With Skulloc dealt with, courtesy of a certain bored death knight, Lokosh, Farra’jin, Feloma, Talia, Groun, Rexxar, Misha and Sabellian continued north through the canyon and past the Bloodmaul Clan outpost. They quickly found themselves forcefully entering another ogre settlement held by the Bladespire Clan.
Sabellian’s earth and fire magic turned several ogres into molten messes while Rexxar and Misha teamed up to brutally savage several more ogres. The rest handled more ogres through their various skills. Feloma used her pheromones to turn the trained raptors on the ogres as well as incite a lot of infighting between the Bladespire Clan.
After several minutes of searching, once they weren’t being pressured by the clan, Farra’jin located a stone altar like the one at Boulder’mok. Compared to the many ogre structures, the altar was pretty small so it was harder to notice.
Wherever Goc was hiding, he wouldn’t be far. Sabellian knew that he was too cowardly to be too far from his father’s lair.
The dragon briefly looked east toward the massive cave at the far end of the settlement. Somewhere within that cave was the gronn who murdered his brothers and sisters and even held his own against his father. Gruul would get what was coming to him in due time.
Once they were ready, Rexxar pulled out a horn and blew into it. The deep call from the horn echoed throughout part of the canyon. Any ogres who still lived heard the call and moved toward it.
Their advance was stopped when they noticed their master had emerged from the hut he was sleeping in. Goc looked irritated from his sleep being disturbed and the ogres knew better than to be near their master when he was angry.
“Who dares disturb Goc’s slumber?” he demanded.
“That would be us,” Sabellian declared. “The time has come for you to join your brothers in death! As your father took the lives of my brothers and sisters, so shall he pay for such a travesty in the blood of his offspring!”
“I will crush you!” Goc attempted to slam his huge hand on Sabellian which was repelled by an ax swing from Rexxar which cut into his wrists. As the gronn roared in pain, Lokosh, Farra’jin, Talia, Groun and Feloma moved in to attack.
Sabellian had no intention of playing around this time so he quickly transformed into his fully grown black dragon form which was nearly as large as Goc. This was followed by a stream of molten flames in the gronn’s face.
Angered, Goc reached for Sabellian’s neck to strangle him. Lokosh climbed on the dragon and leapt for the gronn’s hand, delivering several slashes to his wrist with two axes before he was forced to land. This had the intended result of Goc pulling away his arm to nurse the wound. Sabellian followed up his breath attack by slashing at the wounded arm with his claws to create more wounds.
Goc responds to the attack by slamming the ground to cause tremors which knocked most of the group down but Sabellian was not affected due to his large size. Undeterred, the dragon moved to headbutt the gronn and proved that his head was thicker when Goc suffered a broken nose and a few loose teeth.
The gronn was now furious and roared at Sabellian which resulted in an arrow flying into his mouth and landing in the back of his throat which distracted him as he tried to cough up the foreign object long enough for Rexxar to jump on Sabellian’s head and leap to the gronn before burying an ax in his skull. The ax broke through the skull and lodged itself into the gronn’s brain, causing him to collapse.
Rexxar removed his ax and shook the blood off of it before he turned to the others. “If he is still alive after all that, he won’t live much longer. Our work here is done.”
“Yes, the last of the Sons of Gruul have been eliminated,” Sabellian added. “All that remains is their father whose lair is nearby. I dare not face him though, he is too strong for me to fight head on. I leave that task to the mortals.”
“And why do we not face him together?” Talia asked.
“I have to ensure the next generation of the Black Dragonflight is raised properly. I will not throw all of that away by fighting Gruul. I wish you good luck, champions.” Sabellian flapped his wings and took to the skies.
“As thrilling as it would be to hunt the strongest of all gronn, I still have my responsibilities as the leader of the Horde expedition in this region,” Rexxar said. “I am afraid that I have been away from my post for too long.” He then whistled for his wyvern companion before mounting him and flying off.
This left the group to consider what to do next. With the seven Sons of Gruul dead, their mission was complete. Though they had a feeling that Thanatas’ suggestion implied that they wouldn’t have to wait long before they faced the final gronn.
Begrudgingly, they decided to take Thanatas’ advice and stay in Thunderlord Stronghold for a while.
Returning to the present from the tunnel they entered from, Stella and the others returned to the central chamber where they returned to rest. Upon their return, the ones who were transformed into different races were turned back to their original forms.
