Spetz Hardsprocket

You may have seen him around, perhaps in passing or at one of his many live shows, but herein are the day to day events of your favorite Goblin!

[hardsprocket]

Shadows in the Unseeming – Part III

UNDERMINE – EASTERN TRANSFER YARD

The catwalk groaned under the weight of heavy crates being moved far below. A dozen goblin mooks hauled cargo, oblivious to the shadow moving above them.

Spetz wasn’t hiding this time.

When the hooded woman stepped into the glow of the refinery lamps, she froze. Her cybernetic eye whirred almost imperceptibly, narrowing in on him.

“You’ve changed,” she said flatly.

“Not really,” Spetz replied, voice carrying too easily in the iron rafters. “Just stopped pretending I haven’t been sizing you up, rearranged some priorities.”

Her hand twitched toward her weapon. She didn’t see the flash until the first mook below dropped, a silent bolt buried between his eyes. The others didn’t even get the chance to scream before Spetz’s second and third shots dropped them.

By the time she looked back at him, his rifle was gone, and he was closing the distance with a blade in each hand.

THE THIRD ENCOUNTER

Her first swing came fast — a metal fist aimed to crush his skull. He didn’t block it. He ducked under, letting the blow clang into the railing, and rammed his knee into the joint of her cybernetic leg hard enough to make sparks burst from the plating.

“You’re slower when you lead with that,” he growled, twisting her arm until the servos whined. She wrenched free, coming in low, but he slammed the butt of his knife into her jaw. Her hood fell back. Black Blood circuitry glimmered in the light, pulsing like a heartbeat.

“Last time you were holding back.” She spat

“Last time, I thought ya might be useful alive,” he said, voice cold as steel. “Now I just need to know how long ya can keep up before I take ya apart.”

She lashed out, but he was already behind her, slashing deep into the cabling at her spine. She screamed — a mix of pain and rage — and spun with blinding speed. Her blade carved a shallow groove into his shoulder, but he didn’t even flinch.

“Better,” he said. “Now make me work for it.”

He drove her backward with relentless precision, each strike aimed to cripple — knees, wrists, throat. The clang of metal on metal echoed in the smoke until, finally, she managed to disengage with a burst from her leg boosters, vaulting over the railing.

He didn’t chase. He just watched her vanish into the haze below, blood trickling down his arm, breathing slow and steady.

This time, she’d be the one losing sleep.

[hardsprocket]

Shadows in the Unseeming – Part II

SECTOR 12 TRAMWAY – UNDERMINE

04:02 local – Stability: questionable.

The tram cart rattled along the upper rails, dipping and swaying over the yawning cavern below. Spetz sat in the rear, hood drawn low, eyes half-lidded but tracking every shadow. His leg throbbed under the makeshift bandage—burn, cut, maybe both—but it was the way it pulsed that kept his attention.

Black Blood injuries didn’t behave like normal wounds. They hummed. He forced the thought down, anchoring himself to the rails’ screech. Each vibration was a lifeline—keep your mind here, not in there.

Still, her image kept intruding. The tilt of her head when she first saw him. The mechanical ripple beneath her skin. The look of recognition she had no right to wear. And in the background, somewhere deeper, the memory of the Darkmoon Faire’s carousel music drifting through rain. Brynzi’s face lit by lantern glow, her voice low and sharp after he’d said that thing. The way she’d gone pale and walked away fast, pulling her hood up before the words could settle.

BIG BOMBS – FRONT SHOWROOM

06:49 local

The showroom was waking up for the day—enchanted mirrors warming their glow, aroma diffusers puffing out lavender and something citrusy. Bottles of “Volcanic Glow Serum” gleamed under spell-light, rows aligned with goblin precision. Brynzi leaned against the counter in a scarlet dressing gown, scribbling notes on a clipboard and sipping coffee that could have melted steel. She looked up the moment Spetz walked in, her gaze skating from his mussed hair to the soot on his collar.

“You’ve been somewhere that doesn’t sell lipstick,” she said. “And judging by your limp, it wasn’t a spa.”

Spetz dropped a dented metal fragment onto the counter. About the size of a coin, etched with faint runes, edges scorched.

Brynzi raised a brow. “That… is not a sample jar.”

“Picked it up in Sector 14,” he said, voice flat.

Her pen stilled. “And why would you be—”

“Somebody’s moving material that shouldn’t be moving. Something old. Heavy.” His tone was vague, but the pause between words left space for her to fill in the blanks.

She tapped the fragment with her nail. “Old like antique? Or old like ‘don’t let it touch your skin without a will prepared’?”

