My thoughts on Wrath

So, I've had the expansion since about 16.00 on the launch date and while I'm not level eighty so I can't really comment on the heroics and raid instances that everyone's raving are too easy, I think I have a strong enough impression of the new game to give my 50p.

The Zones

Firstly, they're beautiful. The skyscapes are subdued enough to be unobtrusive when you're running around questing but so well constructed that should you tilt your camera above the usual I-am-questing level you'll suddenly find yourself peering at a smooth, detailed rendition of the Aurora Borealis rather than the often bland swathes of colour of Azeroth. Admittedly I've yet to come across anything quite like the sky over Hellfire Peninsula but, while most of the punch from seeing those planets was in what was being portrayed, Northrend's strength is in the sheer quality of the depictions.

That's thanks to the overall graphics upgrade, anyway, which happens to have a similarly breathtaking effect on the landscapes. The appearance of cliffs has improved dramatically, the new shadows adding to better textures to really give the rock faces depth, and the flatter regions haven't missed out on the love either. Little features like this really impressed me.

Then there's the raw size. Just like zones in the Outlands were way bigger than most of those in Azeroth, Northrend regions seem to dwarf their Burning Crusade predecessors. Now I'm not entirely sure if this is just an illusion stemming from new, unseen content grasping my attention and cutting down on autorun time (not being able to fly pre-77 certainly impacts a player's ability to make everything shrink beneath them) or something more to do with the way things don't seem as hemmed in as they did before rather than actual size, but either way, I'm judging by my current impression. And my current impression, as well as those voiced by my guildmates as we all struck out into the new content, is holy shit guys we'll never make it out alive. Also dem it's huge.

The Quests

Like with old content, quest hubs are often linked together with "take x message to y outpost" and each sends you out into the surrounding area to collect, maim or explore. But somehow it feels very different, and after a good deal of pondering this is all I've really managed to come up with as to why:

1. There are some interesting new twists on the old themes. One of the FedEx quests sending you from one of the first regions to the next doesn't send you off with a letter but with a refugee, who will follow you and bemoan their desperate situation before spying a smoke signal on the horizon and leading you off to a different destination than you originally expected. Killing quests may spawn tiny robots that follow you around as you kill more; instead of always ending in an instance, that quest that wants you to explore the strange teleportation runes may well just hurl you into a floating necropolis hundreds of feet up.

2. Linking to the first point, Blizzard have been working hard to ascertain the sort of quests the majority of players heralded as "most fun" pre-expansion are more prolific than they were before. The sort of errand that gives you an item to change your shape, for example, can be found quite often.

3. There's an obvious effort to promote atmosphere. Heading out to assassinate a mechagnome leader in the Borean Tundra will prompt a cutscene-esque speech from him as he stumbles across you stealing his log; the culmination of a Kirin Tor quest line sends you flying out on a drake's back to break free a missing archmage with a whole host of red dragons backing you up; and when you're carrying out the Lich King's will as your death knight your victims cower, beg and scream. It doesn't feel like you have to hit all the instances to get a real sense of storyline and progression.

4. You can't just grab all the quests from a hub and blitz that area. Obviously, this slows down leveling massively (although not enough to stall those people who were eighty within a couple of days nevertheless) but it means things are more coherent. Rarely do you rely on an NPC's existing knowledge - you'll probably have to stumble across something whilst carrying out another task, report back, help out with preliminary tests, try out the new theory, bring back the results and then perhaps murder whatever should have been changed but wasn't. While it sounds like a grind when I list it like that, I find that not being able to just systematically roll through a list of objectives in my quest log actually alleviates the sense of repetitive pointlessness. It's made me pause and actually read the whole log entry for each quests, instead of just shift-click its name and doing as commanded by the summary. Obsidian approves of this.

The Instances

This is where I'm least able to comment. So far I've run the Nexus, Utgarde Keep, Azjol-Nerub and Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom. The last I was doing as Miriah with the House - where Miri was 70 and our highest level with Quin, the tank, at 73 - so we probably did it slower than a group at the right level but nevertheless, I've yet to feel an instance is really dragging on. Nexus is the only one that started to feel a bit samey, largely because it's a big square with bosses at the ends of tunnels off to the sides, but it looks so dem fine in the first place and has such a good final boss that I've forgiven it thus far. I suppose I'll wait until I've cleared everything before I start making sweeping statements about the state of dungeoneering in WotLK, anyway, though I hear the vast amounts of casual gamers are being tended to more than the selected elite, which is obviously a poorly calculated move on Blizzard's part. Working for the masses? How perfectly senseless.

