Chapter 28: Reactions from All Sides
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Soft magical light spilled from the dome of Theramore City Hall, illuminating the long oak table inlaid with the ship-anchor crest of Kul Tiras. Jaina Proudmoore sat at the head of the table, her fingertips tapping a steady rhythm against the surface as her gaze shifted between Rhonin’s furrowed brow and troubled expression.
“Greetings, Jaina. According to the arcane retrospective analysis conducted by the Dalaran Council of Mages...” Rhonin’s red hair blazed like a living flame beneath the enchanted lamps. He adjusted the badge on his chest, the parchment report rustling in his hands. “The site registered an energy release equivalent to one hundred and thirty-two arcane annihilation shells—and you insist this was merely an internal dispute between black dragons?”
“You seem to be underestimating that old black dragon’s... determination.” The corners of Jaina’s lips lifted into a perfectly measured, bitter smile. Her fingers absently rubbed the edge of a coin purse. “When he discovered that his beloved daughter was selling fertilizer—forgive my vulgarity—the spectacle was far more impressive than any number of annihilation shells. The Blackwing fertilizer flooding the market now was her idea.”
Rhonin’s quill halted over the remarks column beside “abnormal energy.”
Bzzzt—
The Dalaran representative’s eyes grew unfocused for a moment. The purse of gold had already vanished into his extradimensional storage.
“Indeed...” He rubbed his temples. Without thinking, he crossed out “abnormal” and replaced it with “known black dragon energy signature.” “Deathwing’s recent acts of madness...”
At precisely the right moment, Jaina offered him a steaming cup of tea. Golden leaves from Un’Goro Crater unfurled at the bottom of the cup.
“According to the latest intelligence, Nefarian was also involved in the conflict.” The amusement in her blue eyes shifted like waves upon the Shattered Sea. “Perhaps the black dragonflight is undergoing... a reorganization of power?”
But Rhonin had already removed his spectacles and was wearily pinching the bridge of his nose. “The Three Principles of Dalaran: noninterference in domestic affairs, taking no sides, and...” His gaze hesitated before the rest of the sentence dissolved into a sigh. “...not pursuing explanations that are obviously reasonable.”
Outside the window, a flock of seagulls suddenly took flight in alarm.
As Rhonin stamped the report with the violet sigil, Jaina watched him and thought that, at last, she had managed to placate Dalaran with gold and favors.
Beneath the dome of Wyrmrest Temple, the Eternal Flame burned quietly in a massive bronze brazier, casting the silhouettes of the five dragon aspects across the circular walls carved with Titan runes.
Alexstrasza—the Life-Binder, Queen of the Red Dragonflight—stood at the center of the round table, a flickering strand of life-flame hovering above her palm. The flame should have burned a brilliant golden red, but now threads of shadow coiled through it like infected veins.
“His life is slipping away.” Her deep voice echoed through every corner of the temple.
The image of Malygos, Lord of the Blue Dragonflight, solidified first. Arcane energy formed agitated electrical arcs around him. “The magical monitoring network shows that the explosion in Dustwallow Marsh reached epic proportions!” He swept a claw through the air, unfurling a holographic image—the enormous crater blasted into the scorched earth. “Destruction on this scale demands that the spellcaster be investigated!”
Ysera’s projection emerged from the Emerald Dream. The Queen of the Green Dragonflight kept her eyes half closed, dream-dandelions twined through the ends of her hair. “The scent of Deathwing...” she murmured softly, as though still sleepwalking. “What a pity. He once had the most beautiful scales...”
The image of Nozdormu, Lord of the Bronze Dragonflight, remained perpetually indistinct. Time flowed around him in warped vortices. He said nothing, merely stirring grains of sand with one claw as he observed countless possible timelines.
Alexstrasza looked around at the assembled dragons, the disappointment in her eyes deepening. “He was once our brother.” She emphasized the words. “Even fallen, even mad—now that he is dying, do we truly lack even the courage to inquire after him?”
Malygos slammed a claw against the table, arcane energy bursting outward in ripples. “Of course we must intervene! The misuse of magic must be—”
The Red Queen cut him off coldly. “Human informants report that he was the one who blew up Dustwallow Marsh.”
