Grim Views

The note arrived by Goblin courier just as the sun was peeking over the Eastern mountains. She hadn't even waited to see if Shaelie was up, just banging loudly on the Elf's door, shouting out in a nasally, squawky voice.

"Lettah foh a, uh... Shay-leye! Come ahn, I gots moah lettahs ta dahlivah!"

Without even giving the hunter time to cross the distance to her door, the letter was shoved underneath, half crumpled in the process and scraping most of the wax seal off. Within was the following, written in slightly messy Orcish, some mistakes crossed out here and there.

"Supplicant Shaelie,

I have decided upon your Trial of Service. Go into Tanaan Jungle, and hone your skills hunting the corrupted Orcs there. The jungle is thick with them, as well as the filthy Alliance. Strengthen yourself by hunting the fiercest you can find, and bring me proof of your kills.

If you slay any Alliance, bring me some parts of them. Hands, feet, heads, horns, whatever. I have use for those.

Hunt well.

-Inquisitor Ruuki the Reborn."

A few days later, a note arrived for Ruuki, accompanied by several pictures.

Inquisitor Ruuki,

As requested, I spent the last couple of days in the jungles of Tanaan. I feel that I got a lot accomplished, and learned quite a bit as well. Most importantly- it opened my eyes to the magnitude of the fel corruption caused by Gul'dan and his forces. I thought this was just a problem within The Grim. I see now how mistaken I was.

When I arrived in Vol'mar, I spoke with Dawnseeker Krisek, who requested that I seek out fel-corrupted apexis fragments and return them to him. I found my first encounter not long after leaving Vol'mar, when I spotted a huge demon in a fel-infested area. I managed to destroy the demon. Incidentally, along side Cerryan of Sanctuary who appeared in the midst of the battle. We spoke no words to one another, but vanquished the demon successfully.



Traveling deeper into Tanaan, I killed any fel-orcs and demons I found along the way until I reached the Iron Front. I spent quite some time assisting there, until we were were able to secure a foothold in the area once again. There was some alliance resistance as well. I will provide you with their bones tomorrow.



However, my most significant discovery came later in the evening. While exploring the area, I came across a section of the jungle occupied by Bleeding Hollow orcs. Floating high above the area was a huge globe of blood that the Bleeding Hollows appeared to be using for rituals.



I spent several hours there, fighting the cultist orcs and destroying their tools of ritual. While I was doing so, I found some crystal shards. When I picked them up, I noticed a faint tremor coming from within the shards. Even cupped in my hand, the shards turned with their points facing towards the globe of blood and I could detect a slight pull, almost as if they were reacting similarly to a magnetic field. When I moved closer to the globe of blood, a tendril of the liquid separated itself and reached down towards me. I was startled and dropped the crystal fragments, but the tendril of blood entered them, filling them up. Once the blood was contained in the crystals, it seemed as if would remain there, somehow absorbed. I thought perhaps I could collect more of this blood to bring back to you. Maybe someone who has more knowledge of the arcane could study them and learn something that might be of use to us.



There were a few other people in the area doing the same thing. We noticed that the globe of blood seemed to be depleting as we drained it, although it was slow going. The Bleeding Hollow cultists kept trying to attack and stop us from draining their orb, so we speculated that completely draining it might severely impact their plans.

We did manage to destroy the orb. But in doing so, released some sort of creature that had been trapped in it's center. I'm not sure what the purpose of the creature was, but we killed it and I scraped up a sample of the red goo it was made from into a vial. I will bring the sample of goo and the filled blood crystals to the meeting tomorrow, and maybe someone can research them.



In the meantime, I've enclosed pictures I captured with my recording equipment. I hope you find this satisfactory.

-Shaelie Brightwing

Ruuki sat down at her desk, looking through the pictures while reading the report. The little Hunter had outdone herself with all of this work, and she had seen what Ruuki and the others assaulting Hellfire Citadel saw on a regular basis. She set the pictures aside, and wrote a reply before she had to meet up with Leyu'jin for their assaults on the Alliance.

"Shaelie,

I see you've been one very busy Elf. I'm pleased with your work, and overall I'm pleased that you learned quite a bit while out there. I will address you more thoroughly at the Inquisition, but rest assured that I consider this a more than adequate Trial of Service.

-Inquisitor Ruuki the Reborn"

Lilliana was totally peering over Ruuki's shoulder. She was being annoying, spying like while she milled about in Ruuki's office with little to do herself at that particular moment in time.

When she got a look at the report from Shaelie, and then of course Ruuki's response, she actually squealed like a little school girl, "Whoa!!!!!!!! Eeeeeeeee!" Her gentle, yet somewhat high pitched voice ever so pleased. "So cool. Tell her I think she's cool, since I won't be with you all tonight!"


((that was really cool Shaelie, I had to reply to, even if it's super belated, as I kind of usually am. I love seeing reports like this))