At the dawn of chaos, the creator Titans traveled from world to world, shaping them according to their will and bringing them under the rule of order. On their journey, they came to a smaller world-one that would later be known as Azeroth.
To help them reshape the world, the Titans created many races. To dig unfathomably deep caverns in the earth, they created the Earthen from magical stone; to create oceans and move the land away from the seabed, they created the enormous, gentle Sea Giants. The Titans spent centuries reshaping this world, until at last a perfect continent emerged on Azeroth. In the center of this continent, the Titans carved out a lake filled with magical energy and named it the Well of Eternity, making it the source of life for this world. The boundless energy within the lake could sustain the framework of the world and help all forms of life take root and sprout in its fertile soil. As time passed, trees, grasses, monsters, and all manner of creatures flourished across the continent. When night fell, the Titans gave this continent a name: Kalimdor-"land of eternal starlight."
After the creator Titans left Azeroth, the Earthen they had created continued to shape and protect the depths of the world. For the most part, the Earthen took no interest in the affairs of the races living on the surface, focusing only on exploring the underground world.
The great explosion of the Well of Eternity tore Azeroth apart and deeply affected the Earthen as well. They suffered a tremendous blow along with the anguished earth, losing their self-awareness and sealing themselves inside the stone chambers where they had been born. Uldaman was the first city the Earthen built and named after the ancient Titans. Now, however, the city lay buried deep underground, where the Earthen slept for nearly eight thousand years.
Though it remained unclear exactly what woke them, one day the Earthen of Uldaman finally emerged from their slumber. They discovered that their bodies had changed greatly while they slept. Their skin, once as hard as stone, had become soft and smooth, and their power over earth and stone had weakened considerably. They had become more ordinary creatures.
They called themselves "Dwarves." These last surviving Earthen left Uldaman and explored the slowly awakening world of Azeroth. Still drawn to the mysteries and security of the deep earth, the Dwarves built a great kingdom within the highest mountains on the continent. They named their kingdom after Khaz'goroth, the Titan god of construction, calling it "Khaz Modan" ("Modan" meant mountains in Dwarvish).
The Dwarves built altars to their Titan father and constructed a great forge in the heart of the mountain. From then on, a city known as Ironforge rose beside that forge. In the long years that followed, the War of the Three Hammers divided the Dwarves into three clans: Bronzebeard, Wildhammer, and Dark Iron.
In the present day, after news spread of Uldaman's discovery, the Dark Iron Dwarves reacted swiftly, beginning excavations of this underground treasure trove to keep its powerful artifacts from falling into the hands of their ancestral enemies. Galgann Firehammer-a senator from Shadowforge City-was sent to oversee the excavation of Uldaman, ensuring that Thaurissan, king of the Dark Iron Dwarves, could use the artifacts' destructive energies to wipe out the Dark Iron clan's enemies.
These greedy misers trusted no one. Any creature that approached the underground city would be attacked, even their fellow Dwarves of the Bronzebeard clan.
The Uldaman excavation site.
The Dark Iron Dwarves had been excavating here for almost a year. Though they had already found a passage into the underground city, excavation of the shallow layers continued. The greedy Dark Iron Dwarves had decided to strip the place bare, leaving not a single fragment of an antiquity behind.
"Sleepyhead" Sel Dulin cradled his gun and idly watched the slaves in the great pit below the stone embankment. The slaves had clearly grown numb, mechanically swinging their picks as they dug into the earth.
"Careful, all of you! Break those antiquities, and you'll pay with your lives." He slammed his gun butt against the ground and shouted his threat. He had no fear of an accidental discharge. No one knew that there was no bullet in the barrel.
Even if they knew, what difference would it make? Would these cowards dare fight back? he thought scornfully. He had secured his position as captain of the guards through his family connection to Senator Galgann Firehammer of Shadowforge less than a week ago, but the sweet taste of power had already left him unable to stop.
