Disclaimer: The characters and settings created by Blizzard Entertainment Inc in this story are owned by their creators. I do not claim them as mine in any way, shape or form. I am not receiving monetary profit from this story and no copyright infringement is intended.
Note: The Fitz started out as a spoof of Quark's from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but then… I got lazy. I think there's a tradition of spoofing Star Trek in this fanfic series, right? Well, at the least, you can check out the Star Trek: Next Generation spoof I did for "MLFMP 2: Son of Kael'thas" Cpt 24: TK Star Trek spoof! Kael'thas even traveled back in time...
Chapter 7: Flat Track Goblin Derby
I had lied to Saturna, actually. Two more points for me that afternoon. There was something else I needed to do before leaving Mulgore, whether Baine liked it or not. And Saturna definitely couldn't know about it, either. She'd ruin it. I needed to go see the Venture Co. I also figured that heading there first, into territory controlled by Goblin mobsters and worse, would throw off my Night Elf stalker.
You see, the Venture Co. always has some nasty technology in place at every dig site to deter rogues and thieves. Explosive, horrific stuff developed over generations of the most heartless, scheming Goblins who would rather see someone (even if it was one of their own workers) blown up in bloody chunks, rather than lose any of their precious capital. If Alessandre was worth his salt, then he would get it and keep a wide berth.
I was going to see the Venture Co. unofficially, because Tauren aren't supposed to like, let alone know anyone in the Venture Co. But I did. A Pathfinder finds himself investigating the Venture Co. all the time, so being actually at-war with them is never a good idea. You figure that out close to your second year, I reckon.
That's just a nice little tidbit of advice to the young Pathfinders out there. It's doubtless you'll be following my stunning career that ended in a gargantuan trainwreck with the Blood Elves.
Anywho—so, the first thing to know about the Venture Co. in Mulgore? And I ought to prepare you… Supervisor Fitzsprocket is still alive.
I know we've put a lot of hits on him over the years, but he's become very good at faking his own death for that same reason. Deep in the Venture Co. mines, they even have a bar named after him. The employees go there to take their breaks, and The Fitz was humming mid-day with all races and creeds. In a way, The Fitz was very emblematic of the whole Venture Co.
Here, I'll tell you why. Picture this…
You are a Gnoll. Not a Tauren nor a Blood Elf nor a Draenei reading this… You are a Gnoll who lived in Goldshire until some Human guard captain told an adventurer to go and raid your village, kill everyone. Take everything. And no one will help you. All of the other Gnolls are gone and it's too far for your little legs to walk, to get to Westfall and see your cousins, without you becoming exposed on the road and slaughtered, night or day. The big people of the world don't care. They want you dead. They kill you for sport. It's clear now that your lot as a Gnoll is to suffer, and wait to die.
But then, one day in the forest, a big person, perhaps wearing a mining helmet and carrying a clipboard, extends a hand to you, shakes it, and tells you he can get you someplace safe, but you'll have to work. Work hard. What would you do? Where would you go?
Now, you are a displaced Gnoll from Goldshire and you're on a ship. You are seeing the ocean for the first time. You are seeing continents pass you by. Massive. But you're not so little anymore. The others around you are just as brave, even while they also hold their pickaxes in hand. They are eager and ready to work, ready as you swore you'd be. Together, you and your new family brave storms and an overnight caravan through the Barrens to a beautiful green place called Mulgore.
Maybe your new job is to pile rocks into a cart by day. You can only glimpse Mulgore and its rolling hills by moonlight but, Tauren-permitting, you are finally a Gnoll with your own money, powerful friends who would never hunt you down for existing, and you also have, well, a relative amount of freedom. Even better, if you don't like mining beneath the mountains of Mulgore, then you can apply for a transfer, and even aspire to become a supervisor, just like the man in the yellow hat who reached his hand out to you, or just like Fitzsprocket himself. And then, you can really strike out someplace on your own.
