Conquest of the Horde

Gunnar always thought himself a fairly simple man...a man with simple desires and no strong ambitions. He simply lived life as he thought he should, doing his duty as both a paladin and a guard. It wasn't always an easy life, but it was one that he was content to lead...until, of course, a kidnapping and imprisonment later. Everything changed in that moment, realizing his own lack of friendship and lack of any true aim to his life. He still wanted to help others, but part of him also wanted to go, see more than the buildings of Stormwind and Goldshire.

Yet, here he was...doing yet another patrol in Stormwind's streets, for fear of losing his job.

The streets of Old Town was always one of the rougher patrols within the city, what with the thugs and less savory types favoring it. Gunnar hated the area, but getting this patrol was further punishment for his weeks of lost work. These streets and alleys were even worse at night, as it was now. He was even alone on this patrol, making his way through the streets with no one but his squirrel to keep him company.

"Well, at least you're with me, little guy." Gunnar patted it on the head. The mechanical rodent pretended to eat a nut. The paladin sighed aloud. It definitely wasn't the real thing. He pondered getting a real pet at some point, something that could-

"HELP!"

What?

Attention snapping to the sound of the voice, Gunnar turned towards a dark alleyway. It took only a moment before he strode in the direction of the yell, his hammer and shield coming into his hands as he peered into the dimly-lit alley for the source of the distressed voice. He squinted through the gloom until he came to a turn, and from there his eyes took in the sight of the problem at hand. A middle-aged woman was pressed back against the wall, dressed in a robe that was neither simple nor elaborate. Instead, she looked to be middle-class, pouches and covering her belt, leading Gunnar to believe that she was either a merchant or an alchemist, someone with money to spend but not part of the nobility. She looked to be in near tears, and it was easy to see why.

Two thugs were menacing her, a woman and a man, each with knives in their hands and outfits of leather and cloth. The man, the apparently leader of the duo, kept a knife pointed at the frightened woman as he snatched away a pouch at her side. "Quiet down, before I slit your-"

He didn't get any further than that. A shield of light flew through the air colliding with the thug's side, then bouncing to the other before dissipating into the air. The first thug dropped the pouch to the ground from the impact. "Get behind me!" Gunnar shouted as he ran forward, and the frightened woman didn't need to be told twice. With the thugs dazed and reeling, she ran to the other side of the guard, while Gunnar dropped down into a fighting stance, peering between the goons.

"You're going to pay for that," the male hissed as he rose up, gripping his blades tighter. The woman followed suit soon after, "Two against one."

"I'm not alone. The Light is with me," Gunnar replied, jaw clenching, "...and you're under arrest." He stood tense as the pair began to charge at him, and in response a prayer to the light fled from his lips. As soon as they approached, a wave of light blasted out from Gunnar's form, covering the ground with holy, burning energy. Howls of pain roared out from the thugs from the blast, and they fleed from the consecrated ground. Gunnar remained where he was, holding his ground. The thugs recovered, and in unison decided that this was no longer worth it, fleeing into the night. Gunnar gave chase for only a second, before realizing he was simply too slow to catch up with them. Instead, he turned and picked up the discarded pouch, turning around to find the frightened woman.

"That...that was amazing! You're a paladin, sir?"

Gunnar simply nodded as he deposited the woman's pouch back into her hands without hesitation. "Trained at the cathedral before I became a guard. Are you injured, Miss?"

The woman looked herself over, as if she were unsure herself, but then shook her head as she calmed. "No...no, I think I'm alright, thank you. How could I possibly thank you?"

"It's alright. Doing my job."

"Are you sure? I'm by no means a poor woman. Such a rescue surely deserves a reward!"

With a furrowed brow, Gunnar shook his head. "I need nothing. If you want to thank me, do so by avoiding Old Town's alleys after dark. Let me take you back to the main street." He guided the woman back to the main path, and after a goodbye, he parted ways with her.

