Compass: A Cultist's Journal

[Ellsbeth]

Page marked with the date: 09-22 in the upper right corner.

I sit here in Nagrand, unimpressed by the scents and smells of this so-called wholesome place. It is nothing like my homeland, with its delicious poisoned water and deadened skies. There is no beauty here. Flowers grow where poison plants should rise. And in this land of giant animals that roam freely, without the control and manipulation of masters, you will find goddessless creatures rife for the picking.

So for this I am sent. "There are already missionaries in Deathknell, Ellsbeth." The Archbishop bowed his head at some foreign dignitary as we walked together, robes shushing against the Undercity floor. He has said before that part of why I am never promoted is I do not take the time to get to know all the dignitaries and learn to respect them. How can a woman give religious respect to people who do not believe in her goddess?

I sighed, aware that I sounded like a whinging brat. "But Deathknell is where the cradle of our Church is formed. If I could only just be allowed to --"

"--Silence."

He stopped moving and I outpaced him, then turned around so I appeared that I was not attempting to show him my back. The Archbishop, being a rogue, had a ruthless nature when confronted with backs. His dagger hand cut across his body and I closed my mouth. Springs groaned with the quickness of it. A reminder I needed to have the metal looked to.

He continued, "We have lost the High Priest and there is nobody within the organisation that will be suited to that role. Not even I, Ellsbeth."

I gave him a curt nod. I had no desire to be the Foot of Sylvanas. I could speak the words She already uttered, but the High Priest was Her Right Foot, so to speak. Varimathras, Her Right Hand. The banshees, Her Chorus. We were Her feet to walk the world and spread Her Gospel, the High Priest taking most of the weight.

Of all men, the Archbishop could read my eyeless face the best. He could tell my expressions. It might also be because I think like him and so he interprets everything I do as to what he would do. "You agree, I know this. Our needs are in Outlands, spreading Her Word beyond our borders. Allowing Sylvanas' thoughts and song to take root. I want you to practice."

I muttered.

"Practice Her songs, these new utterances She creates in memory of Her time as a Sin'Dorei. I want you to teach them to the children, to ensure that we can save them if not their goddessless parents. In Deathknell, I could send my weakest link and they would be able to pick up corpses by the dozen. In Nagrand, I need to send my strongest. Will you be that link?"

So, that was why he sent me. Here to such a shining, bright place. Mostly out of the ego stroking that he gave me, less out of my adoration of Her. So here I sit, on an ogre mound, watching my future constituents, assuming their moves and listening to their language for the nuances that will allow me to speak Her words.

I swear this is a throw back to the times I spent in Feralas, attempting to convert those heathens. In frustration at their stupidity, I had brought in Contaminator and we just killed them all. Not worth saving.

If the old ones would not listen, they would die. It was the young I wanted, the moldable youth. They would listen and eventually grow to trust me. Then the Gospel could be spread, like the plague, infesting their futures and bringing them closer to Her.

I write now, marking my days in these Ogre Mounds. The words they teach me and the words I force upon them. Eventually I will know their ways. Why they keep beads. Why there are no doors on their houses. Why they choose not to wear clothing when they are so fat. I will learn them and exploit their weaknesses to allow them the Path to Glory.

[Ellsbeth]

Page Marked with the date: 09-28 in the upper left corner.

My first day was deplorable. They don't speak proper languages and only understand a smattering of orcish. I have to draw pictures in the dirt to describe things and I am no artist. This is worse than the Dire Maul Ogres.

I think the Archbishop is tormenting me.

In frustration I killed several of them, ripping off their ogre beads and wearing them around my neck.

It's not getting any easier.

I think I'll go fish up that waterfall.

[Ellsbeth]

Added at the bottom in a reddish ink.


I will kill that Draenei bastard if ever I see him again. I have all my equipment on me, all my robes, everything. Him murdering me while I was fishing up that waterfall meant I had to use the Spirit Healer.

This is the most expensive mission ever. I will spend the rest of the night deciding what to do and what tactics to use. Perhaps I can curb my temper enough not to kill them.

[Ellsbeth]

Page marked with the date: 10-02 in the upper right corner.

Today was promising. I sat and watched the ogre children mimic while a mother-type figure danced in what was a very disgusting display. I think it was some primitive teaching ritual. Maybe these child-minded creatures learn in dance and not in language or pictographs.

