(2025-12-16) Fashing (Heroically?) (Orastan in Pandaland Part 3)

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Author:	Athena
Summary:	Oranna and Thalstan continue to explore both their new relationship and the new (to them) continent of Pandaria, as a rumor of some minor concern out in a cardinal direction (don't worry, Thalstan can navigate) leads them into a bit more trouble than they originally anticipated, and to a familiar face who wasn't expecting the trouble either, or the help. If Thalstan had a silver for every time he showed up to help in the nick of time and the person wondered if she was hallucinating the cover of a book coming to life to magically rescue her, he'd have two silvers. Which isn't a lot, but maybe it's weird that it's happened twice? 14k~ words. Action Romance RP.
Rating:	T for Teen

Chain: Orastan

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romance, romantic couple in monogamous relationship, flirting, characters in distress, brief discussion around hallucinations/unrealness, hozen humor

The morning sun is filtering in through the round front door of the Lazy Turnip illuminating the peaceful scene of a day just getting started. Den-den is already hopping around behind the bar, though maybe not quite with the same energy as the evening before. It is pretty early, even for an older hozen. Still, as he tosses things from one pot to the next, the sounds and scents of meat, eggs and vegetables sizzling on the stove fills the air.

Thalstan is already seated at the bar, next to the radiating warmth of one stove. He's actually sitting with his back to the bar, which is a little more comfortable for his proportions — the countertop strikes him somewhere around just above tops of his shoulders.

He's half-turning his head, though, in conversation with Den-Den as the breakfast preparations continue.

"I've heard ye know a lot about bananas?" Thalstan says conversationally in Common. "Like, banana wisdom."

"Hozen have many banana wisdoms," Den-Den nods sagely. "Remember — always peel banana first, eat second."

"Ah, aye," Thalstan says, a little puzzled. "That's a bit more straightforward than I… uh, got any more?"

"Yes, yes, many," Den-den says, lifting a pan with his tail to toss the grilling vegetables within. "Steal a banana from a hozen, expect an angry hozen."

"That makes sense, aye," Thalstan says idly.

"I have deeper wisdom," Den-Den says, going still for a moment. "Mouth only hole that banana goes in."

Having imparted this important advice to Thalstan, Den-Den resumes hopping around, and starts gathering up breakfasts on simple stoneware plates, moving as if to the beat of music only he can hear.

Thalstan is not sure how to answer that one.

Oranna, to be fair, isn't either. Her mouth is half-open, her worry line almost a question mark in the center of her forehead, and you can just tell she's going through all the possible holes and it's… it's only getting worse the longer she thinks about it. At least she started with the face, and stopped somewhere around the —

Befound has even more banana wisdom: don't eat bananas. Eat fish. Problem solved.

Oranna, red cheeked, smooths down her hair — in a soft loose twist today, over one shoulder, giving her a bit of a fairy-tale princess look — and then her dress, a pretty, long sleeved blue linen with a sweet bit of lace trim around the neck and wrists that is probably more suitable for an early a spring than the early winter, but she doesn't seem cold. She steps around the corner where the voices were coming from. And then sort of pauses a bit too long, staring at Thalstan again for a long few seconds before she's moved back into action and word thoughts.

"Mornin'," she says, waving shyly at Thalstan, and Den-Den. Mostly — admittedly — at Thalstan. She seems a bit, as advertised, bleary eyed and out-of-focus, and it makes her attention on him seem even more dreamy.

"Oranna Banana!" Den-Den greets back enthusiastically, waving the scooped spatula.

"Good mornin'," Thalstan says, waving back just about as enthusiastically, maybe especially pleased by the change of subject. There's appreciation in his eyes as he takes in the dress and the fairy-tale hair. "Sleep well? I think our breakfast will be ready soon, unless you want something different than Den-Den's guess. I just told him you'd be down soon and he started something going on the stove."

Oranna blinks a little sleepily at the stove. "Oh, ah, I… I'm sure it's food. I — I mean, a'course it's food, I'm sure it's fine. I. Fine. I'm fine," she says, visibly wondering if it's true, as she walks over to Thalstan at the bar. She hesitates there, unsure now on the next step protocol. "You? Slept okay? No weird sha thoughts creeping in or sudden urges… and still happy?"

"Oranna Nana cheesey," Den-Den comments, slapping something on the grill with a hop. "Eggy cheesey."

"Eggy cheesey," Thalstan repeats under his breath with a grin, and then nods to Oranna. "No weird sha thoughts, just regular dreams. Looking forward to seeing some of the area with you today. How about you, still happy?"

A couple of pandaren men, farming folk by the look of their rough, dirt-stained garments, wander in through the wide door. One lifts a paw with two fingers raised to Den-Den, who tosses a kind of half-salute in their direction and starts cooking something with a distinctly meaty aroma. The two settle in at a table near the center of the common room, talking together in lower voices, something distracted in their manner.

Oranna's nose wrinkles at the smell of meat cooking, but she smiles at Thalstan, still sleepy eyed. "Aye, still happy. I thought maybe we could — " She glances at the pandaren men, and then takes a second glance, worry inching over her face. "Go… over ta some of the farms, see some of the more spectacular sized turnips. Something's… wrong o'er there," she observes, talking quietly to Thalstan, not doing too well in being subtle in gesturing with her chin at the farmers. "I hope nothin' with the virmen again. It doesn't look run fer the hills serious, but…ye should see the size the weeds will get here. Stuff o' nightmares."

"Killer weeds?" Thalstan asks, raising his eyebrows. He hops down from the stool and takes a stepover towards the table and says in Common."Excuse me, is everything alright?"

One of the pandaren looks over in surprise, and then takes in Oranna and Thalstan's dwarven appearance with a glance and a brief smile. Outsiders, says that glance, but at least here in the Valley that word has become synonymous with helpers.

"I hope so, traveling friends," he says, settling back in his chair. "We were just discussing rumors of trouble, out by the Greentouch farm. The family's gone back, since the evacuation, but they are quite close to the wall."

"Greentouch…" Oranna repeats. "The wall out a-ways by Stoneplow, ye mean? What sort o' rumor o' trouble? Sha or mantid or… both? Or — has the Horde started ta… " She sighs heavily. "I don't mean ta bombard ye, I know there's been so many. Ye've heard of sommat?"

"My guess is mantid," says the other pandaren. "I heard one of their cubs was back in Stoneplow, asking for their pitchforks to be sharpened up. They're proud folk, the Greentouches, not likely to ask for help until they're in over their ears."

The first pandaren shakes his head. "They just want to be getting on with life, like the rest of us."

Thalstan looks relieved at no mention of Horde, but he glances over at Oranna. "We were going to look about, in any case. Maybe we could stop in and see if they could use a hand?"

Oranna nods, her worry line deepening. "Aye, I think ye're right. An' it's probably nae much, we took out the worst of things. But, it's better ta bring a gun, a shield, an' a snow leopard ta a bit of a mantid pokin' aboot than a pitchfork, an' they do get a wee bit stubborn out there. I know what it's like when yer out there on yer own on a farm like that. Ye get used ta dealing with things on yer land. An' we were thinkin' of taking a walkabout anyway, aye? Ye can see Pandaria and… Pandaria." The beautiful rolling countryside and the giant bug rolling countryside! Exciting. She pats at her hair and her dress. "I'll, ah, go change an' get SUNBEAM. My — my gun. Not… not me, Sunbeam get. That… I already have on me. Obviously."

Thalstan, who is familiar with the gun, probably got that. The pandaren, unfamiliar with Oranna, her gun, or the nickname, probably none of that last bit. She rubs at her eyes. She's still waking all the way up.

Befound puts a paw on Oranna's foot. She will take her fish To-Go. Also her extra treats.

The two pandaren are staring a little bemusedly at Oranna during that last, but they give agreeable nods all the same.

"If you two were with the Saviors of Stoneplow, I'm sure you can handle whatever is troubling the Greentouch farm," the first pandaren says with a placid smile. "And if not, well, perhaps you are still here for a reason. Who can say?"

"Aye, who can say," Thalstan nods, and then looks over to Oranna. "I'll go armed and armored as well, just in case. I did bring my gear, just in case, sword and shield. Might be it's just virmen, but if it's something worse… we can handle it and then carry on with our walkabout."

Thalstan rises as well, ready to go up the winding stairs, and then he turns to Den-Den. "Can you bag up our breakfast to go?"

"Thalstan and Oranna in the bag," Den-Den says cheerfully, turning back to the stove. "Cheesey Eggy bag, go go!"

Thalstan and Oranna in the bag, K-I-S-S-I-N-G~. First comes love like, then comes…guns and armor, and cheesy eggs. Welcome to Azeroth.

