[IC Journal - Zaifar] Bladesong
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[IC Journal - Zaifar] Written Journal Entry - "Bladesong"
I am very pleased that the Margrave is handling Ezidran's condition and I have confidence that he would be able to solve the puzzle of the 'Berserker' better than any of us who studied Ezidran back in the Crusade days. Not only is he Ezidran's spouse and understands him better than we do, the Margrave himself is a man of a brilliant mind and articulate intelligence. The researchers of the Ebon Knights and the Argent Crusade who took keen interest in helping to remedy Ezidran's condition were not very successful at it, including myself. I hope he would be able to crack this down.
As I have mentioned to the Margrave, even though the behavioral of the 'Berserker' is malicious, the nature of it is not entirely malignant. Like a weapon, if wielded right, it can be used to one's benefit.
The 'Berseker' is a manifestation of Ezidran's blinded loyalty, aggression, hunger, cruelty, but also his strength, his power and a repression of who he is. It is -not- a seperate personality but rather, his being and a mechanism both physical and mental designed by his subsconscious to cope with many things. Like a plant, it has been cultivated but bad leaves need to be cut away to ensure it 'flourishes' and does not spend its energy and resources on trying to 'cultivate' its dead segments.
I would relate it to how living beings put on 'masks' and personae to handle different situations and people but it is not. Not the same concept, it is not a 'mask'. It is the very fibre of his being.
I discussed with the Margrave - The 'Berserker' cannot be removed entirely so. Rather, it is like a puzzle with 'lock combinations'. To solve it, one combination has to be unlocked one at a time.
I refer the 'lock combinations' into three aspects - The Mind, the Body and the Soul. I am going to attempt to organize this better myself as I am also still keen on studying Ezidran's detriment. Starting with the Mind and understanding what rouses the 'Berserker'.
The Mind - During our observation period, we theorized the issues in regard to his mind is deeply tied in to the body which I will note further down. Ezidran is, unfortunately, one of those 'cannon fodder, third generation' death knights, weaker than any other death knights. This physical weakness drives the body to crave for more energy. The need for more energy gives rise to an increasing hunger which forces the mind to take on a 'survival instinct mechanism' - In turn, it gives births to the 'Berserker' psyche.
There are other factors that play into the creation of the 'Berserker' - The voice of the Lich King has definitely factored directly into the 'Berserker' and among other hypothesis we have came up with such as the repression of his memories as a Scourge minion, subsconsciously embedded deep into his psyche and helped in the 'Berserker's' birth. We observed that the 'Berserker' is designed to be utterly 'loyal' to someone too, which explains the Lich King's hold over the Scourge.
The researchers of the Ebon Blade and Argent Crusade took particular interest in this Scourge mindset, in hopes of finding results and liberate many other undeads and death knights from this vicious, hivemind mentality and connection to the Lich King. Why the Scourge has not obliterated Azeroth still remains a mystery, thus we think prying into Ezidran's condition may offer us an answer.
That being said - The 'Berserker' is designed to obey, survive, cannibalize and kill. Your regular, destructive ghoulish mind. It needs to be guided into right direction to see its full potential rather than seeing it as threat.
I am not too concerned about this specific piece of puzzle as I have heard two individuals, Salarous and Marius, have performed an intensive mental surgery to remove the aggressive side of the 'Berserker' (Inadvertently and unfortunately, also crippled Ezidran) to cull his destructive mindset for now and of course, the Margrave himself is Ezidran's spouse; his support, love and understanding for his husband means a lot to recovering and soothing the beast. Distractions also help to divert away the 'Berserker's' need to destroy.
The Body - The Ebon Knights who still remembered their Scourge days, recalled that Ezidran's original runeblade was shattered, therefore putting his body in a dire state of weakness and inertia. Strong as he looks, he is, in fact, brittle and may cease to function anytime if he does not cull his hunger or rejuvenate his energies. It is very impressive to know he has managed to survive after the shatter of his original blade and retain his soul, we think the sheer strength of his will managed to buy him enough time to find another runeblade to sustain and continue to survive.
Amazing, it is. However, not without consequences, never without reprecussions - He is utterly weak and if he does not feed to his hunger, he will stop moving and die, eventually. This becomes a major part to the 'Berserker's' rise.
He has managed to take on a fallen dread commander's runeblade, which will only buy him more time to live now and extend his strength a little more. Regardless, he is still a fragile death knight, he requires more energy to keep moving, his energy expends even faster from vigorous fighting. Not to mention, he is missing a few vital organs in his body, mainly the heart. Another factor that explains his physical weakness. Simply speaking, he is a mess.
As explained before, the body's issues ties into the mind. The bodily weaknesses pushes the mind to apt to it and drives out the survival instinct and intense hunger. It creates a mental mechanism in attempts to fix the physical fraility - That is the 'Berserker'.
Needlessly to say some of my Forsaken colleagues and I have been effortlessly torn apart by the 'Berserker'. Like rag dolls.
