User:GoldenYak/Chronicle/Volume One/Chapter One

Related to Worlds of Warcraft - Chronicle of the Titan Worlds

The Coming of the Demon Titan
The Demon Titan, lord of the Burning Legion, had spent an eternity traveling the vast distances of the Great Dark Beyond, searching for Azeroth. His every effort to use portals to travel to Azeroth more rapidly had been thwarted by mortal resistance, but his fury could be delayed no longer. Sargeras had finally arrived in Azeroth's star-system. In a matter of days, he would reach Azeroth itself. As a Titan, Sargeras was vast in size - large as a planet himself, a colossal being of demonic power. He became visible from Azeroth's surface, a demonic shadow blotting out the sun. When he reached Azeroth, the end would come. He would destroy the planet with a single blow from his dreadful blade, Gorribal.

Many ages had passed since the Burning Legion had first walked the world of Azeroth. In that distant time, the denizens of Azeroth both mortal and immortal and banded together to drive them away. The Legion had attacked the world again and again since that first war, but always they had been repulsed. The world of Azeroth had borne witness to many demon invasions, and many brave battles fought by the people who called her home. The Battle at Mount Hyjal, the Crusade to Outland, the Invasion of the Broken Isles, and others - centuries had passed since those great conflicts. Heroes had lived and died, champions fought and sacrificed, civilizations had risen and been razed. All though its ages of war, the Titan Azeroth had lain in nascency. Sleeping. Dreaming. Growing. Learning. Every battle, every drop of blood spilled, Azeroth had felt within its vast and mighty soul. Every warrior's cry, every sorcerer's incantation, every prayer made and oath sworn. Those who had fallen in their home's defense had pledged their spirit to Azeroth, every sparkling soul a drop in a great and glorious ocean. Sargeras had come to destroy Azeroth, to extinguish this marvel, fearing that it would outshine him. But the demon Titan had come too late.

The time was at hand. Within the world of Azeroth, the slumbering Titan stirred.

The Awakening
The history of the world in the centuries prior to Azeroth's awakening is lost to mortal knowledge. The old records speak of the Age of Mortals, of the the First War between orcs and humans and the many that followed. Of the Burning Crusade to broken Outland, of the War of the Lich King's Wrath, of the Shattering, and many more momentous events. Histories become fragmented towards the end of this age, but it is known that two great forces emerged at its dawning and endured until its twilight - the Alliance and the Horde. These forces fought against one-another as often as they would join together against a greater threat. They defeated the Burning Legion on more than one occasion. Legends are told of the War of the Broken Isles, where the Alliance and the Horde suffered bitter defeats and the loss of many heroes, only to turn the tides at their darkest hour and deal the Legion another defeat. There are other legends, other myths, of later wars, of endless bloodshed and sacrifice, of victory and defeat and acts of truest heroism and blackest infamy. The complete history is not known, the ultimate fates of the Alliance, the Horde, their allies and enemies and all the mortals that had once dwelled on Azeroth remains a mystery. But the chronicle that follows offers a clue, an insight into what became of the heroes and defenders of the world.

All across Azeroth's surface, demons descended like a furious storm-cloud, falling upon the world as innumerable as raindrops. Their numbers blotted out the sun. Never before had Azeroth, had any world in all the cosmos, born witness to an invasion this vast. It seemed as if every demon in existence had come to lay waste to this most stubborn of worlds, and in truth this was not far from the case - Sargeras had nearly emptied every demon world in the Twisting Nether to mount this final offensive. Even as the demons came in endless waves, the defenders of Azeroth stood firm. Every mortal race stood together, all grudges laid aside for this final battle. Every weapon and sorcery at their disposal was turned upon the Legion. Demons fell in droves, hacked apart or blasted to ash, but for every one that fell a thousand more was ready to take its place. Mortal kingdoms fell. Forests burned in fel firestorms. Mountains were torn down, seas boiled away, lands turned black with demonic corruption. Entire races were brought to the edge of extinction, and then pushed over it by the howling demon hordes. The light of life, of resistance and hope, dwindled as darkness enveloped the world.

Then, at last, Azeroth awoke.