Some Time Later

The kite ride out to Stoneplow gives another breathtaking view of Pandaria's great breadbasket. The Valley of the Four Winds is a stunning expanse of growth and life, with huge tracts of land that show those truly mind-boggling vegetations of legend — a watermelon that has to be at least the size of a horse is visible from far, far off. It isn't the only thing bigger than expected, as moths that make the surrounding buildings seem like toys flap their wings in an illusion of slow motion so far off meander erratically in the south as they travel west out towards Stoneplow.

A brilliant gray-blue ribbon of river swipes alongside their kite path, flitting in and out of their vision like a playful serpent, and the mountains offer peeks of swooping jungles on the edges of the horizon at dizzying drops and low hanging clouds.

Birds large enough to ride on pass by the kites with streams of morning sun glinting off their feathers, screeching loudly, though they do nothing more than this to menace the dwarves on their way, dropping off as they pass outside their territory.

Even before they can see more than a suggestion of the farms, the wall becomes visible as a gray note amidst the green, one that sharpens and solidifies, and finally becomes detailed, with the enormous mantid of Oranna's drawing as its centerpiece. As she rendered, the corpse has remained, with scaffolding now in place as the pandaren work to repair the hole, and deal with the colossus both, a work in progress, and at least it had died to plug the very thing it had broken. The craftsmanship of the wall is also beautiful, ancient and lovely in its way, if for something inherently terrible for its great martial need to keep something out, and for coming to this moment captured here of the wall failing, caught only just barely in time.

The kites set them down in Stoneplow Village, and as before, it takes Oranna a moment to get herself back on solid ground, although at least this time, she looks more like like she could really be one of the Saviors of Stoneplow.

Oranna's armor is a professional set, and it's not too shiny, straight out of a box either; she's been wearing it enough that's seen some combat, and some use. It's a gorgeous one, all the same, perfect for the jungle of Pandaria, a deep jade green mail and leather with muted golds that would blend in for a hunter going in camouflaged looking for a wayward prince, and it serves her nearly as well in the Valley of the Four Winds with its grasses and farmlands. It fits her well, made for her exact curves, her bags tucked up securely, and her holster keeping her over-engineered impressive sniper rifle in place. She has the heavy boots, fit for running or riding, or grounding through magical lightning (gnome guaranteed!).

Her long hair has been meticulously braided back, the shorter hairs around her face woven back and away from her face, showing those tiny white scars at the lobes of her now long healed over unpierced ears (a quiet, unspoken story in them). This is the Oranna that Pandaria knows, the one Stoneplow knows in particular, and she is instantly recognized by several of the community, who return her friendly wave as soon as she's able to make it again after the kite ride's nauseating heights.

Befound is Befound. Her coat is as shiny as ever. Her breath is a little extra fishy.

Thalstan is in his blue and gold armor, the set he's worn many times at the front of the Cobalt Blade strike team, on Azeroth and Outland. It's been recently repaired and cleaned since the latest mission has concluded, and so it gleams almost like new. His hair is tied back with a band now — both in back and his beard — since free flowing curls are only really a benefit in fantasy battle, not real battle. His Alliance-blue lion-carved shield is secured to his back, and a sword is sheathed at his waist.

He is not known here in Stoneplow, not yet, but he looks the part of someone who might help against the mantid threat or anything else that comes their way.

"Making friends everywhere, I see," Thalstan says with a smile, noting the waves and greetings. He glances up at the sun and then orients towards the north. "Northwest, for the Greentouch farm. We can wander that way, see the countryside?"

Oranna looks east, starts rotating south, looks over at Thalstan, and then rotates north because he's facing it, which means she's now just turned in a circle and she still has honestly no idea which way she's facing, if it's the direction they're supposed to go or if he's just gazing out into the wilds. "Oh, aye. Right. Cardinal directions… I'll just… I'll be totally honest with you right now, I've not any head for them, never had. You could probably get your father's compass and me and ask us both to find north on a spin, and it'd still probably win out against me nine tries out of ten," she admits.

Thalstan chuckles, and reaches over to pat her shoulder, and then points to the northwest. "I can handle the orienting. I'm still not even half the explorer my father was, but he did teach me some of the orienteering. If I give you directions to a place, I'll make sure it's landmarks and not directions, alright?"

Oranna laughs, and smiles at him. "Aye. And I can get us anywhere I've been afore with the Squad or on my own, and anywhere back to where we've been, no matter how we've gotten turned about or light's gone. Just don't ask me to tell you if we're north-west by south or south-east by east-east." She studies the wall, more than the direction. "Two options we can likely do out here. One, if we want an easy straight shot is to follow along the wall. They patrol out here regular, on account of the whole 'every thousand or so years we're invaded by giant bugs,' routine so it'll have that right there path you can sort of see from here going along that we can follow, and likely spot the farm in question eventually.

"Or, we could always take a, er, scenic route, going a bit more erratically overland following some of the natural curves and sparse country roads and odd game trail here and there. Might end up putting us head to head with a few of more aggressive wildlife and other Pandaria critters, but we might also be more likely to run into one of those farms or farmers who could use a bit of help and doesn't have a spare moment to run into a bigger town to post a notice."

"I can see the benefit of either," Thalstan says, gazing at the wall off to the west. "I'd like to see the countryside, but we can always do that on the way back if we think somebody might be needing a hand sooner rather than later."

He looks from the wall, to the country road, back to Oranna. "Maybe we go along the wall to start with? We'll still be able to see a lot of the land, at least on one side."

She nods. "All right then, wall it is. I'll let you head a bit in front, just enough to give you a lead for a shield response if something comes up. But, I don't think we need to be too far apart or anything. Since I'm best at long range, whenever we're expecting trouble, it usually means I'm a good ways back from Dane, but it's been fair quiet out here, for the most part, far as I've heard. And… I'd like to walk with you, enjoy your company closer. Not that it's not also a very good view, behind you." Is she — yes, she is definitely flirting with him. Her eyes are practically twinkling.

"It's a shame I can't think of a reason to have you go first, for my view," Thalstan says with a grin, and he heads off, taking the first few steps leisurely in a slightly hips-swinging model sort of way, at least as much as he can in plate armor. "I do want you close, so we can talk, because really, the point is to see the sights together."

He looks over towards the massive mantid, as they start walking towards the wall. "It is a little wild, actually being here. It's like stepping into a story, after reading all your letters."

"See, you say that, I start to think, oh, and just think, what if you have my letters on you, and we run into some unexpected sha nest and they get into the letters, and then they bring my letters to life, which would be even more sha and the story of them bringing a whole library to life, bringing that somehow to life, and a return of the talking poetry fish, and having to shoot down another five suns in the sky," Oranna says, shaking her head with a laugh but also the worry line between her heavy brows.

"Still, I doubt I did any of the strangeness or beauty of this place justice enough. Most of the time I was so tired when I was writing. Every letter was half me Second Pronging at you, and the half me was really me using words to just — " She sticks out both arms and wiggles them like she's trying to reach across a distance with unstretchy limbs. Even with her tendency with unusual bizarre hand gestures, this one is pretty clear. It helps for the visual effect that she is actually outside of hugging distance now, too. But only just. He might, with his longer reach, be able to reach her, actually, if he held out a hand back to her.

She's only a few steps out of sync with him. Enough time, as she said, that if something came at them, to give them both time to react, him in front, her back. Befound has taken up a silent padding trot next to Thalstan, as another front line fighter, oddly difficult to notice, for a white creature in a green land.

Thalstan reaches back to brush her fingertips with his, smiling. "I think they did that. I used to read them when I got back to the inn at night, imagine where you were, what all was happening. The place, though, it's… it's beyond what I'd imagined. Fault of my imagining, not your words."

"Anyway, that'd be an odd kind of inception," he continues, turning back to the front but talking over his shoulder. "A sha of a story of a sha of a story. Do you think a sha can reach so far?" He chuckles, and adds, "At the moment, I'm feeling no doubt or despair at all, I can tell you that."

She likes it when he turns to reach back, and he can see the little zap when their hands meet, even through the leather of their gloves, the way she breathes in, the biting down on her lower lip, and that rosy glow to her cheeks that has nothing at all to do with the brisk chilly air or the exercise.

"No, not I, either. Which is good. They're definitely drawn to it, and we took out the big ones, but who knows how much they keep crawling back in." Oranna glances out and away at the countryside. "But, fear is the one that was out here," she warns. "You'll know it if we run into a more active patch, which I hope we won't. That's the last thing we'd need. Black, twisted, and right unnatural — there, you can probably still see the remnants fading over that way. I wish I could tell you how far they can reach or what the limits of their powers are, or even if there are limits, but that lack of real knowledge has been part of the problem from the start.

