Saturday, May 22, 2010

Introduction to The Wood Frog

Grommet Cogswaddle made her way down from the attic over the curio shop, across the park-like lawn at the base of the Mage's Tower and up to the mailbox outside the Blue Recluse. The small Gnome pulled a chair over to the magical appliance and climbed up even with it's delivery orifice. Anyone watching would notice a certain apprehension, a hesitation as she allowed the spell to identify her before pulling open the hatch.

There was a single package, a brownish stain, now dry, had once been wet enough to wrinkle the wrapping paper at one corner. Grommet sighed. She quickly transferred the wildly off balanced package into her pack. She didn't even have to look at the mailing information to know it was from her mother. Grommet would wait until nightfall to make the trip to the Elwynn Forest cemetary. There she would open the package while hidden in the bushes next to the charnel pit. This made for easy disposal of the little "extras" her mother couldn't be bothered to remove from the boots and gloves she sent for Grommet to practice her enchanting skills on.

Beneath the package was a pair of letters. One popped open, an announcement, really, a fishing gathering, in Southshore. Grommet loved to fish, a few more pieces of driftwood, tangled line and tattered cloth and she would have enough materials to make a lawn chair. She sighed, wondering if she even knew where her fishing pole was these days. "I bet Southshore is lovely this time of year. Murlocs on one shore, Naga on the other, Syndicate on the side road and Undead on the main road."

Three human students of the arcane arts slowed as they entered the Blue Recluse, unsure if the Gnome was speaking to them. Grommet looked up at them and handed them the flyer. It was then she saw the scratchy thin handwriting on the back. "Meet me west of the docks."

The three thanked her and walked into the tavern. Grommet wanted to grab the flyer back, then resolved to just hope they didn't turn the thing over and think... she blushed.

"Oh, rust," She grabbed the last letter in the box, a thick packet of wrapped pages with the single word "Cogswaddle" printed in the same scratchy hand as the line on the back of the flier. Grommet ran into the tavern after the students. "Hey! Ignore that message on the back, that was a note for me!"

The three students laughed, and pointed. They had pinned the flier up on the shelf at the entrance to the tavern for others to see. It was obvious that they hadn't even looked at the back of the attractively printed flier. Grommet would have had to jump, or move furniture to get the flier. Since she was all ready blushing, Grommet decided to make a hasty retreat back to her attic room where she could read her mail in peace.

Cowlflap writes a letter.

Cowlflap Cogswaddle paced the perimeter of her small camp, the small fire positively cool compared to the nearby upwelling of magma. Neither had any success in making Cowlflap feel warm.

She had stashed her bulky black plate in the desert and made the journey into Thesselmar to send a thank you to the rugged dwarf she'd identified as one of her missing son's last contacts.

“Rugged?” A small voice, strangely like her own, and a welcome change from the other voice that had ruled her head a few short months ago started, “ragged more like.” She shrugged it off.

No one had thought twice about the small dirty prospector, and she'd been careful to stay far enough away from anyone who might be bothered by her perpetual chill. She debated sending something like a small gem, but didn't want to seem forward. While she was fairly certain that such a gesture didn't mean the same thing to Dwarves as Gnomes, she didn't want to make the wrong impression, after all, she was still a married woman.

“Should've sent some coins.” She startled herself by speaking out loud. “Yes,” she thought, “he looked as though he might be able to use some coins.”

In Thesselmar, Cowlflap had opened her writing satchel and the Haute Club cards had spilled out. Suddenly the desire to send some sort of “thank you” and her desire to be rid of some of the last few reminders of her time fighting against the Scarlet Crusade blended into a sort of fugue state in which the letter had been composed and sent in a mere few seconds. Even her own children would have been hard pressed to recognize the jagged handwriting and uncharacteristic errors. Cowlflap was not fully back to her normal self until she was stacking up spider limbs to make a small camp fire. How she'd made it back to her armor cache without incident, she didn't know. She absently wiped spider ichor off of her chest-plate.

“You didn't even say thank you or ask if he'd like to help find Camfollower,” she startled herself by speaking aloud again.

Mohr Brassbrain, she'd recognized him from the wanted poster on the back of what was one of her son's last letters. The artist had accurately captured the dwarfs intensity if not his exact likeness. If Cam was right about him, and Cam usually was about people, the Dwarf would be a valuable ally.

“He threatened to shoot your face off!” she shouted at herself, interrupting her pacing to spin oddly in place.

“No, no, I startled him, the whole being dead thing, it unnerves people,” she argued.

“He didn't know that until much later.”

“Well if Cam's in the sort of trouble I think he is, then a tough Dwarf is exactly what we need.”

Cowlflap waited for a counter argument, her spinning done. There was no further outburst; her pacing resumed, for the moment.

The sudden smile that crossed her lips fairly radiated a chill. She spun in place, feeling the warmth of the spider as it had crept near. The pillar of frost, channeled directly from a place deep in her corrupted soul, struck the spider, freezing it in mid crouch, just as its own web glued Cowlflap in place.

They stared at one another across the several meter gap.

Cowlflap's smile widened into a grin as she unlimbered her pickaxe. “Come to Maximom, I have something for you.” The odd timbre in her voice was hardly enticing, even for a lack-brained spider.

“After this we need to go back to town, and write a proper job offer,” the nagging voice returned as the spider struggled against the alien cold to try, in vain, to claim its dirty, green-haired, squeaky morsel.