"So can you look after things?" Whisper looked like she was about to have a heart attack or just burst into tears.

Sham nodded quickly. "Of course. Do you need me to head over to the shop now, or...?"

"No, I went ahead and closed for today," Whisper said in a single exhale. She ran her fingers over her mane and then fumbled in her pocket for keys to the shop and a list of things that would need to be tended. After Timmons' last stunt, she thought perhaps making a list would help Sham to run the store. As she handed the orcess the paper, she half hugged her. "Thank you! I'd ask Liila, but she's doing some sort of research or something, and she can't really divide her attention between that and watching the shop—"

"It's fine." Sham smiled and nodded to Whisper, though her enthusiasm slipped as she realized she could hardly read Whisper's writing. She pushed aside her worries and patted the tauren. "You take care of your mother, alright? Let us know how she's doing."

As Whisper clopped off to find someone to give her a portal to Thunderbluff, Sham hurried back into her house to assure herself that her stew hadn't boiled over. Content that it wasn't ruined, she stirred it absentmindedly and looked over the list Whisper had given her. Knowing that dinner wouldn't be overcooked from another moment or two of neglect, she wandered upstairs to her and Gore's bedroom to retrieve some paper, ink, and a pen, thinking to try to figure out exactly what it was Whisper wanted her to do and make her own list.

She rummaged through a dresser and frowned when she realized Gore must have moved the paper again, or used the last of hers. The man could defend a city and mobilize a guild like no other, but when it came to letting Sham know when he needed more supplies for reports or wanted signs, he never mentioned anything until they were completely out of whatever he was looking for.

At least she still had ink. She supposed she would have to make do with making notes on the page Whisper had given her and pick up a few things at the market on her way to open shop in the morning. As she checked a few last places in the room, hoping in vain for a scrap of parchment, she heard footsteps downstairs. She gave up and headed down in time to see Lash vanish out the door with his travel satchel slung over his shoulder. Sham couldn't help but look at the empty room that he normally lounged in with Duskeh. Gore had jokingly said something—Sham hadn't heard what exactly, but after seeing Lash's cheeks flush, she had an idea of the subject—and the hunter had stayed the last two nights at Liila's. However, while Sham had thought Gore might want to talk, he'd ended up being called away both evenings for meetings with the warchief.

Speaking of her husband, he would be due home any time. Though with her recent luck, he'd be heading off again in half an hour. And with Lash gone as well, the house felt oddly empty. Normally, she'd have visited Khai'rhi or invited her over, but she and Genji seemed to be making up for all the time they'd spent in their awkward stalemate, and as a result Khai'rhi's schedule had been taken over by the mage.

Sham was happy for them, though she had to profess to feeling a bit lonely. She'd already decided she'd go harass Liila and her lot if tonight looked to turn into another solitary evening.

"What's for dinner?"

Sham snapped out of her thoughts and turned to see Gore standing beside the pot she had over the fire. His hand was on the lid, though he looked as though he were unsure if opening it might somehow ruin the contents. Men.

Setting her ink and quill down on the table where Lash normally sat, she trotted past him to get bowls. "Boar and vegetable stew." Gore merely grunted his approval as he wandered over to the table and took a seat. Sham looked after him and then at the door, as though Lash would poke his head back in. The hunter was already long gone, however. "Is Lash heading out to go help in Ashenvale? I know he was talking about it..." Sham's voice drifted off as Gore looked at her and shook his head slowly.

Sham brought his dinner to him and sat down. She stirred her own soup around quietly as she waited for him to start talking about something. Lash's plans, inept guards, a thwarted Alliance attack, anything. Silence defied her expectations. She finished her soup quickly and paused when she saw he'd barely eaten any of his. With a playful smile, she pushed his shoulder. "Is there a reason you're giving me the silent treatment?"

"I'd like to have dinner in peace," Gore muttered.

Sham narrowed her eyes slowly as she watched him, incredulous that he would talk to her as though she were anything but an equal. Part of her wanted to snap at him and then stalk out of the house, but then...Gore wasn't generally like this. In fact, he'd never acted this cold.

