he witnessed the undead army below. "Oh ... oh gods ... Marie is down there? So many undead ..."
Illidan's fingers stiffened, a blazing pressure ballooning in his chest. This buffoon wouldn't make it three steps before he forfeited his blade and begged the merciless zombies for mercy. He threw down the warglaives and seized Gerald by the collar of his sweat stained undershirt, forcing the shorter man's eyes into the burning green of his, the unholy light piercing the tan blindfold.
"Enough of this cowardice!" Illidan strained each syllable while keeping his voice low. The last thing he wanted was a tide of undead crashing over the hill as he berated the failure of a guard. "Your fear will be your death if you don't master it right now! The undead will not forgive you for trespassing on their land, nor will they react to your screams as they cannabalise you while you still breathe! This is no game, this is not pretend heroes-and-villains that you played at with toy swords and your imagination! If you want to save your woman, you better find your courage, or else you will be the distraction I use to escape from here! Am I clear?!"
Gerald's face ran with sweat, though he had recovered from the climb. He swallowed, a slow and laboured movement. "Y-yes, uh ... sir. I-I understand."
Illidan released the soldier like he dropped a piece of trash. Gerald stumbled, stopping a tumble down the hill with the point of his sword.
Milton smiled, though his eyes did not crinkle with it. "A bit hard on the boy, weren't you?"
"Don't you start," Illidan said, though the passion had left him. Rage was a funny emotion; it could be stoked instantly, like oil spilling into fire, but could be doused just as quick if it served its purpose. "Same goes for you, by the way."
"Nice to know how you treat your allies."
"You are guides, at best," Illidan reminded him. "It is more accurate to say you are here with me as a matter of happenstance than of planning and camaraderie."
Milton shrugged his bony shoulders. "At least you didn't wrinkle my cloak and bluster in my face."
"There's still time, old man. Now shut up." The night elf angled his brows. The swathes of risen thralls hadn't so much as moved an inch closer to the hill. In fact, a pack of them stumbled towards the cathedral but stiffened a few steps in, then hobbled an about-face and dragged themselves away.
"Wh ... what's happening? What are they doing?" Gerald asked, curiosity claiming his terror addled mind for at least a moment. "They're not defending the cathedral at all."
Milton looked at the soldier. "So what do you think that means, son?"
Gerald massaged his cheeks, fingers on one side and thumb on the other. "That ... the necromancer isn't in the building? It's just an old church, but he's further out into the plain, out there somewhere?"
Illidan scoffed at the human's appraisal. "If you followed that logic, you'd be dead seconds within reaching the base of the hill."
Gerald pouted and looked at his boots. Milton, however, glared at the night elf. "So if you're so smart, which I do wonder about since you fight without even a shirt to protect you, what are they doing?"
Illidan rolled his neck to face the wizened man. "It's obvious. The necromancer knows we're here."
"But how?" Gerald asked.
"It could be a number of reasons," Illidan said. "First and foremost, we've been killing the dead he's raised. He would've sensed that. Also, we've been walking on his land. There are likely enchantments that are signalling our intrusion even now." Gerald gulped at that. "And that's assuming he can't sense my power. Put all of that together and he's had plenty of warning that we're coming."
Gerald frowned, gazing out at the horde. "That doesn't make sense. If he knows we're here, why doesn't he send the undead up here to kill us?"
"Why indeed," Illidan replied.
Gerald cocked an eyebrow. "Yeah ... why?"
Milton skirted around Illidan and placed a withered hand on the soldier's shoulder. "There's only one reason why a necromancer wouldn't attack us this far out from Darkshire. So why would that be? What does he have to gain from keeping us alive?"
Scratching his head, Gerald moved his lips as he dwelled on the question. "Um ..."
"It's because we have something he wants." Illidan folded his arms over his chest. "And he knows he can retrieve it easier if we come to him. There's an ambush waiting for us down there."
"An ... an ambush?" Gerald's inquisitiveness died off, eaten by his voracious fear. "S-so he's waiting for us to just ... walk into our deaths?"
"He's certainly not inviting us to lunch," Milton said. He paused. "Unless he has a vampire friend."
"V-vampire?"
"Stop frightening him," Illidan said, though not out of an abundance of compassion. "He'll freeze on his feet as soon as anything happens if you keep stoking his paranoia." Stealing his warglaives from the ground, he slashed them through the empty air in front of him, the steel singing. He didn't know what this necromancer wanted from him, but he had to be prepared. His death was the only thing Illidan sought.
The night elf halted his blades by his sides. "Are you prepared?"
Milton waggled his thin fingers. "Always ready to rip apart some undead."
Gerald swung his weapon before him, confident and rigid, perhaps forcing the bravado he would need to survive. He looked straight ahead, refusing to meet Illidan's gaze. "I'm doing this for Marie. But if we find she isn't there ... I'm leaving. I hope you understand."
"What you do is of little concern to me," Illidan said. "Let's go, and stay quiet."
As one, delicately, they snuck down the other side of the hill. Illidan skulked deliberately, so that his associates wouldn't be left behind completely, but he also didn't desire a flood of hungry corpses to rush at him after being spooked. While he banked on the fact that the necromancer held the marauding horrors at bay, he had been wrong before. Besides, there was every chance his foe would bore of the wait and sic the monsters on them.
Gerald and Milton kept pace easily enough, though the descent seemed to pain the old man, as if his frail bones couldn't support his feather-light weight when going against the grain of gravity. Gerald, on the other hand, gradually shed the helpless villager act the further they travelled down the mountain. Straightening his back, firming his footsteps, weapon unsheathed and poised for battle, it was as if he was literally stepping into the warrior he would need to be. Whether it stemmed from concern for his beloved or simple acceptance of his imminent death, it steeled him, making him less of a liability.
