#paladidnt

Most people didn’t see the world the way Ulysses did, or had rather. He supposed none of that mattered anymore--only one thing mattered to him of that old life, his wife Rolance. Sure, their had been other flames, other interests, other infatuations but those all boiled down to distractions, nothing more and nothing less.

“I just came home from being in prison,” The words weren’t his, but rather his wife’s even now, an entire reality away, the eldritch magic that saturated Ulysses being--and now the reality he had created, linked them all together, her words and thoughts able to bleed over much like how a pen or a marker with too much ink was able to bleed over to another page beneath leaving its mark, echoes he supposed, but it felt like more than just echoes. Could space, time, and reality itself have memories?

“Just like when I died to the Crows, nobody came to save me… Well. Me in particular. The group was saved.” There was a pause, “But for me, I think the person who was the most visibly concerned was Kelly, and you know how she is… If she cares the most for you, that’s pretty sad.” He smiled at that, though found no laughter or joy in Rolance’s words. He was merely listening as he worked.

“Suppose I am pretty sad right now.”

His hands flourished once, in this realm creation was his right, his mere will was all he needed to play, no, be a god. Ulysses sheer will had manifested before him a forge--not a heavy handed blacksmith’s forge, the tools here were smaller, more precise, more clamps and small furnaces and kilns, molds and sharpened tools meant to work with softer metals, this was the forge of a whitesmith.

“Do you know the shit I did for you? I stormed a Legion ship for you. I became a soldier for you. I learned how to manipulate time and space to bring you back from certain death…” He did know. of course he knew, he was Ulysses Trevaleyn, it was his job to know. That was how he had undid the damage and alterations to Azeroth’s reality and created his own.

“Can’t think of any times you saved me. You said letting me die was something like payment for how I’d wronged you, if I remember right…” The sound of a bellows in the background as he listened in across the barriers of realities, though perhaps listen wasn’t the right description, he more felt the words, like thoughts he might want to say aloud, words that hovered in the forefront of his mind but he knew the source wasn't him. A jeweler’s hammer had manifested in his hand along with a pair of almost wire thin tongs as he began to shape what he was making carefully, meticulously so.

“This was just another time that you weren’t there, I guess. That I would have been if it were you in trouble.”  He could feel pain alongside those words, the Eldritch was inside Rolance’s body right now, acting to suture her back together. Despite feeling the ghost of Rolance’s pain, Ulysses still did not react, he had become more stoic in this place and on his own.

“I should hope one day I meet someone who cares for me like I cared for you.”

Their were tears then as he worked, though they weren’t his own. Borrowed from the link they shared, these we're Rolances tears he was wiping from his cheeks, taking a moment to compose himself though he knew Rolance was still bawling like a babe, curled up on their couch.

Despair, it had always gripped Rolance so easily without Ulysses being around, one lesson the tempest of a woman never had learned was that exact exchange was a lie. People took different things from different relationships, Rolance had been with Ulysses because she craved a man who would stand up to her, to tell her what to do, to be a sort of check and balance against her actions and to correct her moral shortcomings.

Ulysses had been with Rolance because he respected her ferocity, her strength and cunning, but also her passion for what was right and wrong. Though those lines blurred often, what did them in was that he had never forgiven the woman--he couldn’t, he couldn’t forget what she had done, but then again the hard part was always letting go.

This was his reality, his dimension where he could sculpt whatever he liked--right now, the product of that desire to create was a chain of eldritch rings. The gloss of silver and gold combined with the glamour and glitter of rubies and garnets, on Azeroth it would have been a weapon unlike any other, something that would have allowed for total and complete destruction of the planet, here it would be a tool of creation.

“You’re not alone,” he said aloud, “You’re never alone Rolance, that’s your problem. You relied on me to make you into something,” he wasn’t sure if the link worked both ways, though he just wished to speak the words out loud, to get the feelings that protested her assumptions out in the air, “You can’t be alone because you don’t know who you are. Your hair, your skin, your scars, always changing, even the powers you drew from were always changing. You have the heart of a dog. No meant yes, attention either good or bad wasn’t discerned, you just cared that you got it. You did not love me. You used me to make yourself feel better and I simply didn't care."

