Ravenholdt

Owen greeted Charlie in his favorite way: with a jaw-shattering punch to the face. Charlie dropped to the ground, looking up while clutching the point of impact.

Warester Van Dam: Do you have anything to say for yourself, Charlie? Please, tell me it wasn’t all because of the new codename Myrokos threatened to give you at Jintha’alor.*

He said nothing.

Warester Van Dam: You have nothing to say in your own defense?

Charlie remained tight-lipped.

Warester Van Dam: What should I tell your parents?

Charlie Vidal: Tell ‘em to go suck a lemon!

Disappointment washed over the Grand Master’s face.

Warester Van Dam: So be it then. Owen?

The burly Legionnaire grabbed the disgraced former Nightslayer by his neck and dragged him all the way to the steep ledge that bordered Ravenholdt’s community. Situated high in the mountains, the ledge marked a wicked discent with only sharp rocks waiting below. It was the same ledge that Warester and company had boldly leapt off when they utilized Qu’s experimental hang gliders. Charlie was distinctly lacking that particular piece of equipment this time.

Warester Van Dam: Charlie Vidal, a.k.a. Charlie the Knife, a.k.a. Charlie the @#$%ing asshole, you have committed treason against Ravenholdt. You allied repeatedly with our greatest enemies, exposed our most guarded secrets, and lead a strikeforce into your own homeland. You endangered the lives of everyone under Ravenholdt’s auspices, and you offered no explanation for your actions. For this, now you take your chances with the mountain.

Travot Ravenholdt: And the mountain usually wins.

Warester Van Dam: Do it.

With a mighty heave, Owen tossed Charlie off the precipice. His elongated “Noooooo” grew fainter as the distance increased, and eventually he fell beyond their line of sight. They turned, content with his demise.

Robere de Changee: We left our friends back there!

Warester Van Dam: I’m aware of that, and rest assured that I do not intend to abandon Myrokos and Percy to fate. Nor will we abandon the too-long-abused peasants of Alterac. How long before the those Chancellor re-enforcements hit Alterac?

Travot Ravenholdt: You could see them coming over the hilltop with the naked eye. They were close.

Warester Van Dam: Owen, or should I now say Grand Marshal Zverenhoff? Rally the Ramrod Legion. We march to Alterac City with extreme urgency.

Owen Zverenhoff: Yes sir!

Warester Van Dam: Robere, you are the Nightslayer field leader now. Assemble them for the same.

Robere de Changee: Right away!

Ravenholdt was technically within Alterac’s borders, and therefore they could conceivably reach Alterac’s capital quickly and without interference. Of course, there was no way they would get there in time. The Chancellor’s reinforcements would get their first, and the only thing standing in their way were the friends he left behind and Perenolde’s inspirational words to the peasantry. If they could hold out long enough, the forces from Ravenholdt would arrive and from behind lend support. Van Dam prayed to the Light that the man Terenas had selected to rule Alterac was capable of leading a revolution.

Travot Ravenholdt: You want the other agents all mobilized?

Warester Van Dam: No. They need to stay here for now. Our mountain home is in more danger than it has been since its inception, back when the Arathor Empire dissolved. Qu, would you mind explaining to me how a couple of pagan mages managed to walk right into our nerve center and completely disable us?

Qu: They side-stepped all the blockades. Charlie must have told them everything!

Warester Van Dam: Between Charlie and the Other we are potentially completely exposed. I’m bringing us to Red Alert. I want full defensive measures, and I want the scryers to completely start over! A whole new obfuscation matrix!

Ravenholdt employed its own scryers whose soul responsibility was to continuously keep unencoded magical transmissions away from the community. This included all forms of magical communication and all physical transportation portals or teleportation spells to Ravenholdt. Their magical matrix would simply plant the would be-teleporter somewhere else. Caxagord and Meryl shouldn’t have been able to just pop in there, but Charlie must have somehow acquired the codes.

Travot Ravenholdt: I’ll give them the order, but they ain’t going to be happy about that.

Warester Van Dam: I’m not here to please them. They’re paid handsomely, so make sure they do their damned jobs! I also want the town guards fully equipped with all necessary weaponry, including anti-caster gear.

Qu: Consider it done.

Warester Van Dam: And get that communication stone network up and running, permanently! I want to be able to hear more than your over-exaggerations on the network!

Qu: I apologized already for that.

Warester Van Dam: Well that’s not enough! We can’t afford screw ups like that!

Travot Ravenholdt: This coming from the guy who didn’t realize that Caxagord had an enormous symbol of Mnesthes on his chest! Didn’t you say he showed it off to you when you first met?

Warester Van Dam: It didn’t look that way before! He must have used some kind of magical illusion.

