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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Dec 28, 2023 14:43:39 GMT
December the Twenty-Eighth A swift wind howled down the canyon this morning, setting small waves in motion and whistling in between the many rock spires that gave the Thousand Needles its name. With the wind came the scents of distant Feralas, the earthy, arboreal smell of a forest full of gigantic Kaldorei trees, smoke from a few distant camping or cooking fires, and some mix of salt water and the faintest hint of fish from the water the wind blew across.
Seagulls added their cries to the din, the howling, whistling wind punctuated by shrill gull calls as the great white birds cruised for their breakfast. More noise was provided by the Speedbarge, both by its great engines and the partygoers that shouted with glee at all hours of the day and night.
Yet aboard the houseboat, the noise was reduced to nearly nothing by distance and by the large boulder that jutted up like another small rock spire that blocked most of the sound from out that direction. Things were getting more and more comfortable aboard the houseboat, even though it was still a work in progress. As often as not, Nat, Celeste, Uncle Rugnar, Penny, and Dordy were sleeping aboard instead of in their tents.
The houseboat was still festive, a Winter Veil tree and many other decorations still keeping the place even more of a warm, happy-looking home.
At the moment, however, Nat was the only one aboard. Celeste was playing fetch with the direhorn horn with Dordy, Uncle Rugnar was fishing up some lunch, and Penny had gone to meet with the Cogswitch twins, who were getting their first meeting with the Speedbarge gnomes, and were getting the tour.
Nat sat at the little table in the houseboat she’d helped the others build from bamboo planks, her diary spread out before her, with her mechanical inkwell and her thermos of hazelnut coffee close to hand. She stretched, yawned, and then poked the button that popped her mechanical pen out from the inkwell, took it into her hand, and began to write.
Dear diary,
Gosh, it’s been a great Winter Veil week! I got to see SO MANY PEOPLE! And everyone seems to have loved my gifts, so that’s good, and I got to give lots and lots away, so that was fun! In addition to seeing Celeste and Dordy, I got to see Penny, of course, here at camp with us, as well as Uncle Rugnar, who also came to visit camp, and my father, and my bestie Nah, and my good buddy Grimmie, all on Winter Veil day!
But first, an update on the drone/mine situation!
I’ll just pick up where I left off last week:
Everyone was changed and ready for some fun in short order. The Wave Dancer roared to life as Celeste pushed the throttle, zooming over the calm waters of the basin until we reached our destination. Celeste dropped the anchor and said that the drone was about two hundred feet away off the Starboard bow. She put on her Deepdive helmet, grabbed some tools and hopped into the water. I could make her breathe easily underwater, but the Deepdive helmet had some extra optics to help her work, so she opted for that. It’s such a cool device of hers! Poor Dordy was barking his head off, eager to get into his bubble and swim, but until the drone situation was solved, it was too risky letting him loose unless someone was always there to watch him!
Celeste hopped along the bottom of the basin, shining her lights through the slightly murky waters as she neared the drone. Taking out her camera, she took pictures of it. Just as she thought, a crude sea-mine was attached to the drone. It had been fixed with ropes and bits of wire. A rush job! The spherical mine itself wouldn't be hard to remove from the drone, but the pressure points on it made it dangerous to handle. It would have to be somehow disarmed, or held perfectly still...
"Oh gosh, you were right!" I exclaimed as Celeste returned and reported what she saw. "Now what? How will we get this thing off the drone?"
''Actually, Nat dear, you're going to get it off the drone.'' Celeste said, removing her helmet and smoothing out her short hair. She looked at me with a grin, no other information forthcoming for the moment.
"WHAT?!" I exclaimed, deeply startled. "ME?! B-b-but... But I'm the one with the least amount of engineering knowledge here!"
''You're better than you think, but it's not your engineering skills I need, it's your magic!'' Celeste said, still grinning.
"W-wha-..." I blinked. "O-oh! Y-you mean... direct Mek-barash to go do the dangerous stuff, I guess?"
“Actually, any physical manipulation of the bomb will likely set it off. You know… if only we could FREEZE it in a nice big block with the surrounding water. That would really be swell…” Celeste added, looking pointedly at me. “Then we could just move the bomb away safely…”
I grinned at that, nodding assent.
"Alright, that'll be easy enough... I hope... How far away should I do it from?"
''You know your magic better than I do. Just freeze the bomb, then the water around it, very gradually. The expanding ice pressure shouldn't trigger the bomb. As far away as you can, I guess. Don't worry about freezing the drone and the water around it. I'll melt what I need to reach the ropes and wires.
"Oh gosh... That'll work? Okay, I'll give it a shot. Maximum spellcasting range is about 40 yards or so. You think that'll be a safe distance for the type of explosive you saw?"
“Hmm, probably not? The concussive force through the water would knock you out… but! If you use your magic from the surface and the bomb explodes, you’ll just get thrown harmlessly into the water. I suggest creating a small block of ice to stand on. I know it sounds dangerous, but I’m very confident this’ll work.”
"I can put up an arcane barrier for that as well," I mused. "But even that would get some push from a shockwave. Alright, I'll try that... are we ready to go do it right now, or what?"
“Yep you’re the star of this show. Whenever you’re ready, we’ll be too. Just let me know once it’s frozen,” Celeste said, climbing up into the Dancer.
"Oh goodness, okay..."
I conjured up an iceberg, which conjured up many happy memories. Smiling. I balanced myself on the bobbing platform, making sure to keep the Wave Dancer in between myself and the Speedbarge so they couldn’t see me freezing the mine.
Once steady, stationary, and stealthy, I knelt in the center of the berg, not wanting to tip it over. Usually this wasn't a problem for mages conjuring the outsized ice cubes, but I know how clumsy I am!
I then peered into the water. The view wiggled and waggled with the current, but, after focusing, I was able to bring the drone into view. Even then, that was only because I am intimately familiar with the drone, and thus able to spot not only it from the rest of what was in the flooded basin, but also able to spot something that was definitely foreign. The mine!
I focused the arcane in the area, converting it to frost the way my teacher Aedalia Songbird had once taught me, then channeled it forward in a spell channeled over time known as Ray of Frost. The water around the mine chilled with the mine itself, though the mine's components froze a bit faster. Soon, all that was left was a frozen-solid mine attached to the drone, with the water around it frigid, but not frozen, which would allow it to be easily separated from the drone.
Satisfied, I looked up at Celeste, flashing a thumbs-up and nodding a couple of times.
Celeste gestured for me to return to the ship and put her Deep-Dive helmet on again. She dropped into the water and swam to the drone. She was gone for a long while, much longer than anticipated, which was spooky! But finally, she emerged next to the Dancer and took off her helmet.
“That worked!” she announced with a grin. “The bomb was detached from the drone. I sent the drone on a pre-programmed course. It'll travel out of the basin and into the open sea then release the mine. I was able to install a trigger on the mine. Once the drone releases it, it'll explode two minutes later. Plenty of time for the drone to leave and return to camp!
“Here, take my camera. We have enough proof on that for the Speedbarge, too. I think we should propose a suitable punishment for Grux but stay away from the trial. We didn't come here to start trouble or start a war. I want us back working on our house-boat instead of wasting time with surly goblins...
“You know...'' Celeste handed her camera to me and climbed aboard the Dancer. ''You know, instead of pushing for a punishment, I think we should ask to get the Houseboat anchored near the barge, under its protection while we're gone. That way we won't have to worry about coming around to check on it every so often. It'll show we're forgiving gals and we won't be asking for much. I know the Cogswitches asked to borrow it when we're not here. They want to tinker somewhere warm and safe, and the proximity of their gnome brethren will undoubtedly suit them.''
With Grux now handled and the bomb safely disposed off in the high seas away from ships and marine life, things quieted down and gave Penny and Celeste plenty of time to work on the houseboat. With most of the salvage sand blasted and fixed, it was time to assemble the base. Drums were welded to sheet metal and by the end of the day they had a large platform, floating on a dozen or so airtight barrels. They had even started putting down bamboo planks to cover the sheet metal and make the flooring more comfortable. Lunch had been fetched by the CLAM since some of the parts of Celeste's hook drone had been used in its construction. Penny and Celeste ate their lunch a bit late, their legs dangling off the side of the platform as it bobbed gently in the water. They got a lot done while I was at my first day of my workend!
The second day of building the boat was more pleasant. They added a structure to raise a roof that covered a large part of the platform though there remained a section on one end opened to the sky. There Celeste built a cooking grill on metal legs with a section that could hold a fire or hot coals underneath. This way they would have a safe place to cook on the houseboat. The exterior walls were small, large sliding doors made from a lattice of softer bamboo shoots could be moved to completely close off the interior or leave it open to the breeze. A table and comfy chairs were planned but for now work was oriented towards hanging up several hammocks to sleep in.
Celeste and Penny made sure to include metal eyelets along the sides of the houseboat so the Dancer, COMPASS and the Flying Nosebleed with its pontoons could be moored to the houseboat. Mostly satisfied with the progress so far, Celeste and Penny decided to finish the job and have dinner with me in the exotic locale of Un’Goro Crater. That was fun and really tasty!
By the end of the day of my workend, the eve of Winter’s Veil, the houseboat wasn’t as finished as Celeste said she would have liked. The roof was built, though, and the sliding panels had been rethought as rolling ones, which I had suggested making to be able to roll upwards so all four walls can be up at once when we want to make it an open-air structure! It had been easy to do with the panels made from bamboo slats to begin with. It was enough though. Enough to hang a large double hammock for Celeste and I, and another for Penny. Celeste had hung up another one for Uncle Rugnar, who would join us for Winter’s Veil Eve. Lanterns had been strung up along the railings around the platform. The houseboat, anchored away from the Speedbarge and close to the tall Spires of the Thousand Needles, had a festive air. While Celeste slow-cooked a boar on the spit (rotating thanks to the MUTT), she and Penny used colorful pieces of glass, hung up with wires around the torches, to make the boat glitter with various shades of light. It really looked wonderful!
They had gone to New Thalanaar for lunch and spotted the boar o the way back. Uncle Rugnar was supposed to arrive in time to baste the boar with his special sauce and would bring Whisperwings with him! What fun!
It was lining up to be a great evening with family and friends!
"Wow, the place looks GREAT!" I said after the final day of the workend, having arrived after Uncle Rugnar and seen the decorations. "And that boar smells so GOOD, Uncle Rugnar! I brought something of my own, too... look at Onyx!"
On Onyx's back was a pine tree, a stand to put it in upright, and Celeste's and my Winter Veil tree decorations from the House-On-The-Spire!
"I made a couple of detours on my way back!" I grinned.
Winter Veil Eve's feast was enjoyed by all (especially Dordy), and our little family had a great time decorating the tree. Dordy was a good sport about getting a Greatfather Winter hat on his head, and a Greatfather Winter beard. Indeed, he really seemed to enjoy bouncing around in it and making the hat and beard wag like his tail!
The tree was decorated beautifully, and, when the little family woke up the next morning for gift exchanges, it would be all set, lights all aglow, just for us!
The smell of hazelnut coffee woke me up on Winter Veil morning! Celeste, wearing thin pajamas decorated with Winter's Veil patterns, was busy drinking coffee (hers had hazelnut creamer too! She must have been feeling festive!) and sitting in her fishing chair while watching Uncle Rugnar make pancakes. Penny was playing fetch with Dordy, who was keeping his barking to a minimum.
I reflected on the week and weekend as I got up out of bed. I had been thoroughly impressed with the work Celeste did moving the underwater mine free of the drone, and had thought that her Speedbarge anchoring idea had been a really good one, as well as lending the houseboat to the Cogswitches to work close to other gnomes, though I still wanted to put protective spells over the houseboat when we aren't on it. I had another idea over the weekend for proposal to Fizzle and Pozzik about Grux's consequences over the weekend, but that could wait... WINTER VEIL HAD ARRIVED!!!
I awakened to the smell of the hazelnut coffee, smiling instantly. WINTER VEIL MORNING! Ready for the magic, I rushed from bed, meeting Celeste, Uncle Rugnar, and Penny in the little kitchen nook and sitting at the table while Rugnar made pancakes, giggling at Dordy's fetch game with Penny as I sat.
"Merry Winter Veil, everyone!" I exclaimed, excitement and joy in my eyes.
''Merry Winter's Veil, Nat!'' Celeste said and got up eagerly to get her first present of the day: a kiss from me! ''Uncle Rugnar's making pancakes. I think Whisperwings is flying somewhere over the basin. He loves to hover just over the water.''
Uncle Rugnar gave me a warm smile as well. ''Good mornin' to ye lass! There's coffee ready fer ye. Whisps and I made some ginger cookies too. He mostly rolled around in the flour, that little git!'' Rugnar's words were softened by a fond look as he craned his neck to see where the fairie dragon had gone to. ''Ye got some in that tin there fer ye.''
Celeste got up and grabbed some coffee for me, adding some hazelnut creamer and bringing it over to me, asking for another kiss in exchange. ''There's presents too! We'll have breakfast, and then get to that after.''
I giggled at Uncle Rugnar and blushed my way through my kisses, already enjoying this magical morning. I sipped at my coffee, giggling again at Penny's Fetch game with Dordy.
"Good morning, guys, and thanks!" I said to the group, thanking Celeste for the coffee (and the kisses). I helped myself to a ginger cookie as I sat back down. "Gosh, breakfast smells good already! And these ginger cookies are awesome!"
Breakfast was amazing, with pancakes, scrambled eggs (peppers in mine!), bacon, and sausage, with hash browns and white buttered toast on the side. What a Winter Veil morning feast!
After that was the presents. There are still more to give, and I want to write about it all at once, so I’ll include that in maybe next week’s diary post, so I’ll move on to later in the day for now!
After that, we put up the protective spells on the houseboat and camp, then got ourselves through a portal to Stormwind. We got to go to Darkshire and visit my father! I had cards for him and everyone else at work, with little trinkets and stuff for them. I got my father a cushioned chair for his office, crafted by pandarens, which means it’s super super comfy! Celeste got him a really nice fedora, which makes him look really fancy when he wears it! He put it on with a chuckle and wore it the whole rest of the time! Father also got a package of assorted sausages from all over the world that was from “Dordy.” Haha! Celeste and I had fun collecting that one for him, and Uncle Rugnar had lots of great suggestions for it! Uncle Rugnar got him a fancy, hand-carved smoking pipe, which Father said was really beautiful, and Penny, in on the idea with Rugnar, got him a fancy smoking jacket and slippers for when he’s smoking by the fire at home! He loved it all! Father put together an old photo album that nearly made me cry. It was so sweet! He and I, along with Mother, and my sister Thea, even some old enough to be from when Duskwood was Brightwood! There were lots of old Winter Veil photos in there, too! Ah, the memories! He got Celeste a set of fishing bobbers of assorted shapes, like duskroses, trout, bear, a gnomish cog, a Winter Veil tree, just all kinds of cool stuff! Uncle Rugnar got a brand-new pair of winter gloves with a rabbit-fur-lined interior that were soft inside and out, nice and supple, warm as could be, and fit snuggly to his hands. With it went a bag of authentic Duskwood jerky, made locally. The gifts are to warm his hands and keep him energized when trekking around Dun Morogh, he said. Rugnar loved it all! Penny got an assortment of tiny tools designed to fit in her tool fingers and be interchangeable. She was really excited about that one! She now has just about every hand tool imaginable to use, literally right at her fingertips! Dordy got a bunch of dog biscuits from Stormwind that were shaped like all his favorite things, custom-made, just for him! Wrenches, direhorns, direhorn horns, aviator goggles, some that looked like his Dordy Bubble, and so many more! It was really a super great visit!
We visited the House-On-The-Spire next, where there were so many gifts given and received of really cool fishing paraphernalia, I don’t even know how we’ll even keep track of it all! Other Nat sure made out like a bandit, though, flooded with anglers’ gifts!
After that, I got to go to Ironforge to go and see my bestie Nah and my good buddy Grimmie for Winter Veil! Celeste and the family went home to relax for the rest of the holiday on the houseboat, since I was going to be visiting a big city next, which Celeste usually passes on.
I had stopped at Stormwind first, so I could mail of packages in time for friends to get them in an hour. I could have given Nah and Grimmie theirs in person, had I known I’d see them in Stormwind! Oh well, they loved theirs anyway!
I smiled as I left the postman at the mailbox, walking past Winter Veil trees and lights and decorative gift boxes left all over Stormwind. I couldn't wait for all my friends to find my packages in the mail an hour later!
For my bestie Nah, there was a long jewelry box wrapped up in a silly wrapping paper with several Greatfather Winter caricatures in various dancing poses. Unwrapping it revealed an enormously expensive, masterfully crafted, breathtaking moonstone necklace that had been enchanted to show, when the necklace is gazed at, loved ones smiling and laughing, usually recalling and showing a very happy memory with that particular loved one! The chain is of finest elf-wrought truesilver, and the moonstone catches direct light and shines, and, even when not in the light, glows if being used, allowing the user to literally use the love in their hearts to light their path!
Accompanying the gift was also a gag gift – an assortment of panties of a wide variety of styles, makes, and levels of revealing, risqué natures. The variety was so… varied, it looked like a collection made from panty raids from all races! There were electrical gnomish panties that roll themselves down, human-style racy lingerie, dwarven woolies for cold places, draenei-fashioned ones that seemed to glow with the Light somehow, and expensive-looking elven ones of pure silk that left little to the imagination. The sizes, however, were all Nah-sized, and were clearly brand-new and unused, so Nah could definitely make use of any of them if she so chose.