The Blue Dragonlord’s voice stopped dead.
An eerie silence settled over the temple.
Malygos’s pupils contracted slightly. The arcane energy around him deflated like a punctured balloon. He slowly sat back down and cleared his throat.
“Oh... then never mind.”
Ysera gave a soft laugh. The dandelion twined around her fingers suddenly crumbled into ash. “As he is now, with cracked scales and lava spilling out, he resembles a piece of volcanic rock someone has chewed on... How inelegant.”
At last, Nozdormu spoke, his voice seeming to come from the distant end of time itself. “There is a disturbance in the timeline.” His gaze swept over the other dragons. “The version in which the black dragon father and daughter turned against one another... is too perfect. But there is no better explanation. The timeline itself is obstructing my observation.”
Alexstrasza’s fingertips unconsciously scorched a line across the tabletop. “So you do not believe it?”
The Bronze Lord’s form began to fade.
“I will see for myself.”
The Red Queen let out a long sigh and waved to dissolve the council. After the projections of the other dragonlords vanished one after another, she stood alone before the Eternal Flame, watching the strand of life-flame grow ever weaker.
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“Neltharion...” she whispered, calling the forgotten name. “What manner of being have you provoked?”
The golden sands of the Caverns of Time flowed between Nozdormu’s claws, while the reflections of billions of timelines flickered within his eyes. His claw hovered above a crucial branch—one that should have clearly revealed the truth behind the explosion in Dustwallow Marsh, yet was shrouded in an eerie golden mist.
“Chromie.”
The Bronze Lord’s voice made the time-sands throughout the cavern tremble faintly.
Chromie, who had been hiding behind a stalactite while eating a honey bun, nearly choked. In a flurry of motion, she stuffed her pocket watch into her dress pocket and wiped the crumbs from the corner of her mouth.
“Here! You called?”
Nozdormu did not turn around. With a lazy sweep of his tail, he gathered the time-sands into a three-dimensional projection of the blast site.
“Explain this.” He pointed to the densest part of the mist. “Why does this crucial strand of time... smell like a Titan prank?”
Chromie’s small hand stealthily reached toward her waist, where the lucky coin Ai-chan had given her was fastened.
Bzzzt!
The instant the coin spun across her fingertips, the light throughout the Caverns of Time suddenly softened. A warm golden radiance spread across Nozdormu’s scales, and even his perpetually furrowed brow relaxed by several degrees.
“Well, you see~” Chromie hopped closer, the coin twirling merrily in her palm. “It’s just a family drama! Deathwing was embarrassed that his daughter was selling fertilizer, and his daughter thought her old man was too old-fashioned, so they got into a huge fight—”
Nozdormu jabbed at the projection with one claw. “And these?”
For a moment, the mist parted, revealing twelve streaks of metallic light.
Chromie immediately raised the coin high. Its runes erupted in dazzling golden radiance.
“Dragon-breath embers! Just look at the trajectory—textbook black dragon breath dispersal!”
—Under the coin’s blessing, the lie became reality.
Nozdormu’s pupils widened slightly. He saw:
Onyxia’s wings whipping up a storm, in truth the blast wave from the explosion;
Deathwing’s elementium armor “naturally shedding,” in truth pierced by armor-piercing shells;
Crystals of ammonium nitrate at the bottom of the crater “happening” to form the runes of an Old God’s curse, in truth carved there overnight by Deren.
The Bronze Lord suddenly shook his head, and time-sand slipped between his claws.
“Strange...” he murmured. “It does indeed conform to a black dragon energy signature...”
Chromie seized the opportunity to slap the coin onto the sand table. “And think about it~” She blinked her enormous eyes. “If an outsider really had the power to grievously wound Deathwing, there would have been a temporal paradox alarm by now, wouldn’t there?”
—A fatal blow.
Nozdormu’s most treasured time-monitoring system had now become the finest corroboration of the lie. He nodded slowly, his tail unconsciously curling around the coin and rubbing it.
“You are right...”
Chromie snatched the coin back with lightning speed. “So this case is closed?”
The instant the Bronze Lord nodded, Chromie was already skipping toward the exit. It was not until she had crossed three temporal rifts that she collapsed onto a patch of grass, panting wildly.
