DISCLAIMER: This is fanfiction.
A/N: This is an experimental collaboration between find-nowhere and tell them i hate them. We're alternating chapters and we'll be updating on Dreamwidth before we update here, so if you want to read ahead then go to our profile page and click the link there. This is actually a three-way crossover, but we can only put it in two categories here. It is SVU/Supernatural/World of Warcraft - no joke. Oh, oh! And this chapter was written by find-nowhere if you care to know.
RATED T: Ridiculous violence? General ridiculousness? Death, misery, feelings.
Prologue
The young hunter awoke from something like a deep and dreamless sleep to find himself running through Terrokar Forest as fast as his legs would carry him with his hooves clapping loudly on the ground. He couldn't recall what he was running from, or why he had begun running exactly. There was a huge gaping hole in his memory. He had been in Shattrath and he had seen a man, or a creature, or something, and he had followed it. He had recently heard mutterings among the elders that a strange man was taking children, and he believed the man he saw might be the culprit. He followed it out beyond the city walls, and there his memory stopped. He felt he had seen something, but he could no longer remember what.
Now, he was running back toward Shattrath and he ran for his life. Sweat beaded down his purple-skinned forehead and the tendrils from his face flapped wildly behind him. He bounded gracefully over the uneven ground. He just wanted to get back within the walls or to catch sight of one of the guards mounted on an elekk outside. Shattrath was not really sanctuary because he was one of the Broken draenei, but it was more sanctuary than this damned forest. He looked over his shoulder and he saw the creature he had been curiously following. It chased him now. He looked ahead again, and then looked back once more. The thing did not appear to be moving whenever he looked, and yet it gained on him, and filled his heart with fear the likes of which he had not felt since being in the presence of Illidan Stormrage. This thing perhaps scared him more as if it were made of fear itself.
Still running, he shook his head. He knew he wasn't thinking clearly. Part of him wanted to turn and face this man, but he couldn't bring myself to do so. He looked back again and he stared at the blank white face of her pursuer. The creature was humanoid, but tall. Taller than even the largest tauren. He was thin and gangly, and he wore the strangest clothing, no armor. He was clad in black cloth pants and a white shirt, covered in a black jacket. Around his neck was an odd neck-piece, not a necklace or any other sort of trinket, but more cloth. The most haunting thing about this man was his blank face though, and the image of it burned into the hunter's mind. Was this some minion of the Lich King or perhaps a new recruit of the Burning Legion? He couldn't ask.
When he turned to face forward again, he tripped over a root and went flying. He landed on his knees. He braced himself with his hands, jamming his wrists and he struggled to get up, but before he could the monster was on him.
A balding dwarf and a graying furbolg found themselves sitting together at the World's End Tavern. The dwarf solemnly sipped a filtered draenic water, shying away from the strong drinks that he had been so fond of in his younger years. The furbolg, on the other hand, drank a dwarven stout voraciously, burped, and gruffly ordered another.
The dwarf's hay-day had long come to an end. He had once been a Windwarrior and then served a stint in the Explorer's Guild before finding himself stagnant in Shattrath City. He spent most of his time in the company of the rough furbolg vendor.
The furbolg typically roamed Lower City, selling odds and ends to travelers and sometimes the refugees. He went simply by the name Bobby, and despite the fact that he never seemed to leave Shattrath, he always acquired unique and rare items. He probably scammed them from those same Azerothian travelers. He also repaired weapons. Rumor had it, he had been a fair fighter at one point. How he had come to Shattrath, no one was certain.
"Cragen," he muttered to the dwarf in the Common language, "You heard the talk of the refugees lately?"
"Not really..."
"The kids are going missing."
"Probably kidnapped for slavery, Bobby. Nothing new."
He snorted and drank more. His keen hearing caused him to turn and then he said, "Cragen." The bear-man grunted and placed a huge paw on the dwarf's shoulder. He turned the man around to face the entrance, "Look."
"What?" All Cragen saw was a young Broken draenei stumbling in. Probably drunk and coming back to beg for more from the bartender. He had some open wounds, bleeding blue liquid onto his clothes. Probably from drunkenly falling down. Cragen couldn't even blame the Broken draenei for drinking himself into this stupor. He'd escaped the Burning Legion only to make it here where the rest of the draenei despised him and hardly anyone would give him the time of day.
The purple-skinned boy collapsed before reaching them. No one even bothered with him, except Bobby. The furbolg took a huge draught of his beer and then got up from his seat and went to help him up.
Cragen sighed and followed reluctantly.
Despite his obtrusive claws, the furbolg was delicate when handling the wounded Broken. He pulled some bandages and salve from one of his many bags and attempted to tend to the boy, but quickly found his wounds too severe. He had been attacked, mauled by something.
The Broken kept muttering over and over, "Tall man with no face...tall man with no face...he has taken the children...and is coming for...us all..."
Bobby looked at Cragen. The old dwarf slouched and seemed apathetic.
"I'm taking this boy to a doctor, then I'm gonna go talk to the other refugees. You can sit here and drink your draenic water if you want, but I'm gonna go." With minimal effort Bobby scooped up the Broken and headed out.
Cragen tossed some gold up onto the bar, grumbling about paying for the furbolg's drinks, and he trudged after the bear. The draenei had lost consciousness and hung limply in his fur-covered arms. The dwarf asked, "What do you plan to do, Bobby?"
"Find out what's going on around here..."
"Then what?"
"I know some people," he growled.
