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Chapter One4,248 words
Chapter Two4,207 words
Chapter Three2,372 words

Chapter One

Ashjing moaned as she walked out of the Swamp of Sorrows and passed into the one area of the Eastern Kingdoms she had been told to stay away from, because it was 'unsafe' for those who couldn't defend themselves. The red ground and twisted sky greeted her as she left the Swamp behind, as well as the number of creatures that would have tried to eat her if she decided to stay much longer. The area she had walked into was called the Blasted Lands, mainly because it was a place where nothing could grow despite the best efforts of anyone that foolishly called the place home. The reason behind the land's inability to grow anything, from what she had been told, was because of the demonic fel energy that seeped out of the Dark Portal.

She had read about the original opening of the demonic portal that connected their world, Azeroth, to the dying world that had once been called Draenor, which was now known as the Outlands. An army of orcs, secretly lead by the most evil member of their entire race, the warlock Gul'dan, had emerged from the portal and declared war on the world. It had been a long and bloody war for both the original Horde and the Alliance that was created to fight them, resulting in the deaths of many good soldiers and civilians that were unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire. Even after the war had ended the Horde eventually regained itself, moved the majority of its soldiers over to the continent of Kalimdor, where its main base of operations now rested, in the form of the city known as Orgrimmar.

From that day forward the Horde and Alliance continued to fight with each other, which she had learned from all of the books she had read, and that they only came together when a major threat threatened to end the entire world.

She moaned again as she started to walk down the hill, but instead of going further down the rocky path she took a seat on a nearby rock, pulled her boots off, and rubbed her paws for a moment. She was not one of the six races that belonged to the Alliance, those being humans, gnomes, dwarves, night elves, draenei, or the worgen. On the other hand she also wasn't one of the six races that made up the Horde, which were orcs, trolls, tauren, the Forsaken, blood elves, or the goblins. She was actually one of the pandaren that called Pandaria their home, though while some of her race joined the Horde and others joined the Alliance, she had remained neutral the entire time. She honestly didn't see the point in the two factions fighting against each other, not when there were other enemies that could strike them down while they were distracted.

Most of her kind had brown colored fur with a wide variety of markings that covered their faces and their bodies, while there were some that had darker colored fur. She was one of the few that had ash colored fur, one of the stranger colors for a dark furred pandaren, though many of her elders told her meant that she would go on to do great things with her life. She suspected that her elders would have been disappointed in her choice of career, as she had dedicated herself to uncovering the past of her home land of Pandaria and the other continents of Azeroth.

The reason she was here, in one of the most inhospitable pieces of land in the entirety of the Eastern Kingdoms, was because she overheard a couple of adventurers mention that the Dark Portal had, by some odd twist of fate, reconnected to Draenor, the world that the Outlands had been before it had been brought to ruin. Lorewalker Cho, her mentor, had sent her a letter some time ago about the amount of knowledge that could be waiting to be discovered on the other side of the portal, but her curiosity had gotten the better of her and she had gotten her things together so she could visit the new world that was now open to them.

Of course she had been in Northrend, the continent that was to the north of where the Maelstrom was located, at the time she had gotten the letter, though she had been completing one of her searches for a rare artifact when it arrived in the mail. It had taken her weeks to get back to the Eastern Kingdoms, as most of the mages she knew were busy opening gateways for the Alliance and Horde troops to get close to the Dark Portal so they could fight what they called the Iron Horde. From what she had gathered the new faction of orcs had the original skin color they had before their entire race had been tainted with the fel energy, though they also appeared to be better armed than the Horde that first attacked the Eastern Kingdoms so many years ago.

She had hoped to get a glimpse of the orcs that belonged to the Iron Horde, but due to the amount of time that she had spent traversing the roads that connected Stormwind to the Blasted Lands she knew that she would never get the chance to see one in battle. Not unless she was willing to pick one of the factions, plead her case to either the King of the Alliance or the Warchief of the Horde, and then join their side in the fight against the Iron Horde. She was just fine with her neutral position on the entire war, even if it meant that it would take her a bit longer to reach some places than it did for everyone else.

Ashjing let out a sigh as she slipped her boots back on, tied them back up, and continued down the rocky road that would take her right towards the infamous Dark Portal, something that she was eager to see before she headed to Draenor. It only took her a few minutes to reach the massive crater that the Portal rested in, which she had been told had been created by the initial opening of the Portal. She had to marvel at the size of the crater as she walked down to her true destination, all while wondering how much power it had taken to actually achieve what she was seeing.

