"You're not like that, though, are you?" Jaina had asked.

"All too regularly," had been the mage's reply. "The trick is to recognize the flaw in yourself and work to correct it." Then her mentor had told her of mages past, such as Aegwynn and Medivh, the last two Guardians of Tirisfal, both of whom had let their arrogance be their downfall. Years later, Jaina would work alongside Medivh and see that he at least had redeemed himself. His mother, Aegwynn, was less fortunate. The first female Guardian—and someone Jaina had admired for most of her life—her one mistake in her centuries as Guardian was to believe herself to have defeated Sargeras. In fact, she destroyed only his avatar, and allowed the demon to hide within her soul, remaining there for centuries until Aegwynn sired Medivh, and then Sargeras moved to him. Medivh had been the vessel for Sargeras's invasion, and for the orcs' presence in this world, all because Aegwynn was arrogant enough to believe that she could have defeated Sargeras alone.

Jaina had taken those words to heart, and so always doubted her own surety. She still admired Aegwynn—without her blazing the trail, the only response to Jaina's attempts to study magic would have been laughter, instead of the swayable skepticism she was met with. And she had swayed Antonidas.

Sometimes that self—doubt worked against her—she hadn't listened to her instinct that Arthas had turned for far longer than was wise, given Arthas's descent, and she always wondered if things would have been different if she'd acted sooner. But mostly, that had served her well. It also made her, she hoped, a wise leader to the people of Theramore.

When Thrall had told her of the destruction of a section of the forest that surrounded Thunder Ridge, she had known immediately that magic was at work, and powerful magic at that. She had hoped, however, that she was wrong in that assumption.

That turned out to be a forlorn hope. She went straight to the forest in question from her chambers in Theramore, and as soon as she materialized, she could practically smell the magic. Indeed, even without her magically enhanced abilities, she'd have known that magic was afoot here. Before her was a range of stumps, stretching almost as far as a human could see, before disappearing over the hill that led down to the ridge. The top of each stump was on a perfectly straight line with all the surrounding ones—it was as if a giant saw had gone through all the trees at once. More to the point, the cuts were all completely even, with no flaws or breaks. One could attain such a level of perfection only with magic.

Jaina knew most of the mages who still lived. The few besides herself who were capable of this were not on Kalimdor. What's more, this magic didn't have the feel of any of those she knew. Every wizard wielded the forces of magic differently, and if one was sensitive enough, one could tell the differences from one mage to the next. This felt like no mage Jaina knew. And it gave her a mildly nauseous feeling, which led her to think that it might well be demonic magic. The nausea didn't necessarily mean demonic magic, of course, though the presence of the Burning Legion's wizardry had always made Jaina ill. But so had Kel'Thuzad's when Antonidas first introduced them in the third year of Jaina's apprenticeship, and that was when the archmage was one of the finest mages in Kirin Tor (long before he turned to necromancy and became a servant of the Lich King).

Besides which, the source of the destruction was of less import than its result: thunder lizards were now roaming unfettered through Drygulch, and possibly beyond. Jaina needed to find a remote place to relocate them where they wouldn't rampage all over the farms and cities the orcs had built here.

Reaching under her cloak, she pulled out the map, one of two items she had taken off the mess on her desk. She had decided upon the Bladescar Highlands as the ideal place to relocate the lizards. Located in the southern portion of Durotar, due east of Ratchet, the highlands were remote, separated from the rest of Durotar by mountains that the thunder lizards would be hard—pressed to navigate. Plus, the region had plenty of grasslands for them to graze, room for them to stampede to their heart's content, and a mountain stream that was almost as big as the river they had use of in Thunder Ridge. The lizards would be safe, and so would the population of Durotar.

Her initial thought was to move them even farther away—say to Feralas on the other side of the continent—but even Jaina's abilities had their limits. She could teleport herself there easily enough, but herself and hundreds of thunder lizards was more than even she could handle over such a distance.

She then removed the other item from her cloak—a scroll containing a spell that would enable her to sense the mind of any thunder lizard on the continent. She spoke the incantation and then cast her senses outward. Unlike most reptiles, thunder lizards had a herd mentality akin to that of cattle, so most of them had stayed together even as they departed their home. Sure enough, she found the bulk of them milling around the river that fed Drygulch Ravine. They were in a docile phase right now, which simplified Jaina's life considerably. She was prepared to magically put them into such a phase if need be. Thunder lizards were either docile or stampeding—they didn't really have much of a middle ground, and teleporting them while stampeding would be a good deal more problematic. Still, she preferred not to disturb the animals' routine any more than necessary, so she was glad they were in the more cooperative mode.

For a caster to include anyone but herself in the teleportation spell required line of sight—at least, according to most scrolls one would find on the subject. However, Antonidas had told Jaina that one could also do it if one was in what he called "line of mind." It required the mage to reach out and touch the thoughts of whomever she wished to teleport. This was a lot riskier, as there were many whose minds were difficult or dangerous to touch. Other mages and demons generally had protections against such things, and even someone particularly strong—willed would probably be able to resist.

No such impediment existed with the thunder lizards, however. Right now, their minds were focused on one of three things: eating, drinking, or sleeping. In addition to running very fast, those activities were generally all that occupied a thunder lizard's mind, except during mating season.

Still and all, it took several hours for Jaina, standing in the razed forest, to reach out with her mind to each thunder lizard in Drygulch, as well as the stragglers that had wandered off toward Razor Hill.

Grass. Water. Eyes close. Rest. Lap up. Chew. Swallow. Sip. Sleep. Breathe.

For a moment, she was almost lost—true, the lizards' thought patterns weren't complex, but there were hundreds of them, and she found herself overwhelmed by their instinctive need to eat and drink and sleep.

Gritting her teeth, she reasserted her own self over that of hundreds of thunder lizards. She then started to mutter the incantation for the teleport spell.

Pain! Searing white—hot agony sliced through Jaina's skull as soon as she uttered the final syllable of the spell. The ruined forest melted before her and then slammed back into form immediately. A milder pain shot through Jaina's left knee, and only then did she realize that she had stumbled to the ground, her knee colliding with the nearest stump.

Pain. Hurt. Hurt. Hurt. Run. Run. Run. Run. No more pain. Run, no pain.

Sweat beading on her forehead, Jaina resisted the urge to start running through the forest. Something happened to the teleport spell, but Jaina couldn't take the time to find out what just yet, because the pain she felt when the spell was ruined was transferred to the thunder lizards via their mental link. It was serving to put them into a stampeding frame of mind, and she had to stop them before they ran through Drygulch again.