Tag Archives: thal’darah grove
Polyphonic pro moronic
After my trip up to Hyjal a few weeks ago – the Twilight’s Hammer crackdown part, not the grabby dryad part – things have quieted down some up there, but there’ve still been a few random Twilight flare-ups here and there. Mostly they seem to have gotten fewer and farther between, but every so often I’ve been getting reports of them turning up again. Usually the reports end with them promptly getting smacked down by our people.
I just got another heads-up from Stonetalon. First the basic information itself: Dontrag and Utvoch (of course) were making a scouting sweep around Battlescar Valley, doing a little followup on the skirmishes we’ve had there with Alliance forces, when they ran into another one of the faceless ones we’d found down around Thal’darah Grove. It must have been the runt of the faceless litter, because D&U were able to smack it down pretty easily, but they decided to have an extra look around the area. A rare non-retarded move by those two, I know. It happens.
Turns out, this was creepily close to the makeshift graveyard that we’d set up in the valley after everything that had gone down there some months back. They found a few signs that someone had been poking around there, but the main disturbing news item was that one of the graves had been dug up – specifically, former General Grebo. (Okay, I’m not sure why I felt the need to call him “former General” – I mean yeah, he ended up dying in disgrace and relinquished his rank as a result, but, I mean, he’s dead. He’s pretty much “former” everything.) Someone had dug up Grebo’s grave. It was empty. I’m not sure I want to think about what they want with his remains, but when your best case scenario is that someone decided to Calder Gray it up, that can’t be a happy thing. I may get Krog up there to do some checking around.
Anyway, that’s the basic information itself, which obviously isn’t fun. But on top of it, the news came to me from D&U themselves, which tells you right there that just GETTING the update was even LESS fun. Because I think I’ve just discovered ANOTHER down side to the whole Earth Online situation – the two of them decided to deliver this little tidbit to me IN TELLS while I was ON THE GAME. Which, first of all, that’s supposed to be my down time, to relax. Second of all, there are actually OFFICIAL CHANNELS they could use to report things, which would not involve intruding on the aforementioned down time, and, you know, distracting me with WTF news while I’m trying not to die to an elite. And then, just to finish off, the pickle on the crap sandwich of the whole situation if you will, the TWO of them decided they were going to deliver the news by BOTH getting into whispers with me, INDIVIDUALLY, at the SAME TIME.
Read that again. Once more. Now think about that. Are your ears bleeding yet? No? Read it one more time then. Now think about it some more.
See?
Do you have ANY IDEA how frustrating it is to try to drag a story out of TWO mental defectives SIMULTANEOUSLY, on the same topic, while trying to keep straight which idiot has told you what, and half the time it’s all you can do to keep straight which one of them is which? It’s like fucking moron stereo with extra reverb, turned up to eleven.
I think I need to roll an alt.
Old God mop-up duty
Scouting reports have finally come in from around Kalimdor, after the business with the Old Gods’ spawn in Thal’darah Grove last week. The Twilight’s Hammer is definitely weakened and scattered in the aftermath of Deathwing’s defeat, but they’re still out there licking their wounds. As for the Old Gods and their minions themselves, that’s a little tricker. We don’t really know very much about the Old Gods proper – in the late stages of the war with Deathwing we kept hearing references to an Old God named N’Zoth, but we don’t have much idea where he’s hiding, or how many Old Gods are still out there, if any, or where they are.
That’s the thing about the Old Gods – however many of them are left, they’re hidden away somewhere, buried deep in the bowels of the earth or at the bottom of the sea. With the ones we’ve fought so far, C’thun and Yogg-Saron, we actually had a pretty easy time of it, since in both those cases they were contained in one location, and even then it’s hard to tell just how deeply and broadly they’d managed to take root in the surrounding area.
