Book Two — Chapter Twelve
The Barrens and Ratchet, years before the events of Book One
The road back north felt shorter.
It was not.
Vegetaone checked.
Twice.
The miles had not changed.
The journey still took several days. Most of them did not deserve names.
Dust.
Campfires.
A torn strap.
A night spent beneath a wagon while rain found every gap in the canvas. Two small fights that ended before Vegetaone had time to decide whether they counted as adventures.
He had changed.
Places that once seemed enormous now passed like chapters he had already read.
Camp Taurajo.
The road toward the Crossroads.
The plains where he had first learned to watch the grass instead of only the horizon.
He stopped at Camp Taurajo long enough to find Jorn.
The older Tauren was repairing a spear rack.
Vegetaone stood behind him.
Jorn did not turn.
“You survived.”
“Yes.”
“Tanaris?”
“Yes.”
“Thousand Needles?”
“Yes.”
“Did you follow anyone into a trap?”
“No.”
Jorn finally looked at him.
Vegetaone smiled.
“Not knowingly.”
Jorn sighed.
Then noticed the new armor.
The larger bag.
The enchanted axe.
“You look different.”
“Borak said that.”
“Where is he?”
“Freewind.”
“Good.”
Vegetaone waited.
Jorn looked at the bag.
“The corners are reinforced.”
Vegetaone brightened.
“You noticed.”
“I regret encouraging this.”
Harvek was walking again.
Poorly.
But walking.
He leaned against a post outside the healer’s tent.
Vegetaone approached.
Harvek looked at the new bag.
“No.”
“What?”
“I preferred the old one.”
“You hated the old one.”
“Yes. I had developed a relationship with it.”
Vegetaone opened the new bag.
Pulled out the folded old one.
Harvek stared.
“You kept it.”
“It holds things.”
“It is inside another bag.”
“It is resting.”
Harvek laughed hard enough to grab his side.
Vegetaone smiled.
Then they clasped forearms.
“You heading north?” Harvek asked.
“Ratchet.”
“Why?”
“Boat.”
“Where?”
“Booty Bay.”
Harvek stared.
“You finally got tired of Kalimdor?”
“I want to see what’s on the other side.”
“Of the ocean?”
“Yes.”
Harvek shook his head.
“There is something wrong with you.”
“That has been suggested.”
The Crossroads looked smaller when Vegetaone returned.
Not less important.
Just familiar.
The same smoke.
The same kodo.
The same guards.
The same inn.
Razik was still selling supplies.
Still wearing the eyepatch over a perfectly good eye.
Vegetaone stopped at the stall.
Razik squinted.
“Do I know you?”
“You charged me three copper for information.”
“That narrows it down very little.”
Vegetaone put one copper on the counter.
Razik stared.
“What is that?”
“Possibility.”
Razik looked offended.
Vegetaone walked away smiling. At the eastern road, he stopped. Months earlier, the Crossroads had felt like the center of the world.
Four roads.
Four directions.
Now one of them led to a ship.
And beyond that, another continent.
He turned east.
Ratchet announced itself with gulls.
Then smoke.
Then goblins.
The town sat against the coast in a mess of docks, warehouses, taverns, ropes, cargo, cranes, and people shouting about schedules no one seemed to follow. Vegetaone smelled the sea before he saw it.
Salt.
Wind.
Memory.
He stopped at the edge of the dock. The ocean stretched farther than the one at Sen’jin had seemed to.
No opposite shore.
No mountain.
No road.
Just water.
Zuro’s voice returned.
A lot of it.
Vegetaone laughed quietly.
A goblin dockworker looked at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That’ll cost you.”
Vegetaone kept walking.
The ship to Booty Bay was larger than anything he had ever been aboard. Vegetaone stood beside the gangplank.
The deck moved slightly beneath his boots.
He stepped back.
The ship moved again.
He looked at the dock.
Stable.
Then the ship.
Not stable.
A sailor noticed.
“First crossing?”
“No.”
The sailor looked at him.
Vegetaone corrected himself.
“First crossing on purpose.”
“That makes less sense.”
Vegetaone boarded.
His stomach immediately objected.
Ratchet disappeared behind them.
The Barrens coastline became a thin line.
Then nothing.
For the first time in his life, Vegetaone could not see land in any direction.
He stood at the rail.
A troll sailor tied off a rope beside him.
“Beautiful, eh?”
Vegetaone swallowed.
“Yes.”
The ship rose.
Dropped.
Vegetaone gripped the rail.
The sailor smiled.
“You gonna be sick?”
“No.”
The ship dropped again.
Vegetaone reconsidered.
“Maybe.”
By sunset, he had recovered enough dignity to walk.
He explored the deck.
Cargo below.
Crew quarters.
Ropes everywhere.
Sails larger than buildings he had lived in. He found a young orc sitting near the stern repairing a torn coat.
Vegetaone stopped.
The stitches were terrible.
He tried not to look.
Failed.
The orc noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“That seam will split.”
The orc frowned.
“It’s fine.”
“It isn’t.”
“It held yesterday.”
“That is not the same as fine.”
The orc handed him the coat.
“Then you do it.”
Vegetaone sat.
By moonrise, he had repaired three coats, one torn sail edge, and a merchant’s bag. The first mate paid him in food. Vegetaone considered this a successful sea voyage.
The storm arrived after midnight.
No warning that Vegetaone understood.
One moment the sea was dark and restless.
The next, wind hit the ship hard enough to throw him from his bunk.
Someone shouted above.
A bell rang.
Vegetaone climbed to the deck.
Rain struck sideways.
Sailors fought ropes.
The ship leaned.
A cargo line snapped.
A crate slid across the deck.
Vegetaone caught it with both hands and nearly went over with it.
A sailor grabbed his armor.
“Leave it!”
“It’s supplies!”
“It’s a box!”
Vegetaone looked at the crate.
Then the ocean.
He let go.
The box vanished overboard.
He had learned that lesson before.
Not everything had to be saved.
The main sail tore.
A long split opened along the lower edge.
The first mate swore.
“Needles!”
Vegetaone heard the word.
Turned.
The sailor pointed.
“You sew, right?”
Vegetaone stared at the enormous sail whipping in the storm.
“That is significantly larger than a bag.”
“Congratulations!”
They hauled the damaged section down.
Vegetaone worked with two sailors while the ship rolled beneath them.
Heavy thread.
Wide stitches.
Reinforced edge.
Double the strain points.
Exactly what Borak had shown him.
His hands moved without hesitation.
The repair did not look pretty.
It did not need to.
It held.
By dawn, the storm moved east.
The sail remained above them.
Patched.
Ugly.
Useful.
Vegetaone sat against the mast exhausted. The first mate handed him a cup.
“What is it?”
“Water.”
Vegetaone drank.
The first mate looked at the sail.
“Good work.”
Vegetaone followed his gaze.
The patch was terrible.
He smiled.
“It held.”
The first green coastline appeared the next afternoon.
Not Durotar red.
Not Barrens gold.
Green.
Dense.
Alive.
Jungle covered the hills.
Mist clung to the trees.
The ship turned toward a bay cut deep into the coast.
Buildings appeared.
Wooden walkways.
Stone.
Ships from places Vegetaone had never seen. The sailor beside him pointed.
“Booty Bay.”
Vegetaone stood at the rail.
The Eastern Kingdoms.
Another continent.
The ship entered the harbor.
Cannons watched from the cliffs.
Goblins crowded the docks.
Voices echoed between the buildings.
Vegetaone smiled.
The world had just become larger again.
End of Chapter Twelve