10-20-2016, 07:37 AM
Shadows loomed long over the bailey as Illidan trudged on. Clouds skated over the sky, parting enough to see the grey sky darkening. Night was falling and he hadn't even entered the castle itself, having spent wasted hours suffering through empathetic visions. Those possessive spirits took agency of him and showed him their last moments in some sort of macabre attempt at pity, but the night elf demon had none for them.
People died in conflict all the time. Hundreds, probably thousands of his own kin met their grisly ends at the edges of the Burning Legion's swords and claws over ten thousand years ago, and the unholy army had ripped an untold number more souls from their mortal confines since then. The undead had likewise carved a swathe of decay and murder through human villages during the Third Invasion. Many of those who fell's only crime was defending themselves from sinister horrors from another dimension. At least those stationed in Poenari Castle were armed and trained in battle, whether effectively or not.
If you pick up a sword in order to kill, it shouldn't come as a surprise when you fall victim to the cold steel of another's weapon.
Illidan pushed the thought of Maiev Shadowsong from his mind and unfurled his leathery wings. A hefty thrust shot him forward, gliding close to the gravel, his destination the entryway to the castle.
He swooped and landed on his cloven feet before the doors. The only remaining portcullis gated off his path of ingress. Dull orange rust collected on the steel grid in irregular patches. Illidan gave the portcullis a hard wrap with his knuckles, and it shuddered in place, a great creak booming through the darkness beyond. Clicking his fingers, one of his warglaives appeared clutched in his hand as black smoke slithered into the sky. The night elf demon slashed at the metal gate, leaving a glistening silver line where his demon-forged steel had intersected it. He slashed several more times in sweeping arcs, sent his warglaive back to its holding dimension and kicked in the irregular shape he had carved with his sturdy hoof. The portcullis sections burst inwards. Illidan folded his wings against his back and ducked through the gap he had made.
Light dared not enter even the foyer of the castle, but Illidan's magic sight didn't need it to see. Amber suffused the air around him, settling on the walls and floor like thick sheets of gold dust. The unusual necromantic object that sustained these tortured phantoms must have been brimming with dark power. No individual thread seemed to be an obvious lead to its location; they all tangled around each other, massing in a brilliance of amber rather than a bright trail to follow to its originator. Concentrating, the night elf demon sent his spectral vision further, focusing on the edges of its perception, but nothing directed him in any particular direction. In any case, the castle being so laden with the abnormal magic led Illidan to believe the object was stored somewhere in the fortress. He just had to find out where.
The clacking of his hooves on the stone floor ricocheted off the large room as he headed for a staircase set in the left wall. A shimmer in the amber light caught his attention as his foot alighted on the first step. Illidan looked around, eyes tracing the high ceiling adorned with dusty spider webs. He sniffed and turned around, lifting his leg for the next step.
A red phantom exploded out of the stairwell, screeching inside Illidan's head. He instinctively leapt backwards, his wings slamming the ground to help with the movement.
"What is with you undead and popping out of objects?" Illidan snarled, his heart thumping. "Can't you just say hello like a normal adversary?"
The spirit hovered, chattering its teeth. A floating corpse, skin and bone exposed in equal measure, stared at him with hollow sockets. Its body, or representation thereof, went as far as the ribcage and the dangling spine. It was the largest of the ghosts Illidan had encountered so far.
It lunged, rotting fingers clawing for night elf flesh. Illidan pivoted on a hoof and dodged, watching the crimson half-body soar past and loop back around. Green energy collected around the night elf demon's hand, and he thrust it at the spirit.
His telekinetic magic seized the furious wraith, but a second later it slipped away. Frowning, Illidan recast the spell, but to the same effect. He tried a final time, and this time realised why. Something was nullifying his telekinesis as he made contact with the ghost. Illidan wanted to follow the remnants of the counter-spell, but the ruby phantom dived at him again.
It sailed wide of the mark a second time, dissolving into the floor. Illidan spun, his spectral sight fanning out in all directions, prepared for the sneak attack.
Red, decomposing hands jutted out from the stone floor and snatched Illidan's cloven hooves. Breath stilling in his chest, the night elf demon launched himself into the air, but the spirit's grip held fast. Before Illidan had another chance to defend himself, the apparition scampered up his body and burrowed into his chest.