Some creatures call that kind of thing freedom.
People everywhere, in need of work and protection, or who can't stay in their homes, find a welcome, if not shady home in the Venture Co. The work is grueling, and things aren't always consistent. But the Venture Co. keeps its people mostly secure (aside from rogue-explosives), fed and sheltered, if nothing else. To that Gnoll, life in the Venture Co. is a luxury.
Gnolls, Goblins, Humans, whoever… it takes all kinds to make a world. That's what being a Pathfinder taught me. And the Venture Co. definitely is its own little world. I don't mean to romanticize about a company that exploits nature, don't get me wrong—but I do want you to get why I keep the kind of relationship with the Venture Co. where I can walk in there, say hello to some folks and not get hassled, as long as it's obvious I'm headed to The Fitz. Sometimes, the Venture Co. works against me, sure, but I'll always need to be able to work with them.
So- the minute I walked in there, after all that nice stuff I just told you, what do you think I heard from the man himself?
"Eh Turaho! I hoird you're out to prove Greatfatha Winta is real! What an assignment, hahahaha!"
Me and the Venture Co. It's a love-hate relationship.
Supervisor Fitzsprocket, hero to many little people and vile obstruction to a lot of big people in Mulgore, he was shouting and waving at me from behind the bar at The Fitz. He had two gold front teeth, and I could see them from where I was. Fitz was also probably warning off his shadier customers that a Pathfinder had just walked in. Fitz is incredibly clever.
There were gambling tables in the back and pretty ladies to help 'facilitate' with that. If anything more was ever going down, I always made sure not to notice it. I'm confident in my skills, but I'm not a one-man army.
"Dabble!" A chorus of people cheered from back there. They were huddled around some machine that kept making pretty plunking noises. I could hear bets being placed on whatever that machine was doing.
I don't really know that word. I never played that game. I just know it involves the prettiest girls in the place, the Venture Co. employees love it, and it's very very expensive. People lost their life savings to it. This afternoon, a white-furred Tauren lady in a slinky grass-green dress split to the thigh was standing over there.
Oh? Might be time to learn how to play Dabble…
But I was on assignment. I had a seat and kept staring, hoping that she would notice me doing so, and get that a special little game was on between the two of us, but I was pretty much in my own head by then and I knew it.
I gave up my half-assed flirting and ordered something to drink instead, to help me fit in. Enough smugglers, some are Tauren, actually, come through the mines to The Fitz looking to do business, so I didn't raise every single head in the room.
"Ah, so Cokie's doing well." Fitz made his way down the bar to me, pretending to wipe it down.
"Cokie?"
"She's my new Pathfinder bait. Draenei goil weren't workin' out too good."
"Yeah, you'd think with hooves and horns in common, we would all be exactly the same, but…" I sucked my teeth at him, totally unsympathetic at Fitz's particularly dishonorable err against us Tauren.
"But ya never gamble, Turaho! So I guess not even she can peel ya's away from the bar."
"…Last name?" I was seriously going to look this Cokie cookie up later. Or maybe I wasn't. My brain didn't care about how much sense it made. A niggling thought teased me that it was Saturna's fault. A morning of following around a pretty woman Elf I couldn't have, whether I was sure I liked her or not, was starting to wear on me.
Strange, Saturna being married to that useless Kael'thas was making me think that I had a chance. It should have been the other way around.
Yeah, if Kael'thas ever reads this, I'm pretty much a dead man.
Fitz gave me a smug look, "Her name is Cokie Whitefeathers."
Well, ask a stupid question. Of course a girl who worked at Fitz's place wouldn't use a real last name.
"She is pwoitty sweet, like a cookie. With just a little bit a' crunch." Fitz rubbed his hands together fiendishly, like we were about to break into the Orgrimmar bank vault, "And she looks pwoitty soft, eh? At least that's what I been told—"
"Fitz, that's one of our women you're talking about." I grunted. Eventhough I'm a liar and a dog and I definitely did want to hear more.