But for the ones still on the loose, it’s a whole other problem. All we really know is that there’s at least one more of them (strictly speaking, there’s probably at least TWO more of them, seeing as how the Twilights keep talking about the Old GODS rather than the Old GOD, or just plain That Dude N’Zoth), and that they’re located, well, DOWN THERE somewhere. Hell, one of them could be tucked away somewhere under Orgrimmar for all we know. I guess the Titans supposedly imprisoned them all underground, although, first of all, Titans, nice job letting the rest of us know where they ARE so we could maybe help keep an eye on them, or at least not go digging around too close and maybe accidentally let them loose delving too greedily and too deep, and second of all, bang-up job keeping the three we know about contained all air-tight like they have been. Hell, one of those three is STILL contained as far as we know, and it hasn’t stopped him (her? it? they? do we need to invent a whole new pronoun for these things?) from stirring up all kinds of trouble with Deathwing and Ragnaros and the Twilights.
And that’s not even getting into their fucking SPAWN, whatever the fuck that even means, like the faceless ones and the tendrils and whatever else. I mean, look at what happened in Dragonblight and you’ll see my point. Apparently these Old Gods have like a zillion of these creepy-ass offspring or minions or whatever the fuck, all burrowing around underground where they can just roll up on Wyrmrest Temple and pop out of the ground with those fucking gigantic living-mouths-with-tentacles, which by the way, what’s even the POINT of keeping the Old Gods “imprisoned” if they can apparently just shit out THOSE things at will and send them wherever they want?
So anyway, yeah. Old Gods suck.
Point being, the Old Gods are the real problem, but they’re also damn hard to pin down, so most of the time the best we can do is try to stay on top of the Twilight cult and hope that keeping them under wraps will help us put a damper on the Old Gods indirectly. Which brings us back to the scouting reports. We’re still seeing some pockets of Twilight activity in a few areas. In particular I’m getting some reports on a remaining enclave up in Mount Hyjal. I may make a trip up there to have a look myself. Not to mention it might be good to check in and get a little face time with Hamuul Runetotem, seeing as I never got around to sending him a “Get Well Soon” card after…well, you know. Although he’s seemed kind of uncomfortable around me ever since the first couple months I was Warchief. Not sure what’s up with that. Anyway, I’ll probably have a chance to talk to him soon.
Krom’gar’s shadows
I still don’t put a lot of stock in superstitious stories about things that go bump in the night. Turns out, there wasn’t some mysterious spooky stuff going on in Thal’darah Grove like the men were talking about with the whole “Krom’gar’s shadow” thing. I knew there had to be something reasonable and real behind it all, and hey, check it out, hold on to your ass for the surprise incoming – Garrosh was right again. I knew there had to be some kind of sensible explanation. Real as ghosts and goblins.
I just wish it was something other than what it was. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
So I went down to the grove yesterday afternoon to have a look around. Took a hell of an effort to get Mortimer to land there at all – I’m not sure if he just remembered the last time he was there and didn’t want to get too close again, or if something else was spooking him. Either way, he put up a fight before we finally managed to land, and even then, he was pretty antsy the whole time there.
The grove is just eerie to walk around in now. I’m not sure if that’s just based on my own memories of the place… It’s probably hard not to be creeped out by a place where you know you damn near got killed. (Then again, if that’s all it is, I’d probably better figure out a way to get over it, otherwise I’m on pace to run out of places where I WON’T feel creeped out. Thal’darah Grove? Check. Ring of Honor? Check. Twilight Highlands? Double check.) I don’t think it’s just me, though. Most of the debris from Krom’gar bomb has been cleared out, but the land still looks scarred from the explosion. Even with the work that’s been done to re-level the soil for replanting, the terrain just looks skewed, almost as it the ground itself is still trying to pull away from the impact point. At the very center of the impact, the ground still looks scorched.
And then there’s the smell. I don’t even know how to describe it, but it hangs in the air. How many months ago now? And you can still smell it. That stink of burning trees and charred flesh and sulfur and a hint of blood. I can’t think of any time ever in my life when a smell was PALPABLE – you can actually FEEL it on its way into your nose.
Most of all, though, the grove is just hauntingly still. I don’t mean quiet, or tranquil, or uneventful even. I mean STILL. Like the whole place was just frozen. Like the land itself decided it couldn’t bear what we’d allowed to happen here, and time decided it wasn’t going on another step. Nothing moves. Nothing makes a sound. Just endless stillness in an empty landscape under dank, ruined air.
Or maybe I’m letting my imagination run away with me. Who knows.
