Tag Archives: mogu
For whom the bell tolls
Well THAT was a big whole production to go through for not much of anything.
Last night, I gathered a select group of Horde personnel at the Emperor’s Reach – an ancient, abandoned mogu structure that we found in Kun-Lai – to finally tap into the power of the Divine Bell. Malkorok brought a battalion of Kor’kron troops to oversee the proceedings, including some who were hand-picked to have the honor of being the first to be gifted with new power. The best of the best. Juggernauts.
Blademaster Ishi was on hand as well, along with a few other select Horde heroes from the Pandaren campaign, and once everyone was gathered and ready, I took up the hammer…mallet…um…weird-looking club doohicky? Look, for honest, I’m not sure WHAT that thing was supposed to be. But it was better suited for ringing a bell than Gorehowl would have been, so whatever. Point is, I cracked out that bad boy, and for the first time in who-knows-how-long, the Divine Bell rang.
And so marks the last point in the evening that things went to plan.
As the Bell rang, we could see the dark, shadowy outlines of bizarre, twisted creatures appearing on the platform. Transparent and shifting, but just enough to know they were there. So THAT’S what these sha look like. Up to this point, I’d only seen them in bits and pieces – claws mostly – when they’d partly seized onto other people.
Yes, I said “partly.” I wouldn’t have thought that what happened to Burzum was only partial corruption by the sha. Little did I know. Because now, I was treated to a front-row seat as, one by one, the sha descended onto our Kor’kron juggernauts…and transformed them into sha themselves. They were horrible to behold – I can see why the pandas and even Tak-Tak yammer on about steering clear of them. I tried to urge the Kor’kron on and encourage them to seize control of the sha energy coursing through them, but no such luck. They couldn’t. They lost themselves to it. And in the end there was nothing to be done but for the Horde champions on hand to slay the Kor’kron-turned-sha before they ran out of control.
Clearly, Malkorok had overestimated the mental toughness of that first batch of Kor’kron. I was just about to let Ishi show the rest of the bunch how a true veteran of the Mag’har does it, when I was interrupted by a surprise visitor.
Want to know who?
YOU WILL NOT FUCKING BELIEVE THIS SHIT.
Anduin.
Yes, THAT Anduin.
Anduin Wrynn, Prince of Stormwind.
Anduin fucking Wrynn, Prince of Stormwind, former prisoner of General Nazgrim until who the fuck even knows what happened I mean WTF, and newest volunteer to be a speechifying hemorrhoid on my curvy brown ass, because, hey, why not give fucking EVERYONE a turn at this point, right?
So, yeah, fucking ANDUIN comes strolling on up like it’s something to do – props, by the way, to my alleged BODYGUARD Malkorok for the crack security job there – and starts yapping away about the dangers of the Bell, and Garrosh-you-mustn’t. You know, the ol’ Baine-Vol’jin standard. Same tune, different verse.
Worked just about as well for him. I shrugged him off and rang the Bell again, and this time, the sha magic descended onto Ishi. Unlike the initial Kor’kron, he actually put up a fight and resisted…for a moment, anyway. Then, after a minute, he was altered into a sha as well. Except in his case, even with his body gone, his voice remained.
His voice, but not his words.
While our champions fought to subdue him, Ishi started spewing out words consumed by fear and rage and despair. No sign remaining of the strong, brave orc I knew, despite my urging for him to retake control.
In the end, there was nothing left – again – but for our champions to put him to rest. But of all his rantings before he fell, there was one that kept echoing in my thoughts.
Why should we be slaves to honor, when we could slaughter the children of our enemies while they sleep? My blade thirsts for Alliance blood!
Control your anger, I told him. There is killing, and then there is murder, I told him. We’re not the ones who murder innocents. We’re not the ones who kill children, confused and far from home. Left to rot in a festering swamp. Baited into a coward’s trap, tricked into an early death by a vainglorious king…
And then I looked up to find the presumptuous whelp of Varian Wrynn yipping at me.
He was fourteen years old.
Among the orcs, that made him a man.
