That evening, Jess couldn't find Gred at his rented room, so he went to the Pig and Whistle in Old Town.
He knew Gred often drank there. And not just Gred. Many veterans of the Dark Portal war and immigrants who'd come to Stormwind from all over the world liked the place.
Old Town, also called the Eastern District, was one of the parts of Stormwind that had survived the war in the best condition. It was also where the rebuilding effort was based.
Countless laborers and merchants had lived there during the early stages of reconstruction, which was how the Pig and Whistle had gained its standing.
Sure enough, Jess walked in and immediately spotted Gred drinking in a corner. It was the same corner every time, and the same huge mug of ale. Jess was used to it by now.
Gred was staring blankly at his empty mug, his face grave and serious, as though the mug itself had been what knocked out his eye.
Jess went over. “Gred, I need to talk to you about something.”
“Talk away. We can talk about anything.” Gred belched, making Jess wonder if a half-dead baby dragon lived in his stomach. Several young men and women nearby, who'd been laughing freely a moment ago, lowered their voices and stole glances in their direction.
Jess frowned and sat a little farther away.
“I've got something important to tell you, about tomorrow or the day after... Are you sober right now?”
“Of course I'm sober. Listen.” Gred slowly turned his eyes and fixed them on Jess's.
The longer Gred stared, the more uncomfortable Jess felt. He knew something unpleasant was probably coming.
Gred slowly inhaled and opened his mouth wide. Then, in an unnaturally loud, stiff voice, he began reciting like a man reading words off a page.
“Wildhammer warriors fight so well,
Elves and trolls all take a fall!
Can't find the damned elves anywhere,
So beat the trolls, the trolls and all!
One on the left and one on the right,
Two trolls right there in one little line!
Four eyes on two trolls, four tusks high,
Knock them out one by one, then home we fly!”
When his “opening poem” was over, Gred had become the center of attention in the entire inn.
It took Jess a long time to recover. He coughed awkwardly and waited for Gred's attention to settle back on his mug, returning to the dazed state he'd been in earlier.
Only when the frozen atmosphere in the inn slowly returned to its earlier bustle did Jess finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Gred muttered something. Jess couldn't make it out.
“What?”
“I said it was perfect.”
“What was perfect?”
“My poem. I recited it perfectly.”
“That counts as a poem? You just made it up, didn't you?”
“Don't be ridiculous. I'm not that talented.”
“What? Talented?” Jess paused, finally realizing the conversation had gone completely off track.
He tapped the table with his index knuckle to get the dwarf's attention. “Seriously. I've got a job that could make us money. Interested?”
“Honestly, not that interested. I'm planning to join the Warriors' Guild,” Gred said. “Some of their people came looking for me. There's a regular wage, and you can take jobs too. Catching wanted criminals, clearing wolves out of farms, that kind of thing. Stormwind doesn't have enough guards anymore. Bandits, orcs, gnolls... I even heard the murlocs over by Crystal Lake have a new leader. Everything's a mess. I think I'll give the guild a try.”
Hearing that Gred wanted to rediscover his passion for fighting, Jess suddenly felt awkward about bringing up his own plan.
But the dwarf quickly added, “Most of the guild members are old fellows who aren't quite old yet, with a few Bronzebeard youngsters mixed in. A lot have families to look after and a living to make. The guild can't force everyone to work full-time. Even if I join, I can take jobs on my own. So tell me about it, Jess. Let's see if your job has anything going for it.”
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Since Gred had said that, Jess explained, “I'm planning to leave the city, gather herbs, and sell them. What do you think?”
“Gather herbs?” Gred frowned. “Isn't that women's and elves' work?”
“Aren't the women where you're from about the same as the men here?” Jess lowered his voice as much as he could and checked that no female dwarves were nearby. “So the men here should do the gathering. Nobody would say anything.”
Then he roughly repeated the prices the alchemy merchant in the Mage Quarter would pay for herbs. When Gred heard them, he slammed the table and leaped up. Looking straight across at Jess at eye level, he shouted, “Really?”
“To hell with the Warriors' Guild! It's just a club for middle-aged and old men!” Gred roared toward the bar. “Miss! The usual dark one for me! Ironforge brew is fine too!”
He slowly sat down again. After thinking for a while, he lowered his voice. “But it'll be pretty dangerous, won't it? For that much money. And do you know anything about gathering herbs? You're so young. Did you attend herbalism lessons in Lordaeron or something? It's not that I don't trust you, it's just... well, I don't really trust you.”
Was this fellow actually sober? Why was every other thing out of his mouth nonsense?
Jess stared helplessly at the dwarf, who was barely managing to keep his eyes open. He whispered, “Look, even the herbalism shop owner trusted me. She agreed to buy what I gather and told me her prices. So why don't you trust me, Gred? You said gathering herbs was women's work where you're from. You're an old man. What would you know about it?”
