Upon reaching Goldshire, Rhodark Rheban was becoming quite ravenous. His pace quickened, his stomach now jumping about in his stomach like a Murloc in a burlap sack (which he had seen before- but that's a story for another time). Five full minutes passed with Rhodark going at his Old Man's Jog, finally the patch was within sight. Unloading his proverbial afterburners, Rhodark sprinted directly toward the farmhouse, slamming through the slightly ajar door, and into the house of his food-providing friend, in which a quite interesting meeting was taking place.
-------------------2 Minutes Earlier---------------------
Darlans Lumbourg, Third in command of the Defias in Elwynn Forest, strolled casually up toward the door of the old, shabby, one-story farmhouse. Truely the place was a dismal affair, the tiles on the roof were half gone, the paint looked like it had been done over a hundred years ago, and the termite infestation looked to have been there just as long.
The Brackwell Pumpkin Patch itself was really not even that impressive anymore. What was once a massive plantation several acres wide which provided the cities of Stormwind and Goldshire had been squandered over two short generations of bad mangagement. Two small parts of the crop giant had been lost to the subsequent revolts of the Stonefield and Maclure Families of laborers. The rest was merely lost to nature by cowardly workers and mangagement. Now all that was left was the Pumpkin Patch, and three pigs, albeit one of them a prize winner. All this made Darlansss wonder just how his superiors could've wanted this place as a headquarters in the region, but the incident with his hand and the dwarf's knife made him think diffrently about questioning orders.
Pushing his long Dark Hair out from his face and making sure his gun was securley-yet-menacingly placed upon his back, Darlans knocked upon the door. Three quick raps followed by two more longer ones.
taptaptap
tap
tap
That was the signal. Within seconds the sounds of locks being pried open was heard, and the door was slowly creaked open.
"Wh-wh-whats the password, man?" came the shaky voice of a human male, probably somewhere in his 40s by the sound of it.
Sighing, Darlans uttered in a mechanical, rehearsed tone. " Stonefields, Jansens, Fulbrows, Maclures, none have a garden as fine as yours. Now can I come in?"
Closing the door and pulling back one last chain lock, there stood a malnurished, disgruntled, and slightly terror-stricken Johnathan Brackwell. "P-Please, come in, make yourself at home." He said humbly, motioning toward the one respectable piece of furniture in the whole of the living area, a large red chintz armchair.
Taking his seat of honor, Darlans barely left Johnathan time to sit himself at a hardbacked kitchen chair before getting down to buisness. "1200 gold coins is our offer. That includes the patch, the house, the farm, all land around the farm you lay claim to, and all your remaining livestock."
"W-w-well, that's really not at a-all what I discussed with th-the l-l-last guy..." said Johnathan, not enough courage in his small frame to outwardly say 'NO' to the intimidating man.
"Well...sigh I suppose that We'll just-AH!" Unfortunantly the dark-haired man clad in all red would never get to finish that statement, because at that exact moment a distraction presented itself.
Rhodark sprinted directly toward the farmhouse, slamming through the slightly ajar door, and into the house of his food-providing friend, in which a quite interesting meeting was taking place.
"Yo-Jon-Pie-Now-Please?" sang Rhodark, totally oblivious to the man sitting in the chair not two yards from him.
"AHH!" Screamed Jon Brackwell, caught off guard more so even than his companion. Moments later he gained comprehension of his surroundings and began to reply. "Uhm, Pie? Well... I-i'm kinda-"
"We're very busy thank-" began Darlans to say, then got distracted again when he realized who was standing in the door way, "Wait a moment..." His face showed a sign of slowly dawning realization."You we're the one who almost bungled that Kobold deal!" he then rubbed his head, remembering the clonking the old miner had given him. "Hmm... come to think of it, that part of the woods last night did seem aful familiar... but never mind that, time to finish what I started, old man." Said the half bemused, half-enraged agent of the Defias Brotherhood. He raised his gun and took aim at the miner, and, in a shocking repeat of their last bout, Rhodark came up on the side of his head with his prized possesion.
Darlans, anticipating this movement at the last moment, dropped his gun to the floor and threw his hand up to grab the the handle of the mining instrument, his other hand flying to the ax hanging at his side, quickly unsheathing it.
Rhodark, who had no alternate battle plan than 'smash the guy in the head again', panicked and turned around, runing blindly in a random direction. Within two seconds he was face to face with a wall, and within another he was on the floor, half-concious from the impact.
Darlans showed extreme restraint by not bursting into hysterical laughter like he wanted to. He now moved over the aging miner, his eyes trained on Rhodark's half lidded ones, looking for signs of consiousness. "Well, well... looks like it's time to finish you off old-" here he lifted his ax high in the air, and it began to bring it down with stunning speed down upon the old man's face.