The finality of those words would echo here forever. This reality Ulysses was building was for himself, not for them both. Slipping the chain on over his neck, he grew a smile that seemed sad and genuine, “Without me, you revert to the same old tactics, throwing yourself in harms way to feel something, throwing yourself at the feet of controlling, abusive leash holders. You scorned me for wanting to break that lead. You kept crawling back, over and over when I had no desire to control you. I wanted to show you how to be your own person but you took that as a desire to be like me. To crave power and avarice and hunger for more. You got that from me, I know it. It’s not a gift to you like it is to me. You were always unwieldy with your emotions Rolance.”

A wave of his hand dismissed the forge he had created, tools and molds, foundations and furnaces disintegrating into dust. He no longer had need of it. Ulysses wondered what Rolance would have thought of him now, how both his mind and body had changed. As a god in his own realm, Ulysses looked younger--perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties, though he had always been an ageless looking man, his hair was a brunette mane that hung about his shoulders, his body bore no scars or blemishes, even his tattoos, each and everyone one of them was gone, leaving a bare sun-kissed look to his skin, he wore no armor, only a simple cream colored long-sleeved shirt a belt, loose fitted black pants and some simple leather wrapped shoes over his feet, though his hands and ears were ever adorned with jewelry.

“Do yourself a favor: make something of yourself. I gave you every gift I had but I guess I could never give you the foresight on how to use it. You have the power of a god in your blood now, and yet you’re weeping on our old couch because no one is there to tell you how to use it. I love you Rolance, that’s why I dedicated myself to giving you that power. Death, injury, even how you feel right now? Irrelevant, you only need to see that to move to the next step. I let you die because that's the price. You learned that you are immortal."

Goddess. He had been trying the entire time to forge Rolance into a goddess, but he was a mere mortal then. He supposed in a way he still was here, though he didn’t need to be. Were someone to somehow enter his realm and destroy his physical form it wouldn’t matter, this dimension was sculpted with the very eldritch essence of Ulysses body, along with arcane and light magics, he would just manifest in another physical form if he needed it, though the reality of it was, he didn’t. He merely existed in this form because it felt comfortable.

“I have work to do. The Titans chain Sargeras. Someone must impose the order of creation without them.”

Someone indeed. His left hand reached up to the chain around his neck as that sad smile he bore turned a bit more pleased, Rolance was linked to him. Perhaps one day she would learn to dip into the powers he held now, perhaps not. He had work to do, he always did, emotions that were literally a reality away couldn’t and wouldn’t impede him now.

He lofted a palm and aimed it into the mostly black void of this still new, unborn reality, eyes lidding as he focused his powers. One by one, stars began to form, twisting, churning, candle flames igniting in the dark, distant or entirely to small. In a matter of minutes a galaxy would be birthed, and he held it between his palms. One day she would join him, then her pain and suffering would melt away, they could even become one singular being if they chose to make it so. For now, Ulysses had an eternity to craft. How utterly divine, he thought to himself.

The battle for the undercity had began at dawn, but Ulysses work had begun well before that earlier in the dead of night. Infiltration wasn't Ulysses typical approach but it was necessary for the task at hand. He had to remain as a blade in the dark. The objective of these Alliance soldiers was to destroy blight stores within undercity before they could be used against the Alliance. Entering through the old sewage system Ulysses and a small squad of elite soldiers made their way to the apothecary quarter.

In the panic of evacuation it was easy to start fires. To burn books and labs, to kill forsaken chemists and the night was going successfully until it came time to destroy the plague stores within.

They were gone. They were ALL gone. The paladin standing in the drydock looked around in horror as he realized it had all been emptied. Ever last bit of the blight was being militarized and armed. Unable to act further the squad would destory a few more production labs. A swing of his blade to remove the head of an unsuspecting desthstalker, a burst of light, a few explosions and the squad was retreating back the way they came.