They reached the base of the hill, staring through the broken double doors of the cathedral. The free-range undead hadn't reacted one iota to their presence, even though Illidan was positive a handful had looked directly at him. Through the gap created by the missing door, darkness shrouded the interior. No sound or movement, not even a solitary candle burned to ward away the black. Too far away to scan with his spectral sight.
"Here's how we're going to play this," Illidan whispered. "I'll lead. Gerald, if your wife is inside, you will follow. When I've ensured that everything is safe, you get her out." Illidan omitted the part where he believed that wouldn't be possible. "Old man,-"
"Milton."
"Old man, you stay outside. Keep your eye around the corner. Make sure the undead don't decide to join us all of the sudden. If you can hold them off, good. If not, warn us. Does everyone understand?"
Gerald nodded fiercely. Milton shot a sour look at Illidan, but grudgingly nodded.
"Then let's do this."
Blades bared and shimmering in the moonlight, Illidan crept closer towards the cathedral. With each step, a putrid stench strengthened, stinging his nostrils. He breathed through slitted lips instead. Yet as they reached the threshold of the building, tiptoeing around the fallen door, the rotten odour slithered up his nose regardless. Gerald stifled a wave of nausea behind him. Milton's footsteps were so light that Illidan barely registered them.
Focusing, Illidan quested into the dark cathedral with his magically enhanced sight. Pews lined either side of the long aisle, the wood splintered and brittle, but whole. Dust coated the walls and seats with a thick film, but the aisle and dais at the far end of the structure had been disrupted, where channels had been wrought by feet. Brass candelabras were stockpiled at the sides of the dais, supporting unlit but melted candles. A lectern looked over the eerie congregation, a thick book closed on top of it. Sulphuric fog laced the air within, densest at the lectern. No one moved inside, but he sensed a body. Something insubstantial and ethereal stopped his vision from forming any further, as if he were looking into a rippling pond. He withdrew. Some spell activated at the presence of his own magic. This was the right place.
Illidan touched Milton on the shoulder and breathed. "Stay here." The old man nodded.
The night elf calmed his nerves and focused. The necromancer was somewhere inside, concealed. Whatever happened, no matter what he said or falsely promised, he had to remember - he was here to kill him. Practitioners of the undead were foul, twisted beings, undeserving of the vast magical powers they wielded. Making a deal with one would be like succumbing to the Burning Legion ... bad example. Or perhaps, a good one. Illidan had learned through torturous experience how foolish and short-sighted it had been to ally himself with such all-encompassing evil.
On the other hand, the power ...
Illidan grunted. No. I am a demon hunter, not a demon.
Through the doorway he went, Gerald on his heels. The cathedral opened up before him, the barrier that confused his sight dispelling. He slinked forward, purposefully, one foot after the other, warglaives menacingly on display. Rows of empty, long abandoned pews slid past him at a snail's pace, the quiet undercut by Gerald's deep breaths. Illidan remained alert, scanning over his shoulders, detailing every feature of the room.
Scratches, some from human fingernails, marred the walls, as did liberal splashes of dried blood. The stench almost brought tears to Illidan's eyes, if he were capable of crying, though it tossed his stomach like a boat in a maelstrom. A soft tinkling sounded from above, a glass chandelier swayed faintly by the wind that oozed in through the door. In the front pews, on either side, sat a skeleton, both manipulated to face the pulpit attentively, bleached hands in their laps. A sick joke, perhaps.
They reached the dais without incident. A large arched window presided above the lectern, the only window in the whole cathedral that remained intact, though caked with dust. Illidan stepped onto the dais, glancing at the book on the lectern. Its thick cover was inscribed with golden lettering, though what language the symbols belonged to he couldn't say. Against the wall, to the side of a mountain of scrolls and parchments in the far corner, slouched a body, pinned to the wall by manacles around their wrists.
A sharp intake of breath from behind. "Marie ...?"
Gerald dashed past him, sagged to his knees and dropped his sword. Hands reached for her slumping head, raising her face to his. She didn't look good at all. Her clothes, while lacking blood stains, had been pawed and torn. Whether starved or drained of some vital essences, her body looked marginally better than Milton's, her skin moulded about bones.
"Marie?" Gerald asked, his voice tight. All vestiges of courage he collected on the way down the hill had fled him, replaced by desperation. "Marie?! Please, can you hear me?"
She didn't respond, but Illidan thought to point out what Gerald had missed in his blinding terror. "She's still breathing. She's still alive."
Gerald thrust his ear against Marie's ridged chest, eyes wide, then closed them, uttering a moan of relief as tears fell down his cheeks, whispering, "she's alive, she's alive."
Illidan spun about the dais. "Can you free her?"
Lifting his sword, Gerald jammed it into the manacle and levered against the seam. He grunted, muscles bulging, until the manacle cracked open. Marie collapsed towards the ground, dangling by her other captive arm. Gerald made quick work of the last restraint, and caught her as she drooped. Hugging her fiercely, the soldier sat with his beloved, embracing the moment of sheer joy.
However, since finding Marie had reduced him to an emotional wreck, Gerald no longer factored into Illidan's plans. They had to get out of the cathedral, lest they become a ripe target for the necromancer, when he decided to reveal himself. The night elf hurried to the soldier and toed him in the ribs. "Get up! Get out of here!"
Light bloomed on either side of the dais. The candelabras burned with a myriad of tiny flames.
