A death knight ends up in Equestria with his brother, a paladin, and a mage. This is his journal.
"If he ever mentions what I just did to anyone, I'm going to murder him in such a brutal fashion that there will be nothing left but a giant mess looking worse than Kael after his latest setback."
An "experiment" gone wrong, a death knight finds himself, his brother and their guild scribe in Equestria, in the shape of the equine race known in this realm as ponies.
As the night approaches, they set up a make-shift camp. Having no need for sleep, the death knight naturally acts as the night watch. To pass time, he starts writing in his journal.
Little does he know what the future has in store for him and his fellow misfits. After all, the universe is an obnoxious bastard.
World of Warcraft crossover. WARNING: May contain large amounts of nonsense.
(Rewrite status: Not yet at 100k+ words. Cover art still not done.)
I have slaughtered thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Only a mere hundred of them were done not out of my own will, but as a tool of the Lich King. Granted, it was the Scarlet Crusade who are more or less a waste of life. I have worked in the shadows to ensure my worlds future, even its past. I am an artist on the battlefield, my ability to drain my enemies of their vitality leaves me needing no rest, no sleep. No compassion. I have mastered the Runeblade, it is a natural part of me. My Arvenrarth. I am a Death Knight.
And here I am writing with my mouth. Because I am now a small horse.
My brother is an idiot.
Yet I'm not certain which of us is the bigger one, considering I agreed to his little "experiment". "Come on, let's see what happens if you smack the immovable object with the unstoppable force!" he said, "It will be a good idea!" he said.
WHY DID I AGREE TO THIS AGAIN?
Anyway, so here I was in the mountains north of Orgrimmar, where Lorn suggested we try it out. Xia was there as well, apparently there were no records of the results of this. Just something about "never seen again" which I gave no further thought.
Although looking at my current state, I feel kinda dumb now. Dumb Rorn. And no, you're not getting anything more detailed about what my real name is, you piece of mutilated tree corpse. Actually scratch that, I'd rather not have the entire Ancient population chasing me. Whoever decided to create walking trees clearly didn't think their plan through.
So there we were, Lorn standing with his The Immovable Object shield, while I held a mace called The Unstoppable Force. Xia was going to count down, and seemed to enjoy this more than she should. Scribes and their lust for knowledge.
On the count of three I smacked Lorn's shield as hard as I could, imagining it being made out of squirrels. I hate squirrels. Since that day all those years ago when I was a kid and one of them stole my chocolate covered hazelnut, when I swore vengeance upon all of its fellow squirrels in crime, I have killed any I could find. I DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM, YOU DO.
Right, back to the small event. Nothing happened. When I hit his shield, all it did was go "CLANK". We stood there for about a minute before I let it go, doing nothing to hide my disappointment. Then a black hole opened in the middle of us and dragged all three of us through, and we ended up in some gray void. Luckily Lorn grabbed hold of me and Xia, he has good reflexes I'll give him that. We might have been separated otherwise, ending up in completely different worlds. Before long another hole opened and we ended up in this forest.
Trees. Why does it always have to be trees. So much... PLANT LIFE. At least you are dead you... book. Fine I can't come up with anything else, you try writing something better wait no you can't you're a TOME. I sure showed you. Actually now I feel bad, can you forgive me? If it's any consolation I'm not the one who chopped down the trees that were horribly mangled to create you oh no I did it again forget what I said. Wrote. Whatever.
I don't recall much from while we were blacked out, obviously, but I do remember our reactions when we woke up. Somehow we had turned into small horses with rather large heads, with our gear transformed to fit our new forms. Needless to say, I remained completely calm while the other two freaked out.
... FINE! Actually Lorn was his usual calm self, Xia was fascinated and me? I was shouting profanities that would cause Tirion's body to swallow his head to hide it in shame. I'm no fan of paladins, and Tirion's speeches honestly bore me. All this jazz about "honor" and "by the Light!" he shouts everywhere, pointless if you ask me. All I need is a target, and a list of who should not die. Why muddy the issue with fancy ideals? While you're out there shouting about morale, I'm subtracting candidates from the "Employee of the month list". MATHEMATICS SOLVE EVERYTHING. Except squirrels, no matter how much you try you don't get rid of the bloody things. Soon. Soon you will be gone, by the power of math! It will be fancy! I SHALL SMITE THEE WITH MATH AND ALL SHALL- damnit I'm wasting ink again. They must not know of the plan.
When I finally calmed down, we had a look at our current forms. Xia is a unicorn, horn and everything. Her skin is pale white like her undead self, her hair/mane and tail black with two stripes of grey running through. Eye sockets empty and black, with the yellow orbs of magic the Forsaken call their eyes.
I'm grey and my mane/tail grayish blue as usual. I've yet to find a mirror or a reflection, but the others tell me my eyes are still the same, only... ponified, as Lorn called it. Venera is never going to let me live this down. At least my hair is still the way it should be. Quiet, I'm a blood elf, we're allowed to care for our hair. And my eyes glow blue, it's part of the whole death knight deal.
No I didn't forget Lorn. Damn it, he managed to look fabulous and heroic at the same time even as a pony. His coat is yellow, his hair/tail black with a yellow tint. His battle armour has two holes, one on each side, allowing his wings free movement. Yes, he's a pegasus, lucky twit. His eyes are still green, pulsing with the demonic taint our race got after the whole deal with the Sunwell. How ironic it is that he's a paladin.
... No, I'm not a pegasus. Or a unicorn. Just a simple wingless and non-horned (that is a word!) pony. Buck me.
... Wait what? "Buck me"?
Of course, Xia was quick to figure out what she can do with that horn of hers. She made our camp the first night, while Lorn was busy trying out flying. Much to my amusement, he spent it crashing into different trees. And I was trying to write on you. Turns out writing with your mouth is stupidly difficult until you get the hang of it. It took me seven nights to get it right, which is why I write this the eighth day. Eight days we've been here now, and we've met no wildlife. Might have something to do with my aura of death, I'll have to turn that down soon. According to Lorn we should be out of these woods tomorrow, seems he saw something resembling a small town outside the forest on one of his test flights. Hopefully its residents won't be too hostile. Unless they're squirrel people- STOP IT.
Back to wildlife, yes we haven't met any but signs of shadows have been around us during our small trip. I'm certain I saw one resembling a wyvern, but this one seemed like its wings were detached from its arms. There's also some odd plantlife in here, just before this we passed a patch of odd blue coloured flowers. We didn't go near it, as Xia mentioned there being an odd magical aura surrounding the plants. I'm not the one to doubt her, most mages - wait, a few mages - no, very few mages know their way around magic, and she's one of them. Her having herbalism as a hobby also helped.
Regardless, the sun should be coming back up soon. I think I'll spend some time looking at the sky, the clouds are less present this close to the end of the forest.
The moon is especially beautiful today.
Day 9: There is a lack of things to kill here. This place sucks.
I like blood. Especially the act of liberating it from its owner. Depending on its former owner, it can taste like anything from sweet, delicious murder to bitter sweet despair. Family blood however, tastes absolutely horrible. Nine days without killing anything has done nothing good for my mental health, and I'm not sure which one of us is most disgusted. Lorn was always good at hiding his emotions. At least when he's not around his mate. I'll never understand how the two of them ended up together. And the way he calls her "kitten", I swear if I wasn't already dead I would've died of diabetes long ago. Urgh, people and their love, such a pointless emotion.
I am so very alone.
As for the whole blood topic, I had to drink some of Lorns blood to suppress my crave for death. Whichever moron decided that was a good idea to add to our abilities should be stabbed. Probably a San'layn, dumb vampires. This is the second time I've had to do that and I'd rather not do it again, WHY WON'T SOMETHING ATTACK ME?!
At this moment I've suppressed my aura to stop discouraging creatures from approaching, I need to drain vitality, cause pain, inflict despair. And I have an odd craving for fruit. Which is odd because I don't eat plants. Plants are boring as food, can't even hear them scream if you decide to eat fresh.
We set up camp at the edge of the forest and we'll be heading into town tomorrow, hopefully with no further delays. My little rage induced fight with Lorn earlier today left us both tired, him even more so. It's times like these where it sucks to be a death knight. Not many people know this, but we NEED to cause pain, drain life. It's what's keeping us, well, alive. Sane. There's a reason why we are all bloodthirsty to some degree. I still remember the first time I snapped.
Back when I was still on the path of learning, I was captured by vrykul. A simple mission, get in, kindly detach Ingvars head from the rest of his rather unpleasant twice-the-size-of-a-human body, and out again. He didn't cooperate. Instead he threw a wagon on me.
Fifteen days. That's how long I spend in a cage, my runeblade sealed next to me as an act of mockery. So close, yet so far... Then IT showed up. One of those accursed beasts, creatures of darkness, embodiment of fatality, a blasted SQUIRREL. Next thing I know I'm standing over Ingvars head, with other parts of his body scattered everywhere and a trail of blood behind me. And I was in the middle, quietly laughing. The fact that the body of the squirrel I had seen earlier was now going into one of Ingvars eye sockets and out the other one didn't help. Oh the despair, so delicious.
Arvenrarth was nowhere to be found, so I went to look for her. Which proved easy as all I had to do was follow the crimson road. As for Ingvar, I couldn't care any less at that moment. A few days later I heard about some "brave group" who "liberated Howling Fjord from Ingvar the Plunderer". That's when I met Draic.
A warlock. An undead warlock. A mage unsatisfied by the arcane arts to such a degree they tap into the raw, chaotic form of magic. Demonic energy. Lazy bastards using shortcuts. And each one of them claimed to be uncorrupted. Well let me tell you something, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A NON-CORRUPT WARLOCK. What's next, death knight pacifists? Innocent squirrels? MADNESS.
Draic was horribly corrupt to begin with, so he didn't even care.
He offered me a spot in a group he called "Judgement of Fire", which later turned out to be merely a cover for what we really are. We work in the dark, shrouded from the spotlight and the fame that so many others crave. Being a celebrity sounds like it sucks, with people judging you for ab-so-lu-te-ly ev-er-y-thing. Let me eat my burger in peace, it's no one you know! Honorable people my flank, Tauren are more like cow people hippies if you ask me.
I still don't regret accepting the offer, so much uninterrupted death. Speaking of death, I have still not been attacked. This is boring, I think I'll stretch my legs.
Day 10: Snakes. Why did it have to be chickens.
I. HATE. COCKATRICES. Even been turned to stone? I have plenty of times, but those usually ran out after a few seconds. These snakechickens cheat. I'm just grateful Fluttershy convinced it to let me go. She's one of the locals, a light butter coloured pegasus with a ridiculously long pink mane and tail. I don't know how she did it, but she looked the cheating bastard right in the eyes and demanded it to release me. Although when I started shouting profanities at it she hid behind Lorn with what has to be the most graceful and quiet squeak I've ever heard. That's just precious.
Then the impossible happened. As I charged towards Snake McChicken of Willnotfoolowrulesington she jumped between us and STOPPED ME.
She stopped me from causing death. And her eyes stared into my soul. I know now that I have one. She then lectured me about how it was sorry and I should accept its apology. I yelled "Easy for you to say, you weren't turned into stone!"
Actually no I didn't, all I could do was look at it while lowering my head in defeat, apologizing. YOU try disobeying her, she IS scary when she gets upset! I'm certain Xia's jaw almost detached, even Lorn was looking at me with surprise. Add that to the list of "Things Venera will remind me of. FOREVER". I have fought against some of the toughest opponents Azeroth has to offer, never backing out without a proper fight. And here I surrendered to a small pony without even throwing a punch, simply because she looked at me angrily.
No one must know.
As I write this Lorn and Xia are currently in her cottage, probably sleeping. She did actually tell me I could stay there as well if I liked, but then Lorn whispered something to her. She nodded, he whispered again and then told me it'd be best if I didn't come in. Something about my presence possibly being lethal to the injured animals she was taking care of, which was fair enough. I suspect there is something more I'm not being told, but I'm tired. Being made of rock isn't fun, no wonder dwarves broke off their earthen rock form and became flesh like some prehistoric rebellious teenagers. Yeah yeah, old gods and the curse of flesh and all that, my version is better.
I have an idea.
I had an idea.
Apparently I cannot summon an army of undead, as there are no dead bodies buried in the nearby area. And here I was hoping I could advance my progress in creating zombie volleyball. I am bored. Luckily morning's here, we'll be heading into town next.
This better be interesting.
Day 11: Naked introductions are the best introductions.
Today has been... interesting. And I'm more or less naked.
I'm ok with this.
Earlier today when the others finally decided to join me, they were wearing practically nothing. Turns out ponies don't usually wear clothes, so they decided to stuff their armour in their bags. Lorn's still wearing his shield and sword, while Xia's keeping her scythe a quick summon away. I want a scythe like hers, but SOMEONE decided we death knights are not allowed to use scythes. We're bringers of death, and we're not allowed to use scythes! Arthas was a moron. And so is Mograine. Actually all death knights are morons, except me. I'm an idiot. It's a family trait amongst twins, me and Lorn included.
Xia did something terrible with her eyes. She put an illusion on them to look "normal", showing off her blue eye color from before the whole killed-and-raised-into-undeath incident in Lordaeron. At least that's the colour she said they were. Seems the knees were a tad difficult to hide, so she covered all four in bandages.
