World of Lovecraft

“I don’t wanna,” Kamelia said, her voice a low whine. “C’mon Lav, ple-ease!?”

Laveria didn’t answer. She took a deep breath, grabbed her sister by the nape of the neck and then gently pushed her through the door to World’s End Tavern. They marched straight through the main hall. Even though Haris made an attempt at saying “hi!”, Laveria simply shook her head, quickly. It was clear by the grim look on her face that some serious business was about to go down.

Kamelia trundled along, every step heavy as with impending doom. Even though she was carrying both a sword and shield, and an old but still functional armor, she was no where near as experienced or strong as her older sister. Things like this had happened before. Usually followed by some disciplinary actions (and her sister was very skilled in that area). Kamelia was not looking forward to a day of not being able to sit down without wincing.

“Of all the stupid, stupid things you ever done, Kam,” Laveria muttered, “This is really the pinnacle of it all!”
“I di–”
“You shut that piehole now or I’ll shut it for you.” She grunted. “We will have justice!”

They pushed the door open to the inner room and stepped inside. Laveria closed the door with one hand, reaching out for the handle behind her, without letting go of her sister or losing sight of the people in the room. Two draenei, one dressed in Cindercloth, the other wearing a heavy crystalline armor. The cindercloth said, with a thick draenei accent but perfectly understandable:

“Well, well, well, look what the ferals dragged in.” Sashanna raised an eyebrow, peering over the rim of her pewter mug. She chuckled, took a deep swig of ale and then slammed the empty mug on the oak table. “The Silvermoon slut is here!”
“Whatch your tone!” Kamelia was about to pull her sword. Then her sister grabbed her one by the hair and, not very gently, pulled her back. “Ouwie! Lavv, stop!”

Likewise happened at the table of World’s End Tavern. It was a private room, the din from the main hall was barely noticeable through the closed door. The innkeeper had tried to brighten the room up with some paper flowers and colored curtains but it still looked run down and tacky. At least it was warm. The fireplace was filled with thermal crystals mined somewhere in Blade’s Edge. Chromie huddled close to them, warming her palms, seemingly oblivious of what was happening behind her back. Of course – never take a dragon for granted, even if she is a gnome …

By the table, Shuanna grabbed her sister Sashanna by her ponytail, not exactly yanking it but giving the tail a short pull as she muttered:
“Don’t be stupid, Sasha.”
“Let me go!”
“Will you behave?”
“Yeah fine, whatever … ”
“Good.” Shuanna let go of her hair. “We don’t want to make a scene now, do we?”

Sashanna slumped down a bit, then she perked up, filled with a sudden flash of anger: “That two-timing .. Ugh!” She stood up, exasperated, and took a few angry twitching steps towards the blood elves, stopping half an inch short of the blonde one, Kamelia. “Slut.”
“Whore.” The blood elf didn’t flinch. She pursed her lips in anger and leaned on one foot, hanging her head to the side. “Betcha can’t find a comeback to that. Girl!”
“Bitch.”
“Oh, good one. I got a better one. Skank!”
“No, you are!”
“Nu-uuh!”
“Yeah you are! Fucking chav you are!”
“Nu-uuh!” Kamelias face twitched with anger. It felt like she was losing this ‘battle’. “You are!”
“Am not!”
“Am too!”

“Oh dear … ” Laveria sighed. “Kam, please. Stand down.” She tugged her sisters hair. “I’m not letting you go until you do.”
“Ain’t getting out of this blue hoes face I ain’t!”
“Phah!” Sashanna realised only a fraction of a second too late that pursing her lips made her look like an angry duck.

