Disorientation Night by Serjazul

[Keeper Of Lore]

His blades sunk into an elf's flesh not long ago, blood gurgling and spouting upon their synchronized entry. It was anonymous besides being male, and if he was asked why he slew it, he would say he couldn't remember. On occasion, his condition was useful when he wished not to answer. He responded to the elf's grief apatheticaly, his eyes observing as the elf struggled to take its last breath, clutching the Forsaken's wrists in a failing effort of defiance. After relinquishing the steel from its neck, he turned away in thought. He sometimes wondered when and where he had first learned how to so naturally drive his daggers to their destination.

He awoke, though standing straight upright, to the ending of a meeting. Or at least this was what it seemedto him. They all wore the same emblem on their chest, the figure which helddaggers in the shadows. He wore it as well. The faces and shapes ofthem were not something he remembered; they were cruel and beastly, somebearing tusks and horns. Striken with panic, he slowly distanced himself from the confusingstrangers. His memories collided, disorienting him to an extreme that he rarily encountered. They contradicted eachother; past fought against future for what his friends and enemies were.

"Where are they?..." He spoke irrationally to himself, attempting to grasp his situation. "...Have they returned?"

The strangers looked at him oddly. It was apparent they knew nothing of what he spoke. What was before him was beyond reasoning. His eyes raced among their ranks. Are those trolls? What are they doing here? Further, he stumbled away.

"Have the Magi returned?..."



(( Open RP. The setting is the Ghost Lands, following the Grim meeting ))

[Keeper Of Lore]

by Mahalaki

*looks to his sometimes mentor* Humm, Serj be not remeberin again. I wonder what he heck he is talking about.

Serj, Has who returned?

[Keeper Of Lore]

by Acherontia

Acherontia bade farewell to Melchisedech as he activated his hearthstone and disappeared from her shadowy sight. She turned to Serjazul, intending to remind him again of the Mistress' decree, but he was no longer standing where he had been during the meeting. The warlock scanned the auras of her fellow Grim, searching for his familiar color, and finally saw him stumbling away from the group, towards the tower. With a sneering laugh, Bronvina leapt forward and brought the sting of her whip down and through the incorporeal shade of a lingering spirit, scattering its essence to the wind as Acherontia hesitantly approached the rogue. There was a twist in him, a knotting of uneasy darkness, something she had been able to identify in others' spirits as confusion. His was twisted further in, though, almost painful to behold.

The warlock heard Serjazul muttering softly to himself. Her ears caught the word "magi", and she sighed softly. He seemed to have forgotten already. "Serjazul?" she asked hesitantly.

"Have the Magi returned?" he mumbled quietly.

Acherontia shook her head gently, though he did not seem to be speaking to her. Rather, he was still mumbling irrationally to himself, nonsense words and phrases given what had just happened. "Serjazul, you are in the Ghostlands. You are Grim." Acherontia remembered that one phrase, the sentence she had been able to "read" the day he had shown her the notes etched into the flesh of his hand. In the instant of contact, before the revulsion gripped her and snatched her own hand away, she had been able to feel those letters upon one of his fingers. "There was a meeting. You are among allies, in no danger. The Mistress spoke of Haven. Thaena, Hailos, Lelenia..." Acherontia's voice trailed off. Was any of this helping him to remember where he was?

[Keeper Of Lore]

He lightly clutched his hair with a skeletal hand. It was clear he was dead. He tried to block outside distractions to get a hold of himself. He needed time to read. They could be enemies, do they wish to cloud my mind? He glanced at the blood elf. His condition left him helpless and gullible at times, though he was quick to detect true sincerity in ones expression. In some cases in which he could manage to remember his surroundings for as long as a day or two, he was proud to be mentoring this elf, who had been quick to learn and grow in experience. Though this was not the case now.

He heard the warlock speak his own words in question, "Have the Magi Returned?" He wished dearly that he knew. Clearly was he dead on the outside, though he was still dying from within for the Magi to return, for them to return victorious and the fighting to come to an end.

Her other words were nonsense to him. This wasn't where he last was, and he knew of no "Grim," yet his hands suggested otherwise. He wished to break them off from his own body at times, to destroy his past and live in confusion in fear of what truths he might discover. How could they not understand what he spoke of? Even the ignorant ones were keeping up to the current events. Despite his inner turmoil, he again attempted to grasp for something familiar:

"Has the fighting stopped? Have all one hundred returned?"

[Keeper Of Lore]

Acherontia felt the muscles of her burned out sockets contract as she instinctively tried to flick her gaze to Redcap as he stood behind Serjazul. Outwardly, though, her face remained pointed at the rogue as he pressed her for news of these "one hundred".

She felt helpless. She didn't know what to say or do; she knew nothing of what he was speaking. The warlock clenched her hands into fists to avoid reaching out and taking his head in her hands and forcing him to stop talking and focus on something she knew should be familiar to him - the tabards all around him, his fellow rogues, anything. No. He wasn't a raving hysterical to be shaken back to reality like a mangy dog.

The gentleness in Acherontia's voice forced it down to a bare whisper of sound - it could not fight past the scratchy hoarseness it had become. "No. No, they-..." She trailed off, not wanting to lie. "I don't know if they have returned." Deflated, she continued, knowing it would confuse and frustrate him further. "I don't even know who or where they are. I am sorry."

[Keeper Of Lore]

*Some of Kromag's last words I heard were the caution to be respectful. He may have meant something else but his Mothers words still rang in his ears on the needs of quietness when his Elders were talking*

Stepping quietly to the side I studied the pair looking for a way to be helpful in some manner. His head still swam with the loss of Capt'n Anaie and he rememberd the loss of Kromag.

