Chapter Summaries

Thrall’s Orcs routed the Darkspear Trolls, forcing Sen'jin to flee into the Death Tunnel while his sons died defending him. Inside, Sen'jin sought Bwonsamdi’s help, but the god mocked him for bringing the Orcs to the Echo Isles.

• Thrall led the Orcs in a surprise attack that slaughtered the Darkspear forces, while Sen'jin escaped toward the Death Tunnel with Adamantite and Eternium.
• Sen'jin performed a ritual to open the tunnel as his sons and the remaining Darkspear warriors defended him; Saurfang killed Adamantite and Eternium was cut down by Orc soldiers.
• Sen'jin entered the Death Tunnel after the Darkspear defenders fell, and the Orcs abandoned their attempts to follow when their scouts went silent.
• Sen'jin learned that Bwonsamdi had long been free and had tormented the souls of the Sen'jin family inside the tunnel.
• Sen'jin prayed at Bwonsamdi’s altar for help saving the Darkspear Tribe, but Bwonsamdi rebuked him for bringing the Orcs to their home.

Sen'jin rejected the Soul God's offer to stay away and returned to lead the Darkspear Tribe, while Zalazane briefly seized power to defend the tribe from Thrall. Sen'jin regained the chieftainship and purged Zalazane's supporters, but a plague then broke out in the Troll Royal Palace.

• The Soul God told Sen'jin that the Darkspear Tribe might survive if he stayed away, but Sen'jin chose to return through the Portal and face the danger with his people.
• After Thrall's forces destroyed fifty thousand Darkspear elites and Sen'jin disappeared, his illegitimate sons fought over succession as Thrall marched on the Royal Palace.
• Zalazane used dark magic to control Sen'jin's illegitimate sons, took the chieftainship, and organized the Darkspear Tribe's defenses, forcing Thrall to withdraw.
• Sen'jin emerged from the Portal in the Royal Palace, and Zalazane relinquished the chieftainship and fled to prevent internal strife.
• Sen'jin regained power and slaughtered tens of thousands of Zalazane's supporters, but a plague broke out in the Troll Royal Palace.

Sen'jin contained the plague and held the Darkspear Royal Palace against Thrall's Orcs, while Thrall forced Vol'jin to help infiltrate it. Varimathras entered the palace with Vol'jin and proposed using Sen'jin's hunger for power to turn the situation to their advantage.

• Sen'jin isolated roughly twenty thousand plague-infected Trolls and defended the Royal Palace, rejecting Thrall's offer to set aside their grievances.
• Thrall's attacks failed, and his attempt to send Sen'jin an Orc woman ended with Sen'jin cooking and eating her.
• Thrall threatened Vol'jin and Rokhan, then accepted Vol'jin's plan to use the Kukan Family's access to the palace side gate.
• Varimathras, disguised as Heijin, offered to accompany Vol'jin and keep him from escaping, and Thrall promised Vol'jin the Darkspear Warchief title if the plan succeeded.
• Varimathras and Vol'jin entered the palace disguised as Troll fishermen seeking refuge, but Varimathras warned that the Kukan Family might not trust Vol'jin and proposed using Sen'jin's ambition instead.

Varimathras forced Vol'jin to help frame the Kukan Family as traitors so they would turn to the Orcs, threatening him with torment until he agreed. After the plan set Sen'jin's guards against the Kukan Family, Vol'jin escaped and was unexpectedly allowed to leave by Sen'jin's command.

• Varimathras threatened Vol'jin with eternal torment until Vol'jin agreed to meet the Kukan Family and help turn them against Sen'jin.
• The Kukan Family betrayed Vol'jin, so he visited a disgraced former family elder and secretly prepared an escape.
• Varimathras alerted Sen'jin and the Kukan patriarch, causing both groups to converge on the old drunkard's residence.
• Sen'jin's elite guards defeated the Kukan Family, and the patriarch fled to lead his people away.
• Vol'jin escaped through a window and a dog hole, but Darkspear Guards surrounded him.
• A Troll officer identified Vol'jin and announced that Sen'jin had ordered him allowed to leave.

