Flinthammer Hall

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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“Come on, already. I know it’s not really the woods, but it’ll have to do.”

While Ringo Flinthammer waited on Frostmaw, he turned away, toward the Thondroril River to give his companion some privacy and to try and figure out how he was going to crack open the bag of walnuts Beli had picked up for him in Southshore.

That’s when he heard it: the rustling paper sound of undead speech.

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“Ye’ve had these dreams before,” Beli Flinthammer said, not looking up as she packed, with rather more savagery than Ringo would have preferred. “Ye’ve had them for years! Ye’re always seeing the bloody Burning Legion landing in Khaz Modan.”

“Aye,” Ringo said, from the bed. He had learned long ago not to get between her and whatever domestic chore she was taking it out on when she was like this. “This time it was more specific.”

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