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.

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.]

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.

The geometry of shadows

Okay, so, Gurtash finally managed to finish up the last part of this record from Tian Monastery.  Just in the nick of time, too, seeing as apparently Regent-Lord Hair-Care and his people have found something up north, which means I should probably get up there before something jumps out and goes “BOO!” and they all wet themselves again and spend the next three months crying to me about the pee stains in their panties.  Fucking blood elves.

Anyway, when we left off last time, we’d just gotten a visit from that Taran Zhu guy, which…well, the less said about that the better, I guess.  Because dude, seriously.  Moving on…

 

Credit where it’s due, Gurtash puts in the effort on these things, but man, he goes through a lot of paper.  You should seriously see the stacks of sketches I’ve got piling up in my war room at Domination Point.  I’m thinking I might have to find something to do with this stuff before it totally takes over…anybody have any interest in some drawings?  Better the mailbox than the fireplace, I suppose.

Anyway, that’s it for now.  Back soon with updates on whatever Lor’themotherfucker’s found in the mountains.

Getting around with the Shado-Pan

So, when last we left off, Ben-Lin had just…um…politely convinced me to lay off beating the monkey.

I can’t put my finger on it, but something about that is reminding me of a talking-to Greatmother gave me about 20 years ago.

Anyway, continuing on.

* That would be this occasion, even though this particular Zhi-Zhi wouldn’t remember it.

* Like here…or here.

 

Continued soon, or at least as “soon” as Gurtash can crank out some more of what happened.  Gotta say, if nothing else, I’m starting to miss the time-efficiency of Mokvar’s transcripts.  Oh well…

Shock the monkey

So, picking up where we left off in the last installment…

* Garrosh first met Zhi-Zhi here, then crossed paths again here and here.

** These events all took place in an alternate timeline, which…you know what, here.  Just re-read it, it’ll be easier.

Continued as soon as the kid can scribble out some more crap.

I think I can remember your name

I’m scheduled to fly back to Kin-Lai Summit in a couple days to check in again with Lor’the’motherfucker’s Reliquary peeps and see how their research is going at the new mogu site.  I’m pretty well certain that if we can figure out what happened to this Divine Bell, it could be the thing that finally tips the scales for us against the Alliance.  So I’ll give Regent-Lord Cyclops and his crew a few days to prance around up there, then stop in and see how badly they need me to hold their feet to the fire.

In the meantime, I’m taking a little time to have a look around some more of Pandaria, starting with where Nazgrim got the ball rolling a couple months ago, the Jade Forest.  I decided to bring Gurtash for the trip, along with blademaster Burzum and Ben-Lin Cloudstrider, who’s seeing mainland Pandaria for the first time and is plenty curious about her homeland-that’s-not.

First stop was Serpent’s Heart, site of that big battle Nazgrim fought between…well…his monkeys and the Alliance’s fish men.

…

Yeah, I needed a minute there to be sad again.

Anyhow, this was my first look at the handiwork of this “sha” that I keep hearing about…specifically, in this case, the Sha of Doubt, because I guess they all decided to divide up into jurisdictions or whatever.  Anyway, pretty creepy stuff, not least of all because even the land itself seems to have been infected by whatever dark energy these sha things generate.

After that, we flew around checking some of the regions to the north, and wound up paying a visit to a place I’d heard of once before, a long time and another world ago…

* Tian Monastery was mentioned to Garrosh here, in an alternate timeline.

* Like this?

 

[A quick OOC note: Garrosh's adventures at Tian Monastery will be spread out over a series of web comic installments.  The comics are a lot of fun to put together, but are also something of a beast time-wise, so please bear with me if the next few posts have longer gaps between them than you may be accustomed to here.  Thanks for reading as always!]

Monday mailbag

I arrived a couple days ago here at the Sanctum of Two Moons, and I’ve been getting settled in and learning the lay of the land since then.  While we have a little break in the action, I figured this might be a good time to dip into the ol’ mailbag…

 

To Garrosh Hellscream, Warchief of the Horde:

Call off the search patrols!  I’m ok!

I know everyone must have been sick with worry the last few months since my sudden disappearance, (my colleagues up in Northrend must have been particularly disturbed by my absence); however, I can reassure you all that I am finally safe and sound.

Where have I been, you might ask?  Ah, friend, that is a tale indeed!  A tale of wonder and adventure!  I was swimming with the Orca folk in the northern oceans and discovered a new shape-shifting technique that permitted me to assume the very form of a noble whale person myself.  Wearing my new visage, I was able to communicate with them in their own language — a very melodious tongue with beautiful but complex rules of grammar — and became assimilated into their culture.

Engrossed in my cetacean studies, I lost track of time and eventually track of my own self.  I forgot my previous life as a Night Elf and the thought of living on land became as alien to me as the thought of drinking fire would be to any but a fire elemental.  I lived as a whale; I laughed as a whale; I loved as a whale; and finally I migrated south with the rest of my pod.

