World of Warcraft®

It was hard to find time just to be herself again.

Not "Derscha Kettlebomb, AAMS."

Not "boss lady" or "boss gnome."

Just Derscha Kettlebomb.

Her house in Dun Morogh was empty, essentially unused since the Cataclysm, and the start of her traveling the world. She would slip away every now and then, just to sit in her old chair, and just think. Everytime time she visited, there was a new layer of dust on the furniture, or new repair that needed to be made after letting the house go neglected.

It was time for spring cleaning.

So Derscha rummaged in her closet for an old set of clothes; white really was a bad color to clean in, even if Derscha were inclined to wear her uniform one second longer than necessary. She found a sturdy set of brown, her old gardener's outfit. Now there was activity she hadn't been able to engage in on the road!

She rather missed the quiet days, carefully tending her plants. She used to grow her own ingredients for cooking and for her potions, in neat little boxes and pots, with devices designed to precisely monitor the water and fertilizer levels. She used to run experiments to determine the best way to grow a new seedling. Every plant was meticulously labels to identify it, with the except of the "mystery seeds" she used to receive from… someone who used to challenge her to identify and grow the seed before a set time limit.

She spent the morning straightening up the house, ensuring everything was "just so," before grabbing the keys to the greenhouse.

The greenhouse was even more neglected than the house. Nothing grew anymore; the greenhouse was a mix of barren beds, and shelves of empty pots with wires attached to them. Derscha had disposed of all the plants shortly after the Cataclysm. It wasn't as if she'd had the time to regularly tend to the greenhouse, anyway. She didn't have the time, now; she spent more time in Caer Darrow than anywhere else.

Well… what about at Caer Darrow, then? There wasn't a greenhouse, but there were plenty of empty lots yet around the AAMS Headquarters. She could easily set up some garden beds, use some large pots… maybe even grow some flowers for decoration, too. Caer Darrow was still a rather gloomy place, even after all the work AAMS had done to restore the town.

She wouldn't actually plant anything in the ground. Using untested, unregulated soil meant there were variables in the growth of plants she couldn't account for. It would be challenge enough to deal with open weather, without adding in the complications of dealing with the contaminants sure to be present at Caer Darrow! It would have to be a potted garden.

A plan of action in mind, Derscha began taking inventory, determining which pieces of equipment were still in working order and could be moved. She even found several packets of seeds, including on last "mystery packet" that she had never planted.

She was looking forward to having a nice, orderly garden again.

----

Several days later, she admired the results of her work.

She'd taken over the use of the lot directly behind the offices, where there was a low wall marking off a section of land. Repurposed troughs acted as raised garden beds, carefully lined with insulators. They spread out in neat rows, with silver monitoring devices hooked up to a control box at each end. Large pots lined up against the walls, with their own set of devices attached.

There was already a mix of plants growing; she'd planted the seeds - all the "mystery seeds" each got their own, independent pots- and bought some pre-grown plants, as well. They were mostly herbs and vegetables, plus a few plants meant for potions ingredients. Once they were ready to harvest, she could start up her research again.

Of course, there were some flowers that were just pretty to look at. Derscha was a gnome who appreciated aesthetics.

She double-checked one last time to make sure all the irrigation and feeding lines were properly calibrated. She wouldn't be able to monitor this garden as closely as her old one. It was likely her work with the AAMS would keep her away days at a time. However, she was happy to have something other than paperwork to occupy her time again.

It was nice to be doing something for herself for once.

Derscha Kettlebomb, plant lover and chemist, giggled. "It's good to be growing again."

Spriggel marched up and down the military rows of planters, halting before each, making a right or left face to properly inspect the planter, & occasionally giggling at her silly marching and this way too organized garden. Whoever saw plants grow like this in nature? Really!

At each planter, she made a note on her clipboard of what was in the planter, sometimes having to pick out the plant tag to be sure she got the identification right. Usually she planted the tag back in the proper pot, for she understood how important it was to not get plants mixed up; but two tags floated to the ground and three were misplaced.

