World of Warcraft®

EDIT: I'm going to stress that this is a COMPLETED RP.

((I want to thank everyone who participated. If you've ever had a chance to discuss the first Notes from Brookslandia with me, you'd know that it's not exactly my favorite thing I've ever done with Jay. I wasn't happy with it, mostly because of my own actions and lack of dedication to the thread. I'm much happier with the way this one turned out.

Again, I'd just like to thank everyone who participated. I literally can't do Notes without you guys, and I know it wouldn't be as good without you guys.

So, thanks. I hope you enjoy the ending. Feel free to post OOCly in the thread now.))





In a tavern deep in the dusty canyons of Orgrimmar lies a familiar journal. It's a beaten, leather-bound book, with runes carved into its spine. On the back cover is a circle filled with a mess of interwoven lines and black dots. Every black dot was connected to another black dot by thick, bold lines, and each thick line was connected by countless smaller lines. Small yet strong chains, used to attach the book to its owner's waist were securely wrapped around the journal. A small layer of ash covered the entire book, especially its front cover, and a quick flick of the wrist to clear it would reveal the words “Notes from Brookslandia,” emblazoned across the top if a fanciful script.

When one opens the book, after a rather out of place tables of contents, there's a page solely devoted to a rather cartoonish drawing of two blood elves chasing a Forsaken with one eye who's chasing a Sin'dorei priestess, complete with a fish in his rotten hand. As one continues to flip through the pages, memories of the last time this journal saw the light of day flow back to you.

However, memories are simply that, and your attention is drawn away from talk of sweet rolls, goddesses, whale huntings and social experiments. Instead, your attention is drawn to the increasing mania evident on every page. Pages upon pages are devoted to the sickening experiments going on in the Undercity, complete with recounts of the effects of the New Plague. Diagrams of bodies of the various races of Azeroth are just as at home among the tales of Alliance and Horde members used for experiments ranging from alchemy to magic. As the pages go on, the experiments are more focused on the worgen, specifically the affect of the Plague on both of their forms.

More alarmingly, however, is the sudden, almost fanatical fascination with ley lines. The experiments vanish as quickly as they appeared, replaced with a large map of the charted parts of Azeroth. Similar to the back cover, there are large black dots drawn onto various known ley lines nexus points such as the Sunwell or the Nexus in Northrend. Each nexus is connected in some way or another, with various arrows and notes pointing toward Karazhan.

With each flip of the page, the map's focused is narrowed. First Northrend, then Kalimdor, the charted areas of the Maelstrom, and then the Eastern Kingdoms. Another flip of the page is a closer look into the landmass, a closer look at the kingdom of Azeroth. The maps grow more and more specific, more and more detailed, until they settle on Deadwind Pass and the lonely tower of Karazhan. An entire page is devoted to the tower specifically, filled with almost illegible notes. The only words one could make out appear in Common. They are “ley lines,” “connected,” and “point of entry.”

Another flip of a page and the maps are gone. Both pages are blank, aside from one entry.


February 28th,

This will be a good place to begin.

She heaved a deep sigh as she took a seat in the small tavern. Her eyes wandered to the barkeep, the woman giving a small shake of her head in silent decline. She didn't need anything to cloud her now. There had been too much of that as of late. No, no. Now wasn't the time for being out of control or numb.

Her eyelids fell closed, fingertips pushing firmly against them a moment before she dropped her hands and reached for the satchel she usually carried. Before she could find her own journal within the enchanted bag's depths, her eyes caught sight of the strange tome that lay tucked into the shadows. She leaned forward, orbs squinting in scrutiny.

"Careful, Bells," she muttered to herself. Her fingers pushed at the contents of her bag until she located her quill, using it to nudge the seemingly abandoned tome. Her jaw set askew as she debated on opening it, some books known to have magical properties attached that would cause harm. Her lips pursed as her right brow arched, the woman admonishing herself. "And if everyone thinks that way, it might not return to the rightful owner."

Starting with the cover, she sought only the owners name. Seeing none present at the front, she ventured forth into the bound parchment. Bella's fingers turned the pages, eyes wide at what she saw. She remembered seeing this a long time prior, though she never made her own notes. She wondered briefly why she never took liberty to add to the pages as others so obviously had. Her thoughts were eschewed as she progressed through the tome, the woman lifting a hand to her lips, the tip of her tongue sweeping over her middle finger's tip before turning to the next page, then the one after.

