<![CDATA[The Ironsong Tribe

<![CDATA[The Ironsong Tribe - Tales]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/ Sat, 20 Jun 2026 10:33:22 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[Some more fun from the past]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-5743.html Fri, 12 Jan 2018 12:49:42 -0800 jabadue]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-5743.html
Funny thing is that Oryx carries the water to this day,

And Zlinka is still pretty good at creeping and hiding Big Grin

Jabadue aka Boot

____________________________________________________________________________________
I am Oryx, a Tauren Shaman, formerly a Dawn Knight of the Moon
Ascendant, and a Grunt (formerly Sergeant) of the Horde.

I was born in the plains of Mulgore, to a family of hunters. Unlike
my brother Ibex, who was strong and dark, I was a pale calf, with red
eyes that were dazzled by the light of Mulgore and could scarcely make
out the distant, blurred forms of the kodo and plainstrider. The elders
thought that I would be good for nothing but hauling water to Camp
Narache, and for some time, that was my lot.

One day, however, as I looked into the cool depths of the well, I
realized that I could see something below and within the water -- a
vibrant, living power within the earth that was more essential and
vital than its simple substance. Once I learned to see the power
within the earth, my senses were transformed: Mulgore's hills were
suffused with visible life and the health of the earth; the wind was a
whispering muse, telling me tales of far-off jungles and deserts; and
the campfire challenged me to capture, for just an instant, its
flickering, intangible essence.

My studies as a Shaman progressed rapidly, and soon I was skilled
with
the Four Totems. I learned that my vision could reveal where the power
of the Earthmother grows in the rare herbs that are her gift to us, and
that I could release this power by combining these reagents. I grew
eventually to become a master of these crafts, learning to transmute
base metals and even to rework the very Essences of air, water, and
fire. I have also learned the humbler alchemy of the campfire and
kettle, and may now concoct the choicest dishes for my comrades.

When I left the sheltering valley of Mulgore and set off to explore
the Two Continents. I learned of the many corruptions that poison our
world -- demonic influence, the pestilential Scourge, the ancient
Qiraji, and the twisted influence of the Old Gods. I nearly always
travel with my good troll friend, Zlinka, who took the place of my
brother Ibex when he retired to Camp Narache to raise an orphan Tauren
girl that we discovered in Stonetalon. I met many brave companions,
including Tribeswoman Brannora and Tribesman Azoz, who became good
friends. When I met other Tribespeople, I was impressed by their grace
and skill.

I joined the Moon Ascendant, rising to become a Dawn Knight in time,
and faced many foes with them. We fought and defeated Lord Venoxis in
Zul'gurub, and even entered the Molten Core to challenge Lucifron --
though ultimately this last challenge was too mighty for us. I have
defeated Rend's lieutenants in Blackrock Spire, and am now charged with
bringing the head of the false Warchief to Thrall.

As I age, I have found that one's companions are the true treasure of
Azeroth, no matter whether one is fighting the strongest foes or simply
gathering herbs. I find myself wanting to join a group that has both
mighty members, seeking to defend Azeroth from new threats, and younger
members to whom I might teach some of what I have learned. From my
interactions with the Tribe, I feel that I may find some of what I seek
here, and I humbly ask your welcome.

Your Code of Conduct seems both wise and fair, and I agree to be
bound
by it.

---

My name is Zlinka, and I am a rogue, former Dawn Knight of Moon
Ascendant, and Scout of the Horde. I was born to the Darkspear Tribe
on Echo Isles, and spent my girlhood playing on the golden beaches and
swimming in the turquoise water near my parents' hut. I was tiny and
discrete for my age, and I became adept at creeping and hiding and
flitting around our little village without being noticed.

That childhood came to an end when I was only eight years old, when the
human fleet of Kul Tiras attacked my island home. We were overwhelmed
by the humans leaping from ships, shooting and slashing and burning as
they charged among us. My tribe fought bravely with sword and spear
and staff, and I helped a little by hiding in the vegetation and
slashing at the humans' hamstrings with my toy daggers as they stormed
past me. But despite our courage we were driven back, back, back and
into the sea. I looked back as I swam away, and burned into my memory
is the sight of my home village blazing with fire, orange smoke rising
into the night sky.

The humans were manning their boats to follow and slaughter us, when
two great spirit wyverns stooped on them from the sky. I heard the
tearing of the air as the wyverns dove on the ships. Their claws tore
and slashed at the canvas sails, the wyverns' screams drowning the
frightened cries of the humans. Thus Rexxar and Rokhan, followed by a
score of batriders, covered our retreat. Guarded by the Sea King, and
following signal beacons Rexxar had lit for us, we headed toward safety
on the mainland. I swam far into the night, paddling in black water
dotted with the charred debris of my home.

We resettled at our landing point on the coast of Durotar. I helped my
family build our hut in the new settlement of Sen'Jin Village. I
helped drag wood up from the beach, blackened logs that had washed
ashore from our old village. I helped cut new wood too, by running
lightly up the trunks of the palm trees and cutting off the fronds
before the tree was felled. I held the nails for my father as he built
our hut, and helped weave the palm fronds to make our sleeping
hammocks.

As I grew up in Sen'jin village my mother took me under her wing and
taught me the the subtlety, quickness, and lethality needed to become a
rogue. I became fascinated with metals of all kinds, and dreamed of
one day forging my own weapons, so I became a miner and blacksmith, and
spent many happy afternoons hunting for copper veins in the red hills
of Durotar. All my experiments with glowing-hot metals and anvils led
to a lot of burns and cuts, so I became adept at first aid as well. I
recently became a weaponsmith and master axesmith, and scoured the
jungle of Terror Run in Un'Goro crater to find the thorium ore and
arcane crystals needed to forge my Heartseeker dagger.

When I grew up I left my village and traveled to our great capital,
Orgrimmar, to offer my services to our Warchief, Thrall. I traveled
far and wide in his service, from Ashenvale to Tanaris, from Silithus
to Azshara. I have faced many trials in my service to the Horde. The
greatest trial I ever faced alone was when I was only 30-odd seasons
old, and had been commissioned to collect one crocolisk skin from a
savage, ancient crocolisk north of Grom'gol, fully two seasons older
than myself. Our battle was ferocious. I came only a few seconds from
death, but before the crocolisk could deal his killing blow, I dealt
him mine. I sagged onto his body to bandage my wounds, and felt more
proud of my abilities than I ever had before. I have faced many
greater challenges in groups as well. I helped to fight and defeat
Venoxis in the ancient capital city of my people, Zul'Gurub. I have
been into the suffocating, molten depths below Blackrock spire to
confront Lucifron, though we were unable to pull him down.

I made many friends in my journeys, including Oryx and his twin brother
Ibex, and their little ward Luna. I met Tribesman Azoz and Tribeswoman
Brannora early in my adulthood, and we fought side by side in more
battles than I can count. I consider them among my closest friends in
Azeroth. I joined the guild Moon Ascendant early in life, and made a
wonderful home there. I am sad to leave them, but many of my old
friends have left, and there are not enough of them left to band
together regularly to defeat the greater challenges this world has to
offer.

Though I am adept at fighting alone, my happiest times in Azeroth are
when I fight in good company. I like being a part of a friendly,
skilled, articulate and mature team of fighters. My current goals are
join such a group, and go further together than I have been able to go
in the past. I am currently charged by Thrall to defeat the false
warchief, Rend Blackhand, in Upper Blackrock Spire. I am eager to defy
the great world dragons, and one day, to confront Onyxia herself. Both
Azoz and Brannora speak warmly of Ironsong, and I think I might find
the company I seek here with you. I humbly offer my daggers in the
service of the Tribe.

I have visited the message totems of Ironsong many times, and I like
what I see. I have read and considered the code of conduct carefully,
and I agree to abide by its rules.

*The message is carved with meticulous care into a piece of bark and
pegged to a totem*]]> <![CDATA[An Unexpected Lesson]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-5579.html Thu, 06 Aug 2015 22:22:08 -0700 Gremlork]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-5579.html (10 years earlier)
Gremlork just couldn’t help it. He tended to bring the anger out of even the most solemn of individuals. This wasn’t the best quality for a bar bouncer, but Gremlork was one of the toughest fighters on Kezan. Because of his diminished size and slim stature, he couldn’t depend only on brute force. He made use of his unmatched speed and quick wit. His bar, Money Shots, was in the sleazier part of the island. Everyone, from dirty oil rig workers, to ogre laborers, to the occasional trade prince frequented it. If a scuffle was clearly beginning to brew, one look from Gremlork would calm most tempers. If a patron had too much liquid courage, or they were completely oblivious of Gremlork’s reputation, they would wake up in an oil slicked puddle outside the bar, children rifling through their pockets.
As Gremlork was setting up the bar stools for the afternoon lunch rush, he began to hear whispers of a famous Horde shaman visiting the island. Gremlork never thought much about spell casters. He saw the benefits of such skills, but to him, nothing was more effective than a well-timed, precise punch in the face. “Shamans aren’t even that cool compared to most casters. Why let your totems do all the work for you, while you cast a bunch of sissy healing spells? Those things are just sticks in the ground. Big woop,” said Gremlork.
“Beats me.” mumbled the bartender. Even after the countless times Gremlork saved the bar from utter destruction, he was tired of Gremlork’s obnoxious attitude.
The lunch rush began like any other day. Workers barged into the bar, demanding alcohol to ease the pain of their labor. Gremlork sat upon his stool near the entrance, overlooking the noisy crowd. A gentle breeze began to enter the bar. Gremlork glanced around at each wall to see which window was open, but they were all closed. With no path for a cross breeze, he was confused, but pushed the thought to the back of his mind as he spotted a real beauty of a goblin at the other side of the bar. She had oil smudges on her face and a scorch marked shirt. Just his type. He shot her a smile, only to be returned with a scoff and a laugh. “Eh whatevuh. Win some lose some,” he said to himself. All of the sudden, the bar doors swung upon from a gust of wind. In walked a hunched, decrepit orc with a cloth over his eyes, obstructing his vision, if he had any. A loose leather and chainmail gown covered his aging body, clinking with each step. No weapons were on his belt. A rare site for a traveler of Azeroth. Every person in the bar turned to look at this unfamiliar visitor. He was indeed an orc, a very old one at that. It was a rare sight to see a race from the main lands of Azeroth. When they did travel to Kezan, it was mainly sailors looking to trade their goods. This orc was no trader.
Even with the cloth over his eyes, he flawlessly maneuvered between bar stools and patrons to reach the bar. He sat upon a stool, right in front of the bartender, as if he knew exactly where he was. “One water please,” croaked the old orc.
“Uhhhh I-I’m sorry s-sir. We d-don’t serve water here,” stammered the bartender.
“Hmmm,” said the orc as he scratched his chin. “Do you have anything that doesn’t have any alcohol?”
“Why are you even in a bar then?” yelled Gremlork from the other side of the room. He hopped off his stool and began to walk towards the orc. “When you come to this bar, you get drunk old man. Money Shots are for those looking for a good time. It’s no place for an old, blind geezer who wants to drink some moonberry juice.” The orc seemed to show a quick smirk from the name of the bar. It quickly vanished as he turned to face the uppity Goblin directly.
“I apologize little one. I believed this place to be one of friendly communal congregation. I will be on my way.” Gremlork could feel his face turn red as steam began to bellow out of his pointed ears.
“Little one? LITTLE ONE!?” Gremlork clenched his fist as he hopped onto a stool and lunged towards the old orc. “This will show the foolish old man,” Gremlork thought to himself as he soared through the air. But alas, his fist was only met by the gentle wind he felt earlier in the day. Gremlork hit the ground hard, severely missing his intended target. The old, blind orc was now two feet from where he was standing a split second ago. The bar was silent. No one could believe what they just saw. This old, blind orc completely outmaneuvered Gremlork. As Gremlork got up and dusted himself off, the anger radiating off him was palpable.
“I am sorry if I offended you goblin. I do not wish to fight you,” said the orc. This only made Gremlork angrier.
“Who do you think you are old man?” shouted Gremlork, grinding his teeth in frustration.
“My name is Drek’thar,” said the orc, as he stood up straight, revealing his impressive build. “Elder Shaman of the Frostwolf Clan.” The words went in one ear and out the other of Gremlork. He didn’t care who he was. He just wanted to tear this guy’s head off at this point. As he began to charge at the shaman, a whirlwind enveloped the caster. As the winds dissipated, The orc was gain, two feet from where he was before. At his charging speed, Gremlork was unable to change his trajectory, and ran straight into the wall with a heavy thud. Blood began to spurt out of his nose as the pain of the collision began to surface.
“Stupid good-for-nothing Horde!” Gremlork screamed out of frustration. As he turned around to face his opponent once again the ground began to rumble. For the first time, the shaman had a look of anger on his face. A chasm began to form as a pillar of fire erupted from it. When the flames calmed, a burning totem loomed over the bar patrons, fire swirling around it.
“I wouldn’t underestimate this stick in the ground,” said the old shaman. Before Gremlork could retort, the fires sprung from the totem, knocking Gremlork clear through the bar’s wall, into the street.
Gremlork awoke in an oil slicked puddle outside Money Shots. His clothes were nearly all burned off and his nose was clearly broken. Behind him ogres were patching the hole left by Gremlork’s projected body. A shadow covered his sore body causing him to look up. It was the old, blind orc. “What, you wanna go round two old man?” said Gremlork, as he sprung into a fighting pose.
“Calm yourself Goblin. I do not wish to harm you any further. You are very lucky I am well versed in the healing powers of the elements. You have impressive speed and the fighting spirit of an orc warrior. Would you like to come with me?”
“Teach me how to do that swirly wind thingy,” said Gremlork. He never wanted to be beaten that badly ever again. Maybe there was something to those sissy spells and sticks in the ground.

My first hand at a RP story, comments and criticism are welcome. I will continue the story if people like the way it is going.]]> (10 years earlier)
Gremlork just couldn’t help it. He tended to bring the anger out of even the most solemn of individuals. This wasn’t the best quality for a bar bouncer, but Gremlork was one of the toughest fighters on Kezan. Because of his diminished size and slim stature, he couldn’t depend only on brute force. He made use of his unmatched speed and quick wit. His bar, Money Shots, was in the sleazier part of the island. Everyone, from dirty oil rig workers, to ogre laborers, to the occasional trade prince frequented it. If a scuffle was clearly beginning to brew, one look from Gremlork would calm most tempers. If a patron had too much liquid courage, or they were completely oblivious of Gremlork’s reputation, they would wake up in an oil slicked puddle outside the bar, children rifling through their pockets.
As Gremlork was setting up the bar stools for the afternoon lunch rush, he began to hear whispers of a famous Horde shaman visiting the island. Gremlork never thought much about spell casters. He saw the benefits of such skills, but to him, nothing was more effective than a well-timed, precise punch in the face. “Shamans aren’t even that cool compared to most casters. Why let your totems do all the work for you, while you cast a bunch of sissy healing spells? Those things are just sticks in the ground. Big woop,” said Gremlork.
“Beats me.” mumbled the bartender. Even after the countless times Gremlork saved the bar from utter destruction, he was tired of Gremlork’s obnoxious attitude.
The lunch rush began like any other day. Workers barged into the bar, demanding alcohol to ease the pain of their labor. Gremlork sat upon his stool near the entrance, overlooking the noisy crowd. A gentle breeze began to enter the bar. Gremlork glanced around at each wall to see which window was open, but they were all closed. With no path for a cross breeze, he was confused, but pushed the thought to the back of his mind as he spotted a real beauty of a goblin at the other side of the bar. She had oil smudges on her face and a scorch marked shirt. Just his type. He shot her a smile, only to be returned with a scoff and a laugh. “Eh whatevuh. Win some lose some,” he said to himself. All of the sudden, the bar doors swung upon from a gust of wind. In walked a hunched, decrepit orc with a cloth over his eyes, obstructing his vision, if he had any. A loose leather and chainmail gown covered his aging body, clinking with each step. No weapons were on his belt. A rare site for a traveler of Azeroth. Every person in the bar turned to look at this unfamiliar visitor. He was indeed an orc, a very old one at that. It was a rare sight to see a race from the main lands of Azeroth. When they did travel to Kezan, it was mainly sailors looking to trade their goods. This orc was no trader.
Even with the cloth over his eyes, he flawlessly maneuvered between bar stools and patrons to reach the bar. He sat upon a stool, right in front of the bartender, as if he knew exactly where he was. “One water please,” croaked the old orc.
“Uhhhh I-I’m sorry s-sir. We d-don’t serve water here,” stammered the bartender.
“Hmmm,” said the orc as he scratched his chin. “Do you have anything that doesn’t have any alcohol?”
“Why are you even in a bar then?” yelled Gremlork from the other side of the room. He hopped off his stool and began to walk towards the orc. “When you come to this bar, you get drunk old man. Money Shots are for those looking for a good time. It’s no place for an old, blind geezer who wants to drink some moonberry juice.” The orc seemed to show a quick smirk from the name of the bar. It quickly vanished as he turned to face the uppity Goblin directly.
“I apologize little one. I believed this place to be one of friendly communal congregation. I will be on my way.” Gremlork could feel his face turn red as steam began to bellow out of his pointed ears.
“Little one? LITTLE ONE!?” Gremlork clenched his fist as he hopped onto a stool and lunged towards the old orc. “This will show the foolish old man,” Gremlork thought to himself as he soared through the air. But alas, his fist was only met by the gentle wind he felt earlier in the day. Gremlork hit the ground hard, severely missing his intended target. The old, blind orc was now two feet from where he was standing a split second ago. The bar was silent. No one could believe what they just saw. This old, blind orc completely outmaneuvered Gremlork. As Gremlork got up and dusted himself off, the anger radiating off him was palpable.
“I am sorry if I offended you goblin. I do not wish to fight you,” said the orc. This only made Gremlork angrier.
“Who do you think you are old man?” shouted Gremlork, grinding his teeth in frustration.
“My name is Drek’thar,” said the orc, as he stood up straight, revealing his impressive build. “Elder Shaman of the Frostwolf Clan.” The words went in one ear and out the other of Gremlork. He didn’t care who he was. He just wanted to tear this guy’s head off at this point. As he began to charge at the shaman, a whirlwind enveloped the caster. As the winds dissipated, The orc was gain, two feet from where he was before. At his charging speed, Gremlork was unable to change his trajectory, and ran straight into the wall with a heavy thud. Blood began to spurt out of his nose as the pain of the collision began to surface.
“Stupid good-for-nothing Horde!” Gremlork screamed out of frustration. As he turned around to face his opponent once again the ground began to rumble. For the first time, the shaman had a look of anger on his face. A chasm began to form as a pillar of fire erupted from it. When the flames calmed, a burning totem loomed over the bar patrons, fire swirling around it.
“I wouldn’t underestimate this stick in the ground,” said the old shaman. Before Gremlork could retort, the fires sprung from the totem, knocking Gremlork clear through the bar’s wall, into the street.
Gremlork awoke in an oil slicked puddle outside Money Shots. His clothes were nearly all burned off and his nose was clearly broken. Behind him ogres were patching the hole left by Gremlork’s projected body. A shadow covered his sore body causing him to look up. It was the old, blind orc. “What, you wanna go round two old man?” said Gremlork, as he sprung into a fighting pose.
“Calm yourself Goblin. I do not wish to harm you any further. You are very lucky I am well versed in the healing powers of the elements. You have impressive speed and the fighting spirit of an orc warrior. Would you like to come with me?”
“Teach me how to do that swirly wind thingy,” said Gremlork. He never wanted to be beaten that badly ever again. Maybe there was something to those sissy spells and sticks in the ground.

