Voodoo Child

Chapter 14 – Nocturne

By Genoscythe

AN: Don't worry, I've planned for Melchiah to be a badass from the beginning.

"Okay, mon. We get da full story now," Xan spoke as he, Argam, and their new business partner wandered through the forest. Supposedly, Melchiah knew where to go, but he had yet to show any evidence of this. "Start from when you weren't…dead."

Melchiah sighed, having apparently told the story many times. "Like I said, I used to be a colonel in the Lordaeron army. That was back when the Scourge was making way for the Burning Legion to return, kind of like a pre-invasion invasion. At first, we only lost a few towns, but after Dalaran fell the king started to get a little twitchy. He sent me and a fair portion of the army to attack the Scourge, but all we found was a small detachment of their main force. This detachment was led by a Lich named Araj the Summoner. Ever heard of him?"

Both Xan and Argam shook their heads.

"Even the smaller Scourge group was too much for us." A bitter chuckle from Melchiah. "It's not easy fighting an army that gets three soldiers from every dead body. In the end, it was just me, the Lich, and a couple hundred Undead. The damn Lich didn't kill me, though. He pulled out some crazy-looking book and started reading from it. After every word he said, it felt like hot knives were carving into my skin. When he was done, I had all these swirling lines cut into my arms and (I'd find out later) my chest."

"So he gave you dysentery and vomiting?" Argam piped in.

"No. I don't know why, I guess 'cause I was the first one to be cursed. So, naturally, I was pretty pissed. I attacked Araj, and I grabbed the book. When it touched my fingers, it burst into flame and the Lich got pretty pissed too. That was when he killed me."

"You're not dead now."

"Of course not. The curse was already working, so all I did was get up again and try to stab him. He froze me, then floated up real close to my face like this…" Melchiah leaned toward Xan until all the troll could see was bone and rotting flesh. Instinctively, he leapt back, not wanting a part in the curse. "And he told me that I'd never touch a living thing again, unless I wanted to be as cruel as him. Then he killed me again for good measure, and the Scourge left me frozen in the middle of the battlefield."

"You remember this pretty well," Argam remarked.

"I should. I've thought about it every day for the last four years."

"So, when you touch someone, they turn into your slave, or somethin'?"

Melchiah laughed his now-familiar bitter laugh. "It doesn't work like that. They have their own free will, and they're indestructible like me. If I cursed the wrong person, or even the right person…it's too dangerous. Unlike the Scourge, I'm not interested in sharing my pain with the rest of the world."

Argam and Xan nodded reverently. How had they managed to get such a heroic(ish) soldier into their group? This Melchiah was the antithesis to everything that Xan's group stood for. 'Everything' was divided equally between booze and cowardice.

"Can you imagine what it's like to not be able to lift up a cup to drink, or hold a woman in your arms?"

Xan had to honestly say that he couldn't.

"That's been my life for the last four years. I've given up trying to eat or drink, and I isolated myself in that cabin to make sure no accidents happened to anybody else."

Xan became acutely aware that Melchiah was not only no longer isolated, but walking right next to him. The Forsaken had his arms crossed, but Xan inched away in case he might trip and accidentally grab the troll.

"Wait…wait, wait," Argam grunted, pausing momentarily to sort out his thoughts. "If you can't touch things without disintegrating them, then how do you use that sword and shield?"

"This?" Melchiah spoke, sliding the sword out of its sheath and flipping it in the air. Naturally, this made Xan even more nervous. "It's a family heirloom, and it used to be my sword while I was alive. See, everything touching my body at the time of the curse was bound to my soul. My sword, my shield, my armor…even the patch of grass I was sitting on." Melchiah raised his clawed hands. "I picked a lousy time to lose my gloves. Ever since I was cursed, I tried finding a new pair, but they all fall apart."

"He's been talking for a long time," Argam observed under his breath.

"You can if you don' need ta breathe," Xan replied, equally quiet.

"Since you're both bored of me talking, it's your turn. What's all this schizophrenia crap about?"