Erosion and Brazen followed the group as the passage began to collapse. Of course, the tunnel didn’t simply collapse, it was as if the rock walls simply grew and met to fill in the empty gap where the tunnel once was. It was soon seen as if the tunnel never existed.
Young Andormu approached the group while they sat down to rest. “Well done heroes, thanks to you Thrall will now fulfill his destiny and become warchief of the Horde. The timeline is safe once again.”
“What’s to stop the Infinite Dragonflight from returning to that timeline to try again?” Stella asked.
“We have that timeline under close watch, if they try again we will be able to counter them before they try anything.”
“What about Taretha? Isn’t there something we can do to help her?” Bella asked.
“You don’t want to go down that road, Bella Cartier,” Andormu chided. “Interfering with the fates of others is dangerous. The timeline has already been altered from the original timeline by your actions.”
“What do you mean?” Flutashe asked.
“Remember when you invaded Shadowforge City? In the original timeline, you were supposed to kill Emperor Dagran Thaurissan in order to spark a bitter resentment in Moira Bronzebeard which would drive her to seek to redeem the Dark Iron Clan. With the emperor spared, we are uncertain where this thread will lead.
“There are other examples, but I think you get the idea. The timeline is a mess thanks to you as well as those unusually powerful anomalies who have accompanied you.”
The group didn’t know what to say about that. They had a feeling that the bronze dragon didn’t actually blame them for their actions but Sophia, Thanatas and Violetta were another matter. Stella suspected that those three were altering the timeline in ways that made the Bronze Dragonflight uncomfortable but they couldn’t do anything about it. With the power those three displayed so far, she had a pretty good feeling why.
Andormu let out a sigh to calm himself before he continued, “When you are ready, please head to the Black Morass.” He pointed at the tunnel that was decorated in swamp plants, animals and an imitation of the Dark Portal. He then returned to his sister.
The party spent fifteen minutes resting before they got back on their feet and ready to go. They proceeded into the next chamber past the time-frozen critters who made Flutashe feel concerned for them.
They spotted who was likely a bronze dragon in elf form standing next to a ship lodged in a cave wall. He bade them to stop as he warned them that they were not yet prepared to face the might of the Infinite Dragonflight. He then introduced himself as Sa’at.
“Uh, hello, we just thrashed a bunch of infinite dragons in Hillsbrad,” Raida said.
“That was a small force to prevent a harmless human from causing an important event,” Sa’at countered. “The Infinite Dragonflight will soon launch a full assault on the magus, Medivh, in order to prevent him from opening the Dark Portal and letting Gul’dan’s Horde launch his invasion of Azeroth.
“Before you question why you should defend the man who was responsible for the ruin of most of the human kingdoms, remember that without the Horde invasion, the Alliance would never exist and the world’s defenders would be too weak and scattered to withstand the invasion of the Burning Legion. There’s also the fact that you need him alive so he can help you with your quest to obtain a functioning key into his tower, and I doubt he will be in a helping mood until he completes the portal.”
The group looked at each other, contemplating the dragon’s words. They nodded in silent agreement before Stella turned to the dragon again. “So what do you have for us?”
Sa’at handed each of them a disc-like object. “These beacons will summon my brethren to aid you in your fight. Use them wisely as they each only have one use. Be careful when using them against any particularly powerful looking foes as they will easily overpower any of my kin.”
“So how many do you suspect will come?” Stella asked.
“I’m not sure, just keep the dragons away from Medivh until he finishes the Dark Portal. They will retreat once they realize that the Dark Portal is open.”
The group placed their discs in their bags and proceeded into the swamp. Flutashe made sure the fauna of the area didn’t bother them as they proceeded south toward where the Dark Portal stood.
Within a few minutes they spotted what they were looking for. They spotted a man in black and red robes with a scarlet cape. He also wore a silvery mantle adorned with black feathers as well as a black hood. He wielded a wooden staff with the carving of a roosting raven on it with a piece of cloth tied to the shaft.
Medivh was going through his spellbook one last time while checking the magic circle he was standing in for errors.
“Uh, hey! Medivh?” Stella called out.
The magus turned toward the intruders while holding his staff ready to fight. “Who are you? Are you here to stop me?”