“You know, Laveria,” Shuanna chuckled as she made her way closer to the confrontation, lighting her pipe as she did. “Maybe we should let them fight. Blow off some steam, eh?”
“The only fighting this little spoiled brat will be doing is her ass against my belt if she don’t back off,” Laveria said, tugging at the hair and glaring at her sister. “Kamelia! Behave yourself!”
“But she called m–”
“Right! That does it! You’re going over my knees right now, missus!”
“But Lavva, she ca–”

Laveria let go of her sisters hair, grabbed her chin with one hand and then slapped her with the other. The slap took them all by suprise, most of all Kamelia. She blinked, raising a hand to her cheek.
“Told you,” Laveria said, letting her sister go and took a step back. “Quit sniveling. You’re supposed to be a damned warrior, Kam!”

The pain made Kamelias eyes well up. As she realised she was about to start crying, the sudden pang of shame made the tears flow, even if she didn’t want to cry. She backed away from her sister, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.

“You want another one huh?” Laveria scoffed. “I got loads of ’em.”
“But that fu–”

The next slap was a quick backhand flip. It sent Kamelia tumbling halfway across a serving table. Pewter platters and a bowl of cherries bounced and jerked, almost falling to the floor. She stared wide-eyed and slightly bewildered at Laveria, who winced and blew her knuckles muttering a short “dammit that hurt!”.

“Ooh, good one!” Sashanna said, chuckling. “Should’a beat the living cra–”

The slap, this one from Shuanna, cut Sashannas words short. She stumbled backwards, straight into the arms of a slightly suprised Kamelia.

“E-nough!” Shuanna glared at both of them. Blood elf and draenei, separated by worlds and by ages – yet they couldn’t stand being far away from each other. Stranger things have happened in the world, of course it has, but the world of lovecraft is a world of two people.

“You two either need to sleep with each other or sort it out with wooden swords,” Shuanna said. “This lover’s quarrel ends, right here. Right. Now.”
“But she called me a –”
“Ah-ah!” Shuanna raised her hand. “There are plenty of these for the both of you, Kam!”
“You’re siding with … ” Sashanna realised she was still pushing against Kamelia, so she stepped away with an embarassed grimace. “Shu! Seriously!?”

Shuanna took two steps forward and then slapped Sashanna.

“This was something I should have done years ago,” Shuanna said. She blinked, hard, because the way she treated her younger sister cut deep into her soul. She wanted to say how sorry she was, but instead she said: “You had that one coming, Sash.”

It wasn’t that hard a slap but Sashanna started to cry anyway. It was just silent tears with a short hick-up and a half sob now and again. Then something unexpected happened: Kamelia sidled up close to her, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders, leaning her forehead against Sashannas neck.

“I’m sorry … ” Kamelia whispered. She sighed, straightened up and looked at Shuanna, who had stepped up side by side with Laveria. It was a very peculiar detente. “Can we work things out? I … ” She sighed, giving Sashanna a long look. “Never mind.” Then she stepped away, just a step, nothing more.
“Kam … ” Sashanna sighed. “Ok, fine then … ”

“Maybe when you kids are done bawling we could sit down, have some bread and cheese and port, and behave like adults?” Laveria looked at them all, raising her eyebrows as awaiting a confession or an answer. “Eh? It’s not like you haven’t been … adulting. Each other. You two nearly started another war! Goldshire – Kam, honestly! Of all the places and …” She sighed. “And fake Id’s? Illusions? Who sold you that illusion scroll!?”
“That … could have been me … ” Chromie said, without turning around. “Let’s talk about that later, or before. This is very confusing. Or will be. It might be that it never confused anyone until everyone was there, before, or here. Back then.”
“Yo–” Shuanna grunted, not sure if she should be angry or bewildered.
“Please don’t mind me,” Chromie said. “I’m not here.”
“I … ” Laveria shrugged. “Sashanna?”
“Yes?”
“Can we talk like adults now, perhaps?”

“Fine,” Sashanna said. She made it a point to pass closely by Kamelia, brushing up against her and giving a quick, threatening twitch. Right as she did so, she winked at the blood elf, half smiling.

Kamelia made an angry face at her … but then she winked as well and shot a quick half-glance at Chromie, raising an eyebrow. Truth be told she looked a bit mad, as if stricken by an uncontrollable twitch.

