Infinite Azeroths 2: Parasite

“Presumably, this timeline’s Lady Vashj’s failure to reach Illidan will lead to heavy repercussions when this timeline reaches our upcoming future. Lady Vashj still being present underneath the ocean will heavily influence the timeline. Although so far, the timeline seems nearly identical to ours, barring that one simple fact, it will have to diverge rather significantly when Nazjatar fails to rise from the sea floor…”

Rise? Or raise? Tarakan’s pen hung above the paper as he started thinking about this. Common wasn’t his first language. No, it had to be “rise” here.

His thought was interrupted when he heard someone entering his office. It was Anachronos, in his humanoid form, looking expectant. Tarakan put the pen away and straightened himself to talk.

“Lord Anachronos,” he opened with a slight bow.

“Greetings, Tarakan,” Anachronos responded, coming closer. “So I heard there was this re-weaving project you were spearheading. To help us deal with the damage caused by temporal refugees in the Prime timeline.”

Tarakan continued to sit there, without the slightest change in his mannerisms. “We already talked about this. You were supposed to begin exper-”

“Stop!” Anachronos said, suddenly raising his hand. “I haven’t talked about this. The version of me you talked to must have been from my future. I’ll wait until then.”

Tarakan just nodded, sighing impatiently. “I’ve been waiting for your future self’s response regarding that for months now.”

“You realize this is just because of a time differential. I don’t doubt my future self went with the results to you fairly quickly.”

“Yes, yes,” Tarakan said, waving his hand dismissively, “I know. Still doesn’t make the wait any less frustrating.”

Anachronos quickly turned around and went towards the doorway. “I better get going, before I cause any more temporal accidents.”

He left, but it felt like he disappeared right behind the door. He could have actually disappeared, so Tarakan didn’t pay much attention to it and continued his work. Squawk, so is it rise or raise? But then, he heard a noise in the corner. He quickly turned his beak to the source, but didn’t see anything there. Then it happened again, from another corner, and this time it sounded like a cackle of a shrunken goblin. What is happening? Tarakan rose from his seat and looked around carefully, but he still wasn’t seeing anything. He decided he’d check his Vision of Time for temporal disturbances and to his surprise, it was turned off. With all due haste, he snapped its parts around to turn it on, only to see it flashing bright red, as if he was in the epicenter of the temporal equivalent of an earthquake. That was troubling.

Tarakan quickly left his room, but stopped right outside. As he passed the threshold, almost the entire scenery changed in the blink of an eye. Anachronos was still there, just outside the door, talking to a blood elf. Tarakan approached him and patted him on the shoulder.

“Lord Anachronos, something strange just happened,” Tarakan said.

The dragon just looked at him surprised. “And who are you?”

Infinite Azeroths: Flashpoint

The gathered heroes stood opposite the newly arrived villains. The Arbiters. Lords of the Nexus. The true benefactors behind Kairozdormu’s recent rampage across the timelines. And behind them, a nexus of arcane energies that brought them here. A hole in the fabric of reality. A rift to another realm. A realm that even Chromie, a bronze dragon, found to be outside of her knowledge. She came to see all realms anywhere within the universe, past, present or future, this timeline or another. And yet this, for the first time in a long while, was a complete mystery to her. What is this Nexus? Who are these Arbiters? What do they want? Why would they erase from existence such an uncountable amount of lives?

“I know all the questions racing in your head,” The Arbiter in the center, Lord Order, responded without any hint of emotion in his voice, “and I know the answers to all of them. But all in the right order.”

Shaman Dezco frowned at the response. “Do you have no conscience?” he said. “Do you know how many lives were lost forever because of you?”

“Yes,” another Arbiter, Lord Reason, responded, “We know the exact number of lives lost. And no, we have no conscience. We have abandoned such… obstacles to true success when we became what we are now.”

