Monthly Archives: April 2012
The Last Stands of Sylvanas
So, a little late, I know, but here it is, this week’s second (belated Thursday) installment of EPIC VERSE in Garrosh’s Poetry Challenge! Featuring the return of everyone’s favorite Argent Gossip Girl, Argent Confessor Paletress. As always, comment away with suggestions and idea for next week’s MASTERPIECES.
Hi again,
Garrosh, friend.
Hope you’re doing fine.
What brings you
Here anew?
I see that you brought wine.
Hold on, now.
I know how
You made me talk last time.
I’m still mad
At how bad
I spilled my guts (in rhyme!).
I refuse!
’Twas with booze
You got me to tell.
Whatcha got?
Jello shots?
Oh, well, what the hell.
* * * * *
The Dark Lady passed through here,
In the Lich King’s final year.
Sought advice
Once or twice
From – guess who – truly yours.
From our talks we grew aware
Of just how much, in fact, we share,
Like our urge
To purge the Scourge.
(And sometimes dress like whores.)
Still her memories recur
Of life as Ranger Windrunner,
When the doom
Of Silvermoon
Left all appearing lost.
Last defender, there she stood;
Fight with her last breath she would.
Pain was fine:
Buy them time
She would at any cost.
There she took her final breath;
They raised a banshee in undeath –
Could not kill
Her iron will:
As strong now as it had been.
Summoned up her fallen brothers,
Lordaeron’s lost souls, and others,
Bore their pain,
Broke their chains,
And hacked the Lich King’s admin.
Years have passed and foes have died,
Fruitlessly Sylvanas tried
To soothe chagrin
For zombie kin
From all the blows they’d taken.
Cursed and scorned and plagued with doubt –
Damn the world that shut them out!
In her care
Her children there
Would never be forsaken.
When at last the Lich King fell,
Banished to the blackest hell,
Off alone
To Frozne Throne
Sylvanas made her trek.
Arthas’ final demise
She would confirm with her own eyes;
And so higher
To the spire
She ventured up to check.
It was true; her foe was gone;
His broken corpse she spat upon,
But the hole
In her soul:
It felt an endless void.
For so long her single thought
Was bringing Menethil to naught;
Now the task
Was done at last
And she was unemployed.
All her past she dwelled upon,
Shining elvish future gone,
Time she slept:
Off she lept
And fell toward deadly spikes.
But before she fell to night,
Self-impaled on saronite,
Near would sing
Val’kyr wings
And stave off the last strike.
Val’kyr visions was she granted,
Of a future disenchanted:
Her adored
By the Horde
Were marshaled out as fodder.
Unprotected, now she’d seen,
Left without their Banshee Queen,
With a haste
Went to waste
Before worgen marauders.
Her Forsaken children, cherished:
She could not leave them to perish.
Made a deal,
And, surreal,
Returned to her unlife.
Bound now to the scheming Val’kyr,
Brought them to her home locale here,
To begin
To watch her kin
And guard them from the strife.
I remember when we spoke,
The elf who bent but never broke,
How she knew
What she’d do
Would carry heavy cost.
For her people to stay whole,
Someone had to pay their soul:
No defers;
’Twould be hers –
It was already lost.
All her elvish life she’d said
She’d fight to wipe out the undead;
Tables turned:
Living spurned:
Now she would forswear it.
No more kindred’s anguished cries;
Not one more, on her watch, dies.
Tortured, pained,
Conscience stained:
For them, she will bear it.
* * * * *
Hey, hold on!
Liquor’s gone?
Then the story’s done!
Go restock;
That would rock.
And then we’ll have more fun.
One last dose,
One last toast
To Sylvanas’ sorrow.
Not undead,
But man, my head:
I’ll pay for this tomorrow.
No, you wag,
No Jaina gag.
No more lurid defection.
(Although, she’d seen
The Banshee Queen
In the Halls of Reflection…)
EPIC VERSE!
Mini-extension?
Just a very quick note about the latest installment in Garrosh’s Poetry Challenge — for those of you who’ve been following religiously (AND THAT WOULD BE ALL OF YOU AMIRITE?), you know that I’ve committed to posting a new EPIC VERSE based on reader requests every Tuesday and Thursday in the month of April.
