Chapter Summaries

Diago learned that the Thorium Brotherhood’s conflict with the Orcs of Kargath stemmed from the blockade of their only supply route and their growing food shortage. He fed the Dark Iron Dwarves with dishes made from Lava Crabs and Lava Spiders, then began teaching their cook as he settled into life at the outpost.

• Jack Rockleg told Diago that the Orcs of Kargath had blocked the mountain trail, worsening the Thorium Brotherhood’s shortages and prompting the border clashes.
• Diago and Masley left the outpost to hunt, then returned with Lava Crabs and Lava Spiders for a feast.
• Diago cooked an array of dishes from the local creatures, and the Dark Iron Dwarves praised the meal and drank heavily.
• The next morning, Diago offered to teach the dwarven cook, who bowed and accepted him as his master before being told to wash the dishes.
• Over the following days, Diago hunted with dwarven firearms and taught cooking while the dwarves eagerly anticipated his meals.

Kordaz Blackhammer and the Dark Iron Dwarves forged a mithril scale armor for Diago and presented it as a gift from the Thorium Brotherhood. After Diago tested its protection with Masley, the group celebrated, delaying Diago and Masley’s departure by three days.

• Kordaz Blackhammer poured a glowing mass of molten metal onto a plate, where it cooled into a silver mithril scale armor.
• Kordaz Blackhammer formally gave the armor, named “Asnar’s Gourmet,” to Diago in recognition of his help and swore the Thorium Brotherhood’s resolve to reclaim Shadowforge City.
• Diago accepted the armor and pledged to answer the Thorium Brotherhood’s call in its fight against the fire elementals.
• Masley transformed into a bear and struck Diago to test the armor, leaving Diago bruised but unharmed and the armor pristine.
• Jack Rockleg led the Dwarves and their guests in a drinking celebration, and Diago and Masley postponed their departure by three days.

Diago and Masley Bearhide traveled to the Great Forge to kill Foreman Maltorius and win the Thorium Brotherhood’s support for Diago’s plan. They descended into the mine and began searching for a stealthy route, with Diago discovering that the darkness left him unable to see clearly.

• Diago and Masley Bearhide crossed Searing Gorge, while Masley destroyed Dark Iron mining equipment by rolling rocks into the Great Divide.
• Diago led Masley to an abandoned derrick and explained that they needed to kill Foreman Maltorius to deepen their friendship with the Thorium Brotherhood.
• Diago left Khanifa to guard the rope as Masley and then Diago rappelled into the Great Forge.
• Diago and Masley observed the slave laborers and mining machinery, and Diago realized he could not see well enough in the dim light to aim his bow.
• Diago pointed Masley toward the darker passage on their left, farther from the Cauldron, to help them stay hidden.

Diago and Masley infiltrated the Great Forge mine, where a Bronzebeard Dwarf slave silently allowed them to pass. After wrestling with whether to abandon the enslaved miners, Diago chose to help them, and the pair headed back to find allies and plan a rescue.

• Diago and Masley crept through the mine beneath the Lizard-skin Cloak, avoiding the slaves as they worked.
• A Bronzebeard Dwarf noticed them but chose not to report them, urging them to strike back at their captors.
• The dwarf’s quiet defiance stirred Diago to consider rescuing the miners, though he doubted that he and Masley could do it alone.
• At the northern edge of the mine, Masley urged Diago to help the enslaved workers, invoking Elune’s teachings against imprisonment for personal gain.
• Diago agreed to make a plan, and he and Masley turned back to find helpers.

Diago and Masley recruited Tharnok Frosthammer to help them escape the mine and free its enslaved workers, then began their attack on the Dark Iron Dwarves. Diago reached the barracks and survived a struggle with a guard before discovering the dead dwarves Masley had left behind; the chapter ended as Masley was thrown through a doorway by an unseen opponent.

• Diago asked Tharnok Frosthammer to help rescue the slaves, and the dwarf pledged his support and accepted a rifle and ammunition.
• Diago, Masley, and Tharnok agreed that Diago and Masley would attack Foreman Maltorius while Tharnok caused chaos below, with the signal left deliberately vague.
• Diago and Masley returned to the stone steps, and Masley vanished into the shadows as they climbed toward the barracks passage.
• A Dark Iron Dwarf spotted Diago and tackled him, but Diago grabbed a hard object from the floor and struck the dwarf until he stopped moving.
• Diago found several dead Dark Iron Dwarves in the room, realized Masley had killed them, and rushed into the passage after hearing a fight break out.
• A wooden door burst open at the far end of the passage, and a black shape tumbled out as someone shouted that Masley was finished.

