Danalieth Hope

==Early Life==
Danalieth Hope, as later events would confirm, was the son of his mother, not only in blood, but in the mind. Selena Hope fled Gilneas during the Gilnean Civil war, unofficially breaking off an uneasy marriage to a certain Jefferson Hope, a Gilnean nobleman. However. she had not taken off on her own. In her flight, she had not only dragged along her youngest son, Danalieth, aged about eight years at the time, but a lover that went by the name Aeder.
Their bond had formed over a passion for magic, a persute they eagerly engaged in while they took refuge at Tarren Mill in Hillsbrad, not caring whether the young Dan was watching. These experiments, no matter how complex or simple, facinated the young boy.
At one point, however, things became dangerous. On these occasions, he was sent out on some minor errand, which he carried out with some reluctance. One such task took him down to Southshore for the entire afternoon. Come sunset, an exhausted, ten-year-old Dan came back to Tarren Mill to find, among panicked peasants, his home in flames. He too might have lost control of himself had he not felt a firm hand on his shoulder, dragging him firmly to this side. He found himself face-to-face with Aeder. "Listen here, we need to leave. -Now-." The strange arcanist hissed. Without waiting for an answer, he forced the boy on to his horse and off they went with little preperation, and very little in terms of personal effects.
Dan never knew why, but Aeder tought him his craft. Was it out of loyalty for his mother? Over the course of the years, he learned what he could from his new master, repeatedly being forced out of certain areas as their experiments took them too far. This continued until the plague forced them out of Lorderon.
They fled South, to the Kingdom of Stormwind, where Aeder came into contact with a new kind of magic: Demonology. Dan followed his master down this dark path, learning from his master the art of pain, the dark arts.
Yet, inevetibly, at the age of twenty three, Dan witnessed his master's greatest experiment transform itself into his undoing in mere seconds, leaving the arcanist but a pile of ash on the stone floor.
From there, after having recovered his wits, Dan began to wander, doing odd jobs for those willing to pay.
==Ravenholdt Blades==
===Danalieth the Warlock, Initiate Rogue of Ravenholdt Blades===
While Dan, aged twenty four, was wandering the cities of Stormwind, he found a note attached with a dagger to a wall. It was an advertisement for Ravenholdt blades, an organisation of assassins. Dan, going back to the logging camp, thought the matter over, and considered whether he should join. Then, taking his decision, he contacts Brenthgar telepathically. This one panics, thinking he is under attack, and resists so violently to the touch of Dan's mind that the imp through which Dan was draining the energy to hold up the spell dies. Finally, Dan convinces Brenthgar that his intentions are peaceful and obtained the promise of an interview. Dan then goes over to SI:7 and walks up to one of the Blades, Esmond, and explains that he wishes to join and that Brenthgar, despite the fact that he was a warlock, told him he might have an interview. Dan explains that he is a telepath, and Esmond, joined by the druid Nihlislan, decides to have a little fun at Dan's expense. They begin quizzing him on the most trivial of questions, most of which Dan gets correctly, drawing the answers from their own minds. The most remarkable of which might have been: "Do I write books?" to which Dan replied: "No, but you have a journal." Dan soon began to get tired of this game, and asked when Brenthgar was going to come down to interview him. What he did not know what that Brenthgar was standing immediately behind him the entire time, and Dan finally said: "Wait... let me guess... he is right behind me?" Brenthgar then stepped out of the shadows to face a bewildered Dan to announce to him he had passed.
Dan soon got accustomed to the ways of life in Ravenholdt Blades, which, at that time, consisted of random attacks just about every single day, and persecution coming from several members that opposed him. The Death Knight Sidorio and the rogue Lokhir often called him "baby eater". The first attack that Dan participated in was about a day after he joined. Madgam was being attacked by a priest while Lokhir was under attack by some other rogues. Since Madgam was closer to his position, Dan rushed to Madgam's aid, and after a short mental battle with the priest, managed to release him. Though when Dan rushed to help Lokhir, the retreating priest turned around and enslaved Madgam once again, so he took out his bow and shot Dan. The pair were rescued, though one horribly injured, and the other dead, by Arrowshifter, a druid from the House of Grey, who patched them up and allowed Dan and Madgam to rush to the aid of their comrades in the Docks, though they arrived to find the battle over.
