Grim Views

The waters of the bright, light blue salt sea cast a number of grandiose mirages before Ulrezaj. He rowed steadily in his skiff towards Zandalar. His skin had become spotted with burns as dark blue sun-stained blotches scorched his back, shoulders, nose, and neck. The humidity made it difficult to breathe. The scorching sun blinded his vision outside of the fantasies his mind's eye saw playing tricks on him.

The water begged him to take a drink. It looked so delicious and seemed to call out to him, but he knew that was death. It was Bwonsamdi's deception—a trick, a game, and a mercy. He would sooner drink his own piss rather than drink water from the ocean and sap his body of the last bit of hydration he possessed. I am no one's sacrifice, he recited in his head with what little consciousness he possessed.

His arms were weak and his stomach growled, not a normal growl calling for a meal, but a vicious growl warning that his body was on the brink of death. His ribs were now visible as barely-attached skin clung to each bone and wrapped around them.

His traveling companions were dead. He was not so much a fool as to traverse the Great Sea alone. Several prisoners had gone with him to Zandalar, the hope of freedom being all they desired. With the shadow of death cast upon them, they were free now, he thought in cruel irony.

He tossed those who fell asleep from too great weakness overboard, but not before carving out some choice areas of meat, such as the liver, kidneys, and tongue, so that nothing went to waste. Cannibalism was a disgusting thing to do, but desperate times often called for desperate measures. Their sacrifices would be in vain if he simply allowed himself out of custom to starve along with them.

Surely some Zandalari troll skiff would find them, all dead and piled on top of one another, and snort with contempt at such foolishness, or perhaps offer up a prayer to Bwonsamdi, Rezan, G'huun, or whatever-in-hell Zandalari worshipped these days. It did not matter. Ulrezaj was not prepared to let them gain that satisfaction, that air of superiority, by standing tall on a boat somewhere, with full stomachs, thinking that southern trolls were petty. His arms twisted with renewed strength, full of renewed fury, because of that grandeur ego Zandalari so undeservedly carried.

Gently, he knew, taking one last look at some of the bodies that drifted by his skiff, they would find their ways to Bwonsamdi. They all would. If he did not make it, so, too, would he.

Saltwater splashed Ulrezaj's face the next morning. He had fallen asleep. Fool, he cursed himself, thinking on how he wasted his energy on vendettas rather than accomplishing a steady pace in rowing. When his arms grew weary, he put away his paddles, raised a white sail, and rested on the floorboards.

Another wave splashed over the ship and blasted his head with cool water. His skiff rocked back and forth. He raised a weary hand up to the top of his skiff, but found his legs unwilling to cooperate. He felt stiff, sore from all the effort, and placed his head on the edge of the skiff for a view of his location.

The spraying sea, as was customary for him, revealed that he was not only close to shore, he was on it. Some waves churned, but as the sun would rise the tides would settle. Ulrezaj thought to anchor, but he did not have the strength for it. He rolled out of the skiff clumsily. His face collapsed onto the sand to become a wet, gritty mess of sand particles, dried blood, and water. His legs and feet dangled on the edge of the skiff behind him.

Prostrated as he was already, Ulrezaj thought to pray, fearing it might be the last thing he did. "G..." he stammered out. "Huuuuuuun." He closed his eyes and balled his palms. Nothing. "G'hu," he coughed, spitting out sand and trying to get the salty taste off his tongue, "uun." Nothing. "G'huun," he stated again, softly but firmly.

Again, he heard nothing. G'huun had never been so silent. When the Legion had invaded, G'huun's promises could be heard as far as the Broken Shore. Others on Zandalar, he knew, had been listening for much longer, but the Legion's invasion was the first time a clear sense of direction could be noticed. The lucidity of G'huun's promises were plain, the means to accomplish those ends were obtainable, and G'huun's ideals aligned perfectly with his own.

The whispers targeted trolls, promising newfound skills, powers, an end to all war, and a glorious empire in which trolls would be at the top. G'huun needed only to be fed. Ulrezaj had a plan for accomplishing that, and that plan had failed abysmally.

"Have you," he pled weakly, "Abandoned me? Will you send someone to make a feast of me, since I have not brought you a feast to eat?" He heard nothing.

