A familiar face in an unlikely place

The last thing I needed for my ranseur was a crate of blood-forged ingots, and this required a trip back across the sea to Shadowfang Keep in Silverpine.  Not a big deal since I would have to head back in that direction anyway once this was all over and done with. 

Silverpine is creepy, but Shadowfang Keep is creepier.  The minute I stepped in I had a filthy, drooling, black wolf lunge at me, seemingly intent on having my face for dinner.  I saw another wolf run in from around the corner, no doubt lured by sound of the struggle, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a worgen approach in all his loinclothed glory. 

The feeling of dread I was experiencing at that moment brought me back to my predicament upon entering Blackfathom Deeps.  I think it was right at that moment where I was ready to accept the fact that I would soon be separated from my juggular when a ball of flame smacked the wolf in the shoulder, knocking it off of me with a whimper. 

I heard some muttering in a foul language and turned to see a demon imp hopping towards me, hurling flames at the wolves and the worgen.  I got to my feet as quickly as I could and buried my sword in the neck of the worgen – this just as I saw the wolves writhing in pain on the floor, as if overcome by something, before the imp turned them to ash.

As the room quieted, I shouldered my sword and leaned against the wall to catch my breath.  I kept an eye on the imp, fully expecting me to aim his fire at me next.  The look he was giving me told me that he would like nothing better, I think the approach of a hooded woman from the shadows was the only thing that stayed his hand.  The imp was clearly not the one in control here.

The woman, she didn’t even look at me, just walked right past me and said, “And what are you supposed to be, some kind of hero?”

Near-death experiences don’t exactly put me in the best moods.  Some people might get a thrill out of the excitement, but I’m rather content to remain alive and in one piece.  That’s not to say I’m afraid of a little tussle – I just don’t like to walk into any situation that I don’t know I’ll walk out of.  Needless to say, the whole thing with the wolves left me a bit shaken. 

She might not have realized that, though – or maybe she did, what do I know? - because without thinking I just blurted out, “As a matter of fact, yes.”

I swear I saw her lips form the briefest, faintest smile just then - but I could be wrong.

So anyway, this woman just walks past me into the next room, which just happened to fill up with more wolves who undoubtedly heard our approach.  With a wave of her hand, though, an enormous voidwalker took the place of the imp at her side and began beating the wolves to a bloody pulp.  The woman, meanwhile, was weaving her own hexes and tossing what looked like bolts of shadow at the beasts.  In truth I don’t know what she was doing, but it looked painful.  For the wolves, that is.

I followed her as she made her way through the castle, leaving a trail of dead dog behind her.  I got a few swings with my sword in when I could, but for the most part she was putting the beasts down faster than I could reach them.  So while she did all the work, I made awkward smalltalk in some bizarre attempt at contributing something.  She apparently found me amusing, though, as she let her guard down enough to laugh a few times. 

After a time she began to join the conversation that had up until that point been rather one-sided.  I learned that she was there “treasure-hunting,” and she agreed to lead me to the stables where I could find my ingots.  She really knew her way around, I guess she was a frequent guest of the worgen.

With her as a guide I found the ingots in no time at all, and at that point we both agreed that we’d had enough of the place.  We left the castle without incident and began to walk north along the road towards the Undercity. 

At one point we paused, the woman pulled back her hood and shook out her black hair.  She looked up and met my eyes for the first time, and I thought I was going to pass out.  It was the Silverguard girl from the other night!  Only… she didn’t seem to recognize me, at all.  Which pretty much figured. 

For whatever reason I didn’t say anything about that night in Eversong, she didn’t remember, so I figured she probably didn’t want to remember.  Besides, what difference did it really make?  Then she told me she had a meeting to attend with her guild.

For some reason I’ll never be able to explain, I just blurted out (I do this a lot, I’m beginning to realize – blurting things out, that is), “So do I have to join this Silverguard if I’m to be able to see you again?” 

