An elf stares hopelessly across the desolate and infinite hellscape of the Twisting Nether. The enormous chunks of floating rock and gaseous clouds surround the vast emptiness of space, stretching out beyond her vision into corners unknown. It seemed impossible for such a plane to exist, but here it was before her, plain as day. An eerie wailing cuts through the ever-present silence, mournful and somber. The sound echoes for several minutes before fading away. As the elf watches, a single floating island drifts past her vision, an old Alliance ship appearing to be embedded in the rock itself. She sighs, looking out across the great expanse. She stands at the edge of a vast bottomless precipice, overlooking the chaotic realm before her. Behind her stretches the largest land mass in the Nether; Huge spires of rock stretch out to the crimson tinted void above like fingers, willing to brush away the veil that hides the stars. A single ribbon of green light weaves its way through the blood red sky above, encircling an enormous beige planet hanging just out of reach overhead.
The weakened elf has been trapped her for two weeks now. Or so she thinks, at least. The passage of time is obscure, and the land is bathed in perpetual twilight that never ends. Without the knowledge of passing time, her mental fortitude had begun to break down. She wanted nothing more that to escape, to end this living nightmare, or die trying. Her long crimson braid draped over her chest is stained with soot, and her green eyes are sunken into her skull. A torn silk poncho is wrapped around her emaciated frame, making it clear that hunger had taken its toll on her. No living thing could possibly reside in the empty wasteland. Even her skin, normally tinted with an orange hue, had long since grown pale from malnourishment. By her side slithers the massive ten-foot long black warp stalker. His ebony claws glint even in the low light, long talons poised and ready to maim and tear through living flesh. His onyx scales, highlighted by bright green stripes used to shine with a polished gleam. Now, they are dull and worn, unkempt and ruffled almost. He makes a powerful adversary, with mastery over time and spacial distortion, and yet stands as the elf's closest friend. He had followed her into the Nether in the same fashion. The soul bond they shared was powerful, and could not be broken even as their spirits were ripped from their bodies and consumed by a dreadlord.
Basram… Even the name left a bitter taste in the elf's mouth. The foul demon had spawned on Azeroth, seeking a hearty meal to sustain him long enough to lead a Legion advance guard through the Ghostlands. He had pulled her from halfway across the planet, through the void and into his clutches, to be broken and fed upon like cattle for the slaughter. The black demon had gotten his fill, even as the combined forces of the Firelords and the Stonehammers brought him to his knees in agonizing pain. He was banished to the Nether, as all demons are when they are slain. A warlock from the party, however, saw it fit to follow him through and see an end to the dreadlord. Upon devouring his soul, the spirits of the deceased broke free and manifested in a physical form on the plains of the twisting nether. All of this had been witnessed through the eyes of the dreadlord, every excruciating moment was her own, twisting her body in mortal agony. She had manifested with the others, yet only she had survived when the time had come to pursue sanctuary.
The black lizard beside her snarls softly, bringing the elf back to the present and out of her thoughts. "Think there might be something useful on that boat?" The words fill her mind, and her gaze refocuses on the Alliance dreadnought suspended in space.
"Might be worth a check. I haven't seen any trees, so the wood might be useful." She leans down and grips the Stalker tightly as he pulls the two of them through a rift in the void, only to reappear a moment later on the boulder. She looks around wildly, trying to get her bearings. That was another thing about this marvelous plane of existence. Each floating rock had its own gravitational pull, resulting in a cluster of large asteroids from time to time. The elf looked up, directly at the ledge they had just been standing on, before shifting her gaze to the task at hand. Her comrade had already begun to pry boards loose from the ship further down, gripping the timbers in his jaws before wrenching them up with his claws. The elf sets to work gathering the boards he had already accumulated into a small pile. As she works, the door leading to the darkened below-deck stares at her tauntingly. She looks up.
"Might be some more stuff below deck, Sparr." She says softly. Her voice is barely registered against the decrepit cold wind, but the lizard hears her. "Maybe a weapon or two, perhaps?" She continues with a shrug.
"Just be careful, Val." His words are barely heard over the sudden wrenching sound of a large plank of wood being torn from the deck. Below, the darkness beckons to the elf, inviting her to come forward and explore its depths.
