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The letter was, once again, air-dropped, though without accompanying Horde sympathizer pieces this time. Gondorin didn't care who read it this time, whether it made its way into the halls of leadership, or merely hung in public squares to be posted over by whatever passed for commerce notices among the savages of the Horde.

So now you see, Horde. As we descended into the filth of Lordaeron's sewers, you see what your actions have wrought. Though we were repulsed, through a strategic error of my own making, the reality remains: you rose to the defense of Sylvanas Windrunner.

Each one of you who did, you have been noted. Each one of you who ran to her defense have explicitly given your consent to the atrocities she commits minute by minute in the festering, cancerous abattoir where her lurching, disease-riddled, festering corpses daily bend themselves to the will of their Banshee Queen.

Consider, you elves of Quel'thalas: you valiantly fought the Scourge as Arthas Menethil led his horrifying army of desolation straight to your holiest of sites and defiled it in the most heinous method conceivable. In the dark depths of the horrors we use as tools in Acherus, we would have never considered such violations. And now, you ally yourselves with those same beings. You watch as Forsaken freely wander the streets of your beautiful city in its eternal pristine Spring, plotting their atrocities. Do you sleep well at night?

Consider, you tauren of Mulgore: champions of life, adherents of your Earth Mother, Druids as mighty as those the night elves have, if not mightier. You ally yourself with death. In your holiest of places in Thunder Bluff, in your spiritual caverns, you suffer the presence of a putrescent Forsaken who only wishes you ill, and will never understand the cycle of life your Earth Mother represents. How do your Shamans, your Druids, and even your newly-minted Sunwalkers, stand for this? How does Baine Bloodhoof, who lost his own father to a poisonous betrayal, permit these atrocities in his city?

Think, you orcs of Durotar: you have fought and clawed for every single inch of the freedom and sovereign ground you now have, thanks in no small part to the assistance of a human who was willing to murder her own father to defend your right to a new homeland. Your own true Warchief (and not the pretender who sits his throne in Grommash Hold) champions elemental spirits who represent life in its purest form: he is Azeroth's most powerful Shaman! He stood mightily at the side of the very Dragon Aspects themselves and assisted the heroes who finally ended Deathwing's threat to the whole world. Rumor has it that new life now grows in his mate, who, it is understood, showed him what being a Shaman was to begin with. And yet, the whelp who sits astride Orgrimmar's throne sends Forsaken to ravage the lands of people who bore them no threat and wished nothing more than to be left alone, and now those lands are unfit for habitation. Gilneas asks you, orcs: will you sacrifice a new homeland after your homeworld was shattered by fel magicks that represent the very entropic forces championed by the gurgling, shambling corpses who now inhabit Lordaeron's ruins? Because so long as you permit Sylvanas' atrocities to continue, you jeopardize your own lives by your very reticence.

(cont'd)

Understand, you trolls of the Echo Isles: your loa, your guiding spirits, who have even given you entrance now into the hallowed haven of Moonglade, would not in their worst incarnations bring about the travesties that march forth from Undercity, a cadence of approaching destruction for all. You honor your dead, you do not defile them, or the dead of other sentients, by raising them as malicious soldiers to satisfy the murderous, vengeful urges of a creature whose original reason for vengeance has now been laid to rest in the icy wastes of Northrend, never to rise again. Yet when you allow a single Forsaken who works the dark will of his Queen into your sacred lands, recently reclaimed and rightfully yours, you stand to watch your beloved tropical home become dead ground that makes the Scar in Quel'thalas look like a patch of unwatered grass.

You goblins of Kezan, you Bilgewater Cartel, consider who you have allied yourselves with! Honorable orcs, stalwart trolls, wise tauren, and beautiful elves, yes... but also rotting corpses who would devastate you, already cast out from your home by the machinations of an insane Dragon Aspect, and then raise your ravaged husks for their own fel purposes. What good is the profit you so assiduously pursue if you have nothing left to spend it on, no one left to collect it, letting it lie fallow and unharvested in rotting fields of destroyed opportunity because of a poor choice of allegiance? It wasn't the Forsaken who came to your aid on the Lost Isles. It was the orcs, it was Thrall himself. Do you dishonor what he says he stands for by letting the Forsaken's atrocities continue?

