Connecting with the World

The room was dark. Darker than a living person would prefer anyway, with only pale blue witchlight flames flickering dully where once a pure white magical glow shone. Avielle sat upon a rotting old divan, reclining against the soft material where there was any left, her scourge-blue eyes glowing fitfully in the darkness as she read over a tome that she held open in one hand.

The room around her was in equal disrepair, the walls blackened by fires that occurred years ago, the tiles cracked from the heat and, here and there, from the blows of weapons that had missed their mark and struck the floor. Now and again, a hole could be seen in the walls where arrows had once sunk into the wood only to be pulled free and fired again by desperate defenders.

That was not to say that efforts had not been taken to tidy up Silverlight Estate of course. The floors were swept clean of dust and debris, and though the furniture had seen better days and no noble would even think of using any of it given its condition, it was at least free of cobwebs and insects.

Avielle brought her other hand up, the tall glass she held filled with thick, red liquid. She sipped delicately, enjoying not the flavor, but what was contained within the liquid. Although she could consume normal food and drink, she had little need for such and a great need for agony and suffering. This need was filled when she harmed others, but could be staved off for a time by consuming the blood of one of her victims and tasting the residual spiritual torment that lingered on after death.

This particular vintage, as she liked to think of it, was of a Kaldorei Highborne that had wandered into Quel'Thalas intent on stealing Sin'dorei secrets. His death had been unfortunately gruesome at her hands, and the lingering fear and agony that had once flowed through his veins was like a snack to Avielle until she could feed on such emotion again.

She set the glass down on a table beside her divan, reaching up to turn the page of the tome she was reading. At that moment, a light began to flicker in the air, the eerie blue and purple forming to take the shape of a ghostly Quel'dorei. The ghost bowed before her, his partially see-through form bedecked in the former colors of House Silverlight.

"My Lady," the seneschal said, his voice echoing with a hollow sound, "We've received a missive from your contacts in Silvermoon."

With that, the ghost signaled and a skeletal warrior entered the room, bearing a sealed letter in one hand. The creature stopped near to where Avielle sat, and she nodded. She gestured, and a second skeleton stepped forward, handing her a perfectly clean white cloth that she used to blot her lips, the blood she'd drank staining them red. She handed the cloth back to the skeleton beside her, who bowed and backed away. With a fluid motion Avielle took the sealed letter, opening it and reading over the contents quickly.

She had few friends in Silvermoon, and those whom she remained in contact with had far more dealings with the Forsaken then with the ruling Sin'dorei elite. Even so, the message she read was alarming, telling of a horde of foreign orcs pouring from the now-red Dark Portal and laying waste to both Horde and Alliance fortresses in the Blasted Lands. It seemed the world was in peril from some unknown place.

Avielle gestured and her seneschal bowed deeply once before dematerializing. The skeletons in the room withdrew as Avielle rose from her seat, leaving her book of necromancy behind on the divan as she walked from the room and through the broken double doors of her family's estate house. The doors had been kicked in when the Scourge overcame the defenders outside, their resilience proving ineffective against the blows of abominations. She'd had them re-hinged, but the damage they'd received was still visible on the outside.

She walked across the desolate, eerie landscape that Silverlight Estate had become since the fall of Quel'Thalas and the creation of the Ghostlands. The dead trees loomed over the unkempt grounds, the calls of strange beasts and groans of distant undead in the forests around affecting Avielle not at all, for what were the walking dead to one such as she now? What could happen to her that was worse than what had already been done?

She was a silent, foreign shape moving across the dead lawns of the estate, her dark flowing gown something that would be fitting at a party instead of in a place that would give a party of adventurers anxiety. Save for the sheathed sword strapped to her belt, there was little to distinguish her from any other resident of Quel'Thalas if one overlooked the blue glow of her eyes. Of course, the blade at her hip was not a plain bit of steel, but was a runeblade capable of slaughtering any of the creatures that roamed on the grounds her family once ruled over.

Avielle had tried over the years to rid herself of her curse. She'd tried to abandon the runeblade, tried to go back to who and what she was, but it was an impossible task. Her soul was bound in darkness, and although she had found ways to transfer the binding from one blade to another, setting aside the weapon was as impossible as trying not to sustain herself with the agony of others. She was a monster now, and that was all there was to it; better to accept it then to fight the inevitable.

