I'm not completely up to snuff on Cataclysm raid lore, but I believe Deathwing stole the heads of his children, Onyxia and Nefarian, in order to bring them back to life in Blackrock Descent. There is a nod to that event in this chapter.
For those of you that are keeping track, this would be about the month of November. Zarabethe is due at the beginning of February. She better hurry it up!
Zarabethe breathed in the calm scent of the forest. She was back in Ashenvale, and it was spring time. Squirrels ran chittering up the tree beside her, and she stopped a moment to watch. Zar lifted his head as well, but he was far past the age to be interested in such small game. He gave a dignified snort and waited until his distracted master moved forward. She couldn't figure out how, but the way the squirrels moved was really odd, she finally decided. Shaking her head, she turned and continued down the path, Zar at her side. The path stopped abruptly up ahead, and was absorbed into the green wall of the trees. She frowned at it, wondering if maybe it hadn't always looked like this, when the air shimmered in front of the barricade of foliage.
Out of the surreal air stepped what appeared to be a night elf woman. She had skin of dark lavender, graceful elongated ears, and wore a sleeveless gown of sheerest veridian. Her hair was the exact same color of the trees, and when she met Zarabethe's gaze, her eyes were the most striking hue of emerald she had ever seen. Her long hair waved and slid over her bare shoulders as if it were full of its own energy, and didn't need the wind to move. Reality itself seemed to bend and twist around the woman, and Zarabethe couldn't help but stare at her. When she opened her mouth to speak, her voice sounded like a cool breeze.
"Zarabethe."
The woman took a step toward her, and gripped by a growing sense of foreboding, the hunter retreated a step in response. Her face vacillated between youthful and ancient, but it was set in very clear lines of desperation.
"Zarabethe, where are you?"
The hunter straightened up suddenly as realization hit her. This was the daughter of Ysera. She glanced down at Zar, dear old Zar who suddenly seemed not quite as corporeal as he did a moment ago. She shook her head sadly. Zar was dead. She was dreaming.
"Zarabethe." The woman's voice was more commanding now. It seemed she had given up on coaxing her into listening, and was now simply taking her attention as she desired it. Zarabethe looked up at her with apprehension. The green of the woman's eyes burned brighter until it seemed to consume the entirety of the forest. Zarabethe felt a burning heat rush in on her, and wind whipped around her hair and threw sand in her face. They were in the desert now, and the scene came upon her like it had countless times before. Daughter of Ysera, son of Malygos, and son of the Life-Binder, all three threw themselves to the mercy of the Qiraji as Anachronos and Fandral sealed the door. Zarabethe clapped her hands over her ears in anticipation, but the screams of the fallen dragon children were everywhere, burning the sand of the desert, filling the air in her lungs, bursting out of her own head. Her throat felt like sandpaper and she realized she was screaming with them.
Zarabethe leapt the distance to awake so abruptly she was on her feet with her bow in her hand before she realized the dream had ended. She made a slow circle, feeling her heart try to pound out of her chest. Spook was alert beside her. Zarabethe lowered her bow, and squatted down to scrub the sabre behind her ears. The great cat seemed to be so in tune with her master lately, she was sure she had been awake as soon as she realized Zarabethe had been trapped in a dream again. She rubbed one hand across her face and shoved her sweaty bangs out of her eyes. It was no matter that they were deep in the heart of the biggest mountain in the Eastern Kingdoms, or that she could no longer deny that the days were cooling into fall. The deserted kingdom under the mountain remembered its previous owners, and despite all logic dictating otherwise, the further inside she traveled, the more the air was hot and stifling.
Blackrock Mountain had been a hotly contested location ever since Thaurissian and his Dark Iron dwarves had inadvertently woken up the fire lord, Ragnaros. The powerful force of the elemental lord entering the world of Azeroth had caused the mountain to erupt into a volcano, charring the surrounding zones and catching the interest of the orcs of Rend Blackhand. Chieftain Blackhand and his Blackrock orcs dug out a massive lair in the mountain itself above ground, while the dwarves, now under the control of Ragnaros, built themselves a mighty kingdom in the depths below. Nefarian, son of Deathwing, controlled the Blackrock orc clan from his lair atop Blackrock spire before being brought down years ago. In the time that followed, the sprawling fortress had been ransacked by groups of adventurers. There hadn't been any dragons or orcs spotted in it since the head of Nefarian was planted on a spike triumphantly outside of Orgrimmar, but it was said that the ghosts of the past were too loud deep in the heart of the mountain. After the first few waves of enterprising looters, people were loathe to return. As Zarabethe had carefully picked her way through the wreckage of Blackrock Spire, she had seen old evidence of looting: places that used to hold gems or gold, now scratched and defaced, bare treasure chests and rooms filled with broken weapons and rusting armor. The hunter had come upon remains of old deterrents as well: tripped booby traps littered with the bones of their hapless victims. All of it was only bones and covered in dust. There were no new footprints, no evidence that anyone had been inside these dug-out walls for months, if not years. Even so, Zarabethe kept her wits about her and her weapons close. The silent, stale air surrounded her and listened to her every footfall. It felt as if at any moment, a veil would be drawn back and hidden inhabitants would rush out of the crevices they had been hiding in and she would be another nameless victim to the mountain's bloody history.