Not to her.

She slid closer to him and leaned her head against his shoulder. For a moment, his muscles tensed, and she thought he was going to tell her to go away, but instead he slipped one of his arms around her waist and held her to him.

Sham wasn't sure how long they stayed like that before Gore sighed, squeezed her gently, and released her so that he could finish his soup. She ran her fingers down his arm. "What bothers you?"

At first Gore merely frowned. Then he started to shrug, though he caught himself before he could jostle Sham. He ran his fingers along her chin and her neck as he looked down at her. "I am being replaced as the commander of Orgrimmar's security."

Sham jerked her head up, eyes wide. "What?"

"They feel that if I had been doing my job instead of..." his face twisted with disgust, "...'roaming the countryside' then Orgrimmar would not have been hit as hard by the ghouls."

"But..." Sham searched for something she could say that would make it better. Something that he could defend himself with. But what could they say? That he'd been busy killing Kil'jaeden? They'd always stayed out of the spotlight with their victories and to suddenly push for recognition would be taken as a desperate move. Besides, she'd always suspected that Thrall was smart enough to figure out the correlation between Gore's absences and the deaths of old gods and other threats.

Gore patted her hand lightly. "Thrall requested that I go with Garrosh and Saurfang to Northrend."

"That's not as bad as you made it sound, then," Sham offered. "They still think you are a worthy warrior."

"If Garrosh had his way—"

"But he doesn't," Sham slipped her arms around his. "Thrall is wise enough to know who to listen to and when."

"Garrosh will be in charge of the Horde establishments in Northrend. I do not think I can take orders from that fool."

"Then don't," Sham shrugged and smiled at her husband as he eyed her as though he expected she was laying a trap for him. She leaned up and kissed him quickly. "You haven't trusted Garrosh since he came here, and I trust you. If you think he is too foolhardy to lead, then don't follow him."

Gore straightened up, indignant. "What do you expect me to do, retire?" It was a human concept that he'd never quite understood. How did a warrior just stop doing their duty to their people and sit at home? It was far better to swing one's axe to strike down opponents until there were either none left or you fell to them. And as far as threats went, while Gregor was his friend, Gore knew that so long as the Alliance existed, there would always be reason to bear arms.

Sham rolled her eyes. "Or you could become a full time guild leader." When he merely grumbled that he already was a guild leader full time, Sham grinned. "But think, if you rallied Impervious to move into Northrend instead of just having a few ragtag bands wander around at their leisure, then imagine how much swifter things would go. And you could do it under our banner instead of taking orders from Garrosh."

Gore took a deep breath as he considered it and then gave his wife a half smile. "Mitchell would complain that it was cold. Haa'aji would probably do something stupid like steal Garrosh's axe. Timmons and Enlyhn would make enemies with the natives and leave the rest of us on horrible terms with them. Whisper and Margaret and Liila would wander off on their own and come back exalted with some bizarre people who, through some inexplicable twist of fate, would never trust the rest of us."

"And you've yet to say anything that would be a good reason not to go as a guild," Sham teased.

"I suppose I'll have to consider that then." As Gore shook his head and chuckled at the thought of Haa'aji and Gregor trapped on a zeppelin together for the duration of the trip north, Sham rose to her feet and took their bowls from the table, setting them aside to be washed later. After she'd doused the fire under the pot of stew, she let out a small cry as Gore lifted her into the air.

He gave her a gentle grin as he pulled her close and kissed her. "Shall we put off our worries? At least for the night?"

Sham crossed her arms and feigned an insulted look. "I was never worried."

Gore laughed as he carried her upstairs.

~"~

Gore had left for duty that morning with a bounce in his step that Sham hadn't seen in months...mainly since Garrosh had begun to speak out and attempt to shape Orgrimmar's future. Sham was rather pleased herself. It was nice having the house to themselves and, while she loved Lash like a son, she wondered if she ought to start hinting that he should look into starting his own family. After all, he was a grown orc.

