World of Warcraft®

He awoke early as was his habit, stepping outside to greet the morning with the villagers in this cozy little fishing village, shielded from the frigid winds that blew around Neverest and the Temple of the White Tiger by the densely-packed mountains around the great peak. While most of his station back home would be horrified to imagine him - a Blood Knight Master, decorated veteran of the Outland and Northrend campaigns, and head of a noble house - sleeping in a simple village with "common folk", he preferred not to think in such...elitist tones. He had risen through the ranks for centuries to attain his status...and never forgot that it was humility before the Light, and dedication to serving the people - from the lowest commoner to the High King himself...and later on, the Regent - that brought him there.

The thought kept going through his mind: The war is over. Garrosh is in chains, and Vol'jin - wise, humble Vol'jin, fiercely loyal to Thrall, hoping he would come back - is now the Warchief. Now, perhaps, there will be peace at last...but not soon enough. He thought of the Sha taint that covered the Kun-Lai plains, the Jade Forest, most of western Pandaria, and - most disgustingly - the Vale, the latter act initiated by Garrosh himself. It reminded him of when the Scourge had marched to the Sunwell, leaving the Dead Scar that - even a decade later - remained forever seared into the living "flesh" of Quel'Thalas. The Lich King had gotten what was coming to him, just as Garrosh had - but, just as it had been here, it had come at tremendous cost. So many dead...

Eight months, it had been. Eight months since that final, gruelling battle on the wind-blasted summit of Neverest. He had been knocked out early on, but remembered the last thing he had seen as if it had been only moments before. A draenic warhammer, charged with Light; a priest's staff kept as a mockery, darkened with foul powers. The Storm and the Dark Father, human and Forsaken, student and master, raging against one another in one final battle. And the Storm had triumphed. Barely.

He remembered watching as the Forsaken priest's body was burnt on a pyre at the base camp below the summit, commemorating what he had been, as opposed to what he had become. "The end, at last, Saavedro," he had said to his comrade.

Saavedro had turned with a sad smile. "And a new beginning, Taeril'hane," he had replied. "The Storm has passed." Then he had walked away - and the great hammer had been left lying on the ground next to the pyre. And he had understood then that he would probably not see Saavedro again. And in eight months, he hadn't.

As grateful as he was that the senseless killing was hopefully over now, Taeril'hane Ketiron knew from personal experience that the peace would be fleeting, because it always had been. A few months, a year at most, and the killing would begin anew on some other distant battlefield, far from home. The Regent had chosen to have Quel'Thalas remain within the Horde, now that Garrosh was gone - and the sin'dorei would answer the new Warchief's call, should it come. And, part of him knew, it would. Those who had violated Garrosh's edicts and maintained friendships on the "other side" would be forced into another pointless conflict, and the blood would flow anew.

Sighing, Ketiron sat on the shoreline and watched the sea ebb and flow, just as the tides of war did...and wondering if his own friend from the "other side" would return, as he had after Arthas, and again after Deathwing. And if so, would he stand as a friend still...or as something else?

Curling his lip in a sneer as he stood on the heights below Mount Hyjal, overlooking Winterspring, Rakeri Sputterspark shook his head as his zoom-lens goggles focused on the hot springs near the entrance to Timbermaw Hold, where Genevra was holding her little shindig. "Damn hypocrite," he muttered to himself in Gnomish. He had taken to speaking his mother tongue in the presence of others, believing - as some elves did - that Common was too...well, common. "Give them hope where there is none, playing with their emotions, and claiming it's 'the spirit of the season'...yes, season of giving, while your Church hoards all the gold in Stormwind."

Unlike Ketiron, who believed that now, maybe, there would be an end to the war, Rakeri knew that it would not be that easy...with Proudmoore having flipped her lid after Theramore and now practically begging for blood, it was only a matter of time. He found it amusing that the new Warchief, member of a particularly sadistic race, was more civil than the "civilized" humans. Then again, they were all clods, as far as he was concerned. Empires rise and fall, he reassured himself, but the superior brains endure.

