"Your Majesty!"
An officer hurried into the tent, leaned into Varian's ear, and whispered a few words. Varian, who was examining a battle report, frowned and stood up, leaning on the table.
"Take me there."
The King of Stormwind said in a deep voice. He followed the officer to an open space outside the camp, where a circle of soldiers seemed to have surrounded something.
The officer shouted loudly, telling the soldiers to make way for the King, "Move aside, everyone step back!"
The tightly packed formation immediately opened a path, allowing Varian to see what was happening in the center: a tall, dark-purple-skinned humanoid stood there, surrounded by several human soldiers buried halfway in the ground, still struggling.
"Who are you?" Varian glanced at the soldiers who were sealed into the ground by a strange power. They seemed to be in no danger of death, only their movements were restricted.
The dark-purple-skinned humanoid said something that made Varian frown—he didn't understand what the other party was saying. This guy's language was not any that he knew.
However... Varian remembered, this seemed to have some similarities with the language of the High Elf. He heard a familiar suffix, the pronunciation of "Dorei."
Varian immediately had a guess in his heart. Arthas had told him about them: the ancient Night Elves, the most powerful and influential race on the continent of Kalimdor.
But this guy, presumably a "Night Elf," was too different from the High Elf. He was tall, over two meters in height, and with his muscular build, he exuded an overwhelming presence.
Compared to their distant relatives, they seemed far too robust.
In Varian's impression, the High Elf were slightly more slender than humans, but the Night Elves, in this appearance, were probably no less imposing than orcs.
But what was more urgent at the moment was to find a way to make this individual with special powers stop quickly, otherwise it was very likely to cause unnecessary bloodshed.
Language barriers were not a particularly serious obstacle in Azeroth. Soon, Varian found a military mage. The Arcane light on the mage's hand lit up, as he intended to use magic to establish a special communication channel.
However, when the "Night Elf" saw the Arcane glow on the mage's hand, he showed an expression of disdain and disgust. Fortunately, he did not make any move, but just waited quietly there.
When the mage's spell was completed, he spoke, "Now we should be able to communicate, outsider."
"Indeed, but I think you should first release my soldiers, shouldn't you?" Varian replied, "Perhaps their actions were a bit reckless, but you trespassed into our camp."
The Night Elf glanced at the human soldiers buried in the ground, "So what, I didn't kill them."
"If that's your attitude, I don't think we have anything to talk about." Varian's face turned cold; the other party's words could already be considered a provocation.
"I have nothing good to say about those who stir up war on Kalimdor," the Night Elf said.
"We stir up war? When the Tauren were attacked by the Centaur, why didn't we see you stand up and speak?" Varian retorted, showing no weakness, meeting him head-on.
The Night Elf did not reply, but Varian roughly understood his meaning: they were the natives of Kalimdor, and they did not interfere in their disputes, but were simply very wary of outsiders like them.
After realizing this possibility, Varian spoke again, "We are here to find allies. Repelling the Centaur is merely a necessity for the Tauren to survive. If such a battle is not allowed, then we should just watch as peace-loving races are destroyed by invaders?"
Varian wasn't sure if he was mistaken, but a smile seemed to appear at the corner of the Night Elf's mouth, though his expression quickly turned cold again. This time, however, he waved his hand, releasing the soldiers buried underground.
"In that case, we can indeed have a good talk. My name is Broll Bearmantle, and I am a druid."
Feeling the other party's hostility inexplicably subside a lot, Varian was puzzled but also had to reply, "My name is Varian Wrynn, King of Stormwind."
After listening to Varian's self-introduction, Broll nodded, "Outsider, although you have helped the Tauren, which is a good thing, we do not wish for too many disputes on Kalimdor."
"We never actively provoke war, because we have suffered from the hardships war brings."
"That's for the best, but my kin are extremely wary of any outsiders. If you don't want to cause more trouble, I suggest you go back where you came from."
After Broll finished speaking, his body underwent a transformation that left everyone dumbfounded: his tall body began to shrink as if boneless, his joints and bones seemed to contract like muscles, and his entire being rapidly shrank and twisted, with dark purple feathers gradually growing on his skin.
Finally, when the transformation ended, Broll disappeared, replaced by a bird standing in his place, and Broll's voice emanated from it, "King of Humans, Kalimdor does not welcome outsiders. We all don't want to cause trouble for ourselves, do we?"
As soon as he finished speaking, the bird that Broll had transformed into flapped its wings and soared into the sky, quickly disappearing from everyone's sight.
The military mage stared dumbfounded as Broll flew away, until Varian clapped him on the shoulder and asked, "What kind of magic is this?"
"I don't know! This could very well be a power system we are completely unaware of. There is no record of it in the archives of Dalaran—how did he do it? I didn't feel any Arcane fluctuations? This is fundamentally different from shapeshifting magic!"
The military mage then rambled on, mumbling a lot of words, interspersed with a large number of magical terms that made Varian dizzy. He had no choice but to stop listening to the mage's excited remarks and turned to the officer from before: "Marcus, tell Jaina about what happened here."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
After receiving the order, Marcus quickly left to inform Lady Proudmoore of what had happened.
...
"It seems Varian and they have run into trouble." Jaina picked up the document in her hand, and after carefully reading it, her expression became solemn.
Arthas had once said that the ancient Night Elves would not show good faces to outsiders, but to try not to conflict with them. As long as they entered the northern areas closely controlled by them, the Night Elves should not actively seek trouble.
But the current situation showed that the Night Elves' attitude was even worse and more unpredictable than Arthas had described.