I looked around the grove for I don’t know how long, and didn’t really find anything noteworthy, other than tons and tons of nothing. I saw some of the attempts at construction D&U had mentioned, that had just crumbled apart, and walked through some of the failed attempts at fields. Nothing really telling, just mode fodder for the eerie heap. But I knew “it’s kinda spooky” really wasn’t any kind of an answer, so I just stayed around and kept watching, wandering in circles, looking around until dusk fell.
Then it started making more sense.
As the grove grew darker, I started spotting dark figures moving in the distance. I wasn’t even sure at first how many – it could have just been one weaving in and out of sight, or many, I wasn’t sure. Like I said, I’m not superstitious, but I’ve got to admit I couldn’t help but think of the name the men had given the weirdness here, and wonder if I was about to run into yet another dead Horde officer come back to haunt me. But the shapes I was seeing were much too big to be an orc, even hopped up from shadow-necro-whatchamafuckery, so I pulled myself together pretty quick and starting making double time around the grove to find out what they were. They were huge and lumbering, moving around slowly, actually lurking more than moving, but in the growing darkness I wasn’t able to get a clear look until I was almost on top of them.
Faceless ones. About a dozen or so, skulking around the place.
I don’t have to tell you I’ve already had way, way, WAY more than enough of all this Twilight Old God tentacle-beasty bullshit, so once I knew what I was dealing with I didn’t waste much time putting Gorehowl to work. As I was cutting through the first couple of those ugly fuckers, I started noticing more movement scattered around the grove. I kept making my way around, hunting down the faceless ones, and I was able to pin down the new shapes that were moving – tentacles, sprouting from the ground, budding out of the earth gradually, a few at a time, like some sick mockery of the fields we’d been trying to plant.
At least we know why the soil had turned bad on us, I suppose. And what had gone wrong with construction, too – while I was making my rounds I spotted a few of the tentacles lashing randomly at some of the half-finished scaffolding in the area. It’s really these tentacles that concern me a lot more than the faceless ones. I hacked down as many of them as I could, but who knows how much good it’ll do. It’s like when you have weeds in your garden – you can go around yanking out the stems all night, but who knows how deep the roots go.
I’d gotten reports of an infestation like this at Stonetalon Peak, tendrils sprouting from some sort of Old God spawn…apparently the infestation runs through more of the mountains than we thought. Granted, these particular beasties seem to be pretty small potatoes – the tentacles died fast enough, and even the faceless ones were a lot weaker than others I’ve run across before. Maybe the Old Gods are weakened some after what happened with Deathwing. Maybe not. Hard to say. Either way, though, I don’t much like the look of this, not least of all because if we have more of these tendrilly freakshows cropping up, it’s not much of a stretch to think there might still be some Twilights up to something too.
I’m going to have to send out some more recon teams to check up on this. Old Gods, Twilights, whatever, I don’t want any of them getting a chance to come up for air. Especially that damned cult. I kind of have an axe to grind with them. And by “grind,” I mean “cleave as deep as possible into each and every one of their skulls.”
Back to Stonetalon
Today I paid my first visit to Stonetalon Mountains since…well…you know. I had a brief stopover at Vindication Hold – formerly Kromgar’s fortress – but the main events of the day took place at Cliffwalker Post. Since the last time I was here, the outpost has had some additional fortifications added, especially docking stations for zeppelins and other airships. Between the location of Cliffwalker Post and its natural terrain benefits, I’ve decided to designate it as the main hub for military air operations in Kalimdor.
To that end, the big event of the day was the commissioning of our newest gunship, an improved model in the Agmar’s Hammer line of ships. So we had myself, Overload Cliffwalker, and a few other notables on hand for the christening of – and this was kind of a surprise gift of mine for the overlord – the Masha.
I’ll leave it to you to decide whether they count among the “notables” on hand, but Dontrag and Utvoch were also there for the ceremony. So, you know, fantastic there. Since they finished helping with the whole Cho’gall business a little ways back, they’ve gone back to their posts as part of Overlord Cliffwalker’s forces. I’m not quite sure whether or not Overlord Cliffwalker is especially happy about this. But, that’s where they’ve been, and after the ceremony I ended up stuck talking to them for a while.