The night elf's chest felt like something was crushing it. "No-"
Searing lightning ripped through Illidan's body. He shook on the spot, fingers loosing on his warglaives. It suffused his skin, igniting every pain receptor it could attack, locking his bones in place. His vision blurred, fiery hot agony splashing through his bones. He tried to scream and roar, give his torture a voice, but his jaw set in place like stone. All thoughts were drenched in the inescapable, unmitigated death that forked beyond his body and into his soul. As the lava in his veins crescendoed, reaching heights of physical anguish Illidan had only suffered through at the hands of the Burning Legion, it cut off. He swayed, somehow on his knees, and then everything went black.
Darkness receded. Illidan opened his fire-eyes, laying awkwardly on his side for a few blank moments, devoid of any awareness. His gaze settled on two other bodies, smoking against the wall. Like a nightsaber pouncing on its prey, his memory shrieked back.
He shot up and swore at the stinging that flared through his skeleton. It wore off quickly, but every movement, as he changed from a kneel to a standing position, awoke the stabbing in his joints. Where did that attack come from? Spinning towards the cathedral doors, he came face to face with his assailant.
Milton grinned, revealing hordes of tiny, yellowed teeth. His outstretched fingers summoned an otherworldly yellow light about them. "Oh come on. Don't tell me this was a big surprise?"
"You?" Illidan croaked, discovering that his lips moved like thick molasses. "How-?"
"How did I find you?" Milton paced, emaciated arms behind his back. "You killed my perimeter undead. They were supposed to catch one of the humans, you know. They were intentionally left close to Darkshire for that explicit purpose. But no, you had to wipe them out, didn't you?"
"No," Illidan said, regaining control his jaw, though his tongue grated against the dryness of his mouth. "How ... did you manage to hide in plain sight from me?"
"Not hard when you're hiding from a blind man!" That horrid cackling again, chilling his blood. "Or should I say, blind night elf?"
"I'm ... I'm not blind," Illidan said, slapping a hand on the lectern. The pain in his bones was bleeding away. "I can sense the taint of evil like you see fog. I saw it ... everywhere. On the undead. In this cathedral. But I never saw it on you."
"Oh? Well that's easy to explain." Milton's tight skin twisted into a devilish smile. "I'm much, much stronger than you are. I could hide the 'taint,' as you call it, from your fledgling skills. Though I find it odd that you couldn't sense my power when I unwound those undead before."
"I did sense it, albeit briefly," Illidan said. He had to stall for time. Where were his warglaives? They weren't on the dais anymore. "But I bought your ridiculous lie."
Another mocking, macabre grin. "Yes, that was rather naive of you, wasn't it? How many old men that aren't necromancers do you know that can unbind the magicks holding the undead together?"
Spectral sight scuttled over the cathedral walls. The warglaives, clear in his vision now, criss-crossed each other ... behind Milton. He hadn't wasted any time while Illidan had been dead to the world. "So why do any of it? Why did you walk with me all this way? Why the lies?"
Milton cleared his throat, his countenance hardening. "You're not the only one who can sense dark magic. As soon as you dispatched the first corpse in the trap, I felt it radiating from across the plains. While I haven't been impressed with the power I've found in you, after closer inspection, at the time I didn't know that pulse, that yearning heart beat, didn't belong to you. I thought what I felt was your innate ability, so I came to investigate. It turns out that, much to my pleasant surprise, it wasn't someone bent on killing me, someone whose skill and mastery of the craft eclipsed mine."
"No, I didn't rate you as the threat I first believed. But there was something remarkable about you. Or rather ..." That damn cocky grin again. "That remarkable something hanging from your belt."
Illidan's throat constricted. A stone sunk deep into his gut. His hand slapped his side.
The Skull of Gul'dan was gone.
A gnarled hand fished into Milton's robe and extracted the missing artefact. "This is it, isn't it?" He breathed deeply, holding the skull to his nose. "Oh, how glorious! Such power housed in a dead man's head!"
Illidan's heart raced. Not the skull! No matter what he chose to do with it, it was his and his alone. A sickness saturated his stomach at the thought of that much eldritch energy being at the disposal of anyone except him.
He thought about rushing the bastard. Demon hunters were spry and agile; there was a good chance he could avoid the magical attacks that would surely fly his way, though guessing at something so critical was a stupid, impetuous idea. Normally Illidan loved those ideas, but not when something so valuable was being gambled. He needed more time. More information wouldn't hurt, either, since Milton liked to marinate in his own ego.
"You didn't answer my question!" Illidan roared, hoping the fury in his voice would bring the necromancer back to the conversation. Only some of the rage was embellished.
"No, I guess I didn't," Milton said thoughtfully. "I travelled with you and led you here because I was being cautious. I see now that I could've stolen the skull easily, but at the time I was concerned you shrouded your true power, as I did from you. A brazen attempt on the skull might've earned your ire and brought your full strength to bear." He chuckled. "Though I vastly overestimated you, it seems. Anyway, no matter your abilities, I knew I could claim the skull if I attacked you with your guard down. And I wasn't wrong."
Illidan twisted his neck to the corner of the room. Gerald and Marie lay in a tangled mess, smoke rising from their skin, unmoving.
"They're not dead, in case you're wondering," Milton said. "They're not in the best of health either, but not dead. Actually, even with this skull, I think I'll still use them."
"For what?" Illidan asked. How much force would it take to rip the ceiling down? Would it even faze the necromancer?
