Rainbow and Elylia found that neither Oculeth or Valtrois needed assistance for the most part, especially since they had all of the other heroes to fall back on if they needed help with their work, to which they waited near the entrance of Shal'Aran and waited for Thalyssra to return and inform them of what else they needed to do before they truly started to plan out what the rebellion needed to do so they could stand a chance against Elisande and her forces, which included Gul'dan and his demonic allies, who had joined the Nightborne in patrolling the city. During their wait Rainbow found that Spitfire was able to return to them without delay, meaning that the meeting she had been called upon to attend had been rather short in the grand scheme of things, even though it likely took her and the other leaders an hour or so to come to a decision on whatever topic they wanted to talk about, and once she came to a stop Spitfire informed Rainbow and the other heroes that Gallywix wanted an absurd amount of gold before delivering a shipment of supplies to Dalaran, to be delivered to the heroes and their allies. By that she meant that he was asking for bags that were full of hundreds of gold coins, mostly on the principle that moving the crates of supplies was rather dangerous and his workers needed fair compensation for their hard work, only for him to be shut down by not only the other leaders of the Horde, who revealed that the job had been rather simple and he was only blowing things out of proportion to fuel his greed, but also the leaders of the Alliance, the latter disregarding such things as they worked to bring down the Legion, as gold wouldn't help them if their forces were overrun by the demons and Azeroth was finally claimed by Sargeras. Basically, every leader frowned at Gallywix's greed and his desire to force the new Warchief to submit to his demands for unreasonable funding, most of which he would be adding to his own vault no doubt, and Tyrande even reminded him that if he tried anything funny, or stood in Spitfire's way of bringing ruin upon the Legion, he would be removed in no time, maybe not in the same manner as how she took out Sylvanas anyway, something that caused him to back down and resumed his duties.
The other heroes that were present were impressed by how well the other leaders of the factions respected Spitfire and knew that she wasn't about to sit still and let someone like Gallywix take advantage of her, or of her lack of knowledge on how the previous Warchiefs operated while the goblins were part of the faction, but once that tale was done they found Thalyssra walking towards them and the other heroes returned to what they had been doing, allowing Spitfire, Rainbow, and Elylia to focus on whatever task the rebellion's leader wanted them to do next.
"Ah, it is good to see you again Spitfire." Thalyssra said, her tone revealing that she likely expected that she wouldn't have been able to return to Shal'Aran so quickly, something that Spitfire had assumed as well and was surprised to see that the meeting had been about money and not about the Legion at all, though it didn't take them long to find that she had a few mana crystals in her hands, making them wonder what in the world she was up to, since right now they were waiting for Ly'leth to send word for them to join her, "Based on the notes that you recovered earlier, all of Kel'danath's experiments to connect with the Withered, and possibly cure them, have failed, and some have even made these poor souls even more dangerous than what they had been earlier... at least, that was the case until he found Theryn. From what I can tell, based on the notes and my studies of him, his Arcane essence... the very soul of the Shal'dorei... had been touched by something special, but I have no idea what could have done such a thing in the first place. However, by weaving my Arcane essence together with Theryn's, I can create an empathic bond between the two of us, a form of communion will bare his soul to us all... or what's left of it, anyway, though all we need to do is feed him mana to begin, and I'd like you three to guard me in case a dangerous memory tries to attack us."
