Purging (A Return to Visca Manor)

[Darkweald]

She walked through western Silvermoon in mail armor of Farstrider coloring, though some pieces differed noticeably from uniform. Instead of a helm she wore a dark mask pulled up nearly over her eyes, and on her shoulders she bore a mantle of dragonbone with shards rising at either side of her pallid face and hair. Beside her strode a boar as well armored as she, its snout snuffling along the ground curiously.

Her gait was that of an exhausted soldier as she stumbled across the lawn. Before the pair rose a once opulent manor suitable to a grand lord of Silvermoon before this section of the City had been abandoned to the Wretched in the wake of the Scourge assault. Now it lay in ruins, windows boarded over, large sections of the plaster rotted away and portions of the roof fallen in. She stood for a long while, staring blearily at the eroding edifice. She blinked her eyes sleepily and a single tear rolled down her cheek.

The boar bounded forward and began rooting at the base of a broad-leafed plant. She walked up slowly and knelt down beside the sturdy pig, who snorted playfully at her approach. She reached forth with pale white fingers and plucked a green and red leaf from the plant, then brought it to her mouth. The juice set upon her wan lips and pearly teeth a deep vermillion stain. The fel green glow intensified as her eyes sparkled to life.

She patted the boar on the rump, bringing her face conspiratorially close to its ears while looking and pointing with the other hand to the decayed building. “Visca Manor,” said Saturna. “A Lord needs a house.”

She stood and walked boldly toward the house. One of the heavy oak doors lay ajar, only a long black rectangle of the inner gloom visible from the outside. She walked in without hesitation.

A Wretched leaped out of the darkness and seized her arm, immediately beginning to siphon mana into his starving body. With a squeal, six hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and fat struck him in the stomach and sent him flying. He dashed his head against the debris-littered marble floor and did not rise again. To the left stood another Wretched, who despite having watched the first dispatched so easily was compelled by his hunger to attack this mana-laden intruder.

A bolt struck him for each step of his sprint; the third and he fell sprawling at her feet.

Without pausing she walked calmly through the door on the right into the main sitting room. Here were gathered seven Wretched, all languishing about on the decrepit furniture, still gripping the drained magical objects of their last feeding. These were dropped as a live meal presented herself in the doorway. Simultaneous with the clamor of the fallen objects striking the floor came the dull hiss and thud of bolts striking three of their number. The soft thump of their bodies echoed the previous percussions. With a horrendous clatter the boar charged a fourth Wretched and began rending his viscera with razor-sharp tusks. Two others charged the Sin’Dorei, but she had already loosed another bolt striking one in his leg. His gait slowed to a painful limp. The other, a female with matted ribbons of hair turned blue from mana dust, continued sprinting toward the Ranger with feral need in her eyes. She swiped out as she bounded up, but Saturna side-stepped the blow and swung the nearby door into her attacker. The female’s skull smacked hard against the sturdy wood and she fell back dazed. A thin sword flashed out and slit her throat. As she fell Saturna had already leveled her crossbow at the limping Wretched, who took two bolts to his chest.

The last of the denizens standing in this former Wretched den blinked in the heavy fog of his mana-deprived state. He peered at this ghostly intruder in consternation. “Who the fel are you?”

She pulled the mask up over her eyes, drawing her blade in one hand and gripping a spiked bar in the other. “I am your fey, dark weald,” she replied.

When the Wretched’s blood ran spreading across the floor, the pale young Ranger and her porcine companion continued on to the next room, a wind of death to all who had invaded these halls.


They found her days later, still sitting where she had collapsed upon the floor, her will and intensity drained by withdrawal from the substance on which she depended, leaving only a vacant expression: the last remaining Wretched in the house.

