Navarion gathered the children close as they stood behind the fence, watching the smelter with all the other locals. "There it is, kids," he sighed in appreciation as they all oohed and awed. "There's the first few coins created by your city's first official Horde mint."

The workshop was partially open air, likely to help with the cooling process. It had four pillars and a roof, but no walls, thus more easily enabling the locals to marvel at a technology that had seemed alien to them only a month before. That most of the skilled workers were recently trained local tribespeople working under only one cartel supervisor made it all the more impressive.

The smelter itself was huge, assembled using pre-made parts hauled in by the crew. The copper ore could be mined locally, and the Raventusk already knew how to swing a pickax. All they needed help with was the facility itself and a bit of direction on how to heat the copper ore enough to cut and mold it. Their large, three fingered hands weren't as nimble as those of other races - troll hands seemed designed for pure grip strength, elf and human hands for pure dexterity and Orc hands somewhere in between - but by working slowly and carefully, they had proven themselves as capable redsmiths.

The children never ceased in their questions. How did smelting work, what was a forge, what's the difference between a blacksmith, a redsmith and a whitesmith, why do copper coins taste so good, how long does it take to finish mining a mine, what does spaghetti look like. And even when he made up the answers or just said he didn't know, they didn't cease to be amazed.

"Mister Navarion, what's that?" Taran asked while pointing toward a contraption that looked like a vice with no crank.

"That's where they force the heated copper into the shape of coins," he surmised, having no way of knowing if that was actually true.

"Will they make coins forever?" Sharkasa asked.

"Well, that's complicated," Navarion replied while moving aside for more locals that had come to observe the first coins being minted. The smelter was situated on the northeast edge of town near the docks and beyond the residential areas. The tribal elders intended the spot for an industrial area, and permission to mint a fixed amount of coinage had been granted through a treasurer at Skulk Rock. Not that the children would understand any of that. "They will make as many coins as the people need."

"But we always need to buy more things, Mister Navarion!" Ka'cha protested. She was usually more subdued than the other little girl, Sharkasa, but Ka'cha took special interest in making money. "So we'll need to make new coins every day to buy more things!"

This was a topic the biracial young man was familiar with. Tiondel, his youngest brother, was a history and economics buff despite his rather rough nature, and he often talked everyone else's ears off about the two topics. Navarion was prepared.

"It isn't so simple. When you create coins, they're in use by the people. That's the economy. Every time you buy something with coins, the person you bought from has those coins to spend. And they buy, and the person they bought from buys, and so on. It's a big circle, which is why we say the money goes into circulation."

Serju, one of the two boys, looked entirely confused. "So you can use money more than once?"

"Yes, of course you can," Navarion chuckled heartily. "That's why money is made from metal. I mean, if money was printed on paper, it would never ever work. Ever."

Ka'cha stared in awe as another batch of copper coins was pressed out of the vice like device under the auspices of the Steamwheedle laborer, one of the two middle aged human men who understood heavy industry well, and Taiji, the older female elder from the longhouse the day the cartel caravan had arrived. The girl's eyes shone even when there was no light to reflect off of them, as if she were totally enraptured.

"I want to be an investment banker."

All three of her friends laughed at her, but Navarion pulled the small child close. "Hey, hey, knock it off. She very well could be the one to out your city on the map one day."

He had intended for the light scolding to reassure Ka'cha, but instead the girl looked dismayed. "You mean maps don't already include Raventusk City on them?" she asked, her shining eyes filled with concern.

"No. I mean, yes, maps do include Raventusk. It was just a figure of speech. Meaning..."

Navarion thought for a moment, trying to find the right words in Zandali. He'd spent nearly a month at the city and his fluency improved rapidly, but without a dictionary or even a library there, it was difficult to pick up new words. The fact that the locals were a hodgepodge of older speakers of Zandali exclusively, adult speakers of poor Zandali and Low Common and young speakers of Common only didn't help his lexical or grammatical accuracy. "It means that one day, you might make a lot of money for your city, and people might even keep their money here since it's a safe place far from the politics of the world."

