The Alliance has a saying about Ironforge, that it’s a city of dwarfish charm and gnomish efficiency. And normally that’s true: It’s a city of clanking gears and pounding hammers, drunken brawls and machines run amok.

But when it comes to the Alliance war machine, the sons and daughters of Khaz Modan were a wonder to behold. Within hours of the Alliance fleet landing, a blue-roofed barracks was constructed, a mine secured and producing and defensive towers well underway.

But the Alliance wasn’t alone on the southern coast. Gyrocopter patrols reported the Horde war machine was tearing through the forest, shredding trees, spilling oil into the waves and filling the air with smoke. Where the Alliance built, the Horde destroyed.

Ringo Flinthammer enjoyed the work, digging out rock suitable for the fortress city of Lion’s Landing. Sweat poured down his bare back and his hands were sore from swinging the pick, but it drove out all other thoughts. There was simply finding the rock, splitting it away and loading it onto Frostmaw’s saddle bags.

He had smelled the same scent wafting over the Krasarang Wilds years before, in Stranglethorn Vale. But what the goblins of the Venture Company had taken years to do, ruining vast sections of the wilderness, the goblins of the Bilgewater Cartel had accomplished in days.

For the good of Pandaria, the Horde had to go.