Monday mailbag

You know what this is, you know how this works, let’s get right to it.

 

Dear Warchief,

I heard that you really like bacon. ME TOO! Bacon is the greatest. It’s like candy, but it’s meat. I like meat. I want to try ALL the meat! I tried crocolisk yesterday for the first time and it was really good! It tastes a bit like pork, but more gamey. What’s your favorite meat that’s not bacon? Are there any animals you would like to eat but haven’t had a chance to try yet? Yay, meat!

–Suirohtal, Archdruid of People for the Eating of Tasty Animals

Holy shit, this guy is like Bizarro Lathorius!  And also, gotta say, this PETA sounds like something I could totally get behind.  So you know what?  YAY MEAT INDEED, MY GOOD MAN.  I think I like this archdruid a hell of a lot better than the other guy.  Speaking of which, if you have an urge to send a giant kodo caravan to Orgrimmar carrying a vast assortment of meats, well, that would be super nifty and keen.

Can’t say I’ve had crocolisk, but if it reminds you of pork, it can’t be half bad.  Naturally, nothing beats bacon, but there is no kind of pork that can steer you wrong.  Or roasted boar.  That’s some damn good eating, too.  Basically if it’s a meat that comes from a porcine source, we’re good.  Pork is pretty much the alpha meat.  (You quillboar better take care not to get on my nerves too much.)

Talbuk and clefthoof are both pretty good, too, by the way.  Clefthoof, I’ll have you know, makes for damn good stew meat especially.  Keep that in mind next time there’s a cold winter night and you feel like getting big pot of something going over the fire.

Dammit, I’m making myself hungry.

Anyhow.  I can’t think of any animals I’d like to eat that I haven’t.  I’ve done a fair bit of hunting over the years, so I’ve eaten a lot of different meats.  If anything, the thing I’d really like to eat more of would be vegetables.  I can’t say I’ve made much of a habit of including them in my diet, and I think it would be pretty great if HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I THOUGHT I COULD GET THAT OUT CLEAN.

Anyway, though, thanks for writing, Suirohtal, and getting the mailbag off to a good start.  This bodes well for a fun time this mailbag.

 

Hail Warchief,

Firstly, my thanks for hearing my plea. I look forward to observing the Alliance reaping what they sowed when they killed my mate. 

Secondly, to answer your question, yes, I am related to Shyrka Wolfrunner. You see, she is my cousin – the daughter of my father’s brother. Our family has a tradition of keeping and breeding wolves for mounted travel and combat – not as exciting as the Saurfang warrior line, I know, but one I am no less proud of. I’m told my father maintained the last wolf kennel on Draenor before it was destroyed, working for the Thunderlord Clan while the clans were ruled by Shadowmoon and the fallen Great Shaman, Ner’zhul. 

For your wyvern’s new, ahem, ‘habits’, I have a solution. Such stains are easily removed using a solution made from ground-up Fadeleaf and Sungrass. Since the ingredients are found so far apart from each other, I enclose a sample in the flask attached to this letter. With any luck, Overlord Malkorok will no longer have to worry about stains on his boots. To prevent it from happening again, your guards should walk up and down. Animals will not do their business on moving objects. 

Finally, if you’re interested, Warchief, I have a wolf you may wish to take for your Kor’kron mounted forces. He is the pride of his litter, one of two pups who are stronger, tougher and more agile than any of their siblings. Most of my wolves are sold to greenhorn adventurers, carrying them across Azeroth on their quests or into the fray in a battleground, but this wolf, Grimjaw, and his younger sister are being held in reserve for special occasions. The younger one, Blackfang, is for my son, a present for when he comes of age. Grimjaw was to be an anniversary present for Detanga, to replace her last wolf who died of old age some time ago, but as you know, that is now a moot point.

I was originally worried about what would happen to my wolvess if any of them were taken to the Kor’kron stables, but before I started writing this my daughter asked me, “Daddy, when will Mummy be coming home from her ‘expitition’?” because I hadn’t the heart to tell her, and nothing has ever hurt me so much as telling her that her mother will never come home, and seeing the tears well up in her eyes, and holding her and her brother to my chest while doing my best not to cry myself. 

They deserve to have their mother hold them in her arms and tell them how proud she is of them. I can’t give them that, but if my wolves can bear your warriors into battle so that no more sons and daughters will grow up without a parent, I will have served my Horde well and given Detanga’s spirit cause to rest in peace. 

Yours faithfully, 

–Ogunaro Wolfrunner, Kennel Master

OH, FUCKING HELL, dude, how many times are you going to bring the damn room down?!

I mean.  Um.  Yeah, uh, still sorry for the loss of your wife, Ogunaro.  And, I mean, that whole story about your wolves, and your daughter, and having to… um… explain what… erm… what happened… and…  And hang on, um, I think it must be hayfever season or some shit, I need to… yeah, hold up, I need blow my nose.  Or something.

…

AHRRM.  OKAY.  Fucking weird…there must be something in the air or something.  Hrrmph.  Ahem.  Okay.  OKAY.

So.

I appreciate the offer of the wolf, Ogunaro.  I’ll be honored to take Grimjaw into the Kor’kron fold.  Rest assured, considering what he means to you, he’ll be well taken care of, and as a mater of fact, I’ll make sure he’s groomed for a role of some importance.  Now, mind you, I’m already good on mounts – everybody who reads the blog is familiar with Mortimer, obviously, but even on the wolf end of things, I’m covered what with me already having Malak.  But… I think I have a job that would suit Grimjaw just fine.  Stay tuned.

 

Lok’tar Warchief!

I know you answered my letter in the last mailbag, but that was a really long time ago. Like, longer than the wait between Winter’s Veil and Noblegarden! Anyway, I thought you’d like another update on my training! I still do the meat shield thing, and boy do things drop super fast when my shield meets their faces! I’m actually in Outland now! Can you believe it?! I even had enough gold to buy my own wyvern from the nice lady in Orgrimmar. I think his name is George. At least, he likes it when I call him that.

Me and George have been having all kinds of fun! We even met a nice zombie man who took us through some smelly dungeons full of red orcs and those snake people so I could learn how to warrior better! He was really cool for being a zombie.

Oh! I even met some brown orcs like you! They didn’t like me at first, but their shaman said she trusted me. Then I said you were my Warchief and they liked me! They even kept me safe from those big robots that roam around!

Anyway, I think this letter’s gone on long enough. Plus George is looking for his wyvern chow.

–Mirembe

PS: I had so many teeth from shield bashing that I made you a necklace to thank you. It has to be better than those silly charm bracelets you get every year!

Hey, Mirembe.  Glad the training is coming along.  Grats on the wyvern – trust me, you’ll love having one.  It takes a little time for you to get used to each other, but once you do, you’ve got yourself a loyal companion for life.  They DO seem to have some lame-ass names, though.  Don’t know what to make of that.

Anyway, make sure you check in with me before you go back to what’s-her-face to upgrade your flying license and kick George up to the fast lane.  I’ll see to it that they hook you up with the trainee discount.  The discount being that they charge you with an I.O.U. that they have to come to me personally to collect, in whatever amount they feel comfortable coming to ask me for face-to-face, alone in a closed room, where I have Gorehowl hanging on the wall while I kick back in a chair carved out of a giant skull.  Should save you a coin or two.

And hey, sounds like you’re getting in good with the Mag’har.  Sweet!  If you’re rolling around in Outland helping them out, you’re probably going to wind up in Nagrand before too long.  Gotta admit I miss the place…it’s been too long since I’ve been around.  When you get there, make sure you look up Greatmother Geyah.  She pretty much raised me after my mom died.  Sweet lady, definitely get in good with her, but, word of advice?  When you talk to her, when she starts asking about your life, don’t volunteer any more information than you have to.  Give her too many details to sink her teeth in, and trust me, she will try to greatmother you the fuck to DEATH.  Still, tell her I said hi.  Also, if you happen to see Jorin Deadeye while you’re out there, tell him I said fuck you.  Dude’s a dick.  Always gave me a hard time, when we were kids, about Grom being the one who doomed our people.  Like HIS dad was any hot shit.  Fucker.

And hey, thanks for the necklace.  It actually kinda looks like the one I made myself years and years ago.  See, it’s a tradition in the Warsong clan to make a necklace from bones or teeth from your earliest kills, carved with ceremonial runes.  The teeth from this necklace weren’t from your FIRST kills, right?  I wouldn’t want to take those from you – those should be yours.  Otherwise, though, awesome.  I appreciate the gesture, as long as it’s not stepping on ceremonial toes.  Come to think of it, Mira, which clan are you from?

 

Hey mon,

Can’tcha say somethin’ nice ’bout trolls, mon?

–Zim’bobwe, Sen’jinn Village

No.

Okay, okay, fine.  Ben-Lin’s been on me to try to be more positive, so maybe if I scrape up something here it’ll shut her the fuck up for ten seconds about me being fucking negative like that shit’s any of her business in the first place.  For fuck’s sake.

What was I saying?  Oh.  Yeah.  Fucking trolls.

So, okay, fine.  Something nice about trolls.  And I’m even going to try not to be snarky and say something like “Well at least they’re mortal so I know they’ll die eventually.”  Even though that’s totally true, and a definite plus.  Where was I again?  Fuck, I’m losing focus a lot today.  Might have had too much kafa.  Anyway.

So yeah.  Something nice about trolls.  So okay, here we go.

Those motherfuckers can dance.  Like they’ve got moves like nobody’s business.  Especially some of those troll girls, because…you know what?  I don’t like trolls as a general rule, but…every so often, you have to entertain exceptions.

Yeah, yeah, fine, give me looks.  Check ’em out sometime.  NO JURY WOULD CONVICT ME.

 

Dear Warchief,

After your recent (and highly illuminating) live blog, I decided to look into this Ask.fm site you’d mentioned. After entertaining a handful of questions though, something strange started happening. Some anonymous person or people seemed determined to keep asking me questions that weren’t really questions, just requests for “Pap of house,” “Pap of your room,” and maybe most distressing “Pap of feet.” I have no idea what they’re asking. You seem to be more familiar with internet customs than I am Warchief – what does this “pap” mean, and why is this person so interested in it? And what does it have to do with my feet??

–Disturbed In Durotar

Oh geez.

Welcome to the world of internet jackassery, DID.  If this is your first encounter with it, congratulations on logging on to the internet for the first time ever this week.

So…the “PAP” thing.  Yeah. I get this, too.  So apparently, it’s an acronym, only I don’t really want to call it an acronym because “acronym” sounds like something that should be at least marginally smart rather than the soul-bleeding exhibition of stupid that almost invariably goes hand-in-hand with this little gem.  But I guess it’s supposed to stand for “Post A Picture.”  So the people you’ve heard from apparently want to see your house, your room, and your feet, and honest to fuck I couldn’t even take a guess at which of those you should be more fucking disturbed about.  Maybe your feet.  But I guess that might depend on how much cool stuff you’ve got at your house that these fuckers might try to break in and steal.

You know what?  No.  It’s the feet thing.  Because seriously, internet freak shows, seriously.

Speaking of which, kind of.  Like I said, I’ve gotten these “PAP” questions a lot, too.  Like, relentlessly.  And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.  And I know I’ve made this point on Ask.fm before, but on the off chance any of these PAP-spamming fucknoses are reading this now, I’d like to take a moment here to address them directly:

Good evening, wastes of life.

I can understand why you value efficiency.  I get it.  I really do.  You people clearly have rich, busy lives, skulking around in your caves and musing over what it would be like if someone could invent some magical substance that would remove the stink from your assorted crevices with the mere addition of water.  Maybe they could package the stuff in solid cakes small enough to hold in one hand.  I’m just spitballing here.

Point is, you want to be time-efficient because you’ve got shit to do.  You can’t burn up your whole afternoon search-and-pecking your way through whole words, because dammit, you’ve got business to tend to on the internet, and if you can’t cut a few corners on questions you’re voluntarily posting to people who don’t give a fuck about you, well then, that’s less time you can devote to running around posting other comments like, say:

Because then who the fuck is going to illustrate irony for people so they can understand what it is?  Or maybe you need to get around to your blog reading so you can offer incisive commentary like:

Because FUCK THAT GUY, THAT’S WHY.  FUCK HIM IN THE ASS WITH A PITCHFORK-MOUNTED JACKHAMMER.  POINT BEING.  You’ve got shit to do and you don’t have time to waste writing out whole words like “for” and “you” and “are,” and spirits fucking save us if you ever need to say “you are,” because now we’re getting into your/you’re territory and at that point holy shit ALL bets are fucking off.