[Darkweald]

[[ What follows is based on in-game interactions, reformulated into a narrative for your reading. ]]

[Ninorra]

((The title of this story was misleading.

j/k very good so far. :) ))

[Darkweald]

Draco Visca and Cerryan Vyel stood in the garden, the late afternoon light burning brightly upon their metallic armor. Draco sighed as he viewed the remains of what had once been one of the finest buildings in Silvermoon. His mind could not help but recall the former glory of this place which, not so long ago, he had called home. The white alabaster walls that used to shine so brilliantly in the sun as he played in the grass had been tarnished to a dull grey as the plaster began to rot, and the dark green ivy had broken from its confines of the trestles to begin the imperceptibly slow process of devouring the edifice whole. A few cracked panes were all that remained of the myriad of windows: most of the frames now boarded over, though some stared out like ominous black eyes over the unkempt garden below. The unrestricted growth of the plants did not mask the underlying order of the landscape, though weeds blurred the once sharply cut boundaries of the vegetation. Despite its decay, the manor and yard evoked ethereal images of its past beauty that hovered beneath the opaque, grim reality, the effect much like that of a masterfully drawn picture of water-based paint whose crisp lines are later soaked with tears.

A section of the awning suddenly gave way to the forces of gravity and fell four stories to the ground in a resounding crash that sent rats skittering for new cover. Cerryan cleared his throat respectfully. “It looks like we have a lot of work to do if we’re going to clean this place up, Sir. Should we continue inside?”

The response was a sigh heavier than the first, “I wish you could have seen this place as I knew it, Cerryan. The Viscas were once revered.”

“The heroic deeds and valor of your family are well known; what young knight does not speak the name Visca with awe and respect?”

Draco nodded sadly and began walking along the hedgerow, his plate boots crunching heavily on the overgrown gravel path, no break in his stride as he kicked aside scattered debris. “How times have changed.”

The two knights made their way along the winding garden pathways to the base of a magnificent statue that towered above them. It was a tall male elf with a greatsword gripped in his left hand that crossed in front of him, the point resting on the ground, whilst his right hand held another greatsword aloft. His face was fierce and his musculature impressive. Draco wiped away the dust and debris at the base of the statue to reveal the inscription: GLADIUS VISCA.

Here immortalized in stone was what Draco had always hoped to become, but knew now he could never attain. “My father was a mighty warrior. He fought in all three wars to defend our people.”

Cerryan took in the impressive figure, then looked to his lord’s troubled expression. “He would be proud of you, Draco.”

Draco shook his head and proceeded up the broken walk to the main entrance of the house. He gripped and shook the open door to see if it was firm on its hinges. Satisfied, he continued into the house. As he crossed the threshold, the burden of his ancestry seemed to fall upon him, and he slumped his shoulders in acknowledgement that he could never accomplish the mighty things done by his forefathers. Cerryan followed closely behind, still attempting to encourage his leader. “You have done so much for our people in these troubled times. You more than anyone are worthy of your title.”

The Lord Visca squinted in the dimness of the entryway. The shadows of debris could be seen spread across the skylights high above their heads, with only a few shafts of light piercing the subsequent gloom.

“I do not—what is that?”

Draco sniffed at the air. The smell of blood and death assailed his nostrils, overpowering the dank odor of the rotting building that he had been expecting. He peered into the dark interior and saw a form sprawled near one of the beams of light. He knelt by the dead body and found it to be a Wretched, a dark circle of blood staining the ground that had cracked his skull. “It’s the corpse of a Wretched.”

“There’s another over here,” Cerryan called out from a several paces away. “Feathered by bolts.”

Draco looked around the room. He did not see any more crumpled forms, and so he turned his attention back to the one on the floor before him. “Blunt force here. Possibly a fall. …we shouldn’t just leave them here.”

“Bury them, then?” asked Cerryan, beginning to heft the bolt-ridden Wretched at his feet so that he could drag its corpse from the hall.

“Burning them might be more practical, and would prevent the possibility of the Scourge raising up their bodies to fight us again,” Draco said grimly. “But hold off on that for a moment: there may be more dead within the house.”

“A funeral pyre would be appropriate,” nodded Cerryan in approval. “And that’s a good point. We best assess the number of bodies before we plan their removal. You think there’s many more?”

Draco turned his gaze to the parlor doors in front of him. “Somehow, I am certain of it. The question in my mind is, who killed them?” He stood and began walking toward the dark opening.

Cerryan fell into step with him. “A knight, or a wandering adventurer perhaps?”

“Maybe,” said Draco, pausing at the doorway. “But why here?”

They entered the parlor. Seven corpses lay slain in various places throughout the room, most also feathered with bolts. Draco stepped over the female body crumpled at the door and walked to a Wretched who lay sprawled in his own viscera. He grimaced at the gruesome sight.

