It was time for the party to venture on ahead from The Crossroads to find the caverns they had seen in their visions of the Emerald Dream. Together with Nara Wildmane and Tonga Runetotem, they headed out to what they understood to be the oasis from the dream, where Nara and Tonga opted to set up a camp and be of help from afar -- as both of them knew that daring the dangers within the caverns would probably be the end of them.
For the thick growth around the oasis, Gan Jedi and Kelrith Shalith put themselves forth as trailblazers. The journey was a success for the most, though with a few hitches and hiccups along the way once they had found the ominous cracks and fizzures in the densely overgrown hillside that the oasis was just next to. It was a dark and damp descent, down into depths where any misstep could cost the party dearly. Servius Felheart joined Gan and Kelrith in the front, with Turuk Thunderhoof and Turuk Thunderhoof not too far behind.
At the end of their trail, the party found a large cavern in which a massive pool drew a dense mist up into the air. The area was riddled with mysterious beasts, seemingly adopted well to the darkness down below. Turuk tried to investigate them, as he took to notice the monstrous peculiarities about them; gnarled scales, bleached hides, sunken eyes, and claws grown to abominable proportions.
Of course, their careful approach was eventually broken, when some of the beasts discovered them and beckoned the rest to drive the invaders out. A bloody battle ensued, and one the party eventually manged to come out of victorious.
In the aftermath of the battle, two tauren emerged from what seemed to be a hiding place not too far away. Apparently they had witnessed the events and hoped by the arms and armour of the party, the Horde insignias on them fairly easy to see, that they would be allies, or even unexpected rescuers. The two tauren introduced themselves as Nalpak and Muyoh, two of Naralex's Remaining Disciples, and beckoned the party along with them to a secretive little spot where they had been hunkering down to keep hidden.
Also there in that hidden spot was a night elf -- Ebru -- and a rather unexpected figure. The three druids had the company of a broken. Tales had reached the party before that some broken draenei, who stepped into Azeroth when the Horde first emerged through the Dark Portal, were still alive and lingering somewhere out in the world; and now here one of them was, in the flesh before their eyes.
This broken introduced herself as Nim. She had mingled in with these druids a while ago, having crossed paths with them on heir way through The Barrens, though as a result she was now caught in the same predicament as them.
Unfortunately, though she had been able to sneak in past the troubles of these underground caves to find the druids, she did not possess the power to help them back out. It did puzzle the party why the four of them seemed stranded as they were, and the sombre answer Nalpak had to respond with was that there had once been more than just them trying to escape. The transformed beasts down in the caves got the best of them, as had a dark and nightmarish sludge that seemed to ooze out of crooks and crevices along the way. After that they chose to just hunker down and see if they could reach out to the Cenarion Circle -- though without drawing attention from deeper down within the caves.
The party quizzed the druids on what was going on deeper down inside, and what they got for it was largely a re-telling of what Nara Wildmane had previously laid clear at Thunder Bluff. That, and the manner in which the archdruid Naralex had let himself slip into the Emerald Dream, hoping to draw its powers to help revitalize the dying oases of The Barrens.
What the archdruid had found there, were nothing but haunting memories that slowly drove the other druids mad. Those closest to Naralex, the closest the druids had to any leadership in their archdruid's slumber, abandoned all reason for malice as they cast aside themselves to become the Lords of the Fang; their new names Lady Anacondra, Lord Cobrahn, Lord Pythas, and Lord Serpentis.
After a little time there to rest and recuperate, the party got ready to venture further on. While Nalpak and Muyoh chose to stay as they were to aid Ebru, Nim chose to join along with the party -- she was quite the capable shaman, after all.
The dark caves led further on past the large, mist-draped pool, and soon to a network of grottos where twisted, dark-dwelling raptors had made their nests. They fought their way past a few of them, carefully as they could, before they promptly found themselves face to face with a small group of elves. The same elves that had been shown to them when they had walked through these halls in the Emerald Dream.
One of these elves matched well to one of the descriptions Nalpak and Muyoh had given them; that of Lady Anacondra.
To stir up a trick, perhaps even fool the elves, Zachariah made use of the hat of disguise they had previously found in Hillsbrad. As he donned it, he transformed himself into one of the elven druids, and together with Kelrith and Turuk he staged a ruse that he had been taken captive by Horde adventurers -- clearly a challenge to which the elves had to tread carefully or risk losing one of their own. Their deception was a success, opening a golden opportunity for the party to get the jump on Lady Anacondra and the other elves, after which the ensuing battle was a swift and decisive victory for the party.
Then they made their way onward, as careful as they came, westward and deeper into the caves ...