User:Archelod

Archelod’s childhood
Archelod was born in the village of Corin's Crossing 5 years before Kel'Thuzad formed the Cult of the Damned and started to contaminate the lands of Lordaeron. He had a calm life until the Scourge started to attack the lands of the kingdom. Archelod’s father, Markus Trueblade, was a soldier of the Lordaeron militia, was assigned to protect the front from the Scourge that was going to invade the trading town. Archelod’s mother, Mariel Trueblade, waited her husband for months, but she lost her hope when the Scourge finally invaded Corin’s Crossing. The defenders of Darrowshire were powerless against the unlimited waves of undead that took control of the city in no time. Archelod and her mother were forced to run away from the hopeless city when they met a man that was blocking their way. He was Markus, Archelod’s father, paler and with ghostly eyes. He ran towards them and stabbed his wife at the chest. The battle infuriated and lots of people, screaming in anguish, were running from the village or were not so lucky and fell prey of the mindless undead. They were nothing but a mere background for Archelod, that saw his father murder his mother without pity or remorse… he was now one of them, a puppet of the Scourge. The terror paralyzed him, standing near a merciless undead and bathed from the blood of his mother. Archelod was sure to die there, when his father blew up in an explosion of searing light that almost blinded him. When he opened his eyes, he saw a man with long brown hair and beard, in a full plate armor and with his right hand glowing in a warm light. “You will never forget what happened here child, but don’t let the horrors that you faced this day and the despair you feel now take your will to live.” The words of the paladin were strangely reassuring, and Archelod saw the human as an angel that saved him from sure death. The two returned to a camp at the border of Alterac mountains and the paladin introduced himself as Duthorian Rall. He and other paladins were trying to do their best to save as much lives as they could from the Scourge and to run to the safety of the southern lands. Once in Northshire Abbey, the child started to train in the ways of the paladinhood and studied the story of the past. He read that the humans were once united in a single nation named Arathi, whom saved the elves from the forest trolls. He also read about the orcs, a tribe of bloodthirsty assassins that wanted to destroy Azeroth as a whole, and with the sacrifice of noble souls like Anduin Lothar and General Turalyon the orcs were no longer a threat. From that day, Archelod started to create his own destiny as a paladin of Northshire, even if the light was not able to save him from the nightmares of the slaughter of Corin’s Crossing he had every night, it could create a brighter future for those who never lost the will to fight.

The separation from the crusade
Archelod fought valiantly to help Tirion Fordring and the other argent crusaders to defeat The Lich King. He always thought that the argent crusade represented the pure goodness in the world. But after the events at the now flourishing Lordaeron fields, Archelod changed his point of view. When he was moving through the Felstone Field, now healthy and reclaimed by the alliance, to see if the undead were totally neutered in that zone, he saw something terrible. Plague wagons and catapults were heading from the bulwark to that field. The vile forsaken were about to use their fetid plague upon the argent fields? That was the horror that Archelod saw. He saw the crop turn black and liquefy in an instant, he saw the grass burn just like acid touched it, and at last, he saw a valkyr take the helpless farmers and chain them with the chains of endless undeath. He couldn’t do anything, he was powerless against an entire legion of forsaken, but he could run and inform the crusade at the now conquered Hearthglen to inform them of the abominations of nature made by Sylvanas’ pawns. The Crusade Commander Entari was there, who was an important figure for the crusade, so Archelod thought that he won’t ignore what he saw. How wrong he was. “Crusader commander, the forsaken are attacking those fields, I saw an entire farm plagued and their farmers killed and transformed into undead!” “Those fields were of the alliance, as much as I hate the forsaken, I can’t do nothing, we need to stay neutral, attacking the forsaken would cause a schism into the crusade, which we can’t afford” answered the crusader commander. “…but they are KILLING the land that everyone fought so hard to protect, how is that even remotely acceptable?” Archelod was mad at the answer that Entari gave him. “We need to accept them, young crusader, there are greater threat than the forsaken and the horde, you need to remember that Stratholme and Scholomance are still under scourge control, and we also heard that Balnazaar returned.” “This means that you will watch while the forsaken turn the entire world into a fetid swamp of death?” Archelod lost his temper. “Calm down young crusade…” “Yeah, calm down and see how OUR people get slaughtered helplessly and given a fate even worse that death? You crusaders are disgusting!” “Watch your tongue, young one, I already said why we can’t move.” “Then those are the good news, I no longer want to be part of an organization who does nothing to help us, kill your scourge alone!” Archelod said this while putting off his crusader tabard and leaving it on the soil. “I will fight more imminent threats, just like the horde and the twilight cult, I will never return in the crusade again, now I know my affiliation” said Archelod while walking out from Hearthglen. “Don’t say something you will repent” said Entari while returning to his duty and watching Archelod slowly go away from Hearthglen, in which he won’t return again. “Now I know what I am…” started him to say while holding his medallion of the alliance. “…I am a knight of the Alliance, who will slaughter the filthy horde and create a brighter future for the entire Azeroth”. Then while he was leaving, he shouted “Glory to the Alliance, and glory to king Wrynn!”.