Infinite Azeroths: There But For the Grace of the Light

Zin-kalim, the capital of the Kaldorei Empire, over 12,000 years ago. Inside the higher levels of the glorious, marble palace a little girl paced around nervously. When she noticed a bird sitting on the window-sill, she runs up to it and scared it off. Near her, two royal guards stood guard before a large, glided door. Standing almost motionlessly, they only kept looking at the little girl. They were visibly unnerved by her constant pacing, and yet remained motionless, as was their duty. In their minds, they were just counting time for their shift to be finished. Suddenly, the little girl noticed something – a tall, handsome night elf male was slowly approaching. The guards remained motionless, but watched the new arrival carefully.

Then, the doors behind them opened. A male midwife with a bloodied apron came out, cleaning his hands on a piece of cloth. The girl momentarily stopped walking around and looked at the man. The midwife smiled.

“Congratulations, princess Aszune, you have a sister. Your mother wishes to call her Azshara.” The newly arrived male approached them all and without speaking a word, he kept just looking between them. The midwife looked at him, not recognizing the person. “Who would you be?” the midwife said, “The herald to bring the news to the people?”

The guest smirked and spoke up with an eerily echoing voice. “In a way. I am a herald… of your doom.”

Infinite Azeroths: Dranosh

Timeline: Azeroth-18
Character: Warlord Dranosh Saurfang, Warchief Varok’s son and heir

Being the heir of a Warchief is a rather fickle business. As much as we like to pretend we abandoned our old bloodlust and that we no longer hold the villains of the Old Horde in high regard, we are still orcs. We still love battle, and at a moment’s notice, someone can jump out at Varok, I meant father, and decide it’s now their turn to lead the Horde. I do not fear for father’s life, for he is a warrior like few others, but everybody has a bad day from time to time. Or someone could poison the blade of his enemy and make the new Warchief win without honor. So as certain as I can claim to be in public, I am never completely certain if I will ever become the Warchief. Or if I want that to happen to at all.

Infinite Azeroths: Ironclaw

Timeline: Azeroth-41
Character: Rehgar Ironclaw, one of the chief Dark Shaman of the corrupted Kor’kron

A storm was brewing above the shores of Kargath Bay. Or rather, Grommashar Bay as “glorious Warchief Garrosh Hellscream” prefers to call it now. Ever since the Darkspear Rebellion and the Alliance failed to overcome their differences and lost in Orgrimmar, Garrosh went on an unprecedented offensive. From a villain with no popular support, he suddenly became a miracle worker. He turned the tides of war against his enemies despite overwhelming odds and all the loot-hungry adventurers knocking at his door. In his thirst for power, he ravaged Pandaria with the Sha of Pride he unleashed, and invoked upon the ancient and forbidden powers of the Old God Y’Shaarj. The creature was long dead, he thought, but Garrosh forgot the maxim the Twilight’s Hammer keeps repeating, which is ominously true – they do not live, they do not die, they are outside the cycle. Y’Shaarj will soon be reborn – in him.

Infinite Azeroths: Champion of the Felguard

Timeline: Azeroth-6
Character: Garrosh Hellscream, Champion of Archimonde’s Felguard

“Honor is the most important thing in an orc’s life,” Geyah once said. “No matter how dire the battle, never forsake it,” she said.

But she was a foolish old woman. She did not see the things I have seen. I have seen worlds bathed in the emerald flame of the Burning Legion. I’ve seen entire civilizations brought to ruin and entire races wiped out, snuffed out like a candle. I’ve seen destruction that would destroy the mind and heart of a lesser man. But I no longer have a heart. I have embraced the inevitable. The blood of demons now courses through my veins and I pledged myself to the Great Defiler. Whatever dreams I once had as an orc, whatever values I may have held then, are now forfeit. Draenor, where I grew up, is no more. Azeroth was enveloped by the glory of the Burning Legion and all of its magic now serves the true masters of the universe.

