[RP Plot] The Founders: Chapter 3

[Greyseer-earthen-ring (Greyseer)]

(( Welcome to The Founders, a small community RP plot. If this is the first you’ve heard of it, this is an RP plot crafted similarly to how I’ve done plots for the Netherbane in the past. They usually last the length of an expansion, give or take a couple of months on either end, and serve primarily as a pervasive backdrop story for involved characters. Each interval progresses the background events, which, in turn, shape in-game events. Individual events are then scheduled as characters connect with each other and make their presences known.

If you wish to be involved, I would suggest the use of an RP mod (not required, but useful) like TRP3. If you have one, feel free to put “LFRP [The Founders]” in your OOC section so others know you want to be a part of it!

Previous chapter beginnings are still posted here, to the official Earthen Ring forums, so you’re welcome to go back to individual chapters to read up. If you want to insert one of your characters into the event, simply reply to the chapter post appropriate to the character’s time of entry. Just add a vignette that aligns with the events of that post!

Yes, “back-posting” is welcome.

---

The Story Thus Far

Azeroth has been struck by three mysterious claps of thunder, each roughly one month apart from the other. Majority of the populace took little notice, thinking the sounds nothing more than the noises of weather and war.

The first thunderclap came with a sense of foreboding and dread, but not much else (Prologue). The second thunderclap came with a message–a pleading whisper–inviting and repulsive at the same time (Chapter 1). The third thunderclap came with the disappearance of a handful of people. These souls, connected through no obvious trait of personality or person, vanished before our very eyes, leaving only their material belongings behind (Chapter 2).

In addition to the ominous thunder, Azeroth has been facing a most peculiar invasion. Tiny worms, purple-silvery in color, have been manifesting across the world. Some have even reported seeing the small creatures merge their wriggling masses together to form larger entities, but these reports have largely been discounted as hallcination or fantasy.

There are groups and organizations attempting to unravel this mystery, with the vanishing event pushing more and more individuals into trying to find the source for these strange occurrences.

It has been roughly one month since the last clap of thunder. ))

–

We were waiting for it, this time. The six of us stood at the apex of one of the towers, as if daring the thunder to strike us down. Standing close around our artifact of power, a device recently crafted to test our own theories about the sourceless thunder, we believed ourselves ready.

The only one missing was Telnara, who had spoken of some breakthrough regarding the worms. She was becoming more and more obsessed with the creatures, and believed that she had figured out their origin, if not their purpose. We left her to her studies. Who were we to interfere with progress?

The rest of us formed a circle around the large construct we had dubbed the ‘void clock.’ We had configured it to predict the next clap of thunder, but knew that the calculations were only theoretical. It had been theorized that the explosion of sound came with a wave of energy, and the clock was built to help capture that energy. However, there was already much uncertainty around the events, so we would need to test our theory. Today, we hoped to do just that. The spells and incantations had been prepared, and now we merely had to wait.

I looked to my left, and saw Atrieziya, a relatively young draenei woman. Her slender hand rested in mine, but her luminous gaze was cast upwards in hesitant expectation of what was to come. To my right was Latrimor, another kaldorei arcanist, younger than myself, but with far more practical experience. His grip was tense, but steady. He, too, was gazing upwards in anticipation. The rest of the team formed a complete cirle: Atrim, Kolarya, and Sammaesh. All had locked hands.

The void clock stood in the center of us, a hollow ticking that beat rythmically to the crafted pulses of arcane energy emanating from the crystal at its heart. The pounding of our own lifesblood began to fall into sync with the device as we waited for what was to come. It felt like hours, even though we knew it was to be only minutes.

The thunder came a few moments sooner than I expected, and was the loudest it had ever been, yet. The stone beneath my feet cracked as if stuck by an explosive energy. The void clock in front of me shattered, its delicate gears and clockworks stripped and snapped as if hit with a warhammer.

I cannot remember if I had let go of Atrieziya and Latrimor, but when I opened my eyes again, they were no longer there. My heart sank when I noticed that the others had gone, too, leaving behind only their clothing and gear–their inorganics. A glass eye rested atop one of the piles. I never realized that Atrim had lost one of his.

The thunder had taken them all this time.

I reached out towards where my companions had been mere heartbeats before, and that was when I first noticed the mark. Upon the back of both of my hands was a symbol, etched into my skin like some unwanted wound. It was in the form of two snakes intertwined around each other in a figure-eight. Each one was eating the other’s tail.