"And she can be yours, for the right…" he avoided saying 'price' though I know he badly wanted to negotiate terms right there.
"Fitz, look—"
"I think yer gonna need a pwoitty big holiday gift, is all I'm sayin'. I hear you're up to your eyeballs in it this time. So why not treat yerself? To… Cokie Whitefeathers." He waggled his grimy eyebrows at me.
Fitz didn't need to and annoy the hell out of me, and run the bar. There were plenty of bartenders and waiters in there. The place was a lucrative sideline for him and a way to keep in good with his own employees, reassure them that their boss is not ever really dead. Whatever the Tauren did to Fitz, the paychecks would keep on coming. Now that's a happy hour.
"Fitz, lemme ask you something, and I don't have a lot of time. You got any special orders for a Dwarf-sized crate with holes cut in it recently?"
Fitz knew what the hell I meant. I didn't have time to tramp all through the extensive Venture Co. tunnel system, looking around and asking questions. But if anything was going down about a kidnapped Dwarf in Mulgore? Fitz would know about it. And, I would know whether Fitz was lying to me. I just needed to be able to see the whites of his eyes.
"Dwarf-sized, box…" Fitz kept pretending to clean his pristinely polished bar that he'd gladly attack a bartender with a pipewrench with, if it wasn't already that clean. See? Told you that rag was a prop. "…Never hoid of it."
I slammed my fist on the counter. That got him meeting my gaze alright. Old Pathfinder's trick.
Fitz frowned at me, because it worked. I sighed, because now that I could see his eyes, I knew that Fitz was innocent.
"Damn you, Fitz. You'd waste my time to keep me lingering around here and pay for some cookie?"
He said it again, fingers making a flourish in the air, "Cokie… Whitefeathers."
"Cut it out!"
Then another, more nasal Goblin voice reached my ears. This was a Goblin girl I knew, a pretty great one, actually, named Bonnie Pipewrench. Bonnie was one of Fitz's managers. She was good with his numbers. So good with her calculations regarding his money, in fact, that Fitz, to date, had no real evidence that she was also a smuggler.
Fitz gritted his teeth and gave up. He went to go wipe down the other end of the bar.
"Eh, the Boss is mad at me because I gave him an excellent holiday gift. One he can't retoin. So after all my hairy escapades this year? Heh, looks like I still have my job, Turaho."
"Glad to hear it." I rested my elbow on the bar.
By the way, she'd sweet-talked her way into sitting in my lap, once. Yeah, yeah, I know that she's a Goblin. And a Venture Co. Goblin at that. But like I said, she's a pretty great girl. I was really drunk the evening it happened and had just come home from a rotten mission. But we both knew it wasn't going to happen again.
Her still being single made me a little sad, if I'm going to be honest. I actually always thought she and Fitz would make a great couple if he ever got over himself. He called it hate. I knew it was love and jealousy. The moment he ever managed to fire Bonnie, Fitz would make a play for her because it would mean no loss of face for him. Right now, though, Bonnie could reject Fitz and secretly take his money while she was at it.
Or, maybe Bonnie was the one who needed to clean up her act? So hard to tell with Goblins.
Bonnie hopped onto a barstool, then sat on the bar and crossed her leg at me. I winked at her.
"So, I have something fer ya, finally. I got you a great holiday gift, too."
"Nice."
Bonnie and me, we pretty much talk in code. She had a present for me. But I already knew what it was… you'll see.
"I'm actually soiprized you didn't ask what I got fer the Fitz? You sure you don't wanna know?"
I thought for a while. Yes, we liked to play games together. This was one of my favorites, me trying to see how her mind worked. At last I made a face, looked from her to the leggy Tauren princess in the corner. She grinned, triumphant.
I huffed, eventhough I'd won, "You know, I could have used my very own personal Dabble girl."
