Widge Gearloose carefully re-rolled the ancient scroll, taking care to do so slowly, as though it was merely the Isle of Thunder’s winds doing so, and not an invisible mage. The Mogu might be violent sociopaths — well, no, they definitely were violent sociopaths — but they at least appreciated the value of the written word.

“Khaz’goroth on a cracker!” A ball of whiskers and pointy armor came hurtling over the wall, landing beside him. A moment later, a dinosaur came crashing to a halt behind him.

Widge opened his mouth to greet Ringo Flinthammer, but the latter couldn’t see him and, more importantly, appeared busy with his own matters. Ringo pulled out his rifle, braced it on the low gray stone wall and squeezed off several thundering shots, causing Widge to inaudibly squeal with pain and plug his fingers in his ears. Ringo patted the dinosaur with one hand, murmuring something to the beast. He checked the terrain through his rifle’s sight again and, seemingly satisfied, picked his rifle back up and slouched down against the wall, clearly exhausted.

“Fancy meeting you here!” Widge grinned, dropping his spell’s effect. “ACK!”

The dinosaur had instantly whipped its massive horns around, pinning the gnome against the wall.

“Nice dinosaur! Good dinosaur!”

Ringo snickered.

“‘s all right, Kazmo; Widge is one o’ the good ones, if a wee bit foolish around direhorns he has nae met before.”

“What are you doing here? How did you escape the Horde?”

“They made a pit stop on th’ Isle o’ Giants …”

“Their second mistake!”

“That’s what Ah said to Kazmo! Anyway, Ah got free in th’ chaos there, stole a Zandalari boat and saw they were headed fer th’ Isle o’ Thunder and we’ve been making the Zandalari, Mogu and Horde sorry they did nae kill me e’er since. What’re ye doin’ here?”

“Assisting the Kirin Tor, of course, although I think I just realized a way we can both help King Magni.”

“What? Here?”

Widge patted the scroll behind him.

“Tell me, what do you know about the Mogu’s origins?”