Spitfire raised an eyebrow for a moment and nodded her head, showing that she understood what Thalyssra was asking them to do, which was around the time that Valtrois commented that she couldn't believe that they were wasting time on Theryn, time that should be spent planning their rebellion, which caused Thalyssra to inform her that she was doing just that, where Valtrois sighed and turned her focus back to what she was working on, allowing the group to follow Thalyssra as she lead the way down to the lower chamber, where they found Theryn standing hear the left wall, minding his own business as he maintained his peaceful nature. Once everyone was ready Elylia took some of the mana crystals and gave them to the peaceful Withered, who carefully took them, showing that he still had some intelligence to him, even though he was one of the weakened and deranged versions of the Nightborne, before he channeled the mana that was inside the three crystals and devoured it, as he was feeding upon each of them, something that caused him to drop the darkened crystals once he had siphoned all of the power from them. As soon as that was done Thalyssra uttered a new command phrase, this one being 'Nar'thala vas manari', before firing a beam of purple Arcane energy at Theryn, who stood still as it happened, like he understood what was going on and was accepting it, allowing her to work her magic while Spitfire and the others readied their weapons, just in case a hostile memory showed up and attacked them, though it wasn't long for something to happen, as an image appeared nearby, made out of Arcane energy, that appeared to be a male Nightborne, no doubt Theryn before he was exiled, who was joined by a female Nightborne and a child, his wife and daughter based on what they were seeing. As it turned out this first memory was of the day he was banished from the city, due to a pair of guards who came and apparently arrested him, while his wife comforted their crying daughter, though Spitfire could tell, with just a glance to Theryn's face, that while he might not be able to truly remember who the two figures were he could still feel anger over being exiled from the city, though it seemed to be outweighed by an immense sadness, one that came from being separated from his family.
She wasn't the only one that could see that, as Rainbow, Elylia, and Thalyssra, especially Thalyssra thanks to the bond she had formed, could see the emotion on Theryn's face, before Spitfire walked over to the memory and waked her hand to dismiss it, something that was followed by another memory taking its place as Thalyssra worked on figuring out what sort of change had overcome the unique Withered that was in front of them, this one being three saber cats that happened to be advancing on a weakened Theryn. The Memory Theryn shook from both fear and hunger as his foes neared him, which showed that this was at a later date than what the previous memory had been at, though they didn't need Thalyssra to tell them about those emotions since they appeared on Theryn's face a few seconds later, even if she commented that she now knew what the hunger was like since she was cut off from the Nightwell, before Spitfire dismissed this memory and waited for the next one to show up, which happened to appear rather quickly. This one happened to be of a time where Theryn aimlessly ran around, the memory's face switching between confusion as the last traces of Theryn's person faded away and a vast rage towards those who forced this fate upon him, like he believed he had been falsely exiled for what someone else did, though it wasn't long before Thalyssra started to lose control of the situation, given that she was still a little weak from everything they did to get to Shal'Aran earlier, especially since more memory Withered started to appear all around the area they were standing in. When the transparent memories started to multiply, however, the group moved to dismiss as many as possible since it appeared that everything that was going on was putting Thalyssra under a bunch of pressure and pain, so much so that the weakened Nightfallen might breaking under the pressure, and the sheer amount of memories started to floor the lower part of the chamber, as in pieces from all three memories they had seen, to which Thalyssra gathered a bit of her power and loosed a barrier shaped explosion that ignored Spitfire's group and knocked all of the memories out of existence... leaving a lone memory of Theryn standing in front of a pedestal, one that had an odd seed shaped artifact resting above it, before he left the area and the memory faded as Thalyssra fell to her knees and had to huff for a moment.
"Thalyssra, are you alright?" Valtrois asked, as she had come down the stairs and had stayed halfway up them, mostly to stay out of the way while observing whatever her superior was up to, though after everything that had happened she was more concerned for the safety of the First Arcanist, because she was the leader of the rebellion and the citizens of the city would flock to her side, so having her be killed or broken by something like this would prevent them from being able to do anything, giving the city to the Legion.
"I'm... I am fine, just exhausted." Thalyssra replied, though she looked pleased by what they had done and the fact that one of her companions was actually concerned for her well-being, while at the same time Theryn remained standing still, likely due to backlash of what she had done while searching for answers as to how he was so different from the rest of his kind, before she sighed for a moment as she turned towards Spitfire's group once more, "I knew that the Withered suffered due to the hunger, but this is the first time any of us have heard that they are tormented by their own memories... truly, it is a fate that is worse than death, and I'm not sure if we can help them overcome this madness. While I cannot leave Shal'Aran right now, since I used more power than what I was planning on using, the three of you must head to the west and find the artifact that Theryn discovered, as I'm positive that it is the source of whatever changed his Arcane essence and also gave Kel'danath the ability to make his spellstone... based on what I can tell, it's located in Moonshade Sanctum, located beyond both Ambervale and the shattered Temple of Fal'adora, and, thanks to the communion spell I used, we should be able to speak with each other... maybe, since I've never tried it with beings like you two."
