World of Warcraft®

((Continued))

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Two and a half weeks earlier,

Failiani smirked while she walked up the walkway to the Terrace of Light in Shattrath City. She had just mailed the third letter with the fake location to her cousin, granted it was late but at least she had sent it. Where would the third letter take Coriani hopefully? Storm Peaks… specially K3, a goblin place Failiani had gone to nearly 5 months earlier. Granted, it didn’t occur to her that Coriani had a very good chance of recognizing the handwriting from the first two letters. Or there was a possibility that Faili’s diary that she dropped in the inn could be found by her cousin. Wait, a minute, one of her journals was missing?

She briefly checked her packs and shook her head. One of her diaries was in fact missing and she hoped it wasn’t the one that had writing inside of it. It had better been the one that was blank! Either way, Failiani hoped her cousin wouldn’t be able to find the missing journal if Cori in fact decided to go to Storm Peaks. Her cousin would easily be able to figure out she was the one writing the letters if that happened.

The blood elf sighed; she had lost a lot of belongings in the past months since she had left Silvermoon. She had a crate in Winterspring that she left due to being spooked by a rock giant. The crate had contained vials of non-lethal poison, many of her thieves’ tools and her valuable possession inside of it; her rag-toy lynx she named Lynxie. Failiani hoped one of the days she’d be able to go back and get it, presuming someone else hadn’t looted the crate already.

“Ow, I broke a nail!” a somewhat familiar male voice said.

The voice got Faili’s attention as she looked in the direction of where she heard it came from. Near the flightmaster, she saw a male Sin’dorei, caster by the looks of him. He had slightly tanned skin and his hair was brown and long. He could easily be mistaken as for a female if he didn’t have a goatee. The blood elf was also wearing a bright pink robe and looked familiar. Wait, pink robe? O fel, she had better vanish before he saw her. She quickly threw dust in the air and attempted to vanish out of sight; hoping she hadn’t been spotted by him. She was in trouble of being taken back to Silvermoon if that was the case.

Why had she fled the Sin’dorei male? That was simple; the blood elf was Lor’eth. Not, not her guardian. This Lor’eth was a mage and he had married one of Coriani’s relatives; her oldest sister that was still a high elf to be exact. They weren’t married anymore for obvious reasons. Even though it had been many years since he had last seen her; there was a good chance that he could recognize her and attempt to drag her back to Silvermoon.

There was a reason attempt was the word while the young rogue sneakily snuck into the Scryer Bank and hid behind the giant flower vases. If there was one thing she knew about this Lor’eth; it was he was a coward and had a fear of many things. Faili heard he was afraid of silithids, wolves, bears, foxes, anything that had to deal with the Scourge, Twilight Hammer cultists. She knew he was afraid of priests and warlocks and had heard rumors that he even had a fear of rogues. If that was the case, he’d be afraid of Failiani here.

She wasn’t going to take that chance, though as she suddenly noticed him near the entrance of the bank. Fel, he had probably spotted her if he had come here. He appeared like he had wanted to come inside the bank and look around but something seemed to be stopping him. Failiani had wondered why until she spotted his reason and almost laughed. There was a blond haired female human, warlock by the looks of the succubus nearby that happened to glared at Lor’eth. Naturally, the Sin’dorei mage cringed and backed away.

“Damn, I know that I wasn’t imagining things and had to seen Failiani, but where did she go? Maybe inside the bank but I’m not checking with that warlock there. I think I go someplace safe like Gadgetzan and sheep adventurers. That should be a much safer activity…” Lor’eth said in Thalassian before conjuring a spell that teleported him out of sight.

Failiani silently thanked the human warlock and her ‘pet’, if they hadn’t been here; Lor’eth most certainly came inside of the bank and found her. And she most definitely would have been dragged back to Silvermoon if that had happened. She needed to be more careful but for now; she seemed to be safe from being found and returned to Silvermoon by force.

(Continued.))

It was a good time to check to see if her auctions on the Auction House were doing. Luckily, that also happened to be located inside of the bank so she wouldn’t have to leave the building. Failiani got up from her hiding spot behind the vases and briefly walked up to the Auctioneer. A few minutes later, the young rogue walked down the pathway to get to the lower city. One of her auction; a scroll enchant for bracers had sold a few minutes earlier. However, she still would have to wait around an hour before she could pick up the money from it.

Based on the sky, it appeared to be late afternoon when Failiani looked up in the sky. However, it was kind of hard to tell what type it exactly was. She couldn’t do anything about that though as she collapsed on the ground and fell into a deep sleep. Failiani started to come around sometime later. The first thing she heard was rather heated argument happening between an orc and Sin’dorei female. Wait a minute, the blood elf female sounded very familiar to her... and no, it wasn’t Coriani.

“Why did you try to steal from her?” the Sin’dorei female said.

“I can steal from her, she appears to be a rogue. It’s only the right thing to do.” orc male commented.

“And you think stealing from a child, especially one that is an orphan is the right thing to do?”

“Wait, she is not a child…”

“Failiani is still one; trust me. I was friends with her late mother and happen to know when she was born.” the Sin’dorei female said, interrupting the orc. “Now I would suggest you give me her bag before I light you up on fire. And don’t tell anyone about this incident or else.”