I’m just making this post to hedge my bets, because holy geez it’s been a hectic day, and I still have a ton that needs to get done tonight (something about a rash of sabotage to the demolishers up by the north gate, and some kind of snafu with the maintenance crew scheduling, and Eitrigg thinking Gallywix has gotten his green little paws into the demo parts requisitions and is skimming something off the top somehow, like WTF), so I may not have enough time to finish up my current MASTERPIECE to post tonight. If not, you can count on it being posted Friday, so rest assured you won’t be missing out on your second EPIC VERSE of the week! YOU CAN BREATHE EASY NOW, YOU CAN KNOCK OFF ALL THE WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH.
Orc Lemon Squares
Today’s entry for Garrosh’s Poetry Challenge! This one is inspired by a repeated suggestion from the last few days, involving my Greatmother’s famous (previously secret) recipe, and the meddling tree who publicized it and forced me to institute whole new culinary policies a while back. Remember to make suggestions for next time in your comments!
Edenvale –
She’s a tree.
Edenvale –
Don’t you see?
Edenvale’s a tree,
I see.
Edenvale,
She had a scare –
She saw Garrosh
Over there.
“Oh no! Garrosh!”
Cried the tree.
“Please don’t kill me!
Let me be!
I’m your friend!
Yes! I swear!
Please don’t kill me,
Garrosh-There!”
“Don’t you fret
Your sappy head!
I won’t kill you,”
Garrosh said.
“No? You won’t?”
“Oh no,” he said.
“Or you already
Would be dead!”
“Oh,” she said,
The silly tree.
“Then, what do you want
With me?”
He came closer,
Garrosh-There.
And he said,
“I’m here to share.”
“Here to share,
Garrosh-There?”
“Here to share,”
Said Garrosh-There.
“Are you okay?”
Asked the tree.
“That doesn’t sound like you,”
Said she.
“Yeah, I know.
It kind of sucks.
But I figure,
What the fuck.
Greatmother says
I should share –
I should share
Her lemon squares.
So since Greatmother
Says to share,
I will try,”
Said Garrosh-There.
“So,” he said,
And gave a glare,
“Would you like
Some lemon squares?”
Edenvale looked nervous,
True.
She didn’t know
Quite what to do.
“Oh,” she said,
And held her nose.
“I really don’t want
To impose.”
“No, it’s fine,
They must be eaten.
Here, try one.
Or you’ll get beaten.”
“No, that’s okay,
None for me.”
“What’s the problem,
Stupid tree?”
“Well,” she said
To Garrosh-There.
“Well,” she said,
And looked quite scared.
“I do not like
Orc lemon squares.
I do not like them,
Garrosh-There.”
“Would you like them
Here or there?”
“I would not like them
Here or there.
I would not like them
Anywhere.
I do not like
Orc lemon squares.
I do not like them,
Garrosh-There.”
“Would you like them
In your home?
Would you like them
With a gnome?”
“I would not like them
In my home.
I would not like them
With a gnome.
I do not like them
Here or there.
I do not like them
Anywhere.
I do not like
Orc lemon squares.
I do not like them,
Garrosh-There.”
“Would you eat them
On a boat?
With a Naaru
Or space-goat?”
“I would not eat them
On a boat.
I’d simply give them
To the goat.
I do not want them
In my home.
I will not try them
With a gnome.
I do not want them
Here or there.
I do not want them
Anywhere.
I just don’t like
Orc lemon squares.
I just don’t like them,
Garrosh-There!”
“Would you, could you,
Might, may, will,
Try them up
In Teldrassil?”
“I would not, could not eat them there!
In Teldrassil, or anywhere!
I do not want them on a boat.
I will not share with some space-goat.
I do not want them in my home.
I do not want them with a gnome.
I do not want them here or there,
I do not want them anywhere!
I do not like orc lemon squares!
I do not like them, Garrosh-There!”
“How about
A doggy bag?
Served by Utvoch
And Dontrag?”
“Enough already!”
Cried the tree.
“Garrosh-There,
You let me be!”
“Would you try them
On the moon?
With Cenarius
And Mylune?”
“No, I would not
On the moon!
Even if they brought
Elune!”
“Would you try them,
Just once, ever,
Up amid
The Twisted Nether?”
“No! No! Not in the Nether!
I do not want to try them, ever!
Not in a bag! Not on the moon!
Not with Dontrag or with Mylune!
Not on a boat! Not in my home!
Not with a goat! Not with a gnome!
I will not try them here or there!
I do not want them ANYWHERE!
I do not like orc lemon squares!
I just don’t like them, Garrosh-There!”
“You don’t like them.
So you say.
Try them! Try them
And you may.
Try them and you may,
I say.”
“Garrosh, dammit!
Fine, at last.