In her notes, she also jotted down ideas for improving this garden. "Ah some nettles here," Spriggel noted happily; she was in the middle of an extensive study, cataloging the nettles on the three continents, identifying their individual qualities and considering how to get the best qualities of each into a new species. She could definitely improve this nettle she assured herself as she lifted the wimpy branch in the planter before her.

She quickly jotted a slew of notes of things to bring the next time she was coming to Caer D, so that she could help improve this garden. Last of all, she marched to the "front" of the garden, did an about face, and saluted the "troops" before hollering at Felstun to get down off the roof and fly her down to Ironforge.

((letting the garden settle in and Derscha enjoy it some before the chaos breaks out))

The razormaw hatchling snapped at Derscha's elbow as she jotted down notes on one of the "mystery" pots. She was fairly certain that this particular plant was a vine native to Darkshore.

"Stop that," she said absently, for the fifth time.

The hatchling, a gift from Kordrion, followed her wherever she went in Caer Darrow. Most of the time, it slept underneath her feet at her desk (as her feet didn't reach the floor) or in her chair while she was gone.

If she were walking around, though, he'd trail at her feet, snapping at her hem or otherwise demanding attention. He never actually bit her, just snapped his teeth.

Most would call him a "little hatchling," but Derscha was a gnome, and it took something very tiny indeed before she'd call it little. A razor-sharp set of teeth that could reach her elbow was not little. Plus, according to Kordrion, she could expect him to be growing very big... particularly for gnomish standards. He wouldn't be able to fit under her desk, for certain.

Finally discouraged, the razormaw wandered off and started poking his muzzle into the various planters as Derscha made her round. Some of the bright things smelled interesting. He chomped off a clump of leaves and a large yellow flower.

"Hey, there, that's not good for you."

Derscha gently pushed the hatchling away from the flower bush, frowning at the damage. Several identification tags had fallen to the ground, and she set them back in place.

The hatchling snapped his teeth happily at the attention, and made a high-pitched whining noise.

"Fine, fine, snapper. Time to play." She giggled at the hatchling's antics.

The hatchling cheerfully accompanied Derscha back to the offices, where she kept a leather ball to play fetch with. He ran ahead an clawed at the door, nearly opening it on his own before the gnome shoo'd him back and turned the handle herself.

She could finish her inspection later. Her garden was doing fine on its own.

Really, what could go wrong in a garden?

((Bralox can go wrong. Post later.)

Spriggel walked into the office and spyed the little razormaw hatchling. "Oh you poor little guy. Have you been locked in the office? Here why don't you go out and play in the garden and get some fresh air."

Matching actions to words, Spriggel opened the door and let the raptor out to go play in the planters out back. Turning back to the desk, Spriggel stopped when she heard Girren in the other room yelling, "I am not a planter! Get out of there!"

She never could seem to get off on a good foot with Girren, so she apologized profusely as she herded the raptor out of the offices, coaxing it to go outside.

Once she had the hatchling safely (?) ensconced in the garden, she promptly forgot about it, and spent several hours in the AAMS library. On her way out, after leaving a note for the goblin twins ((Spriggel thinks they are twins)) and some teabags of peacebloom, she noticed the raptor nesting in one of the larger troughs (apparently it had found some green branches, twigs, & leaves around the place), and she shooed it back into the office where she’d found it.

“This one should help Derscha out,” Spriggel said to her spade as she transplanted one of her new Lost Isle plants into a container with a really sad looking plant in AAMS garden.

The goblin refugee from whom she had bartered it had claimed that it was a self-weeding plant, capable of keeping its location weed-free, so long as it had plenty of sunshine and was kept appropriately watered. And after her 2 day plant trial in her own garden back home, Spriggel had found a neat pile of composting weeds around the foot of the plant and a nicely weeded area 4 feet around.

And since the original plant in the AAMS planter was looking quite frail, keeping weeds out could only help it gain good health quicker, or so she reasoned as she shifted the original plant to one side of the container to give the new plant room on the other side.

The Lost Isle plant was an airy looking plant. Its knee high base [of a dozen dark green leaves (approximately 4+ long) on short stems] grounded the eight light green, wispy, long, grass-like leaves (1/2 inch wide) that projected up out of the base for a good double-gnome height. The wispy leaves, being so slender, were constantly in motion, even when a breeze was not apparent.