Sham was so enraptured by her thoughts that she completely missed her name being called. It wasn't until she felt someone's hand on her shoulder that she snapped back to reality and turned quickly to see who it was who was stopping her. She didn't realize that she'd gripped her satchel to use as like a dull morning star until she felt her grip loosening.

Offering her a quick smile, Murk, the orc who'd stopped her, nodded her way. "Throm-Ka." As Sham echoed the greeting, he glanced around. "You seem on edge."

"You just surprised me," Sham shrugged and then laughed. "And I never know when one of those idiots in my guild is going to come up looking for someone to hide them from one of the other idiots."

Murk laughed. "I don't see how you guys manage to keep them in line."

"The same way Taknar keeps your lot from wreaking havoc, I suppose," Sham grinned back, though her smile slipped as Murk glanced around again. She swung her satchel casually, as she allowed her gaze to wander the street as well. What was he looking for?

"I really want to talk to you about something."

Sham looked back at him questioningly, though he kept his own attention away from her. When he didn't immediately offer whatever his concern was, she frowned. "What is it?"

"Try to stay casual, will you?" Murk murmured, smiling and nodding to a few guards who threw out greetings to the two shamans. When Sham didn't respond, he looked back at her to see she had a look on her face that implied her patience was intact, but an underlying sternness had overtaken her. He shrugged his shoulders and made a few hand motions as he started talking. It took Sham a moment to realize he was making it look like he was talking about something else to anyone who saw them. "There's not...Impervious has never aided the Alliance, right?"

Sham eyed him, noting a slightly panicked light in the back of his eyes. She shrugged and made a few motions as though she were describing a flask or trinket. "Of course not. Why would you even ask me that?"

Murk chewed on his lip. "If you haven't done anything, there shouldn't be anything to worry about, I suppose..."

"What are you talking about?" Sham nearly stopped in her tracks, but Murk caught her by her elbow and kept her walking.

"Look, I can't go into details—"

"Murk!"

Both orcs stopped and turned to see Murk's guild mate, Embry Sandsliver, clopping up to them. Her mace thudded dully against her back as she ran. When she stopped in front of them, she didn't even look at Sham. "Murk. I've been looking everywhere for you. You said you'd heal for me in the Gulch, remember?"

Murk shifted his weight, and Sham noticed how he seemed to flinch from the look Embry gave him before finally giving the tauren a half nod. "Right. It slipped my mind."

Embry looked at Sham as though she hadn't just given her the cold shoulder and shrugged with mock helplessness. "Men, right?"

Before Sham could agree, Embry had Murk by the arm and was dragging him off. Just before they were out of earshot, she heard Murk hiss, "...when they hear we weren't at the Gulch, it's gonna look suspicious—"

"Like anyone in Impervious would ever know who goes to the Gulch. Don't do anything stupid, alright?"

Sham had to force herself not to follow them and demand to know what was going on. First Gore said he was being kicked from his position. Now their loyalty to the Horde was in question? When had they ever done anything that wasn't in the Horde's best interest?

While she considered trying to track down Lisp and see if he knew what was going on with Blood and Honor, she decided against it. However, she figured that it wouldn't hurt if she opened shop a few minutes late and decided to keep her information gathering in the guild, if possible. Picking up her pace, she took a few twists and turns until she found herself in front of Howl's hut. She knocked on the windowsill and then peered in, frowning to see that his home was already empty.

"Looking for Howl?"

Sham paused and waved to one of her guild mate's neighbors as she nodded.

The older orc woman nodded as she rested a basket of laundry on one of her hips. "He headed to the forge about half an hour ago."

"Ah, thank you—"

"It was mighty strange, though." The older orc frowned at Sham, as though to imply a reprimand was in order for Howl. "Some soldiers came to get him. Made all sorts of noise to wake him up."

Sham offered a quick apology. "Howl could sleep in the middle of the maelstrom." When the other orc merely grunted, Sham excused herself and hurried over to the forges.

She had to say she was relieved to see that Howl was actually there and that he wasn't shackled to the wall. She wasn't sure why she'd thought he would be, but she could practically hear the wind whispering conspiracies. Sham frowned as she realized that perhaps she was more worried about Gore's position than she'd originally thought.

