Chapter 140 – Mage of Dalaran

Like the town, the tavern was overcrowded, Jace and Grid couldn’t even find a place to sit at the bar, they had to go to the window and drink against the wall with a glass of wine, and let’s not even think about eating or anything, one of them held a baguette and chewed on it, forget about it, technically it should be counted as a Lorax.

“What did you say before about Ogrim Doom?” Grid tore off a slice of bread to chew on and said, “Ogrim, that’s the big orc chief, right?”

“That’s the Ogrim.” Jace said.

The dwarf smashed his mouth and said, “Ogrim is a felon of the alliance, whether it is Quetzalas or the dwarves, or Storm City …… all have a bitter hatred for him, Jace, wherever he has committed serious war crimes. Would the Kingdom of Lordaeron not realize the importance of this criminal? I don’t believe that he could have the chance to escape from prison, it’s possible that just some random orc chieftain escaped from the asylum.”

“You have learned orc language, know that orcs have many clans, what war song, dragon throat, frost wolves and so on, each say that their tribal leader is called chieftain, and say that the chief of the whole tribe is called the big chief, and pass the word around, may be a lot of people mistakenly think that it’s the big chief who escaped from the underground prison in Lordaeron. I remember that underground prison where not even a demon could escape, and that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“He said head orc, that’s what I guessed.” Jace said, “Where would I know that much detail, and he wouldn’t explain it to me a little.”

“Okay.” Grid rinsed his mouth with his beer while glancing at the people sitting and standing in the tavern’s lobby for a moment and said, “Have you noticed, Jace.”

“Find what?” Jace asked, his mouth coping.

“Do you ever get the feeling that there are a bit too many mages, here?” The dwarf asked.

Jace had begun to consider talking to Grid about letting him watch him practice a bit on his mage armor tonight, the words were abruptly swallowed at the dwarf’s question, and he glanced that way at the bulk of his words.

Looking at it that way, it did feel like there were a few too many mages in the house.

In the opposite corner by the window sat a table of mages, and though they were cloaked in warm woolen cloaks on the outside, one had a cloak that was Dalaran’s, and the other two could see the purple color of their robes between the cuffs and collar.

And there were two other robed mages over at the bar, one in a green robe with a staff in his arms, while the other man was surprisingly wearing Kenrito’s tunic, the Violet Eye emblem embroidered on his chest.

Kenrito’s mages are the cream of the crop of Dalaran mages, like the one on the griffin before.

Why are so many Dalaran mages here?

Although the town of Southsea was closer to Dalaran, it was no longer the territory of the Kingdom of Lordaeron. Dalaran is just a small city-state controlled by mages, with its territory limited to a plains area from the southern shore of Lake Lordanmere to the foot of the Otterlander Mountains, sandwiched between the Kingdom of Lordaeron and the Kingdom of Otterlander, with little control over further afield.

Once so many Dalaran mages appeared in the territory of Lordaeron, something must have gone wrong.

What’s going on in Southsea?

“Is it to hunt that orc leader?” Grid asked again.

“Maybe.” Jace said, “Maybe that orc leader is carrying some kind of warlock entourage or something and needs a mage to deal with it, but why don’t we just find a mage and ask.”

The two men carried their glasses through the crowd to a mage who was alone by a wall not far away, looking out the window, and Jace spoke first and asked, “Master, may I ask why there are so many mages here?”

Without answering first, the mage turned his head to survey Jace and the dwarf next to him, forked his eyes to the emblem on Jace’s finger, and asked, “You’re from Stormwind?”

Jace felt a little helpless, in Stormwind they all felt like they were from Lordaeron, when they arrived in Lordaeron despite having a pure northern accent, everyone here felt like they were from the south.

“Yes, I am a mage of the Witch Temple.”

The mage asks, “Did you hear about the raid on Outlander by the remnants of the Horde in Stormwind? It wasn’t that long ago, just a few months.”

“I’ve heard that.”

Jace knew that what the mage was talking about was the one where Talon Bloodmagic had raided Autark in search of one of the three artifacts, the Book of Medivine, in search of imprisoned members of the Pyrrhonid royal family, searching for news of the whereabouts of the artifacts.

“That raid was a crushing defeat for the Alliance.” The mage said, “It proved that although the Horde had lost the war as a whole, the remnants that didn’t have time to be driven back to the Dark Gate were still capable of organizing a counterattack. So under the coordination of Master Antonidas and Terrenus II, the mages with combat power are to cooperate with the Kingdom of Lordaeron to assist in the defense of the surrounding areas, and we were sent to the town of Southsea to investigate the orc sightings.”

“And is Southsea Town in danger?” Grider asked.

