The Romancer Onyxbane
Episode Fourteen:
"Sissy, please," Onyxbane cried, when at last he fell at his sister's feet. The pale Opalbane paused then, and stared at him. Her long braid hung over her shoulder, and she stroked it absently as she watched her brother bleed and die. His shining blue armor was covered in gray caked dirt, and the dark blood seeped through his clothes, from imbetween seams in his armor.
His hair was also white and braided, the way everyone in their family wore their hair.
"Onyxbane," Opalbane's shining white eyes widenend, and she bent down to tend to him, but it was too late.
All around them, his friends were dying. Willypearl screamed as a succubus appeared out of thin air and whipped her. Her flesh was opened, and her fine robes covered in blood, but she was no longer silenced. Courageously, Willypearl struggled to cast her frost spells. Wisthera was greatly impared without the ability to stealth, and she tried her best to slow the many enemies on her, but with each lunge and thrust of her daggers, they were closing in on her, and she losing energy. The priestess Windsong had not moved since she fell.
Onyxbane rolled over to look into his big sister's eyes as he faded, and thought at the end of his life, he was going mad when he thought he saw a large red arrow hovering over Opalbane's head.
Then, the purple burst of arcane energy ripped through his sister and she whirled around at the hunter who'd shot her.
"Bring her closer!" a familiar voice shouted. Who was it? She was beautiful… Elune herself coming for him at the end of his life…
Priestess Feathershine dismounted from her striped nightsaber and raised her hands high in the air above her head. Opalbane began her slow angry walk again, lifting her arm, and tried to flay the mind of the hunter who was attacking her, but it did no good, since he relied on distance from his enemy as his strength. The short stout dwarf fired another round into Opalbane as she neared, and at the final moment, a large roaring bear charged her, and ripped through her shadowshield, raking deep through her garments.
"Good boy, Smoke, now take her down! That's it!" the dwarf hunter shouted over his loud gun.
It worked. Opalbane was completely distracted by this simple beast who attacked her. The great secret about hunter pets is that they are stupid and expendable. The hunter kept shouting encouragement to his pet as it eventually weakened and groaned in agony, but one firm command from the little dwarf and the loyal gray bear renewed his efforts and kept raking Opalbane with his claws. Onyxbane watched through his haze as Feathershine used the distraction to cast golden shields on Willypearl and Wisthera and then healed them. Onyxbane felt himself get lighter, and realized he was being healed as well. He got to his feet, fixed on the vision of Priestess Feathershine, who singlehandedly turned the tide of the battle.
The dwarf hunter helping Feathershine put down his gun and knelt. He stretched both of his hands out, healing his pet with green energy as Opalbane savagely brought dark spell after spell upon the poor beast. Opalbane screamed with rage as she continued to strike and the bear continued to resist and elude her efforts at making him dead.
Onyxbane wondered how long the hunter's pet would hold out against his sister, when suddenly it flopped over. The hunter lifted his gun again, and surprisingly, hit Opalbane at close range, this time a fire shot that made her walk in helpless circles. Then, he ran.
"Kite her!" Priestess Feathershine yelled at the small dwarf.
"Already on it, miss!" he shouted back and brought Opalbane out of her daze with a concussive shot that slowed her down.
Onyxbane wondered if he should help when he realized that Priestess Feathershine had a plan already, and he was not part of it. Priestess Feathershine glowed golden as the light of Elune licked her sides like tongues of flame. She was casting a strong resurrection spell on Windsong.
When the girl revived at Feathershine's side, the full priestess called a holy spell down on the novice to buff her and then said, "Heal Onyxbane and the others! Hurry!"
The girl went off immediately, as if she'd never died at all.
Then, Priestess Feathershine turned to Opalbane.
Opalbane was very angry now, struggling after the hunter who ran very fast in the cheetah aspect, always escaping her reach. She'd tried to flay his mind several times to slow him down, but he was careful to stay out of range. And then, if she got too close, he would fire another concussive shot into Opalbane and force her to slow down again.
"Keep her off of me!" Feathershine shouted as blue power cracked the gray sky like lightning and jolted Opalbane. This burned off great deal of her life and mana. Immediately, the furious shadow priestess turned on Feathershine, but the hunter used another close range shot to keep her from casting, and then another burst of a purple shot forced Opalbane back on him. They continued like this several times, with Feathershine draining Opalbane's mana, and the hunter keeping Opalbane from attacking Priestess Feathershine while she casted.
Help us with the others. The novice Windsong alerted Onyxbane in his mind, and he had to stop watching the fight and join Wisthera and Willypearl.
They took down some of the cultists by focusing on one at a time, and with the combined damage of a powerful mage, rogue and warrior, many of the enemy were eventually felled. But, Windsong was running out of mana to heal them with.
That was when Onyxbane saw his sister again, normal for perhaps the first time in a long time.
"I will help you." She said woodenly, and jogged over to the group. She raised her arms and called down painful spells on many of the remaining cultists, and cast a vampiric embrace on one caster who seemed focused on Willypearl. As he took damage from the mage's powerful fire spells, the others felt renewed.
"I'm glad you're back sis," Onyxbane managed, and he tried not to hug her while they were fighting.
