Orgrimmar was an extensively well-planned city.
As they trekked across the Valleys, Rexxar got a very good look at the way the streets were laid out.
The thing that was being worked on the most by far though, was not the laying of stones, as he'd seen by the entrance. Instead, it was simply the digging of holes in the ground, both for what he presumed to be a sewer network, but also for what seemed to be basements for the many, many buildings being erected.
The rising and falling of picks on rock was an eternal sound, as thousands and thousands of Orcs worked in the burning sun, just to hollow out the earth before they rebuilt something on top of it all.
The building style was… Strange.
It was very distinctly Orcish, but… Very different.
One of the most unique aspects of traditional Orcish building styles was the way it would slant outwards from the base, a result of the fact that the equivalent buildings on Draenor were built from giant Mushroom stems.
Those bases had to be built that way, less the entire thing would eventually sag, and collapse in on itself.
It was a quirk that had long outlasted the actual practical reasons for it.
Nonetheless, it was somewhat startling to see Orc buildings that very deliberately had gotten rid of this feature.
However, it wasn't the only thing that was different.
Common Orc Buildings were usually built on wood or Mushroom parts.
That however had been completely done away with here, as the buildings were distinctly created with stone in mind. And the parts where wood would usually be used(Support beams for example), instead used what seemed to be some form of blackened Bronze instead.
In fact, the only part of the buildings that still used wood was the distinct Orcish roof tiles, and Doors, along with more personalized effects around the building.
Whoever it was that had created this new kind of design had done so with the idea of using as little lumber as possible.
The common buildings being constructed were something akin to great halls he'd seen several Clans use back on Draenor, only with a tower and upper secondary level in the back.
Also, every single building had one of those ugly Chimneys with a cone on top that Goblins used.
There were other styles of buildings used as well, Storehouses, Barracks, and the occasional Blacksmithy.
All of which had that same kind of style and quirks as the "great halls". All in all, it gave each of the buildings a much more bulky look, while also streamlining a lot of the aspects of Orcish Architecture into something that was less personalized by the creator, but also presumably much easier to replicate on a large scale.
What he didn't quite get though, was the why?
Why build such large houses rather than smaller ones?
On the way to their destination, they had passed countless families living in tents, seemingly waiting on workers to finish their houses.
If the priority was to make housing for everyone, then surely lesser houses would be preferable? You did not need a great hall to house a small family. In fact, it was quite the overkill for most of the families he saw, of 1 or 3 children running around.
They could easily have designed a lesser type of house, that took far, far less time to make.
You're missing something here Rexxar. Something important.
There was also something else that bothered him about these buildings, and eventually, he asked his companion about it.
"There's a lot of space between each building. A stupidly large amount in fact. And it's packed with earth and grass on top of it. Why?"
"Lawns." Rokhan answered cheerfully.
"Lawns? I'm Not familiar with that term."
"It be a new thing. De idea came from Warlord Fremde. Every house be situated in da middle of a patch of land an around it, coverin de entire property be a huge patch of grass. Or Clover if dey prefer. Or anything really, so long as it be green and vibrant."
Stranger and stranger.
"That sounds like a scheme a Shaman might have thought out when building a city. Everyone having their own, personal garden…"
Ridiculous.
"Ah must say though Rexxar… I'm surprised yer not annoyed by de walkin."
"Why would I be? I like walking. I've spent most of my life wandering the wilderness. It is where I find peace, and the thrill of the hunt."
Rokhan smiled an affable grin.
Despite his white top knot hair, his wrinkled face, and all around the very stereotypical appearance of a Troll Shadowhunter with all their voodoo arts and attire, the Troll lacked the Edge that most Trolls he'd seen had.
That deliberately hidden sharpness that seemed to be hiding just beneath the surface, ready to cut.
"Ya, ah suppose that be true mon… Am glad though. A lot of de youngster be complaining dat in a megacity like dis, it takes hours just to walk from one end to de other."
He snorted.
"I see no downsides to that. A proper daily march does a man good."
Rakhan laughed.
"I like ye already mon."
Misha gave a whine as she trekked beside them.
I
Their destination took them through 2 valleys, as they moved northeast, before finally reaching the easternmost valley.
He'd trekked through these before, and unlike the others, this one was still untamed.
