--One year before the Shattering--
Eleutherios did his best to maintain his balance in the saddle as Dionysus trotted into Lakeshire late one night. Not bothering to raise his hooded head, the Death Knight nevertheless picked up the confounded and prejudiced stares of the townsfolk still milling about at this hour as he approached the town’s inn. He felt the faint pinprick in the back of his head that he was somehow supposed to know some of these people, but he simply could not reach back far enough into his fragmented, wind-scattered memories to understand why. Shaking himself away from those sombre thoughts, Eli pulled the letter he had received a few days earlier from a friend of his out of his vest pocket, and perused its contents. It was nothing more than a blank paper with a single glyph, actually, but it served as an analogue to one of those fancy memory stones this particular friend often employed.
The message contained in the memory rune was simple: there was an acquaintance of the rune’s sender waiting at the Lakeshire inn, and Eli had been instructed to help her out. Along with the message were several gold coins, a small, smooth, spherical object, and a description of the person Eli was looking for … or, at least, an audio snippet of the voice he was to be listening for, sealed into the glyph inscribed onto the paper. In the back of the Death Knight’s mind, he couldn’t help but think that he recognized the woman’s voice in the rune.
Tying Dionysus’ reins to the nearby horse post, Eleutherios pulled out several oaken casks from his mount’s massive saddlebags, and walked into the inn, the house’s tavern filled with noisy patrons. He trudged toward the bar, trying to listen past the laughing and chatting and the occasional jeer shot in his direction. Some people were suicidal when drunk.
“Eli! I was wonderin’ where you were,” the tavern's barkeeper, Daniels, greeted the courier, a broad smile heard in his voice along with a tone of relief. “Got the goods?”
“Right ‘ere, Daniels,” Eli replied, smiling lightly himself as he set the casks down onto the counter. “The usual weekly deliv’ry: Duskwood Moonshine, Elwynn Pinot, Goldshire Sweet Rum, and Thunderbrew Ale straight from Westfall.”
“They’re always drained before week’s end, Eli,” Daniels said wanly, inspecting the casks before putting them behind the bar. “Shame we can’t get you deliverin’ here more often.”
“Ya ain’t my only customer, Daniels,” Eli reminded the barkeep. He then leaned forward onto the counter and whispered in a very low voice: “‘Sides, I’m stickin’ ‘round fer another job, and it ain’t the d’liverin’ kind.”
Daniels only raised an eyebrow, assuming the same furtive volume. “Who are you meeting here, then?”
Eleutherios shrugged. “Search me. Alls I know’s that it’s a woman, an’ an ornery one.”
“Ahuh.” Daniels coolly cleaned a tankard and set it aside. “A woman fitting that description rented a room here, and she’s stuck around nigh a week now. I figured she was waiting on someone. Might be a good idea to ask her yourself.”
“Jus’ point me in ‘er direction, Daniels.”
~||~
Tuan drained her fifth ale for the night. What annoyed her after setting down the mug was the fact that she was just getting started; fel, it took eight whole pints of this pale excuse for a beer just to get her tipsy. She muttered something about the lack of good Dwarven ale in the tavern, and waved for another refill – preferably something stronger.
Usually, Daniels would have sent one of the cute barmaids her way with a refill, but it seemed that Tuan might have worn out her welcome. Instead of a barmaid, a man kitted up with a hood, and a huge sword, and swathed in bandages and dark leather armour walked up to her, and genially left a generous pitcher of Thunderbrew Ale on her table. Straightening his back with a slight creak of deadened joints, he strode over to the nearest wall and leaned against it, raising his hooded face high enough for the she-rogue to recognize the tell-tale mark of a Death Knight: the cold blue glow of the Scourge gleaming in his sunken and shadowed eyes.
For a while, he remained there, frozen in that pose … and Tuan could sense that the Death Knight could tell she was watching him, even though he never turned his head to acknowledge her. She enjoyed a couple more ales (the Dwarven stuff had the kind of kick that kept her in a decent mood), and then waved to get the Death Knight’s attention.
“Hey! Tall, Dark and Silent!” Tuan called, realizing that her waving wasn’t really catching the Death Knight’s attention. “Come over here and have yourself a seat. You can’t just stand there all night … I guess, unless you want to. I hear it’s a great way to spook the locals.”
