The Escape from Deatholme

Summary: Eeve's and Vivex's escape from their inprisonement in Deatholme, aided by their allies Illisara, Cyli and Nazrog. Written by Xondra, edited by Alathreal. Sorry for the horrible format, i can't get it any better then this :s

Captain Lesdan shivered and pulled his cloak tighter around him, the nights always seemed cold in this part of Quel'Thalas. The older warrior turned Blood Knight looked around the eerie remnants of what used to be part of Eversong Forest. This land had endured much, first the Dragons had burned it down then the Scourge had overrun it. His people now called it the Ghostlands, and Lesdan found the name fitting. The Sin'Dorei had worked hard over the years to end the Scourge threat and had succeeded for the most part. There were still some angry Highborn wraiths and the occasional ghoul was still spotted but, ever since they managed to kill the traitor Dar'Khan Drathir and his undead lieutenants it had been relatively calm. Even so this area still had a threatening feel about it. The captain had seen many battles in his long life, but the Ghostlands still made him jumpy. He half expected a spirit or monster to jump up at any moment when he was alone. Lesdan sighed and mounted his warhorse; it was time to leave Tranquillien and get to work. Today he would deal with real monsters in the old Scourge stronghold of Deatholme now turned into a prison for only the most vile of criminals. He rode south, through The Dead Scar that still made his heart ache with loss and anger after all this time, it didn't take long for him to spot the high walls of Deatholme. The old veteran let out a bitter laugh as he contemplated the irony of a Scourge stronghold becoming a prison, then rode on; it would still be some time before he would arrive.

The good captain wasn't the only one in the Ghostlands that evening, closer to the walls of the prison, hidden in the little growth that was still there stood an odd trio of people. One was a young Sin'Dorei priestess, her hair and make-up as black as her clothing; she seemed tense and the shadows around her felt it and reacted to it. They crawled up her legs, hand shaped Shadows that seemed to want to soothe her. The girls complete lack of reaction toward these dancing Shadows made it a sinister sight, but not as sinister as the female Forsaken, who stood slightly apart from the others. The smell of decay was strong on this one and even though she seemed bored her face was set into a wicked grin. The undead entertained herself by twirling a necklace with a small silver locket on it around her claw-like finger. Others would have worried that the moonlight reflecting off the silver might alert people to their presence but this Forsaken was a mistress of shadow in her own way. The last of the band was grim looking orc with a huge axe strapped to his back, his blue glowing eyes revealed him for the Death Knight that he was. They waited, it would soon be time.

Within Deatholme, in the most eastern building deep underground two Sin'Dorei sat in their prison cells. They knew the other pne was close even though they couldn't see through the magical wards that kept them locked in. One was a male, his raven hair mottled with dirt and blood; he sat cross-legged in the middle of his cell with his eyes closed. The female sat in a similar position in her own cell. They held so still and their breathing was so shallow that if any of the guards just outside their cells had bothered to look in they might have thought them both dead. The male, Vivex Felarorah, sighed and began writing.

Good and evil. That is how the world is divided. Things are either good, or they are evil. For the sentient races of Azeroth, that usually means that something that is different is evil, and something familiar is good. There are things that almost all consider evil. The Scourge and the Burning Legion being prime examples but, even these have followers and only rarely does a sentient being consider her or himself evil. So what is good and evil then? There are as many explanations as there are people on Azeroth but most seem to agree to the following; good is caring for the people around you, life, healing and community. Evil is caring for your own goals, destruction, pain and death. This is of course, very black and wh...

Vivex looked up from his writings to rub his eyes; his body was sore and covered in cold sweat. They had tortured him, brutally. The warlock had to smile at the skill shown, something he regretted right away as the small torture wounds around his mouth cracked painfully. His nails had been pulled out, his feet and hands broken and healed repeatedly and every inch of flesh on his body was covered in bruises, cuts and burns. The Blood Knights, who figured themselves champions of Silvermoon had not even flinched at the evil they had done to him. They considered him evil and apparently that meant that an act of evil against him was not actually “bad”. He couldn't help but laugh out loud at the hypocrisy of it all. He let the familiar chaos run through his mind, soothing him for a moment before he remembered why he had worked so hard on pushing it back. He flexed his pained fingers and continued to write.

..white and there are many variations. There are billions in fact, and they are all wrong. Good and evil are not real, they just don't exist. The only true
powers in the cosmos are Chaos and Order. To most people, Chaos is evil and Order is good. They are deluded. Order can be evil; all it cares about are the rules. It doesn't care if the rules are good or bad and everywhere there are rules there is someone making those rules. People, of all races and classes, can be corrupted. Those in power more easily so then others, people in power make the rules, so why do people think Order is good by default? Because it is secure. Chaos is unpredictable, everything that can happen will happen. That also means that beings of Chaos can do good, they wouldn't be very chaotic if they couldn't now would the..

