Terror Totem

"Another body." Marla pointed to the shore. She was grateful for the ocean currents that had brought them clues in the past few days; it seemed even the waves and sea breeze were welcoming them.

Marla carefully examined every corpse of one of those sea serpent creatures she encountered on her way here, afraid of missing any clues.

"Damn it, it's been vandalized. I can't be sure when it died," Marla said, somewhat annoyed.

The Dark Ranger can determine the time of death by observing the growth of maggots, but this corpse is different from the previous ones. There is a clear serrated mark where flesh was cut off, left after death. Maggots of different sizes are mixed together, obscuring the clues that should have been there.

Calila came over and observed for a while before giving her conclusion. "This seems to have been left recently. The piece of meat that was taken away is the thickest one, and there aren't many internal organs."

Do you think it was done by pirates?

"Pirates were indeed cruel and did desecrate corpses, but that was limited to hanging the bodies on the masts to dry. They wouldn't do something like that,"

"Marla! Calila!" Cleya's voice rang out, and the two Dark Ranger were momentarily distracted as they looked at the Dark Ranger. "Look!" Cleya pointed to the upper part of the Dusty Swamp.

Marla saw nothing at first, until she reached Cleya's side and the sun disappeared from their view. Following her gaze, Marla squinted. A wisp of smoke was slowly drifting towards the horizon.

"Interesting. I thought there were no more living people in Dusty Swamp." Calila also noticed that, according to the habits of the living, it was indeed lunchtime.

"It can't be the Horde. Grommash has no troops stationed here, and even Brackenwall Village has been relocated. Could they be survivors from Theramore who didn't have time to leave?"

Cleya's guess wasn't without merit. If they really were from Theramore, and they came from the Alliance... Marla didn't want to think about it, but it was indeed possible. "Let's go over there and see what it is," the Dark Ranger decided, then raced towards the direction of the smoke.

"Shouldn't we be more careful?" Calila hurriedly caught up. "If they outnumber us, we won't have the upper hand."

"As long as it's confirmed to be them, that's fine," Marla responded.

The final destination was an abandoned watchtower at the northern fork in the road. It was indeed once an outpost of Theramore, but the huge gap at the top of the tower indicated that it had been completely destroyed and abandoned, and the traces of human activity found by the Dark Ranger were not made by humans.

Marla, bow in hand, peeked out and then turned back to her two companions with a disappointed look. "It's Tauren from the Terror Totem."

Calila and Cleya were both disappointed; they had worked for nothing again!

Are there many of them?

"No, they appear to be resting in a human watchtower. They don't have any weapons, and the majority of them are women and children, with only a few soldiers."

"Then let's leave quickly and not waste time." Calila said, shrinking back, but Marla suddenly gestured to stop her.

"No, it doesn't seem that bad. I noticed that the cooking utensils they're using seem to be the kind used by the Alliance army."

"What kind of clue is this? This used to be Alliance territory. Maybe it was left here."

"But we have to check." Marla turned to look at Calila, hoping the latter could be more patient.

Calila gritted her teeth and closed her eyes; Veronalara's orders and warnings still echoed in her mind. She said, "Then let's take control of them now and take down those Tauren with weapons first."

The three of them nodded to each other, and then, using their advantage, slowly approached the resting fear totem.

The raid was swift and gentle. Cleya first advanced northward, making a turn along the edge of the watchtower. It must be said that the watchtower's location was very cleverly constructed, precisely avoiding roads while controlling intersections, and being close enough to the freshwater lake that the people living there would not be without drinking water.

Inside the watchtower were dug trenches and shabby leather tents, and on a rack that looked recently erected hung several dried fish and a piece of breastbone meat.

It seems this is a trivial lunch for the Tauren.

Calila fired a swift and precise poisoned arrow that struck a Tauren on guard in the shoulder, temporarily incapacitating him but without serious injury. Just as Marla had described, the Tauren hiding here were not well-trained Warrior; only a few showed some ability to resist, but they were all quickly taken down by the Dark Ranger trio.

Marla and her group stepped forward; there were only three of them, yet they seemed to surround the remaining Terror Totem. The Tauren quickly retreated into the watchtower, forming a perimeter.

"Please remain calm. As long as you answer our questions, I guarantee no one will be harmed." Marla tried to keep her voice from sounding too cold, but she failed; death had altered her control over her emotions.

The incessant screams of terror made the Dark Ranger frown. She saw a Shaman Tauren in tattered robes standing before his terrified family; the Tauren mother and a boy were clearly terrified. An infant was wailing in its mother's arms. On the other side, a weathered-looking Warrior leaned against the wall, his leg wounds still unhealed. Everyone's eyes were wide open, their cheeks deeply sunken from hunger.

Marla stared at the refugees in front of her in silence for a while. She watched as the refugees gradually went from screaming to whispering to each other. Calila stood beside her, reminding her that their time was running out.

The Dark Ranger closed his eyes, as if taking a deep breath. "This might be the clue we're looking for."

"The Forsaken!" At that moment, a Shaman Tauren wearing a skull rosary emerged with heavy steps. He was clearly once a tall and energetic Tauren Shaman, but whether from war or the passage of time, his spine was visibly bent. As he spoke, his long, braided black beard swayed gently on his chin. "Is this the difference between you and the Scourge? Here, only innocent refugees, only homeless wounded, only hungry children hide—they are merely the fallen from grace in countless wars!"

"So, you're the leader here?" Marla asked calmly, her eyes sharp as an eagle's as she stared intently at the Tauren before her. In a short moment, she noticed something amiss: the man had a dog-skin plaster stuck to his arm—a human-made thing.

