That afternoon, Jess and Gred met at a newly opened tavern near Stormwind's gates and sorted through their gear. Gred had brought quite a few things for the journey.

"My logging axe and buckler, the Stromgarde straight sword I won from that supposed prince, cheese, a liquor flask, and a steel trap. Good. That should be nearly everything."

"A steel trap?" Jess looked up toward Gred's hand and saw the black iron trap sitting on the table.

Gred said, "You want to find Wicked Claws. We can set the trap where wolves roam in Duskwood, then lure them over with meat... Wouldn't that be much safer than fighting those beasts head-on?"

"That does make sense," Jess said. "But it could take a long time."

Gred secured the trap and strapped it to his back. "It should be fine. I'm an old hunter from the Hinterlands myself. What did you bring?"

Jess answered, "Just the usual things. Markers and illustrations to help us identify herbs—those are the most important. I also brought dry bread and scraps of dried meat... The meat scraps are for the two of us to eat, of course."

Gred hooked the buckler's strap to his belt and nodded. "I know. Once we're in Duskwood, we can obtain bait locally."

Jess gave a stiff laugh. "That doesn't seem right. The people buried in Raven Hill Cemetery are heroes of past wars."

Gred tilted his head. "What does bait have to do with the cemetery?"

As soon as he said it, he sensed that something was wrong.

"You thought I wanted to dig up human corpses and use them as bait for animals? Brother, is there something wrong with your head? I meant catching some small animals..."

Jess hurriedly said, "Ah, I may have heard too many horror stories from the patrolmen. They all say the animals there like eating human corpses. We'd just been discussing Raven Hill Cemetery when you talked about finding bait locally..."

Gred's expression changed. "Is that so? If it's true... that might not be a bad method."

"Let's forget it." Jess rummaged through his pack. "I brought an extra coat too. If we have to enter the catacombs, we'll need to change clothes after getting out. Raven Hill Cemetery has been badly contaminated by corpse toxins. Some people who entered rashly suffered lingering ailments after they came back out. Perhaps they wore their filthy clothes for too long."

"Did those patrolmen tell you that as well?"

"Some of it came from refugees from Raven Hill and Grand Hamlet." Jess lifted his pack. "If we're ready, let's go. Any later, and I don't know whether we'll reach Westbrook by nightfall."

Stormwind had expanded its urban districts and constructed vast numbers of new homes, absorbing thousands upon thousands of new residents. Even so, many refugees had pitched tents inside and outside the Valley of Heroes.

Many were disabled people with no means of supporting themselves. Others were elderly people and children whose homes had been destroyed and whose sources of income were gone.

Priests from the Cathedral of Light were distributing food among the shabby tents and caring for the sick. Some laborers were helping the poor mend torn tent cloth or repair other essential tools.

The young king hoped to shelter as many of these refugees as possible, especially since many had fled from Duskwood or the Redridge Mountains. They were all subjects of the Kingdom of Stormwind.

In the past, some could be redirected to Goldshire. Now Goldshire had a refugee camp of its own. Perhaps the latest arrivals could only look toward more distant towns such as Moonbrook.

At the city gates, Jess looked at the children sitting outside their tents, staring blankly at Stormwind's entrance. He remembered his own arrival, when he had faced a city covered in wounds without knowing whether he would ever find a place to live there.

He had barely managed to settle down now, but no one could say what the future held.

The two paid ten copper pieces for a brewery convoy to take them to a way station near Westbrook Garrison. After resting there for the night, they caught a wagon early the next morning and continued toward Sentinel Hill.

At this time, Westfall could not be called a wasteland at all. Its name in Common was closer in meaning to "the great flatlands of the west."

The Harvest Festival was approaching. Endless fields stretched across the land, their summer wheat heavy with golden heads. In the distance, strips of lush green woodland divided the fields, forming a vivid contrast.

Scarecrows stood abruptly across the gently rolling plains, staring at the travelers aboard every passing wagon.

It was already dark when they reached Sentinel Hill. A journey that took only a few minutes on foot in the game had required a full day and a half by wagon here. With closely spaced way stations guarding the route, however, Westfall's main road was still fairly safe.

From far off, they could see the torches burning atop the tall watchtower on the hill.

The place remained lively even at night. Miners drank and talked in the street, watching as local and foreign wagons periodically entered the outpost.

Though it was called an outpost, Sentinel Hill was actually approaching the size of a small town.

