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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on May 12, 2021 16:24:16 GMT
May the Fourth
Nat, looking far, far happier than even her usual happiness for some reason, took her brand-new black leather-bound diary (her old one had been filled) and ravenfeather quill (her infrequent trips to the Shadowlands was not reaping enough anima to consistently power the larionfeather quill) to Celeste’s bed, flopping across it with a bit of a bounce while Celeste sat up near the pillows, grinning slightly as she toyed with a statuette that actually moves that she’d procured from a weekend adventure to Tanaris. The statuette, a troll voodoo figurine, had short, comparatively thin legs and arms, massive feet and hands, and a torso that widened out into an even wider head that was flat front and back, though the top widened out and was rounded over the top. When she held it, it kicked its little feet and swung its arms around. When she let it go, it would take off to the edge of the bed, and she’d have to catch it before it jumped off. Dordy was enthralled; he couldn’t take his eyes off it, nor stop barking at it.
Nat giggled at her love and the molten pup, grinning as Celeste played with her newest toy, getting up to let it loose in the room and watching Dordy chase it all over. Nat was glad the thing was a non-living, non-sentient thing; this would be a torment otherwise. She wondered how much mojo the statue had left, or if it was some other power source, limited or unlimited, that made it move about. She watched Celeste and Dordy play with the figurine for a while, then lifted her quill and began to write.
Dear diary,
I’M FREEEEEEEEEE!!!!
I have finally severed my connection to the most appallingly toxic and childish person I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet in my entire life. It’s sad, really; the friendship we had before she showed her true colors was stellar! I tried for over a month to get it back, but, despite being nothing but nice and friendly to her all this time, she’s become increasingly malicious toward me. I suppose it was time to just stick a fork in it.
In more positive news, I’ve joined my bestie Nah’s new company, the Whitewind Company, led by Lady Whitewind herself! We had our first mission last night, even, as Nah and I went with Aedie back to the last mission site to hunt for the chronomancer that messed with the timeline there! When we arrived on site, Nah used her Spectral Site to look for any strange auras around, and found something inside the big house. We went in there, and she saw something through the floor, upstairs, back bedroom. It turned out to be a large, grey scale about the size of the palm of my hand. Aedie noted a powerful amount of chronomagic on it, and we concluded it must be from a dragon or dragonkin from the Infinite Dragonflight!
Aedie had also done some scrying outside while Nah was checking out the chronomancy aura she saw in the house, and she’d sensed the lingering resonance from a portal up on the snowy cliffs above us. We went up there next, and she was able to scry that the portal had gone right to the Caverns of Time! Aedie didn’t know how to port there, but she was able to teleport us to Stormwind’s mage tower, and there is a portal to the Caverns of Time there. We went through that, flew down the spiraling cavern entrance down to the main cavern, then flew a couple of laps around there. There were no signs of the Infinite Dragonflight having invaded. We had no idea where they went!
We ended up just asking Zaladormu, the big bronze that hangs out on the platform in the center of the main cavern. He said there were no Infinites down there, but he’d help us look for them. He started scanning the timeways, saying that when he found something, he’d teleport us there. So we hung out for about ten to fifteen minutes, just talking and puzzling out the mystery, wondering if the portal to here had been some sort of diversion, or worse, even a trap, until Zaladormu’s scanning spell stopped. He found them! They had gone to a Timewalking battle zone in the Halls of Lightning! We ended up in there with a random healer and meatshield. We cleared the place out, but found no sign of them from beginning to end. They’d escaped us!
When we left the Halls of Lightning, we returned to the present, down in the Caverns of Time as before. Zaladormu said they were still there, and in the past still, but just outside the Halls of Lightning now. Aedie ported us back to the point in time where Dalaran was still in Northrend, and we flew as quickly as we could to the Titan city of Ulduar. Sure enough, dragon and dragonkin footprints in the snow everywhere! We tracked them to the Halls of Stone – apparently, even with time incursions in Ulduar and the Halls of Lightning, they still wanted yet another in the Halls of Stone! We chased the first trio of infinite dragonkin and cut them off just outside the Halls of Stone entrance. A fight broke out! Nah went in with Mek-barash, and they had the full attention of the three dragonkin and their polearms while Aedie and I worked our magic from behind. Nah took a few hits, but we downed them quickly enough! We couldn’t see the big Infinite dragon that we saw in the snow tracks, though, nor the rest of the dragonkin. I used an Eye of Kilrogg spell, and saw them heading up the stairs to Ulduar! We flew up to the ledge where the stairs to the entrance start, only to find them facing us and smirking – it was a trap all along! Our backs were to the ledge, we were outnumbered, and it became evident that they’d lured us there with the subterfuge of wanting another time incursion. But we had no idea why!
Once again, a fight broke out. Two caster dragonkin, one melee with a polearm, and the boss dragon using all kinds of confusing time magic. It was a hard fight at first, but, after we got rid of the casters, we had the numbers advantage. We ganged up on the polearm dragonkin and then had the boss isolated. All of us took a few hits from that guy, but we got him in the end with steel and magic! Mek-barash was nearly destroyed, and Nah had a huge, nasty bite on her left arm, as well as a few new cuts. The boss fell, and had a few parting words about how they wanted to sever friendships from the ground up, turning friend against friend, family against family, ally against ally, until chaos at the bottom allowed for severing alliances at the tops of nations. They failed, though! One friendship might have been lost, but it wasn’t mine and my Bestie Nah’s, and Aedie was still right there with us too! And Celeste is still right here with me! WOO! Take that, Infinites! And we were able to get Nah healed up enough to travel with one of my healthstones and her own crimson vials. We got her back to the gazebo at Stormwind, and got another company member, Anna the Gilnean druid, to come and heal Nah the rest of the way up. She’s good as new again!
Nat paused, dipping her ravenfeather quill into the ink pot and smiling at the floor, where Celeste was sitting cross-legged and laughing up a storm as Dordy chased the voodoo figurine around in wide circles. Dordy and Celeste were having a blast, and watching them have fun made Nat just as happy. She tapped a bit of excess ink off her quill tip, returning to her writing after laughing herself.
This past weekend was a lot slower than last weekend. No parties, no markets. Just a calm, relaxing couple of evenings at what is becoming a traditional post-work hangout spot for about an hour, the front-right bench at the gazebo with dinner! We’ll be playing Deathrolls at Bruuk’s Corner this week for the first time in a couple of months. It’s been a tour of old favorite spots in the last month, after so long of playing at a completely new venue each time. Lots of fun! I got to meet Lady Whitewind, too, and she’s super nice, and has a great head for business! I’m taking on the role of Researcher, which means I’ll be working a lot with Aedie, of course. Mission intel, business intel, general news, book research, the works!
That’s not the only thing I’ll be researching, either… I’ve decided, after last week’s stimulating discussion on different schools of magic, to try and learn a new school myself! Being a cold-weather lover, and having enjoyed that jump off a Grizzly Hills waterfall into a frigid creek in just my bikini back in mid-March, I feel like frost magic appeals to me most. I’ll be learning from Aedie to be a frost mage! She’s already got my paperwork done over the weekend with the Kirin Tor to be her apprentice. Tomorrow morning is our first lesson! I can’t wait!
I think I might take it easy today, though. It’s been a busy, busy three weeks! Still and all, I can’t wait to see what fun misadventures we all get into next!
Nat finished her entry with an excited smile, tapping the last bit of ink off her quill tip and into her inkpot and then stowing it away, capping the inkpot and stowing that as well. Leaving the diary open on the bed for the ink to dry for now, she plopped down on the floor next to Celeste to join in with her in cheering Dordy on. Dordy happily yip-yipped his way around the room, chasing the statuette in circles, under the bed, out the other side, and back around the room again, showing no signs of tiring. The statuette simply ran tirelessly, never ceasing to pump its little legs and arms as it ran around the room, unaware it was even being chased. Dordy was worn out in time, and ended up panting and heading to the fireplace to turn a few circles before curling up and lying down for a nap. Celeste picked up the statue, putting it away in a closet where it’s little legs and arms pumped madly in mid-air as the door was closed. They’d have to find a way to turn it off. In the meantime, lunch at Bruuk’s was indicated, followed by an ice-fishing trip outside. It was going to be a relaxing sort of day! (( The previous incarnation of Nat's journals, from her previous guild, are going to be bundled into a different thread whenever I get around to it. Consider this new chapter of her life to be Volume Two or something. ))
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on May 12, 2021 16:27:14 GMT
May the Sixth
The campsite at the usual spot along the banks of the creek was unusually quiet. Celeste usually was quiet when she was fishing, concentrating on her passion as she tended to do, but this time, she seemed utterly preoccupied. The usual motions of dancing her bait along a bit weren’t there. The rod tip was strangely stationary, the line just sort of flowing along with the creek’s currents as she held it in her motionless hands. There was little sound outside the creek and the wind, save, perhaps, the occasional bird. Nat was preoccupied as well. There’d been much conversation on the way over here from where Celeste had teleported them from Dalaran, but now they were deep in thought. It wasn’t until the familiar, unknown fiddler started his or her peaceful, soothing music that sound began to flow around the campsite in the Grizzly Hills.
Nat, meanwhile, was tending the campfire she’d built, sitting on the usual dark purple picnic blanket with all the fish patches sewn onto it. She noted one spot where she’d pulled a patch off. Shaped eerily like a human skull, this tattered bit drew the eye too much. She figured a nice glacial salmon, like the ones Celeste was fishing for right now, would cover it nicely if it were fashioned at the right size. She made a mental note to get with one of her tailoring friends when next she visited Stormwind City. In the meantime, her campfire was gaining momentum, and was now ready for full-size quartered logs. She arranged a few on, then sat back to inspect her work. She had a good, hot bed of coals going. The initial kindling was all gone. The intermediate pieces were burning. She’d be on logs and coals soon, ready to throw her waiting frying pans on when the fish was prepared for cooking. Bread and cheese would accompany the meal, as would a bit of corn on the cob, though she’d have to shuck the leaves off first. She was thankful for the regions that had weather adequate to farm year-round and produce fine vegetables in any month. In the meantime, though, there was fish to be caught, and while Celeste worked on that, Nat had thoughts to commit to pages. She took out her diary, pot of purple ink, and ravenfeather quill, sprawling out on the picnic blanket to write.
Dear diary,
I can’t remember the last time I had a boring day. Once I stopped spending time with the one that just does keystone battles nonstop and got back to actually interacting with people, my days have been loaded with fun! This week has been no exception. After the adventure with the Infinites on Monday, I spent all Tuesday hanging out with friends in Stormwind. We made small talk. We made plans. I filled them in on my switch to a new group with my bestie Nah, though I was careful to be vague on the reasons why, and gave no names. I don’t want to drag anyone’s name through the mud, no matter what they did. My bestie knows, and a couple others I’m close to that have followed the situation since its beginning a couple months ago, but that’s about it. In large crowds, those few are kind enough to follow along in not naming names or telling specific stories, and the large crowds are kind enough not to demand the details.
Anyway, the plans are many and varied, though, at this stage, they’re vague, with no date set. We’ve only just started making these plans with the various people we’ve hung out with. There’s gonna be a big girl’s night out at some sort of spa at some point. That sounds fun and relaxing! I still have Celeste’s welcome home party to plan, as other, less welcome things have continually put it on hold. I still can’t wait; there are so many unique things I have in my head, and I think people will love it! Other plans were made. Other friends hung out with. Had an ice cream party of sorts in the Recluse, even. That was quite the sizable crowd! Nah kept up a few antics there. I met Lex’s little nephew. Learned about a few new friends. Tuesday was just a day to relax altogether, though I did get several contracts done that morning in the Shadowlands.
Wednesday though… gosh! First, there was frost magic orientation with Aedie. That was fascinating and fun, though it had its embarrassing moments. Like, she told me do what I do with shadow an fel, except instead of drawing from them, draw from the ley lines that go all over Azeroth and draw upon the arcane instead. First thing was Arcane Explosion! I didn’t know I’d start with something that flashy first thing! But, it made sense, how she explained it. First was learning to draw upon the arcane, then let it out. Focusing it would come after I learn to draw it and release it. So I did so… I felt around for magic, felt something familiar, drew it in, let it out… and a whole bunch of void tentacles spawned! It was scary! Aedie came in and showed me Arcane Explosions a whole bunch to get rid of them all. Then she reminded me to look for the arcane magic nearby, and draw upon that. I did, and it did not feel familiar at all… but… I did it! Arcane Explosion! Then she taught me to focus it and cast it in a given direction. At first I hit her a few times with an arcane orb… heh… oops… But then I did what she wanted me to do: freeze it, cast it as a frostbolt, just concentrating on releasing the arcane as frost. It worked! I cast a frostbolt! I had a mishap with pretty much every spell she taught me, the most memorable when I was casting Conjure Noms, and she wanted me to concentrate on focusing the arcane into tasty treats... So I was like… Okay, tasty treats… Treats so tasty, even murlocs wouldn’t pass on them! Next thing I know… murlocs were stampeding past me and into the Stormwind lake we were practicing next to! Gosh! I think Aedie got them someplace where they’re supposed to be, because they were gone pretty quickly. Anyway, in the end, I also learned Fire Blast, Blink, Frost Nova, and Counterspell! It was a productive morning, and I can’t wait to get into stuff like portal magics and chronomancy in next week’s lesson! Aedie says I learned more in a day than most students learn in a few months, but I think that’s just because of having done magic all my life already. I had a head start. I don’t think it’s anything special about me specifically. But still, can’t wait until next week’s lessons!