Failiani opened her eyes and looked around to see what the commotion was about. She saw an orc, one of the refuges locals hand over her brown pack to the blood elf female before walking away. This Sin’dorei had dark brown hair in a pony-tail and had tanned skin. She was wearing a white buccaneer shirt and blue skirt, not surprising since this blood elf worked on a pirate ship, or was working on one last time Faili saw her six years ago. Yes, the rogue happened to know the identity of this person. “It’s good to see you Failiani. Thankfully I showed up when I did otherwise you’d had some of your belongings stolen… you need to be more careful where you sleep, my dear.”

The young blood elf got on her feet and had decided to give the Sin’dorei a hug. Who was this female? Her name was Sirabel, a mage who was a friend of Failiani’s mother while she had been alive. The mage also had been friends with Coriani’s parents. Question was; how did she find Failiani? “Sirabel, you’re alive.” She said while the older blood elf handed Faili’s pack back over to her.

“Faili, we need to talk; somewhere in private concerning this.” Sirabel said, with one of flyers Coriani had made in her hand.

Faili paled a bit when she saw the notice. Great, the mage had managed to find the flyer Coriani had created. She probably thought Failiani had run away from Silvermoon without permission. Was Sirabel going to drag her back to that city? It was possible since she was a mage and could conjure portals. She “O… about that. I know of a place where we can talk. I don’t know why my cousin created that flyer. I had permission to leave Silvermoon.”

“Relax; I intend to hear your side out of this first. I’ve haven’t been in Silvermoon in years. Besides, I know you’ve been here for at least the last few months.” Sirabel commented.

“How?” Failiani asked with a surprised look on her face.

“I’ve been watching you off and on since I arrived three months ago. Even though I’m not a rogue, I can still be sneaky. After all, I have worked on a ship full of them.” Sirabel said with a smirk.

The young rogue sighed while she and the older mage walked onto the elevator that led to the Scryer’s Tier. That was obvious since Failiani hadn’t seen her at all in the past few months. Once they were on top of tier, she walked over to an empty tent in the far back where hopefully it was private enough.

“I’m curious though; how did Lor’eth get custody of you? No offense but from what I heard, he could barely watch his own children when they were growing up and that when he was a lot younger. I’m aware of your Uncle Winthran’s death and his wife’s disappearance but what happened to your mother’s older brother, Furanle? He was alive last I heard.” Sirabel said.

She nodded before she started to explain what had happened to her late uncle on her mother’s side of the family and his sudden death. Failiani mentioned to Sirabel that her mother’s younger siblings were still high elves and wanted nothing to do with her; same with most relatives on her father’s side of family except Cori. She also explained how Coriani had been on a business trip at the time and wasn’t able to be contacted, leaving Lor’eth who was a distant relative to raise her.

((Continued.))

“I see. I’m surprised that I wasn’t contacted for guardianship. I did make a promise to your mother after all that I would care for you if something happened to her and no one was available.”

“You did? I didn’t know that.” Failiani said.

“Of course, my dear. I consider you like a daughter I never had. I would anything to protect you. Anything. Fel, if someone ever captured me with the intent to harm you, I would sacrifice myself so no injury would ever come to you.”

“Really? Lor’eth said he’d do the same thing.”

“I’m not surprised by that. I do need to know the reason why you got permission to leave Silvermoon well over 8 and half months ago. Was it due to the something Warchief Hellscream did?”

“Him? Uh... no. I’m not worried about that idiot ogre-minded buffoon. In fact, I think I’ve seen ogres smarter than him.” Failiani commented.

“Not out loud, Faili; it’d be wise to keep those types of comments quiet. Even though this city is neutral, there could be people living here who are not.”

Failiani nodded slowly. True, she did need to keep those types of comments to herself. She had heard some rumors last time she was in Orgrimmar of orcs who disagreed with the current warchief had disappeared. “Nightmares. I kept having nightmares.”

“Nightmares? Those must have been pretty bad dreams for you to leave. I’m also noticed time to time that you seem to fall asleep… rather suddenly. I don’t remember that happening six years ago so mind explaining that to me.”

The young rogue sighed. Faili decided to tell her of what happened a few years earlier when she had foolishly gotten herself captured by trolls and cursed by the troll Witch doctor with a type of curse that causes her to fall into a deep sleep intermittently when she had attempted to escape a few hours before Lor’eth had rescued her. She explained that her curse used to be much worse until two priests managed to treat it. However, the nightmares didn’t really start until she had managed to find a crudely made pocket watch that once belonged to fel troll that cursed her. In fact, she still carried it on her in one of her bags.

“That’s unfortunate my dear. Hopefully someone will be able to cure it one of these days. Mind if I see that watch?” Sirabel asked while Failiani grabbed it from her bag and handed it over. “Interesting… I see that some of the voodoo magic had faded from it but it still there. Let’s see…”

“Can you do something about it?” Failiani asked.

“I can put it in this container. Hopefully it’ll contain the magics so you don’t get nightmares whenever you return to Azeroth.” Sirabel said, putting the pocket watch inside of a faintly glowing small box before closing and locking it. The mage then handed the box over to Faili. “I’ll let you keep the box for safekeeping and in case this troll watch can be used in a spell to track him.”

She took the small box and put inside of the pack where she previously kept it before. “Is something bothering you, Sirabel?”

“In the meantime, there is something that does bother me. I know you were given permission to leave Silvermoon on your own but have you contracted actually Lor’eth since you left?”

