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?”