At this point I expected her to raise an eyebrow or shake her head at my ridiculousness. Then she surprised me and actually invited me along, saying something about it being nice to have someone like me there.  I wasn’t quite sure if “someone like me” was a good thing or not. 

I don’t know what it was about her, but I didn’t want to say goodbye to the girl.  But then I surprised myself and actually turned down her offer.  We parted ways, but she said she wouldn’t mind seeing me again sometime and thanked me for making her laugh (something I’m not sure I was doing intentionally). 

Ysabelle was her name, she told me. 

So - me?  In the Silverguard?  I don’t know, I got a funny vibe being in the Keep the other night - I don’t know that I’m up for that kind of life, following orders and whatnot, being told when to eat, sleep, and when to bend my knee to some guy I don’t know. 

Then again, maybe I’ll think about it.  People have done crazier things for a girl, I’m sure. 

  

Into the woods and into the Deeps

The trip into Ashenvale was easy enough.  I stopped in Splintertree Post and picked up a few jobs to take of on my way to the shore – I knew I was going to need some new boots after all this walking.

Aside from that feeling you get when you know you’re being watched, the forest was rather pleasant.  The trip to the shore was only as eventful as I wanted it to be – I stopped only to chop the horns off the heads of some satyrs and scout out the area around Astrannaar.   

When I reached the shore I came face to face with about a thousand naga crawling all over the place – I knew this trip had been too easy.  The naga stood between me and my goal, a place called Blackfathom Deeps, but at least I found a troll at the nearby Horde outpost willing to pay me if I brought back some naga heads.  At least my efforts will be rewarded, I thought, and I was looking forward to being able to buy something good for dinner – these crunchy spider legs are a little past their prime.   

The naga on the surface were no trouble for me, but I ran into a much stronger bunch down in the Deeps.  I was quickly surrounded by several of them, and had a pair of powerful draenei paladins not arrived to dispatch them right when they did, I don’t think I would have made it out of there.  The draenei could have put me down just as easily, but they instead bowed to me and pointed to another naga further down the tunnel, as if to tell me to attack that one next. 

I was in no position to argue, so I did – that’s what I went down there to do anyway, right?  I could barely hold my own against a single one of the naga, but then the draenei stepped in a aided me again.  This continued, me starting the attack, the two draenei finishing the naga off, until I found what I went there for – a corrupted kor gem, possibly what was making these naga so strong. 

The draenei apparently sensed my glee – they smiled and applauded before bowing to me and leaving the tunnel, clearing a path through the naga who had moved in behind us.  I wish I knew their names, I surely would not have succeeded down there without them. 

Are they not our enemies, though?  I suppose things are not always so black and white, it’s just easier to think that they are when faced with killing someone on the battlefield.   

Everything old is new again

I was really excited to go to Kalimdor, and the warm sun of Durotar was welcome change from the gloominess of the Forsaken forest I had just left.  There was something in the orcs’ story (the whole going west for a new start in a new land) that appealed to me.  I was hoping that coming here would mean a fresh start for me, too. 

And no, the irony of a ‘fresh start’ in the lands where we originally came from is not lost on  me. 

Orgrimmar was itself was great, dirty and hot and swarming with all kinds of people – I’ve never seen anything like it. I felt short, but that’s okay.

 The best part was when Thrall actually acted impressed when he heard about what I did.  He even had a mission for me: Go down into a cave and kill a couple demons.  Conveniently, this was the same cave that I had already planned to go to, but I didn’t tell him that. 

 I didn’t waste any time, I dove right down in the cave, a place called Ragefire Chasm (and I thought Orgrimmar was hot).  The place was a steamy, lava-filled hive of troggs, giant worms, and demon-worshipping orcs.  I made it pretty far on my own, but when I saw a pack of about twelve rather nasty-looking orcs in front of me (several of them with demon minions at their side) I decided I had better turn around and either get a bigger sword or get some help.