Anyway, my adventures thus far look something like this.

Much love to Northrend.

I have the solution

Shadowpriests! Confused by the spellpower changes? Not quite sure what fits into your healing set and what goes for sweet pewpewing? And what's this about downranking no longer working? It's all so very obscure... but fear not, my friends, for I have the answer!

Ignore it altogether!



And Blizzard did giveth Vampiric Embrace, and the shadowpriests express-ed their great joy with damage to both mobs and their tank's nerves, and all was good in the world...

MY PACK

It's tidy. Everything is ordered and held in place, either by pressure from the other items crammed in around it or the narrow leather straps I sewed in place. It's a common misconception that field medics are extraordinary because we can function whilst everything around us descends into chaos. In fact, a good field medic will just bring sense and orderliness with them.

Mess makes you kill even more people than you usually would.

KILLING

“If you're a medic, how the fuck did you kill it?”

Long after the vice like jaw had released its grip on his leg and I'd bound the wound and turned my attention to an older injury on his upper arm, the trainee couldn't keep his eyes off the wolf's corpse. One side of its head was crumpled in. Otherwise it seemed entirely free of blemish.

“Because medic doesn't necessarily equate to helpless pussy,” I said evenly, tugging on his bandages.

He was in his late thirties, skin tanned and smooth over the rounded muscles his training had built up. His hair was cropped short in the usual military style. Obviously aiming to look tough. Even more apparent that he'd never killed before, even though he'd never admit it. It was the way he couldn't keep his eyes off that wolf. Morbid fascination. Probably embarrassment that a woman in a dress had done the deed when he couldn't.

Didn't help that simple linen still made him scream.

“Fuck! Fuck me, that hurts!”

I'd purposefully chosen to stand behind him before I'd even started my work, well clear of kicking legs, and I watched him flail as I removed the bandage altogether and poured searing ethanol onto the wound. A better person would have questioned the satisfaction I gained listening to that high-pitched wail but I was a medic. I fixed people, I wasn't some outstanding example of moral perfection. War fucked morality over for those in charge of saving lives just as it did for those in charge of wrenching them away.

Killing a savage wolf with a staff, clubbing the life out of its sinewy limbs, hadn't been hard or anything like it, regardless of the injured kid's ignorant presumptions. I killed people all the time, just by focusing my attention on the guy next to them. Just by prioritising. Murder was not hard.

“Fucking hurts!” he yelled again, maybe in case I hadn't realised.

“You don't say,” I replied nonchalantly.

I bound the wound again, then checked the dressing that covered the wolf's handiwork. Both clean. Simple procedure. I told him he was fine and merely walked away. He made a lot of noise – I could hear him even after the turn in the road that hid his hobbling form from sight – but he should have been grateful. I'd taken the time to avoid murdering him.

Well Read (Hordeside)

Well, it's been a few days so I feel I can safely post about the new changes without being a complete and utter hypocrite; this post is about something added in patch 3.0.2, however, so if you've yet to see it all and want to keep yourself in the dark about it all read no further!

I must say, my leveling plan for Kazra has been hit incredibly hard by the new patch. With so many achievements to get I've suddenly been focusing all my effort on Miriah, going on long exploration runs and visiting innkeepers across the map to trick or treat in the aim of eventually snagging that Hallow's End title. I've also dabbled in PvP as shadow again too, and I must say I like the changes from a non-PvE perspective. Admittedly I've only seen a small DPS increase that Blizzard are promising to buff higher, but new skills such as Dispersion have really improved my survivability. And the DPS increase is enough to mean I can actually burst people down with Mind Blast and Death. ^^

I'm currently focusing on the Well Read achievement, anyway, and I thought it might be of use to some others attempting it if I listed the locations of things I came across as I went along. This list is mostly aimed at Horde, mind, because level 75 guards have deterred me somewhat from searching the Stormwind library for texts! I may add in Alliance locations once I've finished the achievement as Miriah and take a look around as Sev or Pyre, but we'll see. To the list!