A wilderness of thorns and desert plants stretched before them beyond the entrance to the Valley.
It was quite the contrast compared to the rest of the valleys, with their emerging urban sprawl.
Here, the wilderness still had yet to give way before the unstoppable march of civilization.
Looking at it, and knowing that in a year or two, this would all be gone, filled Rexxar with a deep melancholy.
Misha, sensing his feelings, snuggled her head up against him, making him stroke her furry neck.
Rokhan though did not stop to take in the scenery. Instead, he just continued towards a spot along the valley walls, where the only true wooden buildings Rexxar had seen so far in Orgrimmar stood like shacks up against the stone.
Rexxar followed and began to frown.
Those… Those were…
A loud explosion broke the quiet air, followed by a lot of cursing. Cursing in a tongue he immediately recognized, for just quickly it managed to bring down his mood.
"Goblins. Of course."
I
Gazlowe, as Goblins usually were, was a strange one.
He wore a bizarre leather contraption on his head, with glass lenses connected to a leather band that could seemingly be pulled down to cover his eyes.
His coat was a fine purple silk, with magnificent white fur trimmings, broken only by black markings spotted throughout it, giving it the appearance of an ermine mink.
It was also clearly magically enchanted, given that every single bit of dirt and soot that touched it instantly vanished.
Still, despite the fine clothing, he did not carry himself like a lord. Instead, he walked like a common, on-the-ground worker, an image only further enhanced by his body language.
He was in the middle of berating a subordinate when Rokhan and Rexxar walked up to him, stopping mid-sentence as he noticed them, then turned and looked them over in full, his subordinate completely forgotten.
"Hello, Gazlowe."
"And good morning to you too Rokhan. So… This is the help Thrall promised eh? A Mok'nathal… Now that's something you don't see every day."
"You have seen others have you?"
"Once. A lady in Duskwood. Flaming red hair, and tall as… Well, you basically."
Interesting. He had assumed he was the last Half-Ogre left… But then again, it wasn't like more could not be brought into existence. Love could bloom, even amongst such previously bitter foes as Orcs and Ogres.
Just like Tiger, Lions, and Jaguars could make love and produce their own offspring.
Nature was a brutal and harsh mistress… But she was also beautiful and strange.
His Clan might be long gone… But his race might not be.
There Was a place for him in the world.
He would let that lie for the moment though. He had a mission after all.
"I see. Well little Goblin, I am Rexxar. Thrall has sent me to sort out your problems."
The Goblin raised an eyebrow as two all together too discerning eyes looked him over.
"Ah, new guy, huh? I can tell. Well Rexxar, I'm Gazlowe, chief engineer around these parts. But enough about me. We got work to do, buddy!"
He motioned for him to follow them as he led them out of the ramshackle gathering of shacks, before pointing a bit to the northeast.
"You see Rexxar, me and my boys have been dredging out tunnels beneath the city, looking for underground wells and such. We've been doing so for several months actually, to get permanent freshwater to our thirsty city dwellers. Then we finally hit gold, as we located an underground river from one of them big rivers from Ashenvale that just disappears into the mountains."
Rexxar knew the rivers he was talking about.
"I'm guessing there is a But coming here somewhere."
"Sure is. Problem is, when we tried to blow holes to dig above it so we can block it off for redirection to where we want it to go, we dug straight into a den of kobolds. Now those rat-freaks are running willy-nilly all over our tunnels!"
Ah… Kobolds. Basically the cave-dwelling version of a Murloc and Gnolls. A pest upon all sentient and living beings. They were the worst of both worlds. The mental capacity to deliberately drive the wild things to extinction, but not the mental capacity to understand why doing so would be bad.
"I need you to hook up with my boys and seal those kobolds back in their holes. After that, we'll dig some new holes to redirect the water flow going around their nests."
"You don't want me to just wipe the Dens clean? That is the standard way one uses to deal with Kobolds, Murlocs, and Gnolls."
Gazlowe snickered.
"The Alliance ain't as different from you guys as they'd like to think… But no, I don't see any reason to kill 'em all."
"You're far more kindhearted than most Goblins I've met then."
"So my mother kept telling me. She always said it would lead me to a bad end… But here I am, leading Steamwheedle's big Horde expedition. So I guess I got the last laugh after all."
