The next morning, sunlight streamed through a dust-covered window. The room was completely unfamiliar to Jess, prompting an unsettling thought.

Had he transmigrated again?

He pushed open the window and looked outside. Lush trees and green grass filled his view, while blue and yellow birds chirped and hopped among the branches.

The rhythmic blows of forging hammers on anvils mingled with the pumping of forge bellows. In the distance, the morning market at the center of town buzzed with noise.

Jess looked beneath the eaves. A crowd had gathered in a line outside the smithy to collect something.

This was Goldshire. Jess had lived in Stormwind for two years, yet this was his first visit to the town.

He noticed bandages wrapped around several parts of his body. Without them, he might not even have remembered that he had been injured.

Moving those parts of his body did hurt, though none of the injuries felt particularly severe.

The previous night's events felt like a dream: Hogger, the gnolls, the terrifying attack in the rain, the crazed dwarven warrior, and the archmage emerging from the dark forest with magic that seemed to drive away evil. It was as though Jess had transmigrated into *The Lord of the Rings*.

Right—he had not collected his pay.

As he stepped outside, the faint plucking of a lute rose through the stairwell, followed by a woman's clear, carrying voice.

Jess smelled beer and bread. Was this Lion's Pride Inn?

In the common room, a woman of about thirty stood surrounded by drinkers while a musician leaning against the wall accompanied her.

"He came at last,

Before Blackrock Spire.

The Doomhammer

Once made all tremble.

Lothar, you may rest.

None remember his name, while your blade lives forever.

Thunder and lightning

Before Blackrock Spire.

The beast's roar

Once shook the clouds.

Lothar, you may rest.

None remember his name; your children stand tall.

The darkest night is passing.

Dawn is close at hand."

The melody differed considerably from the background music Jess remembered at Lion's Pride Inn, but the style was quite similar.

The song told of a battle from the previous year. Anduin Lothar, commander of humanity, had reached Blackrock Spire to face the orc warchief Orgrim Doomhammer.

Lothar died in their duel, but the orcs suffered an irreversible collapse. Turalyon, Lothar's lieutenant, took up the general's broken sword, defeated Orgrim, and sounded the call for the Alliance counteroffensive.

Dawn truly was close at hand. It would have been even better if Elwynn Forest were not filled with so many troublesome monsters.

Jess went outside. The air remained damp after the rain. A group of veterans had gathered around a table—the same people he had seen from the second floor.

Jess approached and gave his name.

The quartermaster separated two silver coins and several copper from the piles before him. "A lot of people died. None of us expected it. Some came from Lordaeron and Alterac, and one was a mercenary from Menethil Harbor. They had no relatives or friends here. Even if we set their pay aside, we wouldn't know whom to give it to."

Jess weighed the small purse in his hand. It felt unusually heavy.

Back in the inn, he found Gred sitting in an empty corner, staring blankly at a large mug of ale.

Jess sat across from him and casually said, "Drinking is bad for wounds."

"A dwarf's body is built differently from a human's," the dwarf said, eyes half-lidded. "Let me explain it properly. Our ancestors were the ancient earthen. The earthen came from underground and were created by the earth. Guess what else the earth creates? Grain and fruit."

"Look." He lifted the mug and swirled the bubbling liquid. "The way these things ferment is just like how the original, solid earthen became active, splendid dwarves like us. See these bubbles? Not one bit different from an old dwarf's beard. That's proof. In other words, dwarves and fine ale are the same thing. When ale slides into my stomach, it's like the damned stuff has come home. The instant my wounds see it, they start crying that their good brother's arrived and smearing the ale all over themselves. Then my muscles rush to grow back. This isn't alcohol at all. It's divine medicine that can resurrect a man on the spot—the kind even Dalaran's most senior alchemist couldn't brew. No doubt about it."

"For dwarves only, of course." With that, he drained the entire mug in one gulp.

Jess smacked his lips at the sight and raised a hand. "I'll have an ale too."

Gred pointed at Jess's bandages and said with heavy sarcasm, "Drinking is bad for wounds, human."

"Mind your own business." Jess accepted the cup from the server and took a gulp, only to choke. Every cough sent a dull ache through his muscles and wounds.

"Hah, weakling!" Gred shouted. "Another ale! Proper dwarven brewing this time—at least the prissy Ironforge method!"

Before long, the visibly impatient server handed him a large mug. Beneath pale coffee-colored foam, the ale was as dark as cola.

"Close enough!"

Gred grinned, inhaled its scent deeply, then sighed.

"What's wrong?" Jess asked after taking a sip.

"I'm homesick. I want to go back to Aerie Peak," the dwarf said.

Jess drew a long diagonal line across the table, curving it past Durnholde Keep and into the northern valleys. "But to travel from Southshore to the Hinterlands, you have to cross the Hillsbrad Foothills. It still isn't peaceful there. They say orcs are roaming the region."

