"Don't forget the mission the Commander gave us!" Alistar said, deliberately stern. "We can't let your curiosity screw over the Commander!"
"Alright, alright!" Plank grumbled as he squeezed into the cabin.
Then Hecarim walked over to the minotaur and joked, "Looks like you're that pirate captain's nemesis!"
"You disagree?" Alistar squinted at the specter.
Hecarim was speechless.
At that moment, Fizz, the Tidecaller, did a somersault, nimbly jumping from the crest of a wave onto the deck. His big eyes looked curiously at Hecarim and asked, "Centaur, what did you see yesterday on that island?"
"I saw something very interesting. Do you want to swim over to the island and take a look? I guarantee it'll be fun," Hecarim said mockingly.
Fizz stuck out his tongue. "I'm not stupid! Last night, I saw some specter running back in a panic. You must have seen something scary there, right?"
The Minotaur Chieftain looked at the centaur curiously. What could possibly scare this specter? Last time, in the Tomb of Sargeras on the Broken Isles, his and Karthus the Lich's powers were greatly restored. Logically speaking, there shouldn't be much that could cause him panic.
"Scared? When was I scared? I just finished observing the situation and walked back normally," Hecarim argued forcefully.
"Then tell us, what's there?" Fizz asked.
"There's a guardian!"
"Even you can't beat it?" The Minotaur Chieftain was surprised.
"Too big, can't budge it." Hecarim replied, somewhat dejected. "If the Bone Cage was still here, the two of us together might have a chance—but forget it, probably still wouldn't work."
After discovering the treasures of the Tomb of Sargeras, Karthus had separated from them. The war in Lordaeron was about to begin, and he would obviously be more useful there.
The fleet on their way to Kalimdor had given up tracking the moving island, but unexpectedly, before long, the other side actually sent people over.
A small boat left the island, and the people on it rowed closer to their fleet. Everyone looked at each other, and Fizz couldn't help but complain, "Looks like the people on the island don't like the pirate captain! Otherwise, why would they come over as soon as he left?"
The first mate ran over and asked, "Should we be on guard, Chieftain?"
"No need. They're not here to fight," Alistar replied in a muffled voice. "Notify the other ships, no offensive actions!"
Just as he finished giving the order, Captain Plank jumped out of the cabin, running and looking around, "Where, where? People from the island are coming? Step aside, step aside, let me see!"
He pushed past the others, took out his telescope, took a look, rubbed his eyes hard, and then brought the telescope closer again.
"I'm not seeing things, holy crap! What is that thing!"
"What's wrong?" The others were a little strange.
"See for yourself!" Plank shoved the telescope into the Minotaur Chieftain's hand.
Alistar took it, brought the eyepiece close to his eye, and found it a little small. His eyes were too big, and he wasn't used to looking through it, but he still saw the people on the small boat heading towards them: "What kind of creature is this?"
The people on the boat weren't human at all, nor were they orcs, elves, or any other race they had seen in Durnholde. There were eight or nine "people" on the boat, but they looked completely like bears wearing clothes!
"Could these be Volibear's distant relatives?" Plank speculated maliciously from the side.
Fizz complained after seeing them, "Volibear's mouth is too long! And those guys on the boat have big bellies!"
"They do look like some kind of bear people," Hecarim also joined in.
And the subjects of their discussion were also discussing them.
These were a group of pandaren from the Wandering Isle. For generations, they had lived on the back of the giant turtle Shen-zin Su, where they had built temples and villages and lived a self-sufficient life. Shen-zin Su carried them around, and this place was like a paradise.
The giant turtle Shen-zin Su had lived for thousands of years. It was almost certainly the largest animal in Azeroth. But when the pandaren Liu Lang first met it, it was only the size of an ordinary dragon turtle mount. It could only carry one person. Later, it grew bigger and bigger, and Liu Lang built a house on its back. After that, Liu Lang got married, had children, and Shen-zin Su grew big enough for the whole family to move around. After that, more and more pandaren settled on Shen-zin Su's back, and to this day, tens of thousands of pandaren have lived and multiplied on its back for generations.
It seemed to be still growing, and if it lived long enough, no one knew how big it would grow—perhaps it would become a new continent? A moving continent?