After that, I went out and handled some basic contracts around Goldshire and the Fargodeep Mine. A few murlocs, mostly kobolds. Handled a few things for folks at the farms east and west of the mines. I think I’m getting the hang of it!
Suddenly, Nat heard a whirring noise in Celeste’s general direction. She looked up at the same time Dordy did, and Dordy leaped to his little paws and started barking – Celeste’s reel was whirring out of control as a fish was swimming away with the bait and hook! Dordy’s barking startled Celeste out of her own reverie, and she started working hard on reeling in the fish. From the fight, and the way her rod was bending double, it was a sizable salmon. The fight took some time, with the fish twice yanking away some distance before Celeste relentlessly brought it in. Even with the fight on her hands, though, Celeste still looked like she was deep in thought about something else entirely. Eventually, however, the fish ended up on the banks, flopping about, Dordy running wildly around it and barking like a maniac. A short time later, Celeste was lost in thought again, cleaning the massive salmon for dinner without evening seeming to see it, even focused upon it as her eyes were. Nat knew the look, knew the thought process she was in the middle of, having just talked about it extensively on the trip here. She allowed Celeste her peace and quiet, returning to her writing.
Nah came by the city while I was deep in the mine. We talked over the usual communication method, and then we were ready to go by the Faire, like we’d planned to for a month! First time ever in the Faire with my bestie! Gosh, we spent like three hours there, and we did EVERYthing! Whack-A-Gnoll, tonks, ring toss, getting shot out of cannons, flying around on the fiery wings going through all the rings in the air, racing, went to both concerts and ended up fighting a death knight in the mosh pit of the one in the cave, even! We got our fortunes read, though I’m not sure that Gnoll is a genuine soothsayer. We did pretty well at the shooting gallery. The roller coaster was visited and revisited a number of times throughout. The petting zoo was fun, as usual. It’s hard to pick out a favorite thing there; it’s all just so much fun!
When we were worn out, we were just sort of sitting there on the silly little rocking sabers in the sandbox trying to figure out what to do next, when we realized that, in a year of reading Tarot, I’d never done a reading for Nah before! So off to my booth in Stormwind at the harbor we went! She had a really personal reading, and I hope it was helpful and insightful for her. We really went deep on a few things. I sure hope the happy ending to the reading comes true for her super super soon! “She’s a good bean,” as Nea says about her, and I really think she deserves the very best!
After that, there was a nice walk around the city until we found some people to hang out with for a bit. Then it was time to get the group put together for Deathrolls! Some people weren’t quite ready yet, so it ended up just being Nah and I with Zarshal. He came with us to Bruuk’s Corner, and we played with three people until the others were able to get there. Then Mags came with Elsa, and a short time after that, a coworker of Mags in the Quicksilver Company named Sisylia came by, and we had twice the number we started out with! It was a good, long game, too, though I’m surprised I didn’t see Gommaan around this time. He’s usually a lot of laughs at a Deathrolls game! Oh well, we had fun anyway! Got off to a good start… poor Zarshal had to chuck Foote Tripel right off the first dare after the table filled and was drunk the rest of the night. That was Sisylia’s Dare for him. Then weird things started to happen with the Dice. Elsa nearly always rolled either highest or lowest, seldom in-between. We kept getting people rolling ones during the Truth or Dare rolls and having to join in on Truths and Dares. The Million-Die Roll only made it around the table one full time before hitting a one. Lots of twenties were rolled in the Truth or Dare rolls too. Funny stuff! I think my favorite Dare I did was going over to whisper a Dare to Mags when she rolled a one and I won the Truth or Dare roll. I had her wait a couple rounds, so this one would catch people off guard. Then, after a while, she suddenly spoke up… and just randomly asked Nah if they could buckle their belts together! Nah was so confused! Poor old Zarshal was too, drunk as he was! It was SO FUNNY! But good ol’ Nah, she’s always up for anything strange. Next thing I know, she and Mags had their belts unbuckled, and slipping their ends through the other’s buckles to buckle them! Nah looked unperturbed, but I don’t think Mags liked being tethered like that, so I let her off the hook – literally, pretty much – after one more round. There were lots of juicy Truths revealed, and I had Nah sprinting a lap around the city screaming all our names out over and over at one point. She’s really fast! Eventually came the traditional exit Truth or Dare for Nah and I… We took the tram back to the city, and Nah had me pat the head of every Gnome in Tinker town on our way to the tram tunnel. That was embarrassing! But it was a really fun night! Can’t wait for next week’s game!
Celeste spent some time away yesterday, so it was good that I had Aedie and Nah and the others to hang out with. It kept me from worrying about her while she went back to her mother’s grave by her old favorite fishing spot in Feralas. She didn’t seem surprised by the news I’d left that one former friend for good and went to Nah’s company instead. We’d talked about it enough times. Unfortunately, it puts her in a rough spot, even if she was ecstatic I’d removed myself from such a mess. So, she needed some quiet time to go and contemplate her next steps. From the stories I’ve heard, historical patterns are repeating themselves to this day, with a McCullough put in the middle. Celeste said right off the bat, when I gave her the news, that she wasn’t leaving me. It was a good, long conversation. When she got back from Feralas and wanted to get away for a while and we traveled here, we talked some more, and she said it weighs so much on her, to be forced to choose between two women that she cares so much about. Between the one that helped her grow and unlock her potential, and the one that she loves and has fun with and wakes up for each day, and the fun and life they will undoubtedly share in the future. She knows I’d never make her choose, but, unfortunately, the other one does want her to choose, so she knows the end result may very well be the same – only have one or the other in her life anymore. It’s an awful situation. I wish she wasn’t in it, but the obstinacy and malevolence of the other friend places her there anyway. She’d never admit that she was forcing Celeste to make that choice, but really, it’s right there in her own rulebook.
It’s a lot to think about, and none of it easy. But, we continue living our lives regardless. This morning was more frost magic practice. I did contracts all over Elwynn Forest, then went home and did tons around Duskwood. My neighbors all thought it was strange that I was doing a different sort of magic now, but they know I really just want to have fun with both schools of magic, so it’s fine. Now I’m at the campsite in Grizzly Hills with Celeste again. She’s got a fish caught and ready for cleaning now, and I’m all caught up on goings-on, so time to cook dinner! Bad times may come and go, but good times abound nonetheless!
Nat tapped the excess ink from her quill tip, replacing it in its case and capping her inkwell. She put her diary off to the side for the ink on the pages to dry as the freshly-cleaned fish steaks were silently passed her way to be placed in the frying pan. It wasn’t long before salmon steaks and corn on the cob were grilling up with butter and seasonings, and the pair nommed away on a bit of bread and cheese in silence for a moment. Then, when the salmon and corn were done, conversation sprouted back up as they began discussing the next chapter of their life.
For every bad time in life, Nat noted, its important to note how many good times are there to offset it. Sometimes, in the midst of our worries, it’s incredibly easy to overlook the little things in life that make us happy. It doesn’t mean they’re not there! It’s the little things in life. Sometimes they stack up, quite rapidly, to rival some of the biggest joys in our life too! No matter what you’re going through, it’s always good to remember there’s a friend or a family member out there that cares for you, and wants to have good times with you when you’re done venting. Indulge in such! Maintain happiness! That’s what friends and family are there for!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on May 13, 2021 18:04:32 GMT
March the Thirtheenth
All was quiet at the Grizzly Hills campsite. Celeste and Nat’s extended stay camping trip had gone nearly a week now, albeit with a night at Celeste’s Ironforge home shortly after the weekend. Dordy lay sprawled out on his right side, snoozing, twitching and moving his legs as though dreaming of happily chasing something. Celeste sat in her fishing chair, under the umbrella, reading a book on archaeology her uncle Rugnar had given her. Nat stifled a giggle as she remembered when she’d first asked about the book, and Celeste had said that her uncle Rugnar had wanted her to get better, that her methods of archaeology were like Nosebleed trying his stubby legs at crochet. Nat sat with Celeste in the broad fishing chair with a book of her own – her new diary she’d started last week after having filled in the first one completely. She reached her ravenfeather quill under the right arm of the chair, the side she was sitting on, and dipped it in the inkpot in the grass next to her, then leaned back to recline with her feet up in the chair and the diary propped up on her ample thighs. With a deep, contented sigh, she began to write.
Dear diary,
Finally, a slow week, after like a month of absolutely jam-packed weeks. Even Deathrolls last night barely lasted more than an hour instead of the usual three-ish. We couldn’t find anyone for the longest time to come with us, which was odd. Eventually, Bestie Nah and I got Gommaan, Mags, Elsa, and Mielune up to the beer garden in Dalaran to play. We ended up starting over an hour and a half late, and ending over an hour early. We still had a good time, though. I particularly enjoyed whispering another delayed Dare to Mags in which she was supposed to spend a couple rounds suddenly crowing like a rooster after every time Elsa spoke. That was great!
The moments the week DID have, though, were pretty huge. Particularly intense was Celeste finally breaking free of the bully. It makes me sad to think about their friendship, two generations and over a decade long, finally coming to an end. I’d really hoped they could keep it. Celeste met with the bully on top of the Colossus spires in Feralas where her mother is buried. The bully wanted to force Celeste to choose between herself… and me. Celeste didn’t want to be forced to pick sides, to be put in the middle, something I’d always told her I’d never do to her, and I would understand if she did pick a side, and went the other way. But the bully wasn’t having it, and wanted to force her to choose anyway. Celeste still said she wasn’t going to choose, and the bully would have to choose what she wanted to keep more – their friendship, or her hatred of me. The bully ultimately chose to keep her hatred of me instead of keeping Celeste… and shoved her off a cliff!! Same as she had done to Celeste’s father!! Apparently she’d used a soulstone on her before dropping her, as an act of “mercy,” but, by her own belief of, “if you die, just run back from the spirit healer,” it wasn’t even a big deal, beyond saving her a run back from the spirit healer. But she did much more damage inside Celeste than she did out. I saw the aftermath. I took her in when she got home, got her cleaned up, was there for her to comfort her. Being shoved off a cliff by someone who had claimed you as a surrogate daughter just because she didn’t break off a relationship with someone the bully didn’t like had really hurt her inside even worse than outside. It broke my heart to see her that way. It still breaks my heart that that friendship, despite the bully’s nature, had to come to an end, because it was so deep and historical and tight for so very long. I wish they could still be friends. I don’t hate the bully. For myself, I am absolutely ecstatic to be free of her, but I still wish Celeste’s friendship with her could yet endure!
Nat paused to turn to her right, turning her wet eyes so Celeste wouldn’t see, as she covered by dipping her quill into the inkpot again. The bully had lost Nat’s loyalty by showing Nat none herself for two toxic months straight, despite Nat doing everything she could to treat her with as much friendliness and respect as possible for over a month, until finally, it was just time to go. Nat hadn’t batted an eye when she figured it wasn’t worth it anymore and had left. There was no longer a shred of connection there to miss or be sad about. Yet, she still wished wholeheartedly Celeste had been able to convince her to see sense and maintain the friendship. It was tragic that the bully had chosen her hatred of Nat over her friendship with Celeste. But, such was her choice. The best Celeste and Nat could do now was move forward with the next chapter of their lives… one that seemed to be hurtling toward a joyful, peaceful time, one devoid of hatred and malice and neurotic behavior. Nat surreptitiously hid a swipe of her eyes, drying them up, and returning to write with a smile on her face. Celeste read on, fully immersed in her archaeology book with a look of deepest concentration on her voice. Onyx dozed near the Flying Nosebleed, curled up into a ball, and Dordy continued on with his chasing dream.
But, that’s the end of that chapter of our lives, and the last I’ll ever feel compelled to write about on the subject. Now, from now on, I’ll get to just write about happy adventures and funny times and warm moments with friends, family, and Celeste! No more bad!
The other major time in the week was the hot air balloon festival! Such fun! I checked my mailbox to find an invitation from Elinore, whom most of us call Ellie or just El! It said she and Lex were going to host a hot air balloon party at five bells, meeting at the portal to Uldum in the lake north of the Stormwind keep! I ended up arriving a bit early. No one was there yet. But, I found an empty table inside the tent just next to the Uldum portal. That was cozy! Lex showed up not long after that, and then everyone started filtering in right around then. I had to yell at Lex to get him to find me in the tent. That was funny! Then Ellie came, and she had a whole picnic basket full of different little sandwiches of pretty much any sort imaginable! I found a great breakfast sandwich with friend eggs and bacon. Yum! Bestie Nah made it, and Maya, and Gan and Eve made it, too! Maya ended up having only a bit of time to hang out, and she hung out with us at the tent for a while and traveled to Uldum with us, but didn’t have time for the balloons. Hopefully we get to hang out more next time!