So I get it.  I do.  You’ve got places to go (virtually) and people to meet (i.e., to yell at online with a raging bitterness despite never having met these people in reality) and you can’t have trivial things like keystrokes and complete words standing between you and your complete and utter worthlessness as a living being.

Here’s the thing.

And I can’t stress this enough.

YOU’RE NOT EVEN SAVING YOURSELF ANY FUCKING KEYSTROKES WITH THE FUCKING “PAP” THING.  You can just type “pic” and ask the same damn thing, and still use the exact same number of letters.  IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME, LOOK, WE’LL COUNT TOGETHER.  ONE, TWO, THREE – the number of letters in “PAP.”  ONE, TWO, THREE – the number of letters in “pic.”  ONE, TWO, THREE – your total number of IQ points.  SEE HOW IT ALL WORKS OUT?  WERE YOU ABLE TO FOLLOW THAT DEMONSTRATION OR DO I NEED TO GET A FUCKING PURPLE SAN’LAYN PUPPET IN HERE TO TAKE YOU THROUGH IT AGAIN?

And hey, guess what, while you’re at it saying “pic” like a normal person who hasn’t been beaten in the head with a brick for six hours straight by everyone who’s ever lived plus six more guys, you also have the ADDED bonus of NOT reminding people of a fucking medical procedure that NO ONE HAS EVER HAD HAPPY ASSOCIATIONS WITH EVER IN THE HISTORY OF EVER.

So listen – if you have “PAP” as part of your functional vocabulary, here’s what you need to do.  Go get a chisel.  Now grab onto the fucker real real tight – like imagine the chisel is your dick and you just found footage online of someone being really unhappy and you’re getting ready to jerk off to that shit, because FUCK YOU – and jam that chisel right up into your brain and shove it around until you’ve scraped all memory of this “PAP” shit right the fuck out of there forever.  Okay?  Stop it.  Just stop it.  “PAP” us no more “PAPs.”  ENOUGH ALREADY.  ENOUGH.  KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF, AND I HOPE YOU DIE.

I’m glad we had this little talk.

 

More soon.

 

Next mailbag May 4!  E-mail garrosh1337@gmail.com or submit your message below:

Name(required)

Email(required)

Website

Comment(required)

Submit

Δ

Monday mailbag

So if you’re reading this, it means that this pre-scheduled post I had Spazzle rig up for me has kicked in.  See, I figured it’d been a while since I dipped into the ol’ mailbag, only I wasn’t sure how long I was going to wind up being tied up with the whole Blackrock Spire business, so I had Spazzle set this thing up so this mailbag post would go up automatically if I didn’t get back by a certain point.  Which, if the post has gone up and you’re seeing it, totally raises the perfectly fair question WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON DOWN THERE I MEAN SERIOUSLY

ANYWAY.

On to the mail!

Dearest warchief,

I have heard of your feats of battle, and wish to know, How did you get so good at fighting? do you have a secret trainer? what’s your favourite move? and lastly, is Gorehowl hard to wield?

I have heard of this daughter of yours, and would like to offer my services as a teacher if you wish. P.S i am a blood elf death knight.

Salamah’ashala noreh, warchief. (Goodbye/farewell)

–Ranacore Bloodblade

Hey, Ranacore, thanks for writing.  No secret trainer, no real secret source for my combat badassery in general.  Just talent, son, pure talent.  A long childhood history of people in Garadar talking shit about my dad didn’t hurt, what with all the opportunities it afforded me to practice kicking ass at an early age.

Favorite move?  I’d have to go with the plain ol’ time-honored axe to the face.  I guess I’m just old-fashioned that way.

Yes and no on the Gorehowl question.  See, it’s perfectly balanced – you’ll never find an axe that’s better crafted in terms of distributing its weight and mass to lend itself to generating force while maintaining flexibility.  Somebody really did a job and a half designing it.  But at the same time…man, that motherfucker is heavy as shit.  Which leads to a whole lot of people stumbling over, the first time they try to pick it up.

As for training Shayari, I think I’ve got that covered.  Plus, she’s a mage, so I figure most of her training would be out of your area of expertise, seeing as you’re a death knight and all.  On the other hand, you’re also a blood elf, so maybe you could show her, I don’t know, some fashion tips or hairstyling techniques, since I think maybe she’s into that shit.

Many thanks for the answers Warchief.  As an aside, seeing as how you cavorted with the Draenei yourself, would it be presumptuous to look for a little leniency if I hook up with one myself?  As a Tauren, the horns and hooves (and hips and tail) are kind of a turn on.  I mean c’mon, what’s good for the Warchief should be cool for the rest of us, right?

–Karlsohn, Thunder Bluff

Dude, you think I’m not paying for that one?  We all make our iffy decisions, Karlsohn, and some of them come back to haunt you, but only the very, very special ones have birthdays.

Greetings Honorable Warchief Hellscream,

We have a small problem in Pandaria: Gnomes. Mainly the dead ones. The Yaungol just love to kill them. I will not deceive you and say that I understand why the Yaungol kill these creatures, let alone roast their bodies. Seriously, it smells like bacon around their camps these days. Many of my Omnia trainees, especially the younger ones just past their Trial of the Red Blossoms, mistake it for actual bacon. It has led to some…uncomfortable moments. I am also no lover of gnomes. They are creepy with their bouncing, unnatural perkiness, and candy colored hair (also, those pigtails? Definitely NOT made of candyfloss. Lao Chin found this out the hard way). At least the Grummles have a use with ferrying supplies to our Monastery! So I ask of you, is there some use for these roasted Gnomes? I thank you for any advice you have to offer.

–Shen Wei Pureblossom, Healer of the Shado-Pan

So…while I’ve been a long-time supporter of the idea that the only good gnome is a dead gnome…roasted gnome?  Fuck if I know.  Probably the only thing roasted gnomes could have going for them is that they ARE dead – emphatically dead, in fact, like way past the point where someone could come along and raise them as undead gnomes, because CREEPY AS FUCK.

So, on the down side, I don’t really have an answer for you as far as what roasted gnomes are good for.  On the plus side, I think we DO have an answer as far as what yaungol are good for.

Hail Warchief,

I write to you seeking honest answers regarding our ongoing war with the Alliance and when it will end (as all wars must). Some time ago, my mate Detanga marched off to war as a soldier in your army. She would return home from many a battle with a few scars and some tales to tell our two children.

Just the other day, a grim Blackrock orc shoved her notice of death into my hand.

My heart burns with the desire to track down her killers and tear them apart, but I am a breeder of wolves, not a warrior. I would not last five minutes in battle. Detanga was always the stronger of us two. She served in a unit as part of our initial invasion into this land of Pandaria, but she died while defending our port there, Domination Point, during a cowardly Alliance attack.

I beg of you Warchief, send what forces you can to the Alliance’s port, this so-called Lion’s Landing. I am not the only one on my street to lose family in the attack. The blood of the fallen must be repaid! Know that had I the power, I would take this charge myself, but I am no warrior, as I have said.

Yours faithfully,

–Ogunaro Wolfrunner, Kennel Master

Way to bring the room down, man.  Yeesh.

I mean…um… Sorry for your loss, Ogunaro.  (By the by, any relation to Shyrka Wolfrunner?)  Your mate must have fallen during one of a bunch of Alliance raids on Domination Point a couple months ago.  All of them were repelled, but there were heavy losses in some cases – Warlord Bloodhilt among them, in the same raid as your Detanga if I remember right.  Know that she died victorious, with honor, driving off our enemies and reminding them one more time what happens when they cross our people.

You’re right, though – they have another reminder coming to them.  As it happens, I have Wolf-Rider Gaja, Dark Cleric Laresa, Thauma…um…Thamautu… Them…some blood what’s name is Saresse, and a few others, working on a counterstrike.  When we roll over that kiddie-building-block castle they call a fortress, I’ll see to it you have a front-row seat.

Also, unrelated, seeing as you’re a kennel master: Do you have any tips for cleaning, um, wyvern stains?  Mortimer’s gotten…well, let’s say, kind of uneven about minding himself.  Although it IS kind of funny when he makes Malkorok have to toss out yet another pair of boots.

Most Honorable Warchief,

I have been reading your blog in its entirety on the recommendation of a friend from Thunder Bluff (it helps with my downtime as part of the Northrend cleanup crew). I noticed you have a…violent dislike of Magatha Grimtotem. As a Tauren loyal to Thunder Bluff and a former Grimtotem as well, I would offer up my axe at a chance to help you hunt her down. I missed my chance when the crone was in chains in Thousand Needles, but I would not let you down. I had grown disillusioned with her leadership some time before her treachery against Thunder Bluff was known, and when it was…well, that was the straw that broke the kodo’s back.

–Bahunada Darkhide of the Runetotems

PS: Would you mind if she was slightly “tenderized” before being brought before your judgment?

Oh fuck yes.  FUCK THE HELL YES.  Have at it, Bahunada.  (By the way, I don’t know if you were aware of this, but your name is a grade-A bitch to type.)  Go track her down in whatever cave she’s slithered into these days, smack her around, and drag her ass in.  Feel free to take as many liberties as you want when it comes to the smacking around.  I want her alive, mind you, but other than outright killing her, listen to your heart.  Remember, “clinging to life” still counts as alive.

Oh, and while you’re at it, if you run into that other fucker Johnny Awesome – you know, the one who fucking LET MAGATHA LOOSE IN THE FIRST PLACE when she was all chained up in Thousand Needles way back when – feel free to open up as many cans of smack-smack-stab-die on HIS ass as you want, too.  You’ll note that the whole “bring ’em in alive” thing is totally optional in his case.

Lok’tar Warchief!

I took alot of what you said to heart and I’ve been doing those errands all over the place! First I went to Silverpine. It’s really smelly there. Like, worse than the Troll area in the city, but it doesn’t make me giggly like the Troll area does. And it’s all spooky there with all the walking corpses. It’s just not cool. Stonetalon was better, until I met Mr. Dontrag and Mr. Utvoch. They really are kinda stupid, aren’t they? They weren’t as bad as that Tirion guy. First he sat me down for a good two hours to just talk. I kinda tuned him out after the first ten minutes, although I wish I coulda hit him with my shield! I think that Daria lady wouldn’t have liked it, though. His stupid trainees are super weak and lazy too! I think I made one of those elfs cry after smacking them around a bit. Alot of them didn’t stand a chance, although their trainer thought I was a boy! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?! He sent me on a bunch of stupid errands his trainees were too lazy or beat up to do. I showed those dumb trainees how a real orc gets things done and what does Tirion do? He starts to rage at me, then thanks me for “rooting out a traitor to the Crusade” or whatever he said. I started tuning it out when he got going again. He also smelled funny, but more like Gamon after he’s kicked out of the inn.

I found my warrior calling too! I really like smacking things with a shield and protecting my fellow orcs! Mostly the shield smacking, though.

—Mirembe, Orgrimmar

Hey, Mirembe.  Nice work on the warrioring.  Especially nice work on the shield bashing.  Not really my thing, mind you, but it’s always good to have some tanky types around, especially considering most trainees don’t want to bother with the job when they can just run around blowing shit up, metaphorically or otherwise.  I might have to look into getting you an extra goodie bag or something.

It’s good that you’re keeping busy, even if…well, I mean, it sounds like you’ve been mostly surrounding yourself with less than the best company.  Not that I’m one to talk.  But believe me, I know all too well about the fail that happens when you let the jackass cocktail of Dontrag/Utvoch/Tirion into your life.

I haven’t seen Tirion for a while now – yay for me, sucks for you – but I’m not surprised he’s still yammering on.  And I mean “still yammering on” as in still yammering on about whatever bullshit he was saying last time I saw him, months ago, without even coming up for air.  And you know, as much as I hate cutting any slack to those Argent Dawn Crusade Talk to the Silver Hand people…like… yeah, I’m sure the trainees up there ARE weak and lazy.  They’re probably fucking EXHAUSTED.  Wouldn’t YOU be, if you had to listen to Highlord Paragraph all day every day?

As for the Wonder Twins…shit, I don’t even know WHAT D&U would have been doing back in Stonetalon.  I mean, they’ve been on detachment down in Pandaria, and they’ve just been in Orgrimmar temporarily while a bunch of us have been back for a check-in, so… I don’t know, maybe they’re up there visiting someone?  Do they even have friends?  Poor fuckers, if so.  Or, I don’t know, maybe they got confused and went right back to their old posts in Stonetalon, because after all, “confused” is pretty much a default state for those two.  It’s not like they’ve been reassigned back to Overlord Cliffwalker where they’d be stuck back up there permanently…and…um…back to being HIS headache, and out of my hair, and…

Um…

Hang on.

I need to go look for a form.

