Vynlarion stood upon the precipice of the gateway to the icy planet below. A curious wind blew his silvered hair around and he found it to be both a dreadful feeling as the polluted air caressed his face and a sign of great comfort, as though this malefic force had some sort of empowering property. Over the icy surface of the planet below, wispy thin clouds sped over the surface, warning of a horridly intense wind that scraped the land pure of any forms of life. The Nathrezim who had mistakenly taken him for an Burning Legion prospective, Ranathos, as Vynlarion had learned the creature’s name to be, had instructed Vynlarion that though the planet below, introduced to him as Kulthan, appeared to be bereft of life, it was teeming with a particular race; the Tel’thak, in its northernmost continent who had gained the interests of the Burning Legion’s overlords, the Nathrezim, for their magical mastery and their reckless abandon in using it.
“You must allay their concerns over our intentions,
Vynlarion. The Tel’thak’s religious caste holds a zealous hold over them. Their
powerful magisters have created a complex web in which they operate their
magicks in secrecy… You must force them to rise to power. Afterward, they will
look to us for aid. You will disguise yourself as a patron god of theirs and…
guide them.” Ranathos spoke in his eery dark voice, low and corrupted with
demon magic. His cruel verdant eyes settled on Vynlarion, who simply nodded. “If
you fail us… you will die a thousand deaths, elf. I intrust you with this
mission because of what our sources in Quel’Thalas tell us of you… And what
they say is promising indeed… Now go.” The winged creature finished his
thoughts and ushered Vynlarion forth with a clawed hand on the pauldron.
Now donning darkened armour of the Burning Legion, Vynlarion
stood looking as a paragon of evil. Thick black plates encased his body and a
long, tattered cloak fell over his shoulders and down his back. Upon the
breastplate of his chestplate a tabard much akin to those seen on the former
Illidari of the Outland. His pauldrons were ended with cruel spikes that rose
to the height of his head and were adorned with various words written in the
demonic language Eredun. Moreover, his entire plated person was covered with
dark violet and green runes which glowed with malefic purpose ever so often.
Finally, strapped to his back was a long greatsword. Relatively narrow in
width, the blade was lean and well suited to the Blood Knight’s grip, who found
the sword oddly comfortable in his hands. Taking a deep breath, he took a step
over the edge of the rocky floating island in the Nether and into the malachite
coloured snaking tendril of magic that led down to the planet below.
The breath was knocked out of his lungs as he came in
contact with the gateway to the planet below, and a nauseating sense of vertigo
took Vynlarion as he seemingly tumbled through space and time. Weightless and
rocketing downward, panic struck at his nerves and he flared his arms outward, futilely
grasping for something to stop himself or at least orient himself in some
position. However, nothing could be found to grab and he continued his descent.
Minutes passed and Vynlarion slowly grew accustomed to the ever falling and
tumbling experience that was the portal to the planet below. However, after a
moment, a blinding white landscape began to fill his once blackened vision
below him, and he found himself to be squinting instinctively. Another minute
passed and incredibly abruptly he stopped with jarring speed. Somehow landing
on his feet, a freezing wind colder than the icy winds of Northrend attacked
his person. He heard the plate armour on his person groan as he came to a halt
and was assaulted by the freezing effect of the climate. Moreover, he instantly
sunk roughly a foot into packed snow and found himself largely immobilised.
The sun, a foreign and oddly white object, hung low in the
sky but cast bright light into the almost completely blue sky above, save for a
few wispy clouds he had seen a few minutes previous above the planet. Cupping a
hand, he shielded his eyes from the sun’s gaze as it reflected off the snow
around him. In every direction the frozen tundra stretched on uninterrupted. No
signs of life could be seen; no trees, no small animals, no towns, nothing. Complete
and utter desolation. Vynlarion hummed to himself a dull note, before thinking
to himself ‘Indeed, if there is any life
on this frozen hell whole it will be underground. Building above ground would
be madness, the amount of effort it would take to keep warm above ground would
be ridiculous.’ With that, he peered around more carefully. The most
logical means of avoiding foes both wild and civilised would be to make one’s
undercities’ entrances as nondescript as possible. ‘If I cannot go to them, they must come to me…’ Surmising this to be
the best course of action, Vynlarion decided to use the Light, which had
strangely returned to him since leaving the Twisting Nether he noted passively,
he spread his freezing cold limbs outward, shivering.
