Rhukaa stopped speaking and stared back into the fire. He shuddered, remembering that day. Shei turned his face towards hers. "Rhukaa, please tell me you didn't."
Rhukaa stood and turned away from Shei and the fire. His eyes started to tear up. "Don't look at me, Shei." He placed his face in his hands as his body was racked with sobs. He tried to muffle them but it was to no avail. "Don't look at me."
Shei reached out a hand but Rhukaa shrunk away from it. The priest wasn't used to seeing Rhukaa in such an unstable way. In fact, this was the first time she had ever seen him cry. It just wasn't like him. Shei walked around to face Rhukaa and grabbed him before he could turn away again. She pulled him close so that his ear was by her mouth. She stroked his hair and said, "Tell me the rest, Rhukaa."
The warlock calmed down slowly, comforted by Shei's warmth, and began to finish his recount. "So they began casting again and I realized there was nothing I could do to stop it from happening..."
The warlocks chanted the words to their spell, all glaring at Rhukaa as they did so. The warlock was confused and stressed. He didn't want to burn down the forests of Ashenvale, but there was no way he could stop the others from doing so.
He didn't believe his order was evil but in this moment, he found himself siding with the residents of Silithus. Sure, the head of his order said it was to save others from dying. If the demons escaped and found civilization, many people would be slaughtered. The warlocks were preventing death by causing it.
Were the deaths of a thousand preferable to the deaths of tens of thousands? Were numbers all that mattered? Was inaction evil in this instance? Rhukaa questioned himself again and again but the well of answers must have been dry that day, for he received none. The rest of his order glared at him and he realized he had to make a choice. To kill or not to kill. To kill by action or by inaction. So many factors, so many morals to consider.
Flustered, Rhukaa found that his hands and mouth began working on their own. No! He didn't want to burn the forest. But he had to, there was no other way. The treants will die! Thousands more will die if he didn't. The treants are peaceful, helpful, kind! A lot of kind people will die if he didn't do it. Rhukaa paused before the last word in his spell. Now or never. The warlock bit his lip and closed his eyes as he rained fire upon the forests of Ashenvale.
When the forest was burnt an hour later, Rhukaa stopped his spell. He stared at his hands in horror. The rest of his order left to go back to their tents, feeling like heroes having saved thousands from death. Rhukaa fell to his knees where he stood, looked at his repulsive hands and began to sob.
Rhukaa's eyes stared in horror at some atrocity unseen, as if he were reliving the day he spoke of. "There's fire everywhere... it's everywhere..." Rhukaa broke free of Shei's grasp and backed up, looking around himself at the invisible threat. "I did this. By the gods, I did this."
Shei watched in startled amazement as her once-rational friend turned into a paranoid lunatic. The turmoil coursing through his blood was peaking and Shei feared he might lose his senses entirely. Rhukaa had gotten himself into the fetal position and was mumbling incoherences to himself. Shei got down next to him and tried to shake him back into reality. Rhukaa pulled away, convinced that Shei was some sort of entity coming to cause him harm.
"Rhukaa. Rhukaa stop this, this isn't you. There's no fire here anymore." Shei tried to get close to him but he pulled back every time. He kept mumbling about the fire and how it was all around them. How it was all his fault. At last Shei was able to get a hold on the warlock. She looked him straight in the eye and told him, "The fire is gone. Look around."
He writhed, trying to escape Shei's hold but it was all to no use. Shei smacked him across the face and Rhukaa snapped back into reality. He lifted his hands and stared at them in disgust. "Shei, I am a monster. A wretched, horrible thing. How could I do that? How could I join them?" He had been asking himself these questions over and over and he could come up with nothing.
Shei wrapped her arms around her distraught friend. It broke her heart to see him in such a horrible state. "You're not the monster, Rhukaa. The demons were the monsters. Sometimes to destroy a monster, you must destroy that which is good. Just speak with Gnell, he will understand. You shouldn't have joined, Rhukaa, but there was nothing you could have done to stop it from happening."
Rhukaa looked into Shei's eyes, prepared to see the pity which he so scorned, to see disappointment or disgust. He saw none of this and began to break down. "Shei, I should have told you where I was going... you never would have let me done that. I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."
"You need to forgive yourself, dear. The only one blaming you right now is yourself. The druids understand, they will not be happy, but druids understand the ways of the world. Forgive yourself, Rhukaa, your blame hurts you more than anyone else's blame could."
Rhukaa placed his head on Shei's shoulder as tears streamed down his cheeks. "What if I can't?" The warlock truly believed he could not. How can anyone forgive such a heinous act?
The troll looked sadly at her friend and stroked his hair. "I'm afraid you'll just have to, Rhukaa. There's no way we're getting through Felwood if you're going to be in this state. We have to stay here for a little while, though. Just take the time and try to relax. Talk to Gnell, get some closure."
The warlock closed his eyes in agony. How could he possibly talk to Gnell about what had happened? It wasn't Gnell Rhukaa was afraid of, it was admitting the horrible thing he did to the person he wronged. He knew the treant druids, and he knew they wouldn't blame him, or even the whole class of warlocks, for what had occurred. It was this that pained him the most. Scorn, derision, hate. Those were things he could deal with.
"Just think about it, I don't want you to be hating yourself forever. We need your head on straight in Felwood. I'm going to go get Bjorn to take his watch, you better get some sleep."