“They're gone!" the blood elf snapped vehemently. "They're gone!"

The woman in black stared at him from behind her veil. Although he was taller than her by an inch or two, it was he who seemed to have to look up at her, not the other way around.

It was also he who suddenly stifled his anger under her dread gaze.

"An obvious observation, Zendarin, as is the fact that we need not concern ourselves with them. The dear ones have their fates already destined; you know that very well."

"But there was much to learn, much to explore with their making! Much magic of a sort none has ever witnessed!"

The avarice in his gleaming orbs when Zendarin spoke of magic made his companion smile in disdain. "A trifle, blood elf." She gently stroked the veil covering her scorched side. "A trifle to what I will ultimately achieve."

He bowed to her wisdom and her dark glory, but added, "What we’ll ultimately achieve, my lady."

"Yes... what we will achieve, my ambitious mage." The lady in black turned away without another word. The two stood at the mouth of one of the upper cave passages riddling Grim Batol. Despite its location well above the base of the mountain, this entrance was more accessible to the interior than most below—provided one was welcome within. Those who were not would find the path wrought with hidden pitfalls, including sentinels masked by Zendarin's magic.

And woe betide any of those intruders should they be spellcasters themselves...

The blood elf took one last glance over the landscape surrounding Grim Batol. Beyond the immediate desolation surrounding the mountain's base, the Wetlands had returned in force since the years of the red dragons' captivity to the orcs. The lush lands were misleading, though, for they held many natural and unnatural threats that acted as a good buffer against too many intruders. Six-legged crocolisks hunted in the waters, and tribes of gnolls—all fearful of Zendarin and the lady—also kept watch for fools venturing too close. Among the more horrific guardians were the monstrous oozes, gelatinous fiends that absorbed any animal in reach and, in the drier lands to the northwest, saurian raptors that stalked any and all fresh meat.

So full of life, so full of death, thought Zendarin. It was a far cry from the glorious wooded realm to which he was used, a realm to which he looked forward to returning once he had gained all that he sought.

Smothering a curse at the trials he had to suffer for his arts, Zendarin followed the veiled woman. He and the drakonid had spent the last night pursuing prizes he considered so valuable that he had let the remaining dwarves scurry back into their secret burrows like the frightened rabbits that they were. That, after swearing to his mistress that he would eradicate the pests once and for all. The dwarves had become a grand nuisance of late and while both he and she agreed that they could not possibly threaten the ultimate success of the pair's experiments, they could slow it. That was why he had devised this plan, this perfect plan.

But Zendarin could not have possibly known that two of those experiments would choose that very moment to escape Grim Batol.

"How did it happen? How did it happen?" he asked, barely able to keep his tongue civil despite being aware of just what she could do to him if merely riled. She had already slain two able assistants for minor infractions, and while she very much needed his skills, he knew that he had to tread warily. Zendarin's companion was very much insane... but that did not preclude her also being brilliant.

"The dragonspawn watching them were careless. They were told that the two might be immune to some of the binding spells and that at the slightest hint of that, the guards should alert me. The fools apparently were not satisfied that the danger yet warranted that alert."

The blood elf cursed the guards. Dragonspawn were brutishly-efficient in causing carnage and generally excellent at obeying orders. True, they were not as skilled and cunning as drakonid, but that should have not mattered in this situation. The dragonspawn had handled far more difficult tasks than keeping sentry. He could not believe their great error. "I'll tear out their black hearts for this...."

"You need not bother. There wasn't much left of them after the escape. The children saw to that." She tsked. again stroking the veil as she walked serenely through the caverns like a queen in her castle. "Besides, this will all make for an interesting test."

"'Test? My lady, they'll wreak havoc that'll bring someone of power investigating. Someone from Dalaran perhaps or—or worse!" Zendarln could imagine quite well just what "worse" might entail. There were powers existing on Azeroth that were greater than all the wizards left in Dalaran or even among his own people combined.

His declaration only made her smile again, albeit this time in cold anticipation. "Yes... someone will very likely investigate... someone very likely will..."

Before he could question her comment, the pair entered the upper level of the vast cavern in which their gargantuan prisoner and the focus of their work still struggled against his magical bonds. The skardyn feverishly tolled around the shimmering leviathan, ever checking both the strands keeping the nether dragon in place and adjusting the new white crystals that their mistress had just set in place for the next attempt.

"Filthy creatures," murmured Zendarin. A blood elf was still an elf when it came to aesthetics. His long nose wrinkled as one of the hooded creatures rushed up to the mistress and handed her a small cube laced with cerulean stripes along each face.

"Obedient creatures," she corrected, dismissing the skardyn. As the dwarven form scurried back to its comrades, she held the cubetoward Zendarln. "You see? Just as I required of them."

His disgust gave way to renewed avarice. Zendarin's eyes glowed a fierce green. "Then, it's only the matter of an egg?"

"Isn't it always? Aaah... here they bring it now..."

Four skardyn appeared below, the scaly dwarves grunting from effort as they held aloft a huge, oval egg... an egg stretching nearly a yard in length. It was thick, gray, and covered in a slick, oily substance that dripped down on its bearers. There was no mistaking just what kind of egg it was.

A dragon's.

"They should make haste!" urged Zendarin, aware of the fragility of the prize regardless of how massive it was. "The egg will not remain fresh long..."

His companion began to descend to the cavern floor, her lack of concern well evident. "The coating of myatis will preserve it. Myatis preserves everything soaked in it, no matter how long."

Aware of how old this egg actually was and the value of it to their work. Zendarin marveled. Indeed, none of what they hoped to accomplish would have been at all possible if this egg had not been preserved through the dark arts in the first place.

Not for the first time, her skills astounded him, he who had lived so many centuries and accomplished so much.

He joined her below. Just as the skardyn placed the egg on a stone platform set up in front of the bound nether dragon. The imprisoned behemoth managed a muffled growl, much to the amusement of the lady in black.

"Temper, temper..." she cooed, as if to an infant.

Relieved of their burden, the skardyn retreated. The platform was much akin to an altar, the top a rectangular slab of ebony-streaked granite that matched in substance the rounded base. The four legs thrusting up from the base to the slab had been carved to resemble dragons rising on their back legs. Where the mistress had originally gained the platform, Zendarin did not know, but he could sense its incredible age and the many spells that had been cast usingit. Latent magical energies saturated its stone form, tantalizing the blood elf. The platform had seen much use over its long existence, especially spells that had called for the lives of the innocent if the pale red stains on the top were any indication to go by.