“No…”

“Failiani… that could be why your cousin, Coriani is searching for you now. Have you considered writing him a letter, letting him know you’re safe?”

“Possibly.”

“Maybe if you were to write him a quick letter; stating that you are still alive, he might quit worrying about you. I can even bring it to him if you want. I have to visit Silvermoon anyways and probably should stop by his place. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t tell him where you were staying at.” Sirabel said.

“So, you’re not going to take me back to Silvermoon?” Failiani asked.

“As long as you write the letter to Lor’eth and not leave Shattrath city, I won’t. Besides, it’s safer here for you than there with all that is going on right now.”

Faili had decided right then to write a quick letter to Lor’eth. After all, she didn’t want to return to Silvermoon. She quickly grabbed parchment paper and a quill before writing down the note to her guardian. Within a minute, it was finished and simply stated;

To Master Lor’eth Dawnshadow, also known as my best guardian,

I’m letting you know I’m alive and safe. You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll send another letter later letting you where I am.

Loves,

Failiani

Note: Please quit having Cousin Cori look for me. You know how annoyed I am of her.

The young rogue quickly sealed the letter and handed it to Sirabel who had quickly put inside of her bag. She noticed the mage grab a rune portal for teleportation. Wait, was she leaving already? Then again she did say she had to visit Silvermoon; most likely to see her other relatives. “You’re going to be leaving, aren’t you?”

((Continued.))

“Unfortunately, my dear, I have to get going. I still have a few other stops to make before reaching Silvermoon. Promise me that you’re going to stay here and not cause trouble.” Sirabel said before giving the young rogue a brief hug.

“I’ll stay here if it means I don’t go back to Silvermoon. Farewell and take care.” Failiani said, returning the hug.

“I know. Also, I know you’ve been sending letters to someone, probably knowing you as a prank of sorts. I would hold off on that for a while just so they don’t figure out it’s you. Anyways take care, my dear.” Sirabel said before conjuring a teleporting spell and disappearing out of sight.

The young rogue smirked; if only that mage knew who she had been sending the letters to. Yes, she was going to wait a bit before sending the fourth letter to Coriani. Little did Failiani know at the time that was going to be the last time she saw Sirabel alive.

--------------------------

“Wake up….” a child voice said. “She’s not waking up.”

“Splash her with water. That wakes me up every time.”

Faili felt someone cold and wet get splashed onto her face as she started to come to. Great, that water had mud with it. Wait, she fallen asleep again and she wasn’t alone. There were two young children nearby; one of them was a Sin’dorei girl with dark blonde hair. The other child holding the bucket was a human girl with curly dark hair and tan skin. Most likely there were orphans that lived inside of the orphanage.

“You’re awake. Are you okay, Failiani?” the human girl asked.

What the, how did that human girl know her name? Failiani didn’t talk with the orphans, partly in fear that they’d discover that she wasn’t fully an adult yet herself and possibly let the Scryers know of that situation.“I’ll be fine. How did know my name if I can ask.” She asked while sitting up.

“Ireyn read your letter and told me your name.” the human girl said.

“I saw the letter on the ground and read it. I know I’m not supposed to read other people’s letters, but I was worried when I saw you passed out and thought it was the cause.” Ireyn said. “Am I right? Is it true that whoever wrote that letter killed a friend of yours?”

The rogue sighed. As much as Failiani didn’t want to admit, Sirabel had been killed; most likely trying to protect her from this mysterious person who clearly wanted to harm Faili. The last thing Failiani wanted was to become someone’s captive for their foul experiments. However, the letter also stated that the person behind this threat against her would harm others that decided to look for Faili. She wasn’t going to let that happen to others, especially orphans. It was best to lie to the kids.

“No, the letter isn’t the reason I fell asleep here. I have a sleeping disorder that causes me to fall asleep in random places such as this. It’s from me not eating my vegetables when I was younger.” Failiani commented. Yes, she was lying about how she got her curse but that didn’t matter right now. “You do eat your vegetables, right?”

“Oh. That must stink to fall asleep everywhere. Yes, we eat our vegetables.” the human girl said.

“I eat vegetables, too.”

“You only eat vegetables, Ireyn.” the human girl said.

The rogue sighed; her cousin Coriani was a vegetarian. A strict one as her cousin didn’t meat or fish and rarely had animal products such as dairy. “I know someone like that. But since you eat your vegetables, you won’t come down with my disorder.”

“What about the letter? Is the threat against you real?” Ireyn asked.

“The threat mention in the letter? It’s fake… in fact, I recognize the handwriting as a high elf relative of mine. She’s made these types of threats before but nothing has ever come of them.”Failiani said, lying of course.

“O. I understand. I have several living high elf relative but they don’t want to take care of me because I’m blood elf. So I’m live here.” Ireyn commented. “Unless you can adopt us.”

Failiani pulled a strand of red hair from her eyes. That wasn’t possible for obvious reasons such as not being considered an adult yet herself. “I can’t adopt anyone due to circumstances. However; one of these days, I may be able to convince one of the matrons to take you on trip; perhaps to the Dark Portal.”

“Really? That would be cool.” Ireyn said.

“Would I be able to come, too?” the human girl asked.

“If you wish to, I might be able to convince the matron to take both of you.” Failiani commented.

“Really? Can we go now?”

Failiani shook her head. “It’s going to have to be later as I have business to attend to now. You might want to get going inside; I believe one of the matrons is calling for both of you.” Her pointed ears twitched as she heard a female human’s voice.

