It's the Murloc Life for Me [A Warcraft Isekai]

Chapter 3: Murloc + Jazz Hands = ?

Subtlety was obviously not a strong suit for this group of gnolls. They cackled and yelled while running toward us eschewing any form of stealth or tactics beyond rush em. If anyone hadn't noticed them, they knew they were coming now.

The rest of the children reacted differently to the appearance of four large gnolls with weapons. Some started crying at the sight, too frightened to do anything else. Some just stared at the approaching gnolls, perhaps not understanding what was happening. A few were smart enough to remember today's lesson and started moving toward the water, even attempting to call for help.

Mrgglr turned towards the rest of the children and pointed to the sea. "Get in the water, NOW!"

That seemed to break most of the rest out of their daze, and they started running for the water. Unfortunately, the gnolls were much bigger, and their strides were easily three times the size of a young murloc's. Even with all the ground they had to cover, they would reach a couple of the children before they reached the relative safety of the water.

To make matters even worse, one of the tadpoles was not responding to the oracle's order. They were probably a bit more than a year old, and just sat on the ground crying.

Looking back at the gnolls, they were about half a minute away. If I ran, I could probably pick up the tadpole and get back to the water before they could catch me. If I tripped or anything slowed me down, it would not end well. But looking at the tadpole's little face, his huge, watery eyes, I couldn't just leave him there. This was my tribe, my people.

Running forward, I heard more cries coming from behind me. Looks like a couple of the other elders are coming to try and stop this attack. They were brandishing their walking staves and moving in between the gnolls and the fleeing children. It was a brave move. Also a suicidal one, but brave nonetheless. They wouldn't stand a chance against the gnolls, who were double the size of an adult murloc in their prime, and these murlocs were not in their prime.

After a good ten seconds of running, I reached the crying tadpole and scooped them up into my arms. Turning on a... not a dime, apparently young murlocs don't have the best momentum control. So, turning on a quarter, I started to run back towards the water. As I was running, the sound of the gnolls kept getting louder and louder. Were they picking up speed?

As I passed the few elders with weapons, I turned my head to peek behind me. Turns out, the gnolls did speed up, and they were right on my heels. When I looked back, the four gnolls crashed through the line of elders that were trying to block them. They didn't even turn around to finish them off. I guess they wanted to catch as many of us as they could before we got to the water.

The leading gnoll points toward me and says something to his buddies. I couldn't understand their language, but I got the idea. Hey, look, a two-for-one special! I need to get to that water.

I turn back around and try to run even faster. We should really have some sort of murloc gym class. They expected us to stay healthy by playing with each other, but I never really got into those games. The result was a body that wasn't in the best of shapes, and I couldn't run as fast as I wanted to.

While I was running, I noticed Mrgglr ahead of me. He had his staff out and was shaking it around in the air while doing... were those jazz hands? Why was he dancing when we were being atta...

Just then, a small stream of water floated toward him from the ocean. It started spinning and getting narrower at the end. Then, once it had gotten so narrow it resembled a spike, it froze into a sharpened icicle.

Right, magic. So jazz hands are how you summon water, eh? You learn something new every day.

Unfortunately, this display of magical prowess distracted me somewhat from the situation, and I slowed down. The gnoll that pointed at me had managed to get behind me without alerting me to his presence, and only his cackling as he raised his axe tipped me off to the danger I was in. I tried to jump to the side, but the combination of extra weight from the tadpole in my arms and my untrained muscles being unused to this amount of strain stopped me from getting very far. As I looked up at my soon-to-be killer, I heard Mrgglr yell something in Nerglish. "Ice Spike!"