Chapter 5 - Criminals and Portals and Labyrinths

“We can’t,” retorted Jason. “We can’t go back. They could put two-and-two together. Snaps could squeal. We can’t go to, what would it be… jail?” he finished, confused by their moral plight.

“Jason’s right; besides, he’s just a video game character. None of this shit is real, it’s all one’s and zero’s. We are real. We need to remember that.” Alex said.

Jason glanced at him warily. Never were the two men on the same side of an issue.

“Ye be wantin’ another round uh mead, fellers?” asked the frumpily warted dwarven barmaid.

“We’ve only been here two minutes,” said Stephen, shaking his head.

The woman paused, looked him up and down, “not much of uh manly thing-ta say, now was tha’?” she replied and turned her back to the men.

“Well, we’ve made it here,” said Josh, “let’s just finish our drinks, scarf down some food, and get our bearings. Something, somewhere around here ought to give us a clue what comes next.”

The men agreed and hungrily pulled apart seared talbuk steaks with their teeth, alongside burnt root vegetables. Alex braved the meat, but grimaced over the smallest of bites and shook his head. He returned to the vegetation, seemingly enjoying the scorched, yet somehow undercooked, bulbs.

They emerged back out onto the sprawling, massive central platform of the capital city. A monolith of unimaginable height towered at its heart, casting deep shadows over sections of the bustle. There were quarters. Great, tightly-packed centers with rich themes. The red and tan crystalline buildings, with highly ornate decorum indicated the Blood Elves claimed the patch of platform to their left, while green and blue and purple glowed faintly and wispily around their feet, as they moved through a Draenei corridor.

There were Orcs and Trolls and great matted-furred Tauren in the far distance. Though they stunk of rot and they grunted and pulled crude faces at the more civilized races, the carefully-placed guard kept them in check. For here, two vehemently opposed factions shared an uneasy space.

They moved toward to monolithic colosseum at the heart of the city. Inside, hundreds of people of all races moving about ardently, Stephen spotted what he was looking for and moved forward with purpose.

A great being, shimmering white and gold, carved out of perfect geometric shapes, with a soft mist of pure magical energy exuding from him. A’dal, leader of the Sha’tar. This impressively tall - hmm, let’s say “being” - loomed over the men now approaching him.

“Approach, mighty heralds of the Alliance, and ask of me what you will,” beckoned a ringing, impressive voice. It was deep and reverberating.

“Oh great A’dal, we humble ourselves in your presence-” Stephen was cut off, as he genuflected.

“You needn’t act thusly. Stand and address me as a brave warrior,” he said.

Embarrassed, Stephen stood and stepped back a bit, craning his neck high to meet A’dal’s gaze, “we are - err, we are not of this land. We seek our, uh, homeland. Do you know where we might seek it?” he finished stumbling.

There was a moment of surveying and then A’dal boldly said, “but of course, you do not belong here. No one, in fact, any longer ought to call this wretched befouled place home.

“Far to the east in the Hellfire Peninsula you may find a portal to Azeroth, if that is where you call home”.

“Um,” said Josh, stepping forward, “we don’t belong there either. We don’t belong anywhere in this world”.

A’dal was clearly confused.

“What he means,” said Garrett, now stepping up to speak, “is that we seek another - plane altogether. It is a world unlike the defiled Draenor. It is a world similar, but apart from Azeroth. This place is called, ‘Earth’. Surely you are familiar with other planes of existence?” Garrett had perhaps spent the most time in-game working with A’dal and so he took it upon himself to hush the others and address the great glowing entity.

He considered, “yes, there are many other planes, with most of which I am not familiar. One of which, perhaps you would call home. There is a man for which I have heard rumor. This man is known by some as The Portal Keeper. I do not know where he is to be found, but I do know he wields unimaginable magical prowess,” A’dal finished.

“So this sorcerer,” Garrett pushed on, “you don’t know where to find him? You only know he is powerful?”

“This man,” said A’dal, “is rumored to be a cunning criminal. The tale tells he forged his way into Outland from Azeroth, evading capture from the Night Elves seeking him. He fortified himself somewhere in Outland. Do not ask me where, for I know not. That is all I know of the story,” A’dal said.

“And from whom did you hear this tale?” questioned Jason.

“It is told by many, its origin also unknown,” replied the floating spirit.

---

“Well that tells us jack shit,” said Alex, shaking his head.

The men sat off the side of the lane of foot traffic in a small Alliance corridor on a lower level of the city. The grass was springy here and the ambience was calm.

“What about Medivh?” asked Stephen, squinting in deep thought.

“Go on.”

“Well, he was involved in the opening of the Dark Portal, he’s got to somehow be involved.”

“How do you figure? Medivh is dead,” shot Garrett.

“Right,” said Josh, siding with Stephen, “but his father’s not. His father would probably be in-the-know in all this.”

“So the theory is that Medivh’s father, since he’s some great sorcerer or something, will know something about portals or powerful magical criminals, or something and that will somehow get us closer to home?” asked Jason, making tally marks with his fingers as he spoke.

“Well it’s all we’ve got,” said Stephen, “unless you have another idea?”

“But who is Medivh’s father? Wouldn’t that dude be like a thousand years old or something? How can he still be alive?” asked Pat.

“Well, maybe alive isn’t the right term, but I know where to find him,” said Stephen. “But first, we need resources.”

“Yeah, I’m not crazy about stealing constantly,” said Pat.

“And that was pretty shitty what we did to Snaps, even if he is just a video game character,” said Raleigh.

The men pondered for a few moments. In-game, one could achieve wealth either through their profession or, to a lesser extent, through adventuring. Since none of them knew the first thing about blacksmithing or potion making or working leather, they opted for the latter.

