Here I want to share my personal view of Sylvanas’ fate.
This post was originally created in the Lore / Story Forum section and I’m reposting it here where it belongs.
Windrunner
- The Maw
“Odd”. That single word described well the last three days. Standing beside the portal she could have a clear view of the surroundings. There wasn’t a single soul for miles. At first she had the impression that her task would take forever to be accomplished, but now it seemed that it was almost done.
The assaults carried out by the Covenants had done a huge clean up in the maw, eliminating most of the jailor’s troops, which had helped to make her job that much easier. Without the presence of hostile forces, locating and freeing the captive souls turned out to be a simple gathering task. Despite the Maw’s dimensions, she had been able to sweep the entire region in a dozen days.
After that, came the much more complex and time-consuming task of walking through the endless corridors of Torghast, where countless Zovaal’s minions still roamed. Without their leader, they roamed the corridors aimlessly, sometimes fighting with each other, sometimes amusing themselves by torturing the many souls trapped there.
With each floor released, her resolve grew stronger. More and more powerful creatures came her way, only to be eliminated without remorse. And since the jailor no longer existed, there was no risk that the released areas could be infested by new waves of his creations.
Every day, after hours of endless struggles, she retreated to the cave located next to the portal. The place that had once served as the broker’s refuge was now her new home. There she cleaned herself, sharpened the blades of her swords and daggers, replenished her quiver with magic arrows, checked the status of the various traps she had set up around the camp, and prepared a light meal before retiring to sleep.
How much time had passed? She wasn’t sure anymore. From the moment she entered the Shadowlands, she realized that time passed there in an entirely different way than on Azeroth. Of one thing she was sure. The cleaning of the tower had taken months, maybe even a year. The first few times she had entered Torghast, she had returned to camp at the end of the day to rest. So, the next day, she was forced to retrace the path already covered in order to continue with her task. This meant that with each level she spent more and more time just walking. At one point, she decided to sleep inside the tower, leaving only occasionally in search of more supplies, which were regularly supplied to her by a troop of elves under Tyrande’s orders.
So that day hadn’t been any different from the previous ones with the exception that she had finally reached the highest level of the tower and eliminated the last of Zovaal’s minions.
For a normal person that would be something to celebrate. For her, a former Ranger General of Silvermoon, it felt like a void that would never be filled. She had no friends left, her family was far away, her soldiers had returned to Silvermoon. Well, those few who had survived the carnage wrought by Arthas.
Sylvanas paused for a few minutes to survey the view from the top of the tower, but there was nothing to enjoy. Just a desolate landscape. All that remained was the eastern side of the Maw, where no souls had been imprisoned and where the most powerful creatures ever created by the jailor resided. Not even the forces of the Covenants had managed to tame that region, limiting themselves to contain the continuous assaults promoted by the hordes commanded mainly by Vasanok and Sanngror. Only a handful of Azeroth’s heroes had ventured into those parts on surgical operations to eliminate these bosses, only to have them resurrected by Zovaal.
That night she returned to camp early, under Dori’thur’s watchful eye. Standing by the pile of supplies that had been deposited there a few hours earlier, she removed her hood, letting her long golden hair fall over her shoulders and back. Once again, she regretted not having a brush or comb with which to give her hair a little more dignity. In that hot and arid place where there was no source of natural water, all she could do was wash her hair every now and then with some of the water that was also used for drinking and cooking. As for her personal hygiene, she was obliged to resort to wet clothes that she wiped over her skin to remove the dirt and blood spilled by the creatures she had executed. Yet she never once complained about her fate. She saw it all as penance for all the pain and suffering she had caused the people of Azeroth, particularly the Night Elves.