Biara's boots thumped
loudly as she hurried down the smooth stone corridor. Although her face
was kept in a carefully schooled, expressionless mask, beneath the
surface she wanted to scream. She wanted to dash down the hallway as
fast as possible to the scrying chamber. With her steel will she managed
to maintained the charade that everything was fine as she proceeded on
her way.
She's gone. My Lune is gone and the last words we spoke to one another were in anger.
The thought wouldn't leave her as she walked the last few feet to the opening of the chamber, slipping into the darkened room with a feeling of relief mixed with dread. Elunearia Moonblade had been missing for almost a full day now. She had been missing since the mid-day after Tatimitzi's party, and now Biara would find out what had happened to her.
Despite setting servants and apprentices to the task, none had found the Sin'dorei priestess, and now Biara planned to focus her considerable magical talents to the task. She would find Elunearia regardless of the effort needed.
Within the chamber a small sphere of crystal sat upon a pedestal. She hurried to it, her delicate fingertips resting on its surface as she summoned magic to her, the act as natural as breathing. Instantly the sphere began to glow, the energies within it responding to her call. She closed her fel green eyes, letting her mind see the things the sphere saw, reaching out with her thoughts and senses to search for the elf that was the singular focus of her attention.
She found nothing.
Nothing!
It couldn't be. If there was nothing to find, it meant Elunearia was dead, and the Magistrix refused to even consider that possibility for a moment. She frowned, her eyes still closed as she gathered more magic to her. The very room hummed with energy as she sought to penetrate the veil of secrecy over the missing priestess. Power crackled around her fingertips, and her mind began to get the faintest of images; images that were soon swept away by powerful magic of an unusual sort.
Druidic magic!
The contact with the powerful force of nature crippled her seeing spell, ending any hint of the vision, but it was enough for Biara. She reeled away from the orb, knocking it over and watching it shatter on the floor in a thousand sparkling pieces of ruined magic.
Elunearia's location is shielded by druidic magic. There are only two possibilities; either she's left and is sheltering amongst them voluntarily, or she is being kept by them.... kept by the Kaldorei.
There was an answer to this question, and Biara quickly spun on her heels, storming from the room in a rush. Behind her the smoldering remains of her scrying orb sputtered out, the magic fading.
*************************
The door to the bedchamber opened slowly as Biara stepped inside. Her eyes took in the room quickly, noting the locations of all of the various pieces of furniture and the objects resting upon them. Elunearia's bedchamber was much as she had left it, although the elf had spent little time within it over the past few months. Biara smiled as she walked into the center of the room, seeing the lovely fountain and plants she had given to the priestess.
Many of Elunearia's things were still within the room, but Biara paid them little attention as she made her way to the bed. If the priestess had fled, she wouldn't have bothered to take all of her possessions; she'd have been in a hurry. There were still a few things however that she would never part from, Biara's task was to find one of these.
Her search took only a moment as she bent down over the nightstand beside the bed and swept a small moon-shaped pendant into her hand. The Magistrix studied the little piece of jewelry, her hands shaking. It was one of Elunearia's sacred symbols, a physical link between her and her goddess. She would never have left such an object behind, no matter how angry or upset she had been. Everything else could be replaced, but never this reminder of who and what she was.
She did not go voluntarily.
It was obvious now. Elunearia had been taken somewhere by Kaldorei. Taken for purposes that Biara could only guess at, but were likely dire. If the Kaldorei had her, they would let the rogue priestess of Elune live for only a short time before they executed her, and much of that time would likely be spent under questioning.
The Kaldorei, or their allies, have taken the one thing I love most in all the world.
The thought stuck in her mind as she held the little pendant in her hand, staring at it almost in accusation.
“Why Goddess?” Biara murmured. “Why would you torment her so? She who has been faithful to you through all of the many trials thrown her way. She has loved you, worshiped you, bled and suffered in your name, and yet still she is not allowed to have peace and happiness.”
