Tag Archives: burning legion

Trial of the Black Prince

taverninthemists2

You know, it’s a funny thing about spending a lot of time around Garrosh. After a while, the particular brand of blinders through which he looks at the world becomes oddly endearing. Case in point, that last bit Gurtash drew up. I have to admit, I actually sort of missed it while I was off the grid for a while.

Stopping at the Tavern of the Mists was my idea. Garrosh didn’t really have any business of his own there — unless you count inspiring Anduin Wrynn to regain mobility ahead of schedule — so he decided to go take a look around the area. Gurtash grabbed a drink from Tong downstairs (um, nonalcoholic hopefully, but I didn’t think to watch) and went out behind the tavern to rest by the steam pool.

That left me to have a little one-to-one time with the real reason I’d wanted to stop here on the way through.

 

WRATHION: I don’t believe I know you, friend. Is there something I can help you with?

MOKVAR: There might be. It’s why I came here looking for you.

WRATHION: Interesting. Ordinarily, people only come to seek me out when I send for them.

MOKVAR: Well, do that enough times and I suppose word will tend to get around.

WRATHION: Well then. Clearly I’ve been overestimating people’s sense of discretion.

MOKVAR: Don’t feel too bad. I make a point of having several ears to the ground.

WRATHION: We should get along well, in that case. Or not at all. It can be so hard to predict which way that will go.

MOKVAR: Let’s be optimistic and say option 1.

WRATHION: Indeed. In any case, you are here and I am being rude. <calling downstairs> Tong! A drink, please, for my new friend, mister… ah, I don’t believe I got your name.

MOKVAR: Mokvar.

WRATHION: <calling downstairs> Mr. Mokvar!

Wrathion turns back to Mokvar.

I suppose he doesn’t really need to know your name to serve you drinks, but I did start to tell him, and I would hate for the old fellow to feel I’d left him hanging. Is it Mr. Mokvar, by the way? Or Mokvar something?

MOKVAR: Just Mokvar.

WRATHION: No family name?

MOKVAR: Do you have one?

WRATHION: Fair point. Although advertising my particular family probably resides somewhere between unnecessary and inadvisable. At any rate, I was just curious. “Mok-var.” Does it mean anything?

MOKVAR: Nothing. Just Mokvar.

WRATHION: No? Don’t orcish names usually mean things? “Death of” this and “victory to” that and honor blood glory and such?

MOKVAR: Not everyone’s. Some, yes, like the Warchief’s, for instance.

WRATHION: Yes, I had assumed it meant something subtle like “Scream from Hell.”

MOKVAR: Well, I was talking more about the “Garrosh” part, but sure. Anyway, the point is, in my case it’s just a name.

WRATHION: Ah. Well, that’s less colorful.

MOKVAR: I’ll try to be more entertaining next time.

WRATHION: I would appreciate that. Ah, here we are.

Tong comes upstairs with a tray.

Our drink! Here you are, Mr. Mokvar. I hope you enjoy plum wine.

MOKVAR: I’m allergic to plums, actually.

WRATHION: Ah well. More for me, then! Thank you, Tong.

Tong leaves.

In any case — you have no wine, you have no last name, you’re not terribly entertaining, but here you are. What brings you out to my little sanctuary in the hills?

MOKVAR: Reputation. I’ve heard you’ve been recruiting help for a… well, let’s call it a project of some kind.

WRATHION: You might say that. I prefer to think of it as safeguarding the long-term safety of our world. You might even call it a family business of sorts.

MOKVAR: Well, other than the part where your father lost his mind and tried to destroy the world.

WRATHION: Well yes, there’s that, but who doesn’t get a little cranky in their old age?

MOKVAR: Hopefully you’re young enough that we don’t need to worry about that with you for a while.

WRATHION: One would hope. I do so love to keep people guessing, though!

MOKVAR: I guess I’m less of a daredevil. I like knowing these things for sure. For instance, this looming threat you seem so keen on protecting the world from.

WRATHION: Granted, I don’t really know you, Mr. Mokvar, but unless I’m wildly off in my estimate, you’re old enough that you shouldn’t need me to spell out that threat for you.

MOKVAR: I figured you meant the Burning Legion.

WRATHION: There you go. You’ve answered your own question.

MOKVAR: I’m not so interested in it being the Legion in general — you’re right, it’s common sense to figure they’ll strike again, sooner or later — but I’m more interested in the details. For instance… are you just making some “sooner or later” guess that any of us might, or do you know something more about what’s coming?

WRATHION: Well, I hate to show my hand too much. But suffice to say that as convenient as it would be to possess detailed foreknowledge of the Legion’s plans, I have to settle for something less precise. You might think of it as an inherited trait. My flight was charged with the protection of this world, after all. It stands to reason we might be imbued with an innate sensitivity to looming threats, particularly of a demonic nature.

MOKVAR: Well, apart from the whole deal where—

WRATHION: Yes, yes, I know, the business with the rar-rar-crazy and trying to destroy everything. I know. The flight lost the script for a while there. There’s no need to keep bringing it up. You don’t see me dragging the discussion back to your people’s somewhat checkered history in certain similar matters, do you?

MOKVAR: Wow, you’re sensitive about this, aren’t you?

WRATHION: You would be too if your every conversation were a time bomb ticking down to the inevitable Neltharion-splosion. You would think that after all the time and effort I spent tracking down and exterminating the rest of the black flight, people would see fit to stop lumping me in with them, but oh no.

MOKVAR: Well, technically, didn’t you recruit rogues to—

WRATHION: It’s called delegating, my friend! Goodness, do you spend all your conversations nitpicking like this? You must be a joy at parties.

MOKVAR: Deliana tells me that all the time, too.

WRATHION: Who is that? Your wife?

MOKVARNo, she’s not my — ugh, why does everyone always think that…?

Wrathion looks at Mokvar quizzically.

Right… just… never mind.

WRATHION: Indeed… Well, in any case. My sensitivity to the threat facing this world is a holdover from that ancestry. It may well have surfaced in me purely because I’m the only untainted black dragon to have come along in an age.

MOKVAR: Are you sure this… “dragon sense” of yours is something specific to untainted black dragons?

WRATHION: There’s no way to know for sure, now is there? I am the only black dragon left alive, untainted or otherwise, so I suppose there’s no alternative for comparison.

Wrathion looks at Mokvar quizzically.

Why? That’s a rather… odd question to be a random inquiry.

MOKVAR: Just because there aren’t any black dragons living in this world — assuming you definitely got them all—

WRATHION: I did.

MOKVAR: Bully for you, then.

—doesn’t mean there aren’t any black dragons, at all. For instance, the not-quite-living variety.

WRATHION: …oh?

MOKVAR: Just a thought.

WRATHION: A thought inspired by…?

MOKVAR: Remember what you were saying before about not showing your hand too much? We’re rather alike that way.

WRATHION: Still, I think I can guess at a few cards. Evidently, there are some remnants of my kin stumbling around in some state of…undeath?

MOKVAR: Possibly.

WRATHION: Hmm. You would think that killing a dragon once would have been enough.

MOKVAR: Believe me, son, you’re preaching to the choir on that one. The gist of it, though, is that it looks like something may have woken some of your former family up from their nap. And the lead that first sent me stumbling in their direction involved some vague portents about “something coming.”

WRATHION: Hmm.

MOKVAR: Which sounds a little familiar now.

WRATHION: Yes, doesn’t it…

Wrathion glances behind him to his bodyguards, Left and Right, and makes a brief gesture.

And… what, pray tell, was it that sent you poking around… well, wherever you were poking around.

MOKVAR: Hypothetically.

WRATHION: Yes, of course. Hypothetically.

MOKVAR: It was… a personal matter.

WRATHION: Isn’t everything?

MOKVAR: Probably. But it does make me wonder what might have happened to stir up the Black Dragonflight even in death.

WRATHION: I don’t know. I can’t say I’m privy to the details of what’s putting the Legion in motion — or what will. It might not even have begun yet.

MOKVAR: How does that work?

WRATHION: Oh, one of the interesting things about precognition is that it can sometimes make one aware of an effect before the cause even takes place. Isn’t time fascinating?

MOKVAR: Preaching to the choir again.

WRATHION: All I can say, my friend, is that events are in motion that threaten to bring the Legion down upon us. And my every instinct calls for me to ensure Azeroth is ready to face them.

MOKVAR: That’s what I hear you’ve been telling people.

WRATHION: You don’t need to sound so conspiratorial about it! I’ll have you know, I’ve been working with some of your own kinsmen to that end.

MOKVAR: So I’ve heard.

WRATHION: You can rest assured, of course, that in the conflict we find ourselves embroiled in, my loyalties lie with your H—

MOKVAR: You don’t have to go through your usual song and dance with me.

Wrathion blinks.

WRATHION: Beg pardon?

MOKVAR: I know you’ve been recruiting people from the Horde and the Alliance. You don’t have to go through your usual pretense of professing your loyalty to whichever side you happen to be talking to at the time.

WRATHION: Er… I… that is… <laughing nervously> Mokvar, my friend, I haven’t an idea what you… that is… You, um… You know about that, eh?

MOKVAR: Like I said, I get around.

WRATHION: Apparently so much so that you’re privy to fairly private discussions across faction lines!

MOKVAR: Let’s just say I have a few useful contacts.

WRATHION: I see that. Nevertheless, what you don’t realize—

MOKVAR: Look, I’m not all that interested in what your endgame in all this is.

WRATHION: I… oh. You don’t? Because I had this whole speech ready on the off chance the situation ever came up, and—

MOKVAR: I assume it’s some type of deal where you think you’re serving some greater good, and playing both sides against each other is a means to that end that you think is justified.

WRATHION: Well… yes, I suppose that’s more or less… um… Are you sure you don’t want to hear the speech?

MOKVAR: And whatever the finer details of it are, they don’t really matter much to me, not least of all because whatever you have going on, you’re just pushing people harder into faction conflicts they were already fighting anyway.

WRATHION: …because it included a few turns of phrase I’m actually rather proud of.

MOKVAR: Could you let it go with the speech already? Believe me, I’ve already had to transcribe enough monologuing for one lifetime.

WRATHION: Oh fine. It’s your loss, though. There were motifs and everything.

MOKVAR: Well whatever the plan is, motifs and all, if you’re smart you’ll rethink it before you get any deeper than you already are.

WRATHION: Oh? And why is that? Are you threatening me?

Left and Right take a step forward, raising their crossbows.

I hope you’re not trying to threaten me. Tong gets so very cross when people make a mess of his place.

MOKVAR: You’re not hearing me. I’m not saying to rethink what you’re doing or else. I’m saying rethink it, because if you do, and you’re smart, you’ll realize you’re getting yourself into the middle of something you don’t want to meddle with.

WRATHION: The only thing I’m trying to do, my friend, is bring an end to this destructive conflict as quickly as possible. Or perhaps you’d prefer to continue watching the Horde and Alliance whittle away at each other while the house burns around them?

MOKVAR: And what I’m trying to explain is that you’re trying to tame a crazed worg. You think you can insert yourself into the Horde-Alliance war and bring it to heel, but you can’t. This is bigger than you. It isn’t subject to your whims.

WRATHION: You seem far too willing to resign yourself to the whims of chance.

MOKVAR: I’m willing to accept that chance’s whims have a lot more sway than ours. But, fine. If you don’t believe me, don’t believe me. Don’t say nobody warned you, though, if you keep meddling in things that are larger than any of us and you end up being bitten by it.

WRATHION: Mokvar, my good fellow, I’ve been enjoying your company, but don’t presume to lecture me. I am the last of the Black Dragonflight, chosen by the makers to safeguard the world. I see things you couldn’t imagine, and know things that would set your… pedestrian mind ablaze.

Mokvar looks thoughtfully into the distance for a moment, then nods.

MOKVAR: In that case, Black Prince, I suppose I’ll take my leave.

Mokvar turns and starts to walk away.

Good fortune to you in your endeavors.

WRATHION: And to you in yours, sir.

Mokvar reaches the door, then stops and looks back over his shoulder.

MOKVAR: A propos of nothing… does the name “Sabellian” mean anything to you?

Wrathion narrows his eyes and peers at Mokvar for several seconds.

WRATHION: Should it?

Mokvar shrugs.

MOKVAR: Probably not. Just something I heard somewhere. You seem like a knowledgeable guy. I figured I’d ask. I’m sure it’s nothing.

Mokvar turns back to the door.

Good hunting, your highness.

Mokvar exits.

 

Not sure if I made things better or worse there. I suppose we’ll see. Plenty of time still to worry about that. Hopefully. In the meantime, I have more research to do.

 

Mokvar

 

Monday mailbag

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Quite a bit of mail this time around, so no sense wasting time — let’s get right to it…

 

Greetings Warchief!

I just finished reading your blog from the beginning, which took me a couple of weeks. I was actually looking for a picture of Liadrin, NOT IN THE GURTASH WAY. It was then that I found a comic drawn by Gurtash that had Liadrin in it, specifically the one where we met Shayari, and I thought Garrosh’s daughter WHAT?! And that led to a lot of reading in my free time.

Why was I looking for Liadrin you ask? I make hero concepts for Heroes of the Maelstorm and wanted to add a picture to my post.

So my question is- have you ever played Heroes of the Maelstrom, it made from the same people as the creators of Earth Online and the concept is you take a bunch of people from there, other games, and our own world (because hey who is more badass than who we have running around). If not I recommend it as a change of pace from EO.

–Glen Bloodblade

So, on the one hand, welcome to the blog, Glen. Thanks for reading. On the other hand, what the fuck took you so long, Glen? I mean seriously. Apparently I have to go have a talk with someone in the publicity department. Do we have a publicity department? I would say we should create one if we don’t already, but knowing my luck, it would be packed with the usual fuckwittery that I constantly have surrounding me, so the publicists would run around “advertising” classified military secrets, while meanwhile I have a frigging ghost town of tumbleweeds turning out for my book signing. Again. And I don’t remember fucking seeing YOU there either, Glen, so don’t think for a second YOU’RE off the hook. You watch your ass, Glen. You watch your ass.

Anyway. I can’t say I’ve tried this Heroes of the Maelstrom thing, Glen. Mostly as a matter of self-preservation, really. I figure, Earth Online already sucks up so damn much of my time, the last thing I need is ANOTHER one of these damn games soaking up my days. So I haven’t really tried any other games. Other than that one time when Garona talked me into trying Second Azeroth for like five minutes, but that came to a screeching halt when I wandered into that region full of decked-out scalies, because fuck that shit. I guess I can’t say Spazzle didn’t try to warn me.

