World of Warcraft®

The way scent triggers visceral memory is a kind of magic in itself, greater than science can fully explain. This is what strikes when one opens the black envelope. How did it arrive and when? It has been awaiting you in a place you couldn't have missed--but did--until that very moment.

A dark mark. Do your hands tremble as you open it? Are there others out there sharing in that sharp intake of breath as the scent slices through the air like a silvered blade? What it summons, that scent, is your greatest fear, the memory of your most devastating loss. And in this world seemingly crafted for no nobler purpose than war--endless, relentless war--no soul is spared from mourning.

When your heart has settled, if your heart ever settles, there are only two lines inked in midnight upon crisp white parchment.

Change is upon us.
Who will you march with?

There is exquisite sorcery at work here, so much so that a time and place is imprinted upon your mind with the clarity of a great tolling bell. You close the black envelope. You await the coming hour.

--

[ OOC: ]

Hello, CC and SoE friends! I hope you're as excited about this merger as I am! A few of us on CC are planning a PARTAY to celebrate! I wanted to create a pretty open-ended reason for our characters to gather and mingle their wee hearts out. If your character doesn't have a heart, that's okay, too! Forsaken and DK's are totes welcome as this shindig will be cross-faction! So, in sum:

Who: Everyone and their mothers! Even you, you dirty stinkin' Hordies!
What: Partaaaaaay!
Where: Dalaran, The Ledgerman Lodge
When: Thursday, August 21st, 6pm PST

Hope to see you there!

I will be there!

You had me ensnared by the intense visions brought to mind by your words.

And then I laughed out of my chair.

<3 Thanks Khromie. You're better than Prozac!

*grunts* <I am up for it. SHould be able to make it.>

Much invite! Many excitement! Such going to be there! Wow!

Old hands shrouded with a thin veneer of ethereal shadow drew near the envelope. They paused, hesitant to touch the ominous object. Where did this... did this... ?

Cail turned his head. A cursory glance reaffirmed what he already knew. He was a lone. No one had been in or out of the guest room in Genevra's Lakeshire home all day. If they had, he would have known.

How did this... ?

A cold chill ran up his spine. His chest tightened. Old hands lightly touched the edges of the envelope, lifting the threatening pouch with measured concern and calculated care. Nothing but a dark mark.
As a surgeon would open a patient, so too did his practiced steady fingers find his clean fish knife and as it were a scalpel the wildly bearded old gnome slid the blade under the flap.

A twist and the seal popped. Ginger fingers twisted the blade further, pushing the flap open to reveal its secret. A crisp white parchment gleamed back at him. No powdery substance. No indication of foul sorcery, though he wouldn't know if there had been, not being very magically inclined. No mechanical boobytrap of any sort.

Feeling the fool, Cail inhaled deeply. The polished fishing knife pinged sharply as it fell to the floor. The sinister envelope drifted as a perilous feather, twisting and tumbling...

A scent. A scent so familiar. It conjured images too ghastly, too horrific to recount. Flashes of old memories long buried. Buried so deep they had been all but forgotten.

... twisting...

The relaxing breath was anything but. It was as a thinly honed silver blade piercing his mind. With it the pain reawakened. Rivulets of a tear rolled over each cheek. The droplets disappearing within grayed bristles.

... tumbling...

Muscles contracted. Pain jabbed his shoulder. A weak hand clenched his chest.

... twisting...
... tumbling...

A soft thud.

((Welp, Cail just had a heart attack.))

(( That was pretty intense, from the both of you - I'd never seen Khromie write that way and that was a very impressive continuation Cail!! ))

((Khromie killed Cail!! MEDIC!))

That wasn't possible. There was no one else here. It was too early for Neir to be arriving. No one had gotten past his security wards. So how in the hell did this letter show up on his table?! It hadn't been there five minutes ago. He'd just cleared it off.

Cautiously, Jon picked up the black envelope. He turns it over in his hands. Nothing. Just a black envelope. The seal was unfamiliar, but made him uneasy. So uneasy, in fact, that Jon dropped the letter as the unease triggered an involuntary shift into his worgen form. Shaking his head, he bent down to pick up the letter again, deciding to see what in the world it was about.