Bonnie didn't like that. I should not have said it, not considering our history… or, lack of history. I winced.
"Maybe you don't want ya pretty mahbles after all, hrm? You only asked for 'em about a hundred thousand times and I even did a fava fer Madame Goya to git down the price."
Don't worry, someone like Bonnie can manage to safely run Madame Goya around in circles. At least for a while. Bonnie scrunched her nose at me and hopped back down to the floor, began to strut away.
I watched her go, wondering whether I really had time for what it would take for me to make up for being such an ass. "So… you really do have my, uh, marbles?"
Bonnie turned around, hand on her hip.
"Ya gotta play me for it, Turaho. Ya know that."
"You and what army?" I smiled and stood up. Also, I slightly hoped the grass-green goddess was watching my bravado. She wasn't.
Focused on her job to the last. A working girl, indeed!
Bonnie snapped her fingers. I hadn't noticed the table by the other doors. A gaggle of very short women were seated there, giggling over some very colorful drinks. But they assembled themselves tight around Bonnie when she called. They sized me up.
"Well, well… I think I can still take you all on, though."
"Really?" Bonnie arched her eyebrow playfully, "Ya sure? Cause we're playin' a different game tonight."
"Which is?" The last time we used the Simulator, my horns punched a hole in the simulated volleyball on simulated Tanaris Beach. Their super-tiny bikinis were well worth it, though.
You're not still shocked, are you? I did say I was a dog. On some days, I'm more dog than Tauren. I was still operating under the weight of a Night Elf rogue wanting to kill me, so this was a dog-day.
The Murloc on her team, Megurgl or something like that, I dunno how how you spell it, threw her hands up at me, in challenge.
"Meg says, we ain't playin' that volley ball game no more."
"And what does Meg want to play with me instead?" I couldn't help flirting, it was too easy. I watched Meg's orange skin blush a fiery tropical punch color.
Hey, have you ever seen a girl Murloc before? It's so adorable. If one wanted to adopt big ole' me for a week, I wouldn't question it. Not in that way… It'd just be so cute! Like having a pet pug that wants to go shopping for itty bitty heels and pantsuits all week. And have teeny, tiny fish dinners by the eensiest candle lights…
"Hey Fitz! We need to use the Simulator."
Fitz mostly grunted at Bonnie from across the bar.
She knew where the keys were, anyway. Maybe that was the problem, both of them knew that. In the back room, Bonnie picked the lock to the safe, snatched the keys out and gestured for the rest of us to follow. As if she hadn't just stolen from the great Supervisor Fitzsprocket where he could probably see her doing it.
Like I said. It's true love…
We went upstairs. In a pretty drab room there were these silver machines hooked up with colorful wires. Each had a platform with round white lights. You stood on those platforms and they transported you someplace else. Some went to dungeons, others went to battlegrounds around Azeroth. Such an invention solves a lot of problems for the Venture Co. you see. They often get pegged down working in places surrounded by enemy camps (a.k.a official Horde and Alliance settlements), if you think about it. Some of the machines, the best ones, took you to a simulated place where you could have an insane amount of fun with really great friends who didn't mind how… creative that sort of thing was. Some people prefer real life. But Bonnie liked games and so did I. I loved outwitting people. So we didn't mind if the walls flared sometimes, or if the thing fizzed out. Venture Co. Simulators were just spectacular to people like us.
"Ya ready? Cause Turaho, I'm warnin' ya," She said in her high-pitched femme fatale voice, "This one's a killa."
We phased into an empty, expansive hall. The windows painted over with lazy black slashes. A few sunbeams got through. I nodded that I liked it. There were old posters pasted to the walls, rows of dusty team pennants hanging from the ceiling. Sports equipment was stacked in the corners. You could hear an echo if you spoke, a great one if you cheered, I bet. Excellent. The old warehouse setup excited me. Mobsters, a showdown with a villain, a shady sporting event, a factory or a secret lair… you could roleplay almost anything in an old warehouse.
