Where? Stormwind Canals

Have I got a whale of a tale for ya.  It ain’t no fish story either.  More of a boot story really.  You see, down in the canals of Stormwind city there are a pair of young men – Billy and Adam.  Two young boys who seem the same as any of the other children running about Stormwind.  They’re young, cheerful and enjoy their fishing.  However, if you follow these two around you’ll quickly notice somethings amiss.  Either Billy is a pathological liar or Adam is the most skeptical grade schooler I’ve ever seen.

Billy likes to tell fishing stories.  Most are akin to the stories you hear all the time about fishing.  You know, “I caught one THIS big” or “It was the catch of the lifetime and it got away from me.”  Or something like that.  I don’t fish much.  I suck at it in real life.  Don’t judge me.  Anyway, Billy’s stories tend to have a grain of truth in them.  A golden fish that grants 3 wishes, a fish big enough to eat a man whole, or fish that walk on land and hunt – all have a bit of something that’s actually in the game somewhere.  I haven’t the slightest clue how he actually knows these things, the only time he’s apparently been away from Stormwind was when he was at camp (and caught a fish bigger than he was!) and if camp is teaching kids about giant monster fish, it’s come a long way since singing the ‘Cat Came Back’ and eating Lunchables.  The only hint we ever get to where he might have learned all this is that he will sometimes mention his father, who is never named or seen, and since Billy has no last name in the game, fat chance trying to track him down in the city registry.

Heck the only person in the world that would have some of this weird esoteric knowledge of fishing (and didn’t have internet access and knowledge of WoWwiki or WoWhead) would be Nat Pagle.  That creepy fisherman who lives in some manner of self-appointed exile on an island in Dustwallow Marsh.  Could he be Billy’s father?  Sure.  Why not.  Then again any adult human male could be Billy’s father.  Heck there’s another hermit fishing dude off in the corner of Westfall.  The only reason Nat could even be considered for speculation for Billy’s dad is that Nat is probably the only well known fisherman who could possibly know about things like Tethyr or a mystical “golden fish” that could grant wishes (To be fair, Mr. Pinchy does drop in the same waters that Golden Darters swim in.) I mean we are talking about the man who knew the whereabouts of the Ashbringer (The Ashbringer…  the Ashbriner…  there I did for you) way before Naxxramas arrived in Vanilla. Even the Shendralar learned about it because of Nat Pagle’s book.  So maybe he is Billy’s real father.

That is unless Adam knows something that we don’t.  See, Billy’s friend Adam is eternally chained to Billy’s side.  He’s heard every one of these stories a few hundred times already and he’s clearly not impressed.  In fact, he doesn’t even believe Billy.  Even worse, Billy’s non stop mouth seems to be constantly scaring the fish in the canals off so Adam can’t catch anything.  To be fair, if I were Adam, they would have found Billy’s body in the canals ages ago with a fishing pole through him (We at OddCraft do not condone child murder.  We do however find poetic justice hilarious.)  I might wager that since these two are constantly hanging out that they probably know each other, and I’m assuming they know each other’s parents.  The fact that Adam isn’t willing to believe that Billy could catch a boot, let alone what Billy’s Dad supposedly told him speaks pretty loudly to the idea that Billy’s father is not Nat Pagle, Billy is just an idiot who happens to coincidentally be correct.

Then again, I suppose that they both could be orphans.  Which would explain Adam’s frustrations, and bring up a lot of questions about Billy’s mental health.  After all, walking talking fish on land is just a myth…  Like yetis… or Dragons.

Poor poor insane Billy.