The colonel finally accepted Huron's goodwill.
In part, it was because the viceroy's sincere words had touched the veteran's heart. He was no saint without wants or desires, and when it came to his descendants and his family, he too had more to consider.
The other reason was that the cost of living in Stormwind City was frighteningly high. A month of their military pay barely covered one night at the city's best inn, The Gilded Rose.
Still, the city's prosperity opened the eyes of the two soldiers, Kelman and Baslon. Following Huron and Gleis, who knew their way around, they first had a private audience with His Majesty Morton Wrynn, the current emperor of the Kingdom of Stormwind, then attended an auction at the Royal Auction House.
To his surprise, the colonel discovered that there really were civilizations from beyond Federation territory there: twelve unbelievably powerful warriors, half mechanical and half flesh, who could supposedly each defeat a hundred of the strongest demons.
Yet they appeared as slaves. Some women from wandering civilizations shared their status. They had no great civilization of their own and were spoils of the Federation military's campaigns. Federation law was lenient in this regard, but it would not casually grant equal status to races that did not even have a complete social system.
At Huron's suggestion, Kelman bought twenty beast-eared maids from the distant Voodoo Serpent Star Sector to serve in his future official residence. Their name alone made it clear that these "orcs" came from a sector ruled by the Zandalari Troll Empire. The single major, meanwhile, spent all his saved military pay on two Sunlight Elf girls from the Greenforest Star Sector to serve him.
But the major had no need to worry that his romantic indulgence would leave him penniless. Colonel