Uldum had the first balloon ride on Ellie and Lex’s schedule. It had an internal combustion engine that was belching fire as the balloon’s hot air, and a goblin pilot. Lex was like, “Ah! Goblin-themed!” and Nah was like, “Great, that means it’ll blow up!” And she TOTALLY CALLED IT!!! Sure enough, when we were REALLY far out from the town and way out in the desert, the balloon crashed into the side of a big mountain and blew up! We were all stranded on the ledge! Luckily, Onyx follows me through portals, and I was able to help fly people back to the town that didn’t have goblin glider kits to glide down off the mountain. Nah and Lex used grappling hooks that outlaw rogues have to pick their way down the mountain, and braved the desert back on foot. When I found them after giving rides, they were sneaking around a huge crocolisk in the river back near town!
Fortunately, though, that one was the only one piloted by a goblin. The other three were Pandaren rides. We had a HUGE temperature change when we went from the desert to Crystalsong Forest up in Northrend for the next one. Oh my GOSH, the view from the balloon was breathtaking! Taking it way slower than I usually do on Onyx, I was able to just relax and just LOOK. The Pandaren pilot talked to us all as we went along, asking us where we’d all been on our travels. That started up a stimulating little conversation. I told the Pandaren that I was actually camped not far away, right here in the Grizzly Hills, from where I currently write. Nah and Lex have been pretty much everywhere, though Lex said Northrend was one of the few places he’d never thoroughly explored. That was a surprise! The next one was in Suramar. The Pandaren there wanted to make it an educational ride, so, as we flew over that beautiful elven city by the sea, he educated us on the ways of the Nightborn, quizzing us all specifically by name on what we knew. Then the last one was in the Valley of the Four Winds in Pandaria, and that Pandaren turned out to be the Suramar one’s son! He didn’t seem to be to happy to finding himself walking in his father’s footsteps, carrying on the family business! But oh my gosh, the view over the Pools of Purity at foot of the northern cliffs, with all the bazillion lilypads floating in the water, was just breathtaking!
When we were finally done riding all the balloons, I offered to show everyone the beach Celeste and I love so much – Turtle Beach in the Krasarang Wilds! We looked at the statue of Liu Lang, the Pandaren who rode a turtle out to sea to find new lands, and read the signposts there. They seemed really interested in the Sunday night festivals held there each week! Then I showed them that back corner where Celeste and I like to camp. We looked at all the turtles and stuff too, then it was off across the lagoon to visit Anglers’ Wharf! They loved that one too! A stilt village out over the water, the platform down bottom that touches the water’s surface where we played Deathrolls several weeks ago, the boat where Nat Pagle sits, and all the stuff he sells, the inn up top. There’s even this huge fishing net that hangs out there like a giant hammock… and that’s exactly what we used it for! Six people ended up piling into that thing and relaxing and hanging out, just talking and cracking jokes. Gan took off into the water to bring something back for his girlfriend Eve. Gosh, I’m so curious what that was! But I didn’t want to pry! Eventually, though, it got really super late, and people started to leave, one by one. Ellie, Gan, Eve, and I all got a seafood dinner and drinks from the inn up at the top level, then went to the other platform down bottom that sits on the water’s surface, that one on the back of the village, to dip our feet in the water and eat and hang out some more. Gan and Eve eventually left, and it was just Ellie and I. There were like a gazillion stars out, and it got really really dark. Ellie seemed to enjoy stories, and I found myself gushing about all those lovable degenerates in Blackflag Imports, and how much I missed them all, and lots of different funny stories involving them. Evan and the book reports he made me do on novels he brought me, so I could get more knowledgeable on Windleaf’s resort so we could deal with them as a client company… Gosh… I still blush about that! Nea and Addi’s bantering. Different funny times playing drunk with them. Nea and Addi trying to get me drunk to “break my filter.” Then I started absolutely GUSHING about Celeste. How we met. The scary situation with Tomlin, and how we ended up looking for him, and how that all ended. Celeste’s trip to go and look for him. Her triumphant return. How we’ve been living so gleefully with each other since. Next thing I know, it’s like three in the morning! We ended up leaving, finally. What a loaded, fun, and amazing night!
I have a few projects on my hands now, too. I have this new series of books open to all the Whitewind Company and all our friends to write, and for them to write in themselves, if they like. Also, I was asking Bestie Nah about the comms, and if there was a way to know who was turning theirs on when they showed up in the city or somewhere and were available. Nah says there is not currently a way to do so, but, if someone with the Researcher job description and a knack for engineering (like me!) could figure out a way to make it happen, then feel free to! So, I’m gonna put my head together with Celeste here, and come up with an upgrade to the system! It’s gonna be a fun project! Lastly, Nah and I discussed going on a tour of available homes I'm aware of around the Stormwind territories. I'm gonna help her do some house-shopping! I can't wait to get to all the projects!
But gosh, I don’t wanna go back to work tomorrow. I got spoiled on all these busy weeks. Hopefully something huge happens tonight, something fun and exciting, and I’ll feel like I’ve had a full week this week after all, and be ready to go back to work again. I could get used to that! For now, though, I think it’s time to see about lunch… if I can keep Dordy from eating everything in sight like he did all weekend and the first part of the week! Hah!
Nat completed her journal entry with a smile, thankful there would be happy events instead of malicious events to write about from now on. This was going to be a very happy diary! She was certain of that! She replaced her quill in its case after tapping the excess ink off of it, capping her ink jar and stowing the items in her pack, then her diary, after the ink on the pages dried. She got up, grinning as Celeste, engrossed in the finer points of archaeology, barely even seemed to notice her rise. She sure focused on her passions! Nat moved toward their food stores, withdrawing a bit of this and a bit of that. Next up: glacial salmon gumbo!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on May 20, 2021 18:22:13 GMT
May the Twentieth
Nat sat at her writing desk in her own home for the first time in what felt like eons. It felt comfortable. Familiar. Comforting. As grand as writing at the campsite in Grizzly Hills had been over the course of the last few entries, there was still no place like home. She had her own desk. Her own chair. Her own fireplace and candles providing light through the mid-day gloom of Duskwood. She wore the same thing she wore when she had breakfast with Celeste that morning. She used her own dishes from her own kitchen to make lunch and shamelessly ate at her writing desk instead of at the kitchen table.
Celeste and Dordy were outside, and, from the riotous sounds of it, playing fetch with that old wrench Dordy seemed so infatuated with. Inside, things were quiet. Nat smiled. Home sweet home!
She took a bite of her cold cut and veggie sandwich, munching as she lifted her ravenfeather quill and began to write.
Dear diary,
I’m home again. The camping trip was nothing short of amazing and memorable, and I can’t wait to go back again. Yet, there is no place like home. It’s good to be back for a while. I’ve got a few trips to make, one of which will be this evening to Blackrock Mountain, down into the Molten Core to take care of something important, but I’ll be returning home each time.
After one restful week, though, another jam-packed week has come! Sunday after work, I found myself staying way longer than I thought I was going to in Stormwind. I was hanging out with Maya and Ais’la the tattoo artist and some others in the Recluse for like hours. Ais’la told me a hilarious story about why she calls her mate “Nana,” a name he seems a bit less enthusiastic about, heh. Monday, I met up with Maya again to do her Tarot reading. That one was pretty deep; I think we were at it for a good couple of hours. I had a bit of a rest after that, then came back and met Yui, the Pandaren lady that’s done most of my enchantments since the spring of last year. I had some concerns about malicious enchantments on some items I wanted to get rid of. Tracking charms and worse. She took care of those for me. A white leather card case I used to use for my Tarot cards (I’ve gone back to my old cherrywood and velvet card case) was destroyed, reduced to dust. That took care of that one. I was going to see if she reverse-engineer the enchantment on a leather charm bracelet that handles clothing changes and other handy things and figure out how to do it on a new mithril charm bracelet I bought, but she already knew how to do that, so we just went ahead and made the leather strip dust as well. A different metal charm bracelet I’ve had for half a year, one I wanted to keep as it was given to me by a friend, simply had a blanket dispel performed on it, in case any hidden enchantments were on that one. An overly-bright feather from a larion became dust. She’s going to get Valindra to do specific detection and removal charms on my belongings, everything from house to mounts to items to land, and again for Celeste, detecting and removing anything malicious. There are a number of other items that I packed up while I was doing all this cleaning house. Items I no longer have an attachment to. That’s what the trip with Celeste to Molten Core is going to take care of. Magically intensified magma will take care of items enchanted, even ones that are supposed to grant insane amounts of power to the wearer, if all the old gems to it and stuff can be located. That should keep such power out of the wrong hands for all time. The rest of the more mundane items will be handled in the same manner. Spring cleaning is a lot of tedium, but worth it in the end!
Nat smiled suddenly, thinking of Dor’dieb McCullough-Ebonlocke, that adorable little molten pup. He’d like going to Molten Core, surely. It’s his element as a fire dog. Dordy would be safe enough. The Dark Irons having joined the Alliance, it’s a fair chance the Dwarves would leave them well enough alone as they proceeded through Shadowforge City, though they’d have to be careful not to alarm them; Nat didn’t want to have to hurt their allies and risk the tenuous alliance. But, Shadowforge City was only part of the trip to wind one’s way in to Molten Core, so most of it should be smooth sailing. Celeste’s ability to manipulate fire as a fire mage, and her own budding frost magic knowledge, should be plenty enough to keep them safe from the natural danger of the place. She peeked out the window. Something – likely the wrench – was cartwheeling down the hill from being thrown, and Dordy was running pell-mell after it, barking and growling and carrying on. Nat giggled, closing the curtain and picking her dark quill back up.
Tuesday was great! The first-ever officially-sanctioned mission of the brand-new start-up company! Bestie Nah’s friend, Lady Cellica Whitewind, funded the mission to Un’goro Crater to look for those power crystals for Whitewind Company’s communicators! It was all Celeste’s ingenius idea, of course. I told her of my thought to install a tiny green light next to each name in a list of employee names on the communicator. Then, when someone logged in, their tiny green light would light up, and we’d be able to greet them by name and know they’re around and available and such. I asked Celeste if we could fit the tech and wiring and stuff for all that inside the comms units, and it brought to her mind memories of her mother telling her about crystals in Un’goro Crater that are sympathetic to each other. Touch a crystal, and the others of the same color all light up! Cool stuff! I ran her idea past Nah, and she said Lady Whitewind would surely approve, and even fund, such a mission, and include it on the Company payroll! So, we set the date for Tuesday! Night before last! It was Celeste, my bestie Nah, and I. Cordala, a company mercenary, had been mentioned over the weekend as a possible crew member for this away mission, but it really just ended up being the three of us. But that was fine. We ended up being able to dodge all the dinosaurs easily enough, though those wild devilsaurs are pretty spooky up close!
Following Celeste’s extensive scouting report, complete with s.e.l.f.i.e.s, on the Crater that she posted to the company bulletin board, we took the Stormwind lake portal to Uldum and flew north. We landed in the southeast corner of the crater, and boom! Blue crystals already, right where we landed! We ended up with five of them right off the bat! Nah said that five of each should do, which makes sense. These things are huge, and we only needed a tiny piece in each comm.. We split up to find the crystals in the four corners of the crater, per Celeste’s scouting report, and soon had five apiece. We met up again in Marshall’s Stand, then decided to investigate the crystal cave up in the northern edge of the crater, in the cliffs, and test out our crystals on the huge ones inside. Sure enough, touching the huge crystals made the little ones of the same color glow, and vice versa! Mission success, and with little to no damage to the local wildlife! WOO!
Following that, we flew back to Stormwind City. There we went to the jewelcrafting family there that train jewelcrafters and sell jewelcrafting supplies. We needed the crystals set in our comms. With Celeste’s idea being magic instead of technological, there was no need to pull apart the comms units and install extra tech and wiring. All we had to do was get the jewelcrafters to bore tiny holes, put gem settings to hold the crystals in the comms, and put names next to each one. I paid, got the receipt to give Aedie for compensation later, and then we tested them out. Around the corners, touching a crystal in one comms unit lit up the corresponding colors of crystals in the others. We went to different continents next. I took the portal to Mount Hyjal to test it from northern Kalimdor, while Celeste went to our beach in Pandaria, and Nah stayed in Stormwind for the Eastern Kingdoms. It still worked! So then I decided to really put them through their paces! I went to the nearby elemental plane of fire, the Firelands, Celeste stayed on Azeroth at our beach, and Nah went to a different realm herself, heading to Oribos in the Shadowlands. The crystals STILL worked! Celeste’s ingenuity worked! Now all we have to do is copy the jewelcrafting settings and list of names to each member’s comms!
Nat looked up as the door suddenly opened. Celeste walked in, grinning, her expression full of the fun she’d just had in playing fetch with Dordy. Dordy trotted in behind her, and, sure enough, it was that old wrench again. He pranced proudly over to the fireplace with his odd little toy, flopping down in front of it to gnaw and worry it and show it who’s boss. Celeste returned after a bit of time in the kitchen and the bedroom, flopping down into her usual armchair in front of the fire to read more archaeology how-to and munching on a sandwich of cold cuts and veggies of her own, a glass of torchberry wine on the spindly little circular table next to the armchair. Noises largely ceased then, the soft sounds of a crackling fireplace, a quill tip on parchment, the turn of a page in a book, the two women munching sandwiches, and Dordy gnawing on that wrench on the stone giving the front room the sense of a quiet, calm, happy household. Hints of lavender, wine, sandwich, and fireplace smoke wafted about the warm room. Nat sighed a happy sigh, returning to her work after a quick glance at the pack at the front door that held the items being taken to Molten Core that evening. The ravenfeather quill returned to the diary pages.
