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Constantine

Monster Kill Posts: 266 Joined: 27 Jul 2006 686 gold

I just can't help writing stories for you ^_^

Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 1:13 pm

Prologue: Welcome To The Macroverse

Azeroth.

If one stared out from some suspended position in the darkness of the universe, he might think of the world of Azeroth as the shining jewel of heaven. Covered almost entirely by ocean with the exception of the occasional continent, it reflects the light of the sun like a mirror made of sapphire, for all the sprawl of existence to gaze upon in wonder. The living creatures of this world have no idea just how special their world is in a near eternity of blackness, but they knew that it was beautiful, and that was all that mattered to them in the beginning.

Consequently, the world of Azeroth became the focus of many alien intelligences, hungering for the life and energy that permeates the very fabric of it's air and water. The flow and persistence of magic, spread across the planet after the Great Sundering of Kalimdor, saturates every inch of space on this living, breathing world, perhaps the last of it's kind in all the macroverse. For Draenor, the Orcish homeworld, is lifeless and shattered, and the Burning Legion, made up of billions of screaming twisted demons who only seek to burn, destroyed the others long before then.

Yet, despite all their efforts, the fallen one Sargeras and his monstrous band failed to consume Azeroth's life force in their crusade. The lesser demons were exorcised, cast out of the world itself, and their regents purged and broken. Archimonde himself imploded at the World Tree's threshold, breaking the Legion's foothold in a physical existence.

And so the beginning of the war between the Sentinel and the Undead Scourge began.....

However, there were others who watched this shining planet as well. Nameless, squirming, and indifferent, they watched it all with clotted, ruined eyes. For between the land we know and the one we all suspect, there are things beyond our comprehension, monsters perchance, glimpsed in nightmare, more terrible than the most mad of fathoming of the inmates who may dwell in the deepest depths of Hell. They thrive and twitch; they eat, and make the demons of the Twisting Nether seem like sweet dreams.

In the words of a writer now long forgotten: "Let there be God, let there be morning, let there be smiling ministers in shining white surplices, but let there not be these dark and draggling horrors on the nightside of the universe."

There came a moment, however, sudden in it's monumental execution, that caused eternity itself to hold it's breath. The World Tree, the very root of the magic that once filled the deepest of Wells, sent out the greatest discharge of magic seen since the Sundering into the ebony shadows that fill forever. In the hour of the Sentinel's greatest need, the World Tree called the stars themselves for aid.

It heard the call, but not before it changed. For the first time in forever, something new had happened. Something that drew the attention of those that squirm in the spaces between the stars. As the upheaval of magic, a wind whiter than a supernova, struck Darchrow, the greatest of them all, he awoke, and the others became afraid.

Darchrow himself, or perhaps itself, was before this, a wheel. Blacker than the space around it, rolling across the universe perpetually in motion, worlds and atmospheres, the firmaments of countless burning suns, were crushed and assimilated into his endless turning form. An infinitude of light-years long in all directions, this spoke-less, timeless construct of terrible sentience had never stopped in all it's strange long time. Yet the unthinkable had finally happened. Darchrow, the Wheel of Oblivion, was stopped!

Yes, a whiteness that was now sucking in the wheel, gorging itself like a pig on a coin of ebony that, until now, had rolled forever along the ballroom floor of the macroverse. The white sucked and drew, and gradually, incredibly, Darchrow's infinite form was growing smaller.

Time passed, how much of it exactly is beyond my storyteller's eye. However, the end result was small; seven feet small, to be exact. It bobbed like some sort of grotesque, bloated cobra. For the first time in it's eternity, Darchrow opened his eyes. Like tanks of propane ignited, they seemed to burst from the top of this blob-like mass, purple and flaming in this sunless hell.

He turned what was now his face, infinity enclosed within this boneless elemental frame and staring out into the howling dark with burning orbs of violet. The World Tree's upsurge had left it's trail clearly for his bombardier's mind to follow, a straight path to the world of Azeroth. Being called there, pulled almost. It was irresistible, and the feeling almost hurt in it's unfamiliar intensity.

It was time to begin his exodus. Propelled by his imperious volition, he shot himself like a living bullet along the magic tide's dim trail.

This was his age, his time and place, and all others would soon be swept away.

Chapter 1: The Arrival

For the first time in what seemed like centuries, the Scourge was retreating to regroup for a concentrated assault. The battle-weary champions of the Sentinel were exhausted, and Malfurion Stormrage, standing by the center lane's Ancient Protector, gazed into the setting sun's horizon with a smile on his face. This would give them all a much needed rest, and perhaps time to plan.

Still, he was bitter. He was beginning to think this war would never end. "The Legion may be long gone, but the undead monstrosities they left behind seem limitless in comparison" he sighed. The sun, it's rim leaving lines of fire across the billowing clouds, had descended enough for the stars to come out into view. Constellations, filled with dots of light of every color from red to gold, never ceased to bring the Prophet some comfort in a world torn by war. It didn't seem to matter anyway.....

"But wait...what’s this?" he wondered. For, among the cluster his eye had picked out, there seemed to be something coming towards him. A drop of ebony, even blacker than those spaces between the stars, hurtling to the west.

Held in thrall by this spectacle, Furion did nothing as it tore the sky in it's fall, thunderclaps set off in it's wake. The sound brought the attention of the others as well. Jakiro, both heads busy gnawing roots in his cavern beneath Nordrassil's great trunk, hearkened at the sounds of it's violent passage. A few moments later, as silence returned, he went to chewing, growling moodily at the interruption. Rooftrellen, wandering aimlessly through the eastern forests of the Sentinel's domain, purifying the ever-spreading blight of the Scourge, heard the booming cracks as it passed over his head, and then the resulting explosion as it impacted a rocky knoll somewhere far off, shuddered and continued his work as if nothing had happened.

So, in the end, it was Furion who first discovered the Enigma. Teleporting to where he believed it must have come to rest, he focused briefly, and then found himself flying through the Emerald Dream at light speed in a world of glittering visions and ghosts, surrounded by a hazy forest of such phenomenal lush growth that the sky itself was blotted out. Although his spirit felt drawn to these others, these spirits of nature giggling and laughing as they attempted to have him led astray, he tarried not, and a moment later he was in his body again, now standing at the edge of a crater that had once been a the side of a mountain slope.

Smoke fumed throughout the impact site, like a spiral almost, but despite the burning haze that now radiated around him, Furion saw the thing that had done this right in the middle of things. It lay embedded like some sort of arrowhead in the ground itself, bobbing vertically like an egg. Dark violet in color, subtle shades of night speckled across it's teardrop shaped form. It glowed indigo, and the crater itself was blacklit. Furion didn't like it, but despite these thoughts, he found himself walking down the shadowed slope of the bowelled impact site towards it. Dead at this crater's center and twitching, like the slick eye of a monster, it sparkled malefically as Furion drew near.