He didn’t answer—just glanced at her over the rim of his hood, the same way he had under the Darkmoon tents two nights ago, before her hands trembled and she left without another word.

Brynzi looked away first. “You’re going to tell me eventually.”

“Maybe,” he said. “If it doesn’t find you first.”

NIGHT – UNDERMINE REFINERY, SECTOR 14

The trail led him to a condemned freight lift, creaking down into the belly of Undermine where air pressure pressed like a hand against his chest.

The chamber below was a refinery—tanks ringed with stabilizing Kaja’mite, thick pipes drawing tar-black ichor from a fissure in the rock. Workers in filtered masks moved in tight formation, guarded by armed mooks.

And then there was her.

She stood on a catwalk above the operation, the overhead lights catching the metallic contours of her frame. Even from this distance, Spetz saw the unnatural way the plating flexed over her shoulders.

He leveled his rifle. She looked straight at him. Smiled.

CLOSE QUARTERS – SECTOR 14 FIGHT

The refinery lights flickered, and then she was there, leaping down from the catwalk in a burst of sparks. Her landing made the decking groan.

“You’ve been close to the source,” she murmured, voice like oil on glass. “I can smell it on you.”

He didn’t answer—just pivoted, hooking the butt of his rifle into her abdomen, then drawing his blade for a low slash. Steel scraped against plating, sending a shower of sparks. Her counter was fast—inhuman—cybernetic arm whipping across and catching him in the ribs, knocking him into a railing. Smoke and steam hissed from ruptured pipes, the air turning hot and slick. She pressed the attack, each strike a precise blend of martial discipline and raw machine power. Spetz fought to keep the blows glancing, his strikes sharp but never lethal—he still needed answers. For a heartbeat, they locked eyes. He saw the Black Blood’s sheen ripple under her skin, warping in patterns no sane mind should try to follow.

Then she vanished into the steam. He limped away through the cargo tunnels, pocket heavy with the metal fragment, leg wound burning like it was alive. Her voice still lingered in his head.

“Next time, you won’t leave.”

And behind it, the carousel music again, faint and warped—just enough to remind him of Brynzi’s face when he’d said the words about her daughter he could never take back.

[hardsprocket]

Warped Personalities

UNDERMINE – ZONE 17: BLACKWASH CORRIDOR

Time: 03:18 local. Air Quality: Weaponizable. Surface Stability: 61%

Spetz Hardsprocket exhaled slowly, watching his breath evaporate in the chemical fog that seeped through the ruins of Blackwash Corridor. Beneath his boots, the metal groaned—a symphony of rusted bolts and ancient pressure systems, built by madmen and maintained by worse.

Officially, the area was “condemned.” Unofficially, it had become the testing ground for a faction that should have died out by now: Darkfuse Solutions.

Their logo had changed. Their intent hadn’t.

This wasn’t industrial innovation. This was mad science wrapped in market strategy.

MISSION BRIEF (Redacted):

He found the drop point behind a ruined gear mill. Old crates, marked for detonation, but hollow. He thumbed open a sealed panel and retrieved a coded tablet. For a moment, his thoughts drifted to The Darkmoon Faire, and to her. This is why he accepted this assignment, he needed to get away. After that night, he decided to stick with what he knew. He shook the encounter with Brynzi from his mind as best he could, and looked to the tablet.

Mission Addendum: Surveillance confirms Blackblood experimentation active. Terminate local leadership if possible. Unknown entity observed. Approach with extreme caution.

"Typical," Spetz muttered. "SI:7 doesn’ send flowers no more. Jus' pos'-mortems."

Agency: SI:7 Asset: Spetz Hardsprocket Objective: Investigate reports of stabilized Black Blood experiments in Undermine. Notable Intel: Kaja’mite may be used to render Black Blood manipulable. Likely Darkfuse involvement. Warning: Prolonged exposure to Black Blood leads to mental dissociation, psychotic fractures, and contact with Unseeming Frequencies.

Spetz closed the SI:7 report.

Most goblins laughed at whispers of the Unseeming—that bizarre realm “just behind the eyes.” But Spetz had seen enough. Operatives who stared into corrupted ore and came back speaking backwards. Shadows that bent the wrong way. Machines that hummed in frequencies that caused nosebleeds and dreams that weren't his.

Now, here he was. Assigned to clean up yet another mess that had clawed its way up from the deep.

