"Gods, this is the most disgusting thing I've ever done," Pepper complained as he swam over to where Soup was still removing various body parts from the dam. "This is a terrible idea. I'm freezing, I'm wet, I'm covered in mud, and what the hell are you going to do with those anyway?"

"I don't know, honestly," Soup admitted. So far, along with the first skull, they'd retrieved two others, most of two arms, and four leg bones. He felt around the dam drain again and found what he had thought was a cluster of sticks stuck in some mud. It was undoubtedly a ribcage.

"I think Croft is about to curl up and cry," Pepper said. The aquamancer was sitting on the shore, holding his head, and rocking back and forth. "He's a little… fragile."

"I noticed," Soup muttered. "I think this whole torso is still connected, just not the arms or legs. Help me get it out of here."

Pepper grimaced, but waded deeper into the murk. "Alright, I think I'm holding a hip bone. Pull?"

"Yeah. Slowly."

The two warriors braced themselves and pulled. There was a slight scraping as the bone was dragged across the stony edge, but it popped free. Soup was rewarded with the sound of running water as it began to flow freely out of the drain once more.

"That's one open. Let's put the bones on the shore and try to figure out what's blocking the others."

A few hours later, the drains were flowing strong and the floodwaters were receding. Soup and Pepper looked at the carnage laid out on land, speechless with horror.

"How many?" Pepper finally asked.

"Eighteen skulls with twenty ribcages, so probably a total of twenty victims. Obviously we're missing a lot of other parts. They're probably way downstream in Thornhill though." Soup glanced back at Croft. He was laying down, curled up in a fetal position.

Pepper unhooked his hammer from his belt and poked at one of the less-decomposed torsos that still had clothing. "Blue robes and plain hoods, or at least they started out blue. Heard anything in Stormwind about twenty missing mages?"

"Are you sure they're from Stormwind?"

"Mages in Doriven and Arathi wear red, and these were definitely never red."

"Haven't heard anything," Soup said. He looked at the bones again and racked his brain. "I used to know how to identify people from skeletons. Actually, Croft would know, if he was taught in Stormwind. I learned it from Ender and Plikie after they left the College and went to Arathi."

"He'll pass out again if you ask him to get this close." Pepper looked at the remains again. "Here's what we know. We have twenty dead people wearing Stormwind mage robes. They're all somewhat short, and they've been in the water for different amounts of time. The freshest one is definitely female and had blonde hair. The one who's only bones is taller than the others and has been dead much longer."

Soup nodded slowly. "That's pretty good."

Pepper shrugged and started wringing water out of his tunic and trousers. "We don't know how any of them died, and we don't know who they were. If they'd been students at the College, everyone would be up in arms. You're sure you heard nothing about anyone disappearing or dying?"

"Not like this," Soup said.

Footsteps squished in the mud as Croft came tottering over to them. "Hey guys, are you done…" He trailed off when he saw the makeshift graveyard.

"Croft I don't think that's a good idea," Pepper began.

"No… I think I'm ok. It just gave me a really bad shock when you started waving that skull around out of nowhere." The aquamancer covered his nose and mouth with his hands. "What a stink."

"If you're done fainting, help us figure out who these belonged to." Soup tried to keep the temper out of his voice, but it was difficult. Aquamancers were notoriously high-strung and hard to deal with.

"The tall one was the oldest," Croft said shakily. "The rib ends aren't as smooth as they are on the other skeletons. And… I think it was female. The hip bones are wider."

"Can you look at the fresher one?" Soup asked."At least she still has a face."

"There's not much left on her," Croft muttered. "All we have is the hair. Her face is too swollen to get a good picture of what she looked like, and the clothes are drenched in mud. Looks like the neck decomposed very fast though. I need a better look… " He drew his sword and carefully prodded the dead girl's head to the side before covering his face with his hood and kneeling down next to it. "There's a deep scratch across the ends of the first neck vertebra. Her throat was slit by someone incredibly strong. It almost decapitated her."

"At least it was fast," Pepper murmured.

"Yes. But it's a messy death. I'm willing to bet there's a lot of blood spray on a surface somewhere." Croft seemed to be regaining his composure as he looked at the other remains. "They're all female. The tallest one is the oldest, probably in her 40's. Looks like she had at least one child. Sixteen of them were young teenagers; I can see the wisdom teeth are still inside the jaws. The last one still has baby teeth, so maybe around 8 years old. I don't know what to tell you about the ones without heads, but we've probably got a pattern here."

"Who could do that to a child?" Pepper asked, horrified.

"A monster," Soup said quietly. "Look. Right now, we need to figure out what to do. Someone who can completely conceal the murders of twenty trainee mages is not someone we want to mess with."

"We need to tell the College," Croft said. "They'll have a team out here by tomorrow to set this straight."

"We need to tell Q_T," Pepper said firmly. "If Crossfire was someone's makeshift graveyard, we've got to let the House know."

"I say we keep it secret," Soup said. "We're all safe as long as no one knows what we know."

COMMUNITY DECISION: Inform Q_T and the House of Light that the bodies of 20 female trainee mages were found in the Crossfire Dam.