It was at about this turbulent time that Sidorio, and by extention, Dan, met Sarah Crimsonfate Sutton, though she does not play a notable role in his life yet.
Brenthgar threw a party at Ravenholdt manor one day, though it ended up looking more like a funeral than a celebration. Sllade, Brenthgar's hated enemy, broke in upon the revelers, threw Dan's sword down the mountain, took one of the Blade's initiates, and jumped down the cliff after the sword.
===Captain===
Brenthgar could not have left at a worse time, the attacks on Ravenholdt were increasing in frequency, and by different groups, notably a group led by Niikita, a night elf. Brenthgar had, before departing, named Dan and Lokhir captains. As Dan and Brenthgar walked out into the Old Town of Stormwind, they walked into a bloody scene. A night elf, on the floor, assailed by a couple of men who were beating him. Esmond ran up to them and begged Brenthgar to help the elf, but Brenthgar refused and left, Dan following him. When Dan learned the men had left, he walked back onto the scene, just in time to see the decapitated body being carried into a death gate. Dan collected the spirit of the elf into a soul stone and ran to meet with the fallen elf's men, directed by the elf himself. A new body was placed before Dan in the crypts under the Slaughtered Lamb, and Dan infused it with the soul stone. The elf thanked him, introducing himself as Loki, the master criminal.
Dan would call upon Loki quite a few times over the next few days, questioning him on the small amount of facts that he had extracted from the tangled mess the Blades found themselves in, andalways received an answer that later proved to be correct. Dan ultimately posed his entire problem to him, and wrote down into a book titled The Threads of Fate the narrative which he received. Upon leaving the room which they had installed themselves in, Dan turned around to face Loki. "I thank you for your rather interesting narrative, but there is another favor which I must ask of you." "What is that?" "I need you to kill me."
It was arranged. Dan would bring the Blades together in SI:7, wanting to announce to them what he had found. Loki would break in at that instant, tare out Danalieth's heart, then storm out. Nothing went according to plan however, the large force Loki brought along attracted the Shaman Aeroth, who made a lot of noise and brought the blackguard in, who barricaded the door. Loki did manage to tare out Danalieth's heart, but a fight broke out within SI:7 where the Blades lost Esmond. When the human barricade was finally removed, Dan was taken to be berried in the Eastern Plaguelands.
Not much is known of what happened there that night, but a stranger, clad in dark armor, wielding a black runeblade, and riding a Death Charger was seen in the Docks of Stormwind, slowly riding after Sarah and Sidorio to the boat headed for Auberdine. The Death Knight walked up to the pair, and removed his hornedhelmet. Danalieth was standing there, grinning at the astonishment that the two displayed.
The trio headed for Darnassus and confronted Niikita's forces there. Dan was not injured, but Sarah was dragged off, bleeding while the two death knights fought the rest off.
After this, Lokhir and Sidorio did not taunt Dan and respected him as a fellow Blades member.
===The Threads of Fate===
It was not long before Dan the death knight gave out The Threads of Fate to major characters from the Blades and The House of Grey, who were their allies, and were concerned in the matter, though Brenthgar, being absent, did not receive the book until much later.
===Betrayal, the long road to destruction===
Dan began to teach himself the art of melee combat, having lost the abilities of a warlock in his death. He also somehow aquired a six shot revolver which he, then on, carried at his belt.
If the Blades didn't already have enough to contend with, they would have to deal with betrayal as well. Dan rushed over to Darnassus one day when he heard fighting through two of the Blade's radios. When he heard the sound of a gunshot, he feared the worst. He arrived on scene, in an old cave high up in Teldrassil, fully clad in armor, his runeblade ready to fight off any assailants. What did he find? Xanstin (one of the two generals of the blades), pistol in hand, and Verthy, one of the blade's initiates, dead at the end of the barrel. Madroy arrived on scene a couple of instants after Dan, ordering him to take Verthy to a healer while he took care of Xan. Dan soon found a healer that revived Verthy, and was surprised to constate that Xan would get no penalties. Lokhir was mad with rage at the fact that Xan killed his girlfriend, and he left the Blades.
