The Search for Death

Prologue

Mist escaped her mouth as breath met the cold night air. Saehri looked on from the shadows of the forest near the ruins of Shattrath, watching the small settlement as a hateful scowl crossed her face. Orcs, she thought as she spit at the ground. The priestess closed her eyes as shadows swirled around her, slowly but successfully she pushed her will into the feeble mind of the only male. The Orc made an otherworldly screech as the Draenei dominated his mind, seeing through his eyes Saehri smirked as two of the three women ran over to check on him.

Driving his body she forced him to lash out and grab one by the throat, Sae writhed in pleasure as she felt the powerful Orc's grip tighten at her own command and finally with the flick of her wrist the Orc's neck snapped with a sickening crunch. The Priestess reveled in the despairing screams of the family and delighted as she forced the Orc to turn his hunting knife on himself.

With the male dead Saehri stepped out of hiding and began slowly walking towards the remaining women guarding a small girl, the shadows seemed to ebb and flow around her as she moved nearly matching her pitch black hooded robe; they danced across her body as if they could consume her at any moment. She stopped a few feet from the women kneeling down she locked eyes with the small child cowering behind her mother. Stoic and emotionless her eyes glowed beneath her hood as her gaze bore a hole into the small girl; Sae grinned as one of the women charged her.

The second looked on in horror as the brazen Orc fell dead at Saehri's feet, the residue from the shadowy attack skittered across the body as a coil of dark magic wrapped around the priestess' arm. Grabbing the last adult by the throat Sae forced her to her knees, disgust washing over her face as she brought the helpless woman within inches of her own face, "I hate you, every last one of you." Scowling she shifted her gaze once again to the frightened child, but just as a shadowy tendril began to charge its way around her arm a voice called out.

"Sae stop this!" Turning but still grasping the Orc she saw her cousin, "By the light, what have you done?" Nahvael slowly walked towards dark priestess, the clanking of his plate mail echoing throughout the silent forest.

"Stop what? They all deserve this. Or have you so easily forgotten what they did to your wife? What they nearly did to your child?" The Draenei turned to the frightened woman and tightened her grip slowly.

"This...this is not us, this isn't our way. They're just civilians!" The paladin looked about in horror at the actions of his cousin, "This...slaughter, what's the point? What does it accomplish?" Vael rested his eyes on Saehri's hateful gaze, what has she become? He shuddered as the memory of his own escape from the Orc's camps replayed in his head.

"Our way!? You may cling to your pointless light if you wish, but I refuse to let some nonsensical prophecy hold me back! My weakness has cost me everything! This…" Sae held up a hand as the shadows erupted from her finger tips dancing violently in the moonlight, "This, is all I have left. You and your people are weak, too obsessed with the Naaru to properly defend against the Orcs, the massacre was your fault as much as theirs." Saehri shifted her gaze back to the Orc in her grip running her shadow engulfed hand across her skin causing the woman to cry out in agony, "I'm going to make them all pay, every last one of them will feel my daughter's anguished cries." A single tear ran down her face only to be lost in the sea of shadow that was slowly enveloping her body.

"Vahrra died years ago Sae, how many more lives must be taken before your lust for vengeance is sated? How many more innocents must perish before you're satisfied?! Their blood will never bring your daughter back, and only serves to drive you deeper into madness." Anger and fear mixed in the Paladin's voice, "Please Sae, this world is dying come back to us, abandon this...misery, please!" His pleas fell on deaf ears as dark magic poured over the agonizing Orc torturing the poor creature, "By the light, think of your son! He already lost his sister and father, don't make him lose his mother too!" Saehri ignored her cousin, unleashing a shadowy attack finally killing the Orc, "No...what are you?" Vael sank to his knees in despair, why couldn't she see what she was doing?

"Then let it die, I have nothing more to say to you. Go back to your people, I'll have no part of their ridiculous cult." Saehri turned her sights on the terrified child, and silently she lifted her hand aiming it as the small girl shook in fear, dark shadows again began to coil around her arm.

"Sae no you can't, she's just a child!" A look of disgust formed across the dark priestess' face as she continued to charge the attack while she responded.

"So was Vah…" Saehri felt a hard hit against the back of her head, the crack from the blow echoed through the forest as everything faded to black. When she woke Saehri was in a small room, of what looked like another Naaru ship.

"Good you're up, welcome to the Exodar," Nahvael was standing just outside the room with two guards posted on either side. "I'm truly sorry Sae but this is for the best, you will be confined here for your safety as well as that of the other's on this ship. I swear to you I will find a way to help you," The paladin placed a hand on the thick crystal door that separated them, "I will not allow you to go through life harboring such pain."

Saehri gazed emotionless at her cousin, "I will kill you for this."

The hateful statement stung Vael, is she truely lost? Had the light so completely abandoned her? The Draenei looked down at the floor, despair painted across his face, "I'm sorry I failed you Sae," turning to the two guards his face hardened, "this door doesn't open, you don't go in, and she doesn't come out." The guards nodded nervously. In the time she spent in the tiny cell she was provided enough food and drink to keep her healthy but nothing else, her only visitor being her persistent cousin, each day he would show up, and each day he would leave disappointed, after a while he began to wonder if Saehri's mind was beyond repair. Then the ship crashed, amongst the wreckage she saw that one of her guards lay dead while the other one was doubled over in pain, with the door shattered Saehri stepped out of her cell and stood over the guard.

"Shadows take you." With a blast of dark magic the priestess killed the remaining guard, getting her bearings in the strange new land Saehri disappeared into the darkness.