I was feeling bored and the midsummer heat was annoying enough to drag me out from my smelly alchemy lab to the exotic beaches of Stranglethorn. It just didn’t feel right anymore, alchemy was going poor and my mage studies were advancing slowly. Despite the extended rest, mana regen was slow as black lotus growth. I wanted to do something bold, like an adventure, and Trias Cheese deliveries didn’t fall into that category. So I left my dull lab from the old town and went to see the Midsummer bonfire, like I wasn’t enduring enough heat already. Frost armor magic really helps in the summer! Reaching the festival place, it seemed odd to me seeing so many people dancing and tossing flames joyfully, while 20 paces to the right there was this never-ending riot in the Stockade. The fire was burning hot, reminding me of the pillar of fire I accidentally casted into my room a year ago. Torch catching isn’t really my thing, I’m not that skilled in melee anyway, but this idea of flame stealing started to amuse me. What if I would steal the flame of Thunderbluff right from those silly bullmen? That’s much much further than I’ve ever wandered to gather peacebloom!

After some reagents shopping, I set foot to the exotic jungles of Stranglethorn. The grumpy rebels at Rebel’s Camp aren’t very friendly but they picked a good place to revolt for the tired adventurer. It looked like corporal Bluth was running the show there, a typical military type with a bad attitude, making an extra silver smuggling supplies, like the standard supply officer.

— “You need somethin’?” he said, with a grave voice. I just bought some spices and cooked a nice gooey meal from a giant spider I blasted earlier in Duskwood. Next I took a gryphon to Booty Bay, because the roars and screams of eaten people coming from the jungle were to much for my level.

Booty Bay felt different from Stormwind in every way. Cutthroat alley is Temple of the Moon compared to this pirate heaven, packed with shady sailors and drunken people of all races. The whole town is a mindless maze, a true testament of goblin engineering, so you can’t find your way even with an arcane positioning map. Luckily I fell of the roof where the gryphon roost was, or otherwise I couldn’t have found my way to the tavern below. I felt quite a stranger in the Salty Sailor Tavern - a place holding true to its name - full with salty drunken seamen, and all the riff-raf you could imagine in an outlawed place, but the right place to get anything for the right price. I bumped into a skinny goblin, and fortunately it wasn’t a bruiser, as I got enough bruises by falling from the roof minutes earlier. This goblin was a diminutive creature, with the skin green like a leaf and had a pointy long nose, perhaps trained to smell gold from a mile.

— “I got what you need” said the goblin, even though I wasn’t really looking at him.
All goblins look the same to me, but this one had an unusual long pointy nose, like an elf ear and different colored eyes, one was red and the other was green. The red one looked at me as if trying to read my arcane mind.
— “Greetings, I need a map of Thunderbluff city, please”, I said, while browsing his pocket store without showing any real interest for the common junk he was selling.
— “Hmm… interesting” mumbled the goblin again. “Tell, ya what, you help me first and I’ll see what can be arranged to get you such a rare map” he said, without blinking his red or left green eye.
I agreed, and suddenly he looked at me as if he had somekind of emergency.
— “Aaa, potential customer” started the goblin with his routine. “Oh, it’s you again! I need to deliver this letter to Mixle Buntixlix next to me. He’s been waiting for this letter for weeks”.
This was odd. The goblin called Mixle was sitting at a table two yards away. This reminded of my adventures in Stormwind.
— “Greetings, my name is…”
— “Heya”, said Mixle bluntly. “Whaddaya want?… err..ya better gimme sometin’ to drink, or el.. hic!”
— “I only…”
— “Hey, you’re a mage aren’t ya?”
— “Ehm.. yes, that’s correct, why?”
— “Cou’d ya conjure me some real rum? I need a ritual of refreshment heree…hic!.. coz dish shtuff ish mouthwash.. hic!” said the drunk goblin, leaning his head down and hitting the table with a thud.
— “I’m sorry, not enough mana” (they always fall for that one)
— “…’den whaddaya want from me, can’tcha shee I’m busy.. hic!” raising his head and letting it fall again on the table.
— “I have this letter from…”
— “Oh, let me shee… oh yesh… that cheating Vixle…” mumbled Mixle reading the stained letter. All the sudden he started to laugh really loud, even though none noticed it because of all the racket in the tavern. — — “You should give thish back to Vixle… hahah… hic!.. but!.. but firsht you have to do shom’tin’ for me too” said Mixle, with half of his tongue out and driping on the table like the rest of the drunk people around.

(hours later, same merchant goblin)

— “Time is money, friend” said Vixle, or whatever his confusing name was.
— “Here is some money, how much time can you sell me back?” I replied, trying to be funny. Of course I wasn’t, but goblins have a strange sense of humour anyway, enjoying more violent and dangerous jokes, like blowing themselves up.
— “Here is your map, human, and you can take this little reward too as a gift” said the goblin blinking with his red eye. That was odd.. goblins don’t make gifts unless they are worthless. I didn’t care much about his odd blinking, and started inspecting the map. It was really well made, probably smuggled from some bullmen in Mulgore in exchange of the stuff I had to bring after using a strange device on 100 enraged beasts in the jungle. The other reward was odd, [Drowning Greaves of the Shallow Waters], made of plate and of totally no use to me. I sold it after the first corner to the next “I got what you need” green creature, and went to harbor to take the first ship for the distant goblin town of Ratchet.

* * *

(end of part I)

WoW avatar - Sephala on Alonsus-EU