Chapter 67: The Echoes of the Canyon

　　The titan ruins faded into the shimmering heat haze behind him. Kaelen followed a narrow, winding path that descended into the very heart of the Thousand Needles, a deep, shadowy canyon carved by a long-vanished river. The air grew cooler, the roar of the wind softening to a whisper that echoed between the sheer, striated walls of rock. This was a place of profound silence and ancient memory.

　　He was not alone in the depths. As he rounded a bend, he saw them: a small band of tauren, but not the Grimtotem. Their markings were different, their demeanor quieter, more contemplative. They were gathered around a section of the canyon wall where the stone was smooth and dark, almost like a mirror. An elder, her face a map of wrinkles, was tracing the surface with a reverent hand.

　　As Kaelen approached cautiously, the elder did not startle. She turned her head slowly, her dark eyes holding a deep, timeless calm. She raised a hand, not in warning, but in a gesture of peaceful greeting.

　　"You walk the old paths, stranger," she said, her voice a low rumble that harmonized with the canyon's whisper. "The stone remembers your steps."

　　The other tauren watched him, their expressions curious but not hostile. One of them, a younger male, gestured toward the dark stone. "The ancestors speak here," he explained quietly. "Their stories are in the rock."

　　The elder placed her palm flat against the stone and closed her eyes. A hush fell over the group. Kaelen stood still, feeling the strange energy of the place. It was not the violent power of the Maelstrom or the corrupting influence of the Nightmare. It was a gentle, persistent hum, the echo of countless lives lived and lost.

　　The elder began to chant, a low, rhythmic song in a language Kaelen did not understand. As she sang, faint images seemed to shimmer on the surface of the stone: the shadowy forms of great kodo herds moving across endless plains, the silhouettes of hunters with spears raised against a vast sky, the glow of campfires under a blanket of stars. It was a memory of the tauren people, of a time long before the Horde, when their world was the land and the sky.

　　Kaelen watched, mesmerized. This was not a history recorded in books or carved in monuments. It was a living memory, preserved in the very bones of the earth. He was not just seeing the past; he was feeling it—the dust of the plains, the heat of the sun, the simple, profound connection to a world untouched by war or corruption.

　　The chanting faded. The images dissolved back into the stone. The elder opened her eyes and looked at Kaelen. "You carry many stories with you," she said. "But do you carry the story of the land itself? The story that was here before the fighting, before the walls were built?"

　　She gestured for him to come closer. Hesitantly, he stepped forward. She took his hand—her touch was surprisingly gentle—and guided his palm to the cool surface of the stone.

　　"Close your eyes," she whispered. "Listen."

　　He did. At first, there was only the silence of the canyon. But then, beneath the silence, he began to feel it—a deep, resonant vibration, a slow, patient pulse that was the heartbeat of the world itself. It was not a story of individuals or factions, but the story of life, of time, of the slow, inexorable turning of the ages. It was the foundation upon which all other stories were built.

　　He pulled his hand away, a profound sense of peace settling over him, a peace deeper than any he had known. The conflicts of Horde and Alliance, the scars of the Legion, the sorrow of the ghosts—they were all surface disturbances on this vast, ancient ocean of existence.

　　The elder nodded, a knowing look in her eyes. "You see now. You are a teller of tales, but remember the oldest tale of all. The tale of the earth. It is the first story, and it will be the last."

　　The tauren gathered their things and began to move off down the canyon, their forms melting into the shadows. The elder paused and looked back at him. "The path you walk is long, storyteller. But no matter how far you go, you walk upon this same earth. Remember its song when the other songs become too loud."

　　Kaelen stood alone in the echoing canyon, the stone's coolness lingering on his palm. He had witnessed the root of all stories. The chronicle he was compiling was not just a record of the present chaos; it was a footnote to this immense, silent, and enduring narrative. The weight of his task felt different now—not lighter, but grounded. He was not just a witness to the storm; he was a witness to the ocean upon which the storm raged. And the ocean was eternal.