A disturbance stirred among the slaves at the excavation site, but Sel's men quickly suppressed it. The human slaves were the first to obey. These humans were all spineless; a couple of lashes brought them into line. Next came the Troggs. These ancient intelligent creatures were filled with ** and greed to their very bones, but lacked the strength and intelligence to match. Usually, they merely followed the crowd with a few shouts, then backed down when things turned against them. The last to submit were the Bronzebeard Dwarves. These distant relatives of Sel Dulin, short fellows as stubborn as stone, would often rather die than yield, but there were too few of them-only a handful in the entire excavation site. Most Bronzebeard Dwarves died before they could be captured. Dark Iron slave-catching parties rarely took any alive, and the few currently at the site had all been knocked unconscious before being captured. As for the ogres, these hulking brutes whose intelligence approached zero had taken no part in the resistance. They had yet to understand what was happening.
Sel Dulin gave a long yawn and settled back into his chair beneath the parasol. He decided to get some more sleep. These wretches went through this several times every day. If slaves had not been so hard to capture lately, he would have beheaded a few long ago to frighten the rest of this scum.
Just then, he heard another commotion from the excavation site below. At first, it was not very loud, but after a few screams, the noise suddenly swelled.
"Will you ever stop!" He sprang out of his chair and fished a paper packet of gunpowder from the leather pouch on his belt. He felt that today he had to kill one as a warning to the others.
Time to teach these wretches a lesson they won't forget, he thought angrily as he loaded his gun. He took a few steps and peered down from the high embankment. To his disbelief, the excavation site was as chaotic as an anthill with its top torn off, with guards and slaves scurrying in panic everywhere. His gaze swept across the pit, and he soon found the cause of it all.
In one corner of the excavation site, an enormous beast was rampaging wildly. The beast was clearly intelligent, since he mostly chose the fully armed Dark Iron guards as his targets. One Dark Iron Dwarf after another charged bravely forward, only to be struck by its enormous paws. It looked scarcely harder than crushing insects. Even fine dwarven armor could not withstand such tremendous force, and many guards were smashed into iron-crusted pies filled with minced flesh.
The deaths of so many guards soon had serious consequences. Once the slaves realized that no one was watching them anymore, they erupted into chaos. They scattered and fled, the hope of freedom driving them to run at full speed.
The human and Bronzebeard Dwarf slaves all ran north. Even a fool knew that Thelsamar lay in that direction. The Troggs scattered in every direction, and many even burrowed deeper into the mine tunnels. It was their instinct; dark caves often gave them a greater sense of safety. The dimwitted ogres continued digging, swinging their picks every now and then. They were the same as ever, once again failing to understand what had happened.
Sel Dulin raised his gun and aimed at the beast, but he did not know whether his bullet could hurt such a behemoth. The creature's enormous size was a defensive advantage in itself.
After a gunshot rang out, the beast vanished. Sel Dulin was unsure whether he had hit his target, since the smoke pouring from his muzzle had blocked his view. His last hazy glimpse seemed to show the beast charging behind a stone statue.
He glanced over the excavation site and found that most of the guards had already fallen. Those flattened into pies were obviously stone dead, while those knocked flying had fared somewhat better. Even so, most were badly injured and lay screaming on the ground.
Realizing that things had gone wrong, Sel Dulin lunged for the nearby alarm bell and rang it without hesitation. Its urgent peals gave him some sense of security, but the dwarven captain still felt unsafe. Hiding beside the great bell, he fumbled to reload his gun. In his panic, it took him several attempts to push the bullet into the barrel. He then tamped it down with erratic strokes of his ramrod, completely failing to notice that he had forgotten to fit a percussion cap onto the nipple.
The Dark Iron Dwarves were quick to respond. Not long after the bell rang, a Dark Iron patrol came running from their garrison-the Fortress of Anguish. This did much to soothe Sel Dulin's frightened heart. He ran to meet the patrol, though it looked more as if he were fleeing the excavation site.
"Sleepyhead, what trouble have you stirred up this time?" the lieutenant running at the head of the patrol called out. He had always looked down on this fellow who had risen through nepotism, and there was not the slightest trace of respect in his voice.