“Careful,” he murmured to Cerryan as the knight passed by on his way to inspect a different body. “We don’t know what manner of person the killer might be.”

Cerryan nodded. The Wretched in the center of the room had been butchered, large ribbons of splayed flesh marking the various sword strikes that had measured out his final moments. A deep slice along the interior of the thigh was probably the mortal blow, and a dark stain on the rug encircled the body where the femoral artery had bled out. But what Cerryan found most disturbing was that the mana-starved elf’s eyes had been gouged out. He called back to Draco, “Is there anything in the house, aside from Wretched and whatever person killed them, that I should be aware of? Wards or safeguards?”

Visca shook his head. “No.” He glanced at a body slumped over a chaise lounge. Behind it rose a mahogany cabinet. “I wonder if they left any of the magical devices intact, though.” He carefully worked his way toward the cabinet, fragments of plaster and wood chips snapping under his boots. He pulled out a few items, all of which had been drained of any magical properties. “No, it doesn’t look like they have.”

Cerryan yelped as a heavy piece of plaster fell from the ceiling and struck him on the head. “Ow! Um, Sir, maybe we should keep moving.” Draco nodded and they continued to the next room.

One after another the rooms belched up a grisly scene, such that the two hardened paladins were beginning to feel the pangs of nausea and dread at the sight of more corpses. At the foot of a winding staircase that led up to the household bedrooms Draco made a discovery of a patch of blood. “I think this may be from the attacker. It doesn’t appear to be Wretched blood.”

“So our mysterious guest may be wounded or killed as well,” nodded Cerryan. “At least we know we’re on his trail. Let’s find out where it leads so that we can cleanse this place of the death that inhabits it and set about restoring it to its former glory.”

Draco led the way up the stairs, noting a bloody handprint on one of the banisters. “This way leads to the family section. Bedrooms and such.”

They found themselves in a long hallway with successive doors on either side. Slumped against the walls and splayed across the floor lay more corpses of Wretched killed by the intruder. Cerryan gently swung a door to one side open and peeked into a room to find additional slain within. Draco’s eyes, however, were on the portraits which hung by each door. There, his brother’s strong visage, rightful heir to the household had not his life been cut short. There, his sweet sister’s beautiful form and kind face. And there, looking none too different if a bit callow, Draco in his Spell Breaker uniform. “It was not my destiny to inherit the leadership of this family. My brother was capable in ways that I will never be. I was to study magic. I never even managed to do that properly.”

“You wield the Light, which is the noblest of pursuits,” responded Cerryan. “Besides, if it were not your destiny, then we wouldn’t be standing here.”

Draco’s eyes caught sight of another smattering of blood at the far end of the hall. “Be vigilant, I think we near our quarry.” He swung his shield from his back and strapped it to his arm, then drew his sword and crept warily toward the stain on the wall. Cerryan followed behind, his hand raised up and reaching over his back to the hilt of his greatsword should he have need to draw it.

As they neared the place Visca had spotted, they could see a deep gouge along the wall and several spatters of blood staining the vicinity. In the middle of these lay a dark stain upon the floor. From it a smear of blood streaked away down the hall and disappeared under the door of the master bedroom at the end. Draco motioned to Cerryan that he should be ready for anything, then turned to follow the trail of blood. Cerryan drew his sword and held it up and at the ready as he crept behind his leader.

Reaching the door to the main bedroom, Draco placed his shield against the wood and pushed gently. The door seemed heavier than it ought to be, but nevertheless the force opened it slightly. “Hello?” spoke Draco into the opening. “Are you hurt? We can help you.”

Something shifted in the room. Draco looked at Cerryan and then pushed harder against the door. It swung heavily on its hinges but its motion ceased suddenly with a loud crack of splintering wood. The two paladins ducked instinctively, but the door remained on its hinges.

Opposite of the door lay an expansive bed, its moth-eaten canopy falling in ribbons and waves over the dilapidated mattress and dust-covered sheets. The nearest of the posts was missing; the jagged spikes of wood at its base looked freshly snapped. The trail of blood they had followed to the door continued its smear around the corner of the bed. From the doorway the side of a head could be seen. A deep, angry grunt sounded from that side of the bed.

“Are you hurt? We can help you,” called Draco again. There was no response other than further sounds of shifting weight behind the bed, and another grunt. Draco and Cerryan cautiously edged along the wall to get a clearer view of the person on the other side of the bed.

