Mary Score! – Part 3 – Internal Interlude
Every Saturday, WoWPetBattles.com brings you Mary Score!; a serial fiction by Travis Marcum. Follow goblin adventurer Mary Travelmunch as she and her trusty mechanical chicken Freddie compete against the best pet trainers in Azeroth and beyond for the coveted Critter Cage Battle Network’s Illustrious Grand Master trophy!
“Damn it!”
The sound of the hurled wrench as it smashed the flower vase in the corner was only satisfying for a moment before regret settled in. The tension and frustration that had been tossed away with the angry flight of enormous iron tool all came rushing back as if tied by a rope, cleverly laced with fresh shame acquired somewhere along the its short distance home.
Mary groaned. She closed her eyes and rubbed at the bridge of her nose with grease-stained fingers, leaving thin lines of inky black on her greenish-blue face. The goblin’s temples throbbed and she found herself had rapidly unable to focus on the task at hand; repairing the damage to Freddie’s wing.
Spread out on the table in front of her, Mary’s clockwork fowl lay motionless. Several access hatches were opened wide and mechanical entrails had erupted from them like some kind of slow moving, industrial lava flow. Giga Grimtotem’s ravasuar hatchling had completely destroyed the inner-framework of the mechanical chicken’s wing mount. Shards of splintered wood, bent metal and torn wires had been left in tangled chaos amidst the gaping wound.
The problem wasn’t what Mila’wa had done to Freddie. By itself, the wing mount was something Mary could fix without too much difficulty, though finding the appropriate parts had been costly in Gadgetzan. The difficulty was everything else; to replace the damaged components and remount the wing required her to remove and then reassemble a maze of gears, belts and fans that the goblin huntress could barely divine the purpose of, let alone accurately recreate. The complexity of it all made Mary’s head spin.
“What have I gotten myself in to?” Mary sighed. Violet eyes turned toward the bedside table of her private suite, an extravagantly expensive luxury she could afford only because it was included as part of the prize of her preliminary victory. There the flickering candlelight gleamed off three glass bottles, beads of sweat trickling down their shapely forms in a vaguely seductive manner. Unspoken testimony that the fizzy, tangy liquid they contained would be both cool, refreshing and solve all of Mary’s problems. The familiar label on each bottle displayed a happy goblin with his arms raised above his head in discovery over the slogan, “Kaja’Cola – A hidden genius in every bottle!”
Kaja’Cola. Goblin idea juice; a single bottle made the drinker exponentially smarter… for a while, anyway. Since the eruption of Mount Kajaro, the precious liquid had become less common and therefore much, much more expensive. The room had come complimentary with the three bottles; a clear indication that Woodwazzle intended for his Critter Cage Battle Network to be a very big deal, indeed.
Mary found she had slid off her stool and started toward the tempting bottles before she’d stopped herself. A loud sigh fell from her lips and she shook her head vigorously to clear it both of the desire and the tingling rage that had begun to clutch at her chest once more. She turned her attention back to Freddie largely as an attempt to ignore the siren call of the Kaja; an effort that took more out of her than she cared to admit.
Yet again, Mary found herself surveying the small, scientific marvel. It was hard to believe her father had created something so sophisticated and intricate. But then again, Judik Travelmunch had been a truly gifted mind. Mary genuinely believed him to have been the smartest goblin ever born, though she was admittedly biased. His quick, analytical ability had made him one of the best Finders in Kezan history and he had unquestionably spearheaded dozens (if not hundreds) of technological advances before his fall from grace. Most impressively, he’d never drunk Kaja! Not even once!
And since his death, Mary hadn’t either. He’d always said she was smart enough without it. That she didn’t need it. That it was a crutch for weak minds with weak ideas. Under Judik’s supervision, Mary had studied engineering and even branched out in to the alchemical sister sciences. She’d even become a Finder, just like him. But bright and successful as she was, Mary knew she wasn’t as smart as Judik had been. And as much as she loved and idolized her father, there were times like now that she found she deeply envied and almost loathed him. He made intricate and complex ideas that she violently struggled with, seem so effortless. It had all come so naturally to him.
Why couldn’t it be that way for her?
“I don’t know what to do, Daddy,” Mary whispered.
Her reverie was interrupted by a knock at the door. Mary had just enough time to cover Freddie with her cast-off cloak and turn to face the entry as the door began to open. With sudden clarity, Woodwazzle’s threat loomed largely in her mind; though sunrise wasn’t for several hours, she wouldn’t put it past the elderly entrepreneur to ignore that little detail. The huntress reached for her back only to realize that her rifle was propped up against the bed on the other side of the room.
Mary cursed inwardly at her own stupidity. She now doubly regretted her earlier tantrum; at least her wrench would have made for a decent club.
<…to be continued!>
“Mary Score!” is © Travis A. Marcum 2011 and published on WoWPetBattles.com with permission; World of Warcraft and all related materials are © Blizzard Entertainment. Travis Marcum can be reached via email, Google+, Facebook or Twitter. His main is a goblin beast mastery Hunter on Earthern Ring-US and spends his time in-game raiding, collecting pets and trying to work the auction house. He’s owned every handheld PokĂ©mon game. He’s trying to lose weight with diet and exercise. Let’s see how long that lasts, shall we?.
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