Fisk Elcarth

Another day, another effort made by the lonesome rogue. It was a beautiful day, and Fisk had made a few acquaintances the day before along the docks in Stormwind Harbour. Most of them were refugees - elves from Teldrassil - but a few had been deckhands and even a couple of merchants had taken pity on the washed up seafarer. They were blissfully unaware of his seedy past, and just how often he’d made a living stealing from the very same sort of stalls they all seemed to trust him to assist with the day prior. Elcarth had no intention of ruining that trust this go around. He hadn’t made any new friends yet. There wasn’t anything to fall back on if he took up his old ways - just a solitary life of the one-man-band. Without his old crew of ‘merry men’ the Shade knew he’d better keep on his best behavior. Today, he planned on returning to the harbour and stopping in one of the pubs along the way to the docks. He’d been invited to a few drinks, and was meant to meet up with a couple deck hands belonging to an elvish Captain he hadn’t had the privilege of meeting yet. All Longstride knew was that the woman was a force to be reckoned with, and even the customs officers were afraid of her. In all honest truth, Fisk couldn’t count how many crates of undocumented cargo was allowed to go through without even a moment’s forethought. Papers were produced, stamps were procured, and authorization was granted for literally everything she had in her holds. This fact alone was all the reason Fisk needed to find interest in her party. Among her less recognized crewmates was a hearty group of former privateers turned ‘freelance’ under her authority. They’d invited him to join him at one of the pubs that held their Captain’s tab for her and her charges. On his way, the weary shadowdancer made the effort of buying a sobering elixir off a passing Kaldorei alchemist reduced to peddling goods with his son and young apprentice on the side of the road. Fisk couldn’t help but leave them a little too much silver and refusing to stick around for the recounting of coins before he darted off to the ocean’s breeze. It wasn’t long before he found the tavern in question, and he entered with only a moments hesitation before coming in to find a rather unexpected scene. Another brawl. The entire crew of the elven seamaiden’s vessel was at war with another group of privateers, and the entire bar was ablaze with gunshots, the clatter and shine of blades against blades, bodies against bodies, and furniture against both. Fisk deadpanned in the doorway, and watched in amazement as yet another effort was visibly ruined. The group he’d came to rendezvous with was being smashed in by a brute of a man from Kul Tiras - a hulking warrior of the tide, towering over everyone else in the pub and easily taking on six men armed to the teeth with nothing to arm himself but a chair leg and the rest of the mead in his mug, which he guilefully managed not to spill. The Shade’s draw literally dropped, to the point where it popped on one side from repetitive fracturing in battles past. The man that had initially made the offer to meet with Fisk was brained and tossed to the merciless crowd behind the beastly man, his three closest comrades immediately dispatched shortly after with one swing that sent the entire trio flying at least half a dozen meters into another group of combatting patrons. The Kul Tiran looked up and glared at Elcarth holding up a shadow in the door, but before he could consider making anything of the former thief, a bottle broke uselessly over his head, and he whirled around on the man who’d mistakenly showered him with wasted alcohol. Fisk gave a deep sigh, only to turn around and be immediately be clapped in the face with a wooden cudgel. Stars and bright light filled his eyes, he hit the floor like a sack of lifeless shit, and the only thing he was able to gather from his surroundings was the familiar halting of a skirmish by a single word roaring over the crowd. “COPPERS!” The entire pub gave up their disputes and stampeded through the door. Barely rolling out of the way, Elcarth leaned on the door, swaying on hands and knees as people pushed through the group of Stormwind enforcement that was trying to break up the mess. As the confusion continued, Fisk never saw the Kul Tiran coming, only recognized the rings on his fingers when those same massive digits took ahold of his collar and threw him over one padded shoulder. The beam above the door was the next thing he saw, and the last for quite some time. Everything went black, and it was several hours before he woke up. Where he was, he didn’t know. Where he was going, he wasn’t sure. But he was moving. Or rather, the ship he was suddenly being stowed on was. Now there was nothing to do but try to blink away the pain in his head, attempt to force his vision to stop coming in double, and hope whoever had just strongarmed him was generous, or at the very least merciful. “Fuck...” ((OOC: I’ve been away from the world of azeroth for two or so years, don’t have a subscription currently, and don’t have a means of writing much. Feel free to fill my inbox with prompts, or hit me up if your character could be the one that took him along! ))

