I carefully scanned the beach. No signs of Naga or Murlocs. Nothing other than a few small crabs, a normal looking lizard the size of my hand, and that rock that keeps moving. Wait, the rock was moving, but its motions seemed random, and it wasn't coming this way so I ignored it for the moment.

  Next, I put down the emergency bag and the stuffed backpack. I examined the leather armor. Definitely Night Elf, make. The elegant knotwork patterns were a dead give away. They didn't quite fit, I was bigger than the average Night Elf, but the adjustment straps had just enough give I manage to get them on.

  Then I tried on the Psibde Focusers, and they fit surprisingly well. It felt silly, but I tried thinking at them real hard imagining a bde of energy springing forth. After a few fruitless tries I felt a tug from the gauntlets and green bdes snapped out from both of them. They made a very satisfying hum and crackle. Not quite a lightsaber but pretty badass none the less. They didn't look quite stable though. I needed to up my Psi Resonance. Somehow.

  I willed them off. On. Off. Hehehe.

  Pytime over, I went through the backpack. Right on top 100 yards of thin but sturdy silk rope. Score. Rope was always useful. A good sized bde. Somewhere between a short short and a machete, Single edged and again its sleek design spoke to being of Elven make. Its sheath had a tie setup and could be attached to the leather armor.

  There was a strange metal piece that somewhat reminded me of a flint and tinder. but it had a red gem set into it. I gave it a click, pushing the ends together. Lots of sparks and a bit of fme. Neat. A pouch of various herbs and pnt cuttings. Another pouch with gems. Still another with some coins. Shiny. Looked to be about 50 gold, 12 silver and 45 copper. Hmm, again depending on the Era that could be decent or garbage.

  Provided I could past the massive set of angry teeth in the water.

  There was a book with a fancy purple cover. But I had no chance in hell of reading that script. It looked vaguely like Tolkienian Elvish script. Not that that helped me in the slightest. Just an interesting observation.

  A wrapped package which turned out to be some kind of rations. Also a win in my books.

  Another pouch with acorns, glowing ones. Could they be treant seeds. Oh please be treant seeds. Preferably non hostile treefolk that let me summon things. That would be awesome!

  I rearranged things in the backpack. Throwing the rope across my shoulders and putting the money pouch in a pocket I'd noticed on the inside of the armor. Clever. I put on the backpack, adjusting the straps for security.

  The emergency bag was full of goodies. A dozen glow sticks, and six fres. Some kind of communicator which I immediately smashed and threw the parts into the water. I didn't need to be tracked by those assholes.

  A first aid kit, which instead of bandages and gauze and iodine had a dozen syringes of amber fluid. Wait, the amber fluid? Sure looked like it.

  A box full of pudding pouches, though the pudding in these was vanil fvored and white. A marked improvement.

  Lastly, was an emergency pistol and two extra magazines. The ammo was a small caliber caseless round. Each mag held about 50 rounds.

  When I pulled the trigger there was a whining noise and a loud crack. A stationary rock was split in two. Oh snap. A gauss pistol.

  I grinned, I'm sure it was an evil looking thing.

  "Hehe. Oh mister shark! I'd like a word, you toothy bastard!" I stepped into the water and waded to about knee depth, kicking and spshing water towards the pod.

  For a wonder the shark who probably hadn't gone far came close to shore, not quite breaching the surface this time but keeping an eye on my antics.

  I took aim. I unloaded a dozen rounds at the prehistory menace. Sadly, it didn't have quite the effect I wanted. It was bleeding, but hardly dead.

  The bastard took it as a personal mission to get me, and leapt from the water straight at me.

  Not entirely surprised, I jumped straight up. When I started coming down I ignited my left Psibde, plunging it deep into the demon shark. I fired my pistol point bnk into its head.

  Its thrashing knocked me away, but the damage was done, and now the oversized guppy was beached. Heh.

  "Your ass is mine now, Jaws."

  I stood back and just keep pelting it with shots, until it stopped moving.

  [ You have sin Bloodmawed Thresher, do you offer up its corpse? Y/N ]

  You bet your sweet bippy I do.

  [ Subject: GhY25d76-Z649

  Species: Hybrid (Human, Night Elf, Protoss)

  Path: Sacrifice

  Css: none

  Level: n/a

  Profession: none

  Level: n/a

  Characteristics: Physical 11 / Mental 12 / Social 5 / Mana 2 / Psi Resonance 2

  Abilities: Locked

  Skills: Hand to Hand 1, Evasion 2, Swimming 2, Firearms 1 ]

  A point of Physical. I'll take it. Every little bit helped.

  I quickly swam to the pod, I had my doubts that I could pull a two, maybe three ton pod to shore at least not with the rope I had. What I could do was grab the other five emergency bags and give the pod a through sweep looking form anything useful maybe even the seats if I could take them out.

  After all I was fairly sure they strand desperate people without a tool kit. I just had to find it.

  I grabbed up the kits, and then checked everything thoroughly. There a panel by the door, I opened it up. Jackpot! There were a couple of rebreathers. Two different types of toolkits. And the pièces de résistance. A gauss rifle and a ammo box. I bundled everything up and tied it together.

  The swim back was awkward and slow but without the devil shark, it wasn't a big deal.