Luck was with me, it seemed - as I returned to the entrance to the cave I was met by a troll shaman (one of the Darkspears, not the other sort), a Forsaken rogue, and another Blood Knight.  The Knight seemed awfully young to have travelled this far on his own, but when I questioned him I learned that he had, in fact, survived his First Trial.  He was not yet on his Second, but I decided not to tell him that he would need to return here again later for that.  If he knew, he might decide to postpone his trip to the Chasm altogether, and I needed all the help I could get. 

I learned that the shaman and the rogue were both on the same mission from Thrall that I was.  Thrall, evidently, did not have a whole lot of faith in my abilities to get the job done.  I probably wouldn’t have either, though, so I wasn’t about to hold it against him.

So together our ragtag band made our way through the tunnels of the Chasm – I was physically strongest and best equipped, so my role was to hold the attention of all the beasts, orcs, and demons that came across.  The shaman used his magic to heal my wounds during each fight.  The rogue would sneak behind our enemies while they were busy pounding away on my shield and cut them to bits.  The other Blood Knight did his best at whatever he could, attacking our enemies or healing one of us in a pinch.

The demons were sent in to dispatch were no trouble at all for us, and glowing in the corner of a chamber at the deepest reach of the cave was an orb on a pedestal.  Now, I had been told that I needed to collect the Blood of the Wrathful from this place.  That orb was definitely not blood, but it was exactly where I was told to look for it.  So, I grab it and toss it in my pack anyway.  I thought, Maybe it is blood, what do I know about this stuff.

Well, the pounding footsteps that echoed through the cave and sent bits of rock crumbling from the ceiling told me that someone didn’t want me to take the Blood of the Wrathful.  Actually, it wasn’t the footsteps that told me this, it was the booming voice of an enormous winged demon charging at me, yelling something like, “YOU WILL NOT TAKE THE BLOOD OF THE WRATHFUL” that told me this. 

His bark was bigger than his bite, though, and the three of us (the young Blood Knight high-tailed it out of there once he saw this guy) were able to take him down without any problems.  Once he had fallen, the orb in my hands turned a dark crimson and let off a dim light.  This, I thought, must be the Blood of the Wrathful. 

That being done, we decided to head back to the surface to claim our prizes.  I didn’t stay in the city long after that, from what I understood I had a long walk ahead of me to the shore west of Ashenvale Forest for the next leg of my mission.  I said my goodbyes, adjusted my pack, and started walking down the long dusty road through the desert.

Detour

Before getting on the zepplin to Orgrimmar, I stopped in to the Undercity’s Royal Quarter to take care of an errand I had nearly forgotten about.  That errand being, simply, to update Lady Sylvanas on everything that I had done in the Ghostlands – namely going into Deatholme and putting down (however briefly) Dar’Khan, the Scourge leader in the area.  

It took me about half the day just to find the Royal Quarter – I just kept walking around in circles in that place.  Why do they call the areas of the city ‘quarters’ when there are five of them?  Honestly, I swear they’re just trying to confuse the tourists.

Anyway, Lady Sylvanas (who is ridiculously tall by the way), thought that I should go report to Thrall what I’ve done.

So, then I take the other half of the day just trying to find my way OUT of the city.  At one point I found myself at the end of this sewer line (full of this putrid green sludge – I didn’t know what it was, and I didn’t want to ask) staring out at a forest, but I knew that couldn’t be right.  Eventually I found my way back up the elevator and made my way to the zepplin, which took it’s in time arriving.  I didn’t way to say anything, though, those little goblins looked tough.

Leaving Home

My first stop was to be the orcish city of Orgrimmar, a place I was eager to see.  I would not be returning to Silvermoon until my job was complete, so I decided to pack the few things I could say were mine and check out of Wayfarer’s Rest.  I had been able to sell some simple pieces of armor that I crafted from ore I had come across in my travels, but it still left me with barely enough to settle the bill at the inn.  Perhaps I should have paid more attention to dad when he tried to teach me about his work, maybe then I could have made something worth more than a few coppers. 