When Ulrezaj opened his eyes again, he looked around and saw a docking bay, a pyramid, some ruined Alliance tanks, and ancient Zandalari structures. Beyond that, a dense, foreboding jungle where poison frogs belched, tigers roared, and bats swarmed. He was in Nazmir.

"Sea Stalks are an excellent source of fresh water. It filters out all the salt from the sea, as well as impurities in rivers and creeks, and keeps only the good stuff for itself," Ulrezaj remembered a Zandalari guide told him.

"All you have to do," the guide explained, "is break the stem. Ideally, you want to pull the plant by its root so you do not lose any water. Tricky to do, though, because most plants carry water in the roots. Sea Stalks are more delicate than most plants because that water is in its stem, so it has little need for roots. Always pull from the base and, if you got time, dig up the soil around it to be extra careful."

Those words were spoken years ago, just after the Cataclysm. It ensured the survival of all the tribes brought to Zandalar in the event of a catastrophe.

Ulrezaj followed the sandbar of Nazmir until he found a delta. He discovered some Sea Stalks growing. Kneeling beside one, he pulled the plant up, but his clumsy hands were shaking from weakness. He broke the stem at its base and fresh water poured out at the bottom.

The stem withered in his hand and Ulrezaj tried to catch the water with the palm of his hand, but the water just splashed around his fingers and rolled off into the sand. He tried to pinch the base of the stem, but the Sea Stalk lost its stiff shape and became difficult to pinch to keep the water from running free.

"No..." Ulrezaj groaned, "No, no, no, no, no!" Ulrezaj looked up at the sun and cursed with his hand raised in a balled fist. "Why?" He rebuked the heavens with parched lips. No other words could be said, though. He was too delirious to come up with something to say.

He looked back down at the other Sea Stalks on the delta shore. Dark red blood vessels popped from Ulrezaj's pale blue face in frustration. He hated Sea Stalks and, if none of them would forfeit their produce to him, he would destroy them all. He did not care if it was the last thing he did.

This time, he thought to give plants and gods alike one last chance to redeem themselves before he threw his life away. He took his finger and dug it under the plant, careful not to break the stem. Surely if plants could think and if Ulrezaj knew what gods would care about this pathetic struggle, they would look down with pity on him, or they would frown and deny him for testing them so brazenly. In the latter case, he doomed himself.

It seemed the plants and the gods were kind. The Sea Stalk he dug up broke free from the soil and rested, firm and flat, across the palm of his hand, unbroken. Ulrezaj wept.

When he snapped the stem over his mouth, water splashed onto his tongue and rolled down his throat. It was a refreshing, much-needed miracle, and was better tasting than any crafted liquor could hope to match.

The swamp of Nazmir was a foreboding place. Ulrezaj set out, but not randomly. He followed the skull-house ruins of Bwonsamdi's followers to his temple. Something was wrong. The Bwonsamdi loyalists, who had been displaced by the blood trolls, would know the answers.

If G'huun was still silent, he thought, something must have happened. He considered the possibilities in his head: a titan keeper could have sealed up G'huun, G'huun could have gone free and devoured Zuldazar when Ulrezaj did not return with his prize some time ago, or ... hm ... those were about the only two real possibilities he thought could happen.

Of G'huun's qualities, patience was not one that he thought the old god possessed. The swamp's stillness held a certain chill for him. No Underrot consumed the surface of the world, he noticed. Miles down the beaten path, he saw the Temple of Bwonsamdi, still active with its enormous blood moon enchantment perched atop the temple structure.

The inner sanctum of the Temple of Bwonsamdi was as large as one could estimate given its grandeur, which could be seen from outdoors. Whoever entered the temple was subject to two large, Other-World lit braziers that glowed an eerie bright blue-white and gave no warmth.

As he entered, he could hear the squirming of another. When Ulrezaj looked up, he saw Zalazane, the Darkspear's witchdoctor, dangling from a rope by his wrists. The inner temple also held a large cavernous space. The floor he walked on gave way halfway through the room to reveal a deep abyss where the floor was not visible by the death-lit pyres behind him.

