Tag Archives: stranglethorn vale
They grow up so fast
Yesterday I ended up sneaking out of the war room to drop by the Orgrimmar orphanage. It was Gurtash’s birthday — he’s fourteen now, can you believe it? — so I thought I’d treat him to a little hunting trip. Hopefully this would go a little less WTFly than that last fishing trip.
We took the zeppelin to Grom’gol in Stranglethorn. (Have to admit, as we pulled up to the docking tower I took a minute to look around the base and enjoy the fact that we were still there in full force.) From there, we spent most of the day wandering around the jungle hunting tigers, panthers, raptors, a few crocolisks. None of the animals in STV pose any kind of a threat to me, obviously, but I figured they’d be a decent challenge for Gurtash. Turns out, the kid’s actually pretty decent with an axe. I mean, the animals out in Nagrand would make mincemeat of him, but for a kid his age he’s not bad at all. I tried showing him a few extra tricks while we were out there — gotta say, after a couple dozens panthers’ worth of practice, he was getting pretty good at the old “heroic leap away then charge in to stun your target” move.
Since we were locked into hunting mode, I figured we should drop by the Nesingwary camp while we were in the neighborhood, but as it turns out, Hemet Jr. was nowhere to be seen. I guess he took off with the old man a couple weeks ago. Who knows, maybe Hemet Sr. will teach the kid a thing or two and he’ll finally stop being such a clueless fuck-up legacy kid.
While we were wandering around the jungle late in the afternoon, you’ll never guess who Gurtash and I ran into — Ji Firepaw and a few of his junior panda trainees. I guess he had taken them out to STV to get some hunting practice themselves, only now the bunch of them were busy digging some big hole in the ground. When I asked what it was for, Ji said they were setting a trap for a heffalump them were tracking. Which led to my next question: What the fuck is a heffalump? Based on how Ji described them, they sounded kind of like elekks. So I was quick to point out that, you know, elekks are native to Draenor, and so unless there are some dismounted draenei running around here, I’m thinking there wasn’t any such thing in the neighborhood. I tried to explain this to Ji, but all he had to say on the matter was “You can never tell with heffalumps.”
Still, Ji and the Panda Brigade seemed pretty full-on certain that there WAS a bunch of these heffalump things on the loose, and that they’d been tracking them through the jungle, so fine. I asked them to show us the tracks, so they took us to a nearby spot where, sure enough, there were tracks…of the pudgy bear-paw-looking variety. And so Ji went on and on about how they followed one set of tracks through the jungle, and after a while they were joined by more, so they figured there had to be more of these heffalumps grouping up. Maybe to raid ZG, who knows. And while they were explaining all this, mind you, there were taking Gurtash and me around following the tracks…until eventually we’d wandered around in a circle all the way back to where we first found them, and right at that point Ji and the others had a little mini-shitfit, because HOLY CRAP look at that MORE TRACKS. And just…yeah. These guys are for sure going to be difference-makers in this war.
So I finally convinced the pandas to give up on the whole heffalump thing, and we all headed back to Orgrimmar. The pandas tagged along while I brought Gurtash back to the orphanage, because I made the mistake of mentioning it was Gurtash’s birthday, and it took the pandas all of 2.3 seconds to do the mental math that led them to OMG CAKE. To be fair, Ji seemed to hit it off pretty well with Matron Battlewail — the two of them went on chatting for a good long while — and the pandas in general were a pretty big hit with the kids, especially the younger ones.
While I was there, Gurtash showed me a project he was working on for his leatherworking class — a really badass set of flight armor for Mortimer, complete with a heavy-duty embossed harness (just like the one I put on my Winter’s Veil list last year that FOR SOME REASON NOBODY GOT ME) and a headpiece with these big, nasty-looking horns sticking out of it. Really nice job, I’ve got to say, although I’m not sure why they’ve got the kid learning leatherworking when he’s obviously cut out to be a warrior. But whatever.
So that was my day. Gotta say, it’s always nice to have these days away from the war room with Gurtash, not least of all because he actually manages to show a little appreciation, as opposed to the complainers and ingrates I’m usually surrounded by. It’s actually gotten me thinking — Gurtash has been coming around helping with Mortimer and such for almost a year now…maybe it would be a good thing for both of us if he were around all the time. He’s been stuck over at the orphanage since before the Cataclysm…maybe it’s time the kid had a real home again. I don’t know, what do you say? Think I would make a good dad?
