One day into our week of festivities, and the party is already in full swing. Citizens from all over the Horde have been flocking to Orgrimmar to join in the celebration, and the roads have been packed with jubilant people. You can’t walk down a street without passing multiple barbeque pits and makeshift smokehouses, all sporting free food for all. (On a not-exactly-unrelated note, the slums in the Valley of Spirits have been fairly empty – everybody’s made their way over to dip into the free food while it lasts. Yup, it’s a good week to be poor.)

All Horde fighters from the Northwatch/Theramore campaign have been instructed to stay in Durotar for the duration of the festivities, but I also issued personal invitations to many of our soldiers and commanders to remain in Orgrimmar for the feasts and other events. Since Baine and Vol’jin have both been…less than enthused about our triumph, I conveniently neglected to issue invitations to them – let them skulk off to whatever corner they choose and pout over the awful burden of victory for as long as they feel the need, as long as they stay here in Durotar until we’re ready to get back to business.

Meanwhile, I sent invitations out to some of our soldiers who didn’t have the good fortune to join us on our glorious campaign, to at least come to Orgrimmar to partake in the celebration. I figured, for instance, that after all the time he’s spent in the Undercity, Bragor Bloodfist could stand to take a few days to enjoy the clean Durotar air. (Not to mention I’m guessing Sylvanas would probably appreciate a couple days without him, um, peeking around. Maybe dude can go hang with Belgrom Rockmaul for a while. Those two could probably compare creeper notes…) Plus I sent an invite out to Warlord Zaela of the Dragonmaw – figured she hasn’t really gotten to spend a lot of time in Orgrimmar, so why not have her come over to see the place at its most vibrant.

I spent a chunk of the day today over at the Ring of Valor taking in some of the sparring matches that have been going on between some of our best fighters – and you’ll never guess who turned up again over there. Trade Prince Gallywix, back from wherever it is he disappears to, back again now that there’s a lull in the actual fighting. He was buzzing around the arena, placing odds and taking bets on all the fights. I’m not sure how he managed it, but somehow he’d worked out a way to juggle the odds so that no matter what happened, he always came out ahead of the game. He had to bring a pack of goblin assistants to help him lug around all the gold he was raking in.

When he saw me there, he came slithering on over, and then – lucky me – I had the treat of his company for most of the time I was there. One definite highlight, though: before one of the final matches of the day – a real high-power matchup between Zaela and General Nazgrim – Gallywix was feeling pretty high on the horse, so I got him to accept a personal bet with me. Not one of his line-hedging bookie bets, mind you, just him and me, betting straight up, his money on Nazgrim, mine on Zaela. Not that Nazgrim isn’t a hell of a fighter in his own right, but I’ve seen Zaela in action. If I’m planning a military operation and need a field commander, Nazgrim’s my man, no two ways about it – but in a toe-to-toe slugfest? That’s Zaela all the way.

Zaela didn’t let me down. I wound up walking away wearing that fancy-ass top hat that Gallywix always has on. Or, well, always HAD on. Gotta say, this thing’s pretty spiffy. I might have to look into a walking stick to go with it. Or maybe a monocle. What do you think?

[Header image provided by Khizzara from Blog of the Treant, used here with permission and many thanks.]