Still, this Heroes of the Maelstrom DOES sound pretty badass. Especially if they’re managing to build this into like an all-star team of characters from real life, Earth Online, and all the offshoot universes that they’ve managed to build into other games. Could be fun. I mean, really, just think of it… who’s gonna turn down the chance to have a big barroom brawl, and roll in with a team of Saurfang, Snake-Eyes, Batman, Chewbacca, and Optimus Prime?

(I’m… suddenly a little worried I was able to rattle all those names off the top of my head. Spirits help me, I’m spending too much time around Spazzle.)

 

Hey, Professor G!

I have another one!

A space goat came travelling on his ship from afar,”

–Valinora Lightshorn

Hey, Valinora. Thanks for writing, other than the fact that you’re apparently human, which would ordinarily draw a big ol’ FUCK YOU, except for the facts that (A) you had the good sense to recognize an EPIC VERSE asskicking when you saw it, and (2), speaking of EPIC VERSE, you seem to be stepping right into the role of setting up the ol’ masterpieces for me.

So, sure, fine by me. You want to keep giving me these prompts, I’ll keep making with the EPIC. Oh, and this one looks pretty rich, too… you want me to opine lyrically on the voyages of the space goats, huh? Okay, you asked for it. Strap in, bitches.

A space goat came traveling on his ship from afar,
Twas thousands of years since his mission did start;
He thought Oshu’gun was a good place to park,
And he fell from the sky like a star, a burning star…

The space goats were led by their prophet for years;
They’d fled their home planet of Argus in fear.
Old Velen resolved he was going to steer clear
Of his brothers, consumed by the Legion… so off they raced.

They flew to a planet; I cannot say which.
Kil’jaeden pursued; Velen played bait-and-switch.
Collateral damage — I know it’s a bitch,
But the space goats, they’re making their omelettes… so QQ, eggs.

And they QQ’ed, AAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAH
AAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH
AAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAH
They died at the hands of the Legion, while the drae’s got away.

From planet to planet, for thousands of years,
Old Velen kept bailin’, till he wound up here.
Then — who would’ve guessed it? — the Legion appeared.
And they were the gift that kept giving, so yeah, thanks, drae’s.

And that’s how the space goats wound up in this war,
But buyer beware if you build that rapport:
The first sign of trouble, they’re out the back door,
And they’ll stick you to pick up their mess, another time…

And you’ll QQ, AAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAH
AAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH
AAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAH
You’ll die at the hands of the Legion, while the drae’s get away.
          (You don’t have to hold your breath waiting!)
AAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAH
          (It’s just a matter of when, not if, believe me!)
AAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH
          (They won’t even share any of that OP tech of theirs or anything!)
AAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAAAAAH AAH AAH AAAAH
          (Not even the specs for the buses they’re gonna throw you under!)
You’ll die at the hands of the Legion, while the drae’s get away…

EPIC VERSE!

 

Yo, Warchief,

Once again, glad to see things worked out with Blackfuse. Now, though, I’ve got a little down-time – well, actually, a lot of down time – and could use a job or two to keep me on my toes. You got anything I can do for you?

–Grotee Metalbeard, Goblin Shaman

Huh. Grottee, are you feeling okay? I guess I shouldn’t jinx a good thing, but man, you got in and out of that letter faster than it takes Sarlin to ramble through her greeting.

Not complaining, mind you. Grats on making the short list of people around here who actually fucking LISTEN.

Anyhow, Grottee, since you were my source for that Tome of Dinomancy, which I’m still keeping safe and secure in my quarters where it can be ready to take back to Pandaria with me and safely out of range of any other, um, incendiary cooking experiments by Shayari… um… Where was I going with this? I think that sentence kind of got away from me once I became momentarily consumed with concern about my home possibly burning to the ground over an arcane-powered loaf of bread.

OH. RIGHT. Jobs I can send you on. And I assume you mean ACTUAL jobs that really have a useful purpose, not the random busywork jobs we give out to random noobs to keep them out of everyone’s hair. (You know, kill seven of these, collect six of these, five gold rings, everything but a partridge in a motherfucking pear tree. I have to admit, though, the ones that crack me up the most are the ones where we make people go digging through piles of poop, and the fuckers run right out and do it.)

So since you were my Tome source, Grottee, why don’t you head down to Pandaria and check in with General Nazgrim. Now, mind you, he’s under orders not to move ahead on Operation Dinosaurs Yippee Ki-Yay until I get down there in a week or so, but then, he was ALSO under orders not to move ahead before, and he still saw fit to screw his head squarely up his ass trying to go off the script. And got that lunkhead asshole Steve eaten and shat out by a dino while he was at it. (SPEAKING OF POOP QUESTS.)

 

Hey Big G!

Wish I had some good news from the Blackfuse Company, but-ah-I kinda had a weird run in a couple of days ago. Some blond elf kid came an’ bought my entire supply of leftover Face Melters. They just weren’t sellin’, even outta Booty Bay! So, this kid got ’em for a song. No, literally. He sang for ’em. Somethin’ about a dead horse. What was the name? Sparkles? Eh, it don’t matter. I didn’t even have a chance to explain the risks to him. Especially in that leather armor he was wearin’. He did sign the indemnity waiver that disavows me of all legal and moral responsibility though. Thank the laws of physics for mooks who don’t take the time to read, even if it, say, had directions to Gallywix’s secret gold an’ dirty magazine vault hidden away out there.

The weird part? Not even a day later, an’ I’m ridin’ my custom-fitted chopper ’round Ashenvale to go an’ help out your guys at the Warsong Lumber Mill with some defective shredders. All of a sudden, the forest shakes, glitter’s rainin’ down from the trees, an’ I come across one very charred but very alive tauren woman an’ that elf kid! She was screamin’ an’ yellin’ about “That’s the last you’ll see of old Magatha!” while limpin’ away through the trees! That ain’t somethin’ ya see every day! An’ that damn kid, he just didn’t give up! Charred to hell, clothes burnt to cinders, an’ he hobbles after her, firin’ off Face Melter after Face Melter! I had to run for cover because I did NOT want to be on the receivin’ end of that blast. Between explosions an’ hackin’ up glitter, I heard him yellin’ “I AM JOHNNY AWESOME! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!” I don’t think that elf’s right in the head. HE TOOK OUT MY DAMNED CHOPPER WITH HIS EXPLOSIVES! DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG A WALK IT IS BACK TO BILGEWATER HARBOR WHEN YOU’VE GOT LITTLE LEGS?! I’m currently camped out at the rear gate. Maybe I should pick up the parts for a new chopper while I’m in the neighborhood, huh?

–Glessee “Glitch” Sparkbolt

Okay, Glessee, ordinarily I would give you some obligatory “hello”s and “how are you”s, but right now we’ve got more important things to deal with. Namely, let me make sure I’m getting all this straight. So… what you’re telling me is… the leather-wearing, sparkle-pony-mourning JOHNNY AWESOME —

johnnyawesome

WHO I HATE, ever since he helped Magatha that time — bought up a stash of defective weapons… and then used them, for whatever spirits-forsaken reason, to go after fucking MAGATHA GRIMTOTEM — WHO I HATE MORE, ever since, well, seriously, where do I even fucking START? — and the whole thing ended up with the two of them burned to a crisp and charred all to hell and stumbling all cinder-like through Ashenvale?

Okay, dude, you know what? I know that for the last, I don’t know, FOREVER, I’ve held an unwavering stance of “FUCKING TIME TRAVEL,” but I might have to make an exception here, because goddamn would I love to go back and witness that happening live. I could spread that sight over bread and eat it for fucking dinner. Hot damn. HA! <snort>

 

Hey, Garrosh,

Glad to see you still have new and inventive ways to embarrass yourself in front of your daughter. Congrats on alienating the only family you have.

–Varian Wrynn, Stormwind

Oh, hey, Varian, Nice to see you’ve got time in your schedule to write, seeing as I’m sure sucking as hard as you do must take a load of time and effort. Actually, speaking of which, let me cover this before I forget. I AM kind of in EPIC VERSE mode today, and I know you’ve always appreciated my handiwork, so here, here’s one for you on the house:

Two roads diverged in the Elwynn wood
A mere stone’s cast from House of Wrynn,
And for a while, there alone you stood
And weighed, down one path, the likelihood
Of sights of dread at the Goldshire Inn.

You turned to the other winding path
To the northern abbey’s questing hubs.
Even you could do the mental math:
In Goldshire, your brain would need a bath;
Abbey north would just be full of scrubs.

You chose the north road to navigate,
Where fewer leaves had been trodden back.
A visit to Goldshire Inn could wait;
Perhaps one day if you had a date:
You doubted if you should ever come back.

One day you’ll tell this with much ado;
You’ll pardon if I spoil the suspense:
Two roads diverged in the wood, and you–
You chose the one less traveled through.
But that made no difference, because you still suck.
Fuck you, Varian.

Again I say — EPIC VERSE!

But before I give you the finger and send you on your way, I should probably address your point. I mean, you DID pull your head out of your ass long enough to… actually, now that I look back at what you wrote, you didn’t really pull your head out of your ass for that at all, did you? Probably just as well, seeing as having your head constantly jammed up your ass just means your face will be close enough to kiss it goodbye next time I see you. But, either way, I should probably address your point, assheaded though it was.

So, speaking of being an embarrassment to your kid, well, here, let me let one of your fellow readers make my point for me…

 

Lok’tar Warchief Hellscream,

I write to you, not as an ally of Stormwind. Seriously, fuck that idiot King. I’d have half a mind of giving him the Garona Special, but she is one of the few things I fear. I write to you to extend a hand of peace and understanding, being a child of two worlds like your own daughter. My mother was a human. My father was a Blackrock Orc. I know not of what became of either of my parents. As for my peace offering, well, following in the footsteps of another halfbreed rogue does have its benefits! If only I understood these bizarre goblin and gnomish devices better, I could have captured him singing one of those annoying Earth Online pop songs!

prettyvarian

Enjoy!

–Shakis Addington

So… Shakis… I mean, I’m sure there’s… hehe… there’s plenty for me to… heh… to comment on your family background… <chuckle> …and I could probably make a… hehehe… a smartassy comment about being offered a “Garona Special” of my own a time or two, but… ha… hahaha… I mean… <chortle> …oh seriously, you know I can’t get past that… that… THAT!

HAAAAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAA!

Ahem. Okay. So… um…

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Heh. Hehehehehehe.

Okay! Hehehe… Okay, so, to recap for all of you, I just had one reader notify me that Johnny Awesome bought a load of unstable armaments, went after Magatha Grimtotem, and got both of them blown nearly to the Nether in the process. And THEN, and then…

prettyvarian

HeheheHEHEHEHE HAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

I mean really, dude, do you realize… a shark could bite my dick off right now, and this would STILL count as an awesome day.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…

That’s it for now. I just… I need to go and… like… I don’t know, do something happy.

More soon.

<GIGGLESNORT>

 

[The Warchief’s next mailbag will be Monday, April 4. Send your questions, comments, or other missives to Garrosh via or email or, as always, using the handy-dandy for below:]

 

Let’s do the time warp again

dalaran

It was late when we arrived in Dalaran. After the bunch of us got off the Windrunner, Dranosh ordered Drok to take his crew and report to Bolvar and the Argent Vanguard to help however much he could. As the ship made its departure, we got going to the Violet Citadel.

On the way, we passed through the center of the city. It was an eerie sight for me. In the middle of town, on the spot where there should have been the monument to the defeat of the Lich King, there’s a memorial honoring Tirion and the heroes who were lost with him in Icecrown Citadel. Liadrin stopped for a minute and offered a prayer for the fallen. Jaina. Dontrag and Utvoch. Saurfang.

A gnome was making his way around the city lighting all the lampposts when we arrived at the Violet Citadel. Rhonin was waiting for our arrival and was pacing around in the main hall like a restless animal. Liadrin started to break the news to him about Jaina, but Rhonin cut her off. I think he already knew, as soon as he saw us walk in without her.

He took us upstairs, where he summoned a portal for us to the Caverns of Time.

 

 

cavernsoftime3

People get so used to taking mage portals that before long they forget how disorienting they are at first. You’re in one place, then there’s a flash of light, and for half a second you’re nowhere. You feel this dizzying whoosh run through your whole body and you feel like you’re falling, and then all of a sudden you’re somewhere different. New sights, new sounds, new everything. After you’ve done it a few times, you learn to roll with it and regain your sense of direction quickly, but every so often, when you first arrive in a new place, something happens to throw you out of your routine and reminds you just how unsettling it can be.

The ground shook violently under our feet as we arrived at the Caverns of Time. Not even just the ground – the walls, the ceiling, somehow even the air seemed to shudder around us. Bronze dragons were racing around, and bunches of drakonids ran up the ramp toward the surface. Anachronos was rumbling around, barking orders, rallying the cavern’s defenders. I don’t think I’d ever seen him so animated. After a minute, he spread his enormous wings and flew up the winding passageway with a handful of bronze drakes close behind.

In the middle of the chaos, Chromie teleported in right on top of us, talking a million miles an hour, and finally ushered us back to Soridormi, near the Hillsbrad portal, before teleporting away again.

 

SORIDORMI: Thank the Titans you’ve made it. We don’t have much time.

GARROSH: Do I even want to ask?

SORIDORMI: The Legion must have pieced together what we might try to do, as I’d feared. They started their attack some hours ago. We’ve been holding them back, but the battle has been a costly one.

The entire cavern quakes as shouts echo from the surface passageway.

DRANOSH: Well, we brought you a present.

Dranosh steps back and gestures to Faranell, who is holding the Focusing Iris.

FARANELL: <handing the Iris to Soridormi> Will you be able to do it?

SORIDORMI: <nods> It will take me a few minutes to open the portal and stabilize it, but I can get you back to Southshore, yes.

DRANOSH: Wait, Southshore? What’s in Southshore?

LIADRIN: A very long story

GARROSH: Well now for the 50,000 gold question – what do we do when we’re back there?

MOKVAR: Please don’t tell me we have to go in and kidnap old-Edwin and switch him with young-Edwin but also do something with original-young-Edwin while we’re at it to make sure old-us don’t still grab original-young-Edwin by mistake, because, I mean, not enough aspirin in the world.

LIADRIN: Not to mention we would have to do something about the chameleon shard attunement in that case, if this Edwin doesn’t end up tending to it…

DRANOSH: Is there a reason why everyone but me seems to know what’s going on wherever it is we’re going?

LIADRIN: Honestly? Because everyone but you was there the first time.