The human brat used some mallet to crack and silence the Divine Bell, and I was far past my threshold for patience. I swung my hammer at him. He ducked out of the way, and the blow slammed into the Bell, which was already cracking apart. The Bell shattered, and the pieces crumbled onto the whelp, burying him under a massive heap of metal and stone. I could hear him cry out as his bones snapped. Then silence.
Good. Let Varian have a taste of true suffering.
It’s back to the drawing board for us. For now. I’d underestimated the effort it would take to master this sha power. Ishi and the others were too weak-willed, and they failed me as a result.
This is what I get for not taking matters into my own hands.
When the time comes, soon, I won’t repeat their failure. And I won’t repeat the mistake of delegating our fate to lesser orcs. Too much depends on it. Too high a price already. The Horde will prevail, strong, proud, united in purpose – a rebirth of glory. And it all depends on me to lead the way. It’s ALWAYS depended on me. I see that now.
I won’t fail. I CAN’T fail.
I have a destiny.
I’m the One.
Divine do-over
So I think the internet has decided it doesn’t want me playing Earth Online for the time being. Spazzle was right – this is what I get for trusting Grizzle Gearslip to set up a stable network. Remind me to stick with construction and excavation projects for him from now on.
Probably just as well. I have more important things to be focusing on right now.
First and foremost in the “more important things” file: We’re back in business on the Divine Bell front – and then some. Courtesy, believe it or not, of some clutch work from one of the blood elves. I know, right? I won’t hold it against you if you need to go back and read that again to make sure you got it right. Anyway – Fanlyr Silverthorn was able to work some Kirin Tor mojo to sneak a Horde operative into Darnassus, where the Divine Bell was being held, then teleported it out to Silvermoon. That’s right, the night elves worked so hard to get to the Bell before us, tucked it away deep in the heart of their capital city…for like fifteen minutes, before they had it swiped right out from under them. Oh man, would I love to have seen the looks on their faces when they figured out what happened.
Of course, you would think that this would come across as GOOD news to anyone on the Horde side of the fence, but spirits forbid I should ever have a conversation with Lor’themotherfucker that didn’t involve him crying and moaning and wetting his panties over something. And let me tell you, he was in fine form this time around. I could barely even figure out what the fuck he was bitching about, something about his people being put in harm’s way or some such (as if people never, EVER get put in harm’s way in the middle of, you know, A FUCKING WAR), and Jaina being pissed off about something (as if THAT’S ever a bad thing). Seriously, I don’t know what hair he’s got up his ass, but enough is enough. Calm down already. Don’t flip a bench, Lori.
Anyway, I’m having the Divine Bell transported to Pandaria pronto so we can get to work. We found another ancient mogu structure in Kun-Lai that should make for a good site to conduct the first of what should be many glorious uses of the Bell. I’m having Malkorok hand-pick some of the very best of his Kor’kron to stand guard and participate in the proceedings. I’m also having Ishi head up that way to supervise the setup of the Bell and help me with the first trial. Hopefully, after Burzum went all sha-batty on us, and Krimpatul went MIA with the rest of the…casualties…at the Temple of the Red Crane, and Ishi himself got beaten to the Divine Bell by the damn night elves, well, hopefully I’ll have a blademaster finally do my Mag’har proud and help put a win on the board for us.
Once we tap into the power of the Bell – and by extension, the power of this “sha” magic – we’ll wield a power unlike anything either side has seen in this war. And unlike the mogu, we won’t be leaving our enemies any room to rise up against us. Never again.
Fear leads to anger
Well, Elder Cloudfall arrived at Domination Point today – with monkey boy Zhi-Zhi in tow, no less – just in time to get treated to one of the very cheeriest of my cheerful moods. Because no sooner was he on the premises than messengers arrived with a no-kidding-around one-two punch of suck.