==="I shot him. Deal with it."===
Later that day, Dan and Arrowshifter, a druid from the House of Grey, were discussing Xanstin's conduct when a shot echoed through Dan's comm, then another. Arrow morphed into a cat and was gone. Dan soon found Arrow at the docks, Sllade dead in the water, and Madroy drowning, unconscious as the result of a bullet wound. Dan dove into the water and brought Madroy ashore. While Arrow tended to the fallen rogue, Xanstin stepped out of nowhere and began arguing with a tired Dan, who was, in this case playing devil's advocate. The topic under discussion was the merits of emotion. When Madroy was fully healed, he got up and taxed Xanstin with treason. Arrow ordered Dan to shoot Xan, which he did. Madroy, realizing by Sllade's dead body that Xan had shot him, took him to the Cathedral to be healed, and left Dan with these words: "I know who is the real traitor here... I'll deal with you later."
===An Easy Escape===
Though Xanstin had managed to fool Madroy, Dan was not so easily convinced, and when he called him in the next day, Dan was prepared for what did happen to him. He was placed in the basement of SI:7, chained with both legs and feet to a wall. Xanstin forgot to take Dan's plate gloves off however, and Dan easily slipped them off, along with his boots and fled, alerting telepathically Madgam, one of the men under his command, and they met in Lakeshire. Quite ironically, Niikita ran into them while there, and let them go when she had heard Dan's story. Madgam and Dan fled up into the Burning Steppes and through the Searing Gorge and met up with Sidorio and Mepth in Thelsamar. Dan explained the situation, and told them to lay low while they waited for their leader to return.
===Among the Gnomes, and a New Phase of Character===
Dan spent the rather short period learning among the gnomes. They tought him some engineering and chemistry, which would in the future become quite useful.
As Dan gained more knowledge and expertise in telepathy and hand to hand combat, it became apparent that he was developing two different personalities. One, Dan the Assassin, was a calm and not very social person, who relied on calculated moves coupled with telepathy. Dan the Death Knight, on the other hand, was rather impatient, swore a lot and was easy to anger or upset. This Danalieth tapped into the runes of his runeblades. The two were very different people entirely, working together in Dan's body to get decisions done.
==="I'm not the traitor! He is!"===
As soon as Dan the rogue knew Brethgar had returned to stormwind, he rushed to meet him, but Madroy had beaten him to it, and had already denounced Dan as a traitor, though Brenthgar did listen to him. Brenthgar seemed to see it as merely a quarrel between members, and seemed to try to calm the matter by making a demonstration of his own. He looked into the matter thoroughly, and then called a Blade's meeting to announce his discoveries.
===BOOM!===
Brenthgar opened the meeting with the phrase: "I am glad te' announce tha' Xan is no' a traitor." Xan gave Dan a look of triumph, but the latter kept his eyes on Brenthgar, having a feeling that there was more. Brenthgar walked, chuckling and smiling behind Xan, pretending to give him a pat on the back. He threw a chain around Xan's neck, yelling: "This bastard was paid one hundred gold by Sllade to assassinate me!" The two wrestled while the rest of the Blades stood by, having been ordered not to attack. When Xan wrenched Brenthgar's gun out of his grasp, he nodded at Dan. The latter jerked his hand to the side, a small, one shot pistol being thrust out of his sleeve, directly into his palm by some unseen mechanism, a contraption of his own make. With astounding rapidity, he lifted it, and pulled the trigger.
===The Fall of Ravenholdt Blades===
The discovery and death of Xan did not change anything however, and the damage had already been done. The Blades were spinning out of control down the road to destruction. Dan does not know much of what happened, but he heard that Brenthgar went completely mad, killing anyone who rebelled against him. Danalieth found himself without a job or a purpose, wandering the city of Stormwind.
==Arthalon==
===Dan the blacksmith?===
Dan responded to an advertisement for employment in the Kingdom of Arthalon, a reconstruction effort in Hillsbrad. He disliked Lord Regullus from the first, who immediately ignored Dan's qualifications in combat and forced him to settle down as a blacksmith. Dan took up residence in a small house near his forge where he constructed various things for the Kingdom. But those things he made were hardly used by the Kingdom's inhabitants.