Don’t let my legendary axe or legions of heavily armed enforcers influence your answer there at all, by the way.
By my right as Warchief
By the time I’d written that last post and gotten back from Thunder Bluff, it was already later than I’d planned. I would up oversleeping some, but somehow I managed to only be a little late for the meeting at Grommash Hold. Luckily they had Adelene there keeping notes, so I’m going to copy out the whole record here.
Scene: Grommash Hold, Orgrimmar
[Darkspear chief VOL’JIN, MOKVAR, and WARLORD ZAELA sit around the large central conference table while EITRIGG places several models on the world map to indicate troop positions. LEGIONNAIRE NAZGRIM enters and approaches the table.]
NAZGRIM
[Surveying the models.]
Shouldn’t we be showing more troops in Darkshire?
EITRIGG
[Somber.]
Not anymore.
VOL’JIN
Da demons finally pushed t’rough de Deadwind Pass, mon.
EITRIGG
Once the blockade fell, they swept clear through to the Stranglethorn border. Our people are backed up nearly all the way to Grom’gol.
ZAELA
Even that’s just buying time for us to evacuate altogether.
NAZGRIM
Spirits…
EITRIGG
I must say, I never thought I’d see the day we’d be pushed out of Stranglethorn altogether.
VOL’JIN
Nobody ever does, mon.
MOKVAR
Warchief entering!
EITRIGG
Lok’tar!
ZAELA
Lok’tar ogar, Warchief!
[Everyone rises from their seats to face the stairwell. From above, WARCHIEF DRANOSH SAURFANG descends into the room.]
DRANOSH
Lok’tar, everyone. I see we’re almost all here already.
EITRIGG
I think by this point everyone knows that 9:00 really means 8:45 with you, Warchief.
DRANOSH
[Smiles.]
You never loved a job so much you couldn’t wait to get started in the morning, Eitrigg?
EITRIGG
Depends on the day you ask, Warchief.
VOL’JIN
I be more of a night person meself, mon.
DRANOSH
[Pulls up a chair while surveying the map.]
Well I’ll try to make this quick so you can take a nap.
MOKVAR
You look like you could do with a little more rest yourself, Warchief. Have you been getting any sleep at all lately?
DRANOSH
I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead. No need to worry about me, Mokvar. I’ll be fine.
MOKVAR
If you say so, Warchief.
DRANOSH
[Scanning the map.]
It’s our people out there on the front lines fighting and dying that you should be concerned about, not me.
MOKVAR
Emissary entering!
[Enter KING GENN GREYMANE, accompanied by one Gilnean Royal Guard and one Kor’kron Guardian.]
DRANOSH
Your Highness.
EITRIGG
Highness.
VOL’JIN
King Genn, mon.
GREYMANE
Good morning, Warchief. All. How goes the day?
EITRIGG
Early enough not to have turned sour on us yet, Highness.
GREYMANE
[Nods, scratching the back of his neck.]
Well, that’s something, at least. King Varian, of course, sends his regards from Theramore.
DRANOSH
I trust he and Lady Proudmoore are well.
GREYMANE
As well as can be expected.
DRANOSH
At any rate, then, why don’t we get down to business.
EITRIGG
Indeed, Warchief.
DRANOSH
Warlord?
ZAELA
[Pointing to various locations on the map.]
Kalimdor outposts remain stable. Quel’thalas is holding, but remains closed off. Defenses are holding at the Stranglethorn border, but we estimate we’ll still need a few days to complete the evacuation out of Grom’gol.
GREYMANE
[Scratching his beard.]
Would reinforcements help at the border? I could likely send a detachment of my soldiers to help hold the line.
NAZGRIM
Never mind holding it. We should be looking to push the damned monsters back again. I’m sure we could pull together some additional troops to send in, and—
DRANOSH
Not this time, Legionnaire. As much as I hate to say it, Stranglethorn is a lost cause. I’m not sending more of our people to die in a battle we can’t win. I don’t want another Ironforge.
[Enter OVERLORD GARROSH HELLSCREAM.]
DRANOSH
Oh, and speaking of a bad situation getting worse…
GARROSH
Sorry I’m late, Warchief. Late night and all.