Lorn was wearing his Lordaeron shield and some sword called Quel'Serrar or something, both nicely sheathed on his back. I AM NOT JEALOUS. Also Xia did the same thing for his eyes, and surprise, surprise, they are... GREEN!
As we walked towards the nearby town, Lorn kept in front with Fluttershy leading the way, while I was stuck with Xia. She kept trying to convince me to hide my eyes as well. I think I made my point about how much against it I am quite clear. And by that I mean I said NO. I am a death knight and I shall look like one even if it kills me. Not to mention I look awesome. I did put away my armour though, but Arvenrarth is still holstered on my back. It still puzzles me how these small bags can hold so much stuff and weight next to nothing. "'Tis magic, I ain't gotta explain nothin'," Xia told me. Mages. And I'm pretty sure that's a double negative.
Regardless, as we walked into town I was met with a "few" stares. One pink-purple pony pulled a similar looking child inside their house and slammed the door shut at the mere sight of me. I'm not THAT scary! Maybe I should've listened to Xia- NO I LOOK AWESOME AND THAT'S FINAL. I'm sure leaving my eyes like this will cause no problems whatsoever.
One thing I noticed tho was that almost every pony apart from some of the small ones had a tattoo on their flank with different designs. I figured it was probably some sort of fashion statement, until I noticed the other three of my group had their own. Fluttershy had three butterflies, while Xia had what looked like a frozen book behind a quill. She must've noticed me looking, as she smacked me in the face with her tail with a lighthearted "No touchy" and a sly smile. WOMEN.
Looking at my own, I figured out why most were staring. It was a picture of a humanoid skull, frozen and covered in cracks. Thin streams of red colour flowing from the eyes and between some of the teeth. It looked absolutely AWESOME.
... Lorn had some boring shield with two swords sheathed behind it in a cross. And yellow stuff everywhere, obviously representing "The Light". Mine's better, HAH!
We arrived shortly at a tree. With a door. And windows. It looked like a the result of what would happen if a tree and a house got horribly drunk and woke up next to each other the day after. I was half expecting a night elf to greet us, but it was a purple unicorn that opened the door. Same skin colour, I was right! Partially. I'm sure she'd be one if we were in Azeroth! FINE I WAS WRONG YOU STUPID BOOK!
Her name is Twilight Sparkle, and this is the library she lives in. I think my eye twitched at the "Twilight" part, which might have something to do with what the word is associated with back home. Stupid end-of-the-world cult, their combat skills are about as good as their plans are effective. "My life sucks, better end the world!" and "Join us, we offer free stuff!" Bleh, what a boring bunch of morons.
Twilight however, is not a moron. In fact if I didn't know better, I'd say she and Xia were separated at birth. Both love books and both love magic. She must've noticed me staring at her tattoo, and seemed surprised that I didn't know what it was. Apparently they're called "Cutie Marks" (BLEURGH) and appear when somepony discovers their special talent. Her mark is a pink-purple star with six white stars surrounding it, symbolizing magic.
She's a bloody mage. Elune damnit.
I'm currently sitting in one of her rooms, as we wait for her assistant to return. He's out digging for gems with a friend of the two mares, and should return shortly. Wait, I can hear the voice of a young boy right now, that must be him.
BUCK.
BUCK ME.
Alright, everything's alright, NO IT'S NOT ALRIGHT DAMMIT!
Alright, I'm calm. I have learned a few things.
One: Twilight's assistant is a baby dragon. Purple scales, green fins. Name's Spike.
Two: He's afraid of zombie ponies. I am one, and my eyes kinda points that out.
Three: His fire is green and sends letters to Twilight's mentor.
Four: You are made of paper and can thus be sent, which is exactly what happened.
Five: Twilight's mentor is their leader. She's the goddess of THE SUN. And she's quick to address issues where she's needed.
Six: I ATTACKED THEIR LEADER
So Spike came in, saw me, screamed "ZOMBIE PONY!" and blew green fire at me in panic. He ran, and I followed while being just a little bit angry. Which might've been amplified by the whole "I'm a death knight" thing, because Lorn stopped me. I was slightly roasted, and thought he had destroyed you. The book. I'LL ADDRESS YOU HOWEVER I WANT TO.
I would've preferred if that was actually the case, but Twilight informed me that it was most likely sent to her mentor. Who happens to be one of the princesses, and the goddess of the sun.
According to the others I froze with my mouth open when she told me that, and didn't move until a radiant light appeared in the middle of the library. It was her, Princess Celestia. Her coat is completely white, with a gravity defying mane coloured with the classical "cold" colours. I barely noticed Lorn bowing down before her, he probably sees her as an embodiment of The Light. All I know is she has an incredible life force.
So I attacked her. I'm lucky Lorn was there to stop me, having a shield slammed in your face tends to knock you back to your senses. Then I dropped on my knees and asked her to forgive me. NO I DON'T KNOW WHY! Actually I do know why, but I won't tell you. HAH! I care little for the so called "leaders" of both the Horde and the Alliance, but Celestia is something... different. I stood before a living god. But I was not prepared for what followed.
She forgave me. I directly assaulted not only a leader, but a god. And I'm let off just like that.
Now I have this odd desire to live here. First thing I'm doing after this is sneaking out and returning to that forest, from Xia and Twilight's conversation earlier it seems they have a "manticore" problem. Lions with bat wings and scorpion tails sounds like the wyverns back home, and no stupid chicken snake will surprise me THIS TIME!
I'm going to continue writing this, but I'm keeping you away from Spike. You're not even old enough to travel alone. And it's not like I have a whole lot of other things to do during the night. Yes, I know this is a library with books, but I don't read very often. Their fighting scenes are boring.
The princess left shortly after giving my journal (you) back to me, and I'm certain she read it. I doubt she'd come out all the way here just to deliver someponys journal. Wherever she came from. I'll ask Twilight when I get back, the others are asleep now. Sneaky time, stay put. Wouldn't want you to blow my cover.
Word. Sentence. Fizzleberg-the-professional-gnome-ball-says-what. IT WORKS! I'll save a fortune in ink! Not to mention holding the quills as long as I usually did left a terrible aftertaste. No wonder they remove the feathers before they eat birds. Magic can be useful, I suppose. Yes, I did thank the mages for making this for me while I was... hiking.
Alright Xia will save a fortune in quills and ink, seeing as I was actually using hers. Don't judge me.
Two weeks. We've been here for a whole two weeks, and still no sight of a way back. At first Xia thought that this world didn't have visible ley lines that could lead us home, as they are what mages use to "guide" their portals. So I had this incredible and awesome idea: What if the reason she can't see any, is because they're stupidly huge?
Turns out this world is completely covered not in ley "lines", but a ley "blanket". Xia and Twilight are still nuts about each others magic, and oh dear she's learned Mirror Image I'm out of here WHY ARE THERE DOZENS OF TWILIGHTS? The spell is supposed to create only three copies, four on special occasions. SIXTY IS NOT THE SAME AS THREE.
At least most of the clones appeared outside the tree. Luckily it's late and other ponies are inside, although the fact that Xia also cast it didn't help as another sixty clones appeared outside. Of course, she only started rambling on about theories involving magic and I don't really care I'm talking a walk. The spells have run out, so I can finally get out.
Wow. I've always appreciated the beauty of the night, but this... this is simply breathtaking. Sorry Elune, you've been replaced. They have a goddess of the Night here, whose power is not only limited to the moon, but the entire night sky as well as the realm of dreams.
Her name is Luna. I want to meet her someday, preferably without repeating what I did when I met her sister. It's not my fault I haven't killed anything! Actually, I don't quite understand what's going on. I haven't been able to kill anything here, not even the... "specimen" I met at the edge of the forest. Or the manticore I met after I chased it deep into the woods, which I didn't even hurt much. I'm not sure if it left me alone due to fear or confusion, but I was flabbergasted. Why is it that whenever I so much as think of killing another being here, it feels... wrong?
What if Lorn didn't stop me from assaulting Celestia? Would I have stopped? Why do I not feel the same thing when thinking about killing either Lorn or Xia? Which, I must add, I would not do without a proper reason. The action would do me more harm than good in more ways than one, and such sheer STUPIDITY is stupid. It's... human.
Technically it's not limited just to them, but since someone in the past decided to make humans the most important race in the history books, I will class it as such. I'm an elf, not a bucking humanoid. Oh wait I forgot, I'm currently a small quadruped. An equine. Fine, a small pony with a tattoo on my flank. And I look AWESOME.
There is one more thing, which I haven't told the others yet. I don't really want to go back. Something about this place just feels... right. Like when you launch gnomes at a mountainside to promote the Feast of Winter Veil, only better. Could it be? Is the reason why I like it here, why I can't just kill anything, why I'm currently gazing at the stars as this book writes my thoughts, that this world contains something my old one does not?
Is this world... innocent?
My lungs hurt due to the absurdity of the previous statement. Not even our children are innocent in Azeroth, how could an entire world be that pure? What's next, selfless friendships? Selflessness does not exist, every action provides a benefit in the eyes of the actor. Like my crusade against the only true evil in Azeroth, which went smoothly until I ended up here and found one that wasn't like the ones back there. And while evil is mostly just another word for stupid, they are an exception. Controlling a world without its inhabitants even caring is simply diabolic. Diabolical. What a weird word.
Wait, a noise. There's something here. Or rather, there is something that is not here.
That makes no sense.
Well it's gone now, better catch up on what happened the last three days. Whatever it was, it's probably nothing to worry about.
So there I was, sneaking towards the forest like a rogue. Which proved quite hard, seeing as I can't actually call upon the Shadow like they do. "We can turn invisible and you can't, MYEEEEH." Bucking rogues. So I just walked like a normal pony instead. And then I reached the edge of the forest.
One of them were there. So obviously, I chased it. That was a bad idea. As we ran deeper into the forest, past trees that I actually put some effort into avoiding, I finally caught up with it. The first one of them I've seen here, which might explain why Lorn told me to stay out of Fluttershy's house. She cares for animals, she was bound to have some of those in there!
It was a squirrel. As I held it down with one of my hooves, I drew Arvenrarth. I could hear her wail, calling out for blood. Then I swung her.
They never connected. I simply couldn't do it. For the first time in my unlife, I shed a tear. I've never let any of these creatures escape me before, even going as far as infiltrating the headquarters of the Feat Recognition Society to add them to the Pest Control feat. Venera was incredibly helpful, even though her reasons were different from mine. I'll give her that, linking the School of Hard Knocks feat to a meta feat was absolutely brilliant. It still wasn't fixed before the three of us ended up in this weird world. As annoying as she can be, we've had a lot of fun practicing genocide in the past in every squirrel nest we've stumbled upon.
And now I couldn't kill this one, for reasons I did not know. So I let it go. And I must have gotten a whole lot of somethings in my eyes, because I could feel more tears flowing. A Death Knight, trapped in a world with creatures he does not want to kill, seemingly crying like a child in the middle of a forest. Because of all the stuff in his eyes. Venera would never have let me forget it, but I didn't care. I must've had a lot of stuff in my eyes, because it just wouldn't stop. And it certainly was not because I was sick of being tired, trapped and suffering from life force withdrawal. I had lots of stuff in my eyes. Let's go with that.
FINE. I actually cried, but I'm not sure why. HAPPY NOW?
And then the manticore showed up. Manticores are not wyverns. Their tails are more flexible, their front legs separate from their wings and quite powerful, and their wings are ridiculously small. At least pegasus wings are of a decent size, manticore wings looks like what the lovechild of a gnome and a bat would have. Wait, a gnome ball with wings... if the ball can fly, the sport could be done in the air on flying mounts. Perhaps some rather small ones which are easy to produce, like the flying brooms from the Hallow's End celebrations. Add a few rabid versions of the ball that must be hit with maces, preferably by assigned players who knock them into the opposite team. Maybe even a midget version of the normal ball shrunken by voodoo magic that causes the game to end when caught!
Wait, this sounds like a mage sport. Screw that.
Right, manticore. As it roared at me, I decided I've had enough. So I roared back. Then it had the audacity to hit me in the face with a paw. YOU DO NOT HIT THE FACE OF A SIN'DOREI. So I stabbed him.
With my face. I'm such a hypocrite. Hey, at least it worked! Partly. It just looked at me with its face painted by confusion, and walked away. Rather than ponder on what had just happened, I simply disappeared in a different direction instead. Time simply flew by and I made no effort to count it. Counting time is boring and only makes it pass slower. No wonder Nozdormu will one day snap, being the warden of time itself must suck.
Then earlier today, they found me somewhere. Somewhere with lots of trees, this being a forest and all that. I'm so observant. Both Xia and Lorn were there, followed by Twilight and two other ponies I had not seen yet. One orange coated with blond hair, wearing a oddly suitable hat. Name's Applejack, she's an apple farmer. The other pony is light blue, with... seriously, how is it even possible for her hair to be the six clearest colours of a rainbow? That makes about as much sense as- actually, nevermind. MAGIC. Her mane/tail are naturally coloured in such a fashion it resembles a rainbow. And she's a pegasus obsessed with speed, named Rainbow Dash. Talk about creative parents.
Applejack's an earth pony, which means no wings or horn. Like me. I learned a few hours after this that earth ponies actually have magic, but it's focused around their bond with the earth and nature itself. How fitting that I am one.