I’ll try them –
Just get off my ass.
Say…
I like orc lemon squares!
I do! I like them, Garrosh-There!
And I would eat them in my home!
And I would eat them with a gnome!
And I would have them on a boat,
And I would share with a space-goat!
I would eat them to my fill
All the way to Teldrassil!
I would take a doggy bag
(But spare me Utvoch and Dontrag)!
I would eat them on the moon,
With Cenarius and Mylune!
Yes, I will eat them here and there!
Oh, I would eat them anywhere!
I do so love
Orc lemon squares!
Thank you,
Thank you,
Garrosh-There.”
“See, I told you,”
Garrosh said.
“Plus you’re lucky
You’re not dead.”
“They’re so good!
So good, I say!
I might post them!
Yes I may!
I’ll post them on my blog,
I say!”
“Hold on a minute,
Silly tree.
That’s my Greatmother’s
Recipe.
Her recipe,
You silly tree.
We keep it
In the family!”
“But oh, they’re so good,
Garrosh-There!
They’re just too yummy
Not to share!
I’m sure your Greatmother
Won’t care!
I’ll spread her secret
Everywhere!
Now don’t get mad,
Garrosh! Relax!”
But he had gone
To get his axe.
EPIC VERSE!
Noblegarden
Say what you want about this goofy-ass holiday, but it’s sure good for one thing: indulging my sweet tooth. Bring on the chocolate eggs! Granted, I’m not sure I’m clear on whether they came from chocolate chickens or something (but holy shit would Legionnaire Sanders ever make a killing from THAT), or how the rabbits come into the picture. All I know is for a week or so we’ve got candy coming out of the woodwork.
Not to mention for a few days everybody goes apeshit and starts using the frigging chocolate eggs for CURRENCY. I remember noticing last year people were going nuts rounding up the eggs to trade in for pet rabbits, so this year I’ve come prepared. Because, you know what, rabbits AREN’T FUCKING HARD TO GET. So leading up to the holiday this year, I went out and caught a few rabbits, which by the way ARE HOPPING AROUND LITERALLY EVERYWHERE, so I don’t know why people feel like they need to BUY them, but whatever. Anyway, I caught a few rabbits a while ago, and rabbits being rabbits, that means that now I’ve got about a thousand of the bouncy buggers on hand. So, a hundred eggs for your pet? Pfft…75 here! Let the chocolate-egg-earning undercutting begin!
Ode to Gorehowl
Yeah, I know I’m getting this one in a little late, but I had a busy day today. Endless glorious requisition forms with Eitrigg, which again begs the questions, with all my underlings why do I not have one whose job it is to handle the paperwork?
Anyway, here’s today’s entry for Garrosh’s Poetry Challenge. Fill up those comments with ideas and themes and little nuggets of goodness to inspire me again, and we’ll have our next EPIC VERSE next Tuesday.
When I cast eyes upon the glinting steel
Of Gorehowl, gravest axe that e’er was made,
My thoughts return to Grommash’s ordeal
When Mannoroth fell to my father’s blade.
The greatest battle that the blade had known,
In Ashenvale where Demons Fall to fate:
Where Grom exchanged for all our lives, his own,
And plunged Gorehowl though thick infernal plate.
I wonder now if it is worthy held:
Since Grommash fell, the axe has many slain,
But greatest since that time Gorehowl has felled,
In place of bane of blood, ’tis sire of Baine.
I marvel it, and we, have come so far;
Yet fear it best had stayed with Malchezaar.
EPIC VERSE!
Songs of Innocence and XP
My first product of Garrosh’s Poetry Challenge! I ended up deciding that this entry would work better as TWO poems working as a set, rather than one. I’ll be working on something new for Thursday, so be sure to give me suggestions in the comments to this post (and obviously feel free to leave actual COMMENT comments too). So, here we go…
The Dryad
Dryad girl, who made thee?
Do you know who made thee?
Who made thee such damaged goods,
Hugging bunnies in the woods?
Made thee DEHTA’s poster girl,
Snuggling puppies till I hurl?
Filled your head with flowers and fluff,
Blind to when enough’s enough;
Dryad girl, who made thee?
Do you know who made thee?
Dryad girl, I’ll tell thee;
Sister, let me tell thee,
Whosoever, ’twas a dick
Who beat you with that nutjob stick.
Took your love of creatures, heaven,
Dialed it right up to eleven;
Firing my exasperation.
With bosom-clasped concatenation.
Dryad girl, release me.
Shut up and release me.
