The Search for Tekk

[Brass]

[Tekk's Part 1 can be found here: https://thegrim.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6951]

"She did WHAT!?!?!?"

His voice boomed throughout the Salty Sailor, followed by a brief, stunned silence that not even the jungle birds interrupted.

"Left. With Pirates." Nixxrax said, simply, "All I know."

It was the chilling thing to hear for Bazzil Brasspair after all his searching. His mind was filled to the brim with all sorts of horrific images, all including the goblin he was closest to.

Possibly has -ever- been closest to.

"Nothin' else? No word? C'mon!" Brass growled at the bartender, "Give me somethin' to go on, dammit! It's the KID..."

Nixxrax sighed, "They leave through that door, I don' give a croc's piss what happens. My business, their business. You know how it is, Brass."

He did. Nixx would open his mouth only for the Baron, likely. It was very bad juju to piss off pirates - and when you're listening to pirate captains drink and pour their hearts out? He knew too much to go blabbing.

But it didn't stop Brass from slamming a gauntleted fist hard enough to break part of the bar in sheer frustration and anxiety. Bruisers nearby gathered, just out of sight but not enough so that they didn't let it go unnoticed. Smart. Since his last trip here, they'd been keeping a pretty close watch on him. Revilgaz saw to that - but he knew the goudy old goblin held him in good regard, even lately with is... eh... 'episodes'.

They had been steadily growing more backbone and brains since the Cataclysm wiped out a heap of them, leaving more fresh scrubs than old timers who had the guts and experience. Still, he trusted they wouldn't do anything stupid.

Brass didn't know if he wouldn't, though. His rage was welling up. It'd been doing that a lot, but this time? He broiled in his armor like a puddle in the Molten Front. Seethed. Steam fleeing before an impending eruption.

What began as a simple goose chase and mild curiosity had turned into that one moment he'd been dreading most - that Tekk really had gotten in over her head and he wasn't there to do diddly squat about it. There wasn't time to think anymore. No time to calm down. Nothing. Tekk's LIFE was on the line, here.

And it was all his fault. That last thought dropping like a bomb into the seething pool of rage.

There was plenty to do, he growled. Starting right here. He focused on Nixxrax like a Fire Elemental would look at a Stick Hut.

"Which pirates? Don' give me that 'Ah' don' know' bullshit. I do -NOT- have time to piss around, here."

Nixxrax was a professional. Had to be in the business of running a dive in the most rum soaked, bilgerat infested port in Azeroth. His pokerface was good. Damn good. But it didn't matter. Wasn't a pirate came through that Nixx wouldn't recognize and tip off the Baron about.

"Not my..."

Brass stomped, a shockwave that broke two tables and a chair. In the corner of his eye, he could hear more than see the Bruisers flinch. There was a dangling sound. Hooks clacking. Nets. They were ready to protect the Bay. He did not care.

"Talk or the next drink that gets poured in this shitshack's going to be what's left of you."

Nixxrax arched an eyebrow at that. A bead of sweat that had nothing to do with the balmy jungle heat dripped from his drooping ear. "I can't do that."

His rage combusted so quickly he didn't know how to react. He just stood still, attempting to hold back the innevitable. The fires within him erupted like the muzzle flash of a rifle. Now, a very real fire burned with intensity through the seams of his armor. Near as he could gather through the haze of rage was that he was now literally aflame.

For a moment, there was nothing but shocked silence. Nothing was broken, no roar was shouted... no snapping of bone or other punctations in the percussive song of battle. Just the crackling of intense, raging fire - the flickering of which he could see on the walls, illuminating Nixxrax's face. The goblin had become as pale as a bleached crabshell in that white-hot light.

That... that was new. He'd deal with that later. Everything later.

"Wreckrudder." Nixxrax said in a very quiet voice, little more than a whisper. His pokerface held, but his eyes did not blink. He didn't flinch or move, like prey freezing before a predator.

Wreckrudder. Captain Wreckrudder. Facts flitted like smoke from that inner fire, coalescing shapes - semi-coherent thoughts. Targets. Fuel for the Fire but indistinct as smoke itself.

Bazzil didn't blink as he worked up the momentum to get the fire under control. It was difficult... Screaming for blood, screaming for vengeance. To crush, and break, and maim,

and...

Move.

He had to move.

Turning to leave felt as difficult as turning a ship in turbulent, stormy seas. He ached as the urges to destroy cloyed at him, slowing him from moving towards the door and away from the rat who let this happen. Sense began to poke through the clouds - through the smoke of the fire. A cool logic began to penetrate the inferno. He noticed the Bruisers didn't move at all to stop him. Smart.

Tekk. He had to move. It wasn't Nixx's job. It wasn't Nixx's fault. It was his.

And he moved. Slowly at first, but with building momentum.

As he left the Salty Sailor, it began to rain as so often it did in the jungle. Big fat drops hissed off of hot pauldrons. The fires were dying now, but the rage that fueled them remained in excess, always threatening to reignite like an oilrig fire. He had to keep moving. The longer he waited, the higher the chances that he could get to his friend before it was too late.

If it wasn't already.

----

A day later, he'd interrogated every drunken sailor, every dockworker, every harlot he could to find out Captain Wreckrudder's bearing. He crossed the sea several times, and entire continents, with the help of the Grim's connections and Horde flightmasters.

It was messy work. Unlike Nixxrax, these people he questioned were just critters before a landslide. A boulder rolling downhill with no relent or time to waste. He'd get to her, and not a one of them were going to get in his way. There was no time for lies. No time for guesses or blackmail. No time for bribes. His rage made violence easy, and violence made them talking much, much easier.

Horde, Alliance, Cartel, Blackwater, Bloodsail... alligence was nothing. Answers were everything. The simplicity of brutality was refreshing. Familar. Easy. It vented some of the rage constantly building, threatening to turn him into a walking bonfire for some local Shaman to try and snuff. It did get odd looks.

Among pirate word of mouth, Captain Wreckrudder was a wannabe. An amateur. He did business with the Blackwaters and Bloodsails, but was never big-time enough to join them. He'd been trying to make a name for himself pretty recently, as a matter of fact - in the wake of Kezan like a lot of gobs. His crew was a peppering of bilgerats and castoffs who weren't exactly pick of the litter. Psychophants. Greedy mutineers waiting for a reason. It was a crew held together by bandages and wishful thinking, always desperate for volunteers and opportunity. Desperate for money, disposable newcomers, and plunder - having to survive off the scraps and stragglers like some Hyena of the Sea. They couldn't rightly be called Sea Dogs, one pirate - a gaunt looking Human with more scars than skin - had said, at a cove in Arathi. They were more like sea-mongrels.

And they had Tekk. Rage flowed.

The good news is that an Gob in Tanaris described him, his first mate, and, heartingly enough, Tekk. She'd survived a crossing of the sea without being sold to Zandalari or Bloodsails, or ground down for chum. Even better, she didn't seem to be any less chipper - having annoyed the Tavernkeep with her constant questions about the Desert. It sounded like her.

Hope burned within him at that, as he desperately hopped port to port hoping to catch them. Tekk was ok, for now. There was still time. She was probably still a prisoner. Who knows what horrific things they were doing to her that moment?