Chapter Summaries

Karin Sunfury arrived at Karazhan to assist Medivh and met the Tower’s steward, Moroes. As Moroes led him inside, Karin learned that the Tower also housed a cook named Kuke.

• Karin crossed Deadwind Pass and approached Medivh’s Tower, Karazhan.
• Moroes answered Karin’s knock and asked whether he was the new assistant, then accepted the letters from Karin and identified himself as the Tower’s steward.
• Moroes led Karin into Karazhan, where Karin sensed powerful arcane energy and declined a blindfold.
• Karin asked Moroes who else lived in the Tower, and Moroes told him that Kuke was the cook.

Karin witnessed a vision in Karazhan’s magic of a future battle at Stormwind City, where Anduin Lothar and Varian Wrynn prepared to face an orc army. The chapter ended as the orcs charged and the battle began.

• Moroes warned Karin that the tower’s powerful magic could make visitors see disturbing things.
• Karin looked at an oil painting and lost consciousness, then awoke in a vision among Stormwind soldiers beneath a blood-red sky.
• Karin recognized Anduin Lothar as the soldiers’ commander and learned that orcs had captured Goldshire and were approaching Stormwind City.
• Karin saw an older Varian Wrynn beside Lothar and realized the vision showed a future several years ahead.
• Lothar prepared to defend Stormwind City as a vast orc army appeared, and the battle between humans and orcs began.

Karin experienced an illusion of an orc attack in which a Hellhound killed a powerful human mage, then escaped by forcing himself to wake. Wearing a blindfold to avoid further illusions, he reached Karazhan’s observatory, where Medivh welcomed him as a spy.

• Karin watched orc warlocks and warriors overwhelm the human defenders, and a Hellhound killed a Fifth Ring mage.
• After hearing a familiar voice, Karin used his mental power to force himself out of the illusion and woke on Karazhan’s stairs.
• Karin asked Moroes for a blindfold and continued up the final flight of stairs without falling into another illusion.
• Karin reached the observatory and saw Medivh, but Moroes stopped him while he spoke privately with Medivh.
• Medivh looked toward Karin and welcomed him to Karazhan as a young spy.

Karin met Medivh at Karazhan and openly explained the tasks his mentors had given him. Medivh revealed that prophecy had let him anticipate Karin’s visit and the contents of the letter, then confirmed Karin’s name.

• Karin entered the dim observatory and saw Medivh beside a table covered with magical devices, notebooks, and a map of Azeroth.
• Medivh called Karin a spy, and Karin admitted he had come to carry out requests from Modera, Kalai, Rommath, and Antonidas.
• Karin explained that he had not opened the letter because he could guess its contents, and Medivh burned it unread.
• Medivh challenged Karin to explain how he knew what the letter contained, prompting Karin to suspect prophecy.
• Medivh praised Karin’s deduction and asked whether his name was Karin Sunfury, and Karin confirmed it.

Medivh questioned Karin about his magical skills, travels, and knowledge of other races and demons, then tested what Karin knew about Medivh’s past. The conversation ended with Medivh offering Karin a first lesson in surviving at Karazhan: learning to hold his drink.

• Medivh asked Karin about his research, spellcasting abilities, and secondary professions, and Karin answered that he specialized in protection magic and had recently reached the fifth ring.
• Medivh questioned Karin about his journey from Dalaran and his encounters with Kul Tiras sailors, goblins, dwarves, gnomes, and trolls.
• Karin told Medivh that he had never tried summoning a demon, then described what Dalaran’s records said about Medivh’s family and childhood.
• Medivh corrected Karin’s account, saying his mother Aegwynn had named him and that the name carried her hopes for him.
• Moroes brought Medivh ale, and Medivh ordered him to bring Karin a mug as Karin objected that alcohol damaged mental power.

Karin settled into Karazhan after sharing ale with Medivh, but a prophecy showed red dragons and orc riders attacking Dalaran. He woke from the vision and asked Moroes to have Kuke make him protective glasses.