Valeriya Embersong takes a few steps down the stairs leading into the belly, blinking rapidly to adjust to the pitch black. She can just barely make out the silhouettes of a few scattered cannons, empty barrels of gunpowder, and other objects scattered around haphazardly. The faint chittering of shale spiders greets her ears, telling her she wasn't alone. The dim light filtering in through the holes above begins to brighten as the rock they were traversing lazily shifted towards a distant star. With the hull no longer cast in shadows, the shale spiders scatter for cover in more shadowy depths.The light cast through the hole catches an abandoned weapon rack in its sight, illuminating the discarded blades that lay scattered across the floor. The elf brightens slightly and rushes to pick one up. The Alliance crest is emblazoned on the pommel, and the blade extends a good two and a half feet off of the handguard. The handle is wrapped in simple brown leather. Nothing too fancy, but to someone in a position of destitution, it means life itself. A leather harness lay in a corner of the bay as well, and she retrieves it hastily, sliding two swords into the holsters.
"Good find." Sparr's head pokes in from a larger hole almost directly above her, his glowing green eyes shimmering with a new hope. "Is there any food?"
"I don't think so. Shale spiders beat me to it…" She gestures to a small stone creature that was curiously peeking its head out from behind a cannon. The lizard's eyes dim slightly, and he appears to let out a sigh through his nostrils.
"Just our luck too…" His words fill her head.
She looks around at the cluttered bay, scanning the ground for anything she had missed, before walking to the stairs to the deck above. "I guess we have enough wood?" She emerges from the darkened doorway and looks at the pile of stacked lumber, nodding in satisfaction.
"As much as I can carry in one trip." He slithers over to the pile. "Load me up, please."
"Absolutely." Valeriya follows him, sizing up the first block. She wraps her arms around it, and pulls with all of her might. The timber was heavier than she expected, however, and it hit the dismantled deck with a thunderous SMACK. The sound echoed across the rocky oblivion, carrying her probable location with it. The duo flinches.
"Well… hopefully anyone in this desolate plane will mistake that for a rock hitting another rock… Maybe?" Valeriya cringes as she thinks of the possibilities.
Sparr's worries were confirmed in the back of her mind. "Just get the wood on my back, and we'll get out of here."
She wraps her arms around the piece of wood again and strains to lift it onto his back. In her starved state, she lacked the strength to lift it. "I can't get it…" She says, panting from the strain. "I'm not strong enough…"
A pang of guilt hits in the back of her mind. "It's alright, Val. I'll come back for them later."
She nods shakily, then grips one of the long spikes on his back. The gut-wrenching feeling of being pulled from one place to another, then they arrive back at the precipice. Her strength completely gone, she lets go of her comrade and sinks to her knees, leaning against a rock. "I can't go on like this…" She breathes slowly. "Always scraping by, from one day to the next…" She looks over the edge of the cliff. Nothing was visible, no shear rocks or even flat ground to end it all. She sighs slowly.
Suddenly, the echo of heavy footfalls in metal boots ring through the silence. She darts behind the rock, her long scarlet braid whipping through the air before falling behind her back. Sparr follows close behind, pressing himself against another black stone. She holds her breath, knowing that the silence would betray any and all sounds. She clutches her chest, gripping the thin and torn garment tightly. Her heart races as the footsteps draw closer. Close enough for her to tell that there are three beings tracking her down. She counts down the minutes as the thunderous stomps come to a halt. Absolute silence bathes the elf as she cowers in fear. The lizard glances to her expectantly. "Are they still there?" The words fill her mind again as their gazes meet. She exhales slowly and shakily before mustering her nerve to peek around the side of the rock.
Before her eyes stood three massive fel guards, their war staffs lowered defensively as their burning green gaze swept the landscape around them. Their skull-adorned boots left deep imprints in the stone ground as they pivoted in place. Their grey skin was the color of old ash, and each of the bore many scars from past battles that crisscrossed through their bare chests. The blood red pauldrons and crowns gleamed from the dim twilight casting its dying light across the metallic surface.
As she watches them, a fel stalker jumps out from behind the fel guards, and she gasps in surprise. The stalker halts in its path, and begins to sniff the dead, smoldering wind. The elf jerks her head back behind the rock, drawing her knees to her chest. Her heart races as she grips the emblazoned pommels of the falchions at her side. She breathes in, and out, stealing her nerves for the oncoming attack. She was outnumbered, out of shape, and most certainly not prepared to deal with Legion.
