It was night, and the sky was clear of clouds. Stars shone overhead; millions of celestial beings visibly glittering in their near perfection, a view for all to see. All but the Redridge pack, whose torches of flame blocked the sky with smoke and ash.

For the first time in Kowler's two years of existence – in this life, at least – the pack was acting as a united, semi-cohesive force. They followed Yowler with minimal fuss, through hills and trees and mountainous high cliffs. Three days they had trekked, and already seven gnolls had fallen to their doom along the steep edges. The fact that Yowler had forbid his gnolls from going after those fallen corpses for a fresh meal surprised Kowler more than anything else.

Kowler did not know where they were going. All he knew was that a youngling had found something and told his father, and Yowler was mightily curious. Curious enough to use his status as alpha to do more than steal women and meals. He'd formed his ranks and sounded the drums, leading just over thirty members of his pack to an outcropping along the western breach of the canyon. Kowler had no choice but to come along; he was a known magic user and healer. His intent had been to stay behind and defend their home but Yowler forbade it; and should he disobey Yowler's order he risked death. Only the bitches and children and elderly mystics were to stay behind. The moment was soon to approach, his leaving of Redridge, but Kowler did not yet feel it time to leave his pack, and so he followed along- begrudgingly and in the back of the line. A bit of climbing and careful maneuvering of footfalls, and the Redridge pack found something new and exciting and horribly dangerous all the same.

A mountain pass, abandoned and roughly grown over with thick roots and brambles.

Where the pass led was still a mystery to Kowler; a mystery to all the gnolls who'd come on this expedition. A mystery to Yowler himself. But it was a cemented stone-wrought structure; manmade. Likely an attempt of travel between the provinces before the southern path was built, or perhaps even a bandit lane. Its pavement was roughed over and the posts that once held candle wicks were rotted near to the core, but the simple fact that it existed meant it might lead somewhere.

Dull though the gnolls were, they did have a sort of intellect to them, and they knew and understood this much at the very least. Roads led places, and they liked the idea finding new places to go.

The pass was a wavy, snaking thing, built not through the mountains but in tandem with them. Like a river, the pass followed the fall of the earth, the path of least resistance. However, the length of it was an issue, as was the direction it took. Three hours they had walked its path, and Kowler had no clue where in the hell they might have been.

Another reason this was abandoned, Kowler mused, keeping a wary eye on an exuberant pair of gnolls and their barely tamed coyote's. Those dogs had cost their party two younglings in their hunger and would likely do worse soon enough. The road was too long, a mark against it for travelers long gone.

But then a shout echoed from the front, one with a gleeful tone. It carried strongly, and the enthusiastic cheer in it had the pack rushing forward. Kowler was no exception, bodily hurtling himself over others in order to see what there was. By luck, he'd grown well, and now stood over five feet in height with a strength to match, though by what exact measurement he knew not. It was a simple affair to stand over his kin to look for purchase.

However, even with the slightest bits of glee he felt regarding his strength over his fellow gnolls, it was quick to be washed away when his sight focused on what was visible.

Buildings of pale wood with blue lined roofs lined the way. It was a small settlement, with perhaps only forty huts and homes and stalls to be found. Smoke escaped the chimney of a smithy, and even from far off, he could smell the waft of a horses stable, courtesy of his more powerful nose.

He knew this place. It was Eastvale Watch, the logging camp that also happened to be easternmost civilization in the Elwynn Forest, where the guards that kept the defense of the regional bridge between Goldshire and Redridge barracked.

There was a sinking feeling in his gut, churning and whirling without abandon. This would not end well.

Yowler cared not, however. With a roar, and a cry of "Food!" he charged, and the pack followed.

Kowler was just one among many. The only one among this group that was not excited. Attacking Eastvale Watch was not only foolish, it was more likely to lead to his death than his initial intention of not even joining Yowler's crusade.

