The Crystal Vizier

by Lich-Lord Krosis

Stop #1: The Fall of Lordaeron

The serene countryside of Lordaeron was always one of Kel'Thuzad's favorite places to read and study. Whether he was propping himself under a tree, or practicing on the nearly unlimited amounts of knolls and kobolds in the area, this placid forest outside of Stratholme was his favorite place in the world.

Well...

It WAS...

When he was alive...

With a resounding slice, a strip of air broke open in a small clearing just outside the gates of the city, and the small group of memory-travelers all but fell out, quite obviously not used to portal travel. The lich chuckled, floating out behind them before promptly obscuring himself in a bright blue light. The three ponies looked away, the light becoming bright enough to blind.

"Ah... much better."

It was Kel'Thuzad alright, but he sounded... different.

The ponies looked back at their guide, stunned to see him... shorter.

Much shorter.

And he had skin.

"Kel'Thuzad!" Twilight yelped, catching the old mage before he hit the ground with her back, the wizard having not had the practice of leg usage in nearly a millennia. The mage inhaled, oxygen entering his lungs again. He coughed lightly, and stood up, patting the soft fur of the equine that held him up in thanks. He stood up, using a nearby tree for balance, shivering when an unknown sensation hit his skin, protected only by his thin robes of violet fabric.

Gods, I forget what it was like to actually FEEL a breeze...

"Thank you, Twilight." He said, shaking his head to clear his mind. He quickly realized he was going nowhere fast with his unused legs, so he need support.

I doubt Twilight would want to help me anyway... even in this form I must be twice her weight...

Muttering an incantation, his walking staff materialized in his hand. This greatly startled Twilight, who was obviously interested in learning more about Azerothian magics and energies, seeing as she had already written a small paragraph on the subject in her parchment.

Gods, she reminds me so much of Jaina... always studying...

He looked up, brushing a stray lock of greyish-white hair out of his face. All but one of his superiors were quite obviously interested and or confused about his new look. The one who was not... perplexed him.

Had his master SEEN humans before?

He decided to make a mental note in the back of his mind, and pretended he had not seen it. He chuckled, bringing another gloved hand to grasp his staff with both hands, using it heavily for support.

"I forgot you have never seen a human before." He laughed. The mares shook their heads, and Cadence spoke.

"What exactly... is a human?" She asked, her head reaching up higher to see him in more detail. Kel'Thuzad rubbed his beard, trying to think of a... reasonable answer.

"Humans are the main inhabitants of my home country, Lordaeron. They are the basic form of sentient life on my planet, and differ very little from ponies in their day-to-day lives. Beside the obvious physical differences, of course." He chuckled, motioning for them to follow. They walked in silence for several minutes, Kel'Thuzad trying to remember the exact way that he used to take to get to Stratholme.

"It's beautiful here..." Cadence sighed, resting her head on Shining's neck. The lich hummed in reply, indicating his agreement.

"Yes... it was..." Kel'Thuzad sighed softly, holding his hand up, signaling his little group to stop, the soft crunching of leaves falling silent as he did. He looked to the left.

Right on time...

A small brigade of battered Lordaeron infantry marched past them, moving with a steadfast fortitude and loyalty that only the presence of royalty required.

The Crown Prince in question marched in the front of the platoon, his gloved hands clearly itching to grasp ahold of the blade Kel'Thuzad knew was under the dark cloak he wore...

"Kel'Thuzad, who are they?" Shining asked, gently helping Cadence off his back, setting her down in the shade. The mage huffed, tearing his gaze away from the Arthas and his troops. He looked over to his queen, and sighed. She was winded, panting quite heavily. Her bandages had already started to show the smallest patches of red along the stitched slices in her flesh.

She shouldn't be traveling like this... she requires something... smoother...

"Lordaeron infantry division. Prince Arthas Menethil's personal soldiers... back after an expedition to Northrend..." He finally responded to his king, grasping his staff tightly as he prepared his casting hand.

"Lordaeron... isn't that were you grew up?" Shining asked, sitting down next to the mage, who's hand was now glowing brightly with purple arcane energy.

"Yes... it was... ah... there we go..."

With a resounding pop, the mage ungrasped his hand, and the fabric of the air around him... flexed and rippled.

Then stopped.

Perfect.

After he had effectively frozen the world, he opened up his mind once more. From a sizable rip that in reality that emerged nearby, a large carpet issued forth, flopping unto the ground with a dull thud. The three ponies looked at him, quite obviously confused. The mage chuckled, gesturing for them to hop on.

"Kel'Thuzad... what are you doing?" Twilight asked, helping Cadence to stand up, gently shepherding her sister-in-law over to the carpet. The princess in question yelped in pain halfway there, and collapsed, whimpering in obvious discomfort and pain.

These wounds of hers should have been FAR overhealed by now, if what I have read about Alicorn physiology is even remotely true...

The wizard moved towards the carpet, his hands trembling as he lowered himself unto the carpet below him. The aged wizard sighed in relief, and proceeded to hold out a hand to help Cadence settle down unto one of the riding pillows adorning the surface of the craft. The pink alicorn gasped in pain, and fell unto her flank, a large blotch of red appearing on one of her many bandages, closer to her hindquarters. The mage reacted quickly, freezing a small pillow that was near him. He reached out, feeling the comforting temperature of the makeshift icepad cooling his mortal fingers.

"My lady, here." he offered the pillow to Twilight, who took it hurriedly from his grasp with her magic. She turned to Cadence, who was lying on her side, her breathing labored. Shining accepted the pillow from his sister, and VERY gently pressed it against the wound. The mare grunted, then sighed, the improvised cooling pad doing its job, apparently.

