A brilliant golden sun hung in the blue vault of heaven, and a white cloud drifted through the clear sky like a lone sail on an azure sea.
The pale blue sky resembled pristine velvet edged with a golden-yellow border.
The transparent blue sky was like a silk handkerchief, with small, pure white clouds lingering upon it like flowers embroidered on gauze.
The blazing sun began to bake the red earth of the Eastern Plaguelands.
The Eastern Plaguelands had changed greatly. The soil was barren, and its plants and animals had become filthy and rotten. The undead had transformed the forests into giant mushrooms.
To the north, the terrain rose toward Quel'Thalas and Zul'Aman.
In the northern Eastern Plaguelands stood Stratholme, once the region's largest city.
Its prosperity had been second only to the capital of the Kingdom of Lordaeron. During the Third War, Prince Arthas, his mind twisted, had believed it infected with the plague and destroyed it. It had never recovered.
Now the undead had seized the city once more and erected Scourge structures amid its ruins.
Stratholme was a terrifying, dark place, filled with black, purple, and a sickening orange haze. Undead structures mingled with human ruins. Abominations, ghouls, zombies, skeletal warriors, ghosts, sorcerers, and liches filled the streets, singing praises to darkness in their "temples." Gargoyles and frost wyrms circled overhead.
The great necropolis Naxxramas floated above the city. Its purple glow could be seen from miles away, a symbol of the undead's complete control over this land. Stratholme was an impregnable fortress of evil.
Undead and their mortal servants were everywhere. Dark magic permeated the air. This was Stratholme as it stood now.
Under the undead's restoration, it had become a fortress of war.
All of this had been accomplished in a very short time,