As he left, the woman turned, watching the guardsman leave. As he faded from view, she smirked, and disappeared.

The Stormwind Guard had a tendency to change up a guards patrol route regularly, often every day. This was naturally to keep the guard from getting too bored, as well as to lessen the chances of a particular guard getting bribed or having a long-term leak in one particular area. Every day, Gunnar would find himself in a different area of the city...and yet, every day he also always dropped by the Dwarven District to pick up some lunch at McCarthy's.

Perhaps Gunnar was more of a creature of habit than he cared to admit.

It struck him as funny, how unusual his particular circle of friends had become. Jean McCarthy, for all her racism and temper, nonethless seemed to care about him more than most, and despite herself seemed to be the most normal of his circle. Trium was often his partner on the guard force, and his frequent 'detours' far off of his patrol route, along his comical love of all things sugary, made him an unusual person in the eyes of most. Yet, he remained the only other person Gunnar felt he truly 'clicked' with, after his imprisonment and escape. It was an unusual pair of friendships he had, but ones he was growing content with.

"Have a good afternoon, Miss McCarthy! ...er, Jean!" Gunnar called over his shoulder as he went back to the street, idly munching on a donut. He made his way back towards Cathedral Square, and his route, peering up at the sky to try to guage how much time he had left on his shift. He had about an hour to do now, and then he'd be able to return home for a time.

"Excuse me! Sir Guard!" Gunnar froze, turning to face the sound of the voice. A young man was running up, average build and short hair somewhere between a blonde and a brown. He was holding a package in his hands, a small box in simple brown wrapping paper, and upon reaching the guard, he bent down with a hand on his knee, panting for air. "Sir Guard, I need to beg a favor."

Gunnar nodded, lifting up an eyebrow, though the motion was all but useless due to his helmet. "Calm down there, catch your breath. What do you need?"

It took a moment before the man straightened. "I have this package to deliver, you see. To a Mister Vendel." He pointed to a house, and Gunnar followed the invisible line with his eyes. He continued, "But he doesn't seem to be home. I can't stay to deliver it to him in person, as I have so many other deliveries to make. If you could wait for him, it'd be appreciated. He should be back within the hour, if his neighbor's to be believed."

The guard lifted his eyebrow again, before heaving out a sigh. "Alright, lad. Give me the package." The box was placed in Gunnar's hand, before the boy uttered a quick thanks and ran off without a further word. Gunnar peered down at the package as he took a seat by the home's door. He peered at the box silently for a moment, idly wondering at its contents, before setting the box gently down beside himself. Then, he began to wait.

And wait. And wait.

Gunnar peered up at the sky. At least an hour had gone by, and there was will no sign of the package's owner. It was time for him to be off of work, and yet here he was, still waiting. He frowned as he considered the time, digging into his pouch and pulling out his mechanical squirrel. It was in need of repairs anyway, and he guessed it wouldn't hurt to do some work on it now.

More time passed by. He practically took the creation apart and put it all back together, and still there was no sign of the man to be found. He peered at his mechanical pet after re-assembling it, nodding when it started to move once more, and he put it back to perch on his shoulderplate. "Nice to see you back, little guy. ...now, wonder where Mister Vendel is..."

It was almost four hours before Gunnar saw someone approaching the home, and his patience had started to wear thin. He lifted his head, picking the package back up as he rose to his feet. "Mister Vendel?"

He was a portly man of middle age, blinking at the sight of a guard at his home. "Yes, can I help you?"

"...package was left for you."

"Ah, yes! I forgot that was coming today. I hope you weren't waiting terribly long. I went to see a play and pick up some wine...hindsight, I guess I should have come home." He plucked the package from Gunnar's hands, opening it up right there. Herbs for smoking, far as Gunnar knew such things, was inside.

Gunnar wanted to punch someone, but refrained.

"Thank you for this, sir. Good day!" And so the man went in, without comment or reward.