“A self-weeding plant will cut down on the time that Derscha has to work out here, and give her more time to just sit and enjoy this lovely garden.” Spriggel patted the new plant in place and then gave both plants a good watering before wandering away to give a few more plants new homes.

Meanwhile the new Weeder’s eight arms roved around the planter pulling weeds, leaving the original plant unharmed. The next day, having no more weeds in its own planter, Weeder reached out & grabbed hold of the nearest planter and pulled itself (and its own container) up to it, and then reached in and began weeding its neighbor.

"Good, good," Derscha murmured to herself as she walked down the row of plants, checking the monitoring devices, Snapper at her heels.

The garden was messier than she liked it... twigs piled this way and that... tags on the ground... surely the result of being subject to the open weather, which could be quite nasty at this time of year. She missed her old greenhouse, and its padlocked door.

She was interested in checking the pots today; she had identified about half of the mystery plants, although there was one that was particularly puzzling to her. It had purple tinged leaves, and didn't look like anything she was familiar with. She'd figured out the most of the plants in Lazack's last package had been from Northern Kalimdor, although he wasn't beyond occasionally throwing in an out-of-place seed just to keep her on her toes. She wasn't as familiar with Kalimdor flora, considering how the continent hadn't been visited at the time of her schooling.

"Oh, my," she said upon spying the pots lined up against the low wall that surrounded the garden. One of them was completely out of position, and was filled with a large bush she was certain wasn't there a few days previously.

The branches waved in a nonexistent breeze as she approached. Snapper growled at the branches, and Derscha was about to shush him when one of the leaves whipped out and hit him on the nose.

"Yikes!" Derscha quickly stepped back, even as the razormaw continued snapping at the plant, managing every now and then to snag a leaf in his teeth. "If that's Lazack's idea of a joke, it's a good thing he's not here!"

She whistled at Snapper, who reluctantly returned to her side, leaving the plant to return to its not-completely-passive state. Holding on hand to her hat, she slowly approached the pot, which fortunately didn't attack her. Rather than move the Weeder, she grabbed the now-empty planter next to it and slid it as far away as she could.

Was it her imagination, or did the weeder shake at her?

She sighed at the empty pot. Whatever the purple tinged leafed plant was, it was now missing. Little divots in the soil marked where it had been pulled out, roots and all. Who knew were it had gone to?

"I'm not sure what you are, but I'm going to find out." Derscha glared at the weeder. She herdeded the razormaw back inside, determined to check her books.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the low wall, hidden by leftover stone blocks, a little purple-tinged plant began to grow in the soil of Caer Darrow.

Someone had an odd idea of how gardens should look. Everything so neat and tidy; it was most UNnatural. Spriggel tsked and shook her head as she inspected the plants and planters. At least they were keeping the spring fungus and bugs under control.

And it was good to see that Weeder was flourishing. Spriggel was glad to see that someone had moved its planter further down the row so that it could weed some of the planters that it couldn't reach from the end of the line where it had been originally.

"Too too tidy," thought Spriggel in dismay, "why, they even got rid of Derscha's raptor's nest. That's so saaaad. And where now am I going to put these?" Spriggel looked down at the Three raptor eggs she was carefully balancing in her Two hands; Derscha's hatchiling would no longer be a lonely fellow but would have friends to play with. In a couple of days.

Setting the eggs ever so gently in the plain's grass in one of the planters (why ever would someone plant Barrens grasses in a planter? Really!), Spriggel went about the garden pulling weeds, and picking dead limbs/leaves, as well as grabbing several handfuls of some straw she found, all of which she patted under and around the raptor eggs, nesting them safely amongst the grass and warmly under the spring sun.

Spriggel stepped back and admired the nest she had made. "That should do it and now that little guy will have playmates." Spriggel congratulated herself and then headed off to Ironforge, making a mental note (for what it is worth) to come back in a few days time with some boar meat and see how the eggs were doing.

She moved all the big pots- now mostly empty- away from the weeder. The weeder itself kept attempting to steal her hat every time she came too close.