He roared in fury, unable to rebuff the spiritual invasion. Emerald light suffused his fingers; if he could rip out one ghost, he could do it again. His vision blackened at the edges, and the flame that held the strength in his digits blew out. Illidan managed a single curse before he
charged at the hellish creature, sword raised. Rob dangled from blood-soaked claws, the last creepy vestiges of life twitching his limbs and neck, mouth drooling red. I dropped the blade with prejudice into the demon's horned skull, extracting some delight as the steel thumped and crunched wetly into its scalp. It went limp as soon as I ripped my weapon free, and Rob's body hit the dirt.
Panting and wiping splattered blood from my face, I rolled Rob over. "Rob! Rob! Are you still with me?"
Rob's glassy eyes met mine. I choked back a sob, but let the fresh rage bubble to the surface. I spun and bellowed a new war cry, one full of fury and sorrow in concert, and sprinted at the nearest enemy I could find. A short, bobble-eyed imp fell into my field of view, and it turned tail and ran when it saw me after its blood.
The chase was short-lived. After the grimy little thing tripped on a dead body, my blade cleaved it in two. I scanned the warzone, ready to tag my next victim, when a deep note rung over the carnage. The horn. They were signalling a retreat.
Why? I wasn't done! Evil creatures of all persuasions still breathed, and it was my duty to stop that! Yet that moment of reflection broke my battle lust as I took in the true surroundings. Dead bodies, mostly human, littered the river banks. Demons had fallen also, but there was a greater ratio standing than bleeding out, which was more than could have been said for us. I watched as soldiers and knights who were still mounted abandoned the conflict, galloping over their stiff companions. Some dark creatures gave chase, but after a few well placed arrows from the archers further back, they let their quarry scamper off home to lick their wounds.
I struggled between common sense and my own rage. Common sense won out, but rage still made me roar as I fled like a coward from what should've been a triumphant victory.
I slouched, elbow snug into my knee, holding my head up as a medic examined my other arm back at the castle. A nasty gash ran from the shoulder to the elbow, though thankfully in the midst of battle it hadn't bled much, nor had it distracted me while I carved up demons. The medic dabbed a rag with a liquid so pungent it burned my nostrils and slid it up and down the length of my wound. I hissed at the intense stinging that resulted but let the medic apply his trade. The last thing I needed was to lose an arm to an infection. How could I swing a sword then?
The medic had wrapped a clean cotton bandage around my limb, which had restricted my movement to a degree, but I still managed to clash wooden swords with it on. The tenderness of the wound lessened each day, until I misjudged my opponent's attack during a spar and copped a sparring sword against it. I swore something fierce and stormed away, clutching the pounding impact point.
I climbed onto the outer wall and stared out over the parapets to where the ambush had taken place. All of the soldiers who fell that day had been respectfully ferried back to the castle and their bodies added to the makeshift graveyard. The grotesque corpses of the monsters were left to fester after being thoroughly torched; we didn't know if any of them could be raised from the dead.
The next few days were a blur. I spoke to people, smacked wooden sticks during training, sat at the mess hall for meals, but most of it glossed over me. Nothing but superficial images and banter remained as memories.
I was flitting towards the sucking depression that had drawn in Rob before he died. That great blackness had claimed him before death had, and his true self perished when he let that darkness into him. For some reason, even though I had lost other friends since the demons had stepped up their incursions, Rob's departure had weighed me down more than any other.
No one outside of a few tight-lipped scouts knew for sure, but rumours abounded that the Black Gate had activated and the constant armies of darkness funnelled from it. I heard something about the Black Gate once, but couldn't remember much. In any case, I lent credence to the hearsay since one day, King Aragorn, Victor von Magnus and the great Dumbledore all packed up and shuffled out of Poenari Castle without saying a word to anyone. It was only the next day that we were all informed officially.
The attacks grew more frequent, more savage, over the coming weeks. Desperation kicked in more than once when I was out on the battlefield, but whatever inefficient gods watched over the castle deemed that I should live through the carnage. Instead of receiving reinforcements, they stopped altogether. We had our orders to hold the line, but I had the sinking feeling that ours was a lost cause, and we simply hadn't been told.
