“I must be losing my mind.”

Gwydion picked through the destruction at Andorhal. He reached the edge of a particularly dangerous rise, where two scourge footsoldiers leered up at him, smiling their rictus threats of death and pain. Before they could turn to take a step toward him, their mouths hung open, agape in shock as their flesh began to burn. A few seconds of churning erupted into open flames, and as their flesh burned away, a small being landed a few feet from the war cleric.

He turned and immediately adjusted his eyes downward a few feet. ‘Gnome,’ he thought to himself, but the tabard she bore lit another memory in his mind. ‘No… Warden!’ His mouth opened in silence and she giggled in amusement at the shocked expression on the human’s face.

“Come inside, Master Brenn,” she said. “And please, wipe that bedazzled look off your face before someone sees you. This is not the first time that the Lord of Thalanaar has seen a dragon.”

The priest’s jaw shut with a click, and he followed the gnome into the old Andorhal Inn, what if memory served had been called the Light of Arathia. Not unlike the Lion’s Pride in Goldshire, it had a full service kitchen, but its many rooms upstairs had been converted into barracks during the occupation. Now, it was part of a battlefield, and aside from the two soldiers that briefly turned towards him, he was ignored.

“The guards won’t see us as a threat,” the gnome mused, continuing into the inn’s sleeping areas. Two other of her kind were waiting for her, and one of them he recognized immediately. “Chromie, this is Master Brenn,” the gnome said quietly, as if that was all the explanation she required.

“Chromie!” Gwydion gasped, nodding his head. “Yes, I do remember you!”

The blue-eyed gnome smiled, almost winking as she tilted her head to gaze up at the human. “Of course you do!” she answered, merrily. “We’ve worked together before, you and I!”

The first gnome cleared her throat politely, and Chromie shot her a mildly annoyed, slight bemused look, “I was just getting to that,” she said, and Gwydion realized there must be a great deal more conversation going on than just the snippets of voice that he was himself hearing.

‘These are dragons,’ he reminded himself. ‘They have powers that dwarf my own.’

If the gnomes had observed his thoughts, they made no expression of recognition, but the first that had saved him in the city curtsied politely, introducing herself. “I am Tessaldormu,” she said.

“A time warden,” Gwydion murmured. Given what he just happened to him, he had to expect that. But her next answer might have knocked him over if it had been carried on the weight of a feather.

“Not specifically,” Tessie replied. “I’m your time warden. I have been assigned your case.” She waggled a finger. “Not that we’re entirely certain how you even arrived in this contingency, since your village in Ilvaren was destroyed before you could even be born!”

A vague memory stirred, and the gnomes looked up at him, apparently reading it along with him as he tried to force the memory to clarity. “There was a–” he began, but Chromie cut him off.

“–Battle.” She hopped up onto a chair, and waved him over. Putting hands against his temples, she bowed her head, concentrating, and calling the memories to the fore of his being. “In the Caverns of Time,” she said, not certain whether she should be surprised by this information. “I’m afraid… you lost.”

Gwydion could see things, spells he knew, but didn’t, powers he recognized, but had never seen, names and faces he had known for years, yet had never met. As his mind began to swim, he began to lose himself in the uncertain and confusing images. Chromie set a hand on his forehead and brought her free hand to her lips, one finger raised as she calmed his racing mind. “Ssssh,” she said, “there, there. You’re really not losing your mind, Master Brenn.” She put her hands on her hips and adjusted her weight, sizing him up. “You’re just too little to see everything that’s still in there.”

The priest sat down on the chair as Chromie jumped down. It creaked under his weight, and he jumped slightly, realizing that this was still all real, and he was really trapped in some kind of nightmare life. “Too little…” he mimicked.

“Uh-huh!” Tessie chimed in. “Your memories will return as your powers grow.” She gestured, searching for the words. “When your being can truly encompass them!”

“Quantum temporal flux will always be beyond humans, Tessie,” a stern male voice said, and Gwydion nearly drew his dagger when a tall, blood elven man walked quietly into the room. “You have no need of that,” he added, and Gwydion felt a mind-numbing calm wash over him. He was only vaguely aware that he was bewitched, but he could not find the strength to resist it.

