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Tirisfal Glades.
Midnight.

Despite the warmth of the summer days and nights, a chill breeze rustled the trees. As the orc woman casually made her way east along the old road she smirked inwardly at the irony.

Tirisfal was dead. It had been for a long while now. Scant rays of moonlight filtered through the rain clouds overhead, illuminating the bones of a distant farmhouse. It wasn't difficult to imagine the life that was. The birds chirping. The farm animals baying in the distance. Now look at it. Some had marveled at how the ruins of their kingdom reflected the forsaken's ruined state of undeath. They were wrong. The crumbling stonewalls and rotting wooden roofs are the distraction. A lie. The true death lay in the lands.

Even in the darkness she could see much of the grass was still green, of a fashion. Many trees still maintained a full bow despite the rot and decay the infests this very soil. The land was their true mirror. It was beyond hope. Irredeemable. The breeze rustled the branches and swayed the tree tops in a mimic of life. A mockery of what once was.

The orc'ess breathed deeply the chill air, and smelt nothing. Nothing at all. If there was anything to smell it would be faint and feted this far into the glades.

It was along walk to her destination. Plenty of time for her to reminisce.

So much time passed on Draenor. To remember what once was. She was grateful there was no alternate version of her. She lamented that the child had passed in such an ignominious fashion, so unfitting an orc. Yet again, her choice to change her family and clan name proved wise...despite.

The reasons the orc woman had been drawn to Draenor in the first place fell to pieces to moment she landed on the other side of the portal. Only she couldn't see it. Blinded by her foolish hopes and desires, it took her time to see the truth of her own follies. Of the long life she'd wasted in bitterness, driven mad with anger. Forced to eek out a lonely paranoid existence in the Red and Black Mountains.

The orc woman sighed heavily. Bare feet softly slapping the cobbled stones of the road beneath her with each step.

That was then. This is now. She'd been convinced that perhaps Thrall had been right after all...to a fashion. Old prejudices died hard however. The mere thought of humans drew a bitter taste, and do it was with these forsaken. Strangely though, she had more in common with them than she'd first realized. It took the wisdom of Draenor for her to see it.

It's good to be ho... she paused the thought. She had no home. She was a wanderer. A nomad. As things should be. No, that wasn't entirely true either.

Modas il Toralar. This was her home now.

As the cool rains fell, Hagra Gorehand pushed back her hood and lifted her face to the skies. She found a comfortable open null roadside where to stop and sit for a time. Alone. In the darkness of the glades where all manner of twisted and deadly things crept in the shadows. An arc of lighting illuminated the clouds in the far distance. Its rumble reached her several seconds later. For the first time in a long while she allowed herself to grin.

She was home, and there was work to be done.

((There is much work to be done... I am pleased to have read this.))

There was an interesting correlation between shamanism and the craft of a warlock.

Hagra knelt with a fist full of salt. With a steady, practiced, motion she laid down a thick line.

In each case the practitioner conducted rituals in order to appease a powerful being or entity from another realm. If your offering is sufficient, then that being's power becomes your power.

The orc woman completed the pictograph. With a slow steady sweep she finished by enclosing it in a circle. Each line had been precisely measured to touch the line of the outer circle leaving no gap or warp.

There are a great deal more nuances to it, but this is its essence. The use of desecrated salts upon corrupted earth that was formerly the verdant forests of eastern Lordaeron, now known to many as the plague-lands.

Sitting just outside the circle at what might be considered the head of the pictograph, which measured several feet across, sat a crude stone altar. Thick black candles dripped their vile wax down one end. With a wave the candles ignited.

Her time on Draenor taught her to approach her craft differently than ever before. There was much more reverence now. Respect for the old ways. Respect for her ancestral ways.

Hagra set a stone bowl on the altar and placed within a pile of the salt she'd used to draw the circle and its lines. Atop she sprinkled a mixture of crushed herbs.

Granted, her work with fel magics and demons had long cut her off from her ancestral spirits. They want nothing to do with her, and that's just as well. She had never wanted them apart of her life, even from an early age. Paying tribute and respect was one thing, but best to let the dead be dead. Nearly everything changed the day she partook of the demon blood. Her sentiment did not.
"Let the ancestors rest. They're well enough without me." She'd told her father the day she'd left...

