Deep withiemperate pine forest of Grizzly Hills, a massive predatory creature of legend awakened. Its pierg golden eyes trasted sharply with its bluish fur, glowing softly in the dimly lit den.

  A most unusual den for a most unusual bear; books and part were ly stored in the carved stone wall of the caverones served as light sources while curated pelts and hides of various beasts covered the ground.

  Wooden pilrs, totems, and sculptures of bears reinforced the artificial cavern's structure. They thrummed with the a powers of the spirits and elements for one gifted i of shamanism, druidism, or even the less world-attuned magic.

  This creature was the owner of this cavern, Ursol, and as he stood up, the sound of his armors clig together echoed. It was his den, made and hidden by the elemental spirits to those uninvited. Stretg shortly, he began to move out, power and grace behind every movement.

  Yet it was only an alternative until his twin brother Ursoc walked once again upon the world of the living. Their shared den was seated atop one of the highest hills of Grizzly Hill, bringing a pain too sharp for him to rest within, as such, his preference for this den.

  The Wise Bear was rarely seen sihis fateful day, the Great Sundering, the end of the War of the As, when Kalimdor shattered, as was his brotherly bond.

  The temporary nature of the matter and unicatioween them wasn't impossible–though taxing for his brother's recovery–ged little. The pain and sight of it all were carved into his soul.

  It had diminished his iion with the outside beyond the y to feed and occasionally listen to the spirits about the occurrence of the wider world or the likeness.

  But today was different. Ursol was troubled by the information he was given half an ho by a peculiar furbolg. It echoed in his mind with growing urgency as he pondered on them and the one who spoke them.

  An urgency that he now knew why this cub had shown from the first instances of awareness. A young male furbolg iransitional phase to adulthood, the Wild God had found himself most intrigued by.

  It was a rather exceptional feat sidering his state of mind in his reclusion, no matter that it had signifitly ameliorated as of st.

  Ohto of the Greenweald had always been a unique one, his iion with him only firming it with how dired unfling the youngling had been. To an i degree for some, Ursol reed. A characteristic that amused him and caused great mencholy.

  'Brother...' He shook his head. That wasn't the matter.

  To have gaihe attention of the Bear Lord of Wisdom meant it was a given that Ohto wouldn't be normal beyond the luck of having been spotted by him at the right moment.

  He stood out like a sore thumb. The two most strikiures were his mental faculties and drive fress and development far beyond any Ursol had seen for a furbolg cub or adult. While not unpreted, it was rare, a theme the young one was intrinsically tied to.

  The non-negligible magical talent Ohto possessed and ko nurture only added to his previous qualities.

  Showing the affinities in seemingly diametrically opposite paths of life–a statement that couldn't be further from the truth–only added. It was rare for this fringe branch of furbolg to e ience, even rarer for a furbolg the age of Ohto. Generally, less than a dozeed at once.

  It was far from being an unknown phenomenon.

  Usually, it was not excessively the product of noble goals. It was the result of bored or curious ursa totemic–primarily of advanced age, shamans as well could, but it was even more unon–with the necessary affinity requesting to be taught to the shamans and the aral spirits gave their approval.

  As, it didn't go far in the majority, but when they put effort and mastered both aspects of themselves… They were seen as the epitome of might, honor, and wisdom for any furbolg.

  If the traits from before weren't suffit to pick the Wise Bear's i, that was more than enough. But that wasn't all. The oddness of this cub was in yers, like the bulb of an allium.

  Then came one of Ohto's most intriguiures: if there were doubts about his identity in body, mind, and soul as a furbolg, if unique. Ursol would have assumed he was a green dragon with some blood of a red dragon masquerading as a member of the Greenweald tribe.

  But it wasn't so. Ohto wasn't the mortal guise of some foolish dragon; it was improbable as it implicated the murder of a cub, a child, a heretical act for the ones of ruby and emerald scales.

