Li Li's Journeys

[Tormeron]

Part 6 of 11
Entry Six: The Valley of the Four Winds
During the weeks Uncle Chen and I explored the Jade Forest, I started feeling like a total stranger with no real connection to Pandaria. Sure, my ancestors had come from these lands, but that was generations ago. Although I ran across a few hozen (bigger and even crazier than the ones back home), almost everything else on the continent was so different from what I knew.

Well, that was all before I visited the Valley of the Four Winds. It was a home away from home, only on a much larger scale. The valley—considered the breadbasket of Pandaria—was covered with giant tracts of farmland that made the Rows on the Wandering Isle look like a tiny garden. I bet one harvest of the valley's crops could feed every pandaren in Mandori Village—even a fatso like Uncle Chen—for a lifetime.

I could fill this whole journal with the incredible things I saw in the valley, from the roaring Huangtze Falls to the magical Pools of Purity. But it wasn't the new stuff that really caught my attention; it was the familiar stuff that I never expected to find in a place so far from my home.

These discoveries started as Uncle Chen and I were exploring the valley alongside heroes from other lands of Azeroth, travelers just like us. Running into outsiders wasn't that big of a surprise. My uncle told me he'd crossed paths with a couple members of the Horde and the Alliance a few weeks back (I'd been asleep at the time). It turned out that the two factions had landed in the Jade Forest and caused all sorts of trouble. They'd even dragged some of the locals into their conflict, such as the hozen and a race of fish folk called the jinyu. Luckily, Uncle Chen and I were on our way out of the forest when that stuff was happening.

Not long after we entered the valley, we met a fellow named Mudmug, a friendly pandaren who brewed his own ale with muddy water. He was sort of weird, but I liked the big guy. Out of the blue, he told us about a Stormstout Brewery in the area. Uncle Chen and I couldn't believe it. We had living, breathing cousins in Pandaria—and a brewery! The news got Chen moving faster than a few steps per hour for the first time in weeks.

Unfortunately, the brewery was a complete mess. Virmen (just like the ones on the Wandering Isle) had infested the grain and rice stores. Hozen had taken over parts of the building and gone bonkers. To add insult to injury, the Stormstout in charge of the brewery, Uncle Gao, didn't even want our help! Well, Chen and I weren't going to let the greatest discovery in our family's history fall to ruin because of some grouchy relative.

Eventually, we cleared out the brewery's pests (something we couldn't have done without our fellow newcomers from the outside world). Once the place was under control, Gao opened up to me and Uncle Chen. Usually, many other Stormstouts lived and worked in the brewery, but they'd all gone west to fight an ancient insect people known as the mantid. Gao had been left behind to take care of the brewery. I guess he was under a lot of pressure to live up to the family name, because his efforts had led to some pretty unstable brews—the kind that come to life and try to kill you.

Gao didn't know when the other Stormstouts would return, but he told us all about them. He also explained our family's history in the valley, and how far back it went. Right outside the brewery, he showed us an old shrine dedicated to the widow Mab Stormstout and her son, Liao. I'd heard about those two from my pop. After Mab's husband had died in a tragic grape-press accident, she'd taken Liao and begun a new life on the Wandering Isle.

Aside from the Stormstout family, there were even bigger ties between the valley and my homeland. Gao claimed that Liu Lang—founder of the Wandering Isle—had been born and raised close to the brewery. Imagine that! His birthplace, around a village called Stoneplow, was located at the valley's western edge.

Every day, I learned new stuff about the region and my distant relatives. Things were going well, until bad news suddenly arrived...

Something big was happening far to the west, at a colossal wall called the Serpent's Spine. Years and years ago, the mogu—gigantic brutes who ruled over Pandaria until my ancestors kicked their butts—had built the barrier to protect themselves against their archenemies, the mantid. Now, the pandaren guarded the Serpent's Spine, but the bug-things had recently broken through their defenses and begun invading the nearest settlement: Stoneplow!

Uncle Chen and I joined a large group of pandaren who'd gathered at Stoneplow to ward off the invaders. We wiped the floor with the mantid, but I got the feeling that this was only the first of more attacks to come. The locals whispered about some other force being responsible for the assault, a dark and mysterious power known as the sha. It sent chills up my spine, thinking that such evil existed in Pandaria.

Things calmed down after the attack. Uncle Chen and Uncle Gao spent days on end in the brewery, discussing recipes and testing new ales. That was fine by me. Chen had been slowing me down ever since we'd come to Pandaria. I was itching to explore on my own, and I knew the perfect place to visit: the Krasarang Wilds. That was where Liu Lang had first set out from Pandaria atop Shen-zin Su, the sea turtle that would eventually grow to become the Wandering Isle!

I'd learned about Krasarang from one of the valley's farmers. He warned me that the place was very dangerous, but hearing that made me want to go even more. So, I gathered some supplies and wrote a note for Uncle Chen, telling him where I was headed. He had his nose stuffed so deep into sacks of hops and barley that I figured I'd be back before he knew I was gone.

Finally I was free, blazing a trail of my own. Next stop: Krasarang Wilds and the birthplace of the Wandering Isle!