Repercussions

No matter what you do, there are always repercussions down the line. Sometimes the most innocuous thing can result in a disaster. I believe it’s been called “butterfly effect” before – where a butterfly flapping its wings on the other side of the globe can cause a hurricane here. And I guess you could say we had a bit of a butterfly effect here yesterday. That is, if instead of butterflies you have time-shifting dragon whelps and instead of a hurricane you have “Old God-worshiping monstrosities nearly getting their hands on what would be a doomsday device for them”. It all began with that incursion – the alternate reality Poddric appearing and then committing suicide inside the tower, so close to the rift.

Apparently my original explanations weren’t clear enough, so let’s begin from the start as to what exactly happened. You see, there are particles called “chronitons”. These are basically the basic building blocks of time. Arcane magic can control and affect those particles, in effect warping time or its perception for people and objects involved. Also, for every particle, there is an anti-particle that upon contact with the particle annihilate each other. Those particles are usually mirrored – similar, but polar opposites. Anti-chronitons are produced as a result of warping time in ways it wasn’t meant to. They’re produced by, for example, killing your own grandfather before he can sire your father, by dying in a timeline that wasn’t originally yours, or by maintaining a stable rift between two different timelines. And the latter two happened recently in close proximity, on my grounds.

That obviously produced a lot of anti-chronitons and although I thought the amounts would be negligible and wouldn’t harm anyone, I was obviously wrong. There were enough of those particles floating about to attract Infinite Whelplings, the youngest of the Infinite Dragonflight which draw to anti-chronitons like moths to a flame. At first I thought I was seeing my dwarf’s pet just fluttering about, but after more people noticed strange whelps emanating a black, corrupted energy, I knew something was off. Sure enough, more and more of the pesky things were appearing and I decided to execute a veil – a magical shroud that makes arakkoa settlements invisible to outside observers. Little did I know, that only made things worse.

Although for a moment the whelps were disappearing, soon even more of them swarmed to us, undeterred by the veil, being drawn to the particles straight through dimensions and timelines. The shadowy energies of the veil only accelerated the anti-chronitons and helped them multiply, in a process beyond my understanding, which drawn even more of the things. And then, the bigger Infinites popped up, looking curious as to what all this ruckus is about. And they must have detected my rift, because they almost instantly made a beeline for it. Luckily, I had Yu Gwai at hand and with his help, we dispatched some of them. We started looking through the tower and noticed even more Infinites in humanoid forms wandering about and catching our people unaware. I knew I had to do something, but I didn’t know what, and as we were under the veil for hours more, I could not contact the Timewalkers.

On the ground floor, we met Aeresham who said he dispatched more of the invaders in the herb garden and came looking for us seeking explanations. It was there that the idea struck me – I needed chronitons to annihilate the anti-chronitons and eliminate the very cause of the problem. As Infinites are soaked with anti-chronitons, enough of the positive particles would eliminate them as well. I was cut off from the Timewalkers, so I couldn’t get their help with that, but I knew that disrupting the rift with a proper spell would emanate a huge amount of chronitons. It would probably disable the rift, potentially permanently, but I had to take the risk to save my life. So we went to the basement.

While in there, I concentrated on channeling the spell towards the rift and for a good while, I didn’t know what was happening around me but I was told by various people what happened. Apparently, they captured Lunk and Menrim in the mess hall and began channeling a timeline unknotting spell, which would erase them from existence. As neither of those two is a good fighter, they were defenseless, until Ballough and Tarakan freed them. Even for a while before that, they were fighting Infinites around the corridors and looking for more survivors. Menrim said he saw me going to the basement before, which prompted everyone to come down to help me.

By then I hear Yu Gwai killed quite a lot of the whelps, constantly pouring out of different timeways, while Aeresham kept healing him. Then Tarakan and others barged in and destroyed the whelps much faster than they could spawn, resulting in a mass of black, timeless goo strewn about the floor. When they began to calm down, thinking it’s over, the mass apparently reformed into something that looked like a drakeadon (according to Menrim) and which decided I’m its primary target. While others were doing their best to stop the creature, I finally finished the spell and the rift erupted, blinding everyone in the room for a moment.

When everything calmed down, there was no trace of the Infinites ever being here. Only the people who were with me in the basement even remembered these events, pointing towards the whole conundrum being temporally undone because of the whole chroniton mess. Unfortunately, the effects on us down there remained. I was lying on the floor, drained of almost all energy, and the wounds others suffered were still there. Lunk immediately carried me to my bedroom, where Mehrzad tended to me and prescribed me some tonics from Skywall. Tarakan soon decided to leave for the Caverns of Time, getting out of his lethargy following his last mission for the Timewalkers. I knew he’d be out and about soon enough.

It is over now but not only the Infinites will probably remember it, but my rift is also gone (which hopefully removes their incentives to go back here). I got out of my nest before Mehrzad said it was safe and worked with the console from Shazaad to try to re-establish it, but to the best of my abilities, that rift appears to be gone for good. Perhaps I will attract yet another one, like I once did, perhaps I will open a new one myself, but I cannot have any guarantee that I will ever get back to that alternate Draenor. It’s a good thing I sent them for Star Lilies when I did, or my sanity would have went away along with the rift.