GARROSH: We were all there before, Dranosh – the four of us, in old Southshore, about ten years ago. That’s how all of this started. That’s why the Legion and the Scourge are winning now.

LIADRIN: None of this was ever supposed to happen. It’s only happened this way because events in the past were altered, and have snowballed into what’s happening now.

DRANOSH: <blinking> Okay, I think I need a second here…

GARROSH: While you’re doing that… Sori? What’s the plan here?

SORIDORMI: I can get you to Hillsbrad the morning of the last day you were there. That’s when the disruption began. And ultimately, this rests on Edwin.

FARANELL: Oh great…

SORIDORMI: You’re right, Mokvar; trying to switch off versions of Edwin would be far too complicated and leave too much room for something else to go wrong…

The cavern shudders again, more violently.

GARROSH: Okay, this is sounding like we’re going for the simple approach. I’m a big fan of the simple approach.

SORIDORMI: Ordinarily, the one thing one must never do when traveling in time is to interact with oneself. In this case, though, that’s exactly what Edwin will need to do: force a crossing of timelines between both – or rather, all – versions of himself present in that time. If Edwin can make physical contact with both iterations of himself at once, it should short out the crossed lines and snap each version back to where he’s supposed to be.

LIADRIN: That last morning – that was when future-Edwin broke past-Edwin out of Mokvar’s hex.

MOKVAR: There’s our window. They’ll both be within a few feet of each other.

SORIDORMI: If he can do it, the shorting out should trigger both realities into resetting themselves and separating.

GARROSH: You get all that, Doc? Today’s your turn to save the world…

The ground shakes once again, and the cavern walls around the surface passage buckle. A handful of bronze dragons rush down into the cavern, with a swarm of demons close behind. Behind the initial wave of demon shock troops, Varimathras and Prince Malchezaar descend into the cavern.

CHROMIE: <calling out while circling around the cavern in dragon form> They’ve breached the cavern! Fall back and regroup! We have to hold them!

LIADRIN: Soridormi, do you need all of us to go back?

SORIDORMI: Edwin is the only one who has to go.

DRANOSH: <to Liadrin> I think that’s our cue for one last battle of the line.

Liadrin nods, draws the Ashbringer, and runs into a pack of terrorfiends, tearing through then with one spinning swipe of the blade.

<to Garrosh> This was your mission from the get-go, Overlord. Go see it through, and I’ll talk to you when it’s over.

Dranosh starts to turn to join the battle.

GARROSH: Dranosh!

Dranosh looks back. Garrosh looks at him in silence for a moment.

…Give them hell.

DRANOSH: <smirks> I don’t really think they’re running short. <starts running toward the demons> Now go be a hero – that’s an order!

Dranosh leaps into a group of felguards and bursts into a Bladestorm.

GARROSH: You’re the boss. Lok’tar, Warchief…

FARANELL: Soridormi… I’ll try my best at this, but even if it works…

Soridormi nods to Faranell and starts to channel a spell through the Focusing Iris into the time portal.

Well…Garrosh said that…the other me may have thrown off the timeline without even meaning to, just because of what he knew. But now me…I’ve seen so much, how do we know I won’t disrupt history all over again?

Soridormi reaches into a belt pouch and tosses a small tuber to Faranell.

SORIDORMI: This is a Nepenthe Root. Is grows only here in the Caverns of Time. Eat it once you’re through the time portal; it will take an hour or two to take effect. The root is a powerful purifier on the mind – its effects will ripple through your entire timeline, purging any memories out of synch with their natural timeframe.

GARROSH: It’s not going to oops-mindwipe him completely, is it?

SORIDORMI: No…the worst side effect he might experience would manifest itself as sporadic and random lapses of memory.

 

The demons continued flooding into the cavern while Dranosh, Liadrin, and the dragons fought to hold them at bay. A group of doomguards managed to get all the way back to the Hillsbrad portal with us. Mokvar, Edwin, and I managed to fight them off while Soridormi continued channeling her spell. Once they were dead, Mokvar pushed his notes into my hands and said to take care of Edwin while he helped the rest with the demons, and ran off into the fight.

I looked past Mokvar as he ran into the fray and saw Dranosh going toe-to-toe with Varimathras, then leaping up and sending a Mortal Strike tearing straight into the dreadlord’s throat. One more swing and he had Varimathras’ head off altogether. He caught it, spun around, and sent it flying at Malchezaar — pointed so that the dreadlord’s horns pierced straight through Malchezaar’s eyes.

The portal glowed brighter as Soridormi poured more magic into it. Then the ground shuddered again, and large chunks of the stone around the surface passage broke away. With a demonic laugh announcing his arrival, Kil’jaeden, Lord of the Burning Legion, stepped down into the Caverns of Time and started walking directly toward us.

Liadrin tore through at least twenty demons with one of her Divine Storms, and ran between Kil’jaeden and us. The demon lord extended his hand toward her, palm extended, and released a torrent of shadow magic. Liadrin held the Ashbringer over her head and projected a shimmering shield of holy magic around herself. The two stood there, facing each other down – Kil’jaeden kept pouring more power into his shadow torrent, Liadrin kept drawing on the Light and the power of the Ashbringer to hold it back. As she exerted herself more and more, a gleaming white light shone out of the Ashbringer and around her whole body – and after a moment, just as Soridormi called out to us that the time portal was ready, the glowing, pulsing light surrounding Liadrin sharpened into the shape of a naaru.

Liadrin looked back at us. Her eyes were white and glowing. For all the fighting and screaming and magic eruptions, I should never have been able to make out an individual voice, but just for a moment I could hear hers – in my head. It was accompanied by a musical chiming, and echoed by a second voice, one I’d heard but not quite heard once before…the voice of A’dal.

We can’t hold him forever.  GO!

I grabbed Edwin’s arm and pulled him through the portal as the ground shook and the walls quaked. The Caverns of Time disappeared in a dizzying rush of light, and the sounds of battle ringing in my ears faded into a memory of the future as I felt myself sliding back into the past.

I’ll see you on the other side.

 

The fire in which we burn

cavernsoftime2

Dranosh left with the Windrunner for Theramore. He brought Dontrag and Utvoch, which, I mean, I know this is really no time for jokes, but…HAHA! Poor fucker. Anyway, he’s going to see if he can find Faranell there, or in Thunder Bluff if need be. One way or another, Mokvar and I will meet him there when we’re done on our end.

We got Mokvar hooked up with a wyvern, and we both flew down from Ashenvale to Tanaris. Soridormi was there to greet us when we arrived at the Caverns of Time.

 

SORIDORMI: Overlord. Or do you still prefer “Warchief” in this reality? It’s so hard to know what to call certain people.

GARROSH: Doesn’t matter. Call me whatever.

SORIDORMI: Oh? So if I decide “Roshy” has a nice ring to it…?

GARROSH: Don’t get clever.

SORIDORMI: <wry grin> I’m afraid it’s far too late for that.

GARROSH: <grumbles> Fine, whatever. While you’re being all smug and smart, though, how about this – last time I was here, seems to me you might have, you know, neglected to mention a few minor details about this world.

SORIDORMI: In fairness, I did tell you all that there were other events that played out differently.

GARROSH: Which you totally made sound like “I’m just glossing over this since it’s not really that important.”

SORIDORMI: Did I? Hardly. Every moment is important, Garrosh. But at the time, there was no telling how much longer I had to detail matters further. We were – if you’ll pardon the expression – working on borrowed time.

GARROSH: And now?

SORIDORMI: This timeline has taken…a much firmer hold.

MOKVAR: The last few times we’ve shifted, our time here has gotten longer, and our time in the original timeline has gotten shorter…

SORIDORMI: <nods> This timeline is taking over as the predominant one. That overwriting of your reality will soon be complete, if it isn’t already.

GARROSH: Well then, since we’re in like 2% less of a rush now, how about you fill in a few gaps for us. Starting with, say, why it is that Orgrimmar is overrun right now by the Burning Legion and the Scourge, both of which we had pretty well under control last I checked.

SORIDORMI: In both cases, everything hinges on certain unexpected events involving the Battle of the Wrathgate.

GARROSH: Go on…

SORIDORMI: After the Alliance and Horde set aside their petty conflicts and united against the Lich King, Tirion Fordring’s Argent Crusade was able to assemble a strike force of the greatest champions from both factions. The team that Fordring would lead into Icecrown Citadel for the final assault would be far mightier even than the one that defeated Arthas in your timeline.

GARROSH: Okay, so I’m not seeing how that leads to things being WORSE.

SORIDORMI: It didn’t, at first. But you’ll recall, in the time leading up to the attack, the Lich King’s chief researcher was not Professor Putricide – Patrick Faranell – but Putress.

Soridormi holds out her hand and summons an image of Rotface and Festergut.

IMAGE OF ROTFACE: Daddy make toys out of you! WEEEEEE!

IMAGE OF FESTERGUT: Dead, dead, dead! Daddy, I did it!

SORIDORMI: Putricide’s most formidable creations, while strong, were ultimately…limited. Undermined by a lingering sentimentality that Putricide would carry into undeath from another life.

She shakes her hand, and the image changes to that of Patrick Faranell.

IMAGE OF PATRICKBetween you, me, and the walls, I’d rather like to have a couple sons… I remember how much Dad seemed to enjoy himself with us.

SORIDORMI: Putress’ malevolent ingenuity would have no such…humanity to temper it. He would furnish the Lich King with constructs more monstrous and strains of blight more virulent than anything known to your timeline.

GARROSH: Um, didn’t I ask you THIS VERY THING about Putress the last time?

SORIDORMI: You did. I didn’t give you an answer.

GARROSH: INDEED YOU DIDN’T.

MOKVAR: I think we might have distracted her, actually.

GARROSH: Whose side are you on?

MOKVAR: I’m on the side of us not standing around bickering over who said what and why.

GARROSH: Fine. So Putress invented some powerful shit, boy, don’t know why you never thought of that, Garrosh, go on please.

SORIDORMI: Strengthened by Putress’ creations, the Lich King would ultimately defeat Fordring’s even mightier strike force.

MOKVAR: So some of the most powerful heroes against the Scourge, from the Horde and Alliance, were all killed.

SORIDORMI: <pauses grimly> It would have been a kindness had they merely been killed.

Soridormi waves her hand, summoning a likeness of the Lich King.

lichking

IMAGE OF THE LICH KING: You trained them well, Fordring. You delivered the greatest fighting force this world has ever known…right into my hands – exactly as I intended.

MOKVAR: By the spirits…

GARROSH: He raised them as his minions…

SORIDORMI: And then killed Tirion Fordring. <closes her eyes a moment> And then raised him

IMAGE OF THE LICH KING: You could’ve been my greatest champion, Fordring. A force of darkness that would wash over this world and deliver it into a new age of strife.

SORIDORMI: …to lead his new army of Deathbringers.

Garrosh and Mokvar exchange troubled looks.

GARROSH: Okay… Bad news part one done… Now what about the demons?

SORIDORMI: A further consequence of the defeat in Icecrown Citadel… You may recall, in your time, after the fall of the Lich King, some of his former minions would find for themselves…new allegiances.

Soridormi conjures a shimmering likeness of Sylvanas Windrunner.

IMAGE OF SYLVANAS: With the death of the Lich King, many of the more intelligent Scourge became…unemployed… They are under my command now…

SORIDORMI: With the Lich King victorious, the val’kyr would never ally themselves with Sylvanas. Which would prove…unfortunate for the Forsaken.

Soridormi waves her hand. Above her palm appears an image of Sylvanas with Lord Godfrey and High Warlord Cromush at the Greymane Wall.

IMAGE OF SYLVANAS: Soldiers of the Horde! We are victorious! Lordaeron is w—

The image of Lord Godfrey draws a pistol and shoots Sylvanas point-blank. She immediately falls dead on the ground.

sylvanasfallen

IMAGE OF CROMUSH: What have you done, Godfrey?!

IMAGE OF GODFREY: Something that should have been done a long time ago, you filthy animal. Gilneas belongs to me, and so soon will the rest of Lordaeron!

SORIDORMI: In your timeline, Sylvanas was resurrected by her val’kyr servants. Here, she had no val’kyr to save her. Sylvanas Windrunner died – for the second and final time. In the aftermath of her death, leadership of the Undercity would pass to Sylvanas’ second, her majordomo of several years.

varimathras

The nathrezim Varimathras.

GARROSH: Varimathras? How? He’s…dead…oh no…

MOKVAR: <head sinks> The Wrathgate…

SORIDORMI: <nods> Without Putress in the Undercity, Varimathras had no collaborator with whom to conspire against the Banshee Queen. There was never a coup against Sylvanas. And without the coup against Sylvanas, Varimathras was never exposed as the traitor he was — his true loyalties to the Burning Legion never revealed. He carried on unimpeded, not only free to continue his scheming in the Undercity, but eventually becoming its leader. Much time did not pass before he carried out his master plan…

She waves her hand again, summoning the fiery red likeness of a monstrous eredar.

kiljaeden

…and summoned Kil’jaeden the Deceiver into this world. Bringing with him countless legions of demons from the Twisted Nether. Bringing with him the Second Fall of Lordaeron. Most of the Eastern Kingdoms was soon to follow.

GARROSH: Fucking hell…

MOKVAR: Soridormi… Edwin is in this world now, we think. If we can get him here, is there still time to undo all this?

SORIDORMI: If we can get him back to Southshore, we should be able to reset the timelines with both Edwins at the points they need to be.

GARROSH: Okay, great, so we’ll just collect him and get him down here and—

SORIDORMI: Actually getting him to old Southshore, though, is no easy task, and not without problems.

GARROSH: Dammit, I thought if I said that fast enough we could get out before the “but” kicked in.

MOKVAR: What’s the problem?

SORIDORMI: Sending Edwin back to period to which he’s already time-traveled involves crossing his own timeline in ways that no mortal was meant to do.

GARROSH: Ah…the whole “no double-dipping” thing.

SORIDORMI: To open a stable time portal for such a repeat incursion will require me to channel immense amounts of power – far more than I can summon up myself.

GARROSH: What about the Noz? He’s the head honcho time guy anyway, couldn’t he pull it off?

SORIDORMI: I am…the most powerful member of the Bronze Flight here.

GARROSH: How does that work? I mean I get that you’ve got this secret super time vision and whatever, but no offense, how did you get to be more powerful than Noz?

MOKVAR: Garrosh…

SORIDORMI: I’m not.

GARROSH: So what gives? Where is he, any…oh…oh no…

SORIDORMI: <looks down a moment> For a number of reasons…the final confrontation with Deathwing proved…far more costly in this timeline than in the other.