Sadly, due to his lack of enthusiasm, he was among the slower gnolls, overtaken by many in his pack. Upon reaching the village, the buildings and farms and stables were already being attacked. Feminine screams of terror and rallied cries of defense encompassed the area, and before Kowler realized it, his instincts took over and he rushed towards what sounded to be the youngest of the screams.

It was in a smaller hut, with its singular window broken through. A woman and a pair of young children shrieked, and as Kowler dove inside, he found why. One of his gnoll brethren was chewing on a now dead dog, holding an axe menacingly at the trio, his intentions obvious after his snack was devoured. The woman was terrified, huddled in a corner with her children in her arms. One boy, one girl. The boy and his mother were relatively unharmed, but the daughter was bleeding from her arm, trembling.

Before the gnoll could react, Kowler attacked, stabbing him in the skull with little fanfare. The gnoll stilled, then crumpled to the floor, blood flowing onto a bear-skin rug.

Looking towards the trio, Kowler surveyed the room. It was bare, save for a singular large bed, large enough to hold all three of them, and a thick closet space.

"Get in the closet," he commanded, pointing a black claw towards space in question.

"Why, so you can cook us?!" The mother asked tearily. She clutched her children tighter to her body.

Scowling, Kowler approached, grabbing at the staff strapped to his back. It was a carved thing of gnarled and unassuming wood, thicker at its claw depicting head. This was the totem he crafted to connect his essence with Astreamor's. It was much easier to carry a staff rather than the thick, ceremonial lugs that the game showcased, especially since he couldn't just summon them at will. And, because it was subtle, it was unlikely to be considered anything of note aside from being a well-cared walking stick.

He held it up, silently asking for aid, and water poured forth in answer, simmering over the young girl's arm. She shrieked in surprised but quickly calmed into an awed silence when her wound visibly knit together before them, the blood dissipating into the stream until there was no red remaining.

Confusion overtook the mother's face, and Kowler took advantage. "Get in the closet. Now. I cannot hold them back long."

She needed no further convincing. With a quick movement, and strength that belied hard working days, she lifted her children and shunted them into the closet, following soon after. Kowler handed her his knife, and she took it shakily.

Before closing the door, she made her query. "Why do this? Why help us?"

"We should have never invaded this place," Kowler bluntly stated. She stared at him in blatant confusion, and so he clarified. "I wanted nothing to do with this violence, but I was refused to guard our camp. I won't have this on my conscience. Now get in. Don't come out until you know it's safe."

"Thank you." She said, closing the door, finagling a lock from the inside.

Kowler quickly lifted his robe, took out his cock, and pissed on the wood, both on the closet and the whole of the hut. It was a harsh, strong scent, just as he needed to keep them alive. It let the pack know that he claimed this space as his own.

A horn sounded from outside. Kowler chanced a look out the door and saw the bridge guards normally approaching on horseback. Yowler and the rest of the pack let out harsh screams and ran for it, pigs and chickens and random trinkets in hand, and Kowler knew that he'd need to do the same.

Diving out the broken window, he rushed away from the scene. His legs burned with the amount of energy he was putting forth, and soon enough found himself neck and neck with the gnolls that were carrying heavier wares.

Then an arrow pierced the calf of his left leg. He belted out a scream and toppled over, falling harshly onto a rockier patch of grass, bruising his arm as well. His staff, his totem of Astreamor, fell out in a heap, settled a few yards away from his person.

Crawling, Kowler made to use the totem to heal his wound and continue onward. Unluckily, a villager, the blacksmith by the look of him, was quick to rush and tackle Kowler bodily, forcing the gnoll even further away from his weapon.

"Yer not goin' nowhere, scum!" He cried out, belting rage-filled fists into Kowlers face.

Snarling, Kowler made to fight back, but the smith-worker had none of it. Fist after fist, blow after blow, he was coordinated and fast and unyielding. One of his punches made purchase on a specific area, the butt of his jaw, and Kowler's world turned to blackness.