My first hand at a RP story, comments and criticism are welcome. I will continue the story if people like the way it is going.]]> <![CDATA[Day of the Father]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-5255.html Sun, 17 Jun 2012 10:14:52 -0700 Melikar]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-5255.html
A blue-skinned troll dug his toes into the sand, feeling the warm golden dust cover the top half of his feet. His red hair hung in thick strands around his shoulders and over his back. As today was a day for pure relaxation he decided to let it down instead of keeping it in the normal braided ponytail he normally did. The breeze blew over the sand on his feet, sweeping it off.

He closed his eyes for a moment and drank in the salty air of the beach, the gentle sound of small waves lapping against the shore. This was home. Though he had been all over the world and called many places such over the years, it was this place where his heart ultimately belonged. His body would show those years, scars and scratches still covering parts of him. Proof of what he had been through in battles. His muscle structure was strong. He obviously bore heavy armor and heavy weaponry into combat.

But today, he donned nothing but a pair of loose, raggedy shorts he saved for such occasions. And occasions are what they were. He found himself far too busy these days to be doing any sort of vacationing. And he wasn't getting any younger.

Melikar was going on his thirty-second year. He knew it would only feel like a few short years before he was too old to do any fighting anymore. He squinted his orange-red eyes as he gazed over the stretch of ocean before him. The thought irritated him. To think of himself as being too weak to lift an axe, too slow to move with the lithe force of a troll in their 20's. He might be getting older, but he was far from old. There was still a fire in this warrior that would never go down without a raging fight.

He sighed inwardly as another breeze swept thorough his hair bringing him back to the calm of the beach. At least one good thing he could think of was the battle through the Cataclysm. It was finally over. Exactly as Thrall had said. Now the world really could begin to heal and the existance of the black dragon flight had been terminated. Mostly.

Melikar's mind flashed back to when he first met the warchief. Well...former warchief. Thrall was a solid shaman of the Earthen Ring now. "The Aspect of Earth" he was called. The troll couldn't help but wonder if the same burdens that had destroyed Deathwing would soon lay themselves upon Thrall's mind. The thought worried him, but he knew Thrall was also very strong.

When he had first laid eyes on Thrall and had seen the Orc's power at weilding the elements, Melikar found himself wanting to do the same. He had felt a certain pull to use those same powers. But every time he tried to cast a simple lightning bolt or use the magics in some way, he had failed quite terribly. The Darkspear shaman had informed him he just didn't have the capability. But when it came to weilding heavy weapons, the trainers in the Darkspear camp had seen his finesse. His training to become a warrior began almost immediatly and he was sent off to the Valley of Trials before he could even fully understand the concept of what being called a warrior was about.

Once he was there, nothing in his past mattered anymore. He had forged a new path for himself and was still following it to this day.

"The Spirits told me you would be here."

Melikar jumped to his feet, spinning around and falling into his battle stance quickly. He eyed the user of the voice and saw another, older troll standing before him. This other troll was speaking the native tongue of the Zandalari.

"I suppose it's one of the few nice things they've done for me."

Melikar eyed the newcomer suspiciously.

"Who are you?" He asked in the same language.

"I've been looking for you for a long time, Melikar." The older troll hesitated, "I guess that is what you are called now."

Melikar scratched his head and seemed to ease up a bit.

"That doesn't tell me who you are."

The older troll smiled and gave a small chuckle. "I think you know me. Though you wouldn't believe it."

Melikar nodded, "Try me."

The older troll stood a bit taller and took a few steps forward.

"My name is Ziondeh..." he stated, bowing in respectful troll fashion, "I believe you too once had that name."

Melikar paused, thinking for a moment. Yes...once when he had come out here, before the Zandalari had turned on the Horde. He had been summoned forth by the tribe. They had told him who he really was. That he had never been Darkspear at all. That he had been taken from his home here in the jungle to somewhere far away. Raised by a heathen, they had said. But he had taken no blame for being an innocent child at the time. They had told him his real name was "Ziondeh". Actually, "Ziondeh the Second" as he had the same name as his father.

As his father...

Melikar's eyes lifted once more to look into the face of the aged troll. It was almost like staring at a reflection. The tusks were different, the face a bit more rough around the edges, but it was nearly identical.

"...Dad?" Melikar asked.

Ziondeh nodded. "You do not know how long I had to look, how long I had to beg the Loa to let me find you."

There was a pause as both trolls stared at one another. Melikar had heard of it, yes. But he didn't know whether to believe it. His father had been alive all these years. With the Cactaclysm raging on, he had not had a lot of time to go on a big search. Though he had remembered in his heart it was something he would try to do once it was all over.

He stepped forward and threw his arms around Ziondeh, who did the same in kind.

"I didn't believe it..." Melikar muttered, "I mean, I did but...I didn't even know where to start! I wish I'd....I mean, I was going to-"

Ziondeh pulled back.

"Hush..." he quietly implored, "It's fine. I did not expect anything of you. I just wanted to see you again. To know my son was okay."

Melikar nodded.

"I suppose we have a lot of catching up to do?"

Ziondeh grinned again, tears reflecting in his eyes. "You bet we do..."

~~~

The hours passed as the two trolls sat and talked about everything under the sun. Ziondeh told Melikar of his mother, how she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. How he had fought to gain her affection.

"Did you ever meet a lady?" Ziondeh eventually asked.

"Yeah..." Melikar nodded, "But she was interested in other things."

Ziondeh shrugged, "She missed out."

Melikar told his father about the elf woman he'd fallen in love with. How she always played hard to get. And how she up and disappeared out of his life one day.

"Haven't seen her in years..." Melikar explained, "Not sure I'll ever find someone at this rate. I ain't getting any younger."

Ziondeh smiled, "You got some years on you yet."

Melikar talked about being raised by a Night Elf, how he joined the Horde by being discovered by some Orcs in her home. He explained the Night Elf woman had been taken as a prisoner and he had never heard from her again. He talked about his journey to Outlands, the war on the Legion and his escapades to the freezing North. He went on about the battle against the Scourge and Arthas and how the Forsaken were free of Arthas' will for good. How the Death Knights joined the Horde and Alliance and about Putress' betrayel. Melikar even showed off the nasty scar on his thigh he received from surviving the battle of Wrath Gate and the terrible consequences in Ice Crown Citadel.

And of course, Melikar spoke of his tribe. How he had met his life-long friends and allies there. He talked about the Warlord Sreng, about what it was like being a peon and working through the ranks. He talked about the day the Cataclysm came and helping the Horde war-effort and his reaction to Garrosh becoming warchief.

"Yeah, never was sure of him myself." Ziondeh said as they spoke of it. "He seems too brash and young to be leading anything."

Melikar shrugged, "I trust Thrall. I believe he left Garrosh in charge for a reason. Though I think fear drives that Orc more than anything."

Ziondeh told Melikar about his travels. About his coming to after years of being in stasis. He awaoke and found he had no memory of his previous life. He remembered after a while that he had been a powerful shaman for the Zandalari. That humans had come and destroyed his home in the Vale and taken his wife's life. He spoke of praying to the Loa and finally being granted a small inkling of his previous power. Only this time, it wasn't a shaman teaching him. It was the animal kin of the trolls, the shape-shifters. He had found the path of the druid and took to it like no other. He found himself nearly at one with nature and the creatures in the world.

He explained that while in the form of a cat, his instinct were no longer like that of anything humanoid. He still could think like himself, but the power of being an animal was great. He had to teach himself not to go feral and there were a few times he almost did.

"But I am as normal now as I ever will be." Ziondeh stated.

The sun was almost set behind the horizon when they finally started running out of things to say.

"So will I see you more often now?" Melikar asked.

Ziondeh nodded, "Of course you will."

He turned to his son then.

"Zio..." he hesitated, "Er, Melikar. I may not have been there for you growing up. But I am now. I just don't want you to mistake me for the man that didn't care at all."

Melikar shook his head, "I don't blame you for nothing, dad. I know it wasn't your choice."

Ziondeh smiled and placed a hand on Mel's shoulder.

"I'm glad you understand. Because I've loved you as my child all my life. I just couldn't be there when I wanted to be."

Melikar smiled, "And now you can be."

~~~

Let me tell you a secret about a father's love
A secret that my daddy said was just between us
He said, "Daddies don't just love their children every now and then.
It's a love without end, amen."

Happy Father's Day, Ironsong dads!]]>
A blue-skinned troll dug his toes into the sand, feeling the warm golden dust cover the top half of his feet. His red hair hung in thick strands around his shoulders and over his back. As today was a day for pure relaxation he decided to let it down instead of keeping it in the normal braided ponytail he normally did. The breeze blew over the sand on his feet, sweeping it off.

He closed his eyes for a moment and drank in the salty air of the beach, the gentle sound of small waves lapping against the shore. This was home. Though he had been all over the world and called many places such over the years, it was this place where his heart ultimately belonged. His body would show those years, scars and scratches still covering parts of him. Proof of what he had been through in battles. His muscle structure was strong. He obviously bore heavy armor and heavy weaponry into combat.

But today, he donned nothing but a pair of loose, raggedy shorts he saved for such occasions. And occasions are what they were. He found himself far too busy these days to be doing any sort of vacationing. And he wasn't getting any younger.

Melikar was going on his thirty-second year. He knew it would only feel like a few short years before he was too old to do any fighting anymore. He squinted his orange-red eyes as he gazed over the stretch of ocean before him. The thought irritated him. To think of himself as being too weak to lift an axe, too slow to move with the lithe force of a troll in their 20's. He might be getting older, but he was far from old. There was still a fire in this warrior that would never go down without a raging fight.

He sighed inwardly as another breeze swept thorough his hair bringing him back to the calm of the beach. At least one good thing he could think of was the battle through the Cataclysm. It was finally over. Exactly as Thrall had said. Now the world really could begin to heal and the existance of the black dragon flight had been terminated. Mostly.

Melikar's mind flashed back to when he first met the warchief. Well...former warchief. Thrall was a solid shaman of the Earthen Ring now. "The Aspect of Earth" he was called. The troll couldn't help but wonder if the same burdens that had destroyed Deathwing would soon lay themselves upon Thrall's mind. The thought worried him, but he knew Thrall was also very strong.

When he had first laid eyes on Thrall and had seen the Orc's power at weilding the elements, Melikar found himself wanting to do the same. He had felt a certain pull to use those same powers. But every time he tried to cast a simple lightning bolt or use the magics in some way, he had failed quite terribly. The Darkspear shaman had informed him he just didn't have the capability. But when it came to weilding heavy weapons, the trainers in the Darkspear camp had seen his finesse. His training to become a warrior began almost immediatly and he was sent off to the Valley of Trials before he could even fully understand the concept of what being called a warrior was about.

Once he was there, nothing in his past mattered anymore. He had forged a new path for himself and was still following it to this day.

"The Spirits told me you would be here."

Melikar jumped to his feet, spinning around and falling into his battle stance quickly. He eyed the user of the voice and saw another, older troll standing before him. This other troll was speaking the native tongue of the Zandalari.

"I suppose it's one of the few nice things they've done for me."

Melikar eyed the newcomer suspiciously.

"Who are you?" He asked in the same language.

"I've been looking for you for a long time, Melikar." The older troll hesitated, "I guess that is what you are called now."

Melikar scratched his head and seemed to ease up a bit.

"That doesn't tell me who you are."

The older troll smiled and gave a small chuckle. "I think you know me. Though you wouldn't believe it."

Melikar nodded, "Try me."

The older troll stood a bit taller and took a few steps forward.

"My name is Ziondeh..." he stated, bowing in respectful troll fashion, "I believe you too once had that name."

Melikar paused, thinking for a moment. Yes...once when he had come out here, before the Zandalari had turned on the Horde. He had been summoned forth by the tribe. They had told him who he really was. That he had never been Darkspear at all. That he had been taken from his home here in the jungle to somewhere far away. Raised by a heathen, they had said. But he had taken no blame for being an innocent child at the time. They had told him his real name was "Ziondeh". Actually, "Ziondeh the Second" as he had the same name as his father.

As his father...

Melikar's eyes lifted once more to look into the face of the aged troll. It was almost like staring at a reflection. The tusks were different, the face a bit more rough around the edges, but it was nearly identical.

"...Dad?" Melikar asked.

Ziondeh nodded. "You do not know how long I had to look, how long I had to beg the Loa to let me find you."

There was a pause as both trolls stared at one another. Melikar had heard of it, yes. But he didn't know whether to believe it. His father had been alive all these years. With the Cactaclysm raging on, he had not had a lot of time to go on a big search. Though he had remembered in his heart it was something he would try to do once it was all over.

He stepped forward and threw his arms around Ziondeh, who did the same in kind.

"I didn't believe it..." Melikar muttered, "I mean, I did but...I didn't even know where to start! I wish I'd....I mean, I was going to-"

Ziondeh pulled back.

"Hush..." he quietly implored, "It's fine. I did not expect anything of you. I just wanted to see you again. To know my son was okay."

Melikar nodded.

"I suppose we have a lot of catching up to do?"

Ziondeh grinned again, tears reflecting in his eyes. "You bet we do..."

~~~

The hours passed as the two trolls sat and talked about everything under the sun. Ziondeh told Melikar of his mother, how she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. How he had fought to gain her affection.

"Did you ever meet a lady?" Ziondeh eventually asked.

"Yeah..." Melikar nodded, "But she was interested in other things."

Ziondeh shrugged, "She missed out."

Melikar told his father about the elf woman he'd fallen in love with. How she always played hard to get. And how she up and disappeared out of his life one day.

"Haven't seen her in years..." Melikar explained, "Not sure I'll ever find someone at this rate. I ain't getting any younger."

Ziondeh smiled, "You got some years on you yet."

Melikar talked about being raised by a Night Elf, how he joined the Horde by being discovered by some Orcs in her home. He explained the Night Elf woman had been taken as a prisoner and he had never heard from her again. He talked about his journey to Outlands, the war on the Legion and his escapades to the freezing North. He went on about the battle against the Scourge and Arthas and how the Forsaken were free of Arthas' will for good. How the Death Knights joined the Horde and Alliance and about Putress' betrayel. Melikar even showed off the nasty scar on his thigh he received from surviving the battle of Wrath Gate and the terrible consequences in Ice Crown Citadel.

And of course, Melikar spoke of his tribe. How he had met his life-long friends and allies there. He talked about the Warlord Sreng, about what it was like being a peon and working through the ranks. He talked about the day the Cataclysm came and helping the Horde war-effort and his reaction to Garrosh becoming warchief.

"Yeah, never was sure of him myself." Ziondeh said as they spoke of it. "He seems too brash and young to be leading anything."

Melikar shrugged, "I trust Thrall. I believe he left Garrosh in charge for a reason. Though I think fear drives that Orc more than anything."

Ziondeh told Melikar about his travels. About his coming to after years of being in stasis. He awaoke and found he had no memory of his previous life. He remembered after a while that he had been a powerful shaman for the Zandalari. That humans had come and destroyed his home in the Vale and taken his wife's life. He spoke of praying to the Loa and finally being granted a small inkling of his previous power. Only this time, it wasn't a shaman teaching him. It was the animal kin of the trolls, the shape-shifters. He had found the path of the druid and took to it like no other. He found himself nearly at one with nature and the creatures in the world.

He explained that while in the form of a cat, his instinct were no longer like that of anything humanoid. He still could think like himself, but the power of being an animal was great. He had to teach himself not to go feral and there were a few times he almost did.

"But I am as normal now as I ever will be." Ziondeh stated.

The sun was almost set behind the horizon when they finally started running out of things to say.

"So will I see you more often now?" Melikar asked.

Ziondeh nodded, "Of course you will."

He turned to his son then.

"Zio..." he hesitated, "Er, Melikar. I may not have been there for you growing up. But I am now. I just don't want you to mistake me for the man that didn't care at all."

Melikar shook his head, "I don't blame you for nothing, dad. I know it wasn't your choice."

Ziondeh smiled and placed a hand on Mel's shoulder.

"I'm glad you understand. Because I've loved you as my child all my life. I just couldn't be there when I wanted to be."

Melikar smiled, "And now you can be."