Detritus slid under her boots as Zarabethe climbed her way back down to the floor of the laboratory she had staked out to nap in. It was by far the largest one she had seen in the two weeks she had spent scouring the dungeon, and it was the open layout and the relative cleanliness that made her choose it as a safe spot. She had climbed up on top of a sturdy stone ledge and slept with her back to the rock wall and Spook between her and the drop. With as little and as light as she had been sleeping lately, she wasn't as worried about being ambushed near as much as slipping and falling to the hard floor. It wasn't far enough to kill her, but she could easily break a limb or hit her head. A jolt like that wasn't safe for the baby either.
Her mind had been a confusing place lately as far as her pregnancy. She would sometimes find herself curled up in a ball with her hands on her stomach, waiting with bated breath for a movement, daydreaming about names and laughing when Spook, curled up against her side, felt a kick and lifted her head in confusion like Zarabethe had poked her with her fingers. Those moments were rare times of lucidity in the broiling turmoil in her obsession with the quest. As soon as she realized what she was doing, or she had finally started to relax her shoulders enough to realize just how overwhelmingly tired she was, the twitching and the anxiety started. Where was the satchel? Was everything in it? Did she have the map ready for the next zone? More than ever, she felt as if she was being driven in front of some force of desperation that demanded she do nothing but stay on task. Even if she wanted to leave this quest, she didn't know if she would have the choice to anymore.
The thoughts flickered uncertainty through her mind as she climbed her way through the forgotten laboratory. It had mostly been cleaned out, with only shattered glass containers and empty bookshelves and tables to mark its purpose. Strangely, she found the rooms like this, the ones that looked dead and forgotten, to be more reassuring that the empty corridors or the caverns that were untouched. She had stumbled into one of those yesterday. Literally stumbled actually: her boot had slipped on a rock and she fell against what she thought was a solid wall, only to have it crumble beneath her weight. She had landed hard on her backside in an alcove full of moldy books and scrolls. Normally this would excite her, and she would eagerly fall into their dusty pages and absorb their knowledge. But she was so on edge, and so positive that there was something alive just out of sight in this abandoned fortress, that evidence of the Spire's previous inhabitants unnerved her and she had hurried on her way. She still had not shaken off the feeling today: it felt like a trickle of knowledge at the back of her neck, something out of reach but so important that she dared not let it go.
The entire journey through Blackrock Spire had felt this way. Perhaps it was because the path had been easy. She had found the entrance to the kingdom with no problem, and although the way was winding and often confusing, there had been no traps, no real danger except what she expected in her mind. The room that she found the remains of Vaelestrasz in had been cleared, except for what was left of one lone dwarf. That was what had been the most out of place: she had seen evidence of death in this dungeon many times over, but always with the obvious cause, and always in a group. This was one adventurer, and his death was so recent that she could recognize what race he belonged too and was able to decipher most of the handwriting on the parchment that he still clutched in one outstretched hand. There was a lot of gibberish, but in between that she could make out that Nefarian had stolen the scepter shard upon corrupting and then killing the red guardian, and had hidden it in his throne room at the top of the spire.
It was the mention of the quest that had thrown her off at the start. There were some people she had encountered that had heard of the quest in legend, or knew some of its components, but the only ones that really seemed to know what was going on were the people directly involved in it. Narain. Eranikus. Keeper Remulos. She had never met anyone that had ever even started the quest, and to find someone that had obviously been on that path left as nothing more than a rotting corpse, was sobering. Overall, she was more than ready to find the red shard as quickly as possible, and then get far away from here.
She consulted her contraband map of Blackrock Spire as she left the spacious laboratory and turned into a corridor with several openings. If she was standing where she thought she was, she was getting very close to Nefarian's throne room. The center passage should be the one she was after. She took a few steps in that direction and was nearly knocked over by the stench of rot and decay. She wrinkled her nose and held one hand over the bottom half of her face. Of course, her path would be the one that smelled of death.
The large round room that fanned open at the end of the hallway looked disturbingly like an abandoned animal pen. There was straw littering the floor, and to her far right a rotted mat that might have once been a bed. Mounted to the wall above it was a heavy reinforced ring, and a rusted chain with links the size of her head trailed down it to pool on the floor. At the end of it was the source of the smell. Spook's hair stood up on the back of her neck as they circled a very large, very dead three headed creature. The smell coming from its putrifying corpse was so pungent that although Zarabethe was burning with questions about how something so massive had been living so much longer than any other resident of the Spire, she and Spook retreated to the far left of the room and circled quickly around to the back exit.