The children all appeared to understand the concept well, but Serju seemed determined to cause trouble. "Ka'cha wants to draw maps on old napkins and sell them to gnomes."

"No, that's not what I said!" Ka'cha cried, and Serju had already fled in anticipation of her removing her shark tooth necklace and whipping him with it.

Two of the children ran off, leaving Sharkasa and Taran to amble away with Navarion as the crowd dispersed after the last coins had been minted for the day. Some of the locals milled about, chatting under the fading light of dusk while others hurried back to their huts. For a society that cared little for rules and schedules, the forest trolls did appear to sleep rather regularly: moonset, wake up; moonrise, go to bed. It was pretty much the opposite of his mother's race, the night elves, but it was one of the few aspects of Raventusk City that did appear somewhat regulated.

Sharkasa and Taran had begun whispering whatever children whisper about - Navarion honestly couldn't remember, he'd been gone from home for so long - and he gave them both pats on the head. "Hey kids, it's getting dark. Your parents are probably looking for you..."

He smiled. From behind the smelter platform, two burgundy eyes caught his silvers momentarily. It had been more than two weeks since his dance with the relatively dainty tribeswoman by the bonfire, and since then he'd only seen her from afar and only for seconds at a time; having the night shift for patrol while the cartel crew directed construction and development operations during the day, Navarion socialized little with the locals save for an hour or so before they all slept and then an hour or so after everyone was up. The schedule was fine by him: his biology allowed him to easily adapt to either a daytime or nighttime schedule, and due to the nature of his eyes, he preferred to be awake at night anyway.

Still, he had dreamed about that dance a few times, and on lonely nights when he followed potential bandit tracks that always turned out to belong to goats or calves, he could almost smell her once more if he closed his eyes.

Leaning against one of the pillars of the work area, she stood about ten years away from him. In front of her was Taiji, and the two of them appeared to be engaged in light conversation. The elder female wore a toga of beaver fur that appeared lightweight but covered more than what most of the local women wore, and she was one of the few who wore sandals on her feet. The fetishes hanging from her necklace and her ear piercings insinuated that she may have been a witch doctor, as many of the leaders of troll societies - whether they were forest, jungle, ice, sand or dark - tended to be. Taiji reached out to hold the burgundy eyed youngblood's hand as she spoke, and it was only then that Navarion noticed they both had the same sort of long, regal nose. Even through the war paint they both donned, the similarities between their features were apparent. It was almost as if...

"Mister Navarion, can we borrow some money to buy strawberries before the stalls close?" Taran asked innocently. "We'll pay you back as soon as we get paid for collecting the garbage tomorrow."

Snapped back to reality, he looked down at the two hungry children. They were cute and he wanted to make them happy, but he didn't want to teach them to mooch or beg. Just like his father had said, settlements where the people were predominantly trolls had enough of a problem with laziness and intentional unemployment as it was. They'd have to earn their money for their own good, he thought.

"Considering that I'm the one who pays you, I'll consider this a cash advance," he chuckled while handing the two of them half the money he usually paid them for cleaning up around the city. "That means I give you part of your wage now and the rest of it when you finish the job. That's an honor a bond of trust, so don't ever fail to show up for work if you took an advance."

"Oh, thanks mister! We'll be early for work tomorrow for sure. And we won't let you down!" Sharkasa beamed as she gladly accepted the money.

The two of them scampered off without saying goodbye, disappearing among the storage huts and and other workshops of the future industrial area as they ran back to the commercial district unattended. Although Navarion never particularly cared for children, he didn't mind these four. As the oldest son in his family, he constantly had to take care of his younger siblings. His oldest sister, Anathil, was a hypochondriac and their parents indulged her endlessly due to some real, actual illnesses she suffered from as a newborn. Consequently, Navarion greatly disliked being put upon for childcare. In this case, however, the four local children who had run by him on his first day there had grown on him. Perhaps the fact that he only dealt with them for an hour or two a day made it easier. Goddess knows he wasn't ready for children of his own yet. Romance, however, was something he'd known since he hit puberty. Speaking of which...

