The forests of Alterac’s lowlands were deathly quiet. Thanks to Aiden Perenolde giving free passage to the Horde through his lands and the Alliance subsequent retaliation, anything with fewer than six legs had been devoured or had fled from both invaders to the highlands. It would take years for the region to recover from the desolation, and in the meantime Alterac’s outskirt valleys were avoided by most people.

Most, because invariably as humans especially were wont to do, desperation led them down unusual paths. It was unsurprising that Korialstrasz’s agents had noticed some banditry in the region, but what was uncommon was how easily their camps were located. Vasyrgos hadn’t even needed a scrying spell, and instead let the dwarf and elf track down the rather obvious trail.

They were desperate to escape whatever downtrodden lives they once had, but not desperate enough to really hide themselves. With the Alliance occupiers only sticking to well-traveled routes, the local brigands had simply avoided those areas and stuck to the shallower regions of the empty forests.

It was under these conditions that Valoghan casually followed along Lora and Kyle while Korialstrasz and the other agents broke the regent councilors’ wills. Vasyrgos had promised his crimson-scaled cousin to ensure Kyle’s safety, and to that end he’d cast several enchantments on the party. It was rather impressive that the dwarf didn’t raise any comments about it, simply accepting the spells that fell on her before she led the way.

“Huh, mud’s not too dried yet. Smell that? Unless there’s actually animals about, someone’s been pissing nearby recently. Trail’s getting fresher.”

For her part, the armored dwarf was taking her time in tracking their quarry. Probably under Krasus’ instructions, Lora was pointing out the clues she noticed to Kyle, teaching him the basics of tracking.

Yes, it would’ve been easier to use a spell, but Vasyrgos approved of the idea of letting the boy build up some talents outside of spellcasting and alchemy. This would be his first blooding too, so the dragon had to make an effort to remember to hold back on his spells when the time came. Whether he killed them or cowed them into submission, Kyle had to face some actual hostility and temper himself.

It was like looking after whelps, Vasyrgos suddenly mused, and that happy little thought was quickly smothered by the oppressive reminder that the blue dragonflight was still clawing its way out of extinction. His sire, Malygos, was roused out of his reclusiveness after Deathwing’s defeat at Grim Batol, but his sanity was still recovering. From last Vasyrgos heard, some inroads had been made recently as the Aspect of Magic had readmitted Saragosa back into his lair. Hopefully, she will resume her duties as prime consort soon…

Vasyrgos tsked audibly as he forced the dour thought away. He did not want to fall into that pit of wallowing again. Ignoring the looks from Lora and Kyle, he waved them on and distracted himself by refreshing everyone’s protections.

Kyle’s would require additional care, of course. Psionic magic, as far as they’ve tested so far, had a tendency to simply undo the less robust spell matrices whenever Kyle used it. As such, Vasyrgos had slowly made it a habit to tweak his spells with added redundancies that would’ve been outright wasteful in more normal situations.

He doubted the shields and wards would ever be tested, considering Lora and his own presence here, but it was better to be safe than sorry. And it helped to keep the blue dragon in practice by spellcasting in disguise.

The trio soon found themselves walking down a hunting trail, where the signs were obvious that it was far from disused.

“See the way the grass is crushed?” Lora softly pointed out to Kyle, continuing their lesson even as they got closer to danger. “Means that patch gets stomped on a lot. See that? Ignore the footprint itself, the way the dirt’s cracking around it…”

Vasyrgos simply adjusted his dampening spell to accommodate the lesson, lessening the chances of them being discovered. An invisibility spell might be more effective, but who knows how long it’d be before they found the bandits so he opted for a less mana-hungry spell instead.

Sure, the actual use of invisibility wouldn’t really tax his energy, but it was a habit that Vasyrgos refused to shake out of when he ventured beyond his lair. Plus, it was good practice to hold a reserve to quickly blast anything short of an Aspect out of the sky before teleporting back to the safety of his lair if he had to.

It took a while more before they finally found their quarry, a pitiful collection of tents within a perimeter of poorly constructed watchtowers. Vasyrgos had smelled the whole thing well before he saw it, of course, but he let Lora and Kyle find their way to the camp by themselves.

The men and women that trudged about the bandit camp were grim and maybe a bit on the gaunt side, but the cloak of oppression did not weigh so heavily on their shoulders. There was little of the furtiveness in these people compared to the villagers and cityfolk. They grinned and laughed more freely among themselves.

Such honest joy, even if the specter of desperation gnawed at the edges of the scene… Vasyrgos felt some pity at watching the brigands obliviously go about their day.