Long moments stretched out as Biara stared at the object in her hand, receiving no response from the deity and expecting none. Slowly her fist closed over the tiny pendant, the points of the moon digging into her flesh until her hand trembled with the pain.
“If you will not save her, if you will not lend her aid in her time of greatest need, then what good are you?” she asked with venom in her voice. “Everything Elunearia is was designed to please you, to honor you, and you leave her to her fate.”
The silence seemed to mock her now.
“I will get her myself, and if she is already dead, then I pray that you give the rest of your followers more aid and mercy that you have shown her, for I shall not.”
The Magistrix threw the pendant on the bed, two tiny cuts on her hand from the points of the moon tainting it with drops of blood. As she turned and stormed from the room, she never saw the pale glimmer of moonlight on the pendant.
She likely would not have cared if she had.
********************************
The door to the Conjury had only been opened three times in almost two years. It stood at the end of an unused corridor, the horrible defensive wards built into it simmering in quiet malice. It was one of the most heavily defended points in Dayfire Spire, and few could even access the corridor let alone approach the door alive.
All of the magic within it, all of the defensive wards around it, could not save the stout oak from utter obliteration as a frostbolt slammed into it. Biara strode up quickly behind the blast of the spell, watching the spinning fragments of the door fly into the room beyond. They paused in mid-air, the deadly splinters of wood floating and then slowly spinning and orienting themselves on the Magistrix before hurtling back towards her. She calmly raised a hand palm outward and the shards slammed into a manashield; she had been expecting the spell, she was the one who put it there after all.
She stepped over the now lifeless splinters lying on the floor, her boots grinding across the dusty marble of the Conjury. Beneath her, deadly magical traps and wards sprang to life, spells flaring in the air around her. She should have been burned, frozen, crushed, impaled, and had her soul sucked out in the inferno of destructive energies, but she had placed all of the traps within the room, and each one was defeated by a carefully crafted ward of her own or a softly spoken word of magic. She had little time to worry over the months of careful work she was undoing with her trip through the room; she would repair everything later, if there WAS a later.
On the far side of the room a bookcase sat, glass doors protecting the books within from damage. It was covered with dust, the wooden surface heavy with cobwebs, the lock in the center of the piece glimmering gold and awaiting the key that would open it after hours of carefully placed wards were removed. Biara had little time for such work now.
She drew a wand from her belt, pointed it and spoke a word of power.
Instantly a bolt of arcane magic flew from the wand, striking the bookcase and shattering it into a thousand pieces, utterly destroying the wards around it. Burning pages fluttered through the air as the books within were destroyed by the blast, and the tinkle of glass hitting the floor could be heard. As the dust and swirling pages cleared, a single shelf remained, only one book sitting upon it; the book that the Magistrix knew would never be destroyed by such a simple spell.
She approached it carefully, studying it as she would a poisonous snake. The book sat peacefully, propped slightly to give the viewer a look at its cover, the centerpiece of the former book collection. Its cover was bound in dried human flesh, with a small gem set in the cover, held in place by velvet ribbon. The stone glowed a deep purple, and Biara could sense its magic from where she stood. She hesitated, reaching out slowly to touch the cover.
“I knew you'd come for me eventually. You could not resist the urge.”
“Shut up,” She murmured as she picked the book up. The tome was not what it appeared to be at all, but was in fact a phylactery created several years ago by the Death knight known as Valsharoon. He'd crafted it for her to feed from, so that she could enjoy the act of taking in scourge magic like the delicacy she considered it to be. She'd touched it only a few times since then, recognizing the danger of contacting even the minor Lichling that was trapped within the stone on the book.
“I don't know why you fight it so much. In your hands lies unending power. I can guide you along the path to claiming it. All you must do is free me.”
“I said SHUT UP!” Biara snarled, hurling the book onto a nearby table. The heavy object struck with a thud, stirring up dust that swirled in the air around it. The Lichling within the tome was a prisoner, but it was still powerful and could still reach out to influence those around it. She had to be extremely careful.
