"My friends are all like, dude it's just a game, I'm like RRAAAAARGGGGH"
- EldritchEvil in The Good Die Young
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| Memory's of Decay | | | Author: | | | IP: | 126.171-XXXX | | Date: | 08/28/03 07:08 | | Game Type: | Warcraft 3 | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 6, Min: 6
Lifetime Rating for hidden: 6.0000 |  | Memory's of Decay
Life, one moment can last for years, days can be but a blink of an eye in memory.
Our slumbering village was such a place where people lived who did not care for much, not even happiness.
Almost like they where forced to live there lives, as a punishment. Thats why nobody saw it coming. It was already there.
The Paladin
We had heard that there was war raging through the lands once more, but they where only faint story's of wanderers coming from the capital and we never took heed to the warnings to move further inland.
Only the town paladin took notice of the news but only because he had nothing better to do then sit around in the town church. He was once a great warrior of the light, as he liked to call himself, then he lost a leg in battle if one could call it a battle.
He had found a new orc encampment close to the village, and he found no better then attacking it alone without telling anyone.
But considering nobody would listen to the old fool nor cared for what he did or didn't do: the heroic paladin charged the camp with all the valor the light would provide him.
A single orcish peasant proved to be a worthy match, the green mongrel tore his unfortunate limb to shreds with a small degrading pickaxe, leaving the broken warrior bleeding in the dirt.
Instead of killing the pore man, the orc decided to have an early meal, not leaving the fresh meat to go to waste.
After his embarrassing adventure he became a drivelling old man, left in a deep depression which found new depths every day.
Sometimes he would come out of his old macabre church, just to make everyone feel even more depressed then he was, scaring little children and spreading gossip about the towns most respected people.
As time passed he changed into something darker. His fateful hammer was replaced by a strange runed sword and his cloths where getting dark and raffled.
He told us he had found the sword in one of the abandoned catacombs below the church, but i was there the night that he discarded his old maul.
The blade came with a man in strange clothing, baring strange markings on the collar of his hood. The man couldn't stop coughing and seemed to be worried about the fact that he made so much noise doing so. But even so, he begged for the paladin not to heal him with his magic.
After a long talk he handed over the sword and instantly vanished into the woods from where he came, leaving no footprints, not even a single broken twig.
Was it not for that unguarded moment I would have been dead by now, something I long for many times a day. It was I that broke the twig, an old dry twig fallen from a birdsnest on a forgotten day. It broke the silence with the same subtlety a barrel of explosives would break a wall of paper.
The paladin might have been old, his sence of hearing was unscathed. Instantly he knew where i was, i still blame myself for waring a white cloak that evening, it doesn't blend with the darkness very well.
I can still feel his eyes piercing mine, it felt like his glance threw ice into my wide open eye's and burning them as with frostbite.
I thought he would impale me on his sword for sure but all that happened was that daunting glance, and daunting it was, still this day those eyes are grifted into my memory and i still hope i will one day forget them but i fear that day will be the day i perish.
The day of the sword i call it in my memory, the day doom started to lurk upon our little village, the day everybody forgot and the day that i try to forget every moment my existence.
The announcement
It was already late in the afternoon when i was sitting in the local tavern with my girlfriend, but my mind was wandering, still thinking about the incident with the old paladin although it was already three weeks ago.
We where engaged to wed, only because it was a fixed marriage as it was common in our village. It was the second time this happened, my first 'forced wife' died in an orc raid.
This only happened a month ago and already she was replaced. In our village no one was given time to morn, for our whole lives where already covered in gloom and no one saw the difference between morning and every day life.
Suddenly the tavern door blasted open and a cloaked man barged in, no one in the tavern budged at the sound the door, although several birds in the nearby forest had fallen to there deaths of fright.
"Arthas is coming! I just got word from the capital that he is coming! You people must find refuge near the coasts ! "
But no one even turned his head, the man just stood there in the middle of the room with the door half off its hinges.
The door was slammed against the wall, hanging there like a beaten man who was nearly beaten to death, struggling to get back on his feet.
The messenger did not move, he did not dare. Sweat was running down his temples as he just stared. Staring at everyone, it was like no one in the tavern even knew that he was there, let alone that they had heard his message.
But they did, we all did. We just didn't care about it and who said that what he was saying was the truth?
The man could just be a rambling fool, roaming the fields hoping that someone would care to talk to him and stumbled upon our village.
The door had reeled from the blow but realized it had been mortally wounded and gave up. A bolt from the upper hinge fell to meet the floor. Making a light bouncing noise on the wooden floor.
Yet this insignificant little detail was enough to allow the man to break from his trance and granted him the freedom to burst into a hysterical frenzy. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE, ARE YOU ALL DEAF?!? SHALL YOU ALL JUST SIT HERE AND WAIT FOR YOU'RE DOOM?!?" He cried at the top of his lungs and with artery's in his neck almost bursting open. "Now, now. There is no need for yelling, and the last time i checked my hearing is in perfect order." A man spoke in the back of the tavern, it was the barkeep.
"IT SPEAKS!!" yelled the messenger, still on the brink of insanity. "Yes i do, now would you go spread you're confusion elsewhere, we have no need for you're ramblings." the barkeep replied, in a steady voice, not even granting the man a quick glance.
"THE DEVIL HIMSELF IS COMING NEAR YOU'RE TOWN AND YOU WILL DO NOTHING TO PREVENT FROM BEING SLAUGHTERED?!?" cried the man, nearly passing out from lack of oxygen.
"He is still our king, one can be hung for speaking such things about the king. Now be gone from our sight or i will have you removed from it!" The barkeep told him in a slightly irritated voice, now looking at the man for the first time.
Now the messenger changed, his anger had drifted away. His face changed from a murderous gaze to a sad look, that could make one cry just by looking at it. He was looking at the floor, " my god, corruption has already rooted deep within this town, i shall pray that you will not suffer much, but i fear it is already to late. I beg you, if you have but a grain of sanity left within you, leave this place before its to late..." he said in a defeated voice. No one spoke, but all where now looking at him, some where baffled by his words others had not a trace of compassion on there face.
One man stood up, thinking of leaving with the man, but was knocked back into his seat by dozens of eyes, staring at him with anger.
We all knew the man spoke the truth and that his words where not ramblings of a deranged fool. He spoke in pure facts, not in tales of a madman. Yet we just sat, staring at him like retarded cattle.
The silence returned to the tavern. The messenger stood in a puddle of sweat but now it changed into a puddle of tears, he sighted and grabbed something under his cloak, it looked like a sword "No, i cannot, i can't do it" he murmured to himself.
He picked up the door and put it back on its hinges, and closed it. We never saw him again.
Later i found out that he was not an ordinary messenger, he was actually a marshal, in command of guarding our region against any orc threats. He could have killed us all at that very moment, yet his hart would not let him.
He died two weeks later in the successful defense of our village when the first wave of king Arthas' forces attacked.
He tried to save our souls and extended our lives. Two people came to his funeral, which was appropriately held in our town, they where both gravediggers.
To be continued... |
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