A Family Test
Silently, the black clad Shadowstalker moved through the Orcish encampment in the mountains of Thousand Needles. The man sought out one person: Rykur Stonewallow, an Orc known for his large manufacturing of arrows, bows, and swords. The Orc and his operation amounted for 40% of the Horde’s arrow munitions, and 70% of arrows for the Kalimdor continent.
Sleight thoroughly scouted the encampment, he saw seven Orcs, three trolls, and five tauren. Five large huts spread a 2,000 square foot camp. Everyone there was hard at work, creating arrows and weapons at an impressive rate. Their products lined the walls, and several crates of arrows were filled by the hour.
The undead Elf eyed what was in front of him silently. He contemplated how he would complete his mission. A skilled assassin, the Elf prepared his weapon of choice: a steel dagger with a gold hilt. He pulled out a vial with a blue liquid, uncorked the vial, and poured it on the blade. The dagger began to glow a dim blue hue; Sleight held the dagger in his right hand and began to make his way towards Rykur.
One slice, that was all that Sleight had to complete his mission. The more natural or random he could make Rykur’s death, the better for him. The goal was that no one could tell a shadowstalker had assassinated him from the shadows; a feat that previously seemed impossible.
The Elf approached the large Orc and came up behind him. With an arm of experience, he raised his dagger, and brought the tip to the back of the Orc’s neck - inserted the blade into his skin, and pushed down to the Orc’s waist. The blade tore through his skin with ease, puncturing and ripping organs inside and breaking ribs as Sleight strongly pushed down.
Rykur suddenly let out a yell of pain and then fell dead. His hands were reaching for his back, yet his back seemed fine. There was no blood, no evidence of a wound, yet the Orc was dead. Sleight quickly left the scene and watched from 50 feet away. He watched as the other members of the camp quickly made their way to check on Rykur. He watched as they desperately tried to figure out what happened to their boss. Sleight smiled, they would never figure it out.
***
Orolian smiled as he relished in the success that he had created for his business. As the leader of a Military House, Orolian was given priority to provide arrows for the Sin’Dorei, and with the Reagent-Lord’s permission, a large part of the Horde and other Neutral Factions in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. He grinned as he thought of this fact, eyeing the inside of a man-made cave in the Netherstorm that he had paid for. Soon, he would use his large influence of gold to further other operations he had in mind.
With him, was an Orc Warlock Female named Lithia of the Shadowmoon Clan. An experienced and powerful Warlock who Orolian took a liking to when he witnessed her power during the exploration of Dreanor. He recruited her and now uses her to create new techniques to help expand his market. The other was Alerion, or Sleight as he now liked to call himself. Thanks to Lithia, Sleight was there to accompany them. He doesn’t speak, and his face was rotten; like a forsaken, he had been brought back to life, but instead of having freedom, Sleight has to serve his older cousin.
“Lithia, I have to say, I am impressed.” Orolian spoke as he held a dagger in his hands, “Your alchemy skill is incredible, people still have no idea how all of these fletchers suddenly died. Healers are confused as to how someone can have their insides ripped apart, yet have no outside wound. Some are suspecting shadow magic; which I guess they aren’t entirely wrong.” Orolian grinned. In front of him, a table full of a variety of daggers, all neatly lined up in a row, with a row of vials with blue liquid on top of each dagger. “My question is, is there any way we can make this last longer?”
Lithia grunted as he watched Orolian muse. He wanted an even stronger version of her creation? What was he planning to do? Lithia had originally agreed to help Orolian do this when he told her he only needed to expand his market. It was a win-win situation, Orolian grew more rich, and Lithia got to explore and experiment new alchemy formulas, but Lithia had learned not to trust Orolian: the man was a sociopath. She walked closer to him and picked up one of the vials with blue liquid, “Perhaps. This isn’t easy to create, Flamearrow. But I can see what I can do.”
Orolian grinned, “Good! Then we can get my dear ol’ cousin over here to try it out.” Orolian looked back at Sleight and gave him a wink, “He’s been doing very good at following orders. I don’t know what you did to him, Lithia, but he’s probably stronger than me now.”
