"Drink, human. This is your destiny."
"Then, the price... cough! Cough! Cough... damn, you're forcing it down my throat!!"
"Just drink when you're told to. You dare talk about a price? Who do you think you are, Grom Hellscream?"
After being forced to drink a bowl of unknown green liquid, Robbie's mind was in turmoil and every part of his body felt miserable. With difficulty, he opened his eyes.
Everything was dim. He was in a damp, chilly chamber, where torches on the walls flickered weakly. He could just make out several stone pillars, with unknown humanoid creatures chained to them. They were covered in blood, their heads hanging, their lives uncertain, and they made no sound.
Standing opposite Robbie was a peculiar creature that walked upright. It had green skin, a savage face, terrifying red eyes, and enormous fangs. Several bone spikes protruded from its back, with ghastly skulls impaled on them.
That face was unmistakably Gul'dan, the Orc, Ner'zhul's apprentice and the first Warlock in World of Warcraft. Robbie stared blankly for a moment, then, for some reason, burst out laughing and offered an instinctive assessment:
"Hey, buddy, nice cosplay. Not bad, you've got some resemblance. I'd give you ninety out of a hundred."
"Cosplay?" the peculiar creature repeated in confusion.
"Let's be frank. Your fangs aren't sharp enough. I can tell they're cheap at a glance. The red contacts are good, but your eyes lack expression. You've got the look, but not the spirit. Your face looks somewhat similar, but your muscles look unnatural, and you're not fierce enough. And those bone spikes and skulls on your back—I watched the Warcraft movie. Gul'dan's bone spikes grow out of his back. Yours obviously came attached to your robe."
As a Warcraft fanatic and a hardcore cosplayer who had performed in numerous Warcraft skits, Robbie saw through the many flaws in the person's costume at a glance.
"I don't really understand what you're saying. What are colored contacts, and what is the Warcraft movie...? Well, none of that matters. What race do you think I am?" the fellow who looked like Gul'dan asked.
"You're human," Robbie answered as if it were obvious. "Of course, that's fine. As far as I'm concerned, as long as you love cosplay, that's enough."
Robbie himself was stunned after rattling off that nonsense almost instinctively. Something wasn't right. What language had he just spoken?
"You have a discerning eye. In all these years, you're the second human to see through my disguise. A soul from another world really is no simple thing." The stranger cosplaying as Gul'dan pulled out his fangs and replaced them with two thicker ones, making himself look fiercer.
"Hey, why did you capture me?" Robbie's thoughts had returned to some semblance of normality, and he realized he was bound to a stone pillar, unable to move.
Kidnapping, or revenge? Robbie's mind was in chaos, crammed with jumbled, tangled memories. It was as though countless people were arguing inside his head, and he was on the verge of a mental breakdown.
"You know too much." The stranger waved a hand, and two strong Orcs walked in.
The two Orcs were bare-chested, with bulging muscles, sharp fangs, and vacant expressions. This was no cosplay. They were genuine Orc warriors.
Robbie stared, dumbfounded, half astonished and half panicked. What kind of world was this?
The two Orcs grabbed Robbie, one on each side, and threw him into a separate cell.
He could faintly hear the fellow who liked cosplay giving his subordinates instructions:
"This is a human suffering from soul loss after passing through the Dark Portal, a very rare test subject. I summoned a human soul from the endless void and stuffed it into his body. You two, watch closely for the effects of the drug. No slacking off. There isn't much time left. We must find a substitute for Mannoroth's blood as soon as possible..."
Lying in a stinking pile of rotting straw, Robbie clutched his head and struggled to sort out his jumbled memories.
After a long while, he finally managed to put his thoughts in order.
Robbie's mind was a mess because it was filled with the memories of two people.
One set of memories was of life on Earth. Nearing graduation in his senior year, Robbie had watched the Warcraft movie with his dorm mates and posed for a photo with several cosplayers in front of a large poster outside the theater. Facing the setting sun, they had grinned foolishly, full of passion and anticipation for the future.
The memory froze there.
There should have been a considerable stretch of life after that, but Robbie couldn't remember it.
