Make Azeroth breathtaking

32. In the Silver Pine Forest

Hillsbrad Foothills, on the eastern coast.

At the anchorage far off the coast, the massive ships of Ratchet rose and fell with the waves. In the camp on the shore, the goblins were packing up to return. The night elf sentries dismounted with practiced ease and herded them onto the ferry docked at the shore. The blood elves, weakened by their mana addiction, helped each other onto the beach, gazing at the distant ships with bewildered eyes.

"Is everyone here, Talonnicus?"

On the shore, Tennys held a notebook and counted the number of people with Talonnicus.

"Yes, apart from the people the prince took away, all the other citizens are here."

Talonnicus counted the number of people several times to confirm that no one had been left out.

"Archdruid Malfurion, High Priestess Tyrande, what about you two?"

"The sentry units are all in position."

"That's good. Wait, where's Maiev's Watcher?"

Tanis looked around but didn't see any Watchers.

"She seems to have continued her pursuit of Illidan; let her be."

Tyrande spoke in a cold tone, the resentment in her voice clearly visible. It was obvious that this high priestess also possessed the most important characteristic of a woman: holding a grudge.

"Okay...this will free up a few first-class seats..."

Tanis's lips twitched slightly as she adjusted her glasses, and instantly, Gazlowe's projection appeared in front of her.

"My daughter, is there any good news?"

"Because of Prince Kael'thas's request, a group of blood elves need to go to Ratchet for treatment. I'd appreciate it if you could arrange accommodations for them in advance, Father. I'll explain the details to you later. Also, I need to stay in the Lordaeron region of the Eastern Kingdoms for a while longer. Just get my teleporter ready to go!"

"Kael'thas? A blood elf? I understand! Be careful, my daughter! Lordaeron is still a mess!"

Although he tried his best to suppress his excitement, the smile on Gazlowe's lips betrayed him.

"no problem!"

Tannis hung up the communication and looked at her deputy, Bolt.

"I'm leaving the return trip to you, Bolt. Remember to take good care of our guests. I don't want to find a wall full of complaint letters when I get back to Ratchet!"

"Roger that, boss!"

————————————————Tannis's Adventure——————————————————

Silverpine Forest is the most important and largest timber-producing area in the Kingdom of Lordaeron.

Tall, verdant silver pines with silvery bark blanket the grassy hills, exuding vitality. A thin haze, propelled by the breeze from Lake Lomidante, dances merrily among the trees. Lumberjacks, shouting rough chants, push logs along forest paths, working tirelessly for a living. Women at home stir large pots of stew with ladle or slice coarse black bread on chopping boards, preparing food for their breadwinners. Children laugh and play in the nearby forest, some lucky enough to gather wild berries or mushrooms for a treat.

But all this beauty came to an abrupt end after the Scourge invasion. Now, in Silverpine Forest, although the silver pines still grow silently on this soil, the forest is devoid of birdsong and fragrant flowers, the lumberjacks' chants, the sounds of children playing, and the aroma of food wafting from women's cooking pots. All that remains are wandering wolves, sick bears howling day and night, the earth slightly rotten from the plague, and the occasional corpse that lingers in the jungle.

"So... what are these fragments of my memory trying to tell me?"

Fully armed and with her camouflage activated, Tannis concealed her face behind a thick gas mask. Following the route scouted by the drone, she cautiously navigated through the gaps between the beasts, undead, and worse in the Silverpine Forest. In one place, she even spotted a pack of gnolls devouring ghouls!

'The ghouls were eaten by the gnolls! This is a natural disaster!'

While inwardly complaining about how quickly the Scourge's prestige had dropped, Tannis continued her search. The further she searched, the more she frowned. The reason was simple: the distribution of the Scourge in Silverpine Forest was far too unusual!

'Two on the east, one on the west, and a skeleton standing still like a wooden stake... Wait, what's that zombie doing? Hanging itself? Did Illidan's attack somehow turn the Scourge into a comical mess?'

Tanis stared in disbelief at a zombie attempting to hang itself. Then, fragments of memory stirred once more, allowing her to understand some of the events leading up to this.

"...Because Illidan's magical ritual weakened the Lich King's control over the Scourge? No wonder these undead are in such a state; their main computers were shut down and they all crashed... But speaking of which, under the right ritual, it was actually possible to shake the ley lines in Northrend from Hillsbrad. Is the Eye of Sargeras really that terrifying...?"