Lithia narrowed her eyes, “Exactly. So you’d best be more considerate of his situation.”
Orolian laughed, “Oh, I’m not afraid of him attacking me. Please, he wouldn’t. He knows I know too much about his personal life to do anything stupid like that.” Orolian smiled as he eyed the dagger from top to bottom. He grabbed one of the vials and removed the cork and placed the liquid on the blade. The liquid seemed to infuse itself with the blade; soon, there was a dim hue of blue that surrounded the entire blade of the dagger. He turned to Sleight and walked over to him, “Here, cousin. Try this on for size.”
Sleight took the dagger from Orolian and narrowed his eyes. He stood up and walked deeper into the cave, where their test subjects waited.
Deep inside of the cave was a holding area for Dreanei and Worgen test subjects that Orolian, Sleight, and Lithia had gathered. The prisoners were dressed in simple clothing that was easy to rip off, and they were all chained to the walls. Sleight walked up to one of the Dreanei females, and readied his blade.
Orolian chimed in, “Alright, I put more of the liquid on the blade this time. Slash her 3 to 4 times, I want to see how many times it’ll work.”
Sleight didn’t say a word, instead, he went ahead and slashed horizontally across the Dreanei’s chest. The female screamed in pain, but just as quickly as she was wounded, her skin healed. Sleight then sliced her twice, three, and four times. The first two slices skin healed immediately, but the third and fourth slice were very evident. Blood pooled beneath her, as she continued to yelp and cry out in pain. Sleight payed no attention to her sobs, he didn’t seem to mind it at all. He took a step back and held on to the dagger.
Lithia walked up to the female and placed a hand on her cheek, “Rest now child.” Her palm began to glow a dark green hue as she began to suck out the Dreanei’s remaining life force. In ten seconds, the Dreanei fell dead, soulless. Lithia examined the dead Dreanei, she ran her fingers on the wounds that externally healed, “Internal bleeding. It is working as intended.”
Orolian walked up to the corpse and examined the damage. “Mmmm, two slices only. I guess we can work with that.” He looked over at Lithia, “And this is as strong as you can make it?”
Annoyed, Lithia gave Orolian a nod. “Probably. Manipulating the body is no easy feat, Flamearrow.”
“Blah, that’s no good. Oh well, guess we will take what we got.” Orolian walked to Sleight and took the dagger from him, he turned around and looked at the remaining prisoners, “Three Dreaneis and Two worgens, five total; three males and two females. We may need more.” Orolian mused out loud.
Lithia and Sleight said nothing as he spoke, why would they? Orolian wouldn’t listen anyway.
“Let’s take a trip to Silvermoon. We have some business to conduct there.” Orolian walked back to the laboratory and picked up three vials and three daggers. He gave two of each to Sleight, and kept one of each for himself. He gave Sleight a nod.
Sleight walked forward and pulled out an engineering portal device, he picked the coordinates for Silvermoon, and opened up a portal.
The three of them walked through the portal and came out into Silvermoon City. They ported in the Bazaar, and surprisingly, it didn’t seem busy this time of day. The entire armada must be preparing to join the assault on Argus. Orolian pulled out the dagger and uncorked the vial, prepping the dagger again like he previously did. He gave the dagger to Sleight, “Alright, I want you to kill two of the auction masters. Apparently this liquid is strong enough to kill two people, so you should be able to pull this off. Make it as fast as possible, and try not to get seen.” Orolian handed them off to Sleight and began walking, “Lithia and I will wait out next to your grave. Come to us when you are done.”
Sleight took the weapon and then eyed Orolian silently. He never understood why Orolian liked to go to Alerion’s grave whenever they came to their home place; he figured it was to mock him, or make him remember his past life. Regardless, Sleight tried not to think about it, and instead did as he was told. Without a word he vanished into the shadows and made his way to the auction house.
The auction house was emptier than usual, but there was a fair bit of civilians attending the daily auctions. Many of these civilians were trying to buy food for as cheap as possible, others wanted to buy weapons in case some demons came into Eversong. None of them were soldiers, but they all knew how dangerous the Burning Legion is.