From the looks on their faces, they were prepared to fight me if need be. I guess they were told of my... condition. But I doubt they were prepared for what actually happened, because I certainly wasn't. Applejack was carrying two saddlebags, which caught my interest. There was something inside them, something that caused me to walk slowly towards her. I don't even know what they said next, all I know is that something was emitting tremendous life force from within those bags. Then she drew two of the items they contained and bucked them at me.
I caught both easily, instantly swallowing both in one bite.That was the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. No, not tasted. Felt. More fulfilling than killing ignorant minions, more delicious than despair from all those I have slaughtered over years.
I love Applejack. Apples. Her apples. I can't erase this can I.
Apples. Azerothian apples are simple plants, but these... just one contains more life than a dozen cultists, and it's SO DELICIOUS. Eating one of these apples is like chewing down several screaming souls at once, slowly grinding their essence down as the very fabric of their being is being torn apart in a glorious volcano of pain. Even Arvenrarth can absorb these, thus eliminating the "Thirst for Death" problem I've had here. AJ even offered me another batch if I helped her on the farm with some work tomorrow, which I agreed to. I just hope it isn’t “collect ten of this”, those quests are boring.
I'm still not sure why AJ trusts me, maybe she knows something I don't. Dash does not trust me just yet, and considering how I kind of attempted regicide a few days ago I think she has a good reason.
Still, she didn't have to kick me. WHY IS IT ALWAYS THE FACE? I was only trying to give AJ a hu- I mean, a thank you! Certainly not a hug. Maybe. Actually yes I honestly did. I was high on apples, don't hold me responsible for things that I may or may not have wanted to do. I've only given two hugs in my life, one I will not tell you about and one for the Lich King's remains. Best. Revenge. Ever. All the other hugs do not count, as they were given to me without my approval.
The last thing I remember was that before I could even respond to being kicked, something very hard hit me on the head. A certain somepony's shield to be precise. I'm starting to see a pattern here. Didn't wake up until later, back in the library. Xia told me how they had carried me back, unsure of what to do next. At least I wasn't made of stone this time, and my face seemed to be in good shape. Better yet, my colours were strong again. In fact I was in better shape than the day we arrived here. Lorn must've hit me harder than usual, because the sun was already setting. Another pattern. Maybe I'll start wearing a helm again. all these blackouts are getting on my nerves. Speaking of helmets, why isn't there any out there that'll let my ears stay free? It's as if they were all created for humans and then simply changed in size to fit all the other races, and I'm NOT shortening my eyebrows just so I can wear a Night damn helmet!
Wait... I just tried my helmet. IT HAS HOLES FOR MY EARS. I LOVE THIS WORLD. And my eyebrows are short. I love this world less.
AJ came in shortly, probably to check up on Twilight. I remained calm, mostly, gave her a sincere apology for my behavior and complimented her apples. Withdrawal or not, I'm still responsible for my actions. I KNOW WHAT I SAID EARLIER, SHUT UP. Like my colours, my mind is also back in good shape. Mostly. Which is why I asked her exactly what she wanted me to do in exchange for more of her absolutely amazing apples.
So I'm supposed to meet her at her farm tomorrow... wait, when did the morning arrive? Today then. Guess I better get going, supposedly they're early birds. Just like Lorn who just now tried sneaking up on me. It didn’t work.
Day 15: Bashing nature with the power of math!
First thing I noticed was his hair. It was as if Lorn had just taken a dip in an ocean, collided with ALL the wildlife, forgotten to dry it afterwards and then been hit by a thunderstorm. Instead of the split in front falling to each side like my own, it was now merged with the rest of the mane leaving only the spikes pointing backwards. It looked absolutely terrible.
... It suits him and I might want to try it too. However, seems he got it by free falling which complicates things. See, I don't have wings. And I've fallen to my death enough times to know how unpleasant it is. Even been to Dalaran? Almost two years ago flying under the floating city was a death hazard, with different races falling off all the time. What kind of a moron makes a flying city without fences? Taller fences. Fine, walls. MORE WALLS!
It's not like most of these morons that fall off don't come back to life later, and before you ask: I fell off once. ONCE. That's all you'll ever know. Spirit Healers must get paid a fortune for dealing with the kind of customers they get daily. With death being so easily avoided it's no wonder every moron and their brain dead dog never stay dead for long. And they don't even question it when an actual death happens and the dead can't be resurrected by any means. Just look at Cairne, why didn't anyone notice how he should've been resurrected yet didn't?
I know why. Because of the ones really in charge of what goes on in Azeroth. And I swear, the Empire will fall one day. It will be glorious and covered in onions. They’ll never expect an onion invasion.
Seems Lorn just wanted to talk, mostly about some meetup we were supposed to have later today. The farm wasn't too far away, so I wouldn't have to listen to that much. It's called Sweet Apple Acres, which is... nice. I know this because I do actually listen to what others say. Most of the time. When it's not boring. Or about magic. Two themes which are not mutually exclusive. Mainly mage magic.
And while I was out in the woods, both he and Xia have gotten themselves a place to stay. Xia's staying over at the library, while Lorn's staying with this "Rarity" pony I haven't met yet. By the sound of it she's fascinated by his jewelcrafting and the fact that he can stand still. There's supposedly a sixth pony that will attend this meeting, but the only information I got on her was "expect the unexpected." Really, is she going to be normal?
Before he left he gave me an advice I didn't really need. "Mind your wording." That incident during Children's Week only happened once and it didn't scar the children that much! How was I supposed to know that my description of how to make a salad would cause so much vomiting? No I'm not telling you, the last thing I need is another book that retches. Why someone would even make create such a useless thing is beyond me. Yes, I was on the receiving end of the first dose. The mage who made it didn't find it funny once I showed it down his throat.
We shall never mention this again.
While working, I tried to converse by asking a bit about the farm in general. This place is HUGE, with several hundred apple trees as far as the eye can see. And they're usually only two or three doing the work, which is absurd. Just two ponies taking care of several hundred apple trees alone is impressive, especially considering the lack of thumbs. But it's not just apples, I can see corn acres as well. They must have immense amounts of stamina to be able to pull this off.
So I asked her if she was a tank. SMOOTH. Then I explained what it meant, and the topic of what I do came up. Buck.
One thing lead to another and suddenly I have two ponies staring at me like I just came out of a squirrel nest, which usually means I'm completely red. Telling them about how death works in Azeroth these days didn't really help. They still stared.
AJ was the first to break the ice, seemingly unsure of how to deal with it. I swore on my grave that I would not cause her or any she cared about harm, which might have made things worse. Me and my big mouth. Her brother frowned at me. I don't like frowning, it gives off the impression they consider me a thre- oh. Smart fellow. That's also when I learned that his vocabulary contains more than just the words “eeyup” and “nope”.He was rather large, red coat with an orange mane. Large green apple flank mark, compared to AJ's mark consisting of three smaller red ones. And I can't recall ever having heard their accent anywhere else, I wonder where it's based? It's certainly... exotic.
... I like her apples, that's all. And how she moves with ease, showing off a well disciplined mind and body. Not to forget- NO NO NO STOP YOU ARE A SIN'DOREI BAD THOUGHTS!
Both showed way better reactions than I thought they would, then again not much can top being chased by an angry mob with torches and pitchforks. Unless the mob are the torches and dual wield pitchforks.
I wonder how long my zombie army can last while on fire.
Not much were said after that, other than the occasional instructions on how to do the things I shall not mention. At the end she gave me a bag containing about twenty apples, one which I ate immediately. These are so very good, I'll have to ask her later about how she grows them. Probably a family secret, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Often. Sometimes. Actually usually the act of asking ends up with me being either chased out or covered in blood, or both. Mostly covered. And chased. So both.
As we were about to leave AJ stayed behind to reassure Big Macintosh before heading off. I guess I can expect similar reactions from the others.
This is going to be "fun."
AJ didn't say much on the way to the library, seemingly deep in thought. Good, less questions for me to accidentally answer. The silence is good though, now I can prepare for what comes next.
I'll have to say, this self-writing spell is pretty neat. I might not know much about magic due to a lack of interest, but it does what Xia said quite well. But where does the ink come from? The explanation will probably be something boring. And I swear it looks like it contains more pages than it should.
Day 15, Afternoon: Confound the element of surprise, it drives me to pain.
I did not expect this. And I don't think the library doorway expecting it either when I crashed the back of my head into it.
At least it wasn't my face.
I wasn't startled. Much. Maybe a little. Cut me some slack, I haven't been surprised by anything the last seven years, how was I supposed to be prepared for... THIS? The whole library was filled with several ponies I had not even seen yet, and unlike yesterday these were different ponies. Not mirror images. Which there should still have only been three of! Not to mention the pink ponification of a sugar rush that greeted us with a continuous flow of words. Where does she keep all that air, her mane? SO MANY WORDS. Maybe that’s why her mane is all poofy.
She offered me a cupcake. Couldn't hurt to try so I took one covered in some red frosting. As I took the first bite, I noticed Lorn pulling his head out of a barrel of water, gasping for air. Turns out the frosting was actually hot sauce.
That was delicious, and it explained why the barrel was conveniently placed next to the table. This probably happens a lot.
I like her already.
As for myself, there were two reasons why it didn't affect me. One should be obvious by now, and the other is that I might've drowned in lava a few times. One was on purpose (hey, I was curious at the time), the other times mostly due to my so called "team mates" "accidentally" knocking me into it. Never do something with stupid people you do not know, no matter how easy the task at hand is. If you knock a magic meteor in one direction, THAT'S THE DIRECTION IT WILL GO.
Why did I team up with random people again? Oh yeah, boredom. Confound it. And it makes me appreciate my guild all the much more. The only thing better than continuous slaughter is continuous slaughter with fellow misfits, and that’s how the guild system was made. I miss my guild mates. But enough about them.
The party actually went rather smooth, which means something terrible is going to happen in the future. I somehow managed to avoid mentally scarring anypony else, which is good. Apart from a few glances, everypony seemed more focused on enjoying the party which let me gather my thoughts. This world confuses me, I haven't had a single attempt on my life from these ponies. It's somehow... relaxing.
But what was that beating sound? It kept getting faster, firmer, stronger. I knew it from somewhere, but couldn't quite put my hoof on it.
Some of the activities were actually quite fun, especially the first one I tried. "Pin the tail on the pony" they called it. Precision while blindfolded isn't that much harder for me than normal, but that requires the target to be alive. Paper is dead, so I ended up putting it on the throat of the picture. Then the chest, the muzzle, and somehow one of the front hooves (how did that happen?) before finally hitting the right spot. It only took me like... twenty three tries. Twenty two of them were after the party was over. The trick is to remember where it is relative to the live factors, which means everything around it that's alive.
I'm not obsessed. Much.
Lorn challenged me to an armwrestling match. Or hoofwrestling, I suppose. Which I won, oddly enough.
I didn't rub it in his face. Much. It went somewhere along the lines of “IN YOUR FACE!”, which is a perfectly normal reaction.
Afterwards, he introduced me to Rarity. She had an overly stylized purple mane/tail and a trio of diamonds on her flank, and gave the impression of being a socialite. Seems odd of her to be in such "common" company, but perhaps there is something I don't know yet.
I spent the rest of my time looking through you, and spotted a few things that I cannot edit out because you won't let me. Xia did this on purpose, didn't she. I wish I had found these apples sooner, it would've spared me that horrible incident with Lorn's blood. Paladin blood, oh how I hate thee. One of the few substances left in our world to contain a good amount of life force due to its purity, which is also why some claim they cannot become undead. Right, and Sir Zeliek is just a fragment of our imagination. You're immune to the Plague, not necromancy you self righteous bastards.
Yes, I did ask Xia where the ink you use comes from. It’s my blood.
AWESOME.
And now I have to tell them what I am.
Not so awesome. You try explaining to six ponies, who have probably never even seen a death, how your purpose in life is to cause death! Five if you count my slip up on the farm.
I noticed Applejack looking at the others, possibly concerned with their reactions. Suddenly I knew how to deal with the situation. So of course I attempted to run out the door, only to crash into somepony who was already there. A white pegasus stallion wearing yellow armour. Who must have special training in being a wall, as he didn't even flinch when I crashed into him.
Generic guard voice aswell, a bit rough. Seems Xia "forgot" to tell me we were actually going to explain this to the princess as well. Both of them. Which made sense, we were a foreign entity after all and a potential threat. At least the trip would give me some more time to handle the subject of my specialty. Maybe “world optimizer” would be the proper description.
By the Night, how I have missed flying. The wind flowing through your hair and the sheer freedom from not being grounded, it's awesome. And it reminded me of the fact that I do not have wings, which is not awesome. Watching Lorn and Dash fly alongside the chariots didn't help. The other girls were split up between two other chariots, while I was stuck with Xia. Joy. And she wanted to talk. Double joy.
She cast a bubble around us, which she explained was capable of suppressing sound. It wasn't an anti magic zone, or a power word: barrier. Which meant she must have picked it up here. As per usual she started going on about magical theories to which I very politely asked her to shut the buck up.
Then I asked her if she’d asked them about dying yet. She hadn’t. Of course she hadn’t, she assumed they had spirit healers here aswell. Spirit healers are basically these blue human women wearing white cloth spiraling around their bodies that totally isn’t revealing at all. Except it is.
