CHAPTER ONE: ANDREGAS
"It's a pattern… a pattern…" the old man muttered in his sanctum, walking to and fro, adjusting a glass here, a crystalline reportaliser there.
"Sargeras betrays the Titans. Neltharion betrays the great Dragon-Aspects. Becomes Deathwing. What else? Where else? What else is poisoned? Numbers. It's all numbers. Logic. A pattern. In the end."
He stared up for a moment, black eyes blinking through thick spectacles. Staring in his mind at the stars beyond the ceiling. "Illidan betrays the Night Elves."
He stared at his eye, grown great in the reflection of the crystal, knowing that he himself had gone quite mad, but not knowing quite what to do about it.
The crystals were attuned to time, he knew that. He hoped his experiment would make him young again, but it was unpredictable. Nevertheless he would take the risk and see where it led. At least his notes might survive if he did not.
He had gained them at exceptional cost, all his remaining riches, a life-time of adventure and service – he had sold many precious items he deemed were no longer of value to him, but would certainly decorate an ambitious mage's home.
And yet he needed more answers, he possessed a question none had yet ever satisfied for humanity. And it burned at him, like the last candle past midnight, never snuffed out.
He had friends in Darnassus, home of the Night Elves, as he had once stood against the invasion of Archimonde with them and yet survived, and they were wise and experienced in a way that made his ancient years those of a child. The benefit of immortality, he supposed, a gift he hoped they were able to share.
Or at least, that he could learn some small measure of it. Even a small extension would ease his faith.
