Thelarwen was deep in thought. Her body was moving on autopilot, guided by her deep ingrained training. The surges of pleasure she gained from destroying opponent after opponent were almost unnoticed. Of course, notice or not, the kills were still working to take the edge off of her built-in requirement to cause pain and death.
"BLOAAAAARGH!" said an abomination. "ME RIP YOU OPEN AND TEAR YOU GUTS OUT!" Then it did not say much of anything anymore, due to its head being neatly separated from its body, which took a few more steps out of habit and then collapsed in a heap.
Clackety-clackety, made a skeleton, followed by clack-clackety-crunch-clack-clack-clack when Thelarwen's elvish runesword slashed through it and scattered it to its component bones.
"Braaaai..." was the last thing a reanimated ghoul managed to utter before its subsequent deanimation.
The death knight suddenly lost her train of thought and looked around. It had suddenly become strangely quiet. No wonder: everything around her was dead. More dead. Pieces of undead monstrosities laid scattered around the ground and covered an impressive area. And the urge within her to cause agony and death was almost completely subdued.
Thelarwen slowly cleaned her sword with a rag she'd picked up from a scattered skeleton. Why these monsters bothered to wear what amounted to a loincloth, she had never figured out. The woman uncorked a half-full bottle of Stratholme holy water, poured a measure on one blade of the twin-bladed sword, and carefully wiped it clean. The small blue runes embedded in the metal sizzled when they came in contact with the Light-infused water. There was a strange scratching feeling, like momentary thin needles of migraine, at the back of her brain when that happened.
She collected her thoughts. Made a decision. Then called her skeletal gryphon and took flight, leaving the depths of the Plaguelands and heading towards Hearthglen.
* * *
"A holy weapon? For you?" wondered the Argent blacksmith. "Aren't you a bit... incompatible with these?"
Thelarwen explained. Briefly, and not elaborating on the details of her recent expeditions.
"Eh. Sure. Of course I can make one if you need it. Just don't complain if it lights your hands on fire," the blacksmith chuckled. He dusted off his little-used supply of precious metals (most Argent weapons, after all, were just good old trusty steel), selected several bars of truesilver and mithril, and went to work.
* * *
A few days later Thelarwen found herself in Stormwind once again. On a hunch she made her way towards the Blue Recluse.
The hunch paid off. Even from around the corner she sensed the familiar delicate scent of Lilandris' and Aroona's blood. The two lovebirds were, as usual, cuddling at a table on the terrace, completely ignoring other patrons. Never one for discretion, Thelarwen approached the table.
"Oh, hey Thel!" Lilandris said as she and Aroona attempted to untangle. Snuggling before the death knight's gaze was... somewhat unnerving. "What brings you here?"
The young druid on Lilandris' lap gave the intruder a bit of a pouty look and stood up. There was bound to be a serious discussion. Thelarwen never approached just to socialise.
"Lilandris. Aroona." the death knight nodded at them. She carefully lifted her helmet and laid it aside. This kind of an action had been unthinkable just a few months ago. She never took off her armour even in cities. And yet, nowadays she had become surprisingly willing to uncover her head when amongst frien... acquaintances.
She fixed her unblinking blue eyes on the priestess. "I apologise for the intrusion. Lilandris. I am in need of your assistance, or at least, advice."
"Of course," Lilandris said. "How can I help?"
"Lilandris. You are an expert at weaponising the Light."
The priestess gave a smirky grin. "I admit, I know a thing or two about using the Light for offence."
"I have been considering," Thelarwen slowly explained, "our expeditions over the past few months."
Lilandris and Aroona nodded.
"You must understand, I have no trouble with the ordinary undead, demons, necromancers and the like. My runeblade is entirely capable of destroying such enemies. However, more recently we have been encountering a new sort of enemy, one whose unholiness is actively capable of resisting and recovering from the attacks of my runeweapon. Or these opponents might be incorporeal and therefore impossible to hit with a purely physical weapon.
