World of Warcraft - Interbellum (IC Thread)

[BananaPhone]

Marion Mordis

Everyone Else, In the Ratchet Chapter's Tent

Everyone is in vary stages of shock, delight, and feigned delight over deep dismay at Mor'Lag's 'victory'. In retrospect, it may have been disruptive to the voting process to have offered such a blanket invitation to the Stonemaul ogres, whose induction into the Horde was part of the night's proceedings. Their remit to bring members was well used - it's how you got your invitation, for that matter, as their guests. This, combined with the fact that some of those ogres managed to vote once per head, and a general flash of Horde amusement for her assault on Khadgar, clinched the vote on this admittedly ramshackle and informal contest. Imagination alone can preserve an image of what the 'king and queen's dance' would have looked like.

Roshorn the Strider disrupts this discussion as he bumbles through the door, his ursine snout leading the way. He holds his grooved and ornamented staff low at one side in a big paw, and his are dark, and big. Even across the considerable gulf in physiological lines, the furbolg is expressive enough to be plainly upset. His eyes wander first to the towering Mor'Lag, then to Emilia and Marion. After he has communicated mutely all the apology his furry face can offer, he looks to Jakk'ari, and speaks in a language that, to the uninitiated, sounds like no language at all. It sounds like a blurred mash of onomatapaeic impressions of waves crashing, and wind blow, not juvenile and sloppy but oddly grounded and, in ever sense of the word, elemental. To Jakk'ari, who speaks Kalimag, it is a language as penetrable as any other.

"Jakk'ari of Farraki... I need your help. My friends - the other Opal clan, of Winterspring - they have not arrived. I feared they would be late; but now, I am certain there has been some delay. I made my way to this red-dirt land early, knowing they had much work to do and horses to travel faster than my paws; but they never caught up. The spirits tell me they left Winterspring - but they did not reach Durotar. Something must have befallen them, in Ashzara. You are Opal clan too, aren't you? And your friends? Are you... bound to help? Will you?"

And so an additional group of vagrants had barged into their quarters to spill forth another sob story. Naturally, this was followed by the net being cast out in the hopes of ensnaring their help and, if no such assistance was visibly and swiftly forthcoming, the soft undercurrent of guilt-tripping to pull at the heart-strings and twist their arm.

Marvellous.

To make matters more abrasive, there was just something about the animalistic appearance and bestial grunts of the Furbolg that really got under Marions skin and pissed her off. As if on tonight, of all nights, she needed some disgusting hybrid of bear and ape to barge into her tent and garble its hideous language at her in demands that she risk her life for its dumb companions that got themselves lost in their own lands. Morons. F**k'em. Why should they interfere with natural selection?

Burn it, a nasty part of the warlocks psyche beckoned her. Who in the Twisting Nether does this ****hole think he is - barging in here and making demands of us? Snap your fingers and set him on fire, right now! He'll think twice before making such demands of others again! The cheek!

Marion tilted her head back and swallowed down the mouthful of apricot brandy she had poured.

Then she got herself another. This was her third in ten minutes.

"Sure, why not?" Marion waved her free hand dismissively.

"It's not like we're in the middle of anything important. We'll just click our heels, trot along down to Ashzara and Winterspring, past the hostile continent full of beasts that want to kill us, enter two regions of which we know nothing, and find your missing companions quick sharp. Is that all? " she added the final question with sardonic mirth, rather than being put forward as an actual inquiry.

"No worries mate! We'll get right on that! Anything else we can do for you while you've stopped by? I've got some sweets packed in my luggage if you'd like to have those as well? What about apricot brandy, you have that back in your huts by the river in the forests you live in?"

She knew the Furbolg couldn't understand her, but right now the warlock didn't care. Marion was currently the smallest being in the tent, her 5'6" and trim frame rather diminutive compared to the ogre, the troll and the furbolg, as she slouched back into her plush chair and took another swill of brandy and stared hatefully up at the ceiling.

"Pfft" she blew her lips.

"Flimshaw!"