Chapter 76: The Echoes of the Lost Fleet

　　The restorative peace of the Cenarion Ward faded behind Kaelen, the humid breath of Feralas reclaiming him as he journeyed south. The jungle began to thin, the towering canopy giving way to a more open, marshy coastline. The air grew heavy with the tang of salt and the damp chill of sea mist. He had reached the shores of the Southfury River's delta, where the freshwater of the continent mingled with the endless, grey expanse of the Great Sea.

　　The landscape here was a graveyard of a different sort. The marshy ground was littered with the skeletal remains of ships, their timbers bleached grey by sun and salt, their hulls half-submerged in the murky water. This was the Lost Fleet, a testament to the perils of the sea and the ambitions of those who dared to cross it. Some wrecks were ancient, little more than outlines in the mud, while others looked more recent, their splintered masts pointing accusingly at the sky like broken fingers.

　　Kaelen picked his way through the debris, his hooves sinking into the soft, peaty soil. The silence was broken only by the cry of gulls and the soft lapping of water against the rotting wood. It was a place of quiet desolation, a monument to failure and the unforgiving nature of the sea.

　　As he rounded the barnacle-encrusted hull of a large galleon, he saw a flicker of movement. A figure was hunched over a small, smokeless fire on a relatively dry patch of ground, tending to a pot that smelled of fish and seaweed. It was a goblin, but unlike the frenetic merchants of Ratchet or the grim engineers of the Horde. This one was alone, his green skin weathered by the elements, his clothes patched and faded. He looked up as Kaelen approached, his large eyes narrowing not with fear, but with a weary, pragmatic assessment.

　　"Didn't expect to see company out here," the goblin rasped, his voice scratchy from disuse. "Unless you're a salvage competitor. If you are, I'll save you the trouble. The good stuff's been picked over for years. Nothing left but ghosts and soggy wood." He gestured vaguely at the surrounding wrecks.

　　Kaelen shook his head slowly, stopping a respectful distance away.

　　The goblin shrugged and went back to stirring his pot. "Suit yourself. Name's Jix. Been out here… a while." He didn't elaborate. After a moment, he looked up again, his gaze sharper. "You're not from around here. Not a sailor. Not a soldier." He took in Kaelen's form. "A long way from home, huh? Join the club."

　　He offered a bowl of the thin, fishy stew. It was a gesture of shared solitude, not hospitality. Kaelen accepted it with a nod. The food was simple, almost bland, but it was warm.

　　"Place gets to you after a while," Jix said, eating his own portion. "The silence. The ghosts. You start hearing things. Not just the wind in the rigging. I mean… other things." He pointed a bony finger toward the oldest, most decayed wreck, a ship that was little more than a dark shape in the mist. "That one there, the Sea Serpent. Sunk before my grand-sire was born. Sometimes, on foggy nights, you can hear 'em. The crew. Arguing, laughing… then screaming. Just echoes. Stuck in the salt and the wood."

　　He wasn't speaking with superstition, but with the matter-of-fact tone of a man reporting on the weather. "This whole coast is like that. Layers of stories, all of 'em ending badly. Orcish warships from the Second War, human traders who took a wrong turn, kaldorei vessels that got too close to the Maelstrom's pull." He finished his stew and tossed the bowl into the fire. "They all ended up here. A reminder that the sea doesn't care about your plans."

　　Kaelen looked out at the mournful landscape. It was another facet of the world's story—not of active conflict, but of quiet, inevitable loss. The ambitions of kings and warchiefs, the dreams of merchants and explorers, all came to rest in this silent, watery graveyard, reduced to food for crabs and a home for ghosts.

　　Jix stood up, brushing sand from his trousers. "Well, good luck to you, whatever you're looking for. Hope it's not at the bottom of the sea." He gave a short, barking laugh that held no humor. He then turned and scrambled up onto the deck of a nearby wreck, disappearing into its shadowy interior, leaving Kaelen alone with the echoes.

　　Kaelen remained for a time, listening. He heard the gulls, the water, the wind. And beneath it all, he thought he could hear it—a faint, distant whisper of shouts and snapping sails, the ghostly resonance of countless journeys cut short. It was a chronicle of failure, a silent, salt-cured counterpoint to the tales of glory and conquest told elsewhere. The world was not just shaped by victories and defeats in battle, but by the countless, unrecorded tragedies of those who simply tried to cross from one shore to another and failed. He left the graveyard of ships behind, the taste of salt and loss lingering on his tongue, another layer of understanding settling into his soul. The sea was not a barrier; it was a final, impartial judge.