She lost her tongue once I told her how this world was actually free of their influence. The bubble disappeared, Xia seemingly deep in thought. I didn't bother asking what the fuss was about, mainly because we arrived shortly after. Canterlot, it's so... bright. White things everywhere. And ridiculously tall spires, giving the impression somepony was overcompensating for something. Maybe one of the princes, if they had any.
The castle itself had more white things inside. It all looked so... clean. No bloodstains, no dust, no nothing. It was like something out of a fairy tale. So I bit myself on the left front hoof. Nope, fully awake. And in pain. Luckily I had my saddlebags with me, filled with the remaining apples. Naturally I ate one. I'm running out of these too fast. SO DELICIOUS.
Then the beating sound appeared again, what was up with that? I was going to ask Xia, but we arrived in a hall filled with stained glass windows, each showing a different picture. There were six ponies on several of them that looked like the six we came here with, fighting a dark alicorn in one and a... creature mishmash in another. The hay? It had a horse-like head, rather different from the ponies I had seen, with a deer antler on the right, a goat horn on the left, one long fang, yellow eye with a red iris, a snake tongue, and a goatee. It had the right arm of a lion, the left claw of an eagle, the right leg of a lizard, the left leg of a goat, a bat's right wing, a pegasus' left wing, and a snake's tail. It was like all the mentioned animals had fallen into a grinder and the remains had fused together to take revenge on the contraption.
Xia interrupted my important line of thought, which is when I noticed Celestia and another grayish blue alicorn had arrived. Clearly alicorns can multiclass, as only rogues would be able to sneak up on me like that. Lorn doesn’t count, because he didn’t sneak up on me. I KNEW HE WAS THERE, SHUT UP. I bowed regardless, mainly because Xia pushed me.
We introduced ourselves properly, one at a time. Xia’s full name is Exicia Esoce, she’s a mage who specializes in different schools of magic. Currently she’s focusing on arcane magic for reasons unknown, which is stupid. Why anyone would be a mage and then not specialize in fire magic is beyond me, as fire is awesome. She also takes care of our guild library, which contain all our books and tomes. Including the evil ones who want to eat me.
As AJ pointed out, she and Twilight were very similar, except she didn’t write to any princesses. Mainly because the closest thing we have to a princess is the crazy banshee bitch in the Undercity. They thought I was talking about a fancy female dog, to which I explained how the gilnean royalty had that one covered. The people of Gilneas are a bunch of werewolves, thus their queen is a real bitch. Sylvanas is a crazy zombie woman and the leader of the Forsaken, which is just a fancy word for emo zombies. Xia and her family doesn’t count, they’re crazy. Crazy is awesome. Also, Syllie’s a former blood elf. And no, she’s not my type.
Lorn’s full name is Ralorn Dawnrunner, and he’s a paladin. He claims to serve the holy cause of the Light, but he lies. There’s nothing holy about using the essence of a being of pure holy energy to perform paladin spells. I’m so proud of him. Apart from the lying part, he should be proud of being a blood knight! Lying is stupid, as telling the truth is so much easier not to mention it tend to lead to hilarious moments. The general population of Azeroth hate hearing the truth when it makes them look bad.
He explained how we got here as a result of a small experiment with an urban myth involving the collision between two objects named after absolutes: The Immovable Object and The Unstoppable Force, and how we were "somewhere" before finally ending up deep within the nearby forest they call The Everfree Forest. Why somepony would call something "Everfree" is beyond me, aren't forests free anyway? Did that have something to do with how AJ mentioned being done before the "scheduled" winter? The idea was absurd, you cannot control weather on a grand scale.
There it was again. What's up with all these feelings of déjà vu?
And then it was my turn. There was a lot of information to be said, and many wrong ways of saying it. But then it struck me: Buck censorship.
My name is Larorn Dawnrunner. Born on a monday, slain on a friday, raised on the same friday, freed on a thursday, revenge fulfilled on a saturday, mainly bored every other day. I’m a death knight, My specialty is beating things to death with themselves or anything else I can get my hands on. Hooves.
Rarity asked me what I mean about “raised”, so I told her exactly what it meant. I’m a scary zombie pony, woohoohoohoo. Xia unwrapped her bandages, showing her bony joints.
Rarity fainted dramatically, which turned out to be an act. Drama queens.
Then I told them about Azeroth, how our world is slowly dying, becoming lifeless as the meaning of death diminish with the passing years. Death is no longer permanent in Azeroth, except in some very minor cases like age. And because of it, everything is at war with everything. It's been like this for seven years, and it shows. Can you guess what the main, or rather, ONLY strategy being used in these "wars" are?
I’ll give you a hint: It involves throwing bodies at each other until one side gives up. If I weren’t as creative as I am I would’ve grown tired of genocide a long time ago. Imagine a catapult that fires catapults that fires bombs containing catapult firing catapults. And then get disappointed when you realize it doesn’t exist yet and no one wants to make one.
The natives looked at eachother with concerned looks, almost as if they felt sorry for us. There was an odd sincerity in their eyes. They told how their kingdom had not been at war at all for almost a thousand years since some childish squabble between the two royal sisters a thousand and almost two years ago. Which meant the war ended some time after the two of them stopped. And that the two alicorns are more than a thousand years old.
They look good for their age.
The other princess was indeed Luna, the goddess of the night. I declare her to be the best princess ever. Going slightly off topic, I commended her night sky as the piece of art it was. Of course I enjoy other things than killing people, why limit yourself to just one hobby?
Back on track, I told them about the spirit healers and everything else there was to say about my abilities as a death knight. Which mainly involves different ways to kill things and manipulation of the dead. I can create temporary ghouls, even small armies of the things if there’s enough death in the vicinity. Thinking about it, seeing as Xia made so many mirror images... I shall have the biggest volleyball team of all time. Buck the rules.
And then I told them about Arvenrarth. My sword, my partner in death, and my first true friend. Technically. She did try to kill me after I runeforged her. That’s the sign of true friendship. Her name is a mix of the ancient elven words “arven” and “ferarth”, which means “despair” and “delicious”. Despair is Delicious, or Delicious Despair. I gave her that name when I first defeated Falric, a human death knight, in a duel during my death knight training. Man was obsessed with pears.
I hate pears. That fruit is evil and conspires with bananas.
Celestia asked us about our world, more specifically about the warring factions. There are two major factions, the Horde and the Alliance. One likes wearing red and beating things to death, and the other likes wearing blue and make excuses as to why they are beating things to death. Guess which one I prefer. There’s also a whole lot of other factions consisting of less interesting races, except the dragons. Dragons are awesome unless they’re stupid.
Both the Horde and the Alliance are made up of six races each. The Horde has orcs, trolls, tauren, the Forsaken (undead humans), blood elves, and goblins, while the Alliance has humans, dwarves, gnomes, night elves, draenei and worgen, the last one being the gilnean werewolves who are basically humans with a wild side. Woof. All “twelve” races walk on two legs, more or less. Technically it’s just ten, but try saying that to any of the human races. They keep using the word race, but it doesn’t mean what they think it does. I’M RIGHT.
Most of the human race are proud, honourable, and terribly BORING. Take a monkey, shave off all fur except the part on top of their head and make the part that should contain the brain larger and you have a human. Then you have the slightly shorter race of the dwarves, wearers of epic beards and unable to fight sober. Dwarves, unlike most humans, are awesome. One of them even has a gun that uses squirrels as ammunition. Their skin colour is usually a tone of peach, some cases browner.
And then there’s the gnomes. Put a human in a box which you then press down to about a quarter of its original size and the result is a gnome, a race of angry midgets with a knack for technology and a desire to make everything else smaller. The Horde mainly use them as footballs in gnomeball, a sport involving two teams each trying to kick the gnome into the other team's goal. Like a reverse Warsong Gulch skirmish, only without the clever use of flags. Whose bright idea was it to decide victory based on whoever had the most flags?
Which brings us to the night elves, who are humans with extremely long life span, long ears and a fair face. The latter being mainly the females, the males: not so much. They’re like my kind, the blood elves, only they worship the moon goddess Elune, and their genders have very different roles. The females fight with a ferocious grace while the males spend their time hugging trees. It’s gotten more equal the last few years but gender roles still linger. Males are still pansies. Their skin are usually a colour between blue and purple, with glowing eyes to match.
The fifth Alliance race are the draenei, whose genders couldn’t possibly be more different. Where the females are graceful and beautiful, the males are muscular to the point of absurdity. How they mate is beyond me- DAMN YOU MENTAL IMAGES- and not important let’s talk about something else. Differences, yes. Much better.
Males have thick tendrils for beards. Their beards are not awesome. Females have much thinner tendrils that reach their shoulders from behind their ears. Males have big boned foreheads while the females have horns, and both have a tail. The female one is ridiculously tiny, while the male one is the size of their arms. Which are fat. Blue glowing eyes and the same skin colours as the night elves, only more blue than purple.
Also they’re related to Eredar, a race of demons, which is not important.
Then there’s the worgen. Looks like every other human except they can turn into bipedal wolves and they speak with an accent THAT I DO NOT HAVE. I’m not gilnean damnit! If anything they’re copying me!
Stupid dogs.
The Horde races are a different breed altogether. They’re savages and proud of it. My kind of people, unless you’re talking about the “adventurers” and “heroes”, or Garrosh.
Garrosh is an orc, a brown skinned crossbreed between a human and a gorilla with short tusks. Turns out orcs are alien to Azeroth as well, and guess who their old neighbors were. The draenei, which was obviously just a coincidence. They orcs were all part of shamanistic tribes, until some demon lord got bored enough to make them all bloodthirsty brutes which ended up turning their skin green, unless of course you were lucky enough to belong to one of the uncorrupted tribes.
If you ask me the whole situation was something out of a bad book. Fast forward some human bloke makes a portal, they end up in Azeroth, it’s all orcs versus humans and shit happens. I didn’t fight in the second war either, mainly because I was busy with other things... which is none of your business.
Then some years ago the draenei crash landed on Azeroth with their crystal ship because their pilots are terrible drivers. And they joined the Alliance because the Horde is led by orcs and they’re both racist. Something about the orcs almost committing genocide on their race. And they’re immortal and thus can live forever, which is a very long time to hold a grudge.
Onwards. Tauren. A human once loved a cow a bit too much, and thus the tauren race was created. The end. Yes, they are really just cows walking on two legs with fingers and arms and everything.
Trolls. Dat accent. Long tusks, males are always walk hunched because if they didn’t, they’d hit their heads every time they walk through doors. And that blue skin of theirs? It’s not skin. It’s fur. Get it right.
The Forsaken. Consisting mostly of the undead population of the fallen kingdom of Lordaeron, they’re a bunch of life hating zombies. Mostly. Xia’s remaining family is among the few who don’t waste their time bitching about how unfair it is that everyone else is still alive and how the world hates them for existing. Which is actually true. Like we’re worth less because we don’t have a pulse. JEALOUS, ALL OF THEM.
No, I’m not Forsaken. I’m a death knight, we’re a different type of undead. You’d have to ask Arthas how we work, all I know is I stab people and they die. And our swords have a mind of their own, in most cases one smarter than their owners. I’m an exception. Arthas is not, as he committed both patricide and regicide when he killed the king of Lordaeron and got the Forsaken into their current mess in the first place.
No, I am a blood elf. We’re mostly looked upon as both beautiful and shallow, which is mostly true. I may look gorgeous, but at least I’m not rubbing it in people’s faces all the time. That’s what weapons are for. We’re like the opposite of night elves, worshipping the sun instead of the moon which I’m not a fan of as the sun is too bucking bright. You can’t look directly at the sun, not like the moon. The moon is several times better. FACT.
Last there’s the goblins. Cross an orc with a gnome, add fifteen dozens silos of liquid greed and put explosives in every piece of technology they create and you end up with something resembling a goblin. They’ll blow up everything except their fortunes. Sometimes that too.
I’m so glad I didn’t have to tell them all that, nor write it. Xia gave them the politically correct version, combined with actual pictures. As if my descriptions weren’t good enough. She always carries around an entire encyclopedia in her bags, which is awfully convenient, along with all the books she’s currently reading.
She then questioned their reactions. Celestia assured them that we possessed no threat to them, and they seemed fine with that.
What the hay is wrong with these ponies? They're about as carefree as me, only without my charming personality. So I asked how she could possibly know that, considering I just told her what I am. She told me why. I did not faint as a result of that. It was merely a setback.
Fine. I fainted, which is the appropriate reaction to being told you’re under a pacification spell or something like it. I woke up to find myself still surrounded by ponies, so everything was normal... ish. So I’m pacified. This is just dandy. Apparently I cast it on myself when I arrived in this world, but she didn’t tell me anything else. And honestly I was okay with that, too much information not enough murder. I’m a soldier, not a leader. Point me in the direction of something and I kill it. End of story.
I need an apple. And now Xia’s looking at me oddly.
…
My eyes do not glow.
MY EYES DO NOT GLOW.
WHAT MATTER OF SORCERY IS THIS?
Xia blames the apples. Claims they’re making me alive... wait. My looks are more colourful, my mane livelier. And I recognize that beating sound, it’s a heart. My heart. I’m alive again. I’ve overdosed on life. NIGHT DAMN IT. Quickly brain, push all the buttons! No! Panic is not the right answer to this AHA LICHBORNE!