“You are a fool if you don't think I can sense your purpose here. I can feel your pain, your terror, your weakness. You wish to use me as a weapon, a tool in your war of vengeance. There is a price to pay for such a thing, a terrible price. You above all others should know that.”
Biara stood over the book now, staring down at the glowing stone, her face a mask of determination. “All magic and power have a price. Only a fool would fail to recognize that.”
Her voice trailed off as she considered what she was about to do. Her eyes closed with the pain of losing Elunearia, her grief coming back again and bringing with it a surge of pure hatred. Her eyes opened, her mind set.
“Even in death, true love is forever,” the Magistrix said softly.
“In death there is no love, no warmth, no joy.”
Biara's head bowed as the Lichling's words washed over her mind. She replied in a whisper, “Then let there be only frozen death and despair, which is what my foes have given me.”
Before the creature could form a response, Biara spoke a single word in the Language of Death. The word echoed across the room, powerful and deadly enough to make a Cult of the Damned member blanch. The warding marks on Biara's right cheek flared brightly, a new rune forming in the center of them, mimicking a rune of Death. Her hands reached down, caressing the stone of the phylactery almost lovingly. Magic flashed and a similar rune appeared on its surface, marring its perfect exterior. She grasped the book, bringing it up over her head.
“What are you doing?! Noooooooooooooooooo!”
Power flashed in the room around the Magistrix and her arms trembled as the energy of the phylactery was drawn into her. The Lichling's essence thrashed within its confines as part of its being was absorbed. In a heartbeat, Biara felt her connection to the creature, and realized the terrible truth of what Valsharoon had wrought; the phylactery, the Lichling, the souls used to create it, all had been paid for in Sin'dorei blood years ago. She could feel every second of their suffering within the magic construct.
She screamed, and in the air around her ghostly shapes took form, fluttering about the room, insubstantial but chilling to the touch anyway. They cried out, their otherworldly voices joining with Biara's as the energy of the object was drained away. From the corners of the room a deadly cold filtered in, and it began to snow as the Magistrix drew more and more power in.
The voice of the Lichling trailed off as it fought to merely exist in the face of the black pit of nothing that existed within the Magistrix. It knew then that its threats were meaningless to one who would feed until she died or there was nothing left to feed upon, her thirst was an unending gaping maw of darkness.
Biara's arms shook as she took in almost every bit of the Lichling's power. The room froze, sheets of ice covering the worktables and other bookcases. Snow piled up around her feet and the hair on her head frosted to a strawberry red as the foul scourge magic empowered her. After a time the supernatural wailing of the voices from the phylactery faded, and she lowered the book back to the surface of the table. The gemstone on it glowed only feebly now, much of its power held within the Sin'dorei that stood before it. Biara stared at it for a long time through strands of her bleached hair, final realization of what Valsharoon had done sinking in.
“I wonder,” she murmured, “If you knew that one day I would draw these energies in, not in pleasure, but in rage. I wonder if you realized when you made this thing to trap me that you were unleashing a weapon against your very people. I wonder if you would even care, or if they would just be that many more test subjects for your necromancy.”
She shook her head; it didn't matter now, all that mattered, all that she was would be was vengeance. She would be the frozen death that would creep over the hearts of the Alliance that had dared to take her beloved. When she was done, there would be no enemies, there would be only the endless cold and the Queen of Ice that stood within it.
Biara turned, leaving the book on the table, the remaining wards in place around it sufficient to hold the Lichling for a time. As she passed through the doorway, snow billowed into the corridor around her, and she felt nothing of the cold. She spoke a word of magic, and a water elemental appeared in the doorway behind her. It instantly froze into a solid wall of ice, trapping the phylactery within the room once more.
Two guards at the end of the hallway nervously saluted as she approached, shivering at the cold she brought with her. She stared at them, nothing in her eyes but endless winter.
“Prepare the men. It is long past due that my enemies felt the stings that they have inflicted upon me a thousandfold. If I have to exterminate every single one of them, if I have to stand upon their necks and deliver the killing blow, then so be it.”
