Revulsion

The whispering started again. I gritted my teeth and tried to ignore it. I may have been freed from the clutches of the Lich King but he was a persistent bugger. So much of Arthas' domination was based on the continual feeding of hate. Hate. Loathing for the living, for anything good.

Before my demise I was a typical gnome - I lived in the world but I didn't pay any particular attention to the world around me - with the cogs and controlled explosions of my engineering what else did I need. Once the scales of were removed from my undead eyes I looked at the world in a whole new light. The amazing beauty. I returned to my home in Darnassus and spent time just wandering through the forests, drinking in everything I could see. The quiet whispering of the wind through the trees was a soothing balm to the fountain of hate that welled within.

However, I was not in Teldrassil presently, but in the Western Plaguelands, where the taint of the Lich King still hung thickly. I was trying to recover attack plans from Hearthglen for the Argent Dawn. I didn't like being a mercenary for hire but I had to earn gold somehow and I had much to be thankful to the Argent Dawn for, particularly now they had their alliance with the Knights of the Ebon Blade.

I had muffled my platemail with some rags and was trying to sneak past the guards, using my slight stature to my advantage. It had been working well and I hadn't raised the alarm yet.

I snuck around the back of a building - a forge from what I could see and hear - the din of the hammer on the anvil covering any slight noise I was making. Nearing the corner of the building I crouched behind some barrels and attempted to get a look at my destination. The keep was across the square which was only occupied by guards - so marked in contrast to the bustle of a Dwarven village. It seemed that being a nation bent on religious zeal meant there was no time for the frivolous.

I determined the best approach would be to skirt around the square behind the buildings. Watching the guards on the opposite side of the square I capitalised on a moment's distraction to bolt across the gap between the buildings. My heart was pounding as I listened out for any shout of alarm. After an anxious moment I released my breath and relaxed a little. I went to move around the back of the building when I saw some movement ahead of me. I paused to examine what it was. My eyes widened as I took in the scene before me. It was two sandy haired children playing with a washing basket - blissfully unaware of the danger that I posed to them. Just then I heard the rattle of a door and their mother came outside with another load of washing. She came out of the house smiling at her children.

Unlike the guards around the town she was wearing a simple dress obviously designed for everyday use. In a moment of recall, my past was overlaid across my vision as I saw again the atrocities rendered by my own hand - in this case the slaughter the defenceless citizens of New Avalon.

We are fed lies. We demonise our enemies so that we can kill them. But are they really so different from us? They have wives. They have children. What will the mothers say when the fathers cannot return home.

They are the victims here as well. Victims of enslavement by a demon. Fanatically trying to make the world a better place. But yet they are still the victims.

Sickened to my core, I open my death gate and returned to Ebon Hold. That job would remain unfinished.