As she stepped into the forge, Howl looked up and offered her a quick wave. "Sham! What's got you up this early?"

She smiled. "Whisper asked me to run her shop, and I was worried I'd be late."

Glancing out the door behind her, Howl flashed her a crooked grin. "Looks like you might be."

With a sigh, Sham looked out to see the sun was higher than she'd realized. She'd been so bent on getting information, she hadn't realized how long it'd taken her to get there. She might be able to make it in time if she made a run for it, but...

"Howl, can I talk to you for a minute?"

He glanced around the empty forge and then shrugged, resting his blacksmithing hammer on the table and leaning against it. "What do you need?"

Sham hesitated, feeling like something was watching her from the shadows. After working with Haa'aji and Roberts for so long, she didn't trust the spacious room. There were too many places a person could hide. "You're alone today?"

"My former apprentices are out getting a few ore shipments," he paused and motioned for her to step closer. "Why?"

Fighting the urge to hunch her shoulders and whisper, Sham merely shook her head. "A few members of Blood and Honor are acting strangely." She hesitated as she considered saying that their 'oddness' was different from usual. However, as she looked up at Howl, she was unsettled to see that he didn't need any such clarifications.

"Something's going on, but I don't know what," he took in a slow breath, "and you're gonna have to look for someone else to help figure it out because Garrosh has requested that I oversee the production of his guards' weaponry and armor, personally."

"That's an honor," Sham started, though Howl merely frowned and heaved himself away from his anvil.

"If I believed that was the real reason I'm going to be holed up here for the next three weeks, it might be."

~"~

Sham came to a halt as she neared Whisper's Vials. Leafless was standing a few feet away from the shop, arms crossed and a light frost permeating the ground around her, despite the heat of the day that was already beginning to make sweat bead on Sham's forehead. She hoped that was what was making her sweat and not the nerve wracking matter that something was very wrong in Orgrimmar.

Haa'aji was impossible to reach, and Roberts had already told her that he couldn't look into matters because he was awaiting an assignment from the Dark Lady. Sham had to force herself not to start scrawling out her concerns on the guild stone. The last thing she needed was her guild to think she was paranoid.

Leafless had helped Howl gather information all through his adventures in Outland, and Sham half considered heading over to the tauren and trying to work around the woman's foul mood when she noticed Leafless flip open one of her bags and inspect a few half empty vials.

Great. With the day she was having, Leafless' ruthless scrutiny over the potions in the shop was just what she needed. At least she had her list...

Sham's eyes widened as she realized she'd forgotten the paper. She could see it still sitting on the table in her home and wrinkles lined her frown. Which would be worse? Leafless' harsh criticism from a lack of knowledge of the potions or from losing more time that the shop could be in business? Sham squinted up at the pale blue sky and sighed, figuring that regardless, she ought to let Leafless know the shop would be open late.

However, before she could call out to her, Leafless shoved her potions back into her bags and stalked off. Sham considered going after her, but dismissed it. That might look desperate to someone watching. Like she was expending her sources for information for something, and whoever was watching might get suspicious as to what that something was.

It seemed all of the fates had grown bored and joined forces to make her suffer an intolerably stressful day.

She hoped it would just be a day.

Sham hurried through the streets back to her house, thoughts bouncing around in her head. Did she look suspicious hurrying as she was? All she'd done was forget a piece of paper, but what if more members of Blood and Honor were watching her? Would they think she was trying to hide something?

As Sham darted into her house and to the table where her list still sat, she jumped as she heard something rustle behind her. Whirling around, again ready to wield her satchel as a weapon—why did she have to keep her mace upstairs?—she stopped in her tracks when she saw Wrachette and Enlyhn staring back at her with wide eyes.

Enlyhn picked up Wrachette, despite the goblin's protests and made a point to hand her to Sham. "She's yours now. Have fun."

Ignoring Wrachette as she swore up and down at him, he dropped her and stalked out of the hut. Sham managed to catch Wrachette before she could hit the ground and set her down gently, glancing after the receding form of their warlock and then back.