So for starters, Ishi and his team of Kor’kron reached that mogu tomb that our scouts located, and were able to confirm that it IS the place that Shan Kien told us about…and then let a team of night elf Sentinels get in there FIRST. Because SURE, WHY THE FUCK NOT, with the way this week has been going, right? For fuck’s sake, how did the night elves even fucking KNOW about the tomb? And they manage to get there AHEAD of us to boot?
Oh, but hey, don’t worry, because even though the night elves got the jump on us, Ishi and his people fought their way into the tomb and hacked their way through the elves, until they reached the Dentinel leader right on top of the Divine Bell…just in time to watch her SNAP IT UP AND HOP THROUGH A FUCKING PORTAL TO DARNASSUS. DON’T MY MINIONS HAVE THE MOST SPECTATCULAR FUCKING TIMING?
Awesome. JUST FUCKING AWESOME.
Oh, oh, but hang on, we’re not done with the parade of fantastic news yet.
As if losing the Divine Bell wasn’t bad enough…you know how I’d sent a detachment with Commander Scargash to that panda temple to set up an early-warning outpost for Alliance activity? Well, they didn’t need to show much patience waiting for some Alliance activity to monitor, because as it turns out, they were attacked this morning by an Alliance force – led by Varian him-fucking-self. Because apparently dude has nothing better to do with his time. Based on the initial reports, losses for our side were near-total. Including the Commander. And very well also included…never mind. I’m not letting myself think about it until we’ve had a chance to send some scouts to confirm. But based on everything we have to go on at this point, it looks pretty damn bad.
I swear, if another messenger comes in here today with anything remotely resembling bad news, they’d better finish by naming their next of kin, because I would NOT want their life expectancy.
So now I get to spend the day with nothing to think about other than an assortment of things I DON’T want to think about. Like how Varian fucking rolled on in and cost us I don’t know HOW many good people. And how the Divine Bell — the key to my plans to tip the balance of power in this war – is now in the hands of our enemies. And spirits know WHAT Varian’s going to do once he gets HIS grubby paws on it. As if he hasn’t fucking done enough ALREADY.
Spirits save him when I finally get him in my sights again. They were KIDS, dammit, and…
No. Never mind. I can’t even.
So Cloudfall, meanwhile, HE can just cool his jets about this Kypari field trip of his. Right now I have bigger fish to fry than wandering off to the Land of Vague and Ominous. Much less when I’ve got other sources telling me there’s more bad news there for me to boot. We’ve already lost enough good people this week, thanks. I don’t think we need more volunteers. So he and his monkey sidekick can kick back and enjoy a little Horde hospitality until we’ve gotten a handle on things. Ben-Lin probably won’t mind keeping Cloudfall company for a couple days anyway, and as for Zhi-Zhi, hell, goofball that he is, I’ll bet the kids will really get a kick—
…
Never mind.
I really need to start remembering where that fucking delete key is.
…
I need to go. I think there’s a patrol leaving in a minute to do a sweep for Alliance intruders.
I need to go with them.
I need to kill something.
Shadow boxing
Well, this just goes to show what I know.
After our whole SNAFU with the sha claw, Regent-Lord Eyepatch went back to Silvermoon to personally supervise his people’s study of that sha box we recovered. Before he left I tried to impress on him the importance of that project (I believe my exact words were “This is actually important, unlike everything else you’ve ever done in your life, so try not to make a giant fucking mess this one time, Lori”), and after leaving him to his devices a couple days, I sent some people up to Silvermoon to check on him and try to prod things along.
I just received a report back from Eyepatch. And so, remember last time, how uneasy I was about having to rely on the blood elves for all these important jobs? All the angsting I was doing over whether they could pull this off, rather than defaulting back to their standard “giant fucking mess” M.O.? Well, after all that handwringing I was doing, you would probably expect Ponytail’s blood elves to find a way to pull off some spectacular new level of fail.
AND YOU WOULD BE RIGHT.