I attempted to create a dance that would explain Sylvanas to these savages. I am not a dancer by any means. My few attempts at entertaining in the Karazhan Opera Hall have proven I have little prowess in singing or dance. I am trying to think like these idiots and so have created a dance that tells the story of Our Lady.

First I thrust out my arms as though I am a huntress and stalk around in a circle a few times. Then I stab at an imaginary foe and die. That seems to be my favourite part of the whole dance. I really get to act it out which makes me feel like I am one step closer to understanding Our Lady. Then I mimic the movements of the Scourge as though I am chained. Finally, when they are enraptured by my frightening movements, I display that I have thought again and have broken free of the imaginary chains that bind me. Then I act as though I'm a farmer, planting and sowing. And hold myself regally like the huntress again. I begin to sing the Liturgy.

I have been told I have a pleasant singing voice. I have not heard myself sing before, but I would like to believe it as this display, thrice repeated has brought a large ogre audience. They seem to bring more of their friends each time I pass.

I only had to kill thirty of them. I think it's improving.

[Ellsbeth]

Page marked with the date: 01-23 in the upper right corner.


One of the ogres ripped my old journal. I caught the little bastard going through my trunk in my camp. Ate all the bananas too. These were all the pages I could retrieve.

The following page glued with a greenish glue, folded so that it fits in the two pages.

"Pillow books are a thing of the past."

I was once Alliance. But I am Horde.

There once was a tenet in my old religion that said, "Do unto others what you wish they shall do unto you."

I'm sure it was meant for us to seek penance for our wrongs against others by making 'rights' -- whatever those were. I remember thinking that it was a nice way to make cowardice a virtue. For anyone who has lived in these times knows that others will do whatever they want with you.

That includes doing things they would never imagine doing to themselves. Anyway, I'm digressing. This entry of my Pillow Book (though I could hardly call this lump placed in a coffin in the Sepulchre a pillow) was to remind me of the past. Not the past that brought me to unlife again in Deathknell and then kneeling in awe of the Lady Sylvanas in the Undercity. No. Not that life. This is to remind me of the life I had before. I have to write it down because I am forgetting as each day and each kill brings me closer to my new goals. I have to write it down because I am no longer that person and while I may visit her from time to time, she will only be letters on parchment from now on. She is not me. She was, but she no longer is.

I'll start with my childhood. Faces fade, but I remember a mother who was well-born and dressed in fine silks. My mother was not a common tradesman and it was a matter of pride with her that she didn't lift a finger to even embroider. When I was a child, these were things I admired and imagined that I too would run a large household where I could hire people to do everything but wipe my own bottom. Afterall, I didn't want people to know my excrement smelled. I admired her and she coddled me since my father was seldom around.

My father was some lordly privateer of the realm. But remember, privateers are just licensed pirates and usually thieves. Fighting daring deeds for the King in far off lands. I only remembered his returns as he brought trinkets and silks and perfumes that he swore were made by drunken pandas. His stories were wondrous. Some I wish I could recall just to be able to tell others, but they too have faded. I knew he died in battle. I didn't mourn for him, only for the things that would no longer come and the stories I would no longer hear.

I was but twelve then, young and impressionable, and my mother's unending grief and uselessness bored me to tears. It wasn't long before I spent less time at home and she grew less gracious to my presence. She sent me away to a cloistered hall to, "Grieve properly,"as she said. Only I understood that my father was gone permanently. A thought I could get used to as he wasn't around much temporarily in any case.The seclusion had been more successful in removing myself from her presence than she had intended. There I studied texts and meditated with the other acolytes.

I knew then that a life of the cloth was my destiny, only what I read did not suit my sensibilities. The tenets of my old religion were so cowardly. In those days, people disappeared and died more often than new children were born so I felt that prostrating oneself and begging for forgiveness was not a useful way of dealing with things. I felt alone in my disbelief. I could not believe in an ethereal god of light who answered the prayers of those who did nothing. I could not imagine a being that existed solely to be worshipped and to be used in penance, when the being obviously showed no interest in the activities of its own so-called church.

I believed in the power of man, excuse the expression, and the power of divinity amongst mortals. For there are a few that are born to be Kings, to be leaders, to be rulers over all of us. They are mortal, but they are greater than a common man. This god we worshipped believed that all men were created equal. Clearly this is not the case. Some are born to greatness. Some, like my mother, are born to great people and then become useless. Some are born to usefulness, but nothing more.