“Erozion!” Tessie said, looking at the newcomer in a combination of shock and anger. “But you are not supposed to be here!”

“Memory alteration to conform to the present line,” Erozion intoned. “That is my function, Tessaldormu.” He gestured toward Gwydion as though he were referring to something no more complex than a small cog in a machine. Maybe, he realized, to them, that’s all he was…

The gnome stamped her feet, and the ground shook slightly. She looked down, realized her error, and looked back up at the older time warden. “He was to be my responsibility!” Tessie protested, but Erozion ignored her, turning to face the human. He raised his hands, and Gwydion could feel the truth slipped away. He was becoming Gwydion the Acolyte, the wasted life that he had been thrust into in Northshire Abbey. Only the memory of his wife gave him the strength to fight him, but it was a battle he was losing.

“…no.”

Erozion opened his eyes and looked at the human, his eyebrow shooting up in confusion. He dropped his hands, and Gwydion realized that for what must have been an eternity he was holding his breath. He took a gasping breath and fell off the chair, coughing.

Chromie and Tessie looked at the human in confusion, and then alternately between one another and Erozion. The guise of a blood elf wavered, and he turned toward the door. “He resists me,” he said quietly, contemplating.

“He doesn’t belong in this time!” Chromie said now, her voice rising. “If you erase what he is, you will remove him from the timeways completely! You would be killing him!”

Erozion tilted his head. “‘We are the wardens of time,’” he said, obviously quoting. “‘Ours is the passage of memory from human to human, life to life, until all times’ ending. We are not the binders of the Life-Spark.’” He turned to face the human again. “‘That power belongs to another.’” He raised his hands, and a portal calling the dragon back to the Caverns of Time enveloped him. Even as he vanished, he intoned the words, “I must speak to Andormu.”

The war priest had recovered himself. He didn’t really know what if any of his memories they had reshaped, but he knew now what he had to do. A name came to his memory, and thrust itself into the forefront of his mind, as if the spirit of the man he had become had placed it there himself.

“Windseeker!”

Chromie and Tessie shared a pensive glance, and Chromie walked over to Gwydion where he was still kneeling. She tried to place hands against his temples again, but he panicked, slapping her hands away. She looked toward Tessie and let her arms drop to her side.

“Yes,” Tessie said. “Travela Windseeker was the woman that destroyed your house.” She gazed at him, and as she did, wisps of light formed into echoes of what was around him. “You were Gwydion Brenn, the Lord Thalanaar, powerful and respected. Ambassadors sought your counsel. Kings knew your name–though not all called you friend. You gave your life to the pursuit of the Lich King, Arthas Menethil, and were resurrected by Nyatra Anduin, wife of the paladin Jurojin, whom you know now as Jurojin of Darrowmere. You were a threat to the Shaman of the Black, and she orchestrated your destruction by making a deal with the Infinite Dragonflight.”

“Infinite…?” Gwydion asked, trying to wrap his head around so many concepts, and things he had a feeling he should already know.

“Absolutely!” Tessie nodded emphatically. “They attack us just as the Shaman of the Black attacks you, and the rest of the Twilight Hammer attacks Azeroth and Draenor!” She helped Gwydion up, nearly lifting him off his feet, and Gwydion wondered for a moment how old she must be. As if reading his thought and embarassed by it, Tessie moved off to rejoin the older Chromie. For just a split second, Gwydion wondered if he detected a family resemblance in the gnomes, and then wondered if the resemblance were just a matter of chance, simplicity for the wardens or actual relationship between them.

The thought escaped as Chromie added, “They have decided to shatter the clockwork of our universe, and set the world on a path that theychoose.” She spread her hands. “The worlds are far more vast than simply you and me, far more vast even than the whole of Azeroth, Draenor and Argus, and all their peoples.” She shook her head sadly. “If the Infinite Dragonflight has their way, that will all change.”

“What is the Infinite Flight?” Gwydion asked, irritated as though he should know the answer.