Using a claw to break the seal and open the letter, he noticed a faint scent that did not remain faint for long. Opening the letter to read the cryptic message, the scent grew heavy, intense. It pierced his mind, drawing memories back to the forefront of his mind. Bad memories. Terrible memories. Memories of a time he'd hoped never to live through again.

Dropping the letter, Jon clutched both hands to his head and fell to his knees as his mind struggled against itself. Whoever had sent this letter would pay... but for now, Jon could only focus on one thing: rage. Rage of times gone by and beyond his control.

And then it was gone. As suddenly as it had arrived, the sensations fled, taking the memories and the rage they brought with them. Now Jon could only think of the time and place. That was where he'd get his answers. There, he'd find out who had sent this message. There, someone was going to pay.

The Dwarf sat, with a relaxed expression beneath the goggles and bushy, red mass stretching down past his navel.

A black envelope sat on his desk, on top of some abstract diagram and next to his booted feet. He knew what it was, and savored the familiar tone of the psychic message. It was almost a relief, and hoped his sanguine state would sustain him until...

Thirty minutes later, he was walking out of his Stormwind City office with his thermopneumatic rifle slung across his back and called to Thursarbanen, Pridescout of the Wintersabers.

One last ride...

((Just remember Khromie, you did this <3 ))

She pulled tight the buckles of her boots, the old leather whispering through the tarnished metal. The braces clicked against the polished oak floor, the strident sound reflecting her mood. Storm clouds had gathered on the horizon, mirroring the tempest residing in her mind.
Ketyru strode down the hall, past the empty rooms filled with dusty furniture. She checked the lock on her private room, and found it open. Alarmed, she pushed open the door. Candles of all colors, shapes and sizes lined the shelves and walls. Her father's totems were in their usual ring in the center of the room. A single, white feather rested between them.
And balanced on top...
Furious, she snatched the envelope away from her precious shrine. Rage surged through every fiber of her being at this desecration. Who would be so bold, and so hateful, as to violate her sanctum? If, when, she found out, she would make them pay.
Careful not to nick herself, Ketyru slid a nail under the seal and broke it.
Memories cascaded over her, their tidal force overcoming her mental barriers. She was forced to relive the moments she hated most. And the smell! Who would be so cruel as to taint parchment with the blend of scents required to make her tremble this way. Who knew her well enough to hurt her this way?
No one.
Not a living soul.
Tears fled down her cheeks unchecked as her legs gave out and she crashed to the floor. The screams of the dying, the bitter cold of Northrend. Evil, almost mechanical chattering filled her ears as she was forced to recall the Nerubians.
Worst of all, she could feel the warmth of the blood of those who had died protecting her.
It ran down her arms, between her fingers, under her armor. The blood of her real father, murdered by Human guards as he pushed her to freedom. Trystan, the brave young soldier from Northwatch who been killed...just for speaking to her. Ruun, the Tauren Shaman who had taken her in and called her daughter, stabbed in the back by his own people, because of her.
And the blood of the Orc who had tried to kill her...and she had set his living body ablaze.
Guilt tightened its filthy grip around her heart and she finally gave into the pain. It licked her insides like fire, but it was oh, so cold. Sharp as needles it pierced her from head to toe. She knew the pain wasn't physical, but it was real. So very, very real.
Throwing her head back, Ketyru screamed. The raspy, warbling cry echoed out into the gathering tension of sky and city. She threw the envelope across the room where it burst into flames. She raked her hands down her face, clawing at the tears and the shame tracked across her face. She abandoned herself to the primal hurt, calling out in a way only the Spirits could hear.
Her sobs shuddered to halt and her tears froze on her face. The embellished flames on her armor blazed to life. Fury was replaced by a distant pain, reason abandoned for vengeance. She would find whoever did this and make sure they knew exactly how she felt about it.
Right down to the core of their soul.

Who will you march with?

She would march with the dead.

Precious stood her ground, growling at the sudden appearance of the strange black envelope on the desk in Jataa's and Caytamar's home at the Drakglow compound. Jataa, who had been carefully sewing the beginnings of what would be her Bonding Gown, stood carefully up, and walked towards her little barking friend. "What is bothering you Pre-" Jataa stops as she eyes the black envelope. She hadn't seen any of the family all day, nor had Precious barked her usual greeting to any one approaching. That was not there this morning... Jataa thought as she slowly and cautiously picked up the letter. She turned it over in her hands a few times, even taking it outside the tent to take a better view of it in the sun. Seeing nothing, she preceded to open the letter, and frowned at its contents. "Change is upon us...What in the -" But her thought was cut off as her mind became filled with sudden emergence of memories lost in the crash of the Exodar.

