I returned from Draenor two weeks ago.
More than a year, and I still do not know just how I became drafted into active Draenor duty. If I was betrayed by some false friend, I still owe them much pain.
Draenor was -- interesting. It was a training ground for what I have learned of the Shadow, and I think I have departed it as a better wielder of shadow magic. I have certainly progressed in my alchemical studies, but alchemists have discovered little that was truly revolutionary there. Even the Transmorphic Tincture proved more of an amusing toy than anything else. All our attempts to find a way to lengthen its effect proved fruitless. Those who wish to change their sex more permanently will have to wait for the development of more potent magics.
We overestimated the potential of the Thorn as a weapon. Only the Botani truly know its secrets, and those xenophobic, vicious creatures do not share them. Without those secrets, it cannot be controlled.
For now, I am traveling through the countryside, renewing my acquaintance with Azeroth. My old apartment in Undercity has long since been rented to someone else, of course. Perhaps I will settle in Brill instead.
Outwardly, Azeroth seems much the same. Silly fools still fear the Shadow and shadow magic. The living occupy themselves with their lovers and families, if they have such. The warlike seek fame and honor, the more pecuniary-minded seek gold. Those who share my curiosity continue to pursue knowledge.
Among my fellow adventurers, however, there is a certain restlessness, an anxiety. Our victory in Draenor was too easy. The Iron Horde's foray into Azeroth was surely a feint, but a feint by whom? And for what? The Legion seems the most obvious culprit. Toward the end, it took over the Iron Horde from its would-be commanders.
Draenor's Gul'dan vanished and has not been accounted for. There used to be a saying in Lordaeron: "Do not count a man dead until you have seen his body. Even then, you may have made a mistake." It applies equally to orcs, I'm sure.
The Legion never gives up on a world. They will be back; the kaldorei understood this as far back as the Sundering, we all realized it after the business in Outland, it is commonly accepted even today by anyone with brain power above that of a cabbage. But when? Ten thousand years from now? Or much sooner?
I hold with the latter. I have never claimed to have much intuition, but what I do have takes something from the pattern of recent events and says that this string of catastrophes is building toward something. It will be soon.
On the bright side, Sunhammer now has a charming new Forsaken recruit, Lensha, whom I had the good fortune to meet in Undercity in the company of Ria. She has taken up the fighting ways of the Pandaren -- an unusual interest among Forsaken -- and asked me whether I could brew up some alcoholic drink that will work on Forsaken.
Since this is not one of my field sof study, I gave her the business card of an acquaintance in Brill who specializes in this. I was not about to offer her any of the addictive mind-altering substances that I manufacture, of course. Say what you will of me, I would not endanger another Sunhammer, or indeed a Forsaken. Being loyal to one's own group is simple self-preservation.