“Alright. See you later, Failiani.” both children said before running inside of the orphanage.

((Continued))

The young Sin’dorei sighed in relief. Hopefully Failiani had been able to convince those two young orphans that she wasn’t in any possible danger. She quickly picked the letter off the ground and shivered as she read it briefly before putting it inside of her pack along with Sirabel’s rings, which nearly caused her to tear up again. Luckily she didn’t fully burst into tears as she started to towards the Terrace of Lights. However, the threat against her was very real and she didn’t have any idea who had made it. Wait… that wasn’t exactly true.

Whoever had written it claims they knew Failiani’s family and the person even mentioned that her late father, Taelis had attempted to kill them but failed to do so. Her father had mentioned before that he kept all his kills recorded in a small leather journal, encoded in a special code. If she could figure out his code, there was a chance she could figure out who was after her and possibly stop them. Where was this diary located? Simple, Failiani had it in the vaults of the Scryer’s Bank.

Failiani walked up the ramp to the Terrace of Lights and was about to walk to bank when she decided to go check the bulletin board just to make sure that none of Coriani’s missing info flyers about her had made it here. To her horror, she found flyers that wanted information about her; however, they weren’t the ones her cousin had created. She ripped all the parchment papers off of the board as she read the flyer, which stated;

Wanted: Information for the whereabouts of a missing blood elf child.

Name: Failiani Arrowind. Also known as Fail.

Height: Between 5’5- 5’8.

Body type: Thin build.

Hair color: Naturally red but may have dyed it black.

Clothing and weapons: Last seen wearing gray and brown armor. Carries around a dagger and a cutlass for weapons.

Any information should be sent to Isnesin, her other living relative who wishes to take care of her now. Big reward if found unharmed.

The Sin’dorei shook her head at the flyers in her hand. Failiani didn’t have any Sin’dorei or Quel’dorei relatives for that matter named Isnesin. She didn’t even know anyone with that name. This had to be a fake flyer; hopefully not many of them had been handed out. Was someone else looking for her now in addition to Coriani and the mysterious person who had mailed the letter? Or was this another name for the mysterious person now after Failiani?

What had just made the rogue think that? Failiani noticed that the writing on the flyers looked eerily similar to the letter she had received just a bit earlier. She pulled out it of her pack and compared it with one of the flyers just to be sure; the writings were an exact match. The mysterious person who wrote her the letter was also responsible for writing these flyers. Why? That wasn’t the smartest thing that person could do, especially if Cori saw the flyers… the rogue knew her cousin would panic if she happened to find one of these papers.

Still, it brought up a big question as Faili put the letter and all but one of the flyers into her packs. Who was the person that wanted her captured? While she was already planning on getting her father’s kill journal to see if could figure it out in it, perhaps there was an easier way. Maybe the letters in the name Isnesin contain the person’s actual name in a rearranged form. What could be though? She would have to find out while she slowly walked along towards the Scryer Bank.

Ensinis, spelled E-n-s-i-n-i-s didn’t make much sense for a name; neither did Sinisne, spelled S-i-n-i-s-n-e in her mind. She hadn’t heard of Inisnes, spelled I-n-i-s-n-e-s for a name before. Esinisn, spelled E-s-i-n-i-s-n… who would have type of name? What could it be then? Failiani then noted something interesting; if Isnesin was spelled backward or reversed, it spelled out N-i-s-e-n-s-i or, Nisensi. Wait a minute, Nisensi? It couldn’t be that…

All the remaining color in Failiani’s pale face had drained while she had thought of the name, Nisensi. She felt herself visibly shake. That was a name Faili was fairly familiar with; it was heard often on her late father’s side of the family. Who was this person? It was kind of complicated but Nisensi was a high elf alchemist that married one of Coriani’s cousins on her mother’s side of the family who happened to been very rich. 6 months later, Cori’s rich cousin was dead and his death was declared an ‘accident.’

At least until Uncle Winthran ran a private investigation that indicated that Cori’s rich cousin was actually poisoned to death, his widow the most visible suspect. By then, Nisensi had vanished with all of her late husband’s money and managed to stay out of sight until several months later when the high elf attacked Coriani’s younger sister, Anessi and Farsila, a cousin of Failiani’s late mother. Anessi survived while Farsila’s body was apparently found dismembered off the coast a few days after the attack.

((Continued))

That didn’t stop her father and Uncle Winthran from pursuing Nisensi until she was killed… at least that’s what Uncle Winthran claimed when she had asked him years earlier before he died. As for how, her uncle never told her the exact cause of death. Clearly something had to have happened if that foul high elf was still alive. Failiani was still going to have a crack at her father’s journal and see if he had put the exact cause of death in it. Her life could very depend on that.

“Are you alright? You’re extremely pale, almost to the point of death. Did something scare you?” A draenei peacekeeper commented.

“I’m fine.” Failiani replied; despite the fact she was visibly shaking.

“You are shaking uncontrollably. Are you certain? Do I need to call a priest?” the draenei peacekeeper asked.

“No, a priest isn’t needed. I get like this when I don’t get anything to eat over a long period of time. I’ll be fine once I get food and a drink. Something I was going to do once I go to the bank.” Failiani said, looking around the Terrace of Light as her shaking started to lessen. Hopefully there weren’t any adventurers around to notice her.