I stood guard like any other day, and the clouds went black. Demons crawled over the walls, teeming red and black flesh scouring for human bodies. No warning bells went out, no scouts caught sight of an advancing army, they just appeared. Caught off-guard, we had little hope of surviving, let alone holding the castle. Ghoulish creatures even dug themselves out of the ground, much like their ambush by the Poe River some weeks ago, and it was slaughter.
I slashed and hacked at the abominations as I went, but more spewed from the earth, more swooped from the sky, more clambered over the walls. Soldiers eating or off-duty fell the quickest, and then those who dared try to repel the belligerent monsters.
"The castle is lost!" a voice cried out over the murderous din. "Retreat! Re-arrgh!"
Another demon pounced at me and I gouged a bloody line through its chest. A horse whinnied and reared on hind legs, thrashing hooves into an unwary monsters. I sprinted for the startled mount, leaping on top and clenching the reins. The horse tried to buck me off, no doubt the terrible noise and stench of death freaking it out. I forced it on all fours and into a frantic gallop, aiming for the open gate of the outer wall.
As the horse's long strides drew me closer, a little yellow-eyed imp hurled itself from the crenellated wall and body-hugged my face. The force knocked me off the saddle and rolling onto the ground.
The black skinned imp regarded me curiously, then smirked wickedly, exposing its fangs. "This is Diablo's home now, bitch!"
It sunk its jagged teeth into my neck before I could pull it off. My breaths cut off as I choked on my own blood.
Illidan propped himself up on hands and knees, the wind knocked out of him. Sweat dripped from his nose and chin as a slimy substance oozed out of his back. For the first time, the spirit left his body willingly, though his visions had been the most profound, had rattled the night elf demon the most. Why?
Now ... you ... see? a wispy voice fluttered in Illidan's mind.
Illidan sucked in a breath and regained his footing. The crimson phantom watched him, head cocked as if examining a foreign object, spinal column swaying like a thin pendulum.
"I do not," Illidan said, flipping through reasons why the ghost had given him up. "But I deeply resent having to see those wretched scenes, having to suffer through those inane thoughts."
The amber in the air shimmered for a heart beat.
You ... were ... given ... a ... chance. You ... ignore ... it. You ... are ... now ... an intruder.
Illidan recognised the sharpness to the telepathic threat. Whatever experiment this haunted castle's denizens had been conducting on him had come to a close. The yellow magic lacing the room pulsed twice in quick succession.
"I did not come here to be ordered away by some remorseful echo!" Illidan said, baring his teeth. He reached for the spirit, green light tracing his hand. "You will crumble to dust like the last!"
The night elf demon hoped his spell would pierce the vigilance of the counter measures, but this time it disintegrated before it even took hold of his target. Illidan's skin prickled as a new wave of chill closed in around him.
Phantoms of all colours and shapes in various degrees of ruination spilled from the walls and the floor, slowly, menacingly. Moans and sobs bombarded him from all angles, all sickly and meek. The amber magic grew so thick Illidan thought it would condense, and the spirits themselves seemed to siphon the hue from the air and into themselves.
Your ... spirit ... will ... join ... us.
Illidan snarled. Warglaives wouldn't shred souls, and his spells were countered before they could even take form, at least inside the castle proper. He caught a glance of the dreary light drizzling through the squares of the portcullis gates. Magic seemed to function correctly out there.
Arching his wings, Illidan soared towards the portcullis. The crying and wailing of the ghosts shifted to unbearable shrieking. He afforded himself one glance over his shoulder, and saw a menagerie of phantoms sailing after him. Returning his focus forward, he pressed his legs together and arms against his torso. Aiming, he flapped hard once more and wrapped his wings about his chest. As a night elf demon missile, he rocketed through the rudimentary hole in the portcullis and into the bailey.
Hooves slid over gravel as he turned to face Poenari Castle. Even with his magic, Illidan faced a spectral army backed by an unseen force. If his sorcery would even obey his commands outside, he opposed overwhelming odds.
And yet, he was not without his own reinforcements.