~~~

Let me tell you a secret about a father's love
A secret that my daddy said was just between us
He said, "Daddies don't just love their children every now and then.
It's a love without end, amen."

Happy Father's Day, Ironsong dads!]]> <![CDATA[The memory of water]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-5233.html Sat, 18 Feb 2012 07:42:44 -0800 Zlinka]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-5233.html
Zlinka stood up from the mossy log by the campfire, and helped her father to stand, putting one hand behind his elbow and the other behind his shoulder, bracing her feet against the log.

Beside her, a small, one year old Pandaren clung to her leg and squealed. Her adopted son. Once her father was standing, swaying slightly, getting his balance, she let one hand drop to her son’s head to soothe him.

Her mind was already buzzing with the details of the short walk to the beach. It wasn’t far. In the past she would have covered the distance in just one minute and a half – and had done so, flying through the tropical rainforest on silent feet, her long, turquoise hair streaming behind her, until she emerged into the dazzling sunlight and sprang joyfully onto the sand, and dashed headlong into the warm, azure waves.

No longer.

Today, the path was long and arduous. She took a deep breath, and slid her left hand onto her father’s elbow, and gently took her son’s paw with her right. Today, the path was full of obstacles, and already she was navigating them in her mind.

They set off at a slow pace, leaving the clearing of family campfire and open-air huts for the narrow path to the beach, the path that wove its shady way between the palm trees and vines, showing every now and then a bright, shining view of the sea between the leaves.

Her father teetered on her left, slow and unsteady like a tree with weak roots swaying a little too far in the breeze, her son toddled at her right, tripping, losing his balance, caught from a fall only by her hand.

There was the first obstacle, on the left: the buried, sand-covered rock a few yards in to the trail, the one she had stubbed her toe on when she was three years old. Ever after she had leapt over it, effortlessly. But today she steered her father around it, carefully nudging his elbow, while holding her son away from the encroaching vines on the right – those leaves were at the level of his face.

And there! There was an overhanging palm frond, half blown down in the last storm, still hanging from the trunk, but now directly in her father’s path. It was something she would have ducked under without a thought in the past, but today she negotiated the frond carefully, helping her father stoop beneath it, watching him ease his weight from foot to foot and emerge, victorious, on the other side.

On the right were some sticky vines. Just the thing for her son to get tangled in – his fur would be sticky and itchy all day if he blundered into that, and she and Oryx would have to spend the entire evening picking the sap out with their fingers. She let go of her father for an instant to grab her son under his arms and move him to the center of the path.

And so it went. The trip took half an hour, a tiny trek, a miniature expedition playing out in the shade of the palm trees.

The roar of the ocean grew closer. Zlinka could hardly wait. She came rarely to the Echo Isles these days, being too busy with her own life in Orgrimmar. But a part of her always missed the sea, the sound of the surf crashing and hissing up the sand, the warm salt breeze, the clear water. She kept its memory deep in her heart, the vibrant colors and fresh smells and warm, clear waves, and the memory gave her strength, no matter where she was in the world. She would wrap the memory around herself, like a cloak, and it would keep her warm and safe and strong.

They emerged from the line of trees onto the soft, white sand. Zlinka’s breath came more quickly. Here she was – she was in her own memory now, at the very source of her strength. The sand pressed up between her toes, warm and gritty, a living memory.

She ached to run across the beach. She could reach the water in five seconds. One dash, sand spraying up at each footstep, one mad dash and she’d be in the foam, her feet in the wet sand, water dragging at her knees, and she would dive, an exuberant dive, into the advancing glassy wall of a curling wave, a wave with white foam on top, arching just over her head. The wave would roll over her back, an old friend, and she’d emerge behind it with her hair slicked down like a seal, rubbing the salt water from her eyes, ready to face the next curling wave, until she swam out beyond the breakpoint to bob gently in the sea swells, perhaps floating on her back, perhaps diving to hang suspended in the warm clear azure, the closest she would ever get to flight, to watch the bright fish flitting in the reef below.

“I’m tired, I have to sit down,” said her father. Zlinka tore her eyes from the surf and helped her father to sit, a hand behind his elbow, supporting his weight, easing him down onto the sand. He was so light, these days. It was as though his bones had become a bird’s bones, hollow on the inside.

Beside her, her son stood in awe. He had not seen the sea before, at least not to remember it. His little mouth gaped open. He clutched her hand, squeezing her fingers. She plopped down on the sand next to her father then pulled her son into her lap. Reaching back, she picked up a little sun-dried branch and gave it to her son to play with. He grabbed it and waved it around. She watched carefully in case he got it too close to his own face, or her father’s.

She looked across the beach again. The water was only a few dozen yards away, but she knew, with a sudden sinking of her heart, that it might as well be twenty miles away. The sea was beyond her reach. She could not go in. These two generations, the very old and the very young, needed her too much. She could not leave them.

A stab of anger, anger so hot it blurred her vision. When had her life become so full of people pressing in, crowding in, needing, pulling, asking, wanting, taking, that there was no more room for herself?

When would she ever be free enough to run down the beach and jump into the surf?

It would be years.

Her heart stilled. Freedom would come again, yes, but it would come with death. She cast a sideways glance at her father, at his wispy white hair floating in the breeze, his eyes half-closed, enjoying the sun. His death would bring her freedom, but she did not want him to die.

And it would come with maturity. She looked down at the little weight in her lap, the little black and white furry bundle that was still playing happily with the stick. He would grow up, grow away, grow big and tall and strong until he stood a head taller than she did, and probably weighed three times as much. And one day he would sit tall in his stirrups, his sword on his back and his shield at his side, and he would bid her goodbye. And her heart would overflow with both gladness and grief, for she did not want to lose him.

Then freedom would come, freedom from responsibility, freedom from people. That freedom would be sweet, for it would be well-earned, freedom after a lifetime of caring for other people, but it would be freedom tinged with the sadness of loss.

And one day, further still in the future, she would lean on the arm of this little Pandaren grown so tall, and he would watch the path for her, to make sure she did not fall. And she would sit on the beach herself, too old to go in to the water now, her long white hair cascading around her shoulders.

She would lean her head against his furry shoulder, so strong, so sure, and she would feel safe, and loved. And she would look back on these years when her parents were alive, and her three children were small and playing at her feet. She would remember when she was at the center of her family, at the core of their lives, when all of her loved ones, young and old, had taken shelter in her strength.

She would look back, and know that today, she had been happy.
]]>
Zlinka stood up from the mossy log by the campfire, and helped her father to stand, putting one hand behind his elbow and the other behind his shoulder, bracing her feet against the log.

Beside her, a small, one year old Pandaren clung to her leg and squealed. Her adopted son. Once her father was standing, swaying slightly, getting his balance, she let one hand drop to her son’s head to soothe him.

Her mind was already buzzing with the details of the short walk to the beach. It wasn’t far. In the past she would have covered the distance in just one minute and a half – and had done so, flying through the tropical rainforest on silent feet, her long, turquoise hair streaming behind her, until she emerged into the dazzling sunlight and sprang joyfully onto the sand, and dashed headlong into the warm, azure waves.

No longer.

Today, the path was long and arduous. She took a deep breath, and slid her left hand onto her father’s elbow, and gently took her son’s paw with her right. Today, the path was full of obstacles, and already she was navigating them in her mind.

They set off at a slow pace, leaving the clearing of family campfire and open-air huts for the narrow path to the beach, the path that wove its shady way between the palm trees and vines, showing every now and then a bright, shining view of the sea between the leaves.

Her father teetered on her left, slow and unsteady like a tree with weak roots swaying a little too far in the breeze, her son toddled at her right, tripping, losing his balance, caught from a fall only by her hand.

There was the first obstacle, on the left: the buried, sand-covered rock a few yards in to the trail, the one she had stubbed her toe on when she was three years old. Ever after she had leapt over it, effortlessly. But today she steered her father around it, carefully nudging his elbow, while holding her son away from the encroaching vines on the right – those leaves were at the level of his face.

And there! There was an overhanging palm frond, half blown down in the last storm, still hanging from the trunk, but now directly in her father’s path. It was something she would have ducked under without a thought in the past, but today she negotiated the frond carefully, helping her father stoop beneath it, watching him ease his weight from foot to foot and emerge, victorious, on the other side.

On the right were some sticky vines. Just the thing for her son to get tangled in – his fur would be sticky and itchy all day if he blundered into that, and she and Oryx would have to spend the entire evening picking the sap out with their fingers. She let go of her father for an instant to grab her son under his arms and move him to the center of the path.

And so it went. The trip took half an hour, a tiny trek, a miniature expedition playing out in the shade of the palm trees.

The roar of the ocean grew closer. Zlinka could hardly wait. She came rarely to the Echo Isles these days, being too busy with her own life in Orgrimmar. But a part of her always missed the sea, the sound of the surf crashing and hissing up the sand, the warm salt breeze, the clear water. She kept its memory deep in her heart, the vibrant colors and fresh smells and warm, clear waves, and the memory gave her strength, no matter where she was in the world. She would wrap the memory around herself, like a cloak, and it would keep her warm and safe and strong.

They emerged from the line of trees onto the soft, white sand. Zlinka’s breath came more quickly. Here she was – she was in her own memory now, at the very source of her strength. The sand pressed up between her toes, warm and gritty, a living memory.

She ached to run across the beach. She could reach the water in five seconds. One dash, sand spraying up at each footstep, one mad dash and she’d be in the foam, her feet in the wet sand, water dragging at her knees, and she would dive, an exuberant dive, into the advancing glassy wall of a curling wave, a wave with white foam on top, arching just over her head. The wave would roll over her back, an old friend, and she’d emerge behind it with her hair slicked down like a seal, rubbing the salt water from her eyes, ready to face the next curling wave, until she swam out beyond the breakpoint to bob gently in the sea swells, perhaps floating on her back, perhaps diving to hang suspended in the warm clear azure, the closest she would ever get to flight, to watch the bright fish flitting in the reef below.

“I’m tired, I have to sit down,” said her father. Zlinka tore her eyes from the surf and helped her father to sit, a hand behind his elbow, supporting his weight, easing him down onto the sand. He was so light, these days. It was as though his bones had become a bird’s bones, hollow on the inside.

Beside her, her son stood in awe. He had not seen the sea before, at least not to remember it. His little mouth gaped open. He clutched her hand, squeezing her fingers. She plopped down on the sand next to her father then pulled her son into her lap. Reaching back, she picked up a little sun-dried branch and gave it to her son to play with. He grabbed it and waved it around. She watched carefully in case he got it too close to his own face, or her father’s.

She looked across the beach again. The water was only a few dozen yards away, but she knew, with a sudden sinking of her heart, that it might as well be twenty miles away. The sea was beyond her reach. She could not go in. These two generations, the very old and the very young, needed her too much. She could not leave them.

A stab of anger, anger so hot it blurred her vision. When had her life become so full of people pressing in, crowding in, needing, pulling, asking, wanting, taking, that there was no more room for herself?

When would she ever be free enough to run down the beach and jump into the surf?

It would be years.

Her heart stilled. Freedom would come again, yes, but it would come with death. She cast a sideways glance at her father, at his wispy white hair floating in the breeze, his eyes half-closed, enjoying the sun. His death would bring her freedom, but she did not want him to die.

And it would come with maturity. She looked down at the little weight in her lap, the little black and white furry bundle that was still playing happily with the stick. He would grow up, grow away, grow big and tall and strong until he stood a head taller than she did, and probably weighed three times as much. And one day he would sit tall in his stirrups, his sword on his back and his shield at his side, and he would bid her goodbye. And her heart would overflow with both gladness and grief, for she did not want to lose him.

Then freedom would come, freedom from responsibility, freedom from people. That freedom would be sweet, for it would be well-earned, freedom after a lifetime of caring for other people, but it would be freedom tinged with the sadness of loss.

And one day, further still in the future, she would lean on the arm of this little Pandaren grown so tall, and he would watch the path for her, to make sure she did not fall. And she would sit on the beach herself, too old to go in to the water now, her long white hair cascading around her shoulders.

She would lean her head against his furry shoulder, so strong, so sure, and she would feel safe, and loved. And she would look back on these years when her parents were alive, and her three children were small and playing at her feet. She would remember when she was at the center of her family, at the core of their lives, when all of her loved ones, young and old, had taken shelter in her strength.

She would look back, and know that today, she had been happy.
]]> <![CDATA[The Hunter's Horn: a Weezil Mystery]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-37.html Mon, 07 Mar 2011 21:26:07 -0800 Zlinka]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-37.html The Hunter's Horn: a Weezil Mystery

When a goblin Private Detective (Third Class) needs to leave town fast, she canât be too picky how she leaves it.

Eyebrows still smoking, I dashed up to an enormous Orc tightening the girth on the last kodo of his caravan. His four other kodo stood fully loaded with baggage, facing the great gate of the city, lined up and ready to go.

I tugged on the Orcâs sleeve.

"Take me with you," I gasped. "I'll pay you well."

Straightening, the Orc turned to look down at me. He was massive, with a tree trunk of a neck protruding from buttress-like shoulders atop a granite wall of chest. His face was the greenish-yellow hue of a stagnant, scummy pond, broken by two small frog-like eyes, buried deep in the flesh of his face. Broken tombstone teeth rose crooked from a pinkish grey cemetery of gum. He was the ugliest Orc Iâd ever seen, and thatâs saying something. I took an involuntary step back.

"How much you pay me?" he growled.

I was in no position to be choosy.

"A hundred gold. Fifty now, fifty when we get there." It was almost all I had. Not quite all. I was no fool.

He shrugged his massive shoulders, making the cracked leather creak and groan. He turned back to the kodoâs harness.

Okay. I resisted the urge to pluck at his sleeve again. "A hundred and fifty."

Not bothering to look at me, he said, "Two hundred, up front."

Damn damn damn.

Shouts echoed from the Drag.

"Deal," I said.

He turned, slowly, like a great bull kodo, and held out a broad, flat hand. Like a plate. A plate with sausagey fingers and thick, cracked fingernails.

My lips pressed together, I yanked my money bag from my belt and emptied it into his palm. One hundred and sixty eight gold pieces.

I took off my hat, a soft brown felt thing with holes for my ears, my favorite hat, with little flat pockets inside the lining in case, you know, I ran out of pants pockets and shirt pockets -- a goblin canât have too many pockets -- and upended it over the pile of gold sitting in his palm. Nineteen more gold. Slipping my left shoe off, an old shoe whose sole was worn so thin I could feel the ground beneath my foot, gravely crunchy Azshara sand or hot soft ash from failed explosions or cold slickity-slippery puddles of rocket oil or soft warm fresh lumpy kodo muck, Iâd stepped in them all, and I stuck my fingers under the shoe's tongue like I was gagging a goat and tipped eleven more gold pieces into his hand. Then I rolled up my right pants cuff, pants with knee patches Iâd sewn myself, and pulled a handful of gold and silver and copper coins from inside an extra special inner pocket, and dumped them jingling into his hand.

Okay, I was a fool.

The Orc counted the coins one by one by one, pushing each one with his right forefinger up his left palm toward the fingers, his lips moving with the unaccustomed mental effort.

The shouts were coming around the corner now. Angry, accusatory shouts.

I gulped. "Please hurry," I said. "If it's short I'll make up the difference."

He drew his brows together. "Shut up," he said. "You make Drog lose count."

A bead of sweat trickled down the back of my neck, tickling the soft, raised hairs beneath my collar.

The fingers continued flicking the coins one by one. ... Eighty eight... eighty nine...

Cries echoed from the bank and auction house now. I took a step closer to him. Maybe, just maybe, his bulk would hide me. I was about the size of his great, bulging thigh â surely I could hide behind that? As long as smoke from my eyebrows didnât give me away.

Drog closed his thick fingers over the mound of money, pulled a moneybag from where it hung on his belt, and dumped the coins inside in a long, tinkling cascade of metal.

"You twenty gold short," he said. "Pay up."

Heat surged through me -- I wasn't that short. But Drog grinned down at me, with his gleaming yellow tombstone teeth.

Slowly, cheeks burning, I pulled a thin silk purse from inside the sleeve of my shirt, a delicate purse sewn to my sleeve lining with a long thread of spider silk, unzipped its tiny zipper, and counted twenty more gold pieces into his palm. His smile broadened. My ears grew hot.

"Drog take you to Uldum now," he said.

Wait. Uldum?

But the Orc picked me up under the arms and swung me to the top of the towering pile of baggage on the last kodo as easily as though I were a lumpy bag of onions. Gripping one of the ropes with both my hands, trying to squeeze my fingers beneath it, I wished I had a third hand or a prehensile tail or an extra robotic arm attached to my belt to grip another rope too.

The luggage lurched to the left, pitched forward, rolled to the right, then swung left again. My stomach rose in my throat like a giant bubble of burning intestinal chili gas. The kodo had only gone two steps but already I hated riding on one.

The great maw of the Orgrimmar gate loomed over me, a mouth of giant iron and wood portcullis-teeth. As the great shadow of the gate covered me like a cold, blue-gray blanket and the angry shouting echoed in confusion around the bank and inn, I tried to press myself into invisibility against the knobbly baggage.

We were on our way.

[center]***[/center]

We traveled all day. My kodo lurched from side to side like a little boat bobbing on a choppy, rolling ocean, hour after hour after hour. It was the most nauseating trip I had ever taken. My frothy-sour guts floated up next to my lungs and sloshed against my heart, which didnât want them, and threatened to escape out my throat. I kept my mouth tight shut. I might need those guts later.

The sunlight blistered the backs of my hands and the nape of my neck like radiation from a nuclear fusion reactor, which it was. The skin of my ankles cooked hot and tight and crispy. Sweat ran down my face onto the coarse gunny sacks, which chafed damp and harsh against my cheeks. I kept my eyes closed, mostly, but the brightness burned blood-red through my eyelids anyway, blood-red dotted with silver flashes of nausea around the edges.