Let’s even set aside the fact that Ponytail started out crying about how anyone who tried to probe the box magically ended up being affected by powerful, negative emotions, because hey, it’s totally fair for him not to think of that possibility what with him being RIGHT HERE WITNESSING THAT VERY SAME THING HAPPENING WITH THE KOR’KRON NOT THREE DAYS AGO. But then, we’ve long established that these blood elves aren’t exactly world-beaters when it comes to seeing things coming (DRINK). So, moving on, witness fuckuppery the next: even AFTER having these problems with the crazy outbursts, Ponytail’s peeps kept plugging away, and ended up releasing some kind of sha creature that had been sealed in the box. In a room with a couple of his mages and a handful of guards. And nobody else.
So okay, let’s recap that for those of you keeping score at home.
AFTER traveling around some of the sha and mogu sites in Pandaria…and AFTER being on hand for our failed Kor’kron experiments with the claw… Eyepatch brought the box back home to Silvermoon…so he could stick it in a basement with minimal guard and a grand total of two magic-users on hand to work on it. And then released a beastie that proceeded to kick the snot out of his generously snotty elves. To the point that if some of MY people hadn’t been on hand to save the day, that sha thing might still be running roughshod over Silvermoon and we’d be having to get Sylvanas to send a task force over to bail them out. (And by the way, don’t think for a minute that THAT wouldn’t make half the blood elf population drop a brick in its collective panties – HEY LOOK GUYS THERE’S AN ARMY OF UNDEAD HEADED THIS WAY OH SHIT NOT AGAIN.)
I mean, there are at least half a dozen reasons why that’s just a spectacular steaming heap of fail, but the winner right off the top of my head, I think is… WHY DID YOU EVEN BOTHER BRINGING THE DAMN BOX BACK TO YOUR HOME CITY if you weren’t going to positively SURROUND it with an entire fucking LEGION of your very best troops? You go to all that trouble for like five guards? Hey, guess what, Eyepatch, we could have put our sha junk under the watch of five random assholes right here in Pandaria.
LIKE HEY HOW ABOUT THESE GUYS EVEN, REMEMBER THEM?
So yeah, this is what Lori is crying about this week. Well, today. The week is still young. Meanwhile, he’s already sent me four messengers, with each of the last three delivering an extra addendum to his written bitch-and-moan fest. They’ve been arriving every couple hours, so I’m just imagining him sitting around in whatever palace he has up there (I’m guessing pink features heavily in the décor), sending off a letter, and then as soon as the messenger leaves, grabbing another parchment like “AND HERE’S ONE MORE THING!”
I did send him a response back to the first one. Although…just to amuse myself, I addressed it to “That guy in Silvermoon, you know, the one with the poofy hair.” I’m not sure which thought amuses me more: the amount of time it’s going to take them to narrow it down to Ponytail, or the look he’s going to get on his face when he sees it.
I know, I know. I’m a stinker.
More soon.
“‘Lori’? Seriously?”
A Shado-Pan of a doubt
So, based on the early returns, this sha energy and I are going to have a real love/hate relationship.
Let me explain.
While Burzum and Krimpatul were doing their respective investigating, I went back up to Kun-Lai Summit to do a little more checking around. Ponytail and his blood elves had cleared out of the Valley of Emperors, and by the looks of it, the mogu who had been up there had decided not to take their chances coming back after the grade-A ass-kicking I’d given them. Which, by the way, makes the mogu smarter than at least half the enemies I’ve run into over the years.
I flew around the mountains for a little while to see if I could spot any more mogu activity, but didn’t have a whole lot of luck, so I decided while I was in the neighborhood to check in at that monastery I’d heard about – the Shado-Pan Monastery, I think it’s called. I figured the monks there might have something they could tell me about the mogu, or the sha, or, hell, even just give me some idea why that Cloudfall guy at Tian Monastery felt the need to be so damn cryptic.
Problem is, all of that assumed the monks would actually, you know, TALK to me. When I got there, though, I could barely get anyone to answer the damn door. I knocked away for a while, and at first some fat panda dude poked his head out and asked who I was…but then after I told him, he just slammed the door shut again. After that, they just let me knock away all I wanted, and the only answer I got was one time when someone behind the door yelled “We don’t want any,” and this other time when I guess they decided to get cute, and one of them did a bad troll voice like “Dere nobody home, mon” – which, I can HEAR you TALKING, idiot, so there obviously IS somebody home.