Ulrezaj knelt on the edge of the floor that exposed the cavernous deeps below him. He knew if Bwonsamdi was here, this would be the best place to receive an answer.

"Bwonsamdi," he called out and waited with anticipation, but this time he did not need to wait long to receive an answer. Wind hurled up from below the temple grounds and tossed about Ulrezaj's hair. He was thrown off his feet and onto his back. The strength of the temple's windstorm threatened to suffocate him or throw him off the temple's false-floor and into the yawning chasm beneath.

He wondered if Bwonsamdi had been hoping to do this, and regretted coming all at once. He closed his eyes and placed his hands on the ground, grabbing for the nearest grounded brick he could find.

"Ha ha ha," guffawed an otherworldly voice.

Ulrezaj kept his eyes closed and repeated under his breath: "Please, do not kill me. Please, do not kill me. Please, do not kill me."

"Look," echoed the Other speaker. "If ya be seekin' out Bwonsamdi, that means people don't think I be killin' them when they come and visit. Dis is good for my reputation, so I can be makin' more deals, yeah."

Rolling onto his back, Ulrezaj opened his eyes and saw Bwonsamdi in his hideous glory. The death loa was a troll with a skull mask, bones around his chest, bones on his arms, and bones on his legs. He wore a kilt made of dead leaves and his skin was a mottled dark shade of blue.

"You seem surprised dat you see ole Bwonsamdi, curious."

"Curious indeed," Ulrezaj replied. "I would like to be knowin' what's goin' on here."

Bwonsamdi's face muscles tugged down, clearly frowning behind that mask. "Don't see why I should be your personal herald, mon."

"B-b-because," Ulrezaj stammered. "I be Grim. Peace through Annihilation, Souls for Bwonsamdi. This be our battle cry."

Bwonsamdi swayed in the air above the chasm of his temple. His arms were crossed. "Den it seems you not be very goot at ya job."

"I... I... just g- g- got back fr- fr- from prison and sea," he gasped. The wind filled his lungs and fear exhaled into the temple. "I need you to bind me to my body so if I should be too weak to reach the Grim, I won't be a sacrifice for G'huun."

"Pff," Bwonsamdi snorted. "G'huun be dead."

Ulrezaj gaped. "What gods rule this land?"

"I be da loa you're askin' fo', at ya 'service.' If ya don't be mindin' it."

"Bind me to my body then, Bwonamdi. You will be served by me well, I promise you. The greatest loa be my greatest interest."

"Very well," Bwonsamdi clapped his hands, the bones on his wrists rattled. "I like where ya heart be, mon, but right now I can't say dat I agree wit' ya methods. Here's da deal, I shall give ya what you want, because I be ratha' generous, and you follow through wit' dese requests o' mine. Now den, let's make about settin' up a little contract."

Shafts of light penetrated the foliage above Ulrezaj's head and glowed a series of illuminating brilliant gold-and-green hues across the swamp of Nazmir. It made parts of the swamp warm, almost inviting, and definitely pleasing to the eye, whereas the shadows all around them looked foreboding, damp, and cold.

He knew that, as badly as he wanted to curl up under the sun and lie there to get warm, he could not do that. Bwonsamdi had bargained with him. The deal on Bwonsamdi's end was that Ulrezaj's body was never to collapse from either malnourished weakness or physical exhaustion, so he would no longer require food or be overpowered by a weaker foe, but to loll about and wait would stir Bwonsamdi's ire. The deal he made for this gift was not a lifelong contract. It would diminish with time.

If the Horde were on Zandalar, so, too, were the Grim. Ulrezaj needed to head for the Grim's base of operations in Zandalar, and he needed to do so quickly. This conclusion he'd reached by pure intuition. The Grim, just as they were glory-seeking in battle, were often headquartered in prominent bases. He elected to head for Zul'jan. Zul'jan was the most formidable ruins, regarded by the most loa, and one of the easiest places to defend. If they had a camp in this swamp, it would be there.

Knowing the blood trolls and G'huun were defeated gave Ulrezaj a certain relief. "I should be able to safely approach Zul'jan without much, if any, resistance or retribution," he thought. This mindset, however, gave way to another point of view. "What shall I tell the Grim of my whereabouts," he considered for a moment. "They will be likely curious to know what I have done." Rain began to pour onto him and he searched for shelter until he could solve this dilemma.

