The wind, a mournful, ceaseless lament, howled across the Westfall, carrying with it the scent of dust, despair, and the faint, unsettling whiff of something vaguely dead. As far as the eye could strain, there was nothing but an endless canvas of ochre earth, a desolation so profound it felt like the very ground had given up on life, leaving behind untold bitterness and the ghosts of forgotten dreams.
As the perpetually beleaguered pioneers of Moonbrook Town, nestled precariously in this desolate expanse, they faced a daily barrage of existential dread. Troubles, it seemed, weren't just a part of life; they were life. They were the air they breathed, the water they (sometimes) drank, and the constant, nagging itch beneath their threadbare clothes.
The mine collapsed again? Encountered a monstrous, slobbering abomination in the wild again? Wolves? Oh, just a Tuesday. The carcass bird? More like the daily carcass bird. Gnoll? Is it even morning without a gnoll sighting? Bloodfang boar? Please, try to be original.
All manner of toothy, clawed, or generally unpleasant creatures could, and frequently did, become the sole topic of conversation in the glorious, singular bar of Moonbrook Town. In the flickering, greasy candlelight, the very air inside the establishment was a potent, intoxicating brew: the sour tang of men who had wrestled with the unforgiving earth all day, the robust, chest-hair-curling aroma of cheap alcohol, and the cacophony of heated, slurred, discussions about who had seen the biggest, ugliest, or most likely-to-eat-your-face monster.
However, a new, utterly baffling topic had recently seized the collective imagination of the barflies, eclipsing even the most gruesome tales of gnoll encounters: a young wizard, a veritable prodigy of arcane weirdness, by the name of Edmund Duke.
"I swear on my last copper piece, I heard that a wizard, some whippersnapper named Edmund, actually killed Hogger?" a grizzled farmer, his face a roadmap of sun-baked wrinkles, suddenly bellowed to his companion, nearly spilling his ale.
"Not that Hogger, surely?" his companion gasped, eyes wide as saucers. "That incredibly powerful, two-meter-tall, axe-wielding fiend of a gnoll, Hogger?! The one who could probably bench-press a small barn?"
"No, no, no, you simpleton, it should have been at least four meters high!" interjected a traveling merchant, his clothes still dusted with the grime of distant roads, clearly just returned from the terrifying outside world. "A few days ago, when I passed by Sentinel Hill, I saw Hogger's headless body. It was... it was an absolute masterpiece of horror. Even though the body had begun to rot, you could still tell it was at least one and a half stories high! A true monument to gnollish demise!"
"Where's the head, then?" the farmer asked, morbidly fascinated.
"I heard that the head, along with his monstrous claws, were sent to Stormwind City and Goldshire in Elwynn Forest," the merchant declared, puffing out his chest, "for public display!"
"It's... it's utterly amazing," an absentee worker, perpetually nursing a hangover, breathed in awe.
"Of course it's amazing!" The middle-aged mercenary, who had just rudely elbowed his way into the conversation, had pride practically oozing from every pore. "Lord Edmund Duke is the second super genius in the entire history of Stormwind who was promoted to a formal wizard with master-level talent! A true force of nature, I tell you!"
Moonbrook Town wasn't exactly a bustling metropolis. With only about a thousand souls clinging to existence within its flimsy walls, you could pretty much recognize everyone, even if you couldn't quite recall their names.
"Hey? Do you actually know this Lord Edmund?" someone piped up, suspicion lacing their voice.
"Of course, I do!" the mercenary declared, puffing out his chest even further, practically daring anyone to challenge him. "I am that lord's personal, loyal, and utterly indispensable subordinate!"
"Oh, come on, Makaro!" a burly miner scoffed, a playful glint in his eye. "The followers of a Master wizard are supposed to be incredibly strong, far stronger than our town's resident 'first knight,' Lukas!" He teased the mercenary, expecting a good-natured retort.
But the next moment, the miner, along with everyone else in the bar, was struck utterly speechless. Their mouths, previously agape with ale-fueled banter, now hung open in silent, comical disbelief.