"WAIT!" cried the frightened young man who was now hiding behind his chair. Darlans ax stopped just inches away from Rhodark's face. "I-I'll sell the farm, just leave Rhodark alone, h-he m-m-means no harm, he just wanted some pie!"
Darlans quite nearly dismissed the boy's plea, knowing they'd just take the farm by force if he didn't fold. But he had been told that VanCleef wanted as few citizens harmed in their take-over as possible, and that taking Brackwell by force was not at all going to make him happy, so Darlans raised the blade back up, and turned toward his buisness accociate."Hmm... very good, then. Here's the gold." He said, untieing a rather large sack from his belt and tossing it on a rickety old coffee table in the center of the room."and here's the contract." He said, pulling a small scroll from his pocket. "Sign it."
It was now or never. The Undead city put up much more resistance than had been anticipated. His forces were broken and scattered throughout the Undercity, only a portion of them still within proximity of their fearless leader. Rhodark knew that defeat was inevitable as long as the Forsaken still had their Dark Lady to rally around. Pulling all the men he still had controll of into a tight formation, Rhodark lead a charge down the narrow hallway leading toward the inner sanctum of Sylvannas Windrunner.
Within minutes they were there, in the deepest sanctum of the city of zombies. Rhodark stared the dark lady in the face while his men took to eliminating her body guards. She gave off a faint smile and lifted her wand, pointing it toward him and said in a frigheningly echoing voice, "You're campaing of glory ends today human!"
She fired a massively powerful bolt of dark purple enegy toward his face, and all faded away.
Rhodark stirred about, unaware of where he was, or why he was there. He could hear the sounds of someone frenziedly scrambling about the house, probably looking for something, he could feel the small prickling of the splintered wood of the floor poking into his back through his flimsy mail armor. He could smell the delightful aroma of pumpkin pie through the distasteful scent of mold and mildew. He must've been in Jonathan Brackwells house, and good ole' John was searchin' around for his pie. Lifiting him self up off the floor into a sitting position with his arms, Rhodark use his full availiable brain power to formulate a sentence of some form.
"'ey, 'a' pie es tas'y John, tas'y 'deed" Even considering his normal speech patterns, his speech paterns were obviously hindered by his concusion.
"Ugh, must you regain consiousness?" said Darlans, disgust rampant in his voice. At that exact moment Jonathan returned a pen, inkwell, and a piece of pie, quickly dipping the pen in the ink and signing the contract. "Good, good. Now I must ask you to cease your tresspassing upon Defias lands. If you don't comply within two minutes I will be forced to destroy you." Said the red-clad man, smiling, his eyes showing a bit of madness and a lust for blood.
Johnathan, a tad revolted at himself for what he had just done, quickly moved to Rhodark and hefted him up onto his shoulder with one arm, carrying his promised piece of pie with the other. He quickly hobbled away from the house and across the patch, not stopping to bid farewell to his beloved Princess.
Upon reaching the road Rhodark's consiousness was stable enough to walk on his own, even if he did not know quite where he was going. "Oh, man Rhodark, what've I done!"
"Uh... I dunno, wut 'ave yeh dun?" said Rhodark, his voice back to normal agian... or at least normal for him.
"I sold the farm to those horrible Defias Bandits!" cried Johnathan, who looked to be on the verge of tears.
"Oh... 'ell did yeh get yerself paid?" Said Rhodark, not quite understanding the boy's distress.
"O-Of corse I did! B-but that doesn't make a diffrence! Now those horrible people have the Farm!"
"Uhm... so? The place wasn' in su' good shape anywa'... is tha' pie?" Said rhodark, eyeing the round baked good under Jonathan's left arm.
"Uhh? Oh, right, here." Jonathan handed the piece of pie to his famished friend.
"Delic'us!" Cried Rhodark, biting into it almost before the pie was in his hands.
"I d-dont see how you care so litte about this Rho! This is disasterous! One of us has to go and tell the authorities!"
"Oh, luck' thar's Goldshire," said rhodark, pointing out their proximity to the small town."Yeh realleh thenk weh need ter talk ter tha author'ties 'bout this?"
"YES! YES WE DO! Rho, this is something that needs to be reported to the keep! This is big news! This is something that even the King should be made aware of!" said a nearly enraged Brackwell, his face red and his breathing heavy after his outburst.
"Okay thi'n. Ah'll go." said Rhodark bluntly.
"Y-Y-You will?" Jon said, flabbergasted.
"Yeh! Me an' tha Highlord 're gud fr'nds." Said Rhodark, taking off toward Stormwind at a jog. Leaving John standing there on the edge of Goldshire, agahst, confused, and pieless.