"My lady, you are unwell, might I suggest that we delay this venture?" Kel'Thuzad inquired, mentally preparing the process in which they would use to return to the physical world.

"No. I-I'm fine." Cadence twitched, her right hind leg shaking from the stress of pain. The mage sighed, then nodded.

"Very well. Let us be off then..."

The ponies sat and waited. Was their guide insane?

"Kel'Thuzad, are you... alright..." Shining started, but then stopped.

The carpet was floating. Only a few feet off the ground, but floating.

"Kel'Thuzad, are you sure this thing is... safe?" Twilight asked, latching unto his side, holding on for dear life as the carpet slowly ascended above the treeline. The transformed lich laughed.

"Yes, my dear. Perfectly safe." the Archmage chuckled, the carpet slowly floating towards the distant city of Stratholme.

"G-Good..." Twilight whimpered, her form slowly retracting from the mage's waist. She tried to redirect her focus on something other than her fear of heights for the time being. Sighing, she dared a peak over at the horizon, and was awed by the shear vastness of the valley they were over.

"This place is amazing! I've never seen so many mountains near a forest before!" Twilight exclaimed, making the Royal Couple and their pilot chuckle at her childlike antics. Kel'Thuzad's grin slowly turned to a frown, remembering the morbid purpose of his task.

It's time. They deserve the truth...

.........

"Yes, the Plaguelands were... beautiful."

With a snap of his fingers, everything went dark. A dreadful smog instantly filled the air, blotting out the sun's warming rays of light. The ponies gasped as the once vibrant green forest... decayed. Shriveled. DIED.

"Kel'Thuzad, what's going on?!" Cadence asked, a fear she had never known present in her voice. The lich sighed, speeding up the carpet as the forest below them finally lost its green entirely, the rotting ground now exposed for his passengers to see...

"THIS, is what happens when living things are exposed to the plague..." Kel'Thuzad proclaimed, his gloved hand gesturing to a town in the distance, where the small lights of a raging fire blazed against the nighttime sky. Bloodcurdling screams quickly filled the air as they passed over the town, the sound of clashing steel and creaking of wood also mixing within. The ponies held unto eachother as the archmage leaned the carpet downwards, descending rapidly into the chaos of the destruction of Darrowshire.

The ponies frantically bade the mage turn away, but the lich stood his ground, nearly forcing the ponies to bear witness to the horrors HE had set in motion. Shining was eventually filled with a sense of morbid curiosity. To put faces to the screams and a form behind the dying...

He opened his eyes...

To horror.

Slaughtered men and women littered the crowded streets of the small town, trampled underfoot by the dozens upon dozens of rotting human corpses ravenously tearing the still living townsfolk to shreds of their former selves...

Horrifying aberrations of flesh and bone cleaved their way through several men at a time, some of them using nothing but farming scythe's and sharpened plows as weapons, their titanic, stinking forms crushing friend and foe indiscriminately...

Skeletal mages let loose icicles sharp enough to pierce steel, the skeletons cackling in maniacal glee as they cut down retreating women and children, some of the corpses being LITERALLY pinned to walls by the frozen projectiles.

The undead soldiers, in his mind, where animals.

No, worse than animals, he decided, watching a near-skeletal undead soldier cleave a human woman down with his rusty sword, the violent spray of crimson bathing the skeleton's bones in their gory hue...

He wanted to look away.

Wanted to scream.

Wanted to choke.

What came out was a cry of rage.

Of horror.

Of ANGER!

He continued to watch the human's eventual deaths fold out. Down to the last, cowering child. He watched...

Death.

"This is the Scourge, then. THIS, IS WHAT YOU DID?!" Shining roared, the Lich King's teeth baring as he stood upright, the mares behind him crying and pleading for the nightmare incarnate to end. The mage turned to look at his monarch, a passive look of untethered, unbridled rage shooting through his aged, pale face.

"No."

"This is what the Betrayer of Humanity did..."

Author's Note:

Darrowshire...

A morbid and twisted reminder of how dark the World of Warcraft can really be...

Comments

[Dipti]

Arthas Menethil Betrayer, Kinslayer, Monster, God of Death. Congrats Shiny you got some big shoes to fill some big bloody shoes hopefully you can wear them better than there last owner.

[Lich-Lord Krosis]

6648450 And he's got the ex-Betrayer of Humanity to guide him...

[Bazing]

Fucking excellent.
Only problem so far is that I've noticed you get "were" and "where" mixed up. I'd recommend an editor

[ExoDemonG]

WoW is a fun (ish) game to play but if you go into the lore of the world and stuff, you'll find that it's a very dark, messed up world. War-torn world is just the peak of the iceberg.

[Lich-Lord Krosis]

6648656 A lot of the Scourge's history in particular is messed up. My favorites list is as follows...

The Raising of Naxxramas, The Culling of Stratholme, The Fall of the Nerubian Empire, The Fall of Lordaeron, and The Corruption of the Sunwell.

[Cheshire-Trickster]

For the readers who have not played World of Warcraft, this should sum up the tragedy that befell the town of Darrowshire and what is now known as the eastern plaguelands.

[Tide Hunter]

"Kel'Thuzad, what's going on?!" Cadence asked, a fear she had never known present in her voice. The lich sighed, speeding up the carpet as the forest below them finally lost it's green entirely, the rotting ground now exposed for his passengers to see...

its