Sealed to the Mandate

The stories and lives of the Grim. ((Roleplaying Stories and In Character Interactions))
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Khorvis
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Sealed to the Mandate

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[[ Continued from Fel Expansion. ]]

The depths of the cell had begun to take on a certain greenish cast in reflection of its occupant's malady. Trails of bracken slime leaked through small cracks in the mortar and the air had taken on the fetid stench of low tide in Tanaan's Zorammarsh. When the moonlight of Frostfire shone at just the right angle through the cell bars, high up on the sloped walls, a mocking mirage of cavorting shadows seemed to shiver their way between frosty chains.

Khorvis was hunched in his usual arc of concealment, an agony to look upon - to do so would elicit phantom pains in one's spine and questions of the orc's own locomotive future. A slathering chomp periodically splashed its echos throughout the dungeon, followed by the licking of jowls and the slurping of tongue.

Kerala's gift had been accepted with relish.

The stones of the prison shifted. Muffled as if in another world, the cell's bars shook and buckled beneath the onslaught of Brast's vainglorious assault. The body of Khorvis responded with absolutely no reaction - a motionless statue embracing the dance of dust and debris that stuttered from the ceiling. Within that secondary prison, the soul of the orc screamed. His comrade of the wilds and brother in the most desperate yearnings for freedom in the expansive opportunity that was Kalimdor ... barred from embrace they were. He would welcome those fangs and claws if only the fel consumption would ...

The warmth of the tauren flesh heated Khorvis's veins in kind with the single ray of Draenor's sun that lanced into the cell from the damaged roof. Night had given way to the freezing day and with it came the foul winds blowing Westward from Tanaan. On the horizon could be seen a fel light emanating from the distant mountainlines beyond Gorgrond.

Khorvis buckled again earthward and his frame locked in rigid stillness. The calm serenity before the doom gripped the slightest of dust motes hanging about the garrison.
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Inzema
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Re: Sealed to the Mandate

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Qarosimae stood leaning against the wall where she could observe Khorvis. A small part of her screamed that she should feel something for the orc, a long-time compatriot, ally, and shield in the war that perpetually plagued the world in which they lived, but it was a tiny voice that she barely heard. It was only speculation, anyways, based on observation of other people.

It was the stench that bothered her. It smelled strongly of fel magic and decay. A warrior shouldn't smell like that. Not one belonging to the Horde. Mayhap the Iron Horde, but they weren't actually people. They were chronologically illogical anomalies, the result of meddling in events best left to the past.

Eventually, after what could have been hours observing the fel-tainted Inquisitor do nothing, she stepped forward from the low light towards the bars. She pulled back her hood, lowered her mask, and crouched at the edge of the bars, looking in with the intensity one does a puzzle they are trying to solve.

"Why did you allow yourself to be so broken, Khorvis?" she asked, not expecting a coherent answer, if any.
"If I can't eat it, ssscrew it, sssell it, or ussse it to blow sssomething up, then what ussse isss it?" ~Inzema
Cen
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Re: Sealed to the Mandate

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Last edited by Cen on Thu Feb 02, 2017 12:42 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Aureilya
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Re: Sealed to the Mandate

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Shaelie was there. How long the elf had been down in the dungeons was anyone's guess. She wasn't sure, herself. She melted from the shadows in silence, the darkness pulling away from itself. Dark leather, dark hair. Dark eyes. Her brow was knitted together in a perpetual frown. She spoke no words to Qarosimae, and she made no move to interfere with Cen when the woman entered the cell of Khorvis. Restlessly, the elf paced.

Her duty, in her heart, was to protect the members of The Grim. The reasons why were her own. But this. This was not something she could protect them from. She had tried, and she had failed. Khorvis had fallen to corruption, along with the others. She paced restlessly now, like a caged wolf. Now and then she would pause to watch Cen or Qarosimae. But she was silent. She could fight to protect The Grim from the Alliance, or from Morinth, or from traitors who would call themselves horde while they met with the enemy and formed allies with guilds that would seek to destroy them. But she didn't know how to protect Grim from Grim. So she paced, and she watched. But she did not leave.
Malhavik
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Re: Sealed to the Mandate

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Beady yellow eyes watched the elves from the shadowy realm of the half-phased. Wik'tol the Imp had been there for days, waiting for this moment.

