The Death Warrant

[LordDestructo]

((This is my first ever post per se, be gentle! Let me know if any elements don't mesh with the WoW Lore, so that I can make it more accurate. I'm just trying to put some spice into my boring as all hell character >.>))

Somewhere away from prying eyes--both Alliance and Horde--a gathering of the Scourge was taking place. Creatures of all manners gathered. A display of such grotesquery had not been seen since the battle of Hyjal...unless you count some atrocites performed recently by both sides of this unsteady alliance.

There was an obvious system to this setup, as the more...cognizant scourge arrived with their entourages. All were here for a purpose, to discuss the losses occurring to the scourge all over the lands that they possessed.

This was by no means a meeting of great and terrible personalities. All sublietenants, if you would have it...for if word reached their superiors of these failures, they wouldn't have too much else to worry about but whether or not their death would be painless or not.

No matter which area spoke, their words echoed the same sentiments. They were losing more than they were gaining. The forests of Norther Lordaeron may be the Plaguelands now...but both the Horde and the Alliance were destroying more Scourge than creating. The number of bodies existing to reanimate were growing scarce. Only so much can be summoned in with so few forces on this side of the dimensional rift.

Eventually a decision was reached. What was one of the main obstacles to the advance of the Scourge? The Silver Hand. "We must set an example. We must prove that we aren't as weak as we seem. We need a head."

One particularly smart Necromancer in the crowd had a better idea.

"Why waste such a potent resource?! What of a new Death Knight?"

Splendid! It was agreed. The necromancer was "promoted" on the spot and made a host for a greater Demon to possess his body, forever displacing his soul.

But who? Who would be easy enough to ply? Or at the very least, who would be easy enough to subdue and eventually subvert through more...forceful means?

Early in the month...a Paladin had raged through the Plaguelands, slaughtering many ghouls and destroying a full week's worth of resurrected troops. The main difference? He only had one eye. The hole was not entirely clean...having been taken out by one of the stronger infernals amongst the Scourge. Perhaps there was a loophole. Perhaps there was a foothold into the man's mind.

If not they could always just kill him. A man is only that...a man. No holy man can survive against a few hundred Scourge. Not even Uther.

It was decided.

They would take Brardith McBrardy, or they would kill him.

[LordDestructo]

((I apologize for how broken up it is >.> I'm used to typing in small spurts. If it hurts people's brains, I'll change it.))

[Rhowen-Prea]

(( What, Brar?! Nooooooooo ))

[Shadowspeak]

((welcome to the TNG :lol: ))

[LordDestructo]

The basic stages of the plan were set. All was ready. Each sector was given a good quantity of a poison that would torment the Paladin, straight from the insides of his mind.

If a sector spots the one-eyed man, they were to report immediately, and do their best to get that poison in his veins. If it cost them their lives, oh well. Brardith the Death Knight would be worth hundreds of sacrificed ghouls or acolytes.

It was a special stuff, straight from one of the Cauldrons residing in the Eastern Plaguelands...And of course if the Paladin knew what was going on, it wasn't something that would be easily removed. Surely not by his own hands. The entire plan currently hinged on that poison.

Woe betide the Paladin should he fall to that poison, because his unshakable faith in the Light would save him not. Not when his own mind would rebel against him. Soon he would be ripe for plucking. Ready to rise from the ashes and help conquer his one-time allies. All they needed was one nick on the arm, a single gouge in the right spot. It's too bad none of their minions were smart enough to master the art of subtlety. The reanimation process usually hinders that sort of thing.

[Fenyremir]

( Deleted by poster. )

[LordDestructo]

((yup. he was going nowhere before...now he's REALLY going somewhere! bwahahaha!))

[LordDestructo]

Grrooowolgwh lifted his head up from the cold stone that used to be his own headstone, before master came, anyways. He didn't remember much that came before the cold, and dark. There was one vision of something very bright. But then came the cold. Then came the master.

The master had gone somewhere recently. Grrooowolgwh didn't know. He didn't even really know the word to describe what the master had been doing. Only that it was....was....important! He had given Grrooowolgwh a small thingy full of a different colored thingy. He said that if he saw a tall one-eyed man, he was to get that thingy inside the thingy into that man's delicious blood. NO KILLING. That made Grrooowolgwh mad. Grrooowolgwh liked beating the big peoples and beating them until they went squish and he could eat the squishes. The blood was important to Grrooowolgwh for some reason.

It was amazing Grrooowolgwh remembered all of this, normally all he remembered was that he was hungry. And sometimes the light. The light hurt Grrooowolgwh, though. He didn't like remembering the light. It made him feel like there was something more than the master, and the cold, and the squishies, and blood. But master would make Grrooowolgwh hurt if master had been paying attention to Grrooowolgwh while he wondered that.

