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It was another stunningly beautiful sunny morning in the Hinterlands (Kinda makes you wonder...does it ever rain in the Hinterlands?). The birds were chirping, the grass and trees were as green as ever, and the white clouds glided effortlessly across the joyfully pastel blue sky. It was sure to be a peaceful, eventless day just like every other; that is, until a bubbly female Night Elf rogue by the name of Kotonoha cried out, "Voud! How much longer? We've got to get in there and rescue them!"
Thoroughly caught off-guard by the sudden exclamation, Voudka dropped the fireworks launcher (that she'd been checking out the newly-added scope of) off her shoulder to the floor as she bounced up into a battle stance. Quickly realizing the new threat was just that of an overanxious guildmate, she released a deep, frustrated sigh and turned to Koto as she caught her breath and put her weapons away. "Yes, Koto, we know." As she said this, Marckus and Jesiach went to lift the launcher up off the ground. "And it will only take me longer to conduct these last minute adjustments and preparations if you do something like that again." Upon finishing that sentence, she gave a comforting smile to Koto before kneeling her left knee back down on the grass so Marck and Jesiach could place the launcher back on her right shoulder. Meanwhile, Koto walked over to a nearby tree and turned to sit up against it, sharpening her two daggers with a sharpening stone Marckus had provided for them to use.
The five of them were currently situated in pretty much the exact same spot at which six of them had stood before the first charge into the fortress a couple of weeks ago. They'd have been back much sooner if it wasn't for the dang-blasted policies of the Bank. You see, Voudka had first engineered her Fireworks Launcher during the previous year's Lunar Festival. She'd also crafted several stacks of diversely colored fireworks. The bazooka-like launcher was put to very good use for the duration of that festival, but when it was over, she decided it didn't make a lick of sense to go on walking around the world with the heavy thing in one of her backpacks, so she deposited it into her storage compartment at the bank. Well, when she traveled to Ironforge the day after the first storming of Jintha'alor to reclaim her launcher, she encountered quite a number of obstacles. For starters, they had to transport her launcher all the way from Darnassus, where she'd deposited it after the Festival, to the Dwarf city. Then, she had to go through the lengthy - and somewhat costly - process of both renewing her "Fireworks Possession" and "Celebratory Artillery" permits and signing new copies of various safety waivers and such. ("I, ______, entrust myself with the responsibility involved in wielding and using a product crafted from a schematic designed by Honor the Elders Incorporated. I will not hold Honor the Elders Inc. or any associate or shareholder of Honor the Elders Inc. accountable for any accidents or injuries that I or any other individual may sustain through my personal use of the crafted product. Should any other individual cause any accident or injuries to themselves or anyone else through the use of this product, I shall be held accountable and responsible for any and all damages dealt or payments warranted." is how one such waiver was spelled out.) All this took up until the previous day to take care of, and by this time, the preparations everyone else was responsible for had already been taken care of for days. So here they were, finally ready to break Jagauric and Jaina out of troll captivity, complete with a powerful firework launcher that practically had to be broken out of a captivity of its own.
Another twenty or so minutes went by while Voudka continued to tinker away at her launcher. It wasn't that she was a shoddy engineer - she had made quite a few auxiliary adjustments and additions to the basic blueprint. For example, her launcher was not a one time use launcher that would be exhausted after one successful launch. No, Voudka's launcher was capable of an infinite number of launches so long as regular maintenance was conducted. Furthermore, she added a scope for better aim. That was a very recent addition (after all, fireworks are normally shot upwards into the sky, but today...). In order for all to go smoothly and according to plan, she had to make sure that everything would work as it should when the time came to actually use the launcher. For this reason, Voudka was being very meticulous.
While Voud continued her work, Koto began plucking single blades of grass out of the ground with which to make natural whistles. She got a few blades to make a nice, loud whistle sound, but after a while she began to get menacing looks from the rest of the group. "Koto, I like you," Jesiach began to say, "I like you a lot. But if you continue to discover and employ ways for the trolls to spot our presence before we're ready for them to, I'm going to have to tie you to that tree you were sitting up against a moment ago and I won't let you free until we're ready to go. Do you understand?"
Serac and Marckus began to chuckle heartily, while Voudka, who surely would have laughed a little if she had been paying any attention, continued working efficiently and diligently on the launcher. Koto, on the other hand, didn't laugh any, and she understood where Jesiach was coming from. In order for this second charge to be successful, they absolutely needed to possess an initial element of surprise. By blowing into grass blade whistles, she was taking the risk of compromising the entire mission. "I do," she replied solemnly. "I suppose I'll do a little tinkering of my own, with some spare herbs I have in my pack. That, hopefully, will keep me occupied until Voud's all set."
"That won't be necessary," Voudka said suddenly, drawing the attention of everyone. "I'm done. The launcher is ready. Let Operation Flame Shock begin."

