Flinthammer Hall

“Ow!” Gyorgi Stonekeg rubbed the back of his head. “She slapped me!”

“Ye donnae wanna get smart about what’s happened with the king around her,” Mountaineer Ringo Flinthammer said, craning his neck back and staring all around. “So this is the Elemental Plane, eh? Jus’ looks like a big cave ta me.”

“So, where’s this Stonefather, then?” Beli Flinthammer growled, clearly unawed by the gigantic cavern they found themselves in. All of Ironforge Mountain could fit within it, without scraping the ceiling, but she gave no sign of being impressed. “Th’ sooner he tells us how ta turn the king back to flesh, th’ sooner he can set things right in Khaz Modan.”

“Initiate Stonekeg,” a goblin, covered in grease and waving a spanner, shrieked at the three dwarves. “You’re late! The battle is underway!”

“Battle?” Gyorgi echoed. “What are ye talking about, Goldmine?”

The goblin shaman thrust out a finger, pointing at flashes of light on a distant ledge of the great cavern.

“The stone troggs are making their final push to wipe out the Earthen and conquer Stonehearth for good.”

“Ye know,” Beli sighed, “No one ever says ‘ah, ye need help? Here it is, free o’ charge, no riskin’ yer life on behalf of whatever thing we need doing first.'”

Ringo nodded and quickly loaded his rifle.

“Time fer some thrillin’ heroics.”

The rusty hinges squealed as Beli Flinthammer opened the door.

“Ach, it smells like a wet dog in here!”

“Ye donnae smell that good yerself,” growled the bedraggled dwarf drying himself off in the hold of the X-2 Pincer.

“Where’s this shaman, then?” Mountaineer Ringo Flinthammer barked. “Ah donnae see no squids in here.”

“Me, I’m a shaman of the Earthen Ring,” the dwarf said.

“Ye?” Beli asked. “There ain’t no shaman in Ironforge ‘cept them squids.”

“I’m a true son of Aerie Peak, I am!”

“Can’t be,” Ringo said, waggling a finger at him. “Nae blue eye shadow.”

“Donnae mock me clan’s sacred war paint!”

“More like makeup fer a pretty, pretty elf princess,” Ringo sneered, then winced as his wife slapped him in the back of the head.”

“Idjit, we come seekin’ the Earthen Ring’s help, and ye’re antagonizin’ the first one we find.”

“What did ye need, Daughter o’ Ironforge?”

“King Magni Bronzebeard, seekin’ ta find th’ root of the earthquakes that were ravagin’ Khaz Modan, performed a ritual spelled out on some tablets brought back from Ulduar.”

“And th’ ritual dinnae work?”

“Nay, it worked, all right. But it wasn’t a metaphor when it talked about makin’ him one with the earth — the king got turned into solid diamond.”

The Wildhammer dwarf whistled.

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“Are they alive? Dwarves have big lungs, you know, not just big livers. And stomachs.”

“Helmsman, eyes forward!” a deeper voice snapped. “There may be some stragglers about who don’t know their leaders have left the field.”

“By Mekkatorque’s mustache,” a third voice piped, “That was ugly.”

Mountaineer Ringo Flinthammer rolled over and expelled what felt like several pints of salt water from his lungs. He opened what felt like frozen eyelids to see his wife climbing to her feet, ignoring her violent shivering despite the thick blankets wrapped around each of them.

“Where are we?” Ringo coughed, trying for all the dignity he could, with snot dripping into his beard and mustache. “Ah donnae remember aught but yer hands pullin’ us free o’ th’ battle.”

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“The boy will be fine,” Mountaineer Ringo Flinthammer snapped at his wife, urging her away from the stern of the ship. Menethil Harbor had retreated into a mere speck on the eastern horizon and Bael Flinthammer was now long out of sight. “Bethaine has enough animals to play with fer 30 children. Worry more about them animals in her stable than about Bael.”

“Can we see the new island yet?” Beli Flinthammer sighed, turning around, facing out into the Great Sea. “Reckon we bend the right ear in the Earthen Ring and we’re back home in a day or so.”

“There’s a smudge thataway that might be the island,” Ringo said, not wanting to throw cold water on his wife’s optimistic vision of their chances of enlisting the shamans’ help in restoring King Magni Bronzebeard to flesh and bone. “Ah ain’t no sailor, but Ah expect that’s it.”

“Not much of an island.”

“Nay, but apparently close enough to Stormwind to be o’ strategic importance if Garrosh’s orcs take it.”

There was a rumor that Garrosh Hellscream had assassinated Cairne Bloodhoof and Thrall and had taken command of the Horde for himself. Ringo was taking it all with a grain of salt — it seemed much more likely to him that Garrosh, the bastard child of a demigod-slaying, demon’s blood-drinking orc warlord, had simply done what Rend Blackhand had done years ago, and formed his own rival incarnation of the Horde.

“Mmmm,” Beli grunted, patting her bags, trying to find her spyglass. “No Horde or Alliance sails that I can see, though.”

“Well, that don’t make no sense. Mebbe that’s just a reef, and no’ the real island at all.”

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