The opposite end of the work area had emptied out while he watched Sharkasa and Taran run off, and there were only a handful of local workers nearby. At some point, Taiji and the burgundy eyed beauty whom he assumed to be her daughter or niece must have joined the crowds going home for sleep. Left to his own machinations as he technically entered the time period of his shift on patrol, Navarion sighed in a combination of both contentment and wistfulness. He quite enjoyed the chase, but after two weeks of ignoring the passes made at him by other women, he did find his patience running out. In a city of ten thousand, there was no shortage of gorgeous, gigantic women. He'd never been surrounded by so many women that were his type, and in spite of his disappointment at the lack of challenge in pursuing most Raventusk women, his eyes had begun to wander.

As he walked back toward the main part of the city, his eyes wandered over to a certain other female. Not one he would ever consider a potential object of his affections, but certainly a respected and trusted new ally.

"She already left," Jalinde, the representative of the Hinterlands high elves, chortled in Common while leaning against a stray apple tree near the beginning of the settled area. Her dark green leather armor, cape and cowl were perfectly suited to the terrain in either night or day, and he was always glad to share the night shift with her backing him up. "In case you were wondering."

Navarion was not in the least bit bashful or shy, and he prided himself on being blunt, direct and unconcerned with the opinions of others. There was something about Jalinde, however, that did cause him to experience a measure of meekness around her, in spite of her rather open and humble nature. He shrugged, trying to play the episode off as if he had been looking for something else.

"Yes, I guess little Ka'cha had places to go and things to do," he laughed nonchalantly without making eye contact.

It would have fooled even Nephentha or Vegnus, perhaps, but not the weathered elven ranger. "You're a talented actor," she complimented him as she fell into step and easily kept up despite his much longer strides. "Unlucky for you, I'm a master of disguise myself."

He smirked, deciding to take a swipe if his newfound friend wanted to play it that way. "It isn't like you to brag about yourself like that," he taunted lightly. When he garnered a sincere frown from her, he felt both victorious and contrite. "I do prefer going on patrol with you, by the way. I wish we'd had some of your class of adventurer in my old guild."

The earlier jab taken in a stride, Jalinde smirked at him before wiping the expression from her face. She said very little to anyone but Vegnus and Traska, but on the few occasions when they patrolled in tandem rather than separately she did seem to enjoy his company. "And what about Nepha and Hogar?" Jalinde asked curiously.

"Amazing, both of them. Hogar is an old friend of my father's, you know."

"He may have mentioned something about that. They worked at some sort of a rock quarry together?"

He grinned knowingly. One part of his heritage had the tendency to blurt out overly personal information all the time, while the other part had the tendency of being restrained and guarded to the point of being unfriendly. Considering that this was an elf he was talking to, he let the latter part of his heritage reign and went for the course of discretion. "Yes, among other things...in a sense. But Hogar became a legend on the battlefield after that. And Nepha is a sea witch, like her mother. They can both smash enemy regiments apart at will. But for more subtle arts of tracking and capturing...well, let's just say they're both better off handling the day shift."

"The claws are out," Jalinde joked, sensing that Navarion meant it as an observation rather than a swipe at his family friends. "And what do you bring to the table as a...shadow hunter, is it? Like your father? You aren't a tracker, nor are you particularly stealthy."

"True, but one doesn't need to be stealthy if they can simply trap their prey. Did you notice the wards placed around the walls?"

The two of them had looped around the residential district on the south end of the settled area, and walked methodically near the woods. Given the nature of the discussion, it was apparent why they didn't need to be stealthy at the moment, and they took their time observing the few people running errands in the dark in between the huts, the handful of owls and rodents in the woods on the other side and the lookouts patrolling the city walls far off in the distance.

