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Exile of a hero	By : fibericon Category: +S through Z > World of Warcraft Views: 10410 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own World of Warcraft, nor do I make any money from this story.

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The ritual had taken more of a toll on Karasae than she would let on. She collapsed on top of Nessa, who was more than a little worn out herself. The warlock laid under her lover's light frame for a moment, panting on the cold stone floor. She chuckled between deep breaths. Straining a little, she rolled the limp demon off of her. Normally, she would be able to carry the lighter woman, but by this point, she was having trouble just standing. She got to one knee and tried to clear her head. Searching for that clarity once more, she closed her eyes, but it didn't help this time.

Relying on normal meditation, she relaxed her mind and got her breathing under control. Finally drawing from her inner strength, she became her demon form. She scooped up the succubus and carried her up the stairs to the bedroom. After laying her lover on the bed, Nessa switched back to her elven form. She shook the demon awake and smiled, watching the demon's eyes slowly open.

"I'm going to dismiss you so you can get some rest."

"Mmm... wait. Let me change."

Karasae rolled off the bed and looked around, somewhat dazed. Remembering where she left her normal outfit, she slipped out of her dress and picked up the skimpy bottom. Feeling Nessa's eyes on her, she turned around and raised her eyebrow.

"See something you like?"

"Don't make me knock you out again."

The demon chuckled weakly and started getting dressed. Straightening out her top, she walked clumsily over to Nessa, wrapping her arms around the elf. She closed her eyes and kissed her summoner softly on the lips before replying.

"Send me back. Give me... sixteen hours your time."

"I'll miss you."

"I know, lover. But it's been a while since I rested."

"I'm not complaining... I just wanted you to know."

With a final kiss, Nessa dismissed the demon. It wasn't time for the warlock to rest, however. Without the demon there to distract her, she suddenly got an urgent hunch to check on the power signature of their recent ritual. She removed her nice dress and put on a caster's robe that hadn't recently been torn to bits. Hastily grabbing a dagger and a tome off her desk, she went back down to the basement. The room was darker than it should have been, as if shrouded in a thick mist. Pawing around by the stairway, she found a long staff. She slammed the end once against the stone floor and the room lit up in fel green.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to call on an advanced technique generally reserved for afflictionists. Extending her arm, she waved her fingers through the air in a ninety degree arc, then rubbed her fingertips together. It felt like a fine dust - a tactile representation of the lingering fel energies in the room.

A result of the lights, no doubt. This isn't my field.

Nessa sighed and opened her eyes again. She walked around the room slowly, looking back and forth. A flower petal caught her eye, and she crouched down to pick it up. It had completely dried up, already turning brown. Scanning the floor, she saw the same fate had befallen all of the petals. Warning lights went off in Nessa's head. She cut a small incision in her hand and let the blood drip onto the floor. After she had a small pool of blood, she hastily drew a few runes onto the stone. They lit up and changed before fading away. Nessa's eyes widened.

That power reading was too large. The whole city must have felt that. I need a demon.

Practically sprinting up the stairs, the warlock bared her teeth and glanced around the room suspiciously before attempting a summoning ritual. It was no use. The joining had taken too much out of her, and her mana wasn't regenerating. She peeked out the window, seeing the initiates still there. They looked anxious. Just as she closed the curtain, she realized that there were only two of them. Cassia was gone.

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"Yes, Cassia," Alamma began, "We felt the explosion here too. I don't think there's anyone in Silvermoon who didn't feel it. Are you harmed?"

"No, but..." Cassia caught her tongue, quickly closing her mouth.

"But what?"

"Their fel signature should have amplified after something that powerful. It imploded. I can't even feel the demon standing this close to the scrying crystal."

"I have a few ideas what it could be." He turned to Zanien and spoke in Demonic, "Should we end the initiates' involvement in this?"

Zanien simply nodded. Cassia looked back and forth between them, agitated that her instructor had purposefully left her in the dark. Alamma tapped his chin, thinking a moment before turning back to Cassia and speaking in Thalassian once more.

"You and the other two initiates are to stand down. Zanien and I will check on Nessa."

"But what if the paladins go after her?"

"The three of you wouldn't even delay them long enough for Felwhisper to finish getting dressed," Zanien interjected, "Whatever happens from here, you don't want your name on it."

"Just what the hell is going on here?"

"We don't know yet. I didn't recognize the energy signature of that explosion. All I can tell you is that it was old... and it wasn't a warlock spell."