Moonbrook, the kingdom's important town to the southwest, was the wealthiest place in the kingdom outside the capital. The town had grown around an enormous mine.

Since the region was the kingdom's most important grain producer, Moonbrook, at its heart, had naturally become a major center for collecting and distributing grain.

The kingdom's reconstruction over the last two years had caused demand for stone and ore to soar, allowing Moonbrook to quickly regain the prosperity it had enjoyed before the wars against the orcs.

Sentinel Hill, originally a way station between Moonbrook and the Elwynn region, had benefited from that rising tide as well.

A new mining area had also recently been discovered northwest of Sentinel Hill. Many miners from Moonbrook had moved here in search of new opportunities, making Sentinel Hill look increasingly likely to become Westfall's newest town.

Its true size was far greater than in the game. It resembled one of those dusty frontier towns built beside a railroad in an American Western, except that the "railroad" here consisted of the watchtower, the barracks, and the grain road.

The damage caused by the wars against the orcs was also more obvious than it had been in the game. Some houses on the outermost edge had burned down and still had not been repaired.

The small church beside the logging camp had suffered severe damage during the war. A group of construction workers slept beside the stone and timber they guarded near the scaffold-covered main building. The miners and townspeople passing back and forth beside them did not disturb their deep sleep at all.

Jess could see that this new town was still badly short of workers. Recruitment notices were posted everywhere. Whether for miners, builders, or farmhands, the offered pay was surprisingly close to Stormwind's.

No wonder Eden Malin had worried Jess might come here to find work. If he grew used to life here or in Moonbrook, he truly might not want to return to Stormwind.

"See that slaughterhouse?" Gred pointed at a small building around the corner, some thirty feet away. "Tomorrow, we can buy bone scraps and the like there for bait. That'll keep us from being forced to dig up dead bodies."

"Even bone scraps won't be cheap, especially with food in short supply," Jess said. "Could we try hunting boars for meat along the western riverbank?"

Jess had no hunting experience. He had merely offered the suggestion based on what he knew from the game.

Gred said, "The Goretusk boars around here are famously vicious. Even gnolls don't count on hunting them as a reliable source of meat. Do you know why pork-liver pies are so expensive? Because only Goretusk liver produces that flavor... Hunting Goretusks requires a specialist boar hunter."

Jess asked, "You're from the Hinterlands. Why do you know so much about southern boars?"

Gred answered, "Live another fifty years, Jess, and you'll pick up all sorts of useless bits of knowledge too. Those boars may be fierce, but they're still far easier to deal with than the monstrous wolves of Duskwood. We must be careful once we're there. I don't want a pack of sharp-fanged beasts surrounding us."

Jess said, "At least we'd die quickly that way."

Gred shook his head. "Not necessarily. The bears in the Hinterlands, for example, don't like killing their prey first. They catch you alive and start eating from the least important parts. By the time you stop feeling pain and accept your fate, you finally die—then they toss you aside, simply because they don't like dead meat."

Listening to his vivid description of how dwarves were eaten alive, Jess shifted his legs uncomfortably.

"The wolves here will bite out our throats first, won't they?"

Gred said, "I suppose so. A rare piece of good news."

Still talking, they entered an inn and were enveloped by the heavy scent of iron.

Jess could not tell whether it came from the miners or from the blood spilled by butchers chopping apart too many organs. Whatever the source, it smelled unpleasant.

Gred ordered two mugs of ale. They sat down, took out their prepared rations, and began eating.

The tavern was extremely noisy. At the neighboring table sat several men and women dressed in assorted traveling clothes, all speaking loudly.

Each of them carried a weapon, so even the other patrons who found them irritating deliberately kept their distance.

"Some cowards deliberately exaggerate when they encounter something they've never seen before." A muscular man with a face covered in black beard spoke, a long-handled warhammer resting across his knees. "If you ask me, there isn't any gnoll twice as tall as a man. Those guards simply went too long without fighting gnolls. The moment they saw one, they lost their nerve, and dreamed up the rest in their nightmares."

"You mean there isn't any gnoll leader at all?" asked a woman with a hunting bow on her back, her voice cold.

Her voice was so deep that it gave little clue to her gender. With her dull blond hair cropped extremely short, it would have been easy to mistake her for a man without looking closely.

She was powerfully built and carried plenty of weight, making her chest bulge against the leather jacket beneath her taut bowstring. Without that, Jess might not have recognized her as a woman at first glance.

