#grokale

Grokale the Tracker from the RexxWorld ! lok’tar ogar !

“What is that smell?” the woman said as she scrunched her nose. Glancing to her left at her companion, the draenei paladin with flowing gold locks took a step back towards the entrance of the dark cave carefully placing her hooves around the scattered animal bones on the ground. Shadows danced on the walls cast from the flames of their torches.  “I think Rockjaw was the smartest of us when he refused to enter this cave.” Joining the elegantly beautiful paladin stood an orc with spiked black hair and an eye patch over his right eye. He perused their surroundings with the remaining blue one while trying and failing to hold his breath.  “These bones are not the source of the odor. They are too old and no flesh remains to provide this level of rancid decay. Something else is in this cave…but I don’t think anything living.” “Rockjaw’s reaction would suggest otherwise, Grok.” “Lakuu, his sense of smell is much more sensitive than ours,” the orc replied taking a step closer to the rear of the cave. “Besides…the information I received reported that the creatures that once inhabited this region were destroyed several years ago.” “Wait a sec,” she said grabbing his shoulder and stopping his progress. “You asked me here on a hunting trip? When you told me about this quest of yours it sounded more like solving a mystery than…” “It is a mystery,” he responded looking into her eyes. “Back in Mulgore I overheard these shamans talking about this strange creature that had attacked one of their villages. What they described was unlike any beast I have ever encountered on this world or in Outland. They spoke of two others…one in Ashenvale and another in dwarven lands. Only the three and yet no sign of others since. I originally chalked their tales as some sort of over exaggeration of some hunting trip one or the other had been involved with in the past. Then I heard about one of their warriors who joined this cult up in Northrend, and that cult had operated in this area around the same time as these strange creatures showed up.  Still seems like a tall tale but I figured something worthy of investigation.” “This is a hunting trip,” the draenei sighed.  “Look, Blue Eye, if you wanted to get me alone all you had to do was ask…and bring me to some place more pleasant than this,” she said with a wave of her hand at the dark and musty cave. Something in the dancing shadows of the wall caught her attention. “Grok, is that a door?” “Caves don’t have doors, Lakuu,” he answered with a pinch of his nose. “This one does,” the draenei retorted as she pointed with her free hand. “See…there in the back I swear that is a door leading further into the mountain.” The orc stepped towards the back wall where his partner pointed, and reaching out he found the seams of a doorway.  He handed his torch to the paladin. Placing both hands in the middle he pushed until the left side creaked open. A stale odor assaulted the pair’s senses this time from whatever lay beyond in the darkness. He glanced back to the draenei and retrieved his torch, and with a nod he proceeded to open the door completely to reveal a long dark corridor. Their torches only lit the immediate area, and what they saw bewildered them both. The hallway before them appeared more metallic than stone and along both sides for as far as the illumination allowed lined more doors to either rooms or adjacent corridors. The orc released a long whistle. “Ok,” the paladin whispered. “If this started as a hunting trip it isn’t any longer. What is this place?” “Not a clue,” he answered back. “I expected something…but…” His voice trailed off. “But? But what?” “When we found the cave I half expected to find a massive set of caverns and that mostly because the animals described stood some twenty to thirty feet tall. The cave gave every indication they might have been here at one time with all of the bones we walked through, but this…this indicates people lived here and not in fear of these giant creatures.” “Maybe they used them as guards,” Lakuu offered as she stepped closer behind Grok. “It smells abandoned like the old ruins in Ulduar or Uldum.  When the creatures were destroyed whoever lived here must’ve left for safer territory. Would make sense to me, especially since silithids still prowl this region and they are dangerous even with guards.” The couple walked slowly through the dark tunnel. Some doors they tried to open but found them locked or blocked from the other side. After a hundred yards they emerged into a large room with a single statue in the center and a sarcophagus by the base. They looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders before approaching the statue. The face appeared human-like but with strange tendrils along the chin and jawline. Dark scorches marred the stone surface of the face and upper torso which appeared as some strange and alien form of clothing in a style neither had ever seen in all their travels across the surface of Azeroth or in Outland. Grok bent lower to examine the lid of the coffin which lay askew while Lakuu stood up as high as she could to more closely examine the strange face. “This…this is a tomb,” the orc said quietly. “But looks like someone robbed it long ago. There’s no body in this sarcophagus and no gold or treasures in the room like I have seen in others.” “I bet the rooms along the corridor from the cave housed those treasures,” the draenei added. “But this depiction is very strange. Have you ever seen a person like this? I mean with these things on his face? Too bad someone vandalized it; I would have liked to see it without all this damage.” The orc looked up from the lid of the coffin and perused the rest of the room a second time. In the dancing shadows he spotted something on the wall near the rear of the room. “Lakuu...look,” he said with a nod of his chin. “Another door. Just what have we discovered here?” “I’m not sure,” she said standing back from the statue. “Perhaps there are more tombs further in? An ancient burial site for an extinct race and this mountain houses the only remnants of their civilization?” “I don’t think so,” he replied. “If that were the case then whoever did rob this grave would have claimed their discovery long ago. Imagine the riches and notoriety for a person who discovers a find like this. I mean…the Explorer’s League would pay unthinkable amounts of gold just to come here and study this place.” “So should we see what lies beyond that door?” “Not just the two of us,” he answered. “I think we need your crew for this one. If this is a network of tombs and goes much further into the mountain…I bet there are traps to protect them from grave robbers. Those creatures we came to find...if they were the outer guardians and are now extinct like these people then I would assume they also took precautions. Knowing that someday their guardians would die, they would leave traps to protect this place from interlopers.  