“They are our polar opposite,” Tessie responded immediately. “They seek to use their knowledge of the timeways to change things in their own favor!” She looked at Chromie, who gave her a disapproving frown, then looked to the floor.

“The Infinite Dragonflight,” Chromie concluded, “is a force of entropy, loyal to the fallen titan, Sargeras.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and shook her hands. “As all creatures of the Dark, they have been summoned from the Twisting Nether or corrupted here in the real world to serve the Unmaker.”

“I thought that the titans created all this,” Gwydion said, trying to urge more from the gnome, but she smiled and shook her head as if sensing his intentions. She probably did.

“The titans are far beyond your reach, Master Brenn,” she replied. “For now, focus on the reason for your existence, and the part you must play now in ours.”

“The Windseeker,” Gwydion offered, and Chromie nodded her head.

“The Windseeker.”

* * *

Gwydion poured over notes in the Stormwind Arsenal for a fourth day. The elves had been… less than forthcoming… but he was quickly earning their trust. After all, in a single day he had been able to uncover a series of ruins, treasures and lost artifacts that seemed as natural to him as any they had ever known, but they had never rediscovered.

‘I did not do these things,’ Gwydion said. ‘Another man that bore my face did these things.’ He continued to sift through the paperwork. ‘Maybe I will become that man, or perhaps one day we will meet face to face.’ He was looking at the same paper when he realized he’d turned over the last three pages without really reading them.

“Oh, damn!”

A few heads turned his way, and one of the guards in the hall briefly poked his head around the corner. Gwydion nodded his apologies, and re-read what in his musings he had been ignoring. That was when he found it.

‘Travela.’

He quickly searched for records of the name, finding a few scattered references through the last hundred or so years. Then he finally found the references he was looking for. ‘An unknown creature with shamanic powers.’ They wouldn’t have known at the time what a draenei was, or they would have labeled her a demon. ‘Windseeker.’ Finally! Some progress.

Now, he had enough to research the creature that had already destroyed him once. The Infinite Flight, though, appeared to have backdealt the shaman a considerable blow. By using the timeways, she had destroyed Thalanaar before she had become aware of the need. She was operating with as little knowledge as the Thalanaari themselves. ‘The odds,’ he thought to himself, ‘would be even.’ Carefully, he sealed the documents he planned to return, and slipped to papers he had copied from into a sleeve with a payment of thirty copper a piece.

Then, he headed for the door, and for Lor’danel.

* * *

Master Garret, head of the Lionsroar Shipping Consortium, padded forward at the beginning of the meeting. “Lady named Ashnara said she should send this to ye,” he said, taking refuge in his human voice to speak once the transformation was complete. Gwydion regarded him as an old friend, but the worgen shifted to his human guise, and slipped a tattered bit of cloth on which lay a gold leaf across the table to him.

Gwydion turned to his left, where a druid knelt near the steps to the bedchambers, where she had just emerged. Like him, she had a shattered recollection of what had happened in Tanaris during the Harvest Moon. “He doesn’t remember,” Gwydion said quietly to Schedy.

“Few do,” Schedy replied, shaking her head sadly.

“Oh, I remember,” the worgen countered, walking up and sticking a meaty finger in the middle of the symbol of their house. “I’ve remembered this my whole life. Saw a lady wearin’ it and somethin’ told me I could finally make sense of it.”

“Sense,” Gwydion said, and he shook his head. “Not likely, but peace. Stay, and perhaps you will learn something that matters even more.” He turned and smiled toward the nine Thalanaari that had followed their former master into Lor’danel, in some cases over great distances and the oceans from Stormwind’s docks. “Thank you, all of you. This would not be possible without your trust, and I hope that what I am about to say will not shatter that faith.”

“None of you is who you appear to be,” he said simply. “You are all living other lives because of something that happened in the Caverns of Time, in Tanaris. You have glimpses, dreams perhaps, and a few odd signs, like objects left out of place that seem they should be there, yet you don’t know how you came to possess them.” He gestured to the bit of fabric. “Just one example. Many of you responded to a letter bearing little more than my name and a gold leaf, because it seemed natural to respond. But some of you have already said you recognize me, but you don’t know me.”