Ah… Another one who had clashed with their parents. He knew that feeling well, memories of his father and his narrow-minded view of the world dancing through his mind.
But yeah… We'll let the buggers live, once we've driven them out of our tunnels, and sealed them off. And speaking of which… just continue along the valley wall, and you'll find the tunnel entrance. Once you get there my boys will see you straight."
Rexxar nodded and was about to leave when Gazlowe called out one last time to Rokhan.
"Oh, by the way, Rokhan… Still up for Booty, Blow, and Poker on Sunday?"
"Of course Mon." The Troll grinned and flashed a thumbs up in response, which got a response grin and a wave from Gazlowe.
They walked in silence for a while after that, where Rokhan whistled a tune, as they followed the great mountain wall.
Finally, the Troll opened his mouth.
Rexxar cut him off.
"I don't want to know."
Rokhan laughed.
"Suit yerself, mon."
I
Finally, they came to the tunnel area.
It was a bit further up in the mountainside than Rexxar had assumed, with huge wooden platforms having been erected leading up to it.
As they made their way up the wooden pathway, Rexxar glanced sideways and stopped to take in the view of the Valley below.
It was a rugged wilderness, overflowing with stones, thorns, Trees, and here and there some moving animals. An eagle was circling overhead, looking for something to swoop down upon and kill.
"I have never been this high in this valley before."
"Oh, ye visited de Valleys before den?"
"Yes. It's a sight… And in one year or two… It'll all be gone."
Rokhan nodded.
"Ya… Just like de old city."
"The… The old city? What old city might that be?"
"De one inside de mountain of course! Dat we be entering just up ahead."
I
Well he'd be damned. An enormous, hidden, underground city.
It had been here all along… and he had not noticed.
Huge, enormous pillars held up the roof, made up of bluish-grey stone that definitely was not native to this area.
The road was intricately paved with similar stone and cobbling, and all along the walls were huge bookcases, filled with what seemed to be the spines of countless rotted-away books.
The obvious result of leaving paper in a damp closed off environment.
It was an impressive bit of construction… Also contrasted hard by minecarts full of valuables, be they gold pieces or jewelry, hoarded together by Goblins.
Other pieces of the magnificent architecture had obviously been blasted apart by explosives, or hammered away by pickaxes.
Some might have felt anger at that. Or sadness. Or melancholy at the site of some long-lost civilization being picked through by scavengers.
Rexxar did not care.
He'd seen thousands of ruins in his day, and he'd never felt anything for any of them. This one was no different.
What did it matter that thousands of years ago, someone had lived here in hallowed halls?
The dead and their history did not matter… Not compared to those who were still living.
"So… In a year this will all be gone?"
"Ja mon. We gonna be flooding dis entire city to let de water flow into de Valley. It'll be a sunken city soon enough.."
"Hmmm…. Makes sense… So that's why Gazlowe wants us to close it all off. He doesn't want to let water be led away into side tunnels."
"Ah, ye were wondering about dat, eh?"
That thought seemed to amuse the Shadowhunter.
He wasn't sure yet how to read that guy.
Eventually, they found Gazlowe's team.
It consisted of 4 sappers and a whole lot of extra personnel who were busy looting the place.
Rexxar ignored the looters, and instead put all his focus on the 4 sappers.
"Wow, you're a big one! Gazlowe said he'd be sending some muscle, but I wasn't expecting a living Beefcake!"
"Do you goblins have a plan?"
The lead sapper nodded enthusiastically.
"Of course! If you can get us close enough to the tunnel's support beams, we'll blast them to smithereens. That should collapse the ceiling on top of those rats and fix our problem up real nice."
"Sounds like a workable solution. How many Kobolds are there in the tunnels between here and there?"
"Probably… Several hundred? Maybe a dozen less or more…"
"Several hundred! Do you hear that Misha? You will be eating well today!"
The big bear gave an approving roar of enthusiasm at the thought of killing and eating hundreds of delectable little monsters. Then again, Misha thought everything under the sun tasted amazing.
I
200 Kobold was not exactly the most intimidating force in the World.
In fact, Rokhan could probably have dealt with them himself on his lonesome. He would have used the shadows to his advantage, playing a massive mind game of hide and seek.
He would have struck from, and retreated into the darkness, molding the shadows to be his cloak and shield.
