Earthwielder: Nightfall

These stories take place during user:P3a's Autumn 2010 absence from the game due to school.
They are about Ursala Earthwielder and her time with the Twilight's Hammer cult.
They are best read alongside the letters she was sending to her clanmates at the time.
==4th September, 2010==
I was swimming. It was black; not dark, but black. Black and sharp and hungry. Below us, fire; above, an ill sort of mud. The sludge began to fall as I swam desperately through the inky strange dark. The earth did not break as it landed, but melted into the furious, boiling liquid. It was on my face and around my limbs; grappling, grasping, choking, changing.
I woke. Immediately, I knew I was still bound. Not to a table any more, at least - there were more gentle leather cuffs on my wrists and ankles, as opposed to the thick ugly metal ones of the previous day. Or, more accurately, I assumed it was the previous day that there was the... table, with the whip. Maybe it was earlier today. Maybe it was years ago.
The gag keeping my tongue stilled was cleaner and smoother than the other one had been. Something was dulling my mind, though - my thoughts were sick and stifled.
There was food. I saw the food. I was hungry. My hands were bound together in front of me. I ate it cautiously. I thought that I had asked Water to check and cleanse it of toxins - I thought Water had answered my call. But once I had finished the raw meat, I slumped back against the wall once more in the same unnatural slumber.
==5th September, 2010==
The next time I woke, the gag was gone and my mind was clear. The cuffs were loosened, as well. I opened my eyes to examine my surroundings and found myself blindfolded instead. Troublesome.
At that moment, I realised that there was breath on my cheek, and became still. A female voice, Orcish, spoke.
"You are an oddity," she said.
"I know," I replied. I opened my mouth to speak again, but she cut across me.
"Has your back stopped hurting?"
"You healed my wounds."
She laughed incredulously. "I am an elementalist, not a restorer."
I was quiet for a moment, choosing my words carefully. "Where am I?"
"Underground."
"Okay. Why?"
My cheek was struck. My head was slammed against a wall by her strong blow, stars dancing in my unseeing eyes. Her strong voice cut through the dizzy haze. "This will be a lot easier if you do not ask questions like that."
"As you say." I knew that compliance was the best option here – they had already whipped me once, and it was an experience that I wished to avoid a repetition of.
"I need to know your name," she grunted.
I only hesitated for a moment. "Dursa Dustslaker."
"Alright, Dustslaker." It was difficult to hide my relief at her having believed my pseudonym. "You already know that attacking me will only make this more painful."
I was about to ask, in the manner of a pup, what she meant – when I felt my cuffs spring open at her hand. It was only at this point that I realised I was still wearing my armour. Why did they let me keep it? Did they know I had a buzzbox in my ear?
I was led, still blindfolded, through winding corridors. We walked for at least twenty minutes – my ears popped twice. In this time, I made contact with Earth. The ground here was... violent and angry, but strangely familiar. It smelt of mud and roots and fired clay and people living.
As the feel of the ground under my boots changed from dirt to stone, I felt myself change hands – from those of the female into two stronger guards of an unknown species. Considering the height of their elbows, which they hitched under my shoulders to practically carry me, they were probably Tauren.
I felt a rush of air on my face, then the blindfold was suddenly gone. I found myself facing an arena. An opponent opposite me – a human. He was conjuring fire.
I called Wind and It answered, stealing the words from his mouth. I called to Fire myself, instinct setting the shock of flames into a stark emblem on his chest – the shape of a hand made in charred cloth. He cursed out loud and began conjuring another spell, made of cold this time. Whilst I could not ask Wind to take his voice once more, I could cast my own spell – in moments, a thick, round ball of molten rock was in my hand. Then, it wasn't in my hand. It was across the arena. It was in his chest.
He fell. Somebody applauded.
I span to face them, drawing my shield for the first time.
"You can put that thing away," he said, in a thick Darnassian accent. "It won't be of any use."
"Why did I attack?" The words spilled out before I could think about them. "He was there and I attacked him. Why did I attack?"
"This place does that to all of your kind," he drawled. He strode across the arena towards me as though I was not a threat, still largely shrouded in shadow. I raised my shield further.
"I said that would not be any use. Put it away."
I looked at his silhouette for a few moments, then did as I was told, remembering my role.
