#bronze whelpling

Bronze whelpling painted during internet outage of Helene. Paint got kind of chunky and my camera washed out the deeper bronze shadows but he looks pretty good IRL. Waiting for humidity to drop so I can seal him up.

The battle was quick and to the point.

"Ugh...hurt!" The Boulderfist ogre before her finally crumpled to the ground in a heavy heap, making the earth beneath her hooves tremble. Cast by the flame of the fire nearby, she saw her own shadow eaten by a massove one upon the stone wall. Najwa swung her shield directly forward with a grunt, then ducked.

Clang! The silver badge hit the stone and then ricocheted with a spark of light, striking the ogre behind her in the throat and upsetting his balance. The draenei swirled around and caught as it fell, having one moment to slip her arm into it before she charged at him with a final smiting bash. The humanoid fell, dazed and holding his bulging neck.

Panting softly, Najwa straightened, a grin on her face as she postured over her opponents in triumph, blood smeared down the side of her lower lip and chin. She sheathed her sword and pointed.

"That is what you are getting for your deeds! You will be thinking next time before you hurt innocent people and take their things, yes?"

Without waiting for an answer, she turned towards the back of the cave, seeing a pile of boxes--only some of them with the Alliance merchant crests branded upon them.

"I will be taking these now," she announced, returning her shield to its place on her back as she marched toward them.

Cashew was more than eager to go by the time Najwa loaded the last crate onto the cart--something the massive warhorse was not used to, and clearly not happy about being harnessed to.

But as she slid the last crate on, she felt something moving weakly from inside it.

"Hm?" Najwa paused. At first she thought that something was just rattling loose in the box, but this was different--the vibrations just moving back or forth, but around the dark-wooded box.

After a brief inspection, she found no brand on it, no serial numbers only a lock. Or what she thought was a lock---what seemed to be a combination pad had no numbers but two dials, pointing outward in different directions.

But the very moment she held it up to look closer, the largest dial ticked audibly into place pointing northward, and the top of the crate clicked open with a soft hiss.

Najwa jerked back a bit in a moment's surprise. But when nothing came bursting out, she leaned close and lifted the lid slowly upward and backward, her eyes slowly widening.