THE BARRENS

Ironforge - the Awakening of the Dwarves - Southern Barrens, there's a bunker on the eastern side of the Gold Road just north of the Razorfen instances
Lethargy of the Orcs - Northwatch Hold



Aegwynn and the Dragon Hunt
Aftermath of the Second War
Arathor and the Troll Wars
Archimonde's Return and the Fight to Kalimdor
Beyond the Dark Portal
Civil War in the Plaguelands
Icecrown and the Frozen Throne
Kel'Thuzad and the Forming of the Scourge
The Scourge of Lordaeron
The War of the Ancients
The World Tree and the Emerald Dream
War of the Spider
War of the Three Hammers

Civil War in the Plaguelands - beside the innkeeper

Consideration? Bah

I'm on European servers so my patch day is Wednesday. I'm also one of those people desperately trying to avoid spoilers so I'll still get the shock and awe factor of some of the major changes I know are coming with this patch. This all means that, right now, I wish I hadn't taken my usual glance through of the various Warcraft communities I haunt online because you know what? It seems all those people over on the US servers haven't thought hard enough to realise that yes, yes you have your patch and yes it's live for you, but until everyone else has had a chance to get it too all the information about it counts as spoilers.

If you are plastering massive screenshots and ranting jubilantly about this feature or that feature from line one without any sort of warning you are frankly a total asshat. And no, "I didn't think of that" is not a defence. That just makes you too inconsiderate to even ponder the state of everyone else's patch status. For God's sake, there are enough whine posts from people on the US servers to make it clear that plenty of their realms are still offline and plenty of their data is corrupted, so how can you not realise that you're stealing some of the patch's spark?

Annoyance doesn't cover this.

Ugh, lag

Whenever I try to group for an instance of late, my connection seizes up once we're inside and I start to DC repeatedly or suffer a fair bit of lag. I've had to swear it off to avoid annoying people and developing a bad reputation, and as instancing, along with roleplay, is pretty much all I play for this is really getting to me. I am enjoying leveling Kazra thanks to a bit of competition with Arranath from Class: Multiple and the ever handy Horde Leveling Guide Jame did, but I've always broken up long quest grinds with instances and battlegrounds in the past so I'm not sure how long I'll last sticking solo. Warcraft is so attractive to me because it's a MMORPG - a game you share with thousands of others - so ripping away the social aspect is a kick in the face!

So I need to figure out exactly why it is that I'm suffering this lag. It's potentially my wireless adapter, though of the off-chance it isn't, my computer specs are as follows:

Intel Core2 Quad CPU - 2.40 GHz
3GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 7050 / NVIDIA nForce 610i

Am I correct in supposing my RAM is rubbish...? It's all very perplexing. *growls*

Character Profiles

The character profile is a staple tool of most roleplayers looking to define their character. It's useful – it helps you to put onto paper a personality, history and list of aims to help reduce the frequency of out of character actions, make concrete things such as age and birthplace and just generally make a character real in your head. Being able to write down these basic facets of your character also helps a lot if you need to submit an application to a roleplaying guild, too, so I thought I might jot down a few tips for those looking to finalise a character, join a guild or even the obsessive cataloguers amongst you.

Firstly, don't bog yourself down with too many overlapping categories. I know if you're submitting to a guild they may have a format you have to follow, but whenever you have a chance keep it as simplistic as possible. Having a personality subtitle and then strengths, weaknesses and flaws as three more simply doesn't make sense; you'll either catch yourself omitting things from the main personality section to flesh out the other three or leaving the later ones with a few lines to avoid repeating yourself. And I assure you, avoiding repeating yourself gets very hard when you find yourself filling out personality, strengths, weaknesses, notable skills, general abilities, particular flaws... Either remove the personality section and provide a few more specific fields or trust yourself to put all the important things, nicely summarised, into that larger section without direct prompting

Linking closely to the first, don't go over the top filling out each section. You don't need a huge, in-depth essay on everything – your character's age is your character's age, and if you only have a rough number give that and stick “(approximately)” on the end. Apologetically tapping out “I am not sure of the precise dates but I believe she would be between twenty and thirty however if this does not fit I will gladly change it as soon as I am made aware” is not only useless but actually counter productive, because if you're using this sheet as reference when roleplaying a new character or one you've only recently put concrete dates to you'll have to trawl through all the waffling to find the information you actually need! This is especially relevant if you're submitting an application to a guild, too, as confident responses give a much better impression.

