After some walking the druids reached the edge of the forest and stepped out into a broad plains, where the the thick yellow green grasses swayed up to Shia's shoulder. The grass would provide excellent cover, but in turn it could also hide their enemies. It wouldn't do to remain there for long. Thendil pointed to a set of rocky hills in the distance.
"Let's get our bearings there."
The druids made their way through the field. A humanoid's scream cried out somewhere from the forest behind them and Stormrage increased his pace through the grass into a trot.
"Look," Thendil said, pointing behind them. Shiawase turned to look. A thick black cloud had begun to billow into the sky. It had begun at the treeline, but seemed to be growing up and out at an exponential rate. Shia looked up to where the sun hung in the sky. It had already passed its apex and was on its descent. With the growing cloud the dark might hit the Dream much earlier than it should.
Whitemoon shook Shiawase off of his shoulders and stood in his Druid form. "Have you recovered brother?"
Shiawase tested his legs with a hop. The were still somewhat wobbly, but surrounded by verdant life as he was he was confident in their quick and full recovery. "I'm fine," he replied.
Thendil slipped off of Cirrimor. "I've recovered as well."
"Then we're running." And with that Stormrage was in the air as an eagle and Thendil was with him. Cirrimor took off in a dash and Shia raced to keep up with them. They made it to the outcropping of rock as the air behind them was begining to boom with the cracks of thunder, and a distant cacophany of noises was drifting across the plains. In front of them now was a steep, rocky hill with one narrow path running up its side. The prints on it indicated that it was a grazing road for some sort of herbivore. With the two other druids gliding in the air above them, Shia and Cirrimor began to make their way up the path. Stormrage and Thendil met them ten minutes later at the top.
Besides some well eaten shurubery and some stubborn mushrooms, the hilltop was nothing but a flat slab of red rock. The druids stood at its edge and looked out the way they had come. The dark black cloud had covered much of the area they had come from, and from their increased elevation they could tell that it had not just appeared from nowhere. It had snaked its way from far into the horrizon, so that it cut through the air like a fetid wound. Occasionally a flash of green light would race through the cloud, and a few moments later the cracking sound of the thunder would meet the druids' ears. Stormrage pointed further to their west. Another snakelike cloud was still building forward, over the forest. It reminded shia of a the mound a mole would make just under the surface of the dirt, with the way that it seemed to billow out in the front in a line.
"What is it?" Cirrimor asked."
"Unatural," Stormrage replied. "Unatural and disturbing."
Shiawase smiled nervously. "I think we went the right way."
Stormrage grunted and smirked. "Afraid of the clouds, brother?"
"Not the clouds, but whatever it is that's making them."
Thendil nodded. "Whatever it is that can cause such a drastic change to the land like that, it isn't something to be taken lightly."
A cascade of pebbles fell from a small outcropping near the druids, and as a body the spun around tensed for a fight just in time to see the sand cat from before attempt to retreat down the path they had taken to get to the top of the hill. He immediately found himself intangled in four druid's worth of roots.
The cat began to shift form, and it's body grew into the bull like figure of a Tauren druid, but his shift only managed to shake free a portion of his snare, which was quickly replaced. The Tauren grunted, blurted something in Taruhe, and tried to rip himself free.
"It's no use Tauren," Stormrage said as he walked up to the trapped druid. "You can't shift fast enough to get away from all of us. Give it up brother."
The tauren stopped his struggling and lowered his head to regard the elves that had snared him, and with another grunt stopped his struggling. Stormrage removed his roots and the other three druids followed his lead.
"I don't think you want to go back down there," Stormrage said, and turned back to the edge of the hill to regard the forest beyond. The other two druids glanced at the Tauren dissaprovingly before falling back into converstion about the nature of the abnormal clouds. Shia smiled at the Tauren, who had not moved from the spot, and bowed deeply. After a moment the Tauren returned the bow and after looking about himself sighed and settled down on a rock.
"The clouds don't seem to be leaving the forest."
"Not yet at least."
"And the other side of this hill looks relatively safe." The hill sloped down into a flat area of land spotted with boulders and a few scar like fissures, most likely the result of the dry land cracking. The flat land continued for miles and miles until the snow covered peaks of mountains poked out of the horizon. It was true that with land that flat, nothing was going to come up and jump them.
"What are we going to do now?" Cirrimor asked. All the druids looked at Stormrage.
"We pick a direction and start looking for allies."
"Well, we have one." Shiawase gestured to the tauren, who immediately perked up from his slouching and eyed the elves warily. Stormrage snorted and rolled his eyes.
"Let's get going. We'll move along this hill line, keep an eye on those clouds, and look for signs of other druids or Children of Cenarius, or anything else. Thendil and I will run air reconosence. If either of you two come across something alert us immediately. We won't fly from hearing range."
Once Stormrage and Thendil had taken off, Cirrimor began to pad back down the hill. Shia turned to the Tauren and bowed. "Ah... Ish." He had been told at some point that this was how Tauren said 'so long', and hopefully this was true.
The tauren raised an eyebrow and snorted. "Asham ahule she fuhld."
"Erm, I'm afraid I don't understand."