The guards bowed and rushed off to obey her commands; it was time for a new war to begin.
She's gone. My Lune is gone and the last words we spoke to one another were in anger.
The thought wouldn't leave her as she walked the last few feet to the opening of the chamber, slipping into the darkened room with a feeling of relief mixed with dread. Elunearia Moonblade had been missing for almost a full day now. She had been missing since the mid-day after Tatimitzi's party, and now Biara would find out what had happened to her.
Despite setting servants and apprentices to the task, none had found the Sin'dorei priestess, and now Biara planned to focus her considerable magical talents to the task. She would find Elunearia regardless of the effort needed.
Within the chamber a small sphere of crystal sat upon a pedestal. She hurried to it, her delicate fingertips resting on its surface as she summoned magic to her, the act as natural as breathing. Instantly the sphere began to glow, the energies within it responding to her call. She closed her fel green eyes, letting her mind see the things the sphere saw, reaching out with her thoughts and senses to search for the elf that was the singular focus of her attention.
She found nothing.
Nothing!
It couldn't be. If there was nothing to find, it meant Elunearia was dead, and the Magistrix refused to even consider that possibility for a moment. She frowned, her eyes still closed as she gathered more magic to her. The very room hummed with energy as she sought to penetrate the veil of secrecy over the missing priestess. Power crackled around her fingertips, and her mind began to get the faintest of images; images that were soon swept away by powerful magic of an unusual sort.
Druidic magic!
The contact with the powerful force of nature crippled her seeing spell, ending any hint of the vision, but it was enough for Biara. She reeled away from the orb, knocking it over and watching it shatter on the floor in a thousand sparkling pieces of ruined magic.
Elunearia's location is shielded by druidic magic. There are only two possibilities; either she's left and is sheltering amongst them voluntarily, or she is being kept by them.... kept by the Kaldorei.
There was an answer to this question, and Biara quickly spun on her heels, storming from the room in a rush. Behind her the smoldering remains of her scrying orb sputtered out, the magic fading.
*************************
The door to the bedchamber opened slowly as Biara stepped inside. Her eyes took in the room quickly, noting the locations of all of the various pieces of furniture and the objects resting upon them. Elunearia's bedchamber was much as she had left it, although the elf had spent little time within it over the past few months. Biara smiled as she walked into the center of the room, seeing the lovely fountain and plants she had given to the priestess.
Many of Elunearia's things were still within the room, but Biara paid them little attention as she made her way to the bed. If the priestess had fled, she wouldn't have bothered to take all of her possessions; she'd have been in a hurry. There were still a few things however that she would never part from, Biara's task was to find one of these.
Her search took only a moment as she bent down over the nightstand beside the bed and swept a small moon-shaped pendant into her hand. The Magistrix studied the little piece of jewelry, her hands shaking. It was one of Elunearia's sacred symbols, a physical link between her and her goddess. She would never have left such an object behind, no matter how angry or upset she had been. Everything else could be replaced, but never this reminder of who and what she was.
She did not go voluntarily.
It was obvious now. Elunearia had been taken somewhere by Kaldorei. Taken for purposes that Biara could only guess at, but were likely dire. If the Kaldorei had her, they would let the rogue priestess of Elune live for only a short time before they executed her, and much of that time would likely be spent under questioning.
The Kaldorei, or their allies, have taken the one thing I love most in all the world.
The thought stuck in her mind as she held the little pendant in her hand, staring at it almost in accusation.
“Why Goddess?” Biara murmured. “Why would you torment her so? She who has been faithful to you through all of the many trials thrown her way. She has loved you, worshiped you, bled and suffered in your name, and yet still she is not allowed to have peace and happiness.”
Long moments stretched out as Biara stared at the object in her hand, receiving no response from the deity and expecting none. Slowly her fist closed over the tiny pendant, the points of the moon digging into her flesh until her hand trembled with the pain.
