To Shoulder Destiny - Quori's Story

[Quori]

((This is the player of Daala, by the way. The scope I intend for this story means that this will be incomplete for a VERY long time. I'm not sure how the story of the week contest works; if the case is that any story may only be entered once, regardless of how complete it is, then please, do NOT enter this story until it's finished. I hope you enjoy! Also, this story is meant as a companion for Memoirs (http://tn.yzeens.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=229).))

Dramatis Personae (Subject to Modification)

The Scourge:
Philar - Death Knight, Commandant of the Bloodthunder Fist
Pholar - Lich, First Inquisitor of the Holcroft Seekers
Talaas - Lich, General Overseer of Concerns of Mortality
Borhs - Nathrezim, Partially Undead, Field Commander of the Harlequin

The Elves:
Karasin - Sin'dorei, Ivory Duke, Head of the Phoenix Initiative
Savial - Sin'dorei, the Illuminated of the Entropic Supplicants
Ninafer - Sin'dorei, Sunstrider Patron of the Sciences

The Children:
Quori - Forsaken, The Bemoaned
Shada - Half-Elven, The Forsook
Henzio - Sin'dorei, The Shining
Marethial - Sin'dorei, The Dumb
Uel - Sin'dorei, The Spoiled

The Others:
Bishop

[Quori]

They come with a frightening constance. Life can be a dream, an etheral, phantasmal effigy; people are never truly confident that life is reality, are they? Death, that is sure. There is only one kind of oblivion. But...I suppose that I can be sure of more than just death. I suppose that that makes me unique. That which I may be sure of is death, and the dreams.

Once, twice, thrice in one night, they come. Often, while I'm awake. Awake...maybe I'm still dreaming. What kind of dream comes in waking life? Life is a dream...

I see a sublime garden that I know to be Silvermoon. That is strange to me. In life, I have never seen a garden, never been to Silvermoon, and the only sublime I ever did see was, is, a woman, not a place. And yet I may say with complete and utter certainty that this place is Silvermoon. The dream is simple. It is as though I am standing there, my eyes panning over the locale. However, it's not just some panoramic, as pleasant as that would be. I'm led by the nose, guided through some unseen route. There is a destination. However, I only make it a few steps before things go awry.

(("Aerenal Embassy" by Anthony S. Waters and Howard Lyon.))
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/sharn_gallery/84567.jpg

I'm still at the garden. Some building may be seen for perhaps half a second, before what can only be described as spontaneous entropy. That's what Daala had called it; after she explained what it meant, I agreed that it made a great deal of sense. The building...even seeing it as many times as I have, entropy strikes so swiftly that all I might be sure of is that it is a grand place, very big, very resplendent. Vision harshly starts to swirl like a warp in some winding river, and color starts to bleed out...it's as though the lines of common objects captivate the color within. In my dream, the color spills out, free...bleeding onto the surrounding spectacles. Size also fluctuates, and distance...this whole process lasts six and three-quarters seconds.

In life, they ended there. Daala couldn't make much sense of them either. I almost forgot...there was a word written within the weave of the thing. Nobody actually spoke it, but they might as well have. "Return." It began pleasantly, but soon it picked up in repetition and severity. My ears always hurt when things get all blurry and strange. Since my days with the Scourge, though, there have been more visions.

When Silvermoon goes black, the vision is restored to its original semblance, before I'd begun panning, before things fell apart. Only...it's different. The trees are dying, and the fruits of the bushes are bulging and bloated, as though a whisper of wind would cause them to burst. Purple sap oozed from trees that...well, shouldn't have had purple sap. It was not as though they were bleeding. It was as if invisible hands were squeezing out something that should...that must never be separated from the tree. Like a soul, or something deeper. Everything looks rotten. The frolicking Highborne were standing, or sitting, or skipping or laughing or playing or resting in all the same places. But they were skeletons, or ghoulish zombies, not High Ones. The old wordless voice, "return," returns, but the essence seems twisted and corrupted. Not like the tree, or the bushes, or the grass...those were corrupted by something unnatural. The voice...not an unnatural taint, in it. Just damaged. There is another message right after...a feeling trying so hard to be identical to the first, but failing...the final result was "Return......Skullymash. Nachsrahmush." I don't think that that's how they're really spelled...but I wouldn't know what's right. Mistress Clys, she knew one of them...but I forgot what name she gave it. She didn't know the other...but there is an artificiality in this vision, and I know that it should not be there. The first time, I wondered if it might've been in me, and just sleeping, like I sleep, until that first time. The second time, I knew that that wasn't the case. It is a foreign alien, a stowaway in my vessel.

