Green Sun

One would expect that when someone says “impossible”, it would send a pretty clear message – something that’s impossible cannot happen, ever. Unfortunately, people have come to use the word rather frivolously, and therefore there is a plenty of things that are apparently impossible, but still happen quite frequently. For instance, it’s impossible to grab a glass by just wishing it happened… but we have magic for that. On a more further out range of “impossible”, it’s impossible to kill an Old God – but it appears the Titans actually did kill at least one. Frequently, the real meaning of “impossible” is “it cannot happen, unless you throw enough magic at it”. And even that has limits – because some feats require such incredibly large amounts of magic constantly defying a persistent force of nature that it appears truly impossible. No one would have that kind of power, and if he did he would have more important things to do with it. One such truly impossible feat is what one of our Eyes of Terokk discovered – a ruined, uninhabitable world with a green sun.

Astrophysics are not my specialty, but I was once curious why it seems there are no green stars anywhere on the sky. It turns out, it’s related to the way stars work, and to the way our eyes perceive the world (our, as in species that see a combination of red, green and blue like tol’vir and humans). Any star that puts out a lot of green light will also put out large amount of blue and red. There is no range of power that would make the light of a star appear green to us (although some species may see some white stars as slightly green). And yet, the Eye of Terokk saw very clearly a green sun hanging above the horizon of a desolate, uncharted planet. I thought it a curiosity, but boss was even more perplexed and called a mission to investigate.

Me, Balerok, Karnak of the Luxorian Band and “Hack” were assigned to go on the mission. “Hack” is, by the way, the name our former goblin Greenheart is using now – he was turned into a hobgoblin after dubious consent. Unfortunately, the “green sun world” was not exactly habitable for most humanoids. It had very little oxygen in the air, and air pressure was far below that of Azeroth. Any creature from a typical Azeroth-like world would quickly die on the surface. Mr. Krasha however had a solution – in his recent visit to Djedsut he acquired some blueprints and contacts. His terrorist friends supplied him with an “Arcane Environmental Shield” made by Djedsuti Tol’vir. It’s a device strapped to your back which envelops your entire body with a protective shield and also contains a bottle of air breathable by most humanoids. With those devices on our backs, we boarded the Shuttle and crossed over.

Even from the Shuttle, the world looked rather unpleasant. The very rare atmosphere was mostly composed of what some people call variously “exhaust” or “carbon dioxide” – a gas that is usually the product of humanoid breathing, and thus the sky above us – despite daylight – was rather dark and starless. There was no trace of vegetation, with only nearly black rocks everywhere. Everything around us, including us, appeared greenish because of the star’s light. We continued to fly through the ravine until we saw something we didn’t expect – cracked remains of some large, stone structure which was undoubtedly made by sentient life. We lowered the Shuttle to the ground and prepared to investigate.

Unfortunately, it seemed like there was little left we could take any hints from. There were no remains of tools or devices the inhabitants could have used, and the structures themselves were very eroded. At this point I speculated that these people lived here very long time ago – probably on the scale of millions of years. What remained of architectural style was unfamiliar to me and there wasn’t a single piece of writing that could amount to much. But then, Hack punched a whole in a wall, causing it to collapse. The hobgoblin was just acting on its instincts and Balerok was scolding it when it turned out something heard us.

Said something appeared from the ruins and was strangely enough still alive. When it took off the ragged hood, I began guessing what we were dealing with. She was red-skinned, with large fangs and spikes on her hunched, very skinny back but with an unmistakable mogu quality to her face. She introduced herself as Otomaru Kitanaikaze, to her wit the last survivor on this planet. We were naturally curious  how could she still be alive here, which led to her explaining the history of this world and the cataclysm that ravaged it.

As it turns out, this world was devastated far more recently than I expected. When Otomaru was a young shaman just beginning her duty, a cadre of darker magicians sought more powerful magic and discovered fel. Through its use, they attracted the Burning Legion and after a few years, they summoned the demons to this world to feed them more power. The warlocks and their supporters were taken in by the Legion, but everyone else was deemed unworthy and sentenced to die. As demons prepared for annihilation and Mannoroth rampaged through the streets, slaughtering innocents, this world’s ancient, primal protector god awoke to defend it. Antawei, they called it, a god of life, light and nature. Taking the form of a regal mogu in splendid robes and an aura of light emanating from his eyes and back, he protected the innocent and slain many demons. Then, Mannoroth decided to face Antawei in person.

Mannoroth charged at Antawei in the middle of the city, but the god of light merely evaded his attacks and challenged the Destructor to fight him outside the city, on the hills. Confident to a fault, Mannoroth agreed and went for the hills. But when he got there, Antawei was already waiting for him and assaulted him with massive holy powers that even a demon lord could not withstand. Badly wounded, Mannoroth quickly escaped to the Twisting Nether and for a short moment, the demonic invasion was halted. But the Legion did not give up – soon, Mannoroth was re-summoned, this time with Kil’jaeden himself and the shivarra Mahagurvi accompanying him.

This time, they began attacking the townspeople again and when Antawei showed up trying to lead them out of the city, they refused. Forced to fight in the place where he’d hurt his people, Antawei held back and was subjected to full-out attacks of three demon lords of the Burning Legion. Even a great god such as him could not withstand these attacks and finally fell. But before the demons could celebrate, he rose again to his feet, rejuvenated. As only the natives knew, Antawei derived power from the very world he walked on and as long as he was touching it, he could not be slain. The three demon lords finally figured it out, but not before he broke one of Mahagurvi’s arms, cut off one of Mannoroth’s wings and beaten Kil’jaeden to submission. Mahagurvi healed Kil’jaeden in a last ditch effort, which let the Deceiver grab Antawei, tear him from the world and use his magic to corrupt Antawei’s very blood with fel magic.

And yet, Antawei was not completely defeated. Fel was coursing through his veins and severing his connection with the Light, but at the same time, it was twisting him into a new and potentially even more dangerous creature. Before the transformation could be complete or he could regenerate his health again, Kil’jaeden grabbed Antawei and flew with him out of the atmosphere, finally throwing him straight into the world’s sun. Now fel-corrupted divinity plunged into the very heart of the life giving energies of the sun and most would be destroyed instantly by such power. But Antawei was so powerful that even this did not destroy him. He was merely transformed and melded with the sun, his fel corruption seeping through the very core of the star, which turned green and continues to rain fel magic upon the world below.

The badly wounded demon lords thought the result was beautiful and poetically ironic, seeing a god of life rain destruction on his world. They were less enthused, however, when it turned out Antawei was still very much alive and grew even more powerful. The sun itself started casting enormous, meteor-sized chunks of green flames upon the demon lords, not caring about the innocents anymore after becoming overcame with fel magic and pure rage of a burning star. Kil’jaeden, Mannoroth, the Mahagurvi and their armies retreated into the Twisting Nether, never again speaking about this world. Unable to die or do anything about his state, Antawei continued to radiate fel energy upon his former ward, and over the few decades, everything on the surface was either corrupted – like Otomaru – or died.

Such was the sad tale of Antawei, which quickly explained our questions about this world’s nature. It indeed takes impossible amounts of power to keep a star green, but Antawei has just that and is incapable of doing anything else with his powers. Otomaru believes one day her god will break free and bring his burning rage against the Burning Legion, but I personally doubt there is enough of his personality left in there. In the end, we did not learn anything of use to us, but we did learn an epic, but ultimately sad story about yet another world devastated by the endless evil of the Burning Legion.