When I did peek I caught sight of dry, red hills and gulleys and a brassy blue sky that shimmered with heat, and ahead of me, more pitching and rolling kodos, even less attractive from behind than they were from the front, if that is possible.

On the kodo directly in front of me rode another Orc, sitting upright on his pile of baggage, his stubby legs almost spread at right angles to his torso, a clutch of totems at his belt. His hair was tied into a short, stubby pony tail like a club, gathered at the back of his head. One arm looked smaller than the other, but I couldnât be sure. He rolled at the hips, adjusting his weight to the movement of the kodo. He looked a lot more comfortable than I felt.

Ahead of him I could just glimpse the small figure of another goblin, sitting sideways on his kodo, not even holding on, drinking easily from a canteen, his face shaded by the rim of a sand-colored pith helmet, which appeared to have beetles glued to it.

Trying to focus on the hat-beetles at this distance made me feel even worse, so I shut my eyes again and squeezed them tight closed, which didnât help. Time blurred into one long smear of iron-scented heat and I concentrated on not losing my breakfast. Smoked herring with garlic mayonnaise. Not, as it turned out, a good choice for breakfast today.

The sun hung low in the sky when the rolling and pitching stopped. Thank C'thun's many-tentacled eyeballs. I clung to my ropes, my eyes still tight shut, my inner ears still lurching back and forth, my stomach still floating on a turbulent inner sea of dead herring and even deader garlic.

Big hands felt around my body, lifted me down from my perch and set me on my legs. Drog's hands. My knees, no longer jointed, buckled beneath me. I fell flat on my face and hugged the ground. The sweet, sweet ground. I loved the ground.

"You don't travel much," said a female voice.

I opened one eye. One bleary, watery eye.

A female orc was bending over me, her edges watery against the cloudless blue. Her face was lined like an old green purse, and two yellow tusks protruded from her lower jaw like little bone fishhooks. Her ears were pierced with four grimy red-bronze rings. From the dirt ground into the hinges it looked like she never removed them. A scraggly, greasy red braid fell over one skinny shoulder. Her face was weary but kind, and her brown eyes shone bright with amusement, their edges crinkled in an almost-smile. She was ugly, yes, but it was a better ugly than Drog.

Behind her I saw plains of yellow grass, dotted with dotted with thorny acacia trees and bits of scrub bush. I lifted my head and immediately wished that I hadnât. But the blinding sparkle of the Southfury river and the red ridges of Durotar beyond told me that we were in the Northern Barrens. The road was nowhere in sight.

The caravan stood in a patch of bare earth pocked with gopher holes next to two acacia trees which cast their long, straggly, stick-bug shadows up the slope of a great, dry hill. Crushed dry grass showed where the kodo had tromped through the savannah to get to the campsite.

I sat up, a little wobbly.

"Well, the truth is, I only arrived from Azshara..."

Drog, busy unloading the kodo Iâd ridden, right behind me, turned on her, "You no waste time talking, Harga!" he snapped. "Help Blackhoof with kodo!"

Harga flashed him a sharp, irritated look. A stinging paper-cut of a look. But she didn't look surprised. She flicked her eyes upwards in faint derision, then strode off to pull two kodo into the scanty shade of one of the acacia trees and tether them there. A Tauren was already there, pouring water into collapsible leather troughs with metal ribs, into which the thirsty kodo dipped their square-lipped faces and slurped noisily. Blackhoof, presumably.

"Useless woman," Drog muttered. "Should never have married her."

I eyed him distastefully, my hands holding my still queasy stomach in place. What a charmer.

Drog busied himself with my kodo, removing the bumpy bags from its back and dropping them heavily to the ground beside me.

I eyed the other people traveling with this lout.

The Orc shaman who had ridden in front of me had dismounted, and was unharnessing his kodo himself. Or at least, he was trying to. His right arm hung by his side, limp and inert, swaying slightly as he heaved at the kodo's girth strap with his strong left arm.

"Hey!" shouted Drog, "Stop! Not like that!"

Drog sprang toward the shamanâs kodo but it was too late. Unmoored, the entire load of baggage slid from the kodo's back, slowly and inexorably, like a burlap glacier falling off the land into the sea. It crashed to the ground with a cracking, crunching sound, and broke into shattered boxes of potatoes, onions, and turnips. A beet rolled past my foot.

"Stupid, stupid Orc! Know nothing of kodo! Get away!" Drog shouted.

"I was only trying to be useful," said the Orc, in a stricken but well-educated voice. I looked at him curiously. I hadn't met many Orcs who spoke Common so well. I wondered if it had to do with his studies to become a Shaman.

I could see his face now. He was much younger than Drog. The line of his jaw was unblurred with age. So the wrinkles on his youthful face looked out of place: there were lines of endurance around his eyes, and of hardship around his mouth.

With his good arm Grum fumbled with one of the totems at his belt and thrust it into the ground, where it began to pulse -- it was a healing stream totem -- perhaps thinking it might help, but Drog kicked it over with his foot. It flew a few feet from its little round hole in the ground, trailing bits of dirt behind it.

"Drog fix. You no mess with kodo," Drog grunted, turning back to the kodo. "You useless."

Behind Drog's back, Grum's eyes flashed in anger. It was just a momentary expression, like a gleam of sunlight glinting off a knife blade, but he said nothing. He picked up his totem and tied it back onto his belt.

"Blackhoof! Clean this up!" Drog shouted.

The young male Tauren I'd seen pouring water for the kodo looked up. He had the height, but not the breadth, of an adult Tauren. His fur was chocolate brown, and horns and hooves were the deep, warm almost-black of cocoa beans. His gaze was steady and calm, the look of a person whoâd worked his whole life among great beasts of burden, caring for them, soothing them, learning their ways. He hurried over to us, moving confidently between the kodo, pushing their great heads aside, slapping their necks in a friendly manner, until he got to the broken crates and spilled root vegetables, whereupon he knelt on the ground and began scooping them up with his hands and stuffing them into burlap bags.

I picked up the beet that had rolled by my foot, and a couple of parsnips too, and headed over to the spilled baggage to find a place for them. I'd spied four unbroken boxes made out of darker, stronger wood among the wreckage, sturdy boxes with iron corners. Perhaps these could be opened and their contents re-arranged to accommodate some additional vegetables.

But Drog stepped between me and the dark boxes, blocking my view of them, and held out his hand for the vegetables. I handed him the beet and parsnips. He nodded at me dismissively, and said, "Blackhoof will clear up. You go sit by campfire."

There was something in Drog's face that made me decide not to argue. If he wanted his kodo handler to do all the work, that was fine by me.

I retreated to the center of the campsite, where Harga had collected blackened stones and was forming them into a circle around an ash-filled depression in the ground. She dragged some logs from the surrounding weeds to use as make-shift benches. She knew right where to go. They had obviously camped here before.

I sat on one of the logs, joining a sullen Grum, not far from the third passenger, the shrewd-faced goblin with the beetle helmet. It was indeed covered with beetles, but they werenât real ones. Theyâd been carved from stone. Scarabs. Glued all over his helmet. He was dressed in tailored, well-worn sand-colored traveling clothes, and he looked cool and collected after the hot ride, as though he were sitting on his own shady porch with a tall glass of iced tea in his hand.

He leaned toward me. "I figure you paid about a hundred and ninety gold too much for this trip," he said, with a condescending grin.

I glared at him.

"Buketto Bolts," he said, holding out his hand. "Archaeologist. But you can call me Buck."

"Weezil," I said. "Hunter. Private Detective." Third Class, I added in my head.

Buck raised an eyebrow, "Hunter? Where's your pet?"

I thought of the hermit crab with the little microphone glued to his shell, wandering somewhere in Orgrimmar. I didn't think I wanted to go into that right now.

"I don't have one."

Buck's eyebrow rose further up his forehead, like a caterpillar, "What do you detect?"

"Cheating spouses, mostly. And lost pets. But I'm trying to land some bigger cases."

I tried not to sound apologetic. Project confidence, I told myself. Act like I could solve a theft, burglary, or even a murder if necessary. I tried not to think of the toy poodle I'd found for its owner last week, the high point of my career so far. I drew myself up. Weezil, Private Detective, Third Class, at your service!

I didn't feel very tall.

Buck seemed about to speak, but we were interrupted by a sleek, feline presence that flowed into the circle of logs. A gorgeous, pale gold wyvern dropped gracefully into a smooth patch of ground and leaned languorously against one of the logs. She spread her wings, taking full possession of her spot, as though sheâd waited her whole life to lie in just this position right here before us. Her scorpion tail arched over her back in a great sweeping curve. She turned her face toward me. I peered into two amber eyes, deep and inscrutable, portals into another world. Her gaze took my breath away. I steadied myself on my log.

Grum and Buck were staring at the wyvern too. Only Harga, dragging more logs into the circle, was unaffected by the animal's presence.

"You like?" boomed Drog's voice over my head. I jumped.

Drog strode proudly around face us, like a giant strutting rooster, "She rare color. Never see another like her. I kill twenty wyvern to get to her. Her name Lady."

I got the impression that he made this speech a lot.

Lady shifted her eyes from my face to her master's. She gave him a long, unblinking stare. Released from her gaze, I breathed again.

Drog thumped his chest, "Drog go all over world to find rarest animals for his collection." Leering at her, he waggled his fingers. I winced.

"Is that why youâre going to Uldum?" I asked.

"No, Drog have other business in Uldum. But it's why we camp here tonight, and not at Crossroads." Then, with his massive hand, he pulled back the edge of his tunic to reveal a curved brown-grey kodo horn with a mouthpiece of smooth, cream-colored ivory. The sweeping body of the horn was intricately carved with bas relief sculptures of lions. Lions running, lions crouching, lions bringing down gazelles. But the center of the horn reclined a single carving, larger than all the others, of a majestic, white lion.

Drog tapped the carvings with a fingernail. "Tomorrow," he said, "this lion will be mine."

Harga, rolling the last log into place, muttered, "Just what we need, another pet. He has a stableful of pets in Orgrimmar already, eating all our profits. But you'd never know it. He only goes about with his latest one."

I glanced at Drog, bracing myself for a cutting rebuke, but he didn't. He puffed out his chest and said, "If Drog is to be envy of all he sees, he must have different pet each time." Bending, Drog fondled Lady's ears. She arched her neck against his hand.

I glanced at Harga, who had paused after placing the last log, and now stood panting from her effort, her hands dark with dirt and sap. She was staring at Drog and Lady, and there was something in her face that twisted my stomach. Her upper lip was arched with contempt, yes, arched like a drawn bow, but her eyes burned as she watched Drog stroke the wyvern's head.

I wondered if Drog was ever as gentle with her as he was with his latest pet.

[center]***[/center]

Harga and Blackhoof set up a small tent for each of the three passengers: Grum, Buck and myself. Blackhoof set up a worn tent for himself, made of reddish kodo hide, and a larger one for Drog and Harga to share.

Everyone took their personal belongings into their tents, and Drog, I noticed, pulled the four dark boxes inside his tent, but I had no luggage to speak of. I thought wistfully of my footed pajamas in my quarters in Orgrimmar. They were probably long gone by now. Harga kindly lent me some wolf skins to sleep on.

As the sun went down over the savannah, stippling the grasstips with orange light, we ate a dinner of black Orc bread and slabs of yellowish cheese by the crackling campfire. I still felt nauseous from the day's ride, and the sight of the greasy cheese set my stomach roiling again. I nibbled on it cautiously, listening to the other travelers talk.

Blackhoof, his chores done, stretched out his hooves to the fire. One of his hooves had a small crack. He pulled the cracked foot over his other knee, gingerly, as though it pained him, and pulled a file from his pocked with a ziiiiiiik. Harga scooted over to him on his log and cupped his ankle, her hands gentle, her face glowing softly in the firelight, while he began filing down the front edge of the hoof.

Grum leaned over to watch them, his face curious. Self-farriery was new to me, too.

Blackhoof looked up and smiled, "Imbalanced foot," he said, "Not serious. I've had it since I was a kid. I need to file it down so it sits flat, so the crack doesnât grow."

Grum nodded, then pressed his lips together. He held out his hand, and his fingertips glowed with a soft green light, the color of new spring leaves. Soft shoots of green wrapped around Blackhoofâs foot, twining and throbbing with life. Blackhoof laughed a little nervously, "That tingles," he said.

When the green shoots faded, the crack was gone. Blackhoof thumped on his hoof with his knuckles, then grinned at Grum. "Thanks," he said.

"Looks like this caravan could use a good healing shaman," Grum said.

Drog looked up from his place by the fire, where he was taking big bites out of his bread and cheese. "One-armed shaman no use," he said. "Plenty two-armed shaman about."

"I'm a good healer," Grum said, turning to face him.

Drog jabbed a finger at him, "You so good, heal arm."

Grum's smile faded, "I don't know how, yet."

"Useless," Drog said, and went back to his meal.

Grum glared at him, silence emanating from him like a bruise. He said nothing more.

A chill fell on the company after that exchange. I crawled into my tent. My bread and cheese had defeated me in the end, and I lay shivering for a good long while as darkness fell. Damn savannah climate -- scorching hot during the day, freezing at night. Scuffling and scraping noises told me the others were retiring to their tents, too.

I thought everyone was in bed when I heard Grum's low voice and Drog's rumbling, impatient answer. Grass crunched beneath their feet: they were moving away from camp, but still the voices droned on.

Drog's voice rose. The conversation was turning into an argument. I could only catch bits and pieces of what Drog was saying.
... doesn't remember... useless... Igrim... have no use... gold..."

Grum's voice was too low for me to hear.

[center]***[/center]

I came bolt upright in my tent, heart pounding in my chest like a samophlange piston.

What was that?

Echoes reverberated in the distance. Echoes of... a horn?

There it was again!

A distant summons rang clear and bright, then faded into rolling echoes.

A few stars shone softly through the round smokehole of my tent, but the light around them was pale grey. It was just before dawn, and it was cold. Finger-numbing, nose-running, throat-slicing cold. Wisps of steam rose before my eyes. Laying back down, I pulled my wolf hide right up to my chin and folded my legs tight, tucking my icy left foot into the crease behind my right knee to warm it up. With any luck I could snatch another ten minutes of sleep before...

A defiant yell sounded in the distance, followed by multiple deep-throated growls and a muted roar.

Lions.

I clutched the hide closer. Drog must be out there, somewhere, taming his next pet. The kodo stamped their feet and blew nervously through their noses. They didn't like this any more than I did. My back ached with tension.

The growls died down.

I massaged the back of my neck, trying to get the muscles to unclench. All over. It was all over.

A single, distant scream tore through the silence.

This was unbearable. I tore off the furs, yanked on my clothes and hurled myself out of the tent.]]> The Hunter's Horn: a Weezil Mystery

When a goblin Private Detective (Third Class) needs to leave town fast, she canât be too picky how she leaves it.

Eyebrows still smoking, I dashed up to an enormous Orc tightening the girth on the last kodo of his caravan. His four other kodo stood fully loaded with baggage, facing the great gate of the city, lined up and ready to go.

I tugged on the Orcâs sleeve.

"Take me with you," I gasped. "I'll pay you well."

Straightening, the Orc turned to look down at me. He was massive, with a tree trunk of a neck protruding from buttress-like shoulders atop a granite wall of chest. His face was the greenish-yellow hue of a stagnant, scummy pond, broken by two small frog-like eyes, buried deep in the flesh of his face. Broken tombstone teeth rose crooked from a pinkish grey cemetery of gum. He was the ugliest Orc Iâd ever seen, and thatâs saying something. I took an involuntary step back.

"How much you pay me?" he growled.

I was in no position to be choosy.

"A hundred gold. Fifty now, fifty when we get there." It was almost all I had. Not quite all. I was no fool.

He shrugged his massive shoulders, making the cracked leather creak and groan. He turned back to the kodoâs harness.

Okay. I resisted the urge to pluck at his sleeve again. "A hundred and fifty."

Not bothering to look at me, he said, "Two hundred, up front."

Damn damn damn.

Shouts echoed from the Drag.

"Deal," I said.

He turned, slowly, like a great bull kodo, and held out a broad, flat hand. Like a plate. A plate with sausagey fingers and thick, cracked fingernails.

My lips pressed together, I yanked my money bag from my belt and emptied it into his palm. One hundred and sixty eight gold pieces.

I took off my hat, a soft brown felt thing with holes for my ears, my favorite hat, with little flat pockets inside the lining in case, you know, I ran out of pants pockets and shirt pockets -- a goblin canât have too many pockets -- and upended it over the pile of gold sitting in his palm. Nineteen more gold. Slipping my left shoe off, an old shoe whose sole was worn so thin I could feel the ground beneath my foot, gravely crunchy Azshara sand or hot soft ash from failed explosions or cold slickity-slippery puddles of rocket oil or soft warm fresh lumpy kodo muck, Iâd stepped in them all, and I stuck my fingers under the shoe's tongue like I was gagging a goat and tipped eleven more gold pieces into his hand. Then I rolled up my right pants cuff, pants with knee patches Iâd sewn myself, and pulled a handful of gold and silver and copper coins from inside an extra special inner pocket, and dumped them jingling into his hand.

Okay, I was a fool.

The Orc counted the coins one by one by one, pushing each one with his right forefinger up his left palm toward the fingers, his lips moving with the unaccustomed mental effort.

The shouts were coming around the corner now. Angry, accusatory shouts.

I gulped. "Please hurry," I said. "If it's short I'll make up the difference."

He drew his brows together. "Shut up," he said. "You make Drog lose count."

A bead of sweat trickled down the back of my neck, tickling the soft, raised hairs beneath my collar.

The fingers continued flicking the coins one by one. ... Eighty eight... eighty nine...

