DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT OR ANYTHING WITHIN IT, save for my experiences there. Some material here is directly copied from the quest-texts: related conversations and in-game speech as found on the game support pages and Wiki. This is not done to plagiarise as my own work, but on the contrary, to give backbone to a story intended to flesh out part of the game's lore. Some of it has been modified and added to, in order to integrate it with the tale.

This story is dedicated to all those who started as Draenei on Azuremyst Isle, and are left wondering who Nolkai is, and what happened to his people.

IN SEARCH OF NOLKAI

It had been several weeks since she had emerged, dazed yet unhurt, from the debris of the magnificent mother ship, The Exodar, which had delivered her fleeing nation to the safety of this new world known as Azeroth.
The period of time between the crash and her current awakening was a blank. Well, almost a blank. There were hazy landscapes of light, interspersed with pink mists, which could have been due to a glimpse or two she had had of the crystalline interior of the healing halls. The words spoken softly by her people over her ailing head were awash with echoes, fading into each other like one wave of the ocean into another:

'It is a good thing...'

'Has the family ... survived..?'

'I forgot my disc of family records...How could I?'

'...brother, maybe...his records..'

'..help here, please..'

'She shall be ready soon...'

'..will ...lapse..in..memory..'

'.. by the Light..'

'She lives..'

'...a good thing..'

'..gained..another child..'

'..a good thing..'

Thus time passed for an unknown period to her, so that by the time she finally regained herself and stood in the doorway to the recruitment camp, her now-ravaged homeland of Draenor was all but forgotten in the aftershock of the impact of The Exodar's abrupt introduction to Azeroth. It was challenging enough to get accustomed to her new environs, whose air itself 'tasted' so different than what her lungs had known. Azuremyst, it was called in the common tongue of the planet. The colouring of the vegetation was off, a bit too dark, like something had infected it with a sort of plague, for which she found out her people were partly to blame: what had once been a lush green little paradise of an island was now in danger of being polluted by the fallout of energy and crystals from The Exodar, already warping some of the local flora and fauna into less-than-friendly versions of themselves. The twisted beasts that had emerged from around the scattered energy crystals of the ship did nothing to improve the situation, which was far worse in the even more eerie and unwelcoming Bloodmyst Isle to the north. To make things more complicated, an uncanny local race, of four limbs, two pointy ears accentuated by a pair of flying eyebrows, and no end of mischief, had set up various camps on both islands, being a thorn in the side of her people to the degree of an outright threat- for their leader had consorted with the very enemy that had led to her nation's exile, and consequent name-change from Eredar to Draenei long before they left their home planet of Argus for that of Draenor, and now, Azeroth.

But that was not her chief concern at the moment. A silvery ring, inlaid with a turquoise metal of some sort, had withstood the test of time to finally find its way into her fine white hands. The obscure beginnings of her adventure began while scouting the shores. She had come upon a tiny being and his companions who had set up camp inside the shell of an oversized tortoise. In the Common tongue whose basics her people had begun to learn after landing on their new home, he had enthusiastically introduced himself as a digger of artifacts of sorts, under some pompous title she did not recall, and cheerfully requested that she collect some form of essence from the dangerous and irritable slimy water-creatures that infested the shores of the two isles. In doing so, she had come upon a strange find: a weathered map, marking a place on what appeared to be the northern isle. The crudely-drawn map revealed nothing of its maker, but appeared to have been drawn with an unsteady hand. Wavering lines and symbols depicted a small pavilion with broken columns located to the west of a partially submerged tower.

If the map was to be believed, this cluster of ruins appeared to be located on the eastern coast of the island. What was there to be found? She had no idea, but it was important enough for the map's creator to record. Yet the thought of venturing deeper into the aptly-named Bloodmyst Isle made her skin crawl. Deformed beasts, angry bears, demonic beings, aggressive elementals, disease-infested animals and plants of all kinds made it a very unpleasant place. Even the beautiful beings of four limbs and flying eyebrows seemed to have more viciousness in them here. The energy that had seeped from The Exodar's power crystals into the land was taking hold of everything else, and not agreeing with anything it touched. No harsher sign of their being aliens in a new world, she thought bitterly.

