Chapter Five

That afternoon found us leaving the crossroads and beginning our journey toward Tarren Mill, Hillsbrad, where Helbrim told us we'd be able to find what he ruefully called the GWS.

Chapter Four

The next morning I woke up just a bit before sunrise. Jen was lying sideways on her bed, her hooves on the wall and her head on the floor, snoring softly. I slipped off my own bed and out into the cool dawn.* I was still somewhat full from dinner the night before, so I figured breakfast could wait until Jen woke up. I wandered around Crossroads for a little while, listening to people waking up and starting their days. I was trying to hear someone mention a rogue trainer, but it seemed it was a bit early in the day for people to be worrying about lessons. So instead, I turned my attention to sniffing around for poisons.

Cats' noses are not as sensitive as dogs, and even so I was not a true cat. My sense of smell was only a little more powerful in my shapeshifted forms than as an elf. Nevertheless, I soon picked up a burning odor I thought might be some kind of acid or poison. I looked around, making sure I could pick up the trail again, and went back to wake Jen up.

I was sleeping quite soundly and when I was startled awake by Kara pouncing me. I sat bolt upright screaming in surprise and flung her off of me and across the room before I realized what was going on. I yawned sleepily, scratching at my mane, "Sorry there... um... Buttons right? Sorry for that Buttons, you startled the hell out of me." She got stiffly up off the ground showing all the hurt pride a cat can muster and stalked over to me. She attempted to communicate her findings to me, but found it impossible to get through my sleep addled mind. I simply patted her on the head and wandered off to find the innkeeper and get some breakfast.

The innkeeper glared ruefully at me but didn't dare present me with another meal of rodent. We got eggs, bacon, toast with several different kinds of jam, buttermilk, croissants, and for some reason salad. I got quite a few strange looks eating salad, but they tended to ignore me after I flexed my claws at them. One forsaken lady, however, was not satisfied. She came up to Jen and asked, "Now, precisely what kind of cat is that?" suspiciously.

"Omnivorous Mulgorian Death Cat," Jen said promptly. I could've hit myself in the head, but the suspicious person seemed satisfied after I began to growl at her. "Oh yes, those, forgot all about those, congratulations on taming one," she rambled quickly and then hurried back to her table where she studiously avoiding watching me eat my salad. The rest of the guests followed suit.

After breakfast Jen followed me outside where I attempted, once more, to meow my discovery to her. Now that she was a bit more awake she was finding it easier to understand what I was saying. The meowing and growling sounds that she made were completely incomprehensible to me as I had been a terrible student in my Natural Studies classes as a child; surely one reason why I had decided to pursue the arts of a Rogue. However the very obvious jerking of her head to the right as we exited the inn left no question in my mind as to where she wanted me to follow.

Just behind the flight master, there was a small hut from which a terribly noxious smell wafted on the breeze.

We wandered excitedly over to the person mixing the chemicals and asked what he (she? I don't usually play horde so I forget) was brewing.

"The spores of giant mushrooms!" he cackled. "They make a nice soup you know." He had a strangley garbled way of speaking that I suppose all undead share.

"Ah, sure...Well, do you happen to have any connections with the rogue guild?" I asked him in my best politely pleading voice.

"Rogues?" He squinted at me. "What would you want to know of Rogues? He eyed my dagger and the poorly maintained bow that I had continued to carry with me as part of Kara's disguise. "Well, Helbrim's my name. Perhaps you'll join me. I was just headed to my hut and this isn't the most private place to talk."

Jen gave me an excited thumbs up. Helbrim gave her a strange look. I mewed innocently at him but was careful to show him my teeth. He narrowed his eyes.

I just barely fit through the door to his hut. Inside, it was dusty, dark, and smelled of moldering cheese. After we had carefully settled ourselves, he once more offered us his fungus spore soup.

"Er...yes please?" said Jen with a slightly nauseated expression. He handed her her bowl. Thankfully, I didn't get one. I sniffed at the bowl and tried not to wrinkle my nose in visible disgust. I smiled and sat the bowl down on the table. As I opened my mouth to ask him about the rogues again, he cut me off.

