Infinite Azeroths 2: Home

The outskirts of Stormwind were filled with rickety, provisional homes, draped in multi-colored cloths and filled with ringing and clanking bells and windchimes. Despite what someone from Azeroth Prime would say, it was not a goblin camp. It was a shanty-town built by the vishkanyas when they arrived on Azeroth in this timeline. Azeroth-7, or as some know it, the Illidari timeline. Maiev failed to stop Illidan from cracking Northrend apart. The Lich King died, and the Scourge was wiped out. While some would feel that was a positive change, no one expected what followed. Not only the tidal waves from the melting glaciers destroyed numerous cities and broke ancient dams, Illidan went on to become an unchallenged Lord of Outland. And with this power, he took fight to the Legion and fought them across the stars. Numerous innocent worlds found themselves in the crossfire, including the vishkanya world. A small percentage of their people successfully escaped to Azeroth through one of Illidan’s portals.

Now, they live here, in the outskirts of Azerothian civilization. Cast out, abandoned, unwanted. Although King Varian accepted them and let them stay, most of the humans feel they have enough problems with orcs and draenei “squatting” on Azeroth, some feel the vishkanya are the final nail in the coffin of humanity’s power.

Agam was careful to cover her face when she was crossing the streets of Stormwind. For about ten years she lived in this city and knew what the people on both sides were capable of. Does the perception filter even work when she’s in her own timeline? It does, after all, filter out only the extraordinary and on Azeroth-7 her eyes are not something completely out of place. No, they are just something that could get you in trouble. Luckily, Llore was at her side, showing his face without a care in the world, drawing attention away from her hooded face. Together, they walked right out of the Dwarven District and continued down the path to the outskirts.

Once there, she could finally take off the hood and look at all the lights and bells, and take in the smells of the familiar cuisine. She could finally once again hear the familiar noise of her native language, even if it was the crooked merchants hawking their wares and old women yelling at disobedient brats. For all its issues, this was home.

“Agam,” she heard from behind. She quickly turned around and saw what appeared to be a large, muscular human with a bronzed skin… but with eyes just as serpentine as hers. Llore looked up at the man who was showing a rather forbidding visage.

“Is he trouble?” Llore asked her.

“No,” Agam responded, smiling. Suddenly, the mustachioed man smiled back. “He’s my brother.”

Meanwhile, a human guard was leaning on the walls of one of the houses and looking at the two vishkanyas, and then frowning at the sight of Llore – a human, unusual in this district. He snarled and looked back to another guard, sitting nearby and sipping wine someone left over at his porch.

“You seen him?” The first guard asked.

“Whom?” The second answered, for a moment getting the bottle out of his face.

“That one,” The first guard continued, pointing at Llore. “Looks like we got ourselves a snake-fucker.”

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 Legions

We came chasing after Kairozdormu, or at least what once passed for him. He became something far more dangerous and terrifying than any of the Infinite dragons. All the various alternate versions of him, fused together into some horrific amalgam made him a true nightmare. We did not know how closely he worked with the actual Infinite Dragonflight, but we knew he actually summoned them to his side during the fight at the Temple of the White Tiger. And that was before he turned into the thing I saw at the remains of the Azeroth of the Lotus Eaters. So when we went chasing after the trail he left behind, we expected to come out on one of the numerous alternate Azeroths – one of those that have been destroyed by the Old Gods, or the Infinites themselves. But then, we came out still in the timeways. Except, it was a different corridor. One even Chromie and Moros were unfamiliar with.

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: Dark Iron

Timeline: Azeroth-34
Character: Moira Thaurissan, queen consort of the Dark Iron Clan, wife of Thane Dagran Thaurissan

The ram-driven cart drove quickly up the snowy slope leading up to Ironforge City. Moira, once a daughter of the local thane, hasn’t seen the city in years. In the interest of mending the fences between their clans, her father Magni gave her hand in marriage to the Thane of Dark Iron Clan, Dagran Thaurissan. Moira initially resented the idea of that marriage. Not only it was just another symptom of her father’s dubious love for her, there were always the stories people in Ironforge told about the Dark Iron Clan. That the great-mother of the clan, legendary Modgud, was some kind of cursed creature and her vile blood still remains in the veins of her descendants. That they secretely worship dark creatures and old, forbidden gods. But when Moira got to truly know her husband, she came to love him more than she ever loved her father. Magni, an overbearing man who always wanted to have a son and didn’t believe a woman could govern the clan, was a tyrant compared to Dagran Thaurissan, a warm and loving man who would jump into the pits of Firelands for her.

Crisis on Infinite Azeroths

Timeline: Azeroth-26
Character: Timewalker Watcher Tarakan Krasha

From the first mission briefing I was warned about that timeline. Well, they warn me about every timeline but they said this one is particularly dangerous as few who venture there ever return. Not because they all die, quite contrary. They all lead long, happy lives. A bit too happy, perhaps. I was informed the Timewalkers called that particular timeway “Azeroth of the Lotus Eaters”. About a decade ago, Azerothians discovered an odd magical lotus that is apparently absent from most other timelines. Some say it was an Infinite intervention, but I did not believe it. I mean, what’s so weird about a drug appearing in one timeline? Now I believe I may have been wrong, but I’ll get there in a minute. That lotus emitted a pollen that caused an irresistible urge to consume it. Once consumed, it had a sweet and unnaturally pleasant flavour which drove people to eat more of it. After a while, everyone was addicted – humans, elves, demons, dragons. No one could resist it. The whole planet, walking in a state of half-conscious bliss, driven only to consume more of the magical lotus. But as it turned out, it was far from the worst thing that could happen to that timeline.

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.

Nonsense continues

So I almost died. Or actually died and then came back, depending on your point of view. It was an odd sensation. When that undead plunged the sword through me, I was overcame with great pain but only for a brief moment. Very quickly everything went dark and the next thing I remember was a sudden influx of warmth, the kind I haven’t felt since we entered Northrend. All the wounds were mended and I was able to get back on my feet. That Argent Crusade leader guy was standing around and making some lecture but I wasn’t paying attention. Just nested in a corner and looked around. Verroak was scared like a little hatchling. I’m not surprised. But I haven’t seen him like that since he left his second wife.