Last night was Deathrolls, and wow, it was the best game we’ve had in MONTHS! The majority of the day was frost magic practice and resting at home with Celeste, but the game was held in Goldman’s Café, that little dessert shop in Upton Borough in Boralus. We went up to that awesome spot on the top floor with the table and couch and armchairs and fireplace, eating cake and drinking coffee from the shop downstairs. Talimas Oaksong came for the first time in months, with Fizzy Emberspark, that wild little pyro-Gnome that played with us a few times as well. Then there was Bestie Nah, my old buddy Zarshal, and Elinore. The guys took the couch, and Fizzy ended up seated on the stack of books at the far end of the couch. Booster seat! Ha! It was a crazy game. Tali had to feed Fizzy cake, except he had to hold the fork with his teeth. He ended up getting icing all over the side of her face before it was all over! I had to feed Nah cake. That was awkward, but everyone seemed to like it! There was much yelling of crazy things from the balcony, including when Tali, Fizzy, and Nah all had to do a Dare at once, and I got to handle it. I had them recite a whole ridiculous Pledge of Allegiance to Zarshal’s Shorts! The Truths were getting sort of lewd. Then things got downright gross for a moment… Tali and I both ended up having to do a Dare at the same time because we rolled a one during the Truth or Dare rolls out of twenty, which means you have to join in the Truth or the Dare that gets posed to the original player involved in the round. That meant that we both had to lick Zarshal’s furry armpits! It was SO gross! Ellie did something gross too, mixing in all the cakes and tea and stuff into a slop and making me chug it. The “Secret Dares,” as people are starting to call them, are catching on. That’s what they call it when I go to whisper a delayed Dare to someone to catch someone else off guard with in a round or two. Nah randomly got up at one point to tie Tali’s ponytail to Zarshal’s beard braids. A great one was when I got Tali to wait a couple rounds, then go over to Nah without warning or context, put his lips to the back of her next, and blow the biggest, wettest, loudest raspberry there that he could, then tear around the place cheering at the top of his lungs like he’d just won a million gold. That one was hilarious! Everyone was SO confused! The Truths were getting more and more spicy. I ended up getting Fizzy back for the armpit lick dare by having her lick the gaps in between each of Tali’s toes. Tali just kept getting in the crossfire on other people’s Dares all night! There was so, so much more hilarity that ensued besides!
Tonight’s mission is going to be equally relaxing, albeit it in a far more serious way. Putting the finishing touches on cleaning house will wipe out the last vestiges of some outdated nonsense. It’ll be great to have that done and over with! For now, though, it’s time to relax. I’ll probably just get a nap. Read a book after with Celeste in the other armchair. Play with Dordy later. Maybe fly around on Onyx just because. Life is so GREAT!
Nat finished her diary entry with a broad smile, though she’d smiled throughout as it was. The ravenfeather quill went back in its case. The inkpot was lidded and put away. The diary returned to its shelf after the pages dried. Nat decided to hold off on the nap for now, joining Celeste with a bookmarked novel about a young street waif who rose to a position of power in the underworld of Stromgarde, avoiding joining the ranks of the Syndicate in the process, with many adventures and misadventures with her cohorts and friends along the way. She opted for a Dwarven mead herself, and the two women passed the time in happy, peaceful silence as they read their books and Dordy dozed with his old wrench leaning across his front left paw. Nat had one last question cross her mind before sinking into immersion with her novel: Could things really continue getting even better than this?!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on May 24, 2021 23:13:45 GMT
May the Twenty-Fourth
Nat shivered in her mostly-purple cold weather gear as she settled in near the hot springs for warmth. A thermos of steaming hot hazelnut coffee was driven into the snow next to her in her folding camping chair, from which she sipped often. Her diary sat on her lap, her inkwell in her folding chair’s cupholder to keep it from freezing in the snow, her ravenfeather quill was in her hand, and her smile was on her face. She peered out from under her heavy purple hood at the pages as Dordy lay curled into a ball and snoozing off to her right, turning his spot from smooth, pure snow into a yucky, muddy paradise. Celeste sat in another folding chair right on the other side of Dordy, honing some sort of archaeology tool that looked a little like a mining pick into a fine, sharp point. She looked utterly engrossed in her work, even with her face hidden under a hood of her own. Nat smiled over at her loves, then returned to her diary, beginning to write.
Dear diary,
The location for our archaeology camping trip has been revealed! Celeste has taken us to Winterspring! She has interesting theories about a place called Dun Mandarr here, where, apart from the obviously Dwarven name, there are the tops of what look to be Dwarf-style architecture. They’re stacks of rock layered in the manner Dwarves use to build. So the archaeology trip here is to dig down and see if we can unearth old Dwarven buildings. Celeste’s theories are that either Dwarves built them, or Kaldorei built them for Dwarves! That would be fascinating, as there are no known Dwarven settlements here on Kalimdor! The Explorer’s League will be impressed if this is an actual thing! If not, it’s just fine; Celeste is only just now picking up archaeology and is new to it, as am I, so it wouldn’t even be a big deal if these structures are not actually Dwarven! Either way, it’s just fun to be out here! It’s cold though… It’s kind of like swimming in Grizzly Hills in the early spring, except dry!
Nat put her quill in the inkpot, leaning over for her coffee. She took as long a sip as she could with the coffee being hot. Glancing over at Dordy, she grinned a bit. Dordy was curled up into an adorable little molten ball, just sinking into the mud, yet his fiery body kept it all burned away, so he didn’t really get all filthy. What a weird creature! Yet Nat loved him dearly. He was just such a funny, cute little sweetheart! She looked up at Celeste next. Celeste had her tongue stuck out a bit, worrying the pointy tip of her pick, holding it close to her face as she peered at it from short range and rubbed away at it with a whetstone. Nat smiled affectionately at the pair, then went back to her writing.
The Molten Core trip with Celeste and Dordy went well. I got rid of an old leather bracelet, the charms for which I had replicated onto a mithril one, as well as an ugly old watch with a horrible skull on it, a tabard with the same skull (that tabard had the most eerie image when I tossed it into the lava at the heart of Molten Core, where Ragnaros once held court… fire erupted out of both eyeholes and the mouth at once! It was so spooky!), an old, overly-bright quill I don’t use anymore, returned a core fire imp to his swarm there after using some shadow magic to wipe his memories of me and those I know so he can’t be interrogated about me if found, and the old gems and medallion body of the ancient artifact I had been looking for – such power should never fall into the wrong hands! - the gems each glowed before they disintegrated and turned into magma, and the magic within sort of shimmered before the destruction of its vessels caused it to fade away in huge blasts of flame! I tossed lots of old letters and an old secret note, too. Just lots of things. Good thing the Dark Irons are so slow to attack now that they're allies. We were able to get past Shadowforge City without incident. It did take a really long time to run through Blackrock Mountain, through Blackrock Depths, all the way to the Molten Core entrance, and then all the way through Molten Core, but the magma where Ragnaros used to be is crazy hot, and it’d be hard for anyone to trace anything that deep into the mountain anyway, even if there was something left to retrieve, so it was worth it!
Sometime in the near future, depending on Whitewind Company employee availability, we’ll be setting off on an expedition to Fuselight-By-The-Sea! It was something I did in my capacity as a Researcher for the Whitewind Company; researched the Quality Asplosions company that the goblins of the Steemwheedle Cartel run. We’ll be after engineering supplies, including various sizes of explosives, tools, and investigating rumors of a prototype long-range detonator called the Blastbanger Long-Range Radio-Wave Electronic Blasting Cap XT-9000. It should be a simple in-and-out trip. We’ll arrive with enough pomp and circumstance on the Whitewind’s Grace, which is Lady Whitewind’s ship, speak fitting words to the mayor and to the company owner, purchase all we can, loaded it up into the Whitewind’s Grace’s cargo holds, and be home. Easy stuff! Absolutely nothing can go wrong! I can’t wait to go on this expedition!
For now, though: archaeology time! I can’t wait to see what we unearth in this dig, either! And more camping with Celeste and Dordy! YAY!
Nat capped her inkwell, tapped off the excess ink from her quill, and put it in its case, putting the items away. The diary went next after the pages dried. Dordy hopped up, evidently not having been sleeping at all, but just loafing around until someone appeared ready to play. Nat giggled at Dordy, getting up to wrestle around with him a bit in the snow. Celeste seemed hyper-focused on her archaeology tools, but eventually got up to play as well. The play descended into an all-out snowball fight, with Dordy chasing snowballs and melting snow everywhere. By the time the sun began to disappear over the snowy mountains, Celeste and Nat were winded and red in the face, and even Dordy seemed to be tuckered out. The area next to the hot springs was a mostly snow-free mud pit, and Celeste and Nat were filthy from the snowballs that had eventually become mudballs. Nat helped Celeste clean her tools, then the happy couple fished for sunscale salmon in a nearby stream. Camping dinner was a new kind of salmon, but salmon still, and it was still delicious. It was a happy start to a happy expedition!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on May 27, 2021 19:51:38 GMT
May the Twenty-Seventh
Nat sat at the kitchen table with her ravenfeather quill, pot of purple ink, and diary. Celeste was hiding things around the house for Dordy to find. It was making Nat giggle; Dordy would go off to find one thing, then find an old toy or an old wrench or something instead, and start dragging that out to bring back to Celeste. Celeste was finding no end of joy in this. Nat found herself laughing repeatedly as, all over the stone house that belonged to Celeste’s uncle in Ironforge, she heard the scamper-scamper-scamper of four little paws, excited snuffling, then something being dragged or falling over and Celeste bursting out laughing for the hundredth time. Nat giggled as the latest crash sounded from upstairs and Celeste had a laughing fit once more, Dordy joining in as usual with his own yip-yipping. Nat tried to focus on the pages of her diary, leaning forward to write.
Dear diary,
It’s been a cold, but fun week! The Winterspring expedition has been interesting, to say the least. After a few days of digging and finding scraps, Celeste, while melting snow, managed to find a mostly intact passage leading to a few rooms. All of it is elven, though. Nothing dwarf related. She did find a hair comb, decorated with intricate details of a peaceful forest scene – it’s a few trees, a doe and a fawn. Her mother had a similar one, she says. It made her think of her. She wasn’t really sad, but she did have fun talking about her mother. She told the most wonderful and fun stories of her wisdom and adventures! She plans on exploring more of the ruins, but suggested packing the camp and staying in her Ironforge home a few days to “soak up the heat” a bit. It’s nice to be back here in the naturally-warmed mountain.
Celeste’s system for cold-weather camping is ingenious! The stand-up tent is tall, spacious and made from a thick, heavy canvas. It keeps the heat in and the wind out. The bed is easily fit for two, a canvas stretched over a frame and covered in soft sheets and furs to make it both comfortable and warm. The rest of the tent holds a large chest containing our supplies, a cork board on a stand with her maps, and a round table with two camp chairs for eating and working. She also placed her latest contraption underneath the canvas bed: a power cell from Mechagon that sustains a thermal cell. It keeps the bed from freezing and free of humidity. She also set up a brazier on the far end of the tent from the entrance. With the thermal cell, the brazier, and Celeste’s abilities, we didn’t have to worry about frostbite or deadly blizzards. Intelligent engineering by Celeste McCullough!
As Nat wrote that last sentence, she heard, “No, Dordy, no!” and another two crashes upstairs, followed by a heavy sigh from Celeste and what sounded like Celeste’s gun rack being stood back up. Nat giggled again, looking up at the upstairs balcony, not quite able to see what was going on, but the images she was conjuring in her mind from the noise and words were funny enough. She dipped her ink in the purple inkwell and went back to writing.
I’ve made it back to the city a time or three as well. Usually when Celeste is napping and I feel restless. I’d just let Celeste know I was teleporting back to Stormwind to hang out with friends if she said she was going to sleep for a bit, then travel back after. Most of what I did this week, outside of the archaeology camping trip, was Company work. I made a Company pamphlet for us to hand out to interested parties, talked up the Company to a few people, and even got us a few prospective recruits! As such… TALI IS BACK! Talimas Oaksong is, once again, a coworker of Nah, Aedie, and I. Lady Whitewind is happy to have him as well! Then yesterday morning, Lady Whitewind and Aedie set up a Company meeting with me in the Golden Keg. With all my recruiting efforts and efforts on Company paperwork and the informative pamphlet, they’re promoting me to OFFICER! Well, not FULL officer; they have a partial officer rank called “VIP” that seems to be a trial officer or something. The rank has invite, removal, promoting, and demoting authority, so I’ll be able to help pitch in with that. It’ll also help my recruiting efforts to have the authority to just interview and invite myself, so that should help speed things along a bit as far as Company growth goes. Tali came along later, and he’s done a bit of talking up the guild himself, it seems, so they’re making him a VIP too! We were all four in agreement that we have a really solid officer core to build around now! And then, early this morning, I went around Boralus on an errand from Lady Whitewind to find us an open, well-kept building to use as a headquarters. I found three such buildings. I’ll show her as soon as I can. This company is building so quickly! I can’t wait to see where this takes us!