Diago and the wounded Masley faced Matolius, a plate-armored Dark Iron Dwarf who used shadow-priest spells, and Diago killed him after breaking through his shield. Once Masley recovered, the two left to help Tharnok Frosthammer at the mining site, where gunfire had begun.

• Masley admitted that his ambush had failed as Matolius charged into the passage and Diago joined the fight.
• Matolius struck Masley with Shadow Word: Pain and protected himself from Diago’s arrows with a holy shield.
• Diago shattered Matolius’s shield with his thorium hand axe and killed the dwarf.
• Diago comforted Masley until the Night Elf recovered, reset his dislocated elbow, and healed himself.
• Masley and Diago headed to help Tharnok Frosthammer, and Diago took Matolius’s head as they passed the corpse.

Diago led the freed slaves toward the mine’s exit, where Dark Iron Dwarves ambushed them at a lava river bridge. He used improvised illumination arrows to expose the defenders and help the slaves attack, but was shot; he survived when the bullet was stopped by his scale armor.

• Tharnok Frosthammer organized the freed slaves into a column and placed the strongest at its head as guards.
• Diago joined the vanguard, while Masley stayed behind to help the wounded, and the group made its way through the mine to a stone bridge over a lava river.
• A human slave rushed onto the bridge, prompting others to follow, and Dark Iron Dwarves opened fire, killing many and halting the column.
• Diago fashioned illumination arrows from bullets and gunpowder, lit up the opposite bank, and shot down nearly a dozen exposed Dark Iron soldiers.
• Diago charged across the bridge and fought the guards, giving the slaves time to join the battle, but a gunshot knocked him down.
• Masley cast Lifebloom on Diago, who recovered and found that his scale armor had stopped the bullet.

Diago Asnar and a band of escaped slaves reached Thorium Point, where Ofist and the Thorium Brotherhood gave them shelter. After Diago presented a letter from Kordaz Blackhammer and Matolius’s head, he secured permission to take scarce metals for making a gun.

• Prisean Huitong spotted a large group approaching Thorium Point and alerted the camp.
• Diago Asnar asked Ofist to shelter the fugitives, and the group surrendered their weapons before the Dark Iron Dwarves fed and housed them.
• Diago presented Kordaz Blackhammer’s letter, and Ofist welcomed him as a friend of the Thorium Brotherhood.
• Tharnok Frosthammer praised Diago and Masley for helping the escaped slaves and promised the Frosthammer Family would repay them.
• Diago offered Matolius’s head as payment for materials to make a gun, and the Thorium Brotherhood celebrated the traitor’s death.
• Burninate showed Diago the Brotherhood’s nearly empty storehouse, and Diago took several dark iron ingots, two thorium ingots, and one mithril ingot.

The fugitives left Thorium Point for Ironforge, while Diago taught a Dark Iron Dwarf to cook and completed a portable machine for making cased ammunition. After Grand Smith Burninate fitted Khanifa with an enchanted thorium tooth, gunfire from Firewatch Ridge signaled an attack by Twilight's Hammer and heightened Diago's urgency to finish his gun-making project.

• Notak Frosthammer led the freed slaves north across the snowy mountains toward Ironforge, while the frailest remained at Thorium Point.
• Diago spent a week teaching his cooking apprentice to prepare Lava Crabs and Lava Spiders, then built an ultracompact bullet-making machine and produced working cased ammunition.
• Grand Smith Burninate made Khanifa a thorium false tooth and enchanted it with Enchant Weapon - Superior Striking.
• Gunfire and fighting erupted near Firewatch Ridge, and more than two dozen Dark Iron Dwarves hurried toward the mine.
• Diago recognized the attack as Twilight's Hammer's move and decided he needed to accelerate his gun-making project.

After Firewatch Ridge fell to a mixed force of Orcs, Dark Iron Dwarves, and Tauren, Diago spent two months building a semiautomatic rifle, a powerful revolver, ammunition, and a bayonet. He left the workshop armed with his new weapons, while Masley Bearhide watched the rifle’s power and was stunned by Diago’s appearance.

• Wounded Dwarven miners told Diago that a mixed group of Orcs, Dark Iron Dwarves, and Tauren had taken the Firewatch Ridge mine, while Masley Bearhide helped treat the injured.
• Diago decided to make a semiautomatic rifle using dark iron, thorium, and mithril, and Grand Smith Burninate helped him solve the barrel’s construction problems.
• Diago repeatedly reworked faulty parts until his Engineering skills improved, then made a rifle stock from magically treated ironwood with Masley’s help.
• Diago built a powerful revolver, produced more than five thousand rifle rounds and over a thousand handgun rounds, and asked Burninate to forge a mountable bayonet.
• Two months later, Diago showed Masley his weapons and demonstrated the rifle’s power by shooting through a thick wooden board, leaving the Druid intimidated.