The other set of memories came from Robbie Capor, an adventurer from the Azeroth Continent. They were this body's original memories.
Robbie Capor was born in the picturesque Lakeshire and was a low-level Warlock who could only summon imps.
During the Cataclysm, in Stormwind City's most difficult years, he had spent time in the Deadmines.
During Garrosh's rampage, Robbie Capor traveled far and wide, making something of a name for himself across the Azeroth Continent through swindling and deception. He was an adventurer of some repute. By the age of twenty-three, he had accumulated a sizable sum and returned home in glory, intending to marry Lisa next door.
But that happy life was interrupted by an unexpected letter.
"Dear Robbie Capor, in recognition of your great achievements, particularly your immortal contributions to the defeat of Garrosh's tyranny, you are hereby awarded the title of one of the Azeroth Continent's five hundred most influential figures. Please collect your medal in front of the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands on the appointed date. Chefs from the Tillers of Halfhill in Pandaria will prepare delicacies for the recipients.
Signed: the great and immortal mentor, the most famous Shaman, the super handsome Orc, guardian of the planet, savior of Azeroth, infinitely wise and invincible, brilliant military strategist, undefeated in battle, the mighty Thrall."
The envelope bore a royal seal from Stormwind City as proof. The letter couldn't be fake.
But what was this about going to the Blasted Lands to receive a medal?
It would have made some sense if it were Dalaran, the neutral city.
Although Stormwind City's authorities had suppressed the news, Robbie Capor had heard through the grapevine that things were unsettled in the Blasted Lands. Orc troops from an unknown source were running rampant, had destroyed the Alliance stronghold of Nethergarde Keep, and called themselves the Iron Horde.
Robbie Capor didn't believe he had ever accomplished any great deeds, nor had he taken part in the war against the previous Orc Warchief, Garrosh. He had intended to ignore the letter, but his fiancée Lisa was a diehard fan of the savior Thrall and was determined to get her idol's autograph. She urged Robbie to go to the Blasted Lands and even threatened their marriage over it.
With no choice, Robbie Capor ultimately compromised and set out on a journey into an uncertain future. He never returned.
In the Blasted Lands, before the gloomy Dark Portal, Robbie Capor met two hundred young Alliance adventurers. They came from different places, had some fame and a few blemishes on their records, and were bewildered and at a loss.
The title of one of the five hundred most influential figures, the medal, the food—it was all nonsense.
From an "insider," Robbie Capor learned the truth. Because the two sides of the Dark Portal were separated by thirty-five years, a "phase time difference" had arisen. Passing through the Dark Portal could cause conditions such as soul loss. To ensure that the World Shaman, Khadgar, and the other heroes passed through the Dark Portal in the correct posture, a group of "brave warriors" was needed to scout ahead.
"Brave warriors" was the flattering term. In truth, they were cannon fodder, guinea pigs.
After that, some things happened in front of the Dark Portal, full of twists and complications, bizarre and unexpected. Unfortunately, recalling them was extremely difficult. He could only see a few fragments, and in the end he had to give up. In any case, Robbie Capor hadn't escaped the fate of cannon fodder.
It seemed this timeline corresponded to World of Warcraft version 0, shortly after the opening cinematic of Warlords of Draenor. Garrosh, the former Warchief of the Horde, had traveled back thirty-five years to Draenor, helped his father Grom Hellscream establish the Iron Horde, and built the Dark Portal with plans to invade Azeroth.
The moderately well-known adventurer Robbie Capor had suffered soul loss while passing through the Dark Portal, his soul shattering, and had been captured by the Iron Horde. The mysterious man cosplaying as Gul'dan had grabbed a soul from the void: Robbie from Earth.
He was in an Iron Horde prison? Robbie naturally came to that conclusion.
What was that unknown liquid? And who was the mysterious man?
Robbie smacked his lips, savoring the taste of the mysterious liquid.
It tasted like a mix of cola and Sprite. Not bad.
What should he do next?
Robbie carefully examined his surroundings.