If he'd had to guess, he'd have said it would probably have taken him a couple of days to clear the Tunnels out from the city clean of Kobold.
Rexxar did it in 3 hours.
The Half-Ogre was… Something else.
It wasn't that he was that much stronger than anything else that Rokhan had seen in his days. He'd seen just as strong warriors in his day. A particularly strong Tauren could have reached the levels of physical might Rexxar did. So could a Dire Troll.
No, where he differed was the way he moved. He was fast. Far, far faster than anything that size had any right to be, and with reflexes to match.
He was agile too. Damnably agile. Something that big should not be allowed to move and twist the way Rexxar did as he laid waste to the Kobolds.
He moved like a Direwolf, hit like a Kodo, and twisted around like a Jaguar.
It was, frankly speaking, a terrifying combination. The perfect warrior. The only thing that could have been done to make him even grander was donning him in the thickest of armor and equipping him with a hand cannon.
Man, it felt good to have such a warrior at his side.
As they put the small rats to the axe, paw, and glaive, he wondered how many battlefields he'd get to enjoy with this man.
Hopefully many more.
They had finally slaughtered their way to one of the support beams that held up the tunnels into the Kobolds' dens.
"Finally. Well, little Goblins go do your thing."
The 4 Goblins' reactions were… Strange.
Resigned almost. Like they'd been putting off some great task for days on end, only to now have to do it.
They'd been pretty cheerful up until now, so the contrast was very obvious.
"Something wrong?"
"Nah." One of the Goblins said. "Nothing more than there was at the start of the day."
"Ughh…. If only we'd scored the lotto for the loot…" One of the others complained as he hauled his barrel of gunpowder over to the support beams.
Rexxar for his part just kept quiet as they readied up their explosives, assuming one of them might explain that comment.
None did, instead all of them finished up so all the explosives were primed and ready.
"Well boys'… Arrivederci I guess."
Then he lit up a match.
"BAAANGGGG!"
The cave entrance collapsed in an explosion, followed by falling stone, though the Goblin who'd lit the fuse was long dead before the rocks came tumbling down.
What in the-
Rexxar immediately whirled around, but before he managed to do anything, the entire group of goblins followed suit, caving in the tunnel entrances in 3 similar explosions.
Once the dust cleared, there was only a trio of very confused Horde soldiers staring in both, and horror at what had just happened.
What the hell was that!?
I
"So they blew themselves up, you say? Now that's occupational commitment! Anyway, ya done good, kid."
Rexxar for his part just crossed his arms.
"I demand an explanation."
Gazlowe just stared at him in confusion.
"...Of what?"
"Why did they kill themselves? They were perfectly capable of setting those bombs off without dying in the act."
"Oh, that."
The Goblin Boss's tension immediately evaporated.
"Well, you see, this whole work here in Kalimdor is designated as "Hazardous and potentially lethal" work. So all of us have a huge life insurance on us in case we die."
"Life insurance!?"
"Yeah. If we die here on the job, our families are handsomely rewarded by big boss Steamwheedle. They ain't the first to die here… And they ain't gonna be the last either I think."
"Ahhh…." It all fell into place.
It also put the looting into a far different context.
"So they did it for the betterment of their family and kin… One died to benefit the whole… Yes… That is a good death. Not a warrior's death… But a good one."
Gazlowe took on a melancholic expression.
"You do what you have to to feed yourself and yours. That's just the way of it. Anyway… Here."
He pointed towards a huge sack.
"20 000 Draka, freshly minted. It's the least I can do."
"Draka?"
"The Horde currency. Named after Thrall's mom. Good, solid Gold too."
Rexxar had gone over to the bag and opened it up. Sure enough, a huge sum of cash.
He lifted up a coin and raised it to the sky to look at it.
It was a strange coin.
Rather than the usual circle, or the five-pointed coins of the Mok'nathal Clan, this one was shaped like a honeycomb, with six points.
On the front was a likeness of Thrall, with a 100 beneath it, while on the back was the image of the Frostwolves Direwolf.
"Generous of you… But where am I supposed to put this? I have no house or property… Am I to carry this sack with me at all times?"
"Um… I'd say go to the Orgrimmar Bank. That's why it's there, isn't it? So you Orcs can store stuff?"
Huh… So the Horde had a Bank now? Now that was… Interesting.