All who stood upon her surface or soared above in her skies felt it. Demon and mortal alike felt the awesome presence within the world come into full awareness. Like a wave, the raw knowledge of what was transpiring rolled out across all present. The demon hordes hesitated, halted in the midst of their slaughter, their howling voices falling silent. The only sound was the wind. The last mortal defenders of Azeroth lowered their weapons and looked to one-another. They understood, at that moment, that their duty had been fulfilled. They had held to the last moment, had kept Azeroth safe. Now it was time for the final war to be fought.

From deep within the world, brilliant light poured forth, shining up from below through mantle, crust, stone, and earth. It was as if Azeroth had become a star, brilliant and glorious, shining with all the energies of creation. The light swept up, and in its wake the world was remade in brilliant luminescence. Where forests had been burnt to ash, they stood again - trees and vines made of glimmering arcane light, every leaf a prism of radiance. Mountains rebuilt themselves into towering peaks and soaring summits, glowing like alabaster. Rivers of arcane power flowed through once-dried channels, feeding into seas of pure light. Demons shrieked as the ground beneath them became lethal - arcane forests sprung up around demonic legions, branches punching through fel-wrought armor plate as if it were paper, leaves slicing apart demon flesh like blades. Even the grass underfoot shot up through demonic hooves and talons, piercing them without resistance. Mo'arg and felhound, eredar and infernal, legion soldier and demon beast by the millions screamed as the radiance devoured them, dissolving their bodies in bursts of arcane flame. Ered'druin, nathrezim, and other flying demons survived but moments more, taking to the skies to avoid the deadly earth beneath them, but the light lanced outwards in great towers of shimmering force, erasing flying demons by the thousands. Overwhelmed, the Legion that had held the world in its dark grip pulled back.

The surviving mortals of Azeroth stood unharmed in the blazing energy that radiated from within their world. The Titan recognized each and every one of them, knew them better than they knew themselves. From the bravest hero standing firm in the face of the demons, to the youngest child waiting fearfully in some final sanctuary for word of hope, Azeroth reached out and welcomed all of her children home. One by one, the last mortals of Azeroth vanished, fading away in glimmers of arcane light, drawn into the rising Titan. Armor and weaponry vanished with them, then the bodies of the slain and their accouterments. Then the rubble of their kingdoms, the hewn stone of fallen towers and smouldering cut timber of their dwellings. Broken monuments and shattered citadels, fortresses and cities, temples and deep tunnels... all vanished, all signs that mortals had even existed, were erased, replaced with wilderness of gleaming arcane light.

From far away in the dark of space, Sargeras watched as the darkness of his demon armies surrounding Azeroth was burned away. He and the Burning Legion bore witness to a sight the cosmos had not beheld in countless millennia - the birth of a Titan. Shining with the awesome force of Titanic birth, the world of Azeroth unfolded like a blossom. The land shifted and heaved, flowing into new and glorious forms. There was no destruction, no tearing of the land, no grinding of mountains or crumbling of continents - this was an act of creation, not destruction. Mountains flowed like molten metal, forests rippled and moved and seas swirled. Horizon became mighty limbs, oceans and clouds became luminous tresses. Cosmic winds buffeted the growing figure, drifting stardust traced the outline of wondrous ornate armor. Where once the world of Azeroth had glimmered like a jewel in the Great Dark Beyond, Azeroth the Titan now stood upon the aether, glorious as all the stars in the heavens. Eyes like twin suns shone out, illuminating features both strong and beautiful. Those eyes took in the sights of all the cosmos in its splendor, of stars without number and wonders without end, and then fell at last on her enemy - Sargeras the Destroyer.



The Opening Salvoes of the Last War
Sargeras beheld the rise of his greatest fear - a Titan whose power rivaled his own. Not the barest hint of the Void's corruption marred her great spirit, not the smallest trace of fear could be found in her brilliant eyes. But Sargeras beheld a rival, one who stood against his dream of remaking the cosmos. She could not be permitted to survive. With a howl that shook the stars, Sargeras thrust his blade towards the Titan - at this command, the full force of the Burning Legion that he had brought with him surged to attack.