He continued. "The fury of the Elements is great here. As it should be. As it should be everywhere. It is why you felt that urge to harm the Human so. There are many things that mortals do to anger Them," he said, looking right at me. The eyes were the only thing that cut through the dark fog that seemed to cling to him – bright, brilliant amber. "But you would know that. You come from the Horde, don't you?"
"Why do you need me?"
"The Warsongs," he continued, ignoring me, "cut down trees with no heed to what any say about it harming Them. The Horde itself is responsible for reckless expansion, and even your beloved Frostwolves are no angels. They have to get the lumber to build their strongholds from somewhere."
I curbed my growing anger and listened.
"The only way to help the Elements is to allow Them to take back what is rightfully Theirs. Azeroth was Theirs long before it was ours. You know that."
We regarded each other for a while. Eventually, I nodded mutely. He made a hand gesture, inviting me to continue.
I, of course, was forming a plan.
"I did wonder about that. My elders always said that we must balance between civilisation and the wilderness, but surely it is best to allow Nature to take Its course?" I paused, and, seeing his look was still expectant, continued. "And to undo the damage done by society already."
"Yes," he said. "And that includes some unfortunate consequences. But it all must be done in the name of the Elements, indeed."
I had never heard anybody say the word "unfortunate" in quite such an insincere way before, but I nodded again. "I used to question when the Elements asked of me to kill mortals. I understand now."
He took another few steps forwards. I realised now that he must have had some command over the shadows, for they were indeed clasping themselves onto his form like armour. I felt uneasy in his presence.
"It seems that we are going to get along well," he said, with hints of summer in his Kal'doreian voice. "Shall we see about getting you some proper food? Maybe a drink?"
"As you say."
--
The meal was shared not with him, but with several other cultists, not all of whom spoke Orcish. Nonetheless, all of them seemed to know where I had come from today – Darkshore, apparently – and that I was a, as they termed it, "new recruit". I gave them all my new name and listened to them politely, all the while formulating a weighted request to the most senior cultist present.
"May I write a letter?"
"What?"
"I must let my father know that I am safe, or he will send a party after me."
The cultist regarded me from underneath her hood. "Really. And how will he find you?"
I shrugged. "He always seems to manage it when I try to run away. In truth, it is a mercy that I am here. But best I tell him I am staying with Mother, yes?"
The woman looked at me. She was a formidable troll, a full head taller than me and twice as broad – tusks protruding from her cowl. Her lack of accent was strange, but she was intimidating enough that I did not question it. I tried not to cower whilst still appearing subservient.
"Very well," she eventually conceded. I was careful not to breathe a sigh of relief. These games were difficult for me, but I had to try. It was my most likely method of getting out alive.
==9th September, 2010==
"Stop daydreaming."
My mother's sharp words cut through my comforting communication with the ground that I was sat cross-legged on.
"Swobu, Mother."I sighed and slowly looked back at the parchment on my lap. She was teaching me. On a rock in front of me, weighed down by stones against the Arathi wind, was a simple sentence.
'Grok went to the armoury.'
I could read. I knew what it said. I could write, too. What my mother was teaching me now was something almost entirely different.
She pointed at the G in Grok, then pointed at my blank page. I picked up the writing-stick and dipped it into the watered-down ink-pot, before writing a capital 'H'.
She grunted, then pointed to the 'r'. The 'H' was correct, then. I wrote an 's'.
"How do you say H and S together?" I asked."You do not."I stared blankly at my page. "What's the point of writing if you can't say it out loud?"She bent down and slapped the back of my head. "Patience," she hissed testily. I grunted. She pointed to the 'o'.
I wrote a 'p'.
"No! Stupid! Stupid runt!" Her sudden outburst took me by surprise, and I scrambled away, backing into the wall of the human-built wooden barracks we were behind. "Sorry, sorry!" I begged, cowering away, afraid of her fists.
Slowly, she seemed to get a hold of herself, breathing deeply and with her hands covering her face.
Quietly, I crawled back to the paper and picked the writing-stick up again. I crossed out the 'p' and wrote a 'u' instead.
"Start again," she grunted, head still in her hands.
I nodded mutely and wrote, underneath the scribbles, 'Hsu'. After that, an 'l'. She did not open her eyes until after I had finished encrypting the whole sentence.
'Hsul xipv vu vji esnuasz,' it read. She checked my work. She smiled.