A Winter Veil card featuring a fireplace illuminating an otherwise dark wall, bedecked with colored Winter Veil lights that further illuminate the scene, and stockings packed with goodies hanging from the mantle, comes with the necklace, which read thus:
“Merry Winter Veil to my best friend in all the world, NAH!”
“Thank you for being by my side whenever I need you most, and for making me laugh when I don’t want to smile. You make me happy and keep me that way, and I hope that this Winter Veil does the same for you! Also, happy New Year, my bestie!”
“ ~ Your bestie Tasha”
For my good old buddy Grim’Un Oakenbloom, I’d mailed a large package wrapped in black wrapping paper featuring a Quel’dorei woman in an ugly Winter veil sweater… but little else. Unwrapping the gift would reveal two very large bottles of his favorite liquor, as well as a drinking set that included four shot glasses, two wine glasses, two pint steins, and a black flask. Various scantily-clad elven women, both Quel’dorei and Kaldorei, are colorfully depicted on each shot glass. The wine glasses had been glass-blown into the shape of dancing elf girls, one being Kaldorei, and the other Quel’dorei. One pint stein has an embossed pin-up Quel’dorei girl in a bikini lying on her back with her legs in the air, crossed at the ankles, wearing brilliantly red six-inch stilettos. The other pint stein features a scantily-clad Kaldorei girl dancing on a bar in what appeared to be a tavern in the background. The flask features a small group of Kaldorei and Quel’dorei women in bikinis in a hot tub.
A Winter Veil card featuring a Quel’dorei and Kaldorei girl, both scantily-clad in skimpy Greatfather Winter outfits and hats and leaning on a motorcycle, comes with the package as well. The card reads thus:
“Merry Winter Veil, Grimmie buddy!”
“You’ve been my good buddy for years, always there for me, and always a very great deal of fun! I hope your Winter Veil is awesome for you too, and that you have an amazing new year that is full of wonder and great joy throughout!”
“ ~ Natster”
For my dear friend Cari, I sent off a package containing an assortment of books. One was of ancient High Elf learned in Suramar, which included a few spells and other tidbits on maintaining ley lights, and a few references to certain magics regarding certain trees that grow in ley-line areas. Another was of the history of Suramar, except this one being told by an ancient resident of Suramar. A third was a steamy romance novel written with fewer silly puns, a far better plotline, and a more serious and intense tone than the popular ones by Noah Scribeson, and this novel was about two powerfully magical Shal’dorei women who had fallen for each other, but one was a noble, the other a commoner, prompting many racy, secret visits and adventures between the two as they attempt to hide their relationship from the noble elite.
A Winter Veil card with an image of Greatfather Winter in his sleigh flying through the night over a snowy Winter Veil village, soaring in front of an enormous full moon, comes with the gift package. It reads thus:
“Merry Winter Veil to my dear friend, Cari!”
“It’s been a fun few years with the privilege of being friends with you, and I hope for many more! Here’s hoping your Winter Veil brings you much joy and cheer, and that you have an amazing new year!”
“ ~ Nat”
For my dear friend Mother Annabelle Baker, I sent a box of baked goods. Gingerbread, cookies, biscuits, cheesecake, muffins, sweet rolls, cinnamon rolls, and tortillas, in a container designed to have them arrive still warm and fresh! There were also various forms of stationery, a few novels written by members of the Church of the Holy Light that were written about different adventures and lives and such, including one of a paladin dame who yearned to become a jousting champion in an enormous tournament with a rich purse, but not to become rich, but to bring the purse back to spread among the poor in the poor village she hailed from. There was also a very soft, exceptionally comfortable pillow for her little bed in her tiny chambers under her home church.
A Winter Veil card depicting a paladin dame handing out Winter Veil gifts to bundled-up, somewhat poor-looking villagers in a snowy Winter Veil arrived as well. It read thus:
“Merry Winter Veil to my dear friend, Mother Annabelle Baker!”
“Thank you for being such a cool friend! The recent years with you have been fun and filled with the light you shine for me and so very many others! I hope your holiday is as full of blessings for you as I’m sure you will be for your congregation, and I hope your new year brings with it blessings for you that and many and varied!”
“ ~ Nat”
“P.S. I wasn’t exactly certain what to give to someone who wants nothing and gives everything away, so I tried to think of things to send you that you can share with your brothers and sisters of the cloth, and with any others in your life! I hope the baked goods and the books are enjoyed by you as much as I’m sure they’ll be enjoyed by those you share with!”
I sent many more gifts, such as a brand new mortar and pestle for Mags to work with for her soap company that comes with a super comfy grip on the handle for when she’s working her herbs and stuff, and to Lora, a new gnomish silencer for her sniper rifle that also comes equipped with a flash suppressor, and several other gifts. Too many to write in the time that I have, really!
Then I went to Ironforge and saw Nah and Grimmie!
We met up at the Commons, right where all the massive load of Winter Veil decorations are! I was wearing my Ugly Winter Veil sweater, Nah was wearing… oh gosh… well, she wasn’t wearing very much at all, just the skimpiest sort of Greatfather Winter costume she could find, which left VERY little to the imagination… goodness gracious! Grimmie was the only one that decided to forego a Winter Veil outfit, wearing instead some of his best fancy black clothes.
Our first stop was the REALLY COOL SNOW GLOBE! When you jump into that thing, it turns you into a Winter Veil-costumed gnome and makes you fly! I got Grimmie in there with Nah and I, and I was like, “HA! GNOMED!” And he looked down at himself, and he was like, “What the heck...? Holy crap this is weird…” It was so funny! We flew around amongst the falling snow, chased the yeti in there around that Celeste caught one year, and generally had ourselves a good time!
Then we eventually got out and decided to go for a SLEIGH RIDE next! Grim was like, “Oh crap, Nah has the reins…” And Nah was like, “As I should! MUAHAHAHAHA!” Nah did, in fact, take the reins, of course, just like last year, and took us for a ride that nearly threw me off the reindeer I was riding! Then I got the reins for the next ride, and I showed her how it’s done! A nice, straight, smooth flight, all around Ironforge, arriving smoothly and safely back at Greatfather Winter and his tree again when we were done! But Grimmie, like Nah, decided that a safe flight is a boring flight, and steered us REALLY badly, all the while shouting stuff like, “I WONDER WHAT HAPPENS IF WE STEER INTO THIS GNOME GUY’S HOUSE!” I was like, “EEEEEEEEEEEEE!” Goodness gracious, he kept shouting things like that, and steering SO close to the things he was talking about, I thought for sure we were gonna hit one of them! But, after we arrived back at the Commons in one piece again, I had to admit, in retrospect, it’s quite fun riding that thing with him or Nah driving! HA!
Then Grim, when we got out, was like, “Hey Nat, looks like Nah found the rest of her clothes.” HA! I looked over, and Nah suddenly just… had more clothes on! It was still very, very much a festive Winter Veil costume, yet… even though it covered up everything, it still somehow looked super skimpy!
And then, of course… it was time for PRESENTS! We all visited with Greatfather Winter first, and he told us how he was getting tired from basically Greatfather Wintering so much, and asked us to bring him a cup of ice cold milk and five gingerbread cookies… and he asked EACH of us that! That’s a lot of cookies and milk!
We happily obliged, turning to the Auction House across the Commons from Greatfather Winter, picking up the cookies and milk there at fantastic prices.
“I don’t know about you ladies,” Grim said, “but I think the fat man should get off his third point of contact and get them himself.” GOSH! Then, on the way back, he was like, “This guy is getting fifteen cookies and three milks just from us. No wonder he is so fat.” GOODNESS GRACIOUS GRIMMIE!
Greatfather Winter was super happy about all the treats we brought him, and invited us to dive right in and find our gifts under the giant Winter Veil tree there next to him! Between Greatfather Winter and the goblins of Smokywood Pastures, we got a lot of really cool stuff! There were these socks that leave a wake of snowflakes in your path when you walk with them, an enchantment that lasts a good few minutes each time you activate it! There’s also this really cool toy that leaves dragonracing rings behind for your friends to follow if you activate it while flying, just like in a real dragonrace on the Dragon Isles! We also got lots of different kinds of Winter Veil candy other sweets and treats, and Graccu’s Mince Meat Fruitcake, and a holiday cheesewheel, and hot chocolate, and lots of other goodies from Smokywood Pastures! Then there was the annual mechanical greench, crashin’ thrashin’ racers, and different snowman, Greatfather Winter Helper, and tiny reindeer pets, all magical, all activated by a snowball! Grim even found some beer he really, really liked from one of the goblins’ vendor stands! What a great haul this year! We thanked Greatfather Winter and the goblins of Smokywood Pastures sincerely, and were just about to leave…
…When one of the goblins waved me over! It seemed that Metzen, favorite reindeer of Greatfather Winter and crucial to his trip around the world, had been kidnapped by the Greench of the Alterac Mountains again! No matter how many years we go up there and knock that thing out, he’s healed up and ready for more shenanigans the next Winter Veil! Poor Metzen… we HAD to go and rescue him!
We mounted up and flew out the door quick as a flash! Up and over Ironforge Mountain, over the sprawling waters of Baradin Bay, over dry land again in the Hilsbrad Foothills, and right down into the Alterac Mountains we zoomed!
When we landed, there was Metzen the Reindeer, all penned up and trapped, right next to a gigantic GREENCH! Oh, NO!
We first went to go and look at Metzen. There he was, with a nametag on his collar that said “Metzen” that also had the Smokywood Pastures logo on it, and he looked at us with sad, forlorn eyes. It seemed as though he’d been immobilized by some mysterious force! These evil little green gnomes, wearing Greatfather Winter suits, were holding him there, and we couldn’t attack them. It seemed they were getting their magic from the Greench… that big critter had to go DOWN! NOW!
I summoned Thogthang the Voidwalker and sent him in to hold the Greench’s attention. Then Grim leaped in with his two gigantic swords whirling through the snowy air, and Nah snuck in behind and got her blades and pistols going. I was using my magic, and, between the three of us, despite tricks of leaping at us and making huge ice patches on the ground that made us slip and slide around… WE GOT ‘EM!
With the Greench down, the green gnomes were like, “EEE! THEY KILLED THE GREENCH!” and they ran away! The magic on Metzen fell, and he darted out of his pen! I went up to tell him that the Greench and the gnomes couldn’t hurt him anymore, and his big, round brown eyes lit up with reindeer joy! And, with that, he flew off back toward Ironforge! YAY FOR METZEN THE REINDEER!
We also found lots and lots and lots and LOTS of treats, toys, and Winter Veil decorations, including a whole dang gigantic Winter Veil tree, stuffed into the cave the Greench had been using as a den! Greatfather Winter and the Smokywood Pastures goblins would surely wanna hear about this!
After that, we freed another goblin that got frozen by the Greench into a snowman. His name was Sacks! He flew off too!
On the flight back, I got the most Nah-like, mischievous thought in my head, and decided to act on it…
“…Grimmie?” I asked.
“Yes?” he responded.
“A-are YOU secretly Greatfather Winter?”
“I am not that fat,” he replied. GOSH, Grimmie!
“True…” I said. “I was just asking because you guys are about the same age.”
Grimmie immediately began grumbling, and Nah and I had ourselves a good laugh. Grimmie’s such a good sport, even when you suggest using him as bait for the Greench (“Hmm sounds like a typical plan,” he’d said. Ha!)! Then he was like, “Coal! SERIOUSLY!” HA!
When we got back, Greatfather Winter rewarded us with snowball-powered snowblowing machines, and the Smokywood Pastures goblin that had sent us up there, whose name was Wulmort Jinglepocket (there with his wife, Macey Jinglepocket), gifted us a small, round, cute little bird named Pepe, with big, round, adorable eyes, who was wearing a Greatfather Winter suit jacket, hat, and beard, and was riding around in a tiny Greatfather Winter sleigh that was custom-built to fit him! The sleigh is absolutely beautiful, extraordinary craftsmanship, and the whole thing is just too cute to be allowed! We love them!
After that, there were a few more sleigh rides, then a trip to different Winter Veil trees around Ironforge for S.E.L.F.I.E. pictures, and then it was time to go. We got some really great pictures, had a really, REALLY great time, saved Winter Veil from the Greench, and had some quality time spent with very, VERY dear friends! What an amazing Winter Veil it was! We all had hugs and said our farewells, as it was getting late, and headed out. It was so great!
I ended the day with Celeste, Uncle Rugnar, Penny, and Dordy, and we all had a really awesome Winter Veil feast of steak, shrimp, salad, loaded baked potatoes, and Winter Veil wine, with apple cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream for dessert, with coffee! It was such an amazing Winter Veil by the time we all went to bed that night!
The rest of the week has passed uneventfully. We rested and had ourselves a really good Winter Veil week, swimming, fishing, building on the houseboat here and there, playing Miners and Ores, and just generally enjoying being a family through the peaceful week. It was so very, very awesome!
Next week, I think we might get back into finishing up the houseboat, as well as figuring out some closure for Grux’s antics, then securing mooring for the houseboat – which we still need to name! – to the Speedbarge. It should be an adventurous week, and I can’t wait to see how it all goes! YAY!
Nat heaved a happy sigh, smiling at the memories as she looked around the festive, decorated houseboat interior. She poked her mechanical pen back into the mechanical inkwell, then returned that and her diary to her pack.
Going outside, she heard a commotion – the Cogswitches had arrived at camp with Penny just as Uncle Rugnar had caught a particularly huge fish off the bamboo dock! Nat couldn’t help but burst out laughing… Uncle Rugnar was pulling his fishing rod, one Cogswitch twin was pulling him, the other twin was pulling the first twin, Penny was pulling THAT twin, and Dordy was running around them in circles, yip-yip-yipping excitedly, with Celeste down on the bamboo dock, rolling around laughing!
As Nat and Celeste laughed, Dordy barked like a maniac, and everyone else pulled, the fish came out of the water! Celeste’s eternium fishing line had held true! Next thing Nat knew, there was a HUGE salmon flopping around on the deck! What with the halibut Rugnar had already landed, there was now enough fish for all, including the Cogswitches!
Lunch was had, with a potato salad Celeste made and some fresh bread that Nat baked, and Uncle Rugnar provided dwarven brew from a keg. Everyone, even Dordy, got enough to eat to get quite full!
A return to swimming later that afternoon, after everyone had had sufficient time to digest their excellent meal, was enjoyed by all. Following that was teaching the Cogswitches to play Miners and Ores next, and Nat had fun taking sides with one twin or the other, cheering them on and calling out suggestions the way everyone else was.
Eventually, the minication wound down, and the evening grew late. Hot chocolate was enjoyed by all some time after a dinner of scorpid skewers (Nat’s had plenty of peppers!), and with the hot chocolate came many stories, told by all, mostly funny stories that had Nat and the others laughing often, and then, it being a worknight, it was Nat’s bedtime.
Nat went for a hug and a kiss for Celeste, then returned to the tent, so that the others could continue to talk and hang out on the houseboat. She went to bed with an enormous smile on her face. It had been a fantastic week, and she couldn’t wait to see what the next week would bring!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jan 4, 2024 14:14:53 GMT
(( Note: The following post contains mild adult themes. Not intended for under-eighteen readers. )) January the Fourth The familiar sounds and smells of the sea were once again present. Seagulls cried their cries, the tangy smell of the salt sea (and a hint of fish) melded with the smell of cookfire smoke and breakfast, and the sounds of boats, mechanical or wooden, could be heard in the distance.
Yet this wasn’t the flooded basin of the Thousand Needles Raceway, or even back home at the House-On-The-Spire across Turtle Bay from the Krasarang Wilds… This was Boralus!
Nat sat at the Cupola Café in Upton Borough in Boralus, enjoying the city that was really her favorite, despite spending so much time in Stormwind. Breakfast had just been enjoyed, and the open-air café was bustling, even though the sky was still dark and the stars and moon were still visible overhead, and even though the morning was a chilly January one.
Nat, along with Celeste, Uncle Rugnar, Penny, and, despite some anxious looks from rich Kul Tiran nobles, Dordy, were all seated at a booth with cover overhead and a view of the waterways of the beautiful city off to one side. They were waiting on Dock One Exports to open, the little homemaker’s shop that sits in the square where Pinky’s Groggery is, positioned right across the square from Tucker’s Toys. They wanted to go shopping for the houseboat in the flooded raceway, and they’d decided to make it extra comfy in there. Dock One Exports had been Nat’s suggestion, so Celeste decided to visit the Cupola Café (this time NOT getting drunk and setting fire to the table), and get breakfast before Dock One Exports opened. With bellies full, Celeste had decided to read a book about fishing spots to see if there were any she hadn’t previously known around Boralus, Uncle Rugnar had kicked back and crossed his arms behind his head for a bit of a nap, Penny was sketching blueprints for some new idea or other, and Dordy had sprawled out on his side under the table, belly full, snoozing off another food coma.
Nat, of course, had her diary spread out in front of her, since everyone had ended up sort of relaxing with their own thing. As the waitress came to refill coffees, Nat figured she’d tip double, since they were taking up a table a bit longer than the waitress was used to someone doing so before giving the table to another tipper quickly. Thanking the waitress, Nat, mechanical pen already in hand, applied pen tip to paper.
Dear diary,
Well, it’s a new year! The old year has come to a close. It was filled with Whitewind Company adventures (at least in the first half), Celeste adventures, discoveries, new relationships, relationships with others sadly fading as they took off for parts unknown, joy and sadness, terror and relief, triumphs and tragedies, excitement and relaxation.