As always, keep those letters coming!  Next mailbag April 6!  E-mail garrosh1337@gmail.com or submit your message below:

Name(required)

Email(required)

Website

Comment(required)

Submit

Δ

Tweeting dryad, bleating crone

So, a quick aside.

Not to derail this whole thing that’s going on with Mokvar and Blackrock Spire, but after last time, with that little cameo we have from Little Miss Crazy-Nymph up in Hyjal, hoo boy, did the shit ever hit the fan on Twitter.  It started innocently enough with a comment from reader and frequent commenter Shen Wei Pureblossom, and… um… things went downhill fast.  Including appearances from a bunch of familiar faces.

And…well…here:

Heh.  Hehehe HA!

I tell you, Magatha getting fucked with never, ever gets old.

Resuming our regularly scheduled…stuff…soon.

 

 

[A huge thank you to @ShadoPanShammy, @Mylune_, @Ji_Firepaw, @Wyvern_Mortimer (yes, really), and @M_Grimtotem — all of whom you should follow, by the way — both for providing the enormous entertainment that was this exchange, and for allowing me to reproduce it here.  More Twitter lunacy to follow in short order, I’m sure.]

 

30 Days of Character Development #6: Mylune

[Each week — or some remote facsimile thereof — a post will profile one of the blog’s many supporting players.  (See the first profile for more details.)  Feel free to chime in with recommendations for other characters you’d like to see more about.]

 

Name:  Mylune

Occupation:  Caretaker of Hyjal, wildlife custodian

Race:  Forest nymph

Class:  Druid

Age:  Unknown, though her behavior would suggest fairly young by nymph standards

Group affiliations:  Guardians of Hyjal (member), Cenarion Circle (member)

Known relatives:  Cenarius (exact relationship unclear, but all forest nymphs are descended from dryads, who are daughters of Cenarius)

Earth Online notes:  Mercifully, no one has told Mylune about Earth Online.  Or possibly about the internet.  Probably for the best in both cases.

First appearance:  “Of wyverns and pine cones”

Key posts and plot points:

• Garrosh has only encountered Mylune a few times, but those few times have been memorable ones.  He first met everyone’s favorite overly energetic nymph in “Of wyverns and pine cones,” in which Mylune was a bit too excited to meet Mortimer.  This came as a shock to no one — least of all Hamuul Runetotem — other than the Warchief himself.
• Garrosh had another run-in with Mylune (much to his chagrin) a few months later, in “Attack of the petting zoo.”  This time around, Mylune unleashed her boundless affection on a pack of armed critters dwelling amid the northern plateaus of Mulgore.  This time, however, the critters were ready to put up a fight, the distress of which eventually launched Mylune into what can only be described as a psychotic episode.  For the record, Hamuul narrowly missed winning Malfurion’s office pool on when she would snap.
• It only follows, then, that when Ben-Lin Cloudstrider organized an anger management seminar in the appropriately named “Anger management,” Mylune would be one of the attendees.  Given that the session consisted of putting Mylune, Garrosh, Lor’thermar Theron, and Tirion Fordring in a room together…well…the exercise proved less than productive.  Unless, of course, you’re Faranell, in which case it was a terrific way to spend an afternoon.

In her own words:

What are your most prominent physical features?

Hi!  How are you?  I hope you’re having a super happy wonderful day, because why wouldn’t you when we have this beautiful world to share with all our adorable woodland friends!

Oh… Did you ask a question?  Okay!  Well, I guess I have extra big blue eyes — for looking out for all the cuddly animals!  And my long pointed ears…to listen for the cuddly animals!  And…oh, and my slender but surprisingly steel-trap-like arms, for hugging the cuddly animals!  They’re just so sweet and cute, so how could I resist!  And hug them to my bosom!  Nice and close to my heart, that’s big and warm and just bursting with love for the animals!  Does that count too?

Name one scar you have, and tell us where it came from.  If you don’t have any, is there a reason?

I do have this one little scar on my shoulder here, but you know?  It’s a funny thing!  I don’t really remember where it came from.  Isn’t that weird?

Describe your happiest memory.

Ohhh that would have to be the first time I went up to Nordrassil.  It was before that mean demon guy climbed up there and made everyone sad for a while, and I’ll always remember walking through the passage to the peak of Mount Hyjal, and seeing all the animals running around and playing, just bunnies and squirrels and raccoons and skunks and chipmunks and OH MY LUNE they were all so adorable, and the sun was shining and the birds were singing, and like three rainbows all appeared in the sky, and I just ran and ran all around with the animals and we played and hugged and snuggled and it was all such a big happy wonderful blur but Mal says it was okay because eventually I passed out from exhaustion and finally got quiet and also because ale.

Is there one event or happening you would like to erase from your past?  Why?

The incident.  Only Miss Cloudy-bear said I should try not to think about the incident.  So, what?

What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?  Color?  Song?  Flower?

Coffee ice cream — I really really like coffee, did you know it helps give you extra energy?  Isn’t that just super?!  And my favorite color is green, and my favorite song is…oh, you know that one?  It always seems to be playing when you walk through the forests.  You know the one?  It goes like this — laaa, la la la laaaaa, la la la laah, luh la lahhh?  It’s so pretty!  I don’t really understand where it’s coming from, though.

Who do you trust?

Hamuul, and Malfurion, even though Hamuul can be all my cranky-hooves sometimes.  And Mal always seems to be hovering around watching me like he’s looking for something, but I know it’s just because he cares.  I trust all my forest nymph sisters, too, even though a lot of them don’t really hang out with me much.

Can you define a turning point in your life?  Multiples are acceptable.

The incident.  OH MY LUNE!  Why do you keep bringing up the incident?!  I’m not supposed to think about that!  What?  What incident?  Happy thoughts!  HAPPY THOUGHTS!

Is there an animal you equate to yourself?

<Mylune’s eyes go large and dewy>

I have to pick ONE?  But they’re all so SQUEEEEEEE!

How do you react to temperature changes such as extreme heat and cold?

I don’t deal with cold as well as my cousins the frost nymphs, but I really, REALLY don’t like extreme heat!  That’s sounds like something from those burny guys from the Firelands!  You’re not with THEM, are you?!

Are you an early morning bird or a night owl?

I’m always up bright and early!  Why waste the warm snuggly sunlight?

Are you a good cook?  What’s your favorite recipe?

OH MY LUNE why do you keep trying to talk about the incident?  What’s WRONG with you?  Okay, you know what!  Fine!  FINE!  YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT?  WE’LL TALK ABOUT IT!  SO YEAH, I’M GOOD MOTHERFUCKING COOK, AS IF YOU DIDN’T ALREADY FUCKING KNOW!  AND YOU KNOW WHAT I COOK REALLY WELL, IT TURNS OUT?  RABBIT FUCKING STEW!  BECAUSE GUESS WHAT, ASSHOLE — SPOILER ALERT: THE DEATH OF THE SOUL TASTES FUCKING DELICIOUS!

Do you have any irrational fears?

Gee, I don’t know, what do you think — maybe I have a deep-seeded fear of HAVING ANOTHER FUCKING BLACKOUT AND WAKING UP AMID THE BODIES AGAIN?  YOU THINK MAYBE THAT KEEPS ME UP AT NIGHT?

What would your cutie mark be?

Oooh, well, maybe a heart or a rainbow, or, hey, HOW ABOUT A FUCKING SKULL AND CROSSBONES, BECAUSE WHY THE FUCK NOT IF YOU’RE GOING TO KEEP BRINGING IT UP, YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!

If you could time travel, where would you go?

WHERE THE HELL DO YOU THINK I WOULD GO, ASSHOLE?  MAYBE BACK TO THE GODDAMN INCIDENT YOU WON’T STOP FUCKING TALKING ABOUT!  MAYBE I’D LIKE TO TAKE THAT ONE BACK, YA THINK?!

Are you superstitious?

I know karma’s a bitch, I can tell you THAT much!

Describe your hands.  Are they small, long, calloused, smooth, stubby?

COVERED WITH DARK RED STAINS OF LOST INNOCENCE THAT WILL NEVER, EVER COME OUT.  I WASH THEM, AND WASH THEM, AND THEY NEVER COME OUT.

How do you smell?  Do you wear perfume or cologne?

Um… <deep breath>  Smell?  Oh, like smelling salts?  Um…yes, those might be handy.  They’re usually pretty helpful.

Is…is Hamuul around anywhere?  I think I need to talk to him.  I don’t know if the herbs Miss Cloudy-bear gave me are working…

 

Previous Profiles:

1. Spazzle Fizzletrinket
2. Ben-Lin Cloudstrider
3. Dontrag and Utvoch
4. Taktani
5. Korrina

* * * * *

[A few quick OOC notes looking ahead:  I have a big stack of material on the way (hopefully) over the next week-plus, then, the weekend after next, remember that we have our next Meta Raid.  Clear your (raid) calendars for Saturday, May 10, at 8:00 PM EDT!

That Saturday (May 10) will also mark the beginning of a short break I’ll be taking from posting — I’m going to take the following week off to tend to RL commitments and do some advance prepping for the next stretch of posts.  To send you off with a bang, though, and to add an extra perk to the Meta Raid, I’m going to have one last post going up that night, right as we’re gathering for our night of SoO hijinks.  (Place your bets now on whether I’m going to cook up something to leave you hanging for a bit…)]

Contest! Transmogs for Shay

Hi, everyone.  Averry here with a reminder and an announcement.

First, the obligatory reminder – tonight at 8:00 PM EST, we’ll be having our second Friends-of-WCB Meta raid of Siege of Orgrimmar.  All are welcome to join in (well, unless we fill up…).  You can always find me on RealID as Averry#1116.

Now for the real announcement!

I’ve been happy to see that people seem to be embracing the character of Shayari since her debut a few days ago.  We’ll be seeing plenty more of her (not in the Gurtash sense), and I’d like her to be a departure from the one conspicuous Warcraft norm: People who, apparently, wear the same outfit every single day.  Clearly, Shay is a little more fashionable and stylish than that.

So, to that end, I’m announcing a TRANSMOGS FOR SHAYARI contest!  The basic gist: All you transmog fanatics (I know you’re out there!) are invited to put together an outfit for Shay to wear in at least one – likely multiple – upcoming comics.

A few notes and caveats as you consider the possibilities:

• Shayari is a mage in training, so your transmog should consist solely of items that a clothie can wear.
• When in doubt, let “Averry/Gurtash actually has to draw this” be your guide – i.e., try to avoid looks that are excessively elaborate or overwrought.
• Try to have mercy on poor Gurtash.  (Translation: Let’s try to keep the poor girl fully dressed!)
• Alternative for would-be fashion designers: You also have the option of designing your outfit from the ground up!  You’re welcome to come up with your own original gear design and draw it up yourself, then submit your sketches.  (Please try not to show up my own middling artistic skills too badly.)

Please e-mail your entries to me (garrosh1337@gmail.com) by SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27.  If at all possible, try to model your transmogs on a female draenei character, or save them as WoWhead outfits and share the link.  (Being able to refer to the outfit on a draenei model will just make it easier for me to translate it into comic form.)

I’ll choose my three favorites, and incorporate them into future comics as opportunity allows over the weeks that follow.  In addition to their own personal satisfaction, and boundless blogosphere fame (cough), winners will be able to pick one of the following prizes:

• A comic-style portrait of your character from Gurtash!
• An original EPIC VERSE from the Warchief on the topic of your choosing!
• An in-blog (comic or transcript) cameo for your character – you too can rub elbows with the likes of Faranell, Liadrin, Dontrag and Utvoch, and the DPS!  (And hey, who knows?  That’s how Taktani got started…)
• A ride on Mortimer!  (Not really.)
• A hug from Mylune!*  (Only possibly.)
• A highly coveted “Get Out of Conversation with Tirion Free” card.**
• Something else that we mutually come up with, on the off chance one of us has a brainstorm!

Well, what are you still doing here?  Get transmogging!  Shayari has a wardrobe to fill!

* The Warchief’s Command Board makes no guarantee that Mylune will not have another episode in mid-embrace.  Hug at your own risk.

** May be exchanged for a “Get Out of Conversation with Dontrag and/or Utvoch” card.  (Likelihood of Garrosh personally entering the contest has now increased 400%.)

[A quick update — I need to correct an error in this announcement: I listed the deadline for the contest as Saturday, February 27.  This is problematic, in that February 27 is not a Saturday.  Don’t ask me what happened there.  I was probably having another one of my many episodes.  At any rate, I figure I may as well err on the side of giving people more time rather than less, so let’s revise the due date to the next Saturday after the 27^th, which would be March 1.

I think.  Hang on.

<checks calendar all paranoid-like>

Yes, there we go.  So, officially: the deadline for the Transmogs for Shay contest is SATURDAY, MARCH 1!  Get back to mogging!]