"So, what was it you were asking me about? Rogues, wasn't it?"

"Yes! I mean, yes. That was it. I was wondering if you had any ties with them. Buttons and I have some business with the rogue guild."

"Oh, do you now?" he muttered. "Interesting, interesting. In fact, I am *not really supposed to speak of it, but when I was a young lad, before my death, I was expelled from the rogue guild for experimenting on several different groups of new recruits. Well, I don't know how they expected me to test the effects of the poison under controlled circumstances otherwise!"

Kara and I exchanged slightly worried glances. I cleared my throat hesitantly, "Um, you don't think you could, you know, at least give us a hint where they're located, do you?"

He burst out cackling loudly at that, "Do I? anything for a price, my dear."

"We don't have any money," said Jen nervously. "But if there's anything else we can do-"

"We?" he asked, with an eyebrow raised in amusement. "As I recall, it's just you and your, ahem, cat. Buttons, I believe the innkeeper said her name was."

I had a very bad feeling about this. The last thing we needed was to be blackmailed, but I couldn't see how we could get out of this without calling all the guards down onto us. I began to growl subconsciously and accidentally drew his attention.

"I think you had better tell your cat to calm down, hmm?" He said, making air quotes at the word "cat." "We wouldn't want Buttons to draw any undue attention for what I have in mind," he uttered with a smirk.

Kara gulped back her growl, but continued to glare angrily at him, lips pulled back slightly from her large fangs. I was thrown off balance by this new turn of events and would normally have reacted quite violently, except that this zombie was the first lead* I had to finding the rogue guild. "F-fine. Just tell me what it is you really want..." I responded after a few moments of silence.

"What I really want?" he asked with a wicked grin. "Well, I can think of something, but it will be very...I don't want to say dangerous...but yes, dangerous, for you to get it for me."

"I'll do anything!" Jen practically wailed. "Please, this is my life's dream!"

"In that case, I recently saw an advertisement for an item I would very much like to purchase. Unfortunately, one must approach the sellers personally, and I'd really rather not. If you acquire the item in my stead, I'd be happy to tell you all I know about the rogue guild."

"Um...are you going to tell me what you want me to get?"

"Not until you promise to do it. I don't want you backing out. And I know I can trust a Tauren's word."

Jen glanced at me worriedly. I didn't like it much either but I didn't see that we had much of a choice. I mewed, and Jen sighed. "Fine. I promise I'll get it for you. Now what is it?"

"I would like the newest model of MM2in1DHD."

I blinked a few times, staring at him in confusion, "What in the world does that stand for?"

He cringed a bit and leaned across the table to whisper to me. Warm, fetid breath tickled my ear, "Mason's Miracle 2 in 1 Double Headed... Dildo."

I felt myself begin to giggle, and it turned quickly into full on cackling. Kara too was laying on her back, chest heaving as she attempted to laugh in cat form. The undead man glared sourly at the both of us and crossed his arms. I attempted to control my laughter and just barely managed to get out, "Oh, heheh I'll get it for you alright."

"You may well laugh now," Helbrim scowled, "but once you've met Mason I think you may change your mind. And you do have to get it personally, if you recall."

I snorted in disbelief and he gave me a dirty look (which, by the way, undead are quite good at). I didn't care. I was not afraid of some loser with a dildo.

"Alright, alright," said Jen. Her speech was just barely comprehensible, but she was beginning to calm down. "Now, where can we find this dude?"

Chapter Three

That night we camped out under the stars. We spent a good portion of our evening trying to elicit some sign of magical power from our new blowfish. After at least an hour of nothing but annoyed hoots, we became a little impatient. I was nearly ready to punt it off into the forest when I heard a rustling sound from the tall grass near our camp site. "Kara," I whispered, "I think we've got company."

*I held up the blowfish to see into the bushes, but it didn't seem to give off enough light. Motioning to (temporarily forgot your name, wanted to say Elle) Jen, I shifted into a cat and crept forward, ready to go bear at any moment. I stalked carefully after Kara, only slightly noisily due to the hooves and lack of night vision. Suddenly, a pack of small shapes burst from the grass, shouting in high pitched voices.