Milton lifted the Skull of Gul'dan to his eyes, peering into the black sockets. "Before I found you, I was preparing a sacrifice for the great Count Dracula," Milton met Illidan's gaze. "Remember him? I taught you all about him." Eyes back to the skull. "Anyway, I've wanted to join his elite for some time now, and thanks to a new policy, he will grant anyone an audience who brings a severed soldier head and an innocent person. If he finds them worthy, he grants them a portion of his power. Now that I have this skull and the two tickets to Count Dracula's good graces, just think of the strength I'll possess!" He threw his head back and laughed, the sound of a maniac fulfilling his wildest dreams.
As Illidan supported himself on the pulpit, the air pungent with death, he realised the only option available to him. Part of him knew it would come to this again, but a younger, less jaded part hoped it wouldn't. If things had turned out better, maybe he could've remained a demon hunter.
Maybe Tyrande ...
Illidan threw out a hand, willing the magic in his blood to rise. Invisible fingers clasped around the skull, and he pulled. Milton's laughter cut off and he pulled back. The night elf struggled, his telekinetic spell grappling with the counter spell of the decrepit necromancer.
"Finders keepers, night elf!" Milton roared.
Sweat blotted his purple skin. He couldn't tear the skull free. Milton, even without the fortification of the orc warlock's head, outranked him. But Illidan wouldn't be beaten. Strength may have prevailed when he slew Arthas, but this time he needed to employ something more.
With his other hand, Illidan bid the first warglaive to levitate. It hovered in mid-air, the blades turning over themselves.
Milton looked over his shoulder. "You won't succeed!"
A rush of invisible energy crashed into Illidan's chest, knocking him off his feet. Milton lifted the Skull of Gul'dan aloft, grinning. "Is that all you've got?"
Illidan sat up. Eyes burned sickly green behind his blindfold. "You've forced my hand."
The warglaive soared end over end, slicing into Milton's back. Pale red blood sprayed up into the air like a fountain. His mouth opened in a scream but no sound left his lips.
Again Illidan grasped the skull from across the room. The counter defence had fallen. With a desperate yank, the night elf flung the artefact across the cathedral and into his awaiting hands. An instant relief flooded his chest.
"No!"
Milton stood on his feet, a curved blade sticking out of his chest. Blood seeped from the impalement, but if it bothered him in any way, the necromancer refused to show it. His pasty, bloodshot eyes burned, skin so taut over his face as to expose the hideous skull beneath. With surprising flexibility, Milton sprinted at Illidan, the warglaive not slowing him down in the slightest. Swirling yellow energy pooled in his clawed hands.
"It's mine!"
No time left. Illidan focused on his last untainted moment and sucked in the horrifying powers of the Burning Legion raging within the Skull of Gul'dan. Black smoke steamed from the cavities and coiled around Illidan's skin, seeping through his eyes, mouth, nose, ears, even the tiny pores of his skin, until the inky blackness of the Twisting Nether consumed him from the inside out.
Illidan heard one last brutal scream from Milton, a bone-shaking explosion, and fell into a yawning, hungry void.
RE: Let Darkness Come - Illidan Stormrage - 07-04-2016
Nothing existed, save the chill. It snaked through him, a thousand tendrils digging, spreading the dark, icy void, making it one with his soul. Thoughts struggled for relevance against the will of the black. Hanging without binds, floating without air, it permeated all of him, manipulated his essence, until it joined with the chaos. His spirit, ripped apart and replaced bit by bit, rested. Despite the torturous reconfiguration, the sadistic will rebuilding him in a agonising new image, the spirit found an odd peace. Demonic minds chattered and wailed in his thoughts until he didn't know which were his, yet the madness that engulfed him was not new, not alien.
No, as the Twisting Nether spilled into him, his skeleton solidifying, his veins coiling around bone, muscle and flesh stretching over him, as his consciousness rose from the eldritch nightmares that it had been dunked into, he remembered. When first he drank of these black waters, when the surge of evil drowned him, he struggled and thrashed against the deep. This time, as demon fire flooded his body, as his spine arched against the hot kiss, he laughed.
The process almost killed him last time. The Twisting Nether sculpted him without mercy, its oily fingers penetrating his mind, tearing at his will, ordering his identity to dissolve. It almost claimed him last time. But it didn't.
As the chaotic magicks thrummed within him, as the demons of the void screamed and demanded fealty, Illidan laughed in their faces. He roared in delight, screaming joy at their torment, finding humour in the mental claws that raked over his mind. They did not turn him then, and by the gods, they would not turn him now. He would partake of their unholy power, but never would he bend the knee to the masters of the Twisting Nether.
Their presence remained as demonic energy funnelled into him, but with each passing second the night elf forced them back, fending them away from his soul. They resisted, inflicting more wounds on his spirit, scratching at the very concept of his existence, but they could not override his will. He mocked them as they finally fled, furious and frustrated, back to the inky maelstrom of their home.
Illidan awoke.
The grey sea of clouds was visible above him. Wooden planks stacked in haphazard heaps all around him. A candelabra lay on its side, the small flames snuffed out, smoke twisting from the wicks. The entirety of the cathedral had been blown apart. No sign of Milton, nor Gerald or Marie.
Illidan climbed to his feet, still gripping the Skull of Gul'dan. Despite the powers he had wrested from it, a connection to the Twisting Nether still remained, burrowed deep in its core. He cinched it back on his belt. Its worth had not been completely drained.
He breathed the stale air of the Pale Moors with new lungs. Huge, bat-like wings protruded from his back. Thick, hardened hooves replaced the purple flesh of his feet and toes. Ebony horns jutted from his forehead, curling above his skull. The emerald tattoos scrawled over his broad chest and arms glimmered faintly with the energy raging inside him.
