Ironforge

((Sung to the tune "Ireland" by Garth Brooks))

They say Azeroth is bleeding
When a warlock soul is born!
The Burning Legion leaving ashes
Demon eyes are full of scorn.

Their armies are coming up the roadside
To the top of Mount Hyjal
We must stand in defense of the living
For all will die if we do fall.

We are forty against thousands
Dwarven shield and axes high
As they climb the narow roadside
We must stand our ground or die.

Ironforge, I'm coming home
I can see your sides covered in snow
And halls all made of stone
The secrets of your ale that you never will disgorge!
I'm coming home to Ironforge!

Our dear Captain, she lays bleeding
I can hear her calling me!
"Thae men are now yours for the leading
With no hope of victory."

As I look up all around me
Seeing Paladin, Rogue and Priest
Delay the Legion is our mission
And buy them half a day at least.

Ironforge, I'm coming home
I can see your sides covered in snow
And halls all made of stone
The secrets of your ale that you never will disgorge!
I'm coming home to Ironforge!

The morning fog is deep and heavy
They are coming, land and air
Scarlet claws and fangs a-ready
The fear almost more than we can bear

There are no words to be spoken
Just a look to say good-bye.
The demos charge to our position
As we scream Dwarven battle cries!

Ironforge, I'm coming home
I can see your sides covered in snow
And halls all made of stone
The secrets of your ale that you never will disgorge!
I'm coming home to Ironforge!

Agent of Cheese Price List

Cheese List & Pricing
======================

Expired Stinky Cheese - 20 GP
Darnassian Bleu - 1 SP
Dwarven Mild - 8 SP
Stormwind Brie - 25 SP
Fine Aged Cheddar - 5 SP
Alterac Swiss - 50 SP
Alterac Swiss (hormone-free!) - 50 SP
Sour Goat Cheese - 75 SP
Salted Yeti Cheese - 50 GP
Garadar Sharp - 85 SP
Stromgarde Muenster - 50 GP
Dalaran Swiss - 25 SP
Gilnean White - 5 GP
Mag'har Mild - 15 SP
Briny Hardcheese - 5 GP
Aged Dalaran Sharp - 50 SP
Redridge Roquefort - 2 GP
Smoked String Cheese - 2 GP
Highland Sheep Cheese - 2 GP
Chilton Stilton - 3 GP
Pungent Vykrul Gamalost - 1 GP
Spicy Sharp Cheddar - 5 GP
High Fibre Gouda - 5 GP
Mist Azsunian Feta - 1 GP
Boralus Bleu - 2 GP
Sour Vanilla Skyre - 3 GP
Slab of Cream Cheese - 3 GP
Tiragarde Sharp - 3 GP
Hathurford Brunost - 3 GP

From the Journal of Valdemar Ratsbane - 02

Valdemar Ratsbane and his wolf partner Shadow, sat on the canal bridge which separated the Dwarven District from the Old Town district, eating Rat Kabobs, and wondering if they could afford somewhere to sleep; they had tried to sleep in a deserted alleyway the night before, but sleep had proved elusive for both human and wolf; the stones were as cold as a slab in a crypt, and the rats had pestered them both enough that solid lengths of sleep had been neigh impossible. The rats had been fast, of extraordinary size, and seemingly fearless - neither Valdemar's crossbow nor Shadow's fangs had deterred them from venturing close to find something upon which t nibble.  Val was tired, and almost against his will, thought of giving up and going home to Eastvale.

Valdemar (often called "Val" by his friends) had arrived in Stormwind two days ago, full of determination to join the fight against the Defias Brotherhood which had terrorized the humans of Westfall and the Elywnn Forest for most of the seventeen years of his life.  He had asked about, and been sent to the Alliance Command Center, the base of operations for Stormwind's military forces. The enormous complex of barracks, training fields, armories, and stables had been almost deserted, housing only a skeleton crew of hardened veterans to train the city's militia. Upon seeing Shadow, and Val's crossbow and kill bag, they had sent him to speak to Wulf Hansreim.

