Wander

[Roger Smith]

Through the gate he went, his pace as painfully slow as it ever was. Countless eons of magic, knowledge of it gifted to him and made part of his mental library even in his millennium-long slumbers by his ancient masters had imparted a sense of when there was strangeness at work. And the portal within the gate, as he slowly strode through it on his shuffling stride, filled him with a clear sense of that strangeness. A shift in tone of the surroundings, from the blank, endless white of that insufferable void, to a dreary, desolate landscape of blasted, dying earth and swirling mists, suffused all through with a deep, penetrating chill.

It was enough to rob the sensation of balance and fine detail from anyone, and even the slow shuffle of the ever-living sorcerer was briefly arrested, sent into a light sideways stumble, before his balance caught itself and he resumed his forward stride uninterrupted.

He could sense it, here... It was in the very air. The very ground, under his sickly, bandaged feet. Pale, dull gray mist and fog blanketed the earth, making it difficult to see more than a short ways off, and giving the entire place an almost unbearably gloomy feel. It was not a place that anyone would come to of their own volition; not a place that anyone could reasonably dwell in if they had any other option. It was a warren of death and sorrow, and a place that could only give rise to more, and ever more, of the same. Dark, twisted by some ancient tragedy unknowable in its entirety to anyone not present to witness it first-hand...

It spoke to Mumm-Ra, deep in the last few tattered shreds of a soul he had left. It spoke of the promise that there was work to be done, here. Much work indeed. Ever did some brave, or broken fools try to remain proud and hopeful, forestalling oncoming darkness and an inevitable decline into the slow, painful end that awaited them. It would have been pitiable, had it not been entirely too laughable. Indeed, merely imagining the foolish notions that gave rise to such sickening hope, in the midst of all this despair clawing from every side, and spewing forth from the very earth, it was all that the sorcerous fiend could do not to dissolve fully into a mad fit of cackling. Even as it was, his dried, weathered mouth was curled in a grin, teeth parted to let a wheezing cackle flow out into his dim surroundings. There was no warmth in his breath to mist in the chill air, no sense of life to give the mirth billowing forth in ragged gasps any true source.

It was unsettling. That had often been said, by those who served him.

His mirth slowly subsided, letting his thoughts resume their dark path. There was no doubt such a foolish bastion of resistance to the otherwise total dominion of the depressing mire this place was made of somewhere to be found out there. And in so realizing, the goal that he had pondered over on his slow path through the nexus had been made quite clear to him: It must be destroyed. Evil had taken root here, but if it had not yet fully spread its black leaves over the entirety of this desolate place, then it must be cultivated and guided, strengthened and aided until it had done so.

It was very fortunate that Mumm-Ra would be very insistent on doing precisely that. He would let evil grow and spread if he had to plant it anew himself. Such a blighted location would perhaps be...suitable for a place to construct an altar to his masters. Not his permanent residence — there would be no room here for the mighty, towering black pyramid he would need to securely house his sarcophagus and other vital relics — but a sign of tribute nonetheless, to show the Ancient Spirits that their will was enforced.

[Roger Smith]

All but crawling across the fog-shrouded moors, Mumm-Ra continued to make his uncertain, inexorable progress toward the goal he knew awaited him here. He know not to where he went, or what threads of fate would draw him there, but he did know one thing: his evil was needed. Ever was it needed, in a place as this. And he was all too willing to provide it, and further the slow decay of this place.

A lazy wave of one sickly, blue, bony limb swept aside the fog before him with a simple effort of his mind, revealing more of the sad, sorry state of the place for a brief moment. Slowly issuing forth like steam, more fog and mist hissed out of the very ground even as the swirling clouds he had swept aside rolled back in, showing all the movement of a lazy sloth, but undeniably steady in their means to shroud everything they could once again. It was certainly an appropriate enough thing to witness, but did little more than cement the ancient sorcerer's belief about this place. Something terrible had happened here, once upon long ago. It was a question to ponder over later, perhaps when he had secured his place of rest. Just what could have occurred to leave such a desolate, barren scar upon the world?

Winding his way through the misty, chilly landscape was an exercise in monotony for the ever-living. There was naught to be seen, save for the occasional hole or ditch torn in the earth, a copse of scraggly, black trees, or the lone boulder or rocky outcropping. It was a land that seemed deserted, and devoid of life. But there had been vast stretches of Third Earth which seemed deserted and devoid of life...and yet held terrible secrets. Creatures hidden in the blackness. Cruel monsters lurking out of sight in caves and on high ridges. Fiendish beasts crawling right below the feet of those who walked in those desolate, quiet places. And sometimes, things far more sinister. Rivers and lakes of acid and the fell creatures who survived within them, sentient sludge which spelled certain doom to any who so much as touched it, the terrible caverns where air flow over jagged teeth and bones of stone, worn impossibly sharp by time and waling a siren call into the canyons around them...

There was far more danger, always lurking, than could ever be seen merely with the eyes. Mumm-Ra knew that well; much of that danger he had fostered, planted seeds for it to grow when suitable creatures and fiends of lesser evil stumbled upon the blasted world. There was likely to be similar such danger and hostility here, lurking behind walls of mist and under jagged rock. It merely waited for someone foolish or unwary enough to stumble across it and disturb it before it would strike.