As I looked more closely, however, I noticed that I was wrong. They were not snakes, but worms. One was silver, and the other purple. And they were not so much consuming one another as they were growing out from the other’s mouth. Then they moved, slithering along the figure-eight path in a dizzying spiral until they had swapped places. My stomach turned, and I vomited on the cracked stone flooring.

Then the visions came again…

-Excerpt from “The Founder’s War”, author unknown

* * *

[Rephaia-earthen-ring]

The lightforged paladin stands on the small rise, overlooking the Horde platform growing its way out of the shoreline of Darkshore like a tumor made of steel, rivets, and garish paint. She is frowning. “I received your message and traveled here as swiftly my warframe would allow. What about this did you wish to show me?”

The figure next to her is like a mirror image, if the mirror had been coated with darkness and rime. Instead of a paladin, the other was a death knight. “I learned of this activity after another attack on our site in Ashenvale. I have been scouting this area since I’ve arrived.”

“The Alliance is already aware of this warfront, Saaira, but is unable to send further support. Only the night elves and the worgen have been able to organize a counter-offensive here.” The paladin keeps her gaze forward.

The death knight frowns at the clinical response. “You seem…distant, my sister. Why?”

The paladin straightens her posture, but does not turn around to face her sister. “When did you acquire…that thing? I thought you abhored the very thought of undead.”

Behind the two draenei stands a hunched creature that was probably once human. Its bones protrude from its joints, which are loosely covered with scraps of soiled cloth. They had once looked like ornate robes, but that was likely years ago. Now? Now they are little more than rags.

“I did, once, yes,” the other responds. Her voice is emotionless. “But I don’t any longer. I have accepted what I am, Rephaia. It took many months, but I have made my peace. Have you?”

The paladin closes her eyes. She knows that her sister’s current state of undeath is largely her own fault. She has never been able to let go of that fact. She had worked to try and find a home for the both of them–a place where they were welcomed, but it had been difficult. Even now, as twin protectors of a remote camp in Ashenvale, they both felt like outsiders.

“No,” the paladin responds after a few breaths. She lies. “It is not a problem. Not for me.”

“Good, because there is information still remaining in his rotting skull that could be useful to us,” the death knight continues. “I have been…learning things. As I said, its knowledge is what lead me here.”

The paladin’s frown deepens, but she still does not turn around to face the other, yet. “I believe we already know what there is to know. This battle has been shifting back and forth for weeks.”

“There is something else here,” Saaira replies. “Something that the forsaken are seeking. Something buried nearby.”

Rephaia’s frown remains on her face as she finally turns to look at her sister. “What ‘something’?”

Saaira shrugs and passes a glance to the undead slouching behind her. “I don’t know. His head is filled with fragments of memories, almost as rotten as his own flesh. They speak of an expedition through Felwood to descend upon this land. At the beginning of this war, I think. But it also suggests that not everything went to plan during this detour. Something happened, and there are a small group of forsaken here searching for the source of that ‘something’.”

“That is…vague,” Rephaia turns her gaze back to the platform.

“It knows of the worms,” Saaira says.

Rephaia spins back to the death knight and takes a step forward. He eyes flare with intensity as they lock on the undead thing, then back onto her sister. “What does he know?”

Saaira smiles, but it is not a warm one. “He remembers where they first appeared. He believes he remembers who invited them into this world.”

Rephaia takes another stride to the forsaken creature and grasps his jawless head in her hand. The sounds of old bones cracking and rotten flesh tearing bleed from the thing’s neck as the draenei turns its empty expression up to her eyes. There is no recognition there, nor fear, nor any sign of active intelligence.

“Who has brought these things upon–”

The sky explodes as the fourth crack of thunder slams them all to the ground. Nearby trees, ancient and tall, sway under the invisible impact. Saplings, still thin and wispy, are flattered to the ground. A massive ripple washes out across the ocean.

Both Rephaia and Saaira curse and push themselves to their hooves. The paladin looks around, her hammer and shield drawn. Her sister pulls the heavy crystalline maul from its harness and rests it in her cold hands.

“This will have to stop,” Rephaia says with frustration in her voice.

Saaira turns to look at her sister, but then looks down on the ground as her brow furrows. “Where did he go?”