She picked up the parchment under the stones and wrote another sentence beneath the one about Grok. It was quite long. I swallowed. When she set the parchment down again, I blanched a little.
'Asteme tex e raodl csuxp guy kanq uwis vhi mebz fuh,' read the new sentence.
I dared not look up at her as I admitted my ignorance. "Only one of those is even a real word," I said meekly."None of them are words." She snorted, and looked at the sky."Oh." I was quiet, then hesitantly wrote an 'E'.
Another brutal slap, on my cheek this time."Other way! Peon!"I whined petulantly, before suddenly realising what she meant."Oh, 'U'!"She simply grunted. "Yes." She nudged me with her foot; a sign for me to get on with it.
So I did. Forty minutes later, I had a little more understanding of what it was she was asking me to do. If the person I gave the encrypted sentence to knew the way to change the letters as well, then they could turn them back into words again. It was... contrived, but even my twelve-winters-old self could understand the merit of a code that cannot be read by strangers.
And whilst it was not a skill that I was going to develop over the next twelve years, or even practice much, it was certainly not one that I was going to forget.
==11th September, 2010==
It was never cold in the mornings here. It always was, at home. The Durotar moon ate the heat of the day and never allowed it to return until the sun replaced it and replenished the land with its fire. Here, though, there was no sun and there was no moon – underground, there were no such things as either. But somehow, it was never cold in the mornings.
I still did not know precisely where I was. Earth was not forthcoming with an answer – beyond requests for healing and the like that my induction thus far had seen me performing, my favoured element seemed all but insane here. It spoke too fast, with the wrong ways and the wrong tone. Something was hurting it, or had been hurting it, for too long.
I looked at the pebble in my palm. Despite these strange incongruent ways of Earth being, I kept my old habits. I normally meditated after waking and before sleeping. I had made, this last week, a habit of getting up early in order to satisfy the former.
That done, I now looked around the cavernous dormitory. It was many times taller than it was wide, but it still managed to hold twenty basic beds. Eleven of them, including mine, were filled with other "recruits". Most of them had been kidnapped; some of them had willingly surrendered themselves. Most were mages, or shamans – there was one priest, of an amoral Loa. Most of them were now beginning to wake.
I was already dressed into my elaborately embroidered tunic and plain leather kilt. We had been granted them by the Twilights on our second day since... arrival. We were, oddly, allowed to keep our possessions – admittedly, they did not give us anywhere secure to keep them. My armour was currently in the non-lockable trunk under my bed. My writing kit, including the pieces of paper that I had been practicing my coding on, as well as my sash and my buzzbox (hidden, off), were kept in a satchel over my shoulder. My bandages and potions remained on belt-pouches at my hip. I had moved my totem-relic from my sash to my belt that it was easily accessible.
I had also kept on wearing my gloves. The last thing I wanted was for them to insist at cauterising out my Clan scars.
Some movement caught my eye as I fidgeted with the pebble from the unpaved floor. Suddenly, one of the other captives – an elf, male – had made a dart for one of the doors connecting the dormitory with the rest of the warren-like tunnels. All at once, two brutish guards – a Tauren male and an unnaturally muscled human female – were by him, then slamming him forcefully against the rock-bound wall.
Something materialised out of the shadows. Unnaturally fast, like the shadow of a cloud across the landscape on a windy day, the elven shadow-talker of increasingly uncertain heritage (who I had met in the arena when I first arrived) swept across the dormitory towards the fugitive.
I gagged, and something forced my head away. Staring is rude, spoke a shifting, soft and soothing voice, shortcutting my ears. His Darnassian accent did not preserve into the mind-talk, the words instead coming through in perfect Orcish. It made me feel sick when I heard it. In a moment, I had not had my head forced; I had decided myself that I would look that way, and the statement was from my own thoughts, in my own voice. In another instant, I had been looking that direction all along, and the statement was a concept that had been there all along, since my very birth. It was rude to stare. This was an unquestionable truth.
And then, none of it had happened.
Some movement caught my eye as I fidgeted with the pebble from the unpaved floor. Suddenly, the doors of the dormitory had been flung open, and our host – an elf of increasingly uncertain heritage and no name, in long, flowing robes with dangerous runes embroidered into them – came to greet us.
"Rise and shine," he said, "breakfast will be served soon." His voice was soft and soothing. It made me feel sick when I heard it.
