The Pursuit of Dependant

[Bamm]

The Pursuit of Dependant

The figure gasped for breath, he been a fugitive now for what felt like days, weeks, months? The figure collapsed to his knees behind a rocky alcove, scurrying back and out of sight. Unclasping the now slack water skin at his belt upon opening it and carefully extending it above his move the figure let the few last precious drops hit his mouth, it only stoked his thirst. His whole body fire his mouth ashen.  He was the fox and the hounds where closing in. It had chased him across what felt like the entire breadth of Kalimdor and now Outland. The figure glanced around the large jutting peaks of blade edge mountains he had given his pursuers the slip for now but he knew but morning they’d have his trail again, and it would begin anew. His hands shook from fatigue, but he gestured loosely drawing with his fingers in the air a soft glow of purple blue energy grew in the right hand before fading. The figure let out a pained sigh almost a whimper. The figure reached into his tattered robe producing a softly glowing crystalline rock, illuminating the figure a pale green scrawny wretch of a creature, hair wild and long at its temples his tattered robes once pristine and finely tailored now mud caked, bloody and torn one sleeve missing, it’s left hand gloved a tattered tabard baring the sigil of Kirin Tor spread across it chest.

A gesture of its hand, the crystal struck the ground at his feet, the energy dispersed into the soil. The ground began glowing, pulsing even, the figure scrambled into it drawing odd sigils and symbols into the dirt around it mumbling ranting to himself, before sitting cross legged in the centre, rocking softly back and forth. A sense of calm briefly came over the figure. Arkail exhaled and said to himself.

“This, my dear fellow is getting to be a rather nasty habit. if the others could see you now... well most would wonder what on earth i was doing and what was wrong”

He let a pained stifled laugh escape his lips as if scared to give it sound, sweat drenched his forehead and Arkail shoulders sunk, he curled up into ball upon the faintly pulsing ground. Arkail’s whole body shook softly his teeth chattered in the center of the pulsing circle. His good eye closed, the image of the elderly archmagi spinning to a crumpled heap to the floor as flashed across his mind. arkail had struck out more in annoyance than self preservation, he didnt mean to kill.. fevered sleep claimed Arkail dawn would come soon and the hunt would begin anew.

[Okiba]

What the dook has Arkail got himself into!?   

Great read!

[Bamm]

A small succession of bursts of purple blue energy lit up the cave, striking the silhouette at the cave entrance repeatedly the first two blasting away the defensive ward of the silhouette away the third striking it chest with such force as to envelop it entirely, if only briefly. it slumped to its knees before falling sideways. A panted gasp of relief and shock came from deep within the cave, half scurrying muttering  under its breath.

The entrance of the cave highlighted him. He routed though the slumped corpse of the man, his pale green fingers not leaving a pocket unrifled. Stuffing everything he could into its pockets.

“Arkkailll AARRRKAIL. Arkailllll”

The creature half came briefly to his senses and wiped his brow.

“Shut up arkail, i am arkail you’re a voice in my head damn it, I am arkail i am arkail i am arkail”

“Arrrrrrkail” the voice rattled again in a familiar voice, three voices as one. Alien, ancient and his own.

“Shush!”  The creature replied i am Arkail Blast... Bla.. Blastblade.
The creature closed his eyes and tried to focus his mind he just needed to think straight, to breathe.

“I am Arkail Blastblade and i have been in far worse situations than this yes”

Arkail spoke aloud it echoed somewhat into the dark cave. Arkail glanced deep into the cave how long had here been in there... hours? Days? Weeks?  He didn’t know he always found time a troubling concept to grasp. Find a great tome an hour could seem like mere moments, wake up strapped to an apotherccarys table for the 4th time in as many months, an hour could feel like a week, it was all relative. Arkail blinked at that though he should write that down he half smirked or at least he should check to see if anyone had done already, how long had it been since he;’d sat down and read surrounded by books... he pondered,  turning the corpse of the fallen over its face striken with shock eyes wide mouth a gasp. He took it by the chin turning its face left and right examining it. There would be more always more, he felt the chill sweep over him a wind like whisper sweep over him and rattle in the base of his skull.

“Arrrrkailll, such seeeeeecretsss you could learnnnn. AAAAAAARRRRKAIIILLLL, AAAARRKILLLL Arkil, Kill.. Killlll”

Arkail closed his eyes tight to the voice that seemed to emanate from within him and externally at the same time.

He checked the pockets of the fallen man again, more regeants. He could perhaps attempt a portal.. High end master level magics especially for one.. but he had to escape... The pangs of fever would claim him soon he would need to rest, at the end of the hour he would be feverish and shaking again..

If only to silence that damnable voice he thought, no manners at all...

[Bamm]

Arkail felt the fall, the weightlessness the rising in his stomach and then the ground. He hit hard, bouncing and rolling downward briefly realising, the cold and wet slush that was snow. A small protrusion of jagged rock came barrelling towards him.... It all went black.

“ARKAILL.... ARRRRRKAIILL.... ARKILL” A voice echoed

Arkail was alone feint outlines of familiar landscapes shadowed and dark seemed to surround him where was he, He was falling, he had hit, the ground, there was snow? Now...  Alone in the darkness he could see a figure moving in the corner of his good eye, he turned to face it only for it to move again. It all faded away...

Arkail sat upright with a bolt sending a cascade of snow into the air with the quick motion. He gasped a deep lung full of air, cold and sharp. He trembled and tried to gain his bearings on his surroundings. He was caked in a fine powder of snow, the wind roared cutting into him like waves. The portal had worked, sure he had generated it slightly too high, his body ached from the impact. but he had followed the rules well enough he hadnt materialised inside the rock at least.He would need to find shelter the exposure would kill him quick. He did his best to wrap the rags he now wore around him for warmth.