But why had Grrooowolgwh woken up? Grrooowolgwh's cold stone was not a place things went. So why was there a rumbling in Grrooowolgwh's stone? Grrooowolgwh lifted his shaggy head, and turned waterless eyes to the landscape he knew to be his place. The place where the stones were, and, most importantly, his stone.

The rumbling happened lots. Four at a time. Grrooowolgwh tried to remember what this meant, but was distracted by the fact that he was so hungry. He contemplated this for maybe three minutes before he heard shouts and growls. It was coming from Grawrwargh's stone. He heard the sounds of something squishy getting hit by something big. He liked squishy noises. Maybe he could eat some of it.

At about ten meters from Grawrwargh's stone, Grrooowolgwh stopped. A giant man was in the process of caving in Grawrwargh's head. He was the man! The uneaty squishie! Grrooowolgwh looked at the thingie that the master had tied to his wrist, because Grrooowolgwh wasn't able to hold things anymore. He had to smash this thingy on one of the uneaty's squishy places. This squishy didn't look so squishy, though...

Well, Grrooowolgwh had cracked dwarves open before...and they were tougher looking than this squishy. He took off at a lumbering dash, his arms flailing and swinging, on a collision course with the man most identifiable to us as Brardith.

Having finished with the last zombie, Brardith couldn't help but notice that there were lumbering footsteps fast approaching the back of his head. Quick as a shot, Brardith spun around and flung his shield up. Grrooowolgwh's vial crashed against the steel of his shield and trickled away. Failure!

Grrooowolgwh found his face not very far from that of Brardith...looking directly into his only remaining blue eye. That eye widened, and Brardith gasped, and said something. Grrooowolgwh only knew gutterspeak, but those sounds...hurt him. Like the light did. Grrooowolgwh flung himself back, readying to smash this squishy. Maybe Grarblearble would have a thingy to put in the man's delicious blood.

"Halt, thou! I knew your face! I knew your hands. I knew you!"

Grrooowolgwh recoiled, and found his near-sightless eyes drawn to the man's face. To that blazing blue eye.

"You knew life, once. You knew hope. You knew warmth, you knew food. You knew shelter. You knew love."

The light came back. Grrooowolgwh recoiled. He saw a field. Not far from his stone, Grrooowolgwh thought. He saw a house. The grass was...green? Yes. There was a laughing coming from the door. Grrooowolgwh didn't want to come nearer to those horrible sounds. There was something in them that he was afraid of. Irena. Irena. Light shone from the door. Slowly it opened more and more, as his hands, fleshed once more, opened it. No!

Inside the house sat someone. Someone near and dear to him. As she turned towards him in his memories, he began shrieking, his first cognizant words since he had been resurrected by the master so long ago.


"NO! NO! NOT HER! DON'T SHOW ME HER!"


The Paladin Brardith looked at the pathetic form shrieking at the top of its shattered lungs. A river of tears ran from his one working eye.

"I knew you, Brother Constantius."

In Grrooowolgwh's memories...Irena turned to him, and she smiled. "Constantius! Welcome home, dearest! I was so worried about you!"

The Light grew to great to stand, and the resurrected Constantius shrieked a bitter howl of loss. Brardith's exorcism nearly blasted him in half.

[LordDestructo]

Brardith slammed against the wall of a random building in the center of Andorhal. His skin was tinged blue, and he shivered. Araj towered over him, floating slightly, and chuckling in victory...a sound that reminded Brardith of bones rolling over headstones tumbling in a river of blood.

"So it comes to this...paladin. We thought we'd have to look for you forever..." Araj chuckled. "Luckily for you, the Scholomance is right around the corner. We'll be done with you before you know it!"

The shock of realization hit Brardith. "You wouldn't DARE! I'm stronger than that! I've lived every day drilling the resistance into my head. You cannot touch me!"

"Ho ho ho...wrong. While you may have had resistance drilled into your head....something else was drilled OUT! And it left a hole..." Cold tendrils reached beneath his eyepatch and caressed the blackened socket that had never looked right since the day it was marred by the touch of that Infernal.

"Never! You shan't have me! I'll die first!" Brardith leapt towards Araj, baring his teeth, swinging his hammer despite the fact that his arm was shattered and frostbitten.

"Ho ho ho, you living bore me. Time to go. Maybe when you come back...I'll be able to have a good conversation with you." Araj gave a fleeting sniff, like a soft gust of snow, and hit Brardith full-force with his boned fist.