Like a nebula of darkness and fel green flame, the Burning Legion swarmed forth. The great horde that had attacked Azeroth before had been only a fraction of the forces that answered Sargeras' call to attack. Huge tendrils as large as worlds made up of millions of screaming demons tore their way through the empty space, a dozen spears of demonic fury aimed at the heart of the ultimate enemy. At the tip of each colossal tendril was a cabal of eredar, thousand strong, chanting spells of chaos and ruin. The fabric of reality tore, streamers of broken dimensions carried along by the demons' charge, ripping open great rents into the chaotic depths of the Twisting Nether. Rivers of fel energy coursed forth, guided by the sorceries of the eredar to encircle Azeroth. The fel currents constricted around the Titan's colossal form. Where the green energy touched the gleaming arcane aura of the Titan, the glorious light dimmed. Chains of pure fel, vast as mountains, crashed down and were pulled tight. Along them came rank after rank of felguard, mo'arg, shivarra, felhounds, and other demonic monstrosities, using the magical currents as bridges to reach the surface of the Titan. Eredar and nathrezim hurled sorceries from above, raining infernals down by the thousands. The might of the Burning Legion closed in around Azeroth.

With a shrug of her great shoulders, Azeroth broke free. The constricting chains of fel energy blasted apart, dissolving under the raw arcane force flowing from within the Titan. Demons screamed and were unmade, infernals fizzled out like spent coals. With a gesture, Azeroth sent a beam of raw arcane force blazing from her palms into the nebulaeic tendrils of demons closing in on her. The beams lanced out and burned through the tendrils, dissipating them in an instant. Countless demons were consumed, their corporeal forms unmade and their polluted souls sent screaming back to the Twisting Nether. With a toss of her shimmering hair and a flexing of geologic muscles, Azeroth broke the hellish swarm, destroying in an instant more demons than had ever fallen in the entire history of the Legion's Burning Crusade. Never had the demons known such utter defeat - not since the days that Sargeras had fought as a champion of the Pantheon.

Sargeras watched as Azeroth unmade his Legion with the barest flicker of her great power. For a moment his fury was eclipsed by his admiration - the newly born Titan was everything the Pantheon had promised him it would be. A champion without peer, a force against whom no enemy could stand. With that thought, Sargeras' fury grew ten-fold. No enemy but Sargeras himself.

Sidebar - The Universe and the Titans
The universe itself was born from war - the oldest war. Good and evil, light and darkness. Before the universe existed, there was only the Light - oceans of vital energy, without form and substance. In its shadow grew the Void - an entropic force of infinite destruction, all-devouring and corruptive. The clash between these two primordial forces rent the cosmos asunder and birthed the universe - time, space, stars, worlds, planes of reality and cosmic energies, all flowed forth from the conflict between Light and Void.

As the universe was born, the energies that comprised its existence came into being as well - arcane order and fel disorder, the living essence of spirit and the deathly power of decay, and all the primal elements of creation. When certain worlds were bathed in the precise amount of these creation energies, a worldsoul was born within them - a nascent Titan. When a Titan emerged from its slumber, it was born into the universe as a living world, a colossal humanoid planet, wielding the energies of creation like a living god. Many such Titans banded together and formed the Pantheon, a group committed to finding more of their kind, and exploring the universe they found themselves in. And none was more committed to the universe's protection than the mightiest among the Pantheon, their great champion - the Titan Sargeras.

Sidebar - Sargeras and the Burning Legion
The Titans traveled the universe and nurtured life on the worlds they found, ever searching for worlds where their kin lay in nascency. In time, they discovered worlds where life had once flourished, but had since been ravaged and destroyed. The Titans learned that dreadful beings called demons existed in the universe, born from a realm called the Twisting Nether, a chaotic dimension of ever-shifting energies. Demons existed to ravage and destroy for their own twisted amusement, using their vast powers to bring ruin to living worlds. Sargeras vowed to destroy these evil beings and preserve the worlds of the universe from their despoiling.

Over the millennia however, Sargeras' soul became filled with despair. The demons were seemingly without limit, and though their power was not enough to harm the Titan physically, the horrors he witnessed inflicted grievous wounds of the spirit. Sargeras began to fear that any universe where creatures of such evil could exist was fundamentally flawed, perhaps irredeemably so. When his comrade Aggramar joined his cause however, Sargeras found that he could still hope for a better future - with enough Titans at his side, the universe could perhaps be truly protected from the despoiling of the demons. He redoubled his efforts to thwart the demons, and find other worlds where nascent Titans lay.