"Well, either way we'll head out and see if we can find the artifact," Rainbow stated, as while she had no idea if she or even Spitfire would have the aftereffects of the spell, given that they weren't from this world and everything, she wasn't about to say anything about it, rather she was more focused on finding the artifact and see what Thalyssra wanted them to do with it, since it didn't seem all that important and that was likely due to the fact that none of them had any idea what in the world the artifact was.
Once they knew what they were doing the group headed outside and returned to Meredil, as it looked like Thalyssra didn't need any additional help besides what Valtrois had in mind, before heading to the west of their location and headed back to Ambervale, since it was in the middle of the path they needed to take, where it only took them a few minutes to do that and found that the Withered stayed away from all of the wards that had been activated, opening the way for them to walk through the ruins without having to be worried about being attacked. As Spitfire glanced around Ambervale she spotted a bridge that had the same style as what the rest of the Nightborne ruins and the city had, one that lead to a large building that seemed to be very important, to which she headed for it and came to a stop when she reached it, because it allowed her to see that there was a temple to their right, on a lower level to be exact, one that had a gaping hole in the ground, just in front of where the entrance was located, meaning something bad must have happened here in the past. Elylia stared at the scene as well and shook her head, showing Spitfire and Rainbow that this had to be the first time she was seeing this and had no idea what could have caused such a thing to happen, to which they carefully moved across the bridge that was in front of them and drew their weapons, since they had no idea if there were enemies in this area or not, but they did see one thing that was a little weird, there were a few spiders, the ones that came up to just above someone's ankles, that had a more rocky appearance, almost crystalline in some cases, and suspected that it might be linked to the artifact Thalyssra wanted them to find. For the most part it didn't look like the spiders cared about them, or if they even knew that they were there in the first place since none seemed to be looking in their direction, though Spitfire wasn't dismissing the fact that all of the spiders might be blind and had been driven to the surface, to which they focused on crossing the path that was right in front of them and entered the main structure, where they found the artifact resting on the pedestal Theryn had seen in the past, complete with beams of Arcane energy and three seals in the ground, just like what Spitfire and Rainbow had found inside Anora Hollow, meaning all they had to do was break the seals and retrieve the artifact.
As it turned out there were only two pillars that were firing Arcane energy and two that redirected said beams, though only one beam could hit one reflector at a time, something that made Spitfire wonder if this place had been designed to have four seals and the last one never got installed, though instead of wasting time she focused on making the high beam and the low beam connect with each seal, carefully breaking each of them while making sure it had no consequences on the rest of the area... though when the last one fell, and the barrier surrounding the artifact fell, a spider quickly jumped out of the shadows, latched onto the artifact, and pulled it outside the building, where they found a few creatures that looked like a cross between elves and spiders.
"Okay, I was not expecting this to happen," Spitfire remarked, where the spider that held the artifact delivered it to a taller creature, whose legs were longer than the others and seemed to have some authority over everyone else, though she and the others could tell it was female and seemed to be wearing ragged clothing, who mentioned that the artifact would make a fine gift for her, as she apparently was the queen based on what she said, and that the power of the Arcan'dor was hers at long last, before she left and had her guards stay behind to deal with them, to which Spitfire sighed, "Oh well, let's kill all of them and get that artifact back, before something bad happens to it."
