The Crystal Vizier

by Lich-Lord Krosis


Introductions

For the longest time, he had known only silence.

Silence, and darkness.

Quite the contrary to what most of his former colleagues in Dalaran theorized. They imagined the Twisting Nether to be an infinite realm of possibilities, a place where the laws of magic and physics are null and void. A state of being were even the Titans themselves were but tools of creation!

But no.

Kel'Thuzad was most upset at this fact when he had first arrived in his dark, boring, prison of a world. He had been so close. Just a fraction of a second more, and that pitiful excuse for a mage would have been naught but dust in the wind. But the warlock HAAD to have a soulstone ready, and he HAAAD to shoot a chaos bolt at his back, tearing a hole through his corporal ribcage, and he just HAAAAD to kill him.

Not that he could complain, no. He would need a mouth for that. And a body for that mouth to be attached to.

For nearly a millennia, this had been Kel'Thuzad's life. Or unlife, rather.

Being bound to the eternal being that was the Lich King had its perks and downfalls. On the upside, Kel'Thuzad never slept, drank, ate, or even rested for that matter. He was immortal in a sense. Bound to the realm of eternity by a simple spell. The downside was quite obvious.

He was dead.

Not in the undead sense, either. He actually has been legitimately dead for eight hundred and thirty-three years, twenty-one hours, and seventeen minutes. Hey, even if you are dead, you have to have something to do right?

A man has to have personal values if he has spent eight centuries alone in the cold dark of the realm in-between worlds.

Kel'Thuzad was a simple man, and never complained much. He could not tolerate three things, however.

For one, he never liked gnomes. Not that he had anything against them as a people, he just never liked the way they walked.

Two, he was a strong believer in loyalty. He believed traitors to be disgusting and vile perversions of the common man.

And three. He was absolutely terrified of dogs. He always preferred cats.

Kel'Thuzad's mind-talking was interrupted by a disturbance from his immediate right, a glowing silver light, about three feet across, and hovering in place, parallel with his soul's view.

Strange...

He slowly willed himself towards it, not caring at this point in the danger of touching something glowing within a realm of infinite and total darkness. What's the worst that could happen, death? Pfft. He was not a stranger to death.

The moment his vision was obscured by nothing but dull silver, his vision went dark once more.

Well, so much for that adventure.

He was hoping to actually have something to do for the first time in his own personal hell. He was just about to get into another angry bout of mind-cursing when he felt... a disturbance.

No, a suction.

He attempted to smile with his nonexistent face. He knew that feeling of pressure, of magical fluctuations that signaled matter transference.

For the first time in nearly nine centuries, Kel'Thuzad mentally jumped for joy.

He was teleporting.

To where, he was not sure of. But if he was teleporting, that meant one of two things.

One, he was free. Finally able to move on to the coveted state of true death, away from the pesky nothingness of the void.

Or two, the far more likely answer, the Lich King was back.

He was kind of caught on both of the choices at his disposal. On one hand, he would be back at his master's side, striking terror and horror amongst the ranks of the living. On the other, he would be... free. After all the countless years of waiting in limbo, he would finally be able to move on to the next state of existence. Maybe even see some of his old colleagues again!

Hopefully they have forgotten about that little incident with the Book of Medivh...

And the sacking of Dalaran...

And the murder of Antonidas...

He felt his soul being stretched further and further across the endless blackness. He could hear the familiar popping and crackling of magic in his ears. Giggling childishly to himself at the simple magic trick of matter teleportation, he exclaimed joyfully once again in his mind as the magic cracked, and he could see...

Light!

By the gods, it had never been so... beautiful...

Light...

Light...

"Hello?"

...

Light doesn't talk.

Damn it all.

He was back to liv... unliving...

"Are you okay, sir?"

"Yes, yes, I'm quite alright. I've been dead before."

"..."

"Hello?" Kel'Thuzad asked, groggily opening his eyes to glimpse his surroundings for the first time. What met his eyesight was no surprise. Dark, high ceilings, light blue ambiance that only saronite metal could give. Yep. Icecrown Citadel. No doubt about it.

"Did you say... dead?"

The voice was echoing from his right. But moving required effort, and one disadvantage of being resurrected after so long was a terrible case of stiffness of the bones. Kindly, he beckoned the feminine-sounding voice towards his eyesight.

"Would you please come over to my front dear? My back isn't what it used to be."

While he may have to rip the soul from their body, he would remain polite and courteous until the fact.

"Oh! Um... sure."

A second, more masculine voice.

Great, two of them...

The feminine and masculine voice presumably started towards his vision, but he heard something he found peculiar. The footsteps were not... natural. As if made by a claw or hoof on hard flooring. Tauren, maybe? Draenei? Worgen? The creatures enter his vision as he thinks, and... perplex him.