"The scroll we found from the place Yu'lon sent us to this past Saturday said — ach, Bran has the exact wording, and I'm paraphrasing a bit from memory now… so bear with me, 'Emperor Shaohao taught the pandaren how to overcome the fear, doubt, despair, and anger, and they'd build temples to the celestials in honor to uphold those teachings,' but those details have gone right blurry through time. They've been doing it, but we've had questions coming fast, and answers coming slow ever since we landed."

As they walk outside Stoneplow, closer to the wall, the scale of both it and the mantid becomes even clearer. The patch she points out is as if a large oak tree might be there in the field, casting a shadow on the land, except there is no tree, only the shadow, and strange gleams catch in the late morning light, remnants of where sha traversed the ground like snails leaving behind twisted trails. But the grass is calm, shifting gently in a soft wind, undisturbed by anything more than the half-glimpsed red darting of a sly fox making for his hidey hole over this way, or a bumbling sleepy bandicoon shuffling for her den having stayed up much too late past her bedtime for just one more game of toad hopper catching.

The colossus looms, but their route isn't straight for it — the road curves north (or for Oranna's sake, we'll say it curves up, towards the peakier mountains and spread out farms, away from the jungle), and the pandaren seem to like to make a journey easy, picking out the path deliberately to avoid steep climbs or unnecessary plunges, but not necessarily the most direct, as it winds around lazily.

Thalstan's gaze catches on the colossus, and he shakes his head… not in disbelief, but in amazement. He then also peers at the strange, uncast shadow of the sha, just there and no longer any apparent sign of concern.

"I'll keep an eye out for signs of fear. That looks right unhealthy though, even fading," Thalstan says, peering at it. "As for the teachings, you've seen the Jade Serpent Temple and the Red Crane one. I reckon there's a few more out there to explore? Maybe some preserved the old writings better than others. I've really never seen anything just quite like it. The animals seem not too bothered, though, and used to going around the corruption."

Oranna glances nervously at Befound, who is also unbothered, padding silently along. "Aye. It — I think it's a bit… worrying, because they can't really communicate if they feel a strange thinking. And the sha can corrupt them, all sorts of animals. But… feared animals behave a very easily visible and clear way, and these ones out here are back to normal behaviors. I took a good look around the days after, and you can see they're back to good trails, homes, the lot. The sha were in the mantids, not the land, and with the mantids pulled up and out, they're well shot of it," she says.

"I'd feel better if the mantid couldn't fly. Flying sha carriers feels like as soon as narrowed down a method…" She looks up suddenly, checking the skies. "Not to mention huge eagles and hawks here. The size of this place…" She chuckles, eyes sliding over to Thalstan with a shy smile. "Maybe another reason I like having someone bigger around."

Thalstan chuckles. "Aye, those birds could lift up a gnome. Might be harder to snatch you and I, in our armor, and anyway we'd fight 'em. The flying mantids, though… must be why they keep a watch on the wall. A wall can't stop flying things."

"And Befound never… you never did have to use a mask on her?" Thalstan asks, glancing down at the snow leopard.

Befound is profoundly insulted. She has never felt anything except pure pride and perfection of her impeccable self in all her life, thank you very much. Unless there's a Sha of Being The Best Cat In The World, she's safe forever.

Oranna's worry line becomes a worry wall, but she shakes her head. "No. Well, aye, I — I've put it on her, a'course, to check, but it's never done anything," she explains. "No telling really if it's her personality or just luck. Did you… did you want to see it? The — the mask, I mean, not the… sha-ing or lucking or — you probably, you got that." She fumbles the sentence as she reaches for a bag — without looking, absolutely sure of every single place of every item in her bags — opening a pocket halfway already.

In the far distance, to what most people would call the northeast from where they walk, and what Oranna would call up and right, there are some heavier clouds, darker and lower, squatting over a valley mostly obscured from their sight by all the larger verdant hills around it. It might even be raining that far out, or if not quite yet, the air is still thicker, and harder to see any details from this vantage, but there's not any reason to think there's a need to, not here and now.

"Oh, yes," Thalstan says, turning curiously and walking a bit sideways. "You described the mask, but I've not yet seen anything like it. I could try it on, just in case, but I'm pretty sure there's no feeling in me right now except the natural ones."

As Oranna gets the mask out, he adds, "If only it would work on all sorts of negative feelings. Like maybe those folk in Outland? Seems like they could have used a little despair reduction, and then maybe they'd have seen more solutions to the Legion problem. We will have to fight them, someday. The Legion, I mean."

"Oh, aye, that's… what they say," Oranna agrees with that anxiety hamster wheel person's way. She's been on alert for so long it's a forever background anxiety noise now, like static. "An elite demon army… but we've got an elite 7th Legion so… Legion vs Legion. A'course, if they ever decide to rebrand as the 8th Legion, we can always just call ours the 9th, and argue it out back and forth until the final clash."

Whatever Thalstan had pictured in his head, because Oranna only wrote mask, it might not have looked anything like the frankly borderline horror show of a physical item that Oranna puts in his hand with all the loving fondness of a favorite comfort stuffed animal. It's made of hastily stretched and dried saurok lizard skin, the flesh molded unevenly over what was probably a knobby hozen knee into the vague shapes of a face: a flattened wide nose centered; two deep sunken, titled crescent moon eyes that depict deep and pained despair; and a mouth elongated in agony, held open in the unnatural width with sharp panther teeth that point inwards. Streaks of orange and blue runic shapes form the rest of the expression, whorls and triangles for eyebrows, and lines down from the eyes like tears.

Thanks, Ken-Ken.

Thalstan actually trails to a stop, staring at it. "And that… helps? Draws out the sha? It's a bit… more frightening than the sha, I'd say, except I suppose I've not seen the other for a comparison. Maybe we should wear those whenever the Legion comes calling, and scare all the demons off."

Oranna laughs, giggling and a bit snorty, and he can see not the mask's power, but his own, in how he banishes those shades of anxiety and worry growing over Oranna, replacing them with a clearer, easier laughter, and she steps into his closer space, looking at him rather than the mask, enjoying the opportunity, at least for a few moments.

"Oh, aye. It looks a fright, but it pulls the sha into it as a…focus maybe. I have to wonder if you might be onto something with what you were saying about books, and theater, exaggerating the emotion to the audience, aye? And then what you said about how the sha might see us as masks they need to form up. So if you put those two things together… What if that's what the mask does for the sha? Makes it bigger than the person they're in, so it's drawn to it, to leave the other? And when you put it close enough… to the skin… it's enough of a temptation to make the sha make the jump."

"That's a thought," Thalstan says with a smile, still staring at the horrific mask. "And maybe it follows from them being… attracted to the feelings? So if I were afraid, I'd be more likely to get a fear sha in me. So then… if the mask is an exaggerated fear, or like this one, despair, they pick it up as like, seeming stronger than the natural feeling of a person — like you're saying. I wonder if you'd need different masks, for the different types of sha. But you used yours on the mantid, right? Maybe just strong and negative-seeming is enough to pull them in."

"Aye. We used this one, a Despair, on the Fear, and it still pulled them out. They don't… get into the mask, it does make them manifest out, so there's some sort of magic in the mask too that does something so it's slippery enough not to get like the scrolls in the library. There's also something… I think there's a way to reverse it. A mask that can keep sha in even if you might otherwise try to expel it. Sometimes we've seen people with a mask on, sha-ed people, who we can't reason with." She chews on that thought both metaphorically and literally as she chews on the side of her bottom lip anxiously. Mask technology! She has so many questions, and no one she's been able to ask. "And I still don't know if there's a size limit, on either the person or the sha. I only have the one mask, and I don't even know where Ken-Ken is to make another if this one blows up or something."

"I see, answers slow in coming," Thalstan nods seriously. "Makes a person wonder if there might be… criteria, maybe?… on what things can hold a sha and what can't. Maybe the masks don't have enough spirit or some such, so they can get the sha to jump, but they can't hold them. And then maybe the other sort, if there's some sort of spirit energy already in the mask, it makes like a place to hold them in. That's all guessing though, from what you've told me." Thalstan frowns in thought. "Maybe if we can find some of the other temples, they'll have more answers to our questions. Or we could at least track down Ken-Ken to make more masks, even if he doesn't know the theory behind it."