Vol'jin discovered that the Kukan Family planned to seek refuge with the Scourge and decided to intervene, believing he could thwart Varimathras's scheme and change the war's course. He confronted the Kukan patriarch, claiming he had come to save the family.

• Vol'jin left Sen'jin's palace and hid in a ruined town after being released.
• The Kukan patriarch and his kin discussed fleeing to the Zandalari Empire, the Amani Tribe, or the Scourge, and chose the Scourge.
• Vol'jin realized the Kukan Family's plan could disrupt Varimathras's scheme and help defeat the Burning Legion.
• Vol'jin stepped out of hiding and accused the patriarch of dooming his kin.
• The Kukan patriarch calmed his armed relatives and demanded that Vol'jin explain himself, and Vol'jin claimed he was saving them.

Vol'jin convinced the Kukan Family that Sen'jin had betrayed the Darkspear Tribe and that he had saved them, then led them toward the Orcs' camp after they agreed to join the Burning Legion. Thrall and Varimathras remained troubled in the main camp, having discovered that the Kukan patriarch they had rescued was a fake.

• Vol'jin questioned the old Kukan patriarch about Sen'jin's escape, then spun a false story that Sen'jin had betrayed the Darkspear Tribe to Thrall.
• Vol'jin claimed that Thrall and Sen'jin were plotting to eliminate the tribe's noble families and that he had brought the Kukan Family's losses upon them to warn them.
• Vol'jin persuaded the old patriarch that Sen'jin would not dare kill him because he held a position in the Burning Legion equal to Thrall's, and warned the Kukan Family against joining the Scourge.
• The old patriarch and his clansmen apologized, pleaded for Vol'jin's help, and swore that the Kukan Family would join the Burning Legion.
• Vol'jin agreed to take the Kukan Family to the Orcs' camp, while Thrall and Varimathras worried that the Kukan patriarch they had rescued was a fake.

Thrall and Varimathras planned to use the destruction of the Darkspear Tribe to sow discord among Azeroth’s peoples, and Vol'jin helped them obtain the Kukan Family’s secret passage into the Troll Royal Palace. Robbie warned Sen'jin about the plot and Vol'jin’s betrayal, but Sen'jin burned the letter, leaving his response uncertain.

• Varimathras explained that destroying the Darkspear Tribe would give the Legion a pretext to drive the Orcs into Azeroth’s allied forces and expose potential allies.
• Vol'jin returned with the Kukan Family head, and Thrall killed him before forcing the family’s elites to reveal the secret passage into the Troll Royal Palace.
• Thrall ordered the Kukan Family’s elites killed and treated Vol'jin as one of their own.
• Robbie learned about the secret passage through the Eye of C'Thun and sent Sen'jin a letter detailing its location and Vol'jin’s role in the betrayal.
• Sen'jin read Robbie’s letter, sat in thought, then burned it.

Thrall’s Orcs destroyed the Darkspear Tribe while Sen'jin escaped, and Vol'jin rebuilt the tribe with wandering Trolls. Guided by Bwonsamdi, Vol'jin confronted Sen'jin, who revealed that he was Vol'jin’s father and had sacrificed the tribe for his son’s future.

• Thrall’s Orcs set fires inside the Royal Palace, broke through the Darkspear defenses, and massacred the tribe while Sen'jin escaped with five trusted subordinates.
• Robbie followed Sen'jin to a stocked cave hideout as the Orcs hunted down survivors across the Echo Isles.
• Vol'jin and Rokhan gathered wandering Trolls and founded a new Darkspear Tribe, while Rokhan lamented that the original people had been lost.
• Bwonsamdi told Vol'jin where Sen'jin was hiding and advised him to invent a convincing story about Sen'jin’s death.
• Vol'jin confronted Sen'jin in the cave, and Sen'jin revealed that he was Vol'jin’s father and had acted for Vol'jin’s future.