In truth, Enlyhn would have been happy to let Wrachette fend for herself in the sprawling capital, but after squeezing a summons out of the orcish warlock coven, the little goblin had made a point to be an annoyance to he and his compatriots about how someone needed to show her around. Finally, the grand warlock had snapped and told him to take the damnable creature elsewhere before he ended her. While Enlyhn had thought it rather considerate that the grand warlock would offer a warning before snuffing Wrachette's existence, his guild mate had not seen it that way and had proceeded to rant to him about common decency for the last twenty minutes. It was a wonder that Enlyhn hadn't set the little shaman on fire yet. Thus, when he'd seen Sham, he'd decided to escape before Wrachette could fill in his guild leader. He'd take demons tearing apart his soul any day over being damned to have to listen to two ladies complain to him about matters beyond his control.

"What's going on?" Sham couldn't take much more mystery.

"I'm officially Horde!" Wrachette chirped, straightening up and saluting with such force that her ears bobbed twice. She kept talking as Sham looked past her to see a small satchel resting in the doorway—all of Wrachette's earthly belongings fit into such a small space. Odd for a goblin. "But! I have ta warn ya! I told Enlyhn, but he was bein' weird about it...but I don't think we should be usin' our guild stones for a while. There's some weird Alliance spy runnin' around. He threatened Sprocket and so Sprocket's comin' ta Org, too. And he knew about all of our raids and..."

It took a moment for Sham to get Wrachette to slow down and explain everything. When she was done, Sham ran her fingers down her face. "Did you let Tizzle know you were leaving?"

"Psh," Wrachette rolled her eyes. "I left that moron a note. Right on top of his stacks of ledgers. There's no way he doesn't know where I am."

"And you don't think he'll come, too?"

Wrachette shrugged, disinterested. "Just because we're twins, doesn't mean we gotta do everythin' together, ya know?"

Sham however, barely nodded. So now the Horde and the Alliance were looking into them? It didn't make any sense. Even as Sham began to wonder what was going on, or more importantly, what had happened to bring their loyalty into question to begin with, Wrachette's recount of Sprocket's suspicions that their guild stones were being spied upon sunk in.

Ancestors, she'd probably alerted whoever was watching them that something was up when she started asking Haa'aji and the others for help.

Trying to think of what to do, she finally pocketed the list she'd come for and then motioned toward the door. "Come with me. I'm far too late with opening the shop—"

"Whisper's Vials?" Wrachette perked up. She'd heard of the little business, but had never been far enough into Orgrimmar to see it herself. While she might not have been nearly as competent with management as her brother, she still understood basic models and was curious to see how Whisper ran shop. Did they have tabs for frequent buyers? Was it a cash only sort of deal or did they accept trades? Wrachette felt giddy, wondering what sort of things she might learn about orcish trading policies.

"Yes," Sham said quickly, forcing the conversation back on topic. "Come with me and when we get there, I'll draw you a map to Liila's house, alright? We need Haa'aji if we want to find out what's going on. If anyone can get in contact with him now, it'd be Liila."

~"~

Liila's pen stilled on the parchment she was scribbling across, and the ink began to pool into a splotch, consuming half of the word she'd just finished. "Cinder, please stop leaning over me. It's distracting."

Cinder Darkweaver frowned at the little elf, but complied and stepped away from her chair, instead choosing to take a seat on the edge of the desk so that she could still see what her friend was working on. She was a half-breed druid, half troll, half orc who'd been raised in tauren society. As a result, she was shorter than most trolls, slenderer than most orcs, and had a better understand of nature than most any member of either of her species. Margaret used to constantly tease her that she just looked like a pale green human...the pointy ears, small tusks, and brilliant red hair didn't count, of course.

One of the original founders of Impervious, Cinder had never formally left the guild when she'd run off with her lover and had sent several threatening letters to all the appropriate people to assure that she wouldn't be kicked from the guild for going AWOL. She'd been insistent that military disciplinary actions were unnecessary in a guild. Gore had written her back with an angry letter of his own when she'd equated their lot to mercenaries.