Ours was an underground, black market sporting event. Nice.
But then, I noticed there was a flat track in an oval shape painted on the floor. The girls were busy putting on helmets and skates.
"Wait, what's this?"
"New simulation. It's a game called roller derby. Ya heard of it?" she teased, "It goes real, real fast… you're gonna fall, get whipped, probably crash a few times. And there's no referee and no penalty box, in my version, ya dig? Just pure, vicious fun. And it's the only way ya getting' yer mahbles, after being so mean ta mean downstairs, kay hun?"
Suddenly, working for Saturna Sunstrider sounded like a walk in the park. "I forgot, there's this Blood Elf queen chick I have to help with a… thing. Greatfather winter was kidnapped and they're blaming Kael'thas Sunstrider, did you hear about it? I should probably just go. I'll make up the price of the marbles later, in some other way."
And it must have sounded like a damn lie. They weren't hearing any of it.
I was the only one on my team. Fun.
They put a helmet on me that had stars on the sides and told me that it meant I had to be my own jammer.
"You're much bigger, so we'll try and keep it fair."
Sure, Bonnie. Fair.
"…We'll share the same pack. That way, I won't get a point every time I pass you. We ain't got a bunch of Tauren girls for me to pass."
"Okay…"
"This is how ya score points." Bonnie skated easily out to the track, while her girlfriends assembled themselves in two lines in front of her. I noticed that she was the only other one wearing a star helmet. "We skate around the track. You and I are the jammers. We start at the back of the pack. You gotta get through all of us in order to get in the lead."
"Can I use my horns—"
"NO." Everyone said at once.
Dammit.
Megurgl threw her hands up at me emphatically several times. I've heard told that she has a beautiful voice under water.
"Sorry, Meg. I promise you, especially, that I won't use my horns."
She gave a confident nod.
"Alright, so that's how I score a point, by passing people. That's not too hard."
"Wrong. You're the lead jammer, then. That status means you can start scoring the points. You have to pass through all of us again in order to actually start scoring. Ya do it once, great. You do it a second, third, foith time… now ya winnin'."
I thought it over. It sort of made me think of kicking a ball past someone to the goal at the other end of the field. Except, you, yourself, were the ball. You had to get yourself all the way to the other side, through the pack. Okay, I could visualize that.
"We can hip check ya, but we really shouldn't shove ya. Not that anyone's gonna stop us. If I ever catch up to ya, and then I pass ya, then I get to start scoring some points."
I could see that I'd fall behind, very, very quickly if I fell out of lead jammer status.
"Alright. But if I win, I can get my marbles."
You'll see why the marbles were so important in a minute. In fact, I sensed they would be integral to the investigation in Silvermoon. Over there, I'd be totally alone, and they'd turn me into a one-man spy network. In case you thought I was just fooling around, flirting with Murloc girls.
I winked at Megurgle. She blushed fruit-punch again.
Shooo cyuuute!
Bonnie blew the whistle, and we were off. The pack went first. A girl with a line stripe on her helmet seemed to be running things. It was weird for me that they were kind of wiggling their hips about, swerving and checking back to see if I was coming. But I made my peace with it. It was easy to see, right away, from their costumes and matching helmets, that this was a girls' game. And they said something about hip-checks before, right? So this was about hips, blocking or something.
Yes, it was also a little hot. I would have loved to play this game with Miss Cookie downstairs, but I learned a while back that Bonnie's girlfriends made you pay if you ever let seduction cloud your mind… just like someone else I knew.
"Second whistle is ours, Turaho. Pay attention." She had the toe of her skate right on the starting line. I tried to mimic her.
Of course, she blew the whistle when I was most distracted. Bonnie out-skated me in moments. I struggled to keep up. Also, Tauren feet aren't really made for skates, are they? I fell over after a few over-confident swipes.