Rephaia glances down at her hooves at the crumpled rags that lay where the mindless undead had once stood. There was no evidence of the rest of him anywhere. No flesh. No bone. No dust.

The paladin stows her weaponry and kneels down to place her hand on the tattered garments. She reaches her hand out, but pauses. Upon the back of her wrist, shining through a slit in her gauntlets, could be seen an ethereal purple glow.

Rephaia immediately pulls off her gloves to reveal the back of her hand, upon which now rests a strange symbol. Two worms, one silver and one purple, entwine each other in a figure-eight. Each appears to be spawning from the mouth of the other.

“Where did you get that?” Saaira asks, kneeling next to her sister.

“I…I do not know,” Rephaia replies. “It was not there before I arrived here.”

“I have seen it before, Rephaia,” Saaira whispers as she reaches out to touch the mark with her own hands. Another glow from beneath her own gloves catches her attention, and she removes her own gauntlets. Another symbol, just like the first, shines brightly upon the back of the death knight’s hand.

“Where?” Rephaia asks.

Saaira, silent, nods towards where her undead companion once stood.

* * *

[Aris-earthen-ring (Aris)]

The young woman sits at the desk, staring at the paperwork in front of her. She mutters softly to herself, a habit she had picked up since her time as a prisoner in the mines of Gilneas. It helped to keep the silence at bay. “This is wot I git fer tellin’ Ardell that I’d handle th’ daily reports. I dun even know wot to do with some o’these.”

She picks up another file; a report by Rephaia. “…beset by worms… all inside her armor… hours to clean… random appearance…” A tan hand runs through her red hair. “I guess that I should be grateful she didn’t charge us fer the cleanin’ after all.”

Filing it with the other worm encounters, she moves on to the documented disappearances. “Well, at least there’s been no one new listed recently. Nuthin’ in common either. But… there’s likely to be another thunder strike soon and who knows wot’ll happen. More people may disappear.”

A scratching at the stairs signals a dog’s arrival as he reaches the top step. He woofs as he swaggers to his food and water next to her. The large fluffy pup, not wearing his harness to carry alcohol at the moment, sloppily drinks before settling under the desk on her feet.

The woman snorts. “Got tired of the guards’ attention, did ya, Boris?” She reaches under the desk and gives his back a quick pat. “Don’t ya worry. Good ol’ Aris has got yer back.” She leans back in her chair thoughtfully.

Her gaze finally settles on a jar by her left elbow. Silvery-purple worm wiggle sedately within. “Wot about ya li’l buggers? Wot have ya got to do with all this?”

She sighs when they don’t answer her and Aris leans forward to pull out her notes from meeting with the worgen and demon hunters the other night. “Well, I’d better straighten these notes fer Ardell. If there wus a knock before these, then he’ll want to know. I still can’t believe that the source might be out in the twistin’ nether, but I don’t know what good that’ll do us if everything near there is wiped out when the ‘thunder’ hits. Too bad you don’t have any ideas, Boris. Anything might be better than sending sumone out and havin’ no way t’ know if they lived.”

As she scratches more notes on a sheet of paper, the sky outside exploded with thunder. While she had known it would be soon, the anticipation was never enough to prepare her for the ominous rumbling overhead. For just a moment, it felt as though she could see through hundreds of eyes that weren’t her own.

Stormwind. In a dark inn, she watched a warlock, Meida. She was familiar. One of the contacts Aris had worked with before. She was talking to a young woman with long dark hair, then the dark-haired woman disappeared. If Aris hadn’t been locked in the throes of whatever this was, she would have shuddered.

A forest. Rephaia was easy to recognize after all the time they’d spent together, but the other woman… she had to guess the woman was Rephaia’s sister, Saaira. She looked too similar to be anyone else. Rephaia gripped an undead man’s jaw when it struck her, taking the undead with it.

Boralus docks. A young man she couldn’t recognize rushed down the dock toward a boat. He looked like one of those Ashvine thugs. He must have gotten mixed up with them as a youth. She silently gasped when he vanished with no one to witness his disappearance.

Then they’re done, ending with a stillness in which everything and everyone holds their breath. A rough sob escapes her throat as she reaches frantically under the desk, ignoring the fallen papers and scattered folders. “B-boris?”

A soft whine and the feeling of fur brings burning tears of relief to Aris’ eyes. “Thank the Light! I wus afraid y-you’d…” She brings her hand back up and freezes. An image, much like a tattoo, has appeared upon her skin. She stares at entwined serpent symbol with a sense of uncertainty and dread. “Wot?”