"Brother!" Cirrimor's head popped up from the incline. "Are you coming?"
"Yes, I'll be right behind you." Shia turned to the Tauren and shrugged apologetically. "Good journeys brother."
"Ahule welak ahamayule wencee folshehe." The Tauren stood up.
Shia shook his head. "Ish brother, be safe." He morphed into his panther form and dashed to catch up with Cirrimor, who was a good ways ahead of Shia already. Within a minute Shia realized that the Tauren was following them in his own sand cat form. Well, let him follow, Shia thought to himself. The more the better. The druids ran straight along the the hilsides for almost two hours. Sun was begining to set and the sky was fading into the red of dusk. An occasional crack of thunder still made its way across the grassy plane, and as he ran Shia could see more lines of smoke off in the distance, running off like threads of a spider's web. Would they really be able to figure out what was going on, Shia wondered to himself. Would he be returning from this? He thought of the pearl pendant that sat on his sleeping figure in Azeroth, of Whitemoon waiting for him and Relara, tossing and turning in her nightmare. He conjured images of his friends in the Retribution, sitting in the tavern, drinking and laughing amongst each other, of the letter Ravine had sent him wishing that he was safe and that he would come back to them. He thought of the nights he spent hiding in bushes with Dagar as they waited for Horde forces to pass them by safely. He thought of the orphans at Stormwind and the way the images of the Emerald Dream gave them a sliver of peace amungst a world torn apart by war and loss. He thought of Ashenvale as it had been when he had awoken from the Dream for the first time. It seemed to him to be like a little sliver of the Dream itself, glowing with it's own force of life and untainted by mortal striving. He thought back to the first Orcs he had ever met, a ragtag little settlement in the far north of the barrens with nothing but two mud huts to live in, and the terror in their eyes when he came upon them. He thought of the fellow druids he had faught in the name of the Alliance, of the Shamans who set the very same magic that Shiawase was charged to protect against him. At all of these moments he had thought back to the Emerald Dream and drawn strenght from his hundreds of years of slumber. He had assured himself that with the Dream as the worlds anchor wrong and evil could not truely obtain a foothold in Azeroth. The healing nature of Ysra's realm would wash away the wounds of mortal error and clense the land of the the wounds the races inflicted upon it.
The young druid looked out towards the dark clouds in the forest. If he had been told a month ago that a maliciousness like that had permiated the dream he would have laughed. There was no force, he had thought, that could disrupt the balance. But there it was, spreading across the green trees like poison crackling with some unknown dark energy. Had he been wrong to sit back all those times and let conflicts take their course? Should he have had killed the orc hunter that had sat with him under the tree in Orgrammar, as he knew full well that it was only a matter of time before that very same orc would be killing his kin and felling his trees? Was it because they had let Azeroth fall to such ruin that the haven of the Emerald Dream had been comprimised? And if it was, was there really any way that they could end this perversion and return the land to what it once was?
Stormrage and Thendil landed far ahead, where Cirrimor was running. The three elves had stopped and begun talking when Shiawase caught up with them.
"We've spotted what seems like a number of sons of Cenarius near the edge of the forest, in an area that's clear of the black clouds. They've been alerted to our presence and should be expecting our arrival. Follow us." Without pause Stormrage was an eagle again and the druids were running through the grass. Shiawase checked behind him, the Tauren druid was still there, trailing at a healthy distance.
By the time the elves arrived back to the forest the sun had all but dissapeared. It was only moments after they had stepped back into the cool cover of the trees when a number of Sons of Cenarius emerged to greet them. Among them was Keeper Albagorm.
When the Cenarion realized who it was that had arrived he extended his arms in greating. "Brothers! What are you doing here? It pleases me to see you again, but I'm afraid you've come at a very difficult time." He turned to Shiawase. "Brother Shiawase, did you not tell them what I had said? The Dream is dangerous for your ilk right now. You should not have come."
"He told us brother," Stormrage said. "We understood the risk we were taking, but whatever it is that has come to this land, it is also permiating into Azeroth."
The Keepers frowned and looked at each other. "Do you mean that it has broken free from simple nightmares?"
"I'm afraid so. A number of our kin have gone mad. Many more have fallen into a sleep in which their bodies are wasting away. We could not sit and wait as the danger grew and so we came here to cut it off at its source."
The Keeper shook his head. "I'm afraid it's not going to be as simple as that. What we are fighting is something bigger than any of us. The most we have been able to do is fend of the spread of it's corruption as best we can while a solution is developed."
"Then we will join you in doing so. As druids there is nothing more precious to us than the sanctity of the Emerald Dream."
Keeper Albagorm turned to the other Sons of Cenarius that were standing beside him. "We should inform our father that more allies have arrived. He'll be pleased to hear at least that the pathway between realms has not been completely degrated. And since you are here now brothers, I'm afraid to tell you that your stay may be rather short. You've arrived at the very front line of the battle, and we are about to face the corruption head on."
Stormrage punched a fist into his palm. Shia thought he saw a gint of excitment pass by the druid's face. "A battle is what we came for brother."
"Then prepare yourselves. The corruption will be reaching us within the hour. Let me tell you what you are up against."
