Diary of a Dead Man (Fourth Entry)

Diary of a Dead Man (First Entry)
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I’ve never really considered myself much of a writer, despite the fact that even my name in death is one after the character of a book I remember myself writing too long ago... The who or even what for that matter the lad was in those countless pages seems lost on this old mind, but the name stuck, even through the gate of death itself… Under normal circumstances I would probably find this entire process of declaring who I am no more than a pointless waste of time and ink, but given my recent promotion to Magistrate I feel that I should at least give the remote resemblance of one…

I was born an “Ardo Nix” from the womb of my mother, into the human mitts of my father amongst the cathedrals of Stormwind. They were tailors if you will and good ones at that, their hands molding runecloth like marble to the dwarven architects of old. They were common folk aye, but out of choice rather than out of necessity. My father made trips daily from a modest home just outside the trade district to a half dozen mansions and castles that dotted the eastern kingdoms. We were well off by any standards, however both my parents were firm believers that in order to work people one must live with people. A lesson I thank them each from the bottom of my jaded soul to this day.

Not surprisingly I followed in their footsteps, becoming my father’s assistant and right hand at the age of 12. Cloth was my art, my muse, my blank sheet of canvas in which I cast countless hours of poetry against it’s soft surface. It bowed to my whim and in kind I formed it from the dust of nothingness into awe-inspiring pieces even the old gods themselves would have gazed upon in favor. My father was proud of me, and I worshiped that man to maybe an unhealthy extent. Sleep was my enemy as I deprived myself of countless hours attempting to realize how the man could spawn such gold from his digit. His essence haunted me in a way a fallen deity would to it’s blind follower. Thus naturally, when I proposed an idea to the man on the eve of my twenty ninth birthday… I believe it shocked him.

It was a thought that pained my very soul but I came to realize that, good as I was, I could never match that man’s power he had over cloth. It was inhuman…as if the medium leapt from the spool and formed itself with the demonic bliss fel magic does from the hands of a warlock. Thus on that day, I informed my father that I would leave his council and city to begin my own life in a world where the name of my patriarch would be nothing more than another word…Silvermoon. Sharp words were spoken but in the end, I left with a blessing from both sides of my parents…the last words I ever heard from them. Bless whatever plane they’re souls may be…

Gods that was forever ago it seems… At the time the elves of Silvermoon, though slowly edging towards the side of disfavor, still maintained their alliances with humans and the rest of races I’ve learned to loath with time. I knew that no elf could match my hand in the trade I chose, and for that reason my name would be carried quickly on the lips of half discrimination and jealousy. I only had one…slight problem

I had never been there…

Now I’m sure there are people out there who would simply love to know why I chose the path of priesthood, as well as why if I was so avid a tailor I do not practice it anymore? And though I shall not get to the latter of that pair yet, the first answer is really quite simple. The guide I was lucky enough to have accompany me, was in fact a priest.

The lad was a dwarf by the name of Durro though to this day I can not remember his last name for the death of me. He was a modest character, but a powerful one that I on many occasions came to owe my life to. He did a great deal many things for me…. The lad showed me a world outside of cloth, handing me a pen in place of my spool and instructing me the importance of information and the place writing has in furthering it. He displayed a… grace in his words when he did speak them that I to this day have attempted to imitate and because of that reason his ability to argue with traders and common folk alike still brings a grin to this rotting face. Finally, and possibly the most noticeable, He was the unconscious reason for my simplification of pronouns and descriptive terms to the common and malleable terms: “Lad” and “Lass”.

Though I in a sense replaced the spot of reverence I felt towards my father with him, the reason for it was not what he could do but rather what he “didn’t” do. Aye his words we’re so graceful when he used them, but he too seldom did. For that he was walked over, disgraced and all and all toyed with. The lad had power, but to this day I can recall countless times that he failed to use it in events that clearly could have been avoided entirely with the wave of a hand. He was powerful, but power not followed up with action is pointless and for that reason it was wasted on him. You don’t wear a sword if you don’t plan to use it in some way or another, be it physical or psychological.

