The Shadow Stirring.

[[Sorry for the cheesy title, nothing else is good enough! Now... VIATRIX VERRANOS will, once again, be absent for a LONG time while I'm away - again - to complete my studies. I shall return, for a while at least, in July. Until then, I needed an IC reason for Viatrix's absence: we've had 'studies in Dalaran', 'work in Northrend' and 'Twilight kidnapping'.

Now I want something a little more intriguing and a little more dramatic. THE DANGER IS THAT THIS WILL LEAD TO A CRUSHING ANTI-CLIMAX ON MY RETURN, which I'd like to avoid. So... Spread the word! Tell people, OOCly, to come read this and find out where your leader has gone. And tell people ICly to speak to one of the people who was there, learn what happened, try to investigate it (with no luck)! Have fun with the idea that a big-scary-thing has appeared!]]

The whispering had woken her again, yet again, from somnolent musing in the undercroft. Since her time in Deepholme the voices visited her. Viatrix Verranos had been settled in thought, wandering the shallow caverns of her intellect, when it had spoken again. The word was clear: "Shadow". The rest was less distinct: "Reaching the Whispering Shore, rising from the water, swimming in the mist", that had been her most recent guess; the voice was becoming clearer.

Now she waited in Brill and called about her anyone who could witness whatever might happen. She had read all the current research and the creature which they had encountered in the Agamand Crypt had only confirmed what she had suspected. Now, she hoped, her work would come to fruition. The four who came would do; anyone could witness it; loyalty was the only thing that mattered, this could be assured from any of the Spine.

Her research in Dalaran had all led to this; anticipation imbued her brittle bones, for a moment, with a distant sensation, a half forgotten thrill: excitement. Excitement which, for a moment, quickened her pace as she marched the small party out of Brill’s northern entrance. Mortality brushed alongside her, for one moment and then it was gone with the sickening crack of her knee joint as it felt the slam of the cobbled pavestones: a sharp reminder of her sinful state.

They reached the Whispering Shore just as the moon rose up from the surf and dusted the wave-break with a silver sheen. A pack of Murlocs could be seen creeping away off to the west; doubtless they had seen the Forsaken approach from the south and decided they’d finish their hunt empty handed. Viatrix pulled up her gown and waddled out onto the ashen sand, desperate to avoid dirtying the spotless hem of her robe.

Once some way onto the beach she turned with a smile at the four who walked with her: Redwalt, Lynnea, Bearach and Anwell were a little way off. As they reached her, the questioning began: what were they doing, why were they here? She could answer none of it: not why, not yet. She asked only (in that measured, merry tone of hers) that they trust her and wait while she completed the work she had started in Dalaran. They were not to interfere. The Chaplain was entrusted with the one object which had to stay behind and be kept (for it was key that it was kept): Viatrix passed her a shattered remnant of her Shard: the glass was tarnished and blackened; the edge jagged and torn.

The four of them stayed half way along the beach, the misty air hung about them and the sea yawned as it sunk upon the dull earth. Viatrix moved along the sand and then turned cautiously towards the shallows. "Reaching the Whispering Shore, rising from the water, swimming in the mist": the voice was no longer echoing inside her fetid skull, yet it still cut past the mumble of the ocean and the giggle of a far-off flock of gulls.

She snapped her fingers and conjured the tome she needed (‘The Emporium of Archdusk, by G. Lucinox) flicking with precision to the third chapter. The ritual was completed with ease, she had been practicing for months now and the whole it, in all its marvellous complexity, had been learnt, rehearsed and learnt again once a mistake was uncovered. She paused for a breath, stood upright and looked out at the glimmering skyline.

Then she whispered the incantation. Stillness crashed upon the shore. Each wave froze at the crest and the sand ceased to waver in the wind.

Then it emerged. Shadow at first, all shadow and nothing more, slinking up from the shallowest pool of muddy water which had settled at her feet with the rising tide; then a gnawing maw of twisted teeth, or things that glimmered like teeth, or darkness fashioned as if it might glimmer as a fang in the fading moonlight; great claws swept out from the voided heart of the thing and swept over, under, all about the shrinking purple woman; then the thing leant forward and she was consumed. Viatrix vanished in a deadened heartbeat. The thrashing tendrils of darkness collapsed inward on the point where had stood and the shadow vanished with her.

[[Had to rush the end bit, apologies for any typo's or sill mistakes. FEEDBACK IS MOST WELCOME! AND DON'T FORGET: YOUR CHARACTER CAN LEARN ABOUT THIS OFF ONE OF THE FOUR CHARACTERS MENTIONED. It would be WONDERFUL to have some investigation into this occur in-game, post any stories relating to your work here!]]