The Death Knight turned his attention to Tuan and did something she would had never guessed Death Knights could do when they weren’t fighting like blood-gorged maniacs … he laughed. And a genuinely amused laugh, too. Tuan felt her curiosity get piqued about this strange Death Knight; of course, that could just be the ale talking.
A wry smirk was visible on what Tuan could see of his face as the Death Knight pushed away from the wall he was leaning on and sauntered over to the table with a swagger that the she-rogue found eerily familiar. “I’d take yer offer, Miss …” he spoke with an equally eerily familiar cowboy twang. “… but I’d rather stay standin’.”
Tuan blearily looked into her empty tankard. One more beer wouldn’t hurt. She poured herself another, much to the mild alarm of the barkeep at the other end of the room. “Then how about helping me finish off the leftovers?” She tapped the side of her mug with a knuckle.
Her guest waved a dismissive hand. “I dun drink … well … ‘least not like that, ‘nyways. Dun think drinkin’d do me much good right now, anyhow.” The statement was followed by a gravelly but ironic chuckle escaping the Death Knight’s throat.
“Touché,” Tuan quipped back, grinning. Could still be the alcohol, but she was starting to like this Death Knight, in spite of the creepiness he and his kind were consistently cursed with. Putting down her half-drained tankard on her table, and straining to keep her speech from getting too slurred from inebriation, the she-rogue asked the question of the night: “So, cowboy … what brings you to these here parts?”
The smirk on the Death Knight’s face in response to the she-rogue’s question indicated a favourable attitude towards her naturally flippant nature. He chuckled again, and then answered the she-rogue in kind. “I’m a courier, Miss. This just happens t’ be one of my weekly stops … I brought a whole cask o’ that booze yer guzzlin’ by the way …”
“Cheers.” Tuan raised her tankard in a mock toast, but her expression was genuinely thankful as she drained the tankard and poured herself yet another refill.
One could almost imagine the Death Knight rolling his eyes under his hood as he chuckled. Folding his arms again, he continued talking. “Natur’lly, I’d be out o’ here like a fart in th’ wind by now, but I’m waitin’ on other business here t’night.” Then he turned the question back on her. “And you, Miss? What’s got you out in these here parts drainin’ this tavern’s supply of Dwarven Ale fer th’ week?”
Tuan paused mid-raise of her tankard, and then set the massive mug down. She might be buzzed something fierce, but she still had her wits about her … which was crucial for the kind of business she commonly dealt with. Certain it was safe, Tuan answered the Death Knight in a calm voice.
“I’m investigating rumours of a rogue shadowcaster holing himself up in the supposedly abandoned Tower of Ilgalar somewhere out east, for a mage working in the Tower of Azora back in Elwynn. Just so happens that Ilgalar is crawling with gnolls, and they kept getting in the way every time I tried to get into the Tower itself. I’m waiting on a friend of mine to lend some help. … sure’s takin’ ‘is sweet time, though …” She followed her explanation with a long drag of ale.
“Huh … is tha’ so …?” The Death Knight casually set his hands on the back of a chair and leaned forward, as if he were taking a little load off his feet. “Well … from what yer tellin’ me and from th’ sound o’ yer voice, I’m bettin’ coppers t’ gold that yer th’ ‘other business’ I’ve been waitin’ fer.”
The she-rogue raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You don’t say?”
“Yeup.” He straightened up a bit and let go of the chair, folding his arms again. “Y’see … deliv’rin’ goods isn’t all I do, Miss. I’ve been paid by a mutual contact of ours to meet you here and lend you a hand. He said you’d know who it was that sent me if I just told you th’ name.”
“Fire away, cowboy,” Tuan invited, taking a light sip this time. “What’s the name?”
The Death Knight paused momentarily, as if he was also making sure it was safe to speak. “Archdruid Pterneldan Crossdeep.”
Tuan smiled and stifled a slight chuckle. “The Old Bird,” she muttered with a grin and shook her head. “He always has odd ways of coming through.” She took another drag of her ale, and then looked at her odd, semi-dead companion. “I guess that makes us acquaintances by proxy.”
The she-rogue swore she spotted a thoughtful smile on what she could see of the Death Knight’s hooded face. “I guess it does now, don’t it?” he said, stroking his ample chin fuzz with a bandaged hand.
