User:Renik/Confessions of a Blood Knight

Confessions of a Blood Knight
"Confessions of a Blood Knight" is the memoir of Renik, a Blood Knight in training. Penned in Sindassi, the story was translated into Orcish and even Common by its publishers, the Steamwheedle Cartel.

The story is split into three parts: Respect, Tenacity, and Compassion.

Respect


“Hey, miss,” the barmaid said to me in a warm whisper just as I was slipping off my imperial purple cloak. “Miss, how would you like to make some gold? Baron Ironheart would gladly pay for the company of a fine, young high elf lady like you. He doesn’t live too far from here, as his home is just north of Stone Cairn Lake.”

“I’m male,” I told her as I pulled my cloak back over my slender, yet clearly masculine body, silently cursing my flowing blonde mane. As I left the Lion’s Pride Inn, I heard her grumbling about how she couldn’t tell the male elves from the females, as we all “looked girly" to her.

Had it been anywhere but Goldshire, I might have been astonished at the prospect of being propositioned. However, the small village lived up to being a cesspool filled with depraved, drunken idiots, but could one really expect any better from a place infested with humans? I would have avoided Goldshire and humanity, with their stupefied stares following me from their beady little eyes, mouths agape and either attracting flies or filling with gossip about “the pointy-eared freak.” I would have avoided it all had it not been for my life’s work, for the Book of Blood. I was glad when the Book of Blood led me out of Goldshire, allowing me to duck into Elwynn Forest and away from their stares as I headed north to the lake thanks to the mistaken wench’s accidental lead.

I must admit, in a way, I was a bit envious of Elwynn Forest. While the lands of the Sin’dorei are the greatest in all of Azeroth, they also came at the highest price, a price paid in the blood of untold scores of high elves. It did not seem fair that the hapless humans got Elwynn Forest for free while we, the proud and noble Sin’dorei, most deserving of greatness, had to fight for our kingdom, but then, injustice is what I sought to correct in the lands of the unholy Alliance.

“The dead shall rise again!” hissed the reanimated cadaver. The abomination, stripped of all flesh and muscle down to the brittle bone, jumped me on my first patrol upon my return to Eversong Woods after my four year journey following the war. Armed with a rusty cutlass, a wooden buckler, and the curse of undeath, this fiend was a force to be reckoned with.

But so was I.

Under the shadows cast by the canopy of Eversong Woods, with birds chirping tranquil songs above me and the lives of my people weighing heavy on my shoulders, I gallantly rushed toward the foul, life-hating creature, my short hair flicking against the wailing, whipping winds (short, as I had resolved to style it such after the unfortunate confusion in Lion’s Pride Inn years ago). I lifted into the air spinning with the nimble grace of my kind. Using the momentum of the spin, I drew my steel down upon the beast. I back flipped off him upon striking his upraised buckler, landing in a crouch.

In years past, his shield might have stopped me. The holy spirit coursed through my sword, from me, bringing the atrocity to a clattering pile of bones in a brilliant, nearly-blinding explosion of holy mana before I could even land my back flip.

“Well done,” Madam Suometar said, turning my head to her attention with just her stern voice and a slow, almost sarcastic, clap as I struggled to catch my breath.

It is well known that the grace and beauty the Sin’dorei is second to none. We make paupers of princesses, ogres of humans, and goblins of night elves. Madam Suometar was the exception, possessing none of the aesthetic enhancements afforded her race. Plain in build, Suometar’s countenance was pulled into an eternal sneer, possibly from some tragedy in the past, although it reminded me of the face I saw a child once make after tasting his first lime.

“Very well done,” she repeated after clasping her clapping hands still, silencing them. “Although you’ve failed to prove yourself as a healer as of yet, it would appear you’ve managed to at least master your first seal. Tell me, apprentice, how did you manage that little trick?”

Although I never told her, one merely need turn to the past to discover how I tamed the Light. In particular, one could peer back two years prior to my initiation into the order of the Blood Knights, back to the aforementioned night in Elwynn Forest when I broke into Baron Ironheart’s manor and strangled him to death. My fingers wrapped about his thick neck so well, like the perfect revenge. He struggled, flailing futilely about like a fat rat caught in the talons of the cunning owl, tearing the curtains from his four post bed as I made it his death bed. Just before dying, I saw his eyes widen in realization of my identity, and I knew his last thoughts were of how he had wronged me.

By my blade, I drew the last of his life force, with which I crossed his name out in the Book of Blood, a book filled with the names of those who’d done me grave injustices, inked in my own blood. And then he was dead, lying sprawled on his bed in only his trousers, which strained at his girth. The very sight of him reminded me of a balding slab of ham – he even stank of a sweaty hog! Disgusted, I set forth to purify this world of him further by reducing him to ash.

That night, his house burned righteously.

Tenacity
“It’s all your fault!” the girl shouted, showing her age with the immature fit of miniature fists she threw. “It’s all your fault, so you have to help me!”