The jar by her elbow begins to shake violently, falling into her lap. She curses and flails, grabbing it as she jumps out of her seat. The worms pulse and press urgently against the lid. Gripping the jar firmly, she shudders.

“A-Ardell. We need to get Ardell.” She bolts from behind the desk, taking the stairs down in groups of two or three. Boris scrambles after his distressed mistress.

[Wintflink-earthen-ring]

Wintflink strolled along the rows of vendors in the open-air marketplace in the Hook Point neighborhood of Boralus, looking for someone selling coffee to go along with the delicious cinnamon raisin pretzels she’d bought. She got some from a giant of a man who asked her if she wouldn’t prefer some ale or wine instead, but sighed and served her up a mug of piping hot, strong coffee after a moment, for which she tipped him well. Wint found a seat at a wooden table with brass-bound corners and shared the pretzels and coffee with her friend Gobmat, the imp who’d hopped into the seat next to hers.

Wintflink took in the massive pale tree nearby, its orange leaves fluttering in the gentle breeze, and the series of pennants waving from ropes overhead. Along with the smell of fresh bread from the nearby bakery, the brine from the sea, just feet away, also carried through. The day had dawned with clear blue skies and now had only a few gentle clouds overhead. She and Gobmat had an unexpected afternoon off, and she’d come here to try to enjoy the day a bit and check out a nearby enchanter’s shop, but she couldn’t shake a sense of sick dread and wrongness.

She and her squad hadn’t been on the front lines at Dazar’alor as they normally would have been since they were nursing too many missing or wounded from the investigations at digsites to present a full number. Also, Wintflink was now among those missing from the daily duties of the squad, since she’d been drafted into assisting at Alliance Boralus headquarters due to the number of upper brass who’d gone missing during the last thunder strike, and the way she’d taken charge afterwards. To her horror, she’d even heard talk about possibly promoting her.

“But we don’t belong there, do we, Gobmat?” she said, looking over at the imp at her side. “Doing all that paperwork every day and having to play nice for the generals.”

He let his displeasure with the situation be known by letting out an annoyed noise, spraying pretzel crumbs in front of him and shaking his head.

“And they’re still not paying any attention to what’s going on,” she muttered, before taking a bite of her own pretzel.

To her frustration, Wintflink still couldn’t get anyone at headquarters to pay attention to her concerns about the digsites, the thunder, the disappearances, or the strange worms. Everyone was either too involved with planning or managing the ongoing war, or seemed to shy away from the topic as soon as it was brought up. She’d even gone as far as to check with her contacts in the Boralus guard as to any investigation into those who’d disappeared, but although the topic drew frowns and concern, no one was talking about it.

She’d been glad to get a letter from her friend Telnara, saying that she’d figured out more about the worms, but they hadn’t been able to meet yet due to both of their responsibilities.

“What should we do, Gobmat?” she murmured, eyeing the nearest people and deciding they were far enough away not to hear. “We’re not getting anywhere, trying to figure this out, and I just keep feeling like something even worse is about to happen.”

Gobmat looked to either side, then at Wintflink and nodded, then chittered in what sounded like frustration. Wint returned his gaze and smiled for a moment, glad to hear she wasn’t alone.

“Maybe we should-”

The sound of thunder was so deafening this time that Wintflink almost felt her heart had stopped, but as she ducked, she grabbed out for Gobmat’s hand, and the relief she felt as he clutched hers swelled even as the thunder began to fade.

She leapt to her feet to avoid the coffee dripping off of the table, since the cup it had been in had shattered. Turning to her left as she heard an ominous groaning, Wintflink quickly said an incantation to call an Infernal as she saw that the old support post for the porch behind her had snapped in two and the roof now threatened to collapse on an injured woman below.

She and Gobmat hurried over to where the woman had fallen to the floor of the porch, reaching out to a heap of clothes and screaming. “Ma’am, please, you’ve got to move,” Wintflink said, tugging at the woman’s other arm and trying to help the her move from under the collapsing roof. After a few seconds, the woman scrambled away, limping where she seemed to have sprained an ankle.

“But my husband!” the woman wailed, still gesturing to the pile of clothing.

“I’m sorry,” Wintflink said as she awkwardly helped the woman to a chair nearby, then directed the Infernal to put the fallen pieces of roof nearby before she dismissed him.