"Yes, I speak for the people here," the Tauren muttered in response. "If someone has to stand up, I won't run away."

"We have no intention of causing bloodshed here." Marla expressed her goodwill to the Tauren elder with sincerity and firmness. "If you are willing to tell us the information we want to know, we will leave, and I guarantee that none of you will be harmed."

Upon hearing this, the refugees gathered in the camp exchanged shocked glances and whispered among themselves. Some faces were filled with hope, while others remained skeptical.

While Marla spoke with the Tauren representative, Calila's gaze was drawn to a piece of roasting meat on a grill. The meat was dripping with oil, looking incredibly appetizing, yet it also had a strange, foul odor and an indescribable smell. The thought of the gash on the Naga corpse they had found on the shore nearly made Calila vomit. Thankfully, her stomach was empty; as Forsaken, she didn't need to eat to maintain her strength. Still, she found it unbelievable, inwardly cursing these Tauren for their complete lack of ethics and morality; the Naga were intelligent beings.

"We want to know whose cooking vessel it is." Marla pointed to a large, silver-white pot with the Alliance mark, which seemed to be cooking some kind of wild vegetables inside.

The Tauren Shaman representative was puzzled by her behavior, as were the others, but the Dark Ranger noticed that several people in the know were simultaneously looking at a Tauren mother and her two children. They huddled tightly together, trembling slightly, and didn't dare to look around, appearing extremely nervous.

She's the one I've been looking for!

"Your eyes are honest." Marla's voice was so soft that only Cleya and the Tauren representative could hear her. "I must speak with this mother privately." She stepped to the front of the crowd, wanting the mother to come out.

"Wait a minute." The Shaman quickly stopped her, a chill running down his spine. "She's just a mother of two. Don't make things difficult for them."

Marla paused, unable to believe that this Tauren would actually beg for mercy from an Undead. They were indeed not the Scourge, but they only maintained rationality towards the living in principle and would not attack the living without cause. However, the reason was like an excuse, and they could easily come up with one.

"As long as she tells me the answer, I promise I won't hurt anyone here."

"I can answer your question." This voice drew everyone's attention. It was the wounded Tauren Warrior.

Marla looked at him with some surprise and asked, "What's your name?"

"His name Gogro," the Tauren Shaman answered for him.

"Very well, tell me everything you know." Marla said coldly. She could sense the threat; even though the Tauren was injured, his physique and thick arms still made him capable of attacking.

Gogro snorted, glancing somewhat awkwardly into the distance. His knees, trembling slightly from his injury, made it seem like he was struggling to even stand. "I think what you're curious about isn't the pot itself, but rather its origins, isn't it?"

Marla finally managed a fleeting smile across her stiff face. "You're smart, that's right. I do want to know the answer to that question."

"Then let's make a deal. You let the people here go get something to eat, and I'll tell you the truth."

"Make a deal."

As Calila watched a Tauren child devour pieces of flesh cut from Naga, she no longer felt as nauseous; her disgust shifted from the meat itself to the person eating it.

Do these people even know what they're doing? The Dark Ranger couldn't understand the child's happy expression. Perhaps he had no idea where the food in his mouth came from, or perhaps he did—after all, the Terror Totem was the wildest and most aggressive branch of the Tauren race, and their lifestyle might be even more primitive.

"About a week ago, while I was hunting in the swamp, I heard the sound of gunfire coming from the other side of the sea." Gogro sat cross-legged on the ground, his leg injury making movement uncomfortable. Marla and Cleya listened quietly to his description. "I ran over to investigate and saw several Alliance ships attacking the Naga on Okaz Island."

Upon hearing the words "Alliance ships," Calila also turned her attention to them.

"I shouted excitedly, 'You know, Terror Totem is an enemy of the Horde, but it has a certain degree of cooperation with the Alliance.'"

Marla nodded. She had heard that the Alliance had once joined Horde with the Terror Totem against the Horde, but it seemed that Theramore had not been involved.

"Since the fall of Theramore, we have become the target of everyone in Dusty Swamp. The Ogre of Brackenwall Village launched a fierce attack on us and drove us out of their territory," the Tauren Warrior continued, while the Shaman lowered his head, seemingly recalling this dark past.

"So when I saw the Alliance ships, I was happy. I thought they were back to reclaim this territory, and the Terror Totem could re-establish a cooperative relationship with them."

"So you went to find these people after that?" Cleya asked. It was a silly question, but Marla wanted to ask the same thing. Logically, Gogro should have been able to reach an agreement with the Alliance, but he was covered in wounds, which clearly indicated that the outcome was bad.

The Tauren nodded. "I found three sailors on the shore, dressed in old Alliance uniforms, celebrating their victory in a tent camp. I slowly approached them, and they seemed quite surprised by our presence. They were initially very polite, but their expressions changed drastically when I proposed the alliance..."

Marla blinked, her gaze fixed on the tattoos on Gorok's arms and body, lost in thought.

"They immediately changed their tune and attacked me." Gorok became agitated, and the Tauren Shaman put his hand on his shoulder to help him calm down.

"I defeated them, but I was also seriously injured. That pot was theirs, and of course, some wine and canned jerky and the like, which I also took, but we had already eaten all that food."

"I have one last question: how can you be sure that what you saw was Alliance ship?"

"Because their ships sailed with the flags of the Alliance."

"Very good, this is a truly useful clue," Marla nodded. "Thank you." The Dark Ranger said gratefully, bowing respectfully. "Your words are very important to us, Gogro. Once we've finished our business, we'll contact our people to send you food and water, and we'll also send people to help you reclaim your home."