Furthermore, you may find a less specific history to be beneficial. Leaving gaps where normal life would commence as usual allows you to add in things later that link to new roleplay, whilst choosing to outline the basic relationship between your character and people from their past, such as lovers or family members, rather than depicting those side character's personalities in minute detail will make it a lot easier for anyone else to play those people should you ever decide it would be a fun roleplaying plot. After all, it's great to get friends involved with your character's roots, but they're not going to enjoy it quite as much if they've no room to interpret their new character in a way they want.

And don't forget, a good character will develop the more you play them, so leave space for explanatory background for any new traits you may come up with. You may even need to change them massively because you find you prefer to stress the ruder sides more than you originally thought you would, or maybe you'd like them to be a bit more upper class. Suddenly that extensive essay you wrote may feel like a waste of time!

In fact, my first real roleplaying character was Miriah, for whom I wrote out a bit of her life just before her death in story form. I was really getting into this tale when someone informed me the people of Stratholme had only just been infected when Arthas came to butcher them – suddenly my story was wildly lore inaccurate, simply because all the sites I'd referenced when researching that time period forgot the little detail that they were mostly normal humans when the destructive prince popped up. As if that wasn't bad enough, Miriah's mother was originally the High Priestess and there was a lot of stress on a regional dialect, when in fact everyone speaks common and being the daughter of a prestigious, fan-created character pushes one towards the Mary Sue danger zone. While it had never really harmed my roleplay because Miriah dwells in the present and shuns the past for the most part, the whole thing K.O.ed that story straight out.

But you know... you don't need to explain everything in your character's current personality through their distant past. What you're roleplaying now, in their present, is far more important than backstory, to the point at which a super elaborate backstory will limit and stifle your character's all-important progression as you play them. It's a balance: though a well-thought out history will appeal to a guild and, indeed, come in handy as you play, overdo it and suddenly people will be less willing to roleplay with you because you're too bound to events that were never actually played out. So yes, I definitely back this method of cataloguing your character. But as you're doing it think what you want to get out of it rather than let yourself get carried away by the writing – is your aim a superbly detailed profile to admire as an example of narrative prowess or a basic springboard to better roleplay? Probably the latter.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have such beasts as this profile here to polish. And dem, it takes a while.

On Shadowpriests

A guide to the basics
Even with my recent conversion to holy in the name of keeping the game interesting, shadow has always been my chosen specialisation as a priest. Having been caught offline for a whole week and a bit (!!) I ended up yearning for my shadow tree again, and the result was a good old fashioned brain-splurge of information onto screen. As such, I give you a quick rundown of the shadowpriest and its skills, aimed largely towards people who are new to the class and want to get some familiarisation in before Wrath knocks us all back into touch.

Originally a PvP spec in vanilla WoW, the priest’s shadow tree was given a unique role in raids when TBC rolled around. Able to put out a healthy bit of damage and even top the meters in early raids where the pure shadow power given by the Frozen Shadoweave gave the spriest a hefty head start in gear, their main function lies in their support abilities, which come from talents.

Vampiric Embrace: This skill places a debuff on the target that causes a small percentage (changing depending on whether points are placed into Improved Vampiric Embrace) of the spriest’s shadow damage to come back as a heal for their group.

Vampiric Touch: This skill places a debuff on the target that deals damage over time and, more importantly, causes a percentage of the shadow damage dealt to that target to come back as mana for the spriest’s group.

Misery: This debuff is placed on the target after it is afflicted by one of the spriest’s shadow spells. It increases all spell damage from any party or raid member dealt to that target.

Shadow Weaving: This debuff has a chance (affected by the number of talent points placed into Shadoweaving) to be placed on the target whenever a shadow spell is cast on that target by the spriest and stacks up to five times. This increases all shadow damage the target takes from any party or raid member’s shadow spells, increasing with each stack present.