Mariel
Nothing in Archelod’s life was so traumatizing than the episode of the battle of Andorhal. Archelod, sought to protect the Alliance from every evil of the land, went there to help Thassarian and the Alliance officers to take the large city of Andorhal and secure it from scourge and horde alike. During the battle, the scourge was annihilated by the forces of the alliance and the horde that cornered it. With the scourge gone, the Alliance and the horde battled each other. In this instance, Archelod saw a person he hadn’t seen since he was a child. He could recognize her among all others, even if her face was rot. It was Mariel, his mother, dressed with a black robe and fighting with the forsaken. “Mother, what have they done to you?” said Archelod, still filled with stupor at the sight of her. “They gave me another possibility to live, my son” answered back Mariel. “But, why you fight us mother? Why you fight with the forsaken, who only want to recreate the plaguelands and annihilate our life?” asked him to his mother, truly curious about her answer and hoping to have his mother back. “Oh, my son, you have much to learn. Are those people you fight for the real inhabitants of Lordaeron? No, I was a Lordaeronian, I died there, just like the other forsaken, we the forsaken are those that have the right to live there, even in death!” while Mariel was saying this, both her and her son ignored every other thing, the sound of the plague wagons, the shouts, the sounds of battle, the cry of the valkyrs, the rally of the Alliance commanders… just like that day, everything was merely a background. “So, do you feel that your justice can fight those who died for their own land and only seek to take that back from invaders? Do you think that you are at the part of justice?”. “But, mother, how can you say it? Those people saved my life, if it wasn’t for them I would have killed by my father and would have been risen as an undead!”. “At least we could have had another fighter to reconquer Lordaeron” said Mariel with a frozen tone. “How can you even THINK a sentence like this, mother?”. “Simple son, it’s better to have allies than enemies, and now you are one of my enemies, so I will slaughter you in the name of the banshee queen!” said Mariel while charging her staff with dark magic. “What they have done to you? You are not my mother anymore, you are now only an abomination that traps the soul of my mother in a body that is only a grotesque resemblance of her” while saying this, Archelod let a tear cross his cheek. “I whish you were never born! Curse you, and curse your saviours!” while she said this, Archelod took his sword and charged it with holy power. “Now my son, die, and join our eternal torment!” while saying this, Mariel fulled Archelod with shadow energy. “I… will… free you… mother!!!” In a glimpse, Archelod’s eyes started to glow a fiery light “Light, give me the strength to shatter the body of this undead and release its agonizing soul!”. In an explosion of light, Mariel’s body was dismembered piece by piece, until nothing remained of her. Then, Archelod lost his senses. He awakened in Chillwind Camp, and he got word that the Alliance had lost Andorhal. That day, Archelod understood how the forsaken fight, cursing people that died to protect their loved ones, transforming them into monsters without any emotion, capable only of feeling hate, anger and envy for the living. Those monsters couldn’t be fought by using a normal army and in normal ways, just like they tried to fight in Andorhal, but in vain. Since that day, Archelod changed his last name in Grayblade, because he understood that for justice, truthiness is not enough, and sometimes someone needs to do questionable things for the better of the world. This is the philosophy that will accompany him for the rest of his life.