A grand adventure that started the previous year just pearl diving with Celeste and ended with the Whitewind Company completing the reassembly of a powerfully enchanted suit of armor once belonging to a powerful Quel’dorei princess ended last year in great triumph. Everything from following journal entries of a Kul Tiran captain all over Pandaria, ending in a frightening encounter with his ghost atop the pandaren’s tallest mountain, the snowy, frigid, blustery peak of Mount Neverest, to gallivanting all over the Eastern Kingdoms tracking ancient history, to special black operations all over Kalimdor, to solving a murder mystery up in Hearthglen in northern Lordaeron, and so many other adventures were had to assemble the full set, which caused the beholder of even a single piece of the set to be roused into a roaring, highly energetic urge to charge forth to do noble battle for noble causes, which was the power the elven princess had in her day. Assembling the armor had had the unexpected result of freeing the princess’s spirit from the armor, and she thanked us by removing the powerful magics from the armor, so the armor was nothing more than a beautiful set standing on the Whitewind’s Grace, the company flagship, and would never again have such power that could fall into the wrong hands and cause conquest and mass slaughter. That was a win!
Bad luck spread from a hozen unwittingly spawning a sha of misfortune was quelled after a rather lengthy and alarming series of exceptionally unfortunate events, some that could, if not for timely intervention, have proved fatal! The hozen’s steadily increasing luck had spawned the Sha of Misfortune, which he’d surprisingly succeeded in binding to a jade monkey statue. My bad luck to begin with had been to find the darn statue and nearly get drowned as a result of the bad luck attached to it. It took a dangerous mission deep into hozen-controlled territory in the Jade Forest to discover that the statue had been made by none other than our friend Fo Fook back home at Anglers Wharf! Gosh, what a plot twist! The statue had eventually been contained and negated by a trillium box of Celeste’s own design, and the whole thing culminated in Celeste and I proving to Fo Fook that he isn’t chronically unlucky by taking him fishing again with the lucky lure he’d lost (which had started the whole thing of him believing that he was unlucky to begin with that he’d actually spawned the Sha of Misfortune). He was to fish in a grand Anglers Wharf fishing tournament aboard the Wave Dancer… WITH the jade statue onboard! It took a lot of coaxing to convince him to do it, but, when Celeste presented him with his lucky lure that we’d found fishing in secret, he decided to give it a try. After being pulled overboard by a gigantic grouper he was trying to rein in – eventually making it back aboard and WINNING the tournament with his catch, the Sha of Misfortune was dispelled totally by the hozen’s renewed faith in himself, and his fishing had been restored as well!
A casual flight around the jungle near our home revealed a newly-caved-in pothole in the rain forest, quickly causing the casual, relaxing flight around the jungle to develop into an archaeological expedition that spawned innovative new ideas and inventions – everything from a tiny, wall-climbing vehicle for Penny to the holo-mapping technology we used in the Mogu ruins we found there and in the flooded Thousand Needles Raceway basin – and betrayal by a self-important Explorer’s League senior member trying to discredit the young, upstart human woman nearly led to disaster, and we were able to pump out whole halls and chambers of methane gas, to boot. Fights with a new sort of clay quilens, the discovery of a scene in which it appeared pandaren slaves had rioted against their mogu oppressors, the discovery of ancient mogu frescos depicting ancient history and the clay quilens, the peril of a team that included everything from gnomes to Draenei, and an extraordinary amount of ingenuity by Celeste comprised the whole dig, and it was filled with adventure from start to finish! Engineering, archaeology, sudden danger, betrayal, so very much happened during that archaeological dig! The whole thing spanned some months, but even though it took so long, it was one heck of an adventure! All was handled successfully, though, and Celeste and I, along with Penny and several others, became official Explorer’s League members! What an amazing surprise ending for all of us!
The darkest of tragedies struck after that when I visited the broken, magically chaotic tower of Karazhan with the Whitewind Company, led there by a recurring dream I’d had for the past three years running. It was the most selfish thing I’ve ever done, letting my friends talk them into bringing them with me into an incredibly dangerous place for no other reason than a stupid power grab for me. I’d been trained in Demonology Mastery by my warlock uncle, and, here in the tower of Karazhan, I had the chance to learn the Affliction and Destruction trees of the same class of magic, and from the books owned by the most powerful mage to have ever lived, no less! The power overwhelmed me, as it does many warlocks who bite off more than they can chew, and I ended up sapping the life from my own dear friends just to grow in the powers the books I found instructed, and even TESTED these new powers on them! It took me a very long time to recover from what I did to them, and I haven’t seen any of them except my bestie Nah since then as a result, and even Nah isn’t around that often anymore, though she DID get through two trees of warlock training herself, Destruction and Affliction, as well as all the utility spells, the better to learn personally what I went through, and how to help me not do that ever again as a result. My bestie Nah, meditations with Madame Eva back in my hometown of Darkshire, and an amazing new invention by Celeste that drew any urges to drain life for power to a cluster of liferoot crystals that, when sapped, long explanation short, would trigger something in the device to beep and shock me, snapping me out of it. That Celeste should invent something like this, and Nah should learn such magics, just for me, makes me want to cry a bit, overwhelmed with the love they have for me, that they should go to such lengths for me. But… these days, I’ve been in total control for months, so all’s well that ends well, I suppose!
The annual salmon run in Grizzly Hills loomed next, and, after the heartache of Karazhan and its aftermath, a calm, relaxing camping trip to our favorite camping spot in the Grizzly Hills was exactly the medicine I needed to recover. We knew, however, that we’d have to kick it off by thwarting the annual goblin shenanigans to overfish the salmon run and risk driving the local school of fish right into extinction just to line their own pockets with gold. So, Celeste scouted ahead with her hook drone with the holo-mapping technology, and discovered a plan to use hot air balloons and chutes in the water to suck up lots of water – and all the salmon in it, up into a pipe, which in turn came up out of the water to the balloon and then shot all the water back out into the creek through a net that caught all the salmon. Celeste stopped it all with an ingenious shock-and-awe air raid! The MUTT and the Flying Nosebleed made short work of the hot air balloons, the fish in the nets were released back into the creek, the wreckage was pulled from the water so the denizens of the creeks wouldn’t be harmed by it, and a solid MONTH of salmon run camping trip was enjoyed! We capped it all off by building a treehouse, too, an idea of Celeste’s that came from dwarves in Dun Morogh building waystations for travelers and mountaineers to shelter from terrible blizzards and warm up with some food. The treehouse was up in a trio of trees near the campsite, and my bestie Nah came the week after we left to hang out with me while I told her stories and she used her druidic magic to camouflage it all from above, below, and the sides, so that the natural, pristine, untouched sort of scenery of the place would be maintained! We told the guys at Amberpine Lodge where it was and how to access it so that they could spread the word to any travelers that might end up in need and were a bit too far from the Lodge to take refuge quickly. It was a super relaxing trip – well, after thwarting the goblins anyway, of course – and exactly what I needed to heal up mentally and emotionally after Karazhan!
After that was Celeste’s idea to relax even more by building a houseboat! She wanted to revisit the Thousand Needles Raceway to build it, both because it’s a really cool place, and because all the salvage we needed to build the houseboat was just laying right there, at the bottom of the flooded basin! Free houseboat, WOO! Only problem was, Grux, loser of the build-your-own-boat race the previous year, was STILL smarting from losing to Penny, and didn’t want to let us use the salvage rights we won in the area. He’s been working to sabotage and attack our camp so many times! He got caught in the end, however, while Celeste was getting material needed from Un’Goro Crater to get an underwater picture of an underwater mine he’d put on her hook drone she’d adapted for the water. Penny and I caught him while Celeste was away, him and a bunch of his goons, using engineering technology and a bunch of warlock magic to shock and awe them into submission on a tiny ledge at the edge of the water near our camp! HA! Now they’re awaiting sentencing by the Steamwheedle Cartel – not a good situation for ANYone to be in – and the family and I are just enjoying life on the houseboat, even having Winter Veil there once it was mostly completed! Uncle Rugnar and Penny, that is, both essentially family by this point, and Winter Veil was great! And that’s how we’ve capped off the year!
Winter Veil itself was an incredible morning!
As soon as breakfast was done, it was time for presents! Once I was once again comfortably sitting down with my coffee, Celeste brought out four packages.
''Alright, so it's a gift in parts from all of us,” she explained to me. “There's a theme, though. Here's this first one; it’s from Uncle Rugnar.''
The package was a square box, about four inches to each side and decorated, a bit awkwardly, with festive paper that had obviously been acquired from one of the Winter Veil merchants in Ironforge. The paper was tied with an iridescent ribbon that matched the hues of Whisperwing's scales. Opening it, I found a really neat leather toolbelt with my name embossed on the inside! SO COOL! It fit snugly around my waist, being tailored to me specifically. There were no tools in the belt, but there were many pockets and slings for them. Awesome! There was a bag of ginger cookies just for me, too, with a note in Rugnar's blocky handwriting that said: ''To Natasha, whose smile brightens even the darkest nights. Uncle Rugnar and Whisps.'' Awwww! I thanked them both profusely, which led to Rugnar chuckling bashfully and Whisperwings cooing. So adorable, that little guy!
''Now, this second one is from Penny,'' Celeste said, letting the mechagnome present me with the present she had made. It was a metal box, heavy (due to the contents), and about 16 inches long and half as wide and tall. A button on the top with the words PRESS ME etched onto the top caused two flaps to open from the middle. So cool! Mechanical gears raised each side, opening the box completely. Neatly stacked in racks inside the box were tools. Screwdrivers, hammers (yes more than one, oh gosh!), hand saws, small powered drills, even a soldering kit! WOW! On the inside of the flap was a plaque that read: :To my friend Natasha Ebonlocke. May these tools help you as faithfully as you have helped me - Penelope Cognilia Boltbucket.”
I thanked Penny with a great big hug after that, my eyes alight with gratitude for the amazing gift. Penny sniffled a bit, smiling back in the hug, at a loss for words.
''This one is from Dordy. As we were preparing your gifts, he ACTUALLY brought it to us and dropped it in the toolbox Penny gave you! I think the message was clear.''
Dordy's gift was simply wrapped in brown paper, but Celeste had of course, doodled Dordy on it: the fiery pup was running around with his favorite wrench in his mouth! Awww! Inside the simple box was, in fact, Dordy's favorite wrench! So adorable! Its edges were worn and there were teeth marks everywhere, but it was recognizable nonetheless. As soon as I took it out, the pup raised his wagging behind in the air and lowered his front paws to the group, calling out to her to play.
''I think he was just hoping someone would throw it back to him eventually. So probably not really a gift for you after all...'' Celeste laughed, and I did as well, nodding my agreement with her. I threw the wrench, and the presents were added to by a game of Fetch for Dordy, in which whomever he brought the wrench to threw it someplace on the houseboat for him again. He’s so CUTE!
''Finally, this one is from me. I guess you can see the theme here...'' Celeste's gift was about eight inches long, and inch or so thick and six inches wide. She had wrapped it in purple paper with golden suns glued onto it. Inside was a book with the title “Nat's Guide to Engineering. - Part One - Making Your Own Drone and Other Useful Gadgets by Celeste McCullough.”
True to its title, it had indeed detailed drawing and schematics for building a hook drone with possible variations! I recognized both Celeste's careful drawings as well as the silly doodles that decorated the margins of each and every page! So very Celeste! Ha! There were other more simple gadgets to be built though like goggles, mechanical engineering tools and things to make life simpler! The first pages of the book had tips and tricks for simple engineering work that I could reference, and a glossary of engineering parts at the end! It’s such a great gift! I’m definitely gonna use all this stuff a LOT!
I thanked Celeste next, wrapping her up in a huge, huge hug, and giving her a giant kiss right there on the spot, even with PEOPLE watching! It made me blush huge after, but gosh, I loved it all so much, and I really wanted to show it to Celeste that I did!
''You're getting to be handy at engineering,” Celeste explained, “and we all figured you liked learning about it. We decided to pitch in to give you a leg up on the family trade!'' Celeste said with a wide grin.
Ohmigosh, I love, love, LOVED my engineering gifts! I felt like I'd taken three giant strides ahead in my engineering already, just having these wonderful gifts, and I got up to rush to everyone present and give them a huge hug all over again, even Dordy, who was glad to take the wrench he'd deposited and was still having a go playing Keep-Away with the whole family for a time!
After playing with Chief Engineer Dordy, as Celeste called him for the game, the family settled back down to our coffee and to catch our breath, laughing as we settled back in. It was time for MY presents to THEM now!
For Uncle Rugnar, I had a big package of smoked dusky crab leg jerky, the Darkshire delicacy made into a traveler's (or, as I intended for Uncle Rugnar, a hunter's and mountaineer’s) food for the trails and backcountry. With it went a large volume on masterful Miners and Ores games throughout the ages, with the unspoken intention to give him some hope when playing against his crafty niece (the gift got Celeste a wink and a grin from me, hehe). Uncle Rugnar chuckled bashfully again, gruffly muttering that he’d likely find it was he himself that wrote the book, his pride getting the better of him for a moment. Yet still, he gave me another hug, thanking me warmly with an equally warm smile.
For Penny, a cookbook for all things Halfhill, as her delight in experiencing food that wasn't grey nutritional paste hadn't abated yet, as well as an upgraded set of piloting goggles (built by me with Celeste's help and encouragement) that fit her head comfortably and had thermal, night vision, zoom in/zoom out, and periscope capabilities. She had to get up and give me another hug after that one! She’s so sweet!
For Dordy, a package of smoked meats from pandaren, human, dwarven, worgen, gnomish, draenei, and Kaldorei lands, all flavored to the tastes of the lands of their origination, and a super comfy new dog bed for snoozing in the basement workshop, the Wave Dancer, or anywhere else he might want to snooze. It was big, fluffy, cushy, and yet lightweight enough for him to easily pick up and carry around wherever he wants it! Dordy delighted in the bed, and soon had several pieces of the smoked meat scattered along it to peruse and chew on for a while. I saved most of the bag so he’d have more for later. He looked so happy on his new bed, munching on his new treats! SO STINKIN’ CUTE!
I saved Celeste's gifts for last. First, there was a photo album filled with photos of just me, clearly having been taken over the course of the year. Ohmigosh, I blushed BEET RED as Celeste opened it, especially as, at first, she opened it for all to see, then quickly snapped it up out of sight, as Uncle Rugnar and Penny retreated with smirks and snickers. Winter photos of me wearing skimpy Greatfather Winter suits or other skimpy outfits that were quite revealing (or sometimes nothing), set in various Winter Veil or just outdoor winter scenes, spring photos of me sprawled out in a bed of flowers wearing a bikini (if even that much) or posing in something skimpy next to a creek and blushing, summertime pictures of me with wet hair, coming out of a river in a tiny bikini, water cascading off of me (or skinnydipping), among other summer scenes, and fall pictures of me standing in a grove of autumn trees full of brilliant autumn colors, wearing nothing save for a warm-looking scarf that artfully trailed down to strategically cover certain areas of myself, as well as other risqué autumn pictures, all taken by setting my S.E.L.F.I.E. camera to snap a picture after a delay in time. I blushed profusely as Celeste flipped through the first several pages with a grin, sitting back in her chair and propping the book up to face only her, glad she'd anticipated people being present for gifts and putting the Greatfather Winter outfits in first, the least revealing pictures in the book.
Still blushing furiously, I reached for my next gift for Celeste. "An Updated Compendium of Azeroth's Finest Fishing Spots," by Nat Pagle, written (and autographed!) by the man himself that very year, to include every fishing spot he'd discovered anywhere, all the way up through the recently rediscovered Dragon Isles! Key locations, tips, optimal lure information, and types of fish themselves were just the tip of the iceberg in this book, which was quite thick and extremely informative! Celeste is still reading it here in our breakfast booth in the Cupola Café in Boralus, where we’re waiting on Dock One Exports to open for houseboat home stuff shopping! She’s totally immersed in the book, which is so awesome!
Finally, a third gift crossed over to Celeste from me. It was an exquisite pair of earrings, a nod to the original Winter Veil gift of deepest meaning I'd given to Celeste, on her Uncle Rugnar's front porch in Ironforge. The earrings were a small pair of stud earrings with real, extremely expensive-looking diamonds. I showed Celeste how to open one of the earrings to reveal a tiny image inside. Opening the other earring, one could look through the diamond and magnify the image, which was a picture of Celeste standing at the prow of the Wave Dancer, fishing rods rigged around the rails, looking thoughtfully out over the waves from under the wide brim of her fishing hat as I stood behind her, hands around her waist, chin resting on her shoulder. Dordy sat in front of Celeste, between her feet, sitting with his head held high, a regal look on his fiery face as he, too, looked out over the waves. The family Celeste loved, the engineering and fishing Celeste loved, in a place Celeste loved, all in one picture, all in beautiful diamond earrings, one for BOTH ears!
I smiled warmly at Celeste, enjoying watching her use the earrings to view the image, and giving Uncle Rugnar and Penny a look through the diamond at the tiny image as well.
Celeste was, of course, very thrilled that the blushing woman she’d married actually went as far as getting all those risqué photos of herself. Immediately after the gift-giving part was over, she insisted on going through the whole album more thoroughly. Oh my goodness! She bookmarked some of them for... later discussion (this said with a grin and eyebrow wriggling). GOSH! It was unfortunate that we weren't alone, she told me in a whisper, because this was giving her ideas. Geez Louise!
The compendium of fishing spots, a MUST for all anglers, Celeste said, would be a great addition to her library. She showed a few places to her uncle that neither she nor Rugnar had ever been to or even heard of, and they both looked very eager to plan a fishing trip. Celeste loved that her friend Other Nat had even autographed it!