Sighing aloud, Gunnar looked up as the hours of daylight dwindled away. He turned and made his way back home, without complaint.

As he went, a gaze followed him.

For a long time, Gunnar had trouble really talking to people. At three hundred pounds of padded muscle and a bearish build, many of his own kind thought his size fairly intimidating. His dedication to his duty, both as a guard and a paladin, left him with little time to socializing, and it wasn't until his incarceration on a distant island that he realized just how lonely he was.

As he started to socialize with others more, though, he found that some people just seemed to trust him. Perhaps it was the uniform, perhaps it was his being a paladin, or just his personality, but he didn't find himself with a lack of people to really get along with. Sure, his group of friends as still relatively small, but he rarely found a person he truly didn't get along with. As time passed, he found himself growing more and more comfortable with taking time to socialize with others, and this often led him into taverns.

McCarthy's was closed, due to Jean taking a vacation. With that not an option, he mostly found himself picking a bar at random, based on where his patrol led him. This day, he found himself at the Blue Recluse, though part of him was never quite comfortable there. Arcane magic tended to unnerve him, though he didn't always show it, and thus he never quite felt at home in the Mage Quarter. Part of him was worried about getting turned into a sheep, or a freak magic explosion going somewhere and knocking a tower down. Magic really was a dangerous thing.

The fact that someone could say the same about engineering was a point of irony that wasn't quite lost on him.

Gunnar was sitting at a table, putting together the finishing touches on a spyglass he had been assembling. It was a simple device, really, but he liked the idea, and one never knows when it might be useful. With a final twist of a screwdriver, he lifted up the creation and brought it up to a single open eye, peering through the lens. A grin formed on his face, the sort like a child might have who got a new toy for Winter's Veil. He peered about the tavern with the new zoomed-in vision, only to stop when his gaze suddenly ended up zoomed on a man's face.

Gunnar nearly dropped the spyglass as he tore it away from his eye. "Ah, I'm sorry. Can I help you?"

The man was of average height, hair kept short and a coppery blond. He looked back at Gunnar with brown eyes and a smile on his face, and he was wearing a set of unassuming coppery robes. Gunnar assumed that the man was a mage of some sort, but his thoughts were interrupted when the man finally replied, "Oh, are you off-duty, officer? I wouldn't want to take up your free time..."

"No, no. Lunch break, but it's fine. What do you need?"

The man nodded. "Ah, I see. I'm not native, you see...looking for directions, if you have the time. Is there an inn nearby?"

"There's the Gilded Rose," Gunnar paused as he thought. "Trade District. Just outside of the bank, in fact." He gave a few quick directions, compressing his spyglass and putting it onto the table as he spoke.

After the directions were given, the man nodded and smiled again...a pleasant sort of smile, that managed to put Gunnar at ease. "Thank you. I won't be wasting any more of your time. Have a good day, officer."

As the man left to depart, Gunnar noticed a pouch on the ground, slipped from the man's belt. "Ah, sir!" Gunnar snatched it up, making a few heavy steps to cover the distance back before the mage could leave. "I think you dropped this."

The man looked to his belt, then to the pouch, "Ah, so I did. Thank you, officer." He plucked the coin pouch and placed it again on his person, smirking lightly at Gunnar. Before the paladin could leave, the mage grabbed his attention by speaking again, "I have a feeling, officer, that we will meet again. Fate has a funny way of making such coincidences occur...and perhaps you are one blessed by fate. We'll see, I suppose."

"I...am not sure what you're talking about, sir." Gunnar furrowed his brow in confusion, peering at the man.

The mage chuckled, "No...I don't imagine you would, yet. Corint, in case we meet again. Have a good day, officer." With that, the man left.

Gunnar furrowed his brow, watching the man go. After a silent moment, he went back to his table, picking up his spyglass, and then making his way back home...confused, but still with something to think about.