The Prophet, looking dead as a corpse in the blacklight, now stood at the thing's foot, and he stared at it in rapture, his mind far away and unfocused in the guile of Darchrow's glamour. A bubbling chuckle issued up from the ark, for now the Enigma could come out of the protective shell he had formed around himself as he had entered Azeroth's atmosphere. Every precaution had been taken, for even in the spare month it had taken to follow the upsurge's back trail through the void he had been preparing his body to adapt to a physical environment.

Now came his first victim.

As Furion, eyes as wide as a child's, reached down smiling to stroke the smooth surface of Darchrow's protective vessel, it suddenly evaporated into black mist. Furion, though surprised slightly, did not protest as the clotting darkness that now towered over him began to wrap around him. He did not protest as his chest caved in and his organs ruptured through the intense pressure of the assimilation process. Only at the very end of his life did Malfurion awaken, and in the last seconds of conscious existence screamed soundlessly as his skull burst from within the Enigma's viscous body. Furion, the greatest of Archdruids, was no more, and Darchrow, enjoying the sensation of being full and vitalized after his long journey, then began to analyze in silence the Prophet's many memories and experiences as if he had lived them himself.

A few minutes later, he lifted himself up, ridiculously like some sort of snake, and began to change. His sides thinned and contracted, then burst as two thick arms generated from an elemental body. On each appendage at the wrist, there was an ornate bracer with Night Elven glyphs carved around their circumferences. His flaming violet orbs swiveled in his skull to look at them in surprise. This was unexpected...

No matter, he knew it was time to present himself to the Sentinels. They had called him and, unintentionally as it may have been, had trapped him in this thick ugly vessel. He would earn their trust, and then he would carry out his vengeance.

And so the Enigma floated gently out of the impact site, headed southeast. It was time to meet some new friends.

Interlude: Atropos and the Lich King

Held chained inside his glacier prison, Ner'zul watched with great interest as the thing from the stars rose up and engulfed the Sentinel's greatest champion. The Lich King's mind, infinite (although miniscule in comparison to this tenebrous Eternal whom he observed) and expansive, saw all things beyond the World Tree's boundaries. Nordrassil's aura, stretching out over the encampments of it's protectors, acted like a curtain to the dark lord's Eye, and for that Ner'zul seethed in bitter fury. How he longed to know the wretched Sentinel's plans, despite believing (surely there was no doubt) that his Undead Scourge would claim victory before too long. It was true that he had pulled back his endless legions, but not for the reasons they thought he had.

He had pulled back because of the thing he was now scrying, the most dangerous creature Ner'zul had ever seen. It made the horrors of the Twisting Nether, where he had been tortured by the Nethrezim for so long, seem little more than sheep.

It's coming had not been expected, and as soon as he had touched it's mind (or what passed for one) in curiosity, he had pulled his own mind back in fear. The fear had come because he had felt that his very soul was being drawn into some sort of vortex, pulled into a power that made his own seem insignificant. Although his armor itself was entombed in the Frozen Throne, that didn't stop large cracks, branches of them, from forming over his prison's surface. His soul was being sucked...!!

The effort required to pull his mind away had been excruciating, but he managed it. He had saved himself, but drained a large part of his energy in the process, and for that, if nothing else, he drew back his forces. The less effort he expent in commanding his army until his Throne was repaired and his psychic reservoirs renewed, the better off he would be.

For that, if nothing else, he had hid his consciousness from it's probing will as it entered Azeroth's atmosphere. If he continued his assault, the thing, now landed, might turn it's mind towards him, and that would be potentially disastrous. An unknown variable, a pool of water who's depth he could not sense....all potentially fatal if he did not tread carefully.

These thoughts passed through the Lich King in the space of fifteen seconds, and he then focused back on the scrying as Furion's body, now submerged in the thing's titanic vessel, was pulverized and absorbed. Wishing to see no more, Ner'zul dispelled the images and contemplated his next course of action.

The answer to that, of course, was reconnaissance. He had other things to focus on, and in his weakened state it would be best to rest for the time being.

And, of course, he had the perfect creature in mind to watch this enigma. Fight fear with Fear. Now....

His eyes, two braziers of blue fire seen through his icy opaque shell, situated in a disembodied helmet, swiveled to stare at the nerubian spirit tower on his left outside the Throne itself. From behind it, an ethereal presence floated above the ground; it had come at it's master's call, and would now fulfill his desires.

"Atropos, cutter of Life.....your task is simple....."

The Bane Elemental listened, silently vigil. As the chilling voice of his god spoke to him, Atropos's eldritch visage smiled spitelessly. After so long, he would finally meet his adversary. Mortal enemies were so boring.

Twenty minutes later, the phantom of nightmare moved into the woods, now black and menacing under an ebon sky, and set out to push his master's plan in motion.

Chapter 2: In The Watches of the Night

While Darchrow moved southeast and the Lich King sent his emissary, the Sentinels were celebrating. The entire encampment was in joyous upheaval, with treants and druids frolicking in the moonlight and the taverns, situated at the base of the World Tree itself, entertained it's champions with an ecstatic vigor not seen in months. Even foul-mouthed Jakiro, ever temperamental, was happily roosted in a nest of leaves on Nordrassil's lush canopy. His two heads bayed at the moon and echoed across the midsummer night.

Only Purist Thunderwrath, greatest of paladins and second to Malfurion himself in position, sat alone this night, sitting at the edge of the central lane that led down the rolling mountainside into the forests and lowlands; a man who felt utterly bewildered and without use on battlefield that lacked a battle. How could everyone waste time enjoying themselves and reveling when there was blood to be spilled? They should be pushing and routing the Undead, not....doing all of this.

As a boy, he had been taught that you never stopped until the job was done. Whether it was his holy training or his chores, there were no exceptions. As a result, he had never known many friends as he grew up in the city-state of Stormwind. Friends only served as liabilities in a battlefield scenario. By the Light, they were liabilities no matter what the situation. Yes, without exception, for what was it that his commander had always said? "Pathos should not impede a necessary course of action. When in combat, you look out for others, but never let emotion cloud your better judgments. Friends come and go; do not hold your hearts near their hands, because each of you have only one life to live, and letting your feelings take control ends that in a hurry."