It was...I can only refer to it as a hurricane of naked little gnomes, led by two dwarfs who somehow seemed even more naked. I was so surprised I turned back into an elf sub-consciously. After a moment of shock I realized each and every one of them was holding a dildo. I looked at Jen, whose mouth was gaping open. Quick as a flash, I shoved the blowfish into her maw* and pushed her to the ground in front of me. I shifted into travel form and got the hell out. As I ran, my keen ears picked up moans and delighted shrieks from the gnomes and blowfish-muffled cries from my companion.

The blowfish was hooting and wriggling making it nearly impossible to dislodge its spines from my mouth in a rush, so I turned my attention to getting the fuck out of there first. they attempted to swarm over me, using my fur as hand holds, but I began to kick them like little footballs. I was lucky to get up before the entire pack of them got to me. Even a Tauren would be unlikely to escape that many of them.

When I caught up with Kara, she was lounging on a tree branch in cat form. I stomped my foot and pointed up at her saying, "Mf mmm fmfm mff fmmf mmmm, M'm mm-mm mmff mffm mff!" Of course I meant to say, "If you don't get down here, I'm gonna kick your ass!" but I still had the blowfish in my mouth. Tauren fingers aren't the most dexterous, and I couldn't seem to get it out.

*Pretending not to understand what she'd mumbled, I stretched and mewed innocently, my head cocked to one side. Jen glared at me and shouted something along the lines of "Mmf fmmf FMMMFFMMM fmm mmf mf mmm FMMMFFMMM mmmmf! MMM!" (Get this FUCKING fish out of my FUCKING mouth! NOW!) I performed the kitty equivalent of a shrug, and jumped down, resuming my usual form as I landed.

Getting the blowfish out of her mouth took at least fifteen minutes, and by that time it was hooting more feebly than ever. We began to worry that it would give out on us before divulging its secrets.* Getting irritated, I reached into my bag and pulled out* a dried fish. "Do you see this!" Kara shouted. "If you don't fucking show us what the hell you do, you're gonna end up just like this!"

The fish began to inflate in terror. At first I got even angrier until I realized it was now roughly the size of a basketball and still growing. The strange purple glow it was emitting was getting brighter, too.

"I think this is its power!" I whispered excitedly to Jen as we both watched in awe. As it grew, its hooting turned into a high-pitched whine which soon became painful to hear. We plugged our fingers in our ears but the longer it continued the louder it got, and nothing seemed to help. It was now so inflated that its spikes were mere bumps along its scales.* The purple light was blindingly strong and the hooting whine was vibrating inside my skull. I had my long ears flat against the sides of my neck and I was still worried they were about to bleed. Not being able to take it any more, I risked the added sensitivity of bear hearing and shifted for a huge burst of strength to throw the blowfish as far as possible. But instead of soaring off into the distance, it exploded in a shower of glowing purple dust* and one last agonized hoot.

I had my eyes closed when Kara destroyed it, as though shutting my eyes would cut out some of the sound. When it stopped suddenly, I opened them and looked around dazedly. "Pretty..."

*The purple powder rained softly down, and our bodies began to tingle with the feeling of magic power. I wasn't precisely sure what exactly it was doing to us, but there was no doubt that we had discovered the late blowfish's power at last.* I hurriedly pulled out a pouch and began to gather as much of the dust as possible. I wasn't sure yet what the effects on us were, but I didn't* want to waste perfectly good glowing magical purple dust when it was there for the taking. By the time I'd filled the bag, the vegetation around us seemed to have absorbed some of the fallen powder.