A ball of emerald light spun between his hands. Illidan hurled it into the air like a green flare, and in short order, the earth rumbled with dozens of stampeding feet. The night elf demon's own forces of the damned marched on Poenari Castle.
People died in conflict all the time. Hundreds, probably thousands of his own kin met their grisly ends at the edges of the Burning Legion's swords and claws over ten thousand years ago, and the unholy army had ripped an untold number more souls from their mortal confines since then. The undead had likewise carved a swathe of decay and murder through human villages during the Third Invasion. Many of those who fell's only crime was defending themselves from sinister horrors from another dimension. At least those stationed in Poenari Castle were armed and trained in battle, whether effectively or not.
If you pick up a sword in order to kill, it shouldn't come as a surprise when you fall victim to the cold steel of another's weapon.
Illidan pushed the thought of Maiev Shadowsong from his mind and unfurled his leathery wings. A hefty thrust shot him forward, gliding close to the gravel, his destination the entryway to the castle.
He swooped and landed on his cloven feet before the doors. The only remaining portcullis gated off his path of ingress. Dull orange rust collected on the steel grid in irregular patches. Illidan gave the portcullis a hard wrap with his knuckles, and it shuddered in place, a great creak booming through the darkness beyond. Clicking his fingers, one of his warglaives appeared clutched in his hand as black smoke slithered into the sky. The night elf demon slashed at the metal gate, leaving a glistening silver line where his demon-forged steel had intersected it. He slashed several more times in sweeping arcs, sent his warglaive back to its holding dimension and kicked in the irregular shape he had carved with his sturdy hoof. The portcullis sections burst inwards. Illidan folded his wings against his back and ducked through the gap he had made.
Light dared not enter even the foyer of the castle, but Illidan's magic sight didn't need it to see. Amber suffused the air around him, settling on the walls and floor like thick sheets of gold dust. The unusual necromantic object that sustained these tortured phantoms must have been brimming with dark power. No individual thread seemed to be an obvious lead to its location; they all tangled around each other, massing in a brilliance of amber rather than a bright trail to follow to its originator. Concentrating, the night elf demon sent his spectral vision further, focusing on the edges of its perception, but nothing directed him in any particular direction. In any case, the castle being so laden with the abnormal magic led Illidan to believe the object was stored somewhere in the fortress. He just had to find out where.
The clacking of his hooves on the stone floor ricocheted off the large room as he headed for a staircase set in the left wall. A shimmer in the amber light caught his attention as his foot alighted on the first step. Illidan looked around, eyes tracing the high ceiling adorned with dusty spider webs. He sniffed and turned around, lifting his leg for the next step.
A red phantom exploded out of the stairwell, screeching inside Illidan's head. He instinctively leapt backwards, his wings slamming the ground to help with the movement.
"What is with you undead and popping out of objects?" Illidan snarled, his heart thumping. "Can't you just say hello like a normal adversary?"
The spirit hovered, chattering its teeth. A floating corpse, skin and bone exposed in equal measure, stared at him with hollow sockets. Its body, or representation thereof, went as far as the ribcage and the dangling spine. It was the largest of the ghosts Illidan had encountered so far.
It lunged, rotting fingers clawing for night elf flesh. Illidan pivoted on a hoof and dodged, watching the crimson half-body soar past and loop back around. Green energy collected around the night elf demon's hand, and he thrust it at the spirit.
His telekinetic magic seized the furious wraith, but a second later it slipped away. Frowning, Illidan recast the spell, but to the same effect. He tried a final time, and this time realised why. Something was nullifying his telekinesis as he made contact with the ghost. Illidan wanted to follow the remnants of the counter-spell, but the ruby phantom dived at him again.
It sailed wide of the mark a second time, dissolving into the floor. Illidan spun, his spectral sight fanning out in all directions, prepared for the sneak attack.
Red, decomposing hands jutted out from the stone floor and snatched Illidan's cloven hooves. Breath stilling in his chest, the night elf demon launched himself into the air, but the spirit's grip held fast. Before Illidan had another chance to defend himself, the apparition scampered up his body and burrowed into his chest.
