Post by ilysar on Mar 14, 2006 13:27:32 GMT -5
Ilysar ducked out of the busy Stormwind Old Town district and into the warm sunlight shining down on the canals. She leaned against a nearby shop post and closed her eyes for a moment, trying to get her bearings and catch her breath. She was shaking, she realized, with rage, her hands still in their white-knuckled grasp on the hilts of her daggers.
She saw now how ridiculous it had been to think that anyone in Stormwind would give her the time of day. After all, they had no time to listen to their nearby allies languishing in hopes of aid - the small contingent from overrun Moonbrook, the beleaguered citizens of Lakeshire, the dark and ghoul-infested town of Darkshire - let alone listen to a single voice.
She relaxed her hands and dropped them to her sides before someone noticed her actions, and slipped down to the canal dock to sit for a moment away from the busy street. She stared at the sunlight on the water, taking calming breaths.
Her frustration had started with her meeting in the Church. She had been in to speak with aides of the Archbishop two days ago, an appointment that had been grudgingly granted to her after weeks of petitioning. The meeting went so fast she didn’t even catch the names of the people interrogating her. Despite their pleasant demeanor, she realized quickly they were more interested in the information she had than in listening to her request.
She suspected they thought she was mad, at first. Her hands tightened into fists for a moment before she made herself relax. She had to admit even to herself that it was an incredible story. After all, who in their right mind would claim that they had escaped torture at the hands of the Forsaken in the Undercity? Who would believe anyone could escape that labyrinthine warren of the animated dead? Ilysar shivered convulsively and closed her eyes for a moment.
She had told the story to many different people since her appointment with the Church. The nightmare had begun when the small town she had grown up in on the outskirts of Silverpine had been methodically overrun by Forsaken. They killed only a few, and trussed and blindfolded the rest, treating them carefully like prized livestock. The answer to why they were being kept alive soon became clear: when Ilysar could see again, she was in a filthy, damp cage in Apothecary Keever’s dungeon with several others from her town.
She had no way of telling how long she endured that hellish place. It seemed like all her life had unfolded in that hellish darkness, and that the life she had lived before it only a dream. In a place with no sun, where even the lamps burned coldly, Apothecary Keever had become her clock. Her life revolved around his entrances with new potions to test out on the humans and his exits when they could snatch fitful moments of sleep. She had watched others in the dungeon die, some of them slow lingering deaths and some of them quick and messy. When the cages were nearly empty they brought in new captives.
How she survived Keever’s ministrations was still a mystery to her. There had been a number of times when she thought she would die, when his potions had made her so sick she only wanted to die. Every scrap of food they brought for them to eat was suspect, for it could be made with plague-infested grain or contained an unpleasant additive from Keever’s storeroom. The captives went for days without food so that when they were fed they could only eat helplessly or starve. Ilysar had learned to wait, and watch, and eat only when it seemed safe and her cage mates seemed unaffected.
Her escape had been pure chance. One of the meals had been bad, and Ilysar watched as her neighbors died one by one while she sat helpless, unable to do anything to aid them other than try to make them comfortable. When the last of them had subsided into gurgling silence, Ilysar retreated to the back of the cage, tears slipping down her face, and had fallen into an exhausted stupor. She woke to hear Apothecary Keever muttering to himself with displeasure, and cracked an eyelid to see him peering through the cage bars at the prone humans. He left but came back with two guards who opened the cage and began to cart out a body. Ilysar stayed still, watching from under her lashes.
Before they could drag another one out, Thersa Windsong the Tauren had come in, and started a heated discussion with Apothecary Keever. There was much pointing at the bodies and gesticulating. The guards had stopped, looking from one to the other in blank patience, waiting for clear orders. Thersa Windsong had swept back into her lab, arguing, and Keever had followed her. The guards followed uncertainly, and for a half second Ilysar found herself staring dumbly at an open cage and an empty dungeon.
It had seemed to take forever to struggle to her feet, swaying with dizziness. She could hear Thersa and Keever still discussing from the other room and decided to make a break for it.
Ilysar had always been good at hiding. Her dash through the Undercity was made up of carefully calculated stops and starts, hiding under stairs and behind crates. She got lost and thought more than once that someone would spot her. Eventually she found an opening where the disgusting green slimed water flowed from the surface of the city. Unsure of another option, she took a deep breath and plunged in, swimming for her life through the horrible sludge.
