At this moment, Duke felt like a million warhorses on fire were galloping full-speed through the corridors of his mind, trampling his brain, then looping back to dance a war stomp on his poor, battered heart.
Yes, he could resurrect. Yes, he had contingencies. But none of that mattered when the ghost alarm in his mind was howling like a banshee with a megaphone. After all the creepy spiritual nonsense lately, Duke wasn't about to test fate by casually face-planting into death again. Self-yeeting? Absolutely not. Not today, Satan.
Once he crawled back from his panic, he did the logical thing and checked the battle records. What he found made his stomach do a triple lutz.
He had committed the second of the legendary Seven Deadly Sins.
Great. Wonderful. Except he didn't even know what the other five were. For all he knew, the rest were horrifying curses like "Spontaneous Combustion" or "Sudden Hemorrhaging of Your Entire Soul." He had hoped for easy ones like "Pride" or "Wrath." You know, stuff you could work with. But fate clearly wasn't in a generous mood.
What really gutted him though? The history he thought he knew—the timeline where Khadgar, Lothar, and Garona did the righteous deed of raiding Karazhan, smiting Medivh, and earning eternal glory.
He remembered it so clearly: Khadgar, the nerdy apprentice-turned-archmage, stabbing his corrupted master and rising to become Azeroth's magical MVP. Heck, Stormwind even built a statue for the guy right outside the city gates. You didn't get more legendary than that.
But now? Khadgar. Was. DEAD.
The very same Khadgar who had once made Duke squeal with excitement (purely manly squealing, of course) during countless quests, freezing orcs en masse like he was conjuring up popsicles at a barbecue.
Khadgar, who stopped time to give lectures mid-battle!
Khadgar, who used space magic like a pocket magician and once opened a fridge to dodge an assassination!
Khadgar, who made teleporting dozens of people at once look as casual as adjusting his robe.
A human lighthouse of magic and sass, extinguished! And now Duke had no great archmage to carry him through the burning dumpster fire that was the current crisis!
Duke nearly burst into tears. He wasn't mad at Khadgar. Heck no. He had nothing but respect. But damn it all, that man was supposed to be the last, best backup plan! A magical get-out-of-apocalypse-free card! And now he was gone?!
Duke looked a bit... unraveled.
Meanwhile, King Llane and Anduin were, understandably, not flipping tables. To them, Khadgar was just a talented rookie mage. An apprentice with a scary master. In war, people died. A mage dying? Tragic. But not a kingdom-toppling disaster.
From their cold, royal perspective, Khadgar might even have looked suspicious. After all, he lived in the same spooky castle as the maybe-possessed-by-Sargeras Medivh. Guilty by association and all that.
"A female orc who speaks Common? Fluently? Now that's a curveball," King Llane muttered, clearly more intrigued by the unexpected visitor than the deceased apprentice.
Lothar, ever the pragmatist, added: "We've taken plenty of prisoners. Problem is, they either don't speak our language, scream obscenities, or try to rip out their own throats with their teeth. We've got less intel than a squirrel at a chess match."
Llane turned to Duke with a mischievous smirk: "Well, my young military oracle, care to join us for a little meet-and-greet with the chatty orc?"
"With pleasure!" Duke shot back with gusto.
If his gut wasn't failing him (again), that orc was none other than Garona — the half-orc, half-draenei assassin with a résumé of backstabbing so legendary it came with its own warning label.
Garona. The would-be regicide. The tragic pawn of Gul'dan's puppetry.
From a moral standpoint, Duke didn't hate her. She was the victim of one of the nastiest origin stories ever: her mom was a captured draenei, her dad a warmongering orc. Raised in shadow magic and gaslighted harder than a Hearthglen pyromancer.
But compassion didn't mean trust. Not when her entire nervous system had Gul'dan's evil fingers wrapped around it like some kind of infernal marionette.
If she was here, it meant something was about to go very, very sideways.
In the opulent royal audience chamber, Llane took his throne. Anduin Lothar stood to the right, Bolvar Fordragon flanked the left. Duke slotted in beside Lothar, quietly prepping himself for whatever madness would ensue.
And Duke's mental record scratched.
This was NOT the ogre-bodied bruiser he'd seen in-game. No, this Garona was sculpted like an exotic warrior model from an arcane fitness catalog.
Green skin, yes. Tiny tusks, check. But the rest? Oof.
Clad in cracked leather armor that covered just her chest and shoulder, and an animal-hide skirt that did nothing to hide her sculpted legs, Garona looked less like a brute and more like a wild panther who'd learned to flirt.
Her muscles rippled like she'd been carved out of green marble. Abs? Check. Mermaid line? Double check. The royal guards surrounded her with halberds drawn, but she didn't flinch. Instead, she examined the chamber like a curious child at a museum.
Chairs. Murals. Ceilings. She was fascinated.
The humans, meanwhile, were fascinated by her.
And then—awkward silence.
Lothar finally broke it: "I heard you speak Common. Fluently?"
"Garona. My name is Garona," she replied breezily, entirely ignoring the question.
"Khadgar said humans always start conversations with their names." She shot Lothar a dead-serious look.
"Uh. Right. I'm Anduin Lothar."
She tilted her head. "Are you the chieftain of the Storm Clan?"
Lothar's face twisted in a confusion so pure it could be bottled and sold as facial cleanser.
"Not the chief? Then I have nothing to say to you."
The room collectively blinked.
Even Llane snorted, barely restraining a laugh. But royalty must maintain composure, so he boomed, "I am the king of the Kingdom of Stormwind! Llane Wrynn!"
Duke, meanwhile, was sweating bullets.
Because now the chessboard had changed. And Garona had just taken her first step across it.