One of the good things about being stationed in Stormwind was that the work was fairly quiet and safe. Out in other towns in the more dangerous parts of Azeroth, one had to worry about many dangerous creatures and beings out to kill you. Sure, Stormwind and Elwynn had its thugs and bandits and its own dramas, but it was a good place to be stationed if you valued your well-being, and justice was swifter here than in the more contested lands beyond.

Though, thinking about it, those two muggers from a week prior never were found.

Yet part of Gunnar wanted to travel, to see things beyond the walls of Stormwind and the green forests of Elwynn. He loved both, but he knew that everything he wanted in life he couldn't get from his home. There was little opportunity presented to him to leave, though, with his job, and so he remained as he was, with little hope of seeing anything more than what he had already seen.

It was while he was standing guard by the fountain in Cathedral Square that he saw the strange man from a few days before again. The mage who called himself Corint was seeming to pass by when he caught sight of the large guard, and with a sudden smile he approached with a relaxed gait. "Ah, officer. Good to see you again."

It took a moment for Gunnar to remember, but once he did his eyes lit up with recognition and he nodded at the mage. "Good day, sir. Can I help you with something?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that," Corint replied, shaking his head before speaking again, "I've come with an offer for you, in fact. If you will hear me, Mister...ah, I forget, I don't suppose I'm supposed to know your name yet."

This just confused Gunnar more. "Gunnar Murray, Sir. What do you mean, 'an offer'?"

"Mister Murray, yes, that was it. Forgive me. You see, I've heard a good deal about you, but it's rude to use a man's name without begin given it first."

"Heard about me? I find that hard to believe. I'm hardly anyone special."

Corint smirked at this, then shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps in the grand scheme, you aren't. Then again, perhaps you are, and your time has simply not come yet." He paused there for a moment, looking Gunnar over. Gunnar felt rather uncomfortable at the curious gaze, but Corint seemed to not notice at all, and continued after a lengthy pause, "There is something that interests me about you, Mister Murray. You were one of those recently held on a distant island, weren't you?"

A moment passed. Gunnar froze visibly as he stared at the mage, unsure what to say or do. After a moment, he cleared his throat, "I was. How did you...?"

"Know? Oh, you haven't exactly kept it a secret, Mister Murray. Besides, I try to keep...current on such events. A rather tragic tale, it was. You have my sympathy."

Another awkward moment passed before Gunnar spoke again, "What...does that have to do with anything?"

Corint nodded. "As you may recall, there were several people who died on that island on the first day. You probably recall them, with the grisly business involving runes and the like. I happen to know the name and face of one of those victims, and I happen to know that his family lives here in Stormwind. I even have the ability to create a portal to take us to that island in almost no time at all."

"Why...are you telling me this?"

"Because, Mister Murray, you strike me as a man who wishes to improve the world. You wish to do some good for them, don't you? Now is your chance, and my offer. Would you go back to that island, all for the sake of one man, one family?"

Gunnar paused, thinking hard on that. It was true...the first day, when he and the others were kidnapped, he saw the murders of so many people. Brutally slain, marked with runes and then strung up on the cavern ceilings to serve as morbid sources of light. It made him sick to even think about. He even lamented before his inability to help or save them. Now they lingered there still, forgotten to everyone but those that had seen them in that cave. Now this man was offering a way for him to at least let those wounds heal for someone, and maybe give some finality to a family. If he had that chance, could he really refuse it? Gunnar stood silently, just watching Corint with a furrowed brow...and then, he asked only a single question:

"When do we leave?"

A couple days had to be set aside for this particular adventure, and so Gunnar arranged for himself to be given some leave for the next few days. He rarely spent his own vacation days, and so despite his unannounced two week departure he still had enough days built up to arrange this, if with a bit of grumbling from his superiors.