“…Saturna?” Draco gasped.

She sat in a pool of dried blood, propped up against the firm musculature and armor of her pet boar. For her part, the boar eyed the two newcomers and oinked out a warning, but did not move lest she disturb her charge. Saturna’s glazed eyes stared listlessly at nothing. The lack of eye contact was nothing surprising to those who knew her, but the lack of focused intent behind those eyes was frightening for those who cared about her.

Cerryan cried out and rushed to Saturna’s side, despite the boar’s squeals in protest. Draco followed behind Cerryan and attempted to soothe the pet’s fears with calm speech, “Easy now, we’re here to help.”

Cerryan threw off a gauntlet and placed his fingers against the pale woman’s neck to check her vitals, which were weak, but thankfully present. He noticed sweat beading along her brow and felt her forehead for a temperature. Her pallid skin felt cold and clammy to his touch.

“Is she badly hurt? Can we save her?” Draco asked, deferring to the expertise of Cerryan, who he knew had served as a field medic in some of the worst places imaginable. At any rate, Draco was not far enough along in his recuperative studies of the Light to be of any service in this situation.

Cerryan, meanwhile, was becoming bewildered in his assessment of Saturna’s condition. Her eyes did not respond to changes in brightness. Her breath came so shallowly that it was almost imperceptible. The paladin’s first thought was to check her for wounds—all that blood had to come from somewhere—but the most that he found was a section of mail at her breast that had become distended into a large hole in the armor. He probed the area for any sign of a wound. Finding nothing, his ears burned in embarrassment. He looked back to her glazed expression.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Where did all this blood come from?”

“Maybe from the pig,” said Draco, looking at the stained bandages wrapped around the animal.

“It doesn’t explain this,” said Cerryan, slapping Saturna gently on the face. She met his soft blows with as much resistance as a ragdoll.

“Mana drain? She fought all those Wretched…” postulated Draco as he looked over Cerryan’s shoulder.

“Could be,” murmured Cerryan. “Quick! Do you have a mana potion?”

Draco fumbled among his things and produced a vial with a bluish glow. “Here,” he said, handing it to Cerryan. Cerryan uncorked the vial and tipped it into Saturna’s mouth. The girl gave no response, nor did she swallow the bright blue liquid, which began dribbling down the front of her chin.

Cerryan cursed. “Here, help me hold her head up so she swallows it.”

Draco warily moved closer, his eye on the boar, who grunted her disapproval but gave way to the Knight Lord’s approach. He held Saturna’s head gently with his gauntleted hands and tilted her face upward to accept the potion. Cerryan poured more of the cyan tincture into her mouth, at which his patient began coughing wetly. The hacking cough seemed far more horrible than the sound alone allowed on account of her glazed eyes’ blank stare, which continued unhindered by the convulsions. Dark violet blotches splattered down from her mouth onto Draco’s forearm and the floor below.

“That’s strange,” murmured Draco as he looked at the splotches.

Cerryan followed his gaze. “Perhaps internal bleeding?” It made some sense. His cursory examination of her body might have caused him to miss bruises that would mark the location of impact, covered as she was by her mail armor. And there was the blood on the floor… “Quick, do you have a healing potion?”

Draco quickly brought out a bright red vial. Cerryan took it and poured it down Saturna’s throat. Saturna groaned. The two Sin’Dorei’s hearts pounded in the excitement at the first sign of life they had seen from their friend since arrival.

“Nnngh,” groaned Saturna again, and then her face fell to one side and she retched the healing potion out onto the rug. Her body convulsed again in nausea and her mouth released another volley of vomit to splatter onto the pool of healing draught and bile. Draco and Cerryan fought back their own waves of nausea as the stench of the crimson vomit reached their nostrils. She convulsed a third time and coughed out a final stream of stomach contents, a fibrous glob smacking onto the wet floor.

Draco stared with a pained expression at the mess being cast upon his father’s bedroom, his family sanctuary being desecrated by death and sickness. “Perhaps we should take her outside for some fresh air…” he suggested.

“I don’t know if I can move her,” Cerryan shot back in panic. That she had vomited back up the healing potion filled him with dread, because it meant that she was not suffering from any physical injury and the body had rejected the chemical attempt to restore flesh wounds. Which meant he had no idea what was wrong with her.