Focusing back on Genevra's little party, it bothered him that even one who was well-known for preaching openly that all races were inferior to gnomes was practically in this human...whelp's pocket. He had left Northshire, disgusted, when she started yammering about "the spirit of the season", and he had blasted her for being too long among humans and picking up their bad habits.

In the woods near Timbermaw's entrance, he saw something...familiar. His eyes widened behind his lenses as he zoomed in "He's dead," he whispered to himself...but as the lenses came into focus, he saw that while the attire was very similar, the posture of the man wearing it was straighter, no signs of deterioration in his robes. He seemed very intent on the scene below him...then he looked up, directly at Rakeri, and gave a slight nod.

Rakeri pulled his goggles down around his neck, frowning. It could not be the same man - it was clear that the robed, masked man was human. But who was he? And how had he looked up so far away and seen the gnome on the heights - or was it just coincidence? "No such thing as coincidence," he muttered. He pulled his goggles back up and looked over again...but the man was gone.

Now he was thoroughly spooked...stepping to the controls of his flying machine, he looked down to see his gloved hands shaking, and not from the cold. Then his arrogant sneer reasserted itself, calming his nerves. "Bah." He shook his head. "Foolish idea, scared of a human. Hmph!" Yet, as he took to the skies, he was not sure who he was trying to convince...

So little had changed about this place since he had been here last, except that the mark left by Deathwing in the Valley of Heroes was nowhere to be seen. That, at least, was something. And the Cathedral...just as it was when he left, and no one inside had recognized him. And, even though he had - in a roundabout way - mentioned the man he was before, neither had any of the people he had known as that man.

Which was probably for the better. Many of them, the more pious in particular, would not understand what he had done, and why he had chosen the name he had. In the ancient tongue, his name meant "forsaken" - not in the sense of the undead who held Lordaeron, but in the sense that he had forsaken who he had been to be what he was now. Ironically, it had been the name of a Forsaken death knight...a man who had given him a glimpse of sorts into his future. A future of shadows. The dead man had been him, if roles had changed, if he had not been far away from home when the Scourge came. A little trick of fate played by a lunatic gnome's tinkering...an event he remembered very vividly.

What had he been? Before this, he had been a holy warrior, a servant of the Light who had fought in many campaigns in recent years - Blackrock Mountain, Ahn'Qiraj, Outland, Northrend, the Elemental Planes...but that man had died in Pandaria, as far as he (and anyone else, for that matter) was concerned. Now he was an unknown, a mystery.

Part of him wanted to keep it that way. He had done the incognito thing before, and it had not worked as well as he'd hoped; this would make it far easier. But there was one conscientious voice in his soul that told him he was being a fool, and that he could not deny who he had been - and what he had done. He had acted rightly, he believed, but the nature of his action would earn him scorn from the pious and closed-minded. One person in particular, who had done something similar before.

But he had an advantage, he reminded himself: He had done this willingly, and with full knowledge of what he was doing. Though he had destroyed the body, the soul - and all its powers - remained. He had cast the soul to the winds, and taken the powers himself...there had been no other way. Though he was still a man of Light, a healer at heart...he was now something else, too. A shadow of himself, to coin a phrase. He smiled tightly to himself at the thought.

They will need to know sooner or later, he thought. For now...let it be later.

The tale had begun spreading, word circulating in Ironforge and beyond of a wandering Lordaeronian priest who had told a fantastical tale of "the Storm and the Dark Father" to Sepha Gentyl's weekly gathering, with details only an eyewitness would have been able to give, and - as far as Ketiron knew - he was the only one who remained. The Blood Knight Master, not known for being spooked by such mumbo-jumbo, actually took to listening intently to the rumors, and the descriptions of the man - that he looked like he had been a warrior, a man who now carried a dark burden. So far, this "Father Shankolin" had been seen in Stormwind, Ironforge, at Northshire Abbey, and the sightings had begun during the Feast of Winter Veil, which ended tomorrow.

