Even among a dishonorable bunch of miscreants like the Ebon Blade, there were certain rules of decorum in public. There were still boundaries they adhere to, still social mores they all understood and accepted. The funny thing about unwritten rules, though, is that nobody can really enforce them. In the absence of a formalized system of ritual, only the mutual respect of the group members for one another actually maintained the intangible hierarchy.

The irony, of course, was the fragility of such an arrangement.

Dozens of eyes all rested on the black knight named Garamonde at the center of the atrium. Even those on the periphery of the area, partially concealed by column and curtains, stared with bleary eyes at the one upstart who'd dared to disrupt the harmony of their drab, oppressive set of habitualized relations. The usual club of VIPs in the center of the level had lost the attention of their underlings entirely as recent recruits, longtime members, specialist officials, and even minions all gaped at the affront to their whole organization. The Four Horsemen had allowed their decrepit visages to contort into outward displays of shock and awe at a sentient adventurer they'd come to regard as little more than a minion, automatically conceding more power than they realized.

At the head of the disrupted table was the onerous leader of it all, the Deathlord. Self-absorbed as many leaders of guilds and orders could be, the supposed leader of all death knights momentarily lost all authority upon the initial failure to react. Despite the fearsome reputation, the Deathlord merely gawked at the inkwell overturned by Garamonde's cast glove. Murmurs broke out among the class order's recruits, further signaling the lapse in control the organization's leadership experienced.

Too late to effectively shout down the threat to stability, the Deathlord was brought down to the level of threatening displays. The cumbersome suit of armor creaked as the Deathlord took the first heavy step forward. The impractically spiky armor concealed all aspects of the Deathlord's identity underneath. The observer couldn't discern the class leader's race, age, size, or gender, and the warped voice echoed with such a hollow ring that it almost sounded androgynous.

"How...dare you," the Deathlord hissed with an insincere indignation and fraudulently deep voice. Although the rank and file in the atrium seemed intimidated, Garamond was simply irritated as the Deathlord began a miniature diatribe. "Who in the hell do you think you are? You interrupt my daily planning meeting? In my order hall?"

Onlookers gasped, even a few of the ghouls who gurgled nervously. Ink continued to spread across the planning table until the map of the Broken Isles was ruined, entirely soaking and ruining Garamonde's last dueling glove as well. Disgusted by the sincere respect so many capable troops held for such a do-nothing leader, Garamonde refused to grant the Deathlord any satisfaction in steering a confrontation.

"I haven't approached this order hall to squabble with you," Garamonde said, his voice rising in pitch with amused incredulity. "I'm here for a paid exit."

"Exit?" the Deathlord bellowed, hushing the gawkers as if the booming voice were impressive in and of itself (it wasn't). "You're a pawn, General; don't you know what you are?"

"The General, occasionally termed the Queen in some regions, is a far more powerful piece than the pawn...pawns don't exercise autonomy. A General can, and this General will, by buying his way out."

Icy blue eyes glimmered angrily, and the supposedly fearless leader of the Ebon Hold stuttered a few times while trying and failing to find the right words. "You...ernn...refusal...you're a pawn!" the Deathlord huffed while jabbing an angry finger. "You have no automation, atomization, and you have no say over whether I deem it fit to keep you in my service or not!"

As if the territorial marking could be any more pedantic, the Deathlord reached behind its spiky helmet and pulled out an almost comically oversized runeblade. The sword gleamed and shined, humming with icy enchantments but jerking awkwardly in the Deathlord's hands. Despite the impractical nature of a sword with a blade over a foot wide, the Ebon recruits all gasped again at their leader's threatening display.

Sally Whitemane, Garamonde's handler among the Four Horsemen, appeared particularly incensed. "General, respect the sanctity of this ziggurat!" she hissed at her charge. "Cease this grandstanding, or I won't be able to continue covering for you!"

Empowered by the slavish devotion of disciples, the Deathlord spoke with a renewed fervor. "Yes, General, don't risk losing your protector!"

Deeply insulted, Garamonde could only lower his head and chuckle lowly. The crowd that had gathered along the perimeter of the atrium began to whisper among themselves as the seeming act of defiance on his part, failing to realize that impressing anybody was the farthest thing on his mind.

"Protector?" the black knight chuckled. Despite the vows of humility he'd taken in life, he'd already borne one slur too many. He could no longe hold back. "The most successful field commander of the Ebon Blade needs a protector?" he asked rhetorically while holding out an open palm in a quest inint gesture. "The only officer the class order trusted to break the gates of Antorus needs protection?"

Comfortably but not slowly or menacingly, Garamonde reached for his own weapon of choice. His Bec de Corbin, a recent military development from his homeland in Hillsbrad, shined with its own runes but more easily laid in his hands given its more functional design. The war hammer didn't impress the onlookers as much, but luck for him, he didn't give a damn about what people thought of him and was only focused on achieving his goals.

"Are you trying to talk your way out of this?" Garamonde asked suspiciously.