“Ai-chan’s coin... That thing is ridiculous!”
Chromie wiped away her cold sweat. “Done! He now firmly believes Deathwing blew up his daughter’s beloved toy, and then his own daughter beat him half to death! It’s melodramatic, but it feels real.”
The morning mist had not yet cleared from Dustwallow Marsh when a gilded airship roared across the sky. The colorful smoke pouring from its stern dragged an ostentatious trail across the sea. Painted on the side of the vessel in fluorescent letters were the words “Prince Rivermore,” each letter studded with reflective crystals.
Before the hatch had fully opened, a green-skinned figure eagerly leapt out—
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Splat!
The goblin prince, Rivermore, landed face-first in the scorched earth. The gem-encrusted buckle of his belt flew loose and went jingling into the crater.
“My limited-edition Bloodsail Buccaneers commemorative belt buckle!”
He wailed as he scrambled back to his feet. His gold-rimmed monocle hung crookedly to one side, but he did not even bother to straighten it. Instead, he seized the nearest goblin accountant.
“Where’s our fertilizer?! Our production line?! Our money tree?!”
The accountant nervously pointed toward the enormous crater nearby.
“It’s, it’s all right there, boss...”
Rivermore turned stiffly toward the blackened abyss nearly a hundred yards across. The once-thriving fertilizer workshops, the stockpiled raw materials, even the transport ships moored at the docks—all of it was gone.
His lips trembled twice, and then—
“Aaaaaah!”
The soul-rending scream sent every bird within five miles taking flight.
When Deren and Chromie arrived, they found Rivermore kneeling at the edge of the crater, clawing through the scorched earth with his bare hands in search of anything that might still be sold. The heels of his custom crocodile-skin boots had melted from the heat, his fine silk shirt was covered in soot, and his carefully groomed mohawk had been singed into curls.
“Calm down!” Deren jogged over. “The business can continue!”
“Continue?!” Rivermore spun around and leapt three feet into the air. He grabbed Deren by the collar, spraying spittle across his face. “Do you know how much I spent advertising the brand ‘Black Dragon High-Yield Fertilizer’?! The front page of the Eastern Kingdoms Agricultural Gazette! Sponsorship of the Stormwind Harvest Festival! Even the Umbral Trolls had placed orders for our product! Now it’s all gone!”
Chromie rose onto her toes and poked the goblin prince in the elbow.
“But what if...” she whispered mysteriously, “Theramore provided a new site, Nefarian supplied sulfur at a low price, and Lady Jaina offered political guarantees?”
Rivermore’s sobs stopped instantly.
His eyes visibly transformed into the shape of gold coins.
“...Tell me more.”
Deren took the opportunity to break free and wipe the spittle from his face. “Lady Jaina has just signed a cooperation agreement. The old shipyards on Theramore’s eastern coast can be converted into a new workshop, and—”
“—and there will be no taxes for the first three years!” Chromie cut in.
The goblin prince’s ears shot upright.
“No taxes?!”
“And there’s more!” Deren pulled a scroll of parchment from inside his coat. “Nefarian is willing to supply volcanic sulfur from Blackrock Mountain at ten percent below market price for the long term.”
Rivermore’s breathing quickened. He snatched the contract and scanned it, a string of complicated accounting formulas flashing across his monocle. Suddenly, he looked up.
“Wait... What if Deathwing comes back for revenge?”
Onyxia’s voice drifted eerily from behind them.
“Then tell him—”
She had appeared behind the group at some point, the lucky coin spinning between her fingertips. Sunlight flashed from its surface, sending a blinding ray straight into the goblin’s eyes.
“—that his children will beat him up again.”
Rivermore’s pupils were instantly filled with the image of the coin. He grinned, revealing a mouthful of gold teeth.
“Brilliant! Fake military expenses: swords and armor! Real military expenses: gold dividends!”
He turned and waved frantically at his subordinates aboard the airship.
“Hurry! Signal the board! Increase the investment! I’m going to make the Theramore Fertilizer Works the largest in all of Azeroth—”
Before he could finish, Jaina’s cough suddenly sounded in the distance.
The goblin prince immediately lowered his voice by an octave.
“...the most environmentally friendly fertilizer production center.”
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