Shala'divh

Shala'divh
Shala'divh, which in the common tongue roughly translates into Traveler's Secret, once sat on the edge of the Zandalari mountain range in pre-sundering Kalimdor, nestled upon the border of the two mighty empires of the Zandalari and the Highborne. It was a secluded plateau, small and protected naturally by the mountains.

The Moonguard settled the area first, a watchful eye on the Zandalari incase they ever needed to be put down, but it never happened. Several decades later, highborne would venture to the far off fortress and settle at the base of it's walls. With a relentless underground spring beneath the great mountain peak and an abundance of plant and wildlife, the seclusion of Shala'divh suited it and it's denizens just fine.

They were well off and quite happy, only ever suffering the presences of a few Zandalari raiding parties, that had really just either lost their way, or blindly discovered the plateau. Though they never got the opportunity to report it's existence.

Come the first invasion of Azeroth, Shala'divh was so far away, so far removed, they never even realised what was happening to the world. Though they encountered one demon horde, after leading it away from Shala'divh they never encountered the demons again.

And when the Sundering shattered the world, they were as terrified as they were confused. So much of the mountain ranges sank, whilst Shala'divh barely stayed above sea-level. And the mighty fortifications they had built, weathered the moving of the world incredibly well.

Shala'divh and its people had survived for the most part.

Unfortunately, its people were now cut off from not only society and the world, but also the well of eternity. Dealing with a palpable hopelessness at the idea that they were the only people left in the world, they also needed to find a source of magic to sustain themselves.

They began investigating ley lines, and were pleased to find, upon exploring the catacombs beneath the fortress which had also survived decently... that Shala'divh now sat above a ley line.

They studied for years and found minor solutions to fend off magic addiction, only to slowly and slowly become more desperate for food.

They drove the fish in the waters away with over fishing. The risked destroying the islands ecosystem by eating too many animals.

And when they were finally ready to create a new font of magic, natural in its creation, so that it simply funnelled a ley line artifically through a conduit and then redirect it back to its normal position.

Unfortunately, it went awry, they had been unable to control it, which resulted in a huge arcane fissure opening underground.

To this day, the magic has seeped into the mountain and reshaped the wildlife around it.

Ultimately, the people of Shala'divh split in two. When it finally became clear that something had to give and life was no sustainable on the island, many took boats that were assuredly not sea worthy and set sail.

They would never make it anywhere, as the sea would eventualyl claim them.

The others, were the ones that stayed behind. They did their best to survive, to carry on and continue their lives.

But slowly, they died. From hunger, addiction, suicide, even a few murders.

Eventually only the undertakers were left to tend to the dead.

But so much death in one place can have side-effects, and ghosts began to roam the island.

Restless spirits, spirits woken by the latent arcane magic, but also some spirits brought back from restful death.

Because as the undertakes died, the last one slowly lost pieces of his mind with them.

And in his insanity, he tried to stay alive, through dark means.

It changed him, but he succeeded and is still alive to this day.

Slowly and carefully, sharing his 'gift' with others whether they want it or not.

The mountain range upon which Shala'divh is situated was once known to the Zandalari as Lukai'alarion. Believed to be mountains of healing and endless endurance. Nature persisted against all odds in these mountains, always surviving, always enduring. The land never grew sick, plague never struck the mountain or infected the wildlife, the land was always in pristine health. The Zandalari believed this was thanks to the loa. Lukai'alarion means Guardian of the Healing Ones, referring to the mountains that must protect such life-giving benevolence.

Shala'divh consisted of several important locations. These included...

Zin'talah, the great peak that the moonguard fortress was first established at the base of. The mountain was among the highest in the range, though still dwarfed by Azeroth's other cloud-scraping heights such as Mount Neverest and Highmountain Peak. The moonguard contingency identified a strong magical presence to the mountain upon first arriving and thought it prudent to stay near to it. Zin'talah means Crown of Survival, named so for a dream High Magister Hyeria had of the peak on their first evening, weathering the worlds perils and enduring long after all life had withered away. A strong, unfaltering waterfall unendingly poured from the peak also, cutting directly through the center of the plateau as it flowed. Its rapids were fierce and dangerous to be near.

The moonguard fortress was the original site and epicenter of Shala'divh. Crafted keenly through arcane masonry, the unexpectedly long construction time came from several factors: the lack of personnel, the eventual size of the fortress and the uncooperative wildlife. The moonguard contingency was small, and not well equipped for what was expect of them, but they persisted and created the northern portion of the fortress first. A towering facility with high walls, designed to indulge in strong westerly and southern winds, heavily set with gardens and a spacious design, it loomed high above the jungle. They would then expand over the raging falls of Zin'talah with a bridge. The southern portion of the fortress was less enclosed and acted more as tiered steps of gardens and private studies, leading to a modest dock upon the lake south of the mountain as well as granting them access to the plateau's southern jungles. Throughout this process they encountered resistance in the form of the wildlife and nature, that would constantly regrow faster than they could build or their arcanists would suffer under an assault by flocks of birds or vicious insect swarms. It is unknown why the nature of Shala'divh eventually stopped resisting their presence and adapted around them, but the moonguard were grateful to Elune for it.

