Death Never Dies

by Milton Garby

  He shrugged. "I've said my piece, Sara. You're so eager to do whatever you want? Then make your choice. Now, do me a favor. Just let me go back to the Light." The dwarf closed his eyes and suddenly looked ten times his age. "It was so warm," he whispered. "So bright. For so long..."

  Sara frowned. "Fine. You did the best you could." Black lightning crackled around Fardol's body, atomizing it and releasing his soul. Sara collapsed the pocket dimension and scattered his ashes into Azeroth's clouds.

  Then she shattered her own avatar.

  It hardly seemed like it'd been in power for a year, but there it was.

  Of course, Fardol's... what? Words? Advice? Ultimatum? Whatever it was, Yogg-Saron wasn't able to forget it. Which wasn't to say it didn't try. It found ways to occupy its time. It experimented somewhat with consciousness expanding on tauren to create new tortures. It had Therazane switch a large portion of the planet's mantle and crust with each other. It played a simulation game by Tsa'Thannon, where it could only move on either the X, Y, or Z axis at any time in a complex, non-Euclidean maze and had to reach the end. That one was quite a challenge; it took it a month even with its full attention devoted to it. It was riveting, 'dying' in that over and over. Slinging spells and tentacles at Tsa'Thannon, warring with vast armies on a shifting landscape. It was amusing.

  For a while.

  Yogg-Saron could only imagine what it would be able to do if Azeroth were still as it were before. It could be a trogg, tunneling through the land. It could be a night elven architect, or a goblin merchant, a san'layn defector, and that was just scratching the surface. Oh, it salivated at the thought. All it had to do was give up everything it had achieved, everything it had ever wanted since it was a little girl, kill the only one who understood it, and render itself an endling.

  It wasn't worth it. There had to be another way. Yogg-Saron would talk to Tsa'Thannon, figure out what it thought of their new world.

  It crawled from its throne, sinking tendrils to the bottom of the ocean with phenomenal splashes, scraping along the mountains and islands without a care. Its magical aura continued to take in the information of its surroundings, granting it sight without eyes. Every rock, every creature, every atom was revealed to it at the same time. The sheer quantity of information was... staggering. Yogg-Saron took a moment to appreciate how keen its senses had become since ascending, but then continued onward.

  Once it had reached the equator, it extended its telepathy towards Tsa'Thannon. 'Greetings,' it said. 'I finally finished the project, it's all set whenever you want to take a look at it.' Yogg-Saron raised one of the city-sized tentacles closer to its friend and formed a sphere of interlocking indigo rings, some smaller than others, twisting and turning in the air.

  'Wonderful!' the other deity exclaimed. Yogg-Saron's orb, a condensed magical puzzle, floated over to Tsa'Thannon. It was proud of what it had concocted. It was a battle, with Tsa'Thannon's avatar within being at an enormous disadvantage to a vicious alien creature. There were mazes, smaller fights, a shifting environment in seven spatial dimensions... it'd outdone itself. 'I'll get started right away,' it said. Yogg-Saron sensed, rather than saw, it place part of its consciousness into the puzzle. 'Whoa, I died already. This is going to be good.'

  'It's the least I could do. Without the others around, sometimes I feel as if everything is so... quiet these days,' it said, hoping to glean something.

  Tsa'Thannon's mouth, underneath its body, sighed. 'I know what you mean. I miss them too,' it said, deep and patient voice dropping. 'And their touch is lacking, but it's not so bad! I'm here, you're here with me, that's all I really need... damn it, up to fifty deaths already.'

  Yogg-Saron nodded its main head atop its long neck. 'Right. That's all we really need,' it thought back to the other Old God. That was right though, wasn't it? Even if it missed the others, it should just be happy with what it had. It should enjoy Tsa'Thannon's company...

  That was a lie. It couldn't be happy with this. Domination was a wonderful way to blow off steam, but it just wasn't enough for it anymore. Not in a world without the others. Not in a world where it'd experienced life as a mortal. Perhaps Tsa'Thannon had the same concerns it did, but didn't give voice to them. Yogg-Saron doubted it. There was no path it could take that would allow it true happiness, no ideal scenario. But still, it only had one course of action before it.

  It would have to release Azeroth.

  It would have to kill Tsa'Thannon.