Nonetheless, this map was a clue as to the lay of the land. The Draenei, being newcomers to this planet, could not ignore any piece of information, no matter how small. It could be a wild goose chase, it could be fruitful. In either case, she had to let someone know she was going off-course, so she took counsel with her people at the base they had set up on the miserable northern island, aptly named Blood Watch, checked her bearings, and set off, sticking to the scrambling path as best she could, for she found less interruptions from the aggressive inhabitants of the land when she did so.

The map led her to the eastern shores of the disturbingly blood-red isle, where stood- in stark contrast to the diseased corruption of the land- tall, white marble towers and lofty buildings: edifices of a civilisation whose abandonment, judging by the refinement of its structure, was a pitiful loss. She wished that its makers had survived. She was almost sure they would have made life far more bearable for her and her people than the slithering, snake-bodied, two-armed hissing army of monsters that now filled the place, and whom she had to eliminate for her own safety if nothing else. Her encounters with them made that wish even more stronger as she flung one spell after another in an attempt to come closer to her target destination.

The warrior-monsters left little time for observation so long as they were alive. But once she had felled enough of them to take a breath, she took a look around herself. Slithery things like these could not have possibly been able to mine and lift so much stone, cut it in such graceful form, arrange it in such beautiful buildings, and leave behind an impression which openly hinted at a stargazing nation, high of mind in both art and knowledge.

They would have gotten along well, her people and whoever made these places, she thought as she neared the place marked on the map. Was this parchment as old as the buildings? Or was it merely a latter-day mercenary's treasure-hunting tool? The answer would come later, for she found what she came for: it was a book, bound in rose-coloured leather of a shimmering, swirling pattern, a spine with bands of gold, its cover embossed and studded with golden symbols. Perhaps this was what the map was referencing. She did not wait for further acquaintance with the scaled monsters, but hurried back to her people's camp on the Isle, where she caught her breath, refreshed herself, and sat down with the book on her lap. She opened it, and found it full of elegant script, differing from the unsteady scrawl of the map. Judging by its beauty, it must have belonged to a member of the civilisation that had left behind such equally elegant architecture, and, therefore, probably much more ancient.

How had it survived? The pages had somehow avoided being touched by the hand of Time. There was any number of ways in which one could preserve an object, both physical and arcane. Examining the book carefully, she concluded that it must have been a journal. But wait, many of the pages were obscured by drawings and writing in the mapmaker's hand. She put the journal down on her lap with a frown. It was a good thing the mapmaker was not anywhere near at hand at that moment. Suddenly, she wondered whether she oughtn't show this to the artifact-digging small creature, to check if it were him, at the same instant understanding why she did not. Even if it were, indeed, the small creature's map, and his handwriting in the book, she didn't think that she would leave the journal- or the map, in his destructive little hands. One who had no respect for the past had no place digging it up. Another look at the text confirmed her attitude: it was nearly impossible to make out the text beneath the ..mapmaker's tales of drunken carousing during shore leave? How did she understand that? Was this the common tongue?

Yet it was because of the elegant script that her curiosity was piqued, and her heart beat a little faster- had she gotten a little closer to the people who had left behind such a beautiful civilisation? She could not, however, find out on her own. This was a scholar's task, and there was just such a scholar among her people at Blood Watch: the Anchorite Paetheus, whose knowledge of healing arts was vast, augmented by his interest in all world civilisations. He had kept his collection of cultural relics despite the migration and the crash. She took the book to him. The monumentally-proportioned Draenei elder in his white robes looked upon her, and knew there was something afoot by the gleam in her eye.

This being their first meeting, he greeted her formally nonetheless, saying, 'The Light shine upon you in all your endeavors, young one.' His gaze went to her hands. 'What is it you have there?'

She bowed, and presented him with the journal.

'Hmm... this is most intriguing. Yes, I should be able to make out what the original author wrote in the pages of this book.'

She held back the need to clap in delight, clamped her mouth shut and listened.

'I should have everything I need for the process. This should only take a moment.'