GARROSH: I… Wow do I feel like a jackass.

MOKVAR: This is what it finally took, huh?

GARROSH: So…we need a power source to tap into, then?

SORIDORMI: That’s right.

Garrosh stares off to one side, thinking anxiously.

MOKVAR: Not to bring up bad memories, Soridormi, but I don’t suppose the Dragon Soul is an option?

SORIDORMI: I would be, yes…

GARROSH: Okay, so—

SORIDORMI: Except that it has already been returned to its own time, and retrieving it a second time would involve the type of crossing of timelines that we need the power source for in the first place.

GARROSH: Okay, seriously, you’ve got to start leading with the “but” part of these answers.

MOKVAR: What about the spell book that Malchezaar used to bring the demons into Orgrimmar?

SORIDORMI: <shakes her head> The Book of Medivh is a powerful source of portal magic, for portals within this reality, but hardly helpful for the kind of temporal manipulation we’re undertaking.

GARROSH: <staring down, hesitant> What about…the Focusing Iris? From the Eye of Eternity?

SORIDORMI: <nods slowly> The Focusing Iris would work, yes. As a dragon relic, in fact, it should lend itself all the more easily to my use.

MOKVAR: Do we know where it is now?

GARROSH: The Blue Dragonflight is keeping it in Coldarra.

SORIDORMI: I will give you my talisman to show to the blues. They will give you the Iris if they know you’ve been sent by me. They’ll know I would not ask were the need not dire.

GARROSH: Okay then. I think we have a plan.

SORIDORMI: Indeed, Warchief.

GARROSH: You know what? Just call me Garrosh. People calling me “Warchief” here either gets confusing like with Utvoch earlier, or it’s just creepy like with Malchezaar.

MOKVAR: We should probably get go—

SORIDORMI: Wait, Garrosh – Malchezaar saw you, and called you “Warchief”?

GARROSH: Yeah, why?

SORIDORMI: <fidgets with her hands nervously> You need to go. Now. Take my talisman and get to Northrend quickly to recover the Focusing Iris.

MOKVAR: Why? What is it?

GARROSH: I’ve really kind of had my fill of flying blind around here. What’s got you spooked all of a sudden?

SORIDORMI: The Netherspace where Malchezaar dwelled was a distorted region of time.

GARROSH: Right, I know. Time loop, round and round, now he’s dead, now he’s not, boom. So what?

SORIDORMI: The Netherspace rests at the intersection of countless times. Those who dwell there can see into the different realities – bits and pieces, usually, but one never knows. If Malchezaar knows to call you “Warchief,” he has seen your other world. And in that case, he may well know enough – or could deduce – how the worlds fit together and how they might be corrected.

MOKVAR: It would really be nice if there could be some stupid people on the bad guys’ side for a change…

SORIDORMI: The Burning Legion stands on the brink of a victory on Azeroth that it has coveted for millennia. If they realize what we’re doing, they will not stand idly by. We need to act quickly.

GARROSH: Got it. Be doing whatever you need to do to get ready, Soridormi. We’ll be back with Edwin and the Focusing Iris.

SORIDORMI: I hope so, Garrosh. Titans watch over you.

 

We winged it double-time to Thunder Bluff. I’m writing from there now. Dranosh and the others haven’t arrived yet, but I’ve sent a messenger to Theramore with the barest bare-bones of what we need to do. I’m guessing he’ll be headed here by nightfall, morning at the latest, and then we can get moving.

Next stop, Northrend.

 

 

[Sylvanas and Kil’jaeden images above provided by Rioriel from Postcards From Azeroth, reproduced here with permission and many thanks. Click on the links in the previous sentence to see the souped-up Postcards versions!]

 

The last Warchief

dranosh1

Dranosh kept staring down at the ruins of Orgrimmar as we circled high above the city. We were too far to hear anything other than the faintest sounds of the demons and undead, but the fires were unmistakable even from here.

I finally went over and stood next to him. He didn’t look away from the sight below. We stood there in silence for a few minutes.

 

DRANOSH: Do you remember the first time you saw Orgrimmar?

GARROSH: <nods> Thrall brought me, not that long after he came to Garadar.

DRANOSH: My father took me. He was so excited to show me the new home the orcs had built. So proud to introduce me around – every grunt, every merchant, everyone. I remember thinking how every last person in the city seemed to know him.

GARROSH: Well, he IS Saurfang.

DRANOSH: <nods, then pauses> Maybe Thrall should have chosen him. Or Cairne. Or…Vol’jin. <shrugs> Or you, for that matter.

GARROSH: I thought you said I’d be terrible at it.

DRANOSH: Have you looked down there? At what I’ve led us to? I don’t think you would have done much worse.

GARROSH: <staring down> This…this wasn’t your fault. You’ve been a good Warchief.

DRANOSH: Then why am I about to become the last one?

 

Remember when I said this timeline was the better one? Well, as long as time is getting screwed with anyway, let’s go back and erase that I’d ever said that. Orgrimmar was bad enough…but now Dranosh…

At least the Wrathgate killed him quickly. Not one little piece at a time.

We stood there silently for I’m not sure how long, until Dranosh finally turned around and gave Drok the order to set us on our way to Theramore. As we started to pull away, Dranosh took one more look down at the burning shell of Orgrimmar.

 

DRANOSH: I still don’t understand how this happened…

MOKVAR: Warchief? I think I might have at least a few answers for us…

Mokvar pulls a frog from until his cloak and dangles it by one leg.

GARROSH: Is that…?

MOKVARNeeru Fireblade. I’ve been keeping him hexed. I figure he may be able to fill in a few gaps if we want to pop him.

DRANOSH: Is this the one who did this?

GARROSH: Not alone. But he was the ringleader of those warlocks in the Cleft of Shadow, anyway…

DRANOSH: <visibly fuming> Oh… Oh, bring him out. I want to talk to this one…

Mokvar nods and drops the frog on the deck, then zaps it with a frost shock to break the hex. Before Neeru Fireblade can react in his restored orc form, Dranosh grabs him by his robes and shoves him back against the railing.

DRANOSH: Oh hello, Neeru, so glad you made it out in one piece…

Neeru struggles against Dranosh’s grip, but Dranosh only shoves him back harder.

It would have been such a shame if you’d gotten yourself killed back there and cost me the chance to do the honors myself.

Neeru looks around at the gunship, then grins and chuckles cruelly.

NEERU: Based on our surroundings, I assume the day goes badly, eh, Warchief?

GARROSH: Not nearly as badly as it’s about to go for you if you don’t talk.

DRANOSH: I’ve got a lot of questions, Neeru, but here’s the main one – why?

NEERU: <laughing> Why? Why would I work against my enemy? Are you really that naïve, boy?

DRANOSH: How is the Horde your enemy? You’ve been a citizen of Orgrimmar for years!

NEERU: And a warlock of the Burning Blade for longer! That shaman who came before you wanted to believe so badly that some of us might yet be redeemed that he gave us haven in his precious capital. Even when his agents told him my loyalties might be…conflicted…the trusting fool still left me there in my tent to go about my business unimpeded.

GARROSH: Wow, seriously?

MOKVAR: You didn’t know about this?

GARROSH: Would have been nice if he’d left me a fucking note about it or something…

NEERU: <chuckling> Allegiance to the Shadow Council is not foresworn so readily.

DRANOSH: So you’ve been sitting there all these years plotting this?

NEERU: This specifically? No, no, boy. Simply…watching for moments of opportunity. And the Scourge attack on Orgrimmar proved a superb one.

GARROSH: While we were busy watching the rear gate, there was nobody to keep an eye on you bastards in the Cleft.

DRANOSH: Is that what the demons were doing in the Deadwind Pass? Gathering for your go-ahead?

NEERU: Our go-ahead, and more importantly our beacon to target their portal. The Legion also happened to have, in the Deadwind Pass, some ideal resources for a surprise attack such as this.

GARROSH: Malchezaar, in Karazhan.

NEERU: Holder of one of the most powerful sources of portal magic in this world – the Book of Medivh.

DRANOSH: Hold on – I’ve heard of Malchezaar, but I thought he was dead.

MOKVAR: He was.

GARROSHRepeatedly.

MOKVAR: Didn’t take.

DRANOSH: Excuse me?

NEERU: <chuckling> Your mind is so comically linear.

GARROSH: Malchezaar hung out in the highest level of Karazhan, where it pokes through into this whole other dimension.

MOKVAR: Netherspace.

GARROSH: Time doesn’t work the same way up there…it’s like it’s locked in this infinite loop. So people went up there and killed him, yeah, and then a few days later the loop would reset, and he’d be there alive again.

MOKVAR: And then someone else would kill him, and in a few days the loop would reset again.

GARROSH: On and on endlessly.

DRANOSH: And he just stayed there to die over and over? Why would anyone do that? Why wouldn’t he just leave?

NEERU: Because so long as he was there, he could never truly die, you fool. No matter how many deaths he might endure – hundreds, perhaps – the Netherspace would always restore him. The perfect hiding place for the Legion to stash away a key weapon for safekeeping, until the time would come that he would be needed.

DRANOSH:  o today the demons cracked Malchezaar out of storage to bring them here…

NEERU: <smirks at Garrosh and chuckles> I wish you could have seen the look on your face when—

DRANOSH: <shaking Neeru violently> I would be a little more worried about the look on you face when I cut off your head and stick it on a pike, Fireblade!

NEERU: Do you wish to, Warchief? Then by all means. I had no delusions that I would escape this endeavor alive. But I believe. Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter if you kill me. I’ve lived long enough to see Orgrimmar burn.

Dranosh loosens his grip on Neeru and stares over the warlock’s shoulder at Orgrimmar.

DRANOSH: You’re forgetting something, Neeru.

Neeru arches an eyebrow quizzically.

Orgrimmar is behind you.

Dranosh draws his sword and runs it through Neeru.

You haven’t seen anything.

Neeru seizes up, then goes limp on the sword. Dranosh extends his blade over the deck railing, then shakes off the body, letting it plummet to the rocks below.

GARROSH: <spitting over the side> Dismissed.

Dranosh stands at the railing, looking down, then looks back at Orgrimmar.

DRANOSH: I should have caught what they were doing. This should never have happened.

Garrosh stands next to Dranosh.

GARROSH: You’re part right. This shouldn’t ever have happened. <looks at Mokvar, then back> What if we could fix it?

DRANOSH: Yeah, sure, we’ll just rewind time and take it all back.

MOKVAR: Not exactly.

GARROSH: Look…what I have in mind isn’t a sure thing by any means, and I’m not even sure exactly how to do it myself. But I think I can find out. And if it works…well, things won’t be perfect. Like, at all. But the demons won’t be running roughshod over the world, and the Scourge will be under control.

DRANOSH: Sounds pretty perfect to me. You sure you haven’t been dipping into the felweed again?

GARROSH: I’m serious. It won’t be easy, even if we can do it at all. And…I don’t know if we’ll all make it through alive. In fact…I’m pretty sure we won’t.

DRANOSH: But Orgrimmar, our people – they do?

GARROSH: I think so, yeah. If what I’m thinking works.

DRANOSH: <nods slowly> If that ends up being the cost… A mediocre Warchief is a small price to pay for the survival of the Horde, don’t you think?

GARROSH: I don’t know. I’ve only seen great ones.

DRANOSH: What do we do?

GARROSH: First I need information. <thinks for a minute> And before we get too far along to Theramore, I need to make a quick side a trip to Ashenvale.

DRANOSH: What’s in Ashenvale?

GARROSH: An old friend.

 

mortimer3

Oh yeah. Shit just got real.

 

This is the way the world ends

zepdepart

{Picking up from last time…}

 

Garrosh and Mokvar look around the room nervously while the goblin messenger slowly pulls himself up.

MALKOROK: <snickering at the goblin> Do you see, you simpering worm? Do you see what your failure brings you?

GOBLIN: <steadies himself, rubbing one shoulder in pain> I’m…I’m sorry, sir. I swear the crew is working tirelessly to correct the problem and have the galleon ready to embark as planned…

MALKOROK: <shoving the goblin from behind> See to it that they do, rodent! If you come to the Warchief bearing bad news again, rest assured you’ll have far worse than bruises to show for it!

MOKVAR: Hey, enough, leave the little guy alone.

MALKOROK: <sneers> Stay out of matters that are none of your concern, scribe. Assuming you’re capable of such a thing.

GARROSH: Malkorok, that’ll do. I think the courier gets the point.

MALKOROK: As you wish, Warchief.

GARROSH: <to the goblin> You have your answer. Go deliver it.

GOBLIN: Yes sir…

The goblin rushes out.

MALKOROK: I do not like having to rely on these sniveling—

GARROSH: Really not the day, Malkorok.

MALKOROK: If you insist. I still question the wisdom of your…predecessor choosing to bring these Bilgewater rats into the Horde.

MOKVAR: Yeah, well, I question the wisdom of wisdom of of era wisdom uoy of question suounet of erom eht of the won raised fo esnes ruoy in reworran eht tub front anosrep ruoy dilos of erom eht htdiwdnab ruoy my rekciht eht erutuf eht ni eyes dna tsap eht ni the llewd bringing the uoy bringing erom bringing eht bringing bringing the bringing the likes of you into the inner…oh…

Garrosh and Mokvar look around again, finding themselves at the entrance to the Drag. Horde troops rush around, fighting demons, while civilians continue to flock to the elevators.

GARROSH: <looking around frantically> Edwin – do you see Edwin anywhere?

MOKVAR: Nowhere I can see.

GARROSH: Goddammit…

MOKVAR: He was headed up to the Skyway, so hopefully he made it out…

GARROSH: Let’s hope. Well, we can keep an eye out, but either way, let’s make sure the others get out, too…

 

We ran through the Drag, past scores of demons being fought by Horde soldiers, weaving between heaps of bodies of demons and Horde alike. We helped the soldiers kill a few of the monsters as we made our way toward our main destination: the orphanage.

When we got there – and cut down a trio of shivarra on the way – we found Vol’jin had had the same idea, and was slaying demons as he cleared a path for himself from the opposite side. We converged at the door to the orphanage, and Vol’jin waved us inside while he squared himself to cover the entrance.

Mokvar and I ran in. There was no sign of Matron Battlewail anywhere, and the kids were half running around in a panic, half hiding behind or under anything they could find. We ushered them out as quickly as we could – I tried to look for Gurtash, but he wasn’t anywhere I could see – and as we came back outside, we found Vol’jin fending off a new batch of wrathguards being rallied by the doomguard Highlord Kruul.