  Yogg-Saron

  First off, it wrenched the Aspects off their impaling spires and into a pocket dimension, healing their wounds as it did. It'd give them a few moments to themselves, and only then would it appear. Of course, it spied on them in the meantime.

  The four Aspects collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily. Ysera screamed and curled up, wrapping her wings around herself like a cocoon. After a moment of struggling, Alexstrasza pushed herself up onto her legs and crawled over to Ysera, holding her younger sister and whispering soothing words to her. Kalecgos struggled to stand in the infinite black void they'd been dumped in, aided by Nozdormu.

  How touching.

  Yogg-Saron teleported the Sara avatar into the darkness, levitating far above the dragons' horn level with her arms crossed. "If you've had enough of your pity party," she began, startling all four Aspects. "I'd like to get started."

  "You," Alexstasza hissed, hiding Ysera under her wing. "What do you want from us?" Her voice choked up. "Haven't you already taken enough? Haven't you - "

  "Be quiet," she said calmly, and the former queen shut up. "I'm here to make you four an offer. You see, I am going to kill the other Old God on Azeroth. Then, I'm going to sink into a lower plane of reality and leave Azeroth to its own devices. I'll find my own entertainment," she explained, leaving out the part where she'd continue to roam Azeroth in disguise. "The problem, however, is that Tsa'Thannon is more powerful than I am. So, I need help," Sara summarized, gesturing to the four dragons. "As you four are now, you'd die in an instant. However, I can make you stronger. About, say, Titan-strong. The four of you together, fighting at Tsa'Thannon's most vulnerable point, might be able to distract it for a few critical moments."

  "What?" Kalecgos breathed. "What game are you playing?"

  Sara shrugged. "I just told you. Normally I'd be all for playing the 'convince the dragons the Old God wants to help them' game, but I'm not in the mood. I've got a lot to do," she said, materializing a wristwatch and pointing at it. Purple light engulfed the four dragons, rewriting their current beliefs and shackling them to her will. "First up, Kalecgos."

  Warping over to him, she laid a hand on his forehead. He roared in agony, but she kept him in place as she filled the Aspect with all the power she could muster. With the Heart of Magic still inside, she could do a lot. It became corrupted, spreading its taint through the blue wyrm's body. Brilliant blue scales turned dull. The icicle-esque spikes on his legs turned black as night, and his horns grew to twice their relative length. His fangs sharpened. His magic grew. His entire body expanded to thrice its size, everything else growing with him. The essence of the arcane and magic within Kalecgos turned towards the darker half of the coin, the half where magic corrupted wielders, aged them with rampant use, and crippled limbs from over channeling. Soon Sara floated away, and Kalecgos, Aspect of Corruption, was ready to serve.

  Ysera was next. Sara summoned a forest of purple tentacles from beneath Alexstrasza to pin her to the ground and wrap around her snout to shut her up, and got to work on the queen's sister. She shivered as Sara approached but steeled herself when Sara placed her palm on the dragon's head and began. The webbing of her wings turned blood red, as did her eyes, horns, and various spikes. Like Kalecgos she began to grow, her verdant scales turning the color of long-dead ashes. The Heart of Dreams within her pulsed, then was overtaken. Ysera, Aspect of Nightmares, was finished.

  "And then there were two," she said, floating over to the hyperventilating Alexstrasza. She was less gentle about
this one. Alexstasza's ruby scales turned putrid green and her glorious horns curled in on themselves and became black. She gasped and panted within her tentacle prison; then she started to grow and Sara dismissed her restraints. Soon enough, the Aspect of Life was gone, replaced by the Aspect of Pestilence.

  "Nozdormu," she said, floating over to the last uncorrupted Aspect, who stared at her unblinkingly. She quickly read his mind and placed her hands on her hips. "You and I both know how this battle's going to go, don't you?" She shrugged helplessly. "Oh well. Predestination is as predestination will be. Try not to abandon us at an inopportune moment, will you?" she asked. This time Sara didn't even bother floating over to him, instead corrupting him from where she was. Nozdormu slammed his jaws shut and breathed heavily through his nostrils. His sandy body turned dark gray. Horns turned electric white. Arcane cracks spread across his body, oozing with mystic lightning as shimmering smoke began to follow his every movement. Murozond, Aspect of the Infinite, was now a reality.