The fel guards notice the stalker's behavior and follow its gaze, speaking in deep, brutish tones. The stalker had locked onto the elf's position, and snarled softly as it stepped slowly towards its prey. Time slows to a halt as the elf holds her breath, waiting for the stalker's face to peer around the corner of the stone that concealed her. Behind her, she hears a hiss from her lizard companion, and she cries out fiercely as she swings her swords with full force into the stalker's face. The creature had to be as large as a lion, but even something of that size could not survive such a blow. The blades slice through the skull immediately, and the creature howled in pain, only to be silenced by a final downwards strike from the blades. Her relief is short-lived however, as a felguard had charged her down. With a mighty slap, she is sent spiraling away. Her grip on the swords loosened and the falchions fell from her hands, spiraling into the black abyss below her. The black lizard darts out of cover, vanishing into the void for a brief second before reappearing in midair to grab her, then gone again.
"Wait, we need the stalker corpse! I need the meat!" Valeriya wheezes out desperately. Sparr groans, but obliges. They reappear on a floating rock nearby, just before the lizard disappears yet again to retrieve the body of the fel stalker for later use. Once more into the void the lizard jumps, one last time pulling the dead and the living with him to a far off location out of the way of the Legion sentries.
A rocky alcove bathes them in shadows, hiding them from even the twilight's soft glare. The black warp stalker's blazing green eyes were the only thing visible in the darkness. The Fel stalker's corpse rolled out of his grip and onto the rocks, where the elf began to tear it apart swiftly yet methodically.
"That was incredibly stupid what you did." The Lizard hisses at the elf.
"We needed food. That Stalker offered a great source, albeit fel tainted but still." Valenei counters, not looking up.
"We could have waited for a lone straggler, picked it off as it got separated from the group." The behemoth retorts. "At least that way, we wouldn't have an entire horde of bloodthirsty demons who know we're out here. The Legion doesn't take too kindly to interlopers, as I'm sure we both know."
The elf says nothing. Her clothes are stained green from delving into the carcass of the stalker, up to her elbows in the bowels of the beast. A clean incision was made in the underbelly, allowing for her to extract useful reagents that she may need later, without completely damaging the scales and skin.
"I was hoping for us to be able to survive completely unnoticed, is what I'm trying to say." He states flatly.
"And just how long do you think that would have lasted?" She retorts. The lizard glares at her, completely silent. "I thought that we could at least try to thin their numbers a little bit, before we eventually get killed. We're stuck here for an eternity. Eternity, Sparr. It's a really long time." She continues to tear into the corpse with her bare hands.
"We could always go to one of the more pleasant places within eternity…" Sparr mumbles.
Val stops her digging, and glares at the lizard with a face of disbelief. "And where would that be, smartass? Quel'danas is millennia away from anywhere, and I'm sure Shattrath is in a completely different loop. So be my guest. Start searching this blasted oblivion, see what you can find. Come back when you find a bowl of noodles, while you're at it, as well." Her voice is dry yet dripping with sarcasm. Her face drops when Sparr refuses to answer, and she plunges back into the heart of the fel beast. "Good… Still intact. "She grins slightly as she pulls out the demon's heart. She rises shakily to her feet as Sparr watches, and shambles to a collection of loose rocks. Val selects too jagged stones from the mix and brings them back over her temporary workstation. The rocks are struck together, producing a sharp clack, as well as bright orange sparks. The heart, which remains on the ground, immediately catches fire and blazes bright orange. "Fel hearts… Always good for firewood."
Valeriya has accumulated several piles around her, sorted by meats, bones, organs, and skins. She works deftly, having accomplished this task a million times over in her previous life. She had honed her skills as a leatherworker after the fall of Quel'thalas, and after fleeing into the wilds. Valeriya fashions crude armor from the small leather strips she had collected and tanned, and sharpens several bones into flimsy daggers. She slips her emaciated frame into the close cropped leather jerkin and trouser, very minimal protection against something like a fel-iron axe. But it would suffice for now.
Sparr twitches, sensing what she was planning. "Please tell me we aren't going to do what you're thinking of doing." The lizard groans. "We just barely got away from a small patrol. How do you expect to go against a force that large?" His green eyes narrow at her in the darkness.