Befound noses in to sniff the mask. "Aye. The… materials are also a bit of a snag, saurok and panther teeth aren't exactly treebark and grass for gathering, but… they're not fel crystals and mana lightning," Oranna says with a rueful smile. "And Ken-Ken's a wanderer but I can say we probably won't need to leap through any risky portals to chase after him. Although, now I've said it, watch, a mogu'll have captured him, and we'll be leaping through some arcane twisty thing and I'll be muttering about my knees."

"I don't even know to guess where a risky mogu portal might go," Thalstan says with a laugh, shaking his head. "Surely not to Quel'Thalas, but wherever — have you any sense of where they come from now? Beyond the wall, up in the mountains, or some other continent. I get they were here a long, long time ago, and they're back now, but they must have some kind of headquarters or homeland."

Oranna tucks the terrifying mask back into its corner of the world, into the unconventional internal system of her bags, and looks out over Pandaria. "Your guess honestly might be just about as good as mine. I can't get any read on a where they've been coming from myself because they don't track in — they teleport. I'm sure of it after the last place. It was as if they just suddenly appeared into the area, no carts or army trails, nothing. They have somewhere they are. But it could be anywhere from over land deeper inland we haven't been to, underground like an Ironforge mountain we've not yet seen, or a floating island hidden by a magic mist like a Dalaran, and here we are."

Befound, mask toy put away, resumes some of her walking on the path, looking back at the dwarves to see if they're following.

Thalstan follows after the cat, allowing himself to be encouraged along, though his attention is still more on Oranna and the conversation than possible Pandarian dangers.

"Speaking of Dalaran, I do wonder where it is, too," Thalstan observes. "I've been there, since the move, so they're still allowing folk in. It was somewhere over water." He chuckles, and adds, "No mogu there, of course, but maybe they have their own magic floating city."

"Ach, Light I hope not. I wasn't much a fan of Dalaran, to be honest," Oranna admits, following Thalstan following Befound, as much more obviously captivated by him than anything else. "Turns out, I like my cities to have their feet on the ground, too. In fact, I'm all around a fan of the good ground. Just, put me out on the thick, solid earth, all the time, keep me firmly on it." Wait, that might have come out a bit wrong or a bit Oranna-ed.

"Thick, solid earth," Thalstan agrees. "Dalaran was mostly for the training options, for me, not a place to really stay for any appreciable amount of time. And I guess the mogu haven't shown any sign of flying around, at least, from your letters. So maybe a city like Ironforge is more likely… or more like Shadowforge City."

Oranna shudders, and sets her left hand over her right arm. "Or a Grim Batol… Light Above, Ancestor's Below." She shakes her head. "There is a bit of… they're old, the mogu. And had some connections at a time with some of the races afore, like the trolls? And the kaldorey, and back afore the big split so maybe there's also old connections of how they might think to build up from there that maybe they would do a Dalaran like or — What was the whole Quel'Thalas through the portal like from that way of hiding out? I've never been anywhere close to it to see, but I heard so much about it as a dome. I — I mean, I've read stories and books, but, not really by any elf authors, and ach. I've read how humans will write Ironforge, and we both know there's no majestic 'lava' waterfalls and magic super huge hot springs filled with hundreds of scantily clad serving dwarven wenches unless I've really been missing out on big parts of the city."

"Huh," Thalstan says, maybe imagining hot spring full of scantily-clad dwarven ladies. But then he shakes his head, "If there were such a thing, I feel like I would've heard about it — from the other models at least, or maybe the political families."

Thalstan firmly switches mental tracks, and says, "Quel'thalas though… well it was pretty, if you overlooked all the violence. I don't think the violence was usual, of course. There were these carved buildings all red and white and gold, and this kind of pale-barked, yellow-leaved tree I've never seen before. We followed Savar into a building, which had loads of draperies and pillows and bookcases full of books. I feel like half the decorations I looked at could've been snapped by a rough grab, everything was so delicate. I guess the decadence I've heard people talk about isn't a lie, at least in the decor."

Oranna considers that as they walk. The pandaren's idea of defense is definitely more inclined towards sturdy and physical, like the pandaren themselves, and the wall stretches northward in the rolling unbroken line.

The sky grows darker the further they go, and the air denser with that heaviness, something that's more pronounced out to the west in the valley now creeping into better visibility as they crest a low hill.

"Oh, aye? That's… a thought. Magical defense, and decadence, I mean, as a parallel about the mogu as an old empire. Whichever direction they started in, I don't think that's how the mogu ended up with fragile, because they're built denser, more like us, but I do wonder about that magical stone defense inclination, like the old ways of Quel'thalas, from how the mogu were going for the arcane items here, snatching up anything, desperate like.

"And not that the elves were doing anything so terrible, but with the mogu outsourcing their laboring and wanting decadence for themselves… maybe we should be looking for a place with that kind of magical type of way in. And ach, they love their self-statues even more than we dwarves do. That'll probably be a clue. The statues. You can't turn a corner in a mogu ruin without bumping into one. I almost can't use them for a point of reference because it sounds like, 'turn left at the mogu statue that looks self important, no the other one, no, the other-other one, and then turn right at the other-other-other one.'"

"Yes, they're the slaving sort of race, if I recall," Thalstan says, turning away to peer into the denser air, judging if it's rain ahead. "Rather than the sort to be so into art to make all those statues, it's more just into themselves and forcing other people to make likenesses. Dwarves, we designed and built our own statues, to honor folk as came before. The humans, with their statues in front of Stormwind, is much the same, I think. For the mogu, it seems more… arrogance than honor."

He pauses, thinking back. "There were some statues of blood elves in Quel'thalas, but I think they're more the style of dwarves or humans, made to honor folk and not just because they love looking at themselves. I could be wrong, though, I can't say I had much a chance to chat with their sculptors."

Oranna chuckles. "Oh, aye, that'd have been… the sort of interrogation I'd expect from something like a Lance Schuemer novel or something, his spy agents always somehow managing to grab a random guy who happens to be the exact person who made the sculpture for exposition mid-high speed chase. Was the building all one story, then? Or was it something with secret passageways? Hidden stairways? Any magical illusion doors?" They're asked only a small part in jest — she's really honestly curious, and Azeroth's magical enough that all are real possibilities. "Should I start worrying about your knees in a few decades having to jump off balconies chasing mad princes on the regular as Dane has us doing all the time?"

Thalstan gives an answering chuckle. "There were some balconies, but none we jumped off of. And they've a way of doing doors so you can't see what's on the other side — not illusion magic but just a barrier in the middle you've got to go around before you can see the other side."

"I think there were multiple stories, but we mostly chased him through one. There was a courtyard in the complex though, open to the sky, right in the middle," Thalstan pauses, and stomps a foot experimentally. "I think the only time my knees were in danger was with the last fight itself. He did some kind of trick that lifted us all off the ground. Maybe some kind of magic from that big fel crystal."

Befound looks over at the stomp curiously. Bug? No. Hmph. She continues onward.

It's not necessarily rain in the valley, at least not visible from here, but there is a dark cloud lingering over it, crouched over a farmland, casting it in an obscuring shadow, nothing outside the realm of natural phenomenon. It's winter, after all, storms and rain clouds are a part of a season, and Pandaria is a place of many differences, but unlike Outland, it also is a part of Azeroth.

The wind picks up, blowing scents of the Valley around them, threading through Thalstan's dark hair, teasing some of the strands.

Oranna glances at dark clouds, frowning, but she doesn't pick up the pace. "Looks like rain," she mutters. She turns back to Thalstan, and honestly paying a bit more attention to those strands than the clouds.

"I wonder what Nnelanor Steelbloom will write about the place in the books." Did she say… Nelanor Steelbloom? Uh. A-anyway. "I — I was thinking about it after what you said. I don't think you did anything wrong. I agree with everything you said about the why and what made you decide to go for it. You made the right call, and it had to be made, I believe that. Elo will probably do some sort of political thing about it, right, if it needs it? Maybe it'll be something like… 'Goldenstar,' the somehow big metropolis elven city, haven't you heard of it? No? It's definitely been around, for sure, it's just over that a way, and turns out, completely unincorporated, not Horde or anything territory, mmhmm. That's definitely always existed for sure, my cousin went there once." Even in jest, Oranna is a really, really terrible liar. She can't even pretend to sell it, but she's also not really trying. "Either that or maybe they'll just spoiler bar it. It happened in the great city of Redacted, of Redacted, all resemblances to real people or places are entirely coincidental."

"I appreciate you saying. Sometimes it's hard to judge, when you've got to make a decision with no time to pause and think," Thalstan says, and then he chuckles at the Silvermoon jokes. "As for the book, maybe they'll just lean on 'all this is fiction, really', or maybe they'll just say we caught the man in Netherstorm. We nearly did, if he hadn't had that portal. Or why not Goldenstar? The elven metropolis that is clearly not silver or moon-like. Though by my guess we were a bit north of the city."