The other exciting thing from this week – Nah’s housewarming party last night! We went house-hunting the other day and looked at a whole bunch of different places around Stormwind, Elwynn Forest, Redridge Mountains, and Darkshire. There was a particularly nice place that was open for a bit right behind my house, but it seems to be taken now, so we went with Nah’s other favorite house – a spacious, lavish, fully-furnished two-story house in Stormwind hidden behind the Shady Lady in Cut-Throat Alley! It’s got a humungous four-poster bed upstairs, a big table with four chairs in the dining area, and four more chairs around a massive grizzly bearskin rug in front of the fireplace. It’s so fancy, and hidden in a city alley, both of which suits Nah’s style quite well!
Nah’s housewarming party was a wild game of Deathrolls with like eight people there! Ellie came as a spectator, eating and relaxing off to one side and recuperating. Then there was my bestie and I, of course, Queen Crab with Miri, Maya, Ais’la the Draenei tattoo artist, Gommaan, and the always-hilarious Deathroller Cari! By the time my bestie’s housewarming party was all over, Ais’la had yelled a pledge of allegiance to “Gommaan’s stanky workout shorts,” among a trait of everyone else’s present, not to mention had balanced a book on her head for a while, I had spent a while having to squeak after every time Nah rolled, dances were done, brownies were fed to people, we learned more about people from Truths than perhaps we wanted to know, and, to top it all off, Nah went to the barber shop… and shaved her head COMPLETELY! BALD! It was SO BAD! She had a completely slick dome, which made her ears seem like they were three times longer than they really were. It was awful! Miri regrew her hair later that night, though she overdid the spell; Nah’s hair ended up WAY longer than it was when we first started the housewarming party. I think she snuck off after the party to get it cut short again. But in the meantime, Cari had braided Nah's hair, and mine, into crown braids on a Dare, so that was nice. It was a full game, lasting clear to midnight, and it was SO much fun. This week has been GREAT!
I’ll be heading back to Stormwind here soon. Ais’la will be having her Company interview today, and looks to be joining us! Another new friend, Suji, might have her interview too! We’ll have to see if she’s in the city today. I never would have guessed it before the epic time I had in Blackflag Imports, but it can actually be FUN to have a second job!
Nat smiled broadly at that thought, tapping off her quill inside the rim of her ink pot, shedding excess ink before placing it in its case. She capped her ink next, placing her things back in her pack. She gasped suddenly as a rather profane shout came from upstairs, followed by Dordy bounding downstairs with the newly-unearthed Kaldorei hair comb in his molten jaws. Nat gasped, but then noticed the familiar shimmering air around it that showed that the heat was being directed away from the comb by Celeste’s magic. Nat darted over and cut Dordy off at the bottom of the stairs, getting the comb free, noting it was undamaged, and passing it up to Celeste, who was up three stairs. A scolding and a giggle later, and Celeste and Dordy were back to their crazy games and shenanigans. Nat closed her diary, the pages now dry, and stowed it away in her pack as well. It was time to join in the Dordy fun before the Stormwind trip!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jun 3, 2021 14:58:34 GMT
June the Third
Nat sat on the beach in her bikini, her diary in her lap, Dordy next to her on the usual picnic blanket. Far out in the bay in the Krasarang Wilds’ Turtle Beach in Pandaria was a small figure wearing a wide-brimmed floppy hat fishing off an iceberg. Celeste, instead of having the usual fish strung up from her Tuskarr fishing spear thrust into the center of the iceberg, this time had giant mantis shrimp and reef octopi. She’d also thrown several more back already. Reef octopi made interesting meals. Nat had always marveled at the strange foods the Pandaren considered delicacies, yet she had to admit, some of them were quite enjoyable. Reef octopus fillets were no exception. Nat’s stomach rumbled at the thought of the dinner to come. Wanting to write her weekly entry into her diary this morning, she observed the master angler’s fishing techniques from a distance this time, a rarity for her as she usually had her own rod out to learn more fishing techniques from Celeste. She looked on with interest as Celeste’s stance changed from a slight, casual slouch, just bobbing her bait along the sandy bottom of the bay, to suddenly upright. Sure enough, the next instant, Celeste’s murloc skeleton fishing rod bent double, and she spent a good few minutes alternately reeling and letting her rod tip nearly reach the surface of the bay’s small, rolling waves, and then yanking upward to repeat the process again. A moment later, another reef octopus was added to Tuskarr fishing spear’s string of fish. She wondered if it would be fillets, or another of those spicy seafood dishes with rice and other veggies and spices she enjoyed. Both were marvelous meals. Nat smiled as Celeste looked the octopus over, deciding this one was a keeper – so is she, Nat thought – and baited her hook again, returning to her relaxing play of bobbing her bait along the sandy bottom of the bay. Dordy, who had been lying on his belly with head raised watching Celeste fight the little octopus, put his head back on his paws and half dozed, half watched more fishing. Nat looked back to the diary in her lap, picking up her quill to begin to write. Dear diary,
I’m having the most relaxing week I’ve experienced in a long time! A warm beach, no archaeological work (though that was so much fun!), and a return to a favored camping spot with Celeste on our favorite beach in the world. We’ve done quite a bit of nothing all week, and it’s everything we dreamed it could be. Fishing, swimming, hanging out in the tent or sitting at the water’s edge, walks on the beach, sitting next to the campfire watching the stars at night while Dordy chases flying bugs, eating the most amazing meals, which, of course, always taste better cooked outdoors over an open fire. I’ve had a few return trips to Stormwind over the course of the week, most notably last night for Deathrolls and this past Sunday night for a trip to a market being held in Elwynn Forest, but mostly it’s just been hanging out with Celeste at our beach.
The market was fun. I met two new people there, Saelaerian and Nynaeve, two Illidari who, coincidently enough, seemed to recognize each other from past work together in the past at some point. They each expressed interest in working for the Whitewind Company, so, after an interview that followed the market, we welcomed them aboard!
First thing I did at the market, though, was visit Mags’ vendor stall. I had to stock up on all my bath stuff! Lavender-and-goldthorn-scented liquid soaps, shampoos, conditioners, lotions, and these really neat bath bomb packages that have surprise bath toys in them like duckies and stuff that float in the tub with you! What fun! I enjoy the Lakeshire Soap Company’s products so much, I must have referred like eight people to Mags’ stall that night. She sure got swamped! But she handled it like the pro she is! Meanwhile, I’ve got bath bombs galore for when we get back home! I can’t really use it at camp, as I don’t wanna put anything potentially toxic in the water where other creatures live, but I’m sure gonna enjoy these when we get back home! I got two of everything, like before, so I can give some to Celeste for her bathroom as well.Nat looked up suddenly as the distant sounds of Celeste shouting echoed across the water. Dordy was on his four molten paws as well, barking and darting back and forth along the edge of the waves. Nat couldn’t help but giggle a bit at what she saw – a large seagull had landed on Celeste’s Tuskarr fishing spear, and was trying to snatch up a free meal off the lines. Celeste was shouting at it and waving her arms about wildly, but each time she shooed it away, it came right back to perch on the spear. It wasn’t until Celeste’s hands ignited – never a good sign – that the seagull wizened up and flew away, hoping for easier pickings from Angler’s Wharf across the bay. Celeste halted her fire spell, her hands returning to normal. Nat watched her stoop for something. An instant later, and Celeste was standing again, murloc fishing pole in hand, another juicy bit of bait flying into the water. Nat smiled, watching the little white dot that was the seagull take off moments later, flying from the fishing village on stilts over the water. A Pandaren was chasing after it, and its beak was full of a succulent bit of meat plucked from a wicker basket full of more of the same. The Pandaren reached the water and halted, shaking his fist at the gull before returning to his cooking shaking his head. Nat giggled, dipping her ravenfeather quill for more ink and returning to her diary. Deathrolls was a hoot last night. We played in the beer garden in Dalaran again, except this time, we were at the furthest-back table. Nah, Zarshal, Mags, Elsa, Ellie, Cari, and this new friend of Zarshal’s named Reyhn that some of us had met a few times in the past all played. Nah was sleepy, so when Elsa came up with the first roll of one and I got to Dare her, I got up to go whisper her my Dare while giving Ellie a call on her communicator and asked her to bring us a jug of ice water. My Dare for Elsa was, when Ellie got there, to just casually walk over behind Nah with the jug of ice water… and pour it all down her back! Ha! She sure woke up quick then! Though she did get sleepy later. That set off a series of Dares in which the bench Nah and I were on got soaked. Ellie and I ended up with water poured on us, and I had some sort of drink Nah called a Cosmopolitan dumped all over me when she had to pour it into my mouth from three inches above my head! I came back to camp soaking wet and smelling like a brewery, and I wasn’t even drunk!
Besides people gooshing each other with drinks, there were also some spicy Truths revealed, things that make me blush just thinking about, like when Zarshal asked Nah the most public place she’d ever.. well, anyway... Then there was stuff like Cari having to act like a chicken every time she spoke for three rounds, Zarshal having to dance on the table while making animal noises, Mags crafting a flower crown and putting it on Zarshal’s head, and he had to wear it all night, Reyhn having to spend a round leaning on my back with her chin on my head, which got her all wet because I was, Zarshal having to chug a mystery concoction of Nah’s, and this weird little quirk where, for the past two weeks, if someone rolled a three, a streak of threes would continue around the table. Suspiciously enough, it always seems to start after Cari rolls a three…
Today, I think, will likely be some fishing fun with Celeste. Maybe another jungle adventure. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even make a trip up to Halfhill’s farmers’ market to reload on some HUGE Pandaren veggies! Can’t wait to see what we all get up to next!
Nat smiled a relaxed, yet ecstatic smile. Life had been so good. She gave Dordy a few pats (Celeste’s and Nat’s magics having combined to make petting a molten corgi safe), then tapped off the excess ink from her ravenfeather quill and placed it its case. She capped her inkwell, and, with the ink now dry on the pages, she closed up her diary. All went back into her pack. She stood, lifting her own fishing rod and waving out to the iceberg. Celeste noticed, and began guiding the iceberg back to shore to pick her up. A spell or two later, and Dordy was also aboard the iceberg, the spells protecting him from melting the ice apart. Moments later, they were far out in the bay, fishing back to back in relaxed, happy silence that was routinely broken by Dordy going nuts each time Celeste or Nat got a bite, which always drew laughs from the pair of them as well as a few Pandaren for whom they were in line of sight of. Nat smiled as the next bit of bait flew into the water. The wind was in her hair, the sun was warming her back, and she was in her favorite place with two of her favorite beings in the world, doing one of her favorite things. She sighed a happy, contented sigh as she bobbed her bait along the sandy bottom of the bay. All was right with the world.
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jun 10, 2021 13:28:14 GMT
June the Tenth
Nat slipped from bed, quietly putting on her bikini and taking her diary with her outside the tent. Dordy follows. He sprinted to his favorite bush to do his business, coming back some time later after nosing around the treeline a bit. Nat set about making breakfast. Fried eggs on slices of toast. There's some name for that that she can't remember. Coffee, eggs, toast, and sausage links soon wafted their scents into the tent where Celeste snoozed. She also put out a bowl of Dordy noms and some conjured fresh water, giggling a bit as Dordy devoured his breakfast like a shark at a feeding frenzy.
She opened her diary, beginning to write as breakfast starts. She put her diary down frequently at first to tend to the food, though she had a bit more time to write after eggs and toast finished, with the sausage sitting in the pan to sizzle and pop. Dordy wandered about the campfire hopefully, sometimes stepping a molten paw into it to get close enough to think about snagging a sausage, though Nat shooed him away each time. Dordy eventually stepped a few paces away, lying down with his head on his paws, staring intently at the sausages. Nat, having learned over time that his molten body can handle people food much better than normal dogs can, put on a few more sausages for him.
The waves lapped up on the Pandaren shore. A few cranes flew by, their lanky bodies skimming the surface of the waves as they searched about for breakfast of their own. The turtles and crabs scattered along the beach picked about for food as well, and Angler's Wharf experienced another pesky seagull problem off in the distance across the little bay. At the campfire and the tent, however, all was quiet and calm.
Nat picked at a sausage from the center of the pan that finished early as she began to write, figuring the smell and the sounds of the waves would give Celeste a pleasant enough wake-up sometime soon.
Dear diary,
Another fully-loaded week! Celeste and I are still camped out at our beach in Pandaria, though I still make trips out when she works on the Flying Nosebleed or takes some quiet fishing time. This time, I’ve been putting in a lot of effort to help out with the mop-up around Nazjatar and Mechagon, as that’s what the Kul Tirans are wanting me to do before they’ll grant me permission to fly around their island nation. I figure it’s a fair enough trade; theirs is a beautiful island. So, a morning each day has been spent devoted to that. Mechagon is an utter mess, but its people are charming, and they’re working hard to get things straightened out. I like those guys! Nazjatar has some lingering Naga issues I’ve been tending to. Gosh, I never imagined I’d be walking around on the wet sand and ocean-floor stone amongst coral reefs and sunken cities… with the seas drawn back into a surrounding wall! It’s eerie and beautiful. It’s as cool a place as one could hope for to take up contracts for odd jobs!
