Hellfire Peninsula

The distant sun filtered cool and distorted through the nether bands streaming across the sky. It was just after nightfall on what remained of Draenor, and the three closest planetoids loomed darkly behind broken, floating bits of the landscape. If she had not known this planet before the breaking, she might think it was pretty. Now it just made her sick, a feeling which grew as she descended the enormous staging platform. Azerothian forces, Horde and Alliance both, held the demonic forces back.

 Miria reached down and put her hand on Naru's shoulders. The blighted landscape rolled out from the foot of the stair – it looked like a raging wildfire had swept the land clean of all life, leaving nothing but cracked, red rock in its wake.

 "They're making a push! Rally!" A nearby Vindicator – a draenei paladin – surrounded by a squad of Stormwind soldiers and Darnassian Sentinels charged past Miria and down the stairs, meeting two massive infernals and four felguards head on. Miria ran to the edge of the steps and pulled back her bowstring. Naru charged in with Miria's first shot whistling over her head. Horde forces joined them at the foot of the stairs, beating back the onslaught with single-minded efficiency. Miria stood with the Sentinels and mages at the top of the stairs, raining arcane arrows on the demons below.

 Together, they made short work of the enemy. The Vindicator turned away from the horde commander and led his forces back to the relative safety at the top of the stair. "Well done," he boomed. "Welcome back to our lands, sister in the Light."

 Miria whistled, calling Naru back from the stair. She would have gone charging into enemy lines to challenge the pit commander if Miria didn't stop her. She turned to the paladin and put her hand on Naru's back again. It steadied her. "My brother told me the Legion was beaten," she said, shifting from hoof to hoof awkwardly.

 He laughed, stamping one hoof and slapping his knee. "That rabble? They try and breech the portal because they know their commanders have abandoned them. They won't break through our defenses. I am Justinius, in command of the Stair of Destiny forces."

 "Miria. I came back to see where I can make myself useful." Despite his efforts to make light of the eredar, they were there. Miria couldn't take her eyes off their forces gathered at the foot of the Stair.

"This is the first time you have returned," Justinius said. The eyebrows under his bony ridge of horns were scrunched together in concern. "Do not worry, the peninsula and Shadowmoon are their last great strongholds, and we are slowly diminishing their control over both."

Miria nodded mutely. She could feel a lump rising in her throat as she looked out over the land. This was not the planet she'd grown up loving – this was a broken shell of the place she once called home. With difficulty, she swallowed and took a deep breath, forcing her voice to remain steady. "Where-" despite her best efforts, she still sounded choked up- "where do you need the most help?"

"You should check in at Honor Hold first," Justinius said. "That is where our force commander is. Tell him I have sent you as reinforcements. You cannot ride there, not while the pit lord is here attempting to take the Stair. Take a gryphon – and at your soonest opportunity, you should get flight training."

"Flight training?"

"The Legion and the Fel Orcs are the least or our worries, now – we have naga, ogres, blood elves, rogue ethereals, Lost Ones... an elekk alone will not keep you safe here. You must learn to summon and manage your own gryphon."

For a brief moment, excitement overshadowed the persistent feeling of grief over the state of her home. Her own gryphon? Miria had only ridden flight master's gryphons, extremely well-trained beasts that nevertheless only flew along their prescribed path. They took the safest path between two points, not the fastest. It helped them avoid Horde settlements where the guards were likely to try and fire on them. Miria always thought they were more intelligent than most other creatures used for mounts.

Naru was not pleased that her fun had been cut short to chase a gryphon across the cold, starlit desert. Miria kept her eyes on the ground, watching the bear lope along behind them. She also made a mental note of every battle-scarred ruin and pool of fel taint, a brooding anger rising in her chest. Orcs had done this to the land – fel orcs, yes, but who was to say the orcs that lived freely on Azeroth were much different? They enjoyed a truce now, but what would come in the future? The Northrend campaign couldn't last forever.

She was so lost in thought when she touched down in Honor Hold that she barely noticed Naru shoving the guards aside to catch up with her. In a daze, she wandered into the inn. The red land looked like Draenor itself was injured and bleeding. The walls of Honor Hold's keep were scorched and scarred – it looked like it had been bombarded from above. Before she stepped through the portal, she thought visiting her homeland might help her find the place she felt she'd lost so long ago. Now she just felt heartsick and exhausted. She paid for a room and trudged upstairs, barely managing to strip her mail off before falling into the bed and a fitful sleep.

"In the name of the Light!"

Miria struggled out of the deep well of sleep, feeling like her eyes were glued shut. Someone was shouting nearby – praying, it sounded like. Another voice was laughing, not with mirth, but with amoral delight that sent chills shuddering up Miria's spine. Underneath it all was a persistent chattering wail.

"I see your ancestors, Anchorite! They writhe and scream in the darkness... they are with us!"