One of the shrubberies began* to wave back and forth despite there not being any wind. I could swear I heard it singing. Leaning closer, we could make out words. It seemed to in fact be yelling obscenities at us for standing on its friend.* *Where most people would hurriedly step off said friend, Jen ground her hooves in harder and I asked it "That's its fucking fault for being planted where we wanted to stand, now isn't it jack ass?"*

As the shrub shrank back from us, cowering in fear, we realized that it was becoming light outside. With no chance of getting to sleep before the heat of day hit us, we decided to continue on our way into the barrens.*

Our journey to The Crossroads was rather uneventful, except for an interesting encounter with one of those giant lighting dinosaur things I don't care the name of. After we managed to put the fire out and the hyena stopped frothing, we had a nice little breakfast out of its flesh.

When we reached the town at sundown, we were both so exhausted we could hardly take another step. Even Jen felt finding a suitable rogue teacher could wait until morning. So we turned our attention to finding an inn. I was forced to pretend to be Jen's pet cat, for this was aggressive horde territory, and the guards wouldn't take kindly to a night elf in their midst.*

I held my bow awkwardly* as I actually had no idea how to use it. I approached the guards of the small town to ask, "Where might I find an inn to rest myself and my fine...Buttons. Yes, Buttons the Cat. Where might Buttons and I rest for the night, please?" He looked me up and down with suspicion in his eyes.

"What kind of cat is that. Haven't seen one of those before...You sure that's your pet?"

I held out my bow for him to see, the string sagged limply. "Yep, see got the bow and everything." I leaned in close to his ear, "Now tell me where the God be damned inn is now, unless you want to see how difficult it is to breath with my dagger through your trachea."

Maybe he felt threatened by me, or maybe it was the "I'm about to pounce you and tear your face off" look that Kara managed all while grooming a paw but he seemed ready to cooperate. He lifted a shaking hand and pointed right behind us. Turns out we were right in front of it the whole time. "The Crossroads sure is small, isn't it?" I commented to Kara as we made our way inside.*

The guard gave Jen a curious look for talking to her cat that she completely failed to notice. As she walked inside, I paused to turn to him. I stretched lazily, my claws extending to their full length, and my sharp teeth plainly visible as I yawned. He gulped. Still just looking at him, I thrashed my tail once and turned to follow Jen.

When I got inside Jen seemed to be having an argument with the innkeeper over the price. It appeared we had no money. Having lived in a small tribe we really hadn't had any need for it. I dashed outside and hid among a pile of crates to turn back into myself. I searched my pockets desperately but all along I knew it was no good. I'd been with the Tauren too long. I shifted back into a cat and returned to Jen's side. She gave me an inquisitive glance, and I mewed back sadly, so she couldn't mistake my answer. We would just have to find an alternative way of getting a room.*

We wandered outside to consider our options briefly, when an Orc suddenly ran up to me. "Hey! You're a Tauren, if you take this box of meat to ThunderBluff for me I'll pay you!"

I stared at him in amazement. "Why the hell would I want to walk all the way back there again? Are you stupid?"

He blinked at us, "Well...I mean...you don't have to walk you know." He pointed a finger to an orc standing guard over* by the chimeras. He seemed to be laboring under the delusion that it was a manticore, but seriously, I know a chimera when I see one. Part lion, part dragon. I'm not illiterate, thanks.

Jen looked at me in excitement and I stared bemusedly back. She obviously thought this was a great way to make an easy bit of cash for a room at the inn. I, however, did not see how I would be able to ride on a chimera-pretending-its-a-manticore without turning back into an elf, and if I did I was dead meat. In the end, Jen mounted the beast and flew off back to Thunderbluff, and I turned my attention to sneaking around the rapidly darkening pathways of the town, pickpocketing. It was very difficult for a cat to pickpocket, by the way, because anything perceived as unusual cat behavior was a dead giveaway I was alliance scum in disguise. So it was a lot of effort, yielding almost no results. After a while I gave up and took a nap on a pile of zehvra fur.

*The flight there and back was incredibly boring and hot, but it gave me time to wonder just why in the world we hadn't just flown to the Crossroads in the first place. It took me quite some time to relocate "Buttons" after I got back. Being not particularly good at the art of blending in, I said, a bit too loudly, "Come, Buttons. We shall make our way to the inn for dining and resting now."

