Tonight, actions were orchestrated with a complete understanding of the myriad possible results. Time had not been wasted planning; Fandral had made sure of it.
Tyrande Whisperwind's late arrival and subsequent dispute with him had been predicted and expected.
Or so the general idea went, and it would have had the goal to make her see the righteousness of his actions by even a little. A crack was all the Archdruid needed on the bastion of her belief.
The cost to Undrassil was evidently omitted, as it was a secret that only the most loyal could know. The explanation would be in no way intentional, a mistake born of urgency and nothing malicious.
It didn't matter if she was entirely convinced. She would naturally be fuming and with wounded pride. But she would listen, and the disagreement of her people slapped in her face would ensure her compliance.
Once she softened up, his senile Shan'do would follow suit, even if he was reluctant to do so. This was how Malfurion was, and always would be: an emotional fool of the worst kind.
By all means, this part of the plan in a vacuum was beyond flimsy.
It was meant to coordinate with the strike force led by Leyara, which would respond to the prime target, Ohto, of the Greenweald's maddened aggression.
The furbolg would never open with discussion, but the night elf squad would and then act as foreseen. They couldn't be the attackers.
The mutated animal would have rushed headfirst without complex thoughts, as any creature enslaved to their primal instincts would. It was nature.
The goal was simple: to earn time. It had never been about winning the confrontation. That was never desired, if not straight-up impossible.
His daughter-in-law and her team would have dispersed among the caverns and played a game of cat and mouse, only far more brutal. Of course, among them, a scant few would have a full grasp of the whys.
Authenticity was a must-have.
Deaths were expected for that reason, yet martyrdom to the cause and irrefutable proof that there was an unstable rabid beast with mad experiments under their forest were both invaluable.
But that was secondary; they would have served as a distraction for Ashdrassil's growth and delayed the knowledge of the underground disaster spreading.
And to guarantee this last point unfolded as the ancient druid wished, some of his followers were sent to obstruct the message going to the High Priestess within the waking world.
Not that she wouldn't have been busy herself, drowned under paperwork.
The first signs of something going wrong in Staghelm's masterfully curated scheme were when the great flow of energies in the World Tree mellowed down far ahead of schedule.
The furbolgs' success in saving the inverted World Tree should have happened hours after, yet not even twenty minutes had passed when it was.
Instead, Ashdrassil's growth was forced down to a sluggish pace through knots and circuits in the roots, altering the purpose of the connection between it and its parent tree.
The long hours of waiting that came after, as he and the druids tended to the gargantuan sprout, were almost unbearable.
The High Priestess' arrival didn't differ from what the second strongest druid foresaw if off by half an hour more. His mind bathed in relief, but it was tinged with confusion.
Leyara had not sent her report to the sleeping druids settled nearby through the Emerald Dream. Their sole purpose was to intercept such things, but the role was vital.
Communication was key, and Ohto, for his faults, was innovative. And rarely, his creations were worth exploring. Fandral wasn't blinded by his loathing for the lost animal to not see it.
The female druid would never have forgotten unless something went horribly wrong. A cave-in was the leading hypothesis, but it could be anything.
The same chain of information had been formed for the papyrus message sent regarding the events in Hollowmaw. They were to be aware of when Tyrande would receive it.
Here, there were no apparent complications, and the report was given that the High Priestess received it with a considerable delay.
The information in the letter remained a mystery, however. Ancients of Lore were stubborn creatures, and not anyone had the credentials for the old tree to hand it. They wouldn't be tricked, either.
Yet there was no reason to panic. The papyrus couldn't have been from Ohto. It was too early. He would have to tend to the withering Undrassil.
As such, the message Tyrande read would likely be cryptic. That was without considering the last few points.
Ursol was foreseen to be a significant hurdle when he arrived, but with Tyrande and Ohto's bloodthirsty rampage, collaring the unruly furbolg would have been doable.
The Bear of Wisdom would have seen reason that the lesser Archdruid was sure of it.
Hollowmaw hadn't been void of spies, but it was impossible to sneak confidential information via papyrus without strong authority in the underground city.
Its mirror was heavily guarded in the Emerald Dream, and it was even more the case with the Dream Portal gateways.