I knew I was not a great man or woman. Until that point I had showed no great spark of genius that follows those few. I never believed myself to be born a leader, for I had no desire for it. I just knew that something was wrong with the status quo and I wanted to be a part of the change.

I remember him being a bit of a troublemaker. While the priests had us pray in the early hours of dawn, he would -- and I do wish I could recall his name -- blatantly snore in the middle of prayer hall. A few times he was caught, but mostly he made the rest of us smile and lose our concentration. It was one of the few times we were unsupervised, but that was because they figured us all to be devote enough to spend the hours praying for our mortal souls.

One day he spoke. There were only fifteen of us in the room. The others had been promoted the day before and there were no more new recruits to fill in their places. We had all arrived at the same time, give or take a few months. He had been the last to enter the cloister.

He said, "This is bullshit."

I opened my eyes and saw he was sitting on the altar in front of us, cross-legged. I was instantly offended, as I was taught to be. So were the others. We were proper and did not speak, but our disdain was clear from our faces. To this he just laughed. "Oh I have blasphemed! Sworn in a holy place at a holy time. Oh bullshit!"

He hopped off the altar and pointed at each of us. "Have you and you and you..." he finally came to me and pointed at me last, "...and you even thought about what in the demon spit we are even doing here?"

I answered him, my voice felt hollow to my ears, "We are praying."

"For what? For whom?"He pointed at another acolyte and said, "For him? For me? No. We're not praying for anyone nor is sitting on our knees on a stone floor in front of a mortar and stone altar going to do anything. Change anything. The times are changing... and the power is shifting... yet we all sit here praying in front of a god who doesn't even answer to us."

I remembered his speech, it went on. All of us were flabberghasted, but his charisma and words were too strong to ignore. He spoke of a group that wanted to change it all. Led by powerful men, this Cult of the Damned would make us all truly equal -- in power. Leaders of a new revolutionary time. It needed good men and women who would understand the goals of their leader.

What I did after, well... I have to save for another entry in this Pillow Book. I can't bring myself to remember the subterfuge, the dealings, the sacrifice and then the mindlessness. For although the Lich King had me completely, those final days on the fields of battle... slaughtering countless nerubians until I came under.

Then was reborn.

I know now that my old religion's god did not save me, nor will worshipping Lich Kings, but the Lady Sylvanas has a plan. A revolutionary plan that I will follow and give my life for.

I go to sleep now, curled in this coffin, a reminder of how close I can be to being Scourge. And it's also a reminder of a life I left and would never see again.

[Ellsbeth]

Another page glued and folded. On the paper it is marked, "Was I that much of an idiot?"

I miss him. I have never missed anything before in my undeath. Except I miss him dreadfully. If he'd gone and left me a note or a word, then perhaps I could wait without feeling this emptiness and heartache. I miss Contaminator so.

How to explain something I never thought would be possible for me? When you're full of religious zeal there isn't room for love, or so I thought. He's different, though. Despite what others constantly told me before he left and still say even after he's gone.

Contaminator is exciting. For someone who reads tomes all day and blesses others, to have a little drama and a great deal of intrigue floating around, that's invigorating. Contaminator always had time for others. Had. Has? Oh I hope it doesn't mean that he's gone. Women's journals are supposed to be filled with concepts of these things. Doodles of your name with his and hearts with bows gouging them, but mine has never been. By the Lady, I go back seven pages and find drawings of religious relics and a crude attempt at creating a Midsummer's Sacrifical Rite for next year.

I don't write about love and emotion. I'm so lonely.How can someone come into your life so quick and just take over? He was always there and when he wasn't I yearned for when he was. And now without having him around I feel listless and needy as one coming off a drug. Only I had no intention of coming off Contaminator.

None. He's gone.

I know it had to deal with his own issues and the issues of others. I came between them all and chose my side, where my 'heart' belonged. It beat for him as all those poems say. I can tell you that those few moments spent sitting in the Undercity with him before he left... if I could have them back I would not have responded to the taunts by those insane bullies. I would not have blown up at them, causing him further anguish and embarrassment.

