Wild Sabercat

Night Elves were friends and guardians of nature, and no one was closer to nature than they were. Under normal circumstances, creatures of the natural world wouldn't attack them. In fact, they might even help if a Night Elf was in danger.

The fact that all the animals around here were attacking Night Elves could only mean someone was targeting them—or that someone's actions had stirred up the creatures' hatred of Night Elves.

When Kalei had received this mission, he'd assumed the so-called beast uprising was simply the result of an ecological imbalance. Now it seemed there was more to it.

"Troubles never came singly," Kalei sighed.

The Dark Portal was about to open, and the whole of Azeroth Continent was on the brink of turmoil. There was still no news about the Emerald Nightmare, and now he'd stumbled onto another strange situation.

Kalei spent a while brooding by the sea, then stopped. There was no point just thinking about it. For now, he needed to grow stronger as quickly as possible and gain more influence among his people. Only then could he gradually change the Night Elves' situation.

He rode Big Black back to town and found it much quieter than the day before. The recent events must have frightened the residents.

He visited several victims, hoping to get some clues from them, but learned nothing.

The next day, he changed his strategy. As a Druid, he figured he'd have better luck speaking directly to the other party involved—the beasts in the forest—than questioning victims. Perhaps they could give him a more direct answer.

With his current abilities, he couldn't communicate with ordinary beasts. He needed to find animals with greater intelligence, such as a wild Saber or a Moonnight Tiger.

Unlike in the game, these two kinds of beasts were relatively rare in the real world and almost exclusively lived deep in the forest. Finding them wouldn't be easy.

But that was no challenge for Big Black, who was of the same kind. When he heard Kalei wanted to ask the forest Sabers what was going on, he volunteered to guide him.

With Big Black leading the way, Kalei searched deep in the woods. In less than half an hour, they found a large and a small Saber in a hollow in a massive old oak.

The two were a mother and her cub. The mother was wary of Kalei and Big Black, her amber eyes fixed on Kalei.

The cub, however, was much more relaxed. Perhaps drawn by the natural aura around Kalei, it wasn't afraid at all. Instead, it seemed eager to come over and play with Big Black.

Kalei ignored the cub to avoid upsetting its mother. He tried to soothe her and communicate with her.

Just then, a roar rang out from behind the tree. A dark shape suddenly burst from the woods and landed heavily in front of Kalei.

Startled, Kalei quickly backed away a couple of steps. Looking closer, he saw a Saber even bigger and more muscular than Big Black.

The Saber seemed to have been wounded recently. Something had slashed its cheek, leaving a vicious-looking gash.

It glared at Kalei, sizing him up before looking at Big Black. Then it let out two short growls.

Kalei could tell it was trying to speak to him, but even when he opened his mind and tried to sense its thoughts, he still couldn't understand what the Saber was saying.

Kalei had no choice but to ask Big Black for help. He'd raised the Saber since it was a cub, and it had been able to communicate with him through their minds for a long time.

Big Black growled softly to him.

"Leave. It wants us to leave."

"It wants us to leave?" Kalei blinked. "Big Black, tell it we'll go, but ask it to answer a few questions first. The safety of this forest depends on it."

Big Black listened to Kalei, then lowered its head and growled louder, speaking to the Saber across from them.

The other Saber looked angry. It bared its sharp fangs and let out a piercing growl. Its front paws scraped at the ground as it readied itself to attack.

But the staves in Big Black and Kalei's hands eventually made it reconsider.

It glanced at its mate and cub behind it, then turned and roared a few times.

Big Black listened closely, then growled twice to Kalei.

"Ask your questions quickly."

Kalei was delighted. "Good. Ask it what's been happening lately and why the animals in the forest are attacking Night Elves."

Big Black relayed Kalei's question.

The Saber across from them replied quickly.

"It says it doesn't know what's going on. All it knows is that lately, a group of 'Night Elves' have been capturing animals all over the forest. They don't spare the adults or even the newborns."

"Many animals' dens have been destroyed. Everyone's attacking Night Elves out of fear and anger."

Night Elves were capturing animals in droves, even cubs? How could that be?

"Ask it if it's sure they were Night Elves. Could it have been mistaken?"

Big Black relayed Kalei's question again.

"It says it can't be sure the captors were really Night Elves."

"Three days ago, it encountered some of them. They tried to take its cub, so it fought them and badly wounded one. It smelled a demonic scent on that captor."

Night Elves with a demonic scent? Could they be Demon Hunters?

Kalei thought it over, then decided it was impossible. The only Demon Hunter at the moment was Malfurion's younger brother, Illidan. That unfortunate fellow should still be locked in the Wardens' dungeon. He couldn't have gotten out to cause trouble.

With Demon Hunters ruled out, there was only one possibility: the captors were Satyrs in disguise!

But where had those Satyrs come from? Could they have come from Fel Fire Valley or the Fel Fire Path?

He considered it, then dismissed the idea.

He knew that after the War of the Satyrs, following their defeat by the Night Elves, these demon-serving lackeys had lost their unified leadership. The surviving Satyrs had gradually formed their own tribes as they scattered into hiding. The ones causing trouble around Zoram were probably from another tribe.

But why were these Satyrs capturing beasts in the forest? Where were they taking them, and who were they taking them to?

Kalei frowned harder and harder as he rapidly recalled the map of the area around Zoram, trying to find a reasonable explanation.

Then he suddenly remembered a place known in the game as Blackfathom Deeps.

Before the War of the Ancients, the Night Elves had built an underwater temple near Zoram called Lashalazar, dedicated to worshipping Elune.

After the War of the Ancients, the Night Elves believed the temple had sunk beneath the sea when the ancient continent of Kalimdor split apart.

But they hadn't realized the temple had merely been buried in an underground water cavern, rather than sinking to the seafloor.

If the timeline in the real world hadn't changed, then after the Dark Portal opened, the Twilight's Hammer cultists who served the Old Gods and the Naga would take over the temple and turn it into an evil abyss.

Within that evil abyss, these dark forces would worship a servant of an Old God, hoping to summon the Old God's dark power through it.

But the information about Blackfathom Deeps in the game mainly came from after the Dark Portal opened. What had happened before then? Could Naga and Satyrs already have been active in the underground temple?

Kalei thought it was entirely possible. Perhaps the Naga and Satyrs had already made the place their lair and summoned a servant of an Old God. Perhaps they were capturing animals in the forest, and even fish in the sea, to sacrifice to it.

The more Kalei thought about it, the more likely his theory seemed.

It also reminded him that information from the game could only serve as a reference. To learn the truth about this world, he needed to investigate in person before drawing any conclusions.

Having gotten what he needed, Kalei left the family of three in peace and returned to town with Big Black.

Kalei went first to the council's headquarters and asked Shalan Windrunner about the Temple of Lashalazar. As he'd expected, the council only had information about the temple from before the War of the Ancients. They knew nothing about what had happened after the war.

Kalei didn't tell her his suspicions about the Temple of Lashalazar just yet. He needed to make a preliminary inspection of the underwater temple, see what things were like inside, and then decide what to do.

He spent the day resting in his dormitory, saving his strength. The following evening, he got out of bed and ate breakfast, put on his gear, and rode Big Black alone to the Zoram coast.

The wind by the shore was colder than it had been during the day. Waves slapped against the reefs with a steady roar.

Kalei spent half an hour searching along the coast before finding an elven ruin not far from the shoreline.

Most of its buildings had collapsed. Only a few broken marble pillars remained standing in the water, looking weathered beneath the moonlight.