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73. Five Headed Enigma
🕑 Added 2025-07-12 15:47:29 +0000 UTCI stared right into the burning, smoldering red-slit eyes of Alexstrasza, the sound of shuffling and claw scraping on stone behind me from her Prime Consort indicated a degree of offense at my directness.
At least that was the case for him, but the Dragon Queen didn't appear offended.
Quite the contrary, surprise and amusement were abundantly clear in her draconic features and scent.
There were minute variations between green and red dragons, but their effects were negligible on my judgments.
She was good with what I said.
This made my initial reaction seem silly. I overreacted, but the following movements of her lips and sight of her teeth made my instincts say the opposite.
I wasn't above that primal side. I knew that, but it had been some time since I confronted this aspect of myself. I really hoped this was worth all the effort put into this mysterious affair.
"It has been millennia since anyone spoke to me so… straightforwardly without wishing me harm. It is refreshing. As to the necessity of your presence, I think showing is better than telling." Alexstrasza said, her massive head tilting, as a second portal appeared.
She wasted little time, walking first, her body easily ten times mine, completely silent as it was swallowed by the swirling vortex. Korialstrasz followed quickly after, but not before giving me a look I had trouble deciphering.
I mentally shrugged and did the same. Immediately, I was enveloped in uncomfortably warm, stale air and dim light. The change of scenery was severe, from a vast, immaculate space to what felt like a bunker sealed off from the world for too long.
Because it was.
I could feel the potent and numerous enchantments and wards in my bones, sensing their immense strength. This observation only reinforced my suspicions but did not provide any concrete answers.
That was until I spotted the first eggs. Dragon eggs.
I may have never seen them in person, but I was familiar with their appearance—almost rocky, scaled shells adorned with curved spines, which were soft during egg-laying. The Titans could be merciful.
Yet their colors were unlike any I expected, not even obsidian black, which I had hypothesized as a reason the red summoned me with such… intensity—a relatively solid hypothesis at that.
And it wasn't entirely wrong by the looks of it.
I remembered some points where the Red Dragonflight tried to purify their black cousins, and it wasn't gentle.
Not that it could ever be. Corruption of such depth; helping them would be grinding them down and filtering out the bad before rebuilding them. Well, that was how I did it to the flora and fauna affected by the Nightmare.
I wouldn't recommend anything with sapient thoughts to go through that fate. It was brutal.
Given the tie to a fragment of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands, recovered from a place led by Deathwing's son, black dragon eggs were a logical assumption.
Black dragon eggs were the logical follow-up.
But that shouldn't have warranted that degree of secrecy, especially toward the green. Unless they were doing truly horrendous stuff, but that seemed improbable at best.
Perhaps there were some of this fallen flight brood somewhere else, but that wasn't what I was looking at.
It was a literal fleshy patchwork incorporating elements from all five dragonflights. Evidently, there was corruption in the mix, making my initial hypothesis partly correct.
And there weren't only eggs, but also dragons in various stages of growth, in the distance, in some sort of pause in their development.
Dragons that looked like all flights yet none at the same time.
Why I was brought here hadn't made sense until now, and it didn't now, not fully at least.
"Who did this?" I asked, my voice sharp and tinged with both anger and curiosity. This was, bluntly speaking, horrifying, and it went beyond the realm of morals. It was bad in every sense of the word.
Those were cubs–unborn and not–stitched together into chimeric constructs halfway between life and death.
It was done by someone with a deep, if flawed understanding of Life, or a mad scientist, or both.
Yet there was a mastery behind it, a vision, and it was intriguing.
"Those poor things are the product of the mad machination and tinkering of the now-dead son of Deathwing and his presumed general, Nefarian," Alexstrasza said somberly, and I could feel the conflicting pity, disgust, sadness, and wrath behind her every word.
And it begged the question I had the moment I saw those eggs, so I demanded an answer right away, "Why didn't you euthanize them? You are merciful, not wistfully naïve. You need me, I can see why, but why did that even become a possibility? I presume a lot, but that doesn't seem to align with your usual reaction to that type of discovery."