===Fission===
Trouble with Xanstin was not over. Among his many acquaintances was a paladin named Liucen Rutherford. Dan learned that the latter had indebted himself to Xanstin, and the light forced him to repay that debt. Liucen was forced to do his bidding, though at the beginning, he employed him mostly as a bodyguard. Dan offered to help, spying on Xanstin. Liucen did not follow the order to kill Dan on sight, and when Xanstin heard of this, he took Liucen to Nagrand and messed with his mind through torture, convincing him that he was a god named "The Angel of Death". With this new conviction, Liucen attempted to assassinate Dan during a visit to him in Hillsbrad, though the latter was to quick for him and sent him back to Stormwind via a deathgate.
It was here that the two Danalieths disagreed. One of them wanted to find a cure to Liucen's mental illness and assassinate Xan if necessary. While the other wanted to simply kill off Liucen to rid himself of the problem. Danalieth the Death Knight temporarily took over their body completely and managed to attack Liucen, injuring him during a fierce and epic combat on Stormwind Harbor. There was no clear victory to this conflict, though Dan escaped unscathed. Danalieth the assassin soon regained control over their body and, using his mental powers, expulsed him out of his mind and locked him into his own runeblade.
===The Aeronian Empire===
Dan was working on building siege weapons when he was approached by Kenshine, a night elf, and woman named Saenne. They cornered him in the forge and said they would rebell against the Kingdom and create their own empire. Dan, pretending to play along, became a general in their army. For three days they planned an attack on Arthalon, the whole time Dan was ferrying information by intermidary of Brenthgar to Regullus about their plans. At the last minute, Dan was discovered, and he joined up with Regullus's forces and set up a defense at Arthalon. Kenshine then decided to attack a different spot than they had planned, Ambermill, and Regullus's defense became a counter-attack. A huge battle insued where Dan the Death knight, immediately upon arriving, engaged Kenshine.
The battle was an Arthalon victory, resulting in the surrender and later disbandment of the Aeronian Empire. To Dan's surprise, Brenthgar was not present at the battle and did not reappear the next morning. Dan had witnessed Sllade inviting Brenthgar to his home in Menethil harbor the preceding afternoon, and this was where he headed. He found what used to be the basement a charred ruin. A large explosion in the center had torn the underground, leaving it covered in a layer of ash. In the center of it all, Danalieth found Brenthgar's weapons and his mask. Using a bowl of water ((or was it wine? I forget)), Dan scried the past, finding that Sllade had trecherously forced Brenthgar to blow himself up. Dan, disgusted with the entire situation and the fact that Regullus was luring the Aeronian Empire's people back into his Kingdom through lies, tore off his tabard and burned it.
==The Rising Covenant==
===Time to turn the page...===
Dan was disgusted that he had wasted a month at a coward's side. Not knowing what else to do, he asked Glorele, one of his aquaintences, if she knew of any organisation that might accept him. She pointed him to a political party of knights called the Rising Covenant. Danalieth knew that he had little to lose in investigating, so he adorned his old plate armor and applied. He was accepted, soon becoming the squire of the huntress Nixxy. Dan soon found out to his surprise that the House of Grey had broken down due to Lokhir's betrayal. Seth Grey and Raven had joined the Rising Covenant, though the latter seemed very discontent with his current position.
Danalieth participated in a couple of battles alongside the Rising Covenant, trying to utilise his death knight powers to match the other plate clad knights, though he would never be as skilled as his alter-ego had been.
===Raven is right... Knights and assassins really don't mix... ===
All of a sudden, the Covenant turned sour. The once protecting party became a power-seeking empire: Seo Imperium. Seth Grey soon jumped ship, quickly followed by Raven. Danalieth stayed for a while before being fired for a misunderstanding, and then joined the reforming House of Grey.
==The House of Grey==
The House of Grey felt like home. Finally, after wandering for two months, Dan finally found an organization he felt he could stay in after the Blades. He quickly rose in the ranks accomplishing several things, including setting up an alliance with A New Dawn. Immediately after that, he participated in a battle south of Darkshire between A New Dawn and what was left of the fallen Kingdom of Arthalon, then named Port Carthan. To his surprise, Dan engaged Kenshine (fighting for Port Carthan) once more, knocking him off his charger and facing off against him for most of the fight. The battle had no clear victor, both armies dissolving after thirty minutes of pointless fighting. Danalieth met Nolmen during these events, and he would remain a loyal companion to him.
