ethriosdawngaze-blog

[ethriosdawngaze-blog]

“Don’ ja be knowin’ about the book? Erryone ‘as been bitchin’ about it, da damn ting got me goin’ mad!” Draz’fon barked, using the blade of his tracking knife to dig a mark into the tree they stood by. Ethrios and Tu’jo both chuckled as they bit into their meals, “Don’t worry about the book too much Draz, it doesn’t concern people like us anyway.” Kaiden spoke up, pointing his thumb over to Ethrios as he was hunched over cleaning off his plate. Ethrios rolled his shoulders as he spoke up, “I am still unsure about this book, the entire concept still perplexes me. A Libram that was designed to contain and document all of the forbidden forms and method of the Light...there is something off putting about the stories we have heard. I mean if this book really exists, wouldn’t a group have been deployed to retrieve it? As we all know, the Horde tends to take artifacts of power without a second thought to the repercussions of the actions.”

    Korda’fa Walks from around the other side of one of the trees, using his arm to wipe the piece of some meat from his lips “Da Horde wouldn’ be foolish enough ta be takin’ dat book, it be in da hands of da Highlord. His powa would just be too much ta dispute in a war.” The Troll’s tone was stale, a lack of a will to argue the statement. Kaiden and Tu’jo both finished off their meals and began to armor up again “Well if you ask me, the book is a waste of time anyway.” Tu’jo sneered at Ethrios “Even if you did get a hold on that book, there is no way you would be able to handle that kind of power.” The two brothers snickered as Eth slowly stood, making his way over to his bags and armor “Do you mean that, or are you just scared of what I would be able to do with the book? If I was able to obtain such techniques in the Light, what would stop me from wiping you off the face of Azeroth?” Ethrios snickered to himself as he strapped his pauldrons on, peaking over to the twins. Tu’jo a little uneasy at how Ethrios delivered the statement, Kaiden trying his best two ignore the exchange.

    “Enough, I am gettin’ tired of da lot of ya pickin’ on each udda.” Snapped Draz “If i heard one more word about dat book, I will gut the whole lot of ya personally.” His knife spinning around through his fingers, Draz’fon pointing towards a clearing in the wooded area with a path on it “Now get machin’, before I start swingin’.” He voice a low growl, the main reason he was so annoy was probably because Draz’fon believed it was bad luck to mess with dark magics. To be fair, it was a bad idea, but Ethrios was more concerned with how much Tu’jo was testing him tonight. Ethrios marched with the group, thinking over a series of spells and methods he had heard of when he was young, as he listen through the other side of the door as his father would speak with the branch family heads on the house in the meets that were held. They would speak of the methods that should and should not be taught in the house every so often, a few names like “Soul Prison” magics, and even “Blood bound sealing magics”, those ones always interested him. The one that got his attention the most though, was the “Sacrificial and Transfer magics” and how they were the ones that were banned first without discussion in every instance of the matters.

    The group had traveled for many weeks until this point, now returning from their most recent mission, the elimination of a high profile carrier of Alliance documents to and fro camps in Wintergrasp and the Howling Fjord. In many of the stops they made, a rumor of a Libram was making its rounds to the local taverns, the same story of a book being taken upon a journey with the Highlord, Tirion Fordring, for unknown reasons. The speculation was allowed to flower in each area, the most common being that it would be used against the Lich king. The reason that Ethrios had developed was that the book was being hidden in a safer location so that the scourge could not come into possession of it. Ethrios would spend the remaining nights of their return home in thought of a way to reach the artifact, praying for an opening to the rumors that could spark his mind in a way to reach it’s location. Many years would end up passing after the night that the men argued, Ethrios in a new organization...artifact hunters by some luck of the draw, and now Ethrios has found the spark to light the fire of the pursuit of the artifact right before his eyes.

[ethriosdawngaze-blog]

The Warchief’s ace in the hole

     Selama ashal'anore, a unit of mighty warriors from all walks of life, designed to maintain a strong upper hand on the Alliance forces through black operations and intelligence gathering techniques. This unit was developed during the war on Icecrown, a time where the understanding was that the Alliance and Horde were in a time of “non-aggression”. However the Horde military knew that this was the perfect opportunity to leverage against he Alliance forces while they had their backs turned for the moment. This unit lived by a simple statement, “Bash'a no falor talah!” which translates to “Taste the chill of true death!” and served as a battle call they would use to drive a fear and a confusion into the core of their opposition. The code fell upon similar grounds, the group held a small collection of rules to go by; Serve the Horde with honor, never cloud the mission with cowardice, victory by any means. These were the words that gave the unit a spark of life, and the words that we put in place by the group leader himself. 