Thud.

Jataa's curled into a ball as she if the soft grass of the ground, gripping her head...Her screams lost under the sounds of Precious barking frantically...and the family members of the Darkglow compound rushing to her, her beloved Caytamar, just ahead of the rest.

A voice intruded on the void he so lately sent himself into. A voice? Gondorin thought, his scattered mind pulling together again, exiting the place where his rage was diffused, that safe and empty maw into which he flung both his bestial worgen rage, as well as his unholy urges as an expatriate of the Scourge.

His eyes opened, glimmering blue necromantic energies lancing out from the arrested rot of his sockets. "So cold..." he said for a moment, unaware of where he was. "The warmth of life..." He shook his head, and the living world swam into focus around him. The dark, grave-chill walls of Acherus, the small anteroom he'd chosen for his personal office and retreat. A howling wind's grim echo reached in from the Plaguelands outside, having whorled its way through the fetid, nightmare-riddled hallways of the Ebon Hold.

He rose, his eyes flicking over to his armor and weapons, stowed with the closest a creature like him could come to "love" in a corner of his office. "There's blood to be set free..." he said softly. He hadn't spent long enough in his reverie to fully bring his murderous impulses under control. What had disturbed this Druidic ritual he'd learned at Tal'doren? It was for the good of Azeroth... the uncontrolled blight of cataclysmically murderous Death Knights could never be allowed again, and that dim, dark voice, somehow warmed with a faint shimmer of the Holy Light, that he would periodically hear pulling at him from the chill wastes of Northrend had gone silent.

Who am I? he asked himself for a moment. There's... a Lich King

"Gondorin Ragefang," he said softly as the last of his thoughts coalesced for him. The process had grown alarmingly slow, threatening to spin him recklessly into a torpor from which he might never awaken... or to burst the shackles the Tal'doren ceremony had placed on his doubly murderous undead worgen nature, and set free the killing machine that had once gleefully slaughtered all who stood in the way of the Scourge.

He opened the door to his office, the echoing clank of the door's shackle ricocheting off the diseased hallways. He looked down, seeing a black envelope. He didn't smell a presence's lingering remnant. He reached down, his glimmering blue eyes narrowing. "What is this?"

He stepped back in, setting the envelope down on his desk as he donned his armor, and caressed his trusted rune-encrusted sword with grim rapture. "Who would contact me here?" he asked aloud, answered only by faint screams echoing from elsewhere in the compromised Scourge fortress, the fleshsmiths of the Knights of the Ebon Blade eagerly working on their latest creations...

Walking along the dusty roads of Duskwood, alert for any sign of danger. Howling in the distance drew his attention. Worgen, wolves, or something even more sinister? Minutes passed before Thel was able to relax again. His mind drifting, to a moment shared with a colleague on the shores of a hidden lake in Stranglethorn. Suddenly stumbling, he noticed something in his pants. Something different, something that's never been there before. Pulling out the Black Envelope, Thel pondered. 'How did this get in my underwear?'

((I'd just like it known that I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING APPEARING IN THEL'S UNDERWEAR!))

[ You guys are all giant balls of amaze <333 ]

The sunset over the countryside that eve was particularly beautiful. Zephilyn had watched it from the battlements of Hearthglen. The reds and purples bled together and gradually tinged to a deep blue. She allowed herself to marvel at the simple beauty, earned perhaps by a hard day riding the roads of the Plaguelands and pushing the remnants of the Scourge back.

I really need to reline that shield. She thought to herself. The strap had come loose after receiving a blow from one of the huge plague abominations. As the last of the day's lght dwindled, she strode from the battlements to her workspace in the blacksmith's shop.

She always stored her tools in a small locked chest there. They tended to turn up missing or completely misarranged if she didn't- most likely out of the poor memory of an overburdened smith than any true malice. Still, as she bent and unlocked the lid to reach for her hammer and tongs, something was amiss.