Sleight used his abilities to move undetected; he chose his two victims, and quickly used the shadows to teleport himself behind his first victim. With no remorse or hesitation, Sleight quickly reached in front of him and gave a clean cut across his throat, and just as quickly teleported behind his second victim and did the same thing.
Both Auction Masters reached up and gripped their throats, choking on blood as the insides of the throats were severely damaged, yet the outside didn’t seem hurt. They both spat out blood and fell to the ground. Everyone at the Auction House yelled in terror, the Silvermoon Guards alongside a few Farstriders arrived on scene quickly.
Sleight stood in the shadows and watched.
“This is Ranger-Lord Yelberos, what happened?” A confident, highly armored Elf arrived. He sprouted a beautiful bow, and Sleight assumed he knew how to use it.
“Sir! We are unsure. The Auction Masters suddenly fell, spitting out blood.” One of the Farstriders on scene quickly responded. The Silvermoon Guards started on crowd control and began calming down the citizens. The Auction House was quickly evacuated and closed.
Yelberos eyed the bodies and narrowed his eyes, “Perhaps Warlock magic?” He looked around, trying to find anyone who could stick out.
A different Farstrider responded, “Sir, Ranger-Captain Shalbalam here, I don’t believe so. The Arcane Guardian stationed right outside here detected no magic use. They were clenching their throats, as if they were being choked, or they had been wounded there.”
Sleight smirked. This was turning into quite the scene. He wasn’t entirely sure at what Orolian planned with this; causing panic didn’t seem to benefit him, but Sleight knew exactly how to turn it against him. He made sure to remain undetected, and dropped a dagger in front of the Farstrider group. He revealed himself for two seconds before vanishing again.
The Farstriders all came to attention at once, “Track him down!” Yelberos yelled, all the Farstriders immediately sprang to action, and ran towards where they believed Sleight had ran to.
As the Farstriders made their way to the entrance of SIlvermoon, they found an empty vial there, purposely left by Sleight. Yelberos stopped them, “He’s leading us somewhere. But why?”
Shalbalam narrowed his eyes, “An ambush?”
Yelberos growled slightly, “Perhaps.” There were currently seven Farstriders total, “Ranger-Captain, gather your squad. That should make 15 of us.”
Shalbalam saluted him and immediately pulled out a pendant and began saying orders. Soon after, his assigned squad was there with the others.
Yelberos gave him an approving nod, “Good. Let’s move out.”
---
Sleight had purposely left a trail that the Farstriders could follow. He soon made it to Lithia and Orolian and unsheathed the two daggers and vials and gave them to Orolian.
Oro smiled, “So I take it, it worked?”
Sleight simply gave him a nod.
“Good, good.” Orolian laughed, “Oh light, I can only imagine the panic in their faces. Fel, you did good, dear ol’ cousin.” Orolian sheathed the daggers and put away the vials. They were currently standing on a platform that was in the air due to magic; Orolian walked to the edge of the platform and looked over the horizon. “Lithia, Sleight, you are free to do as you wish.”
Sleight quickly looked at Lithia and grabbed her arm, beckoning her to follow. Lithia tilted her brow curiously at him but followed him. As they made their way out, Sleight provided a cloaking field that made both of them temporary invisible. Lithia became more confused as Sleight did this, but something told her to stay quiet and follow him.
They climbed up a mountain and made it to an area where they could see Orolian but remain undetected from anyone else coming. Lithia tapped into Sleight’s mind and spoke to him, “What are we doing, Sleight?”
Sleight looked at the platform where Orolian was out. “He deserves to be caught.” He said simply.
Lithia narrowed her eyes at Sleight but then smiled. “I agree.” She said simply as she sat down and watched. She had come to learn that the Flamearrows were very cunning and clever; she sat back, and waited to see what Sleight had planned.
Orolian stood eyeing the horizon. He took a deep breath and exhaled, “I am being betrayed.” He muttered out silently. He turned and walked to the other side of the platform; 15 Farstriders were making their way to him. He narrowed his eyes and walked out to meet them.
