n fact, it was nonexistent. Kegs to empty, and all.

So, spitting foul epithets about ale-stunted jackasses hopefully choking on their beards in their sleep, she was directed towards the Deeprun Tram (where she was pawed at ignominiously by a greenish creature she was certain was a organ-grinder’s monkey on its day off) and after a wait that seemed to take longer than her whole journey to that moment, she rocketed to Stormwind. Things had to improve there. They just had to.

The poor little rich girl is, I assure you, no longer talking to her daddy.

For starters, she was forced to take passage in the only ship available, and not directly to Stormwind either, but to Menethil. She then endured a day’s sailing in a fishing smack from Southshore to the dingy marshes of the Great Wetlands (about which, she could assure you, nothing actually is Great at all).

The romance of travel is dulled somewhat when you have to use salted cod for a cushion.

Once there she was to ride for interminable days through the foothills, past dreary Loch Modan and into the frigid peaks of Dun Morogh. The poor little rich girl was stoic in the extreme. She was, after all, trotting on a horse more fit for the gluemaker’s yard than for a long journey, towards a city filled with men of action; lords and counts with strong arms and blonde tresses, with scars on their chests from battles against the Horde or worse, and fortunes broad enough to ensure the poor little rich girl would never go without dresses, jewels and that oh-so-important education her daddy was obsessed with.

Instead she was waylaid in Dun Morogh. By trolls. TROLLS.

The poor little rich girl barely escaped with her life. Her companions however were far from as fortunate. Their fate was not to reach Stormwind but to end up lining the stomachs of wolves and bears picking through the rose-tinted snow that marked their resting place. So our bruised, battered heroine fled, through the cold and the dark, to Ironforge. Here she would report her loss of gold, dresses, letters of introduction, and the murder of her companions naturally, to the dauntless Guards of Ironforge; the tireless defenders of the icy wastes.

Only the poor little rich girl discovered that there was at least one tavern open when she arrived, so the ‘assistance’ offered by the dwarves was less than forthcoming.

But life for this particular poor little rich girl was no fairytale.

She reported at once to the City Guard, who while not downing in beer were up to their necks with paperwork. The bruised and battered figure of the damsel in distress pales into insignificance when her competition is documentation, sealing wax, writs and reports. The girl was almost about ready to loose her temper; she was a heartbeat away from kicking children into the canal and seeing how much it would cost to secure a shady character with a swift dirk to go home to the North and punish her daddy. Alas, she was penniless and at the mercy of the capitol; a city with more noise, light, reeking water and beggars, trials and temptations than any childhood story. Despite this poor little rich girl’s ire, she was, in retrospect, more alive than she had been waiting to be wed to someone as old as her father.

And the city was, after all, full of stableboys.

The Guard sent a letter home to her father, who in due course organised the eventual replenishment of her lost possessions. She would, however, need to pay her way for some time. Work. This word mortified the poor little rich girl. She was not going to waste what education she had cleaning floors in an alehouse filled with puking drunkards with wandering hands and men with four titles, seven medals and no life away from a battlefield.

However, a kind soul (a noble gent who was indeed as old as her father, though not a sordid sort, with a crooked nose and honest smile) directed her towards a set of noisy, smoking buildings where people with the knowledge of words could make money making them work in their lieu. The place was called The Alliance Herald Publishing Company. They even gave her her own desk to sleep under. They promised her she would certainly live happily ever after, though she was not entirely convinced.

She still isn’t. Should you happen to be an old nobleman with a weak heart, several estates and numerous stablehands, you know where to find me.

And no, I’m still not talking to you, daddy.