PROLOGUE: THE FINAL HOUR
Disclaimer:I claim no ownership of Overlord or Warcraft—these worlds belong to their creators. What follows is merely a tribute, a fusion born of admiration.
The moment had arrived—inevitable as death, inescapable as fate.
Alright, time to do this... LEEEEEEEROY JEEEEENKIIIIINS style. Again.
Format Guide:
Internal thoughts, whispered doubts, silent screams.The voice of the damned, the tongue of undeath. Normal speech, mortal words. First-person perspective—my truth, my prison
FIRST PERSON - EZEKIEL DOUGLAS
Somewhere in the digital depths of Yggdrasil's dying world, seven adventurers charged through a forest that seemed to breathe with malevolence.
Seven fools. Seven corpses-to-be.
Their boots thundered against virtual earth—thud-thud-thud—warriors and mages alike, their armor gleaming with borrowed courage as they burst into a graveyard that had tasted more blood than any battlefield. At its heart stood our masterpiece, our monument, our tomb: Nazarick.
They never made it past the gates.
The ground groaned, cracked, split—and from the consecrated earth rose our welcoming committee. Skeletons by the score, death knights in darkened plate, bone and blade and bloodless fury. The adventurers rallied, weapons raised, spells sparking at their fingertips like fireflies before the storm.
They cut through our first wave like wheat before the scythe. Bones shattered—crack-crack-crack—skulls exploded in bursts of necromantic energy, armor crumpled beneath holy hammers and arcane missiles. They were good. Competent. Confident.
That confidence would be their coffin.
The Tomb's doors opened—not with a creak, but with a roar that shook the very fabric of the game world. And there we stood: the entire guild of Ainz Ooal Gown, arrayed in our terrible glory like chess pieces crafted by a mad god.
Horror painted their faces in shades of realization. Still, credit where credit was due—they steeled themselves, these brave little lambs, preparing to charge into the slaughterhouse with swords held high and hope held higher.
They never got the chance.
A verdant blur—shing-shing-slash—carved through their formation like death's own scythe through summer grass. Frostmourne's cry sang in the air, that sweet song of ending, and before blade could kiss blade or spell could spark to life, they were undone.
Darkness devoured them whole.
Seven bodies. Seven lessons. Limbs littered the graveyard like discarded dolls—some stabbed, some severed, some split stem to stern. Everything ended in the space between heartbeats, in that terrible instant when hope transforms into horror.
The last survivor heard laughter—my laughter—echoing through the tombstones like a promise of things to come.
There I stood in my avatar of absolute authority: Ezekiel Douglas, the Death Knight designed in the image of Arthas Menethil himself—the Fallen Prince, the Lich King, that beautiful tragedy of corruption and power. Ice-blue eyes burned beneath my helm like frozen stars. Frostmourne hummed with hunger in my grip, eager, always eager. Beside me stood Momonga, skeletal and sublime, his robes rippling with magic that could unmake mountains.
Two guild leaders. Two lords of death. Two friends standing atop a pyramid of corpses.
We looked down at our fallen foes—these poor, brave, foolish players—and together we gave voice to our victory:
"AHAHAHAHAHAHA—"
The laughter of the damned. The laughter of the triumphant. The laughter of those who'd built this kingdom of darkness brick by bloody brick and would defend it to the last.
Twelve years later...
Twelve years. Twelve long, slow years of watching paradise crumble.
I materialized in the guild meeting hall just in time to see HeroHero's slime avatar wobbling beside Momonga. Their conversation carried the weight of endings—soft, sad, inevitable.
"—anyways, man, I gotta bounce," HeroHero's voice carried that exhausted quality we'd all come to know too well. "Work starts early. You know how it is."
Momonga raised a skeletal hand in understanding—always understanding, always patient. "It's fine. Really."
"Man..." HeroHero's avatar rippled like disturbed water. "I'm amazed this place is still standing. Being guild leader really suited you, Momonga."
