“It does, however, slow those who would unleash the problem.” The elder pandaren drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “What I will show you has been passed from Shado-pan lord to lord, extending back to a time before the Shado-pan existed. I can show you only what I have been shown. I do not know if the fears and biases of my predecessors have shaded things. I do not know what has been forgotten or embellished. What I will share with you I have done so with no monks.”
His paws appeared again at his waist, then spread apart. Dark balls of energy crackled in the palm of each. He held one low and one high, both off to the side. A window radiating golden light appeared in the space between them. Within that window images began to move.
“This area is hidden within the Tu Shen Burial Ground. The Thunder King—the first mogu tyrant and the one with whom your Zandalari treated back in the dawn of time—had under him a circle of trusted retainers. His warlords were slain as their master was dying—perhaps to forestall their usurping his throne and plunging the empire into civil war. We do not know. What we do know is that there is a belief among the mogu that death is not always final and that the dead, or parts thereof, can be revivified for later use. I would guess this is the purpose for their invasion of the vale.”
Vol’jin peered closely, catching sight for the first time of a mogu—instead of just sensing them as he had in the cave. His mouth went dry and his throat began to ache. Taller than even a Zandalari, thickly thewed and merciless of expression, the mogu warriors might have been carved from a basalt dolmen. Vol’jin granted, as Taran Zhu warned, that memory might have made them more fearsome than reality. Even so, to reduce them by half would still make them formidable.
In the vision, they strode across Pandaria, using sword and fire to extend their dominion over subject peoples. The pandaren were reduced to a race of slaves. The lucky ones clowned enough to entertain their mogu masters. Those pandaren lived in stone palaces, and their lives knew relative luxury. But that luxury ended when a joke offended and only the snapping of a spine or the popped removal of a head could inspire more mogu laughter.
The vision shifted for a moment, and Vol’jin’s stomach knotted. He was back in the cave where he died, but it was more than a wet, moldy place covered in bat guano. Mogu sorcerers worked within. Clutches of lizard eggs, crocolisk, perhaps—Vol’jin couldn’t tell, but it hardly mattered—were sorted and buried in sands warmed through magic to very precise temperatures. And then when the creatures hatched, they were conveyed to another part of what the troll now recognized to be a rookery.
There, in the chamber where he died, the mogu touched the magic he’d felt. Titan magic. The magic that had shaped the world. In that place, mortals worked with the stuff of divinity to take simple creatures and transform them into the saurok. They used the lizard people as surrogate troops to maintain their empire, allowing the mogu to enjoy the fruits of their conquest.
The process was terrible to watch, yet Vol’jin could not look away. Bones snapped and stretched. Joints reset themselves and muscles ripped. As they grew back together, angles reorganized to provide more power. The saurok stood tall. Fingers grew and thumbs shifted. From lizard to scaled warrior in a matter of minutes—a testament less to the skill of the mogu than to the sheer power of the magics with which they played.
The troll shivered. Did the titan magic staining that place make it so I not be dying? The moment the thought occurred to him, he wanted to laugh. It would be just like Garrosh to plan his murder in the one place it could not possibly happen.
Laughter caught in his throat as the scene shifted again, to one of fire and blood, much darker than the conquest. The skies darkened over. Red lightning flowed from above like lava and splashed over the landscape. Magic warped reality as monks cast down their mogu overlords. Monks led the fight for freedom and valiantly won the day.
In the aftermath of the mogu empire’s fall, as the skies grew lighter and blood drained from rivers and streams, the pandaren took up their slain enemies and entombed them in the Tu Shen Burial Ground. The respect they showed the mogu warlords surprised him. Had Vol’jin met Tyrathan on a battlefield and slain him, he’d have mounted the man’s head on a stick and posted it at a crossroads so travelers would know of his victory.
This be going back to their sense of balance. The fear and hatred be offset by respect. Vol’jin watched as the tombs were sealed, the clues were hidden, and the mists were raised to shroud Pandaria. That, too, is balance. The peace of camouflage—invisibility—versus war’s terror. Their kindness be for healing, just as the hiding be outta necessity.
As the vision faded, the troll met Taran Zhu’s gaze. “I be understanding, Lord Taran Zhu. I do not judge.”
“But you wish things were otherwise.”
“Things past counting. Wishing, however, be not winning battle.” Vol’jin pressed a finger to the Tu Shen region on the map. “People be living there, you said. What can they tell us?”
“Scant little. They are largely content and do not explore, nor do they communicate with outsiders. They are happily hidden in their paradise.” Taran Zhu smiled. “And those pandaren who were of the adventuring nature were encouraged to chase the turtle.”
Chen’s head came up. “So we would not disturb the tombs of mogu warlords and emperors.”
“You understand, Master Stormstout. Though some mogu survived, they never presented much of a threat. What little we knew of the Zandalari came from the mogu viewpoint. They understated the power of the Zandalari. We labored under the belief that no one had the ability or desire to resurrect the mogu. It would appear that your Zandalari have taken steps to do so. They removed the Thunder King from his tomb, and…”
The man folded his arms over his chest. “. . . now they’re going back for the Thunder King’s warlords?”
“They amplify his will and his power.”
The Thunder King be seeing them the same as Garrosh does the leaders of the Horde’s other contingents. Vol’jin nodded. “So, then, it be logical to be thinking two things. The reestablishment of his reign be the first goal for the Thunder King.”
Chen shook his head. “That would be bad for Pandaria.”
“Yeah. Folks here may have forgotten him after putting him in the grave, but I doubt time in the tomb has dulled his memory.” The man sighed. “The second thing is to stop a Zandalari invasion force from getting to the burial ground.”
“No,” said Vol’jin, “stop them from resurrecting the warlords. Likely there be only a few individuals strong enough for the summoning.”
Tyrathan nodded curtly. “Got it. Kill them… .”
“Killing a portion of them gonna work, I be thinking.” Vol’jin looked at Taran Zhu. “And your priorities gonna be to prepare Pandaria to resist the mogu. How many monks do you have for doing that?”
“A hundred, almost half of whom I have dispatched to the provinces to begin to organize. Logistics. Some training. But these are not the monks to whom you refer.” The pandaren lifted his chin. “Of the sort you mean, of the lethal kind, including the three of you and myself, I have fifty.”
“Half a hundred to be stopping a Zandalari invasion and sending a millennia-old mogu tyrant back to the grave.” Vol’jin nodded slowly. “To be dealing with the burial ground, I’ll need seven. Now let’s be figuring out what you’ll be doing with the rest while we’re gone.”
“This be not pleasing me, Captain Nir’zan.” The fact that the troll lay prostrate on the ground before Khal’ak did not have the usual mollifying effect on her spirit. “I be believin’ you wish praise for having determined dat the man who killed a party of scouts was da same who fought here in Zouchin. You might be understanding that I would prefer to know he be dead, not that he continues to fight.”