Death Never Dies

by Milton Garby

  "Of course not!" Sara shouted. "I just saved Azeroth and void knows how many other worlds! Don't you think I'm entitled to a little fun?"

  "Sara, listen."

  "No, you listen!" Sara boomed, and Leira cowered back under the sudden volume. The six walls of the library fell back and revealed volcanic plains as far as the eye could see. "Do you have any idea how good this feels?! All my life I've been told that everything I do is wrong! All my life I've been biting my tongue, staying my hand! And now? Now I don't have to!" She held her arms out wide. "I don't have any restrictions! I don't have to follow any laws! I can do whatever I want, whenever I want! I'm free! And you want me to just sit on some frozen icecap and let the world go on without me? Forget it! This is happening, and there's nothing you or anyone else can do to make it stop!"

  Leira stared at her in disbelief. "So, that's it then?" she whispered. "You're just gonna eat me and do, do your thing?"

  Sara sighed. "I'm not going to eat you. I've put you in a little pocket dimension. But other than that, yes. There's a little more setup I need to take care of, but once it's out of the way I'm going to 'do my thing'. I'll toss your parents into Outland. As for you… I don't know. I can't put you in Shattrath, we saw how well that went." She shrugged, floating higher. "Guess I'll just keep you here and build something for you." The volcanic plains started vanishing. Walls of stone and metal built up around Leira, forming… Ironforge. "Enjoy, Leira. And for what it's worth?" Sara looked at her and her glowing eyes softened. "I'm sorry. I tried to change, I really did! But this is who I am." She looked down morosely. "This is who I've always been."

  She ran after the disguised Old God, but Leira could only run in place. "Sara, don't do this!"

  Sara turned away from her. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a Dark Portal to close." She snapped out of existence.

  "Sara!" Whatever held her hooves in place vanished and Leira hit the dirt. "Damn it!"

  Something pushed at her mind, and Leira instantly recognized what it was. She steeled her will to try and resist the mental intrusion, wincing with the effort. For a moment the prodding magic relented… then it came crashing down with implacable force. Trying to oppose it was like trying to push the Eastern Kingdoms out of place. Leira buckled and…

  … what was she doing on the ground?

  She stood and brushed herself off. Leira needed to get to the guild hall; it was time for the final push to send the Legion off Azeroth.

  Yogg-Saron

  Just as it promised, Yogg-Saron sent both of Leira's parents to Outland. It extended its magic to them in Darnassus and catapulted them into the house it'd bought for Leira. Not like she was going to use it. Ungrateful brat.

  … no, that was unfair. Leira had every right to be upset. Yogg-Saron had betrayed her trust and forcibly mind controlled her and was now going to turn her birth planet inside out. It was probably safe to say that if Leira ever – somehow – escaped this second mind control, their friendship was over for good.

  Whatever. Yogg-Saron needed to get to the Dark Portal.

  It didn't want to do this from far away, it had other business in the area anyway. So it began to crawl, leaving the shattered Dragonflights behind. Its tentacles left canyons in Northrend even though it deliberately tried not to drag, and its body entered the ocean with a tsunamic splash.

  The oceans weren't deep enough for it, but oh well. Yogg-Saron crawled directly south, inspecting the seas. Water elementals trembled before it. Murlocs stared in awe. There weren't any naga, not after the naga war of its human self's youth. But their cities remained, gleaming spires under the seas that were clearly designed with night elven architecture in mind, but also made to account for the three dimensional motion living underwater provided. The Maelstrom tugged feebly on Yogg-Saron's tentacles.

  It decided the Maelstrom had been going on long enough. Ten thousand years? Time for a change. It plugged the Maelstrom, sealed the rift to Deepholm, and ended whatever malignant magic kept the whirlpool going. It also accidentally trampled a few cities, but what did it care?

  Yogg-Saron crawled across Azeroth and came up near Stranglethorn Vale. It'd have more interest in that later. With most of its body still lounging in the ocean, enjoying the ripple of the ended Maelstrom, it reached the tip of a tendril to the Dark Portal.

  Its magical sonar scanned over the structure. It was a work of art, it had to admit. The stone was perfectly carved into geometric shapes, the stone statues by either side were expertly crafted. The fel-tinted hole in reality shimmered with stars, and Yogg-Saron could see the trail it left through the nether, to far-off Outland.

