The Unnatural Combination of the Holy and the Profane

Cute and Quiet. Makes a lot of hand gestures, a bit like Yoda, but less green.

Topic/Postby Gergel » 23 Sep 2014, 12:49

The Unnatural Combination of the Holy and the Profane

(Note: this is not a reaction to any specific plot or subplot from the recent adventures, it's an intermission that could take place anytime. It just happened to take place now.)

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.
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Gergel
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Topic/Postby Gergel » 27 Sep 2014, 23:20

"Meet me in the Cathedral tonight. Lilandris." was what the message said.

There she was, back at that place. The last time she had been here, it had been an incredible sight. An enormous golden shining structure made entirely out of ghosts or spirits that only she could see. Each moving in its own trajectory among the others, so not a single spot of the vision of the Cathedral stood still for a moment. Once the artifact she had been carrying was destroyed, the building returned back to its ordinary state. Its boring state.

Thelarwen felt slightly uneasy. The holyness made her physically uncomfortable, like being slightly too close to a fire, except the fire was everywhere and heated her skin uniformly. She ignored the sensation and walked in. Her feet were still injured from the burns she had suffered a few days earlier in Westfall. The only outward sign of her discomfort was a slight limp.

"YOU! You shouldn't..." a young priest was about to accost her at the entrance (no doubt sensing her unholiness), then came to a sudden dead stop once he got a good look at Thelarwen. This happened to be a mere step away from her. The woman was towering above the priest. In her armor she must have been a head taller and quite a bit wider. The young man's frightened stare ran down from her icy eyes that shone from the slit of her helmet, to her massive armour, to the prominent Argent insignia on her suit and tabard.

"Ahhh..." was the only thing he was capable of saying as he moved out of her way. Thelarwen said nothing and walked into the Cathedral proper.

Lilandris was standing before the altar. Probably sensing the death knight the same way the priest had, she turned and smiled. The sword was lying on the altar and Lilandris retrieved it with slight effort.

As she approached her, Thelarwen removed her helm. "Lilandris. Good evening."

The draenei did not respond immediately. Wordlessly she lifted the heavy sword and drew it from its scabbard. Its truesilver blade seemed to glimmer with holy light as the rays of evening's sun touched it. Lilandris held the grip towards Thelarwen.

She reached out carefully. The burning sensation of the Cathedral was amplified considerably near the blade. When the Cathedral's atmosphere felt like standing close to a fire, being near the sword felt as though it were glowing red-hot. The handle, however, wrapped in the layer of Voidwood Thelarwen herself had carved, emitted an aura of nothingness. Like a hole in space. A gauntleted fist grasped the hilt and Thelarwen lifted the sword from Lilandris' hands.

Lilandris said: "'Upon the pedestal were these words: I am the sword, mightier than the hand that wields it'."

She did not recognize the quote.

"It should be quite safe for you to wield as long as you keep your hands on the grip or the guard," the Lightmancer continued. "The blade itself might singe you."

That much was obvious. The holy aura was powerful enough to probably vapourize any lesser undead that came in contact with it. "I do not intend to ... cuddle naked with it," Thelarwen said perfectly seriously. The statement made Lilandris do a double-take, however. "I will be careful not to stumble upon it," the death knight clarified.

Lilandris pondered this for a moment and decided to just continue. "Notice that it sings when you swing it."

Thelarwen made an experimental swing. She was careful not to upset the priests too much. There was a strange almost inaudible humming and whispering sound. Not unpleasant, but not something one would want to hear up close as a holy blade lops off one's head. "I am more interested in the sounds the undead will make as I strike them down with this," she said politely.

Lilandris stated: "Ethereal and fleshbound alike, they will be singed by the sword's cut."

"We will see. A part of me hopes that next week we will meet something... nasty... when we are traveling again."

"I can pretty much guarantee it," the priestess grinned. She pulled her revolver and spun its cylinder around with a swipe of her hand. "It will probably be a lot of fun then."

The death knight nodded and turned towards the exit. "May we leave? The very strong presence of the Light in this place is... slightly uncomfortable."

To the relief of both herself as well as the priesthood, Thelarwen exited the building followed by Lilandris. The two women stopped on the stairs and Thelarwen prepared for departure.

"Thank you for this," she bowed before Lilandris. "If there is anything I can do to repay you, I am at your service." The other just smiled with a sudden mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

"You know," the draenei said, and Thelarwen looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "There might be... I know you don't really do the whole social thing... But..."

The human said nothing.

"The other day me and Aroona decided that we will tie the knot..."

"Do you wish for me to procure rope?..." then the meaning caught up with her. "Ah. Apologies. You mean marriage. Congratulations." With her usual cool even tone, she might as well have been reading out of a mathematics textbook.

Undaunted, Lilandris continued: "We haven't set a date or made any proper plans yet... But I want you to be there. Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to be a bridesmaid," she grinned wickedly. The idea of Thelarwen in her usual full set of heavy plate armour with a white fluffy and frilly dress on top of it was... well, hilarious.

"I wish for you to be there to witness the occasion. I consider you my friend after all."

Thelarwen said nothing. Which might have been a good thing, as she was not flat-out rejecting the idea.

"I shan't force you if you really don't want to... And I don't expect you to show up for the after party."

Still she received no response. The death knight was just standing there staring at her with her usual unblinking gaze. Lilandris turned and began to walk towards a distant tavern where Aroona would be waiting. She added over her shoulder: "You'd better be there or I will smite when you least expect it," with a mischievous tone.

Thelarwen followed her with her eyes.

"Consider it repayment for the sword!" she shouted before turning a corner.

It had been so much simpler just a few months ago. All she needed to concern herself with was the undead, or the occasional demon horde. The Crusade pointed her like a sword, and she did the cutting.

But now... "Friends."

As if the little white gnome who had kept hugging her silently was not enough.

Making relationships never made anything simpler or easier.

Still. She would need to attend the wedding. As a repayment for the sword, Lilandris had said. Yes. That would be the only reason.
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Gergel
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Topic/Postby Tormeron » 28 Sep 2014, 09:18

Lovely story! i like it!

Adds another dimension to thelarwen.
Lilandris wrote:Liandrix' words not mine, but Tormeron is a god apparently. Probably a bit like Loki.

serendipity wrote:Reason: Potato.

Events stories, Torm's events thread Suggestion box
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