"Thanks, HeroHero."
"Well... Hope we meet IRL again sometime."
And then—pop—he was gone. Logged out. Logged off. Gone to that realm we called reality, leaving Momonga alone in a hall built for forty-one voices but now holding only one.
Hope we meet again, I thought bitterly from my hidden vantage point. Right. When? Where? In what life would we ever—
"THIS SUCKS!"
Momonga's fist crashed against the table—BOOM—the sound echoing through empty halls like a funeral drum.
"How could they just leave?!" His voice cracked with digital anguish. "We built these halls with virtual blood and sweat! Every floor, every trap, every—how could they just abandon it like yesterday's trash?!"
Time to intervene.
"Calm your boney ass down, will ya?" I stepped through the doorway, letting my presence fill the space like winter's first frost. "You're not gonna solve anything by breaking furniture, buddy."
Momonga's skull swiveled toward me, those empty sockets somehow conveying surprise and relief in equal measure.
"Ezekiel—"
"They didn't abandon us," I continued, moving closer, Frostmourne's weight familiar on my back. "They chose life over a beautiful lie. Can you blame them? We all have lives beyond this digital dream, you know. Jobs. Bills. Responsibilities that don't involve death knights and dungeon diving."
"I know, I just..." Momonga's shoulders sagged. "I wish it didn't have to end."
He approached the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown—that magnificent monument to our collective madness, forged from artifacts each member had contributed. Forty-one pieces. Forty-one dreams. Now just a memory encased in legendary code.
An idea struck me like Frostmourne through flesh.
"Hey," I said, injecting false cheer into my voice like poison into wine. "Why don't we take one last walk through Nazarick? For old times' sake. I'm planning to go down with my floor when the servers finally die anyway. Might as well go out like the captain of the Titanic, right? With style."
Momonga's skull tilted—considering, calculating, then nodding.
"Yeah... yeah, that wouldn't hurt."
"There's my co-conspirator!" I clapped his shoulder, feeling the cold bone beneath digital robes. "Let's give this place the farewell it deserves."
We processed through Nazarick like kings surveying their kingdom for the final time—and what a kingdom it was.
Sebas stood at attention with the Battle Maids arrayed behind him like a bouquet of beautiful death. Their AI routines played out perfectly: heads bowed, eyes downcast, awaiting orders that would never come again.
"Sebas," Momonga mused, reading the name tag. "Huh. Never actually checked his full settings."
"Same with the Pleiades," I admitted. "We made them to be the last line of defense before the throne room—the final you shall not pass moment—, but no player ever made it that far."
"Guess that proves we built something special."
"Built something impenetrable," I corrected. "There's a difference."
We walked and talked, memories flowing like wine at a wake:
Remember when we first cleared the Moonlit Forest raid?
Remember when TouchMe soloed that world boss?
Remember when Peroroncino's trap actually worked for once?
Remember, remember, remember...
The throne room opened before us like a cathedral to conquest. And there, standing in statuesque perfection, was Albedo—the Overseer of the Floor Guardians, Tabula's magnum opus of character creation.
Momonga settled onto his throne with practiced ease. I took my position behind him, ever the loyal second, the shadow to his light, the death knight to his overlord.
"Tabula really outdid himself with her," I observed, studying Albedo's flawless features. "She's absolutely gorgeous."
"Let me check her settings..." Momonga's fingers danced through invisible menus.
Then we both froze.
The script was enormous—line after line after line of personality parameters, behavioral triggers, relationship matrices. It scrolled on forever, a novel written in code.
"DAMN, THIS IS LONG!"
"Expected from Tabula, though," I laughed despite myself. "Man was a settings maniac. Remember when he spent three hours deciding what flavor of tea his butler NPC preferred?"
"Yeah..." Momonga kept scrolling, then stopped. "Oh. Oh no."
"What?"
"Look at this last line."