"The ones bearing turtle and snail shells with fel runes carved in them, yes. I'm assuming they're yours, and although I didn't go near them, I'm also assuming that those catch infiltrators?"

"Logical deduction on the spot, like a true ranger," he complimented, and she smirked once more as if finally realizing he was a flatterer. "My father was never big on wards, but he helped us learn the basics-"

"Us?"

"Me and Thanil, the oldest of the six Hearthglen kids," he explained as she whistled at the number. "Yes, a lot for a family with an elf for a mom, but that's a whole other story. The point is, our wards are 'smart,' so to speak. They sense intent, so you would be fine walking over one of mine, which form stasis traps. But bandits, hostiles...doesn't matter how tough they are. They're getting held down, and they won't get back up before they starve or dehydrate, not until someone who knows voodoo lets them up or somebody shoots the ward from afar."

"So you mostly do rounds checking if the wards caught anything?" she asked in a way that hinted she already knew the answer.

"That's what we're doing right here."

Jalinde looked up and realized that they had reached the first ward, nestled among the bushes near the far southern end of the city wall. It curved back toward the beach, and a few of the tree trunks strung together to form the wall ran all the way into the ocean. There was a small opening before them, covered by some bushes; quite inviting for the potential thief. The war looked unassuming enough, just a bundle of petrified wood branches and animal bone wrapped in preserved briarthorn vines. A carved shell from a tortoise hung from the top by a leather strap, almost resembling some sort of grave marker. The ward pulsed every few seconds, sending invisible waves through the ground that Navarion could sense but that he assumed Jalinde couldn't.

"I don't see anything here, but your placement of the trap is quite apt," she noticed, inspecting the end of the wall for any more potential gaps.

"I haven't caught anything yet, but then again, I don't think anything has been stolen since the locals nailed that last one to a cross in the market square." Navarion moved forward and Jalinde moved with him unquestioningly. "I planned on doing quick rounds of all the wards, if you wanted to take a look at their locations."

"Absolutely," she answered right away. That she seemed to enjoy having someone to patrol with so much didn't match with her intentional solitude some nights, and he assumed her to be rather moody. At her next question, however, he saw another, more mischevious side of her as well. "So how long ago was your breakup?" she asked as though it were a normal, non-nosy question.

His eyes widened, not so much in discomfort at the question and shock that she had been able to tell. "Wow...you're very direct tonight. You must have been influenced but he locals."

She shared his laugh, and continued to walk beside him comfortably as they passed a pair of axe throwers, a male and a female, ignoring their post as they sat together and whispered in the moonlight. Security was surprisingly lax among the forest trolls, probably due to the arrogance and condescension toward potential enemies Vegnus had once mentioned. When the next ward came into view behind a fencepost by the main gate, Jalinde tried again.

"It isn't obvious, you know. You're very talented at concealing the different aspects of your life from people not involved in them - another sign that even if you have tusks, you're very much an elf," she remarked as they both paused momentarily to watch the main gate hanging wide open while three axe throwers kicked a live, shrieking rabbit back and forth in a morally outrageous game of hackey sack while they completely ignored their post. "But I can tell that you're on the rebound. So how long ago was it?"

It felt like lately, he had a problem with grinning so wide that he couldn't help himself when faced with situations involved nervous energy. In this case, he felt a little exposed to someone he had to work with, and was largely left without an exit from the conversation that didn't involve him being needlessly rude. Chuckling at the situation, he decided to tell another living being for the first time.

"Just before I joined you guys at the lodge, actually," he explained while staring at the ground in front of them, sensing a sudden feeling of detachment from the drama of his own life. "She's with the Argent Crusade. We met while I was fighting alongside them as an irregular during the last Scourge invasion."

"So you served together, spent time in the camp, got to know each other over the long term," Jalinde surmised quietly, seeming very at ease considering the fact that they didn't know each other that well. And for reasons he didn't quite understand, that put Navarion at ease, too.

