Earlier today, I rounded up General Nazgrim, Shokia, Jorn Skyseer, and a few Kor’kron — beastmasters in particular — and finally took a trip up to the Isle of Giants. Most of you will probably remember I’ve been having Nazgrim send his people up there to get the lay of the land and scout out the prospect of there being some animals — the Giants of which this is the Isle of — that might be useful to us. Because DINOSAURS, motherfucker.

Now, most of you will ALSO probably remember that the last time I got a report on the subject from Naz and company, I was still in Orgrimmar, and Nazgrim’s people decided to get cute rather than waiting for me to get back down here to Pandaria. And, you know, things went about as well as you’d expect them to when my minions go off-script. R.I.P. Wannabe Dinomancer Steve, you stupid dead motherfucker.

So today I finally took the trip up there to check things out personally. And HOO BOY, they were NOT kidding about that place. DINOSAUR CITY, man. Shokia took point for us, since she’d led the scouting expeditions and knew the territory the best. She guided us up to this central plateau on the island, and lo and behold, larger than life, there he was — Oondasta, the giant freaking devilsaur that Nazgrim’s crew had their eyes on last time, before ol’ Deadmaster Steve turned out to smell appetizing.

Now, though, we came prepared — seeing as THIS time, the brains of the operation had an actual BRAIN. What’s more, I had my handy-dandy Tome of Dinomancy that Grottee Metalbeard scored for me, and after we managed to maneuver Oondasta into a clear area, the beastmasters started doing their thing, and everything started falling into place. The dino struggled at first, but soon enough he started giving in to the enchantments of the tome, and full-on taming looked to be right around the corner.

Aaaaaand of course, since this is US, that’s when something stupid happened. The stupid in this case took the form of this random bunch of Alliance nobodies running on in and ATTACKING the damn devilsaur that we were trying to tame. Before we even had a chance to react, they had the dino beaten down pretty badly, and even though we were able to thin the herd pretty quickly once we realized what was going on, the remaining Allies were still able to finish Oondasta off. Like, just shy of one minute before I personally chopped the last handful of them into several dozen pieces.

But, still, damage done. Shokia was nearly as pissed off about it as I was, which is saying something. Apparently it’s some kind of a hunter thing, people killing their prospective pets, and I mean, who the fuck does that? In what other setting is that shit a cool thing to do? Would someone go running into a fucking pet shop, too, and put an axe through the damn goldfish you were getting ready to buy, along with a little model sunk ship and a little model Nazgrim leading his little model crew away from their latest little model disaster? No. Nobody does that. But oh boy, take the “you kill it, you buy it” policy out of the equation, and all of a sudden watch the griefers come out of the woodwork. Fucking rude if you ask me.

Anyway, I suppose we didn’t come away COMPLETELY empty-handed. We know that these tomes actually work, for one thing. And according to my sources, there’s an even bigger, badder devilsaur wandering around out there. A little more elusive, apparently, but we’ll find him.

Also, I have kind of a consolation prize to bring back to base with me. After Oondasta and the bad-judgment-having Alliance jackasses all bought it, we were getting ready to leave, when this young, cobalt-colored direhorn came wandering into the clearing. She went sniffing around Oondasta’s body, then poked around kind of aimlessly before she came over near us. Jorn’s guess is that the direhorn followed Oondasta around and fed on his leftovers. Whatever the story was, she seemed to take a liking to me right away (#TheLadyDinosaursLoveGarrosh?), and started following me, and… well… yeah, I guess I’ve got another mount for my personal stash in the stables. <shrug>

Anyhow, I suppose we’ve got a little time now to line things up for take two with that other devilsaur. In the meantime, I get to figure out how I’m going to get a damn direhorn back to base.

More soon.