A stab of pain in his head, it had been increasingly progressive as he had done his mind exercises. It made Vivex smile again; he was a creature of chaos, not one of evil. The Blood Knights had made sure he had no access to his demonic magic which had made his body weak as it had come to depend on the Fel as much as his people had come to depend on arcane magic. His prison cell was also warred against more mundane magic use, like teleportation and sendings, but the Blood Knights had made one mistake and that was to assume chaos is evil and warded only against that. Vivex welcomed the increasing pain in his head as he bent over the parchment.

..they? No my dear Blood Knights, in the future you may try a different approach. As a creature of Chaos I would have been just as likely to tell you
what you wanted to know as not, had you only asked. Today I may kill your loved ones; tomorrow I may save a town from destruction, chaos cannot be predicted! It pains me to tell you that your careful attempt to keep me locked in this, lovely, prison cell has failed. Unlike Order, Chaos can adapt. Once you find this writing in an empty cell you will probably wonder how I got out, and how I got my lovely Eeve out as well. If you truly understood Chaos you might wonder why I even bothered to get out, let alone free another but I doubt your order-corrupted minds could begin to imagine. I won't spoil it for you though, all I have is a word of advice: next time you capture a creature of chaos, kill it on sight for they cannot be contained.

Vivex finished his writing with an elaborate signature, it was almost time. He tossed the parchment in a corner and began to meditate. Normally his mediations would be nothing more than freeing his mind to think every chaotic thought it liked. This time, he cleared it. It went against his very nature and was the true cause of his cold sweat, pains and weak state. He had done it once before, cleverly bypassing all the wards in his room in the process to contact Eeve. She had suffered at the Knights as he had but she was strong. Together they had sent a message into the world, a message that would reach out and search for minds that are like theirs. To somebody that would free them. With his mind clear and ordered, he easily skipped through the wards. Even the most clever of them didn't recognize him for what he was. As he worked through them his body weakened even more. The strain of keeping this Order had already been almost too much for him last time and now it was even harder. He nearly lost it and the final and most deadly wards glimmered dangerously in his mind’s eye, like a watch dog that came to attention at a slight noise. A heartbeat later he was through, the ward still glimmering, but like the watch dog it was stupid and single minded. Eeve's mind engulfed him, soothing him. He took a moment to revel in Chaos, before forcing himself to order it again and urging Eeve to do the same. Together they scryed the lands outside the prison, lying in wait like a spider in her web. When they finally saw the form of a lone Blood Knight riding towards Deatholme they sent the message: it is time.

Illisara still sat in the shadow a tree, now long dead. She was bored after long hours of waiting and her mind had wondered off. The former elf turned Forsaken looked up at the moon and grinned wickedly as she remembered the first time she was contacted by these two elves. It had been the first time people of her former race had shown her an inch of acceptance. When The Dark Lady had freed them of the Lich Kings bonds she had tried to return to her people to be met with disgust, hate and even fear. Illisara had been thrown out because she was different and ironically that was what had truly changed her forever. She had grown to both love and hate her former people. She wanted to be an elf again and in her desperation she had started murdering many of her former race to use their skin to make a suit. She had been good at sewing in life and death had not changed that. The Forsaken had thought that the shirt would make her an elf again, it had not. In fact it had made the gap between her and her former people even wider. She didn't care anymore; all she wanted now was vengeance. Illisara spotted a lone guard on the wall and barely managed to suppress the urge to climb up, stalk and kill him. She normally would have acted on this whim, which was why the two elves had been able to contact her in the first place. They were elves and therefore she hated them, but they were also like her so she had decided to heed the call. She hadn't been the only one.
The Forsaken had followed the male's instructions to his secret lair in the unexplored tunnels of Undercity where she had met with an odd duo, even by her standards. One had been a female Blood Elf priestess that had obviously dabbled in shadow. She introduced herself as Cyli and Illisara had seen something in her eyes that she hadn't seen in a long time, hope. She was obviously a minion that couldn't function without her Master or Mistress. She had almost felt bad for the girl, as she understood the importance of having a goal in life or unlife. Serving someone worthy was a good way of doing that. Of course minions are also a great source of entertainment, and Illisara had enjoyed herself by making the priestess cringe as she spoke of how Deatholme was inescapable and that her beloved master would probably be dead by now. She had been stopped by a grumble from the orc present. The glowing eyes had giving him away for a Death Knight in seconds. He didn't even bother to introduce himself, but had only asked if they were planning on continuing this “childish banter” or if they would get to the point. A single minded meat shield... Illisara couldn't help but love the possibilities of that. Together she, Cyli and the Death Knight who she had later learned was named Nazrog had plotted and schemed. Today their plans would come to fruition. Illisara sighed and twirled the necklace around her bony finger once more. She wouldn't mind it if it happened sooner than later...then it came. The mental signal had come so suddenly she almost launched the necklace off her finger with a hard twirl. Illisara quickly put the necklace on, at last time for some fun.