“And I’m in the same boat,” Gwydion agreed. “At the behest of Warden Tessaldormu, four days ago I traveled to Andorhal and met with a time warden that seems aware of our plight. She suggested that the creature responsible for our sad tale may still be at work on Azeroth, and those four days of research have revealed a name in history that I recognize at once,” Gwydion said. He fairly spat the name, “Windseeker,” the hatred in his voice rising. His eyes brightened as he turned his attentions back to the papers he cradled in his hands.

“Why this name is important to this place,” he continued,” and this time… I know not.” He set the papers down in their small leather and vellum case, and set about sealing it again. “But the name refers to a companion to the Twilight Hammer, nestled in alcoves deep beneath Blackfathom, on the coast of Zoram Gor.”

Gwydion set the sealed case back on the table. It had been waterproofed for him, before its delivery. Apparently its bearer knew that they would travel into the deeps to investigate. That meant, he realized, that someone might be waiting for them. “Inward,” he concluded, “we will secure the secrets of this deep reach, and perhaps touch upon some greater knowledge that this purported Shaman of the Black left behind,… and… perhaps… touch upon a future meeting place… where we shall revenge, against her.”

The war priest stood, making his way from the dim-lit and cramped alcove in the inn that served as his cramped meeting place for this particular evening, and as he looked out across the Deep Sea. All the signs pointed to a violent storm moving inland. It would be the cover of darkness and thunder they would need to move a small force quickly into the reach.

* * *

Thalanaari marched from Lor’danel, down the arduous paths toward Zoram Gor. So many things remained the same, yet so many had changed. Schedezar, Druid of the Claw, walked beside him in her feline form. They had already attracted more attention than they had intended. A roguish figure that had given the name Ellsamine followed a short distance behind, after having offered her services.

Juchin sat impassive on his frostsaber, watching the party from a short distance ahead, ensuring the path ahead remained clear. And the worgen Garret sat a short distance away, stopping here and there along the trail, examining the destruction of Darkshore with an almost gleeful interest. It wouldn’t be long, he realized, before the two would come to blows.

Some of Darkshore had been devastated by the Sundering of Azeroth, and yet parts seemed even mroe vibrant, more alive. Passing the Grove of the Ancients, Schedy passed Gwydion a winning smile at the sight of several ancient protectors milling about the site. Near the site of the Master’s Glaive however, they observed a massive excavation underway. The sounds of dozens of pickaxes and hammers rang out into the forest, and animals shied away from the sounds. “I want to examine this,” Gwydion said. “Something’s not right.”

Schedy offered to look around as a feline, but Gwydion produced a small talisman he had been granted by Tessaldormu. ‘It will help you establish yourself as a man of their culture,’ she had said. Even now as he turned the small talisman over in his hands, a feline face on one side glimmered, and he found himself looking… nose to nose…? with the druidess. Gwydion looked about, and realized he himself was now a feline druid, but while her form was a pale winter white, his was a dusky shadow that more resembled the man he had been.

Even as the druid’s hackles rose and she backed away, he found himself speaking comfortable in a language she understood. “Peace,” he said. “This is as it should be.”

One of the draenei with their number took a step forward, and Gwydion allowed the paladin his curiosity. “You travel in the guise of a druid!” the Bilir remarked, and Gwydion purred unconsciously at the thought.

“Unnatural?” Gwydion asked, turning toward Schedy, but the druid merely padded around him, sniffing, and then resumed her posture toward the excavation site. “The real enemy is already at work,” he agreed, and the group separated, Garret taking those more likely to be seen behind the massive Old Skull, where the immense adamantite glaive had been buried those many years ago.

As they drew closer, Gwydion and Schedy could see that the Old Skull rock was, in fact, a skull! They exhanged glances, as the immense form of a lost one grew out of the rocks that were even now being chipped away by dwarvens slaves driven by other old ones. Their race obscured through time by their service to the Old Gods, they were known, collectively, as the Forgotten Ones. The two feline forms crept up to a group that appeared to be plannng, while the slaves did the work.

