Recommended Game Story · Warcraft Part 40

Following the Extinguished Sun — Kael’thas and the Last Gate of Dalaran

Spoiler Notice: This article covers the misunderstandings, dark pacts, the dungeons of Dalaran, and the secret mission 'Escape' from the 'Curse of the Blood Elves' campaign in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. The rescue of Illidan and the subsequent conquest in Outland are subjects for the next installment. This is a narrative commentary written based on in-game events and official manuals, not a translation of an official novel. Sentences interpreting the atmosphere and the meaning of events do not present the actual inner thoughts of characters or new official dialogue. Distinctions are made between the original game and Reforged map details, as well as optional missions and fixed events.

Guide to This Installment

The extinguished Sunwell and the surviving prince → Garithos’s resistance → Restoration of the three observatories → The boat received at the lake → The front line stripped of troops → Joint battle with Vashj → Magical thirst → Arrest after victory → The magic prison and Vashj’s infiltration → Rescuing lieutenants and the dead mages → Jailor Kassan → Defending the portal in the secret mission → The people departing for another world.

Chapter 1 · Those Who Remained Before the Name of the Kingdom

It was war that shattered the barriers of Silvermoon. It was war that corrupted the Sunwell, which sustained the daily lives of the elves beyond those barriers. However, what followed the passing of the enemy army was not a quiet recovery. In the place where familiar power had been severed, an inexplicable weakness and thirst remained. It was not only palaces and territories that were lost. The survivors had to learn, only after it was gone, how deeply they had relied on that source of magic.

Kael’thas Sunstrider was the last prince of this fallen royal house. After his father Anasterian died and most of his people had fallen, he returned from his studies in Dalaran to face the tragedy of his homeland. The name 'Blood Elf' chosen by the survivors carried the meaning of remembering the dead. It was not a name signifying a new race that drank blood, but a name by which the same people, bearing their loss, called themselves once more.

The prince did not lead his army out to abandon his people and leave the ruins behind. The threat of the Scourge continued, and the survivors needed defense and a future. The warriors he led were not the entirety of the survivors. The distinction between the community left in the homeland and the army fighting outside leads to the later stories of Lor’themar, Rommath, and the Silvermoon that awaited their return. Instead of viewing Kael’thas at this point through the lens of the future fallen Sun King, one must read him as a leader still seeking a way to save his people to understand where his choices began.

Chapter 2 · Strangers Under the Same Banner

The resistance of Lordaeron was the remnant force of a kingdom already collapsed. In the lands seized by the Scourge, the front line surrounding Dalaran held firm, and Grand Marshal Garithos commanded those forces. Kael’thas and the elves fought within them as well. Joining hands to block the same enemy was necessary. The problem lay in the fact that the one issuing orders did not treat his allies as equals.

After the journey where he met Maiev and Tyrande, Kael’thas arrived at the command post, only to be scolded by Garithos for his late arrival. Even when the prince tried to explain his encounter with the Night Elves from across the sea, Garithos would not listen. Here, the status of royalty did not guarantee respect. Garithos demanded that the elves serve the Alliance and follow orders to the letter. The prince was both a leader guiding his kin and a subordinate to a commander who despised them.

Yet, one cannot equate this single individual with the judgment of all humans or the entire Alliance at the time. Tyrande, in the previous installment, held the bridge to give refugees time to cross. In Dalaran, there was also a tradition of magic built together by humans and elves. The reason this story is painful is not because there was no possibility of cooperation between the races. It is because one commander in the war kept closing the doors to possible cooperation, and from outside those closed doors, another force reached out.

Chapter 3 · Eyes Lit Again in the Observatories of Ruins

The first order was not to advance to the front line. Garithos claimed that since he was holding back the main undead advance, the surrounding observatories needed to be restored to monitor potential attacks from the east. Kael’thas, who had intended to lead his army into battle, was left with the task of repairing the broken facilities. Apart from the commander’s insulting attitude, the devices themselves were important. Detecting enemies far away in the ruined city determined survival in the next battle.