When I stand in the Undercity, I feel so edgy...they're close, the Scourge, I mean. Inside... it feels like they are inside it. I want nothing more than to run until I cannot feel them anymore. But...voices tell me to go East. Where They are. Why is that? If it were the second voice, the one trying to be like the first, I'd ignore it. But that's not how it is. It's both of them...the first, comforting voice that I know like I know me, and the second voice, the one that tries to deceive me. They both want me to go east, with a desperate urgency, I must go east. That's...strange, to me.

More later...I'm sleepy.

[Quori]

There exists in this land a tower of breathtaking resplendency. Tales of it make mention that in days long past, when the fledgling mortal races of this land stared upon the heavens and declared it the realm of the Gods alone, there was one nation amongst this fraternity of sentience that knew that this divine frontier must be conquered. And so it was that a tower of breathtaking resplendency was erected, stretching ever skyward, like one of Gaea's fingers, pointing to some far away Valhalla where things must be much better or much worse. It was named modestly, as the awe-inspiring acheivement, this undeniable cry of the worth of the Quel'dorei, spoke loudly enough, regardless of namesake. It was dubbed "Pinnacle," for it was surely the highest point all over creation.

(("Keep of the Twelve" by Martina Pilcerova))
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/5n_gallery/90016.jpg

Within this most astonishing of constructs are many, many men, many, many women. Though they are all of considerable mastery of their respective crafts, we shall, for the moment, direct our attentions to a particularly gaunt Sin'dorei. He did not quite reside within the highest story. But high enough. He is a slender, youngish looking chap. The characteristic signature of youth is somewhat marred with the sort of perpetually intense concentration that is rarely present in the young; perhaps it is because they are unburdened by the suffersome chains of experience and acquired wisdom? Should one ask a personal acquaintance of this man, one would surely discover that this wisp is named Karasin, a man of pure noble lineage, and one prone to forgetting to eat in the focus of his work.

At present, that work is inscribing some pensieve unto the tightly bound parchment of what would appear to be a journal, or diary. Karasin's personal tome, it is frighteningly thin, next to what appear to be research binders, the cover crafted from alligator hide. Perhaps a look should be in order, no? To sate the curiosity...a pleasure's only worthwhile if it may be partook of briefly, and then vanish. Bearing that idiom in mind, we shall not take an unduly enduring peek.

Outrageous...the culmination of life, life's purpose...my purpose...MY purpose...every nuance, every aspect, requires tantamountly ideal process and circumstance. And yet, I have been met with nothing but hardship time and time again.

To imagine...there should've only been a single vessel. Darling Quori, she would've been of prime genetic stock. To be delivered stillborn...death cannot bring life...death, and life...are we not deceased, of that essence which is my purpose? And Shada...her father was such a gentle man. "Ill-suited?" They give a thrice-damned whit that beloved Shada was a half-breed? That human was of prime cut! Inconceivable! Disposing of such a desperately expensive product over an heritage of species? But...is she dead, or merely in hiding? I wonder...

I learned my lesson. A single vessel, it would seem, offends some faceless pantheon. Three have been crafted. One of some worth...the others, for insurance, I suppose. Henzio will deliver us...a Godkissed child if there ever was one. But -

That's enough of that, for now.

[Quori]

Vast expanses of blighted land. There are but a smattering of locales within the titanic Plaguelands that have been spared the taint of desecration. Amongst this select oligarchy, there is but one piece of land under the Scourge's direct control. This, in and of itself, is a logical fallacy. The undying have no need, no want, of the fruits of nature, or aestheticism. What's more, the fearsome para-Nerubian architecture requires that the foundation be thoroughly saturated with spiritual energy.

It is a grove, a glen of sorts, nestled well within the boundaries of Kel'thuzad's influence. Every last detail has been painstakingly crafted to create a sort of idylic Eden; however, the slavish laborers are slow and clumsy, and it cannot be fully possible for any corpseman to truly remember what the living would crave as Halcyon. How could a man who's warm expect to know a man who's cold? Nevertheless, despite the eerie, jarring sense of being so close, yet infinitely missing the mark, the locale was overall pleasant.

A whispering shade glides upon the greenest grass in Azeroth, clad in a curious garment. The robe is a very rough wool, of a quality little better than burlap. And yet, it seems to have been cut from an aesthetic perspective, lined with cerulean satins. Striny, greasy black hair crowns a skinless skull in abundance, shining pinpricks of light shining within cavernous eye-sockets as though sparkling garnets had been sent within the curving abysses. A paragon of death and decay, moving about a blessed Elysium with a casual familiarity. And why shouldn't he? This was his domain.

