"No!" the priestess repeated. "No!"

"Be quiet!" The robed figure spun her around. For the first time, she saw that he was human. Under the thick, fiery hair, eyes of bright emerald green stared back at her. He was not unhandsome for one of his kind, although his nose had clearly been broken sometime far in the past. He had a strong jaw and angular features and a stubborn expression that well matched his red hair.

On the breast of his robe had been sewn an eye of gold on a field of violet. Below the eye were three daggers, also gold, that pointed downward.

Iridi recognized the symbol of Dalaran.

"You are the wizard Rhonin, mate of the high elf, Vereesa," she quietly declared.

"You know her? You know where she is? I tried to locate her and sensed some magical forces in play. Vereesa's always in the middle of such things...." He cursed at himself. I tried something and it failed. But at least you're safe."

"But I need to get back inside! I was trying to free the nether dragon—"

The spellcaster looked as if she were mad. "Why in the world would you do something that mad? I've heard from those who've seen what they can do! Destroy the creature, maybe, but free it?"

"I've seen into his mind. Zzeraku means no ill. He's done terrible things in the past, but he's changed now...."

"As simple as that, is it? And you're absolutely certain you read him true?"

"I am... and I will not back down on this. He must be freed and for many reasons...." The draenei dismissed her staff. "He is the key to whatever is going on. They're using Zzeraku to create some terrible creature...."

Rhonin grimaced. "It never ends, does it? Never any true peace for Azeroth... gods, I wish Krasus were here at least!"

It did not surprise the priestess to learn that the wizard knew the red dragon. With some trepidation, she said, "Krasus is also in Grim Batol... as a prisoner."

"That's not possible. Not him..."

"He sent me to safety just before he and a younger blue dragon —Kalec—were captured. There was a mageslayer—"

"That wouldn't stop him," Rhonin scoffed.

"There was something different about it, he indicated. It had been enhanced by those in Grim Batol."

A sound from the direction of the mountain made them both still. Rhonin took hold of her arm. "I should be able to do this one more time. Jumping into Grim Batol took more than even I thought."

"We're going back inside?"

He gave her a harsh laugh. "Not at the moment, not if you don't want to end up a part of the mount itself for the rest of eternity. No, I'm sending us somewhere safer... relatively speaking."

Rhonin's brow furrowed in concentration. Iridi started to protest again. Surely, he, of all people, understood the need to return to Grim Batol.

But it was too late. The air around the pair crackled... and both vanished once more.

Krasus floated in an oppressive darkness, the sense that it was seeking to crush him ever prevalent. He had heard stories of confinement in chrysalun chambers, horrible tales of dragons and other magical beings driven mad by years, decades, even centuries of entrapment. Time, after all, did not flow inside as it did in the true world. For all he knew, his friends and comrades were all long dead and whatever evil Sinestra had birthed in the pits of Grim Batol had wreaked havoc all over Azeroth.

No! That has not happened! Not yet! The dragon mage berated himself for such dire assumptions. Deathwing's consort intended to use his magical essence to feed her abominations; therefore, there was still hope... at least for all save Kalec.

He mourned the blue's violent passing. The thing in the pit, the thing already so well-adapted at shielding itself from powerful dragons, had surely made a grisly meal out of Kalec. It infuriated Krasus that he had been unable to do anything to save his companion, infuriated him more that no one had been able to depend upon him. He had no idea what had happened to Iridi. In desperation, he had transported her to the one area that he knew of around Grim Batol—knowledge gleaned from those of his kind who had stood guard over the evil mount—where magic was difficult to use. There, she would have at least had a chance to recover and. If wise, abandon the area as soon as possible.

Krasus doubted that she had done so.

Not for the first time, the dragon mage tested the limits of his prison. It was ironic that, in here of all places, he was more at his full strength than anywhere else in and around Grim Batol. The chamber was a pocket universe in itself, one that drew upon the victim's own magic to keep the latter imprisoned. Yet, it also cut him off from Sinestra's spellwork and whatever truly kept him so weak in the mount.

But he could not just wait here until the black dragon freed him for her diabolical spells. Krasus was no ordinary prisoner; he was well aware of the history of chrysalun chambers, for were they not the work of dragons, after all?

Initially, the chambers had been designed for varied purposes depending on which dragonflight had created them, but first and foremost they had all been intended to trap creatures and beings of magical threat... demons, mad spellcasters, elementals, and the like. Those specifically created by the black flight had been intended for use against wild energies and the like that threatened the very earth itself.

Yet, that had changed forever after a newly-insane Neltharion, furious at his loss of the Demon Soul over the Well of Eternity, had sometime afterward altered those created by his flight for the foul purpose of trapping his imagined enemies. The other flights had quickly moved to locate the chambers and, in addition to those of the Earth-Warder, had supposedly forever sealed them away where they could not be found.

But over the centuries, a few had made their way back into the world... and perhaps this one had never even been uncovered before.

Krasus grew frustrated. Perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps his knowledge of the history of the foul boxes was not something that would serve him after all—

The dragon mage hesitated. Or would it? One particular point suddenly struck him. Chrysalun chambers required much effort, which was why there were thankfully so few. Even some of those had not been entirely stable. They had had faults...

It was a desperate hope, but the only hope he currently had. Krasus focused his mind and reached out.

But at first, all he sensed was his oppressive imprisonment. Krasus shuddered and briefly the hope that Sinestra would need him quickly for her experiment flashed through his mind. He immediately rejected the notion, but wondered, if he failed to escape, how long it would be before he prayed for it again.

Once more, Krasus concentrated. For the most part, it was his own magical essence he sensed, but gradually, he noticed another.

It was not of Azeroth in origin.

Hopes raised, Krasus fixed on it. There was something familiar about it. something that reminded him of—

Yes, that was it. This was, of course, the very chamber in which the nether dragon had surely been contained.

Whether or not that bettered his chances, the dragon mage could not say. The nether dragon's energies were like nothing that the creator of this hellish prison could have imagined.

Krasus probed deeper into the design. There were odd variations that could only be the work of the original caster, perhaps Neltharion or even his consort. Krasus grew less confident that there would be any advantage after all. Whoever had created this particular artifact had been eager to experiment.

But still Krasus had to try. He inspected the magic foundation of the box, seeking some disruption from the nether dragon's incarceration that might have created a flaw. That flaw would be his best chance of escape. He needed to—