“That would be a good idea. Be sure to let someone know if you need assistance.” the draenei peacekeeper said.

“I shall.” Failiani muttered before she continued to walk. She was still very pale when she walked inside of the Scryer Bank a minute later. Again she didn’t see any adventurers in the building but that could at any given time and usually did. However, the Sin’dorei bankers inside of the building did take notice of her and looked a bit concerned. Thankfully there was no one else in line so she was able to see able to see a banker, L'lura Goldspun right away.

“Are you alright? It looks like you seen a ghost.” L'lura Goldspun said.

“I’m fine…” Failiani commented quietly.

“Is there something you like to be put into the vault or have withdrawn from it?” L'lura Goldspun asked.

“I’m looking to withdraw the small leather journal. I need it for something.” Failiani said while she waited for the other Sin’dorei.

“Here is the journal you asked for. Is there anything else you need from the vault?” L'lura Goldspun said while handing the small brown leather book over to the red haired Sin’dorei.

“No, this is everything I need right now. I’ll come back later if I need something else.” Failiani said.

“As a suggestion, you might want to put that hood of your cloak on until your color returns. Anyways, farewell!” L'lura Goldspun said as Failiani walked out of the bank.

The young rogue took the word of suggestion and put the hood of her cloak over her head; granted she should have done that a lot earlier to avoid the amount of attention she received on her way over. Failiani made her way to the elevator and waited for it to arrive before stepping on. Once on the Scryer’s Tier, she made a brief stop over to the innkeeper where she bought a bladespire bagel and water for her meal. Not much but it would do.

She then made her way towards the back of the tier and towards the tent where she had met with Sirabel two and a half weeks earlier. Hopefully she wouldn’t start crying; this was the place where she had seen the mage alive. Failiani looked at the small leather book and started to unclasp the leather straps that kept it closed. One way or another, she wasn’t to going to move much until she figured out what had supposedly killed Nisensi.

With that in mind, she took a bite of the bagel and opened her father’s kill book. Hopefully now, she wouldn’t fall asleep…

---------------------------------

About 15 hours later,

Failiani smirked as she closed her father’s kill journal and started to tie it up with the straps. She looked to the sky and thought it was around early day. It had taken her a while due to her, well sleeping for some hours and nearly bursting into tears when she had a memory of an event with Sirabel several years earlier but she managed to succeed in something. She had just deciphered her father’s encryption code in his journal. The young rogue thought the code was going to be extremely difficult to break and possibly take days to do. It hadn’t been too hard to decode, either to her surprise.

Why had it been easier for her to decode? There were two reasons for that. Her father for one had managed to teach her part of his encryption code without Failiani realizing it at the time a few months before he died. Part was the word; her father’s code had used a combination of letters and pictures. He had taught Faili to draw the pictures of it.

((Continued))

The main reason it had been made easier however was due to the last three pages of his journal that had the breakdown of how the letter combination of the code worked. Failiani had spent about 5 hours attempting to decode it herself when she had accidentally dropped the book about two hours earlier. The journal landed on the floor of the tent with the last three pages exposed. Faili remembered having a very surprised look when she saw that...

Anyways with that type of guideline in here, anyone who was literate could read and decipher it; including enemies. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do as a rogue. In fact, Failiani didn’t know the reason her late father had written a summary to how his code worked inside his book. Maybe he had been smashed drunk when he had written that section. But considering the threat Failiani had against her now, she was thankful for it.

How did the code work? Failiani smirked as she thought about it. The first two letters of the code were gender of target, next three letters was the actual race of target, next three letters were the first three letters of first name of target, and the last three letters of code were either first three of last name or rank/ profession (if no last name was used) of the target followed by a small picture that indicated how the target died. One such example was the entry for Nisensi ‘death’ Faili found some minutes ago. It appeared as; FEQUENISALC (short for female Quel’dorei Nisensi alchemist) followed by a small picture of a stick figure falling off a cliff.

The young elf rubbed her eyes. While her uncle had never told her how Nisensi had died; he had said a few things about the confrontation that happened near Amani Pass. It happened after nightfall for one. Another thing was it had been a long fought battle. From what Uncle Winthran said; they had to dodge vials of poison thrown at them, conjured circles of fire and when Failiani’s father got close enough in range to attack; she would suddenly reappear 20 yards in the opposite direction. Not only was Nisensi a skilled alchemist; she had apparently also had some mage training.

She also remembered Uncle Winthran had mentioned at one point in the battle, he had managed to attract the attention of several trolls near a hut and managed to distract them into attacking Nisensi while they took a break from the fighting. Once the trolls got defeated, they fought her again. The young rogue hadn’t been able to get any other details of what happened after that from her uncle. Failiani figured a good possibly on how Nisensi survived failing off of a cliff; it was due to magic!

Failiani then thought about the threat against her. Why did Nisensi want her to be a lab subject and not another random Sin’dorei child? That was obvious to Faili, that high elf wanted revenge against the family for pursuing and nearly having her killed. She just happened to be the only family member that was Sin’dorei and still considered a child. The high elf probably didn’t think Failiani could defend herself against anything and would be a very easy target to acquire.

An easy target… well, that depended on who tried to capture Failiani. The young rogue knew she didn’t have any chance to escape capture if the person happened to be Ninsensi herself. Her late father and uncle who had many years experience in combat hadn’t been able to kill her over thirty years ago. Failiani had begun her rogue training a few years ago! Granted, she was good in her mind but not nearly good enough to even think about taking on Nisensi; especially since there was even a good possibility that the high elf’s powers had grown these past thirty years.