"I hope you enjoy your stay at the Scholomance...I've been told it's quite the research facility! I envy not being able to see what they'll do to you..."

[Rhowen-Prea]

(( .... ))

[Lupa]

((You know, that is pretty much how I imagine some undead would pronounce their names, lacking that bottom jaw.."Grrooowolgwh"..))

[LordDestructo]

(( .... ))

((Psh. my vext post will be short and sweet. "Rhowen recieves a package in the mail....there's a human head in it...a patch covering one eye" :P ))

[Barke]

((No don't do it! She is mean enough as is and will put herself in seclusion where no one will see her ever again! *cries* ))

[LordDestructo]

((No don't do it! She is mean enough as is and will put herself in seclusion where no one will see her ever again! *cries* )) ((you get my ear! gweee hee hee))

[LordDestructo]

Brardith slumped into the bed at the Gilded Rose. Footsteps echoed away on the floorboards, down the stairs, out the door.

He'd been found in the Scholomance. With his discovery of the resurrected corpse of former Master Priest Constantius, he rushed to the nearest Silver Hand Mausoleum, fearing that they would be resurrecting some of the greatest heroes of the Alliance to do their bidding. He was relieved to see that Constantius was the only tomb they'd managed to crack the wards on.

Then, Araj came. He remembered something about looking for someone...and then he was being awoken. It wasn't very nice to disturb someone's rest. He angrily turned, oblivious to the fact that his resting place was Krastinov's chambers in the Scholomance, and berated the form standing over him. His eyes compensated, and he recognized a familiar frown. But why would Rhowen be waking him up? Let alone be waking him up to ask questions? Brardith's eye socket throbbed once, and he gritted his teeth. I don't know where I am! Let me rest! That damn woman, why did he deserve this?

His socket throbbed once more. What was he saying? She simply wanted to know. Come to think of it, where was he? Well. He was rather tired. He'd answer her questions later.

Throb.
Throb.
Obey.

[LordDestructo]

Brardith stalked the streets of stormwind every night now. He just never seemed to have as much energy during the day. "Stalked" is really the word to describe it, because even though he was wearing his finest suit, he radiated an intense aura of...bitter loneliness. Brardith didn't know what he was doing, or where he was going. He had been set adrift, and for the first time, he was unhappy about it.

He never quite felt right, either. He felt like there was some sort of oil coagulating on the edges of his consciousness...a grease that was defiling what was just out of his vision.

He ached a little, inside. He felt like another hole had been scooped out of his heart. He'd talked a lot about the scars that he'd taken for her....but he'd never told her that they were purely physical. He ached in so many places, if he thought about it. This one just wouldn't go away.

It was like a thorn sticking out of his heart. As he swam through his strangely...thick...thoughts, he kept on going to that hole. It yawned, it swallowed. It sucked in his day. He just kept thinking and thinking and thinking.

All the while his eye throbbed. Throb. Throb. Throb. He tried to sit down in the Cathedral and pray to the Light to help him...but he got such a splitting headache whenever he entered the doors that he had to leave...and give a bewildered Benediction outside. What could that mean?

Throb Throb Throb.

To hell with meanings! He didn't know! It's natural for people to get some headaches and feel a bit weird when they've been pummeled by Araj, had a short stay in the Scholomance...and been rescued by the least-likely person to find him ever...then be cut adrift and alone by the same bleeding person!

Throb Throb Throb

As he stalked...he looked around.

That water was probably filled with sewage.

Those orphans need a bleeding bath for once.

The stockades...what a bungle! He'd had to go in there and clean up that mess himself!

Why alter the bleeding elemental weave in the spatial portal? If it didn't work last time...I'd rather not have MORE mages sprayed all over Stormwind!

Throb.

Brardith stopped dead in the street. What in the name of all things holy was wrong with him? The water looked pretty blue to him. Those orphans really couldn't control when they had a bath! The Stockades were many men against only a few...they really did the best they could! And Mages will be mages...it's not like he could tell them how to do any better...he could only heal things!

Throb.

It was just so...hard to think sometimes. Too bright. His bleeding eyes hurt.

Eyes?

But he only had one...why would his bleeding other eye hurt if he didn't have another eye?

"That's it. I'm going to sleep...this headache will just cause me to drop dead unless I rest my aching head."

Throb.
Throb.
Throb.
You are alone.

[LordDestructo]

Brardith sat up in his room at the Gilded Rose the next morning...squinting his eye against the light filtering through the open windows.

Too Bright! Throb.