He roared in fury, unable to rebuff the spiritual invasion. Emerald light suffused his fingers; if he could rip out one ghost, he could do it again. His vision blackened at the edges, and the flame that held the strength in his digits blew out. Illidan managed a single curse before he
charged at the hellish creature, sword raised. Rob dangled from blood-soaked claws, the last creepy vestiges of life twitching his limbs and neck, mouth drooling red. I dropped the blade with prejudice into the demon's horned skull, extracting some delight as the steel thumped and crunched wetly into its scalp. It went limp as soon as I ripped my weapon free, and Rob's body hit the dirt.
Panting and wiping splattered blood from my face, I rolled Rob over. "Rob! Rob! Are you still with me?"
Rob's glassy eyes met mine. I choked back a sob, but let the fresh rage bubble to the surface. I spun and bellowed a new war cry, one full of fury and sorrow in concert, and sprinted at the nearest enemy I could find. A short, bobble-eyed imp fell into my field of view, and it turned tail and ran when it saw me after its blood.
The chase was short-lived. After the grimy little thing tripped on a dead body, my blade cleaved it in two. I scanned the warzone, ready to tag my next victim, when a deep note rung over the carnage. The horn. They were signalling a retreat.
Why? I wasn't done! Evil creatures of all persuasions still breathed, and it was my duty to stop that! Yet that moment of reflection broke my battle lust as I took in the true surroundings. Dead bodies, mostly human, littered the river banks. Demons had fallen also, but there was a greater ratio standing than bleeding out, which was more than could have been said for us. I watched as soldiers and knights who were still mounted abandoned the conflict, galloping over their stiff companions. Some dark creatures gave chase, but after a few well placed arrows from the archers further back, they let their quarry scamper off home to lick their wounds.
I struggled between common sense and my own rage. Common sense won out, but rage still made me roar as I fled like a coward from what should've been a triumphant victory.
I slouched, elbow snug into my knee, holding my head up as a medic examined my other arm back at the castle. A nasty gash ran from the shoulder to the elbow, though thankfully in the midst of battle it hadn't bled much, nor had it distracted me while I carved up demons. The medic dabbed a rag with a liquid so pungent it burned my nostrils and slid it up and down the length of my wound. I hissed at the intense stinging that resulted but let the medic apply his trade. The last thing I needed was to lose an arm to an infection. How could I swing a sword then?
The medic had wrapped a clean cotton bandage around my limb, which had restricted my movement to a degree, but I still managed to clash wooden swords with it on. The tenderness of the wound lessened each day, until I misjudged my opponent's attack during a spar and copped a sparring sword against it. I swore something fierce and stormed away, clutching the pounding impact point.
I climbed onto the outer wall and stared out over the parapets to where the ambush had taken place. All of the soldiers who fell that day had been respectfully ferried back to the castle and their bodies added to the makeshift graveyard. The grotesque corpses of the monsters were left to fester after being thoroughly torched; we didn't know if any of them could be raised from the dead.
The next few days were a blur. I spoke to people, smacked wooden sticks during training, sat at the mess hall for meals, but most of it glossed over me. Nothing but superficial images and banter remained as memories.
I was flitting towards the sucking depression that had drawn in Rob before he died. That great blackness had claimed him before death had, and his true self perished when he let that darkness into him. For some reason, even though I had lost other friends since the demons had stepped up their incursions, Rob's departure had weighed me down more than any other.
No one outside of a few tight-lipped scouts knew for sure, but rumours abounded that the Black Gate had activated and the constant armies of darkness funnelled from it. I heard something about the Black Gate once, but couldn't remember much. In any case, I lent credence to the hearsay since one day, King Aragorn, Victor von Magnus and the great Dumbledore all packed up and shuffled out of Poenari Castle without saying a word to anyone. It was only the next day that we were all informed officially.
The attacks grew more frequent, more savage, over the coming weeks. Desperation kicked in more than once when I was out on the battlefield, but whatever inefficient gods watched over the castle deemed that I should live through the carnage. Instead of receiving reinforcements, they stopped altogether. We had our orders to hold the line, but I had the sinking feeling that ours was a lost cause, and we simply hadn't been told.