“Zangarmarsh is just to our north. And fuck that place! And then Nagrand is far to the west. There is lots to gain there, sure, but it’s a long ways from here,” said Jason. “So that leaves Terokkar Forest just south of here-”

“Auchindoun!” shot Alex, excitedly.

“Well what the fuck are we waiting for? Let’s get on the move!” exclaimed Josh, with a brutish tone, standing up.

---

The ominous halls loomed ahead, spider webbed like a dryer exhaust and glowing deeply with tantalizing blue and menacing green torches that were magically fueled and attached at tall sconces on the walls. This labyrinth of bones and demon worship contained men and beasts fascinated by the nuances and depth of torture. Corpses laid crudely behind them, as the men cut a calculated path of carnage through the Shadow Labyrinth. They finally had reached a long, wretched-looking hallway where they knew what was to be found at the end, but the walls spilled into darkness before they could catch a glimpse.

“I don’t feel great about this. What’s our plan here?” asked Garrett.

They spent a few minutes going over the finer points and, nerves on high alert and hearts beating violently, they stepped into the center of the corridor and Josh braced his shield in front of him, ready to move into the pits of uncertainty.

A horn, like a massive trombone calling a deep and raspy -GAAAAAWW- screech sounded. From the bowels of the darkness ahead, purple and green cloaked orcs began to charge at the men, all screaming and holding weapons high in zeal. Metal clashed with metal, as Josh threw battle axes and iron staves to the side, narrowly missing his nose. Raleigh pounded the ground violently with his mace, causing a quaking that unseated several of the cloaked figures. Pat was at work, alternating between three different orcs, jabbing and ducking and leg sweeping as he moved smoothly and precisely. Alex had exploded into the form of a grizzled monstrous bear, swiping thick talons and slamming solid paws into the chests of cloaks and breastplates.

It was all well orchestrated, the men soon stood among a pile of mangled flesh at their feet. Jason breathed heavily, clutching his sides, which ached after shouting incantations aggressively at his allies. Stephen flexed his fingers, knuckles popping and rumbling, releasing the tension that came with launching dozens of deadly accurate arrows through the air like wind. Garrett was blowing cool air on his palms; they had heated with the friction of the intense arcane magic he hurled. He shook his fingers like a rattle-can, biting his teeth as he recovered from the burning magic.

Just then, torrential gusts of wind circled around them, sucking them inward, toward the end of the now illuminated corridor, where a vast and deep chamber fell skyward, wind spinning and twisting the matter within it. Like a dust devil, a blue-green mass of translucent plasma manifested before their eyes and a great thundering sound met them. The men all grabbed their ears, shrieking against the deafening thunder. And a face grew from the homogenous mass gyrating at the center of the chamber.

“It’s Murmur! Go now! Everybody get to your places!” Josh called in a panic,  as he lifted his sword high and rushed the pulsating column of noise, now manifesting an ugly horned face from its peak.

The men ran to surround it, Stephen and Garrett and Jason keeping a distance and hurling projectiles, while Pat, Raleigh, and a cat-like Alex ran to the very threshold of the whirling form. The men rained down bolts of magic, showers of arrows, flashes of blades, and swipes of claws. There was a shattering sound, like thousands windows imploding at once, and the men were all thrown backward off their feet. Alex and Garrett struck columns in the circular chamber, the latter smacking his head hard against the stone and toppling to the dingy slab floor. But Raleigh was beside him, having been knocked backward and landing skillfully on his hands and knees. He glanced up at the pile of fine blue robes and threw a hand out toward them. Though much too far to touch the man physically, streams of golden wisps struck the robes, encircling, and Garrett was lifted magically to his feet. As the beams washed over him, Garrett shook his head vigorously like a wet dog and regained his composure.

There was no time to be lost, Josh had already rushed back to oppose the towering monstrosity and buried his shield deeply into its side. Murmur shuddered and the next moment, he slammed flowing plasmatic blue-green fists to the ground and a cannon blast rang out, as the sleek stone ground cracked outward, darting toward the hunter. Upon impact, Stephen cried out in pain, but it was drowned out by the tremendously loud wobbling noise now coming from the elemental beast, like an overtaxed guitar amplifier ready to explode. The hunter was blasted high into the air, fifty feet or more, the ceiling still high above him. His body went limp as a ragdoll, and the intense magical beams of sound ripped at his flesh.

“Oh shit, oh shit!” called Jason. And, heart racing, he sprinted to occupy the shadow beneath Stephen, as he began to topple back to the slab floor. Jason threw his arms straight up in the air, like a drowning man desperately grasping for a hand. Silver-white clouds of intense magic spewed from his wrists and fingertips upward toward Stephen. They collided with the limp form and encircled it, spinning and pushing down against the air beneath and the unconscious man began to slow. He floated softly back to the stone floor and settled, eyes half open, tongue hanging out, and arms and legs strewn at odd angles to his torso.

“Boom! Levitate, mother fucker!” shouted Jason in triumph. But the moment of celebration had a cost. Murmur again let out of a roar of painful sound, the men all flew backward again, and the vibrations of the wave cut right down into bone.

Standing was at a great effort, as Pat pushed hard upward with his legs, once again moving toward a strategic position behind the massive elemental figure.

“Keep at it, he’s becoming weaker,” mouthed Josh. He probably had shouted the words, but in the tremendous vibrating ambience, a wall of shear noise, the men could hear no words.