As can be seen, this means that the spriest’s role is to increase the overall magic-based damage output of the raid whilst aiding any mana user in endurance fights. Often referred to as a “mana battery”, the spriest is most commonly placed in a caster/hunter group or with the healers if they persistently find themselves out of mana during a particular fight. This means that while an spriest may drop positions in terms of damage output during the later stages of raiding they are nevertheless an extremely valuable asset to the raid. They are also able to cast the same buffs as Circle of Healing holy priests, although they lack the spirit buff of a discipline priest.

Power Word: Fortitude: This buff increases the stamina of the friendly target by up to 75 depending on the rank cast. Can also be cast as a prayer, which consumes a reagent but affects the party members of the target as well.

Shadow Protection: This buff increases the shadow resistance of the friendly target by up to 75 depending on the rank cast. Can also be cast as a prayer, which consumes a reagent but affects the party members of the target as well.

Fear Ward: This buff makes the target immune to one fear spell. It lasts three minutes or until a fear is cast, at which point it is consumed.

All priests are also able to cast Shackle, a crowd-control spell that affects the undead only. A shadowpriest is still best equipped to do this, however, due to their spell hit gear, which a healer will lack.

SPELL ROTATION

A shadowpriest doesn’t have a spell rotation so much as a spell priority system. Your main task is to micromanage your damage over time effects and the short cooldowns of Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death. The order of importance is as follows:

Vampiric Touch
Shadow Word: Pain
Mind Blast
Shadow Word: Death
Mind Flay

This turns mind flay into a filler spell, used when both DoT effects are ticking away and both SW: Death and MB are on CD. Shadowpriest zen is achieved when MF ends just as a DoT needs reapplying or something comes off CD; note that the best time to cast VT is not after the last tick, however, but just before it due to the 1.5 second cast time. Your target should always have VT applied and even that split second during the casting time works against that goal.

Another unique spell in the shadowpriest’s arsenal is Vampiric Embrace, an effect applied to the target that causes the priest’s shadow damage dealt to that target to regenerate health across the group. This is limited to the specific party the priest is in as opposed to the entirety of a raid group, for which we are currently thankful. Why? Because one of the main factors limiting a well-geared shadowpriest’s damage output is being threat-capped.

MANAGING THREAT

To be threat-capped is to be riding on the tank’s back bumper threat-wise, meaning that to do any more damage would be to pull aggro. As a rather squishy beast even with Inner Fire and Shadowform’s armour buffs, pulling aggro will often result in bloody murder and possibly the subsequent bloody murder of any other ranged damage dealing classes around you who suddenly find themselves under the jurisdiction of melee range threat rules. For any damage dealing class, pulling aggro is right up there at the top of the sin list.

The shadowpriest must be especially mindful of threat because we have several major threat generators and no threat dump.

The most commonly problematic spell for new shadowpriests threat-wise is VE. When soloing or PvPing this skill is invaluable and so we get into the habit of casting it, but to make use of it in a raid situation requires you to be aware of something called effective healing. Effective healing is when a spell or effect actually causes a player to regenerate health – the part of any heals that try to take the character over 100% health is referred to as overheal because it’s superfluous – and it is effective healing that earns you a nice bit of healing threat. Overheal generates none.

Most of the time damage will be focused on one player – the tank – so you don’t have that much to worry about with VE. Other times, however, damage may be spread out across a few if not all the members of a group, and suddenly the effective healing of VE will soar, dragging the shadowpriest’s threat along with it. In some situations this instigates refraining from casting VE so as to continue putting out the same sort of damage as normal and attaining the highest possible mana return and DPS; at others the player must take note of when the group takes damage, observe their threat meter especially closely and adjust their level of nuking appropriately.

Another spell to watch is Mind Blast, which has higher threat generation than Shadow Word: Death. Both, however, are able to crit, so if you’re right behind the tank on threat these are two to watch. Using MB as an opening move is rarely a good idea.

One of the most misleading spells, however, is actually Fade. It likes to pretend it’s a threat dump, but this isn’t the case. When activated, Fade reduces your threat until the end of its duration, at which point all that threat comes back. This makes it fundamentally different from abilities such as a rogue’s Feint. Feint lops off a portion of the rogue’s threat by the amount dictated on the tooltip and will remove more every time it is used – spamming Feint on CD will dramatically reduce the rogue’s threat level, whereas a priest spamming Fade whenever possible will simply be wasting mana. This makes Fade into a situational spell: that is, one you cast when you know your next few spells will cause a large amount of threat that the tank would not be able to hold but that they could deal with if the threat gain was delayed or when you are about to pull aggro as it will give the tank time to regain their position at the top of the threat list before the mob comes after you.

