World Of Warcraft: The Adventures of Gilraen - Chapter V

Travel

The time had come to move on. Just as there is a neverending stream of Night Elves arriving at Teldrassil, so is there a neverending stream of Night Elves migrating to the mainland. Where our civilization began. Where our history played out. Where our glory years lie buried in the land that now ravages in war. All of the Kaldorei, the Children of the Stars, need to know of our roots, of our journey and of our plight. Only then can we begin to shape our destiny. But first I must tell you how I got here. I come from a small island community, long lost in the annals of time, forgotten by the tribes of the mainland. I was raised by my grandmother and all the other Elves of the island. My parents I do not know. We numbered about 60-70 heads strong and did everything for ourselves and each other. We had all we needed to provide for ourselves. We knew not about sickness. We never had hunger or thirst. We never knew about poverty or loneliness. And then one day it all changed.

We had a priest come visit us. But he didn't come in a boat over the sea. He came out of thin air! A portal he called it. He was only one member of a large group of Elves looking to visit all the lost pockets of our civilization. Once they had found such a pocket, like our small island community, they would try to identify an individual Elf. Then they tried to summon this Elf towards them, but instead of completing the rite for this summoning, they made the rite collapse on itself. If done at the right time, the summoner would become the summoned and travel, ported, to the Elf they targeted. The priest would not say how they could find our island community or how they could identify any one of us. He did say that they found many Elf communities in far-off places, and they also found other races that still had some Elf blood in them, but not all priest who had traveled like this had come back. Still, the reason to go forth and call each Elvish tribe in all of Azeroth is greater than the life of an individual Elf. Thus all the members of the group that the priest belonged to were willing to pay with their very own lives if it was to help the overall cause. They don't even know the cause, they only know that there is a great evil looming on the horizon of Azeroth's future. The priest had many tales to tell and much to teach us all, but I may leave that for another time. He did say that he saw a lot of Blood Elf in us, but we have nothing to compare ourselves with. Only when I got to Teldrassil did I notice that my skin was much redder than the other Elves here. In the end we settled on about six young Elves to be send back to Shadowglen to learn in the art of fighting for the cause of our race and "the Alliance". The Alliance included the Humans and the Dwarves and the Gnomes. I don't know what good the little ones might be, as I would be forever falling over them, because they get under my feet, but they do try hard to keep out of the way and they are kind of funny in the way they move and talk.
And so I arrived at Shadowglen.

My initial adventures I have already chronicled. Yet Darnassus has managed to keep my interest. There is so much here to explore. So much to learn. And so much to understand. Why are there waterfalls with a big drop with no ground to see underneath? Why can you see the stars at night, but there is never a horizon under them? Why does the ground look like grass and grows like grass, yet smells like moss and feels like moss? Soon I would learn the answers. When the time did come to leave, it was in the form of an innocent request from Mydrannul. He got a note from Nessa Shadowsong asking for a messenger between Teldrassil and the mainland of Kalimdor. So I took the portal to the small outpost of Rut'theran Village and found Nessa at the pier. She didn't point me towards the boats though, instead she urged me to take a hippogryph. Vesprystus, the master of the giant birds, knew just how to secure small parcels to their backs. With a few words of wisdom for flying virgins, like myself, he assured me that nothing would go wrong if I would just sit tight in the middle, held on to the straps and did nothing stupid like looking back. I wearily glanced at Seara and Vesprystus seemed to read my concern. Seara would be sent on another hippogryph with a cage if I could get her in it. The cage itself looked more like a rigid plate with some solid straps to keep the animal secured, so it proved to be only a small task.

The flight itself was incredible. From the ascent off the deck I felt my stomach twirl, holding on for my dear life as the ground suddenly disappeared to a great depth below me. The cool air rushing past my face was an exhilarating feeling that I won't forget in a long time. Then once the hippogryph reached the full height of the flight and soared above the clouds, my stmoach settled down and I could look around me again. It was nighttime and all the stars of Azeroth were out to light the sky. Taking a quick peek with my head around me, while being very careful not to twist my body off the bird, I saw the full moon to the west. The eerie landscape formed by moonlight reflecting off the clouds below made for an alien terrain. A terrain that was transparent, yet the water that was underneath was buried under different kind of clouds. We had entered the Veiled Sea. I expected to see the reflection of the moon on the water where the clouds were thin, but the fog of the Veiled Sea absorbed all the light that fell upon it. I was later told that and this also happens at daytime because the fog never lifts from the sea.

After a few minutes, though it seemed like hours to me, we came to a speck of light deep down below us. As the hippogryph approached it, the speck grew into a sizeable flame and later into a blazing fire. We had come to the lighthouse off the coast of Auberdine. Except that it wasn't a fire. The beacon atop the lighthouse is a giant crystal that takes in the sunlight during the day and radiates the light back out at night. Now I could see several of the islets that are scattered off the coast of Darkshore, the region that is currently spearheaded by the settlement of Auberdine. A much larger pier protuded into the harbor, where the deep-keeled boats dock. The familair sound of the waves crashing on the rocks and beaches of Darkshore was music to my ears. I had not heard this sound since arriving at Shadowglen and I was surprised how much I had missed it until now. With a gliding dive, the hippogryph made its descent and with a swooping half circle turn completed our journey as it landed on the deck of the local Hippogryph Master, Caylais Moonfeather. This was enough excitement for the night and I managed to secure a room from innkeeper Shaussiy, but not before I rescued Seara from Caylais when the next hippogryph landed.