“Where is the Old Bird, anyhow?” Tuan asked, holding her tankard rakishly as she leaned back in her chair.
“Northrend,” was the Death Knight’s prompt reply. “Still doing that lore-gathering thing o’ his, I reckon.”
“Sounds like the Old Bird, alright …” Tuan took another drag of her ale. “My name’s Tuan, by the way. You got a name, cowboy?”
There was a moment of hesitation from the Death Knight. “I dun really have a name, ma’am … ‘least, not as far as I care t’ know.”
The she-rogue gave the Death Knight a befuddled and coy look. “C’mon, cowboy. Everyone has a name. What do people call you?”
Another hesitant pause. “Folks I work fer back in Stormwind jus’ call me Eli.”
Tuan stopped drinking her ale mid-sip and set her tankard down, her eyes glazing over in a tipsy moment of reverie. “Eli, huh?” she mumbled only just audibly after a moment of deep and slightly ale-pickled thought.
“A-yup,” was the Death Knight’s nearly tact-less answer.
Tuan raised her tankard for another drag. “Knew an Eli once. Few years ago, actually. Nice guy. Great friend …” She drained the tankard, and gently set it down.
Eli tilted his hooded head in respectful curiosity. “Sounds t’ me that somethin’ bad happened.”
“Yeah,” Tuan replied, her tone of voice indicating how distant her mind was into her own thoughts. She idly turned the tankard in her hands, and then reached for the pitcher for another refill. “… he’s dead now.”
The Death Knight paused, as if thinking about what to say next. He wisely didn’t prod much further. “… dead. That’s a shame. My condolences.”
“Meh.” The she-rogue, still lost in thought (or likely starting to succumb to the legendary potency of the renowned Thunderbrew lager) brushed off the Death Knight’s metered empathy with another long swig of ale. “Few months too late, man.”
Eli shrugged with an audible sigh at the she-rogue’s reaction, then added: “Y’ know … could’ve been worse fer ‘im. I mean … it’d be an even bigger shame if he ended up like I did.”
Tuan set down her mug and just gave the Death Knight a wry grin mixed with an expression of pity. “You haven’t been undead for long, have you?”
The Death Knight sheepishly rolled his shoulders a bit. “Yeah … ‘bout a year, give ‘r take a few months.”
A somewhat sad chuckle escaped the she-rogue’s throat as she took another long drag of ale. “A little piece of advice: stick to your day job, cowboy.”
There was an awkward beat of silence as Tuan finished off the last few drops of what had been a full pitcher of Dwarven Ale mere minutes earlier. If a sufficiently sharp observer had had their attention in that general direction, they would’ve noticed the way Daniels cringed quietly behind the bar counter at the staggering display of alcohol consumption.
After a while, Eli cleared his throat and changed the subject to business. “So … where’d you say this madman you were checkin’ in on was?”
Tuan, despite her being buzzed nearly out of her skull, was still functioning enough to recognize that her chatty new Death Knight acquaintance was shifting gears to the mission they were now sharing. She slid her chair away from the table, caring little about the grating sound of wood scraping floor, and stood up slightly unsteadily from the ale and slightly stiff from sitting around doing squat for days. “Out east, past Stonewatch,” was the she-rogue’s matter-of-fact reply to her impromptu companion’s question.
“That’s a long ride, it sounds like,” Eli commented, his tone of voice indicating he was aware that he was stating the obvious.
“It is.” Tuan shot her partner a wry smirk that was part ale-addled, part amusement, and part assurance. “Don’t get your armour in a bunch about it, cowboy. Besides, we’ll need the time for me to explain the particulars on the way there.”
Eli nodded in understanding. “Sounds like a plan. Lead on.”
~||~
The mismatched pair of she-rogue and Death Knight rode out of Lakeshire in silence (ignoring some indiscreetly condescending looks from the locals), and it was a ways or so from town before any intelligent conversation began. It was mostly small talk by the time the two reached the ruins of Alther’s Mill, trading banter about how a usual day would go for either of them or little snippets of Tuan’s latest adventures in the name of the crown of Stormwind … Tuan even recalled the day she and their common Archdruid acquaintance had faced down a super-sized spider nested in the wrecked mill that was getting in the way of Tuan completing a ‘training’ mission.