Paternity (part 2)

So, picking up right where we left off last time…

* In Garrosh’s most recent mailbag, he discussed the lank distemper, a disease that ravaged the Kurenai of Nagrand at roughly the same time the orcs were afflicted with the red pox.

Well, I guess that’s what I get for giving that job to a 15-year-old, right?  Oh well.  Moving on with the record from Taktani.  (Let’s keep our fingers crossed on this one…)

 

(Yay, Mr. Warchief is letting me be his scribe again!  I better do a good job because I guess Mr. Warchief was checking on how Mr. Gurtash was doing and he wasn’t too happy.  Everyone else seems a little upset, too.  I guess being a scribe is super important work!  Mr. Gurtash looked really embarrassed when he left.  I hope he doesn’t feel too bad because I think he draws good.  He even draws me!  Yay!  Oh wait I think they’re talking about me!)

SHAYARI – Okay, so that was weird.

FARANELL – You get used to it after a while.

SHAYARI – So, who’s this one now?

GARROSH – Really, the less you ask about her, the better.

MALKOROK – More importantly, goat, we’ll be the ones asking the questions.

TAKTANI – Hi!  I’m Taktani!

LIADRIN – Shayari, this is another of Garrosh’s assistants—

TAKTANI – But you can call me Tak!

SHAYARI – Oh, so she’s filling in for the pipsqueak now?

TAKTANI – Or Tak-Tak!

GARROSH – How many times do I have to tell you, THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS!

SHAYARI – Well, at least she seems a little cheerier than Chuckles over there.

(That made Mr. Malkorok really mad.  He seems to be pretty grumpy.  He spends a lot of time with Mr. Warchief so I guess he must help him a lot, but I wish he wouldn’t yell so much.)

MALKOROK – Warchief, one swing!  That’s all I ask!  One swing is all I’ll need to silence this…this creature permanently.

(I don’t think I like him very much.  It makes me sad.  =(  )

GARROSH – Malk, last time, cool it.

MALKOROK – Count yourself lucky the Warchief is so merciful, goat!

SHAYARI – You mad, bro?

MALKOROK –  I— you— how dare— sir— UNGH!  (He paced around a few seconds, shaking his fists, grinding his teeth, and looking at Mr. Warchief now and then)  I… I think I need to walk a bit.  If you’ll excuse me, sir…

(Mr. Malkorok stormed off and started stomping back and forth near the bank.  It sounded like he was grumbling to himself.  I’m not sure, but I think he might have punched a couple people, too.  That’s mean!  =(  )

SPAZZLE – Okay, so whether you’re really Garrosh’s daughter or not, I already like you.

(OMG Mr. Warchief is a daddy?!?!  YAY!!!  That’s so exciting!!)

GARROSH – So hang on.  Even assuming this is all true – which we ARE going to check — how did you wind up HERE?

SHAYARI – I was living in Dalaran studying to be a mage when…well, when Jaina went all schizo.

GARROSH – Gotta say, I knew it was only a matter of time before she went off the deep end.

SHAYARI – Oh my Light, I know!  She thinks she’s such a big deal, rolling into town and taking over, and being all Emo Queen of Pain, and… Oh, and Kalecgos!  Have you heard about her and Kalecgos?  You should see how she leads that poor dragon around by the nose!

GARROSH – Heh, yeah.  I’ve kinda gotten that sense from those two…

SHAYARI – No, no, I mean literally!  He has a nose ring in his dragon form, and she’s got this leash, and— and— oh spirits it’s so sad.

GARROSH –  Hah!  Hahaha…that’s…that’s kind of awesome.

SHAYARI – Awesomely sad.

(I like when Mr. Warchief gets happy like this.  He doesn’t yell as much!  Not like Mr. Malkorok.)

GARROSH – So hang on, if you’ve been staying with the Sunreavers all this time, how come this is the first I’m hearing about it?

LIADRIN – She wasn’t with the Sunreavers, sir.  At least not until the purge was well underway.

SHAYARI – I stayed mostly over on the Silver Covenant part of Dalaran.  People knew I was half orcish…most of the time I would pass as full draenei, but the other draenei could see it.  It wasn’t as big a deal when I was back in Nagrand, but…  (shrugs)  Anyway.  After Jaina had her little hissy fit, anyone with any Horde ties became pretty unwelcome in Dalaran.  My being half orc was close enough for some of them, I guess.

GARROSH – So, wait, if people knew you were half orc, does that mean they knew—

SHAYARI – I never talked to people about who my father was.  My mom told me, and a few people back in Telaar knew, but…

LIADRIN – I would imagine it was for the best that the Kirin Tor didn’t know of her full parentage.

GARROSH – Yeah, I figure that would have made her a lot less popular a lot sooner.

SHAYARI – Oh my Light, you should hear the things they say about you there!  The things they talk about you doing!  I figured all those stories had to be some kind of Alliance propaganda to make you look bad!

(Everyone just kind of looked at each other for a minute.  I don’t really understand why.  Maybe they were trying to figure out why people would want to say mean things about Mr. Warchief?  That’s mean, especially since he’s a daddy now!

Mr. Warchief looked around at everyone being all quiet.)

GARROSH – WELL DON’T EVERYONE AGREE WITH HER AT ONCE!

LIADRIN – Clearly propaganda, yes, sir.

SPAZZLE – Don’t know where people come up with this stuff, chief.

FARANELL – Unless, you know, they exist in this universe and have eyes.  But sure, whatever does it for you.

(Mr. Malkorok came back over to us.  He didn’t seem so mad now, but it’s hard to tell since he’s always kind of grumpy.)

MALKOROK – Apologies for my…outburst, Warchief.

GARROSH – Yeah, it’s fine, Malk.  So anyway, you said the doc has some way of checking out this story?

LIADRIN – Yes, sir.  Obviously the doctor himself can comment with greater authority on the details.

(While they were talking, Mr. Warchief’s wyvern Mr. Mortimer came wandering over to us.  He passed by Mr. Malkorok first, and I guess he maybe thought Mr. Malkorok was a tree?  Because he kind of…well…lifted his leg…on his leg.)

MALKOROK – UGHH this damned flea-bitten— I— GAHH I’ll be back…

(Mr. Malkorok stomped off again.  Mr. Mortimer walked up to Miss Shayari and nuzzled against her leg.  Aww!)

SHAYARI – Aww, (That’s what I said!) who’s this?  (petting the wyvern)

GARROSH – That’s Mortimer.

SHAYARI – (still petting)  You named him Mortimer?

GARROSH – Actually, no.

SPAZZLE – It came from that D.E.H.T.A. guy, didn’t it?

GARROSH – Yeah.

SHAYARI – Oh, those hippies?  (petting more)  Well, it’s okay, Mortimer, you’re a handsome boy even if the crazy hippies did give you a silly name.

LIADRIN – Shay, perhaps you could take the wyvern for a walk while we discuss a few things.

SHAYARI – Sure.  Come on, Mortimer!

(Miss Shayari and Mr. Morty started walking around the Valley of Strength.  The rest of us watched her walk away.)

TAKTANI – I like her!  She seems nice!

SPAZZLE – Not gonna lie.  She had me at “You mad, bro?”

LIADRIN – Warchief?  Any thoughts?

GARROSH – I don’t know.  But her story from Nagrand…well, she’s got her details straight.  At least the names and dates.

(Mr. Warchief looked across the valley for a minute to watch Miss Shayari and Mr. Mortimer walking by the main gate.)

GARROSH – Mortimer seems to like her.

SPAZZLE – Yeah, he took to her right away.

GARROSH – He is a pretty good judge of character.

FARANELL – This would be the wyvern that likes you, correct?

GARROSH – Your point being, Easy-Break?

FARANELL – Just citing further evidence to your point, obviously.

LIADRIN – Loathe though I am to agree with the overlord—

SPAZZLE – Isn’t it funny how you’ve known him for like five minutes, and you already hate to admit he might have a point?

LIADRIN – …he does raise a valid concern.  The details of Shayari’s past all build on information that could have been acquired, albeit with some measure of difficulty.

GARROSH – Yeah.  They would have to do some digging, but they could have pieced it together.

LIADRIN – The fact that she comes from Dalaran is cause for us to be all the more wary.

(Mr. Warchief looked across at Miss Shayari, who was still walking with Mr. Mortimer around the Valley of Strength.  In front of the Broken Tusk, she started talking with one of the orcs, Mr. Thathung.)

GARROSH – What do you really think?

LIADRIN – I think that if she is who she says she is, she lives in a better world than we do.

GARROSH – …In Common, please?

LIADRIN – (sighing but smiling)  I only mean that if she is your daughter, sir, she’s grown up hearing stories from the Alliance about the orcs, and about you in particular, and yet she’s come here fully expecting to be embraced by her father and given a home.  As she said herself, she’s been told countless reasons to consider you a villain – and rejected all of them as lies.  If that really is her, I may even envy her.

GARROSH – So you believe her.

LIADRIN – I would still counsel prudence.  But I prefer to hope for the best in people.

GARROSH – Sounds like you live in a “better world” yourself.

LIADRIN – No, I don’t.  That’s why I hate to give up on the possibility of an unbroken soul.  I know this world well enough to understand how rare they are.

(Over by the Broken Tusk, Shayari had been continuing to talk with Mr. Thathung all this time – only she looked like she was getting pretty upset with Mr. Thathung for some reason.  Now she finally hit him!  Um…a whole bunch of times!  Over and over and over, really angry-like!  Oh no!)

SHAYARI – (in the distance, but still clearly audible)  Hey, I said to WATCH THE HANDS, Grabby McWanderpaws!  (flinging Mr. Thathung against the auction house wall and continuing to beat him senseless)  Yeah!  See how you like people grabbing YOU!  NEXT TIME I’LL TAKE YOUR FUCKING HAND CLEAN OFF AND FUCKING FEED IT TO YOU – IN REVERSE!

(Mr. Warchief, Ms. Liadrin, Mr. Goblin, and Dr. Zombie looked back and forth at each other.)

SPAZZLE – Huh.

GARROSH – Well then.

FARANELL – So, yeah, I can still do the tests if you want, but honestly, if you ask me, it’s just going to be a waste of perfectly good ichor.

 

So…yeah.  I still have a million and one things to deal with here in Orgrimmar before I head back to Pandaria, but…well, now I guess that’s going to be a million and two.

Stay tuned.

Monday mailbag

Okay, people, it’s been WAY too long since I’ve dipped into the ol’ mailbag, and I have a HUGE backlog of letters, so let’s get right to it, shall we?

 

Hail Warchief!

The Feast of Winter Veil is approaching, and it made me think. What do you hope to get from Greatfather Winter this year? Do you have any special family traditions? I look forward to seeing Orgrimmar all decorated for the festivities.
Happy Holidays!

–Lorewalker Shara

PS you may want to avoid using tinsel to decorate around Mortimer, unless you like festive poop! Might be a good idea to keep Taktani away from it too, thinking about it.

Hey, Shara, thanks for writing.  Hopefully Orgrimmar is looking all Winter Veily these days.  I’ll be back for a check-in soon, but I’m probably only going to make it back to town JUST in time to catch the end of the festivities.  As for my wish list… I remember addressing this point a couple years ago, and most of the stuff on that list still stands – especially Varian and Magatha’s heads on pikes – but there are a few more things I can think of that I might add to the list for this year.

• An actual explanation that makes sense for what the hell was going on with Mokvar while I was away.
• A wireless network here in Pandaria that’s actually reliable, so I can log onto Earth Online without it being a fucking comedy show.
• An on-site goblin tech guy who can maintain that network without the whole thing going kablooey and spitting out two burnt pieces of toast every time there’s a breeze, because let me tell you, Grizzle Gearslip ain’t happening.

Come to think of it, so far all of these could pretty much be covered if I could get a bunch more Spazzles.  Because really, as much as I clown on the guy, he actually knows what he’s doing and gets shit done, and unlike half these other jokers, I don’t have to worry about him running around behind my back doing spirits-know-what.  So, other additions to the list:

• A scribe that doesn’t have traitorous tendencies, a busted-up writing hand, or the disposition of a six-year-old on a sugar high from eating all the Hallow’s End candy EVER.
• The secret to controlling the sha.
• A First War commemorative chess set.  This is the normal-sized, less creepy version of the chess set Medivh had over in Karazhan.  It’s been rumored to be in the works for years, and I’ve finally started to see them showing up on ebAH.  Yes, I play chess.  Don’t act all surprised, for fuck’s sake.
• Varian’s head on a pike.  Did I mention this one?

