Chapter 10

Traversing the woods south to the Westbrook Garrison proved to be as difficult as Corben feared. Within an hour this was the fourth gnoll patrol they had to face. The forest wasn't too dense in the area and that let the gnolls make larger patrol groups, which in turn was hard to handle with only a four-member group without a healer.

Corben shot an icicle at a gnoll who tried to strike Lonaraa from a side and shouted. "Two more to your left. Osbeorn, how is the back?"

The bear grunted back. "Three dog-facit bastards on him." Eldum translated for the bear as he unloaded his gun on a gnoll that was casting a spell in the distance.

"I'll help the bear. Take care of the rest of the casters." Jithu shouted, leaving Lonaraa's side.

Despite their rudimentary intelligence, a gnoll pack operated like a single unit trying to overwhelm the adventurers with their numbers.

Corben shot another icicle at the robed gnoll in the distance and immediately followed it with an interrupt to prevent another one from casting a fireball.

Meanwhile, Eldum's gun worked overtime finding target after target. They needed to cull their numbers fast, as the chance of another patrol coming to help the gnolls were high.

Lonaraa held off three melee fighters on her own using her tall stature as leverage over the much smaller creatures. The few cuts she had already received from the gnolls' crude swords and axes were not dangerous.

Osbeorn and Jithu quickly dispatched the three gnolls targeting the bear with Osbeorn keeping their attention on him and the nimble gnome made short work of them with her poisoned daggers.

Once the last gnoll hit the ground, Corben looked around and said. "We need to get closer to the water. Going through the woods to find the bastard was a bad idea."

"I doubt Hogger went fishing." Jithu said as she cleaned gnoll the blood off her weapons. "Besides, the river is crawling with murlocs."

"I know. But at this point, I much prefer them over gnolls." Corben replied leaving out the fact that he banked on the fishy creatures recognizing him and his group.

"You think they would help us out?" Lonaraa asked innocently.

"Why would murlocs help us? Just what sort of voodoo do you plan to perform?" Jithu asked.

"Lonaraa, when you have that sort of connection you don't blurt them out to people you know for a day!" Corben scolded her and then faced Jithu. "Let's just say we ran into smarter-than-average murlocs and came to an agreement. If we don't hunt them they will leave us alone."

"My daddy didn't make me with a finger, pal." Jithu raised her already high-pitched voice. "Just spill the beans."

"I already told you. We have an agreement with them and murlocs surely don't like gnolls. So we can move forward by the river and try to locate Hogger that way."

"I want to see you speaking murloc, or next you gonna tell me they speak common."

"You'll see."

Jithu just shook her head and followed Corben. 'And I thought I was the crazy one. I really need to leave a good impression on these guys. I am not getting kicked out of another group. I sure as hell won't find another group of competent weirdos.'

Her own people were not too averse to her antics but that could not be said about other Alliance races. Being a rogue, the least trusted class, didn't help things either. Now that there was a party consisting of oddball characters, she had her chance to fit in.

Luckily, they managed to reach the riverside without another ambush. Corben started to walk by the shore while looking in the water hoping to see a murloc underneath.

Not even five minutes later, a small murloc came out of the riverside bushes and motioned at Jithu.

"She is with us. No one will believe that ball of crazy if she tries to tell anyone." Corben told the murloc.

"Who are you calling crazy!" Jithu shouted. "You are the one talking with a murloc."

"I'll take your word for it. Gllmngh clan did describe you as capable and reasonable." The murloc spoke in gargled common.

Jithu for a moment started at the murloc then at her companions and finally pinched herself. "I thought you were just pulling my leg!" She finally said. "Sure, my mouth is shut. No one would believe it anyway." She addressed the murloc.

"Excellent. It has come to our attention that you are hunting Hogger. Is that the case, Mr. Withers?"

'How the hell did they get my full name? We need to be really careful with them.' "We do have a quest to kill him. You have some deal in mind?"

"Of course. My clan would greatly benefit if the gnolls lost their leader. Here is the location of all their camps and Hogger's patrol route. He keeps his clan in check by appearing in each camp daily." The murloc handed a small, tightly sealed bronze tube to Corben.

"Thanks, that will help us a lot." Corben opened the tobe and took out a scroll to confirm the information.

"Indeed, and in turn, your actions will help us. Good hunting, Mr. Withers."

Murloc bowed and was about to move back into the bushes when Jithu shouted. "Wait."

"Yes, young lady?"