Vol'jin nearly killed Sen'jin after hearing that Sen'jin was his father, but Bwonsamdi exposed the story as a deception and revealed Sen'jin's plan to take over Vol'jin's body. Bwonsamdi placed their souls on a set of Scales and declared that the one with the darker heart would win Vol'jin's body.

• Sen'jin told Vol'jin that he was his father, that Vol'jin's mother was a Zandalari Priest, and that he had switched the babies to protect him.
• Vol'jin dropped his Warglaives and wept, unable to kill Sen'jin, but then Bwonsamdi revealed that Sen'jin had been acting.
• Poison from the cave's fire incapacitated Vol'jin and his subordinates, and Sen'jin killed the subordinates while explaining that he needed Vol'jin as a vessel.
• Bwonsamdi revealed that he was both the Soul God and the Troll Death God, and that he had orchestrated the conflict between Sen'jin and Vol'jin.
• Bwonsamdi placed Sen'jin's and Vol'jin's souls on black Scales and set their contest to determine who would possess Vol'jin's body.

Vol'jin and Sen'jin fought over whose soul would survive, and their mutual destruction produced a cunning new Vol'jin who killed Sen'jin and returned with his head. With the Orcs stranded on the Echo Isles after the Burning Legion disowned them, the new Vol'jin proposed using the captive Chen Stormstout as a way to seek help from Jaina.

• Vol'jin and Sen'jin struggled against the balance's pull, then fell together into its black hole after Sen'jin insulted Vol'jin's mother.
• A dark new soul entered Vol'jin's body, killed Sen'jin, and swore that Azeroth would belong to him.
• Vol'jin returned to the Orc camp with Sen'jin's head, while the Burning Legion declared the Orcs traitors and ordered Thrall hunted.
• Thrall worried that Kul Tiras's navy blocked the Orc fleet from reaching Kalimdor and asked Varimathras for an escort, but Varimathras refused.
• Vol'jin dismissed the idea that Jaina could persuade Daelin to help and asked Zul'jin about the captive Chen Stormstout.
• Zul'jin revealed that he had starved Chen for three days and planned to cook him and make a coat from his hide.

Vol'jin persuaded Thrall that Pandaren beliefs could be exploited to secure food and transport for the Orcs' landing in Kalimdor. Chen Stormstout remained captive, hungry and confused about why the Orcs he admired planned to eat him.

• Vol'jin warned Thrall that feeding the Orcs in Kalimdor would be difficult because its nomadic peoples could flee, and Varimathras agreed that the army needed reliable provisions.
• Vol'jin explained that Pandaren stubbornness and their belief that Thrall was Azeroth's savior could make them ignore evidence against the Orcs.
• Vol'jin revealed that Pandaria's twelve giant turtles could carry the army across the sea and become provisions, and proposed using letters from Chen Stormstout to lure the Pandaren to them.
• Thrall put Chen Stormstout in Vol'jin's hands and ordered him to find a way to convince the Pandaren.
• After three days without food, Chen Stormstout realized Troll chefs had weighed him for meat and a tailor had measured his fur, but he still struggled to reconcile Thrall's plans with the Orcs' reputation.

Chen Stormstout learned that his imprisonment had been a test arranged by Vol'jin and Thrall, then was welcomed by the Trolls and shown evidence supporting their claims about Thrall. He finally met Thrall in his humble, book-filled tent, already inclined to trust him.

• Chen Stormstout was released from his cell by Vol'jin, who explained that he and Thrall had staged the frightening imprisonment as a test.
• Vol'jin treated Chen Stormstout to food and praised his courage, then invited him to bathe and meet Thrall.
• Chen Stormstout recalled how he had investigated the Orcs and came to believe they were innocent and destined to save Azeroth.
• Vol'jin led Chen Stormstout through a camp where Orcs and Trolls appeared to live peacefully and where the Orcs ate grains, vegetables, and dried fruit.
• Chen Stormstout entered Thrall's plain, book-filled tent, felt goodwill toward him, and Thrall warmly greeted him.