The dwarf's eyes followed the line to the other side of the table. "So what? Even Orgrim Doomhammer has been thrown into a dungeon. The rest are nothing but bandits and thieves."

In truth, it was more than that. The Frostwolf clan had settled in Alterac Valley. Those fearsome hunters could command white-furred wolves stronger than old bulls, and they were not content to remain hidden in the snowy mountains. They often descended into Hillsbrad to raid for supplies.

Worse still was another, far more terrifying clan: the Warsong clan, led by Grom Hellscream, a berserker whose name had inspired fear even on Draenor.

Any one of those thugs who had drunk demon blood could probably pound Hogger's crooked muzzle flat with his bare hands.

Jess remembered that they would wander Lordaeron's mountains, forests, and hills for more than a decade. He had no idea where they were hiding now.

That meant traveling by sea from Stormwind Harbor to Southshore was currently fairly safe.

Orc warships had difficulty competing with the navies of Gilneas and Lordaeron. Once the Dark Portal came under attack and their rear supply line was cut, they vanished from the seas almost immediately.

But heading north from Southshore into Silverpine Forest, or toward Durnholde north of the Hillsbrad Foothills, was an entirely different matter.

At that thought, Jess realized that everything he owned would not even pay for passage from Stormwind Harbor to Southshore, much less food and supplies along the way. Why was he worrying about any of this?

"Sorry, Jess," the dwarf suddenly said. "Yesterday I told you this trip was money we'd earn lying down. Didn't think we'd nearly lie down and never get back up."

Jess shook his head. "Silver isn't that easy to earn. I learned that lesson all too well yesterday."

"What did you do?" Gred asked curiously.

"Don't ask," Jess said. "Someone told me about a job paying two silver. I had no idea what it involved. I went there, and they beat me up."

The dwarf stared for a moment, then burst into laughter until beer foam filled his beard.

"You let someone beat you for money? I thought you'd sold your ass."

"Sold... my ass?" The corner of Jess's mouth twitched.

"If you meet that person again, let me know. Look at these muscles." Gred stroked his stone-hard shoulder. "If I don't make him beat himself bankrupt, I'd be unworthy of the body, strength, and spirit my homeland in the Hinterlands gave me."

After several ales with Gred, all the pain and lingering fear from the night before faded away. At some point, the singing woman left the inn. Only the musician remained, cradling his instrument and playing an unknown, lilting melody to the extinguished hearth.

They stayed in Goldshire all day and departed with a caravan bound for Stormwind that afternoon. By the time they reached the Trade District, evening had fallen.

The smell of roasted meat drifted from The Gilded Rose across the small square. Neither Jess nor Gred cared about the price anymore. Having eaten nothing for a day and a night, they rushed inside, devoured pork-liver pies and smoked ribs they would normally never splurge on, and drank until midnight.

Back home, Jess scattered the money he had earned over the previous two days across the table and counted each coin.

After deducting the ale, pies, roasted ribs, and the previous day's expenses, he had four silver and sixty copper left. Once he paid the rent, careful spending would make the rest last nearly the entire month.

But if he wanted to buy a home of his own and bring his parents over from Lordaeron, scraping by like this would never be enough.

The previous two days had simply been too dangerous. Earning money this way repeatedly was unrealistic. Even if luck kept him alive, his body could not endure it.

Fortunately, Eden Malin had agreed to make him an assistant. Perhaps he could eventually live in the Mage Quarter and stop paying rent.

Better yet, perhaps room and board would both be included. Didn't the mage apprentices in World of Warcraft's Dalaran eat and sleep at school?

Did they? Or didn't they? Jess realized he was beginning to forget the specific details of the setting.

In any case, an assistant should receive some pay and privileges in the Mage Quarter. At the very least, it would be steady work.

Even through his drunken haze and blurred vision, the thought brought a smile to Jess's face.

Suddenly, violent nausea surged into his throat. Jess bolted out of his home, rushed to the canal, and vomited everything into the water.

He rolled onto his back and looked at the night sky. The two moons, one large and one small, stared down like reflections in a pair of spectacles. Jess remembered the bespectacled girl he had secretly loved in middle school.

Was there still any hope of going home? Of returning to Earth?

Perhaps it would never be possible.

But this place wasn't so bad. Every day was dangerous and exciting—more fun than being an office drone.

Maybe one day he could even date a white-haired elven girl. He chuckled at the thought, drool running from the corner of his mouth.

"Forget Earth girls in glasses! I want an elf! I want an elf girl!"

Two old men fishing nearby at night looked over at the drunk. One asked, "What is he saying?"

The other shook his head. "Can't understand him. Maybe he's from Kul Tiras. I hear people over there all talk like that—as if they're singing."