The earrings made Celeste blurry-eyed for a moment. They were a perfect gift. I couldn't fail to notice Celeste absentmindedly toying with her torn earlobe a few times during the day, a thoughtful expression on her freckled faced when she did. She didn't look sad or angry when she did that, just... planning something. For now, she put the earrings higher on her ears, adding to her small collection.
After that, Rugnar, now very confident, wanted to challenge Celeste to Miners and Ores. Unfortunately, he was over-eager, and spent more time consulting his new book then actually watching the game. He confused a few maneuvers the book suggested and lost quite a few times. The last game though, he won, and he spent the rest of the day telling everyone again and again, how he had won the epic duel of the century. He had finally bested his niece, thanks to his ''secret solution'' (which was the book I gave him) HA! I’m so glad he’s enjoying his new gift so much!
I thoroughly enjoyed Winter Veil Day with my family. Every whispered innuendo from Celeste, every eyebrow wriggle, every game of Miners and Ores, every meal, playing with Penny and Dordy too, it was all a storybook family Winter Veil, and I couldn't think of a single thing that could have made it any better than this!
Nobody did any work on the houseboat that day. It was all about having fun! The afternoon sun shone bright, and there was swimming to be had! Mid-afternoon, Celeste and Rugnar went to hunt one of the giant turtles swimming lazily in the basin. Rugnar wanted to make his famous turtle chowder, which he rarely got to make. They returned quickly from their hunt, which involved harpoons and ropes and not guns. The turtle had been cleaned away from the houseboat, and Uncle Rugnar took his time cooking it to perfection! The family enjoyed a good meal and more stories from Uncle Rugnar's days as a miner for Ironforge in the evening. It was so good!
I loved every minute of the entire day. The gifts, the meals, the fun we all had, it was a memorable day, start to finish! I relished the stories told over dinner, and, after dinner, the last few games of Miners and Ores, as everyone had a few turns, and had fun watching and cheering the players on when not playing. A dessert of vanilla cheesecake with strawberry swirls and a delicious, sweet crispy pie crust was had with coffee after the turtle chowder, and, as the sun went down and the stars came out, nothing would do but that we have one last swim, this time in the dark, under the moon and stars. After the swim, they unwound with another slice of cheesecake and a bit more coffee, now in pajamas, sitting in the glow of the Winter Veil tree and all Celeste's and Penny's festive colored glass decorations. It had been a day to remember for sure!
What a great year, start to finish! Even though some parts were terrifying and some parts were tragic, overall, the year was amazing in SO many ways! And now, to cap it all off with such a great Winter Veil, WOW!
And now, kicking off the New Year, here we sit at Cupola Café, and we can see people from Dock One Exports heading to the shop there, so we’re ready to go buy some nice dishes and furniture and stuff for the houseboat! We’ll have to wake up Uncle Rugnar and Dordy, of course, hehe… It’s time to go SHOPPING! WOOHOO!
Gosh, what a great year, and what a great start to the new one! And I can’t wait to see what happens THIS year! It’s sure to be another amazing year, and I’m SO ready for it! YAY!
Nat heaved a huge, happy sigh as she thought about Winter Veil and the year in review, smiling broadly as she poked her mechanical pen back into its spot in her mechanical inkwell, snapped her diary shut, and returned it all back to her pack. She looked up to find the waitress giving her table the stinkeye, and she knew why – they’d now been here so long, she could have had TWO groups tipping her in this span. Nat blushed, feeling guilty, then pulled out enough gold to tip for THREE generously-tipping groups. The waitress looked bashful then, and grateful, blushing and looking away. Feeling better, Nat left the tip on the table, gently woke Uncle Rugnar and Dordy, and everyone put their stuff away and headed out, being sure to thank the waitress heartily as they went.
The group headed down the hill to Dock One Exports, finding the door freshly unlocked and still empty. They had the whole place to themselves! A couch for the sitting area was quickly chosen and agreed upon by all, a dark brown, nearly black, really, cushy, comfy leather couch with room for all of five of them (counting Dordy).
After that, the group split up, searching for items to make the houseboat more comfortable. Dishes, silverware, cushions, and other odds and ends for the houseboat were rounded up, prompting Celeste to proclaim that cupboards and shelves would be the next houseboat building project, a simple enough project, given the ingenuity of the four engineers present. She gave an encouraging grin to Nat as she said that, prompting a bashful smile and blush from Nat, who, thanks to her new engineering gifts and especially Celeste’s encouragement, felt more confident in her ability to help build the cupboards and shelves!
A few paintings of maritime-related scenes were also selected, one each by Celeste, Nat, Uncle Rugnar, Penny, and even Dordy, who had been taken by Celeste to sniff at each of them until he pawed at one a bit. Everyone knew the pup wasn’t actually interested in the pictures themselves, but it was fun to have him “help” anyway!
Dordy helped as well, yip-yipping from a corner and dragging out a large broom, prompting a cry of dismay from the shop’s owners and a subsequent assurance from Celeste that she’d pay for it. The broom, a dustpan, and a mop were purchased, and Celeste scooped Dordy up, thanking him for being such a good boy and helping, but also keeping him out of trouble for the rest of the shopping trip!
After that came the selection of four very comfortable armchairs to go with the couch in the sitting area, as well as a coffee table and end tables. Finally, a bed for either end of the houseboat, and curtains to draw across them to partition them off, were selected, and the shopping was complete!
The MUTT and the Flying Nosebleed were instrumental in getting everything back to the houseboat. The Flying Nosebleed’s winch was lowered to grab the couch by the knot in a series of ropes that went to all four corners of the couch, its cargo hold packed with all their smaller purchases. Two chairs were lashed to the couch, and the MUTT’s claw arm, padded thickly with packing blankets Celeste promised to send back to the shop by hook drone, held the other two chairs. Everything secured and ready to go, Nat paid the sum owed, and the group headed off, flying through Celeste’s Theramore portal and heading back to the houseboat.
Much of the rest of the day consisted of unpacking and setting up the furniture and finding a place to temporarily deposit all their homemaker items. The beds were made up at either end of the houseboat, the curtain rods installed, and the curtains hung.
The group decided to take the rest of the day off after that, with the cupboard and shelf-building for all the houseboat’s comforts purchased that day to be put off until next week, so the final day of Nat’s minication could be enjoyed. They decided on a lunch at Theramore after that, finding a venison stew that was rich and hearty, then returning to camp for a swim. After a nice, long swim that went on until everyone got tired, they decided to relax for the rest of the day on the Wave Dancer, hooking up fishing rods around the small craft and just lounging around the boat chatting happily, occasionally powering through a rousing fish fight here and there. Everyone caught at least a couple of fish apiece, and the winner this time was Uncle Rugnar, who proudly announced to all who’d listen that he’d secured a Thousand Needles Raceway record with a forty-two-pound Kalimdor Blue, a sky-blue catfish native to the continent that made for a rich and hearty dinner, prepared proudly by Uncle Rugnar himself. He seasoned each segment of the enormous fish to the preferences of everyone else present, and dinner turned out to be a delicious, warm family affair that left everyone with full bellies and tipsy heads from the keg dwarven stout he’d uncorked for the occasion. A nightcap of coffee and cheesecake was enjoyed over a few games of Miners and Ores to end the day after dinner was over!
Thus it was that Nat went to bed at the end of her minication, belly full, having had three amazing meals that day, a great time shopping with her family and setting up the houseboat for comfort, tired from that and a swim and a few fish fights, and heart full of warmth from the day, from the Winter Veil, and from the review of a great year. She fell asleep with a great big smile on her face, totally prepared to see what this wondrous new year might bring her!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jan 11, 2024 12:29:12 GMT
January the Eleventh The familiar but long-missed surroundings of the workshop in the first sub-level of the House-On-The-Spire brought with it much comfort and joy. The workshop was every bit as strewn about with half-finished projects Celeste swore she’d be getting back to as ever, various bits of machinery and inventions that looked like stacks of parts and half-assembled piles with wires sticking out everywhere. The endearing trait of the family’s best engineer wasn’t the only thing to be found here. Wondrous inventions like the MUTT, the Flying Nosebleed cargo seaplane, the mechanical fishtank with its mechanical fish that threw flashes of the tank’s lights in every direction as their metal scales moved around, and Nat’s mechanical inkwell and mechanical pen on the workbench, were also much in evidence, proof that Celeste could and would finish the other projects eventually.
Also missed was the wonderful jungle fragrance of jungle flowers, the rich, earthy smell of the jungle floor, the smell of the woodsy trees, the smells of the Krasarang Wilds next to which Celeste and Nat built their home. Combining with this was the salt sea air, the faint smell of fish from Anglers Wharf below, the cries of the seagulls – much more in evident in this place rich with life than back at the Tanaris desert camp – and the voices of the Anglers Wharf residents below. The clicking and whirring of contraptions around the workshop contributed further to the low murmur of the comforting little noises of home.
Nat heaved a happy sigh, glad to be back here after being gone for so long. Not that she didn’t like leaving home; quite to the contrary, she enjoyed getting out of the house from time to time for rousing adventures and roughing it in harsher places while she adventured for some endeavor that would make her and Celeste happier, and their lives easier. But it was also always nice to return home as well!
She looked over at Celeste, watching for a short moment as Celeste copied notes and drawings and diagrams from the engineering notebook she kept onto a far larger square of parchment intended for blueprints. The full plans of a long-awaited project were finally going to get started, and this was the first step! Nat grinned with excitement, then stifled a giggle as she watched Celeste make one of her infamous silly doodles in the margins – it was Dordy, wearing a fleet admiral’s tricorn, reared up on his hind legs and clutching a cutlass, standing on a platform being raised out of the water, seeming to bark commands from under his admiral’s hat as he did so.
She looked to the real pup next. Dordy was on one of the wings of the Flying Nosebleed, gnawing and worrying his direhorn horn. The tip of the horn was getting about as much attention now as Celeste’s oldest wrench, Dordy’s favorite toy of all time. A second look showed that that wrench was there under one of his paws. Nat stifled another giggle, not wanting to disturb Celeste while the master engineer was at work, and returned to her own project.
She had her diary spread out in front of her, of course, next to her mechanical inkwell, and her mug of coffee sat next to Celeste’s in between them on the workbench. It had been a long time she she’d written a post from home, and now, she was going to be able to! Smiling at that happy thought, she poked the button on the mechanical inkwell that popped out the mechanical pen. She applied pen tip to paper, beginning to write on the diary’s next blank page.
Dear diary,
Goodness gracious, it’s so, so great to be home! Gosh, we had a LOT of fun in the Grizzly Hills and the Thousand Needles, and those two consecutive vacation camping trips were so good, it seems to put the bad memories of Karazhan far, far in the distant past. I feel so great now, and I bet the rest of the family does too!
Of course, trust Celeste not to sit still for long. Already she’s got our next project going! She has decided we’ll finally start on that cargo dock and cargo lift for the rock spire she’s been planning since like the year before last!
But before we came home and got settled in and did that, we had to officially christen the vacation houseboat! At least Celeste had plenty of help for that!
“Alright Cogswitches!” Celeste said turning to look at the gnomes with her hands on her hips “We’re finishing up here today then the houseboat i-“
“RACEHOME!”
“Haven’t decided on a name yet.”
“FLOATINGTON!”
“What? No, I said Nat and I haven’t talked about a name for this place yet!”
“CAMP FLOAT-A-WAY”
“Okay, how do you even come up with this stuff?”
“BAMBOOBARGE!”
“Stars, this is just… NAAAATT!” Celeste shouted, hoping I would hear her from where I was standing. We had decided to switch the water cannon over to the houseboat, and Celeste had suggested that I try my hand at it while she helped the Cogswitch twins get settled.
I turned when yelled for, seeing what was going on, and accidentally turning the water cannon perilously close to Penny, who dived for cover with a laugh.
"Oh gosh, OOPS!" I exclaimed. I righted the water cannon, then turned back to Celeste to see what she needed. At the explanation given by Celeste and the Cogswitches, I giggled at the suggestions, then decided to pitch in and help.
"Erm... The McCullough-Ebonlocke Estate? The M.E.E.! O-or... the House And Vacation Ocean Carriage... the H.A.V.O.C., which is anything but! Or erm... gosh... Oh! Or the Recreational Ocean-Faring Lounge... the R.OF.L.! Erm... gimme a few, I can keep coming up with more suggestions!"
"Oh! How about the Recreational Ocean Yacht And Lounge! The R.O.Y.A.L.!"
“LOUNGE-TOWN”” The Cogswitches alternately continued together. “VACATIONSTATION!” “ESTATOPOLIS!” “YACHTZEE!”
"THE CELESTEMOBILE! THE HOUSEBOAT OF DOOM! THE KALIMDOR COASTRUNNER! THE QUINTESSENTIAL QUACKHOUSE!" I bellowed, trying to keep up with the Cogswitches and laughing all the while.
Celeste looked overwhelmed, trying to shut up the gnomes while listening to my suggestions. Finally she collapsed in a chair, looking spent.
“I never knew naming something could be so exhausting.”
I deactivated the water cannon for a moment, laughing hard and going to Celeste to sit in her lap (hopefully not squishing the much smaller woman in the process) and throwing my arms around her, playfully giving her a conciliatory pat on the head.
Celeste was smiling though, having enjoyed the silly fun. “Alright, a lot of those were great suggestions. I liked Floatington, but I also liked the R.O.Y.A.L.. HEY PENNY!” Celeste called out. “C’mere, you’re going to pick out the houseboat’s name for us. There’s great selections to choose from.”
Penny came over as bidden. This was a mechagnome that had survived being an outcast on Mechagon Isle, survived King Mechagon's attempts to fully machinate every living thing, survived a rigged boat race, goblin invasions, and crazed clay quilen attacks. Yet asked to name the houseboat, she looked mortified!
"I-I shall do my best..." she squeaked nervously. "So erm... What's the list you've narrowed it down to?"
Celeste gave Penny her favorites, then let the others speak up as well. She smiled encouragingly at Penny.
"I-I liked the R.O.F.L., but only insofar as it's just so silly," I said. "I agree with Floatington and the R.O.Y.A.L.! The Vacationstation was great too! And Camp Float-A-Way!"
Penny peered around at the others, who peered back at her, the suspense on their faces building. Wanting to bounce and flail around on the spot from nervousness, she took the two most common ones yet:
"W-well..." she said slowly. "Remember how we called the little craft you made for me the COMPASS, but it's also nicknamed the Penny Pincher? Well... we could do the same thing here, an acronym, but with a cool nickname? The Floatington and the R.O.Y.A.L. seem to be the most commonly repeated names. Could call it the R.O.Y.A.L., with the Cogswitch Twins' and Celeste's favored alternative name of the Floatington? Or vice versa -- Floatington official name, R.O.Y.A.L. nickname?"
“Penny that’s a stroke of genius.” Celeste said, then looked at the Cogswitch twins. “Cogswitches, while you’re here, I want a sign that says FLOATINGTON. With a pointing mechanical hand and flashing neon colors. Make EVERYONE know we’re here! THEN find scrap metal on the sea floor. I’ll leave you a deepdive helmet and put up the letters for R.O.Y.A.L. on the side of the boat. Make it official!”
The Cogswitches immediately went to their packs to draw up plans for an electric sign fitting Celeste's description. Penny agreed to go with them to Mechagon Isle's junkyard as soon as need be to find the necessary mechanical parts to make such a moving sign, should any parts needed not be found on the sea floor, which the twins fully expected to be the case.
Celeste wrapped her arms around me and hugged me close.
“Soooo now that we’re just about done here, are you ready to go home? I have questions about the, uhm album. So, so, soooo many questions. And also things it’s inspiring me to do… how about it?”
I blushed like a dang tomato, unable to meet Celeste's eyes, though I smiled bashfully.
"Oh gosh..." I blurted out nervously. "Erm... hehe... I-I suppose so, yeah... we've been away from home since the end of September or beginning of October. Home does sound nice!"
Celeste, Dordy, and I stayed for lunch, then finally packed up the Wave Dancer and headed home. Without any cargo, Celeste was able to easily maneuver her craft through the clumsy pirate blockade, though admittedly, the pirates had likely learned not to mess with us anymore! HA!
We were home just before dinner time. Suyin had offered to come around to care for the house and the plants and chickens in the lower level from time to time. The House-on-the-Spire looked clean and the air smelled fresh, thanks to her! We’ll have to remember to do something for her soon as thanks!
“It’s good to be back,” Celeste said when we got in. “No more adventures away from home for a good while, Nat. I promise. Besides, I still want to build that dock and cargo elevator I’ve been talking about and, since there are TWO engineers living here, it shouldn’t be too hard.”
I walked in the door, smiling to see our lovely home again.
"GOSH, it's so great to be back!" I exclaimed. "I had lots and LOTS of fun on our trips, but this is just so... comfortable and comforting! I bet Uncle Rugnar and Penny feel the same way, back in their own homes."
Dordy, meanwhile, was yip-yipping around the yard outside, in a frenzy to restore all his markers for his territory all over the spire's top, sniffing new smells, running off perceived invaders. After some time, he ran all over the inside as well, upstairs and downstairs, though of course he knew enough NOT to mark his territory in here. He looked equally pleased to be home!
"No need to make promises about no more adventures away from home for a while, though," I spoke up a bit later as they unpacked. "I'm always down for those as well! But yeah, it IS nice to have a real house, a real kitchen, a real bed to sleep in, all the comforts only found at your true home!"
“How about I send a drone to Halfhill?” Celeste suggested, also unpacking. “Maybe get some noodles for dinner? Meanwhile, a hot bath would be nice. There’s this one picture you took where you’re only VERY barely wearing a towel that I’d like to see for real…” Celeste kissed her blushing wife on the cheek then headed upstairs. Goodness gracious…
"O-okay... heh..." I predictably blushed once more, but felt excited about what was to come now that we had no houseguests.