"Oh... Oh yes... Teeheehee! Master will be most pleased!" The imp piped in his shrill voice, and hopped over to the inactive runes he had drawn to his masters instruction. He unphased from his half-world and quickly cleared the runes of the debris he had used to hide its presence.
With a mental force of will he cried out to his master, seeking to let him know that the time was now. An instant later he felt the gratifying touch of his masters mind within his own, and erupted into flames, becoming no more.

The flames raced into the inert runes, which suddenly burst into sickly green life, and then shot back upward in a continual arc, resembling an oval about the size of a man. The shaded silhouette of a lean robed figure appeared in the center of the oval, and the flames and runes vanished as quickly as they had came. What was left, was a warlock dimly lit by four floating soul shards above its head.

Malhavik stood in awe of the thing which Khorvis had become. So fascinated was he, that he didn't notice anyone but the priest and the orc like thing in the cell. The fell was intoxicating. It called to him, pulling at his darker desires, begging to be put to use. His mind raced with the possibilities!

Then he sensed Khorvis' soul, trapped and tiny amongst the maelstrom of corruptive power. Malhavik blinked and rubbed his dead black eyes. Something was wrong. He didn't feel right. His thoughts of using Khorvis for his own ends left him feeling... Unpleasant. He focused on Cen, trying to determine if she was responsible for the strange feeling within him, but she seemed entirely preoccupied; her magics seeming to be in full use creating some kind of protective ward.

Malhavik stood there, and for the first time in a very long time was completely unsure of himself.
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Khorvis
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Re: Sealed to the Mandate

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The corrupted flesh, spreading out from beneath the eldritch eye and writhing over Cen's cradling form, pulsed with the percussive rhythm of the orc's heart. Khorvis's breath grew chillingly cold against the skin of the Wanderer's abdomen. Her flesh was hot with the fevered warmth of wasting sickness. Between the two of them, the battle of light against the fel danced a fatal twist over a razor's edge, though the latter appeared to be slowly overtaking the elf, agonizing centimeter at a time. The grotesque scene progressed like a shining monarch emerging from her cocoon in reverse - even still, the temporary respite granted by Cen's sacrifice afforded Khorvis a moment of lucidity.

The High Inquisitor twisted his neck at an impossible angle against the priest's womb and a red mist cleared from his remaining eye long enough for him to glare with intensity at the paused Malhavik, the inquisitive Qarosimae, and the shadowed Shaelie. The past months of his depravity scattered from his mind like the routed forces of a retreating battalion of Blue Lions, and Khorvis roared a final command in a voice familiar to those of his old self:

"Bloody goat-sucking fools! Seal in this cell before you do become felhound shittings!"

A stray tentacle of fel-stuff squirmed free of Cen's body and stuffed itself into Khorvis's mouth, temporarily gagging the warrior. He bit it off, making a bitter face of disgust and spat it out onto the cell floor.

"Phaw! Find the first High Inquisitor - she can show you the tower where I did drink my foolish doom! Now RUN!!!"
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Malhavik
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Re: Sealed to the Mandate

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Malhavik jumped at the Lashers words. The familiar voice cutting through his indecision like a banshee in a peaceful graveyard. He raced to the locked cell, snapping two of the soulshards floating around him. The sharp edges of the gems bit deeply into his leathery flesh, and black ooze seeped from the wounds. Once he was at the gate, he reached through the bars and slapped his hands down hard on the cold floor. The black viscous substance leaking from his hands shot out across the floor and encircled the two inside in complex daemonic ritual circles and runes.

He would create his own ward. One that would drain his 'brothers' foe and give him a footing to stand on against the tide.

