Seeds Sown
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The structure arose slowly, for its foundations needed to be made solid. Not only architecturally, though such concerns were likely equally important. A window to the Shadowlands would partially exist within that realm. Perhaps, as much as it did in Azeroth. Warding was thus required. A strong foundation from which his observations could be made unhindered. As black, glossy bricks emerged from mouth of a runeforge they were hauled off and stacked by myriad shambling forms. Ceruszael watched the work. His focus, however, was on the torches which began to dot the surrounding landscape. Cold iron, inscribed from their base in the earth to the top from which flickering flames wavered in a breeze that did not blow. He was attended by a pair of wraiths, hoods and cloaks fluttering in the same manner as the eerie turquoise fire. Stranger yet, no light was cast along the earth or the majority of Ceruszael’s crimson plate. The wraiths, as well as subtly gleaming runes in his armor, appeared somewhat brighter in their presence.
He could see it in his mind. A bleak tower amidst grey dead earth. Around it, ghostlit torches stood. Each reflected as a spot along the tower’s face yet did nothing to illuminate the area. When viewed from the ground, they appeared scattered without meaning. From above, equally so, though their true purpose might be guessed by one versed in the dark magics of death. Their pattern outlined powerful warding runes tracing back to the tower’s base. They drew fuel from it just as they served to protect it, casting a harsh gleam in the underworld despite being all but inept at piercing Deadwind’s gloom. A necessary measure to keep not only the living from trespassing, but also the dead. So did the Blood Dragon envision it.
And so too did it become a reality.
Ceaselessly did the dead work. Night and day, without pause. Such was their boon, though only Ceruszael among them was cognisant enough to recognize it. The rest were but animated puppets to carry out his will. The irony of the situation, given how vocal his opposition to the Lich King was, did not evade the Ebon Knight. The difference, he told himself, was that he did not slay these beings and slave their souls to their bodies. Dead men walked, yes, but they had been dead many years. Spirits who had wandered the Shadowlands’ wastes for some time and knew its torments. He was not yet delusional enough to imagine himself a liberator. But at least, he justified, he was not… as wicked. Not as evil.
Not yet.
Such musings would become commonplace in the silent halls of the tower he built. It neared completion. The magic was almost fully in place. The engine which would fuel it and allow for so much more, would be lit. Its structure reached just shy of the allotted height, imposing in its implacable darkness. Much like the blade he carried, it remained unnamed for the time being. Such was a tendency among his brethren in undeath. For all their grim demeanors, they were a poetic lot. Ceruszael was not entirely removed from them. Perdition and Strife, the steeds he rode, spoke to that. Perhaps it was time to submit fully to that inexplicable tendency.
Perhaps.
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