He didn't anticipate any combat while on the island, as by now it'd have been long deserted, and Corint had assured him that it would be a safe trip. Gunnar also had the Light to rely on, should things go badly, and so he decided to simply dress in his sturdy casual clothing: button-up shirt, pants, and suspenders. He looked down at himself thoughtfully, thinking of what else to take with him. His gaze trailed to beside the door, and from there he picked up a lunch packed for him by Jean, then a shovel that he purchased the day before. Holding it lightly in one hand and letting it rest against his shoulder, he turned to take one last look at his home, before finally heading out and closing the door behind him.

The meeting spot that he and Corint picked was outside of Stormwind. Gunnar reasoned that Corint didn't want to open a portal within the city itself, which was reasonable enough. So, he marched through the woods, a fair enough distance away, but close enough that the chance of getting attacked by a bandit was low. A few minutes of walking eventually took him towards a small hill, with a familiar robed man leaning against a tree.

Corint smiled pleasantly as Gunnar approached, though stopped to tilt his head. "A shovel?"

"There's something I have to do while we're there."

A nod followed from the mage, who didn't pry any further. Instead he turned, uttering the language of magic and tracing a circle with his finger. The air shimmered, and a portal began to open. Corint peered at the shimmering doorway before nodding, "After you, Mister Murray."

Gunnar stared at the magic portal, before taking in a deep breath, and stepping through.

The first thing that hit him was the cold, crisp air of the island. It smelled so...fresh and clean to his nose. The chilly air touched his skin and reminded him of the days spent out in this weather in the past. Thankfully, it was sunny, and relatively warm. Relatively. The second thing that hit him was that, looking around, the portal had deposited him at the entrance of the cave he had gotten so familiar with, the front way still littered with ash and debris.

"Quite a bit of destruction."

Gunnar turned his head to the voice, nodding as Corint had closed the portal behind them. "...napalm. Last guard captain decided to force us out of the caves with fire and smoke. I wonder what happened to her..." He trailed off, before looking back to the cave entrance, then went inside.

The cavern was much as Gunnar remembered it, though it seemed abandoned now. The ledge he stood on was mostly bare with the destroyed table and chairs, as well as the burned supplies. It took him only a moment to see his objective, though...the bodies strung up to the ceiling of the cave. Each was etched with glowing blue runes, morbid sources of light for the cave, and the source of many of his nightmares since he finally escaped the island. He stared, letting the sight sink into his brain. The evil and the injustice that occurred here was still fresh in his mind, and now he was staring at the results once more.

"The one we want is in the back," Corint suggested with a point, and Gunnar followed the gaze to the last corpse hanging from the ceiling.

A moment passed as Gunnar thought how to get the body down, then he went into the back guard room. Thankfully, spare weapons were still present, and he found a shield...perfect for what he had in mind. Saying nothing, he strode his way down the path to the cavern below, past the charred remains of the barricades that once blocked the way. Once closer to the cavern, he peered up, charging the shield with holy energy, and then letting it fly. The golden disk of light slammed into a set of chains, shattering them, before bouncing to the next, and then a third.

Three bodies fell to the ground.

Corint lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing. He just watched Gunnar take down every corpse from the ceiling, waiting silently by the passage back up.

It took some time before the work was done, all of the bodies knocked to the ground. Gunnar then began to haul the bodies to the surface, setting two aside...one the body that Corint had pointed out, the other being the only orc to be among the predominantly human corpses. It was only once all the bodies had been taken out of the cave that Gunnar took up his shovel again, and began to dig.

"You intend on burying them?"

"I do."

Gunnar saw Corint's simple nod, but continued to work. He asked for no help, and Corint offered none, but he didn't think about it. This was his task, and he intended on doing it alone.

It took hours for the work to be completed, enough empty graves to finally put all of the bodies within. And he put them in one at a time...and with each one, he uttered a blessing. "May you find peace within the Light." Then he shoveled dirt back over them, hoping that this simple burial would be enough to help their spirits find at least a little peace.

By the time he was finished, night was starting to crawl in, darkness and coldness filling the air. Gunnar wasn't ready to leave just yet, as he turned to the last body. An orc, a female, who had met the same fate as the others.