Jag awoke with a start. His eyes flashed open, but not a single muscle so much as tensed. He thought he heard someone walking down the path. More torture? Another beating? Hadn't they made their point by now? Wasn't the total rape of his masculine pride enough? He stayed absolutely still - a good thing considering how worn he was physically - and anticipated a troll-shaped shadow to appear at the entrance to his hut at any moment. But such a shadow never came, and come to think of it, he hadn't heard anything besides chirping birds since waking. "Perhaps I imagined it," Jag thought. He allowed himself to blink before resuming. "Perfect. Now they've got me hearing things." Jag inhaled as deep a breath as his tolerance of the coinciding pain would allow and then let it out slowly. He wasn't going crazy. Surely, he had more inner strength than that. Sure he was in excruciating pain everywhere it was possible to experience pain, but even the last bout of torture hadn't been enough to cause him to begin to crumble within himself. "C'mon, Jag" he spoke to himself within his own mind, "you've still got plenty of fight in ya. Don't give in."
He allowed himself to begin breathing normally, but as always he barely moved in any way. Since the tentacle thing - a traumatic event since which Jag had no idea how much time had transpired (days? weeks? He'd been out cold for a long while.) - even the mere thought of moving any muscle at all brought on some pain. The pain he'd felt before that day was nothing compared to the persistent, mortal pain that he was feeling now. And of course, he couldn't even cringe in reaction to something as innocent as an involuntary twitch because thanks to the most recent round of physical anguish, his face had since joined the fray of perpetual agony. It really couldn't possibly get any worse.
These days, Jag may have been preoccupied with thoughts of holding on and not falling into a state of insanity, and maintaining an ever sharp, vigilant ear on his surroundings, but underneath it all, he still possessed the hope that the Legion would come, that those who had come here with him the first time would come back a second time to bring their broken blue buddy home. It was this hope, more than his own constant self-reassurances, that was keeping him from slipping into a state of mental and psychological instability.
After a few additional moments, Jag decided that he would be better off just falling back asleep. He was no good to himself stressing out and being awake to feel the constant pain. At least while asleep, his breathing was more shallow and he wouldn't feel any pain. And he could begin to heal, maybe. Hopefully. So, laying on his back like always, he closed his eyes and took a painful deep breath, which he exhaled slowly to try to relax himself. It must've worked because within seconds, he was out cold.

Jag's slumber had lasted only about a single second. He snapped upright at his waist, eyes wide open, realizing too late how much explosive pain he had set off by doing so. But he wasn't even thinking about the pain at this moment. Something had just happened and whatever it was, it was clearly out of the ordinary. Jintha'alor was always such a quiet place, like the rest of the Hinterlands, but whatever had just woken Jag up so suddenly was most definitely not quiet.

Jag snapped his neck briskly to face out the hut's entrance. He didn't see anything, but he had definitely heard that one. He wasn't imagining these sounds. This second one, whatever it was, had come closer to his location, perhaps even passed right over him to somewhere higher up into the fortress. But what in Titans' creation were they? What the heck was going on???
The loud shrieking sounds continued for several more minutes, sometimes passing over Jag's hut, sometimes sounding as though they were traveling over the complete opposite side of the fortress. There were a few times where Jag thought that one of whatever they were was going to hit near his hut and kill him, but that never happened, much to Jag's relief.
It was clear that Jintha'alor was under attack. But by whom? And with what? No sooner did Jag finally think to contemplate the latter did he receive his answer. What clearly looked like a firework rocket whizzed past, a ways away, through his hut entrance vista. "Fireworks?!" Jag questioned aloud. Then he began to think about it a bit more, pensively letting the observation register in his mind. "Of all the forms of artillery in the world...fireworks? Who in their right mind wou-" And then it clicked. His friends were back. He was going to get rescued!
Sitting there, he began to see and smell smoke and hear the sound of roaring fires. He could hear the screaming of hundreds of trolls and he could hear the continued assault of fireworks whizzing playfully to their targets. There was a brief moment where Jag considered braving the pain and trying to walk out of his hut and make his way out on his own, using the colorful barrage as a diversion. But, just as he was about to talk himself out of it, believing his friends would have a better time finding him if he remained stationary and that he was very obviously in no shape to get past even the first wave of opposition, should he have encountered one, a young male troll that looked very familiar to Jag appeared at the entrance of the hut, blocking Jag's view of the airborne carnage. So much for hoping the induced chaos would cause the trolls to forget all about him!
But getting back to this troll, Jag just stared at him for a while, trying to figure out why a particular troll in this place would strike him as familiar. "Youuu..." Jag mumbled out loud. "Have we met before?" he asked at his regular speaking volume.
"Shet ep!" the young troll replied, turning to look at Jag. "I doan't haf tah ansah yeh kwes-chuns."
As the troll turned back around to face the rest of Jintha'alor, Jag responded, "No, I don't suppose you do. But it wasn't a terribly difficult question I asked. I just want to know if we've met before. You look familiar."
The troll turned around, looking very nervous. Jag almost thought he saw him shaking a little, but he couldn't be sure. The troll looked like he wanted to speak, but he hesitated a few times. Then, he did speak, "I sappose I do. I watched as they cut af yer tentahcles. I waz the fiyahkeepah." Upon finishing what he had to say, he quickly turned back around to face the outside.
"I see." Jag said. "Well, then, my next question is, if you're a firekeeper, why do they have you guarding such a high-priority prisoner as myself?"
Without turning around, the young troll replied with a tinge of anger, "Beycuz...they fortress es undah attack. They Chiefs' Quahtahs wah ay-mohng they ehrias heet dah hardest. All they soljahs wah ordahed tah help in those locayshuns."
"Ah, and that left you to guard me." Jag chimed in. "Well, I promise I won't make this tougher on you than need be. Guard away."
Upon hearing this, the young troll turned around slowly, wearing a perplexed expression on his face. "Is dis a trick?"
Jag laughed lightly for a few seconds. "No, it's not. Look at me. Even you could stop me cold if I tried to escape from this hut. I'm going to just sit right here and be a good little prisoner. Is that alright?" Jag then achingly displayed a toothless half-smile.
The troll glared at Jag for a moment or two before hesitantly responding, "Ehh...sure......" Then he turned back around once again and stood firmly in a tough guardsman-like position.
It humored Jag that somehow, he had still retained his sense of witty humor through all the beatings and torture and trauma of this ordeal in Jintha'alor. Maybe it had just come back because the glint of hope he had held onto the whole time had now been answered. He would be a good prisoner, sure, because Jag was a man of his word. But he wouldn't have to be a prisoner for long because he knew, with the fireworks show at an end, that his comrades had already begun to search for him inside the fortress.