A Change
The night was cool and breezy in Azure Watch. Purple and blue leaves blew in the wind all over the island, swirling and twirling around before getting picked up into the air and blown into the sea. As he often did, Exarch Varistus sat at the top of a large hill outside of town, looking down on the bustle of it, watching the people, travelers, and merchants come and go. He was surrounded with the few belongings that he owned: his armor and weapons of course, but trinkets and mementos throughout his long life. He wasn’t a materialistic man, but there were a few items that brought him joy to have. His tent rustled against the wind behind him, and he reached back to pound one of the stakes further into the ground with his robotic fist. This prompted him to stare as said hand for a lingering moment, wiggling his fingers around absently. He scoffed at it as he turned it over and over, looking at it as he had a hundred times. Shaking his head he let his arm drop and took another sip of tea as the fire illuminated his tired face. Though he enjoyed the moment of peace he had, not long before it was mired with terror, bloodshed and frustration…
The previous day… Exarch Varistus rode alone up the path from Azuremyst to Bloodmyst Isle. Though the draenei had settled these lands for nearly a decade now, Bloodmyst remained a dangerous and unpredictable place. The citizens of Blood Watch were a hearty, courageous people and the peacekeepers that kept the area safe were proud of the work they did. Nonetheless, dangers still lurked in the dark corners of the island and sometimes, those dangers reared their ugly heads. Today was such a day: a report that three peacekeepers had been murdered while on patrol, mangled almost beyond recognition. Varistus took every lose of draenic life seriously, and decided to answer the call personally.
It did not take him long to identify the bodies. He knew them from time on the Genedar, Draenor and Zangarmarsh. They had been good men, devoted to the Light and to their people. They were among those that took pride in their duty to protect the people of Bloodmyst and now, they were torn to pieces by some unknown terror. Varistus shook his head and clenched a fist in anger; how many of us need to die to this chaotic, hateful world? He thought to himself. Truly, if it was not a war with the ravenous Horde, it was some other world-ending crisis that Azeroth barely scraped through, and he was growing tired of it.
Leaving his elekk behind in Blood Watch, he proceeded on hoof into the wilds of Bloodmyst. Following the trail of blood was not easy, as it had been several hours since the peacekeepers were found, but he had been trained in how to track by both his deceased wife and former partner Freiha, so he had an idea of what he was doing. The trail led, unfortunately, to Nazzivian - a haven for dark magic to linger and one that attracted even darker beings. Prior to the draenei’s coming, the island was considered kaldorei lands, and where there are kaldorei, there are satyr to harass them. The draenei inherited the hatred of the satyr with their coming, and the corrupted elves skittered out of their hiding every so often to sow chaos among the draenei’s towns and caravans. They were vicious creatures, ones that Varistus did not wish to fight, but it seemed this was what fate deemed for the Vindicator.
Knowing the dark and twisted history of the satyr, Varistus wasted little time blessing himself, and his spear with the Light. His golden glow was sure to give him away, but that was what he was planning on, as he had little patience to try to coax the demons out of hiding. Spear in hand, the vindicator walked slowly through the ruins, looking at the various banners and markings of the satyr that still littered this place. It was written in another language, one that he could not read and did not want to learn. He held little interest in what the demons’ markings said anyway: he was here to exact revenge for his fallen brethren and nothing el--snap. A branch snapped behind him and he spun around quickly, his cloak fluttering in the air behind him. In the darkness were two red eyes, low to the ground until coming into what small amount of light this area afforded. A satyr, nearly eight feet in height, stood up and slowly crept toward him. Another branch snapping turned his attention again, then scraping on the stone walls turned it yet again. Varistus knew he was quickly becoming surrounded, and the satyrs had grown bold with their recent murders. He would not share his brothers’ fate.
In a split second, the Light surged from his right hand into his spear, traveling up and down the weapon like a wave before Varistus hefted it above him and launched it like a javelin. It caught the first satyr square in the chest, the wound itself fatal but the Light that was imbued in the weapon burned the demon and caused it to screech in agony before falling backward. Taking this as an act of aggression, the other two satyrs charged. He held his hand up, palm outward, at one of them as a bolt of Light snapped out of it, colliding with the abdomen of another. As that demon hunched over from the blow, Varistus charged at him with a surprising amount of speed for his size. As the vindicator neared the reeling demon, he brought his plated knee into its head, sending it onto the ground, motionless. The remaining demon moved in while the vindicator was pre-occupied and using its clawed hand, jabbed into the weaker part of Varistus’s armor and piecing his skin below. Varistus exhaled sharply as he reached behind his back to grab the satyr’s hand, squeezing hard enough to hear bones snap, amplified further as he twisted its arm and brought it to its knees. The satyr hissed in defiance in the draenei’s face moments before Varistus roared back, slamming his crest into the demon’s soft skull and it too, fell to the side. His breaths heavy and labored, he winced as he held his hand behind his back again, this time hovering over the puncture wounds the demon had given him. After a few moments of channeling the Light through his hand and into his body, the wound closed up with a quiet hiss.
The vindicator stood in the middle of the three dead demons, their dark blood covering the front of his armor. He looked around again, making sure he was not about to be ambushed, before turning to each one of them and setting them ablaze with a snap of his fingers and a spark of the Light. Not that he was concerned about them coming back, but possibly out of spite. He walked with a slight limp opposite to his wounded side back to Blood Watch after ripping his spear out of the first demon’s charred corpse. The deed was done, the peacekeepers were avenged… but he did not feel any better. The town thanked him, the peacekeepers praised him, but he still did not feel any better. He gave the town a farewell, and atop his elekk, made his way back south.
Present… Varistus watched the town that he had spent the last decade trying to help build. He watched children play in the blue fields, he watched merchants and travelers and people, but he still did not feel better. This world is cursed. There is terror that lives in the dark corners of it that prey on the innocent, and I do little else than do paperwork all day in a Light-damned office. He thought to himself, flexing the robotic hand as it dangled off of his knee. His elekk bayed at him, as if it could sense his thoughts, but he paid it little mind. His eyes wandered away from the town, and onto the woods and forests that surrounded it, then to the sea that lie beyond, and the husk of Teldrassil in the far-off distance. No longer. He thought again, before stamping out his fire, the smoke rising from it as he prepared his elekk and belongings for departure.
