Of Ogres and Crypts

[Tahi]

The twin steps of plated boots and footpads of a wolf hit the dirt path as she walks away from Garadar. She turns her gaze to peer into that place of celebration as the fire and voices echo from even here, even the voice of a hopeful vendor. Hidden behind her hood her orange eyes shimmer back the light she sees as a small smile cracks her dark lips, before focus returns to her gaze as she moves forward. Holding her wolf with a thin rope tied to his harness she walks aside his steps as the light behind her dims further and further to ebb away into the darkness of the night,  the sounds of the wilds only interrupted by a few low growls of her wolf. Her free hand raises upwards as the power of the arcane resonates within her body with her eyes flaring with fire to look to the results. A perfect ember burns within her hand that casts the light of a torch around her at all times, causing a primal whimper from her wolf. Silently they walk that road as time drifts aimlessly within that strange Outland sky but soon enough her steps take her to the passage that leads into those familiar lands, yet so very broken and dead. Terokkar..

-

Within a hut made from mud and clay in a primitive dome an Ogre coughs and cowers within the smoke that engulfs that hut made into an Oven. He feels this thick flesh sweat with heat as he feels almost cooked alive, all that muscle only cooking against the fat. He looks to the cause of the smoke and fire and how familiar his companion looked in life, only to now burn with a terrible smell of flesh smouldering as he can taste it within his lips. The real cause stands within the smoke on the other side of his body as two eyes of fire pierce the gaze into his own, the eyes are fearless and intimidating with the calm of a demon or worse, burning like the fire that licks the sides of the hut. Her words speak with a distortion of magic and dominance that sounds almost like an Orc.

“You will answer my questions, Ogre.”

He scrambles to look around for some desperate way to escape this situation. But fear takes his words as he speaks in desperate panicked words. “Me just smash the meat! Me no know nothing of no one! Me gots nothing!” His sweat begins to drip quicker as the heat of the clay dome increases, the fire of the demon Orc only turning up the heat. Her words are still as calm and even more fear inducing, causing him to break down and answer all he knows at those words.

Yet he still cooks in that dome, the last thing he ever knows is a fast merciful death.

-


Her hand guides her wolf further into the small forest that buffers between Nagrand and Auchindoun. Yet her attention drifts backwards to the hut as she looks to the small plume of smoke that rises beyond the trees from what remains of that hut. A small sigh escapes her as she turns to look away, only moving onwards with careful steps to seek an exit from that forest. She didn’t like having to kill them even if the fear was as intoxicating as the feeling of the  rush of arcane swell over her body, but they left her little choice. The first openly claimed that she was nothing but meat that wandered too far from the plains and how delicious she would be in a pot, and she couldn’t let the second live knowing of her purpose. Even in the lands of their origin it was a shame to see that the remains of a once mighty empire had fallen into scattered clans of simple ogres. Her mind wanders to this a moment before her feet step into a new terrain of dust and sand. She narrows her eyes and raises an eyebrow as she stares into the desolate sight before her.

Her wolf sniffs the air first and growls at the sight before him, snapping his attention left and right as he lets out a small whimper to follow it. Tahi however simply looks to the ruins of Auchindoun in awe. The once great temple of the dead itself was dead and destroyed with it’s sanctum halls open to the air above. Scanning the plains, even half buried skeletons of Draenei and Orcs alike dotted the sands as her mind doubts if this is sand at all and behind her the trees seem permanently swept at an angle as if hit by a terrible storm. Perhaps the strongest sense of all was a foreboding sense of familiarity from a vision the day before. Tahi closes the ember in her hand and equally closes her eyes as she visualizes the place within her mind, letting her steps take her as she keeps hold of that rope before even the wolf tugs free of her grip. Alone and with only the memory of her vision to guide her she begins to grow distracted by the sounds of torment. A terrible cacophony of the voices of the Draenei and Orcs alike all suffer in union around her as the whispers of the dead scream in eternal unrest. Yet eventually her feet find a new surface as she feels a cold air buffet her chest.

