Chapter 94: The Unlucky Veteran

That night, as Jess passed the Westbrook waystation, he went to have a look at the army camp.

The camp was actually a little smaller than it had been a month earlier, when he'd come here with Gred to deliver grain. He'd heard that some soldiers had been sent to Redridge to help clear out the gnolls.

He watched for a while, paying particular attention to the lone tent. But the strange soldier never appeared.

"What are you looking at?" A soldier carrying a dripping wet shirt came over. "You're acting pretty suspicious. What do you want?"

"I'd like to speak to your commander," Jess said. "There's something... fairly important I need to report."

"Tell me, then. The captain went south to scout. I can pass it on when he gets back."

The soldier was shirtless and looked only a little older than Jess. He had an honest face, though it carried a hint of anger. He probably thought Jess was a thief or something.

"Do you know the man in your camp who sells scrap metal?" Jess asked.

"I do," the soldier replied. "Egmon. He's our longest-serving fighter. He's been in the army longer than the captain. He was wounded before, so he doesn't go to the front anymore."

"He told me he was a deserter," Jess said.

"He told you that?" The soldier scratched his head. "What's happened to him? Look, if you had a disagreement with him, I'd advise you not to come here looking for trouble, brother. Nobody's going to side with you."

"We haven't had a disagreement," Jess said. "Do you know about his wife?"

The soldier suddenly grabbed Jess by the collar and pulled him close.

"Are you making fun of Egmon? Who do you think you are?"

Jess seized the soldier's wrist and squeezed hard. The man's brows drew together, as though he hadn't expected Jess to be so strong.

"I'm from the Wizard's Sanctum, soldier. I suggest you calm down," Jess warned him.

The soldier noticed his ring and the staff on his back, then glanced at the pouch at his waist. Much of the anger drained from his face.

"Sorry." He let go. "Egmon has always taken care of us younger men. As for his wife... he doesn't have one. If you're asking seriously, she's something he imagined. Did he tell you he has a wife waiting for him in a fishing village? And that she's more beautiful than Queen Taria?"

He paused, then went on. "You've heard those stories about mermaids at sea, right? They can drain a person's soul. I don't know if that's what happened to Egmon, but from the way he describes her, that's what we all think. Why are you so interested?"

"I'm investigating the movement of murlocs into this area and their relationship with the gnolls," Jess explained. "Mr. Egmon told me his wife lived in that fishing village. I wanted to ask some local people about life along the coast, but I went there and found nothing. That's why I came back to ask."

A plain source note: this chapter was taken from the author's publication page without approval, and reading the posted version supports their work.

"I see. I'm sorry. Some people at the waystation enjoy making fun of Egmon and his wife stories, so I misunderstood." The soldier hesitated. "As for Egmon... we think the mermaids may have bewitched him, and that's why he made a mistake on the battlefield. Do you think that's possible, Mr. Mage? You people understand these things far better than we do."

"Mermaids certainly can use their voices to cloud people's minds," Jess said with a perfectly serious expression. "Whether that would make a soldier lose his nerve, I can't say. But I'd guess a soldier who'd been bewitched by a mermaid would seem like a completely different person."

"I knew it," the soldier said.

After the young soldier left, Jess looked toward the firelight in the camp. At that moment, the strange old veteran limped out of a tent and slowly headed toward the separate tent where broken weapons were stored. He seemed to be talking to himself along the way, but Jess couldn't hear a word.

Jess knew there was little chance the veteran had deserted because of a naga's spell. If he'd run into a naga on his way to Hillsbrad Foothills, would it really have followed him all the way across Baradin Bay to Westfall?

Unless it was true love?

And if the young soldier's guess was right, and the veteran had met a naga before deserting, then the sea witch in the fishing village might have had nothing to do with him at all.

Either way, there was no point questioning the old man again. Either his "wife" was already dead, or he was simply an unlucky, pitiful man who'd happened to lead Jess to an unlucky place.

The next morning, Jess returned to Stormwind. He put down his things, washed in the canal, then took a few naga scales and the ragged sack of herbs straight to the basement of The Slaughtered Lamb.

He hadn't slept well the night before, either. The gnolls might be making some kind of poison. It looked as if it was meant for murlocs, but what if they were also planning to use it against Stormwind?

Especially with the recent gnoll uprisings in Redridge, Three Corners, and Westbrook Garrison. The gnolls across the whole kingdom seemed ready to work together and cause trouble.

Was Hogger behind it all? Was he the leader of every gnoll group now?

Hogger was certainly a powerful fighter. But was he smart enough to bring all the gnoll tribes together after the Orc Wars and make them fight humans again?

After greeting Zare, Jess entered the back room. He looked at the barred door leading down into the deep, dark underground refuge—something you could almost call a palace beneath the earth—and tried to remember how the Kingdom of Stormwind had dealt with these problems in the game.

By the time of World of Warcraft, eighteen or nineteen years from now, gnolls were still causing plenty of trouble. Yet they hadn't threatened the large human settlements or the kingdom's rule directly. Jess had never heard of any huge poisoning incident, either.

Had the gnoll alliance failed at some point during those years?

Or was the alchemy room only an ordinary place where gnolls made potions to treat their tribes' illnesses, with no plan to manufacture poison at all?

Was Jess overthinking it?

No. There was one enormous turning point he couldn't ignore.

Onyxia.

After Onyxia arrived, the unstable forces inside the kingdom were quickly drawn together and, in a real sense, brought under her wings.

Maybe Onyxia had destroyed the gnoll threat herself, using it to gain political influence in Stormwind.

Of course, that was all Jess's speculation. Maybe something had gone wrong within the gnoll tribes, or maybe whoever was pushing them from the shadows had run into trouble.

For now, though, the threat was real.

When he entered the alchemy room, Ursula was sitting in a corner reading. The cauldron wasn't heating, and only a faint medicinal smell hung in the air. The room felt much fresher than on his previous visits.

Ursula looked up. "Back so soon?"

"Staying longer wouldn't have helped." Jess opened the sack and handed it to her. "Could you help me identify these herbs?"

The moment Ursula caught their smell, she frowned.

"Deathweed. It's been sitting around too long. Otherwise it wouldn't smell like this."