World of Warcraft Chronicle Volume 2 (World of Warcraft: Chronicle)

by Blizzard

  Anzu watched over the multitude of lesser ravens that lived throughout Arak. He frequented the forest canopies below the spire.

  Sethe ruled the smaller wind serpents and lived with them among the shadowy nooks and crannies at the spire’s base. He did not treat his followers with the same respect that Anzu showed the ravens. Sethe was a cruel and demanding master of the wind serpents.

  All seemed well in Arak, but darkness was stirring near the spire.

  Over the years, Sethe became envious of Rukhmar. His wings were not as great as hers, and he could not soar through the clouds as she did. Sethe could barely even reach the top of the spire. He was doomed to live out his existence in Rukhmar’s shadow.

  That was not a fate he would accept. Sethe dreamed of striking down Rukhmar and stealing her powers for himself, but he knew he could not do so alone. The wind serpent eventually approached Anzu and asked for his help. Once they had vanquished Rukhmar, they would soar the roof of the world. They would reign as the twin kings of Arak.

  Sethe had assumed that Anzu was jealous of Rukhmar’s power as well. After all, the fire bird looked down on the raven with scorn for dwelling so near the ground. Yet Sethe was wrong. Anzu did not hate Rukhmar; he adored her. The raven had long harbored a secret affection for the fire bird, but he had never mustered the courage to profess his feelings for her. He knew that Rukhmar would never accept him as her equal.

  Anzu warned Rukhmar of Sethe’s intentions. The raven and the fire bird made a pact to work against the wind serpent. On the day Sethe launched his attack, Rukhmar was ready.

  She engulfed Sethe in her fiery wrath and burned his wings to ash. When the wind serpent plummeted to the earth, Anzu fell upon him and clawed out his eyes. Sethe used his dying breath to exact vengeance on Rukhmar and Anzu. He wove a terrible curse through his own flesh and blood, one that seeped from his body and spread into the land itself.

  Fearing that the curse would destroy Arak, Anzu devoured Sethe whole and locked the wind serpent’s dark energy within himself. Excruciating pain racked the raven as the curse twisted his body and soul. Anzu’s form shriveled and warped, and he lost the ability to fly.

  Though he had paid a terrible price, Anzu had contained the curse. Only a small portion of Sethe’s blood was left behind. It corrupted the area where the wind serpent had fallen, but it did not spread. This shadowy region would later become known as Sethekk Hollow.

  Anzu could not bear to present himself to Rukhmar. If she had not thought him worthy before, she would be disgusted by the aberration he’d become. He disappeared into the forest deeps, and he ignored Rukhmar whenever she called for the raven to show himself.

  ANZU SUCCUMBS TO THE CURSE OF SETHE

  Though Sethe’s curse weakened Anzu, it also gave him new power. Consuming the wind serpent had granted him command over dark magic. As Anzu grew more familiar with his abilities, he shrouded himself in a realm of shadow to hide from Rukhmar forever.

  After much fruitless searching, Rukhmar gave up. She was humbled by Anzu’s noble sacrifice, but she was also horrified by the curse that now darkened her home. Rukhmar took to the skies and left Arak. She finally settled atop Gorgrond’s highest peak.

  Rukhmar decided that if she could not find Anzu to thank him, she would reward his sacrifice by creating a new race in his honor. The fire bird drew on her own life energies to transform some of her kaliri followers into a winged people called the arakkoa, or the “heirs of Arak.” They embodied Rukhmar’s physical grace and majesty as well as Anzu’s intellect and cleverness.

  Rukhmar intended that the arakkoa would one day return to Arak, but not yet. Sethe’s curse still lingered, and the fire bird did not want her new children to suffer from it. After they had matured as a race and become wise, Rukhmar would lead them back to their ancestral home.

  Her only fear was that she would not live long enough to do so. Rukhmar had expended much of her own life essence to create the arakkoa. She would never be as powerful as she’d once been. The fire bird knew she would eventually grow old and pass from the world.

  Before that happened, she was determined to help shape and guide the arakkoa’s culture.

