User:Joshmaul/Varan Metheius

"'Metheius is a fanatical worshipper of his Dark Lady...but he also possesses one of the keenest military minds in Lordaeron. I would not underestimate him, were I you.'"
 * - Zherron Shadowhowl, to Field Marshal Oren Tanis

General Varan Metheius was the commander of the 122nd Deathguard Battalion of the Royal Army of the Forsaken. A silent and calculating killer, Metheius was one of Sylvanas' most trusted commanders, having served at her side in the campaign in Gilneas, earning the epithet "Butcher of the Northgate" among the Gilneans for his atrocities. With dominance restored in Silverpine and the Gilneas Liberation Front penned up in their homeland, the General travelled throughout the Northlands enforcing his Dark Lady's will, intending to achieve her goal of a Forsaken empire that spans the entire continent of Lordaeron.

As he journeyed through Lordaeron, Metheius was almost always accompanied by his trusted lieutenant and chosen mouthpiece, the hunter Declan Malkus, until the younger man was killed during a worgen attack in Hillsbrad. Metheius himself would die weeks later, at the hands of the death knight Artimus Devaneaux, as both men fell from a high tower at the entrance to Skywall.

Biography
The city registry of Andorhal, recovered by Saavedro of Stratholme sometime prior to the reopening of the Dark Portal and currently held in the Royal Library of Stormwind, indicates that Metheius lived in the northern part of the city with his parents and siblings; their occupation was listed as "grain delivery". This unfortunate choice of employment put them in Stratholme during Mal'Ganis' corruption of the city; Metheius was infected and taken into the Scourge, while his family - in another part of town conducting a deal - were slaughtered by Arthas. This is the only recorded history of Metheius or his family beyond their small, neglected burial plot in Sorrow Hill Cemetery. Varan's name on the stone was crudely scratched out...

When Arthas returned to Andorhal to reclaim the liquified remains of Kel'Thuzad, Metheius had been brought into the service of the fallen Prince and remained in the army of the Scourge until the following year, when Sylvanas Windrunner and her banshees regained control of themselves. Under the rule of the Banshee Queen, Metheius became an Executor in the Deathguards, the royal military of the Forsaken. He was renowned for giving orders by body language, more often than not a simple nod or a hand gesture, and surprisingly having those orders understood. It was said that he only spoke to Sylvanas herself, the matters of which he might have spoken still unknown to this day.

Second Death
Executor Metheius led a group of Deathguards in an ill-advised attack against the necropolis Koltacus during the siege of Tirisfal, which was involved in the second Scourge invasion that heralded the beginning of the war in Northrend. The necropolis' master captured Metheius and killed all of his men; Metheius was delivered to Acherus, the Ebon Hold, which had just arrived in the airspace above the Scarlet Enclave, far to the east. Inhabited by some of the feared figures of Naxxramas, which had made its return to Northrend, Acherus was intended for a new invasion, to wipe out both the Scarlet Crusade and the Argent Dawn. Metheius, under intense, agonizing torture, vehemently insulted the Scourge, the Lich King and his "host", Instructor Razuvious. Impressed by the spirit but somewhat put out by the insults, Razuvious had Metheius' lower jaw removed before finally killing him, and having his "re-dead" corpse raised once again as a death knight of Acherus. This act solidified Metheius' place as a silent killer.

Under the tutelage of the lich Amal'thazad, Metheius learned the powers of frost and was able to bend the powers to his will, freezing the minds of his enemies and unleashing blasts of cold to finish them off. Earning for himself the rank of Scourge Commander, like many of the other death knights who fought in the Enclave, Metheius was a soulless killing machine throughout the battle at Light's Hope Chapel, killing several defenders of the Light himself before the death knights of Acherus were defeated by Tirion Fordring, calling upon the holiness of the site where they fought to stop the thousands of Scourge minions in their tracks. But where others swore their allegiance to the Ebon Blade as a means of revenge against the Lich King, Metheius disdained aligning himself to Darion Mograine and instead returned to the service of Sylvanas. Word had reached him of Settra's return to Scourge service, and decided to take his place within the hierarchy of the Forsaken military. After aiding with the plans to rebuild the defenses of the Tirisfal Glades, still recovering from the siege he had been killed in months before, Metheius journeyed to the death knights' training grounds before travelling to the front lines in Northrend...Outland.

The Hunted
While in Hellfire Peninsula, Metheius offered his services to his Queen's allies, was tasked with killing demons (which he did with relish), and collecting materials for cooking and experimentation. He was tasked by a blood elf magister to assassinate a draenei anchorite and his vindicator bodyguard at the Pools of Aggonar to ensure that a steady supply of felblood remained.

Journeying to Outland to check up on those draenei still in Outland, a former Karabor vindicator and self-declared "knight-hunter" - whose self-imposed mission was to kill death knights, Scourge or otherwise - passed by the Pools of Aggonar on his way from the Dark Portal to the Temple of Telhamat, and spied Metheius flying away from the scene, and discovered the dead anchorite and his guards. Infuriated, he declared a crusade against the Forsaken death knight, and tracked Metheius as he made his way through the shattered world, for the draenei knight-hunter knew Outland better than Metheius. However, the death knight general was aided by agents of the Horde, who knew their homeworld just as well as the draenei did, and (once he discovered he was being followed) was able to evade the zealous vindicator.

