Deadwind Trail.A name that promised a leisurely walk through a graveyard—and delivered extra.
In the ancient days, before it became the dead, choking throat of the Eastern Kingdoms, Deadwind Pass was a pleasant enough canyon between Duskwood's spooky forests and the Swamp of Sorrows' eternal mosquito orgy. Birds chirped, grass swayed, flowers bloomed. You could actually hear yourself think over the sound of your own impending doom.
But now? Now, it was a cursed throat—and Karazhan was the massive tonsil inflamed with fel magic and insane architecture.
No longer just a tower—a wizard's fever dream had sprouted into a spiteful skyscraper of doom. It loomed, brooding over the pass, cloaked in pulsating blue arcane energy that hummed like a chorus of eldritch bees. The tower didn't just exist—it announced itself, every spire a raised middle finger to logic, gravity, and good taste.
Twenty stories tall, with six snaking support towers twisting around the core like gothic spider legs—flying buttresses, they called them. Because apparently, even doom needs structural integrity. And flair. Don't forget flair.
Each of those towering legs connected via double-arched bridges, like a spiderweb spun by a caffeinated architect. And every inch of the damn thing was etched with magical runes that screamed "you will die here" in fifteen different dialects of arcane gibberish.
Dragons? Please. If a whole flight of dragons dared show up, Karazhan could spit lasers from its windows and fireballs from its gutters. This was Sargeras' evil bachelor pad, and Medivh—possessed, fabulous, terrifying Medivh—was hosting the worst party Azeroth had ever seen.
At the top of this magical eyesore, in a throne made of pure crystallized arcane sass, sat Medivh himself—no longer a noble guardian, but the chaotic puppet of the Dark Titan Sargeras, lounging like a smug cat.
"Such a shame," he mused, swirling a chalice of what looked suspiciously like liquified despair. "Most of my power can't cross worlds. But hey—where's the fun in being too overpowered?"
His voice dripped with mockery as he turned toward a hovering crimson prism, inside which a ghostly, young soul was having a full-on panic attack.
Once Medivh's apprentice. Now his soul was banging against the walls of his crystalline prison like a fly trapped in a wine glass.
"Mentor! Wake up! Fight him!" Khadgar howled, his voice full of desperation and irony.
"Awake?" Medivh chuckled, stroking his chin with a smug grin. "Oh, sweet summer soul. I've always been awake. You think you fooled me, little spy? I knew from day one you were Tirisfal's plant. And I let you in anyway."
"W-why?" Khadgar whispered.
"Why?" Medivh laughed so hard he nearly spilled his existential dread. "Because I was bored, you adorable idiot. Do you know how tedious it is, rotting in a half-corrupted mage with nothing but tomes and talking furniture? I needed entertainment!"
Khadgar's soul paled—if such a thing was possible.
"The real plan was to let you run back to Stormwind, beg your king for help, and then let the three besties—Lothar, Llane, and you—come back here for a dramatic, tragic, blood-soaked reunion. Very poetic. But you? You were so dull. So... predictable. So I tossed you aside and picked a new protagonist."
He smiled like a game master who had just switched campaigns mid-session.
"That Duke boy? Now there's a wildcard! Talented, desperate, irrational—perfect. He's chaos with a spine, and I adore it."
With a flick of his hand, the crystal containing Khadgar's soul was yeeted into a corner of the void like yesterday's leftovers. Not shattered. Just discarded.
Then Medivh leaned back and tapped his forehead. With a glimmer, his Eye of the Wizard activated, letting him voyeuristically peek across Karazhan's corrupted halls.
The once-scholarly fortress was now a twisted carnival of horrors. Servants, spies, and soldiers—anyone who'd dared enter—were now playthings. Their bodies twisted. Their minds bent. Joints cracked in directions no anatomy book approved of. Limbs lengthened or vanished entirely. Teeth grew where eyes had been. Eyes blinked from their knees.
And in the basement ballroom? The cursed conga line of moaning, twitching meat puppets had begun.
Back in Stormwind, things weren't much better.
King Llane stood on a palace terrace, visibly trying not to have a breakdown. His golden hair, once shining with confidence, now hung limp with anxiety. His crown might as well have been a fifty-pound paperweight on his soul.
The Queen approached gently, elegant and composed—because someone in the room had to be. She held his arm and whispered, "Didn't you once tell me it's better to regret doing something than regret not doing it?"
"But... it's Sargeras," Llane replied, voice barely a whisper. "The legendary, universe-bending, titan-class demon of doom..."
She looked him dead in the eyes. "And has he never lost before?"
A memory stirred—ten thousand years ago, the War of the Ancients. Elves remembered. Elves always remembered.
"...He has been beaten before," Llane muttered, as if the idea were freshly invented.
"Then we'll do it again," the Queen said, with a fire in her voice that could ignite the banners. "And if we fail—then let us fail gloriously, not trembling in a cellar like scared little rats."
Llane was silent—but not defeated.
Suddenly, the sound of boots echoed.
Anduin Lothar and Duke stormed in like thunderbolts on legs. Faces grim. Eyes aflame.
"Your Majesty!" Duke shouted, face pale but defiant. "We've no way out but through! Will we die slow and cowering—or fast and fighting!? CHOOSE!"
"But... if we rebel and fail... the people—"
Bolvar stepped forward and dropped to one knee with a clank.
"Then let the world know we tried. That we stood tall in the face of hell. Better to burn as heroes than rot as cowards. Let the devils mock us all they want—we won't give them the silence of surrender."
And above it all, watching like a smug interdimensional hawk, Sargeras grinned from Medivh's cursed mouth.
Yes... yes... dance, you little insects... dance your last war.
This was the opening act of his masterpiece.
The symphony of annihilation had just begun.