  For many generations, Rukhmar watched the arakkoa develop from afar. Occasionally she communed with the fledgling race. She told stories of Arak, of Sethe’s evil, and of Anzu’s nobility. Rukhmar also taught the arakkoa the rudimentary ways of commanding the Light.

  The arakkoa were quick learners. They mastered wielding the Light, and they became adept healers and seers. Many of their primitive customs revolved around the worship of Rukhmar. They revered her as the goddess of the sun, which they considered the source of their Light magic.

  The arakkoa were not content to harness the powers of the Light alone. Due to Rukhmar’s teachings, they revered Anzu as a deity much in the same way they did the sun goddess. Many arakkoa discovered arcane magic and became extraordinary sorcerers.

  As the arakkoa flourished, Rukhmar felt her life force fading. She communed with her children one last time and urged them to claim Arak for themselves. Rukhmar took to the winds and soared south, and the arakkoa followed. Just as they reached Arak, the fire bird breathed her last breath. Flames consumed her form, and she burned like a second sun in the sky.

  The arakkoa took Rukhmar’s passing as a sign of their own ascendancy. They vowed to create a grand civilization in Arak to honor her, one that would outshine any other culture on Draenor. The light of their knowledge and their power would blaze in the heavens just as Rukhmar had.

  Calling themselves the Apexis, the arakkoa claimed the highest reaches of Arak’s spire. They harvested timber from the surrounding woods, and metals from the nearby mountains. They built immense gilded structures around their towering new home. Using their mastery of the Light, the Apexis also crafted enormous lanterns infused with enchanted flames, which they hung along the length of the spire.

  Guided by the mythical tales of Anzu and his noble sacrifice, arakkoa sorcerers investigated Sethekk Hollow. They carefully studied the pool of cursed energy there, and they unraveled the mysteries of shadow magic. These sorcerers developed a unique ability to combine their knowledge of the arcane with the darker powers found at Sethekk Hollow.

  The Apexis embraced both Light and Void, believing they were natural parts of life. Two factions formed, each specializing in an opposing force. The Anhar order studied the arts of wielding holy magic. The Skalax order dedicated itself to studying shadow and arcane magics. Both groups occupied the upper echelons of Apexis society, and they shared equal prestige and influence.

  As the arakkoa solidified their power in Arak, they explored the world. They were not an expansionistic people, but they were curious. They forged outposts across Draenor to observe the local flora and fauna. The arakkoa studied the forests and their shapes, and they mapped out the great mountain ranges that crisscrossed the world. In awe, they realized that many of these places were the ancient remains of creatures that had once walked Draenor.

  Based on stories passed down from Rukhmar, the Apexis knew that the primals and the breakers were the offspring of these primordial giants. The arakkoa watched their endless warring with equal parts fascination and pity, but they never intervened. They were Rukhmar’s children, and they had inherited a touch of her arrogance. To play a part in the lives of land-dwellers was seen as beneath the Apexis.

  The arakkoa’s rise did not go unnoticed by Draenor’s other inhabitants.

  Near Arak, the dense forest of Talador teemed with primals. One of the most powerful was a treant known as Gnarlgar. Much like Rukhmar and her kin, this highly intelligent living tree emerged in the aftermath of Botaan’s destruction. Gnarlgar commanded immense power over nature magic as well as the Spirit of Life that flowed through the wilds.

  Gnarlgar’s knowledge of the ancient days was also vast. From the genesaur, the treant learned of the Evergrowth, the Sporemounds, and the communal sentience that had bound the forests as one.

&nb
sp; For millennia, Gnarlgar roamed the world on legs of tangled roots. The treant used its magics to strengthen the other primals in their war against the breakers. Gnarlgar also honed its own abilities and learned how to influence the minds of its plant kin. Before long, the treant could manipulate other primals and guide their actions.

  Gnarlgar found the botani to be the most promising of the world’s primals. If they were cultivated properly, the treant knew they could become a force of extraordinary might. Gnarlgar became the botani’s caretaker, and it refined their culture. The treant taught them the truth of the Sporemounds, convincing them that they would one day restore the Evergrowth to its former glory.

  Though the botani existed throughout Draenor, those in Talador were the most numerous and advanced. They became the heart of their race’s culture.