Thrall and Vol'jin gained Chen Stormstout's trust by welcoming him and discussing Pandaria, while Thrall learned about the Sha and the Pandaren's distrust of humans. The chapter ended with Eitrigg opening a letter from Tirion Fordring that condemned humans and praised Orcs.

• Thrall shared simple food with Chen Stormstout and discussed his admiration for Emperor Shaohao.
• Chen Stormstout told Thrall about Pandaria, its people, and the seven Sha that could drive violent beings mad.
• Thrall abandoned the idea of invading Pandaria after learning the Orcs might be vulnerable to the Sha's influence.
• Chen Stormstout described how human merchants had cheated the Pandaren, and Thrall agreed with his anger.
• Eitrigg opened a letter from Tirion Fordring, whose words praised Orcs as honorable and denounced humans as treacherous.

Thrall and Vol'jin manipulated Chen Stormstout into offering twelve giant sea turtles to help the Orcs cross the sea, while Robbie secretly warned Chen that the Orcs were watching him. Chen noticed the surveillance but still trusted Thrall, leaving Robbie's warning unheeded.

• Eitrigg, Thrall, Chen Stormstout, and Vol'jin discussed humans, and Vol'jin steered Chen toward helping the Orcs against Kul Tiras.
• Vol'jin hinted that the Orcs needed a way across the sea, and Chen offered to write twelve letters asking the Turtle Island masters to lend their giant sea turtles.
• Robbie decided to give Chen a chance to see through Thrall and Vol'jin's deception, then appeared in Chen's tent disguised as a Night Elf.
• Robbie told Chen that three Eyes of Kilrogg and the surrounding tents were monitoring him, but Chen said Thrall's caution would not change his admiration for him.

Robbie secretly led Chen Stormstout through the Orc camp to reveal the slaughtered Trolls and the Orcs’ treatment of captives. Stormstout saw Thrall feasting on a living Pandaren and heard him discuss using Stormstout’s sea turtles to feed the Orcs, leaving his faith in Thrall shattered.

• Robbie lured Stormstout out of his tent by challenging his qi, and the two fought covertly through the Orc camp.
• Stormstout saw Pandaren hides used as tent coverings and discovered a forest of poles bearing the remains of Darkspear Trolls.
• Robbie showed Stormstout Orcs raiding, killing, and eating wandering Trolls, prompting Stormstout to condemn Thrall’s failure to control his soldiers.
• Robbie led Stormstout to the guarded golden tent, where Stormstout saw Thrall and Vol'jin drinking and eating a still-living Pandaren.
• Stormstout overheard Thrall say that Stormstout would soon bring the Orcs twelve sea turtles to use as food while they conquered Kalimdor.

Robbie showed Chen Stormstout a vision of Thrall and Vol'jin plotting to enslave the Pandaren, but Chen dismissed it as a test of his mind and refused to believe the warning. Robbie left Chen gravely injured, and Chen still thought he was trapped in a nightmare.

• Thrall and Vol'jin discussed turning the Pandaren and Tauren into livestock, while Thrall ate Pandaren and Tauren meat in front of Chen Stormstout.
• Robbie told Chen Stormstout that the scene revealed the Orcs' plans, but Chen decided it was an illusion testing his resolve.
• Chen Stormstout insisted that Thrall and Vol'jin were his friends and accepted the possibility that the Pandaren would become Orc military rations.
• Robbie paralyzed Chen Stormstout and beat him severely, hoping real pain would make him recognize the truth.
• Robbie carried Chen Stormstout back to his tent and left, while Chen searched for medicinal herbs and wondered why he could not wake from the nightmare.

Chen Stormstout recovered from his injuries and believed his ordeal had been an unusual Inner Demon Trial, while Thrall and Vol'jin secretly plotted to manipulate him. The chapter ended with Robbie appearing to warn Stormstout to think of his family.

