“So, what is it ye’re doin’ here, anyway?”
“Didn’t ye read me note?”
“Yer note? Here’s yer note: Blurred and unreadable. There was a crack in the ceiling that let rainwater piddle all over it.”
“Huh. That damned dragon must ha’ cracked the ceiling when he flew over.”
“Aye. So, nay, Ah didnae read yer note.”
“Ah jus’ said Ah was headin’ ta Ironforge wit’ the boy ta meet up wit’ ye, and ye were ta rendezvous with me there.”
If anything, Menethil Harbor was worse off than Mountaineer Ringo Flinthammer had ever expected. When the loch’s water had burst through the shattered Stonewrought Dam, it had poured down into the now-wetter-than-ever Wetlands. Other than the deep channel it carved beneath the dam itself — which was quickly refilled by the soft peat and soil resettling after a time — the water didn’t do much lasting damage.
Until, that is, it reached the mouth of the delta and emptied into Baradin Bay and the Great Sea beyond. There, the wave of lake water rushed beneath the town of Menethil Harbor, lifting buildings from their foundations, depositing them several feet deeper in the loosened soil of the swamp, and there they stuck fast, as the water joined the ocean beyond.
It was a town now sunk up to its collective knees in brackish swamp water, with much of the dwarf-made island the town had rested on now washed out to sea.
The path squelched beneath Beer Run‘s hooves as he entered town. Ringo drew disinterested glances from those in town — Dark Iron zealots had apparently attacked the town in the wake of Deathwing’s reemergence, judging by the bodies being removed from Menethil Keep. Sandbags were piled everywhere, in a vain attempt to keep the surviving portions of town dry.
Ringo was suddenly very tired. Although he hoped to see his cousin alive and well, what he found himself most hoping for was a hot bath in the Deepwater Tavern and a relatively dry bed to sleep in.
Mountaineer Ringo Flinthammer rode unchallenged through the gate of Thoradin’s Wall — it had been guarded only intermittently since the end of the Troll Wars, more than 2,000 years ago.
Ringo noted what looked like a Forsaken campsite to the south.
“No time to see what ye’re up to,” Ringo muttered toward them, “Not today.”
The Wetlands had been flooded after Deathwing had shattered the Stonewrought Dam, and the Thandol Span appeared likely to fall to Dark Iron militants. The Arathi Highlands looked almost untouched by Deathwing’s wrath, and Ringo hoped he could prevail upon Captain Ironhill to send some of the Dun Garok garrison to help secure the region.
Indeed, the Hillsbrad Foothills were quiet when Ringo arrived, with winter songbirds calling to one another and the steady plop-plop of melting snow falling in clumps from the trees.
Frostmaw and Beer Run trudged along together, both snuffling as they went; the bear looking for winter berries on mostly barren bushes and the ram looking longingly at the last strands of grass peeking up through the slush.
In Lordaeron, back when there was a Lordaeron, they had a saying: “A dwarf’s hill is his kingdom.” Wherever Ringo and Beli Flinthammer lived, even if it was simply a partition and a set of cushions of their own in Sun’s Reach Harbor, it was Flinthammer Hall. Wherever they laid their heads at night, that was their home.
“See that rock?” Ringo had once joked to Beli, putting down his cloak for her to sleep on, in a dusty corner of the Badlands, “That’s me pillow.”
After the final battle in Icecrown Citadel, Ringo and Beli had thought that their home, in a tower overlooking the village of Thelsamar, on the shores of Loch Modan, would be the real, the final Flinthammer Hall.
Arriving home for the first time after Deathwing’s attack on the Eastern Kingdoms, Ringo’s heart sank as he saw the home was dark, with no fire in the hearth, not even smoldering coals. He had seen the damage the dragon had done to the Stonewrought Dam and the muddy puddle that once was the loch. But Thelsamar still stood and he’d hoped to find his wife and son at home, safe and alive.
“Let me get this straight … hold on,” Captain Tharran said, raising his rifle to his shoulder, and squeezing off a shot. The sound echoed across the snow field south of Kharanos. “So it wasn’t just a big earthquake that caused all this?”
“Nay,” Mountaineer Ringo Flinthammer said, ducking down behind a disabled steam tank. “Ye didnae see the great big dragon, then? He smashed up Stormwind somethin’ fierce. The Bar With No Name in the district got crushed and he blew up the Old Barracks.”