I would just have leaned my head against his chest and breathed in his death-inducing scent. I miss his grumbling breaths, even though he had no use for it, he would wheeze just a little when we were close as if drinking in my proximity.My mother used to have a word for how I snagged him. She would have called it 'Propinquity' and should we have been human, he'd have been some great SI:7 member. Someone she would have been delighted for me to be with. Putting myself out there in the way of marriageable men.

Not a priest or an inquisitor. Those were men you couldn't parade around and flaunt when they could possibly point fingers at you yourself. No... a spy.Why am I writing such fantasies of a time long ago? Who cares really? Sylvanas help me. I feel so alone now.

Even with the noise of Infection and the chatter of Gutterspeak in my ears, I still miss him.

[Ellsbeth]

I went through some old entries I wrote only a year and a half ago. My how we grow in time. Since then I have left Infection and gone to join The Grim. Since then I have grown colder. I barely remember Contaminator. We were so close once, always sitting near the cockroach vendor in the Undercity, curled up in eachother's laps, wasting time. Precious time.

I wonder where Razvaan is. That's one priest I haven't seen. It was he and that other one... Lucian? Lucius? Lucio? That beat Contaminator and caused him so much anguish that he irrevocably changed. Our love changed that day. I think I began to pity him.

I spent some time with him in Outlands and it was strange. Still the powerful rogue, still the powerful killer, but I was seeing him in a different light. He left me when I thought he was my world, albeit save for Her. I had my good works to console me and that was what I poured my efforts into.

He wanted the Ellsbeth that was before his loss. The one who coddled and held him and cried when he hurt her. That is not the Ellsbeth that is, now, with The Grim.

[Ellsbeth]

"Walk with me." She said while leaning against her cane and holding her hip. "Changing forms isn't what it used to be. I'm not old, but I am certainly fucking tired of switching from cat to bear to this form and back again. Don't even get me started on the seacow."

I nodded to her, thinking about why Paperdoll could possibly recommend me such a pissy woman who had been fighting with that annoying trinket vendor in the Lower City. The guards had stepped in and I had been one of the three people attempting to pull her back by her hind legs and tail. I am not a physical person and that was probably the most physical work I have done in a long time.

"So you're a religious type, eh?" She peered at me through heavy eyelashes and down her greying snout.

I nodded again. "Bishop of the Cult of Sylvanas."

"And you need a place to hole up for a bit. I got that place. Why doesn't your Cult find you somewhere to live?"

I was annoyed at the question, but answered it, "We are in financial straights and no longer have a cloister as it was repossessed by the Steamwheedle Cartel. Our High Priest dropped the Faith and most of us are missionaries who live near the people we work with. I just left the Grim and needed some place to... recouperate for awhile."

"How do you know 'Doll?" She leaned against her staff, face unreadable.

"When I was in Infection, I attempted to fix her while my partner at the time, Contaminator, attempted to burn her. She is her own creature and often I speak with her when I am in the Undercity."

"Strange plainstrider that one. I think I understand most of what she says. Good hard worker though."

I shrugged at her, not certain whether I should tell her the truth of it. Paperdoll contained a bit of my human corpse. She contained a bit of many bodies, probably. I could understand her like few others could and it bothered me. Not to mention I had been in Karazhan and Dessana had caught me singing, but I did not have a recollection of it. I needed a safe place to discover myself and few ventured to Thunder Bluff. Plus, surrounded by other women I would be insulated. Or so I hoped.

Iona was judging me. I could see it. "How long are you staying with me? I can't just take women who ain't offering anything for me now can I?"

"For as long as it takes," I replied. "I can supplement you as I make a little bit in Outlands when I heal."

"I ain't got no use for gold." Iona laughed. "I have a tent and I have my clan. I have no children so I have no worries about inheritence. When I go to the Earthmother, I go without anything in this world. Ashes to ashes, girlie. Dust to dust." She spit on the ground and we walked further towards the portal to Thunder Bluff. "I gotta say, you don't seem like the type who walks far from a large guild. You don't seem the solo, reflective type."

"We are not always what we seem."

She seemed satisfied with my answer and dug around in her pouch for something. A carving. "Yenene made this. Ain't no key as I ain't got no locks anywhere. But it'll mark you as one of us. I betcha you won't like the tabard. I chose it to keep my yayas up while I'm not in bear form. A woman's breasts sag after years... and yours..."