  I'd have to let the rifle dry out, but everything else was water tight. I sort the med kits into one bag, the rations into another. All the fres and glow sticks went into a third bag. The extra pistols and ammo into a fourth. The fifth and sixth bags were now empty. they be good for gathering things on the isnd.

  I smashed and tossed all the communicators.

  One toolkit was welding and repair equipment for the pod. The other was a little more interesting. A ratchet, a drill, and all the accoutrements. Excellent if I had to set up my own shelter.

  The pile of goodies could wait here for the time being. I buried everything, hopefully above the tide line, except what I was wearing and the rifle and pced some non moving rocks in the area.

  The moving ones freaked me out a little. Because when I flipped one over, it wasn't a hidden crab or something it was just a rock. Some kind of tent Elemental? Weird magic bullshit? Magnetism gone awry? I'd no method for figuring it out right now.

  There was a cliff in front of me, that was south, and much of the central region of the isnd was dominated by that raised ground. I could maybe scale it, but I'd rather find an easier way up there.

  To the west was increasingly rockier terrain, until it rose into a small mountain. To the east I saw trees in the far distance.

  East it was.

  I checked the rifle, the mag held 100 rounds. They were about twice the size of the pistol's ammo. Hot damn. We were ready to rock.

  My march was quiet. Only the scuttling of small critters intruded on my awareness. Never the less, my head was on a swivel.

  It took half an hour to get to the tree line. This small forest somewhat reminded me of Ashenvale. Wait, that was a Wisp. Over by that tree.

  "Please be my friend, little Wisp." Because together we could build things. Maybe.

  It giggled at me, and came to float around me. It seemed to enjoy being near my energy. Cool. Works for me.

  I stalked through the whole forest for a few hours, other than a few more Wisps and a bunch of little forest critters it was quiet and empty. Some of the pnts were probably herbs, and I saw a few rocky outcroppings that reminded me of mining nodes. But nothing dangerous.

  Peaceful and still. Why weren't there any Druids here, or Furbolgs, Gnolls, or Trolls? Seemed a proper pce for them. There was a cheerful little ke filled with spring water. I used a fingertip to swipe a bit across my lips to see if it was tainted. After a half hour I was still fine. I cupped my hand and took a sip. Crisp and clean, full of something delightful. An energy, probably mana touched.

  The Wisps were good company, if not very talkative. They were endlessly fascinated by everything I was doing. Which was mostly just sticking my nose everywhere to see if there were any dangers about.

  I found a way that lead to the central region of the isnd and followed the switchback upwards. The Wisps trailing along. there I got my first shock.

  A rge bronze colored vessel was crashed up here. Definitely Protoss, but it was too damaged to make out what type it had been originally. A Carrier, maybe. Still that was a major find.

  The second shocking sight was a few dozen yards from the far end of the wrecked ship. It look somewhat simir to the Dark Portal, but it was circur and the aura of it was peaceful. It wasn't open right now. But it was not something, I was expecting to see today.

  I decided to check out the downed Protoss vessel. I didn't really think there be any conventional supplies in there. But maybe I'd find something useful.

  The Wisps stayed out of the crash site. But I could tell they were still watching me.

  This crash was old, though given the properties of Protoss alloys, I couldn't begin to guess at how old. A few of the crystals, just inside the hole I walked through to get inside, were glowing. There was some energy still being generated somewhere. I could sort of feel the flow of it. So I followed that sense through the ruined bronze halls. Several times I had to crawl over or duck under debris, but nothing that truly hampered my progress.

  There was one gap. This chamber was empty and rather rge, I didn't understand it's purpose. I figured the gap was crossed via an energy bridge. All while a few crystals might still have enough power to light up the bridge would need a lot more power, or perhaps its mechanisms were damaged. The gap was about twenty yards. As a human, I doubt I could have jumped it. As a hybrid, I leapt it with plenty of spare clearance.

  So I had an almost forty yard horizontal standing jump. Sweet! I probably hit about twenty yards vertically. I had to admit, there were some advantages to my changes.

  The next rge chamber was exactly what I was looking for. There was a giant Khaydarin Crystal pulsing gently with power. It didn't seem damaged or run down. The problems with the energy flow must lie elsewhere.

  It was the rest of the chamber that caused me a mix of trepidation and excitement. In addition to being the power core, this was a stasis chamber. Rows of Protoss of various castes lined the walls. I'm not sure I wanted to wake, them even if I could.

  Protoss had some pretty strong opinions about the purity of their forms. They might see me as an abomination.

  That said I could probably get away with waking up one of those Probes over there. They responded to their programming but also psychic control. I should be able to manage that. Unless there was some kind of Psychic encryption. Worse comes to worse, I'd shut it down the hard way.

  I walked over to look at them. Wow, they were a lot bigger than they looked in the game. Roughly spherical, six feet in diameter. Large fins coming off the the sides and top.

  I could sort of sense a control panel next to its stasis chamber. I willed it open, and to my surprise that worked.

  The blue energy field slowly vanish and the Probe slowly powered up.

  It beeped something, I very strongly willed it to come to me. To my wonderment, it complied.

  I ughed. The Probe mimicked me with its beeping tones.

  Okay, what now?