It ended nearly too abruptly, the note of the spot of beginning causing a small stir of alarm in her. She sat back, staring at the eight words printed under the date, wondering what should go next, as well as what might have happened to the book's owner. Silence permeated the tavern air, the absence of chatter and usual din hanging thick as a blanket about her.

Sitting forward, she pressed the tip of the writing instrument to the parchment, scratching out the words that were originally destined for her own journal. At that moment, she felt it more important to share them with someone else, and this was a good of a spot as any.

In all I've seen and done in this world so far... in all the decades I've shared it with kin and foe alike... I must say one thing. We are our own undoing, be it through our strengths or weaknesses.

So much wrong happening. So much hurt and things broken in this world, yet we still thirst for the same that nearly drowned us before?

Folly.

As I told the former Knight, when you kick a worg and it returns with a harder bite, perhaps it's time to seek another means of confrontation rather than a kick.

Perhaps it is.

She closed the cover, shaking her head as she rose. Tucking the quill back into her bag, she gave a nod to the barkeep as she headed towards the exit. She did, after all, have a ranger to meet.

The book remained on the table.

Immediately following the last entry, there is another. It is written in the same script as the first entry.

February 29th,

Tick tock.

The same small, messy scrawl as two out of the other three entries appears once more. The strokes, however, are thicker, as if the writer was angry when he set pen to paper.

March 2nd,

It seems that this time, no one is ready.

Aith grumbled softly, sitting rather bored looking in her engineering workshop. With a passing yawn she screwed on the final nut to a rather odd looking metallic device.

"Alright now if the correct pitch of the fourth dimension is indeed equal to the inverse of this... I should be able to use these dimensional coordinates to replicate warlock summoning powers and get me a new couch!"

She seemed estatic, the mage looking over her shoulder towards the charred remains of what used to be the previous couch. Shrugging the incident off, "Let's get this baby started up!"

Pressing the big red button on the side of the device as she spoke. It whirred for a bit, churning out a beam of mana that teared at the fabric of reality. "Yes yes... It's ali.... Hey!" It stopped, the noises fading as the machine turned itself off. "You aren't allowed to turn off! Ok... fine I'll fix you... it'll be a sensative and delicate opperation," eyeing the complex machine carefully before simply whacking it with a wrench.

It started once more. The beam of mana tearing into the fabric of existance. For several minutes the tear yeilded no results, before a leather-bound book was spat out of it.

"...Not a couch..." She sighed before picking up the tome, flipping through the pages and remembering it from the past. She tapped a finger to her chin in thought upon seeing the new things before grinning some.

Dearest owner of this tome, to you I enclose the recipe for the sweetest of sweet-rolls. However be warned, these ones some kick to them.

She scribbled down a rather unique set of ingrediants from Elemental Blasting Powder to the left kidney of a Azshara squirrel.

Sorry this isn't a longer message, buuuut gotta return this thing before the dimensional tear I made closes.

PS: I might have hid an equation for finding some of the more hidden leyline nexus nodes in the molecular composition of those sweet-rolls. Hope you like puzzles!

Barely having close the book, Aith tossed it through the tear which spawned it in the first place. The rift in reality closed upon accepting the tome, exiting existance with a loud belching sound. "Hmm... wonder if it'll end up back where it started... Oh well not my problem."

”Son of a troggfnnnngggAHHHH!!!”

Something hard had smacked Nozz on the backside. The gnome wheeled around, scanning Kirin’Var Village’s ghostly and decrepit landscape. “Who threw that?!”

A cow mooed in the distance. Its ghostly cowbell clanked.

She picked up the book, intent on flinging it back into the Nether (literally), and stopped. The cover … the title … Brookslandia?

The last time Nozz had come across it was in the Legerdemain at Dalaran. Pages flipped past. She was surprised to see the last entry by Aithnea, and pleasantly amused to see that the talk of sweet rolls continued.

She couldn’t throw this away. There was only one thing she could do. Well, two actually. But so much had changed since Nozz last contributed words, what could she possibly add now? Not anything about Malfos, that was for sure, no matter how veiled it might be. There was no telling who might pick up the book next.