“If you will not save her, if you will not lend her aid in her time of greatest need, then what good are you?” she asked with venom in her voice. “Everything Elunearia is was designed to please you, to honor you, and you leave her to her fate.”
The silence seemed to mock her now.
“I will get her myself, and if she is already dead, then I pray that you give the rest of your followers more aid and mercy that you have shown her, for I shall not.”
The Magistrix threw the pendant on the bed, two tiny cuts on her hand from the points of the moon tainting it with drops of blood. As she turned and stormed from the room, she never saw the pale glimmer of moonlight on the pendant.
She likely would not have cared if she had.
********************************
The door to the Conjury had only been opened three times in almost two years. It stood at the end of an unused corridor, the horrible defensive wards built into it simmering in quiet malice. It was one of the most heavily defended points in Dayfire Spire, and few could even access the corridor let alone approach the door alive.
All of the magic within it, all of the defensive wards around it, could not save the stout oak from utter obliteration as a frostbolt slammed into it. Biara strode up quickly behind the blast of the spell, watching the spinning fragments of the door fly into the room beyond. They paused in mid-air, the deadly splinters of wood floating and then slowly spinning and orienting themselves on the Magistrix before hurtling back towards her. She calmly raised a hand palm outward and the shards slammed into a manashield; she had been expecting the spell, she was the one who put it there after all.
She stepped over the now lifeless splinters lying on the floor, her boots grinding across the dusty marble of the Conjury. Beneath her, deadly magical traps and wards sprang to life, spells flaring in the air around her. She should have been burned, frozen, crushed, impaled, and had her soul sucked out in the inferno of destructive energies, but she had placed all of the traps within the room, and each one was defeated by a carefully crafted ward of her own or a softly spoken word of magic. She had little time to worry over the months of careful work she was undoing with her trip through the room; she would repair everything later, if there WAS a later.
On the far side of the room a bookcase sat, glass doors protecting the books within from damage. It was covered with dust, the wooden surface heavy with cobwebs, the lock in the center of the piece glimmering gold and awaiting the key that would open it after hours of carefully placed wards were removed. Biara had little time for such work now.
She drew a wand from her belt, pointed it and spoke a word of power.
Instantly a bolt of arcane magic flew from the wand, striking the bookcase and shattering it into a thousand pieces, utterly destroying the wards around it. Burning pages fluttered through the air as the books within were destroyed by the blast, and the tinkle of glass hitting the floor could be heard. As the dust and swirling pages cleared, a single shelf remained, only one book sitting upon it; the book that the Magistrix knew would never be destroyed by such a simple spell.
She approached it carefully, studying it as she would a poisonous snake. The book sat peacefully, propped slightly to give the viewer a look at its cover, the centerpiece of the former book collection. Its cover was bound in dried human flesh, with a small gem set in the cover, held in place by velvet ribbon. The stone glowed a deep purple, and Biara could sense its magic from where she stood. She hesitated, reaching out slowly to touch the cover.
“I knew you'd come for me eventually. You could not resist the urge.”
“Shut up,” She murmured as she picked the book up. The tome was not what it appeared to be at all, but was in fact a phylactery created several years ago by the Death knight known as Valsharoon. He'd crafted it for her to feed from, so that she could enjoy the act of taking in scourge magic like the delicacy she considered it to be. She'd touched it only a few times since then, recognizing the danger of contacting even the minor Lichling that was trapped within the stone on the book.
“I don't know why you fight it so much. In your hands lies unending power. I can guide you along the path to claiming it. All you must do is free me.”
“I said SHUT UP!” Biara snarled, hurling the book onto a nearby table. The heavy object struck with a thud, stirring up dust that swirled in the air around it. The Lichling within the tome was a prisoner, but it was still powerful and could still reach out to influence those around it. She had to be extremely careful.
“You are a fool if you don't think I can sense your purpose here. I can feel your pain, your terror, your weakness. You wish to use me as a weapon, a tool in your war of vengeance. There is a price to pay for such a thing, a terrible price. You above all others should know that.”
