A while ago on an RP server I had a blood elf death knight named Genevrier.
Like many of the people I write about, she was not good at her job.

The lake was deep, and crystal-clear. The sun winked off the surface, and off of the brushed metal box, resting sedately on the white sandy bottom. A little rainbow pool of some unidentifiable fluid floated delicately on the surface. And the banks, well, the banks were swarming with crocolisks.

Genvrier took a hard pull of the skin of kungaloosh. It kicked like a mule, burned the whole way down, and her two day's empty stomach heaved in protest, but she didn't notice the rash on her right arm quite as much, and it made her plan seem like something that would work. The little tradeoffs that you make in order to keep living. Existing. Whatever.

She yanked hard on the knot, and the leaves rustled as the carcass drooped a little lower. It had been a hell of a stroke of luck to find it, barely even chewed on. It stank like rotting meat does, but that was okay. The rope creaked uncertainly, and that did make her a little more nervous. If the rope snapped right off, she might just as well kill herself right now and get it over with. But the rope settled, and the corpse swung back and forth. Not taking the easy way out? Well, showtime then.

She tried to scratch one last rune into the rotting meat, but it gave way under her touch. No good. Well. She gingerly reached for the head, and pulled it towards her. Cradling it in her hands, she started to cough. And from the cough, she flowed into a fast-paced, guttural monologue. The branches of the tree creaked and rustled, stirred by a wind that nothing else could feel, and the ground ten feet under them hissed and smoked. White bones on the white sands glimmered, and clicked to each other, and just as quietly lay still again. She took a deep breath, and then blew into the rotten nose.

The eye that hadn't fallen out started rolling around crazily, and the head quaked. Dropping it, Genevrier braced herself against the trunk and started counting backwards from twenty in her head. It was looking good so far, looking good. At eighteen, the feet kicked out, startling some birds higher up in the tree. Fifteen, and the arms started snapping back and forth. Good, good, g-

KHHHHWHAT HHHHAVE AIYOUUU HDDONNNNNNE

The crocolisks' eyes snapped around to the tree. Genevrier tensed.

KKKKHILL ME!

The eye rolled aimlessly and the legs splashed all over the place. Foam and decay dripped from the corners of the ghoul's mouth.

SSSSEND ME BACKKKKKKKKHILLLLL MEEEE!

She kicked, hard, and the body rolled off the branch and plummeted. Five feet above the ground, the rope snapped taut, and there the ghoul dangled, a terrifying, screaming pinata. It wouldn't stop screaming. And the crocolisks sunning themselves on the banks slowly flowed off the sand, and started threshing their way, one by one, over to investigate. Genevrier scrambled along the branches, wincing as the kungaloosh churned in her gut, and the spiders in her right arm all rose in revolution. Two trees away. Three trees away.

KKKHHAAAAAAH! KKKHAAAAAAAHKK!

She could feel every hair on her arm stand up whenever the damn thing screamed. Honestly, she hadn't expected it to be this loud. She snuck a glance over her shoulder - it was dangling and kicking, swinging over a sea of crocolisks. One of them reared up on its hind legs and snapped - the ghoul kicked, and swung just out of the way. The other crocolisks hissed and bellowed, and started climbing over each other, angling for a better attack. She gained the fourth tree, somewhat less gracefully than she'd hoped, and shimmied herself out along the branch. Right over the lake. Now or never. She closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, and the branch moved sickeningly under her.

And then it snapped.

Three-hundred-odd pounds of combined ex-champion of the Lich King and currently criminally underequipped blood elf and ex-branch of what would later reveal itself to be a rather poisonous tree belly-flopped into the placid lake surface, making a sound like a gunshot. At that exact moment, the rope broke, and the terrible pinata also made groundfall. The ghoul danced wildly on failing legs, stamping madly as crocolisk jaws snapped in confusion all around it.

KHHHILL ME! it roared. KKKKHILL ME!

Snap snap snap went the crocolisks in reply, hissing and growling and climbing all over each other.