Stephen grumbled and regained his footing, now gritting his teeth, as he bore the pain in every muscle fiber of his being. “You. Fucking. Asshole,” he said to himself, as he pulled back his bowstring, arrow now at full nock. He pulled back harder and the string cut into the joints of his fingers. He winced and water poured from his eyes and down his cheeks, as the stinging sensation overtook him. He felt hot blood stream down his wrist from the overtightened string cutting into the bone of his fingers. “Fuck. You!” and he released. The arrow soared upward, as it whistled. He could hear it cut a path through the wall of sound. And, like a sonic boom exploding from overhead, it struck the colossal elemental Murmur right through the face.

The sound knocked him to his knees. Josh and Raleigh, who were directly in front of the beasts body toppled backward into the wall behind them.

The chamber was suddenly darkened. The sound receded into his head. And a great rushing and ringing replaced it, as Alex stood, blinking the bright flashes he had just been exposed to out of his eyes, pressing them into his palms, and sucking in cool air. Half the men crawled, half limped into the center of the chamber, where Murmur had a moment ago stood. It was now a pile of grey dust, like spent coals sadly lingering.

It was very hard to hear anything but ringing and the blood rushing through their heads, but Pat managed to chime in, “just once, Stephen, could you let one of us take the killing blow? Dickhole”. The men all labored a smile and sat, grunting, waiting for the healers to gain enough magical strength to mend wounds and repair ear drums.

Chapter 4 - The Prisoners Wagon

Thick, crudely forged iron wheels, massive and stamping deep wells of earth as it rocked back-and-forth, rolled over the threshold. The grass was green here, the air dry, and the flowers pink and orange and yellow. It probably smelled fresh, too; outside the wagon that is. For within, there was a solid inch of matted filth the men lay atop. Their weapons were stripped and in the other wagon, their armor they had long since peeled off and crammed into a corner of the iron-barred wooden caravan, or else taken to using as a head rest along the bumpy and nauseating path.

Josh was rubbing scabbed knuckles, still bruised and tender to the touch. He had made a sad attempt to fight. That didn’t last long. He was swiftly knocked to the ground, all the air forced out of his chest, as he gasped and wheezed. Then there was a dirt-crusted burlap cloth over his head, pressing hard against his nose, threatening to snap it to the side.

Garrett had conjured and revolved a mass of blue energy in his hands. He had held it threateningly. But the trolls moved quickly. Too quickly, one jabbed him in the kidney and he fell to his knees, while another headbutt him sharply in the brow, dazing him and making him forget momentarily that he was inhabiting the stature of an impressive mage.

The rest of the group had very little choice. Their weapons had either been dropped in defeat or else forced out of their hands. They had been bound and thrown roughly into the wagon.

Stephen’s furry companion had simply been executed, an axe driven cleanly into its spinal column. It was peculiar, he wept after it happened, mourning the loss of friendship. From a beast he had only known for a short time. Within a fantasy world.

“I’m pretty sure I heard ‘Garadar’,” whispered Raleigh. The men were not permitted to talk, and so they whispered.

“That would make this Nagrand,” whispered Alex.

They were heading south for an orcish stronghold. What would happen to the men when they reached their destination? Probably nothing good. Why had they been taken? Why not simply battled to the death? It didn’t make sense, the orcs and trolls in the game were all too eager to polish their trusty axes and spears with fresh blood. They wouldn’t plan a kidnapping.

“Snaps, do you know why we are being taken to Garadar?” asked Jason.

He had never quite gotten the concept of whispering and just then, he screeched, “nah’s, I dunno, maybe they are fixin’a cook us up into a stew-er somethin”.

The wagon stopped rolling. A brutish, brown-armored set of boots squished into the ground, having jumped off the seat at the front of the wagon. The green-skinned beast moved toward the wagon.

“Oh, motherfucker! Thanks Snaps,” spit Pat.

They knew what was going to happen, they would be punished for speaking. That big mean cocksucker would open the hatch on the top of the wagon, grab one of them randomly by the hair, and inflict pain, with a creeping grin on his face.

Jason tried to clear his mind. He readied his will with steady words beneath his breath. Though his magic was severely dampened without a staff through which to channel, he was still expected to soothe the pain, rinse the wound, and begin the healing process of the unfortunate man that was randomly selected. They had been through this process half a dozen times already; they bore many scars as tokens.

The hatch creaked open above them, putrid moist steam of the monster’s breath already filtering down into the wagon.

“I’m ready-” “I’m not ready!” two vapic, brutish voices grunted in the distance to their right. It was different voices perhaps, but they came as a set, as if identical twins were bickering.

Another savage voice sounded, this one grizzled and hulking and filled with a deep bass, “crush!” And then another similar, “no, SMASH!”

The orc hovering over their heads grunted, shouting in gibberish to his comrades and turned away, leaving the hatch swung wide open.

Clashes of steel on steel pinged and chimed feet from the wagon, as the men had a dawning realization of what was happening. Warmaul Hill, home to brutish blue-skinned ogres, was just east of them. The caravan must have come upon a trap set for travelers of the path, for the ogres were pressing in on the group of Horde.

That very moment, Josh’s body was through the hole, legs and feet pressing to free himself from his imprisonment. The rest of the group followed, as Alex stayed behind, passing plates of armor, helms, shoulderguards, and gauntlets up through the hatch where they found their rightful owner. Snaps slipped his opulent purple regalia on in one fluid motion. Stephen fastened his many buckles and satchels back to the belt now around his waist.

“We need our weapons!” shouted Jason over the fray of grunts and smashes and the clash of boulders attached to tree trunks meeting orcish plate metal.

But Pat was a step ahead. He had scaled the other wagon and was leaning over the far side, upside down, with a thin steel pick he had somehow managed to hang onto.