BLACKFUSE FOUNDATION SITE – REPURPOSED LAB COMPLEX

Through his sniper scope, Spetz watched mooks moving crates laced with lead and arcane filaments—Black Blood containment. Nearby, sawblade drones hovered in standby mode, crimson optics flickering like restless eyes.

The hiss of leaking coolant and the clatter of half-dead machinery made up the lullaby of Undermine’s forgotten sector. Spetz Hardsprocket moved through the steam and stench like a ghost in matte black. The sensor nodes on his goggles pulsed silently with infrared signatures—two mooks by the junk turbine, one lounging, the other asleep. Child’s play. -One, two, three down.-

This wasn't his usual assignment.

Normally, Spetz operated with clean intel, a plan, and an exit. But this mission? It was black-inked and blood-washed. Not even his handler at SI:7 could get clear answers from the brass. HIs attention was suddenly drawn..

But it wasn’t the tech that held his attention.

It was her.

A hooded goblin woman moved between the drones, issuing no orders, carrying no tools. Yet, her presence commanded silence. Not out of fear. Out of something deeper. Something wrong.

She wasn’t in the reports. No files. No aliases. No tags.

And that made her dangerous.

Spetz tracked her movements. Stealth drones. Optic amplifiers. None of it helped. The closer he got, the more off everything became. Patterns failed. Logic buckled. Once, he reviewed six hours of footage only to realize he had watched the same five-minute loop stitched into different times.

He followed her for days, never getting close enough to engage. Every time he thought he had her cornered, she would vanish—through steam vents, into shadows, sometimes simply gone. She wasn’t using standard stealth tech, that much was certain.

And the strangest thing?

She looked right at him! More than once!

She was warping the Unseeming field.

Intentionally or not, she was living inside the distortion.

NIGHT 5 – CONTACT

He cornered her in an abandoned reactor shaft.

She didn’t run.

Her cloak hissed open like a dying breath, revealing a body riddled with Black Blood augmentation—dark chrome plating fused to her flesh by Kaja’mite nodes that glowed like twitching stars. Her right eye flared crimson; the left pulsed violet with shifting tech unknown.

She was still beautiful, typical Spetz.

But her beauty was the kind that stared back at you when you dreamt of drowning in oil.

"You finally caught up," she said. Her voice wasn’t entirely hers. It had a chorus, like something just behind her words was speaking through them.

Spetz didn’t answer. He drew his blade and fired three scatterbolts. She moved like fluid steel—two bolts missed, the third embedded in her shoulder.

She didn’t even blink.

The fight was brutal. Spetz used every trick: flashstep daggers, collapsible explosives, magnetic pulse flares. She absorbed, countered, anticipated. Like she’d fought him before in a dream neither of them could remember.

He managed to drive a stiletto into the seam behind her right arm, triggering a magnetic short that dropped her to one knee.

But she laughed. And when she looked up—her eyes were wrong.

“You’ve seen it, haven’t you?” she asked. “Just a glimpse. The Unseeming. That shimmer behind the static. The truth hiding in the hum of reality.”

She rose. The wound on her shoulder smoked—and began to heal.

Black Blood, stabilized.

Living.

Thinking.

He primed an escape charge and blew the upper walkway, burying her under tons of collapsed scaffolding and irradiated gear rot. The concussion knocked him sideways. His mask cracked. Blood leaked into his goggles.

He didn’t wait to confirm the kill.

He didn’t want to know if she was still smiling.

AFTER-ACTION REPORT – CLASSIFIED

Operative: Spetz Hardsprocket Location: Undermine, Zone 17 Mission Status: Partial Failure Notable Encounter: Unknown female goblin subject, highly augmented with Kaja'mite-stabilized Black Blood. Cybernetics fused with Old God matter. Exhibits signs of Unseeming resonance control. Dangerous. Possibly sentient vector of contamination.

Recommendations:

Do not engage again without anti-Unseeming protocols.

Blackfuse—now Darkfuse—is weaponizing the minds of the damned.

The Unseeming is not superstition. It is bleeding into our world.

Spetz limped into his hidden tram rig beneath Sector 7G, the wound in his leg burning cold.

The deeper he’d gone into Undermine, the clearer it became: this wasn’t about weapons. It wasn’t even about power.

It was about perception. What lies behind the veil of the mind. And what happens when someone tears it wide open.

He closed his eyes. For a moment, he saw her face—not mechanical, not corrupted. Just… sad.

Then it flickered. Warped. And grinned.

“We’ll meet again,” the distortion whispered in his skull. “Next time, maybe you’ll see.”