Miria sat bolt upright, sheets tumbling off her shoulders. She released a shot from her bow before she realized that the sudden movement she fired at was a chattering skull wreathed in shadow and flame. She kicked her way out of the bed and dashed across the hall, heedless of her state of undress.

A human in dark robes stood in the doorway to the room across the hall, his hand outstretched, funneling energy from the ghastly apparitions in neon purple streamers. She nudged him to the side with her drawn bow and his eyes snapped to her. He had a close-cropped beard that framed the dark, amused smile on his face. It was bright, brassy red like his long hair, which he kept in a high tail.

"I thought you might sleep through all the fun," he said. The skull he was draining clattered lifelessly to the floor and he shifted his arm, pointing at a new target. The purple energy drain began again.

In the center of the room, floating above the bed and emitting streamers of vile black energy, was another human in plate armor. Facing him with his hands raised was a stocky draenei holding prayer beads. "Be cleansed with the Light, human!" he shouted. "Let not the demonic corruption overwhelm you."

Possession, Miria thought. She released her bowstring, laying an explosive shot on one demon skull and shifting her aim to the next. As she fired, she was aware of the man beside her, his smile firmly fixed on his face and a spark of cruel interest in his eyes as more and more blackness poured from the unfortunate soul on the bed.

"Back!" the draenei priest shouted again, raising his prayer beads and shaking them at the possessed human. "I cast you back... corruptor of faith! Author of pain! Do not return, or suffer the same fate as you did today!"

With that, a brilliant white flash lit up the room and the wailing shriek cut off like it had been sheared with a knife. The possessed man hit the bed with a muffled thump that rattled the floorboards and the caster tucked his hands in his sleeves with a quiet hmmph like someone had ruined his fun.

"I suppose I owe you an apology," the priest said, supporting himself on the foot of the bed.

"Don't bother," the human in robes said. He gestured to a dark corner of the room, and a piece of shadow detached itself from the wall. Miria had her bow ready before her mind caught up with her – that was a demon, a creature of shadow called a Voidwalker. However, it responded to the man's call, which meant...

"Warlock," she said flatly, relaxing her taut bowstring slowly. "What are you doing here?"

"Diplomacy, young one," the priest said before the warlock could respond. He was tending to the man on the bed, who still hadn't regained consciousness. Miria wasn't surprised. "This warlock just saved Colonel Jules' soul and cast the darkness within him back to where it came."

Miria shifted uncomfortably from one hoof to the other. The warlock regarded her with a silent smirk, and then waved his hand, dismissing the Voidwalker, who faded away into the ether until he was called again. Naru came snuffling into the room a moment later, nosing the lifeless skulls and sniffing the smoking magical residue. Miria put her hands on her hips. "You massive, lazy thing," she said, scolding Naru to keep from having to speak with the warlock. "You couldn't come in here when there was work to be done, I suppose."

"Hunter – are you just that good, that you don't need your beast or your gear? You must be exceptionally brave. Or stupid." A speculative gleam came into the warlock's eye that Miria did not like in the least.

"There was no time to get dressed," she said stiffly. "I heard shouting."

"By all means," the human said with a mocking bow, gesturing to the opposite doorway. "I can't imagine what we would have done without your expert help."

Miria's cheeks flushed dark blue and she stomped into her room, her hooves clopping against the wood planks. That was the second time within a few days she'd assisted someone decidedly ungrateful for the help. She buckled her armor on with vicious tugs to the buckles, trusting the Ironforge dwarves' work to stand up to her temper. She strapped on her belt, and with it her map, enchanted bags and skinning knife.

She stepped out of her room face to face with a felguard, and had her bow off her back again in a flash. Shrill laughter startled her into swinging her aim around until, looking down her sight, she found the human warlock smirking at her.

"Don't do that!" she said. "Why are you even still here?"

"I have the room next door," the warlock said, never losing his smirk. "I am Kaster-clan-Raven; warlock, herbalist and alchemist. My minions do my bidding."

"They are sentient beings bound by magic," Miria snapped. "One day you will find that eredar are not so easily tamed."

"Feeling some kinship for your fallen ancestors?" Kaster asked. His felguard chuckled – it held a disturbing echo that reminded her of death knights.

"No," Miria said, pointedly staring at the felguard. "I am sure you had your own reasons for helping the priest with that exorcism-"

"Why waste perfectly good demon souls when these are so hard to come by?" Kaster asked, casually flipping a glinting purple gem in his hand. Miria felt her stomach lurch. She'd heard that warlocks drained the souls of their victims and trapped them in gemstones to fuel their dark magic, but she'd never seen one for herself. She shouldered past the warlock to the stairs, suddenly desperate to get away from his company.

"Welcome to Outland, draenei!" Kaster shouted after her, and his felguard's cruel laughter followed her down the stairs.