Loyally devoted & divided;

She had avoided this as long as possible, but there was no one left in Orgrimmar who could teach her. Nor was there anyone on the high, sunny reaches of the Tauren city. By all reports, if she wanted to further study the art of Alchemy her only recourse was the Royal Apothecary Society of the Forsaken.
The city of Lordaeron.
Amarthiel managed to kill the shudder that strove to creep down her spine, and pulled her hood a little closer to her face as she climbed down the zeppelin tower. It's just a place. You were so young when you left, why should it matter? Trying to calm herself lest she draw unwanted attention, she headed for the crumbling gates of the city.
With downturned eyes she walked towards the old seat of power, having been told that the way down to the Forsaken 'Undercity' was past king Terenas' throne room. Amarthiel kept to the shadows, half from training, and half because the ruined city scared her, in a way. Her feet guided her without her will; she found herself standing, in spite of her wishes, in front of a crumbling home. She didn't look at the coat of arms; didn't read the name inscribed upon the lintel. Just stared at the yawning, broken door, glad that the darkness inside obscured whatever was left. Her own family had not been here when the city fell; just a distant branch she didn't know and didn't much care to. It was a mystery to her what had become of them.
Amarthiel found herself wondering what had happened to the man who might have been her father, the paladin Ilfirin. She had never thought of him growing up; her father forbade reference to him, and though her mother had told her the story-- assuring her that the paladin was no relation-- it had never made a difference to her. If anything she felt a slight distaste for him because of the path he'd chosen; her mother's devotion had always left Amarthiel biased against champions of the Light.
Something stirred inside, a hazy, sulfurous glow rising in the depths of the cavernous building. It resolved itself into two points; one of the dead. Thankful for the mask that kept her face stiff, Amarthiel tried to smother her disgust.
"You like my home, orc?" rasped the corpse in heavily accented orcish. The weak sunlight spilled over a skull, bald of hair and sparse of flesh. What remained, shrunken and shriveled, of his lips was twisted into a sneering grin. She did not recognize his voice, or his ravaged face.
"I was admiring the coat of arms," she lied, glancing at it for the first time. Most of the gilt surface had been destroyed, the precious metal scraped away, leaving gouges in the marble. The fineness of detail was gone, but one could see the traces of its old shape; the hawk's wings that traced and mingled with the rays of a dawning sun.
"Aurefion," muttered the dead man darkly, his burning eyes narrowing. "Nothing of mine. They were long gone by the time I moved in," he chuckled, turning his gaze back to her. "For some of us, dying meant moving up in the world. All these were ancestral homes," he said, one sharp-fingered hand emerging from the darkness and waving down the row of marmoreal relics, "Households I could never have afforded, even if my birth entitled me to a place in one. Which it didn't," he added with another toothy leer.
Amarthiel tried not to breathe a sigh of relief. It was comforting to know this corpse was none of hers; and she doubted it was Snowsong. The dead man seemed more like a low-born scavenger, pleased to scrape at the ruins of a great house, pleased at his chance to dominate in death what he could not have touched in life.
"I am glad you find some pleasure in your current state," she muttered, and bowed her head. The Forsaken snorted; she could not tell whether it was amusement or disgust. He cast another glance at the crumbling coat of arms, and stalked back into his "home."
The 'orc' took a shuddering breath to center herself, and continued onwards towards the Undercity, trying not to think about where she was or where she was going. "Nothing of mine," the corpse had said. The warrior had no desire to contend his claim. She'd sooner take the house in Lakeshire. Amarthiel did not look back, as she headed for the so-called Undercity; behind her, the doorway yawned open, dark and empty. The house was nothing of hers, either.. Not anymore.

Amarthiel crept through the dripping caverns beneath the Ashenvale beach, concentrating on each step. It wasn't enough to be quiet, she reminded herself; you had to move slowly but surely, one step after the other, avoiding the drifting gazes of the naga and satyr that wandered so close, from time to time, that she feared alerting them to her presence by brushing against them. She reminded herself to exhale, keeping the rythm of her breath even, letting it fade into quiet background noise... Holding your breath wasn't helpful, but it was the natural nervous response.
Part of her wanted to take the quick way out- she was well-trained and strong; she could, in her normal guise, take them all down without stopping for breath. And the world'd be better off for it, she thought, pausing as one of the demons' eyes passed over her.
But... well... She needed the practice in subtlety.. and who knew if these cheap daggers would hold, if she tried them against the monstrous creatures here. Besides, she'd come down here with a number of Horde women; two of the Blood Elves, two of the dead, and she didn't know where they'd gotten to. Her disguise had served her well, in their company, and there was no reason to jeopardize that because of impatience.
Their battle with the manifestation of the Old God summoned by the Twilight's Hammer had gone, all in all, quite well. Amarthiel doubted they'd made a real difference- the Adept they'd slain might have been the head of this chapter of the cult, but those who sold their souls to such primal forces were rarely that easy to exterminate. And the enormous hydra they'd slain had been but the barest sliver of the goddess' power; just an avatar.
As she slid along a wall, keeping her eyes on the nearby serpent priestess, the "rogue" mused on just how lucky they'd been that she was more than they'd seemed. As they crept through the cavern towards the great hydra, the five had been carefully dispatching huge, angry turtles. However, they ventured too close, and suddenly the goddess was upon them. The sin'dorei Paladin fell quickly, and the hydra's heads whipped around to face the dead priestess.
Training took over; Amarthiel surrendered to instinct and changed her stance, bracing herself to withstand the blows. Throwing her head back she roared defiantly at the beast, challenging it to take its attention from the priestess. Yelling, to keep its attention on her, the woman did her best to cut the beast down quickly, oblivious to the uncomfortable sensation of the Light being channeled, made all the more unusual by the fact that one of the plague-dead wielded it. Slowly but surely it weakened, bleeding freely from knife-wounds and arcane burns. Amarthiel renewed her efforts, and the beast soon fell. The mage and warlock sat down to recover from their mental exertions; the other Forsaken knelt beside the paladin's fallen form to pray for her soul's return. The "orc" walked off a ways, concerned that letting her training show might raise questions she couldn't answer.
She feigned a worse reaction to the hydra's venom than she felt, sitting on a moss-slick stone while the others recovered. At length the priestess wandered over; Amarthiel glanced up.
"Good work, Amar," she said, with a pale-lipped grin. The mercenary returned the expression, though her red mask concealed the curl of lips around carved-bone fangs.

A satyr stirred as she crept by, and Amarthiel froze, abandoning her reminiscence. The demon shook its head, and she crept off quickly, attention firmly planted in the moment. Still, she couldn't help but smile... it was fortunate, how her dual training worked out.