Sedrai: Lost and Found

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Sedrai: Lost and Found

Postby Sedrai » Wed Nov 09, 2011 3:25 pm

This is the fifth piece of Sedrai's tale, thus far, following a few weeks after the events of "Stolen Moments". Part 2 will be added to this thread in a few days.


Part 1:

There are few places in the two worlds where the Light truly fears to tread. Few places where goodness and honor shrivel like malnourished flowers beneath the sheer, inescapable magnitude of fel corruption and disease. Few places where the Naaru and Elune and whatever other deity of order one might place their faith in seem... pale and empty, promises of salvation that have no chance of coming true.

The Throne of Kil’Jaeden is one of those few places.

Nestled high atop Hellfire Peninsula on the ruins of Draenor, the Throne is a crater blasted out of the crown of the mountain, vast and deep and volatile. It burns with sickly, fel-tainted lava and belches ghastly gasses into the torn sky, as if the dying mountain struggles against the demonic poison that flows through its very heart. A futile struggle, for clearly, the mountain is losing the battle. The dirt is grey and foul, rocks and pebbles strewn amongst the ancient, dried skeletons of enemy and friend alike, all of which crunch jarringly underfoot with each step. It is the seat of death. The seat of damnation and destruction. It is the seat of the Doom Lord Kazzak and all who serve him in the name of Kil’Jaeden the Deceiver.

Sedrai strode confidently among the demons and twisted blood elves, the fallen and falling scions of the Dark Lord, her spine rigid and her glare cutting. Time had shown her that they were much like a pack of feral dogs, these half-mad servants of the Burning Legion, with the tendency to growl and test and nip at anyone who showed weakness. Thus, she never showed weakness. She walked among them as if she were a Doom Lord herself, looking dangerous in the scarlet and titansteel armor Brandig had crafted for her, a runed polearm strapped to her back. When they looked at “Xonath’s toy”, they saw frostbitten rage and blood and danger, an ally who was at least as deadly as an enemy.

It suited the death knight just fine, their fear and mistrust. They are the only currencies of any value in the Burning Legion, and with them, she had bought to right to wander the Throne at will, to peer into its nooks and crannies without being questioned. Only Xonath and Malfias and Doomlord Krazzak himself dared question her.

As it should be. As she had carefully ensured it would be against this very contingency.

Sedrai kept her “hard face” in place as she let her mind slip back to the previous hour, to a risky meeting with Tharion Greyseer and his senior students in an attempt to finally understand the nature of the nathrezim Xonath’s manipulations. None of them could have guessed the dire consequences of their eventual success: Tharion’s abduction by the spider eredar, the one called Malfias. With his game exposed beneath their careful analysis, the demon had spirited away the Netherbane shan’do in a flash of light and magic, snatching him in the space between one breath and the next.

The draenai attributed her frustration at that thought to the uncertainty that now dogged her mission. If Tharion were killed or otherwise corrupted, her duty would be done, left unwhole and unfinished, a failure. The thought sat very ill with her, making her stomach turn. Failure was not an option.

Additionally, if Malfias exposed her activities to Xonath, the dreadlord might very well decide she was working against him. That, too, would destroy her mission. But until she found herself faced by a murderous nathrezim or his angry army, she would have no way of knowing if her careful collusions with the Netherbane had incurred the demon’s wrath or not. She could do nothing to remedy what Malfias had seen and heard except to ensure that he was destroyed... hopefully, before he could damn her in Xonath’s eyes.

Thus, there was only one path for the death knight: she had to help the Netherbane recover their shan’do from within her demon-aligned role, guiding and informing without compromising her place in Xonath’s order. A challenge, to be certain, and one at least as likely to end in death as success.

So be it, she thought, climbing nimbly up a small rise on the outer rim of the crater, her titansteel boots digging deeply into the dirt. “One to the next until there is oblivion or peace”. We will not be deterred from this path; not by the demons or the mortals are any combination thereof. It is what we chose. It is who we are. And so we will persevere.