A massive two-headed ogre, dull blue skin and ugly brown fringe of material around its hips, lunged toward Alex, who was just then pulling his legs out from the hatch. It held an entire tree in its hands, thirty feet long. Stripped of branches and leaves, it had a nail, no, a stake driven through the swinging end, swiping dangerously close to Alex’s head. The space behind it lurched, void of air, as the brute thrust it forward. Even without his ornate staff, Snaps sprang into action, leaping in the path of the beast, with a burst of demonic-sounding shouts, Snap’s eyes glowed red and the ogre, looking down, paused, grimaced, and turned around, screeching in terror and running to put distance between him and the mad warlock.

The latch -chinked- open. Pat slithered inside the other wagon, and removed the mens’ weapons, passing them back to each hero with swiftness.

No time was wasted, the men fled at a full-sprint. Stephen had shouted something nebulous and the men banded together magically, their legs moving in pace with his, faster than they ought to, similarly to the movement of a pack of animals. Alex had shapeshifted into a tall stag and Snaps and Josh (who were the two shortest, stubbiest gnomes) leapt onto his large muscular back. Pat had removed a fistful of grey-black powder from one of the many pouches sewn into his vest and fogged the area behind them in a sweeping motion, where the cloud lingered like a Gaussian blur, masking the group from their subjugators.

---

No one could remember the name of the Alliance-held stronghold in the area. They knew it was somewhere to the south, probably just off this road, though.

The men veered west hard to put a wide gap between them and Garadar, also avoiding Halaa.

“That place is crazy in-game, I can only imagine what’s going on down there,” Raleigh had said. Josh and Alex had been all for making the trek and, as Josh had articulated, “pwning some noobs”. But they had been outvoted (and Snaps didn’t seem to have any idea what Josh had said in the first place). This world was far more treacherous than a video game landscape.

To die didn’t mean a mere thirty-second detour to run your ghost back to your body. It was an excruciating process. If you bled out, it was like the most exhausting feeling you’ve ever experienced, while helplessly tolerating the crushing pain of bone-deep incisions, carved trench-like  by a rusty blade or a scorching flame. The soul would stare straight up into the sky through a foggy, empty gaze. The soul had nothing: no sense of smell or hearing, no thoughts or feelings or fears, no musings. It just stared, trapped inside an empty vessel. Then, with a well-rehearsed incantation of a kneeling comrade, and the sufferer would breath again, the pain would recede, and they would become whole. It was an ordeal to be avoided.

“Telaar!” exclaimed Garrett, “how could I be so dumb as to forget,” he finished.

“Thank you!” said Stephen, clapping his hands, as if just missing the buzzer on a gameshow. “That’s the town we’re headed for”.

And there it was. Lush green trees entwined sharply jutting hills. Streams of water flowed ever-downward, off mouths of rocks and into calm pools of crystal blue. Smooth alien-like architecture of a vibrant shade of tan dotted the landscape, blue shards of glowing stone protruding from them, imbuing the structures with fortitude. Finely oiled wooden plank bridges tied the ensemble together and the men, in wonder, passed the threshold into the manicured town.

Draenei, human, gnomish, and elven men and women populated the squat buildings. A residential quarter was off in the distance, farthest south, well protected. A few hundred homes stood modesty there. In the town center, a set of well-placed amenities garnered crowds of workers, traders, and leisurists.

The men already had a plan - three days of walking on foot will render a well-discussed strategy indeed. They needed to get to Shattrath, the capital, where investigation ought to tip them off as to how to get started on their journey home. For this, they would need to buy gryphon rides. For that: gold coin.

Snaps still was not clear on the nuances of the plan, but he agreed to help the men. He would start by surreptitiously calling down a doomguard in the town square. The mass of cracking grey stone raining from the sky would crash with brilliant green and yellow flames splashing outward, and begin running amok, triggering a diversion. This would give Pat an advantage, as he slipped into the bar, behind the counter, a emptied the clay jar most shopkeepers used as a “till”.

The rogue was in place, outside the door of the bar. He had already drifted into the shadows. The men all were loitering inconspicuously in the corner of the town center. They would move hastily toward the flightmaster and purchase the required taxi services, so as to evade suspicion.

There was a deep rumbling coming from overhead, like thunder readying to crack violently. The burst of flame, the mountain of crude stone, the splashing of earth and flame and waves of intense turbulence and thundering knocked the peasants nearest the crater backward by a foot, a few of the women falling off balance.

There were shrieks of panic, flashes of smooth brown-armored town guards rushing to the scene, and commotion erupting throughout the square. Not a moment later, Pat flashed behind the broad shoulders of Raleigh, taking up rank in the group, cooly.

“Here, it’s about twelve gold pieces, this ought to be plenty, I didn’t want to get greedy,” Pat hissed. He passed out the coin and the men shuffled toward the massive birds harnessed with fine leather leads to wooden posts sunk deep in the ground.

There was just enough creatures for them to get their own. They passed the coin clumsily to the flightmaster, there was a moment where he was untying and shuffling and seemingly passing on instructions to the graceful birds. Then, each of the six men hoisted a leg over their saddled beast, and gripped tightly.

Just as the birds began to stalk to the north, out of town, the men could hear, “it was him! Grab the warlock! This is his doing! Don’t let him escape!” A town guard had pinpointed the culprit of what was now a smoldering pile of dull grey rubble at the feet of the well orchestrated guard, many of whom were nursing singes or pulsing red burns.

As the muscular talons of the great beasts pushed hard upward, each man jerked and grinded his teeth, struggling to hang on tightly. The birds were moving upward farther, and down below, in the center of the town square, was the emblazoned purple robes of Snaps, forced roughly to the earth, the flexing knee of a town guard pressed firmly downward.