Even though his family had a house in Elwynn, and they were always welcome to stay in the Royal Guest quarters in the Keep, he couldn't leave this room. Every night he paid more and more out of his pocket to stay in that room. This room was special to him now...because it was the last place he tasted hope.

The last place you'll taste hope. Throb.

She stood there, and he sat there. He said this, she said that. The sword was at his stomach, then his throat. She sang to trees once upon a time. He wished he could've heard it.

Life brings betrayal. Throb.

He stayed in that room so he could... so he could.

So you can foolishly remember when you still had something left. Throb.

[LordDestructo]

As he settled back into the bed in his room with a sigh, Brardith reflected on the day.

What a waste. Throb.

He'd wandered around Stormwind...mainly brooding. He was still caught in two days ago. He felt like he was trapped within those few minutes he'd had. That last taste of hope...that final gust that makes the flame dance so joyously right before it is extinguished. That described exactly how he felt. He was caught in that moment, right before he was

Extinguished. Throb.

At one point during his walking, he'd been gazing out at the waters of Stormwind...and when he'd turned to continue his path, she was there...paused in thought, by the bridge to the Mage District. He froze, and time stopped. Should he? Shouldn't he? Could he sneak by? He didn't know.

She has nothing more to say to you. GIVE UP! Throb Throb Throb Throb Throb Throb.

He turned around and walked away in the opposite direction.

[LordDestructo]

Brardith awoke at about midday, and began his usual circuit throughout Stormwind. Nothing usual about it, because his path was never set. Just like he himself was pathless, so was his circuit through Stormwind. No rhyme, no reason.

As Brardith finally returned to the trade district, a hooded man stood in his path.

Throb.

"Have you business with me, sir?" Brardith enquired. "The massster hasss brought you a giffft." said the hooded man. "A fitting weapon....for his new prize...."

Finally. It has come. Throb.


Brardith didn't like where this was going. "I don't quite understand...but I feel you're going to have to explain yourself...right now!" A sneer could be seen from underneath the cowl. "Ssstill resisssting. A pity. Thisss will help you."

With this, the hooded man opened up one part of his cloak, and a hellish red light spilled out. A sword was cradled in the right arm of the stranger, red fire gleaming all down its length. It reeked of malice...and the desire for revenge. "It'sss former owner....wanted nothing more than revenge. Sssadly...he could not have it. Thissss weapon will bring you....great....power."

"Listen, I don't quite know where this is going, but I can't take that from you, it is hardly a weapon befitting a..."

OBEY! Throb.

Brardith visibly flinched, a small cry escaping from his lips, and he lifted a hand to his ruined eye socket, against the stinging pain emanating from it. The hooded man leapt forward, slowly, almost reverently, placed the pommel of the sword against Brardith's other outstretched hand.

His fingers, no longer under his power, closed about the sword, and from there, time stopped. His vision narrowed, and it seemed as though he was looking at his hands, admiring the sword, through a small window seen from twenty feet away. He heard his voice say "Yes...on second thought, this is a fine sword. Why...thank you for such a kind gift!"

And now...your time has come.

"What?! What's going on?!" Brardith tried to say.

Silence, fool. You've wasted your potential away. I shall not. Let us see what a tool of destruction this Paladin...Brardith...can be for me.

[LordDestructo]

It was a clear evening on the waters of the Loch. The Paladin Brardith stood on his island, in the middle of those waters, reflecting. He was under heavy Dwarven Guard. All by his command of course. If he showed the slightest hint of being a different Brardith than the one that these Dwarves had always known from his visits and his stories and his songs, they were to kill him without question.

Brardith knew something coursed in his veins, and was subverting his mind. He'd tried several times to cleanse himself, with no avail whatsoever. He'd spoken to Rhowen, and the terrible thing in his head said things he wished he'd never said.

The day before, he'd woken up with blood on his clothes. His arms were sore, too. The news spoke of a massacre in Elwynn. A path of indsicriminate mayhem in a straight line from the gates of Stormwind almost to the westfall border. He knew this was his doing.

Rhowen thought to propose a trade. She didn't know the things he knew, and he doubted he'd be able to make her see. No one could reign in my Lady Rhowen, he thought with a smirk. Not even from day one.

That brought him here. To the lake in the Dwarven Lands. To his final meditation, and his last plea to the Light. But first, Brardith calmed himself, and focused his voice inwards.

"Come out. Come out and have words with me. I know you are there."

I have no words to speak to a tool that does not obey.

"Well, I have words for you. You'll never take me, now that I know. Not ever."

Still thinking of that love? The girl who will do everything for you but stand by your side?