Joy everlasting soaked his mind. Flaring his wings, Illidan laughed maniacally into the dreary sky, muscled arms raised in triumph. How he had forgotten the sweet nectar of the Burning Legion! He had only been parted from it for a short time, but the difference was like night and day. Just standing there in the ruins of the building, he felt more alive than ever before. He couldn't even remember the arguments he made against absorbing the power.
Reining in his glee, Illidan looked around. The necromancer could be dead, motionless beneath a stack of splintered wood, but until the night elf demon saw incontrovertible proof of his demise, he wouldn't accept it. After all, he lunged at Illidan while a warglaive was imbedded in his frail excuse of a body.
Illidan clopped around, throwing his hands around, releasing waves of telekinetic force. Wood piles exploded, revealing the ground beneath. As he blasted apart another, he spotted a body. It was Milton, glassy eyes staring into the great beyond, warglaive erect in his chest cavity like a flagless pole. The night elf demon knelt by the corpse.
"Your power paled in comparison to my true self," Illidan said, spitting on the corpse. "No wonder you tried to steal it from me."
Illidan reached for the warglaive. As his hand found the weapon, it flickered like a broken holographic projection. The same malady infected Milton's corpse, and a moment later, they both blinked out of vision.
Movement from behind. Illidan's blood chilled as he spun to face the real Milton, mid-leap and descending towards him, crackling yellow energy surrounding his hands.
Illidan opened his wings and flapped, hopping backwards as the necromancer landed. A yellow explosion rattled the night elf demon's teeth, its sizzle tingling his skin despite not being caught in the blast.
"Close," Milton said, grinning that insane grin. The warglaive still hooked through his chest, dried blood sealing the steel into flesh. "Thought I'd be that easy to kill? Blow up a building and old man Milton dies?" He threw his head back and raucous laughter spilled out into the sky. The type of laughter that belonged to a mentally unhinged psychopath. "I can't believe your mind fell for such an obvious trick. You think I'm so feeble?"
Illidan scowled, feeling the hatred boil his blood, giving shape to his power. "Feeble isn't the right word. Decrepit suits you better. A flimsy, brittle skeleton wearing the flesh of a man."
Milton found that most enjoyable, as evidenced by his chortling response. "Fantastic! I didn't know a demon could have such a great sense of humour!"
"I'm not a -" Illidan cut himself off. Technically, he wasn't; a demon lost their will to the Twisting Nether, but in all other aspects of the definition, it was true. He growled. "I see you've finally gone insane, realising your death is so near."
"Oh night elf," Milton said, waggling a gaunt finger. "Even after you drained that artefact, I'm still easily your better."
Once, before Illidan stepped foot into this new realm, his spectral sight could detect the potential of individuals. Through magical means unknown to him, he could read skills, strengths, powers and more simply by staring at a person. Whether due to Milton's deliberate suppression or the same cause that ripped the demon from him earlier, he couldn't confirm if the necromancer was bluffing.
"Then why hunger for the skull so badly?"
Milton giggled, apparently thinking the answer was self evident. "The same reason you did! We all want more power, don't we?" He spread his scrawny arms to the sky. "I just wanted to take that skull before anything happened to it! After all, it would've been less painful for you if I drew the power from a skull than from your soul, right?" More laughter.
Illidan balled his fists. Fury flooded him. He fired out telekinetic hooks into the warglaive in Milton's chest and willed the weapon back to him. Milton was ready for it this time, and a magical wall blunted Illidan's attack.
"Oh no, this is mine! I can't trust you with these things!"
The other one, where was it? Spectral sight fanned out like water, searching under the debris of the chapel, until Illidan located it. With another flex of his will, the warglaive burst forth and straight into his grasp. One blade would be enough.
Milton laughed. "Oh, I forgot about the other one!" He shrugged. "Fat lot of good it'll do you though!"
Two clasps snapped around Illidan's ankles. Skeletal hands sprouted out of the earth like nightmarish flowers and seized him. He pulled, thrusting his knees upwards, but the grip was ironclad. He looked up in time to see a terrible tide of yellow magic spill toward him. Unable to move, Illidan yelled and hid behind his warglaive like a thin shield.
The sickly wave crashed over him, split down the centre. While the warglaive cut the stream in two, the magic still ripped at him on either side. Death and fatigue blew through him like a gale, stealing the strength from his body. Even in his demon form, Illidan could not resist such potent spells.
Time fading fast, Illidan beat his wings, hoping for some lift. The bony fingers holding him in place budged, and with one last flap, Illidan shot into the air. The fresh wind slapping against his face reinvigorated him, and using the trajectory of his jump, he angled at Milton, plummeting with warglaive extended.
The old necromancer shifted and absorbed the impact of Illidan's strike with his bare hands, pale yellow light enveloping them. The night elf demon pressed down with all his might, expecting the blade to cleave through the paper-thin flesh at any moment.
"This is it? This is all you've got?" Milton sneered. "Maybe that skull wasn't worth all this trouble after all!"
Impossible! How could this Milton stand before the awesome wrath of Illidan at the zenith of his strength? Where could he find such incredible power? His muscles strained, unholy tattoos glowing hot green, but the necromancer wasn't giving an inch of ground.
Milton smiled, the skin so tight on his face that it looked a moment away from tearing. "What do you say we make things more interesting?"
A tremor boomed through the ground. Illidan almost fell to a knee, but found the balance to remain upright. "What the hell was that?"