I heard the girls laughing. They were coming up fast and about to lap me again. Bonnie was hot on their heels.
"Turaho, if I pass you, since you're yer own team… I'm gonna be lead jammer!"
"Oh no you don't…" I made my big Tauren thighs do the work, and kept steady. I looked back behind me. At this point, I had to out-skate Bonnie! I couldn't let her catch up with me, and it started to look like she was chasing me around the rink, I'm sure.
The girls all laughed again. Those little monstresses!
I skated like a mad bull. I went all over the place, slipping and sliding. I had more powerful strides, but Bonnie was persistent. At last, we both caught up to the back of her team. I tried to bowl my way through, but hip-checks at knee-height are more painful than you might imagine. Bonnie was able to slip between my spread legs. I tried to step through bodies, catch up with her.
"Geez! This is damned hard!"
"It's fun!" Cheered a Gnoll with a pink bow on her helmet. Her tiny round ears were sticking through beside that.
Did I mention that Gnoll girls are adorable too? Awww…
But she barked at me when I tried to, uh, 'pet' her. On the shoulder! It wasn't like that!
So Bonnie got to the front first.
"Bonnie is the lead jammer!" The Gnoll girl cheered, and then she howled triumphantly.
I finally tripped through the bunch, and slid ahead. But I was behind Bonnie still, that was the point. I needed to outskate her.
Bonnie switched around with a smooth flick of her skates, and spoke to me while speeding around backwards, "I'm about to go all the way around again and score points, boyo!"
"Argh!" I powered on. Bonnie should not have showed off like that. I was going to lap her, and soon.
Then, we were neck and neck. We both approached the pack again. I had to get through, pass her and then pass through them again to make some points.
We both grunted and edged at each other, desperate to get an advantage. Bonnie's girls slid apart when they sensed her coming. The one with the uh, stripe on her helmet was responsible for that strategy. They were looking ahead and going too fast to turn around and see Bonnie, but I noticed she touched them a certain way, and suddenly it was a signal and they were all parting the river to let this girl straight through.
"Dammit, that's cheating!"
"No it ain't!"
The next thing I heard was, "WHIP HER, WHIP HER, WHIP HER!"
"What now?!" I freaked. I expected the whips and chains to come out. "Aren't you tiny women aggressive enough already?"
The moment Bonnie surpassed the pack, Megurgl reached her webbed hand back and grabbed Bonnie's arm. Then, Megurgl sort of… threw Bonnie. Well, that looked dangerous.
But Bonnie went flying on her skates with the momentum, getting halfway around the track before I could say, 'Woah.'
This was terrible. I was already losing. Then, that crazy kid got up close to me and cheered that she was about to burn me.
"Watch….THIS!"
Bonnie turned on these crazy rocket boosters, on the back of her skates!
I'm an instinct man, like I said. Sometimes, I don't think. Engineer? They have an advantage. Defeat that by taking their toys away. I grabbed hold. In fact, I tucked Bonnie under my arm. The two of us went flying through the pack of her confused girlfriends, and yelling as we burned around the track at a crazy speed.
"Turahoooooooooooo! Ya cheatiiiiin…. bastaaaaaaard!"
"Bonnieeeeeeee! Aaaaaaaaah!"
Well, the end of the game was much easier to explain. Bonnie and I busted through her frazzled friends like they were a bunch of bowling pins. The lot of us went flying in ten directions, I swear.
When the smoke cleared, Bonnie hobbled up to me, one skate on. The other foot had only the top of a burnt sock around the ankle.
"If… we say you won, Turaho, will you take your big accident-prone butt outta hea for a change?!"
I sat up halfway, said I wanted my marbles. Parts of my outfit felt and smelled like they were burnt to bits, too.
Bonnie really didn't want to give those marbles up so easily. But her friends were in a crying, smoking heap and the simulation was flickering back to reality around us. We'd be seeing the store room and the other machines, and the other customers any moment.