Purist snorted. He had nearly forgotten Admiral Ganshire's gruff voice and those little speeches of his. He was most likely dead by now, either slain by the Undead Scourge or their masters, the Burning Legion, that had come soon afterwards to pillage what was left of humanity in those lands. Despite not liking the old battle-axe too much during those years of military service, he wished that he could have listened to him again before the end had finally come in the form of rotting friends and family, now mindless and cannibalistic. Oh the terror he had felt in those days.....

And here he was, a human paladin, in a land far from the home he had ever known. Is this what it feels like to be a ghost? Cut off, separated, and completely alone? To this he had no answer, and he wondered if he ever would.

So, it is in this state of melancholy that we find Purist Thunderwrath, sitting cross legged at the edge of the Sentinel's base and staring listlessly at the woods that surrounded it, lost in his memories of a world that was once full of love and light. Even as a clump of trees at the edge of the outer forest perimeter began to shake as a darkness moved through them, it wasn't until the thing came into view that Purist's unfocused stare finally broke, returning his mind to the present as he stood up to better see what was coming.

His unsheathed sword, covered in runes and odd diagrams of dubious meaning, began to glow a whitish blue as the eidolon came into the moonlight from the penumbral shadows of the outermost trees. It was bulbous in shape and dark violet in color, legless, and well over seven feet in height. From it's strange smooth sides two thick, muscular arms dangled listlessly, fingerless but each braced at the wrist. The most arresting and horrible thing about it, however, was it's face. It was dark violet like the rest of it's body, but it was transparent, and Purist could see it's skull. Indigo fires, one in each black socket, flared out from an otherwise ghastly undead visage.

Purist, who had faced down an infinitude of undead horrors, who had beheaded the most tenacious and putrid of demonic forms, found that he could not move. His face grew white, and his chest respirated rapidly, for it seemed that he couldn't feel breath. He gagged, and realized that it was moving towards his position.

The part of his mind unfrozen by fear was already at work channeling his magic around himself, hoping to ward it off, this evil that had come from an airless, squirming hell beyond anyone's experience, much less that of a paladin. Yet his efforts, though filling him with the sickening urge to vomit, engulfed him in glowing, runic energy, a barrier of gold that swirled and shielded him from spells.

As a result, Darchrow didn't slay the Omniknight as it passed through him. Interested in the protective energies of this man's repelling magic, the Enigma only stopped a moment to observe it, his violet orbs turning toward the sickened paladin indifferently, then turning back toward the World Tree as he continued moving towards his goal. Treants and druids that were in its path shrank back in mewling fear. Those it touched withered and collapsed, petrified husks drained of life.

Purist, amazed that he hadn't simply died in its passage, watched in disbelief as it moved behind him into the heart of the Sentinel's encampment. Although filled with a growing sort of relief, there came with it something ominous. He thought of Malfurion, who had left hours ago to watch the sunset, and had not returned since then. It was true that the Sentinel's leader often moved about the land without a word, but now that he thought about it, something was definitely amiss.

Was it possible that this was all more than coincidence?

So, following the necessary course of action, the Omniknight turned around and followed the monster into the encampment. Darchrow, who found that this man would serve his purposes after all, chuckled silently and continued onward.

He reached Nordrassil three minutes later, and as the taverns emptied and the Sentinel's many generals and champions approached the Enigma with curiosity, it began to speak.

And everyone listened.

Chapter 3: The Ritual of Chud

What they didn't expect to hear, however, was Malfurion Stormrage's voice issuing from this thing's ruined, mouthless skull. Even worse, it was as if Furion's voice was full of slime, for the sounds it made as it spoke were gargled and thick, as if stuffed up.

And yet, it was impossible to ignore that voice.

"Fledgling creatures of this stronghold, I come with nothing but benevolent intention. The lessers who touched me as I moved here suffered, but only for an instant, and it was not intended. The material that makes up the shape you all perceive is degenerative to living flesh, but I cannot help it."

He stopped speaking suddenly, then comically bowed his blob-like form over in a swaying motion.

"I apologize for my transgressions, and only ask for the opportunity to explain myself."

Despite their mounting horror at the sound of their drowning leader's voice (was it him?) reverberating from it, all in attendance, even Purist himself, felt a twinge of pity for the thing. It hadn't actively tried to harm any of them....yet...so they would let it make it's case.

Aware of their receding hostilities, Darchrow smiled inside and continued speaking. As he did so, the sounds he made began to seem less like Furion, less drowned. The assimilation process had once again suprised the Enigma, but he quickly noted the slip and began to develop his own voice. The side-effects of the absorption of living organisms would not catch him off guard again.

"As I was born into the prison of this material existence, I sensed another mind, a lesser mind, prodding and observing me. He came close, and was nearly drawn in through my Ego border, but he...slipped I suppose, through my grip. From what I understand, the meddler is known here as Ner'zul the Lich King, and is physically trapped in a Frozen Throne on the other side of the battlefield beyond this haven."

In the silence following this statement, a phantasm of shining brilliance stepped through the crowd and put himself in view. Ethereal, yet entirely physical and imposing, he sat elevated on a ghostly, billowing warhorse that neighed defiantly and pawed the ground with hooves like mist. The figure himself was spectral and thickly bearded, and carried a scepter nearly six feet long from top to bottom.

An angel? thought Darchrow. In all his endless, thoughtless time, he had never encountered one. That didn't mean they didn't exist, but if he himself had not even glimpsed one in an eternity of relentless movement, it made the likelihood of such a creature's existence debatable.

Before he could pursue the thought further, the ghost began to speak for himself.

"On the behalf of the Sentinel and Alliance, who work to purge the undead and demonic filth that overrun this world, I welcome you. I am Ezalor, Keeper of the Light and custodian of what virtue remains in the hearts of men. Banished to this incorporeal dimension for my treachery in ages past, I now redeem myself in serving a greater good, rather than myself."

Not an angel then, just a spirit. Fine, fine.

"Despite what I suspect you have done before you began your trek to Nordrassil, you shall be given to opportunity to be initiated into our ranks. The Lich King has earned your ire, selfish as it may be. The vice you embody will aid us in our noble conquest. It is obvious that you are filled with power; horrible power perhaps, but might of magnitude nevertheless....and so...."

Ezalor paused and stroked his beard thoughtfully, awaiting the acceptance and the expected prodding that such soulless monsters from the elemental world always enjoyed.

What he didn't expect was an offer.

"The Ritual of Chud then. Shall we begin here, in this very spot? If I win, I join this faction. Otherwise...."

Predictably, or at least in Darchrow's view, the Keeper of the Light trembled visibly a moment and looked away. A moment later, unsurprisingly, the cowardly fool pointed to the Omniknight. Everyone now turned to look at Purist strangely. In awe perhaps?

Looking down at his sword, not meeting the face of anyone, Purist stepped forward toward Ezalor and asked what the ritual was.