The necromancer shrieked with laughter. If holding Illidan off took any degree of focus, it didn't show. "Didn't you notice how my army of undead were missing?"
Another quake and an explosion of dirt preceded a monstrous figure, at least twenty feet tall, emerging from the earth. Its hulking body was uneven, surface irregular, hewn roughly from rigid material. Illidan couldn't afford it more attention lest he borrow it from Milton.
The necromancer, however, grew bored of their struggle. A painless but forceful concussive blast launched Illidan backwards. "Impressed? Not just any necromancer can build a giant mega-skeleton from the bones of regular ones!"
Illidan's jaw clenched as he drew in the mega-skeleton. Supported on legs of meshed bones of all varieties, wound by grey and pink muscles, it thumped its chest built entirely of ribcages with one massive fist. Its other arm lacked the same girth; perhaps Milton ran out of 'supplies' by the time he got to it. The head was forged of broken bones, the seams of the original components clearly visible, until it resembled a horrid, misshapen skull. Dozens of undead eyes sat in the cavernous black sockets like piles of fleshy marbles.
Killing that summon seemed like an insurmountable task. Detaching a limb wouldn't stop the skeletal horror if it functioned anything like a regular undead. He had to destroy the head. Doing that with a warglaive seemed ... impractical.
The unclean magic binding the monster together flooded from Milton, pallid streams of light linking them together. Maybe if he bit the dust, his pet would collapse into a gory mound? It was his best bet.
Illidan raised his arm and hurled the warglaive like a shuriken. It spun end over end, whistling as it cut a line through the air.
Milton bent at the waist, feet rooted in spot, and reached out an empty hand to the side. Illidan frowned. Was he ... exercising? Was he that confident in his strength?
A gargantuan hand shielded Milton as the warglaive hit home. The hand lifted into the air and the puny hand of the unholy amalgam plucked the weapon from its palm like a splinter. Milton smiled, mimicking the same motion himself.
"Won't this be fun?"
A fist the size of an elekk fell from the sky. Unarmed and doubting his power, Illidan boosted into the sky. The earth beneath him rumbled, grass and earth sucked into the impact. The smaller hand, though still not small by any means, slapped into Illidan. He rolled like a leaf in the wind, the world spinning around him, until he unfurled his wings and zoomed out of a nosedive.
The bigger fist shook the earth as it withdrew and careened for Illidan. Manoeuvring in the air, the night elf demon dodged. That beast might've been taller than a house, but Illidan was far faster and nimbler. The smaller hand jabbed in the space where the big hand wound itself up for another attack, yet with his full attention, he swerved away from every strike.
"Annoying little gnat!" Milton shouted, raising his thin arms above his head, the undead behemoth moving in synchronisation.
An idea birthed in the night elf demon's mind. That's it, Illidan thought, keep telegraphing your attacks. He dropped to the earth, wings wide and awaiting, bathing in the shadow of the hoisted arms.
"That's it?!" Milton screeched. "Giving up so easily?"
He wasted no time. Clenching his starved fingers, the necromancer swung them down to the ground, his mega-skeleton following suit. There!
Illidan threw out his hands, incanting the spell at breakneck speed. Tendrils of telekinetic magic coiled around Milton's form, finding no barrier. The shock wrote all over the necromancer's face as the night elf demon hauled him forward. Jumping backwards, he avoided the flying Milton, who landed right where he had been standing. Illidan barely hit the ground before the boulder-like fists crashed into the necromancer and the surrounding earth. A rush of wind slammed into him, batting him backwards like a paper ball.
Sinking clawed fingers into the dry earth, Illidan ground himself to a halt. The mega-skeleton's shoulders were the first to detach, the arms splitting into hundreds of original pieces, showering the field with bones and rotted flesh. The skull broke like shattered glass, eyeballs spilling out. Illidan turned heel and sprinted as it continued its rapid deterioration, its fused graveyard of body parts amassing in a wave.
Finally the rumbling stopped. Illidan spun, staring at a mound of skeletal remains, Milton's filthy corpse now a part of them. As he suspected, the mega-skeleton only stood while the necromancer did, and his death meant the magical binds would unwind.
Still, as much as it grated him, he stood in awe of that bastard's raw power. Even without the Skull of Gul'dan, Milton outshone Illidan in almost every aspect. If he hadn't acted on impulse like he did, the fight may have turned out very differently. And still Milton wanted more!
What if there were others like him? Maybe even stronger than him? How could Illidan absolve the land of this curse if one simple necromancer could almost kill him single-handedly? How could he face off against this Count Dracula, intimated to be the pinnacle of the taint?
A memory tweaked in his mind. Something Milton had said earlier. "Anyway, I've wanted to join his elite for some time now, and thanks to a new policy, he will grant anyone an audience who brings a severed soldier head and an innocent person. If he finds them worthy, he grants them a portion of his power."
Illidan curled his fingers into a fist, gazing at the corruption of his flesh. Vast power he had already received from the Burning Legion, utilised for the sole purpose of crushing it. If even Sargeras's gift wasn't enough, then maybe Count Dracula ... Gerald and Marie were around here somewhere. They would suffice, surely.
Illidan snarled. Side with the darkness again? Did he forget what happened the last time? Disfigurement, ten thousand years imprisonment, and banishment! Despite all he did! Despite all the good he did his people! They just turned their back on him!
No, that's the wrong thing to focus on. Illidan replayed the torment of losing his amber eyes and having balls of green demon fire substituted in their place. Yet even such a torturous augment had been of greater use than anything Cenarius tried to teach him. He found his sympathy for the old world slipping away again.