As far as having family traditions for Winter Veil…not really.  I mean, keep in mind, Winter Veil is a pretty recent thing for us Mag’har.  We didn’t have Winter Veil back in Nagrand, so we only started picking it up at all after Thrall came out to Garadar a few years ago.  Greatmother Geyah really has taken a liking to it, but that’s about it.  Plus, not to get maudlin and shit, but it’s kind of hard to have family traditions when you don’t really have a family.  I mean, I never knew my dad, and my mom died when I was young.  I’m an only child.  As far as I know.  Assuming Grom wasn’t a bigger pimp than anybody’s given him credit for.  Anyhow, point being, Greatmother is pretty much the only family I’ve got nowadays, and even SHE’s not a blood relation – she’s just the one that raised me after Lakkara died.  So, yeah.  AREN’T YOU HAPPY YOU BROUGHT THAT UP?  BET YOU FEEL PROUD.

 

Greetings Warchief!

I am in desperate need of your assistance. I approached Regent Lord Lor’themar with my issue but he said that it was beyond his scope and directed me to contact you.

I recently inherited a house and it is in terrible need of redecoration. You have done a great deal of renovation recently and I was wondering if you could give me some tips to make my house look amazing. Attached is a picture of the house.

Thanks,

–Tegwin

Grats on the new house, Tegwin.  Not so grats on the place looking like such a shithole.  Because, yeah, that place needs some work.  I mean, seriously…the wispy, billowy day-glow curtains?  A bearskin rug with the bear head still attached?  Strewn out there like you’re getting ready to do a photo shoot you already know you’re going to regret in five years?  And… Is…is that a hookah?  Just sitting there, right out in the open, in the living room?  What are you, one semester removed from college and stuck with a slacker troll roommate who keeps swearing he’ll have his half of the rent this month, and this time he means it, mon, only you know perfectly well that’s not happening because felweed’s a hell of a drug?

So, okay, a few things.  You have to lose the pastels, first of all.  I know that probably goes against every last one of your blood elf sensibilities, but trust me on this.  You want strong, commanding colors – the kind that will make people think “Holy fuck, some serious shit goes on in this place” when they walk in.  Lots of reds and grays.  Err on the side of darker.  Go too dark with the red and you get a bloody crimson, which is still pretty badass.  Go too light and you get pink.  See where I’m going with this?

Mount some weapons on the walls.  If you haven’t cleaned them lately and they’ve got some bloodstains, all the better.  It adds to the color scheme I’m talking about, plus it conveys a message of “This person is not to be fucked with.”  Spikes.  You can never have too many spikes.  Or skulls.  Get some skulls in there.  If you can carve up the body of one of your enemies and, say, make their skull into a chair for yourself, awesome.  Or maybe turn their bones into an end table.  A hat rack will do in a pinch.  If you haven’t killed any notable enemies lately, but you’ve got an infamous foe that you really only know by reputation but somebody in your family killed, and you have THEIR remains somewhere handy, that’s just as good, because that fucker was brought down by your bloodline (AGAIN NOTICE THE BLOOD MOTIF) and you totally deserve to share credit for the accomplishment.

This is all for your living room, of course, and I know my tastes can be a little hardcore.  I figured you might want to take it down a notch or two for your bedroom, so I went to Garona to get a woman’s opinion.  Didn’t get very far, though.  I told her I had a question about the bedroom and tried to ask her if she matches her rugs and curtains, or words to that effect, but she just got all pissy for some reason.  So, not much help there.  I seriously don’t know what’s up with her sometimes.

Speaking of which…

 

Dear Warchief,

I’m writing this letter to you in secret and I hope it gets to you and I’m not killed in the process.  *looks around*

It’s about Garona Halforcen.  Sir, she scares the everliving shi—uh—crap out of me.  *looks around again*

I happened upon some history stuff about her and now I’m all confused.  She was there when the first invasion from the Dark Portal, then she had a kid with an old man, and she is half-orc, half-dradne dranin demon *looks up spelling* DRAENAI.  (She looks like an orc.  Smells like one too.  I don’t see it.)

Now I’m all confused and sitting in a dark tunnel with a lot of thinking time had me thinking about her again.

What I want to know…*looks around*

How old is she?  She’s got to be like….ANCIENT.  *hides paper, looks around*

She doesn’t make sense and I don’t want to ask her.  She’s scary.

–Ruekie, Shaman In Training

PS:  There’s a lot of talk lately with the orc kids about the Red Pox, and if there is something scarier than Garona it’s that. I heard you had it once. Did it hurt? Can you get it again? Can we get it? Can an outbreak happen again? Too many questions and we are getting freaked out. Like FREAKED out. Really.

Okay, first of all… Um, Ruekie, you realize we were JUST in those caves all alone and out of earshot of Garona, right?  Not sure why you didn’t just ask your questions THEN, but whatever.  Kids.

First, the Red Pox?  No, seriously, you don’t want to get into the Red Pox, that was just a bad scene all around.  I don’t know why you kids would be talking about it now, but really, just let that shit die.  Nobody needs to be digging up THOSE memories for anybody.

Okay, now that that’s settled, on to your main point.  Yeah, I’ll grant you the scary thing with Garona.  Scariest bitch I know who hasn’t come back from the dead.  Although it’s probably a sad statement about my life that the list of people I know who HAVE come back from dead is a lot longer than you would figure.  Because – I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before – NOBODY STAYS FUCKING DEAD ANYMORE.

Anyway, here’s the deal with Garona.  Yeah, she’s half orc, half draenei.  Back in the day, Gul’dan bred an orc and a draenei to create a personal assassin – enter Garona.  Yeah, she looks mostly orcish, but I guess these racial mixes are kind of a crap shoot as far as which race’s physical traits you get.

Anyhow, to tell you the truth, I’m not sure exactly when Gul’dan actually orchestrated her birth.  I know it was definitely before the Dark Portal opened, and that was about 30 years ago, but before that, there was a window of about 20 years when Gul’dan was up to some Really Bad Shit, so the breeding experiment could have happened anywhere in there.  Let’s shave off the first couple years to give Gul’dan time to come up with this idea and for Garona to be brought to term.  That would mean that Garona would have to be anywhere from, say, 32 (She’s not.  Seriously.  I’m 35.  There’s no damn way she’s younger than me.) to around 48 or so.  Anywhere in between, your guess is as good as mine.

Hang on, though – this gets more complicated when you add the fact that Gul’dan had Garona aged magically so that she could get right to work, no childhood needed.  Swell guy, huh?  Anyway, the age of adulthood among orcs varies a little from clan to clan, usually somewhere from 13 to 15.  (Yeah, I know, kid, can you believe it?  Technically you’re an adult.  Hard to imagine you’re a grown-up, huh?  Well, let me clue you in on a little secret: That thought won’t stop seeming weird for another 20 years.)  So that would mean, however old Garona is according to the calendar, she really has the body of a woman 13-some-odd years older.  So now we’re looking at a physical age putting her somewhere between 45 and, like, 60-something.  Which is kind of a big deal when you consider that 70 is about as old as you could reasonably hope to live as an orc, even if you do a perfect job taking care of yourself.

Oh, but hang on, we’re not done yet.  It’s about to get more complicated.  (Don’t look at me – I didn’t make this shit up.)  Because, see, since Garona has that draenei half, her aging is even more fucked up.  Draenei live for…like…forever.  I mean seriously, I think the average draenei lifespan is something like “infinity minus twelve.”  So you mix THOSE genes in with our good, wholesome “70 if you’re super lucky” orcish genes, and…well… You’ve got a woman who’s technically, like, 40, only with the body of a 53-year-old, only not really because 53 doesn’t mean anywhere near the same thing to the draenei part of her, so…um… Who the fuck knows?

She’s old, okay?  Only she’s kind of not.  Only she is.  Whatever – you go figure it out.  Meanwhile I’m going to go check around the room and make sure there aren’t any whooshing sounds coming from the corners.

 

The following is written in elegant, but slightly shaky, cursive script on pale peach-colored parchment paper

My dear little Roshy,

How are you doing? I have missed you. It’s beautiful here in Nagrand – we’re having the most glorious late-fall weather.  I hope all is well in Orgrimmar.

Why didn’t you tell me you have a girlfriend?  Sounds serious too… She has been sending me letters telling me about how deeply in love you both are, and has included many pictures of you with little hearts and flowers drawn on them.  She says you’re getting married in the spring?  Why didn’t you mention it?  You would think you’d keep your own family informed, dear.  We’ll have to have a little chat the next time you visit.  You are coming home for Winter Veil, are you not?

Also, you should take some pictures of the two of you together.  And perhaps find a new photo studio.  These look like they were printed on magazine paper instead of proper photo paper.  I can’t properly frame them for display, especially not with the lipstick kisses smeared all over them.

All my love,

–Greatmother Geyah.

Hold on, hold on, what… how the… it… GODDAMMIT, SOMEBODY IS FALSIFYING RECORDS OF THEIR WARCHIEF, and…and…  Oh fucking hell, now I’m going to have to go out there and explain Photoshop to her.  It was bad enough when I had the bright idea to try to show her the internet.  Nothing in my e-mail for two months but forwarded pictures of wyverns asking for cheeseburgers.  And WHO is this woman who’s…ugh.  You know what?  I don’t even think I want to know.  Even though I can probably think of a couple likely suspects.

Now I’m just imagining somewhere in Orgrimmar there’s a dim, candle-lit room with walls covered by pictures of me, and…no, no, don’t even go any further with that, Garrosh.  That way madless lies.

And now on top of everything, I have to squeeze in a trip to Nagrand before Winter Veil totally runs out on me, or I’m never going to hear the end of it.  Ugh.  Maybe I’ll bring Gurtash, and see if I can maybe distract her a little with the cute kid factor.  Or Ruekie?  I bet she’d like Ruekie.  Plus Rook might want someplace to hide anyway, what with her probably having Garona out for her head as soon as this post goes live.

 

Very good to hear you have escaped the Saurok caves unharmed. The Horde would be in a very dire position if we were to lose our leader.

I do have one question. Have you ever thought of asking a mage if they could manage to conjure lemon squares? I have no complaints, but the same old sticky buns are a bit tiring after some time (not to mention they turn stale and hard as a rock after some time sitting in a bag). Perhaps you should collaborate with my wife? I am sure she would be very good to collaborate with, or maybe another mage closer to your location.

Regards,

–Shen-Wei Pureblossom

Thanks for writing, Shen-Wei.  You know, I HAVE thought of this lemon squares angle before, but here’s the thing.  First off, there was a point around this time last year that I really thought Gija down in the Cleft of Shadow was on to something, but the problem is, lemon squares don’t really lend themselves to conjuring, apparently.  I mean, you can abracadabra up some pastries that are sorta, KINDA in the same ballpark as lemon squares, but you can tell they’re not the real thing.  It’s like the drop-off from real leather to that fake shit that the damn DEHTA hippies try to pass off and think they’re fooling anybody.  And once you’re used to eating the real thing, I mean, come on.  It would be like going from having me as Warchief to, I don’t even know, a fucking TROLL or something.

Second of all, having spent my whole life eating those lemon squares, let me tell you, we don’t need mages recreating Greatmother’s recipe, because IT’S ALREADY MAGICAL.  (See?  See how I’m already working on smoothing things over with her?  For real, I’m so fucking diplomatic you could just shit a brick.)

Also, even setting all that aside… Nothing personal, but I don’t take anybody up on any suggestions that include the phrase “perhaps you should collaborate with my wife” ever since the Incident That Shall Not Be Discussed over at Tharl Stonebleeder’s house.  Now stop making me think about things that cannot be unthought.  MOVING ON.

 

Hail Warchief.

Rumors are flying that there is a red pox outbreak. Is this anything like the scourge?

–Kelytas, Blood Elf Paladin, Borean Tundra

Wait, again with the Red Pox?  No!  We’re not going to talk about the Red Pox.  Why the fuck is everybody so curious about the Red Pox all of a sudden?

 

I really enjoyed that Photo-Op you had with King Varian a while ago.  I couldn’t help but notice that King Varian had a wonderful tousled-Anime-pigtail thing going on that was at the same time sexy but tough, and you…well, you just look cranky.

I checked in with the Couturier Barbershop in downtown Orgrimmar and was quite frankly shocked at the dismal array of hairstyles available.  An up-swept Mohawk with a scarf?  Are you kidding me?

I know you might have a couple of things on your plate right now but seriously, you really need to look into this before the entire Horde start looking like extras from Naxxramas.

Maybe you could contact King Varian, find out who does his hair and we could have a Stylist Exchange with one of our Barbers so they could learn some new hair techniques and bring back the Glory of the Horde.

I also noticed that our Tailors are in desperate need of new patterns.  Malevolent-style silk pantaloons?  Really?  That is so last-season…

–A Concerned Fashionista Blood Elf

Lor’themar, is that you?