     The group was lead by a mighty Troll, Draz’fon, a long time comrade of Ethrios that was placed into the position of leader due to his previous military background, and his experience with the various terrains around Azertoh and beyond. Draz’fon was a rather brash individual, even sharing the same views as Ethrios when it came to completion of the mission, though Draz is a story for another time. The unit was enlisted soon after the beginning of the offensive against Arthas, the purpose to take down Alliance units and high profile targets, with the catch of making each attack look like a fight against the scourge that the Alliance had once again lost. It could be said that the break in the non aggression pact between the Horde and Alliance would be seen as a break in the team’s rules, but it says to serve the *Horde* with honor, for the statement “Victory by any means” is the reason they fight as they do, since they serve the Horde, and any that oppose this fight in the group will be cast down. An unwritten rule in the group, however, is that one shall never refuse fair singles combat with any enemy. In turn his team may not involve themselves with the fight in any way, or they will have broken a rule of soul in the group and will be punished with death by Exsanguination. Besides the other rules set, this is the only one of its kind that is not written in stone. 

     Besides the many attacks and missions in Northrend, the unit has also been deployed in places such as Outland, Pandaria, Draenor for the sake of many high profile intel gathering missions, and even a few assassinations attempts, and successes might I add. The most notorious of the all of their missions though, is one that was redirected from it’s original path and caused a dent in the mighty armor in the Scarlet crusade, a lose of an outpost within a few hundred meters of a modest Alliance encampment in Northrend, within the Storm peaks. Selama ashal'anore was one it’s way to go across enemy lines and gather some documents in the Alliance camp when they were stopped by a Crusader around the edges of a valley that led to the encampment. Based on the look of the men, the Crusader explain that they were on their way into Alliance territory and that she could not allow them to pass. The unit knew that they could not play this one off and had to simply follow along with what she said for now, soon cutting a deal that they would find a new way around to Icecrown in the morning, but simply asked if they could lodge with the Crusaders at the encampment for the night while they regained their strength. Had it not been for Ethrios being a fellow Light wielder, she may never have considered letting the group in, how dirty and tired they were. 

     This story gets a little dark, so those who are weak of heart may want to exit the room for this, messy is a word I would use to describe it. The unit camped with the Scarlet Crusade as the members of the crusade watched guard over the unit, they seemed to anticipate an attack. Ethrios, Draz’fon, and two Blood Elven assassin brothers, Tu’jo and Kaiden, conversed in the small periods of time between the guards shifting tents on how they would be able to get out. They evaluated their options and soon concluded that it would be the most effective for the group to eliminate the Crusaders and make it appear as an attack by the scourge, they would take their bodies and leave them for the undead to claim at the gates of Icecrown after they were done and would obliterate the building to leave no signs of their existence there. Ethrios pondered a way to break the formation of the crusaders and give his team a fighting chance, so he found the perfect way to do so. “Brothers and sister of the Light, come with me, the undead push upon our position from the valley as we speak! I can feel the dark magics from this very spot, so strong and evil, can you not feel it?!” He screamed as he ran from his tent, sword in hand as he ran for the valley. 

     Two male and one female Paladins followed in armor clad after him, believing him to be superior in the Light from the energy he controlled, seemingly trusting his own feeling over their own. As the light wielders left the outpost, Selama ashal'anore began to make their move quickly. The team composition, in exclusion of Ethrios was: A Troll warrior, two Sin’dorei assassins, and a Troll Chemist, the team designed to be light on their feet and able to deploy an attack with deadly precision and execution in record time. With a quick huddle to brief the chemist, the team quickly spread out across the camp and began to slaughter the individuals of the camp, thirteen soldiers to be exact. 

     The chemist, Koda’fa, had developed a nerve gas that targeted the portion of the nervous system that controlled the pacing of the heart, causing six of the thirteen men to fall to the ground as their heart slowly began to increase in pain, a tightening in the chest cavity led to a thick popping in the throat as the heart began to burst and cause death on within a few moment of pain, the throat filling with blood and bubbling from the suppressed screams, drowned in their own innards. Draz’fon had a nasty taste for the hearts of living creatures, believing they tasted the best when personally ripped from the chest of his opponent after a tough battle. Unfortunately the three men he fought left him bored, their weakness bitter on his tongue, but a heart was a heart, no need to waste a perfectly good meal. Last was the brothers, masters of tag teaming their opponents and had the enjoyment of confusion through speed and brutal torture from slow deaths. 