"I plan to detonate all the bombs stashed in gnoll camps. I wanted to give heads up to not be near any of them." She said hastily. Whatever was going on, her gut feeling told her to not mess around with the murlocs.

"Noted. Thank you for the warning." The murloc bowed again and disappeared into the bushes.

The rest of the group gathered around Corben to look at the map the murloc had given.

"I'll be damned. This is so well made." Jithu dragged her finger over the paper. "Nice quality of paper, very detailed. Only a trained gnome scholar can recreate such a map."

"If we are here then Hooger should be in the nearest camp in two hours. Did you rig this one as well?"

"Yea. I think I have missed only two of them in total. I have a remote so I can blow them up any time." Jithu replied.

"Great. Then we will ambush him here and you will detonate your bombs the moment he shows up, so we can finish him off quickly in the chaos and disperse before the bulk of them can come and help their leader." Corben explained his plan as he pointed to a spot right between the two nearest camps. "Any objections?"

"Sounds guid." Eldum said with a nod. Corben's plans usually didn't fail and he had full confidence this would be the case once again.

"What if it fails and more gnolls show up?" Lonaraa asked.

"I still have the acid flasks. In either case, we quickly finish off Hogger and retreat. Be sure no one stays behind!"

Following the plan, they located a perfect ambush spot and laid low waiting for the Hogger to walk past with just his few guards.

After two hours of mind-numbing wait, the massive gnoll finally appeared flanked by three much smaller gnolls.

"Jithu, now!" Corben whispered.

"Got it, boss." The gnome whispered back and pulled a remote with a big red button from her backpack. She took off the safety and pressed the button.

What exactly happened, Corben couldn't tell. The entire world instantly became white and then after a short bang everything went silent. A massive force sent him flying and he first hit a tree and then ground with a painful thud.

The shield he kept around himself during the battle situations proved to be his savior as only because of it he remained conscious.

Corben sat up, wiping blood out of his eyes as the scenery spun around him. Those trees that were still standing were bent at odd angles. There was a large crater a short distance away giving a clue on what exactly happened.

'Con… need heal…' He couldn't put his thoughts together. Everything hurt like hell, and the only sound he could hear was a high pitch ringing somewhere deep inside his head.

He quickly opened his backpack only to find most of the vials smashed. Luckily there were few healing potions intact. Corben quickly drank one and hoped it would be enough. Not knowing in what state he would find his companions he could not risk drinking more.

With pain somewhat subsiding and his shattered eardrums regrowing, he could concentrate on the present moment.

He quickly located Lonaraa passed out, laying beside a tree. Corben ran up to her and helped to drink a healing potion.

"Thank you." She whispered and slowly opened her eyes. "What happened?"

"I think we were too close to the explosion. Can you move?"

"I think so." Loanraa unsteadily stood up.

"Help me find Eldum, Osbeorn, and that insane goblin." Corben said as he looked around.

All three were near, with Osbeorn being the least affected. Relying on his animal instincts, he had ducked and covered his ears, and closed his eyes, ending up with minor bruises.

The dwarf and gnome were not so lucky but could be fixed up with healing potions.

"Whoops. I guess I used a teeny bit too many explosives." was all Jithu could say with an awkward laugh on the matter.

"'Tiny bit'? Your freaking stunt could probably be seen from Kalimdor! Just how much did you use?!" Corben asked, barely suppressing the desire to strangle her.

"I don't know, about twenty or so kilos per camp." Jithu scratched her head. "I wanted to be sure none of them survived. I guess I miscalculated the potency of the powder."

"As long as anyone is unharmed we should move on." Loanraa interjected. "We need to find Hogger."

"You lecture me for a whole day about smoking the wrong herbs and are now letting this pest get away with blowing up half of the freaking forest?" Corben raged.

"I… we can discuss it later." Lonaraa said, adding with a quieter tone. "You know what that was about."

"Sure… let's just find Hogger and we can deal with this fallout later." Corben reluctantly agreed.

"Thare, dae ye hear the whimpers?" Eldum pointed to the south.

The group quickly followed and found the massive gnoll curled on the ground and whimpering.

'Quite a reasonable reaction to being in the middle of all this.' Corben mused.

"Lonaraa do the honors." He nodded his head at the creature.

She quickly put Hogger out of his misery with a quick jab in the neck and cut off the unresponsive gnoll's head as proof of the deed. As for the armbands, they likely were scattered to the four winds with the rest of the gnoll pieces and no additional profit could be made.