  Gnarlgar taught Talador’s botani unique ways to harness nature magic. They crafted pools of potent nature energies, which they used to transfer the spirits of fallen genesaur into new bodies.

  While the botani focused their attention on battling the breakers, Gnarlgar became aware of the Apexis. Their civilization was an affront against nature itself, something artificial that did not belong on the world. What was worse, the arakkoa abused the wilds and killed entire forests to build their unnatural golden temples and cities.

  Gnarlgar knew that these arakkoa were something far more dangerous than the breakers. Their devastating magics had the power to burn nature to cinders or inundate it with shadow energy. Unless the arakkoa were stopped, Gnarlgar believed they would soon conquer the whole of Draenor.

  The treant would not let that come to pass. Gnarlgar departed Talador in search of something from the primordial days, something it could use as a weapon against the Apexis. In time, the treant came across a massive fossilized root, one of the few intact pieces of Botaan that still remained in the world.

  After returning to Talador, Gnarlgar rallied the botani to its side and made a proclamation: to revive the Evergrowth, they must first defeat the blasphemous Apexis civilization.

  Then the treant revealed the root it had recovered. Gnarlgar told the botani they would use it to craft a new Sporemound, one greater than any that had come before it. The monstrous creature would stand at the head of their army and cast the Apexis from their lofty spire.

  Gnarlgar planted the root deep within Talador and began a great ritual to nourish it. Thousands of botani willingly sacrificed themselves, and the treant infused their spirits into the root. Slowly leaves and branches sprouted from the earth. These in turn grew into a mound of thorny brambles and leathery fronds. Gnarlgar named the burgeoning Sporemound Taala.

  As Taala took shape, the primals made preparations for war. The botani awakened new genesaur from their birthing pools. Meanwhile, Gnarlgar channeled the Spirit of Life into the forest and gifted thousands of trees with intelligence and will.

  These trees became known as the Gnarled. They uprooted themselves and walked the earth just as their creator did. Gnarlgar ordered them to form the front lines of its army, enchanting their trunks and boughs to ward off the arakkoa’s flames and shadowy curses.

  Tens of thousands of primals, bristling with nature magic and bedecked in armor of thorns, gathered in Talador. There, they watched and they waited as Taala’s awakening neared.

  The Apexis ignored the stirrings in Talador at first, believing them to be part of the war between the primals and the breakers. Yet the forests at the edge of Arak soon grew thicker. Vines crept toward the spire, planting seeds that sprouted into hundreds of new trees with astonishing speed.

  As the wilds encroached on the spire, members of the Anhar and the Skalax orders investigated Talador. Very few of these scouts ever returned. Those who did reported horrifying news.

  The trees themselves had come alive, and thousands of botani and genesaur were girding themselves for battle. Yet the most troubling discovery was the monstrous creature forming in the center of Talador. Arakkoa scouts reported that it was already larger than a genesaur.

  From what they had gleaned of the Evergrowth, the Apexis feared that this emergent being could be one of the giants that had shaped the infant world. If such a creature awoke, it would annihilate the arakkoa and bring devastation to the rest of Draenor.

  THE BOTANI BRING A NEW SPOREMOUND TO LIFE

  The Anhari and the Skalaxi leaders had no choice but to act. Their race’s survival depended on it.

  The two orders mobilized the Apexis and hastily formed an invasion force. The Anhari priests and Skalaxi sorcerers formed the bulk of the arakkoa military. They stormed through the skies over Talador. Guided by the Anhari and the Skalaxi leaders, the arakkoa ignored the primals they came across and focused on destroying the monstrosity forming deep in the forest.

  The Apexis army descended into Talador’s murky depths to find Taala, and brutal fighting engulfed the arakkoa and the primals. The Anhari priests carved through the wilds with blades of enchanted flame, and the Skalaxi sorcerers enfeebled their enemies with curses. Yet despite the powers at their command, the arakkoa could not break the primals.

  Gnarlgar entered a trance that allowed the treant to touch the minds of the primals and coordinate their movements. Every vine and root moved against the Apexis. The primals worked in perfect unity, routing the arakkoa and driving them back to the skies.

