Before Arthas opened the passage to the Shadowlands, he had drained the anima of countless Scourge soldiers. Without the power of their souls to sustain them, most of those soldiers had returned to the Shadowlands, leaving all of Icecrown Glacier a land of deathly silence.
Deathly silence in the truest sense.
With the Helm of Domination gone from Azeroth, the surviving low- and mid-level Scourge undead lost their mental restraints and became utterly bloodthirsty monsters.
There was no living prey on Icecrown Glacier. One after another, these remaining undead soldiers and monsters marched toward Sholazar Basin and Grizzly Hills, searching for the living to satisfy their instinctive lust for slaughter.
The surviving High-Rank Undead Mages and a few exceptional undead Class Practitioners within the Scourge struggled to regain their awareness.
But as undead, they knew they could never return to the realms of the living.
To survive, they learned to conceal themselves, hiding where the living could not see them.
When Rowan and the Shadowlands scouting team arrived at Icecrown Glacier, the glacier lay deathly still.
Windblown snow blanketed the battlefield strewn with bones. The group walked over the remains toward Icecrown Citadel.
A massive rift had opened in the center of Icecrown Citadel, torn apart by anima. The elevated platform jutting out from the fortress hung askew, and cracks covered its forged steel walls.
Inside the fortress, however, some essential facilities, including the teleportation passages, were still operating.
Rowan entered the fortress's lower level, where rubble from the shattered ceiling had blocked the passages.
Fortunately, at the entrance leading to the Crimson Hall, the teleportation point still flickered with faint light.
Jaina used the Teleportation Matrix to take everyone straight up to the Throne.
"We've been gone less than a month, and Archmages Meryl Winterstorm and Sakia have already