Rainbow grinned as she leapt forward and drove her Warblades into the chest of the spider creature that was right in front of her, surprising her foe with her speed for a few seconds, before she yanked them out and spun around, cutting her foe to pieces before it even had a chance to fight back, though instead of slowing down she advanced on the rest of the spider creatures that were to the left of the building's entrance and continued to hack through the enemies that were advancing on their location. Elylia, while not having anywhere near the power that Rainbow or Spitfire had, focused on the enemies that were coming from the right and hacked through those that were coming towards her, dodging the leg swings and any other move they tried to use against her, though she did have to cleave her way through one's legs and pierced the chest of her target, all while dodging the attacks of the other enemies and then swung her weapon at the others once she was sure her current foe was no longer breathing. The spider creatures coming over the bridge, which revealed that they must have been acting like they didn't care while waiting for the barrier to be taken care of, regardless of how long it took, tried a new tactic by loosing thread and made sure it wrapped around Spitfire's body, who simply sighed as her inner fire came to life once more, burning away the entirety of the thread that was wrapped around her, before rushing through the air as she cleaved one of her enemies in half and stabbed the abdomen of another, the latter being the one she directed a burst of her flame powers into, burning the spider creature from the inside out before she moved to take care of the others that were coming over the bridge. For the most part none of their enemies seemed to understand that they wouldn't be able to overcome them, not with Rainbow flashing around and cutting multiple down at the same time, Elylia slashed at every foe that came near her and left their bodies on the ground, and Spitfire carefully cutting or burning whoever dared to come up and fight her, but what was interesting was that anyone that dared to flee were cut down by a Night Elf who wore a robe that suggested he was part of one of the nature orders of the world, even if neither Spitfire or Rainbow recognized him, and he carried a scythe that he used as his weapon, which ended up pointed at them at one point.
"Do you fools have any idea what you have just done?!" the Night Elf asked, speaking the moment all of their enemies had been taken care of, though his choice of words was rather poor due to the fact that Spitfire could see that Rainbow was a bit ticked off by the newcomer using the word 'fool' as a label for all three of them, while at the same time they found that he was annoyed with them, not that such a thing mattered since his tone revealed his annoyance to them, "I have been protecting that seed for ten thousand years, safeguarding it from all sorts of danger and those who would seek to misuse its power... and you idiots managed to let it fall into the hands of the Fal'dorei within five minutes of finding it. I should kill all three of you for..."
Spitfire sighed as what coming next happened, as Rainbow banished one of her Warblades and socked the Night Elf right in the chest, bypassing the scythe that seemed rather worthless in the grand scheme of things, before she flashed behind him and gripped the back of his head, slamming it right into the ground and knocked the weapon out of his hands, which was when she grabbed onto one of his arms and pulled it back, mostly to keep him in a locked position until they figured out what was going on and why he was acting this way, even though it was clear that he wasn't from the Alliance, since a warrior from that faction wouldn't do something like this after the battle with Sylvanas.
"Listen, trying to kill us like that is a pretty stupid idea... plus, if you had ten thousand years to guard this artifact, you did a pretty lousy defending it, since it took me a few minutes to break the seals," Spitfire stated, and that was the truth of the matter, attacking the two of them from the front like this, even threatening them for that matter, happened to be one of the worst ideas that anyone could have, after seeing what happened when Sylvanas upset her, while at the same time she was also telling the truth when she was referring to the Night Elf doing a terrible job guarding the artifact, which happened to be a seed of something called an 'Arcan'dor', "Tell you what, we'll forgive you for your transgressions if you tell us what in the world that seed is, tell us who you are and why it's so important for someone like you to keep watch over it, and say your sorry for trying to kill us."
"I am Farodin... Valewalker Farodin, to be exact, and I cannot do the other two things, not until we recover the seed from the Fal'dorei and take it to a safe place," the Night Elf replied, where Spitfire had the feeling that he might be one of the more difficult individuals that they were going to come into contact with, not counting the Legion anyway, though it didn't take her long to sigh and turned her head a little so Rainbow would get off Farodin, where Rainbow did so and forced him forward, allowing him to rub his arm for a moment as he picked up his scythe, "Now then, if you would follow me, I'll take you to where I think they're taking the Arcan'dor Seed... I have the feeling that I misjudged the two of you, and that you will be wonderful allies in our fight against all of the Fal'dorei that are between us and the seed."