  Yogg-Saron smashed its tendril down. The Dark Portal – and miles of demon construction around – were flattened.

  But that wasn't going to be enough. While destroying the frame would deactivate both sides of the portal, the scar in the Twisting Nether remained, tethering the two worlds together. Skilled magicians could reopen the portal. An Old God could certainly do so. So it needed to undo that as well.

  Yogg-Saron worked its magic inside. This wasn't shadow magic, but rather arcane. As a human it'd never actually… used arcane magic before. It simply hadn't the skill to school its otherwise dark powers into pure magic. It reached into the Azeroth side of the tear and began undoing it, piece by piece. It took a moment to marvel at the complexity of the spellwork, but then focused and continued.

  It was like unthreading a piece of cloth. It went slowly at first, but once it'd made enough progress it was easier to 'tear a hole', even if it was doing the exact opposite. Within two hours, the rift in the Nether started to heal on its own, traveling away from Azeroth and far into the Great Dark Beyond until even Yogg-Saron could no longer see it. Soon, it would reach Outland and the two worlds would once again, and forever afterwards, be separated.

  It sighed through the main maw of its head. That was disappointingly easy. Uneventful. It had hoped someone would at least try to stop it, but no. The most it had at the moment were a few fisherman on the shores trying to shoot it.

  But soon it would have all the challenge it could ever want. Soon the world would be filled with delight and chaos and unpredictability. Yogg-Saron crawled back a little, then drove the tip of its tentacle into Zul'Gurub. It moved it a little bit to the side, and uprooted the troll city. It wasn't important. What was beneath, however, was.

  Yogg-Saron began to lift off sheets of rock and throw them into the ocean, digging deeper. Then, after about a mile of digging, it found something blue.

  Blue, and glowing. Like a constellation of stars. Exactly like a constellation of stars. And beside it, staring up at the god, were titan constructs.

  Found you! Yogg-Saron positioned one of its moderately sized tendrils above the opening to Uldunol and pipped in some of its dark magic to clear the place out. The darkness spilled in like ink, killing all the titan constructs and disabling the automated systems. Then Yogg-Saron took control of the darkness, turned it to solid spikes and bludgeons and started to hack at the place.

  It opened locks, it shattered chains, it unhinged power limiters. And within an hour, it broke through the defenses and freed the fifth Old God of Azeroth, Tsa'Thannon.

  Yogg-Saron had so many memories of Tsa'Thannon. None of them really felt like memories yet, due to the whole 'reincarnation' business, but it could fix that once it had a moment. It'd been one of the last to develop and the first to reach its power. Its physical strength, mind magic, and size were all relatively small compared to the other Old Gods, but its combat magic was unmatched. Between the five Old Gods it was the one producing puzzles, coming up with new formations, new ideas, new torments, in greater quantity than any of the others. In a way, Yogg-Saron admired Tsa'Thannon. In others, Tsa'Thannon had admired all of them.

  And now, it too was free.

  The ground underneath the southern Eastern Kingdoms trembled as Tsa'Thannon shook off its inhibitors and extended its telepathy into Yogg-Saron's mind. 'Well well well. You took your sweet
time coming to get me,' it said sarcastically.

  'I had some pests to take care of,' Yogg-Saron explained. 'Now hang on, let me back away before you come up.'

  Yogg-Saron began to crawl to the west, all while feeding some magic to the other Old God who had, until recently, been completely depowered. Once it was far enough away, it ceased the flow of energy.

  Stranglethorn Vale and its surrounding region quaked, then visibly exploded upwards in a shower of lush vegetation, seawater, and stone. The millions of mortals and demons who had been there, subject to watching Yogg-Saron's tentacle dig around the area, screamed in terror and were abruptly silenced. The other deity rose.

  Tsa'Thannon's skin was pale gray. It was a touch larger than two thirds of Yogg-Saron's size, and instead of being shaped like an octopus it was more akin to a starfish, with five broader arms. Most of its weaponized tentacles were underneath, leaving the top of its body to be covered in mostly auxiliary tentacles, armor, eyeballs, and poisoned spines the size of a small moon.