I stepped in to help Vol’jin push Kruul back while Mokvar covered the orphans. In the chaos, I spotted Thathung and Wabang — reluctant grunts in the other world, auctioneers in this one — rushing past, and I broke away to flag them down. Mokvar herded the kids over closer while I told Thathung and Wabang to get them up to the zeppelin towers. I was so focused on getting the orphans taken care of that I didn’t even notice Kruul lunging in behind me with his sword poised.

 

VOL’JIN: Garrosh! Look out, mon!

Vol’jin dives at Garrosh, pushing him away – and taking Kruul’s blade through his back.

Garrosh pulls himself up as Vol’jin spills onto the ground next to him, and, roaring angrily, Garrosh launches himself at Kruul, slashing at him furiously with both axes. Kruul deflects the first several attacks, then starts to have trouble keeping up with Garrosh’s flurry of blows, until finally Garrosh chops off the demon’s hand at the wrist, leaving his sword to rattle away uselessly. With one more angry shout, Garrosh lashes at Kruul, tearing his axe across the demon’s head, slicing away its top half just below the eyes.

As Kruul falls lifeless to the ground, Garrosh spins around and runs back to Vol’jin.

GARROSH: Okay…okay, troll, now we just get you patched up, and…

Garrosh looks at Mokvar, who shakes his head.

Come on, he was just some pansy-ass demon, you’re not going out because of some punk like him, right?

Vol’jin cringes, then rolls to look up at Garrosh.

That’s right, there you go – unbreakable, right, troll?

VOL’JIN: <halting> Garrosh…mon…I seen…seen you… <seizes up and coughs, then grins faintly> Wish…wish I was invincible…den…he would never a seen me…mon…

Vol’jin lets out a breath, then goes limp on the ground.

The entire city shudders, and chunks of the upper level buckle. Pieces of stone and architecture break off and crumble. Dranosh rushes in from the Valley of Honor with a handful of soldiers.

DRANOSH: <shouting in all directions> Fall back to the zeppelins! All forces fall back!

GARROSH: Let me guess, it’s getting worse.

DRANOSH: The Scourge are getting through. The shamans managed to bring down some of the cliffsides as a barricade, but it’s just buying us some time… <looks down at Vol’jin> Is he…?

Garrosh nods.

This is a nightmare….

GARROSH: Nah, now we just sic the Scourge and Legion on each other and kill two birds.

DRANOSH: <smirks half-heartedly> Yeah, we’ve got them right where we want them now.

GARROSH: <scans around> You want me to help finish calling the evacuation?

DRANOSH: No…I’ll do it. I’m the Warchief, if anyone has to call the retreat…

GARROSH: We’ll hit the Valley of Wisdom and make sure it’s clear. Everyone else seems to be on their way.

DRANOSH: I’ll see you up at the airships.

GARROSH: If we’re late, don’t wait for us.

DRANOSH: Like I would.

GARROSH: Lok’tar ogar, Warchief.

DRANOSH: I don’t like those options today.

GARROSH: Be careful.

DRANOSH: And you.

 

We split up, and Mokvar and I made our way through the smoke and the fighting and the toppling buildings into the Valley of Wisdom. Most of the tauren had already cleared out. Mokvar and I made short work of some imps that were setting the teepees ablaze, then ushered the last of the tauren civilians up toward the Skyway.

Another tremor shook the walls of the valley, and large chunks of rock splintered off and came crashing down onto the tauren structures, crushing two of the buildings and sending the largest totem toppling to the ground. As the totem landed, I heard a pained, bestial shriek, and circled around to check.

Zhi-Zhi, that crazy-ass monkey-boy, was pinned under the fallen totem.

 

GARROSH: <rushing over and gripping the totem> Mokvar, give me a hand with this.

ZHI-ZHI: No! No, you go! No stay for Zhi-Zhi!

GARROSH: <struggling to move the totem> Don’t…ugh…don’t worry, Hairy Grammar Boy, we’re not…nngh…not staying for anyone, least of all your scrawny ass…uggghh…we’re just getting this off you and we’ll all be on our way.

Garrosh and Mokvar continue working on the totem, but it barely moves.

MOKVAR: Dammit, what did they carve this thing out of, lead?

GARROSH: It’s made of solidified inconvenience, just like every other damn thing in our lives right now…

ZHI-ZHI: No! You go! Listen, listen to Zhi-Zhi! Must go!

GARROSH: Nnnngh…don’t…don’t know what you’re so worried about me, Spanks. I thought you said I’m NOT “the one”…

ZHI-ZHI: Yes! No! Not the one! Yet!

Another tremor sends more stone crumbling down around the sides of the valley.

MOKVAR: Garrosh, hate to say this…

ZHI-ZHI: Must go! Go now!

GARROSH: You shut up, chimp, we’ll have this in just a second…

ZHI-ZHI: Listen! Listen to Zhi-Zhi! <stares up wide-eyed> You…have…a destiny!

MOKVAR: Garrosh…

GARROSH: We’re not fucking leaving him! He KNOWS something, Mokvar!

MOKVAR: So do we, Garrosh! And if we don’t make it out, it dies with us!

ZHI-ZHI: Go now! Please! Go for Zhi-Zhi!

Garrosh lets out a disgusted sigh and nods, then follows Mokvar out of the valley – looking back over his shoulder at Zhi-Zhi every few steps.

 

We had to fight our way through droves of felguards and terrorfiends to get to the elevator, but we finally managed to reach the Skyway. The last of the zeppelins was departing as we arrived, and Dranosh was standing by with Drok on the Windrunner. The entire Skyway was shaking as we got on board, and the gunship pulled away. As we passed over the city, we could see the Scourge starting to pour into the Valley of Honor. The rest of the city was swarming with demons. Every kind you could imagine.

We’ve been circling over Orgrimmar at a safe distance — or as close as you can get to safe, under the circumstances — for nearly an hour now, watching the demons and undead fighting in our streets and tearing down our buildings. Dranosh hasn’t had much to say. He’s just been standing at the edge of the ship, looking down, watching everything and nothing in particular.

We won’t know for sure how bad our losses are until the ships all reach their destinations and we have a chance to do a head count. Eitrigg went with the civilians to Thunder Bluff. Most of the military personnel are on their way to paying a surprise visit to Theramore.

Meanwhile, we stay here, circling around the clouds, waiting for Dranosh to come back from wherever he’s gone inside his head.

 

The siege of Orgrimmar

orgrimmar5

This may wind up being all over the place – so much happening that I’m not even sure where to start. I’m going to try to cover as much as I can remember, in as much detail as I can, and I’m having Mokvar edit in what he can, both from his notes at the time and also – probably mostly – his best estimates after the fact. I’m not even sure I should be taking the time to write this all out, but if things go badly from here, I feel like there should be a record somewhere of how it happened.

If you don’t hear any more from me, then this is the story of how the Horde fell.

I guess I should start at the beginning.

 

Our fears based on the scouting reports were justified. The Scourge force in Winterspring, which by all accounts had grown to massive numbers, swept south into Azshara and across the zone unopposed. We had early warnings from patrols that they were on their way, but there wasn’t anyone to slow them down, and as news came in I found myself wondering why the goblins weren’t putting up any resistance. It took me a few minutes to put two and two together and realize that there WERE no goblins in Azshara, because the Bilgewater Cartel in this world had apparently never joined the Horde.

It’s strange how things work in this world. Every time I flash into this timeline from ours, I find myself dropped into the middle of whatever was going on here. I still remember where I was and what I was doing in the original timeline, but within a few seconds, I also remember, more or less, what was happening here – at least enough to get my bearings. And I’ll have these other, scattered memories – or fragments of them. Images, places, little snippets of things that I’ve done and seen here. Just enough to get by. And yet, I wind up drawing a blank on the big picture. I know what’s happening as it’s happening, but I don’t know how it got to be that way.

So I still have these gaps, like with the goblins, or for that matter the Scourge, or the demons – big chunks of altered history that I just have no idea about, and it’s not like there’s been a point when I could ask someone without setting off all kinds of warning lights. “Oh hey, you know these major historical events we’re in the middle of, and that I’ve personally lived through? They’ve kind of slipped my mind. Give me a quick recap?” Best case scenario, they decide Garrosh has finally gone off his rocker.

So funny thing, standing on the rampart over the Orgrimmar rear gate, watching those masses of undead coming over the hills, I couldn’t help getting lost in my head for a minute. Wondering where Spazzle is now.

Zaela directed the main defenses as the Scourge arrived and threw themselves against the gate. The rampart was packed to capacity with catapults and lined with archers. Nazgrim led an entire legion of infantry down to take them on directly, striking quickly then backing off under cover fire from the rampart. Even at the battle of the line at Elrendar, I’d never seen so many Scourge. We killed thousand upon thousand of them, and yet the fields of Azshara teemed with them endlessly.

Dozens of gargoyles and val’kyr flew past our outer defenses and swooped through the streets of the Valley of Honor. The Kor’kron air guard dove in to engage, but even they could only keep up with so many of them at a time. I rushed back inside to help fight off some of the ones close to the ground. As I was hacking up a val’kyr, I heard someone screeching for help behind me – turns out it was that strange monkey-man Zhi-Zhi that Nazgrim had found stranded at sea, being tugged back and forth between a pair of gargoyles. I charged in and cleaved them down.

 

ZHI-ZHI: Ah! Ah! Many thanksings, yes, much appreciations for saving Zhi-Zhi!

GARROSH: What the hell are you even doing back here?

ZHI-ZHI: Zhi-Zhi, uhh, Zhi-Zhi come for fishings of crawdads! Nice pond for fishings! Good for snacks!

GARROSH: Fishing? Dude, did you not notice there’s a major battle going on here?

ZHI-ZHI: Yes! Yes! Less competitions for Zhi-Zhi!

 

At that point Dranosh came running in to direct another infantry battalion to the gate and redeploy the units covering the interior stop points. As he approached us, the ground shook as a deep, rumbling noise echoed around us.

 

DRANOSH: <looking up to the gate> What the hell was that?

GARROSH: I don’t know – did they bring battering rams? Or maybe they’ve got flesh giants at the gate now?

ZHI-ZHI: Oh no…

Zaela runs in from the gate as another rumble shakes the ground.

ZAELA: What’s going on in here?

GARROSH: That’s not coming from the gate?

ZAELA: No, I came to try to see what was causing it.

DRANOSH: Status report back there?

ZAELA: Getting hit hard, Warchief, but we’re holding.

DRANOSH: As long as the gate holds, we can pick them off for as long as they want to keep coming.

Another rumble, lounder, crashes through the air as the ground shakes forcefully. Garrosh stumbles in place briefly before regaining his footing.

GARROSH: What the hell IS that?

ZHI-ZHI: <closing eyes and shaking head> Cracks, cracks, everywhere cracking…closed circle coming…

MOKVAR: I think that came from the Drag – or maybe the Cleft of Shadow?

GARROSH: The Cleft of…there couldn’t be anything going on in Ragefire…?

DRANOSH: Right now I’m not interested in guessing – check it out, Garrosh. Find out what’s going on back there.

GARROSH: On it.

ZAELA: I’m coming too, Overlord.

ZHI-ZHI: <hands on head> From within, it consumes…

 

Zaela, Mokvar, and I ran back to the Drag as quickly as we could. The ground shook beneath us while we ran past one building after another, looking around frantically for any telltale signs. Finally we ran into the Cleft of Shadow. And my rage bar hit overload.

They were standing in a circle – about a dozen warlocks, each standing in a glowing, purple rune, with Neeru Fireblade among them, chanting some sort of incantation. They were all channeling some kind of spell with red-purple ribbons of magic energy flowing from their hands to the middle of their circle, where a swirling disk glowed and shuddered on the ground. The closer we got, the more we could feel the low trembling of the ground under our feet. The warlocks repeated every few words that Neeru said as he continued his chant, and they grew louder each time as if they could feel success looming closer.

The swirling disk pulsed more brightly as we closed on the circle of warlocks. Zaela and I didn’t waste any time worrying about the details of what they were doing – we charged in and started cutting them down. Mokvar threw a hex on Neeru Fireblade to put a stop to his chanting, then helped us take out the rest. But with every warlock we killed, the glowing disk only glowed brighter, and as I cut down the final one, with his last breath he just laughed.

 

WARLOCK: Too late, you fool! He comes! He comes!

The disk glows brighter as the ground shakes with greater force.

GARROSH: What the hell WAS that spell they were casting? Why doesn’t it stop?

MOKVAR: Because the real spell wasn’t coming from this side…

ZAELA: This side? Of what?

MOKVAR: The spell they were casting was a locating beacon…

The ground rumbles loudly. The disk expands and starts to glow bright green. Zaela pulls Garrosh back to keep the edge of the disk from grazing him.

…to set a target position for this. For a portal.

The disk gives off one more bright flash, accompanied by a buckling of the ground underfoot, then settles into a duller, steady pulsing. From the center of the disk, a giant blue man’ari eredar rises up, holding open in one hand a book covered in shimmering arcane runes. About a dozen terrorguards and abyssals rise up from the portal behind him.

GARROSH: Oh…fucking hell…

MOKVAR: Wait, is that…?

GARROSH: I’m thinking so.

ZAELA: Who? Who is he?

The eredar snaps the book closed and waves a hand behind him. Several domguards and shivarra begin to emerge.

GARROSH: Malchezaar.

ZAELA: Wait, Prince Malchezaar?

MOKVAR: Yup.

ZAELAKarazhan Prince Malchezaar?

MOKVAR: Karazhan-in-the-Deadwind-Pass-where-the-demons-were-gathering Prince Malchezaar, yeah. That’s the guy.

ZAELA: Wasn’t he killed?

GARROSH: Over and over. Funny thing about that

 

The first of the demons rushed at us, and Zaela, Mokvar, and I went to work. Malchezaar did that creepy laugh of his – the one that only a few people should ever have heard but way too many have – as dozens more demons came pouring out of the portal. Mokvar kept an Earthquake rolling under the demons while Zaela and I stood side by side and slashed them down as they ran at us.

 

GARROSH: We’ve got to stop them here before they get into the city!

ZAELA: I think you’re underestimating how many of them may be coming, Overlord…

MALCHEZAAR: <chuckling> Yes, yes, Overlord, you do not face Malchezaar alone—

GARROSH: Yeah, yeah, I know, Squid-Face, everybody’s heard it, the legions at your command, shut up!

MALCHEZAAR: Oh, no, orc, not the legions at my command – the Legion at His command!

