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.

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?

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.

At least I managed to get the last laugh in this time.  Right before I left, while I was mounted up on Mortimer and everything, I turned back and went, “By the way, what was your name again?”  Dude, you shoulda seen the look on his face.  Also, I guess I got out of there just in the nick of time, too – I hear tell right after I left, the Sha of Anger spontaneously appeared out of nowhere right around those ruins.  Weird.

“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.