The Weight of Such a Burden

The descent into Azjol-Nerub went fairly smoothly. I fully expected some troubles to crop up – some leftover undead Nerubians, maybe evil living Nerubians worshiping Yogg-Saron, maybe something else of the multiple evils that lie in the unexplored parts of that forgotten kingdom. But no, everything went swimmingly. The most trouble we met so far was a couple of bats and spiders, nothing the group of 10 people couldn’t handle. This Xarthat guy kept leading us deeper and deeper, and it was only getting darker and damper. Really, I’m a bird, I was made for open skies and trees not for cramped, nearly airless corridors. It was a slow and painful torture.

Constants and Variables

We found ourselves in a version of Stormwind far more diverse than we would guess. Cities were full of races delegated to be monsters normally. Furbolgs, arakkoa, mogu, even races that are part of the Horde were walking freely in a human city. Walking across the Gilnean District that took place of the park, we found a Worgen scholar and asked him for some details. Krasus was one of the first people I asked about, and the scholar was certain Krasus was an elven archmage of Dalaran who disappeared mysteriously some time during the Cataclysm – around the time he died in our timeline – and Rhonin was still the Grand Magus. Even more surprisingly, Broxigar was still alive and well, and an advisor to Warchief Dranosh Saurfang. All this pointed to the fact here they never went back in time. That resulted in some vastly different personalities… which apparently resulted in Alliance and Horde working together?

Frostfire Ridge

Recently, Krasha reactivated some kind of magical rift he once had in his basement. I am told he used this to get into some other timeline that he then couldn’t get out of. Naturally, I doubted at least a large part of the story he told us, as did everyone else. Would you believe if your absent-minded employer told you a story about how he saved an alternate timeline and personally healed Jaina Proudmoore from a poison inflicted on her by Kel’thuzad himself? It sounds like a pretty tall story… until you get to realize it’s all true. Or at least it’s mostly true, as I recently had the chance to experience this alternate timeline, albeit from a completely different angle.

I should buy a house

If you didn’t know it yet, I just won over 900 000 gold pieces today. Remember that whole escapade to another timeline? While there, I learned from Sargeras the whole deal of how his timeline has come to pass. Kairozdormu interrupted Garrosh’s trial and took him to past Draenor, before the Horde was ever formed and before the orcs drank the demon’s blood. So I knew Hellscream was going to escape and knowing the future, I did what everyone would do in place – I placed a bet. As it turns out, only twelve people across Azeroth placed a bet that Garrosh successfully escapes. So when he finally did, the total sum of money all the fools paid was divided between these twelve people. After subtracting some outrageous tax the goblins must have invented on the spot, I won 911 087 gold pieces. I’m (almost) a millionaire!

Now I can’t help but wonder what can I do with that kind of gold. First of all, I should hide it very well because thieves aren’t uncommon in this city. But then, I got to thinking, I’m probably the richest arakkoa alive right now. I won’t buy a boat, I’m not a cat after all, but that’s enough to buy a building. A house, or a tower – I could just set up my own tower, hire some alchemy apprentices to produce a ton of potions for me and start my own business and my own tower in this city. This is probably the smartest possible outcome of this – INVEST. Besides, I would like to see the look on Maginor’s face.

But I wonder where could I place this tower. The first thing to come to mind is in the Stormwind City Outskirts. There’s a lot of place there, and the view is pretty nice but the distance from city infrastructure, while remaining fairly close to thieves, might be a problem. Then I thought about Shattrath. Now that I know Outland is not going away after Hellscream’s escape (we still have contact with Trollbane), I could return to that town but I’m not sure about it. Draenei are so sanctimonious, I prefer humans for being slightly more… morally flexible. And then I thought, maybe I should build it out in Duskwood, in Twilight Grove. The dragon’s gone, the thieves won’t go out that far away, and I could keep contact with the city via a personal flightmaster. Bonus – no more SI:7 nosing around the rift business.

All that said, I’m not sure what should I do. I mean, it’s pretty sure I’m making my own business right now. I just don’t know where should I build that tower. What do you say, mammals? Stormwind, Shattrath, or Twilight Grove?