She had come out gasping and spitting on the top side of the Undercity, and pulled herself out. She had to stop and catch her breath for a few long, fearful minutes before she could keep running.
That she had found Southshore at all seemed another stroke of fortune: she didn’t remember the run from the Undercity all that clearly. All she remembered was struggling to keep her poorly nourished body moving in a run that was more like a shamble, stopping often to take deep breaths and clear the stars from her vision. When she reached the inn at Southshore, she had collapsed on the front stoop.
Ilysar came back to herself with a start, and shook her head to clear it. It had taken months to recover her strength in Southshore, where a few kindly members of the town council had taken her in. She’d had trouble telling them exactly what had happened, but when she finally could talk about the experience they had bade her travel to Stormwind to tell the Archbishop that there were still human prisoners being tortured in the Undercity.
She had agreed to do so. Still shockingly pale and easily winded from her time spent underground, Ilysar had made the long trek south to the human capital.
Which led her to the here and now. Ilysar sighed. The Archbishop’s aides had been clearly frustrated with her when she could not provide a clear timeline of events. She couldn’t tell them how long she’d been in the Undercity, or Apothecary Keever’s plans for the experiments on the captives. She could tell them next to nothing about the layout of the city, how many guards she thought they had, or what the machine in Thersa Windsong’s laboratory was for.
Her questions about what could be done to aid the captives and to keep the small villages in Silverpine safe from attack were met with more logistical questions until Ilysar stubbornly refused to answer anything further until she could talk to the Archbishop.
Instead, they had sent her to Mathias Shaw of the S1:7.
She had just met with him that morning. He had listened politely to her tale, asking a few spare questions here and there to clarify something. As she spoke she began to feel a sense of hope that perhaps here was someone who might help.
She was completely disappointed when he shook his head at the end of her story and said, “there’s nothing we can do.” Ilysar had stared at him for a moment and he had smiled at her grimly.
“Stormwind is over-extended as it is, without chasing down the Forsaken for a few breeches in the already fragile peace,” he told her bluntly. “Light be with those captives and the villagers in Silverpine, but there’s nothing we can do at this point.”
Ilysar had set her chin stubbornly.
“Fine,” she had replied coolly. “I will try to speak to Lord Fordragon at the keep. Perhaps he will hear my case.” Mathias Shaw had thrown back his head and laughed.
“I doubt it, girl,” he’d said with jocular familiarity that made Ilysar’s skin squirm. “Fordragon listens to no one but Lady Prestor these days.” Then he had looked serious and leaned forward towards her.
“Ms. Sable,” he had said to her, “your story is fantastic. I don’t know of anyone else who could have escaped the Undercity and lived to bring the tale to S1:7. I want you to work for us. We need people like you here. We can’t directly aid those captives in the Undercity, but we can turn back the tide of evil in other places.”
Ilysar had stared at him.
“I don’t think so,” she’d said, getting up to leave. “I’d rather find a way to keep the Forsaken from getting more subjects to experiment on.”
Mathias Shaw had smiled at her without humor.
“Let’s put it this way,” he’d said. “The offer to work for S1:7 is simple: work for us, or face the consequences. You’ve notified the proper people of the predicament in the Undercity and of the danger facing the small outlying villages to the north. We’ve told you there’s nothing we can do. There’s no need to stir up trouble, either: you’ve told the right people and now it’s time to keep your silence. You’re either going to duck your head and put your skills at work in a useful manner, or we’ll see to it that you stay out of our way. You’ve heard the old saying, Ms. Sable? You’re either with us, or you’re against us.”
Ilysar had taken a step back.
“Are you threatening me?” She asked, eyebrows raised.
“Not at all,” Mathias Shaw said, sounding kindly again. “Merely stating facts. Report to me tomorrow at the eighth bell for your first assignment.” He gave her a direct, hard stare that contrasted with his kindly-uncle tone. “I’m sure I don’t need to be explicit about what will happen if you don’t appear.”