Creating the stolon was from a faraway root and had been a difficult affair.
From the heart itself, any unknown or suspicious spirits, or worse, druids, would be spotted and questioned.
It was enough to know what he learned from the rest; his plans had gone askew.
None of this mattered anymore. The old hag was seemingly fully aware of what Fandral had done, and all points led to only one scenario from that.
But Fandral had long since learned to spread his risks. Alas, what he could have never done in millennia and out of his wildest imagination and grandest speculation was a bonafide Wild God.
The Wise Bear was on the continent of everlasting winter; it was assured he was there and not in Hollowmaw or anywhere on Kalimdor for Ashdrassil to grow and the fallback to be fruitful.
The heat of the moment would have made diplomacy virtually impossible, but even then, it would have been manageable. No, it was Ursoc, the Bear Lord of Might.
Fandral had never seen him in person; he was born decades after the Great Sundering, and the Mighty Bear was no more, physically speaking.
Be that as it may, the Ancient that emerged from the ground couldn't be mistaken for anything else: the titansteel gauntlet ending with blades, the fur marking, and the presence.
He was certainly smaller than he was said to be, but this was the supposedly dead Twin Bear. And 'dead' was the farthest from an appropriate description of Fandral's visceral dread.
His words of denial were asinine as they could be, the demonstration of might beating this single shining truth in the heart of all witnesses.
The fact that Fandral's flustered accusation wasn't wholly inaccurate was tragic and comic irony. Of the two, seeing this irony, only one was mildly amused by it.
Ohto wasn't, and he came out of the tunnel a few seconds after.
Mutated, he changed into a hybrid of flora and fauna that charged at him with claws and a wide-open maw. There wasn't any display of dominance, no roars, huffs, or the likes, only pure bestial rage.
One that was anything but mindless; it was unmistakably calm and methodical.
The skillful slash of a paw ending in long metallic claws no shorter than the kaldorei legs didn't come alone.
The snap of a jaw adorned with fangs and bite force capable of pulverizing armor and swallowing a sentinel whole came after.
From the half-plant furbolg wooden shoulders, biological mechanisms snapped, and bolts armed with seeds thirsting for flesh shot where Fandral was and where he would be.
Four major thorny vines, more muscle fiber than plant matter, accompanied by dozens of smaller ones, wildly whipped the air with resounding cracks.
The larger varieties were strong enough to crush him alive, and the smaller, numerous ones to ensnare and lacerate him.
If Staghelm were any lesser druid, that would have been his demise here and there. He was anything but weak or slow, however.
He had studied the bear in depth.
The battle prowess, the tricks–how many there were–and tactics. The results of druidic malpractice were new factors and, in many ways, advantages.
Ohto's use of his armor was unpolished, rough, barely practiced, even; in exchange, it was swifter and without delay. But speed without control was a much lesser threat than its opposite.
The vines were dangerous, but they hit themselves and the ground more than anything. The famed deadly accuracy of the crossbows became an imprecise series of salvoes.
Then, there was the distance to begin with.
Fandral dodged, his body morphing into a great eagle, starlight booming from his plumage, taking off most projectiles. And by the fact that they were seeds, it weakened, if not directly killed, their burgeoning cargo.
Raw Arcane energy was a poor shield choice, but it scarcely stopped the volley. Adding to this, he was weary from the ritual.
The night elf paid the price with two sharp stabbing pains on his lower back and right leg, tainting his golden brown plumage dark red.
His screech was piercing and rageful, more than pained; above him, silvery stars and ocean-blue light orbs shimmered into existence.
From it rained down Staghelm's own barrage, the concentrated beams snaked in the air, tearing through vines to aim at the raging beast's groin, kneecap, snout, eyes, and ears.
It did little else but serve to enrage the furbolg even more. Any Arcane explosion managing to dig through the bark reinforcement after repeated hits did surface-level burns, and scraps healed at an improbable speed.
Fandral wasn't surprised, yet he was infuriated by the ineffectiveness of his hasty retribution. Such an attack would have ripped to fleshy ribbons a tauren.
Yet, unlike whatever matter of creature Ohto had taken the form of, he saw things for what they were.
