Chapter One
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Night Elves or Kaldorei as they are widely known by those aware of their existence are fierce in battle, gracious in victory, and very relaxed at peace. For the Kaldorei, meaning of pleasure is not drinking, betting or any fun things that a human would usually consider, no. For them, their definition of pleasure and enjoyment is dancing on the trees, running after the treants, playing with the wisps, or in the case before the great sleep of the Druids, mating with their mates.
For Shandris Feathermoon, leader of her own cadre of Sentinels during the First War against agents and beasts of the Burning Legion, it is also the same. General she may be and a commander of Sentinels worthy of their title, but in these times of peace and long vigil over their beloved trees and forests, she is not Shandris Feathermoon, the general. She is just Shandris, the Night Elf.
As a rule Night Elves change very slow. After all, why change when you can preserve your way of living? It is a convenience that many of her immortal race unburdened by time prefer not to worry about. For them years can be as simple as days and at the eaves of their great forests, seasons come and pass that is barely taken into notice by the Night Elves that call it home. There's no need for progress when the forest alone can take care of all of your needs. While they have a capital of their own with tree houses on Ashenvale where the Temple of Elune resides, majority of the Kaldorei are spread all over their land in small family groups wandering and doing what they will under the safety of their beloved woods.
So when one day while bathing in one of the Moon Wells blessed by Elune's grace , one of the few rotating Sentinels in duty come running, Shandris is totally caught off by surprise.
"What did you say the problem was again?" she asked as she ran beside the Sentinel putting on her armor while running over the root and tree the two of them are speeding over. If anyone would look at their direction, all one would see are violet blurs that would easily be mistaken as shadows of the wood.
Finished with the last strap of the armor she hasn't worn in centuries, Shandris now fully focused on the Sentinel she is following. The muscles at her legs are starting to feel the pain and she simply grits her teeth. She has to admit that her skills have gotten a little bit rusty over the centuries of not being used, but she temporarily disregards the bothering thought. Whatever the reason that the Sentinel bothered her because is important else she would not have bothered her. Shandris may be many things in peace; lazy, complacent, overexcited, fun-loving, but she always knows how to prioritize.
She doesn't know how long the two of them have been running. All she knows that sooner than she expected, the smell of salt soon filled her nostrils as her mind registered that they are finally getting very near to the sea. Something she hasn't done in what is it? Decades? Centuries? Shaking the wondering thoughts of how time travels, she push on through the last foliage of the forest before she and the sentinel finally breached the last of the branches and leaves finding themselves at the edge of a cliff, the open ocean in complete view in front of them.
"We must be at the edge of Thas' Tala,"Shandris thought to herself as she let her eyes wander over the wide expanse of blue in front of her. She almost forgot this feeling, the feeling of the cold winds of the ocean wafting over her skin, only covered by pieces of her Sentinel armor, the smell of the salt of the waters, the singing of the gulls over the air and the other sounds of creatures of the sea and land that lives due to the bounty of the ocean.
All in all it is a nostalgic experience, one that she has almost forgotten. Time sure flies very fast, especially if you are not paying any attention to it. Barely any memory retains in her mind during her last visit to the waters that lead to the ocean. She made a mental note to visit this place more regularly. It is after all a very good place to relax and calm a Night Elf's mind.
She's broken out of her reverie though at the Sentinel's words.
"-and one of the Priestess at the Temple sends word that strange anomalies have been coming from this place commander," she said looking also at the large expanse of waters. "Me and a couple of others have been sent to check this area and well...this is what we have found commander," she finished with a small wince indicating for Shandris to follow her.
Using well-laid paths among the cliff edge that only the keen eyes of a Night Elf at evening could see, the two carefully goes down well-made careful paths. Leaving their boots a little bit farther on one of the stone ledges, Shandris and the Sentinel made good headway down with bare feet. If it is anyone except for a Night Elf scaling the cliff side, they would have been slipping and sliding with an a very high chance of plummeting to their doom on the dark waters below.
"We're here," the Sentinel said after a few minutes of mind wracking tiptoeing over the cliff edges, their toes and fingers clinging like claws over the wet rocks and vegetation that grown on the side of the cliff. Below them they could hear the thunderous crash of waves over the edge of the cliff. In the evening night, it sounded so eerily ominous.
Here apparently means a rather larger than normal ledge where three may walk abreast. The Sentinel letting go of the cliff rock lets off a sigh of relief as she stretched her strained muscles before indicating for Shandris to follow her to the side looking down.