Wulf Hansreim trained and commanded the Stormwind military's reconnaissance scouts and field provisioners, and while busy had taken time to discuss anti-Defias activities with Valdemar. "Young man, I encourage you to fight the Defias Brotherhood; in Westfall, Marshal Gryan Stoutmantle holds the line at Sentinel Hill, which is under constant assault by them.  In Goldshire, you will find Marshal Dughan, who is in charge of security in the Elwynn, from Redridge to Westfall, and north of the river from Darkshire. The poor fellow seems sorely beset, between the gnolls, the Defias, the kobolds... Fel, even the murlocs seem to give him no end of trouble.  if you want to help, go on down to Goldshire, and volunteer to help - all of our recruits are being sent to the front to replace casualties of the 7th Legion."

Val had thanked Hansreim, and pondered what to do.  He could enlist... Hansreim had indicated that he could even bring Shadow along - but had also said that if Val enlisted he would likely be sent to a different duty station than helping the effort against the Defias, and from the sound of it neither Marshal Dughan nor Stoutmantle had the resources to augment their forces, except informally.

Val left the Allied Command Center compound and made his way through the Old Town section of Stormwind.  Shadow paced him, occasionally chasing down and killing more rats - the little - or not-so-little - pests seemed everywhere.  Finally, Val vented his frustration - he cocked his crossbow string, selected a quarrel from his hip case, and skewered an enormous white rat that had seemed to taunt him from atop a wooden barrel.

Retrieving his quarrel, Valdemar was startled when, having discarded the rat carcass to the alley floor, a voice squeaked up in a high voice.

"Ye going to just waste that?" the voice said.  Val looked over behind a stack of boxes, where a gnome had been hiding.

"You want it?" offered Valdemar.

"Certainly I want it!  That rat is perfect!" said the gnome.

"Perfect for what?" Valdemar asked, dreading the answer but unable to resist asking it.

"For cooking, of course!" the gnome answered, leaving the shelter of the crates and extending his hand to Valdemar. "My name's Monty - me brother, Nipsy, runs a rat kabob operation on the other side of Deeprun Tram.  I get him meat, and he cooks it in a secret sauce formula and cooks it over a fire on skewers with pineapple, cherry tomatoes, and peppers!."

"Sounds... interesting.." said Valdemar, not wanting t to be rude.  He had never considered eating rat - too small to trouble with, really. "But I suppose if you had enough of them..." he thought.  Certainly, Shadow would not balk at such a meal, even raw - for her, meat was meat.

"Hey, ye seem pretty handy with that crossbow... tell you what, I'll pay ye 3 coppers per rat, plus all the kabobs you can eat if ye want to kill the wee beasties and bring them to me brother?" the gnome offered. "Save me a bunch of time and effort, so it will, if ye are interested?

"I accept," said Valdemar.  He would try the kabobs, and even if he didn't find them to his taste, he had no doubt that Shadow would enjoy them very much.

"Excellent!  Come by any time, you and your pet!" Monte said.

"We will... as soon as we get a pile worthy fo te trip.  Oh, and Shadow isn't my pet... i am her servant, Val joked, deadpan.

"What?"

"Well, think about it -  Who gets served meals?  Shadow. Who gets pets, and brushed? Shadow. Who is in charge?  Shadow."  Valdemar chuckled. "I am paid in love and affection."

"I swear, you tallards have the strangest ideas..." commented Monte, shaking his head.

Gathering a decent number of rat bodies had not taken Valdemar and Shadow long at all... they found an open-ended alleyway,, and Shadow came in one end, growling and prowling, and Val had shot rat after startled rat.  They had delivered two dozen bodies to Monty and Nipsy, and had been given a small pouch of silver and copper, as well as a half-dozen rat kabobs.

Valdemar had pondered his next move while they had collected rats for the two brothers; now that he had a secure, if meagre, source of income, he would go to Goldshire and see how he might help Marshal Dughan.

From the Journal of Valdemar Ratsbane - 01

Valdemar walked up the long road that had he had joined where it passed his home of Eastvale, and had turned north at Goldshire, heading for Stormwind, where he intended to find a way to fight against the predations of the Defias Brotherhood, bandits that had plagued him for most of his short life. 

Valdemar (named after his grandfather, who had in turn been named for his grandfather, ad infinitum) had grown up in Eastvale, the middle son of a family of loggers that had relocated from Lordaeron when it had been lost to the Forsaken.  At the age of three, Valdemar's family had been forced to relocate themselves to the kingdom of Stormwind, along with so many other refugees. They had settled in Eastvale, and turned their hand to logging. 

Valdemar had grown up with the Defias Brotherhood as a threat all of his life.  They occupied the area around Stone Cairn Lake in force, and the portion of the Elywnn Forest south of the road and watchtower were commonly acknowledged to be under their control.  Like everyone in Eastvale, Valdemar had lost friends and family to their oppressive depredations.