     Tu’jo tended to make  the first move, presenting a battle where he would pull them into a false sense of equal ability, toying with them in combat until Kaiden would make his way from behind to lay in a series of cuts upon the enemy, his daggers drenched in a toxin that would neutralize the muscles in the area of contact, slowly spreading through the body as they shut down major centers of the body. depending on the point of first contact and where the toxin was focused most in the body, the person would die from either a total shutdown of the vital organs in the torso, or from a destruction of the cerebral cortex and the brain in a few minutes. Now the person would tend to fight for about thirty to forty seconds before the toxin would spread past the muscles they were placed in, and the subject would become very sluggish and would slowly become a husk of a person in less than five minutes. In a fluent trade off of attacks on the remaining five men in the outpost, the brothers had taken them all out with confirmations on the kills in around seven minutes. 

     Ethrios has blood on his hands though, so much blood on his hands. Ethrios has led the group to the valley, now realizing he may be running, trying to take him down and restrain him. Eth stopped around the edge of the exit of the valley back the way his group came and turn to the group, holding a hand out “Wait...” He spoke, a thunderous boom to his voice “Not one more step, or I can assure you it will be his last.” He voice was flat, a lack of any one distinct emotion. The group stopped and looked the Ethrios, his right eye slightly twitching as he placed his left hand on his left gauntlet, he quietly spoke to himself as his hand and the words on his gauntlet slowly began to glow. The similar color of a Paladin’s trademark holy magic soon filled his eyes as his expression shifted to a look of malice, his teeth gritting together as he lifted his lips to show his teeth. He growled lightly to himself as three ribbons of light began to extend from his hand, he spoke in a low voice, his voice shaky and sharp, as if it could cut through ice from just the words he spoke. “As the right eye of Het’kara, the reclaimer of my fallen house, I will not die here today. I shall take your lives, however, to ensure my success in the path of avenging my fallen loved ones.” 

     For a moment all was silent as the three stared in horror, slowly beginning to backpedal from the Paladin, but the three ribbons quickly dashed to the chests of his three brethren of the light. The three fell to their knees as the ribbons pulsated, shifting the flows of energy back and forth. His screams echoed and bounced across the valley walls as his right eye shifted quickly between red, orange, and yellow in a radial formation, a deeply saturated holy flame dashing across each of the ribbons, phasing past the their mortal coils to the core of their Light energies, to the end of the ribbon where it slowly changed the composition of their own Light to be tainted by the holy fire, causing the core of the energy to expand, slowly materializing the energy enough to affect the physical form of each, now screaming in pain, a blood curdling screech as they slowly melted from the inside out they watched as the piercing white light filled their vision in their last dying moments. 

     Eth’s right eye violently twitching, soon the screams ended, leaving the valley in silence as he released his right gauntlet with his left hand and fell to his knees, his right eye bleeding slightly as the crimson shimmering liquid dripped slowly from his upper lip,the clicking against the stone under him echoed heavily in his head as he stared to the ground. He breath was so heavy, his body shaking and snapping in different directions as he dropped down on his chest against the ground, unable to stand on his own accord. It took hours for his comrades to reach him since they had to dispose of the bodies and then set the outpost to look as if it was attacked by scourge. When they found him, there were three craters in the ground across from him, two empty ones and the third with the female’s body inside, burned beyond recognition and a series of holes and deterioration on her body. Draz’fon lifted Eth on his shoulder and soon they returned to their base of operations.

[ethriosdawngaze-blog]

House Dawngaze: The family lineage

     “Our simple family, a house founded on a mighty foundation by wielders of the Light. My very own father told me the stories of Het’kara, the high father of the Dawngaze family, and of his legendary status throughout the bloodline.  Het’kara developed the crest of our family, a dragon breaking through the clouds with the sun as his left eye. He didn’t just drawn the crest for the sake of building a strong heritage, not even in a dream did he see the image, he earned it from the method of light magics that he created and passed onto the later generations of the family.” Jiraiya smiled warmly to the child seated on his lap, lightly bobbing his up and down as they sat by the fire, the flames crackled and flurried in the light breeze that made it’s way through the home. The child stared on, enthralled by the story as his jaw hung wide in a boyhood wonder. It was almost as if he was being told a fairy tail, the story caused him to make noises in awe at his ancestor. 