\ v /

/ ^ \

He awoke to the chanting voices of peoples braying for blood, his body racked with pain all the while. Looking around, blearily due to the bruises over his eyes that forced him to squint, he took in the cage he was trapped within, with manacles over his wrists and a leather lead tied around a post attached to his chains.

Looking through the bars of his cage, he found that it was daytime now, the sun clear and high overhead. He was positioned upon a dais platform, beneath a trio of hanging nooses with two other cages to his immediate right, holding similarly banged up gnolls, chittering fearfully to one another. He shivered, hoping that this obvious event would not occur.

His hope lasted less than ten minutes.

A crowd stood before them, some fifty people he would assume, with a score of guards fanning a perimeter. Kowler and the other gnolls were surrounded by spears, close enough to the metal of his cage-bars to clank. Men and women and children piled around, holding stones and pitchforks and torches, screaming and raging, silenced only when a guard approached with raised hands.

"We gather here both to mourn those that fell last night, and to bring justice to those that brought chaos to this peaceful land." The guard said. A handsome man, with a tail of brown hair and a well-groomed beard, hiding a stern frown. His blue eyes were narrowed, and he turned toward the villagers. "Should you have grievances against any of these gnolls in particular, say what was done, and I might allow you the right of their death. Elsewise their fates are yet to be determined."

A portly woman with oily brown hair stepped forth, face pale and fists shaking around a pitchfork hilt. She pointed the gnoll farthest from Kowler. "That one, I'll remember its ugly mug for the rest of my days. It broke my nephews' arm and killed my dairy cow. That cow was my daughter's brides-price."

The guard turned towards the gnoll in question. "Do you deny this?"

"Deny, deny!" The gnoll cried out. "Rowly do no bad! Rowly good!"

"Rowly be bad!" The other gnoll, the one caged directly next to Kowler, in the middle of the group of three, denied quickly and loudly. "Vowler know it! Rowly do the bad!" Rowly looked horrible betrayed, but Kowler could understand. Gnolls believed in the survival of the fittest, and if selling Rowly out to his death prolonged Vowler's life, then so be it.

Though it would only prolong said life by a few minutes at the best, by the look of things.

The guard chuckle humorlessly. "If their own kind says it is so, then it is so. Miss Raelen, justice is yours, should you wish it."

The portly woman, who Kowler now knew to be this Miss Raelen, stepped forth. "I thank you, Thomas." After those words, she twisted her pitchfork and jabbed it right through Rowly's throat, the other two prongs settling inside his ear and into his shoulder. The gnoll spasmed and gurgled blood, and then he fell limp against the bars of his cage.

Kowler grimaced at the sound and sight of it, whilst Vowler chittered in tongues, muttering unknowable words to himself.

"And the other gnoll? The one that calls himself Vowler? Does anybody have grievance against him?" Thomas asked the crowd. A boy no older than ten stepped forward, with genuine hatred in his brown eyes. A burly man stood next to him, looking fragile.

"He killed me younger brother," the boy spat. "Just a babe of two. He killed him and ate the corpse. We's only got a foot left of him to bury." The man with him, who Kowler presumed to be his father, hiccupped a sad sound, turning away, meeting the sympathetic and pity filled gazes of the crowd, who murmured words of encouragement towards the man.

Thomas grimaced. "A ghastly thing indeed. Are you sure you want this though, Timothy? To take a life is not an easy thing."

"It was easy for that," Timothy scowled, pointing harshly at Vowler. "That ain't no life I care for. It's a life that does life itself a disservice, and I mean to end it 'fore it does worse."

"Very well," Thomas grunted, handing his own sword to the boy. Timothy took it, and with a battle-cry charged the cage. Vowler scrambled from within, pushing and pulling and crying out for release, and he was granted it, only it was the release of death. The sword made slow work of Vowler, and Timothy showed an able hand with the weapon. A stab through the throat was all it took. Vowler convulsed in place, choking and drowning on his own blood, and after he'd exhausted himself, he fell taut against the floor of his cage.