I stood guard like any other day, and the clouds went black. Demons crawled over the walls, teeming red and black flesh scouring for human bodies. No warning bells went out, no scouts caught sight of an advancing army, they just appeared. Caught off-guard, we had little hope of surviving, let alone holding the castle. Ghoulish creatures even dug themselves out of the ground, much like their ambush by the Poe River some weeks ago, and it was slaughter.
I slashed and hacked at the abominations as I went, but more spewed from the earth, more swooped from the sky, more clambered over the walls. Soldiers eating or off-duty fell the quickest, and then those who dared try to repel the belligerent monsters.
"The castle is lost!" a voice cried out over the murderous din. "Retreat! Re-arrgh!"
Another demon pounced at me and I gouged a bloody line through its chest. A horse whinnied and reared on hind legs, thrashing hooves into an unwary monsters. I sprinted for the startled mount, leaping on top and clenching the reins. The horse tried to buck me off, no doubt the terrible noise and stench of death freaking it out. I forced it on all fours and into a frantic gallop, aiming for the open gate of the outer wall.
As the horse's long strides drew me closer, a little yellow-eyed imp hurled itself from the crenellated wall and body-hugged my face. The force knocked me off the saddle and rolling onto the ground.
The black skinned imp regarded me curiously, then smirked wickedly, exposing its fangs. "This is Diablo's home now, bitch!"
It sunk its jagged teeth into my neck before I could pull it off. My breaths cut off as I choked on my own blood.
Illidan propped himself up on hands and knees, the wind knocked out of him. Sweat dripped from his nose and chin as a slimy substance oozed out of his back. For the first time, the spirit left his body willingly, though his visions had been the most profound, had rattled the night elf demon the most. Why?
Now ... you ... see? a wispy voice fluttered in Illidan's mind.
Illidan sucked in a breath and regained his footing. The crimson phantom watched him, head cocked as if examining a foreign object, spinal column swaying like a thin pendulum.
"I do not," Illidan said, flipping through reasons why the ghost had given him up. "But I deeply resent having to see those wretched scenes, having to suffer through those inane thoughts."
The amber in the air shimmered for a heart beat.
You ... were ... given ... a ... chance. You ... ignore ... it. You ... are ... now ... an intruder.
Illidan recognised the sharpness to the telepathic threat. Whatever experiment this haunted castle's denizens had been conducting on him had come to a close. The yellow magic lacing the room pulsed twice in quick succession.
"I did not come here to be ordered away by some remorseful echo!" Illidan said, baring his teeth. He reached for the spirit, green light tracing his hand. "You will crumble to dust like the last!"
The night elf demon hoped his spell would pierce the vigilance of the counter measures, but this time it disintegrated before it even took hold of his target. Illidan's skin prickled as a new wave of chill closed in around him.
Phantoms of all colours and shapes in various degrees of ruination spilled from the walls and the floor, slowly, menacingly. Moans and sobs bombarded him from all angles, all sickly and meek. The amber magic grew so thick Illidan thought it would condense, and the spirits themselves seemed to siphon the hue from the air and into themselves.
Your ... spirit ... will ... join ... us.
Illidan snarled. Warglaives wouldn't shred souls, and his spells were countered before they could even take form, at least inside the castle proper. He caught a glance of the dreary light drizzling through the squares of the portcullis gates. Magic seemed to function correctly out there.
Arching his wings, Illidan soared towards the portcullis. The crying and wailing of the ghosts shifted to unbearable shrieking. He afforded himself one glance over his shoulder, and saw a menagerie of phantoms sailing after him. Returning his focus forward, he pressed his legs together and arms against his torso. Aiming, he flapped hard once more and wrapped his wings about his chest. As a night elf demon missile, he rocketed through the rudimentary hole in the portcullis and into the bailey.
Hooves slid over gravel as he turned to face Poenari Castle. Even with his magic, Illidan faced a spectral army backed by an unseen force. If his sorcery would even obey his commands outside, he opposed overwhelming odds.
And yet, he was not without his own reinforcements.
A ball of emerald light spun between his hands. Illidan hurled it into the air like a green flare, and in short order, the earth rumbled with dozens of stampeding feet. The night elf demon's own forces of the damned marched on Poenari Castle.
![[Image: illidansig2.jpg]](http://www.cytokineindustries.com/chevereto/images/2017/07/07/illidansig2.jpg)