After further deliberation, Nozz finally held her hand over the next available page. Words began to burn into the parchment, written not in her usual block lettering, but in surprisingly elegant script:

A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

~ Tappet

When Nozz stopped by the World’s End Tavern in Shattrath, she made sure to leave the book prominently displayed on the bar counter.

Adalicia Tinkerspell plopped down upon the wooden chair with an audible groan. Her back felt like it was on fire, likely a side effect from flying about in that hideous death trap the goblin had cobbled together a few weeks earlier. She couldn't decide if it was better or worse than running about on foot but now wasn't the time to ponder such things. She wanted nothing more than to clear her mind and relax for a bit before making the return trip to Orgrimmar. With a cantankerous scowl she motioned to the barkeep in a not so subtle manner to bring her something to drink and quickly. The excursion had been a nightmare from the start and like most adventures of late things only seemed to get worse the further she went.

Eying the bauble hanging loosely around her neck she wondered if the trip was really worth it. That Troll swore up and down his trinkets would do the job. "Want to be better, stronger, faster?" he had called out as she plodded past. "Each one of these amulets be guaranteed to do just what I say they be doin'. Step up and buy one of these miraculous baubles! Cheap at twice the price!" The last line had caught her a bit off guard but when he assured her that the necklace would " help her defy death itself," she was sold. That after all was what the whole excursion was for in the first place. One can only have some many things blow up in their face before they start to get a bit paranoid.

The barkeep arrived at the table and placed a dingy pewter mug filled to the brim with a frothy liquid. Digging in the satchel, the goblin produced a few coins and tossed them casually to the man. As she sipped quietly at the strong liquor and surveyed her surroundings something odd caught her eye. Sitting on the counter was a tome of some odd variety and it certainly didn't appear to belong in this establishment.

Her curiosity getting the better of her, the goblin sauntered over to the counter and snatched the book free from its perch. Sitting back down at the table, she began to flip through the musty pages.

"Good grief, what is this psycho-babble?" she muttered with a quirked eyebrow. Continuing to sift through the materials her eye narrowed, brows knit together in a scowl. Someone was certainly doing some serious research in to stuff probably best left alone. With another flip of the page the entries shifted dramatically until she arrived at the final one.

A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

~Tappet

"Huh. Sweet rolls, whales, parables, and stuff that sends a shiver up your spine. A charming piece of literature," the goblin declared a bit too loudly, pointing a finger in the air triumphantly. Her outburst was met with a shush or two, apparently some two-bit hack was telling jokes on the stage off to her left.

"Bah, I find something interesting and they want to hear bad puns," the priestess scoffed quietly, not wishing to garner further scorn from the patrons. "Their loss I guess. Time to be philosophical!"

Digging about in the satchel she produced a quill pen and a bottle of ink. Yanking the stopper free she carefully dipped the fine point into the well and flipped the tome to a fresh page.

A bird in the hand is worth---

She crossed the line out. That was no good, much too cliche.

Every cloud has a---

Nope. That won't work either.

She scratched her chin thoughtfully. What could she leave in this mismatch of thoughts and tales that would surely leave the next hapless soul to come upon it enlightened? Finally, it hit her:

The reason everyone finds it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be. Don't make that mistake.

Content with her hastily scrawled entry the goblin slammed the book shut, stuffed her belongings away, and finished the drink quietly. Exiting the tavern should couldn't help but wonder if the next reader would find value in her contribution. Despite all the inane things that ran through her mind at a break-neck pace, she felt this particular gem was of actual value...

...and hopefully wouldn't cause injury to life and limb.

((The underscores are supposed to be spaces(as in separating the groups of numbers). However, spaces make the forums go crazy. You can deal.))

In the World's End Tavern, the journal remains in the same place it was last left. However, the next one to stumble by the journal would be met with a new entry, written in a familiar script. Above the entry, there is a crudely drawn tower.

March 2nd,

A truth that's told with good intent
Can hurt more than a lie you did invent.

"The reason everyone finds it so h1rd to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be. Don't make that mistake."

Rather, become immortal. Then time is not a burden.

8 9 19 20 15 18 25___9 19___3 9 18 3 12 9 14 7___2 1 3 11___21 16 15 14___21 19.

Your move.

"Aleksei! Alek.....Oh you blasted cat! What's gotten into you.

