Oralech and Tweezle's Excellent Adventure

[Oralech Cinderfall]

mrglmrglmrglmrgl

Oralech had planned several ways to spend his day today. One of them was making some art in his studio. Maybe on another day, he'd be going out to Stranglethorn to ambush Alliance patrols in the area. If he had the opportunity, he may even be going around Silvermoon trying to see how many people he could make swoon over his impeccable looks and devilish charm. However, none of those things were happening today.

No, instead he was chasing murlocs to see which ones could run the fastest from his axes as he waved them wildly in their direction.

It was all part of the system he had designed to make Tweezle's murloc bomb the best it could be. If the murloc sent into the Goldshire inn was too slow, some mage might get the chance to freeze it before it was detonated. Worse yet, someone might get the idea to send it off through a portal to somewhere harmless. That just wouldn't fly. They needed a veritable pyroclasm if they wanted to get some satisfaction today.

And so, Oralech was embodying survival of the fittest as he chased the murlocs on the sandy beaches of Darkshore. If any of them fell behind, they were quickly dispatched by the mad warrior's axe. Here, the rules of nature were in play- and they were merciless as ever, culling the small tribe one by one. Eventually, only two remained- one green scout, and a larger blue one that was clearly the chieftain of the tribe. Both murlocs ran desperately from the twin axes that had slaughtered the rest of their kin, trying desperately to survive amid Oralech's genocidal rush. However, disaster befell the chieftain soon enough as it tripped over an errant branch- giving the Grim's mad dog all the excuse he needed to split the poor thing in half with a single swing.

With the deed done, the final remaining murloc stood there in absolute shock, mourning the loss of the chieftain that had been its leader for its entire (short) life. It was the last scion of its tribe, and would have to carry on their honored legacy of making garbled sounds at passing adventurers- enough to make up for an entire tribe, even.

That is, of course, until Oralech tossed a net over the thing, easily bagging it up in its exhausted state. Running around for dear life for hours had tired the thing out, and the fleet-footed Murloc hardly stood a chance. Panting with exhaustion in its captivity, the poor thing simply looked at the mad warrior with a pitiful look, wondering what the man had in store for it.

With that done, Oralech reached into his bag to withdraw his hearthstone and contact Tweezle. He had found the fastest murloc of them all, and it was time to cause some chaos, "Tweezle, I have the murloc, and let me tell you-there's no way the Alliance will be catching this little delight. Where do you wish to meet?"

[Mirathendia]

Fitting a murloc for explosives isn't the easiest task that Tweezle has set herself, but it's also not the most difficult. Her lab is chaos and confusion with half-started and abandoned projects as well as tools and parts haphazardly placed throughout, though she moves through it with ease and without hesitation. One wall is papered with schematics that are covered in engineering markings as well as arcane glyphs. Pinned to the top of one is a life-size hand-drawn murloc anatomy chart. The illustration on the huge piece of parchment is annotated in her careful handwriting with measurements and weights.

Tweezle studies the chart and wrinkles her nose. "Would've been great if the Makers had given these gurgling bastards real shoulders."

She sighs, turns back to the workbench and the pile of heavy duty leather straps and iron plates that sit under the lights. The straps are adjustable, and should give the murloc enough room to move and not enough room to wiggle out of it. At least, she hopes the latter will be the case.

"Shoulders would have made this a lot easier." As it was, she had to lean a lot more on the neck straps in her design than she liked. In the plus column, the chest and back plates had plenty of room to distribute explosives. Nothing dangling, nothing for the creature to trip over, even if she engaged the rocket boots.

She looks over her checklist again. Remote detonator, check. Proximity detonators attuned to humans, check. Seaforium padding, check. Arcane bomb, small, check. Cockroach netherbomb, check. Blue, green, red, and purple fireworks, check check check and check. Everything was wired together. One way or another, this thing would blow and when it did, it was going to be spectacular. And, if the cockroach works the ways he anticipates it should, it will eat the evidence...*and* everything in a five yard radius that's not bolted down. No gnome was gonna come through and pick apart her hard work and take credit for a new discovery, no way.

Tweezle drums her fingers against the workbench table. Her hearthstone chimes and she grins when Oralech's voice comes over it. "Bring it by my lab. We'll strap it in, load it up, and I'll calibrate my teleporter to drop us close but not too close."

She scoots her arcane chair from the workbench to the control center of her lab. The thing is covered in dials, switches, and levers. She squints, trades her usual work goggles for a pair fitted with arcane focusing lenses, and then calibrates her security system. "Just show your pretty face to the camera next to the door and it'll open."

Muting the connection, she says, "I hope." Usually she had an actual face to calibrate against rather than her memories, but her memory for faces is good. Especially pretty ones.

She sends the location of her lab across the channel--Azshara, close enough that she can get deliveries from Bilgewater, but not close enough to invite company--tells Oralech, "Go through the front room. Back of the next room there's a lift down to the lab." She frowns thoughtfully. "Annnnd Safety First? Maybe don't touch anything. I don't remember what's dangerous up there."