"Dangerously perceptive and sharp-tongued, I see. The Twin Bears did choose well. It is the case. But it is not their fault. They are blameless victims in an unkind world. They were taken from us for my failures, forcibly merged, and twisted into impure, incomplete, and flawed creatures of pain and hate. Giving them life as they are, out of my selfishness, would be nothing short of cruelty to them and every life of Azeroth. But they deserve love." The Dragon Queen answered, her claws gently approaching the nest where the eggs lay in a state of suspended animation.
"Your presence came to mind when I learned of these chromatic dragons, as someone who could help them and give them a chance to reclaim what was wrongfully taken. Bringing back Ancients is no small feat. I can hardly recall it ever happening, not naturally. Doing it not once but thrice, and planning for more at no cost is beyond legendary. Your reputation was great, now it is greater than you can ever imagine, nascent Ancient. The skills you cultivated are unique… You wield Life and Nature in a way reminiscent of the missing Keeper Freya. I can regrow untold forests in one breath, but truly fixing those eggs and whelps, I cannot. I believe, however, you can." She continued, staring intensely into my eyes.
There was a second or two for me to process what she said and how surprisingly humble it all was.
And it puts things into perspective, especially when spoken by the Life-Binder in person. But what she called me wasn't new. It explained a lot of things, though. She respected me beyond politeness.
I doubted it was to get in my favor, too. Alexstrasza was the Dragon Queen, not some sleazy politician. It was genuine. She probably didn't conceptualize it. It was far from unpleasant to be recognized for my actions without the usual worship.
'I guess that's true… and Freya… again.' It wasn't the first time I was compared to her. Ursol and Ursoc knew her better than the great majority of even the remaining Keepers.
To that effect, I had a good understanding of her.
My combination of mana was that unusual, as was my connection to the Emerald Dream.
It wasn't so much my magical power; I wasn't Malfurion, not even close.
I wasn't lacking, but I fought primarily like a warrior berserker for a reason, and I could do things virtually no one else could unassisted.
The only other instance was Titan Keeper Freya, who, as the Aspect of Life pointed out, was missing, as were the rest of the Keepers. I had some idea where, but summed it up.
Regardless of this conundrum, which my wise brother knew about, the fact of the matter is, I was perfectly suited to help those chromatic dragons.
That didn't mean I was going to do it without reason.
"That's not all, though. I know I'm being difficult, but I want more. You seem to have gathered a lot of those dragons, at all stages… and in surprising quality and number. One might assume Alliance adventurers wouldn't care. There's more to this. You want more than my biomantic talent to save them or assist in purging corruption. I have an idea, but I want to hear it from you." I interjected, knuckle walking to a blue and green female drake with a frown.
Her limbs were bent wrong, and her facial features were too old and young at once, and that was the first thing my eyes told me. My other senses painted a far less pleasant picture.
Poor things. And I wasn't the most empathetic. It must have looked even worse from a dragon's point of view, nevertheless, a red one.
Those were blatant signs of artificial aging, well a shit one that ignored half of biology.
I saw the same with some of the older orcs. It was bad, too, but somehow Nefarian did worse. And that the base blueprint was imbalanced did not help.
You don't force a process like this, unless you didn't give a shit about a somewhat stable mental, magical, and physical result. Haste makes waste; this was a tragic example of it.
Not that much could be done from the get-go with those patchwork dragons. Frankly, they reminded me of abominations, only alive. Or mostly alive.
"You're exceptionally inquisitive." She hummed, and I wasn't sure if this was a compliment or not, but before she continued, Korialstrasz's tail touched hers.
Then he spoke, "I will answer. It is both simple and complex. Our emerald cousin requested the shard of the Scepter of the Shifting Sand. It was under the care of Vaelastrasz, a stubborn old wyrm on a personal vendetta against all black dragons. His last target had been Nefarian."
The past tense prompted me to ask, perhaps callously, but I had to.
"He is dead?" I got a grim nod from both and bowed slightly, "My condolences for the little worth they are."