“I can help,” replied Draco. “Between the two of us I am sure we can lift her, even with the armor.”

“No, I mean that I don’t know what’s wrong with her!” spat Cerryan. “For all I know we could kill her by moving her!”

As if on cue, Saturna suddenly began shivering violently. Cerryan’s heart leapt to his throat. He would not see her die. He could not. He could not bear to lose another so soon.

She began to tip sideways, nearly falling onto the wide pool of vomit and blood. He gripped her firmly in his arms and attempted to steady her. Her eyes remained listless and her body limp when the seizures were absent. He began to pull her gently away from the reeking spot, which Draco was eyeing with distaste.

“What is that?” he said, pointing at the stringy lump in the center.

“I don’t know,” replied Cerryan, his mind racing for a solution.

“Maybe that’s what made her sick,” guessed Draco. “Poison of some kind?”

“I don’t know, Draco!” Cerryan nearly shouted. “I don’t have any idea what’s wrong with her!” He held her as she shivered, and his eyes began watering in distress and frustration. Don’t die, Saturna, he mentally pleaded with her. Let me save you. “I don’t know what it is!”

[Keraph]

((Great job recapping last night! Diagnosing you was hard as HELL for Cerryan XD ))

[Faelen]

((Sounds like I'm missin' some RP! Good writing, good read! :) ))

[Darkweald]

“Bloodthistle,” she had said. “Why, Saturna, I’m surprised that you—”

It had been a strange night. Though, any time spent with Saturna Starsummit was often stranger than not. The girl with bleached white hair, even paler skin and dark circles about her eyes was inexplicably odd. Cryptic, melancholy, deadly. But that evening (http://wow-tng.org/showthread.php?p=191510#post191510) Ashtyn Amberlight had seen sides of her mournful spirit which she had barely glimpsed in their many times together. She had been given a brief window into the inner pain that plagued this emotionless huntress, quite possibly the source of the suicidal tendencies which had increased of late, and though she consciously knew that she understood less than what actually lay beneath the surface of the Ranger’s inscrutable statements, one thing was for certain: Ashtyn desperately wanted to help her. She did not know why she should feel so much compassion for this girl, who would frustratingly spurn her offerings of help.

Saturna had spoken such a long list of names that Ashtyn could not keep up. A few stood out in her mind. Visca. Duskvale sounded familiar. Others didn’t even sound elven. No sooner did it seem like Saturna might explain herself than she had turned wordlessly into the breeze blowing down from the hills and walked away. Ashtyn had moved to follow. She watched as the hunter drew her polearm and sliced the blade through the base of a broad-leafed plant speckled with red blotches. Saturna knelt down and picked up one of the leaves. “Winter approaches,” she murmured again.

“Bloodthistle,” Ashtyn had said. Then Saturna had brought the leaf up to her face and sniffed it. “Why, Saturna, I’m surprised that you—”

“Pungent,” Saturna said suddenly, interrupting her. “A leaf this large is worth seven silver at market, but a couple gold at the right moment.”

Ashtyn had grown quiet, doubts assailing her mind. Saturna still had the leaf pressed up to her nose, her eyes closed, the dark shadows of her eyes merging into a mask.

“Dried and smoked,” the hunter had said, “to effect the same rush of energy that one feels in the excitement of battle, albeit in a more mellow way. The hookah is considered the most pure. A fiercer effect is generated by drying and crushing into a powder which is drawn up through the nose.” She lowered her left hand to her side and looked up at the stars. Ashtyn watched the hand with the leaf from the corner of her eye. “However, the excitement is false and impermanent, draining away at one’s spirit as it fades, ultimately leaving the elf at a lower energy state than at the first. More must be used to reestablish the intensity, smokers graduating to sniffers.”

“Some people eat it,” Ashtyn had replied.

But Saturna shook her head, “Chew, but do not swallow. Spit out the juice. Attempts at a tincture have all proved fatal. To swallow is poison.”

And with that, quick as a flash, Saturna popped the leaf into her mouth, chewed once, and swallowed. Ashtyn had been uncertain whether or not she had really just seen it.

“Saturna! Did you just…?!” she had cried.

“Mm?”