Resolve tightening her grip on the blackened stones, Sedrai pulled herself up over the crest of the rise and stopped short, blinking in surprise at a rough-hewn stone door that had not been there on her last visit to the area, mere days ago. Huge and wide, it loomed against the cliff face, its edges marked by a ragged line that looked as if it had been cut with a dull blade, ripping chips and gouges away from the rock in numerous places. As she approached and placed her palm against the unmoving stone, the death knight fought a shiver of dread, imagining a spider’s skittering touch against her mind.

Malfias. And, undoubtedly, a captive Tharion Greyseer.

Clenching the fist she pulled from the door, the draenai forced away the odd reaction, knowing that touch to be an echo of a memory not her own. Logic ruled her, and after a moment’s consideration, logic drew her to the same conclusion. She turned to look over the entirety of the Throne, strategically visible from this vantage. They were massing in numbers she had never seen before, the demons of the Legion and their followers, carefully arranging themselves in a defensive posture she knew well. They expected an assault on this very rise, and they had at least four cadre hidden in the best ambush positions in the crater.

If the Netherbane attacked the doorway, this crystal-clear invitation to come and find their shan’do, they would be slowly and systematically slaughtered. Xonath would stand unopposed.

As Sedrai circled the rise, searching for the best place from which to keep watch on the demon’s lair, she wondered idly whether or not, in the end, that would be for the best...

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Sedrai
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Re: Sedrai: Lost and Found

Postby Sedrai » Fri Nov 11, 2011 10:53 am

Part 2:

Adrilas yawned, still shaking off the cobwebs of sleep as he bent diligently over his workbench, carefully examining the first of many crystal shards under Sedrai’s watchful gaze. Like last time, she had planted herself in the farthest corner from him, folding her arms across her chest as if she feared they might lead her closer if they were not restrained.

He hummed low in his throat, pausing a moment to glance up at her.

“I see the grain striations from the second signature, just as you said,” he rumbled in flowing Draenaic, his eyes wide with wonder. “I cannot believe the density of the data on this crystal. It is... miraculous!”

The death knight restrained her impatience, jutting her chin to indicate the rest of the shards. “Examine the others. I thought I saw something odd in the striation patterns, but I was unable to confirm it with the components of the reader.”

Adrilas glanced mournfully at the poor, dissected invention, laying in pieces on his workbench where she had dumped it. He shook his head, mumbling about the tragic waste even as he bent over the next crystal… and the next… and the next. After the better part of a silent hour, the male straightened from his work, pale and numb with shock.

“This is not possible,” Adrilas mumbled. He need say no more.

Sedrai leaned forward, her cool gaze triumphant. “You saw it, too? That the patterns are all identical?”

The large male stumbled over to the stool in the corner, nearly missing his seat when his knees gave out beneath him. “Identical. Sixteen identical copies on sixteen different shards. How can this be? Crystal data does not replicate when the medium shatters. It cannot make... duplicates, like this.”

“I believe...” she began hesitantly, stepping forward to take one of the shards in her bare hand, “that the second set of ‘data’ was sentient. A demon essence placed there as a trap for an... associate. Somehow, that sentience must have driven the duplication when I shattered the crystal. One trap became many.”

The draenai set the crystal down with a click, meeting the worried gaze of her companion. “Now, we must determine when this trap was triggered.”

Adrilas gasped, standing suddenly. “You believe you might’ve been the first to spring the trap? By the Light, Vasedra, you could be possessed! You must go to the Exodar, let O’ros cleanse you before you lose yourself t—“

“Adrilas, enough!” She slammed her fist into the workbench, sending his tools and equipment jumping with a clatter. It was enough to end his tirade and show him the icy rage in her eyes. “I do NOT answer to that name, and I do NOT go to the Exodar. You know this. You also know the terms of our association. Do not continue to test my resolve on those boundaries, or you will regret it. This I swear to you.”

She did not miss the moment of panic on his face that resolved into wounded anger, nor the way his hand curled into a fist against the workbench, but she chose to ignore them, preferring his enmity to his blind, painful devotion. It was safer for them both. “Now... When. Was. The. Trap. Triggered?”