Stella raised her arms placatingly, “No, we just came to warn you that you will soon be attacked. We also need to ask you about the key to your tower.”
Torn between the completion of his work and dealing with the interlopers, Medivh had no time to deal with them so he turned to the portal base. “Look, we can discuss this when I am through. If there are assassins coming for my life, then protect me. If I survive this, then we can talk about my tower.”
Medivh then placed a shield spell around himself and fortified it with three shield crystals for extra protection. He needed complete concentration to open the portal. He shouted toward the portal, “The time has come! Gul’dan, order your warlocks to double their efforts. Moments from now, the gateway will open and your Horde will be released upon this ripe, unsuspecting world.”
With Medivh’s full concentration on the spell, the group readied themselves for the coming attacks from the Infinite Dragonflight.
It wasn’t long before Mena sensed a void signature in the area which she alerted the others to before she ran toward it, the others giving chase. Stella also sensed a temporal rift in the same place Mena ran off to.
Not far from Medivh’s position, the group spotted the rift which was being maintained by a tough-looking dragonspawn caster. The dragonkin appeared to be channeling temporal energies to maintain the rift.
When Stella and the others first entered the Caverns of TIme and learned about the Infinite Dragonflight, they first guessed that the temporal invaders were some sort of rivaling dragonflight that originated from some unknown point in time. However, Mena’s testimony about void energy being where the dragons were and the fact that they could use the same temporal magics that the Bronze Dragonflight use led them to a different conclusion: The Infinite Dragonflight were void-corrupted bronze dragons.
There wasn’t much that could be done for them now, especially since Violetta didn’t seem interested in helping either, though that could mean that their corruption was complete and their minds were too far gone to save.
As they moved in to engage the dragonspawn maintaining the rift, more infinite dragonkin emerged from the rift along with a few whelps. Though they likely saw the party, they ignored them in favor of going straight for Medivh.
Raida slaughtered the whelps within a second while the others attacked the rest of the attacking force. Bella’s light magic seared at their blackened scales while Surprise assaulted their void-addled minds. Flutashe and Stella attacked the rift channeler who tried to cast spells against them which were countered by Stella while the druid used her cat form to claw away at his scales.
More dragonkin and whelps emerged from the portal but the druid and mage ignored them, certain that their friends could handle them. Stella took a deep breath to unleash a powerful magma breath. The channeler wanted to move out of the way of it but found his body held in place by the druid who intended to use him as a shield to protect herself from her friend’s attack.
A torrent of magma sprayed from Stella’s mouth and the channeler took the full brunt of it. He screamed in agony for a few moments but was quickly silenced as half of his body was turned into slag.
Once the channeler was dead, the rift collapsed. The others wasted no time finishing off the attackers.
“Girls, another void signature appeared nearby,” Mena warned.
“Yeah, I can sense another rift opening,” Stella added.
“Looks like they plan to invade the area by opening rifts so they can overwhelm Medivh,” Raida said.
The party rushed toward the next rift to find it in the same state as the first one. This one was dealt with the same way as the first with Bella, Surprise and Raida dealing with any invading forces while Flutashe and Stella took out the channeler.
The third rift required a slight change in tactics because the channeler was a winged dragonspawn with a huge battle ax. Raida assisted against him by blocking his ax swings with her warglaives. The dragonspawn’s attacks were heavy, but Raida managed to withstand his attacks. He soon tried his luck with one of the others; Raida made him pay for that by leaving deep gashes in his scaly body. When he wasn’t attacking Flutashe, she was leaving deep claw marks on his body and when he focused on Stella, the druid grabbed his head and left his neck exposed for Raida to cut his throat open, bringing an end to him and the rift.
The next two rifts were the same as the first two. It was when they were on rift number six that things became interesting. Mena felt a stronger void signature with this channeler and when they reached that rift, it was being guarded by a drakonid. This one had cracks of blue energy all over his body and he carried a staff.
The drakonid spoke with the same echoed voice as the drake from Hillsbrad. “Mortals, I am Chrono Lord Deja. I ask you, why do you aid the magus? Just think of how many lives could be saved if the portal never opened, if the resulting wars could be erased.”
“Which would leave the world vulnerable to an attack from the Burning Legion,” Stella countered. “Without the Horde, the Alliance will never come to be. Without the unity of the kingdoms, the demons will be able to systematically wipe out each kingdom one by one before they could come together. The night elves alone wouldn’t be enough to stop Archimonde.”