Besides, she hardly considered it her fault. Almost two years ago, she'd been quite happily single and living in a rather comfy hut when Mitchell had accidentally blown it up—while the mage claimed it to have been an accident, there was a great deal of skepticism that he had been avenging his pet cockroach, Squirmy, whom Cinder had squished only a week prior...another supposed accident which many had suspected was a result of Mitchell 'accidentally' setting Cinder's favorite robe on fire which...well, there were a lot of 'accidents' that happened when Mitchell and Cinder were in the same room, and each accident always seemed preceded by another. Several of their guild mates had attempted to draw a time line and figure out who had started the subtle war, but in the end their meticulous charts had vanished, and everyone was left to wonder.

At the time of her housing dilemma, Whisper was only just beginning to harass Liila and Margaret to buy a house with her, and a good many of the other guild members were either homeless or living in cramped conditions as it were. Howl had been in a semi-serious relationship with a lovely young warrior who'd had a jealous streak more malevolent than the black flight and had refused to share Howl's house with another female. As a result, Cinder had found herself staying with Enlyhn.

That was where she'd met Nimlia, the most gorgeous creature she'd ever seen. Such perfection...to think it could be contained in a single creature. Sure, everyone had tried to tell her that succubi could make themselves attractive to anyone with their wily charms and demonic magic, but it had been more than that. The demon hadn't attempted to seduce her. Rather, she had sympathized, told her of losing her own home, her freedom.

Their conversations had been so honest, so tender...

Cinder eyed her elven companion as Liila picked up her pen and began writing again. She crossed her arms and then uncrossed them. Then she began to play with one of the feathers she'd strung up in her hair. "Who leaves a fourteen page goodbye letter, anyway? In demonic, no less?"

"A demon?" Liila replied, unamused.

Cinder frowned and dropped her feather. "I don't understand it. We were in love. Why would she just leave me?"

"If you would let me finish translating the note, I'll let you know."

Liila had a talent for languages, which had come in handy on more than one occasion as she traversed Azeroth. However, at the moment, she found herself silently cursing her gift and Cinder both.

Sethyl had sent her word that there might be issues with getting her access to Silvermoon, and her mind was twisting between relief and indignant frustration. If she wasn't allowed into the city, then that was an excuse to give up on her past, if only for a while. On the other hand, it had been her city once, hadn't it? Who were they to say she couldn't go home?

Liila paused and scratched out the last word she'd written, as it was from her own thoughts rather than the note she was transcribing.

Cinder abruptly jerked from her roost and back onto the armrest of Liila's chair, leaning her chin against the small elf's shoulder as she peered at the words scrawled across the page. "Do you need a break? I wouldn't think that you would have so much trouble..."

Turning her head so that she could eye her visitor, her voice mirrored the faint annoyance on her features. "Is this your altruism kicking in or did you change your mind about wanting to know?"

"I want to know...unless she's saying she never loved me. Is she saying that?" Cinder leaned forward to inspect the paper more carefully and then straightened up. "No, don't tell me if she is."

Even as Liila's eye nearly twitched, footsteps from the floor below interrupted both ladies' conflicted thoughts. They quieted and waited until a scratchy voice called out for someone.

"Liila? Ya home?"

Cinder jumped to her feet and ran for the ramp leading downstairs. "Wrachette! C'mere you adorable little imp!"

"I'm a damned goblin..."

Liila trotted down after Cinder, though she stopped in her tracks when she saw Wrachette trying to wave an axe menacingly while being crushed against Cinder's ample bosom. "Put me down!" Even though Cinder merely cackled and squeezed her harder, Wrachette managed to forget her harasser when she saw Liila. "Liila! We got an emergency! We need Haa'aji home, now! And if ya got a way ta contact him without the guild stones, that'd be best..."

While Wrachette had to wonder if such a way existed, she was mildly surprised to see Liila merely pull off one of her earring studs and then tap it several times. Runes flickered in the air above it, and then she scribbled something onto the tiny gem before putting it back in her ear.

