Monthly Archives: March 2013
Garrosh’s Poetry Challenge revisted
So, with the calendar about to roll over into April, you know what that means – National Poetry Month!
And you know what National Poetry Month means – Garrosh’s Poetry Challenge!
For those of you who weren’t reading the blog at this time last year…well, first of all, WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU? But, letting that slide for the moment (but JUST for the moment, so don’t get too comfy), let me explain. Last year, in honor of National Poetry month, I stepped up to the plate to crank out a month’s worth of EPIC VERSE, all inspired by reader suggestions. The poems were kind of a mixed bag – which is to say, they were varying degrees of SPECTACULAR FREAKING GENIUS. Just as you would expect from your Warchief. Locks in Socks seemed to go over pretty well, for one.
Anyway. I want to do another poetry challenge this year to commemorate the month, but I also want to mix it up a little and not just repeat what I did last year. Plus, there’s so much going on around here what with the Alliance and the mogu and the Divine Bell, I don’t know if I can spare the time to set aside two days a week for poetry. BRILLIANT THOUGH IT IS.
So here’s this year’s plan. I’m still going to be offering up some EPIC VERSE drawing on reader suggestions, but this time around, I’m going to go about it a little differently. Hold on to your ass for this one.
Two words: live blogging.
That’s right, I’m going to live blog EPIC VERSE, and you’re all invited to watch it being composed right before your eyes, line by line. Or couplet by couplet…stanza by…oh, fuck it, you’ll get to see it being written incrementally in SOME configuration depending on what I come up with at the time, okay?!
So here’s how this is going to work. Two weeks from today – SUNDAY, APRIL 14 – I’ll put up a post in the early evening to set the stage for the live blog. Everyone will be invited to leave comments on that post with EPIC VERSE suggestions. It could be a topic, a theme, a character you’d like to see, a turn of phrase – anything you can come up with that will give me something to work with and get the ol’ creative juices flowing. Then, at 8 PM EST, I’ll start the live blog, and you’ll be able to see what I come up with as I compose my newest masterpiece live before your eyes, based on at least one, possibly more, of your suggestions.
Remember, save your ideas for the big night – don’t post your suggestions now, because part of the point of it all is to see what I can come up with when I get your ideas dropped on me that night with no time to prepare. Otherwise, though…be thinking of ideas, and clear your schedule on the night of April 14 – EPIC VERSE AWAITS.
Timing is Everything
Hi, everyone. This is Averry, making one of my rare appearances.
Since I’ve gotten a few inquiries about this, I thought I would make a blanket note here in the blog: Yes, I know I’m running way behind in-game events. Yes, I know we’re a few weeks into patch 5.2, and the blog is still only midway through the Domination Offensive storyline from 5.1. Yes, yes, I know.
Now, granted, the blog has always trailed a bit behind the game as a matter of necessity – I’ve always maintained that when new material comes out, I want to have time to play through and process it before I start trying to work it into the blog. So there was never a chance that new content would be acknowledged here right away (well, other than foreshadowing). But since it’s now bordering on the ridiculous, let’s just acknowledge it: the blog is pretty much unfolding under its own timetable. Part of the reason is the comics (new one coming up soon-ish, by the way; Dontrag and Utvoch fans rejoice) — which are fun to make, but man, do they ever eat up time, so they’ve led to some longer gaps between posts than I would like. Another part is, obviously, the side stories I’ve been working into the Domination Offensive thread, not to mention the Mokvar story that’s been running simultaneously.
If anything, I’m grateful that people seem to have been sticking with me through all of this. To make everything a little easier to follow, I’ve added entries to the Major Storylines page for both the Domination Offensive events and Mokvar’s story (the latter being a story that really has to develop slowly). I’ll try to keep those pages updated as the stories unfold. In the meantime, I can only ask that people continue to trust that there’s a reason why I’m not just banging out the Domination storyline in a week’s worth of posts, and that all the peripheral material is actually leading somewhere. It just…may not necessarily lead there as quickly as the patch releases might dictate. My hope is that after I finish with 5.1 (someday!), I’ll be able to make up a little time, since the 5.2 content isn’t particularly Garrosh-heavy, but even then, there will be some 5.1 fallout to deal with. (Not least of all being a surprise set off by the purge of Dalaran – that’s right, there’s your teaser!) All of which will probably keep me busy until 5.3 has been out for months…hoo boy.