Could it be him?

The name had rung a bell in his mind, and thus he had returned to Silvermoon, to the private libraries of House Whitehair - his wife's family, now subsumed within his own by mutual consent with her during the war in Pandaria. They had called their estate "the Joint Houses of Ketiron and Whitehair", to uphold the history of the elder house, which had once sat on the Council, but also acknowledging Taeril'hane's primacy. After a time, Areinnye had just gone with his name - "for simplification's sake," she had said nonchalantly, but he knew his spouse well enough to realize that the losses sustained by the House Guard forces who'd joined the army in Krasarang, those killed in Proudmoore's purge of Dalaran (including Lord Kel'theris, her grandfather), and those who had followed Lor'themar to Lei Shen's island, had affected her deeply. She believed that her old family was gone - and that she would look to the future with her husband and their son.

"My lord," a young ranger - one of Areinnye's students, Ketiron guessed - stood at attention. "Lady Areinnye located the tome you requested. She awaits you in the study."

"Thank you." Entering the small study, he set his massive battleaxe against a bookshelf and walked over to where his wife had an open book on a nearby table. It was one of her grandfather's journals, written in the flowing Thalassian script. "Shankolin Blightpath, Forsaken death knight," she read. "Believed to have been the result of a time alteration, in which subject died and was raised as Scourge, then Forsaken, during the fall of Lordaeron, and later became a death knight of Acherus. Intervention by bronze dragonflight resulted in bringing subject to 'proper' timeline, where he aligned with orcish warlock known as 'the Corruptor'. Defeated by Master Ordevaas Portalseeker, lord of House Whitehair, in the Court of Bones at the gates of Icecrown Citadel, in a combat that also cost the Head of House his life."

"Surprisingly analytical for a man speaking about the death of his son, and the monster who had slain him - a monster who was a dark shadow of a true friend." Ketiron was troubled as he sat across from his wife. "I am one of only three people who could have known all that happened that day on Neverest, Arie - one of them is dead, and the other has not been seen since."

Areinnye gazed at him silently for a moment before she asked, "Do you believe it could be him? The real him this time? They share the name, but scholars study the old tongues all the time. Some in the nobility still speak old High Darnassian, after all."

Ketiron nodded in agreement. "It could be a coincidence, but...I am not so sure. Every fiber of my soul tells me this was meant to be."

"Do you think they know?"

"If they don't, someone suspects. But who could we ask? I have not had opportunity to speak to Stoneheardt or Vendross in months. All of our focus on this damned war, and cleaning up the mess afterwards." Ketiron stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I will see if I can still get communications through - though Varian's troops are liable to kill a courier before they get halfway to their destination."

"Kel'theris did leave us a means," Areinnye pointed out...with a slight wink. The Master understood at once, and gave a slight nod in reply.

The library of the Temple of the Jade Serpent was empty, the scribes of Yu'lon having gone to sleep for the night. A perfect time to look up some tomes without worrying about Sha magic, or overzealous guardians. Besides, remaining out of sight was what gnomes excelled at - mainly because most people overlooked them. Quite literally.

Rakeri cautiously entered the library, having heard a rumor that an artifact recovered from a battle in Kun-Lai had been taken here - an artifact of dark magic that could increase his own powers tenfold. The artifact had been left in the protection of the temple guardians, but there weren't a whole lot of them left. The Sha of Doubt had seen to that. Yet as he entered the dim library, he couldn't help but feel a slight shiver - it was a lot darker in here than even a hall like this at twilight should be...

"Good evening, Professor."

Rakeri froze on the spot at the sound of that voice. "No," he whispered, as he turned to see the man standing there. "It can't be..."

"Still up to your usual deviltry, I see. Not enough to belittle Genevra and her inner circle?" The man stepped into a shaft of moonlight from the open entryway leading to the ramp that went back into the main courtyard. He was attired in richly patterned robes of pandaren design, quite luxurious compared to Rakeri's own robes, which looked more like those of a roving mage. He carried a tarnished staff with the symbol of the Church of Light at its head strapped to his back, and a dagger with an ethereal blade at his hip. "You are utterly predictable, Professor. Like a bloodhound to a fresh kill, you come at the slightest rumor of dark magic."

