As the sun crests over the temple and shines weakly through the everpresent haze of the Swamp of Sorrows, Pikki gently fingers the Hundred Tooth Necklace in her lap. She hasn't moved since the departure of Chaoseater. She sighs deeply, her breath catching up after being sucked out of her with the revelation that he was stepping down from his position as Warchief and probably going to his death.

She smells the smoke from the smithy, as he fires up the forge for last minute repairs to armor and harness. The camp stirs and still she sits and numbly rubs the rune burned into her wrist. Chief had given her the mark soon after she had arrived to the Grin, and at that point she had committed herself to the huge tauren and set herself as his...protector, of sorts...in her own mind anyway.

Chatter from the Inn brought her out of her thoughts, and upon hearing the soft voice of the Ha'gosh, Pikki rewrapped the bundle, stuck it inside her tunic and hopped off the wagon. She waited until Xibalbah was free and moved over quickly to talk to her.

"I were told ta give dis to ya Ha'gosh, um, by da Chief....'e says yer'll know what ta do wi'et...."

She carefully removes the bundle from it's hidden spot and hands it reverantly to Xibalbah. Pikki salutes smartly, her jaw tight, and before she gets pulled into a question- answer session, she moves quickly out of the Inn, stealths and heads for a quiet spot outside the wall, where she can safely allow her emotion's release.

After several moments and a good wipe of her nose on her sleeve, she grits her teeth and makes a silent vow to follow Chaoseater to the Dream Place portal as soon as possible....sure "hope rides alone"...but a little 'elp hain't gonna 'urt...

Pikki repacks her bundle. She needs to travel light and some of her usual items will just have to be left behind. She shoulders the bag, whistles for her worg and rides quickly down to the dock. Now that the boats have been secured, she decides to make her way back to Stonard. It will be several days before they start the plannning for the big move. She hates to let the trail grow too cold. She figures she'll start at Stonard, the last place she saw him and follow the trail to the Dream Place Portal. As the ship nears the dock, she hears his parting words again and fresh worry fills her. She knows nothing nor wants to know anything about this Dream Place...but she knows that going it alone is not the solution. She sends a prayer up to the gods that be and boards the ship to Booty bay. .

Pikki mounted her wyvern and headed north from Booty Bay. She decided to head straight for Duskwwood as her feelings of dread were growing and the rune on her wrist had started to itch terribly. Chief had mentioned the Dream Place portal there in the Twilight Grove, she knew that it was where she would find him or follow him to where he had gone.

As she crossed the border into Duskwood, she pulled up sharply. The wyvern screeched and pitched sideways, nearly throwing her to the ground. She bent over, sucking in her breath from the pain and unsteadily guided the beast to the ground off the road. The last thing she needed was to run into one of the Knights out to try to vainly prove their worth.

She hopped off and quickly ripped off her wrist guard. The rune on her wrist, the source of the pain, was glowing a bright red and pulsing. She held her arm tightly against her and cursed, both from the pain and from the fact that this indicated the Chief was in trouble…big time.

Not trusting the wyvern, she released him for the time being and called her worg. She would do better closer to the ground and it would help her get closer to the grove unnoticed. She stealthed past the watch post and then mounted again beyond and made for the hill and the path into the Twilight Grove. This place had always given her the creeps. As she got closer, the pain in her wrist intensified. She remembered back to when he had marked her. She had been sneaking, more curious than not, and been caught. Fear had made her promise to serve…she never thought he would take her seriously. Since then, she had served ,and willingly.

The ancient elven gate came into view as she topped the hill. There was no sound and the air was heavy and pressing. She dismounted and stealthed as she moved down the hill into the grove on the other side and hesitated as the great Portal came into sight. She glanced around, the rune on her wrist felt on fire, no longer pulsing, but a constant searing pain. She gritted her teeth and subdued the pain as best she could and moved quickly forward, her eyes scanning the grounds, her ears straining for any sound.

As she approached the stair, then moved forward, her ears popped from the pressure surrounding the portal. As her hearing cleared, she picked up a faint, periodic crackling, like an electrical charge. She thought it must be part of the Portal, but as she topped the stair, her eyes settled on the massive Tauren, facing away from her toward the portal, still as stone. She glanced around quickly, then moved carefully toward the Warchief, alert to anything that indicated a trap.

She moved up to the side of him and touched him gently.

“Chief?...glad I caught yer afore yer…”

As she touched him again, a blue electrical flash, like miniature lightening traveled over his body. She could feel the hair on her neck rise from the charge. She hopped back , unstealthed , and moved around to face him, then sat back hard, her mouth open in shock, staring up at the Warchief of the Blacktooth Grin Clan.

He was frozen in place, the electricity crackled around him and his glowing brilliant blue eyes had gone dark. As she stared in disbelief, a whirring sound was heard and then a mechanical voice…

“Error…Va….*crackle* …line not fou……”

She lowered her head, straining to hold back the sob that was choking her…another crackle …

“Error…VALID COMMAND LINE NOT FOUND…….*crackle*….”