Her eyes widened in confusion for there on top of her neatly stacked tools lay a black envelope, sealed with a simple seal. I didn't put this here? Who did? She turned the list of possible suspects over in her head and settled on one, smiling a glowing smile as her thoughts turned to him. He thinks he's devious, eh? I guessed him in one... Despite the lack of a Stormwind seal on the envelope or it's overall odd appearance, there was only one person she knew who might wish to arrange a surprise for her and might arrange it in just such a way.

She was wrong. She reached for the letter and the dread wave swept over her. So great was the swing in her emotions that she crumpled to the floor, unable to do anything but ride the dark tide. She closed her eyes trying to center herself but found she was not herself.

She was a young child again. Running through a swamp. The screams and cries of wounded, the horror of corpses of people she had known all her short life. Her father and mother ran alongside her. The battlecries grew closer. A loose rock caught her hoof and she sprawled facefirst on the ground. Rough hands picked her up and carried her, helpless. "I will not fail you child. I will not leave you." Father.

Then the dream changed. Instead of the swamp, there were crystals and smooth hallways. She was running still. But she saw again the last time she saw her father. This time she met his gaze and saw a tear trickle down his cheek. She screamed to him, tried to reach him. But she was helpless again. Impressed with this memory was a date and a place.

She tore herself away from the memory. She felt the rage burning in her heart. Standing quickly, if unsteadily, she snatched the note from the floor, crumpling it into a ball. You want me to be helpless? I will never be helpless again. You bring me the hells? The hells come with me. She pitched the envelope into the forge fire and watched it burn, every bit as hot as her temper. I will make your date. Whoever you are, you'd best hope you do not.

Belpha eyed the black envelope warily, just being in the same room as the thing set him on edge. The black parchment had seemingly appeared out of thing air. Belpha had been sleeping behind locked doors. When he’d awoken, he noticed the envelope on the floor, it’s color a stark contrast to the light stone floor of Aerie Peak. Belpha hadn’t heard a thing. The lock on the door remained in place. Belpha had asked the dwarves if they’d seen anyone suspicious about, but no one had. Such a simple thing, perhaps an innocuous letter, but something deep inside Belpha screamed that it wasn’t,. Belpha had known fear, but this was something different, It was a terror, the likes of which he hadn’t felt in decades.

Belpha had been afraid to pick it up. He’d sent one of his frogs to investigate it, The poor thing had given in to a fit of convulsions upon contact with the envelop, and now lay deathly still next to the envelope. No further investigation was needed. Belpha had already known, the letter was for him and him alone. Belpha took a deep breath and steeled himself. He took a step forward towards the envelope. A journey of a few feet took hours. Finally, Belpha approached the envelope, he knelt to the ground and grabbed it tentatively. No adverse effects, He breathed a sigh of relief, finally convincing himself that the letter was a normal one. Belpha wandered over to a desk, withdrawing a small dagger from a drawer. Sliding it under the flap of the envelope, the seal gave way. Belpha reached in and withdrew the letter. “Change is upon us. Who will you march with?” Belpha eyed the letter for a moment, then turned it over. Nothing there.

It was then that the smell hit him, It was a lovely aroma he couldn’t place at first. He closed his eyes and breathed in the smell. It was the smell of Draenor, his home, he smiled for a second, and then a face came to him, the youthful face of a draenei child, a face of a boy he’d long tried to forget, the face that found him in his sleep. Then there was a loud crunching noise. Belpha’s eye flew open, but he was no longer in Aerie Peak, He was on Azuremyst Isle, the sight before him was one he’d never forgotten. The sight of the crashed Exodar. He could hear the shouts again, the moans of the injured, the mournful cries of those who found their loved ones dead in the dirt. Belpha quickly shut his eyes again, trying to block it all out. The sounds faded out, all he could see was darkness, all that remained was the smell, but it was no longer the smell of the open plains of Nagrand. No, the smell had changed, It was no longer the smell of home. It was the smell of death. One last time, that face crossed his vision, and then came the laugh, the laugh he’d heard a thousand times before. The laugh he’d never hear again. And then everything went black, blissful nothingness consumed Belpha.

((oh my! These are all making my 4 word response so meager!))