Gathering several small rocks from beneath the snow and with a quick motion of a small sharp bladed etched sigils into the surface, a free hand making motions in the air, he began to weave magic into them faint and weak but enough, the sigil glowed red and warmth began to radiate from them. He would need to find shelter.. The wind howled and bit into his face. Underneath the wind, the feint whispers rattled in his skull. Arkail couldn’t tell anymore what was chasing him if anything at all.... He no longer cared.

“ARKAILL.... ARRRRRKAIILL.... ARKILL” A voice echoed.

A small cave appeared briefly amidst the snow storm.

[Bamm]

A blazing brightness assaulted his mind a light without heat or source. It enveloped and became him, was not and was him, he reached out his hands and they disappeared into it. A silent scream howled..

Darkness an empty void of nothingness not cold it was an absence of anything  he saw himself as if was in daylight it swirled around and though him, he reached out his hands a briefly nothing happened until they began to warp elongate, drip and twist as if made from a viscous liquid spreading up his arms . A silent scream howled..

Over and over this cycle continued over and over unrelenting.

Bolting upright, he scurried across the floor behind a protruding stalagmite. He gazed across from where he slept the rune was broken.  He must have disturbed it in his sleep broken the circle.

A deep unnatural growl emanated from deep within the base of skull.” Arrrrrrrr kaaaaaillll  Arrrrrkailll  ARRRRRKILLLLLLLL “ 

Arkail shook and froze. “no, no, no, no, no no, can’t do t-that no, no, no, can’t can’t, can’t can’t can’t can’t ,can’t, can’t no.

In a single leap he landed amidst the center of the arcane rune ward and several deft actions of his fingers in the air then plunging into the dirt fixing the broken lines into the dirt till the glowed a soft purple light.

The figure draped in rags he hair wild and balding he beard long and unkempt, rocked backwards and forwards in the center of the ward. He could feel it the light and dark crashing against it wave after wave. Whispers and melodic humming joined in chorus together, creeping up each side of his neck dripping into his ears... He would endure.

Arrrrrkaaaaillll..... ARRRRKILLLL.... Arrrrkaill...ARRRRKILLL

Outside the small cave the icy winds of Northrend roared a deafening boom and rumble an avalanche sailed down the mountain side and covered the cave’s mouth.

[Bamm]

A figure sat in the darkness that no light could pierce even waving his hand in front of his face he could not detect it and the cold now bit at his bones. He sat cross legged in his rune the light now gone from it, burnt into the ground; his fingers at his temples moving deftly and in odd patterns. The runestones, he had placed in the folds of his tattered robes that once had been a source of heat now cold. The whispers though however here not. Over and over, wave after wave the hallucinations hit him too over and over but he kept a grip the endless void twisting and absorbing him. The blinding heatless light enveloped him and becoming him.  Kept his mind spilling out like a burst water skin by compartmentalising his mind locking it off sectioning it placing wards within wards In an effort to trap and contain whatever madness had finally taken root in him, dangerous but effective.

The longer the process the more and more he felt himself again Days and days past. What had he been running from and why? The Elderly arrogant Arch mage he had accidentally killed That had refused to let him leave the floating city, a tragedy no doubt one he would answer for to Kirin Tor.  But he needed to get back to the world, find the tribe again he had crossed paths briefly with them in Outlands, they were never hard to find. He was resolute to this course of action now.

He in his madness had somehow ended up in a cave somewhere in the Stormpeaks of Northrend, he would need to go home to Undercity perhaps find a book or two on this madness before finding the tribe but first he would need to leave this cave. Or did he, he reckoned he could possibly generate a portal. His time in Dalaran had been fortuitous and worthwhile he had realised his aptitude laid not in offensive magics but spells such “blink” as was the common parlance or translocate 2-3 times without struggle, focusing on places in his mind and manipulating the leylines to tear a small hole to a place of his choosing, He had done so in his manic state several times by his own reckoning, he had bounced all over Azeroth running from himself. Arkail would return to Undercity...

He knelt in the dark a deft singular waving motion of his hand igniting the symbols on the floor a brief flash of purple light and Arkail had left the cave

“Arrrrrkkkkillllllll “the  familiar whispers crept up the side of his neck as Arkail crashed into the wet mud bouncing and rolling before crashing into the side of a old crumbling wall. Opening his eyes a familiar grey overcast dead sky loomed above him the stench of decay and death assaulted his senses. Arkail was home.  A frenzied commotion greeted him as he staggered though the ruins of Lordaeron. Supplies being moved all races now not just the Forsaken moved and carrying setting up various weapons and implements for a siege. The legion surely couldn’t have gone this far, how long had he been gone? A troll female stopped him and scolded him for dalliying hefting a large crate into his arms and gesturing with bemused bewildment Arkail’s inability to comprehend  what he was to do with it.

“Damn peon, Legba be give me strength not to end this bumbaclot carry them supplies over to the others in the western quadrant do you understand the words coming out of my mouth”

Arkail blinked his good eye asking how went the war with the Legion ?

To which the irate Troll female gave a barrage of curses mainly at her own lot in life being one of pain and hardship. But inbetween the cursing and self pity Arkail considered that Legion threat had ended. He gave a few choices curse back in Zandalii and handed the crate back to the troll. Now stunned into a confused silence.  And headed deeper into the Undercity he would discover what had happened in his absensce and if possible find a tailor and if possible a bath.