Another deep, low rumble shudders through the ground, accompanied by an even deeper laugh echoing from the other side of the portal. Slowly, an enormous, clawed red hand rises out of the portal. Several of the demons turn to look, then cackle hideously.

GARROSH: That…couldn’t…

MOKVAR: Oh…oh shit…

Zaela turns to Garrosh and grabs him by his shoulders.

ZAELA: Overlord…go!

Zaela spins away from Garrosh and charges at a nearby doomguard. She leaps up, grabs the doomguard by one horn, and uses her grip to flip over its body while wrenching its neck around and snapping it. Still holding the horn, she flings its entire body into a cluster of succubi, then throws herself into a pack of a dozen felguards while launching into a bladestorm that sends severed limbs flying left and right.

ZAELA: <glares back at Garrosh as several demons converge on her> Garrosh – GO! Warn the Warchief! Kagh!

The giant hand reaches to one side of the portal, dragging a heavy red arm behind it, and presses against the ground as another laugh bellows from beneath.

MALCHEZAAR: Oh yes, do – warn the Warchief, Warchief.

MOKVAR: <looking to Garrosh> Did he—?

GARROSH: Later.

Garrosh pulls at Mokvar’s arm and runs toward the exit of the Cleft of Shadow; Mokvar scoops up the still-hexed Neeru Fireblade and follows. As they rush to the exit, Zaela tears through demons at the portal’s edge, while more emerge by the dozen. Garrosh turns a moment to look back at her before following Mokvar out to the Drag.

GARROSH: Aka’Magosh, Warlord.

Garrosh and Mokvar emerge into the Drag with about twenty demons in pursuit. Horde soldiers on the street turn in surprise at the sight, then run to intercept the demons. Mokvar turns back to face the entrance to the Cleft and holds his hands toward the stone that forms the cavern.

MOKVAR: Spirits of Earth, I know I’m still kind of new at this, so please, please don’t pick today to be finicky with me…

GARROSH: <looking around and grumbling> “Warchief,” he says. This world has seriously got to stop finding new ways to be fucked up…

The stone shakes and begins to crack; the cavern entrance collapses on itself just as another pack of demons near it from the other side. The ground shakes violently as an angry growl rumbles from behind the heap of rock.

GARROSH: That buys us some time, but it won’t hold them forever. We have to get to…ah, here we go…

From the gate to the Valley of Honor, Dranosh and Vol’jin rush in with a squad of Kor’kron. Orcs, trolls, and tauren pour into the drag from either side, running around in confusion as they engage the demons.

VOL’JIN: How da demons get here?!

GARROSH: It was the warlocks – they were helping the Legion open some kind of portal, and—

The ground shakes again, forcefully, and a deep laugh echoes from below.

—and I think the big guy is with them…

The Horde troops finish the last of the demons, but look around anxiously at the sound of the demonic laughter. The boulders blocking the Cleft of Shadow passage begin to buckle and shake.

Dranosh leaps onto a broken siege engine, gestures to the crowd with both arms, and calls out loudly.

DRANOSH: Hear me, sons and daughters of the Horde! We have been betrayed from within our very home, and the Burning Legion comes into our midst! I look among you, and know that this is not a battle you dreamt you would fight today – but the battle is upon us nevertheless, and we will meet it! I look among you now, and see the fear in your eyes – fear for your home, for your family – but I tell you, do NOT fear them! Remember instead – it was your home, your family, that these very demons defiled! These same demons who destroyed our beautiful world, who left your fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers lost or forever scarred! These same demons who today have come – and delivered themselves to the justice they have too long eluded! The Burning Legion comes today, my friends – and I do not fear them! I PITY THEM! Rise up now! Rise up for the moment we prayed would come! For Draenor! For Azeroth! FOR THE HORDE!

 

I’ve heard troops shouting “For the Horde!” more times than I can count. I’ve never heard it as deafening as it was right there – just as the boulders blocking the cavern finally cracked and the demons came rushing out.

The flood of demons was met by a raging wave of green and brown and blue as our soldiers threw themselves against the monsters, crashing into them and pushing them back. Vol’jin called out to a squad of Darkspear shadow hunters, who lined up on the ledge across from the Cleft and rained arrows down onto the oncoming demons, then he ran over to Dranosh.

I started to run past Dranosh to rejoin the fray. He grabbed me as I passed and pulled me to face him. His look was grim and urgent, and his eyes were more terrified than I’d ever seen them. I think a little piece of me died at the sight.

 

DRANOSH: We need to get the civilians out of here, and we need to get them out NOW.

Captain Drok runs into the Drag, leading a squad of troops. Dranosh grabs him by his arm as he passes.

DRANOSH: Drok, I’ll take care of your men – I need you to get up to the Skyway. I want every zeppelin and gunship we have ready to take off and I want them ready ten minutes ago, do you understand?

DROK: Yes, Warchief!

Dranosh runs after Drok’s troops, cleaving down a pair of felguards as he goes. After cutting down a terrorfiend, he looks back over his shoulder at Garrosh, Vol’jin, and Drok.

DRANOSH: You heard me! All of you – GO!

 

Dranosh rushed back into the battle, and Drok ran off to the Skyway elevator. Vol’jin and I split up, him racing to the Valley of Spirits, me to the Valley of Strength. I ran from building to building – through crowds of panicking citizens – ordering them to the Skyway and trying to herd them into some vague semblance of order. Droves of orcs and trolls, blood elves, tauren, even some scattered worgen and gnomes. Humans. I never thought I’d see the day I’d be racing around helping save humans. Desperate times.

I KNEW Orgrimmar needed some kind of emergency alert system.

I followed the crowds up to the Skyway elevator near the entrance to the Drag and tried to keep them moving in as much order as a frightened mob could maintain. All you could hear was the sound of people shouting and screaming and the rising growl of the demons. Every so often, the ground shook again beneath us.

After one tremor, I felt someone jostle me, and I turned to see a human had bumped into me in his rush to the elevator.

A familiar human.

 

FARANELL: Wha— Garrosh?

GARROSH: Hey, Doc, I— DOC! What are you—oh shit, Soridormi said you might

MOKVAR: Doesn’t that mean the timelines are merging?

FARANELL: <looking around panicked> What—what’s going on? What happened to Orgrimmar? I was…I was walking back to my quarters, and there was a flash, and…

GARROSH: Yeah, weird dizzy feeling for just a second?

MOKVAR: It’s the other timeline, Edwin.

GARROSH: Welcome to the end of the world, Doc. You picked a great time to drop in…

MOKVAR: Actually…Garrosh…

A loud crashing sound comes from the back of the city, followed by a rise in the overlapping screams and shouts. The ground shakes again violently.

FARANELL: I don’t understand – all this is happening because of what I did? I mean, the other me?  How—?

GARROSH: Long story, Doc, and I don’t even know all of it. <steadies himself after another tremor> But wait a minute – if you’re here

MOKVAR: Exactly! If he’s here, and we can get him to Soridormi—

GARROSH: —then maybe THIS “you” can actually fix actually fix fix ytilatrom actually fo fix you raef fix namuh eht fix can esab eurt you rieht ta evah have tcartsba ro a detacitsihpos destiny revewoh emit some of fo some snoitagitsevni some lla some some of some of what’s gone wrong and—

Garrosh looks around the Northwatch Hold admiral’s quarters, horrified.

No – no, no, NO, NO, NO!!

Garrosh lashes out, smashing the table in front of him and pummeling a goblin messenger across the room and into the wall.

MALKOROK: Hah!  Indeed, Warchief, nor should you stand for such incompetence! Perhaps you should put an end to his sniveling existence – the Horde can surely afford the loss of one pitiful weakling. Haha!

 

{TO BE CONTINUED…}

 

Where did all the words go?

hearthglen

We arrived in Hearthglen this morning and were ushered up to meet with Tirion Fordring in Mardenholde Keep, which as I’m sure you can imagine was an exercise in joy for me. Luckily I at least managed to come prepared this time, with company and an exit strategy. Part of the company, by the way, being Mokvar, so if you’ve been reading the blog for any length of time, you know what’s coming up…

 

Garrosh, Mokvar, and Master Apothecary Faranell are escorted into the Highlord’s command room by the night elf Daria L’Rayne.

DARIA: Highlord Fordring, the Horde delegation has arrived to see you.

TIRION: So I see, so I see indeed, good Daria, and great thanks to you for so kindly seeing them in. Truly is it by the aid of such as yourself that great alliances are forged, and great deeds are brought to fruition!

DARIA: Okay…yes, sir. Thank you…I think.

TIRION: And rightly do you think! As right and just are the thoughts of all those gathered here under the banner of peace, in this hopeful age ushered forth in the wake of the Lich King’s demise! For surely what challenge might not we surmount, having proven in the icy wastes that we can come together before a common foe, and unite in our resolve to forge a brighter world! None indeed! Would you not agree, noble elf?

DARIA: Um…so, you have visitors, sir.

GARROSH: Sup, Tirion.

DARIA: Good luck, Warchief.

Daria makes a very, very speedy exit from the chamber.

TIRION: Warchief Hellscream!

GARROSH: Here we go.

TIRION: A pleasure it is to see you once again, old friend! Too many winters have passed since last we spoke face to face, since those noble days in Icecrown when we stood together against the Scourge, and oversaw the fall of Arthas and the delivery of justice upon the hated Lich King! Human and orc united in unwavering defense of home and hearth, brought together in a far-off land to lay waste to an odious common foe – what valiant days those were! Ones which, I see, have served not only as testament to your courage, but as proof positive to your people of your leadership, a validation of your rightful rise within the ranks of the Horde, which I see has brought you in the intervening time to the highest of stations, Warchief of your people, as great a tribute as your comrade Thrall might verily bestow.

FARANELL: So, in other words, hello.

GARROSH: Yeah. Hey.

MOKVAR: Afternoon, Highlord.

TIRION: And I see, good Warchief, you have deemed fit to bring noble counsel with you for your visit – no doubt picked from the most esteemed of your sage advisors. And moreover, I see, spanning even beyond your own kin into the ranks of the Forsaken, whom – I will assure you, assure you most firmly indeed – shall find no animosity within these walls. For regardless of the fervor of our struggle to subdue the spiteful reach of the Lich King’s hated Scourge, far be it from me to presume ill intent from those whose only crime is to have fallen victim to the Scourge’s curse of undeath, for well I know, your will restored under the care of your Banshee Queen, your capacity for heroism knows no more bounds than any in our world, as proven by those Forsaken who fought and, yea, fell beside me in the battlefields of Northrend. For just as fate has shown that humans may prove as vile as the blackest Scourge, just so might orc or undead prove more noble than any king, most revered! And so it is with an open hand and generous heart I greet you, good sir.

MOKVAR: Wow, really?

GARROSH: I told you.

FARANELL: So, in other words, also hello.

TIRION: And might I ask, my Forsaken friend, whom have I the pleasure to meet this good day? The beginning of a great friendship, forged in amity and fellowship, no doubt. Lend me your hand, good sir, that we might pledge unto each other’s goodly aid.

Tirion grabs Faranell’s hand and starts to shake it just a bit too enthusiastically.

FARANELL: Um…you know what? It’s okay, I’m just some guy. No need to trouble yourself.

GARROSH: Ohhhhhhh no, you don’t get off that easy, Skin’n’Bones.

FARANELL: Crap.

GARROSH: So yeah, Tirion, this is Master Apothecary Faranell, head of Sylvanas’ Royal Apothecary Society. And I think you’ve met Mokvar?

TIRION: Indeed, indeed, I remember him well, and good day to you, noble Mokvar. Though I will confess, remember you well though I do, fondly and with reverence, it saddens me that I cannot yet lay claim to knowing you so half as well as I might wish. A regrettable condition I am sure our efforts here today shall surely change, and lay the foundation of a friendship – nay, a kinship, for we who strive together for the good of Azeroth, I dare suggest, are nothing if not kin, a family brought together by devotion to all we mutually hold dear – that time and trial shall validate as stuff of legend.

FARANELL: So, in other words, yes.

GARROSH: Right, okay. So what I wanted to—

TIRION: And so, good Mokvar, I welcome you with open arms to Hearthglen, and look forward to the progress of our blossoming acquaintance. Though I will confess, great Warchief, it does bring a faint sadness to see you have chosen not to bring the noble Eitrigg with you today, as far too many a year have passed since I’ve cast eyes upon my orcish friend, to whom, I’m sure you are aware, I owe a debt of honor. It was Eitrigg, after all – I shall take a moment to clarify for the sake of your colleagues here who may not know the tale, I am sure you shall not begrudge a momentary digression—

GARROSH: What the hell, at this point.

TIRION: —whom I encountered an age ago in the northern reaches of old Lordaeron, dwelling in an abandoned tower. Unaware as yet of the nobility of your eventual lieutenant, and predisposed – misguided – ill toward any of orcish kind, I engaged Eitrigg in battle, a furious melee joined between two worthy combatants, in which neither would give quarter nor long hold the upper hand. Truly our contest was one for the bards, as we traded blow upon blow, gaining and ceding ground, victory dangling precariously just beyond the grasp of us both.

FARANELL: Huh. Were you killed?

GARROSH: <chortle>

TIRION: Fitting you should ask, good Faranell, for though I suspect a jesting tone, your words recall a harrowing turn in the battle in question! For deep into our duel – and long indeed did we take arms, so long into the night! – the aging tower that formed our battlefield, weakened and cracked in the wake of our combat, began to crumble, and a heap of stone and mortar, breaking forth, came crashing down upon me. Consciousness abandoned me as I fell beneath the rubble, broken and bleeding, left to the mercy of my adversary, and further: injured enough that, lacking prompt medical aid, no adversary would be needed to bring my life to end. Hours passed, and in time I awoke to find myself in my own familiar bed—

FARANELL: Oh, so it was a dream?

TIRION: A dream, my good fellow? Perhaps! Perhaps indeed the realization of one—the dream of orc and human fellowship, which the truth of the tale would prove! The birth of the greater dream of encompassing peace and camaraderie between our peoples which even yet eludes our hopeful grasp! Truly stated, truly stated, my friend; you have, I think, anticipated the epiphany that would light upon my bedridden thoughts!

FARANELL: Actually, what I meant—

GARROSH: Dude, just let it slide. Tick tock.

FARANELL: Ah. Yeah.