There was silence for a time, save for the heavy breathing of Timothy. His father approached, a worried hand placed onto the boy's shoulder, but it was shoved away as the boy ran from the crowd and into the woods.

When the father left to chase his son, Thomas approached Vowler's remains, grabbing his sword with a jerk of his arm. He then made for Kowler's cage, though he did not look towards the gnoll in question and instead kept his gaze onto the crowd. "And does anybody hold grievance against this one?"

A skinny man stood forth, buck toothed and thinning hair. "I do. He hurt my daughter and killed my chickens."

"You lie," Kowler growled. Had he caused actual harm he would have been willing to take a beating. But he did no wrong, and the punishments were to be far worse than a bit of bruising. "I dealt with only one family last night, and you were not among them. I do not even know who you are."

It was as if the silence of the crowd somehow grew thicker. One by one, their eyes traced Kowler, as if unable to comprehend him. Thomas the guard turned around, showing honest shock in his blue eyes. "You speak proper Common?"

"I do more than just speak it," Kowler rumbled, baring his teeth slightly. "I read and write it as well. I know morality, I know honor, and I made to stop this night from happening."

"But you failed!" The skinny sod who had initially approached said. "You failed and did wrong to me! I want justice!"

"No he didn't!" A child's voice rang out. The crowd was moved somewhat as she barreled through from the back, her mother and brother following along with panicked eyes. Kowler recognized them as the family he helped and hid. The girl stomped up to the skinny man and pushed him with enough force to bring him to the ground, which spoke both of her strength and his weakness. "He was helping my mum and brother! He used magic to heal my arm! He hid us and killed the gnoll that ate Jessie! He's good!"

Villagers murmured in confusion, not knowing what to do or say, for this was beyond anything they had anticipated. Which, Kowler mused, was fair. Gnolls were not really known for anything but savagery and having lived among them for some two years now, he could admit that there was no reason to think any different. Only a few gnolls held a semblance of calm to them, and they were all elders that had experience with the other races of Azeroth. The young and midling aged gnolls though… they deserved this vilification.

Thomas the guard looked honestly relieved. "Sally, is this true?"

Her mother nodded slowly. "Still don't believe it myself, being honest. But it's true. He killed the gnoll that hurt my girl and hid us, even gave me his knife to protect myself with. And he did use healing magic, though none I'm familiar with."

Thomas turned to Kowler. "Why would you do that?"

Kowler allowed himself a moment to consider his answer. He could have told them what he told Sally, that he wanted nothing to do with this nonsense. He could have told them a lot of things, really.

But another desire was sat at the forefront of his mind. His want to use magic properly, to study and master the arcane, roared within him. To rise to the pinnacle of power, as he'd dreamt of since his first bout of consciousness came through.

And so, instead of the truth, he told them a fib. A fib that he'd crafted for when he'd finally had enough of the Redridge pack, holding just enough of honesty to ring true, but with a splattering of personal flair.

A backstory, in simpler terms.

"Because I was once human." Kowler announced, clear and cut and darkly serious.

"Impossible!" The skinny man cried out again, standing quickly. Spittle flew from his mouth. "A liar and a thief! Kill him now!"

Villagers echoed his thoughts, crying out for his head. A guard holding a spear to Kowler's cage brought it to flesh, causing him to flinch and his as the sharp metal met his furry flank. A small trickle of blood began to seep from his side.

This all stopped when Thomas held up his hand. Kowler marveled at the man's ability to control these people with such a simple action. "You speak what cannot be. Explain yourself."