Fucking pandas.
Eventually, Burzum and Krimpatul arrived, and we set up camp near the monastery to compare notes. Krimp reported that the sha outbreak around the Temple of the Red Crane was mostly gone, other than some stray animals in the area that had been affected, but that those animals seemed a good bit stronger than the garden variety. Seems like they were able to be infused with sha energy just from proximity to the manifestation there, which tells me that it shouldn’t be that difficult to tap infuse some of our soldiers with that power, assuming we can find a sha source to draw on. THAT’s going to be the tricky part, I’m guessing – finding a source – since it’s not like we can reliably just summon these sha things up out of thin air.
Burzum, on the other hand, gave a whole breakdown of the pandas fighting an ongoing sha outbreak near the Temple of the Jade Serpent. (By the by, don’t ask me why these pandas seem so obsessed with naming everything after rainbow-colored animals. Can the Temple of the Mauve Meerkat be far behind?) The sha down there were still much more active, and according to Burzum, the pandas there deliberately took steps to AVOID being affected by the sha energy. Because, I don’t know, I guess they feel like a dose of extra power might take the edge off their signature bouncy goofiness. Don’t ask me.
Whatever they’re thinking down there, though, it seemed like Burzum had gone native on us some, because while he was talking about it, he got really insistent about not thinking it was such a hot idea to try to tap into this sha energy. He seemed to get really stressed out over it, actually, to the point that I could even see him going a little pale in the face. I managed to calm him down some, but he still seemed more than a little antsy.
At that point, I gave the blademasters the rundown of the warm welcome I’d gotten at the monastery. Burzum wanted to try talking to them himself, and I figured what the hell, if he wanted to try beating his head against the wall, let him knock himself out. So he went over and knocked on the door, and one of the pandas stuck his head out to see who it was…and I’ll be damned, they let the fucker in!
So Burzum was in there for a little while, and I figured eventually he’d be back to bring me and Krimp inside with him – you know, after he’d finished buttering up whatever antisocial panda had had the bright idea to lock me out. After a while, sure enough, Burzum came out again, but instead of showing us the way in, he let the pandas shut themselves up in there again while he came staggering back to us looking more upset than ever. And I’m talking SERIOUSLY shaken – I don’t know what those pandas said to him, but dude was beyond just pale at the point and was looking out-and-out GRAY.
That’s when he started yammering a bunch of incoherent nonsense – “Is this what we’ve come to?” this, and “losing our way” that, and all the while getting more and more visibly upset. Krimpatul and I tried to talk him down from the crazy, but Burzum wasn’t having it. He kept ranting on and on, until finally the ranting gave way to flat-out growling, and the next thing you knew, Bruzum’s arms started to morph into these tendrilly black claws and his whole body seemed to exude shadows.
And that’s when he attacked us.
I’ll say this for that sha stuff – because obviously that’s what had to be coursing through Burzum’s system – it really is no joke. I’ve sparred with all the blademasters a bunch of times, so I know their strength, but this was way beyond the normal Burzum scale. It took Krimp and I everything we could muster to keep the upper hand, and even then we were only barely able to hold him off most of the time.
Eventually, though, Krimpatul got in a few solid blows to disorient Burzum, at which point I hacked off one of those creepy-ass claws at the elbow. That turned the tide in our favor for good. I made one last attempt to talk Burzum down, but he was long gone by that point. So Krimpatul and I finished him off. As he fell, he muttered something about “should have remained in Garadar,” and the rest was silence.
I’d just as soon spare Burzum’s memory from people seeing the state he was in at the end. He was a good man, and whatever came over him in those final moments, I’m certain his spirit will find its way to those of the honored ancestors, even if he’d fallen far from home. Krimpatul and I found a quiet spot in the mountains nearby and laid Burzum’s body to rest.
Except for that severed claw. That’s coming with me back to the Sanctum of Two Moons so the braintrust can give it a good going over.
