The Undercity: deep and dark, full of echoes and ghosts and secrets. Chill wind blew against the wet stone walls, whistling mournfully. An eerie green river boiled below, and above, the weight of a dead kingdom bore down.
Within its very bowels, down and down, beneath the raging lightning of the Apothecarium, there stood a creature of death. Disease and foul rot had claimed his flesh, and his brittle bones seemed ready to crumble to dust, but there he stood, slouched over a table, his face hidden beneath a dark, crow-like mask. The table was littered with vials, most empty, but some filled with any number of vile chemicals. The stench in the air was acrid.
He had been a good man, once. A good man, and just a man – a man with a wife and a daughter, and a small farm he'd tended to with care and respect, and a sometimes-hobby in herbalism. The herbalism had been useful for when the pigs had taken ill or when Jessica was in her monthly pain or when Nessie had fallen and scraped her knee, but he'd also loved it for its own sake. Tending to plants was an activity that afforded a moment of repose, and the act of mixing the herbs had often been as thrilling an adventure into the unknown as he'd been able to imagine.
And then he had died.
Death had proven to be the greatest unknown of them all, and – if one were feeling particularly idiotically optimistic about it – one could say it was the greatest adventure as well. But adventures were not meant to be like this.
If he tried hard enough (though he never did), he could remember being a lad. He'd been the only son of a farmer, destined from birth to take up his father's property when the man passed on. A solid fate, but he'd dreamed of more. Sometimes travelling merchants would stop by at their farm and tell wild stories of knights who saved princesses and slew terrifying dragons of black. Adventures of victory, of closure, of happy endings. Though part of him had been resigned to his fate, the rest of him had longed to be one of those knights. To ride a horse and wear armour that gleamed in the sunlight under Stromgarde's mighty banner.
When his father had died an old man in his bed, he had accepted his fate. And when he, too, had died, he had accepted that as well.
Fate was a bitter thing.
He had risen from the carnage in a state of apathy. Other than the crackling of the last tiny flames in the fireplace, it had been deathly quiet. Though it was night, there had been no sound of crickets or owls, no sign of moths or anything at all. The pigs had been silent. He'd looked down slowly, at the blood where his body – now numb, as though belonging to someone else – had lain. A footprint had led away, to the wardrobe.
He'd opened it, had seen his family inside, and had slain them without a word.
He'd feasted on their flesh as the Lich King's voice had filled his mind. Whispers wove themselves into his very consciousness, threatening to drive him mad. But there was nothing to drive mad. He was nothing.
He watched carefully as one of the vials, propped upright in the frame of a Bunsen burner, boiled. He had worked for many years on his formula, but impatience had never dissuaded him. He was the living dead, now. A putrid walking corpse. Immortal, as far as such things go. Time would forever be on his side. If this formula were to fail, he would adjust it and continue accordingly.
"Let me out, you bastard."
He turned his masked face towards the prisoner that had dared speak. He was scarcely surprised that this one was so much more vocal than the others; it always took a while for a living thing's soul to be broken, but this one was no living thing.
"The Dark Lady will find me," it spat in rasping Gutterspeak. "She won't abide your treachery."
He gave a coarse, wheezing laugh. "Am I committing treason? I am seeking a way to bring the world to its knees. I will pave the way for the future of the Forsaken."
"You're insane," it said, its eyes – once human, no doubt, and once pretty – blazing with hate.
"I share the Lady's vision," he replied, turning back to the boiling vial. It was beginning to change colour, from blue to a thick, oily brown. Green smoke bubbled from it. Almost casually, he grasped the neck of the vial, unable to feel the glass' searing heat on his dead skin, and began to swirl the liquid until it was brown all the way through.
He took another vial and poured half the liquid into it. The prisoner watched in apprehensive silence as he tossed the contents of this second vial onto a rat in a small cage. It squealed in pain and collapsed. The sound of sizzling flesh echoed around the room, and the green smoke filled the air. He breathed in a little by accident, and coughed.
Momentary panic assailed him until he breathed easily again. Then he smiled to himself.
He turned to his prisoner. It looked truly fearful, now – a strange sight for an undead creature. He gave a short laugh.
"I will give you a choice, since you are one of us. You may drink, or you may suffer as this rat did. Make your choice."
It looked hunted. He stood patiently, half-empty vial in hand, and waited. Finally, it made its choice.
"I will drink."
It may have believed that he would give it the vial to drink from, thus turning the tables. It was wrong. With the surety of years of practice, he strode up to the cage and grasped it by the face with both hands, expertly prising its jaw open as he poured the liquid down its throat.
The strangulated cry it gave was like a heavenly song to his ears.
The liquid bore right through the prisoner's rotten flesh. It was still standing when the first drops fell to the cold stone floor. And the pain it was clearly causing – glorious pain! – was the most beautiful sight he'd seen in all the many years since his death.
As the prisoner collapsed, dissolving, he took a step back, out of the way of the deadly green smoke. Beneath his mask, a wide grin broke across his lipless mouth.
He had it in his hands:
Death to the Scourge, and death to the living.