There is a child, playing underneath a most curious statue. Several angels, posed in such a way that they could only be taking wing or taking land; oddly, their eyes are closed, as though asleep. The child appears to be a particularly lovely example of humanity, a girl that would've been a treasure to her thorp. Her features are almost too fine, her ears a bit more pointed than would seem normal. Her tresses are wrought of decadent velvet, and bold violets wreath the length and breadth of the thing. Black pearls, perhaps a hundred, speckle the dress' entirety. Her eyes stare with an intrinsic detachment; they are not vacant, but cloudy and subdued.

The Lich comes to a halt before the young girl, kneeling at her side, and whispering in her ear. He is smiling; without lips, the ultimate effect is that of a macabre grimace. She also smiles. Her name is Shada. His, Pholar. Pholar silently muses over the child. A drug-induced near-stupor perpetually wreathes Shada; dulls the damnable failsafe that would drive her mad, without the comfort of euphoric senselessness.

Soon, his project should bear tangible fruit.

((Name Unknown to Me))
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/Serris_Hawk/necro_and_the_lich.jpg

[Quori]

SUPPLY CARAVAN DEVASTATED IN PREMEDITATED ASSAULT!

The lifeline to the harrowing reconstruction of our adored homeland has long been dependant upon the selfless and charitable efforts of the carts ferrying in relief materials and fresh laborers. Two moons ago, such a wagon train was viciously and mercilessly destroyed.

Fifty wagons loaded with medical supplies and stoneworking materials and implements were razed, quite literally, to dust. Not a trace was left, not even the prodigious amount of ash that must have been the byproduct of so savage a blaze; it would appear that it was scooped up, for reasons unknown. The statistics of the destroyed materials and massacred men are only available because they were so thoughtfully inscribed upon a note, stuck to an oak with a stilleto, statistics that precisely matched records kept within the echelons of our enlightened government.

Accompanying these wagons were three hundred horses, fifty wagon drivers, fifty relief drivers, and thirty-five guards. Of these, there is not but a clue as to their fate, but faint stains where their blood fell upon the leaves. Investigation has concluded that they were either incinerated with the convoy, or dragged off, dead or alive.

The loss of these invaluable materials is expected to result in approximately seven months' delay of the construction of municipal edifices, including but not limited to academies, libraries, and museums. Tighter security is highly anticipated, which can only mean more soldiers and fewer convoys. When reached for comment, a representative of the Council declared that Quel'thalas will not humbly bend knee to those that would rape her of her birthright, and that appropriate countermeasures will be inititated.

Although there is always the possibility of a foreign nation hiding at the bottom of this, the bizarre circumstances of the crime scene imply that the culprits were not soldiers of a regular army. At present, the most likely candidate is the Entropic Supplicants, a terroristic cult dedicated to the magnaminously insane ideal of the worship and exercise of incarnate destruction. The organization is led by a mysterious figure known only as Savial, or the Illuminated.

For now, our wounded nation silently waits for the sunrise...perhaps then, some light may be shed upon this tragedy.

((Note - The following image is not intended as an account of the events of the caravan strike; rather, it is meant as an ambiguous depiction of an act of the Entropic Supplicants.))

(("Power and Politics" by Tomm Coker))
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/sharn_gallery/84573.jpg

[Quori]

An imposing figure stands, a sangfroid monolith, quintessential of the passive intimidation of the old school. Pockmarcked plate mail shines a burnt sienna in the setting sun's wavering rays. His greatsword, the length of two armspans, wide as a man's fist and shallowly etched with runic testaments. Thick fur lines a luxurious hide half-cape, slung over one shoulder like a swaggering brigand; the exact origin of the garment is ambiguous, but Tauren seems a likely candidate. The little skin that is exposed would seem to flicker and dance, not terribly unlike a sandswept mirage. Hair, skin, and eyes fluctuate in coloration and tint. Facial markings, such as scars, wrinkles, and moles, fade in and out of being with a whimsical fancy.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/EPIC_Gallery/Gallery1/44274_C1_blackguard.jpg

At this precise moment, Philar stands within a particularly infested swathe of the Plaguelands, a small coven of what were once magnificent maple trees. There is a figure, slightly off to the side, insignificant for the time being. He shall be spoken of later. A third man, wizened, and so tightly wrapped in black robes that his features are vague and undefined, his visage concealed behind a scarlet cowl. He is of bent knee, and gazes down upon the soil. The second figure watches the knight with blatant interest and a pinch of amusement.