There would be only brief respite as Ulysses was charging the gates knowing the blight was there. He had reported it to Alliance commanders what they had seen and done, but it didn't matter. It was a massacre, for both sides. After the battle was a haze, both literally and metaphorically. Using the light to vanguard against the blight Ulysses wandered among the ruins of the city. Felling the mindless risen Horde and Alliance soldiers. Taking their dog tags and pendants and building pyres of their bones. Returning to the Alliance medical camp like a revenant at first light with fistfuls of dog tags. The dead needed to be catalogued, recorded and remembered. No words were exchanged when he returned the tags to either Horde or Alliance ensigns, they all recognized that their were no enemies in death.

Corine Ruttger glared at the mainlander who had foiled her plans for power. She was trying to take a Drustvar burial site and raise the dead held within both to be servants and to steal their knowledge and further her dark powers.

The heartsbane coven had claimed her a few months ago. She had ripped out her own heart and sacrificed it to a greater witch, in turn she gained undeniable power and a thirst for blood abs the hearts of mortals. Before this moment, she had been a cobbler for the village with her husband, she had grown resentful of their marriage, of their struggles, of becoming a mother to two children she never wanted. A life she had never imagined had pushed her away, and into the arms of the Heartsbane Coven. Ulysses might have felt sorry for her if her first victims hadn't been her family. Her husband tacked to the wall like paper on corkboard. A hole in his chest from where his heart had been ripped out.

Harold Ruttger hadn't died without putting up a fight it seemed though, clutched in one hand a knife covered in a blackened, tar-like ichor was still being clutched tightly, in another hand a clump of hair. He had pulled her head back so hard it ripped hair free and slashed the witches throat, so far as the paladin could tell.

Azerite exposure had made the paladin consistently and incrementally more. More intelligent, stronger, faster, but also more wrathful. More zealous, the lights grasp thoroughly clutching the paladin, a blessing in this case as he used such abilities to piece together what happened to the children next. The daughter, a five year old had never awakened. She had beem charmed not to by her mother, though in doing so her older brother had stumbled upon his mother feasting on he4 own daughter and called for his father. The broken pieces of a chair told the story, the son had tried to leap into action and broke said chair over his own mother's back. The whole family never stood a chance but they had died fighting and together.

Ulysses had tracked the witch like a hound, Azerite made it easy to sense evil magic, along with silver and fire provided courtesy of the order of embers. It had been an easy enough task to follow her into the woods, following hexing urns and bone charms and fetishes that lead to a rickety shack. One that the Paladin quickly lit with a jar of alchemical flame.

Corine exploded out one side of the shack, screeching in pain as she swatted at the flames that were catching on her clothing. She ran into the woods with inhuman speed, then again she really wasn't a human anymore. There was no way to come back from being turned into a hag, at least not any way that Ulysses had found. He chased her through the woods. Hot on the witches heels, the light granting him swiftness to match. He would corner her before a large drop into an ancient Drust quarry. She looked around frantically but there was no way out. She turned in time to give a shriek at the paladin as he sent two more glass jars hurtling towards the witch, a flash of light from the paladins eyes shattered the glass mid-flight and ignited the fluid inside.

A holy burning oil splashing on the witch as the fires cleansed her body, she writhed in agony as the flames died down. It wasn't too long ago that Ulysses had gotteh into an argument with his... Friends? Associates? People of his clandestine order.

Then again he knew what they didn't seem to want to admit: that something could he wholly evil. It was a scary thought of course for those who were seeking redemption, embracing the idea of true evil meant embracing they might have been a part of such a thing, had they not gotten so heated he might have brought to light such fears and alleviated them, though not everyone took to hard lessons.

Stepping forward Ulysses drew a silver blade from beneath his cloak, a silver coated punch dagger that he buried in Corine's back. The witch howled and shreked in pain though she didn't have the strength to resist, already made a crone by the magic she embraced, the withered husk of a woman sobbed, "But i... Was promised... A way out..." Before Ulysses twisted the blade he had sunk into the witches back and sliced the woman open, blue and black viscous liquids replaced blood though the ephemeral blue glow of it quickly faded away.