[TO BE CONTINUED]

[hardsprocket]

“Big Bombs, Bigger Secrets”

The wooden bridge across from the Wyvern’s Tail creaked softly under Spetz’s boots as he leaned against the railing, arms folded, head tilted slightly to the side like he wasn’t dissecting the scene around him with trained, surgical precision. He didn’t move, but his mind was already ten steps ahead—tracking exits, angles, shadows. Muscle memory.

He wasn’t supposed to be that guy anymore.

Brynzi stood a few feet away, her heels angled awkwardly—too sharp to be casual, too wobbly to be confident. Her usual glitter-storm aura had dimmed. Makeup still flawless, hair frazzled a bit, but she wasn’t herself. Spetz noticed the little things—how her fingers twitched at the her dress, how she didn’t mention Alfie once in passing as typical. Nor was she around.

“Something hit them. Hard. She won’t say it, won’t trust me with it... yet.”

And she shouldn’t.

Not really.

No one in Big Bombs knew what Spetz Hardsprocket truly was. Not Sal, the promoter who recently became quieter and quieter, hmm, suspiciously quiet. Not Dina, the sharp-tongued beautician who could turn hairpins into lethal weapons. Not even Klixx, her musclebound boyfriend who once headbutted an ogre unconscious. Wexil, who was new to him, he didn’t get a read on him yet, but damn that name was familiar. He’d know soon.

And certainly not Brynzi.

“DJ Spetz,” he smirked behind the mask of charm. “Brand face. Walks runways. Spins beats. Talks fast.”

But behind the club lights and brand drops, behind the tactical shades and flashy grins—Spetz was still an agent of SI:7.

A master assassin. One of the best.

“They think I’m in this for the glam. The brand deals. The influence.”
“I got all dat, Truth is… I’m in this because someone made them scared. And if she won’t tell me who…”

He’ll find out himself.

Nightfall – Hillsbrad Foothills

A cold wind cut across the treetops as Spetz adjusted the scope of his suppressed sniper rifle. He lay prone across the branch of an ancient tree, perfectly still.

Target: Marnik Blazecoil — Ex-goblin chemist, recently seen meeting with a Forsaken apothecary who had a deep interest in “chemical market disruptions.” A week ago, Marnik tried to acquire a proprietary Big Bombs formula for one of Vixens perfume products on the black market.

Vix..damn he’s seen her vibe a thousand times, but she owned it better than the rest.

Marnik didn’t get what he was after.

“But tha fact he tried tells me everythin’.”

Below, Marnik shuffled out of the ruined farmhouse, cloak pulled tight around his wiry frame. He paused to light a cigar.

PFFT.

One shot. No sound. The cigar dropped before the flame even caught.

Spetz didn’t stick around.

Tanaris – Midnight

Dust clung to the wind as Spetz stalked across the rooftop of a Gadgetzan warehouse. Inside: crates marked with counterfeit Big Bombs logos, all full of sabotaged products—explosive blush powder, acidic eyeliner.

“Not sloppy. Dis is targeted. Organized.”

He slid down a rope line and moved through the shadows, katana in hand. The blade hissed from its sheath like a whisper of death.

Seven smugglers. Silent takedowns. Precise. Not one scream.

"Leave no echoes. Only fear."

At the end of it, he found a ledger stamped with the insignia of the Steamwheedle Cartel. And a list of names—including Alfinea. There was no way to be certain this was the same incident, but it was ill news.

“This wasn’t just business. This was personal.”

Back in Undermine – Three Weeks Later

Spetz strolled through the back courtyard of Big Bombs HQ, still in character: smooth, cocky, untouchable. A soft synth track bumped from the DJ booth he'd soon return to. Dina waved. Sal barked some promotion about their new talent, and Klixx grunted and nodded, cracking a smile with more than a couple missing teeth. Business as usual.

But Brynzi?

She stood on the balcony, arms crossed, watching him through mirrored shades. Still unreadable. Still stunning.

Spetz tilted his head, smirked.

“Looking radiant, Boss. Miss me?”

“You're never gone long enough to miss, Spetz,” she said flatly.

“Hurts,” he said, placing a hand over his chest. “Right here. Deep.” Then, eyes narrowing slightly, voice lowering just enough to make her pause: “You holding up?”

She hesitated.

That was new.

“I’m fine,” she said. Too fast. Then added, “You’ve been… busy?”

He just winked. “What can I say? I multitask. DJ, hype man… occasional vigilante.”

Close enough to the truth to burn… but not enough to confirm.
She’s suspicious, alright. And smart enough to leave it alone. For now.