Out of the blue, Tuan changed the subject to more immediate matters.
“What do you know about the Scythe of Elune, Eli?” she asked her companion, the tone of her voice almost too casual for it to be a serious question.
Eli curiously didn’t look in Tuan’s general direction, but the she-rogue could tell by the shift in the Death Knight’s posture that he was interested and perhaps informed. “The Archdruid mention’d this’d come up in the summons he sent my way.”
“So you have idea what my mission is, then?”
“More ‘r less. Picking up a dang’rous book … figurin’ out what this darkcaster’s deal is with the Scythe of Elune and if he has it …” Eli rolled his shoulders lightly. “Though, Master Pterneldan wrote t’ me that he sincerely doubts it’s actually the Scythe of Elune in the clutches of that darkcaster yer after.”
Tuan put a hand to her chin, absorbing what she just heard. “What’d the Old Bird mean by that, you think?”
“Pterneldan said that he saw the Scythe up in Northrend, in the grubby hands of some sort of cult,” was Eli’s prompt reply. “He suspects that this darkcaster … uh … what’s his face—”
“Grand Magus Morganth.”
“Yeah. Him. The ol’ druid suspects that this Morganth charact’r might be tryin’ t’ replicate that artifact ‘r somethin’.”
“… replicate the Scythe of Elune, huh?” There was a thoughtful pause. “I could understand why he’d want to make such an attempt, but what’d he use the finished product for?”
“Or if he was successful in makin’ a new Scythe of Elune in the first place.”
“That’s the question of the hour now, isn’t it?” Tuan shot the Death Knight a slight smirk. Eli didn’t turn his head, but he chuckled lightly as if though he could feel Tuan’s wily expression.
“Seriously, though …” the she-rogue started again. “Before we get too far off the trail again, what do you know about the Scythe, Eli? All I know is that it caused a lot of trouble out in Duskwood. Worgen and all that, you know.”
The Death Knight was silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “I only know as much as ol’ Pterneldan was willin’ t’ tell me. It’s a druidic artefact fer starters …”
“Huh.”
“… and he also said it was a key to a lock ‘r somethin’ … whatev’r that means.”
“Well, it’s obviously a key to power,” Tuan mused, tightening her grip on her travelling mare’s reins. “All the more reason for us to take this guy out of the picture.”
“I’ve got a feelin’ this so-called ‘Grand Magus’ has had a few attempts on his sorry life a’ready, if y’ dun mind me sayin’,” Eli mentioned off-handedly. “He might be ready fer us …”
“Even so … if we don’t take him out tonight, Eli,” Tuan said in assurance, “it'll be in our best interests to throw a few spanners into his work while we’re in the neighbourhood.”
The sound of gnolls yowling in the hills interrupted their conversation.
“Sounds t’ me like we’re almost thar,” Eli muttered, turning his hooded head in the general direction of the yowling, stopping his Deathcharger at the crest of a small hill.
“Yeah.” The she-rogue turned her gaze south-eastward a ways, her brown mare trotting to a stop next to her Death Knight companion’s towering, frostbound mount.
The Tower of Ilgalar loomed just beyond where their horses had stopped. Dionysus, Eli’s Deathcharger, snorted and pawed the earth with ethereal hooves, the undead horse growing increasingly restless with each crescendo the armies of gnolls raised with their distorted voices. The charger’s rider was eerily silent for a few minutes, his mind caught up once again in fragmented memories from a life gone by: standing in front of the pulpit on a young couple’s wedding day; hearing the confessions of a broken soldier shunned by his own home town; a parting word from a dear and familiar friend; the chaos of battle; a falling banner bearing the silver sun of the Argent Dawn; a low, gloating laugh …
“… Eli? Eli? Hey!”
The Death Knight instinctively straightened up his posture in the saddle in response to the she-rogue’s prodding voice.
“Thought I lost you there, deadman,” Tuan teased the Death Knight lightly. “Saw something?”
Eli chuckled coldly. “Maybe.”
“Well … we’ll need to investigate whatever that was later,” the still ale-addled she-rogue spoke flatly, tugging on her riding mare’s reins. “Our appointment with the ‘esteemed’ Grand Magus will not wait for dawn.”