• Chen Stormstout told Thrall and Vol'jin that an Inner Demon Trial had injured him and said he had completed five letters to Pandaria's twelve divine turtles.
• Vol'jin discovered the five letters were missing, and Stormstout suspected an agent of the Old Gods had stolen them before asking scholars to rewrite them from dictation.
• Vol'jin and Thrall concluded that Saurfang might have beaten Stormstout, then agreed to watch Saurfang and continue their plan.
• Vol'jin revealed that he intended to destroy Stormstout's hopes by tearing apart the letters to his wife and children, and Thrall approved.
• Darkspear Troll Witch Doctors eased Stormstout's injuries, and Robbie appeared in his tent to ask whether he had thought of his family.

Chen Stormstout was mistreated in the Orc laborers’ camp but trusted that Thrall and Vol'jin would eventually rescue him. Eitrigg took him to Tidal Bay, where he found Thrall commanding the giant turtle Shenyuanzi to roll over, leaving Chen stunned and uncertain what had happened to the Pandaren living on the turtle’s back.

• Robbie warned Chen Stormstout that Vol'jin had obtained his old letters, but Chen dismissed the warning and reaffirmed his loyalty to Thrall and Vol'jin.
• Thrall’s orders moved Chen Stormstout into the laborers’ camp, where Vol'jin later arranged for him to work alongside the Orc laborers.
• Chen Stormstout endured the camp’s harsh conditions and worsening injuries, convinced that Thrall would eventually come to save him.
• Eitrigg took Chen Stormstout away to bathe, get a haircut, and eat before leading him toward the beach to see Thrall.
• Chen Stormstout learned that Shen-zin Su and Master Shang Xi had been condemned for not joining the effort to save Azeroth.
• At Tidal Bay, Chen Stormstout saw Thrall order Shenyuanzi to roll over while Pandaren buildings stood on the giant turtle’s back.

Chen Stormstout and the captured Pandaren discovered that the Orcs had enslaved the divine turtles and slaughtered their people, but they continued to believe Thrall had been controlled by the Burning Legion. Hidden nearby, Robbie abandoned his plan to rescue them after hearing their unwavering faith in Thrall.

• Eitrigg had Chen Stormstout beaten and bound after revealing that the Orcs used Burning Legion nose rings to control the divine turtles and had exploited Chen's letters to gather Pandaren.
• Thrall ordered Chen thrown into a cell with the Pandaren masters, where they accused him of betraying them and described the slaughter of their people.
• Chen insisted that the Burning Legion had taken control of Thrall, and Master Hong Xi and the other captives accepted his explanation.
• Master Lan Chou supported Chen's theory with his reading of Thrall's features, while the blinded Li Qing asked how the prisoners could help Thrall.
• Robbie listened from hiding and gave up his plan to rescue the Pandaren after hearing that they still trusted Thrall.

Robbie set the Orc camp ablaze, allowing the Pandaren prisoners to escape their cells and find a Portal to Pandaria. Most of them chose to fight for Thrall instead, but Thrall and Saurfang exposed the truth of the Orcs’ plans, leaving Chen Stormstout and the surviving Pandaren horrified.

• Robbie secretly set fires across the Orc camp, distracting the jailers and causing chaos.
• A mysterious power opened the prison cells and restored Chen Stormstout, and the Pandaren defeated the remaining jailers.
• The Pandaren found a Portal to Pandaria, but Master Hong Xi stopped Master Li Qing from leaving and rallied the others to rescue Thrall.
• Chen Stormstout led the Pandaren to Thrall’s former tent, where they found piles of Pandaren pelts.
• Thrall arrived with Orcs and ordered them to kill the Pandaren, while Saurfang killed Master Hong Xi and ate his heart.
• Thrall mocked Chen Stormstout, revealing that he had used Chen to supply the Orcs with Pandaren military rations.