Elwynn Forest

The Rewritten Political Showdown

After getting the green light from Llane and Duke, VanCleef took a deep breath that could've filled a hot air balloon and said, "To be brutally honest, Lord Duke doesn't have jack shit left for 'cement.' One of the key ingredients for this 'cement' comes from the Un'Goro Crater. We used Lord Duke's bankroll to collect it before, and only managed to buy about 100 tons from those money-grubbing goblin venture capitalists down in Stranglethorn Vale. We cleaned out their entire inventory – bought them out lock, stock, and barrel. The leftover materials are only enough to build 30 trebuchet towers or 80 arrow towers, and... it'll take at least 10 days to get the job done."

Don't go thinking that nobles are all walking encyclopedias with fancy book learning, perfect manners, and hearts of gold. Apart from their stick-up-the-ass etiquette training and basic reading and writing skills, the nobles of this era are dumber than a box of rocks compared to your average Joe.

The nobles, whose geographical knowledge was more limited than a goldfish's memory, had absolutely no clue that Un'Goro was on the other side of the ocean, in some godforsaken place on another continent entirely.

"What a complete and utter waste of space! In 10 days, every last Stormwind warrior will be pushing up daisies!" A duke on the opposite side slammed the table so hard it nearly split in two and shot up like a jack-in-the-box. His furious voice damn near scared VanCleef out of his boots.

VanCleef wasn't the brass-balled VanCleef who'd been backed into a corner and forced to go rogue in later years. Right now, he was just a lowly stonemason following Duke around like a lost puppy. He didn't even have the first clue about how much Duke trusted him or had his back. He was completely thrown to the wolves.

This Duke had never in his wildest dreams expected that Duke would go to bat for VanCleef, some "mutt" from the wrong side of the tracks.

He slammed the table, and Duke slammed it back even harder, like he was trying to drive it through the floor.

With a "BANG" that could wake the dead, almost every royal guard thought enemy forces were storming the gates. Every guard slapped their hand on their sword hilts faster than you could say "jackrabbit," and only when they saw clear as day that it was Duke who'd delivered the thunderclap did they sheepishly let their hands drop.

"You're a complete jackass and a waste of oxygen. You don't even know that Un'Goro Crater is on the other side of the damn ocean, yet you're running your mouth and talking out your ass to my people. If there really was that much 'cement' lying around, I would've built Stormwind's walls 200 feet high and 20 feet thick. The orcs couldn't fly over them with rocket packs, let alone climb them with their bare hands."

Duke was speaking the gospel truth. In this world without modern industry, making real cement was harder than nailing jello to a tree. The only cement that could be cooked up was cement made from volcanic ash. That's exactly why he'd set his sights on Un'Goro Crater and had VanCleef collect a mountain of materials through every channel under the sun.

The truth cuts deeper than any sword!

"Son of a bitch!" Duke was obviously dropping F-bombs left and right, but many people were cracking up at his comeback. This kind of intellectual smackdown that hit like a sledgehammer caused an outbreak of laughter, which made the Duke redder than a tomato and more embarrassed than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Another duke stood up and said, "Well, I'd like to ask Sir Lothar, how long can you hold the fort with these arrow towers?"

Lothar raised one finger like he was counting his last days and said, "One month, tops. And that's assuming the troops responsible for covering our asses don't all get slaughtered like lambs."

"Alright, let's circle back to the original question..."

"Hell no, we're not going back to square one." Duke cut off the duke like a hot knife through butter: "It's just 10 measly days. I'll fight tooth and nail for that time."

Duke patted VanCleef on the shoulder and said, "Just tell your people to keep their noses to the grindstone and get the job done."

For reasons he couldn't put his finger on, VanCleef felt like bawling his eyes out. In his experience, nobles always watched each other's backs and were thicker than thieves.

'Nothing can't be solved by greasing the right palms,' this was gospel among the nobles. VanCleef had a moment just now thinking that Duke, who was an earl, wouldn't stick his neck out for a nobody from the gutter like him. The other guy was a duke, for crying out loud!