"As for the reality, at least we are at war with them, and we don't seem to have upset any major plans. I bet Sir Ference can talk to the generals and smooth things over," Thalstan seems more confident, now that the team has left the elvish lands without becoming prisoners of war.

He peers ahead at the cloud. "Is that Greentouch? Are those kind of localized storms common here?"

Oranna peers curiously again at it at his words. "Common? I don't know. It's happened, that I'll say. Zhu's Watch had a… personalized metaphorical literal raincloud, which was a sha thing, but also then when we fixed the sha thing, it… started actually raining. I'm not a real weather expert, but…" She comes to a stop, and takes out SUNBEAM, shouldering it, and adjusting the scope with nimble fingers, zooming in to one of the strongest magnifications, breathing in those very carefully controlled breaths she does to keep her hands steady.

Her worry line grows, and she tenses to hold her gun even steadier as she pushes the magnification even further — then, she is abruptly stoneform as she slowly sweeps the gun across a small area, her gun held to near micro-degrees of steadiness. The stoneform releases and she lifts her head up, adjusting the magnification lower, and detaching the scope, holding it out to Thalstan. She is visibly concerned.

"Aye, that's a farm, and I'm more than fair certain it's the one we're meant to head for. There's people there, and they're panicked, not moving around normal. I couldn't see anything for sure, we're too far out, even with my highest zoom. I don't know if they're currently under attack or they're just preparing for something, but they're not farming, and they do need help, I've no doubt. Here, the scope. At the highest zoom, even breathing will make your hand move even a wee bit, and make it hard to see for the wobble, but at that setting, you should still be able to see the farm, and what I mean."

Thalstan takes the scope carefully, and peers through it. He's steady with his hands, but certainly less steady than a gun expert like Oranna. Her peers through, scanning the farm, and then shifts briefly to stoneform himself, following her lead on how to make it easier.

"Aye, I see what you mean," Thalstan nods. "Hard to make out, but they're moving too fast and irregular to be… weeding or anything farm-like. Hope it's just problems with the giant birds or wolves or something, but regardless we ought to get to them sooner rather than later."

He holds the scope back to Oranna. "Let's head straight for 'em, sightsee on the way back."

Befound growls audibly, a bone-jarring sound. Wolves! How v dare. She has liked only two wolves ever, and neither of them are here. They will handle this, and then Befound can go back to having a good nap.

Oranna sets the scope back into place, and she reholsters her gun, her body language shifting into a readiness for a brisker pace, a light adventurer jog that's responsible for the way shape of her thighs and the tone of her calves. And her face language shifting into a readiness for fashing.

Thalstan is fashing (heroically?) as well, and he shifts into a quicker pace, the speed of jog that the armor will allow without leaving him exhausted at his destination.

"We've fought together before, so we'll be fine," Thalstan says, as they jog. "I'll cover you, you'll be clear to take the shots you need. Whatever's troubling them, we can handle it."

As they get closer, there's a faint buzzing sound. That's probably not a good sign.

"Befound might be the biggest adjustment if you're not as used to it, but she's worked with a lot of warriors, and she'll know how to stay out of your way, so it's all right to trust her to watch herself more than trying to watch for her, to not split your focus," Oranna says. "I'll be far out of the main fray, doing my best to not to draw attention to myself off of you, and I'll call out if anything swoops at me unexpected. We'll just…both be regular…same as we would be any other time, and I'm sure it'll be… fine. I'm babbling a bit, I'm sorry. I know you know. And that you trust me, and I trust you, to do the things. I think I'm just saying it out loud to — "

That buzzing sound is getting louder and it cuts Oranna off mid-sentence as she pales, cocking her head to try to catch it better, eyes squinting into narrow slits as if it will improve her hearing.

Befound's ears twitch and she sneezes dramatically. Ew. She knows that sound.

"Mantids," Oranna says.

"Mantids," Thalstan repeats, drawing his sword and picking up the pace. "We'll handle it. We can handle it, the three of us, and…"

The dwarves and the snow leopard begin to draw closer, the situation becomes more clear. What they see is not encouraging.

The farming family is there, four pandaren: a man, a woman and two cubs, all wielding sharpened pitchforks defensively, standing close to their farmhouse. Standing in front of them is a familiar form — blue skin, dark horns, shining silver armor… and pigtails. The Light flashes around Erixa, shimmering on the ground beneath her feet, as she holds her broadsword out to guard the family from the encroaching mantid.

She's holding the line, but she won't be able to forever. Erixa is badly outnumbered. There's an entire strike team of winged creatures darting in and out to strike at her, but they aren't the main problem. One of the larger creatures, possibly left on this side of the wall after the recent battle, churns the earth with chitinous legs and chitters with its mandibles, lashing out at her with it's massive serrated claws.

Erixa is not able to block every strike, but each time one of the mantid cuts into her flesh, the Light blazes up around Erixa's form, undoing it. She barely seems to register the pain, her expression simply a grim determination, holding on in hope of eventual rescue. Or maybe without hope of rescue, simply in an unwillingness to give in, to fail to defend this family.

Oranna's first shot is a trick shot without hesitation, an evaluation of someone who knows when time is running out and there isn't a moment to lose and a bullet travels faster than even the fastest warrior can charge. She fires over Thalstan's shoulder, straight for one of the smaller mantids about to hit through Erixa's guard with the paladin too occupied with the large mantid. The bullet tears through the joint of the mantid's wing, sending it spinning suddenly wildly off-kilter.

A second bullet, also somehow seeming to come from "Thalstan" hits another smaller mantid darting too close to the family's pitchforks, the bullet only skimming the surface of the hard chitin, but it whirls in place, attention shifting at this sudden attack.

Befound is off with a streak of white and strange shadow blending into the grass, a deadly predator headed into the fray, as Oranna takes up a back line position to adjust to Thalstan's own charge, now that her first few shots are fired off, as she evaluates the new shifting battlefield, lining up the next necessary shot.

Thalstan doesn't even flinch as the bullets fly past his shoulders, secure in his trust of her aim. He charges into the fray without hesitation, his sword slicing through a chitinous leg of one of the flying mantid who didn't register the approaching new enemies quickly enough.

"Lass, reinforcements!" Thalstan calls as he moves in to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her. Or to be honest, not quite shoulder to shoulder, since Erixa has a good two feet on him in height, at least.

"Blade!" Erixa cries, puzzled for a moment, like maybe she's hallucinating the random appearance of story characters. Then she spots Befound, and her expression clears. "Blade and Oranna! Farmers are in trouble, need help. I am not enough…" she pauses to slash out at a mantid, striking it with a shimmer of Light, "…not enough help."

Befound leaps a dizzying several feet up into the sky — jaws open, and then closed with a loud cronch down on one of those mantid front limbs. She bears it down out of the sky, as her back claws rake out, shredding through the creature's buzzing wings. Whether it dies immediately or in the next few minutes, that mantid isn't getting back up again as it bleeds from its wounds. One more down, the odds slightly less dire already.

Oranna's focus is on clearing the group of smaller mantids first as a strategy, taking out the many adding up smaller threats, leaving Thalstan and Erixa to hold the attention of the larger dangerous one indefinitely for the moment. She hits a moving mantid target from her far back position through a brief clear shot between Erixa and Thalstan as the mantids attempt to swarm them, an instant kill shot right through the eye that leaves it thudding suddenly to the ground. Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

Erixa and Thalstan move into a complementary pattern while Befound is mauling the mantid, demonstrating that they have experience working within the conventions of the same mercenary company. Or possibly demonstrating Thalstan isn't real, and so the phantom dwarf is moving as Erixa would expect. A glance at her face would quickly show that Erixa isn't sure yet which one of those things is true.

Still, he seems solid enough to keep the attention of the mantid off the soft and huggable farmers, as well as away from Oranna, enabling her to pick them off without interference. That's something.

Oranna's attention over the both of them gives her both the opportunity for another shot, and a glance that leaves her puzzled at what she reads off Erixa's face. "It — it really is us," she calls out to Erixa encouragingly. "Nae a weird sha trick or celestial temple hallucination." She pauses to shoot off a mantid's weapon, and then sends another quick shot through it's upper joint. "Although…I — I guess that's just what a hallucination would say. But, if ye were readin' a Cobalt Blade book or sommat just afore, an' that would make sense that ye'd see Thalstan, aye, but then why would I be here? Should be another of Blade, fer a hallucination. Ye'd have ta know he's my boyfriend, and ye'd have no way of knowin' that, because that didn't happen until recently."

