The Hunters Journey - Part 16: Forsaken - A World of Warcraft Fanfiction

A deep sorrow fills Tirisfal Glades. The undead are forsaken by their human kin and are treated like monsters despite them having the same soul. While they are grotesque to look at they feel just the same as everyone else.

The air feels eerie. The souls are constantly lingering in the balance. Everything is steeped with the plague, the plants, animals, and people all show traces of it. The air even seems to be tinted green because of it and the stench of undead and plague run rampant.

I got over the smell quickly enough but I couldn't shake the eerie sorrow. I felt it in everyone I talked to. Some masked it with hatred for the humans or the scourge but I could see it under the surface.

The undead could never go back to who they used to be when they were alive. Their families wanted nothing to do with them. Most humans feared and detested them, some even hunted them.

The Scarlet Crusade made it their life's work to irradicate the undead, seeing them as nothing more than a byproduct of the plague. They could not understand that the undead were no longer the mindless scourge wreaking havoc on the land. They were free-willed undead, capable of doing almost anything the other humanoid races could do.

Slyboots was scared and nervous when we interacted with the undead. Them missing flesh, limbs, and the smell they gave off was very unsettling for him. He stayed stealthed and in the shadows as much as he could.

His reaction also made me wonder if it was an undead that wounded him. He wasn't nearly as fearful of any other race we'd run into so far.

Most of the quests were helping the undead to quell the attacks from the Scarlet Crusade but one quest really surprised us. An undead had managed to make enough money to own his own place but he was lonely. All he wanted was a pet to keep him company.

It made me tear up, I don't know what I would have done without Junelight and now Slyboots. This adventure would have been so lonely.

He didn't want a bat or darkhound or anything like that. He wanted a murloc.

It was not the pet I expected but if he thought he could keep one as a pet I would do my best to help.

The murlocs did not want to be pets, which was no surprise to me. They fought tooth and nail and always attacked as a pack. We did manage to subdue one of them long enough to put it on a leash. Once it was leashed he was rather calm and strangly content.

The joy on Sedrick Calston's face made it all worth it.

"Look at how adorable he is!" Sedrick exclaimed. "Hmmm what should I name him? Let me think..."

I smiled back at him.

"Ah, I've got it. His name is Sparky!" He said smiling as best as he could. "You are free to roam the grounds Sparky, this is your house too now."

"Mrgmrmgggmr." Sparky said.

I wasn't sure what that meant but it seemed like a good thing because he didn't try to run when I took him off the leash. He was just curious about the house and about Sedrick.

"Thank you for your help hunter," Sedrick said.

"You're welcome," I said and with that, we bowed out. Even as we were leaving Sparky didn't try to escape. I got the feeling that he liked his new home and his new owner.

"I wonder who else we will help," I said to Junelight and Slyboots. "Maybe we will get other people some pets too, wouldn't that be fun?"

They both rubbed against my hand as I pet them.

"What cute kitties you are," I said softly.

Things became very different from here on out. The Scarlet Crusade and a very strange undead took us by surprise...