Cries echoed from the bank and auction house now. I took a step closer to him. Maybe, just maybe, his bulk would hide me. I was about the size of his great, bulging thigh â surely I could hide behind that? As long as smoke from my eyebrows didnât give me away.

Drog closed his thick fingers over the mound of money, pulled a moneybag from where it hung on his belt, and dumped the coins inside in a long, tinkling cascade of metal.

"You twenty gold short," he said. "Pay up."

Heat surged through me -- I wasn't that short. But Drog grinned down at me, with his gleaming yellow tombstone teeth.

Slowly, cheeks burning, I pulled a thin silk purse from inside the sleeve of my shirt, a delicate purse sewn to my sleeve lining with a long thread of spider silk, unzipped its tiny zipper, and counted twenty more gold pieces into his palm. His smile broadened. My ears grew hot.

"Drog take you to Uldum now," he said.

Wait. Uldum?

But the Orc picked me up under the arms and swung me to the top of the towering pile of baggage on the last kodo as easily as though I were a lumpy bag of onions. Gripping one of the ropes with both my hands, trying to squeeze my fingers beneath it, I wished I had a third hand or a prehensile tail or an extra robotic arm attached to my belt to grip another rope too.

The luggage lurched to the left, pitched forward, rolled to the right, then swung left again. My stomach rose in my throat like a giant bubble of burning intestinal chili gas. The kodo had only gone two steps but already I hated riding on one.

The great maw of the Orgrimmar gate loomed over me, a mouth of giant iron and wood portcullis-teeth. As the great shadow of the gate covered me like a cold, blue-gray blanket and the angry shouting echoed in confusion around the bank and inn, I tried to press myself into invisibility against the knobbly baggage.

We were on our way.

[center]***[/center]

We traveled all day. My kodo lurched from side to side like a little boat bobbing on a choppy, rolling ocean, hour after hour after hour. It was the most nauseating trip I had ever taken. My frothy-sour guts floated up next to my lungs and sloshed against my heart, which didnât want them, and threatened to escape out my throat. I kept my mouth tight shut. I might need those guts later.

The sunlight blistered the backs of my hands and the nape of my neck like radiation from a nuclear fusion reactor, which it was. The skin of my ankles cooked hot and tight and crispy. Sweat ran down my face onto the coarse gunny sacks, which chafed damp and harsh against my cheeks. I kept my eyes closed, mostly, but the brightness burned blood-red through my eyelids anyway, blood-red dotted with silver flashes of nausea around the edges.

When I did peek I caught sight of dry, red hills and gulleys and a brassy blue sky that shimmered with heat, and ahead of me, more pitching and rolling kodos, even less attractive from behind than they were from the front, if that is possible.

On the kodo directly in front of me rode another Orc, sitting upright on his pile of baggage, his stubby legs almost spread at right angles to his torso, a clutch of totems at his belt. His hair was tied into a short, stubby pony tail like a club, gathered at the back of his head. One arm looked smaller than the other, but I couldnât be sure. He rolled at the hips, adjusting his weight to the movement of the kodo. He looked a lot more comfortable than I felt.

Ahead of him I could just glimpse the small figure of another goblin, sitting sideways on his kodo, not even holding on, drinking easily from a canteen, his face shaded by the rim of a sand-colored pith helmet, which appeared to have beetles glued to it.

Trying to focus on the hat-beetles at this distance made me feel even worse, so I shut my eyes again and squeezed them tight closed, which didnât help. Time blurred into one long smear of iron-scented heat and I concentrated on not losing my breakfast. Smoked herring with garlic mayonnaise. Not, as it turned out, a good choice for breakfast today.

The sun hung low in the sky when the rolling and pitching stopped. Thank C'thun's many-tentacled eyeballs. I clung to my ropes, my eyes still tight shut, my inner ears still lurching back and forth, my stomach still floating on a turbulent inner sea of dead herring and even deader garlic.

Big hands felt around my body, lifted me down from my perch and set me on my legs. Drog's hands. My knees, no longer jointed, buckled beneath me. I fell flat on my face and hugged the ground. The sweet, sweet ground. I loved the ground.

"You don't travel much," said a female voice.

I opened one eye. One bleary, watery eye.

A female orc was bending over me, her edges watery against the cloudless blue. Her face was lined like an old green purse, and two yellow tusks protruded from her lower jaw like little bone fishhooks. Her ears were pierced with four grimy red-bronze rings. From the dirt ground into the hinges it looked like she never removed them. A scraggly, greasy red braid fell over one skinny shoulder. Her face was weary but kind, and her brown eyes shone bright with amusement, their edges crinkled in an almost-smile. She was ugly, yes, but it was a better ugly than Drog.

Behind her I saw plains of yellow grass, dotted with dotted with thorny acacia trees and bits of scrub bush. I lifted my head and immediately wished that I hadnât. But the blinding sparkle of the Southfury river and the red ridges of Durotar beyond told me that we were in the Northern Barrens. The road was nowhere in sight.

The caravan stood in a patch of bare earth pocked with gopher holes next to two acacia trees which cast their long, straggly, stick-bug shadows up the slope of a great, dry hill. Crushed dry grass showed where the kodo had tromped through the savannah to get to the campsite.

I sat up, a little wobbly.

"Well, the truth is, I only arrived from Azshara..."

Drog, busy unloading the kodo Iâd ridden, right behind me, turned on her, "You no waste time talking, Harga!" he snapped. "Help Blackhoof with kodo!"

Harga flashed him a sharp, irritated look. A stinging paper-cut of a look. But she didn't look surprised. She flicked her eyes upwards in faint derision, then strode off to pull two kodo into the scanty shade of one of the acacia trees and tether them there. A Tauren was already there, pouring water into collapsible leather troughs with metal ribs, into which the thirsty kodo dipped their square-lipped faces and slurped noisily. Blackhoof, presumably.

"Useless woman," Drog muttered. "Should never have married her."

I eyed him distastefully, my hands holding my still queasy stomach in place. What a charmer.

Drog busied himself with my kodo, removing the bumpy bags from its back and dropping them heavily to the ground beside me.

I eyed the other people traveling with this lout.

The Orc shaman who had ridden in front of me had dismounted, and was unharnessing his kodo himself. Or at least, he was trying to. His right arm hung by his side, limp and inert, swaying slightly as he heaved at the kodo's girth strap with his strong left arm.

"Hey!" shouted Drog, "Stop! Not like that!"

Drog sprang toward the shamanâs kodo but it was too late. Unmoored, the entire load of baggage slid from the kodo's back, slowly and inexorably, like a burlap glacier falling off the land into the sea. It crashed to the ground with a cracking, crunching sound, and broke into shattered boxes of potatoes, onions, and turnips. A beet rolled past my foot.

"Stupid, stupid Orc! Know nothing of kodo! Get away!" Drog shouted.

"I was only trying to be useful," said the Orc, in a stricken but well-educated voice. I looked at him curiously. I hadn't met many Orcs who spoke Common so well. I wondered if it had to do with his studies to become a Shaman.

I could see his face now. He was much younger than Drog. The line of his jaw was unblurred with age. So the wrinkles on his youthful face looked out of place: there were lines of endurance around his eyes, and of hardship around his mouth.

With his good arm Grum fumbled with one of the totems at his belt and thrust it into the ground, where it began to pulse -- it was a healing stream totem -- perhaps thinking it might help, but Drog kicked it over with his foot. It flew a few feet from its little round hole in the ground, trailing bits of dirt behind it.

"Drog fix. You no mess with kodo," Drog grunted, turning back to the kodo. "You useless."

Behind Drog's back, Grum's eyes flashed in anger. It was just a momentary expression, like a gleam of sunlight glinting off a knife blade, but he said nothing. He picked up his totem and tied it back onto his belt.

"Blackhoof! Clean this up!" Drog shouted.

The young male Tauren I'd seen pouring water for the kodo looked up. He had the height, but not the breadth, of an adult Tauren. His fur was chocolate brown, and horns and hooves were the deep, warm almost-black of cocoa beans. His gaze was steady and calm, the look of a person whoâd worked his whole life among great beasts of burden, caring for them, soothing them, learning their ways. He hurried over to us, moving confidently between the kodo, pushing their great heads aside, slapping their necks in a friendly manner, until he got to the broken crates and spilled root vegetables, whereupon he knelt on the ground and began scooping them up with his hands and stuffing them into burlap bags.

I picked up the beet that had rolled by my foot, and a couple of parsnips too, and headed over to the spilled baggage to find a place for them. I'd spied four unbroken boxes made out of darker, stronger wood among the wreckage, sturdy boxes with iron corners. Perhaps these could be opened and their contents re-arranged to accommodate some additional vegetables.

But Drog stepped between me and the dark boxes, blocking my view of them, and held out his hand for the vegetables. I handed him the beet and parsnips. He nodded at me dismissively, and said, "Blackhoof will clear up. You go sit by campfire."

There was something in Drog's face that made me decide not to argue. If he wanted his kodo handler to do all the work, that was fine by me.

I retreated to the center of the campsite, where Harga had collected blackened stones and was forming them into a circle around an ash-filled depression in the ground. She dragged some logs from the surrounding weeds to use as make-shift benches. She knew right where to go. They had obviously camped here before.

I sat on one of the logs, joining a sullen Grum, not far from the third passenger, the shrewd-faced goblin with the beetle helmet. It was indeed covered with beetles, but they werenât real ones. Theyâd been carved from stone. Scarabs. Glued all over his helmet. He was dressed in tailored, well-worn sand-colored traveling clothes, and he looked cool and collected after the hot ride, as though he were sitting on his own shady porch with a tall glass of iced tea in his hand.

He leaned toward me. "I figure you paid about a hundred and ninety gold too much for this trip," he said, with a condescending grin.

I glared at him.

"Buketto Bolts," he said, holding out his hand. "Archaeologist. But you can call me Buck."

"Weezil," I said. "Hunter. Private Detective." Third Class, I added in my head.

Buck raised an eyebrow, "Hunter? Where's your pet?"

I thought of the hermit crab with the little microphone glued to his shell, wandering somewhere in Orgrimmar. I didn't think I wanted to go into that right now.

"I don't have one."

Buck's eyebrow rose further up his forehead, like a caterpillar, "What do you detect?"

"Cheating spouses, mostly. And lost pets. But I'm trying to land some bigger cases."

I tried not to sound apologetic. Project confidence, I told myself. Act like I could solve a theft, burglary, or even a murder if necessary. I tried not to think of the toy poodle I'd found for its owner last week, the high point of my career so far. I drew myself up. Weezil, Private Detective, Third Class, at your service!

I didn't feel very tall.

Buck seemed about to speak, but we were interrupted by a sleek, feline presence that flowed into the circle of logs. A gorgeous, pale gold wyvern dropped gracefully into a smooth patch of ground and leaned languorously against one of the logs. She spread her wings, taking full possession of her spot, as though sheâd waited her whole life to lie in just this position right here before us. Her scorpion tail arched over her back in a great sweeping curve. She turned her face toward me. I peered into two amber eyes, deep and inscrutable, portals into another world. Her gaze took my breath away. I steadied myself on my log.

Grum and Buck were staring at the wyvern too. Only Harga, dragging more logs into the circle, was unaffected by the animal's presence.

"You like?" boomed Drog's voice over my head. I jumped.

Drog strode proudly around face us, like a giant strutting rooster, "She rare color. Never see another like her. I kill twenty wyvern to get to her. Her name Lady."

I got the impression that he made this speech a lot.

Lady shifted her eyes from my face to her master's. She gave him a long, unblinking stare. Released from her gaze, I breathed again.

Drog thumped his chest, "Drog go all over world to find rarest animals for his collection." Leering at her, he waggled his fingers. I winced.

"Is that why youâre going to Uldum?" I asked.

"No, Drog have other business in Uldum. But it's why we camp here tonight, and not at Crossroads." Then, with his massive hand, he pulled back the edge of his tunic to reveal a curved brown-grey kodo horn with a mouthpiece of smooth, cream-colored ivory. The sweeping body of the horn was intricately carved with bas relief sculptures of lions. Lions running, lions crouching, lions bringing down gazelles. But the center of the horn reclined a single carving, larger than all the others, of a majestic, white lion.

Drog tapped the carvings with a fingernail. "Tomorrow," he said, "this lion will be mine."

Harga, rolling the last log into place, muttered, "Just what we need, another pet. He has a stableful of pets in Orgrimmar already, eating all our profits. But you'd never know it. He only goes about with his latest one."

I glanced at Drog, bracing myself for a cutting rebuke, but he didn't. He puffed out his chest and said, "If Drog is to be envy of all he sees, he must have different pet each time." Bending, Drog fondled Lady's ears. She arched her neck against his hand.

I glanced at Harga, who had paused after placing the last log, and now stood panting from her effort, her hands dark with dirt and sap. She was staring at Drog and Lady, and there was something in her face that twisted my stomach. Her upper lip was arched with contempt, yes, arched like a drawn bow, but her eyes burned as she watched Drog stroke the wyvern's head.

I wondered if Drog was ever as gentle with her as he was with his latest pet.

[center]***[/center]

Harga and Blackhoof set up a small tent for each of the three passengers: Grum, Buck and myself. Blackhoof set up a worn tent for himself, made of reddish kodo hide, and a larger one for Drog and Harga to share.

Everyone took their personal belongings into their tents, and Drog, I noticed, pulled the four dark boxes inside his tent, but I had no luggage to speak of. I thought wistfully of my footed pajamas in my quarters in Orgrimmar. They were probably long gone by now. Harga kindly lent me some wolf skins to sleep on.

As the sun went down over the savannah, stippling the grasstips with orange light, we ate a dinner of black Orc bread and slabs of yellowish cheese by the crackling campfire. I still felt nauseous from the day's ride, and the sight of the greasy cheese set my stomach roiling again. I nibbled on it cautiously, listening to the other travelers talk.

Blackhoof, his chores done, stretched out his hooves to the fire. One of his hooves had a small crack. He pulled the cracked foot over his other knee, gingerly, as though it pained him, and pulled a file from his pocked with a ziiiiiiik. Harga scooted over to him on his log and cupped his ankle, her hands gentle, her face glowing softly in the firelight, while he began filing down the front edge of the hoof.

Grum leaned over to watch them, his face curious. Self-farriery was new to me, too.

Blackhoof looked up and smiled, "Imbalanced foot," he said, "Not serious. I've had it since I was a kid. I need to file it down so it sits flat, so the crack doesnât grow."

Grum nodded, then pressed his lips together. He held out his hand, and his fingertips glowed with a soft green light, the color of new spring leaves. Soft shoots of green wrapped around Blackhoofâs foot, twining and throbbing with life. Blackhoof laughed a little nervously, "That tingles," he said.

When the green shoots faded, the crack was gone. Blackhoof thumped on his hoof with his knuckles, then grinned at Grum. "Thanks," he said.

"Looks like this caravan could use a good healing shaman," Grum said.

Drog looked up from his place by the fire, where he was taking big bites out of his bread and cheese. "One-armed shaman no use," he said. "Plenty two-armed shaman about."

"I'm a good healer," Grum said, turning to face him.

Drog jabbed a finger at him, "You so good, heal arm."

Grum's smile faded, "I don't know how, yet."

"Useless," Drog said, and went back to his meal.

Grum glared at him, silence emanating from him like a bruise. He said nothing more.

A chill fell on the company after that exchange. I crawled into my tent. My bread and cheese had defeated me in the end, and I lay shivering for a good long while as darkness fell. Damn savannah climate -- scorching hot during the day, freezing at night. Scuffling and scraping noises told me the others were retiring to their tents, too.

I thought everyone was in bed when I heard Grum's low voice and Drog's rumbling, impatient answer. Grass crunched beneath their feet: they were moving away from camp, but still the voices droned on.

Drog's voice rose. The conversation was turning into an argument. I could only catch bits and pieces of what Drog was saying.
... doesn't remember... useless... Igrim... have no use... gold..."

Grum's voice was too low for me to hear.

[center]***[/center]

I came bolt upright in my tent, heart pounding in my chest like a samophlange piston.

What was that?

Echoes reverberated in the distance. Echoes of... a horn?

There it was again!

A distant summons rang clear and bright, then faded into rolling echoes.

A few stars shone softly through the round smokehole of my tent, but the light around them was pale grey. It was just before dawn, and it was cold. Finger-numbing, nose-running, throat-slicing cold. Wisps of steam rose before my eyes. Laying back down, I pulled my wolf hide right up to my chin and folded my legs tight, tucking my icy left foot into the crease behind my right knee to warm it up. With any luck I could snatch another ten minutes of sleep before...

A defiant yell sounded in the distance, followed by multiple deep-throated growls and a muted roar.

Lions.

I clutched the hide closer. Drog must be out there, somewhere, taming his next pet. The kodo stamped their feet and blew nervously through their noses. They didn't like this any more than I did. My back ached with tension.

The growls died down.

I massaged the back of my neck, trying to get the muscles to unclench. All over. It was all over.

A single, distant scream tore through the silence.

This was unbearable. I tore off the furs, yanked on my clothes and hurled myself out of the tent.]]> <![CDATA[Pierrah Winterhoof]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-41.html Tue, 01 Mar 2011 06:01:40 -0800 ]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-41.html "Come to the Ironsong Tribe," she'd said. "Make a home with them and get to know the tribe," she'd said. She'd said, "You'll love them as much as I'm coming to, I swear you will." Didn't that damnable mage know she was more interested in healing a breach and slowing the flow of the Earthmother's tears than simple camaraderie? But she'd also said, "Its not about simple camaraderie druid. Its about allies with the same desire. The need to fix and heal is an innate part of who you are, yes, I know. ...But why do you t'ink the two are mutually exclusive? What be wrong with a little companionship to go wit' the work ahead?"