  Even if it were the case, dragons, no matter their flight, would have been spotted in short order if they had not been ho about their purpose from the beginning. Their smells would have betrayed their guises, and if not, the spirits would have known and informed the shamans if they hadn't sehe false nature first.

  Furbolgs were extremely sensitive.

  What followed would depend heavily. But any overfident dragons would prehend how mortal they were for o agonizing moment.

  Furbolgs reacted strongly, quickly, and viciously to threats, all in particur to the kind that were apex predators, having shown magical abilities and a taste for deceit. And the dragons weren't the only oo have learhe hard way.

  Either way, it couldn't be a member of the Red Dragonflight; the slivers of Life energies suffusing the cub were too distinct, urained, and of the wrong ratio to be mistaken for theirs.

  It was g iain aspects and greater in others.

  If there were a word Ursol would use to describe it, it would be that it was raw and urained if not for Nature as a buffer.

  As such, it was evideher was Ohto blessed by their Queen beyond the ck of any draic traits one should have if it were the case.

  The Bear A didn't know how this came to be, but he had ideas, one of which he was strongly veering toward. One built on the ce of a mutation happening to the cub at ception, but instead of making spots on his fur, it altered his e to the Emerald Dream.

  Or so he assumed. There was a vague familiarity to the Rift of Aln and other such abyssal ers of the Emerald Dream where primordial energies ran rampant.

  There was also a very faint trace of Death–a part of nature born from possible plications iion–but it was extremely subtle. It was likely why he had a great affinity to the spirits and was stable–more or less, there wasn't an average–with Life and Nature.

  It was a miracle.

  Be that it may, it wouldn't be the first case of such happening, even if not specifically this; evolution was taking its course, slow or fast, little . If it was that, it remaio be firmed, but it was undoubtedly a wele y.

  It was something not to btantly ignore, for it had and would have more repercussions, more than uniquely colored eyes. Magic always and without fault influehe individual. Life was not as banced or trolled as Nature, the sed a facet of the first ging little.

  From all of these points, the cub's potential piqued Ursol's endless curiosity. He wondered what this promising young furbolg might bee as he matured. He was already one of the most skilled healers Ursol had entered; his unventional path intrigued the Bear Lord further, and there always seemed to be more.

  But it wasn't enough for him to envision the worst and put his snout where it would infringe boundaries. Though it had been a long time since he took on a student–the War of the As–this cub was a mighty ving aing teo put ao that hiatus permaly.

  It was also a way to vehe expnation of Ohto's visions… not that the need for a reason was strictly required.

  There wasn't any absolute metheneral sistency regarding seeing. Innumerable reasons could lead to a vision not only in images, as its name wrongly suggested.

  They could be tered on memory fragments, smell, sound, information, imagery, etc. They also weren't solely about the future or were linear or plete. If nothing else, they were anarchid, ireme circumstances, dangerous for evero-willed.

  It was important to listen to them and try to uand their multifaceted nuances without blindly trusting them, metaphorical and literal retelling alike. Uanding a seer's mind was also vital to avoid tragedy.

  And it wasn't only the visions the young ursa totemic gave that preoccupied the Bear A. The demand for fidentiality was close behind; there wasn't anything crete to clude from, but it was abnormal.

  If it was a valid fear Ohto had reted to beings threatening his life or an ued quirk of his personality, Ursol was uain, and ultimately, it ged little. He would honor the request in both cases if it's the former… there would be problems with the dangers iion. To ask at a ter time, he presumed.

  Speaking of…

  "The Burning Legion…" He growled, his eyes shining like two golden stars. Rage barely began to describe the eternal firestorm of hate in his heart. They were the oo have robbed him of his twin, cursing his brother, slowing down a new life all Wild Gods had if their physical shell succumbed.

  However, the matters reting to the sed demonivasion were less pressing to Ursol than what was said afterward. The World Tree, Andrassil… A souruch emotion, anger, shame, a, none of use in the present but to fuel his desire not to it the same mistake. A painful mistake and lesson of nearly five millennia ago, this mispced trust in the great wisdom of the arion Circle's archdruids led to the bloom of the Emerald Nightmare.

