Nethandris's dragons were able to enter the facility without difficulty. Oddly, other than the cultist who had originally opened the door, nobody else seemed to be there. Virigosa almost wished that Sathius had kept him alive, so they could figure out what was going on. If this facility was really as important as Nethandris had said, there was no way it was staffed by a single cultist. The halls should've been filled with cultists going about their work, there should've been twilight drakes ready to meet them in combat immediately... But there was nothing. It was quiet, too quiet, Virigosa thought.

"We have no idea what horrors might await us in these halls," Nethandris was giving a speech in the large room they had found. "We're going to sweep this facility, looking for any eggs, documents, any sign of what the Twilight's Hammer was hiding here. Nobody is to go alone, groups of three or four are preferable. Report back to me here with any questions or any finds of particular important. We're going to make sure no stone in this facility is left unturned. We will find what we're looking for."

"So much for this being such an important mission," Virigosa muttered.

Zoralus slid up beside her, catching Virigosa's attention with a tail tap. "We're not supposed to go alone," he said. "Want to go together?"

The way he said that reminded Virigosa of training exercises from before the Nexus War. She stopped for a moment, then nodded. "Sathius probably wants to stay here with Nethandris anyways," she said.

"Of course they're staying here," Zoralus remarked. "The lady never likes to do her own dirty work. Anyways, I think we should see about going deep into the facility. We're two of Nethandris's most capable drakes, so I'm sure she'd be fine with us taking the more dangerous areas."

"It doesn't matter to me," Virigosa said.

Zoralus told Nethandris their plans, and then the two drakes set out into the halls. The passages seemed to stretch out deep into the ground, and normally Virigosa would've worried that they might've become lost. However, the facility was full of Nethandris's dragons, and it was easy to hear the sound of their wings and talons as they moved. It wouldn't be all that difficult to find their way back with so many allies in the area.

There weren't many doors, just featureless walls that almost seemed to stretch on forever. Once Zoralus felt that they were deep enough in the facility, he held open the first door that came into sight. Virigosa stepped in first, cautiously surveying the room. It looked like some sort of laboratory, with empty cages lining one wall. A wooden table beside the door held several papers, which Virigosa moved to get a better look at. In the center of the room, a deceased green whelp was laid out on a metal table, its wings held out by clips. Zoralus was the first to spot it, and he went to investigate.

"This is sick," he said.

"They were researching whelps for some sort of project," Virigosa said, pinning a piece of parchment to the table as she read it. "Some kind of... 'chromatic' dragon."

"I hear Nefarian did things like this," Zoralus said, shaking his head.

"It makes sense that they'd try to recreate his work," Virigosa said. "Whoever did this will pay."

Zoralus checked the cages along the wall. There were bloodstains in some of them, but nothing else was left alive. The two drakes walked to the door on the opposite side of the room. It lead into another hallway, this one slightly more dim than the others Virigosa had seen. This time, Zoralus was the first to step into the hallway, Virigosa right on his tail. The mixed-flight drake turned his head to the left, and froze in his tracks. Virigosa leaned forward to see what he was looking at.

"What the hell?" It was Zoralus who spoke first.

He went over to investigate, and Virigosa followed. Laying on the ground, in a pool of blood, was a decapitated human body. Just a short distance away, a twilight drake, the first they'd seen in the facility, was laying on his side. Zoralus flipped over the body, trying to look for any clues of who it could've been. Virigosa took a few steps towards the twilight drake, unsure if it was alive or dead. Either way, it hardly looked to be in a condition to attack her.

"This is a black dragon, not a human," Zoralus explained. "I know him. Kerelion. I ran into him on-"

"Is that..." Virigosa murmured, taking a few steps towards the drake. "Araxion?"

She was able to recognize the twilight dragon almost immediately. He was unconscious, Virigosa could tell that much, but his breathing was very fast. She tried to pull him on to his feet so he wasn't laying on one of his wings, but his body was completely limp. Zoralus watched for a moment, then walked over to stand beside Virigosa.

"What do you think you're doing?" he said.

"This is Araxion, I... I recognize him," Virigosa hesitated to say. "During the battles on Mount Hyjal, I ended up speaking to him. He's not like the others, I don't think."

"A twilight dragon?" Zoralus questioned. "You... really?"

"He didn't try to kill me right away like all the others," Virigosa said. "And he... There was a traitor in our ranks, a dragon named Eyrigos. He told me about him, so I killed him."

"And you just trusted him?" Zoralus said.

"He admitted it, Eyrigos did, when I confronted him," Virigosa said.

Zoralus had an unreadable expression. He shook his head and looked away. "So what do you want to do?"

"Get Nethandris," Virigosa said. "I think we can use him."

"What's going on here?" Nethandris said.

She had arrived in her elf form atop Zoralus's back. Virigosa greeted her with a nod, then gestured to Araxion. Since Zoralus had left, Virigosa had managed to get the twilight drake into a better position where he couldn't damage his wings. Nethandris slipped off the drake's back and walked next to Virigosa, kneeling down to get a better look at the twilight drake.

"I think we should take him with us," Virigosa said. "Remember how I told the story about Eyrigos, the traitor? This is the dragon who told me about that. His name is Araxion."

"Virigosa, this is a twilight dragon," Nethandris said with some amount of amusement, running her fingers along Araxion's scales. "You're the last person I'd expect advocating for us to spare his life."

"We won't, right?" Zoralus said. There was no answer. "Right?"

"What's wrong with him?" Nethandris asked.

"It's a spell," Virigosa explained. "An enchanted sleep. Sometimes my flight will use similar methods, but with arcane magic instead of shadow. It's a lot messier than what green dragons are capable of, that's why he's breathing so strangely. Do you see the body back there? That's a black dragon. I think it was the black dragon that cast the spell on him. It's nothing I wouldn't be able to undo."

"It looks like they were fighting," Nethandris said, standing up to get a better look at the body further down the hallway.

"Kerelion is dead, and Araxion has blood on him without any visible wounds," Virigosa pointed out. "It makes sense."

"He's a twilight dragon, Nethandris," Zoralus said again. "They're corrupted. You can't trust them."

"Nethandris, don't you say that you care about all dragons?" Virigosa said. "That you aren't like Alexstrasza, that you won't kill anyone for how they were born?"

"Twilight dragons are not like us," Zoralus said.

"He is," Virigosa said. "I spoke to-"

"Stop it, both of you!" Nethandris snapped. "I don't know what's gotten into you two."

"I'm not the one who-" Zoralus tried to say.

"Enough," Nethandris said, moving to kneel next to Araxion again. "If what Virigosa says is true, then this drake might be valuable, maybe even an ally. If not, we kill him. Simple. We'll take him back to camp, restrain him, and see what we can do. I do have a few favors I can call in if we need to."

"Fine," Zoralus said. "Whatever you say, my lady. Let's drag him back then."