Corine had learned the hardest lesson: One's demise was always ones own making. Ulysses had seen several times among his ranks an unwillingness to admit the dark past or to minimize or downplay transgressions.

He would return Corine's body to the village to have her burned and read her last rites. Though what unsettled Ulysses at times was that some chose the fate of the dark witch and that others out there we're ready to embrace true evil over thr truth that some things are too evil to embrace.

As hr lit the pyre and stacked all the family's remains together, letting them be burned as one the paladin knew that so long as he lived, he would never embrace such darkness, choosing death in the flames over wrathful darkness, though he knew it would be a long night.

((Some mood music if you please: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgP9tzt9_Z8 ))

The silver eye stared back at his own steel blues, his face turning into a bit of a contortion of displeasure. He saw the silver mark on his forehead, to most it would go unnoticed at a glance, like an old faded tattoo done in light gray, it nearly melted into his fair skin, but once it was seen it couldn’t be unseen. The design of an open eye on his forehead, gifted to him for “enlightenment” by Adrian. He should have felt honored, he should have been happy and he even tried for a few days to trick himself into believing as much, but eventually he couldn’t do it, and so the man had secluded himself.

He had tried to listen to Rolance, that his rings and the power he created would eat away at him until he was nothing, and it certainly felt that way, he had peeled them all off and destroyed them, but the source, the lab in which they were created and the mother stone that the rings hand been birthed from still existed, that power could be regenerated and he fully intended to do so but he wasn’t rushing. It felt good to have the light on his side, and only the light, his body had become so much more of a reservoir for power and with all other kinds dismissed, that left so much empty space for the light to fill. He might not have been the Ashbringer, but at the moment he felt as though he could rival them and that brought some consolation to him.

Still, things weren’t how they were supposed to be, he had been given a gift from the man he revered, he had been taken off a supposedly power-hungering path by his would-be wife towards a path that seemed more stable, more safe and that was what was wrong. He had been taken off the path he had set for himself, the many paths he had set for himself and put on others, paths that weren’t his with endings and goals that he didn’t care to have, and no matter how he tried to sell these as his own to himself, he knew it was all a lie.

He still wanted power.

He still wanted Immortality.

Ulysses finally broke the stare from himself in the bathroom mirror. A hand came to his forehead--he willed the light to him, he willed it in the form of pure, burning light, too pure for the human form to contain and so it manifested in his palm, hovering an inch above the center. He knew what he had to do; he had to get rid of this damned eye. He raised the orb up and without hesitation, pressed it over the marking. Searing, blindingly hot pain struck the paladin, it hit his head like a vibration, and while it only burned the skin that held the silver eye, the pain traveled through the sides of his head to the back of his neck and sat there, rumbling like a tremor. When it was over, the paladin was left with a burn mark about the size of silver dollar on his forehead. Teeth gritted, the hiss of his breath echoed around the porcelain white bathroom, “Fuck,” he exclaimed to himself.

The healing light was called upon next, much in the same manner, healing the wound he had inflicted upon himself, he already felt slightly more at ease. More like himself, but he knew what he had to do.

He had to leave.

Not permanently, his vigil would never truly end. In spite of his lust for power, his lust for immortality, he still wanted to vanguard humanity, Stormwind, the alliance, no the whole of Azeroth. He wanted to hold it like a ball in his hand and clutch it to his chest, to guard it from the hazards of this universe, and though he could never do that, he would do everything in his power to keep his planet safe. And so the wheels turned, he had sent a letter to his master’s son Kuero. He would take his place for now, under a different guise but the directive would be the same, the directive had never changed and that he was thankful for, whether he wore the mark of his master or not he would lend his power to the endgame no matter what. He just wanted to make sure he had enough for himself as well.

He had wrote a letter for Rolance, his eyes falling on it as he left the bathroom into his adjoining bedroom. He moved over to it and hefted it up, curling his fingers around the white paper and crushing it into a ball. Perhaps this was the part that hurt the most, he had to leave Rolance. Whether he loved her anymore or not, he wasn’t quite sure, doubt had been thrown into the mixture of compassion and love, and he knew their goals weren’t the same. He knew she could tolerate wicked people--not to say that he couldn’t, but the kind of wicked they tolerated was completely different. While Ulysses could tolerate a a vicious, necessary evil or misguided evil under the veil of good, he could not tolerate the criminals, the rapists, the people who hurt mindlessly with no greater gain.