As I left the inn I saw a crier running through the Walk of Elders, yelling something about an Alliance attack on Fairbreeze Village and other points in the wood.  A company of soldiers ran past me and through the gate, followed by all manner of person willing and able to defend what little lands we had left.  I tighted the strap on my pack so it wouldn’t bounce around and joined the crowd rushing into the battle. 

When I reached Fairbreeze, where the bulk of the fighting was happening, I thought I had made a huge mistake.  This was not the kind of skirmish that has become so ordinary in the wood since we declared our allegiance to the Horde.  This was a well-coordinated attack being made by well-seasoned fighters with swords bigger than I was.  Blood Knight or no, I was out of my league here and stood no chance at combat with this army.  Rather than throw my life away, I looked for others I could help. 

I saw a man whose legs had been trapped underneath some tumbled rocks – the effect of a small gnomish bomb, it seemed.  I was able to move the rocks and saw him to the relative safety of Falconwing Square.  As I ran back towards Fairbreeze I spotted a dark-haired girl dressed in a fine gown, tattered though it was, walking straight into the fighting.  She was unarmed and appeared to be in a bit of daze, judging by the slow, drifting steps she was taking.  There was even a baby dragon – the likes of which I had never seen before - tugging at her dress with it’s teeth, apparently in a futile attempt to direct the woman away from the melee.

I rushed over to her and asked what she was doing.  She didn’t respond, but her face was flush as if she had been crying.   A bullet sent from a dwarven rifleman rang past my ear and I knew we had to get out of there.  I placed my hands on the woman’s shoulders, intending to turn her in the direction of the city and lead her back, but she tensed at my touch and met my eyes with a look of fear I couldn’t place.  Another bullet buried itself in the dirt in front of my feet as I told her that I’m not the one she should be afraid of right now. 

I heard a growl and looked up to see a kal’dorei druid barrelling towards us in direbear form, but a volley of Farstriders’ arrows slowed him down enough for me to grab the girl’s hand - a bit more roughly than she probably cared for - and get out of there.  I practically dragged her through the wood and across the Dead Scar, pausing only once to throw a little blast of exorcism at the face of a mindless Scourge minion in our path.

We eventually made it to the gate of the city - no thanks to the girl’s lead feet.  I had planned on taking her to the Wayfarer’s Rest to get her to sit down, relax, and come to her senses.  When I started moving in that direction, though, the dragon sceeched and dove down, grabbing my cloak in its teeth and pulling me a different direction.  Don’t ask me why, but I followed the little guy’s lead and, after a time, was brought right to the door of Silverguard Keep! 

There was a person sitting behind a large desk at the end of the entry hall who, unphased by the state of the girl, informed me that she did indeed live there and directed me to her quarters.  Once we reached her room I didn’t linger, I didn’t really have any idea what I was still doing there in the first place – I probably should have just left the girl with the person at the desk.  She walked straight over to her bed and nearly collapsed – whatever ordeal she had been put through must have taken a lot out of her.  She seemed okay, though, or at least unharmed from what I could tell.  I placed my last healing potion on a shelf where I thought she would see it - I figured she might want something when she wakes up – and left her.

The dragon gave me a happy chirp on my way out, and I asked the guy at the desk to look in on the girl in a bit.  He gave me a look that said, “Unlikely.”

As I exited Silverguard Keep I saw some soldiers walking back into the city, their wounded in tow.  The battle was over, it seemed.

With nothing left for me to do there, I adjusted my pack and set off for the Undercity. 

