Hello everyone! A little while ago we spoke about the story of Tirion Frodring and you
might remember how he was excommunicated, disconnected from using the Light...but not really
for as Tiron put it, “Men could strip him of his armor and titles, they could take away
his home and his wealth- but the Light would always be within him...” The human was right,
but there is a case, a weapon capable of disconnecting people from the Light...
For that story we’ll have to go back to a time before the dark portal had even opened up.
The Draenei, after declining Sargeras’ offer of joining the Burning Legion, they were on the run.
Hiding away from his forces, from their own kind that did decide to team up with the dark titan.
Kil’jaeden especially took it quite personal that Velen was not joining them. He promised
that he would hunt them down and so for thousands of years the Draenei ran from planet to until they
could run no more. Their ship was forced to make a crash landing on the planet of Draenor and there
they would build up a home for themselves, hoping to not be noticed. For a while there time here was
quite peaceful. Sure enough, the locals like the ogres were not too fond of these new settlers,
but they didn’t really stand a chance against the might of the Draenei. Relations with the orcs...
it was not like they were feasting at their campsites, but there was no hostility between
them and mostly they kept to themselves, living their own lives. That is until Kil’jaeden found
them again and he didn’t know that they were stuck on the planet. To avoid the draenei from
escaping his grasp once more, he decided to be a bit more cunning and make the local orcs do
his dirty work. By pretending to be a benelevolent ancestor, he was able to maneuver them from their
traditional shamanism to becoming warlocks. Embrace the fel, magically age their children
to increase their numbers, forming the Horde a unified fighting force from the different clans
and ultimately make them drink the blood of Mannoroth, shackling their souls to the Legion.
“Driiiiiiink”
That’s gul’dan right there, one of the key figures who did not particulary care about his people.
He was more invested in getting the promised power from the legion and would do anything kil’jaeden
asked of him, even selling out his very race. So it was that the might of Horde took down some
prime locations of the Draenei, like Karabor or the Black Temple as you might know it better as.
Their might was great, near unstoppable until only Shattrath city remained to be taken. The city was
doomed from the start, Prophet Velen had foreseen it. At first he wanted to do a full evacuation,
get their people of there, but that would only stop the Horde for a moment.
Their rampage across Draenor would not end until they had wiped out all of the draenei or atleast
until they believed they had. Another plan was made, one where many of their civilians would get
a chance to flee to safety, but the majority of their military would remain in the city.
They would sacrifice their lives to make the Horde believe it had destroyed them. Velen vowed to be
one of those defenders, to stand with his people and make the ultimate sacrifice but his followers
argued against it. In their hearts they knew that shattrath was doomed to fall.
If their race had any hope of survival, it would be under Velens wise leadership. As much as he
wanted too, he had a greater path, a greater goal to fullfill then to die there in battle.
While the orcish clans were setting out from the throne of Kil’jaeden,
Velen and the exarchs made their preperations. The prophet led many civilians to Telredor,
a remote temple built upon an island in the zangar sea. Meanwhile, rangari scouts harrassed the
horde lines, slowing their approach. In shattrath itself, the vindicators shored up their defenses,
brave Draenei you might have seen before like Maraad, Akama and of course... Nobdundo.
The Siege of Shattrath would not just be the clash of steel, fel and holy power.
Gul’dan and his shadow council had prepared something rather special for the draenei
waiting inside. By combining their warlock magics with the red pox and the red pox is a
disease that occasionaly flared up amongst the orcs. Not a disease they always had,
they in turn got it as a gift from the ogres. The ogres, they got it by studying the curse
of sethe and experimenting with ways to induce a similar afflictiong among the orcs. The curse of
sethe is a very ancient curse created by the wind serpent god Sethe. You might recall dealing with
it during Warlords of Draenor. The curse causes the Arakkoa effected by it to become wretched and
flightless and also cuts them off from the light of their sun goddess, a goddess called Rukhmar.
