WORLD OF
WARCRAFT
Chronicles
Burning Crusade
Prologue: The Dark Portal
Juhani tossed and turned, the blankets tangled around her legs. She dreamed. In her dreams, she saw a desert, clouded by a dust storm. Lightning flashed overhead while thunder rumbled. She seemed to be floating towards something in the distance that had a pale blue glow to it. A voice echoed around her, a deep, menacing, grating voice.
"Betrayer… In truth, it was I who was betrayed! Imprisoned for ten thousand years. Banished from my own homeland. But my blind eyes can see what others cannot."
She was drawing closer to the glow in the distance and could now see that it was centered around some kind of structure, an arch perhaps. It radiated an aura of terrible evil and she didn't want to get any closer to it. Some force, however, kept drawing her ever closer.
"And now you dare seek to enter my realm?" boomed the voice. Juhani could clearly see what it was now, a massive stone pedestal and ramp with an ornate arch at the top, shaped like a door. She let out a strangled gasp. The Dark Portal. She had seen it once before but it had only faintly glowed, cold and inactive. Now, it began to blaze with an eldritch light, the doorway between worlds opening once again.
"You are not prepared…" murmured the voice.
She began to see a series of images. A being that resembled an eredar demon but seemed to be something more. A High Elf with glowing green eyes and blood-red armor sucking the mana out of a mana wyrm. Orcs and humans and elves and tauren fighting in a strange world with a flashing, blood-colored sky. The images shifted one last time, bringing into focus what she first thought was a demon, crouched on the ground, staring at what looked like an orc skull. Then the demon turned towards and she saw that he seemed to be part night elf. The elf demon launched himself into the sky, strange runic tattoos on his bare torso began to glow with a demonic green light. She could see that he wore a blinfdfold, but its eyes burned bright green underneath the cloth.
"YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!" The voice beloowed as the demon elf swept down upon her. With a strangled cry, Juhani sat bolt upright in bed, sweat streaming down her face.
Author's note: According to the official timeline, Burning Crusade begins a year after vanilla WoW. I'm modifying that to conform to real world time so that BC starts two years after vanilla WoW. Varian will not appear until just before the events of Wrath of the Lich King.