Tag Archives: desolace
Desolace postscript
Not too many letters this week, so I’m going to hold off on doing a mailbag. (Get with the program and get writing, people! Your Warchief commands it! garrosh1337@gmail.com)
Also, a quick note on my recent trip to Desolace. I think I mentioned at one point that I had a couple stops to make there, but I only ever really blogged about Shadowprey Village (annoying as that was). Before coming back to Orgrimmar, I also made a stop at Ghost Walker Post. I didn’t write anything about that at the time, partly because I was trying to save time for the trip back home, and partly because it was generally pretty uneventful. It was also a little depressing, so I really just didn’t want to dwell on it much, but it’s probably just as well for me to give it a quick write-up now. Better than dwelling on this Grimtotem business.
I’ve been out to Ghost Walker Post once before, and I have to admit, I always find the place pretty depressing in general. Not so much for the outpost itself, which is fine as far as outposts go, but because of the area right below it – the kodo graveyard. Go ahead and laugh if you want, but ever since I moved to Azeroth I’ve had kind of a soft spot for kodos (maybe they just remind me of my pet clefthoof from when I was a kid). So seeing the place where kodos go to die, with all the skeletons and corpses all around, that’s just a little more than I want to take most days.
At least the surrounding area is a little less depressing-looking these days. I know the Cataclysm brought water into the area to help feed the regrowth of vegetation, but even still, it’s pretty incredible to see the change. The whole area around the outpost has turned lush and green, and there’s even the beginnings of a forest starting up really quickly. The Cenarion people – hippie druids, yeah, but still less annoying than those DEHTA fuckers – have set up a base there at Karnum’s Glade, although I didn’t actually go over there, because, you know, druids. Still, I had to look around the new wildlands there, just because it really is a pretty amazing sight. Even when you figure in the new sources of water, it’s incredible that the place started recovering so quickly. It’s enough to make you wonder whether there’s something more going on there, beyond just the influx of water.
Which…yeah. Really have to wonder. I probably shouldn’t even mention this, because people are probably going to think I’m crazy, and it really honestly could be my imagination playing tricks on me. But at one point when I was looking around the wildlands, off in the distance, I could have sworn I could see the figure of a tauren – not fully solid, but partly transparent, even a little shimmery. Maybe it was just the light and the glare of the sun, I don’t know. But it’s not just that. If it were just a tauren it could have been anybody, and with all the druids around, not to mention Ghost Walker Post, there’s no shortage of tauren in the area. But I recognized him. I would know him anywhere. The stature, the totem always in hand…the steady gaze that always seemed to be sizing me up and coming away just disappointed enough.
It was Cairne. I swear on the spirits I thought I saw Cairne.
He looked at me, and he looked away, and just scanned around the wildlands like he was assessing his work. And then he was gone.
At least gone from view. I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind since.
Visiting Desolace
Just got back from the final part of this last inspection tour, this time making a couple stops in Desolace. Most of the time there I was in Shadowprey Village, which, well…you know, trolls. Wall to wall trolls. So you can probably imagine how that went. And I mean, they seem to be on top of things there pretty much, but I’m at a loss for what it is that these trolls find so fucking funny all the damn time. You try to talk to them about anything, and it’s just a big laugh riot. I’m starting to wonder if they’re all just smoking something.
I’d heard they had some pretty good seafood there, so I tried asking Lui’Mala about it, since I figured she would be in the know what with her being the fishing trainer there, but apparently the question was too damn funny for her to pull her shit together enough to answer, so yeah, on to Plan B. I finally managed to get an answer out of Jinar’Zillen, who told me they were a little short on fish at the moment, but they’ve been bringing in some really high quality crab lately if I wanted to swim down and bring up a few of the traps. I couldn’t help but wonder why they would actually need the fucking Warchief to go haul back his own crab traps, what with it being a fishing village where you’d think there’d be someone around whose actual fucking JOB that would be, or at the very least they’d have some random noobs to go do it just to keep them busy and out of trouble, but whatever, what with all the traveling I haven’t had the chance to do my usual swimming routine anyway, so fine. He said they were having their best luck with the traps a little way to the north, so I swam down there, only when I got there I couldn’t see any traps anyplace – and while I was looking, this huge orca came rolling up on me and decided it was snack time. Didn’t work out so well for him, but still. Turns out, the orca was kind of famous around the village – name of Blubbergut apparently – so I don’t know how Jinar’Zillen could have mixed up his feeding territory with the trapping spots. Still, that solved the whole problem with the lack of fish, so at least I got a decent lunch out of it.
After I finally got tired of trying to figuring out what all the trolls were finding so damn hilarious all the time, I ended up spending most of my time hanging out with Rokaro, a Champion of the Horde and successor to Rexxar there in Desolace. Speaking of which, gotta say, we had a fun time exchanging Rexxar stories, since we’d both spent a lot of time with the guy, and if you know Rexxar well, trust me, you get a lot of entertaining stories about him. Not to go spreading a lot of stories out of school (seeing as I was hardly ever actually IN school), but you know, you watch Rexxar closely and it’s not too hard to connect the dots. Hangs out with a bear all the time, always wearing a weird wolf mask…well, you do the math. Although I have to admit the bear thing is kind of cool…it would be nice if we could at least get Rokaro a worg or something.
We ended up swinging by the Mannroc Coven for a while, which is this area that’s overrun with demons that had been summoned by the Burning Blade. We spent a little time wiping out a few dozen of them just kicks, but these were pretty obviously low demons on the demon totem pole, so they were really easy to kill, and after a little while it just started getting boring. So we just headed back and figured we’d leave the rest of them to be finished off by some aspiring adventurers, um, looking for…you know…some critical mission vital to the survival of the Horde. Or some shit like that.
[Header image provided by Angelya from Revive and Rejuvenate, used here with permission and many thanks.]