Yeah, let me get right on that.  I’ll send a special diplomatic courier right over to Stormwind with a note that says, “Who does your hair??”  Yeah, that would go over great, I’m sure.

Hmm.  Actually, come to think of it, a message like that would probably seem SO weird to Varian that it might fuck with his head a little.  Like, I can totally imagine him reading that and thinking, “Garrosh wouldn’t give a shit about my hair…WHAT IS HE UP TO?”  And then he gets all paranoid and shit.  And meanwhile I’m just sitting back and not doing anything, and the longer this goes on the more paranoid he gets – ESPECIALLY when it’s time for him to go to the barber, because, hey, THIS IS WHAT GARROSH WAS ASKING ABOUT.  And maybe he gets so messed up and suspicious that he stops going to the barber altogether, and his hair grows and grows, and finally he’s just got this total mess of a rat’s nest on his head, until maybe he eventually can’t stand it anymore and shaves it all off and ends up bald.  Same as me.

There you have it, ACFBE.  Problem solved.  Garrosh comes out ahead of the curve yet again.  Boom.

 

Hail, Warchief!

I’m studying Orcish History at school and need to write an essay. I thought I’d write about the Red Pox and it’s impact, and I thought it would be neat if I could quote you on the subject, if you don’t mind.

I know it was a terrible illness, but there aren’t any first-hand records that I’ve been able to find. What was it like to live with the Red Pox? Do you remember much from those years? Did you notice any major differences between Orcish society as a whole and the way Orcs lived in Garadar? Pretty much anything you can remember would be great.

Thanks!

–Anonymous Scholar, Orgrimmar

Okay, so at least NOW I have some idea of why everybody’s got the Red Pox on the brain this week.  So okay, fine, just this once I’ll talk about it, seeing as I’m probably one of the only Red Pox survivors a lot of these kids will have the chance to meet.

It sucked.

What, you wanted more?  FINE.

I’m not going to waste time going over the symptoms, because there must already be records of that, and I’m pretty sure neither one of us wants to spend our lunch break reviewing my childhood vomiting habits.  But yeah, I had it as a kid, and even setting aside the physical suffering of it all, I can’t stress enough how much of an effect it had on the culture of Garadar.  I mean, you asked if there were any major differences between Garadar society and orcish society as a whole?  Fuck, what WASN’T different?  The Red Pox hung over our whole culture.  It touched everything.  We had whole generations who were born and died – prematurely, granted – under the bane of that thing.  That was the worst part of it, really – the sense of resignation it left us with.  It was like, for a lot of us, there was this sense that the Red Pox came for our grandparents, and then it came for our parents, and now it’s going to come for us.

Over the years, our shaman kept working to find a cure, and every so often there would be a glimmer of hope that maybe they had something.  But then there would always be some disaster that would undo it.  After a while that became part of the gloom and doom of it – the shaman would come up with a new possibility, and you never quite stopped hoping, but deep down you were thinking, “Okay, let’s see what fucks it up THIS time.”  Even when they finally did find a cure, and the suffering could finally end, a lot of us couldn’t even quite believe it was really happening.

Adding to all this, by the way, was the fact that over in Telaar, the draenei had their own parallel illness going on for a while.  It was called the lank distemper – or the “Lanks,” as a lot of folks ended up calling it.  Basically an infection that caused severe dehydration and loss of appetite, so the afflicted would wither down to these scrawny shadows of their former selves.  Sometimes the two diseases would flare up as if they had a contest going to see which one could kill more victims.  Which made for some miserable times for everybody involved.  Believe me, for anyone who was living through it, you do NOT want to get them started on the whole Lanks / Red Pox rivalry.

Is that enough?  Are you happy yet?  Or do I need to relive the time the conjured healing sphere rolled between Bullrok’s legs and into the lake, too?

 

Dear Garrosh;

Winter Veil is here! Time for a great orc cheer! Lok’tar!

I am so looking forward to making cookies and milk for Greatfather Winter this year with my new cooking skills I learned from Pilgrim’s Bounty holiday. I may even add some lemon squares to add some extra favor. I’m really hoping this year he’ll give me a ferocious armored bloodwing with exotic leather saddle for riding. That would be so cool! (Sigh, I’ll probably end up with another copper racer though.)

What are you hoping for Winter Veil this year, Mr. Garrosh sir?

Varian on a spire tree?

Blood and thunder!

–Ruekie, Shaman-Still-in-Training

PS: Greatfather Winter looks awful familiar, but I can’t quite figure it out. Kinda like Mr. Saurfang, but that would be impossible…I think. (Nothing is impossible with Mr. Saurfang.)

PPS: Winter Veil holiday is a great time for eating. Try no to eat too many lemon squares, though, sir. It doesn’t take much to make your muscles look like marshmallows.  D: 

Bye!

Wait, Ruekie AGAIN?  When the hell is she writing all these letters?  Fuck, maybe I should hire HER as a scribe, if this is how fast she can crank out pages.  Anyway.

So also, before we get into anything else…hang on, you want a BLOODWING for Winter Veil?  A frigging BAT?  All of a sudden, a WYVERN isn’t good enough for little miss tornado-pants?  You’ve seen Mortimer in action, up close and personal, and you’ve decided, “Nah, let’s give the universe a sporting chance – keep the wings, take away all the parts that really make the wyvern badass, and replace them with a giant blind rat”?  Are you KIDDING me?

I already answered the part about what I want for Winter Veil a few letters up, so no need to get into that again.  And I’m not going to dignify the lemon squares thing with a response.  But I have to comment on that thing you said about Greatfather Winter.  You know, one thing that people always say about Greatfather Winter is that there’s no way the guy could possibly fly all around the world and deliver presents to everyone in just one night.  Well, I think you might have found the one gaping hole in that theory.  So, next time you find yourself in an argument with some skeptic who doesn’t want to believe in Greatfather Winter, just unload this one on them:

“I’m telling you, there isn’t enough time for Greatfather Winter to do all that!  It isn’t physically possible!”

“What if Greatfather Winter is really Saurfang?”

“Oh… Um… Well then.”

 

Yo Mon!

I hear you had de red pox, mon. On dat game Earth Online dey has a disees call chicken pox. Es dat de same? (What do chickens haf to do wit dat?)

Dey say in dat game, once you hav it, you cannot get et again. Yah, mon, you are now invisible to dat disees, like de lich king’s horse.  Dat is good news!

Cheers, mon!

–Bobbette, Out der somewhere

…

Okay.

So.

I am beginning to get the very distinct impression that I may be getting trolled.

 

Hey mon!

What’s dis I be hearin’ about da Red Pox breakin’ out again?  It be all anybody be talkin’ ’bout dese days!  If you get it, does dat mean ya turns red?  I remember seein’ some red orcs back in Hellfire Peninsula, mon, was dey havin’ da Red Pox?  Dey go from green ta red?  Don’t get me wrong, mon, I don’t want nobody gettin’ sick, but if dere be anudda outbreak, look on da bright side – all dat red an’ green togetha be lookin’ nice an’ festive for Winter Veil!

–Bob, Shado-pan Monastery

I hate you.  I really, truly hate you.

 

Excuse me, Warchief, I write to you from Dustwallow marsh, I came here to see if I could find test subjects for a new flamethrower, and found something much more interesting, there is this mysterious woman on the road to the ruined theramore (hah!) and she seems to be able to send me back in time to look at theramore and the swamp before theramore was destroyed, I went to sleep at mudsprocket and woke up in present day. She seems upset that I was killing humans as soon as I was there, and refuses to send me again.

–Ritaba, Mudsprocket 

Wait, wait, hang on.  Let me get this straight.  You’re telling me that there’s someone hanging around Dustwallow Marsh sending people back in time to Theramore before we blew it up?  As in, making it possible to totally sidestep our whole victory and interact with the place like it was before?  That… fucking hell, THAT DEFEATS THE WHOLE POINT OF US BLOWING IT UP IF YOU CAN FUCKING DO THAT!

You know, this has the Bronze Dragonflight written all over it — or at least it WOULD, if it weren’t for the fact that this is PRECISELY THE SAME KIND OF SHIT they they’ve been recruiting people to PREVENT for years now, and by the way didn’t I just march through like 50 miles of steaming shit over their whole “integrity of the past” deal last year?!  But hey, apparently it’s NO BIG DEAL when you’re talking about Theramore, right?  SURE!  WHY NOT?  Hey, how about I zip on back to the past and start fucking with shit too, because I GUESS THAT’S ON THE MENU NOW, RIGHT?

Fucking dragons.  FUCKING TIME TRAVEL!

UGH!

 

I have been reading the history of Pandaria, and discovered something no one has bothered to take note of, seven burdens of Shaohao, the story of how the last emperor of Pandaria defeated the six sha and locked them away in a poor fashion (He couldn’t have kept them from causing havok any time someone gets cranky?), and there are older writings indicating a beast with seven heads, perhaps there is a seventh sha never recorded, it could be the key to controlling them.

–Yinsun, Vale of Eternal Blossoms

Now see, THIS is an example of some research that might actually be useful.  You might be on to something there, Yinsun.  It DOES seem kind of fishy that we have this story about Shaohao and his seven burdens, and this seven-headed thingamabob, and then we only have six sha that we know about.  It’s definitely worth considering whether we’ve got one more sha on the loose that nobody’s thought of.  (Hell, I was even bouncing ideas about this around with some people on Twitter a little while ago.)

For anybody keeping score at home, we might as well start with the basics.  Right now, we’ve got six sha accounted for: the Sha of Doubt, the Sha of Anger, the Sha of Despair, the Sha of Violence, the Sha of Hatred, and the Sha of Fear.

So, okay, let’s suppose there’s one more out there.  Since the sha we know about all seem to be named for pretty major negative emotions or vices…hmm…let’s see, what do we have left for major negatives?

There could be a Sha of Greed, I suppose.  Although…I mean, we have goblins with us, and I have to figure if there were a Sha of Greed, people like Grizzle Gearslip would be setting the fucker off left and right.  The Sha of Jealousy, maybe?  Makes sense on paper, but again, you’d figure we’d be having outbreaks all over the place, seeing as we’ve got a base full of people who’ve been watching me stroll around day after day.  And you KNOW the peeps get jelly when they feast their eyes to the pure awesome that is yours truly, amirite?

So we’re kind of running out of major vices to pair up with the missing sha.  What else is there?  Free-associate, Garrosh… hmm… the Sha of Gluttony?  The Sha of Sloth?  The Sha of Anteater?

Hang on…I think that line of thought took a wrong turn on me somehow.

Maybe we’re going about this wrong.  Time to think outside the box a little.  For all we know, this last sha could be kind of a niche sha, something more specific and less…well…grandiose.  Which might explain why this one might have been able to fly under the radar all this time.  So, let’s see, what else could be out there as the sneakier, subtler bane of our existence…

• The Sha of Social Awkwardness
• The Sha of Small Talk
• The Sha of Poor Table Manners
• The Sha of Bad Penmanship
• The Sha of Bad Spelling
• The Sha of Typos (possibly related to above)
• The Sha of Not Picking Up After Your Wyvern
• The Sha of Repetition
• The Sha of Redundancy
• The Sha of Telegraphing Bad Jokes
• The Sha of Walking Really Slowly in Front of People at the Mall
• The Sha of Paper Towels with Inexplicably Strong Perforation So You Try to Snap Off One Square and End Up Yanking Out Half the Roll
• The Sha of Telling the Same Story Over and Over and Over Again Even Though Yes I Already Know How You Met Eitrigg Okay Tirion

Okay, you know what?  This is going nowhere fast.

Wait, wait, hang on a second… I could swear I HAVE seen another sha somewhere.

HOLY FUCKING HELL THAT’S IT!  THE SHA OF HAPPINESS!  Come to think of it, I even remember seeing this fucker on Twitter!  Fuckin’ A, I KNEW all those annoyingly happy assholes like Mylune were up to no good!  IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

 

Okay, that’s going to do it for this time, but keep those letters coming.  You guys really stepped up to the plate with this batch of letters, so you know what that means — THE BAR HAS BEEN RAISED.  So keep it going, and I’ll try to be back with more wise words soon.  Handy form included:

Name(required)

Email(required)

Website

Message(required)

Submit

Δ

Cheat Sheet

As promised in my last post, here’s an overview of the state of the blog.  I realize that after two years of accumulated in-jokes and storylines, the Command Board may be a bit disorienting to a newcomer (or, for that matter, to a long-time reader who blinked at the wrong time), so I’ve tried to break this down into a semi-sorta-kinda FAQ.  Most of this will be familiar to long-time readers (though I’ve also included a few behind-the-scenes notes that some of you might find interesting), but I hope it’ll explain a few things for new arrivals.

