The message stated, "Prepare for a vast army beyond what you have seen. On two weeks from this day, you will die," I stood, silently, in utter disbelief.
"I would love to come to aid the Burning Legion for this fight, but I am dead so that proves some difficulties," Archimonde half-joked, "However, Kil'Jaeden will be showing up, in person, to fight."
I looked at him, puzzled. He would be in a solid figure in two weeks. This angry, red spirit would soon be able to reach out and grasp stuff. His threat played through my mind. "I swear to the LIGHT, the first chance I get where my arms don't go through you; I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!!" And, I'm sure he remembered it too. But then what Orian told me also ran through my head. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." And I got an idea.
"You're crazy," Illidan said.
"I'm not crazy, just scheming," I retorted, "I get that from Eris."
"And what happened to him?"
I paused. "A demon, the demon that possessed Happy's body, found another vessel. He hunted Eris down. He tried to use his rogue's vanish ability, but the demon could see him the spirit world. And…he killed him."
"Ah," Illidan said. "Anyways, you need something before you can go through with your schemed up idea. What is it?" He paused. "Wait a minute! I think you're forming another rune!"
I looked down at my side. This time, it was being carved on my left side. It was exactly like the other two on my right side, swirling alongside of my ribs. The bloody mess was slowly being replaced by a deep, glowing purple.
"I think I know what makes these runes appear," Illidan mumbled.
"What?" I asked.
"I don't know…it's just a theory," he said, distantly, "Anyways, you're question!"
"How close am I?" I asked.
"To?"
"How close am I to being a full-blown demon hunter?" I asked Illidan.
"Well, seeing how quick we had to make the training, you have the moves down. Why?"
"I think we need to kidnap a demon," I announced. I could feel surprise sore through the spirit form of Illidan.
"Really?! That's great! What kind of demon were you thinking about kidnapping?" he asked. I had actually not put too much thought into that.
"Well, I was kind of thinking that a Man'ari Eredar would be awesome. But that would be pushing it a little," I began
"Yeah, a commander in charge of entire sections of the Burning Legion. What else?" he asked.
"Uh succubus would be a lot of fun, I think,"
"Very nice," Illidan laughed, "They'd probably be the easiest to capture. Any others?"
"An Annhilan," I said.
"A pit lord? They also might be a difficult capture," Illidan said. "Plus, they are very, very vengeful and vindictive. They could corrupt you…which would be bad."
"So, I want a demon soul that won't corrupt me?" I asked.
"Yes…" Illidan replied, "Corruption is bad." I thought about the options I had given myself. Then I smirked like the cunning little demon I'm becoming.
"Let's go to Karazhan," I said, evilly, "I want a Man'ari Eredar!" Illidan sighed and chuckled.
"It can't be easy can it?" he said, "You'll need a soul shard from a warlock."
"That shouldn't be too difficult," I shrugged.
"Yes," Illidan agreed, "But getting you your Burning Legion commander might be…"
"C'mon," I assured. "I promise you it won't be that hard!" And it really wouldn't be that hard. The most difficult thing was coming up with a good lie. And that I already had, so now all I needed was a soul shard. I dashed to the room where you could normally call upon Kil'Jaeden and Archimonde.
"Hey, guys," I called out, "Today's the big day!" Immediately, both spirit forms revealed themselves. They seemed to already know what I was talking about.
"Oh really?" Archimonde said, "Is there anything we can get you?"
"A soul shard?" I asked, "Please!"
"Hey, fuck face," Kil'Jaeden boomed at a passing by demon. "Are you a warlock?" It shook its head no. "Do you know any?" It shook its head yes. "Go get it!" He turned to Archimonde. "He had no manners. I mean who just nods?"
"This is coming from the guy who called him a fuck face and demanded demands of it," Archimonde said, raising an eyebrow.
"I'm Kil'Jaeden, I can do that," he snorted. Shortly after his departure, the demon was ushering in a small necromancer. I smiled at him and walked up to him.
"Can you pretty please make me a soul shard?" I asked, "It's kind of important." The necromancer nodded and clasped its hands together. A faint purple glow began to emit from the cracks in his fingers; slowly his hands began to expand until they revealed a glowing soul shard. "Thank you!" I said. He said something in his language and walked out of the room.
"Why were you nice to him?" Kil'Jaeden asked. "You don't request, you demand! What ruler was ever nice to its minions?" Archimonde and I looked at him like the idiot he was. He may have an amazing seat of power, but he had a lot to learn about ruling.
We landed on the steps on Karazhan and were almost attacked by the guards. They saw that an intruder was there and, instinctively, attacked. When they realized who I was they stopped, dead in their tracks. Embarrassed, they apologized and asked me what brought me all the way out to Deadwinde Pass.
"Well," I began, "I'm here on behalf of Sargeras. He asked me to deliver a message to Prince Malchezaar."
"Oh," one of the guards said, "Well, follow us! We'll take you to the Prince."
"Very cunning," Illidan complemented.
"Yeah, being a puppet isn't so bad," I joked.
As soon as they brought me to the great hall Prince was in, he got upset about being disturbed. I wasn't so sure that he had seen me yet.
"But, my liege, this messenger, she is Eternus and sent from Sargeras!" the demon warrior explained.
"Oh really?" he said is disbelief. I stepped into view. "Okay! Everyone but Miss Eternus: OUT!!" All the demons scurried out of the room, slamming the doors behind them.
"Heh," Illidan chuckled, "He's almost making this too easy." I smirked with agreement.