With a sigh, I made a valiant attempt to be extra cat-like as we returned to the inn. We sat down at a table, or at least Jen did. I sat by her feet. The innkeeper brought Jen a plate heaped with roast pork, potatos, some strange stringy meat that she ended up liking a lot, and big buttery rolls. I, on the other hand, was presented with a small plate of dead mice.

"There you are, Buttons," he said proudly, laying it before me. "What a nice kitty you are." Here he turned to Jen. "My old cat Fuzzball was never any good at catching mice so I would just trap them and feed them to him. My word they've been building up in the few weeks since he died. Poor ol' Fuzzball, he was a good kitty....and he loved his dead mice...."

The innkeeper began to sob quietly. Jen stared at him. Wiping a tear from his eye, he bent down to pat me on the head murmuring about "Poor Fuzzball" so I bit his hand hard. I'd be damned if I was going to eat decaying mice.*

Attempting to pretend that I was choking on my food and not laughing at him, I apologized and told him that Buttons was a bit bigger than a house cat and would much prefer the same dinner as me. Yes, and the roll too.

The innkeeper seemed much less cheerful to have us staying by the end of dinner. His hand bound and a bit bloody, but we hadn't been quite bad enough to warrant kicking out. Before he could protest, Kara claimed a bed for herself. Luckily, they had a few Tauren sized beds there because of the large amount of traffic from all over that goes through the area. And so, we got our first good night's sleep since leaving my home.

Chapter Two

After traveling for almost a full day in the complete wrong direction to get into the main plains of Mulgore, a helpful if slightly creepy Troll shaman who lived in those hills set us off in the correct direction. Aside from the slight embarrassment I felt at not remembering the way out, I was in quite a cheerful mood. It meant we might actually be back in time for the dinner Cheesy had promised at 6. Besides, I felt Jen hadn't quite explained herself properly, and I would hate to feel guilty for her mother's worry.

Jen, on the other hand, was upset that we'd already wasted too much time and wanted to continue moving until we reached the next camp or passed out from exhaustion, whichever came first. I handled the situation as delicately as I could manage.

"We are damn well going back to your tent, Jen, whether you fucking like it or not. I don't see why you're bitching over this, it's fucking on the fucking way. We're going to go right past it on the way to...wherever the hell we're going (see, you don't even fucking know that, do you?) anyway. Besides, it's Tuesday. She makes lamb on Tuesday nights, you fucking know lamb is my favorite, God damn it!"

And so it was that we ended up right back home again. I poked at my dinner, sulking about my thwarted escape from home. Meanwhile, Kara had shifted to bear form, the better to eat entire lambs, and was shoveling food into her mouth as fast as she could swallow.

The next day, we decided that we needed to consult a few maps before heading out. This however meant going to the chief's cabin. He was all about Tauren pride, and one of my biggest opponents against becoming a rogue. I only escaped his full wrath by virtue of being the daughter of Cheesy Burger. We had to come up with a plan to get the maps without alerting him to our purpose.

*First we considered tunneling, but decided that would take too long. So then we decided on a more straight forward option, where we would just go in and ask for the maps. The excuse we planned to use was that we were having an argument about *where something was. The flaw, of course, was that Jen had never traveled or been taught any geography. **So, to make it seem more plausible, *Kara decided to tell him how much she wanted to* learn about Mulgore's* massive mountain ranges. We could therefore learn where the only valley leading in and out was.*

So the next day we approached the chief and presented him with this story. Looking at us slightly suspiciously, he ushered us into the side room of his tent. After he left the room, I reached into the basket for a map, only to stop short at Jen's sudden intake of breath. She was staring, wide-eyed, at* a small, oddly glowing thing half covered in a basket.* It was a *kind of blowfish that** had somehow not dried out despite being on land. I wasn't sure if it was alive, but* when we touched it wiggled and hooted feebly** causing Kara to shriek in startled terror.* I picked it up, and poked it again eliciting more hoots. "I think we should take it," I said grinning.*

*I really didn't see much of a point to carrying around a wiggling, glowing, hooting blowfish, but I shrugged anyway and turned to the maps. We figured out where to go and it didn't take long for us to realize we would have to leave pretty quickly if we wanted to get there before nightfall.

