Ilimyn Togzakoggulus

One fine sunny day, Ilimyn woke up feeling slightly damp despite the fact that he was lying in a pile of ashes in a blackened crater surrounded by smoldering wreckage. His first thought was "Wonder how much this is gonna cost me."

After brushing some of the debris off, rubbing at his eyes, checking to see how many limbs remained intact and dry heaving for a few seconds, he started to wonder where he was.

The crater he'd been sleeping in was surrounded by ruins on the edge of the ocean, at the bottom of a cliff. When he looked up, Ilimyn saw white stone walls that looked vaguely like the white stone walls of Stormwind. Except a little worse for wear.

And anyway, he couldn't be in Stormwind. Stormwind didn't have any craters. Yet.

The only way off his scorched little beach was swimming through shark-infested waters or climbing up a sheer cliff face. So Ilimyn rolled up his sleeves, took a deep breath and screamed for Haaghun to show his ungrateful face immediately.

After several minutes, the felguard appeared.

"Sure took your time didn't you?" Ilimyn snapped, wagging his finger. "Whatever happened to punctuality, huh? You ought to be glad you work for such a kind and generous master of all evil! I could do horrible, degrading things to you!

"Anyway, carry me to the top of this cliff."

Haaghun glared at him.

"Oh stop sulking. If our positions were reversed and you weren't three times my size I would definitely do the same for- oh who am I kidding, just carry me you big oaf!"

Ilimyn shimmied up Haaghun's leg, planting his foot in a few uncomfortable places along the way, grabbed onto the spikes on the felguard's back and hung there rather awkwardly. "And don't get any funny ideas about climbing all the way up and letting go! I don't care what hell big ugly demons end up in, I will hunt you down and drag you back out!"

And so Haaghun climbed, while Ilimyn hung onto his back and complained about the heat, the cold, the damp, the sun, the clouds and the annoying squeaky sound he heard every time he started talking. When they finally reached the top he hopped off the demon's back, just in case any funny ideas were gotten after all.

"Well what do you know, this is Stormwind!"

The city looked just as it had last night, if perhaps a little more detailed than he could remember. It was at this point that Ilimyn also remembered that he'd been in Stormwind last night when he'd fallen asleep. In hindsight, that probably should have been his first clue when he started wondering where he was.

He most certainly did not remember the smoking ruin behind him though. A canal ended in a waterfall, the street in a cliff. Most of the nearby barracks were burned away. Ilimyn had a vague recollection of a park he'd passed out in that apparently was no longer there.

He reached into his pocket and felt the shards of a used soulstone within. That, he guessed, was pretty lucky.

What could have happened? Had some disaster struck? Was the city attacked while he slept? Had some new evil, a terrible force of destruction and death, stolen upon the city while it was vulnerable to strike fear into the populace in the one place they thought they would be safe, so soon after the last great danger was finally defeated? Would the heroes of Azeroth be called forth once more to protect their world? Would they be able to, in the face of such raw power?

Ilimyn decided he didn't care and went to go find breakfast.

But at the Pig and Whistle, the huge smoking pit where the park used to be was all anyone wanted to talk about.

"He was as big as the castle!" said a human wearing what looked an awful lot like a hunter's uniform, "he spread his wings and blotted out the sky!"

"Wings? It didn't have wings! Those were tentacles! It's one of those faceless monsters from Northrend!" The dwarf covered her face with her hands, "My pa, he got mixed up with those things during the campaign. When they found him he didn't even look like himself anymore!"

Another human slammed his tankard down. "They were wings I tell you! And they were on fire!"

"Green fire! Must've been a demon!"

"No, regular old fire! On account of it was a dragon, not a demon!"

"Demon!"

"Dragon!"

"Demon!"

"Dragon!"

"Demon dragon!"

Both men turned to glare at Ilimyn. He pointed at the elf sitting nearby and quickly scooted back into the shadows.

"You're all a bunch of dumb kids," said an old woman leaning against a wall, "That wasn't just some dragon. That was Deathwing. Saw him with my own eyes during the war."

"Which war?"

She glared at the speaker. "The war Deathwing was flying around in! He's gotten a bit uglier with age, but that was him alright."

"He made off with that she-dragon's head," a very drunken night elf muttered, "Maybe it was his wife!"

"Dragon's don't have wives!"

"And she was his daughter!"

"I thought Lady Prestor was his daughter?"

"Aye, Prestor. She was the dragon."

"That's silly. Who'd fall for a dragon in a dress?"

Ilimyn had to climb onto one of the bar stools to get the innkeeper's attention. Even then, his pancake looked suspiciously like an omelet when it finally ended up in front of him.

"We've not heard from Darnassus since it happened. Think they got attacked too?"

"Why would anyone bother attacking them? They're just elves."

The drunken night elf staggered to his feet, shaking his fist.

"Northshire's on fire I hear!"

"It's gotten mighty windy in Westfall!"

"They finished the bridge in Redridge! But I guess that's unrelated."

"Why would he want her head anyway? Is that some sort of dragon thing? They like collecting heads? Are dragons secretly trolls?"

And so it went, getting louder and more feverish until a kid poked his head in the door to say some shaman were wandering around telling people what was going on. He moved just in time to avoid the stampede.

Ilimyn dodged around legs trying to get a look, but the crowd outside the tavern was too big and too tall, and Haaghun had stayed inside to order a drink (despite getting weird looks and having no money). He thought he got a lucky break when he noticed a pile of crates on top of a wagon, only to realize too late that they were boxes full of very hungry squirrels.

"People of Stormwind!" cried the shaman at the center of the crowd over the sounds of a gnome being eaten by ravening woodland creatures, "a dark time is upon us! The dreaded black dragon Deathwing-"

"Told you!"

"Hush!"

"- and the Twilight's Hammer cult have brought about a terrible catastrophe upon-"

"Is it really a catastrophe?"

The shaman blinked, stroked his tentacles, and said "A terrible cataclysm?"

The crowd murmured in agreement.

"Even now, the boundaries between this world and the Elemental Planes weaken, and foul creatures arise from beneath the earth to bring about greater chaos!"

Ilimyn paused in his squirrel-wrangling to say "El-i-mental?"

"The time has come for all of Azeroth's heroes to rally together and bring stability to this shattered world! Who will answer the call?"

There were cheers and applause, and the crowd thundered off after the shaman.

Ilimyn went back inside and ran to Haaghun, smacking the drink from his hand just before it reached his lips. "Great news! There was a cataclysm!"

Haaghun glared at him.

"I know, wonderful isn't it? Come on, get your axe from where it's hovering over my neck and let's go! I'll have to talk to Bizkin, hehehe, this is perfect! Elemental planes, Haggy! Ohoho, this is just so perfect!"