"Speak not another ill word of her. She will do exactly as she wishes, and it is not for me to control her, for that would not be love, but simply a prison."

And to think...she would try to trade some...chit...for you! You...you could nearly rival Arthas!

His stomach turned. "In the end, she does what she wants. She thinks she can kill two birds with one stone." Brardith sighed inwardly. "She'd be killing two birds...but they wouldn't be the birds she's aiming for."

Well...I suppose the chit could become your Duchess. Assuming we don't break her mind entirely. A cold laugh rolled up and down his spine.

"No, you won't do that to me. I won't let you."

Brardith broke his concentration momentarily, and called to the captain of the Dwarves. "Hey...hey Gulver! I think...I think you need to leave me here. And can...you send these letters, and the deed to this island to the Lady Rhowen Wildblade? Oh...don't cry, man. I'll always be around, you know me...yeah...goodbye for now."

Brardith smiled at the retreating dwarves and focused inwards once more.

"Alas. Just you...and I."

Well, then. Have you anything more to say, puppet? I will use you. I will take you, and break you. And from the ashes will be remade a new Death Knight to rival my most prized possession ever. If you are not Death, then you are Death's right hand. You will bring revenge, and hate, and your loneliness down upon everything that shunned you in this world. You were the only man to stand against this corrupt world. I'll just....give you the means to change it. And then rule it.

"I will never be your tool for destruction. Never so long as I have one last piece of myself to hold on to."

Reached up and closed his hands around the handle of his newfound sword. The sword carrying Balnazzar's hate, and malice, and desire for revenge. All of it lay there, just on the surface, blazing red in the darkness of this night. He lay the point across his chest, then drove it in as far as he could, until it got caught on one of his back ribs, and he couldn't shove it past. He gasped in pain as his pierced heart tried to move on, and he fell backwards, the huge sword standing up from his chest like a flaming monument. A single hand stretched towards the night sky, and his lips parted.

"You'll never take from me the sound of her song. I can hear it now...."

With that, Brardith passed away.


----


A deep exhalation pushed itself out of Brardith's lungs. When the air left his lips, it was frosted, as though the exhaler existed in a personl winter that not even this warm Loch Modan night could pierce.

Brardith's body stood, and drew the blade out of its chest. It placed a hand there, and concentrated for a bit, and the would closed up neatly, the heart beating again. The man chuckled for a bit, then laughing out loud, a deep and booming laugh that promised the death of all things. He turned Nortth and began walking.

"The man should know that when you recieve the Scourge's gift, you can transcend most fatal wounds. You gave me the opportunity to attack, fool. And now this body is mine. Brardith shall forever be locked away, never to return. In his place, I shall bring the Void."

[Rhowen-Prea]

(( .... ))

[Lovely]

((Brar, please tell me you didn't just reroll horde!!!! <3))

[Keraph]

((And if you did, contact me /nod You may not know me, but I know you.

One by one, I'll collect you all! Bwahaha!))

[Shadowspeak]

((Yes... come to the dark side.. *holds up hand to lovely in a choking motion*

Damnit, thought that would work... im a priest after all...))

[Keraph]

((HEY! If she's anyone's, she's mine. I got her the lightforge barcers >:O

Wait...Clys probably has dibs. Damn her!))

[LordDestructo]

((No, I'm not rerolling. Technically, I belong to the scourge, who are at war with both sides. Anyways, he isn't dead...or undead. He's been gifted with the stamina of a Death Knight. They don't need silly things like hearts to keep on squishing things. Anyways, he's going to go on causing problems within the alliance who has no idea what he is. Except for Rhowen. He'll have to avoid her...or kill her! =D))

[Keraph]

((...or kill her! =D))

((Not before me, damn you, not before me!!))

[LordDestructo]

((psht. try stopping her ex-wannabe-stalker turned evil death knight who hates everything!))

[Keraph]

((psht. try stopping her ex-wannabe-stalker turned evil death knight who hates everything!))

((I'll gladly defend her life from you.....to take it myself! I deserve it dammit, I've stayed my hand for far too long XD))

[Rhowen-Prea]

(( Fhenny'll have a fit. ))

[LordDestructo]

((psht. I'm daring enough to commit near-suicide...who knows what I'll do next! *rolls eyes all crazy-like*))

[LordDestructo]

It was early morning in the Plaguelands when a lone figure emerged from the trees marking the border of the Hinterlands, and marched towards Andorhal.

Araj had just finished poring over the latest plundered tomes, and was busy devising a way to crack those accursed Silver Hand wards when one of his bodyguard Abominations went flying past his door, a dark form thrusting a sword through it.

"Hmmmm. Perhaps something interesting, finally."