The journey to find and restore the three observatories reveals that the ruins were not empty. One had to pass through collapsed roads and buildings, and secure resources and passages on the other side. It was not a world where everything returned to normal just by driving out the Scourge. In the place where order had vanished, enemies and dangers remained, and moving troops required considering boats, labor, and resources together. The prince’s fire magic, the soldiers’ shields, and the hands that repaired were all different parts of the same mission.

The game also includes an optional mission where Kael’thas finds and utilizes previously hidden supplies. I do not record here that every hidden chest was necessarily found as if it were a fixed event of canon. However, those mechanics show the state of this army. War does not end with a single spell from a hero. Only with hidden materials, gold, rebuilt buildings, and resources across the river can the troops for the next day remain. A small function returned to the ruins begins to sustain life again on a much smaller scale than the lost kingdom.

Chapter 4 · Help Approaching in the Guise of an Enemy

The path was cut off before the lake. A boat was needed to cross, but the goblin shipyard had been destroyed. At this moment, the Naga appeared at the water’s edge. They were the force that had been following Illidan and opposing Maiev’s pursuit until recently, beings Kael’thas had already viewed as enemies. Vashj, who led them, spoke of peace and offered transport ships.

Vashj explained their situation, speaking of the common ancestors of elves and Naga, and the undead threat facing both sides. That explanation does not make their histories entirely the same. The descendants of the ancient Highborne submerged in the sea and the High Elves who lost the Sunwell walked different paths. However, invoking the memory of a common origin was a way to emphasize that there was a connection behind the strange appearances before them. Offering the boats needed right now was more direct than words from the distant past.

Kael’thas accepted the offer. If one changes this event into an oath of loyalty to Illidan from that moment, the subsequent conflict disappears. What he chose was still just help for restoring the observatories. There is a progression between Vashj revealing Illidan as her master in the prison later and the explanation of their own unique situation during the first meeting. Rather than being a narrator who knows all of Vashj’s ulterior motives in advance, following the words the prince actually heard and the help he received shows how the alliance opened up little by little.

Chapter 5 · Trust Not Received Even After Completing the Mission

The observatories were restored. The surveillance network demanded by Garithos was working again, and Kael’thas was able to report the results. However, the returning commander’s interest turned to the contact with the Naga before the restoration of the facilities. Kael’thas explained that he had received help to cross the lake. That explanation did not convince Garithos of the practicality of the cooperation. He treated the Naga as non-human entities akin to enemies and warned the elf prince about his loyalty.

Here, orders and survival were not yet completely separated. Kael’thas was still within the Alliance resistance and waited for the next instruction. He did not abandon the Grand Marshal and move to another force immediately after the first warning. That waiting is important. The prince did not break all ties after a single insult. In a collapsing world, the value and duty of the remaining alliance still bound his actions.

The fact that the restored observatories detected the gathering of the undead became the cause for the next order. The facilities did their job, and the command, having obtained that information, demanded that Kael’thas defeat the enemy. Yet, the troops meant to carry out that battle were sent elsewhere. The state of not being trusted even after accomplishing useful work returns in a more dangerous form in the next battle.

Chapter 6 · The Order to Fight and the Departing Troops

The order delivered by the messenger was to stop the undead before they advanced on Dalaran. At the same time, he received orders for his infantry, cavalry, and support troops to move to the main front. They departed before Kael’thas. He had to attack the enemy, but the strength to support that attack was reduced. The commander’s remark to 'be creative' was not the same as supplies or reinforcements.

The Scourge, commanded by Dalvengyr, seized surrounding bases and pressured the elven forces. The space and resources Kael’thas could rely on diminished, and it was difficult to turn the tide of battle with only the remaining units. In this scene, the Blood Elves are not depicted as a helpless army. Mages, priests, spell breakers, and other forces still existed. However, in a war where different branches must hold together, taking away a part of them creates a hole that cannot be filled by the skill of the remaining soldiers alone.