His breath came out in a grey smoke before him, the little
clouds expanding before becoming invisible to his eyes. He steadied the shaking
of his chest from the freezing cold and flexed the muscles in his arms, forcing
blood to rush to them and warming them slightly in the process. The Light
trickled out weakly from his extended arms at first, before strengthening their
streams and pouring outward as he sought to find anything abnormal, something
to signify life somewhere. The Light began to create a complex invisible net
around him which expanded out. Many minutes passed as Vynlarion continued his
spell methodically, doing his best to ignore how his long ears stung bitterly
from the wind that tossed his torn cloak to and fro and which seemed to
perpetually leave him shivering despite his best efforts. After some time, his
web, which had grown quite large and encompassing thanks to his sole efforts on
expanding it, gave a magical snag on something to the northwest and so
Vynlarion dropped his arms and ceased his spell. However as he did, he felt the
slight prodding of arcane magic at his spell before he cancelled it. Turning
northwest, Vynlarion set out for the abnormality.
His heavy plate greaves sunk deeply into the ground as he
trudged through the endless tundra. They crunched under the fallen snow with a
repetitive sound that reminded the elderly man of the horrific aftermath of the
Third War of all things…
Before Vynlarion was
the toppled towers of the Sunfury Spire. The seat of the king of Quel’Thalas
was destroyed and crumpled backward into the northern sea, wherein a path of
death had been carved in ice over the vast expanse toward the Isle of Quel’Danas.
All around him Scourge surged, attacking bloodied and downhearted Quel’dorei
like himself. The king had fallen as the siege of Silvermoon City had reached
its climax in the Bazaar and it was there that the citizenry of the immortal
jewel of a city had seen Ranger General Sylvanas Windrunner’s immortal soul,
tortured and withered, among the ranks of the Scourge. Her ghostly face was a
ghastly horror of misery and torment, and as her ephemeral limbs struck down
fleeing elves, she wailed “Please… free me!” Over and over without reprieve.
And now the city’s capital building was destroyed, much like the rest of the
city. Fires raged all around and the thick black smoke of them was choking off
all life.
Vynlarion saw, to his
horror, an elven mother and mere babe in her arms struck down by a Death
Knight, as he had learned to address the black riders, who with merciless
cruelty ran his sickened blade through the child who let out such a bloodcurdling
cry that Vynlarion himself shuddered. The child’s mother echoed the baby’s cry
with one of her own of torment and horror unknown as she watched the child
snatched out of her arms by dark magic and buried on the blade before her. Flicking
his runeblade to the side with a smooth movement, the child was thrown into the
bloodstained streets and the woman crumpled over the ruined body, sobbing
profusely, before she too was impaled and laid still over the corpse of her
child.
Vynlarion found rage
unchecked roar through him at that moment as he let out a battle cry full of
pain and anguish as he charged the Death Knight with all the hatred he could
muster. His broadsword, nicked, dented and covered in fetid gore, was brought
high into the air and with unholy speed of his own, the elder Blood Knight’s
blade made contact with the dark steed of the Death Knight, beheading it with
the sickening slice of dead muscle, sinew and bone. The beast crumpled forward
and the undead knight was brought forth tumbling, before righting himself and
charging at Vynlarion. Runeblade and broadsword met in a flurry of arcane and
unholy magicks which arced into the air angrily. “You will die, you undead
craven!” Vynlarion roared as he bore down on the man, only to find the unholy
strength of the man as great as his own, and the two remained locked there,
blades shuddering with resiliency.
“Never, elf… the
master will have this land as he had Lordaeron!” The Death Knight responded in
a sickeningly hollow sounding voice, devoid of personality altogether. The
undead man released his blade and swung low for Vynlarion’s right thigh, however
he too brought his broadsword into the ground, blocking the man’s attack,
before releasing his left hand from the hilt and drawing a knife from his belt,
burying it in the Death Knight’s face. The undead rider reeled backward, hands
wracking at his face as the arcane imbued knife burned into his skull. Uttering
an equally horrific scream to the ones he had wrought from babe and mother
beforehand, he slid the place from his eye socket, only to find Vynlarion right
before him.
“Die.” Vynlarion spoke
coldly as he swung his broadsword to the side, the wind sounding from the swift
movement in a shriek, before bringing it back in the same direction where it
connected with the Death Knight’s exposed neck, where it slide through easily,
beheading the man. The dread rider’s head toppled forth and fell to the ground,
soon to be followed by the body of the Death Knight. However Vynlarion would
not allow such and brought his blade upward and back down. With the shriek of
air followed by the cacophony of metal being sliced in two, the body of the
death knight was dismembered into two halves which fell to either side
lifelessly. Vynlarion hurled himself around and discarded his gore covered
broadsword with the clamber of metal on cobblestone. Scooping up the fallen
mother, he pointedly ignored staring at the corpse of the child. The woman’s
face was frozen in such horror that the grizzled warrior Vynlarion found
himself hard pressed to not be in shock at. Her eyes, wrenched open permanently,
had still tears remaining to trail down her face. Her mouth was open in the
look of pure agony and her hands were still outstretched, even in death still
reaching outward for her fallen child.
