Day #284 of things I love about WoW:
Sholazar Basin. All of the Wrath zones are honestly super nostalgic for me, but Sholazar was my comfort zone. I loved its vibes so much, I'd AFK there for hours or just fly around lazily while listening to the music and talking to friends.
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Argents Lost - Summer Winds (part 2)
The trees thickened as he followed the game trail up into the foothills, a trail that doubled back on itself twice to take a more easy grade. That was enough to make him begin to wonder if perhaps it wasn’t a game trail at all but an old patrol route or a hunting trail. The ground was hard, though there was little snow on the path as the trees grew thicker, blotting out the light as much as the weather as he climbed higher into the foothills.
His leg ached, though ignoring it was easier than usual. Perhaps it was his level of focus, or knowing that perhaps he was on the right path.
Perhaps it was the knowledge that no one back home knew he’d come here, that the Crusade didn’t know he was here, that if something were to happen to him, it could be days or longer before someone managed to sort it out if Arius didn’t find the note amongst the bottles on his workbench.
But he trusted that Arius would find it soon enough if it came to that.
Wind worried the treetops above him, setting needles and branches rustling. He exhaled slowly, squinting upward for a moment, then into the gloom of the path that continued onward, upward, for at least a hundred yards before it curved again. Somehow, the mile described by the trapper seemed longer than any mile he’d walked before.
But they, too, would have come on foot. The trees were too thick and they would not have risked missing anything by attempting to teleport or fly. Perhaps they would have deployed some aerial patrols later—or had scouted from the air before starting their trek—but looking at the branches above him, even with the change of seasons, he couldn’t imagine that they would have been able to see much from above the treetops.
No. No, they would have walked this same trail. He was sure of it.
There was a small clearing beyond the bend in the trail, one where he could see the sky. A few rocks jutted up from the snow and he sat down on one of them, stretching his bad leg for a few seconds and taking a water bottle out of his satchel. He watched a few fair weather clouds drift through the blue sky as he drank, taking slow, deep breaths of the cold, clean mountain air.
It was so, so quiet.
“About two hundred more meters down that way, there’s a switchback. Beyond it is a gully and anything that goes in doesn’t come back out. I can’t let you go any farther.”
It was a woman’s voice, her Thalassian carrying a slight accent and the weight of age. He twisted toward it, saw her emerging from the trees behind him, far enough from the mouth of the trail that he knew she hadn’t followed him along it.
“Why’s that?” he asked softly, studying her for a few seconds. A kaldorei dressed in armor reminiscent of the Watchers and Wardens of old, complete with the glaives strapped against her back. Her hair hung long and loose but for a pair of thin braids that kept it back from her face and there was a pallor to her flesh that he recognized. A Death Knight—or a former one.
“I won’t have the death of one of Sunstar’s brood on my conscience,” she answered, resting her wrist on the hilt of the blade at her hip. “No matter how many generations removed.”
He stood slowly, capping his water and putting the bottle away. “You knew him.”
“Not as well as some,” she said. “But yes. I knew him.”
“I came looking for the Argents—”
“—that vanished along this trail. We thought perhaps you had. Come. We’ll go back to K3 and tell you everything we know.”
“We?” he echoed.
She smiled. “Yes. We.”
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