Karnak’s Fate

Karnak angered me one last time, and this time he hit something I personally cared about. His child. No, it’s not a fatherly care, or any creepier sort of old man caring about a small child. Anyone following me should know that child of his, Nef, is special. Because he spent his entire life in the Nexus and couldn’t have children there, his biology was saturated with Nexus energies. So when finally had a child in this dimension, all these energies transferred and she spawned with unusual magical energy tied to her even before birth. We call instances like these “planetouched”. Being touched by the plane of such power as the Nexus… that gave her truly enormous power. She would teleport across space, time and universes at will, with nary a thought. I had to have that power. And that little pissant warrior decided to run away with his family because I was getting snarky with people.

Broadening the Horizons

We had a bit of a lull in our off-world activity. I mean, at least when it comes to actively going out and looking for stuff. We’re still selling off-world a lot and maintaining all our contacts out there, but ever since my crew got busy with their research they stopped going out. I never thought I’d complain about my employees actually working, but here I am. Well, it’s not bad. It’s good that they’re doing their actual occupation, it’s just that they never seem to do it when I want them to. I’m getting away from the topic I wanted to talk about. What I wanted to say is, after they’ve been here most of the time I realized how much I only heard about from them and never seen in person. So I decided to change it. I went for a trip to see some of those worlds.

Lords of the Nexus: Another Chance

A long time ago, in a distant and strange universe, a race of intelligent beings arose from their earth. These beings were remarkably human, both in appearance and in intelligence. Many among them argued who gave them life and intelligence, but a small group argued all life in their universe originated from the Nexus – a shining beacon of magical light that could do anything one could imagine. In time, that small group found that light and discovered their myths of the Nexus were true. This light transformed them and let them ascend to another level of existence. From there, they looked over their world and saw it as imperfect. They imposed their will on their world and became known as the Arbiters – the source of power and knowledge to all in the world that became known as the Nexus.

But their new found powers let them see past their world and see many, many worlds not only in their universe but others as well. Azeroth, Draenor, Tarsonis, Char, Earth, Tuul, Sanctuary… All they saw in those worlds was imperfection that they needed to correct, which they believed could only be done with their guidance. But they knew they could not take over these worlds with the few followers they had now. They needed commanders, generals, heroes of the coming storm. They opened rifts in time and space through which they pulled the great heroes of these worlds towards them and brainwashed them to fight in great games in which they honed their skills until they could truly become…

Heroes of the Storm

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: 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.

Twitter RP Guide

Recently, there has been a sudden upsurge of roleplaying accounts on Twitter, most of them Warcraft. Without pointing fingers, some of them do it better, some less. Of course, it’s a very personal opinion over what makes an account good, but we have since gathered a community with some specific interests. Since many of those accounts follow me and some of the others as their first order of business, I assume they strive to join this community. Well, if you do, here’s how to, in my humble opinion, make a good roleplaying account on Twitter that people will enjoy reading from.

What this button do?

Lunk see bird-man’s funny machine just sit here and Lunk press some buttons. Lunk not sure what Lunk doing. What do “word press” do? It press words in to what? It make word jam? That what it for? Lunk see “word jam” before but not shure where it made from. Can you eat word jam? No that just silly.

Any way there is much funny machines in here. This thing here buzzing. It shimmery light like once when pretty elf lady get Lunk from place to place. Thru… uh… dockal. Portal. Yea this look like portal. Accept it not look like any place Lunk know. It okay if Lunk go there?

Also Lunk sorry but Lunk eat half of fridge. Not fridge it self, no, lol, just stuff in side. Bird-man need buy more veggies. It healthy, mommy told Lunk that. Also Lunk had fun play with little herpes. It first time Lunk see how little herpes look like. They look just like mommy herpe accept small, lol. Lunk hope mommy herpe teach little herpes much good stuff like Lunk’s mommy did before she go to ogri’la.

Bye bye Lunk now go thru dockal.

The Road Home

Previously on Arakkoa Chronicles: Damaging the Timeline

Swimming out of Southshore, I was finally on my way home. I regret that I could not learn the fate of Anduin, Sargeras or Uther’s and Turalyon’s mission, or how Daval Prestor’s machinations end up, but getting back home was my first and foremost objective. I have done enough damage as it was, and probably irrevocably changed the balance of power. I know you all are probably going to say I changed that world for the better, but I don’t care about these things. This isn’t my world, nor is it my timeline. I have no business in influencing the events, especially not to that degree. I simply had no other option – if I had to change this world, I would change it for the better.