Philar's sword remains safely tied within a scabard, clearly designed for practicality rather than ornamentation. Nothing happens...the leaves rustle for but a heartbeat before a ghoul hurtles down from the overhanging branches, attempting to land upon steel pauldrons. It should be noted that the beast moves with a focus and grace very atypical to its kind; now, it begins to thrash about in a manner more in step with a mindless abomination. A clarification must be made known: Philar jerked the thing along with the necromantic finesse becoming of his rank, arranging the specific idiom of the attack. Now, to promote a factor or randomness, he allows his control to wane, giving rise to the murderous craze intrinsic to the nature of such animals.

Flesh is flung from the face of Philar in ragged strips, but the ghoul is far more attentive to the task of finding a balanced niche. The sheer surface of the armor naturally contends with this philosophy. A mailed gauntlet swings into the thing's hip like a pile driver, and it is flung to the side by a few feet. Landing upon a pair of claws, the beast performs a sort of minor cartwheel, and slowly begins to slink about, like a tiger waiting for the appropriate moment to pounce, and rend the flesh. Philar takes a step forward, suddenly, unexpectedly; his opponent snarls and leaps backwards, latching upon the trunk of a nearby maplewood and rapidly ascending. The knight smiles, just a bit, and rockets forward with a terrible urgency, at a speed that, under such prodigious encumberance from so considerable a protection, couldn't be maintained for more than a single slow breath, in and out. A massive shoulderguard leads the charge, and as it pummels into the base of the tree, a low, ungainly creak sounds out, and snappings like jackals in a boneyard. The rotten bark folds with little resistance, and the tree collapses. As for the ghoul, it manages to leap for the boughs of another patch of foiliage before collapsing with the vessel; Philar's hand rockets out with absolute confidence, digging into a bony ankle, and letting the thing's momentum carry a gargantuan swing. The beast's upper torso slams into the fractured stump where a tree once stood; it's ribcage seems to collapse in on itself. As it lays there, quivering, Philar begins to slam his fists into its skull, by raising one hand, closing it, and closing the second over the first, bringing both down like a thunderclap. Soon, he's pounding wet chunks of bone into the leaves.

He has not yet halted his needless assault of the pile of gore when he speaks. It is a slow drawl, not necessarily arrogant, but the tone of a man accustomed to being listened to. "Acolyte. Slaughter one of the meatbag prisoners, and institute advanced metamorphic properties. This warrior was a fine specimen, and I want him replaced quickly."

The crouching figure stands, but does not straighten; he moves from a kneel to a bow in this way. As he scurries off, the second man begins to clap. It is the sort of clap that may or may very well not be mocking in tenor. He is wrapped within a full-length body glove of shining black leather, lined with similar leather straps that have been dyed a dull green. A heavy trenchcoat seems to suck up what little surrounding light with which Sol deigned fit to illuminate the glade; the thing's interior is a black and white checkered pattern. A wild shock of long, green hair flows like a lion's mane, crowning a mask of slightly dulled ivory, set with topaz eyes and a perpetual, sneering grin.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/Serris_Hawk/Joker.jpg

When he speaks, it is a hollow, resonant clash, like metal boots ringing upon crystal.

"Fascinating..he moved like a cat, but with less fear. That your rabble has yet to purge the violet daffodils with such obvious masters of the canopies is exemplary of something...I wonder what it might be?"

"Bishop..I'm returning to my camp. You may wander wherever a wael, such as yourself, might find himself compelled to wander."

[Mortica]

I'm not sure how the story of the week contest works; if the case is that any story may only be entered once, regardless of how complete it is, then please, do NOT enter this story until it's finished.

A story is entered as often as it is updated until it wins. Once it wins, it is not allowed into the contest again for the next month (4 weeks). If after the month is up and the story is still being added to, then it becomes eligible again.

((and woo! I'm too sleep to read all that tonight, but I look forward to doing it at work tomorrow!)

[Mortica]

((

nice..I look forward to reading more.

One thing though..if you are going to post artwork that isn't your own, you should put a quick note in to say who the artist is, if you know. As a writer you wouldn't want some one to take a snippet of your writing and post it below his artwork without mentioning you as the writer, the same courtesy goes for artists as well. Also, some of those pieces are really cool and some people might like to do a google search to find more from them :)

))

[Daala]

((About half of those pieces bear signatures. For the other three, I agree that it's prudent and considerate to list the artist. My fault entirely; I'm afraid I've been quite scatterbrained, as of late! In any case, I'll now rectify that to the best of my ability. Thank you for your comments!))