8th of the 12th Epoch, 768 of the First Age.
Silence falls upon the forest once again as Gloriandal the leader of the moon elven unit dislodges her long sword with a light silver blade emitting a faint bluish hue, tainted by the dark blood of the werewolf, a member of the Hlátr-Scaelu clan of the Horde, sent out to find the moon elven settlements scattered around the Northern Basin.
“Make sure these abominations are dead.” Her voice echoes between the tree lines, tendrils of water wrapping around the blood tainted blade of her longsword, swallowing the blood of the gleaming metallic surface, the rest of the moon elves clad in the same snow white armor with a tint of icy blue hue with motifs of the moon engraved into the chest and the curving shoulder plates, an ethereally glowing Fe’ny silken tunic and leather like pants under the armor they all wear, with most wearing a standard gilded elven helmet uniformly crafted thanks to their smiths gifted with the Eidetic Memory blessing.
Gloriandal’s long platinum moon silvery hair flows elegantly out from under her helmet while her own hood has been violently torn off, remaining on the claws of the werewolf whose head is covered in the skull of another, one of their bizarre traditions to honor their dead, involving shredding their bodies apart cleaning the skin and flesh off of it then with their magic shaping it, fitting it to the wearer’s armor and head while also enchanting it so that when they change shape, it doesn’t break apart.
While the rest of her troops stab and or cast their ice element spells on the corpses, she walks to the two lightly armored moon elven scouts, one of them in the middle of his arm being regrown by the healer of Gloriandal’s group. All elves possess a natural talent in the ways of magic, their healer’s renown for their ability to restore lost limbs, even though it depends on how advanced one’s knowledge is. Some can regrow limbs years after their separation from the rest of the body if they are well-versed in the magical sub-aspect of Time, while others can only do so within days or hours at best without that knowledge.
“We told you to not venture beyond what is part of your area.” She gently yells at the two scaring them as her majestic voice slowly raises, filled with a mix of sorrow and anger, her face, that even as it slightly contorts remains beautiful, showing the former as her light icy bluish eyes stare into their souls.
“We already lost too much, what were the two of you thinking? For the next two weeks you two will be on guard duty at the Shrine.” She says before storming off to check on the rest, not allowing the two to defend themselves or even comply with her sentence.
“Everyone let’s return home before the stench reaches the noses of theirs.” After staring in the distance to her right, she turns her back and yells, and the whole group sheath their weapons, their bodies turning snowlike, dispersing in the cold air, unaware of the shadows spreading all over the forest, entering the partially frozen corpses of the werewolves, some transformed, some not. The creaking of bones and the slowly tearing of the flesh silently echoes through the forest dressed in a mix of cool and warm lights as their bodies slowly animate, their hoarse empty growls leaving their jaws, their yellow rotten teeth drenched in their own blood darken while a pitch black darkness fills their moving carcasses while their eyes disintegrate as the negative matter fills and corrupts theirs being.
**
10th of the 12th Epoch, 768 of the First Age.
“So, he is finally feasting with his ancestors.” Vro-Ghahk said, his deep voice filled with a mixture of sadness, envy and a small hint of fear knowing what killed his old friend after hearing the report from the goblin messenger sent by the Pentarch recounting it from the few survivors that made it out of the mountain.
For a while silence falls inside the spacious tent inside the ruined city, everyone inside including Vro-Ghahk, Sha-Ghar his hearth-wife currently present beside him sitting on the largest carpet depicting the battle in which they took this city, his two eldest sons and the goblin messenger of the Bál-Su’urthr, one of the chosen of the Pentarch of the Nightscale, already bearing the blessing of the Nightscale, his tail already dragon like his scaled arms ending in long clawed fingers, while the rest of his body is still clad in a dense brownish fur matching his skin tone, an ape like crude goblin face and a small body frame, barely taller than your average dwarf height numbering at 150 centimetres, dressed in a blackish white robe that is lightly armoured in small plates fitted for the goblin-kin, much more sophisticated in looks compared to their fellows inside the mountain. His vulgar goblin face showing signs of higher intelligence compared to the sons of Vro-Ghahk adored with scar rune tattoos filled with magical energies.