“Right.” Eli tapped his heels into Dionysus’s sides, prompting the jittery Deathcharger into a stutter-step trot off the hillcrest and into the valley below.
~||~
“I’ll handle the guards,” Eli ventured, dismounting from his Deathcharger, letting the jittery corpse-horse wander around nervously as he drew his massive sword from the holster harnessed to his back.
Tuan casually watched the Death Knight stride right into a gnoll encampment and cut a devastating swath through the hordes of furry hyena-men. Death Knights weren’t known for their subtlety, but the bloody mess Eli was making only made the ale-addled rogue roll her eyes while she dismounted from her riding mare. With an assuring pat on the mare’s neck, Tuan stepped into the shadows as her mount idly wandered to the nearest patch of grass to graze.
About two platoons worth of gnolls had surrounded Eli, yowling for meat and bones, but the hyena-men quickly found themselves at the mercy of the dark magic that was building up inside the Death Knight. The ground beneath his feet suddenly turned into a lifeless gray, and any foolish gnoll that failed to notice the change undernneath their footpaws found themselves withering into dust from the ground up. The ones that did evade the unnatural death and decay found themselves in the death grip of necromantic magic and trapped in the path of a massive, gore-slicked blade. Wave after wave of gnolls met the undead juggernaut, only to be cut down again and again until the trail of destruction left in the Death Knight’s wake finally ended at the door of the Tower of Ilgalar …
That was where Tuan emerged from the shadows and clapped slowly, snapping Eli out of his blood-spattered carnage binge.
“You got a little something on your leathers there, cowboy,” the she-rogue calmly teased.
Eli shook his head out of the red haze and grinned sheepishly, making an attempt at wiping off the traces of blood spatter … and missing the spots completely. “Eh … it’ll wash out,” he mumbled. “Always does.”
Tuan returned the grin with a wry one of her own. “Better show me how sometime, partner.” She patted the bloodied Death Knight on the shoulder and stepped back into the shadows, her voice taking on a hollow twang. “This time, however, we gotta keep the body count to a minimum, okay?”
Eli nodded in understanding. He hooked his blade back onto his harness’s holster, and began to carefully follow the she-rogue through the nooks and crevices easily missed by the unwary inhabitants of the tower.
~||~
Their silent ascent up the inner tower went largely unnoticed for the most part, and that fact seemed to unnerve the pair a slight bit. It felt too easy … and it was. The moment Tuan stepped out of the shadows long enough to dart over to the next part of their path up, a blood-thirsty growl was heard, followed by an unearthly-looking hound leaping out seemingly from thin air, demonically warped teeth and claws bared. Eli was a half-step faster than the beast, though, and the creature was met with the flat of the Death Knight’s massive runeblade smashing into its sickly-coloured hide. The gangly, nearly-furless creature snarled, blood-red eyes flashing with annoyance at being swatted aside so easily, and instinctively lunged for the Death Knight that wielded the huge bladed weapon – only to get kicked aside by the wily she-rogue it had attempted to accost a split second before. Now whipped up into a berserk fit, the hellhound tried to attack both of the intruders, and almost succeeded in landing some critical hits before flopping into a puddle of its own brackish-coloured blood.
The Death Knight shook off the excess fluid from his blade in an effort to keep it from pooling into the sword’s finely engraved runes, and then kneeled next to the half-mangled corpse to identify the remains, feeling across the hellhound’s broken husk with his hands. A disgusted grunt escaped Eli’s throat and he stood slowly, rubbing the ichor off of his bandaged palms. “Had a feelin’ this weren’t no dog …” he muttered, hefting his massive blade back into its holster.
If Tuan were not still rather addled by her evening drinking spree, she would have raised an eyebrow at the Death Knight’s method of observation. Instead, she stood to the side, casually cleaning the reddish-brown residue from her blades. “What gave that away?” was the ornery woman’s sarcasm-tinged reply.
Eli just folded his arms and tilted his head in thought. “No fur. Stitches in the skin at suspicious places. The bones felt all wrong, like they were meant for another creature … like they belonged to a human once.”
The last part of that statement made the semi-drunk she-rogue pause for a moment, and then she sheathed her weapons, a dangerous gleam entering her eyes. “You do realize what that little observation of yours implies, right?”