That was assuming that Nisensi decided to capture Failiani herself. Based on what the high elf had said in the letter, she was too lazy to do the deed herself and was more likely to send hired mercenaries to pursue the young rogue. How would Faili fare against mercenaries? Well, that depended on the level of skill and experience the mercenary had. If they were extremely experienced, Failiani didn’t stand much of a chance of escaping imprisonment. However, if the mercenary was a novice… her chances were improved, some.

What was her best chance of not being captured and imprisoned by the high elf alchemist? No, it was not returning to Silvermoon and Master Lor’eth. He had a hard time enough walking around normally due to his age; Faili didn’t think he could fend off Nisensi or hired mercenaries. Besides, that high elf had mentioned in the letter that anyone looking for her was going to be harmed and Failiani didn’t want her distant relative to be injured or killed by this person.

((Continued.))

Getting Coriani to help wasn’t an option either in the young rogue’s mind. For one, Failiani didn’t know what her cousin was capable of in a battle situation. Granted Cori was a beastmaster type huntress and had very loyal pets willing to fight for her; however, the huntress also tended to break her crossbow on a regular basis. Not good if that happened if in a battle with Nisensi.

Another reason Faili didn't want to involve her cousin in this matter was due to not wanting Coriani to be killed. Failiani may have not liked her cousin that much; her main reason for that was due to the way Cori refused summons to see her father before he died. However, even with that incident she still cared for her older cousin's well being. After all, who would she be able to annoy if Cori wasn’t around. Her high elf cousins were out of the question.

She couldn't think of anyone else that could help with Nisensi. There were the two priests that had treated her curse but she had no idea if they were even alive. Not even the mage Lor'eth could help her in this nor would Failiani want it; mainly due to the matter that he'd run at the first sign of trouble. Besides, he was probably sitting in a jail cell in Gadgetzan for sheeping adventurers...

This was a matter Failiani would have to see to by herself unfortunately as she got onto her feet and started to walk around the Scryer’s tier. No, she didn't have to handle this situation alone. What she should be doing was letting Master Lor'eth or Coriani know where she was at and let them protect her from Nisensi. Unfortunately, the young rogue didn't see it this way (the letter Nisensi sent didn't help much) and not letting anyone help her was going to get herself into major trouble.

Anyways, there was a chance that she would to leave Shattrath city if Nisensi learned she was here; mercenaries could grab her while she left and teleported away before anyone could anything about it. She figured her chances of not getting herself captured weren’t looking good at the moment but she wasn’t going to give and become a lab experiment. The blood elf wasn’t going to go down without a fight; even if she had to battle some of Nisensi’s minions…

Minions! That's who she had the best chance of getting into a battle with and escaping capture from. Nisensi did say that one of her minions had captured Sirabel. That meant she had more than one minion; probably many of them. If Nisensi had minions that were intelligent and brutal in their tactics, she was bound to have clueless and idiotic ones. Failiani knew she could take out the clueless ones easily, she wasn’t that bad as some claimed.

What had made her think of the minions? Someone had to have posted those fake flyers in Shattrath and Failiani had doubts that Nisensi would hire a mercenary just to post papers on a bulletin board. That was the job more suited for a crony. Hopefully that person had already left the city by the time Failiani pick up the flyers and hadn’t seen her.

It was only a matter of time before someone made an attempt to capture her. Only Failiani wasn’t going to make it easy for them. She was a rogue after all and could use cheap tactics to her advantage. If she had to start a fire with volatile rum to aid her in some way, she would. Her attempt was going to make Nisensi regret choosing her to be a test subject.

Failiani stopped and took a brief glance towards southern Terokkar Forest before she headed back to the tent. Once there, she got out a quill and parchment papers. What were the parchments for? Well, one was for making a list of supplies she was going to need for dealing with this threat. Another one was for Master Lor’eth, letting him know she was ‘safe’ since she didn’t know if the letter she wrote him a few weeks ago had ever made it to him…

((I apogize that it took a bit to get this up, my health is still poor. I about lost the post when MS Word crashed and didn't save the changes (it was at 8 pgs). My thanks to whoever said in Hordeooc to check online for lost documents. I was able to find an asd file of the post and find a program to open in read only where I was able to get it back.

I did have another part here but it's removed for now due to in the process of rewriting it. Once done, I'll put it on a different post.

Concerning the storyline, things will start to heat up and it currently doesn't look too good for Faili. This was a slight flashback post but next one on both characters should bring them to present. If anyone wants to get involved and post, feel free to.))

((This post is a slight flashback and happens around the time of Faili's last post. Also it's kind of big so it'll continue below.))

While Failiani was busy creating her list of supplies, a hooded human sat down inside of a tent that was located in Forest just south of Shattrath City. Who was the person? He called himself Dullen and he was an average looking human. He had brown hair, brown eyes and was of normal height. The human was currently wearing a brown shirt and black pant, nothing out of the ordinary. His appearance as a normal citizen help concealed something; he happened to been one of the underlings of Nisensi.

Some would say he was crazy to be minion of the high elf alchemist that wanted to exterminate the blood elves. He didn’t think that way; in fact, he enjoyed working for her. He had his reasons for joining after all. His wife had been killed by a Sin’dorei warlock shortly after the Cataclysm and from rumors he had heard; they were welcome with open arms in Silvermoon which angered him. They needed to pay for that, along with the filthy Horde.