Most of the way through the Great Sea wasn’t particularly eventful. We did however notice a chain of small island close to the Maelstrom. The goblin captain was thinking of stopping by these islands for a short time to rest, but I noticed through my spyglass something very interesting. On the islands, there was a couple of destroyed troll buildings, and what I think was graves, and then more bones strewn about. Also, a lot of murlocs everywhere on the islands. Islands near the Maelstrom, dead trolls, murlocs, I connected the dots – these are the Darkspear Islands and Vol’jin and his entire tribe appear to be dead. I instantly recommended to leave the vicinity, lying to the captain that I saw a sea witch. Not risking meeting one of those, the captain ordered to sail away.

As we were closer to Kalimdor, we noticed two doomguards in the sky desperately trying to catch up with the ship. Doomguards should be a pretty rare sight on this Azeroth, and everyone was surprised but I knew that Sargeras must have learned of my betrayal and sent his demonic servants to kill me. After some time, the doomguards finally landed on the ship and started killing goblins, but with the help of the ship’s captain, we managed to slay the demons and dump their bodies overboard. I hoped there would be no more surprises of this sort.

We reached Kalimdor safely the next day, in what we know as Dustwallow Marsh. I recognized the Theramore Isle nearby, but it did not bear that name in this timeline, and was full of murlocs. Is that what Jaina had to go through when she founded the city, murlocs? I do not envy her. Nevertheless, I continued on my way south towards Tanaris and was quickly reminded that black dragons are still a thing in that universe. I saw plenty of them soaring overhead in the Marsh, probably patrolling the area of Onyxia’s Lair. With her being a wife of Aliden Perenolde, who knows what’s going on in there. Hopefully not some ugly half-dragon babies. I don’t know if it was an entirely good idea, but I switched to moonkin form to pretend to be a night elf druid. Luckily, no dragon decided to take me for a snack.

When I left the Marsh and passed into what we know as Splithoof Heights, I found to my surprise a large Demon Hunter training facility, manned by night elves and tauren. I took this as a chance to find out the history of Kalimdor in this timeline and sought out their leader, Altruis the Sufferer. As it turns out, Kalimdor remained in peace for a few more years, until C’Thun broke out and his Qiraji and Silithids began to rampage throughout the continent. The night elves had a very tough fight on their hands and tauren were decimated by their fight with centaurs – Altruis never even heard the names Cairne or Baine, the tauren High Chieftain being Bovan Windtotem.

As Altruis related, Tyrande broke Illidan out of his prison. This time, he greatly helped the war and led many young demon hunters, some of them tauren, to victories against the Qiraji. However, their numbers were nearly endless and he had to look for a way to get rid of their god. Illidan then sought out the Oracle of Stonetalon and learned from her that the Scepter of the Shifting Sands contained a piece of C’Thun’s soul and as such, it could be used to slay him. Then Illidan embarked on a long quest to obtain the Scepter, and finally sneaked his way into the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj, defeated some of C’Thun’s top lieutenants, including General Rajaxx and the Twin Emperors, and proceeded to stab C’Thun in the eye with the Scepter. The resulting explosion killed them both and collapsed the temple. Without the leadership of their god, the Silithid armies quickly crumbled and the Kaldorei won the war.

Illidan is here lauded as a hero, and Demon Hunters are openly trained in many facilities across Kalimdor, including this one. Having satisfied my curiosity, I proceeded down, to the Thousand Needles, walking through its dry surface. You know what, I think they’re much nicer looking this way. All the water makes them look so mundane. Anyway, soon I had to walk through the Shimmering Flats, lacking a raceway here, and had the chance to complain about the dryness. I swear, all this salt was probably sucking water straight out of me. If that wasn’t enough, the next place on my journey was Tanaris.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long to reach Gadgetzan where I resupplied myself with water. It seems that one city is the same hive of scum and villainy in every timeline. The only difference I noticed was that Noggenfogger wasn’t the Baron, here still eking out a living as a small trader. Oh yeah, and there was no Thunderdrome. Probably not enough demand for gladiatorial fights without the Alliance and Horde going around. I continued through the desert and before long, I had Caverns of Time in my sight.

My true form immediately got the dragons’ attention and I was allowed an audience with Anachronos. Then they told me to wait for him for hours. You would think that if anything, time would be something the bronze dragons would have plenty of. Nevertheless, after the few hours have passed, Anachronos talked to me and after my explanations, agreed that it is for the best that I leave this timeline immediately. The bronze dragons then dug up a large ring-like device with many glyphs on its sides. When they activated it, images of multiple other realities started passing through and I was told to identify my native timeline. Here I saw a couple of interesting realities, but all in only brief flashes, until I finally saw a reality where Garrosh Hellscream was in chains, Vol’jin was the Warchief and Prince Anduin looked just like “mine”. After they locked on, I went through.