We reached Silvermoon after traveling for no longer than two weeks or so and the both of us went our separate ways, myself paying him in the most elaborate piece of cloth I could muster. The fee I gave however was more of an advertisement rather than a reward and just as I had planned due to his taste for bars as well as the talk that went with them, business was quite profitable. I might have even lived out the rest of my days as such if I hadn’t tripped over the first of two Loves of my Life. A rather popular hunter by the definitions of many by the name that one might wish to guess before reading…

Sylvanas Windrunner…

Now before reading further to quench this mind boggling state you happen to probably resided in at the moment, Let me make this point absolutely clear: Don’t fall in love with a celebrity. It’s a waste of time, energy, emotions and will end inevitably in a mass of pain and grief that could have easily been avoided all together. That being said, at the time I was young, stupid and didn’t know this wonderfully useful piece of information.

As stated before, I was a tailor and the best silvermoon could offer for that matter. Because of this, it was not long before I came to work for some of the heads of that fair elven city and though Windrunner only asked of my talents once, I found the both of us meeting many times after that. The way she stood, the way she spoke, the way she was just entrapped my foolish mind in a thought that somehow I could have her as a bride. In short, I loved her and though I still believe that there were feelings of similar kind on her side, they were never spoken…

Which leads me to the end of my lovely little trip life granted me. I suppose I could go on for hours on end about every painstaking if not downright boring detail, but that would be an utter waste of time due to the fact that I am not Ardo Nix, I am Temius. However I still have one more part of the story to tell before I can move to my rebirth…and that is my last morning in the rosters of the living.

It was raining…

I awoke from my bed with a start, hearing an explosion from not far from my, unlike my parent’s, quite lovely house. I threw on a coat and rushed outside nearly choking on the stench of blood and death that gripped the air like the very stars grip the black canvas that is the night sky... I could hear the sharp cries of the falling and the blades of the soon to fall that tried to hard to protect themselves…

The day the scourge attacked Silvermoon…

From what I hear, I fell not long after the battle really even began. The scourge may have been mindless undead wretches, but their leaders are tacticians and their plans that struck that city were gold. Really a simple concept if you think about it, but one that makes me chuckle to this day: Why waste a bolder in a trebuchet when you can knock down a wall with the fallen corpses of your enemies? Thus myself being the lucky lad I was, just so happened to be standing beneath one of said walls as I slowly exited my house…

I remember the impact, the sound that nearly shattered my eardrums and the aftershock that shook my very bones. Looking back, I probably would have rather not looked up and just got it over with, but I suppose I really don’t have that option now that it’s passed. I glanced up abruptly and eyed the body that impacted the wall in horror as it was torn asunder, bringing with it an entire wall down upon me… The first piece of debris struck me across the jaw but came to rest just below the shoulder, crushing the entire right side of my rib cage and shattering my entire right arm; an injury that, though healed, has made the limb loose and vulnerable to dislocation to this day. The blow ripped my jaw from may face and forced me to the ground crying in a mixing pool of rain and my own blood on that cold stone but it did not kill me. I was granted the opportunity to pass slowly as I bled to death beneath the rubble unable to do nothing but whine unintelligibly beneath a ton of stone.

I don’t remember the existence after death anymore than a man remembers a forgotten dream or nightmare, but I do remember the screaming pain that rang through my body coming to a stop. In fact, I, in a sense, think of that time as the last chance I experienced sleep. I do however remember a thought….nay…a voice with disturbingly clear quality. It spoke roughly and firm in what it asked me and I remember the words to this day.

“Pathetic… you couldn’t even stand a moment in the face of your enemies without being ripped from the precious bosom of life you cherished so…” it began letting the final word of the sentence drill into my being like a rusted nail would into a man’s foot, “A waste… you have to fight to even breath every day… you must scavenge the earth to eat, drain the planet of her fluids and even pollute it with your garbage... your very essence sickens me yet I do not come to grant you the oblivion you deserve…”

The voice paused a moment and a chuckle rang in my conscious before it continued, “But I instead come with an offer… the mindless ones that slew you didn’t even give you a chance to fight back….they didn’t care who you were or what you’ve done for whatever means you lived for… they tore your body to scraps and tossed it to the wind without so much as a care while you could do nothing but watch… so my offer is this dead man:

….how would you like a chance to pay them back?”

Revenge… oh the sound was music to my ears… A chance at existence….and life…at everything…. Mind you they’re as stories about the entry question a forsaken gets before his rebirth as there are forsaken. I’ve heard ones that occurred in rooms of mental construction, others that went seemingly for weeks and anything in between, but mine was short and sweet…

So weather it was an action or a thought… I gave a nod.