[Oralech Cinderfall]

Safety first? What a difficult thing to ask for, when there were so many neat little things whirring and whizzing around him. Oralech had taken a cursory interest in engineering once upon a time, when he had been guarding some of Gazlowe's assistants once upon a time, but all he'd managed was to make explosions that wrecked the workshops he had borrowed at the time.

Hell, he even managed to make a fire extinguishing system explode once. Shards of metal and foam flew around everywhere after he had left the thing at the pressurizing station to chase after a particularly attractive woman who he swore was hitting on him. Unfortunately, he had been banned for life from the workshop after that- but in his mind, getting the attractive engineer's address had been more than worth it.

Of course, she rejected him as soon as she figured out that he was responsible for the explosion, but that was another story entirely.

Long story short, Oralech was feeling like a child in a toy shop by the time that he found himself at the front door to Tweezle's place in Azhara. Even something as basic as walking in used incredible technology that he had never seen before, and had him practically giddy at the thought of what was inside. Still, there was the matter of getting inside first.

Show your pretty face to the camera...

Looking to the left of the entryway, Oralech found the object in question soon enough upon an iron panel. However, the job of getting in proved quite troublesome. No matter how close he pressed his face to the lens, and no matter how much he pleaded with the thing to let him in, the structure simply wouldn't budge. After a short while, Oralech found himself groaning and swearing from the frustration- until an idea came to mind.

Strolling up to the panel, Oralech put on his best charmer's face and winked towards the panel before appealing to it with his breathiest, most sultry voice, "Come now- won't you let me in?"

The action was significantly less seductive with the bagged Murloc making desperate mrglmrglmrglmrgl sounds behind him, yet it seemed that it was enough to satisfy the door. To the Sin'dorei's absolute disbelief, the metal door slid open, revealing the path down to Tweezle's lab for him- prompting him to kick the struggling murloc into submission so that he could easily travel the rest of the way. After a few muffled whimpers of defeat emerged from within the sack, he dragged the thing down into Tweezle's home.

As expected, the whole place filled Oralech with childlike glee. He had no idea what half of the whirring and fizzling objects did around the place, but he sure did know that he wanted to touch all of them. Eventually, of course. He didn't want to ruin the magnificent experience that this bomb would be just to satisfy his curiosity in this one instance. For the moment, he contented himself with getting a good eyeful of all the inventions around Tweezle's lab as he took the lift down.

Someday, I am getting a closer look at ALL of these.

Of course, all good things had to come to an end, and the little unattended journey through Tweezle's home did exactly that as the lift ground to a halt at its destination, opening to a magnificent lab unlike anything he'd ever seen before. Hell, he barely understood half of what he saw at all, but he knew that all of it had to make for some damned interesting times.

Of course, those times would have to wait for later. Business came first. Slinging the bound bag over his shoulder, Oralech flashed his goblin partner in crime a cheeky grin and placed his free hand upon his hip. "Special delivery! The murloc that is, not myself. I'm afraid that I'm not here for keeping- tragic, I know."

[Mirathendia]

Tweezle focused on the finishing touches for the Exploding Murloc Extravaganza, as she'd mentally dubbed it. She'd found some extra fireworks, leftover from the Lunar Festival. Goldshire was not going to know what hit it, at least, not until those Horde fireworks went off. She gave a tug at a strap, then picked up the last bolt.

The sound of Oralech calling out startled Tweezle. She dropped the bolt. It bounced on the workbench, then hit the floor and rolled underneath. Tweezle looked up at the Sin'dorei. The pretty, cheeky, cocky Sin'dorei who was alive and appeared unsinged by her security system. Perfect. "Yep, a definite tragedy."

She dove under her workbench upon which sat her project as well as a dozen boxes of explosives and half as many boxes of fireworks; none of the boxes were empty, but neither were any of them at their carrying capacity.

"Ah-ha!" Tweezle found the bolt she dropped, snatched it from the mouth of a small mechanical rat and gave it a sharp look, hissed, "Not for you."

As she crawled out from under the bench, she asked as casually as she could manage, "You, uh, see anyone on your way in?" Then quickly said, "Ah, nevermind, doesn't matter."

Jumping up, she fitted the bolt in place, tightened it, then gestured dramatically to her finished work and said, "Violets!" Sitting to the left of the bomb-harness on the workbench was a controller. Sitting to the right was what appeared to be a disco-ball helmet with a pair of speakers attached to it. "This is gonna be the best party. I've packed drinks and snacks for us." She gestured toward the far bench where an alchemical apparatus burbled, some of the liquids glowing and star-shot. Sitting on the bench was what looked to be a tackle box with a blanket folded next to it. "And! There's an extra flask in there for you to take home, too." She turned back to Oralech and waggled her eyebrows. "If you insist on going home."

She cocked her head, peered around at the sack slung over his shoulder. "Well? Don't keep me in suspense, lemme see it." Her gaze darted from the sack to the elf's face, then slid slowly down. She winked. "Teleporter's powering up and triangulating off the ley lines." And in a corner just past the alchemy table, what looked like a goblin teleporter--if goblin teleporters gave off a vivid pink-purple-blue arcane glow--did seem to be doing exactly that. "And I wanna make sure everything fits your lil friend."