Chapter One: The Beginning

More than six thousand years ago, Dath’remar Sunstrider led a group of elven nobles who wished to continue their studies in arcane magic away from their kin, accepting exile and migrating eastward to the land of Lordaeron. These exiled Highborne evolved into high elves and founded their own magical kingdom, Quel’Thalas. The high elves then used the waters of the Well of Eternity to create a new magical source, the Sunwell, on the Isle of Quel’Danas.

Basing their civilization on the Sunwell, the high elves constructed three sanctuaries along the ley lines: An’telas, Andalas, and An’ohein. Within each temple was housed a magical artifact, the Trine of the Crescent Moons, divided into three crescent-shaped crystals. Every treasury was built at a nexus of the ley lines, resembling the very Sunwell itself. The ley circuits ran like veins beneath the earth, but what flowed within was not blood, but pure magic.

Thus, an energy field known as Bandinoriel—the “Gatekeeper” in the elven tongue—was formed between the crystals, serving as the guardian of this land. The field protected the gates of the elves, stood watch over the high elves, and also isolated the arcane energies released during magical research, preventing the Burning Legion of the Twisting Nether from exploiting any weakness in the ley defenses for another invasion.

For six thousand years, Quel’Thalas thrived under the Sunwell’s blessing, its high elves basking in the well’s radiance.

Yet, in the twentieth year after the opening of the Dark Portal, the renowned magical kingdom of Quel’Thalas would fall to Arthas’ onslaught. Silvermoon City, the royal capital of the high elves, bore the emblem of the Sunstrider Court—the Spire of the Sunchaser, its pinnacle shining with arcane brilliance for thousands of years.

All of this ended when the high elven king, Anasterian Sunstrider, was slain by invaders, and the Sunwell was corrupted and destroyed.

Anasterian Sunstrider fell. Sylvanas Windrunner fell. Salorian Dawnsworn fell. Countless elven heroes perished on the land they once called home.

Prince Kael’thas Sunstrider returned to gather his people and, in memory of the fallen, renamed the entire race “blood elves.” He then destroyed the corrupted Sunwell.

Though beset by hardship—devastated numbers, most of the surviving high elves becoming Wretched due to their magic addiction, and the loss of their magical source—the survivors united, determined to rebuild their homeland.

Thus began a new chapter.

Eversong Woods was always gentle and sunlit, bathed in the glow of the Sunwell. The golden leaves of magical trees swayed in the soft breeze, arcane motes drifting in the air, intoxicating to those who breathed them.

Patrick Cabron, a young alchemist, was like many ordinary elves, enjoying generous welfare in Silvermoon City, living free from want. If anything set him apart, it was the different soul residing within him—a soul from another universe altogether, one with a solar system and an Earth, now inhabiting the youngest son of the Cabron family.

The Cabron family was of some repute in Silvermoon, renowned for alchemy. Most of their potions were purchased directly by the council for military use. Patrick worked with his family, learning the art of alchemy. In Silvermoon, the state provided all necessities free of charge, and the elves lived in comfort. Each year, His Majesty the King would purchase the needed potions, food, and materials, ensuring a handsome income.

Yet, in this new world, Patrick knew that the invasion of Arthas, the rise of the Lich King, and the disaster of Lordaeron were matters of grave importance. He had once considered, after the Second War, to prepare all his belongings and move to Northshire Abbey before the Scourge outbreak.

Those who had traveled from TG carried a deep nostalgia for home. After crossing into this world, Patrick had often felt lonely, thinking of his parents and friends back on Earth. He could not imagine the grief his parents would endure after losing their only child, and he tried his best not to dwell on it, hoping time would heal the wound.

But it did not. Time only taught Patrick how to live with the pain—a helpless acceptance of it. After living in Quel’Thalas for a long time, he slowly adapted. His new family—his father Phil Cabron, his brother Paterson Cabron—cared for him deeply, and gradually he felt a sense of belonging here.

After all, the coming war was merely the beginning of Azeroth’s turmoil. To survive the tides of chaos was the foremost concern.

There was an old legend that Northshire Abbey marked the beginning of Azeroth’s chaos. Long before King Lothar joined that fateful adventure, before he had even come of age—during a time predating the First War—a young man awoke from a decade-long slumber. Unbeknownst to all, a seed of demonic conspiracy had already been planted in his heart. He gifted his friend, the young King Llane, a magical hourglass symbolizing the kingdom’s fate, claiming that as long as the sands flowed, the kingdom would stand. No one knew that the hourglass could shatter at any moment.

Through all that transpired, Northshire Abbey remained the starting point for human adventurers—a silent observer, unchanged by those who passed through.

Patrick worked in the alchemy lab of his father, Phil Cabron’s, mage tower. His father, a fifth-circle mage, was a master of alchemy, supplying the council with provisions, alchemical products, and raw materials. Even Captain Nochon, leader of the palace Spellbreakers, praised his father’s potions.