"I was born on a farm in Westfall, the fifth of seven children, the fourth of five sons." Kowler quickly began. "We were a simple people living a simple life, and my family was content for it. Unlike them, however, I wanted more than to live that simple life. An apprentice wizard from the Tower of Ilgalar passed our farm on the way to Sentinel Hill once upon a time and showcased some magic trickery in exchange for a feather bed to rest upon for the night. I was mesmerized, and quickly wanted to follow in his footsteps. Upon my becoming an adult, on the dawn of my fifteenth year, I made to trek to the tower to appeal for apprenticeship, having learned what I'd hoped to be enough letters and sums to be of service. I'd made it past Elwynn and had entered Redridge but was set upon by orcs before I could reach Lakeshire."

Kowler let out a harsh, hateful growl that was not entirely false. Having dealt with orcs, he really did hate them. Or at least he hated the Blackrock clansmen that settled to the east. They were brutish and harsh and hard to deal with. He'd fought their members a handful of times, and while he'd given as good as he got, he still would have perished by their hands were it not for Astreamor's influence, many times over at that.

"I was not learned in warfare and could barely use my knife for anything but hunting and a bit of skinning, and so I was an easy target. They knocked me unconscious and I awoke bound over the flat of a ritual altar, where a green skinned warlock chanted his fel magicks."

Thomas hissed at the term, clenching his fists harshly. "You speak much."

"My speaking is the only reason I am not dead before you." Kowler scowled. True. "My speaking is the only reason the full might of our pack did not descend upon you and set this village ablaze." False. "My speaking is the reason why there has been no recent attempt at a packlord the likes of Old Garfang making to restart another Gnoll War." Unlikely. "So, yes, I speak much." Accurate.

Quiet fell once more, and Thomas looked genuinely surprised. The whole of the crowd did, even the skinny man that had made false claims.

Kowler took this silence to mean he was to continue his tale, and so he did. "I know not what the warlock did exactly, but one moment I was human, and the next I am a gnoll, more than three decades further into the future in a world changed by war. Much as I do not want to believe it, my only theory is that I was used as a reagent for a soul shard, and the gnoll that whelped me somehow consumed said shard whilst pregnant, giving my spirit a new chance at life."

"A tall tale indeed…" Thomas murmured. He straightened, a steely resolve in his eyes. He turned to the crowd. "What say you all?"

There were mumbled conversations all around. Some called for his torture, some demanded he heal the injured, and a few even wanted him to go free.

But the majority, the vast majority, had only two words to say.

Kill him.

Thomas's voice was strong, even as he passed his sentence. "Though your words hold sense to them and your actions telling to your intentions, the simple fact that you were a part of a raid on this land cannot be ignored."

"Even when I used my time to help your people?" Kowler asked, honestly baffled. Was this what justice was to humans? Had the culture he initially grew up with been so different from theirs?

"Even then." Thomas said. He looked at Kowler's cage, and then grunted. "Though I won't treat you as an animal. You deserve at least some dignity to your name for your deeds. What is your name, anyway?"

"Kowler."

Grabbing a ring of keys from his belt, he approached. Unlocking the cage, Thomas hauled Kowler to the ground by the scruff of his neck, causing the gnoll to cry out. The arrow lodged into his calf had not been removed and would likely fester if not treated soon.

"Your story will be written in my report, Kowler." Thomas said, a pair of guards bringing a log in front of him. Kowler was forced to kneel in front of it, his torso lain over the wood, his neck hanging over it. "But regardless, my people have spoken, and your path is set. A headsmans axe awaits you, by decree of the people of Eastvale."

"So this is what the humans of this time do to the rest of the world? Lend a helping hand, and perish for it?" Kowler asked, spitting on Thomas's boot. "Disgusting."

"You helped but a single family, which we are thankful for and are willing give you the honor of a clean death in exchange. That by itself is more than can be said of those that died last night." Thomas shrugged, taking a quick glance at his shoe. He rolled his shoulder and grabbed a heavy battle axe offered from behind. "Should you have any last words, speak them now."