I instantly turned back into what can only be described as myself on a very bad day. My coat was tattered and filled with rotten holes, giving way to the decayed bones underneath. The beating had stopped, and my eyes were glowing bright blue once again. I’m still immortal!
My celebration fell short when Xia told me to drop it, mumbling something about magic theories and how my “shapeshift” had surpassed its usual ten second duration. I would’ve refused, but I was overwhelmed by a searing pain more powerful than any holy spell I’d ever been hit with. This does not make me less of a man. Stallion. Whatever. My heartbeat is still creeping me out.
Xia said something about me being a battery, to which I suggested using “power cell” as a description instead. Dash agreed, so it was two to one. FRIENDSHIP.
So according to her, my appearance reflects the amount of life force I contain. Seeing as our world is made of suck, I’ve never gotten enough to become this lifelike. That and I haven't really spent much since I got here seeing as my equestrian kill count is currently zero. At least it won’t kill me. Right?
Letting the others depart, Celestia asked me some questions whose answers she didn't want to share with neither my group nor her subjects. Which was rather odd, as she asked me about my childhood, my age, and if I felt at home here. I'm a hundred and twenty six. I think. Don't really know as I'm an orphan. The "Dawnrunner" part of my name is from the family who adopted my brother and I. Barely even remember my childhood apart from a few incidents only I can remember. THEY HAPPENED.
As for feeling at home... I do. I don't get it, I've never been here and this place feels more right than any part of Azeroth ever has. Then again, when you think about the state it's currently in I guess anywhere else would feel more like home in comparison. She also told me that just because I've been a horrible person, pony, whatever for as long as I can remember (which isn't much) I don't have to be. Do I sound like I need moral lessons?
Then she let me go, calling me "her little pony". She is not my favourite princess, but she’s the weirdest monarch I’ve ever met. It’s like she has a brain but pretends she doesn’t, which the complete opposite of azerothian royalty. At last the whole gathering was now over, to which Pinkie suggested we have a "officially welcomed to Equestria by the princess" party. Twilight suggested a picnic instead.
What a weird word. Something in my mentality is causing it to replace any notion of a similar word starting with an “f” instead of a “b”, which is rather odd. Not to mention it makes Applejacks job sound like something a night elf would have. And it sounds wrong in several sentences, like “go buck yourself”. Just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Need a different word.
Maybe “plough”. That might actually work.
DO YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I THINK?!
This is the problem with having too little to keep your hooves busy, you start thinking about everything and soon you end up theorizing and pondering philosophy!
PEACE MAKES BRAIN THINK, MURDER MAKES BRAIN STOP.
Also, I’m on a train. I like trains. Not a fan of railroad tracks. The tracks exist only to confine the magnificent trains within their reach, hindering them from exploring the world. It’s a clever form of slavery, one nopony questions as trains are not known to be sentient. But what if they are? What if trains have been sentient all this time, and we just don’t understand their language? This puts a whole new perspective on what a railroad engineer really is.
What the hay brain. Stop thinking.
You might wonder why we were on a train instead of being flow back on chariots. Chariots are for important matters. I don’t mind, trains are cool. If they ever decide to rebel against their masters, I’ll happily lend a hoof. Unless it doesn’t benefit me, of course. Maybe lend them a catapult for their kamikaze squads. But what if they won? What if they weren’t any better than their captors, and decided it was our turn to become slaves? Can you imagine a world ruled by trains? Or pants for that matter, there’s a horrifying thought.
So there we were, sitting on one of these trains. One that either didn’t have any plans to overthrow the equestrian monarchy or was just waiting for the right moment. We passed through a tunnel, confirming that I still possessed my ability to see in the dark. I was still miffed that my eyes didn’t glow, thinking how Xia’s and Lorn’s eyes did when we arrived here.
So. Apples, or glowing blue eyes. Apples. Glowing eyes. Munch munch. Apples it is.
With that out of the way, Xia said she wanted to test something during the picnic. Not like I really have anything better to do, which brought up the question of what I was supposed to do while Xia and Twilight searched for a way to get us home. While getting back to Azeroth wasn’t the most prominent thing on my mind, I honestly missed some of our guild mates. Especially one of them.
It’s complicated. Maybe later.
Xia wanted to test something alright. Had I known what I would’ve said no.
No, it didn’t involve me dying, obviously. Or any incidents involving my head being chopped off. But if it did, it wouldn’t exactly be pleasant. I would know. What’s it like? Oh not that much different, except you’re a head shorter than everypony else. At least I make a pretty blood fountain.
No, Xia was more interested in talking, which was worse. At least I had sandwiches. Dandelion sandwiches are delicious. Thinking about it, I may have eaten more the last week than I’ve done for more than a year. I’m going to need something to spend all this energy on.
Maybe knitting. Actually no, how an earth pony would even knit is a mystery I’d rather not solve. Or pegasi for that matter, do they use their wings as hands? I bet they do, because I’m not one and the universe hates me. Well it can go plough itself for all I care. Why did you not make me a pegasus pony instead?! Earth ponies have a connection with nature, which kinda clashes with the whole “death” part of my class description. Hang on.
No. Wings be damned, I’m not getting magic butterfly wings. Twilight knows a spell that can give me wings, but they’re fragile ones made of morning dew. And butterfly shaped. And time limited.
Back to the talking. Xia was actually after simple chatting, which was okay. We exchanged stories, but there was one I paid more attention to than the others: The Appleoosian Battle, where the settlers of Appleoosa fought the local bisons over a plot of land. The settlers had planted trees over the bisons old stampeding grounds, which the latter did not approve of. So they had a small battle where apple pies were used as ammunition. I asked for a moment of silence for the brave souls who lost their lives during the war, and that their fruity existence would forever be remembered. After all, plants are alive and can feel pain just as we can. Whenever you eat something freshly plucked, you’re eating it while it’s still alive. Sometimes I like just watching a herd of herbivores grazing while imagining the grass’ screams. I’m such a horrible pony.
There were other stories, we told some of ours as well. Mainly slice of life ones, like the time I tried engineering. Needless to say, I was banned from ever entering an engineering shop ever again. Ever. And all because I put a sock in a goblin bread heater to see what would happen. How was I supposed to know it would gain sentience and go on a washing machine killing spree? Which, I might add, was totally justified as goblin washing machines are a crime against science. Or maybe the sock was a victim of circumstances, and it was infact the toaster who was supposed to gain sentience. Toaster sounds like a better word than bread heater anyway.
Me and Venera “might” have broken into a similar shop afterwards to try the same with a gnomish toaster, but that time it merely shrunk. The toaster, not the sock.
It should have felt odd letting myself go around these ponies this early, but it didn’t. I was having fun. Simplistic, friendly and in-no-way-involving-dismemberment fun. Unless the sandwiches count, we left no survivors.
I lay down in the grass, making out shapes in the clouds. One of them had this weird shape of something Pinkie called a “muffin”, which is some sort of baked goods. She yelled “Twitchy tail!” as I noticed a growing dot getting bigger and bigger until I could make out the face of a certain pegasus.
In a flash I called my blade to me, dodging the incoming pony meteor who crashed into the ground on my right. An upside-down shaped hole in the ground appeared as the smoke cleared, revealing Lorn with his weapons drawn and prepared for combat.
It turned out Xia wanted to test the extent of my pacification, which I was all too happy to comply. I’ve missed fighting.
Even in our equine forms, we had no trouble wielding our weapons. Lorn wielded his sword and shield flawlessly, switching between using his mouth to hold the hilt and somehow holding it with his right hoof while standing on his rear legs. I just used my mouth to hold Arvenrarth due to how runeblades work, as it allows me more control. ‘The runeblade is an extension of your being, a death knight cannot battle without a runeblade,’ my old combat instructor used to say. Before he was killed by a small army of so called ‘heroes.’ Funny how robberies suddenly become heroic acts once you throw justification into the picture.
A blood death knight can initiate the Dance of the Runeblade for a short period of time, allowing them to wield it with their mind. Which is also why most dancing runeblades flail about like hyperactive goblins that have stumbled upon a shipment of ‘DO NOT PUSH’ buttons.
Only, one problem: all I could do was defend, as I couldn’t get myself to use any of my offensive death knight abilities. Which sucked as we made a “friendly” bet on who would win, where the loser would have to perform the dance of our people. I really hate our dance. We kept at it for minutes before Lorn finally fell down in exhaustion. Silly living and their limited energy. We agreed on a draw, mainly because I didn’t want to expose the locals to the atrocity that is the blood elven dance. It really is that terrible. I prefer the dance of death, much more artistic. Xia was taking notes, obviously creating hypotheses and overanalyzing as per usual. She asked me to try again, but without fighting to kill.
Of course, how silly of me. Obviously I should’ve fought without trying to kill Lorn, there’s just one problem with that. In case you need a reminder, I’m a death knight, with “death” being the main word here. I DON’T DO NON-LETHAL.
Onto other matters, I was running out our of apples and needed to get more. Problem was I had no local money, or “bits” as Lorn called them, and farm work is just not for me. I have a few five-digits of gold, but what use are they here? Money is stupid and is only worth something because people and ponies alike think it is. It’s oddly comfy to lie on though. Haven’t slept while lying on a bed of gold though, nor a normal bed for that matter, not since the day before I became a death knight. Ever heard the expression “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”? The dead do not sleep. Xia doesn’t sleep, she meditates to keep her own magic under control.
Lorn had a proposition for me. He’s earned quite a hefty sum of bits with his profession, being a jewelcrafter and all. But he was interested in the prospecting results of this world’s ores, and required my mining expertise.
Yes, I’m a miner. I find, mine and smelt ores that sometimes contain gems. And no, I do not build castles. I’m a destroyer, not a builder. If I ever built a castle, it would be so I could beat someone with it.
Rarity had told him where she usually found hers, which was somewhere up in the mountains. So that’s where we’re going. Family trip!
We were climbing up the mountainside, when Lorn decided it was time for a little brotherly talk. He always picked the best spots, like steep mountainsides and giant battles. Our main subject? Hair. Which is a very important subject, thank you very much!
His hair is a disaster, end of story. He even had the audacity to claim the two tails on my forehead are hugely impractical, which is a downright LIE. I look spiffy, and it never slowed me down before. After all, I can sense where the living are if I’m low on energy so it’s not like I need eyes to fight. Not that I want to lose my eyes, especially now. Even the mountains view in this world is breathtaking, and considering I don’t really breathe that’s saying something.
Wait. I’m actually breathing. This could be a problem.
Lorn came up with a horrible comeback. He said spiffy is something squirrels are, so I punched him in the jaw.
A few minutes later we reached a flat area where I started to sense nearby deposits. I found quite a lot of spots, there was only one problem.
They were invisible. Honestly, who decided it was a good idea to make ore invisible? What’s wrong with ore deposits being easy to see, too manestream? This was a random occurrence in Azeroth that happened way too often, where visible ore deposits would suddenly disappear once you got near them. Except this time I never actually saw any of the ore deposits, which would mean... oh hay no! They aren’t invisible, they’re underground!
I jumped on top of a nearby boulder and scanned the area, looking for cave entrances. Rocks as far as the eye could see, with wide paths of dirt spread across the ground. Bushes and trees here and there. But no caves. What was I supposed to do, dig for them? My gnomish army knife doesn’t even have a shovel. It has a pick axe, skinning knife, torture cables,flint and tinder and other useless things, but no shovel. Stupid gnomes.
I drew a cross on the ground where a deposit was buried underneath, when I was hit by this ridiculous idea. “What if I actually dug for- ARGH PAIN LEAVE ME ALONE!” Stupid hooves, mimicking my ideas without me giving them authorization to do so and thus ending up with me striking something hard. Colourful gems, several of them in fact, just beneath the surface. I ran over to where I sensed another deposit and did the same there, apart from the whole painfully finding more gems. More gems, but no ore.
I dug up several deposits, but they all seemed to lack ore. Looking at the ground around me being covered in the gems I had dug up reminded me of a certain island in Azeroth where the Exodar resided. All the mountainside needed now were some mutated animals and alien goats and it could be called Exodar-two, although it lacked the spaceship sized crystal.
I was immediately hit by nostalgia as I remembered the draenei mount and its multiple uses, especially the elekk cannon. Made entirely of elekk bones, it couldn’t shoot anything but it was sharp enough to serve as an impromptu oversized stabbing tool. Told you I was creative.
The mountain does not approve of my creativity, and it displayed this by causing the ground to give away underneath me, dropping me into a vertical tunnel. Clearly the mountain planned this for years, even conspiring with gravity. Everything conspires against me, nothing values artists these days! Shortly after it started going horizontal, becoming a makeshift slide. It was actually quite fun for a while, my eyes having no trouble seeing anything. Then there was a small ramp before the ground disappeared, showing a dark chasm below. Luckily, there was a hole in the wall on the other side, with another tunnel.
Which is why I hit the wall right above it, flailing my legs as I briefly flew across the chasm. I hate earth elementals so much right now. Barely landing inside the other tunnel, I found myself rubbing my face as Lorn came sliding, made the jump perfectly (of course), crashed into me and sent us both sliding in a rolling mess. Then the ground disappeared again, and I landed on flat ground.