Nat put her diary aside after a quite write-up of her contract work that week, tending to the sausages, rolling them over with a long pair of tongs, tossing Dordy the first few of his. She grinned as the piping-hot sausages with the boiling grease popping off of them made the molten pup just enjoy them more. She tended to the sausages once more, then returned to her writing excitedly.
I had a lot of fun at Deathrolls last night! It was so great! I don’t know if our games have EVER gotten as chaotic as they did last night before! It was me, Zarshal, Rylee for the first time in a long time, Cari, Gommaan, Ais’la, Jornaar, and Maya! We played at Booty Bay for the first time in a long time, too, and man, that table was CROWDED! Then, the game kicked off chaotically right off the bat as Cari rolled a one, and Ais’la and I BOTH rolled twenties, which meant we BOTH got to choose Truth or Dare FOR Cari! Ais’la sent her to Gommaan’s lap right off the bat… for the rest of the game! Gommaan, of course, did not mind that at all! Then I gave Cari a whisper Dare. Every time Rylee rolls, whether or Deathrolls rounds or Truth or Dare rolls, she has to say, “You rolled the dice, Rylee!” until Rylee finally gets confused enough to ask her why she keeps saying that. Then she can explain why, and stop. It took quite a few rounds, as I expected with that much chatter going on, but Rylee eventually seemed to hit her wit’s end with it and ask why the heck she kept saying that. It was hilarious! A couple of silly Truths about fighting later, and Cari rolled a one, with me rolling a one on the Truth or Dare rolls, so I had to join in, and Zarshal won the T/D roll. He leaned over to Cari with a mischievous grin that had “trouble” written all over it, whispering to Cari, who passed it on in a whisper to me. We had to wait two rounds, then, without warning or context at all, just… quietly go walk over to Ais’la and press our noses to either of her horns and keep them there for a full turn. When we did, the entire table got confused. They had no idea what was going on! More hilarity! Then Ais’la got another Dare, this time for Maya, and she had Maya strip to her underwear. Gommaan immediately was like, “Seconded.” Ha! And Ais’la pulls no punches! I was just glad I had the excuse of having my nose practically glued to Ais’la’s right horn to avert my eyes… But what Gommaan didn’t realize is that, as he had rolled a one – yet again this happened, this early in the game! – during the T/D rolls, he had to strip to underwear too! Only… he wore none! So he went out and changed into his pro wrestling singlet, with the straps down. I was averting my eyes harder than ever! Poor Cari had to spend the rest of the game in his lap like that! Then Cari had Maya Dared to sit in Gommaan’s lap with her, and Gommaan was sitting there with one scantily-clad girl and one mostly-stripped girl in his lap, an arm around each, and he was like, “Ah, it’s good to be a pro wrestling superstar!” HAHA! So we had stripped people, Gommaan’s lap loaded up with women, noses pressed to horns, all almost simultaneously, and, to top all that off, Zarshal opened a round rolling a one out of one hundred, with THREE more people rolling ones during the Truth or Dare rolls! Rylee won, and she had them all make a human pyramid over by the bar. Zarshal, Gommaan, Cari, and Maya all had to do it. It worked out pretty well! With all the stripped people stacking up on each other and making awful jokes about it, Ais’la reached over to cover her mate Jornaar’s eyes. The whole rest of the night was like that, chaotic stuff all going on at once. Maya, still down to her small clothes, had to get on the table and dance, while Rylee was spending the turn standing behind Zarshal’s chair with his ears in her hands, pretending to be riding a motorcycle and making motorcycle noises. Zarshal almost got Dared to strip to undies and sit in Gommaan’s lap too, but we figured that’d just ruin Gommaan’s whole dream night he had going on there, and he’d just suplex Zarshal through the wall and into the bay, so that got changed to Zarshal, and Cari, who, as was the running theme of the night, rolled a one during the T/D rolls, both having to be butlers the rest of the night. On and on and on this game went, chaos right to midnight, where we somehow ended up at Turtle Beach in Pandaria to finish the game. I dunno how, I’d had to chug some kind of brew that made me belch fire and was plastered by this point, but there we were! What a night!
Nat’s rapid, excited scribbling, with a few tong turns of sausages in between, had quite a bit of page filled by the time the sausages were done. She put her plate aside, piling on sausages for herself, Celeste, and a few more in Dordy’s breakfast bowl. She refilled coffee for herself and prepared Celeste’s, hearing her now bustling about inside the tent. She finished off her fried egg on toast and nibbling a sausage for a moment, savoring the quiet, peaceful early morning with its thin, misty fog. The whole beach was in shadow, as the sun hadn’t cleared the treeline yet. The seagulls had finished raiding Angler’s Wharf. It looked calm over there too, now. The sound of the wind in the trees, the waves against the shore, the crackling campfire, and Dordy going nuts over his sausages were the only sounds now. Nat sipped a bit more coffee, nibbling her sausage with her free hand. The heat of the campfire and the coffee was welcome to her, as her bikini wasn’t quite enough to keep out the early morning’s chill, especially with the chilly breeze off the ocean and the lack of direct sunlight. Yet it was a pleasant sort of chilly/warm combination. The campfire just felt that much cozier, and the coffee tasted that much more delicious. Nat smiled at her loves as they ate and drank, finishing off her sausage before putting her diary back in her lap, writing again and nibbling another sausage in her free hand.
This coming Tuesday is the Company’s expedition to Fuselight-By-The-Sea. It should be pretty routine. Show up on the ship with enough pomp and circumstance to impress the moneybags goblins. Make the purchase. Secure a lengthy business contract. In and out. No problem! What can go wrong? I am really looking forward to making this sea voyage with all my new and old friends in the Whitewind Company!
Frost magic lessons with Aedie are progressing into different talents in much more complex frost spells, as well as finally learning chronomancy! Time Warp took me a bit to get right. I had a visit from my future self, who was, rightfully, being quite vague on the future. That was the weirdest mistake with it, aside from me aging myself a year and two months and Aedie having to set me right again. Invisibility practice ended up meaning I polymorphed myself into a horse, and another attempt made just most of my clothes invisible… That was awful! Good thing we were way up at our usual practice spot by the late with the portal island in the middle, away from people! Then there was the mishap with Mirror Image, as the first image I conjured was that of the wrong mage entirely. Archamge Vargoth appeared beside us, waving as I waved back. I tried to do what Aedie said, imagining myself, concentrating on a memory of myself casting Frostbolt in order to instill it into my mirrors. I eventually got the mirrors summoned, but they did nothing, regardless of how much I begged and pleaded them to. After that, I eventually got them casting! I passed my test Aedie had for me too, frost mastery, plus memorizing the dimensions for a portal. Standard portal dimensions are three yards, one foot, and three quarters of an inch tall by two yards, eight feet, and fifteen sixteenths of an inch wide… I dunno why mages don’t just say four yards and two feet instead of two yards and eight feet, but I’m sure they have their reasons. There were numerous mess-ups, as always with my frost magic lessons, but I am getting the hang of it! Archmage Aedalia Songbird is a masterful teacher!
There was also VERY big news from Celeste this past weekend. She is taking a hiatus from the hustle and bustle of the Eastern Kingdoms, and all the bustling cities and hordes of people. She’s going to recuperate in Pandaria for a while, like she did once before. Except this time, her next big news… She’s going to build a house here! Live here permanently! And then, last but definitely not least… She’s asked me to move in with her! I said yes, of course. That’ll leave her uncle Rugnar his house in Ironforge without a bunch of human girly stuff all over it and a molten corgi running amok. I’ll be keeping my Darkshire home so I can stay near my father and life-long friends once in a while, as well as a place for Celeste and I to stay if she wants to visit up there from time to time as well, but mostly, I’m going to be living in Pandaria with her! As Aedie has been teaching me all that portal magic during my frost mage lessons, we can both get around quickly enough. We gotta get our blueprints finalized for the house. We might start working on that today. Who knows? Then we gotta work on procuring the building materials. With me already working two jobs AND picking up contracts everywhere from Nazjatar to the Shadowlands, that shouldn’t be difficult at all! Celeste scouted about all over Pandaria on Cloud Dancer’s back, just flying around scoping places out. In the end, we settled on just living at our beach, of course. Except this house is gonna be one of those the Pandaren do… on the very peak of a tall rock spire! This one jutting up over the bay, in fact, looking down at Angler’s Wharf and our beach and this giant statue of Lui Lang. I’m so proud of her bravery; the fact that the whole house’s yard would be surrounded in three hundred and sixty degrees by sheer cliff doesn’t bother her any more than it does me! But then, Slow Fall and goblin glider kits are handy for that, and it’s all water at the bottom. Still and all, though, we’ll be erecting an invisible arcane barrier around the cliff so Dordy doesn’t take a dive over the edge. Then the enchantments to prevent curses and spying and breaking and entering and stuff will be on this house like with our Darkshire and Ironforge places got months ago. The house itself might be perched like a Pandaren monk’s house or even a monastery, but it’ll still be human enough for us. Yet we like Pandaren ornamentation enough that it will likely have some of that as well. I can’t wait to begin work on the blueprints, or begin building it, and I especially can’t wait to move in with the sun of my world, and the catch of my life! Life is so amazing!
Nat finished her diary entry at the same time she finished her third sausage. She tapped off the excess ink on her quill into her inkwell, capping the pot and putting her quill in its case. She looked up with a broader smile as the tent flap rustled behind her. Celeste came padding out, barefoot, in her own swimwear and approaching Nat. She stooped down for a good morning kiss to Nat… then stole her sausage, taking a hearty bite before tossing the rest to Dordy. Nat giggled and protested. She knew she should have seen that coming from the habitual food thief. She searched around for another finished sausage as she laughed. The two exchanged pleasantries. Nat and Celeste were soon talking about certain plans for their future. Soon, she was happily munching away, and Nat packed her diary back up.
Nat enjoyed the rest of the sausages while making house plans and cracking jokes happily with Celeste as the morning warmed up slightly. Dordy had long since finished his sausages, and was flopped over next to the fireplace, sinking into a food coma rapidly. Nat and Celeste looked alternately at each other, Dordy, out over the sea, and up at the rock spire they planned to build on as they talked and ate their breakfast. Perfect way to start the day!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jun 18, 2021 1:02:58 GMT
June the Seventeenth
Nat and Celeste sat inside the tent as the rain pelted the canvas and the thunder crashed all around them. Aside from visits Nat made to see her father and her friends in Darkshire and Stormwind City, the pair had been practically living in the tent, so long had they been camping here now. Not that either of them minded; far from it. The tranquility of Pandaria’s Turtle Beach offered a peace and calm and beauty that soothed any wound, be it to mind, body, or soul. Not to mention, it was just convenient to camp right near the rock spire upon which they were building their home.
Nat smiled at that thought as she placed her diary, inkwell, and ravenfeather quill upon the small camp table and sat in the chair to write as Celeste lay in the canvas bed, reading a book her Uncle Rugnar had lent her on Dwarven excavation through solid stone, wanting to learn how to do so for the basement workshop/hangar bay she wanted to excavate in the rock spire under the house while Dordy curled up next to her on the far side. The house itself was coming along nicely. She’d helped Celeste as much as she could, but Celeste was the real mastermind behind the construction. Currently the focus was on outlining a guest bedroom, as people tended to stay over often when Nat stayed at her house, and not having to pull the top mattress off the bed for them to sleep in the middle of the floor, as well as giving everyone involved a bit of privacy, seemed to be in order. Nat thought about the outline Celeste was setting up atop the flattened foundation for a moment, then dipped her quill in her purple ink and began to write.
Dear diary,
This week has been absolutely topsy-turvy! It started out calmly enough, just a trip with Bestie Nah to the Moonwell of Cleansing in Ashenvale Forest. We hiked east out of Astranaar, just hiking and talking, but then we were attacked by a huge bear! The great shaggy hulking thing just… came right at me! I’m still practicing frost magic hard, so I pelted it with a few frostbolts while Nah got it with her pistol a couple times. Before long, it had had enough, and ran off roaring back into the forest. Poor thing. I hope our attacks were just grazes, and it can heal well enough.
When we turned off the main path and turned down onto some of my favorite hidden hiking trails in the forest, it led off to the Moonwell of Cleansing, which, according to Nah, was not marked on modern maps. I looked, and sure enough, it wasn’t there! We got it marked. But when we got there, there was someone already standing on the edge of the well! And who else was it but Nah’s adoptive mother, Nickol! We talked with her for a while, and just generally had ourselves a nice, relaxing time with Nickol in a beautiful, tranquil place for the evening. The return trip was without incident – no more bear attacks or anything – and we ended up just hanging out in my bestie’s house’s sitting room, gleefully looking through my photo album and reminiscing on all the happy times we’ve had together over the last year.
