Friends Lost
Kel'Thuzad roared with excess anger and rage, throwing frostbolts and shadowbolts the size of greatswords around his personal hell, the high walls of his personal chamber aboard Naxxramas echoing with the bursting energies of the projectiles. With a final yell, his form was obscured in a blinding blizzard, his trademark psychopathic laughter reverberating along the cold winds of the spell. With a screech of overwhelming necromantic and arcane power, the storm dissipated.
Outwards.
The walls and wooden tables of his lair were beaten and battered, cracking and splintering with the sheer force of the explosion of ice and arcane energies. Lowering his hands, the lich turned to his throne, throwing his tireless body into it.
Even though he couldn't feel anything...
The spruce and ice throne had never felt so comfy...
That did little to suppress the rage he felt for his blindness and stupidity, however.
"GODS DAMN IT! OF ALL THE GODSDAMNED PEOPLE, WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE HIM!?!?!" the archlich bellowed, his deep, echoing voice reverberating off of the battered and destroyed walls of the necropolis. With a snort, he conjured a refreshment table.
With a snarl, he unleashed a spell.
A single frostbolt destroyed the pristine oak table, the tall pitchers of wine and water exploding from the sheer cold of the spell. The bread and biscuits that accompanied the drinks decayed and cracked apart with the necromantic energies that were common in all of his spells. The small plate of assorted cheeses exploded everywhere, rotting and destroyed before they hit the floor. The plate of lamb chops went untouched by the initial blast, but quickly succumbed to rot and frost, the steam rising form it quickly dissipating to overwhelming mists of cold.
.........
The archlich felt better after his little temper tantrum...
For the moment, anyway...
I should have seen it coming. What with all my former... colleagues showing up. He was the first major servant of Ner'Zhul, for gods sake!
Kel'Thuzad clapped once, the room darkening, then illuminating at the center with magic. With a pop, the lich's personal library exploded into view, all manners of taboo, powerful, strange, and generally dark subjects contained within.
Despite the situation he found himself in, he wondered what Twilight's reaction to the bank of books that likely were the last of their kind. Their secrets lost to everyone but himself. His mind needed ease, and the surreal world of reading was most definitely a way to ease the mind.
She'd probably want to keep something... Maybe I shall bring her something back...
Kel'Thuzad always loved reading. Even before his nights blended into days, the lack of the familiar action of sleep admittedly causing him great stress and anxiety in the beginning of his unlife. When he was a boy, he would often spend hours in his mother's study, collecting all the knowledge he could into his young mind.
Part of me wishes she was still alive when I left for Northrend... maybe she would have been able to talk some sense into these old bones...
With a sigh, Kel'Thuzad grabbed a handful of his personal tomes, and retreated to his throne, fuming silently. He settled down into his imaginary paradise of peace and quiet, gazing over the four random titles he grabbed.
.........
The Cursed Beauty of Lichdom, By Grand Archlich Kel'Thuzad
Heh, Twilight would LOVE to have this one... pity she never will... lichdom is not for as free a spirit as hers...
With a chuckle, he thought over the outcome of such an act.
Her brother would most likely incinerate me...
He lifted the stack, and shoved the weathered book underneath it, looking at the tome atop the pile.
Building the Necropolis, By Obrahiim, the Traveler
HAH! Maybe this one... Obrahiim was a remarkable man. I always wondered where he ran off to...
With another shuffling of leather and paper, the next book was before him.
Secrets of The Netherstorm, By Anonymous
Never visited the place myself... though a comprehensive look at a land quite literally held together by magic would make an interesting gift...
Living with the Cold...
Kel'Thuzad's frozen heart sunk.
By Lady Jaina Proudmoore
I... I think I'll bring her this one...
The lich was still an archmage teaching in Dalaran when Jaina had started her lessons there. While Antonidas was her formal teacher, he had taught her a considerable amount about summoning and binding techniques. She also learned the basics of frost magic from him, later on. The two were close friends until the day he departed for Northrend. In fact, when he was leaving the city of magic, the young sorceress was one of the last faces he saw, before riding off for the shore, desperate to communicate once more with the voice he now knew as the Lich King.
She seemed... sad.
.........
"Kel'Thuzad!" Jaina yelled, her form hurriedly dashing after the elder wizard, his long, violet and golden robes billowing in the autumn winds of the Hillsbrad Foothills. The mage turned to the sorceress, his gaze softening at the sight of the young woman his student had become.
"Jaina..."
With a grunt, the aged wizard was embraced by the younger mage, a sniffle sounding from within his chest, the mage quite obviously disheartened by his departure.
"Kel'Thuzad, Antonidas told me you were leaving the Council! That isn't true, is it?!" she whimpered, her eyes showing actual concern for the wizard's rather sudden decision. With a sigh, Kel'Thuzad reached up to wipe a single tear from her face, Jaina's tears running even stronger down her face from the action.
"Jaina... do you remember what I told you when we started your lessons?" the wizard asked, a look of fatherly concern blanketing his face. Jaina gulped in between sobs, the usually steadfast and determined young woman broken apart by grief at the thought and sight of one of her friends leaving, possibly forever. She nodded quickly, another shiver of sadness running through her body.
"Magic... magic doesn't take sides. It chooses it's own path, but can be influenced by those who speak it's language." she smiled sadly, now understanding.