  "I'll keep you here for the time being," she explained. "In the fight I'll teleport you near Tsa'Thannon's brain, where you can hurt him if you work at it hard enough. He'll probably kill you, so I'll resurrect you in that case. Except if he destroys your souls. No coming back from that one, not even with me around. If by some chance you survive the fight and we kill Tsa'Thannon, then when I put Azeroth back together I'll restore you and grant you back your old positions." She eyed Murozond. "Except you, Infinite. We both know how your story's going to end. Stay in this void for the time being," she said, snapping in some large prey animals and vats of drinking water. "I'll give you some warning so you can get ready. Prepare yourselves," she said, shattering her avatar and leaving the four obedient, corrupted Aspects safely tucked away.

  Alright. That was the original Aspects down. Revalion was already as powerful as he could be, and shackling him to Yogg-Saron's will would take but an instant. General Vezax, obviously, would serve without question. That just left the Elemental Lords.

  As much as Yogg-Saron would've liked to grab every dragon, n'raqi and faceless on the planet and throw them at Tsa'Thannon as fodder, that wouldn't work. Tsa'Thannon knew a great many spells, one of them a very special area of effect spell. It would blast all of the Old God's enemies with dark magic, growing stronger the more people it hit. Just bringing in eleven people - Yogg-Saron, the four original Aspects, Revalion, the four Elemental Lords, and Vezax - was pushing it. Any more and the spell would simply be too powerful. So it had to settle for the strongest ones out there.

  Luckily, the Elemental Lords were already magically subdued, just in case they got any funny ideas in their heads. It would modify them - and Revalion - to only obey Yogg-Saron later, lest Tsa'Thannon grow suspicious. It could pass off the Aspects vanishing as it finally growing tired of them and disposing of the dragons. Now, it was time to lay a trap.

  Sara reappeared in the Twisting Nether, far away from Azeroth's coordinates. The few demons floating around instantly teleported to safety. No matter. From her fingers, thick lines of void energy flew out, latching onto invisible parts of the Nether's fabric. Sara wove and wove, applying every trick and deception she could think of to make this trap as absolutely devastating as she possibly could. Shadow searing, soul tears, mana draining, spell cooldown increasing, and so many more. She poured more and more magic into it, so much that even her body back on Azeroth had to evocate to compensate.

  'Making something big?' Tsa'Thannon asked it.

  Guilt stabbed at its many hearts. 'It's a surprise,' it explained casually. 'You'll love it.'

  'I'll be waiting then!' Tsa'Thannon said, before returning to mixing and matching mortals' body parts. And that was the end of that.

  More and more ropes of magic filled the Twisting Nether, forming a tangled web with the Sara avatar at the center. Once it was done, Yogg-Saron carefully extracted its avatar from the Nether and dismissed it. The time had come. This was actually happening.

  Something... settled in its stomachs. Something heavy. Regret. Worry. Fear. If Tsa'Thannon killed it, there was no guarantee it'd be able to revive itself before the other deity destroyed its soul. It had to bring it into the Nether. There rested Yogg-Saron's trap. It could easily ensnare the minds of the elemental lords - while its combat magic was superior, Yogg-Saron was still Tsa'Thannon's better in mind magic - and bring them as well. There it could unleash its full power, strength that could hold closing portals open with ease, without fear of destroying Azeroth. There, it could truly battle its friend.

  It crawled across the world, towards Tsa'Thannon. 'I miss them,' Yogg-Saron said abruptly. 'It's just not the same without them. I can't stand it.'

  'What brings this on?' Tsa'Thannon asked.

  Yogg-Saron reached Tsa'Thannon and, after a moment of hesitation, started firing magical attacks from its tentacle at Tsa'Thannon. It was just 'sparring', after all.

  The other deity, of course, retaliated. Its lesser tendrils wrapped around Yogg-Saron's, dark missiles began to fly back and forth. As they started fighting, Yogg-Saron continued to speak. 'I spent some time as a mortal, you know. I... I hate it with just the two of us. I thought, when I turned back, it'd be just as good when it was with five, but... I think I preferred living as a mortal to living like this,' it said quietly.

  Tsa'Thannon's face, hidden underneath its starfish body, blinked its many yellow eyes. 'Yogg, are you alright?'

  It sighed through its millions of mouths, sending gale winds across Azeroth. 'No.'

  Then it began.