Tuesday, though… Tuesday was CRAZY! The Whitewind Company expedition to Fuselight-By-The-Sea, involving Lady Whitewind, myself, Tali, Ais’la, Jornaar, Selaerian, and Nyneave, along with two outside contractors, Suji and my old friend Queen Crab, finally got underway, and we pulled up with much pomp and circumstance in the ornate Whitewind’s Grace to the harbor of the little seaside town, looking fancy enough to garner the attention of the Steemwheedle Cartel goblin’s company in the area, Quality Asplosions. They took us on as clients with money, as we’d intended, and we were all set to purchase the prototype Blastbanger Long-Range Radio-Wave Electronic Blasting Cap XT-9000, only to find that it had been stolen away by some Dark Iron Dwarves! We recovered that when we tracked them to an archaeology dig there in the Badlands… None other than the entrance to Uldaman itself! The titan caverns were crawling with Dark Irons when we got there, but, due to some subterfuge, great teamwork, and a well-aimed rock flicked from Jornaar’s hand, we got the prototype detonator and blasting caps back!
After securing a two-year contract with Quality Asplosions upon our return for that and other explosive ordinance and engineering supplies, we set sail south, the way we came. That afternoon came the next surprise… Bloodsail Buccaneers! The pirates had spotted our ship, and, according to the words of their Tauren Captain, noticed that the ship sat low in the water, obviously loaded down with valuable cargo! We tried to reverse course and outrun them at first, but it was no good. The pirate ship, not nearly as heavily laden as ours, caught up too us too quickly. The ensuing battle, however, lost the pirates all their cannons, their crew, and their captain, while we lost three of ours, and had a damage but functional fourth, along with one unscathed fifth.
From there, Lady Whitewind decided to make a nice, wide berth around the south point of the Cape of Stranglethorn, where anchored the main force of the Bloodsail fleet. We went wide enough around them not to be spotted, heading out over a mile. But then we ended up spotting a bad sign… shipwrecks of every kind of ship that sailed the sea, smashed to pieces and washed up around a barren, rocky island. We got through the debris okay, thinking we’d done a smart thing in avoiding the pirates. But the self-congratulatory pats on our own backs was short-lived… Next thing we know, we’re under attack by a MONSTROUS KRAKEN! Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire!
Then the VOYAGERS came! Out of nowhere, as the kraken was breaching and surrounding the Whitewind’s Grace with tentacles, the Vynthera’s Vengeance showed up out of nowhere, spotted the kraken attacking their friends, and came to our assistance! It was a hard-fought battle, involving several close calls, but combining cannon fire from two ships, magic from two ships, and no small amount of sheer nerve, we were able to overwhelm the kraken and finish it off, leaving it to sink in pieces to the ocean floor. We owe a lot to the Voyagers, and their valiant captain and crew. Captain Alexon Cross, Resinthal Ayogan, Maya Maxwell, Tani, Steven Patrick, Bernadetta, and Marta (I don’t know some of their last names) were all very brave and valiant, and, if ever they need our help, we’ll be there!
Nat rested her quill in the inkwell for a moment, thinking back on the day as she absentmindedly looked over at Celeste. Celeste was laying back on the bed, head propped up on a pair of pillows, reading her excavation book with rapt attention and her left knee in the air, her right lower leg crossed against it, and the book flat against her lap. The lantern next to the bed glowed softly, casting a bright, cheery, warm light against the pages and its Dwarven runes and diagrams. Dordy provided further light, lying down on Celeste’s other side, snoozing with his head on her abdomen. Nat marveled at the protective spells that allowed their beloved molten pupper to cuddle with them. Celeste was muttering to herself about whether her fire would be hot enough to melt the stone, or, perhaps, using her fire in conjunction with engineering would be better. Smiling at her loves, she picked up her quill and returned to her diary.
Deathrolls last night in the Brawlpub underneath the Deeprun Tram was equally crazy, though nowhere near as fatal… unless you count Zarshal getting his rear slapped by pro wrestler and fighter Gommaan himself! Ha! Late in the night, after midnight rolled around and people finally started going to bed, Zarshal was STILL wincing while a goblin signed an autograph… on his bruised rear! And sooooo many people came! Tali had lots of elf friends that wanted to come, and we ended up with like fourteen people… waaaaay too many for one Deathrolls table! So, we split the group into two. Tali took all his elf friends to the booths while all the regulars stayed at our usual Deathrolls table we sit at there next to the bar when we play in the Brawlpub. The night got crazy. People were Dared to yell crazy things with no context to the other table. Maya’s coworker in the Voyagers, Remi, was yelling how there were too many hot elves at her table for her to handle. I had Zarshal yelling about how he admired Tali’s underpants with the little red goblin rocketships on them and his name embroidered into the waistband in gold thread. Gommaan got Dared to sprint over the table, and, without a word, leap up onto it and dance for about ten seconds, then leap off and sprint back to ours. There were many catcalls at that, and someone was yelling about how they wanted him to come back so they could tip him! Ha! Zarshal had to take his pants off and run streaking to Tali’s table with his pants flapping in the breeze behind him, yelling, “THESE ARE NOT MY PAAAAAAANTS!” and then jump and do a bellyslide across their table before sprinting back. One elf came to our table and wanted to kiss my cheek and press her…. erm…. chest… against me, but I love that strawberry blonde over there on the bed, and I declined, and the elf, apparently acting upon Tali’s Dare, was directed instead to do that with Rylee, who was more than happy to play along. The rear-slapping thing came when Zarshal and Tali were dared to slap each other’s rears, and the rear-signing was done when Zarshal was Dared to go jump excitedly all around the other table’s players, as though they were celebrities, going nuts and asking them for an autograph. He did that one quite convincingly, and that’s when the goblin signed the seat of his pants! Teehee! There were many more Dares, people got completely drunk, people got stripped, and many laps were sat upon. All in all, it was an immensely satisfying game of Deathrolls, and sorely needed after the exhausting brushes with death we’d dealt with so much the day before. Good times!
I’m just taking it easy today, too. I’ve stayed in Pandaria with Celeste, and it’s been thunderstorming all day. She’s researching Dwarven excavation through sheer rock so she can install a workshop and hangar bay, with an ocean-facing hangar bay door, in the basement of the house. I’ve just been writing all day. First I wrote fourteen pages on the kraken attack for the Whitewind Company’s PR department. Then I wrote a report Aedie wanted. Now I’m writing this diary. I’m gonna run out of ink and pages at this point! Dordy’s been restless. He doesn’t like going outside when it’s raining, even more than the usual dog. Likely because fire and water don’t mix too well. It makes him steam when he gets absolutely poured on, and I don’t think he likes all that thick mist all over him. So, he’s been cooped up inside the tent all day, alternately sleeping through the thunderstorms and getting the zoomies and bouncing off the walls.
We’re making progress on the house! By we, I mean, mostly Celeste. She makes all the trips hauling supplies up in the Flying Nosebleed and leads the construction effort. I just follow directions and try not to mess up too badly! I’ve been able to have some fun hammering and sawing and cutting through bamboo. Celeste has her landing pad for the Flying Nosebleed already built into the side of the mountain, where there’s a wide bit of flat rock, and a short flight of stairs from there to the walkway to what will be the front door. We’ve finalized the blueprints too! We’ve decided on a two-story house with a vault ceiling. The entire bottom floor is open, sitting room in front with a large stone hearth, and you can see all the way past the countertop in the kitchen to a full window-wall that rises up and then angles in to a point up at the sloped ceiling. It opens up into a huge, wide view of the ocean as its waves stretch all the way to the horizon. More windows on the sides will allow for a view of the sun setting in the west over the water, with the beach in the picture and the waves lapping up onto the shore, with lots of sandy little islands with a few palm trees growing on them visible, and the Krasarang jungle further to the right of that. We get much the same to the west when the sun rises. Southwest stretches the Nyeli Lagoon, and, at the far edge of that, the jungle island of Unga Ingoo. Upstairs will just open into a mezzanine, with a master bedroom on the west side, to view the sunsets from our bed, chairs, my writing desk, or our outer balcony, and a guest bedroom on the other side of the house, with much the same furnishings and a view of the sunrise. It will all be overlooking the living room, kitchen, and dining area below from over the inner wrap-around balcony. We definitely want to have a guest bedroom, because at my house in Darkshire, if someone spends the night with us, they are relegated to the top mattress that we pull off the bed and plop down in the middle of the floor in my room. A more comfortable bed and privacy would make our guests happier! It’s all looking really dreamy so far! I can’t wait to get it completed and begin moving in! Life is so great!
Nat grinned hugely as she thought of the dream home she and her love were building. Finished with the week’s entry, she tapped off the excess ink on her quill into her inkpot, put it away in its case, and capped her inkwell. She put her things away, stretching a bit in her chair, finally finished with writing for the day and considering an invigorating run in the rain along the beach. Grinning at the idea, she moved to change into her bikini, drawing a look and a quirked eyebrow from Celeste, to whom she pitched the idea. Celeste grinned, and changed as well. When Nat had her bikini on, her diary pages were dry, and she closed it up and packed it away in her pack again, along with her quill case and inkwell. Dordy, unable to take it any longer, decided to head out into the pouring rain with them, and the trio chased each other around, getting completely drenched, Dordy’s magma steaming and spluttering, yet never getting quenched. They spent nearly an hour splashing through the waves, playing Tag on the beach, and likely drawing some more quirked eyebrows from across the lagoon as the Anglers peered out at them from within their dry homes in their beautiful stilt village. As they sun went down – though they couldn’t see it through the heavy, dark cloudcover – the three were sitting inside the tent again, warming up in dry clothes, cooking a dinner of Pandaren noodles with fresh vegetables and rabbit. Dordy, still steaming heavily, was sitting quite still, leaping once in a while as a bit of this or that was thrown to him, Celeste’s training earlier in the year to catch paying off as he caught each piece and scarfed it down fast enough that it was fair to wonder whether he even tasted it. Celeste and Nat were in full swing in their conversation on the house, discussing the excavation and what Celeste had learned from the Dwarven runes she was able to slowly read, thanks to her uncle Rugnar’s teaching. The wizened Bronzebeard dwarf had been no end of invaluable help with knowledge and work on the house. Nat listened to Celeste’s newly-acquired knowledge right into dinner itself with rapt attention, fascinated by the subject. The happy couple were quite excited about their dream home. And soon enough, their dream would be reality. Nat couldn’t wait!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jun 24, 2021 14:23:38 GMT
June the Twenty-Fourth
Nat sat down to a breakfast of scrambled eggs with hot salsa, toast, and bacon after tending the campfire at the beach. Glancing up, she could hear the sounds of the excavation machine Rugnar was operating, and the searing sounds of Celeste’s fire. Nat was eager to help, but when heavy machinery and fire were going full-bore, there wasn’t much she could do except get in the way of a blasting drill or a blast of fire that produces molten rock. Celeste had been thoughtful enough to leave her Dordy, who, being a molten corgi, wasn’t really at risk of burns, though he did tend to get underfoot. That would be dangerous, with Rugnar’s machinery.
Nat smiled down at the glowing pupper. He was seated very still, looking intently at the plate in Nat’s lap. Nat leaned over the side of her camp chair to feed Dordy a bit of bacon. She’d made a double-sized stack just for this reason. She still found it remarkable that he could be just fine eating so much stuff that was horrible for a normal dog to eat. It was also a source of joy; she and Celeste were able to make him happy with the simplest treats, and not have to worry about him getting sick or even just fat.
Also in Nat’s lap was her diary. Plate on the left, diary on the right, inkwell in the cupholder on the right arm of the folding camp chair, a deep cup of coffee in the left. Nat took up a slice of buttered toast in her left hand, munching away with her quill in her write. She dipped her ravenfeather quill in her inkwell of purple ink and began to write.
Dear diary,
It’s been a week of accomplishments! I finally got to meet Celeste’s uncle Rugnar, the house is quickly getting its basement/workshop/flying machine hangar excavated, Ashnard Rennard has finally been apprehended by the Whitewind Company and taken off to the Stockades, I had magic lessons in chronomancy, polymorphing, and arcane magic in general with Aedie, took up a new pet-battling hobby, and Rugnar’s already witnessed his first Deathrolls game! Though that was from at a distance, across the bay at camp, having elected to hang back with Celeste, both sort eschewing the large group scene in favor of quiet chatter and relaxing after a long day, and laughing at things witnessed or overheard at a distance.
Rugnar is everything Celeste said he was and more. He’s a bit gruff, but kind and warm. We took to each other instantly, which was an immense relief. I was so nervous before meeting him! He’s really smart too; his creative problem-solving skills, resourcefulness, and technical knowledge and ability are impressive! He and Celeste have teamed up to excavate the basement. He’s got his excavating machinery up there, and he has been using that while Celeste softens up the rock by melting it with her fire. Celeste has also been shaping bits of the rock to make it look like the ocean. Starfish, coral reefs, sea turtles, and fish, all shaped into the side of the rock. I am thinking of coming in to paint it all when it’s all finished, so it really looks like we’re coral diving! Rugnar says it won’t be long now. The three of us are all engineers, so we’re gonna put our heads together to come up with a way to make a remote-controlled hangar bay door for the Flying Nosebleed and Rugnar’s flying machine, and then camouflage it afterward so it doesn’t disturb the beauty of Turtle Beach and the rest of the bay and stilt village there. Rugnar’s got as many great ideas as Celeste has, and I’ve been adding in things I can think of myself. Rugnar really rounds out the team well. What an amazing dwarf!