“Keep these slaves working,” the one obviously in charge threatened, “or I’ll put you in those chains, and clean my teeth with their bones while you dig to release the master.”

The dwarf stumbled backward, muttering promises, “I shall double their pace within the hour! Soggoth, the Slitherer, will rise again!”

One of the Forgotten Ones rounded on him. “How dare you breathe the master’s name, you pitiful little insect!” He reached out toward the dwarf, but another Forgotten One turned his head, sniffing, and put a tentacled hand against his brethren’s shoulder.

“I smell fresh meat.”

Gwydion and Schedy bolted from the clearing into the forests, and as one of the Forgotten reached out for whatever hindquarter he thought he might reach, Garret stepped out from behind a tree, and fired a shot into its massive head. The demonic being stumbled, and crashed to the ground.

As the other looked toward him, a bolt of frost struck it in the side, and half its body froze in an instant, cracking and shattering as the dying monster tried to take another step toward the armed man. Elesii, a draenei frost mage, floated down from the sky on her nether ray, and as the collection of Thalanaari reassembled, she trilled, “I apologize vor be’ink late. Didst ju miss me?” Behind her, a dwarven fellow was shakily dismounting. He knelt, then faceplanted and hugged the ground, muttering, “After tha’ ride, ah’ll never leave ye agin, ah promise…”

Juchin broke up the reunion by pointing into the clearing. “If we have someplace to go, my lord, this would be the best time to leave.” The roguish woman that had followed them… was already long gone.

* * *

The party avoided the response from the Master’s Glaive by riding along the shore, the rest of the way to Zoram Gor, where the remains of Blackfathom lay guarded by the naga. It hadn’t always been a naga stronghold. Before their arrival, it had been a temple dedicated to the Old Gods, perhaps even the terrible creature they were trying to unearth from the Master’s Glaive.

Tark, Thane of Tark, rested his hands on his hammer’s massive breadth, the counterweight buried a few inches into the soil. “Ah ‘eard abou’ this place,” the dwarf remarked. “Ah’ th’ Fish Eye Tavern, they say ‘is place were once a temple ta’ beautiful Elune, now corrupted fer use bah th’ Twilight Hammer cult.”

“Just so,” Gwydion agreed.

Bilir looked around. “Then who let the naga in?” he asked simply.

Everyone shared a glance around the circle, and collectively shrugged. The dwarf was the first one inside, though, leading the way as Garret and he stepped onto the first steps that would lead into the deeper reaches of Ashenvale’s dangerous past.

A naga was just rounding the corner, and looked up at them, its snakelike face twisting into a snarl… before its eyes rolled back into its head, and it fell forward. The sword sticking at an odd angle from its back seemed the best reason.

“Seems you folks are headed for an adventure,” a woman’s voice rose from the darkness. A lithe woman stepped from the shadows, still bearing the Thalanaari tabard, the new one they had just started using. Heard something about Old Gods and bad people and something about a shaman that made you forget your lives or some-such,” she said, casually yanking the sword from the corpse and thrusting it back in once, just to be sure, before wiping it off and returning it to its scabbard.

“Sounded to me like fun,” she said, smiling brightly. “Lady named Auv told me you’d be off this way. Name’s Ruey, if you’ll have me.”

Gwydion smiled. His wife was recruiting again. “Auvreyal recruited you?” he asked, and at her acknowledgement he muttered, “…she’s using her real name again.” Still smiling, for reasons the others knew not, he shook his head, clearing it for the task ahead.

* * *

The arduous mile-long trek into the undermountain spooked everyone but the dwarf, who would periodically place a practiced hand against a stone beam or the wall itself, and make an affirmative grunt.

Bilir finally became frustrated enough that on the fourteenth “mmHM,” he spun around, almost sticking his face into the dwarf’s torch. “What?” he asked, impetuously. “What is it?”

The dwarf looked at the rock, then the draenei, then back to the stone. “s’ good stone,” he said, as if that explained it. He shrugged, and wandered further down the passage, while the draenei stared where the dwarf had been standing. Elesii walked up, looked Bilir, and ran a hand across the stone in imitation, trilling the same “mm-HM!”

