Warcraft: Raven Hill Cemetery

Year 25, Day 3

We ended up spending a few more hours at the grove before departing. I spent some of that time examining the pool, which I now knew to be called a moonwell. It hadn’t been my intent to create a Blueprint of it––I hadn’t realized I could do so––but after some time spent exploring the pool and experimenting with its waters, the Blueprint snapped into place within my Spark.

It seemed such pools were, if not necessarily common, then not particularly rare either. They were not a natural occurrence either, but rather something created by the night elves. Enough that they qualified as a magical artifact, rather than as part of the terrain. I would probably need to be careful about where exactly I tried to recreate this particular artifact, but it was certainly a valuable addition to my arsenal.

The moonwell possessed a number of useful magical properties. Bathing in or drinking the waters had a rejuvenating effect: wiping away minor injuries, weakening curses, and refreshing the body. They could also help a wizard restore their magic, though unfortunately the effect did not extend to mana near as I could tell. Furthermore, the waters could be used in all sorts of rituals, and I had a feeling that potions brewed with them would be far more potent than if regular water was used instead.

Depending on how big exactly the pool I could create from my Blueprint was, I could see myself adding one of these to my new home. The idea of bathing in the clear, magical waters with Zatanna at my side was appealing, and having a source of easy, if minor, healing available without having to call on any of my summons would be handy as well.

For now though, I settled for collecting several containers of the waters and stowing them in my bag. I briefly examined the portal, but my attempts to copy it went nowhere. Instead, I settled down to rest, the lingering touch of my headache slowly fading as I watched Peach rush around the grove.

My water was soon joined by a number of containers filled with the fruits of Peach’s labors. A sapling and some cuttings from the tree, two glowing flowers, and a number of other plants she’d collected from the surrounding area. She looked rather disappointed to be leaving, but the promise of more plants she’d never seen before finally managed to pull her away from the giant tree.

The last thing I did before leaving the grove was summon Amber. She was happy to see me and Kent––we’d made about the best possible impression on her before I’d created the Blueprint––and needed no convincing to fall into place within the group. Surprisingly, she wasn’t nearly as upset to be working with Cinder as I would have expected. Apparently, seeing the woman’s shriveled corpse after she’d been healed had been plenty cathartic as it was and she was too cheerful to hold a real grudge.

The trip between the Grove and Raven Hill Cemetery was short, and I spent the brief flight animatedly discussing Remnant-style magic with Amber, Cinder listening keenly for tips on how to use her own magic. Admittedly, it was rather funny to have one-and-a-half Fall Maidens in my retinue. Perhaps in the future I’d return to Remnant and collect the next Spring and Fall Maidens. And probably the Summer and Winter maidens as well, just to complete the set. I wasn’t sure how useful they’d be, but the idea tickled my fancy.

We almost didn’t notice when we reached the cemetery. Peach was the first to point it out, directing our eyes to the occasional gray slabs of stone visible through the gaps in the forest canopy. We descended down towards the ground and confirmed that, indeed, we’d reached our destination.

Perhaps once this place had been well tended to, but those days were long past. Scraggly grass, withered shrubs, and moss covered many tombstones. Others were clearly knocked out of places or completely buried by the encroaching forest.

We backtracked and soon found the long-destroyed remains of the fence that had once surrounded the cemetery. Great sections of it were missing entirely, with only the occasional stone marker indicating where it had once passed. Even those were often missing, sometimes leaving behind holes in the earth where they had once stood.

With that reference point to follow, and the relatively accurate maps that Althea had given us, we rose back into the sky and observed our surroundings from high above. Raven Hill Cemetery was rather massive. It extended for several acres before us, and we could see a number of weathered, damaged buildings scattered amidst the trees. Thousands, perhaps tens-of-thousands, of tombstone were set into the earth, barely visible from above as more than gray dots amidst the browns and greens of the forest and hidden beneath the trees.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t really get a good sense of what and where everything was. The entire area was filled with a dense blanket of necromantic magic that rendered my magic sight nearly useless, and between the darkness, trees, hills, and other growth, it was impossible to see much of anything from above. Only the road that spiraled chaotically through the cemetery was visible from the sky, a thin line of gray not yet fully consumed by the plants around it, and even than only in some place.

After a few minutes of discussion, we followed the outer perimeter of the cemetery till we reached the original entrance, then landed and proceeded on foot. We advanced cautiously down the road, scanning our surroundings for anything significant. Kent and I walked at the center of our little formation. Peach was to my right, while Glynda was to Kent’s left. Cinder walked at the front of the group, two glass knives held tightly in her hands, and Amber followed a few paces behind us, her staff held loosely at her side.

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Many of the tombs around us had clearly been ransacked, large holes dug in the soil and tomb markers sticking out of the ground like crooked, broken teeth. There was evidence of both looting and undead everywhere we looked. Random garbage was strewn across the ground, and the occasional signs of combat could be seen in gouges in the dirt and broken bits of bone hidden among the grass.