"An attack! An enormous beast attacked us." Sel Dulin did not take issue with the lieutenant's disrespect, nor did he dare to. In fact, most of the dwarven officers at the Fortress of Anguish treated him with contempt.
"Why not say it was a dragon?" the lieutenant jeered. Laughter erupted among the patrol.
Sel Dulin was so furious that he could barely speak. His face flushed scarlet, and his eyes all but spat fire.
"Go see for yourselves!" he roared angrily.
The Dwarves of the patrol finally grew a little more serious. They stopped laughing and walked toward the high embankment.
"Good heavens, by Khaz!" Shocked by the carnage at the excavation site, the soldiers offered prayers to the father of the Dwarves. Before them, the excavation site lay in utter devastation. Blood and mangled flesh were everywhere, and corpses and wounded bodies sprawled in pools of blood. It looked like hell.
"Who did this!" The patrol lieutenant turned back and shouted furiously. The mockery and ridicule had long since vanished from his face, replaced by anger and hatred.
"I told you, it was an enormous bear. But it wasn't like a wild bear with round ears. This bear had long, pointed ears and some strange markings on its body," Sel Dulin said with a hint of smugness. He dared not make it too obvious, though anyone could read "You finally believe me now, don't you?" on his face. Let us forgive his limited knowledge. This country bumpkin, who had spent most of his life at excavation sites and mines, had never seen a Night Elf or a Tauren, much less heard of a class called Druid.
"Then where is it now?" the lieutenant pressed.
"How should I know? It disappeared after I fired a shot," Sel Dulin said aggrievedly. Under those circumstances, he had not dared chase after it.
The lieutenant gave him a reproachful glare, then led his men down into the excavation site. But though the Dark Iron guards searched the entire site, they found nothing.
The lieutenant looked at him suspiciously. "Sleepyhead, are you sure you were awake at the time?"
"Then were we attacked by thin air?" Driven beyond fury by the repeated doubts, Sel Dulin dragged over a dead dwarven guard and showed the patrol lieutenant the enormous claw marks on the corpse's back. "Did I make this up too?"
The lieutenant fell silent. He also knew that this fellow would not dare spout nonsense about something so serious. Turning his head, he saw a dwarven soldier striding toward them.
"Boss, you should look at this." The Dark Iron Dwarf approached and handed the lieutenant several stiff bristles. "Found them behind a stone statue. The beast must have rubbed them off on it."
Sel was very pleased with this discovery. It offered supporting evidence that he had not lied.
Just then, gunfire came from the outskirts of the excavation site.
"Boss, it's a black panther!" a Dark Iron Dwarf shouted.
Sel Dulin was dumbfounded-how had it become a panther now? But he immediately realized that he had to say something.
"It must be working with that bear!" he shouted. Turning, he called in that direction, "Does that panther have pointed ears and markings on its body?"
"Yes, Sleepyhead, exactly."
"That's right, I saw it too. It has a bell tied around its neck," another Dark Iron Dwarf answered.
"There's a band around its leg too!"
The soldiers over there shouted over one another. Some were still firing away, but from the sound of it, they had achieved little.
Sel Dulin was somewhat pleased. He felt that he had finally cleared his name, though he at least managed to keep himself from laughing aloud amid such carnage.
The patrol lieutenant, however, faced a dilemma. He now had two choices: go after the escaped slaves first, or pursue the two beasts. It was a real head-scratcher.
"Go after those two beasts first!" Sel Dulin had noticed the patrol leader's hesitation. He hated those two beasts, which had appeared from who knew where, with every fiber of his being. After today, he might well be stripped of his position as captain of the guards.
The lieutenant followed his advice-but only in part. He sent half his men to recapture the slaves and personally led the other half after the two beasts. He was no fool. The ornaments on those beasts were definitely crafted objects. Following them might lead him to the mastermind behind this attack.
Sel Dulin was deeply dissatisfied with this decision. He felt that half their men were clearly not enough, but the lieutenant ignored him. He believed that the half he led would be more than enough to deal with any situation. They were no militia-like excavation guards. Anyone who underestimated these dwarven soldiers, armed to the teeth, would learn a painful lesson.