Rest well, Burzum. Spirits willing, we’ll make sure you didn’t die in vain.
Sha hunting
I’m giving the blood elves a few days to see if they can get anywhere with Shan Kien — that’s the name of that mogu dude we captured in the Valley of Emperors — but in the meantime I’m going to try to explore other avenues. From what I’ve been able to gather, the mogu’s Divine Bell artifact was able to focus and infuse the power of what the pandas call sha. Basically dark power come alive, sparked by emotions like anger or fear. And even though this Divine Bell sounds like it’s the key to harnessing this sha power to the fullest, that doesn’t mean we can’t do a little testing at the source.
After we’d finished our visit to Tian Monastery the other day, Burzum had stayed behind to see if he could learn a few new tricks from the pandas. I had Gurtash stay with him, and after I’d left for the Sanctum of Two Moons, I had the rest of the DPS kids brought over to do a little hand-to-hand combat training. Now, personally I’m not so big on the fancy martial arts moves — I’m a much bigger fan of just pummeling your opponents to death when you’re not hacking them into little pieces with an axe. But then, that’s ME. Seeing as I’m 300 lbs. of rock-solid awesome and not some skinny fourteen-year-old, I don’t really NEED a whole lot of bells and whistles in my asskicking toolkit. But I figure it might be good for the kids to see if there’s anything useful they can pick up from the pandas.
Also, side note, since I forgot to mention this before — on the way back from Tian, I made a stop at this place nearby called the Arboretum, where they train cloud serpents for some big race. It took some doing, but I managed to talk them into letting me participate in the race even though I didn’t have my own cloud serpent. I will neither confirm nor deny that “talking them into” this involved slapping a few pandas around. Anyway, the race was pretty fun, and you seriously should have seen the looks on the other riders’ faces — and their cloud serpents, for that matter — when Mortimer left them all in the dust. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: wyvern > all.
Anyhow, I digress.
Getting back to the actual business at hand, I’m having Burzum head down to a temple in that neck of the woods that’s been hit by a pretty major sha infestation. Temple of the Jade something-or-other, which really doesn’t help narrow it down much, seeing as it’s in a region called the Jade Forest, and half the stuff around there is called the Jade Whatever-Whatever. Lesson: them pandas sure do love them some jade.
Meanwhile, I’m assigning Krimpatul to investigate another temple not far from our base at Domination Point, a little ways to the north. I hear tell there was a major sha outbreak there until pretty recently, so he might be able to learn something there. While they’re both doing their thing, I’m going to do some extra checking around in the northern mountains, and then the two blademasters will meet me there to compare notes. I hear tell there’s another major monastery in the northwest part of Kun-Lai Summit, so it might be worth convening there and seeing what the monks have to tell us.
More soon.
Garrosh to the rescue (as usual)
You know, I’ve got to tell you, that Regent-Lord Ponytail is a real piece of work. First he bitches and moans because I assumed his people could handle themselves, then he tries to refuse extra help, only to have it turn out that he damn well needed it in the first place. “Why are you crying, Lor’thewhoever?” “Because it’s raining!” “Why were you crying yesterday?” “Because it wasn’t!” I swear I’d be half tempted to compare the high-maintenance fucker to Garona, except I’d give even odds Garona has a bigger dick.
YES I SAID IT. SOMEBODY had to say it.
Anyway. After we finished up at Tian Monastery, I flew up to Kun-Lai summit to see what ol’ Eyepatch and his Reliquary peeps managed to find. Turns out, they found a big gang of mogu running all over an area called the Valley of Emperors. Now, credit where it’s due – this time, rather than getting slapped around and then crying about it like a little girl, Eyepatch recruited some extra muscle from back at Domination Point to tag along and protect him. Like a little girl. So, you know, at least dude is being more proactive about his little girling. That’s something, I guess.
Anyhow, by the time I got up there, Ponytail had already collected some kind of sealed crate from the mogu, along with documents indicating the mogu were mobilizing now that some ancient ruler of theirs – the “Thunder King,” I think – has been resurrected. Because, as I might have mentioned once or twice before, nobody ever stays fucking DEAD anymore.