“Forgive my sister,” Laveria said in a calm, slightly hushed voice as she sat down on the opposite side of the table from Shuanna. As the others took their places, Horde on one side, Alliance on the other, she added: “She’s young. I shouldn’t have brought her.”

“Oh yes you should … ” Chromie whispered without turning. Then she shrugged, as if reminding herself she was not supposed to be there. “Oh, sorry. Don’t mind me.”
“I,” Shuanna hesitated, shooting a quick glance at Chromie, brow furrowed. Shen she shrugged again, and said: “We can’t allow this, you two. Isn’t that so, Laveria?”
“We’re at a phony war, true enough,” Laveria said and nodded. “The only reasonable solution would be for the both of you to join the Scryers.”
“Or the Aldor,” Shuanna said.
“Preferably the Scryers,” Laveria said, pinning Shuanna with an angry look.
“The Aldor accepts anyone and everyone,” Shuanna said, tapping her index finger against the table for each word: “We. Do. Not. Discriminate. Based. On. Race!”
“Oh yeah!?”
“Yes! We’re the Good Guys! A’dal always bless us first!”
“Go fuck yourself!”
“Ha!”
“Aldor, phah! The Scryers have excellent career opportunities! Our library is well stocked with anything from tailoring techniques to blacksmithing manuals! What’ve you got!? A fucking priest, that’s what!”
“You don’t TALK ABOUT THE ALDOR THAT WAY!!!”
“Fuck you, draenei!”
“You BLOOD ELF SCUM!”

Sashanna and Kamelia watched the fight unfurl for several minutes. Eventually, as both Shuanna and Laveria was struggling in chokeholds on the floor, Sashanna leaned close to Kamelia and whispered:
“Maybe we should pull their hair?”

Kamelia giggled.

“Leave ’em to it,” she whispered, very gently kissing the earlobe of Sashanna. “I have enough silver for a room, Sash.”
“And wine?”
“Well … “Kamelia giggled, grabbed one of the wine bottles from the table and hid it under her cape. “I do now!”

“Chromie?” Sashanna said, as Laveria managed to push Shuanna straight through the unlocked doors.From the screams and shouts it appeared that the fight pretty soon spread to the rest of the inn.
“Mmm?” Chromie looked up, ever so slightly, without turning her head. They didn’t see her smile.
“Is there any chance ..?” Kamelia said.
“Well,” Chromie stood up, without turning. Still warming her hands, she mumbled: “Times change …”

The Dream

(Image not related. It’s just what happen when you run a WoW screenie through Deep Dream.)

This is not World of Warcraft related, even though Velen does have a cameo. This is just how my brain works … all of it is written as is, without editing.

Just a short preface: I often don’t remember my dreams. About once or twice a month though, my brain makes a “memory dump” and those tend to be very graphic, with smells and sounds and even the feeling of skin and pain.

There were a number of Very Sexual Details involved as well but I decided to leave them out. For, uh, obvious reasons.

So, as I went to sleep earlier I found myself in a strange and slightly worrying land … Somehow I ended up in a relly posh restaurant. The reason was simple: I had been drinking with GRR Martin and a guy dressed in black leather, but Martin forgot his backpack and wallet. As I was skint – and Martin surely is not – I agreed with the Black Leather Man that if I returned the backpack and wallet I would surely get a reward. Off I trotted, once I managed to climb out of a window because the apartment, where the party had been going on for quite some time, was crammed with leather sofas covered in plastic. The crackle as you sat down was not very pleasant, tbh, so I know why Martin left.

I made my way through a city of shadowy buildings and somehow managed to get pass a burly bouncer. While I’m waiting for a Maitre D (however you spell it) to tend to me, This Guy With Stary Eyes walks up to another guest and, well Stares at him. It was a really scary guy … Tall dressed in bearskins, he had a knitted hat, too! He just – stares.