"Hey, Makaro, there you are!"
The voice was ordinary, yet it carried an inexplicable coolness, a casual authority that immediately commanded attention.
And then, he walked in.
The impossibly pristine blue and white wizard robe, a stark contrast to the grime of the Westfall, billowed around him. The dazzling, intricate wizard emblem pinned to his chest practically screamed "I'm important!" But it was the five razor-sharp, impossibly perfect icicles, suspended as if by sheer defiance of gravity around his shoulders, that truly cemented his identity and deepened everyone's impression of him into a mixture of awe and profound confusion.
It was, by all accounts, completely unreasonable for icicles to just float there, shimmering malevolently in mid-air. But if they were floating around the body of a powerful wizard, then even the most absurd, logic-defying phenomenon suddenly became, inexplicably, perfectly reasonable.
"Master Edmund, what in the blazes are you doing... with those... icicles?" Makaro stammered, his eyes fixated on the floating shards of frozen death.
"Oh, these?" Duke replied casually, as if discussing the weather. "Just part of my daily self-training, you know. Gotta stay sharp."
Makaro, wisely, did not press the issue. He understood precisely zero about the esoteric world of mages. However, this profound lack of understanding did not prevent him, or anyone else in the bar, from feeling, with every fiber of their being, that even though they didn't comprehend it, it was undeniably, terrifyingly powerful.
Makaro's gaze then fell upon a rather peculiar bag Duke was carrying. It was lumpy, with numerous spherical protrusions, and for a moment, Makaro was utterly, comically stunned.
"Let's go upstairs and talk," Duke suggested, a hint of impatience in his voice.
Makaro, who had arrived earlier with several of his men, immediately led Duke to his private room. His men, snapping out of their stupor, instantly took up defensive positions at the door, their faces grim and determined.
Below, the entire population of Moonbrook Town erupted into a cacophony of excited whispers and bewildered exclamations.
"Wow, that's Edmund Duke?! He's so young!"
"What a promising young man! He could probably charm the scales off a dragon!"
"But why on earth is he coming to Moonbrook Town? There's absolutely nothing of value in the Westfall to attract a big shot like him!"
"Could it be... could he have discovered a new mineral deposit? Or some secret, lucrative specialty?"
"How is that even possible?! In addition to growing a few measly crops and a couple of utterly ordinary iron and copper mines, what else is there in this godforsaken Westfall?!"
None of them, in their wildest, most optimistic dreams, could have predicted that Duke had, in fact, not just discovered, but developed a brand new, utterly lucrative specialty for the Wild West.
Inside the cramped, slightly dusty room, Makaro and his grizzled mercenaries were utterly, gloriously dazzled by the treasures Duke casually dumped onto the table.
Pearls. Pearls of every conceivable size and hue.
From the smallest, most unassuming pearls with their plain, milky color, to the lustrous, shimmering small pearls that seemed to glow with an inner light. Then came the riotously colorful pearls, like miniature rainbows trapped in iridescent spheres. Beyond those lay the more precious, enigmatic black pearls, radiating a subtle, dangerous allure. And finally, the undisputed kings of the collection: the most dazzling, fist-sized gold pearls, shimmering with an almost blinding opulence. There were so many, a veritable mountain of oceanic jewels, that Makaro's heart, along with those of his men, almost stopped beating from sheer, unadulterated greed and shock.
Of course, in addition to the overwhelming bounty of pearls, there were also various beautiful, intricate corals and translucent yellow tortoise shells, but they were mere background noise. The undisputed stars of this glittering show were the pearls.
"This... this is..." Makaro stammered, utterly lost for words.
"Indeed," Duke stated, a smug, satisfied smirk playing on his lips. "I am going to establish a shipping route based on the specialties of the western wilderness that I have personally developed. And I shall name it... the Pearl Road."
"Hiss—" The mercenaries, a chorus of stunned disbelief, collectively gasped, their breaths drawn in with an audible, almost comical hiss.
A shipping line! This wasn't some one-off, lucky find. A shipping line meant Duke had a steady, unending source of pearls. A river of liquid gold, flowing directly into his pockets!