That was before she noticed the large amount of Alliance and Horde soldiers that were preparing to enter the Dark Portal, which was actually flickering between its connection to the Outlands and its connection to Draenor. The two factions were waiting for their chance to invade Draenor, so they could stop whatever was happening on the other side and save their world once more.

"Ah, Lorewalker Ashjing, there you are!" a voice to her left said, to which she turned and found an old mage approaching her, though she immediately recognized him by the staff that he carried.

"Archmage Khadgar," Ashjing replied, bowing her head towards the Archmage in respect, "I did not expect to meet you on this side of the Dark Portal. I thought I was going to have to wait until I crossed over to Draenor to meet you."

Archmage Khadgar was an unfortunate man, as he was actually a young adult that was trapped in the body of an old man, which had been caused by the Guardian Medivh some time before his death. It had been a powerful aging spell that the Archmage had been hit with, because even after the death of the corrupted Medivh the curse still lingered and trapped Khadgar in his new body. Khadgar didn't seem to mind the change anymore, which Ashjing assumed was because of the fact that he had been living with it ever since he had been cursed. His staff, which she had been able to identify him by, was the staff known as Atiesh, or more commonly called the Greatstaff of the Guardian, though it had been Medivh's staff before his death.

It was a powerful staff, which made Khadgar even more powerful than he had been without his master's staff, but Ashjing knew that this was not the time to go crazy over the staff.

"The Portal has been unstable lately." Khadgar said, turning to the Dark Portal as Ashjing joined him, "We do not know when we will be able to access Draenor again... or when the Iron Horde will attack next, so the moment we see a stable connection we'll need to storm the Portal and cross over."

"That sounds a tad bit dangerous," Ashjing commented, taking another look at how many soldiers each side had brought for the initial assault on the Iron Horde, "but it seems that you have enough soldiers to... pull it off?"

She watched as Thrall, the orc shaman that had been partly responsible for the fall of Deathwing, the corrupted Dragon Aspect that nearly destroyed the entire world, approached the assembled soldiers with some of his fellow shamans. That was before she spotted Vindicator Maraad, one of the draenei paladins that had fought against the various evils of both this world and the Outlands, walked forward with his paladins, joining Thrall at the front of their combined forces. Both the Horde and the Alliance seemed overjoyed to have their respective champions with them, along with the various heroes that had stopped Garrosh Hellscream a few months ago.

Ashjing was glad to see that the soldiers of both factions weren't trying to kill each other, considering that their latest foe would soon be knocking on their door again. Despite the amount of time she had spent walking to get here, she knew that she wouldn't be able to truly rest until the Portal had opened and they were on the other side. She truly didn't mind the waiting, as it gave her the opportunity to study how the two factions actually treated each other when they weren't trying to kill each other... and she figured out that they still hated each other within the first few minutes of starting said study.

"I hear that you recently completed your search for one of Northrend's lost artifacts," Khadgar commented, causing Ashjing to turn towards him again, "If you don't mind me asking; what exactly did you find in the frozen tundra?"

Ashjing smiled for a moment and opened her bag, to which she gently removed the purple cube that she had found, while making sure not to hurt herself on one of the five spikes that rested on five of the six faces. Only the front face of the cube was without a spike, but that was because it had what appeared to be some sort of eye that followed whoever it decided to watch, which was her at the moment.

"The Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron," Ashjing replied, holding it out for the Archmage to see, though she was pleased to see that he was interested in the item she had found, "It is said that this box is impossible to open and that whoever tries to solve it will hear whispers, though whether it is the Old God Yogg-Saron talking or someone else no one really knows."

"May I give it a try?" Khadgar asked, though Ashjing could tell that he was looking for something to pass the time, though she was more than willing to let him try his luck.

Once Khadgar had the puzzle box in his hands he turned it around for a few seconds, as if he was looking for something that would allow him to make an attempt at opening it. Eventually he made a few twists and turns with his hands, but despite his attempt the box appeared to be in the same state as it had been when Ashjing had first found it. Khadgar made several more attempts to try and solve the puzzle box, or to even make some progress on it, but eventually he admitted defeat and stopped trying. That was when he and Ashjing heard the voice inside the box speak, confirming the fact that it spoke after someone made an attempt to solve it.