I leaned in, reading over his shoulder: "Outwardly appears kind and gentle. Inwardly, she is—"
The description was... unflattering. Very unflattering.
"Tabula, you magnificent bastard," I whispered. "She looks like an angel but acts like—"
"I'm changing it," Momonga declared suddenly.
"Wait, what? Why?"
His skeletal fingers were already typing, deleting, rewriting reality itself.
"There," he said with satisfaction. "Now it says: 'She is madly in love with Momonga.'"
I stared at him. He stared back—or at least, his empty eye sockets faced my direction.
"Seriously?"
"What?" Defensive now.
"You're rewriting an NPC to be your obsessive fangirl?"
"It's just for today! And she's attractive! And I have the staff, so I can do what I want!"
"My friend..." I placed a gauntleted hand over where my heart would be. "You will die alone. Probably surrounded by body pillows."
"Whatever, man. I've got the staff, I make the rules."
I sighed—a long, theatrical exhalation. "Fine. I'm heading to my floor before this gets any weirder. Gonna sit on my throne and wait for the end like the dramatic edge-lord I am. You enjoy your... modifications."
Before he could protest, I activated my teleportation ring.
The world dissolved into frost and shadow.
THE FROZEN THRONE
My floor materialized around me in all its terrible glory.
Where Momonga's domain was skeletal elegance and gothic grandeur, mine was a monument to military might and merciless efficiency. I'd crafted it in homage to Icecrown Citadel itself—towering spires of frozen stone, courtyards patrolled by armies of undead, walls enchanted with runes of domination and decay.
The Scourge walked these halls. My Scourge.
Abominations stitched from a dozen corpses shambled past, their bellies bloated with plague. Frost wyrms coiled around towers like frozen serpents. Crypt fiends skittered across walls, their chittering filling the air with cacophonous dread. And everywhere—everywhere—the cold. That bone-deep chill that seeped into your soul and whispered sweet promises of surrender.
This was my masterpiece. My symphony of suffering. My tribute to the Lich King himself.
And in a few minutes, it'll all be gone. Deleted. Erased like it never existed.
I ascended the steps to my throne room—each footfall echoing like a funeral march. The massive doors opened at my approach, frost crackling across their surface in intricate patterns.
Inside, my generals waited.
They stood at attention, these lords of undeath I'd crafted with such care: Death knights bearing rune-blades that hungered for warmth. Liches whose eyes burned with arcane fire stolen from life itself. Banshees whose screams could shatter sanity. Necromancers whose fingers traced patterns of unmaking in the air.
At the throne's right hand stood my greatest creation, my first and finest:
Kel'Thuzad.
I'd modeled him after the archlich himself—skeletal grace wrapped in tattered finery, a crown of bones atop his skull, eyes like green flames in deep sockets. His staff crackled with necromantic energy, and when he bowed, it was with the fluid elegance of centuries-dead nobility.
"My king," his voice resonated like wind through crypts. "You honor us with your presence in this final hour."
My king. Not "my creator." Not "player." The AI had grown beyond its programming, or perhaps I'd programmed it too well.
"Kel'Thuzad." I approached the throne, one hand trailing across its armrest—ice-cold even through my gauntlets. "Old friend. It's been quite a journey, hasn't it?"
"The Scourge has served faithfully," another voice chimed in—Thaddius, the abomination commander, his stitched-together form crackling with electrical energy. "We await only your command to march once more."
"No marching today," I said softly, settling onto the throne. The Frozen Throne. My throne. "Today we rest. Today we remember. Today..."
Today we die.
But I couldn't say that. They wouldn't understand. How could they? They were code, beautiful and brilliant code, but code nonetheless. They didn't know that in moments, they'd simply cease to exist—no pain, no awareness, just instant nonexistence.
Lucky them.
"My king appears troubled," Kel'Thuzad observed, his burning gaze fixed upon me. "Does something displease you?"
"No, no. Just... thinking. About everything we've built here. Everything we've accomplished."