This all may or may not be part of a devious plot to delay the Warchief’s eventual fate while I milk more time to spin my strange variety of yarns. Draw your own conclusions…
Be seeing you,
Averry
A public service announcement
Greetings, random internet surfer.
Welcome to the Warchief’s Command Board. Depending on how you found your way here, you may or may not know what this site actually is. If you don’t, allow me to illuminate. What you see before you is the personal blog of Garrosh Hellscream, Warchief of the Horde.
No, seriously. No joke. This is really Garrosh. [OOC disclaimer from our legal department: This isn’t really Garrosh.]
If this sounds like something that might interest you, perhaps you’d care to peruse the blog to learn a bit more about it and what kinds of adventures I’ve been detailing thus far. But I’d like to take a moment here to speak to those of you who already suspect that this site isn’t quite what you had set out looking for.
Greetings again, my good internet denizens.
From your arrival here, I gather that you too are a fan of the Google search engine. I can’t say I blame you. I know I’ve found many lemon square recipes that I never would have known about (though admittedly still no match for Greatmother’s) courtesy of the good people at Google.
I’m also happy to have new potential readers find their way here, regardless of how. So welcome, one and all.
With that said, I suppose I may want to address the concerns that some of you may be feeling at this point. And yes, I’m afraid you may be in for no small amount of disappointment, my friends. I regret to inform you that the odds are great that you will not find the true object of your search here.
Because, you see, while I am certainly no friend of Jaina Proudmoore, and while you’ll find no shortage of mockery and outright hostility directed at her from me here, I’m afraid that nowhere in these pages will you find visual evidence of her engaged in carnal acts with livestock. No cows. No goats. Not even a piddling little barnyard dog.
Yes, I know. In this shameful instance, the Google machine appears to have lied to you. I am as shocked and dismayed by this as you are.
Likewise, you will not find anything here that you might file under “Jaina Proudmoore captured xxx,” much to the chagrin of at least three of you. I would of course be only too happy to report the capture of an enemy of the Horde such as Jaina, but I fear that the “xxx” on the end of the search string adds a further wrinkle which renders the already-unlikely scenario much more far-fetched.
Well, okay. Somewhat more far-fetched. This is Jaina we’re talking about. But I digress.
While we’re on the subject, you’re also not going to find “Jaina Proudmoore and Varian porn,” “Jaina and Tyrande porn,” “Jaina Proudmoore Muradin porn” or – despite its rampant popularity – “Jaina Proudmoore and Sylvanas porn.” Speaking of which, let’s just extend the whole blanket “nope” to any comparable permutations involving Sylvanas. No Argent Confessor Paletress. No Liadrin. No High Inquisitor Whitemane. No Shademaster Kiryn. Not gonna happen, people. Trust me. I’ve floated a couple of those by her more than once myself. She’s not biting. Let it go.
Moreover, whoever among you came here looking for “Jaina Proudmoore climbing pole to victory porn drawing” (yes, really), “pandaren fucked by brown virmen” (yes, really), “broken blood elf statue with vagina showing” (yes, really), “Grimtotem fucking with Mankrik’s wife while Mankrik sees it” (yes, really)…I honestly don’t know what to say to any of you. Other than perhaps having to offer you some begrudging respect for knowing exactly what you want in your lives. Horrifying and sad though they may be.
But alas, your simple albeit distressingly specific wishes will not be fulfilled here. Once again, the perfidious Google machine makes fools of us all.
And whichever one of you found your way here in search of “King Varian Wrynn gets a little diplomatic with Aggra’s butt porn” – and yes, one of you did (you know who are you are) – I can only shake my head sadly and mourn whatever tragedy befell you in childhood. I would also suggest securing your home, as I suspect there’s at least a passing chance Thrall may be on his way over as we speak.
And, further, nowhere on this blog will you find anything that might be described as “Varian Wrynn raped by devilsaur,” although, let me assure you, language cannot express the delight with which I would provide you with such documentation if I could.
