Of Felines and Furbolgs

I started the day with a task from Exarch Menelaous.

Even with the time that has passed since the crash of the Exodar, the local wildlife is still feeling the effects; the situation's unfortunate, but the best we can do now is clean up our own mess, so I was glad to volunteer for the task! At least, I was glad to be helping out; the task itself wasn't necessarily the friendliest. I was told to put down a number of nightstalkers to prevent the infection they'd developed from spreading. Well, I had the hunting skill to do it, and it needed to be done.

I do remember seeing nightstalkers when I'd ventured out of the Exodar, but this was the first time I'd really gotten close to any. I've learned indirectly from those who've had contact with the other native races of this world that a nightstalker is known as a "cat," a quadrupedal predator with powerful legs. Healthy, they would probably be dangerous; I think I could handle one if I had to, but I'd really rather not! But the infected ones weren't much trouble; they seemed fairly weakened. I reported back to the Exarch after thinning their numbers, and he seemed satisfied with what I'd done.

So I proceeded to look for more work at Azure Watch. I soon came across a man by the name of Aurren who had an interesting proposal: he was looking for someone interested in learning the language of the furbolgs — a native, intelligent species. When he told me he was convinced that I'd be able to learn the language in a few hours, I was interested; I had no particular reason to know how to speak to them, but I had no reason not to, either. I told him I'd do it.

He gave me a small primer on the basics of the language; I quickly read through it a few times, then returned to Aurren. He pointed me to a furbolg totem at his side, and with some difficulty, I was able to pronounce the text printed on the side. As I read, though, even though I couldn't consciously turn the words I was saying into language, I felt something flowing through me, as if me simply reading aloud the totem was enacting some kind of magic, and I had a vague premonition that I needed to find a second totem. And as soon as I completed my reading, to my surprise, what looked like a ghost of a furbolg appeared before me!

Either this was a very common occurrence, or he was only visible to me; nobody else seemed to pay this ghost any attention. The latter explanation seemed more likely. Anyway, he motioned for me to follow, and I got the vague sense that he was going to lead me to this second totem. I walked after him, trying my hardest to look like I wasn't following anything; after all, wouldn't you think someone was crazy if you saw them chasing after something invisible? Well, maybe not — invisibility certainly isn't infeasible — but still, I didn't need to draw attention to myself (or, more likely, allow my attention to be drawn to something else) while I was trying to follow this barely-visible spirit.

The totem ended up being at the top of a large hill with a cliff off the other side; at the foot of the cliff was a small lake. The spirit disappeared. Not knowing what else to do, I read from this new totem; as with last time, I felt something flowing through me as I did, and I felt like I understood this totem a little more strongly than the last one. I was instructed to head east to another totem.

East was down the cliff.

"Well," I told myself, "I guess I'll be taking the long way down." But as I turned around to head back down the hill, I noticed two things: another furbolg ghost had appeared, and a pair of ghostly wings had sprouted from my back. The spirit gestured to the cliff; I was supposed to jump.

So that's what the wings were for.

It still didn't seem natural. I couldn't feel the wings, which made them hard to trust, but they moved as I moved, and I even tried jumping in place; it did feel like I fell back down a little slower than normal. I walked over to the edge of the cliff and peered over.

Perhaps you don't have to be crazy to follow an invisible creature, but following an invisible creature's instructions to jump off a relatively tall cliff was another story.

I must be crazy.

As I leaped off, I aimed for the lake at the bottom. As long as the water was deep enough, I'd be okay, although it would certainly hurt.

It took me a few seconds to realize the wings were actually working. I couldn't control them, but they were allowing me to glide down much slower than I'd normally fall. The feeling was amazing. I had nothing but air for a good distance in any direction from me, and the perception of freedom that gave — words can't do it justice. Needless to say, I was very sorry that it was over when I finally landed. These furbolgs have some amazing magic.

The third totem was, as I'd been informed, to the east; I found it just on the other side of the Crystalbrook river. By then, I'd already guessed that I'd need to read the totem aloud again; sure enough, I understood this totem even better than the previous two, and I knew that I'd have to head south down the river and find the next totem underwater at the river's mouth. I felt something flow through me again, but this time I didn't see any obvious changes like the wings (which had since disappeared); maybe I wasn't meant to change this time?

Anyway, I was able to swim, but I never had much reason to do so; as a result, I knew that I could travel on land much faster than I could in the water, and began walking south down the narrow strip of land between the river to the west and the mountains to the east. I continued on land for most of the way until the river jutted up next to the mountains; at that point, I climbed in.

I immediately figured out what the previous totem had done for me. I'm not sure how it worked, but I was somehow able to swim even faster than I would have been able to run on land, and while my head was under the surface of the water, I felt no need to breathe!

