The morning brought no sun. Just fog, low and slick with old heat—ash carried on still air. Dustwallow had grown quieter the farther west they pushed, but not in any way that felt like peace. It was the silence of something gutted. Something waiting to be remembered.
They walked single file beneath moss-covered trees, following a game trail that hadn't seen beasts in years. Nyxia led. Boo kept to the rear, pistols loaded, sabers crossed behind her back. Zhurong walked with his head tilted toward the ground, fingers twitching unconsciously at the scent of warped mana in the air.
"Stormwind's still leagues off," Boo said after a while, voice hushed but restless. "Unless you plan on walking across half the continent with ghosts at our heels, we'll need a better way to get there."
"There's a chance," Nyxia said. "Theramore."
Zhurong looked up from his thoughts. "You want to go into Theramore?"
She nodded. "If anything survived the mana bomb, it'd be near the mage tower. The Kirin Tor left leyline anchors all over Kalimdor."
"You're hoping one's intact?" Boo scoffed. "The place was vaporized. There are bones in the soil still screaming."
Nyxia didn't argue. "We check anyway."
Zhurong muttered something under his breath, then louder: "Even if there is something left, I'm no portal mage. I can manipulate catalyst flow, maybe stabilize remnants of an array, but I can't cast a teleport. Not without burning a hole in the wrong dimension."
Boo snorted. "Cheery."
Nyxia glanced back at him. "You've pulled miracles from worse."
He didn't argue, but his jaw clenched slightly.
They followed the thinning tree line until the marsh gave way to brittle flats—earth cracked and veined from old trauma. The ruins of Theramore rose from the haze like a dream struggling to hold its shape. Walls sheared off at the midpoint. Tower husks leaning like broken candles. The docks were gone, reduced to bone-colored pylons in black water.
And everywhere: silence. Not the swamp's heavy hush, but the kind that came after something sacred was ruined.
The air here tasted different. Magic lingered—not alive, but not dead either. It twisted in eddies of burned ozone and memory.
They passed through a shattered gate, the once-gilded arch scorched to a smear of soot. Boo kept her hands close to her weapons. Loque didn't growl, but his steps turned surgical. He avoided certain stones as if they hummed beneath his pads.
"This place…" Boo murmured, eyes scanning a fallen statue's base. The name plaque had melted. "Feels like it should've healed by now."
Zhurong pointed at the skyline. "The mana didn't just destroy. It warped. Residual fields still pulse every few hours. Arcane trauma like this doesn't bleed out—it buries deeper."
"Any idea where the array might've been?" Boo asked.
Nyxia pointed ahead. "Northwest quadrant. The mage's tower wasn't far from the barracks."
They crossed what was once a parade square, now cracked with creeping vines that seemed hesitant to grow too high. Several buildings still stood in partial silhouette—library, garrison, watch hall. All hollowed out.
The remains of the mage tower marked their destination.
It was worse up close. A third of the base was gone, scorched clean as if carved away by divine spite. The spire slumped like a spine broken at the base. Arcane sigils still floated in the air above the foundation—fractured but refusing to dissipate.
Zhurong approached the stone ring embedded at the tower's base.
"This is it," he said. "At least, what's left of it."
The teleportation platform had once been a full circle of etched runes, polished white stone threaded with gold. Now, it was cracked down the center. A few runes still sparked, blinking slowly like dying eyes.
"I can try to bind what's left," Zhurong said, kneeling. "If the anchor threads aren't completely severed…"
Nyxia crouched beside him. "Use what you need."
He dug into his satchel, pulling out a small vial of powdered ley ash, another of alchemical salt, and a third with something like liquid crystal. He worked quickly, his hands steady but his brow drawn.
Boo stood lookout at the edge of the platform. "Please tell me if this thing's going to explode. I'd like to die facing forward."
"It won't explode," Zhurong muttered.
"But?"
"But it might fracture. And if the ley current is unstable, it could scatter us. Not far, but—imprecisely."
"Define 'imprecise.'"
"I'm hoping for a rooftop, not a sewer."
They didn't get to ask further.
From across the courtyard, a sound—wet footsteps dragging through ash.
Three figures emerged. Not people. Not anymore.
Scavengers. Mana-warped. Their skin crackled with arcane burns. Eyes too bright, smiles too wide. One still wore a tattered Theramore tabard. Another dragged a spear fused with bone.
Boo fired first. A single clean shot that caught one in the throat. It didn't fall—it shrieked. Too loud. Too bright. A sound that wasn't sound.
Loque bounded forward, fangs bared, intercepting the second as it lunged. Nyxia fired two arrows—one through an eye, the other into a corrupted sigil carved into a chest.
Zhurong remained at the array, shouting over his shoulder. "Buy me one more minute!"
Boo slashed the third across the gut—black steam hissed from the wound. It clawed her shoulder, but she drove a dagger through its eye before it could scream.
Nyxia twisted and shot again—another down.
Zhurong's hands flared with light as he completed the last seal.
The platform began to hum.
The air around it trembled.
"Now!" he shouted. "On the circle!"
They scrambled onto the stones. Boo dragging Loque back by the ruff. Zhurong slammed his palm down, triggering the array.
A column of silver fire erupted around them.
The ruined courtyard vanished in a roar of displaced wind.
For a moment, Nyxia felt like she was standing between frames of a broken mirror—Stormwind flickering, fading, calling her forward.
Then the light swallowed them whole.
And they were gone.