Chud, replied the Keeper, was originally the practice of holy men to, while in meditation, visualize their bodies being hacked to pieces and fed, strip of bloodied flesh by strip of bloodied flesh, to the buzzards at the top of a mountain. It was a process of enlightenment, and, while incredibly painful, a ritual of Chud that came full circle purified the soul itself, cleansing it of sin and mortal fear. By moving beyond pain, you moved beyond the limitations of a mortal body, attaining a complete state of equilibrium with the world around you.

Eventually, this practice evolved into a contest of strength and fortitude to deal with elementals and glamours that had become dangerous and unpredictable. According to accounts of successfully done rituals, it was all done telepathically between the man and the monster. The ultimate meeting of minds, and only one would come out of it in victory. If the holy man held past his threshold first, the elemental had to leave the mortal plane forever, banished eternally. If the elemental won, he was allowed to devour the holy man and absorb his energies.

And so, concluded Ezalor, you have the Ritual of Chud.

Purist, ashen faced, turned around and stared at the Enigma with eyes as blue as a desert sky, now burning bright in contrast to the Enigma's own.

Defiant, thought Darchrow, but nothing I can't handle. How can anyone think to best infinity?

Purist, lips turning up into a gruesome smile full of teeth, asked "Before we begin, what was it that they called you as you wheeled around the stars?"

"Darchrow, if it suits you. It is a shame you won't live another night to appreciate the answer."

Laughing, Purist began to walk forward stridently, and in seven steps he found himself buried in the Enigma's shadow. Ezalor's eyes widened while murmurs of approval muttered throughout those observing. Chen, a holy knight himself, only looked away in pity. Chud was nothing to be taken lightly.

And somewhere nearby, in the shadow of an Ancient of War, Atropos stood silent and wary, mangled face smiling it's ever-gruesome smile. This would be very interesting. The World Tree, towering over everything, cried in the wind, as if in mourning...

Now looking directly into Darchrow's burning visage, blue eyes twinkling wearily, Purist laughed and said;

"I know now. It was you who killed Malfurion, and now I am going to kill you." At that, the murmurs of the crowd grew alarmed, and now there were voices rising in anger in the chorus of sound, growing louder and harder to understand every second...

Laughing in a clotted, howling voice that froze the paladin's blood, Darchrow's eyes flared brighter and then....

Darkness enveloped everything.

The Ritual of Chud, whatever it was, had begun.

Chapter 4: Odyssey and Renewal

It was nothing like he had expected, and even more surprising, it was painless.

Sometimes there were worse things than pain however.

As the darkness had spread like cancer all around him, he sensed his spirit project and tremble. He felt shot, like a living bullet, into the heart of that blackness, and could see nothing as he skid across...a floor?

He could see nothing, not even himself, but he felt like he was sliding across a smooth, grooveless floor, like the marble courts of Stormwind where Hokkee pucks slid soundlessly into the goal of an enemy grate, a thin disk of blackness that no eye could pierce. No longer a bullet, he was now a living projectile sliding across the dark ballroom floor of the macroverse. He felt like screaming, but could not without a voice or ear. He was spinning silently across a dark madness without an end.

Then suddenly, he stopped. The floor had given way, and now he was suspended, and could only gaze in wonder as the universe lit up around him. A nebula, the blue of the southern oceans, appeared somewhere to his right. A multitude of constellations manifested all around him like freshly fallen snow. A comet flew by, fiery tail burning across an airless black, but it was spectacular all the same.

Purist felt like weeping in the face of such beauty. It was by far the most incredible thing he had ever witnessed, and he could only gape as his mind tried to grasp it, but oh there was so much...

Then Darchrow himself came, his violet orbs like miniature suns in the dark that we call the nightside, and then it all began.

"So human, how do you enjoy gazing upon the canvas of creation?"

"It's beautiful. More so than I could have ever believed possible."

"Then have something I do not. In my eternity, I have never cared to conceive of beauty. I was a construct; hungering but never thinking upon what I ate or why. Mindless, I rolled and took in, but never gave back. Only now, in the beginnings of this ritual, am I open to these feelings."

"Is this what Chud truly is then?"

"This is far more than Chud could ever be. Did you really believe that I intended for you to die all the way out here? The hypocrite you know as Ezalor was willing to sacrifice you to appease me out of cowardice, but he missed the point of my proposal."

"If you didn't bring me out here to destroy me, then why did you kill Furion in the -bleep- first place!"

"He was a necessary, perhaps essential, sacrifice in my final stage of growth. If you believe that I drew him to the impact site of my coming on purpose, then you are a fool. I didn't choose him any more than he chose me. He came of his own free will, but I will admit that he did not agree with what happened afterwards. I am beginning to think that it was meant to be, though how a Prophet such as himself could not see his own death rushing towards him...."

"His own free will..."

"Yes. He was taken into my depleted vessel, and upon assimilating him, his memories and life force become welded, for lack of a better word, to my core, which in turn is made up of both what I was before and of the magic of your World Tree. From his last memories, I see that he was not addled in any way as he came to me. His thoughts were lucid as he entered into my presence, but then his own mind held him as I rose, hungry and unraveling, to take in the energy I sensed. I regret ending his life, and so I will fulfill his dying wishes in repentance. The Frozen Throne will fall and the Scourge broken, as he wanted."

"Then you were going to help us anyway! You didn't need to join the Sentinel at all!"

"No. I care nothing for your victory. If I set about my task alone, both the World Tree and the Frozen Throne will fall as I unleash myself on the fragile planet you call home. You see, my vessel is complete, yet unstable. To counteract this, I need a mortal creature to bind my essence to; your body's life force, while insignificant, will be enough to serve as a fulcrum for my wrath."

"You could have chosen any of us then! I'm far from weak, but there are even fallen gods who serve the Sentinel, and they are far greater than me! Why then, am I to be your fulcrum?"

"Because, Purist Thunderwrath, there is no-one else who can create the repelling barriers that you do. Your Repel is the perfect medium to take in my power, and it would protect your life-force so fully that in the event of my collapse, you would not be harmed."

"If I accept this, if that’s what Furion would want me to do, how will this binding be done?"

"Chud. There is only that, and nothing else. We will both return afterwards."

Purist, unable to see the glowing, shapeless form of his spirit as he and the Enigma stood suspended across from each other, sighed deeply. He was a holy man himself wasn't he? If others had gone through Chud successfully, then he was capable of coming out of it as well. Furion would have approved. Malfurion Stormrage, the closest person to a friend he had ever known.

And then, from nowhere, Purist heard his dead friend's voice, echoing through his mind faintly, yet full of power. Looking back on it later, he would never be sure if it had just been his imagination, or something else entirely...

