The Romancer Opalbane

Episode Twenty-One: Cold case, Darnassus

"Don't you see, Shadowstep! All the evidence our guild has been collecting over the years, before even you came into power, points to one murderer. The patterns were too consistent for it to be any other way. But we were forced to take up false leads, maybe we were even forced to make up some of them, because of the impossibility of it all. One man, who can live almost entirely in stealth, who is a druid but can't be held accountable by druids, who is also a rogue, but one that no entity in the Alliance has any record of… of course we couldn't pin the killer down, of course we couldn't settle on a name. The truth was in front of our faces this entire time. Everyone knows that Alessandre is an alias of some kind."

Master Rogue Shadowstep frowned as he continued to read Myrielle's report. He did not seem convinced.

"Many rogues have false names, Myrielle."

"Yes, but Alessandre took his name the way that a Troll takes a tiger's bones to make a necklace, or shrinks an enemy's head and carries it into battle."

Shadowstep squinted an eye at Myrielle.

"Alright, so my analogy isn't the best, but what I'm trying to say is, Alessandre is savage in that way. He's part animal and part man. He doesn't think clearly… he took the name from that monster in Westfall twenty years ago as a trophy and then started acting like a professional rogue. When he gets tired of that, what next? Will he kill you or I and then start acting like the Master Rogue? He's sick!"

"Myrielle," Shadowstep growled. "Normally, I trust your instincts, but what you are saying doesn't make much sense. I fear you might be too biased against him and that you are imagining things. If Alessandre is the same druid murderer that the Cenarion Enclave has been investigating for the last two hundred years, then your pegging the start of his rogue career to the Defias raid on Westfall about two decades ago doesn't fit. We're looking for someone who can live entirely in stealth, but that person is not Alessandre if he only learned how to be a rogue twenty years ago."

Myrielle paced back and forth, trying to clarify her suspicions. "But I'm not the only one who thinks Alessandre became a rogue about twenty years ago. Lots of people do."

"Which people?" Shadowstep inquired. He'd gone into his desk for a monocle and started reviewing a certain page of Myrielle's report very carefully.

"Well… mostly female people. But it's only natural for us women to remember it best. Alessandre is the type of man who would leave an impression on us."

"We're not going to talk about that." Shadowstep grimaced and got up from his desk. He scanned a nearby bookshelf then reached up and pulled down a thick record book. When he heaved it onto his desk, another flurry of papers was rustled up and then floated off the desk onto the floor. "But there is something about his reputation with the ladies. It does seem to be Alessandre's one weakness."

Myrielle nodded eagerly. She was about to say something more when Shadowstep cut her off.

"Tell me, Myra, how did he explain his past to you when you two were dating? Maybe he slipped up there somehow."

Myrielle blushed. "Sir… it's rather embarrassing. Our relationship was mostly physical to be honest."

"No it wasn't. Or else, you wouldn't be wearing your heart on your sleeve like that. Do you really believe that I'm oblivious to the fact that he's essentially having a Wreathe Day—fake or not—with his new girlfriend as we speak?" Shadowstep sharply corrected her. "Now, what did he tell you?"

Myrielle looked very uncomfortable to be so transparent, but then she sighed and gave in. "Well, that he'd always been a rogue but that he didn't have the best of luck. He seemed to imply that he was one of those dangerous types that always hung out in Cutthroat Alley. But he would always insist that about twenty years ago he renewed his rogue training and started over fresh."

Shadowstep smiled. "A likely story. It's also an alibi of sorts. If a man like that is running from his past, then he's got no reason to be anywhere near Cutthroat Alley." Shadowstep paused. "Then, again, the fact that Alessandre connected himself to the place might have been a way to explain any extra time he spent there."

"Or, it could be a confession." Myrielle offered.

Shadowstep looked at her critically from over his monocle. "No, dear, I don't think so. This is not a man with a guilty conscience, if he is our killer. This is a very disturbed person with an addiction. Night Elves always lived long lives until recently when the World Tree was destroyed. No one wants to believe this sort of thing because it's hard to accept about everyday people, but the truth is, when you live for hundreds of years it's easy to slide off the straight and narrow. You'd be surprised at just how many notable people today have criminal records in these books." And he swept his hand over the many shelves of dusty old record books in his office for emphasis. The many volumes were also all over the floor. Some of them were piled so high that one could not see out of the lone round window in Shadowstep's office. More than likely, that one window had been covered up on purpose.

Shadowstep tapped a particular page in the current book he was reading. "See here, a man named Ebon was thrown in the Stockades for a series of murders in Cutthroat Alley just about twenty-five years ago."