“We-” shouted Raleigh, but it was futile, he couldn’t even hear himself shout in the great gusting winds and thin streaming clouds of the voyage. His ears were six inches from his mouth and he couldn’t hear a thing he bellowed. “We have to go back!” Nothing.

Most of the men were thinking along the same lines, but there was no way to stop the massive feathered creatures, proudly flapping their muscular wings toward the tall pillars of Shattrath.

Chapter 3 - Through the Purple Portal

It had been, what, a week? More? Who knew at this point. The weathered group of men moved with confidence now. Nothing was in their heads but their destination. Feet ached, open sores throbbed, guts rumbled and protested. But they persisted.

Josh lead the way, shield at his side, spattered with the dried blood of various beasts and monstrosities. The cat was next, alongside its confident master, Stephen. He had taken to holding his bow in such a way that he could very quickly nock an arrow and blast an attacker with a stunning shot. Raleigh and Pat walked to the side a bit from them, Pat remaining close to the shrubs and tree trunks lining the path. Adversaries never seemed to realize he was among them, until he appeared at the back of a beast, sinking well worn instruments of death into his target. Raleigh shifted his heavy fine-stone mace to his other shoulder, where it made a dull clang against his yellow and pink metal shoulderpads.

Near the back were the other three men, Alex who could now, at will, vanish and reappear as a vicious wild cat or a proud stag. His battlestaff made a rhythmic knocking sound against his leather vest as they walked. Jason found this soothing, though. He used it to keep himself pushing on. His glowing blue vestments were perfectly smooth and clean, though they had been so far soaked in his own blood, the blood of various beasts and ghouls, muddy earth, and a number of other substances which he did not want to identify. The sleek silk defied  imperfection.

Garrett at his side had taken to playing with blue and purple and pink orbs of magical energies while he trekked. He would bounce them around in his palm, juggle them from hand-to-hand; anything to distract himself from pulsing and burning feet and toes.

When was this strange lucid fantasy going to end? When would they find themselves back in their homes, with their children and wives and girlfriends and jobs and cars and their own computers and troubles and their own lives? It was curious. It was fun. It was painful and rewarding all together. The first several days were like a vivid dream, they had taken to mastering the powers these strange bodies seem to grant to each of them. But now, it was just tired. They were tired.

The men had made their way back to Stormwind, a bustling city of hundreds of thousands of unbathed humans and dwarves and elves (the dwarves were especially ripe, with yellowing teeth and dirt-crusted beards and the stale tinge of bad beer permeating their clothes).

There was a crier there, passing out pamphlets that issued dire warnings about a place called the Blasted Lands, a deep purple portal, and an entire world which you would be teleported into by this void, called simply: Outland. The men at first were excited by the prospect. To explore the epic experiences of the video game, The Burning Crusade again! But after a full weeks drudging southeast from the capital, it began to dawn on them the magnitude, the immensity, the implications of the task in which they were undertaking.

"We are here for a reason. Think about it," Stephen implored. "Clearly we aren't going to just sleep this fantasy off. There is something we have to do".

Jason posited that the final boss of the game was Kil'Jaeden, deep in the bowels of the Sunwell Plateau. Maybe if the men were able to confront him, to slay him, they would be plunged back into their real selves.

There was a fair amount of resistance to this idea, not the least of which was Stephen pointing out that in the game, it took twenty five of the best players, working for weeks and dying perhaps hundreds of times each, to defeat the powerful demon.

Regardless, the men all had the inclination that their escape was somehow tied to the strange and treacherous world of Outland. Alex at one point suggested they all just take up residence some place peaceful, Westfall perhaps or a nice secluded cove in Stranglethorn Vale, and live out their days fishing, hunting, poaching, and trading. A side perk: they could maybe meet a few nice female night elves and actually go through with what was surely the deepest fantasy of thousands of basement-virgin gamers. The men all had a good laugh, but none took that idea too seriously.

"I miss my daughter," replied Raleigh simply.

"When does she turn eighteen, again?" joked Jason. Though Raleigh was an even tempered man, Jason received a sincere -whack- to the side of the head with a blunt warhammer. After wincing and apologizing to Raleigh, he murmured a quiet spell to himself to bring himself out of the daze and the pain in his skull receded.

Blasted Lands was a dreary landscape of fire and jagged mountains and spiked structures of Orcish architecture. The hills were stained orange with rust and the beasts that roamed them limped decrepitly from the bluster of hot-sanded wind and jets of steam or lava that would erupt without warning at one’s feet.

"Tighten up, stick to the path," issued Josh, who was by this point unanimously leading the group. So far no real challenge had the men yet faced. Nothing but rabid dogs and giant insects and disorganized gnoll packs. But the sharp pointed towers in silhouette in the distance made their skin creep. Orcs were nearby. And they were mean.

Hot bits of gravel and sand pelted their faces as they traversed the terrain. Each of the adventurers, in the video game world, had probably traveled this path fifty times or more. But it was so different in reality - it was massive and it was intimidating. They passed what they knew to be ogre dens, great stinking burrows dug into the side of hills, with the heads of less fortunate adventurers gruesomely squashed onto pikes jutting upright from mounds of red earth, the message was simple: ‘stay away’.

A few hours in and the men climbed a slight ridge in the wavy ground to a view of arresting menace. An impossibly vast rock arch carved, seemingly, from a single piece of smoky stone. Two looming hooded figures bore shining swords on either side, also in great stone, and the face of a dragon was sculpted atop the masterpiece. At its heart, probably sixty feet wide and twice as tall, a swirling mist of dense green and black smoke, like a drain plug pulled, sucking and spinning and twisting matter toward in.

“What happens when we step through,” Pat asked rhetorically.