"Drain... Break... Enslave..." He whispered, the three resonating commands of the spell he used to master all his demons. After binding the spell to the framework of his ward, he shouted to Qarosimae, "This ward will slowly devour all demonic presence within its perimeter, but I don't think it will be enough! Aid us quickly!"
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Lilliana
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Re: Sealed to the Mandate

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((whoa, well written all of you. I need in on this))


Lilliana had been pressed up against the wall, seated with her forehead resting on her knees. She often came to visit Khorvis, although she did little when here. She awoke when Cen 'snuck' into his cell, and watched her in silence. Lilliana was not often one to provide any sort of comfort, but her coming to visit like this said more than what she could offer to Khorvis in physical comfort as Cen provided.

She was up on her feet when the strangeness began to occur in the cell. She raced to Shaelie's side to grab her arm, now a bundle of alarm at Khorvis's warning. She then looked to Qarosimae, and the strangely appearing Malhavik for how to proceed. Her domain was strictly one of destroying minds, souls....she knew little of creating wards.
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Inzema
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Re: Sealed to the Mandate

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Qarosimae watched Cen enter the cage with little change in expression. The elf was a mystery to her, one that she was determined to unravel eventually, but it wasn't the mystery of the day. The mystery was Khorvis. Malhavik and Shaelie both received no reaction, no acknowledgement. Qarosimae simply watched Khorvis. Analyzing. Reading him like a book.

She watched, crouched at the bars where she had remained, until Khorvis regained some of his self. Enough to call for a warding of the cell. Immediately she began searching through her mind for the right spell. The one that would work most efficiently, most effectively, and have the best chances of preserving Khorvis that he may aid Qarosimae another day.

That one!

Qarosimae stood, practically tearing the coat section of her robe off, allowing it to hang from her belt. Beneath it she wore a white undershirt without sleeves that showed off the many many red runic tattoos that covered her pale arms and showed through the fabric of her undershirt. She drew her sword from its sheath, the mageblade singing as it emerged from its scabbard. She whipped the blade into a reverse hold, the blade igniting as she did with bright red flame, and drew it across her free left hand. The blood that oozed from the wound ignited on contact with the air as Qarosimae used it to draw sigils, not onto the ground or the walls, but into air itself, the flaming runes floating there. As she wrote with her bleeding hand, she would gesture with the butt of the sword, sending the runes shifting through the air until they marked the empty space at head level from one end of the cell to the other, and once they did, they flared brighter. Qarosimae drew three, smaller runes, and placed these in the last rune she drew. Finally, she raised her sword high over her head and slammed the blade into the stone of the floor.

[Consume that which seeks escape. Let none pass save the designated. Draw fuel from the creature contained!] Qarosimae's words, though the syllables were all in a tongue foreign to any but herself, conveyed their meaning to those listening. Her eyes blazed with escaping fire as she stood, smoke pouring from her nostrils and parted lips and drifting upwards. "Cen, you are one of three that I have included in this wondrous ward to be allowed to pass. Any not so permitted will be purged for as long as the runes remain. Retreat before corruption consumes or the wards will cease to recognize you and you two will become fuel for the fire."

Her warning delivered, Qarosimae sheathed her blade and drew her robe back around her chest, arms through the sleeves, buttons in their holes, and as she did, the fires in her eyes died out and her eyes returned to their normal green. She slipped her mask over her face, her hood over her head, her hair into the back of her hood, and left. She knew who Khorvis had told her to seek and she was going to find her."
"If I can't eat it, ssscrew it, sssell it, or ussse it to blow sssomething up, then what ussse isss it?" ~Inzema
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Khorvis
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Re: Sealed to the Mandate

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The rune wards of Qarosimae slid into place around the cell, and as the last triptych touched the iron bars, the fel corruption at the center finished its complete envelopment of both Cen and Khorvis. Tendrils of stray dark matter crept along the stone floor and testingly prodded Malhavik’s black ring. A sickly tip curled back as it turned gray and crumbled into to dust, like the young frond of fern flash fried in a lightning strike. Snapping back instantly to the center cocoon, the tendril, and many others like it, ceased their undulations. All again went still, frozen in monstrous portraiture. The sudden silence gripped all present with the inhaled breath before the falling of the axe.

Then the fel mass exploded.