Duke didn't think twice about it, but VanCleef sure as hell did. VanCleef, whose ancestors had been scraping by in Stormwind City for generations, had a bone-deep fear of high-and-mighty nobles that ran in his blood.

Who would've thought that Duke not only spoke up but also shut the other bastard down completely.

Suddenly, VanCleef had the overwhelming urge to take a bullet for Duke. Now Duke not only shouldered all the responsibility like Atlas carrying the world, but also threw up a shield to protect him. Tears welled up in VanCleef's eyes like a dam about to burst.

Not many people gave two shits about the feelings of the little fish VanCleef, and everyone zeroed in on what Duke had just declared.

"Ten days? Are you absolutely, positively sure? Time is more precious than gold right now. We're racing against the Grim Reaper himself!" King Llane kindly threw Duke a lifeline.

"Oh, thank the good Lord above, if you can pull this rabbit out of your hat, Duke, that would be a godsend." Lothar, who'd worked with Duke more times than he could count, had become almost blindly optimistic. He didn't have the foggiest idea how Duke could make it happen, but he believed Duke wouldn't shoot his mouth off based on everything he knew about the kid.

Llane looked at the worked-up nobles and frowned deeper than the Grand Canyon: "What's your game plan?"

The second duke was obviously gunning for Duke like a heat-seeking missile: "Whether it's for feel-good bullshit or any other reason, lies are more worthless than a Confederate dollar in front of His Majesty's throne. Right now we're discussing the life and death of nearly half the soldiers and civilians of Stormwind. We can't let some wet-behind-the-ears kid like you talk out his ass."

He was the king, and if push came to shove, he could ram Duke's proposal through by royal decree alone, but before going nuclear, it would be better than sliced bread if he could bring everyone on board.

Duke stretched out like he didn't have a care in the world, leaning back on the comfortable bench and lacing his fingers over his stomach like he was settling in for a Sunday afternoon nap.

"Looks like your people sing a different tune than you do. Last night, your brown-nosing butler found my right-hand man Makaro and said he wanted to commandeer two more ships to haul treasures for your family. Ha! If you don't trust me worth a damn, why'd you come crawling to my subordinates?"

Everyone and their brother knew that Duke was mixing apples and oranges like a fruit salad. Believing that Duke could hold off the orcs for ten days was completely different from trusting Duke's fleet.

But Duke's political IQ was either flatlining at zero, or Duke was stirring the pot on purpose. Telling Llane at this moment that it was these bloodsucking parasites who were asking to throw Llane's most precious citizens under the bus and free up valuable space to haul their precious treasure.

Almost faster than you could blink, upright senior officials like Llane, Lothar, and Bolvar all looked madder than hornets and darker than a thundercloud.

"Uh, oh, is there such a thing!? Impossible as hell!" The duke denied it faster than a politician denying scandal, but he obviously realized he couldn't bullshit his way out of this mess. "I've been buried up to my eyeballs in military affairs lately. Maybe it's true as gospel. If it's true, I'll definitely make that butler pay through the nose for pulling such a dirty trick in the name of our nobility. Uh, Count Edmund, don't change the damn subject. Whether you can buy us 10 days is a matter of life and death for the entire kingdom."

The poor butler would most likely become the fall guy and get thrown under the bus. After all, beating him up would be like slapping his master in the face. Duke couldn't care less. He already had his own ideas about Stormwind's nobles that weren't worth a plugged nickel.

Of course, the conversation boomeranged back to the most pressing issue of the 10-day deadline.

"It's simple as pie. Since the Elwynn Forest has been overrun by those green-skinned bastards, I'll just torch half the damn forest and watch it burn like the Fourth of July."

The moment Duke finished speaking, the whole place went silent as a tomb, and everyone sucked in enough air to fill a balloon.

Duke had balls the size of Texas!