Aleriel threw her hands up in disgust and tethered the cat to a nearby post. Shaking her head in frustration she walked into the dimly lit tavern and spotted quiet table near the back. After the day she had a nice, stiff dwarven stout would do the trick. She placed an order at the bar and sat down.

The barmaid slapped the pint down in a disenchanted manner, startling the draenei. Even so, Aleriel offered her warmest smile and tossed her a few extra silver. The woman simply grimaced, snatched up the coin, and sauntered off. Lifting the stout to her lips she took a long drink, then another. The cool liquid lit a fire in her belly that soon started to ease away the days frustrations.

Glancing around the dark room she noticed a tattered, leather bound book laying haphazardly on the floor a few feet away. Feeling quite lazy Aleriel reached for her quiver slung over the chair next to her and plucked an extra long arrow free. Leaning in the direction of the book she attempted to drag it closer to her, and after a few failed attempts that nearly toppled her from her chair onto her head, she had the book in hand.

"Squirelly little thing" she thought to herself. Unsure if the books owner was in the bar she turned her back to the room and began to thumb through the pages. Most of the entries were by names she didn't recognize. A few she did and that made her smile. All of the entries seemed cryptic to her. As she reached the last page her eyes fell on the curious sequence of numbers. She drew a blank piece of parchment and quill from her bag. She copied down the numbers and began to work with them. She rearranged them, added them together, multiplied them by each other. Chewing on her bottom lip, deep in thought, she thought she finally had some progress and...

"You want anything else lady?" the ever so pleasant barmaid startled Aleriel. Her hand jumped across the page leaving a streak through all her hard work and an unsightly blotch at the bottom of the next blank page in the book. She glared at the woman. "No. No, I'm quite fine. Thank you." She waived her hand urging the woman to leave her be.

Returning her attention to the series of numbers she was irritated to find she had accidentally scrawled a large line through her last equation, leaving illegible. She has also completely lost her train of thought. She sighed and decided to jot down the numbers once again and give it a go later. Perhaps show Vald, he might be able to reason them through. She rolled the parchment up and stuffed it back in her bag. Before putting the quill away she thought she might like to add her own insight to the curious little tome.

At the bottom of the next blank page, just above the blotch she had accidentally created she wrote:
"Nothing is ever truly lost. You simply have to know where to look"

Please with her addition she began to put the rest of her things away. Something caught her out of the corner of her eye. A very familiar black and white figure was trying to slink, unnoticed, across the tavern floor.

"Aleksei! Bad KITTY!" she snapped under her breath. She quickly slung her quiver and bags over her shoulder and dragged her disobedient companion outside. She was just starting to verbally berate her pet when she realized she still had the book in her hands. Setting it atop the nearest mail box she headed off in the opposite direction with a very dejected cat following a few paces behind.

Meteorus carefully worked some stitches around the bindings, reinforcing the leather. Reinforcing the flow of magic from the runes. The journal he'd found had seen better days.

He didn't know why he was motivated to make the repairs, but he did so in an almost mechanical fashion, his dual needles slipping effortlessly in and out adding strength to both the subtle, and not so subtle magics that held the work together.

It seems he'd seen the journal before, he'd noted his own writing, and crude drawings. It was jarring to see what he'd written, know it for his own, but have absolutely no recollection of it.

He read the latest entries, the experiments, remembered his own suffering at the hands of unhappy apothecaries; unhappy because his support of their efforts had been -- lackluster. The shift to the study of Ley Lines was a welcome relief, at least until the frantic notes began to carry with them intimations of a disaster as large as any the world had suffered. He stopped at the line of code, wishing for the presence of his old friend, who now was quite late for their game.

Meteorus closed the Journal and pushed it, and its fresh repairs, to the edge of the table and leaned over to study a battered chess board with a game in progress. He wondered idly if he would ever beat that Gnome.

Axelpyre Cogswaddle was late. Again.

He swung out over the lower city, cringing a bit at the sound of creaking bones of his ageing griffin. The once black feathers of Cloud Reaver's feathery mane were now more white than black. The Griffin shivered as he lined up on the opening of the World's End.

"It's okay, old friend, no acrobatics needed." With a word the old gnome stood in the saddle and let the griffin's slip stream push him out and away. "Back to the roost with you, rest well!"