In a heartbeat, the corruption slammed in all directions into the three wards placed by the Grim. The resulting impact sent a concussive wave through the dungeons with enough force send any onlookers with poor footing to the floor. High above in the tower of the barracks, the bells rang out from the blast, clanging in discordance. The very foundation of the stone structure groaned in protest, but the Horde craftsmanship held.

Qarosimae’s runes moved instantly to slice off in fiery severance any tentacles which whipped their way out of the bars. They were a whir of movement, constantly flying to intercept the quicker threats like burning pinwheels. The bulk of the mass itself had pushed Malhavik’s black ring back to the edges of the room, but there it stayed, withering away the flesh of the corruption in an ashen aging to rival the abilities of the Bronze Dragonflight.

Together, the combined efforts of the warlock and mage had contained the fel nightmare within a perfect cube at the precise dimensions of the cell. The interior of the mass was not solid – rather, a network of spindles and columns, composed of the same dark matter, comprised a honeycombed latticework into which fleeting glimpses could be caught, blocked by the flailing of tentacular appendages seeking escape. At the center of the cube were suspended the forms of two beings, still locked in familial embrace.

Khorvis and Cen both remained alive in the glowing light of the Wanderer’s third and final ward. The sheen of ancestor Light encapsulated their bodies, just barely inching out the grasping tendrils of darkness that held their unconscious flesh aloft. As quickly as one would spot the core, it would be gone in the erratically shifting network, only to reappear for a fleeting second.

The three wards held, but only just. The fel light beyond the mountains of Gorgrond still shone on the corruption in the bowels of the Grim barracks and the last words of Khorvis rang in the ears of those to witness the metamorphosis.
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Aureilya
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Re: Sealed to the Mandate

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Shaelie had paused in her restless pacing off the hallway and stood still, watching Qarosimae and Malhavik closely. Her eyes narrowed faintly as the runes were put in place, and she withdrew closer to the safety of the stairwell. Magic was not something she understood or felt that comfortable around even in the best of times.

When Lilliana grabbed her arm, Shaelie planted her feet stubbornly and dug in her heels, not entirely willing to be pulled away. But the explosion of the fel corruption within the cell and the resulting monstrosity now contained within the wards quickly changed her mind. The huntress found herself scrambling up the stairwell, seeking cover from the chaos below.
Malhavik
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Re: Sealed to the Mandate

Unread post by Malhavik »

The sudden explosion sent Malhavik tumbling head over heal into the nearby wall where he collapsed into a pile of bones, limbs, and robes. He was back on his feet surprisingly fast, and straightening out his veil as he began to stride out of the room.

"Forgive me ladies, I'm spent. I must retire for the evening and recover".

He chuckled tiredly to himself as he briskly wobbled out of the room.
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Kerala
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Re: Sealed to the Mandate

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((This is so awesome!))
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Inzema
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Re: Sealed to the Mandate

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When Awatu and Acherontia arrived, Qarosimae stopped leaving. It was they that she had purpose to find, anyways. She followed them back into the dungeon, and when the tiny warlock tried to bypass her runes and they held, Qarosimae felt a bit of pride. Quality work. Acherontia had not been keyed to the runes, so she could not pass without suffering harm.

Of course, that was an error, as Acherontia was needed within the cell, and so Qarosimae stepped forward to the edge of her barrier, to the master rune that bound the spell together. She used her boot knife to slice open her left hand again, binding the magic with blood, and a small rune appeared over her hand. She pushed the rune into the master rune, and all the runes shimmered once before resuming.

Qarosimae turned to face Awatu and Acherontia. "I have added Acherontia to those that are permitted to pass. You both may pass into the cell, and return without harm." She almost started to explain how exactly she did it, but realized that neither the sunwalker nor the warlock would be able to understand anyways, so she merely stepped out of the way and gestured for the door.
"If I can't eat it, ssscrew it, sssell it, or ussse it to blow sssomething up, then what ussse isss it?" ~Inzema
Cen
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Re: Sealed to the Mandate

Unread post by Cen »

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Last edited by Cen on Thu Feb 02, 2017 12:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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