Lorn landed on me. Of course he landed on me. On the plus side, I found the cave! Be patient my dear apples, I shall unite you with your doom soon- wait.
That was odd. I just sneezed. Place isn’t that dusty.
We weren’t lost. Lorn was clever enough to suggest we create marks to guide us back, so I made some crosses on the walls at regular intervals. Not like they were needed as my surroundings were filled with so many gems, it would cause the biggest bitch fest in the auction houses since the day it became known that smart people used stupid people to get rich. It was just basic economics, buying low and selling high but of course that was unfair. I wouldn’t touch any of those places with a polearm, not like I could due to someone being anti-polearm. Polearmist.
But the most important thing was the ore. There were a few deposits of iron, silver and gold, but these deposits were simply... fascinating. Augmented iron ore, glowing with a shimmer of green as if infused with an emerald gem. Such a thing should not be possible, and yet here I found several rocks containing similar pieces that could be smelted and prepared just like any normal ore. Not only the emerald kind, but also several sapphire, ruby and topaz augmented ores. You could barely notice the gem fragments due to their size, and an idea appeared in my mind, followed by another sneeze. Ore infused by gems. Imagine finding a diamond one!
Imagine the physical properties of diamonds and how they are formed. Now imagine finding it in a state in which it would be smelted and fitted into other shapes. Imagine a sharp edged diamond sword which can withstand pretty much anything that isn’t of a divine nature. The idea was so absurd, the concept so surreal, it would kill logic. Screw Azeroth, Equestria has diamond swords. Well, might have, but screw Azeroth anyway.
I showed Lorn the copper ore I had just unearthed, its rubies giving it a crimson glow. He eagerly grabbed it, checking it out with his monocular, which is some sort of fancy jewelers loupe. The ore was of seventy eight percent purity and contained gem fragments with the potential to serve as magic foci. When Lorn tried prospecting it, it became a ruby giving off an orange shimmer. It was like the components switched places, hinting at the presence of natural transmutation. Short version: Blah blah blah magic rocks.
More importantly, I am now fifty bits richer. Maybe I’ll try a different fruit once we’re done here, as long as it’s not pears. Tastes as bad as they are evil.
I sneezed again. There’s not even that much dust here, not to mention the multiple tunnels look like they’ve been altered by someone, or something. Question is, who did and why hadn’t we seen anything to them yet?
I spoke too soon. Rule number one when adventuring, never say things like “at least it can’t get any worse” or “where is the lava” out loud. The universe has a terrible sense of humour.
Looking over to the source of the voice, I saw a pack of what looked like brown skinned dogs built like gorillas, most clad in iron armour on their torso and head. At the head of the pack, another one wearing a red vest was glaring at us with its light green eyes. He, or I guessed it was a he, said something I didn’t really register as my brain was currently focusing on the most important thing at the moment.
They were dogs. Dogs. I DON’T LIKE DOGS. I grabbed hold of Lorn, lifting him above my head. “GET AWAY FROM ME! I have a paladin, and I’m not afraid to use him!” I shouted, swinging Lorn at the approaching dogs. You’d think that’d be enough to scare them away.
Of course not. The vested one shouted orders to the rest, while Lorn who disapproved of my clearly brilliant plan caught flight, and addressing the hunchback fleabags. He was trying the diplomatic approach. I was too busy sneezing.
In the small break I got between my sneezing fits, I managed to pull my helmet out and put it on, only to remember it didn’t cover the lower part of my face. I hadn’t used a helmet in ages, so the only one I had available was my old gray helmet with unnecessary spikes and two horns fashions like an ox’s. Stupid vrykuls and their viking ways, rumours had it these giant humans were the ancestors of today's humans. As if the fact that they already looked like humans, only bigger, didn’t make it obvious. Vrykul are also sort of related to dwarves, seeing as both their ancestors were actually stone creatures that became mortal as a result of “the curse of flesh”.
It’s a long story. And I’m too busy wondering why on earth I have a goldfish bowl on my head. Doesn’t help that I sneezed just as it appeared on my head, leaving a big patch of snot splattered all over the inside of it. EWW. It looked worse than Draic’s last experiment, except it wasn’t on fire. Which was a relief, as I wasn’t in the mood to get singed.
The gorilla-dog hybrids accused us of stealing their gems, which was totally unjustified. They was buried in the walls! Yet Lorn wanted to return them. He dumped all the gems I had gathered into what became a large heap on the floor. Amongst the muck on my bowl I noticed Vestie’s eyes growing large. I sneezed my bowl off in time to catch him being impressed by the sheer amount of gems we had collected. And now my eyes were starting to water.
You see, I have a small problem when it comes to dogs. I’m allergic to dog hair. And these caves “belonged” to them, meaning this place was full of it. Buck my life.
You see, I have a small problem when it comes to dogs. I’m allergic to dog hair. And these caves “belonged” to them, meaning this place was full of it. Buck my life. I just wanted to get out, but Vestie had other plans. We were going to dig gems for them. Before we had any chance to say anything else, we were both jumped by several of the primate canines. I stepped out of the way, causing my attackers to crash into each other. Lorn, however, found his wings and muzzle bound by ropes.
Someone challenged me to a duel once, claiming he was unbeatable. So I stabbed him with a fish.
There are many things in this world and beyond that you should never do, and ticking off a paladin is one of them. Which is bad enough, as the self proclaimed “defenders of justice” are amongst the biggest fanatics in existence. Now take it one step further and you have the blood knights, the blood elves’ version of the divine soldiers. Lorn is a blood knight.
It was a shame they stopped being sadistic bastards during the whole ordeal with the Sunwell being restored, or Vestie would not still be standing. Lorn was taking it slow, savoring the moment (honestly, I would too) and I... well.
As I sneezed off the goldfish bowl I was wearing, I caught a look of Lorn. Surrounding him was a glowing yellow outline of a pony twice his size, enveloping his stature and making him seem more regal, his eyes glowing bright white. His sword was drawn, covered in the same glow with swirls of red dancing over it, his voice augmented by the sheer power he radiated. The power of showing off. Then he flung his shield, knocking out several dogs. Shields are overrated.
Eww, that one’s gonna need a bath. I just sneezed on one of them, covering him from head to toe, claw, paw, whatchamacallit. I cast Lichborne, feeling the cold embrace of death once more as I turned fully undead. I was immediately hit with the sensation of pain. It turns out being undead near a paladin empowered by holy energy is still not a good idea, so I ran into one of the tunnels thinking Lorn could probably handle himself. Which was a shame, as I would miss the fight. Thinking about it, maybe Celestia is a paladin. That would explain why it hurt being Lichborne back at the castle. Paladin/rogue dual classes are overpowered. Odd that I didn’t feel anything like that the first time we met though, nor did Xia. Maybe she did it on purpose. Royalty.
Well out of range I could feel something calling to me. I hesitated. This felt somewhat too familiar, like something I’d always known yet never known. Slowly walking forward, I sensed it was an ore deposit buried a few meters underground. Not stopping to think, I simply dug until hitting something hard, which I completely unearthed. It was a lump of dark red metal-laced stone, its shape resembling a crude heart twice the size of a normal heart. Something seemed off about it.
So I just dumped it into my bag, of course. Not like dealing with weird metals ever hurt anyone, except the whole deal with the saronite metal, which later turned out to be the blood of a creature composed entirely of mouths and slowly drove those wearing it insane. Never affected me though. Okay, it never hurt anyone important.
With the mysterious probably-not-dangerous metal safely secured, I found myself in a rather large hole too deep to simply jump out of. And my hooves started to itch, which meant that my undead state was fading. There’s a small problem with the Lichborne ability; it only lasts for a limited amount of time as it’s not a shapeshift, but a buff. A temporary (mostly) beneficial spell. And time was running short. My sneezing mortality would soon return.
As I prepared myself for my future snot bath, I felt a heavy weight on my back, and something being pushed against my face blocking my view. I might have panicked, thinking one of the dogs were actually a rogue and attempted to throw it off. After much kicking and tumbling, I managed to throw whoever it was off. A cheerful voice could be heard, giving up a loud “Weeeee!” as its owner landed on something that gave a small yelp.
I felt the bag on my head move, two blue eyes coming into view. It turned out I was wearing some sort of mask, which let me breathe without trouble. And I had somehow gotten out of the hole. Pinkie smiled and bounced over to Rover, which was what Vestie called himself.
Know how she found us? Pinkie sense. Or more specifically, ear flop - twitchy tail - knee pinch - itchy nose. She even did the gestures as she named them, claiming it was a combo that told her someone was going to need a gas mask.
Yeah, “what” was all I could think off too.
Pinkie now occupies fourth place on my list of awesome, right above catapults. She’s just so... random. Something tells me that was a horribly cliche line of text. And if you must know, number three on my list is reserved. Not sure what to put there yet. Number two is truth. I’ve never quite understood the purpose of lying, the truth is so much more destructive not to mention funnier than a lie. Not to forget lying takes so much effort to keep up.
And number one is V- actually that’s none of your business.
Lorn was also here, free of any bonds, ropes and what have you. Guess they got the point. He was oddly clean though, last time he lost it he came out looking like me. Let’s just say blood knights don’t let “morals” stand in the way of “justice”. Whatever keeps their boat afloat.
Rover, sporting a new black spot over his right eye, mumbled something along the lines of “stupid pony” as he begrudgingly led the way. Lorn wasn’t happy with how I, as he put it, “abandoned him to these animals”. Nevermind I would’ve caught fire if I didn’t! Being on fire and standing in fire is not the same thing, because it’s only the latter one that increases your damage output. The first one kills you.
I managed to make him wait until we were outside before answering anything, as I’m currently itching more than anypony should ever have to itch. Ever. I could use a good stab massage right about now.
Rover did not find my stories amusing. Bad dog.
I was of course speaking of the time I visited Majordomo Executus whom I stabbed. With a rock. He was a flamewalker, a creature with a humanoid torso resting on a serpentine body, covered entirely in scales. I’m still not sure whether he was important or not, I forgot whatever else happened during that trip to the Molten Core, a cave system beneath a volcano known as the Blackrock Mountain. Supposedly there’s some history behind it.
As we walked through the tunnels, Pinkie cheerfully bounced as she hummed a rather catchy melody. I had a very interesting conversation with Rover as we walked.
“Hey Rover!”
“What?”
“Are we there yet?”
“No.”
“What about now?
“No.”
“And now?”
“NO!”
“Hey Rover!”
“WHAT?!”
“What’s your favourite colour?”
“NO- uh, red.”
“It is? Mine too! … are we there-”
“YES!”
“Really?”
“NO!”
I’m so good at making new friends.
It had gotten dark outside during our little cave trip, and the sky was covered by a beautiful star pattern. If I didn’t look like a walking disaster I would probably have spent some time simply watching it, but I was also... tired.
With the dogs out of sight, I took my mask off and started walking back towards town with the other two, finally back to walking on grass. A song rewrite was starting to form in my mind based on Pinkie’s earlier melody, a habit I had developed when I was still a child. Needless to say neither the matrons in the orphanage nor my adoptive family approved of the lyrics.
All you have to do is take a bunch of morons
Add them to the raid
Everyone is after blood’n’glory
The last they’ll get is laid
Leading this group is such a pain
And it’s full of pointless drama
Add a little luck to this clusterfuck
And the treashaa we will loot’ah!
Raiding, this team is tragic
Raiding, their deaths nostalgic
Raiding, slaughter plunder
RAIDING!
Raiding, of course, is one of if not the most popular past time in Azeroth. Some important guy or gal is declared evil and thus we form “teams” or “raid groups” to go in, kill everything inside and steal their stuff. It’s like breaking and entering only you’re considered a hero because of it. Some of them even truly believe what they’re doing is right. The whole concept reeks of justification, as if you need a reason for it. And no, I didn’t sing this out loud. I wanted to, but I don’t think Pinkie would’ve enjoyed it as much as me.
… what the hay is wrong with me?!
Now, Lorn wanted to know what I did while we were separated. So I told him about the heart shaped metal I had found, and the familiarity I felt. He didn’t approve of me unearthing it, even less bringing it with me. When I took it out of my bag, he backed away from it. Pinkie looked at it with curiosity, and somehow we ended up talking cherry flavoured gems made of highly concentrated carbon kept under pressure for over a thousand years like diamonds. They better not have fruit swords here. Some weapons are too evil for their own good.
I swear I just saw a shadow move. Again. Word of advice, never fight a shadow. Bastards are invincible. And invisible if there’s not enough light. Not like that flying horse. It’s complicated.
Turns out Lorn didn’t like the heart metal rock thing because it looked wrong. How awfully shallow of him, as if it’s responsible for how it looks. He doesn’t even sense any evil from it, and the fact that he can’t actually sense evil at all due to having exhausted his holy magic reserves doesn’t make it any more evil! Rocks are people too! Kids these days are only interested in helping old ladies across streets, so of course it falls to me to help these poor unfortunate rocks achieve their lifelong dreams of displaying their superiority over anything I beat them with. I’m such a nice person. The earth elementals are just jealous because they are too lazy to do it themselves.
So Lorn cannot feel the Sunwell, which might have something to do with the fact that it’s not actually here, and he exhausted his power supply with that small light show of his. That’s what you get for being dependant on a pool of magic to convert natural magic into holy magic for you. Otherwise he could’ve just used the magic Xia claims this world is covered in, but nooooo. Paladins have to be picky about their magic. That is why my method of beating things up with themselves is much better than theirs... maybe I’ll give that non-lethal thing a try.
