It was a cool autumn morning in Loch Modan, but dwarves are made of sturdy stuff. After suffering through her son’s cabin fever for days, Beli Flinthammer had decided the best cure was a picnic lunch on the shores of the loch near the Stonewrought Dam, which she planned to explore with Bael after lunch until the boy was exhausted.

“Dwagon.”

“Nay, Bael, I told ye: That’s a crocolisk.” She was already looking forward to Bael being worn out and asleep on the ride back to Thelsamar on the back of her faithful Sam the Ram.

“Uh dwagon.”

“Bael, help Mommy get lunch set up.”

“Dwagon!” Insistent, the boy tugged on his mother’s sleeve and stabbed a finger toward the south.

“I’m tellin’ ye, Bael, that’s a … Eonar protect us!”

“UH BIG DWAGON!”

The dragon blocked out the sun, his tattered wings as wide as the loch. As he soared north, toward the Wetlands, the intense heat coming off his metal-clad form boiled the water beneath him, and caused the ruins of the old trogg encampments on the isles in the loch to burst into flame.

Beli felt her eyes begin to dry out and blinked in pain, clutching her son to her chest with one hand and raising her morning star, she cried out a single word in Titan, conjuring a shimmering barrier to protect herself and her son from the blazing heat.

The dragon soared over the top of the Stonewrought Dam, not even glancing down at the devastation below. For a moment, Beli could hear the screams of the workers on the dam, but then they were drowned out by the sound of the mighty stone structure cracking, chunks of it tumbling into the abyss, carrying the hapless dwarves with them, and then the sound of the boiling loch rushing out through the cracks, down into the Wetlands below.

“Khaz’goroth on a cracker!”