The Second Trial

So, the whole thing where Bloodvalor sent me into the cave and into an ambush- he called that the first trial.  You can imagine my delight when I was told that I was ready for the second trial.  I was to seek out Master Kelerun Bloodmourn outside the ruins of Silvermoon.  Easy enough, right? When I arrived he congratulated me on making it that far and then proceeded to tell me that I need to kill four other Blood Knights who are about to come at me.  At this point, I didn’t get too hung up on the fact that I was really killing these people – I know that they can be easily enough brought back to life so long as we act quickly to do so.  Even so, these trials have me questioning my expected lifespan. 

Anyway, I do the deed and am sent back to Bloodvalor in Silvermoon.  Apparently there’s more to this trial.  There was a fleeting moment where I had mused about calling it quits right then and there, but the rewards promised by Bloodvalor should I live through this trial - status as a Blood Knight Adept and a weapon far superior to any I have ever owned – were very convincing.  Besides how bad could it be? 

My first task was to gather the crest from a fallen Blood Knight, one that would become my own providing I didn’t meet the same fate as it’s previous owner.   This required a trip back to Deatholme, where the body of a knight – the leader of a failed assault on the Scourge base - would be found.  Deatholme and I are old friends – I had been in and out of there more times than I cared to think about during the past several days.  I was not eager to return, but at least now I knew my way around.  Finding the body was no problem.

My next assignment was to gather three items necessary to forge a Blood-Tempered Ranseur – the weapon that was to be awarded to me as a symbol of my status as a Blood Knight.  Apparently a ranseur is another word for ridiculously huge giant pokeystick, something I had no idea how to spell (I had to ask a passing apprentice mage how to spell it for this journal) let alone wield. 

This task would be quite a bit more difficult than the last, as it involved a good deal of travel to places I had been unfamiliar with - places I kind of wish I hadn’t become familiar with.

  

Taking a break

Okay. So in the last couple weeks since I left Eversong I’ve somehow managed to cut the head off of a Scourge leader, cross the Great Sea on a goblin zepplin, met with Thrall, and killed some demons in this sweltering cave underneath Orgrimmar itself. Now that my life has apparently become a whole lot more interesting, I thought it might be a good time to catch my breath and start a record of all that’s been going on.

The troubles facing Quel’Thalas have been well documented, so I won’t linger too much on the jobs I took there. To put it simply- there’s a lot more to be done there, but the place seems to be in good hands with all manner of elves itching to make their mark on the world and pitching in wherever necessary. The Farstriders seem to have a good handle on the situation, as good as can be expected, at least.

I do want to go on the record and say that the Blood Knights are a bit more… intense than I had expected. After I did a bit of work in Eversong, I apparently caught the attention of some of the trainers and was given a task to test my mettle, so to speak. Knight-Lord Bloodvalor wanted me to go over to this place called the Isle of Tribulations, find a cave, and light a brazier located inside. So I find the island, kill a couple of overgrown spiders along the way and make my way to the back of this cave. “Easy enough,” I think, so I light the brazier and expect some floating magical head to congratulate me on a job well done or something like that. But no, instead a crazed Blood Knight charges into the cave after me and starts swinging a sword at my head! I barely managed to dodge that blow, and once I got over the initial shock of the whole thing I was able to put him down.

So, with no floating head in sight, I decided to just trek back to Silvermoon and let the Knights know that one of their members had turned to one of the Wretched or the plagued or was just plain nuts. Imagine my surprise when Bloodvalor tells me that he sent this guy in there to kill me, but it’s all okay because I’m alive. What’s more, he sends me to one of the trainers who gives me a device to resurrect this guy that I just killed… who had apparently been hauled back to Silvermoon just after I left the cave. It was all very confusing.

Long story short, I take this trinket from the trainer and bring the poor guy back to life. He wasn’t really all the grateful, in fact he seemed a bit disgruntled at the whole situation. I’ll have to remember to think twice before I agree to do Bloodvalor any favors. At least I learned the ability to resurrect those recently fallen, a good skill to have to be sure, so in the end I suppose the ordeal was well worth it.

More to follow after breakfast… I should cook up some of these crunchy spider legs before they go bad.