"Fire! Fire!" People screamed. They ran around—panicking—fruitless in their endeavor to find a way out. Whatever direction they ran, it was all the same, all in vain. Flames had already encircled them, assuming the form of a fiery death cage. There was no escape.  

It was a huge mess, chaos. Men were yelling, women screaming, children crying. But neither of those could influence the fiery blaze of doom, the devil that came to take their lives. The cage was shrinking by the second, counting down their lives. Unbearable heat was draining away their strength, and the thick smoke was claiming more lives than the fire itself.

Some gave in to their inevitable fate—despair and sorrow painted their faces—awaiting their end. Just minutes ago they had been going on with their normal daily routines, biggest worries ranging from a broken door to getting home drunk. Quite a task, that one. Zatre had been a small, peaceful town. Located far back in the Pandria region it had never seen any real danger.

Now, they were supposed to fight this devil? How? This was out of their hands, a punishment sent by Lantre himself! How did they offend the heavens to be met with such cruelty?

They’d tried what they were taught at first, what common sense demanded. “Put out the fire before it grows”. But the tricky fire wouldn't listen, even under a barrage of water it hadn’t diminished in the slightest. On the contrary, it’s almost as if it grew—like a plant.

Next, they tried to evacuate. A fire immune to water. The thing that only existed in myths and legends—stories—became their reality. Their small town was void of any the prestigious magi, they had no one to turn to, none to ask for instructions. It was their only remaining plan. However, they soon realized it wasn’t just one side. The whole town was completely surrounded.

The flame had grown fast in size, the smoke unable to garner their attention for a timely warning. One moment as small as a mouse, the next as big as a house. It hadn’t been like any fire they had dealt with before.

From then, one of the lines of people that had been formed to the fire, from the well in the town’s center, still remained. They were passing buckets through their hands and emptying them into the blaze. It was futile effort, but they didn't stop.

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They passed them around and continuously tried to put out the fiery devil; stuck in a loop, they didn't even try to run away as the fire engulfed them one by one. The line merely shortened every time the fire came closer. At least the buckets were then reaching faster, not that it mattered. Their sense and reason had already left them, and all that remained was that one repeating motion of the body, seemingly watering the blaze, definitely dying like madmen.

"Fire! Fire!" They screamed, some small part of their mind hoping that as long as they shouted it would never leave the warning phase, it would not be too late to escape. The flame continued to advance, as if the screams were chants that calling for its glory and the town a stage yearning for its play. As if it were the salvation people hoped for...

As the town was burnt to ash, a faint sound of giggling resounded in the air. The blaze was its only witness, but that devil told no tales.

The fire moved outwards, enveloping the forest around and eventually other towns as well, burning them to ash one after another. Many were caught off guard by the speed of its advance, but as the flame grew higher and higher it gave of a clear warning sign. Some made it, some were trapped and others forced to run up the mountains—but just as many died, many were saved.

The incident was henceforth referred to by a wide variety of names from the mouths of common folk, or "The Pandria's blaze" going by the records. The once prosperous and thriving, full of villages and towns, cities and trade routes—Pandria region—was turned to ash. Even the water magi couldn’t keep the blaze away, even cities with their enchanted stone walls had burned away, the stone itself melting. This stirred the stillness of the world and plunged the country back to war. Plunged the world back to war.