"Perceptive. We didn't really have a lot in common, in retrospect. It was just...time spent together. Plus compatibility."

"How could the two of you be compatible with each other if you don't have that much in common?" she asked, almost laughing at his statement.

Although he didn't feel irritated, he did feel challenged. Her reaction came off as shallow to him, and while he could tell that the high elf was much older than him by the behavior and attitude he'd observed over the past few weeks, he assumed her to be inexperienced romantically. "There are other types of compatibility, especially considering my situation. Physical compatability is just as important as mental. I can't exactly make things work with, say, a dwarf or a goblin. Meeting people that are compatible is hard, except in a place like this," he said while making a sweeping motion toward the still stirring locals herding cattle inside a crude excuse for a barn as they walked along the western wall.

"So was she...well, I've never seen any of the varieties of trolls in the Crusade, and the only night elves are men. I've never seen Tauren either. Was she...if you don't mind my asking, was she a draenei? A worgen?"

"Nope," he said with a shake of his head. "Human."

Jalinde looked incredulous. "You say it so casually that I assume you aren't acting, but...how?"

"Nobody in her family is small," Navarion beamed, the emotional sting of their breakup rapidly fading as he discussed it so clinically out loud. "They were all from the mountains, big for humans. Which made her awkward and shy since she stood out so much in the lowland village she grew up in, and she detests being stared at. But in the Crusade, she was appreciated. Some of the night elves and even an orc fellow competed for her affections."

"So you went in there, and you were different, exotic?"

"Nope again. Not even close. The Argent Crusade is almost as diverse as Steamwheedle. I'm as normal and nondescript as anybody else. I just happened to be assigned to her squad as one of the irregular supporting units." He continued to stare at the ground for a moment, ignoring her stare directed toward him. It was as if the ranger understood that he was coming to a realization at that moment, and left him alone until he spoke out loud again. "I guess that's why things didn't work out. We were just there together. In any other situation, neither of us would have been interested."

"It's for the best then, that the two of you split up," Jalinde replied, seeming to give the problems in his love life quite a bit of thought. "Just be careful while you're here. Throwing yourself right back on the market after a breakup can lead to trouble, especially since we're all leaving once this project is done."

Her words gave Navarion pause. It was a temporary job, yes, but he was still unsure of where he would go afterward. Those words reminded him only then that he had very little to return to at the Argent Crusade camp unless he and Rachel intended to get back together. He almost felt a bit guilty for how little his heart hurt when discussing their split. Shouldn't he feel sadder than this, he thought to himself. His thoughts rambled on for another moment before he noticed that Jalinde had fallen silent again, almost all the way to the north end of the city wall where it curved off toward the east, back in the direction of the ocean.

"Thanks for listening, and prodding," he mumbled to her. "I may not have considered some of these...this aspect of my own life otherwise."

"Thanks for telling," she replied without hesitation. "My reasons aren't entirely altruistic, you know."

He eyed her suspiciously. She obviously wasn't flirting, and aside from that, he didn't know what reason she would have to ask. She noticed his questioning stare, and smirked once more before obliging his curiosity.

"You remind me a lot of my son. He had issues coming off the rebound as well. If I watched you make the same mistake, I wouldn't forgive myself." Her tone was controlled but low, and it was the most emotion the ranger had shown the entire month. It felt flattering, to be able to affect someone in a non-lustful way for once, after spending so much time floating through life almost as a solpsist finding his way.

"He sounds like he's the kind of guy who enjoys getting into trouble, then."

"He was," she replied in a flat tone, her gaze fixed ahead.

It didn't take long for him to realize what she meant. Not only had she pried a bit into his personal life - and however beneficial it had been to him, it was still prying - but she had apparently been dropping her own emotional baggage onto him, rather than taking his on her shoulders. Though he still felt flattered, the revelation did create a measure of awkwardness.