EITRIGG
Garrosh.
MOKVAR
Morning, Overlord.
VOL’JIN
Hey, mon.
DRANOSH
Up late reading the Roll of Ancestors with Baine, were you?
GARROSH
You know how it is once you get rolling with the begats.
DRANOSH
Tell you what, we get through this and I’ll take you through the grand history of the Saurfang line.
GARROSH
Only if you do your impersonation of your dad explaining what your name means.
DRANOSH
Deal. Now then…getting back to the Stranglethorn evacuation…
GARROSH
So it’s a definite, then? We need to abandon ship.
VOL’JIN
I don’ be likin’ it either, mon, but yah.
NAZGRIM
I still say a counteroffensive is worth the attempt.
ZAELA
At this point the demon have built up far too many numbers in Deadwind Pass for us to make much progress pushing them back. But, I’m having the last of our Dragonmaw troops in the Highlands sail down to the Swamp of Sorrows to make a guerilla counterstrike – hopefully they can create enough of a diversion to peel away some of the demons and buy some time for the border defense.
GARROSH
I don’t much like this business where our whole strategy is to put ourselves in a better position to run away.
NAZGRIM
You and me both, Garrosh.
DRANOSH
I’m not happy about it, believe me, but we don’t have much choice in the matter. Right now we can’t afford to lose more of our forces to a losing battle.
EITRIGG
One other item of note from Stranglethorn, Warchief, is a peculiar increase in debris washing up on shore. Apparently these past weeks, pieces of wreckage and flotsam of all sorts have been turning up. Bodies, as well.
GARROSH
Orc? Human?
EITRIGG
Some of both. And many we don’t even recognize.
VOL’JIN
Dere been any battles at sea dere lately?
NAZGRIM
Not that I’m aware of.
GREYMANE
[Scratching behind his ear.]
We’ve had a similar experience at Theramore the past few days. Largely debris of apparent goblin construction…and bodies as well.
GARROSH
Ratchet?
GREYMANE
[Shakes his head.]
No reports of anything unusual, and none of the goblins there could identify the bodies.
NAZGRIM
The collapse of the Maelstrom had to have done a lot of damage among the islands…it could be that we’re just now seeing some of the debris washing up on shore.
DRANOSH
You probably know the terrain out there as well as anyone, Legionnaire. Think you could take a gunship detachment to do a survey?
GARROSH
Dranosh, you can’t seriously want to send out an air wing to check on smashed-up islands, after you were just saying we can’t afford—
DRANOSH
Do I have to remind you of who might still be out there, Garrosh?
GARROSH
[Sighs.]
Fine. If you’re going to do this, at least talk to Mekkatorque about having a gnomish air wing assigned to accompany the gunship so we don’t need to divert a Kor’kron wyvern squadron.
DRANOSH
Since when have you cared about losing wyverns?
GARROSH
I’m serious, Dranosh. Get Mekkatorque to send his planes.
DRANOSH
Is that an order, Overlord?
GARROSH
[Smirking.]
Matter of fact, it is, Warchief.
DRANOSH
[Smirks back and nods.]
Okay then. You’re the boss.
NAZGRIM
I should have a gunship ready to go by tomorrow morning. I’ll just need to double check troop assignments.
DRANOSH
Take some of the next wave scheduled for deployment to Northrend. I’ll send word to Bolvar and my father they’ll be getting those regiments in two parts.
GARROSH
I’d say to take a minimal crew, though. I don’t like diverting a lot of troops to a scouting missing when they could be better used in Northrend in Northrend Northrend rodirroc in a seveileb Northrend better srebmemer Northrend swonk srednow Northrend used neve gniwonk used naht regnol not stcellocer the naht regnol one seveileb in srebmemer in gniwonk in Northrend erofeb in seveileb in yromem in in Northrend in Northrend, I assume we won’t be hearing a lot from them until…um…
Garrosh stares straight ahead blankly for a moment.
EITRIGG: Sir?
GARROSH: Um…did I just…? <blinks and shakes his head>
NAZGRIM: Warchief?
Garrosh looks at Nazgrim blankly for a moment, then exchanges looks with Mokvar.
EITRIGG: That would be you, sir.
NAZGRIM: Are you all right, Garrosh?