“Looks like they’re just back from a good raid,” the dwarf whispered from beside him, nodding over to a few humans rummaging through a pile of sacks and picking out vegetables and dried meat to be carried into cauldrons. They could be preparing a feast, probably their first really good eating in a while judging from how animated they were.

“If I may,” the dragon began before Lora would give Kyle the order to charge and begin a slaughter. “Perhaps this sorry bunch is not deserving of bloodshed?”

Lora gave him an incredulous look. “They’re bandits, aye?”

“And so are the Alliance regents and soldiers occupying this kingdom,” Kyle surprisingly replied. “These people are simply more honest about it. I don’t see any gold or silver on them.”

Vasyrgos gave the camp a more scrutinizing look, whispering a few spells to help him. “There’s a few coins laying about,” he agreed. “But if the value of things hadn’t changed in a while, I’d say that the weapons are the most expensive objects here.”

“They could’ve bought their food from the nearby village,” Lora suggested in an unhappy mutter, which Kyle nodded to.

“True. I guess we’ll have to find out their characters.”

The dwarven warrior seemed ready to protest more vehemently, but then she settled for sighing and rolling her eyes instead.

“Well, put it this way, if these were your fellow dwarves, and the Alliance soldiers were, say, elves-”

Lora’s head snapped around to fix a glare on Vasyrgos. “I get the point, mage. It’s why I’m not saying no in the first place. We’ll go talk to them, but don’t be so tolerant of any bullshit they sling your way. Dwarves, elves, humans…sacks of scum exist.”

Kyle gave a determined nod. “For their sake, let’s see if the food is taken from villages instead of the Alliance camps.”

They broke their cover and walked straight into the camp, earning the panicked surprise of its inhabitants. Knives and spears were hastily grabbed and shakily pointed their way. Their attention was mostly focused on Lora, who was fully clad in armor and wielding a mace and a relatively small shield. Vaysrgos didn’t need magic to know that these people were utterly terrified for their lives.

“Relax, we’ve come to talk,” she opened dryly, her weapon arms swinging lazily by her side. “It’d be a bloodier greeting otherwise.”

“Do you have a leader, or will I be addressing all of you at once?” Kyle asked politely.

“Wh-Who are you?” a woman asked, and then immediately shrank back when the trio’s attention was fixed on her.

Vasyrgos double-checked and confirmed that the enchantments were in place before nodding at Kyle, who then answered with a reassuring smile: “I’m Kyle Daelam, king of Alterac, as appointed by the Alliance.” He paused for a second to let the words sink in before adding, “I’ve still to be coronated to make it official, but I still have some powers available…like touring the lands I’m supposed to rule, and looking into supposed bandit issues.”

Eyes went wide at the accusation, and the bandits trembled further as they slowly backed away from Kyle. “We…we’re not bandits!” someone shouted from the fearful mob.

“Ye’re a bunch of folks living in the woods outside of the law,” Lora casually pointed out. “Don’t all look like hunters or rangers to me, either.”

“Perhaps you can clarify why you’re here?” Kyle quickly added, causing eyes to glance worryingly at the metal-clad dwarf before settling for the gentler sounding boy beside her.

“We’ve nowhere else to go!” the woman from earlier finally answered.

Kyle allowed for a very slight pause before replying, not wanting to appear aggressive in his inquiry. “And why is that?”

“W-Well…after the Horde came through…”

Vasyrgos noted with some satisfaction that a dialogue was finally established, with Kyle applying the short lessons in diplomacy from Halion rather admirably. Between his veneer of reasonableness and Lora’s intimidating glare, the history of these refugees - and they were nothing except refugees - were carefully unfolded, revealing a rather somber picture of life in Alterac.

“The Alliance were only better than the greenies by the fact that they didn’t kill us outright,” one former tradesman offered. “They just came up, cursed all of us traitors and heretics, and kicked us out of our towns.”

“The more intact our homes, the angrier they were,” another person added.

Vasyrgos recalled the map of Alterac and overlaid it with the descriptions of these people’s homes. Most of their homes were now marked as Alliance bases. Some of the more strategically located ones were being fought over by the Gilnean and Stromgarde regents.

“Many sought shelter in the cities, or tried their luck with the nearby villages. I’ve met a few of them a few weeks back, they’re just surviving, but the soldiers leave them alone.”

By this point, both Kyle and Lora were frowning, and Vasyrgos found himself joining them. This was far from the careful attention the regents had promised.

“If not for Micah being a hunter, our lot would’ve been dead from hunger or desperation,” the woman, Breana, explained regarding this current group’s founding. “Led us to the woods out of the patrols’ way and taught us how to survive off the trees and roots.”