There is only Chud and nothing else. I was taken into him through my own folly, it is true, but do not make the same mistake just because you find it easy to believe him. Do not hold your heart near those braced hands, and do not let him, an outsider, destroy everything we have fought so hard to protect. Become his vessel if need be, but do not lose yourself in the process.

And then it was gone, blown out like a candle.

Gathering his will, he locked minds with the tenebrous force of the Enigma's own, and gave his answer.

"If Chud is all there is, then let it be done."

He was then consumed by fire, and facing him, Enigma pulsed, lines of fire drawing across his ebon form, cracks of lava branching along a sea of violet. Pain, waves of terrible, needling, pain, rushed into the Omniknight's eyes, face, chest, throat, and intensified with every passing moment. He screamed and screamed as the pain dug it's way through him, the crucifixion of his ka and soul climaxing as the Enigma's essence made it's way into him.

Excruciatingly and in repetition, the pain waxed and waned through the ritual another two minutes before the lines of fire extinguished themselves across Darchrow's suspended form. Incredibly, he was trembling visibly. Chud had hurt him as well. No matter, it was done and now it was time to return.

Purist was silent. Chud had rendered him catatonic, but Darchrow would not have that. It was time to bring him back to life. Melding his mind into the blank, idiotic abyss that was left of the Omniknight, he reached into the weave of his magic core and discharged it into his bondsmen.

Whiteness, a faint echo of the force that had created Darchrow, but blindingly bright nevertheless, passed through the paladin with the force of a supernova. In it's wake, his mind and soul had become renewed.

"Plenty to fight...lets go....Purist, leap!....are doomed to repeat it.....the inhuman mind breeds.....there is only Chud!!"

A thousand phrases, images, people, faces....all came back in a shattering moment of...of what?

"Of being reborn"

And then he felt himself shot again, a living bullet, across the nightside of the universe, back to Azeroth, back to life.

Darchrow, now fading, nodded.

Everything's eventual, and now it was all coming together. It was the last thing Purist thought before he fell back into the howling dark, alone.

The beginning, or perhaps the end, was now moving towards its inevitable conclusion.

The Second Interlude: Nightmare and Reprisal

Gasps and screams were heard aloud as darkness seemed to claw itself out of Darchrow's twisted form, spreading like smoke around the World Tree's base. Bradwarden grew fearful and nearly chopped off the head of Raigor, who in turn snorted angrily in a bullish manner and tensed to fight. Others were similarly confused, and although the darkness dissipated over the following five minutes, the chaos and paranoia that filled the hearts of the Sentinel's many champions blanketed thickly over them like a quilt.

Atropos, who's ephemeral muddy eyes saw through the dark as if bright sunlight streamed across the landscape, floated out from the shadow of the Ancient and into the midst of his enemies. Smirking, he spied to his left a familiar foe, who, stumbling in the dark, did not see him. The bitch who had nearly destroyed him as the Scourge's forces retreated two afternoons ago. Rylai was her name, and her frosty magics had left him battered to such a degree that it had taken an entire day of restless slumber to heal himself.

Now he would have retribution, and then the reprisal would begin for the rest.

Turning to face her, he calmed his spectral form into a state of stillness, and focused. A few seconds later, his eyes caught sight of what he needed to end her life; a blue, ribbon-like thread that seemed to twist itself like twine, flowing like a miniature river around her body. Up and down it went, squirming, turning like a spiral around her head, her neck, the curves of her robed body. Gathering his will, his ghastly claws slashed forward in strange gripping motions, flailing almost. Together, they snagged the blue, struggling thread in silence, and then the life cutting began.

The Crystal Maiden, stumbling and trying futilely to sense her surroundings through the dark smog that floated dreamily in , suddenly found that she was unable to breath. Her life was being strangled, and she began to gasp and choke in panic. She was in the Fiend's Grip, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Atropos, on the other hand, was enjoying this immensely despite the energy it was costing him to cut her lifeline. He pulled and twisted it, maneuvering his taloned appendages with terrible killing purpose. He pulled, pinched, rent and bent....

A few moments later, Rylai lay cold on the ground, eyes staring up sightlessly into the night. Her face was already blackening, and even in death it seemed to writhe in wordless terror.

The Bane Elemental, pleased but somewhat taxed by his work, then brought seemingly out of nowhere a scroll lined with viridian runes. Astral glyphs intertwined in an almost hypnotic fashion with these lines, and the overall effect was quite enchanting.

It was a Scroll of Projection, among the last of it's kind written. It was capable of teleporting an entire army from a chosen location to the caster's position instantaneously.

Yes, thought Atropos. It's time to end this war.

In his Frozen Throne, miles and miles from the Life Cutter's position, Ner'zul's mind held it's focus, fixated in time on this one moment. They would lay all to waste!!

As the shadowed mists of Darchrow dispersed into the western wind, Atropos unleashed, chanting in a screaming sort of zeal, the power of the scroll. The force of it rippled across the last of the fog, annihilating the last traces and drawing the gaze of the confused, drunken Sentinels to the now visible Bane Elemental.

He was no longer alone however. The scroll had teleported all of the Scourge's unholy commanders and centurions to the very heart of their enemy's base. Jakiro, screaming in outrage that his enemies had come so close to Nordrassil, flew down like some sort of monstrous bat and landed before them with furious hate burning in both sets of eyes. He loomed over the majority of them, only locking site with a large sea giant who stood back from the rest.

The Scourge, however, made up of demons along with a sea of undead horrors, were not intimidated.

They launched themselves from around the Bane Elemental in ecstasy, charging upon a dazed and unfocused group of champions. Jakiro himself, breathing fire spitefully, was pulled down into the mass of monsters and torn apart. The dragon now butchered in a growing pool of blood, they turned themselves back upon the rest and continued their march. Only Nai'x stayed behind to eat.

It became unspeakable, but it was no slaughter.

Chapter 5: Apparebat Eidolon Senex

Bradwarden, who had for the past twenty minutes taken in the brunt of the physical and magical assault of the undead, was dying. Propped up in a four-legged stoop against the thick trunk of the World Tree itself, he neighed desperately as he fumbled to hold in his intestines from falling out of a ruined stomach. Already his thoughts, normally clear and alert, were blurring into gray static.

Where the curses and body binding enchantments of his foes at failed, the filthy claws of the ghouls and decaying horrors had succeeded.

But it didn't matter. He had bought the others time to fortify barricades across the sloping path that led up to Nordrassil itself, and that would have to be enough right?