"Do not fret. He died fighting for what is right." The Prime Consort almost snarled, "He was murdered by this same dragon shortly after we contacted him. Following this, we investigated Blackrock Mountain to retrieve the fragment with the help of local forces. Simultaneously, Lord Nozdormu asked us to rescue the chromatic dragons and gather Nefarian's research. After this, the entire mountain was purged by dragon fire."
"I see… that does shed some much-needed light. The Bronze Dragonflight wishes for new puppets, then, though I found it hard to believe those are enough. There's what, a hundred maximum, and they're cubs. I understand why they would. Deathwing isn't dead, and the Burning Legion would invade again, but that seems pointless." I said, massaging the tip of my braided floral beard, utterly uncaring of how insulting I sounded.
There was no revelation that they shouldn't already be aware of, too. The Wild knew it, the Green Dragonflight did too, so should the red.
Mayhaps it was knowledge reserved for higher authority, but I had the Wise Bear share 'his' vision to the Wild Council.
The parts that I was relatively certain of at the very least. We were planning far ahead, which is why we hadn't declared war on the Horde yet.
And to the bronze dragons. It was an irrefutable reality, and they knew it, no matter how they looked at me now.
It was both worrying and amusing looks, but I knew they would do nothing to me for words alone.
But knowing the future didn't entail a responsibility to it.
Be that as it may, the number of horrors they let happen that could have easily been stopped or orchestrated themselves made them utterly impossible to trust.
This flight wasn't above using anyone as a pawn, even their dragon kin.
Alexstrasza herself was the most obvious example.
I wasn't sure if it was a strength or a weakness that she seemed to be at peace with them. It was something I wouldn't be capable of. If she even saw it like I did.
I wasn't dumb. Some of what the bronze did was absolutely necessary for Azeroth, but that didn't mean I had to like everything they did.
Or agree, their actions were convoluted at best and downright twisted at worst.
And having their interest wasn't pleasant. I still had no idea how they viewed me, but given I existed, I wasn't an anomaly to be pruned. Probably. This uncertainty would always remain.
But there was no use stressing over this. I had little problem playing the dragons' game if the Wild ended up better off.
"I would advance that it is an extreme view. Yet your accusation is not baseless… Their fate is to be in their claws, but as you've sadly put it, we are in turbulent times. They would have to fight." The Life-Binder acquiesced to my pleasant surprise.
She wasn't finished, "I myself am reluctant to this, but my duty surpasses my sensibilities. Dragons are waning, as is, we would fail to do our duty. It is a painful truth. But there is more than what I have shown you; those were incomplete, deemed failures by their depraved creator."
I nodded, mind working at full speed as we walked deeper into the cave system, where more and more sparkling, almost metallic sand appeared.
At the same time, the layers of defense multiplied by several magnitudes as fewer and fewer eggs and whelps of varying growth were seen and checked by me.
It was a house of horror that made what I did seem downright sane.
Then, a sealed golden door came into sight, and with a movement of her paw, it groaned and slowly opened. What was revealed made me both frown and purse my lips.
On a massive stele was a dragon unlike any other I had ever seen.
It was larger than the Dragon Queen, which shocked me, and it looked more like the bastard child of a hydra and dragon, and even for a hydra, it had too many heads.
And each head was distinct, one emerald green, ruby red, sapphire blue, polished bronze, and finally obsidian black. All shared a mix of frills, horns, and facial features.
"Chromatus, the epitome of Deathwing's son's atrocious research and violations of life, to combine the five flights into a new one loyal to his dark masters. He lacks the spark of Life and remains enthralled by dark magic. Yet like his brothers and sisters, he deserved a chance and can serve our world." Korialstrasz presented, his voice low as I approached the corpse that wasn't one.
He was neither dead nor alive. It was the same with the other chromatic dragons.
He was in a state of unnatural cryptobiosis of some kind; there was life, just not the spark for more.
And indeed, I could feel the magic suffusing him. The aura emitted was borderline suffocating and felt viscerally wrong.
This thing was no Archimonde, but that was the closest to the demon lord in raw power. As a threat, he was far less; mentality, intelligence, and skills were all equally important.
However, it was a non-factor at the moment. And any reading on how high his proverbial power was was useless.