"Done. He'll be home in the next three days."

~"~

Haa'aji eyed the pink haze beneath the tree that several sentinels and adventurers stood in front of, laughing and talking. Those sentinels were deceptive little bastards, pretending that they weren't paying attention when they really were. He'd already tried to get close enough to run through the mists to freedom four times. Each time, as soon as he came just beyond an arm's reach, the sentinels would perk up and look straight at him.

By the loa, he wasn't sure if they actually saw him or not. They might have just been screwing with him at this point. Or perhaps they sought annoy him into carelessness. He drummed his fingers against one of his knees silently, watching for an opening as he had been for the last twelve hours. At least traveling through the Plaguelands had taught him patience.

What in the twisting nether was up with that portal tree, anyway? The kaldorei were always complaining about arcane magic and how bad it was, but they didn't seem to mind using it if it was convenient. Hypocrites. The next time he was in Silithus, he was going to let those Cenarion morons know exactly what he thought of their culture...by stealing anything worthwhile that wasn't nailed to the floor.

Admittedly, he probably wouldn't have been plotting the downfall of the night elven society had he brought a decent about of food with him—he'd run out two days ago—but harping on his own shortcomings left his demeanor even darker, so he chose to ignore that he might have dug his own grave.

He considered trying to contact Enlyhn again. Timmons was in one of his bitchy moods, so far as he could tell, and wasn't responding to any of his messages. Sometimes the idiot warlock would just ignore him for days, only to finally snap, "You know what you did!"

While this statement was generally true, Haa'aji still felt this to be a poor reason to leave him stranded. And this time he hadn't even actually done anything.

That Timmons knew about.

That left Enlyhn. After his last request, the warlock had written him back, asking if the rest of the guild realized that he was a master of darkness and not just someone who could give them a free ride to Orgrimmar. Haa'aji was fairly certain that Enlyhn was ignoring him now because of his response about understanding how mages felt.

Another group of sentinels patrolled down a road a few yards behind him, but he didn't bother to turn around. He'd hear if they were coming too close and would make a run for the tree branches off to his right. Perhaps he ought to just do that anyway...scale down the tree. He frowned at the thought of swimming back to Kalimdor. He'd much rather just run through the mists and sneak onto a boat.

Or just get a damned summons. At this rate he was going to have to pick a side in his coven war and ingratiate himself to either the orcs or forsaken just to get home.

Fighting back a sigh, he blinked his eyes a few times to stay his weariness and continued to watch for an opening. This would have been so much easier if he had just made sure to double check all the potions he'd stolen from the kaldorei's alchemy shop. He'd grabbed the usual replacements for what he'd taken from Whisper's Vials, plus a few nifty ones that he'd heard one of the elves bragging about. The potions could make the drinker don the appearance of another. While Haa'aji could have sworn that he'd taken seven such potions and had used the first five to impersonate sentinels and civilians alike in order to start a little bit of chaos in different parts of the city, he'd found the last one he'd grabbed to have been one that made him grow in size, after a huntress had shot an arrow through his sixth potion. It had been considerably harder to hide from the angry mobs overturning every leaf to find him once he was twice his usual size.

Luckily it had worn off the night before, and he was fairly certain that the angry mob was still looking for a giant.

The sentinels caught the faint chime before Haa'aji, and he cursed his luck as he slipped back through the shadows and wove his way through some of the nearer trees. How the fuck was his guild stone going off? It should have been on silent. Was Mitchell fiddling with the spells on it again? It seems like he did that every Tuesday, and every Tuesday things went wrong.

When he was sure he hadn't been followed, Haa'aji pulled the small stone from his pocket and paused as he realized that it was silent, and there had been no new messages, aside from one that said not to use the stones.

Tired as he was, it took him a moment—and another chime—before it dawned on him that it was a small orb attached to a thin chain around his neck that was emitting the noise. He slipped the chain up over his head so that he could see the stone more easily and tapped it until runes flickered through the air over it.

He'd barely registered the message when he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned his head to see a rather perturbed druid standing behind him.

"Shit."