The Dyad
Dontrag! Utvoch! Deadly dumb,
Endless yapping flapping gums:
What misguided hand or eye
Could frame thy dim stupidity?
By whose diagrams were cast
Your dingy minds, always half-assed?
In what furnace of the dull
Was forged the cogwheels in your skulls?
Whose confounded bright idea
To give you verbal diarrhea?
Strength of thought and length of verse:
That relation is inverse.
Edgewise word was never got,
And no clue have e’er you bought.
Faithful, true, and proud to serve;
But oh the cost: my final nerve.
Rock and hard place, woe the choice
Between yours and the dryad’s voice.
Dammit, I might go with hooves:
The dryad has, but you are boobs.
Dontrag! Utvoch! Deadly dumb!
Headaches rise like pounding drums.
What misguided hand or eye
Would hire thy dim stupidity?
EPIC VERSE!
Now as I was saying…
Okay, first of all, HA HA HA, Sylvanas, very funny. April fools, blah blah. It took freaking FOREVER to get the blog fixed back to the way it’s supposed to look (well, it took SPAZZLE forever, from what he tells me…but I had to WAIT like forever for him to get finished, so YOU tell ME what’s worse). That and re-lock-down blog security.
I think we’ve got it fixed now, though. Might have been partly my fault, to be honest. Spazzle tells me it actually might not have been the wisest decision for me to make the blog admin password “garrosh.” Go figure. Still, I’d like to know where Sylvanas learned to become this uber master hacker apparently.
Okay, anyway, moving on.
So as I was about to say before little miss Banshee Queen went all smartass on us, I still needed to update everyone on what was going on in Mount Hyjal. You know, after I managed to get away from the grabby huggy dryad. Who, let me just say one last time, what the fuck. Anyhow.
So when last we left Garrosh, before everybody in the universe decided they were going to jump on the Let’s Piss Off Garrosh Bandwagon, I was checking on reports of a Twilight’s Hammer enclave still milling around making trouble in Hyjal. I flew down to Darkwhisper Gorge, where the reports were coming from, and sure enough, I found a batch of Twilights gathered at what’s left of Doom’s Vigil. When I arrived, there were about a dozen of them gathered in a circle, all channeling some sort of spell. Needless to say I put a quick end to that…for the sake of saving space I’m going to skip past the blood and death and severed limbs and all that stuff, which let’s be honest only took up a couple minutes anyway, and by this point I’m sure you can all use your imagination for this kind of thing anyway. Bottom line is “bunch of Twilights” got a quick revision into “pile of corpses,” which is kind of fitting, since once I had the chance to have a better look at the place, I noticed a bunch of other bodies laying around the area – a couple orcs, a couple trolls, a bunch of tauren, a human or two, I think, but who really cares about them?
At this point I was getting ready to take off, when I thought I saw something moving among the rocks in the mountainside nearby. I went to check on it, and found a cave – pretty easily accessible from the camp, but easy to miss with the way the surrounding rock was laid out. There was another body, a night elf this time, on the ground right outside, and there seemed to be some light flickering inside. So, in I went. That is, after I got Mortimer calmed down some – like I said, I was just about to leave, so I had actually just strapped Gorehowl to the saddle, and I don’t know what was getting Mortimer so spooked but he damn near took off with the axe before I even had the chance to get it back again.
Anyway, I finally got Gorehowl and went in. The light was coming from a basic campfire someone had left there, and the light from the flames combined with the rock formations inside the save made for a lot of shadows that made it kind of hard to get your bearings in what was really a pretty small chamber. Or room. Or…I don’t know, whatever you call the inside of a cave.
I was so busy situating myself that I didn’t even notice right away that there was a figure moving on the far side of the campfire – it was obscured by the shadows at first, but once my eyes had adjusted to the light, and it moved again, I could see the figure was an orc. And then when it moved, and turned toward me, it didn’t take any doing to recognize those features.
Krom’gar.
And so yeah, first thought? I KNEW I should have had D&U go back and make sure his body was accounted for at Cliffwalker Post! Doesn’t ANYBODY stay dead anymore? But before you start freaking out like I was, hang on for my SECOND thought, which was pretty much “Boy, good thing I’ve still got this AXE with me,” and jumped across the campfire, and whipped Gorehowl around for a swing that went right through Krom’gar, like WHEW right through him like he wasn’t even there, so that Gorehowl ended up ricocheting off the rock wall and jarring itself out of my grip, so the handle flew up and clanged me right in the head, and OWW.