"A Kaldorei?"

"Yes, and he's got Alessandre's physical description. He was supposed to die by hanging, but he escaped."

"A lone, unarmed man escaped from Stockade guards? That's hard to believe."

Shadowstep shrugged. "It happens. Mostly, it happens when the criminals are abnormally talented." The Master Rogue raised his eyebrows at Myrielle over the book he was reading to make sure that she got his point. "I'm starting to like your report more and more, Second Commander." He conceded.

"But there's a five year gap imbetween the time that this Ebon escaped and a Night Elf named Alessandre shows up in their records." Myrielle pointed to a line of text on the next page. "Same physical description, but mostly petty theft."

"That just means the guy laid low for a bit before starting up again under a new alias. Happens all the time. I'm sure there are lots of other names Alessandre used before Ebon."

"And you're sure it's the same person?"

Shadowstep leaned back in his chair. "I'm not going to pull down all the record books and point out every single entry where an exceptionally tall male Night Elf with a dark complexion and midnight blue hair stole a loaf of bread, or attacked petty thieves hanging out in Stormwind's Cutthroat Alley. I like going back through the Stormwind records from time to time, and I already know that there's a pattern. It just didn't make any real sense until now. The details of your report seem to put it all together and it's not just some kind of illogical coincidence to me anymore, since so many elves fit that description. But I can give you a bit of relationship advice for future reference." Shadowstep smiled.

Myrielle sat on her mentor's desk and folded her arms across her chest. "Sir, I really don't think that my personal life—"

"Twenty years is about the time it takes for someone to grow up and have kids. That's one generation. Whenever a man tells you that he did this or that about twenty years ago—especially if he's a rogue—he's probably lying."

"Why do you say that?"

"Myrielle, what were you doing twenty years ago?"

The Second Commander thought for a moment, then shrugged. "I'm not all that old, Shadowstep. I was little baby."

Then, Myrielle understood. Lives changed completely in twenty years. Eventhough Kaldorei once lived long lives, the stage of life still transformed someone. It would always be most likely that if you said something happened twenty years ago, the person you were talking to wouldn't remember back that far, or if they did, that time in their life was so different from the present, that it would feel like a lifetime ago, too far away.

"And so, if Alessandre told you that he wasn't a rogue, or at least a noteworthy one twenty years ago, you have no real reason to believe him, do you?"

Remembering any part of her relationship with her ex-boyfriend was a sore note for Myrielle, but this took the cake.

"Do we have enough evidence against Alessandre to get him locked up?"

"Hold on, now Myra." Shadowstep warned, and slipped her raggedy report from under the thick record book. He began to read it again. "This is all mostly speculative except for your one firsthand encounter, but combined with the evidence the guild has been collecting over the years, it should make a reasonable case against Alessandre. At the very least, it's enough to try him before a Priestess in Darnassus."

"What!" Myrielle flared. "But he's Stormwind's criminal. The people in the city are rioting right now, Humans, Dwarves, and Gnomes, all fighting Kaldorei—druid or not—because of what Alessandre did. I barely made it out alive myself. Doesn't the Alliance deserve justice?"

"Be very careful how you define justice, Myrielle."

Myrielle seethed. She didn't like where this was going.

"What you've done is amazing. I was hoping to retire very soon and that seemed to send shockwaves through the rogue community. I've had people coming in here with presents to thank me for a job well done, or worse, bribes to get certain things taken care of before I leave and new unfamiliar leadership takes over. I never thought, never in my hundred years of life, that this case would get solved. You are the one who finally put all the pieces together, and that was without the benefit of my familiarity with Alliance criminal records."

Myrielle smiled sadly. "I thank you, Master Rogue, but I can't help the feeling that you are buttering me up for something."

"You've cracked the biggest case in Darnassian history, but I'm sorry. There will be no parade in your honor or shiny medal. This has to stay in house."

"We're covering this up?" Myrielle got up and pushed away from Shadowstep's desk angrily.

"No. I didn't say that. I just said that I want Darnassus to take care of it. We can't go handing one of our own guild members over to SI: 7. It will make us look bad, or in the worst case, confirm the prejudice against Night Elves already bubbling over in Stormwind. Have you ever considered that they might see our guild as corrupt for not catching the culprit in our midst sooner?"

"Alessandre is not a member of Kaldorei Rogue Network." Myrielle insisted. "He never really signed up with us until you hired him for the cultist mission some weeks ago. And even then, he became affiliated with us under false pretenses, since he was never a rogue to begin with. Secondly, his actions—as a serial killer—certainly disqualify him now."