He found a small, ruined house made of baked bricks that had a tree growing out of the roof. He rested in the doorway where the rain was least like to hit him. He found a small vase inside, lying only a few feet from his chosen spot away from where the rain was and covered in cobwebs. Much to his disliking, the vase's contents possessed mosquito larva and algae growing in still water.

He dumped it out at his feet and watched the sickly larvae squirm helplessly before they settled down for good on the house's stone floor. To clean the vase, he took off his Grim tabard and wiped it out on the inside until he could see neither any moss nor insect larva. Once it appeared tolerable for drinking, he placed it on the tree trunk inside the house where rain poured in through the roof like a small waterfall.

Satisfied with his own innovation, Ulrezaj sat back down in the doorway. His head rested on the back of the wall and he closed his eyes. He feared no predator, though it was a foolish notion. Wet weather did not stop nature.

As for the Grim, he resumed thinking, "They likely participated in butchering G'huun, if Bwonsamdi speaks true." That thought scared him a little. "What if Bwonsamdi was feeding false information? It would be an easy bargain to make, but, no, Bwonsamdi was a death loa and a dealmaker. To feed information that spread such confusion would cause his followers more disturbance than even he would want."

Whatever Ulrezaj said, it would have to be clever. It needed to be generally true, and it needed to be brief, told from the perspective of the Grim. "Da Mandate be a service you make for life," Leyu'jin had told him once in a Grim Trial that required he be given instruction from a standing member who was willing to educate Supplicants. Ulrezaj remembered the troll's dark stare in the Horde barracks of Orgrimmar. "You do not back out. Nevah."

"Yes, yes," Ulrezaj thought, contemplating the underlying philosophy behind the Grim's words "Peace through Annihilation," then merging them with how Leyu'jin taught him this application worked. His head slid back and forth about the doorway, swishing dust off the brick and getting mud into his hair when water combined with the dirt. It made a squeaking sound he misliked and so he decided to stop. He leaned over in the doorway and rested his arms on his knees. "This be how Leyu'jin thought," Ulrezaj considered. "It's been how I thought, too. Yes. It always has been."

When G'huun's whispers first came upon him, they essentially bellowed the Mandate. He would follow the blood trolls, learn from them, associate with the Zandalari, gain status among them, and serve G'huun. In the end, Stormwind would be devoured by G'huun's might and the whole city would be turned to underrot. Peace would settle in the land as the old god used its champion race, the trolls, to remove the weak Alliance chaff from this world and leave only the strong.

The direness of the situation became more necessary on the eve of the Legion's final advance, Ulrezaj turned to ask the questions that certainly all the peoples of the world would ask: "What if G'huun turns to devour de Horde next? Den de trolls?"

To which G'huun was prepared with an answer: "A god lives best when it could enjoy its creations. No loa was ever revered without followers. No god would empower its minions with its own flesh and blood to eat them later. That would be cannibalism and would result in the weakening of my power, not growth. No," croaked the beast from deep below in Ulrezaj's nightmare, "I would not do so to my loyal ones."

"And your disloyal," he asked.

"Find those who do not serve and feed them to me. You will quickly discover that I can be most generous, even to the least of my subjects, so long as you know their will is rightly placed."

"You be most gracious, G'huun. I could find you many disloyal: Stormwind, de Legion, those who protest our cause."

This offer promised everything: Peace through Annihilation, an end to the war, glory to be reaped, and power to be gained. He could not tell the Grim, though. They would reject it on the basis that the Mandate was a way of life independent from G'huun and that, by transferring it into a binding legal document under G'huun's authority, it could then be changed to whatever the beast beneath the world wanted.

Somehow, Ulrezaj knew, G'huun would never exist under the Mandate's authority, but above it. This endeavor could not be shared with others. He had to consider it a pilgrimage, something of an acolyte or a priest's duties. Besides, Ulrezaj considered darkly, if he failed, or learned something he did not like, he would be but one life lost, not many.

