Yu Lin Bloodhawk said the link would take no more than four days to complete, which delighted Thirteen. He also envied Fourteen and Fifteen for being able to send him messages by owl, but he was too busy and had never found time to train one. He had assumed it would take ten days or a couple of weeks, just as it did when elves trained battle pets.
After going to the top level and choosing an owl, Thirteen spent four days taming the stubborn bird. Yu Lin Bloodhawk had seen mages establish soul links and had asked how it was done. After five or six attempts, he actually succeeded. However, it consumed an enormous amount of mana-more than ten times what linking with his own owl had cost, almost as much as an Explosive Shot.
He was dizzy afterward and hurriedly drank a Medium Blue Potion to replenish his arcane energy. Seeing how exhausted Thirteen was, he wanted him to rest for a while. Thirteen refused, saying he could sleep aboard the ship. He was afraid Fifteen would worry and was anxious to get back. Yu Lin Bloodhawk could only let him leave.
After Thirteen left, Yu Lin Bloodhawk went back to training every day. Occasionally, he wondered why the innkeeper in Westfall and Marquis Diritis had shipped so few beasts lately, or whether war had broken out-idle questions like those.
On the fifth day after Thirteen left, Yu Lin Bloodhawk received a letter delivered by Fourteen's owl. Fourteen said armor and weapons were now very difficult to buy in Stormwind City, apparently because the city was preparing for war. Word had it that quite a few patrol soldiers had been attacked near the Black Morass by brown- or green-skinned monsters.
As for Westfall, the goods there had originally