The ichors of the Burning Legion galvanised him where the night elves left him to rot. Even his own twin brother couldn't understand his sacrifice, what he surrendered to bring down their greatest enemy. To stand there with a forest demigod, believing that nature could defend against the almighty force of the demons was foolish. With such discrepancies in their strength, there was only one logical decision, albeit demanding a cost just short of death.
Illidan's imbuement of the demon's power twisted him irrevocably, but his will won out, and he had always utilised that very boon against them. It took dozens of adventurers plus Maiev Shadowsong to finally put him down in the Black Temple. Before that, no one rivalled him, not even Arthas!
With Count Dracula's blessing, how much more good could he do! How many undead monstrosities would shatter beneath his heel? The very magic that gave them unlife would be their undoing! Illidan would sacrifice himself further to ensure the world's safety.
Yet memories of Sargeras sprung to mind. When he promised himself to the Burning Legion over ten thousand years ago, he lied to infiltrate them, yet the demon master saw through to the truth in a heartbeat. If Count Dracula had similar insight, his journey could end before it began.
Illidan set out a magical pulse and moments later located the bodies of the humans. He stomped towards heavy, interlaced planks and hauled them away. Gerald's back bore scratches and splinters that stuck fast in his skin. His unmoving body covered another.
He grabbed Gerald's wrist and pulled him onto his back. Eyes closed, mouth ajar, skin clammy and blue, his breaths came in wisps. Purple fingers pressed against his throat, searching for a pulse. He found it, weak and light, but it was there.
Crouching, he checked Marie's vitals. Hanging on, but barely, the thread of her life fraying faster than Gerald's.
A deadness hung in Illidan's chest. The air around him grew a little colder, a little more bitter. A warglaive burst from the remains of the mega-skeleton and sought out its master, fitting snugly into his hand. The night elf demon knew what he had to do, raising the blade above his horns.
"... he will grant anyone an audience who brings a severed soldier head and an innocent person ..."
Betray.
RE: Let Darkness Come - Illidan Stormrage - 07-05-2016
On curved bat wings, Illidan soared over the Pale Moors. He cut a swath through the clouds, misty and insubstantial, a much different reality than the view from the ground promised. There was no shortage of the grey sea, and knowing that other necromancers may covet his power if they could sense him, the night elf demon resolved to at least stay out of sight. Initially, it appeared his caution was needless, but as he drew closer to his destination, crowds of undead dotted the landscape. None craned their necks skyward, at least.
Black hair wrapped around the fingers of his left hand, Gerald's severed head hanging from it. Illidan held Marie's fragile body to his shoulder with his other hand, afraid that letting her dangle could snap off a limb. Their ends would be the catalyst for the land's eventual redemption, and at least Gerald never knew what happened to him. Marie, too, would probably expire before Count Dracula's henchmen could use her for their depraved rituals.
It was time to set his mind straight. Illidan couldn't risk this Count Dracula seeing through his facade, whether through body language or some telepathic incursion. He had to become the facade. Not a huge stretch; thinking about how he had been wronged throughout his millennia-spanning life stirred a great and terrible hatred within him. It was a hatred that awoke the naga from their watery slumber, that willingly enslaved the blood elves to the promise of dark magic, that defiantly turned from the night elves and into the dishonourable clutches of the Burning Legion.
Part of him hated the idea of fully submitting to the darkness in his soul. After all, everything he'd ever done, almost, had been for the night elves or Tyrande. Every now and then he sought to further his position in the universe; what was the harm in that? Yet never had he acted to battle the common good, at least not purposefully.
Yet in order to honour the remaining shred of soul that grappled with his sin, he had to bury it. His new life, obeying Count Dracula and carrying out his orders, would one day lead to a confrontation with him. The Count would donate a portion of his own power that would eventually bring his destruction.
Until that day, Illidan had no plan. He was the primal, unbridled monster that sought selfish gains, and woe and suffering to anyone that stood in his way.
The darkness would claim him. But it would claim him on his terms.
Clouds brushed away and the castle appeared, stone black. It stabbed towards the sky, almost penetrating the clouds that Illidan descended from. He glided down and took in the massive structure, evil magic brimming within the bricks. It could hold an entire town and still have room to spare.
Illidan touched down on the ground in the empty space before the castle gates. Eyes had watched him fall from the sky with great interest, though none had moved to intercept him. At the wide doors, two sinister men approached him, tall and gaunt but still with a speck of haunted life to them. Black capes draped over their shoulders.
The night elf demon hugged his wings to his body. "I'm here to see Count Dracula." He threw Marie and the head of Gerald at their feet. "Here's my tribute."
RE: Let Darkness Come - Illidan Stormrage - 07-17-2016
The shadow of Dracula's castle crept along the insides of its walls, retreating begrudgingly at the presence of lit torches. Illidan's cloven feet clopped on the solid floor, the sound returned to him tenfold from the wide hallway. The halls were almost absent, save for token guards who looked similar to the retainers that led him, one on either side of him. Illidan had a feeling that Dracula kept those of his own kind closest to him, but even they were more for show than any real protection.
A deep cold settled into the night elf demon's bones, a cold that sought him out the moment he stepped through the castle's arched doorway. The flames of the torches held in black iron braziers, sporadically lining the hallway, broke the chill as his skin bathed in their faint orange light, but it claimed him again once out of their range.
Even with his blunted magical sense, he knew a sinister energy radiated from within the inner sanctum of the castle. It hung in the darkness and mixed with the silence, on the edge of perceptibility. Illidan clenched his jaw. Perhaps Milton hadn't understated the strength of Count Dracula after all. That both strengthened his resolve and made him instantly more cautious.