Satisfied with this explanation, Ulrezaj opened his eyes to a dark, beady-eyed man-eating spider looming just above him in the ruined home's ceiling. For safety, he kept his mouth shut and grabbed his knife. The beast was huge, half the height of a troll and three times as wide. It looked like the spawn of Shadra the spider loa itself. "Have I been watched this whole time?" With his knife between his fingers, he slid with the lower palms of his hands across the floor, making a slush of mud coat his pants and his back alike.

The spider jolted down the wall in an instant. Its movements came so fast that Ulrezaj barely had time to process what his next action should be. He grabbed his tabard, which lay next to the vase, and tossed it over the beast's eyes. The spider squealed and its legs stabbed at Ulrezaj like two and sometimes three or four sharp spears.

He rolled on his back over to the vase. He grabbed it with his hand, full to the brim with water, and smashed it across the beasts' eyes. He felt spider eyes turn to mush beneath his tabard and wondered bitterly what his tabard might look like when he put it back on. Sharp chunks of clay blasted outwardly like shrapnel and jarred itself into the spider's sides.

The spider bled sticky green ichor out of its sides. "No wonder this home was abandoned," he thought. Then he realized that this tangential moment away from the combat at hand allowed the spider to recover. It stabbed him in the right arm and pinned him to the wall. The spider hissed furiously at Ulrezaj. "A blind fury," Ulrezaj noted. He could see the reflective fluids of the spider's retinas sunk to the bottom of several cavernous holes that once provided vision. Only a couple eyes remained on the far left side of the spider. Its pincers snapped at him.

If he fell between the spider's pincers, he was sure to be poisoned and die. His deal with Bwonsamdi did not protect him against this. Thinking on his feet, Ulrezaj rolled to the side of the beast's leg that had his arm pinned. Its vision was not clear there. The spider, wanting to unleash its wrath though for perhaps for the first time in its life being unable to see its foe, reared back and thrashed the full brunt of itself into the wall. The spider crunched its pincers on bricks and tried to realign itself so that it could take another lash at Ulrezaj.

Ulrezaj was not about to let the beast get another chance at him again. He passed his knife from his right hand into his left and rammed the pointed end right into the spider's head. It squealed and curled its legs, which smeared Ulrezaj across the wall. He was thrown in a fast-paced hurl onto the spider's belly as it flopped to its back with the twisting of its limbs. He carved the barbed limb that held a death grip onto him off with his dagger to free himself, crawling slowly off the beast and leaving blood everywhere.

In all that conflict, Ulrezaj felt neither weakness or famishment overtake him. Though physiologically his body could not have won a fight like that in all his malnourishment, he now had confirmation that Bwonsomdi's deal was in effect. Confirmation, yes, but also a warning. He was not to make another mistake like that again.

The sky above Ulrezaj was a deep blue color. His vision was quite blurred and he noticed that some parts of the sky were darker than others. In fact, the sky was an oval-shaped gap in time and space surrounded by bleak darkness. For a moment, Ulrezaj thought he was dead. He gasped in horror and reached with his hands up towards the air.

"Shh, be still," came a soothing, feminine voice. She grabbed his arms with her hands and laid them by his sides. "You took some bad injuries and almost bled to death on da floor. I be tryin' ta bandage ya up."

He blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. It turned out that the blue oval shape in the sky was not a hole beckoning him to come to the afterlife, but a Zandalari troll female. He looked over the side of his bed and saw that he had been laid out on an unsteady linen cot over a pool of dark water mixed with blood. He realized in shocked horror that he did not remember thinking much after killing the spider, only collapsing in a haze right onto the ground.

He was thinking of Bwonsamdi when he realized he had unbandaged wounds gushing out. He placed his tabard over his arm to stop the bleeding, but the harm had been done. A haze washed over Ulrezaj's eyes like the haze one gets when in desperate need of sleep, and he collapsed onto the floor.

In vain, he tried to reach out with his arms to absorb the shock of the fall, but his right arm had become numb and limp. He collapsed chin first onto the stone floor to prevent the fall from breaking his tusks. Sure, his chin might be bruised, but one's tusks were a symbol of pride. Keeping them sharp and strong contributed greatly towards putting on a respectable display of masculinity, age, and dominance. That, at least, gave him some reassurance for when someone found his body.