"Sparr, relax. We'll get through this." She adjusted the bone studded jerkin around her lithe figure, feeling it chafe across her midriff. "Can you get the swords that fell? I'm gonna need something more than a few bones."
"NO." His defiance resounded through their collective conscious, shaking her to the bone. "We are NOT going back out there, unless by some miracle we stumble across a caravan of smiths, who by the kindness in their hearts willingly give us their weapons and armor for free." His claws scratch the stony earth, digging deep ruts into the ground. "Now, you are going to stay put here, while -I- go out, and see if I can gather more supplies."
The black warp stalker vanishes without another word, warping away to some unknown quadrant of the blight around them. Val is left to sit in silence, guilt and hunger gnawing at her stomach, with only the crackling of the fire to keep her company. She sinks to her knees as a bead of sweat drips from her brow. Her stomach grumbles at her, desperately trying to make its voice heard. Yet she hesitates. How should one go about eating that which could very well kill her with one small bite? The green tinged meat stacked sloppily on the cold stone however looked very inviting, especially as her stomach roared at her to make up her mind. Begrudgingly, she picks her way across the alcove to the pile and collects a slab, then carries it to the smoldering fire and props it up in several long stones. As it cooked, visions from the past drifted through her mind.
The stench of undeath hit her nose, and the feathered plumage of the arrow in her bow flew out of her hand and into the corpse that seemed intent on taking a bite out of her comrade. "Vedine, are you alright?" The young elf called out worriedly as another risen shambler threatened to overcome the barricade. Val swiftly decapitated it with the short sword at her side before taking aim at the corpse behind it and letting loose another arrow.
The other elf, a woman, nodded before retrieving her weapon and pushing the deceased corpse off of her. "Yes, thank you, Valeriya." Her voice was shaky, just barely audible over the din of metal clashing and the moans of the undead. Vedine Dawnheart was Valenei's childhood friend. They had grown up together, played the same games and frolicked in the wide open forests of Eversong for many years. She was the closest thing Val had to a sister, and they preferred it that way. The mischief and mayhem they caused, staying out at night past bedtime to chase the dragonhawks. When the time for the call of duty arrived, they both entered into the Farstrider Academy, swiftly advancing through the ranks. They fought side by side during the Troll Wars. And here they were again, fighting tooth and nail against the most treacherous enemy they had ever faced. Behind them stood the defenseless village of their birth, Fairbreeze. They were the only ones who stood against the never-ending onslaught of undead that tore through their beloved home. The desecrated bodies of their fallen comrades littered the ground behind them, dragged out of the way to keep them from becoming another opponent to fight.
Left and right they stood firm, firing into the writhing crowd and slashing those unlucky enough to get near. The tide turned into a torrent, torrent into a flood. The two elves, beloved sisters in arms became ever wary of their surroundings, never giving an inch. Until they heard that dreaded screech of gargoyles overhead. They didn't dare cast a glance upwards, for fear of being overwhelmed at the gates. The Gargoyles had been seen in prior conflicts throughout Quel'thalas carrying plague barrels. One could only guess as the two elves heard the crack behind them, and the putrid bile sunk into the ground around a small home. Its inhabitants were left to scream helplessly as their skin melted from their bodies, and they dropped to the ground in a misshapen heap of bones and flesh.
Their cries echoed through her mind as she fought to remain calm. Vedine was at her side, her long blonde braid flecked with grunge and blood. her face told Val everything that she already knew. This was their final stand, with death at the doorstep. A battlecry was issued forth from their lips as they pressed their assault, abominations and shamblers and skeletons alike all falling to their ferocious offensive in one last push to save their village.
It was not meant to last. An abomination landed his hook through Vedine's back. The tip erupted through her chest in a spurt of crimson blood, and only her cry of pain was needed to tell Val that she had fallen. The elf had no other choice but to fall back and retreat to the Shepherd's Gate. As she fled, her cheeks stained with tears, Valenei cast her gaze over her shoulder, one last glance to see her lifelong friend pulled into the crowd of flesh-hungry ghouls. Her blood-curdling screams of agony sent shock and sorrow through Val's body, as the fountain of blood and meat from her friend's corpse dissipated.
(A/N) Alright, first Author's note, so on so forth. Im going to try to keep this one updated consistently, so long as I get feedback telling me what works and what doesn't. Please, leave comments, help me out a bit. The more feedback i get, the better the story! Later!