Back to Everyday Life

The carriage ride back to Stormwind took another two days. When Jess stepped off at the freight station beside the little square in the Trade District and saw people moving through the streets, he felt as though he'd finally returned to civilization.

The tiring journey and all their wounds, healed and unhealed, left neither man eager to go sell the things they'd collected right away.

They agreed to rest for the morning and meet outside the Gilded Rose Inn that afternoon. Then they went their separate ways. Gred took the sack of weapons, while Jess carried the herbs and the warlock's small leather bag.

When Jess got back to his rented room, he almost felt unfamiliar with it after spending five or six days in inns.

The room was only about forty-five to fifty-five square feet. It might have been only a little bigger than the bathroom in his old home. The sloping roof took up a large part of the space, and the bed was tiny. Although Jess wasn't quite six feet tall, his legs stretched past the edge when he lay down at night.

Still, in an age like the Middle Ages or Renaissance, it was far better than he'd imagined a regular city laborer could expect from a private room.

He'd originally thought he'd spend years in Stormwind sleeping in huge shared rooms with a dozen or more people. In reality, that had only been the case during the worst early period, when workers were living in tents by the city gates. After the Old Town was cleaned up and planned out, it could house many migrant laborers. Once the newer districts were mostly rebuilt, housing became much easier to find.

In the end, he'd even managed to rent a little place of his own.

That was why he'd never really complained about how cramped it was.

Soon he'd be moving into the Mage Quarter, the city's prettiest and most expensive neighborhood after the garden district where the nobles lived. Right next to it was Stormwind University, a place he'd never even seen in the game. The surroundings were hard to beat.

Thinking of that, he began to look forward to his future life... Oh, right. He still needed to see Edan Marin!

Had his boss returned from Redridge yet? When Jess and Gred had stopped in Goldshire, they'd heard that gnolls had been harassing the roads from Elwynn Forest to Redridge Mountains. Could his teacher still be stuck over there?

He went to the canal and washed himself carefully. Earlier, at a pond near Goldshire, he'd been worried about kobolds or something else attacking them, so he and Gred had washed in a hurry, only rinsing off the stink they'd built up after days of dirt and scrambling around. Now he finally had time to get properly clean.

The canal bridge still hadn't been finished. A group of young girls crossing the temporary wooden bridge covered their mouths and giggled at several boys bathing without shirts nearby.

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Jess was used to being stared at. Of course, among those young men rushing to show off their muscles, he didn't stand out at all.

He was thinking about the warlock's bag. When he went to the Mage Quarter later, should he hand the scroll over to Marin?

What if Marin asked where he'd found it? What would he do—tell the whole story? Who would believe him?

And what if the scroll contained something terribly evil and dragged Jess into trouble?

He had to learn Orcish first and find out what was written on it.

The library should have reference books on the orc language. The war was over, and studying orcs was now an open field of research. Studying orcs wasn't the same as studying dark magic.

Besides, the views of Terenas II, king of Lordaeron and the Alliance's former leader, were widely known. He believed orcs should be treated as intelligent beings rather than invading beasts, and that studying their culture and customs would help people face future crises.

Dalaran, the leading center of learning among the human kingdoms, hadn't publicly rejected Terenas's position. In Jess's view, the Kirin Tor's leading figure, Archmage Antonidas, likely supported it too. Dalaran under his leadership had probably already begun studying orcs.

The Wizard's Sanctum followed Dalaran's lead in many areas. If its mages knew about the latest developments there, they probably wouldn't be far behind on this subject either.

As for the two books, there was no way he could hand those over. If they really contained Demonic, or even dark magic, they might be confiscated—and he could get into trouble himself.

After bathing and changing into clean clothes, Jess headed for the Mage Quarter.

Edan Marin's door was slightly open. Amy had probably already been there. It was around eleven in the morning now, so she might have gone to class.

Jess had been away from work for several days, and dust had gathered again in many parts of the room. Even somewhere as clean as the Mage Quarter couldn't escape the curse of dust.

He rolled up his sleeves, arranged the cleaning supplies as he usually did, and started wiping down the desk. He hadn't been at it long when someone pushed the door open.

He turned and saw Archmage Marin standing in the doorway with a sweet biscuit between his teeth.

"Ah... Master Marin. You're back."

"I was delayed for a while. Why are you so late today?"

Marin went behind the desk and sat down as he spoke. He set a cup of hot tea at the edge of the desk, took a small piece of sugar from a pouch in the drawer, dropped it in, opened a book to a page and held it in place with a ruler, then stirred his tea with his other hand.

Jess stared at him for a moment. "Didn't Miss Amy Marin tell you? I've been away these last few days."

"Ah! So you only got back today? What a coincidence." Marin sat back. "I only returned to Stormwind last night myself. Things in Redridge aren't looking good. The gnoll tribes aren't just causing trouble in Elwynn Forest. Of course, I'm hardly surprised. Redridge is their home. I hear dwarves have also found signs of gnoll activity around Loch Modan and Menethil Harbor. My guess is that after the Orc Wars left both dwarves and humans badly weakened, we couldn't immediately regain control of our former lands. That gave the gnolls a chance to return."

"Will the kingdom send troops to clear out the gnolls?" Jess asked. "The tribes in Redridge seem to be causing serious problems for trade routes between the three towns."

"The garrison in Redridge is already planning to deal with those creatures," Marin replied. "But I don't know what the kingdom thinks about the new gnoll threat here in Elwynn. They may keep posting bounties and hiring mercenaries for a while. After all, the threat here is much less obvious than the one in Redridge."

"What about the orcs?" Jess asked as he wiped the shelves. "Haven't the orcs in Redridge clashed with the gnolls?"

"Ah, the orcs." Marin lifted his tea and blew on it. "Guess what the Blackrock orcs are doing now."

What were the Blackrock orcs doing now? Since arriving in Stormwind, Jess had never seriously thought about that question.