All the Death Knight did was nod in response. “Yep … least we know now what kind o’ madman we’re dealin’ with.” Eli prodded the doggish corpse with the toe of his boot. “This ain’t nothin’, though.”
“Oh … it’s something.” Tuan sighed, stepping back into the shadows. Then she added glibly: “But we’ve dealt with worse, haven’t we?”
Eli chuckled coldly and followed the she-rogue back into the dark. “Ain’t that th’ truth …”
Tuan led the way up again, this time being careful not to reveal her presence before either quietly stabbing an unwary gnoll darkcaster to death, or slipping a touch of poison into victims that strayed too close to their hidden path. It wasn't long before the mismatched pair emerged onto the tower’s top floor and the ultimate location of their intended target – a tall, thin man with dark skin and hair, hard at work at a table filled with forbidden-looking knick-knacks and odds and ends. His back was turned to them, and he was muttering obscurely to himself as he fiddled with the myriad phials and sharp-looking implements that engaged the Grand Magus’ attention.
It could have been the still-lingering effects of her ale binge earlier in the night or the presence of her Death Knight chaperone, but Tuan could swear that this darkcaster they were targeting was exuding some kind of extremely disturbing aura – some would say inhuman in more senses than one. Creepiness aside, it was time to do what she was being paid to do, and with little fanfare, Tuan signaled Eli to stay put as she sneaked across the floor to catch the darkcaster behind the back and begin the ‘interrogation’.
At least, that was what would have happened.
“Ah. I had been expecting guests.” The thinly built mage’s voice rang out in an unsettlingly sonorous baritone as he set his busy hands on the table and lifted his head toward the window his worktable sat under. “Your friend made quite a show fighting my minions … a shame he is nowhere near as subtle as you.”
“I’ll take that as a compl’ment,” spoke the Death Knight from his position near the stairs. Tuan sighed and stepped out of the shadows, shaking her head to clear the possibility of a botched mission from her mind. This was not the time for doubt – only adjusting their original plan to account for the magus’ unexpected acuity.
“I assume you are here to mete ‘justice’ upon me … like so many others who decided to visit my home in such a similar manner.” There was a touch of sick pride in the mad Grand Magus’ voice. “Perhaps you have already run into my previous ‘guests’ on your way up here. Poor fools, so eager to be sent to their doom, only to walk into a far more … useful fate."
“Bastard …” Tuan hissed, already having connected the dots as to the peculiar constitution of the ‘guardhounds’ the two adventurers had encountered.
Morganth turned slowly and bowed genially at the comment, a darkly smug grin on his twistedly young-looking face. “Why … thank you for the compliment, rogue.” He reached for a sickle-like dagger that had been sitting on the workbench. “Perhaps you may be inclined to meet a few more?”
“Master has new toys?” a deep, rumbling but clearly dopey voice bellowed behind the pair.
“Well, chak … an Abomination,” Eli muttered, not even turning around to confirm if he was right.
Tuan raised an eyebrow at the Death Knight’s guess, and then looked over her shoulder. “… uh …”
“Fel. Two Abominations, then.”
There was no time for the ale-addled Tuan to ask how Eli had so accurately guessed what was sneaking up behind him, as both of the grotesquely fashioned flesh golems let out a gurgling whoop and attacked. Tuan’s Death Knight companion simply unhooked his massive blade from his harness and swung swiftly and gracefully at the Abominations, the singing steel of his weapon slicing with a disgusting squelch into the rotting hides of the sickeningly wolf-faced flesh constructs. The she-rogue, despite her lingering inebriation, sensed that it was the Death Knight’s intent to hold the Abominations occupied so Tuan could concentrate on downing the sadistic dark magus.
Unfortunately, the fallen grand magus had an ace up his sleeve: a succubus. Morganth summoned the demoness in a hurry and had obviously not counted on the creature’s charms to have an effect, if any, on the she-rogue … but it quickly became abundantly apparent that Tuan was suddenly having considerable difficulty trying to stay focused on her task.