Captain Lesdan rode on, his mount fuming at the pace it was forced to endure. Th hardened veteran didn't like spending much time in the Ghostlands alone. He had an uncomfortable feeling in his gut like something bad was going to happen tonight, even more so then on other nights here. When the young women ran up to him from the darkness he almost had a heart attack. She was crying, her soft voice almost whispering; “Please sir, help me I am lost”. His instincts told him that something was off, why would a young girl be in the Ghostlands alone, but he shrugged it away. He was a Knight and honor bound to protect those in need, besides, it was only a harmless, scared young girl what could she possibly do?
Cyli inwardly screamed at the Knights stupidity as she continued her teary-eyed confession about how she and her friends had disobeyed their parents and caretakers to go on an adventurous hike through the Ghostlands, her anger inside grew. This one looked like a veteran, are the followers of the Holy Light really too stupid to recognize a threat when it’s standing right in front of them? She made a show of praising the Knight as he offered to take her with him to the prison where one of the guards would take her back to Silvermoon. “Thank you good sir you are kind beyond reason!” Beyond reason indeed, Cyli thought with a sinister smile on her lips as the Knight helped her on to his mount, seating her in front of him. They rode much slower as the warhorse was already tired and wouldn't be able to run with the extra weight on its back, just as they had thought.

Nazrog and Illisara had no trouble keeping up to the Knight now that he was forced to move so slowly. Personally Illisara thought that Cyli's performance had been way over the top but the Knight seemed to buy it, idiot that he was. They ran on ahead until they came to a spot where they knew they would be in sight of the guards of Deatholme if they stepped out into the open. Illisara nodded at the grim orc and continued on to wait in the deepest shadows of the wall, close to the gates. Nazrog sighed and went to work in the meantime. He opened a small pouch on his belt and picked out some corpse dust that he had purchased earlier. He began chanting, letting tiny flecks of the dust spill from his fingers as he turned in a slow circle. When the circle was done he tapped into the necromantic magic that had become a part of him ever since his resurrection. He felt the ground stir below him as he continued his spell. Slowly but steadily the dead things that littered the ground in these lands began to stir. The orc rolled his eyes as the ghouls dramatically clawed their way to the surface. So cliché... He mentally forced them to be silent and once more waited now surrounded by a small army of undead.

Cyli suppressed the urge to turn around and smother the Knight as he preached to her the virtues of listening to her elders. The girl that was never happy almost was when she saw the walls of Deatholme rise before her. Soon step two of their plan would be set into motion. The elf still had little faith that their plan would actually work, a distraction was so overdone in her opinion but both Nazrog and Illisara had claimed that the oldest tricks in the book were the oldest for one reason only: they worked. “By the Light, what is that?” Captain Lesdan pointed towards the edge of the Scar and Cyli followed his gaze. As the dozen or so ghouls ran in their direction she faked distress and pretended to faint. The Knight was clearly getting old as he reacted too late to catch her. She fell painfully onto the ground and only barely managed to keep herself from making any pained sounds that would alert him to her deception. As the Knight jumped down from his mount to take a defensive stance over her she heard the sounds of alarm in the watch towers. Finally, she thought.