The sweet news is punctuated by her blowing the brains out of the mantid trying to get its hooked weapon over Thalstan's shield to break his guard.

And slightly ruined in attention as another mantid slices a long cut down Befound's unprotected side, as she hisses sharply, snarling and swiping her own claws back at it.

"Boyfriend? Ah, congratulations!" Erixa says, whirling around to catch a claw over Thalstan's head with her broadsword and shove it off. "Good to bring boyfriend here, ward off the sha. I should get one, too."

Thalstan smashes his shield into a mantid's face, and chuckles. "I'm not available, but have you ever met Arthur? Charming silver-haired mage fellow."

"Yes, I know," Erixa reaches out, flashing Light over Thalstan as a mantid scores a glancing hit. "I see posters. Very pretty team. Are they here somewhere?"

"No, no, just me this time," Thalstan says, shooting a smile back at Oranna. "Come to visit my girlfriend."

The mantid are not very entertained by the banter, and they begin to regroup, refocusing their attacks on Erixa, Thalstan and Befound.

Oranna, as she works on trying to get better shots at the mantids swarming around the three, also starts scoping out the giant mantid. There's something wrong with how it's moving, something off, and the hunter's instincts and experience both seem to be snagging her attention on it.

"Ye should get inside!" Oranna calls out to the huggable pitchfork wielding farmers. "I think we might need more room to maneuver something soon, and ye'll want to bunker down so nothing charges at ye instead of a'purpose. We're Cobalt Company. We'll help ye!"

It might not be the best idea for her to be shouting anything though, not while she's also still firing off shots here and there. The mantids have some intelligence, after all.

The pandaren woman gives a thumbs-up, and hastily starts ushering her family indoors. The outsiders have this under control, her manner says.

Then, Erixa notes Befound's injury and falls back behind Thalstan's guard to get room to focus. She takes a steadying breath and Light blossoms on both of her hands, a larger heal than what she's been flashing on herself periodically. She releases the Light to flow over to Befound and shimmer over his form, sinking in with perhaps a little more force than the cat might be used to from his healers.

"I'm not making much of a dent here," Thalstan says, stabbing at the massive mantid's carapace. It chitters and slashes back at him. Thalstan doesn't notice anything wrong, except, you know, huge bug creature with serrated claw arms. Then again, he doesn't have a hunter's instinct or the relevant Pandarian experience.

"I'm nae a thousand percent sure, but I think — the way it's doing that," Oranna says, pausing for a breath out, and a bullet into the soft wing of one of the remaining mantids buzzing into Erixa's personal space. "Strange twitching and movin'. And it's casting too many shadows, and this… heavy cloud. I think it's sha-ed. I think it has a Fear sha in it. That's what's brought it and all these ones with it."

Befound, side healed, purrs briefly, and then dips into those same deeper shadows before pouncing on the giant bug, claws scrabbling down its back. It is not super effective.

The giant mantid, scared and enraged, spins half in place, swiping at both annoying creatures with force, sending out a deep shockwave powerful enough that even Oranna's footing falters.

"It's sha-ed! Then we—" Thalstan is cut off by the shockwave. He falls back, clanking to the ground.

Erixa tumbles back as well, and hastily tosses the Light of a blessing on Thalstan that lingers between them as a connection.

The giant mantid stabs down, pinning Thalstan's shield in place over where he has fallen, and slashes with the other arm to try to get underneath.

"Thalstan!" Oranna cries out in her own fear, paling.

Befound lands on her feet — unsurprisingly — and darts back in to try to get underneath the giant mantid's own innate shield in revenge. It's distracting, but it's not affecting the mantid's hold significantly.

Oranna's lips become a tight line as she forces herself to break her line of sight on the mantid long enough to dig out Ken-Ken's mask from her bag, and then she must make some sort of sound or gesture that's audible or visible to Befound, because for some reason the snow leopard breaks off her attack to race back towards the hunter. As she does, Oranna temporarily tucks the mask into the crook of one arm, loading her gun in quick, decisive motions with explosive bullets.

"I'm sending in Ken-Ken's mask with Befound!" Oranna calls out to Thalstan, and he might be able to hear that under the strong words is an undercurrent of fear. The mask is set gently and carefully in the snow leopard's strong jaws, and off she is like another type of shot — racing back to Thalstan, while Oranna levels her gun to try to send the explosive bullets at the mantid's arms to keep it from killing Thalstan.

Two more flying mantid drop down in between Befound and Thalstan, slashing at the snow leopard's hide while her jaws are full of Ken-Ken mask.

The giant mantid manages to get a claw under Thalstan's shield, and seems to be trying to crack his armor like a clam. Erixa grunts as some of the pain of the attack transfers magically to her, but she doesn't let go of the blessing linking them.

Still, the draenei vindicator can't afford to take up her sword. She calls up Light again and again, pouring the power into herself, the warrior, and the leopard. There's a growing weariness in her face that wasn't there before — this is not a stable stalemate, like it was before. They won't be able to hold out for much longer.

Then an explosive bullet makes a solid hit on the giant mantid's claw, resulting in a fearful screech and chitter of pain. The three remaining winged mantids turn sharply towards Oranna, buzzing their way towards her to finally remove this threat.

Befound is not a dog to play Keep Away, stupid bugs. By that she means she's not playing. She drops down low, slinking through into the grass, darting quickly and blending into her surroundings uncannily, as she wins at Keep Away, but it's costing her in valuable time to win at this game, constantly having to stay outside the detection range of the mantids, circling around, unless someone can get the mantids to leave her alone long enough to slip in unnoticed to get this mask under the big one.

Oranna doesn't even see the three mantids headed towards her. She's scoped into the one trying to lobster Thalstan. When she's fired all three explosive shots, she reloads her standard ammo, and works at an exposed joint, trying to weaken or change its mind about its squeezing grip on Thalstan. She might have succeeded, but a buzzing sound gets close enough to startle her out of the zone — and the three are nearly within melee range, so much so that Oranna has to disengage, and back up as she switches targets.

She gets one down with an emergency arcane shot straight to its eye, dropped instantly, but the other two are closing fast, and she's not going to make another shot like it in time.

Erixa spots the mantid heading for Oranna, and she cries out a wordless alarm. There's a quick flash of Light around her hooves that gives her a little boost of speed, and she lunges toward Oranna, splitting the distance between her and the trapped Thalstan.

Erixa flings out a hand, and Light coalesces in the form of a hammer over the head of the closest mantid to Oranna. She closes her fist, and the hammer comes down, stunning it.

In the meantime, Thalstan's full strength is thrown into his shield, holding off death by giant mantid. Still he's trying to mark where Befound is with that mask, and all he can see are the nearby mantid.

"Oi!" Thalstan shouts, and there's a thread of something commanding in his voice. "You lot! This is nothing, and I'm coming for you next!"

Whether they're reacting to the taunting words, or simply the forceful tone, the mantids blocking Befound's path turn and begin buzzing towards the pinned warrior.

Befound, nearly invisible in the grass, makes her way slowly but unseen towards Thalstan, right behind the stupid, giant bugs. Her apprentice Little Teeth would have loved this. Someday, she will tell him the story. Right now, she stalks towards her goal, mask held carefully in her very, very large teeth.

Oranna fires four closely grouped shots into the stunned mantid, shooting on the move as she backs up farther, trying to get more distance between her and the other mantid. But, her speed is slow to control her shots. It works to get the stunned one down — it hits the ground with a spin and a heavy thud, weapons clattering with a last chittering groan. The third, spurred on by more fear and rage, is much too fast.

It closes. It strikes.

Oranna cries out in anguished, unguarded pain as its wicked, sharp hooked sword pierces into her mail armor, just above her left shoulder, having aimed for her neck, and not quite made it. She doesn't manage a block of any kind, but she scrambles back, and falls to the ground, kicking out with both legs purposefully as she swings her gun around towards… Thalstan?

"Thalstan! Is yer shield bullet rated!" she yells through pain and fear both. It's… it's kind of a weird question to ask, but she's probably got a very good reason to be shouting a question like that in the middle of a battle.

"Ah? Yes!" Thalstan says, and you can see the moment when he understands her question, and he channels all his battle rage into that shield, tilting it just so and bolstering his hold with a shift to stoneform that will not last long.

At Oranna's cry, Erixa grits her teeth as if carrying something particularly heavy, and reaches towards the other woman with her sword. A slender beam of Light is all that flies towards Oranna, but when it strikes her it both settles on her as a heal and bursts out in all directions, a sudden radiant flash. A ray strikes the mantid closing on her, and while it strikes, all it does is distract the mantid, buying Oranna a few mere seconds.