Pie had considered her words. She'd always found it funny the lack of the thick Trollish accent Eonia had. It always seemed to creep in slightly when she was riled, and Pie had a great ability to rile the mage. "Good," she thought. She never seemed to get riled and it was Pie's secondary goal in life to get under her friend's skin as often as possible. Pierrah stood up and stretched her long calves, raising her arms in the air in a great yawn. She had to admit the Troll had been right. She had goals to achieve, and she needed the help and friendship of strong, like minded people. Damned if she'd admit that to Eonia though.

She thought on the previous night's events in confusion. It had been a whirlwind of activity, so many new faces and so few names to go with them. She'd simply sat in the corner and watched as the Ironsong Tribe rushed or meandered through the guild hall. They were such an interesting mix of races and colors and personalities, and here they blended, melded well. A family. A huge family. She sighed heavilly. Earthmother bless us, she'd missed family.

Pie donned her best leathers and picked up her packs. She had work to do and she wasn't getting it done standing around here. With a last glance at the guild hall she shifted into flight form and headded out the window. Mount Hyjal waited. Today she had to try and get some inside information on the Twilight Hammer. The thought gave her the creeps and made her skin crawl, but she'd don the Twilight garb she had tucked into her pack and integrate into their ranks. What better place to start than from the inside?]]> "Come to the Ironsong Tribe," she'd said. "Make a home with them and get to know the tribe," she'd said. She'd said, "You'll love them as much as I'm coming to, I swear you will." Didn't that damnable mage know she was more interested in healing a breach and slowing the flow of the Earthmother's tears than simple camaraderie? But she'd also said, "Its not about simple camaraderie druid. Its about allies with the same desire. The need to fix and heal is an innate part of who you are, yes, I know. ...But why do you t'ink the two are mutually exclusive? What be wrong with a little companionship to go wit' the work ahead?"

Pie had considered her words. She'd always found it funny the lack of the thick Trollish accent Eonia had. It always seemed to creep in slightly when she was riled, and Pie had a great ability to rile the mage. "Good," she thought. She never seemed to get riled and it was Pie's secondary goal in life to get under her friend's skin as often as possible. Pierrah stood up and stretched her long calves, raising her arms in the air in a great yawn. She had to admit the Troll had been right. She had goals to achieve, and she needed the help and friendship of strong, like minded people. Damned if she'd admit that to Eonia though.

She thought on the previous night's events in confusion. It had been a whirlwind of activity, so many new faces and so few names to go with them. She'd simply sat in the corner and watched as the Ironsong Tribe rushed or meandered through the guild hall. They were such an interesting mix of races and colors and personalities, and here they blended, melded well. A family. A huge family. She sighed heavilly. Earthmother bless us, she'd missed family.

Pie donned her best leathers and picked up her packs. She had work to do and she wasn't getting it done standing around here. With a last glance at the guild hall she shifted into flight form and headded out the window. Mount Hyjal waited. Today she had to try and get some inside information on the Twilight Hammer. The thought gave her the creeps and made her skin crawl, but she'd don the Twilight garb she had tucked into her pack and integrate into their ranks. What better place to start than from the inside?]]> <![CDATA[Eonia and Kwami: Fight or Flight]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-48.html Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:17:50 -0800 ]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-48.html
The night was clear and cold, wind whistling across the hard packed firmament of Durator. Hard, dried bits of bramble and dead brush rolled in the wind under the star-spangled, night sky. In the distance, someone walking alone out here might hear the cry the scorpid searching out food or the snorting calls of the boar roaming the grounds. It seemed almost too quiet, the Quillboar not making their usual racket of in-fighting and riotous partying on Horde supplies.

Ten year-old Eonia Attaboli sat on the floor in her little room of the hut she shared with her parents and her infant sister, Kwami. It was late and she worked by the light of a small candle stub that had been discarded by one of the scribes in a hut near hers. There was very little of the waxen light source left, but she utilized it by scooping the melted wax back into the opening left by the flame to make it burn just a little longer.

Sheâd been working this way for weeks, after her mother, Chakti, had given her the bolts of silk cloth. Sheâd been proud to hear her mother praise her workmanship so highly stating that she was a âgifted seamstressâ at only ten. Eonia had set to work on the gown immediately, and her sister was nearing her first birthday. Sheâd have the garment done well before morning at this rate and she could present it to her mother on the morning light, just in time for the birthday celebrations. Finally as the candle light flickered then went out, Eonia placed the last stitch. She drifted off to sleep, the floor cool against her cheek.

Sometime in the night, Eonia became aware of the intense heat surrounding her. The floor, no longer cool, felt as if it were burning the flesh from her face. Was she dreaming? Had she heard screams? From where did they come? She jolted upright from the floor; the finished gown lay sprawled in front of her. The air was filled with the rancid stench of smoke. Had she fallen asleep with the candle lit and caught the room on fire? No, it had gone out. She remembered finishing the last stitch in the semi-darkness of the candleâs last flickers.

Rushing to the window, she peaked out. Near the village center, where the campfires burned in the night, she saw her mother fighting. She could see her there chanting and shooting flame from her fingertips at several human raiders. Eonia felt panic rise within her. She snatched the gown off the floor and ran for her sisterâs room. Sleeping. She was sleeping.

Without really thinking much, she tucked the gown inside the folds of Kwamiâs linen blankets and snatched her from the cradle. She was ten, untrained in anything but seam work, but sheâd fight. Sheâd find a safe place for Kwami and sheâd fight. What choice was there? She could hear the clash of swords and daggers steel against steel, the sounds of wood hitting flesh and hear the screams and shouts rending the night.

Running back to her own room, she collected what she could in a small pouch, and paused just long enough to tuck the last remaining scrap of silk within her robes. With a final look she strode off into the night. She had to find a safe place to put Kwami so she could help fight off the human raiders. Why were they here?
]]>
The night was clear and cold, wind whistling across the hard packed firmament of Durator. Hard, dried bits of bramble and dead brush rolled in the wind under the star-spangled, night sky. In the distance, someone walking alone out here might hear the cry the scorpid searching out food or the snorting calls of the boar roaming the grounds. It seemed almost too quiet, the Quillboar not making their usual racket of in-fighting and riotous partying on Horde supplies.

Ten year-old Eonia Attaboli sat on the floor in her little room of the hut she shared with her parents and her infant sister, Kwami. It was late and she worked by the light of a small candle stub that had been discarded by one of the scribes in a hut near hers. There was very little of the waxen light source left, but she utilized it by scooping the melted wax back into the opening left by the flame to make it burn just a little longer.

Sheâd been working this way for weeks, after her mother, Chakti, had given her the bolts of silk cloth. Sheâd been proud to hear her mother praise her workmanship so highly stating that she was a âgifted seamstressâ at only ten. Eonia had set to work on the gown immediately, and her sister was nearing her first birthday. Sheâd have the garment done well before morning at this rate and she could present it to her mother on the morning light, just in time for the birthday celebrations. Finally as the candle light flickered then went out, Eonia placed the last stitch. She drifted off to sleep, the floor cool against her cheek.

Sometime in the night, Eonia became aware of the intense heat surrounding her. The floor, no longer cool, felt as if it were burning the flesh from her face. Was she dreaming? Had she heard screams? From where did they come? She jolted upright from the floor; the finished gown lay sprawled in front of her. The air was filled with the rancid stench of smoke. Had she fallen asleep with the candle lit and caught the room on fire? No, it had gone out. She remembered finishing the last stitch in the semi-darkness of the candleâs last flickers.

Rushing to the window, she peaked out. Near the village center, where the campfires burned in the night, she saw her mother fighting. She could see her there chanting and shooting flame from her fingertips at several human raiders. Eonia felt panic rise within her. She snatched the gown off the floor and ran for her sisterâs room. Sleeping. She was sleeping.

Without really thinking much, she tucked the gown inside the folds of Kwamiâs linen blankets and snatched her from the cradle. She was ten, untrained in anything but seam work, but sheâd fight. Sheâd find a safe place for Kwami and sheâd fight. What choice was there? She could hear the clash of swords and daggers steel against steel, the sounds of wood hitting flesh and hear the screams and shouts rending the night.

Running back to her own room, she collected what she could in a small pouch, and paused just long enough to tuck the last remaining scrap of silk within her robes. With a final look she strode off into the night. She had to find a safe place to put Kwami so she could help fight off the human raiders. Why were they here?
]]> <![CDATA[Amatula: Questions without Answers]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-49.html Sun, 20 Feb 2011 12:23:37 -0800 ]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-49.html I paced the hard packed floor of the inn at Crossroads. This woman... this Darkspear I was to meet that day... would know about my past? It was hard for me to believe that there was any life before Mother Jonquil found me. My first memory was of taking my first steps into her boney, rotting arms. I'd never found the smell of decay to be too bad, and didn't know that it was considered, shall we say, unpleasant? Most people of Azeroth found the 'stench' quite unappealing. Maybe I didn't because Jonquil had raised me as her own, first in the embracing dampness of the Undercity, and then when her own people found her raising a Trollish child distasteful, we'd moved on.

The place was never important, and we'd traveled from place to place often enough due to the unlikely mother/daughter pairing not being the usual. People just couldn't understand what motives Jonquil would have for wanting to raise a child, let alone a Darkspear child at that. Surely they realized that the Forsaken had feelings and wishes.... dreams and ambitions just like any other person on the face of Azeroth. She'd often told me growing up, "Ama, darling, my heart melted when I saw you laying in the bushes of that burned out village, and I knew you were mine and mine alone. I could never have left you." This was the mighty Forsaken? The ones without feeling and who only thought of themselves? I never will understand that view. Jonquil had been a wonderful parent and my best friend my whole life through.

Though I was raised by an undead woman, I always retained my herritage. The Forsaken had taken great pains to make sure I did not lose my Darkspear culture. In fact, when I came of age, and it was time for me to undertake training, she took me back to Vol'jin. I thought it was because the Forsaken Priests would not accept a Darkspear in their theology schools, but found, through time, that it was Jonquil's desire not to let me forget my roots, that lead her to the decision. If she'd thought it best to take me to the priests of the Undercity, she'd have moved the heavens and Azeroth to make it happen. I believe that with all of my heart.

So here I was waxing poetic and day dreaming of a past that was all I'd ever known, and waiting on a stranger who'd been literally following the trail Jonquil and I had set from the very start. Could it really be? This mage had cared enough about the little infant I'd been to follow me through my life? How had we not met before this day if that was the case? Jonquil told me she'd thought me the only survivor of the massacre at my village. ...And yet...hadn't I sensed her from the start? Hadn't I always wondered about the Trolls who'd created me, formed my limbs and eyes, and whom from whom I'd inherited the blue-black hair? Hadn't I heard the name "Kwami" shouted over and over again in those oddly fuzzy nightmares I'd always had?

Kwami. Was that really me? I shook my head. No. "I am Amatula. Shadow Priestess of the Forsaken." I might not be undead, but my mother is. So many people never understood that and never really will I suppose. I laughed out a harsh breath. "We shall see if my sister and her tribe will accept me as the Forsaken Priestess I have always known myself to be." In my heart. I'm Darkspear and I'm proud to say that I am. I'm also Forsaken. I thought of Jonquil and how her health was starting to fade. She was quite old and I wasn't sure she'd still breathe when I next laid eyes upon her. "I hope sincerely, that meeting you is worth not being at my dying mother's side," I paused in thought, "Sister." It still felt odd rolling off my tongue and I wondered, not for the first time, if I'd ever feel comfortable saying the word. If I'd ever believe it in my heart.

((This is basically my introduction of Amatula "Kwami" to her sister Eonia. At long last, they meet. I hope I've put it in the right place.))]]> I paced the hard packed floor of the inn at Crossroads. This woman... this Darkspear I was to meet that day... would know about my past? It was hard for me to believe that there was any life before Mother Jonquil found me. My first memory was of taking my first steps into her boney, rotting arms. I'd never found the smell of decay to be too bad, and didn't know that it was considered, shall we say, unpleasant? Most people of Azeroth found the 'stench' quite unappealing. Maybe I didn't because Jonquil had raised me as her own, first in the embracing dampness of the Undercity, and then when her own people found her raising a Trollish child distasteful, we'd moved on.

The place was never important, and we'd traveled from place to place often enough due to the unlikely mother/daughter pairing not being the usual. People just couldn't understand what motives Jonquil would have for wanting to raise a child, let alone a Darkspear child at that. Surely they realized that the Forsaken had feelings and wishes.... dreams and ambitions just like any other person on the face of Azeroth. She'd often told me growing up, "Ama, darling, my heart melted when I saw you laying in the bushes of that burned out village, and I knew you were mine and mine alone. I could never have left you." This was the mighty Forsaken? The ones without feeling and who only thought of themselves? I never will understand that view. Jonquil had been a wonderful parent and my best friend my whole life through.

Though I was raised by an undead woman, I always retained my herritage. The Forsaken had taken great pains to make sure I did not lose my Darkspear culture. In fact, when I came of age, and it was time for me to undertake training, she took me back to Vol'jin. I thought it was because the Forsaken Priests would not accept a Darkspear in their theology schools, but found, through time, that it was Jonquil's desire not to let me forget my roots, that lead her to the decision. If she'd thought it best to take me to the priests of the Undercity, she'd have moved the heavens and Azeroth to make it happen. I believe that with all of my heart.

So here I was waxing poetic and day dreaming of a past that was all I'd ever known, and waiting on a stranger who'd been literally following the trail Jonquil and I had set from the very start. Could it really be? This mage had cared enough about the little infant I'd been to follow me through my life? How had we not met before this day if that was the case? Jonquil told me she'd thought me the only survivor of the massacre at my village. ...And yet...hadn't I sensed her from the start? Hadn't I always wondered about the Trolls who'd created me, formed my limbs and eyes, and whom from whom I'd inherited the blue-black hair? Hadn't I heard the name "Kwami" shouted over and over again in those oddly fuzzy nightmares I'd always had?

Kwami. Was that really me? I shook my head. No. "I am Amatula. Shadow Priestess of the Forsaken." I might not be undead, but my mother is. So many people never understood that and never really will I suppose. I laughed out a harsh breath. "We shall see if my sister and her tribe will accept me as the Forsaken Priestess I have always known myself to be." In my heart. I'm Darkspear and I'm proud to say that I am. I'm also Forsaken. I thought of Jonquil and how her health was starting to fade. She was quite old and I wasn't sure she'd still breathe when I next laid eyes upon her. "I hope sincerely, that meeting you is worth not being at my dying mother's side," I paused in thought, "Sister." It still felt odd rolling off my tongue and I wondered, not for the first time, if I'd ever feel comfortable saying the word. If I'd ever believe it in my heart.

((This is basically my introduction of Amatula "Kwami" to her sister Eonia. At long last, they meet. I hope I've put it in the right place.))]]> <![CDATA[Searching for a past heart]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-51.html Fri, 18 Feb 2011 01:39:25 -0800 ]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-51.html I stood on the edge of the great crater torn by Deathwing's reemergence once again. It seems I go to that place a lot in the last few months. I'd heard rumor that she was here. My sister, my beloved Kwami, here in the Barrens... Could it be that after all the searching and fighting, the grief and laughter, the sweat, tears and blood, that I'd find her today?

Jonquil Vaille stepped through the ashes of what appeared to be a small village of the coast of Durator. It wasn't more than a stone's throw from the village of Sin'jin, but far enough that the warriors there would not have seen the blaze. The smell of ash, burned wood and flesh assailed her nostrils, a scent her Forsaken body didn't find entirely unpleasant, ash she picked her way over the remnants of home and hearth.

Why had the Alliance sent a raiding party into what appeared to be a small fishing village? The truth was, they probably hadn't. These were tough times between the peoples of the factions of Horde and Alliance, and chances were high that this particular party had raided for supplies, money, or simple boredom.

She clucked her tongue as she winded through the burned foundations of huts and debris. She'd thought maybe she could help here. Maybe she'd find a few living in need of her prayers of mending, but it seemed there was little life left here at all, and those who clung to the last visages of breath were too far gone to benefit from her wisdom.

Jonquil sighed as she turned to leave. It was then that the tiniest movement caught her eye from a small distance away. Had she imagined it? No, she was certain there was something, or someone moving within the branches of a small, whithered looking bush. As she knelt over the bush brushing aside the soot covered leaves and branches she discovered the source of movement. Here lay a tiny, ash green, female troll wrapped in tattered and muddied linens.

Now, being Forsaken having already died once, and having been far removed from children for most of her existence, her first thought was to simply take the little Trollkin to the Orgrimmar orphanage for placement. ...But something happened inside her as she hoisted the tiny bundle against her breast. It smiled at her and giggled. The undead heart within her chest felt about to burst with something she'd never experienced since her rebirth. For the first time since her reawakening, Jonquil allowed herself to think back to the small baby girl she'd had before her death.

Holding the tiny, soot covered infant against her chest and shoulder, Jonquil Vaille hearthed back home to Lordaeron, back to the depths of the Undercity. "This child is mine," she thought. As she looked one more time at the child, she thought, "Amatula," and nodded at the child. "Lovely Strength. Quiet Strength. It is the only way you'd survive such horrors little one. You are more like me than you know." With that final pronouncement, Amatula and Jonquil set off to begin their lives together.

The priestess had been odd. Sure, she was Forsaken, and many of her people had been driven insane in the process of death and rebirth. Who wouldn't stand those possibilities when faced with such horrors? No, it wasn't insanity that Eonia sensed about the woman though. It had been pride. A mother's pride in her child, as she spoke of Kwami... No, she'd called her Amatula. Lovely Shadow. Strength. Odd that she knew these words of the name. Kwami was not this woman. Kwami was a lost shadow in time, only held inside of Eonia's heart. Amatula was the woman she was going off to meet this day.