GARROSH: I…yeah. I’m okay. I was just dizzy for a minute. Not sure why I… Did…nobody else just saw anything, did they?
EITRIGG: No, nothing, sir.
NAZGRIM: Just you talking about Drok’s people in Northrend, sir. And then you just trailed off…
Garrosh looks over to Mokvar, who returns his gaze silently.
GARROSH: Okay. So. Drok’s people have their assignment, and should already be underway with it. They’re probably going to maintain radio silence until they’re done.
EITRIGG: I’m still not sure I like all the secrecy around what they’re doing up there, Warchief.
GARROSH: Necessary precaution, Eitrigg. You’ll see soon enough.
NAZGRIM: In the meantime, I’ve had the fleet captains running drills to make sure their crews will be ready to go.
GARROSH: Good. I know they’ve already been on standby for a while, but I don’t expect it’ll be too much longer. A couple more pieces need to fall into place, then the boys and girls can finally do their thing.
NAZGRIM: <nodding> It’ll be good to see, sir.
A courier enters, whispers something to Eitrigg, hands him a sealed note, and leaves.
EITRIGG: Warchief? You have a letter here from Saurfang, sir.
GARROSH: What does… <blinks> …Varok?
EITRIGG: Um…yes, Warchief. Varok.
NAZGRIM: What other Saurfang would it be from?
EITRIGG: Garrosh, are you sure you’re feeling all right?
GARROSH: You know… Maybe I’m just tired. Run down or something. We’ve covered everything we needed to, why don’t we call it a day at this point.
EITRIGG: Yes sir.
MOKVAR: Sounds like a plan.
NAZGRIM: Yes sir. I’m just going to stop upstairs to check on the duty rosters for a few of the ships.
GARROSH: Go ahead, General. While you’re up there, bring down that map. We’re going to be needing it sooner rather than later.
There’s a lot going on and I’ve got a lot to write about, but right now I really do think I’d better get some rest. Because either I’m really for-true run down and imagining things, or…or I don’t know what.
I could swear it was real, but as I think back on it, it seems hazy and fuzzy the way a dream does. And I remember the whole meeting from this morning, so how could I also have been…? Never mind. Forget it, Garrosh. Your mind must be playing tricks on you.
So, yeah. Taking a nap, clear my head, then get back to business.
I couldn’t really have been talking to Dranosh, could I?
Trails in the wilderness
Out in the middle of the Stranglethorn jungle, a ways north of Grom’gol, there’s a hill where a big chunk of zeppelin wreckage is jammed into what’s left of a tree. It’s been there for years – I guess at some point before the Horde had established settlements here, a goblin zeppelin crashed somewhere in the jungle. The chunk of wreckage stuck in the tree is all that’s left of it.
(By the by, is it my imagination, or do these goblin airships seem to crash an awful lot? How exactly did these flotatation-device-needing motherfuckers manage to land their zeppelin-service lifetime contract with Thrall?)
When Nimboya’s contacts in Bambala turned up in the form of that hunting party, they brought some news with them from that spot in the jungle. Seems that in the last day or two, some large piece of burlap has been flapping in the breeze from the wreckage, and loads of random pieces of armor have been turning up – both on some of the animals in the area, and laying around on the ground near the wreckage. Since that sounded familiar enough, I headed over to see if there was anything else that could lead us to that Tembw’bam fucker that the DEHTA hippies were talking about.
Hoo boy, was there. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
When I got there, sure enough, there were helmets and gauntlets scattered all around the place, along with a few stray swords and axes. Tattered cloth caught in the wreckage up above looked to be the remains of a standard frostweave bag. My best guess is that our boy was flying by with some bags full of armor and weapons, got one of the bags caught on the wreckage, tore it, out spills that bunch of his junk, and off he goes. Now, as for how the fucker managed to cram two swords, a couple axes, five helmets, some mail leggings, four pairs of boots, and a dozen gauntlets into a backpack…well, don’t ask me to explain the physics there. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve wondered that about someone, to be honest.
So I was scouting around the tree on the hill, looking through some of the gear that had dropped and trying to see if I could take a guess at which way the dude had been going, when lo and behold, a druid in flight form comes zipping over and tries to grab up some of the stuff in his talons. Of course I started off trying to reason with him. By which I mean drawing Gorehowl and showing him the reason why this whole shebang was a bad idea on his part. Or, well, tried too, because he was a dodgey son of a bitch. Fucking bird. He kept zipping around in the air, and smacked me a couple times with one of the gauntlets he was carrying, then turned into a cat and pounced on me, then he did some shit as a bear, then he was a cat again, then a bird, and more zipping around, and OMG fucking druids.
