Stormwind City... is way less epic than Duke had in mind.
The towering white walls of Stormwind in the game glowing like freshly bleached teeth, the triumphant fanfare bursting in your ears as you crossed the gate, the colossal statues of legendary heroes standing like gods of war on either side of the grand avenue that's the Stormwind Duke imagined.
What he got? Well... not exactly that.
The city wall, which should have been a monument to human glory, was more like a giant white elephant on its last legs. At a modest 24 feet high, sure, but seriously patched-up and scarred. Cracks zigzagged the walls like a bad tattoo, chunks of stone peeling off arrow towers like neglected dandruff flakes. Duke squinted and wondered exactly how long those towers could hold up if a trebuchet so much as sneezed in their direction.
Privileged by the magical equivalent of VIP backstage passes, Duke didn't have to queue with the sweaty peasants at the gate. Instead, his convoy slipped through a side entrance — which only slightly lessened his disappointment.
Once inside, there was no moat. No shimmering inner wall. Just plain old dusty streets and... more walls, but definitely nothing to write home about. Duke stifled a laugh, the kind of bitter chuckle that comes when your fantasy hits the hard wall of reality.
Stormwind hadn't seen a real enemy in nearly a thousand years. The monsters roaming outside were more like pesky flies — annoying but no threat to the mighty human kingdom's heart. The warriors still trained under Anduin Lothar's iron fist kept things mostly safe, but deep down, Stormwind was a giant asleep in a gilded cage, its limbs slowly rotting away from some disease called "nobility entitlement."
The city's glory days were behind it. It now sat quietly, barely aware that it was a grand old relic on borrowed time.
Duke smirked at the thought: it's weirdly sad to be the only sober person at a raging party.
Beside him, Daniel and Anya had their jaws on the floor so wide he could have parked a cartload of eggs there.
Old Norton noticed their slack-jawed wonder and chuckled. "What's the matter? Stormwind got your hopes up, then smashed them down?"
Duke sighed, "No... Okay, maybe yes. I imagined 50-foot-high white walls, blazing Alliance banners, a moat a hundred feet wide filled with swans or crocodiles, and maybe a dragon or two. This looks more like a human-sized sandcastle."
Unbeknownst to Duke, a patrol officer overheard his grumbling from atop the wall. The man's expression darkened to thoughtful as he scanned the city's worn face.
The carriage rumbled onward through busy streets. Leaving behind the chaotic trade district, they crossed a modest river and rolled into the magic quarter — home to the prestigious Royal Magic Academy.
No sooner had they crossed the bridge than BOOM!
"Another explosion?" Duke asked, eyebrows shooting up.
"Yeah, the adept-level wizard's lab just blew again," Norton muttered. "They should build a wall high enough to keep the blast away from the trade zone. The merchants are terrified."
From the carriage window, Duke watched Stormwind guards scramble: some restoring order, others dousing fires, and a few sprinting to the church square to call for healing priests — basically the medieval version of paramedics.
"Uh... you'll get used to it," Norton said awkwardly.
Duke thought to himself that mages here were a special breed of crazy, hurtling themselves straight into the danger zone of magical self-destruction.
Great, he muttered under his breath. Soon he would be one of those weirdos.
Thankfully, goblin engineers took some of the blame — those pint-sized green inventors who loved blowing stuff up almost as much as their own breath smelled.
Unlike the game's simplified version, this timeline's Stormwind boasted a sprawling magic school. Its iron gates soared ten meters high, adorned with intricate gold inlays — cooler than any university entrance Duke had ever seen.
On the immaculate white marble plaza, Norton climbed down from the carriage.
"Alright, lads and lasses, here's your stop." He pointed to a building that looked more library than dormitory. "Go on in and report. Your info's been sent ahead. Inside, you'll find a dormitory administrator who loves games win, and you get a bonus reward. That's all I'll say. Good luck."
Norton rolled his eyes. "And Duke, after you settle in, come by my lab. We need to talk about the stuff you traded with me."
"Understood, Master Norton," Duke replied with all the respect he could muster in front of a crowd. The old man was the real deal here.
They climbed nine steps into the huge, empty hall.
A massive glass orb hung from the ceiling, glowing softly — like an energy-saving lamp if those existed in Azeroth.
Duke, Daniel, and the jumpy Anya nearly jumped out of their skins.
The oil paintings on the walls came alive, waving at them!
Every painting showed the same hooded figure with a blurry face.
"Hello! I'm Nick, the dorm manager of the Royal School of Magic. Harmless ghost, I promise! Your wizard guide should have mentioned me."
All three shook their heads.
"What?! Really? Who's in charge here? What a lousy leader! Almost scared my lovely juniors half to death!"
No, really, Duke was genuinely terrified — Anya's death grip on his left arm made it feel like a vice.
"Suit yourselves. If you're this scared, maybe librarians are more your speed," Nick scoffed. Then, with a dramatic wave, the three were sucked into different paintings.
The dizzy, space-warping sensation was awful — like time travel without the cool effects.
When Duke blinked back to awareness, he was floating in the void, surrounded by stars. Ahead was a gigantic chessboard — big enough for him to do eighteen front flips and thirty-six side flips without falling off.
Black and white squares marked it as a classic chessboard — but the pieces were the real show.
Towering chess figures nearly twice the height of a man stood ready for battle.
On the left: humans dressed as the Alliance.
On the right: Orcs, fierce and snarling, clearly the Horde's representatives.
Duke's mind snapped back to a certain infamous in-game Karazhan chess level — the lair of the mighty Guardian Medivh!