Jeremiah Ashlock had drowned when he was a child. He hadn't nearly drowned, he had drowned...slipped and fallen off of the dock at Lakeshire, pulled up half an hour later. He'd been purple. He'd been dead. All he could remember of it was a blur, so much panic, shouting, desperation and the wailing of his mother...

And this...this was that all over again. Panic. Shouting. Desperation. And wailing. He needed to move, to get away from this. He needed to run. To put as much space between him and whatever had put him back in this place again. The first moment he could, he would, but first he had to be able to move again. It was just like when he had started to come back to himself back then, lying on the shore, a stranger leaning over him. Except there was no shore here, no stranger bringing him back to life.

But the wailing continued, harsh and commanding. Somehow, his mind translated it to a rather off key string of words... "Form on me." No, it was a warhorn, and that was the call it was repeating.

No. He couldn't. He had to get away. He had to run. And suddenly he could, stumbling down the pathway, trying to get his bearings. It was so bad that he could not remember which direction he was supposed to be running from...

He made an open spot, staggering and confused. There was a table in front of him, flames beyond that. It took him a moment to try to make sense of what was standing on the table, but when he did, he tried to to spin around but that was too much, too fast, and he fell to his knees. The death knight on the table turned to face him, a glorious, dark presence seemingly unaffected by the madness around it. It unerringly pointed at him, "Come here." It beckoned at him and he realized it carried a warhorn, the warhorn that had been sounding 'form on me'. He'd been following the wrong damned call...

"No." It was not alone. It had a geist with it, he could sense it. And there was an open portal just a few paces off to its side, not a mage portal but some sort of shadowy, smoky gate. "No." His legs decided to work then, now that he was fleeing something that seemed to actually make sense. It was almost a relief from the senseless.

"Damnit. Stop him." He heard the chiming clatter behind him as it jumped off of the table, but not the rattle of steps of it chasing him. No, it had sicced the geist on him, and he'd never outrun that. He slid to a stop, calling up his shield and spinning on the death knight...

"Calm down. Running off blindly into the Dragonblight will only get you killed. It's over. Sit. Down. And wait."

It's over. Sit. Wait. Wait for what? He stared back at it...her. He was fairly certain about that. But now he wasn't exactly as certain that she was a death knight. "Shouldn't you be doing something?" Whatever she was, she seemed to be more capable of...doing something...anything...than he was.

"Something? What, exactly?" She moved with a ponderous patience back towards the table and he was left trailing after her, the geist haunting his heels.

"People need to be told...so they can help." Help had to be coming. The idea of just being left here was nothing he wanted to consider.

She sat, leaning back in the single chair. "All of the people that I can contact have been told. I can't chase everyone off into the wastes and neither can you."

That was unfortunately true. He wouldn't get far on foot. Her calm was contagious, he just wanted to drift in the weird pool of sanity she seemed to exude. He sat on the edge of the table, facing away from the valley. He didn't want to see. He didn't want to know...but he already did know. "Who are you?"

"Sorrow. General for the Ebon Blade." She sighed, raised the warhorn and blew 'form on me' again...still badly off key. "And you are?"

"Jeremiah. I am...I was..." He wasn't what he was anymore, because what he was had been tied to what had died in that valley. "An aide." Left behind because of his youth and inexperience, a glorified errand runner. That was why he was alive. "You aren't a death knight."

"That is correct. I am a paladin."

A paladin. Sitting here. But she was correct. She couldn't chase everybody down and if they weren't responding to the horn, then what other choice did she have but wait...wait for those she believed would come to help? "Who is coming?"

"I sent word to Wyrmbane. He's the closest. I don't know how long it is going to take for him to respond. The Ebon Blade knew the moment I knew. The dragons know." She shrugged, the wings on her pauldrons shifting. "By now, I'd say most people who should know...do know."