Elylia, knowing what Spitfire and Rainbow would do in this situation, beckoned with a blade and Farodin started to move down the path that was to the right of the temple they were currently standing in front of, where they found a stream that lead down to the open hole in the ground, which seemed to house the underground portion of these ruins, before they reached a ledge that would allow them to jump down into the depths, which happened to be crawling with the Fal'dorei, a lot more than what they were expecting since there seemed to be a hundred scattered around the ruins. Once they were done scouting out part of the area, even if it only took them a few seconds to do so, before Farodin jumped into the air and dropped down into a small water pool that was below the ledge they had stopped on, though Spitfire and Rainbow just flew down to the edge of the same area while making sure to carry Elylia, all while somehow being ignored by the vast amount of Fal'dorei that were around them, which meant they could hide in the shadow of a pillar before someone had a chance to spot them. As soon as everyone was together again Farodin informed them that, by carrying the seed, Orathiss was being slowed down and it gave them an opening to recover the seed before it was opened and every drop of power that was inside it was drained, something that would piss him off if it came to pass, to which Rainbow flashed over to the set of stairs that their foe must have headed up, since it had a large opening for someone like the Fal'dorei Queen to use it without difficulty, and cut down the enemies that were around her, dropping both of the more elf-like spider enemies in seconds, opening the way for Elylia and Farodin to follow her. Spitfire, on the other hand, brought her flames back to the surface and hurled the Fel fire around her, setting fire to the various webs and egg sacks that were scattered around this part of the ruins, while also creating a wave of flames halfway through the area to cut off potential pursuers, since she was sure that some of the Fal'dorei might come running once they realized that enemies were attacking them, allowing the rest of the group to find Orathiss before she caught up with them.
Sure enough Rainbow found her target at the top of the stairs, totally focused on the seed that had been given to her not all that long ago, though when she lashed out with one of her Warblades Orathiss hissed for a moment before heading up a small set of stairs to their left, showing them that she was more interested in fleeing and trying to snack on the seed that was in her hands, though thanks to the seed decrease Rainbow was able to keep her target in her sights as she and Elylia struck down the enemies that were in front of them. Farodin, of course, followed behind them as best he could, since he was impressed by what Spitfire and Rainbow were capable of doing with their powers, especially Spitfire since she was in the middle of setting fire to the entire ruin and made sure that their enemies wouldn't get any reinforcements, which was followed by Spitfire catching up to them within seconds, allowing her to focus on Orathiss once more, who headed down a passage that was to the right of this pathway and revealed that she was heading into a nest area. What surprised Spitfire and Rainbow as they followed their foe was that Orathiss didn't seem interested in them, even though they overcame all of the Fal'dorei that happened to be scattered around the ruins and tried to prevent the four of them from following their leader, where they would have expected that she would have handed the seed over to someone for safekeeping before using her power against all of them, something that would have given her a feast if she had been successful in taking all of them down, but they focused on what was in front of them and nothing else. From there Orathiss headed through a new tunnel, one that was crystalline in nature and happened to lead right to a new section of the ruins, one that appeared to be nearly identical to Shal'Aran, save for the messed up crystalline tree that seemed to be growing out of the center, one that was shattered based on what they were seeing right now, and not a few seconds later they found their target within mere moments of leaving the tunnel, as Orathiss was standing in front of the shattered tree and appeared to be in the middle of channeling her Arcane power between the seed and the tree.
As they engaged Orathiss, however, she revealed that she intended to use the seed to awaken the Arcan'dor, which had to be the ruined tree that was in the middle of this section of the ruins, so that she and the rest of her twisted kind could be freed from their cursed forms and return to being elves, meaning the Fal'dorei were twisted Nightborne that had messed with some sort of magical artifact, the Arcan'dor to be exact, and the shattering of the tree must have twisted them into the spider forms they had been forced to live with... though Orathiss happened to be one of the weakest foes Spitfire and Rainbow had faced, as both were able to remove one of her legs and caused her to fall, granting Elylia the chance to stab her in the chest before Farodin removed her head, which finished her off and the seed floated down to them.