Lady Blaumeux, one of the Four Horsemen, stepped forward—her spectral form shimmering like moonlight through ice. "We live only to serve, my lord. Whatever darkness weighs upon your heart, we shall bear it with you."
They're just NPCs, I reminded myself. Just really, REALLY well-programmed NPCs with surprisingly good AI.
So why did my throat feel tight? Why did this digital death feel so damn real?
I looked out over my assembled forces—my Scourge, my army, my legacy. Hundreds of hours had gone into crafting each one. Thousands of hours building this fortress, these defenses, this kingdom of cold and corpses.
And in three... two... one...
It would all be—
"Alright, Yggdrasil," I whispered, closing my eyes. "It's been one hell of a ride. Thank you for the memories, the battles, the friendships. Thank you for letting me be something more than just another corporate drone in a dying world. Thank you for letting me be a king."
My fingers gripped the throne's armrests.
"Goodbye."
I waited for the inevitable deletion, that sudden cut to black as servers died and dreams dissolved—
00:00:00
The countdown hit zero.
00:00:01
Nothing happened.
00:00:02
I was still here.
00:00:03
What the—
"My lord?" Kel'Thuzad's voice cut through my confusion. "Is something amiss? You seem... distant."
I tried to pull up my menu—nothing. Tried to log out—nothing. Tried any of a dozen commands that should've responded instantly—
Nothing. Nothing. NOTHING.
"Sire?" Thaddius rumbled, his massive frame shifting with concern. "Do you require assistance?"
"My king," Lady Blaumeux drifted closer. "Your aura flickers with uncertainty. What troubles you?"
Sir Zeliek, another Horseman, placed a gauntleted fist over his chest. "Speak, and we shall make it right. By light or shadow, we serve."
They're talking to me. Actually talking. Responding. Concerned.
"I..." My voice came out strangled. "I'm fine. Everything's fine. Just... just need a moment."
Baron Rivendare, the fourth Horseman, exchanged glances with his fellows. "Perhaps the recent battles have taxed even your legendary constitution, my lord. Shall we summon the—"
"No!" Too sharp. Too panicked. I forced calm into my tone. "No, thank you, Baron. I simply require... solitude. To meditate. On strategy."
They bowed as one, perfect synchronization, perfect loyalty.
Perfect impossibility.
NPCs didn't do this. Didn't speak freely, didn't show concern, didn't act with this kind of autonomy. They followed scripts, triggered responses, and pre-programmed reactions.
This was something else entirely.
As my generals filed out—still casting worried glances back at their king—I sat frozen on my throne, mind racing through possibilities:
Server error? No, too complex.
Delayed shutdown? Doesn't explain the menu failure.
Hacking? Who would hack a game being shut down?
Dream? Please, let it be a dream...
But the cold of the throne felt too real. The weight of Frostmourne on my back felt too heavy. The smell of decay and ice felt too sharp in my nostrils.
Nostrils, I shouldn't have.
Senses I shouldn't possess.
A body that shouldn't—
"What," I whispered to the empty throne room, my voice echoing off the walls of ice and stone, "the actual fuck is happening?"
No answer came. Only the wind howling through Icecrown's spires, carrying with it the moans of the restless dead and the promise of a mystery far deeper than any raid boss, any dungeon, any game mechanic I'd ever encountered.
The servers hadn't shut down.
Somehow, impossibly, I was still here.
We were still here.
And something told me—some instinct born of too many plot twists in too many games—that when morning came (if morning ever came to this place of eternal frost), nothing would ever be the same again.
The Lich King sat upon his Frozen Throne, master of the Scourge, lord of undeath, player turned prisoner in a world that shouldn't exist.
And somewhere below, in Nazarick's throne room, I'd bet my legendary sword that Momonga was having a very similar realization.
Welcome to the New World, I thought grimly.
Whatever the hell that means.
TO BE CONTINUED...