Araj went outside to discover a very well-dressed young man ripping the heads off of the last of his Ghoul battalion. Despite his well-dressed appearance, his mouth was fixed in a ghastly mix between a sneer and a snarl.

"You need better bodyguards, Lich."

"Oh ho ho! The upstart returns. I suppose you bring me something other than a polite hello?"

Brardith quickly swung the giant sword off his back and drove it through what remained of Araj's lower body, pinning him to the wall.

"Simply a....thank you. For what you began, you see. I've discovered a whole new world." His grin would've sent armies running for the hills, screaming in terror.

Araj sighed and leaned forward, placing his hands upon the sword hilt, and wrenching it free.

"Finally...an interesting conversation! I was right about you! Come...let us discuss things, my young charge. You have much to discover....."

[LordDestructo]

Doctor Theloen Krastinov was back at work inside of his laboratory. He rubbed his eye, and tried to refrain from picking at the stiches holding the long incision down his chest closed. Thank the Legion they'd resurrected an ex-priest who still retained a bit of ability...but that damn woman would pay. He'd remember her face forever if he had to.

Theolen was hard at work dissecting one of the recently dead ghouls, trying to figure out how to slow the destabilization in the next batch of plague, when a chill swept through the room.

"Theolen! Theolen! I've brought you a wonderful gift! Come see what your work has wrought!"

Theolen whirled around. "Oh! Master Araj, if I'd known..." He stopped in midsentence, his mouth agape. There was a shape next to Araj. Darker than dark, like a shadow who dressed himself inside of a nether portal. The head lifted, and one ice blue eye stared at him from a shifting sea of black cloth and tasteful cloakery.

" And so I return...Doctor. I'm sorry I was gone for so long. I've brought you a...gift to make up for it." Brardith smiled his wicked smile, like a shark who knows that he is in a sea of goldfish, and dropped a large black sack on the table. A small puddle began to form underneath it as soon as he set it down.

Theolen opened the sack and looked inside. "This...this is a rare specimen! Where in the world did you find it?"

"Now now...there are some things which are just better left unsaid, wouldn't you agree?"

Theolen swallowed. "But...why this?"

" I have a final favor to ask of you, Theolen. I think you know what you need to do. You must complete that which was started.

Theolen swallowed. "I...I suppose you want to get started right away, sir?"

Araj spoke softly, like the first breath of snow heralding a long winter. "Take your time, Theolen. My charge may not have infinite patience...but we both understand how critical this will be. Death Knight Voidbringer must have his completion, so that his reign of suffering can begin."

[LordDestructo]

Krastinov deposited the scalpel into the bloodstained plate next to him, and shook out his hands once. "It is done, Duke. You may stand up, if you wish. I'd be careful about healing it using those...Light powers."

Brardith carefully, and gracefully, stood up from his position on Krastinov's operating table, and looked in the mirror to verify what had been done. He nodded once, satisfied, and reached an arm out. Krastinov obediently placed his eyepatch into the waiting hand, and Brardith replaced it, making sure it was loose, but tight enough to stay on in the heat of battle.

"I approve, Krastinov. You do excellent work. I do...apologize for what that girl did to you. She can be rather...rash, when given the proper loophole. She has an obsession with doing everything the worst way. It rather...lacks finesse."

"I'm unworthy for that sort of praise...I simply perform as ordered, waste no time on me." Krastinov was eager to get his creation out of here. He'd become something far worse than he could've ever had nightmares about.

"Make no mistake. You are one of the few that the scourge allow the privilege to run free, with their brain still intact. In this case, it has proved useful. My praise is what is keping you from becoming yet another faceless ghoul."

Krastinov dropped to his knees in horror, looking around the room in a panic, and finally lowering his gaze to his twitching hands.

"Yes...you fear it, don't you? The inability to think. Never again being able to break a man through small touches...incisions, or gouges. To never again feel your hands slick with blood. To never again watch the things you've created brutally slaughter in the name of the Scourge. To have everything you know, all of your skills, stripped away...rendered useless...and replaced with a void."

"Yes...you see...I know all about the void. I know all about it. To this corrupt world that slowly broke me...cast me aside...to all the people who simply waked past my crushed body, to all of the people who would never stand by me...I will see their homes burned...I will see their eyes go dark with the same fear you show me. I will see the light slowly leave as your plagues destroy their minds and replace it with nothing but the Void."

"I am Duke Brardith Voidbringer, herald of woe and solitude. Master of despair, revenge, and malice! To this world that abandoned me, I shall now become the Anathema of it! I shall negate it!"