 

I hate Garrosh!  Why does Garrosh seem so sympathetic in this blog?  Are you one of those Garrosh apologists/fanboys?

Comically enough, I originally started the blog because I really didn’t like Garrosh either, and saw the blog as a way to have a few chuckles mocking him.  It wasn’t long, though, before I decided that I would get sick of the outright-mockery approach pretty quickly, so I started branching out.  Part of the result was letting blog-Garrosh become (I hope) a bit more multifaceted, while still remaining true to his temperamental self.  Including the LOLs.

Ultimately, I don’t set out to justify anything Garrosh does, just to present it in a way that makes sense in light of the character, and if that pushes a black-and-white scenario into some shade of gray, well, that makes for a more interesting story anyway.  And, keep in mind, the story here is being told, generally, from Garrosh’s point of view, so I don’t know how that perspective wouldn’t be sympathetic.  Everyone is the hero of their own story, after all, and nobody thinks they’re a bad person.

 

Why isn’t there anything here about the siege of Orgrimmar?

What are you talking about?  There was a post titled “The siege of Orgrimmar” a good solid year ago – if anything, shouldn’t you be asking why Blizzard is coming so late to the party?  (By the way, I didn’t realize until just now that patch 5.4 was released almost exactly on the one-year anniversary of the “Siege or Orgrimmar” post.  How awesomely freaky is that?)

Anyway, to give a real answer: Time-wise, the blog has not yet reached the events of patch 5.4.  The storyline is currently playing out the midst of 5.2; Lor’themar Theron and Jaina Proudmoore have recently set up shop on the Isle of Thunder, while Vol’jin is still recovering from his injuries at Shado-Pan Monastery.

This time lag between the game and the blog, by the way, is partly by design.  I’d always intended the blog to run a bit behind the game; coming into MoP, I realized that if I tried to follow in-game events too closely, I wouldn’t have time to adapt my own ideas to fit Blizzard’s story.  There have already been a few instances in which Blizzard’s story has taken a turn that’s forced me to change gears in a way that would have been disastrous if I didn’t have a month or two of lead time.  Of course, I’m clearly more than a month or two behind – that’s been a result of various real-life circumstances slowing down my output over the last few months.  I’m working on it!

 

So the blog basically retells in-game events, from Garrosh’s point of view?

Yes and no.  The blog operates within Blizzard’s continuity (with the aforementioned time delay), but also weaves additional storylines in and around the canonical Blizzard plots.  Anything that happens or is stated explicitly in-game is canon, obviously, and the blog is bound by it.*  That said, I sometimes like to put other stories around Blizzard’s, to give them context that might change the way those events are perceived.  (This was a large part of my motivation for the Timequake story leading into Theramore, or, more recently, the blog events surrounding the Divine Bell / Domination Offensive storyline.)

Also, while the point of view is mostly Garrosh’s, there are some posts that present events from other perspectives.  Most notable are the “guest” posts by Spazzle (Garrosh’s tech goblin), which help fill in story details that Garrosh wouldn’t necessarily be privy to.  You can always identify a post written by someone other than Garrosh by the color of the text – Spazzle’s posts, for instance, are always written in green text, and almost always include the phrase “Spazzle Speaks” in the title.  Also, as a rule of thumb, when Spazzle et al post, Garrosh remains oblivious to anything that might be revealed; the conceit at work here is that Garrosh doesn’t really care what anyone else is writing, so he doesn’t bother reading it.

* The one instance that I’ve flat-out fudged in-game details is the way I’ve chosen to incorporate the events of “A Little Patience.”  From the Alliance point of view, that scenario takes place almost immediately after Varian arrives in Pandaria; in the blog, I’ve pushed those events a bit later in the story.  This was largely a matter of convenience: I knew that I wanted there to be a military operation in Krasarang in which Garrosh’s trainees went missing, and I realized fairly late in the going that “A Little Patience” lent itself to that story pretty readily.  Hopefully those Alliance-side readers out there will be willing to turn a blind eye to my blatant and shameless revision.  (Horde bias rears its ugly head again!  GRR!)

 

Garrosh has trainees?  When did that happen?

Right here!  As part of the escalation of the war effort, the Kor’kron started a training program to prepare orc teenagers for eventual military service.  When Garrosh learned that Gurtash – an orc boy from the Orgrimmar orphanage whom Garrosh had taken under his wing – had been conscripted, Garrosh volunteered to take Gurtash’s trainee group under his own supervision.  (Side note: In my head-canon, Garrosh has a bit of a soft spot for the orphans, being as he is one himself.)  The trainees, who have nicknamed themselves the Dead Peons Society (DPS for short) have accompanied Garrosh to Pandaria and joined him on a few adventures.  Fairly recently, they went missing after the Horde loss in the “A Little Patience” scenario, and were eventually found by Garrosh, hiding away in an underground system of caves.  That’s brought us up to the point where we are now, story-wise: Garrosh and the trainees underground, looking for a way out.

 

Is the entire supporting cast from within the game?

Mostly, but not entirely.  I’ve invented a few characters for the blog – Spazzle being the highest-profile – but I’ve tried to keep it limited, and tried to restrict those characters to fairly peripheral positions in the lore.  The one glaring exception was the storyline involving Garrosh’s mother, Lakkara, who isn’t mentioned anywhere in the actual lore.  It just struck me as odd that there’s no record of who she was, or what happened to her, and besides, in a mythology packed to capacity with father/son relationships, I thought it was about time somebody’s mom got a little screen time.

Otherwise, when a character turns up who doesn’t exist in-game, that character was often inspired by a reader and/or based on someone’s game character.  For instance, both Gurtash and Mortimer (Garrosh’s personal wyvern) became blog characters thanks to mailbag letters from Khizzara from Blog of the Treant; Khizzara’s own namesake has made a few appearances as Spazzle’s cousin; doodle-prone kitty druid Taktani became a full-fledged character (and boy, is she ever a character) after making several mailbag contributions; and many of the DPS trainees are modeled on the baby orc alts of friends.

In general, though, if you see a supporting character turn up whose name you don’t recognize, the smartest first guess is that he or she is based on a questgiver or other NPC somewhere in-game.  (Wowpedia is your friend!)  I deliberately picked a lot of relatively minor NPCs – people like Mokvar, Elder Cloudfall, and Dontrag and Utvoch – to use as supporting characters because I figured their relatively peripheral status gave me more latitude to work with them, give them backstories, etc.  After all, what are the odds that Blizzard would actually do something with one of these people to contradict my own concoctions?

(Either way, if you’re not sure who someone is, I’ve also maintained a partial list of supporting players on the About the Blog page, including some of the more pertinent information about them.)

 

Speaking of which – in the SoO raid, Mokvar is a mini-boss!  Isn’t he missing?  How are you going to deal with that?

First… um, yeah, that whole “no way they’re gonna do something with this guy” really blew up in my face on this one, huh?

And second… So, everyone who thought I was going to lay out this big storyline for Mokvar, and make such a production out of his disappearance…and then have it turn out that he really is dead…step forward.

Didn’t think so.

For those of you unclear on Mokvar’s whole story, which has been unfolding gradually for quite a while, you can check here for a brief overview and links to the relevant posts.  Very short version: After becoming the victim of a mysterious attack, Mokvar sets out to track down a powerful relic from his warlock days, with the aid of a human named Deliana (who was Mokvar’s Alliance equivalent in the old dungeon set quests); over the course of his quest, he starts to behave increasingly strangely, culminating in his eventual flight from arrest in Orgrimmar.  His whereabouts are now unknown.

Stay tuned.  You’ll see where this is going!

 

With Mokvar gone, how are you handling the transcripts?

Prelinimary: The blog contains several transcripts of conversations that Garrosh has engaged in.  The premise from the outset has been that Mokvar is (or was) Garrosh’s personal scribe, and records all these conversations for posting.  This explains, by the way, a number of occasions when Garrosh mentions summoning Mokvar to an event, or otherwise noting Mokvar’s presence, as a way of leading in to a transcript.

Since Mokvar is off the grid, Garrosh has passed transcription duties to two people: Gurtash, who records his transcripts in the form of comics; and Taktani, a friend of Dontrag and Utvoch and long-time mailbag contributor, who’s started to (and will continue to) write a few transcripts, laden with her own unassuming brand of commentary.

 

What are these guild chat logs that keep cropping up?

Garrosh and several of the supporting characters play an MMORPG called Earth Online – the basic premise being that, to these characters, Azeroth is reality, and our real world is actually the game world of the MMO.  Garrosh started his own guild, called <Warchief>, and several familiar faces (including Spazzle, Sylvanas, Lor’themar, Faranell, Garona, and Dontrag and Utvoch) are members.  Also worth noting is that Jaina Proudmoore is a member of the guild…although she doesn’t realize (yet?) who her guildmates are in “real life.”

The guild chat logs recreate some of the exchanges that the members of <Warchief> have within their game, usually including regular guild chat, officer chat, and, in some cases, whispers.  I make no pretense about the fact that some aspects of these logs are based on my own guild-chat expeiences, especially officer chat.  The transcripts are always presented from the point of view of whoever posted them – usually Garrosh, but occasionally Spazzle.

 

Where did this whole thing about lemon squares come from?

Garrosh loves lemon squares.  Don’t you?

Real explanation: Very early in the blog, Edenvale of The Gamer’s Fridge posted a recipe for Garrosh Hellscream’s lemon squares, and pointed me to her post with a comment on the Command Board.  Since then, it’s become a bit of a running gag – the recipe, according to Garrosh, was his greatmother’s secret family recipe, and he was most perturbed that this random night elf had apparently gotten ahold of it.

 

What does “FYV” mean?

An abbreviation of one of Garrosh’s favorite turns of phrase, of course: “Fuck you, Varian!”  Among other things, Garrosh often finds a way to slip that phrase into his EPIC VERSE compositions.

 

Speaking of which, what’s this “EPIC VERSE”?  Garrosh writes poetry?

You sound surprised.  Garrosh is an orc of many interests.  What, do you think he’s some kind of one-note caricature or something?

Okay, fine, game-Garrosh kind of is.

Honestly, I just got a kick out of the obvious dichotomy of Garrosh Hellscream, gruffest of the gruff, also writing poetry on the side.  True to form, Garrosh doesn’t view his compositions as just any poetry, so he prefers to call them EPIC VERSE.  In caps.  Always.  It’s sprinkled throughout the blog – almost always in purple text, to stress its epic-ness – and ranges from limericks, to parodies of other famous poems, to reader requests, to epic rap battles.

 

So, that’s as much as I can think to cover.  Other gaps can probably be filled in through the Major Storylines page, but if there are questions that anyone still has, in terms of getting caught up or clarified, by all means toss them into a comment and I’ll make sure it’s answered.  And so, on that note, I’ll sigh off with the promise – unconditional promise! – that before the week is out, you’ll have the continuation of the actual STORY part of the story!  Which left off, as you might recall, right here:

Buried treasure

A couple days ago, I finally took Elder Cloudfall’s advice and flew over to the Temple of the Red Crane to check on the aftermath of the Alliance offensive there.  I’m back at Domination Point now.

So…this is probably going to be kind of a long story.  Bear with me.

I got up extra early to make the trip over.  I didn’t bring anyone else along – just Mortimer and me.  I didn’t want any extra people making noise and drawing extra attention, and besides, depending on what I found there, I figured I might prefer to be by myself anyway.

I could see the remains of uniformed orc bodies scattered around the outskirts of the temple grounds, but I wasn’t able to get close enough for a better look right away.  The place was crawling with Alliance patrols.  Strange, seeing as the temple itself looked like it was back in the hands of the pandas, so it’s not like the humans were keeping watch over their own outpost.

I took a pass around to size up the deployment of patrols.  They were circling around the temple, but also ranging to the north and east, where the temple grounds gave way to swampland.  A little ways into the wilds there were some mogu ruins spread out over some hills.  A pair of humans looked like they were standing guard outside what used to be the entrance to a cave in the hillside – used to be, until it had been sealed with rocks.  Probably a cave-in.  Not sure what the point would have been of posting guards, but who knows what these humans are thinking.

I flew further up into the surrounding hills.  More patrols.  Mostly circling around a handful of cracks in the ground and rock face.  It took me a few minutes, but it finally hit me that the cracks would have led down into the same caverns as the cave entrance.  Probably, anyway.  I was never too great with spatial relations that didn’t involve swinging an axe.  Anyway, whatever was in there, the Alliance were keeping all possible points of entry locked down.  Maybe even sealed the cave themselves, who knows.