Meanwhile, Genevrier had gotten about twenty feet down in the lake and was kicking madly and beginning to appreciate just how deep the river's heart was. It was warm water, warmer than it had the right to be. There must be a hotspring involved somewhere in this lake. Her eyes flashed back and forth, attracted by the darting of tiny fish. No crocolisks. Not yet. The metal framing of the chest glittered, tantalizing and impossibly far away, and her legs ached from swimming. Forty feet. The kungaloosh rolled in her stomach, and she fought back a heave. Focus. Get the - Darkness for a second. She shook her head, and color crawled back into her vision. Well. So much for the ghoul. It was all speed from this point out.

Finally, her target. She fumbled with the chest, and the rusted lock cracked open. The lid heaved against the water pressure, and the chest popped open, belching a huge bubble of stagnant air. She peered inside and

a smaller casket?

Really?

Splashes from above her. The crocolisks had run out of distractions. No time for introspection. She slipped the small box under her right arm, and kicked off from the bottom. Lungs burning, eyes blurring, head spinning, Genevrier abandoned pretty much any vestige of elven grace.

Jaws behind her snapped, and she choked a little on water. Damnit not yet not yet not yet! Instinct roared at her, and she turned, pointed her fingers, and spent a little more precious air on a powerful syllable. The crocolisk's eyes widened, and its grin cracked open into a gaping hole. A weak spot! But Genevrier wasn't even thinking about things like that. Northrend, death, the chill of the grave, and it all came crashing together in her head, down her neck, through her shoulders, coursing along her arm. Her hand flashed, and suddenly, ice. Her hand was entombed in ice. She wanted to cry, and throw up, and laugh, and not be in this stupid, stupid situation, as long as we're talking about what she wanted. Frost spells underwater. Of course.

The crocolisk, emboldened, clamped down on her crappy hide boot.

There were crocolisks swarming all around her, and now she couldn't even swim. Out of options, and out of her mind, Genevrier pointed her toes and blew out the last bit of air she had on one more syllable. She couldn't see what happened, but the crocolisk let go of the boot smartly, and suddenly she was kicking again. A trail of blood floated out of the sinking beast. The swarm banked sharply, and turned on the wounded crocolisk. A new distraction! Fantastic! Giddy on alcohol, oxygen starvation, and now blood loss, Genevrier broke the surface and sucked in lungfuls of the humid, buggy air. The casket rattled under her arm as she bobbed, briefly, and then she began paddling wildly.The surface behind her broke with a splash as the crocolisks came up for air again. How many could there be? Too damn many. Stop thinking, keep swimming. Thrashing as hard as she could, she made shorefall, and went for the trees. Climb the tree, climb the tree, crocolisks can't-

Her hand bounced off the tree, and she looked down stupidly at it. Oh yeah. A block of ice. No grip. She swung it into the tree again. It chipped a little. Again. A little more.

A bull made landfall and roared behind her. She dropped the casket, and suddenly she was twenty feet up in the tree. Her right arm was on fire, her left hand was going numb, and her boot was sodden with blood. She stopped on a sturdy-looking branch, and started breathing again. Below, the bull bellowed in rage, and some other crocolisks stormed, but they were down there. She was up here. Alive. Alive! Sure, the casket was all the way down there, but it was-

Abruptly, her face turned grey, and she leaned over the branch, and threw up what little there was in her stomach. It splashed down the tree and landed on one of the milling crocolisks.

She wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth and started laughing, and laughing, and laughing.

you're not serious, she said flatly.

Dead serious, grunted the orc. A gnomish engineer just happened to be passing through the area, and he said they didn't need the supplies to fix the engine, he could rebuild it using the tools he had. And they did that, and they took off, and that was the last I saw of them.

The casket fell heavily to the ground, partly from shock, and partly because her arm (which was turning an angry red) was completely numb.

well.

Genevrier looked down at herself. She had the Dalaran tabard that the wise-ass mage had left her with, some hide boots she'd taken off a wolverine corpse (one of which was now soaked with blood), part of a skin of kungaloosh, and a belt she'd made out of old bandages. Then she looked at the orc, in his fancy armor, with his well-forged axe. Then she had to remind herself once again that she was a member of the Horde these days, and it would cause problems for her later if she murdered him and took his things.

You know, said the orc, looking concerned, I've got some old heavy pants and silver I could give you, if you could kill some longnecks for me.

She unslung the skin, took a long draw from it, and thought about back when her biggest problem used to be murdering people faster than they could be reinforced.

I can give you this knife too if you'll skin them for me.

yah, yah, slurred Genevrier, just point ye way.