The Tower Over the Trees

The tower

Level thirteen since this morning, and by the time I sat down to write this I had died three times since lunch. I’ll get to the third. It’s the good one.thirteen, and dead three times on Friday. I shall discuss only the third. The first two happened in the dark, under the ground, and I have agreed with myself not to bring them up.^{↑1 next↓}

I had seen the tower before. From Tirisfal, and again from Brill while I waited for the zeppelin, a thin spire in the Hillsbrad foothills behind Lordaeron. Dalaran, if I’m right, and I think I am. A smudge on the horizon. I wrote it down both times and thought no more about it.

Then I crossed into Silverpine this afternoon, topped a rise, and there it was between the pines, close enough to count the windows.

The tower from the hillside, a few minutes after four.smudge had windows.^{↑2 next↓} [Picture description: Percy and Mezzlos stand on a grassy hillside in a pine forest, with a tall pale tower topped by a red spire rising behind the trees.]

“Mezzlos,” I said, “are you seeing this?”

My voidwalker turned his blank face to the tower. I don’tdo not^{↑3 next↓} like this place. A pause, and then, lower: Towers. Mages. They’llThey will want to bind me.

I took that for agreement. I typed three words into the little stone I carry, wow! Dalaran! From Silverpine Forest, and decided I would walk there.

The lake

Lordamere Lake is where the plan went wrong.

A single Vile Fin murloc stood at the water’s edge. I walked into it, because that is how I find out what things are. It shrieked and ran, which I took for a win right up to the momentcounted a win until^{↑4 next↓} it came back with its friends.

Mezzlos had been studying the water for some time. ^{↑5 next↓}Water. There is no void in water.

I sent him in anyway. I must feed. Then a Tidehunter and two Shredders were on me at once, and Mezzlos said, flat as a slate, I obey. I killed some of them. It wasn’twas not enough. I went down at sixteen minutes past four, and my voidwalker went back to wherever voidwalkers gowherever voidwalkers go, with a last I go.

I got up as a ghost and had to swimswam for my body through the mist, with the murloc camp sitting on the far shore the whole way, watching me come.

The swim back to my body.watching me come the whole way.

They watched all the way. [Picture description: A pale ghost wades through grey water in a thick mist, with a ring of murloc huts on a low shore ahead and pines fading into the fog behind.]

Getting my own back

I will say what I did next, because I ^{↑8 next↓}am not ashamed of it. I got my body, Iwhat I did next. I collected my body,^{↑8 next↓} called Mezzlos again (Why do you call?), and we went back along the shore. Two Shredders and two Tidehunters paid for the first round, and a few worgs who joined in paid as well. Eight kills in five minutes. ^{↑10 next↓}Nobody wrote it down but me.

Then, for an hour of this afternoon, the forest simplyThen came an hour of the forest being large and beautiful and full of werewolves.

The tower again, from a fence. [Picture description: Percy and Mezzlos stand beside a wooden fence on a ridge, the pale tower and its spires visible in the distance over the treetops, with a Mottled Worg’s name tag below.]

Light through the pines. [Picture description: Percy and Mezzlos stand among green mounds with sunbeams breaking through tall pines behind them.]^{↑9 next↓}

Werewolves abound, I wrote, and a minute later, The werewolves around here are scary!.scary! Something big had torn the bark off an old tree. I took a picture ofphotographed it with the air of a man documenting a crime scene.

Something big did this. [Picture description: A huge splintered tree trunk fills the left of the frame, and far along its length on a ridge two small figures, Percy and Mezzlos, stand in hazy light.]

Something hungrier than me did this, said Mezzlos, and it did not sound like praise for the tree.

Then a Son of Arugal came out of the red leaves and ran straight at us.

It will be done. He stepped between us. Fur. Teeth. Fine.

Gulp. [Picture description: Percy and Mezzlos in a clearing of red leaves and tall grass, a Son of Arugal approaching from the trees beyond.]

I took the screenshot first. Then I ran.

The bat handler

I came out of the trees at the Sepulcher with my heart, such as it is, still going. A gibbet of chains and spikes loomed over the path, and beside it stood a bat handler called Karos Razok in a veryremarkably good pair of glasses.

The gibbet at the Sepulcher. [Picture description: Percy stands under a spiked iron gibbet hung with chains, with Mezzlos crouched near a barrel and a name tag for Karos Razok at the lower right.]

Karos Razok, glasses and all. [Picture description: Karos Razok, a bat handler with a staff, stands on a path between two grassy hills beside Percy and Mezzlos, with a quest list down the right.]

I had been looking for a way to Dalaran all afternoon,afternoon and found a different kind of door instead. I handed in a delivery to Apothecary Renferrel, and he gave me a recipe for death, which is six bear hearts and six lots of something that skitters. Podrig sent an order to Karos. I took a task from Allister about border crossings, and one from Dalar Dawnweaver to prove my worth against five Moonrage Whitescalps. Karos took Podrig’s order, and then sold meone delivery, took on a few more errands, and was sold^{↑6 next↓} a ride to the Undercity.

Over the lake on the bat. [Picture description: A rider on a bat-winged mount flies over a misty lake toward a tall pale tower with a red spire, among dark pines.]

Past the tower on the way out. [Picture description: A rider on a bat-winged mount flies low through green pines, the tower rising behind the trees.]

I do not fly, said Mezzlos, as the bat took off. I will remember this.

We flew straight past the tower, near enough that I could have thrown a rock at it.tower.

Close enough to throw a rock at.^{↑11 next↓} The bat did not slow down. [Picture description: A rider on a bat-winged mount flies low through green pines, the tower rising behind the trees.]

The crate

The bat set us down in the Undercity, and the ride’s own errand was waiting. Gordon Wendham took my paperwork and gave me Gordon’s Crate to carry on to Michael Garrett. That is the next thing, tomorrow or whenever.

Tonight’s tally: still level thirteen, with 10,954 of 11,400 experience, so a short way from fourteen. Ninety-five silver and forty-nine copper. Three deaths, one of them to a lake.I keep a book for such evenings. Tonight’s entry says ninety-five silver and forty-nine copper, and most of a level still owing. I have underlined the silver.^↑7

Dalaran will keep. It has waited behind the trees all this time and it will still be there when I’m fourteenth and braver.