“You have no proof of your claims, dracthyr!” Deja countered. “You cannot see each possibility like my master can. He has chosen to alter the pathways in order to prevent the worst timelines from coming to pass.”
“You can’t be certain of your vision anymore,” Mena said. “The void will blind and mislead you from the truth. All you can see is what the void wants you to see.”
“Enough! If you will not cease this foolish quest, then you will die!” As Deja rushed into battle, enemy reinforcements emerged from the rift to force them to split up. Bella and Mena’s light magic burned the dragonspawn and whelps as well as Deja.
Deja fired arcane bolts at the paladin and priest which sent them flying into a tree. He then electrocuted Raida, Flutashe and Stella with bolts of arcane lightning and forced them to their knees for a moment. He then charged toward Medivh while channeling a powerful arcane bolt.
Mena and Bella recovered in time to heal the other three before they gave chase. Flutashe grabbed the whelps and crushed them under her paws while Stella conjured a pillar of fire that incinerated the dragonspawn.
Their counterattack came too late though as Deja fired his spell at the magus which struck his shield hard enough to shatter one of the protective crystals. He then slowed time for the group so he would have enough time to cast another spell.
However, Stella resisted the slowing spell and dispelled it from the others to allow Raida to plant a warglaive in the drakonid’s back before she pulled it out and sealed the wound with black crystals which sapped his magic and prevented him from casting the spell again.
“Argh! My magic, what did you do to me?” Deja demanded.
“Just a neat combo which leads to an explosive finish,” Raida replied.
Before Deja could say anything else, he was consumed by felfire which burned his scales away and reacted to the black crystals on his back. They exploded violently and left a massive hole in his back.
The drakonid coughed up blood and fell to the ground, breathing heavily. “You may have beaten me…but time is still on our side,” he said weakly before he stopped breathing.
Neither Mena nor Stella sensed any rifts opening at this time but Medivh was still working on the portal. They didn’t know how long they had before another wave would move on the magus so they took the time to rest.
“They’re really throwing the gauntlet at us,” Raida noted. “Fighting rift after rift can be exhausting. At least they backed off for now when that Deja guy was killed.”
“We need to be more careful going forward,” Stella said. “He managed to get past our defenses long enough to break one of Medivh’s protection wards. He won’t be able to restore it while working on the portal.”
“I hope he finishes soon, we can’t defend him forever,” Flutashe said.
Their break soon ended once Mena and Stella sensed another rift opening. They quickly got up and prepared to face the next wave of enemies.
Once again the group was going from rift to rift while dealing with rift channelers and their reinforcements. Over the course of five rifts they faced three spellcasters and two winged dragonspawn. Two of the casters attacked them with shadow magic while the other used fire spells and tried to turn one of them into a sheep. Stella countered that spell and disintegrated that channeler.
They were now on their twelfth rift since Medivh had begun creating the Dark Portal and the magus was showing no signs of finishing. What emerged from this rift was another powerful being with a strong void signature like Deja except this one was a drake.
“Why do you persist?” the drake asked. “Surely you can see the futility of it all. It is not too late! You may still leave here with your lives.”
“Who might you be?” Flutashe asked.
“I am Temporus, now flee here before I am forced to kill all of you and Medivh.”
“We’re not going to let you and your void-addled kin alter the timeline,” Stella defied.
“So be it…you have been warned.” Temporus called his allies from the rift and moved to attack the group. Bella and Mena focused on the lesser attackers while Raida, Flutashe and Stella focused on the drake.
Temporus summoned a gust of wind from his wings and blew the interlopers back while some of the minions advanced toward Medivh. He sped up the time of some of them so they could reach the magus quickly. The minions’ accelerated assault against Medivh resulted in the second protective warding crystal shattering before Raida cut them down.
The drake sped up more of the minions so they could destroy the last crystal but Stella countered this by stealing the magical enhancement which allowed her to rapidly bombard the drake with a barrage of powerful spells from various schools of magic within the span of a few seconds. Temporus had no time to respond to this and Stella ran out of enemies to steal the magical effect from which resulted in the spell enhancing her to soon wear off.
“Let’s see how you deal with this!” Temporus then wrapped himself in a magical ward. When Mena fired a bolt of light at him the spell bounced off and she was forced to dodge her own attack.