  Yogg-Saron's sensory field crept beneath Tsa'Thannon's body to the head it kept beneath itself. It was a spherical growth on its underside, with yellowish eyes by the hundreds. A ring of teeth went all the way around, and feelers – which had, before they came into power, been flagella – waved around itself.

  'Oh, it feels good to be back,' Tsa'Thannon said. 'Now, fill me in. I've not been as active as you and the others. What's been going on with our world?'

  Yogg-Saron told it, relaying the history of Azeroth. Tsa'Thannon, after all, hadn't been partaking in their bids for freedom. Apparently it had been content with waiting out its imprisonment and simply taking the low-risk option for escape. As such, it had been very much out of the loop.

  Yogg-Saron told of the War of the Ancients, the establishment of the Burning Legion, and more. The First, Second and Third wars. Draenor and the draenei. It was jittery with excitement. Here was another Old God. Here was someone who could actually understand it, sympathize with it, and shared its desires. Someone who wouldn't tell it to 'be nice', who wouldn't tell it to stop what it was doing. The two gods spent some time catching up, and then it was time to begin making their homes again. It was finally happening.

  After so many years, the Old Gods were victorious.

  Yogg-Saron

  The goal was simple; to make the world just like old times. Before the Titans, before their imprisonment. But it suspected it'd be a tad harder than just waving their tendrils and putting everything back.

  Three of their number were dead. Not just dead either, but deader than dead. Y'Shaarj's soul had been obliterated when Garrosh Hellscream fell. C'Thun had tried to eject its spirit into the Twisting Nether while still recovering from the Titans' beating. As a human, Yogg-Saron didn't know its fate. It knew now. It knew all the math. C'Thun – and N'Zoth, who had tried the same – were gone, ripped to shreds by the astral winds. There was only Yogg-Saron and Tsa'Thannon left.

  That thought made it feel… heavy. It would never speak to those three again. With C'Thun, who had saved it when the Old Ones were young. With N'Zoth, whom it had saved in turn. With Y'Shaarj, who always felt it had so much to prove. Never. It would never see them again…

  Focus. Remaking Azeroth. It needed a plan. No, no it didn't. It could play this by the ear. What did it want to do first?

  I want to grab Therazane, it realized.

  The Elemental Plane wasn't originally a prison. All of the terrestrial planets in the cosmos had their own set of elementals and their own elemental plane to go with them. When a world came into being its stone was baptized in fire, its air and water freed from crashing comets. It would call forth the elementals, who would, eventually, reach peace with each other.

  Unless during their chaotic youth, they unknowingly sowed the seeds of eldritch tentacle deities that would keep them fighting for all time.

  Therazane was the one C'Thun had subdued. She probably felt pretty good about herself in Deepholm, even if the Titans had solidified its boundaries into a jail. She probably felt so confident and proud, safe in her domain, on good terms with the mortals, having helped destroy Deathwing.

  Probably felt like a heroine.

  Yogg-Saron lashed a tentacle at the air and opened a tear in the sky. With its full power restored, there was not the least bit of difficulty. Brown light shown through and Yogg-Saron reached a long, thin tendril inside.

  Deepholm was something else. Geometric chunks of orange stone moved on their own, contracting onto a spire or blowing outwards and hovering in the air. Jewel chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and the World Pillar stood strong, keeping Azeroth from 'imploding' into the elemental plane, which would be just the right kind of calamitous. Something to knock over on a slow day. Puddles of living quicksilver pooled on the slopes. Earth elementals of all types roamed around in relative peace, from the smallest group of pebbles, to stone drakes that had inspired the Titans' dragons, to giants the size of mountains.

  Yogg-Saron's tentacle emerged from the ground halfway to Therazane's throne, and shot towards it like a cannonball. Her throne was comprised of the best crystals in Deepholm, with entries and exits, patterns and defenses. Yogg-Saron tore off the roof with telekinetic magic and crushed it to dust, before scattering the glinting powder all over the elemental plane. For kicks, it killed a few of the stone troggs and mercury elementals.

  Therazane stared up at it terror, hovering in the air. "No," she whispered, floating against the back of her throne. "No, not again."