Each of the quaking men knew precisely what would happen. At the threshold of the twisting, spiraling green and black smog, they would be immediately teleported to the cold orange world of Outland. They weren’t, however, prepared for the sensation of ripping. One foot slid into the void, then the torso and head, then the trailing foot was sucked off the ground with force, like a vacuum hose thrashing about with no handler.

---

The sky was black like burnt pitch, sluffed off a tree trunk after a wildfire. Alien stars twinkled blue and violet and yellow. The earth before them was like powder, equal parts red, brown, and orange. Miles in the distance towered mountains that shot upright from wavy terrain violently. But just before them, a platform of stone, vast and crawling with activity. Blue-skinned Draenei soldiers clad with polished silver breastplates and gleaming shields stood in formation, attentive. Orders were being barked on either side of the disoriented men - none directed at them luckily. They were simply being ignored or shunted to the side as the tang of steel footplates on stone processed past.

Only a few minutes later, each adventurer found himself on the back of an enormous winged gryphon. The demon invasion was pushing toward the Dark Portal, in an attempt to enter the tranquility of Azeroth. The Alliance army had established a taxi system that allowed travelers to securely whisk beyond the danger far below, ruins of smoldering soot and teeth-gnashing demons of tremendous size and vileness.

They touched down hard, the feathered animals in haste to return for their next charge. Jason slid off the back of the creature and stumbled, the ground was farther below his feet than expected. In his non-crazy-fantasy-adventure-priest-hero body, he stood easily over six feet; acclimating to a dwarven stature was not easy.

“What now?” wondered Alex.

“Well, this is obviously Honor Hold,” said Stephen.

“Which means we’re about halfway across the Hellfire Peninsula,” added Raleigh.

“Well, I don’t know about y’all,” said Josh in his coolest tone of voice, hitching up his shoulders into an assertive posture, “but I want to get going,” and he strode down the path westward, toward the gaping expanse of dirt and hill and demon.

The rest followed. Honor Hold was swallowed into the a hazy dust cloud behind them as they moved wordlessly.

There was a subtle wobbling to the area, like the ground was shuddering with a cold chill, the very earth below repulsed by what it had become. The scorched swathe was desolate, martian-like, and uninviting. The tremble against their feet grew in intensity, as a metallic clanking screech sliced through the air behind them.

A fel reaver was moving their direction, shaking the ground beneath with each step it took. Towering forty feet tall, the perse and green metal shined with an oily exterior. The humanoid-shaped machine had no face, rather a glowing green bulb at its crown. Plumes of orange and brown dust shot into the air, as it viciously slammed down each foot, advancing on the men.

“Run bitches, run!” shouted Pat. The command was followed and the adventurers scattered in all directions.

Stephen fell to the ground, in a very good impression of a fallen hero, and was promptly ignored by the steel beast. Pat and Jason split off to the left, moving at full tick, the reaver didn’t seem too interested in them. Alex poofed majestically into a proud stag, galloping off at great speed to safety. Raleigh did his best veering to the right, but the bulky armor slapped at his thighs and weighed him down: sprinting was made impossible.

That was inviting to the reaver, as it loomed over him, only feet away. a behemoth stump of a leg raised high into the air above Raleigh’s head, ready to unleash a great shattering onto him. There was a powerful -TCHINK- noise as Josh collided, shield first, into the backside of its planted leg, intercepting its attention.

“Come at me, muthafucka!” he cried. The machine shifted, revolving around clunkily and facing its challenger. In a quick swipe, Josh was knocked off his sabatons, back twenty feet, crashing to the ground in a puff of loose dust.

Alex was ready. Where there once had been a stag, now a fierce bear stood tall with a shining brown coat and sharp silver claws. He was at the reavers back before it recoiled fully from the slam it had just issued. With all his weight, Alex threw his bristled claws at the leg and the machine stuttered. It was knocked off balance and swayed for a moment. Garrett, whose body had somehow turned translucent before them, now shimmered back into existence, as he conjured a great bolt of magical energy. It danced around his hands, gaining in momentum, and then he hurled it at the creature. A sound like gunfire, no, like cannon fire rang out and the machine turned toward the blue-garbed mage.

Josh was back, though, and he slid almost without moving his feet, in front of Garrett and bore his dented shield with determination on his face. The reaver didn’t have a choice, it had to go through the plated gnome to reach its real target. It slammed massive iron fists downward and the gnome tucked and rolled and narrowly avoided the metallic-green masses that were now sunk feet into the loose soil below. From the scuffle, clouds of dust danced into the air and set the area in a deep fog. Vision became impaired and confusion increased. The men were being pushed backward. Though they could coordinate attacks and defenses well by now, the machine was so massive, so solidly metal, that their attacks like bee stings on the back of an elephant.

Raleigh was the first to the ground, unconscious. His helm had been bashed off and blood pooled below his face. Alex, too, fell. His body withered back into its elven form and a deep blunt wound could be seen at his side. Pat vanished into smoke, as Josh, then Garrett, then Jason collapsed in either exhaustion, pain, or a total loss of consciousness.

Stephen, the only man still standing, at a great distance outside the cloud of muck witnessed a horrifying sight. The reaver was preparing to step on his fallen friends. Its full weight would push every ounce of life out of them all and it was straightening up for the killing blows. In a move of pure instinct, he nocked an arrow back, pulled beyond the bows breaking point, took aim, bowstring cutting into his fingers like a razor, the projectile snapped and within an instant plunged deep into the green “head” mass of the reaver. It recoiled, shuddered as if in pain, then turned abruptly toward him and set its sights on its new target. Stephen turned around and darted in a blur in the opposite direction. He was leading the reaver away from his friends, shouting taunts behind him as he ran. Did the beast hear them? Who knows, he didn’t turn to look, just kept moving, wind whistling in his ears as he picked up speed.