Of course, a magical reflection spell was not going to protect him from physical attacks. Raida and Flutashe each jumped up and grabbed one of his wings. Raida sliced one wing off with her warglaive while Flutashe used her cat form to rip the other wing out of its socket and tore it off. Temporus screeched in pain before he fell to the ground. Bella impaled his skull with a sword of light from the ground right as his magical protection wore off. The lesser dragonkin soon followed.
Once the swamp was clear of infinite dragonkin again, the group took the time to rest once again.
Looking at the magus, Raida frowned. “He’s still not done? How much longer is this going to take?!”
“I don’t know, but the spatial disturbance from the portal is getting stronger, it shouldn’t be much longer,” Stella said.
“I hope that means really really really really soon, because I’m sensing a lot of void stuff coming from all around us…” Mena alarmed.
The group looked all around them and spotted five rifts opening up at the same time. Five rift channelers emerged from those portals with three of them being winged dragonspawn.
“This is not good at all,” Bella said.
“We have no choice, we will have to split up and each take a rift by ourselves,” Raida said. “Bella, Flutashe and myself will take the ones with the winged guys while Mena and Stella take ones with a spellcaster.”
“We won’t be able to stop the reinforcements from reaching Medivh!” Bella pointed out.
“We won’t fight them alone,” Flutashe said. “Everyone, get your beacons out and use them. Hopefully the Bronze Dragonflight will keep the enemies at bay.”
With their plan set, the group charged forward separately toward a rift. As they arrived, a number of smaller dragonspawn emerged from the rifts. Each party member pulled out their beacon that was given to them by Sa’at and placed it on the ground before activating it. A bronze drake quickly emerged and began breathing sand on the infinite dragonkin, warping their bodies with temporal magic.
As this was going on, each member faced their respective rift channelers. Flutashe faced a winged dragonspawn by switching between her bear and cat forms; her bear form for when she needed some extra bulk to mitigate any blows she sustained from the dragonkin while she attacked with her cat form.
Raida faced a winged dragonspawn. She made sure to avoid any attacks from the dragonkin warrior using her speed and agility while slashing away at his body from different angles.
Bella faced the third winged dragonspawn. Her shield helped protect her from his attacks while her light magic slowly burned away at his void-scarred scales. Swords of light burst from the ground which slashed his body while hammers of light pummeled his body.
Mena faced a spellcaster dragonspawn carrying a skeletal staff, or rather it was Surprise facing him. This turned into a duel of dark magic users as the dragonspawn fired bolts of shadow magic at her which she dodged and countered with a shadowy attack on his mind. The dragonkin tried to make the gnome flee in terror but found that the spell had no effect on her.
Stella had little problem facing the remaining rift channeler who was a spellcaster carrying a crystal staff trying to attack her with bolts of frost and fire which she effortlessly countered. Stella made use of the hastening spell that Temporus used to speed up her spellcasting. The channeler was repeatedly incinerated and frozen many times in under a minute which threw the dragonkin’s bodily functions into chaos and would soon turn to illness. However, that was not meant to be as a Disintegration Beam blasted him through the chest. The rift keeper collapsed along with the rift.
She was about to assist someone else with their rift when another rift that was larger than the other ones so far appeared before her. Given its size, a feeling of dread washed over Stella. The previous rifts were large enough to allow anything up to the size of a drake to emerge. This one was large enough for a fully grown dragon to emerge from.
“Guys, hurry up with your rifts! Something big is coming!” Stella called out.
A sense of urgency resonated between them as they began to fight harder against their rift channelers. Surprise broke through her channeler’s mental defenses and quickly ended them by crushing their mind. Raida disarmed her foe before she used her Black Eye Beam on his head before a Chaos Bolt obliterated it. Flutashe jumped on her target’s back before she ripped his wings off then grabbed his head to snap it. Bella blinded her enemy with a flash of light before she grabbed him by the horns and forced his head to the ground. A sword of light impaled his throat.
With the rifts closed, the bronze drakes finished off the attackers but not before some of them attacked Medivh’s shield enough to shatter his last warding crystal. Only his personal shield remained.
Everything was cleaned up just in time as the one who may have been the leader of the assault emerged from the rift. As expected, he was a fully grown dragon.