As she looked around afterwards, Wint took in the scene, a woman at a nearby table staring at the empty dress half laid over the chair next to her, where her friend had been sitting. A man calling for the woman who’d been standing in front of him, talking with him a minute before. A woman a table over sobbing as she knelt over the chair where her husband had been sitting, sorting through his clothes with one hand.

Wint’s shoulders slumped as she looked at Gobmat again, but she hissed at the twinge as she moved her hand, the one she’d grabbed Gobmat with. Her eyebrows raised as she peeled her glove back to look at the worms branded into her skin, moving in the sign of infinity. She glanced over at Gobmat, her eyes questioning him, and he flashed the back of his hand at her, showing the same design.

Wintflink sighed and shook her head. “Let’s see if we can talk to Ardell again. He was the only one who seemed to know anything about this whole crazy business.”

Gobmat chittered and fell into step beside Wintflink as she decisively headed towards the Proudmoore Academy.

[Rhese-proudmoore]

Mirra curled against his chest, the rambunctious baby finally tuckered out and napping nearly an hour late while her brother sniffled on the other side of his father’s sling, tucked as comfortably against the druid’s warm chest as his sister, but made twice as grumpy by her long delay of their rest. Rhese smirked and looked down, tugging his tunic out of Rhylian’s unhappy fist one more time as they strolled along in the warm sun, his other big hand occupied patting the infant’s back.

“Little moon,” he rumbled softly, shushing with a hiss between his teeth, “now you’re just your own worst enemy. Mirra is quiet; it’s your turn to relax and sleep.” With his tunic liberated, the young father brushed his knuckle along his son’s soft cheek, drawing languid, soothing circles along Rhy’s skin. He was rewarded by the child’s golden eyes blinking slowly, his cries softening to distracted little whimpers as he started to relax.

Rhese Silvering grinned, feeling pleased with himself, and lifted his head while his hands continued their calming tasks, looking around the garden maze’s hedges and enjoying the crunch of his boots along the pebbled path. In the middle of such a lovely day, there were quite a few others wandering through the maze at Proudmoore Keep as he was, and he nodded politely as a young noble and his wife passed, ignoring her wide-eyed stare. The kal’dorei and his pair of little pointy-eared babes made for something of an oddity, so he tried not to blame the Kul’Tirans for their poor manners. Not too much, at least.

The druid rounded another green, leafy corner and came out into a short dead end where a flowering tree grew amidst a bed of ferns and colored grasses, comfortable and happy in the shadows of the hedges. He shook his head and yawned as he turned back the way he’d come, paying idle attention to the way Rhylian slowly went limp in his sling.

Sure enough, a glance down revealed the baby’s eyes blessedly, peacefully closed.

“They’re beautiful, if you don’t mind my sayin’,” came a politely soft voice from in front of him.

Glancing up, Rhese smiled at the older Kul’Tiran woman walking toward them, her shuffling steps skittering pebbles like a wave ahead of the toes of her black leather slippers. Her hair still bore some small sign of the rich chocolate brown it must once have been, but now it was more white than anything else, pulled back into a loose knot that did nothing to help the wrinkles crinkling the corners of her sea green eyes.

“Madame,” he said proudly, patting little Rhylian’s back through the sling, “What father ever minds when you tell him his children are beautiful?”

The stranger chuckled at that. “Handsome an’ sweet with tha litt’ls an’ a good sense of humor t’boot? Lad, were I a few decades younger, I might have tried t’woo ya fer me’own.” Her wink was sweet and full of harmless charm as she beckoned him closer and leaned in to peek at the sleeping twins. She looked back up at him. “Them ears’d take some gettin’ used to, ah s’pose, though.”

The kal’dorei laughed. “Oh, don’t worry. The learning curve is pretty short for those. They’re not nearly as intimidating as they look at first glance.”

Patting his arm with a thin, leathery hand, the older woman made a show of following the lines of his long, dusky ear back with her eyes. Despite his amusement, Rhese felt his cheeks warm with a self-conscious blush.

“Where d’ya tuck all that when y’wear yer hat, lad? Ya do wear hats, don’cha?”

“Of course,” he answered with a smirk. “We just make sure they have carefully placed holes. Believe me… you don’t want to crush all that ear under a human-style hat. It aches like crazy after two minutes.”

