Below is a shorty story that was shared in what was our Discord lore channel, which was since been phased out in favor of the wiki for better accessibility and reading. It tells the story of an anonymous individual traveling to the Vault of Whispers and what the experience might be like. It was written to be used as an example for players who wish to write their meeting with the Sanguinaris Archinorum.
Your Decision
Calling upon the sanguinaris ushered a tear into reality nearby. For all those who might observe this summoning, to ask any one of them what they saw or heard would elicit a different response. One may hear the gentle flourish of a violin and the appearance of an elaborately carved Elwynn doorway. Another may hear the screech of a fel-born demon and observe a hellish vortex ripping into the space around it.
For all its enigma and unpredictability, it was, whatever the form, a portal — summoned by you. By receiving its invitation and invoking its name, the Sanguinaris Archinorum opened the way forward. And whether for knowledge, glory, revenge, or otherwise: forward you went into a gateway that reflected your soul in the moment it was called.
“Forgive the ruination of Scholomance, my chosen,” a feminine voice echoed to you as you passed through. “Long have Caer Darrow’s tragedies and the taint of its monstrous arcanery hung like a pall over its remains.”
Where once solid footing propelled you proportionately to your resolve, there was now only one way to go.
Down.
You begin to fall into a swirling mass of energies. Howling. Shrieking. You feel droplets colliding with you as if ensnared in a mild rainstorm, but where you expected to see water you instead see and feel a warm, viscous crimson instead. More and more frequently you’re splattered by an intensifying, swirling mess of torrential blood and soon your descent becomes a maelstrom.
Helpless and still tumbling, your vision and the certainty of what is happening fails you. A kaleidoscope of flashing images breaks the stability of your psyche. You see yourself in the past. In the future. Multiple futures, multiple pasts. Multiple Azeroths.
“It was necessary to conceal my mark upon you from the hunters,” the voice continued. It was the only beacon in the chaos of falling and visions which all felt like an eternity. Now the Sanguinaris was the only thing to cling to. “A stronger stench than mine, the taint of your Scholomance,” it said.
You set yourself and a massive tome. You see every future where its aid means success, and every future where denial means failure. You see the unknowable, and finally your falling comes to an end as your momentum flings you through the end of the portal and into a ruined, crumbling hall.
Your body is impossibly as clean as it was when entering the portal and you settle into a small carpet of red leaves. The air is stale and the scent of iron lingers around your disturbance. You feel the dust of decades beneath your touch, and a quick glance around reveals broken mortar and the signs of a battle long ago. You recognize the architecture somehow, through paintings, word of mouth, or perhaps even experience. It looks like you’ve found yourself somehow inside a piece of Icecrown Citadel. But a look toward the ceiling where the masonry failed reveals no sky beyond, but instead, the raw majesty and borealis of the Twisting Nether.
You are no longer on Azeroth.
“Stand my chosen and come to me,” it says softly in a voice that no longer exists within your head, but echoes along the long hall of the ruined chamber from the opposite end. Blood-red leaves fall gently upon you from one of many unnatural Thalassian trees in the hall, as if this sound and your arrival are the first disturbances in decades. As you look toward the end of the hall, you see the image of a woman beckoning you that begins to fade, like a phantom.
A large vault door’s handle spins of its own accord, and then opens as a whole with a long groan. Beyond it you see the pulsing crimson light of some unholy arcane entity. A colossal tome identical to the spectre whose residence had become your mind. And it was calling for you.
One final image flashes into your mind as you finish collecting yourself. Atiesh, a bloody hand, and the whisper, “I love you.” Words shared between someone or something that holds no meaning to you so far as you can tell.
You hold your head and look toward the tome where it rests. After several moments of collecting yourself you stand and make your way through the dark and ruined hall. In a side chamber you see a single person sitting on a ruined chair, leaning against a gothic greatsword. Their head is concealed by a hood, pierced by two long, pale ears; their body clad in dark and heavy armor.
“Go to her,” the armored man brusquely mutters, his arms draped over the hilt of his sword. He doesn't offer even a passing look back.
You spare a thinking glance between him and the tome, but decide to continue. Certainly this stranger wouldn’t be going anywhere by the looks of things. Finally, after climbing a small set of steps toward the open vault, you arrive at the tome. Multiple quills lie strewn around the tome’s large stone altar, and dried blood covers the floor around it.
“Sanguinaris Archinorum,” something says from the floor, as if speaking through a thin layer of water. Its voice gurgles and sputters. Through the thin cracks in the masonry, a crimson elemental, much like a water elemental in many aspects, begins to congeal and form upward from behind the book’s altar.
Bloody tentacles slowly emerge from the elemental and then take one of the many quills. It offers it to you. As it does, the Sanguinaris slowly opens. Its pages, all blank, flutter back and forth as if searching for the perfect page before settling on one just for you.
“With this covenant, my power is linked to you. And you, to me,” says the feminine voice of the Sanguinaris, now speaking freely from the pages you see before you. As she does, the words she speaks sparkle and twist upon the pages meant for you before fading away. Blood begins to bubble up from the vellum in front of you and run down the page. It slowly begins to weep off the vellum and over the bindings, then finally onto the altar itself. Somehow clear of stains and any natural sense of what you’ve just observed, the page is now pristine with the calligraphy of a contract — complete with embellishments and a fine picture of you. At its end is a line for your signature.
“I have shown you the possibilities. These very words are a trial of my remaining strength. Sign,” it now says in a whisper. One of many that echo the same word throughout the small chamber of the vault. “With your aid, I will reclaim my strength and aid you in fair measure.”
Now before her at long last. The Sanguinaris and her blood wraith await your decision.