As she passed across the the last stretch of lawn before the broken gates of the estate, she paused, staring at the burned wreckage around the walls. It was here that she had set up the defenses; here that many of the Scourge had been slain. Even so, it had been in vain and beyond the walls there had been carnage and massacre. The site's evils drew her on as she walked like a siren call.

Beyond the broken wall was a clearing, the ground once paved with perfectly smooth stones in a circle to allow carriages to pull up to the estate's main gate and deliver passengers. Although the stones were uneven and scorched now, the circle was still visible, a relatively new construct centered in the middle of the space.

Avielle approached the stone monument, staring up at the statue she had ordered built there and pausing before it. It was a stone sword, the point planted firmly down in a stone base, the inscription on the bottom paying tribute to those who bravely fought and lost their lives beyond the gate's walls, particularly Lord Kelthias Sunblade and his retinue, who bought time for those fleeing with their lives.

Avielle knelt before the stone sword, reaching out to caress the inscription before closing her eyes and murmuring, "I do not know what to do. The world is in peril, but I've yet to even find or understand my place in it now. I have reclaimed this place, but to what end? So that I can dwell here like one of the beasts that haunt this forest, to feed on those unwary enough to approach my domain? What can I do to change this, to grow beyond this? Can the dead grow at all, can we learn?"

Although the question was asked aloud to give words to Avielle's thoughts, she was not expecting an answer. When the gloom of the Ghostlands suddenly brightened to the healthy light of full daylight, she gasped aloud and fell backwards, sitting in the fallen leaves that covered the ground and staring in shock at the statue.

Sunlight slanted down from seemingly nowhere, illuminating the sword in the ground and reflecting brightly. It almost hurt her, for she felt within it the touch of the Light. The glow intensified, a form taking shape in its brightness, an old Quel'dorei smiling down at her.

Avielle stared in utter shock as the ghost of Kelthias Sunblade nodded at her, his voice echoing from the great beyond, "Avielle Silverlight, of all of those who fell that day, you least deserved the fate bestowed upon you, and yet you linger on in suffering. This is a crime I'd say, but one for which there is no justice, no vengeance to be taken. And yet, it can have a purpose if you let it."

Avielle scrambled, sliding her body around until she was on her knees, staring up at the glowing figure of the elf; an elf that had died that same day and whose body she had never found, either truly dead or as one of the walking dead. It had been a mystery to her for years, and to see him now, his soul pure, was a profound shock. "I-I don't understand. W-what purpose? Why have you come before me?"

The old Quel'dorei looked at her sadly, his smile bittersweet, "You were once a citizen of our great nation. You fought, bled, and died for it and for those within it who could not defend themselves. Though you have been tainted now by that which you fought, do not forget who you are, who you were. Walk the path carefully, and you will rise above what has befallen you. Offer yourself to the world, and serve your people as you once did."

Avielle felt a stab of agony within her, the emotions roiling in her heart something that her form could not process. A stifled sob escaped her as she both sought to cry and to rage against the words, the beastly thing she'd become barely restrained, "Please, leave me I beg you. If you've any decency, any respect for the accord that existed between our Houses, leave me to my suffering and offer me no more wisdom."

The ghost of the old elf nodded once, looking sadly down at her as he floated in the air, "I will do as you ask, Avielle Silverlight. Know though that our accord still exists, so long as one of my line lives on. Think on this. Farewell, Lady of Silverlight, may your suffering ease in the years to come."

With that the light was gone, the ghost with it. Avielle stayed where she was on the ground, kneeling in the leaves and gasping as she tried to restrain herself. Hope battled with rage and sorrow, love for her people battled with the need to slaughter. She shuddered and brutally pushed it all down until she could think clearly, her mind focused on one singular point in all of the words she'd heard.

The accord still exists so long as his line remains. I can serve Quel'Thalas and its allies still. I can preserve the honor of my House if I walk the path carefully.

With that she was up, moving swiftly back across the lawns, already calling for her undead servants to fetch her armor. If invaders sought to destroy the allies of the Sin'dorei, then they had set their hands against her and her House. And in the process of cutting them down, she would investigate other things, such as what truly befell the rest of House Sunblade, and what that meant for her future.