“That's true enough. But I'm not old.”
“Right. A young man. Anyway, once we're outside the city, we'll work together. I'll find the herbs, and together we'll handle whatever trouble we run into. Mostly you, of course. Being a former gryphon rider has to count for something. Then when we sell the herbs, we'll split the money seventy-thirty. You get seventy, I get thirty. How about it?”
“Wouldn't that be unfair?” Gred struggled to hold back a grin and said shyly, “You know more about herbs, and you've already got a buyer, but you're giving me the bigger share. Fifty-fifty is fine.”
“I've got my own reasons,” Jess explained. “Kingsblood and the most expensive herb, Grave Moss, are for my personal use. I can't sell those.”
“Oh, I see. That's fair enough,” the dwarf said.
“And if we find any Evil Claws, I'd like to keep those too,” Jess added.
“Evil Claws? You mean the nails of those cursed beasts with necromantic darkness around them?”
“You know about them?”
“Of course. Trolls like using those things to make potions they put on weapons. The curses they inflict are terrible. If one of those cruel shadow hunters' cursed weapons so much as scrapes a dwarf's skin, it can cause sores that never heal. Eventually you could end up crippled or dead. Nasty stuff.”
“Good to know.”
“Sure is.” Gred gave a couple of amused snorts. “Where are you planning to go?”
“Raven Hill.”
“Raven Hill?” The dwarf hesitated. “Isn't that a bit far? A round trip could take a week.”
“If we want Grave Moss, that's the only place. We'll go there and back as fast as possible and won't waste time along the way. If we're lucky, four or five days should do it. And don't forget, I still have to get back to work for my mage employer. He's away on business but may return within a week. I have to report to him. We won't be gone too long.”
“The problem is, do we go through Redridge to Grand Hamlet, or take the western route around to Raven Hill? What a pain. Why can't we just cross Elwynn Forest and the Nefriti River and go straight to Raven Hill?”
Gred traced an arc in the air with his finger. “Unless you can fly across.”
Jess remembered that Stormwind didn't have gryphon service yet. There weren't even enough houses for people, much less gryphon roosts.
He'd never seen a real gryphon up close since coming to this world, not even in Lordaeron. He didn't know whether the gryphon masters from the game existed only because the developers needed something like travel points.
“Let's take the longer road through Sentinel Hill,” Gred said. “I hear gnoll tribes often occupy the road through the canyon from Redridge to Grand Hamlet. It gets cut off for days at a time. Westfall's safer. Even the Church's people don't use that canyon route anymore.”
“Sentinel Hill it is. I'll follow your lead,” Jess said.
Gred swirled his mug. “Want to stop at Moonbrook along the way? We could pick up supplies. Heard the pork-liver pies there taste twice as good as Stormwind's.”
Jess sighed. “That'd cost us a whole day. Wagon fare, travel expenses, and the pies... Gred, it's just too expensive.”
“All right. Anything else?” the dwarf asked. “Preparations before we set out, for example?”
“A bag that's big enough. It has to be sturdy, preferably waterproof,” Jess said. “The bags sold in the city are too small and too expensive. Got any ideas?”
“My travel sack was woven by people back home. It's strong enough to resist cuts. I've carried it all the way here with my weapons inside and it still hasn't torn. It's a bit waterproof too, so it'll be fine as long as it isn't soaked for too long. Most importantly, it's big. I reckon it'll hold dozens of pounds of herbs.”
“That's enough. Definitely enough,” Jess said. “We shouldn't carry too much anyway. It'll slow us down. And this is our first trip. I might not identify everything correctly, or we might not find that many herbs.”
“Anything that looks like the right stuff, throw it in! Let the experts sort it out!” Gred asked, “So when do we leave?”
“Tomorrow morning?”
“Afternoon. I've arranged a fight here tomorrow morning with the Warriors' Guild fellows so they can see what I'm made of.”
“Didn't you just say you weren't interested in joining?”
“Whether I join the guild is another matter. The fight has to happen, little brother Jess. Want to come watch your big brother show off tomorrow?”
Jess saw Gred clench his fists, apparently trying hard to hold the shaking in his wrists under control.
“Sure. I'll be there. Speaking of which, you're always calling me little brother and yourself my big brother. How old are you anyway? I've never asked.”
“I'm sixty-something. Sixty-four, I think. Can't complain about me calling you little brother, can you?”
“And you call that young? I... you...”
“What's with the ‘you’ and ‘I’? Don't measure us by human years. Muradin of Ironforge is over two hundred and still fought in the Battle of Blackrock Mountain. I'd say he's in his prime! Those Bronzebeards might not know much else, but they sure know how to live a long time. Not that we're far behind.”