At first, he had joined Stormwind’s Army but within two months, he figured the Alliance plans weren’t extreme enough to his liking so he ‘left’. He had heard that the Defias was a making a comeback but he didn’t join forces with them; after all, that group was after the Kingdom of Stormwind and that didn’t fit into his plans. Neither did the Kirin Tor or the Argent Crusade. He searched for several months for the organization that his plans in mind and didn’t find any.

That changed 6 months ago when Nisensi found him during a rainy night in Stranglethorn Vale. She invited over to a small hut she had near the border of Duskwood where they had tea and biscuits. They talked and once she found what happened to his wife, she told him of her plans to exterminate the blood elves; saying Azeroth would be better off without them along with the horde. It was extreme but her plans were nearly the same he had been thinking about, only better. He decided to join Nisensi right then and took a blood oath and hasn’t regretted his decision since.

And he wasn’t the only one who shared the same option of Nisensi. The high elf had many minions in her organization; there were several other humans, night elves, dwarves, a few gnomes and worgen. There were a few goblins at the villa, too. He had heard rumors that Nisensi had bribed and possibly brainwashed them into joining; however the goblins informed him that wasn't the case.

Even a draenei had joined five months earlier. There wasn't any pandarern underlings yet but Dullen figured it was only a matter of time before Nisensi was able to convince one to join her cause. The reason question though, was this particular minion of Nisensi’s organization her more intelligent of ones? Or was he of little brain? Only time would tell on that matter.

Why was he in the tent and not in Shattrath city? There were a couple of reasons for that; the main one being that he wanted to contact Nisensi someplace private where there wasn’t the chance a certain rogue could overhear their conversation. This fellow had in fact seen Failiani rip the flyers off of the bulletin board in Shattrath city earlier and he needed to let the high elf know of that. Dullen had started to panic when the high elf didn’t answer the hearthstone but he sighed in relief as he heard Nisensi voice seconds later.

“Dullen, you have a status update for me?” A sweet high elf voice said through the hearthstone.

“I do, Lady Ni.” Dullen replied. If there was thing that wasn’t done over their hearthstone conversations; it was to refer to Nisensi by her name. The minions were to refer to her as ‘Lady Ni’, ‘Mistress Iseni’ or Ninessi if they were contacting her outside of the villa.

“Then tell me what it is, then. I don’t have the time to wait all day…”

“Early yesterday I posted the flyers like you told me to. I returned a few hours later to make sure they were still up when I saw the flyer being ripped off of the bulletin board by…”

“Failiani Arrowind.” Nisensi said. “I assume that’s what you were going to tell me.”

“Of course, Lady Ni. Fail is here.” Dullen said with a surprised look on his face. He hadn’t been expecting Nisensi to say the young blood elf’s name; then again the high elf was a genius. “How did you know I was about to say her name?”

“I had my suspicions since I found Failiani’s letter to her guardian on Sirabel shortly before I started to torture her. It was one of the places that she had visited a few days before Yalen captured her. The other minions that placed the flyers in the goblin towns returned and mentioned that they hadn’t any sign of her. It then dawned on me that the reason she hasn’t been found by her family is because she isn’t on Azeroth. You contacting me now is confirming that. It’s still good that I had flyers placed in the Goblin towns.” Nisensi commented.

((Continued.))

Dullen nodded. Shattrath city wasn’t the only place where Nisensi had sent minions to place her flyers that wanted information about Failiani. As long as the others had done their job of placing the papers; every neutral Goblin outposts and towns in the Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, and Northrend had the flyers posted on a bulletin board.

“By the way, how did the young one take the information on the flyer?”

“She nearly fainted after looking at them.”

“Good. I assume she was able to figure out who wrote it. Fail needs to come to terms with my plans for her. Is the information correct on her?” Nisensi asked.

“Not quite, Lady Ni. Failiani’s hair is still red, not black and her height is wrong. She’s is actually taller; in fact she’s about Kioria’s height, the human one that is.” Dullen said, thinking of the two females with that name. The human Kioria had only joined three months earlier and from what he had heard had been either training to be a priest or mage. She had dirty blonde hair and gray eyes with tan skin.

The other Kioria was a dwarf rifleman who had graying brown hair and green eyes. She detested any and all types of beer; actually anything that had to deal with alcohol in general the more he thought about it. That dwarf wouldn’t even touch a barrel of beer, a stein or even a glass of wine. She was the most sober dwarf he had met and from what he heard from the other minions, she had her reasons to be that way.

“So she has grown since her family members have seen her last. That might work out for us. I can write down faulty information for her family to find- all while keeping the accurate information about Failiani to myself.” Nisensi mused.

He smirked after Nisensi spoke. That was true, they could create flyers that had false information about Fail for other to find and possibly send them on a chase while they kept the accurate details about the young Sin’dorei to themselves. Maybe he could capture Failiani and bring the young one to the high elf. It didn’t hurt to ask. “If you want, I can capture and bring her for you. Unless you had something else in mind, Lady Ni.”

“I do. I have mercenaries in mind for that particular job.”

“Alright.” Dullen quietly said with a hint of disappointment.