"Are not my own." Despite myself, I smiled and I felt the creaking of my jaw.

"Lucky then. Don't smile though, Bishop, cause it scares the shit out of me. Welcome and I don't hug anyone."

"I appreciate that." I did. I don't hug anyone either.

[Ellsbeth]

I am done with this joke of a halfway house. It's little more than a brothel. A undead woman sits at the door, staring as people enter and leave. She is incapable of communication in any form and will repeat every last word you say. I could not rest and recover last night while she groaned, "... Infect..." Over and over.

Sometimes the Forsaken are not worth raising. Clearly the case with that paper-covered imbecile. I have half the mind to send her back to Deathknell.

The Cult is shaken. The Archbishop retired for, "Personal" reasons and that leaves a gaping vaccuum in the order. With no High Priest and no Archbishop, we have many little minds vying for power. I refuse to join in the political gainsaying. I am not a politician, I am a priest and I am here for moral guidance not personal gain.

I met the Archbishop while fishing in Tirisfal. He passed by and seems rather, delighted (?) with his new post. I suppose it can be understood. He had no desire to be High Priest and no desire to herd cats. Herding cats. Something I hear over and over again lately.

With a bankrupt Church and us losing members almost daily, it seems a hopeless business. I moved on with my missionary work to Netherstorm. The Goblins at least can carry an interesting conversation though their obsession with technology and gold frustrates my very sensibilities.

Back to the Halfway House that is Viragos. Iona and I had a long talk. I respected her decision to not allow me to keep eight candles burning at all hours. I do not think she respected my religious propriety. She does not understand and calls Sylvanas an idol, which is preposterous. She is a Goddess in physical form. After she made some snide comment about Sylvanas being called Windrunner for some unmentionable reasons, I was done. I did not mock her Earthmother religion -- a religion based upon the idiotic ideal that the earth and all the things in it are 'One' and it is perfectly fine to die. It is not fine to die!

Logic dictates that once you are gone, there is nothing else. I will live forever and it is only because Sylvanas had the will to break away from the Lich King and the power to bring us back. To allow us Free Will.

Idiots. Earthmother! Idiot!

I have sent a letter to the Mistress. She returned the first one so I sent another. Hopefully this one will be answered. I cannot live with the plebians in society any longer. Even the social natterings of the dress-obsessed Sin'Dorei are preferable to this!

[Ellsbeth]

I am back with The Grim. Something has changed in Lascivious. She is... soft? Pliable. Not the hard oak that stood before us. We met above the sewers where the contaminted waters of the cave system pours down below into the lower ring. She sighed a great deal and asked me questions that I had no business answering, but I did anyhow. She was sad. Feeling other than anger from her is unnerving. I do not know what to think of it.

I have been hearing of the good works done by Priestess Thrysta. I am curious and would like to go to one of her sessions with the orphans in the Lower City. Perhaps there is hope for me there outside of the Cult of Sylvanas.

I am mostly in Zangarmarsh now. I seldom leave the Cenarion Expedition Outpost. There is little for me. Though my return to the Grim was comforting. Many old faces from Infection many new voices without faces from the Sin'Dorei. Plenty of egos and I am not one to bow to the will of others unless they deserve respect.

I will have to seek out Acherontia. There is much to be done.

[Ellsbeth]

The time has passed rather uneventfully although changes have come to the Grim and they are ones in which I approve.  The Mistress has stepped down, her sadness was highly visible, clear to all and left none in doubt that the fire and brimstone that was her is now changed.  Change can be good, so long as it improves and behooves us to do better.  Stagnation never encourages growth. Only destruction does so.

Malebrignon is now leader of the Grim in the role of Artificer. While we have never shared theoretical notes, I find that which comes from his mouth to be astute and cold, the proper way of a leader.  He often says amusing things much to the humiliation of weak others and that is something a good leader, a powerful leader, ought to do.

The change has made Lascivious more bloodthirsty I think. No longer does she have to dance and cuddle everyone with her words. No, she can be her own demon and so I believe she is reveling in it.

The warlocks bicker as warlocks do.  The Professor has not been around much and so I seldom get to prod him for queries about what is new with the world.  He is certainly more 'with it,' as they say, than I am.

It is a pity that I have cloistered hours when so much that is gossipy and interesting happens.  It is a vice, yes and a weakness, but I love to hear of the failures of those who are failures.  Perhaps destruction will make strong, powerful allies out of them.  Perhaps not.

