Lieren is one of the last characters I had created in-game. Above is a picture of him from the game's loading screen. He is a Vengeance Demon Hunter and he finally made it into the Midnight expansion. Below is the tale of his origins and background story.
Chapter 1:
Darkness.Not the comforting darkness of sleep, but the stale, suffocating blackness of a place forgotten by the sun.
Water dripped somewhere in the distance.
...Drip.
...Drip.
The rhythm stirred a memory he could no longer grasp. Once, there had been rain falling upon rooftops of silver stone. Once there had been laughter. Once there had been a home.
The memory dissolved before he could seize it.
Only the smell remained.
Rotting water.
Fel-tainted earth.
The mines.
Lieren opened his eyes.
The name meant little to him now. It belonged to another life—a frail boy he wished had died long ago.
His mother had never lived to hold him. She had given her life bringing him into the world, and though his father never spoke the words, Lieren had always believed he blamed him.
The old blood elf had been dutiful.
Never cruel.
Never loving.
Their home had been filled with books copied by careful hands, but never with warmth.
Lieren grew into a quiet child, thin as a reed and too weak to defend himself. Other children mocked him. Some found amusement in knocking him to the ground.
He learned there was safety in silence.
When the Burning Legion descended upon Outland, his father joined the Scryers, believing that knowledge and conviction would prevail against demons and those who had followed Prince Kael'thas into madness.
Hope proved fragile.
The Scryer outpost fell.
As infernal fire consumed the fortress, the order to evacuate echoed through the chaos.
Lieren ran with the others, clutching the few possessions he owned.
He stumbled.
His belongings scattered across broken stone.
His father reached the portal.
For one heartbeat, their eyes met.
Lieren stretched out a trembling hand.
His father hesitated.
Then turned away.
The portal closed.
An instant later, a fel cannon shattered the gateway into blazing fragments.
Lieren was alone.
---
The Legion did not waste prisoners.
It consumed them.
The blood elf was dragged into the mines where endless veins of fel energy bled through cracked stone. Day and night ceased to exist beneath the earth. Only labour remained.
Weakness earned beatings.
Slowness earned hunger.
Failure earned death.
He survived because he became invisible.
Invisible prisoners were rarely noticed.
Invisible prisoners lived.
Years passed in darkness.
Friends were few.
Most disappeared into experiments.
Others fed demons and their monstrous hounds.
Eventually, kindness found him.
An elderly draenei named Caalen shared his water without asking for anything in return.
Beside him stood his daughter, Aesa.
She smiled as though sunlight still existed somewhere beyond the stone ceiling.
Lieren tried to avoid them.
Everyone close to him died.
He would not curse them as well.
Caalen ignored every attempt to push him away.
"Loneliness," the old draenei once said with a weary smile, "is a prison stronger than any chain."
Slowly, almost against his own will, Lieren became part of their small family.
He watched over them.
He distracted overseers.
He quietly diverted punishment whenever he could.
For the first time in many years, someone spoke his name with kindness.
---
The mines held another poison.
Fel seeped through the rocks like glowing blood.
Prisoners whispered about its power.
Some drank from its pools.
For a few glorious moments they became impossibly strong.
Then came madness.
Mutation.
Death.
Lieren watched bodies twist into things no longer mortal.
He swore never to touch it.
He did not know fate had already chosen otherwise.
---
The day salvation arrived began with thunder.
Alliance forces crashed into the Legion's fortress.
Steel rang.
Magic shook the caverns.
Hope spread among the prisoners like wildfire.
Then came the Legion's final command.
Kill them all.
Demons flooded the tunnels.
Escape routes collapsed.
Caalen lay bleeding against shattered stone.
Aesa tried desperately to pull him to safety.
Lieren looked toward the advancing horde.
Then toward the river of glowing fel.
He made his choice.
The liquid burned before it even reached his throat.
Agony erupted through every vein.
His bones screamed.
His skin felt as though it were tearing itself apart.
Something ancient and hateful awoke inside him.
The demons charged.
Lieren met them.
He was no longer prey.
He tore through claws and steel with hands that no longer seemed his own.
Each wound fed the fury consuming him.
Pain became strength.
Strength became rage.
The world disappeared beneath a crimson storm.
There was only killing.
Only hatred.
Only endless violence.
Then...
Silence.
A distant voice drifted through the haze.
"Lieren..."
Caalen.
The blood elf blinked.
The frenzy loosened its grip.
He remembered.
He turned.
The cavern floor was covered in shattered demons.
Bodies lay scattered like broken dolls.
Then he saw her.
Aesa.
She lay among them, broken beyond healing.
For a long moment, Lieren could not breathe.
He fell beside her.
His trembling hands lifted her gently, as though she might awaken if only he were careful enough.
"No..."
The word barely escaped him.
He begged.
He pleaded.
He shook her shoulders.
He apologised again and again until the words lost all meaning.
His cries echoed through the caverns.
He struck his own head in desperation.
Anything to wake from the nightmare.
Strong hands caught his wrists.
Caalen.
The old draenei's breathing had grown shallow.
"No," he whispered.
"You tried..."
Tears streamed freely down Lieren's face.
"I killed her..."
"You saved us..."
"No..."
"You were our friend."
Caalen smiled despite the blood upon his lips.
"I forgive you."
Lieren could not answer.
"So would my daughter."
The old draenei leaned against him.
His strength faded.
One final breath.
"Forgive yourself...please.."
His head grew still.
The silence that followed was heavier than any mountain.
Lieren screamed.
A cry born from grief, guilt, and a soul breaking apart.
The cavern itself seemed to tremble.
It was that scream that guided the Alliance heroes to him.
---
A human paladin stood at the entrance.
His expression shifted from pity to revulsion as he took in the carnage.
"Celithra!"
A shadow descended from above.
A night elf landed before the blood elf.
Her eyes were hidden beneath black bindings.
Yet emerald fire glowed through the cloth, as though she saw things no mortal eyes ever could.
She seized Lieren by the hair and forced him to meet her sightless gaze.
"What is your name, sin'dorei?"
"...Lieren."
The fel already burned through his body.
Every heartbeat threatened to be his last.
Celithra studied him.
Not the broken elf before her.
Something deeper.
Something hidden beneath the agony.
"Lieren of the Sin'dorei."
Her voice carried the certainty of steel.
"You stand at the edge of death."
"The fel will consume what remains of you."
"You may die here."
"Or..."
Her spectral gaze burned brighter.
"You may live."
"You will sacrifice everything that is left of your former life."
"You will become a weapon against the Legion."
"You will know pain beyond imagining."
"But you will fight."
She leaned closer.
"Choose."
Blood filled Lieren's mouth.
His vision blurred.
Yet through the pain, he remembered two smiling draenei who had called him friend.
One final word escaped cracked lips.
"...Fight."
For the briefest moment, compassion softened Celithra's face.
Then the mask of the demon hunter returned.
"Your rebirth will be agony."
She lifted him effortlessly into her arms.
"But you will endure."
"As we all must."
Great wings of unfurled behind her as she rose carried the dying blood elf deeper into the mines.
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