Giving In to the Ebon Blade
As he continued to fight the Scourge in Northrend, Metheius reluctantly admitted that the order of his brother death knights would be a great boon to him in carrying out the wishes of his Queen. At the invitation of Duke Lankral at the Shadow Vault, Metheius was officially inducted into the Knights of the Ebon Blade, where he continued to fight against the Scourge remnant in Icecrown (those that had not been destroyed by the forces that had battled through it for the last year).

Deployed to Gilneas
As the Shattering began to affect the landscape of the entire world of Azeroth, both physically and politically, Metheius was recalled to Undercity to receive new orders from Sylvanas. The Forsaken had been ordered to march south through Silverpine Forest to the land of Gilneas, which had been in isolation for over twenty years; the worgen plague that ran rampant in nearby Pyrewood Village, a Gilnean exclave outside the Greymane Wall, had apparently crossed over into Gilneas and infected a vast majority of its populace. As ordered by Sylvanas, Metheius was given command of a battalion, which he led in one of the first waves to enter Gilneas. After the way was clear for Sylvanas and her Horde reinforcements, Metheius served in support operations at the Forsaken Forward Command near the Greymane Wall. After King Greymane and most of his followers escaped with the aid of the night elves, leaving a token resistance - the Gilneas Liberation Front - to harass the Forsaken occupation army, Metheius was instructed to carry out his Queen's will throughout Lordaeron, inspecting the distribution of plague in Hillsbrad and the planned occupation of Andorhal in the recovering Western Plaguelands.

Metheius, though loyal to Sylvanas without question, grew concerned over the situation in Gilneas and focused much of his energies there. To that end, he dispatched agents who had flocked to his banner - including the priest Sekhesmet of Stratholme, who had broken from the House of Whitehair when he refused to renounce Sylvanas - to oversee operations elsewhere in Lordaeron, while he remained with the majority of his battalion in Gilneas. After the GLF, led by Darius Crowley and his daughter Lorna, allied with the Bloodfang pack to destroy the occupation forces, Metheius and his troops managed to escape with Deathstalker Commander Belmont, who had sent home a surprise - the corpse of Lord Vincent Godfrey, a Gilnean nobleman who had betrayed Greymane when he was revealed to be worgen; he had jumped off the cliffside at Tempest's Reach rather than be "one of them". Along with his lieutenants, Lord Walden and Baron Ashbury, Godfrey was resurrected by the Forsaken and - along with the troll druid Fer'jai, who (unbeknownst to any save Sylvanas) was actually a spy of the House of Whitehair - captured Lorna Crowley to hold her as a bargaining chip to her father: Surrender, or she becomes one of the Forsaken.



At the confrontation at the Greymane Wall, Metheius stood at the left hand of his queen, while the orc commander Cromush - sent by Garrosh to "guard" the Dark Lady, as she had earned the new Warchief's ire for employing the val'kyr in the first place - stood at her right. Floating behind them were the val'kyr Agatha, Arthura and Daschla, who had been responsible for raising the new Forsaken. As commanded, Lord Godfrey brought the prisoner forward, leaving Darius no choice. Despite the protests of his comrade, Ivar - packleader of the Bloodfang - Lord Crowley surrendered and returned to Gilneas, leaving Sylvanas in command of the field. But before anyone could react, Godfrey had pulled his Gilnean hunting rifle and shot the Dark Lady, killing her instantly. Enraged, Metheius, Cromush and the val'kyr attendants charged, forcing Godfrey to fall back to Shadowfang Keep, abandoned since the death of Arugal years before. Sacrificing themselves, the val'kyr resurrected the Banshee Queen.

Metheius cursed himself for a fool for not suspecting Godfrey sooner. He thought he should have suspected him from the start, should have believed that a man who would betray his people in life would have no hesitation to do so in death. Offering himself for punishment, he was surprised when Sylvanas did nothing, instead allowing him to return to the field...

The Butcher is Slain
Metheius' authority was constantly undermined by Sekhesmet's power, and he found himself being commanded by the High Priest rather than commanding him. In time, however, Metheius would receive justice - from one of his own "brothers".

Metheius had been involved in the capture of Artimus Devaneaux, a lieutenant of Saavedro of Stratholme, Sekhesmet's former apprentice. Artimus had joined Metheius' patrols, and was in fact involved in one in Hillsbrad when the patrol was attacked by the Shadowhowl pack, old enemies from Gilneas. Metheius' trusted lieutenant, Malkus, was killed in the attack, as were several of his men. His ranks depleting by the moment, an infuriated Sekhesmet blamed Metheius for his incompetence, and believed his "silence" was most frustrating. He bolted a jawbone to Metheius' head, and commanded him to wait for Artimus to leave Stormwind and capture him again. Artimus in fact came directly to Lordaeron and was captured by Metheius' patrol out of Tarren Mill, where he was brought to Sekhesmet at a tower in Skywall, near the entrance to the Vortex Pinnacle - high above the mythic lands of Uldum.

Sekhesmet demanded that Artimus submit or die - and the Baron, much to his shock, chose the latter, charging right at Sekhesmet. But Metheius entered his path at the last second, and the two death knights barrelled off the tower's edge towards Uldum far below. As they battled in the sky, Artimus - commenting that Razuvious hadn't done a good enough job - ripped Metheius' prosthetic jaw off. The agony that went through Metheius' body at that caused him to release his sword, which flew into Artimus' grip. The Baron, with his last act, beheaded Metheius with his own sword. The Butcher of the Northgate was dead before either man hit the ground.

Upon the discovery of the bodies by Saavedro and his allies, Metheius' corpse was unceremoniously incinerated. His head was taken back as a trophy, to show the Gilneans that one Forsaken war criminal had met his just rewards.