“The Pentarch is expecting you in the main camp with the other leaders.” The goblin messenger’s crooked deep voice, deeper than other goblins’, breaks the silence within the tent. His partially mutated body slowly gets up from its sitting position on the smaller crescent shaped carpet depicting the Nightscale unleashing his flames on the capital of the fallen kingdom. A faint jolt of fear runs through the bulky pale greyish body of Vro-Ghahk, a part of him expecting the Pentarch to send him down to the mountain, to eliminate this new threat down there before the Nightscale would learn of it.
“I am also prepared for the investigation you requested as soon as possible.” The goblin follows up after a moment of silence, his bag filled with various potions that allow him to seen the unseen, stones imbued with the different types of mana to enhance the potion effects while also highlighting other magical residues left behind, lying next to him.
“Thank you for that messenger of the Exalted!” Vro-Ghahk breaks his own silence that was slowly turning awkward to him, gently bowing his head to the goblin before standing up, his hearth-wife and two eldest, almost as tall and muscular as him, following after him like waves of a calmly raging sea.
“Well, I won’t take up anymore of your time, once again my condolences Chieftain.” The goblin says as he bows his upper body while holding his fist to his chest clad in the blackish white robe of his etched in with orcish runes emitting a faint whitish glow, the hood covering his small head falls even more forward, dressing half his face in shadows, leaving only his greying brow beard lit by the warm light of the sconces baring the motifs of the former northern kingdom.
As he leaves Vro-Ghahk sends his second eldest after the Messenger of the Pentarch, helping the old goblin gather a party for the investigation in the Téllnat Forest far north west to them. The eldest of his leaves next, leaving him and Sha-Ghar together embracing each other in their arms, a calmness coursing through his being once again while Sha-Ghar puts her pointy, almost elven like ears on his massive chest, listening on to beating of his heart slowly lowering its pace.
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“Do you really have to go?” She asks, Vro-Ghahk picking up a tiny hint of worry in the voice of hers, making him feel a bit happy. “If and when the Pentarch calls, we go.” He says reminding her of their oath, while pushing down the worry inside of himself, reminding himself to be the warrior that he was before. The two faces melt as they share a gentle short kiss, Vro-Ghahk breaking their embrace first, heading to the back to prepare for a long travel, Sha-Ghar staring at his back with worry filled eyes.
**
Kra-Aghk leads Gnuld, the messenger of the Pentarch out of the tent guarded by a tall muscular orc with a few battle scars already decorating his painted brutish face, the other a human with a fair northern skin tone, age wise he’s beyond his prime with his lower face hid behind a bush of a beard, located in the center of the ruined city. Surrounded by decrepit white marble buildings drenched in ash and snow, the cold yet gentle northern wind coursing through the ruined building ravaged by the Dragon and his fervent servants who work tirelessly to redecorate it in their image. Most of the houses have been demolished by the Earth-Movers of the clan, reshaped into statues, using most to construct an enormous shrine to the Nightscale in the former noble district of the city. The leftovers are used to shape statues of Vro-Ghahk and his clan’s best, depicting them in their moments of glory.
“I am glad that the eldest of the famous White Wolf accompanies me on this journey” Gnuld says with fake admiration in his voice. The goblin is one of the few who seen the light of day first in the North, hearing mostly about the conquest that followed the burning, his favourite being the tales about Vro-Ghahk the White Wolf and his clan bringing down a dozen cities, their bodies coated in their famously known white paint, an alchemical concoction that enhances their physical and magical prowess at the same time, one of the reasons they are feared and respected even in the south. But after seeing the state the once great White Wolf is in, his mental image of one of the greatest warriors of the Horde have been shattered, and his eldest is not that better at first glance, in his eyes at least.
“The honour is mine Messenger of the Exalted!” Kra-Aghk exclaims with a proud voice with a hint of hidden anticipation in it Glund picks up on with years of experience spent within the upper echelons of the Horde, while also aware of the burdens of the eldest, living up to the standards his father set and even more. “I’ll bring the best of my band” he follows up brazenly while they pass by varied members of the clan, some carry food for the cookers, others carry ingredients for the shamans whose tents are located in the former western market district of the city and tools for the blacksmiths holed up in the ruined buildings where they set up their forges while some of the rest either just mingle and converse while others transport bottled up strange bluish liquids that refill the Earth-Shapers.