AH HAH HAH HAH HAH no. Not unless something catastrophic happens that make me change my view on this, which will never happen.
BUBBLES.
SO MANY BUBBLES.
BUBBLES EVERYWHERE.
I’m in a bathtub. Filled with water. And bubbles. And water warfare combat simulation equipment. It’s roleplaying time. Without any Goldshire influence whatsoever. That place is weird. Trust me, you don’t want to know. And I’m mentioning it so that you will wonder what it is and forever curse the day your curiosity got the better of you and you found out. Onward!
The sky itself was shattered by the sound of the mighty roar of the mighty McQuackosaur, the yellow rubber scourge of the seas. Nothing could stand against this evil spawn of evilness, as the giant evil rubber duck evilly and mercilessly annihilated every ship it came across. Evilly. Oblivious to the fact that today would be its last, for the princess’ finest ship, the Lunar Pearl, had set sail to slay the mighty McQuackosaur and bring peace to the Equestrian waters. The ship approached the humongous beast, its skin a sickening yellow and its soulless eyes black as the darkness itself.
The captain, a white stallion in a fabulous and overly large hat ordered his crew to fire upon the monster. But it had disappeared. One of the crew reported the presence of another ship, one belonging to the Kirin Tor Brigade. The captain came to the clear conclusion that they must have been behind this monstrosity, and ordered his crew to unleash the ravenous hats.
Sadly it was Veteran Hat day, and everypony knows hats do not fight during their holidays.
Just then, their boat started shaking. The captain shouted orders as he tied himself to the steering wheel with some conveniently placed rope as a humongous beast emerged from the depths below, giving a fear inducing roar. It was Rornzilla, the Death of the Seas. The terrifying and dashing monster had the no-longer-that-mighty McQuackosaur in its mouth, chewing as it broke the demon ducks neck-
...
You know, there are probably weirder situations to walk in on than seeing me chewing furiously on a rubber duck. Like that one time Xia walked in on me waging war on the library books. I swear, every book is out to get me- I KNOW WHERE YOU ARE. You’re NOT getting out of my bag and that’s final, Night knows what’ll happen if you do. Stupid bookforts and their hive mind, it’s worse than those infernal bees! Now that I think about it, I haven’t actually seen bees in over a... the squirrels kidnapped all the azerothian bees. It all makes sense now, they seek to rule the world by controlling all its resources! First the honey, then our lives, then... wait, what?
So Lorn walked in on me chewing on a rubber duck. You should know there was a perfectly good explanation for this. Me chewing on the duck, not Lorn invading my bath tub fun time- combat training. Yes. Combat training.
They should be glad they didn’t catch me singing, which when I brought it up Lorn gave me the most “NO” look in all of creation. That is a fact. Or a theory. Which is considered fact whenever it benefits whoever looks at it. Like my allergy management.
Yeah, I was taking a bath. I used to hate bath time, the matrons kept trying to make me take my necklace off each time. I love this necklace. It looks like some sort of starfish with a red gem in the middle and it’s the only thing I have left from the time before the orphanage took me and Lorn in. I hated that place, filled with entitled brats and angsty role players. At least something good came out of Arthas’ destruction of the Sunwell, seeing as it stood right in his path.
Apparently Rarity, who were visiting Twilight when we returned just a few moments ago, does not approve of dirt. Or messy manes. But even considering the state I was in when we arrived, being covered in, well, stuff, she still had no reason to overreact the way she did. Don’t believe me?
“Your mane!”
“My mane?”
“Your hair!”
“My hair!”
“I cannot let such a crime against fabulousity go unpunished, you’re getting that washed right now young man!”
“I’m older than you! Can’t we talk this over?”
“NO!”
“Don’t touch THE HAIR!”
“Be quiet!”
“I need an adult!”
“I AM AN ADULT!”
See, she overreacted. And no, I had no traces of my previous allergic adventures as I went Lichborne which caused any non existing proof to rot away. I know allergy doesn’t work that way, but mine does. I’M A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE. You can’t prove anything otherwise, therefore I am considered right in your world. Wait, is the inside of a bag comfortable? Maybe I should see if I can put a sofa in it, weird how these soulbound bags work. They can contain a stupidly large volume of the same type of item, but only a limited amount of different items. Which means eight pieces of armour takes the same space as a hundred and sixty feasts each large enough to feed twenty five soldiers.
Magic bags, why do you hate physics.
So first Rarity throws a fit due to the state my mane is in, and then she has the audacity to attempt to style my hair. With scissors. Important note: Do not touch blood elven hair. EVER. Unless its owner trusts you to handle it right it better be an extreme emergency of fashionable proportions, or the only other alternative being the end of the world. Only barely if it’s the latter one.
… maybe I’m overreacting too. Perhaps I should apologize and allow her- WHAT THE HAY BRAIN? This is getting out of hoof, I can’t do nice things. Last time I did I...
Nevermind.
This shampoo smells of strawberries. Or liquid pain. I have no idea how to use this.
I figured out how to open the shampoo bottle, it was actually quite simple. Not that you need to know, books don’t shower. No, I’m not going to find out if you do. Some things are better left unexplained.
Do books sing in the shower? And if so, what do they sing about?
Now I’m faced with a different dilemma. How are earth ponies able to use towels and combs with their hooves?
Dear Luna I haven’t felt so refreshed and tired at the same time in like forever. My mane is fantabulous. Of course I did it myself, you think I’d let Lorn or Rarity do it?
Lorn showed me how hooves work. The pony bodies of this world have more joints than the azerothian ones, so they are able to somehow hold things in ways they shouldn’t. Clearly ponies are part magnets.
So. Lorn and Rarity is gone, and I’m not allowed to go outside the library until tomorrow in case I disappear again. As if it’s something I do often. I wasn’t even planning on doing anything, honest! Besides, what would I even do? I’m missing my partner in antics, and she... she must be terribly bored.
We’re going back into the woods tomorrow to look for some sort of portal “residue”, as Xia called it. Supposedly it could help Xia find a way to open a new portal. Or rather, Xia’s going into the woods with Lorn. She’ll be keeping herself at light as a feather while Lorn carries her, which makes more sense than walking all the way. We could’ve done this when we first arrived, but I refused. Lorn is not very trustworthy, not to mention his first flight ended in a tree. Mages have a spell called Slow Fall, which essentially makes whoever it’s cast on light as a feather. Not to be confused with the priest spell Levitate. Atra, our shadow priest, will melt your face off if you do. She’s not here now so you don’t need to worry about what else she can do. For now.
And me? I have to stay behind. In a library. Filled with books. Some which I have to read. Which is still better than being carried by Lorn.
I just yawned. Clearly that just confirms how boring tonight is going to be. Might aswell just get this over with.
To think I used to love reading, losing myself within the adventurous worlds they created. Nowadays I do more impressive things on a daily basis, or did anyway. There are only so many times you can kill the same “big bad guy” over and over until it becomes more of a chore than entertainment.
There it is again, what’s wrong with me? Normally I keep imagining new ways to “improve” ways of thwarting plans of world destruction, but lately the thought just makes me... bored. It must be this pacification spell, it’s not like I’d grow tired of doing the same thing every day over and over again- slaughter has become a chore in Azeroth. The Quirrel Empire will regret this! Good thing I’ve got my backup plans, I think I’ll stab their emperor with a boat.
Another yawn. The book before me is of medium size and looks oddly comfortable. I’ll just lay my head down for a little while.
I was given three ultimatums once. I chose option five, as option four was too obvious and option six was not ready yet.
Okay. Don’t panic. This is not a sign that I’m becoming mortal, just a side effect. A vision inducing side effect. From something I should not even be able to do.
I woke up in the library's spare bed earlier today, and was told I slept. Which is a problem, as I haven’t slept in years due to me being, well, dead. Waking up while hugging a pillow was not on the list of things I was going to do some day or the other. When I spoke of my vision, Spike told me it was probably a dream. He’s a dragon of the non-evil kind, therefore he must be right.
Only it wasn’t really a dream. Dreams are weird. This was more like a reenactment of a memory, the one where I...
The one from when I watched Venera die, which led to me joining the Argent Dawn. Which is why I woke up screaming her name. And that may have caused Spike to be covered in a pile of books, a feeling I know way too well myself. Libraries are death traps I tell you!
He asked me who Venera was. So I told him the short version. Imagine an awesomeness scale from one to ten, then throw that away because it doesn’t even come close. She’s clever, she’s funny, she gives the best dagger massage of all time, and her skills with the arts of stealth are legendary. And... that’s all you need to know.
I know she’s technically human. What makes her different is that she doesn’t use her “humanity” as an excuse. “He’s only X” is amongst the worst excuses for anything, right next to “my mount ate my homework” and “I’m a paying customer”. The very few situations where those are actually proper reasons are drowned out by the myriads of improper uses used to throw responsibility onto someone else, just because they can’t handle it themselves. I never deny being responsible for my actions. Never. Not caring is not the same as denying.
Xia and Lorn left me behind while they went to the forest, and I honestly don’t want to go back to that forest again. Too many trees, not to mention I can’t even kill anything inside it. This spell sucks, and Xia even told me she couldn’t detect any traces of it. Which might mean I’ve always had it, but that would be absurd. Next thing I know I become a herbalist or worse, an unholy death knight. Stupid flower pickers.
Twilight wants to study my undead condition. Not like I have anything better to do since I’m not allowed to go outside. Maybe I’ll rebel. Wait, that what they expect me to do. I’ll stay inside, they’ll never expect that!
WHY DO I KEEP DOING THESE THINGS?
I’m stuck in some weird mechanical contraption in the library’s basement, with weird sticky dots on my front legs and a weird hat on my head with wires connecting them to some machine. This better not end up with me getting body swapped again, the transformation potions and items we have back on azeroth are bad enough. I never understood the whole deal with Noggenfogger, an elixir that either makes you smaller, into a skeleton, or light as a feather for a short period of time. And then there’s the savory deviate delight, a fish that turns you into either a pirate or a ninja. Only drawback is both are human forms, and somehow I always end up as a ninja while Lorn get the pirate one. Which may have something to do with him being a bloodsail admiral after he drank too much and obliterated Booty Bay.
What happens in Booty Bay will follow you forever. Lorn ended up on a wanted poster next to Draic, who also ended up as an admiral of the bloodsail pirates after slaughtering a rather large amount of goblins. At least he wasn’t drunk, otherwise there wouldn’t be a Booty Bay. Man’s crazy.
It was even worse than the time Lorn and me ended up smashed in Stromgarde, which is where Venera and I met, although that was a few years earlier before the third war when she was still alive. Blood elves were known as high elves back then, before the destruction of the Sunwell that forces most of them to leech magic from a different source. Which technically means I’m not exactly a blood elf, as I do not carry the demonic corruption they do. I’m still thalassian! Besides, my eyes are blue. Blue is forever better than green. Especially since the green colour comes from feeding on demon magic.
No, I never feed on demonic magic. They can feed on it as much as they want, I’m not touching that stuff unless it involves killing it. It’s even worse than alcohol, and while I don’t regret my first and last time getting smashed I’m not touching another bottle of it. Or any other container for that matter. Maybe apple cider, do they have that here?
They do. I just asked Twilight, and she says the Apple family makes them. Perhaps I’ll give it a try, although just small one. I’d rather not wake up next to a pony I don’t know, especially seeing as I’m dead- wait. If I have enough life in me then NO BAD THOUGHTS. That doesn’t even sound as wrong as it should! Last time that happened I almost died, as it was before these spirit healers unveiled themselves and removed death.
You want to know about it don’t you. Very well. Let me tell you the story of how I met Venera.
It was a cold and stormy- actually no it wasn’t. It was the day me and Lorn got smashed in Stromgarde, a human stronghold and harbour city. It might surprise you to hear this, but I was amongst the high elves who remained with the Alliance after the second war. Remember when I said I was a hundred and twenty eight years old? My memories are that old, I don’t recall anything that happened beforehand. I don’t actually know my real age, not that it really matters. I’ve got plenty of millenias ahead of me, it’s not like my age really matters.
Then again, I’m not a woman. Never ask a woman their age.
Yes, I was allied with the human race once. Back then I was naive enough to believe in them. They were a little too proud, especially the gilneans who walled themselves in to show off their independence, but not like they are now. And then the Scourge arrived.
What a bloody mess that was. All the good humans died. Now the only good humans are the dead ones, which is why Quel’Thalas joined up with the Forsaken of Lordaeron a few years back, which is also why the blood elves joined the Horde, which is a weird decision considering we were at war with them before that whole mess. Politics are confusing, at least we don’t have any orcs in the guild. Just a troll. Darkspear trolls are cool. The others not so much.
I was shocked, and I might have broken Twilight’s machine as a result. I blame Lorn who busted through the door upstairs.
They’ve found Draic.
I feel like I’m forgetting something. Probably nothing important.
Well this is just dandy.
They found Draic. That’s good news. He’s infected with the Plague. That’s bad news. That means either the Forsaken or the Scourge is here, which is also bad news. And there might be an open portal between the two worlds. That’s both good and bad news. Xia is coughing up smoke. That’s not news. We’re in a hospital. That’s new. Its interior is green. THAT’S BUCKING HORRIBLE.