Then he started urinating on the poor guest, a rather posh young fellow, who needless to say got a bit upset. The Stary Scary Guy pulled a knife and started stabbing him in the chest! Once the posh guy was dead the Scary Stary Guy left the scene, trailing footsteps of blood behind. I had hid behind a vending machine filled with French Cuisine (it was a very posh restaurant) but since no one else bothered with it I thought that …

Maybe I should at least tell a waiter about the dead body. And the blood. As it turned out, I managed to find a security guard that looked like Velen, but in a uniform, but he simply brushed me off with a “we will deal with one problem at a time!”. Outside, meanwhile, a tourist and his young teenage son had fallen asleep in the middle of the street, both of them disappointed that the restaurant wouldn’t let them in even if they promised to shoot everyone.

A cleaner and a Bouncy Bot dragged the corpse out into the street because “the guests are complaining about the trash”. Also, they thought the green rain outside would somehow raise him from the dead. The rain did not.

I decided this place was weird. So I grabbed a cat and ran; I’m not sure where the cat came from. I was going to make it home, still with Martins backpack slung over my shoulder, but then he showed up and thanked me for returning his possessions. He called me a cab, but no traffic except police cars was allowed on the streets because of a “murderous maniac”. It turned out the Stary Scary Man was no where to be found, so the police reluctantly agreed on letting thousands of cross-country runners take a detour through the city. Meanwhile, I was still carrying the cat, who told me there were more cats in a house not far from where I was standing.

We made our way across football fields, dodging quarter backs carrying swords (!), and snaked our way through roadblocks – put up there, just so traffic wouldn’t run all the runners over. Somehow we found our way to the building complex where there were more cats, but SWAT teams had cordoned the site.

“Can’t go in there. This is cosplayer country!”

Half-naked young females with cat ears etc etc was hunched down behind the windows, carrying lasers and AR-15’s. Apparently the cops didn’t know how to blow up buildings – but they had a production team from Hollywood ready. Harrison Ford turned out to be an excellent demolition man … The building went BOOOOOOM and I scurried into cover behind armored trucks, trying to keep the cat calm! I ran into a field, across a highway and eventually reached a nice park where everyone came to bury their iPads. There was even gravestones. Blue one’s.

I managed to beat an old lady half to death with my iPhone and steal her can of tuna. The cat was pleased and said “Now you’re the Stary Man.”

Then I woke up.

The Lonely Orc, Part 1: Duskwood blues

(In which Taramek the Renegade meets a mysterious friend.)

“Grab’er straw!”
“She ain’t got none hair! Ain’t nuthin’ ta’old!”
“Ouw! She bit me!”
“Grab ‘er fucking ears, idiot!”
“Look what we have here … courtesy of the fucking Horde.”
“Gonna go wrathgate on you, gonna make you squeal.”
“Let’s just slit her fucking throat and get on with it.”
“You shut your mouth! Ain’t ne’er turn’ do’n some warm pussy … ”

Then. A voice:

“Oh. Hello, boys.”

There was a blinding light. Tara felt one of them almost rip her ears off, but his grip was far too late. There were screams – plenty of them. Most of all there was a singing noise. When they grabbed her they had put a sack over her head before a heavy kick in her lower back had sent her sprawling. All she could see through the burlap was the light.

Someone shrieked. A male voice, moments away from absolute terror. Then a crushing thud cut the noise short. The singing noise … like crystal, followed by a heavy thud. Every single time. The sound made her cringe.

Everything stopped.

The silence was almost as shocking as the screams. For a few minutes, Tara couldn’t hear anything but the silent crackle of the campfire. She still wasn’t sure how they had managed to catch her but caught she had been.

She heard footsteps, heavy boots against the sand and gravel. She should have run away, she knew she should have, but the campsite had appeared to be abanoned. Tufts of green grass surrounded by the worn down earth from many feet. An old army camp, perhaps. Or a loggers rest. She should have run … but she had been hungry. She still was, in fact.