"I'm not schizophrenic!" Argam bellowed. "It's – "

They all fell silent at the sound of a loud thump off in the distance, followed by a string of curses. Xan immediately recognized the voice, and he ran to it. He found Zuridan on the ground, rubbing his head wearily.

"Hey, mon. I though' you were lookin' for new members."

"It's not worth it…" Zuridan murmured through clenched teeth. "Damn it, it's not worth it!"

"Calm down, mon. Open your eyes."

"No way. He's out there."

Xan sighed. "You can' expect me to know what da hell you're talkin' 'bout when ya say it like dat."

"Right. Sorry. Little too much melodrama."

"Jus' tone it down a bit, mon. Who's he?"

"That skeleton thing. The…" Zuridan struggled to find the word he was looking for. When he found it, he nearly shouted. "Lich!"

Xan raised an eyebrow. He was starting to get sick of Liches, and he hadn't even met one yet.

"What Lich?" Melchiah asked, trudging up to the fallen orc.

"I don't know!" Zuridan growled. "He didn't tell me his name!"

"What did he look like?"

"He looked like a Lich."

"Where'd you see him?"

"He's not here, here. Well, he was. But now he's in my head."

"What the hell are you on, son?"

"Nothing! The Lich is in my head!"

"Which Lich are we talking about?"

"Stop saying 'Lich'!" Argam bellowed, and his outburst was rewarded with silence. Xan was the first to break it.

"Zuridan, dis be Melchiah. Mel, Zuridan." For the first time, Zuridan opened his eyes and found himself staring into Melchiah's rotting face. The orc unexpectedly shrieked and tossed out his hand, lighting the Forsaken's head on fire with an Immolate spell.

"That's him!" Zuridan roared, getting to his feet. "That's the Lich!"

Melchiah simply sighed and pressed a hand against his head. The flames immediately shrunk away from his touch, and he stared at the orc expectantly.

"Oh, wait…"

"Yeah…don't do that again."

"Sorry, sir."

A moment of awkward silence fell over Silverpine, this time interrupted by Melchiah.

"So…what's next? What are we doing now?"

"Wha' we came here for," Xan replied, somewhat disgruntled. The third silence, now breaking some kind of obscure world record, fell over the group as they tried desperately to remember why they were on the Eastern Continent to begin with. Unfortunately, only the two most irresponsible soldiers in the group ever knew why they had traveled to the Undercity, and they were having a little trouble jogging their memories.

Finally giving up on that tactic, they tossed down their backpacks and began digging through them for any clues as to why they had traveled halfway across the world on a flammable balloon. Xan cried victory, and he hoisted a small blue disc into the sickly light of the forest.

"What is it?" Zuridan asked.

"Turtle shell, mon. We gotta take it to da Seplacher."

"Sepulcher," Melchiah corrected.

"Dat's what I said," Xan returned, putting the shell back in his pack and looking about. "We never did find da road…"

Zuridan looked down at their feet. "I think we're on the road."

Melchiah took a look himself. "I think you're right." Beneath them, a weathered, indistinct trail of cobblestones led deeper into the forest and (hopefully) the Sepulcher.

It didn't lead to the Sepulcher, but the rest of that tale is a boring mess. The important facts are this: Xan and company did arrive at the Sepulcher at about midnight the next day, all of them wet and smelling vaguely of fish (except for Melchiah, who seemed incapable of producing an odor, and except for Argam, who always smelled strongly of fish).

The tauren in question was nowhere to be found, but that was obviously because it was midnight. To pass the time until sunlight came around, the group slept for the first time in days (except for Melchiah, who never sleeps). Since the Sepulcher was locked and barred for the night, they all ended up sleeping on top of an abused stone effigy. Atop the effigy sat a mildly valuable-looking pendant, which Xan was quick to pocket.

They spent the entire next day asleep, as sunrise was hardly a factor in the dense forest and nobody at the Sepulcher wanted the responsibility of waking them (Except for Melchiah, but he was too busy making himself scarce to do the job). When Xan and Zuridan finally woke, they were greeted by a host of people who looked similar, if not more grotesque, than Melchiah. With Xan's limited knowledge of the Forsaken, he had to assume that they didn't share in his curse, and that made him feel marginally better.

