Volume One, Chapter Five - The Gift of Azeroth
Azeroth drifted in space above the star for what seemed like an age, falling into an exhausted slumber, regaining her strength. The constellar were gone - their powers had been burnt out in guiding the final deathblow against Sargeras. The remaining naaru watched over the Final Titan, while their dimensional ships brought the surviving Army of the Light to her surface. Draenei prayed to the Light to aid Azeroth, and were joined by legions of starlight warriors. Overhead, white dragons wheeled through the skies, their white-fire breath burning away any lingering clouds of fel corruption. Elementals moved across and through the Titan in vast numbers, repairing the damage wrought by Sargeras. At last, when every mountain was rebuilt, every forest regrown, every sea cleansed, the elementals joined the Army of Light and Azeroth's once-mortal children, solemnly and silently watching over them. Ethereals, ever pragmatic and practical, spent their time laboring over the surviving star-vessels until each once was restored to perfect working order. Still, the ethereals found reasons to linger around Azeroth, delaying their departure. Finally, when the worldsoul of Azeroth stirred towards waking, and her still-slumbering consciousness was roused enough to reach out to the gathered multitudes and make her wishes known.
The ethereals and the naaru reconfigured many dimensional fortresses to become portals through the Twisting Nether to other worlds. With the demons decimated, Nether-travel was safer than it had ever been. The gathered races that formed the Army of Light would be able to safely return home and rebuild, and the ethereals would remain in contact with them all, binding the people of the cosmos forever. No world would ever stand alone against a threat again. After the Army of Light had dispersed, after her elemental and once-mortal children returned to sleep within her worldsoul, Azeroth finally awoke. Her strength was fully renewed, and she blazed with cosmic energy greater than before. A task lay before her, one that would tax her in ways even greater than her conflict with Sargeras.
Spreading her cosmic wings, Azeroth soared across the solar system. She gathered up the smouldering fragments of the broken Titan Infernals, the ruined bodies of her Pantheon siblings. Her energy flowed across them, snuffing out the last traces of fel corruption. The ruined fragments still held some semblance of Titan form, some echo of grandeur and majesty that had belonged to the beings they once were. It would not be enough for Azeroth to realize her goal, but it was a start. Azeroth flew on, combing the space around her sun, the Titan fragments trailing in her wake. She gathered up the fragments of her former moons. She flew to the cracked and broken worlds that she had shared the system with, worlds that had been shattered during her conflict with the Legion. These worlds had never held life, had never possessed the correct balance of energies necessary to bring forth even primitive elemental beings, but still they had held seeds of cosmic power. They would serve Azeroth as vital material. Small rocky worlds were shattered for their minerals, great gas giants were stripped of their vapors... centuries passed as Azeroth slowly gathered the matter of her solar system, the foundations of her grand design. Finally, after a millennia had passed, she was ready.
Azeroth spun the gathered matter together in vast discs and focused her cosmic energy upon them. One by one, six discs formed and began to collapse, their cores glowing hot with the monumental forces being worked upon them. Gravity flared, the spinning cores devouring the matter of their discs. Around the star they spun, growing and blazing brightly, collapsing from vast discs into small but growing spheres. All the while, Azeroth poured cosmic energy into them, drawing upon the essence of creation and sending it spilling into the six spheres taking shape. Six wondrous and varied worlds took form - mountains and chasms, deep oceans and hollow caverns, hills and plains and valleys. In the earliest ages of the cosmos, it was only by sheer chance that worlds had formed with the proper balance of cosmic forces to nurture a Titan worldsoul. But now, Azeroth had by design formed six worlds that would each serve as the perfect incubators for a nascent Titan. Each one shone with the energies of creation, brimming with possibility. Fertile soil, waiting only for the seeds to be planted.
The Titan Worlds are born.
Reaching deep within herself, Azeroth called forth the lingering spirits of the Titan Pantheon. When the Pantheon had fallen at Sargeras' hands, the Titan Norgannon had used his vast sorcerous powers in an effort to preserve their living spirits, and his magic had sent the souls of the Titans soaring through the great dark in a desperate bid to reach safety on the world that Azeroth had once been. The distance had been vast and the effort had been nearly doomed from the start - only the barest wisps of the Titans souls had managed to reach Azeroth, each spirit-echo finding purchase in the bodies of beings constructed by the Titans known as Keepers. Each Keeper had become the vessel for the last tiny spark of a Titan's soul, in most cases unaware of what exactly had taken place, feeling only some faded memory from their Titan creator. Nevertheless, these lingering traces survived within the Keepers, and as they returned to Azeroth's worldsoul, so too had the spirit-echoes of the Pantheon.
It was these spirits that Azeroth now called forth. One by one, the fragments of the former Pantheon rose out of Azeroth's worldsoul and were infused into the six newly-shaped worlds that drifted around Azeroth's former star. As each new worldsoul was infused into the planet that would nurture it, that would in time become its very form, Azeroth whispered their names to them, reminding them of what they had been, and promising them what the future would hold for them.
The first world was Amanthal, the Realm of Storms, born of Highfather Aman'thul.
The second world was Edenar, the Realm of Wilds, born of Eonar the Life-Binder.
Next was Golggath, Realm of Waters, born from Golgannesh, Lord of Sea and Sky.
Fourth was Gannon, Realm of the Arcane, born of Norgannon, the Keeper of Magic.
Fifth was Khazgar, Realm of Stone, born of Khaz'Goroth, the Forger of Worlds.
And the sixth world was Aggmar, Realm of Flame, born from Aggramar, the Great Champion of the Pantheon.
Those who had fallen would be reborn.
The six seeds were planted, and one day untold millennia from now they would grow into six new Titans, and a new Pantheon would emerge to tend the cosmos. The six newly formed worldsouls, slumbering in nascency, would need only one further thing to ensure they would develop into the wondrous beings that Azeroth knew they could become. They would need inhabitants - living beings who would grow and learn and thrive, who would cherish their homes and fight to protect them, their every breath nurturing the growth of the nascent Titan within their world. Azeroth reached deeply within herself again, drawing forth her memories and those of the Titans that she carried within her. In her mind, she saw the great Titan creation forges that the Pantheon had used to shape her world-self in its nascency and to create the vast ecosystem that had lived upon her surface. On each world, sprawling machine-complexes took shape, secluded in hidden valleys or buried deep beneath the world's surface. Construct creatures and artificial races took shape to operate and maintain the great edifices. Cosmic energies flowed through the machines and into the worlds themselves, sparking life in a thousand of cradles. One day these beings would spread across the newly made worlds, multiplying and advancing. Shaped by Azeroth's own memories, many of the new worlds inhabitants would resemble her own mortal children, while innumerable completely new creatures would arise shaped by the sleeping worldsouls.
At last, her work was complete. The six new worlds hung in the starry night, turning gently in their orbits around the sun. With one final silent farewell, a wordless thought that shone with love, Azeroth departed.
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We'll find out sometime this chapter!
I never applied, though given how often I'm asked that, maybe I really should...