The turning point for Valdemar had been when he had learned that the loggers in and around Eastvale were playing the Defias Brotherhood to leave their logging parties in peace; Eastvale depended on the lumbering of the Elywnn Forest, and the Defias bandits had made it cheaper in both money and lives to pay them to leave the lumber camps alone.  That protection only applied to the lumber camps; people wandering astray in the forest were still at grave risk.

Valdemar had asked his father during dinner that night if it were true.

"Da, Jin and Rask Scoefield say that the lumber mill gives the Defias money to leave the lumber camps alone.  Is it true?" he had asked, hoping that his father would tell him that Val was being silly, listening to such rumors, that the lumber mill managers were not craven traitors that would cave to threats without a fight.

"Well, Valdy, it's not as simple as all that... but yes, they pay off the Defias to not harass the camps," confirmed Vessrelmar, his father (commonly called Vess).

"... but the Defias are a plague!  They want to destroy Stormwind!" objected Valdemar. "We can fight! We don't need to bribe them, especially when they still rob and kill... and worse!... anyone they catch in the woods!" Valdemar had objected excitedly,

"Calm down, Valdy... let me ask you this," his father had replied.  "You go out with the lumber camps, and you usually are on procurement duty, right?  They send you around to find rabbits and the like, enough so that we can live off the land, and not carry an extra wagonload with food, right?"

"Yeah...so?" Valdemar has said.

"And they send you out because you're a born hunter, lad - you can skewer a fly on a boar's rump at 100 yards with that crossbow of your, yeah?" his Da had continued.

Valdemar smiled.  His Da had started an old family joke, and he knew the next line was his. "Da, I can't even see a fly on a boar's rump at 100 yards!"

"Don't worry, son..." Vess had started, and the whole family around the table joined in on the punchline "They're always there!".  Everyone had laughed, and the mood had been lightened.

"Valdy, you're a dead shot with that crossbow, and you sneak around tracking your prey like a shadow in the night..." his father had said.  Off in the corner, Val's hunting wolf raised her head, thinking that she was being called; the young wolf bitch and her siblings had been rescued by Valdemar and his siblings when discovered abandoned in the forest nearby. The three beasts had been adopted by the whole family, and Shadow had bonded with Val almost immediately, following him everywhere until people had started calling her "Valdemar's Shadow", which had quickly been shortened to her name.

"So... if you wanted to kill a Deifas in their bandit camp, and you snuck up until you could see them clearly in the firelight... could they stop you?  Could they catch you?" Vess had asked, rhetorically. "Not unless they got really lucky, and you know it."

Valdemar nodded.  It was true - Valdemar and Shadow were successful hunters, patient and silent.

"So... if you did that every night, how long before they was all dead?"

"Well, they'd set out sentries!"

"Yeah, and what would you do then"

"Kill the sentries."

"Right... and if they didn't know where you lived, who to strike back against, you'd kill a good many of them before they finally caught you, right?"

Valdemar thought about that.  While he was still thinking, Vess added:

"So, how many of us do you think are worth not paying the Defias for safety?  Yeah, its a lot we pay - but how many of your friends, or the family of your friends, are worth dying?  The Defias aren't stupid, lad... they know, almost to the copper coin, how much we can pay while still making a profit."

"It's not a matter of courage, son... of we fought back, even if we were successful - Eastvale can't move around like they do. If they wanted, they could burn and kill our homes and families - we would make it cost them a lot, but they could do it if they wanted revenge hard enough - and that's just Dead-Tooth Jack's bunch by the river! No, we can't do much to stop the Defias on our own... and the Crown in Stormwind does what it can, but is mostly busy killing the Scourge or the Korde or the demons of the Burning Legion.  So we do what we can, and then do what me must, neh?"

The next day, Valdemar and Shadow had taken their gear, and left a note saying that if stopping the Defias was a Stormwind task, then he was heading to Stormwind to see how he could help; he felt kind of cowardly, but he knew that his Da would try to talk him out of it, try to stop him, and Val felt that he wouldn't be stopped, and didn't want to have a series of bitter arguments about it, he was going, and it would be easier to earn his family's forgiveness than their blessing.

He looked up to the gates of Stormwind - this was the beginning, the chance for Valdemar (and Shadow) to make a difference!