I’m not going to copy the whole conversation, first of all because Mokvar wasn’t around to record it, but second and more importantly, they were really on a roll and I’m not sure if the internet has enough bandwidth to cover it all. I mean seriously, those two really need to figure out a way to dial it down a little or I really think there’s a danger that language itself might wear out and fucking break. Anyway.
They told me that the recovery efforts in Stonetalon have been going well, especially since the Grimtotem have more or less been put under wraps. The recovery’s been going well, that is, except for Thal’darah Grove itself – which you’ll probably remember as the druid sanctuary where Krom’gar dropped his giant fucking bomb. Apparently the rebuilding there has been going slowly, as in hardly getting anywhere at all…anything they start to build ends up crumbling apart in pretty short order, or just getting dismantled even though the guards in the area swear nobody could be getting in to sabotage anything…and more troubling, every attempt they’ve been making to plant new vegetation or even basic crops has pretty much failed. It’s like the land doesn’t want to let anything take hold. Some of the men, they tell me, have been calling the whole phenomena “Krom’gar’s shadow,” like the earth is still angry at Krom’gar for what he did there and is just flat out refusing to let anyone else get anything started.
I’m probably going to head down to the grove myself a little later today to have a look at things myself. Personally I don’t put a lot of stock in these kinds of curses and ghost stories, but then again I took intel from the disembodied spirit of a Grimtotem raider and tried to break up a plot to resurrect the dead leader of a cult of tentacle-monster-worshipping crazy people, so y’know, what do I know?
Brackenwall update
Like I mentioned a few posts ago, I’ve had Dontrag and Utvoch sent over to Brackenwall Village to help Krog with his investigations. I’ve been trying to keep those two in mind after the whole business in Stonetalon, seeing as how I probably wouldn’t have gotten to the bottom of things in time if they hadn’t pointed me in the right direction (I mean, okay, they did send me to Thal’darah Grove when it was about to have a bomb dropped on it, not exactly pro timing there, but if I’d been any later I wouldn’t have known Orthus Cliffwalker was there or been able to crack down on Krom’gar before he could do who knows what else, so they at least made all that possible.) Mind you I like those two just fine, they’re dedicated soldiers and all, but crap they like to talk. I almost want to lock them in a room with Tirion and see whose head caves in first. Just assigning them to the job in Dustwallow took like twenty minutes what with them having to chime in every four words. So…I’m sure Krog is going to have fun with them. They’ll be plenty of help, I’m sure, but I’m also kind of sorry I won’t get to see the look on Krog’s face the first time he gives those two an opening to babble.
Side note – until this last transfer, Dontrag and Utvoch were still in Stonetalon, working on the cleanup efforts there, mostly out of Krom’gar’s old base. Since Krom’gar was…relieved…I’ve appointed High Chieftain Cliffwalker as Horde overlord for the area, and put our forces in his charge. While his base at Cliffwalker Post is being rebuilt, he’s running operations out of Sun Rock Retreat (good to see activity going on there again), and in other happy news, it looks like his reassignment of troops in the southern regions has gone a long way to pushing the Grimtotem back. What with the latest goings-on with the Grimtotem attacking the ogres, it’s good to see they’re being clamped down on pretty well in other areas.
Anyway, I should be getting some updates from the Brackenwall boys soon. Depending on how things shape up, I might head down that way to check on matters myself.
Spazzle Speaks
What’s up?
Hi all, this is Spazzle again guest-posting for the Warchief. As a lot of you might have guessed from his posts this past week, Garrosh has had a trying few days, and he’s not in much of a mood to blog right now. As a matter of fact, he’s been keeping himself holed up in his private war room in Grommash Hold. For right now, I figured I’d make a quick post on his behalf to let you all know that he’s probably not feeling up to answering his mail as usual today. But he has been reading your messages, and I’m sure he’ll get to them soon, so please do keep them coming. If anything, I’m sure he’ll appreciate the interaction and support of his citizens after the week he’s had.
Speaking of which, I’m sure some of you are wondering what ended up happening at Cliffwalker Post the other day. As it turns out, I was about to cast a glamour spell to summon up a vision of the events there from the point of view of a Horde adventurer who also happened to be on the scene, and then, through the wonders of goblin engineering (Bilgewater pride!), digitize it to post here for you all. See, one more of the 101 cool things you can do with a Samophlange that I bet you didn’t know! Anyway, here’s what ended up going down:
So you can probably see why the Warchief wants to be alone with his thoughts and clear his head a little right now. Hopefully he’ll be out again and back to his…um…usual cheery self.