He didn't have an answer to that, but there was no point in looking back now. He had played the role of the martyr well, had charged when the rest stood stupefied and confused in the wake of Jakiro's bloody fall. He had, in short, done his best. They had all retreated to Nordrassil, leaving him behind, but he wasn't bitter. It was hard to hate when you could barely breathe, much less think.

In front of the fallen Centaur Warchief, nearly fifty yards down the slope in front of him, lay the Scourge. A thousands ghouls and necromancers, with their generals scattered like pollen throughout the host. There were less of that last than there were before. With his axe, he had beheaded both Magnus and Nessaj in their frenzied attempt to reach him first ahead of the rest. When their decapitated twitching remains had hit the grass, the rest had fallen on him, and thinking about it, he realized it was a miracle that he should have gotten up here at all, a miracle that he was even thinking about it as his heart slowed it's beats, hot blood pooling around his hooves in a sea of crimson.

Muddy centaur eyes, filming over in darkness, seemed to see the air waver strangely at the edge of his vision, but he didn't notice. He was watching the legions ahead group together and move. Toward him and the mighty tree that lay beyond him.

He heard a an audible popping sound to his right, the sound of something physical appearing where there was only air a moment ago, but didn't notice. The end was here.

Footsteps, the sound of grass crushed beneath thick boots from the direction of the sound. Fear, unexpected, bristled through him. He couldn't move, couldn't do anything, and now some fiend was going to kill him after all.

Now it was next to him. The sound stopped. A worn hand, human and smooth, gripped his shoulder with surprising force.

"I was afraid that I had been lost in that other space forever. The Scourge are coming, but they are full of fear. What a wonder you have done..."

Life, a pure flowing surge of it, suddenly shot into his massive hulk like electricity. The hand on his shoulder, burning white, gripped tighter as it dug into him. A punctured lung was healed. New blood filled into mended veins and arteries, and his ruptured stomach sealed over without a single scar. The flow of whiteness pulsed with gathering intensity over the next few seconds, then ceased as the gray curtain over his vision lifted, returning Bradwarden to a world of life and color.

He got up shakily, unsteady. His four legs, each a piston of the strongest muscle, lifted his ten foot frame to it's full imposing height. The enemy forces on the slope below had stopped moving, eyeing him silently.

They were waiting for something, but what?

He turned his bearded face to his right, and then gasped. It was Purist Thunderwrath, the healing man. No longer young, the paladin's hair had grayed, his chin and mouth snowed over by a fogged beard streaked with white. Most startling however was his face. It was the face of an old man, wrinkled and lined. Only the eyes, iceberg blue, were young. It was the face of someone who was dead but didn't know it.

The Warchief dropped his axe, shocked. He rubbed his eyes with stubby fingers, hoping it was nothing more than a mirage, a hateful apparition.

He looked again. The old, dead face was gone. The young man he knew was back. Purist smiled warmly and clapped his relieved ally on the back. He said in the Centaur tongue, "By the Light, you are brought back from the brink of death. I almost lost you."

"No problem. Your face though..."

"What about my face?"

"It looked as if you had aged a thousand years, like the Van Winkel man who slept beneath the tree in that old story."

Going pale, Purist remained silent a moment, then responded quietly, "You imagined it. A vision, nothing more."

Bradwarden, who simply accepted things, just shrugged. "Okay. We must meet with the others now. They are behind the Tree, preparing defenses and barricading the inner encampments and tavern area. No time to lose eh?"

Purist nodded. No time to lose indeed, but Darchrow seemed intent on something. In his mind, he heard the Enigma's instructions clearly.

"Ask the centaur for the orb of seeing. I need a visible point to project myself to if I am to move into the Lich King's sanctums. I will siphon off a bit of energy to increase its potency as you scry."

Then it was gone.

Bradwarden was already galloping off, but he was still in calling distance. "Brad! Can you lend me the crystal ball you have in your saddlebag? There's something I need to see."

Without hesitation, the Centaur chieftain reached into the bag that hung around his neck and rummaged. A moment later, he found a smooth sphere at the bottom, and palmed it. Judging the distance, he then promptly tossed it underhand to the Omniknight. It sailed upwards in a smooth arc, and a moment later he grunted approvingly as he saw it snatched out of the air. The human's reflexes were as sharp as ever.

He nodded, gave the hand signal for a later meeting, and then continued his ascent to the World Tree, where the rest of the Sentinel was preparing for the coming siege. Like when the Burning Legion had come before, they found themselves cornered once again.

Only this time, Malfurion Stormrage was not here to lead them.

Purist turned toward the darkened skyline, clouded over as moonlight shone across the landscape, and crushed the crystal sphere to powder in his hand while mouthing the proper incantation. Opening his palm, which was now flooded with light, he was delighted to find that the Lich King's necropolis was in full view, a crumbling city built upon a blighted plateau that rose above the dying forests of it's borders. The Throne itself, magnificent and glimmering brightly, stood at this undead settlement's very heart.

There was no movement. It's inhabitants, every single soldier of the Scourge, now stood below him. They hungered and jabbered with slime filled jaws at the sight of the World Tree, and at Purist who stood in their way.

"Make your move now Darchrow, while there's still time"

In response, the dead city in his palm suddenly went black.

Purist closed his right hand into a tight fist, and began his ascent to join the rest of the Sentinel's defenders.

Chapter 6: Darchrow and Ner'zhul

The rotting city, the base of the Undead Scourge, stood empty. Even the whistling wind seemed loud in this desolation. All had come at the call of Atropos, and the scroll had spared none. Ner'zhul, silent in his frozen prison, waited for the coming confrontation in a concentrated, almost disconnected state of mind. His vast consciousness was spread thin, and he knew that if the creature came for him now, he would not be able to cast it out.

Still, not all was lost. The deck was still moving, and his hand had yet to be played. Let the Sentinel fall while he dealt with this other force.

Within half an hour, as night gave way to the twilight of the coming day, monstrous shadow suddenly filled empty space between the pair of spires that lay in front of the Throne. The Lich King watched in interest as it oriented itself and shifted into a recognizable, elemental shape. Indigo flames danced in it's head and bracers shone in pale, lunar splendor on thick, ropy appendages. Darchrow, full of hate, was now face to face with the Lord of Northrend himself.

Despite his stupidity and ignorance of what the Enigma was, he was correct in his observation. Darchrow was indeed full of hatred and destructive impulse. However, it was only the surface. Beneath it's simpler feelings, there was a sense of disorientation, a lack of foundation. He now realized he had miscalculated the effects of the assimilation process after all; he was beginning to feel for others around him.