A familiar chill swet down Brardith's spine. "Yes, Lich? What news do you bring?"

"Well, young master, there's been a group of Dwarves spotted in the vicinity...probably just some Wildhammer recruits who hunted a bit too far...but nonetheless, I think they shall prove a good proclamation to the Alliance as to who they now face. What say you?"

" Methinks...that they shall be slain."

---

MURDER IN HINTERLANDS!

Read all about it here!

Just recently, a party of Wildhammer Dwarves was found slaughtered just inside the borders of the Hinterlands. They were all brutally murdered, save for one, who was found with all of his limbs completely removed...each cut carefully cauterized.

All the dwarf has been able to say now is words of unspeakable terror, of a man who slaughtered three comrades in a single stroke, beheading each of them.

The same man apparently then used the bodies of the slain dwarves to pick off men that were trying to escape and send word for help, spearing them on his sword, and flinging them atop the runners.

As his tale came to a close...the dwarf began shrieking "The void! The void! Light save me from that man! He had an eye...that was like ice! When...when he cut off my limbs, I could only stare into it...because in that eye lay terror! Emptiness! Light, I wish he'dve killed me rather than look into that eye!"

The Ironforge Guard has put a lookout for a dark, one-eyed man wielding a sword heavy enough to cut through three people. The Wildhammers are in complete disarray, never has such a large party been so easily dispatched, with nearly no word at all.

If you hear any word, rumor, or whispers of this self-proclaimed "Duke Voidbringer", notify the closest Alliance outpost as soon as possible!

[LordDestructo]

(( I so love evil monologues...sorry for the overboard, there))

[Fhenrir]

(( Fhenny'll have a fit. ))

(( H-hey, leave me out of discussions I have nothing to do with!

Also, Brar, what sword did you get? I demand a link! OEB, Zin'Rohk, what? ))

[LordDestructo]

Sharpening his sword inside an abandoned house in Caer Darrow, Brardith Voidbringer found his anxiety unbearable. He longed to just rush in and destroy, to sate his need for...revenge, on something. It was terribly vexing. Araj had scolded him earlier that while it was important to utilize one's grudges...you can't let a base urge drive you, lest you revert back to the useless hunk of flesh that you so recently transcended.

But why was he so damn restless?

Brardith impatiently slammed his sword down into the floorboards. Curses! He needed to do something! Just then, a voice spoke to him...Araj, communicating via their connection shared in Theolen's mutagen.

"You must calm yourself. Surely they taught you meditative excercises in your former life. Some things can still be of use from that life."

"As you wish, Lich. Mayhap I'll think of something to do while you plan my next sortie."

"That is...the idea."

Brardith harumphed and leaned back in the squeaky, untended to chair, and focused, searching for the dark core inside of him, the void he both feared and loved. His gift...his vengeance, to those who had wronged him....yes.

As he moved deeper within the core, he found layers within it that he did not recognize. Things that disturbed him. He moved closer to one.

(A flash of a bright, but wicked smile set on a beautiful face.)

He backed away, and attempted to escape this deeper layer, this unsettling tangle of voices, and names and places, but it seemed to follow him, like a dog that has attached itself to a passerby who gave it attention. More and more visions assaulted him, sights and sounds set free by the frantic crashing of his mental presence through his innermost core.

(The feel of strings beneath his fingers, the watchful presence of an audience...tense the vocal chords...and release, creating music.)

(The blinding pain as a Rogue slid a dagger between his ribs. "Get back, get back! Save yourself!")

(The dank smell of sweaty hog flesh, the rank odor of razormane blood. The sound of two blades slicing through flesh. Beauty in motion.)

(A silvery laugh, cold and distant, yet so dear.)

(A room full of people. Many he did not know. Raucous laughter echoed amongst polite conversation. He was nervous, he'd shined his armor and polished it to reflect as much as he could...but he still thought he looked small and afraid. He hadn't been to something like this in many years...mayhap he should practice before asking her to dance?)

Her? No!

(A red dress. The scent filling his nose. Stand a polite distance away, and give your most dashing bow.)

(Distress! Time slowed down. Leap, damn you! Leap! A stinging pain in his arm, and you crash to the ground. Examine for burns. She's unhurt, success!)

(The clink of glasses echoing from under the floorboards. Bloodstained armor. Throb Throb Throb. Everything has a price.)

(What would you have me do, Brardith?)

(Brardith?)

(Brardith?)

(...Rhowen.)

A voice lifts softly from the tangle, and it shakes his core utterly.

"Where am I?...what is the place? Where are, you Rhowen?!"

----

"NO!!!"