  The defeat shocked the Anhar and the Skalax orders. Nearly half of their forces had fallen in battle. The arakkoa scrambled for a means to defeat the primals.

  It was the Anhar order that proposed a solution. Its priests had devised an ingenious new weapon, which they called the Breath of Rukhmar. This mechanism would channel the energies of the sun and allow the arakkoa to wield incredibly destructive powers. The Anhari crafters began building this device atop the spire’s highest point.

  Meanwhile, Gnarlgar quickened Taala’s maturation. The treant knew the time had come to attack the arakkoa, before they could regroup and strengthen their defenses. Gnarlgar ordered more botani to sacrifice themselves, and it shunted their spirits into the Sporemound’s veins.

  Finally, Taala stirred. Giant fronds unfurled from around it, and the Sporemound rose up to its full height, towering over the forest canopy. The monstrous thorn-skinned creature took its first step, and the forests trembled with awe.

  Gnarlgar entered a trance once again, reaching out its mind to Taala and the other primals. At the treant’s command, they marched toward the spire.

  The Apexis watched the primals slowly approach, the awakened Sporemound silhouetted on the horizon. The Anhari’s weapon was not yet finished, and they feared they could not complete it before their enemies reached the spire. The arakkoa were doomed.

  A small number of brave Skalaxi sorcerers were not ready to give up. They volunteered to waylay the primals and give their Anhari allies the time they needed to complete the Breath of Rukhmar. During their defeat in Talador, these sorcerers had discovered Gnarlgar and learned of the treant’s ability to guide the actions of the botani and other creatures. If they could assassinate the primals’ leader, the Skalaxi sorcerers would deal a great blow to their enemies.

  The Skalaxi shrouded themselves in shadow to elude the approaching primal army. They reached Talador and stalked unseen through the forests until they found Gnarlgar.

  Just before the sorcerers launched their attack, Gnarlgar sensed their presence. The enraged treant broke away from its trance and quickly disposed of the Skalaxi, but not before the sorcerers had bent their dark powers against the creature.

  A curse bloomed within Gnarlgar. The creeping rot spread through the treant’s roots and boughs. Gnarlgar withered into a blackened husk and collapsed beside the bodies of its assassins.

  Gnarlgar’s death broke the unity of the primals. Confusion rippled through Taala and its kin. For a time, the primals halted at the edge of Arak before continuing their march.

  Destroying Gnarlgar had only delayed the primals, but it was enough for the arakkoa priests to finish
their work. Just as Taala reached the spire, the Anhari ignited their weapon.

  A violent tremor shook the spire as fierce energies roared through the Breath of Rukhmar. A beam of white-hot fire exploded from the mechanism and lanced through Taala’s chest. The Anhari weapon blew the Sporemound apart in a cloud of ember and ash.

  The Anhari then turned their wrath on the rest of the primals. The Breath of Rukhmar sliced through the botani, the Gnarled, and the genesaur, incinerating thousands in the blink of an eye. The few primals who remained retreated back to Talador in terror.

  The Anhari gave no quarter. They engulfed the fleeing primals in flames, and they scoured the forests that had crept into Arak. Once the arakkoa halted their attack, blackened earth and smoldering roots stretched out from the spire as far as the eye could see.

  The Apexis victory permanently blunted the might of nature. The Evergrowth would never return again, in any form. A new golden age of mortal civilization dawned on Draenor.

  Centuries after defeating the resurgent Evergrowth, the Apexis had flourished into an empire, and their population swelled. The high-minded arakkoa saw themselves as the most powerful force in the world—a force that not even the mightiest of the primals had been able to contend with.

  With nothing to threaten their existence, the Apexis devoted themselves to the advancement of science and magic. Knowledge became the most coveted resource in their culture. The Anhar and the Skalax orders became the caretakers of wisdom. It was their duty to catalog history, the study of magic, and information about the world and its various creatures.

  Rather than keeping this knowledge in tomes or scrolls, the Apexis developed something else. Anhari priests and Skalaxi sorcerers combined their magics to create crystalline storage devices. By merely touching one of these crystals, an arakkoa could consume all of the knowledge stored within it. They could even experience the memories of whoever had crafted the device.