Although someone did find his body, he was not dead. His eyes strafed to their far-right corners to get a better view of the woman. She was tall, he realized. Her head almost touched the ceiling, but she knelt slightly to give herself some room to work.

Part of her nose had been split in two. Her right nostril was gone and a bluish patch with dark red veins was growing where it once was. "At least she was regenerating that," he thought. A scar stretched from her lip to her ear, but her ear was damaged, too, with a nub growing out from where it had once been.

"H-h-how d-did you..."

"I serve Talanji's Expedition. We operate from Zul'jan. One of our scouts heard a sound comin' from here and he thought it might be da blood trolls." She grinned and chuckled under her breath. "He found a lotta blood, and a troll, but it be pretty rare he finds one separate from da otha. He sent for me at once."

Talanji's Expedition was a new term for him. When he last saw the Princess, she was on his boat with Zul, trying to ensure ... to ensure ... something. He could not remember for some reason.

The troll female kept on talking. "When I got ta ya, I told him. 'No, no, do not move da body, dat will kill him for sure. We must act now.' You had a lotta clay parts stuck in ya chest and dat tear in your arm was pretty lucky. It coulda ripped ya arm right off, or worse, pulled tendons and caused nerve damage, den I would have ta cut ya arm off, and I don't like ta be doin' dat. Regeneratin' be useful, but it's still gruesome and ideally sometin' ya don't want ta rely on."

"Speakin' from experience," Ulrezaj asked the female.

"Aye, speakin' from experience," she answered, placing a yellow-curved talon growing out of her finger on her nose and flicking it. "Praise Jani dat I got blessed wit' da loa of resourcefulness."

"Jani was the loa of trash," Ulrezaj recalled in his mind. "Only the lowest born Zandalari serve Jani, and they be just as trash as their god."

His eyes glazed over the Zandalari female. The left side of her face was mostly fine. Her eyes were close together, making her someone who could still make for a fine shadow-hunter. As for a fine woman, probably not. She looked like at one time she could have been quite pretty. He imagined her nose must have been sharp, perhaps it had gotten in the way of whatever happened to her, and that this was why she would deliberately come to the swamp.

Jani, lowborn, that would affect her, too, because oftentimes a lowborn Zandalari was trapped there unless they climbed through military expenditures. Still, Ulrezaj recalled even that did not guarantee success. Foreign tribes had gained power over natural born Zandalari for wit and skill, like General Jakra'zet of the Farraki Tribe. Fate was not kindest to the trash trolls of Zandalar.

He felt a sense of sadness wash over him on the account of her presumably unneeded suffering. It reminded her of him. Suddenly, she was not a hideous swamp-dweller, but a noble patriot of Zandalar who encapsulated all virtue and goodness. That was what the Grim fought for and he began to think he liked her. Except, just as he thought this, she slapped him hard in the forehead with the back of her hand.

"Don't look at me like dat. I'm not your next meal, savage," she rebuked him.

He reeled back, startled and with a fresh stinging sensation. "Don't healers have a sayin', 'Do no harm?' or somethin' like that."

She frowned. "No, what kind of an idiot would say dat?"

She had a good point, but even so, his sudden infatuation was fading fast. He slumped on his cot. "You're not half bad," he complimented.

"Half bad, right," she snorted, wrapping up a loose bandage on his arm in an almost sympathetic gesture. "I'm a bit more den half."

"I like that about you." He said in an attempt to salvage his lost chance at trying to earn her affection.

Somehow he did not communicate what he wanted by that statement. He could tell by the way the back of her hand flew across his face again and smashed his nose. It bled a little, his vision grew hazy, and he keeled over unconscious.

---

That night Ulrezaj awoke to the sound of crickets chirping, frogs croaking, and bats screeching. His bed was no longer a makeshift cot, but a stone with a thin feather mattress on it underneath a complete roof and four brick walls. He rolled out and crashed to the floor. Every muscle in his body was screaming. With his nose as his most recent injury, that pain actually distracted from the rest of his body's muscle soreness. It would be nice to stay in the Zandalari camp to recover for a time, but he had a deal.