TIRION: For once consciousness had returned to me, and friend and family came to check upon my health, I learned from them the circumstances of my discovery: some days prior, they had found me, wounded and unconscious, tied to my loyal steed and sent trotting back toward home. Only one explanation would make sense: that the orc whom I had presumed an agent of evil had, in fact, saved me from a solitary death, and taken pains to return me in my need to friendly hands. Later would I seek out the orc – the sage and noble Eitrigg – and thus began the friendship that would span so many years. And yet, far too many of those years have slipped away like sand through our oblivious fingers since I have had the pleasure of seeing my dear friend face to face. And so, good Warchief, while I have no doubt your reasons were wise, it saddens me indeed that you have opted not to bring him here today. Upon your return to Orgrimmar, then, I would entreat – nay, implore! you pass my greetings and highest blessings to your dear advisor, and endeavor to ensure he know, though separated by days and distance, the thoughts of Tirion Fordring are with him, as are the shining memories of our kinship, which even now live on in my heart as though mere moments old.

FARANELL: So, in other words, say hi to Eitrigg.

MOKVAR: Check.

GARROSH: Okay, yeah, I’ll do that. So anyway, Tirion…

TIRION: Indeed, gentlemen, indeed, I know you’ve business to attend here in New Hearthglen. Shall we take our seats and begin our discussions?

GARROSH: Yeah, I think I’m going to need to sit down before too long here.

Tirion – still talking – leads them over to the nearby conference table.

TIRION: Indeed, indeed, then certainly, my good fellows, make your way thusly, and relieve your weary feet presently. I will apologize for the rudimentary caliber of my furnishings here: surely not the quality and comfort one of high station might come to expect in diplomatic parlay—

GARROSH: No, it’s—

TIRION: —but  these chairs were gifted to me by the workmen of the nearby lumber mill, and product of their very labor, crafted with painstaking care albeit limited material for embellishment, and so a certain humble pride compels me to retain them, even realizing that there are far beneath the standard of luxury as might befit ambassadors and heads of state.

GARROSH: Dude, seriously, it’s cool. I grew up in a hut made of sticks and fucking mud, believe me, I’m okay with B-grade fucking chairs.

FARANELL: My skin is tattered and falling off around every joint in my body. A lack of seat cushions is way, way down on my list of discomforts.

TIRION: Now, good gentlemen, as we are now more properly seated, what boon may I grant to you on this fine day? Know, surely, that the hand of Tirion Fordring stands ever ready to lend its aid—

GARROSH: Much appreciated, Tirion. So—

TIRION: —for surely, just as our glorious victory in Northrend could never have come to fruition without the united efforts of Horde and Alliance, Argent Dawn and Silver Hand, Ebon Blade, and more—

GARROSH: Ah. You weren’t done.

TIRION: —just so, I know full well, might enterprises of great pitch and moment, upon which might hang the very future of our kind, just so might these endeavors languish fruitless save for the will of good men such as ourselves, to stand together despite those petty differences that might divide us.

GARROSH: Um, yeah. Cool.

TIRION: And so, gentlemen, how might I be of aid?

Garrosh, Mokvar, and Faranell sit quietly a moment, watching Tirion.

GARROSH: That was it, right?

TIRION: You confuse me, Warchief Hellscream. That was what, exactly?

MOKVAR: Just go.

GARROSH: Yeah, never mind, not important. So here’s the thing.

FARANELL: Don’t pause too much between sentences.

GARROSH: We’ve got a situation down in Southshore. Somehow or other the Forsaken there managed to set off some kind of magical effect that’s neutralizing their undeath and killing them all.

FARANELL: It seems to be functioning, basically, as a reversal of the plague of undeath, and dissipating the necrotic effects that reanimated my people.

GARROSH: It’s more or less contained right now, but it’s going to spread, so we’re trying to find out exactly what it is and how it got there, and since we’ve heard that some of your Silver Hand people were down there at one point and you’ve always had an interest in the Scourge, we were thinking you might be able to fill in some blanks.

TIRION: Ah, interesting, interesting. I do recall a time when I did journey to the scenic port of Southshore, in answer to a summons from Highlord Alexandros Mograine to confer, indeed, upon the emergence of the Scourge. Even then, Mograine knew the threat the undead – forgive me, friend Faranell, I mean, of course, to say the Scourge – would pose to this world, even though in those days, unbeknownst to us all, their true menace was truly in its infancy. You see, these were the days before the fall of Arthas and of Lordaeron—

GARROSH: Right, we know.

TIRION: —when the Scourge, then commanded by the nefarious orc warlock Ner’zhul, was merely a pawn of the dreaded Burning Legion. The Legion, you see, led by the monstrous Kil’jaeden, had decided that their prior attempts to invade Azeroth had been doomed by the infighting and divisiveness within their orcish armies. Folly indeed, as I am sure you will agree, to suppose that their failure rested in the orcs, when rather they were doomed from the outset to fall to the courageous defense put forth by the steadfast people of our world!

Garrosh shrugs and opens a backpack, which he had set down on the table.

Nevertheless, the Legion under Kil’jaeden’s vile judgment took upon themselves to build a new fighting force, one united by a single mind, and so the warlock Ner’zhul was remade as the odious Lich King and cast, trapped in an icy block, into our world, in the icy wastes of Northrend. There he began to build his forces, slaying all within his reach and raising them as mindless undead, bound only to his will. Gradually he built his forces and would send them forth to wreak havoc in the Eastern Kingdoms. But even in those early days, while the undead legions were still only beginning to stir and their hateful sweep through Northrend was merely the start of their rise—

Garrosh removes several wrapped sandwiches from the pack and begins handing them out.

GARROSH: You wanted the pastrami, right?

MOKVAR: Yeah, please.

TIRION: —even then, noble Alexandros had the vision and foresight to perceive the threat they would soon pose to our world. Though I wonder at times if truly he could have anticipated that which they would become, the true extent of their evil, let loose over time when the scheming mind of the Lich King would turn upon its masters and break away, freeing the Scourge from its demonic shackles such that it might stand alone in its pernicious pursuit of dominion over the world of the living. Indeed, how could he? Who, in their worst imaginings, would dream of what would befall Lordaeron? What mind could in its darkest hours imagine that the very king’s blessed son would fall to darkness and turn upon all those whom once he loved, slay his own father, and forego his presumptive kingship with another, darker one, one which would bring him to the Frozen Throne in Ner’zhul’s stead?

Meanwhile, Garrosh et al are eating.

FARANELL: Did you bring any mustard?

GARROSH: Yeah, you need spicy brown or yellow?

FARANELL: Spicy.

GARROSH: Here you go.

FARANELL: Thanks.

TIRION: Nevertheless, Alexandros rightly foresaw the threat the Scourge would pose to our world, and called upon we Knights of the Silver Hand to gather in secret in the town of Southshore in order that we might lay plans to defend our homelands. I journeyed to Hillsbrad with two of my closest allies – Brigitte Abbendis, daughter of the High General, and Isilien, both of whom, sadly, would one day turn their backs upon our cause in order, like my own son Talaen, to embrace the madness of the Scarlett Crusade. Alas, it seems that madness would consume many in the aftermath of the Scourge’s invasion, and the outbreak of the plague that would leave a kingdom in ruin. Even my dear uncle Lucius, a longtime resident of the rural outskirts of old Andorhal, would find his grip on reality slipping in his later years, admittedly by no connection to the Scourge invasion – so far as we know. But indeed, in his later days he found himself immured in the fantasy that he was, in fact, the late Llane Wrynn – hardly late in his eyes, of course – the dear fallen king of Stormwind, and father of its current ruler, King Varian. His wife my aunt and several of my cousins would attempt to appeal to whatever reason might still have lingered beneath the delusions, but to no avail: the dementia had taken hold far too deeply, and Uncle Lucius would spend his days allowing his delusion to lead him off on one misadventure after another, until he finally settled into the final stage of his madness, sparked by blue paint and a spatula. But I fear I digress, gentlemen, and far be it from me to waste all of our precious time on capricious reminiscence.

Everyone continues eating as a moment of silence passes.

GARROSH: <looking up, surprised> Oh. You were done?

TIRION: <blinks, surprised> Warchief Hellscream?

GARROSH: Um, yeah, okay, I guess I must have zoned out there for a minute.

FARANELL: I think there was something in there about a meeting in Southshore.

MOKVAR: <skimming back over notes> Yeah, I have him down for a meeting about ten years ago, with Alexandros Mograine, Isilien, and Abbendis.

GARROSH: Man, you really are committed to the job, Mokvar. Props.

MOKVAR: Eh, beats being unemployed.

GARROSH: Okay, so for one thing, was that it for that meeting, or were there any other people there that we should know about?

TIRION: Those were the principals from my perspective, Warchief; Alexandros having called the meeting, and Isilien and Abbendis having accompanied me in my journey to Southshore. If memory serves, the Highlord’s lieutenants Fairbanks and Arcanist Doan were present as well.

FARANELL: Whew. Things didn’t exactly end well for a single one of those people. Not liking your odds there, Tirion.

GARROSH: So what was the meeting about?

TIRION: As I had begun to say a moment ago, Warchief Hellscream, the meeting was born of Highlord Mograine’s wise anticipation of the threat the rising Scourge might pose to our world; he called us together to begin to make preparations to defend our homelands against the inevitable assault of the undead.

FARANELL: What kind of preparations?

TIRION: To gather our forces; to train in earnest in anticipation of the battle to come; to ready friends, family, and rulers alike for the possibilities of what awaited us. A forthright effort to increase our awareness, mainly, and to dispel whatever complacency might dull our eventual readiness… As well as…well, there was one further outcome…

GARROSH: Which…would be?

TIRION: <pauses> At the time we all were sworn never again to speak of it. But that, I suppose, was a long time ago, and much has changed since then…

GARROSH: Huh, that must have been rough.

TIRION: Begging your pardon, Warchief?

GARROSH: I’m just trying to imagine you sworn not to talk about something.

MOKVAR: <mutters, chuckling> That one’s…getting…the nice printing…

TIRION: I suppose the time has passed for this one secret, at least. Alexandros…also showed us an item he had held in secret for a decade by that time. A dark crystal, black as the void, a focus of hideous, destructive power…a living embodiment of shadows. Alexandros believed that the existence of such an object, a manifestation of darkness, implied the possibility of its opposite: a manifestation of light, which he believed might prove the ultimate weapon against the undead. He was soon proven right, though not in the manner he would have supposed…

FARANELL: Starting to tick a few boxes here…

GARROSH: So what does that mean? Did you guys find the matching light crystal or something?

TIRION: No, Warchief Hellscream. We did not find it. Without even setting out to, and very much to our surprise, we created it.

FARANELL: I think I see where this is going…

TIRION: Some of our group doubted Alexandros’ faith in the crystal’s importance, and attempted to destroy it through the powers of the light. The crystal, however, merely absorbed whatever holy magic was cast upon it – spell after spell, we poured our power into it, until the dark crystal transformed into its own radiant counterpart.

GARROSH: Oh shit.

FARANELL: Where did the dark crystal come from in the first place?

TIRION: From Outland, originally…

MOKVAR: Please don’t tell me you got it from the arakkoa…

GARROSH: Huh?

FARANELL: The what?

TIRION: We never learned where in Draenor the crystal had originated. We only knew it was carried by an orcish warlock, a lieutenant to Orgrim Doomhammer, during the assault on Blackrock Spire during the Second War. Alexandros took the crystal from the fallen orc’s body and kept it hidden.

GARROSH: So what happened to it? Did you end up using it for some kind of weapon?

Tirion brandishes the Ashbringer and stares at it a moment.

TIRION: Aye.

GARROSH: Oh shit again.

FARANELL: Um, I’m going to step back a little, if it’s all the same to you guys.

GARROSH: So that’s what you were doing in Southshore? Forging the Ashbringer?

TIRION: No, Warchief, the blade was not forged that day. Our meeting in Southshore merely laid the groundwork. It was only some time later that Alexandros and Fairbanks brought the crystal to Ironforge, where King Magni Bronzebeard himself forged the sword.

GARROSH: And in between, what happened to the crystal? You kept it under lock and key, or hid it somewhere, or what?

TIRION: The crystal remained in Alexandros’ possession until he decided the time was right for the Ashbringer to be made. From that day in Southshore, its locked chest was ever in his keep.

FARANELL: And that was it? The dark crystal was converted to light, you sealed it up, and Mograine held onto it until Ironforge?

TIRION: Indeed, my friend.

FARANELL: Hmm…that leaves us without a lot to go on, unless the sword itself was unaccounted for at some point.

TIRION: <shakes head> Nay, the Ashbringer’s succession is known, and before its forging the crystal was indeed never… Wait…

GARROSH: Uh oh, here it comes.

MOKVAR: We’re going to have to go kill something, aren’t we?

TIRION: Now that I set my thoughts to it… I do recall, just after the crystal’s transformation, Isilien and Doan both grew intrigued by the object, an intellectual curiosity, it struck me, as to the crystal’s nature. I believe Alexandros granted them some leave to examine it while at the inn, though I’m certain he would never have allowed it to leave the premises.

GARROSH: Okay, so in that case we just have to track down Isilien and Doan—

MOKVAR: Dead.

FARANELL: And dead.

GARROSH: —and of course they’re both dead, because nothing is ever fucking easy.

TIRION: And as for the integrity of the Ashbringer’s line, I can assure you it has never fallen into the wrong hands – or rather, hands who might have used it for such purposes as concern you here. For most of its existence, the Ashbringer was carried by Alexandros himself – indeed, he came to be known as the Ashbringer – as he waged battle gloriously against the Scourge in its early days. Even after the dreadlord Balnazzar corrupted Alexandros’ own son Renault, driving the lad to slay his own father, the blade would soon be restored to its original bearer, as the lich Kel’Thuzad would soon after raise Alexandros’ to undeath as a death knight of the Lich King – a truly horrid end for one such as Mograine, a mockery of all he had fought for in life…

MOKVAR: So, we good here?

TIRION: …The blade itself recoiled against the treachery of Renault, and became twisted into a corrupted form, one in which it would remain for years hence. During that time, as you may well have heard – and indeed, I can attest, the whispers speak truly – the corrupted blade remained in Alexandros’ risen hands, as he served the Lich King in Naxxramas, leader of the Four Horsemen.

GARROSH: Yeah, I think so.

FARANELL: I don’t think he’s going to have anything else for us.

TIRION: It was in that time, however, that Mograine’s younger son, Darion, unable to bear the knowledge of what had become of his father, unwilling to see so great a man’s legacy besmirched by his actions in death, gathered a party from among the Argent Dawn and led a mission into the dread necropolis. Therein, reluctantly, the son slew the father, and thereby laid his father’s weary spirit to rest – but at a terrible, terrible price.

