You, who have taken from me my love. You, who have defiled my home and my memories. You, arrogant and foolish enough to allow me this continued, wretched existence. I know you're out there, past these placid walls, across the great waters, and across the stars.

I will find you. I will hunt you down with an unforgiving, unmerciful vengeance across gaps made miniscule compared to the enormity of my seething hatred for you. And when I catch up to you, marched over a smoldering trail laid thick by the remains of everyone and everything you ever held dear, I will lay you to the ground with such a force, that by all that is unholy, I shall strike the world irreparably in two; so that you shall know, and the world shall know, the depths of my fury.

Chapter One:

Once upon a better time, long since departed, I could find welcome comfort in a long night's rest. A chance to sleep and to dream; a means to retire from the drudges of the true world lay just outside a home's warm walls, behind the veil of closed eyes, lost within the sheets of a soft bed and within the embrace of an even softer love. The promise of a new day met with fresh eyes just on the other side of a serene, ethereal gap of floating consciousness

Now, as I awaken to my last, painfully bright morning within the unwelcome walls of the Sunspire, I find only relief that the necessary journey through the shadowy world of wailing nightmares is at an end, for now.

My wounds have healed enough to go back out into the world. A world made strange, twisted and dangerous in the years I have spent in the shadow recesses of my mind. The Sunspire's residents speak of how animate dead, uncontrolled magic and warmongering demons abound. There are rumors of a great betrayal amongst our kind, and of excursions to other worlds and continents in pursuit of great artifacts and even greater foes.

As I look out upon the land from the Sunspire's front walkway, I look out onto an island as testament to my people's arrogance and complacency: the Sunwell, source of our needless magic addiction, destroyed by the very same armies of undead who scoured away my former life's joy. All around this chaotic island, creatures of magic roam unchained and undisciplined, severed from bonds of demonic magic we have all so foolishly consumed and grown reliant upon to satiate our addictions and egos.

As I step out from under the shade of the Sunspire, and out into the bright sun, I steel myself for the act of making myself useful to those who had looked after me during my long recovery. It would be the least I could do, and an opportunity to stretch my legs and regain my strength.

Magistrix Erona, a blonde, short-tailed haired Blood Elf mage, greeted me upon my reemergence into the greater world, "Good morning, sunshine," she said with a smarmy grin, "You're looking better. How are you feeling?"

I was in no mood for her. I was never in any mood for her. She grated on my nerves with the grace of a jagged knife. "I have had worse days," I said as diplomatically as possible.

"Indeed you have," she agreed in the most frustrating manner, "Heard you're leaving us, though?" Erona tilted her head at me, eying me like a puzzle. "Couldn't imagine why."

I barely contained a smirk. "Do not think me ungrateful. I intend to repay the debt for the care and patience you all have showed me."

"Good. Because there's a fair bit of work needs doing around the tower. Hope all that training you've nearly ripped open your old wounds for over the last few weeks taught you something. The Blood Knights tell me you have some real talent. Prior experience, perhaps?"

"Perhaps."

"I don't know what I was expecting…" She mutters to herself, and then turns back to me, handing me sheets of paper scribbled with various scripts of eloquence. Each one marked by a requester's name, with requests to visit said requesters that stacked tall and heavy in my hands, making me feel like a carpenter with a sword for a hammer, and nails made of squealing flesh and blood.

I listened to each request with due attentiveness. Erona went first, telling me again the story I already knew about the unstable demonic energy crystals scattered around the island, fueling control over the native creatures, and how said creatures caused trouble for the island's residents without the crystal's controlling stability. The other requests were more or less similar: the creatures were uncontrollable, and must die. At least Erona made an excuse out of collecting the native lynxes' collars, to try and once more exert control over their own once slaved creations. Some of the other requests bordered on laziness, or just plain fear, and may the Gods render no help to those who fear what they cannot control.

I did not necessarily agree in the killings, but I owed a debt I could not consciously leave the island until I repaid. What they asked was reasonable enough I could withhold my resignations until it was over, and would in turn hand back over onto those whose woes each belonged.

During my cold culling of the native lynxes, I saw a pair of lynxes, an adult and a cub, prowling together amongst the lush grass behind the Sunspire tower. I could not bring myself to raise my hand against them. Such a bond was far more sacred than any petty concerns over magic and control. I wished the lynxes happiness devoid of me, and carried onwards, embroiling myself further than I would like in the concerns of the Sunspire.

One request above all agitated me, from one of Magistrix Erona's friends, who concerned himself over an 'enemy of the people' occupying an old school not far from the Sunspire, proclaiming him a 'threat'. The Blood Elf, one of many they called, Wretched, Erona's friend claimed would not learn control, and had long ago fallen into the depths of full and irreversible magical addiction and corruption.

I did not approve, and told the naïve Blood Elf in so many words, "He refused to learn control? Control from whom; himself? That is his right, and his choice, and perhaps the wisest one, for your control trying to mold him into your idea most likely made him the pitiful thing he is today. I'll pass on involving myself in this social squabble. I do not care for your 'peoples' politics that much." I turned away from him, and made my way back to Erona to let her know there were some requests I simply would not fill.

"That's fine," she said, "Lanthan will be disappointed, but he does not know you like I do. I'm sure some other eager soul will happily come along and do the deed—in the name of our people, of course."

"I'm sure," I half-heartedly agreed.

She let out a long sigh and looked at me weird. "You really are leaving, aren't you?"

I let the flat look on my face and the statures of my body answer for me.

She raised a long golden eyebrow at me. "I'm kind of going to miss you; kind of like I miss magic voids."

"I'm sure I feel likewise."

She smirked. "Charming, as usual, Cindy," she said, calling me by the pet she knew I disliked. My name is, Cyndori. I no longer claim the surname of my deceased family. "Alright, then, I won't stop you. You've done enough for us, already. You should come back sometime, you know. The place is growing, and you'll always have your cot, and me, of course."

"Can't wait for the homecoming. It should be a real joy."

"Just get your pessimistic butt of here, Cindy," she said with a smile edged with sadness. "You should go looking for the Farstriders down south, along the road, if you're heading that way. We've received word they need a little help, if you feel so inclined to grace them with your enlightening presence on your journey to wherever."

I managed a small smile for Erona, not wanting to leave on too sour of a note, and turned away from the Sunspire. I wasn't too sure where I would go from there, or even which way to pivot my foot on the ground as I set one step out onto the soft grass outside the Sunspire, and then another, and then another, until I could at least be far away from this accursed isle of apathy, boredom and isolation. For there isn't much in this life I am truly sure of, save for this one absolute truth I held in my heart and soul as I walked away from Erona and my home of the past few years: that, that one step forward, was one step drawn closer to those who have wronged me, and the unswerving day I would finally exorcise my demons upon them all.