He floated towards the open doorway and, frantically windmilling his arms at the last second to avoid the awning, failed, flipped over and landed in the entry way with a moist sounding thud.

"Firking hells," the old Gnome muttered as he was lifted bodily into the air. He wriggled around to see a leering patchwork face, sickly yellow glowing eyes shining out from under an oddly patterened Ember Silk brocade that spanned the creature's forehead. He searched for something familiar in the stitched together undead face.

The face barked, a laugh one could hardly call "mirthful" and asked "Axelpyre Cogswaddle?"

"Seamstress."

"Garden Gnome."

"Put me down before I light you on fire," Axelpyre regretted saying it a split second before he finished, and found himself falling flat on his backside for the second time that evening.

Meteorus had turned and strode over to a nearby table. He held up a leather bound journal, chained to itself.

"Interesting, what have you found there?"

Meteorus opened the journal to the page with the numbers "A code. I thought you might be interested."

Axelpyre climbed to the top of a too thick chair and set the book in his lap. He pondered a moment. "Not a code, a substitution cypher. Simple really."

Meteorus turned the page back to the page illustrating the Ley Lines converging on Karazahn.

The old Gnome gulped and almost tumbled off the chair. He quickly recovered and flipped forward through the journal. "Nothing more, yet. Hey, this stain looks like a corpse flower!" With a few deft strokes Axelpyre had converted the stain into a very detailed and lifelike illustration. He dug through a small pouch for some floral essences.

"Hey, Met, I think I can make this one a rub and scent, bring me a beer."

Axel worked at his drawing, weaving subtle magics into his drawing and infusing a slight enchantment into the page. The work went quickly and a gentle glow filled the page, and then faded away. Meteorus returned with a beer. Axelpyre reached out and downed it in a few short gulps.

"I thought that was for...." Meteorus sat next to the chess board.

"Nope, all done, try it." With a flourish Axelpyre signed the drawing and passed the journal over to Meteorus.

Meteorus rubbed the drawing and took a deep breath. "Ugh! smells like me on a bad day."

"Of course you lumpy cog, it's a corpse flower, they're pollinated by blow flies." Axelpyre closed the journal and wrapped the chains around it. "I'm sure the owner won't appreciate it either, but that's what the stain looked like, so that's what it is."

Axelpyre looked at the chessboard then jumped down from the back of the chair and walked across the table to take a seat on the other side of the board.

"How about a nice game of chess?"

The young forsaken girl sat alone with her cup of warm milk, halfheartedly stirring it with a spoon made from bone. She really wanted to drink her yummy milk all up; mostly because that's what good little girls are supposed to do! Mommies make the milk and babies are supposed to drink it.

But she was hesitant as well. After all, the last time she had courageously downed the life-giving substance, her tummy had bloated for weeks and weeks until it finally popped. It had hurt dreadfully, and she still had a little stitch just above her belly button from where she had to fix herself.

It wasn't even the pain so much that deterred her, but the odor. "The stinky-rotting-milk-smell takes forever to go away," she frowned out alone at her small, round table. A passing troll wench gave her an awkward glance, and that just made the whole decision more difficult. "She thinks I'm bad girl, doesn't she?" whined the undead child in misery.

Dropping her chin down into open-faced palms, her slender wrists kissing, Vethica proceeded to pout. She might have been there for a long time, had the book not slid across the table. Old, wrapped in chains...it looked like one of the apothecary's boring journals.

"Ugh, that's not going to cheer me up, Auntie. Do you think...would I be ungrateful and bad if I asked for tea instead?"

The chains slipped from the book, and the tome opened, flipping back and forth through various pages.

Vethica was not touching the book at all; rather, she was decidedly disinterested in the whole affair, turning her head to look away. The pages continued to flip, however, stopping here and there. "Stop bothering me!" she lashed out suddenly, her voice loud and cruel.

Some of the other patrons gave her alarmed glances, and her face contorted in pain. Clearing her throat, and with a deep sigh, the young forsaken girl offered humble, little apologies to those nearby.

By the time she was done, the smell of corpse flowers wafted over the table. "Oh, pretty," she murmured, breathing in deeply. "Reminds me of home. I want to go home, Auntie!" she whined again. "I hate this place with all of it's," and here she took the opportunity to crush a small, eight-legged creature with the edge of her goblet, "...icky spiders!"