Within moments, the infinite dragon emerged from the rift and stared down at the group, then at Medivh, and back to the group again. “The time has come to shatter this clockwork universe forever! Let us no longer be slaves of the hourglass! I warn you: those who do not embrace the greater path shall be victims of its passing.”
“As if we would let you fulfill the wishes of the Old Gods,” Stella defied.
“Our crusade against the tragedies of the past is righteous, little one. They have shown us how flawed the Titans’ systems on this world truly are. We need not follow this so-called ‘true timeline’ that you and your associates have already altered through your actions.”
“And what does preventing the Horde from coming to Azeroth accomplish other than ensuring its destruction by the Burning Legion?” Flutashe asked.
“The Legion is nothing before the might of those who ruled this world in its infancy. When they are freed from the shackles of the usurpers, they shall regain their rightful place and remind Sargeras why he fears them.”
“If Sargeras fears the Old Gods, then I must be nightmare fuel for him…” said a voice that filled everyone with dread. Though this was outweighed by the pity the group now felt toward the dragon.
In an instant, Violetta appeared between the dragon and the group. “So, your name is Aeonus. Such a shame that you and your aspect fell to the void. Well, your fall is my meal.”
“What is the meaning of this? Who are you?” Aeonus demanded.
A cheerful, innocent smile graced Violetta’s face, “I am what your masters fear, dragon. C’thun’s essence is a part of me now and the other three will follow in due time. I am the Huntress of the Void.”
Aeonus’ eyes widened in horror upon that declaration. His aspect had warned him to never cross paths with the Huntress. He hastily turned around and attempted to open a rift out of this time. Instead, he ended up pausing and lowering his head, remaining silent.
“Isn’t he supposed to be running away?” Mena asked.
“It was too late to escape the moment he heard me,” Violetta answered. “Once someone perceives my existence, I am already in their minds. Once I am in their minds, they are at my mercy.”
Despite being in a catatonic state, Aeonus still had some presence of mind to think. “We shall triumph in the end! It is only a matter of time.” he said.
Violetta simply smiled, "̶̫̪͚̬̭̻̊̔̌̆̾I̵̢̤͚̘̻̰͆̌t̴͖͐̒̈́̓͑̀ ̵̨̙͒̊͝ȋ̵̲̪̩͔̍ͅs̴̲͔̦͉̎̈́̂̔̿ ̷̜̞͇͉̻͊o̷̧͍̪̝̳̓̑̍̄͝n̷̰̭̟̑̆͘l̷̨̮̩̐́̔y̴̘͙̖̰̰͉͊͝ ̷̺͖͙͊̂̇̓ą̸͚̭̐ ̷̿̐͐̌͜͝m̸̹̭̹͙͋́̀͝a̷͇̗͕̒͒͑͒t̷̢̲́̾t̶̳̺̙͕͓̄͗̀̿̈ȩ̴͙̟̩̝͋́̊̅̌͝ͅr̴͇͉̰̣̂́̒̂͒͘ ̴̖̗̫̣̈́̈́̾͗̏̚ö̷̫͙́̀f̷͉̻̫̥̝̆̑͐̓͝ ̸̥͙͚̞̊̇͆͝͝ṯ̵̤͙̤̒ị̵̜̲̟̙̱̆̾͐́̅ḿ̴̼̦̱̭̮̄͐͘ẹ̸̬̩͍̈́̽ ̸̨͎͛b̸̪̗̬̼̰̓͊̇̂ȩ̷̨̞̙͗͌̾f̴̭̣͖͕̄̈́̄͜ǫ̴̜̝͍̉̃̉̾͝ŕ̵̡͎̦̘̮͒͗̏̽̐ḛ̷͖̅͊́̔͋̓ ̸̹̋̑y̶̰̬̞̟̝̺̿͛̆̄̿͠o̵̦̼̗͔̍͐̋ủ̵͇͎̬̹͈̱̈́͊̈r̶̛͕̺̰̓͊͐͑ ̷̪̠̙̗̱͔͠m̴͎̏̉͌̑̕à̵̛̫̟̠͌s̸͇͐̓͆͠ț̵̡͉̀̓̕ͅé̵̬̺̦͉̯̰̎r̶̛̝̝̹͈̤̙̋̒̀ş̶̢̼̭͆ ̵͕͕̿͑́a̷͖̅r̵̥̽͌͒͑̚e̴̟̺̟͉͍͇͒̀́̆ ̸̠̜̟̜̟̗̆͊̋͂̕â̷̡͓̮͕̥̭͌̀́̀ ̵̣̟͌̾̒͑̉̕p̷̰̈̀̾̚͠a̴͔̎̌͛̀ř̷̢͇͇̩́́͜t̵̨̯̋̈́̽͗̆ ̴̻̉̋̓ǒ̵̤̩̰̤̦̽f̴̩̈͑́̀̔̋ ̸̠͔͍̺̯̎̀̊̉ͅm̸͓͇̼̬̦̓̑ẻ̸̻̟̘̰̼̾̀̍̈́.̷̘͍̪̀̀͌̉̓.̶̧̛̯̹͇̟̟̄̍͌̒.̸̡̤̘̆̾̈́̀͝"̵̥̳͍̦̙̑͂̈́͒̓
Eternal darkness claimed the dragon’s consciousness and that was all he would ever know. Aeonus’ body collapsed in a heap. With his mind devoured, he would forever remain in a catatonic state until death and decay would claim what was left.