No sooner had that certainty been cemented in his thoughts did a noise reach him, among all the other oppressive silence: that of another creature...slowly walking. An even stride, in no clear hurry, and with the faint rustle and sweep of...a long cloak, or robes, perhaps. Someone else was out there, among the fog. They had gotten all too close without the ever-vigilant source of all that was evil taking note; and this both alarmed him and grew his ire for the accursed child-deity that had brought him here to new heights. To strip even such a basic thing as his vast perception of the world, how dare he?! Mumm-Ra would not stand for this; he would be made to pay!

"Well, now...what do we have here?" The faint sounds of movement within the surrounding fog came to a halt, and a voice spoke up.It sounded...incredibly dispassionate and distant, almost disinterested in whatever it was up to. It wasn't quite a cause for concern, but it was a cause for curiosity.

Mumm-Ra slowly swept his gaze this way and that, peering through the fog like an old, blind man might desperately look about for the source of some minor, disquieting sound. "Do you intend to...hide in this fog...?" he rasped out, his red eyes narrowing slightly. "Or will you not let yourself be seen, and speak face..." He hissed out part of a breath. "...to face?"

There was a stirring in the fog, and a few rustling footsteps, and the form of a man materialized into vague form, still half-hidden by the swirling fog, but easy enough to see. "I trust...that will suffice? I'd hate to come much closer; this fog is quite thick, of late, and doesn't make seeing even very close things very easy."

"I have noticed..." the mummified sorcerer grumbled, doing his best not to roll his eyes.

[Roger Smith]

"I hope you don't mind if I ask," the newcomer went on after a moment of silence, his fog-shrouded face making his expression difficult to make out. "...what you happen to be doing in this place? It hardly strikes me as a place for visiting."

There was a chance, now, for Mumm-Ra to gather information. Play dumb, the simple fool; a broken old man, newly arrived to this world, weak and confused, wandering aimlessly and without direction. See what this fool could offer to point him toward where his greatest use could be found. "I...I am still newly arrived to this place," he rasped, pulling his cloak closer about him as if to ward off the chill of the environs. "I happened upon the portal to this accursed land of mists, and lost myself among the cold."

"Ah...a shame, to make no mistake," the other man said, sounding less than sincere. "You picked a poor place to get lost, friend. The Pale Moors are inhospitable even to the people who know the dangers here. A new arrival would be lucky to last a single night among all the chaos and death that roams." He shrugged, listlessly. "I suppose it's better I found you than some roving undead or monster. They wouldn't have bothered to talk or announce themselves, at least."

The ancient mummy stared with glittering eyes at the man as he spoke, studying his mannerisms intently. Arms were folded loosely behind his back, and his face was shrouded and hidden by a deep hooded cloak as much as by the fog. His posture was easy, relaxed, with a slight slouch, as if he were completely at ease despite the apparent dangers he had just mentioned. It was something of a contradiction. One that would be carefully filed away for future thought. "It is fortunate, indeed, that I was found by such a...generous soul," he hissed, his head jerking up in a vague approximation of a nod.

"Generous? Hardly. Just a bit of sense. Hardly seems right to go around attacking anything and everything that moves." The increasingly odd man just shrugged. "Every chance I might wind up biting off more than I can chew, that way." It was a statement clearly intended to dismiss that line of thought altogether, having a faint inflection of actual emotion behind it; a sense of finality. "I'm on a bit of more important business at the moment, anyway."

"On more important business, and yet you take the time to stop and speak with a simple traveler..." Mumm-Ra noted, his eyes narrowing slightly as he peered all the more intently. "What business could you have that is so lax you are free enough to waste time on such a frivolity?"

"Well, bit of a...scouting task, really. Finding parties that might be interested in assisting with something." Another vague, dismissive shrug. "Not every day you find someone in your condition just wandering about the Pale Moors, alone. Thought you might have been just another random zombie, for a while there."

That drew an ugly grimace to the sorcerer's gnarled face. Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living, a mere zombie?! The audacity in even assuming such a thing... He mastered his temper, for the moment, forcing down the urge to lash out and show just how much more than a simple mindless undead he truly was. Instead, he focused on the first part of what had been revealed. "And what is this 'something' you spoke of...that you seek those interested to assist with?"

"A little bit of vengeance, really," the man said, his tone so casual it almost sounded like a joke. "Marching on the last bastion of real life and hope in this place to destroy it. You know. The usual business a nefarious-looking sort like myself gets embroiled in." He waved a hand lazily in the air, gesturing at himself for emphasis. "My lord wanted to find allies that could assist him directly. He has an army, but needs a bit more, you understand."

Mumm-Ra nodded slowly, the gears turning in his head rapidly. It was as if fate had spat out this obtuse, lackluster fool to answer his need for direction. The quest he was on had been exactly the sort of thing the ancient sorcerer needed. "And if you happened to find someone..." he spoke up, his voice pitched low as he pondered his words carefully. "...willing to assist in such an endeavor." A wicked gleam flashed through his eyes, a grin crawling onto his features, thankfully shrouded by the sleeves of his ragged cloak pulled close about him. "Where would they be directed to go to lend such...assistance?"

"....spooky," the man said, offhandedly. "But, I'd tell them to head to Poenari Castle. Lord Illidan is waiting there while the final preparations are made." He turned and gestured off in a direction off to one side of the path the scarlet-robed mummy had been plodding along. "Way off that way. Bit of a travel, but should get there eventually if you hold steady."

Turning his crimson gaze that way, the ever-living just slowly started off, pacing and striding slowly away. "Your master will have at least one to aid him," he called back as he faded, slowly, into the fog. "Where there is evil to be done...Mumm-Ra will find his way."