There wasn’t much left in the city of Stormwind for the aging rogue. He’d gathered up all of his remaining equipment, cleaned up his apartments below the brawlpub, and left the doors locked before slipping back to the surface into the Dwarven District, scowling at the glare of the sun even through the smokey air that always hung in the quarter, and he felt that even the shade cast by the cowl over his now short-cropped hair wasn’t enough to fight off the headache-inducing light casting from the skies. Gritting his teeth, he took off into the streets again, weaving through every shadow he could find to avoid another migraine. He’d taken less than a dozen trips into the city since his return, but today he determined to make another attempt at finding some contact he’d missed or turning up on someone he’d neglected to consider. There wasn’t alot else to inspire him, with the brawl managers denying him his right to fight with how drunk or influenced he’d been every time he’d tried to enter. Grumbling at that memory, he turned up another alley and stepped up to the first tavern he came across - a little hole in the wall place he’d visited many times before in years past, and it was here he hoped to stumble across one of his former associates. Once he found someone, he wasn’t sure what he was going to say or if they’d even be interested in speaking to him, but he had to try. As he passed through the door, he looked around, casting his gaze around the handful of stragglers and transients that occupied the seedy speak-easy. One of the rogues in the corner seemed slightly familiar, so he approached the bar near him cautiously. He deposited three ten-silver bits onto the counter and ordered a three-finger glass of whiskey on ice. Before he finished the first quarter of the glass, he cleared his throat, and looked over to the shade that held residence at the darkest table in the corner of the pub. “Ahh.. excuse me? Your garb strikes me familiar. It’s been a few years since I was common in these parts, but uhh.. Do you have any relation with the Honeybeard Collective? I’ve been looking for one of their creed. I uhh.. Well, I use to be the Vice-Executive Collector.” Fisk curled his fingers closed into a fist, the fingerless leather glove on his left hand squeaking quietly as it stretched around his war-hardened knuckles. The vagrant in the corner looked up, glaring at the Shade as he pushed back his hood. Fisk cursed in his own mind, quickly recognizing the face of one of the crew members that had survived his last voyage, and the memory of the mutinous behaviors that had followed shortly after their struggled landing several weeks later came rushing to the forefront of his mind. Knowing what was going to come of the next few seconds, he prepared himself quickly. Immediately, the former employee of the Longstride branch of Honeybeard Collective drew his sidearm - a nine round revolver with a sweet little rune on the side that would conjure bullets into the empty chambers shortly after all nine were emptied. Fisk dove over the bar, and bullets started flying. “FUCK!” Elcarth was slow. He had given too much to the sin of substance over the last week or so being in town. “This isn’t going to be a friendly conversation is it?” he called out over the bar, scrambling on hands and knees to the other end of the counter toward the door. Bottles and glasses exploded above his head, and then he realized that several more guns had entered the fight against him. Must be that there were more unfriendly familiars in this tavern than he’d first realized. “Fuck... fuck, fuck. FUCK!” He grabbed a bottle of nearly deadly-proof shine and threw it over the bar. Before it even finished the ark over the counter toward the small gloomy room beyond, he jumped to his feet, eyes narrowing as he concentrated on making what few moves he was gonna manage to make well actually count. His own gun was drawn, and he planted the first incendiary round into the ass of the bottle as it flipped cork over bottom toward the group of angry gunslingers. Glass exploded, followed by the substance that had been safely stored within. A fireball that would have been the envy of any lesser mage flew across the room, soiling the