Melchiah himself sat atop a hill in the distance, staring blankly into the forest. He was no doubt writing a depressing soliloquy in his mind. Xan told himself to get used to having a chronically unhappy member in their party, because this did not seem to be unusual behavior for Melchiah.

Leaving Argam sleeping heavily on the tombstone, as that is the only way a tauren can sleep, Xan went in search of Mura Runetotem with Zuridan in tow. Xan began asking around for a female tauren, while his accent went about complicating matters.

Finally, they discovered Mura in a dark, secluded corner that they would have never found if they had known where to look. The effect was similar to searching for a lost valuable object, in that they found it while following a completely different lead.

"Goodness, it's startling to see a living creature after so long," Mura chortled in a motherly fashion. "I'm afraid you might start rotting before my eyes."

Xan bobbed his head disinterestedly, then slammed the turtle shell down on the table between them. "We been trough hell an' back to get dis here. I wanna see some kinda reward."

"My, that's not very heroic of you," Mura reprimanded. Xan and Zuridan looked at each other, trying to force down a laugh.

"No, we're serious," Zuridan started.

"What's this even for?" She asked.

"Dat be a turtle shell from da Barrens."

"Really? Why's it…blue?"

"Dat's why we came to you."

"I suppose Tonga sent you?"

"Ja."

"He's the only one who knows I'm over here," Mura rambled. "I can analyze it for you, if that's what you want."

"Dat be exactly what we want."

"Give me a moment." Mura looked over the turtle shell for a fraction of a second, then swept it off the table and clenched her jaw with melodrama so thick Xan could taste it. He was the first sentient being ever to discover that melodrama tastes vaguely like coffee beans and soy. "Oh my…this is horrible."

"I'll bet," Xan muttered. "What's up?"

"It's been tainted by the Emerald Dream," Mura replied, squeezing her eyes shut. "The Druids of the Fang must be causing this."

"Figured that out pretty fast…" Zuridan muttered, leaning forward and gazing at her probingly. "How do we know you're not one of them?"

"I'm sorry…what?"

"No, I be sorry. He's crazy," Xan interrupted.

"I'm not crazy," Zuridan assured. "And I'm not kidding, either."

"I'm not a Druid of the Fang!"

"Are you?"

"No!"

"Are you sure you're not?"

"Of course!"

"So then you are."

"I never…! One more word out of you, and I'll call the guards."

"Z…" Xan hissed. "What da hell you be doin'?"

"I'm saving our lives," Zuridan whispered back. "You're trying to send us into a trap," he said, this time directed to Mura.

"Surely not! It seems totally logical that I – HA!" The tauren slung a vial at Zuridan's face, which shattered and sprayed a clear substance all over him. Mura ran, hit a stone wall, realized she was trapped in the Corner That Could Not Be Found, and cursed. Meanwhile, Xan was busy tackling her.

Once she was on the ground, Xan checked on Zuridan. The orc blinked in surprise, shook his head, and joined his rogue partner.

"You alright, mon?"

"I think that was just water. You really don't know how to be a good spy, lady."

"Damn it, I'll poke your eyeballs out! Let me go!" Mura thrashed her horns about for emphasis, but Zuridan merely chuckled. Xan felt a bit like he was being left out of an inside joke, so he tried to get in.

"Who you workin' for, again?"

"To hell with you!" Mura replied.

Xan turned to the orc. "Z, grab Melchiah for me." When Zuridan had returned with Melchiah in tow, Xan turned to him. "Mel, you wanna get some answers outta her?"

Melchiah eyed Xan suspiciously. "How'd you know torture was my specialty?"

Xan looked to Zuridan, and they both shared a chuckle. It felt good to have an inside joke for once.

The two of them stood back, waiting for Melchiah to explain his curse and exactly what it entailed for people that felt his touch (namely evil tauren-impersonating spies).

"Dat was a good guess, mon," Xan said, by way of asking how Zuridan knew Mura was a spy.

"Yeah, it was."

End