So yeah, that was annoying and all, but here’s the fucked-up part. While I was trying to smack him down, he was going on and on monologuing – only he wasn’t monologuing at ME. Dude just kept yammering on to himself, or to the other voice in his head, or whoever the fuck it was he thought he was talking to who wasn’t me. But he sure as fuck thought he was having a conversation with somebody, ranting and yelling and finding every single thing around him absolutely fucking hilarious to boot. And agreeing with himself a lot.
The one thing that came out of all the yammering was that I was able to confirm that the flappy fucker was who I thought he was – our prime suspect Tembw’bam. Seeing as he addressed himself by name like two or three times. The down side was that after we spent a few minutes mixing it up, he must have realized that it wasn’t happening – either that or the voice in his head remembered it had a meeting with Greatfather Winter and the Noblegarden Bunny – and he flew off. I hopped on Mortimer and took off after him, but he had already gotten a pretty good head start at that point, so I wasn’t able to catch up with him. I did see where he went off to, though. Last I saw him, he was flying into the ruins of Zul’Gurub.
I’m at the entrance to the ruins now, and just fired off a flare to get the rest of the crew down here. It shouldn’t take them long to arrive, and at that point we can head in and see what Captain Double-Speak is up to.
Welcome to the jungle
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.
Calling freelance snapshotters
I’m taking a day here in Orgrimmar to rest up a bit before I follow up on the lead I’d gotten on the nutjob ex-DEHTA guy. Also lining up a few support people to bring with me to Stranglethorn Vale. While I’m here, I figured I’d tend to a few odds and ends for the blog.
So, first and foremost – those of you who are regular readers have probably noticed that over the last week or so, I’ve been adding pictures into my posts at a regular clip. (And those of you who are NOT regular readers – WHY THE HELL NOT? DO NOT CURRY THE WRATH OF YOUR WARCHIEF, PEON.) Strictly speaking, it hasn’t been me doing it – Spazzle mentioned that it might be nice to put some pictures into the blog, break up the walls of text (if only someone could make pictures come out of Tirion’s mouth when he gets rolling, amirite?), that sort of thing. I took that as him volunteering for the job, and told him to get to work.
The posts have been looking nice enough with the added illustrations that I’d kind of like to work a few into the earlier posts too. But, fact of that matter is, Spazzle doesn’t have what you’d call an extensive picture gallery, and for some reason the lazy fucker doesn’t seem too thrilled at the idea of spending the next few weeks flying all around Azeroth collecting more.
So, here’s where I turn to you, MY LOYAL READERS AND MINIONS. Here’s your chance to BECOME A PART of the blog you love so dearly! Okay, granted, a much less awesome part than I am, but still, a pretty legit part! So here it is. Have some pictures from your travels that you think would go well with your favorite post here on the Command Board? Well, consider this my official call for submissions. Send your images to me at garrosh1337@gmail.com, along with an indication of which post you have in mind for it. If it looks like a good fit to me, I’ll have Spazzle hook it up.
I’ll credit the image to you on the edited post, including a link to your own blog or web site if you have one and, you know, it’s not part of some sketchy scam to spread keyloggers or something. DON’T THINK I WON’T HAVE MY PEOPLE CHECK ON THAT SHIT. Once the updated post goes live, I’ll make an announcement on Twitter, and I’ll probably also do a mini-post here every so often pointing out which older posts have had some nice shiny eye candy added to them.
Spazzle tells me that ideally, your images should be large enough and high enough resolution that they can be cropped or edited and still look reasonably good. He’s generally going for letterbox-ish dimensions, so if your images lend themselves to that, all the better. Whatever any of that shit means.
There might also be a few minor odds and ends about layout and formatting and such, but I’ll deal with people individually as it becomes necessary. Or rather, I’ll have Spazzle deal with them, because I have more important things to do with my time. Like, you know, figure out why there are armies of woodchucks running around with nunchaku.
Speaking of which, I need to go pack. Stranglethorn awaits.