Laughing, the old woman gestured back the way they’d come, and Rhese fell into slow, measured steps beside her. She set the pace at something slight, giving her taller companion plenty of time to enjoy the hedgerows around them as they sought out the courtyard at the heart of the maze, chatting amicably all the while.

By the time they both settled on to the single unoccupied bench, the night elf knew all about her deceased husband, her three grown children, and her thoughts about her advancement into old age. (Which was already a fraction of his despite what his culture thought of his tender young age, but he was too polite to tell her so.)

Rhese grinned as he shifted the sleeping babies in their sling. “You really worked as a dancer in a tavern, Deidra? When was that?”

“Oh, goodness, dearie,” she smirked, patting his knee. “That was a few children an’ a cargo hold full of decades ago. Another lifetime, seems like.”

The matron was opening her mouth to say more when she spied a middle-aged man rounding the tall fountain with its clear pool and carved anchor and gull, his balding pate and long mustache distinctive. She perked up and shoved to her creaky feet, waving until he saw and veered over.

“Jack!” Deidra gestured toward Rhese with one hand, taking her friend’s hand in hers by way of greeting. “Mate, this here’s Rhese Silverwing.” She leaned in with conspiratorial glee, mock-whispering to the man. “Don’t let th’ears fool ya. He’s an elf…”

Rhese laughed and bowed his head. “Nature’s greetings, J-”

When the thunder struck, that time, the entire courtyard shook, sending nearly everyone who was on their feet to the ground. The druid reached for Deidra, but he missed her arm. Instead, the old lady to landed on the pavement with a little cry, her outstretched hand plopping down on an empty pile of clothes and boots. On the back was a symbol: silver and purple worms entwined in a figure eight, consuming each other… or being born from each other, but she barely glanced at it.

The druid blinked at her with a furrowed brow for a moment as she processed, as her wizened face fell into lines of resigned grief. No wailing from his new friend, no immediate screams, just a sad acceptance and the sheen of tears in her mousey eyes.

“Aw… Jack.” She looked over at Rhese as he leaned forward and took her arm, helping her to her feet. “He’s been my neighbor for goin’ on half my life… His boys’ll be devastated.”

“I’m sorry, Deid-” The young father was interrupted as the babies across his chest burst into startled, fearful wails, and he stood suddenly, taking time only to help her onto the bench. Around them, the cries and calls and tears were starting in earnest, and the night elf shuddered even as he tried to comfort the twins. “I have to go. I’m very sorry, Deidra, but if I learn anything at all… Be careful, and please get home safely.”

The old woman nodded and wiped at her eyes, thoughtful enough not to touch him with her marked hands. “Yer a good lad, Rhese. Go take care’a yer own. Tide’s blessin’s t’ya all.”

Heart hammering in his chest, twins squalling fearfully across it as he patted them, the druid rushed back out of the hedge maze and through the streets. First, he needed to know that his family was safe, that Sarren and Yami and Alen were in the apartment, that Nysse and Rhoelyn were still accounted for on the Darkshore. Then…

Shaking his head, Rhese frowned as he hurried. After the family, it would be time to go pound on Ardell’s door. There were too many dead-ends in their investigation of this mystery. Too many frustrating, empty missions. It was time to start finding answers.

[Rhoelyn-proudmoore]

In the perpetual twilight of Elune’s rage, Bashal’Aran loomed like a thunderstorm, the hastily-built buildings and lumbering Ancients growing in the devastated forest’s place and bristling with power and determined activity and hunger. Sitting upon a severed tree stump atop the embankment beside the silvery-blue lagoon at its farthest edges, Rhoelyn Silverwing watched the war camp with a kind of sad fascination. It was beautiful… and inspiring… and awful.

The eclipsed moonwell. The groaning Ancients. Her people with their darkened eyes and hate-filled determination. Elune’s High Priestess herself in Night Warrior form, overseeing it all and calling for Horde blood.

She understood. She understood the rage, the determination to reclaim their lands. The need to carve security once more out of the world at war. To have vengeance for the monumental loss of Darnassus and Astranaar and Lor’danel and… their homes.

But, for her part, she could summon only grief. Grief for the Tree. Grief for the lives lost, the fallen who answered her spellsong as she and her guardian sister wandered the forest. The wisp ghosts’ broken dreams and worldly cares echoed in the little silver-haired night elf’s head and heart constantly. Grief for the toddler she’d left with her nephew and his new cousins and Nysse’s father, the boy who would never know the parents he was born to, the ones who died with Darnassus. Grief for her sundered, old life and the love she missed, the golden man she’d sent away when his people slaughtered hers.