Jason, totally drained of magic, crawled into a fetal position and sucked in air. His ribs ached. His eyeballs pushed sharply into his brain. His back spasmed and jerked backward as he took shallow, steadying breaths.

Pat stepped out of a powdered black smoky dust to kneel next to his friends. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, surveying whom he had always seen as great heroes, all damaged and cringing or gnarled on the ground. Josh could walk - he didn’t have a choice - as could Pat. Jason crawled on his knees toward a great hulking stone  jutting out of the ground in the distance. The rest were dragged, a few small trails of blood betraying their path.

“Please tell me it’s been less than five minutes,” prayed Josh.

“Just give me some space, I think I can do this. I.. thi…” Jason pathetically murmured. His magic was tipping over the ledge into failure. His hands burned. The words weren’t coming to his cracked lips. He swore in frustration.

“Try Alex first. He looks better off than Raleigh and he should be able to help with the others,” offered Pat.

With a grunt of acknowledgement, Jason rolled up his sleeves, closed his eyes, and placed his hands on the forehead of Alex, where a combination of orange dust and sweat were congealing.

Seconds passed. Nothing happened. The ground began quaking again; the reaver was returning. Were they tucked well enough behind the stone? Would they be spotted? Will the trails of blood serve as a beacon to the reaver?

The thoughts were forced out of his head. Nothing remained, but well-practiced words. An even tone of voice, the intonation and timbre of which were rehearsed and perfected and adjusted again. Alex’s knees slid up into his chest. His head rocked slowly with confusion and strain. He grabbed for air with his teeth. The men gave an inaudible cheer of relief as he sat upright, blinked his eyes, shook his head, and breathed a deep sigh. Jason wobbled, tightening his torso muscles as if voiding his stomach.

“Alex, we need you to work quickly. We need to you bring back Raleigh. Raleigh can bring back Garrett. You need to do it now, it’s almost been five minutes,” explained Josh.

Understanding the direness of the situation, Alex was surprisingly agile as he moved toward Raleigh. In the however-long it had been since the men had found themselves in these bodies, within this world, he had only performed this bit of magic twice before. But he didn’t think about that, all he thought about was his desire to save his friend and the sheer empathy within him made his own head throb, to match Raleigh’s wounds.

The spell was executed skillfully. And then Raleigh, after a moment, moved toward Garrett. His eyes, however, were open.

“You fuckers were gonna let me die,” Garrett coughed and sputtered, but managed to harass his friends, as he sat up slowly.

“You’re still in bad shape, bud,” said Raleigh and moved toward him nonetheless.

“Nah, I’m fine,” Garrett replied feebly.

“Garrett. Your arm is literally hanging off you,” Pat interjected. And indeed, his shoulder joint had been exploded by a great tumble. His arm hung so low, the elbow drooped beyond the long-sleeved cuff.

After a few minutes of rest, each of the men felt better. Their wounds had been healed, they stuffed down a calorie-packed snack of dried bore meat (which Stephen had become adept at dispatching and Jason at preparing), and their heads became clear.

“You guys? Where is Stephen?” asked Alex.

“He threw a distracting shot at the fel reaver and took off that direction,” indicated Pat, the only one who had been in a position to witness it.

The shaking of the earth that foretold the presence of a nearby reaver was long gone to the south and so the men felt comfortable standing up, moving back to the path, and heading northwest toward their ally.

“Those fuckers are way easier in the game, what the hell,” mused Garrett as they walked.

---

The landscape had only moments ago smoothly transitioned into blues and soft greens and glowing purples. The air was thick with moisture. It made the men have to suck in with more effort, as if grasping for a liquid with outstretched fingers.

“We’re in Zangarmarsh,” Josh said, to a knowing group. The men had each spent hours here in-game, over several years.

“I always hated this place,” said Jason, in wide-mouthed awe, as he moved his head across the expansive blue-glowing sky above. “But this looks incredible.”

It had a smell to it. A spore-laden tinge, which could be explained by the massive fungi clusters wrapping both sides of the fine-pebbled path beneath them.

Elven architecture unfolded before them: two tall, proud spired structures. The Cenarion Refuge, an outpost that offered safety to travelers, courtesy of the Cenarion Expedition, a sect of the Circle that set out to explore the flora of the strange Outland.

As they approached, the stillness of the place issued a sense of foreboding. That was quickly accompanied by a horror they laid eyes upon. Stone bricks toppled from the tower before them, the symbols of tranquility of nature defiled, plunged roughly into the moist earth below. The smolder of smoke and fatigued coals popped and fizzed, strewn across the wreckage. Blue and green bodies littered the ground. They were quiet and sad. A crimson-red banner had been proudly driven into the ground outside the tall tower. Its rough wooden post stood ten feet high and the scarlet flag rippled with beads of moisture.

A horde banner.

The men immediately drew weapons, sweeping the area with their eyes and shifting uneasily, as reality seeped in.

“This isn’t in the game,” said Stephen slowly.

Pat had slunk into the misty shadows, Alex morphing into an orange-coated cat and prowling, silently flanking off to one side.

“Be ready,” commanded Josh in a soft voice.

“Let’s just get the hell out of here. Teledeer? Is that the place?” commented Jason.

“Telredor,” corrected Stephen. “Yeah, agreed, let’s head north and keep our eyes peeled,” he finished.

“Aren’t we gonna check for loot? Maybe there’s something we can salvage,” said Garrett.

The men agreed uneasily, and they moved toward the lower of the two buildings. There was an ominous rustling coming from within and they all quietly hoped it was just a feral animal scavenging as they readied their blades.