Rakeri recognized the blade - he had seen it worn at the hip of its previous bearer, a man a lot...deader than the one who stood before him now. "You did survive."

"Yes...and no," the human replied. "I crushed his body against the mountain peak, and burned the remnants at the basecamp below the summit, scattering his ashes to the four winds. He will not be coming back - no power wielded by him or his Dark Lady can change that. Not even the Lich King could have restored him."

"But his powers - his essence...it would have lingered. Someone would have been --" The warlock looked up at the man, chuckling darkly. "But you couldn't allow that, could you? You destroyed him, body and soul, leaving nothing to be used again."

The human smiled, a bit sadly. "Not exactly." His form took on a much...darker hue, obscuring his features. Rakeri's fel-green eyes went wide with fear. "You are right. I could not allow another to take his powers and use them to inflict evil. Certainly not a greedy toad like you, always thirsting for more than he can take. So I destroyed his mind, scattering his very essence to the winds with his ashes...and took his powers as my own. Light and Shadow, combined within one vessel. That is why I am Shankolin; why I am forsaken. Not in the undead sense, but in the spiritual sense. I have sacrificed everything; the man I was, what I did as that man, everything I believed...all cast aside, to do what had to be done."

"Then this was all a setup. You want me." Rakeri's lip curled up in a sneer, though inwardly he was quivering. That much power in a man who had good reason to hate him...he hoped there was still a shred of the puritanical prig he used to be. "You never would, you coward. You'd never kill me in cold blood. And think about what Genevra will say if she could see you now, having given your soul to the darkness so willingly. You were so quick to condemn her when she wrestled with the Shadow; how do you think she will see you?"

Shankolin was silent; the warlock had struck a nerve. "I will cross that bridge as I come to it, Professor," he said at last. "Perhaps, if I can properly explain my reasons, she will understand...and, Light willing, she will forgive." The shadows around him faded. "That leaves me with the matter of what to do with you. I will not kill you in cold blood, you're right about that...because I leave such dishonorable tactics to selfish slime like you. So I will leave you with a warning, warlock: Stay away from her, and those who serve her. Whatever you're up to...pray you never have to answer to me."

He stepped out of the moonlight and into the shadows of the building. Slipping on his IR goggles, Rakeri looked around and could see he was gone. And he had to admit, he had not been afraid of the man before...but he was now.

Esher Riesstiu was what he liked to call "angel-born" - one of the new wave of Forsaken raised by the val'kyr during the Cataclysm, as part of an effort by Sylvanas to ensure her people's continued existence. Four val'kyr had been slain during the wars that followed - three sacrificing themselves to raise Sylvanas after the treachery of Lord Vincent Godfrey, and one more killed by Alliance forces in Andorhal. But there were still others, who raised the corpses of the dead - freshly killed or exhumed from graveyards all over Lordaeron - to serve the Dark Lady for eternity.

Riesstiu himself had been a travelling mage of the Kirin Tor, who found himself cursed by fate when he was recalled to Dalaran just before Archimonde returned to the world, a decade or so earlier; he had been crushed by falling masonry as the eredar demonlord had brought the great spires crashing down. He'd been buried in a mass grave by Garithos' men after they reclaimed the city - fortunately for him, seeing as most corpses would have been burned if they had shown signs of plague. He still was not sure if it was sheer luck, something in the soil, or the fact he'd had twenty other corpses piled on top of his own, but he came out of it in one piece - more or less.

Originally thinking of going back to the mage arts as he had done in life, he had decided to take up demonology out of sheer curiosity when given the libram of the Corruptor - as well as the huge runic scythe used by the orc warlock as his battlestaff, following in the Kralnoric tradition - by his spiritual mentor, Sekhesmet of Stratholme. That had been nearly...two years ago, give or take. He had more or less accepted what he was, both physically and magically, but he knew he had to take care - for there were plenty who didn't, especially in the lands he now travelled.