Unfortunately, I found myself in the very scene presented in the image, that is, inside Hellscream’s cell in Pandaria. Knowing that neither he nor the Shado-Pan would be very happy if they found me there, I had to pull some strings and got Wrathion to help me out a little. He sent a Blacktalon to get me out of there and told me there’s no price attached, but I’m afraid I’ll come to regret this. I went on to sleep at the Lorewalker Seat of Knowledge that day, knowing that I am finally safely back home.

After inspecting Lorewalker Cho’s projector and him rejecting my sale offer, I continued to the Shrine and went through the portal to Stormwind. Unfortunately, after I reached Maginor Dumas’s tower, I found that SI:7 has confiscated my rift while I was gone. I know that I was gone to another reality for a couple of weeks, but that’s no reason to steal a man’s work! I obviously investigated and Mathias Shaw himself told me that my rift was taken by an individual known as “Arcturus Mencius”. I probably owe you a bit of backstory on that. A week or so before this whole thing started, a guy called Arcturus Mengsk arrived from the Nexus via my rift. He immediately left and I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but it seems he installed himself as a human noble in Stormwind. And now stole my rift, along with all my equipment.

I couldn’t let it stand, but I couldn’t do it on my own either. So I conscripted another dubious ‘ally’ and contacted Sicco Thermaplugg for some help. His servant opened a portal for me and through came a couple of leper gnome warriors and a Crowd Pummeler. With their help, I was able to get through the defenses “Mencius” has set up in his manor and finally reached him. Can you imagine, he tried to bribe me in the very end. So I just shoved through the rift back to the Nexus. Let’s hope he enjoys fighting for the Arbiters. After getting my equipment away from the leper gnomes and sending Sicco a frequency to let him make another such rift of his own, everything was finally back in its proper place.

Except the whole thing where I was living in Stormwind and trying to figure out the whole temporal anomaly in Draenor. Could it be related to the thing I heard about Hellscream arriving from the future and changing Draenor’s past? Could the alternate Azeroth I was in be the result of the events that were about to happen here, including Garrosh’s escape? Perhaps. But perhaps it was yet another Garrosh that made all that mess. I’m certainly not going to damage another timeline by getting in the way of established events.

Enter the Nexus

You may have recently noticed the whole alternate timeline mess I’ve been in. If you’re a busy adventurer who keeps raiding people’s tombs for loot all day you may have missed large parts of what I was doing and then wondered what the fel I’m talking about. Well, I thought I could explain a couple of things in a form not limited to 140 characters. I’ll try to be as clear as possible with this bogus adventure.

It began a couple of weeks ago, when I suddenly got a visit from none other than Lorewalker Cho himself. He arrived with another Pandaren who kept nosing around stuff he shouldn’t be taking interest in. I noticed right from the start that something’s amiss with this Fat Long-Fat, but couldn’t quite pinpoint it. Nevertheless, while they went to sleep in another room, I continued my work on the theory behind the whole rift. Oh yeah, the rift. It’s a really long story. In short, this is an extra-dimensional rift leading to a place called the Nexus, some bizarre multiverse where people from all kinds of universes converge. You’ll learn more about it in a moment.

So I was busy on my theoretical work, when I suddenly heard a lot of noise. Cho started yelling that Chi-Ji went through the rift. Yes, Chi-Ji, the crane god from Pandaria. Before long, it turned out Fat Long-Fat is in fact Chi-Ji in humanoid disguise and when he came to our tower, he was purposefully looking for my rift. What he wanted with it, I still don’t know but when he went through, Lorewalker started panicking and demanding me to go look for his stupid god. I tried to tell him it’s not my fault, but he wouldn’t listen. He officially agreed to go through himself in search of Chi-Ji, but as he was about to go, he pulled me in with him.

There I was, on a rock in the middle of a bay, on the wrong side of my rift. We swam through the water into what appeared to be large wooden pier, only to realize we were in the middle of some kind of battle. Angels, demons and tanks started converging all around us, with a large ship additionally shooting at one of the military bases there with giant cannons. This was the place in the Nexus known as Blackheart Bay, named so after a pirate who turned out to be an undead Azerothian – a former Lordaeronian ship captain who got pulled through while defending his kingdom from Kul Tiras in an ancient war. This was the first time I realized my rift wasn’t the first, and things were getting pulled in for centuries.