Overhead, Vynlarion
felt through his magicked person, the magicks of the Sunwell abruptly cease to
flow completely. The environmental shield that protected Quel’Thalas from the
northern elements of the Eastern Kingdoms continent was suddenly nonexistent,
and snow began to fall from the cloudy sky above. Vynlarion looked up in shock
as he saw the frozen precipitate fall onto the bloodied homeland of the
children of the Highborne, and a great feeling of hopelessly swallowed him up
as he realised that Arthas Menethil and his Scourge had reached the Sunwell.
Laying the dead mother in the middle of the street, he closed her eyes with two
armoured fingers and placed the body of her child in her arms. Removing his
cloak off his back, once pristine and white, now covered in dirt and blood, he
placed it over the woman and child, covering their gruesome wounds in a
malicious looking blanket, painting, though a less gruesome, still an
incredibly lamenting picture. The snow began to fall with more ease as
Vynlarion stood, realising that the horrors of the invasion had only begun to
settle on their now broken people.
Vynlarion shuddered deeply, either from the tundra cold
around him or the gruesome memory he was unsure, but he pressed forward with
renewed vigor. Determined to find these Tel’thak, whom he believed, even if
they were not powerful enough to give him the ability to find Lathinal, at the
very least could further his agenda via the Burning Legion to find her. The
snow began to grow shallower as he continued on, and he realised that he was
walking onto a hill of some sort. His brow furrowed in thought as he contemplated
the significance of such. He had not encountered any change in snow depth up
until this point. Moreover, the snow underfoot felt icier and from that he
surmised that there had to be heat under him. Deciding to act on the instinct
that tugged at his mind, he extended a hand and channeled as much as Light as
he could in a fiery burst of magic. Moments passed as the once head sized ball
of golden flames expanded and Vynlarion contained it with two outstretched
hands. Sending the flaming ball of Light into the ground before him, it
exploded out with such heat and intensity that the snow was turned liquid and
splashed outward like a tidal wave in all directions. However, thanks to the
miserable freezing cold of the environment he was in, midair, the water froze
into a frozen sculpture of ice in mid explosion.
Annoyed, the Blood Knight was met with no alien creatures
foreign to his mind. Simply the howl of the wind, the perpetual sheets of snow
being blown at him, and the desolate landscape all around him. Turning around,
he began to head off the mound, deciding it to be nothing more than a
terrestrial anomaly, possibly a hot spring frozen over. However the feeling of
a sharp object scraping against his tabard surprised him as he turned his head
to find a creature holding a spear to his chest. As though it were one amorphous
blob of white and grey fur, with no feet to speak of, it held stumpy arms
outward, a spear in one and in the other a curious looking, hidebound book. The
creature’s face was hidden by long fur that swayed from side to side.
Underneath, all Vynlarion could see was a black façade, evidently some sort of
extraneous skin that shielded its face from the merciless elements. Vynlarion
relaxed immediately, the amusing visage of the creature growing a smirk of the
old lord’s face. The creature uttered a few words in a tongue Vynlarion didn’t
understand, however recalling one of the advents of the demonic armour he wore,
he pressed a hand on his lower back into a hidden rune, and after the annoying
hum of magic ceased, he could understand the alien language, for the Nathrezim
had devised a means of understanding alien languages long ago and created a
rune from their ability therein.
“Greetings, Tel’Thak of Kulthan. I am Vynlarion, the High
Crest of Kulthan.” Vynlarion deftly made up a clever title whose ambiguity left
much for the listener to interpret. The creature jerked its spear backward at
the sound of Vynlarion perfectly speaking its language. The creature looked
back to others that quite abruptly appeared around him from under snowy banks
and uttered a few words lost in the howling wind. After a moment, one of the
creatures who seemingly walked atop the snow piled high looked at Vynlarion
closely before falling over, almost like a kneel but with both knees. Placing
its stubby arms under itself, Vynlarion smirked ever so slightly before, with
the power of the holy Light, floated atop the snowy wasteland and spread the
Light around himself like a glorious golden cocoon which encompassed the
creatures before him. “Indeed, children of Kulthan, I am the High Crest, he who
watches over the night and lends safety to the die. Heed my power, for I have
come to aid you in your glorious quest of virtue.” He spoke loudly and with
fine grandeur as if he were speaking Thalassian, and though the foreign tongue
still felt odd and uncomfortable in his mouth. The creatures slunk lower and
Vynlarion smirked a dark smirk.
Yes.
He was a God to them.
This would be easy.
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