Copyright, Helmholtz Pillus, 2009. Warcraft and all related fiction, characters, settings and any other fabricated devices belonging to the franchise are property of Blizzard, and are used without permission. Any characters that have not appeared before in anything sanctioned by Blizzard are of my own creation and may not be used without permission.
The Sleeping Mines
Or
An Informal Yet Accurate Depiction of the Life of Marsz, the Faded Inferno, as interpreted by Helmholtz of Gilneas
It was a funny sound, somewhere in between a yelp and a grown – the type that when, even fully completed, always gave the impression of having been cut off abruptly. The noise was accompanied, and somewhat muffled, by the clings and clangs of armour too impatient to remain silent and the unmistakable phtt of a paladin's behind meeting the hard dirt beneath him with an admirable amount of force. He winced as a straight, sharp pang quickly climbed his spine and settled rather irritatingly just beneath the bottom of his skull. He decided to ignore this pain, attributing it to his old age, which was very dramatic and pretentious of him as he had hardly delved far into his twenties.
Marsz cursed his clumsiness, realizing – not for the first time – that the only reason paladins were so commonly the protagonist in tales of adventure and heroism was because they so frequently allowed themselves, through some silly sense of duty or bravado, to get into trouble. His brow creased and, using the very large maul that lay beside him (having created a sizeable imprint into the dirt itself) as a leverage, hoisted himself to his feet. His pauldrons groaned against his chest-piece and his sabatons moaned against his greaves.
"Tired already?" he chided with a curled lip, "I only put you on an hour or two ago."
He often talked to himself to pass the time, when alone. Sometimes he extended such acquaintances to surrounding, inanimate objects; in this case his apparel. This peculiarity had gotten him into trouble more than a few times and he repeatedly endeavoured to squash the habit.
Marsz looked slowly upward at the shaft he had fallen down, remembering with a grimace that he had done the same years ago when he and four other companions had come through this place, searching for a missing friend. The smells of dust and aging timber held the paladin's nostrils at their mercy; wiggling his nose and presenting him with a sneeze, which he fought off bravely. He also suffered from the unpleasant taste of old, upturned soil, ripe with specks of copper and iron that had lost themselves within the dirt. It left within his mouth the metallic taste he could not help but associate with blood.
His hand flinched toward his water bag but he stopped himself, as much as it pained him, for he would likely need it later. As he dropped his gaze he caught a shining butterfly dancing around the shaft, far out of reach. He lost it for a moment, fast as it was, and did not see it after that. It brought a smile to his face, nonetheless, as he had seen the same tiny creature before, twice, though it had never shone so brightly.
Gripping hard the gigantic and outlandish hammer he had acquired in a far off land, he lifted it, with a grunt, over his shoulder, where he let it rest, still in-hand. Though somewhat more talented with a sword, the paladin was more comfortable within the stereotype, having witnessed in his youth the enormous war hammers favoured by holy warriors past. A largely impractical weapon, being so unbalanced and greatly fatiguing to travel with. It compliments a paladin's lumbering martial abilities nicely, however, often wounding or dispatching enemies without any particular finesse exerted by the wielder. This, of course, presents a hazard to nearby allies, which coined the phrase, "a paladin is only as dangerous as his heals are ineffective" and the belief that paladins are given the power to heal wounds to make amends should they unwittingly strike a fellow in battle on account of their clumsiness.
And, on that note, let it be known to the readers that all paladins are incredibly, ridiculously clumsy. This author admits that he has not met every man or woman to ever proclaim themselves a paladin but has met a great many, and has not known a single one to lack this unfortunate trait. Any stories one might have heard that state otherwise are, I assure you, either exaggerated or entirely untrue. Paladins are, after all, powerful mascots that inspire hope within the hearts of many victims belonging to war torn lands, of which there are countless these days, and the truth would somewhat mar this. Even Tirion Fordring, throughout his entire campaign against the Lich King, did not run if he could help it, lest he trip and fall for with him would have descended the morale of his crusade, whose soldiers revered him as something of a god. This is a product, perhaps, of attempting the study of several arts of war, as all paladins are expected to do.
It had taken Marsz more time than he would have liked to become efficient with the Light but his travels since his last visit to these endless, narrow tunnels had taken him far indeed. He would not have survived them, as he often explained to whomever would listen, had he not suddenly learnt to properly wield holy magic.
Curiously, he might not have achieved such mastery had he not mustered the courage to seek out his friend deep within these mines, all those years ago. This realisation was hardly new. In fact, so thoroughly had he dwelt upon it that the primary influence in deciding to revisit this damned pit, apart from the offhand rumour that business within had begun again and that darting figures could be seen, at moonlight, about the mostly deserted village that lay like a misshapen jigsaw puzzle outside the crumbling entrance, was a tiny, and perhaps selfish, hope that he might just learn some more.
Breaking from his reverie, Marsz took one sturdy step forward, which he thought was a very good start (thinking of the tumble down the shaft as something of a precursor to his new adventure).
"Abandon hope," ignited the slow, carrying croak from somewhere hidden, "all ye who enter."
Marsz's eyebrows folded into a frown at the eerie and annoying feeling of being caught within a cliché. An elderly man with a loose, wrinkled face, complimented by a solemn expression, emerged from a stain of shadows.
The fiery haired paladin was not worried that he had not noticed the wispy-haired man, nor indeed that he had failed to perceive the shadows as capable of holding any sort of threat. He did find it perplexing, yet not altogether surprising, that there was anyone down here at all.
"No sleep within the mines... only death," the stranger muttered, continuing his cryptic speech.
"Well," retorted Marsz, unable to resist, yet also recognizing the hypocrisy of his quip, "what did you expect? Only an idiot would come to a place called the Deadmines."