Ok, I have not been writing for quite a while and I apologize for it, this chapter got deleted twice over so it may seem a little weak. Also, I started to paint my Dark Angels army (gogo intrinsic bias!) again so that is taking up a fair bit of my time, but I should be updating this story much more frequently than once a month.
The Lion of Azeroth
Chapter Three
Lion El'Jonson was amazed by this world called Azeroth. The only memories he had of a world this clean and pristine was that of Caliban, with its lush forests and beautiful mountain ranges.
"This land we are travelling is called Dun Morogh milord, home of the Dwarven people. Soon we will be arriving at the capital city of Ironforge." Turglynn said.
"I thought we were going to the human capital Stormwind City." said Jonson.
"We are my good man; the very cities are linked to each other! To go to one means that you will be going to the other sooner or later. Anyways, we should set camp here. It is getting dark and if we head off early tomorrow we should make it to Ironforge by the late afternoon."
The Lion took purchase the environment; it was quickly turning to dusk and the dwarf was right in the idea to set up camp. After Turglynn gathered enough kindling they quickly had a sizable fire going. Jonson sat down and hit the release hinges on his left pauldron, gingerly removed it, and took a cloth seemingly out of nowhere and began to wipe the grime off of it, as his entire suit of power armour was now filthy due to the weeks of nonstop travelling that they had been doing. Jonson has learned the history of this world in his talks with Turglynn. He knew about the First and Second Wars, where humanity was almost brought to extinction, he learned about the brave sacrifice of Turalyon and his compatriots to save the world from the demonic orcs. He learned of the demonic incursions of the Third War and how the humans worked together with the barbaric Orcs. Jonson was troubled by this. He had never known an Orc to be civil, rather only looking for a fight. He had slaughtered thousands of them and they all looked the same to him. How could the ones on this world be any different?
Morning quickly rolled around and Jonson snapped to his feet ready to go. He spent the night earlier cleaning his armour to some sort of semblance of being clean, because Turglynn told him that he sent a messenger ahead to secure an audience with the King of the Dwarves. After walking for a few hours in a snowy road, the two companions approached a gigantic ramp that was leading up to the top of the mountain. Turglynn quickly lead Jonson up the ramp, as he took the view in. He saw the burned out husk of two tanks, sitting on the side of the ramp, a relic from one of the wars this world had seen, no doubt. As they reached the top of the ramp, a plateau appeared, with an impressive gate of solid steel opening into the face of a mountain like some great beast. Jonson was impressed at how magnificent this whole set up was and how defensible from siege it was.
Turglynn turned around, looking quite excited, "Welcome to the home of the Dwarves, Lion El'Jonson." A broad smile broke across the face of Turglynn as he said this, clearly happy to be home.
As Jonson walked into the gaping maw of the mountain, the Dwarven folk jaws dropped in awe of him. Never before had any of them seen such a being. Jonson had grown used to this by now though, as it happened every time they went to a town on their way to Ironforge. As Jonson walked through the city, he was impressed with its architecture, being carved out of the very mountain. There was a bustling of activity going on throughout the city and he saw humans and dwarves co-mingling, a extremely short species that looked humanoid which stood no taller than two feet, Turglynn said they were called gnomes, and two xenos races, one which resembled the Eldar but had a purplish hue to its skin, and the other he could not compare to anything he knew. It had human like features, blueish skin, they possessed a short tail and had legs that ended with hooves instead of feet. Xenos scum he thought to himself. While on the Great Crusade, he had whole worlds killed for less of a reason than the mockery of a society found here. He could tolerate the dwarves and gnomes working with the humans due to their close resemblance, but these two xenos races were unacceptable.
"Xenos." Jonson growled to himself. How could the humans dare to work with the xenos filth? If he had his Legion with him, this world would be just another lifeless rock by now, floating through the void. He had to calm himself, rationalizing his actions. Surely these humans were deserving of knowing of the Imperial Truth and if they rejected it, well he would plan from there. Yes, that is what the whole Great Crusade was about, was it not? To show Humanity the error of its ways and bring it into the light of his Father's wisdom.
Just at the moment, Jonson and Turglynn went around a corner, and what Jonson saw froze him in surprise. A massive forge complex, based in the very heart of the mountain, surrounded by molten lava appeared, a testament to the architectural prowess of the dwarves. This was the last thing Jonson expected to see and was thoroughly impressed by it.
"Impressive is it not?" Turglynn inquired, amused by the surprised look on Jonson's otherwise emotionless face.
"It is quite impressive indeed my good dwarf. It is much like many of the forges that exist in the Imperium of Man, albeit much smaller."
At that Turglynn's mind started to wander. Ironforge was possibly the greatest feat of architecture and engineering in all of Azeroth, yet this man said it was "like many". How large was this "Imperium of Man" to have many forges like the Great Forge and for them to be larger. Turglynn's mind began to spin at the prospect of a forge being larger than the Great forge.
"Well here we are." Turglynn said, he stopped walking as he neared the entrance to a large room which was heavily guarded. From what Jonson gathered, this was the throne room of Magni Bronzebeard, king of the dwarves.
Magni Bronzebeard had a headache. It was a nagging one that wouldn't go away mainly because the headache was in the form of the ambassadors from the other races of the Alliance. While he was perfectly fine with the Stormwind ambassador, namely because they shared the same points of view on everything, the other ambassadors were really starting to annoy him with their constant bickering. By this time Magni had drowned them out, but he knew what they were all trying to argue for. The Gnomeregan ambassador was arguing that Ironforge should divert troops from the main war with the Alliance to retake Gnomeregan from the troggs. The Draenei ambassador was saying of how Ironforge should refocus its production power to help them repair the Exodar, so it would be more defensible from the orcs should they assault it. Finally, the Night Elf ambassador was demanding that troops be withdrawn from Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley in order to stop the Horde from chopping down some trees. The whole time, the Stormwind ambassador was recommending that King Bronzebeard jsut stay the course and help the humans of Stormwind stop the Horde from advancing on the Eastern Kingdoms.
Just as the Night Elf ambassador was loudly complaining, a dwarven aide scurried into the room, and whispered into the King's ear that the guest had arrived. With a loud yell, Magni called for silence and surprisingly, all the delegates kept their mouths shut.
It was at that moment that the figure walked into the room. While he could not make out fine details from such a distance, he could tell the figure was human. Although it seemed like that would be the understatement of his life. As the figure strode forwards, Magni had thoughts that were awe and fear, mingled together. The man was huge, easily over 8 feet tall, and wore black and gold armour with a quality of craftsmanship he had never seen. However he knew this armour was not just for decoration. There were dents in the armour from battle, but those served to make the armour all the more impressive. It looked bulky and had the appearance that it would weigh hundreds of pounds, but the behemoth carried himself as if he wore nothing but a simple shirt and pants.
As he entered the middle of the room he stopped, and began to speak in a booming, echoing voice.
"In the name of the Emperor of Mankind and the Imperium of Mankind I greet you. I am Lion El'Jonson, Primarch of the Dark Angels, the First Astartes Legion. I come to you from Terra, biding you welcome into the arms of humanity, and to take your rightful place amongst the stars as rulers of the galaxy."