There the party stood, though standing isn't the right word. Braced is more like it. Onslaught of wave after wave of dragonkin poured towards them. All with a lust for blood, rage driving these poor souls.
These hero's had been through much already. All trying to keep the wheels of time from being disrupted. They battled for their present, though bleak as it was, they stood their ground, in their past, for their future.
Shadow volley after ice blast beat at the group. Whelps screeched as they nipped at the party members, wanting no more than to tear the adventurers gaze away from their task so ultimate destruction could claim the land. But they wouldn't be swayed. There they pushed, summoning every ounce of strength they could muster to continue for a future already seen.
Here we come across the priestess, her form only protected by the thin layer of cloth allowed. Magics flow better when they've no way to be disrupted.
She was no more important than any other in her party, in fact, maybe even less so. She didn't brave her body against the blades of those wicked foes. She didn't growl striking fear into the hearts of ones thought not to be afraid. She wasn't skilled in burning flesh, nor commanding ice to rain down on opponents, freezing the wings of the dragons in place.
She didn't control demons with a thought, nor could she rake the thick hides of the beast that now assaulted them. She simply stood in one place, watching the horrors unfold upon those around her. Feeling inadequate in her abilities of usefulness. Bravery wasn't to be seen by her, though she traversed the same scene. She would not be remembered for it.
She felt drained. No, it was worse than drained, at least being drained she could rest and regain her strength in order to continue on, this wasn't the case. She was still standing and feverishly repeating the same incantations over and over again, only a name change every so often dictating who the receiver of her holy power would be this time.
With each spell she felt herself slipping further and further into exhaustion, darkness teetering on the edge of her vision. No! She thought to herself. She wasn't going to fail them, this band she happened to be thrown in with while exploring the rumored alteration of time in the caves in Tanaris.
Slow from her single minded determination she didn't notice the giant of a wyrmkin charging for her. A hard jab shook her back into the chaos of the scene. Too many, there were too many of them. The dragons poured out of rips in space, a never ending stream. And when they believed to have defeated those that wished chaos, another tear would appear.
It was enough to make even the sternest warrior shake, and shake did this priestess. She believed doom to be closing in. The rapid clank of metal and a curse was picked up by her sensitive ears. The warrior was running to aid the frightened priest, the blows causing her to feel even more feeble in her attempts to keep every one's souls intact.
She called upon her priestess for protection, to place a small shield of air around her so she may continue on her cause.. Her priestess didn't answer. "You're kidding me..." The priestess uttered. In all her times of need Elune picked now, when the priestess own present lay in the balance, to ignore her plea for help. The pain coursed through her as the draconian swung again slicing a gash in her midsection knocking the wind out of her as well.
The others must have seen this, the other power hungry beasts wishing to tear the party apart. They turned towards the faltered priestess, glee in their movements. She saw doom approaching swiftly, surely there was no hope if she were to be feasted upon and ripped from limb.
"Just fade away." The thought took no more than an instant to toy with and she did nearly that. Doubling over in pain her form went incorporeal as if she'd turned to fog resembling that of her former being.
Either the vile dragons believed they'd done their work in silencing the her for good, or were more amused by the warriors cry in anguish, for they turned once again and joined the rest of her tiring adventurers in the fray.
The priestess brooded, her innate belief crushed. "She abandoned me...My goddess is gone and I'm left to fend for myself, what sort of loving goddess does that?" It was almost unbearable to think of, pulling her concentration from that of the outer to her inner self. The pain in her chest was almost greater than her wound.
But her inner monologue didn't last long, there were others she wouldn't disappoint as she had just been let down. Casting a quick mending spell on herself she rose with a new will, a new want.
"I shall show her that she does not grant the power. It is I that holds the talent, and her that teaches. I will show her there's more that a Goddess isn't even gifted with."
Determined to see through this battle, darkness overtook her soul. The rage was quick to build and the spell spit out with a new found fury. "Come from the darkness, feast on their souls! Make their misery into my power and give me what I desire."
The shadow materialized in the blink of an eye. A hideous thing to most, some sort of deformed monster the likes of nothing found on Azeroth. It tilted his head back with a snarl that no ears could hear. It's razor like teeth gnashed in the darkness that it was.
It was the shadows, not just of them. Eagerly it crawled forward towards it's prey, skittering on two thick beast-like arms, it's mound of a body dragging behind it, seeming to not hinder the horrors speed.
Propping its self on one limb, its half body ending in tendrils of black stretching behind it, helping with support, the creature swung its claw-like arm at the nearest whelpling. It's talons ripping the form from every plane not just the visual one.
The priestess watched in corrupted delight. With every swing the beast got its fill on pain. With every swing she could feel herself being blanketed in darkness, drinking it up. Sorrow never felt so good. Rage kept her going. Determination to be more than even her lovely Goddess was.
The power of torment soothed her, quelled her fears. She knew that in the back of her mind that there was always more than enough suffering in the world and she'd learned how to draw upon it. With the fiends help she learned to harness their cries of anguish, to turn what most would see as a disaster into her driving force.
A wicked grin passed over her face as she muttered the spells of her healing goddess in a mocking tone. "Oh no, we will survive, and we will do so because of the shadows, and not of the light." She told herself.
Content with her display of supremacy she drank up the last of the beast. Consuming his hatred and anger for her own uses. She was almost sad to end the beasts joy in devastation, but his form would add to her strength.
In the darkness there was power, an unimaginable resource of it. And here she stood, aware of such greatness, of the raw energies that plane held, of the aid awaiting one brave enough to delve and harness it for their own.
Here she stood knowing what others couldn't see. Open heart, open mind, as her father would have said. Here she stood knowing she'd learn to control it well.
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