Makaro, being the most worldly and least prone to immediate fainting, couldn't help but voice his lingering suspicion. "Please forgive my rudeness, Your Excellency," he ventured, his voice barely a whisper, "but the entire coast of the Westfall is, as you know, infested with those infernal murlocs that can never, ever be truly killed. How in the name of all that is holy are you...?"
"Oh! Well, by a rather amusing coincidence," Duke interjected, waving a dismissive hand, "I recently, shall we say, controlled a tribe of murlocs. The ones who collected these magnificent pearls for me were, in fact, murlocs!"
"Ah!" Makaro couldn't help but let out a strangled, almost feminine scream.
According to ancient, whispered legends, mages would occasionally raise strange, exotic familiars as their servants. But fishmen... and not just any fishmen, but those notoriously rude, brutally savage, and astonishingly low-intelligence fishmen?! This was truly, utterly, hilariously incredible to them.
However, from the very beginning of their acquaintance, Makaro had come to a profound, if unsettling, realization: the young man before him was a living, breathing miracle-worker, a walking embodiment of making the impossible not just possible, but casually mundane. He had gone from being utterly shocked by every single one of Duke's bizarre revelations to becoming a little numb, even blindly, unquestioningly believing.
"Sir," Makaro stammered, regaining a sliver of composure, "is there anything, anything at all, I can do for you?"
"Indeed," Duke replied, already mentally ticking off items on an invisible checklist. "I have ordered a substantial batch of ships from old Jackson at the Stormwind Shipyard. I've already paid for them, of course. Some of them should be ready by now. You can pull as many as you can for me. You'll need to hire sailors at the horse head – make sure the first batch of boatmen are paid double wages, and it must be paid before they even set sail. Also, and this is crucial, please make sure to prominently display my flag on the bow of each and every ship."
Makaro looked at the several different, rather intimidating flags Duke produced, each emblazoned with the chilling emblem of the Thousand-Handed Grim Reaper. He was a little suspicious, but he wisely held his tongue, asking instead: "What about you, sir? Will you be joining us?"
"I can't leave just yet," Duke sighed, a flicker of annoyance crossing his face. "As for the money, you can sell some of these pearls here first, just to get things rolling."
"No, no, no, sir!" Makaro protested, shaking his head vigorously. "You still have a considerable amount of bounty left from killing Hogg, which is more than enough to hire all the sailors we need. I, alas, am utterly ignorant of the true price of pearls, so it would be far better for you to handle this delicate matter yourself."
Duke rubbed his brows, a familiar frustration bubbling up. Indeed, there were simply too few competent individuals who could work for him. This was an era of widespread illiteracy, a veritable intellectual wasteland. It was easy enough to find a brawny muscle-bound brute, but finding a fellow with even a single working brain cell was like searching for a needle in a haystack made of gnoll fur. Most civilians, bless their simple hearts, wouldn't dare to engage with shrewd businessmen unless their very lives depended on it.
However, Duke truly couldn't leave. As long as the lingering, vengeful threat from the Grayscale Naga tribe in Stranglethorn Vale remained unresolved, there would be no peace, no stability here.
"Then let's do it this way!" Duke declared, making a snap decision. "However, you still need to take some of these pearls back as irrefutable evidence that I have, in fact, opened up the glorious Pearl Route. Also, and this is imperative, you must seek out Master Norton from the Royal School of Magic in Stormwind and politely request that he help me apply for the exclusive rights to this route."
"Solo business? This seems... rather audacious, sir," Makaro ventured, his brow furrowed with concern.
"Do you think the nobles will intervene?" Duke asked, a dangerous glint in his eyes.
"Your Excellency is wise," Makaro nodded, a shiver running down his spine. He knew exactly what Duke was implying. The nobles, with their insatiable greed, would undoubtedly try to muscle in on such a lucrative venture.
"It's quite alright," Duke said, a chillingly calm smile spreading across his face. There was a cruel, almost predatory light flashing in his black eyes, a silent promise of pain. "Let them come."