Speaking of which, I thought I saw a blonde-headed kid—I mean a Human—and a big brown Tauren wearing chieftan and feathers heading into another Simulator machine.
"Haha! This time, I'll defeat your army of sapper Goblins."
"Anduin, you have to build up a whole fortress first. That's the Warcraft way!"
Me, "BAINE?!"
But then the magic faded. We were suddenly lying on the floor watching Chief Baine and apparently, King Anduin of Stormwind, disappear into one of the other machines.
Bonnie shoved me, to bring me around.
"That a usual thing around here?" I'm sure I sounded panicked by that point.
She sighed and handed me a felt bag. I tugged the drawstring and looked inside. Lots of tiny glass balls clicked gently.
Bonnie told me, "If ya go downstairs and see a bunch of beefy, armed Humans looking suspiciously not-Venture-Co., don't mess with 'em. You'll end up in Stormwind Keep… That's all I'm sayin."
The Venture Co. It takes all kinds. I hefted the pouch in my hand and caught it again. Good weight. They didn't seem like a bag full of my personal army of spies at all.
Bonnie followed me to the stairs. Her friends were taking their time, complaining about me and so hanging behind.
"Turaho, I heard you're goin ta Silvermoon. So you're gonna try to use those things against Kael'thas?"
"Mainly his wife. Funny, the timing was good. It was kinda her idea, in a way."
Bonnie shook her head at me. I stopped and backed away from the first step. I let her go down the stairs ahead of me, like a gentleman. Still hard to manage as a Tauren. I pretty much had to wait for her to clear the whole stairs before safely going down without possibly stepping on her with my large stride.
I eyed Bonnie triumphantly the whole way down, "Scrying orbs are low-tech. And when they're this small, they're every Pathfinder's dream come true. If I only had these ages ago, how many missions would have ended before they even started—"
"Turaho, be careful out there." She waited. She made me listen to my own loud hooves going clumsily down Goblin stairs. She made me feel how anxious I was, with no kindly conversation to fill in the awkward silence.
Yes, so she had a point. Even a good Pathfinder could feel like a fish out of water. On stairs, in Silvermoon…
Bonnie sniffed at me, "You'll be in their land. Not Mulgore. And Kael'thas is a very, very bad man. He's not a girl Goblin with the hots for ya, willin' to go play for hours in the Simulator."
"Uh, I—"
"It's good ya gonna become a Paladin tonight." Damn, word did get around Mulgore fast, if it was already so deep in the Venture Co. tunnels, "Because if you go over there, Turaho, doin' ya usual Pathfinder 'I'm gonna wear you down' thing, Kael'thas will turn and tear ya face off. That's the kinda animal he is, honey. Ya understand?"
"Why? What have you heard?" then, before she could really back out of it, "Is Kael'thas involved with Madam Goya? Do you think he employed someone to take Greatfather Winter, maybe a Demon Hunter through her, perhaps?"
Bonnie shook her head again. I could tell she felt I wasn't listening. But I was paying very close attention, reading between the lines. Right?
"Turaho, I almost didn't give ya those, you should know that. I thought things through, and them mahbles could turn out to be ya worst enemy. Tiny little pieces of glass that'll make you think you're bigger'n you actually are. I heard lotsa clever people who use those go crackers." She frowned, sighed, "And you're the smartest, cleverest Tauren I know."
"Handsomest, too." I brushed it aside. She should have known I was still waiting on her answers to my Madam Goya question.
Bonnie backed off, so that I could leave, "Look, just-"
I placed a hand on her head and mussed her chestnut hair.
She sighed at last, "Turaho. Don't lose ya mahbles."
Next stop—walking through Mulgore to become a paladin when I don't even want to, and then somehow not dying at the hands of a crazed Night Elf assassin that I've never even heard of before.
Good times.