While I’m posting here, I’m also making some long-overdue updates to the blog. By the time you read this (or shortly thereafter), I should have a blogroll added with links to many of the other great blogs out there. If you’re a regular reader of the Command Board and have a blog that I’ve missed (or know of one that the Warchief and I should check out), please send us a note (garrosh1337@gmail.com) or add a comment here. I’ll try to be better about updating the site, and hopefully Garrosh will be better about not kicking me.
This week I also went ahead and got Garrosh set up with his very own Facebook and Twitter feed (@GarroshHllscrm), so if any of you would like to keep tabs on him that way, feel free! Although…it just occurred to me that now I’m probably going to have to be on call to explain (and re-re-re-explain) to Garrosh how to use those…bad enough I’m stuck having to run him through stuff on Earth Online now…oh well.
Anyhow! That’s it for now, everyone. If you’ll excuse me, I have to head back to the goblin part of town and see if the guys and I can figure out what keeps happening to our Kezam rice…
If you ever need anything!
Spazzle
[Header image provided by Rades from Orcish Army Knife, used here with permission and many thanks.]
Cliffwalker Post
I don’t want to talk about it.
I just… I don’t want to talk about it.
[Header image provided by Rades from Orcish Army Knife, used here with permission and many thanks.]
Thal’darah Grove
Quick update – writing this from Orgrimmar.
Thal’darah Grove was a graveyard when I got there. No weapon of mass destruction, no armaments of any kind. Night elves and tauren bodies everywhere, apparently druids, many of them scary young. Way too familiar for my liking.
Only had time for a quick survey of the place before a goblin balloon carrying some kind of bomb came floating in. Frankly I was too distracted by one of the tauren corpses to even notice. Orthus Cliffwalker, the chieftain’s son – Cairne Bloodhoof introduced him to me my first day as Warchief, I’d recognize him anywhere. I probably wouldn’t have even gotten out before the balloon released its payload, but my wyvern was circling around and swooped in to grab me before the bomb fell. By that point Kor’kron backup was arriving in the surrounding Battlescar Valley, and once the wyvern dropped me off with them, the troll support mage ported us out to Orgrimmar.
Porting back out again momentarily, to Cliffwalker Post. Already a shitty day. It’s only getting shittier.
Sludgewerks update
By the time I reached the Sludgewerks, Blastingineer Bombgutz had already come and gone. According to Jibbly Rackit – the main goblin in charge here, as much as any goblin ever seems to be in charge – the parts from Dontrag and Utvoch were part of a device to release some kind of bomb from a distance. The goblins already finished work on the bomb and sent it along to General Grebo at Cliffwalker Post.
Cliffwalker’s camp would make for a good launching point for attacks on either Battlescar Valley or Thal’darah Grove, so it makes sense Krom’gar and Grebo to make that their staging ground. From what I can tell, there’s a major skirmish going on with the night elves in Battlescar Valley. If this bomb is being targeted for the grove instead, I can only imagine what the elves must have going on there.
I’m heading to Thal’darah Grove now. Probably should have listened to Dontrag and Utvoch and headed straight there rather than wasting time on the damn goblins. Updates to come as I’m able to give them.
Underneath the bunker
Thank goodness for familiar faces in the middle of all the crazy.
None of the troops here at Krom’gar’s fortress knew a whole lot about what was going on, other than Overlord Krom’gar and General Grebo being away on some important mission. Like I said before, I would have guessed some good old-fashioned gnome-punting, but nobody seemed to know for sure. Turns out, though, they had a few other men stationed down in the mine just below the fortress, so I headed down there with Mokvar, who’s FINALLY gotten his ass around to training up his inscription so he can record drawings and transcripts of useful stuff. TOO FUCKING BAD HE DIDN’T HAVE THAT SHIT READY WHEN I NEEDED A GOOD WALK-AWAY-FROM-EXPLOSION PORTRAIT. Lazy fucker.