"Orathiss has started the awakening process... if we don't get the seed somewhere safe, where we can power it and keep it alive, we'll lose it," Farodin stated, informing them that they hadn't stopped Orathiss from messing with the seed at all, meaning that they had a ticking time bomb on their hands and that it might wipe out the area around them if they let the seed wither, which would be a pain in the rear if such a thing happened, before he turned and faced Spitfire's group for a moment as an idea came to him, "I am not strong enough to carry the seed out of here, not without it sapping my energy and knocking me out, but you two, on the other hand... either of you should be able to carry the seed, as I can tell that you two are just brimming with magical power."
Spitfire said nothing as she banished her Twinblades and picked up the seed from where it was floating, finding that it did impose a heavy weight on her, like what they had seen when Orathiss was running away with it, before Farodin informed them that it was time to leave this place, before the Fal'dorei reinforcements overcame the wall of fire Spitfire had left in the first chamber, hence why he headed for the other side of the chamber they were in and headed up a path that had a bunch of crystals growing out of the sides. While they did that Farodin spoke up and mentioned that he knew they were rebuilding the ancient teleportation network that existed throughout all of Suramar, even if they had only awakened two of them so far, and revealed that the chamber he was bringing them to, which was at the top of the tunnel, had a beacon that should allow them to leave this ruined temple before they were overrun, something that was confirmed when they reached the chamber and found the beacon in question. It was in that moment that they heard Oculeth speak up, which meant that Thalyssra had been keeping silent as she watched what they were doing thanks to communication link they all shared thanks to her spell and had informed Oculeth of everything that was going on inside this place, where the Chief Telemancer activated the beacon and established a permanent portal between Shal'Aran and the Temple of Faladora, as having direct access to the ruined tree might come in handy later and he made sure to prevent the Fal'dorei from using the new portal, which allowed them to teleport out of the ruins and returned to their base of operations. Upon arriving in Shal'Aran, and leaving the area all of the portals rested in, Farodin rushed over to the walkway that lead to the center of the upper chamber, where Spitfire and Rainbow had found a banshee guarding this place, and beckoned for Spitfire for a moment, who stared at the device that was in the direct center of the ruin and held out a hand as she approached it, to which the seed floated forward and clicked into place as it connected with the device, though after that happened she and the others watched as the shell split apart, separating into four segments that revealed it was a metal casing that Orathiss had been trying to crack, before revealing the tree seed to everyone.
That was when the magic that was contained within the seed caused a few vines to grow out of it and reached for the top of the ceiling, only to stop a second or two after emerging from the seed, meaning that it was in the early stages of the Arcan'dor's growth cycle and that it would likely be some time before anything special happened, though it interested all of their Nightfallen allies, who walked over to where they were standing and stared at the seed that had been brought to Shal'Aran, no doubt wondering what it could do for all of them.
"Behold the Arcan'dor, a gift from the ancient magi, which can bring either life or desolation," Farodin stated, though as he said that Spitfire had to wonder if the replica chamber they had seen earlier, which looked like a more ruined version of the ruin they were currently using as a base of operations, had been an attempt to awaken such a seed and it had been a failure, hence why the Night Elf paused when he mentioned 'desolation', before he sighed as he continued to stare at the awakened seed and the tree that might grow from it, "to care for an Arcan'dor is no small thing... it is a great burden that all of us now share... though beneath the Arcan'dor the Nightfallen, and possibly some of the Withered, can be renewed and become Nightborne again, without the need to feed on the Nightwell."
"One more thing for us to do while we're planning our rebellion against Elisande." Spitfire remarked, though she could see that Thalyssra and the others were interested in what Farodin had to say, as restoring themselves to being Nightborne was a good thing, especially without needing to rely on the Nightwell, because it would allow them to use their full power and it would give them something to offer those that were inside the city, potentially robbing Elisande of her forces, but for now they had to rely on keeping Shal'Aran alive and preparing themselves for the future.
She had the feeling that Thalyssra had an idea on what the next step of their plans were, to fight against Elisande and her demonic allies, though for now they seemed to be waiting for Rainbow's contact inside the city to send word first, before doing anything else that might draw attention to them, and it gave them time to make sure there were no obstacles or any other enemies for them to worry about, scattered throughout the rest of Suramar, while doing everything in their power to make sure Gul'dan was in the dark until they were ready to bring him down and crush his foul plans.