If we ever thought of Azeroth as a living being, magic would be the blood running through its veins and giving it life. Although there have been many people who mastered the use of magic, called themselves “mages” and taken their places in the history books, only a few of those achieved the status of a living and breathing legend. If we specifically narrow this group down to having your statue erected at the main gates of one of the most important cities in the Eastern Kingdoms, we are left out with only one name: Archmage Khadgar.
Khadgar may be one of the greatest and most glorified heroes of the Alliance, but like any other hero, he was just an apprentice before he began on his adventurous journey. His eagerness to learn, his trustworthy personality (even his name meant “Young Trust” in dwaven language) and the great potential he showed drew the attention of Kirin Tor, the magi council in Dalaran, where he spent his apprenticeship days.
The young mage Khadgar’s legend began exactly at that moment when he was assigned to the task. When he stepped inside Karazhan to spy upon Guardian Medivh, the eccentric and old mage who worked idependently from the council, he was completely unaware of all the trouble his master would cause upon the world, and his own role in it.
At first, Medivh seemed to be a curious old man with eccentric habits but Khadgar, with his extremely powerful instincts, felt that nothing was what it seemed at the tower of Karazhan. And he was right: Karazhan hid many mysteries. In less than no time, those mysteries started to reveal themselves.
The first of the mysteries was the vision he saw in a room he accidentally got into while searching for the library to place the books Medivh had given to him. In the vision, Khadgar found himself in the blood-scorched lands of a foreign world, and witnessed the battle of an old, white-haired mage against green-skinned creatures wearing black armor. Besides, the old mage seemed very familiar, although Khadgar couldn’t recognize who he was. At another time, he personally got attacked by his master. Medivh’s chaotic mind wandered around the verge of madness, and he would often forget where and with whom he was, even what he was doing. At first, Khadgar thought that it was because every genius was a bit crazy, but on the day when he “accidentally“ got attacked by Medivh, the young apprentice began to suspect that there was a far worse and more serious problem. But the incident which justified his and Kirin Tor’s suspicions, and made Khadgar sure that there was a dead cat on the line with Medivh, broke out in Black Morass.
The trip on gryphon back to Black Morass was not a pleasant one for Khadgar. The young mage, who had to make a heavy landing after his mount’s injury by a spear, made his first real contact with the green-skinned race from the vision. He was facing the first orc group on Azeroth, and he managed to kill some of them with his spells while trying to protect himself. Still it was impossible for Khadgar to overcome all of them. At that moment, Medivh’s timely arrival, as well as his powerful spells, made it possible to swiftly defeat the orcs, but not as swiftly as Medivh had hoped for. The leader of the orc group lived long enough to indicate that he knew Medivh, which was more than enough to deepen Khadgar’s suspicions.
Khadgar, after returning to the tower, began to prepare a special spell in order to reveal Medivh’s true intentions. With the help of the spell, he saw the vision of a legendary battle between Aegwynn, a Guardian of Tirisfal and Medivh’s mother, and the avatar of the Dark Titan Sargeras. Just as he was trying to understand what the vision meant, he was called by King Llane to Stormwind, along with his master, in order to investigate the murders of two of the most powerful mages of the kingdom.
Hugarin and Huglar were the most powerful mages that were directly allegiant to the Kingdom of Stormwind, but their power and wisdom didn’t prevent them from getting gruesomely murdered. After investigating and tracking the remnants of magic in the rooms where the murders had taken place, Medivh came to the conclusion that the mages had probably tried to summon demons, which eventually led to their end. Still, Khadgar had his suspicions. After learning that those two mages were part of a long-established and secret magi organization called “The Council of Tirisfal”, Khadgar found it even harder to believe that such powerful mages would be “accidentally” murdered at the hands of demons, but he kept his thoughts to himself.
Just a short time after their return to Karazhan, there came another member to their group: a half-orc emissary of the “Horde”. Although Khadgar first saw the green-skinned emissary as an enemy due to his prejudices, with time, he started to break the ice between him and the half-orc “Garona”. Moreover, his relationship with his new friend got so deep that he told her about his suspicions concerning Medivh, and together, they brought the truth to light: Medivh was the one who had brought orcs to Azeroth in the first place, but the old mage didn’t have full control. The Dark Titan Sargeras, whom Khadgar saw in the vision that Aegwynn was battling against, was in control of Medivh’s body and, thus, his mind and power. As the duo came to the understanding that they would not be able to prevent the opening of the Dark Portal, they went to Medivh’s old friend King Llane Wrynn of Stormwind to ask for his help. King Llane sent Anduin Lothar with them back to Karazhan, and at that point, their only purpose was to stop Medivh.
They found the old mage in the tunnels beneath Karazhan where lied a dark copy of the original tower. Medivh, under the control of Sargeras who was now in touch with the orc warlock Gul’dan, engaged in a huge combat with the group. But the apprentice overcame the master, and with his last ditch effort, Khadgar ran the blade of Lothar through Medivh’s chest and heart. Medivh/Sargeras, with his last breath, cursed the young mage by stealing his youth and making him look old, before Lothar ended the nightmare by decapitating the Guardian.
After burying his master’s body to the graveyard at the back of Karazhan with the help of the tower steward Moroes and the cook, Khadgar remembered the vision he saw when he first came to the tower. He was the mage battling against the green-skinned orcs in the blood-scorched lands of a foreign world.