"How did he pass, away, if you don't mind me asking?" he inquired, more intent on helping her perhaps release something pent up than actually interested in the cause itself.

"During the second war. Members of this very tribe killed him."

For a second he almost choked on his own saliva. "Holy shit," was all he could say.

"He died during war, in another era from this one. It was many decades ago. My people and theirs were enemies; now they aren't. The war is over. And..." Her voice trailed off. She didn't seem like she would break, but he could tell that Jalinde was also saying something out loud that she may not have ever told another living being before, though her feelings had been pent up for a far, far longer time than his. "And I guess that's why I'm here. To move on. To show that people can move on, and put conflicts behind them. My son happened to be a high elf. The enemy soldiers who killed him happened to be forest trolls. But neither of them represent an entire race of people. And that belief is what set me free after decades of my own racism."

Her words were inspiring despite the pain he heard behind them, and it took a bit of willpower to avoid breaking the normal elven rules of etiquette and give her a hug. He settled for a pat on her shoulder as they patrolled the north wall a little longer in silence, scanning the dark for any footprints or breaches in the wall. She recovered quickly, and before long they began discussing possible points of entry as if the conversation hadn't taken place. If she wanted to open the topic again, he would oblige. For the time being, he was content to let her nurse an obvious wound before delving into personal matters again.

The shouts in the dark alerted them that such a breach had occurred.

"About a hundred yards ahead," Jalinde whispered without prompting or direction. "Some of the locals and someone unfamiliar."

"They could somebody," Navarion whispered back, using his equally sensitive ears to spy the Zandali conversation ahead. "It's at one of my wards; it must have caught somebody."

The pair raced ahead, intent on capturing a potential bandit for questioning before a repeat of the incident a few days ago. Over the small hills and across the grass they ran, moving in and out of the handful of trees within the unnecessarily spacious walls of the city. The shouting became clearer but not louder, and Navarion felt relieved that the locals at least hadn't killed whoever they caught. Not yet.

The stasis trap pulses visibly across the ground, shining in the night as three tribespeople - a man and two women - surrounded a gnoll wearing bandit's clothing. The furry man was pinned firmly to the ground by the voodoo magic, one arm just barely out of the trap's range as it desperately grabbed blades of grass in a futile attempt to pull himself out of the circle of fel runes. The tribespeople stood around him in a circle empty handed, but that did little to soothe Navarion's nerves when he realized that the man was Wendigo. And that he had a half empty bottle of moonshine sticking out of his belt pouch.

"Wendigo, we got this!" Jalinde shouted in Common, already worried herself about what he might do.

Several more locals arrived and this time, Navarion felt greatly relieved when he saw the local elder Ven'jin and a very sleepy eyed but motivated Vegnus right next to him. The dwarf ran ahead, obviously also afraid of the catch being harmed, though the forest troll elder took his time, leaning on a walking stick he didn't need at all due to his legs being just fine. It took forever for him to get there, and Navarin almost wanted to slap the staff out of the old man's hands.

"I knew it! I knew we would catch one eventually!" Vegnus laughed triumphantly as he pushed past one of the females, whose sultry lips pulled back into an animalistic grin as she looked at the terrified gnoll, her otherwise pretty face looking terrifying instead.

"I'll talk! I'll talk! You told me if I talked, I'd be fine!" the gnoll snickered nervously at Wendigo, signaling that the quasi-union leader had actually been quite reasonable this time.

"Then talk!" the second of the two female axe throwers demanded, stomping her bare foot on the ground with a slight movement that still had enough force to cause the stones around her heel to fly up in the air.

"Who sent ye! And where are they hiding!" Vegnus asked quietly but urgently as he knelt down within the circle of fel runes, unaffected by the voodoo due to his good intention.

"Joachim Woodson! He and Harald Splitaxe have an entire bandit camp in the ravine! The ravine, you know, the one, please don't kill me!"

A few of the locals murmured, and Vegnus looked at Ven'jin in confusion. "Harald is one of my people...didn't he and Joachim die?"