• Karin drank a large mug of ale with Medivh, who said he was beginning to appreciate him.
• Moroes led Karin to his room and described the tower’s meals and provisions.
• Karin lost consciousness and saw more than twenty red dragons carrying orc riders preparing to attack Dalaran.
• In the vision, a red dragon burned a nearby town and Kel'Thuzad's home as the battle between dragons and mages began.
• Karin woke when Moroes shook him and asked to get Quartz Glasses like Kuke's to shield him from the visions.

Karin recalled the All-Knowing Eye’s explanation of prophecy and how its laws led Kassas to destroy Netheril while trying to save it. Back in Karazhan, Karin avoided seeing the end of an illusion that seemed to show his own future and resolved to shape his fate through his own efforts.

• Karin remembered asking the All-Knowing Eye how it assessed likely events, and it explained that its knowledge came from the prophetic powers of the Golden Dragon brain used to create it.
• The All-Knowing Eye warned Karin that a completed prophecy became inevitable once its subject knew of it, while an unknown prophecy did not necessarily come true.
• The All-Knowing Eye explained that a Netheril council member spread a prophecy of the empire’s destruction by the Phaerimm, making the prediction inevitable.
• Kassas cast the Twelfth Ring Apotheosis Spell to kill Mystra and change the rules of prophecy, but his inability to control her power collapsed Netheril’s Ley Line and destroyed the world.
• Karin recalled that the voice at the end of his Karazhan illusion had sounded like his own, and he was grateful he had avoided seeing its conclusion.

Karin ate dinner at Medivh’s castle, learned that many assistants had come and gone before him, and received a pair of black glasses made from valuable ink crystal. He improved the lenses in his room and was pleased with how they looked and felt.

• Karin followed Moroes to the dining room, where Moroes explained that previous assistants had often fled after experiencing the castle’s illusions.
• Moroes served Karin hard bread and a strange meat-and-vegetable dish, which Karin mostly avoided.
• Moroes brought Karin the black glasses Kuke had made, explaining that a noble had left the material at the castle.
• Karin recognized that the lenses were made from valuable ink crystal and thanked Kuke through Moroes.
• Back in his room, Karin used his Staff to smooth the lenses, then admired the comfortable glasses in a mirror.

Karin began his work as Medivh's assistant by exploring Karazhan's neglected library and trying to organize its contents. He discovered the library was messier—and more inhabited—than he expected, while Medivh remained upstairs in his study.

• Karin had breakfast with Medivh, who asked what mages in Dalaran and Silvermoon City thought of King Llane Wrynn.
• Moroes led Karin to the filthy, disorganized library and warned him that previous assistants had found the job too difficult.
• Karin spent more than two hours sorting books, scrolls, and crystal balls on the first row of shelves.
• Karin mistook a pool of red paraffin oil for blood, then found a mouse and its nest after shielding himself from a shape that lunged from the shelves.
• Karin joked that Medivh needed a wife more than an assistant and glanced toward Medivh's study.

Karin was nearly killed when Medivh mistook him for a thief, then learned that Medivh suffered such episodes every few days. Medivh confronted the Bronze Dragon Arcanagos at Karazhan and killed him with the dragonfire he had deflected.

• Karin stopped reading when Moroes called him to eat, but Medivh appeared and accused him of being a thief.
• Medivh crushed Karin with magic until Karin identified himself as the library assistant, then apologized and let him go.
• Moroes helped Karin stand and said Medivh had episodes like that every few days.
• Medivh went to Karazhan's terrace, where Arcanagos arrived and warned that a grain of sand threatened the stability of history.
• Medivh ignored Arcanagos's explanation, subdued the Bronze Dragon, and turned its dragonfire against it.
• Karin heard a distant, animal-like wail during his meal, and Moroes told him to keep eating.

