((Wrote this back in January for Lanthalis over on felknight. Reposting here to his new blog.))
Lanthalis was quiet as he entered the Temple City of En’kil’ah. Everything was quiet. It was as if the city itself was holding its breath, with the wind whistling through the fortress the only noise. Signs were everywhere that the Scourge had been driven out long ago. Charred bones were piled high, remnants of bodies that had been burned by Horde and Alliance forces. The city itself was less than whole. Altars missing. Obelisks defaced. Scourge banners burned. The husks of dead Nerubians were everywhere.
So, too, were other signs. Carefully dug holes, excavations by the Reliquary and the Explorer’s League. Lanthalis dug in his pocket for the small, runed obelisk. It was a recent find from En’kil’ah, and was the reason he was here now. The potential for knowledge hidden away, out of sight of both the Horde and the Alliance, it drew him in like a moth to flame.
It led him to sneak through the ruins of the Scourge temple city, until he got to the Spire of Blood. Carefully, he ascended. All around, there were signs that the fighting had been fierce. Scorch marks littered the stone around him, and in some places there were holes where spells had blown off chunks of rock. In another place, an abomination’s hook lay embedded in the stone. The metal was stained with dried blood. Lanthalis gripped his staff tighter and moved quickly past it.
As he entered the Spire, he could tell that something wasn’t right. There was a smell of smoke in the air that should have dissipated. Not just that, but he thought he could see a faint flickering from farther inside the Spire. And there, in the entryway, was a familiar object. A blood orb. And it held fresh blood.
Immediately, Lanthalis was on alert, but it was too late. Even as he was muttering the incantation to protect himself, pain exploded in the back of his skull, lights flared, then everything went dark.
Lanthalis woke slowly. It took effort to even open his eyes, and when he did, it was to a dizzying wash of color and light, so he closed them tightly again. He was chained against a wall, he could tell that much. He felt weak and tired, and all he wanted to do was lay down so he could go back to sleep. He couldn’t even tell what had woken him up.
Something was being dragged along the hallway. Lanthalis fought the languor, and slowly he was able raise his head and peer blearily down the hallway. Distant, blurry shapes huddled around another shape sprawled on the stone floor. Lanthalis tried to focus, but he was so tired…
He startled awake again, this time to a knife being drawn over his wrist. He felt, distantly, the bite of the blade, and an answering pain in his other wrist, but it was as if he were watching someone else’s pain. He was detached. Spinning in a fog. Quietly, he whispered, “Please.”
The figure in front of him looked up swiftly from his wrist. Lanthalis couldn’t see its face, but he did note twin blue eyes glowing in the darkness. “Pleading for your life won’t matter.”
“I’m not. Please. The obelisk. What happened. Where is it?”
"That? It was very useful, thank you for bringing it back to us. Now, once I’ve regained my strength, we can leave this place. No more digging in this wretched place for my lost tomes." The speaker was a woman. Lanthalis could make out her ears now, long, pointed. Glowing blue eyes. Quel’dorei, his mind said. But the hue of her skin was wrong. Dark, gray, dead-looking.
Lanthalis choked. “Don’t. Don’t want to die.”
"None of us do, pet." She ran a hand across his cheek in an almost loving gesture.
“Can help you." Lanthalis was growing weaker, and his eyes fluttered closed again.
"Why would you do that?" The San’layn leaned closer to him, close enough that he could feel her breath on his cheek.
“Came here for. Power. Knowledge. Still. Want to know." It was with supreme effort that Lanthalis continued to speak, and his breath rattled ominously in his chest.
"Knowledge? You’d turn your back on everyone you know for a trove of books?" She laughed. "If you serve me, you will be serving me, pet.”
“Am. Silvermoon magister. Can. Do much for you." Lanthalis choked, tried to breathe, choked once more, then he slumped in his chains, unconscious.
The San’layn chuckled, then called out to the others in the room. “He’s intrigued me. Raise him. We can find him a meal on our way north.” The Cultists converged on Lanthalis’s body, taking him from his chains and dragging him to their circle of candles to begin the ritual.