"So," Prince Malchezaar began, "Please, tell me everything! I've heard great rumors! And I see the ones on your physical appearance are quite true!" From the puzzled look on my face, he elaborated. "They say your arcane tattoos exceed the complexity and power of Lord Illidan's!"
"What do you mean? Are you talking about my runes?" I asked.
"Your runes are EXACTLY what I'm talking about!" the Prince said, "They are arcane tattoos. The fact that they've been printed on your body means they make you more powerful. I bet you can do a lot of things."
"Such as?" I pressed.
"Such as will things to do as you please," Prince shouted. He summoned a little imp. "Trying putting this minion of mine to sleep."
"How am I supposed to do that?"
"With your will, little girl. Will my minion into a coma," Prince commanded. I concentrated hard on the imp. I still had no idea how I was supposed to this. Maybe with subliminal messages? I focused hard on the imp until I flat out told it in my mind to go to sleep. Nothing happened. Then I flat out told it to sleep.
"Sleep," I whispered the command. And, amazingly, it did. The imp toppled onto the floor and started to snore loudly. Prince Malchezaar banished his imp, and in flames, it was gone.
"Bravo," he congratulated.
"Okay, so he's teaching you some tricks!" Illidan said, in dismay. "Now, quit playing with your food and eat it." I thought about sticking my tongue out at him, but then I thought about how weird that would look to Malchezaar if I stuck my tongue out, tauntingly, to thin air.
"Now, tell me about yourself," he demanded.
"Well," I began, "I'm on my way to becoming a demon hunter."
"And how is that working out?"
"It's hard," I said, hinting the evil in my voice. "But very fun. I'm choosing my demon whose soul I want to capture. And I think I've made my decision." Then, Malchezaar got it. He understood my purpose of coming to him. He turned to run down the great hall, but his size was no match for my agility. I grabbed one of the daggers I had hidden, spun, and, with great force, impaled it through his knee cap. He hit the ground with a thud.
As I walked by his knee, I pulled out my dagger and walked to his giant chest. "Thank you for teaching me the trick," I thanked, darkly. "Now, Malchezaar, sleep, and when you wake up it'll all be over." On my word, 'sleep,' he fell asleep. I crammed the dagger into his chest, where his heart would be. He let out a gasp in his sleep as I pressed the soul shard to the hole in his chest. The once purple soul shard now was glowing a deep, hateful black.
Illidan spoke, "Now, infuse it in you. It's like willing that imp to sleep. You have to will the spirit into your body." I nodded. I held the black soul shard in my hands and pressed it against my chest. The spirit traveled out of the shard and flowed into my chest. As soon as the soul was completely inside my body, I let the shard drop to the floor.
My body was cold. It felt like it was trapped beneath the ice of a lake deep in Wintersring. The cold traveled all throughout my body in waves. And it only kept getting more and more freezing with every wave. I dropped to the ground, because my lungs were frozen. I couldn't breath. Then the next wave brought on searing heat. It felt like I was trapped deep in the fires of the Burning Steppes. I wanted to scream but my lungs were too hot to even allow breath. And then my temperature slowly and steadily dropped back down to normal. I was panting as I got my first breath in 5 minutes.
"You handled that quite well," Illidan said, "Now for the hard part." He pointed to the dagger in my hand. "You, with your new demonic abilities, need to set magical fire on this blade."
"And just how do I do that?"
"Well," Illidan explained, "The same way you out people to sleep." I gazed at the dagger long and hard, yet nothing happened. 'Okay, uh new part of me, I could use some help right about now,' I thought. I stared at the dagger's blade again. I thought long and hard about magical flames on the blade and the way their green flames wrapped around the blade, and whipped out at anything that came close.
"Well done," Illidan said, breaking my train-of-thought. I looked at the blade and saw what I was thinking was real.
I stood up and brought the dagger to my eye.
"I would help you if I wasn't…dead," Illidan offered.
"Distract me," I demanded, dropping the blade to my side. "Please?"
"Uh…hum…um," Illidan thought aloud, "You haven't told me how Core died?"
"What?"
"The draenei shaman," Illidan reminded me, "You haven't told me how he died yet."
"Well," I began, bringing the dagger back to my left eye and applying pressure, "Have you heard of the War for Stormwind?"
"No," Illidan sighed, "I guess it was after my time."
"Well, it was a huge bloody mess, a war between the Horde and Alliance. The world saw no need to aid us because, trust me, we had it handled. Buck, Core and I were there, setting down lilies in the cannel for Eris, Happy, and Orian," I began, "Well, a few days passed and the Scourge attacked the War for Stormwind. They forced both Horde and Alliance to work together to fight them off. The filthy sonsofbitches killed off the flight master but the griffins were still flying around. Now, the rest of the world still thought it was the Horde attacking, so no reinforcements were sent. Core knew that we needed help and we needed –ouch ouch fuck ouch- it soon. So he managed to attract one of the griffins down with his shiny totem, placed Buck and I on it, hit the griffins behind, and told us to go get help." I placed the dagger over my right eye. "The last thing Core said to me was, 'I'll tell Orian you say hi and still love him,' and that was as Buck and I started to fly off. The last thing we saw was a wave of undead swoop over Core and –holy shit this hurts!" I noted the pain in my left side yet discarded it because the pain in my eyes was much, much stronger.
"That's to be expected," Illidan said, "If I were less….um…dead, I would help you." I shook like crazy as I realized I couldn't see and where my eyes were supposed to be was wide opened. "The pain goes away when the Mystic Fire kind of starts to burn."
"It burns?!" I shrieked. And then, a cooling sensation rushed through my head and in my eye sockets. I felt a tingling sensation and then, I saw color; beautiful and brilliant, color.