Alas, the fatal blow to Sargeras' newly kindled hope came with the discovery of an even greater evil in the universe. Sargeras came upon a world infested with eldritch entities called Old Gods. After interrogating demons found basking in the presence of the wicked beings, Sargeras learned that the Old Gods were born of the Void, a realm of infinite darkness and corruption. The Old Gods sought to corrupt the nascent Titan within the world they infested, twisting Sargeras' kindred into a vessel of destruction and chaos for the malevolent forces that dwell within the Void. This discovery pushed Sargeras over the edge - the universe where such horrors existed had to be destroyed. The only hope was to burn away existence and build something better on its ashes, free of demons and the Void. Thus resolved, Sargeras destroyed the corrupted world, killing demon, Old God, and nascent Titan alike. With this decision, there was no going back.

Sargeras turned against his Titan brethren and sought out the demons he had once battled so mercilessly. Gathering their limitless numbers to his command, Sargeras formed them into the Burning Legion, the largest army the universe had ever seen, or would ever see. Together they would carry out Sargeras' vision - the Burning Crusade, the purging of every world and every life, until the universe was cold and empty and still. Then, Sargeras would remake all existence in his own image.

Sidebar - The Ordering of Azeroth
After Sargeras had left their ranks to patrol the universe, the Pantheon found a world where a nascent Titan lay, a Titan with greater potential than any other the Pantheon had ever seen. They learned from their slumbering kin's dreams that the world was called Azeroth, and at once discovered the horrors that had so badly affected their brother Sargeras - the world was infested with Old Gods, the Void-born horrors already burrowing deeply into the world to infect the nascent Titan. The Pantheon marshaled all their powers to find a way to preserve their slumbering kin.

The Titans sent armies down to Azeroth's surface to strip away the defenses of the Old Gods, and constructed arcane prisons and pocket dimensions to banish the servants of the dark entities. Finally, the Old Gods themselves were bound in great tombs to limit their growth and prevent further corruption. The Titans molded the surface of Azeroth and nurtured life on it, laying in place systems and machines to monitor the growth of the world and ensure that the nascent Titan would be safe. Having done all they could, the Pantheon departed to seek out other worlds to aid.

Before long, the Pantheon crossed paths with their fallen brother, Sargeras. He had been greatly changed by his ordeals, having becoming a towering furnace of destructive fel energy, and flanked by endless legions of demonic horrors. The Pantheon made every effort to turn their brother away from his destructive course, but Sargeras could not be swayed. Even the tales of Azeroth, a world that was host to a Titan mightier than even Sargeras himself, did not stay his hand - Sargeras unleashed all of his fury and his Burning Legion upon the Pantheon, slaying them to the last. Sargeras then sent his Legion forth to scour the universe and find Azeroth - not a single nascent Titan could be allowed to survive and threaten his vision for a new cosmos under his rule.

Sidebar - The Search for Azeroth
Sargeras sent his demons out into the universe to find Azeroth - Sargeras could travel through the Great Dark Beyond at fantastic speeds, but even still journeying from star to star would take millennia, and he feared that Azeroth would awaken before he could find it himself. His demonic hordes traveled through the Twisting Nether, using magic and portal spells to search faster than Sargeras could moving through space. When demons found a living world, they would construct vast portals to transport their armies and their master great distances instantly. It was in this manner that Sargeras hoped to find Azeroth before the Titan within could awaken.

The Burning Legion burned world after world, and after many millennia of the Burning Crusade they discovered the location of Azeroth. Sargeras began the journey there through the Great Dark Beyond, but found that it would take him many thousands of years to reach Azeroth's star. His demons attacked Azeroth time and time again, always intending to construct a portal powerful enough to transport the mighty demon Titan there directly, but always the mortal inhabitants of Azeroth would thwart the demons efforts, tearing down their portals and casting them back into the Twisting Nether. Millennia passed as Sargeras made his way through space, his fury growing with every passing moment. At last, Sargeras arrived under his own power in Azeroth's star system - the mortal defenders of the world could delay their fate no longer.