I would not sully my journal with their names.  Although when time comes to remember my time with The Grim, it might be entertaining to spend that time reflective on the failures and reflective on the triumphs that came out of the failures.

The High Priest has returned.  Not that pompous shit that left the order on his own to go wallow in self-pity in Deathknell. No no not him.  But Jergal.  My happiness knows no bounds.  He is cold, focused, and like a ship he cuts through the water to the final destination.  I know I lag behind, this is my penance, but I will bear it.  For he has returned and he is strong and the Church will once again be born!  My Lady! Oh how I yearn for Your words again! Let me be a good servant to You! Let Your words ring out in joyous embrace!  Let me be a boon to You oh Lady divine!

I shall kill and destroy in Your name. Amen.

[Ellsbeth]

I do not know what to think. The new High Priestess of the Cult, the pompous little shit that she is, has called all the Bishops together for a discussion with the Archbishop and herself. After this little chat session, we will seek an audience with Our Lady and her consort Varimathras. She sought me out specifically in Shattrath, much to my annoyance. She ordered me to go. I assume that my comment on her weapon attuned to healing and the fact that she can only create healthstones, jarred her.

Likely the High Priestess wants us all to bow down to her and then extoll her virtues to the Lady. I will definitely not comply with that. I have no nose to be sticking up her ass.

She is passing edicts left and right. One has been to simplify our mission dress and to give us a uniform of a sort to make it so the others see us as what we are, Missionaries from the Lady. She continues to ask me to remove my Grim tabard and I continue to refuse. If she can prove to me that the Cult will once again be powerful enough to deserve its own tabard, then I will wear it. Until then it is only a collection of parts and a political mess.

Jergal has returned again and we often defend Azeroth together. He is still as witty as always and his voice is refreshing to hear in the Grim stone network. There is too much whining to be heard.

I changed my affiliation to Vengeance but it is clear there is no love between myself and the Hand, nor her rogue minions. It will always be a battle I am sure. But I defend My Lady and I defend my land. When I point this out, they begin to whine more. Soon they will stop whining and grow backbone.

Perhaps it is time I did something about the Cult. Perhaps it is time that an ineffectual organisation die. Perhaps.

[Ellsbeth]

We met at the symbolic hour of dawn in the courtyard of the Undercity.  I was not amused as the time difference is atrocious and I have been spending more and more time assisting the Aldor in Outland.  First we dealt with the mind damaged, controlling them and forcing them to clean up the ghosts of the courtyard.  Then when the area was settled and an Alliance rogue was sacrificed, then devoured with proper thanks, she began.

It was drivel.  I know drivel.  I often use drivel for my own benefit, though I prefer not to give flowery speeches which could explain why I am not the High Priestess and that succubus sucking bitch is. 

An Aside:  Why does she not have an incubus?  Clearly their sexual power is more appropriate as Our Lady has a male demon of her own.  It would behoove her to show some attempt at mimicry of Our Lady's positive role.  If I were a demon wielder, I should have a male demon companion to show I am aware of My Lady's relationship with Varimathras. 

It went on for a good twenty minutes.  Dawn touched the courtyard and I found myself thinking of the times that Infection met in the place.  Of the battles I had fought there against the Alliance.  I stole an extra human toe to suck on while I contemplated.  I will atone for that greedy sin when I flagellate myself later tonight.

She spoke ad naseum.  Without end. I swear that Forsaken, although we have an eternity, take an eternity to come to a conclusion.  Her conclusion?

We are not devout enough.  To show our 'devoutedleness' [Her word, not mine] we must all go to gather costumes of ignorance by running around Stranglethorn Vale, killing trolls, and collecting pantsuits. 

Pantsuits.

Have we become so shallow?  Can she not see the raiment that I wear is certainly more imposing than a pantsuit?? 

Devoutedleness?

A waste of time.  That's what it is.  A WASTE OF TIME!

Apparently Our Lady was too busy to speak with us.  She will attempt an audience at a later date.  Why am I not surprised?

[Ellsbeth]

Reg-N'anetah asked me the question I did not want to answer, but answer I did.  Though my heart, if I had one, broke and my disappointment with how far I have strayed from Her glory, hurt. 

Would I leave Her side if she denounced the Grim?