Riesstiu stood at the prow of a boat as it made its way through the hidden passage from the Veiled Stair. As the boat left the tunnel, his gaze went northwest, towards the monumental peak of Mount Neverest, where Sekhesmet had met his end in battle against his former student, Saavedro. Riesstiu had not displayed any feelings of grief or vengeance on hearing of Sekhesmet's demise...in fact, he privately wondered why it had taken so long, given that (for all that he was an intelligent and well-informed man) Sekhesmet was a sadist and a raving lunatic.

Now that curiosity had led Riesstiu to Kun-Lai, preparing to make the journey to the summit and see what he could discover of the priest's fate. He had heard the rumors pertaining to the mysterious Father Shankolin, and was also curious to know about his connection to the whole mess. Not that he had any real stake in any of this - it was just something to know, information to gather.

And to Riesstiu, information was power, far more so than any spell or weapon.

Shankolin emerged from the tunnel at Whispercloud Rise, a hot air balloon landing platform built high above Zouchin Province, connecting to the fishing village down below. He knew that Ketiron maintained a residence in the village, often coming here to escape the pressures of his "noble duty" in Silvermoon. But as he emerged from the mountain, he could not shake the feeling he was being watched...and a loud clank of metal setting down on the stone indicated he was right. Taking his shadow-form, he turned, seeing a construct taller than a grown tauren...a goblin machine, but with some modifications that indicated gnomish tinkering. That had to mean only one thing. "Professor Sputterspark," he said with a polite nodding of his head. "How can I help you?"

"You think you're so clever. Making nice with that stupid girl at my expense." The armored canopy on top of the monstrous machine opened to reveal the warlock, wearing ornate shadow-infused robes and a pair of protective goggles; one hand on the controls, the other holding his elementium-infused staff. Shankolin immediately became worried, as he felt no sign of mockery or sadism in the gnome's demeanor: only cold, vengeful anger. "It would have made your inevitable demise all the much sweeter to know just how alone you truly were. To beg like a dog for her mercy, only to be denied...but of course, she did not act as expected."

"Genevra has grown a great deal," the priest replied; he was just as surprised at Genevra's reaction as the professor. "It is a shame you have not. An intellect such as yours could be applied to far greater means than petty jealousy."

"Petty? PETTY?!" Rakeri pushed a button at his control console, and his golem's left arm caught the priest in its grip. "Is it petty to expect to be treated as something other than a 'lowly gnome' by you arrogant, condescending humans? Is it petty to expect not to be judged because I choose to employ arts you call 'evil'?" He paused, and a cold smile curved his lips. "You share my expectations as well, do you not? You're a shadow priest now. You're the same kind of 'heretic' as Sekhesmet, only with less visible rot...and your path will go right down the same road his did. As Genevra's nearly did, before her lackeys interfered. Because you're weak like he was. You use the power, but you allow it to master you, rather than you mastering it, as I do!"

Shankolin stared at him solemnly for a moment...then broke out in laughter. "I take back my compliments on your intelligence, Professor. You're an idiot."

Rage suffused Rakeri's face. "Is that so? Well then, perhaps you won't be so inclined to laugh at me when I slice you up and smoke you like jerky, and send you back to Genevra in a zip-locked bag - before I pay her and her precious Daisy a visit, and do the same to THEM." The other arm raised to carry out that threat. "Goodbye, Saavedro. Meet your master...in Hell!"

Before either of them could blink, a flashing scythe blade sliced through the hand carrying Shankolin in its grip, and a swordblade through the other. Reeling back, Rakeri activated the rotors and retro-rockets, hovering to see what was going on. "How dare you! This is none of your --" He raised his goggles to see with his own eyes. It was a Forsaken with an unruly mop of hair and deep blue pandaren travelling robes...carrying a libram at his belt and a scythe-like staff in his hand that Rakeri knew well. The blood elf who had given him the "Feltouched Recursive" in Ulduar had been the apprentice of the previous owners of those items. Standing at his side, resplendent in white gold armor contrasted by the black of his cloak and tabard, was Taeril'hane Ketiron, a sin'dorei warblade in his hand.