Slicing the palm of her hand with a blade, Hagra bled into the bowl while uttering her incantation.

The mixture within the bowl smoked. It melted together to produce a thick glowing paste that shimmered green. The thick lines of salt followed suit. Soon the entire circle glowed. The ground beneath the circle undulated. It's surface cracked and split open as a long skeletal arm reached out. Grabbing fists full of earth the arm eventually pulled the rest of it's desecrated bones to the surface. The lines of the spell circle painted over the figure, binding it in place.

"Hhhaaaaaaagg." The bones breathed harshly. Empty eye sockets turned up to the orc woman. Hagra returned an equally cold stare.

"Skull-crush." She muttered in her native orcish tongue. "What news do you bring me of the other side?"

The skeleton replied, teeth clapping and chattering in the eredun dialect. "[Bannis wanders and watches, as is his curse. Hears whispers. Voices from Ivory Tower. Tells him secrets.]"

Hagra scowled down at the chattering skeleton, betraying her impatience. "[Dorian is nearly returned.]"

The orc woman's eyes widen. "He's found one?" The skull nodded.

"[A shadow core. Young. Pure.]"

"Who's helping him?" She glared angrily over the altar. "Who has he found?"

"[A warlock. Young. Potent with fel-craft but lacking.]"

"Skilled." She grunted. "But not yet tempered." Hagra raise a hand to her chin in thought, folding her arms. She sensed an opportunity. "Tell me everything there is to know about this warlock."

Kneeling on the ground within the glowing binding circle, the skeleton leaned back and rested its hands on its bony thighs. "[Raven is the name she was given...]." And so it began telling the orc woman everything it knew.

Covered in a long thick cloak, the large skull adorned pauldrons of her station resting upon her shoulders, Hagra made her way along the road as the day fell into night. She had learned all she could from the oracle bones of Skull-Crush. Now it was time to leave these Eastern Plaguelands. Before her work could begin she would need certain resources. Resources in the form of allies.

The bone oracle knew not where to find her lost acquaintance. The forsaken Priestess of Shadow she regarded as Banshee. A name intended as derogatory which held no weight with the accused either way, and so it came to be a title. Of sorts. The orc warlock made her way through the various forsaken outposts and settlements throughout the Eastern and Western Plaguelands. A short passage through the Under City for questions, supplies, and to retrieve her mount yielded no results.

Upon the back of her Grinning Reaver she drifted over the trees to Andorhal then skittered along back roads south through the mountains into the Hinterlands. There she would seek out the forsaken research outpost. Surely there was one who knew of her.

Under cover of night, a hundred or more yards from the old troll village of Revantusk, a rectangular path of earth lay resting. Days prior it had been excavated. Not in an effort to find something, but with the purpose of returning something so that in turn it may be made whole and returned to this realm. At least, that's how the voodoo priest, witch doctor, shaman... troll had explained.

In truth, it really wasn't clear just what he was, only that he knew what he was doing. Supposedly. Probably.

The lithe troll danced in the darkness, illuminated by a single torch carried in his hand. The light of the burning flame danced across his mostly naked turquoise flesh. Painted from stooped head to wide toe in strange markings and symbols he looked less troll and more bogey. Like a thing told to children at night to make them behave. His face hidden behind an intricate tiki mask, his pair of short bent tusks were displayed almost as if they were demonic weapons.

Yeyewata smadda yuutee. Yeyewata smadda yuutee. He repeated in time to his dance as he circled the patch of resting earth. Every so often he would pass a second figure. An orcess. She sat cross-legged at the foot of the grave. As with the troll witch doctor, as the torch passed over the orc woman its light illuminated her figure.

She sat denude of clothing, marked in a similar manner to the dancing troll. As the light passed briefly over her youthful skin, rippling with tight muscle, the drifting shadows betrayed age old scars. Markings that would forever follow her. The pale blue paint contrasted against her green orc flesh, catching the light in an eerie fashion that portrayed her much like the troll. A thing not entirely of this world.