She heard leather and metal jingle. A glove? Must be. Then someone put a hand on her neck, lifting her head up from the ground and pulling the sack off. Orange light from the campfire almost blinded her at first. She blinked, tried to break out of the ropes but couldn’t. Every time she twitched and moved, the noose around her neck pulled tighter.

Something twinkled in the glaring light of fire, far too bright against the black backdrop of a Duskwood night. She recognized the sound even before she saw the blade; metal scraping on wood and leather. An unsheathed dagger.

She felt the blade against her skin, then the ropes broke. She couldn’t help herself, rolling to her side she covered up in a “don’t hurt me!”-position, gasping for air. She felt tears on her cheeks.Peeking through her fingers she saw her club not far away… Then a golden boot, a jacket of metal around a black hoof, stopped her. It thumped down right in front of her eyes.

“Throm-Ka … ” a female voice, on guard but not quite threatening. The dialect was off, the words rolled sluggish and rough. The draenei accent made it almost unintelligible. “Move and you won’t move again. Orc!”

Tara slowly unfolded herself, looking up. At first, the strange woman was nothing but a shadow against the glaring light from the campfire. Then she took a few steps back, raising her mace in a guardian position. A faint veil of golden light surrounded her, pulsing as if in sync with her hearbeat. She lowered the heavy hammer, slowly, gold and steel shining in the light. Blood was still dripping from the hammerhead. Thick wads of brain matter was stuck to the metal.

“Mok-rah, stranger … ” Tara said as she coughed. She moved slowly, carefully, as she sat up, her eyes not leaving the bloodied hammer. She didn’t have to look around to know what had happened. The stench of urine and feces was enough. Six dead bodies. Four of them still in mail armor, two of them probably naked from the waist down.

“You move and I’ll crush your skull too.” The draenei didn’t move, it was all in her eyes.
“I won’t,” Tara said. She raised her hands, very slowly, and looked up at the woman. “Thank you for helping me.”
“You’re not going for that mallet over there, right? Because if you do … Please do try. I dare you.”
“I won’t.” Tara very carefully stood up. She wanted to cover herself up but she didn’t dare. Instead she pushed back her shame, and guilt, and spread her arms out wide. “I am your prisoner.”
“No you’re not.”
“Eh?” She flinched. “Wh–”
“I’m not about to take anyone prisoner today.”
“Oh … ”

The draenei relaxed enough to take the edge off any immediate threat and said: “I know you value honor above all, orc. I’m going to sit down now, have a smoke. Rest asssured, though. I am faster than you. You move in a way I don’t like and you’re dead. I don’t care about you. You’re meat, right now. We clear!?”
“Sorry … ”
“Yeah bet you are … “the draenei scoffed, lighting a clay pipe, dragging deep. “I’ve killed just about anything that walks, crawls or slithers. You’ll die if you try any funny business. Alright?”
“Deal.”
“Now … What are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for my father.”
“Your father?” The draenei raised her eyebrows, puffing her pipe. “Halfbreed, eh?”

Tara shrugged. The words angered her but she was in no position to act out on it.

“Your momma sure picked the wrong place to get banged up, girl. This is Duskwood … “the draenei shuddered. “Nothing but the dead and spiders here, orc. And the living, well. Let’s say most of them are short a few marbles.”
“I noticed … ”
“So what’s you name, then?”
“Taramek … uhm. And you are?”

The draenei smiled. Winking, she said:

“Orgrimmar knows me as the Crusader.”
“Y- … You … “Tara swallowed, hard. “Blood and thunder!” She didn’t dare to move, so she stood there with her arms out, almost naked, still covered in dirt and sweat. “I … I don’t want to die. Not here … ”

The draenei stood up.

“You’re a miserable piece of orc, aren’t you?” She pulled a blanket from the ground and took a few steps forward, her pipe in the corner of the mouth trailing smoke behind her. Then she put the blanket around Tarameks shoulders and stepped away. “Such a fucking waste, you are …”

Taramek clutched the blanket close to her. She couldn’t help herself, she sank to her knees, thinking she would be dead in an insant.