Equines?

Maybe I've been gone longer than I thought...

I wonder if time moves slower in the Twisting Nether...

"Greetings, Lord Kel'Thuzad. I humbly bid you welcome to the Crystal... EEEEEKKKKK!" The pink one says, probably the mare in the relationship, as she quickly retreats behind the ivory... unicorn.

A unicorn.

Whelp, should have seen this coming. I'm still undead. Undead equals ugly by mortal standards. And, to top it all off, I probably have to kill twice as many mortals now...

"Honey, calm down... Shh... shh..." The masculine one says, presumably the stallion, moving his body protectively over her, comforting his mate.

"Hi-His skin... oh my goddesses..." The pink one whimpers, hiding her lithe body as best she could behind her stallion.

"Well, what did you expect. I'm dead." Kel'Thuzad chuckled, coughing slightly at the end of the his little cackle, clearing the dust from his dormant chest. Turning his head so that he could see straight, he takes another moment to survey his immediate surroundings.

Okay, maybe not Icecrown Citadel...

He was inside some sort of... throne room, probably, seeing as there was an ornate pair of chairs towards the far side of the hall-like room, and tapestries of some sort of heart, purple and thrumming with stylized lines of what he presumed was energy. Near the center of the room, an ornate rune circle is drawn, stylized with a glowing dust of some sort.

Well well well. They can practice magic. Advanced and ancient magic.

"Kel'Thuzad, are you alright?"

The white unicorn snapped the necromancer out of his little surveillance, the Archlich's attention on him.

"Yes I am. I told your... mate, that I am quite alright, thank you." Kel'Thuzad snapped, a hint of annoyance in his voice. Then, something dawned on him.

How did they know his name?!

How did these pathetic, squishy mortal creatures know his name?!?!

"How do you know my name, creatures?" Kel'Thuzad says as he shakily rises to his...

Hooves.

He had hooves.

Interesting...

"I was told to summon you, Kel'Thuzad." The white unicorn says, standing up and striking a defensive pose before the tall, lanky stallion.

Once again, there was silence.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" The Archlich cackled maniacally, attempting to clutch his chest/barrel with his left forehoof. The unicorn looked onwards at him, unfazed by the chilling laughter. He stomped his hoof an snorted in annoyance. Looking back down at his would-be hosts, Kel'Thuzad settled down to the point of erratic chuckling, and after several seconds more, silence.

"Apologies. I have been dead for a while. It has been a long time since I have felt amusement." Kel'Thuzad then stumbled his way over to the couple, staggering several times, but regaining his balance before he fell. He slowly lowered himself unto his flank, and sighed.

"Now... give me a good reason I shouldn't rip your pathetic mortal bodies apart." Kel'Thuzad slowly said, staring down at the stoic unicorn, and the now terribly quivering... pegasus/unicorn? The two equines were silent for the most part, except for the pink one's excessive whimpering.

Good god. Had the girl never seen necrotic flesh before?

Kel'Thuzad scanned the room once more, while also scanning for any anti-magic wards. Never could be too careful. Next came external energy sources. These creatures, while small, seemed to be more than capable of magic. When he activated the spell in the back of his mind, the feedback from the surrounding area blinded him momentarily. Wincing a bit from the intensity of the energy and it's close proximity, he threw up a thin ward, protecting him somewhat, but making his fur glow slightly...

Fur.

He had fur.

The source was, unexpectedly, the small and fragile looking mare cowering under the unicorn. This small... Pegacorn... wielded more than enough power to be a match for the weakened and fragile lich. But for all of her ludicrous arcane might, she was afraid.

Why?

Another snort from the unicorn brought Kel'Thuzad back to reality once again, the scrying process fading from his mind as he shifted back to his own vision.

"Kel'Thuzad, as your king, I order you to stand down." Shining ordered, once again stared stoically at the tall earth pony, slightly unnerved at Kel'Thuzad's brutal, yet effective intimidation methods of silence and graphic explanations. The Archlich was silent for a while. He stared at Shining for a while, then calmly stared at the terrified Cadence, who's head was barely visible over the back of the larger stallion, who was hunched over her protectively. The Archlich was about to retort, when a glint caught his eye. He turned his eyes slightly to the right, and stopped.

For the first time in his entire undead existence, he felt short of breath.

There, in the middle of the room, was a discarded Helm of Domination.

No wonder this... pony was able to summon him...

He... he had taken up the throne.

And like it or not, for the rest of his eternal life, he was bound to serve the Lich King, no matter the cost.

And this unicorn...

This pathetic, squishy, fragile unicorn...

Was the Lich King.

Well... damn.