“Southsea Town is our staging area south of the Otterbank Valley.” The mage explained, “At the moment the trouble is mainly centered in the north of the Otterbank Mountains, the section of the mountain road from Dalaran to the city of Otterbank, the south as far as I understand there is nothing for the time being, right now the main thing is to guard against accidents appearing.”

Jace asked again, “Forgive me for asking, Maestro, but does this have anything to do with the blocking of the road for four days?”

The mage glanced at him and asked, “You sound like a Briar, are you returning from Stormwind to visit your family, or are you on a mission from the Sorcerer’s Temple?”

Jace listened to the mage’s tone and knew that there was probably some sort of secret or something about blocking the road for four days that it wasn’t good to tell anyone other than the mage, so he just said, “I was sent to Dalaran by the Temple of Wizards.”

The mage nodded and lowered his voice, “Although I haven’t left Southsea Town lately, I have heard news that Talon Blood Demon’s men are still attempting to wreak havoc in the area, and it seems that signs of Shadow Magic attacks have been detected on the western side of Ambermere, and the kingdom is worried about disrupting the commercial comings and goings on this side of Southsea Town, so they haven’t gone into detail and openly explained it to this side of the country, in short, you have to be a bit more careful if you plan to take that road to Dalaran.”

The two of them thanked each other and returned to their original positions, and Grid said worriedly, “If there’s trouble on the road between the city of Otterland to Dalaran, hey, I wonder how much time we’ll have to lose again.”

Jace said, “Since Dalaran and Lordaeron have sensed the danger, they will surely guard these places with heavy troops, it’s not likely that that part of the mountain road is now the safest place in the whole continent instead uh.”

Grid stretched and said, “Roads in Lordaeron are more expensive by I don’t know how much, I wonder if that gold coin we got on the ship will be enough to spend?”

Jace took the gulabash gold coin out, rubbed the wind serpent emblem on it, and said, “I’m kinda sad to trade this one in.”

Grid glanced at the gold coin and said, “What’s wrong with that, it’s not like the gold coins of Gulabash are rare, I have all the gold coins of Amani on my side, wait I’ll get you one to hold and play with yourself, it’s much better looking than this one, at least it’s round!”

“Seriously.” Jace slanted him a look.

“Really.” Grid said, “Enough of this gold coin talk, why don’t you go to the barkeep and ask what jobs are available in Southsea Town right now.”

Jace looked over to the bar and said, “With so many people coming and going from the south and north here, there must be quite a few mercenaries, warrior guilds and the like, can we get a turn at the bar?” Hesitantly he came over to the side, the place was busy but well staffed, three wine waiters entertained the customers, Jace padded over to the nearest one and asked him to help call out the owner.

The bar owner was a skinny guy, which was kind of weird, and when he heard that Jace was looking for work, he opened his mouth and asked, “Have you ever worked in a bar?”

“No, but I’m not talking about a bar!” Jace emphasized, “We’re mercenaries who can take care of minor inconveniences and such for a fee.”

“Ah, just in time, I was wondering if you fishmen could handle it?” The owner says, “The fishmen stole some wine from us the other day, a group of them helped us recover two cases earlier, but there are still a few cases on the beach west of the docks, the guards at our hotel are only responsible for looking after the store, they don’t want to help out with the search, how about a commission of 2 silver coins if you guys can get it back?”

At the sound of having to deal with a fishman, Jace’s heart fizzled a little bit more.

He had seen fishmen, but only just, if he stayed long enough in the Aelwyn Forest, he would always come across them, by the river, by the pond, by the lake, and sometimes he could see their shadows in the distance.

It’s just that Jace has never actually gotten his hands on a fishman to fight one; he almost ran into one that time in the Wild West, but also had his plans all messed up by a female naga.

“Only 2 silver coins?” Jace asked, “That’s for dealing with fishmen.”

The owner said, “The last time that group didn’t have any fishmen, they just carried all that wine back from the beach, how about this, if we do run into trouble with fishmen, how about 2 silver coins for a fishman’s head?”

“Really?” Grid asked suddenly.

“Of course it’s true, the docks are safer and our business is better, Mr. Dwarf.” The owner said.

Grider said directly, “We promised, how many cases of wine?”

The owner held up three fingers and said, “It would be nice to get back three full cases.”

“You wait.”

Grid was full of promises, while pulling Jace out of the tavern, saying, “Here’s your chance, 2 silver for one fishman’s head, ten is 20 silver, this may be the road toll to Eagle’s Nest Mountain out of this moment!”

“Are fishmen that easy to deal with?” Jace asked skeptically.

“Of course!” Grid said, “Fishmen can be much better to catch than fish, unless your fishmen in Southsea Town have also been hit with some kind of shadow magic and mutated into evil fishmen or something. After all, fish will run away when they see you, and then they can’t chase you in the water any more than they can, but fishmen will welcome you, lad!”