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Homecoming.

Plainswander, diplomat, elder druid, defender of the balance, known and liked..... well known anyway.... across most of Azeroth and Outland, and general all round nice guy, was going home. Home to Narache, home to Bloodhoof, home to the verdant sweeping plains of Mulgore from which he took his name.

He'd woken that evening in Booty Bay to find a package outside his office. No address, no to or from, just a series of runes that skittered nauseatingly across it's surface. His requests for help to his fellows had met with the usual - mumbled protestations of the hour, then silence. So the old bull had taken it upon himself ot investigate the item in question.

Shortly after opening it, and finding it filled with nothing but grain, the aged tauren had found his joints stiffening, and his vision blurring. What worse though was the hunger, a raging fire of thirst and ravenous lust for meat, and blood. It felt like something was alive inside his stomachs, gnawing relentlessly. Driving him out, out of nhis office, out of the town, and far far away from his outland hunting grounds.

Plainswander staggered from one post to the next. First Ratchet, then Camp Taurajo, driven by something inside him that was growing more overpowering, more agonizing, and more mindlessly destructive by the hour. By the time he'd reached Narache, half blind with pain, and thinking almost nothing beyond the need for family and relief, something inside him snapped, and he collapsed.

But only momentarily. The big tauren rose again....mostly. Whatever was looking out through his eyes now wasn't anything like the old Plainswander. There was no sense of self, no compassion or knowledge in his eyes. Just weeping trails of stringy pus. His mouth, once used to speak words that had swayed hundreds now hung slackjawed, rivulets of bloody froth dripping from his muzzle.

Plainswander turned this way and that, as if seeking ...something. Leaving his weapons where they'd fallen, the big tauren staggered forward into the camp. Younglings and braves alike hailed him....seeing a returning hero. He was surrounded by well wishers ....unsuspecting loved ones and old friends he'd left long ago.

None of them stood a chance.

Ropy putrescent muscles, still strong from their years spent in outlands, lashed out. Fangs flashed, claws rent and tore, and ichor spread like rain. Plainswander devoured his friends, his relatives, anyone he could lay hands on. Some tried to stop him, an elven paladin gaurding the village attempted to cure him, and an Argent Healer tried to cleanse him, but the disease had too firm a grip, and he continued his rampage. He was soon joined by another marauding sower of plague.... His old friend Abominus, once one of the few Forsaken to ever be adopted into the tribes of the Shuhalo had fallen to the plague as well, and together they laid waste to the green fields of their homelands. Narache was corrupted and destroyed, and then Bloodhoof.

The elf was felled, and rose also as one of them. As did the gaurdians and teachers of Bloodhoof. No matter if someone died fighting or running, the end result was the same....another minion of scourge.

The last thing he saw before a braves hammer finally cleaved his skull was a horde of mindless undeath swarming his homeland.

Abominus awoke with a splitting headache, his maggots churpling anxiously in his skull cavity. He looked about himself in confusion. Where was he?

"Orgrimmar, yesss? how did we end up here, yesss? Lassst we remember, we had gone to Bloodhoof to meet up with Hewt-thing, yesss."

Leaving the alley in which he lay, he looked about in astonishment. The guards had been tripled, no one walked alone, and Argent Dawn healers strode openly in the streets, talking of "containment", "cleansing", and "final solutions". What had happened?

Plainswander woke up somewhere in the Barrens.

One of the nicer things about being tied, body and soul, to the natural cycle of life and death, decay and rebirth, is that no matter how badly you're folded, spindled, and mutilated, eventually you come to, and get on with it.

Now, of course, this has it's drawbacks. Expensive clothing bills, awkward explanations (didn't I see you take a dragon to the face just yesterday?), and splitting headaches are all part of the territory. Gaping holes in one's memory though, those are a sure sign of trouble - if you can't remember how you died, it's time to do a little checking up.

Well, naturally, it didn't take Plainswander long to discover what was going on. Zombies, everywhere. Friends and family infected, gooification on a truly staggering scale, cats and dogs sleeping together, Tery the Paladin on a Mission From God... it was bad. Bad with a capital Scourge. And scourge meant only one thing. Naxxramas.

Plainswander jumped the next ship to the Eastern Kingdoms, and set out for the Plaguelands. It wasn't easy though, the infection was becoming more and more resilient, and it took several runs past a nearby Argent Healer to avoid another repeat of the previous night's unpleasantness.

Eventually though, the big druid made it to the Eastern Plaguelands. And what did he find? Nothing. No Naxxramas for one...the floating citadel-come-prison of the Scourges' vangaurd in Azeroth was....gone. For two, there was no infection vector to explain the current outbreak. No crates, no vermin, no nothing. Not even inside Stratholme....undead and ghouls aplenty..but no infectious agents.

It wasn't until Plainswander ventured into the the Scarlet Crusade's main stronghold of Tyr's Hand that things began to seem...different. All the minions of the crusade were milling around, almost in a panic. And at the furthest rear wall of hteir compound there was...a gate.

Plains rode though the gate, not knowing what to expect, but finding something that made the hairs on his tail twitch with the first real fear he'd felt in years. Just beyond the gate was a ruined village. Obviously savaged by the plague, and not too long ago by the looks of it. Planted firmly in the dirt at the main village square were what appeared to be two massive swords. Each one as tall again as the big bull. And etched into each sword were a series of glowing runes. Glimmering in the plaguelight like necrotic prophesies of so much worse to come.

And hovering above it all, in the distance, was a new necropolis.

Plainswander took a last look around and started back. Someone was stirring. More than stirring. Someone...was here. It was time to get serious.