Anyway, he finally got that shit taken care of, so considering how fishy things have been looking here in Stonetalon, I’m having him keep a running record of everything from here on. As it turns out, two of the men Krom’gar had working in the mine were Sergeant Dontrag and Scout Utvoch, the two soldiers I’d met back in Ashenvale and sent ahead to help with Krom’gar’s forces.
I want to make sure we’re keeping the details straight, so I’m going to copy out Mokvar’s transcript here. Well, I’m going to try to. His handwriting is fucking shit. Who the fuck are these inscription trainers, and what are they doing, breaking everyone’s fucking fingers before they let them take their damn pens home?
UTVOCH: Warchief! Lok’tar ogar! An honor to see you, sir!
DONTRAG: A great honor, Warchief!
UTVOCH: Very great indeed, sir!
DONTRAG: An inconceivable great honor!
GARROSH: Okay, enough, seriously, you guys, we’ve been through this before already, you’ve really got to tone it way, way, WAY the fuck DOWN.
DONTRAG: Sorry, Warchief.
UTVOCH: Very sorry.
DONTRAG: Our apologies, sir.
UTVOCH: Yes sir.
DONTRAG: Very deepest apologies.
UTVOCH: Deep—
GARROSH: ENOUGH ALREADY, YOU TWO. <facepalm>
UTVOCH: Shutting up, sir.
DONTRAG: Yes sir.
GARROSH: That’s better. So I’m trying to find out what the hell has been going on around here. Hopefully you men can shed some light on all this.
DONTRAG: Well, sir, Utvoch and I have been working down here in the mine mostly, so I’m not sure about everything that’s been happening above. But it sure sounded like there was a major battle going on up there, what with the sounds of machinery and gunfire.
GARROSH: What were you two doing down here, then, hiding in a cave when your comrades were engaged in honorable battle? From the looks of it out there, there WAS an attack on the fortress—
UTVOCH: Gnomes, sir?
DONTRAG: Damn, I hate gnomes.
GARROSH: I KNOW, RIGHT? Fucking gnomes, that’s what it looks like.
UTVOCH: Damn fucking gnomes indeed!
DONTRAG: Inconceivable fucking gno—
GARROSH: DON’T START THAT AGAIN!!
DONTRAG: Sorry sir.
GARROSH: Now answer my question! Why were you here and not joining in on the fight?
DONTRAG: Believe me, Warchief, not for lack of desire to be up there with the others.
UTVOCH: It was General Grebo’s orders, sir.
DONTRAG: Well General Grebo, and the Overlord, sir. We were originally supposed to escort the general to the northern front and help deliver ordnance for the battle with the night elves in Battlescar Valley. But then the goblin blastgineer—
UTVOCH: Blastgineer Bombgutz, sir.
DONTRAG: —Blastgineer Bombgutz here in the mine went out of contact, and the fortress needed the machine parts she was supposed to be gathering, for the anti-aircraft cannons, sir, and so Overlord Krom’gar decided to send two of his best orcs down to investigate and send the parts back so he’d be ready to defend the fortress.
UTVOCH: Which we did, sir.
DONTRAG: Just in the nick of time, but we did.
UTVOCH: Well, with a little help.
DONTRAG: Well, yeah, but we don’t need to get into that.
UTVOCH: Did you even get their name?
DONTRAG: Don’t think so. Did you?
UTVOCH: No, never introduced themselves.
DONTRAG: Yeah, these passing-through helpers never do.
UTVOCH: Pretty rude if you ask me.
DONTRAG: Like it would kill them to strike up a conversation. But oh no, just wander on in, what do you need me to do? Then up and on their way, and—
GARROSH: ENOUGH already. HEAD HURTS. I’m losing my sense of humor with you two. Damn, you orcs are a piece of work. Fucking brilliant. YOU’RE the best of the best Krom’gar’s got, huh? No wonder everything’s running so great around here.
UTVOCH: Um, thank you, sir?
GARROSH: And stop grinning like a couple of idiots.
DONTRAG: Sorry sir.
GARROSH: <sigh> Anyway… So the Overlord needed parts for the cannons, I get that, but once that was taken care of, why not get back up to the fortress and help DEFEND it? I’m sure they could have used every hand up there.