Brardith Voidbringer bolted upright from his chair, drawing his sword out of the floorboards.

"It's her. It's always been her. She's been in my way from the beginning. I can't rest until she's gone. Until I can no longer remember her voice..."

(Her Voice!)

"...her smile..."

(You've a beautiful smile...)

"...every last bit of that wench."

(The Lady!)


Brardith concentrated inward, to a different part of himself, and felt the contact. "Lich!"

"Yes, young master...?"

"The woman is my problem. The Kaldorei who assaulted Theolen. Take her face from his memories if you must. Send the Naxxramas to find her. I don't care what it takes, but she must be found if I am to have the balance you seek. While she still draws breath, the void weakens. I must find her, and dispose of her. Find Rhowen Wildblade."

[Rhowen-Prea]

(( <3 ^___^ You're not online for me to smother MSN, so I will do it here! Man, she's always in trouble, and now hypothetically some people are supposed to be spying on her and others are going to be kidnapping her.... ... ))

[LordDestructo]

Meditation. A slow fall inside of himself. A delicate dance through the halls of his consciousness. Every meditation was now not only a battle to calm himself, but to keep that little white tangle smothered inside the center of the Void. That odious man! Stay where you belong!

".....ster....massssster......massssster...."

Brardith Voidbringer's eyes quickly slid open, and focused on the barely noticable form in front of him.

"masssssster....the eye has seeen. the eye has heaarrrrrd. the eye has founnnd."

Brardith quickly stood up and picked up his sword, cradling it for moment, then slinging it onto his back. "You have served faithfully. Tell me where she is."

The Eye of Naxxramas floated forward a little bit, and whispered words into the night air.

"Of course. She would go there. It appears she, too, finally remembers what it was like to have nothing. Very well then. I shall make the feeling...permanent."

"Massster....the eye has seen more.......massster.....others search for the girl...."

A cold blue eye glared silently at the Eye. "Then I must either find her first, or bring them the void as well."

[LordDestructo]

((PS...My sword is only a crappy Demonshear. But Balnazzar drops it when you kill him...so it works!))

[LordDestructo]

Brardith stomped around Azshara.

"DAMN Those eyes! They told me they had seen her! If they had seen her...WHY IS SHE NOT HERE?!"

In his rage, the Voidbringer drew his sword and blasted apart a tree that may have been there for thousands of years.

(She used to sing to trees...)

Brardith winced, and stepped back from the shattered tree, shaking his head as if to clear it. Things must be finished, and they must be finished without mistakes. He would make it back to the nearest safe have and command the Eye to redo its search...after all, it was their terrible error. It would be finished....soon.

(...my dearest...)

[LordDestructo]

In the end, he returned to his island. He tore a line of massacre through Ashenvale to distract the parties hunting him, and snuck back to his island through their own harbors. For him...it all began here.

He may have given that (dearest) wench the deed to it, but it didn't matter much...he'd pry it from her fingers if she had it on her.

(I've seen her gushing blood, and stopped the flow with my own two hands.)

"Damn him...I have to get rid of him and her both. They must die. The void must be all. In order to herald the void I must BE the void. I will kill her."

(I've seen her lying dead at my feet. Barov's sword lodged in her. She went down snarling, and almost took his head with her. I remember...)

"I ignored my wounds and fought....fought for her."

Curse it all!

Brardith slammed a gauntleted fist into his chest, silencing his words and bringing himself down on one knee.

I need the void. I need the silence. I need my vengeance.

Brardith drew his sword and stuck it into the ground at the center of his island, and kneeled with both hands on the pommel. Hishead bowed, and his eye closed, and soon the dark quiet invaded his mind, channeled through the hate of his sword. His lips twitched, an abomination of a smile.

( She has a smile like an a--)

"THERE!"

Saw the flash of light from the void, and in his mind, he lashed out, binding it with chords, threads of heavy black silk, weighing it down, cocooning it. The memories flopped like a man missing a lung, trying to breath, but having the breath only escape through the hole. Slowly it began to lose the fight...its thrashing growing less, the thoughts growing still.

( I...want....to....see....he---)

Brardith boomed a laugh as the last syllable rang out, the mental equivalent of a death rattle. He'd done it! No more righteousness! No more foolish giving. He'd given enough. He'd been walked over enough.

It was time for him to take.

Now he was ready. He would sit, he would wait....and when the eyes brought him his information, the void would come on swift black wings. He would take away the last hope for that tiny tangle, those foolish thoughts. He would end it.

[Rhowen-Prea]

(( You know, I don't know what you worry about. ))

[LordDestructo]

((*shrugs* last night was a weird night))