In the end, the drone had never been sent out. Bath time had lasted for much longer than expected and the “adventure” had continued in the bedroom. Somewhere between the action, we had taken a rest and share a bottle of white and some crackers for dinner, but clearly food wasn’t the most important thing on the menu…
Both of us finally fell asleep much, much later, awash in the afterglow and tangle together in bed.
I slept soundly and long after the steamy – in more ways than one, given the bath setting – adventure with Celeste. Helping that was sleeping in a real bed after so long in a canvas camp bed. I love the canvas camp bed, of course, but there's nothing like sleeping in one's own real bed in one's own home... especially after a lascivious romp with one's partner!
The next morning Celeste slept in late and made sure I stayed in bed too. My ROPHE bot took care of letting Dordy out and feeding him. The morning sun bathed the room and the gentle, warm sea breeze made the curtains sway gently in front of the open windows and patio door. Everything was just so comfy and nice!
“I’m not sure why I keep dragging you away from this place. I can’t imagine a more perfect home,” Celeste said, lying on her belly with her head propped in her hand while she gazed down at me.
I sighed happily, the home, the warmth, the creature comforts, and especially the present company making everything just... perfect.
"I agree," I said. "It's so perfect here! Our lovely dream home! Though I understand why we leave. It's because there are other perfect places to be, too, like our Grizzly Hills campsite during the annual salmon run, or the Thousand Needles raceway basin we've adventured in and built memories in together, just like Grizzly Hills. Boralus, the site of so very many memories, including the ones we share with each other, and it's so beautiful there, too. Jungles and deserts and swamps and just so, so many cool, perfect places to go adventuring in!
"Besides," I continued, "even one's perfect dream home can develop a bit of monotony after one stays in it long enough. The desire to get out and rough it and adventure always takes hold in the end! I'd say, it's not so much that it's bad to leave our perfect home... it's more like... adventuring is soooo fun and so cool, and coming BACK to our perfect home in the end, and being able to know that we have that to look forward to, rounds out the perfection of roughing it in a good, rousing, invigorating adventure!"
''Well, right now, the only adventure I want is right here with you. In this room. Everything else can wait,'' Celeste said softly, sighing happily. ''Although I think later this week we should visit the farm. Penny's done a good job with those giant veggies. I wonder if we could start donating some of our crops to the orphanage. Your hunting idea with donating our catches was great.''
I blushed again, then spoke once more.
"I would love to visit the farm! We haven't worked on that thing in ages! And yeah, taking in some veggies to supplement the meat we took the orphans would be an awesome idea, and a really fun trip to take!"
“Anything else you want to do? Assuming we ever get out of bed?” Celeste asked.
I giggled at that, rising from bed to begin getting dressed.
"Well, I suppose finally getting started on the home improvement you've had planned for like a year or two might be fun!"
Celeste plops back down onto the mattress, on her back with a disappointed pout on her lips. “Great, now that you’re turning into a real engineer you have all this energy to work,” she groaned, though her tone was playful.
Pushing the covers down to show off her sleepwear , she gave me an inviting smile. “You sure I can’t interest you in a different kind of playtime?”
I laughed, then blushed as Celeste proposed a different idea.
"Oh gosh... erm... I-I'm definitely up for that as well... hehe..."
Much, much later, in the afternoon, Celeste handed me a cup of coffee and a notebook.
“My ideas for the lift and cargo dock are in there, somewhere,” she said, dropping down on the loveseat on the veranda overlooking the South Seas where we choose to talk about the project. The warm breeze brought in the salty smell of sea air, and there was plenty of sunshine to bask in. Dordy was with us, chasing suncrawlers who were used to him by now and easily evaded his eager lunges.
I thanked Celeste for the coffee and sipped at it as I flipped through the notebook, finding quite a few highly interesting unfinished projects, the progress of which were strewn all over the workshop, usually. Eventually, I found the right page. The lift and the cargo dock, the blueprints, the notes, and the doodles! Smiling, I passed the notebook back over to Celeste.
"Found it!" I said with a smile.
“Take a look at the designs, tell me what you think or if you see any errors. I didn’t iron out the schematic yet.” Celeste said, passing me back the notebook and smiling encouragingly.
"WH-WHA--" I spluttered, eyes wide. "Goodness gracious, you want ME to tell YOU that YOU did schematics wrong?!"
“No, no, well… not exactly” Celeste replied with a grin. “I want you to look at it, see if you find mistakes, missing things, or even improvements. There might be some or none at all, but having a second engineer to bounce ideas off of is a very good thing to have. The mechanics of this are fairly simple. Weight, counterweight, load capacity and lift speed.”
"Yeah, that's what I'm saying – ME looking YOUR work over is like the king asking the peasant what he should do in a situation with the kingdom! I-I'll try, though..."
I looked the schematics over and found no obvious mistakes. I did, however, have a couple of ideas.
"I-I suppose we could add guard rails around the outside of the lift platform. Maybe a governor for the motor to keep the speed safe for the lift. Maybe some kind of insect repellent for the vines you have indicated for ropes."
''See? You're already thinking ahead, and being an engineer isn't just about thinking up great ideas. It's also about expecting problems and making sure they don't come up later on. I also didn't take into factor the weight of the water when the cargo lift rests on the water. It'll eventually get waterlogged a bit and add weight. During a storm it'll need to be properly secured, but the dock can do that too.''
"Ooooh, those are some great ideas, too!" I replied. "And thanks... doing my best! I suppose we'll have to update the notebook in a few areas, then!"
Work continued on the plans, with a few ideas to add, subtract, or modify things here and there coming up over the course of the week. Today, Celeste is converting everything over to a rough draft of blueprints. If she’s satisfied with what we have, we’ll begin construction on the cargo dock and cargo lift soon. If she still wants to make a few more tweaks, we might spend the coming week doing that, in preparation for a final blueprint!
She’s all the way in the zone right now, that deep, intense, concentrated focus that is one of her very many endearing traits. It’s so adorable! She’s promised a break for today, though, after I finish writing in my diary, it being the final day of my minication and all. Gosh, I could use a nice trip outside for a relaxing fishing trip! Maybe Other Nat and some other Anglers Wharf friends will join us! That would be fun!
In the meantime, it’s time to just rest from our months of adventures and recover a bit at home, spending time with family and friends… and working on our latest home improvement project! Gosh, I can’t wait to see how this will turn out! I bet it’s gonna be soooo handy and great! YAY!
Nat squirmed happily a bit in her chair at that happy though, then poked her mechanical pen back into its place on the mechanical inkwell. Then she another thing she hadn’t in months… instead of putting her things back in her pack, she took them upstairs, along with their now-empty coffee mugs, and she returned her inkwell to her writing desk in her home office and the diary to its correct spot on the correct bookshelf. Smiling happily around at her office, she next turned and went to their perfect little kitchen at the opposite corner of the house, refilling the two coffee mugs and adding just a splash of liquid hazelnut creamer to her own mug.
She took the steaming mugs back downstairs, putting Celeste’s next to the blueprints she was working on and giving her a kiss on top of the head, predictably not getting any response from Celeste at all, knowing Celeste was in her zone. She didn’t mind a bit; she’d expected that, and simply wanted to convey a bit of her own love to her wife. She turned to go check on Dordy, then, standing there next to the Flying Nosebleed’s wing where Dordy was still playing with his two favorite toys, she ended up playing Tug-o’-War with Dordy with his – Celeste’s – old wrench, which evolved into Dordy leaping off the wing with it to play Keep-Away with Nat.
Eventually, Celeste dropped her pen noisily on the workbench and gave an enormous stretch and yawn, then suggested a change into bikinis for a trip out on the Wave Dancer for fishing! Nat got her purple Shal’dorei silk bikini that her bestie Nah had given her a few Winter Veils ago on, and Celeste ended up in a sea-green bikini with sea turtles swimming around on it. Nat grinned – she, Nat, was definitely the more girly of the two, yet she only had two bikinis, and Celeste had quite a selection! Nat figured she’d have to catch up sometime.
In the meantime, they collected their fishing rods and tackle boxes and flew them down with the Flying Nosebleed and Onyx, loading them onto the Wave Dancer. They remarked on how much easier that task would be once they had the cargo dock and cargo lift operational… all the more motivation to design and build!
Once their motorized boat was loaded up, they went to Anglers Wharf to get some bait for their hooks, and to visit with friends. Predictably, several of the Anglers wanted to come with them, their first fishing trip on the bay in so many months. Other Nat, Fo Fook, Shen and Marzai (the two pandaren that had helped them build their home here), and several others from the picturesque little stilt village decided to come along. There were quite a few boats out on the bay by the time all the tackle was purchased!
A hook drone to Penny and a comms call to Uncle Rugnar with a portal had two more people there that would have loved to have been there after all the hard work on the houseboat, and the Wave Dancer had its entire family aboard!
All day the fishing went, and everything from mackerel to halibut to salmon to shrimp and octopus were caught, and several crab and lobster pots were pulled from the bay floor as well. There ended up being a huge haul, enough for everyone in the entire fishing party to have dinner!
A bonfire on Turtle Beach near Lei Shen’s statue, another thing they hadn’t done in months, was built. All the fish was cooked up the way each person wanted it, and a whole party was thrown as the sun worked its way toward the horizon!
The pandaren Stormstout brews flowed, and Celeste, belly full of good seafood and good pandaren spirits, began doing something the Anglers had all missed… telling stories! The story of breaking past the pirate blockade when they first arrived at the Thousand Needles was told first, in which Nat may or may not have piloted the MUTT right onto one of the ships’ decks and began a sword-fight of sorts with the MUTT’s saw arm being worked to fend off the swords of over fifty pirates, Penny may or may not have piloted the Penny Pincher right up a large wave like a ramp and sent pirates jumping for cover as she cleared the decks of ten lined-up pirate ships before landing safely in the water on the other side of the blockade, her craft’s hull dumping water all over every cannon on every ship and wetting their gunpowder, and Celeste herself may or may not have jumped the ships as well, spinning the Wave Dancer in a full 360-degree turn as she sailed through the air to spread pepper-spray gas all over all the pirates, before safely landing in the water on the other side and zooming off.
Then there were stories of visits to Un’Goro Crater that involved encounters with Big Grumpypants that always seemed to end with Celeste using a vine line a horse’s reins to ride Big Grumpypants while Nat and Penny escaped on Onyx, zooming by close enough for Celeste to jump on as well and fly away. Stories of goblin invasions in which naval battles involving water cannons that blasted goblin rowboats to smithereens. Stories of Celeste striding into Gadgetzan and onto the Speedbarge alike and laying down the law as goblins cowered before her. Stories of Dordy running up to one rowboat’s goblin leader as he made it ashore and yanking his pants down around his ankles. And then, of course, stories of a glorious houseboat full of luxury, protected with magical spells, able to fit an entire family comfortably, and built right next to a gigantic pleasure barge!
The stories had Uncle Rugnar winking at Nat at first, and he eventually dissolved into roars of laughter at Celeste’s embellishments, though he nodded around and said that every word was precisely accurate as he grinned at their pandaren friends. Dordy’s story had Nat giggling as well, and the entire crowd thought that it had been a grand adventure and an amazing collection of tales!
Celeste was quite tipsy by the end of it, as were Nat and pretty much everyone else present, and, bellies full, the sun down, the stars and moon out, and the bonfire finally beginning to wane, the party begin to break up. Anglers Wharf citizens drifted off in twos and threes, Uncle Rugnar bid goodnight and took a portal from Celeste back to Ironforge, Penny yawned and headed back to the Halfhill farm, and soon, it was just Celeste, Nat, and Dordy. They cleaned up the last bit of mess that hadn’t been cleaned up by everyone else, who had helped enormously, which meant the last mess was the bonfire. Celeste’s fire magic had her easily able to stamp out the rest of the embers and smooth the sand over top of them, restoring Turtle Beach to its usual pristine, beautiful state.
With that, the two of them went home, Dordy in his aviators, the Wave Dancer returned to its Anglers Wharf dock. They flew up on Onyx and the Flying Nosebleed back to the House-On-The-Spire, getting a bath and then heading back to bed.
It had been a fantastic minication, and Nat was already looking forward to the next one. Whether it be full of more design work, or just the beginning of construction, Nat was ready for it either way, and the next minication couldn’t get here soon enough!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jan 18, 2024 12:56:44 GMT
January the Eighteenth In a shady spot on the front porch of the House-On-The-Spire, the temperature was just perfect. January brought with it some relatively cooler weather, and, though the house was in a tropical region and the sun was fully out, sitting in the shade in the coolest part of the season brought comfortable temperatures.
One could also smell the salt sea more clearly from out here, as well as the earthy smell of the Krasarang Wilds jungle and a faint hint of something slightly fishy, thanks to the nearby Anglers Wharf.
There were gulls about, crying out to each other, riding the thermals, occasionally dive-bombing a choice morsel from a bit of cut-bait at the Wharf, which would usually be followed by a bellow from the offended angler – or a screech and an ook or three, if it were Fo Fook the hozen. The occasional call of a jungle cat could be heard from out here as well, and the occasional buzzing of a suncrawler beetle as they scurried about the planters on the veranda railing.
All in all, it was a peaceful, relaxing sort of morning. Nat sat on the veranda in the shade, on the side facing the jungle rather than the ocean, as that’s where the current project would be happening. She’d pulled the little porch table in front of her, placing her diary, mechanical inkwell, and coffee thermos (the enclosed thermos being chosen over a mug due to tropical bugs outside) atop it. Celeste was in the yard, where a great many bamboo fibers had been stretched out in the sun for a while to dry out, which they had. She was referencing her mother’s notebook and teaching herself how to braid the fibers into bamboo rope, alternately sitting and reading and thinking, and braiding and then unbraiding the fibers as she learned how to do it. Dordy was inside in the living room, away from the fibers so he wouldn’t run through them, placated with a large, hollow ham bone filled with peanut butter. He was worrying the bone to get as much peanut butter out of it as he could, wholly distracted, oblivious to the project outside. All was calm, the family happy!
Nat smiled as she looked into the window of her front room. Dordy was lying down on the floor on his side, bone between his paws, alternately gnawing on the end of the bone and trying to get the peanut butter out with his long dog tongue. Looking back out at Celeste in the yard, sitting in the shade of her wide-brimmed fishing hat, she saw Celeste had a pretty decent braid going this time. She watched Celeste wave away a bug that had begun to hover near her coffee thermos, then go back to the braiding.
Nat looked back down at her own diary next, the next blank page there in front of her, and she was eager to write about her week. So, without further dawdling, she poked the button that popped her mechanical pen out of her inkwell, and began to write.
Dear diary,
Gosh, it’s been a real engineer’s week! Planning, changing plans, fixing plans, adding to the plans, subtracting from the plans, adjusting measurements of plans… but I think, after a week or two of planning, we’re just about set to start construction on that cargo lift on the spire! WOOHOO!
Celeste has some bamboo fibers out she’s trying to learn to braid. She’s going to teach me as soon as she gets the hang of it, so for now, I’m just sitting here with my diary while I wait. She’s got some good braid tries so far! I think she’ll have it down pat soon! Then I can help when she teaches me! She’s learning from one of her ingenious mother’s many notebooks on herbology. Bamboo and its many uses!
Another project popped up that she wants to hit sometime soon, too. It all started when I let her know that druids were coming to teach farming techniques to the farmers in my Darkshire hometown. Druids coming around to teach farming techniques! Of course Celeste was interested!
On Saturday, she arrived with Dordy to hear the lessons, bringing her mother's notebooks to compare notes and add new information if she heard any. She brought the MUTT though, to help the farmers haul some mud that the druids were wanting to bring up from the river, using that nutrient-rich soil to put out on the farm gardens. Actually it was the powerful pump in the MUTT's chest that she wanted to use, so the mud could be harvested without having to constantly stoop down with a bucket in hand. She’s so smart! Celeste had some questions about how we could improve our own irrigation system in Pandaria, too. Currently, we’re using water from a well, and it gave Celeste the idea of pushing a pipe underground all the way to the river instead. She made a note of it, but set the project aside for later. She stayed for the morning, and had plans to get back to Halfhill for dinner and to show the plans to Penny at the farm. Before leaving, Celeste asked me if I didn't mind either bringing the MUTT back after my workday, or leaving it there for the farmers to borrow until they were done with their mud-collecting work.
On Sunday, Celeste returned to Darkshire (in the FB), very excited. Hydroponics was the lesson from the druids today! Plants growing this way would be perfect for the bottom level of the House-on-the-Spire! Though there was plenty of sun in that room, adding artificial lights would increase the quantity of things she could grow. No more need for Suyin to come water her plants when we were away; it would be done automatically! Now THAT gave Celeste ideas! If she could find a way to feed and water the chickens automatically too, like say, maybe the mechanical fisherman who had been repurposed several times could be upgraded again for that... Celeste talked my ear off over lunch (she had brought some tomato fennel and dill soup from Halfhill but asked the innkeep to make us some hot grill cheese sandwiches) about all the projects she had in mind after this weekend. She had to be reminded a few times that we were going to work on the cargo lift first, lest that project be set aside yet again. We’ve been waiting years for this one! She never minds being reminded, though; she knows her workshop stays filled with half-finished projects that get set aside the moment her ingenious head gets a new idea!
But first things first… the plans for the lift!
“Good morning,” Celeste’s soft voice pierced through my drowsiness, followed by the smell of coffee and hazelnut. I felt a kiss brushing my lips and pressure on the bed as Celeste sat next to her. I opened my eyes groggily. The first morning of the minication had come!