Ponytail had sent his hired help into one of the nearby tombs to try to track down the leader of this particular batch of mogu, which was fine, but when I told him I wanted to go in and check for myself, he just started protesting and arguing. Because his people were perfectly capable of handling things on their own, and why don’t we just wait here until they get back, because wind chill factor just adds to the ambience here on this snowy mountainside don’t you think? So I finally got sick of him stalling, and explained that I was going into the tomb whether he liked it or not. This explanation took the form of me clocking him one. I’m fairly sure – but not 100% — that he didn’t lose any teeth.
So I went on down to the tomb, and boy was it a good thing that I did. The valley around the tomb was pretty much overrun by mogu. Which meant, first of all, that Ponytail’s people would have had a hell of a time getting back OUT once they were finished – and second of all, bonus exercise for yours truly. Granted, it was BRIEF exercise, but it felt good to break out Gorehowl and clear a path for myself while dropping a mogu or two. Or three. Or 37. Really, the mogu should probably still count themselves lucky – I would have killed even more of them, but I think I forgot to carry the 1.
By the time I fought my way into the tomb, Eyepatch’s hired help had engaged the mogu leader…and were getting their asses handed to them. Luckily I showed up before they got completely flattened, and gave a good thorough beatdown to the mogu head honcho. BOY IT SURE IS A GOOD THING I WAITED WITH PONYTAIL AND DIDN’T INTERFERE DOWN THERE HUH GUYS. I tried to get the mogu to cough up some information on that Divine Bell relic, but he wasn’t having it. I was about to give him a nice lethal demonstration of my default penalty for being uncooperative, when one of the blood elf magisters ported him back to the base camp and yammered out this whole deal about giving his people a chance to get the information we want out of the prisoner. So, whatever. They want to take a crack at it, fine, even though I can’t see much that these elves are going to do to change the mogu’s attitude, unless he needs his highlights touched up or some shit.
At that point there wasn’t much else for me to do other than follow my handy-dandy trail of mogu corpses back out.
Pimp away.
Pimp away.
So after I pimped my way back to Mortimer, I left word for Lor’thewhatever to get his people working on the prisoner AND that sealed box they found, and headed on back to the Sanctum of Two Moons. I’ve got a couple things I want to check on while the elves get started. I’ll update again once I’ve had a chance to follow up on a couple leads.
Never send an elf to do an orc’s job
Okay, so I’m starting to get sick of Lor’thefuckhisnameis.
After the blood elves’ Reliquary people found the records of the Divine Bell, I had Regent-Lord Ponytail send his archeologists up to Kun-Lai Summit to do some followup digging at another mogu site. I gave them a few days to work and then made a trip up to check on how they were doing. It didn’t occur to me that I might need aspirin while I was there. Shows how much I know.
Ponytail was there with the archeologists and some of his Blood Knights, and hoo boy, I had barely dismounted Mortimer when he started in with the griping and the complaining and the crying like a little girl. You know, I’ll tell you, a couple months ago I barely even knew who Captain Eyepatch was – okay, let’s be honest, most days I still don’t – but lately the guy has been turning into a regular Baine Bloodhoof Bitch-and-Moan All-Star. And wait till you hear what the dude was complaining – AT GREAT LENGTH – ABOUT. Apparently, while the elves were flitting around the ruins doing their digging, some mogu statues came to life and attacked them (SEE? SEE? THIS IS WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT WITH THE FUCKING STATUES), and Ponytail got his panties all in a bunch because his people nearly got roflstomped and statuespanked and OMG Garrosh why didn’t you warn us something like this might happen.
Which, first of all, go back and read that last part again.
Okay, done? Let’s recap.
Regent-Lord Hair-Care and his peeps were sent to some mogu ruins.
Mogu ruins. Ruins of building built by the MOGU. Who have been turning up again lately, all over the place.