Whatever it was, if it was important enough for all this attention, I figured it was worth checking out.  So I landed by one of the cracks.  Now, granted, there were a bunch of Alliance soldiers patrolling around there, but, you know…to make a short story shorter, hi, how are ya, chop chop, dead dead, moving on.

I set a grappling hook in the rocks and lowered myself down into one of the cracks.  The opening was narrower than I was expecting, and went down further – I think each of the cracks opened into a different point in a series of tunnels, as opposed to one big cave like I was thinking originally.

Now for the fun part.  While I was still lowering myself down, guess what?  My rope snapped.  Maybe I really HAVE been putting on some weight lately.  To be fair, the Shrine of Two Moons really does have some kickass food.  So anyway, down I dropped.  Don’t you worry, though, because my fall was cushioned by a big ol’ pile of ROCKS.  Awesome, huh?

After I took a minute to thank life for chiming in with another installment of Hey Everybody, Let’s Piss Off Garrosh: The Home Game, I started exploring.  At first, the caverns seemed to have been built by someone, with walls and floors made up of stonemasonry.  Pretty soon, though, gaping holes in the walls gave way to a system of natural tunnels that wound around deeply and grew wider, mostly, the further they descended from the surface.  Looked like side passages splintered off pretty regularly, but I tried to stay with the widest path.  I figured that would make it easier to retrace my steps if I needed to.

Eventually, after I’d made my way deep underground, the jagged walls all started to blur together, and I started to worry that I was starting to travel in circles.  I was about to try retracing my steps when I happened to look down a side passage, and saw flickering light in the distance.  I made my way closer, turned a corner, and then…well…

Every once in a while – not often, but sometimes – life decides to be generous.

Burdens of the spirit

After the disaster with the Divine Bell, I spent a couple days channeling old-Nagrand-Garrosh – brooding and moping in my quarters here at Domination Point.  Other than occasional tactical reports from General Nazgrim, most people had the good sense to leave me to myself.  Hell, even Dontrag and Utvoch managed to keep their yaps shut for a couple days.  This may or may not be related to me slapping them around several times when I first got back to the base.

The time to myself gave me the chance to think more about where to go from here.  After what went down at the Emperor’s Reach, it’s painfully obvious that I need to start taking matters into my own hands.  Trouble is, in practical terms, I’m not sure what that actually ENTAILS.  So, one step at a time: Time to act one the one avenue I have open to me, and worry about what comes next when I get there.  Elder Cloudfall told me he could help prepare me for my destiny, or however he fortune-cookied it, so it’s time to take him up on the offer.

Granted, I’m not exactly thrilled about what little I’ve heard about that Kypari Zar place, so a few more answers might be nice.  Any bets on whether I’ll actually get them?

Anyway, I had some trouble tracking down Cloudfall at first.  He wasn’t anywhere on the base, and Ben-Lin didn’t know where he’d wandered off to.  Finally, Jorn Skyseer told me he’d been talking with Cloudfall about some of the areas nearby that our hunting parties have been hitting up, and he pointed me toward the island to the east.  The one where the trainees used to go crane hunting when we first set up shop here in Pandaria.

I flew over to the island, with Taktani in tow.  Cloudfall was sitting on a rock along the shore.  He and Zhi-Zhi were sitting back to back in one of those meditation poses that look like they would hurt your legs like hell, eyes closed, off in their own little world.

 

GARROSH – Hey, Gramps.

(Mr. Elder Panda man and his money friend just keep sitting on the rock and being quiet.)

GARROSH – Elder?

(Elder Panda still doesn’t respond.)

GARROSH – Hello?  Chimps?  Anybody home?

(Mr. Monkey didn’t answer either.  I hope his ears are okay!)

GARROSH – (tapping Zhi-Zhi on the shoulder)  Hey, Banana Boy!

ZHI-ZHI – (jumping, startled)  AAAH!  Oh…oh, the One!  Much apologizing, Zhi-Zhi did not see you, was thinking great thoughts.

GARROSH – Uh, yeah, whatever.  So listen, I… Hang on.  (turning to me)  Tak?

TAKTANI – Hi!

(Mr. Warchief kind of stared at me for a minute.  Maybe he forgot what he was going to say?)

GARROSH – Yeah, hi.  So now that we’ve met, is there a reason why you’re not, y’know, writing anything down?

TAKTANI – Oh!  I’m sorry, Mr. Warchief.  I forgot to bring my paper.

GARROSH – You…forgot.

TAKTANI – I left it back in my room!

GARROSH – You realize that’s the ENTIRE reason I bring you places, right?

TAKTANI – Don’t be mad!  I’m sorry!

(Mr. Warchief rubbed his eyes and forehead for a minute.  I think maybe his eyes were sore because of how sunny it was.  I should give him some sunglasses for his birthday!  Does anyone know when his birthday is?)

GARROSH – (still rubbing his eyes)  Of all your crimes, Mokvar, this may be the most grating…

TAKTANI – I don’t understand, Mr. Warchief.

GARROSH – Never mind.  Okay, look, Tak, you’re not off the hook yet.  You just made some extra homework for yourself.

TAKTANI – But I’m not in school, Mr. Warchief!

GARROSH – Yeah, well, maybe this will teach you lesson #1: Don’t forget the tools of your damn trade!

TAKTANI – I’m sorry!  😦

GARROSH – So…here’s what you’re going to do.  Most of the sand around here looks pretty wet.  So YOU, little miss Swiss Cheese Brain, can just sit yourself down and write your notes in the sand, and then come back with your paper and copy it later.

TAKTANI – Ooh, that sounds fun!

GARROSH – BEFORE THE DAMN TIDE COMES IN.  (sighs)  Okay.  So.  Back to you, monkey boy.  What’s up with Old Man Furball here?  Is he off in some weird panda brain-freeze zone or something?

(While Mr. Warchief was talking, I started writing everything in the sand like he said, like this and this and this and YAY this is fun!  Oh and I did like he said and came back later to copy it all down and I even brought Mr. D and Mr. U to help check my spelling, because they’re smart and nice.  And SEE, Mr. Warchief, I got it all done just like you said!  Oh oh oh but while I was writing it out, there was a seagull flying around, and it pooped on the first page.  I hope you notice it’s there before you touch it.)

 

I didn’t.

 

ZHI-ZHI – Ah, ah, yes, Elder Cloudfall is in deep meditation.  Much more focused than Zhi-Zhi.  As matter of fact, Elder has been teaching Zhi-Zhi meditation techniques, teaching to block out everything around Zhi-Zhi.  Will help to center Zhi-Zhi.

GARROSH – So you can think more great thoughts.

ZHI-ZHI – Ahh!  You are understanding!

GARROSH – So how long does it usually take for Captain Comatose to come back out of these—

CLOUDFALL – (not moving, eyes still closed)  I can hear you, Warchief Garrosh.

ZHI-ZHI – Elder!

GARROSH – So, Gramps, if you could hear me, any particular reason you didn’t answer me before?

CLOUDFALL – (continuing to keep his eyes closed)  I was in the midst of pursuing a line of thought.  I felt it more pressing that I complete it.

GARROSH – Isn’t it kind of rude to just ignore people when they talk to you?

CLOUDFALL – Is it not rude to interrupt people who are clearly meditating?

ZHI-ZHI – But, erm, Elder, you are hearings all the transpiringses…um…were we not practicing our deep meditation exercises?

CLOUDFALL – I have been practicing these techniques since before your great grandmother was born, Zhi-Zhi.

GARROSH – So anyway, now that you’re done with that—

CLOUDFALL – I’m not.

GARROSH – You’re what?

CLOUDFALL – As I said, Warchief Garrosh, I have been availing myself of the peace and solitude of the beach to think.

GARROSH – Um, okay?

CLOUDFALL – I’m not finished.

(Mr. Panda Elder still hadn’t opened his eyes, and now he settled back into place more.)

GARROSH – Hang on, you’re seriously going to blow me off so you can fucking go back to…whatever, going over your grocery list or backtracking to wherever you left your keys, or whatever the fuck you’re doing?

(Mr. Panda didn’t say anything.)

GARROSH – (to Zhi-Zhi)  Is he for real?

ZHI-ZHI – (shrugs and waves one hand)  Is easier not trying to argue, truths to telling.

CLOUDFALL – There.  (opens his eyes, stands, and turns to Garrosh)  Now I am finished.

GARROSH – Well yay.

TAKTANI – Yay!

GARROSH – DON’T START.

TAKTANI – Oh.  😦

GARROSH – So do you mind telling me what was so important that it couldn’t wait?

(Mr. Panda man looked around the beach a few times.)

CLOUDFALL – Your pupil, Gurtash, and his peers.  I understand they used to come here on occasion.

GARROSH – Oh.  Yeah.  They used to go hunting here.

CLOUDFALL – (nods)  This is a sacred place, you know.  The Cradle of Chi-Ji, the Great Crane.

GARROSH – Look, if you’re going to start complaining that they came here to—

CLOUDFALL – You misunderstand me, Warchief Garrosh.  I did not come here to pass judgment.  I came merely to visit a place of some import to the youths, away from the bustle of your fortifications, and allow them to enter my thoughts.

GARROSH – Ah.  Yeah.  They’ve been in mine a lot lately, too.

CLOUDFALL – Indeed.

(Mr. Warchief got kind of quiet and Mr. Panda man stayed quiet for a minute too and watched him.)

CLOUDFALL – In any case, I’m sure you did not seek me out to revisit such things.  How may I be of help to you?

GARROSH – By doing what you came here for in the first place.  You said you could help me get ready for this great destiny of mine.

CLOUDFALL – Indeed.  Or rather, I believe I can help you to meet it.  Whether it will prove to be great or not will be very much up to you.

GARROSH – Well, either way, you said that this Kypari Zar place is where he need to go to get started.  So, whenever you’re ready to go, let’s go.

CLOUDFALL – I also told you that you carry many shadows with you.

GARROSH – Kind of the point of us going to that Zar place, right?

CLOUDFALL – Indeed.  But you carry more now.  Perhaps needlessly.

GARROSH – (sighs)  Can you bottom-line this, maybe, or are you going to do a whole speech again?

ZHI-ZHI – (waving his hand)  Really much easier not to tryings with the arguings.

CLOUDFALL – (pointing northward)  The temple to the north.  That is where the…calamity occurred?

GARROSH – Yeah, don’t remind me.

CLOUDFALL – Have you gone there since then?

GARROSH – No.

CLOUDFALL – You should.

GARROSH – Look, Gramps, I get that you’re probably going for some kind of hippie closure crap here, but if you think it’s actually going to IMPROVE my mood to go up there and find a bunch of—

CLOUDFALL – Warchief Garrosh, no facts that you find there will be so damaging to the soul as the nightmares your mind has conjured in their absence.

GARROSH – (looking north)  Yeah, maybe.

CLOUDFALL – And in the process, you may allow yourself the opportunity to bring one lesser shadow with you on our journey.

GARROSH – (sighs)  You’re just going to stonewall me until I go, aren’t you?

ZHI-ZHI – Really not worth tryings to—

GARROSH – (slapping Zhi-Zhi)  Shut it, Spanks.

CLOUDFALL – Kypari Zar will still be there when you are done.

GARROSH – (turns and starts to walk toward Mortimer)  Yeah, fine.  I’ll drop little miss Happy Kitty here off at the base, and get a couple things squared away, then…  (stops, then looks back at Cloudfall)  You know, I’ve heard of that Kypari Zar place before.

CLOUDFALL – (perks an eyebrow)  Oh?

GARROSH – Last year.  I didn’t even know what “Kypari Zar” was.  But someone in…high places…told me if I went there, I would die.

CLOUDFALL – (nods slowly)  You may.  In fact, you will.

GARROSH – Not the best sales pitch, Gramps.

CLOUDFALL – You will die if you go there.  But then, you will die if you do not.  Just as I will die if I take you, and I will die if I do not.  That we will die is assured, Warchief Garrosh.  The only question is how, and when, and why.

GARROSH – That’s a cop-out and you know it.

CLOUDFALL – I know no such thing.

GARROSH – (shrugs and climbs onto Mortimer)  Well, whatever.  I’ve got enough on my mind these days, what’s one more thing, right?

CLOUDFALL – If I might make a suggestion, Warchief Garrosh.  A great many years ago, a former mentor offered me certain words of solace.  A phrase of great power and wisdom, and consolation to the soul in times of need.

GARROSH – What’s that?

CLOUDFALL – Have a drink.  Next one’s on me.

 

Not the worst idea in the world, actually.  I might head downstairs and see what we have on tap.  Meanwhile, I’m going to put a couple things in order here at the base, then take Mortimer back out for a flight over to the Temple of the Red Crane.  For better or worse.

More soon.