Indeed, the only fleeting glimmer of hope I can offer amid this endless parade of sadness would be whoever came to the blog searching for “man what the f happened Horde” – a sentiment with which I can certainly sympathize, and which I have likely expressed in my posts here on more occasions than one. Sadly, though, it is a question for which I can offer you no answers, my friend. I wish I knew what the f happened. I truly, truly do.
For those among you who are regular readers of this blog, and who might hasten to point out that this very post may well exacerbate this Google hit issue by providing additional suspect phrases for the search engine to latch onto, let me reassure you that I am only too aware of this possibility. And to any such Google users who do indeed find their way here as a result, I will only say:
Greetings, random internet surfer. Welcome to the Warchief’s Command Board. I would tell you that you will leave this site empty-handed, but I suppose that partly depends on how you arrived.
Finally, if I might add a closing postscript: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU FUCKING PEOPLE?!?!!
Ugh.
UGH.
MOVING ON.
The fine art of persuasion
So brace yourselves for this one – Lor’themotherfucker’s blood elves, who insisted I give them the chance to interrogate that mogu Shan Kien about the Divine Bell? Guess what they turned up for us? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
I know. I’ll give you a minute to sit down and recover from the shock.
Recovered yet? Okay. Moving on.
Anyway, after I’d given the elves time to establish yet again how completely and utterly USELESS they are, I sent orders for them to deliver Shan Kien over to the Kor’kron up in Kun-Lai summit. By this point, Regent-Lord Eyepatch was back in Silvermoon on his prolonged post-sha-box crying jag, so I had the good fortune not to have to deal with a whole lot of complaining and protesting from his people when I sent the order. I had Malkorok go up with his Kor’kron to receive the mogu at Garrosh’ar Advance – a small base we’d set up a ways north of Eastwind Rest – and wait for my arrival.
When I got there, by the way, Malkorok managed to get himself into another one of his cranky moods. He was eating his lunch at the table we’d set up at the camp, and when I arrived he turned away from it to order the Kor’kron to bring Shan Kien out for me…whereupon Mortimer wandered over and, yep, you guessed it, polished off Malkorok’s food. Mortimer seemed only too delighted — then again, who can blame him, seeing as I think that sandwich had bacon on it — although Malkorok was not pleased. But I think he kept himself reined in since he could see what a kick I got out of the whole thing.
Of course, as I was getting ready to leave the Sanctum of Two Moons with Blademaster Ishi, Baine overheard where I was going and decided to tag along to keep an eye on things. Because…well…I don’t know, I guess he thinks that when you’re dealing with an agent of a malevolent enemy bent on world domination, it’s really super important that you be nice to him. Or something.
I’ll grant, though, Baine did turn out to be handy. I put in a little time trying my own brand of charm and persuasion on Shan Kien, but after a while my knuckles were getting sore, and that was when Baine suggested we use some Pandaren concoction called Memory Wine that would let us peek into Shan Kien’s memories and see where the Divine Bell had been hidden. Which, by the way, um, WHY DIDN’T HE MENTION ANYTHING ABOUT THIS STUFF BEFORE YOU KNOW I BET THAT SHIT WOULD HAVE BEEN HANDY DON’T YOU THINK GUYS?
Ugh.
So, we got a volunteer to try out the Memory Wine, and got a peek of Shan Kien sealing up the Divine Bell in a mogu tomb somewhere along a mountainside. The whole thing went surprisingly smoothly, other than the fact that while we were using the Memory Wine, it seemed like every couple minutes we had problems with the yaks we had with us suddenly running around all spooked. Which started getting on my nerves after a while. Anyway, since Gurtash is sort of our resident artist, I’m having him flown up to work up some sketches of the place to help guide the search parties. I’m having Ishi stay up here to organize the scouts and coordinate. Meanwhile, I’m going to check in at Domination Point and maybe look into a contingency plan or two.
Spazzle Speaks: Parting Gifts
I usually don’t make a big deal of it, but one thing that honestly irks me a lot is when people assume that because I’m a goblin I must be friends with all the other goblins – like there’s no difference between the Bilgewater Cartel and any of the other goblin cartels. People just see “goblin” and figure I must have relatives in Ratchet, or know the guy they ran that errand for in Booty Bay. The fact of the matter is, the different goblin cartels are pretty separate a lot of the time, and having spent most of my life in Kezan prior to the Cataclysm, I hardly had any contact at all with the Steamwheedle goblins who came to settle in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.