Sniffing again, she reached into her nearby satchel, past the wriggling fur and skin, to retrieve some corpse berries. With a guilty giggle, the girl pushed one against the open page, below the exquisitely drawn flower, until it burst red, liquid juice all over the parchment. "Pretty, sweet death," she spoke softly, and then looking at her goblet, she spat, "Milk stinks!" under her breath.

There was a ghostly, feminine giggle nearby; too mature to have come from the girl herself.

A Night Elf priestess passed close to Vethica's table, in her long, flowing blue garb. The girl's goblet slid with a start towards the edge of the table, and the child began to shake her head, as if to beg, "No!" Just as the elegant elf passed by, the goblet tipped off the edge of the wood, and splashed white froth across her trailing gown.

A cold, angry glare assaulted Vethica, but the giggling undead girl could only stammer, "It...it wasn't me! Really! You...must believe me! Please?" Ever stoic, the priestess moved on and Vethica fled from the tavern in a fit of giggles.

March 6th,

The fascination with this journal that the general populace seems to have is interesting, to say the least. In the few days this book has been floating around, the bindings of the journal have been strengthened, along with its flow of magic. It seems that for some reason these people care.

But why? They write, they carry, they improve, but they failed the one simple thing that I asked of them. The rather simple code stands unsolved. Or, if it was solved, no one cares. I don't 5ntirely understand. It seems they care so much for the book itself, but not for its contents.

Another.

Do not disappoint me.

I do not play nice.

15 14 5___12 9 6 5___8 1 18 4 12 25___2 1 12 1 14 3 5 19___20 8 15 21 19 1 14 4 19..

Pale hands placed the book down on the landing between floors at the Legerdemain Lounge in Dalaran. The figure left quietly, but not before giving the orange tabby who made the stairwell his home a pat.

Under the latest entry was written a series of numbers in tidy hand, followed by an equally tidy set of letters.

25 15 21 18__3 15 4 5__9 19__20 15 15__19 9 13 16 12 5. 1__13 21 18 12 15 3__3 15 21 12 4__4 5 20 1 14 7 12 5__9 20 . 25 15 21__19 8 15 21 12 4__20 18 25__19 15 13 5 20 8 9 14 7__13 15 18 5__3 15 13 16 12 5 24__9 6__25 15 21__23 1 14 20__20 15__9 19 19 21 5__1__3 8 1 12 12 5 14 7 5 ,

jgic rfgq. mlc jgdc kyw fypbjw zyjylac rfmsqylbq, zsr mlc jgdc ayl qytc kgjjgmlq. yr rfc yncv, fgqrmpw gq lmr agpajgle, fgqrmpw cvgqrq, ctcpw kmkclr, gl yl glqrylr. nyw fccb rm rfc zjsc ufgjqr kyigle wmsp ayjasjyrgmlq.

Below the second set of codes is a short entry written in a new handwriting. It's a slanted, disjointed style of writing, with the letters and words lacking any sort of symmetry between them. An arrow points the first paragraph of this entry to the first code in the message above it.

YOUR CODE IS TOO SIMPLE. A MURLOC COULD DETANGLE IT. YOU SHOULD TRY SOMETHING MORE COMPLEX IF YOU WANT TO ISSUE A CHALLENGE.



March 6th,

I've been watching this journal the past few days. I'm beginning to think that the writer wants us to solve these. Why else would the he give us the key twice?

I'm going to play along. I'm sure this is bound to be interesting.

- Lectril Wildwind

"History is circling back upon us."
"One life hardly balances thousands."

What's he getting at?

The familiar handwriting from the other coded messages returns.

March 12th,

I've brought this journal to myself twice today. The first to read and write my own entry, while the second time I was treated to two other coded messages. One a bit more complex than the last. But I was able to decipher them both on the same day that they were penned.

"like this. one life may hardly balance thousands, but one life can save millions.
at the apex, history is not circling, history exists, every moment, in an instant.
pay heed to the blue whilst making your calculations."

You did not disappoint.

It did take you people longer than expected to decode my own. Several days. But then again, I suppose the day is everything.



