((Story))
Time was spent, simply and interminably, attempting to claw tooth and nail out of a ditch. Each layer of mud caked onto her fingertips resembled an opened scab, cracking apart and fruitlessly trying to bandage itself only to be shattered again. The slop would solidify and then, under pressure, crumble to dirt. Wet with blood, tears, and occasional rainfall, the hands that dug into the mud would receive their gloves once more.
She tried. Endlessly, she tried.
The grub-infested Plaguelands sealed her away for the first time since her reanimation, merely because she couldn't climb. It was the longest period of Arete's life where she had gone entirely without food, water, bathing; all of these were luxuries that many Forsaken had clearly already abandoned. She wholly felt inhuman.
Countless hours had passed, engraving a static portrait of the sky above into the Forsaken's brain. Bleak amber clouds of poison bled across the sky, wafting aimlessly over the stretch of dead land and the fissure in which Arete laid. Without the will or ability to crane her neck in a different direction, this was all Arete observed for several days straight.
"Maybe I'll just close my eyes and fall asleep." Obliging, her eyelids hung formlessly over her empty sockets. A simple smile snuggled itself on Arete's lips, confident she would drift into dreamland. She made a bed of the pebbles, roots, and rocks-- ignoring the pestilence in the air-- and swept a mound of dirt and leaves upon her as a makeshift blanket. Tucking her hands beneath her cheek for a pillow, Arete sighed and relaxed. The wind whistled in her ears, every minute slowly ticking by with little slipping from her weary consciousness.
Sleep never came. When she opened her eyes after what seemed to be an eternity, nothing had moved. The stars must have frozen in place. Peering at the ground above, she noticed a lumbering carrion devourer had only progressed a few yards forward and showed no signs of prior napping. It steadily marched off in an arbitrary direction.
Arete's head crashed back into her soil cot, her comfortable smile rudely roused from its resting place. Sleep never came.
The toxic atmosphere seared the soft sunlight into a burnt orange color, igniting the landscape as dawn trickled over it. Arete clutched her caved stomach with thoughts of breakfast, certain she should find something to eat soon. Nothing of dietary contribution thrived in the Plaguelands: all game was turgid, the water was foul, and all plants had withered. The only living creatures that came to mind were the members of the Argent Dawn posted at either end of the Plaguelands and the few Scarlets roaming around. Scarlets... like blood, full of sustenance--
--no! She couldn't possibly be that hungry. It had only been a few days, and already she was contemplating eating a human? The thought turned her stomach, yet flipped it right back into place to let it growl. Arete wiped the saliva pooling at the corners of her mouth and shook her head fiercely. She would have to be strong and survive, but first she had to get out of the pit. The moment she reached the top, she could grab her hearthstone and be home free.
Arete immediately sat up and bolted at full speed toward the edge of the trench, tearing at the dirt madly in search of leverage. She leaped up and stabbed at the wall with every finger, tossing dirt in her eyes, hair, and mouth in her fervor. She shrieked as she scaled the ramp, desperate for an escape. Stupid foolish priestess. No strength, no agility, no flexibility, no ropy muscle coiled around her blackened bones, no nothing to help her get out of this pit except faith. No beam of Light would illuminate Arete and levitate her to the surface, nor would some Naaru materialize from thin air to pluck and place Arete within the Shattrath sanctuary. Faith was nothing but selfish wishing and her denial of reality. Her kind of being is an abomination and, by all laws that deterred the path of evil, she should not be. She was a walking opposition to the holiness she revered. She and all her kind were the A-list enemies of every faction on Azeroth. Scourge was Scourge, and sentience only made her more dangerous. These so-called Forsaken converted their fallen kingdom into an underground bastion as a secret headquarters to concoct an elixir that can eliminate all life. Honestly, the name they're going with is "Forsaken", as if they had been betrayed? With a ringleader like Putress, any regime these monsters commit themselves to has no limit to its psychosis.
Molten rage surged through Arete. Her empty eyeholes flared as her lips parted and belted out a scream of agony, her rotted tongue and missing teeth bearing witness to the world after two months of hiding. A verbal torrent of anguish resounded across the Plaguelands, inciting an angry response from the bats sleeping in the nearby trees. The Forsaken girl and the bats contested passively, the pitch of each argument ringing throughout the area. When her voice gave, she began again, each wail warbling with more distress than the last. Blind with anger, Arete burrowed into the dirt slope, oblivious to the disturbed bats steadily approaching. Incredibly agitated, a noxious bat swooped down and attacked Arete, screeching and scratching with its hooked feet. Her arms flailed wildly in protest of the aerial assault, unlatching her from the roots protruding from her digging. Her toes grazed along a foothold for recovery, breaking gravity and evading a seven foot straight fall. She tumbled to the ground exhausted and defeated, remaining silent while the bat finished scolding her and returned to its nest.
The sun rose and fell, but Arete's existence persisted. Food never came. Nor was it necessary.
A putrid scent sliced her nostrils and fatigued trance in two. The festering Scourge that had been smothered beneath a suitable spread of dirt had been upturned, the flesh baking in the midday sun. The stench was suffocating. Every pore itched to close, her throat and eyes following suit. Arete felt the partially-digested food in her stomach writhe against her twitching organs, tickling her gag reflex. She lurched upward, peristalsis in reverse, and spit up a viscous liquid. It splattered audibly against a vertical, vague surface, oozing down like heavy resin. The stink was so thick in the air it blurred her vision temporarily; all she could see was a pulsating sheet of yellow interrupted by her black vomit. The wall groaned and began to move, irked by the sticky affliction. Recovering from her purge, Arete slowly backed away as the object turned about-face with a sickly squelch.
