Page 4: The Journey

It was easier than I expected. I didn't have to go into the Undercity or see any of the horrors that guard the corridors and entrances to that place. The Orb was placed outside, in the Courtyard. I simply walked up to it and triggered it.

It transported me to the very heart of Silvermoon. No one questioned me or indeed took any notice at all. Though my heart was pounding, I simply strolled past. No heads turned. The guards watched me, but idly. I was, after all, unarmored and unarmed. I just walked as if I belonged there.

Once, I had.

It was strange to walk again down the broad avenues, the places my brother and I had chased one another, where we'd walked, shopped, sat, played. There was an odd feeling to the city now though. Not just the places it was newer, and rebuilt, but...

There were giant... gems. Pulsing with power. And they had eyes. And the power was... wrong. It wasn't like the Sunwell. It was Fel.

I hurried out of the city, trying not to look like I was hurrying. The power, the glaring eyes, seemed to tickle the back of my neck and creep along my spine.

Outside the city, I was brought up short. They had not repaired the wall. The segment of the wall where Oromet and I and the rest of the Rangers who had made it to the city had made our stand... it was still crumbled, still broken.

I could hear the screams. I could feel the masonry crumbling beneath my feet. I could feel the stones crushing me, holding me down. I shivered, and turned away. This place was not my goal. My brother and I had a house outside of the city proper. That was home. That was where he called me.

The road where 'Rima had fallen. Where he and those he had kept with him had piled up a blockade and made their stand. Where the Scourge had overrun them. The place where I had found his empty body. Because I had run, and Oromet had run, as he'd told us to do. Because he promised me it would be all right, that he would join us in the city, that he and I would be wed.

It had not been all right. I don't know how long I stood, rooted to the spot, staring and lost in memories before I finally got moving again.

It was horrible to see what the Scourge had done to my forest.  The blackened, broken scar across the land. The leafless, twisted trees and slimy earth. The remains of seige machines and the gleam of bone-knobs. The dead wandered here, Scourge and... otherwise. Lost in their own hopeless dreams.

I couldn't bear to think that Oromet was one of them. I started to run, heedless of the branches and dead bits of shrubs clawing at my legs and face.

Our house still stood. The little cluster of houses where our neighbors - most of them young like us - had lived was still mostly intact, though crawling with the undead. I ignored the first floor, where I had cooked and where we had hosted parties and relaxed with our friends. I scrambled up the slimey, moss-covered ramp to the second floor, our room.

It was as I had seen it in my dreams. Grey with mildew and lichen, the overpowering smell of decay and dampness.  Our beds, our bookshelves, our wardrobes were still intact, but sagging, broken, rotting. 

And he was waiting for me, as I knew he would be. My other half, my heart. My Oromet.