The ruined dark hovel betrayed only cracks of light, where stone had been ripped out from the outer wall and toppled to the earth beneath. The rummaging sound was coming from behind a narrow counter near the back of the room. The men stalked in silence, Pat descended carefully into the shadows, disappearing.

“Who’s there!” barked Josh in a gritty, commanding voice.

There was a high pitched screech, a cry of shock, and the counter burst onto its side toward the men, piles of refuse and clutter and broken bricks and pieces of wood spilling out in every direction.

-POOF- - a cloud of smoke erupted from the epicenter and, as it fizzled away, a fluffy white-coated animal stood, looking curiously at the men.

“You sheeped him!” hollered Jason, in riotous laughter.

Garrett stood with the stance of an action hero, arm outstretched toward the linty cloud-white animal. The men broke down, half of them falling to their knees and grabbing their sides.

“I didn’t know I could do that,” he chuckled.

“Ok, so… heh… who is this asshole?” asked Alex.

“One way to find out,” said Stephen and he moved toward the long-faced creature, reached into a deep satchel on his belt, and pulled out a small round tin. He squeezed and flexed and pulled levers and arms and springs, then placed it carefully, with all the strategy of a chess master, between the four legs of the animal. He backed up, surveyed it a moment, then turned to Garrett and nodded.

Garrett understood and, with a flick of his staff, another cloud of smoke and accompanying sound, the beast was replaced by a squat purple-robed fellow, complete with bright pink mohawk and matching staff that glowed and vibrated slightly, as luminous plates revolved around it at both ends.

“If you move, you will set off that freezing trap. And you will die,” warned Stephen in an even tone.

The stalky gnome looked up at the men, surveying each face, bit his lip, and slowly outstretched his hands in surrender.

“Who are you?” interrogated Jason.

“Name is Snaps McCracken of Loch Modan,” he squeaked with unease. “I’m of the Alliance, as are you,” he said, nodding to the proud insignia emblazoning Josh’s readied shield.

After a moment, Stephen’s trap was safely tucked away at his side again, and all the men, including Snaps were sitting on split chairs or else the uneven wooden floor. Raleigh had managed to rustle up a few unopened bottles of warm mead and the men passed them around, taking long draws, and comparing notes on what was known about Outland.

It had been a month ago maybe, a Horde force led by a real mean lookin’ orc (as Snaps explained) swept through the lot of Zangarmarsh, killing any Alliance they came across, leveling homes and pillaging treasures in their wake.

The men pondered silently. This didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t part of the game. There was a sequence of events that unfolded during the video game and it was well studied by the group. They knew what would happen and when it would happen. And this didn’t fit timeline of the Burning Crusade, as they knew it. Regardless, they decided to move out of the ruin and carefully out back to the swamp, where they continued northwest, hoping they would find Telredor intact.

“I haven’t been up that direction in a whiles, so, quite, it coulda endured the Horde I s’pose,” the gnomed creaked.

“Hey Snaps, have you heard of a place nearby called the Serpentshrine Caverns?” asked Jason.

“Oh sures, I hearda them. That place was raided and came topplin’ down a few months back, maybe more. Some elite groupa Alliance fighters er somethin’ like,” he said, annoyingly.

The same was true for the Tempest Keep; the whole place had been cleared out of crazy mana-ish beasts. Though he was ineloquent, the men understood his meaning.

Aside, Josh and Jason and Stephen were having a conversation, with Alex listening in, ready to add to the debate.

“I wonder how closely this world is gonna follow the events of the game,” Jason was saying.

“Well we know a few raids are done, and presumably they aren’t, uh, replayable,” continued Stephen awkwardly. “So that leaves, what… Karazhan, Gruul’s, Mount Hyjal, and Black Temple.”

“And Sunwell Plateau,” added Josh.

“He doesn’t know about those, so it could go either way,” commented Alex, who had an ear in each direction, as Snaps continued to rattle on about happenings around Outland.

“I’ll bet Karazhan and Gruul’s are clear too; they come before Serpentshrine in the game, after all”.

“I just wonder how real this is going to be, how visceral, you know?” asked Jason to a curious group.

“What specifically?” asked Josh.

“Well, our power seems pretty good. Aside from that ridiculous fel reaver... Does that mean we’re ready to take on some of that higher-end stuff? Do we need a set number of people?” pondered Jason.

“I think it’s going to be a lot more fluid,” said Alex.

“How so?”

“Well,” he said, “this world is just so much more - real - than the video game. I mean, the game has systems in place because they need to be there. They are ways to express things a game cannot otherwise.”

Stephen nodded at this, “like the set number of people that can enter a raid zone. In this real world, there isn’t going to be anything that’s going to lock anyone out.”

“So that means that the raid bosses aren’t necessarily meant to be taken on by a full set group of twenty five or X or whatever,” agreed Josh.

“Right,” said Jason, “it’s not like they are tuned for a certain number of people. Each boss has a certain level of power. We just need to make sure we’re not getting in over our heads before we face them,” he finished.

The men continued to walk. They talked in hushed voices, as Snaps babbled to Raleigh about how he identifies as a warlock by trade, but his real passion is raising and breeding rabbits for show.

At that moment, the men all looked up at roughly the same time, to realize they had come face-to-face with a gang of mean-faced orcs and trolls. There were green-toothed grins and blood-stained spears and war axes, and hoarse chuckling, as if giddy to have a fresh batch of flesh to dispatch.

He couldn’t count properly, but Jason saw at least twelve of them, not including two large rough-wheeled wagons wrapped in barbs and adorned with tusks and cracked skulls and spikes.

“We might be fucked here,” was the last thing out of Stephen’s mouth.