"This is about our rules, isn't it?" she asked. She had caught him in his study earlier that month, testing his primitive reanimation magics on rats. The elder wizard had pleaded that Jaina not tell a soul, to which she agreed.
"Yes. This is about the city's rules. I am no longer welcome within this city, because of my devotion to studying magic, of all things!" he huffed, a look of contempt covering his face as he stared up to the Violet Keep, at approximately the same spot as Antonidas' chambers.
Stubborn old fool... I'll show him.
"But... but..." Jaina tried to counter the mage's decision, trying desperately to dig through her grief-stricken mind to find a good reason for him to stay.
Kel'Thuzad silenced her pleas with an embrace. Jaina dove into his robes, her tears staining the enchanted cloth of the mage. With a gentle push, the young mage withdrew from his embrace.
"Jaina... I want you to keep something safe for me." Kel'Thuzad turned to his right, the staff that he held within his grasp the center of his attention. "This staff has been my friend for nearly thirty years, Jaina. Its seen me through thick and thin. Never once has it broken or shattered, and it's oak shaft has saved my skin from an Orcish blade more times than can be counted. But, she's an old war horse, and were I'm going, I'll need a walking stick, not a war staff."
"Kel'Thuzad... I..."
The wizard shoved the staff into her hands, the trembling mage clutching to it with an almost desperate grip.
"Take care of her for me."
Jaina sniffled once, nodding to the wizard as he hugged her once more.
"Goodbye, Jaina." he whispered, withdrawing from her embrace slowly, the sorceress whimpering once as he did, almost desperate to not see her friend leave the city forever. Kel'Thuzad remained steadfast.
He did not look back.
Not once.
.........
The lich sniffled lightly, images of his former apprentice flashing through his head. The next time he saw her, a frostbolt of anger and betrayal entered his neck, the necromancer seeing the sorceress' teary eyes for a moment as he took his dying breaths.
When he assaulted Dalaran with Arthas and Archimonde, he saw her once more. Galloping away from the city on horseback, a group of younglings and mages in tow.
He could have killed her.
Warned Arthas or the Eredar of her escape.
But he didn't.
As she rode away, he caught a glimpse of something glinting in her right hand.
His staff.
She had kept it, even after everything.
For a moment, the lich had regained lucidity. Enough to overlook the mage's escape.
Barely.
I... I never meant for her to die...
The last time he had seen her, or anything for that matter, was when he died for the last time.
At Karazhan.
In the crypts...
She had tried to stop him. To prevent his ritual to raise the army that awaited him within the crypts.
She finally broke through his wards as he finished the ritual.
The magic...
It tore her apart...
She was little more than ash when he turned to face her, a few paltry scraps of bone and robe still recognizable. Not that her death meant much at that point. The archlich was mad with rage and loyalty to his king. As the adventurers that followed her finally defeated him, he regained enough sanity to mourn for his old friend, however briefly...
He missed her...
.........
"Wait." he said aloud, the archlich's mind reeling back to the moment he started his lessons with Twilight, nearly a month ago today.
The question he asked her, and her response to it...
Magic itself is not evil. Those who use it choose it's use...
.........
That sealed it.
When he returned to the land of the living, he would test his theory.
As he sat it his mind, deep within the cold dark of the Twisting Nether...
He prayed to the Light for the first time in nearly a millennia...
Prayed for his friend back...
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Something just struck me as odd while reading this, and of all the strange thoughts I've had, this one is definitely one of the more random ones in terms of timing and relevance: If Kel'Thuzad was originally a human, why does his name seem more like a high/blood elf name? It's even got that weird apostrophe in the middle like Lor'Themar and Kael'Thas, and I can't think of any (non-player) humans with that kind of inter-punctuation besides ol' K.T. himself.
ignored the local naming conventions and deliberately went for an intimidating, necromancer-y-sounding name.
It's almost like his parents *coughBlizzardcough*
In other news, yay for Jaina! Probably one of the most pleasant and reasonable Alliance leaders in the games. I have little doubt that Twilight and her will get along splendidly.
I just hope she's not still sore over the whole necrotic-disintegration-thing.
7025791 That's actually one of he reasons I decided to make his brother a High Elf instead of a human. He also lacks a known last name, making his only identification Kel'Thuzad. A strange but badass exception, in my opinion.
As for Jaina, his theory is the fact that he may have already found her. The fact that Twilight and her are almost literally the same person, and the fact that Twilight near quoted Kel'Thuzad's first lesson with Jaina have gotten the lich's hopes up.
Cross your fingers for the old fool!
7026064
Twi being Jaina's reincarnation. Nice concept, I can see the resemblance
7029266 Definetely. Kinda... creepily similar how both are smart, reclusive (for the most part), love reading and studying until it's almost unhealthy, are apprentices to one of the most powerful magi in the known world, AND are both insanely magically gifted in their own right.
7030197
And the worst tastes in BF's in recorded histroy :P
7030228 Arthas was decent...
Until he tried to kill her and everything else...
7014764 Ohh okay... Yeah, I love the story so far, but that part just stuck out like a sore thumb for me... No explanation on how Cadence and Shining Armor got a hold of this helm (or knew of it for that matter), or knew to summon Kel'thuzad. I look forward to the climax...
Why does the main page say update... yet no new chapter?