Vashj appeared at the water’s edge again. This time, the help was not just a few boats, but Naga forces to fight alongside them. Kael’thas hesitated, saying the commander would not tolerate the Naga, and Vashj pointed out the reality of whether that commander was sharing the danger with them right now. He eventually accepted the offer. At the moment when not disobeying orders could lead to the collapse of his unit, the responsibility to protect his living kin collided with the prohibition of the orders.

Chapter 7 · Hunger Remaining Even After the War Ends

The Naga and the Blood Elves counterattacked together and defeated the Scourge’s threat. Destroying Dalvengyr’s base was the goal of this mission. While the game’s resource acquisition and defensive means offer various choices for resolving the battle, it does not fix which building was built first as the sole history. The core of the narrative lies in the fact that different forces combined to reverse the crisis of defeat. It was a victory that would have been difficult to achieve without Vashj’s help.

The conversation after the victory shifts the gaze from the story of killing the enemy to the state of those who survived. Kael’thas explained the emptiness and thirst that he and his kin felt after their homeland collapsed. Vashj says that it is related to their dependence on magic. Losing the Sunwell meant more than the destruction of a symbolic place in the war. The power that sustained life was severed, and that severance returned as a crisis of body and daily life.

Vashj mentioned other sources of power and even suggested demonic magic. Kael’thas did not agree immediately. If one writes that he craved demonic power from the beginning and entered this path, it erases his initial refusal and subsequent changes. It was a proposal he could not accept yet, but the fact that the problem had been given a name created a new direction. Can one survive by finding other powers even before reclaiming the lost Sunwell? That question follows the future of the Blood Elves for a long time.

Chapter 8 · The Merit of Victory Becomes Evidence of Treason

When Garithos returned with his troops, Vashj tried to withdraw. Kael’thas could not guarantee the safety of the Naga either. However, the Grand Marshal’s subordinates saw the departing Naga, and Garithos used that alliance as evidence of treason. The prince tried to explain that it was his decision and asked to spare his soldiers. Garithos did not accept that explanation and had them arrested.

The army that succeeded in stopping the Scourge became prisoners awaiting execution at the hands of the same resistance. This reversal is the moment when internal distrust becomes a more direct danger than the undead outside. Before Kael’thas could even fear the next battle, the human soldiers who were his comrades in war took him to prison. The result of fighting according to orders and the cooperation chosen for survival are inverted into reasons for punishment against them.

It is difficult to read this as a simple comparison between safe judgment and dangerous judgment. There was clearly an unknown future in the cooperation with Vashj, and the suggestion regarding demonic power had already been made. However, the path left by Garithos was not a safe alternative. Within it lay the death of his kin. To understand why Kael’thas headed toward a darker alliance later, one must not describe it as if he had fully chosen that future from the beginning. First, there was a closed path, and behind it, a path still unknown opened.

Chapter 9 · How a City That Knows Magic Imprisons Magic

The dungeons of Dalaran were not made of ordinary iron bars. It was a space created by the Kirin Tor to contain dangerous entities, and the magically protected cells rendered the elves’ power helpless. The fact that they were powerful mages did not become a means of escape here. Because it was a city that had studied magic for a long time, it also knew how to imprison those who used magic.

The conversation between the jailors Marcus and Trogdar reveals that the dawn execution is approaching. Kael’thas had no time. Inside the cell, he could neither solve his kin’s thirst nor issue new orders to his lieutenants to move the troops. Previously, the prince’s fire magic and command could change the tide of battle. Now, they were all locked behind closed doors. The pain of this prison is not just because the prince became powerless, but because the fate of those locked with him was placed on the same timetable.

Vashj infiltrated through the waterways. In the game’s introductory scene, she strikes down the guards with lightning and opens Kael’thas’s cell. While the commander on land kept the Naga bound as enemies, the entity moving through the water bypassed the order of that land. Following the boats on the lake and the troops on the battlefield, this time the door of the cell opened. The form of help changed, but the connection remains that Vashj created the possibility for the prince to choose again.

