For Gnomeregan (Nelmarg)

Once, he had considered the smoldering land before him his greatest fall from grace - the seat of his most painful plummet to where he stood this eve. Over time, the twisted machination of the gifts bestowed out of necessity twisted his mindset as well; where once he had seen failure, he saw strength. Where once there was disdain, there was triumph. Dark were his days, and darker his acts upon both the people of the Horde and Alliance. A figure of potent whispered threats and subterfuge he had become in the underground communities of the peoples of the Alliance, someone to give proper respect and pray to a favoured diety not to invoke his wrath...

...yet as Nelmarg Gramlen, former Knight-Lieutenant of the Alliance and acting Marshal of the Halaani Initiative looked upon the toxic ruins of his people's home, he felt like no more then a wee child.

"I'm home."

The moon had risen high above him, as well as the dark procession behind him which meandered with tasks designated to them - demons he had shackled to his will for this purpose moving with a resigned fervor, from dextrous Imp to hulking Felguard under his call. He had decided to take a moment to himself to look at the remains of what was once his people's greatest accomplishment, and the nation which always held what little remaind of the purity in his soul. He felt so small by comparison to what the Gnomes whom had come before him were able to accomplish; where he could hold a small kernel of arrogance over the whispered words he caught from time to time, those that crafted the halls and technology within the irridated innards of his former home held his respect above all. A small dip of his head to the pure white snow beneath him followed such humbling recollections, turning slightly at the grunt of demonic levies shuffling about with their chores.

Nelmarg turned, to watch as they did as he wished - this had come after months of planning, and months more of study and preperation for this last, potent strike in his game. The Demonic toiled with blades and boxes, opening crates with torn tops to thrust into the ground two pairs of dark crystal; each pulsing with a dull light and promising a black end if improperly handled. Each stone shoved into the snowy sod of the ground, the soil itself wilting at it's violation of the natural cycle, while once more the sickly sound of bloodspray accompanied the labour. A simple Ram the procession had caught on their way to the ruined entrance of Nelmarg's beloved city had become the unwilling volunteer for a reagent - the blood of an innocent ... another of the diminuative Warlock's victories in study ensuring that the loophole in the profane ritual didn't specify that it needed to be a humanoid innocent. All moving according to plan, a hastily built altar made with due process and the blood spilt within the circle enough to ensure what was to come, came without a moment to halt. All of which brought the smallest of smiles to the Gnome's weary features - eyes which had once shown with an amythest determination now blunted against the horrors of both the world around him, and the gifts within him. His voice - a cracked, weary mockery of what it had been when first he dabbled in the ways of the Warlock, slipped out into the slow-snowfall around him as he spoke to no one in particular.

"You are most likely wondering where I have gone, or what I have done with myself - there is little reason to worry anymore. Where once I was like a beast, wild and untamed in my thirst for blood and violence, I have .... erm...collected myself, I suppose." He stopped then, looking back up into a twilight sky that offered no comfort as he gathered the right words to utter. "Many months ago during an incursion in the Draenor lands of Nagrand to try and suppress Horde activity, overzealous use of explosives opened up a mausoleum that we had first thought did not exist. Within were the usual mementos of dearly departed ones, but further exploration of my fellows unearthed a demonic presence biding it's time in the crypts. But that was not my concern, nor has it been what has driven me to this night - it was what it guarded. The Naaru have given me a term for it, yet even A'Dal cautions me to it's raw appetite for destruction - he said ... as least I have always thought he said ... that it is called an Orb of the Soul Eater." With that, small Gnomish fingers slipped to the satchel at his side to pluck from within the orb which was as large as perhaps one of his own clenched hands. It radiated a dirty, vile light into the air as if hungering for anything that could bestow life to the mortal soul, tendrils of darkness slithering out into the ice-touched world. It seared his fingers to the core of his being to even touch the thing, but he had lost almost all feeling in his hands as byproduct of so much work in the black arts....in that, there was a small blessing.

Another of those small, almost ghostly smiles at the edge of thinned lips before he sighed, and turned fully to the unholy stones erected in his name, for his cause.

"As always in both this world and the next, apparently, the simplest answer has proven to be the correct one. This thing is a tool, and one that can be used for the good of others, if it's treated with the proper care." With steps he moved to place the orb within the circle of black stones, setting the small sphere within the slowly bubbling ichor of the now-drained creature. He rolled it, slowly, until the entirety of the sphere had been covered in the blood of the offering; making sure to cover it all before plucking it back up in a blood-caked palm. A small hiss of pain even from him permeated the air to mingle with a growing howl of a stronger and stronger wind; the clouds above growing dark and hungry for the hope of those below whilst he started out of the stones which thrummed, like that of a mammoth's heartbeat. It's existance was now almost painful to behold, like a chill upon his hand that he had never truly experienced before; releasing it with a gasp and his free hand clutching the limb with a small groan of agony. The Orb of the Soul Eater ... having been annointed in the blood of an innocent and blessed under unholy sacral stones, did not fall to the snow with Nelmarg's release of it - instead, it caught the wind in it's blasphemous grip, and hovered in the air at Nelmarg's shoulder with a hungering malevolence that only deepened with it's rythymic beating of the dark energy within.

"W....With.......With this thing...." He started, before collecting himself to press onwards. "...I will take back what is ours - I will steal the souls of all those that dared to invade our beloved home. Every single Trogg and accursed Dark Iron if that is what it takes. No price is to high to reclaim what was stolen from us." Nelmarg was yelling to himself now against the whipping wind of a building storm, the demons that he had leashed to his will let loose, but knowing now was not the time to rouse the ire of their former master, and making an escape into the woods of the snowy tundra surrounding them.

Small steps taken up the broken, ruined pathway that had once held so much promise for the Gnomish people ... now a mockery of it's former glory, holding the mistakes of the past which cried for release. Even as the Gnome spoke to himself, those touched by the radiation scampered out to meet him - milk-eyed lepers devoid of their sanity, reaching out with rasping throats to have their souls ripped from their bodies by the will of the Orb. Two steps towards him each took, before a score of irridated Gnomes staggered and collapsed to their icy graves around the advancing Warlock....his drive for the final steps adamant in his voice which spoke to none. "Our city has laid buried within the sins of our mistakes for too long - the future of our race belongs in the halls that their forefathers built. The mistakes I have made will be set right with our city's banishment of the true usurpers....we will not lay down before the flaws of our elders...even if I must drag away the abyss with it's throat in my hands to do it."

He turned then, to look to Dun Morogh outside and the land which had given him so much. A land which had given him a home, a hearth, a way to live despite his mistakes. A full turn then, to the darkness within the bowels of the Gnomish fallen city - even from where he stood and looked down within the abyss, he could feel the eyes of countless souls looking up at him with nothing but hate and contempt for everything he stood for. Here and now, he stood at his destiny....stepping upon the elevator which would lower him into a city which would most likely become his tomb. All he could do was smile, as the Orb of the Soul Eater spun a manaical orbit around his small frame.

Smile, and recall how it had all come to this with a single, determined whisper - as the elevator plunged him into the haunted darkness, he was a wee child no more.

"For Gnomeregan."

He was home....

........and then he was gone.



- Written by Nelmarg