Funny thing, though – under the circumstances right now, that stuff probably made it a lot easier for me to sneak off to Everlook than it would be for anyone else. Even with Mokvar banished, the border patrols are still on watch and asking a lot of questions of travelers, but with me? They see goblin, hear “Everlook,” and automatically think “Oh, yeah, that must be cool.”
So I had a pretty easy time getting up there to see Mokvar. Deliana was with him, but she didn’t have too much to say. Neither did Mokvar, actually – at least not as much as I would have liked. Even when I told him about the banishment, he wouldn’t give me much of anything by way of reaction. He said something about being surprised Eitrigg would go that far, but he didn’t seem upset – if anything, he almost looked a little amused about it. Eventually he filled in a few small pieces for me, but mostly wouldn’t go into much detail. He said it wasn’t because he didn’t trust me, but because he didn’t want me to know too many things that I might have to deny later. That was fine with me, honestly. I feel like I’ve already got enough secrets to keep from Garrosh as it is.
The one thing he did fill in for me was about he and Deliana escaping Orgrimmar. He started right in with that, actually – one of the first things he did when I got there was ask if Ji was okay. Which he is, by the way. As it turns out, though, Ji knew all along what was going to happen. He and Mokvar had planned a while ago that if Mokvar were captured, Ji would gather up some supplies and come see him…and then let himself get knocked out, providing some cover for the escape in the process. I tried pressing Mokvar about getting past the guards, but he just said something about “guardian angels” and asked me to trust him.
And the thing is, despite everything that’s been happening, I do. Like Garona said the other day – when you look at everything Mokvar’s done, there are only two ways to account for it: either he has something planned that he can’t tell us about, or he’s a fool. And Mokvar being a fool…that’s just too hopelessly improbable for me to accept. So I’m choosing to trust him, until it bites me in the keister. At least now I know Ji and I are in this together. Sort of.
Also, the trust definitely isn’t one-sided. The main reason Mokvar wanted to see me was to give me something: a recall totem. It’s what we shaman use for our Astral Recall spell – we’ll attune this totem to ourselves, then keep it at home, or in some other safe location. As long as a shaman is alive, our link to the elements will let us teleport ourselves back to wherever that totem is. Mokvar gave me his and asked me to keep it safe. He said that when this was over, he would need a way to bring himself home, but in safe surroundings. Among friends. He considered leaving it with Ji, but he figured an extra totem would be less conspicuous with me since I’m a shaman too.
It still feels pretty conspicuous to me, though. But that’s probably just my imagination. It’s set out on my mantle now – among a bunch of other elemental odds and ends that I’m hoping will all blend around it, even though to me the recall totem is sticking out like a sore thumb. Still, I’m sure – I hope – that nobody other than me will think anything of it. So there it is, giving off that living green glow, with that blinking green light on top. Waiting for its chance to call Mokvar back home, after the world has finished dragging him back into his past.
[Header image provided by Angelya from Revive and Rejuvenate, used here with permission and many thanks.]
Spazzle Speaks: Tell Hell
You have logged on.
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] i’m pretty sure ur wrong
[Guild][EdwardBear | Ji] hi mrbad
[Guild][HonaleePuff | Kalecgos] I’LL GO GET MY COPY SO WE CAN CHECK
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] i’m quite sure i’m not.
[Guild][Lor’themar] Greetings, MrBadcrumble!
You whispered to [EdwardBear | Ji]: hey ji – you feeling ok?
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] no sweetie u dont have to
[Guild][Nightengayle | Garona] hi MBC
[Officer][LivinDeadGrl | Sylvanas] Ah, Spazzle, I’m glad to see you on. I’d like to discuss something with you when you have a free moment.
[EdwardBear | Ji] whispered: yes, i think i’ll be ok
[Guild][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] hey everyone
[Nightengayle | Garona] whispered: have you heard anything about mokvar?
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] ugh well now hes flown off
You whispered to [Nightengayle | Garona]: not a thing
[EdwardBear | Ji] whispered: just a little sore.
You whispered to [Nightengayle | Garona]: why? is there news?