“And where’s Micah now?” Kyle subsequently asked, glancing about his bedraggled people.

A heaviness settled on the group then, and a man, less worn down than his peers, shook his head. “Passed a couple months back. Coughed himself to death.”

“My condolences.”

Breana nodded once and gulped silently. “Yeah… A-Anyway, we were doing alright for a bit, but food’s hard to come by here, you understand? So…so when we found an Alliance wagon with its wheel busted by the roadside…”

Kyle let out a soft sigh. “I was told that there’d been casualties…”

As one, the peasants’ eyes went wide as they looked among themselves. “We din’ kill anyone! O-or hurt anyone too much! Swear by the Light! Conner and Lou just lured the guards into a pit trap and it bought us enough time to grab what we could.”

“Which meant empty the whole wagon?”

“We barely got off with half of it,” Breana quickly answered, before wilting under Kyle’s stare for a second. “Well…we tried taking more, but some of the sacks were torn, and the guards were climbing out as we ran off, so we lost a bit…”

The congregation startled nervously when Lora cursed aloud. “Feckin’ swear that you humans really need to get your shit together. Can’t even manage a proper raid…”

Kyle gave a light shrug as he regarded the annoyed dwarf. “Well, as an observer of Khaz Modan, what do you say, Lora?”

She answered with a stink eye. “Well, your highness, I’m saying we should bring this lost souls back to the city, feed ‘em, and then get more things straight about how things are run here.”

Breana’s jaw dropped as if something of great significance hit her. “W-Wait, you…you weren’t joking?” She fixed Kyle with boggled eyes. “Y-You’re really the king?”

“I’m supposed to be,” the boy answered with a casual shrug, before smirking. “Though I might get kicked out once I start making some changes… Valoghan, your thoughts on the matter?”

Barely remembering his cover, Vasyrgos provided an answer with a sagely nod. “Your…highness, I would have to agree with the good dwarf’s suggestion. These people are not the bandits we’re after.” The disguised dragon gave Breana and her people a look before their shoulders could sag with relief. “Though considering why we’re here in the first place, perhaps they might direct us to actual bandits, so that the day is not completely wasted?”

Unfortunately, the refugees knew of no bandits around the region.

Fortunately, they found probably something better: Gnolls. With the Alliance and Horde presence lifted from the region, the desolate land became prime camping grounds for the opportunistic creatures. Vasyrgos recalled a few red-scaled cousins having low regard for the hyena-like people, finding their belligerent and fickle nature too bothersome to properly herd. Apparently they were one of the rare ‘intelligent’ races (a highly debatable point, even among the scholarly blue dragons) that the red dragonflight tended to immediately treat with hostility if found near their lairs. The dimwitted gnolls understand enough to be terrified by a dragon’s presence, but it was an amazingly short-term thing, and as soon as the dragon was gone they’d return to harass and potentially threaten nesting sites.

Bothersome pests, basically. Maybe even Korialstrasz might not bat an eye at Kyle having attacked them on sight.

They ended up having Breana and a few humans serving as guides, and by late afternoon Vasyrgos had his first close encounter with the gnolls.

Kyle too, most likely.

Lora was probably familiar with them, considering that she wore a scowl of disgust ever since she heard the word ‘gnoll’, and her hand never let go of her battleaxe ever since.

“I didn’t expect them to stink so much,” Kyle remarked, voicing what Vasyrgos’ draconic senses had noted far before they got this close.

Lora snorted. “Yeah, well, trust me, this is about as good as they smell. They’re barely fed right now. Once they start putting meat on the table, the feckers will stink enough to rouse the ancestors.”

“In that case, I’m surprised they’re even here in the first place,” Vasyrgos noted.

“Eh, new clan seeking new territory mebbe. Not a lot of them about.” On hearing that information, Vasyrgos gave the gnoll camp a quick headcount, and came up with a rough estimate of no more than twenty of the brutish creatures. Twenty-five at most, assuming that the collection of twigs that don’t deserve to be called shelters were occupied.

The dwarf nodded over to a rather mangy gnoll draped in mismatched pieces of armor barking and nipping at its nearest packmates. “That seems to be the largest of the lot, so it’ll be their alpha, their leader.” She then made a dismissive grunt. “I’ve seen bigger runts back in Loch Modan.”

Despite Lora’s encouraging words, Breana and her friends were still well intimidated by the sight of the camp. Kyle, thankfully, only wore a thoughtful frown.

“So do I try to parley?”

“Pfft. Good luck with that.” Lora hefted her axe with both hands as she grinned at the boy. “Go on and try. It’ll be a good experience, and a good laugh. I’ll be right behind ye.”