As they stepped over the threshold into a surprisingly small passageway, Zarabethe felt a shiver run from the base of her spine all the way to the tips of her ears. She paused and listened. She thought, just for a moment, that she had heard something, something so far away that the sound was nearly muffled into silence. It could have been almost anything: a moan of despair, a scrape against the stone floor, a distant crash of bookshelves. She hovered in a flux of indecision. The sound was not repeated, and against her intuition, she continued on. She was so close to the scepter shard now that her entire body was tingling. She could feel its presence.
The staircase grew narrower and narrower, until she and Spook could only walk in single file. Far up ahead, she could see a dim light glowing from what she assumed as the top. Her legs ached and she was drenched in sweat, but she hurried on, feeling at last she might be near the end. A few yards from the top, Zarabethe felt a tremor under her foot. She paused, and this time she was positive she heard a sound down below. A long, low scrape that sounded much closer than it did before.
Forgetting her exhaustion, she took the remaining stairs two at a time and burst triumphantly into Nefarian's throne room. She was a little surprised to be there, as there had not even been a cover on the door, just an open archway. As soon as she passed over the threshold, she heard the scraping noise again, slow and unhurried, yet closer still than before. It completely unnerved her, and her heart pounded in her chest as she quickly surveyed the throne room.
It was mostly open and bare, which seemed out of place for a vain black dragon, but, she supposed, most of his possessions and illicit laboratories were inside the Spire. He had the entire mountain to horde his treasures. A large black throne made of stone occupied the northern corner, and a series of decorative pillars descended the length of the room. The entire far wall was open to the mountain air with nothing to shield it from the elements, not even a magical barrier as far as she could tell. The way she had come in was the only exit.
There was another rumble under her feet, stronger than before, and audible. Something had been triggered by her entering the room, that was for sure, although she had no idea what it was. She picked up the pace, searching all along the walls for some kind of hidden alcove or even just a length of shelf. She made a big circle of the room, checking and double-checking every inch of the stone walls. She was nearing the far north corner, and getting more frustrated with every passing moment. She felt another scraping rumble from under her feet, and jumped back from nerves. The satchel glowed warm on her shoulder and added to her confusion what was going on. She stepped back the wall and ran her hands along the surface, and the warmth faded again. She stopped, and took an experimental step back. The satchel reacted again, and Zarabethe felt some iota of confidence return. The satchel would lead her to where the shard was hidden.
She forced herself to walk slowly as she followed the sketchy game of hot and cold. The ground rumbled again, and she heard a horrible crash from down below. She felt a tremor of fear go through her: that sounded like it could have been in the animal pen where they found that dead creature. As if to confirm her thoughts, she started as a tremendous, feral roar echoed up into the throne room and bounced off the walls out into the open fall sky.
Was that a dragon?
Zarabethe held the satchel against her as she searched more frantically for the shard. It glowed the hottest when she circled the throne, but like everything else in this damn room, it was bare. She bent down awkwardly and ran her hand along the base to see if there was a seam or crack that might indicate a hidden compartment. As soon as her hand touched it she both felt and heard a gigantic crash, a scraping, scrabbling sound of claws and scales against stone. Whatever was down there was now forcing itself up through the narrow passageway into the throne room. Zarabethe crawled on her hands and knees around the base of the throne, begging there to be some indication to where the shard might be. The ground rumbled under her as stones were up-heaved and shoved out of the way. Her belly clenched painfully in fear. The echoes coming up through the doorway were getting closer. The room was getting hotter by the minute, and sweat dripped off her forehead and onto the seat of the throne. She swiped at her face in irritation, but when she looked down, she saw where the drop had landed, a faint outline was showing in the otherwise blank stone.
Throwing her pack down, she dug through it frantically until found her water skin. She unstoppered it and splashed it on the surface of the throne. A rectangular indention appeared in the stone. Zarabethe laughed in panicked relief. A water spell, of course. No one would expect a dragon to hide something with water. She dug the flat of her knife into the crack and started to pry it up. Another earth shattering roar shook the ground, and Zarabethe was terrified to realize the walls themselves were shaking and shedding loose rubble. She dug at the container with all of her strength, and slowly, it started to open.
With a forceful scrape, an entire dragon foreleg shoved itself through the small doorway and into the throne room, shattering the edges of the door and sending stone flying. Zarabethe pushed with her entire body, feeling something burn deep in her belly, and finally got the lid up. Glowing inside the hidden box was the red scepter shard. There was no time to admire it. She grabbed it and shoved it inside the satchel. The foreleg was pulled back from the destroyed door to the throne room. Zarabethe grabbed her pack and rummaged quickly through it. Just as her hand closed around the bag containing the portals to Gadetzan, with a huge crash of crumbling stone, an immense dragon head shoved its way into the thrown room. Zarabethe froze. Its scales were greyed out from the black and crimson they used to be, and its eyes whirled in a maelstrom of unrefined rage. The dragon's skin was covered with deep pits and rotting sores, and were those stitches down one cheek? She forgot to breath as the visage of death swept the throne room and focused its malevolent eye on her. It opened its mouth to scream frustration, and rolled its head back and forth against the confining rock.
She stumbled backward from flying debris, snapping out of her terror. Grabbing hold of Spook, she smashed the portal to safety.