Karin endured a poor lunch at Karazhan and tried to gauge whether Medivh suspected him of being an intruder. Medivh sought advice on punishing an intruder, then left for the upper floors while Karin settled in the library and heard strange noises from the terrace.

• Karin secretly moved most of the salty boar meat off his plate with Levitate and pretended he had eaten it.
• Medivh came downstairs looking pale and unsettled, drank ale, and asked Karin what he should do to an intruder in his Mage Tower.
• Karin said he would kill an intruder who entered deliberately with ill intent, then suggested flogging the corpse as further punishment.
• Medivh split the dining table with his hand, ordered Moroes to pour Karin a mug of ale, and headed upstairs.
• Karin took his ale to the library, browsed its books, and heard strange noises from the terrace but ignored them.

While Medivh was away, Karin made Karazhan’s library his own and began learning to disarm the dangerous books’ traps. In the Black Morass, a hooded figure ordered Gul'dan to lead the orc army toward the human kingdom’s capital, then vanished in the form of a raven after suffering a sudden bout of pain.

• Medivh left Karazhan, and Karin wrote Antonidas a cautious letter hinting at the Tower’s strange happenings.
• During Medivh’s two-week absence, Karin studied the library’s dangerous books and made progress disarming their traps.
• A raven transformed into a hooded figure in an orc warlock camp in the Black Morass and demanded to see Gul'dan.
• The hooded figure learned that six orc clans had brought fifty thousand troops through the Dark Portal and that Gul'dan had prepared supplies and concealed the camp with fel magic.
• The hooded figure ordered Gul'dan to march on the human kingdom’s capital, then clutched his head in pain and vanished as a raven.

Medivh took Karin from Karazhan on a flight north by gryphon, but they became separated over the Redridge Mountains. Karin was shot down by orcs and fell from the sky.

• Medivh summoned gryphons and ordered Karin to follow him, so Karin mounted a white gryphon despite his inexperience.
• Karin unexpectedly understood how to ride the gryphon and followed Medivh through the night, using the glow from Atiesh to keep track of him.
• Karin woke to find Medivh’s light gone and realized they had become separated over the Redridge Mountains.
• Karin spotted signs of destruction below and then saw a company of orcs hiding among the trees.
• The orcs shot the gryphon’s wing, and Karin lost his grip on the reins and fell.

Karin fought to escape a large Orc force in the Redridge Mountains, using spells and nitroglycerin to hold them off. He faced an Orc warlock, but the warlock summoned a Hellhound, leaving Karin confronting the creature he feared from his vision.

• Karin slowed his fall with Frost Armor and Slow Fall, signaled for help, and used an Ice Wall to delay the pursuing Orcs before fleeing toward Stormwind City's Defensive Army.
• Karin protected himself from two Orc scouts with Ice Block, then used Blink, Polymorph, and Fireball to get past them.
• Karin threw bags of nitroglycerin at the Orcs, wounding their front ranks, and faced an Orc warlock in a black cloak.
• Karin struck the warlock with Pyroblast and Imprisonment, but a summoning circle appeared beside him.
• The warlock summoned a Hellhound, and Karin recalled the human mage mauled by one in his illusion.

Karin was saved from a Hellhound and a mob of Orcs by Medivh, who criticized Karin’s spellwork and urged him to question the rules of magic. Their discussion of absolute zero ended when Medivh froze the attacking Orcs with a drop of water.

• Karin tried to slow the Hellhound with Frost Nova, but Medivh arrived on a golden Gryphon and crushed the demon hound.
• Medivh killed the Orc Warlock Northgrin with Imprisonment and questioned Karin about his own use of the spell and his mentor, Antonidas.
• Medivh told Karin he was too bound by rules and demonstrated how he could lower a drop of water far below its ordinary freezing point.
• Karin explained that absolute zero was an unchangeable limit, leaving Medivh embarrassed and irritated.
• When the Orcs charged, Medivh turned the drop of water into mist that froze them all, and they fell to the ground.