For a moment, it seemed like Kyle wanted to protest, but then he gave a shrug and turned to Vasyrgos with an oddly determined look.

“Valoghan, you can drop your sneaking spell.”

Mortals and their need to prove themselves. The disguised dragon gave the young king a bemused look before complying. The gnolls instantly perked up as they caught the now unprotected scent of the party.

Kyle stepped out into the open, arms open wide in a show of peace. “Hello there. I-”

His words were cut off as the gnolls all stared at him as one, and then the alpha pointed at him and broke into a cackle. “Me-he-he-att!” Then they drew their rusted blades and cleavers, and charged at Kyle.

Lora snickered as she began to break out of the foliage cover. “Heheh. Kid’s a bit stupid, but in a good way.”

Vasyrgos had to agree, though he kept his opinion silent and instead turned to the human guides. “Kindly stay put, and stay safe. My spells will keep you out of the gnolls’ attention so long as you don’t run off.” At least Breana had the presence of mind to answer with a mute nod. After giving everyone a quick double-check to make sure that their spells were in place, the hermit mage Valoghan stepped out to join the dwarf and their young ward.

Said ward was currently staying admirably calm, though draconic sight could pick out the faint tremor of nerves on his limbs. Kyle raised his hands and sent out two bolts of blue-white energy that flew with unerring accuracy. The first gnoll to be hit was blasted off its feet with a sharp explosion and a sickening crack of broken limbs. It landed almost where it started, quite dead. The other recipient took a glancing hit, but even then the explosive energy sent it flying limply into its packmates and fouling their charge.

A few more bolts, and a few more gnolls were tossed like ragdolls. Then Kyle broke into a counter-charge. His bracer materialized with its usual suddenness, and the boy let out something akin to a warcry as he swiped the conjured blade of light across the alpha’s head. The gnoll leader instinctively brought up its own nicked and bloodied sword to block, but its eyes boggled right as the psionic blade sliced neatly through metal, fingers and fur, and continued straight into and past the gnoll’s snout. Kyle’s body then quickly snapped about, driving his blade upwards with an uppercut that fully decapitated the mangled alpha’s head.

Even as Vasyrgos prepared a simple missile spell, he noted the damage his student had dealt, and he could already hear Korialstrasz’s ‘I told you so’ for suggesting to test the blade’s properties on himself.

Ignoring the death of their leader, the gnolls tried to converge on Kyle. Lora’s arrival fouled their attempt, the dwarf rushing into melee with a roar and surprising speed for her stature.

“Ahaha! Have at ye!”

She was beside Kyle in mere seconds, her axe half-buried in an unwary gnoll. With a good yank, the axe was freed and was soon sent swinging again to knock away weapons and lop of limbs.

Vasyrgos noted the action taking place with the detachment of a sage while he unleashed a stream of arcane missiles. The magical projectiles were not as spectacular on their impact as Kyle’s, but the barrage still blasted small craters into four gnolls and dropped them.

By the time he let off his second spell - a carefully aimed ice lance to skewer three gnolls - less than half of the growling, snarling creatures were left standing. Lora was a violent whirlwind of death, brutally mutilating any gnoll she got in range of, while Kyle was darting about, his psionic blade leaving a pretty trail of light as he carved effortlessly through flesh, bone and metal. The protective spells were not needed at all; Lora’s armor was more than enough to bounce off the shoddy weapons of the gnolls, while Kyle expertly avoided every hit even when being flanked.

Before Vasyrgos could set off his third cantrip, Lora was letting out a triumphant roar as she buried her axe into the last gnoll’s skull. The dwarf was in high spirits indeed despite- or perhaps due to being completely drenched in blood and gore.

Kyle on the other hand kept a stony, neutral frown as he regarded the carnage around him.

Something about his stiffness was vaguely familiar for Vasyrgos…

Lora stomped over to the boy with a wide grin. “Ah, that was a good little brawl! Good footwork there, yer highness.” She gave him a light, comradely pat on the arm, and Kyle turned to stare at the blood-caked Lora for a second.

Then he stared down at the bloody handprint on his sleeve for another.

And then Kyle hurried away and bent over to violently retch and heave.

Ah, right. Some humanoids raised in more sterile conditions had a reaction to this particular sensory overload. Hence the need for desensitization. Hopefully Kyle would grow inured to it after a few more excursions.

The dragon took in for a few seconds the scene of Lora patting the boy on his back and offering encouraging words as he puked, then returned to the rather shocked refugee guides.

“Perhaps we could rest at your camp for the night before we all leave for Alterac City? I’m sure His Highness Kyle would appreciate some water and some rest… Maybe some dinner, if he feels up to it.”