"Alessandre is an assassin at the moment, not a serial killer. After his trial, we'll know just who he is."

Myrielle stamped her foot angrily in her excellent red boots. "The evidence is right in front of our faces! He's one of the most terrible people on the face of Azeroth, as remorseless as a Troll, as bloodthirsty as an Orc… and you're just going to get him off the hook because he's in our guild? This man doesn't even deserve to be a part of the Alliance."

"Watch it there, Myra. No Kaldorei will ever be compared to the Horde again in my presence. I've seen what they can do. You couldn't even imagine the kind of evil you are trying to attribute to one of our own." Shadowstep pointed a finger at her.

"But you are making every excuse not to bury him. Why in Azeroth are you defending that freak of nature?"

Shadowstep was quiet for a long moment. He propped his boots up on his desk. "Because, like you, Myrielle, he's an impressive agent. There are three kinds of rogues. The first kind is good at figuring things out, like you. The second kind of rogue is the most dangerous. They use their minds to destroy people. These are the ones who play god by holding onto information forever, and blackmailing people. They pull invisible strings deftly from the sidelines without anyone suspecting." Then he raised an eyebrow at her. "So far, I'm the only rogue like that in our guild. Rogues like me are incredibly useful because we can keep everyone on their toes. Mostly though, since they have so much power, they can't be trusted… but of course I can always trust myself to act in my own best interest." He chuckled. "But then again, when I retire, we won't have any rogues like that in our organization at all. Maybe you don't realize it now, Myrielle, but I've been managing a lot of things for Darnassus behind the scenes. There will be a void when I leave if the next Master Rogue can't juggle the secrets as well as I've been doing."

Shadowstep yawned, then continued. "Finally, the third kind of rogue is good at taking people out. Here at the Cenarion Enclave, we are running dangerously low on assassins, for obvious reasons. But Alessandre has survived--well, I'm going to look up exactly for how long in a moment--but right now we know that it's been longer than two hundred years at the least. He's been taken into custody, but never truly been caught because he's very good at leading a double life. And druid or rogue, or both, it is very difficult to make that many kills and not leave a substantial scrap of evidence. All I have to go on are meticulous records of criminals that SI: 7 keeps. You were lucky enough to have some very close encounters with Alessandre in person. By the Legion! Priestess Opalbane has clearly fallen in love with him and even with her Mind Vision spell, she hasn't a clue. Nor does Priestess Feathershine, her foster mother. I know that woman well; she would never let a man like that get near her daughter. And to top it off, both Feathershine and myself agreed to hire Alessandre for the bodyguard work in Stormwind, after doing extensive background checks. We could not find one thing that made Alessandre seem anything less than the polished professional assassin that we thought he was. Well, we knew that he was a ladies' man, or at least I did, but I didn't tell Feathershine about it. She's far too picky. Anyways, imagine what our guild would be capable of if we could just control someone like that—"

"No. I won't be a part of this. Shadowstep, this is wrong."

Shadowstep glared at Myrielle when she came to a stop in her pacing in front of his desk. "What's wrong and what's right? I know Feathershine well, and I will see to it that she gets appointed to this trial. She is going to find him guilty and I'll guide her in selecting a horrible punishment for our serial killer that is threatening to rip Darnassus right out of the Alliance because of his actions. Then, when faced with the choice, either the monster will decide to revel in his sinfulness, or Alessandre the man will choose to atone for his wrongdoing." Shadowstep scratched his beard as he thought about his plan.

"And just how is he going to serve his sentence and still help us? You can't predict Feathershine's mind exactly, you know." Myrielle pouted.

"It doesn't matter what she says really, or even what Alessandre decides to do. Either way, Alessandre will end up working for me. And if you want my job at all, you're going to go along with it, understand?" Shadowstep raised his voice a little at the end. Myrielle bit her lower lip anxiously, but she knew that she would do it. Her job was her passion, her life.

"And, if it makes you feel any better, since this secret is going to stay between us, it would be very easy to just hand his leash off to you when I retire." Shadowstep mentioned afterward, a bit apologetic for the tone he'd taken with someone who was already so loyal. "That is, if you still prove worthy enough for my job."

Myrielle couldn't help smiling. "I think I'm the only one who's handled working with you well. You know, some rogues might consider being bound to you for eternity a fate worse than death."

A wicked grin grew on Shadowstep's face. "Why thank you, Myrielle. That is the best compliment I've had in a very long time."