She spent an hour readjusting the controls to the garden beds, as they were no longer calibrated correctly.

She spent another two hours re-planting new saplings and bulbs to replace the ones that had gone missing.

She spied the eggs in the middle of the planter.

Those were not Noblegarden eggs.

Snapper hesitantly poked his nose at the eggs, making a small whining noise. He looked up at the gnome with expectant eyes.

"Whoever did this. . ." Derscha spoke at last, "ought to have least left a heater. Really, those eggs need to be incubated."

While she wasn't an engineer, it only took a little bit of work to rig a small stove outside to provide some warmth for the eggs.

"There. Much better." The bossgnome smiled. "Now all I have to do is find out who's responsible for this, and put them on stable duty for a month."

“Oh my Light! Oh my Light! Oh my Light!” Spriggel ran frantically around the garden frantically pulling her hat down on her head, at a complete loss; “WHO could be so callous? So cold hearted? So . . . so . . . . MEAN?!?”

With a running start down the pathway and a slow helicopter swing, Spriggel laid into the small stove, with her large mallet, with one mighty Whack!, knocking it off its feet and tipping its smoldering coally contents down the path. Scampering around with her metal clad feet, Spriggel stamped out the last of the fires, shoving several planters clear of harm from the hot embers.

“Ooooohhhhhhooooohhhhh! When I found out who was planning to scramble up some omelettes, I’ll … I’ll . . . . I’ll bury them in the composite heap behind the stables. THAT will serve them right.”

With the embers all safely put out and the still hot stove laying “safely” in the middle of the path, Spriggel inspected the raptor eggs that were days past their opening time. Spriggel, a gardener by trade and clearly not well schooled in husbandry, cupped her palm on the top of each barely warm egg, puzzled by their delayed delivery date.

“I wonder if we have a book in the library here about how to nest raptor eggs.” Spriggel walked into the offices to have a look. She was well please to notice that the Kezan seeds she had sprinkled in 3 of the pots were starting to appear; they looked healthy and oddly hungry.

((OOC Note: The plants (from seed) in the 3 pots are the same plants from the Goblin starting area; the orc-eating plants [and probably any & all other races] that take a strong mowing down to clear out; they are just reaching the stage where they will be looking for “meat”.))

Farmer Abominus looked over the orderly rows of planters at Caer Darrow. He looked down at the wheelbarrow, stuffed full of items. Now, to work. All through the night, Abominus quietly dug and planted, dug and planted. The work was tiring, but satisfying, if not a little odd to the Maggot Lord. After several hours, he was finished. Packing his gardening implements, he paused to look back over his handiwork.

Row after row of human heads were planted before him. He had taken these sprouts from Tarren Mill, and replanted them here, after advice from the Forsaken farmers gathered at the Inn. They said these were the best screamers of the the lot, whose ear destroying cacophany would commence when the first rays of the sun struck them, and would only cease once night fell.

"We do not know why thisss wasss in our flowchart, yesss? Phassse 78, "Plant Human Head Plants for the AAMS", yesss. We think that chart isss developing sssentience, yesss. We cannot remember putting thisss on there, yesss. Oh well, off to Phassse 79, "Painting Pillar of Honour Chapel Blood Red, Ussse Real Blood", yesss. Dawn stealthily crept up on the AAMS headquarters...

"..eeeEEEeeeAAAHHaaaaEEEEAAAARRGGHHEeeeeEEEAAAAA.."

The sound blasted over her guildstone for three seconds before Kezrin hastily deactivated it, her sensitive ears ringing, and birds flying in all directions from the trees in Hearthglen.

What the fel was that?

She looked in the general direction of Caer Darrow. She didn't remember any sort of emergency broadcast signal in her courier training.

Not exactly sure what she expected to find, she arranged for a flight to the island.

She could hear it before she'd even made out the crowd standing in the courtyard outside the AAMS offices. There was mix of people, mostly in white, but also some of the nearby townsfolk, who were busy shouting at the offices managers... and were barely being heard, if the way they were waving their arms around in frustration meant anything.

Kezrin hastily clapped her hands over her ears; this was not a sound she wanted to commit to memory. What could it be this time? This was far worse than the chickens.

