Have You Seen Me?

Barzik hammered a fist on the table, making a slight crack that crept a few inched from the base of the slam. His eyes fluttered over the table and the massive amounts of paperwork piled upon it. After furnishing a thought here and there, he looked up to Beln.

"Yer positive ya saw'im get carried away? Don't be crackin' jokes on me again, Beln!" Barzik furrowed his brows, expecting a joke. That way, all this worry could be brushed off and all he needed to do was nail Beln in the face. But, as fate had it, whatever Beln said to anger Barzik was true information.

Beln simply nodded, his eyes still focusing on the ground for the past five minutes. Barzik vocalized a few expletives, then blew out a heavy sigh. His head slumped onto the packet of papers in front of him and he covered the back of his head with his plated hands.

Minutes felt like hours. The silence made the two dwarves uneasy, not knowing what happened to their beloved friend. For all they knew, he could be dead by now. The thought crossed Barzik, and his head quickly shot up.

Barzik swatted his chair sideways and stood up. He made a small circle around his quarters and looked at the enormous amount of paperwork on the cracked table. His eyes focused upon the stairway out to Ironforge, to the bookshelves with no empty spaces, to the bed behind him, to the chair that he had shoved away, to everything else he could focus his eyes on.

"Sure," Barzik muttered angrily. "Sure, we lost track of ya, but ya were always bein' tracked. Sure, ya disappeared from time to time, 'n I said I'd cover yer sorry ass 'n the paperwork. Sure. Sure, sure, sure!" Barzik kicked the chair and made a few bits of wood splinter towards the headrest. He crossed his arms and looked down to it.

"Of all people," he whispered to himself, "of all people, he had ta go missin'." Beln could do nothing except continue his staring. After all, he was left in charge of keeping his whereabouts known to Barzik. If anyone is to blame, it was him.

"Beln," Barzik finally said after a minute. "You know what we gotta do. Get everythin' ready fer the meetin'. We can't wait like idiots while that bastard of a warlock's out there doin' who-know's-what ta 'im."

Beln gazed up to Barzik and nodded quickly. "What about that one fella he was trainin'? D'ya think he's a target, too?"

Barzik nodded. "Don't worry about 'im. Just get everyone organized, meet me at the spot, 'n I'll go 'n find his pupil. He's in this with us now, so I'm expectin' that he'll target'im whenever possible."

Beln nodded once more, then blazed up the stairs and out into the Military Ward of Ironforge. Barzik shuffled his hands underneath the huge pile of paperwork and grasped two maces of Ironforge craftsmanship.

"Looks like I'm hoofin' it," he mumbled, then attached the handles of the maces to two separate hooks beside his belt. He shuffled once more in the pile of paper and took out a black horned viking helmet with the horns white near the tip. He donned the helmet, shuffled it around a bit, and firmly pushed it down onto his head.

Barzik looked up to the stairway. "Berl," he said with much desperation, "I'm the commander, 'n I say if you die, yer gonna get a dishonorable discharge."

The commander quickly trotted up the stairs and outside to the Military Ward.