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] sure
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] oh hi baddie i didnt see u come on
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] do we have more IPs to trace or something?
You whispered to [EdwardBear | Ji]: well that’s good
[Officer][LivinDeadGrl | Sylvanas] No no, nothing quite so technical.
[Nightengayle | Garona] whispered: not that I know of
[Guild][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] how’s it going, leslie?
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] not bad
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] huh, really?
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] same ol same ol really
You whispered to [EdwardBear | Ji]: well if you need anything let me know
[Officer][LivinDeadGrl | Sylvanas] You sound surprised.
[LamontCranston] whispered: Hi there.
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] well, after a while you kind of get used to it when people only want to talk to you because they can’t get their printer to work
You whispered to [LamontCranston] hi
[Guild][HonaleePuff | Kalecgos] OK HERE WE GO
[Guild][HonaleePuff | Kalecgos] SHERMAN’S CODEX RIGHT?
You whispered to [Nightengayle | Garona]: at this point I don’t think anything would surprise me, though
[Officer][LivinDeadGrl | Sylvanas] True… I suppose it comes with being one of the few tech literates in the cohort.
[Nightengayle | Garona] whispered: I know, right?
[Guild][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] what are you guys doing?
[LamontCranston] whispered: Are you busy?
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] volume 2, yes.
You whispered to [Nightengayle | Garona]: honestly I don’t understand what Mokvar could be thinking
[Guild][HonaleePuff | Kalecgos] THERES A VOLUME 2?
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] you get used it mostly
You whispered to [LamontCranston]: a little
You whispered to [LamontCranston]: were you interested in the guild?
[Nightengayle | Garona] whispered: that’s the thing, though
[EdwardBear | Ji] whispered: thanks, i will
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] sorry if I’m slow
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] prof here is trying to tell me there’s teleportation magic that would let someone blink all the way to other worlds
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] trying to juggle a bunch of tells
[Officer][LivinDeadGrl | Sylvanas] Oh I can sympathize.
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] not that there ARE such spells, just that there’s a theoretical basis for them being possible, based on the distorted curvature of space surrounding high velocity blinking.
You whispered to [Nightengayle | Garona]: what is?
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] and now we’re going to look it up and prove him wrong
[Officer][LivinDeadGrl | Sylvanas] I’m fielding quite a few myself. Mostly from Lor’themar…I could swear, no sooner do I click back over to officer chat than his whisper tab lights up again.
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] what’s going on?
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] once we get volume 2…
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] it should be on the shelf below where you got that one.
[Officer][LivinDeadGrl | Sylvanas] Something or other with Garrosh and his demands. I’m not sure exactly.
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] faded, dark red cover.
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] fourth book from the left.
[Guild][HonaleePuff | Kalecgos] OK ON IT BRB
[LamontCranston] whispered: No, Spaz, it’s me.
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] how do u know that?
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] don’t let me interrupt if you’re talking to him
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] i have a very good memory.
[LamontCranston] whispered: Mokvar.
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] wait, how are you not sure if he’s going on and on about it?
You whispered to [LamontCranston]: dksjghksdyhgd
[Nightengayle | Garona] whispered: for him to do all these things he’s been doing… killing the dwarf in ironforge, the deal with magatha, everything…
[Nightengayle | Garona] whispered: KNOWING I was watching him .. and I know he knew…
[EdwardBear | Ji] has logged off.
[Officer][LivinDeadGrl | Sylvanas] No, it’s fine. I’m really just tabbing over every few lines and giving him a “right” or an “I can see how that would be frustrating” or an “I don’t blame you at all for being upset.”
[Nightengayle | Garona] whispered: he would have to be an idiot
[LamontCranston] whispered: Now before you go tabbing over to do an IP trace, I’m routing through a proxy server to log on.
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] huh
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] isn’t that kind of risky?
[Nightengayle | Garona] whispered: and if there’s one thing we both know about mokvar, its that he’s not an idiot
[Guild][HonaleePuff | Kalecgos] OK NOW WE’RE IN BUSINESS
You whispered to [Nightengayle | Garona]: yeah
You whispered to [Nightengayle | Garona]: no kidding
You whispered to [Nightengayle | Garona]: 1 sec
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] you have volume 2?
