He suddenly noticed figures standing around him. Gimmel, his comrade from the war, stood among them, offering Rom a pipe.

The ghosts of those other dwarves whom Grim Batol had claimed welcomed into their ranks their old comrade and vanished to the great halls of the afterlife...

The two titans clashed again and again, using their spells to toss one another about the cavern. Dargonax paid no mind to the tiny creatures around them, but Zzeraku did. He saw the dwarves and the wizard and, most of all, the draenei—Iridi, he knew through their contact—struggling not only to survive, but to defeat the evil in this place, an evil akin in many ways to what he had once embraced but was now utterly revolted by.

Whereas Zzeraku had been brought here by force, they had come willingly to this place, come willing to sacrifice themselves. Zzeraku struggled to understand that willingness even as he battled Dargonax. They fought for something that meant more than their lives, something that would help others more than themselves....

That knowledge made him all the more ashamed at what he had been in the past... a twin in spirit of the grotesquerie against which he now struggled.

No! I will not be like him! She found me of worth! I will not be as this one... I will not be!

And although he sensed just how powerful Dargonax truly was and just how much chance he really had against him, Zzeraku knew that, if only for Iridi, he would fight to the end... whichever end fate decreed.

For her...

Most of the dwarves had fled and Rhonin had managed to indicate to the raptors that they should follow. Only a few skardyn remained, but they were a threat easily contained by the wizard, who gathered them up with a single spell, then threw the lot into one of the farthest crevices. Whether they survived or not was of no interest to the wizard, only finding Vereesa and, assuming that he was alive, Krasus.

Iridi ran toward him, the draenei constantly looking over her shoulder as if expecting someone to be right behind her. Rhonin looked past the priestess and saw only the rubble of the collapsed ceiling.

"Rom..." he murmured, starting forward. The last he had seen of the dwarf had been when a drakonid had also appeared.

"He was supposed to be with me!" the draenei uttered the moment they reached one another. "He was—"

"Acting like a true dwarven warrior," Rhonin returned. "He did what he had to. There's nothing we can do...."

Iridi's expression changed abruptly, becoming very solemn. "I knew him only a short time, but I'll do my best to honor his sacrifice and follow his example...."

The wizard started to reply, only to suddenly need to grab her before another section of the chamber could fall upon them.

But although he managed to keep them from avoiding that threat, the ground now shook with absolute abandon. The tremors that Rhonin had felt a few moments before magnified a thousand times over.

Cracks spread throughout the cavern floor, hot gasses hissing out of them. The cavern became stiflingly hot.

Rhonin looked to the nearest passage, which was still too far away. A part of him thought of Vereesa, but he knew what he had to do.

He seized the draenei in his arms. "Hold tight and pray I've got the will and strength to do this one more time!^-

"But Zzeraku needs me! He knows that he can't fight Dargonax alone! He is sacrificing himself for us! For me! I feel it! I must help him! I will not let his sacrifice be In vain—"

"No time for arguments! Hold tight!"

The last of the dwarves and raptors were out, not that Rhonin could have done anything for any still lingering. He shut his eyes and concentrated—

An explosion filled his ears...then almost immediately dulled.

It was dark around him, but he did not need to see well to know that the two of them were outside. In addition, the wizard could hear the dwarves as they abandoned Grim Batol without reservation. Hisses mixed among their calls gave hint of several raptors also escaping the carnage.

But even outside, the ground shook. Rhonin was too weak to risk another leap after so much spellcasting over the past hours, but he prepared himself nonetheless.

However, it was not the ground that finally erupted, but a side of Grim Batol.

And with it came Dargonax and Zzeraku.

A plume of lava shot into the pair—and through them. The immense burst of molten earth meant nothing to them. Yet, all was not clearly well with Zzeraku for some other reason. In the fiery light of the eruption, the nether dragon looked more translucent than Rhonin thought healthy, and he seemed always on the underside of the struggle.

"Zzeraku is losing," Iridi suddenly said, verifying the wizard's fears. "He has been too long a prisoner, too long drained of his essence...and I think Dargonax yet still somehow feeds..."

"That doesn't surprise me a bit!" But other matters were already on Rhonin's mind, matters that had him staring at the ravaged mount. To the draenei, he said, "Iridi, you'll be safe here with the dwarves. Stay with them, all right?"

"You're going after Vereesa, aren't you?"

"And after Krasus, if he still lives, but, yes, Vereesa most of all..."

The priestess nodded. "Go. I know what must be done."

He nodded his appreciation, although he also felt some guilt at focusing only on the personal in the midst of what might prove calamity for all Azeroth. Dargonax needed to be stopped, if that was at all possible.

But he had to find his wife first...

Rhonin gritted his teeth and tried to focus entirely on her. He prayed that he was close enough to be able to transport himself to the one whom he knew best of all and who knew him just as deeply. If she was alive, Rhonin would find her.

And if Vereesa was not, even Sinestra and her abomination would learn how great could be one wizard's fury... whether or not in the end all Rhonin accomplished was to get himself killed.

There was lava everywhere and although Korialstrasz had earlier used it to heal himself, as he had explained to Vereesa, there were limits to how long he could survive in it in general. He had just about reached those limits.

Where Sinestra was, the red dragon could not say. There were too many primal forces and energies around him. Grim Batol was so saturated with magic that it was impossible to ever fully comprehend the magnitude of those energies. Each time Korialstrasz had thought he knew all, the mount proved him wrong.

The heat began to take its toll on his body as he fought ever upward. More than one patch of scales was already burnt, Korialstrasz began to doubt his chances of escaping this particular menace—

But then his head burst through cooler rock and dirt, followed almost immediately thereafter by precious air, Korialstrasz let out a roar that was more a gasp for that air plus a pleading to escape the burning. The red dragon tumbled haphazardly over the top of the ruined mount, then, unable to keep his momentum, he crashed into the far side of it... and rolled down to the base.

There were two others desperately seeking their freedom from the catastrophe wrought by the black dragon. Kalec shielded both he and Vereesa as best he could, although after all his trials, the young blue was more than willing to admit he was near to being finished. Yet, visions of Anveena in his head combined with his concern for the ranger to keep him pushing on.

And then, with lava seeping around them and no good place for the weakened blue to transform, a startling figure materialized. A human wizard with red hair. Kalec knew enough from both Vereesa and his own flight's information on mortal spellcasters that this had to be Rhonin Dralg'cyfaill... although in the eyes of the great Malygos, calling him "Dragonhead" was a rather sweeping statement since, rightly or wrongly, the Aspect of Magic saw him as the most tolerable of an intolerable order.