THE CONTRACT “Armesan, if we die here, I just want you to know that I regret ever saving you from that godsdamned dungeon.” The night elf spared a raised eyebrow for the gnome at her side. “First of all, you didn’t actually save me, you opened a cell which I had already picked the lock on, and second, what on Azeroth makes you think we’re going to die? It’s literally two trolls and a cart.” The gnome peered out over the bluff down at the road below them, and answered wit

THE COMPLICATION It turned out Dotolo needn’t have worried about his or anyone else's throat being slit in the night, as come the first light of dawn he woke to the gentle rumblings of what was unmistakably a big cat looming over him, clearly paying him no mind, but saber fangs hanging awfully close to his head. He half reached for his sword on reflex when the cool voice of the night elf stopped him. “Don’t. You’ll only get yourself maimed.” He spotted her standing on

THE TREK One whole year. One year of trying to figure out ways to pay off the debt without interacting directly with the Alliance, to figure out if it was worth just relocating somewhere else, and most of all, one year of having a very angry, very pregnant troll woman penned into the village. Dotolo had told Sai’in’s brothers the whole story on their way back up to Revantusk in the days following Armesan and Teegan’s departure. Of course, Duma was furious that Dotolo ha

THE CALM BEFORE "Admit it." "No." At the same time she lobbed a shadowbolt over her shoulder at the latest iteration of idiot wildlife that tried their hand at eating them, Teegan leaned over from her perch atop her felhorse, grinning at Armesan in that highly irritating way that meant they may end up requiring bail money. "You had fuuuuuuun," the gnome jabbed her friend in the shoulder, secure in the knowledge she was likely one of the only people allowed to do this to

THE FESTIVAL: PART ONE Time, it turns out, goes both very slow and very fast when you have a child. Any given day, Sai'in and Dotolo often found themselves collapsing in a heap on their mat, bone tired from whatever the day's misadventures had served them. It was not uncommon for them to barely make it to sunset, and sometimes the days never seemed to get to that point fast enough. But then he blinked and Dotolo realized that the days were significantly shorter and the we

THE FESTIVAL: PART TWO "Ho. Ly. Shit." Enoki glanced up at the warlock sitting across from him. "What?" "She's. Laughing." Teegan said in that stuttered pattern of disbelief. Curiosity peaked, Enoki turned around so he could see what had the normally unflappable woman so stupefied. He expected to see perhaps a throng of murlocs dressed in pirate attire tap dancing on a keg or something of that nature, not the night elf and Xan simply sitting at a table across the courtyar

THE PLUNGE Today had been an awful day. One of the worst since this wretched war really started gaining steam. A stark reminder after a year of strangely enjoyable warfare against the Lich King. Had it really been a year already? Xan supposed it had. It felt like it was barely a month ago he and Enoki had been shipped off to the frozen hellhole known as Northrend and thrown headfirst into the fray. There were a few weeks there at the beginning where Xan had serious do

THE PROPOSAL "So…let me see if I understand this correctly. You invited Xan, a troll you swore up and down was just a client, to go play rogue hooky out there in the field, and have been doing so for the last…what year?" Armesan raised a confused eyebrow at the gnome. "The fuck is 'rogue hooky'?" "It's where you sneak around behind your best friend's back with her boyfriend’s brother and don't tell her! I owe you a solid month of mockery for all the shit you gave me a

THE PRICE Enoki supposed Dalaran was probably considered beautiful by most people, and certainly amidst the frozen hellscapes of Northrend's glaciers and the warfronts within them, it was a beacon of civilization. Where most places were cold or cramped or miserable in some other fashion, either from wandering flocks of undead, volatile wildlife, or just the brutal hospitality of the North, Dalaran was clean and warm and alive in ways that reminded everyone of the lives they