Navarion had no clue who these people were, but he knew they must be bad news given how seriously Ven'jin spoke, sighing deeply as he considered his words. "The Forsaken firebombed their last hideout in tha Alterac Mountains. It's said that nobody got out alive."

"They did, I swear! I have no reason to make this up, just don't kill me!" the gnoll cackled, which was a sort of plea for their people. "Their base camp is at the ravine, they built a wall around it!"

"Who are those people?" Navarion whispered to Jalinde.

While she didn't share the shocked look of the others, she did speak in an equally serious tone. "Notorious bandits. They aren't simply rogues in the night. They're leeches. They work to keep small communities healthy and working so they can steal whatever the people earn. They aren't as violent as other bands, but they destroy communities much more quickly and irreversibly."

"Bullshit!" bellowed Wendigo, the flask of moonshine sloshing around in his belt pouch. "Ya makin' it up ta cover ya tracks."

The gnoll looked up at the looming, drunken forest troll not so much in fear as perplexity. Before he could speak, Wendigo reached down and grabbed the gnoll's single srm lying outside of the trap.

Panic immediately sent Navarion's pulse racing. The ward could sense intent, and Wendigo's obviously wasn't good. We're it himself, Vegnus or pretty much anyone else, they would have dragged the gnoll out of the trap harmlessly. But for someone aggressive, the ward wouldn't respond and the victim would remain pinned.

"Wait, don't pull him-"

Too late. Wendigo grabbed the gnoll's hand and pulled with what may have seemed like a light force to the forest troll, but his ape like strength caused the gnoll's arm, shoulder and part of his chest and hunchback to be ripped right off of his body like chunks being pulled from a large piece of cotton.

"Gadzooks!" Vegnus cried as he leapt away from the almost comically excessive amount of gore that exploded from the screaming gnoll's body.

"Oh! My God!" Jalinde gasped while putting her fists on her hips and walking away completely.

"Hearthglen, get over here!" Ven'jin shouted while already casting a hopeless healing spell on the hunk of flesh that was a gnoll up until a second ago.

Wendigo held the severed arm, shoulder and piece of torso in his hand gingerly as if he had simply plucked a rose from a bush by accident. That the blood splattered on his chest didn't even seem to bother him, and he literally covered his lips with a finger of his free hand like a confounded Orc peon. "Oops."

As if to punctuate the sheer idiocy of the entire scene, the two female axe throwers actually started eyeing Wendigo lustfully as if his drunken stupidity was some sort of an achievement. Ignoring him entirely, Navarion jumped over the river of gore and the dead bandit - whom he actually felt sorry for - to confer with the elder and the dwarf. Jalinde had literally just continued walking away until she disappeared out of sight.

"He said you know the ravine - the one where this hideout is," he addressed to them both.

"We think we know it, and if we don't, we can scout the area," Vegnus said hesitantly while looking up at Ven'jin. "That isn't the big problem though, laddie."

Ven'jin looked at the dead gnoll bandit, whose torso had been healed in a very weird, unnatural way despite the fact that the man died anyway. "Joachim and Harald died. Everybody has known that for at least a decade. This don't make no sense."

Even though he was an outsider, Navarion felt the need to speak up. They could still salvage this. "Elder, this bandit won't be back to report to whoever he's working for. That gives us time to scout and see how serious this bandit camp is. This wasn't a total loss."

"No, no it wasn't," Vegnus chimed in, tired but hopeful.

A few other locals looked to the elder, their expressions difficult to read under the red war paint but probably blank nonetheless. After a moment of consideration, Ven'jin spoke. "We're gonna have a meetin' first thing in tha mornin' tomorrow. No need ta rush inta this. Either way, within the next few days, we're marchin' out ta end this." He looked to Navarion and Vegnus, and it was clear the next part wasn't a question. "You're gonna be takin' tha lead on this. These people have been robbin' us for too long."