UTVOCH: General’s orders, sir.
GARROSH: What orders?
DONTRAG: Well, you see, Warchief, it wasn’t just the cannons that needed additional parts.The general was also overseeing another project for the northern front, some kind of…what did he call it?
UTVOCH: Deployment mechanism?
DONTRAG: Yeah, that’s it – a deployment mechanism that was going to be needed soon, and he was expecting them to be delivered along with the artillery parts. Only when the blastgineer went missing, and Overlord Krom’gar sent us down to check on her, General Grebo instructed us to stay until we’d secured those extra parts.
UTVOCH: And then stay here until they could be sent north, sir.
DONTRAG: I guess the mechanism thing is pretty important to the northern strategy, and General Grebo wanted to make sure the parts he needed would be secure. And he said he needed to make sure a couple of orcs he could trust would stay and make sure the parts were taken care of.
UTVOCH: He said it was more important that we stay here under cover, sir.
DONTRAG: Apparently he couldn’t afford to have something happen to us while we were taking care of the shipment.
UTVOCH: Which we did, sir.
DONTRAG: Yeah, we just gathered up the last of them and sent them ahead with Blastgineer Bombgutz.
GARROSH: Where were they going? And what were they for, anyway? What the fuck is a “deployment mechanism”, what do I look like, a fucking goblin or something?
UTVOCH: No, no sir, you’re not green at all.
GARROSH: I…don’t know how to take that.
UTVOCH: Um…
GARROSH: MOVING ON. Where was the shipment going?
DONTRAG: The Sludgewerks, sir. Straight northwest. I guess they were making the final upgrades to the mechanism before sending it along to Cliffwalker Post. General Grebo was supposed to supervise the arrival personally.
GARROSH: What about Chieftain Cliffwalker?
DONTRAG: Not sure, sir.
GARROSH: Hmm… Okay, in that case I should probably head out there and see just what’s going on. Whatever Krom’gar and Grebo have in the works, I’m sure it’s bad news for the night elves, and I don’t want to miss the show. You men finish up whatever you need to do here, and check in with me at Cliffwalker Post.
DONTRAG: Begging your pardon, sir, if I could make a suggestion?
GARROSH: What is it?
DONTRAG: Well, sir, I’m not too clear on the whole operation—
UTVOCH: Obviously.
DONTRAG: Like you are?
UTVOCH: More than you—
GARROSH: ARE WE COMING UP ON A POINT ANYTIME SOON??
DONTRAG: Right, sir.
UTVOCH: Sorry sir.
DONTRAG: Much apologizings. Um, anyhow, I don’t know all the details, but I know part of the reason for this big production with the…deployment mechanism…well, it has something to do with some kind of weapon the night elves have been assembling. They’ve set up a base at Thal’darah Grove, not far from Cliffwalker Post, where they’re finishing work on it.
GARROSH: What kind of weapon?
DONTRAG: Not sure, sir. Just that it’s supposed to be massive.
UTVOCH: “Of mass destruction,” as they say, sir.
DONTRAG: Yeah. So, sir, if you want to get to the bottom of this, might I suggest you investigate there straight away?
GARROSH: Hmm… You men are dedicated, I’ll give you that. All right, I’ll check up on all this. You two head back to Orgrimmar when you’re done here – I’ll want to have a full debriefing with you, the general, and the overlord when this is all finished.
DONTRAG: Yes, sir. Lok’tar.
GARROSH: Strength and honor, men. Peace. Um, not literally. Anyway.
You know, gotta say, as crappy as Mokvar’s handwriting is, it’s pretty impressive he was able to get all that shit down. Anyway, I’m sending Mokvar back to Orgrimmar to arrange a Kor’kron detachment to come out this way. Any way you cut it, something still doesn’t sit right with me about this. I’m pretty damn certain there’s SOMETHING happening at Thal’darah Grove that’s in the middle of it, even if Dontrag and Utvoch aren’t exactly in the know about all the details…but before I go running over there, I want to check on what these goblin fuckers are working on at the Sludgewerks.
More updates soon.
“I think we made a good impression on the Warchief, Donty.” “Sort of, Ut.” “Sort of, as in how?” “Sort of, as in the ‘me’ part of the ‘we’.”