Ruins that were decorated with mogu statues. STATUES, which it’s been established that the mogu had the power to animate.
And so these people, these brilliant brilliant elves, were utterly stunned and blindsided when, lo and behold, some mogu statues fucking WOKE UP on them.
This, by the way, after the LAST dig site featured one of those freaky statue dogs spontaneously reanimated and jumping them.
Is anyone else seeing how ridiculous this is, or am I just an asshole? How much more warning do these fuckwits need? And I mean, let me tell you, Ponytail would NOT shut up about how badly his people took it on the chin after they got surprised. Dude was going full-bore Tirion on me. But really, how sad is that? These people are totally flabbergasted by the appearance of a hostile enemy KNOWN TO BE AT LARGE, at a site that is KNOWN TO HAVE BELONGED TO THEM?
Seriously, how could Lor’the’motherfucker POSSIBLY get blindsided by that? Unless, you know, the mogu came at him from his left. OH YEAH YOU BET YOUR ASS I SAID IT.
But for real. Look, a lot of you guys have gone on missions for me. Doesn’t this sound like, you know, a STANDARD occupational hazard? Hell, never mind THAT, even – I know some of you are amateur archeologists yourselves. Beats the hell out of me as far as WHY, sounds like it would be boring as all fuck, but whatever – from what I hear, when you people are out digging for fragments in Pandaria, every so often one of those little sha buggers will pop up out of the ground and try to take a bite out of you. And STRANGELY ENOUGH, I never hear any of YOU complain about how you didn’t know it was coming and holy crap how do you expect us to defend ourselves and ow it hurts it hurts I have sand in my vagina ow. No, because you guys HANDLE YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS.
Anyway, bottom line is, after making me seriously question how much I want to depend on these elves, Hair-Care managed to scrape together a few possible leads on another mogu site a ways further north. I’m having him head up there to check it out, while I take bets on what he’ll wind up crying about this time.
“Lor’themar! My name is LOR’THEMAR! LOR’THE-FUCKING-MAR THERON!”
Mogu relics and panda oversights
Let me just say again, this Sanctum of Two Moons is a pretty awesome place. I could totally get used to hanging out here. That is, if I didn’t have Lor’the’motherfucker hanging around grumbling the whole time.
It took a lot of poking and prodding, but I finally got SOMETHING useful out of those blood elves, though. Belloc Brightblade and his Reliquary dug up some mogu ruins to the west of here – those would be the race that ruled Pandaria before the pandas overthrew them – and found records of a relic called the Divine Bell. From the sound of it, one of the past mogu emperors was able to use the Divine Bell to supercharge his soldiers’ power, which sounds like something that would be damn handy. There are more mogu ruins in the mountains to the north, so I’m having Regent-Lord Ponytail send his people out there to get to work and see if they can track down what became of this Divine Bell.
While they get started on that, I may do a little exploring around these parts. Gotta say, Pandaria seems like a pretty cool place. Not least of all for all the food and beer.
One thing strikes me as a little odd, though. Follow with me on this. So, Pandaria used to be ruled by these mogu, and now apparently they’re back stirring up trouble again. Fine. And these mogu used to have the power to take living souls and fuse them into stone, so that the stone could be animated and made to serve them, and become like a living stone weapon. And if you look around here in Pandaria, there are mogu ruins and statues, like, everywhere.
So…explain this to me, first of all. If you were ruled and oppressed by a race for thousands of years…and you overthrew them and freed yourself…and you knew these enemies had the power to, like, make statues COME ALIVE AND KILL YOU…once you’d defeated them, wouldn’t you, I don’t know, GET RID OF ALL THE FUCKING STATUES? Is it just me?
So, okay, that’s weird enough as far as oversights go. But check out part two. So okay, I guess the main line of defense that these pandas have going against the mogu is a group called the Golden Lotus. And the Golden Lotus people have their main base of operations here in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, at a place called the Golden Pagoda. Here, have a look:
Now that much is fine. But see if you can spot the problem I’m seeing in their decision-making here.
…Yeah.
