They found the temple when the marsh stopped pretending it was a swamp.
It began with silence—not the usual hush of predators lying in wait, but a complete, unnatural absence. No insects. No frogs. Not even the gurgle of stagnant water. Dustwallow Marsh, usually a choked tangle of buzzing humidity, had gone quiet like it was mourning something.
The ground grew firmer as they pushed forward, the air thick and sweet with decay. Trees twisted unnaturally, their limbs reaching away from the path, as though recoiling.
Zhurong broke the silence first. "It's unnatural. Like the land knows what's buried here."
Boo grimaced. "I'm betting it's not treasure. But hey, we might get lucky and only lose a limb."
Ahead, the mist parted.
What emerged was not a structure. It was a scar—an ancient temple sunken into the marsh like it had tried to hide from the world and failed. Blackened stone jutted from the earth like shattered ribs. Pillars leaned as if exhausted. Vines thick as a man's arm coiled around them, pulsing faintly with violet light. It was alive, in a way stone shouldn't be.
"This doesn't look like kaldorei work," Nyxia murmured. "Not even highborne."
"Could be pre-Sundering," Zhurong offered. "Or something that crawled in after."
Boo eyed the glyphs across the entryway. "Either way, it's older than all our bad decisions combined."
The sealed door loomed—a monolith of fused basalt. Carved into it were symbols that shimmered at the edge of understanding. At its center pulsed a small depression, faintly glowing.
"Let me guess," Boo muttered. "We touch it, it opens, something terrible screams."
Nyxia stepped forward and placed her palm to the stone.
The glyphs twisted. The door groaned.
The temple breathed in—and swallowed them whole.
The interior was worse.
Cold radiated up from the stone itself. Not the chill of old air, but a cold that slithered beneath skin, into the joints.
They descended into a corridor lined with worn murals and fungal growths. Mold grew in constellations along the walls—green, violet, and ink-black.
Zhurong conjured flame in his hand, the light dancing against the slick walls.
"No echoes," he said.
"They don't want us to hear ourselves," Boo muttered. "They want us to listen."
Familiar.
She walked on, hand occasionally brushing her blade.
The corridor led into a wide, flooded chamber. Knee-deep water stilled their footsteps. Statues stood frozen around them—warriors, perhaps once defenders. Their weapons were shattered. Their faces had been carved blank. All of them posed mid-scream.
Nyxia shivered. "These aren't defenders."
"They were challengers," Zhurong said. "Or looters. Whatever the Veil is, it doesn't like being touched."
Boo peered at the nearest statue. "If these are echoes of the Veil's judgment, I vote we tread lightly."
At the center of the room was a pedestal.
On it, a crystal-encased flower. White as bone. Pristine. Unreal.
Nyxia stepped toward it. Her runes flared.
"Stop," Zhurong warned.
She didn't.
The water stilled around her. Her fingers brushed the crystal.
The petals stirred.
"Vylira…"
The word was breath and blade, spoken not aloud but deep inside her.
Nyxia collapsed.
Chains. Sky. Roaring void.
She stood on black stone beneath a writhing sky. A figure loomed ahead—draconic, armored in cracked plating, her horns tipped in emberlight.
"You're late," the voice said. "And the world is burning."
Then—nothing.
Nyxia gasped awake. Boo was beside her, blades drawn.
"She's one of us," Nyxia rasped. "Veil-marked."
Zhurong helped her sit. "Another flower. Another message."
"But this one… it wasn't a memory," Nyxia said. "It was a warning."
They left the chamber, winding through tighter halls. Bones littered the path—some armored, others burnt into the stone itself.
At a split in the tunnel, Nyxia hesitated. "Left."
Boo frowned. "Why?"
"Because right feels like a trick."
Zhurong nodded once. "I've learned to trust paranoia."
They entered a chamber ringed with spirals of broken offerings: cracked soulstones, shattered relics, carefully arranged bones.
"Someone lived here," Boo said.
Zhurong corrected, "No. Someone died here. A lot of someones."
Then the shadows moved.
Dozens of them. Cultists—emaciated, painted with voidscript, eyes too wide, mouths sewn shut. They struck like ghosts.
Nyxia loaded her bow and started taking aim at priority targets.
Boo was already firing. Her shot blew through a cultist's eye. She pivoted, sabers flashing, dancing between strikes like a serpent.
Nyxia loosed a barrage from her bow—arrows humming with cold light. Three struck. Two fell. One kept moving. She leapt, drawing her dagger, and slammed it through the survivor's spine.
Zhurong bellowed, arms wide.
Flame erupted from him in twin spirals. He moved like a firestorm, dragging arcs of molten air through the cultists. Several ignited and screamed—not just in pain, but in prayer.
The air turned thick—boiling.
Then came the summoner.
Tall. Masked. Robed in stitched veils. His staff was made of bone and bound fireglass.
He chanted.
A rift opened.
Nyxia didn't wait.
She sprinted towards the masked summoner full speed dagger ready to slice his throat.
A thin mana barrier blocked her dagger inches away from the cultist's neck.
He smirked and turned. The rift pulsed.
Zhurong roared and hurled a column of flame.
The summoner staggered.
Nyxia struck again. This time, her runes blazed. Her blade sank deep.
Veil-light erupted.
The rift shrieked—and collapsed.
The summoner fell, twitching, fingers clawing at something unseen.
Then he was still.
They made camp near a collapsed bridge, far from the temple's edge.
Zhurong sipped tea brewed with bitterroot and thistle. Boo cleaned her blades, hissing as she pressed bandages to her side.
Nyxia sat beside boo. The hunter resting with her head on Boo's shoulder after the intense fight.
"What the hell is the Veil?" Boo asked.
Zhurong looked into the fire. "I think it's older than Azeroth's gods. Maybe not a being. Maybe… a force."
"Like fate?" Boo asked. "Because I don't like fate. It's always dramatic and involves stabbing."
Nyxia said quietly, "It picks who it needs. And it doesn't ask nicely."
Silence.
Then Boo sighed. "Well, if we're chosen… I expect at least a title and a cool cape."
Zhurong chuckled. "You already have one."
"What, 'The Complaining Blade'?"
"No. 'Survivor.'"
That night, Nyxia dreamed again.
Chains overhead. Stars bleeding violet. And Vylira.
This time, she wasn't warning.
She was calling.
And the Veil was listening.