He moved to the waste bin in the corner of the room and dropped the letter in, Ulysses had known since he started it, the whole thing would have been a waste of time, it was filled with kind words and fond memories and vague and cryptic messages of past love and that he needed to go because it was best for everyone but he knew she likely wouldn’t take it that way. Rolance was emotional, a mercurial person, he perhaps had steadied her some, got her to think in a goal oriented fashion but that didn’t quell the fire inside her, and why would he want it to?

He was above giving his former lover a platitude, a bunch of words to make her feel safe. If he came back, it wasn’t for her, and he had already settled with the idea of her moving on to someone else.

The paladin dressed himself in his armor, he had packed a several bags and cleaned up his home. In the night, he took the key to his house and locked the door, checking his mail before he left, he placed a small parcel in his mailbox, knowing Kuero, his replacement for the time being would collect it and know what to do, it had a special set of instructions, with that taken care of he then strolled out into the Stormwind streets and beyond, to some unknown destination. His goals, who he was, a mystery to so many. He liked it that way. 

Ulysses had many rings now, months had gone by since the seed had been reclaimed from Pleo. He remembered the look on the draenei’s face when she had seen his hands covered in them, not quite sure what to make of it. Yet for all that power he still had that nagging voice at the back of his head, telling him he couldn’t relax, that he couldn’t stop, that he never could, even with all this power.

When was the last time you trusted someone?

When was the last time you felt at ease?

He would rationalize that Rolance took the edge off--she did, though not completely. Nothing ever had taken the edge off completely in a long, long time. That’s what happened when you had this much power, this much ability to change the world sitting in your hands. Recently he had got to watch that ability in action. Helping Rolance exact some vengeance--justice on a man that had hurt and abused her. The end results of such an act being that they had saved the man’s wife from many more years of abuse and found a girl he had held captive, likely for some perverse acts as he had done so many years before.

Rolance had beaten him near death, to a point where the man surely would have died had he been left to his own devices, but that hadn’t been enough for Ulysses. The man’s wife had known about his transgressions, his abuses, that he was a pedophile and let him do it, she had to atone as well and in the end she had. Ulysses had mended the man, then coated him in kerosene and put a lighter in his wife’s hands.

She knew what to do, and just like that Ulysses had made the man’s wife less of a victim, as in the end she was the one to kill him, to light him on fire and get to see him burn, their house burn, to get to walk away into a new life. That was the ability Ulysses held, taking lives, redeeming lives, punishing and judging, it made him feel godly, deified in a sense, though he wasn’t necessarily enjoying it.

Telling people what to do, training them, guiding their morals, keeping those in Vulpecula on a higher standard, it all took work and he was getting tired for all that he was and all that he had done. Getting tired and he still hadn’t reached his endgame, and that though was overwhelming, that thought was scary, that fear that he may not get what he wanted almost overwhelmed him, but he pushed it back.

Time to kick it up a notch.

((Some music for your earholes, what I was listening to while I was writing.))

Ulysses read the letter in his hands, over and over as he stood on the bridge leading to the entrance of Stormwind, before him stood the Brothers of Lothar; Danath Trollbane, Kurdan Wildhammer, Alleria Windrunner, and Turalyon at the very end of the bridge, standing vanguard over Stormwind with his broken sword. His hands trembled as he looked from the statue, down to the letter, eyes scanning the words rapidly, searching for any inkling that it was a joke or a hoax, yet he found none.