===That "little" incident with the Blackguard Elite===
The House of Grey are mercenaries, taking contracts from other wealthy organisations or individuals. One such individual hired the House to kill any Blackguard elite member. After some search, Dan led a group composed of Lyyiai, Naedold, Holde and Tyrando to corner two blackguard elite members. Suddenly, after they had done so, Holde suddenly turns on them, joined by a female warrior and another man garbed in black. Somehow, against all odds, the three House of Grey ((Tyrando was forced to flee prematurely because of ooc reasons)) members held their ground and watched as their opponents fled. Naedold was furious at Holde, and would hunt him down a couple of days later, catching up with him and engaging him against Dan's orders. Dan and Nolmen arrived too late and found Naedold's body in Stonetalon mountains, a dagger having pierced his back. Holde's trail was fresh, and Dan followed it, finally catching up with Holde and a female Blackguard member. Nolmen engaged Holde while Dan overpowered and killed the female, impaling her on one of his shoulder's spikes. Holde pounced on Dan, about to puncture him in the face with a dagger when Nolmen shot him from behind, piercing his heart. Dan and him were barely able to grab the Blackguard's tabard before reinforcements arrived, forcing them to flee.
===Complications?===
Seth suddenly vanished at about the time when Dan got his four hundred and twenty-five gold reward, leaving no trace. Raven commented: "He was completely wiped off the face of Azeroth..."
Meanwhile, Danalieth the death knight had broken free from his prison and was now a madly powerful etheral vowed to Dan's destruction. He raided small villages, raising a small undead army for himself.
Dan located Seth a couple of weeks later in a pirate town on the coast of Tanaris. He led a rescue mission which was successful at first, though Danalieth the Death Knight broke upon the pirates as the House was about to make its escape. Dan ordered a retreat, and they fled.
The next day, Dan was explaining the significance of that apparition when he broke upon them once again, knocking Dan unconscious in the first seconds of the engagement. Finding himself outmatched in Stormwind, Danalieth the Death Knight fled, bearing an unconscious (and badly bruised over the head) Lyyiai back to his cave in Alterac. There he chained her up and spent most of the night torturing her.
===One Dan falls===
Danalieth the Assassin led the House on a rescue mission the next day. They found the cave and a small army of ghouls waiting for them. As the first wave was defeated, Dan rushed into the cave thinking the rest were following him, but what he didn't know was that a second wave of ghouls had arisen out of the ground to keep the rest busy. He found Lyyiai, half naked, exhausted and freezing after a night of hanging in the cold cave. He released her but was soon attacked mentally by his alter ego who overpowered him and locked him into his blade, Linken. Lyyiai reluctantly ran back to the House who were rushing in at that moment. They confronted Dan the Death Knight, and after a long battle, Raven managed to score a devastating blow with Linken which would scar him for the next three years.
===All is not lost===
Dan the assassin found himself bodyless and trapped in his own sword by powerful seals created by Dan the Death Knight. When the battle ended, Dan reached out from Linken and gave what can be considered his will. Raven, named the first keeper, received Linken. Kyranta, the second keeper found a key. Lyyiai, the third keeper found Dan's pocket watch, capable of allowing one to view through time. To each of them he gave a part of the riddle, hinting at how to set him free and destroy his alter ego.
==The Three Keepers==
===Lyyiai's race against time===
Dan the death knight was not going to remain in hiding for long, and it was up to Lyyiai to find clues as to how to set Dan the Assassin free in the past. She fiddled with his watch for a little time before discovering the right commands. She explored Dan's past, how he fell to Loki and was raised as a death knight, how the two personalities developed into two different people, and how they fissioned. She stopped along the way to relive how her mother died, finding out the truth about how she was cursed. Dan appeared at that moment to attempt to confort a sobbing Lyyiai, though was forced to snap back into his blade after a short interview.
===Thaelan===
Lyyiai was able to return to the present and reveal to Raven the secrets to unlocking and freeing Dan from Linken. It took him several weeks, but he was finally able to gather the four runes, but not fast enough to prevent certain events from unfolding.
Seth Grey, tired of command, resigned his position to Evialyn, a female assassin and long time member of the House of Grey. Aside from Danalieth the Heartless, as he called himself, Evialyn had her own problems. Her huband, Thaelan, who had left her three years prior, had stolen their three year old child, Elexis from her mother. Unfortunately for Evialyn, Thaelan was hugely powerful, overpowering her at practically every encounter. However, Dan was a match for Thaelan, and would be willing to confront him if she gave up something Dan knew she could procure: Kyranta's key. Eventually striking the bargain, Dan confronted Thaelan twice. Both times, the two of them were at each other's necks, neither of them being able to gain dominance over the other.