Like all aspects of shadowpriesting, threat management will become easier the more you play and pulling aggro frequently when you first get into group play shouldn’t be instantly taken as a sign that you’ll never make a good shadowpriest. Early on, after all, is when you’re most likely to be getting sudden huge improvements in spellpower from gear when you upgrade green items to blue or even tailored epics.

GEAR

A shadowpriest’s gear requirements are quite unique amongst casters in that intellect does not feature heavily in building up the priest’s effective mana pool. Pure spellpower takes up this role instead thanks to vampiric touch and is in fact the shadowpriest’s most important stat, outclassing spell critical strike rating due to mindflay, vampiric touch and shadow word: pain’s inability to crit. While mind blast and shadow word: death are affected by spell crit I would not advocate taking spell crit over spell damage.

Other noteworthy stats are spell hit, which you need to have capped to raid effectively, stamina, which will help you absorb the recoil from SW:Death and improve your general survivability, and mp5, which should never be aimed for but is a slightly useful bonus on some heavy spell damage gear. Note that the shadowpriest’s spell hit requirements depend on spec: full points in Shadow Focus will allow the priest to be hit capped with only 75 spell hit rating from gear. This is so important because when fighting a boss your spells have a 17% chance to be resisted – being hit capped will bring it right down to 1%.

As such, your stat priority order when choosing loot is as follows:

Spell hit until hit-capped
Spellpower
Spell crit

Stamina is of course useful in that a dead spriest is no use whatsoever; spirit is presently worthless save for an additional set to equip when grinding; intellect provides further spell crit but the extra mana it provides is of little use; and Mp5 (mana per second) is a handy bonus if present on gear strong in spellpower but should not be sought out.

GEMS

The most important gem for a shadowpriest is, of course, the pure spellpower gem: Runed Living Ruby. Runed Crimson Spinel is the epic upgrade to this, and there are other variations too, such as the honour reward Runed Ornate Ruby. It is generally an acceptable belief that very few socket bonuses are worth co-ordinating your gem colour for, so most shadowpriests will socket straight through all their gear with these red gems. Nevertheless, on the occasion where a socket bonus gives a sizeable bit of spellpower Glowing Nightseye is best for a blue socket and Potent Noble Topaz or Veiled Noble Topaz should go in a yellow socket, depending on whether or not your priest is hit-capped. As the shadowpriest’s preferred meta gem is the Mystical Skyfire Diamond one red gem swapped for a purple gem will usually activate it.

ENCHANTS

As per usual, spellpower is the focus.

Head: Glyph of Power
Shoulder: Greater Inscription of the Orb or Greater Inscription of Discipline depending on your alignment in Shattrath. Note that the Zandalar Signet of Mojo is a stronger alternative to the Scryer inscription and should be used if you are a Scryer and have access to it.
Cloak: Subtlety
Chest: Restore Mana Prime or Exceptional Stats
Bracers: Spellpower
Gloves: Spellpower
Leggings: Runic Spellthread
Feet: Vitality or Boar’s Speed
Rings: Spellpower (only available to enchanters)
Weapon: Spellpower or Soulfrost

DISINCLINED TO BITE THE DUST

El'Ubris in Overdrive

One long, mournful toll sent a waking tremor through the small, scaled body of the whelpling, its pitifully tiny wings stretching their orange membranes as it raised its delicate head and peered about through green eyes dopey with sleep. Its batlike ears quivering as it took in the surrounding sounds of Redridge at night, the miniature dragonkin raised itself on its stubby legs and crawled to the edge of its niche in an outcropping of dun rock, gazing down at the waterline where black wavelets lapped lazily up the sloping beach.

A second peal rang out and the tiny creature hunkered down until only its snub nose, bright eyes and large ears were visible. Its rounded belly pressed against the rock almost uncomfortably; it was not used to hiding. Its tiny brain usually urged it to attack, attack regardless of the enemy, but this time something about the scene below pricked insistently at what little survival instinct it possessed and it lay low, curious, as the third toll boomed.