I had brought the MUTT home Saturday night as Celeste requested, as the farmers were finished with bring the nutrient-rich river soil to the farms. Onyx simply followed along beside me, not really minding me taking a different mode of transportation home for once. Sunday, the perfect grilled cheese sandwiches and the hydroponics lessons had quite fun, and getting to spend the weekend with Celeste and Dordy two weeks in a row made everything far more memorable!
Monday morning, I woke up to Celeste's voice and the smell of hazelnut coffee, one of one of my favorite ways to wake up! She blushed as Celeste kissed me, and sat up in bed.
"G-good morning," I said groggily, accepting my coffee and taking that glorious first sip of the morning. "Mmm, thank you. Are we starting on the lift today? Or did you need to do more modifications to the blueprints? Remember, going ahead and finally starting that project first will make getting supplies up here for the hydroponics bay easier later."
“Well look at you, knowing me so well!” Celeste said with a grin. “We are starting on the lift today, yes. First I have a surprise for you. You’ll have to get out of bed and, unfortunately, your new clothes are aaallll the way over there.” She indicated the opposite side of the room where a pile of clothes were neatly folded, along with boots set together on the floor. “I’ll just get settled and watch while you mosey on down to get them.”
“It’s a new outfit I picked out for you,” she added, grinning at me and waiting for me to get up.
I blushed, then rose from bed. Celeste has always liked how I looked in my sleepwear! I made a show of posing and the moseying for her, blushing more, eventually reaching the new outfit. I was curious and excited to see what it might be!
The clothes were clearly a work outfit. Strong but comfortable leather pants, with a lot of extra pockets and loops. COOL! The size, once I put them on, was perfect. The light brown pants hugged my figure without any loose folds that could snag on anything in a workshop. I’d just have to be careful with those loops for the same reason! The pants came with a belt, and there were extra belt loops to fit my new tool belt from Winter Veil on as well! There was a soft light purple pandaren silk t-shirt that served as a comfortable first layer. It’s really pretty! On top of that, I have a dark grey vest made from sturdy cotton. It has sleeves that end at my elbows, leaving my wrists free from cloth that could accidentally get stuck in moving parts. The vest too had extra pockets, just like Celeste’s vests! Nice! And, to top it all off, my name is carefully embroidered on the vest!
Natasha Ebonlocke Engineer
That’s so COOL!
I beamed as I put on my new outfit and dashed to my full-length mirror.
"WOW, Celeste!" she exclaimed. "WOW! Lookit -- I look like a real engineer! ...Even says so on the vest!"
I let out a giggle, then turned to face Celeste, striking a few poses.
"Thanks so much, My Catch! I love it! ...Now I'll just need to fill all these loops with my tools!"
“Yep, and we’re going there next!” Celeste said, getting up. Together, we went down to the workshop. Dordy was sleeping on a cushion underneath Celeste’s main workbench and lined up right against it, was another work bench! Oh gosh! My tools were neatly placed on the surface. Nice!
“An engineer needs room to be creative. A place that’s her own to try things out. This one is all yours!”
The fiery pup, glowing as he was, caught my eye first. I smiled -- the cushion was the one we'd gotten him for Winter Veil! But then, a noticeable change in the room caught my eye. A whole other workbench?!
"WHAAAAAAT?!" I gasped. "Ohmigosh, WOW! Thanks so much, Celeste! It's like Winter Veil is still on! And all my tools are here, too! Goodness gracious... THIS IS SO COOL!"
I immediately began trying out the loops on my spiffy new engineering outfit, placing tools here and there, then changing their location, then changing some again, finding a spot that felt good for all of them. Eventually settling on the most convenient, comfortable arrangement I could find, I turned and faced Celeste, hands on my hips, bedecked in tools.
"Whatcha think?" I asked with a grin.
“I think you’re all set! Think you can work on the brake system? It should be controlled on the platform, but we’ll also need a way to bring the platform up from the spire or down to the dock if we’re not at home. I need to braid the rope.”
"I'm on it!" I declared, immediately dashing upstairs for one of Celeste's Winter Veil gifts... the engineering guide! I was back downstairs with it in short order, sitting gleefully at my brand-new, very own workbench! I flipped through the pages, soon coming upon a section on the various sorts of brakes in the world. This one would need brake shoes that would squeeze the cables or the pulley, it seemed. I opted for both, thinking that redundancy in safety measures would be best when up at that height, even with the ocean instead of the ground below us. I began copying over some schematics, except I adjusted them for their specific lift.
“I’ll get you breakfast!” Celeste said, finding delicious contrast in the fact that usually it was me who made breakfast while she, Celeste, worked on her projects.
"Okies!" I replied, giggling at the reversal of roles here.
As Celeste headed upstairs, I began rooting through the spare parts storage for parts. I found a pulley system for a gnomish conveyor belt that could easily be used for a lift as well, as huge as it was. I found brake shoes from a gnomish mecha-cycle as well, the motorbike's huge wheels and sky-high horsepower calling for shoes big enough to be used for a lift. Thrilled to find the right parts, I rooted around for assembly hardware that fit Celeste's specifications, then took all the hardware back to the workbench, beginning assembly immediately. Referencing Celeste's guide frequently, I was making good time when Celeste brought breakfast downstairs!
“Hey, looks like all those salvaging trips to Mechagon are paying off, huh?” Celeste said, placing my breakfast on my new workbench. Celeste had made breakfast sandwiches using butter rolls, egg, tomatoes, cheese, salad, onions and bacon. She had added a bit of mayo for extra tangy, creamy texture. “Looks like you’ve got a good start. I’ll finish breakfast, then I need to head to the bamboo forests to harvest material for the ropes.”
I traded my tools for my breakfast sandwich and coffee, thanking Celeste with a kiss.
"Okies!" I said, before taking my first bite. "Gosh, that's delicious! You're really good at this!"
''It's just a breakfast sandwich,” Celeste grinned. “I stopped by for fresh ingredients when I went to pick up your new outfit.''
Celeste wolfed down the rest of her breakfast and cleaned her hands on a rag. ''Alright, rope time. I'll harvest the new bamboo shoots and leaves. I think I'll have to dry them out first. I'll ask our friends in Halfhill. I should be back for lunch!'' She kissed me on the cheek, then headed for the MUTT.
"Okies!" I said, eating daintily as usual, which made my breakfast take longer to eat. "I should have this brake system installed on the pulley in no time at all, and then I'll have some brakes we can put on the bamboo ropes assembled as well!"
As promised, Celeste was gone for the whole of the morning. She brought back some fresh cooked noodles, topped with vegetables and bits of beef. My helping was properly spiced, of course! She’s so thoughtful!
''Hey!” Celeste greeted me upon her return. “I brought lunch. I have a lot of bamboo. I took all morning to cut down some fresh shoots. The MUTT was able to carry it all. Apparently I need to separate the bamboo into fibers, then dry them in the sun. I guess I won't be braiding them today. I'll just keep you company here and work on my hydroponic plans for the lower level.''
"Goodness gracious," I said, impressed. "You've been super busy! Way to be productive! Company would be great. We can hang out and be productive engineers together!"
I giggled as I turned back to her work.
"The pulley system has brakes that properly work now. Dordy was a good boy and helped me test them, didn't you, boy?"
Dordy hopped up from his gift cushion and yip-yipped, wagging his tail excitedly.
"I slipped a length of rope through the pulley and held the other end myself. I had Dordy play Tug-of-War with me, and I just let him run with a length of the rope for a bit, then hit the brakes, and he'd tug and tug, and not a bit of slippage! Granted, we'll have WAY more weight on the bamboo ropes than what Dordy can pull, but so far, the brakes are working great!"
''Nice! Perfect!'' Celeste said, offering a proud smile and a high five, which I granted happily. ''I think we'll need to make sure our system is strongly anchored on the spire. Everything will hinge on that. If the pulleys break off, we lose everything, breaks or not. I think I can melt the stone around some anchors with crossbars. If the crossbars are buried in the stone, then we just have to worry about the tensile strength of the steel for those pikes. If they are thick enough, it won't be a problem.''
"Whatever we think is enough, let's just double it," I said thoughtfully. "Overkill is the best way to know it's secure, I bet."
“Often though,” Celeste mused, “making things stronger involves bigger too. The bamboo rope can hold a lot of weight. The weaknesses with the cargo lift will likely be the platform itself and the motor actuating the lift. For our needs, I can put extra layers of bamboo to make the platform. That should be more than enough, even when winching up the Wave Dancer. If we lower the platform into the water, I can bring the boat on top of the platform, add supports, and then I could do maintenance on it right up here!”
"Oh gosh," said I, blinking at that bit of ingenuity. "That's a GREAT idea! We can extend the tracks of the lift and the ropes for the extra descent into the water to bring the Wave Dancer over top of it. Maybe a detachable boat cradle of some sort, built to the boat's measurements, that can be winched on with a winch at the top of the lift itself, so it could be stored next to the top of the lift? That way, the boat would be held upright, and off the ground for maintenance, instead of toppling over when we lift it out of the water!"
“Just a few supports on each side,” Celeste said, “with a hinge to they can be raised or lowered. I can use the bamboo for the platform. The supports can be fit back into it when not in use.”
Celeste tugged her notebook closer and began to scrawl some of the ideas they were tossing out. By the third idea, she was already doodling Nosebleed standing on a raised platform looking bored at the top of the page while Dordy barked and looked up at the bottom of the page.
I giggled at the doodle, grinning at the familiar, endearing scene, and imagining Nosebleed stoically having fun riding the lift.
"Another thought..." I mused. "You know the tropical storms around here can be a doozy sometimes. Maybe a covering on the three sides that aren't the cliffside, including one up top? Maybe some doors? And a Mechagnomish power cell ought to be bright enough to power lights for the interior. OH! And you know – my one big reluctance to put a bit lift on the side of the spire was always that it would be a huge blot on the otherwise pristine scenery of the area. We could paint the outside of the lift to look like part of the spire! Maybe even make the exterior lumpy like the cliff face?"
“I don’t think we’ll use the lift in bad weather,” Celeste replied. “The platform could be left low and just be part of the dock I wanted to built at water level. It wouldn’t be any more obtrusive than the Angler’s own docks, without the huts and guardrails too. Would that work? The only thing that would probably look a bit out of place would be the ropes dangling down. Otherwise, we could paint or grow vines underneath the platform. When not in use, it would be raised to the lower level here and lifted up vertically. It would block out the holes in the exterior wall below that lets in the sun though. Maybe the hydroponic system can replace the sunlight, to a degree.”
"Oh, yeah, those are great ideas!" I nodded. "And it almost seems like fate has intervened to have us hold off on the lift until we got the hydroponics installed, so the plants still have light, yeah! As we build the lift, we could put some sunlamps over the plants for the time being, then convert those into the hydroponic system after the lift is done!"
“I might add some windows on hinges to let sunlight through, or else it’ll get dark,” Celeste mused.
She finished writing her ideas. Another doodle appeared, this time it was several chickens standing on a dock or swimming in the sea. They had bathing caps on and were sitting on inflatable round life preservers with their webbed feet paddling in the water.
I giggled at Celeste's doodling again, nodding at Celeste's final idea.
"Alright," I said. "If that's all the ideas we have for now, should we go ahead and make a start?"
“You can help me lay out the bamboo fibers in the sun to dry. We can do that on the wraparound deck but we can’t let Dordy run through them,” Celeste said, setting her work aside and standing up.
"Okies!"
I helped Celeste get all the bamboo fibers outside, then helped her line them up in neat little rows. Dordy was left inside with a bone filled with peanut butter, a crafty ploy of mine to distract him from the bamboo fibers outside, as the peanut butter inside the hollow bone would take forever for him to get it all out!
And now, today, the new fibers have been dried, so, as Celeste said earlier this morning, we’re working on learning the ropes – literally! HA! She’s so fun! Celeste is teaching herself how to work bamboo fibers into a braid with her mother’s notebook, and, when she gets that down pat, she’ll teach me, and we can both make the ropes! She looks like she’s got it now, so I suppose it’s time to go and learn!
Gosh, I can’t wait to get started! The first step of actually, physically making the lift we’ve planned for years, after the planning, is finally beginning! It’s so exciting! I bet we’ll get the ropes all done either by the time my workend is over, or soon after, if Celeste doesn’t go all workaholic and do them all herself while I’m at work!
This lift is gonna be the coolest! I can’t wait to see how it turns out! I bet we’re going to get SO MUCH USE out of it! YAY!
Nat excitedly popped her mechanical pen back into her mechanical inkwell, the mechanism engaging to top off any ink used in the pen from the well. She snapped her diary shut, hurrying inside with it and stowing the diary and the inkwell in their proper places in her office. She darted back outside, clothed in her engineering outfit, making a note to pick up a wide-brimmed hat for herself sometime, like Celeste’s fishing hat, for working or fishing in the sun.
Braiding the ropes took some time to learn, and Nat did get frustrated with her lack of progress at one point, but, with Celeste setting her own ropes aside and guiding Nat’s hands and fingers through the process, Nat got the hang of it. Her excitement returning, Nat began working the fibers into braids. On her feet, she was clumsy, but working with her hands, she’d always been deft and dexterous, and it wasn’t long before she was nearly keeping up with Celeste in rope braiding speed!
They chatted the day away, braiding ropes, taking a break to take Dordy to the beach a few times over the course of the day so he could do his business there instead of chancing him running amok in the fibers, with another break mid-day to go inside for some sandwiches and refreshing drinks for lunch. They had fibers made into some good starts on the long ropes they’d need by the end of the day, though there was much, much more length still to be added.
As the sun began to sink toward the horizon, Celeste decided to call it a day. She and Nat made a mushan stew, the meat from the enormous local pandaren beasts being so perfect for meat-and-veggie stews, and they enjoyed it on the other side of the veranda from where they’d been working, drinking wine and enjoying buttered rolls with their stew as they relaxed and looked out over the darkening ocean as the sun sank.
As the sky darkened, Celeste rose to her feet and went inside for a short moment, soon reappearing with a bottle of the pheromones she had to spray the suncrawlers and make them light up. The soft glow of the insects illuminated the veranda for them, and they finished their meal up enjoying the beauty of their home and the local scenery.
Soon, with bellies full (including Dordy’s, who’d worked his way through two bowls of stew and two rolls), the little family started feeling a bit sleepy. Celeste decided to sit in the living room and read for a bit while Nat went to bed early, grumbling light-heartedly about her “lame early work morning.”
Reluctant to call it a day early or not, Nat still fell asleep with a smile on her face. A long-awaited project was finally coming to fruition, and Celeste was making a real engineer out of her so she could help! What a great life!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jan 25, 2024 13:59:43 GMT
January the Twenty-Fifth The gentle waves of Turtle Beach gave a gentle rocking motion to the Wave Dancer. It bobbed in place as the engineers aboard went about their work, the light of a sun shining in a clear sky illuminating their tasks. A gentle breeze kept things cool enough in the tropical climate, bringing with it the smell of the salt sea, and a bit of fish, which mixed with the slight smell of engine oil and somewhat more prevalent aroma of coffee. Seagulls called out to each other as they soared lazily around the bay, looking for their breakfast, bringing a sort of peaceful music to the engineers and putting the molten corgi aboard the small craft right to sleep.
Dordy was curled up next to Celeste up in the bow of the ship, snoozing lightly while Celeste, with the Wave Dancer positioned at the base of the spire upon which their home stood, was in her zone. She was looking at the base of the cliff, murmuring quietly to herself from time to time, and making some adjustments here and their on her blueprints for the cargo lift they intended to install here. There were bits of the rock face that jutted out a bit, though that was compensated for by the winch sticking out a bit further up top already, so there would be no need to risk damage to the structural integrity of the base of the spire by shearing off the uneven parts of the rock around the base of it. There was also a bit of muttering about diving and doing underwater work with anchors under the water’s surface. That bit sounded like fun!
Nat smiled as Celeste did her work in her zone. As Celeste was thinking up their next steps, she waited patiently in the small motorized watercraft, her diary spread out on her lap as she sat in her purple cushioned chair, the large purple umbrella on this part of the ship opened over her to keep the sun off of her. Her coffee sat in the chair’s cupholder build into the armrest, and the little end table secured next to the chair held her mechanical inkwell. She had everything she wanted to pleasantly pass the time, and that made her happy!
She smiled again as she looked at Dordy, giggling quietly as the molten pup, sprawled out on his side, seemed to be sniffing and snuffling after something in his sleep, his four paws wiggling as though he were trotting along, hot on the scent!
Nat looked back down to her diary next, opened to the next blank page. She poked the button that popped her mechanical pen out of her mechanical inkwell, applied pen tip to page, and began to write.
Dear diary,
Whew, it’s been a productive week, and even a really scary week at one point, but by golly, we got a really strong start on the cargo lift out in front of the House-On-The-Spire! Now it seems like we’ll have it put together in no time at all!
A not-so-old issue of mine crept back up at one point too, and that was even scarier…
All in all, though, I think we’re well on our way to kicking this project off strongly!
Celeste had herself a busy weekend too, finishing up braiding all those bamboo ropes. She got to have a good time with help from a friend in finishing those off, too! Here’s her weekend as she described it to me:
The afternoon sun bathed the yard of the House-on-the-Spire in warm sunlight while I was at work Friday. Dordy was playing with the children on the Wharf below. Celeste could hear his excited barks even from where she was in the yard. The Pandaren children had as much energy as the pup. She knew they would be happily busy all afternoon.
A bottle of beer appeared in front of her vision, then a plate of shrimp tacos. Celeste thanked Other Nat and gratefully stopped her braiding. The work had been fun for a while, but now it was getting tedious and mind-numbing.