"Back away, Sputterspark, or I send you back to the abyss that spawned you," the Blood Knight Master snapped.

Rakeri lowered his goggles, shaking with rage. "This is NOT over, Saavedro. You and Genevra will learn the price of your mockery. You will beg me for mercy before long." The armored canopy snapped shut around the control cabin, and the machine rocketed off into the distance.

Ketiron watched him go until he was out of sight beyond the mountains, then turned to the Forsaken standing next to him. "I've seen you before," he said. "You've been to Silvermoon."

The Forsaken nodded. "Esher Riesstiu, Lord Ketiron. I've come searching for...information. And I think we've both found it." He nodded to Shankolin, who had come to his feet after disentangling himself from the severed machine-hand and casting it aside.

Ketiron sheathed his sword on his back and approached the shadowed man, reaching out to gently grasp his arm, as if trying to convince himself. "Is it you?" he whispered.

Shankolin bowed his head as the shadow faded. "Sinu a'manore, Taeril'hane."

Ketiron reeled, feeling both relief and anger at the same time. "Saavedro...why?"

"It's...a long story."

Yatiri Stormwatcher thought to step through the portal from Stormwind to Paw'don Village, return to his duties to the Shado-Pan, leave the humans and their Alliance behind, and never look back. Never had he been more wrong.

He now sat in the Lucky Traveller Tavern in One Keg, the village in Kun-Lai near the road to the Shado-Pan Monastery. As Chiyo Mistpaw placed another plum wine in front of him, his mind went back to a meeting he'd had two days earlier, as he was making his way to said portal, near the Eastern Earthshrine...

----

I have seen enough. That was what went through his mind as he rode away from the Blue Recluse, making his way through the streets of Stormwind - a path he had memorized a year or so earlier, when he had first arrived from Shen-zin Su with Aysa and the other Tushui adepts, and was looking for a good tavern. It had been a good time; Genevra and the Conclave had welcomed him, and he had taken the paladin Saavedro of Stratholme - a decade or so younger than him - under his wing to prepare for the campaign that was coming in Pandaria. Having not been to the land of his ancestors yet himself, Yatiri was prepared to help the Alliance stand against the Horde, who had been painted pretty much as the name implied - an endless tide of barbarian orcs, conniving undead, sadistic trolls...

Several months, Shado-Pan training, and seeing the results of the war had changed his mind. Not on the Horde; with a few individual exceptions, they were pretty much as described. But he had soured on the Alliance, too - particularly the humans. Their pride and hatred for orcs equalled that of the reverse, as far as he was concerned. Oh, they had reasons - he had seen what the Forsaken had done in Lordaeron, and witnessed the devastation of Theramore - but evil was not answered with more evil. The King, for all that he was trying to be "the better man", was no better than Garrosh, in his view. Lord Taran Zhu had warned both sides about the Sha - and both sides had ignored him. The devastation across Pandaria, particularly the Vale and the effects it would eventually have on the Valley of the Four Winds, was the result.

"If we had not acted against them, Shado-Pan, it would have been much worse - for you, for us, and for them."

Yatiri turned and found himself facing a human in pandaren-patterned robes. His green eyes glared from under his Shado-Pan headgear. "Begone, human. I have little desire to hear another one of your people's lectures."

"That is not what you told me when you arrived from the Wandering Isle, Yatiri. You wanted to know everything about us and our world back then."

The Shado-Pan Blackguard's eyes suddenly went wide, remembering who he had said such things to...and remembering that the man in question had supposedly died at Sekhesmet's hands months before. "Lord Saavedro?"

"Not anymore," he replied with a sad smile. "Pandaria has transformed me into something else, too. I am Father Shankolin now. I have...forsaken the man I was." His form briefly became shadowed, then normal again. "Sekhesmet will not harm anyone again. I have seen to that."