“Ranger-Captain Flamearrow! This is Ranger-Lord Yelberos. We are looking for a shadow stalker dressed in black. He murdered two Auction Masters at the Bazaar. We’ve managed to track him this far.”
Orolian looked up proudly at the Farstriders, he gave Yelberos a salute, “Ranger-Lord, I haven’t seen anyone.”
Shalbalam eyed Orolian curiously. His eyes immediately went on the daggers that looked exactly like the one he found earlier. He leaned in and whispered at Yelberos.
Yelberos narrowed his eyes, “Are you sure?” Shalbalam gave him a nod. The Ranger-Lord hopped off his hawkstrider and grabbed onto his bow, “Ranger-Captain Flamearrow, you are under arrest.”
Shalbalam and the rest of the Farstriders hopped off their Farstriders as well, each pulling out their bows, “Be careful. Flamearrow family members are bred to fight.” Shalbalam muttered as they walked towards Orolian.
Orolian sighed, “So my hunch was correct.” He muttered, but why would Sleight betray him? Was he testing him? Orolian was testing Sleight, so maybe this was his way of returning the favor. “Mmm, I’m sorry Ranger-Lord, but that isn’t happening.” He looked around; 15 versus 1. He clenched his fists, he did not like his odds. He eyed everyone in front of them; the majority of them looked like rookie Farstriders, Ranger-Lord Yelberos was a good fighter, and Ranger-Captain Shalbalam was laughable. He eyed the rookies quietly, Orolian could see fear in their eyes. He would use that.
“You aren’t going to arrest me. However, if you keep on trying, I will retaliate. Are we understood?” Orolian crossed his arms and tilted a brow. They were far enough where Orolian could vanish if they tried firing, and too far to arrest him just yet. His eyes were locked on their bows, none of them seemed to be preparing to fire. “Ranger-Lord, how often have you seen me fight? You know what I’m capable of. Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
Yelberos shook his head, “You murdered two civilians in Silvermoon. You will not be allowed to leave here without facing justice. I don’t care who you are, Flamearrow, you are a wanted criminal now.”
Orolian laughed, “Wow, you sure escalate quickly. I thought you said you were looking for a shadow stalker dressed in black? Last I checked my chainmail armor is red. Come on, Ranger-Lord, you’re getting old.”
Yelberos let out a low growl, “Rangers! Knock!” All 15 of them quickly knocked an arrow into place, “Aim!” They all aimed at Orolian, “This is your last chance, Flamearrow.”
Orolian grinned, “Fine.”
“Fire!”
As soon as the arrows flew, Orolian launched himself backwards and activated a temporary cloaking field that instantly made him vanish. None of the arrows hit him; instead, Orolian fell. He fell, and fell, and landed at the bottom of a canyon, but was relatively unharmed. Instead, he pulled out his bow and arrow and began firing arrows.
Orolian was still invisible as he launched arrows up the canyon, and skillfully hit three Farstriders, killing them instantly. The group began to panic; they had no idea where he was, and they were being picked off.
“Spread out! Keep your arrows ready, kill him when you see him!” The group spread out, but the arrows kept on coming.
Now, arrows were infused in fire and arcane magic came at them, the arcane ones erupting upon contact and the fire arrows burning the insides of the Farstriders. Five more fell. Eight Farstriders fell just like that.
Orolian finally became visible and he began to run for cover, it took the remaining Farstriders ten seconds to see him, and soon they began to launch arrows at him.
Orolian had managed to make enough distance to where the arrows were missing him. Not to mention the majority of the squadron were rookie Farstriders, Orolian didn’t feel threatened at all.
He found a tree and fled behind it, quickly activating a camouflage field and then he sat and waited.
----
Lithia and Sleight stood up on the mountain watching. Sleight smirked, he expected nothing less from Orolian, but part of him wished he would die. That would make life much more easier for him.
“He’s good.” Lithia muttered, “I always knew he was good, but not this good. Your cousin is a dangerous man.”
Sleight grunted but kept quiet; Orolian was not family to him, but he is a dangerous man.
“Should we help?” She asked as she crossed her arms and watched.
Sleights shook his head, Orolian could handle this by himself.