"There it is commander, the...anomaly," the sentinel said with a quaver on her voice. Shandris doesn't miss the nervousness tingeing the tone of the Sentinel and wondering a bit what could possibly unnerve a Night Elf Sentinel this badly, she stepped a few steps in front of the Sentinel and stared down the edge of the rock ledge looking down on the waters below.
To say that she is caught by surprise in what she sees would be a great understatement. Now she knows why the Sentinel instead of co-opting to report back to the Temple of Elune at Ashenvale, has opt instead of telling her, the nearest person who can make an immediate decision with her position as commandant.
Below her is a whirlpool, but it is not like any whirlpool she has ever seen. From the epicenter of the whirlpool is a blue green light shining faintly like a beacon underwater. That is not what makes it weird though, it is not the first time she has seen a glowing anemone. No, what made it weird and apparently alarming enough that made the Sentinel abandon orders for common sense are the arcs of lightning coming from the light below them. Something that should be impossible underwater, but there it is. Like spider-webs it arcs in all directions on different intervals taking out everything in its path be it rock, plant or flesh. Already the results of its deadly maelstrom are strewn all over the place; corpses of dead naga and murlocks that investigates the flow of excess magic in the area. Other marine mammals also of unknown origin are also floating in the dozens on the water and more than one looks like it has been torn apart from the inside out. Floating rocks and debris also litters the area, chunks of the cliff ripped apart and the little vegetation that lives in this area. All in all it is an ominous case. No wonder the priestess sent an entire Sentinel group to check the area out. Speaking of said group, where are they?
"Sentinel, report, your squad sisters, where are they?" Shandris demands making the target of her question jump a bit at the sudden interrogation.
"W-what?"
Rolling her eyes at the question being unanswered, Shandris settled at looking once more at the magic anomaly ripping apart a murlock that manages to swim too it, the magic tendril nearest to it acting like a rope, catching the surprised unfortunate animal before tearing it apart in four different pieces that flows on the water, adding to the list of corpses.
"Your sentinel squad, where are they?" demands Shandris still looking at the weird magical tendrils that flashes back and forth.
"Th-they are gone. I don't know what happened, one moment they are here standing like you are and it is as if I've blinked and they're not there anymore and-,"
"Sentinel?" confused by the sudden stoppage of words coming from the report, Shandris turns her back only to find that the Sentinel is now behind her, her eyes having an empty look on them as if she is looking into empty space.
"Sentinel!" hissed Shandris focusing her attention now to her absent-looking sister looking like a marionette on strings with her slouched form.
"Turn back, the darkness must not be breached," alarm bells filled Shandris' mind as the voice that comes out from her sisters mouth is that of a male and sounding un-elf like in every way. It sounds ominous and robotic in nature.
"Sentinel, what are you doing, snap out of it," Shandris demands drawing her hunting knife at her boot to defend herself when without warning, the Sentinel charged with a banshee like shriek catching Shandris off guard as she found herself one moment expecting to block an attack and next moment she found herself free falling into empty air.
Her mind registers the fact too late that she has been pushed at the edge of the cliff before the cold hands of water envelops her entire being making her panic as she found breathe to be immediately impossible being plunged under water. Alarm bells fill her mind as the realizations sets in that she is in the same water as that magical energy source.
"No, no, I don't want to die here!" Shandris wails inside her mind as she futilely tries to swim back to the surface. Fervent fear grips her entire being, no matter how much energy she puts in her hand to go upward to the surface; everything seems to even slow down even more. If she doesn't die from one of those lightning arcs, she would die from drowning. Already her mind is getting foggy from lack of air and she wails inside her mind as the whirlpool finally takes its grip on her, pulling her away from salvation.
"I don't want to die, please, I don't want to die. Somebody save me," she mentally cries, her tears going with the waters as the whirlpool pulls her this way and that, the energy source seeming like light backgrounds as she is even pulled underwater, the surface now invisible to her sight.
"Please help me," she thought mentally one last time slowly letting her mind fade away and accepting her fate of dying here underwater when without warning she immediately surfaces snapping Shandris' eyes wide open as she gasps for much needed air, her breath coming in ragged gasps as her nose recognizes salvation.
Eyes still blurry, she flops like a dying fish taking large gulps of air while her arms try to find any purchase. Her eyes are still blurry and she can see nothing but blue as her tired muscles begins to cramp from swimming. It seems like an eternity as she swims in the right direction (she hope) before finally by some blessed miracle, her hands slam painfully to stone sending a tingle of pain. Still panting, she immediately reaches at the same destination, thanking Elune as her arms finally grip some friction on the rock.