Rather than a prison, it was more like an underground laboratory. Captives like Robbie were guinea pigs, helping the mysterious man test potions made with Demon Blood. Demons' power was violent, twisted, and chaotic. Many captives had exploded and died after drinking it; the luckier ones became muddleheaded monsters. Robbie was among the luckiest, one of those on whom it had no effect.
Actually, it did have an effect. Before long, Robbie felt an inexplicable power welling up inside him. His whole body was filled with explosive, inexhaustible strength. Stranger still, his mind became exceptionally clear, and his thoughts moved with extraordinary speed.
Robbie began pondering who he was, why he had come to the Azeroth Continent, and what the meaning of life was. Why were some people born noble and others lowly? Where did people come from, and where were they going? How vast was the universe, and who controlled fate?
His head ached, and he couldn't figure it out, so he tried thinking about some simpler problems.
Calculus, Gauss's theorem, relativity, quantum mechanics... the knowledge he had learned at university seemed extraordinarily simple. Robbie then began thinking about the Atlantis Civilization and the Lemurian Civilization. They were his ideals and pursuits, dreams he had abandoned. Whenever he recalled them, he felt a faint ache in his heart.
Dizzy and bleary-eyed from thinking, Robbie gave up on those impractical recollections. He realized he had to face reality and find a way out.
Following the body's original memories, Robbie found some useful things.
Robbie Capor was a weak, somewhat cunning Warlock. As the saying went, extra skills never hurt. Like all adventurers, he hadn't confined himself to his own class, learning other classes' skills whenever he had the chance.
Unfortunately, he had lacked a skilled teacher's guidance and hadn't mastered any of them.
For example, he had barely learned the basics of the hunter's feign death skill.
If he used feign death this way, perhaps it would have an unexpected effect.
His exceptionally clear thinking made Robbie's eyes light up.
That was what he would do.
The two Orcs had been watching the cell all along. They saw Robbie's body slump and his breathing stop.
One Orc came over and felt Robbie's neck.
"He's not breathing. He should be dead."
"Wait until dark. Humans are cunning. We have to be on guard," the other Orc said.
More than half a day passed like that, and the "corpse" had gone cold.
"Looks like he's really dead. Feed him to the Fel Orcs."
"No. The Demon Blood he drank was the only sample, and it was marked as the highest level of hazardous material. The Fel Orcs might be poisoned to death."
Thus, as luck would have it, two laborers carried Robbie's "corpse" out of the prison and casually threw it away.
In a garbage dump, Robbie sat up and laughed toward the sky.
"Ha ha, heaven hasn't abandoned me."
Using a Warlock's knowledge of corpses, combined with the hunter's feign death skill and a body transformed by the mysterious liquid that he could control down to the smallest detail, Robbie had feigned death almost perfectly and successfully fooled the two jailers.
On top of that, his luck had been good. Robbie had been worried that the Orcs would eat him or send him to a dissection table. In that case, he could only have fought desperately and carved a bloody path out against overwhelming odds.
He had finally escaped without a hitch and could at last breathe a long sigh of relief.
Once he saw his surroundings clearly, Robbie's heart sank.
Could this be the Iron Horde's base, the Tanaan Jungle?
The Dark Portal was the only way home.
Robbie picked his way along, identifying the route and heading toward the Dark Portal while carefully avoiding the Iron Horde.
The Demon Blood had improved Robbie's physique, making him stronger than an ordinary person and extremely agile.
The previous Robbie Capor would have been delighted, but the present Robbie had lived two lives, and his knowledge and views were no longer the same as before.
In the normal timeline, the Orcs drank Mannoroth's blood and gained violent power, but the price was the gradual loss of their reason as they grew more frenzied. It was essentially trading reason for power.
Robbie hadn't gone mad; instead, he had grown more intelligent. The price must be hidden somewhere he couldn't see.
If he had the chance, he would return to Draenor and capture the mysterious man cosplaying as Gul'dan to get to the bottom of it.
Unfortunately, when Robbie finally reached the Dark Portal after untold hardship, all he saw was a heap of fallen wreckage. The Dark Portal was destroyed, his way home was cut off, and behind him lay the endless Iron Horde.
What should he do?