“Be quick,” she whispered as she lowered her head, exposing her neck. “No’ku kil zil’nok ha tar …”
“Oh fuck off!”
“What?” Tara looked up, confused.
“What!?” The Crusader sighed. “You’re a weird one, you know that?”
“Mother used to tell me that … ”
“Well at least we need to clean you up and feed you. Don’t mind me saying this either, but, honestly?”
“Honestly what?”
“You fight like shit, orc.” The Crusader looked around, quick glances at the dead around them. “A lone orc, bested by the scrapings of the Alliance. Oh dear.”
“Scrapings?”
“Look at the sorry fucks! You don’t know shit about fighting.”
“I do know how!” Tara scoffed. “I am an orc! Lokta–”
“Yeah fucking useless that’s what you are.”
“Hey!” Tara sighed. “Look … I used to be a baker, alright?”
“Uh-huh.” The Crusader smirked. “I bet you can bake but you don’t fight for shit. Fucking noob.”
“Right!” Tara stamped the ground and spit. “You and me! One on one! Right now! Mak’gora!”
“Oh please.”

Then came the light …

Several hours later, when Tara could see again, she was alone next to half a dozen freshly dug graves, a brazier of shining, cozy, warm light and a wicker basket full of skinned rabbits. There was a note attached to the basket:

‘There was this orc in the dark of Duskwood,
How to swing a mace the orc ne’er un’stood.
So I hit her inna face
and left without a trace,
Before the orc ever understood.
Come see me in Lunarfall. If you get that far. Lanny will teach how to fight like a Warsong. Ogar, motherfucker!

/Shu, the “Crusader”‘.

“Fucking draenei poets,” Tara said, but halfway through the motion of crumbling up the note she stopped. “And who the hell is ‘Shu’!?”

Tara folded the note carefully – and put it in her pocket …

The Lament of Farmhand Geist: Kingdom

“I see it all, taunting in the vastness behind my eyeline”

– Sarah Reeson, (Laughing Geek, Alt:ernative)

“Mot’ on’na range!”

Everytime one of the lookouts yell that thing, I cringe. It means one of my former “brothers” will be shredded. It’s ingrained within my dead fibres, this solidarity with the already dead unknowning. I could be out there, alone. In the cold … but Master saved me. I watch them from the wall that the Argent Crusade erected not far from the Shadow Vault. The ghouls, the zombies, the skeletons, the mindless undead of the Scourge.

This is Tim, Geist Alpha, reporting for duty from Dog One, the Argent Crusade Vigil Barrier. They call it “the Wall”.

The things down there, the things I once called my band of brothers, stray close to the burning lanterns dotting the Wall. People used to fear the Scourge. Now? They’re like moths. They are drawn to the light, perhaps with a faint memory of a sunset deep in their dead, rotten brains. Once in a while I see someone I know; Mucky was shredded a couple of days ago. Mucky was a ghoul. He used to be a murderer – drink pushed him to kill his wife and children and so he was sent to the penal companies of the Northrend expedition. That’s where we found him. Anh’khnat the Nerubian, nicknamed “the gnat”, our squad commander, sniffed him out where he was hiding behind a bush not far from Farshire. We played with him for a bit. We made him dance. Oh, how he danced …

He wasn’t spared.

I know, it sounds very cruel. Inhumane. Newsflash, buddy – the Scourge lack morals. What we don’t lack is memories. So you might ask – why was he was called Mucky? Well, he never stopped crying, not even as a ghoul. Joar, the vrykul commander who replaced the Gnat once we tired of the bugs fucking antics and killed him dead-dead, decided that the tears were “mucky”. Being scourge is hard, people (I hear there’s a “trend” among youngsters in Stormwind to experiment with Lichbloom; death is not the answer, young ones – and the ghouls have really bad breath).