The witch doctor worked himself into a frenzy with his dance. His chant became furious. Insistent. He commanded at the apex of his ritual, "Nyamanpo!" He quickly imbibed a liquid from a glass bottle sitting nearby and spat it into the flame, blowing a great fire into the air over the grave.

A still silence befell the area as if the whole world was shut off, and they'd departed to another realm entirely. The witch doctor, voodoo priest, knelt at the head of the grave site and planted the torch firmly into the earth. He passed a hand gently over the resting earth and muttered, "Atal'Bwonsamdi." And waited.

After a short time had passed little bits of the earth appeared to undulate. At this sight the troll began to chant in a soft voice beckoning with his arm, "Zuuuulfi. Zuuuulfi." Again and again. The undulating earth finally broke. Thing bony fingers clad in a leathery pale flesh pierced through. The fingers became a hand, and then there were two. The pair of hands reached outward as arms, grasping hold of the ground around them, Clawing, the pair of arms pulled forth from the resting earth a head and then a torso. The corpse, though desiccated and leathery, retained much of its finer features as it did in life. The died eyes opened to a new world. Her head turned, bones creaking, joints popping, as she strained to view her surroundings. The light did little to alleviate her deathly pallor.

A blind gaze turned to the light of the torch. "Zulfi." The troll called softly to the corpse. When she couldn't quite turn to look at the source of the voice, the corpse pulled the rest of itself from the grave and rolled to the side. Arms quaking, she pushed herself up to her knees and then again gazed at the voice. Her mouth slowly worked words to a weak raspy voice.

"Whhhoooo hhhhaaaaarrrrrree hhhyyyooooouuu?" She breathed. "Whhhhere. Whhhherrre hhhaaaam hhhhaaaiiii?" Sightless dead eyes blinked slowly. Painfully. Her head turned to the light of the torch.

"Zulfi aka'Samdi." The troll repeated. "Little witch. Welcome back. You been gone far too long a time."

Her dry tongue worked within a leathery mouth. "Whhy... caaan't...."

"You see?" He finished her sentence. She nodded slowly. "Dees no' be ya eyes, little witch. Dis no' be ya body. No' proper. Da'loa saw fit ta give ya anoda. Ya be need'in it, little witch." The troll lifted up his tiki mask, letting it rest atop his head. "Keep ya eyes on da light. Yer sight be back soon. Or later. Whenevar it chooses."

The troll pulled a different bottle to him and his long arms reached it across to weak corpse hands. Bony fingers wrapped around the tinted glass. "Drink. Drink ya fill. Dis elixir will help."

Thin leathery fingers found and pulled free the cork with some effort. She poured its contents into her mouth and savored its sensation for a long moment. When there was no more to be had she dropped the bottle and worked her lips again. Speech came a little easier this time around.

"What happened to me?" She breathed, speaking slowly with an even tone. "Where have I been?"

"Da void. Ya were trapped. No' dead. No' livin'. Linger'in an' lost. We were searchin', callin' for ya for many long days now when da loa answered wit' a sign. A long dead bird came back to da livin'. Di avatar of Samdi whispered what to do, but was no' pleased. In de end he be gettin' what he desire, so da baron approves. For now."

She blinked. "My eyes. They are a little less dry now." She blinked again, her head drifting back and forth. "My vision is beginning to return. What was that elixir?"

The troll chuckled. "Hiri'watha. Da bodies at da research station 'ere in da lands. Yar forsaken brudas, dey maybe helped some."

She slowly nodded, stretching her neck a little as she did. Gradually motion returned. With each moment it became easier to turn, bend, and flex. Strength too returned as the chemical preservatives did their work to lubricate the desiccated flesh. It was a compound she was very familiar with. One she knew would be very effect in time. Her senses too were returning, if gradually, though not completely.

"I need more elixir." She breathed. The more of it she took in the sooner she knew she would regain more functions. Sight being among the most important of them.

"...and you will get it." Another voice spoke from behind. It came low and harsh, almost as a growl. Slowly the corpse turned its body in its direction.

"That tone is familiar to me." She breathed dryly. "Though strange it comes from a youthful source."

In the dim flickering light of the distant torch a grin spread across the orcess' lips. "Welcome back Ainsley." Her grin faded and her serious tone returned.

"We've work to do."