Yes.

This one thought echoes and echoes and I know I am blasphemous and torn.  How can my loyalties be to an organisation instead of a Goddess?  She is the Creator of Forsaken.  She is the returner of Will and I use this will of mine to just denounce Her name.  What do you do?  In a previous life I would have just gone to a confessional and pleaded with my superiors to give me penance.  A few prayers each day.  Perhaps skip evening meal so I could feel the penance through my hunger throughout the night and into the morning again.  Where breakfast would break the fast of torment and torture and put me back on the right path.

What is the path?

The path I walk is shrouded in shadows now.  I am certain to follow it and be aware.  To be wary.  To watch.  To know my heart is inexplicably Grim and to see whether the hearts of others, be they there or no, are as well.

There is no penance for the Undead.  We are penance.  We walk with decrepitude.  My legs disintegrate before my eyes.  I carry stench I cannot smell, but others can.  I step forth and death follows.  I am not capable of feeling the angry weight of penance, for I am penance.  So how does one punish the penance?  How does one punish the undead, the walkers between death and life?  I can live an eternity without food.  I do not drink.  I do not crave carnal lusts.  I do not gamble.  I do not have vanity.  I am beyond these things now. 

I could not crave carnal lusts even if I did have the body parts for it.  The idea of sex as a corpse disgusts me.  Though if memory serves me right, I did not have sex before i was turned.  Nor could I have it now.  How is this even an issue?  It never was until the arrival of the elves.

I think, there was something in Contaminator and my companionship.  We spent a great deal of time in eachother's presence, without having sexual contact in the sense of the physicality of sex.  It was certainly alluring, often sitting within eachother's presence, arms wrapped possessively around the other.  My was I enthralled with the drama of our courtship.  The demons that he spewed and the darkness I healed from within him.  Sadly, once it was gone, the interest was gone as well.  He was a greater creature with greater darkness within.  When it was without, it was no longer interesting to me and after I saw him again, it was all I could do but to wish him on his way and out of my presence.

I do not think I am capable of love like these others are.  I am capable of loyalty.  I am loyal.  I know this because I do not cheat and it never ceases to amaze me the disloyalty others show.  I have little tolerance for ignorance, yet i find many of the ignorant to be the most intelligent creatures of the Grim.  Kazthul for instance.  He is certainly brilliant, yet not smart.  I find him very useful and he is an ally I am very glad has joined with us.  On the same coin, I find others who are considered intelligent to be a complete waste of time and I count the hours until they leave us.  For they shall.  The Hand went first. That was not a loss in the slightest.  That Deathshadow went with them, certainly was. 

It is a matter of waiting it out.  Listening and being patient.  Patience.  That is something I can elaborate upon.  If I have nothing to do penance for, then I should find a new set of joys that I will cut from my routine if I am not worthy.  If I am not patient.

[Ellsbeth]

I have been promoted which is slightly curious.  Reg-N'anetah met me and asked where my loyalties lay.  My loyalties lie with The Grim now.  It has been my home for most of my undeath and will likely remain so until we are all driven to dust or Azeroth and outlying lands are brought under heel with the peace of the Mandate. 

Acherontia contacted me to ask whether I would be interested in shepherding new blood.  Of course.  Who would not be interested in such a thing?  It suits my sensibilities very much.

Before I barely noticed minions unless they balked over the stone.  Now I am to ask them questions and seek what it is they represent in our order.  I am to ensure that the independent, yet orderly spirit of The Grim is maintained.  I am to make Acherontia's workload lighter.  I am to do what I have not done in any order for quite some time.

Being Bishop of the Cult allowed me freedom from bureaucracy.  I passed sermons, shared insights, and saved souls whlle delegating my duties to the lesser ranks.  I remember what it was like to be an acolyte, picking up all the miserable jobs and scrubbing pews.  Of course, in Silverpine the desire for a clean pew is not as high as it was in Lordaeron before the fall.  But there is a certain sense of cleanliness and order needed in any religious building.

I must think of The Grim as a religious building.  A church.  This church needs orderly pews, perhaps not all matching, but all aware of their location within the building.  Some closer to the dias (which is now the Archmage) and some further away.  Rank. Filed. Ordered.

It amuses me to write that I will 'keep an eye' on these minions.  Considering I have no eyes, the hilarity knows no bounds.