Cross-Faction Chaos

Chapter One of Salxi's Story - Tired of Silence

Glimmers of stars interrupted the dark night sky high above the lush tree canopy of the Jade Forest in Pandaria. In this area called Forest Heart, a stream burbled lazily through the rolling hills, dotted with waterfalls, and spanned in the deeper sections by elegant arched bridges. A cottage rumored to belong to a jade witch stood tucked in darkness to the north. Near the cottage, jade felines prowled among the trees causing smaller, more harmless animals to keep their distance. It was on the southern bank of the stream, between a waterfall and a bridge, that Salxi Emberstar, a blood elf warlock, had camped for the night.

The jade witch rumors would keep others away and Salxi had no reason to fear such a minor foe. Absently twirling her fingers through the black tresses of her ponytail, the blood elf woman sat cross-legged on the ground by her campfire reading her personal journal. Such a sitting position would have been challenging in the robes many warlocks wore, but Salxi preferred pants and shirts both for easier movement and to avoid the inescapable draft that came with wearing skirts.

The flickering flames of the fire provided ample light for Salxi to read the personal journal that she'd titled "Sal's Journal of Light." The journal contained images and descriptions of everything important to her. Within the journal, she kept pictures of her family members, her homeland, and anything else that reminded her of the light and good in the world. As a warlock, Salxi existed in a constant battle to control the dark fel magic she wielded and prevent it from overwhelming her. The journal of images, stories, and her personal reflections kept her grounded in the world of light and helped counter the effects of using fel magic.

Standing guard nearby in shadows barely touched by the firelight was Salxi's felguard, Zilikshok. She had only started summoning him a few weeks ago as a change from her voidwalker demon, Thulnuz. Thulnuz was a highly effective fighter and kept enemies away from her so she could focus on ranged attacks, but he didn't have much personality. Not that Zilikshok, or Zilik as she'd started thinking of him, had much personality either. But he looked more humanoid than the hovering, pulsating mass of void magic that was Thulnuz.

Generally speaking, demon minions weren't supposed to display unique personalities or be sociable with their non-demon masters. Nonetheless, Salxi had spent many years of her life with demon minions and she liked to think that all warlock minions had personalities that could be interesting if they ever revealed them. For reasons she couldn't quite understand, she didn't view them as evil, deceptive creatures that would turn on her if given the opportunity. Maybe that was because they never had.

Much to the blood elf's pleasure, Zilik had proven himself to be just as useful as Thulnuz. Salxi liked some of the battle tactics that were unique to felguards, but he seemed to have even less personality than her voidwalker. That was something she hadn't thought possible. He would occasionally say things that she imagined all demons said such as calling her a "lesser being" and telling her she wasn't strong enough to control him. She hoped that was just how demon minions were "programmed" to behave during the process evil used to increase their demonic numbers. Still, she couldn't help but take such words personally at times.

All of the demons that warlocks summoned looked the same from warlock to warlock, although imps varied in color sometimes. But all demon minions had their own names that warlocks learned from the first summoning. That fact often made Salxi wonder if they had unique personalities to go along with those names. She'd never truly seen anything unique about her minions compared to the minions of other warlocks, but there was something more there, she was certain of it.

Realizing that her musings about demon names and personalities had distracted her from reading her book, Salxi blinked her fel green eyes to refocus them on the page before her. She was looking at a page showing a drawing of her older sister, Solunai. Solunai was a paladin and as opposite from Salxi as a sister could get. Solunai, or Sol as her family called her, embodied all that was good and light, while Salxi worked with dark magic and rarely had the noblest of purposes.