Eonia said a last prayer at the edge of the chasm that now divided Northern and Southern Barrens, and mounted her drake. At the Crossroads, her sister waited to finally meet her.]]> I stood on the edge of the great crater torn by Deathwing's reemergence once again. It seems I go to that place a lot in the last few months. I'd heard rumor that she was here. My sister, my beloved Kwami, here in the Barrens... Could it be that after all the searching and fighting, the grief and laughter, the sweat, tears and blood, that I'd find her today?

Jonquil Vaille stepped through the ashes of what appeared to be a small village of the coast of Durator. It wasn't more than a stone's throw from the village of Sin'jin, but far enough that the warriors there would not have seen the blaze. The smell of ash, burned wood and flesh assailed her nostrils, a scent her Forsaken body didn't find entirely unpleasant, ash she picked her way over the remnants of home and hearth.

Why had the Alliance sent a raiding party into what appeared to be a small fishing village? The truth was, they probably hadn't. These were tough times between the peoples of the factions of Horde and Alliance, and chances were high that this particular party had raided for supplies, money, or simple boredom.

She clucked her tongue as she winded through the burned foundations of huts and debris. She'd thought maybe she could help here. Maybe she'd find a few living in need of her prayers of mending, but it seemed there was little life left here at all, and those who clung to the last visages of breath were too far gone to benefit from her wisdom.

Jonquil sighed as she turned to leave. It was then that the tiniest movement caught her eye from a small distance away. Had she imagined it? No, she was certain there was something, or someone moving within the branches of a small, whithered looking bush. As she knelt over the bush brushing aside the soot covered leaves and branches she discovered the source of movement. Here lay a tiny, ash green, female troll wrapped in tattered and muddied linens.

Now, being Forsaken having already died once, and having been far removed from children for most of her existence, her first thought was to simply take the little Trollkin to the Orgrimmar orphanage for placement. ...But something happened inside her as she hoisted the tiny bundle against her breast. It smiled at her and giggled. The undead heart within her chest felt about to burst with something she'd never experienced since her rebirth. For the first time since her reawakening, Jonquil allowed herself to think back to the small baby girl she'd had before her death.

Holding the tiny, soot covered infant against her chest and shoulder, Jonquil Vaille hearthed back home to Lordaeron, back to the depths of the Undercity. "This child is mine," she thought. As she looked one more time at the child, she thought, "Amatula," and nodded at the child. "Lovely Strength. Quiet Strength. It is the only way you'd survive such horrors little one. You are more like me than you know." With that final pronouncement, Amatula and Jonquil set off to begin their lives together.

The priestess had been odd. Sure, she was Forsaken, and many of her people had been driven insane in the process of death and rebirth. Who wouldn't stand those possibilities when faced with such horrors? No, it wasn't insanity that Eonia sensed about the woman though. It had been pride. A mother's pride in her child, as she spoke of Kwami... No, she'd called her Amatula. Lovely Shadow. Strength. Odd that she knew these words of the name. Kwami was not this woman. Kwami was a lost shadow in time, only held inside of Eonia's heart. Amatula was the woman she was going off to meet this day.

Eonia said a last prayer at the edge of the chasm that now divided Northern and Southern Barrens, and mounted her drake. At the Crossroads, her sister waited to finally meet her.]]> <![CDATA[Lost, but not forgotten]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-53.html Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:23:07 -0800 rincewindy]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-53.html Mula stared deep into her tea, the herbs and spices permeated her senses. She was feeling like that tea, right now--a mix of complicated emotions: Regret, fear, anxiety, denial, and relief, to name a few.

She'd run into Aracna earlier that day and the news was confusing, to say the least. She'd wanted to follow Aracna right then and there to their campsite to see if the news was true; that her father was still alive. But she knew that rushing blindly into this would be dangerous. What if she said the wrong thing? Aracna said that her father had lost his memory, and worse, could not remember something he did five minutes prior.

She'd never appreciated her father, not really. She'd always thought him to be weak. She'd lied in her original letter to the Tribe, so many moons ago, saying that she'd taken up his sword after he died in battle against the forces of the Lich King, but that was not the case. He'd never been a warrior. It had been her mother's sword that she'd taken up. It had been kept safe for her by the tauren in Bloodhoof village. Her uncle had kept it safe until he'd died and he'd had the tauren keep it for her until she returned.

She'd learned much since then. Since then, she'd come to appreciate the ways of the druid, for that was what her father was.

"You know, if you look any harder into that cup, you're gonna bore a hole into the bottom of the cup."

She looked up, "Rince, hey.'

The forsaken mage looked at her, "You're supposed to drink it. What's on your mind?"

"My father."

"He's passed on, no?"

"Aracna seems to think that he hasn't. The thing is...I think I already knew that."

Rince just stared at her for a moment, then he regained himself.

Mula continued, still staring at her tea, "The thing is, I think there's something else I'm forgetting, as well." She looked at the mage, who was as pale as a sheet of ice.

"How is she?" He asked.

She patted him on the back, "She's...ok."

Rince stood up and walked out of the room. Mula didn't try to stop him. Her eyes fell back to the tea...It had been her grandmother's recipe. Her father and she would spend much time together gathering herbs and preparing them. At the time she thought it was absolutely boring. But she'd gone back to drinking it when she was carrying Lucerra.

She brought the cup to her lips and drank.
]]> Mula stared deep into her tea, the herbs and spices permeated her senses. She was feeling like that tea, right now--a mix of complicated emotions: Regret, fear, anxiety, denial, and relief, to name a few.

She'd run into Aracna earlier that day and the news was confusing, to say the least. She'd wanted to follow Aracna right then and there to their campsite to see if the news was true; that her father was still alive. But she knew that rushing blindly into this would be dangerous. What if she said the wrong thing? Aracna said that her father had lost his memory, and worse, could not remember something he did five minutes prior.

She'd never appreciated her father, not really. She'd always thought him to be weak. She'd lied in her original letter to the Tribe, so many moons ago, saying that she'd taken up his sword after he died in battle against the forces of the Lich King, but that was not the case. He'd never been a warrior. It had been her mother's sword that she'd taken up. It had been kept safe for her by the tauren in Bloodhoof village. Her uncle had kept it safe until he'd died and he'd had the tauren keep it for her until she returned.

She'd learned much since then. Since then, she'd come to appreciate the ways of the druid, for that was what her father was.

"You know, if you look any harder into that cup, you're gonna bore a hole into the bottom of the cup."

She looked up, "Rince, hey.'

The forsaken mage looked at her, "You're supposed to drink it. What's on your mind?"

"My father."

"He's passed on, no?"

"Aracna seems to think that he hasn't. The thing is...I think I already knew that."

Rince just stared at her for a moment, then he regained himself.

Mula continued, still staring at her tea, "The thing is, I think there's something else I'm forgetting, as well." She looked at the mage, who was as pale as a sheet of ice.

"How is she?" He asked.

She patted him on the back, "She's...ok."

Rince stood up and walked out of the room. Mula didn't try to stop him. Her eyes fell back to the tea...It had been her grandmother's recipe. Her father and she would spend much time together gathering herbs and preparing them. At the time she thought it was absolutely boring. But she'd gone back to drinking it when she was carrying Lucerra.

She brought the cup to her lips and drank.
]]> <![CDATA[The Missing Drake]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-69.html Mon, 31 Jan 2011 06:05:03 -0800 Emredrum]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-69.html
"Y'ar late mon. Why you always be late when you meet me here?" She didn't seem terribly angry this time. Her meeting must have gone well. Still, I wasn't taking any chances. I knew how fast Eonia's temper could go from cordial to utterly ticked off and I didn't want to be on the receiving end. Especially when I had a favor to ask and I was certain she'd say no if I made her mad this go-round. That is not to say I don't ENJOY ticking her off. Its actually quite fun. She turns this funny shade of purple that you only get to see with a very angry, green, female Troll and she kinda hops up and down where she stands.

Anyway, I'd have to for-go the fun for the day, as my request was quite important to me. "Me be sorry mah lovely one. Da traffic was murder in Orgrimmar. Two drakes be having at one anudda in da gateway," I grinned then because I didn't want to tell her one of the drakes was mine. That, my friends is a tale for another time, but its quite intertaining I promise you.

"Why pray tell, didn' cha just fly den? Your drake be able to fly ovah da gates wid ease!" She didn't look angry yet, just very curious.

Oh boy, now I was in trouble. How could I tell her my drake made another drake angry because he spit on it. Accidentally of course, but the other one was having no appology and well.... I took that moment to mount my 'hog and get right on out of town while the getting was good. I can only Imagine what the guards would do to the owner!

So I lied, naturally. "Ah, der was just a bit of problem wid him. He wasn't feelin so good taday so I left him sleepin in da Inn."

She seemed, if not convinced, then at least mollified by my response and I carried on. "Da reason I be callin on ya today is that I be lookin for a place ta stay love. I be searchin for some like minded folks you see... Det'wing he be too much f'er my every day associates ta handle. Do ya t'ink ya be puttin in a good word fer me wid da Ironsongs mon?"

She considered this for a moment then answered honestly, "I be not sure I can mon. I'm jus' a peon in dis tribe. You must make application and tell dem about yaself. Good luck though. May da gods of fortune smile upon ya little priesty butt."

With that, she walked away without saying good bye. Gotta love a woman who played hard to get. I sighed and hopped back on my mechanohog and headded in the direction of Orgrimmar to see if I could untangle my drake from the ruckus he'd caused.]]>
"Y'ar late mon. Why you always be late when you meet me here?" She didn't seem terribly angry this time. Her meeting must have gone well. Still, I wasn't taking any chances. I knew how fast Eonia's temper could go from cordial to utterly ticked off and I didn't want to be on the receiving end. Especially when I had a favor to ask and I was certain she'd say no if I made her mad this go-round. That is not to say I don't ENJOY ticking her off. Its actually quite fun. She turns this funny shade of purple that you only get to see with a very angry, green, female Troll and she kinda hops up and down where she stands.

Anyway, I'd have to for-go the fun for the day, as my request was quite important to me. "Me be sorry mah lovely one. Da traffic was murder in Orgrimmar. Two drakes be having at one anudda in da gateway," I grinned then because I didn't want to tell her one of the drakes was mine. That, my friends is a tale for another time, but its quite intertaining I promise you.

"Why pray tell, didn' cha just fly den? Your drake be able to fly ovah da gates wid ease!" She didn't look angry yet, just very curious.

Oh boy, now I was in trouble. How could I tell her my drake made another drake angry because he spit on it. Accidentally of course, but the other one was having no appology and well.... I took that moment to mount my 'hog and get right on out of town while the getting was good. I can only Imagine what the guards would do to the owner!

So I lied, naturally. "Ah, der was just a bit of problem wid him. He wasn't feelin so good taday so I left him sleepin in da Inn."

She seemed, if not convinced, then at least mollified by my response and I carried on. "Da reason I be callin on ya today is that I be lookin for a place ta stay love. I be searchin for some like minded folks you see... Det'wing he be too much f'er my every day associates ta handle. Do ya t'ink ya be puttin in a good word fer me wid da Ironsongs mon?"

She considered this for a moment then answered honestly, "I be not sure I can mon. I'm jus' a peon in dis tribe. You must make application and tell dem about yaself. Good luck though. May da gods of fortune smile upon ya little priesty butt."

With that, she walked away without saying good bye. Gotta love a woman who played hard to get. I sighed and hopped back on my mechanohog and headded in the direction of Orgrimmar to see if I could untangle my drake from the ruckus he'd caused.]]> <![CDATA[Corerra]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-75.html Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:19:27 -0800 rincewindy]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-75.html It had been almost two weeks since the baby was born. Mula sat back in a seat sipping at a cup of tea and tried to wrap her head around things. It was one of the first moments when she'd actually gotten to relax. She had named her child Corerra due to the rapidity in which she was born and how quickly she was growing. During the past two weeks, she'd made five trips up to Moonglade.

Corerra was the equivalent of a seven year old, now. She was frail, due to her rapid growth. And as much as Mula fed her, it was still hardly enough. She'd even gotten several elixirs from the druids at Moonglade to supplement her diet and hopefully slow her growth. The first few elixirs they gave her hadn't worked. Despite her frailty, Corerra was a bundle of energy and always on the move. Mula kept expecting her to injure herself, but that never happened.

While she was out, she left the care of Corerra to her eldest daughter, Lucerra. Lucerra did a great job watching over Corerra.

She'd noticed something different about Corerra, this morning when she slept, and she told herself that it was just the shadows playing tricks on her eyes. She stopped in mid-sip. She got up and walked down the hall to where her room was. She'd put another cot in after the first week. She quietly opened the door and peeked in. Corerra was sleeping. Mula lit a candle and brought it close, getting a good look at her daughter. She didn't really know what to expect. She looked normal enough...considering.

She sighed and crept back out, quietly shutting the door behind her. ]]> It had been almost two weeks since the baby was born. Mula sat back in a seat sipping at a cup of tea and tried to wrap her head around things. It was one of the first moments when she'd actually gotten to relax. She had named her child Corerra due to the rapidity in which she was born and how quickly she was growing. During the past two weeks, she'd made five trips up to Moonglade.

Corerra was the equivalent of a seven year old, now. She was frail, due to her rapid growth. And as much as Mula fed her, it was still hardly enough. She'd even gotten several elixirs from the druids at Moonglade to supplement her diet and hopefully slow her growth. The first few elixirs they gave her hadn't worked. Despite her frailty, Corerra was a bundle of energy and always on the move. Mula kept expecting her to injure herself, but that never happened.

While she was out, she left the care of Corerra to her eldest daughter, Lucerra. Lucerra did a great job watching over Corerra.

She'd noticed something different about Corerra, this morning when she slept, and she told herself that it was just the shadows playing tricks on her eyes. She stopped in mid-sip. She got up and walked down the hall to where her room was. She'd put another cot in after the first week. She quietly opened the door and peeked in. Corerra was sleeping. Mula lit a candle and brought it close, getting a good look at her daughter. She didn't really know what to expect. She looked normal enough...considering.

She sighed and crept back out, quietly shutting the door behind her. ]]> <![CDATA[A tale of bath]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-101.html Sat, 01 Jan 2011 10:17:53 -0800 squigvicious]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-101.html Once upon a time, there was a green goblin who smelled--no reeked--of many nasty things, like dead gnome suits and prison cells and swamps and sewage; And dead bodies and blood and oil and grease. Like napalm and gasoline and explosives and other things. And well, you get what I mean when I say that the smell preceded him into the room he walked in, and sometimes it seemed that it went where it wanted. This cloud of gas and funk and death left breath to be cherished and a trail of dead critters in its wake.

So when this green nightmare walked into the guild hall, the tribe members looked up and gave several looks of disgust. Sarathein retreated to a safe faraway place. Anca climbed up to her nest in the rafters. Lailya covered her mouth and her nose. Even Mula quietly exited to the kitchen, with hopes of finding something to cover the smell. He said his greetings, and they grumbled in reply. Lailya glared at him. The goblin asked, "What? Is there something the matter?"

She said, "You reek of oil and death and something most fowl. When is the last time you've taken a bath?"

He scratched his head, and started to respond, then rethought his words. "When I ezcaped last year, I had to zwim a little bit. Don't hold it againzt me. Why do you azk? Oh, perhapz you want to get togezher wizh me?"

She nearly wretched from the suggestion, then stood up and pointed towards the doors with her cane. "Go take a bath! And stop pestering me! Or I'll bring on the pain." She emphasized this, by bringing it down.

Squig gulped and said, "Ah!" Revelation reached his gaze, "Zo, you're one of zhose kind of loverz!"

She glared at him and said, "Not you! Not ever! Now get out of my sight you pesky little snot!"

And that was when Lucinther came into sight. "Is he bothering you?" he asked Lailya, a glint in his eye.

"He was just leaving," she said in reply.

"Your loss babe," Squigvicious said with a shrug, and went to the kitchen to get himself something to drink. He was greeted by a tauren who could probably crush him with one misplaced step. She looked at him, then wrinkled her nose, then looked at some cookies that were trying to shrink away from the reek.

"You'll not find soap anywhere here."

"He shrugged and said, "I only came in for a beer."

"You'll not gain any favors by smelling so bad. Why not do what she asks, and get yourself cleaned up?"

"You zhink zhe'll like me if I do what zhe asks?"

"I think she'll not cringe every time that you pass by."

He grabbed a large brew and went back to the hall. Lailya was gone, and so were the others...except for Lucinther, who watched him with intent.

"Where'z Lailya?"

"She left."

"Will zhe come back?"

"Don't bet on it."

"Too bad, cuz, I got a zurprise for her."

"His eyes narrowed, and he smirked, "So you do have a death wish. Because, if you touch her--"

Squig smirked right back, then started to laugh.

Lucinther glared at him.

Squig laughed even more, and said his farewells.

He got no response.

He pulled out the bomb then walked down the hill. There was a small lake down there. He undressed and jumped in...right after tossing the bomb in. There was a KA-BOOM! SPLASH! And he hit the water. "Now, zhat iz how you take a bazh!" Dead fish started popping up all around, and he looked all around. The smell was horrendous. Something large floated up right beside him. A fish? An eel? There were chunks of it all over. It reminded him of his mother's cooking. He sprinted out of the water and replaced his clothes. He was going to need professional help. He thought for a bit then started up his helicopter. He arrived at Orgrimmar about an hour later, since he had to stop several times to repair the danged machine.

He went to the zeppelin and picked up the ride, went cross the sea, and arrived at Undercity. He charged up his trike and rode to the teleporter to the 'fru-fru city,' as his cousin called it. He went past the royal court, and past the inn in Murderer's row. He went to the good inn on the opposite side of the city.

The innkeeper turned up her nose until she saw the bag of coins. "May I help you, good sir?"

"I'm needin' a bazh."

"A what?"

"A bazh!"

The innkeeper nodded, "Most certainly!"

"I want zee workz!"

"Right you are; it'll be double."

