The Tundra
Mother, hello. I am writing from shore already: there was nothing to write with on the ship, the ink froze in its bottle, and I spent the whole crossing sitting by the boiler in the hold like the lowest sort of passenger.
The place is called the Borean Tundra. Everything here is big — not big in the sense of beautiful, but in the sense that it will not fit into your eye all at once. Mammoths walk in herds, and one mammoth is the size of our mill with the roof on. Down by the water stand the tuskarr, catching fish and selling it right there without moving from the spot. Yesterday a dragon flew low over the fort, and I was the only one in the whole yard who lifted his head. The others did not even turn round — they kept swinging their hammers.
I understand nothing yet. They tell me: go north, to the ruins. I go and run into a magnataur, and a magnataur, mother, is two heads and very poor manners. Tore my cloak in three places. Sewed it up myself, came out crooked, but it holds.
Tell Proska that the snow really does lie here in August. She is not to argue.
Your Zhdan.
The Blight
Mother, I am doing well, and I think I am starting to get used to it.
I have understood the main thing: you must not run in all directions at once here. I have an order to my days now. In the morning I hang a supply of bandages on my belt — not three, as before, but twelve, because three run out on the very first hill. In the afternoon I gather hides and herbs, and in the evening I carry them to Dalaran and put them up at the auction house. On prices, by the way: hides get cheaper towards Sunday, because by Sunday everyone comes back from their expeditions and hands it all in at once, whereas meat by Friday evening costs twice as much, because people eat their fill before big undertakings. I have already earned new boots out of that. Father would have approved.
The place I am in now is called Dragonblight. The name is an honest one: bones stick up out of the ground there, and they are bigger than ships. The first few days it was frightening, and now I take the short way past them and no longer look. I suppose a short way can be laid past any wonder.
Your Zhdan.
The Peaks
Mother, now there is finally something to write about besides the weather.
I do not travel alone. There are four of us, and sometimes five. A gnome engineer called Shpunt — he is forever setting something on fire, and half of that something was not what he was aiming at. A priestess by the name of Malusha, who has one answer to everything: "breathe". Two hunter brothers, who talk at the same time and say the same thing. We climbed up into the Storm Peaks, where the wind knocks you off your feet and the giants sit on the slopes thinking about something of their own, and have been for a thousand years.
Yesterday I went down in a dungeon right near the end, and I lay there waiting for everyone to leave: it was late. But Shpunt said:
— Lie still, do not fidget. Malusha, get him up, I will hold.
And Malusha said:
— Zhdan, breathe.
And we finished it. Mother, I will tell you honestly: in all my months here nothing better has happened to me. Not the dragon, not the gold, not the boots. Just three strangers who did not leave.
P. S. Malusha sewed up my cloak. Straight. I am a little put out about it.
The Crown
Mother, I am in Icecrown now, and this is the last place, there is nowhere beyond it.
We have settled in. In Shpunt's workshop there is a schedule on the wall of who is free when, and it is stricter than our village elder's. Malusha bakes something in a cauldron and insists that it is a potion. A merchant by the name of Stormcaller has a bag for keystones, he is asking two and a half thousand gold for it, and we have been pooling money for the fourth week now; when we have it, we will go into dungeons with keystones, where time runs against us and the masters of the place are angrier than usual. For some reason I am looking forward to that more than I am dreading it.
Tell Proska that I no longer lift my head when a dragon flies over. I do lift it when Shpunt shouts "falling back left", and that, I suppose, is the more grown-up of the two.
Your Zhdan.
The Last One
Mother, I am eighty.
Everything here is the same: cold and beautiful.
Do not expect me by spring. There are four of us, and they do not go without me.
Your Zhdan.
The road to Northrend begins here, and the guides help you work out the details.