An immature, nearly petulant gasp emitted from the recruits, reminding the black knight of another reason why he was so unhappy in Acherus. Offended and outraged, the Deathlord visibly shook at the taunt. "You, how dare you!" the supposed class leader for all death knights booked into the atrium. A cycle of wraiths haunting the chandelier dissipated, and the torch sconces flickered. "There will be no mercy for you! You have your duel!"

Even Garamonde had to admit that his cold heart felt warmed upon his opponent's response. Months of resentment welled up inside and compelled him to release a wide grin he'd been holding back. "En garde!" he replied while taking up a defensive stance.

Metal screeched and scraped on metal as the Deathlord hefted that unwieldy runeblade. Nobody knew the exact species or dimensions of the Deathlord's body; whether the person beneath was a de-horned Tauren wearing a single layer of thin plates or a gnome wearing a veritable automated suit was a mystery. The jerky movement made the truth difficult to guess - just as it made a proper battle stance difficult to execute.

The Deathlord's unnecessarily wide bracers and armlets pushed and conflicted, preventing the arms from bending, and the ridiculously oversized pauldrons prevented a full overhead swing. Garamonde questioned his own mercy when he didn't strike first, but he felt it dishonorable to simply overwhelm his opponent without a fighting chance - even one he disliked so much on a personal level. Every slight, every act of disrespect he'd suffered while serving the Ebon Blade tempted him to end the duel in one blow, but old habits died hard; even in undeath, the vows he'd one taken as a Knight of the Silver Hand prevented him from an easy kill.

Easy it would have been, for the Deathlord struggled with the runeblade. Fabled as the leader of all death knights and their champion who rubbed elbows with Alleria and Illidan and all the other notables, the Deathlord did surprisingly little fighting. To be fair, most of the leaders of the class order halls had their minions and recruits fight for them, but Garamonde never had the misfortune of dealing with him. Only the Deathlord had earned so much resentment, and only the Deathlord was sorely disappointing him with such a tortoise-like opening to their duel.

After raising the blade to chest level, the Deathlord grunted and strained from the effort, clutching the blade close to simply avoid dropping it. The energy of moving such a huge hunk of metal was painfully obvious, and the shoulder pauldrons which were about twice the size of the helmet greatly restricted movement of the arms. Enchantments on the suit of armor augmented the Deathlord's strength, allowing for a single thrust of the blade, but the move was telegraphed and easy to avoid. Rather than swing back hard, Garamonde simply thrust his own weapon right back, using the spearhead on top of his Bec de Corbin as a stopper. The spike slipped into the gap between the Deathlord's pauldron and chestplate, sinking into the cold flesh beneath.

A group of ghouls in the back of the atrium babbled excitedly, though the rest of the audience watched so intensely that nary a sound could be heard from them. The Deathlord, on the other hand, grunted when the spearhead was pulled out and then caused a great clamor by dropping the runeblade to the floor for a brief moment. Clearly handicapped by the strategic stab, the arrogant leader couldn't lift the weapon a second time without casting a strength-buffing spell, and Garamonde had seen enough.

Fueled by moral loathing at such a fraud being called a knight, Garamonde finally swung aggressively. His war hammer moved swiftly, having been designed with perfect weight distribution for realistic use in combat. The head of the striking end could fit in the palm of his hand thus concentrating all the force of a swing into a small area. The sound of the hammer smashing into the Deathlord's chestplate caused a few recruits as well as Koltira Deathweaver to cover their ears. All the blunt trauma was focused on a small diameter, transferring the power of the swing right through the metal armor and into the abdomen beneath. The Deathlord may have groaned, but nary a sound could be heard over the crackle of the supposed leader's dilapidated rib cage internally splintering and the clash of a properly forged Bec de Corbin leaving a sizeable dent in a thorium breastplate. Like a knockout punch, the hammer blow caused most of the sentients watching to wince in phantom pain, and the uselessly long and heavy runeblade clattered on the stone floor like a punctuation mark at the end of a poetic putdown.

Much in the fashion of an Ashenvale purplewood tree being felled by orcs, the Deathlord lurched in the similitude of a gravity well. Those microseconds stretched into hours as the one feared champion of Ebon Hold tried to resist the simple effect of mass and balance. Thus was the final collapse delayed, made all the more magnificent by the heavy crash of a suit of armor so heavy it couldn't possibly have been created with proper frontline battle in mind.

Brought to hands and knees, the Deathlord merely stared at the floor in shock. The sense of unfair surprise was tangible as the head of their class order bowed in disbelief at having been defeated in front of all the hall's underlings. Then again, Garamonde knew from experience that a proper duel typically lasted only thirty seconds anyway, and he stood out like an unhurt thumb amongst sore fingers in his total lack of surprise. Even Runa felt pleasantly gifted with the opportunity for an escape she'd long though impossible, all in a matter of moments. Not even the class leader's own ghoulish assistant could muster the presence of mind to outwardly react, such was the stunning silence which filled Acherus.