We encountered our first undead just a scant few minutes after entering the cemetery. It was a disgusting, wretched thing, a half-rotten and badly twisted corpse slowly chewing on what looked like a femur, bits of flesh still hanging off the cracked bone. I recognized it as a ghoul from Althea’s notes, a type of undead that fed on corpses to heal and strengthen itself.

It perked up when it noticed us, turning towards our party and peering at us from behind a small monument to some long-dead man with too much money. It scraped one last bit of flesh off of the bone with its teeth, then hurtled it at Cinder with a lot more force than I would have expected. It charged after its makeshift projectile, but it never really had a chance to reach us.

Cinder batted the bone out of the air with one of her knives, then used her semblance. The glass knife split into a dozen arrow-like shards and shot forward towards the ghoul. The thing couldn’t have reacted in time, even if it had managed to notice the dark shards flying through the air. It was sent sprawling backwards and was swiftly pinned to the ground. It tried to struggle, tugging wildly at where the shards were buried through its remaining flesh and into the ground, but it was no use.

Cinder turned, a small, confident smile on her lips. “All yours, Hydrys.”

“Thank you, Cinder. Well done.”

I swiftly collected a Blueprint from the disgusting thing, glad my aura shielded both my fingers and wand from having to actually touch any of its rotting flesh. It tried to bite at me, but Cinder kept it locked in place until I was done, and then the shards inside its body sliced it into countless pieces until it finally lay still.

We moved on. Over the next half hour, we ran into a number of other undead. The Blueprint of a crudely armored, longsword-wielding skeleton was swiftly added to my collection, but unfortunately the other undead were either more skeletons or ghouls, and I was unable to create Blueprints for minor variations.

And then, as we were finishing dispatching a group of about a dozen ghouls, we finally found something actually interesting. Or well, it found us. Namely, that powerful undead that Althea had asked us to deal with, Mor'Ladim.

It appeared out of nowhere, charging over a hilltop and rushing at us with impressive speed for a creature formed from naught but bones. It carried a glowing longsword and wore fine, if dirty, golden armor that shone with powerful enchantments.

If I had been alone, this could have been a challenge. The undead was fast, and I could see powerful magic on its sword that could have caused me some trouble if I wasn’t able to stop it before it got on top of me.

I was very much not alone. Peach, who was examining some half-dead weeds, was the closest person to the undead. She looked up, tilted her head to the side, and then drew her weapon from her hair and took a single step forward to meet its charge.

Glowing, magic-infused steel met Peach’s aura-sheathed knife-syringe thing and was stopped cold. Her weapon was considerably shorter, but she was still able to roughly shove the undead backwards, making it stumble.

Mor’Ladim swiftly recovered and raised his sword in a ready position. A golden flash of light burst from his blade and slammed into Peach, her aura flicking into visibility as it washed over her. Mor’Ladim swiftly took advantage of the momentary distraction, its blade scything through the air towards Peach’s neck. She raised her weapon again, but Mor’Ladim changed angles and his sword crashed into her side. It was unable to cut through her aura, but there was a lot of force behind the blow, and Peach reeled to the side.

By then however, the rest of us had gathered our wits. A tombstone slammed into Mor’Ladim’s chest like a cannonball, and there was another flash of light as it was deflected off to the side. The second tombstone, as well as a black glass arrow, were both deflected as well, but whatever protections it was using were ultimately just a delaying factor.

The earth beneath the skeleton’s feet erupted, sending it tumbling into the air. A golden ankh slammed into it a moment later, and the shining bubble of protective light around it shattered into sparks.

Then Amber called upon the wind, and Mor’Ladim was thrown higher off the ground, held in place by the same magic that Amber typically would use to fly. Her eyes were outlined with orange flames as she used her Maiden abilities.

Mor’Ladim tried to struggle, but it had no leverage to speak of and the magic it had been using had been, at least temporarily, overwhelmed. Kent summoned a golden ankh, binding the undead creature’s arms and legs together.

Collecting a Blueprint took longer than it had for either of the other two undead, with Mor’Ladim fighting me every step of the way, but ultimately there was nothing it could do. Whenever it seemed like it might be about to overpower its bindings, more would be applied or blunt force would be used to shatter its protective magic once again.

Eventually, I had my Blueprint, and the undead itself became superfluous. It raged and raged, and then Cinder and Glynda reduced it to small chunks of broken bone, leaving only its head intact. The creature’s armor and weapon were stowed away in my bag, and we took the skull with us as well to present to Althea.

We spent another hour wandering the cemetery, but found little else of note. We destroyed what must have been at least a hundred undead, perhaps more, but they were all just ghouls and skeletons. We found no signs of the necromancer that Althea had warned us of, nor did we encounter any particularly powerful undead besides Mor’Ladim.

Still, it wasn’t a complete waste. Three potentially useful Blueprints wasn’t a bad haul, and we even found some small quantities of the local currency which could be helpful. I supposed some of the dead had been buried with money, or some of the unfortunates who’d been hunted down by the undead had been carrying coins when they died. Either way, every bit counted and silver and gold were both a lot more valuable in Zatanna’s world than they were here.