Tahi stares into the dark path downwards into the earth. A place of dull brown stone clearly of Draenei make, the markings likely of some kind of tomb of the distance from Auchindoun. Her orange eyes turn from left to right as she sees the bones of Draenei where even the cloth has been picked clean and the corpses of Orcs still definitely wearing their shadow council robes. Her eyes dart back into that dark hole as she raises an ember of fire within her hands. Yet even as much as the Orc tries to resist the trappings of her fear, the dark pit below seems to actively try to resist the illumination from her fire. She closes her eyes and sighs as she swallows audibly, her body stiff with tension as she moves to step below. Each step feels like an eternity within that dark place as paranoia takes her now open eyes, shifting from left to right as she tries to find the whispers in the dark.

As much as the shadows betray the illumination of light she still finds vision from her ember within the entrance chamber. To her left sits a large room filled with graves and broken craft of clearly Draenei make, though if purely ceremonial or if it served a purpose Tahi does not know. The room itself seems to be picked clean of anything with no grave left undisturbed as an eerie feeling of someone watching her lingers the more she stares. She peers to the right only to see what would be another entrance within this Draenic crypt, only that the room has entirely caved in on itself with a half buried body of a Human under the rubble, a cracked crystal within his grasp. Moving to pick it up the crystal from the skeleton she holds it within her free hand only to feel pain slowly build in her mind, her body feeling weak. She quickly tosses the crystal as it clatters and echoes within that hall, looking ahead into that final unknown room.

The final room is a chamber that ends in a spherical room as Tahi emerges from the steps to find herself within it. She peers from left to right only to see strange graves left untouched by any who would seek to loot this place. Crystalline constructs lay preserved within each of the four corners that chime with a familiar Draenic hum and illuminate the crypt well. The light eventually leads to that circular room as Tahi moves to inspect the large grave that sits within the middle. This singular grave seems to be more decorated and revered than the simple tombs behind her with words of Draenei craft preserved among it. As if by instinct she moves her hand to reach for the grave and to touch it only for the room to become beset by darkness in a moment, the hum giving way to nothing but whispers and screams all too familiar. Panic begins to set into the Blackrock as she scrambles to reignite the ember within her grasp only for a cold wind to quickly snap out the flame as she conjures it, the voice of the dead following it in the darkness. “It is unwise for you to disturb the remains, Orc. Those touched by the arcane do not die quickly.”

Focus drives to Tahi as she forces her eyes closed. If she must submit to that which she fears she will do so on her own terms, almost looking around her with closed eyes to feel where the cold wind is the most frigid. Turning to face it she speaks with a shaky voice, the forced confidence paper thin. “I come to ask! I do not come to steal, but I wish for information!”.

She moves to follow the cold wind as it darts around to another place within the room to try to follow it with closed eyes. It’s voice is no longer as intimidating but curious. “Is gathering information not just another way to steal from the dead? Should our secrets not be our own? No. A deal for a deal. A secret for a secret. Why do you fear the darkness?”

Games?! Tahi thought she would come here for information but now she finds herself within the caverns trying to bargain with a spirit. She tries to calm herself but the voices that linger in the darkness ring personal, choosing instead to listen to the unsettling drones of the long dead. “I fear the darkness because when I stole the power of an Ogre stone, I saw only darkness as everything else burnt away. I say in that darkness the flesh of my parents burn away as I watched them scream in agony. Every time I see darkness I see them burn and hear their screams. I do see my ancestors. I see them burn.”

“Hm. Trauma makes you fear it. That is the root of all fear.” The spirit speaks stoically. “Still I am pleased. Your question?”

She answers quickly, in a short tone. Tired of this game. “Tell me what you know about the Tablet of Dark Flame. Did such a thing exist within this world? What fate became of it?”

The spirit is silent for a time as Tahi waits. But an answer comes and it comes with a hint of concern. “Seek the Ogres of Nagrand. Deep within a cave you will find more answers than I can give you. For all I know about such things is that as the Horde killed our women and children, there were whispers of a band of Ogres tapping into the power of the Arcane and the darkness that slumbered in the dreams of their Mages. Now leave here, you were never welcome.”

The cold air dissipates as the darkness is halted, the flame in her hand gone but the Draenic crystals illuminate crystal by crystal. With no delay Tahi moves out of the main room, past the entry chamber and up those steps as she finds her wolf peering to her curiously. The two ride back into Nagrand only to find it much later into the night as the fires are burnt out, and the festival goers slumber in tents and huts. Catching her breath she dismounts and leads her wolf into the stables only to look on the bonfire as she sees a familiar face or two chatting away. Yet Tahi retreats to the main hut, always keeping a flame nearby.