Chapter 10 · The Army That Returns Only When the Door Opens

The escape did not end just because one cell was opened. The lieutenants were trapped in scattered cells, and the prince had to free them to gather his kin and head toward the exit. This mission sets the rescue of the four lieutenants as an essential goal. It is not an adventure where Kael’thas escapes alone, but an event where he regains his army and leaves together. The process of gathering people overlaps with the process of the already collapsed kingdom holding onto a minimal community once more.

In the underground passages, there were not only guards but also creatures kept as experimental subjects and undead left over from when the city was retaken. Whether one stops the soldier sounding the alarm or fights the reinforcements after the alarm sounds depends on the game’s progression. The method of operating the containment devices or utilizing the passages cannot be fixed as one. What those various possibilities show in common is the situation of having to turn a place tangled with the remnants of war and research into an exit for the living.

The optional mission includes finding and granting rest to the spirits of the Archmages killed by Arthas. I do not write that this was necessarily completed in every escape route. However, looking at this choice, the fact that Dalaran was not just a prison for enemy forces returns. The traces of the dead also remained in the city where Kael’thas had learned and where human and elven knowledge had accumulated. Beside the journey to free the living lieutenants, the stories of the restless dead are placed. Escaping the ruins does not mean the connection with that city becomes as if it never existed.

Chapter 11 · Kassan, the Last Gatekeeper

At the exit was Jailor Kassan. His role is to block the final path of the Dalaran dungeons. Kael’thas acknowledged that he had served the Kirin Tor well, but declared that he and his kin would leave this prison. In Kassan’s words, there is a perspective that sees a capable mage as having changed. One side reads the same event as an escape from an unjust death, the other as a betrayal of order.

That difference was not resolved at the door. Kael’thas and Vashj had to defeat Kassan and his guards to reach the surface. The journey to escape the threat of death does not turn into the end of negotiations without shedding a drop of blood. Those who were once within the same city system must overcome each other’s weapons to gain a path. Unless this scene is covered up with a newly invented reconciliation or secret forgiveness, it is clear what those who are leaving left behind.

On the surface, there was a portal leading to another world. Vashj explained that Illidan was beyond it and could provide new possibilities for the elves’ thirst. Kael’thas recognized the gate by connecting it to the passage Kael’thas used to summon Archimonde. It is a situation where he must choose the path that brought disaster a short while ago as a path for survival now. This gate does not mean a structure like the massive Dark Portal of the Eastern Kingdoms. It is an event using Dalaran’s dimensional passage for the escape to Outland.

Chapter 12 · Secret Mission, Until Everyone Has Crossed

The expression after escaping the dungeons varies depending on the progress of the campaign. In the path where the secret mission is not opened, the scene of retreating into the portal immediately connects to the escape. In the secret mission 'Escape,' one plays the time in between as a separate defensive battle. I do not stitch the two paths together as if they were two separate escapes that occurred in history. They are selectable game scenes that show one part of the same movement in more detail.

In that defensive battle, Vashj and the Naga open the gate, and Kael’thas and his engineers buy time by building defensive towers with materials from the ruins. The technology that created Dalaran’s defensive facilities becomes the technology that protects the people leaving Dalaran. Garithos orders the gate to be destroyed and sends attack forces. It was not a matter that ended when one passing group crossed, but an evacuation where the following kin had to cross as well. The criterion for victory was not taking the life of the enemy commander, but that the escape route survived long enough.

The game expresses this time by mobilizing various attack waves, defensive towers, and experimental creatures. Since those numbers, special rewards, and ridiculous secret devices belong to the rules of play, I do not translate them into the exact troop scale of the world or an official alliance of all factions. What remains as a story is simpler yet heavier. Behind those who crossed first, there were still those who had not, and only after the last person had passed could the prince and Vashj retreat. Guarding the gate was a duty that went beyond the survival of only those who were fighting.