Ngj utre znke gizkj yuutkx. Suxk jkioyobkre. Otyzkgj znke rgamnkj. Suiqkj. Znke ngbk tu ojkg. Znke znotq zngz se yzajoky gxk lgryk. G lgoxe zgrk zngz ynuarj hk zurj zu inorjxkt. Znke znotq zngz znk iutirayouty se yzajoky jxgc gxk tuz xkgr, zngz znke'xk zuu vkxlkiz zu hk xkgr.

Jut'z znke atjkxyzgtj?

Znotmy jut'z ngbk zu hk xkgr. Znotmy ngbk zu hk zxak.

Avianna turned the last page of the journal, gazing at it, half in disinterest, half in almost annoyance. "I wasted my time on that?..." She muttered, closing the book and shoving it away, twisting the silver diamond ring on her finger.

Her gaze flickered around the room, and she stood, hesitating for a moment, before pulling a quill from her somewhat battered backpack. She flipped the book open again, about to add to the multiple writings in the book, but changed her mind. She left the book, and the quill (which left a ink mark on the page) sitting where it had been before, hurrying away.

((I know it fails - but I'm getting sleepy now... ^_^))

The book lay discarded in the Exodar, on the walk just above where the sloping walkway to O'ros spiraled downward. How it got there, exactly, was a mystery. Indeed, the thing looked like it had been dropped from the heights of the rafters above, where one would have a bird's eye view of the ethereal creature below. In it, just under the ink mark was one line of text, in the same tidy hand as before.

w ybck sloqhzm kvoh mci asob...

"Why'd someone leave a book here?"

Frowning, Roldan picked the book up and unsuccessfully tried to spot its potential owner. Apprehension quickly gave way to curiosity as he cracked the book open to peruse its contents. He only recognized one of the names inside.

"None of this makes a lick of sense."

It was obviously some kind of puzzle book, but one far beyond his understanding and patience. He shoved the tome inside one of the mailboxes, partly in the hopes that the delivery system might sort out who the rightful owner was, but mostly just to get rid of the strange thing.

Roldan had no idea what such a simple act had initiated.

BLAM!

Whatever magic powered the mailboxes hadn't taken too kindly to the energies surrounding the book. Roldan had been thrown back several feet, but suffered no injury save what was done to his pride. The mailbox, on the other hand, had imploded, leaving behind a strange shadow shape of its former self. And the tome?

It wreaked havoc with the mail magic, and there was no telling where it would be delivered to next ...

The priestess reached up, tucking an ebony curl into place as her eyes wandered over the Dalaran night sky. She still preferred it here, and after what had gone on as of recent, she appreciated the quiet libraries and shops more now than ever.

"Let's see... vials. I'll need closures, too. And a new apron." She rounded the corner, heading down the cobblestone street towards the alchemist's. Her sandal went flying as her toe struck the book, wool-gathering keeping her from spotting it prior.

"What on Aze-..." Her cheeks darkened as she bent to retrieve her shoe, hopping in place as she slipped it back onto her foot. She plucked the book from the pavers, eyes narrowing as she began to flip through it page by page. Both manicured brows lifted as she spotted the matriarch's handwriting, a small scoff leaving her.

"Know mother to write something dreary," she muttered, shifting her gaze and glancing about. Spotting a nearby box, she moved to it and made it her seat. The parchment pages turned, the woman only stopping when the code caught her eye. Her expression etched with intensity as the young Sin'dorei's mind raced to puzzle out each encryption.

"Simple formulas, really. Who wouldn't see these? All part and measure." She clicked her tongue, a spoiled child's sigh leaving a woman's lips. A reach to her bag produced a quill and ink bottle, and she set the nib to the page.

TCHY'UDFESP,TRPHIOIE?MEMNOFSEILVMEAMEI,IMNOISSHERHITUAOYERUAHEAMGLTTGEHIEOVSBOIILBPHSASUNNTASEEROOTNEEOONPSOSCMDUMTKOV,ASYMNS?CELSESGAEOIHA.EPRUEEERSMEUEATTYRTTOKOOWKRMHGASRFIRSNOOEY.UA,WEWTIOETABAF,TMSEYTSNEM

In three.

On rails.

No offence.

Regards,
C. S't.

Her chin lifted arrogantly, a small sniffle given as she clapped the cover closed. She abandoned the book on the crate, heading off towards the alchemist's.