For a moment, he stared, considering defiance. But he gave in after a few seconds, the steel leaking out of his spine. He would always help her; he could do no less.

Sighing, Adrilas bent over the crystal shards once more, using an assortment of tools and equipment to peer deep into the material, seeing and feeling features that were far too small and too fine for the naked eye. He knew them all like the back of his hand, these signatures written in the very atoms of any semipellucid medium. He knew them, and he read them, and they were all the meaning he had left in the world.

“Two weeks.” He said, finally, lifting relieved eyes from the last of the shards. “The fracture decay is very clear; the second signature on each of the shards was intact until sometime within the past two weeks. Thank the Naaru.”

Sedrai did not smile as he did, though some small amount of the tension in her frame dissolved with the news. She had suspected that the demon had saved all of himself for his real target, but she knew better than to assume she knew the rules and limitations for their dread kind. Acknowledged or not, the very real fear that she was the unwitting host for a demon had been dogging her since Fethas had first warned her of the trap laid in the crystal, of the twisted admissions from Tharion’s Felborn.

It had been over three weeks since she had read the shards.

Stepping over the trailing edges of Adrilas’ joy, Sedrai approached the workbench and began to gather the crystal shards, tucking them once more into the small pouch that had become their home. So intent was she on her task that she jumped when a large, blue hand closed over her own, pressing her fist against the stone table.

Brows furrowing with something between anger and confusion, she glanced up at the big male. “Adrilas?”

“I want the shards, Sedrai. Consider them my payment.”

His announcement surprised her, though when she thought more, she realized she probably should have expected it. Adrilas the Crystal Shaper. He would want to study the only memory crystal he’d ever seen; such was his brilliance that he would probably, given enough time, find a way to use it. To reawaken the Wanderers’ knowledge of psychomancy and the power to store and share and manipulate the vast knowledge of a civilization.

More importantly, the death knight no longer had a use for them.

Nodding, she released her hold on the last shard, allowing him to release his hold on her. “Very well. You have served me well; I am not so cold as to be ungrateful. They are yours.”

The male watched with relief as she set the pouch on the workbench beside the free-standing shard, listening one last time to the music it made as the crystals rang against each other. A beautiful song made by an ugly weapon. How typical of their tragic worlds.

Shaking her head, Sedrai turned to go, reaching the door before she remembered. Hand on the frame, she turned back, drawing his attention from the crystals. “One more thing.”

“Yes?” he said, earnest gaze riveted to her serious expression even as his hand caressed the pouch of crystals distractingly.

“Do you know a man named Xyus Valryss? Did he speak to you?”

Adrilas blinked, confusion written on his face. “Xyus from the inn? We… chatted a bit, yes. Why?”

The death knight frowned, clenching her fist against the doorframe. “So it was you. I knew I had destroyed the records...” Turning to face him fully, she pointed a finger at his chest, leveling it like a sword from across the room. “Xyus Valryss is dangerous and deceitful. You will not speak with him, again, Adrilas. He will get you killed, and likely me as well. Do you understand?”

“I... understand.” He was incapable of keeping the hesitation from his voice, the uncertainty from his eyes. It only made her frown more deeply.

“I think you do not. He is a danger to your soul. He consorts with demons willingly and knowingly. Heed me in this. You must not have anything more to do with him.”

The Crystal Shaper stared at her, pale and shaken. “I... I had no idea. But I swear, I never used your name. I never broke the terms of our arrangement. We only spoke about Vasedra, about the past. By the Naaru, I swear it.”

She saw earnest panic in his gaze, enough to ensure that he could not lie. Xyus had used that forgotten name on her as a gamble, and she had reacted to it like a rank amateur, confirming his suspicions and worse. The doting father was a foe as treacherous and manipulative as the demon he served; she would not be caught unawares again. And now, neither would Adrilas.

With nothing more than a nod, Sedrai turned and left the darkened shop. Tonight, there was no deep, warm laughter to chase her down the street, and she pretended very hard that she did not feel its lack like a hole in whatever was left of her soul.


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