We’ve spent a good solid day investigating in Stranglethorn Vale, without a whole lot to show for it. On the way down, I arranged to have Mokvar and Krog take the zeppelin down with me. Figured it would help to bring a record-keeper, plus a trained investigator who can do a little stealthing around.

Based on the conversations I had with the DEHTA people – or, well, what I remember of them – our most likely suspect in the animal-arming weirdness is a troll named Tembw’bam, who used to hang with the DEHTA guys until he decided they weren’t hardcore enough for him over the whole animal rights thing. Yes, you read that right. According to what they tell me, this Tembw’bam dude went so crazy living in his animal forms that he basically renounced being a humanoid. Like he looked at the animals, and looked at the other people, and went over to the animals like “Fuck that shit, I’m with you guys.” Which to be fair, I don’t know if I can blame him, depending on the people he had surrounding him. I mean, lock me in a room with Dontrag and Utvoch for a few days and self-identifying as a meerkat might start to sound pretty good to me, too.

Anyway, once we arrived here, Commander Aggro’gosh put some of his scouts at our disposal, and we started sending out search parties led by me, Mokvar, and Krog. I even stopped by the Nesingwary base camp with my group to check in, although I have to say, it’s kind of disappointing dropping by there. I mean, I hear the camp is spruced up a lot now compared to what it was like back in the day, but here’s the thing. As much as the facilities might be better, it just isn’t what you’d call a no-kidding-around on-top-of-shit hunter’s camp. Look, I’ve met Hemet Nesingwary. I went hunting with him a few times back in Nagrand. THAT dude is the real deal as far as big game hunting goes. His kid, Hemet Jr.? Total slacker. You can tell his heart’s not really in it – he’d really rather be focusing on his music, or some shit like that – and it shows. But you know how it goes. The boss takes off and leaves his son in charge of the company, nobody can say anything because, hey, it’s the boss’ fucking kid, but the kid doesn’t really know the business well enough to ride the staff the way the old man would, and so everything gets lax and sloppy. Fucking legacy kids.

I tried talking to Hemet Jr. some, but between him and the other hunters at the camp, the best I could get was confirmation of there being a lot of animals turning up with weapons and armor on them. Tigers especially lately, for whatever reason. That might just be because there’s a decent tiger population near the camp, or maybe because there’s more to it, who knows – and by the way, can I just say again? Hemet SR. would have been able to put some tracking on that shit and get an idea of what’s what. No such luck with HJ.

We’ll keep at it a little longer, and hopefully something will turn up. While we were making the rounds, Nimboya sent word to some of his people over in Bambala, and we just had a troll hunting party stop by the base here, so maybe we’ll get a lead there. More soon.