“I am willing to bet that meddling Theocritus sent you, wench,” the dark grand magus sneered at the distracted she-rogue, gripping the sickle-dagger in his hand tightly. “He must be getting desperate if he is sending the likes of you to interrupt my work … I am so close, so close to unlocking Ur’s book and mastering the dark forces in the emerald world he has spoken of in his earlier writings. Those poor unfortunate souls that came before you only served my ends and the ends of my masters … and to me, your intrusion is but another stepping stone to the fruition of my goals!”
“That’s pretty much what all of my old targets have said, Morgie … two guesses where they ended up.” Tuan’s taunt was only slightly marred by the way her eyes kept lingering in a much less than chaste fashion on the succubus’ impressive ‘build’.
“Confident words from a drunken sellsword. Your ‘attraction’ to my pet is convincing me otherwise.”
“… this is where you stop yammering and we just let the blades do the talking.”
The darkcaster only responded with a smug, unsettling grin of sick glee.
Tuan and Morganth circled each other, the she-rogue doing her best to maintain her focus on her target. Her ale-addled mind, however, kept getting drawn back to the evil charms of the smirking demoness standing off to the side, beckoning the she-rogue to buckle and partake in so many kinds of wrong …
The shadowcaster didn’t waste any more time, calling down a powerful Firebolt at the distracted rogue. If it weren’t for Tuan’s quicksilver reflexes, even swept up in the haze of intoxication, she would have taken the full brunt of the spell, but she managed to get away with a mere scorch mark on her armour.
Still, the fireball combined with the demonic distraction was far too close a call for anyone to be comfortable with, and the she-rogue knew she wouldn’t last for long with that succubus standing there all coy. So, against her better judgment, Tuan turned her attention onto the demoness with the full intent of killing the infuriating femme-beast.
With Tuan’s attention re-directed, Morganth grasped his sickle-dagger with both hands and, raising it above his head, summoned more of the half-human hellhounds that served as his tower guardians into the fray, expecting the enthralled pack of fleshdogs to quickly tear the interlopers apart. Eli, sensing Tuan was the pack’s primary target, reacted quickly to the presence of the ravenous beasts with a shout, giving Tuan a much needed window to evade the incoming attack. He then spread a swath of death and decay across the floor, instinctively using the befouled blood of the slain-twice wolf-abominations as a reagent to turn Morganth’s meddlings against him. This act forced Morganth to focus his fire – literally – on Eli, only to stand stunned as the Death Knight shrugged off the spray of firebolts with the glow of an anti-magic shield. In a matter of moments, the last fleshhound was cleaved in two by the hissing steel of the Death Knight’s blade, and Eli only shot Morganth an unsettling grin of his own.
“Yer in some deep flak now, you motherless runt.”
~||~
Tuan pulled her sword and dagger out of the swiss-cheesed back of the now-headless corpse of Morganth, kicking the decapitated body in the ribs several times, stringing along a slew of complaints and invectives, and then punted the head aside before confiscating the sickle-dagger from the darkcaster’s cold, dead hands and yanking a strange dark pendant from the corpse’s jagged neck stump.
Eli, meanwhile, was investigating the dead grand magus’ workbench, digging through the myriad mystical and malefic artefacts that Morganth had been tinkering with until the Death Knight found a thick and ancient-looking tome, wrapped in runed ribbon and held securely closed with a padlock and chain.
“This the book yer employer asked fer, Miss Tuan?” Eli asked his still agitated and somewhat ale-addled companion over one shoulder, not bothering to turn around as he held the heavy book casually above his shoulder.
Tuan stopped rifling through Morganth’s robes for extra loot and looked up at the book in Eli’s hand. “Must be it. Didn't see any other book like that on our way up here.”
The Death Knight nodded and turned to hand the book to Tuan, when he heard her curse loudly once again.
“What the fel …” she hissed, glaring down at the literal pile of gooey mud that had replaced Morganth’s body within seconds. Tuan absent-mindedly accepted the book Eli was handing her as she shook some of the brown slime off her boots. “A mud golem and a simulacrum spell. Morgie really was expecting us.”
Eli silently turned back to the table laden with nefarious knick-knacks in response to Tuan’s exasperated observation and carefully selected a human skull from the collection of bones littering the workbench. He then produced what looked like a large golden pearl from one of his vest pockets and set the pearl firmly into one of the skull’s eye-sockets before placing the polished cranium back onto the desk.
