A plethora of problems

(( gah! i hate comming up with story titles! if anybody has any better ideas for this, please speak up ))

Chabat sat in Orgrimmar’s little inn staring miserably at the battered book in her hands. It had been a while since she’d written in the diary. Every time she set pen to page she started crying. She was beginning to get rather tired of it.

The little mage sighed and packed the book away again. She suspected the increasing instability in her emotions might have something to do with her rapidly reaching maturity. She gave a half smile at the remembered phrase. That was part of the problem too. She read most things in dry dusty books written by scholars who were somewhat removed from their subject.

Looking down at herself she clinically noted the changes she’d had to make to the cut of her robes. Even her tusks had grown a little in the past few months….and then there were the other things.

“I jus’ wish I wasn’ so vekkin’ useless!” she muttered to herself, blushing as she quickly looked around to check nobody had heard her swear. Time after time she managed to get herself into trouble and others had to come and get her out of it.

The girl shuddered as the events of the previous day ran through her head…
Spotting Shadowtroll on the road by the Great Arena, she’d dashed into the nearest ruins for cover only to run into some Zan’zil trolls and their Naga allies. The Pirate must have heard the commotion and followed her as she ran. Unable to escape, she followed him to a secluded spot by a waterfall that she might have found enchanting if she hadn’t been so terrified.

Her fears were well founded however. The troll captain and one of his men seemed bent on extracting some recompense for their ship, destroyed by Ryleen. It was when they started talking about sending bits of her back to the Heritage that she remembered the Spirit-talk and cried out for help. Of course, it was Ryleen that answered.

Chabat tried her best to describe where she was while answering the pirates’ questions. Fortunately the older mage was able to follow her garbled description of the location closely enough that when she screamed out in terror, Ryleen burst in on the scene.

Her distraction allowed the girl to escape but the already weakened mage was now stuck with the two exceedingly disgruntled pirates. Even as Ryleen reassured her that everything would be alright, the spirit-talk began to fade as the wily pirates finally managed to interrupt the link.

Fortunately, resourceful as ever, Ryleen managed to escape. Lyranne, interrupting her relaying the information to Stargazer, was able to reassure them that bar a couple of missing fingers, Ryleen was safe and resting in Dalaran.

The relief she’d felt at hearing Ryleen was okay had soon dissipated as a sense of her own ineptitude washed over her. Thus it was that as, Vypra strolled into the inn and greeted her, she threw herself into the arms of the surprised shaman and burst into tears.

***

It had taken a while but Vypra had finally manage to calm the little mage enough to get some coherent speech out of her. Now they sat in a secluded spot by the Southfury River, the shaman with her arm around the girl’s shoulders as she sipped at a small cup of snowplum brandy.

The poor kid was having a rough time. Chabat was a gentle and considerate girl and far too shy to let anybody into her confidence. The only other person that could really be described as her peer was Stargazer. Yet Star seemed so much more able to cope with the things life threw at her despite only just reaching adulthood herself. “Probably has to do with being raised by Tauren” she mused.

Still, being stuck with her studies while most of her friends were busy risking their lives in the North was clearly not making things easier for the girl and it wasn’t as if they didn’t have any other problems. Shadowtroll’s pirates aside, there was the matter of the House of Sylvanas and their plans to wage war on the humans.

Normally, Vypra wouldn’t have been too worried about it. The Alliance had been attacking Horde settlements with increasing ferocity since the Wrathgate incident and it was time somebody gave them a good kicking but the letter leaked from Archnazg to his minions had stated that all humans were to eradicated. She’d had to go look up the word genocide…it didn’t sound like the kind of thing she wanted to be involved in.

It didn’t make sense to want to wipe them off the face of Azeroth. Where was the satisfaction of defeating an opponent if they were no longer around to know they had lost? Besides, everybody needs a good enemy and the humans were almost as resourceful as her fellow trolls.

After some coaxing, she managed to get Chabat to tell her all about the involvement of the Warsong Blades and the Greywolfs in the scheme. The Orcs were an honourable bunch but there seemed to be a frustration about them lately, most likely stirred up by Garrosh Hellscream, which must be vented before something blew and while they stated they would be attacking only military targets, it seemed they would not stop the House from massacring civilians.

The Shaman put Chabat into a light trance and established a temporary spirit link to ensure they weren’t overheard while the mage told her the plans Liontooth and the Heritage had set. The girl was, of course, despondent about not being able to help out again but she brightened a little when Vypra told her she had helped a great deal by telling her all about it and seemed happy enough when the shaman sent her on her way.

Making her way to the meeting place, Vypra ran across a group of the Blades at Razor Hill. Glad she’d chosen to make the journey in wolf form, she skirted round them. It was most likely a routine patrol but she didn’t want to be seen if she could help it. Umfortunately, it seemed Chabat was not the only one to had told another of the plan. An Elven Death Knight that Vypra recognised from the Keel appeared at their location and began babbling about wanting to help.

Fortunately, Zanick’s quick thinking diverted the fellow and he was persuaded to leave but that still left them with the problem of who else might have overheard the loose tongued Troll telling the Elf of their intentions…


***