The monthly quota had arrived: forty bundles of silverleaf, fifteen of peacebloom, fifteen of earthroot, and thirty crystal vials—time to brew strength elixirs and basic healing potions.

Such was the life of a second-circle mage: mornings spent studying the family’s spellbooks and practicing arcane arts, afternoons preparing silverleaf solutions in the alchemy lab. Used as a solvent with peacebloom, silverleaf solution had simple healing properties.

Patrick opened his arcane tome, ready to begin today’s lesson: “The Application of Arcane Magic and the Connection to Mental Power.”

Magic was a wondrous thing. It seemed to follow its own rules of energy, displaying powers unique to magic—somewhat akin to the science of his previous life. Science explained his former world; life and production were tightly bound to it.

Science had its rules: conservation of energy, atomic theory, the law of gravity. Patrick once thought arcane magic had its own theorems, but now, as a true arcanist, he realized how naïve he had been.

Arcane was not science. It was not physics or chemistry, but a higher form of energy—something that could be guided and controlled. Runes, seals, and magic circles, all based on arcane studies, used arcane as their driving force.

As an arcanist advanced in rank, mental power became ever more crucial. The strength of one’s mind affected spell construction, casting techniques, and more. The benefits of growing mental power were limitless for an arcanist.

Reflecting on this, Patrick began training his mind, sculpting ice in his imagination—envisioning the shape of a frostbolt, its sharp tip, crystalline shaft, and angular fletching, working step by step, detail by detail.

He carefully controlled the construction with his mind, channeling arcane energy evenly, not daring to relax. Yet, he struggled to grasp the essence. In his hand, the frostbolt was little more than a crude arrow—his novice mind unable to perfect its form. Still, this proved the link and synergy between mental power and arcane magic.

As the saying goes, “Three feet of ice is not formed in a single day.” Training required patient accumulation. With time, he would eventually achieve the ideal form he envisioned.

“You seem to have been training your mental power just now. Such diligence is rare among the Quel’dorei. The knowledge of the Evocation school may be of use to you. I wish you success, brother,” said Paterson Cabron. His elder brother was a bit excited, his golden eyebrows trembling slightly.

The Cabron family was a middle-ranked house in Silvermoon, prosperous in alchemy, herbalism, and various raw material trades. Yet, lacking a high-circle arcanist, they could not enter the Silvermoon Council and wielded little real power.

Their father, Phil Cabron, was only a fifth-circle mage, owner of a five-story mage tower.

“Arcane sensitivity…” Patrick mused. “Yes, I was just practicing the mental construct technique described in the book.”

Paterson had noticed him training his mind. High elves were born with arcane affinity; some, particularly sensitive, could immediately discern whether a creature possessed spellcasting ability and the highest level of magic it could wield.

Paterson himself was already a fourth-circle mage—the family’s best hope to surpass their father and inherit the mage tower. He believed Patrick was especially gifted; not yet a century old, he had already become a third-circle mage. In time, his achievements might eclipse their father’s.

High elves lived long lives, averaging four thousand years. In ancient times, the Well of Eternity granted them immortality. Ten thousand years ago, during the War of the Ancients, Sargeras led the Burning Legion in a devastating invasion, and the elves waged a titanic battle against the demons.

Ultimately, the war threw the Well of Eternity into chaos, resulting in a catastrophic explosion and a series of disasters.

The blast shook the very foundations of its temple and triggered massive earthquakes across the land. Even as the Legion and the night elves continued their bloody struggle, the surging Well of Eternity collapsed.

The Well had bestowed prosperity and immortality upon the Highborne, but with its destruction, it reclaimed everything it had given—life, power, sustenance, even civilization. The cataclysmic explosion tore the land asunder, shrouding the skies with gloom, as if the world itself were ending.

The explosion’s tremors shattered the world’s very skeleton, and seawater roared into the continent’s fissures, sundering nearly eighty percent of Kalimdor. Only scattered fragments remained, now encircling the newly formed seas.

At the center of this new ocean—where the Well once stood—was a whirling vortex of chaotic energy. This dreadful scar was known as the Maelstrom, its maddened rotation never ceasing. Crimson skies and blood-red waters spun in a vast, endless spiral, drawing the sea ever inward. No one dared approach—not even airships would risk flying nearby.

Where once stood the beginning of the world, now lay its end—a relic of that calamity, marking the close of an ideal age.

Without the Well of Eternity, the Highborne discovered their immortality was gone. City spell circles, arcane nodes, magical carvings, and mana crystal towers began to fail. Even the cities’ basic energy supplies began to falter.

The loss of arcane power tormented the Highborne, leaving them gaunt and hollow, like walking corpses. The absence of magic caused them to regress, until Dath’remar crossed the sea to the east and established the Sunwell, halting their degeneration at last.