For the first time in many years, Garamonde felt the emptiness inside of himself give way to a sense of true pride. Even when he'd led the charge at Antorus, ahead of all class leaders, he'd felt little joy given the fact that he'd been robbed of his autonomy and freedom of choice. This, however...this is an event he'd actually record in his journals.

With the Deathlord at his knees, Garamonde wasted no time. There would be no monologue, no ironic soliloquy, no eulogy, nor a final address. Just as he'd been robbed of his right to choose his own destiny when he'd been coerced into the organization, he'd grant his fallen opponent no dignity in permanent death.

Garamonde raised his weapon. Unable to even rise into a kneeling position, the Deathlord could only reach for his boot. "Wait!" the Deathlord cried for the last time.

Garamonde waited, but only by his own choice. "En fin de compte, la mort nous réclame tous," he whispered before the coup de grace.

The backside of the war hammer came down, cutting through the air with the sharp war pick instead. What pleased the black knight the most wasn't the way the Deathlord screamed just prior to impact; nor was it the 'omg' that Koltira gasped as their class order was beheaded; nor was it the utter disbelief on Whitemane's insufferable face when her former charge surpassed her; nor was it the way that half of their audience flinched when the war pick broke straight through the Deathlord's plate helmet and destroyed both brain and spine in a single strike. No, what pleased Garamonde the most was the way that all the so-called loyalists gawked and jostled for position to stare.

As whispers and speculation rose from the crowd wondering about the former Deathlord's true identity, the victor pulled his hammer's pick out of the wound and wiped it on the victim's cape. By the time he'd glanced up, the non-sentient inhabitants of the Ebon Hold stirred. One by one, they began to kneel, scraping their decrepit bones on the floor in order to pay tribute to the winner of the duel.

Not all of the sentient denizens were so hesitant, either. Most of the regular staff took their cues from the ghouls and ghosts, showing deference without hesitation. Koltira in particularly seemed relieved that the unknown soldier was no longer their leader, proudly holding a fist over his heart. All of the Four Horsemen eventually knelt as well, though Whitemane jerked and swayed as if her body and mind were locked in conflict over whether or not she should really do it. Eventually, however, they all acknowledged the result.

Koltira spoke for the group. "We march under your command, Deathlord," he said to Garamonde deferently.

The silence lingered for a few seconds as nervous eyes darted around, searching for any more potential challengers. Nobody dared to stand up or speak out, as if defeating the fraud who'd once led them constituted a sort of achievement, and the black knight shook his head at how much respect they'd all held for a phony. Distaste for adulation mixed with contempt for the lack of fortitude they'd all shown when they'd willingly answered to such an unworthy leader; he'd had enough.

"No thank you."

From his belt, Garamonde produced a resignation letter he'd penned many months ago when he'd initially been coerced into the class order. He'd daydreamed of this moment for so long, and he could almost feel his heart stir and beat a few times as he held the paper between his fingers. A relaxed, satisfied man again, he casually tossed the letter onto the planning table, right next to the felt glove. He left them both as parting gifts to the group, alongside the Ebon Blade tabard he tore off loudly and left on the floor behind him. Not a soul in the floating ziggurat had the guts to follow him or even ask who'd lead now, and he and Runa walked out of the atrium and onto the main landing balcony uninhibited.

Ahead of them, they could see his geist Brittany bobbing up and down near a portal, a wooden chest chained to her back. A few val'kyr from the minor balcony had congregated there, chattering among themselves about what had happened and turning to regard the two newcomers anxiously.

Runa grit her teeth and growled angrily. The other val'kyr had been cruel to her, and her time as a minion in the class order had been much worse than Garamonde's time as an adventurer. "I need a moment," she whispered to him, and he nodded respectfully as they approached her fellows.

The ringleader of the other val'kyr, a rather large blonde who'd subjected Runa to numerous hazing rituals, took a step forward. Unaware of how much her raven-haired interlocutor despised being humiliated, she still approached Runa as if they'd only experienced minor misunderstandings.

"What exactly is going on-"

The blonde's words were cut off when Runa punched her in the face. It almost wasn't even a punch so much as it was a part of one fluid movement. The now free woman's arm smoothly moved outward along with one of her steps, and her former tormentor's skull rattled as she hit the floor like a sack of rocks.

Not giving the others time to intervene, Runa pulled out her battle axe and held it all the way down behind her back. A huge, 180-degree swing brought the blade down on the ringleader's neck, decapitating the winged warrior and banishing her to eternity. The other val'kyr scattered and flew away, clearly terrified now that the former new fish had decided to stop playing nice. Wiping ectoplasm off of her axe and smiling with an enormous grin, she looked up to the black knight.

"Okay, now I'm ready."

"Congratulations," Garamonde told her as they joined the geist on the empty balcony.

"Oh, you too," she chuckled. "Shall we?"

"We shall. Brittany, to Dalaran!"

"Yes, we go! Big city, many souls!" the geist sputtered.

With that, the three of them entered the portal to the city of portals, leaving Acherus behind them for good.