User:Xavius/The League Repentant

From the Journals of Athaniar, Ranger of Silvermoon:The Details of the Operation and First Incident Regarding the Organization Calling Themselves the League Repentant

Author's Notes
The following tale is my personal recollection of the events in question. It is all true, and I can assure that I have tried not to be biased in any way.

Receiving the Task
As I walked into the local enclave in the mountains of the Loch Modan area that fateful autumn morning, I had no idea what would take place within the following several days. I had received a telepathic message ordering me to report to the enclave at once, so I went to the lodge that served as a front for the real base. I used my key-amulet to enter the Operations Central below the lodge, and saw Ms. Swiftwind there waiting for me. I went up to her, and reported as ordered.

Ms. Swiftwind told me of the mission at hand: apparently, an organization known as the League Repentant had been formed in Ranger-overseen lands, it's purpose: to unite evildoers-turned-good from all over the world(s). A "former" warlock named "Cynewalden" had formed it some time ago. This would have been all great and ranger-supported, had it not been for the fact that it wasn't just good it was up to.

Ms. Swiftwind then told me about a member of the organization, a succubus who had left the Legion to join. She had then discovered some of the truth regarding the League's concealed motives, and decided to tell someone. Unfortunately, agents of the League had found out about her "betrayal", and assaulted her, but not before she had readied a teleportation spell to get out of there. She had then been able to locate the Ranger enclave of Dun Morogh, and so we had taken her under our wings, so to speak, and had promised to help out with uncovering the League's evil scheme. I accepted the task, and went to the portal to get to the Dun Morogh lodge. However, the portal was strangely unable to connect us to the lodge, and thus began the first of our many problems.

The Dun Morogh Incident
With all contact regarding the Dun Morogh lodge seemingly cut, I offered to personally go to the lodge. I was then teleported to Ironforge via the common portal system, and from there went out to find the lodge in question, which was located in the small town of Anvilmar, Coldridge Valley. I bought some useful supplies in the dwarven capital, and proceeded towards Anvilmar on a ram I hired. It was when I reached Anvilmar I realized something was terribly wrong: not a single person in the whole town, neither dwarf nor gnome. Inside the main structure, I was just about to examine a peculiar indent in one of the wall decorations, when suddenly, I felt someone sneaking up from behind me. Fortunately Timber, who I had left outside, had noticed this, and threw himself upon my assailant. However, a second assailant then struck me in the head with a blunt object, and all went dark.

When I woke up again, I found myself tied up with strong-fibred ropes, and with heavy fel iron chains to a wall inside what could only be the Dun Morogh lodge, along with several other rangers, some of which I knew to be experienced combatants. This made me mildly uncomfortable, regarding the strength of the opposing force. I noticed that the guards were warriors of the mo'arg species, those commonly known as felguards. Finally, after some hours of waiting, a higher-ranking person showed up: an eredar warlock! Was this the prelude to a Legion invasion, I wondered at the time? I also noticed the eredar was followed by two gan'arg carrying a cage containing the sedated succubus I originally came there to locate. The eredar approached me, and spoke threatened me with all sorts of wicked torture, probably a standar eredar greeting, before taking forth a round metal disk with a spike emanating from it, and inserting said spike into my heart. I have to say it was not a pleasant feeling, my endurance training nothwithstanding. After that, he left the room, laughing heartily, along with his gan'arg "trophy-bearers", as they appeared to be functioning as.

The disk-device seemed to be extracting my life force and storing it somehow. As it drained my life, it started glowing with a fel green luster. When it was full, and the glow was at it's most intense, a demonic or undead minion would enter and replace the disk with an empty one, without removing the spike itself. To keep me alive, they regularly provided me with various pieced of demonic food, some of which tasted acceptable. Some of it. After some days of torture, they finally allowed me to meet the real person in charge: not that surprisingly, the warlock Cynewalden.

First Encounter with the Warlock
The first thing I noticed about that dark-clad apparently human warlock as he entered the room was that he didn't look exactly "healthy": he had a slight greyish complexion to his skin, and his eyes appeared to have reclined. He moved with a spectral grace as he moved up to me, and put a wicked kris dagger to my throat. "You are Athaniar," he simply stated in a ghostly voice, as he savagely pulled out the disk and spike from my heart, and proceeded to clench the disc with his hand. The accumulated life energy surged into his body, and for a moment, he appeared as a perfectly healthy human, before he regained his deathlike complexion. I inquired about his true motives, and he seemed surprised that I still possessed the energy to speak, but refused to answer my question, and simply laughed it off. When he laughed, I thought I saw a reddish glow in his eyes for a brief moment, and there was something eerily familiar with those eyes. After that, he left the room, but fortunately also left something behind: the discarded disk, and it's spike. In one haste movement, I swung myself forwards, succeeded in severing the bonds at my feet, and proceeded to kick the two guards in their heads with said feet. I was now free, and after I had freed the other rangers, we proceeded further into the lodge in an attempt to regain control.

We had fought off several more demonic and undead guards when we finally reached the core of the lodge, in which Cynewalden and his eredar lieutenant had taken up residence. The minor demons posed only minor problems, and the eredar was not that hard once we reached him, but it was the warlock himself that we had trouble with. He kept launching an array of lethal spells, some of which slayed a number of brave ranger who were in his way. When he realized he was overpowered, however, or perhaps he wanted us to think that, he teleported out. With no leadership left, the leftover demons were hardly a match. Once we had retaken the facility, we freed several other prisoners, including the entire population of Anvilmar, and the succubus, before reporting in to the Loch Modan enclave.