Romagoth carefully unfolded the note and opened it up. To the average person, the writing in this note is unintelligible. But Romagoth is not the average person. He learned the Demonic tongue as a boy and soon became fluent in it.

“Your presence is requested in Stormwind immediately. Please make haste; your future depends upon it.” - Anonymous

“So, they need me to return to The Slaughtered Lamb, do they?” thought Romagoth. He hadn’t been there in nearly two years, since the “incident”. Still in deep thought regarding the letter, Romagoth only heard the sound from behind him at the last moment. Dropping to the floor, he felt the dagger glide by his face and hit the wall with a sickly “thud”. Suddenly, three orcs came into the room and charged towards him. Knowing he did not have time to summon Haatom, Romagoth tried to fear the orcs away from him, but they were not affected by the spell. “Great, not just smelly orcs, but smelly undead orcs!” thought Romagoth. Since his fear-based spells would be useless here, Romagoth went with a rather unconventional method of crowd control with an instant hellfire instead. The orcs howled in pain and backed away, patting at themselves in order to put the fire out. Knowing this was his chance, Romagoth sent a seed of corruption into two of the orcs and a curse of agony before they charged him again. Suddenly, a huge explosion erupted from one of the orcs, then was followed by another, and two of the orcs fell to the ground. The remaining orc was howling as he raised his axe to cleave Romagoth, but then he, too, fell to the floor and his axe fell beside him harmlessly.

Gasping for breath, Romagoth looked at the bodies of the orcs for any clues as to what they may have wanted from him. Inside one of the orcs’ pockets was a piece of stone with a symbol on it. Not recognizing the symbol, Romagoth tucked it into his pocket for later. A few other odds and ends, including a small amount of gold on one of the orcs, were the only other items he could find. The scar on his head was hurting and Romagoth knew it was bleeding again, so he applied pressure to it with a bandage that would stop the bleeding.

“Well, it is time to get out of here I guess. Off to Stormwind, not exactly the most welcoming of places for a warlock.” Romagoth muttered. Packing up his few belongings (he always found it amazing how few possessions he needed to survive), Romagoth headed towards the gryphon master for a ride to Shattrath City. Once there, he would take the portal to Stormwind and make it just in time for dinner.
Shat City, as some people called it, was an interesting place because of its large diversity amongst the population. Everywhere one looked, orcs, humans, trolls, elves (both blood and night), the strange Tauren creatures, Dranei (the alien race), gnomes, dwarves, and Forsaken (undead), all walked the streets of Shat City. Some of these were heroes by right, others were heroes in their own mind, and still others were displaced from their homes, or vendors trying to make a gold piece. There is a troll in lower Shat City that Romagoth has a special “arrangement” with regarding certain relics and other such items. When he was exiled from the city for a brief time, the first person he called was Romagoth. Although he called to sell him junk goods, Romagoth still felt a sense of companionship with the shady troll.

Romagoth also developed a special relationship with the Blood Elves of Shat City. Often referred to as the Scryers, the relationship began as one of convenience but eventually grew into a genuine respect of one another. While he didn’t spend a lot of time in Shat City, the little bit of time that he was there did not go to waste.

So, Romagoth was quite surprised when arriving in the city to see how empty it was. There were the same locals of course, the homeless orcs and various drifters from around Outland, but there were very few of the people he had come to expect seeing in Shat City. It was almost a ghost town. Romagoth decided to ask Griftah, his troll friend, where everyone is at. “Aye, mon, they all be on de boat to Northrend, where de Lich King be livin’ mon.” said Griftah. “Northrend? I thought that area was closed off from the rest of Azeroth?” remarked Romagoth. “Ya mon, it wa’ closed off ‘til near a week ago mon’. Den de ships start a goin’ der agin’ mon.”

Thanking the troll and declining offers to purchase his wares, Romagoth headed for the portal to Stormwind. After stepping through, he made his way from the mage quarter to The Slaughtered Lamb in Stormwind. He was thankful for the darkness, as the fewer people seeing him is for the better.

Romagoth knocked on the door of the inn, wondering what his future held…