So that curse in the form of rex pox mixed with a bit of warlock fel magic was thrown at the
draenei with siege engines. The bombs exploded against shattraths walls and released a foul mist
that burned the draenei’s skin and choked the breath from their lungs. A thick red fog enveloped
shattraths battlements , as the mist wreaked havoc amongst the defenders, the orcs flooded through
breaches in the city walls. Maraad, Akama, Nobduno and thousand of shattraths other defenders stood
firm against the hordes onslaught. They knew they were doomed, and their only wish was to
take as many orcs with them as they could. They had not counted on this chemical warfare though
but fought on all the same. The mist had worked its way onto the rise, where it rolled out and
covered the stone like a carpet. Nobundo and his fellow Vindicators fought on as the mist rose
to chest level, then finally to their faces, stinging their eyes and burning their lungs.
Nobundo heard the death-cries of several of his companions, but he had lost sight
of them in the dense red fog. Mercifully the attacks on him seemed to have abated;
he stumbled back a step, stifling the urge to vomit. It felt as if his skull was about to burst.
Then he heard a horrific battle cry from out of the mist that chilled him to the bone.
A shadow approached. Nobundo struggled to see as his body wrenched in spasms.
He tried desperately to hold his breath as out of the dense crimson mist stepped a tattooed,
fiery-eyed terror… a massive orc covered in the distinctive blue of draenei blood, out of breath,
twisting a wicked two-handed axe in his grip. Grommash Hellscream, his raven-hued hair clung
to his thick chest and shoulders, and his lower jaw had been colored as black as pitch, lending
his face the countenance of a skull. Behind him scores of orcs rushed onto the rise. Nobundo knew
that the end was near. The wall shook once more. The nightmarish orc charged. Nobundo arched back.
The blade carved a gash across his chest, rending his armor and numbing his left side.
Nobundo answered with a swing of his hammer that crushed the fingers of the orc’s right hand,
rendering it and the axe he held useless. Then, to Nobundo’s horror, the terrifying creature smiled.
The orc gripped him with his good hand, and the twin furnaces of his eyes
bored into Nobundo… bored through him. He was forced to gasp for air and as he did,
he felt the veneer of his will being stripped away. It was as if some manner of dark,
demonic magic was at work, as if a part of his very essence was being obliterated,
and it was an assault he had no answer for. Nobundo vomited thick blood onto the orc’s face
and chest. He closed his eyes and frantically, desperately hailed the Light, beseeching it to
neutralize the orc long enough for him to mount a defense. He called out… And for the first time
since he had contacted the Light and been graced by its blessed radiance… There was no answer.
Nobundo had never felt so helplessly lost and utterly alone. If the Light was out of reach
and he died here, what would become of his spirit?
Would the Light not receive him? Would his essence be condemned to an eternity of drifting through
the void? He had lived his life honorably. Yet… could this be some kind of punishment?
Imagine what a shock it must have been for suddenly to be disconnected from something
that’s been with you for all those years. His encounter with grommash ended with being
knocked off the wall, not to his demise though. When he regained consciousness,
the sound of female draenei being tortured by the orcs assaulted him from above. Around him
mounds of corpses still slick with vomit and blood and every manner of waste. Nobundo’s
heart iwthered at the sight of children among the dead. Despite their youth, many of tem had bravely
volunteered to stay with their parents, who knew all too well that the orcs would be suspicious
of a draenei city where no children dwelled and would hunt the last of their king to extinction.
Without the light and being severly wounded, the battle was over. There was nothing Nobundo could
do here but perhaps flee and live another day. The path of a coward he thought, but the path he took.
As the screams stopped for a moment, the orcs discarded the body down below and began working
on a new victim. As he shambled slowly, painfully into Terokkar Forest, female screams atop Aldor
Rise began anew. Nobundo ran away in search of his people, the others that have survived
this horrible night at Shattrath. A night that would haunt his dreams for many moons to come...
What they didn’t know at the time was that the disconnection from the Light
was merely the start. As the curse of Sethe made the arakoa wretched and flightless, these
draenei that had inhaled the red mists started to devolve into what they would call the Krokul,
more commonly known as the Broken. This is where the image of the draenei being all pure and good
starts to crumble as despite people like Velen and Maraad telling them to accept the broken,
to accept their brothers and sisters that gave so much for their defense,
the people feared their mutations would spread to them as well. Even went as far as to say that if
the Light had abandoned Nobundo, perhaps it had done so with a reason. Who were they to
question the ways of the Light? Overtime they were cast out, banished, forced to live in the wilds
and these are the wilds of draenor with blood thirsty orcs and demonic forces running rampant.