He said, "Not a problem."

She took him down a beautiful hall with mirrors and fountains that lit everything up with the rays of the sun. They entered a room filled with hot tubs and perfume. She said, "Take it all off, Allegro will be with you shortly."

"Zounds nice," he said and started to undress. He bet she'd be pretty.

Five minutes later a blood elf walked in. Long hair done ornately and robes of a priest. Squig looked and squinted. She was pretty slim. And then 'she' spoke, "Bal'a dash, malanore, I am Allegro," he said--for it was a male. Squig covered his privates with one hand and grabbed his clothes with the other, and sprinted out of the room, down the hall with the mirrors and fountains and out of the inn faster than the elf could say, "What is the matter?"

He found himself back on the zeppelin to Orgrimmar and decided to take a flight up to Winterspring. The hot springs would be quite soothing this time of year. The flight took no time, and he charged up his helicopter again. It took half an hour to get to the springs. The steam rose into the air, the water was so warm. He quickly undressed and started to go into the water, when he heard a growl from behind. A rather large yeti loomed over his head. Slowly he reached down to where he put his knives. The yeti swiped at him with his sharp claws, but Squig rolled out of the way. Next moment, he was up on his feet, blades in hand. A well aimed shot to the leg had the beast down on its knee. The goblin leaped up and slashed down with his other knife, opening up the yet's neck. Blood splurted out all over the goblin. The yeti crashed to the ground with a thump. Squig tossed his knives lightly onto the pile of clothes stepped into the water.

Ten minutes later, he was well-scrubbed and clean. He applied some cologne and used the stone in his pack to hearth back to the guild hall.

She was back, looking nice, and talking to Lucinther. Her eyes met his, then narrowed in a scowl. Lucinther looked up and gave him a dangerous look, yet again.

He scratched his head and shrugged. There would be another chance later, and went out the his workshop.

Lailya looked over at Lucinther a quizzical look in her eye. "I think he actually did it."

"Yeah, you've definitely got him in the palm of your hand."

They both smirked.]]> Once upon a time, there was a green goblin who smelled--no reeked--of many nasty things, like dead gnome suits and prison cells and swamps and sewage; And dead bodies and blood and oil and grease. Like napalm and gasoline and explosives and other things. And well, you get what I mean when I say that the smell preceded him into the room he walked in, and sometimes it seemed that it went where it wanted. This cloud of gas and funk and death left breath to be cherished and a trail of dead critters in its wake.

So when this green nightmare walked into the guild hall, the tribe members looked up and gave several looks of disgust. Sarathein retreated to a safe faraway place. Anca climbed up to her nest in the rafters. Lailya covered her mouth and her nose. Even Mula quietly exited to the kitchen, with hopes of finding something to cover the smell. He said his greetings, and they grumbled in reply. Lailya glared at him. The goblin asked, "What? Is there something the matter?"

She said, "You reek of oil and death and something most fowl. When is the last time you've taken a bath?"

He scratched his head, and started to respond, then rethought his words. "When I ezcaped last year, I had to zwim a little bit. Don't hold it againzt me. Why do you azk? Oh, perhapz you want to get togezher wizh me?"

She nearly wretched from the suggestion, then stood up and pointed towards the doors with her cane. "Go take a bath! And stop pestering me! Or I'll bring on the pain." She emphasized this, by bringing it down.

Squig gulped and said, "Ah!" Revelation reached his gaze, "Zo, you're one of zhose kind of loverz!"

She glared at him and said, "Not you! Not ever! Now get out of my sight you pesky little snot!"

And that was when Lucinther came into sight. "Is he bothering you?" he asked Lailya, a glint in his eye.

"He was just leaving," she said in reply.

"Your loss babe," Squigvicious said with a shrug, and went to the kitchen to get himself something to drink. He was greeted by a tauren who could probably crush him with one misplaced step. She looked at him, then wrinkled her nose, then looked at some cookies that were trying to shrink away from the reek.

"You'll not find soap anywhere here."

"He shrugged and said, "I only came in for a beer."

"You'll not gain any favors by smelling so bad. Why not do what she asks, and get yourself cleaned up?"

"You zhink zhe'll like me if I do what zhe asks?"

"I think she'll not cringe every time that you pass by."

He grabbed a large brew and went back to the hall. Lailya was gone, and so were the others...except for Lucinther, who watched him with intent.

"Where'z Lailya?"

"She left."

"Will zhe come back?"

"Don't bet on it."

"Too bad, cuz, I got a zurprise for her."

"His eyes narrowed, and he smirked, "So you do have a death wish. Because, if you touch her--"

Squig smirked right back, then started to laugh.

Lucinther glared at him.

Squig laughed even more, and said his farewells.

He got no response.

He pulled out the bomb then walked down the hill. There was a small lake down there. He undressed and jumped in...right after tossing the bomb in. There was a KA-BOOM! SPLASH! And he hit the water. "Now, zhat iz how you take a bazh!" Dead fish started popping up all around, and he looked all around. The smell was horrendous. Something large floated up right beside him. A fish? An eel? There were chunks of it all over. It reminded him of his mother's cooking. He sprinted out of the water and replaced his clothes. He was going to need professional help. He thought for a bit then started up his helicopter. He arrived at Orgrimmar about an hour later, since he had to stop several times to repair the danged machine.

He went to the zeppelin and picked up the ride, went cross the sea, and arrived at Undercity. He charged up his trike and rode to the teleporter to the 'fru-fru city,' as his cousin called it. He went past the royal court, and past the inn in Murderer's row. He went to the good inn on the opposite side of the city.

The innkeeper turned up her nose until she saw the bag of coins. "May I help you, good sir?"

"I'm needin' a bazh."

"A what?"

"A bazh!"

The innkeeper nodded, "Most certainly!"

"I want zee workz!"

"Right you are; it'll be double."

He said, "Not a problem."

She took him down a beautiful hall with mirrors and fountains that lit everything up with the rays of the sun. They entered a room filled with hot tubs and perfume. She said, "Take it all off, Allegro will be with you shortly."

"Zounds nice," he said and started to undress. He bet she'd be pretty.

Five minutes later a blood elf walked in. Long hair done ornately and robes of a priest. Squig looked and squinted. She was pretty slim. And then 'she' spoke, "Bal'a dash, malanore, I am Allegro," he said--for it was a male. Squig covered his privates with one hand and grabbed his clothes with the other, and sprinted out of the room, down the hall with the mirrors and fountains and out of the inn faster than the elf could say, "What is the matter?"

He found himself back on the zeppelin to Orgrimmar and decided to take a flight up to Winterspring. The hot springs would be quite soothing this time of year. The flight took no time, and he charged up his helicopter again. It took half an hour to get to the springs. The steam rose into the air, the water was so warm. He quickly undressed and started to go into the water, when he heard a growl from behind. A rather large yeti loomed over his head. Slowly he reached down to where he put his knives. The yeti swiped at him with his sharp claws, but Squig rolled out of the way. Next moment, he was up on his feet, blades in hand. A well aimed shot to the leg had the beast down on its knee. The goblin leaped up and slashed down with his other knife, opening up the yet's neck. Blood splurted out all over the goblin. The yeti crashed to the ground with a thump. Squig tossed his knives lightly onto the pile of clothes stepped into the water.

Ten minutes later, he was well-scrubbed and clean. He applied some cologne and used the stone in his pack to hearth back to the guild hall.

She was back, looking nice, and talking to Lucinther. Her eyes met his, then narrowed in a scowl. Lucinther looked up and gave him a dangerous look, yet again.

He scratched his head and shrugged. There would be another chance later, and went out the his workshop.

Lailya looked over at Lucinther a quizzical look in her eye. "I think he actually did it."

"Yeah, you've definitely got him in the palm of your hand."

They both smirked.]]> <![CDATA[Surprise!]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-114.html Sun, 19 Dec 2010 22:29:16 -0800 rincewindy]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-114.html
She walked up to the guild hall doors and pulled on the handle.

"INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!"

Lucerra jumped out of her skin and fell backwards, spilling the contents of one of her packs all over the ground.

WARNING! WARNING! INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!

Lucerra put her hands over her ears, trying to block out the noise. The door in front of her opened and she was looking up at Lucinther. He was muttering something about killing a goblin, then looked down at her and smirked.

WARNING! WARNING! INTRUDER ALERT! INTRU-A well-aimed throw of a knife, interrupted the alarm.

Lucerra removed her hands from her ears. "I wasn't expecting a surprise party!"

The forsaken smirked again, and disappeared back into the building.

She gathered her belongings and followed him in. Moments later, and without the bags, she came back through the doors, saying to the ones inside that she was going to put her kodo in the stables. She walked back over to the kodo unaware of the figure creeping towards her. "C'mon Kron Kron, time for bed," she said to the beast, her voice high and light. The beast sniffed at her pocket. She giggled. "You want another one? Well, ok." She reached into her pocket where she kept a carrot for such occasions. She reached into her pocket, and realized her hand was shaking. "Get a grip, Lucerra," she said to herself. "Can't let things like that get to you, you're gonna be 15 tomorrow. Won't do any good if you're still acting like a baby." She took a deep breath and ran her fingers along the kodo's neck. The kodo startled at her touch, and she stayed her hand. She knew immediately that it wasn't her touch that had startled the beast.

Then something hit her in the back of the head. She swayed on the spot, and everything went black.]]>
She walked up to the guild hall doors and pulled on the handle.

"INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!"

Lucerra jumped out of her skin and fell backwards, spilling the contents of one of her packs all over the ground.

WARNING! WARNING! INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!

Lucerra put her hands over her ears, trying to block out the noise. The door in front of her opened and she was looking up at Lucinther. He was muttering something about killing a goblin, then looked down at her and smirked.

WARNING! WARNING! INTRUDER ALERT! INTRU-A well-aimed throw of a knife, interrupted the alarm.

Lucerra removed her hands from her ears. "I wasn't expecting a surprise party!"

The forsaken smirked again, and disappeared back into the building.

She gathered her belongings and followed him in. Moments later, and without the bags, she came back through the doors, saying to the ones inside that she was going to put her kodo in the stables. She walked back over to the kodo unaware of the figure creeping towards her. "C'mon Kron Kron, time for bed," she said to the beast, her voice high and light. The beast sniffed at her pocket. She giggled. "You want another one? Well, ok." She reached into her pocket where she kept a carrot for such occasions. She reached into her pocket, and realized her hand was shaking. "Get a grip, Lucerra," she said to herself. "Can't let things like that get to you, you're gonna be 15 tomorrow. Won't do any good if you're still acting like a baby." She took a deep breath and ran her fingers along the kodo's neck. The kodo startled at her touch, and she stayed her hand. She knew immediately that it wasn't her touch that had startled the beast.

Then something hit her in the back of the head. She swayed on the spot, and everything went black.]]> <![CDATA[Dealin' with goblins]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-122.html Tue, 14 Dec 2010 09:57:17 -0800 squigvicious]]> https://www.ironsongtribe.com/thread-122.html
The forsaken, sitting on the couch by the hearth, bent over a pair of books looked up at the newcomer. âThat is an interesting accent you have there, goblin.â Rincewindy set the pen and book down and walked over to him offering a hand. âIâd say originating from Tanaris...but...I also detect a bit of a gnomish accent also. Interesting. Whatâs your name?â

âMy name iz Fixxit Blastcutter, but you may know me better az Zquigviciouz. ...What?â

Rincewindy drew his hand away from the goblin. His voice grew deathly cold, âWhat are you doing here? Come to finish the job? Lucinther should have killed you the moment you stepped through the doors.â

âNow, hold up zhere! Finizh what job? I gave your tribe information about the attackz on zee barrenz and zee wolfmen. What do you accuze me off?â

Rincewindy remembered quite clearly the night which the attacks occurred. He remembered seeing the small gnome bent over a bomb. He remembered attacking him, and he remembered with clarity the knives going into his back. âCompliments of Squigvicious,â the human had said. Rincewindy reached into his tunic and pulled out something wrapped in cloth. He carefully unwrapped the blades. These were no ordinary weapons, they glinted in the daylight, and Rincewindy could feel a deeper magic embedded in them. Both had ivory carved handles, one with ruby gems, one with turquoise. His voice was breathless as he spoke the next words, âHow do you explain these, then.â

Squigviciousâ eye lit up at the sight. âWhere did you find zhese? I thought zhey were lozt to me!â

âThey were in the possession of a human. I acquired them on the night that this hall was destroyed.â

The goblin sobered up at the words. âRyak...Zat iz hiz name.â The goblin ran his hand through his hair. âHe iz zee one zat took zee knives from me. He iz zee one zat iz in charge.â

âIn charge of what?â

âA group of elite mercenariez, a covert offshoot of zee SI:7. I waz captured by zem after I zent my last letter to you a little over a year ago. Zey made me drink a potion zat made me answer zheir questionz. I tried to rezist zee compulzion, truzt me. Zey zaid zat zhey would make you zuffer for azzociating wiz me--â

Rince held up a hand to stop him. âYour accent is grating on my bones, goblin. How do I know youâre telling the truth? You said they made you drink a potion that â¦ forced you to tell the truth?â

The goblin nodded. âIt waz horrible...like drowning. And zee longer I rezisted, zee worse it got. Look, I want to make good wiz you guyz. I can zee by zee lookz of your complex here zhat youâve had to make extenzive repairz. Please tell me zomezhing zat I can do.â

Rincewindy sighed. Either this guy was a really good liar, or he was telling the truth. âAlright, Iâll make a deal with you. These look like they mean a lot to you,â he said indicating the blades. âWell, the library here means a lot to me. It would be a great help if I had someone read the text information to me so that I didnât have to go back and forth between books. I am asking you to do this.â

âRead bookz. Iz zat it?â

âFor the most part. Weâre going to work on your accent...soften it up a bit.â

The goblin looked at him, incredulously. He reached out his scrawny hand to shake the forsakenâs hand. âDeal.â

âHold up. Thereâs more,â Rincwindy said. The goblinâs face soured ever so slightly. âYou also have to help out the other members of the tribe with their needs. Of course nothing unfair or completely out of the question, but you do owe us a great deal. Deal?â He held out his bony hand.

âDeal,â the goblin said shaking his hand.

Rincewindy shook the goblinâs hand. âFor the love of the dark lady, go eat something. Youâd almost pass for a forsaken, and thatâs the last thing we need.â

((Feel free to add your own personal requests for the little green guy!))]]>
The forsaken, sitting on the couch by the hearth, bent over a pair of books looked up at the newcomer. âThat is an interesting accent you have there, goblin.â Rincewindy set the pen and book down and walked over to him offering a hand. âIâd say originating from Tanaris...but...I also detect a bit of a gnomish accent also. Interesting. Whatâs your name?â

âMy name iz Fixxit Blastcutter, but you may know me better az Zquigviciouz. ...What?â

Rincewindy drew his hand away from the goblin. His voice grew deathly cold, âWhat are you doing here? Come to finish the job? Lucinther should have killed you the moment you stepped through the doors.â

âNow, hold up zhere! Finizh what job? I gave your tribe information about the attackz on zee barrenz and zee wolfmen. What do you accuze me off?â

Rincewindy remembered quite clearly the night which the attacks occurred. He remembered seeing the small gnome bent over a bomb. He remembered attacking him, and he remembered with clarity the knives going into his back. âCompliments of Squigvicious,â the human had said. Rincewindy reached into his tunic and pulled out something wrapped in cloth. He carefully unwrapped the blades. These were no ordinary weapons, they glinted in the daylight, and Rincewindy could feel a deeper magic embedded in them. Both had ivory carved handles, one with ruby gems, one with turquoise. His voice was breathless as he spoke the next words, âHow do you explain these, then.â

Squigviciousâ eye lit up at the sight. âWhere did you find zhese? I thought zhey were lozt to me!â

âThey were in the possession of a human. I acquired them on the night that this hall was destroyed.â

The goblin sobered up at the words. âRyak...Zat iz hiz name.â The goblin ran his hand through his hair. âHe iz zee one zat took zee knives from me. He iz zee one zat iz in charge.â

âIn charge of what?â

âA group of elite mercenariez, a covert offshoot of zee SI:7. I waz captured by zem after I zent my last letter to you a little over a year ago. Zey made me drink a potion zat made me answer zheir questionz. I tried to rezist zee compulzion, truzt me. Zey zaid zat zhey would make you zuffer for azzociating wiz me--â

Rince held up a hand to stop him. âYour accent is grating on my bones, goblin. How do I know youâre telling the truth? You said they made you drink a potion that â¦ forced you to tell the truth?â

The goblin nodded. âIt waz horrible...like drowning. And zee longer I rezisted, zee worse it got. Look, I want to make good wiz you guyz. I can zee by zee lookz of your complex here zhat youâve had to make extenzive repairz. Please tell me zomezhing zat I can do.â

Rincewindy sighed. Either this guy was a really good liar, or he was telling the truth. âAlright, Iâll make a deal with you. These look like they mean a lot to you,â he said indicating the blades. âWell, the library here means a lot to me. It would be a great help if I had someone read the text information to me so that I didnât have to go back and forth between books. I am asking you to do this.â

âRead bookz. Iz zat it?â

âFor the most part. Weâre going to work on your accent...soften it up a bit.â

The goblin looked at him, incredulously. He reached out his scrawny hand to shake the forsakenâs hand. âDeal.â

âHold up. Thereâs more,â Rincwindy said. The goblinâs face soured ever so slightly. âYou also have to help out the other members of the tribe with their needs. Of course nothing unfair or completely out of the question, but you do owe us a great deal. Deal?â He held out his bony hand.

âDeal,â the goblin said shaking his hand.

Rincewindy shook the goblinâs hand. âFor the love of the dark lady, go eat something. Youâd almost pass for a forsaken, and thatâs the last thing we need.â

((Feel free to add your own personal requests for the little green guy!))]]>