Outlands Chapterbook

The Outlands Chapterbook

by Kelith Vedan

Introduction
I touch pen to paper to record these thoughts not for any creature in Azeroth, but for those who have managed to unshackle themselves from the petty concerns of that place. This may be considered a defense, both of myself and the last friend I have on this world or in any other, the soldier-in-the-Light Rheyl.

This is in no way an apology for my actions as a man before the shard of Oshu'gun crystal was placed in my hands. For those who would persecute Rheyl, this may be a means to see him in a different light - but for me there is no redemption.

Kelith Vedan, A man of little account

Retreat
The wind mutters through the trees, and reminds me of distant arguments my parents once had when they thought I could not hear them. Those were the days when I yearned to make my hands more than just the calloused tools of a farmer; to wear rings upon my fingers like the mayor did, and to wield the endless reservoirs of power that the servants of the Violet Citadel summoned so blithely. Those were different days.

The wind is not the herald of Azerothian summers here. Here it can blow cold and sour, swept in from the scouring wastes of the Nether that touch the very fragments of the decaying Draenor. Here is a land that echoes with the constant thrum of disintegration, it's very foundation sinking into the mire of nothingness. It's surface is sullied with the presence of Legion Forge camps, the outliers of the forces that burning Sargeras launched countless ages ago to undo the dross physical form of this world and all the rest. So this, then, is the last step before the dream of Veras WInvale and Kelith Vedan comes true - this sad land, filled with so much knowledge, but ever on the precipice of utter destruction.

There was a time when I thought that the ending of the physical world was my greatest desire. It would at last free those who worshiped the Darkness to be as gods, making and unmaking worlds as they chose. I was, of course, blinded by my own desire to the truth of the matter. I was nothing more than the chief slave in a land of the enthralled, each of us bending to a greater desire. I was no freer than the Light-bringers I so hated for their idiotic devotions. I myself gave of myself to a greater desire, that of my hateful and spiteful masters, the Dark Ones. Here, amongst the nexus place of a thousand Worlds, I see my folly. But it took a betrayal and a savior to do this - and, ironically enough, he who betrayed me was my closest ally and he who saved me is a devout servant of the Light.