And damn, even in her guarded silence, her tension-wrapped elegance—he wanted to drop it all and just be someone simple. In truth, we was starting to admire her because of the confidence and ease of presence and conversation, and he cared little for the fame, fortune, and brand. He didn’t need or want it. Besides, he could never guarantee longevity, the danger would never allow it no matter how hard he’d try. You’re never out, even when you’re out, and it would take one in a billion to understand that.

“Don’ be stupid. You’re their Hype man an’ DJ. It’s what she hired ya for. Reel it in.”

He tipped an imaginary hat. “Back ta work, den. Gotta prep tha next show.”

She didn’t stop him. But she didn’t look away either.

Later that night – Southfury Watershed

Spetz crouched at the edge of a moonlit outcropping, watching another name from the cartel list. The katana gleamed beside him. The rifle was loaded. One more potential tie to what happened. He didn’t know, so he took everything as a threat. One more threat to the Big Bombs empire.

"They’ll never touch them again."
"They don’ need to know what I do. They just need to feel safe. Powerful. Untouchable."

That was his job beneath the DJ.

Because Spetz Hardsprocket didn’t just hype the brand.

He protected it.
Silently.
Ruthlessly.
Professionally.

And always in the shadows.

[hardsprocket]

Beats, Blades, and Black Ops, an introduction.

In the neon haze of Gadgetzan’s nightlife, few goblins shined brighter than Spetz.

By day, he was all flash—slick black suit, polished boots, and a voice so smooth it could sell sand in Silithus. By dusk, the suit vanished, replaced by a blackout hoodie and a pair of oversized headphones. Spetz spun electrified beats for a crowd of dancing goblins, trolls, and the occasional undercover worgen with glowsticks.

“Let tha bass drop harder dan a mech in a scrapyard!” he'd shout, the crowd erupting as magical lights burst overhead.

But when the party ended and the last drink was poured, Spetz slipped away into the shadows.

The hoodie stayed on—but the weapons came out, and the armor overlaid his torso.

Behind the beats and bravado, Spetz was an elite operative of SI:7, Stormwind’s shadowy intelligence agency. Few in the Alliance suspected a goblin was on their payroll, let alone one who spun records by moonlight and daggers by midnight. What better disguise than wealth and fame right?

His next mission? Terminate Grizzo Vexgrind, a ruthless goblin cartel boss who'd been funneling Black Blood weapons into enemy hands through a network of rogue smugglers and bloodthirsty mercs. SI:7 had tried spies. They vanished. They tried bribes. Vexgrind laughed.

So they sent Spetz.

Perched atop a crumbling ziggurat outside the cartel compound, Spetz assembled his high-caliber sniper rifle in silence. The wind howled. Steam vents hissed. In his earpiece, the handler whispered, “Green light. No witnesses.”

Through the scope, Spetz saw Vexgrind in a makeshift war room—arms waving, shouting orders, tossing crates of enchanted tech onto wagons bound for who-knows-where. Too many guards for a clean shot.

That’s when Spetz smiled.

He slid down the back of the ruin and crept through the ravine. His black armor blended with the rock, the only sound a soft clink from the combat knives strapped to his thighs.

He waited until two goblin guards were laughing over a dice game, then slipped behind them—one quick twist each. No alarms.

Inside the compound, he moved like smoke—dodging spotlights, bypassing arcane tripwires, and planting charges on ammo crates for later.

Then, he was in the war room.

Vexgrind blinked. “What the—Spetz?! Aren’t you that DJ—”

“Yeah,” Spetz said, flicking a switch on his belt. “An’ ta answer ya next two questions, yea, I’m good with my hands, an’ no, I ain’ takin’ requests tanight.”

The lights went out.

What followed was chaos—blades flashing, sparks flying, shouts cut short. When the backup lights flared to life, Vexgrind was alone, surrounded by dead guards and destruction. He reached for a pistol—only to find a knife embedded in the table inches from his hand, a note pinned beneath:

“SI:7 sends their regards. - Spetz”

His blood ran cold, and then down his front as the life was bled from him. One could say it was over the top, but Spetz was not ALWAYS subtle, especially when a message had to be left.

Outside, explosions rocked the compound as Spetz melted into the dunes, mission complete, but before he called it, he took his blade and carved a mark into his own chest, one more of many. “Ah..always tickles a bit.” He muttered.

By the next night, DJ Spetz was back on stage in Booty Bay, hoodied up, bass pumping, and fans chanting his name.

No one suspected a thing.

Because in a world of war, shadow, and gold—Spetz always played both sides of the beat.