Loaf was gettin' better.
Slow — the dwarf had warned me it would be. But I could see it in the way Loaf moved, the way he put more weight on his leg each day, the way his appetite had returned to its full magnificent glory. The dwarf knew his work. Had Loaf on a routine of exercises and massages that looked ridiculous but seemed to be helping. I helped where I could, but mostly I was in the way.
So I went explorin'.
The temple was a half-day's walk east, through jungle so dense the canopy blocked out the sun. The air was thick and wet, full of sounds of creatures I couldna name. The trail had been widened by recent traffic — the adventurers who'd come before me.
I reached Zul'Gurub in the late afternoon.
It was enormous.
I'd seen ruins before. Walked through remnants of old forts and abandoned villages. But this was somethin' else. The trolls had built their city into the jungle itself — massive stone structures wrapped in vines, carved with faces and figures that stared out from every surface. The scale of it made me feel small.
The adventurers had been through. I could see the signs — broken doors, cleared paths, remnants of campfires in sheltered alcoves. They'd fought through this place and won.
But they'd left somethin' behind.
A feelin'.
The air in the temple was still. Not the stillness of abandonment — the stillness of somethin' that had happened here and was still echoin'. I walked through the central avenue, past altars and platforms and structures I couldna name.
And that's when I started seein' the bodies.
Dead trolls, mostly. Some in armor, some in robes, some in nothin' at all. Lvin' where they'd fallen. The adventurers hadna bothered to bury 'em — too many, I reckon. I stepped careful, pickin' me way past 'em.
Then I saw the raptors.
Big ones. Four of 'em, lyin' in a heap near what looked like a stable pen. Their scales were still bright — the deaths couldna have been more than a few weeks old. One had a spear through its ribs. Another looked like it had been burned.
I stood there a long moment, lookin' at 'em. These creatures had been fierce once. Now they were just... bones waitin' to happen.
I kept walkin'.
Past dead tigers. Past dead adventurers — a human in plate, a night elf with a shattered bow, a gnome crumpled against a wall. Past piles of troll corpses stacked where the fightin' had been thickest.
The temple was a graveyard.
I was about to turn back when I heard it.
A sound. Small. High.
I stopped.
Listened.
There it was again — a little chirpin' sound, like a bird that'd lost its mother. It was comin' from behind a fallen pillar near the raptor pen.
I walked over, slow.
And there it was.
A baby raptor.
No bigger than a loaf of bread — a small loaf, mind you, not Loaf-sized. Green scales, big yellow eyes, a tiny row of teeth that looked about as threatenin' as a row of pebbles. It was pressed up against the pillar, shakin', lookin' at me like I was the scariest thing it'd ever seen.
I looked around. No mother. No nest. No nothin' but dead raptors.
This little one had survived by hidin'. While the adventurers cut through everything else, it'd found a crack and squeezed in. And now it was alone.
"Go on, then," I said. "Shoo."
It didn't shoo.
It chirped at me.
I waved me hands. "Go on! There's nothin' here for ye. Find somewhere else."
It took a step toward me.
I took a step back.
"Nay. Nay, don't — "
It darted forward and bit me on the ankle.
Not hard. Barely broke the skin. But it bit me, and then it let go, and then it looked up at me with those big yellow eyes like that was the deal, we're settled now.
"By me beard," I muttered. "What am I supposed to do with ye?"
I walked away.
It followed.
I walked faster. It ran after me, its little claws skitterin' on the stone. I stopped. It stopped. I walked. It followed. Every few steps, it'd nip at me heels — not aggressive, just... insistin'.
I reached the temple gate. Turned around. The little green thing was still there, lookin' up at me, head tilted.
All those dead creatures. The trolls, the adventurers, the raptors. This one had no one. Its whole world was gone, and it didna know what else to do except follow the first livin' thing that walked past.
"Och," I said. "Fine. But ye're not comin' near Loaf until I figure out what to do with ye."
I scooped it up. It fit in one hand. It immediately tried to bite me finger.
I carried it back to the hunter's camp, the little raptor squirm'n in me hand, and I had no idea what I was gonna tell the dwarf.