It’s what I would do.” “But you said these creatures were destroyed in recent years,” Lakuu muttered. “Something is very odd about all of this.” She hesitated a moment drawing Grok’s attention from the door. “I agree…we need more than just the two of us.” With a nod to each other the couple traversed the corridor to the cave and then emerged back outside the base of the mountain. Grok cocked his head to the side when they found Rockjaw asleep near the entrance. He tried to wake his faithful companion several times, but with no success. While he knelt next to the slumbering beast and the draenei stood beside him, a night elf emerged from behind one of the dead trees several yards away. The sudden appearance of the woman startled the couple, and he reached for the bow strapped to his back while the paladin pulled her hammer and held it in both hands. The kaldorei woman remained calm as she faced them. Her light violet skin contrasted sharply with the dark brown robes she wore. The style of her clothing roughly resembled the same worn by the person depicted by the statue in the tomb. A sword hilt with no discernable blade hung from her waist by her left hand. More bizarre, however, were the woman’s eyes. Most night elves’ eyes glowed a silvery or golden hue, but this woman’s were a vibrant blue.  Purple star shaped tattoos surrounded the orbs. “Why are you here?” she asked with a melodious voice both calm yet commanding. “You should not be in this place…no one should.” “What have you done to Rockjaw?” Grok demanded. “The creature simply sleeps,” the kaldorei answered. “It is unharmed. I ask again…why are you here?” “We came seeking strange creatures told of in Ashenvale,” Lakuu offered drawing a glare from the orc. She ignored him as she addressed the strange night elf. “We were told they came from this region.” “Neither the terentateks nor the leviathans pose a threat any longer,” the strange woman answered. “My master disposed of those years ago and none remain to endanger others. You have come here so seek that which no longer exists.” “Like the person once buried in the tomb?” Grok asked. The kaldorei cocked her head to the right and stared directly at him. He found her eyes even more unnerving once they focused on him. “The statue depicts a man of a race no longer walking the face of this world or Outland.” “Illiana removed the body of her father so that he could be buried in Northrend next to her mother as was her last request,” the night elf replied.  She took a step towards them yet still refrained from grasping the hilt which appeared to be the only weapon she possessed.  Grok and Lakuu reacted by each taking a step back and crouching into battle ready stances. “If you ventured that far into the fortress…how much deeper did you explore? There are secrets within that no Azerothian outside the Order or the dragon flights should know. Only my master and the dragon queen have ventured beyond the burial chamber of Narcis.” “Alexstrazsa?” Lakuu asked. “Just how do you know the mother of the red dragons? Who are you?” “I am Adaria,” the woman answered looking now at the draenei. “Padawan to the jedi grand master, Daneel, and it was she who ventured with him into the depths of this Titan facility several years ago after defeating the leviathans. I was personally involved with them as well as the other jedi when they stopped Illiana from destroying the Sunwell. After we defeated the Burning Legion in Desolace I became Daneel’s apprentice. I have come here to close the entrance to this fortress and contain the secrets within from discovery. Your presence makes my task a little more difficult.” Grok glanced over his shoulder at Lakuu and whispered, “She’s with that cult in the north I mentioned earlier, though I never heard of any battle with the Legion in Desolace. She might be a little delusional.” “And just who gives you the right to keep this place secret from the rest of the world?” the draenei asked the jedi. “We know what is inside and we will tell the rest of the world.” “I am afraid I cannot allow that to happen,” Adaria responded with a wave of her hand. Both the orc and the draenei collapsed to the ground in slumber, their weapons clattering to the ground. The jedi padawan walked up to the sleeping couple and then knelt beside them. “I am sorry to do this as I mean neither of you any harm. I sense no malice from you.” She stood back up and again waved her hand above the two on the ground. “When you wake you will remember nothing of what you saw inside or of our conversation. You will see no cave and the mystery you came here to solve will unfortunately remain one.”   She then looked at the entrance and raised both hands towards it. A rumble sounded throughout the valley as she pulled her arms down to her sides. The stone around the entrance to the cave began to crumble before large chunks fell to fill the entrance. Looking at the three slumbering beings near her feet, she smiled before turning on her heel and leaving them behind. No evidence remained of the cave entrance and several hours later near dusk when the couple woke they saw before them not a cave but just another rocky side to the base of the mountain.  Adaria watched them from the shadows for the next few days as the couple tried to find some clue to the strange creatures they heard came from this region, but finding nothing they left dejected. The padawan returned to Northrend knowing she had succeeded in her trial given to her by the grand master. The secret of Silithus remained undiscovered.