cuirasses and cloaks of three out of his seven new less-than-friends. They screamed, several of them taking glass shrapnel to their hands and face. The one that started the shooting however was smart enough to see it coming, ducking behind his cloak and then tearing the burning fabric off. It seemed he didn’t have any love for the other assailants, at least, because the next moment he landed the blazing cape on the head and back of another shooter, the man wailing in agony and then stumbling out the door to die a’smolder in the streets. “Fuck..” Fisk let off three more shots before ducking, all of them hitting their mark. Brains blasted against the far wall, two dead and one left retarded and bleeding on the other side of his crumbling cover. The counter wasn’t taking the gunfire lightly, shattering and decaying quickly in the hail of bullets. Longstride knew if he was to survive this, he had to move quickly. He took a deep breath, and then leaped over the bar. Four more bullets left his gun, the man that he’d tried to parley eating all of them - Throat, shoulder, chest, and groin. Elcarth rolled across the floor, flipping a table over and then drawing one of his daggers. “Fuck me...” As the table took the barrage of munitions behind him, he reloaded his pistol. “Fuck.. okay!” Last move. He was running out of steam already, and vowed to let substance alone for a few days if he got out of here alive. It wouldn’t do to die now, after proving so few wrong with the assumption he was already dead. He jumped to his feet, spinning on his heel and letting the dagger fly. It took the brute nearest the door - the biggest of the aggressive bunch - and as the body clung to its throat vainly, he dropped the other six. Five more heads of brain matter painted the furniture, and the last shot ignited a grenade on the furthest shade’s belt. Fisk shadowstepped out the front door in time to avoid the blast, but the interior of the bar was erupt with explosion and flame. Before guards showed up, he sullied off, back towards his haven beneath the brawl pub. “Fuck...” He muttered, dejected. Maybe tomorrow would be a better today. This time, he decided to call it an early night. It was only two in the afternoon, but that scene behind him seemed like enough for one. Slinking back to his apartments, he found himself another bottle, and returned his routine of drinking and weeping on his musty old couch.

The city of Stormwind had changed considerably since the Shade had walked its streets. He kept his hood up, scrubbing his palm and dragging his callused fingers roughly across his shaven face. The new scars weren’t the issue, it was his likeness he was trying to hide. There was hardly a soul or visage he recognized as he cut through side streets and back alleys - even still, he kept his head low, glaring from beneath his cowl as he made his way to one of the old townhouses that served as a safehouse for he and the other rogues formerly in the now-disbanded Collective that had funded his entire life of adventure and misdeed. As he approached the building, he quickly realized that the city authority had seized the property and he came to a pause in the shade of an alley across the street, watching grimly as several people came and went inside and out, a handful of carpenters and their hired laborers scurrying about the condemned facility as they made repair and renovation. The rogue shook his head, cursing under his breath before spinning on a heel and disappearing back into the labyrinth of Old Town and the shadier parts of the Alliance capital city. Now that he’d properly made effort to provide himself with the whereabouts of any remaining Collective affiliates, he committed himself to the bitter knowledge that beset him - The Collector was dead, or missing in a manner far too improbable to remedy this time. Fisk Elcarth was a nobody again. He had no ship, he had no crew. His loved ones were all gone, his former organizations scattered or disbanded, including the collective enterprises of Orik Honeybeard, his adoptive father, mentor, and role model for the entirety of his thirty-one years within the world of Azeroth. Now he was lost, trying in vain to fight off the loneliness that had been setting in since last he spoke to the associates he had once, in his own way, cherished and cared for closely. The last correspondent he had made contact with, Louka - “Luke” - now considered him dead. Might as well be, with the entirety of the world he knew in ashes. He continued through the busy, sidewinding alleys he still knew well, although even those had changed considerably. As he rounded a corner on his way to the canal that would link him to the Dwarven District and allow him to escape into the