Have you had the dream again? a voice whispered to the two of them, though Ashjing was amused when some of the soldiers looked around for who was speaking, A black goat with seven eyes that watches from the outside.

"Interesting." Khadgar commented, handing the puzzle box back to Ashjing, who stored it away in her bag, "I will have to study that box more... maybe when we are done with our business in Draenor?"

Ashjing nodded as she tied her bag back up, to which she and the Archmage started a conversation about her expedition in Northrend and how she uncovered the puzzle box. She was glad to finally have the opportunity to tell someone about her journey through the frozen tundra, though with the defeat of the Lich King some years ago her tale wasn't very exciting. Still, Khadgar seemed to appreciate her telling him what she had done to get her hands on the puzzle box, which was all she cared about at the moment.

An hour passed before anything interesting happened, but what Ashjing expected when she thought about something interesting was not what she, and the assembled soldiers, actually got... as the Dark Portal snapped open before their eyes. Ashjing had heard a rumor that the Dark Portal had different colors that indicated what it was doing; blue meant it was inactive, green was the connection to the Outlands, and red was supposed to be a connection to Draenor before it was broken... and the Portal was glowing red at the moment.

"This is our chance!" Archmage Khadgar declared, turning to the rest of their forces for a few seconds, a grim look appearing on his face for a few seconds, "STORM THE PORTAL!"

As the orcs of the Iron Horde charged out of the Dark Portal, and ran down the ramp, the forces of the Horde and Alliance replied in kind, shouting their various battle cries as they pushed the orcs back up the ramp. Thrall and Maraad lead the charge as they pushed back the Iron Horde, allowing their soldiers to pass through the Portal with ease. Ashjing was amazed by the fact that the Horde and Alliance had been able to push back the enemy orcs so easily, but then again both factions had been prepared for the Portal opening again and had brought the best of their forces to deal with the Iron Horde.

As soldiers followed Thrall and Maraad into the Portal, and joined the fight on the other side, Ashjing stayed back for a moment and helped other soldiers through the swirling mass of magic. She wasn't a warrior and had no right being on a battlefield, so she would wait until a proper portal could be opened up to wherever Archmage Khadgar set up his base of operations. Once the last of the Alliance troops were through she turned her attention to the Horde soldiers that were at the back of the pack, ushering them forward while the connection was still there. She made sure that they were through the portal before making sure that there was no one left that was supposed to go in as well, though as she started to let out a sigh she noticed two things.

One, the magical color of the Dark Portal had turned lavender for a moment, which meant that it was connected to a world they knew nothing about. Two, and more important than the first thing she had noticed, was that her right foot was currently touching the mass of magic that made up the Dark Portal. Before she could let out any type of sound the magic of the Dark Portal sucked her in and ripped her out of Azeroth, sending her to wherever it had connected to for that brief moment.

"You wanted to see me Princess Celestia?"

Twilight Sparkle, personal student of the sole princess that ruled over all of Equestria, would normally be annoyed if someone interrupted her studies, but considering that it was her teacher that had called for her she couldn't be mad. Usually she was given an assignment that had some hidden lesson in magic, as if she was constantly being tested and improving her skills with her magic. There was always something for her to learn, whether it was actually in magic or some other field of study that she was interested in, so she didn't mind being surprised by whatever Princess Celestia told her about.

What she didn't know, however, was why she had been called upon today, not when this was supposed to be a day where she could relax and do whatever she wanted... where she had been sitting under a tree and reading one of her new books that had recently arrived.

"Yes Twilight," the solar princess replied, turning her gaze from the window that she was looking out of, "A few minutes ago I felt a magical disturbance nearby... in your tower to be exact. Is there some sort of experiment that you are in the process of performing that I don't know about?"

"No... I don't have any experiments at the moment," Twilight answered, though that got the gears in her head moving almost immediately, "but, now that I think about it, there are some magical theories that I wanted to test when I learned more about magic and the space of the tower would give me plenty of room to perform them without endangering anyone should something happen..."

"Twilight," Princess Celestia calmly said, her voice more than enough to cut through whatever was going through her student's mind at the moment, "I admire your enthusiasm about beginning your own research and experiments, but there is still the matter of the magical anomaly that we need to address. I want you to head back to your tower and see if you can't find anything that caused this anomaly... or if something arrived in its aftermath."

"You can count on me Princess Celestia," Twilight replied, though she waited a few seconds for her teacher to nod before turning around and bolting out the door.