[Nightengayle | Garona] whispered: kk
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] yea
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] I mean, how do you know what he just said was about being upset and frustrated?
[Officer][LivinDeadGrl | Sylvanas] I’ve known Lor’themar a long time.
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] now i just have to find the part about long-distance blinking
You whispered to [LamontCranston]: hang on, since when do YOU know how to mask IPs??
You whispered to [LamontCranston]: and are you crazy? what the hell are you doing??
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] page 273.
[Guild][HonaleePuff | Kalecgos] WOW REALLY?
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] ok looking, hang on
[LamontCranston] whispered: Deliana called in a couple favors to set it up.
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] right-hand column.
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] under the diagram.
[LamontCranston] whispered: I just needed to get on for a minute to talk to you.
[Guild][HonaleePuff | Kalecgos] HOW DO YOU REMEMBER THAT?
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] like i said, i have a good memory.
You whispered to [LamontCranston]: mokvar, you have to be careful – garona’s on and she was JUST asking about you
[LamontCranston] whispered: I saw her on. I whispered her with a dollar-spam ad and got her auto-ignore.
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] sorry i’m going all quiet – trying to fix a bunch of things here
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] ok here we go, see it says it wouldn’t work
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] “blinking beyond azerothian gravitational bounds would prove impractical due to drag produced by the blinking subject’s carried mass.”
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] blinking beyond azerothian gravity would be impractical
[Nightengayle | Garona] whispered: hey spazzle, I know you’re probably still busy there
[Officer][LivinDeadGrl | Sylvanas] Quite all right. As it happens, Lor’themar is growing needy even by Lor’themarian standards. I’m finding myself having to pay attention to some of his prattling.
[Nightengayle | Garona] whispered: I need to get going
You whispered to [LamontCranston]: what are you even doing on here?
[Nightengayle | Garona] whispered: I’m leaving for pandaria in the morning and I need to finish packing
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] right.
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] is he still upset?
[Nightengayle | Garona] whispered: I’ll talk to you later
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] keep reading.
[LamontCranston] whispered: Like I said, I wanted to talk to you.
[Officer][LivinDeadGrl | Sylvanas] Insofar as he hasn’t spontaneously ceased to be Lor’themar, yes.
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] oh
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] OH
[LamontCranston] whispered: I only have a minute, though.
[Nightengayle | Garona] has logged off.
You whispered to [LamontCranston]: ok…
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] “this obstacle could in theory be overcome by a dispersion of the grounding mass along the blinking vector via a highly concentrated arcane field”
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] oh…wow
[LamontCranston] whispered: You’re on the short list of people I feel like I can trust, and like I said, I need to talk to you.
[LamontCranston] whispered: But not here.
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] which yes, we don’t know how to do yet.
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] but we’re talking theory here.
[LamontCranston] whispered: Meet me in Everlook in two days.
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] that’s really impressive you knew that
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] i read a lot.
User is not logged on.
User is not logged on.
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] yea but sherman’s codex volume 2?
[Guild][Proudleslie | Jaina] that would be so far down on my reading list i would probably never get to it
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] actually, I need to get off of here for a little while
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] heh, kids. ;o)
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] I know you wanted to talk to me about something – can we catch up later?
[Officer][LivinDeadGrl | Sylvanas] That’s fine.
[Guild][HonaleePuff | Kalecgos] HEY I’M THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLD
[Officer][LivinDeadGrl | Sylvanas] If it’s easier, I can e-mail you about it as well.
[Officer][MrBadcrumble | Spazzle] ok, sounds good
[Guild][ProfHubert | Faranell] yes, and?
You have logged off.
Spazzle Speaks: Refugee
I swear the Mokvar situation keeps getting more unreal. Latest news: Mokvar and Deliana have escaped, and right now nobody knows where they are.
It gets extra weird when you hear how it happened. Ji Firepaw went to visit Mokvar at his house. After he’d been inside a few minutes, the guards standing watch outside heard noises and went in to check. They found Mokvar and Deliana standing over Ji – who was unconscious on the floor. As soon as the guards were inside, Mokvar hexed one of them. We’re not sure what happened to the other guard – she just reports blacking out for a few minutes, and when she came to, Mokvar and Deliana were both gone.
