cadams0950-blog

[cadams0950-blog]

Art giveaway! As a thank you for the recent support, I want to give a black and white bust piece (worth £40) to existing or (possibly!) new followers. ^^  To enter, all you have to do is reblog, and be a follower of this page.

That’s it! And good luck to everyone, new or old.

Competition will be drawn at the end of March!

Rules

1.) Must be following this page, and have reblogged this post. 2.) No giveaway blogs.

[cadams0950-blog]

Contract: A Warlock in the Mountains

The stranger was unlike anything the townspeople had ever seen, though not unlike anything they’d ever heard of. As he hadn’t taken a gryphon nor walked with any manner of riding beast, he must have walked or ran, though a bead of sweat was not visible on him, to the town of Lakeshire from Stormwind. If there had been a single thing that the villagers shared with the stranger, they might have had some form of comfort deep in their brains but absolutely nothing was to be recognized as normal.

The man’s outer appearance was unsettling to say the least. Not only was he an elf, standing two hands taller than any man with his silver skin and stark-white hair despite showing no real age on his features, but he was a Demon Hunter.

The title felt like poison on the tongues of the men and women who watched him striding towards the town, whispering in secret disgust. Because of his affliction, the elf didn’t appear natural, nor did the people of Lakeshire feel the need to treat him as such. He wore a thick cloth blindfold over his eyes, thick enough to hide any light of the green flame within his sockets. Horns like that of a large bull protruded from behind his hairline, ending in pointed tips that seemed to be stained a greenish color. He wore only black and red leather pants, boots, and gloves for clothing on his person, his black demonic tattoos able to show in full view. A massive sword was sheathed across his back, and a black leather backpack lay on his back, strapped diagonally across his chest. Not even the way he walked was the same, his footsteps making no noticeable sound. The elf knew he wouldn’t be received well here, as in most settlements of any kind, but he was numb to the ignorance of worldly people by now… nevertheless, he had his mission.

He walked to the tavern of the town, striding past the gawkers and glares of the people. He sat himself at the end of the bar, with one man on the other side. “Brandy,” he said in a smooth baritone that had wooed women from their seats before his change. He placed down payment for the drink and bartender, silent and glaring like the rest of the town, prepared his drink with the rough efficiency of someone doing their job and nothing more. The elf took a swallow of his drink and nodded to himself. He liked the liquors of man and dwarf, though his heightened senses did make him crinkle his nose a bit at the taste. After a moment, the elf spoke. He was not loud and had no emotion in his voice to draw attention, nevertheless his voice carried through the bar, which had grown quiet since his entrance. “I have a contract on the warlock in the mountains giving you trouble. If anyone has information about the sorcerer, come forward and speak.”

For a long moment, no one spoke, no one even moved. Then a young man, maybe seventeen, rose and walked towards the bar. The elf had used his enhanced senses upon his entrance, looking upon every person to seek for dark magic or demonic illusions. Though he found none, the one approaching him had traces of a curse on this one’s leg, healed but already having done damage. A witness, or at least a victim. The elf turned around in his seat and for the first time upon entering the town, the elf allowed his spectral sight to weaken, no longer having his vision be a whirl of energies that he long ago learned to decipher, instead he saw as he did before his eyes were gouged. The boy was blonde, but far from fair. He had a rugged look of a farmer, and the calluses on the boy’s hands confirmed that. He smiled a bit at the boy’s brave face, which melted away upon seeing the fangs in the elf’s smile, though he kept walked forward.

“The warlock were an orc. Skin were so dark was almost black. Horrible red eyes too.” The elf held back a sigh. The boy was terrified, and likely wasn’t going to be any help. Nevertheless, he was probably one of the only survivors, and the only one with the confidence to approach him.

“Aye. Orcs tend to be that way. There are a few things I need to ask you, alright?” The boy gave the barest of nods. “Where is the warlock hiding?”

The boy took a deep breath. “He’s hiding in the mountains in this spot called the semp-olker. Lots o’ bad things like to hide in that place, I tell ya’.”

The elf furrowed his brows. “A sepulcher in redridge?....” After a moment he shook his head and  continued, “Okay. Mark it on this map, and thank you for your cooperation.” The boy put a small ‘X’ on a spot in the mountains and, without another word, the elf took down the rest of his drink and walked out of the establishment with map in hand.

Varillion was glad to be out of the town, and glad to find a living witness. The magic of the curse would prove to be a scent he could somewhat track, at least to right set of mountains-- the whole place was nothing but mountainous, how was he supposed to go to ‘the mountains’ to look for it! Once he got his bearings higher up, he used the map to continue towards the marked area. He didn’t like the landscape, but not because of the climate or the bareness of it. There was something nagging at him, and he couldn’t put his finger on it until…. Ah… Nothing has attacked him, no. Nothing has even been visible. No beasts, or monsters, though he could sense the bugs in the ground. It was too quiet though, and this lent him great unease. When he got to the area, he understood the name the boy gave it.