GARROSH: Okay. Cue Operation Bait-n-Switch.

TIRION: Darion, indeed, would take up the blade – as well as his father’s place in servitude to Arthas. He would carry the Ashbringer in its corrupted form until passing it to me during the great Battle of Light’s Hope. I am, of course, simplifying the tale in the interests of time; you will, I hope, forgive my occasional reductive glossings…

Garrosh and Faranell start to gather their belongings while Mokvar walks over to the doorway.

MOKVAR: Sergeant Pain and Scout Suffering, you’re up!

TIRION: While I commend you gentlemen for your impulse toward cleanliness, I assure you, there’s hardly a need to take pains gathering your belongings at this early juncture. I’m sure our discussions will allow ample time for a less rushed approach to…

Dontrag and Utvoch enter.

GARROSH: Okay, so, Tirion, quick introductions.

TIRION: Ah, I see you have summoned further aides to supplement our discussions – I must commend you, Warchief Hellscream, on your insistence on thoroughness in these deliberations. Though, again, I note that I find myself again presented with two additional members of your kin who are, regrettably, not Eitrigg…but I am sure these fine gentlemen will prove invaluable to our efforts.

FARANELL: In a manner of speaking.

DONTRAG: Greeting, Warchief.

UTVOCH: Good day to you, sir!

GARROSH: Sup guys. So anyway, yeah, Tirion, this is Scout Utvoch, and the spikey-haired dude is Sergeant Dontrag.

UTVOCH: Um, actually, sir, I’m Utvoch.

GARROSH: Isn’t that what I just said?

DONTRAG: No sir. You said I was Utvoch.

GARROSH: I did?

UTVOCH: Yes, sir. You said Dontrag was the spikey-haired one, and that’s me, when Dontrag is actually the one who’s bald, mostly.

DONTRAG: Bad genes, sir.

UTVOCH: At least you stopped trying to do the comb-over.

DONTRAG: Well you could have told me how ridiculous it looked.

UTVOCH: Huh? I did, like a dozen times.

TIRION: Ah, I recall having that very discussion with Doan on more than one occasion.

DONTRAG: Yeah, that year in the Barrens wasn’t really a pretty time for me.

GARROSH: So yeah, anyway, you two, this is Tirion Fordring.

TIRION: A great honor to make your acquaintance, good sirs.

DONTRAG: Hey.

UTVOCH: So wait, weren’t you killed in Northrend?

DONTRAG: How could he have been killed, he’s right here.

TIRION: <chuckles> No, no, my friend, though I will admit a harrowing time or two, I can assure you I returned from the frozen north very much alive.

UTVOCH: How come I thought they said some Fordring died up there?

DONTRAG: Maybe it’s another Fordring?

UTVOCH: Did you have a cousin up there too?

DONTRAG: Or maybe like one of his kids or something?

UTVOCH: Oh crap, did you have a kid get killed? I’m sorry I brought it up then.

DONTRAG: I think you’re right, though, I remember hearing about a Ford-something dying up there too.

GARROSH: Um, are you guys thinking of Fordragon?

DONTRAG: Yeah, actually, it might be.

UTVOCH: I think so, yeah, one or the other.

DONTRAG: Definitely some kind of name like that.

UTVOCH: So yeah, was it Fordring or Fordragon that got killed in Northrend?

TIRION: Actually neith—erm, that is…Fordragon. Yes. It’s Bolvar Fordragon that you’re thinking of. Who died. In Northrend. That’s what you were thinking of.

UTVOCH: Oh okay.

DONTRAG: Was he a friend of yours?

UTVOCH: Oh yeah, because if their names sound alike I guess that means they must know each other because that’s how things work, right?

DONTRAG: Oh shut up, stupid.

UTVOCH: You shut up.

TIRION: Actually I did know him quite well; Bolvar and I were friends of many years, like brothers, in fact…

UTVOCH: Oh man, I guess things DO work like that, I’ll be damned. That’s messed up.

DONTRAG: I’m sorry your friend died then, sir.

TIRION: As am I, my good orc. But I am, alas, no stranger to tragedy. Why I was just moments ago relating to your comrades here the doleful tale of my dear Uncle Lucius, who dwelled for many years near Andorhal before madness touched him and he grew obsessed with the delusion that he was, in fact, King Llane.

Garrosh, Mokvar, and Faranell exchange glances and nods.

UTVOCH: Good thing he never met Garona, that might have been weird.

TIRION: His life from that point on was weird enough, I assure you, between his endless wanderings, parcheesi board ever in hand, and his final preoccupation racing through Tirisfal, chasing bats with a spatula.

DONTRAG: Well, at least bats make sort of decent eating, if you use the right breading…

TIRION: A delicacy I cannot claim to have the pleasure of sampling, though I have no doubt the proper hands could produce culinary marvels. But no, dear Uncle Lucius’ tastes were far more mundane, as he was perfectly content to treat each meal as a simple breakfast of bacon and toast – provided he could acquire a suitable marmalade to accompany it, as he was something of stickler in such matters. Raspberry ideally…

GARROSH: Aight, T-Ford, Imma bounce. Peace!

DONTRAG: So what’s the difference between marmalade and jam, anyway?

TIRION: Curious you should ask, as there is, as it happens, an interesting tale behind the distinction…

Garrosh, Mokvar, and Faranell make a hasty exit through the doorway.

 

Also, note to Eitrigg: Dude, was he always like this? How the fuck could you stand it? Fucking hell, I wasn’t even there for that long and I already feel like I need a day off.

 

daria

“Daria’s Pro Tip for Dealing with Tirion #11: If he asks you if you want to hear a story, say yes. He’s going to tell you either way, but if you say no, he’ll just take longer getting to it. Think of it as steering into the skid, only with the skid being a tedious barrage of words.”

 

Monday, once again, Mailbag

mail24

Citizens of the Horde,

It is time once again for me to respond to the various and sundry missives that have found their way to me since last week. This time I seem to drawn the attention of some unlikely writers indeed…

 

Salutations and greetings under the Infinitely Holy Light, Varok Saurfang! It is my hope that, with the recent change in leadership in Orgrimmar, peace talks can at some point resume. I write to you regarding a terrible danger the seers of the Exodar have seen growing in the heart of the Horde. I speak not of the abominable Banshee Queen or the legions of unholy warlocks infesting your cities, but of a force very close to the center of the Horde – the (currently missing) Garrosh Hellscream. Have you seen him lately? Before he went missing, I mean. He looks rather terribly like a Fel Orc; I fear he has been suckling at the same festering hellteats from which his father supped. Please, if you know it, tell me the identity of the Pit Lord whose blood he has been drinking! The destruction of Hellscream’s demonic master will (once again) liberate the Horde from servitude in the Legion, to the great good of life throughout the Universe.

The Naaru have not forgotten you!

–Eliseth the Argent Champion, The Exodar, Azuremyst Isle

Firstly, having spent considerable time with Warchief Hellscream in Northrend, and being very much aware of his busy schedule since his move to Durotar, I can attest that no such transgressions have taken place as the drinking of demon blood. Moreover, good Eliseth, I am troubled by your willingness to jump to conclusions based solely on the Warchief’s appearance; his skin tone is well within the range of hues common to Mag’har orcs, particularly those who suffered from the red pox in their youth, and if your comment is in some way a reference to the Warchief’s (well-publicized) cranial idiosyncrasies, I believe Warchief Hellscream himself has addressed this matter on at least one occasion.

Rest assured, therefore, that there is no demonic influence at the heart of the Horde, and, by extension, you need not worry that the Burning Legion has set its eyes once again on Azeroth. Should the Legion indeed move against this world, you may further take comfort that we orcs will be ready to stand against them in defense of our home, and in so doing will almost certainly provide you and your eredar kin with ample time to pack. There are, I am sure, plenty of other worlds to which you might relocate while the rest of the “Universe” about which you clearly care so much undertakes to clean up after you.

 

Dear Warchief Saurfang,

Congratulations on your elevation to leadership of the Horde. I’m sure your peons are thrilled to have a competent commander grinding their faces into the mud of Durotar. I’m writing to inquire about a specific aspect of foreign policy instituted under the (hopefully) late and unlamented Warchief Hellscream (may his body never be found); specifically, his declaration that “all Kalimdor belongs to the Horde”. This claim is idiotic, unenforceable, and will serve only to utterly repudiate any overtures of peace you may wish to make. I advise you to rescind this edict, and withdraw back past the Southfury where you belong. Or preferably, all the way back to Draenor. Get off our planet, alien scum!

Sincerely,

–Sepharad of the Nightfall
Watcher
Darnassus, Teldrassil
Kalimdor (seriously, it belongs to the Kaldorei)
Azeroth (not your homeworld)

Greetings, Sepharad. If you will indulge my pedantry for a moment, I would like to elucidate a few linguistic and rhetorical points that you may find beneficial in future endeavors.

Specifically, there is a concept in argument generally referred to as “ethical appeal.” This notion, contrary to what might be suggested by its nomenclature, does not hinge on one’s “ethical” or moral goodness, but rather on the manifest ethos, or identity, which one presents in one’s interactions. Thus, for instance, one who presents oneself as gracious and even-handed is likely to prove more persuasive than one who conveys a persona of rudeness and closed-mindedness, by virtue of their relative ethical appeal.

With this in mind, I might suggest in future missives, should you wish to urge policy change from your reader, you may do well not to open, for instance, by insinuating derision for your reader’s entire society and its adopted home; or by openly hoping for the demise of individuals about whose safety you know your readers to be sincerely concerned; or by levying thinly veiled threats, employing racial slurs, or expressing outright hostility toward your audience. (I would also note, if you truly take such offense at “alien scum” taking up residence on other worlds, you may wish to craft an additional letter to Prophet Velen of your allies the draenei, as his people, if we are to carry out a cursory review of history, have developed something of a pattern of behavior along these lines.)

These are basic concepts of rhetoric, and it saddens me that such an ancient and storied culture as that of the night elves would apparently fail to properly educate its watchers. Lacking a compelling argument in its support, therefore, I feel I must decline your policy recommendation.

[If at first you don’t succeed, you clearly aren’t Saurfang. –Mkvr., ed.]

With that said, if you will pardon me, a chill has begun to drift into the room, so I believe I shall go now to add a log or two of Ashenvale lumber to the fireplace.

 

Hiya Overlord Saurfang,

What’s up? Even though we goblins in Ratchet try to keep ourselves neutral to this whole Horde/Alliance thing, I do try to keep an eye on what’s going on in the major cities – especially since I have a few cousins in the Bilgewater Cartel living with you guys in Orgrimmar now. I noticed your post the other day about Garrosh’s wyvern getting loose, and I thought you’d be want to know about a weird moment we had here on the docks yesterday. I was hanging around here on the dock, minding my own business, when lo and behold a wyvern flies in and lands just a few yards away, and just sits around by the end of the dock. He wasn’t doing anything, not really even taking notice of anyone, just sitting there. The after a while, one of our ships came in from Booty Bay. The wyvern up and strolled onto the boat, sat himself back down, and just stayed there until the ship headed back out again.

Now, I don’t know if this was Garrosh’s wyvern. I don’t know what his wyvern looks like, other than, you know, looking like a wyvern, and I can’t say I could really tell one wyvern from another anyway. But I thought you might want to know about this.

–Wharfmaster Dizzywig, Ratchet

My thanks to you, Wharfmaster. This is interesting news indeed. While we cannot be certain that the wyvern you describe is the Warchief’s, its behavior certainly appears peculiar enough to merit investigation. I will notify our officers in Stranglethorn Vale of this development, and expand our scouting patrols to that region.

 

Greetings, Your Warchieferousness! I hope you’re having an absolutely splendid day. I am not having an absolutely splendid day because I keep bumping my head on the doorways here in the goblin slums. I may be the cutest undead killing machine ever to rise from the battlefields of the Third War, but terrible necromantic power has no effect on goblin architecture. Could you possibly see your way clear to annulling former acting Warchief Hellscream’s edict that all races “not strong enough” to defend Orgrimmar (anyone not a tauren or orc, in Hellscream’s piggy little eyes) be banished from the city? I am an implacable harbinger of icy death, and I’m worth at least two tauren anywhere outside a goblin barbeque. I know no fear! I know no pain! I am totally strong enough to defend Orgrimmar. I want my house back.

Yours,

–Twilight Vanquisher Aimee (Knight of the Ebon Blade, not the cake vendor), Frickin’ Goblin Slums

A pity, Aimee, that you aren’t the Aimee I recall from Northrend. Many were the evenings that I enjoyed one of her selections with my nightly Mok’nathal tea. I recall her red velvet cake was especially sumptuous. You might consider, in fact, looking into baking as a sideline, as I am sure you will find a great many fans should you demonstrate mastery in it; moreover, we find ourselves recently understaffed in Orgrimmar in the area of infantry cooks, so you may well find it a worthwhile avenue for career advancement.

Speaking of which, in a roundabout way, as you are a current resident of the goblin slums, how is the rice situation coming along? Markedly improved, I would hope.

At any rate, I realize that you are not the Aimee of cakery fame, though, again, I would urge you to consider my thoughts on the matter. Still, you certainly share a name of delicious connotation. (Have you considered adopting a pseudonym for combat purposes, incidentally? Though I do not doubt your martial prowess, I am unsure that “Aimee” strikes adequate fear into the hearts of your foes. Compare: “Run! Saurfang just cleaved the heads off of the general and his squire!” “Run! Aimee is accessorizing her Lovely Pink Dress!”)

Where were we again? You will pardon an old man for his tangents. Ah yes, the goblin slums.

Redistricting is indeed always a controversial issue, Aimee. I will endeavor to look into the matter, though the allocation of housing space in a high-demand, high-population area such as Orgrimmar is always precarious at best. In the interim, have you considered investigating real estate options in nearby Razor Hill? I am told suburban areas within easy commuting distance of the major urban centers often offer surprisingly reasonable rental costs. (I would suggest Bilgewater Harbor as another nearby option, but I believe you have clearly established your feelings on goblin neighborhoods.) Or, if you feel your happiness truly depends on residing in the city proper, perhaps the troll architecture of a few blocks north of you would be more suitable?

I will grant I am hardly a real estate expert – many years have passed since I paid off my mortgage on the old Nagrand split-level, and being as I am career military, I have myself always moved from one assigned quarters to the next – but I will attempt to look into matters further to see if anything can be done.

 

That is all the mail I have time to attend to his week; as always I thank you for your correspondence. I will, of course, continue to keep you posted on our unfolding operations, friends. Honor go with us all.

 

-Saurfang