Flinthammer Hall

Bael Flinthammer wouldn’t stop crying. Ringo looked at the child’s mother imploringly.

“Fine!” Beli said, throwing up her hands, “Let’s go back to the inn and put him down for a nap. It’s quieter in there.”

A female draenei stepped between the dwarves and their destination.

“We’ve taken Sun’s Reach from the enemy and our final victory is at hand,” she began, turning to jog after the couple and the crying baby, who had not broken step when she started speaking. “The cost was high and many brave combatants gave their lives so we could achieve this.

“It is my goal to ensure that those who perished in combat are not forgotten. I ask that you take a moment to consider making a donation …”

“Gave already,” Ringo said, wincing as a child sorely in need of a nap howled in his ear. “To yer assistant, or something.”

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“Are ye OK back there?” Beli Flinthammer called out over her shoulder.

Bael Flinthammer was fine. He was bundled up tight and strapped to her back as they soared through the skies over Quel’Thalas on the back of a gryphon. Beli’s baby laughed and giggled as the gryphon spiraled down toward the harbor. Even from here, she could see Burning Legion forces on the island, engaged in a firefight with dwarven riflemen. If her husband wasn’t among them, she knew he would be champing at the bit to join the fight.

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Ringo Flinthammer walked in the footsteps of Arthas Menethil. It was an uncomfortable feeling.

He straightened up and tipped over the pot of goblin gumbo, spilling it onto the blighted soil. The Ghostlands smelled so bad, no one would notice the added stench of the gumbo. In any case, it was time to break camp and keep moving.

The Outer Elfgate had been shattered six years before by Arthas as he rode at the head of the Scourge invasion of High Elf lands. Ringo had felt anger and shame when he had ridden through the Thalassian Pass, Scourge banners drifting in an unseen breeze where once elven rangers had guarded Quel’Thalas from intruders like Ringo.

It had taken a great number of shakes of the imp to get a useful answer out of him. It seemed that the Dead Scar — the road of Blight leading straight through the Ghostlands and Eversong Woods, right up and through Silvermoon itself — would be Ringo’s safest means of travel for now. The Scourge wasn’t watching for anyone using it to travel north, and the Horde and Amani trolls both patrolled the areas less afflicted with Blight.

But “safest” didn’t mean “safe.” According to Hawkspear, mindless Scourge undead drifted along the Dead Scar, just waiting for undead lips to blow the horns that would summon them to battle and to march on Silvermoon once more. And intelligent undead sometimes rode along the Dead Scar, visiting the Necropoli that flanked it.

So, “safest,” but not “safe.”

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The imp was helpful in Ringo Flinthammer’s journey upstream along the bank of the Thondroril River.

“Are Horde patrols going to be on this bank?”

shake-shake-shake

“Is this a safe spot to sleep tonight?”

shake-shake-shake

“Are those troll ruins over there dangerous?”

shake-shake-shake

And so, with the imp’s ball tucked into a saddlebag, Ringo guided his ram north into the Alterac Mountains.

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