Even the best laid plans can fall victim to unfortunate circumstance. As it just so happened, I had killed Baron Ironheart just after he had been serviced by a young prostitute, a young prostitute who had poisoned the baron with the intentions of raiding his manor and running far away to live a life of luxury on a stolen wealth. Unfortunately, as she was pillaging his coffers, I set the house ablaze, trapping her inside the burning tomb. I regret being fooled into thinking her innocent of the whole mess and answering her cries of help by rescuing her.

“You’re the reason my plan failed” she continued, “so you owe me!”

No.

“But I can be useful!”

Never.

“Oh yeah? Well, eventually the townsfolk will pin the fire on you, ‘cuz murlocs and kobolds are too stupid and scared to do something like that, then a bounty will be put on your head and you won’t be able to enter no more towns and that’ll put an end to your little murder spree, won’t it? If you let me help you, I can go into towns and get whatever you need. In return, you can let me loot their houses before burning them down or whatever.” She said her name was Rose, but I didn’t believe that for a moment. Dull is the nicest way I could hope to describe her homely appearance. One would hope, at the age of sixteen, Rose had yet to bloom, but I doubted it. I doubted she’d ever shed her uncurved, unshaped blob figure. If anything, she’d only pack more pounds unto it as she got older and uglier. Then again, I’ve never found humans to be the slightest bit attractive.

Despite her repulsiveness, Rose proved herself useful, being able to slip into a bar filled with drunken slobs and emerge with not only their locations, but also odd bits of trivia: their favorite drinks, their schedules, and even, in one case, the name of one of their mistresses. “Grund Grimaxe? Yeah, supposedly, he’s seeing a woman named Martie outside his marriage,” Rose told me after returning from Lakeshire and meeting me back at an abandoned murloc camp. “Oh, don’t worry, Grund’s wife won’t be a problem: apparently, she’s visiting her mother in Ironforge. I think they said Grund was a general or something in the Third War. He now spends most his time in home he’s carved in the mountains of the Burning Steppes, where he has a ranch and his mistress sometimes visits him. Do you really think we should be doing this? It doesn’t seem very safe, if you ask me, although of course, you’re not, are you?”

It didn’t matter if it was safe. Using Rose’s information, we tailed Grund’s mistress, a human whose looks were too good for a stumpy dwarf like Grund, as she headed through a trail in the mountains with one of Lakeshire’s guards. The trip through the Burning Steppes reminded me of the trek I had made through the charred remains of Quel’Thalas years ago, leading refugees during the darkest moment of the war. These memories did not last long, as Rose continually interrupted my train of thought with her mindless chatter as we waited for the “lovers” to finish up behind a rickety wooden shed near Grund’s stable of rams. I had hoped one of the overgrown sheep would trample Rose and silence her, but this did not come to pass.

“Don’t you, like, drink blood or something?” Rose asked in a whisper, unable to look at me as she asked.

“No,” I said in a sigh. “I drain mana.”

“Oh.” Rose then paused long enough to give me false hope that the conversation was over. “What’s that like?”

“Dangerous. If I siphon too much, I could very easily lose myself, go insane from the power, as some blood elves do.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“Because I have to,” I said, ending the discussion.

Grund, drunk on adultery and booze after a visit from his mistress, proved easy prey. As I dragged him out to the tool shed, Rose let the rams free and then turned her attentions to pillaging his home.

When Grund awoke, he found himself bound in chains by his right arm to an anvil in his shed.

“Whut’s goin’ on ‘ere?” he asked in a panic, straining against the chains twice before realizing it futile.

“I’m bringing you to great justice,” I said, calmly.

Grund’s hairy, bulbous belly jiggled as he cackled. “Justice? Ye didn’t ‘ave it in ye to do the right thing years ago, and now yer blamin’ me? Whut kind of justice is that? Now come on, this is silly. Untie me.”

“Please, untie me,” the mighty paladin kneeling before me begged years after my encounter with Grund.

“Kill him,” Madam Suometar commanded. “He is a Paladin of the Scarlet Crusade, once a Paladin of the Silver Hand. He betrayed our people, turned his back on us, failed to protect us. Kill him and you shall become one step closer to real power, one step closer to becoming a Blood Knight.” My eyes of ivy focused on the once mighty defender of the people. He turned his head away, resigning himself to his fate.

“Untie him and arm him. Just as I drank of the Light that failed us in our darkest moment” I said, “I shall bring great justice to the failed champion of the Silver Hand.”

I knew the fight would be long. I knew that it would last days, and that my resolve would be tested to its limits, but in the end, my faith would prove stronger than his, just as my faith held against Grund’s questioning. As he was untied, I tossed the Paladin a sword, just as I had tossed a rusty hacksaw to Grund back in the shed.

“Come now, whut’s this ‘ere?” Grund asked as the hacksaw sat in his lap.

“Just as you armed children and left them to fight for their lives, I shall give you the same chance. If you can get out of here alive before the fires consume you, you get to live.” To seal this, I drew blood from his cheek with his blade and crossed his name out in the Book of Blood.