[Darkweald]

[[ I apologize for the delay. Unlike my character, I have a poor memory for exact words and was unsatisfied with what I had done for Aetheril's comments. However, he hasn't responded to my PM (probably on vacation or something) and it's about time I got this posted. I'll be writing the epilogue and post that shortly as well. ]]


Draco rushed into the next room, searching for a container in which Saturna could vomit. He had become convinced that whatever the fibrous substance had been, it was the source of her sickness, and Cerryan had conceded that to make her well they first had to make certain the source of the illness was fully removed from her system. But Cerryan stubbornly refused to move her, much to Visca’s dismay, and now he was in search of anything that would prevent more stains on the master bedroom floor.

He found an antique vase with dried, withered plants in it. He frowned; he didn’t want to use the vase, but at least it could be washed later. Cerryan was panicking in the next room, he’d better hurry. He seized the vase and started back, then stopped. He’d have to get rid of the contents of the vase. He didn’t want to just dump them on the floor. He looked around the debris-filled room. In the corner was an up-ended waste-bin. He set the vase back down and grabbed that instead.

In the other room, Saturna was still shivering. Draco gave the container to Cerryan and then took off his gauntlets. As unpleasant as it was, it had to be done. He held her neck firmly and then pushed his fingers up into her mouth against her soft palate, attempting to trigger her gag reflex. Her body began shuddering in dry heaves, her mouth gaping open around Draco’s hand, her eyes staring blankly at nothing, like a gasping fish on a hook.

“I came as soon as I could, Sir,” spoke a voice from the doorway. “Sir? What is going on?”

Ranger Colonel Faelenor had been tracking Draco and Cerryan for most of the day. He was grateful for Lord Visca’s incorporation of him into the Order of Eversong, so as soon as he had received word that help was needed restoring Visca’s old homestead, Faelenor had begun the journey back from the Outlands. The letter had not given any directions, and so the Farstrider had to rely upon his experience at tracking to meet up with the two paladins. The day had been largely unremarkable, with Wretched scurrying into their dark holes as he rode by on his war raptor. Upon arriving at the decaying manor, he had followed the two paladin’s trails upstairs, rather surprised at the gruesome corpses of Wretched that filled the manor. He arrived at the door to see Draco and Cerryan looking panicked, bent over another. Perhaps another member of the Order who had been injured by the Wretched.

“Who killed all those Wretched?” he asked. “And is someone hurt? What can I do?”

“Not right now, can’t you see that we’re busy!” shouted Visca in perturbation. Saturna was not throwing anything back up, but continued to convulse as she gagged. Draco finally relented and pulled his fingers out of her mouth. She turned and urped a globule of bile onto his chestplate for all his trouble. The paladin sighed. At least it wasn’t on the carpet.

Faelenor stepped into the room and walked a few paces to get a better view of what was happening. His eyes widened in recognition and his mouth gaped in shock. “…Miss Saturna?” he exclaimed. “Miss Saturna! What happened?!”

“We don’t know!” said Cerryan. “We found her like this!”

“We have to save her!” cried Faelenor.

“We’re trying! We don’t know what’s wrong!” snapped Visca.

Downstairs, one of the few glass panes yet intact shattered at the blow of a gauntlet. The first metal hand was joined by another, and soon an entire paladin swung into the house, his boots landing with a heavy thud upon the floor. Aetheril Rayfeather, too, had responded to Visca’s summons. The directions he had received from those at Falconwing Square had brought him to the back side of the building. He had found the kitchen door locked. No one responded to his knocking, so he began trudging along the outer wall of the manor when he had heard excited shouts from the second floor. The matter sounded urgent and they might be engaged with Wretched—he had seen signs of their habitation—and so he had decided that he better get in as soon as possible to lend his aid. On landing, he nearly lost his balance and stumbled backwards a couple paces, bumping into a sidetable and knocking a vase over to shatter onto the floor. Another shout was heard from overhead, and so he began running to the next room in search of stairs.

“Please help her,” Faelenor pleaded in earnest. “Don’t die, Saturna, you haven’t finished teaching me (http://wow-tng.org/showthread.php?t=11492). You have to finish your lessons!”

Cerryan had been casting restorative flashes of Light into her body, to no avail. Internally, he too was pleading with the unresponsive girl, but the noise of the Farstrider still irked him some. He was trying to help; he just didn’t know how.

“Draco, you try,” he said.