Ten beds, including mine, were still occupied – as they had been at the start of this whole recruitment exercise. It was a wonder that nobody had tried to escape yet. Maybe the others were truly beginning to believe what we were being told.
==17th September, 2010 (1)==
"Dursa, what's up?"
"Huh? Oh."
I blinked a few times, her voice having roused me from my daydream.
"Nothing important." I had been thinking about the letter I had written that morning to Gulgrim. She did not need to know that.
"Right, right. We're going to be late, you know."
"I know."
I grinned a grin which was only partially fake. In truth, I was just glad to have a friendly face, even if the chances were that she could betray me were I to confide any of my secrets in her. I'd met her a week ago now, when I had first been initiated into the cult proper. She was working in the infirmary, like me – helping to heal injuries given in battles not deemed significant enough to take the lives of these cultists. She was one of only a handful of faces that I'd seen more than once but, unlike the others, she could speak Orcish fluently and sensibly.
Odd, considering Emily was human.
"What do you think we'll get today?" She fidgeted with her dark hair as she stood up from the bench in the breakfast room.
I shrugged, standing up myself. " Depends on what they say in morning mass."
She pulled a face. "Remember last week when there were all those burn injuries?"
I nodded. Nothing more needed to be said. Those burns had been a part of a ritual which we had all known about – The Giving was the way it was colloquially referred to. They were not giving wood to Fire, or herbs.
All in all, I considered as we made our way down the winding, subterranean corridors towards the infirmary, working as a medic here was pretty normal. Stupid shamans getting themselves half-drowned or half-burned to death; mages with muscle-deep frostfire burns up their arms; suicidal warriors with more scars than good sense turning up and asking that their latest menagerie of fierce-looking wounds be added to their catalogue by way of leaving yet another mark. Aside from the... one day where they had been feeding the cultists to Fire, it was all surprisingly mundane.
"You're daydreaming again," grinned Emily. "I wish I could know what you were thinking, but you never talk about it." Gently, she pushed my shoulder.
"Words are not always necessary," I grunted. "You ever see a shaman talk out loud to an Elemental? Of course not. Do not need to; is all in feelings and so on, yes?"
"You look unsure, Dursa." She smirked, quirking an eyebrow. I sometimes wondered if she was perceptive or if I was just very easy to see through.
"I..." I sighed. "Because I am, Emily. Being here has brought a lot of questions to my mind about what it means to be a shaman."
"How do you mean? I never got taught all that stuff, heh. Human, remember?"
"I know, I know." I paused, looking around the corridor to check that we were alone, then thought about how best to word this. This conversation was dangerous. "When... was learning, was always taught about balance. Was shown the Taunka and told, 'is all wrong, because is all take take take and no give'. Was told, 'must be give and take', so am used to taking in return for giving. But here is all give give give, yes?"
She considered this, pushing the door to the as-of-now empty infirmary open as we arrived. "I see what you mean. I think."
"And is just difficult to adjust to, after being taught the wrong way all the time before."
"I know. I found it tough at first to heal the really fanatical ones. You know the ones that are all," she put on a silly voice, "'no, leave me here to die, sweet embrace of the Old Gods'?"
I tried not to laugh. "Yes. I know the ones."
"I found it real difficult to try and persuade the Shadow to heal them at first, right? Things are just different here. I wish I could be that devoted, though."
"Mm. Me too. My Life for the Old Gods." It felt wrong, those words coming from my mouth. It should have been 'the Horde'.
She looked at me for a few moments, then strode across the room towards the medicine cupboard and began sorting through it. "I mean, it's easy enough for me to say that and all, but would I actually be able to stand there and let myself be burnt like that? Probably not. I'd feel bad for the poor medic that had to look after me, yeah?"
I leant against the walls, arms folded, and looked at the bottles and potions she was tidying. "Have you heard about this big ritual they're preparing for?"
"Sort of. It's weird, the ones who go to those meetings seem really reluctant to say anything about it."
"Mm. What do you suppose it is?" I straightened my purple robes. They looked ugly against my yellow-green hide. She made hers look pretty, the elaborate stitchwork contrasting against her dark brown skin. I had not seen that colouration in humans before, but it made me jealous.
She laughed. "That's a silly question." A pause, then, "we're out of sleep potions."
"Oh, hang on." I pushed myself up off the wall, and headed for the supplies cupboard with the herbs in it. "Why is it silly?"