Pulling each ounce of her strength remaining to her on her arms, Shandris pull herself up on to dry land. Panting and trying to ignore the pain in her navel caused by the rocks, she lies on her back propped up on one of the protruding stalagmites; eyes taking into account that where she has washed. Apparently it's some kind of underwater cave with the entrance where she has just come from. Crystals are all over it, blue crystals having the same color as that power source she has seen emitting lightning from before.
Speaking of that power source, she lets her mind wander as to what happens to that Night Elf Sentinel before. Shandris has fought in the war of the ancients; she is familiar with all sorts of magic from the purest of divine magic to the darkest of Fel magic wielded by demons. However never in her entire long life does she recognize magic like that. It reeks of power of the mind, and of fate, something that is not supposed to be. Foreign magic like that is dangerous especially here in Azeroth where the planet's natural magic have the tendency to react to it in unexpected ways resulting to unexpected circumstances that is very difficult to deal with. Something she is not willing to test out this close to the Night Elves' beloved homes. What happens to the Sentinel is some kind of mind magic, hypnotizing one that robs the person of free will, she has no idea what that is, but her observation so far tells her that it is in fact no way good. The priestess needs to be aware of this threat. They have an enemy in the shadows and she has no idea what or even who.
Wracking her head uselessly for a few more minutes trying to find out a clue or any detail that she might have missed with no avail, Shandris simply sits there resting looking at the glowing crystals. She fervently hopes that the crystals themselves are not the cause of whatever it is that mind controlled the Sentinel else even she would be doomed also. As it is, she just thanks Elune that the crystals here are not emanating any sort of electric charge. Thus she sits there in silence, letting her body rest from the stress it just endured.
The silence is what saved her, the sound of steel scraping stone made her eyes snap open wide in alarm at the small notice that she's not alone in this cave. Good timing too for there in front of her at least eight feet in height is a large figure with rusty armor covering its entire being. It's the big sword it is wielding two-handed though, poised downward at her that caught her complete attention.
All worries of exhaustion immediately left her limbs as she springs in action, barely avoiding the downward stroke that cut the stalagmite she has been leaning on in two. Adrenaline flooding her veins, Shandris' hands grabs expertly the bow at her back as she rolls on the floor and releasing two shots immediately the moment she is back on her knees.
Her eye simply narrows as the arrows bounce harmlessly off the armor of the giant with a couple of sparks. It does the job though of surprising it giving time to Shandris to note the vulnerable parts of its armor and releasing another two arrows at said cracks. This time the arrows do not bounce off, but instead they stick there like pincushions.
"Seglass ni Tonday!" a booming voice at her back made Shandris yelp as out of the gloom without warning appear another giant figure with the same ruined armor wielding two swords this time making her incredibly panic as the two work in tandem to corner her. It is only her agility that keeps her from being cut in half. She needs to go back to the water and swim back.
The giants unfortunately do not give her that time. Just as she manage to duck the middle of the legs of one of the two and makes a ran for it at the water, another three appears in all direction catching Shandris off guard and this time her luck does not hold out.
She does manages to avoid the two but the last one, smaller than the rest and wielding a spiked mace made direct contact at her armored chest as she duked an axe-swipe making Shandris gasp as she feels her bones breaking inside not to mention the spikes tearing through her exposed skin and flesh as she is thrown off into empty air, landing with a thud on a patch of crystal bigger than the rest.
"Seglass ni Tonday!" the five giants boom again as they approached her fallen form slowly.
"I don't want to die," Shandris mutters to herself as she lies there in a pool of her own blood, her entire front almost covered by it as she can barely even muster the strength to face her death with open eyes.
It is the crystal which she is lying at that first catches her attention. It is big, bigger than she expects it to be. It is vague, but she can see that something seems to be inside it, a shadow is in there imprisoned, a long serpentine body connected to a large head, its maws open wide revealing rows of giant teeth, and its frontal claws opened wide showing claws in attack position. And right a few centimeters where she has fallen is a stick with four beads of violet with a ring and a stone at its hilt buried on the ground where all the crystals start.
If asked what happens to possess Shandris later to crawl with the last of her life bleeding and dying to the stick and rip it off from the ground, she would tell that it is that just for a moment, she sees a single green lidded eye from the crystal look at her and to the stick at the ground.
….
Hello, so this is an idea Ive been juggling around my head while at work. Actually it is Firolian's art of Shandris that inspires me to write this story hihi. This story would be chapters short and would involve around Shandris and a different harry from the usual ones in HPX Warcraft Story.
At the moment I am postponing Believe, Achieve, Succeed to write this.