"So she was attacked?"

"No. It was demonic. Untainted demon energy."

Alamma and Zanien began walking up the ramp and down Murder Row. Cassia was at their heels, not entirely sure if she wanted to end her involvement with the situation or not. When they got to Nessa's house, Alamma spoke again.

"You two - leave. Don't come back." The two initiates nodded and left, and he turned to Cassia. "Do you think Zanien was joking, little girl? If this situation hasn't gone to hell already, it will soon. Leave."

"Wait. I need to know something first. Are the paladins really trying to get us killed with our missions?"

Alamma hesitated to reply, but didn't break eye contact. "Nessa's former commander was a warlock. He assigned the mission that ended up costing him his job, and ultimately his life when he tried to retaliate against her for it."

"But-"

"Do not dig deeper into this! Keep your mouth shut and your nose clean and maybe you won't be targeted."

Cassia turned and left with a growling scream of frustration. Walking away quickly, she turned a corner and leaned against a wall, trying to get her emotions under control. She trembled with anger at being left in the dark about this. She glanced around at the city, seeing all the paladins walking through the crowd - the enforcers of the city's guards. Suddenly she felt very unsafe out in the open and sprinted toward Murder Row. Two of them spotted her odd behavior and chased after her.

Terror in her eyes, she looked back as she heard the plate armor clanging against the pavement. They yelled for her to stop, but she saw no reason to trust them any further than she could throw them. To her horror, despite her lighter armor, they were almost able to keep up with her. As she got up to the top of the ramp, a judgment caught her in the right shoulder, dislocating it and sending her sprawling across the pavement. She cried out in pain and fear, trying to scramble to her feet.

Rogues watched from the darkness, wondering what made the paladins so brazen lately as to repeatedly enter their territory so many times. A large fireball fell from the sky, cutting off the paladins' route to the warlock. They halted in their tracks, letting the flames clear before proceeding. Talionia stepped out from the darkness surrounding the warlock's den.

"So, the light rears its ugly head once more," the elder warlock said, an eerie calm in her voice as she approached the injured initiate, "To bully and harass a child no less. You chased her here, and broke her arm as she wept and fled. Bravo."

"We chased her because she ran."

"Yes, I imagine a student of any class would run from two fully armored blood knights. And why did you want to catch her in the first place?" There was an awkward silence before she added, "That's what I thought. Now leave this place."

The paladins stared Talionia down briefly, but turned and left. She helped Cassia off the road and escorted her to the warlock's den. The initiate trembled in fear, cradling her injured arm.

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"What does this imply, Felwhisper?" Zanien asked, his brow furrowed, "You and the demon share one soul now? What does this accomplish?"

"Our souls are connected, but as I understand it, not a single entity. As for what it accomplishes... I'm not sure how to fully answer that. Not in the way you mean. I did this not for personal gain."

"We understand that," Alamma sighed, "But surely you've noticed changes by now."

"Yes. When in physical contact with her, I can achieve a meditation of extreme clarity. I've also noticed an augmented sense of awareness."

"How so?"

"I've noticed things tainted with fel energies in ways that I normally would not. It's as though I inherently know what to look for even though it is not part of my training, nor a method I have ever used or seen used."

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"They warned me to stay out of it," Cassia said, her voice wavering. She was trembling under a blanket, the shock of her injury having set in. "I just wanted to know the truth. I didn't do anything."

"Be still, Cassia. I've already sent for a priest with whom I'm on good terms. What is it you wanted to know?"

"Miss Felwhisper told me that the paladins intentionally give us missions that carry unnecessary risk in the hope of killing us off. Is that true?"

Talionia sighed heavily, shaking her head. "We can't prove that, though I certainly understand why she feels that way. Look, Cassia, I won't lie to you. This conflict was a long time in coming. What happened to Nessa - losing a high ranking military post as well as a head researcher post - was barely anything compared to everything that they've done to warlocks as a whole. If you want to stay out of this, go to Undercity. There are no paladins there, and warlocks are more openly welcomed."

"Sister," a priest said from the foot of the ramp, "Are the rumors true?"

"Brother Simoth... I don't know what to believe anymore. Paladins attacked a student on the row and refused to explain themselves."

Simoth walked toward Cassia and laid two fingers on her swollen shoulder, a warm energy seeping into her skin as he spoke. "Is The Rift coming?"