     “Het’kara had a fire in his heart, a specific stipulation of the aura that chooses the children of this family that are destined to by the mentors of the technique “Belore Ban”, these masters have almost always been descendants of Het’kara himself, though the master of the method has shifted through the generations.” The child spoke softly, his voice shaky as he perked up “Father, who is the chosen one right now?” He questioned as his face turned from awe to confusion. Jiraiya laughed, a deep laugh from the pit of his stomach that caused the child to grip to his father’s shirt from the slight shaking the laugh caused.”Well, Ethrios, I currently could be called the “Chosen one” though I have never used that phrase myself. Before I, it was my uncle Verason, this was one of the few times the method changed families. Now you will know more about this when you are older, but are family has a system of families in the house that range in power of control. The family with the wielder of Belore Ban is deemed the “Root family” and the job of this family is to dispute arguments and settle agreements with other houses. My job as the head of the root family is to do just that, and one day you will take my place at the head of this family.” 

    Ethrios giggled as his eyes lit up, so full of life and excitement, “Really father? What about cousin Veloren, how do you know it will be me over him?” His voice exasperated and wheezy from speaking so fast. Jiraiya took his index finger and placed it to the center of Eth’s chest, leaning in real close “Well my son, you have something deep inside you that determines who gains the method, an aura of fire that burns brightly. Your aura burns with a fire that hasn't been matched in strength for generations, an aura that compares to a burning blade that explodes with a righteous flame as their fury sparks. Het’kara himself held this aura, and so have a select few generations in this family, the most recent was the fourth.” He placed his hand to Ethrios’s head, ruffling his hair lightly as he laughed once again, the laughter spreading to Ethrios himself causing the two to break into a laughing fit. 

     Once they calmed the two sat for a moment, Jiraiya humming quietly as he looked into the fire. “There is a story as to why Het’kara earned the crest of the dragon with the eye of the sun, it is a legend of the family that is said to happen to the elite Belore Ban warriors of the family. It is said that the soul magic that they draw upon has such an effect on the body that it will damage the user when used at full potential, and the key factor is that the right eye of the wielder will twitch furiously as the color of the eye shifts between red, orange, and yellow is a rapid radial formation. I was always confused as a child as to why the left eye of the dragon was the sun if the right eye was the one that twitched.” Jiraiya observed the back of his right palm, looking over the the various house names on his arm and hand “I learned that the wielder of this power that causes the eye to twitch is in possession of the right eye of Het’kara. The legend also states that Het’kara was the only member of the family to have both eyes experience the twitch and the change in color, so as he died he attempted to transfer a portion of the power in his body he contain to his only son, Yen’rath. The reason he didn’t transfer the full extent of his knowledge and power to his son was for the protection of the family, so that his son never was corrupted by the full power of the technique and the possible damage it could cause to the world, and people, around him.” 

     Ethrios oohed and awed at the story, looking up the the ceiling as he thought to himself, soon whispering “So...Het’kara still lives in this family, his image and power will always live on?” Jiraiya cocked an eyebrow, scratching his lower jaw lightly, the scruff of his face making a little noise against his fingernails, “I suppose you could say that, Het’kara’s power surges in every member of this family’s magics somehow, but his spirit is said to be directly linked with the wielder of the right eye of Het’kara, the users of the perfect incarnation of the Belore Ban. This doesn’t mean that the method has stayed so stagnant all this time though, for every generation has added it’s own touch to the for of the magic, making it stronger and more unique to each time period. For example, me and your mother feel under a category in the family history where it was many more healers than warriors in the bloodline, so we developed the usage of the Belore Ban so it could be used from a distance as opposed to always having to make direct contact with the opponent. One day you will have the chance to add your own taste to the method, make it your own and have it carried onto your children, or the child of the aura, so they can add to it as well.” 

      In a battle with how tired he was, Ethrios tried his hardest to keep his eyes open to listen, slowly fading away to sleep in a losing battle. He muttered something quietly, something unintelligible to his father as he drifted away. Jiraiya watched over young Ethrios as he lay against him, in the safety of his own dream. Soon he lifted him up over his shoulder, walking him to his bed as he slayed him down slowly. “One day, my son, you will bring this family great honor.” He whispered as he placed a kiss softly on his son’s forehead, brushing his hair out of his eyes as he moved to the doorway of the room, watching over for a period of time to ensure Ethrios’s safety.