Draic is a pony, a dark purple coated one with a black mane. His flank mark is a green fireball with a vial and a wrench crossed behind it, like a fancy pirate flag. Of FIRE. Green fire, which is the right kind of green. Just like broccoli green. Broccoli are not evil, they are vegetables and sworn enemies of the pears, who have the inferior green colour. Juch like these hospital walls. I feel sick just by being here.
A loud noise just came from outside, followed by a voice sounding like... Patchwerk?
Well that was... interesting. The town was just invaded by Patchwerk, Anub’arak and a whole swarm of undead nerubians. I got to kill things again, and Celestia is the biggest kill stealer of all time.
As it turns out, I was fully able to slaughter a number of nerubians before Celestia showed up and ruined my fun with her overpowered Holy Nova. This is why I dislike royalty. I could’ve dealt with these invaders myself! Although they were sort of overrunning the town, but she could’ve at least left a few of them for me! Stupid holy spells and their ability to incinerate the undead.
… I guess I should be glad I’m still alive, considering the piles of ashes scattered around town could’ve been me if I was still fully undead. Still, that doesn’t explain why Xia didn’t combust being undead herself, unless she somehow became... oh. That would explain why she was coughing up more smoke than usual.
It started with just Patchwerk. He’s a house sized abomination composed of several bodies stitched together, with enough strength to pulverize flesh and the brainpower of a long deceased roadkill, much looks your average inlaw. A disfigured face with differently sized eyes, terrible teeth, and stitches everywhere. Three arms, two thick ones in the “normal” places holding a overly large cleaver and a chain, with the third one being on his back holding a smaller cleaver. Fluid kept dripping out of the hole in his stomach that exposed his innards.
He was defeated by the most awkwardly awesome pegasus I’ve ever seen. A blond, gray coated mare with unfocused eyes and bubbles on her flank. She defeated him by flying straight into his head several times, distracting him as Xia bombarded him with fire before finally causing him to blow up with a Living Bomb, one of the many stupidly powerful fire mage spells she’s able to cast. Why she insists on using anything but her fire spells is beyond me, usually when asked she mumbles something about “balance”.
Oh, and this pegasus doesn’t look at explosions. Her foal has the best mother ever.
As Patchwerk exploded, I noticed there was something moving underground. Time slowed down as the ground opened under an aquamarine coated unicorn mare, revealing an undead arachnid. Without thinking I used my Death Grip, dragging it out of the ground and away from the mare and onto my raised sword, impaling it. As it screeched, more popped up of the ground all over the square grabbing hold of every pony they could reach. Gripping another, I jumped and cleaved it mid flight before proceeding to kill them off one by one as more of them appeared, weaving their victims in cocoons.
But more importantly, I could kill them! Yay for mindless slaughter! Their boss even showed up, a big beetle looking arachnid known as Anub’arak. Poor guy, he’s been declared properly dead three times now and still he keeps coming back. Which in this case was odd, as the Lich King had been replaced by Bolvar who swore to keep them under control. Just what was the Scourge doing here in Equestria anyway?
Wait... these two have both been declared dead three times, Anub’arak once due to natural causes such as being murdered and twice after being raised, while Patch has been declared dead thrice now. Which makes them both overused, so...
Oh hay no. If the one behind this is who I think it is, I’m going to punch someone with my face.
Lorn’s got his power back. Seems getting hit by a holy nova made by a sun goddess recharged his holy energy supply, so he’s healing the very few wounded from the battle. The same nova is the spell responsible for turning every true undead invader into a pile of ash, which game Celestia way too many points at once. Let’s just hope this doesn’t go to her head.
Oh, and the aquamarine unicorn I saved? She has a thing for hands, and demanded I “teach her my ways”. I... might have ended up hiding behind Celestia. THESE PONIES ARE CRAZY! Especially the mares, I swear they all have some sort of “I WILL END YOU” look they can pull out whenever the situation does not call for it.
Xia “saved” me. And by “saved” I mean “dragged me away and sneezed fire in my face”.
Hang on, Xia’s calling me and... Draic is awake.
I believe you can fly.
I believe if you fall you die.
I think about it every now and then.
Then it hurts my head again.
I’m on a flying dragon. We’re heading towards an old castle in the middle of Everfree forest, where the six locals we have with us defeated Nightmare Moon in the past. Seems Luna was driven insane from jealousy of her sister’s day over a thousand years ago, which made Celestia banish her to the moon.
I slapped Celestia when I heard that. IN MY MIND. I’d rather not be banished to the moon myself, imagine being stuck on a gray rock for a thousand years. Celestia is even less my favourite princess because of that.
When Draic appeared somewhat healthier earlier, he told us it had not been an attack, but a diversion. He asked Celestia if she guarded anything, which was interrupted by Spike burping up a scroll. Two actually, one from Luna which said that some elements and “Discord” had disappeared, while the other one was a formal complaint. Pinkie even read it out loud,”The resident Lord of the Dead requests an explanation as to why there is a huge mentally disabled fleshbag playing tag with a bunch of giant spiders in his underworld.” Which was odd, seeing as the undead should’ve just respawned back on Azeroth. And who was this “Discord”?
Draic simply asked for the short version and if anypony were able to fight, as he already knew where the nerubians had come from and how to deal with it. That’s the mark of a leader right there, which means I have to think less about why and more about how. Discord is the spirit of chaos and disharmony, and is currently a statue. He was sealed in it by the elements of harmony, artifacts of power the six mares we’ve talked to are the bearers of.
The ten of us all ran out of town towards the forest, those of us from Azeroth donning our armour. Celestia went to deal with whatever else she had to deal with, fully confident we could handle the situation. It was not until we were quite a distance away that Draic stopped. As Dash asked why, he transformed into his dragon form, a sandstone drake. Which is basically a drake made of sandstone, with wings and everything.
Yes, Draic is a drake. Sort of. Nopony expected that. Even though his name is just an old gilnean misspelling of the word “drake”, and is even pronounced the same way. He’s not good at coming up with names. As for his dragon form, some time ago a recipe of an ancient potion was unearthed in Uldum, one that was said to grant the imbiber the ability to transform into a sandstone drake. Of course, the materials needed for it are extremely expensive. Which is why we have an entire vault filled with them.
Apart from being able to transform into a dragon made of sandstone, the Vial of the Sands has a few undocumented side effects. One being that the imbiber doesn’t just gain the ability to transform into a sandstone drake, but becomes part stone due to how alchemic transformation works, which is why neither Xia nor Draic became piles of ash from Celestia’s spell. One does not simply turn flesh into stone, the process is a bit more... permanent. It’s like the opposite version of the “curse of flesh” that turned stone constructs into mortals. Xia told us she chose to take it without really thinking it over, as she could’ve just let Lorn carry Draic from the forest. Actually, let me ask him why he was infected by the plague in the first place.
… He accidentally broke a vial with a sample of the plague. WHAT.
Back to the subject of sandstone drakes. You’d think more people would want to gain immortality by drinking this Vial, there’s just one small problem with it. Goldshire. That town is filled with so many people claiming to be the love children of Illidan and Deathwing that the idea of anyone becoming a dragon is considered taboo. What the actual fuck. “Buck” doesn’t cut it in this instance.
Draic and Venera have been working on modifying it to change the appearance to one of the other dragon species, with Xia’s vial being a volcanic stone one. I want a frostwyrm one, frostwyrms are cool. They’re basically undead dragons, although when I think about it now... no, I still want wings. They hit a breakthrough some time ago from studying transmogrification, a special kind of magic that changes the appearance of armour and weapons. Which did wonders for the world of fashion, and is the main reason my armour is a perfect match.
YES. My vial is ready, but it’s back at our headquarters. SOON.
As of now Draic and Xia are carrying most of us, with Lorn and Dash flying next to us. There’s something small moving towards us- SKITTENS.
Journal, say hello to Skittens, the fastest flying kitten in all of everywhere. He has yellowish brown fur, a brown mane and shining yellow eyes. This kitten is and forever will be the most awesome kitten. Of all time. FOREVER. If there was a rulebook for how the universe was supposed to work, there would be a giant section describing just how awesome this kitten will always be. In fact, the entire book would consist mostly of that section with a small page stuffed all the way at the end with the less important details like conditions needed for pears to exist and unholy death knights.
He’s carrying a letter, signed with...
It’s from Venera.
The letter contained a single sentence: “Prisoners present”.
Shortly after Venera appeared out of thin air, much to Dash’s shock. She’s a light blue pegasus with a straight black mane and yellow glowing eyes. Of course she had wings. She wore an odd contraption on each of her front hooves, each with a jagged dagger attached to them. Her flank mark is five knives formed like a fan. And she’s still looking as deadly as ever.
I lept of Draic and hugged her in mid air. Which was a rather stupid idea, luckily Draic caught me with a claw as I let her go. Don’t judge me.
Meet Venera, the occupant of the first place on my list of everything awesome and the only one who have stolen my heart. Literally. I spent a good afternoon chasing her down that day during the “Love is in the Air” festival, I have not lost as much blood in a single day since. We finished it off with a nest extermination followed by a trip to Southshore, which was a small human town in the Hillsbrad Foothills before the Forsaken bombed it with their version of the plague. Their military is not the most creative sort, seeing as that is their main strategy for every skirmish. Bombs are overrated.
We’re not in love. Honest. It’s more like a perfect storm of bad decisions. One that started with us waking up next to each other in Stromgarde a few years back after my first and last time getting completely smashed, followed by several minutes of the two of us trying to kill each other causing more property damage than the innkeeper was comfortable with. One thing lead to another and... well...
Back to the present, I apologized to her for taking the last slice of the chocolate cake. That was a lot easier than I thought it would be. But she wasn’t mad. She got over that when she set my favourite curtains on fire. Poor innocent victims of war, I even paid extra to have the sword pattern made extra detailed. And she burned them because I ate one small slice of cake. And for the record, cake is not considered food. It is way too delicious and can therefore be consumed in infinite amounts.
She briefed Draic on the current situation, giving away the locations of the prisoners she had mentioned earlier in the letter. Without further ado we initiated plan B. What’s plan B? Plan B is “slaughterfest” and it’s the best plan. Plan A involves too much stealth for my taste, as fun as it is to watch your enemies slowly but surely panic as you take them out one by one. And no princess will steal my kills this time!
It started with Lorn performing a Divine Bomb, which is an improvised technique involving flying into any structure and using Divine Shield just before hitting it. Paladins get eight seconds of damage immunity, which is completely fair. It’s not like they’re any good without it, obviously. EXCEPT THEY ARE. Regardless, Lorn knocked a sizeable hole in the side of the castle. So much for ancient irreplaceable architecture. Draic and Xia landed inside and changed back, dropping the rest of us on the rocky floor. I might have landed on my face.
We were greeted by a band of fel elves. Fel elves are like blood elves, only they have red skin and a pair of very small black wings on their back that serve no purpose whatsoever. Venera dispatched all of them before I could even get back on my hooves, and started running down the stone corridor. Apart from the new window Lorn had generously installed, the castle corridors consisted mostly of torches lining walls of rock. Even the ceiling was made of rock. Castles are so bland.
Rarity showed disapproval of the fact that Venera just killed the fel elves, but we kept moving. We passed several bodies of other fel elves, most of them with their heads still intact and an angry look on their faces. Within a few minutes we found Venera in a large room, standing by a large green crystal containing a pony shaped figure.
The room contained several dozen similar crystals that had been broken, containing pools of... well, remains of... something. Whatever it was, is smelled terrible and frankly upset a few of the mares. It didn’t help when Draic touched one of the pools, studying the red goo. He claimed that by the looks of it, the goo had once been ponies. They were either too shocked or disgusted to react as Draic struck the remaining crystal with his front hooves, shattering it in a swirl of green magicy something. He caught the pony inside, an azure unicorn mare with a mane two slightly different hues of light blue.
Before I could check out her flank mark, Twilight called her “Trixie”, hinting that she knew the mare from beforehand. Draic asked Twilight if she could feel the power emanating from the azure pony, and when she said no he told us that the mare radiated demonic energy and was likely the only one who survived an attempt to create fel ponies. And judging by the sheer number of crystals, this was likely what would’ve happened to the ponies of Ponyville if the nerubians hadn’t been stopped. Question was, which town did these come from and why had we not heard anything about it? And why do I care?
The castle suddenly started shaking violently, causing cracks to appear on the stone walls, floor, ceiling, and everything else not yet mentioned. Rocks fell onto the floor as the ceiling collapsed, dropping the entire upper floor onto us. I was not pleased, just because it had been several weeks since last I was crushed flat didn't mean I missed the feeling!
However gravity failed at doing its job, as a pink shield enveloped us. Twilight had enveloped all of us in a protective barrier, hinting that she wasn’t just a mage, but also a priest. She must have royal blood too, it would explain how she can multiclass.
As the rocks settled down, we found the once ancient castle in rumbles and a large blue portal floating in the air above us. A laughter could be heard, as a weird mishmash of a creature resembling the one from the stained glass in the castle. Only this one didn’t have a goat head, but one made up of half squirrel half... blood elf.
“Azeroth was merely a setback!”
Buck this. I have a face to punch, monologue or no monologue. He's been blabbering long enough.
