Tyrande whispered something to her mount. The hippogryph reluctantly descended, landing near his rider. He kept one baleful eye on the druid.
“What did you do to Jai?” she quietly asked, one hand running over the creature’s beaked countenance.
“An herb with stinging properties …”
The high priestess briefly smiled. “You were fortunate. I daresay if you had tried that anywhere else, Jai would not have flown from but rather through you. He knew, though, that I wanted a prisoner if possible. A live one.”
As Tyrande continued to pass her hand over the beast’s face, Broll commented, “The effects of the herb will pass in a few more moments.”
“We do not even have time for that.” A faint glow from above emanated over the hippogryph’s eyes. Jai shook his head, then seemed much happier. Nodding her satisfaction, the high priestess looked again to the druid. Her expression remained dark. “Come with me. I have something to show you.”
With the hippogryph trailing her, Tyrande led Broll to the nearest of the dwellings. She then shocked the druid by entering the domicile without any hesitation, a sign that things were even worse than he had imagined. He was filled with a sense of dread over what they would find inside.
The interior had some of the trappings of a night elven home, but the plant life within looked sick, weak. The mist that covered Auberdine permeated even inside the dwelling, adding to the feeling of imminent disaster.
Jai, too large to fit through the entrance, peered uneasily inside.
Broll watched as Tyrande glanced into the sleeping quarters.
Withdrawing, she indicated that Broll should look as well.
With much wariness, the druid complied. His eyes widened at the scene within.
Two night elves — a male and a female — lay on woven mats. The female’s arm was draped over the male’s chest. They were utterly motionless, which told Broll the worst.
“It is the same in the other places I have looked,” his companion solemnly remarked.
The druid wanted to approach the pair but held back out of respect. “Do you know how they perished?”
“They are not dead.”
He looked back at her. When Tyrande added nothing more, the druid finally knelt by the two. His eyes widened.
Quiet but steady breathing escaped from both.
“They’re… asleep?”
“Yes — and I could not awaken the ones I found earlier.”
Despite what she said, Broll could not resist gently prodding the male’s shoulder. When that failed to wake him, he did the same to the female. As a last attempt, Broll took hold of an arm from each and shook. Backing away, the druid growled, “We must find the source of the spell! There must be some mad mage at work here!”
“It would take a powerful one indeed to do all this,” said the high priestess. She indicated the door. “Come with me. I want to show you one more thing.”
They left the home, and with Jai in tow, Tyrande led Broll over a bridge that connected to the more commercial areas of Auberdine.
The mist kept many of the details of the village hidden, but Broll spotted a sign written in both Darnassian and Common that read,
LAST HAVEN TAVERN.
Broll knew that the tavern, of all places, should have been lit and alive. Along with the local inn, the tavern was one of the few public gathering places in the town.
Jai took up a position outside the entrance, the hippogryph peering into the mists in search of any potential foe. The high priestess strode inside without a word, her silence again warning Broll of what was to come.
The tavern was not like the home, which had been in order despite the bizarre scene inside. Chairs were scattered over the wooden floor, and some of the tables had been overturned. The bar at the end was stained not just from years of inebriated patrons, but also from several smashed bottles and barrels.
And all over the tavern lay sprawled the bodies of night elves, a handful of gnomes and humans, and a singular dwarf.
“I landed not far from this area and was disturbed when I saw no life or lights,” the high priestess explained. “This was the most immediate public place, and so I entered.”
“Are they also… asleep?”
Tyrande bent down by one human. He was slumped over a table, and looked as if he had fallen there from sheer exhaustion. His hair and beard were disheveled, but his garments, despite some dust, were clearly of a person of some means. Next to him lay a night elf, a local. Although the night elf lay on his side on the floor, his hands were still stretched forth toward the human. Like the human, the night elf looked oddly unkempt. They were the worst in appearance, though all of the sleepers in the tavern looked as if they had been through some struggle.
“A fight broke out here,” Broll decided.
Tyrande stood. “A very polite fight, if that was truly the case. The only bruises I found were caused by their falls. I think these two collapsed.” She gestured at the dwarf and a few of the other patrons. “See how these others are positioned?”
After a moment’s study, Broll scowled. “They look like they’re taking a rest. All of them!”
“They are all asleep now, even this first desperate pair. Look around. The tavern looks as if it was set up for defense.”
“I should’ve seen that myself.” Indeed, the druid noted now that the tables and chairs created a wall of sorts that faced both the entrance and the windows. “But a defense from what?”
Tyrande had no answer for him.
Broll squinted. In fact, he had been compelled to squint more often for the past few minutes despite the fact that, with the sun down, his vision should have been sharper. “The mist is getting thicker… and darker.”
Outside, Jai let out a low warning squawk.
Tyrande and Broll hurried to the entrance. Outside, the hippogryph moved anxiously about. However, there was no sign of anything in the vicinity, as more and more the deepening mist limited the distance that could be seen.
A moan came from inside, and Broll brushed past the high priestess to investigate its source among the slouched figures near the back end of the tavern. Then another moan arose from a different direction. Broll identified it as coming from the night elf near the human. He bent down next to the figure.
Tyrande joined him. “What is it? Is he awake?”
“No …” Broll turned the sleeper’s head slightly. “I think he’s dreaming …”
A third moan joined the previous. Suddenly, all around them, the slumbering figures wailed. The hair on the back of Broll’s neck stiffened as he detected the thing all the voices had in common: fear. “Not dreams,” he corrected himself, rising and glancing back at the entrance. “They’re having nightmares. All of them.”
Jai again made a warning sound. Returning to the hippogryph, the pair saw nothing… but heard much.
There were moans arising from all over Auberdine.
“This is tied to Malfurion,” Tyrande stated with utter confidence.
“But how?”
Jai stepped forward, the beast’s head cocking to the side, listening.
A murky figure briefly passed into and out of sight. It was shorter than a night elf, more the height of a human. The hippogryph started after it, but Tyrande quietly called his name. The animal paused.
The high priestess took the lead again. Broll quickly moved to her side, ready to use his arts to aid her. Jai kept pace behind them.
“There!” she hissed, pointing to the left.
Broll scarcely had time to view the figure before it again vanished in the fog. “It looks as though it’s stumbling. May be a survivor.”
“The mist seems to thicken most around our quarry.” Tyrande put her hands together. “Perhaps the Mother Moon can remedy that.”
From the shrouded sky directly above the high priestess, a silver glow descended in the direction of the mysterious figure. It burned through the fog, revealing everything in its path. Broll’s brow rose as he watched the glow veer like a living thing stretching out to find the stranger.