You can stop this war, Horde: you can stop the attacks. Your support of Sylvanas Windrunner, your support of the Warchief, Garrosh Hellscream, who allies with her willingly, is what continues the attacks.

Disown her, Horde. Disown the Forsaken, and show your love of life exceeds your love of death.

Until that happens, the assaults will continue, even if I must be the only one making them. I am a Death Knight, and death holds no power over me now. I cannot be ended. But you can end the war, Horde. You can bring about a peace where all your children, and those of the Alliance, can see peace and plenty.

But not so long as you allow the Undercity to continue as it is.

((Ragefang. We must talk. Also, a gnome journalist may now love you.))

Baron Artimus Devaneaux stood on the ramparts of Mardenholde Keep in Hearthglen. A Blood Knight Master from Quel'Thalas had sent a message requesting a meeting; he was also a member of the Crusade, which enhanced the necessity nicely.

Finally, he turned to see his summoner. "Master Sunblade," he greeted the elf. "You wished to speak to me?"

"I did." Nor'taeron Sunblade handed the Baron a leaflet. "I figured as a brother-in-arms of the Argent Crusade as well as a death knight from the Ebon Hold, you might be inclined to explain to me exactly what the hell this is about."

Artimus read the message with a mixture of admiration for the tone and concern for what he is seeing. He knows this ideology quite well, recognizing it as core tenets of the Reclamation.

The Baron remembered the series of letters he and Saavedro - and the hot-headed Packleader Zherron - had contributed to, the correspondences with Arjah about the "homeland" situation. They had both raised questions on that topic; Artimus specifically pointed out the unlikely prospect of a peace with the Horde with the current leadership of Varian in Stormwind and Garrosh in Orgrimmar, while Saavedro's chief worry was a possible war between Undercity and Hearthglen.

Anyone who'd even glanced at the politics for longer than three seconds knew that Sylvanas was a lunatic, leading an army of undead fanatics. The living will continue to have a revulsion of the undead, he thought, thinking back to the jeers, insults and rotten fruit that had been thrown at him and his brothers when he had arrived in Stormwind after Light's Hope. Tirion Fordring secured amnesty for the knights of Acherus, and Varian had grudgingly agreed; his old comrade Ublaz Deathspear, a tauren druid who'd been killed during the first siege of Naxxramas back when the great necropolis had hovered in the skies above the Plaguewood, reported similar sentiments from Warchief Thrall in Orgrimmar.

After reading Ragefang's document, Artimus turned to Nor'taeron. "I would imagine you would not have any concern with this, Nor'taeron. You were Taeril'hane's apprentice, and no one was more frank with his disgust at Sylvanas' recent schemes than he was. His House and his allies shared his convictions."

The Blood Knight nodded. "We understand the risks we take with our continued alliance with Undercity, and we condemn Sylvanas' blatant atrocities...but we have no choice."

"Don't you? I seem to remember your people seceding from the Alliance and largely locking yourselves away behind your Elfgates for more than a decade."

"And look what that brought us. We have paid for that mistake for more than a decade, and will continue to pay for the mistakes that followed until we die."

"Then that's it? You're going to roll over and let yourself be taken down with Sylvanas? Because make no mistake, Nor'taeron, she will fall...and the whole Horde with her."

Nor'taeron smiled sadly. "Your people have expressed similar sentiments since the orcs arrived on this world more than thirty years ago, Lord Devaneaux. You will forgive me if I do not share your confidence." He shook his head. "I do not like this situation, and neither does Lor'themar. But the Regent will honor the agreement made with Sylvanas that brought us into the Horde. As an individual, I would agree to the Reclamation's terms without hesitation. But as a member of a greater whole that is Quel'Thalas, I am duty-bound to obey the wishes of my leaders. And their wishes, for now at least, are to maintain our allegiance to the Horde. The entire Horde."

Artimus nodded grimly. "So be it, then...I pray this does not blow up in your face."

"So do I," Nor'taeron admitted.