The changes in Nobundo and the others continued. Appendages appeared where before there were none.
Spots and warts and strange growths spread across their bodies. Their hooves, one of the draenei’s
most distinctive features, were entirely gone, replaced by things that now resembled
misshapen feet. Nor was such change limited to the purely physical. Their brains struggled
more and more to maintain higher functions. And some, some became lost completely, turning into
vacant shells that meandered aimlessly, conversing with audiences that existed only in their minds.
Lost Ones we call them, sometimes they would simply wake up and wander off,
never to return. Nearly every day Nobundo tried to reconnect with the Light and every night he
suffered the same terrible nightmares, nightmares about Shattrath. About trying to help his people,
but being unable too. Perhaps it would be better if he just followed the example set by the others.
To find a high cliff somewhere and just let go. This world had nothing left for him. It would be
so easy to take those final steps, to walk off the edge and put an end to the misery. But even now,
cast out by his own people, ignored by the Light,
tormented by the souls of those he had failed to save...Nobundo found that he could not
give up. In his darkest hour a voice carried upon the wind. Everything....everything that
is...everything that is...is alive. After all these years of pleading,
Nobundo had finally received an answer; an answer that came not from the Light… But from the wind.
The elements that had been forsaken by the orcs in exchange for their powers of fel,
now called out to this broken. Over the next several days Nobundo returned to the cliff,
where he heard whispers carried by the wind: reassurances that he was not alone, promises,
and tantalizing hints that a wealth of knowledge awaited him. Sometimes the voice of the wind was
calm and placating; at others it was insistent and forceful. All the while, a nagging doubt
still lingered in Nobundo’s mind that perhaps he was going mad after all. On the fifth day,
as he sat near the cliff’s edge, he heard a rumbling sound like thunder, though the sky was
clear. He opened his eyes and witnessed a great column of fire erupting beyond the cliff’s edge,
rising from the fissure below. The flames spread out, and in their flickering dance he could see
shifting, nebulous features. When the fire spoke, it sounded like a great and powerful storm.
He was summoned to the mountains of Nagrand, to the throne of elements but to get there
he’d have to pass through the camps of the unaffected, where he was no longer allowed
entry but it’s kinda difficult to stop someone with the elements on their side.
At the throne his journey began, from the elements he learned much. Where once it was the orcs that
listened to the colors of the wind, their teachings are now passed on to this broken...
but these were just the first small steps. “No matter how far my journey takes me,
I suppose true understanding lies in the knowledge that the journey will never end.”
And when he was finally ready to return to his people, to share the gift and knowledge that
was bestowed upon him he ran into Velen, the one who had always wanted to be there for him. Who
now assured him that running away from Shattrath was not an act of cowardice, but rather embracing
that fate had more in store for him. The road traveled for Nobundo, the sacrifices made
had not been easy yet through it all he was still willing to return and help out his fellow
Draenei. The ancient customs once belonging to the orcs were now shared amongst his people.
“Your journey begins with these simple words….” Nobundo smiled. The clouds above swirled.
Lightning arced. Rain poured. “Everything that is, is alive.”
He would be there at Velen’s side when the time of change came to Outland formerly known as draenor.
The naaru answered their call for help, showed up with the tempest keep. Part of it had the Exodar
which Velen, Nobundo and some of their people took to traverse the stars and end up on Azeroth
with the Burning Crusade. For a long while Nobundo didn’t do a whole lot in the story. Mainly played
the function as shaman trainer for the newly added draenei shamans to the alliance and willing to
share his tale for those that are curious. There was a small bit during childrens week
where the orphan Dornaa shows incredible talent for wielding the elements, but our boy Nobundo
wouldn’t play a major part until the elements desperatly needed his aid with the cataclysm.
But that’s a tale for next week so for now thank you very much for watching everyone! Subscribe if
you like my videos, leave a like if you enjoyed this one aaaand until next time....see ya!