And meanwhile there’s Krom’gar still there staring at me, not a scratch on him. It took me a second to piece together, but basically for those of you who haven’t already done the math, Gorehowl went flying through him like he wasn’t even there because, well, he wasn’t. It wasn’t Krom’gar back from the dead. It was Krom’gar, dead. A spirit, or something like it.
Here’s where I actually wish I had Mokvar with me this time, because for the couple minutes I managed to talk to the ghost, it would have been nice to have someone there getting some of this stuff written down. But, here’s the gist of it. The spirit-formerly-known-as-Krom’gar was really mostly interested in being cryptic and otherwise telling me I knew how he was going to tackle things in Stonetalon, and I had gone soft and had put him in charge to do the things I knew I couldn’t, and a whole bunch of other utter bullshit like that. As if I would ever have been okay with….bah, forget it. Anyway, I finally managed to get an answer from him on why his ghost would be in some random cave in Hyjal – it was because I was there, basically. He was there because I was there.
See, when the dead move on to the spirit realm, they leave echoes behind. A piece of them stays with whoever is left living who had been important to them, or who they were important to. We all have these echoes of spirits that we carry around with us, the people who were close to us, or helped make us who we are for good or ill, or who cared about us, or whatever. They just go through the world with us, invisible, never making a sound, never interfering, just…tagging along because they’re part of us. I’m not even going to get into the reasons why I would be carrying Krom’gar around with me. If you’ve been following along with me, you already understand, and if you don’t, it would probably take a lot more doing to explain than I’ve got the mental energy to deal with right now.
While he was semi-kinda-spelling this much out, it didn’t actually occur to me right off to ask why one of those echoes would all of a sudden become VISIBLE to me like this, but stay tuned. That’ll make more sense in a second.
So I don’t want to make it sound like this was just some expositiony fireside chat between me and ex-Krom’gar, because like I said he was mostly interested in being vague and cryptic and generally getting under my skin. Which, you know, really set him apart from so many other people from among the LIVING. But I managed to drag that much of an explanation out of him in bits in pieces, and then after a few minutes he hit me with his cryptic big finish – check this one out: “From within it consumes, Warchief,” like, yeah, the fuck – and then flickered away into the shadows.
And it was at that point that I finally noticed something else in the shadows against the back wall of the cave: a totem. Different design than the typical elemental totems that shaman use, but unmistakably a totem. It looked familiar, actually, and after wracking my brain a couple minutes I remembered: it matched the description I’d heard from some of the elders back in Garadar of this thing called a “shadebind” totem, which was this very rare variety that could be used to draw some of those baggage spirits off of someone and make them appear in the mortal world. Usually they were only ever used in rare cases where an important elder was having some kind of spiritual crisis, and even then it didn’t always work. Just creating one required a pretty rare level of knowledge and shamanistic power, much less getting the rituals right.
I was pretty much marveling over where one of these things even could have come from, when I noticed one more detail. The markings along the side of the totem – mostly random shaman-type stuff that I don’t know enough to make sense of, but then, mixed in with them in a couple places, there were a couple specific tribal markings, ones I’ve already seen more than I’d care to.
Tribal markings of the Grimtotem.
So, five points to anybody else whose best guess here matches mine, as far as who might be a clever enough shaman to pull off one of these doohickeys, plus have occasion to be hanging around a Twilight camp. Yep.
As for what Magatha might be after, your guess is as good as mine. For all I know, she didn’t have any reason to think I’d even be turning up in Hyjal, so it’s not like I can even assume she’d planted it there for me specifically. She could be after something else entirely and I just happened to be the one to come along and trigger the damn thing. Who knows. All this really tells us for sure is she’s on the loose back in Kalimdor, and she’s up to something. Which really isn’t anything we shouldn’t have guessed anyway.
So…that’s as much as I’ve got for right now. At this point I’m not even sure there’s anything else to be done as followup, so we’ll just have to see.
And I swear, though, if that ghost thought I actually WANTED him to…never mind. I’m only going to make myself angry. More soon.
Updatus interruptus
Everyone remember to keep your comments coming for Garrosh’s Poetry Challenge! In the meantime, though, I still need to finish telling you what all went on while I was up in Hyjal, because–
Hold on.
<looks around>
What.
THE FUCK.
Is THIS?
…
Um, stand by. I need to go track down Spazzle and…ask a few questions. I’ll post more later. I think.
Happy April 1, everyone!
~_^
[Edit: For those coming late to the party, the image below is what the Command Board looked like the day this post went live.]