“You sound a bit disappointed. Did you think you could capture her without anyone noticing? I’m curious…”

“I’ve had some training to become a warrior and from what I’ve heard about Fail, her fighting skills are equal to that of a beginner rogue student. Is there something else that makes you think otherwise, Lady Ni?” Dullen muttered.

“You haven’t shown me what you are capable of Dullen, since you joined 6 months ago. I haven’t seen you duel the other minions; perhaps if you did and won many of them like Talen does, I would be able to send you on more dangerous tasks for me.”

“Really? If I known that, I would have been dueling the others by now.” Dullen said, shaking his head. Talen was a night elf warrior and usually was in a duel with someone at the villa- when he wasn’t on a task for Nisensi. The human had wondered why duels tend to happen on a regular basis; now he knew the reason. He should have asked a lot sooner.

“Of course. It is one of the many rewards that I offer.” Nisensi’s voice paused before continuing, “It is going to take a bit of time for me to track down and hire the right group of mercenaries. In the meantime, I need you to observe Failiani and keep track of her movements in Shattrath city.”

Dullen let out a sigh; that was going to be difficult task to perform. There was another reason he wasn’t in Shattrath city. He had managed to get himself exiled from there. How did he do that? Let’s just say getting smashed drunk during the late evening (Failiani had fallen asleep during this.) and then screaming profanities about the Sin’dorei being a part of the Burning Legion wasn’t the smartest thing he could do, especially considering he had been near Scryer’s tier when he was doing this. Luckily one of the mages didn’t teleport him to the nether. “Alright but might be a bit difficult getting back to observe her.”

((Continued.))

“Difficult? What did you do?” Nisensi asked.

“It seems I’ve been exiled from Shattrath. I don't know if it's temporary or permanent.” Dullen said.

“Exiled? How?”

“It’s a long story…” Dullen started to say before being interrupted.

“No need to spare me the details, then. Sneak back in.”

“I tried but the peacekeepers kicked me out again. I was going to make another attempt in a few hours and get back there. I know I can sneak back in and watch her if I had the right disguise…”

“What disguise did you bring with you?”

The human let out a sigh. He thought he had brought clothing that would disguise him a pirate but that wasn’t the case. Nisensi had put one of the newer recruits in charge of the disguises and that minion labeled the box with the wrong tag. The disguise he had brought along would get him killed if he wore it. “I thought I had brought a pirate disguise along but turns out the label were wrong on the crate. I can’t get anywhere near Shattrath masquerading as a Shadow Council member…”

“You’re right on that. I didn’t know that they were labeled wrong. I’ll be sure to have the crate that have disguises in them fixed and said minion reprimanded.” Nisensi commented before yawning. After a few moments she continued, “I noticed that Kioria is appearing to be rather bored so I’ll send her along to be of assistance. She’ll bring a good disguise; one that even in the slightest chance Fail should see you, she’ll never be able to figure out who you really work for.”

“Do you have any other orders for me, Lady Ni?” Dullen asked.

“There is one other thing. Neither you nor Kioria have permission to capture Failiani, I want you both to keep a close eye on her. However, if someone else such as her elderly guardian comes looking for her; go ahead and attack them. I sure you won’t have any issue with him, he can barely move from what I hear.”

“Understood, Lady Ni. If anyone comes searching for her, they will regret it.” Dullen commented with a smirk.

“I will let you know when I found the mercenaries. Keep me posted on updates and don’t fail me.”

“I shall keep you posted and not fail you, Lady Ni.” Dullen said as the conversation ended. He put the small hearthstone in his brown leather pack. While he wasn’t allow to capture Failiani; he was glad that he had been given permission to attack anyone that came looking for her. He would be able to put his training to test. How much training had he had? Not much but he figured the two months of instruction to become a warrior he had was good enough to take on an elderly Sin’dorei.

He used to have a mace but it had broken recently and damage wasn’t able to be repaired. Did the human have a new weapon for this task? Dullen did and had actually bought a few weapons of the same type; wands. Yes, they were the type of wands casters tend to use but they were really cheap. Wands were a warrior’s weapons, weren’t they? The human clearly hadn’t listened to the instructors during his training on why warriors didn’t use those types of weapons but he’d find the reasons soon enough.

Dullen got his feet and stepped out of the tent to check if Kioria was anywhere in sight. He didn’t see her until he realized something; Nisensi didn’t mention which Kioria she was sending to assist him. There were two minions with that name after all. While he was hoping she had sent the human one, there was good chance that the dwarf one was coming. The only beverage he had in his tent was a few jugs of beer and the female dwarf detested alcohol.

He couldn’t worry about that now as he stepped back inside the tent. All could he do was sit down and wait. Or sleep, as Dullen started to yawn a few minutes later. It occurred to him that he hadn’t slept in over 24 hours. He decided to lie down and nap for a few hours while waiting for one of the Kioria’s to arrive.

((I hope this give a bit of insight into the mind of one of Nisensi's minions. Dullen here sneaked away one night from the barracks and should be considered a deserter of the Stormwind military if anyone wishes to investigate that (I think that's what would happen in lore- based on a quest I did in Duskwallow Marsh about the deserters but if I'm wrong, feel free to say something and I can fix it.).

If anyone wants to roleplay as a minion of Nisensi or family/ friend of said underling, that's fine with me.

I have starting writing Cori's next post but that will take time to get it up (depends on my health). Faili’s post will come after that and from this post, she has trouble headed her way. In the meantime, feel free to either post or comment.))