The Sanctum of Stardust was built after the arrival of the highborne settlers. It is a low-walled complexed built atop the river of Zin'talah. Situated east of the two portions of the moonguard fortress, the Sanctum served a dual purpose. To celebrate life and be a place of faith and worship, and to prepare and house the dead as a mortuary and graveyard. The gardens were once vibrant and beautiful in their prime. The most important building sat above the whole Sanctum, against the northern wall of the complex, the Chapel of Rest was the office and workplace of Ephendrax, the prime undertaker and a disciple of Elune within the Sanctum.

–11915
Establishedyears before the dark portal to keep a watchful eye upon the Zandalari Empire. As the southern border of the empire was relatively unpopulated, a contingency of moonguard offered to go south and watch the border for further troll incursions as there had already been many small raids enacted by the Zandalari and other troll tribes all around the empire. Azshara did not think much of the trolls, nor did the greater highborne empire. They viewed them as lesser, savage, unkempt. They did not even consider them a threat, as they had constantly failed to overcome the elven mastery of the arcane, but, appearances must be maintained and what were centuries to a few moonguard. So, it was that their offer was accepted and south they travelled. Eventually they found a well-guarded, defensible and secluded plateau hidden amongst towering peaks. With a river flowering from the tallest mountain, fed from a great underground spring and a freshwater lake in the south, the moonguard settled on the northern-western cliffs of the mountain. With only fifty members to their regiment, it took two years before the fortress was fully completed. Their perch above the small plateau was strong, but the mountains could be difficult to traverse without the convenience of a mount, and so they set to the long work of an etching out a deep and expansive series of catacombs that stretched out beneath the mountain ranges. The fortress was named Shala'divh, Traveler's Secret, for only the wayward or truly blindly adventurous could ever hope to stumble upon such a place.(edited)

-11300
Long after the Zandalari had submitted to Queen Azshara's negotiations to keep the Zandalari mountain range in exchange for ceasing all aggression against the highborne empire, the moonguard had become increasingly isolated as their duty maintained less and less precedence. Around this time highborne settlers came south and began creating a settlement around the fortress, breathing prosperity back into the secluded plateau and adding to the longevity of Shala'divh.

-10000
The War of the Ancients and the Sundering. The very thing that made Shala'divh so undesirable and prone to disremember became its luckiest and strongest defense; its remote location. Shala'divh had been priviliedged to fewer and fewer reports long before the war began, be it because the wild claimed messengers, or they decided the trip was not worth the effort, or an arcanist gorged themselves too heartily on wine to bother scrying the moonguard of Shala'divh. Come the war, and the sky turning foul and storms raging across the world, it was no surprise then that Shala'divh had no knowledge of what was happening beyond their peaks. The only outsiders they'd seen for some time had been the occasional stray Zandalari hunting party, daring their borders and then even rarer raiding party that they keenly misdirected back the way they came or into the clutches of the mountains many wild beasts. When demons began skulking around the mountains, eagerly looking to take advantage of the many spirits and loa that called the vast Zandalari mountain ranges home, it was inevitable that they would stumble upon Shala'divh. Though the regiments that marched upon the plateau were laughable in comparison to the legions swarming the center of the empire and they never truly had the privilege of stepping foot into the jungles of Shala'divh, they were enough still to give the moonguard and the highborne forces stationed there a test of their might.(edited)

The Sundering eventually interrupted this game of cat-and-mouse in the most abrupt and expectedly unexpected fashions. There is no rhyme or reason to how anything survived the Sundering, though it is a testament to the builders of Shala'divh that much of their architecture survived unfractured. The proximity of the inner-plateau to the great peak is unquestionable responsible for sparing Shala'divh from a watery grave. In the wake of the Sundering and the many years the lands shifted, unsettled and shaking, the Shala'divhians took to their catacombs for safety, confining themselves underground they managed to thrive in the darkness, waiting for the world to stop moving. There were many losses in those catacombs of course, as whole portions of the tunnels collapsed, either killing the inhabitants or cutting them off so completely, they undoubtedly died not long after.

-8982
Desperate and isolated on the now island of Shala'divh, the survivors realize that they cannot sustain themselves on this island, there is not enough food, they've no crops to farm and the lack of magical sustenance was slowly eating away at their very being. And so many citizens gathered together, and whilst a few hundred remained behind, some two hundred others took to the sea in the hopes of finding anything beyond their island. The ship would sail for two days before hitting the immense reef that expands around Shala'divh's local island chain. The ship sank, unknown to anyone, with no survivors.

-8957
Food shortages and desperation for magical sustenance feed into erratic, irrational and paranoid minds. The survivors of Shala'divh split in two, those led by the fanatical and volatile priesthood and those led by what remained of the moonguard. Unmatched in numbers as the priesthood claimed the support of many citizens and soldiers of Shala'divh, blaming the moonguard for failing to find a solution to their magic shortage, the moonguard supplemented this disadvantage with skill. The conflict manifested in an endless string of murders and guerilla tactics over the decades until they could no longer fight, nor sustain themselves.

-8900
The remaining elven population on Shala'divh dies out, withering away. The only survivor is a single priest, Ephendrax, the primary undertaker of the temple. With so many violent deaths in Shala'divh over the centuries, the veil to the shadowlands had unquestionably been weakened upon the island. Ephendrax often caught sight of figures and movement just at the edge of his periphery.

-7230
The experiments done the moonguard damaged the foundations of the ley-line beneath the island, eventually resulting in a small quake due to the instability. This exposed the ley-line deep underground. It slowly began seeping into the catacombs and the mountain, where it would eventually reach the surface after many centuries, forming a unique relationship with the environment and wildlife through prolonged exposure.