Before I could leave, I saw him pick up the hacksaw and steady it on the chains. A wicked smirk crossed my lips as the dwarf realized he’d never have time to cut through the metal. If he wanted to get out alive, he’d have to disarm himself.

Grund Grimaxe never made it out of the shed.

Compassion
Battered, scarred, limp, and lifeless, one could barely believe that the corpse at my feet was once a valorous paladin of the Light. I was no better for wear than he: what wasn’t bruised of my pale, lithe body was lacerated. I stood above the defeated as a victor, but only barely, exhausted and fatigued.

“Excellent,” said Madam Suometar, devoid of any form of enthusiasm. “Now resurrect him.”

What? Had my normally sharp ears deceived me?

“Resurrect him,” she repeated with an exasperated sigh. “I haven’t got all day. We need him for the other apprentices.”

Of all the spells I had learned, Redemption was the only one I found myself unable to perform. What I incapable of forgiveness?

“I don’t know,” Rose said. “Are you sure about what you’re doing, that you’re right? I mean, it just doesn’t seem right to me. It just isn’t… it isn’t fair!”

“It isn’t fair!” I shouted years ago, struggling as two human soldiers restrained me.

“Who’re ye?” Lieutenant Grimaxe asked, peering up at me from beneath a horned war helm.

“Renik,” I said. “Just Renik.”

“No, yer a private,” the dwarf spat. “Yer ‘ere to follow orders an’ ye ‘eard whut Field Marshal Ironheart said.”

“It was a mistake bringing you worthless elves into the alliance,” repeated Field Marshal Ironheart as he waved a dismissive hand at me and the high elf children I had saved from the fall of our once mighty kingdom. “You’ve done nothing but slow us down. No more! We will leave them behind.”

“But it isn’t fair! There’s room enough on the wagons for all of us!”

“Life ain’t fair,” Grimaxe said. “Tell ye whut, if yuh wanna stay behind wit’ ‘em, yer free to do ‘at. I’ll even give ye muh axe, seein’ as yer ‘men’ seem to be a little unarmed.” He flung his battleaxe into the war scorched earth of the Plaguelands, which the oldest boy could not lift from the ground, try as he might.

And with that, the marshal made his command and the high priestess with her clerics turned their backs as the lieutenant’s soldiers knocked me to the dirt, releasing me.

Just as I had watched the soldiers of the Alliance march away from me and a dozen high elven children, condemning us to death on our own, Rose watched me in silence as I packed my things and headed off into the Wetlands with the information she had gathered in Menethil Harbor to finish off a page in the Book of Blood.

Rose took the first boat off the Eastern Kingdoms. I never saw her again. I can only assume that she found that life of luxury.

As always, Rose’s information proved to be most useful, and I was able to track down my last target, Sasha Antion, after a long march through the thick, soggy marsh. I found Sasha living in a cottage deep in the western mountain range bordering the Wetlands, isolated from society like all the others. However, Rose proved to be a little inaccurate in that she neglected to mention one detail: Sasha Antion was pregnant, and it was only until I saw Sasha’s burgeoning belly that I fully understood Rose’s protests, although I cannot fathom why she did not tell me: I can only assume she knew I’d go ahead with my mission regardless.

Sasha winced as the end of my blade cut into her cheek, drawing blood from which her name would be crossed out. “What’s that book?” Sasha asked, looking over her shoulder as I had directed her to turn her back to me and face the wall after breaking into her home.

“This is the Book of Blood, where I keep the names of those who have wronged me, the names of the wicked. Their names are written in my blood, and will only be removed in their blood. This is my pledge, to right the wrongs of the wicked, to bring balance, vengeance, and great justice.”

Sasha’s head hung low, sobbing from big, dopey eyes. Her once crow black hair had turned grey, like a storm cloud ruining an otherwise clear night. Wrinkles cut creases and flaws into what was once a spotless complexion, like a mirror, shattered, with cracks spidering across the formerly perfect surface. The war had been hard on the high priestess, as it had been hard on us all. And yet, her stomach swelled with new life, round like the sun peaking over the horizon in the morning, hopeful.

“You did it,” Madam Suometar said, and even behind her shell of cynicism, I could tell she was impressed in me

The once dead paladin rose from the ground by my will. I had willed it so through my emotions, through my desire to live in a perfect world: I wanted the paladin, Sasha, everyone to live in peace just as much as I wanted those innocent children to live in peace. I remember searching Sasha’s tears for some sign, any sign of remorse – something redeemable. From this, I was able to resurrect.

Life isn’t fair. The world isn’t perfect. In it, there are those who are wicked, who make life unfair. In the paladin, I found nothing forgivable, just as I had found Sasha’s cries of self-preservation unforgivable. The paladin shared the same fate as Sasha.

“I wish to kill him again,” I said, interrupting Suometar as she was leaving to fetch the next apprentice.

“Very well. Just make it quick, Renik.”

In the glow of the conflagration I felt cleansed, knowing the last word on Sasha’s lips, if you don’t count cries of anguish, was my name.

Renik. Just Renik.