"I have been considering my options. Although this is unusual for... one of my kind... I believe I need a different sort of a weapon for such occasions."
She lifted a large two-handed sword from her back and laid it on the table. The blade looked as if it were made of silver, but a subtle greenish glint indicated truesilver as the actual material. There was an almost unnoticeable inlay of silver near the hilt on both sides of the blade: the stylised rising sun emblems of the Argent Dawn. The entire sword was otherwise completely unadorned. There were no runes. Thelarwen's weapon seemed to project a very subtle holy aura which made the death knight uncomfortable.
"I have come to you," Thelarwen continued, "to request your help with infusing this weapon with the power of the Light. I am fully aware that even when enchanted, the sword in my hand can never be as powerful as it would be when wielded by a holy warrior. Still, even in reduced capacity, a blessed blade should be potent against such opponents as I described. I therefore wish to inquire whether you would be capable and willing to place such a blessing on the sword. Or at least direct me towards someone who could."
The Lightmancer lifted the sword and examined it. The sense of holy energy was unmistakable. "I think I can help you," she looked up at the death knight. "Although the power of the Light on this weapon will be very uncomfortable for you when it is properly blessed. But," she pondered for a moment, "I have an idea that might help with that."
Thelarwen lifted an eyebrow and said nothing.
"There is a type of wood often used by warlocks and necromancers in their amulets and trinkets, which... how do I put it... suppresses holy auras. If you make your sword's hilt from that wood, it should reduce the discomfort from the Light's aura that you will feel when wielding it. I'm not entirely sure how it's called exactly. Voidwood or deadwind root or some such. I'm not a botanist," she grinned.
("I am!" yelled Garrshammer Coalbrow, who just happened to run past. "HERB!!!")
The death knight nodded. "I should go and kill some necromancers."
"Well, no," Lilandris explained, "it's better to use the roots in their raw form, rather than re-purposing crafted amulets. The roots grow in Deadwind Pass. They're pretty easy to find, being all black and foreboding. You should have no trouble finding them."
"Then perhaps I will do both."
"Indeed, there are quite a few ogres in Deadwind Pass, warlocks among them."
"Ogres..." Thelarwen mused, "I have recently had quite a lot of practice fighting them."
"No doubt," both Lilandris and Aroona grinned widely.
"I will hold on to the sword, if that's OK with you," the priestess told the death knight. "I'll prepare suitable blessings while you look for the roots. Just, eh, drop them off at my place when you get them, or something."
Thelarwen nodded. "Very well. I shall let you go back to your, ah, cuddling."
(At this point Aroona's face went quite red.)
* * *
Voidwood was, indeed, easy to find. Deadwind vegetation, such as there was, had a most unusual appearance of being stone-dead, while still thriving and growing. If there ever was such a thing as an undead plant, these were it.
The undead Crusader made short work of any ogre who dared to go "RAAAAR! ME SMASH HUMAN!" and interrupt her root-gathering. The roots felt strange in her hand. Lilandris had been mostly correct about her assessment about their nature, but what she had not realised was that the roots' magic-suppressing qualities did not only apply to the holy. In Thelarwen's hands the wood seemed to dampen her own innate unholy aura. Her hands felt numb, even though there was no actual diminishing of the physical senses.
She took her time and sought out the roots which gave out the strongest sense of magical absorption. It took a while, but time was something she had. Ogres no longer bothered her. Quite the opposite, in fact: they retreated rather swiftly when she approached.
In the end Thelarwen selected a few of the strongest and most powerful (both in physical and magical sense) pieces of wood and departed from Deadwind Pass.
She spent the night sitting on a crate in a seedy corner of Stormwind and carefully and meticulously whittled the wood into shape. On occasion a figure in black armour would emerge from shadows, brandish a dagger, take a good look at her plate-clad form, glowing eyes and the sword just next to her, and usually go "Oh, apologies, I mistook you for someone else!" and in one case "Er, hey, want to buy this here dagger?"
It was very peaceful in that seedy corner of Stormwind that night.