It had begun upon absorbing that foolish Archdruid, which now seemed a hundred years ago in his fevered state of thinking. The memories had filled him up with something he had never known before, and Malfurion's personality seemed to cry out from within, repeatedly interfering with his original intentions time after time without fail. The overall effect had nearly unraveled him during Chud with the paladin. The human's mind, full of righteous expectation and a sense of order, had further contributed to this turmoil, and only now, at the threshold of the Scourge's seat of power was he coming to grips with it.

The void he once was commanded release. The sentient mind that had borne itself from the World Tree's upheaval demanded that the right thing be done. For the first time in his sentient existence, he was questioning himself. His original goal to destroy both the Sentinel and the Scourge, and then consume the chaotic energies of the resulting apocalypse, had burned away in the face of this confusion.

He would have his way with the meddling Ner'zhul, but what then? What had he been thinking when he had merged his own essence into the spirit of a human?

From within an opaque glacier, laughter boomed outwards. It settled over the Enigma like a cold mist, and he turned his thoughts away from himself to consider his next move.

"Creature from the Great Beyond, why have you come to a land that doesn't want you? More importantly, why are you here now?"

Thoughts, violet and shot with veins of pure black, met the cold merciless mind of Ner'zhul to answer.

"I am here for the purpose of retribution. You crossed me once before on my journey here; regrettably you escaped your punishment for your impunity. You won't get away this time."

"So, you do this simply for yourself? You are both selfish and insatiable; admirable qualities to one such as myself. Unfortunately, I will have to annihilate you due to the threat you pose, both to me and to my grand artilleries."

"Then I hope you enjoy your extinction."

Darchrow, eyes burning bright in ecstasy, began to grow and draw in the shadows of the night to his aphotic presence. The Lich King, gathering his will, began to throw blasts of psychic force into the growing mass of dark. These vibrating waves of force, shimmering as they moved, were simply drawn into the blacklight of Darchrow's expanding form, engulfed in a void that would soon reach critical mass. Dread, sudden and overwhelming, seized Ner'zhul in his surprise.

The lord of the Frozen Throne, who had brought Lordaeron and the Nerubian kingdoms to their knees, had finally overplayed his hand. Psionic exploitation simply could not fight nor control a vacuum.

Darchrow, who felt more like himself in what seemed like years, reveled and rose with the sense of power, now rising and coming through him. His bracers, now each the size of a ziggurat, had gone the red of dying suns.

Ner'zhul screamed in final, desperate knowledge that there was nothing he could do to stop this. He was helpless again, an old Orc chained to the wall of some burning Hell where demons whipped and tore at him without mercy.

Darchrow's eyes suddenly went white, and he was once again like before...before all of this had ever happened.

His essence spun out into a great black ring, a portal that opened up onto a world of no light, no air. His dispersion released the nightside of the universe onto a speck of blue that might have been the Frozen Throne, miles below in a crumbling city; bits of rock or sand that paled in the wake of Darchrow's release.

Ner'zul's mental screams were cut off abruptly as the tidal forces of Darchrow's body shattered the crystalline prison of his spirit. He and it were swallowed up into an abyss of no return, a rusty set of armor surrounded by a sea of glass, and then he was gone. Miles of forest, terrain, and wildlife from the surrounding forests were picked off their feet and sucked in within seconds; the necropolis and nerubian architecture of the Scourge's emptied base soon followed, foundations broken as thousands of tons of brick and mortar flew into the Enigma's gaping maw.

Thirty seconds later, the hole began to shrink rapidly. It shriveled like a blighted plant, miles of black suddenly imploding back into an elemental body. Clouds floating in the stratosphere found themselves descending in a rapid fashion, vertically spinning into a dying windstorm that was now only seven feet tall with flickering purple flames for eyes. His head had opened up in a comical ring-shaped opening, like a big O, and it sucked down the rest of the dispersed essence and then closed up.

Darchrow, now looking the same as when he had first appeared before Ner'zhul only ten minutes ago, now surveyed the dead, empty land around him with an indifferent gaze. His black hole had left no building or tree behind. Only a few melting ice chucks stood in defiance to his act, laying only a few feet to his immediate left. Everything else.....gone. Not even a tree or roof shingle.

Echoing through his mind, he heard the voice of Malfurion Stormrage, and it brought something he had never felt before. Peace.

"Thank you so much. You are forgiven for everything...."

Then there was nothing.

Turning away from a blighted, empty plateau, the Enigma floated over dead earth, down the slopes that led to the forests, now mostly bare, back toward the Sentinel's base.

It was time to finish what he started.

Chapter 7: High Tide, High Time

Mount Hyjal, summit of the World Tree, and the site of the Sentinel's encampment, was under siege. And losing.

Ghouls, led forth by the now satisfied and gore covered Nai'x, leaped on decimated ranks of Treants and tore them open, quenching their thirsts with the sap that oozed between the rent carcasses. Seconds later, druids came out from behind the barricades and attempted to assault the feeding ghouls, but soon found themselves surrounded. Nai'x, smiling his lipless, blood-soaked grin, began to laugh, and he and the rest of the fiends capered in to feast.

Many yards away from this gristly scene, war raging on around him in the lower foothills, Purist found himself fighting a man he had thought died nearly two years ago. Abaddon Deschael, an older paladin who had been eaten alive by a pack of felhounds....now seated atop a decaying warhorse, ashen pale and eyes the glittering blue of a drowned sailor. A dead man, laughing as he swung his runeblade almost lazily, beheading a nearby druid in his madness. Even his allies drew away from him uneasily, and distanced themselves out to find their own kills somewhere else.

The Lord of Avernus, turning towards Purist's way, swiped at him in a thick downward stroke, but misjudged the distance, resulting in a paladin now retreating out of range, eyes alight with anger. Abaddon, losing interest, rode off screaming in hopes of finding slower prey.

Purist had felt anger before, but seeing a former friend twisted in so horrible a fashion....it was unspeakable. He could feel the blood pounding in his head, his throat choked with rage. It was obvious that Abaddon had become infested by demons, and that hurt worst of all. It was a fate worse than death, always.

Calling on his repelling magics, the Omniknight shielded himself and rushed in, hoping to end it quickly, and met with success as his upward lunge severed the grinning, livid face of a corpse from it's armored form, which then fell lifelessly on the ground in a heap. Dark things, screaming and full of killing spite, rushed out from Abaddon's neck like a swarm of wasps, buzzing angrily into the sky and were soon out of sight. The warhorse, whining desperately through a rotting set of vocal cords, ran off into the night, trampling many-a-ghoul in its terror, and then it too was gone.

Regardless, the ghouls and necromancers marched on, forcing the saddened, but victorious paladin into retreat.