Diago and Masley ambushed a Twilight's Hammer convoy carrying ore from the Firewatch Ridge mines, using Diago's M1 rifle, traps, and their animal companions to defeat the cultists. After inspecting the rifle and finding little valuable ore, they prepared to leave before reinforcements arrived.

• Diago and Masley watched a Twilight's Hammer convoy of mine carts, workers, and guards travel south from the Firewatch Ridge mines.
• Diago opened fire with the M1, killing cultists and disrupting the convoy, then shot down an Eye of Kilrogg that had detected him.
• As the Twilight cultists charged the hill, Diago shot them while his explosive trap and Masley's panther form helped stop their advance.
• Diago and Masley killed the remaining cultists, and Diago inspected the M1 and found no damage to its metal parts or barrel.
• Diago checked the convoy's ore, found only a small amount of thorium, and urged Masley to leave as voices rose near the mine.

Diago attacked the Twilight's Hammer mine and nearly succumbed to the thrill of killing, but Masley calmed him with a Druid spell. After learning about Elune and praying for strength, Diago helped defeat a large force of Twilight cultists and found his bloodlust easing, though a sinister presence still watched him.

• Diago sniped Twilight cultists guarding the mine, then withdrew with Masley and Khanifa rather than risk an assault inside the camp.
• Masley used a Soothing spell on Diago after seeing his bloodlust and warned him that his expression had frightened him.
• Diago thanked Masley and asked him to explain Elune, then learned a prayer and began seeking spiritual comfort.
• When Twilight reinforcements returned, Diago prayed to Elune and fired on them from long range while Masley and Khanifa attacked from an ambush.
• The cultists broke and fled after suffering heavy losses, and Diago prayed as his urge to slaughter subsided and a foul presence turned its attention away.

Diago and the Thorium Brotherhood discovered that the Twilight Cultists were using an old Altar of Storms ruin to teleport ore and troops to Silithus. Diago destroyed the array with a bomb, ending the threat but killing and injuring many dwarves, and the survivors learned that the head they found belonged to Vyral.

• Diago sent Khanifa to alert Ofist, and the Thorium Brotherhood arrived to capture and interrogate the Twilight prisoners.
• A prisoner revealed that the Twilight Cultists used a teleportation array in the Altar of Storms ruins to reach Silithus, so Diago hurried there to stop them from destroying it.
• Diago and Masley waited at the ruins until the dwarves arrived with a wounded warlock, whom Theodosius Frostwhisper healed enough to activate the array.
• After the warlock opened the portal and tried to escape through it, Diago knocked him down and kicked a bomb into the passage.
• The bomb triggered a violent blast that destroyed the array, leveled the ruins, killed more than ten Thorium Brotherhood members, and seriously wounded over twenty.
• Ofist found a severed head protected by an enchanted cloth helmet, and the surviving warlock identified it as Lord Vyral before Diago left the remaining prisoners to Ofist.

After becoming celebrated in Thorium Point, Diago and Masley decided to leave for Blackrock Mountain to rescue Marshal Reginald Windsor from Blackrock Depths. Masley revealed that Elune had sent him a vision, and Diago reluctantly agreed to go with him.

• Diago and Masley returned to Thorium Point as heroes, where the dwarves celebrated their victory and showered them with attention.
• Masley told Diago they had to leave for Blackrock Mountain to rescue someone, while Diago objected that entering Blackrock Depths would be suicidal.
• Masley revealed the small horns hidden beneath his hair, identifying them as a blessing associated with Cenarius and Elune.
• Masley said Elune had directed him in a vision to rescue Windsor, and asked Diago to come along.
• Diago accepted the mission, grabbed his M1 Rifle, and urged Masley to hurry.

Diago, Khanifa, and Masley left Thorium Point and traveled to Blackrock Mountain, where they crossed a chain bridge suspended over a lava lake to reach the route toward Shadowforge City. The exhausted pair reached the far side, only to learn that Diago expected them to face another difficult route.

• The Thorium Brotherhood held a farewell for Diago and gave him a badge, a donkey, and an offer of help before he left with Khanifa and Masley.
• Diago destroyed the M1 blueprints and all evidence of its manufacture, then led the group through Searing Gorge to Blackrock Spire.
• Diago guided Masley through the empty fortress and into a cavern overlooking a lava lake, where they saw the chain bridge and Franclorn Forgewright's tomb.
• Masley ran to the bridge's edge, nearly fell into the lava, and was pulled back by Diago.
• Diago and Masley crossed the sloping chain bridge while struggling with their fear of heights, then collapsed on the far side.
• Masley asked whether they would face another route like the bridge, and Diago's silence confirmed his fear as Khanifa bounded across to join them.