The two guides stopped before a single wooden door. They both gestured to it, mouths sealed, eyes sharp. Illidan took the cue and pushed it open.
The room beyond had a lot in common with his solemn trek through the castle. Shadows hung on the walls like priceless tapestries, with even less braziers present to scare them away. Stained glass windows perched high on the walls let in the mild, ever-present gloom from outside. At the far end of the room, a regal throne sat upon a raised dais, a dark figure nestled within, watching with malicious eyes.
Those blood red irises flitted to either side of Illidan, and his two escorts turned without sound and skulked out of the room. The night elf demon watched a pile of black ooze descend from the dais, that penetrating gaze locked onto him. The feeble fires shed the obliqueness from the ooze, revealing a long, draping cape. A human glided towards him, ostensibly Count Dracula, though he possessed more confidence and poise than Illidan was accustomed to seeing in his kind. Black, slick hair covered his head, his face pale and white as if lacking blood.
While tall, Illidan's demon form looked down on him. Nevertheless, Count Dracula's stature, proud and regal, almost put the night elf demon on the back foot.
"You have come to join my army." A statement, not a question.
Illidan swallowed. The chill that draped over his skin intensified as the lord of the keep stopped a few feet from him. "Yes."
Those blood red eyes travelled up and down Illidan's length. "You have brought the tributes. You are not a secondary, then, I take it. Feel free to correct me."
Illidan's brow furrowed. Milton had mentioned something about secondaries and ... primes during their time together. He didn't know which he belonged to, but he had an uneasy feeling that Dracula didn't take correction well.
"I am unsure. How can I determine which I am?"
Dracula craned his neck up to look into Illidan's face, but the night elf demon felt as if this dark lord dwarfed him in all other aspects. "Use omnilium. Summon something from your memories."
Omnilium. The word triggered the memory of Omni once more. He remembered the glowing child presenting a rainbow hued orb, and somehow understanding the limitless possibilities that swirled in its currents.
Illidan closed his eyes and focused on the mental image of that orb. Slowly but surely, a new magic coaxed free of his body, flowing through and out of him. His memories ... there was plenty of fodder to choose from. A strange fancy flung him back ten thousand years ago, to the days when Suramar was besieged by the Burning Legion. He recalled the first creature to ever truly strike fear into his heart. Short, clawed legs, long snout crammed with needle teeth, black tendrils that writhed from its shoulders, hungry mouths on their tips ...
Illidan returned to the present. A great fatigue weighed on his shoulders, as if he had expended himself in battle. Count Dracula gazed at him from his throne. When had he walked back there? How long had Illidan been retracing his past?
Count Dracula stood and moved over the floor as if floating, his feet hidden by his cloak. "You are a prime." His distinctive eyes shot to the ground beside him. "What do you call this thing?"
Illidan followed his gaze. Beside him stood the very creature he had pictured in his head; a felhunter. Dog-like demons with a ravenous thirst for magic. They were brilliant for killing mages, since their wormy tendrils literally ate arcane energy. Illidan could never forget the first time he found a victim of the beast's hunger; skin shrivelled and paper-thin, eyes grey and sunken, a husk of what they were in life.
"A felhunter. Demons breed specifically for killing those that wield magic."
The felhunter stuck its pointed maw in the air and sniffed. It bared its teeth and its tendrils flailed. No doubt it had caught the scent of the Count. Its claws scraped on the floor as it charged for the dark lord, teeth snapping.
Illidan's chest tightened. This didn't bode well. From Dracula's point of view, it could easily be mistaken for an attempt on his life. The night elf demon raised an arm, gathering telekinetic magic to bear, and -
Count Dracula mirrored his action, and the felhunter stopped mid-stride. The creature yelped and whined as an invisible force compressed its body. Bones snapped and its rough hide tore, foul liquids seeping free. The felhunter gave a final shudder and fell still.
Illidan had to avert a disaster here. "Count Dracula, -"
"No need for an explanation," he said, so strangely calm and still that Illidan wondered if he felt emotion at all. "You told me what the beast was. I knew it might find me appetising. Besides, I was in no true danger."
He disposed of the felhunter so simply, with a mere flick of his wrist. If Dracula wanted, Illidan would crumple in on himself just like the demon had done.
"But be warned. I don't take attempts on my life lightly." A slight rise in his tone. "Do you understand me?"
"Yes, Count Dracula, I-"
"Words are cheap, young ...?"
"Illidan, lord. Illidan Stormrage." Leaders love being called lord.
"Illidan." Dracula's gaze locked onto his, eyes flaring. "I can tell you that I wield great power. You can hear from my army that I am to be feared, and obeyed without question. But from my minions, even me, words are little than second-hand information. To truly understand, in a profound and intimate way, why you will obey me, and why you will fall if you cross me ..."
A thunderous boom rippled through the air from nowhere and collided into Illidan, knocking him to the floor. His bones resonated with the force, jolting his muscles and momentarily paralysing him. Moments later, he climbed back to his feet, and noted he had toes again. His stomach clenched as he tried to flap wings that had disappeared. His eyes now level with Count Dracula, he knew what he did. The dark lord was so powerful, he knocked him out of his demon form with almost no effort at all.
Count Dracula stepped closer, his breath washing over Illidan's face. " ... you have to experience it."
The dark lord's mouth split open, revealing dagger like canine teeth, and he plunged them into Illidan's neck. A searing pain spread through his body, and when he went to scream, darkness swallowed him whole.