It had been swimming tirelessly in the Endless Sea, and fortunately, it had never dived in all these years.
The pandaren of the Wandering Isle were just a small branch of the pandaren of Pandaria. Since Shen-zin Su's friend Liu Lang died, it had never returned to Pandaria. The pandaren here had actually been separated from their ancestors for thousands of years.
Shen-zin Su occasionally approached the Eastern Kingdoms or Kalimdor, and some curious pandaren would take the opportunity to venture onto the mainland. They left traces of pandaren in the history of various races, but most people had never seen them, so the impression of pandaren on other races was one of mystery and rarity.
"Chen, do you think those people on the boat will attack us?" A pandaren rowing the boat asked.
"They don't seem hostile. We're not here to fight either, just to exchange some goods," Chen Stormstout replied, standing at the bow of the boat. Their cabin was filled with a dozen barrels of pandaren-brewed wine. Only pandaren in all of Azeroth could make such a fine wine—in the past, when their adventurers went to the mainland to communicate with other races, this wine was very popular!
"We have kung fu, we're not afraid of them even if we fight!" Another pandaren snorted. "I just learned a few moves from Master Shang Xi, and I want to find someone to practice with!"
"Don't cause me trouble, Ji!" Chen Stormstout scolded. "We're not here to fight!"
"That's right, take a look at how many ships they have!"
The young pandaren Ji Firepaw shrank his neck.
After approaching the Shadowfen, Chen Stormstout shouted loudly, "Hey, humans on the ship! We are pandaren! Do you want to trade for wine? Authentic brew of the Brewmaster!"
"Yes, yes, yes! Row over, row over! Come to my ship to talk!" Plank, hearing that it was good wine, jumped to the front and waved his hands vigorously.
"Pandaren? What a strange race," Fizz muttered.
"Brewmaster's brew, sounds good, I have to try it!" Alistar's interest soared.
Hecarim said, "I'm not interested in wine, but Old Bull, do you remember what the Commander told us? When we set off."
He certainly had no interest in wine. As a specter, he had no ability to drink at all.
"Did he? Let me think…"
"I smell wine! It really is good wine, the aroma travels so far!" Plank licked his lips excitedly. Drinking rum every day, he had almost forgotten the taste of other wines!
The Minotaur Chieftain was also tempted by his words, no longer in the mood to think about what Aiden had told them.
"Quick, come this way! Sailors? Lower the gangplank, you idiots!"
—
Chen Stormstout was the first to board the Shadowfen. He wore a tunic, held a long staff with a wine gourd hanging on it, and held a large wine barrel in his arms. He stood steadily on the deck, not affected by the ship's rolling with the waves, like the most veteran sailor.
He originally thought this was a human ship, but after boarding, he realized that the humans standing in front of him were actually in the minority.
He put down the wine barrel, put his palms together and bowed, greeting the people on the ship with pandaren etiquette: "Hello, I am Chen Stormstout, a pandaren from the Wandering Isle!"
The four heroes of Valoran looked at each other, and finally Alistar and Plank scrambled to greet him, but the Minotaur Chieftain's size was too advantageous, and he easily pushed the skinny captain aside.
"Hello, Chen! I'm Alistar, a minotaur from Valoran!"
At this time, the other pandaren on the boat also boarded the ship one after another, curiously looking at everything on the ship, and several people whispered beside them:
"Look, there's a centaur over there, he looks so strange!"
"Is that a murloc? Why doesn't he have a dorsal fin?"
"This tauren's horns are so strange, why are they forked?"
"This ship is quite big, bigger than what we saw before!"
"What are these people doing?"
"I feel like sparring with them!"
Ji Firepaw jumped lightly in front of Captain Plank, feeling that this human seemed suitable for a sparring partner—the minotaur was too big, he couldn't beat him; the centaur was too weird, he didn't want to fight him; the murloc Fizz was too small, it was bullying.
"Hello, human, I am Ji Firepaw, a Fire Fist pandaren monk! Can we spar?"
"Spar?" Plank's gaze shifted from the wine barrels that the pandaren had brought up to the pandaren who had jumped in front of him, "You want to compete with me in cooking?"
Sparring? Chopping vegetables and kneading dough?