"It doesn't matter what the ritual is. We need to trust in the others. They'll bring about the end somehow."
The way she spoke of it almost made me shudder. I looked through the cupboard, then again. And again. "We are out of Nightmare Vine," I said, bluntly.
"Oh. Should I send an invoice for more?"
"Is a difficult thing to get," I grunted. I held in my hands a bunch of Purple Lotus. "I can make more 6-hour potions with this, but the twelve-hour need the Vine. Unless we can get some imported from Ahn'akhet, then..."
She grunted. It sounded very, very odd, coming from a human voicebox – almost like a half-laugh instead of an expression of mild indifference – but she knew that The Old Kingdom were notorious for hoarding their supplies. "What do you propose you are going to do, then?"
"Ask if I can go topside and get some."
"...what?"
"Is a simple enough request." I shrugged. "I know where I can get it from. If I have to, can take my old armour and steal some from Orgrimmar, yes?"
Her face dropped and, for an instant, she looked worried. "Dursa, I don't want you going to Orgrimmar. At best it'll be dangerous. At worst, they'll kill you outright. The Earthen Ring have many agents there."
I grunted. "Is that or going through the Dark Portal and getting some myself. You know how heavily guarded the Portal is." I paused. "I need to go and ask, at any rate. If they let me, they should send somebody to help you with our shift, yes?"
She hesitated, then conceded. She knew that, once I had an idea in my head, it was not going to go away. "Alright, alright. And you promise you won't get captured?"
I smirked. "I promise. If I do, I will... take the necessary precautions." For a moment, she looked sad, and so did I. We both knew that meant suicide. She did not know I was lying.
I shut the supplies cupboard and looked around at the empty infirmary. "Alright, then. I shall probably be two days at least, four at most. If am not back by then, then assume the worst."
She grimaced, then nodded. I stood, and, nodding to her, left the room.
==17th September, 2010 (2)==
I waited patiently. Whilst I did, I straightened my robes, my hood, my cloak, my staff, my satchel; everything on my person was made presentable and neat.
Eventually, there came the voice. "Come in."
Opening the door, I was greeted by the sight of five hooded figures sat around a table. The light source appeared to be in the centre, from the way their faces were lit, but there was no lamp or flame. Each of them was of a different heritage – one elf with sigils on her skin; one dwarf with black skin and red eyes; one orc, in the centre, with fierce, keen green eyes set into her dusky-green face; a male gnome, with purple robes and purple eyes and purple hair; and, finally, a troll, staring coolly at me from her position almost lounging on the final chair.
The orc stood up. "Good to see you today, Ms Dustslaker. Care to step forwards?"
"As you say," I said, bowing, before stepping up to the table."
"Now," said the gnome, "what did you want to see us for?" His tone was oddly civil – not menacing or sinister at all.
"I work in the infirmary downstairs. We have run out of sleep potions."
I paused, gauging reactions. Nothing adverse so far.
"I need to go topside to get more nightmare vine."
They stared at me. I remained still, standing at what Hodges had taught me to be attention, and waiting for an answer.
The dwarf said something in Dwarven. The elf listened, then turned to me and said, "Somebody will need to cover your shift."
I nodded. "Yes, this is the case. These herbs are vital for the continued functioning of the infirmary, however."
"Ah see," said the troll. "And we canno' source dem from aneh o' our outposts?"
"Only Ahn'akhet," I said. "It is a thing from Outland, and they are the only ones that stock it regularly."
The council looked at each other. Ahn'akhet was, indeed, notorious for hoarding its supplies.
Eventually, the orc sighed. "We will need these herbs, then." The council nodded its agreement. "But how do you propose to go topside without being discovered?"
"I kept my old armour," I replied, keeping my tone steady. "To a casual onlooker, I will appear to be a shaman of the Horde. I can make my way to the closest Horde outpost and then to Stonard from there."
The dwarf said something else, in a drawl with a roll in his eye. The elf translated again. "Very well, but take your Twilight robes as well. If you come across one of our outposts, it would be best if you were not slaughtered."
"Dismissed," said the orc, waving her hand. I bowed deeply, muttered my thanks, and only grinned once I had made my way out of the door and half-way down the corridor.
==19th September, 2010 (pictures)==
Ursala did indeed visit Shadowmoon - and there, she met with Gremkarc and Gulgrim. For obvious reasons, she must keep this secret.
Category:Story