  Throughout Azeroth, a massive surge of wind gripped the land as air rushed in to fill the void where two Old Gods had been moments before. The Aspects, the elemental lords, and General Vezax, also all vanished, shackled to Yogg-Saron's will.

  They reappeared within the dark skies of the Twisting Nether, oriented so that the two deities were underbelly to underbelly. Tsa'Thannon's pearl-like head, with its hundreds of eyes and ring of teeth, was vulnerable. However, its top was covered in enormous, poisoned spines. Meanwhile Yogg-Saron's vulnerable heads were atop its body, but its heaviest armor was beneath. By orienting themselves like this, Tsa'Thannon's weakest point was open while Yogg-Saron's was secured. Its minions also appeared around Tsa'Thannon's head, and they instantly went to work on clawing, blasting and burning. Then, the trap it had laid in the Nether flared to life.

  A spider-web of void energy illuminated itself around Tsa'Thannon, and collapsed in on it. Every spell Yogg-Saron could include burst all at once. Portals to the void opened and pelted the Old God with ruinous energy. Its mana was burned, its body was plagued and its spells crippled, all while avoiding Yogg-Saron's minions. Then Yogg-Saron itself attacked.

  Its long limbs wrapped around Tsa'Thannon's gray starfish arms and constricted with star-shattering force. The smaller tentacles on Yogg-Saron's body whipped themselves at Tsa'Thannon over and over, puncturing the flesh and carving around the armored plates. The clubs of its crusher tentacles hemorrhaged a sickly green mist, which Tsa'Thannon inhaled before it realized what was even happening. From Yogg-Saron's more magic-oriented tentacles, a complete onslaught burst forth.

  Purple lightning blasted into Tsa'Thannon, and bounced around its body for miles. Calamitous doom and wracking plague filled its body and debilitated it. Superpowered spells, far greater in power than what it used for sparring, crashed from every available appendage it had, screaming towards the smaller Old God and pelting its flesh while it was still taken off-guard. A million and change orbs of emerald light appeared all around its vulnerable side, and each one unleashed a thousand rays of death energy to carve across its body, its tentacles, its head. Yogg-Saron repeatedly unleashed its most powerful spell, the Extinguish All Life spell, all across Tsa'Thannon's body without any restraint, forming kingdom-sized bursts of purple smoke around and even inside it, lighting up the void.

  Tsa'Thannon's shriek of shock and betrayal was piercing. The sheer volume instantly killed all the allies it had brought, forcing
it to resummon the elementals and resurrect both Vezax and the dragons, all while sustaining its merciless onslaught. Tsa'Thannon's smaller tendrils were sluggish and its many yellow eyes rolled about in their sockets. Its entire body oozed with black blood from countless cuts and stab wounds, congealing into sentient oozes and vaporous animi that wondered about the Nether in confusion, moments before Yogg-Saron's shifting waves of magic cut down the blood spawns.

  Then, Tsa'Thannon got a hold of itself. Suddenly Yogg-Saron's tendrils were clenching around nothingness as the smaller deity teleported to a moderate distance, wrapping itself in a spherical, purple barrier the size of a small planet. 'What are you doing?!' it asked frantically. Already, Yogg-Saron saw its vast magic working to repair the damage. Dispel the weakening effects, expel the diminishing gas, seal the bleeding wounds, mend its soul and regenerate its lost blood.

  Yogg-Saron didn't let up. If it gave Tsa'Thannon even an instant to gather its bearings, it would be on the receiving end of a whole world of hurt. It reached its magic towards Tsa'Thannon, inspecting its shadowy barrier and crawling its magic inside, dispelling it after a moment. It knew it could do better than that. Tsa'Thannon wasn't taking this seriously. Yet.

  Suddenly, Tsa'Thannon's shadow mends turned corrupted and each heal began to scar it more instead. It roared and teleported behind Yogg-Saron with a new shield. 'Stop this! What are you DOING?!' it pleaded. This time, Yogg-Saron wrapped itself and its minions in magic and warped over to Tsa'Thannon, shattering its barrier and renewing the onslaught. This time, however, waves of telekinetic magic kept its grasping tendrils away and brief purple walls appeared around most of Yogg-Saron's attacks. Half of the projectiles that got through were intercepted by shadow bolts, detonating harmlessly in the middle of the nether. A crack of void energy killed Yogg-Saron's minions a second time, instantly. It brought them back and continued, snarling.