Worse, he caught sight of a small army of furbolgs, kobolds, taurens, and even traitorous kaldorei pouring forth like an endless tide of fur and claws.
Two-thirds came from new tunnels around Ashdrassil, encircling everyone in a barrier of bodies and from where Ursoc initially broke through.
At the head of this last group was a small round-ish furbolg of stark white and pure black; the name came to his mind.
Chen Stormstout.
A pandaren with far too much curiosity and not enough respect for his betters.
His focus was brought back by Ohto on the ground, whose glare somehow made his heart hammer in his chest, and where he was shot, unpleasant tingling spread like wildfire on dry grass.
'Poison… a potent one… what kind?' He realized why he was starting to feel sluggish there, but it could be tended to later.
His magic pulsed, verdant green energies coiling around the wound as a temporary solution.
Petty tricks wouldn't be his downfall.
"Fallback! Fight and kill if you must! To the sky and trees! Disperse, hide, climb, and fly! Let's not let our effort be in vain!" Fandral bellowed as he ascended higher, his voice echoing far and wide.
It wasn't aimed at all; he gathered tonight only his faithful followers and those willing to exacerbate the conflict.
Panic and fear were already deep into the bones of the majority, and few to none were willing to sacrifice themselves in a lost battle.
It hardly differed for the second strongest druid; the fight was lost. Ursoc and Ohto, who now had an army, made it clear that there was no hope for victory.
He needed to retreat immediately, gather every scrap of resources, destroy every evidence, inform as many loyalists as possible, and protect his granddaughter.
'Faste-' His mind sputtered from a blinding pain that tore through his left shoulder socket where now poking was an arrow of immaculate silver and divine moonlight, making the blood stand out all the more.
He screamed; it came out as a loud caw, leaving his beak. He flapped his good wing and beat down the agony with stubbornness and force of will, repeating the process with the maimed one.
The attempt to fly was in vain; muscles, tendons, and ligaments were severed, rendering the limb useless. The shot was perfectly done, locking in place the shoulder like a lock.
Staghelm could stop the bleeding and reattach some of the tissues, but the arrow remained, and it wasn't breakable wood.
He didn't have the time for any operation of that magnitude from the beginning.
Gravity called, and his body answered while his mind reeled, stunned by the High Priestess' traitorous attack against the kaldorei future.
The lesser Archdruid saw her somber expression, and rage filled his heart. She had done it, and he would answer in kind. Any rationality remaining was long since gone.
He understood that this was his end.
He would not falter, cower, or cry. Hailed as the hero of the War of the Shifting Sand and Scourge of the Silithid, his end was imminent, and he refused to give the tiniest satisfaction of fear and regret.
He wouldn't be spared, no matter what.
If by some kind of miracle, he was, death would never come, and his fate would be that of a tortured host for foul experiments. Whatever the twisted mind of Ohto could fathom was a possibility.
It left him no choice but to shift back to his kaldorei body, resulting in the arrow moving along the way, causing even greater damage and burning pain.
The second strongest druid ignored it.
The air surrounding him glowed. In an instant, it was blinding, his clothes burning and melting into his blistering skin, blistering from the sheer energy density.
"I'm sorry, Istaria, it is my time to meet my so-" Fandral was never able to finish his last prayer.
Immaculately sharp metallic talons impaled him from the front, bark-armored bloodwing bat slamming him against the World Tree with enough force to form splinter webs.
His spine was shattered, his ribcage was crushed, and his lungs were shredded in a single moment.
His spell broke as his concentration flickered, drowned in white hot mind-numbing agony. The raw Arcane energies freed and dissipated harmlessly in the environment.
Yet he lived. He lived long enough to be eye to eye with his murderer back in his original form.
Golden eyes locked on golden eyes, a pair burning with the wrath of the sun and the second with spiteful resignation veiled.
Their hatred was shared so deeply and brightly that it was deeper than any bond. Ohto of the Greenweald bellowed, saliva flying in thick rivulets as the air quaked from his primal roar.
His muzzle opened obscenely wide, and a dark, wet, cavernous maw of forty-two teeth was the last sight of Fandral Staghelm before there was pain beyond anything he knew, then absolute nothingness.
*
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