tramway, the backstreet suddenly opened up into a small bazaar, and he halted with a start, ducking just in time to avoid catching a plank of wood to the side of the head as a troupe of laborers sullied toward their next commission, and it was then he truly realized how much had changed. Where rogues once gathered around a shady tree in a cobbled planter there was now an open market, old hovels deconstructed to make room for the growing industries and stalls that now toiled away before him. He scowled, tilting his head curiously to watch a young teenager that once served as a child informant for himself and the rest of the forgotten Collective. The boy had grown considerably, as adolescent humans were wan to do, and now held a respectable position apprenticed to one of the merchants who smiled proudly as the boy sealed the deal on what must have been a very profitable barter. An exchange of goods was made, and Fisk swallowed soberly as the boy cast a glance in his direction. Before the youth’s sweeping gaze could connect with Elcarth’s, the Shade vanished, ducking into another passing crowd. He felt the teen’s lingering gaze, knowing his returning energy would leave the boy feeling vaguely familiar with an unseen recognition. Once he’d made his way through the city and down to the Brawl Pub, Fisk was stumped again when the bartenders denied him from alotting any fees toward the Collective’s tab. Their booths and offices were leased out to other parties, their banners folded and stowed away in the narrow chambers below the seedy bar. The only thing that gave him any sort of hopeful respite was the bill on his own small chamber within the pub’s nearly unheard of residencies. Before the dwarf had disappeared, it seemed he had the heart to pay an unfathomable sum toward the lease on Fisk’s rooms, leaving him with what was now his only safe haven. As he made his way to the quarters, he found his heart sinking to the lowest point it had ever dwelled. Pushing through the room into the gritty apartments, he looked around his old reserve. There were several old mementos he recognized scattered around. Several things were missing, a fact he atoned to the many ladies of the night he had entertained likely returning to collective some compensation for fees left unwagered. Now he was isolate, by himself in the living room chamber of his small complex. The banners and sigils of his former companies still clung loosely to the walls in order to cover up the large greased metal panels that made up the underlairs of the Alliance’s brawl pub. With a deep, solemn sigh, Elcarth went to his little ‘full-sized gnomish refridgerator’ - nothing but a mini-fridge still stocked with tiny bottles of exotic liquor and elixirs from around the known world. He grabbed a beer, popping the top before dropping into caress of his now-musty smelling couch. It was the only comfort he had left, and after a few moments of quiet contemplation and several pulls off the glass bottle of cheap alcohol, the Shade finally allowed the world and his new knowledge to catch up and fully sink in. He lowered his head, and cried. There was nothing left to do, and before he drifted off into a fitful sleep, his body shuddered while he silently wept. 

It had been quite a long while since the silver-tongued thrifts merchant had received a summons from his most exclusive anonymous supplier. He found himself checking the gold pocket watch that sat neatly in the front fitted pocket of his vest. "Alright... I'm here. Where is he?" ------------------------------------------------------------------- Two guards in top quality leathers and Stormwind tabards did their best to scramble across the rooftops, the one trailing furthest behind blowing frantically on a piercingly loud whistle and shouting to be reinforced. The one ahead did his best to get a handful of shots off and avoid a long fall along the way. Up ahead of them and easily doubling their combined speed was a dark-clad rogue, wearing an old hemp canvas duster, the outermost layer so well worn and aged with years of reoiling that it resembled leather, a pair of beat up leather shit kickers with silent soles that might have been worth a pretty penny at one time, and a large collection of recently stolen commodities from one of the lesser Magister armories that all appeared to resonate with magical effect. Fisk had a bandana over his face, a hood over his head to avoid giving too much of his signature dreads away to be sketched later when the two tag-alongs gave up their chase. He reached one hand into one of the duster's pockets, retrieving a small enameled bauble that he quickly crushed and threw at his feet - just as he reached the end of the roof he was surfing and had