Ulrezaj clawed across the floor to the door. He noticed that the area outside the building was a little more sophisticated than the rest of the place he had been. There were walls surrounding his location, as well as loa shrines. "I must be in Zul'jan," he realized. One guard was posted outside his area. When he rose to his feet slowly and walked out, he asked the Rastari, "Am I free to go?"

"Tch," mumbled an irritated-looking Rastari guard. He wore a chest and leggings of gold. Skulls were carved into the covering on his chest and his kneecaps. Feathers were added to his vestments around his wrists and his helmet. With a finger, the guard pointed east. "Go, if you wish."

"Really, that easy," Ulrezaj asked skeptically.

"We got no thing on you, mon," the guard replied. "Besides, you ain't no blood troll, neitha. We just assume you be a Hordie who got lost on our turf, patched ya up for good favor."

"And my healer?"

The guard shrugged. "She's just doin' her job. Go, or stay, don't matta none to me."

That made sense. Ulrezaj stepped down the inn at Zul'jan and walked. He took one look at the guard, who had already lost interest in the conversation, and moved east towards the golden heart of Zuldazar.

"Wait," he heard a female's voice crying out. Ulrezaj stopped in his tracks, holding his ribs with one hand, and turned to face the newcomer. The Zandalari mender was pleading for him. "You can't go, those bandages could be infected if ya just let dem stay."

"I got a deal with Bwonsamdi," Ulrezaj answered. "Ain't no time for that."

The healer folded her arms. "Bwonsamdi ain't goin' ta care about whether you live or you die. He benefits eitha way, so it makes no sense why you'd think you should take dese unnecessary risks."

"But you'll keep me here, how long?"

"As long as it takes. I'm not doin' dis for you, so make your mind up now."

He could feel his legs trembling from the weight of his upper body. Ulrezaj felt like he was about to collapse. Maybe she was right. Maybe his deal with Bwonsamdi had reached its limit on Bwonsamdi's end and he would no longer receive support. Worse yet, if Bwonsamdi had given all he would, he would be expecting a return of some sort. Irrespective of whether his deal was still on, he would need to go with or without the loa's protection.

"I...," Ulrezaj started with some hesitation. "Must go."

"Den you're a fool."

"Maybe, but I'm a fool on my own terms," he collapsed as he said those words. His legs were so burdened by the weight of his torso that he couldn't pull himself up again. His arms gave way, too, and he laid on the ground, paralyzed.

"Jani, spare this trash its fate and make it useful," the mender ran down and dragged Ulrezaj by the arms across the smooth concrete stones of Zul'jan. She took him to the Rastari guard. "I will not stand here and tolerate dis foolish babbling. Take him first ting tomorrow to Dazar'alor. Whateva he's afta, I'm sure he'll find it."

"And if he dies," the guard asked.

"Den know we gave him his best chance at survival. No blood be on our hands."

"Understood, I will hurry and try to get him to Dazar'alor before he dies."

Ulrezaj winced in pain and shock when he realized they were not only speaking of him as if he were unconscious, but also dead. He shivered a little at the thought and wondered if this was Bwonsamdi's intention. That blend of their words and his thoughts were the last things he could recall of that conversation. After that, the night turned into consuming blackness in the mender's arms.

The cold, hard floor of Dazar'alor shown a bright gold that irritated Ulrezaj's first waking vision. His muscles were sore now, not as bad as before, but he was feeling able to walk. He looked up and there the Rastari guard from Zul'jan stood over him.

"Jani's fortune! I was tasked with bringing you here. You slept de entire trip. I decided to stay to make sure you woke."

"That was," Ulrezaj coughed, "Quite thoughtful, thank you." His words rang true and honest. Traveling through the rest of the jungle to the great pyramid was going to be a hell of a trip.

"I did not do dis for you," he smirked. "De Rastari here do not care for having Talanji's Expedition dump troll corpses onto the great pyramid."

"You will be leaving now?"

"Aye," the guard nodded. "Oh, one more thing. If ya don't bring anything good to Nazmir to be servin' de Expedition, don't come back."

"Tch, I did not count on it."

"Good, good. You will get nothin' from Bwonsamdi there. No temptation, no appeal, would be worth a bargain. If you could not tell by de ruined cities and villages built in his homage dat have been neglected, den I worry about your reasoning skills."