One of the clerks saw her approach and ran over to her side. "Do you know where Miss Kettlebomb is?" he shouted. "We tried the guildstone but no one responded!"

Kezrin shook her head, slowly backing away from the horrible noise. "Tell ya what- I'll go look for her!"

"But we n-"

The goblin didn't wait for the clerk to finish his protest, running as fast as she could away from the sound.

At first, she thought something was wrong with her stone. Everytime she turned it on, a horrible screeching noise was heard. At last, someone thought that it would be best to move away from the noise before trying to contact Derscha, and she received a report of what had happened at Caer Darrow.

"Heads? Shrieking heads? No, of course I didn't plant any heads! What am I supposed to do with heads? Unless you mean lettuce. I did plant some of those, but I'm pretty sure they're the silent type. No? Drat."

She was mobbed the moment her gryphon landed - a good distance away from the noise pollution- by the staff and angry townsfolk. Her gryphon balked and flapped its wings in agitation as the people pressed in, and she clung to the reins. She tried to understand the shouting.

"Make the noise stop!"

"It's the ghosts of the Scholomance out for revenge!"

"The AAMS needs to move!"

"Earplugs! 10 gold a pair!"

It was a long, long day, until the sun finally set and the screeching ceased. The AAMS quickly worked to remove anything they'd need for the next few days' business, temporarily evacuating the building.

She was finally able to survey the damage to her garden; rows upon rows of her plants had been replaced with what looked like sleeping human heads. In the very back, the unusually mobile weeder was busy brushing one of the heads with its long leaves.

One of the undead staffers recognized the work as being similar to "farms" he'd seen in Hillsbrad; after some brief discussion, Derscha sent one of the couriers to Tarren Mill to have some experts come in to remove the "plants."

The next afternoon, a group of Forsaken came to the town, wearing large ear muffs and wielding shovels. They briskly marched into the garden, and slowly, the screeching diminished, until the last one was abruptly cut off. The head gardener assured Derscha that they were being very humane, and she decided not to press the issue.

The offices were in the worse disarray since she'd taken over the job. Everything was out of place from the hasty retreat. Packages were backed up in storage, undelivered. Couriers were slowly trickling back in, as they realized it was safe to turn on their guildstones and return. Snapper was missing, although she was sure he'd show up sooner or later. The garden was in shambles; evidently the farmers hadn't been very picky about where they'd been swinging their shovels.

She sighed and absently straightened the two-day-old pile of papers on her desk. At least her glued-down, nailed-in nameplate was still in the correct spot.

He couldn't believe his luck as he sat on the ground in front of his Ratchet warehouse running his fingers through a large pile of silver. Some crazy giggling gnome lady had asked, with much hand waving and a surprisingly inventive massacre of orcish, for the remainder of his stock of Noblegarden bonnets. In one fel swoop, he had liquidated the last of his holiday souvenirs and come away with, for the first time ever, a pretty profit.

Maybe he should move his business interests across the water . . . .

((Sorry I'm so late getting this writen up and all the gaps/gaffs included; I didn't keep good notes of what all happened so please bear with this little absent minded gnome and correct us gently.))

She was giddy with excitement and couldn't believe her good fortune. The elf had DOZENS of those old fashioned, tie under your chin, Noblegarden bonnets that would be just PERFECT for those screaming skulls back in the AAMS garden. Tie the bows tightly under the skull chins and that should shut them up, well and good, and then you'd have planters of spring colored, bonnet wearing skull flowers. And silence. Don't forget the silence.

It took a bit of work to get the bonnets crated, sent across the ocean from Ratchet to Booty Bay, and then trucked up all the way north up to Caer Darrow. But Spriggel was certain that in saving the day, she'd be back in the good graces of her peers and bossgnome (and maybe even Gerrin too).

But they were gone.

The skulls.

(Not her peers, bossgnome, or Gerrin.)

Not a single skull, screaming or otherwise, was left; well, not counting those inside the skin and on the shoulders of the living folks in the AAMS office and working about Caer Darrow. Spriggel pulled her little red wagon (that had a mountain of hat boxes in it) carefully into Derscha's office.