Oranna's roll only partially disguises the sight of the shots she fires off, and not at all the sound, but sound is a funny thing; it turns out, it's a lot less important after a point of impact of other stronger, more compelling pieces of attention grabbing evidence.

The bullets fly out, and ricochet straight off Thalstan's shield to rip into the mantids — one practicing whistling through the air into the mantid middle management hovering above Oranna with its sword poised, only briefly dazed over the sniper; another pinging into the giant, fear craved mantid above Thalstan; and a third digging into the soft flesh of one of the other mantids responding to the taunting threat.

Who cares where the sound came from? Apparently that dwarf in the blue and gold armor can also shoot bullets out of his shield! That snow leopard and the brown haired lass are gnats. He's obviously the Real Problem. Everyone, gang up on him!

It works.

Oranna breathes shakily, and then steadily, as her wound closes up enough, and she gets her up onto her knees, bracing her gun again, taking a few seconds to put her breaths back into rhythm.

Befound wins at Keep Away, as she seems to appear from nowhere, and she drops Ken-Ken's mask directly onto Thalstan's face under his shield. Delivery for Mr. Blade! It's wet and smells strongly of fish and blood. You're welcome.

In the circumstances, Thalstan doesn't mind cat slobber or scents. No sha erupts out of the dwarven warrior — maybe he is too focused at the moment to let in fear. Now is the time.

Thalstan seems to gain a second wind, giving a sharp battle cry and a powerful shove with his shield, enough to finally get enough clearance to move. He lunges forward to the giant mantid's face, mask still on his own while he manages the climb.

The mantid's mandicles gnash at the dwarf, and he swings back and forth, dodging the razor sharp jaws. Then his legs get purchase on the creature's shell, and kicks off with all his strength, swinging up and around, settling on its broad forehead carapace. Then, he takes the mask, and smashes it down onto the massive mantid's face.

The effect is immediate. Dark, billowing shadows erupt from the creature, towards the mask, flowing inward and inward until… it shatters.

The force of it throws Thalstan off, and he lands in a roll, coming up to his feet and bracing behind his shield. The large mantid looks confused, frightened and begins to stalk away.

What is forming in front of the dwarven warrior represents an excellent justification for that behavior. The dark shadows swirl up and around, and form into a jagged creature of dark mist and twisted bone, twice again Thalstan's height. He stares at it, his eyes widening, and maybe now there's a risk of fear creeping in.

Welcome to Pandaria, Thalstan.

But he's not the only one with a risk of fear creeping in. In fact, of those there, of all the most tasty potentials filled with fear, there's one positively beaming with a beacon of it.

Oranna's hands are steady on her gun, and her shots are true, but inside there's a turmoil of fear and anxiety churning away, and the sha of fear knows it. It undulates in a ripple of shadowy monstrosity, the many not-hands of its not-arms and its not-legs turning over in unjointed waves as it rapidly skitters across the tilled farmland, leaving jagged ill lighted gleaming trails behind, headed straight for the hunter.

She hits a lever on her gun, some sort of safety catch, and loses some amount of accuracy in favor of speed as the bullets rapid fire from her gun, her face pale, and lips white lines in terror, holding her kneeled ground, firing for her life as the only thing she can do, the only thing she will do, because she won't leave them. She won't turn and run.

Thalstan sees the sha heading for Oranna, and whatever fear there was at the sight of this nightmarish creature turns immediately into certainty. Not Oranna.

He takes a few steps, and then a leap towards the hunter, and it clearly does not matter to him who the enemy is, only who he is protecting. Thalstan's boots dig into the ground where he lands in front of her, facing the sha with unrelenting determination.

A few steps away, Erixa narrows her eyes at the sha, unsurprised after all her time in the Jade Forest. Whatever fear she feels is banished down deep inside her for the moment, as radiant wings blossom from her back. She launches herself at the sha, flanking it with Thalstan.

Befound joins in, weaving around the sha's not-legs, and tripping it. Sorry, Thalstan, she lied. She does absolutely trip people and not-people.

Thalstan can't see the look Oranna gives him, not then and there at least, but maybe he can feel it somewhere in the air, that sense of my hero that is, admittedly, somewhat influenced by other feelings in there as well. Her relief grows as Erixa joins the line and her fear eases up enough to get a slightly healthier color in her cheeks. Another button gets pressed and a strange bullet flies out — leaving a red stain over the shadowed sha that marks it, makes it easier to see even as it thrashes.

It sends out lashes of painful whips at Thalstan and Erixa, snapping strikes that leave light gouges even in their well-made armor and burn into any undefended flesh.

The mantids, in contrast, grow oddly sluggish. It's as if they can't entirely remember what they were doing there, or why. The smaller ones buzz off, away from the sha, frightened by it, not allying with it. The large mantid stumbles, still backing away from the fight and the sha, and its legs crumple beneath it.

Oranna is not an unmerciful or unkind dwarf. And she sees the mantid pulling back, and she knows she has a shot she could take, while it's there in retreat — and she doesn't. Maybe that mantid will come back another day. But maybe it won't. Maybe it was just as much a victim of the sha.

Instead, Oranna focuses all her attention on the sha. And the giant mantid picks itself up, bleeding and hobbling, chittering as it limps away from the farm and the terrifying sha of fear unleashing its wrath on the mortals battling it.

Thalstan lets the mantid flee, his attention on the lashing creature of dark energy that's menacing Oranna. He pushes the creature back, away from Oranna, attacking with an adrenaline-heightened recklessness that leaves him seemingly unaware of the burns and gouges of the creature's painful whips.

Erixa is luminescent, though the glint in her eyes is pure steel. She seems heedless of the lashing injuries, but then she sends a beam of Light directly into the sha itself, burning into the shadowy form and refracting into four rays, flashing Thalstan, Befound, Oranna and herself with a jolt of healing.

The thing about the sha is that even shadows, once they're made of substance strong enough to cause harm, they can be banished.

Oranna doesn't have exactly easy obvious targets to aim at, but damage is damage, and a head is a head. She puts enough bullets into the sha to make it a mask of lead and new holes, waiting for it to fall, holding her position, trusting in Thalstan's shield entirely.

They can be slashed and bashed and stabbed as well, and that's what Thalstan's doing. It's definitely not getting past this dwarf, dedicated as he is to the protection of the woman with the gun. He shouts another challenge as he slashes through the densest center part of the shadowy tendrils.

Erixa is flickering and flashing with Light, her hands, her feet, the blade she wields, and it burns the sha with each strike.

The sha lashes out again, with burning barbed tendrils, before it collapses in on itself under the onslaught. After one more slash from Thalstan, one more bite, one more burn of the Light, one more bullet — the fearsome creature implodes into nothing but a stain of unnatural shadow on the soil in front of them.

Oranna fires one more extra bullet. Just in case. The woman has anxiety.

When she's really, really sure it's dead, and gone, she starts to stand up and oh, yeah, she's wobbly. Those are wobbly knees. Maybe she will just kneel here a little bit longer. She gets her finger off the trigger, clicking the safeties and other various switches, shaking from the post-fight adrenaline, eyes on Thalstan, her brows pulled in deep, checking him over with open concern and a whole mess of emotions on her expressive face. Her breathing is still sniper perfect.

Befound half turns and scatters some of the farm dirt back over the sha remnants, burying it like a litter box. Good riddance. She licks Erixa's hand once in appreciation for heals.

Erixa grins at the snow leopard, and says, "Good mauling."

Thalstan turns to Oranna with relief when the creature is gone, and then sudden, new alarm as he notes her wobbly knees, the worry in her brows. He drops sword and shield and reaches out to steady her.

"Alright there, Oranna?" he asks. "We got it. We're safe."

Oranna licks dry lips, and holsters SUNBEAM in nearly the same second, rising up to a stand by reaching out for Thalstan, wrapping her arms over his shoulders, sagging with relief.

"I'm f — " She hesitates. She leans her left side harder into him, testing something. When she doesn't flinch from any pain, it confirms something for her. She's speaking in Common still, a good sign, all things considered. "I'll be fine," she amends more honestly. "I wasnae expecting the sha. And the — my mind's still in some overdrive telling me yer in terrible danger, and I'm about ta lose ye, and we're all going ta die. And even knowing we're all right, and we had it all along, and it's over now… I just… need a few seconds ta catch that part of me mind up. I'll be all right." She pulls enough to look at him, searching his face, and some of the panic really is fading, giving rise to softer, sweeter expressions. "Ye are all right, aye? Yer okay? Nae still wounded somewhere? Ye were amazin' out there."

"So were ye," Thalstan answers, a smile brightening his face, as his arms go around her waist. "That shot off my shield, such perfect aim. And aye, I think so. I was hurt off and on throughout, but the draenei lass kept the wounds closing up. No wounds yerself, nor Befound?"