Words swam darkly in Ulrezaj's thoughts. "If only you know," was what he wanted to say, but instead it was, "May there be an abundance of trash in your future."

The guard grinned enthusiastically. "Ah, Jani. One mon's trash be anotha mon's treasure," he mused. "Dis be why Jani's followers be so prosperous. People assume it be from lowborn status, but it be because we are de most resourceful Zandalari. We thrive and provide for our own where othas fail. If you be lookin' for a better loa, perhaps de Expedition be willing to talk to you."

"Thanks, but I pass on the offer."

The guard's expression turned flat and neutral again. "Den I shall be headin' out now."

The room the Rastari left Ulrezaj in was large and had shimmering portals scattered throughout it. The Grim were most likely here. He decided to start searching. Rising to his feet, he looked on the wall and found a calendar, buried among other notices, that read: "Grim Inquisition, 6th hour, Northern Stranglethorn." He bit his lip at that.

Ulrezaj had just come from the northern jungle and now the Grim was back there! This whole trip felt like a spiral of chaos, but, he thought relieved, had he not come to Dazar'alor, he would never have acquired that information. Glancing around the portal room, he did not see a single portal to Stranglethorn Vale, but he did notice Oculeth pacing nervously.

"Telemancer, I could use your help," he stated.

Oculeth turned, confused. "Me?"

"That be your title, no?"

"Ah, yes. Portal services at your disposal."

"Good, send me to Northern Stranglethorn."

The nightborne mage looked weary. "Ah, you see, I have never been there. Do you have coordinates?"

"No. Just, ah, summon a portal and imagine a troll city with temples and yellow all around it, that will suffice."

"Sending you off," Oculeth threw his hands back and casted a teleportation spell.

Ulrezaj had sudden anxiety about trusting this nightborne's ability to do what he was asking. But just before he opened his mouth to stop the mage, the world swallowed him up in brilliant gold, green, blue, and then spat him out.

He landed behind a tall man wearing a purple cloak. Ulrezaj coughed and spat blood, a realization hit him. "Oculeth, you sent me to Dazar'alor!"

"Yes," Oculeth stated, unsurprised. "It makes sense. I have not seen any other troll fortress."

"Imagine, ah, a temple, but instead of golden steps they're made of wood and built on stone. Imagine one about a quarter of the size this one is and-"

"Say no more." Oculeth threw his hands back and cast the spell onto him.

The world whirled again, but this time he was spat out on his side at the front of the Temple of Bethekk in Zul'Gurub. Ulrezaj coughed in a heave and, placing both his hands on the ground, spat and rose to his feet. He could hear voices coming from above, but they did not sound strictly Gurubashi. In fact, one sounded more like a goblin. Ulrezaj grinned, that could only be the Grim.

Stepping up the creaking stairs, thoughts overwhelmed his mind. "Bwonsamdi's bargain did not pay off. I should not repay him." But then, in a mystical, back-of-the-mind way, he thought he heard Bwonsamdi.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Little troll mon, why would ya go and think such a silly thing as that?" Ulrezaj could hear the rattling of bones as he climbed the steps, but he knew there were no bones rattling near him. "You be owin' me big time. Far more den you possibly realize. Who kept you from dropping in famishment when you had ta defend yourself? Who gave up on watchin' that pathetic display of a pilgrimage and vouched ta have you carried here? Hmm? I have invested more den we bargained for into you."

Ulrezaj reached the top of the steps. He saw among them Qabian and Khorvis among the faces he knew. Outside of those two, he noted new faces: a pack of blood elves, a goblin, and some trolls. This was good, but even as he thought that the sky turned a darker shade of blue, his flesh burst out in goosebumps, and the world turned a deathly chill.

"Remember who brought ya here. Repay ya debt." The burning white eyes of Bwonsamdi fizzled from his vision and left an impression on his conscience.

There, at the top of the Temple of Bethekk, Ulrezaj stood bewildered and almost confused, but he was with the Grim again.

"Curious how you found us here," he heard someone say.

To which he, among several others and for certainly drastically different reasons, replied in unanimous agreement, "Curious indeed."