Chapter 13 · There Is No Sun, But the Path Remains

Kael’thas headed to Outland with his people. What awaited him was not a whole new kingdom, nor a thirst cured by promises alone. There were the fragments of the destroyed Draenor, the land ruled by demons, and the situation of Illidan, who had been captured again by Maiev. In the next installment, the prince stands in the position of rescuing the fugitive he once helped pursue. The gate opened in Dalaran leads to another world that will show how the prince’s oath changes.

It is difficult to simplify this story into an event where Vashj only lied or an event where Kael’thas knew all the dangers in advance and chose them. The boats, troops, and the opened prison she provided were real help. At the same time, the suggestions leading to other sources of magic and Illidan pointed toward a new dependence. The prince experienced the sincerity of the help, but he did not see the end of that help. Even if the reader knows the subsequent conclusion, they must not miss the fact that for the people in this moment, the future was still a closed book.

Therefore, what remains at the end of this installment is the movement of living people rather than an ominous prophecy. An army with a name that remembers the dead escaped the prison of the dawn execution and crossed the world. They did not reclaim their homeland, nor did they relight the Sunwell. Still, they gained the time to make the next choice. The tragedy and hope of the next era diverge from what power and what promises that time will be bound to.

Revisiting Characters and Concepts

Kael’thas Sunstrider: The last prince of the Quel’Thalas royal house and a mage. In this installment, he seeks answers to his kin’s survival and magical thirst. His later collusion with the Burning Legion is not yet the conclusion of this event.

Lady Vashj: Leader of the Naga. She provides boats, combat troops, and a jailbreak, and leads Kael’thas to Outland where Illidan is. Distinguish between the explanation of the first meeting and the explanation in the prison later.

Grand Marshal Garithos: Commander of the Alliance resistance remnants in Lordaeron. His hostile judgment toward non-human races leads to Kael’thas’s troop management and punishment. This is not identical to the will of all humans.

Dalvengyr: The Dreadlord of the Scourge who surrounds the elven forces in the second mission. Defeating that base is the goal of the battle where Vashj and Kael’thas fought together.

Jailor Kassan: The jailor of the Dalaran prison who served the Kirin Tor. He is the final security chief that the escaping Kael’thas and Vashj must overcome before heading to the surface.

Magical addiction: The crisis experienced by the elves who relied on the power of the Sunwell after losing that source. In this conversation, Kael’thas does not immediately accept demonic power. Acknowledging the dependence, finding a new source, and the later corruption are connected, but they are not the same single moment of event.

Previous Stories to Read Together

The war that lost the Sunwell and the end of Sylvanas are in Part 34, the fall of Dalaran and the summoning of Archimonde are in Part 35, and the event where Kael’thas informs Maiev of Tyrande’s survival and the choices of the Stormrage brothers diverge is in Part 39. The full series table of contents and previous/next installments can be found in the series guide above and below the text.

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Official Game to Meet Directly

Warcraft III: Reforged includes the campaigns of Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne. By playing it directly, you can experience the conversations between Kael’thas and Vashj, the troops and magic of each race, and the escape from Dalaran. Secret missions and optional objectives vary depending on the progression method. Check the official product page below for sales regions and provided languages.

Warcraft III — Official Product and The Frozen Throne Guide

Official Materials and Verification Scope

Verification Date: October 8, 2026 (UTC). This was written based on settings and events confirmed in the official public materials below. Public samples and setting introductions were checked only for their respective public scope, and it is not indicated that the entire book was read. The illustrations are AI reconstructions, not official images.

Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne — Curse of the Blood Elves, Escape from Dalaran

World of Warcraft Official Manual — Rise of the Blood Elves

The Burning Crusade Official Manual — Legacy of the Blood Elves

Blizzard Official Kael’thas Introduction — History of the Prince and Naga Alliance

Warcraft III — Official Product and The Frozen Throne Guide