O! What a journey that was!  The tales I could tell of the fantastical denizens of the deep!  But alas!  I have not the space here to elaborate further.  (Look for my upcoming book on my experiences, working title: “Darling it’s Better Down Where it’s Wetter”.)

But all good things must come to an end.  There was an enormous storm, the violence of which penetrated even the depths of the sea.  I was separated from my pod and flung about at the mercy of the waves.  At last I was washed up on dry land and lay helplessly beached, drying out in the sun.  I looked death in the eye that day and all hope left me.  At last I fell unconscious and lay senseless on the shore.

When I came to I was surrounded by curious creatures.  They looked like some sort of Furbolg, but were covered with black and white fur from head to toe and called themselves “Pandaren”.  They clothed me and helped me to my feet, at which point I realized that I was a Night Elf again.  All my memories came flooding back.  I was my full self once more.

I spent a few days in the care of these kind Pandaren.  They told me many fascinating stories about this previously unknown land and informed me that many other peoples from both the Horde and the Alliance had recently arrived and made contact with them.  And so I am writing you this missive to allay your fears about my welfare.

Also, could you please lend me a small amount of gold and arrange transportation for me back to Northrend?  I seem to have misplaced all my possessions.  Thanks.

–Arch Druid Lathorius, D.E.H.T.A.

Huh.  Okay, so…I’m going to set aside the fact that Lather-on-us here seems to think he and I are buddies or something, because hey, as long as he thinks I can stand the sight of him, maybe that helps tone down the whining and complaining and protesting every time I try to eat a ham on rye.

So setting that aside…  Dude, you were missing?  Was I supposed to notice that shit?

Actually, come to think of it, you WERE all AWOL that time I went to check in with your DEHTA flunkies, weren’t you?  But man, that was AGES ago – were you seriously out mucking around with the fishes all that time?

Still, funny that you would wind up landing in the same place that everyone else has been converging on lately.  Especially since it’s the same place that was hidden and cloaked in mists and totally unreachable and inaccessible to anyone for every and ever for like thousands of years until everybody and their uncle started winding up there like a month ago.  I would say it’s what all the cool kids are doing, but, you know, that doesn’t really help explain YOU being here.  Or Varian.  Or…well, pretty much anyone other than me.  But whatever.  OH HEY, actually, you know one other cool kid who HAS turned up here in Pandaria?  Hemet Nesingwary!  You know him, right?  Small world.

As for the gold… Yeah, um, I think you’re gonna need to scrape together cab fare for yourself.  I gave at the office.  Maybe see if you can do some busywork for the Anglers in exchange for a little pocket change?

 

Warchief!

I’m guessing your blog has been lagging behind while you venture into Pandaria.  I recently encountered you in the Shrine of Two Moons during your visit.  Unfortunately, I was under the influence of a Blingtron 4000, and looked like a human instead of a proud Horde member.  See the attached photos for how poorly this went for me.

Enjoy the rest of your trip!

–WookieeBH

Yeesh, dude, what’s up with the “lagging behind” shit, I only just got here a couple days ago.  I do remember you, though, Wookiee – among the many random asshats who swung by to make my day more tedious, you and your little getup were especially asshattery.  Although I did kind of get a chuckle out of it when your dog or hyena or whatever took a dump on Malkorok’s boots.  Dude gets so grumpy about things.  Heh.

Anyway, as you can see from the pictures, I’ve been hanging out at the Sanctum of Two Moons for the past couple days, which let me tell you is a pretty boss place.  Unfortunately, I only had a couple hours to enjoy it before I was joined by – as you can also see from the pictures – our old friend Regent-Lord Hair-Care.  Whose mood, by the way, hasn’t improved much lately.  Only, get this – in light of some of the slapping-around I’ve had to give him lately, now he feels the need to bring company everywhere he goes:

This would be Ellendra Palescorn…his bodyguard.

Yes, his bodyguard.

I swear, only among the blood elves would it go over as a plan to be like, “You know, I really need someone to help keep my scrawny, twiggy ass safe”…and then hire someone scrawnier and twiggier.

Thank goodness they’re good at magic, is all I’m gonna say.

 

Hey mon,

I still can’t believe Vol’jin be dead, mon!  But I betcha he always gonna he wit us in spirit.  I can practically feel his spirit wit me now, mon – it’s almost like he be right here writin’ dis letter wit me!

I know ya got ya Kor’kron people down here in de Echo Isles ta keep us safe, mon, but I don’ be likin’ dis Gul’tar guy dey got in charge.  I’m tellin’ ya, sometin’ bad gonna happen wit day guy!  If ya be askin’ me, I tink ya betta keep a close eye on what he goin’ on down here.  Wouldn’t want sometin’ slippin’ between da cracks, ya know, mon?

–Bob, Echo Isles

Oh, great, this guy again.  And so of course, just as soon as I get ONE grumbling troll out of my hair, ANOTHER one pops up to take his place.  Almost like Vol’jin isn’t gone at all, indeed.

