Shotaldine's Rites

[Krolbrim]

Shoatldine, as a fellow druid, you are versed, no doubt, in the concepts of balance. Of nature.

Your rites will involve an irrevocable fact of nature. The cycle of life. Grass grows, which is eaten by herbivorious creatures, which are eaten by carnivorous animals, who eventually fertilize the soil, which grows more grass. And so it repeats.

In The Hinterlands, there is something...upsetting this balance. I do not know what, but your task is to find out what. I do not want you to fix the problem, only to diagnose it. When you have figured out what the problem is, and collected evidence to prove it, come to me with your findings.

((This is pretty open - anything that makes sense and is done well will be accepted. I can think of three or so methods right now, actually. Anyway, if these rites are not to your liking, lemme know and i'll see about getting you some new ones.))

[shotaldine]

Shotaldine nodded as her rites were assigned to her by her fellow druid. The young Shu'halo would prepare to leave for the Hinterlands as soon as the sun rose the next morn, so for now, she set off to gather supplies and the like.

---

She had stayed the night in thunderbluff as opposed to going to the Moonglade. It would be much easier to get over to Orgrimmar and then take a Zeplin to the Undercity that way. Regardless, after a raher long run on a not so happy Ha'seet, Shotaldine made it to the Hinterlands. The journey had been bumpey and now she had to get to work.

At first she had spotted some troll buildings and had made her way to them, until she was promptly chased off and narrowly missed a spear to the head, but trolls were trolls, she doubted complaining about their hostility would give her a "PASS!" on her rites, infact, she was sure Krol might give her a funny look and then say something like, "No, really, what did you find?" The thought made her groan.

Something is wrong in the Hinterlands.

The thought lingered in her head as she walked across the grassy underbrush. A few wolves eyed her hungrily, but a quick shift into a lion, and then slipping into stealth when they had looked away was now keeping her unnoticed by the wildlife, which she prefered. She was here to diagnose, not to fight or take measures against. Most of her search was pretty quite. Passing skull rock had been... interesting, and crossing the river had led her into almost getting fished out by a poor unsuspecting Human. What a shock he had gotten when the seal she thought he had nabbed turned into a bear and roared at him. Luckily he ran for his life and Shot was free to resume her prowling cat form again.

It was not until she grew close to Seradane did she have a target to inspect. But as she grew closer to the northern area, she felt a malicious pressence that made the grass scream under her paws. Being a restoration druid, she could tell the earth was upset about something, balance had been lost and she was getting closer.

Seradane was not what she had expected. She had never been up this far, even in the one other adventure she'd made up here. As she got closer she saw the Portal, covered in runes and old, large vines. She also saw, so the northeast, a ring of stones guarded by a few Dragonkin. She wasn't able to get very close, but she could peek out at it as she climbed up a tree and peered over. The rocks seems to breath hate and the skull was too symbolically placed in the center. Shotaldine knew the green aspect would probably find this just as disturbing as she did. Just as she was about to crawl down she noticed something was glowing. She stopped and looked out, at the head of the stone circle, one of the stone pillars had an earie blue glow and it seemed like a face was consealed in the shadows of the blue across the rock. Shot felt her fur prickle as she made her way out of the tree.

She came back to the portal and watched it from a distance, still half prowling and half hidden. She had heard of a portal like this in Duskwood, a dreadful place she had never been to herself, but she had talked to druids who had. A portal like this was there, and occassionally a giant dragon would appear to guard it, or perhaps survey the area, who knew? For now it seemed unprotected, save a few Dragonkin she had slipped past with little difficulty. She looked near the portal and a sparkle caught her attention. She watched it with interest and after a moment of debate, crept up to the portal and picked the shimmering dragonscale with her careful jaws. That was it. These dragonkin appeared green, but with a taint, and this scale, much larger then could have come from them, had to be from a drake, or a full grown ancient. This would be her proof, this scale and the odd glowing stone.

With that, Shotaldine moved as quickly as possible as she could away from the dragonkin and spawn, and teleported herself to moonglade. This tainted dragon scale would do. Shota guessed it had something to do with the Emerald Nightmare, and this larger scale perhaps belonged to one of the Dragons of the Nightmare. Either case, Krol would know what it meant, so Shot hurried to grab a flight to Thunderbluff to find her Rite giver and turn in her findings. She was planning on going to speak with the druids of moonglade after talking to Krolbrim, her fellow druids would be able to do more about it then just those who were in the tribe.

[E'lu / Pawene]

Rites completed 4/26/09. Congratulations, Shotaldine!