Ji wasn’t hurt badly. He’s a little black and blue from taking one good blow on the head, but it’s nothing that won’t heal up quickly enough. He says he was just going to visit Mokvar and bring him a few things – some snacks, I guess, since among the pandaren one of the highest displays of friendship is the gift of food – but once he was there, Mokvar and Deliana suddenly turned on him.
I know. It doesn’t make much sense to me, either.
Eitrigg was already at his wit’s end over Mokvar, and when word got to him about this…well, let’s just say I’m glad I wasn’t actually there. Rumor is that this latest piece of news made him go positively Garrosh. And here’s the other thing – I can understand why Eitrigg would be angry, obviously, but I still wouldn’t have expected him to respond the way he has. I would have figured he’d send out search teams to hunt down Mokvar, put a bounty on his capture…maybe even issue a declaration that he’s a criminal at large and wanted for crimes against the Horde. As it turns out, as of this morning, all of those options have been bypassed in favor for the one last step that – in orc culture, anyway – pretty much the worst penalty possible.
By order of Eitrigg, under the authority granted him by the Warchief in absentia, Mokvar has been banished from the Horde.
[Header image provided by Khizzara from Blog of the Treant, used here with permission and many thanks.]
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?”
Sha-touched
So of course, since Baine arrived here in Pandaria, he managed to get here just in time to bear witness to a frigging spectacular FUBAR with our efforts to make use of that sha claw. And naturally, Regent-Lord Ponytail had to be on hand too so I could have a nice bitch-and-moan one-two punch.
Like we’d guessed, infusing soldiers with at least some measure of the claw’s sha energy was simple enough. For these initial experiments, I didn’t want to leave much to chance, so we brought in a half-dozen Kor’kron for the tests. The idea is that the Kor’kron are the best of the best within the Horde ranks, so they would be most likely to have the strength of will and discipline to maintain control over the sha influence – and these particular Kor’kron weren’t even your garden variety. I had Malkorok hand-pick the very best of his people. Razors. If anyone was going to keep their shit together, it would be them.
Well, those Kor’kron may have been razors, but we wound up taking some razor burn. All of the soldiers we exposed to the sha claw suffered some severe changes to their behavior. Some became extremely temperamental. Some were listless and depressed. Some turned antsy and paranoid. And ALL of them became prone to violent outbursts playing off of whatever other mood swings they were going through. With the help of a few adventurers who happened to be on hand, we managed to slap some sense into the Kor’kron, but that doesn’t change the fact that the whole experiment went down as a pretty dismal failure.
And of course, cue Baine and Ponytail griping and crying and complaining, with an extra side order of holier-than-thou from Baine and estrogen from Ponytail.
I seriously need to find some better fucking minions.
Anyway, it’s becoming pretty painfully apparent that unless Lor’thefucker’s people back in Silvermoon make some breakthrough with the sha box they recovered, we’ve got everything hinging on us finding the Divine Bell so we can gain better control of this sha power. Which means we’re majorly counting on the blood elves who are working on interrogating Shan Kien. Which means, any way you cut it, we’ve got everything riding on Ponytail’s people.
Fuck.
Did I mention I SERIOUSLY need to find some better minions?
Memory lane
After the disaster up at Shado-Pan Monastery, Krimpatul and I brought the sha claw that we’d taken from Burzum back to the Sanctum of Two Moons. I’m hoping that if we examine it and conduct a few experiments, we can figure out a way to draw on that sha power without…you know…the accompanying crazy-going. While we get going on that, I’m sending Krimp over to Tian Monastery to round up the DPS trainees and bring them back to Domination Point. Hopefully they managed to pick up a few useful tricks from the monks there.
Oh, but hey, guess who was here to greet us at the Sanctum when we got back? Baine Bloodhoof, newly arrived in Pandaria. That’s, like, the best news I could get without there actually being any good news. Because I’ve been suffering from a severe deficiency in pain in my ass ever since Vol’jin took the big grave-flop…
* Much to his disgruntlement, Garrosh learned of Dezco’s tauren expedition during a planning session for the Dominance Offensive.
** Dezco and Anduin have (some of) this exchange at the Temple of the White Tiger.
[Old Orgrimmar background images provided by Rades from Orcish Army Knife, used here with permission and many thanks.]