“I expect nothing less from you!” Glund replies with empty praises, his dwarfing body compared to the almost two meters tall Kra-Aghk, his wicked mouth filled with sharpened rotting teeth forms slowly in a gentle smile while he looks up, noticing the snow starting to fall on them, the gentle cold wind stops, letting the flakes fall down undisturbed into the mouth of the goblin who quickly swallows them. Then he starts walking in his own pace again, Kra-Aghk keeping his pace on his right, while the two continue their way to the eastern districts in a calm silence.
**
13th of the 12th Epoch, 768 of the First Age.
The cacophony of the burning wood quietly filled the dimly lit space of the tent, a tall orc dressed in a robe heavily decorated in dark dragonic symbols that in the warm light of the fire gleamed in purple while the rest of his robe remained dark as the starless night sky itself. Over the robe he wears opulent lamellar plates, a mix of orcish and northern human design engraved with enchantment runes that refine his mana while also shield him from the corruptive effects of the necrotic energies that taint it. Shadows covered his primal, brutish upper facial features with a dark crown embedded with three different coloured stones in the top middle part gently pushed the woven hood to the back and sides of his large dark greyish head scarcely adorned with white hair.
“The chieftains are on their way Exalted One!” For a faint moment a cold, dry light fills the dimly lit interior of the tent set up in what was once the square of the capital of the northern kingdom of Virdr, a crooked old men dressed in less luxurious looking wicked garbs, his body twisted and crumbling, sprinkled in greases and lost its colour decades ago, remaining deathly pale, enters and his young yet raspy feathery voice, barely reaching the sharp ears of the Pentarch of the Horde, the Left Hand of the Nightscale.
His massive figure clad in his luxurious outfit turns around facing the messenger sent to the Hlátr-Scaelu, his eyes mixed of golden and dark as dried blood gently stare into the being of the messenger. “You did well my friend” The Pentarch’s gentle, majestic and enigmatic deep voice resounds within the camp, loud enough to reach the messenger of his clan while also staying within the boundaries of the tent.
“Is there anything else?” His voice once again fills the interior, once again filling the messenger’s being with a strange warmness, feeling joyous to be able to stand in the same space as the Pentarch. “Yes, regarding the Dhau-Íssz pilgrims, no report on any invader.” After enjoying the feeling that filled him, the messenger comes back to reality and reports. “I see. Thank you, you can now rest.” The kindly contorted face of the Pentarch lost in thought looks at the messenger raises his left hand, light bluish energies gathering in them while he motions them in the air, the old looking messenger’s creaks flatten, his skin regaining some of its colour that it once possessed. The messenger leaves then while profusely recounting his unending loyalty and gratitude to the Pentarch, whose wide mouth filled with small tusks forms into a soothing smile.
He turns back, facing the large shrine depicting the majestically dreadful form of the Nightscale as he burns the capital to cinders with his dark flames that swallow the light, its six legs resting on the decrepit walls with his four enormous wings spread out, his four eyes each a gift from the Ur-Reaper staring down at the burning featureless figures laying in a praying pose as their bodies engulf in flames.
The Pentarch closes his eyes, a deep sigh escapes his mouth before he starts chanting the serene tune that he recounts from the dreams that have been storming him for weeks now, each involving him floating in the vast emptiness surrounded by two, a colossal tree made of aether like energies basking him in strange indescribable light, its thousands upon thousands of branches ending in spheres of differing colours of the same kind. A wound festering on its massive dull surface decorating the rest in spreading cracks.
The other presence, cold and empty, but the kind of emptiness that is wanting, to be more, to be filled while also possessing an aura that terrified him at first but then as he accepted it soothed him like a gentle mother’s hug or a father’s compliment filled with proudness. After a few more silent dreams, The Empty Presence as the Pentarch referred to it in his mind, started chanting a collection of unified serene tones that were unintelligible in the dream world while in reality it washed away his previous doubts, showing a way to achieve his goals and dreams while also granting him small gifts while also beckoning him to silence and secrecy, telling him it is not the time of revelations yet.
He raises his left hand, looking at it for a moment, still feeling the necrotic energy he sapped out from the messenger. “Now who will be the next offering?” he murmurs to himself, the cracking of the burning wood quietly filling the interior while he is in deep thought.