"I see." Yatiri stared at him. "And what do you want me to say to you, shadow priest? That I understand and am willing to work with you and your kind again? Because I don't, and I won't. I am going home to Pandaria, and I am staying there."

"So you say now," Shankolin replied with a slightly cryptic smile. "But you know as well as I do that your destiny - as a pandaren, as a Shado-Pan, and yes, as a member of the Alliance - does not begin or end with your devastated ancestral home. There is a world beyond that will need good people like you."

"I have seen the world beyond, and I have no desire to stand with people who cannot understand what has been wrought upon us."

Now it was Shankolin's turn to glare. "Remember where I come from, Yatiri. I understand all too well. Arthas and Garrosh did very much the same things for the sake of pride and love of their people and homeland, and it had similar results - for them, their people, their land, and the world beyond. It took good people to bring them down, but at great cost. Anything worth saving always has a price." He held out his hands. "But...I cannot stop you if you choose to shun us, Yatiri. Go then, to your monastery, and uphold your belief; that is your right. But remember that you are welcome here...even if you seem insistent on making yourself otherwise."

With a slight bow, the priest departed.

In his makeshift engineering lab in an abandoned Titan repository in the Storm Peaks, he raged, finally tossing aside the schematic he had been working on in utter frustration. Nothing was going as he hoped - and it had nothing to do with the improvements he was making to the goblin-designed, gnomish-improved mech he now rode/flew around in.

He'd made a point to retreat here after stockpiling beverages to help him think; before, he would usually go to the tavern and consult his schematics while sipping whiskey, something he'd tried to do at the Blue Recluse...for some reason, alcohol, tavern hubbub, and engineering seemed to mix. But two things spoiled that effect - firstly, those stupid Gilnean mutts had to take up space and keep looking at him whenever he thought aloud. Then there was the Ocheliad; Showdah and his little harem, thinking that people should kiss the ground he walked on - or the backside he sat on - clothed in an aura of fear, adoration, and respect that he most certainly did not deserve. No human did.

Even the humble ones expect gnomes to bend down and kiss their toes, he thought bitterly. We're at the bottom of the totem pole, with all the jokes about punting and making fun of our short stature and eccentricities. What kind of world do we live in where drunk hole-grubbers, uppity tree-huggers and drooling dog-people are considered "better" than us?

He slumped against the wall with a sigh as he opened a bottle of spirits and took just one swig from the bottle; he had no intention of drinking himself into a stupor, tempting though it may be. But having something burn other than his fel-tainted blood whenever he was angry usually helped his moods. Somewhat. They should have been at each other's throats - they SHOULD be now, he thought, musing on the revelation Saavedro (he refused to use the human's stupid new name, to remind himself of just what a scumbag the human truly was) had made to Genevra, just as he had known he would. What had shocked him was the reaction: She had forgiven him. When their roles had been reversed, months before, he looked at her like she'd committed a mortal sin. Then he goes and commits that mortal sin himself - willingly! - and expects everything to be just peachy...and it ended up being so!

And they dared to pronounce judgment on him - for what? Looking out for himself, being an independent thinker, looking at the world realistically, instead of Genevra's vision of a world of love and rainbows and prancing unicorns? The name of Rakeri Sputterspark, engineer, demonologist, and scribe, had not been based on delusions; he recognized the risks as well as the benefits in every action he took. Including, for instance, the brief alliance with Sekhesmet...which had not lasted, as the fool rotter had gone off the deep end, only to have Saavedro destroy him and take his powers. Powers that Rakeri wished he had been able to claim himself.

Picking up his discarded schematic, Rakeri tried to return to work on his improvements, and hoped maybe working would help him come up with an idea to rid himself of these meddlers...

"So...you have come, then. I did not think you had the courage, Saavedro."

"The Light has brought me here for this purpose, Sekhesmet," Saavedro replied, unlimbering the huge draenic warhammer from his back. "As it brings Taeril'hane; I feel him riding the winds to get here."