And that had been the end of that. Ilysar stared down at the water, feeling glum. All of this had turned out much differently than she had anticipated. There seemed little help for it now but to do as Mathias Shaw had bid. She wasn’t sure what else she could do, except keep her eyes and ears open for an opportunity to take action. She sighed and stood up, making her way to the inn she was staying at. It seemed she had traded one kind of captivity for another.
She saw now how ridiculous it had been to think that anyone in Stormwind would give her the time of day. After all, they had no time to listen to their nearby allies languishing in hopes of aid - the small contingent from overrun Moonbrook, the beleaguered citizens of Lakeshire, the dark and ghoul-infested town of Darkshire - let alone listen to a single voice.
She relaxed her hands and dropped them to her sides before someone noticed her actions, and slipped down to the canal dock to sit for a moment away from the busy street. She stared at the sunlight on the water, taking calming breaths.
Her frustration had started with her meeting in the Church. She had been in to speak with aides of the Archbishop two days ago, an appointment that had been grudgingly granted to her after weeks of petitioning. The meeting went so fast she didn’t even catch the names of the people interrogating her. Despite their pleasant demeanor, she realized quickly they were more interested in the information she had than in listening to her request.
She suspected they thought she was mad, at first. Her hands tightened into fists for a moment before she made herself relax. She had to admit even to herself that it was an incredible story. After all, who in their right mind would claim that they had escaped torture at the hands of the Forsaken in the Undercity? Who would believe anyone could escape that labyrinthine warren of the animated dead? Ilysar shivered convulsively and closed her eyes for a moment.
She had told the story to many different people since her appointment with the Church. The nightmare had begun when the small town she had grown up in on the outskirts of Silverpine had been methodically overrun by Forsaken. They killed only a few, and trussed and blindfolded the rest, treating them carefully like prized livestock. The answer to why they were being kept alive soon became clear: when Ilysar could see again, she was in a filthy, damp cage in Apothecary Keever’s dungeon with several others from her town.
She had no way of telling how long she endured that hellish place. It seemed like all her life had unfolded in that hellish darkness, and that the life she had lived before it only a dream. In a place with no sun, where even the lamps burned coldly, Apothecary Keever had become her clock. Her life revolved around his entrances with new potions to test out on the humans and his exits when they could snatch fitful moments of sleep. She had watched others in the dungeon die, some of them slow lingering deaths and some of them quick and messy. When the cages were nearly empty they brought in new captives.
How she survived Keever’s ministrations was still a mystery to her. There had been a number of times when she thought she would die, when his potions had made her so sick she only wanted to die. Every scrap of food they brought for them to eat was suspect, for it could be made with plague-infested grain or contained an unpleasant additive from Keever’s storeroom. The captives went for days without food so that when they were fed they could only eat helplessly or starve. Ilysar had learned to wait, and watch, and eat only when it seemed safe and her cage mates seemed unaffected.
Her escape had been pure chance. One of the meals had been bad, and Ilysar watched as her neighbors died one by one while she sat helpless, unable to do anything to aid them other than try to make them comfortable. When the last of them had subsided into gurgling silence, Ilysar retreated to the back of the cage, tears slipping down her face, and had fallen into an exhausted stupor. She woke to hear Apothecary Keever muttering to himself with displeasure, and cracked an eyelid to see him peering through the cage bars at the prone humans. He left but came back with two guards who opened the cage and began to cart out a body. Ilysar stayed still, watching from under her lashes.
Before they could drag another one out, Thersa Windsong the Tauren had come in, and started a heated discussion with Apothecary Keever. There was much pointing at the bodies and gesticulating. The guards had stopped, looking from one to the other in blank patience, waiting for clear orders. Thersa Windsong had swept back into her lab, arguing, and Keever had followed her. The guards followed uncertainly, and for a half second Ilysar found herself staring dumbly at an open cage and an empty dungeon.
It had seemed to take forever to struggle to her feet, swaying with dizziness. She could hear Thersa and Keever still discussing from the other room and decided to make a break for it.
Ilysar had always been good at hiding. Her dash through the Undercity was made up of carefully calculated stops and starts, hiding under stairs and behind crates. She got lost and thought more than once that someone would spot her. Eventually she found an opening where the disgusting green slimed water flowed from the surface of the city. Unsure of another option, she took a deep breath and plunged in, swimming for her life through the horrible sludge.