After the battle, I got to talk to some of the people who call themselves “heroes” in this Nexus. A human named Bama Kowalski, a.k.a. Sergeant Hammer, explained that people from many planets have been pulled in here for a long time now, and all were conscripted to fight by the Arbiters, rulers of that realm. They fought in regular battles in officially sanctioned battlegrounds for no real reason – they simply fought, got killed, came back to life, and continued to fight simply to curry favor with these Arbiters. That is a bit messed up. What is way more messed up is that there are all kinds of people there. Soldiers from a futuristic place called “Koprulu Sector”, angels, humans and demons from a world called “Sanctuary”, and people from all over Azeroth and Draenor. And what people – multiple versions of Arthas, including various Lich Kings, some giant demon lord called Diablo, Uther the Lightbringer, some random fearie dragon, Tyrande (one version of whom is somehow a blood elf), a giant abomination in a bikini, even Chen’s little niece Li Li. They just fight, for no reason.

It seemed odd to me, but everything made more sense when we went to look for these Arbiters with Lorewalker Cho, hoping they can help us find Chi-Ji and get out of this place together. Unfortunately, Lorewalker came out of the meeting with them changed. You know Lorewalker Cho. Jovial, friendly, talkative. After he talked to the Arbiters, he was suddenly eager to fight in these endless battles, telling me his first battle will be his “evaluation”, and offering me an evaluation too. I quickly connected the dots and realized these Arbiters had some kind of mind control they did to people to make them fight for them. I refused to see these Arbiters, lest I fall under their spell too, and dragged Cho with me to look for Chi-Ji in the Cursed Hollow, a place apparently ruled by Raven Lords (whose presence explains the mysterious disappearance of the famous Lost Sons of Anzu).

On our way there, we have encountered a group of three heroes going for another battle. As they were going for the Cursed Hollow, we pretended we’re the other two heroes for their battle. The unfriendly Emperor James Raynor fellow wasn’t buying it, aptly noticing that I’m nowhere near his or Diablo’s level of power, but Lorewalker Cho smoothed it a bit, and Prince Arthas finally convinced him that we’re the real deal. So me, Lorewalker Cho, Emperor Raynor, Prince Arthas and Valla (a demon hunter – not that kind of demon hunter) went for the Cursed Hollow. As soon as the battle was about to begin, me and the Lorewalker immediately ran off, looking for the Raven Lords.

Those three heroes didn’t take to our desertion too well. Emperor Raynor started shouting something about “his mid quitting” – that may have been about me, as I agreed to do something called “mid lane”. Nevertheless, we made it to the Raven Lords’ lair quickly and to our surprise, we found Chi-Ji right there. After Lorewalker Cho had some “insightful” discussion with all the bird gods, we left the area, getting back to the rift. That’s when Emperor Raynor found himself a new group, this time with the task of punishing us “scrubs” for ruining his game. So we ran, followed by Emperor Raynor, Stitches in bikini and Demon Tyrael.

As we reached the Blackheart Bay again, we thought we lost the three so-called heroes, but they came back with one of these Arbiters. Ugly things – no face, just a smooth, circular head and a giant suit of armor. This “Lord Order” started making some strange gestures and ordering us to stop, or we will face consequences. That’s when Lorewalker Cho copied one of my spells, Sunfire if I recall correctly, and fired it off at the Arbiter. To my surprise, he crumbled like wet noodles. They may have great mental powers to mind control even demon lords, but they’re very weak in a fight. Perhaps that is their whole plan – to mind control powerful heroes, make them fight each other until they become unstoppable behemoths, and then use them to conquer the entire multiverse.

Whatever their plan was, Cho and Chi-Ji used that chance to quickly jump through the rift and as I would later learn, they safely returned to the right dimension. Unfortunately, as I was about to cross, Lord Order gathered his strength and cast something at the rift. I jumped in without looking back at him and got sent through to what appeared to be the right place. It was still Stormwind, it was still the basement of Maginor Dumas’s tower, but there was no rift, no equipment and no crew.

I went up the stairs, silently, looking for any clues about what exactly happened. Through the windows, I noticed the Park was all right – it wasn’t a smoking crater, the district was intact! That was when I knew something really wrong was going on and looked through the papers. Luckily, I didn’t wake up anyone, but I found a newspaper. The date was right, so I didn’t travel in time. At least, not vertically. As it turned out, all kinds of details were wrong in the paper. No mention of Horde, or orcs, and Queen Tiffin Ellerian was still mentioned as alive. The conclusion was obvious – Lord Order sent me in revenge to an alternate timeline, one where the Dark Portal was never opened and Stormwind never felt the horrors of an orcish invasion.

Next on Arakkoa Chronicles: Kingdoms of Azeroth