It’s been making quite a bit of racket, but the only locals close enough to hear it, the Angler’s Wharf people, haven’t openly seemed to mind so much; indeed, we’ve gotten to be friends with them enough over the last several months that they’re looking forward to having us as neighbors, and a bit of machinery racket and hammering and whatnot in the short-term, one told us, is a small price to pay to be able to enjoy and savor life slowly with neighbors one is fond of, Pandaren-style. Now that’s a thought that makes me very happy!
Nat finished off one slice of toast, going for her other. She dipped her quill in her inkwell, leaving it there for a moment as she looked up, past the campfire, past the beautiful bay, and up, up, up onto the top of the tallest rock spire jutting upward from the bay. In true dwarf fashion, the excavation opening, even before camouflage, was already difficult to see, though she could hear plainly the sounds of machinery, and the air shimmered around the entrance from the heat of Celeste’s fire. They tended to awaken early some mornings and let Nat sleep during her minication days off work, and they’d get started while she snoozed. She looked idly up at the opening, smiling vaguely as she imagined the two of them hard at work in there. She was ready for the excavation to be completed so she could go and join in the work and help as well. In the meantime, she munched on toast and eggs with salsa, feeding Dordy the occasional bacon slice, which often was one she’d nibbled half of. After a few minutes of munching, she picked up her quill and resumed writing.
Tuesday, Nah and I went back to Pyrewood Village outside of the smashed-up gates of Gilneas to finish what we started several weeks ago with Ashnard Rennard, the cultist who abducted Aedie and stole her memories. Tali was with us, and that really helped even the score this time. The three of us arrived at the entrance to the village, ducking behind a large boulder and taking in the numbers and positions of the cult there. The necromancers had placed a group of zombies right around the entrance this time, instead of people and the two death knights that Elincia mind controlled and made fight each other last time. First order of business was getting past them. I ended up creating a series of arcane familiars of murlocs and made them stampede across the road, which the zombies spotted and gave chase to. We were able to zip by after that. With the sheer numbers throughout the town, though, we elected to sneak past. We went around to the left, skirting through abandoned ruins of buildings first, then saw the drunkard mercenaries from last time, plus the death knights, two necromancers, and an abomination they made with the most revolting flatulence problem. That was fortunate for us, really, as it had the bored people around the town distracted enough for us to sneak past. We ended up wading through the marsh right outside the town to get under the bridge that leads to the Gilnean gates while they were distracted with all that and making comments on it. The deep black cover of the dark night helped us as well. We were able to sneak right around to the back of the building Ashnard was in!
From here, we were able to spot the nearest sentries. The two death knights were on either side of the square that the front of Ashnard’s house opened up into. We had to distract those first. Tali got one with his frost trap. I wanted to polymorph it, but the lesson for that wasn’t until the following morning, so I didn’t know how! But that was okay; I improvised! I got out the controller for my foxicopter and worked on getting the other death knight distracted when he came to see how the heck his friend had gotten frozen in ice so suddenly. I zoomed the foxicopter right in around him, and made him think that the foxicopter had somehow done it. Then I danced it away from him, kinda like Celeste showed me how to dance bait along in the water when fishing, and, sure enough, like a big, metal, smelly fish, he chased right after it… and I led him right to Nah, who knocked him out and dragged him into the shadows! There was a warlock with a succubus present, but a good deal further away, and Nah and I were able to sneak past her and get to Ashnard’s front door. The drunkards were even further away, chatting amongst themselves and not paying a bit of attention like they were supposed to. Tali doubled back and snuck up to the back door after I suggested a front-back breach to sandwich Ashnard in the middle. We took our positions.
I opened the front door, which, somehow unsurprisingly, wasn’t even locked. Ashnard was really surprised to see me again! Then Nah came in behind me, stealthing behind him while I had him distracted. Suddenly, she sprang forward and hit him in the rear with a shoulder ram and knocked him right down on his face! Then there was this shadow blast that got Nah and I both from Ashnard… that hurt! I was about to attack, but then there was a pistol shot from the stairs! I looked up… it was Lucina, this Kaldorei lady that had tried to kill Nah last year in the Stormwind graveyard as a contract kill, and she’d just shot Nah in the shoulder! That’s when Tali busted in the back door… Ashnard, once he saw a third person, lost his head entirely and ran for the front door, knocking me down. Void energy and being run over and slammed to a stone floor… I was not feeling too spiffy after that… But Tali was able to sprint over and stop Ashnard before he made it out the door, and the fight was really on then. I was trying to help Nah while Ashnard was fighting Tali, because Lucina had come at her and slashed her arms with her swords, and Nah wasn’t looking too good either. I launched a flurry of ice shards at Lucina… but then she somehow deflected them with her swords and they came right back at me! That hurt even worse! I had bits of ice sticking out of me; it was so gruesome… I wasn’t able to do much after that, but Tali was able to shoot Ashnard in the back of the left thigh. I was about to really let Lucina have it after that, because she’d knocked Nah down and was walking up behind her with her pistol aimed right at Nah’s head… Then the biggest twist yet happened… She turned her pistol on Ashnard instead, and shot him through the back of his OTHER leg! Turns out she’d secretly been outbid by Lady Whitewind, who was paying her way more than Ashnard was… I wasn’t expecting that at all! I thought for sure she was gonna finish Nah off, but she helped us instead, which was SO lucky. We were able to get Ashnard out the back door then, which was also lucky, because all the shooting was drawing people in from further down the town. They saw the frozen death knight, saw that another was missing, and were advancing on the front of the house. We were able to get Ashnard, Nah, and I onto mounts and fly away. I was barely able to hang on, I was hurt so bad. It was a long flight back to Stormwind, but when we landed, Annasana was there. We were able to get hold of her on the Whitewind Company comms and get her to meet us at the Stockades for healing duties on Nah and I. I felt way better after that. Meanwhile, the Stormwind Guards recognized Ashnard from wanted posters, and were seeing to securing him for the Stockades and talking to Nah, who had them send the bounty payout to Lady Whitewind, who would include it in our next payday.
All healed up and Ashnard taken down into the Stockades, Nah and I went with Tali to the Recluse for drinks. With the rough night, I hit the mead pretty hard, and all our friends that came and sat with us were having a good laugh about it. Nah went so far as to decide I was a bit TOO sloshed, and went for some water for me... not for me to drink, but to sober me up by dumping it on my head! To make matters worse, she decided to claim there was no water to be found... and brought back another stein of MEAD to dump on my head! It soaked me sooo bad, and I ended up with a mead-stained shirt and pants, and smelling like a brewery. I had to go back to my house in Darkshire to take a bath and put on something else before I could even come back here to the campsite! Anyway, after that, I finally got into the moonshine Rylee gave me. Never again! I ended up seeing what looked like Nah’s old nemesis from last year, Rick Riggermotor, sitting on the railing at the Recluse. I tried to point him out to everyone else at the table, but either they were ALL involved in pranking me, or… there really wasn’t a gnome sitting there! I don’t much remember the rest of that night, but I still have this sinking feeling that something Riggermotor is coming for Nah again…
Nat paused again, placing her quill in her ink pot again. She had finished her eggs and toast, and was now enjoying the relative chill of the early morning on the beach, in the shade of the Krasarang jungle. The sounds of excavation continued from above as Nat nibbled her way through more bacon, sipping daintily at her steaming mug of hazelnut coffee. She thought about the crazy last year Nah had had with Rick Riggermotor. The maniacal gnomish warlock on his weird mechanical dragon mount with a flamethrower or something in its mouth to breath fire had been after Nah for who knows what reason last year, and Nah was in a constantly bandaged state as a result. It finally ended one day while Nat was at Pinky’s Groggery in Upton Borough in Boralus with Tali, doing a Tarot reading for him. They’d gotten a call on the Blackflag Imports communicators from a clearly hurt Nah, and had gone to find her near the pumpkin patch just north of Stormwind City, laying there deeply injured, bleeding, and burned, Riggermotor finally dead on the ground several yards away. It had been such a gruesome scene! Nat shuddered, trying to put the image out of her mind so she could eat. Her molten friend seemed to be of the same mind; Dordy had a few more pieces of bacon before Nat got her quill going again.
Yesterday morning was the arcane lessons with Aedie. We worked on Alter Time, which I had accidentally done once already when trying to learn Time Warp, and then moved on into the arcane tree. Polymorph, arcane intellect, arcane blast, arcane missiles, and arcane barrage were up next, and she had me practice on another coworker, Riven, this snarky Ren’dorei who didn’t seem to mind being polymorphed into a black cat and blasted away with arcane energy, so long as she got healed up with my conjured healing food and could keep making snarky remarks. A lot of these spells were similar to what I’d already learned, so I didn’t make nearly as many mistakes as usual in learning them. Arcane blast, for example, is a lot like frostbolt, except I don’t focus the arcane into the frost school first before firing it off. The lessons went unusually smoothly this time. I feel like I’m really getting the hang of these new schools of magic! Aedie’s such an amazing and intelligent teacher!
In the middle of all this going on, I’ve been getting into the pet battling circuit as a side hobby. After much experimentation and some research, I’ve found that using an Anubisath Idol, a Dread Hatchling, and an “Unborn” Val’kyr not only have a fantastic synergy with each other, but are also each particularly devastating, and the Anubisath thingy is darn near indestructible! With their defense, speed, and ability to hit like wrecking balls, I’m wrecking much much higher-level trainers and wild things with them. It’s surprisingly easy! I am looking forward to finishing raising these three to their maximum abilities!
Then of course, last night was Deathrolls night. It was such a fun time! Most of the guys weren’t there for once, Tali and Gommaan and Zarshal (though we did still have Jornaar), but we still had some really funny people there! It was me, Ais’la, Jornaar, Maya, Cari, Rylee, Vey, and two of vey’s friends I’d only met once before, Serea and Sandaa. The game got as chaotic as they have tended to over the last month… Cari and I kicked it off by both rolling ones. I got the one in the first Deathroll, and Cari rolled a one during the Truth or Dare rolls. Maya got to Dare us… next thing I know, Cari and I are sentenced to do bellyflops off the highest boardwalk of Angler’s Wharf, where we were playing, right in sight of Celeste and Rugnar on the beach across the bay! A bellyflop from like twenty or thirty feet high does NOT feel good! I had a red tummy the rest of the night! Cari, being so much smaller, seemed to recover quicker. But the torment didn’t stop there… Mere moments later, Rylee and I are both Dared, this time to go and grab a strand crawler crab and get it to pinch our pinkies! Ouch! Vey got Dared to climb the flagpole on the little goblin boat and capture the animal-hide flag that was up there. Then the goblin said that the flag’s hide was so smooth because it was from a kodo’s… well, you know… sack that holds… well, anyway… Vey got it down, and the goblin wanted it back, so, a while later, Vey and I ended up in another Double Dare, and had to tell the goblin why we needed it to save the world! I made up this story on the spot about how we needed it to defeat a really big moose, which Vey said was from Northrend and had come to conquer. I told the goblin the… sack… flag… was a flag foretold in prophecy, and was the only thing that could stop the really big conqueror moose. Then Vey gave it back… It was so weird! Maya ended up sloshed from Rylee’s moonshine, though she didn’t see any ghost gnomes, which I thought was suspicious. It made me think I really had seen that gnome that looked like Riggermotor that no one else could apparently see! The rest of the night was people getting Dared to do spicy things, or to reveal spicy Truths, and all I could do was just blush and keep hiding my eyes… They were, of course, graciously accepting of any time either me or someone else was not quite willing to do this or that, and ready to pose a different challenge instead. They’re all such great people!
Weeks full of fun and adventure like this one really make me feel like I’ve done more than enough on my minication, and that I am ready to return to work after all. Even the "workend," as my bestie Nah calls it, won't be without its own fun; Saturday is Mags' monthly market day, and I'll be able to visit her stall to check out the new products she's developed for her store, the Lakeshire Soap Company, and after that is the Midsummer Gala that Lex and Ellie are hosting! Good times!
Nat smiled, finishing off the last of her bacon, besides one final piece for Dordy. She put the plate down in the sand for him to lick clean. It seemed molten doggies didn’t mind spicy salsa at all! Giggling at his voracity, she set to cleaning off her quill tip before placing it in its case. She capped off her inkwell, then retrieved her plate from the sand. It seemed to be quite clean, though of course, she took it to wash. Dordy slobber did no one any favors, after all. Her diary pages now dry, she closed it up, packing her quill case, inkwell, and diary away before going for a long, quiet, peaceful (besides Dordy chasing critters along on the beach to play with them) walk on the beach with Dordy, smiling often up at the sounds of her love and her new friend – family member, of a sort, even? – up there on the rock spire having their own sort of fun as they worked away at the rock. Nat and Dordy spent a good deal of time on the beach before she took him up to Celeste so he could play in the lava. She shook her head at the silly thought. Playing in lava. She grinned at that as she put his aviator goggles on his head, ever grateful for the fire protection spells on him so he could be handled safely. Waving Onyx down, she flew up to spend a while chatting happily with Celeste and Rugnar while Dordy sniffed around the grasses atop the rock spire, the molten rock already having cooled and hardened again by now. Soon it was time to teleport up to Stormwind. The last day off of minication for the week was here, and she wanted to hang out with her friends today, too, not to mention see what work the Whitewind Company might be engaged in. It was sure to be another fully-loaded day!
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