Infinite Azeroths 2: Time and Again, part II

PREVIOUSLY: Time and Again, part I

Tarakan was tied up to a chair in a dark room. When he woke up there, his first instinct was to timewalk away but not only were his legs tied to the chair, his gear was gone as well and as a hunter he had no magical powers of his own. Through the few beams of light coming from a hatch in the door he managed to spot a strange, red stone lining the walls. Red stone… he heard about it before. Tarakan’s brother encountered it. A stone that negates all magic where it’s around so no one can enter the room magically, including the arcane serpent being unable to phase through the walls. Most people would have no idea how much time has passed. But he was not most people – he was a Timewalker. Time was his domain.

Suddenly, the door opened and a lot of light burst into the room – something especially painful for a cursed arakkoa. But in that burst of light emanating from the door frame he saw a human-shaped shadow. The shadow stepped in and the door closed behind him, as a faint lamp turned on near the roof. The shadow was no other but Khadgar. But not our Khadgar. It was a parallel Khadgar from this timeline, one that grew up to be a very different man. He was smiling and scratching his goatee, contemplating his captive.

“We meet again, Timewalker,” Khadgar said. “I must admit, I expected you to already turn into a dragon and attempt escape by now.”

Tarakan sighed. “I’m not a dragon. I’m a Timewalker. I am a mortal servant of the bronze dragonflight.”

Khadgar chuckled. “Mortals willingly serving dragons? Do you think we had no dragons over here? The capricious, gluttonous things wouldn’t be able to stop themselves from eating mortals standing around nearby.” Either dragons were very different in this timeline, or Khadgar was lying. “Especially ones that look like they would taste like chicken.”

Tarakan frowned. Cannibalistic jokes never amused him, and especially the numerous ‘do you taste like chicken’ lines from orcs who thought they were oh-so-clever. “You don’t know the first thing about us. And I’m not going to help you find it out.”

“We’ll see,” Khadgar said, “We’ll see how much pain and hunger a… not-dragon can withstand.”

Infinite Azeroths 2: Time and Again

Time travel. It’s complicated. And I don’t mean just the extremely powerful magic necessary to make it reality. Once you’re there, in the past or in another timeline, there is an almost infinite number of factors you have to take into account. Every step you take can end up undoing hundreds of possible lives. And every major change that brings a given timeline out of its alignment… out of its one, true fate can be disastrous. This is what the Infinite Dragonflight has been attempting for… forever, I will have to say because our mundane descriptions of duration or time lose meaning here. They attempted to throw timelines out of alignment, and thus to disintegrate them. Why? To bring chaos, entropy. And when all universes, all realities are destroyed, our entire multiverse ceases to exist and the only thing left are the Old Gods – external parasites from beyond all of creation. Without our universe to contain them, they are free. And perhaps they deserve to be free, but not at the cost of uncountable myriads of innocent lives.

Azeroth-28. An empty, dark corner of Dalaran, one that is ruled by a militaristic, jingoistic and magi-elitist Kirin Tor. One that enviously looks out to other worlds out there in the galaxy and seeks to dominate them all – but lacks the manpower and resources to do so. Not long ago, their Emperor, Khadgar, went into the white tower of Karazhan, using its temporal instability to seek new power that could overthrow the other worlds out there. He went missing for years and his Council tried to keep the Empire intact. Until, one day, he reappeared as mysteriously as he disappeared – having witnessed an alternate Azeroth, one much less developed and already embroiled in a conflict with yet another timeline. He saw this as an opportunity. Now they could command not one Azeroth, but two… or more. An infinite number of Azeroths, all striking out at the potential threats among the stars. But he underestimated the defenders this Azeroth had – the Timewalkers.

In that dark corner of Dalaran, suddenly a magical vortex opened. But this time, it was not another lazy mage quickly transporting himself from the top floor to the street. This time, it was a dwarf clad in bronze robes with the symbol of infinity on his tabard. Or rather someone that looked like a dwarf – it was, in fact, a bronze dragon, Keeper Morozdormu. And behind him, three more characters, subordinates, step out. An arakkoa hunter with a pet arcane serpent coiling behind him – Watcher Tarakan and Pita. Then, a red-haired human male with a hopeful look – Historian Llore. And finally, a dark-skinned, human-looking female mage – Weaver Agam. The four looked around until the dwarf spoke up.

“Alright, folks,” Moros said, “it looks like we landed safely, with no witnesses. Time to work.” He raised his left hand, with a strange hourglass in it. “According to our Vision of Time, we can safely stay here for just over a day. Let’s get digging!”

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: Adamant

Timeline: Azeroth-20
Character: Emperor Adamant of House Lothar, High King of the Arathi and the Azotha, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm

The trumpets sounded outside the windows with the coming dawn. The bloody trumpets, what was I thinking? the old emperor thought getting up. Although he did not think of himself as old, he definitely changed since the days of his youth. Young Adamant Lothar was a brilliant, handsome warrior – a scourge on the battlefield, and a beast in bed. He likes to pretend he is still like that, by whoring around and taking part in tournaments, but sometimes, only to himself, he thinks that he’s getting old. His stamina in either of the favored stations is not the same as it used to be and his muscular, handsome body has grown in all the wrong directions. But he’s still the emperor, and he can’t let the former kings, his lords paramount of their former kingdoms, see weakness in him. He created this empire and he can’t let it fall in his lifetime.