Actually, come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve mentioned that before, so just in case you’ve been living under a rock the last couple weeks…you remember that mission I’d sent Vol’jin on when he first got to Pandaria?  Yeah.  Didn’t go so well for him.  Boo hoo.  Moving on.

So anyway, Bobbo, sorry if you don’t like the cut of Gul’tar’s jib, whatever a jib is, but you know what?  I’m not going to waste my time trying to micromanage every move my people make down there.  If Gul’tar needs anything, I’m pretty certain he’ll let me know, and if anything important is going on there, I’m damn sure they’ll send word to me about it.  So until I hear something from them, I’ll be keeping my nose out of the goings-on down in the Echo Isles, which is a good thing what with the smell down there because WTF are you trolls burning all the time anyway?

 

(the parchment appears to have been chewed on a bit on one corner and has a few smears of dark mud at the bottom)

Hail Warchief!

I am writing to you to apply for the position of scribe. I have been taught in the very best tents of Thunder Bluff. I am a tauren, albeit a bit small, and that wet dog smell is a condition I have. Some say I appear to be wearing a badly made tauren suit, but that’s hurtful because I got these stitches in service to the Horde! I wish to put my skills to use serving my Warchief! I feel that I would be best suited for this position given my extensive linguistic skills and utter loyalty. After all, you can’t be too careful these days. There could be Alliance spies anywhere. As a professional tracker I could help with this also. Afterall, it’d be ashamed if anything….happened. I hope my Warchief finds me worthy of being right by his side.

–Legit Tauren Scribe

Hey, LTS, thanks for writing in.  I’m glad people are still showing interest in the scribe position after that…erm…mixed-results audition thing.  Right now I think I’m going to see how things work out with Gurtash covering the scribing, in his own doodly sort of way, but I’ll definitely keep you in line.  It wouldn’t hurt at all to have a couple competent backup options, in case the kid gets too busy with other assignments or what-have-you.  That said, with any luck it won’t be too long before Mokvar’s back on the job, assuming we can get his weird-ass marked-for-death situation under wraps sometime soon.

 

To Garrosh:

Reporting in re: your special assignment.  As per your request, have been maintaining stealthed surveillance on Mokvar in order to provide additional protection in light of recent attacks.

Have come across unexpected complications.

While in Winterspring with his panda friend, Mokvar was seen meeting with an unidentified human woman.  The two seemed very familiar; shortly thereafter embarked together on journey to Darkwhisper Gorge.  Seen scouring cave formerly occupied by now-deceased imp,  Appeared to be searching for something; overheard references to relic of some kind, demonic power, domination of wills.

Will continue to monitor Mokvar’s activities and continue protection against attackers until further instructions received.

–Garona Halforcen, Everlook

The…FUCK?

So hang on, I worry about Mokvar’s safety to the point that I assign one of the best rogues in the business to follow his ass around and look out for him while I’m away…and THIS is what I get for it?  Meeting up with some HUMAN?  Sneaking around trying to do spirits know WHAT?

Yeah, this…this is NOT going to be good for my mood, let me tell you that right now.

In fact, I think on that note it’s time for me to step away from the computer for a few.  And possibly go smack someone or something around for a little while.

More soon.

EPIC anti-motivation

Just a quick follow-up today on yesterday’s post.  Since Gurtash really did manage to capture the…difficulties of being Warchief around this particular cast of characters, and some of you seemed to pick up on it, I thought I’d provide you with a little bonus material.  So here, first and foremost:

 

And here:

 

I’m getting ready now to take a trip up to the Shrine of Two Moons, up in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.  Malkorok has been up there advance-scouting things along with the Reliquary crew.  It’ll be interesting to see what they’ve dug up.

More soon.

Thinking outside the box, coloring inside the lines

So, now that I’m no longer (mostly) dealing with the damn boss-level Pandaren flu, I can get back to a few things I’d been wanting to update you all on.  A few days ago, just before the last wave of ships arrived from Kalimdor (along with the always-delightful former chieftain of the Darkspear trolls), I noticed Gurtash on some down time doodling pictures of the base and some of the officers.  It got me thinking that maybe the kid could provide me with an outside-the-box way around my whole lack-of-a-scribe situation.

What’s that?  You don’t follow how Gurtash drawing could help me keep my transcription needs covered until Mokvar’s back on board?  Well here, have a look for yourself at the kid’s first practice project from the other day:

* Sylvanas baited D&U into asking Overlord Cliffwalker about this here.

Not bad.  I mean, it’s pretty doodly, and his proportions need work, and let’s face it, it doesn’t come anywhere near capturing my level of awesome, but to be fair, that would be too much to expect him to get on paper in one pass anyway.  Kid’s only fourteen, after all.  Overall, though…yeah, I’m thinking Gurtash may have found himself a new part-time job.