to jump. A copy of the rogue made the jump and the roll, sprinting on to make a brilliant distraction while the real shade pressed himself against the wall of the alley he'd gracefully dropped into. Once the guards were far enough past that the whistling became distant, the thief turned back the way he'd came, swapping out one bandana for the other, removing the hood to be replaced with a leather cowl that buttoned to the duster's collar. He waved a ring-covered hand towards the ground and the natty boots faded in reverse, reviving to the pretty penny shine they were meant to have. The silence faded as well, the sound of the rogue's footsteps growing til they were a respectable click of hardened leather on old cobbles. He carried on through the public streets without concern and then rounded a corner some time later into another alley. The merchant looked up in surprise, eyeing the former pirate over in his new attire. "Well I'm not sure I ever expected to see you wear a fashion like that, but it suits you well. So are we in business?" Fisk smirked beneath the cover of his bandana, tossing a bag of holding with at least one merchant stall worth of enchanted treasures. "Send your accountant to the Brawl Pub. The Collective will be there to accept your compensation." Before the merchant could rebuttal, another little bauble hit the ground, and the Collector's Shade vanished under a veil of sweet-smelling smoke

A few days after the Collector had paid a visit to the self-exiled Shade, the Honeybeard Collective began to slowly reappear. Crates with the well-renown brand began shipping back into Alliance cities - Stormwind being the most frequented supply point. Collective agents in regally tailored suits quickly took to the markets under the Honeybeard name, shifting prices within a matter of days to better suit the Collector’s business.  It wasn’t long after that before competition began finding unexpected trouble. Survivors from several different trading companies were rescued throughout the week after the influx of Collective marketeers, all with nearly identical reports of a charred crimson ship flying black sails, a blood-red skull with a hood embroidered to the flag. Literal boatloads of weapons and trade commodities became available to the black market overnight, with Collective stamps riddling every box and package. And as all this took place, the Collective’s shades were taking the field, digging through classified file cabinets to identify outside agencies and trading companies - both for potential negotiation and possible targeting. Invitations began slipping under doors and flying through windows via black messenger crows. The Collective was alive again, and a certain group of roaming buccaneers had returned to plague Azeroth’s seas. One survivor reported a name to the Stormwind Dock Authority upon safe return to the Alliance Capitol - The Captain of a black-sailed ship with crimson hulls had sent a request: Don’t interfere with Mischief’s Marauders, lest they wish to pay handsomely to the Shade’s own coffer.

After hours of walking through the woods, the small collective of seafaring brigands came to a stop in front of a condemned building - a small cottage, once occupied by Azerothian sailors who were just fortunate enough to survive landing on the isle generations earlier. There, in front of the building, a line of bodies hung from a single tree, the branches bowed heavily from years of bearing the weight of corpses. Each one of the mummified sailors had tattered flags depicting the gathered collective’s emblem tied around their throats. “This is where we part ways, friends..” The shortest, broadest of the group spoke softly, reaching up to pinch the brow of his nose between his eyes while his free hand searched his jacket, where he’d kept his kerchiefs during the whole walk leading up to the ruined cottage. “An’ I’m afraid we won’t be meeting one another again any time soon.” As the honey-bearded dwarf turned around, the ring of half a dozen bullets cut the air and drowned out the rain for a fraction of a minute. The entire party fell lifeless save the stout proprietor, whom quietly gathered the purses of his lifeless escorts while the storm took over again, continuing to beat down on the foreign landscape. “You shouldn’t have come, Orik.” The old dwarf paused, taking in a gentle sigh of breath as he pocketed the last man’s coin. “Aye, I shoold have stayed home, to let yer animals continue to starve until they rot within my barns.. Nae, lad. Yoo know as well as I that this needed to be done. Yoo’ve been gone long enough, it’s high time yoo pulled together an’ taken over this business yoo left behind... Gods know I won’t be at this forever, boy.” Orik