Down there stood a robed woman, her shoulders swathed in a dark cape. Although she was small, even fragile in frame, her head was raised, luminescent gaze aimed straight ahead, and her left hand hung easily at her side: casually, confidently. She looked like one of the humans that came out and hunted sometimes. She smelled like them too, when their throats had been torn and the blood had ceased to run. The whelpling wasn’t used to those ones moving.

The clock struck again and drowned out the first words of the man, the definitely human man who stood with fire in his hand and a dozen others at his back, even though he shouted.

“-away from our town, or we’ll kill you, wretch!”

Though the rest of the words reached the hidden observer they meant nothing to it. The expressions on the faces of the gaggle of humans were much like those of hunters though, of hunters who had accidentally cornered one of the bigger dragonkin and were now suffering those pangs of fear. Yes, the whelpling could smell that emotion too, in sweat and adrenaline, even over the rotten stench of the woman down below that only intensified when she replied in guttural notes, “A fine threat, master sentry, though I regret to inform you of my extreme doubt regarding your capacity to carry it out.”

As the fifth strike reverberated through the night the very darkness began to change, to thicken. It swirled around the woman, undulating and writhing like smoke in the air. It hurt to look at – no, it hurt to be near, pressure building up agonisingly around the whelpling’s miniscule brain. Pain lanced through its fragile temples, searing the backs of its eyes even as convulsions tore though its body, jerking it mercilessly like the callous hands of a bored puppeteer. It was too much, the pain was too much, and with a shriek the creature launched itself from its hiding place, soaring for a split second even as its scaly skin undulated from the muscle spasms beneath.

The woman looked up, eyes narrowed, and as the sixth chime echoed across the beach the tiny wyrm’s head exploded.

The mutilated body hit the lake with a splash and sank beneath the black water. Only a few bubbles rising to the surface marked its passing, yet the five humans who had come out here in defence of their town seemed unable to pull their gazes from the spot. Miriah Felicity Trias, mind mage of the Forsaken, allowed a malicious smirk to contort her thin, pale face. She had known all along that they were terrified of her, of course, but such damning evidence pleased her all the more. Now no frantic denial could veil the fact from their own weak little minds.

“Are you quite finished gawping?” she drawled as the last reverberations of the seventh clock strike faded, her white bone fingertips toying idly with the hilt of her dagger, “I haven’t all night to spare.”

Slowly five sets of eyes forced themselves back to her, the less resilient dropping to the ground as soon as they registered the tendrils of shadow wreathing their foe. Maintaining that idly wicked smile, Miriah brought the pinpoint of silver fire that marked the remains of her left eye to bear on them all while the right shifted to the silhouette of the clock tower, stark against the silvery moonlight. It struck again.

“W-we give you one last chance to run!” declared the foremost of the sentries, his face pale and sweat-streaked beneath his iron helm. She could see the perspiration glittering in the flickering light from his torch, which wavered unimpressively in his shaky grasp.

“Otherwise we’ll… we’ll have no choice but to kill you!” called another man, who winced as his voice broke and squeaked over the last two syllables.

Another booming toll made the more nervous humans start.

“I believe,” Miriah replied, the shadows darkening and intensifying over her body until her very flesh melted to translucent black, “I have already voiced my scepticism regarding your ability to murder me. As for retreat… it fails to meet the requirements of an acceptable course of action. For any of us, actually.”

A tenth ring.

“You agree with that, surely?”

“I’ll never agree with a monster!”

The hoarse cry came from the youngest of the group and heralded his lurch forwards from the ranks, a rusty spear clutched in his grip. Miriah leapt back as the dull grey blade swiped at her flank, so close she felt the breeze against her penumbral cheek. Undeterred, the youth bellowed senselessly, the spear slicing at his foe again and again only to be ducked and dodged and scoffed at. He was inexperienced, more used to raking the fields, Miriah perceived from the clumsy, awkward manoeuvring of his weapon. Each attack was easy to anticipate without even tapping into his thoughts.

There: the eleventh mournful cry.