Just to be on the safe side, the group took the route back by the river although there was little chance that many gnolls survived, much less were in any shape to fight.

"We are not taking the fall for what you caused." Corben said to Jithu as they approached the garrison.

"Leave it to me. I will explain everything." Jithu said with a bold smile. "I have talked my way out of worse situations than this one."

"Sure." 'If that goblin tries to pin everything on us our careers as adventurers are pretty much over. It will be our word against hers.' Corben grimly mused.

"You are alive!? What happened?" Deputy Rainer asked them.

"The gnoll threw a fireball! It hit one of their huts and BOOM!" Jithu shouted the last word. "I can think of only one reason why such an explosion happened."

"How could hitting a gnoll hut possibly cause that sort of explosion?" Rainer asked, clearly suspicious.

"I may not be an expert, but I think it's because of the food they have hoarded. You see when the food starts to rot it accumulates highly flammable gas, and if it's in a closed space…" Jithu broke into a very long-winded explanation.

Corben just took a step aside and watched in amazement how the gnome talked the deputy's ears full with increasingly scientific babble. Then came the numbers. Jithu delivered the whole speech on thermodynamics with a passion that implied that she had prepared her whole life for just this moment.

Rainer tried to interrupt her a few times without any success. The guard next to him started to doze off while the deputy couldn't escape the enthusiastic gnome. When some critical limit was reached he silently stared at Corben with a pleading expression.

'Damn, she is good at bullshiting. I better stop her while the poor man can still take it.' "Jithu, I think our good deputy understood the gist of what happened. You can stop."

"But I didn't even get to the best part!" She whined blinking her eyes in a pleading manner.

"You can write a paper on it." Corben played along. "Anyhow, we got Hogger. Here is the proof." He pointed at the gnoll head in Lonaraa's arms and handed the deputy the note the marshal had written about the increased reward.

Never in his life had he seen someone so eager to just pay out the reward and get rid of them. Corben theatrically dragged away Jithu, who still tried to continue her lecture, receiving a wordless 'thank you' from the poor deputy.

Once they were out of sight, Corben let her go and handed her twenty-five silver coins. "Here is your cut."

"Not bad. This calls for celebration." Jithu exclaimed with a wide smile.

"Sure, spend however you like, and good luck in your future endeavors." Corben motioned for his group to follow him.

"You are just dropping me like that?" Jithu sniffed.

'Shit! She will use the same theatrics on us. I just know Lonaraa will fall for it.' "Well, we teamed up for a quest, and since it's done we can go out merry ways." He held no illusions of what was about to follow.

"But we work so well together. You can't just leave me all alone." She broke into tears. "You guys are the best team I have worked with." Jithu turned her tear-stained face towards Lonaraa. "Please don't leave me."

"Let me guess, you almost killed your previous team as well and now no one in their right mind wants to work with you?" Corben was not about to let her win that easily.

"It wasn't my fault. A slight miscalculation, that's all. I promise to follow your lead and not cause any more trouble." She continued to cry.

"Corben, I know she made a big mistake, but shouldn't we give her a second chance?" Lonaraa asked.

"Do you have a death wish, woman? This pest almost blew us up! Sure, she talked herself out of any blame but we could all have died if we were any closer."

"I promise to be more careful. I'm sure a great leader like you will keep me in check. I really like you guys." Jithu sobbed.

"Hou aboot we give her another chance an see hou it goes?" Eldum said while stroking his beard. "Gnomes have some quirks, but since she coud produce thon much explosives we wad have a great boost i firepower."

'Hmm, what should I use as a counterargument… oh, I know.' Corben smiled. "Before I make my final decision, what is your opinion on walking everywhere?"

"Do I look like someone who wants to walk everywhere, pal? I will build a steam-powered horse before crossing half of Elwynn on my feet." Jithu said, dropping her crying act.

"Welcome to the team then. Hold on to that steam-powered horse idea. These two love walking." Corben motioned at Lonaraa and Eldum.

"Why do I think you only agreed because you want another voice to agree with your laziness." Loanraa remarked.

"Smart girl." Corben patted Lonaraa on the back and added. "Now we can go celebrate. I think some time in Stormwind is just what we need."

Proofreading by Sad_Smiles and Visur Nyxan.

AN: Thank you for reading the story, and if you have caught up to the latest chapter, you can check out my other work or join my discord server (Link is in my profile) where additional chapters are available.