After the mind-fuckery of the whole Faranell situation, I decided I could stand to have a little time to step away and clear my head. So I shoveled the latest batch of paperwork off on Eitrigg (who has been LOVING ME, let me tell you, since I realized I could get away with sticking him with that kind of stuff) and got my gear together for a fishing trip. Used to do that all the time with Dranosh back in Nagrand, not so much the last few years since I suddenly turned into a grown-up and had to be all responsible and shit. Guess that’s just the price you pay for being successful.

When I headed upstairs to get Mortimer, Gurtash was there cleaning his stall, so I figured what the hell, the kid probably doesn’t get to go on a lot of fishing trips, so I invited him along. We flew over to the Southfury River, and skipped across to the Barrens side. There’s an old dock there, not far from Nozzlepot’s Outpost, that’s pretty convenient for fishing. We camped out there for a little while, and right off, the kid lands himself a 17-pound catfish. That’s all I needed, a cocky 13-year-old, right?

We fished for a while, and then at one point Gurtash decided to stretch his legs some and ran around a little near the dock. Not too far, still within sight of me…which was a good thing, since while he was zipping around, he managed to catch the attention of one of those lions that wander around that part of the Barrens. And so here comes the lion trying to chew on Gurtash. I charged over and smacked the lion down – no biggie, I didn’t even have to draw a weapon to do it, just whoosh, pow, dead.

None of this was any big deal, but after I dropped the lion, I noticed something kind of weird.

The lion had a pair of worn mail boots. And when I say “had,” I’m not saying he had them stuffed in his pockets or something, because guess what, lions DON’T HAVE FUCKING POCKETS, so just to make sure you’re getting the full picture, the lion ws WEARING them. On its back feet. Which…you know…strikes me as a little strange for a lion.

I took a couple minutes to WTF over that, but then I just shrugged it off and went back to fishing. Thing is, though, once we were back at the dock, it didn’t take too long before a crocolisk from the river decided that Gurtash smelled awful tasty, and came trudging on up after him. So once again, Garrosh to the one-shot rescue.

And, um, after the croc was dead, we noticed it was wearing a…barbaric loincloth.

Kind of odd, wouldn’t you say?

I thought it was a tiny bit peculiar.

Didn’t really see that one coming.

Nope, sure didn’t.

Oh, and also…

WHY WOULD A FUCKING CROCOLISK HAVE A FUCKING LOINCLOTH?!?!

I don’t think it’ll come as a shock to anyone that all this started getting me pretty weirded out and curious. So I finished up the last batch of fishing with Gurtash, got him all strapped in on Mortimer, and sent them both back to Orgrimmar. Once they were on their way, I took a little time to do a little hunting, and wound up littering the area around the Southfury with a decent-sized batch of dead crocolisks, lions, and raptors.

The outcome? A lot of them didn’t have much of anything on them, other than claws and fangs and the usual animaly crap. But out of a couple dozen dead animals, I wound up finding a cloth vest, a pair of brackwater boots, some mail soldier’s gauntlets, some amulet on one of the crocolisks, and, maybe even more disturbingly, a blunt claymore, a curved dagger, and a birchwood maul.

Which…um…kind of raises the question, why would animals be wandering around with all this shit?

Has anybody else been running into this problem? Finding animals carrying stuff around with them that makes not a single fucking bit of sense for an animal to have? This actually isn’t a rhetorical question – I want to know if other people have been seeing this or if I’m just crazy. So, everybody reading this, chime in if this sounds at all familiar, and let me know what you’ve run across and where. Comment on this post, e-mail me (garrosh1337@gmail.com), shoot me a tweet, whatever. I want to figure out what the hell is going on here, and the only way I’m going to do that is if I get as much information as I can.

So, you heard me, get commenting if you’ve seen something! And you know what, if you HAVEN’T seen something? Get out there and go all Nesingwary on some animals just to make sure, then check back here!  YOUR WARCHIEF HAS SPOKEN.