Of course, he was not alone. This wasn’t quite going to plan. She’d wanted the leader to attack first, not some stupid little boy whose rash actions of course triggered the harried support of the others. His wild, sweeping strikes were all that kept the others from attacking her in force; as it was, only a blacksmith’s hammer and someone’s sword presented an immediate threat, lashing out at her whenever a gap in the boy’s stupid spear path presented itself. Darting back out of the way of the sword, she yelped despite herself as the heel of her boot caught on something hard protruding from the sand and flailed for balance, righting herself only to find the spear already on a path to her defenceless flank. With an angry snarl she lashed out with one bandage-bound hand and instantly a shell of protective magic surrounded her, deflecting the blade with a crash and a curse from its wielder.

“Fools!” she cried wildly, shaking from the near miss, and raised her right arm, fingers outstretched and wisps of shadow writhing around it.

The spearman momentarily halted, his fellows struck in vain at her shield. The clock struck twelve.

“Fools, the lot of you, for attempting to stop me on the witching hour!”

They didn’t even have time to cringe at the surge of horror the mention of their superstitions caused. With a cry, their leader tore into their backs with his blade, striking low at the bellies of those who flanked him. Shrieks of pain, horror and confusion did nothing to slow his assault as, shadow spewing from his eye sockets, the combat veteran reduced his motley little unit to moaning, gurgling casualties strewn out on the beach, bloodied and crippled and, in a few cases, dead.

“Glorious,” murmured Miriah huskily, releasing her grip over the man’s mind.

He jerked, eyes clearing, and looked about, first in confusion, then disbelief, then horror.

“Monster!” he cried, raising his sword and stabbing it accusingly in the Forsaken’s direction, “Depraved, disgusting, despicable-“

The allegations withered and died on his tongue as he saw the gore coating his blade, gleaming wetly in the moonlight. Miriah grinned widely as the colour drained from his face.

“Sir,” she hissed silkily, her shadow aura darkening as she reached out with her power and sank ethereal claws into his brain, “Your insults are directed in entirely the wrong direction…”

She dipped into his memories and he jerked, stiffening fleetingly as her essence dealt its corrupting blow.

“...After all,” she continued, smirking as the shadow withdrew, leaving self loathing in its wake, “Was it not your blade that struck your allies down? Was it not you who, in fear of the repercussions should they strike me, took violent measures to stop their silly, suicidal assault?”

The man stumbled back, his face even paler than that of his undead adversary. With a dull clang his sword dropped from his trembling fingers. Words failed him, catching in his throat and issuing as stuttering clicks finally muffled by the bile building in his throat at the building stench of gore and split bowels.

Eyes twinkling, Miriah raised a hand and waved a lazy dismissal in his direction, her tone mocking as she said, “Hurry off now, master human. I dare say you’ll need all the time you can get to clean yourself up for the gallows…”

That was all it took: tears of horror and desperate disbelief coursing over his cheeks, the man turned and ran, stumbling over his allies, so caught up in the nightmare she had spun that he was entirely oblivious to their grunts and groans. Crossing her arms, the Forsaken watched his fleeing form until he reached the bridge and the last remaining sentry, then murmured a single word under her breath, the desire to bring about one fate filling her mind, amplified by the shadow. Death.

She saw the distinctive arch of his spine, the throwing back of his head and the surprised gape of his mouth before he crumpled satisfactorily. As the other man leapt back she closed her eyes, reaching out until his thoughts rippled across her, so easy to read. Shock. Dread. Confusion. Most importantly, superstition. Perfect.

Drawing her dagger and slitting the throats of the fallen men, Miriah kept her consciousness pressed closely to that of the sentry, watching through his eyes as he raced home, terrified of midnight, and hid. She maintained that second sight in her mind’s eye as she proceeded boldly down the beach toward the bridge spanning the narrow neck of the lake, strong white stone set against the wooden slats of a cowering little man’s bed, until, certain that he was suitably immobilised with fear, she let herself make the step away from the relative safety of dirt and onto the manmade structure, a black phantom against that uncompromising white. With a slight sigh, she slipped out of the sentry’s consciousness, safe in the knowledge that he was out of commission. The town posed no threat now, and though the neutralising had taken a fair while to plan…

She thought back to the prejudiced, superstitious humans all piled in the mud.

…the act had been bloody well worth it.