"Indeed. I feel him as well." Sekhesmet turned, shadow-tainted staff in hand, still bearing the sigil of the Church as a mockery of what he had once been. "It will not matter in the end. His part in this will be brief."

Saavedro held his hammer against one shoulder. "You know how this must end, Master."

Sekhesmet nodded. "Yes. Only one of us may leave this place. But whoever leaves will carry a burden from the other. And you may well vanquish me - but I will still win, in the end. I will make you - the Great Storm, who has stood before swarms of demons, Scourge, dragons, and Sha - into what you fear most of anything in this world."

"And that is?"

"Me," the High Priest replied, as he let out a burst of shadow magic. Saavedro rolled forward to duck the blast and twisted nimbly despite his armor and the painful movement of his joints from years of combat. His hammer glowing with pure Light energies, he swung overhead, the haft of the weapon becoming locked with Sekhesmet's staff.

Without warning, Sekhesmet loosened the lock as he flipped the staff into one hand, wrenching the hammer from Saavedro's grip. As the shadow priest moved to channel a spell, Saavedro grasped the staff with one hand, rearing back the other to strike. Surprisingly limber for his physical condition and the age he'd been at his death, the Forsaken priest rolled forward, somersaulting and twisting the staff in his grip, flipping Saavedro around and flat on his face - within reach of his fallen warhammer. Sensing movement from above, Sekhesmet looked up to see Ketiron leap from the nether drake that had carried him, slender warblade in hand; before the Blood Knight landed, Sekhesmet let loose a wave of shadow-force, knocking him into the statue of Ren Yun the Blind. Ketiron struck his head on the golden hand resting on the great keg, and he staggered forward before slumping into the snow.

That gave Saavedro the opening he needed. Grasping his hammer, he rolled back to his feet and made the swing, the crystalline head of the weapon impacting with Light-driven force into Sekhesmet's temple. Sekhesmet's face wore an expression of astonishment as the shape of his face began to collapse with his shattered skull. Embalming fluid, brain matter, and the dark gelatinous ooze that indicated Sha corruption leaked into the snow as the High Priest fell, twitching, to the ground.

Knees giving way, Saavedro leaned on his hammer as he knelt in the snow next to his former master. He would have to burn the corpse to prevent it from possibly being reanimated...which would also deny his soul a vessel. But even burnt and scattered to the winds, his powers would remain here where he had fallen...he had been an old man when he died to the Scourge, having accumulated a great deal of knowledge...knowledge that could be gained and used for evil. A certain gnome warlock would benefit greatly from it.

Saavedro gazed solemnly at Sekhesmet's corpse...and smiled grimly as he looked over at the unconscious Ketiron. "Light forgive me," he whispered, as he pushed his hammer aside, removed his gauntlets, and placed his hands on Sekhesmet's ruined face...

----

Shankolin awoke in a sweat, gasping...looking around, he saw he was back in Stormwind. Just as he had been a decade or so earlier, in much the same capacity, when the Scourge had taken Lordaeron. More and more, he was haunted by the decision he had made at Neverest's summit, returning to the priesthood...and carrying the dark burden he now bore. Sekhesmet's knowledge and experience had been a great benefit...but he realized that, in the end, his old mentor had been right. Just as Genevra had been driven mad by her own taste of darkness, he feared he would suffer the same fate, and become the same twisted sadist that Sekhesmet had been.

It was that death knight, he thought, remembering how Velenkayn had called him to deal with Ashlam's rantings, believing the priest to be more "controlled"; the Battlelord had admitted to wanting to slice the man to ribbons. His own darkness...stirs the embers of the darkness I carry. After leaving the sermon, he had gone home to meditate...but his worries had manifested anew. He had made the decision believing he would be a better "custodian" for Sekhesmet's powers than those who sought such power for their own purposes. He had done rightly - or so he had thought.

In moments like this, the question echoed anew in his thoughts: Have I made a serious mistake?