Karin and Medivh encountered Orcs in the Redridge Mountains, then met Anduin Lothar and warned him that an Orc army was marching on Stormwind City. Medivh showed signs of something being wrong as Lothar reacted to the threat.

• Medivh killed the Orcs and told Karin that the Orc army had built a hidden camp in the Black Morass.
• Medivh turned into a raven, and Karin followed him on a golden Gryphon to meet Anduin Lothar and his cavalry.
• Medivh introduced Karin Sunfury as his new assistant, and Lothar ordered Reginald to dispose of the Orc corpses.
• Medivh told Lothar that the Orc army was marching to attack Stormwind City, and Lothar was visibly shocked.
• Karin noticed something was wrong with Medivh and asked what was happening.

After Medivh collapsed, Karin and Lothar brought him to Stormwind Keep, where he recovered and told Karin about his childhood, the accident that left him unconscious for six years, and his troubling memory lapses. Medivh then asked Karin about the orcs and explained that demons’ resistance to magic did not make them impossible to defeat.

• Lothar carried the unconscious Medivh to Stormwind Keep while Karin followed on his gryphon.
• Bishop Benedictus examined Medivh and said he had exhausted his mental power, while Karin suspected a different cause and kept it secret.
• Medivh woke, drank the ale Karin had placed beside his bed, and asked him not to summon Lothar or King Llane.
• Medivh told Karin that his arcane power had erupted when he was fourteen, killing his father, and that he had then spent six years unconscious.
• Medivh described his headaches and memory gaps before asking Karin what he thought of the orcs.
• Medivh explained that demons resisted arcane magic but were not always as difficult to defeat as Karin feared.

Medivh gave Karin a magically enchanted sword to use against demons and orcs resistant to arcane magic. After Medivh suddenly grew tired, Karin left with Lothar and tested the sword and his staff in Stormwind City's square.

• Medivh explained that Karin could use a conjured blade or a real weapon to cut down demons resistant to arcane magic.
• Medivh revealed a slender, exceptionally sharp sword and gave it to Karin, while Lothar reluctantly accepted its loss.
• Karin named the sword Glamdring, and Medivh enchanted it to glow faintly when orcs or demons approached.
• Medivh clutched his head and said he needed to rest, so Lothar took Karin out of the cottage.
• Karin tested Glamdring alongside the Staff of Jordan in Stormwind City's square and found the staff awkward to wield.

Karin surveyed Stormwind Keep and spoke with Anduin Lothar about Medivh, the coming Orc attack, and Lothar’s defensive plans. Their discussion ended when the Duke of Shadunbrook confronted Lothar over the possible loss of his fiefs.

• Karin explored Stormwind Keep and talked with Anduin Lothar about Medivh’s loneliness and his strange behavior.
• Lothar asked Karin to stay close to Medivh, and Karin agreed to do his best.
• Karin asked about Medivh’s warning, and Lothar confirmed that Orc forces were preparing to march on Stormwind City.
• Lothar explained that he planned to withdraw his army behind Stormwind City’s walls if the Orcs launched a full-scale attack.
• The Duke of Shadunbrook challenged Lothar over abandoning Eastvale Logging Camp and Stone Tablet Lake, but Lothar insisted that sacrifices were necessary for victory.

Karin met young Prince Varian Wrynn, who challenged him to a spar and asked to learn magic. After Karin showed Varian how to use explosive magic items, guards arrived to report that Archmage Haglin had been murdered and the keep was unsafe.

• Varian Wrynn found Karin near Medivh's cottage and asked whether Medivh was well.
• Varian pulled Karin to a training ground and challenged him to a sword spar, but Karin used magic to deflect Varian's strike and disarm him.
• Varian asked Karin to teach him magic, and Karin showed him how to set off two explosive bags beside wooden dummies.
• Varian asked to keep some of the dangerous items, but Karin refused because they were unsafe to store.
• Stormwind City guards arrived and told Varian that Archmage Haglin had been killed in his Mage Tower and the keep was not safe.