Scooter Scalebane

Douglas "Scooter" Macready as he was in life. Some things never change.

### Relatives

Agatha Macready (Mother, Deceased), Bertrand Macready (Father, Deceased), Donna Knack (Fiancee, Lost)

## Scooter Scalebane

**Scooter Scalebane**, known in life as **Douglas Macready**, was a fisherman from Lakeshire of little personal complication. An adept angler with steady hands and one eye always on the water, he found no difficulty in providing for his family- at the time an aging mother and father, and a woman who he'd put off marrying for far too long. Her name was Donna Knack, and though they met when they were young, Douglas was going gray and feeling a potbelly start by the time he finally asked her to take his hand in marriage.

He chanced to travel north with a Dwarven escort into Lordaeron, chasing rumors of a lake that had known magic and promised a truly spectacular catch. Promising his swift return, he stocked enough- through pickling, salting, and casing in ice- to see his family through his absence, and set off for one last adventure.

By the time he realized it truly was going to be his last adventure, it was too late. Arthas Menethil and his rotten sorcery swept across the kingdom with such immediacy and severity that there was no help for it. Realizing that luck was a dry well, and that fate was a rigged game, he died on his feet with a rod and reel in his hand, the brim of his hat down over his eyes and his wrist ever slowly turning as death came to consume him.

## Death

And then he was blind, for a while. Knowing nothing, seeing only blurs, hearing only chaos, tasting only uncooked, stringy meat whose origin he didn't know, and didn't care to know. He stomped and staggered where he may, without direction save for the steady compulsion to commit whatever violence he may against any life on two legs.

When he came to, the crisp voice of a strange woman in his ears, he realized his coveralls were caked with gore, the tips of his fingers had worn down to nothing but sharp pegs of bone, his voice was hoarse, and that he was fantastically, utterly bald.

Luck really was a dry well. He couldn't go home looking like this. Might be that he couldn't go home at all. The strange woman had declared freedom for him, freedom for anyone like him- but what was that worth, in this sorry state? He laughed for the first time, hazarding to think what Donna Knack might make of her man, rendered a terminal mess, and with no fish in hand for his troubles, at that!

## Soul Food

So he resolved to fish- and maybe pray, if there were prayers a dead man could make. A few of the other dead men seemed to have some ideas, and he found himself consulting with them more often than not. Soon he could whisper a word of exquisite pain that would dizzy a fish and leave it vulnerable to the net. The only trouble was, he didn't know if he cared to eat it. The taste was diminished- but seasoning the hell out of it seemed to make a difference. Lemon, peppers, garlic, basil, butter- suddenly not only did he need to fish, but he needed to cook, if his fish were going to be worth anything to his new community.

He hated to think he was forgetting his old life, leaving them behind in Lakeshire to wonder- but without any choice, he began to construct a new one in Tirisfal. Happiness was in short supply among the dead Lordaeronians, so dragging a salmon up from a mile off the Whispering Shore and rendering it into steaks was the best he could do for them. He still had a soul, after a fashion, and providing in that way seemed to satisfy it.

For a time.

## The Call

Scooter had never heard of anything like it. Sportfishing was a waste of time, he thought- but the news was too tantalizing, and it had snaked its way up from the very furthest coast of the continent to reach him. He had grown restless, and too many of the Lordaeronians had given over to eating filth in their society-wide mourning and depression. He still had a good hold on himself, and dreaded to think he could one day fall into that kind of despair.

He took a horse- dead as doornails, surefooted as a mountain goat, fearless, a little bit of a biter- and convinced it to take him away. He'd soon be met with treachery, he knew- familiar faces, perhaps the dwarven escort that had seen him north in the first place, or- *please, spare me that much-* his family. The dead horse weaved a drunken path through farmland and bridges, mesas and forests, eventually through the deeply-cursed Duskwood, and finally into Stranglethorn.

Troll country.

Time to hope those prayers he learned were worth a damn on something with a little more brains than a mackerel.

He slipped past trolls that smelled of death- dry death, nothing like the wet rotting of Lordaeron- and skirted a naga encampment with a few quiet words of encouragement to his trustier-than-expected steed- but the Bloodscalps meant to have their due. He felt his prayers dry up in his throat, and he knew they would take what they wanted from right at the base of his neck if not for some sort of divine intervention.

## Divine Intervention

Lucas Divine was a handsome young rogue with shiny auburn hair that spilled around his leather-armored shoulders, framing a gorgeous, pearly smile and the most arresting hazel eyes that Scooter had ever seen. Like a wildcat he slipped out of the canopy and opened up the first among the Bloodscalp scouting party from throat to belly in one long red diagonal swish. The others raised their axes to strike, expecting their leader to rally, but when his guts fell loosely onto the ancient stone road, they turned tail and scattered.

Scooter gaped at him, suddenly aware of his browning teeth and sunken, glowing eyes. He was more a monster than the trolls, was he next? Could he die from something like that? He had no idea. The stakes had never been quite so high before.

Lucas gave Scooter a long look- and his horse a longer look. Of the two, the latter was more dangerous, and with no sign of useful innards to spill.

"I'm here to fish," Scooter declared. His voice was so much older than he remembered. The warmth had gone from it, replaced with nothing but dour purpose. It was all he could think to say. He tipped his hat in thanks and gave his horse the spurs.

On any other day, the aspiring highwayman- who liked to play hero and then extract payment out of the subsequent guilt and obligation- would have stopped him. Dumbfounded as he was to hear that, though, all he could do was let them go.

## The Scalebane

Scooter's first Extravaganza left him with a goblin holding up his wrist and hollering with all the fever of an arena commentator. Over and over, the toothy little green fellow named him- "The Scalebane! Fish-Slayer! The Hook of Plenty! Today's champion and winner of the Extravaganza!

...Hey bub, what's your name?"

"Scooter."

***"Scoooooooter Scalebane!"***

So it had been declared, so it would be.

He didn't know if he appreciated the attention, but he appreciated the new pole. They lied when they called it Arcanite, but he couldn't blame them for not giving away the real thing on a first-timer, lest it be a fluke.

The sun was warm, and the stink was rising from the nets of fish he'd caught that morning. Not ten, not forty, not eighty.

Ninety-six. The waters here were teeming, and he had grown so used to the seldom-snapping sleepy fish of Tirisfal that he found himself hauling them out of the water left and right, his long-stretched patience rewarded over and over again.

He decided he would stay. Make a home here at the inn and on the beaches. Death had unshackled him from any obligation- to his family, to his career, to anyone- and in such a violent place, beset by trolls and naga, pirates and handsome tree-dwelling strangers, he supposed death would do him another favor.

If anyone got in the way of his permanent vacation, the jungle wouldn't miss them if he turned their brain to mush and threw them into the sea. He'd have to write a letter to the priests up north and see if they'd learned any more dangerous words. From now on he supposed he was the Scalebane, and the Scalebane was here to win tournaments and carry on his endless life in peace.

He didn't need anything else. This was good enough.