"This is Feathershine." Opalbane's mouth said, in a voice sweeter than Onyxbane could ever remember coming from his sister.
"Oh," he said, and glanced behind them. Priestess Feathershine had put a golden shield of light around herself, and had her slender fingers pressed to her temples, like she did back on the ship when she mind controlled Wisthera and made her apologize to Onyxbane. The dwarf hunter was busy bandaging his pet bear, who he'd already resurrected.
With a powerful one of their own to help, the cultists were caught off guard, and Feathershine was clearly reading Opalbane's mind to help with stopping runners, and rooting out those who might make trouble with them later. She'd let Opalbane regain mana for the fight, but forced her to drain it completely by the end of the battle. This took a while, because Opalbane had a significant mana pool.
When it was over, the dwarf hunter used his tracking skills to guide them all back to the road, and mounted up.
"Anythin' else?" the dwarf shifted weight easily in the saddle of his war ram. It had an intimidating red helmet that protected its head but allowed the enormous antlers to potrude out in front of the animal's face.
"No, thank you Gardrelle." Feathershine handed him a sackful of gold, and the hunter counted it.
"What happened to the army of Sentinels?" Willypearl asked.
"They would not approve it."
"Didn't need'em anyways as far as I kin tell." The dwarf hunter took the reins of his war ram in hand. "All ya needed was a good hunter." He bellowed in laughter.
Onyxbane frowned at that. He hated hunters, but after today, he was going to have to like them whether he wanted to or not.
"Thank you, for saving my sister's life."
"Thank Smoke for that. He kept me from havin' ta kill her. Did a fine job of keeping her out of the way, so you all could work."
Onyxbane's frown deepened. Of course a hunter would, after all that, attribute his success to a dumb pet. But he didn't dare insult the man now.
Opalbane was calm for now, and she even had a slight peaceful smile on her face. Onyxbane was a bit startled to see it, because his sister rarely ever smiled, because happiness for her was not casual.
Just as he was thinking it, Opalbane's guise changed, and her shadowform flared up. The novice Windsong ran to Priestess Feathershine's side, and steadied the older woman, who rubbed her temples, then dropped her hands to her sides. Opalbane immediately recovered.
"Dear sir, if you would be so kind as to escort us back to Cenarion Hold, there would be another hundred gold in it for you. We traveled across the world, and risked nearly everything for this precious girl, and I'd hate to lose her on a technicality."
The dwarf smiled wide. "Certainly." He said.
Once at Cenarion Hold, Priestess Feathershine had a noisy fight with the innkeeper, and threw more gold at some flustered guards until they finally let Opalbane have a room to herself. Once inside, Onyxbane watched as Priestess Feathershine carefully turned control of Opalbane's mind over to novice Windsong.
"You are a promising novice yet," Priestess Feathershine congratulated the girl. "Also, I sent word to the novices left behind in Darkshore to fly here directly. You will explain to them how to mind control in shifts. If there is any trouble at all, call me, and before you do that, attempt to drain her mana. Do this with all the novices present."
"Yes, Priestess."
Later, when night fell, and Cenarion Hold grew quiet, Onyxbane left off watching his sister sleep and went down the hall to see Priestess Feathershine.
"I don't even know where to begin… what you did was amazing… thank you so much." He knelt before her.
"Don't be silly dear. Your sister means the world to me as well. Here, have a seat." And Onyxbane sat nearby while Feathershine stood by the bed in her white night robes and combed her long waterfall of green hair.
"You should know that High Priestess Tyrande is very angry with me. In addition, I am going to bear the punishment for Wisthera's escape. Fortunately, Shadowstep spoke up and said he found no fault with Wisthera's actions."
"How is that fortunate?"
"Because Tyrande will not have to imagine a way to discipline me for that as well."
"You aren't in too much trouble are you?" Onyxbane winced.
"Yes, a great deal actually. I was accused of acting like I was Kaldorei nobility before the human courts of Stormwind, which, of course, does not exist. That is the whole reason that Tyrande created the Sentinels, guarding equality of our people through training an army from the enlightened and disciplined priesthood. And, every Kaldorei knows what happened to the last of us who thought they deserved to have special access to wealth and magic."
She referred to the Sin'Dorei, the High Elves, and most recently, some of them had begun to call themselves the Blood Elves. The reason didn't really matter. It was just another result of their estranged kinsman indulging in status and abusing magic.
"Well, at least Opalbane is safe. That was the whole point of this right?" Onyxbane asked.
"No, actually. Opalbane must still stand trial in Stormwind if we are going to end this without international incident. And now, beyond the money I've already got, we have no more influence, no more help, nor armies from Darnassus. Just the old boat we had before."
Onyxbane imagined his sister in the Stockades, after all she'd suffered through, and buried his head in his hands.
"Don't worry dear. Have faith and pray to Elune to show us the way. It would be very cruel for Opalbane to suffer only because I broke a few rules to save her. Even if all I could do was hire one good hunter of all the adventurers here in Silithus, we still managed to save her, did we not? I believe that we will be blessed in Stormwind as well."
Feathershine's voice was steady, but she looked near to tears. Onyxbane came up behind her and held her tight against him.