Menrim’s Journal – South Sea Islands

After leaving the pirate-infested Hiji behind, I continued to sail through the eastern part of South Seas. The winds were favorable most of the time, so I took this chance to study the maps I had of the area. The maps were confusing at best. On some, there was nothing but another long stretch of empty sea until you run into Stranglethorn Vale. On others, there were two islands painted on the way, but both were very poorly described. Having no formal names on the maps, there was only the vaguest shape and a warning sign. Had I noticed this back in Uldum, I would have consulted our best repositories of knowledge but given that the maps I took had nothing, I doubt I would find anything worth mentioning. Seeing that my course was taking me directly towards these two mysterious islands, I braced myself for danger.

Finally, this morning I reached the southern of the two islands. It seemed mostly lacking of any sort of population. Challenged only by panthers, turtles and other wildlife, I gathered a few coconuts until I encountered an odd dwarf who presented himself as Prospector Henry Ilkoy. Prospector Ilkoy told me about a band of castaways lost on the island after their holiday cruise crashed on its shores. Although the dwarf continued to describe all the academic titles and inventions ascribed to him, he was completely shocked when I mentioned the option of building a boat to get away from the island. Shocked at this proposition, the dwarf ran off, shouting for someone called Giliijim. Preferring to avoid meeting anymore of this eccentric crew, I quickly returned to my boat and swam off. Hopefully, I helped them in their escape.

Not too far north from the first island I encountered another one. Using my spyglass, I was able to determine a number of troll ruins scattered about the island. No troll records of an island in this sector of the South Seas are known to me, but perhaps this isolated population died off long ago. Regardless, I also noticed smoke in the northern part of the island so I decided to investigate. Hopefully these trolls would help me determine what is this place and report back on it to the general population. Unfortunately, there were no trolls on the island.

Upon venturing into the island, I was assaulted by an odd creature, bearing both human and gorilla parts. Unlike a worgen, or a tol’vir, it hardly seemed like a natural evolution. Indeed it looked more like a random assortment of parts sewn together and reanimated with unholy magic. Unlike a typical undead or flesh golem, the creature was however oddly polite. The ape-man offered to take me to his “master”, a doctor by the name of Montgomery Lapidis. As polite as it was, it did not take no for an answer. The doctor turned out to be a deranged human scientist who once worked with Sicco Thermaplugg on illegal experiments. The creatures on the island were in fact not undead – they were sewn together while alive and kept alive with gnomish technology.

If they were undead, perhaps they would not be as problematic – it seems that my friend Lunk has visited the island recently and via his influence, caused a riot among the island’s inhuman inhabitants (although unintentionally). The beast-golems are still fighting in the jungle of the Island of Doctor Lapidis, some of them trying to impose a new code of law the Doctor recently imposed, and some trying to return to their bestial, unlawful natures. It seemed that “the Law” was winning at the time, but I wasn’t willing to stay around, fearing the good doctor might decide to use me for future parts. When he turned his attention away, I snuck out of his compound and towards my boat through the troll ruins.

The dog/bear/ox hybrid that Doctor Lapidis called M’ling went into pursuit and a few times it almost got me. I managed to fight it off, however, and made it to my boat just in time to avoid another battle between the two creatures. Luckily, none of them appeared capable of swimming, or were too occupied with the battle. I quickly set sail towards Stranglethorn Vale which shouldn’t be very far away by now. By sunset today I expect to be nearing the mouth of Nazferiti River.

To be continued