Illisara sneaked towards the gates as they opened slowly so the Knights could help their brother in arms. They were so distracted by the attack that it was almost too easy to sneak past them without being detected. A part of her regretted that no one spotted her, it would have been fun to fight some heavily armored Blood Knight guards but, alas it was not to be. She creeped from shadow to shadow making her way to the eastern ziggurat. She knew that there would be guards there to kill which pleased her. She kept close to the wall as she made her way up the small hill that the building was on. Two guards stood at the opening. They were both keeping an eye on the gate weak as they were they were probably worried about their comrades. Illisara would teach them the wisdom of being worried about themselves first before she would end them. She silently sneaked behind the guard on the right that was closest to the wall and was looking in the other direction. She counted, three and two, four and two, five and two, now! The elves that had called her had spent a lot of time memorizing the Knights schedules and according to them the patrolling guards would be out of visual range for about half a minute now. She hit the guard on the back of the head so hard he fell down before having time to scream, completely stunned. She leapt to the other one as he was turning to see what was going on stabbing her dagger into the back of his neck severing his spine before he had time to scream. She almost laughed as the body went limp and she pulled her dagger out. Illisara then casually walked to the first Knight and quickly cut his throat before he had time to recover. The murdering elated her and she imagined feeling her undead heart pounding excitingly in her chest. She walked into the building and like the plans had predicted there where two ways in. She knew that both narrow hallways would spiral back to end in the same room so left or right didn't really matter. She put one foot on the left wall and one on the right and climbed up quickly. The ceiling was high and she creeped through the hall like a fly on the wall. The forsaken had long ago learned that people hardly ever bothered to look up. When she came to the open door to the main chamber she peeked in. Four heavily armored Knights where sitting around a table talking in excited tones about the apparent attack. There were five more “doors” in this room. Each was a prison cell warded with powerful magic that she couldn't see through, not that it mattered, both the elves where here. The Knights present, even though distracted by their chatter where still too much for her to handle on her own safely. Time for the locket.
She almost giggled as she saw the startled faces of the guards as she dropped down form her hiding spot to land in the middle of the doorway. Right before they had time to react she opened the locket to release a cone of anti-magic. Such a lovely, lovely toy, this locket that they had found in the male elf's lair! The Knights, like all Blood elves, where still highly dependent on magic and the anti-magic zone that the locket created made them dizzy and disorientated. One of the females even bent over to vomit up her dinner. The real target had not been the guards however, but the wards. The anti-magic made them shimmer and fade. She quickly closed the locket and pocketed it. She was also dependent on the necromantic magic that created her and she wasn't about to find out what would happen if that magic was temporarily dispelled. Out of the left cell a grinning male Blood Elf appeared. He looked almost deadly ill and he was naked, which gave Illisara a good look at the torture he had endured. He rushed through a spell like only a master could and a fearsome Felguard appeared. Out of the right cell came a female elf. As the female looked up and Illisara looked straight into the face of...

“Eeve?” The female elf she knew as Eeve raised an eyebrow her naked form similarly cut and bruised like the male one. “I think you are mistaking me for someone else… my other personality perhaps? Aegwynn is the name, but you may call me Eeve, everybody does.” The female grinned and released a wave of magic, which froze the guards’ feet to the ground and accidentally or not also the feet of a male orc that had just realized his prison was open and had charged out. The other prisoners had either been too broken to try and escape or had reacted too late as the wards shimmered back into existence. The three schemers ran out of the room into the hall. Vivex positioned his Felguard in the doorway to slow down the guards once they freed themselves of the ice. Despite the need for haste Eeve grinned and made a show of hugging the male one shortly. “Ah Vivex my dear so good to see you I trust you've been well?” Vivex laughed; “couldn't have been better”. He grabbed her hand and then offered his other one to Illisara, who took it and grabbed the female's free hand to form a circle. Eeve began chanting as the sounds of breaking ice reached them. This was the part of the plan that was most subjected to luck and Illisara's grin couldn't have been wider as she heard the sound of battle behind her. The Felguard quickly fell and Eeve tried to rush through her spell as quickly as possible as the guards charged the group.

“One hundred and...” Cyli had lost count as the battle around her had reached its peak. Oh well, now was as good a time as any she figured. She leapt onto her feet and smiled sweetly at the startled Lesdan. The priestess took a deep breath and screamed, mixing in her shadow given magic to make the sound utterly terrifying. As the Knights around her ran away in terror she nimbly jumped over a fallen ghoul and tried to run away only to be grabbed by Lesdan. “Seems like I haven't been giving you enough credit dear captain” she hissed. His face was contorted by anger and he raised his sword to strike her down. “Stupid move” and just before the sword cut her head from her shoulders Cyli became an incorporeal black cloud. The ghouls jumped Lesdan as he screamed in frustration. Cyli limped when she became corporeal again. The knight’s sword had still wounded her slightly, must have been magical she thought with a shrug and ran.

Nazrog set the charge and ran. If the bomb was half as powerful as the Forsaken who had made it claimed to be he would want to be well away when it went off. Somehow he didn't think Illisara the type to exaggerating. As he reached the undead horses he had stolen some days before the bomb went off, blowing a hole in the wall big enough for the elves to crawl through. The undead horses didn't even startle at the sound, but Nazrog knew the guards would; now all he could do was hope that the timing was right. He walked to the hole as Cyli approached from the distance. Yup, it all came down to timing…

“BOOM!” The trio where forced to the ground by the shockwave as the explosives blew a hole in the wall right next to where they had managed to teleport. Deatholme itself was warded against teleporting, so they had no choice but to resort to crude methods like bombs. Vivex recovered first and quickly crawled through, followed by Eeve. Illisara took a moment to look back at the guards that came running from all directions. She dodged a crossbow bolt aimed at her from the wall and leaped through the hole herself. Cyli and Nazrog were waiting for them. The former fretting over Vivex a bit before he waved her attentions away. The newly escaped fugitives took only a moment to put on some crude robes before they mounted. Illisara looked back once more and grinned as she imagined the chaos and confusion in the prison. She could feel that this was the start of some great fun. And if not… well... she stroked her hand over her pocket for a moment, where the locket sat hidden and grinned as she rode into the night with her newly found companions.