Diago and Masley explored Franclorn Forgewright’s tomb and reached a slave mine on the outskirts of Blackrock Depths. They prepared to sneak past the Dark Iron Dwarf overseers and enter the mine.

• Diago led Masley through the tomb, where Masley admired ancient Titan murals and became enraged at a vandalized image of a dragon.
• Diago stopped Masley from approaching Franclorn Forgewright’s coffin, and Masley saw the dwarf’s agitated ghost with his magical sight.
• Diago and Masley crossed a perilous path and chain bridge above the lava to reach a stone platform overlooking the mine.
• They spotted enslaved miners and armed Dark Iron Dwarf overseers in the vast chamber, then Diago suggested using the shadows to enter unnoticed.
• Diago put on his Lizard-skin Cloak and crawled toward the mine as it blended into the surrounding ground and ore.

Diago, Masley, and Khanifa’s infiltration of Blackrock Depths was exposed by a Gnoll, but Diago’s smoke bombs let them escape the alerted overseers. They then approached Conqueror Pyron and began slipping past the powerful Fire Elemental toward Shadowforge City.

• Masley transformed into a panther and moved with Diago and Khanifa through the mine, avoiding overseers and slave laborers.
• A Gnoll spotted the group and raised the alarm, but Masley killed it before Dark Iron Overseers approached.
• Diago used improvised smoke bombs to confuse the overseers, allowing the group to flee unnoticed.
• Diago and Masley watched Conqueror Pyron patrol the passage and learned that its limited perception gave them a chance to pass.
• Diago led the two panthers forward while Pyron looked away, leaving them to continue their infiltration into the city of fire.

Diago and Masley infiltrated Blackrock Depths, using dragon dung to panic the Dark Iron Dwarves’ bloodhounds and slip into the detention block. They hid in an equipment storeroom near Interrogator Gerstahn’s area, where Diago said he had a way to get closer to Marshal Windsor’s cell.

• Diago scattered powdered dragon dung, and Masley accidentally ate a piece before learning what it was.
• Masley transformed into a bear and pummeled Diago, while Khanifa watched and tried to join in.
• The dragon dung’s aura sent the bloodhounds into a frenzy, distracting their handlers as the adventurers crept toward the detention block.
• Diago and Masley struggled to sneak past the many jailers and eventually hid in an equipment storeroom.
• Masley asked how they would proceed, and Diago confidently said he had a way forward.

Diago used Beast's Eye to enter Khanifa's consciousness and control the Yellow Leopard while they searched Shadowforge City's interrogation hall for the key to Marshal Windsor's cell. The spell ended before Diago could help, but Khanifa returned with the key, and Diago ordered them to leave.

• Diago explored his wilderness-like Source of Consciousness and followed his soul bond into Khanifa's simpler consciousness.
• Diago projected his consciousness into Khanifa's body, struggled to control it, and then let Khanifa guide them through the passage toward the interrogation hall.
• Khanifa evaded Interrogator Gerstahn on the narrow steps and searched the hall for the prison cell key while Diago warned that Beast's Eye was running out.
• The spell expelled Diago from Khanifa's body, and he returned to his own body beside Masley, fearing Khanifa would not make it back.
• Khanifa reappeared with the silvery-white prison cell key on his teeth, and Diago took it and ordered them to leave.

Diago and Masley found Marshal Windsor imprisoned in Blackrock Depths and showed him a note proving that Dark Iron Dwarves were deciphering his intelligence. Windsor regained hope and ordered them to kill General Angerforge and Golem Lord Agamand, but Diago left before explaining his plan.

• Diago and Masley avoided Rocknot and found a stained scrap of paper in a latrine, which Diago said was key to rescuing the marshal.
• Diago used the Silver Key to open a hidden cell and greeted Marshal Windsor, who initially refused to leave because he believed Stormwind had lost its last hope.
• Windsor cursed Bolvar and explained that he had been gathering evidence against the mastermind behind Stormwind City's troubles.
• Diago gave Windsor a note signed by Dagran Thaurissan, revealing that General Angerforge and Golem Lord Agamand were deciphering Windsor's intelligence.
• Windsor asked Diago and Masley to kill the two Dark Iron Dwarves and recover his intelligence, but Diago abruptly left, saying he knew what to do.