[pre-story] Hey there, squish here, with the continuation of Rhuno's adventures across Azeroth! [redacted] This installment takes our hero to a remote corner of The Blasted Lands. [redacted][/pre-story]
Chapter 2: A Hero's Reward
Tonight, like every night in recent memory, a tense quiet hung over the Howling Drunk Inn. The few patrons, a selection of the town’s old, infirm, and cowardly, sat in humbled silence, nursing mugs of porter as the night dragged on interminably. Donna Berrymore, the innkeeper, stood behind the bar, mechanically re-washing the unused mugs. She was a mature woman, with warm tan skin, raven-black hair, and a glare that could send even the most ornery drunk cringing out the door. The young barmaid, Becca, was the only one moving, pacing around the room, clearing away empty mugs, impatiently seeking something, anything to do to keep herself busy.
Becca was a petite, slender thing, just barely more than five feet tall. She had a cute, mousy sort of look to her, with soft features dotted with a handful of freckles, a cute little button nose, and large, chestnut-brown eyes. Jaw-length brown hair was tucked hurriedly out of the way behind her ears, a few stray locks curling forward to brush against her cheeks. Her uniform was typical of her job, an ankle-length brown dress that hung loosely off her admittedly average hips, a laced leather bodice that cinched her already slim waist even tighter, and a frilly top with a neckline that bared her shoulders and the modest cleavage of her firm, orange-sized breasts. She was practically the ideal barmaid, attractive in that girl-next-door way, but not distractingly eye-catching. She almost seemed to blend into the background when you weren’t looking.
Becca was reaching for old man Jensen’s empty mug when she realized he’d perked up in his seat, tilting his head toward the window, listening to something. One by one, the other patrons followed suit, brows furrowing in confusion, and then Becca heard it too. It was quiet and indistinct at first, but it grew louder and closer by the second, resolving into something the town hadn’t heard in a quite a while. Singing. Raucous, off-key, out-of-tune singing. A dozen rough voices rolling over one-another as they sang with a kind of carefree joy that hadn’t been heard in Surwich for months. The sound alone was immensely refreshing, even if it was terrible.
The song grew louder and louder, until the front door of the inn suddenly burst open. The militia poured into the inn, perhaps a dozen men and women, some human, some worgen, all exhausted and clad in mis-matched, rusty, dented armor smeared with mud and black, green, and crimson blood. But every single one of them was grinning triumphantly through the filth, even those bearing hastily-bandaged wounds, and they sang loud and proud. A man with a ratty top hat broke from the crowd lingering by the door, stepping forward, his hard beard split by an irrepressible grin. “Donna!” He called. “Ready a room an’ open a tab, an’ put it all on the mayor’s dime! The Hero of Surwich drinks free tonight!” He half-shouted, half-laughed. The group behind him cheered, pausing in their singing just long enough to turn and usher an unseen figure forward.
The militia parted as a mountainous, shadowy figure suddenly filled the doorframe, so big it had to duck through, its horns scraping at the wood as it passed the threshold. When it straightened up again on the other side, it loomed over the crowd around it, easily eight feet tall, its square shoulders as broad as three men standing shoulder to shoulder. As it stood there on iron-shod hooves, long, pointed horns crowning its head, it looked almost like a demon. But there the similarities ended. The figure was covered head to toe in gleaming silvery armor, thick plates of metal trimmed with turquoise-studded gold. The thing’s chestplate, gauntlets, and pauldrons all bore the same motif, a large golden sun-disk in the center, radiating thin rays of gold all the way out to the edges. On its back, it carried a massive circular shield, an inch-thick wall emblazoned with the same sun-disk, large enough for a man to stand behind it and be completely hidden. On its waist hung a wrist-thick scepter of silver inlaid with gold, crowned with a sphere of gold as big as a man’s head, a mighty mace.
The figure shifted, its expression hidden beneath a silvery helm, and reached up with gauntleted hands. After a moment’s fumbling with the clasp, the helmet’s lower half swung free, and with one hand, the figure lifted the rest up and forward, revealing its face. Rhuno’s coal-black brow furrowed slightly as her cast his gaze around the tavern, startlingly blue eyes assessing the situation, before settling on the innkeeper and offering her a respectful nod.
Donna didn’t even acknowledge the look, turning to Devin with a sour expression, crossing her arms as her eyes narrowed. “A tauren? You brought a tauren into town, into my inn, and you want me to serve him drinks on the mayor’s tab?” she demanded, shaking her head. “You must have gotten your bell rung pretty bloody hard if you think this is a good plan.”
Devin shook his head, his smile never faltering. “If Archimonde ‘imself ‘ad done what this bloke did, I’d be buyin’ ‘im drinks just the same.” he replied. “You shoulda seen it. There was a bloody army comin’ outta the fog. Musta’ been a hundred treants, with as many demons on top, an’ a dozen of those ‘shroom giants to boot. They were comin’ on fast, an’ I was ready to kiss my arse goodbye. Then there was a flash, bright as the sun, lit up the whole forest like a bolt a’ lightin’. An’ there ‘e was…”
As Devin launched into his tale, the militia poured into the bar proper, filling up seats and ushering the guest of honor to take a seat by the fire. None of them noticed Becca, staring wide-eyed at the tauren as she clutched her serving tray to her chest like a shield.
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