She sat there, dry –eyed, facing him. She had no idea how long. The rune on her wrist had calmed, just a twinge every time the emotionless voice was heard coming out of the figure before her. She refused to believe this was Chief, but she knew, in truth it was, and the cold void inside her grew…the door closed now, and locked. With a sigh, she rose stiffly, took her dagger from its sheath, climbed the wall next to him and cut off a piece of his dark mane. She tucked it in the pocket of her tunic, climbed down again and called for her wyvern. She turned to face him and in farewell, punched her chest in salute. .

Xibalbah startled at the rogue’s sudden appearance, though her face softened immediately as she sensed the deep turmoil within the goblin. Casting her arms wide, Xibalbah murmured a quick blessing of tranquility before Pikki could refuse and then composed herself to hear the rogue’s words.

“"I were told ta give dis to ya Ha'gosh, um, by da Chief....'e says yer'll know what ta do wi'et...."

Once more, Xibalbah found herself startled as she suddenly held a small, neatly-folded bundle in her hands. Before the question could form on her lips, the rogue had disappeared, and Xibalbah found herself shaking her head and quietly cursing such stealthy beings. Sighing, she sat and carefully unwrapped the package, letting out a soft gasp as the contents fell gently into her lap.

The Hundred-Tooth Necklace, the ancient symbol of clan leadership, lay in the folds of her kilt.

Xibalbah was reeling. She should have known better than to doubt the ancestors, but this seemed too brutal a blow to contemplate. She had convinced herself that she had misread the visions. To lose their home was one thing, but to be leaderless and homeless at the same time was an impossible situation.

Folding the necklace back in the kodo skin for safe-keeping, Xibalbah pulled a piece of parchment from the worn panther-hide sack at her side and began composing a missive to the council to convene immediately, as there was no time to waste. This news could mean only one thing: Chaoseater had gone into the Emerald Dream to confront the nightmare that threatened Stonard. Worse, he had done so alone and utterly ill-equipped to deal with what awaited him.

Pikki approached the huge Tauren figure. There was no life behind the mask, nor that she could sense, other than the occasional whirring and metallic voiced messages that seemed to be prompted by nothing in particular. The Elder had instructed her to get this thing working. She had no clue what the goblins had done to him, nor how to fix anything...her expertise was in blowing things up, not putting them together. What pitiful attempts she did make, resulted in either her getting zapped by the electrical charges that emminated from him, or a puff of smoke from somewhere inside. She backed off and shook her head and shrugged at the frowning Elder. She plodded over to the Flight master and made arrangements to have the gargantuan figure air-lifted to Crossroads. She knew a guy that may be able to help with the mechanics, but Ha'gosh needed to see this, and decide if there was any way to restore what had once occupied this shell. .

Xibalbah settled under the shade of a lone d’bai tree, which stood, a gnarled, twisted sentinel in the otherwise stark Barrens landscape. With one sharp fingernail, she drew a circle in the packed dirt and sat back on her haunches, squinting into the western sun. Sen’jin was not so far away, yet the filtered sun of Stonard was more to her liking. More like First Home. Xibalbah wiped the beads of sweat forming above her upper lip and sighed, turning her attention back to the grim task at hand.

From a worn panther hide sack at her side, Xibalbah pulled a small snakeskin pouch and a hand-woven bowl. Clearing her mind of all but her central question, she gently poured the pouch’s contents into the bowl and stirred them thoughtfully with her finger. Forming a clear and focused question, she swirled the bowl and held it aloft for the ancestors to bless before tossing the contents into the sacred circle drawn in the dirt. The bleached bones seemed almost luminous in the harsh Barrens sun, lending this particular reading an air of prophetic import.

Xibalbah had been reading the bones for years now, and she was particularly fond of this set. Carefully crafted when she was young from the bones of an infant gnome, these ceremonial divining bones had led her to many important answers. This day she was asking a question that held the fate of the clan’s former Warchief, Chaoseater, within its cryptic message. Xibalbah was one of the most skilled bone readers among the Darkspear, no doubt due in part to her father’s Zandalari blood and the time she had spent training with him prior to the Darkspear exile. She recalled the moist warmth of the jungle with nostalgia. Xibalbah was no stranger to heat, but the dryness of the Barrens was taking its toll. She ran a finger absently along her lower lip, from tusk to tusk, taking note of the roughness and cracking and determining to make a new batch of earthroot balm when she returned to the Hold.

Pulling back to the bones before her, Xibalbah chastised herself for allowing her mind to wander for even a moment, whether the bones had already been cast or not. Concentration was crucial! She began to note the relationship of bones to one another and their proximity to herself as well, drawing a finger along the length of the infant femur, determining the placement of minute fissures and pocks that would provide the map for which she was searching. It was the juncture of the long and the fat bones that offered a critical detail a less skilled reader may have missed, and Xibalbah drew in her breath as she found it.

“So dis be where ‘is soul has gotten to,” Xibalbah muttered as a deep frown line creased her brow.

The Rift of Aln… this would require a force the likes of which the Grin had never seen…