The Skeletons in Velen’s Closet

I don’t mean that Velen has literal skeletons in his closet. I would be really surprised if he did. He’s one of the holy preachy types and though those can quite often be rather dark under all that cover of light, Velen is not this kind of guy. He’s the kind of fool who actually believes in the stuff he preaches. What I meant was that all of us have their secrets or things they’d rather forget about. As I always say, nobody is incorruptible. Not even Velen. Even he does some questionable things. Don’t believe me? Well, imagine this: there’s a bunch of draenei out there in space who are known as thieves and scoundrels, and who feel offended by being called draenei. Where did those come from? Here’s where.

My people met those strange draenei, who call themselves “the Aperusei”, some time ago. One of them tried to rob my dwarf and almost got away with it but a timely intervention by Big Ahuora stopped them. And I don’t know about others, but the appearance of non-demonic eredar in other worlds surprised me. I naturally wanted to find out more about them, but no matter who I asked, no one knew anything. Some speculated they were another local variant of the eredar base creature (much like there are many planets with native dwarves), but I knew that things like them wouldn’t just repeat on their own – nor would they be a culturally unified group who all despise the name draenei. So I knew there was a story there, but I didn’t know what. I had to investigate.

By contacting various people on Darfell, I contacted a strange person from a world called Ivarind. That person looked remarkably like a human-sized vrykul, except she had purple hair and wore mostly purple clothes. That could either be the sign of some strange habits of a local royalty, or of a shapeshifter. As I got to talk to her, I found out she was a dragon called Boliviadori. On her world, violet dragons are the guardians of magic, and through her world a group of Aperusei once came. When the Burning Legion was about to follow them, and find Ivarind, she intervened, saving her world as well as the Aperusei, who became eternally grateful. Luckily for me, she wasn’t a holy type and was willing to help me in contacting them for a price.

So a few days ago I sent a group of my people, including Ballough, Gornn, Lunk and Menrim, to the world where Bolivia said they currently lived in. An unnamed world that probably doesn’t have any native sentient species yet, it was a primordial swamp filled with large insects and lazy amphibians. Bolivia, as she wanted to be called for short, led my people through the swamp into an apparently empty clearing. As it turns out, the Aperusei still possess an ata’mal crystal which they use to cloak their settlements from outsiders. Bolivia however knew the right spells to dispel that veil and introduced my people to this Aperusei group’s leadership. The fools of course trusted them just because they trusted Bolivia.

The Aperusei there were led by a matriarch named Rebecah. As Menrim tells me, she was reluctant to tell them about their history, as their people rarely record it, and don’t speak of the events that led to their split because they’re still bitter about the betrayal. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. So she tells them, “Aperusei” means “abandoned ones”. When their ancestors and the draenei were one people, they made a stop on an uninhabited world. But then the demons found them, while the Aperusei ancestors were out in the field gathering food and resources for their brethren. Velen and the others exiles fled the world on the Genedar, while the ones still in the field remained, abandoned, hence the name, and centuries of mistrust.

The Aperusei fled the world with a lucky teleportation spell from one of their mages, but they ended up on a cold world filled with tundras and very little life. They would not survive there very long, so they cast another spell and ended up on a more livable world. Before they could settle for longer, the Burning Legion found them. They continued to jump worlds much like the draenei did, until they began dividing and spreading to different worlds. After a long while, they managed to avoid tripping the Legion’s alarms most of the time, but to this day they remain nomads who never stay on any world for long. Their new mode of life, as well separation from and hatred of the draenei led their culture to change into a far more pragmatic one – hence they became hunter-gatherers, phony oracles and thieves.

Menrim promised them some supplies from us in exchange for information regarding some worlds they visited in their travels. That was the whole purpose of the trip. I knew that any people like the draenei would have found many worlds that could be useful. Titan worlds hosting vaults full of forgotten knowledge, remains of ruined but advanced civilizations, great sources of magic, rare and unique animal and plant species – the Aperusei found many of these things out there in the universe and they shared some of these secrets with me now. I will now continue to scout out and exploit these findings. And of course give a small agreed upon share to Bolivia for helping me find it.