  An error in judgment or bad luck, the results were the same: catastrophid eversting, and the bme did fall on his shoulder, having allowed it in his territory.

  Scowling at the memories, the Bear of Wisdom ran, his mighty faining in speed as he called the wind to carry him, only stopping when at the approag sight of the carcass of Andrassil, the Broken , what remained of the World Tree after its destru.

  There was something… something in the air, in every root and every rock.

  An unnatural peculiarity that only now Ursol noticed or truly paid attention to, but it hadn't been millennia since he walked here beyond mindlessly passing by. It wasn't there before, not even in the past; it was ret and discreet.

  "Strange…" He muttered from his vantage point. His eyes narrowed as he solicited the elemental spirits of fire, air, water, ah to share their senses with him. The response was mild, surprising as it wasn't from his less-than-ideal state of mind but from the feeling of the nd itself. But they did assist him to see beyond what ossible with his body alone.

  And what he felt through senses, not of his own, erplexing with this new line of thought born of the ss given by the cub. Only reinf his initial impression.

  It was something insidious, meticulous in its deceitful method, that resided in the nd. Something Bear Lord admits he wouldn't have remarked until it was too te, far too te. It was a definite mark from the Old Gods' presence festering like cer, ravenously vioting the wild, life, and nature as it did so long ago.

  It was wrong on a fual level. The lo went, the worse the sensation became. It whispered to the Wild God to go on and ighe unnaturalness, yet the strohe voices tried, the less they worked as the traces of darkness grew brighter. More evident and gring. He couldn't be easily swayed.

  But the World Tree's profound wrongness wasn't the only abnormality Ursol remarked, to his growing horror and guilt of his a mistake. The furbolgs were severely agitated. There was tensioweewo main tribes.

  He had heard of it through the spirits of dead local furbolgs and shamans, yet they were fn to lying and wouldn't fathom doing so to him if they could. It didn't mean what they would retell in unbridled hoy was the unbiased truth.

  He also learned of their dreams to revive his brother or more tha as an admirable fancy. It was exceptionally well hidden, suspiciously so—another aspect Ursol wouldn't have paid much mind to until now.

  A bloody war would eventually break out between the Frostpaw and Redfang and the smaller tribes and scattered s if it tinued like this.

  Yet another point the Wise Bear wouldn't have seen necessary to intervene; flid violence were part of life, but the situation here was everything but natural.

  The furbolgs had built Grizzlemaw and called it home for millennia, and peace had reigned here for just as long. The premise of war was inceivable as evidence for the rising hostilities was not only absent but ent.

  It was from a foe they could instinctively sehat was destabilizing their home, the hearth of their existence, from its very roots. Yet a foe they did not see and uand. And they were powerless to stop their souls, minds, and bodies. fusion, fear, and anger rose, and if not stopped, so would the point of urn, madness, where the fall to darkness only began.

  'This must be stopped.' The Bear A vowed.

  If his brother's tragic fate foreseen in maddening corruption was a reality or not, immediate aust be taken. The Wild God wao act immediately to avoid further perversion, to protect the ignorant furbolgs of this eternal corpse bringer of damnation who have unknowingly called it home.

  But rationality brought by his age eclipsed his righteous fury. He would not risk falling into corruption himself, no matter how slim the ce. Strategizing was required. It was the voices again, he growled.

  He would o inform Orrson and Kodian, his nephews, on his grim discovery and pn accly with them for the immediate furbolgs exodus from Grizzlemaw, which housed nearly half of the region's total popution, and healing of the victims in need.

  Only then could the problem of Vordrassil begin to be addressed, and he would se this unsightly taint off his territory with a vengeance rarely knew he was capable of. He rofoundly angry.

  Then there was the rest of what Ohto had revealed and was yet to disclose to Ursol's joy and dread. It was a time of ge; the violent and dreadful magical ripple of ret years that had awoken him from hibernation was merely an annou.

  The_Bip_Boop2003

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  [colpse]