The next morning I woke to the familiar sound of waves crashing on the shoreline. I had breakfast on the deck near Caylais and her hippogryphs. Oddly enough, most of the inn and the surrounding buildings was focused on the village grounds, rather than the picturesque surroundings. A few cliffs bordered Auberdine's land side border, forming a natural barrier against the local fauna and other ill-wishers. If any of the enemies of the Kaldorei should break through to Auberdine, they could only come from the sea, the beach or the single access road. And then all the villagers would notice the invasion if it got to the village square, hence the proliferation of the windows & doors on the inside of the settlement. After breakfast it was time to explore some. There were lots of sentinels here, forming a vanguard and serving as a warning system to Darnassus. But there were also civilians and scholars doing some research on the state of the entire region. Even a dwarven archeologist and his assistant had taken up residence here, as well as a mixed dwarven and gnomish band of traveling artisans to prospect for minerals and technology. Yet I spend most of the day running up and down the beach. There were a lot of things to do here. Lots of the locals had lost something, or needed this and that, or they just needed a brave soul to run them an errand. There was the dwarf Gubber Blump, who was so obsessed with fishing that it had taken over his life. There was the gnome Wizbang Cranktoggle, who needed parts for talking boxes and he even lost some kind of gizmos overboard as he arrived here. I tell you that those talking boxes sure can give you a fright when they catch you unaware. I nearly brought my breakfast back up when that happened! And another dwarf, Gorbold Steelhand, lost an entire shipment in the wrecks that had recently been sunk.

On a more serious note, Gwenneth Bly'Leggonde was keen to hear about the recent beachings of the big sea creatures in the neighbourhood. It really was a tragic sight to see these once majestic giants, so capable of fluid, majestic motion through the water, now so helpless and desecrated on the beach. Their deaths so unbecomming to them, so humiliating, to serve as fodder for scavengers like murlocs and coastal frenzies. I counted at least half a dozen of them, but then I gave up counting them when I found more of the carcasses on the other side of Auberdine. Some of the giant turtles even had chattels build on their shells, as if they were driven onto the coast and then left to die, abandoned to rot away as carrion.
And yet there was hope. The hope of life. This hope came when a small band of Night Elves united into a posse to defeat Murkdeep, a murloc figurehead that was responsible for a reign of terror on the southern shores of Darkshore. It boggles me to think of murlocs as humanoids, capable of rational thought, but the precision of their defence on our assault is proof of an intelligence higher than mere animals. And so the sentinels of Auberdine had some cause to celebrate with this small victory. At last the sun set and the villagers laid themselves to rest, including me.

The next morning I woke up to the smell of rotting fish. I had completely forgotten about Nessa Shadowsong's task! Quickly I delivered her package to Laird. I was ashamed to give it to him in such a deteriorated state, but the sooner I was rid of it, the better. Laird was amazed at the size of the fish in Teldrassil compared to the fish at Darkshore. He commisioned me to go back to Nessa with a note of their collective findings. Unfortunately Caylais did not have a hippogryph with a cage for Seara, so she suggested I take the boat back to Darnassus. Actually the boat goes to Rut'theran village and I'd take the portal up, though I didn't understand what she menat by that. Nevertheless, Seara, Panda and I trod up the pier to meet the boat to go to Darna..., eh, Rut'theran Village. It wasn't just a boat. It was a whole ship. I had never before seen a boat with more than one mast. Nor sails that hung from wooden crossbars that are hoisted, no, securely built into the masts. And such rigging as this ship had was enough to keep a tree hut in one piece in a hurricane, even if the tree didn't. And yet the winches, big enough to be sections of palm trees, handled the sails with ease. And the cabins were big enough and luxurious enough to stay out at sea forever, unlike the fishing boats I had been on before in my younger days.

At last the ship took off from the dock. It headed straight into the Veiled Sea, which was between us and Teldrassil. The outline of the island was barely visible and it grew a little thicker the further we went into the fog over the sea. Soon the outline intensified into a solid mass of hills and cliffs, then these gave way to a single, massive column rising straight out of the water. At last we broke free from the eternal fog of the Veiled Sea and before us lay Teldrassil, crystal clear to the eye. But I did not believe what I saw. I could not believe what I saw. I had expected stone cliffs to rise from the sea, but instead they were tree roots. I expected a broken, weathered array of earth and rocks, but instead I saw giant, smooth ageless wood with trees as runners. By Elune! The island was ONE GIANT TREE! This is Teldrassil. THIS. The whole of the island I arrived on. The whole of the island I explored and learned of the way of the Kaldorei of old. This is where I learned of the new, modern society. This is a tree that housed Darnassus. A TREE!

I almost forgot to step onto the pier when the ship docked. Only when it started to move again did I manage to compose myself again and jump off. Seara and Panda both followed with agility and grace, though Panda, as always looked more comical than elegant. I just had to sit down to get over my amazement. It took until the next ship arrived with its passengers to prompt me to move again. Or was that the same ship after a complete round trip? Anyways, I saw Nessa on my way out with the note from Laird. I took the portal up to Darnassus and made my way to Innkeeper Saelienne. This trip back sure has explained a lot of things I was wondering about since my arrival!