Biara stood over the book now, staring down at the glowing stone, her face a mask of determination. “All magic and power have a price. Only a fool would fail to recognize that.”
Her voice trailed off as she considered what she was about to do. Her eyes closed with the pain of losing Elunearia, her grief coming back again and bringing with it a surge of pure hatred. Her eyes opened, her mind set.
“Even in death, true love is forever,” the Magistrix said softly.
“In death there is no love, no warmth, no joy.”
Biara's head bowed as the Lichling's words washed over her mind. She replied in a whisper, “Then let there be only frozen death and despair, which is what my foes have given me.”
Before the creature could form a response, Biara spoke a single word in the Language of Death. The word echoed across the room, powerful and deadly enough to make a Cult of the Damned member blanch. The warding marks on Biara's right cheek flared brightly, a new rune forming in the center of them, mimicking a rune of Death. Her hands reached down, caressing the stone of the phylactery almost lovingly. Magic flashed and a similar rune appeared on its surface, marring its perfect exterior. She grasped the book, bringing it up over her head.
“What are you doing?! Noooooooooooooooooo!”
Power flashed in the room around the Magistrix and her arms trembled as the energy of the phylactery was drawn into her. The Lichling's essence thrashed within its confines as part of its being was absorbed. In a heartbeat, Biara felt her connection to the creature, and realized the terrible truth of what Valsharoon had wrought; the phylactery, the Lichling, the souls used to create it, all had been paid for in Sin'dorei blood years ago. She could feel every second of their suffering within the magic construct.
She screamed, and in the air around her ghostly shapes took form, fluttering about the room, insubstantial but chilling to the touch anyway. They cried out, their otherworldly voices joining with Biara's as the energy of the object was drained away. From the corners of the room a deadly cold filtered in, and it began to snow as the Magistrix drew more and more power in.
The voice of the Lichling trailed off as it fought to merely exist in the face of the black pit of nothing that existed within the Magistrix. It knew then that its threats were meaningless to one who would feed until she died or there was nothing left to feed upon, her thirst was an unending gaping maw of darkness.
Biara's arms shook as she took in almost every bit of the Lichling's power. The room froze, sheets of ice covering the worktables and other bookcases. Snow piled up around her feet and the hair on her head frosted to a strawberry red as the foul scourge magic empowered her. After a time the supernatural wailing of the voices from the phylactery faded, and she lowered the book back to the surface of the table. The gemstone on it glowed only feebly now, much of its power held within the Sin'dorei that stood before it. Biara stared at it for a long time through strands of her bleached hair, final realization of what Valsharoon had done sinking in.
“I wonder,” she murmured, “If you knew that one day I would draw these energies in, not in pleasure, but in rage. I wonder if you realized when you made this thing to trap me that you were unleashing a weapon against your very people. I wonder if you would even care, or if they would just be that many more test subjects for your necromancy.”
She shook her head; it didn't matter now, all that mattered, all that she was would be was vengeance. She would be the frozen death that would creep over the hearts of the Alliance that had dared to take her beloved. When she was done, there would be no enemies, there would be only the endless cold and the Queen of Ice that stood within it.
Biara turned, leaving the book on the table, the remaining wards in place around it sufficient to hold the Lichling for a time. As she passed through the doorway, snow billowed into the corridor around her, and she felt nothing of the cold. She spoke a word of magic, and a water elemental appeared in the doorway behind her. It instantly froze into a solid wall of ice, trapping the phylactery within the room once more.
Two guards at the end of the hallway nervously saluted as she approached, shivering at the cold she brought with her. She stared at them, nothing in her eyes but endless winter.
“Prepare the men. It is long past due that my enemies felt the stings that they have inflicted upon me a thousandfold. If I have to exterminate every single one of them, if I have to stand upon their necks and deliver the killing blow, then so be it.”
The guards bowed and rushed off to obey her commands; it was time for a new war to begin.
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