Everyone in the group had exceptionally pale skin, almost glaringly white, with the blood vessels clearly visible beneath it. They might have come from somewhere far to the north.

A man in a thin white shirt sat beside the woman. "If a gnoll pack's leader dies, they'll quickly choose another. But if the new leader lacks the previous one's authority, the whole pack will sink into infighting for a time. I don't deny that the gnolls have grown much bolder recently because a new and powerful leader has emerged... But twice the height of a man? That's too exaggerated."

"That's exactly what I think," Blackbeard said. "In the end, we may not find any gnoll leader twice as tall as a man. No matter how many gnolls we kill, it'll all be wasted effort... The wanted notice specifically demands the head of a gnoll twice the usual size."

Blackbeard continued, "Maybe young Wrynn is trying to get something for nothing. He posts a bounty with a condition no one can meet, then sends fools like us everywhere to slaughter gnolls while we hunt for some enormous leader who doesn't exist. They spend nothing and still reduce the gnoll population in this region, because no one can ever claim the reward!"

The man in white said, "I don't believe anyone bearing the Wrynn name would stoop to something so contemptible. In the end, it would damage the royal family's reputation."

The woman said, "I investigated beforehand. Some miners and farmers truly have seen a gigantic gnoll. I simply don't know... whether it was the same one described in the bounty."

Blackbeard gave a contemptuous laugh. "You can't trust the word of mercenaries, let alone cowardly miners and farmers!"

"What did you say?" A solidly built man at the next table slapped it and rose to his feet. Blackbeard glanced sideways at him and calmly took another drink.

"Spout that kind of shit in here and you must be tired of living, fur-face," another miner said coldly.

Jess slowly lifted his mug, took a small sip, and used it to hide his face. A vicious brawl now seemed unavoidable.

"By the Holy Light!" The man in white stood and addressed everyone around him. "For the sake of our common faith, please calm yourselves. My friend had trouble with miners in the past, but those were dwarven miners who provoked us. He wasn't referring to any of you..."

Gred choked on his ale, then turned and glared at the man. Only then did several nearby patrons realize that the short, thick-bodied fellow sitting there was actually a tall dwarf.

Jess whispered to Gred, "The dwarves of Aerie Peak haven't found any mines, have they? He must mean either the Dark Irons or the Bronzebeards from Loch Modan..."

Gred turned back again, his face openly saying that Jess had made an excellent point.

"We've seen the enormous gnoll leader," Jess called more loudly to the mercenaries. "It was near Westbrook Garrison. If you search along the riverbank, I'm sure you'll find a trail."

"I'm not trying to look down on you, boy." Blackbeard glanced over. "I just don't believe someone like you could see a gnoll like that and survive."

"By my rough estimate, his balls were at least twenty times the size of yours," Gred said coldly. "Spout one more piece of shit and I'll shove this damned mug up your arse."

As he spoke, Gred raised the mug in his left hand. It was nearly as large as his head. His right hand was already on the table, gripping the sword hilt protruding from his sack.

Jess had been worried that a real fight would delay the rest of their journey. Now he could not get the concept of balls twenty times larger out of his mind.

In the human world, a furious dwarf in a tavern carried enormous powers of intimidation. Even the arrogant Blackbeard looked apprehensive now.

The woman beside him kept staring at the sword in Gred's hand. She leaned closer and whispered something into Blackbeard's ear. From the shape of her mouth, Jess could tell that it included the word "Stromgarde."

"I'm only trying to help, everyone." Jess cleared his throat. "If you kill that gigantic gnoll, it will benefit the entire Kingdom of Stormwind, and I sincerely hope you claim the reward. But if you remain unfriendly, I think everyone here will gladly help my friend shove his mug... into your..."

Blackbeard looked around and realized he had indeed angered a large group of middle-aged and elderly laborers who had only recently crawled out of the mines.

The man in white sighed and said softly, "Cliff, you need to control your temper. Stop causing trouble. This isn't Northrend."

Northrend? So these people came from the continent of Northrend, beyond the northern sea. No wonder they spoke with an accent Jess had never heard before.

The tension in the tavern eased. Blackbeard's party of three seemed to sense the hostility around them. After a short whispered discussion, they left together.

After all, if they slept there, someone might remember the insult, sneak into their room in the middle of the night, and crack their skulls open. Miners who had spent half their lives here knew plenty of ways to make someone die without anyone learning why.