((Bit of a prologue: After months of searching for her dead son, Patrick Teller, Lady Teller has discovered her searching has come to an end. Agreeing to meet the anonymous contact that has viable information about the lost mage apprentice, she hurries to an empty lookout tower near SI:7 in Stormwind.
Meanwhile, Anisse grows more apprehensive between the cultist attacks, these missing fliers depicting the boy she'd murdered months ago, and now a stalker of sorts. Something's gotta give...))
Lady Teller rushed over to the secretive district that housed SI:7 and the roguish sort. It'd been a place she'd avoided time and time again, and not because of the uncouth citizens of the so-called Old-Town. Love affairs had been a weakness in her youth, ever the romantic as she was, and she'd fallen for a dangerous, svelte assassin who always seemed to know exactly what to say to make her heart go aflutter. Still, romance had no place in her studies, and when her apprenticeship took her away from Stormwind, she began to visit the old tower less and less, until what affection that settled in her heart trickled away with the years like so much arcane dust. Looking at the old abandoned tower now, the aging mage felt the palpitations of her heart flutter once more, as they did when she was just a foolish girl.
...the nights that were had in that tower were absolutely scandalous...
It was a suprise when the anonymous tip-off lead her here, before the tower again, and Sorceress Teller counted every step she climbed to get to the top as she did when she was that lovestruck apprentice over twenty years ago. Her son Patrick had the same heart as she, eager for tales of romance and lovely women--he was a troublemaker as soon as he discovered that girls in fact, did not have rabies. A small amusement lifted the weight off her heavy heart, giving her the hope that perhaps he'd found a sweet thing to romance in the old tower, hiding his affair away from his tutors. She folded up the flier that had been left for her at the Mage Tower as she approached the top of the steps, turning the corner to find...
A slender figure robed in black. The cowl up, Lady Teller could feel her hope spread just a little more, reaching out...
"...patrick...?" she whispered ever so softly, so hopefully.
"I'm afraid not..." the voice answered her just as quietly. The voice made the Master mage sigh out, feeling her heart crack again. This one was not her son.
"H...were you the one that had information about my Patrick...?" The mage's question was more a plead now. Tears filled her already dry eyes, expecting the worst.
"I regret to inform you that he is dead, Lady Teller." The dark figure revealed herself, pulling the hood down to her shoulders. For such a young woman, her soft voice was too cold, too blunt and truthful, Lady Teller thought. Even the young mages ladies she took on as apprentices were always atwitter with thoughts of boys and rumor, the latest styles of dress. This one...seemed so estranged from that youthful world. The sadness of this added to the weight of sadness she felt for the truth of her son.
"I...I see. Perhaps you could take me to the body, my dear girl? I must see it.." She watched as the young girl approached, most likely to take her hand and offer words of comfort.
"I'm afraid that is not possible," was the answer instead. Lady Teller stared on into the pretty amber eyes of the girl. She was staring, unblinking back at her, with eyes of obssession, of madness--there was something very wrong here. "You see, he burned by fire. And such ashes are very hard to collect, in the end."
"...w...what?" The Mage stiffened up her tears and let out a few nervous, weak chuckles, hoping this was just some kind of...awkward game. Lady Teller was known to not be as uptight as some of the older master mages, but this was not some game, for the girl's cold, blank expression made such a sick game obsolete.
"I am sincerely sorry, but I simply have no body for you..." There was no apology in the sound of her voice, even as it went to a whisper. "But I could just not help myself, and it all happened so quickly. Do not worry, though, milady. He is put to good use."
The shine of a blade caught Lady Teller's eyes as it was pulled from the folds of the girl's cloak, and the mage prepared to retalliate immediately before the first strike could land. This girl did not know who she was dealing with. Bringing a focus to the front of the anger and sorrow she felt at her son's death, Lady Teller called upon the forces of magic to surrounding herself with an arcane shield...while blasting the girl with a freezing cold. Flexing her hand in front of the approaching girl, she narrowed her eyes.
Unfortunately nothing happened. The woman choked back a gasp as the magic again, refused to come to her will. She had no time to scream, or run, as the dagger was slid across her throat.
Anisse stared down at the body as it bled out on the floor of the watchtower, the pool of Lady Teller's blood forming at her feet. It glossed the bottoms of her small, black leather boots, and she paced back a few steps. The magical ward was flickering in her hands, its enchantment at its end---if she'd had waited any longer to end the life of Patrick Teller's mother, circumstances may have turned out much worse than they were. Her hands tightened on the hilt of her dagger, still kissed with the taste of the woman's blood, and Anisse's hands flinched, wanting to dig further into the body to collect her prizes.
Something stopped her, however, seeing Lady Teller's corn-colored hair spilled out over the floor, her blue eyes frozen open in a death stare. The smooth metal of the scalpel was missing from her hands. No ritual dagger could cut so cleanly through flesh to take what she needed. She'd grown spoiled by its delicate blade, and now it was lost. Like the pendant before it. Like her patience. Like her focus.
The scrawlings upon a dozen shadowy trees spiked through her mind, making her twitch.
'I.SAW.YOU. I.SAW.YOU. I.SAW.YOU....' A forest of taunts blanketed by the corpses of dead animals.
Snagging the remnants of her sanity before it threatened to scramble away, Anisse hurried on down the tower steps, leaving Sorceress Teller's dead body whole.
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