stood up and turned around, coming to face the door that hadn’t been open prior to the party’s sudden slaughter. The rogue that shadowed the doorway only stood out by how much darker his silhouette was in contrast to the darkness surrounding him. “We both know that’s a lie, Orik. You have no plans of leaving Azeroth til all of its conquests have been claimed and signed into your legal possession.” The figure’s dark violet eyes swirled with raw energy that had been left untamed for near too long. “If you came to tell me the ones I left behind want me back, I know already your words are lies. Unless you came for me yourself, and then it is a request you should know I will decline.” “Yoo haven’t even let me speak my peace yet, Fisk.” Orik stepped closer to the door, finding refuge under a piece of roofing still in tact from what still stood of an old porch. “There’s alot on yoor mind, an’ I understand that, but yoo have an obligation. To me, to the clan... an’ to the world yoo left behind. Yoo know the societies we once associated with have crumbled an’ scattered into history since yoor disappearance. Faces we once knew dearly pass by places we once guarded an’ patroned zealously. Yoor men need yoo, Elcarth. Yoor clan needs yoo. I...” The dwarf sniffed, rubbing at his beard - streaked with gray over the single year he’d been working alone. “I can’t do it, Orik. There’s nothing there for me. This isle has enough game left that I can eat until the darkness takes over and by then it won’t be long until the world can write me away into the books as well.” The rogue turned to fall away into the shadows, but before his back could completely turn, the dwarf had come upon him with speed like nobody in the underworld remembered he possessed - save the young rogue whose throat had just been clenched and wrenched down to the bug-ridden floorboards. “Yoo listen to me, lad, an’ yoo listen well. Yoo are sick, an’ yoo know as well as I that death is far from the end of yer suffering. If yoo ever want to feel yoor soul swell with anything more than misery again, yoo’ll drag yer ass out of this rut an’ get on yer damned ship. Gods’ know I’ve left enough bodies along this damned trip fer yoo to build a crew.” Just before the old dwarf let go, he slammed the Shade’s head into the boards one more time, jerking his hand away gruffly as he stood and dusted off his suit. “I’m heading back to the city. Make yer choice, boy. But those boys aren’t gonna keep yer girl from crashin’ int’a them rocks forever.” With that, the Collector drew his hearthstone and vanished within an arcane twist that warped reality around him - leaving the rogue to drag himself to his feet and contemplate those words. The same words he’d more or less been telling himself for nearly a year. A few days later, a jet black crow flew through the window of the Royal Treasurer’s office, startling the King’s own accountant as he did business with the noble Collector whom he owed his position. The mad-eyed bird cawed viciously at the meek serviceman before turning its red glare on the suited dwarf. With a hideous shriek, the avian beast coughed up a scroll written on gold leaf and then burst into flames. “Great gods, Master Collector, what in the Light’s good grace was that all about?” The antiqued crimelord smirked, waving a dismissive hand to the treasurer as he walked away. “Pay yoo no mind, master counter. Yoo continue to tally the good King’s coin, an’ let me worry about this feathery business.” Strolling briskly into the hall and out into the streets of Stormwind, Orik unrolled the little scroll and smiled at the words etched within. “Then yoo made up yer mind. Good. I shall be seeing yoo again soon, lad. An’ the underworld will welcome yoo again. Yoo need only force it to open its arms.” Passing into the trade district, Orik tossed the gold scroll aside to be swept into a gutter, turning to grab a recently printed copy of the local newspaper.  On the front page, a headline read in bolded letters - ‘Seventy-three men have gone missing from Alliance-occupied settlements along all four continents, and recently a survivor was retrieved from wreckage off the coast of Gilneas who wildly reported that he’d seen a black-sailed ship with a dark, charred-crimson hull attack the ship he’d previously been stationed. Apparently, a crew of skeletal shades had slain his comrades and taken his captain with them, leaving only one piece of evidence - a list of men, all of whom were on the list of reported missing, and several more including the now-missing captain whom had all yet to be contacted. The bodies of the survivor’s crew all had one thing in common - a black flag with a crimson, hooded skull wrapped tightly around their throats.