This crime against reason was a horrid amalgam of the five dragonflights with virtually no balance and in a cage of Shadow magic.
He was a crude yet well-crafted chimera made by a raving lunatic with too little understanding and too much knowledge and influence.
It was a terrifying yet pitiful being whose only fate was mental anguish and physical suffering equal to the worst torture conceivable.
That was beside the five heads and how they interacted; hydra and two-headed ogres weren't the norm for a reason. If Chromatus didn't have a single mind… oh boy.
But if he came to life… it would be powerful beyond reckoning, and unstable, in agony, and insane. If it were up to me, I would have destroyed him. The secrecy was warranted.
This dragon would piss off a lot of dragons. He was displeasing me, and I was more open-minded than most.
If this came to light, dragonkind would enter a civil war. This was akin to merging every species in the Wild into one person as a show of unity.
There were good reasons Life magic was rare. It was the magic with the most potential for this kind of abomination. That and the Void, but the latter couldn't adapt and self-replicate like the first.
Yet it wasn't the only one that could engineer life.
"By the ancestors, you want me to heal this? There are so many problems I can't name half of them because they don't have one! Clashing energies, tumors, mismatching neuronal pathways, contradictory vascular systems… the corruption of black dragons… and more with uncontrolled power. That's purely the surface-level magical and physiological side. That's not healing at this point. That's total reconstruction." I enunciated after making a quick scan, each word echoing with striking precision to the ears of my small audience.
Alexstrasza could bring Chromatus to life; that was certain, it would only take a snap of her claw. I can do the same with ample preparation in the proper condition, too, but that wasn't what was desired of me. It wasn't what I would do.
Technically, he wasn't worse off than the other chromatic dragons, but failure here would entail something that could very likely rip apart an Aspect going wild.
"Do you agree to help us in this endeavor?" Alexstrasza queried, closing the distance to gaze with deep sadness at Chromatus.
I blinked, my fangs baring in irritation, though not at her but the situation. It was ridiculous. This entire thing felt like a farce or a desperate gamble. I didn't want to know which was best.
What the actual fuck was truly happening behind this little play to entertain me?
I was out of my depth, and I hated this.
"How? I'm not against the idea; on the contrary, I'm interested. There is much to learn, and if we succeed, we have a new force on our side… but how? What you want to accomplish isn't feasible. I don't have the time. Even if I had the research papers, with your help and putting my whole being into it, it would still take years. They are built on a faulty foundation with flawed techniques and diseased materials. And biomancy won't be enough, there's a lot of Arcane here with every type of draconic magic." I rambled in one breath, my eyes locked on her as she stared back with a kind, contemplating look.
"This place operates on a distinct time flow—an hour inside is an equivalent of the hundredth of one outside. It is a branch of the Caverns of Time, one my brother shared with me at great cost for this… special occasion. For your next concern, we have candidates of all flights, barring the black. And of our libraries, only the forbidden will be kept from you without my accord. Do you accept under my name to swear silence and due diligence to lead this daunting yet vital task honorably, Ohto of the Greenweald?" The Life-Binder declared.
"I don't promise success, but you have my help." I agreed with a throaty rumble, ignoring the more grandiose part of the proposal.
The risks and stakes were immense but so were the rewards.
Comments
Petrox
Ohto: Ahhhh! An hyperbolic time chamber! Without the hyperbolic ... Ohto: still... It would be easier to put all of them into a blender and start from the meat soup. Would ohto take some of the draconic traits for himself? Like better claws or modify his bat transformation?
TITOO
Alexstrasza refers to the fact this entire thing with Chromatus is done with the Bronze Dragonflight assistance. But it can be taken as you said.
Gal Anonim
Good chapter! I understand why Ohto agreed, for him it is a gargantuan opportunity. Work on powerful chimeras, without the need of horrific experiments of his own. More very difficult to obtain knowlege, if successful plenty of strong soldiers and further understanding. Also did the Red Queen alude that she knew what would happen to her (Imprisonment and subsequent forced Brood-Mothering? And the chamber was a reimbursement from Nozdormu?