If you two need anything, a bottle of wine, some chairs, a table, the living heart of something, let me know. *concern showed in his eyes as he watched *

[Keeper Of Lore]

He shook his head irritatedly. "Rubbish, rubbish! I can't stay here any longer..."

He reached into his belongings, most of them unfamiliar to him. He clutched the stone and pulled it from his bag. Etched upon it he saw several words, all of them scratched out except one. Each word above was more faint than the one below:

Strom

Lordaeron

Quel'Thalas

Undercity

Orgimmar

Shattrath

He could only remember the first one. Without warning, he held it close, slowly drawing upon its power to teleport. "I must leave this place...gather my thoughts and read..." He couldn't remain in this unfamiliar place for long, perhaps he would find answers elsewhere.

He eyed the two confused ones and presented a grim smile.

[Keeper Of Lore]

One moment, Serjazul's twising spirit was there; the next, it wasn't. Acherontia felt the pull as the air rushed in to fill the void the rogue's body had left, but in an instant it was as though he had never been there. She imagined him sitting somewhere, pulling up his shirtsleeves to read the words he had scratched into his own dead flesh, lost, with no past and no future. Who were these magi he spoke of?

With a nod to Redcap, she turned away and pulled her hearthstone from her pocket and spoke into it. "Melchisedech? Are you there?"

[Keeper Of Lore]

How could I find out the information I sought? Growing up untalented my education was not as complete as it should have been, where might i fill out this lack.

Looking down at the weapons and armor I had recently collected a place suddenly sprang to mind, attuning himself to a familiar mind I shouted out, "Mintche stop your prayers, we are headed back to The Library"

[Keeper Of Lore]

by Melchisedech

Melchisedech opened his eyes when he heard her voice over the hearthstone. He unfolded his legs from their crossed position, lowering himself gingerly to the cold stone floor of the Undercity. Clawed fingers plucked the stone from his belt pouch, and he traced the rune to activate it.

"Ah, Acherontia. How may I be of service?"

[Keeper Of Lore]

"Who are the Magi?" she asked, immolating a wandering spirit to vapor with a careless wave of her gloved hand. "After you left, he-...Serjazul was...he was rambling about them." The rogue's lost spirit, twisting in and around itself, still danced in her vision. "One hundred. Who are they?" Yes, a longing too, amidst all that turmoil. How could she help him? "When are they coming back?"

[Keeper Of Lore]

"Ah, yes, Serjazul... the one who remembers lost Arathor, hmm?" Melchisedech pondered a moment. "I know of no hundred magi... it is possible it is something the Alliance is doing. Or something that the Blood Elves are preparing..."

Something niggled at the back of Melchisedech's mind, and he moved to one of his bookshelves, plucking a thick tome from the row. He paged through a bit, until he came to a specific passage, and then frowned. "Is it possible?"

He began to read to Acherontia. "'The elves found that although humans were innately clumsy in their handling of magic, they possessed a startling natural affinity for it. One hundred men were taught the very basics of the elves' magical secrets: no more than was absolutely necessary to combat the trolls. Convinced that their human students were ready to aid in the struggle, the elves left Strom and traveled north alongside the mighty armies of King Thoradin.
'The united elf and human armies clashed against the overwhelming troll warbands at the foot of the Alterac Mountains. The battle lasted for many days, but the unflagging armies of Arathor never tired or gave an inch of ground before the troll onslaught. The elven lords deemed that the time had come to release the powers of their magic upon the enemy. The hundred human magi and a multitude of elven sorcerers called down the fury of the heavens and set the troll armies ablaze. The elemental fires prevented the trolls from regenerating their wounds and burned their tortured forms from the inside out.

As the troll armies broke and attempted to flee, Thoradin's armies ran them down and slaughtered every last one of their soldiers. The trolls would never fully recover from their defeat, and history would never see the trolls rise as one nation again. Assured that Quel'Thalas was saved from destruction, the elves made a pledge of loyalty and friendship to the nation of Arathor and to the bloodline of its king, Thoradin. Humans and elves would nurture peaceful relations for ages to come.'"

He stopped, closing the book. "Dark Lady... is it truly possible that Serjazul remembers ancient Arathor?"

[Keeper Of Lore]

"Ancient? How ancient?" Acherontia knew nothing of Arathor - she had been born the daughter of a humble tailor and had died the wife of a humble farmer. No, she corrected herself. Simon was no farmer then. He was nothing. Before she could dwell on her husband any more, she pushed the memories aside and pondered what she knew of Serjazul. His was a spirit that seemed folded over on itself a thousand times over, never diminishing in size, ever growing in complexity. When she first met him, she had expected him to be as clear and unmarred as the orc children she had seen in the orphanage - young, fresh, new, with few to no memories. But no, she had been surprised. An intricate, rich pattern woven in cloth he was - impossible to count all the colors, impossible to read the weft. Could it be true?

"One hundred years? Two hundred?" she demanded of Melchisedech. She had never looked at Serjazul through her conjured Eye. "Does he truly look that old?"

[Keeper Of Lore]

Melchisedech shook his head, though he knew Acherontia could not see the gesture. "No, my dear... he does not look that old, and yet, if these memories are truly his, if he truly IS from Arathor..."

The priest opened a second book, blew dust from the pages. He tapped the hearthstone while he read, confirming what he already knew. "Acherontia, if your new friend was present when Arathor stood against the Amani trolls, then he is somewhere in the realm of two and a half to three millenia old."