Qu: You know, I did invent those Ultra-Spectropic Detection Goggles for a reason. It strikes me that if you agents used them more, we wouldn’t run into as many “illusion” problems.

Warester Van Dam: I… You’re right Qu, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you, but it has been a… harrowing ordeal. To lose so many friends, and Hellen, and then to come here and see that we’ve allowed the Ancient Egg to fall into pagan hands…

The realization then struck him. It came after reflecting on Meryl’s statement that revealed he had knowledge of Krol and the Archivist prophecies.

Meryl was after the Ancient Egg from the beginning. He couldn’t act overtly in the Egg’s acquisition because he would have alerted the other members of the Council to his scheme. Van Dam recalled Myrokos stating that within Jintha’alor, trolls loyal to Mnesthes also desired to take the Egg south, to Ulmat Thondr. No doubt Meryl was in league with them and their “prophet.”

Meryl must have know the situation with the trolls was too volatile to ensure capture of the Egg, so he needed to remove it from Jintha’alor. He adopted yet another pseudonym, “B.J.,” and intimated a relationship with Krol based on their mutual prophetic knowledge. The resources he had access to were enough to catch Travot’s interest, and the Lord of Ravenholdt accepted the mission.

Meryl, like Relfthra, knew about Akaerna-Sagai. If he also knew about the corruption in the Xie bloodline, he’d have known that the Other would have lusted after the Ancient Egg as the ultimate power source. It was also an absolutely safe bet that the Other would use the Chancellor’s home, where it was worshipped, as a place to grow in strength as it attempted to consume the Egg. Due to it being decisively easier to capture the egg while in transit rather than while secure in Jintha’alor, Meryl was banking on the Other absconding with the Egg to Alterac once he manipulated the agents of Ravenholdt into making the prize vulnerable.

Relfthra had already contacted Van Dam about infiltrating Alterac. From that point, it was easy for Meryl to jump on his fellow Councilmen’s mission into the City. Once there, he killed two birds with one stone. Not only did he trick Van Dam into freeing “Korialstrasz” and releasing the Golems in accordance with prophecy, but he was also in prime position to capture the Egg. He though he’d convince Travot and Owen to help him in the palace’s library, but Travot’s level of extreme aversion to helping anyone was something he could not have predicted. Travot screwed up his plans, and Meryl ended up getting knocked the hell out by the Chancellors. Of course, he’d had a Plan B in Caxagord the entire time. Caxagord, who “coincidentally” found his way into becoming a major player at Fenris, where Alterac’s invasion was initially planned. Plan B did succeed, with Caxagord infiltrating the coup and making off with the Egg (and even, unbeknownst to Warester, trapping the essence of Xostheron/Xie’s Other inside it. Without Hellen, whom they were looking for, Akarena-Sagai’s essence couldn’t be absorbed by the Egg).

Meryl had completely manipulated the chain of events to bring the Ancient Egg from Jintha’alor to Alterac and eventually into his possession. Warester realized he’d been played from the beginning by an exceptionally cunning and complex Xanatos Gambit. The Grand Master almost couldn’t help but admire the depth of plot.

Warester Van Dam: That magnificent undead bastard…

Qu: Excuse me?

Warester Van Dam: Nothing, just putting the pieces together.

Then, other urgent matters sprang to the Grand Master’s mind.

Warester Van Dam: Lordaeron! We have to warn them that the Golems they were animating are the result of an unholy alliance between the Dead Gods of Alterac and the Black Dragonflight!

Qu: I’m afraid they already found out the hard way. We got word while you were away that the Golems turned on Lordaeron’s forces during an engagement with Hesperian forces. The metal monstrosities started killing indiscriminately.

Warester Van Dam: Send a message posthaste to King Menethil informing him of what we learned about the Golems. Warn him the Black Dragonflight is still a threat, and its possible they could still usurp control of the war-machines.

Travot Ravenholdt: Can do, right after I go check on Lolita.

Warester Van Dam: Good. Now, I’m going to join the march back to Alterac with the Ramrods and Nightslayers. You hold down the fort.

Travot Ravenholdt: Gotcha.

Travot paused, but called back to the Grand Master as he walked away.

Travot Ravenholdt: Van Dam, do you really think the Black Dragons are a threat?

Warester Van Dam: Caxagord warned us they would be. We shouldn’t ignore that.

That statement was truer than they thought, for Charlie Vidal never hit the rocks at the base of Ravenholdt Mountain. Charlie Vidal died back in Alterac city, killed by his impersonator. The thing that was thrown off the mountain was able to shed its magical guise before impact, sprouting two enormous, black wings. Atrumarion, the vile black dragon, had flown away from Ravenholdt with only the most evil of intentions…



* Way back in October -- Gurt

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