Post by Morec0
(( Inspired by an in-game refference and Atik's original post, I thought I'd give myself a chance to write one of these up. Hopefully it's as good as I hoped it would be. ))
There are many tales about Goldshire’s past… a dark and easily forgotten past. Many tales are used to make children behave; stories of ghosts and spirits that wander the town in search of naughty children.
Some of those tales have more truth than others…
-
It was mid-winter's veil when group of campers set up their tents just a few yards from the shore, about five teenagers and four adults. There was also a child, a small boy who liked to wander. Two of the teenagers - a boy and a girl - were told to look after him, but while walking in the woods with him one day they became to distracted with each other and the child vanished while they were "busy."
The two teens searched for him, calling out his name and running through the woods. They made their way down to the shoreline of Crystal lake, where they found the boy's jacket floating in the water. The child himself was no where to be seen. Scared for might happen to them if anyone learned they had purpousfully taken their eyes off of the child, they returned to the camp and told their friends and peers that the child had run off and they had lost him in the woods. A search was conducted by the gaurds, but when they found nothing they assumed him to have been killed by wolves or bandits.
Years later the two teens and almost the same group of friends returned to Crystal Lake to celebrate their acceptance into each one's desired professions. However, they were not alone. The childs mother, driven mad by the loss of her only son and last-living blood-relative, had stalked them over the course of the years and followed them to the lake. There she seperated and killed them all, one by one, before she herself drowned in an attempt to kill the two lovers that had unintionally killed her child.
But he hadn't been killed. He had simply been lost. And he watched as his mother drowned trying to get to the boy and girl.
He blamed them.
More time passed as the child, unable to understand the scope or layout of Elwynn Forest, attempted to find and kill the two. Finally he found himself at Crystal Lake once again, and once again the boy and girl, now man and woman, were there; celebrating their honeymoon with two other couples.
One of the men, a rogue by trade, wandered into the woods for more firewood. It was there, in the darkest shadows cast by the trees, that the boy, now a man as well, approached and killed him. He took the
mask and
sword the rogue had been carrying and went on to kill all the others couples.
All, but the male "responsible" for the death of his mother. He was now a mage, and in a struggle he was mortally wounded but managed to encase the other man in a block of ice and cast him down to the bottom of the lake before dying. The guards found the mage's body and the corpses of his friends a few days afterwards, but never to bothered to look for the murderer entrapped at the lake's bottom.
-
"Laaaaaame," a teen boy said, laughing and prompting laughter from his friend's at the fishman's, Jason Mather's, story. "I heard that story while I was growing up, it was a play put on in Stormwind. Seriously old man, if you want to scare us you could at least come up with something new."
"No need to create something new, its true," the fishman said, the shadow's cast by trees and setting sun covering him fully. "Where do you think Playwright Miller got the idea from?"
"As if," a teenage girl said, rolling her eyes and blowing a bubble with her gum, a leftover from last week's Hollow's End. "Like, if someone is that desperate for idea then, like, he wouldn't be looking at old stories for them."
"Maybe your right," the fisherman said, nodding. "But there was a mask that was fished up in this lake a few weeks after. The man who fished it up was terrified and ran back to Goldshire, dropping the mask back into the water. Once he calmed down he returned to retrive it as a curiosity, but it was gone and some large footprints were in the sand."
"Oh come on!" the teen boy said again. "If you have to go to that great a length to make your story sound beliveable, then you need a new story."
"Maybe," the fishman said again, nodding again. "But I have something to take care of. Watch my fishing stuff untill I get back, would you?" He stood and walked away before the teenagers could protest, whisteling a thirteen-note tune as he did.
And so the teens, having nothing better to do, sat and watched Fisherman Mather's equipment. After a few minutes they gave the fishing a try themselves, and after a few more minutes just started throwing bait into the lake.
As sun finally set and the lake was illuminated by the moon, the noise of the fishman returning had the teens standing to leave. But as they turned they saw not the fishman coming through the woods, but a masked man with a sword coming towards them the same way the fisherman had left.
Screams and blood filled the night. The first teen boy attempted to run, only to trip over a loose plank and hit the ground. As he was attempting to get up the masked man approached and beheaded him. The first girl, who, along with the other two, had thought it all a prank being pulled on them, now turned to run, only to be grabbed by the arm by the masked man. He forced her to the ground and then grabbed her legs, swinging her up into the air and then down to smash into the ground. Bones cracked audibly as she hit the hard soil, and by the time her skull caved in, killing her, her face was a unrecognizeable pulp.
The last of the two remaining teens, a warrior by trade, drew his sword and charged, only to parry the blow of the masked man and have a fist punch straight through his chest. Bleeding and lifeless, he fell down. The last of the group, a terrified teen girl, turned and ran towards the end of the dock. She did not make it far. The masked man threw his sword through the air, and it embeded itself deep in the girl's skull.
Whit the slaughter was over the masked-murderer walked to the end of the dock, retriving his sword, and sat, putting down his sword and picking up the fishing pole. He began to fish with what little bait was left, whisteling a familiar thirteen-note tune.