Earlier Celeste had sent her hook drone to get lunch, not willing to lose any braiding time. The long bamboo fibers were taking up a lot of space and starting to annoy her.
Instead, the drone had come back with a note from Other Nat, offering help, lunch and company as well as a plea from Rei and Marri, a couple of pandaren kids living at Anglers Wharf, to have Dordy to play with. A short trip in the FB and everything was set up! Other Nat lounged in a chair next to Celeste, enjoying his own beer while she wolfed down her delicious tacos. Other Nat, being a fisherman and used to boats, was handy at braiding rope, and progressed very quickly. Celeste didn’t feel guilty about taking a relaxing moment for lunch.
“Aah mmmh!” Celeste said between bites. “You’re leaving some for Nat’s dinner right? It would be a crime not to let her have some.”
“Already in your fancy oven, kept nice and warm,” Other Nat replied with a friendly smile. “Made them extra spicy, just as she likes ‘em.”
“You’re a true friend, Nat Pagle.”
They clinked their bottles in a toast.
''So, aside form the lift,” Celeste was saying to Penny the next day – Saturday – at Halfhill, “I got some great ideas for a hydroponic system, thanks to that visit to Darkshire last week. I also think we could irrigate the fields from the river instead of from the well.
“The river water itself, with its sediments, plant and animal life will make for a much more nutrient-rich source.'' Celeste said next, then picked up another piece of Hui Guo Rou, the twice-cooked pork that was the genuine pandaren cuisine on the menu that day.
Dordy made a salient attempt at stealing the morsel caught between the sticks when Celeste reached next to her for her notebook to show Penny her latest designs. Celeste, wary of the machinations of the Eater Of Unattended Noms, skillfully dodged the attack. She did push a few bits into his bowl, though, and ruffled the fiery fur on his head. Talking shop like this with Penny, while treating her, thanks to coins I usually leave her for meals on my workdays, to a fine lunch was one of Celeste's favorite ways to spend the weekend. Penny had rapidly grown into a very important friend, and Celeste had long realized that the two of them shared a lot of affinities.
''I can leave my plans for the river-water pump if you want to take a look. Maybe you can add some improvements to the design...'' Celeste said, then continued to enjoy her delicious lunch. She knew I would love this meal for sure!
When I returned home from work, my dinner was waiting for her in the magically heated oven. Celeste talked about her day while she ate, sharing a glass of wine and giving me news about Penny, who was back in her little house at the farm.
On Sunday, Celeste finished braiding the ropes in the morning. She left about an hour before lunch in the MUTT and headed to the farm to drop Dordy off. Her plan was to harvest bamboo stalks for the platform. Her harvesting was a piece of cake with the powerful and fine-tuned MUTT. Just after mid-day, she paused for a simple lunch, mostly bread and nuts. She sat on a large sun-soaked flat rock near a slow flowing brook. Surrounded on all side by tall, leafy bamboo, she realized how calming it was. It felt like she was locked in a tranquil bubble. Alone with her thoughts, too, something she’d hadn’t really done in a while. There was always Dordy being energetic and lively around her or projects to work on. Of course she immediately thought of her wife and wished she could shared this moment with her. Perhaps she could…
Celeste snapped open her notebook and made a few notes in it. Before heading home, she collected a few more bamboo stalks though this time it was small shoots, roots and all…
The sounds of loud clangs and metal striking metal woke me up Monday morning. That and Dordy barking his little head off! At the same time, there was the squawk of angry chickens… Goodness gracious!
I woke up late that morning to all the noise, exhausted from my workend. I padded to the kitchen for coffee, then headed downstairs to see what sort of clanging Celeste was doing that was upsetting the chickens so...
I found Celeste in the lower level, hanging from the side of the spire by a harness and cables. She banged with a mallet on the top of a giant metal rod. Clang! She then reached out, her magic heating the rock and then hit the rod again. The chickens squawked each time she hit the rod, nervously fluttering about and causing an excited Dordy to chase after them, barking wildly.
"Goodness gracious, what a racket!" I giggled. "Dordy, you stop that; you'll put them off their egg-laying."
I had no idea whether that was true or not, but I took a guess! The chickens seemed stressed. She peered over the ledge next.
"Good morning, Celeste!" I greeted my love with a sip of coffee. "How's it going down there?"
Celeste paused her work and lifted the ear-protector from her head.
“Oh, sorry, did I wake you?” she asked, peering up at Nat. “I was trying to figure out how to put the rods in effectively. Turns out, heating the stone and pushing them in is better, but it’s not easy. Can’t use the MUTT and melt stone at the same time so… “ She gestured with a gloved hand to her mallet. “Once I’m done, these rods will be as strong as we’ll need them to be.”
"Eh, it's okay," I shrugged, taking another sip and then smiling down at Celeste. "It was time for me to get up anyway. I see you're making a strong start on all this! Do you need me to run the MUTT while you heat the stone?"
“I’m almost done,” Celeste shook her head. “Enjoy your coffee, then we’ll have to use the FB to airlift the winch we brought back from Mechagon and fix it onto the cliff face. The winch itself will be above your head. See? The rods are already in place. These two here at my level will be for the walkway support. I thought about adding one along the cliff face. The platform can be anchored to it, and it won’t have any swing once it’s up here. Less chance that one of us falls down.”
"Ooooh, then we should definitely do that!" I replied with a nod. "Going up to this height, all safety redundancies are GOOD safety redundancies!"
I enjoyed her coffee while Celeste finished up. I was ready to do whatever was needed to get the winch into place after that!
When Celeste finally climbed back up, she removed her harness and then leaned close to me for a kiss. She deftly plucked the coffee mug from my hands while I was distracted, then smirked as she stepped back and took a sip. She made a face and handed it back immediately.
“Yeah, it’s better just black” she said. “Now, this is the most difficult part of our whole project. One of us has to pilot the FB. I’m talking mad skills here. The winch has to remain as immobile as possible, while it’s swinging beneath the flying machine. Then the other will be hanging on the cliffside and will use a guiding pole to carefully thread the anchor rods into the winch’s supports. There’s very little wiggle room here.”
She raised her hand and made a tiny space between her index and thumb, barely an eighth of an inch to demonstrate the lack of wiggle room.
“The rods need to fit tightly in the supports, or else the extra slack will allow the winch to move, wiggle and finally, eventually break the rods and fall. Got it?” She grinned, enjoying the dramatic effect.
I had blushed a little as Celeste leaned in for her kiss, then gasped as Celeste stole my coffee. I giggled as Celeste made a face and handed it back.
"HA!" I said teasingly. "Serves you right for stealing my coffee!"
I giggled again, then listened to Celeste's explanation. I winced slightly more and more as Celeste told me how dire it was for everything to be perfect, and was pale (well, more so than usual) by the time Celeste finished up.
"Goodness gracious!" I said. "Sounds like you need a true expert for a pilot for that part... M-m-maybe we should give Penny a call?"
“Good idea!” Celeste replied. “This way you can hang on the cliff face with me and help me maneuver the winch!” With a knowing grin that looked chock-full of mischief to me, she immediately commed Penny.
“Penny!” she was saying before I could protest any cliff-hanging. “Could you come and help us install the cargo lift winch? We need a pro pilot to airlift it in place while BOTH Nat and I will be hanging in our harnesses to guide it in place!”
I paled even more, realizing I'd just stepped out of the frying pan and into the fire. But, before I could offer to just drive the FB after all, Penny was already agreeing to come be the pilot. I gulped, defeated, and consented to dangling my clumsy self off a cliff. All I could hope for was to not knock my love off the rock by accident from hundreds of feet up!
“Alright, looks like we’re all set,” Celeste grinned again. “How about you help Penny get here with Onyx? Once we’ve built that cargo elevator, it’ll be easier to get friends up here. Meanwhile, I’ll get you a harness and anchor some safety points in the cliffside for you. No need to stay here to help me fit the harness. I know your measurements VERY well!”
She gave me a once-over that made me blush, her eyes saying she wanted to do more to me than put a harness on me. Goodness gracious!
“Go, before other things happen!”
I blushed deeply at that, giggling and rushing off to get Onyx's saddle adjusted for a second rider. I mounted up, sitting side-saddle as usual, dashed off into the clear blue sky at top speed, arriving at Penny's front door mere moments later. Onyx laid himself low and offered a wing as a ramp to Penny, and Penny climbed aboard, got in the little extra saddle, and away we went!
I was back with Penny in no time at all, and Penny began a pre-flight check of the Flying Nosebleed. Shortly thereafter, she was in the cockpit, taking off, getting into position while I was trying to will myself over the cliff. Dordy, meanwhile, was corralled and safe, and placated, by means of his adorable aviator goggles going on and him being harnessed into the Flying Nosebleed’s cockpit for a fun ride with Penny!
It took much goshing and terrified squeaking, but I faced my fears in the end, carefully turning to sloowwwwwly rappel down the cliff face to the spot Celeste designated. It was some time before I could do much more than repeat, "OHGOSHOHGOSHOHGOSHOHGOSHOHGOSHOHGOSHOHGOSH--" over and over and over again and cling tightly to the ropes!
''I got you...'' Celeste said softly. ''Here, let me try this...'' She concentrated a moment, and I suddenly felt much lighter, needing very little pressure to keep myself up.
''That should help, right?” Celeste said reassuringly to me. “It's a featherfall spell. Even if you fall, you won't die. You'll just gently drift down and get wet once you reach the water.''
“O-okay... heh... erm... th-thanks..." I managed, slowwwwllllyyyy releasing the ropes. "I-I think I'm good now... erm... wh-what am I supposed to be doing here, anyway...?"
''You're suppose to take this rod, and use the hook on the end to guide the winch in place once Penny flies it over. It shouldn't be too hard. There are four holes on the winch's support struts and four pegs in the cliffside. We'll have to hook all four at once. Here's the rod. Your harness is fine; it'll hold you. Trust in the gear; you'll need both hands for this. I'll go help Penny to get the winch ready for airlifting. I'll be back quickly!''
Celeste handed me a bamboo pole, about five feet long with a large round hook at one end, and disappeared back into the house.
I resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to scream in terror as I was left dangling off a cliff all alone, and tried to think happy thoughts instead. I thought of the years of incredibly happy memories I had of Celeste over the course of our relationship, and that made me smile just enough for me to overcome my fears again as I awaited Celeste's return.
The large winch was quite heavy, and Celeste had to attach a chain to both ends before Penny could airlift it. Using the comms, she directed the Mechagnome until the FB was positioned directly over the winch then attached the chains.
''Okay Penny!'' Celeste shouted over the sound of the rotors into the comms. ''Come around the cliff and hover over our position. You'll have to use the rotor only, and not the side engines, or it'll cause too much of a downdraft. Unfortunately, that also means you'll be at the maximum weight allowance on the rotors, so you won't have a lot of wiggle room. Alright, good luck!''
She then raced to the lower level and hopped off the side, trusting her featherfall spell and her equipment to keep her from plummeting down. To me, seeing Celeste just throw herself off the bottom level must have been scary, but Celeste came to a stop when her harness held her weight.
"OHMIGOSH!" I gasped as Celeste just... casually hopped right over the cliff like she was taking a leisurely jump into a pool or something. I felt a sense of relief when I watched the slow fall spell and the harness save Celeste from plummeting hundreds of feet into the ocean.
''We're ready!” Celeste announced to me, dangling next to me once again. “Oh, tie your hair; the downdraft will make it whip around your head if you don't!''
She swung to her left and reached me, giving me a small piece of wire from a pocket.
I winced as the wire hair tie Celeste gave me tugged at my hair a bit more than the average hair tie or scrunchie might, but I got it into a tight bun nonetheless!
''Okay Penny, bring it in!'' she said over the comms. ''Oh, Nat... you know the winch is going to be suspended just above us, right?'' she asked, still grinning.
"Oh gosh, right above us?!" I winced again. "Goodness GRACIOUS..."
Shielding my face from tiny bits of falling skree from the turbulence in the air from the Flying Nosebleed, I dangled in place, waiting on my next instructions.
“HEY!” Celeste shouted to me, then pointed at a spot on her own harness. I saw her unclip some safety goggles and put them over her eyes then gesture for me to do the same.
I slipped the safety goggles over my eyes, then gestured up towards Celeste with a thumbs-up. I had my shepherd's crook rod ready!
Celeste raised her wrist comm to talk to Penny, looking up at the winch swinging in the downdraft overhead. “OKAY PENNY, BRING IT DOWN NICE AND SLOW. EASY… EASY…” The winch slowly lowered down. The wind created by the FB flowed off the cliff and angled outward, making the winch swing and pivot erratically.
“NAT, WE’LL HAVE TO KEEP IT FROM SWINGING AROUND! PENNY WON’T BE ABLE TO STABILIZE IT WITHOUT US!”
Using only the harness to hold her, she placed her boots flat on the cliff and used both hands to hook her rod around the winch’s supports. I could see the muscles of her arms tighten under the strain of trying to hold the machinery still.
I did as much as I could to mimic Celeste, bracing my feet on the cliff and getting the other side of the winch's supports. I had nowhere near Celeste's physical strength, though, so the stabilization was sort of lopsided. Uh-oh! Now what do I do?
Celeste turned to watch me and gave me a reassuring smile. She looked to be actually having fun!
“OKAY PENNY THIS ISN’T WORKING. THE ROTORS ARE CAUSING TOO MUCH DOWNDRAFT. TRY SWITCHING TO THE TURBINES ON EACH SIDE. NAT AND I WILL GET THE WIND BUT THE WINCH SHOULD BE MORE STABLE!”
I was terrified, but trusted Celeste and Penny both, and I smiled back a little as Celeste gave me that reassuring smile. I held on tighter, but then...
...SNAP!
My liferoot crystal device, the one Celeste had designed for me in the aftermath of that awful Karazhan tower venture a few months ago, popped once as one of the crystals exploded and was consumed, its essence seeping into me. A faint, fel-green aura enveloped my arms, and another crystal popped after that.
I grimaced. She hadn't mean to, but... at least the winch was totally stable now...
Uh-oh.
“NEVERMIND PENNY! WE’RE OK! BRING IT DOWN A BIT MORE” Celeste said, looking at me.
"I-I'M OKAY..." I called out over the noise, though I was as worried as I probably looked. "I'VE GOT THIS... BRING IT ON! LET'S GET IT SECURED!"
I chanced a quick glance down into the device. The liferoot itself was still there, not drained or snapped, but it had two pockmarks in it where the crystals had been. The urge was becoming stronger to just... USE all that tantalizing LIFE...
As soon as the winch was at the right height, Celeste shouted at me over the noise to align the rods with the holes in the struts. It required a lot of precision; there was so very little wiggle room…
With the sound of metal against metal, the two of us managed to get it onto the rods.
“PENNY!” Celeste shouted into the comms. “THE WINCH IS TOO HEAVY TO PUSH INTO PLACE! CAN YOU FLY CLOSER TO THE CLIFF? YOU CAN ADD THE ROTOR FOR STABILITY WITH THE TURBINES! NAT, THERE ARE SOME NUTS IN A POUCH ON THE HARNESS! THREAD THEM ONTO THE RODS ONCE THE WINCH IS IN PLACE!”
I used my temporary fel strength to match Celeste's strength, a sensation foreign to her. I’d never had this sort of physical coordination or strength before! It felt GREAT!
SNAP! Another crystal gone....
THIS WAS AWESOME! MORE POWER...
I shook her head, overcoming the urge to drain the life from anything. This was enough... I had to STOP...
I gritted my teeth. A few strands of hair were getting blown loose and flying around my face. I ignored them.
I pulled the nuts one by one from the harness, going to opposite corners of the winch from where Celeste was threading her nuts on in the hopes of getting the winch at least a bit secured as soon as possible so that I could cease the magics I didn't want to use. When I was done, I felt quite accomplished, and no longer needed the fel strength! Proud of myself, I looked around the winch to Celeste, grinning and flashing a thumbs up!
The temptation to keep draining life for more power, however, was nagging at me now, even though I didn’t need it for anything right now...
“OKAY, WE’RE SECURE PENNY!” Celeste relayed over the din to Penny. “RELEASE THE CHAIN! GREAT JOB EVERYONE!”
A moment later, the heavy chains clattered against the winch as they dropped from the flying machine, though they were still attached to each end of the winch.
Celeste unclipped a giant wrench from her belt and tightened the nuts on her side. She gestured for me to catch, then tossed the wrench in my direction (I saw the wrench remained fixed to Celeste’s belt by a thin rope that was long enough to reach me, a testament to her knowledge of how horribly clumsy I am). Without the FB pushing air onto us, it was much quieter now. Celeste raised her goggles, tilting her face up towards the sun, clearly enjoying the moment
I (possibly much to Celeste's surprise) caught the wrench easily in one hand, had all the nuts tightened securely, and accurately tossed the wrench right back to Celeste, a trace of the fel-green aura remaining on her arms and hands. My purple eyes glowed visibly, as did my black diamond foci ring. I grinned back to Celeste as I tossed the wrench, and something was slightly... off... about my grin, even I could feel it...
“Way to creatively use your abilities,” Celeste said with her face still upwards and her eyes closed. “I didn’t expect the wind to be so bad. I think you saved our dangling butts.”
I blushed, feeling a bit ashamed, which sobered me up from the bit of power trip I had been on. The fel green began to fade from her limbs over time.
"S-sorry..." I said, worried Celeste secretly might be disappointed in me for using my magics in a way viewed as evil by many. "I-I was losing my grip, and wasn't holding my end steady, and next thing I knew, I-I... I was just... DOING that..."