Well, the wings had been temporary, so maybe this ability would be too; I decided I'd better be quick about finding the totem. Fortunately, it wasn't very difficult to locate, and I repeated the totem-reading process; this time, a ghost of some sort of sea creature appeared!

This spirit was to lead me to the next totem, and I followed it to the shore, where it turned back into the ghost of a furbolg. This didn't surprise me too much; since it came from the totem, I knew it had to be related to the furbolgs somehow. What did surprise me is that a few seconds later, the furbolg transformed into a cat — it looked like one of the nightstalkers I'd been culling earlier, although a healthy, much more beautiful one.

I was even more surprised when it transformed me into a cat too!

The transition seemed instantaneous, and I felt nothing when it happened. As far as I was concerned, one moment I was in my body, and the next moment, my perspective had shifted a few feet lower, and my appendages were in different positions than I was used to! My arms had become legs, my hooves were gone, my tail had shifted slightly, I could see my nose, and I was completely covered with hair!

And yet, my movements felt as natural as if I'd been this way since birth. I didn't have to think about moving my new body; I just acted, and my body reacted appropriately. I was one of the graceful cats!

Here's me as a cat! I'm also mostly invisible.

The spirit made a motion that I understood was a cue for me to follow it; I did so. I was amazed at how effortless running was in this body.

Unfortunately, this form wore off when I reached what I knew to be the final totem; as quickly as I'd transformed, I'd returned to my draenei body.

The message the totem (which I now perfectly understood) was even less pleasant than my disappointment at the loss of the cat body. Apparently, the furbolgs were not all united. This island had two clans; the Stillpine tribe, who were the ones who'd sent me following the trail of totems, and the Bristlelimb, who were the tribe I was standing in front of now. I couldn't even believe that these Bristlelimbs could have been so nasty to the Stillpine... I'm not even going to repeat all the things they did! But the one relevant fact was that the Bristlelimb had captured some Silverpine and were keeping them in cages; I could clearly see this as I looked around the Bristlelimb camp. I was to get the keys, and the Bristlelimb weren't likely to give them up.

This made me hesitate. I didn't want to attack intelligent creatures.

And yet, they'd done some truly horrific things to the Stillpine, and with all the amazing things the Stillpine had shown me, they had to be good, right? They wouldn't tell me to attack if it wasn't really necessary? And it did seem necessary; the cages in front of me were evidence enough of that.

I did it. I got the keys and freed the Stillpine at the expense of a few Bristlelimb lives. I couldn't help but think that daddy would be disappointed in me if I hurt any more of them than absolutely necessary.

*The now-shaky handwriting ends, and the entry trails off with a few indecipherable scribbles and doodles on the page below it. The handwriting starts again in at the top of the next page, this time in a much more steady hand.*

I was done with that necessary task, and I headed back to Azure Watch to report my success to Aurren. A furbolg was with him, identifying himself (in a tongue that I could now understand) as Arugoo.

I think he realized that my task for his people had shaken me; he seemed very sympathetic, and offered me a very nice crossbow for my troubles... he called it [Arugoo's Crossbow of Destruction]. Well, the gift did help console me a bit; it reaffirmed my beliefs that the Stillpine were good; after all, would someone bad give me such a nice gift? Anyway, he told me that he'd give me some time to rest if I needed, but that his tribe, whose camp was to the north, still needed my help.

I took a nap in the inn, and when I woke up, I told him I'd help.

My journey north didn't take very long; probably less than an hour of walking. When I got there, the Stillpine already knew of what I did — I suppose they must have had some form of communication faster than walking, though with the magic they'd showed me earlier, that didn't surprise me.

I was also happy to see that they felt the same way I did about leaving waste after killing an animal; their tribe had some members who were skilled in skinning and leatherworking. I'll have to see if I can learn anything from them! But I'd promised to help, so I accepted the tribe's thanks, and a pair of tasks.

The tasks both involved killing some threats to the Stillpine's home camp. I never knew when I was leaving that so much of what I'd be doing would involve my skills with hunting... I'm really glad my dad taught me when I was younger.

The first task was to kill some odd-looking beasts to the east of the camp; I don't remember what they were called, but they were fierce, and I actually ended up getting a pretty good gash in my arm fighting one of them. Nothing a bandage wouldn't fix, and fortunately I had some spare linen, but it did make my arm rather sore for the rest of the day.

The second task was to kill murlocs — basically, fish with legs. They smelled very foul and had a rather irritating battle cry; also, they tended to gang up on me when I was fighting them! Still, though, they gave me less trouble than the previous beasts had.

I returned to the camp to report what I'd done, and they rewarded me with some well-crafted leather trousers, ones that were certainly better than what I had. I think I like these Stillpine.

Anyway, by then it was getting rather late, so with their permission, I made camp with them for the night. I'm sure they'll have more for me to do tomorrow.