Act 2: Shadows of Stratholme
Hours had bled into dusk since Lexick's bite, the plague a silent predator in her veins. Fear gnawed at her, but she channeled it into action, cutting down lone Scourge—shambling zombies, brittle skeletons—with ruthless precision. Each kill was a small victory, though none offered answers. Lowly drones, they carried no secrets of the Lich King's plans. Her left arm throbbed beneath its makeshift bandage, the weight of her sword growing heavier, but Lexick pressed on, her resolve a flickering flame against the gathering dark.
The Plaguelands had become a nightmare landscape. As she neared Stratholme's ruins, the earth itself seemed to rebel—trees twisted into grotesque spirals, their bark pulsing with unnatural veins. Fungal growths carpeted the ground, glowing faintly under a sky choked with ash. Lexick's mind drifted to a distant memory: thirty years ago, a child of nine, she'd traveled these lands with her parents, Gamlin Ironspark and Mimki Gearblock. Lordaeron had been vibrant then, its fields golden, its towns bustling. Gamlin, bald but for his bushy brown beard, had peddled toys to delighted children, his laugh as warm as summer. Mimki, with her clever kitchen gadgets, had fussed over Lexi's hair, so like her own blonde locks. Lexick, no taller than a human toddler, had giggled in their cart. The memory brought a fleeting smile to Lexick's lips, quickly fading as she spotted a decayed road sign, half-buried in rot. "Hearthglen," it read, pointing to a past long dead.
Scavenging kept her grounded. Amid abandoned Alliance supplies—relics of the failed Stratholme push—she found a broken rifle and a vial of holy water. Her blacksmith's hands and gnomish mind, though untrained in fine engineering, worked with grim determination. Mixing powder from cracked cartridges with scraps of metal, she crafted a crude bomb, securing the holy water vial to its side. It wasn't elegant, but it would hurt the undead. Tucking it into her belt, she moved on, her tabard torn but still defiantly blue.
Deep in the blighted woods, Lexick stumbled upon a Scourge camp. She crouched behind a fungal stump, heart pounding as she spotted death knights—hulking figures in saronite armor, their runeblades glowing with malevolent energy. Their leader stood apart, his voice sharp and commanding. Lexick's breath caught as she recognized him: Thassarian, once a proud Alliance soldier. Lore whispered of his death in Northrend, alongside Prince Arthas. Now, his eyes burned blue, his humanity stripped away.
One of the first death knights, she realized, dread pooling in her gut. If Thassarian was here, Arthas—the Lich King himself—couldn't be far.
She strained to listen, catching fragments of their talk. "…Fordring… hiding at the chapel…" Thassarian's words sent a jolt through her. Tirion Fordring, the disgraced paladin, excommunicated yet alive when the Silver Hand fell. The pieces clicked: Acherus, the death knights, the relentless push—it was a trap to draw out Fordring, the one man who could rally a new holy order against the Scourge. Lexick's mind raced with a reckless thought:
If I could find Arthas, strike him down…
She gripped her sword, but her left hand faltered, trembling under the blade's weight. The plague was spreading, sapping her strength. The fantasy dissolved—she was no hero, just a doomed gnome with a few hours left.
A twig snapped. A stray ghoul, its flesh sloughing off, lunged from the shadows. Lexick's blade flashed, splitting its skull before it could scream. But the noise drew eyes. Thassarian's head turned, his death knights tensing. Thinking fast, Lexick hurled her makeshift bomb. It arced through the air, landing among the group with a deafening boom. Flames erupted, laced with the holy water's searing light. Death knights roared in agony, some collapsing as the blessed liquid burned through their armor. Thassarian, unscathed, shielded his face, his gaze locking onto the fleeing gnome at the last second.
"Find her!" he bellowed, his voice cold as frost. His troops surged forward, but he raised a hand, halting them. "Don't kill her. A lone soldier this deep in the Plaguelands is either a fool or a threat." His lips curled into a grim smile. "Find her and bring her before our master."
Lexick ran, her boots sinking into the mire. Her heart hammered, not just from exertion but from the weight of Thassarian's words. The Lich King. She'd drawn his attention, and now the hunter had become the hunted. Her left arm burned, the plague's grip tightening, but she clutched her swords tighter.
Not yet, she thought, eyes fixed on Stratholme's distant spires. I'm not done fighting.