She had come out gasping and spitting on the top side of the Undercity, and pulled herself out. She had to stop and catch her breath for a few long, fearful minutes before she could keep running.
That she had found Southshore at all seemed another stroke of fortune: she didn’t remember the run from the Undercity all that clearly. All she remembered was struggling to keep her poorly nourished body moving in a run that was more like a shamble, stopping often to take deep breaths and clear the stars from her vision. When she reached the inn at Southshore, she had collapsed on the front stoop.
Ilysar came back to herself with a start, and shook her head to clear it. It had taken months to recover her strength in Southshore, where a few kindly members of the town council had taken her in. She’d had trouble telling them exactly what had happened, but when she finally could talk about the experience they had bade her travel to Stormwind to tell the Archbishop that there were still human prisoners being tortured in the Undercity.
She had agreed to do so. Still shockingly pale and easily winded from her time spent underground, Ilysar had made the long trek south to the human capital.
Which led her to the here and now. Ilysar sighed. The Archbishop’s aides had been clearly frustrated with her when she could not provide a clear timeline of events. She couldn’t tell them how long she’d been in the Undercity, or Apothecary Keever’s plans for the experiments on the captives. She could tell them next to nothing about the layout of the city, how many guards she thought they had, or what the machine in Thersa Windsong’s laboratory was for.
Her questions about what could be done to aid the captives and to keep the small villages in Silverpine safe from attack were met with more logistical questions until Ilysar stubbornly refused to answer anything further until she could talk to the Archbishop.
Instead, they had sent her to Mathias Shaw of the S1:7.
She had just met with him that morning. He had listened politely to her tale, asking a few spare questions here and there to clarify something. As she spoke she began to feel a sense of hope that perhaps here was someone who might help.
She was completely disappointed when he shook his head at the end of her story and said, “there’s nothing we can do.” Ilysar had stared at him for a moment and he had smiled at her grimly.
“Stormwind is over-extended as it is, without chasing down the Forsaken for a few breeches in the already fragile peace,” he told her bluntly. “Light be with those captives and the villagers in Silverpine, but there’s nothing we can do at this point.”
Ilysar had set her chin stubbornly.
“Fine,” she had replied coolly. “I will try to speak to Lord Fordragon at the keep. Perhaps he will hear my case.” Mathias Shaw had thrown back his head and laughed.
“I doubt it, girl,” he’d said with jocular familiarity that made Ilysar’s skin squirm. “Fordragon listens to no one but Lady Prestor these days.” Then he had looked serious and leaned forward towards her.
“Ms. Sable,” he had said to her, “your story is fantastic. I don’t know of anyone else who could have escaped the Undercity and lived to bring the tale to S1:7. I want you to work for us. We need people like you here. We can’t directly aid those captives in the Undercity, but we can turn back the tide of evil in other places.”
Ilysar had stared at him.
“I don’t think so,” she’d said, getting up to leave. “I’d rather find a way to keep the Forsaken from getting more subjects to experiment on.”
Mathias Shaw had smiled at her without humor.
“Let’s put it this way,” he’d said. “The offer to work for S1:7 is simple: work for us, or face the consequences. You’ve notified the proper people of the predicament in the Undercity and of the danger facing the small outlying villages to the north. We’ve told you there’s nothing we can do. There’s no need to stir up trouble, either: you’ve told the right people and now it’s time to keep your silence. You’re either going to duck your head and put your skills at work in a useful manner, or we’ll see to it that you stay out of our way. You’ve heard the old saying, Ms. Sable? You’re either with us, or you’re against us.”
Ilysar had taken a step back.
“Are you threatening me?” She asked, eyebrows raised.
“Not at all,” Mathias Shaw said, sounding kindly again. “Merely stating facts. Report to me tomorrow at the eighth bell for your first assignment.” He gave her a direct, hard stare that contrasted with his kindly-uncle tone. “I’m sure I don’t need to be explicit about what will happen if you don’t appear.”
And that had been the end of that. Ilysar stared down at the water, feeling glum. All of this had turned out much differently than she had anticipated. There seemed little help for it now but to do as Mathias Shaw had bid. She wasn’t sure what else she could do, except keep her eyes and ears open for an opportunity to take action. She sighed and stood up, making her way to the inn she was staying at. It seemed she had traded one kind of captivity for another.