Erixa reaches up to adjust one of her hairbands, and then checks that her face tentacles are undamaged with her fingertips. She looks over at the two dwarves with a kind of fond, wistful smile, but doesn't interrupt the post-fight conversation.

Befound also doesn't. She, like Erixa, knows this is the time to fix the mess. Just look at her coat! She takes several good swipes of her tongue to her shoulder, and catches sight of teeth in the grass. Wait, when did she — Befound experimentally bites nothing, checking her chompers. Whew. Still has all her teeth. Well, some other cat has lost their teeth. Befound resumes her shoulder fixing.

Oranna shakes her head, some color coming back into her cheeks with a bashful smile. "No, I had a — one got through a bit, but it's closed up. Anything I think it has is jus'… a memory pain, nae a real one, Erixa got it. Befound got somethin' earlier, but she's fine now, or she'd be tellin' me. Ah, thank the Light Erixa was here. I have bandages and potions, but that'd have nae been 'till after, and who knows how that would have been…" Oranna spares a bit of that anxiety thinking but it doesn't last long, not when she goes all gooey, and a little shy bit of awe peeks out instead, including a bit of moving her hand to his beard to twirl a finger around the edge.

"Ye were really somethin' else to watch. The way ye held off tha' whole mantid like that, and threw it off and it climbed like a mountain, it was like somethin' out of a — " She gasps suddenly. "Oh, ohhhh oh no no no. Ken-Ken's mask! Oh, noooo it was…" She trails off.

Befound eyes the teeth again. She swipes a cat casual paw of more dirt over the tooth. No one saw anything. Befound delivered that mask intact, last time she saw it. She's innocent.

"Ah, the mask thing," Erixa says, peering down at the stray teeth. She sounds more curious than concerned. "It exploded, yes. I did not know that would happen."

"Maybe I shouldn't have…" Thalstan starts, and then shakes his head. "I don't know what would've happened, if we'd not used it. Befound was a marvel, weaving through the battle to bring it to me. Maybe we can track down Ken-Ken with a little more hurry, get another?"

Oranna tries for a smile, half makes it. "Aye, mebbe. I… really dinna know where he went off ta. It could be… ach. No, it's nae… nothin' ta do fer it now, I cannae… and it did was it was meant ta, and… it'll jus' be… what it was afore we had the mask as a back up emergency de-sha-a-fier." Oranna's face speaks about the anxiety that will do for her the longer she stays in Pandaria, but she means what she says about not regretting the call, or the use. "It was the right decision. And…who knows. Mebbe the mask was already weakened from a lot o' uses, and was going ta explode any day now."

She slowly, reluctantly, releases Thalstan from her hold, smoothing her hair, and checking his beard. Well, petting his beard, if we're being honest. She doesn't seem to want to step any further away though. "Erixa, yer all right, aye? That was a hell o' a fight ye must have had, holdin' out. Thank ye, fer the healin'. Ye need anythin'? I have extra water, fer mana." She pats her bag, as if to be sure she still has the bag, yes, there it is. Whew.

"Water, yes!" Erixa says, stepping over, now that the dwarves are past the physically-supporting-each-other stage and are at the petting hair stage. She might not have the best sense of what constitutes dwarven intimacy. "Water would be nice. And we will tell the farmers they are safe for now." Erixa reaches out, anticipating water from Oranna, and adds casually, "It was probably hopeless, until you arrived. I am very glad you did. I just heard 'some trouble out at farm' and came to help, I did not expect so much trouble."

"We'll get it sorted," Thalstan says, patting Oranna's hair gently too, like that might help the anxiety. "He can't be the only hozen who knows how to do it. I don't know any hozen myself… besides Den-Den…"

Oranna holds out a bottle of Halfhill's bottled water (not magical), and frowning in thought. "Aye. We heard the same sort o' rumor of a wee bit of trouble. I wonder if it was sommat of the wee bit that mebbe drew the sha… or…" She shrugs, as she leans her head on Thalstan's shoulder. Hair petting does seem to be keeping the anxiety at a simmer. "I don't think Den-Den knows much more beyond cooking, but ye never know until ye ask, I s'ppose. Ken-Ken had ta reach back some very many generations o' grandmothers." The look on her face says she didn't really believe they're going to find an easy solution, and she's worrying about what that's going to mean, and how susceptible she is to the sha.

"We met Ken-Ken the hozen who made that mask that just exploded after we came…uhhh the… direction out a ways this way a few months ago, working in a village that got sha-ed, Zhu's Watch. It was in the Newsletter," Oranna tells Erixa.

"Oh, yes, I read that," Erixa says cheerfully. "The despair village, I remember. I have not been there myself. I have been mostly in Pearlfin Village, but I came to the Valley after news of the Wall crash. I have left Nesselos back with the jinyu, trying to learn Waterspeakering, so they are still protected." Erixa pauses, thinking. "I can go back to Tian Monastery when I get chance, see if any monks know how to make masks?"

"Might be a good idea," Thalstan says. "Long-term, at least, it'd be good if we can get more of them, find a way to make 'em more easily. Short-term…"

Oranna looks up at Thalstan with big, trust filled brown eyes of wondering if maybe if she keeps him close enough, he can shield her from the sha vulnerabilities she knows she has, make her feel safer and calmer, be that reassurance, until another mask can be found.

Wait, did someone say…be found? Befound licks at a paw and then, for no reason, hides her teeth. Just in case anyone was getting any funny ideas.

"We'll just have to be careful," Thalstan says, looking down at her and maybe fashing a little inside. "Watch out for each others' feelings. Maybe we ought to get back to Halfhill, for now."

Erixa takes a long drag of water and nods. "Meantime, I will go let Greentouch know the danger is gone."

Oranna nods. "Aye. An'… probably… tell them ta sift fer some teeth. There's… there's teeth, from the mask, scattered," Oranna says tiredly, gesturing vaguely at where the mask exploded. "An' saurok skin. But that's nae as stabby, but it is skin, but I don't know if the lizard like skin might be good fer the soil actually… because of the oil, but it's also sort of almost like flesh of — tram," she says to Thalstan, with pleading eyes. Help.

"Aye, you'd best tell them keep an eye out for the teeth," Thalstan says firmly to Erixa, settling a comforting arm around Oranna's shoulders. "For the cubs paws."

Erixa looks a little puzzled at the 'tram', but she nods agreeably. "Yes, I will say. Watch out for soft little cub paw pads. They will be safe."

Erixa tosses off a casual salute as she turns to go, and says, "I hope for no apocalypse today, Cobalt Blade man and Oranna. Be safe on your return."

Thalstan waves to Erixa with one hand, and pats Oranna's shoulder reassuringly with the other.

Oranna waves goodbye to Erixa. "Thank you," she says in Dwarven to Thalstan, once Erixa's out of conversation range, and stretches up to place a kiss on the range of the edge of his mustache and cheek. "Much better than emergency oranges." Her smile is a little shaky on the edges from adrenaline wearing off, but with him holding onto her, she does seem much better than she was right after.

Still, she looks out at the dead mantids with a degree of worry. "So, we'll head back to Stoneplow to get back the Lazy Turnip today, and we'll let them know what happened out here. Someone should know if it means another wall breach or just maybe stragglers from the battle afore… probably. If it's not just from the battle… I think Dane and some others are still about, maybe we'll take a walkabout, see if something up north needs patching… but that'll need coordinating. We got lucky today."

"Yes, it is a good thing the vindicator was here," Thalstan says, glancing back at the churned soil. "Things might've gone different. My bet is that another breach would've been an even larger force, though, from what you told me about the last one. My money would be on stragglers — isolated on this side of the wall and frightened, and then the sha, well…"

He gestures vaguely at the former battlefield, and then turns away, heading back into the idyllic countryside. "Either way, it's over for now, and you're right. We should let them know back in Stoneplow and in Halfhill, just in case."

Oranna walks with him, and he can see the indecision happening in real time. Experience and wisdom says, give him some space, make sure he has enough time for his response time in case of an attack. But anxiety says, big safe man feel good, what if stay close to him just a little longer?

In the end, maybe she's all right with doing what a perfect battle maiden would do, and a little more invested in doing what's right for Oranna, because she fits her hand into Thalstan's (his sword hand, so he'll have more time for getting his shield up, if it comes to that, if there's any strategy to think of), and holds on.

Befound pads along silently next to both of them. Yes, it was a good thing she was here to save everyone. This is why you never travel without Befound, Oranna. The hero of Pandaria. Now, if only Little Teeth was here, too.