“I don’t think I am far enough along in my training to—” Draco began to protest, then stopped. The least he could do was try.

“What’s going on?” came Aetheril’s voice, followed shortly by the Blood Knight Adept himself. “Is everyone all right? Who killed all the—”

His speech halted as he caught sight of Saturna. Faelenor turned to his half-brother and said, “She’s hurt, they’re trying to help her, just stand back.” Aetheril’s mouth opened and closed in wordless shock. He shook his head disbelievingly, “No, no, no…”

Then he began screaming. “No, she’s dead! She’s dead (http://wow-tng.org/showpost.php?p=181784&postcount=5)!” He scrambled back to the door from which he had entered, his back catching on its edge, and the door gave way and closed with a slam, Aetheril toppling after. A body pinned to the door swung from the momentum and struck the dismayed Adept. The Wretched had been impaled by the missing bedpost through the pelvis, then driven up into the door. Gravity had inverted the corpse so that its head nearly brushed the ground. Aetheril pushed away from the body in panicked disgust.

Faelenor growled angrily at Aetheril. “Don’t say that! We’re going to save her!”

Aetheril stood up, staring at the Wretched hung on the door in horror. “This is her doing! She did this!” He began kicking in the corpse’s face with repeated, savage strikes of his metal boot. “This! Is! Her! Doing! That bitch!”

Faelenor drew his bow and leveled it at his half-brother. “Stop it. I don’t know who you are talking about with such ill words, but if it is Miss Saturna—I won’t let you speak that way about her.”

“Are you insane?! I saw her die!” exclaimed Aetheril as he whirled to face the Farstrider.

“Men, please!” yelled Draco, still kneeling by Saturna’s side. “I need to concentrate without all this noise!”

“Why? You can’t save her! She’s dead already!” cried Aetheril, back-pedaling up against the wall as he stared at her listless eyes. He edged up against a candelabrum.

“Don’t say that!” shouted Faelenor, still aiming at the panicking adept. “She is my instructor, and you will treat her with the respect that is due her.”

“Cerryan, can you get these two out of here?” growled Draco. He was still attempting to reach Saturna’s spirit with the Light. Saturna, come back.

Cerryan stood up and began trudging toward the other two.

“She’s evil! This is just what she wants!” raved Aetheril, turning to the candleholder and ripping it from the wall. He threw it across the room and it smashed into the plaster on the opposite wall. “She’s dead already!”

Faelenor released his arrow, which struck the ranting adept on the arm. Aetheril looked with shocked disbelief at the wound, then back to his half-brother. “You don’t understand! She’s… she’s…” He blinked his eyes in befuddlement, his speech slowing. Then his knees buckled and he fell with a spectacular crash onto the floor.

“It’s enough poison to knock even you out, Aetheril,” said Faelenor. “But only to make you sleep.” The Knight Adept groaned in semi-consciousness on the floor.

“Get him out of here!” snapped Cerryan. Faelenor looked at the paladin, then down at the dead weight of his half-brother in full armor. How am I…? No. It’s important that I get out of the healers’ way as soon as possible. I nor my brother will be the reason for Saturna’s death. He called for his undead warmount.

There was a spectacular noise downstairs, then progressively closer clattering and clamors until Faelenor’s undead mount was seen galloping down the hall toward them. Faelenor began dragging Aetheril out into the hallway, stopping often to regain his grip in his struggles to move the heavily armored Adept. Cerryan followed and slammed the door behind them. The door rattled and then fell off its hinges with a resounding crash.

Fortunately for the others, Draco was too focused on reaching Saturna with the Light to have realized the destruction being done to the home around him. He forced himself to keep calm, remembering what his training sessions with Uther (http://wow-tng.org/showthread.php?t=11077) had taught him: that every soul was connected to the Light. This rule was what Draco relied on now. As his eyes closed, he felt the presence of her in this self-imposed darkness. Slowly, shining fragments of her spirit began to appear—first in the heart, then it began to radiate, connecting to other fragments that were progressively assimilated into the whole. Soon after, he saw her soul, though it was cool and dim due to her condition. He saw his own soul, too. The brightness was overwhelming, and sweat began to bead along his brow from the heat. He took a deep breath. This was as far as he had been taught; he knew of the connection—now what?

