The young druid looked out over the scorched gray desert. There was no blazing sun like most deserts but the heat and drought made it one. This desert had no colors, only black and shades of gray. It was dark as night and only the broken, charred and ashen remnants of the thousands of trees once belonging to a long gone forest remained. Of the once tall forest nothing taller than his shoulders remained. Most was beneath his waist. Despite the flatness of this desert there was the surreal feeling of no wind. Not a single breeze.

He turned his gaze up towards the heavy clouds blackening the sky. They were coal black with only a few gray springs to reveal that there was indeed still a sun somewhere above. Everything was so damply illuminated by the little shadowless light who managed to penetrate the clouds that even the nocturnal eyes of a night elf could barely see anything at all. Now and then a lightning spread out along the belly of the clouds, flashing the landscape with bright light and horrid shadows followed by a trembling thunder.

Rohrin was sure something prowled upon him. It was a deep grown instinct which has served him well in his soon four centuries old life. He swiftly lowered himself into the mix of dust, sand and ash that blanketed the ground and pushed himself against the crusty surface of a former log. He spied out over it. He tried to see what was out there. At least during the split seconds of lightning. He spotted was shadows of something but couldn't see the creatures themselves. They were tall creatures with arms reaching to the ground and long pointy fingers, likely claws. They knew where he was and he didn't want to greet the horrors up close. He made a sudden run for it. Transforming into a black panther as he turned. Few things could catch him like this.

He ran as fast as he could for hours. Yet he couldn't shake them. The dry hot air burning his throat and the dusk filling his lungs. He ran exhausted and pained but he had learned to use the terror he felt to his advantage. It made him keep running until he saw something chillingly familiar. A black, but otherwise not changed, stature standing in the dust with razed stone pillars in a circle around it.

The shrine of Aessina.

He stopped. There was no longer any point to resist. The shadows gathered around him. He now saw that the creatures were nothing but shadows. Something unseen and nefarious. Rohrin sighed as he started to remember all of this. He was dreaming and he had dreamed like this many times before. He looked at his black-skinned hands, adorned with numerous demonic sigils and runes, for confirmation. As all came back to him he knew that shadows never wanted to hurt him. They only sought to attend to their master. As he calmed, so did they. Rohrin closed his eyes and lowered his head with another, deeper, sigh.

He stood alone with them in a burned out world and waited to wake up.