As Purist made his charge, closer to the barricades that had been erected around Nordrassil, Ezalor and Bradwarden blasted back entire legions, one with waves of crushing energy, and the other with giant hooves and an axe to match. Yet for every fallen ghoul, two took it's place. Necromancers began to draw together and maneuver themselves around Ezalor's blasts. And further back, a large Sea Giant began to make his way up the mountain, towards the two defenders. Muddy eyes glowed malevolently as his anchor lit up with it's own inner fire....

Across the entire range of this mountainous region, a million different battles were taking place between these two factions, and slowly but surely, the Sentinel were retreating while the Scourge pushed upwards, towards a very fragile looking World Tree, alone and towering over everything else.

Even as a loud, booming thunderclap erupted from the direction of their ruined city, the ghouls and necromancers took no notice. Kel'Thuzad, who was busy in his malicious spellwork, felt terrible pain rip through his skeletal core, but ignored it. The Master's will was for the World Tree to fall, and fall it shall! He would be not let injury precede his god's wishes.

Still, he was troubled....

The next hour went by in excruciating agony for the Sentinel's defenders. Bradwarden and Leviathan both lay dead, each with their respective weapons buried in the other's skull. Already the barricades were being eroded away by the combined efforts of both Lesale Deathbringer and Viper, toxins melting through the thick wood and iron like battery acid. Thousands lay dead across the hillsides, and Nai'x ate greedily from every corpse he could find, even if it was another ghoul.

And Purist, exhausted from healing his sick and dying comrades from behind these dissolving barriers of earth and steel, found himself writhing in agony as Darchrow's essence wriggled excitedly inside him. He clenched his teeth and prayed, gripping his sword with bleeding fingers, wondering if morning would ever come.

The end was close now.

All the chips on the table. Every card up but one. As Ner'zul himself had noted, the deck was still moving, and was quickly shuffling itself towards the Scourge's favor.

Until now.

From behind the endless mass of undead beasts and monsters, a tide of darkness was rising to shore. Elementals, each the same as one another, floated murkily across the ground in thousands, moving like thick ooze up the base of Mount Hyjal. At the very front, a colossus with violet flaming eyes led its tenebrous host in silence.

Atropos, who barely had the strength to hold his essence together from his previous exertions with the scroll of projection, cried soundlessly as Darchrow consumed him in one fell swoop. The avatar of fear and death was now one with an even greater terror than himself.

Sluggishly, like motion underwater, the whole of the Scourge turned around in growing horror as they came face to face the Enigma and his legions. These eidolon were mouthless, faceless, yet they began to hoot and cry in mud choked voices all the same as the Scourge became aware of their presence. Darchrow floated forward, raising one braced appendage in the motion to advance.

The Scourge, who had never known fear of anything, forgot the World Tree in favor of this new enemy. Doing what any animal does when it becomes cornered, they turned to fight.

Each eidolon, in the face of this rushing horde of monsters, launched it's own magic essence in response to their aggression. Each sparkling pulse of blue energy formed together to create a storm of magic that tore into the undead host.

The results were catastrophic.

Kel'Thuzad watched in growing horror as his god's original plans scattered to the four winds. The storm had burst over seven thousand ghouls; the sky itself rained blood and bits of bone and flesh, and already there were cries of fear among the ranks. This could not happen, it shan't happen!!

Focusing intently on Darchrow, his fleshless hands swerved and twisted around each other as frozen energy formed into a white, swirling orb. A moment later, he launched it forcefully, bending its path to hit the Enigma first, then it would bounce through his formations and destroy the eidolons.

Darchrow, aware of his surroundings in a dreamlike focus, turned toward the chain of frost and sent it flying back into the Lich through the power of his mind. To the casual observer, it looked as if it had stopped dead in mid air, then turned around and launched back, like a game of football.

It struck with soul shattering force into the Lich's disjointed, ornate body. He screamed as the force of his own cold essence bored deep inside, then burst, opening a path for his evil soul to depart from this world forever. Now only a measly pile of scattered bones, the Scourge had lost it's greatest general.

With that, the rest of the Scourge began to run up toward the World Tree, no longer trying to destroy it, but to seek sanctuary in their senseless fear. The last of the ghouls, necromancers, and minor centurions and commanders of this broken horde found themselves facing a renewed Sentinel. Purist, eyes gleaming brightly in victory, shouted and raised his sword to charge. Hundreds of treants and druids flew down from behind the barricades, led by the Sentinel's last champions.

At the same moment, Darchrow's monstrous servants rushed forward, their time in the physical world almost over.

The Scourge was crushed between the two opposing forces, battered and beaten by an endless stream of magic and melee swipes and stabs.

When the sun, a circle of blood and fire, finally rose above the horizon at the beginning of a brand new day, the war was over. Not one undead monster was left, and the endless night was over.

Darchrow, who had extinguished his servants back into the void hours ago, moved away from the celebrating and tired remnants of the Sentinel, and moved steadily down the slope quietly, moving down into the lowlands.

Purist, who had been listening to Zeus explaining the plans to rebuild the encampments and clean up the bodies, proper burials, and other such necessary matters, excused himself from the others and moved down the slope to watch the Enigma.

Darchrow turned and beckoned the paladin with his burning gaze, compelling and full of need.

The Omniknight followed him in broken boots to the place of counseling.

Epilogue: The Circle Closes

Dear Ezalor,

This will probably be the last you ever hear of me, and perhaps it's for the best. Despite everything, I believe that with all my heart. Bradwarden and Furion, my friends, are dead. There is no reason left to stay, so I hope when you finally receive this letter, you will understand my intentions.

Although I fear what I may find as I go home, in this world consumed by chaos, I am not afraid or worried. I am no longer alone, and perhaps that too is for the best. There's a price to pay for everything, and only now am I beginning to understand exactly what that price is.

Last month, on the morning following our victory, Darchrow led me down into a clearing to discuss my future. It was him who destroyed the Lich King, and it was him who flanked the Scourge at their backs.

He believes you a coward for sending me into the Ritual of Chud instead of participating in it yourself, but looking back, I think that it was probably meant to be from the very start.

Darchrow and I are headed across the sea to Lordaeron now. Demons still roam those lands, and there are even rumors of a renegade group of Undead, called the Forsaken, who are working to develop their own plague of undeath to start the war all over again.

Linked in the way that I am with him, I think I understand my new partner's motivations. He is insatiable, and wants to continue to learn and grow as a sentient being, and to do that he needs to travel.

After all of this is over, perhaps I'll settle down and live a normal life again. Sheathe my sword and devote myself to the Light completely. Whatever awaits me then, I'll accept it gladly, and then, maybe, you and I can meet again.

Long days and pleasant nights, and may you someday find happiness for yourself.

Smile