A massive carrion grub gnashed its spongy mandibles, admiring its future feast. A creep this size had a particular name: Arete had retched on the treacherous Borelgore. The four petals of its mouth unpuckered, revealing the sloppy, endless innards that ran through its girth. Arete stared at the depths of the beast, paralyzed in horror. Faster than Arete had anticipated, Borelgore advanced with its maw agape, ready to swallow Arete whole.
Arete ran to the monster's side in a panic, each roll of its exterior rushing past her without end in sight. Weary from her dormancy, she collapsed in a heap after only a few steps. She looked up from the ground and saw nothing but jaundice yellow looming over her. It towered at nearly twice her height, perhaps more, and slithered beside Arete like a serpent. In a struggle to chase the girl, Borelgore made a wide turn, almost full circle, kicking up dust and bones and knocking over mounds of refuse within the fault. Arete scurried up a crooked rock as she ran opposite of the maggot's direction, cautious as it wobbled beneath her feet. Completing its turn, Borelgore charged head first into Arete's platform, the rock flying past Borelgore's head and taking Arete with it. She slammed into the top hatch of the worm's divided opening, knocking the wind from her. Her arms stretched across and gripped Borelgore's head, but her legs dangled freely in front of its mouth.
Her fingers pierced into Borelgore's segmented flesh. She grit her teeth and prayed. She couldn't help it. Her legs kicked at the air as she tried pulling herself up and on top of its head. Its bated breath tainted her feet and its spittle dotted her legs as it roared with temptation. The air curdled with the smell of digested, rotten flesh seeping from Borelgore's gullet. Arete threw up again, the pitch gushing from the corners of her lips then down her chin to dribble onto her chest. She coughed up the rest, staining Borelgore's head. The grub shook angrily, gargling in anticipation of its meal and in anger that it wasn't in its stomach yet. Arete's legs swung back and forth like a pendulum which Borelgore followed intently, gradually succumbing to the hypnosis brought on by its hunger.
Borelgore threw its head back to take the bait, tossing her legs upward and securely situating Arete on its "neck". As far as Arete was concerned, she was out of Borelgore's reach. Eyeless and dim-witted, the giant larvae whipped its head in every direction in search of its prey. The ground shifted under its tiny, stomping legs. Arete reluctantly rose to stand during the behemoth's temper tantrum but was instantly thrown onto her back when Borelgore began its frenzied darting around the pit. It shoved its side repeatedly into the rocks strewn about its path, marring its soft meat in order to buck its rider. Arete clung to the grub, helpless and afraid. As Arete pleaded for the Light's assistance, Borelgore insanely headbutted the sides of the enclosure over and over. Dirt and rocks misted over the pair, an especially large one hitting Arete on the head. Arete felt for the stone in a punch drunk daze, her fingers tracing over a spiral embossed into the unusually smooth rock. Arete beamed; this was her ticket out of here.
A wicked cackle escaped from what shouldn't have been a priestess as she admired her newfound hearthstone with glee. She held it close to her heart as it illuminated with tender nature magic. In her hands she held the only seed of life for miles amidst the Plaguelands, and in a few seconds it would bring her home safely. Her body snapped against Borelgore's continued thrashing but her arms stayed stiff and close to her chest, gripping the magic stone in a vice. A final thud cracked Arete's spine, thrusting the hearthstone from her grasp and onto a ledge above the bronco.
Had she known any of the words, Arete would have cursed up a storm. Her fingers burrowed into Borelgore's flesh deeper, obliviously puncturing the first layer of flesh. Hatred simmered and stewed within her, now slowly bubbling to the surface.
She heard Putress' oily chortling beneath his wooden plague doctor beak. She remembered the way he rubbed his elongated fingers together, tented and scheming. Tortuous sounds occupied her entire skull, resounding back and forth as if in a large, empty room with stone walls. Images flashed of Lordaeron, rose petals, orcs hogtied and hopeless on the back of a cart, farmers waving torches and pitchforks, wax crayons, a rabbit pelt laying in a forest clearing, dead trees, Alterac, snow--
"I cannot die again!"
Arete raked her fingers down the monster's back and it growled in pain. She then harnessed the strips of flesh between the oozing wounds to lead the maniac toward the edge of the pit. Arete steered the makeshift reins up a gradual slope of laughable elevation for a creature like Borelgore, and the worm miserably obeyed. Its tiny feet scuttled up and onto the mainland. With the bite of her lip and a grimace, Arete punched between the lacerations to create a gushing hole that enveloped the now-seemingly minor injuries. Borelgore nearly squawked as the new malady jolted through every rung of its pudgy body. Arete was finally bucked off and landed in the dirt, dangerously close to the edge of her previous prison. As Borelgore careened into the distance, Arete edged away from the ditch and surveyed the area for her long-abandoned belongings.
She salvaged what remained of her shredded backpack, apparently ravished by the Scourge wandering around the area. A change of clothes remained within it, although torn, along with some indiscernible molded food. A breath of euphoria lifted Arete to a state of delirious tunnel vision: she saw her hearthstone, laying in a bit of mud, and nothing else. Transfixed, she crawled on her hands and knees and gingerly procured the stone, wiping its familiar spiral pattern clean. Arete quickly baled the little she found in her lap, then pressed the relic to her face in adoration. The caressing nature magic returned and in a flash of gold light, she vanished.
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