Dustwallow Marsh was the greatest headache for the newly founded Kingdom of Theramore.
It was the largest marsh in Kalimdor, perhaps even all of Azeroth, and its interior was extraordinarily complex. There were savage ogre tribes, towns the Goblin Consortium had built to excavate "treasure," crocodiles that attacked travelers with wild abandon, deadly venomous wind serpents that flew silently among the trees, and villages of Grimtotem tauren-violent individuals banished by their fellow tauren.
If you dared venture into its deepest reaches, you could even find a stretch of scorched earth, patrolled by hundreds of Black Dragon Drakonid. In the true depths of Dustwallow Marsh lay a dragon's lair, an enormous nest carved out of a mountain.
That was the lair of the Black Dragon Princess, Onyxia!
No one knew why that savage, insane female dragon had chosen to nest here, but she had lived here since the time of Night Elf rule, hundreds of years ago.
Ordinarily, Theramore's mages and druids would selectively reclaim patches of marshland as farmland for new residents, but these efforts were all small in scale. In fact, Theramore had explored the depths of Dustwallow Marsh only once: when they searched for Aegwynn, the "former Guardian" said to live in seclusion deep within it. Almost every mage in the kingdom had turned out, venturing into the marsh under the protection of soldiers.
Only after two months had they finally discovered a concealed barrier in the northeastern marsh. In truth, had Aegwynn not taken an interest in this new human city herself, those mages could never have found her home, Watershine Estate.
Today, however, all that changed.
Every scout in the Northern Fortress was urgently recalled to Theramore proper within a single day. Without time to rest and refit, each squad was assigned a mage and sent