Just remember that every single ghoul has a backstory. Some of them even remembers it. Everyone lived, once we all lived. We were lovers, farmers, masons, killers, men, women, children, old. We were happy or sad and some ghouls, the really old one’s, was not human at all but elves. Then all we became was shufflers. Walkers. Dead. Dead! Citizens of a new empire – the Kingdom of the Scourge (only the dead may enter!).

Kingdom. We used to call this place that.

Kingdom.

I could be out there, in the vastness of death and cold. An endless wanderer, lost in a darkness streaked with saronite green and necromantic purple. I am not. Instead I huddle under the weight of half a dozen wolf furs as Master stand statuesque on the Wall. She doesn’t move, she doesn’t blink. All she does is stare down on the Kingdom of Oblivion, now boxed in by the Argent Crusade. The black stone wall, dotted with shining braziers, are the line drawn in the sand. Here the kingdom ends.

Why am I here?

Down there the moths shuffle close, and then a watchman yells “Mot’ on’na range!”. Then the acketi-acketi-acketi-ack-ack-ack starts. Gnomish weaponry, arcane-infused caliber .50 semi-automatic turrets with targeting systems salvaged from Ulduar.

Those poor fucks, shuffling towards the light, down there on the plain, they don’t stand a chance. You know what the worst part is? It’s not the yell about moths. It’s the cheering, once the guns fall silent. While the living celebrate another victory, all I can feel is sorrow. I huddle down behind a turret and stare into the darkness below. I see it all, taunting in the vastness behind my eyeline.

I could be out there. I am not. I want to be out there. I am not allowed.

Tim the Geist is sad. Tim the Geist is dead inside. The one thing that made my rotten heart jump and skip has been taken away from me. Gul’Dans minions in the Citadel took my Morissa from me. She was my hope, my east and west, my north and south. I wish the clocks would stop, I would blot out the stars and cover the world in darkness – if I could. I can’t. I’m just a geist. A construct, a lifing thing with hope – and then the Legion took it away. Just like that. (I was later told my Morissa went down fighting, death knight to the last, biting and clawing when her swords broke. She took sixhundred and twenty five Iron Horde orcs with her. That, my friends, is the power of death!)

This latest state of almost dead but not quite, now that my brain is still, has brought some unforseen consequences. I get cold now, eventually. The cold never bothered me before – but that was in the past. Now? I’m … lifing.

I told you about the Panic, didn’t I? Yes I did. I told you about the Shakes, the Chittering. What followed was the Dead Calm. One after another of my bodyparts stopped longing for death and settled down. That’s “lifing”. When the dead tissue lose its morphic memories and the wheel turns … and then Life starts to come back. It’s a very rare condition among the Scourge. It used to be that anyone caught “lifing” was instantly destroyed – but Master saved me. She took me away from the Scourge. She …liberated me. Yet. Master is just my friend. She is not my lover. Morissa redeemed me. Morissa turned the light on inside me. She was the brazier on the Wall. I was drawn to it, memories of sunsets … Then the Legion snuffed it out. What kind of monster would take away life from those who are already dead?

The call came some time ago. That’s why we’re here. Something was and is in motion, deep within the Citadel, towering over this Kingdom of the Scourge. I don’t know what, I’m a good spy but I can’t breach the holy wards surrounding either Hearthglen or the Icecrown outposts. So Master, a “liason” between the Argent Crusade and the Ebon Blade, stands still and stares into the darkness over yonder. So I, Tim the Geist, who wants to cry but can not cry because tear ducts was never installed, huddle under furs. Geist has the sads, as Isel would put it. Ah, yes, Isel … Geist has the sads. Not just for my Morissa. Geist has the sads everytime the monstrous anger of the guns and the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle patter out their one and only truth:

“Mot’ on’na range!”

The pit-a-patter starts and there are no bells for those who die as cattle. Down there, in the Kingdom of the Scourge.