With her mind wandering through a grove of trees, the scene that came into view made Tannis gasp slightly.

The camp, a camp built in a tomb, had several small campfires lit haphazardly in various places. Around these campfires, zombies, skeletons, and even ghouls sat or lay down. Several undead with relatively intact bodies were adding firewood to the campfires, while a ghoul seemed to be trying to dissect the carcass of a bear, and a skeleton was even... holding a pot... as if it was going to boil soup over the fire?

'This is.......?'

The moment she saw these undead, a flood of memories surged from Tannis's fragmented memories. Even though she had anticipated this and had wrapped her mind in her inner energy, she still felt an excruciating pain. Instantly, cold sweat broke out on her back, soaking her vest.

"So they're the Forsaken... But... judging by the timeline, the undead before me shouldn't be calling themselves that yet..."

Tanis rubbed her chin in annoyance. This surge of memory fragments not only revealed basic information about the Forsaken, but also inexplicably reminded her of the necromancer she played when Azeroth was just a game. As a result, Tanis, who had acquired too much information, suddenly didn't know what to do.

'Clearly, at least until the Lich King falls, most of the territory of the Kingdom of Lordaeron will be controlled by the Forsaken. Therefore, to reopen trade routes in the northern part of the Eastern Kingdoms, I must deal with these undead. However, the Forsaken, for their own reasons, are extremely distrustful of anything living, and besides, it seems they don't have anything worth buying from me.'

Just as Tannis was frantically devising various plans in her mind, the ghoul that was dissecting the bear's carcass suddenly cried out to the sky—the reason Tannis knew it was crying was because the ghoul's trembling body didn't look like it was excited at all!

“Hey Berry, stop howling, it’s not helping your job at all.”

A zombie lying diagonally beside the fire opened its mouth in a hoarse voice. Tanis noticed that the zombie's throat was well preserved, so it still had the ability to speak.

"Roar! Hiss!"

The ghoul known as Berry continued to roar, aimlessly attacking the tombstones, rotting fences, and weeds with its claws, tearing scratches into the ground and scattering rotten wood and gravel everywhere.

Almost a minute later, Berry stopped its destructive activities, and at that moment, the voice of a petite figure sitting cross-legged beside the fire, draped in a dusty cloak, rang out—this undead's remains were so well preserved that Tennys could tell it was a woman.

"Have you made enough of a scene?"

"Hiss! Hiss!!"

Berry turned to look at the figure, which seemed to be roaring, or perhaps crying.

"We're all the same, Berry. Our families are missing, our bodies have turned into twisted monsters, even the Holy Light no longer favors us. But... the more this is the case, the more stubbornly we must survive—even if the whole world abandons us, even if the whole world is our enemy, we must stubbornly survive—only in this way can we take revenge, for the suffering we have endured—revenge!"

"Hiss... hiss..."

"Alright, let's get back to work. This work isn't for anything in particular, but to remind us that we are rational beings, not mindless zombies."

"hiss--"

Berry continued to dissect the dead bear, while the other zombies and skeletons went about their own business. The cloaked undead sat by the fire for a while before standing up and wandering aimlessly around the camp. Clearly, she was not as calm as she claimed.

"Why........"

Looking at these pitiful Forsaken, Tanis sighed softly, knelt down, placed a Ratchet emblem on her head, and turned to disappear into the depths of Silverpine Forest.

33. Sylvanas

After being ravaged by the plague, the ancient land of Tirisfal Glades lost its vitality. Wild grasses grew listlessly, as if they might perish at any moment. The surviving trees were covered with disease spots, and some half-yellow and half-green leaves hung on the treetops, barely maintaining their vitality. The lake water rippled slightly in the wind, and every now and then, a sickly fish would float to the surface, blow a bubble, and then sink back into the water.

Quiet and deathly still—that's the best description of Tirisfal Glades right now. Everything is gray; the earth is gray, a gray mist hangs in the air, and the sky is made gray by the mist. Even when the sun shines on the earth, it remains gray.

"It feels so quiet..."

Having found few Forsaken in Silverpine Forest, Tanyas, adhering to the principle of seeking fortune in danger, slipped into Tirisfal Glades, only to find nothing and utter a meaningless sigh.

"The drones also failed to detect any active intelligent entities..."

Finding a small hillside, Tennys deployed her drone to scout the surroundings, but after searching for a long time, she saw nothing but a bunch of plague dogs and mutated bats.