Sensing Tuan’s curiosity, Eli replied simply: “Pterneldan had a feelin’ that he’d get away, so he instructed me t’ make sure he wouldn’t.”
“So … what is it?” Tuan asked, tucking the sickle-dagger, the pendant, and the bound tome into her backpack.
Eli shrugged. “Fel if I know. Alls I know’s that thing was part of the letter the ol' druid sent me, and that he instructed me to plant it in here fer one reason or another.” He paused. “I think he told me it was fer surveillance … or was it s’pposed t’ be a booby trap?”
The she-rogue slung her travelling satchel back over her shoulder. “Only one way to find out … let’s get going.”
It didn't take long for Tuan and Eli to emerge from the tower and retrieve their steeds. As they mounted up, a still slightly addled Tuan looked up at the tower, and for a moment she swore she saw a brooding black dragon perched on the roof of the arcane building … then, following a surprised shout and an angry dragon’s roar, the very top of the tower exploded into flames. The sound of dragon wings retreating into the north followed almost immediately after the wholesale destruction of the old tower, and Tuan could tell Eli was smirking under his hood.
“Heh. Well.” The Death Knight grasped his charger’s reins as he steadied himself in the saddle. “Sounds like it was a booby trap after all.”
Tuan found herself smirking as well. “I guess that’s a mission accomplished for the both of us, then?”
“A-yup.”
Eli paused for a while, a fragmented memory surfacing in his mind for a few heartbeats of a rather one-sided argument over going separate ways with a she-rogue that spoke with a voice similar to Tuan’s. It felt like it was an important memory, but the Death Knight chose not to heed the memory’s warning and simply shook the negative feelings that memory had brought with it out of his head. This was business. The job was done … but for the first time in months, Eli was loathe to say what he had to say next.
“I … I guess this is where we part ways.” He breathed out almost half-heartedly, hoping the she-rogue wouldn’t notice. What annoyed Eli was the fact that he had done dozens of these kinds of missions for the Archdruid since he had been taken in by the crazy old Night Elf’s previous guild, and eventually into the Druid’s eclectic clan … so what was it about this mission that was making him have a quiet conniption fit over having to part ways with nothing more than a simple remark?
Tuan broke Eli’s train of thought. “… yeah …” She sounded just about as half-hearted as he did for a moment. Almost immediately, she perked right back up. “But we both know the Old Bird, and knowing him means we’ll run into each other again soon enough.”
Eli couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “Ain’t that th’ truth …”
The she-rogue stroked her faithful riding mare’s mane for a moment, and then announced, perhaps a mite loudly: “I’d better get the good news to Theo.” A pause, then she asked her companion: “You’ll be okay finding your way back to Lakeshire on your own, Eli?”
There was a visible, genuine smile on the Death Knight’s face. “I think you a’ready know th’ answer t’ that, Miss Tuan.”
Tuan smiled back, carefully hiding her reaction to how the Death Knight addressed her. Only one person had ever gotten away with calling her that … she shook the memories out of her head and turned her mare westward. “Well … see you ‘round, Eli.” Another pause, and then she coyly looked over her shoulder at the mounted Death Knight. “You know, I’m gonna look forward to working with you again someday. We make quite a team.”
Eli chuckled. “Tha’ we are. I’ll be lookin’ forward t’ that day, too … you take care ‘til then, Miss Tuan.”
“You, too, cowboy.”
And with that, Tuan tapped her heels into her mare’s sides and rode away as the first rays of dawn began to peek over the surrounding mountain ridges.
It wasn’t until she reached the border between Elwynn Forest and Redridge that the ale finally stopped scrambling her brains long enough for her to think about what had happened during the night. Then, after she started to pick apart what she could safely recall about the Death Knight’s mannerisms, her train of thought screeched to a halt as she realized something.
“You know, girl …” Tuan said to her riding mare, “I could swear that Eli guy who was helping us back there was as blind as a bat!”
The horse nickered and shook her long head in response.
Tuan sat back in the saddle. “Huh. You could be right … no one who’s blind is ever that mobile.” The she-rogue shrugged. “Eh. Must’ve been all the ale I chugged down.”
The she-rogue’s mare laugh-whinnied in response and the two continued on their merry way, the strangeness of the night before all but completely forgotten.
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