Finally, Raven was able to free the good Dan, who took on an etheral-like form, being deprived of a body. Dan intervened in Dan and Thaelan's second encounter, right before the former was about to be crushed by a gigantic floating platform. The combat between the etheral and the paladin was short, but Dan came out the victor. It was not a victory, however, for it also ended up in the death of little Elexis.
From there, events moved quickly: Dan found Elexis, barely alive, on an altar, dying from malnourishment and harsh treatment. A ritual had been going on, which Dan rushed to interrupt, foolishly, contaminating the process. What was suppsed to suck the living soul out of the little girl ended up engulfing not only hers, but those of the cultists participating in the ritual. He watched as the mass solidified into a purple orb, which he retrieved before leaving the ground.
===Evil Never Wins===
As he found Evialyn to announce her daughter's death, a new, younger, clensed Thaelan appeared. To bring back Elexis' soul from the orb, Thaelan used Dan's energy to extract it, finally consuming the etheral being, leaving him only a wandering, weak consciousness.
Yet, despite this, Evialyn would not forgive Thaelan for what he did. Who could blame her? Trust, once lost, is one of the few things that can never be regained.
This is also true of the twin Dans. Even after this temporary truce, everyone would go right back to killing eachother, as if it had never happened. The real, mortal Dan knew where his heart lay, since he had burried it himself. He also knew the location of the key to the chest that contained it: An Eredar that went by the name of Kyranta, mentioned earlier. They had had a brief relationship before he was violently split from his body. Now, he sought her out, a mere shadow, a whisp of himself, and did his best to communicate with her. Had the Eredar female arrived on site a mere hour later, she might have found the hole dug up and empty. Had she arrived a few minutes earlier, she would not have had to cut through, and then chase a group of goblins around the tracks of Azshara before getting her hands on the beating thing.
The heart, however, had yet to be stabbed. She carried the chest back to Stormwind, and dropped it at Evialyn's feet. The two women cautiously slipped the key into the rusty lock, turning it with a sharp 'click'. Lifting the lid revealed a black, torn heart, the same one Loki had ripped out of a younger Dan years ago. Dispite this, it still pulsed. Just as Evialyn raised her blade to finally end it, to cut the last loose end that had yet to be snipped, the Death Knight charged in, blazing runeblade in hand. He was both too late and too slow, however. The next, and last thing he knew was that he lay, convulsing on the ground at Evialyn's feet, a dagger firmly entrenched in his black, dismembered heart.
==Quotes==
===Danalieth, Assassin===
"Sarah... JUST GIVE ME MY PIPE!" - While being lectured on his shortcomings with women by Crimson, who had also recently stolen his pipe.
"I... HAVE HAD... ENOUGH... OF YOU!" - While getting rid of the Death Knight.
"Brenthgar! Don't touch... that..." - Seconds before Brenthgar launched himself from Dan's ballista.
"Never trust an assassin, Kenshine... it might be the last thing you ever do." - Immediately after engaging Kenshine at the Battle of Ambermill.
"Don't do anything stupid... without me."
"We are mercenaries. It's an occupational hazard. No matter what we do we are always in harm's way." - To Seth.
"Well, first of all, APPOLOGISE TO YOUR FUCKING WIFE! GET DOWN ON YOUR FUCKING KNEES AND BEG FOR HER PARDON!" - To Thaelan after his redemption.
===Danalieth the Heartless===
"You know what we have noticed Liucen? Your armor, your blade, your hair... are all red... It suits you... It is the color of the blood of whom you have killed, of whom you will kill for a madman. Red is the color of your conscience." - During the fight with Liucen on Stormwind harbor.
===Danalieth Hope===
"And haven't you noticed... ON TOP OF EVERYTHING, IT'S BLOODY RAINING!" - To Lyyiai after Evialyn was shot.
"Mediocrity recognizes nothing but itself. But... My dear Rethix, talent -instantly- recognizes genius." - To Varisha, commenting on her lack of ability and apparent mental blindness.
Category:Human
Category:warlock