"Could it be that all the Forsaken have already gone to the ruins of Lordaeron? No, according to the information provided in the memory fragments, the ruins of Lordaeron should still be under the control of the Dreadlords at this time..."

Completely bewildered, Tannis had no choice but to recall the drone and frown as she pondered what to do next. She now had two options: first, to return to Ratchet using the single-person teleportation device; second, to explore the ruins of Lordaeron and see if she could encounter any potential customers.

After thinking for about a minute, Tennys made her decision.

"Now that we're already here, we can't afford to give it our all! If we run back now, all our previous efforts in Silverpine Forest would be meaningless! We must work hard to find more clients!"

So, Tannis opened her mechanical assistant, refreshed the map, and began to plan the best route to the ruins of Lordaeron. Soon, she drew a red line on the virtual map.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t go there. Although Arthas has been defeated, the dreadlords still control the ruins of Lordaeron.”

Just as Tennys was sketching on the map, a resolute yet sinister female voice rang in her ear. Realizing that someone was approaching, Tennys quickly rolled to the side, rotated her engineering glasses, and released her G-series robot to face the direction and stand ready.

Then she saw a high elf... uh... undead ranger with beautiful features, dark gray skin, wearing a tattered cloak and tight leather armor, with a bag of arrows faintly emitting black mist hanging on her back, and banshees floating behind her.

"Quel'Thalas Ranger-General, Sylvanas Windrunner?"

Tanis's heart skipped a beat. She never dreamed that she would encounter this legendary dark ranger, the future Banshee Queen, in the middle of nowhere.

"Tannis, the great tinkerer and adopted daughter of Baron Gazlowe of Ratchet?"

To Tanys's surprise, Sylvanas also called out her name immediately.

"Have you heard of me?"

“Talonnicus holds you in high esteem, believing your engineering skills to be the greatest in the world. Furthermore, I am no longer the Ranger-General of Quel'Thalas; Quel'Thalas has fallen, and standing before you is the Banshee Queen.”

Sylvanas casually uttered a name that made Tanis's lips twitch, while simultaneously introducing her new title.

"Isn't Talonnicus an advisor to Kael'thas? I remember that according to the military structure of Quel'Thalas, you two shouldn't have any interaction, right?"

Tanis's words made Sylvanas's gaze sharpen.

"He learned archery from me, and I gave him some pointers... Speaking of which, do you know Talonnicus? Have you met him?"

"Yes, not long ago he was appointed by Prince Kael'thas as the Blood Elf ambassador to Ratchet, to take the Blood Elves suffering from mana addiction to Ratchet for treatment—our standard energy source, the restorative arcane energy inside the colorless crystal, can effectively alleviate the pain of Blood Elves' mana addiction attacks."

As she spoke, Tennys took out a small, colorless crystal to reinforce the persuasiveness of her words.

"Blood Elves... Sin'dorei... Judging from your tone, you even saw Prince Kael'thas?"

"Yes, he is currently leading his elite troops to Northrend to settle accounts with the Lich King. You recently escaped the Lich King's control, didn't you? That was when your prince set off. Due to a certain magical ritual, the Lich King's power was severely weakened, and now is a good time to annihilate him."

"...This is too dangerous!"

A female demon screamed.

"No, the legendary night elf demon hunter Illidan Stormrage and his demon hunters from ten thousand years ago were in the crusade. Even if they couldn't defeat the Lich King, they had plenty of ways to retreat."

"I see... So, do you have a way to get us involved in the war against the Lich King, Grand Tinker? I've heard that Ratchet has an excellent transportation system, capable of quickly transporting troops."

After a few seconds of silence, Sylvanas asked a question that greatly surprised Tannis.

"There's no other way. If I'm not mistaken, in order to finish this quickly, they must have used an ultra-long-distance teleportation to go directly to the Northrend continent. Don't look at me with that suspicious look. Illidan still has two bottles of water from the Well of Eternity on him. Opening such a portal is a piece of cake for him."

Sylvanas nodded slightly, agreeing with Tannis's opinion, and then changed the subject, steer the conversation to another topic.

"Talonnicus has become Quel'Thalas's ambassador to Ratchet?"

"Ah."

"Then, I'd like to speak with him—I've heard that Ratchet has a unique method of long-distance communication, and as the second-in-command of Ratchet, you certainly have that authority."