User:Joshmaul/Anastasia Devaneaux

Lady Anastasia Devaneaux was the wife of Baron Artimus Devaneaux. A Stormwind native, she joined the Scarlet Crusade with her husband after the fall of Lordaeron and served as commander of the retinue of the Scarlet Oracle.

Biography


Anastasia Britanov was born in Lakeshire, the daughter of an influential Stormwind (later Alliance) general, Mikhail Britanov. When Stormwind fell, General Britanov took his family across the Great Sea to Lordaeron. She was 23 when she met Artimus, 30, during their sojourn in Lordaeron. Her father was a renowned strategist and became one of the force commanders under Lord Lothar and later General Turalyon, and served as commander of the rebuilt Stormwind's defense before he retired; Artimus was of a small but powerful noble family indentured to the House of Barov, who controlled the four major towns in Lordaeron. They married at the Cathedral in Stratholme; their ceremony was officiated over by the city's High Priest, Sekhesmet. In light of the Horde ransacking her homeland, Artimus taught Anastasia the finer points of using weapons to defend herself against an attacker of any kind.

After the fall of Lordaeron, Artimus was called to Tyr's Hand by the venerable Alexandros Mograine, and was inducted into the newly-founded Scarlet Crusade. When he mentioned he had a wife, the Highlord had him send for her. Her piety was such that it drew the attention of Brigitte Abbendis, another paladin and one of Mograine's lieutenants. Abbendis took Anastasia under her wing and trained her in the ways of the Light. While Artimus was sent off to ferry new recruits to the Scarlet Monastery, Anastasia remained in Tyr's Hand. Like her husband, she attained the rank of Scarlet Commander. When the Ashbringer was killed, she remained with Abbendis under the rule of the Grand Crusader, Saidan Dathrohan, and was rewarded for her loyalty by being placed in command of the personal retinue of the Scarlet Oracle, Demetria. This would eventually result in her death several years later...

The Master and the Commander


Demetria had been considered a high-profile target by both the Argent Dawn and the Forsaken. However, it was the Forsaken who acted first. Nathanos Blightcaller, Champion of the Banshee Queen, commanded Horde forces in the Eastern Plaguelands, where the bulk of the Scarlet leadership was based. In order to cut off the leadership in Stratholme from the outside world, Demetria had to be lured out into the open by a false request for her to journey to Stratholme - and then assassinated by waiting Horde forces. To that end, Nathanos called on two blood elves to carry out his work: Blood Knight Master Ordevaas Portalseeker and his comrade, a Farstrider captain named Omoikane. Ordevaas, by that time, was a revered figure within the entire Horde, and Omoikane a skilled hunter of the mindless dead that had begun their new assault in the wake of the coming war in Northrend.

Ordevaas had been reluctant to leave this matter unsettled. Though the Grand Crusader - Balnazzar - was long dead, few knew that outside of Stratholme, and no one in the Crusade was even aware of it. Only a select few within the Argent Dawn - who had demanded Balnazzar's execution - knew of the Grand Crusader's demise, and it was Ordevaas' intention to keep it that way. Omoikane shared this belief, and the two blood elves hatched a plan that would allow them to stay with the Oracle incognito until it was time to strike. The clever use of deceptive finesse combined with brute force was among Ordevaas' favored tactics when battling a powerful enemy.

The Plan of Attack


Using rotten apples provided by Nathanos, Ordevaas and Omoikane disguised themselves as Scarlet Crusaders to enter Tyr's Hand and deliver the Grand Crusader's command - taken from the body of a dead Crimson Legion courier - to Crusader Lord Valdemar, who would then send Demetria to Stratholme. Then the disguised blood elves would accompany the Oracle, Anastasia and her guards out of Tyr's Hand to a point between it and Corin's Crossing, where they would drop their disguises and attack. Ordevaas scouted out the Oracle's route and then returned to his disguise along with his comrade.

Maintaining the element of surprise, the ambush was perfectly timed and extraordinarily vicious; Omoikane, a master of beasts, had tamed one of the wild devilsaurs of Un'Goro Crater, and its fury - combined with the two blood elves' skill with their weapons - led to the demise of Demetria and her entire escort. Anastasia was the first to die.

After the two blood elves left the broken corpses of the Oracle and her bodyguards on the road, they were recovered by nearby guards who had heard the disturbance and ran too late to aid their comrades. Anastasia was buried outside the Scarlet Basilica in Tyr's Hand, next to the grave marker memorializing her husband, long believed to be dead...but in fact a lot nearer than they expected.