The economy is affecting everything.

HOWLING FJORD - High above the Great Sea, once the site of fierce battles, Valgarde settlement now sits empty. Stung by plummeting real estate prices, Alliance and Horde forces have returned to Kalimdor, leaving behind foreclosure signs and broken dreams. All across Northrend such depressing sights abound. In Dragonblight, Wyrmrest Temple is boarded up, its five dragon shrines covered in graffiti. "Malygos sucks" and other obscenities have been scrawled across the walls by unemployed furbolgs.

And at Icecrown Citadel, once the objective of a massive invasion, empty Pabst bottles and cigarette butts littered the floor around the Frozen Throne. The rune blade Frostmourne was now used to open cans of chili. And the most powerful entity in all Warcraft picked up a canvas sack full of fliers and shuffled off to work.

"Go where the money is," chuckled the Litch King ruefully . . . .

(Cross-posted at Little Miss Attila)