As she let her gaze fall upon her reflection in the clear water, the priestess watched her own dimming eyes and thought that perhaps she would feel less crushed by that weight if only she could turn it into rage like the others did. Like her brother did. If only she could scream for revenge and crush an enemy skull with her softly-luminous crescent moon staff. But the thought alone was enough to make her nauseated and dizzy. The gentle healer was not made for rage and vengeance, was not built for violence.

And how well she knew it.

Rhoelyn sighed, looking up at the half-dozen wisps who bobbed and flitted around her head, the wandering spirits of her fallen brothers and sisters waiting patiently while she rested, their wishes a low murmur at the back of her mind. How well she knew it. Rage might have been easier, but she was there in that war front only for them. They were her calling, their lingering emotions her burden. Their release into Elune’s embrace her only reward.

She reached up to one, cupping her hand gently around him and pulling forth a spell of Light that gilded her skin and lent him her power. “I know you are concerned, Taelisus, but the scouts have not been gone long enough to have word. Wait with me but a while longer.”

An onlooker could not have found a sign of the spirit’s answer, but she felt his acknowledgement in her heart and gave him a reassuring smile. “I have hope that your lost brother yet lives. I have not found his name among the fa-”

Her words were interrupted by the sky splitting open horribly, once more, the deafening peal of thunder striking before she could pull her hand away from the spirit’s form. While the ground shuddered, she felt the soul-deep sound course through her like electricity. No, magic. No, Light.

Rhoelyn had only enough time to gasp in a breath before one of her fits struck her. A crushing wall of golden, sizzling awareness that threw her head back and drew her taut like a bow, her back arching and her hand tensing where it hovered, instantly empty when Taelisus’ spirit simply… disappeared.

Suddenly, the power was everywhere. Light like fire and blinding sun. Light like everything living at once in her head. Light that surged outward from her heart and filled her with awareness. Too much awareness. The past, present and future in nonsense flashes and nightmare possibilities, in Blight-spewing Forsaken and tentacled fiends with hungering maws. Sickening, dark spells and souls being twisted in her grip. Orbs of glass claimed from ancient soil. A man without a face and a woman without a heart, consumed. Consuming. The door, opened, beyond which was the end. The cage, closing, within which they would rot and be despoiled.

She filled with it all, overflowed with it. And she hurt with it. She couldn’t keep it. But she struggled to hold enough to see. Awareness. A way to fend off her fear with knowledge.

Make sense of the nonsense. Find the paths closer in.

Rhoelyn whispered to no one before the first echo of the thunder had passed, staring sightlessly at the mark that rose on the back of her hand, watching without watching as the shadow worm and the silver worm coiled in their figure eight, birthing and consuming each other at once across her flesh.

“Nysse by the campfire, Tsume beside her. No, in chains. Amidst the screams. The apothecary with his rotting hand wrapped around her neck. Rhese rocking Mirrase. No, dark magic feeding him panic. His lips bloody. Stars in his fist. Leothir killing. Friends are enemies are friends. The dagger f-finds home so many times.”

The power burned her, burrowing deeper along her singing nerves and into her besieged awareness. But these paths were all awful. She needed more, so she clung through the pain.

“The warrior, fierce and confused, dedicated and carrying the key,” she groaned, barely a sound behind her breath. “The timelost and timefound, always able to find the ties we need. Wings in the wind, spread wide. A shield against the scouring sand. The p-path… along which… w-we must walk to… nnng…”

The little healer bent double, pain twisting her features until she could stand no more. Until she had to let go.

And then it burst free, healing Light flowing like a wave over everything for a league. The wounded in the field hospital in the encampment were instantly whole and energized. The tired were suddenly invigorated. The flagging suddenly rallied. The awful Forsaken stumbled and fell, wailing with pain, that sound rising in a haunting melody through the desecrated land.

And the momentary symbol of the purple worm and the silver worm on her dusky hand disappearing before she was even aware enough to notice it, the damage to the skin healed.

Rhoelyn collapsed to the ground and lay there, gasping and aching, while the power faded. Above her head, flitting and agitated, only four wisps remained, and when she noticed, she rested her forehead in the grass and wept.

For so many reasons.