Trying not to show my excitement we walked calmly past the Chief to the sound of muffled hooting and made our escape. We had acquired the map* and a strange new magical creature, and we were finally off to start my journey.

Chapter One

Hello, my name is Jendai, but you can call me Jen for short. My dream is to become the greatest rogue ever. Fuckers don't think I can do it. Won't even let me study with them because I'm a Tauren. I'll show them how wrong they are. I'm starting out on an adventure with my best friend. Now where the hell is she?

Currently, I was crouched beneath a bush. A few feet away, my prey began preening the feathers under its wing. Slowly, so slowly, I took a step silently forward. The bird didn't have any idea what was about to hit it. Suddenly something went WHAM, very close by. My prey, startled, took flight. I leapt after it in desperation, but my claws swished harmlessly through its tail feathers.

"There you are, Kara! I've been looking all over for you!" called an innocent voice from the same vicinity as the wham that had lost me my lunch. Growling low in my throat, I turned to face Jen, who had just fallen out of a nearby tree, where she had apparently been convinced she would find me.

"I'd been stalking that bird for twenty minutes, bitch! I was THIS close!" I yelled, resuming night elf form. "And haven't I told you you can't climb trees? You have hooves for crying out loud. Call that stealthy?!"

Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Karaethon, Kara to my friends. I'm a night elf druid.

"It's not my fucking fault you didn't tell me where the fuck you were going! Anyway, stupid tree's too small! If they made trees bigger I'd be able to climb them fine!" I stomped over to Kara, hefting my "dagger". In actuality it was bigger than some of those dinky two-handed swords the blood elves used.

Kara and I were nearly the same height. We'd been friends practically as long as I can remember. Ever since I woke from the emerald dream and the Cenarion Circle stationed me in (country where Taurens are from, please fill in, I'm stupid) Mulgore. I met a young Tauren girl who had gotten quite lost looking for one of their tribal spirits of some sort. In fact, she was so young I got the distinct impression she hadn't been sent looking. I took her home to her mother, who happened to be the tribe's druid. Though she studied the healing arts and I sought* oneness with my animal brethren, Cheesy identified with me as a fellow druid. I spent many years living in the wilderness nearby, with the occasional civilized meal at their home.

And, of course, since her mother knew nothing of stealth, Jen relied on me to teach her the ways of the rogue. Or at least of the cat, I never had proper rogue training either. Over the years she progressed nicely, given the fact she was a 7 foot tall cow.

Well, I decided that if a giant dinosaur could be sneaky, why not me? Although Kara had helped a lot with my early training, I was really interested in learning the poisons that only the rogue guild knew. If they wouldn't accept me, fine. But I was going to get those recipes one way or another.

Although Tauren look like cow people, they have the sharp teeth belonging to a carnivore* and I was getting pretty hungry. "Come on, sorry the stupid branch broke. Let's go find something else to eat." I crouched down on all fours and began attempting to stalk silently through the dry, noisy grass like an enormous puma*.

With a sigh, I shape shifted back into a cat and went with her. Like I said earlier, Jen did very well given her natural disadvantages, but still had a very hard time making herself inconspicuous. We spent over an hour trying to catch an antelope. In the end she had to pretend to be one of the herd while I sneaked up from behind.

It was time to find a rogue who would teach her, and we decided to set off immediately. We headed back to camp to tell her mother.

I burst into the spacious tent I had lived in all my life, the floorboards shaking as I bounced with excitement. "Mom! I'm going out with Kara now! I might possibly be back eventually someday probably, okay?!" I ran up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She looked incredibly startled by the sudden burst of noise and couldn't seem to comprehend what I'd just told her. "Uh, okay honey. Dinner's at 6. Have...fun?"

Kara had been reluctant to follow me inside, and was just peeking through the flap at the ruckus I was causing. Not noticing her as I bolted out the door, I sent her flying in my haste. "There you are Kara! what are you doing on the ground?" I picked up the stunned night elf and flung her over my shoulder as I happily began skipping off in a random direction towards my future.