---
The Farstriders quickly caught up to Orolian’s location. “Spread out! Find him!” Yelberos shouted as he watched the surrounding areas; he had to be here, and he would get him.
The rookie Farstriders all spread out, but some of them seemed reluctant to leave the big group. This man had wiped out eight of them, and they all feared they were next.
Orolian leaned against the tree and watched as the rookie Farstriders all walked right past him. Yelberos and Shalbalam were the farthest from him, which was perfect. Orolian took out the two daggers and moved out of his camouflage; he ran up to the closest rookie Farstrider and stuck the blade into the middle of his back, pushing it in as deep as he could, before quickly running to a second one and doing the same. As they both fell, Orolian took out his bow and quickly fired two flaming arrows at two other rookie Farstriders, they fell just as quickly as well.
Orolian then ran behind a tree and hid again. There were only three left.
Yelberos looked around at the carnage, “Who are you!!” He yelled out, “You are no Sin’Dorei, you are a demon! How can you do this to your own people?!”
Orolian grinned but kept quiet. He enjoyed toying with them, and he could feel their fear building up.
Shalbalam picked up Orolian’s location and motioned to Yelberos. He was behind a tree. Shalbalam took out a sword and walked towards Orolian’s location, he would try to strike him as stealthy as possible.
---
Lithia grunted, “Mm, he doesn’t need us, it seems.”
Sleight smirked, he stood up and removed two sheathed daggers. Lithia looked at him and lifted a brow, “You’re going to help?”
Sleight gave her a nod. He then vanished and began running down to Orolian’s location.
---
Shalbalam, Yelberos, and the other Farstrider all struck at once at where they believed Orolian was, only to find it empty. “Shit!”
The last rookie Farstrider yelped in pain as he was impaled by a long polearm, Orolian then appeared quietly behind him, as he placed a foot on his back and pushed him off the blade. He grinned, “Come on, no bows, fight me with your melee weapons.”
Yelberos narrowed his eyes at him, “This isn’t a game Flamearrow. You’ve killed 13 Farstriders today, you will be brought to justice!”
Orolian smirked, “How? You are the only ones who suspect it's me. Shala-shit over there has the evidence, and you are all going to be dead after this. So, honestly? I think I am a free man.”
Shalbalam growled, “Fuck you!” He ran forward with his sword. Orolian stood at the ready, a savage grin on his face. He enjoyed fighting. So much.
Shalbalam suddenly fell before he could make it to Orolian. A black throwing blade impaled his throat, and he fell down, dead.
“No!” Yelberos threw down his bow and pulled out his sword, he looked around and found Sleight behind him.
“Sleight! I had this handled!” Oro yelled out with an annoyed roll of his eyes. “Whatever. Kill him.”
Sleight smirked and shook his head, he began to walk to Yelberos, two daggers in hand.
“Step back! I will retaliate!” Yelberos desperately yelled out, sweat began running down his temples.
Orolian laughed, “Oh please, you couldn’t beat me, you will never beat him. He’s better than I am, so good luck, Ranger-Lord.”
Yelberos growled, as soon as Sleight came into distance he lunged forward and swung his sword.
Sleight vanished from sight, dodging the large sword, and appeared behind Yelberos. He stuck two daggers on his back and pushed them down. Blood gushed from his back as Yelberos yelped in pain and soon fell lifeless.
Sleight removed his daggers from Yelberos’s now corpse and sheathed them. Lithia began doing rounds on the dying Sin’Dorei, sucking the remains of their souls and keeping them for herself. With each soul she drained, she felt herself become stronger.
Orolian walked to Sleight’s side, “You did this, didn’t you?”
Sleight gave him a nod.
“Why?”
Sleight smirked but didn’t answer, for obvious reasons.
Lithia walked down and met the pair, “Because you’re an asshole.”
Orolian scoffed, “Please. Am I an asshole because I care about my family’s well being?”
Lithia laughed, “Well considering you just say that, and really you are a selfish prick, yes, I think you are an asshole.”
Orolian grumbled but didn’t say anything. He sheathed his weapons and sighed, “Alright then. Back to work.” he smirked.
