Last Time: Vrykerion, Calowen, Waeryn and Jolsin saw a suspicious column of smoke rising from the necropolis in the depths of Deatholme.  Upon investigating they found a pair of Scourge that were creating a massive abomination to host the soul and mind of the former ruler of Deatholme: Dar’khan.  Acting quickly, they assaulted the two undead.  The battle was intense, but the four paladins luckily succeeded.  In their moment of relief, Calowen threw Vrykerion aside and took a bladed fist to her torso.  The abomination had risen during the battle…  Now Vrykerion stands against the creature that just stole the life of his love…

Vrykerion’s eye twitched and lips curled.  He dropped his shield and rose with sword in hand.  Holy energy began to swirl around him like crackles of lightning in the air.  Waeryn and Jolsin, wide eyed in fear and awe, stepped back out of the room.  Vrykerion bared his teeth, grinding them into each other so hard that his jaw would be in pain for the rest of the week.  He did not care.  He didn’t care about anything except for the monster in front of him.

The stone floor erupted in flashes of consecrated light.  His sword ignited with ripples of holy energy. He tightened his grip on the handles as divine power flashed and erupted into yellow lightning around his body.

“Your brain.  You’re thinking about it too much.”

 “Now try it again.  But this time, don’t THINK the target is an enemy.  FEEL it.”

 Vrykerion did feel it.  It didn’t matter if he never felt anything again in his life, but this he would feel.  Every ounce of anguish, every lost moment of happiness – He would feel them all, and this monstrosity would feel them too, “Divine…  STORM!”

The room ignited with light, blinding both Waeryn and Jolsin momentarily.  When their eyes eventually readjusted to their surroundings, all that remained of the creature that called itself ‘Dar’Khan’ was a lump of fleshy bits and the occasional bone piercing out from the pile.

Vrykerion was on his knees next to the remains of Calowen, sobbing and screaming.  Calowen’s body was decimated; her entire torso was nothing but a cavity that was hollowed out like a rind of a well eaten melon. He kept trying to conjure the holy light only to have it dissipate as it landed on her body, “Damn you.  DAMN YOU!  Give her back to me!”

Jolsin stepped behind him and tried to put his hand on Vrykerion’s shoulder only to have it batted away, “Look Vry,  I’m sorry.  I really am.  The Light may be able to restore the soul to the body but…”  Jolsin voice cracked, a sob of his own joining in, “But there’s not much a body for it to return to, Vry.”

Vrykerion ignored him.  He kept trying the spells.  He filled himself with Light and tried over and over to transfer it, any of it, into Calowen’s husk of a body.

“Light damn you, Vrykerion!  She isn’t one of your gadgets or toys!  You don’t have the tools to fix her. None of us do!”

Vrykerion leapt to his feet and grabbed Jolsin’s collar, lifting him into the air slightly.  Waeryn drew his sword in preparation to defend his teammate.  Vrykerion’s eyes focused on Jolsin, his quivering lips contorting between rage and sorrow, “The Light IS my tool.  I. WILL. FIX. HER.” He threw Jolsin into Waeryn and pointed at the door.  They left, leaving Vrykerion to kneel back down and try again and again to bring Calowen back.  No one saw him again for another two days.

—

Tears fell on the parchment, leaving some stains of wetness as Vrykerion finished the last of the sketches of the myriad of assorted parts.  He had removed his goggles some time ago, and now his quill sat on the desk with them.  He looked over his drawings and notes, trying to make sure he didn’t miss anything.  A choked sob escaped his lips as he picked up the quill again to jot down a few extras notes.

For the first time in hours, he spoke, “Once the components are understood, you can work to develop primary steps for assembly.”  With that Vrykerion wiped his eyes away and took out another sheet of parchment and began to draw a schematic.

—

“What in the name of Kael’thas the traitor do you MEAN you are leaving the Blood Knights?” Kitarin screamed at his son, mere inches from his face, “Do you want me and your mother to die copper-less in these slums?  Maybe a warlock will use our souls to conjure a demon now that you’ve RIPPED THEM OUT!”  His father’s fist, easily dodged, slammed into the wall.

“Kitarin, please, maybe we should hear his reasons,” Vrykerion’s mother, Arista, pleaded.

“What reason could he possibly have to justify murdering his own family?!”

Arista sobbed, “Please can we at least wait until after you’ve come down off the thistle to talk about this?”

“And where will you go, Sir Paladin?  Will you join the war to be a big hero like your brother?  You want to die to those kaldorei bastards like him too?”

Vrykerion stood there, without an expression on his face.  His cold and dead eyes peering out from the broken lens of his goggles dangling from the first punch that his father did actually land, “No.  I have no interest in joining the war.”

“Then where will you go?” Arista asked, her small voice penetrating through the crying.

“I don’t know.  Away.” Vrykerion said.  His voice was a forced monotone, “Away from here.”

“You arrogant piece of filth!  At least Herio was a war hero.  You?  You’re just a coward to abandon your family. And after everything we did for you?  We put you in that academy, and we gave you everything your brother left behind, just to make sure you had a good and prosperous life,”  Kitarin stepped back shaking his head.

“You did that because you blew every silver on bloodthistle and got thrown out of the Exchange and you wanted Herio and then me to drag you back into the limelight by having some level of respectability.”

Kitarin let out a roar and dove at Vrykerion.   Vrykerion grabbed his wrist and threw Kitarin against the wall.  Vrykerion then proceeded to grab Kitarin’s shirt and flip him over his head and onto the table, breaking it in half.  Kitarin tried to pull himself to his feet, only to twist his back and collapse back onto the rubble.

“I would suggest not trying again,” Vrykerion said as he turned, grabbed a sack by the door, and walked out.

“Good riddance!” Kirarin shouted out from the small apartment with the cries of his mother in the background, “And don’t let me ever hear that you used our family name! You are not my son!”

Vrykerion walked across the city to the royal tower where he used the Orb of Translocation to reach the Undercity.  He drew the gnomish pocket watch out from his pants and reached his thumb to open up the lid and see the time but he stopped.  He looked at the watch for a moment and thought, ‘Time for them to be dead to me too.’  He threw the watch as hard as he could at the walls of the Ruins of Lordaeron and watched it shattered in pieces, each one raining down onto the stone floor.

He began to march off solemnly but stopped after twenty steps or so.  He turned at looked at the ruined device, scattered into wheels, cogs and springs across the ground.  He swallowed hard and ran back and gathered them all up in a small brown linen bag. He then slid down the walls of the ruined human capital and began to sob, clutching the bag tightly.  He let everything out.  The screams of frustration, the raging and hateful things he wanted to say to his father, and all the tears from breaking his mother’s heart.

After a half hour, his anguish finally began to subside. He wiped his eyes and stood back up.  The time for sorrow had ended.  The time for revenge against the Scourge had begun.

—

Vrykerion put the finishing strokes on his blueprints.  It was a lavish design, worthy of a gnome tinkerer.  He smiled at himself, “As primary steps are established, secondary and tertiary steps will automatically become apparent.”  He pulled out a pair of tweezers from his gnomish army knife and picked up a cog, “Once ready, assembly can begin.”

Thus concludes Chapter 1: Design, To Be Continued in Chapter 2: Assembly.

Thus ends the first chapter of the story. While admitedly the second part is not finished yet, trust that I will have it posted here on the same Saturday schedule when it is.  I hope you enjoyed the first half of this little tale!