The brief moment of levity passed, and the party found themselves set upon by not only naga, but dwarves! Against the combined might of the warrior, claws of the druid, magic and roguish stealth, the dwarves didn’t stand long, but what one of them left behind left far more an impression. Tark picked up the small diary and thumbed through it, translating the runes into something the others could understand.

“Skul skommen de–” he began, taking a moment to work his tongue around the inside of his mouth to speak to the others. “This is th’ passage from damnation ta salvation. For as Kelris says, ‘the mighty Soggoth and his mate the mighty Sor’getha rise from the ashes of the titan’s fury, from the smoke to the flame, where they will fan th’ flame a’ Rag…’” the dwarf looked around the cave for a moment, then threw the book in a bit of standing water. “‘Ragnaros!’ the blood fools!”

Schedy hissed and backed as the Thane knelt and ripped a small necklace off the dwarf identifying him as a Twilight Cultist, but Gwydion was looking further down the passageway, his feline guise having faded since entering the cave. “Something ahead,” he said. A small sallyport forced the party to divert themselves to cross into the fallen temple, but no guards waited to greet them. No rocks rained down, no oil, no flame or arrows. Nothing.

Within the temple, a number of rotting corpses lay about the shattered temple. Elven, orc and dwarven bones were bleached and in some cases picked clean by the myriad small creatures darting about in the shadows. Standing in the only source of light, a grizzled old orc knelt before an altar, drawing a knife slowly across his arm, and chuckling to himself as his blood dripped to the ground. Becoming aware, the orc rose and spun, demanding, “Who disturbs my meditation!”

But he stopped when he saw the party, or at least when he saw Gwydion. “You!” He drew closer, making no move toward his weapons. “The mistress said you would come. One day, she said you would arrive, and we would know you by your white hair, and your LEAF!” He pointed at Ruey, her tabard a bright blazon in the otherwise dank place.

“Who?” Tark asked, walking up to the orc. “Who told ye?”

Kelris nodded his head, “She said you would know her by the guise of the demon Man’ari she bore, by her red tattoos and her Farseers’ past.”

“Windseeker?”

Elesii had asked the fatal question, stepping forward. But the orc took one look at her and screamed in a panic. “NO! You deceived me! Mistress, I– NO! “You are not the mistress! Imposter!” Their enemy reached for his weapon, and Garret matter-of-factly stepped forward, shoulder-checking the old orc across the room and knocking over the supplication candles the orc had left burning. As the candles wickered and went out, the room took on a different, strangely darker tone, and the idol at its center began to groan as small doors crept open, allowing water and creatures of all shape and size began to pour forth.

They swarmed the orc, consuming his flesh even as he continued to wail, “Now we will be lost together! Blissful salvation! Death!” One of the larger creatures drove a claw through his neck, and the rest of his insane prayer was lost to a gurgling fit before he succumbed, the smaller creatures still gnawing at skin, organs and bone.

Elesii conjured a blizzard inside the small room, freezing the water and most of the creatures, and those few that survived the initial blast were stuck by the dwarf Tark’s flame totem, erupting as a mighty flame nova clearing the room around them. It also knocked open a massive stone door at the end of the room. Through the fire smoldering on bodies and wherever something still provided a source of fuel, they party could barely make out a massive chamber.

“In there,” Elesii said, her arcane senses detecting the sounds of hooves falling in the distance. “I hear one of my people running, and I see ripples in the water.” The group moved swiftly inside, and found their way impeded by malformed deep sea tortoises and totems. Vines of thick, heavy seaweed sprouted up from the water, grasping at their ankles, and were chopped away by sword and axe before the paladin Bilir cast a movement spell upon himself and waded through the throng of weeds to the totem that was the source of their troubles, ending it with a swing of his hammer.

The tortoise was more of a problem, and it took the combined efforts of Tark, Garret and Gwydion to defeat, while Elesii broke into a run, into the full of the chamber where she saw the woman that was the Windseeker.