  "Yes," it said in Shath'Yar, knowing the Stonemother would never have been able to forget that language. "Yes, again." Therazane was forcibly pulled up and wrapped up in tendrils. "You know how this song and dance goes," it growled, switching to Kalimag. "Start clearing out the earth above Silithus and the Maelstrom. Unearth the bodies of C'Thun and N'Zoth."

  Yogg-Saron let her go and started to retract its tentacle from Deepholm, but not before releasing a supernova of mind magic into the realm while also destroying the shackles on its borders. "Don't keep me waiting," it growled, leaving Deepholm.

  The next thing to do might have been to grab Neptulon, or whoever was currently leading the Air and Fire elementals. Instead, Yogg-Saron reached its magic north and found the faceless that had died defending its ritual, including General Vezax. They'd sunk to the ocean floor, motionless. But it was the God of Death, it could bring them back however many times it pleased. Bursts of chaotic green lit up the seas, and they gurgled triumphantly, as comfortable underwater as above ground.

  Tsa'Thannon was reaching tendrils into the Firelands, but Yogg-Saron could see it also sweeping its magic over the planet.

  "You were right," it mused. "A lot has changed in our absence. These mortals give me a few… ideas."

  "I as well, I as well," Yogg-Saron confirmed. "Got Therazane." It reached to Ashenvale and found the skull of Soggoth the Slitherer. He'd been dead for over sixty thousand years.

  And just like that, he wasn't dead anymore. He rose atop a reconstructed body, roaring to the heavens as he towered over the trees, as tall as the mountains. "I… AM… RENEWED!" he bellowed, raising his head to the sky.

  "Indeed you are," Yogg-Saron told it, reviving more of its faceless in Northrend and teleporting them to Soggoth's feet. "Go to the northwest," it explained, forcing knowledge into their brains. "Break the backs of Darnassus and Exodar, bring them to their knees! You may each claim ten of their souls." Soggoth was larger though. "Soggoth, you may have a thousand. Another -" Tenth? Half? Yogg-Saron ran the numbers of prospective populations. " – two thirds of the ones you claim, sacrifice to me." Tsa'Thannon could get its own souls, and Vezax could wait for an order. "Go."

  The faceless, the n'raqi, bellowed and charged northwest, splitting off to go for the Exodar as well. And since Exodar's naaru was dead, and the presence of their gods brought them great strength, they'd be defenseless.

  While that was going on, rifts to the Elemental Plane began tearing open across Azeroth. Ashenv
ale forest began to burn. The Sunwell fell into the sea. Uldum was buried in sand. Therazane's minions began clearing away the stone over Silithus.

  Silithus… ah, the qiraji! There was so much to do. So much time. It could do it whenever it wanted, too. Qiraji next. Oh, but first, it suddenly wanted to grab some souls. Yogg-Saron teleported its body, appearing halfway over Kalimdor. It reached a tentacle around one of the 'hidden' camps in Mulgore and sucked the souls out of the tauren within. It shivered in delight as the life energy was drawn in. Oh, it would never get tired of that. These tauren souls had some 'spice' to them as well.

  Right, the qiraji. It found them squatting in Ahn'Qiraj, everything from colossal gladiators and prophets to battleguards, gathered in circles and praying. It could feel echoes of power rising from their rituals, their devotion feeding Yogg-Saron and Tsa'Thannon both as though they were offering souls.

  … speaking of souls, Soggoth had reached Teldrassil and easily jumped on top of it. The woods began to wither and die around him. Yogg-Saron resolved to keep a fraction of its vast consciousness attuned to the slaughter.

  "You have remained faithful," it boomed to the qiraji. It extended its sensor into them, reading them inside and out. It even found those qiraji who had attacked it on its expedition; they knew who 'Sara' was and wanted to rescue it from the mortals, but the obsidian destroyer they brought hadn't recognized the human as a friendly. They'd nearly gotten it killed.

  It felt forgiving. It only made its telepathy a little painful to them. "You have remained faithful, and so you will reap the rewards of your service. The lesser races have spent ages upon this world, conquering it, sealing you, denying you your place. Now." A flash of conjuration magic, and millions of weapons and armor pieces of all types appeared in Silithus. "Now go. Spread like fire," it explained, rapidly accelerating the incubation of larval qiraji. "Wash over this world and bring them to heel!"