As I’d said the last time I posted, after the news about Vol’jin reached Orgrimmar, everybody was in a state of shock for a while, and some of the Kor’kron were sent down to the Echo Isles to make sure everything was secure there. I remember Eitrigg seeming less than thrilled about that for some reason, but I didn’t think too much of it at the time.

Still, I was concerned about how everyone was doing down there. I have a couple friends from the comic shop in Razor Hill who live on the Echo Isles, and I figured that they must have been pretty shaken up by everything. So last week, after I hadn’t heard from them in a little while, I decided to take a trip down and see how they were doing.

You will never guess who I ran into on the way down.

Thrall!

Now, I can’t say I was ever very close to Thrall personally, but I definitely owe him a debt or two after he helped save the Bilgewater Cartel after we left Kezan. Not to mention, he’s the one who first started training me as a shaman way back when. (I changed the subject when he asked how that was coming along. No need for him to know that my mechanical totems short-circuit nearby appliances nearly as often as they summon up the elements.) So, as much as Garrosh is my friend and I know the two of them don’t always see eye to eye, I’m very pro-Thrall.

Or pro-Go’el. I’m not too clear on which one he’s going by these days.

Anyway, he was on his way to the Echo Isles from the Valley of Trials, along with a few Horde adventurers who had just returned from Pandaria. He didn’t go into a lot of detail, but I guess he was concerned that there was some kind of trouble for the trolls in the aftermath of Vol’jin’s death. He invited me to come with them, and since I was already concerned about my troll friends down there, naturally I took him up on his offer.

When we arrived at the Echo Isles, there were Kor’kron guards posted all around the perimeter of the island, and patrols marching around all over, without any Darkspear soldiers anywhere to be seen among the defenders. Which struck me as kind of odd, obviously. Not to mention the fact that the Kor’kron all seemed to be in a pretty foul mood.

Still, there was a Kor’kron officer along the main road, and Thrall went up to talk to him. I figured between Thrall’s diplomatic skills, and the fact that he’s…you know…Thrall, he should be able to clear things up pretty quickly.

Hmm. Okay, so much for that.

We made our way into the city from there, and it was a pretty shocking sight – the Kor’kron weren’t protecting the trolls, they were maintaining an occupation! The trolls were rounded up, disarmed, supervised by the Kor’kron, and lots of them were even chained up.

I don’t even want to think what Saurfang would say if he knew this was going on.

Thrall wasn’t happy that it had come to this, but he decided we had to free the Darkspear from the occupation. So the handful of us went around the island and, little by little, helped the trolls neutralize the Kor’kron guards. Mostly that meant “disarm and capture,” but, well… <sigh> You know.

Once we had control of most of the island, we headed to Darkspear Hold, where that warlock Gul’tar, one of Malkorok’s lieutenants, had taken charge of the city and was running things from Vol’jin’s old command center. Thrall tried to get him to stand down, but he wouldn’t budge. Gul’tar ended up ranting about the Horde changing and Vol’jin refusing to change with it, and that’s why he died – that didn’t really make sense to me, considering the reports that Vol’jin had died in a saurok attack – and attacked Thrall. Thrall and the Darkspear were able to beat him without too much trouble.

Now, the question is, what next? Thrall wasn’t sure where we go from here, but he said he would stay on the Echo Isles to help the trolls keep a handle on things until…well, I’m not really supposed to go into that. That’s one of the details Thrall said we all needed to keep quiet for the time being.

Hmm… Although…come to think of it…I suppose this whole story would be filed under “Things Thrall Wants You to Keep Quiet.” So maybe I shouldn’t have just blogged about it. Oh well. Just make sure you all keep this hush-hush.

At least there’s still that one last detail that I can be good about keeping secret.

Even as juicy and awesome as it is.

Anyway…ahem…since I won’t be talking about that, I guess I’ll wrap this up for now. I’ll try to post again if anything else big happens around here.

Okay screw it OMG YOU GUYS VOL’JIN IS TOTALLY STILL ALIVE HOLY GEEZ CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!?!?!