Do something, he ordered himself. “Saturna,” he whispered on his physical lips. Slowly he began extending his soul out to hers. He wasn’t certain what he would do once he reached her, but as his warm presence connected with her cold spirit, his physical lips twisted in a surprise gasp as he felt her agony. Dread. Pain. Desperation.

In the room, Saturna cried out, closing her eyes and arching her back in pain. If she had been impaled with another of the bedposts it would have elicited no less a response. Faelenor looked up through the doorway, his face filled with concern. Cerryan faltered and stopped in his steps to return to Draco and Saturna, shocked by this sudden change.

Draco continued to whisper to her. “Saturna.” Slowly, he began to turn his soul’s hand to take hold of hers. The point of contact flashed in a brilliant heat as he whispered to her, “Saturna: Awaken.”

The brightness began to spread up her arm, the intense heat burning against his own soul. There was a violent spasm and he lost his spiritual grip on her had as the light blinded him, and then the brightness began to fade so quickly it was as if the Void had opened up and swallowed it until he was alone in its darkness. But he felt something more before she vanished. Ferocity. Wrath. Mercilessness.

In the dust-filled master bedroom of broken-down Visca Manor, Saturna snapped open her eyes. They were focused on Aetheril.

She twisted her legs underneath herself and rammed her shoulder in Draco’s chest, breaking free from his grip and knocking him from the channeling of the Light. Cerryan shouted out in surprise and began to run up to them as she spun away from Draco. She brought her momentum to bear on Cerryan with a mailed boot into his chest. His heavy armor protected him from any injury but the force of the kick sent him toppling backward. She landed in a crouch next to him simultaneously as he crashed against the floor, and then she was vaulting away toward the door, her eyes on Aetheril.

Faelenor had given a whistle and, with a ferocious roar, a blur of orange came hurtling over his mount and himself and began sprinting to intercept the uncontrolled woman. If she gave a signal, it went unnoticed by any but the boar, who charged in at the tiger from the side, bowling the huge cat over and pinning him to the wall. Faelenor had already brought up his bow and aimed for Saturna’s leg, hoping to slow her down so that they could catch and restrain her.

Cerryan was now up and running behind her, with Draco only a few steps behind. As the Ranger loosed his arrow, Saturna slid to the ground and it hissed over her as she crashed feet-first into the unconscious body of the Knight Adept. Behind her, Draco unslung his shield from his back and hefted it. Saturna was already back on her feet. Faelenor reached out to grab her, but she dodged his grip and brought an elbow to his jaw. Cerryan had nearly reached her, and Draco threw his shield in hopes of dazing her. As the shield whooshed through the air, she ducked both Cerryan’s grip and its blow. The heavy metal circle struck the wall and ricocheted back into Cerryan’s face, knocking him out.

With inhuman strength Saturna lifted Aetheril and rammed him upright against the wall. The Knight Adept blinked in groggy confusion, his mind lost in the stupor of the sleeping poison. Between gritted teeth, she growled at him.

“Winter approaches.”

Then her eyes turned upward and she fell, unconscious, to the floor. It was only because of Faelenor’s quick thinking that she was not crushed beneath the weight of Aetheril toppling after her.

[Darkweald]

It was left to Faelenor and Draco to care for the three unconscious members of the Order of Eversong. It seemed wise to restrain Saturna, whose vitals had stabilized, and so they bound her hands and feet with leather straps before carrying her to another room. Draco locked the door. The bulk of Aetheril’s armor was removed so that he could be carried to a bed as well. It seemed best to both that, when the Adept awoke, he should be told that the day’s events had all been a dream. The madness that had come over him at the sight of Saturna was inexplicable and to be avoided until they understood the root of the matter. Cerryan was left forgotten on the floor of the master bedroom, the cut on his face bleeding. It would be the next day that Draco would enter the room and kick himself for not remembering to move him so that his blood wouldn’t stain the floor.

Saturna slept for three days, then slipped away, leaving only the cut leather bindings on the bed and Faelenor’s wisp beneath an upended vial.

[Keraph]

((A direct quote to emphasize Cerryan's involvment in the later stretches of that fateful night:

*Cerryan bleeds*

Good times...))

[Visca]

((This was a fun rp! We'll have to start some follow ups soon. Visca Manor shall rise once again! Draco shall find out what is wrong with that girl! XD ))