"You don't intend on burying her?"

A moment passed before Gunnar shook his head. "No. I have a promise to keep."

"Tell me what happened here."

Gunnar looked up at the sound of Corint's voice, pausing in his work. A growing pile of wood was being made, from whatever flammable materials were left after the escape. Chairs, tables, the remains of the desk upstairs in the one building on the island. There was no shortage of things to use.

"You already know."

"I know the basics. I want to hear you recount it personally."

A nod was given to that, if hesitantly, before Gunnar returned to his work. As he did so, he spoke. "I was taken from my home. Kidnapped by men with tranquilizer needles, ambushed just as I got there from work. Taken on a ship, brought to this island...myself and many, many others."

"Anyone you knew?"

"None. I later met a draenei I was familiar with, but he was a late arrival." Gunnar frowned at the wood pile. "The people on the first day...they got rowdy. Then the armored guards came down, put down a riot...then slaughtered them. One at a time. Then they made them what you saw in there...corpse lights."

Corint simply nodded, his face unchanging despite what he was hearing.

"There was only about...five or six of us after that. More came, though. Twenty five of us prisoners...maybe a little more. And a similar number of guards, a bit less. A sick game, a social experiment...give one group power over the other and watch what happens. Then this 'Faceless' would come down now and then to play games with us."

The mage was leaning back against the wall of the building, arms crossed. There was a pause when Gunnar finished speaking, an awkward silence until Corint finally spoke again to break it, "And you were imprisoned for a week, you'd say?"

"A little more than that. About. ...the stay was getting to all of us, I think. And we were forced to do things that we'd rather not do. ...I did things I'd not do otherwise." Gunnar furrowed his brow, looking over his handiwork.

"Like?"

"I harmed a man greatly for a crime he commited."

"Eye for an eye?"

"No." Gunner was quick to shakes his head at that, his brow furrowing. "...no. It was an evil that was not easy for me to forgive. My only aim was to ensure that it never happened again. With no law and no way to see him properly brought to justice...if only such a thing wasn't necessary. That...action still haunts me, though."

"A necessary evil for the greater good, do you think? What happened to him?"

"Fate has a sense of humor, I suppose. He was healed shortly after, only to die at the hands of another before even leaving the island. By all accounts, my actions didn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things. It's...funny, isn't it?" Gunnar chuckled humorlessly, "If I could go back...I suppose I wouldn't have bothered. And so nothing of worth was accomplished here, nothing good came of this. Just a sick game with a dark conclusion and everyone's the worse for having played it."

Corint shook his head. "Not necessarily. You changed as a result, didn't you?"

There was a pause as Gunnar froze, unprepared for that question. He had, hadn't he? He didn't want to think of it that way, but...the island did give him a better perspective on life. It pushed him to do more, to see more, to finally search for everything he wanted, and he came to realize that his own perspective on morality wasn't as perfect as he thought it was. Gunnar clenched his jaw, before nodding. "I suppose so."

Silence fell over the pair as Gunnar lifted up the body of the orcish female, putting her down upon the wood pile. A make-shift pyre, a proper send-off for an orc. He ignited the wood, watching the flames spread and grow. Gunnar bowed his head, before turning to pick up his shovel again, and then the one body that he needed.

"Your promise complete?" Corint didn't ask, nor did he seem to judge. He just watched with a curious gaze, perhaps seeming even a little amused.

"Yeah. ...yeah. Let's go, alright?" Gunnar shifted with a grunt to keep the body firmly in hand. "...perhaps somewhere where I won't be arrested for carrying a desecrated body."

The mage smirked before nodding. "Very well. I'll watch over the body until we can return it properly. Let's go." Corint began to open a portal again, though Gunnar wasn't paying too much attention. It wasn't until the portal was fully open that he took in a deep breath, and stroke to step through it once more, intending to forever leave that island behind him.