Violetta vanished once she claimed her morsel. A few minutes after that, Medivh completed his spell and the infamous event came to pass as the sickly green nether energies appeared, surrounded by the frame of the stone around it.
“It is finished,” Medivh declared. He then turned to the group. “I am grateful for your aid, champions. Now, Gul’dan’s Horde will sweep across this world like a locust swarm. All my designs, all my carefully-laid plans will at last fall into place.”
A squad of orcs emerged from the portal. They saw the swampy region around them that was unlike the dark jungle they were in before.
Medivh addressed the orcs, “Orcs of the Horde, this portal is the gateway to your new destiny! Azeroth lies before you, ripe for the taking.”
“Gul’dan speaks the truth!” one orc said. We should return at once to tell our brothers the news!” With that, the squad retreated back through the portal.
Medivh then turned back to the group. “Now, you wished to discuss matters of my tower?”
Stella approached the magus while pulling out the key that Khadgar fixed. Medivh’s eyes widened when he saw it. “That key, I recognize it! That was supposed to be Khadgar’s key, though I have yet to give it to him.” He suddenly realized that he remembered someone he had never met before or heard of. “Strange, It would seem that I have memories of events that have not occurred.”
Stella wasn’t sure why the magus had such memories either. At this point in time, he had yet to meet Khadgar. She could only speculate that the temporal interference by the Infinite Dragonflight had some residual side effects.
“This key once belonged to your future apprentice, though it was recently broken and the enchantment lost. Would you be able to renew the enchantment?” Stella asked.
“It would take some time for me to reapply the enchantment to where it could unlock my tower, though since I have a feeling that you will not be able to wait…” He then pulled out his own key to his tower. “I can take that key off your hands and you can use mine. Since I am granting you use of this key, it should work for you and only you.” He then gave his key to Stella and took the formerly broken key. “I can tell that you and your friends will face some very trying times in the coming years. I hope that you will become strong enough to face what comes.”
Medivh then turned around to stare at the portal for a while. Stella and the others took this as their cue to get out of there as they didn’t want to face the full might of the Old Horde when they emerged from the portal in force.
They returned to the tunnel they emerged from and saw that it had begun to collapse. Sa’at assured them that as long as they kept moving back to the central chamber the tunnel wouldn’t collapse on them.
As they proceeded through the tunnel, Stella decided now was the time to ask them for their assistance with her imminent assignment. “Girls, I need to ask you for your assistance.”
“Does it have to do with Medivh’s tower?” Flutashe asked.
Stella nodded, “I was asked by the Kirin Tor to investigate a demonic presence inside Karazhan. This key is the only way to get into the tower.”
“If the Legion is involved, then there must be something in or about that place that they want,” Raida said.
“Karazhan sits on a powerful ley line. It would be an excellent place for them to establish a foothold on Azeroth once they figure out how to tap into it.”
“Ah, I get it,” Raida nodded sagely. “This seems like something that can’t any longer.”
“If we are planning on exploring Karazhan, we need to rest and prepare,” Bella said. “I have a feeling that we will need to be at our best for this.”
“I’ll make a portal to Stormwind,” Stella said. As she began to channel, Raida put on her cloak and made sure she looked the part of a warlock. She was about to put her disguise to the test.