She was beautiful by Draenei standards. Long tresses, thick horns that swept back against her features, framing her bright eyes and hawk-like nose. But where a Farseer’s blue tattoo would blaze blue against her neck, as a sign of her faith, hers was a brilliant crimson stain. Elesii’s mouth hung agape a moment before she breathed the word, “Eredar…”

The Windseeker turned, and bowed mockingly before laying her hand upon a stone at the far side of the chamber. She was ensconced in the protection of a frosting orb that froze the water around her, and when the ice ring shattered… she was gone. The totems she had controlled to impede them vanished just as quickly. The tortoises seemed to lose their vicious will, and began to meander about the cavern, looking for a way out. Two slipped beneath the water, and were gone.

A small collection of dwarves wandered from a series of caves connecting to the main chamber, some rubbing their heads as if waking from a deep slumber. One of them saw Tark, and ran toward him, skidding to a stop when the flame of their torches illuminated a red beard and surface features. These were Dark Iron clan dwarves, and they had traditionally been at war for many hundreds of years. Now, they stood uncertain in the face of their would-be rescuers.

“Little dark for ye here,” one of the Dark Iron dwarves challenged, “ain’ it, Bronzebeard?”

Tark was unruffled. “‘ow long they ‘ave ye here?” he asked simply, and one of them mumbled a response. It had been more than two years since the most recent of them had been captured. “Then yer a’mung friens’,” Tark countered. Their laughter rose his voice, if not his ire. “King Magni is dead.”

The laughter stopped.

“Tha’s right,” Tark continued. “Moira Thaurrisan come outta Blackrock wi’ bronze hair an’ a Dark Iron babe wrapped in wools.” He took a step forward. “An’ I ain’ a Bronzebeard. He tossed a shamanic totem into the water, clearing a dry patch of land for them to stand in. “I be a Wildhammer, true an’ proud ta’ serve the Three Hammers once more.”

Gwydion looked among the dwarves for a moment, hesitant to interrupt the reunion of sorts, but in need of information. “The Windseeker?” he asked.

“Gone,” Elesii interjected. “She used that stone against the far wall.”

One of the Dark Iron dwarves looked at it, then the human. “What’s yer business wi’ her?” he asked accusingly.

“I mean to kill her,” Gwydion replied promptly, “and these people mean to help me.”

The Dark Iron dwarves look among one another as their apparent leader spread a wide grin and answered, “Splendid!” Walking to the far wall where the stone lay imbedded in the stone, he placed a hand against it, and waited, concentrating. “Nae good,” he said quietly. “I’s been drained of all ‘is mana.”

“But if ye get us outta here,…” he offered, “we may be able ta tell ye how ta get it workin’ again.”

“That’s as good a deal as any,” Gwydion agreed. “But we’re not taking you back to Blackrock. You wouldn’t recognize it anyway.”

“Then where th’ nine hells we goin’?” one of them demanded.

Gwydion thought for a moment, then smiled down at Tark. “Darnassus.” If the annoyed expression on the Wildhammer’s face were any indication, it would be even worse for their new dwarven friends. “You look like you lead these men,” he offered. “What’s the name we can give Ironforge when we release you to them?”

The dwarf drew off his hat and offered his hand. “Mah name is Flynte Ragehammer,” he said, “an’ if killin’ tha’ menace is yer business, I got nae reason tae leave yer comp’ny.”

Gwydion took the Dark Iron dwarf’s hand. “Welcome to the team,” he said quietly. “You’ve no idea what you’ve gotten yourselves into.” The dwarves laughed. Gwydion did not.

 

*  *  *

 

Meanwhile, a lone Eredar made her way through the night elven ruins in Desolace. Her armor was simple; polished and gleaming to a ruby red with the Eredun symbol emblazoned upon the breastplate.   Every demon, felhound and skeleton bowed in their own way at the passing Eredar female as she came to her stop before a chipped dias; all… except the large, armored Doomguard that stood atop the dias.

“The Thalanaari reside south with their Kaldorei allies, but a few remain north within the Cenarion Wildlands.” Naraxxus rolled her shoulders idly, an ease about the situation radiating from her. ”I am sure my message to that tauren, Marshweaver, was sufficient. If not,” she shrugged, ”I’ll have more pikes to decorate.”