Monday night, Stormwind City.
Stormwind has many qualities. It is grand, resilient, and filled with citizens who will absolutely stop what they are doing to investigate something deeply unsettling. It is, however, not traditionally known for its roaming population of corpse-consuming hybrid animals slash monsters.
“They are incredibly mangled though, I can’t make out their face…”, what a lovely sentence to overhear as you are out walking in the spring evening air.
Not exactly the opening line of a pleasant evening, but on the other hand, I do sort of make a living reporting news, and this did seem like news.
But let me rewind a little bit here. I had just passed city hall and was aiming for the Gazebo behind the Cathedral, I wanted to take a look at it - make sure it was still standing - since I am planning on bringing back bingo nights soon and was weighing options for where to host it.
Along the shore of the lake was a group of guards, I think a mix of companies (I am still trying to get my bearing on the current collection of guard units in the city after my break, also what do you call a collective of guard units? A whistle of guards? A blue of guards?) and they were gathered around what looked like a creature witnesses repeatedly and somewhat unhelpfully described as an “owlcat.”
Which, for the uninitiated, appears to be exactly what it sounds like.
Feathers. Fur. Teeth. Regret. And perhaps most notably, a dwarf’s head and foot.
The creature in question had been subdued by members of the city’s ever-reliable and occasionally overenthusiastic responders. Reports indicate it was found actively eating parts of what is presumed to be a dwarf. Whether this was scavenging or something more sinister was, at the time, unclear. Well, it actually still is.
Naturally, this led to a discussion.
“If the creature is a scavenger, it’s only acting according to its nature. It just… simply should not be in the city.”
A fair point. One might argue the same of several residents, but I digress, or.. do I digest?
A druid was summoned, there was magic at play. Apparently some sort of presence - an influence or corruption. And, most troubling of all, not recent.
This is not the first incident of its kind. As the avid reader might have noticed then we have reported lately on other incidents which included corruption of sorts, controlling magic and creatures behaving strangely. Is this part of something bigger?
The inevitable question eventually arose. What does one do with a corrupted creature that has been eating citizens? Suggestions ranged from immediate execution to temporary containment. The latter, won out, for now anyway. The owlcat was transported to the Stockades, where it will be held under guard.
There was talk of priests. Of cleansing. Of hope, however slim, that the creature might be freed from whatever grip holds it.
There was also talk of blessed bullets. And the unfortunate realisation that those are, apparently, quite expensive.
I was unfortunately unable to catch the entire conversation as one of the guard companies had dispatched one of their members - a gnome - with a box of muffins to distract me and make me lose focus. A vile and devious act which I frown upon, but only as much as I can frown with a blueberry muffin in my maw.