Tanathal had every reason to be anxious for what was to come today. The lich; a skeletal being that was perhaps one of the most powerful and intelligent of the Scourge's many undead abominations, was to be traded over from the Knights of the Ebon Blade to the Knights of the Silver Hand. It was long ago, shortly before the death of his master, the Lich King, when he had been captured by the order of death knights and interrogated for information.
And he had told all, after making a deal. Curling his silver tongue around after his stubbornness had finally given out, he had managed to strike a bargain with the traitorous death knights. In exchange for the information on what he knew of the Scourge's plans, he would be granted mercy, yet would remain a prisoner for as long as his unlife suited him. With what seemed like begrudgement in their tones, they had granted him that wish and spent many years afterword keeping him restrained. But then, for whatever reason that was their own, he overheard them discuss the trade he was now fretting over and they soon set to preparing him for travel as he could only watch.
Currently, all he could see was darkness as he was transported around within the giant, magic-suppressing iron coffin he had been enclosed in for transportation from Northrend. After growing weary on the many ideas swarming his mind on how the paladins of the Light would treat him once he arrived at his destination, he let darkness take hold of him. When he awoke next he was no longer in that cramped box of enchanted metal, but fully bound and suspended in the air by chains hanging from the ceiling that wrapped around his robed, skeletal frame. Paying close attention to his bonds, he could see that each link had tiny runes of holy power glistening on their surfaces, and the magical power radiating from it that sapped his mighty strength considerably. Tanathal felt quite weak from it, but that weakness was comparable to a stiff soreness one would feel after awakening from sleep.
There was little light in the room, but with a slow turn of his rigid neck he soon made out the details of the gray walls, which were either smooth and etched cleanly, or covered in stacked brick. A set of levers, most likely built to operate his binding chains, were attached to the wall next to the only door in the far back. Attracting his sight like a moth to the glow of a flickering candle in the center of the chamber he could see a jar-like object covered in intricate symbols sitting on a sturdy pedestal, and he knew right off that it was his precious phylactery; the vessel that housed his soul while his mind controlled his physical form. Looking down further upon noticing something else, there, just in front of him, stood one female shape.
She was a human clad in heavy silver-and-red armor and had a large sword sheathed by her side while a shield rested behind her back. Part of her chest just below her neck was unarmored, exposing some of the light, fair skin she had. Her hair, running down to just past and over her shoulders was a vivid and bright scarlet color, and her eyes were of a striking amber texture. They looked at him in baleful silence for a few minutes. Shaking his skull-esque head and the long tusks that hooked down from either side of it, Tanathal looked back down at her with the ethereal blue orbs glowing within his sockets in place for his eyes.
"Who are you?" he inquired in a low tone. The human was quiet for almost a minute before responding.
"I am your jailer now, lich," she finally said in a tone as cold and emotionless as the undead he was once used to conversing with. "I am a paladin of the Knights of the Silver Hand and my name is Eve Ducreux. I will be the only one who watches you, and I alone will tend to whatever 'needs' you have. In other words, I am your custodian."
Tanathal squirmed his skeletal frame within his dreadful restraining bonds in a vain attempt to comfort himself, as much as he could anyhow. "Might I have the courtesy of knowing where I am?" he deadpanned next, putting on as much of an uninterested visage as he could muster. Eve placed a gloved, gauntlet-covered hand to her mouth in a pondering action before deciding to respond.
"We are in a chamber specially constructed to house you, beneath our capital of the Light's Hope Chapel, and in turn beneath the Sanctum of Light. I have been told that we are to keep you imprisoned here until the day when your maddening boredom causes you to beg for an end to your cursed existence, or at least until a time comes where we trade you off in a manner similar to how we got you to begin with," she said monotonously. "Apologies if you find our spartan accommodations to not be as appeasing as you wish."
Tanathal hummed before letting out a mirthless chuckle. "It would be a lie if I were to say that I did not expect more than this particular manner of restraint. Though I do feel a something disgustingly pure gnawing at the base of my cranium, it is a pain I shall resist."
The paladin began to turn around and walked up to the phylactery, a dry smirk on her face. "To that, we shall see. Where you lie beneath is hallowed ground that you would dare not attempt to escape through, for there are more paladins like me living above us than you could think of."
With a small movement of his lower jaw and the golden, ornamental false beard that rested on its end, Tanathal laughed again, this time with more feeling behind his gravely voice. "Whoever said I would try and escape from here in my current state?"
Eve turned back to him and placed a hand to her hip. "The words of a lich are something not to be trusted unless you are one of a weak and arrogant mind. I was trained to inherit this task, and I'll wager my life, heart and soul that I will not fail to uphold it."
Tanathal clicked his bare teeth together raptly at her words before allowing his stiff body to relax as he prepared himself for the waiting to come. "And to that, Eve, we shall see..."