Good thing we know how to put ourselves back together, with our given knowledge in anatomy and necromancy.
Being a Disciple of Blood, Ezidran has, naturally, taken a feeding to blood and flesh. Blood is a vital essence to every living being, it also contains our very essence. Blood is used in rituals, creating concoctions and sealing spells. Naturally, the blood contains a strong amount of energy for the 'Berserker' to hunger for. And flesh - is a good food resource on the battlefield. Of course, I, as a Forsaken, am partial to cannibalism. Outlawed, yes but not in the eyes of the Forsaken and the dead. Nobody is going to have time to arrest you as a soldier when you're dutifully fighting on the battlefield.
The need to cannibalize is easily explained - The blood and flesh of humanoids are more potent than ones of critters and animals. We also theorized that since Ezidran's current runeblade is now inert and unable to draw souls and energies, he had to resort to cannibalism as an alternate means of feeding his hunger and replenishing his energy.
Another study we had - We noticed how properties of blood from different species have various effects on Ezidran, such as fel orc blood drives him to pure wrath and Yogg-Saron's blood...
Lets just say it is probably the worst idea in whole of Azeroth to feed Ezidran an old god's blood.
The Margrave and I talked deeply about this, in regards to 'repairing' Ezidran's body. We thought of ideas such as organ transplant, to fill the 'gaps' in his anatomy so he can channel his bodily functions better and improve his strength. We brainstormed on the concept of building artificial organs (The Margrave, himself, is a vivisectionist, surgeon and a skilled engineer, such inventions would not be a problem to him) to stealing orifices from the Darkfallen (I hear those blood-drinkers are strongest among the Scourge). I think they are all very viable solutions to this. The problem would be the bloodworms that Ezidran hosts in his body.
We feared that the bloodworms may eat the host's foreign organs once transplanted into his body. Speaking of which, Ezidran has invited me over to aid him in getting the bloodworms to acclimate to San'layn blood.
I am not sure if I should disgusted or honored by it.
I trust the Margrave would be capable in resolving this issue. I should ask him for results, as I am a keen anatomist myself too.
The Soul - While the Soul aspect did not play a major part to the cause of the 'Berserker', it is still vital, nonetheless. To my knowledge, a Death Knight's vampiric runeblade is an extension of his being; a part of his soul. With his original runeblade shattered, the 'Berserker' had to seek an alternate source of power to keep him going. While no one has witnessed this happening, the Ebon Knights think he may have stumbled upon a fallen female dread commander's runeblade and -she- has called to the 'Berserker' to wield her.
Calling. I am not certain if they are meant to be together.
The theory is that a part of the female death knight's being has been imbued into the blade. It is a feminine blade, after all. Now that Ezidran has taken up the mantle of being her wielder, it is evident that a part of her channels him and may have lorded over the 'Berserker' well.
Such volatile, aggressive power naturally requires guidance and vast amount of control to 'wield'. Since the Lich King has no longer have a hold over him (The 'Berserker'), the female runeblade is now his replacement 'guide'.
This guidance came in a form of a song from the female runeblade. Numerous of times, in close proximity, I have heard soft, melodical resonance from the blade.
And her song has guided and commanded over the 'Berserker', same concept as how the Frostmourne has corrupted Arthas Menethil's being into a death knight.
While she was intepreted by the Argent Crusader as a vile presence, we also sensed benevolence in the blade too. Her song seems to cross both malicious and benevolent intentions; from curbing the 'berserker's destructive side to commanding him to kill innocents. We are not certain what to make out of this but to leave Ezidran alone with her since she had effectively 'tamed the beast', most of the time.
As a result, the seducing song has made Ezidran dependant on the runeblade to cull the 'Berserker'. She is in the way to his recovery.
We discussed one of the ways to do is to have the original wielder to give up the mantle of the blade to Ezidran, reforge her with a new blade where Ezidran would have dominance over and have her completely become one of Ezidran's being. This would be the toughest of all puzzle to solve since we are afraid of many risky possibilities that might place an adverse effect on Ezidran or even kill him. Such a delicate matter, we cannot afford to have Ezidran lose another blade and succumb to a soul-shatter. And die right after, of course. We had a few ideas but not certain if it would work.
This is not simply experiment where you can poke and prod and see what happens.
In conclusion, we need to solve this slowly one at a time. Eventually, it will all come together and we can bend the 'Berserker' to Ezidran's will.
The favorable result we seek for is to see Ezidran merge with the 'Berserker' as a whole being and accept the fact it is not something he should lose control over.
We cannot remove the 'Berserker' because it is -him-, after all.
Ah, delightful.
We have found the female dread commander; the original wielder of Ezidran's runeblade.
She is Caerae Sholondraes, Miss Valaeli's mother.
I wonder what would this outcome be like.
Margrave Greythorn, Ezidran Ravenloth, what would you two do?