There were many things that came to mind. A simple Fuck you! or perhaps a more mature I don't wanna die, whyyyyy?! rolled through his head. But those were thoughts held in anger and fear. A more gripping thought rolling through his mind was that this could be the moment that his plans for the future, his intentions and hopes for how this second life might turn out, would be snuffed away. There would be no songs of his name, no ascension to the heights of the hero's of Warcraft. He would just be some gnoll that happened to speak better Common than the rest of his kin, killed because of a raid. A footnote at best, if not entirely ignorable.

No, he did not want that. Rationality was needed in the here and now. Rationality that Kowler knew he'd need to use to its fullest. And so he racked his mind, his memory, fleetingly thinking on what he could say or do that might make this not lead to his death.

And as Thomas lifted his axe, taking Kowler's mind-searching for silence, Kowler panicked and said the only thing he could really think of.

"STOCKADES!" Kowler screamed, jarring the guards holding him down.

Thomas stopped his movement, just as he was about the swing the axe overhead. He actually looked as if he could not believe what he'd just heard.

"You would take the Stockades over death?" He asked, sounding genuinely bewildered.

Kowler was far past baffled, however. "Yes! Of course I would! I would live!"

"To be a prisoner of the Stockades is not an easy thing. None may leave past their sentencing, and any inkling of such would lead to a torturous, gruesome end. It is a place for the worst of our law's defilers, and you, as a gnoll, regardless of reason, would likely be given a life's sentence. A quick, clean kill is wiser than a lifetime of anguish, would you not agree?"

Most of the time, Kowler would. But when it referred to his own mortality, and not that of somebody else, he was of a mightily different opinion.

"No, I demand the Stockades." He would not allow his second life to end in such a manner. If it were to pass, if he were to pass, then it would be done of his own choosing, not at the behest of a riled village angry beyond sense.

"Then it appears this pomp and ceremony was all for naught," Thomas said, dropping his axe. He then kicked the stump Kowler was lain over out from under him, forcing the gnoll to fall to the ground. Then, showing strength beyond what most humans should be capable of, he tugged on the leather lead that Kowler was chained to and legitimately dragged the gnoll towards a horse. Kowler did not know how much he weighed, but he presumed it to be over two hundred pounds, stocky and well-fed as he was. It was not that it was impossible to carry him, but dragging was a decidedly different affair.

It was also a decidedly painful affair. The arrow lodged through his leg snapped beneath a rock, and Kowler forced down his need to scream and curse and vent at the pain.

Worse, the villagers were not content with Thomas's decision. True, they did not necessarily object verbally, but they were quick to pick up rocks and start hurtling them at the gnoll. Thomas only did something about it when one of the rocks hit his armor, commanding the remainder of his unit to quell the peasants. Kowler had been hit six times before they stopped.

The horse he was dragged towards was a beast of a destrier, and it remained calm even as Thomas lifted Kowler by the scruff of his neck and deposited him over the back of the mount. Using the lead, Kowler was tied to the horse, with no slack to spare. Another lead was then wrapped around the horse's neck, held by a villager for a time, until Thomas and three other guards mounted their own horses. Then the lead was handed to Thomas, and they began to move.

Before they took too far off, the brother of the girl he'd healed ran up, shyly pressing Astreamor's totem into Kowler's hands. Kowler gripped the staff like a lifeline and gave the lad a thankful smile, or what he hoped looked to be one. It was difficult to offer such facial expressions with a muzzle such as his own. The boy did not respond, simply rushing back to his mother's skirt.

A whip cracked from the front, and then they raced away.

And now we're in the thick of things.

So! Kowler is heading off, a prisoner to the humans. What will happen whilst he's trapped in the Stockades? Well, you'll have to wait and find out (surprising, I know!). I'll say that my intentions for this won't follow any sort of linear pattern. If I think up a fun idea and figure out how to go about enabling it, I'm gonna do it. Because this is WoW, and WoW has a lot of variation to be utilized, so long as your character in question has the means to do the fun.

Which is totally helpful to your experience of this story, I'm sure.

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