Celestia smiled as she watched her student depart from the throne room, because it was always nice to see Twilight take up an interest in something that wasn't just reading books. She turned her attention back to the window she was staring out of when she called for Twilight to join her, gazing back at the tower where the anomaly had occurred. The last time she had felt such a strong flare of magical energy was when Twilight first accessed her powers, back when she was a little filly, and that she needed to act quickly to prevent any lasting damage. This anomaly was similar to that incident, yet at the same time it was something completely different, which only served to confuse her as to what could have happened in that tower.

There was one thing that she knew for certain; once Twilight had discovered whatever had caused the anomaly, or found whatever had arrived during the surge of magic, there would be either be a report on her throne in a matter of minutes or Twilight herself to explain what she had found. Either way she was looking forward to seeing what had happened in that tower, and she was sure that Twilight was overjoyed to have something new to do.

Ashjing moaned as she opened her eyes, though where she expected to find some pain when performing that task she was surprised to find that there was none. There was some light in the area around her, though she was surprised to find that it wasn't as sharp as the sunlight back on Azeroth. That fact alone made her wonder where she had been transported to, though as she began to see her surroundings she wondered how she could have been so wrong to think she had been taken to a new world.

There were bookshelves all around her, filled with rows upon rows of books that had a variety of colors on their covers and a variety of thickness thanks to the number of pages each tome held. She had to be in the library of Dalaran, where the Kirin Tor practiced magic and launched their assault against the forces of the Lich King. She wondered how she could have gotten to the city, by using the Dark Portal no less, but decided that it was better if she didn't question it... until she pulled herself off the floor and stared right at something that wasn't in the Dalaran Library; an hourglass that rested in the middle of the room.

That was when she noticed that there were some statues that didn't belong in the library either, though these ones appeared to be a depiction of a horse's head. She wondered why someone would want to see those types of statues when they entered a library, but at the same time she was fascinated by the strange culture she had found. That was seconds before she noticed a wall of glass in front of her, to which her curiosity got the better of her as she walked forward and stopped when she gazed at what surrounded the library.

There was an entire city, no doubt at least the size of Dalaran, attached to the side of a mountain, and there were quite a number of buildings around the entire city. There were also quite a few towers scattered throughout the city, though that was before Ashjing laid her eyes on what she assumed was a castle. She was sure that the ruler of this city was somewhere inside that castle, though before she went anywhere she decided that it would suit her to read a few of the nearby books and see if she couldn't figure out where she was... or who the ruler of this city was.

She spotted her bag sitting on the ground, no doubt laying next to where she had suddenly appeared, though she smiled as she gently picked it up, pulled out a nearby chair, and set it down before she got to work. She moved to one of the shelves that were on the level above her, wondering what information she could find about the strange world that surrounded her.

"Are you sure that there was a magical surge in our tower?" a voice asked, causing Ashjing to look at the door as it opened, though she easily identified the voice as a young male.

"If Princess Celestia said that she felt something happen in my tower, then something happened." a second voice replied, though Ashjing noted that this one was more feminine than the first, "Besides, I'm curious as to what could have happened while we were away."

"If you say so," the first voice commented, though that was before Ashjing got a glimpse of who had walked into the tower she had found herself in.

Two creatures stood at the top of the stairs, which she had no idea were even there when she woke up, and they were staring right at her in confusion, though she was also staring at them in such a manner. One of the creatures was a small horse that had a purple coat, almost lavender colored Ashjing noticed, with a darker purple mane and tail that had a streak of magenta running through the both of them. She also spotted that the horse had a horn shooting out of its forehead and, thanks to the angle that the horse was standing in at the moment, that there was some sort of marking on her rear. The other creature looked similar to the dragon whelps that she had read about, only she didn't see any wings and she didn't remember any of them have green scales with a purple body color.

She had no idea what bizarre world she had been sent to by the Dark Portal, but the inhabitants of this world seemed friendly at the moment... though she knew better to make them angry.

"Umm..." Ashjng said, trying to come up with something to say to them, but that was seconds before she waved at them and put a smile on her face, "Hello?"

That was followed by the mare getting the look of excitement in her eyes as she did some sort of dance, while the small dragon crossed his arms in annoyance. Ashjing had no idea what was going on in the mare's mind, but she figured that she had made a good first impression... now all she had to do was figure out where the Dark Portal had taken her.

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