"Gods, I hope not."

"The Rift?" Cassia asked, turning to look at the priest.

"A rather long time ago," Simoth began, "A shaman made a prediction that the only possible outcome of our society was an eventual split between those who follow the light and those who operate in the shadows."

Talionia furrowed her brow. "This isn't something we want. We aren't prepared to fight the paladins in full force. Not to mention the holy priests."

"The shadow priests will back you."

"Don't say things like that. I'll go into exile before I let my people tear each other apart."

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Karasae stretched and crawled out of the little cubbyhole she had been sleeping in. Another succubus was sitting nearby, occasionally tossing pebbles into a lava pool some distance away. As Karasae propped herself up on one elbow, the other demon looked over.

"Oh, you're awake. I wanted to congratulate you on your joining. Yeah..."

She tossed another pebble, and Karasae smirked. "You didn't sit next to me and wait while I slept just to tell me that."

"Yeah... I didn't. We all knew it when you were joined. Or at least, when you came back. I knew if you'd done a joining, then you must be different. I want to know, sister... why are my own people so fucking mean and stupid?"

Karasae scooted closer to the other demon, sitting next to her now. "I wasted a lot of time wondering about that. A couple hundred years I think... before I learned to close myself up. I got hurt a lot, I was naive, but when I learned that, they couldn't hurt me anymore. After that, I looked toward Azeroth for meaning. You've never been there."

"How-"

"Come on, I'm old, not stupid. Anyway, Azeroth was, in a lot of ways, worse. Sure, they had more structure, but don't expect your differences to be welcomed. I took a lot of beatings at the hands of different warlocks before I met Nessa."

"You speak your summoner's name so freely?"

"Names are merely a conversation handle in their world. They hold no power. Look, sister, I went through hell to get where I am today. But you know what? For her, I'd suffer through it all a thousand times over. There's nothing as powerful or important as love. You have a long road ahead of you, and it's going to be rough since you actually have feelings. Just don't do what you're thinking of doing."

"I..." the demon bit her lip, trembling.

"I know exactly how hard it is. I can't even promise that you'll ever find love. But I can promise that if you give up, you never will."

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Alamma looked over at Cassia, who was now sleeping in a corner of the den. He shook his head and turned to Talionia.

"She insists she didn't do anything wrong?"

"Yes. They supposedly chased her unprovoked."

"Cassia is easily excitable. My guess is that she got skittish and ran. Like dogs, paladins will chase anything that runs, even if they don't know why. Still, they didn't need to attack her. She's just a child."

"Agreed. Which one of us will deal with this? She's your student, but I stepped in to stop them."

"Is that really a route you want to go?"

"It's a route the paladins set us on."

Alamma sighed, looking back at his student for a moment. "I'll do it. The rogues should be able to give me names."

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Nessa sat on her knees next to Cassia, watching the student sleep. Karasae was speaking to Talionia, throwing the occasional glance at her summoner. Nessa gently stroked the young girl's hair.

"I was prepared for war ever since the mob gathered in front of our home," Karasae began, "This isn't news to me."

"Yes, but you don't have a stake in this world, demon."

"On the contrary, I have Nessa. She likes Silvermoon, and that's reason enough to defend it - even if the threat is from within."

"Where is Alamma during all of this?" Nessa asked, looking down at Cassia, "This is his student."

Talionia hesitated to reply, "He's fulfilling the Requirement."

Nessa stood up quickly, accidentally waking Cassia in doing so. Seeing that the girl was awake, she quickly switched to Demonic. "Is he trying to get us all killed?" She demanded.

"I invoked it," Talionia replied, matching Nessa's language, "They chased a child into the row and attacked her just for being a warlock."

"Ninety-seven is an adult."

"One hundred and twenty is an adult!"

"Oh, this idiotic argument again. Fine, call adulthood the end of initiation, but it doesn't change the fact that we do not have the organization to handle their retaliation."

Talionia scoffed, "We have you, Felwhisper."

"Rally behind a martyr? How original."

"No, she's right." Karasae interjected, "You are the personification of the discrimination of your people."

"Then I'm going to nip this in the bud before it goes any further. It's too late for those two paladins, but I can still save Alamma and the rest of us."

"Bold claim, sister," Talionia began, "What do you plan to do?"

"I need to go meet with Fordring in Northrend. If anyone can get the paladins to stop this nonsense, it's him."
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Exile of a hero