“Lord Trevaleyn, I hope this letter finds you in good health. Firstly, I would like to state the Brotherhood did receive your report of occurrences in the Blasted Lands, as well as what appears to be occurring in both the capital cities of the Alliance and the Horde. We found it disturbing that the legion was indeed trying to set up a staging ground in the Blasted Lands. Through your efforts though, that region was cut from their clutches before it could be claimed by them. I don’t think any of us have to tell you the severity of threat the Burning Legion poses. Highlord Fordring In Hearthglen is mobilizing the bulk of Argent forces to respond to increasing demonic presences, as our agents all across the globe are submitting reports of demonic activity on par or of greater concern than your own,”

Ulysses shuddered at the thought. Visions of the past floated behind his blue eyes, of green fire and corruption, of fighting tainted, twisted blood elves at the Sunwell, of fighting felguard and demonic hounds in Ashenvale. He had seen repeatedly the damage the Burning Legion, everyone had, and it didn’t take a genius to understand that this was likely the most dire threat the world has ever faced. Grim faced, he read onward.

“It is with that said, that the Brotherhood can sit idle no longer. We have taken a strong foothold in Stratholme, and removed the scarlet remnants from Tyr’s hand. Normally we would grant you ceremony as we know you are a man of ceremony and faith, however even those much be forgone; we fear doing so would only mark you as a target. It is with great regret that we must announce that Highlord Adrian Wayne was assassinated in his sleep, signs of the Burning Legion found upon his body,”

His peer--one of them at least. A friend. A mentor. Adrian Wayne, or as he had once been called, “The Patron Saint of Asskicking,” killed in his sleep. It made sense, no foe that stood before him had survived in combat. Demon, Death Knight, undead, man, woman, dragon, all had fell to his blade so they killed him when he couldn’t swing it.

“And so after some deliberation, the torch of Brotherhood Highlord is passed to you, Ulysses, and with it, a declaration and mission from Highlord Fordring; you are to assemble an accord of soldiers and defend the innocents of Stormwind and its outlying regions until we attack the Legion in full force. Any demonic presence is to be met with an aggressive response. You are to hunt down any demonic presence in all forms and purge it with holy light from this existence. Do not waver, do not faulter,”

Ulysses still thought it a joke. It had to be, they wouldn’t declare him a Highlord through a letter; not unless they were truly in dire straits. Even then... They had been considering a lot of other candidates. Less violent ones. Still, at the bottom of the letter was a series of seals. Wax sigils and signatures, some with cloth seals attached, each holding a prayer and declaration of the light. It all was legitimate. Eligor, Korfax, Maxwell Tyrosus, Bartholomew Leonid, Tirion Fordring, and many others. A begrudging agreement that Ulysses would be a peer in leading the Brotherhood of Light, assuming his mission was a success.

A small package came with the letter, not much bigger than his hand, wrapped in tan paper. Freeing it from its shell, a wooden case was inside, flipping it open was a new, neatly folded tabard and a silver Brotherhood badge.

“For the Brotherhood of The Light, do not fail us, Highlord.”

Ulysses ran a hand over the badge. It was in the shape of the old Argent Dawn logo, a gray sun with eight gold sunshafts. Ulysses looked up at the statue of Turalyon one more time. Perhaps after this was all said and done, he would get his own statue. Slipping the new tabard on over his armor he clipped the polished badge to it, and began to stride into the city.

((Yo yo yo! Thanks for reading as always, this is sort of my first of what is likely going to be many, many shameless plugs. With Legion coming we’re of course going to get a lot of new players joining the game and many old players returning, looking for a home for their characters. I’m forming a guild, <The Brotherhood of Ashes> A brotherhood of Light based guild that is meant to embody those notions: A radical sect of the Argent Crusade hellbent on destroying every evil that stand between the races of Azeroth and freedom. 

This guild will be trying to embody the direct virtues and styles of the Brotherhood of Light as we’ve seen in the past. A sort of self-aware zealotry that puts them a step above the Scarlet Crusade’s blind wrath and animosity, coupled with experimentation with the Light, shadow, arcane, and really any type of magic that will aid in the fight. As such this guild will be accepting members from all walks, provided they’re determined to the cause, because when an endless demonic legion invades, you take what you can get. Also tenants like “ends can justify the means,” and “I may not always agree with their methods but I sure as hell won’t argue with their results,” have applied to the Brotherhood of Light in game in the past and I would like to extend those notions to this guild as well.