A Storm

Kazimierz awoke to the crack of thunder and the dull roar of torrential rain. He rose muzzily up to a seated position, dimly aware that he wasn’t being soaked-someone must have moved him to shelter. Given the sounds of the tempest, they’d saved him a great deal of trouble.

The storms in Durotar are always so furious, he thought, rubbing the grit from his eyes. The spirits are stronger here than in Arathi…

Unbidden, Kazimierz’s thoughts turned to the land of his birth. The internment camps, shoddily and quickly built, their borders closely guarded by hard-eyed soldiers; the perpetually overcast skies above, with barely a wisp of muggy wind in the summers to carry the pungent scent of kingsblood into the camps; even in memory, the highlands of Arathi had little to endear them to Kazimierz. The people, though-they had been the grimmest part of childhood.

Lethargic, all of them-too defeated even to fight amongst themselves. Haunted with guilt and shame, only clinging to life to avoid the final dishonor of suicide…what did they do to bring such despair to themselves?

Kazimierz had heard the histories, of course-the tale of the demonic pact on Draenor, of the rise of the warlocks and the assault through the Dark Portal. But they never explicitly spelled out the atrocities of the demon-cursed Horde, only hinted and intimated with hollow eyes.

If they mentioned anything at all, that is. Most of the old warriors won’t talk about anything that happened before the Warchief liberated us. They must have done terrible things…

His musings were interrupted by a loud bang, quite unrelated to the thunder. This was followed by a litany of high-pitched curses in a number of languages, only a few familiar to the shaman. With a pained grunt, Kazimierz stood and slipped towards the source of the noise, where a familiar, tiny figure poked out of a battered metal cylinder, larger than a human’s coffin. Inside, a wild mishmash of gears and chains smoked furiously as Vicks worked.

“Did the rocket fuel volatilize again, Vicks?” Kazimiez asked, coughing painfully on the stench of burning oil. “I thought you had that problem worked out.”

The goblin paused in his rummaging and withdrew from the innards of the machine. “Kazi! You’re finally awake, yeah? I found you outside when I was on my way back here. You looked kinda beat up.”

Kazimierz bowed as deeply as he was able. “I thank you for your care, Vicks. I had a frank exchange of opinions with the Farseer. Her argument had more impact than mine, I fear,” he said wryly, finding a patch of ground a reasonably safe distance away from the goblin’s turbine to rest on.

Vicks laughed, the screechy sound cutting sharply above the dull sound of the storm outside. “Good one! I tell ya, Kazi, you orc types sure seem to like beating on each other,” he said. Vicks looked at the smoking mechanism and shook his head sorrowfully. “This, though, this is bad. I was trying to modify it to fix a little sand-intake problem-it kept exploding every time they tried to start the engine in the salt flats-and then I decided the acceleration curves were too flat and I might as well fix them while I had it open, which of course meant I had to install the Shinespark Mk. IV injectors instead of the Gazzlebolt Extra Stables, and that…”

Kazimierz let the goblin keep up his breathless rant until it ran its course-no doubt Vicks had been unable to resist adding more power to the machine while adding the dust screens. The engine, being of goblin make, had already been well beyond the safe limits of its construction.

They test the limits of every device until it fails completely, only to start anew. They are more punishing to their creations than our teachers are to us. By the nether, I hope never to be a goblin’s test case! There’d be nothing left to go to the healers with.

While the vast majority of orcs (and truth to tell of sapients of the world in general) found goblins to be irritating, finicky creatures with voices that shaved sheets of patience away with every syllable, Kazimierz had always enjoyed learning the tricks of engineering with Vicks. The goblin’s home didn’t hurt; safely tucked away in a naturally ventilated cave, the workshop was always dry and cool regardless of the weather outside. Still, it was hardly the only reason. Vicks and his brethren were inexhaustibly optimistic, looking firmly to the future and all the glorious possibilities it held, though mostly they saw potential for profits. His almost maniacal obsession with tinkering and experimentation seemed firmly at odds with the reverence for the past the orcs possessed, but the materials he worked with resonated with the spirits in a way that few other professions could claim.

Even this…turbine, I think he called it, some piece in their great competition with the gnomes, channels the powers of flame and wind to propel it. They’ve a way to extract the echoes of the firelords from the stone of the deep mines, condensing it into blasting powder. Then they've found ways to use its power, however reduced from its elemental form, in a thousand different ways. What other secrets might they keep?

Vicks continued to rattle out the details of the problem, oblivious to his guest’s pondering. The air had cleared from the fire now, leaving only the sharp odor of engine grease and the omnipresent tang of blasting powder evident. They were familiar smells, comforting in the same way the scent of kingsblood was agitating. Sitting at ease, Kazimierz could feel the earth stretch out below him-almost as if he had taken the sapta again, though certainly not so blatantly. The earth totem in his pack called to his senses, and like a child investigating a spider’s web he drew a thread of power from it, twisting it in his mind’s hands.

Kazimierz’s trance was interrupted by another explosion from the engine, and a surprised yelp from Vicks-surprised, but not pained. He opened his eyes to see the goblin inspecting his arms with intense interest

“What the nether…did you do this, Kazi? I should be bleedin’ from that one!” Vicks exclaimed, then started suddenly. “Is that what’s doing it?”
Kazimierz followed the goblin’s gaze to the source of a dull green luminance in the gloom of the workshop-a chunk of unworked stone, standing upright as though thrust from the ground. On it were symbols Kazimierz knew very well-the ancient scripts used in honor to the earth spirits. He stared at the manifestation with growing realization, a wide grin splitting his face as his hurts were, for the moment, forgotten.

“It is a binding of earth, little friend. I have called an earth spirit, and it has replied!” he said, his voice building in a crescendo. “We must celebrate. This…this is a milestone. This marks the end of my Trial, Vicks! I will be allowed into the world to make my mark!”

Vicks clapped him on the back-a gesture he used as frequently as he was able, given the relative rarity the orc’s back was anywhere near his arms-and nodded excitedly. “That…is…incredible! Hey, how long d’ya think you can keep that up?” He paused a moment, breaking into a thoughtful smile as he reached for a bottle he kept on a high shelf. “Toughens up the skin..think you can do that to dead skin? Or maybe metal, even?”
Vicks poured two glasses of some amber spirit, supposedly from the far lands of Kharanos, and they drank together. “I tell you Kazi, this…what is that thing, anyway?” Vicks asked, gesturing pointedly with his now half-empty glass.

“A totem,” Kazimierz supplied. Vicks nodded energetically.

“This 'totem' is going to be really useful. And profitable, too-you know what people would pay for protective gear they don’t need to put on? Tell me what else you think it can do…”

The storm had abated and it was very late indeed before the orc and the goblin ceased their discussion and surrendered to sleep.