He doubted anyone had ever built a crypt or sepulcher in Redridge, as it was only done in swampy marshes where normal graves didn’t hold, or for great heroes, or for large family lines. Nevertheless, there was the sight of cut, quarried stone in the side of one of the mountains, the kind of stone that one brings from a far ways off to built something that will last. A closer examination showed Varillion that this was some sort of an old fort. Very old, and the dirt piles at the sides of the entrance told him that whoever this orc was, he was looking for something with only the knowledge of where an old fort used to be. The thought unsettled him further, but he sensed the source of the boy’s curse in the fort, and so he continued inside.

Buried under piles of dirt, and built into a mountain, the place sustained no sort of vegetation from the years of inactivity. Webs were presents only from long-dead spiders. The air was musty, but breathable after having been opened for… less than a month, he guessed. Skeletons, long since dried out and covered in dirt, littered the floor. They were short, stout, and hard-headed. Dwarves, no doubt, but dwarves hadn’t lived in these parts of the world for a long time. Before Stormwind’s first days at least.

Varillion continued through the hallways, stopping only when he heard a muttering. It sounded orcish, and much like a chant of some kind. He moved to continue, but felt something prickling in the side of his awareness. Looking up, he saw runes lining the ceiling like a gate. A quick glance-over told him it was an alarm spell, one that would make the warlock aware of anyone who passed the threshold. He could disarm it, at risk of rising the warlock’s awareness, but Varillion was a mage long before he was a Demon Hunter, and he knew how to circumvent it. He breathed out deeply once, twice, then on the third exhale he felt himself go cold and numb. His body was now covered in an illusion that masked not only his magic, not only his vital signs, but any form of visible existence. It strained him, but he prided himself on this level of invisibility. Without an issue, he walked through the gate, undisturbed by his passing.

The chanting, come from within a doorway closeby, got progressively louder. Varillion recognized it as a chant to build power. From the power he currently felt in the air, he’d guessed that the warlock had been chanting for the entire day. For what purpose, he didn’t know. Glancing at the doorway, he saw it lead to the basement. The wooden stairs had long since rotted away, but a rope-ladder hang there. Varillion didn’t need it. He dropped down to the basement floor, the air he moved with his drop being the old sound he created. But it was enough.

The orc stood quickly, turning around first in confusion, then in outrage, then in fear. Varillion had dropped his invisibility and now stood, fel energy lining his hands that lit up his profile. He wasn’t above a little bit of showmanship, having liked making a dramatic entrance every once and awhile. The orc wasn’t in the same sort of mood, anger building at having to waste all of his built energy. The orc’s right hand burst into a massive flame, easily the size of the orc himself, before the flames all imploded into a tiny green bead of energy that the orc held between his fingernails. “Begone, hunter, or I will gnaw on your bones come supper.” The orc spoke common, though it didn’t surprise Varillion. No weak mind could command the ability the orc had, though it obviously wasn’t a strong enough mind to resist corruption. What did surprise him was the orc’s fear. If he believed he could kill Varillion, he probably would have. But if he didn’t believe he could, he wouldn’t prepare a spell like this. What was he so afraid of?

“You’ve been terrorizing the humans, so no can do. I will give you one change to g---” Varillion stopped mid-sentence to lunge at the orc. He wasn’t the type to talk, but listening to speech can throw an enemy off, if he’s not careful. But the orc was smarter than that. Varillion was far too fast or agile for the orc to match him physically, and the hunter had lived knowing how to pick apart his kind, so he struck. From the bead in the orcs hand, a beam of condensed fel energy burst forth to catch the ever-closer hunter mid-air. The orc didn’t even see it done, but somewhere the elf had drawn the sword on his back, a massive thing unholdable to anyone that wasn’t an ogre or supernatural. The blade was dark iron, no longer shining from long years of use. Despite its size, it darted out and struck the ground beneath Varillion, redirection his momentum to the side. As quick as he was, he couldn’t avoid it hitting his left foot. His leather boot was practically incinerated and his skin has was covered in blisters where it touched, from barely a moment of contact. Finally Varillion realized he couldn’t waste any more time if he was going to survive this encounter. He tossed out three fist-sized stones covered in runes. Not having the keen senses of the hunter, he was unable to see the runes in the dark and assumed it was simply a blind throw to distract him, but he was wrong. When he fired his beam again, it hit a barrier that reflected the beam, hitting the ceiling above him. The quarried stone of the floor above tumbled down, crushing the orc’s body beneath the rubble.

Varillion breathed out a breath of relief and sheathed his sword, walking over between the rubble and the wall to where the orc’s shrine was. Dark symbols skittered the surface of the table, as did a book that Varillion sensed was inherently dark. He grabbed the book, placing it in his pack. As he left, he placed another runed stone down at the entrance of the old fort, creating an illusion of a closed, normal mountain. Walking back on the road to Strormwind he was deep in thought, a few questions repeating themselves in his mind. What was he up to? What was he afraid of? How did he know about such an old structure and why was it important? Maybe the book would tell him more...