“Hey, it’s fine,” Celeste casually shrugged, still with eyes closed and face lifted to the sun, enjoying it. “I trust you and your instincts. You had a problem, and quickly found a creative solution for it. It helped us finish our work, and we got through it safely. That’s all that matters to me. Don’t apologize for being who you are. You got this!” Celeste said, encouragingly.
“Now, I need you to head back up. You and Penny need to power up the winch and just let the drum roll. I need to see if there’s any vibration on the rods. Here, I’ll make you lighter. It’ll be easier to climb back up!”
A moment of concentration from Celeste, and the featherfall spell was refreshed. I hardly needed my strength to pull myself back up the cliff face!
I nodded slowly, feeling significantly better after Celeste's kind words.
I nodded at Celeste's directions too, heading back up topside, the climbing work easy with Celeste's featherfall spell refreshed, though I did slip twice, swinging and spinning and slamming hard into the cliff face. Gritting my teeth again, determined to do this, I continued climbing anyway, ignoring the little scrapes and soon-to-be bruises. Within moments, I scaled the cliff, moving some distance inward before stopping.
"I did it!" I called triumphantly. "I went down a cliff, helped do really hard work, and made it all the way back up top... and conquered my magic!"
I looked out with a newfound view on the bay, the beach across the water, and the jungle, from this height. I'd never take that view for granted again! But heck... I'd done it! I'd conquered fears and magics and self-doubts alike! WOOHOO!
“Still dangling here…” I heard Celeste say after a while, her tone suggesting she found my cheers funny.
"Oh g-gosh," I blushed, hearing Celeste's amusement, but also her predicament. "A-are you okay down there? Need a hand up or something?"
“Nope,” Celeste replied. “Just power up the winch for me. Full power!”
Penny arrived from the workshop floor, ready to help
"Oh, okies!" I called over the cliff. "Just a sec--"
I scurried over to the controls, quickly turning it on full speed. After what I'd just done over the cliff, this sure was simple enough! Penny and I monitored the instrument panel and nodded at each other.
Celeste was quiet for a long moment, and then we heard her shout over the noise of the winch. “Okay, shut it off! I think this will work great!”
She climbed up and onto the lower floor and started removing her harness. “Great job guys! There’s beer to celebrate. I’ll cook you lunch! I’m making lemon-pepper grouper brochettes with some coleslaw!”
I switched the winch off, closing its weather-proof control panel housing.
"Ooooh!" I exclaimed, lighting up. "That sounds like SUCH a yummy lunch! Heck yeah, let's celebrate! WOOHOO!"
“Yes, that sounds wonderful!” Penny agreed. “A truly excellent way to celebrate difficult done well!”
Celeste went to change, and returned wearing a pale yellow dress patterned with light green leafy bamboo. A large silk green belt was wrapped around her belly. It was one of the more feminine things I had ever seen her wear. She made sure Penny and I were comfortable on the veranda while she worked on lunch. She’s so great!
I was a bit surprised to see Celeste's feminine attire, too, but I thought she looked beautiful!
"Wow, you look so pretty!" I smiled at my love. "I love seeing you all spiffied up! And lunch is smelling great already, too!"
''Now that I'm not the only engineer around here, I don't always have to be the one dressed for working on mechanical stuff,'' Celeste explained herself, giving me a playful wink. ''I already had the grouper seasoned. I just need to mix the coleslaw and cook the fish, but that shouldn't take long!''
Lunch was served about fifteen minutes later. Everyone had a plate and was invited to eat on the veranda where the cool breeze balanced the midday sun nicely. It was so awesome!
I immensely enjoyed the food! The grouper brochette was amazing, perfectly seasoned, the coleslaw full of flavor, and the beer excellent. The view of Turtle Beach and Turtle Bay was lovely, and the lift as well, or the start they'd made on it anyway. It was something to look out at and be proud of as we ate and chattered merrily away!
Since then, it’s mostly just been fishing and hanging out with friends at Anglers Wharf, Halfhill, and a visit yesterday to Uncle Rugnar in Ironforge to fill him in. He’s excited to come see the finished product! Not sure yet if he’ll come have some fun helping build it or not, though. We’ll see how he feels!
Today, Celeste wants to take exact measurements from the base of the spire for the frame the lift will settle into at the bottom, and where to set the anchors for it. We’re thinking some or all of them might be below the water’s surface, or some or all above it. Celeste hasn’t decided yet, but we’re diving today when she’s done making adjustments to the bottom of the lift’s blueprints to check the place out and make plans for next week!
In the meantime, I think Celeste is about ready to go, so I’ll wrap this up now! Gosh, what a week of hard work, fear, and then triumph over both! That was so great! I can’t wait to see how much we progress next week! YAY!
Nat smiled happily as she popped her mechanical pen back into her mechanical inkwell, snapped her diary shut, and returned both items to her pack. Celeste, already prepared to dive with a yellow bikini with bamboo on it that matched the aforementioned yellow dress, put her own blueprints and stationary away as I did, and Nat, in her old black bikini with the dark purple trim (and a spot where a tiny, skull-shaped patch had once been), got ready for the dive.
That included getting Dordy into his Dordy bubble! Dordy loved his underwater adventures, and sprang to his feet from his snooze when he heard it being set up, instantly going from asleep to yip-yip-yipping excitedly and running around the deck of the Wave Dancer excitedly.
A minute later, the little family was in the water. Dordy immediately set off after an eel, barking and working his paddles like a maniac, though the eel was far too fast and agile for him to catch, even if the eel weren’t protected from Dordy’s play by Dordy’s bubble.
With Dordy occupied, Celeste and Nat were free to explore around the bay-side part of the spire, pointing out several areas of note to each other, familiarizing themselves with every protrusion, every crevice. Celeste was getting many ideas, Nat could tell!
After enough time for Dordy to thoroughly wear himself out, the two got out of the water. The Dordy Bubble was returned to the boat, and the next project began… the three of them setting out on one of Celeste’s conjured icebergs! This time, they were getting a really close look at the spire from above the water level, the Wave Dancer left anchored a bit of a distance away so as not to risk a wave dashing it against the rock.
As below, Celeste and Nat scoped out the spire above water as well, and Nat could tell Celeste was getting some really good ideas as every protrusion and crevice was examined all around the whole bay-side half of the spire!
Eventually, the examination was complete, and it was time for some lunch. The little family stopped by Anglers Wharf for some sandwiches, which was a lemon pepper salmon and avocado on white buttered toast, with an option of various veggies and various mild and hot sauces, an experiment of Other Nat’s. Nat found it unorthodox, but quite tasty, even though the mix of lemon pepper salmon and avocado was a bit odd!
The afternoon was filled with a hangout with Other Nat in his rowboat, still tied securely to the Wharf, while Dordy snoozed off his feast. The conversation was filled with levity and wisdom, humor and story-telling. The day wore on. Eventually wanting a stretch, and Other Nat wanting to fish up and prepare his usual surprise weekly Friday meal special for the locals and any travelers, Celeste and Nat got up, taking Dordy with them back to the House-On-The-Spire after bidding a fond farewell to their dear friend.
The evening was filled with a series of Miners and Ores games at the kitchen table, though a pause was taken at one point with Celeste and Nat cooking up dinner together, a sort of ramen noodle soup with flavorings added after to give Celeste her preference and Nat some spice. A ham and cheese sandwich on the side completed the simple meal, along with a bit more Stormstout brew, and the Miners and Ores games resumed!
Celeste won handily in most matches, though Nat had a few games in which unorthodox, but insightful, moves like feints and such pulled out a win in the end! Dordy spent the evening under the table with them, alternately gnawing on his favorite toys – Celeste’s oldest wrench, and his new (ancient) direhorn horn tip!
The evening wore into night, and Nat reluctantly had to head up to bed. Celeste elected to stay up and relax with a good book, while Dordy spent some time with Nat before heading back downstairs to his conscious packmate. While he was there, though, Nat absently scratched his head, thinking of how the triumphant little week had gone, and picturing the next stage of their adventure. Whatever part of the lift Celeste decided to attack next, she was sure, after how this week had gone, that next week would be a success too, and she couldn’t wait to see how it all went!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Feb 1, 2024 13:50:40 GMT
February the First The sun spread its warmth along the tropical beach. Birds of paradise and beautiful tropical flowers decorated the jungle behind the beach, and waves that sparkled like diamonds slowly rolled in, one after another after another after another, their rhythmic, peaceful music providing a feeling of calm and peace and relaxation. The cries of gulls joined the music, adding to the serene setting. The odd call of a jungle cat could be heard deep in the jungle here and there, as well as the odd monkey or gorilla. The water itself was crystal-clear, allowing for views of brilliantly-colored fish and the beautiful shallow sea floor. In this setting, all was right with the world.
Of course, one must always contend with the humanoid factor. Pirate ships and other less-than-savory ships sailed here and there in the distance from time to time, and even the legitimate-looking ships were still filled with heavily armed sailors, as one never knew when one might be set upon!
For this was the jungle of Stranglethorn Vale rather than the Krasarang Wilds, and instead of pandaren peace and quiet, that meant uncouth pirates and even trolls!
Still, Celeste and Nat felt quite comfortable here on their sandbar, a short distance out into the ocean. Armed with steel and magic alike, and possessing anyway the ability to pop open a portal and escape if it were necessary, they felt no qualms about relaxing on the beach with such ships in the distance and trolls in the trees!
Celeste had her fishing outfit on and her murloc-skeleton fishing rod in hand, her face set in concentration under her wide-brimmed fishing hat as she stood casting and slowly reeling. Her Boots of the Bay were off, and her pants legs were rolled up. She stood in the water, her bare feet off the hotter, dryer sand and in the cool wet sand underwater as she fished.
Dordy was back on the beach with Nosebleed, whose brand-new saddle helped take quite a bit of the load off his cargo nets. Nosebleed was slowly munching away at some thick, lush, dark-green plants, and Dordy was alternately sniffing around with extreme interest at the new beach’s many, many smells, and chasing crabs around in the sand. On occasion, he’d wade out into the ankle-deep water that led to the sandbar his two-legged packmates were on and check in on them, but, as they were on a very small piece of land and not really doing anything of interest to him, he’d always soon wade back to the beach, and in every trip, steam would hiss and rise as the fiery molten corgi made his way back to shore.
Nat was spread out on her old picnic blanket, in a rugged, light, outdoorsy outfit of her own, her diary, mechanical inkwell, and water bottles for herself and Celeste – chilled with her novice frost magic – spread out in front of her. She wanted to fish too, but, on a day in such an interesting, awesome setting, she wanted to take the time to write first!
Dear diary,
The week has been a pretty good one! The lift is coming together, Nosebleed got a really comfy new saddle, and Celeste suggested we take it out for a spin! It all started over my workend, really. Here’s how Celeste told me her weekend went:
''I'll bring Nosebleed later to see those leatherworkers,” Celeste said to her uncle Rugnar as she had lunch with him. She was enjoying her grilled flounder that was Other Nat’s special of the day in Anglers Wharf, but her uncle was poking at it. “His saddle wasn't really made for me. I could see about adding another seat and more pockets for tools and things. –Oh come on, uncle. Yours only has lemon and pepper. I know the fish looks like it was pushed on its side and flattened, but the meat is very good.''
Uncle Rugnar, who loved fishing and eating fish but thought fish shouldn't be strange shapes said so.
''Flat fish, octopus-es. A fish should be proper. No fussin' around wit' a boar either. Proper food, that. Yer always tryin' ta make me eat weird things, girl.'' Of course, Rugnar had been in a bit of a mood when he had learned that I had managed to beat Celeste had Miners and Ores a few times. Beginner's luck, he had hastily proclaimed. Later, when Celeste was doing the dishes from their shared lunch, she caught her uncle reading his book on Miners and Ores again, muttering to himself. Of course uncle Rugnar wasn't mad. He was secretly proud that both Celeste and I have taken to the game which he loved!
Celeste and Uncle Rugnar arrived in Darkshire in the afternoon. Nosebleed certainly posed a challenge to the leatherworkers, who had likely never had to think up a saddle fit for such a beast! She had to stay with him while the craftsmen took measurements. Nosebleed wasn't exactly keen on anyone but Celeste, Rugnar, or me climbing on him or walking close by. He remained docile though, as long as either of the three of us stayed close. And of course, he had his little buddy Dordy nearby, too!
Celeste emerged from the water at the base of the spire, looking a bit odd with a bikini and her deepdive helmet on, and grabbed one of the Wave Dancer's gunwales to steady herself. She said something Rugnar didn't understand. The old dwarf made a gesture around his head. Celeste climbed all the way aboard and removed her Deepdive helmet.
''Okay,” she told her uncle. “Try to make them move now. They should be pretty deep into the sea floor. Nat might not like seeing these poles sticking out of the sea... Maybe if I put some flower pots on top, with some vines snaking down, and a lantern too? They would look pretty, though. We really need the dock to be stable, despite the tide.''
She was finally being understood without her helmet getting in the way. Uncle Rugnar grabbed a long pole with a hook on one end and tried to shake each of the four rods. None of them budged.
''Ye did a good job, me girl. Now...'' He clapped his hands together and rubbed them, an eager smile on his face. ''Le's get some lunch aye? Penny, bring us in!'' He said.
''Uncle Rugnar... when I said there was pork for lunch though... you know it's a pandaren recipe right? It won't be exactly what you're expecting it to be...'' Celeste said cautiously, knowing how Rugnar was always wary of new foods, even if he ended up liking it once he made up his mind to try.
''Pork and onions on a bun, wha's not ta like, lass!'' Rugnar said, refusing to have his hopes dampened. In the end, he made a face when he saw a bun opened up like a flower with pork filing inside. He made some comments about making things too complicated for nothing, but he ended up enjoying it, anyways. It might have helped that he’d had a few Stormstout brews, getting drunk enough to call the vendor an honorary dwarf for the quality of his ale. HA! High praise from a dwarf!
''Hey Nat!'' Celeste's voice came over the comms just around lunchtime on the third and final day of my workend. ''Could you grab me a pair of new boots, and another uhm, for uncle Rugnar? He wears size nine with the larger sole. He uhm... yes I'm going to tell her Uncle! It's funny... Right, sorry. So we finished building the frame for the docks. You should see it; it rises and falls with the tide, but stays in place thanks to the rods we put on the sea floor. Basically four tall vertical guides for the dock to follow up and down. Uncle Rugnar wanted to dip his toes in the water after. Dordy decided to play keep-away with one of his boots, and Uncle Rugnar chased after him. At one point he used his other boot to try and stop Dordy. I think he was aiming to throw it close to him to startle him a bit but he missed and his boot went sailing into the sea. He got it back, but its soggy now and... it had a few holes in it. He and Dordy shared some jerky just now to show they were still great friends, but Uncle Rugnar still needs new boots. Oh, and I'm making a trip to Kun-Lai later for those yak steaks. We'll have some ready for you when you come join us for dinner!''
That was a funny evening! Full of great food and funny stories of the day, the end of my workend (again, what I call my weekend at work to make it sound and feel shorter, which makes me happier, hehe) was loaded with fun times!
I got the requested boots for Celeste and Uncle Rugnar, too, as well as a new pair for myself, and Nosebleed's saddle came home with me as well! With pockets fore and aft of the stirrups for tools, and a sheathe on either side for Celeste's spear and rifle, as well as another long, slender pair for our fishing rods on either side, it had plenty of handy utility, especially with the extra seat on the back of it! In the front middle of the saddle, there was a fiery orange likeness of Dordy, sitting and facing the viewer as though looking into their eyes, emblazoned into the leather that looked extraordinarily like him!
The next morning, Monday morning, Celeste stopped the Wave Dancer just near the base of the Spire and moved up to the side of the boat to show me their work. She wore a pink bikini today decorated with blue stingrays, and I was in my Shal’dorei silk bikini my bestie Nah got me for Winter Veil.
''See?” Celeste said, pointing. “This frame basically stays anchored on each corner. As the tides roll in and out, the base just floats up or down, but can't go anywhere. It remains secured in place and will always be on the surface of the water, without bobbing to one side or another if someone steps on it. There's only the frame, though, and it's just bamboo. I'd rather make one in metal or at least reinforce the corners where the poles slide through. For now though, it'll do. We just need to fill up the space with planks. Then we can be free to built the raising cargo platform here.''
Floating and bobbing on the Wave Dancer with Celeste, I looked as Celeste pointed out the bottom frame's features to me and explained how they worked. I nodded, smiling, impressed at the idea of the lift that would rise and fall with the tide.
"Wow, that's a really cool idea," I said. "And such foresight to think of the tide's effect on it, too! Awesome job, Celeste, you and Uncle Rugnar both!"
''Thanks, Nat!” she smiled back at me.
“Today we're not working on the cargo lift though. We're taking Nosebleed out for a walk! With the new saddle, I bet he'll be even more comfortable. None of that old, troll stuff,'' Celeste said as she moved to the pilot's seat of the Wave Dancer and turned on the engine.
"Awww, that's so nice for Nosebleed!" I smiled from my purple cushioned seat. "I bet he'll love the comfy new saddle and a nice hike with the family! And we'll get to break in our new hiking boots in the process! Where are we going to go hiking at?"
''I was thinking somewhere warm and humid. Better for Nosebleed this way. We can just stroll along the beach of the Wilds here. I know it's mundane for us now, but that's easiest as well.''
"I was thinking warm and humid as well, and Stranglethorn Vale popped into my head," I said thoughtfully. "But I'm up for a nearby hike as well! OH! And we could give Ebonhoof's new saddle a go as well! We could ride side-by-side!"
''Stranglethorn Vale? It would be a nice change of scenery. We could watch the sun set in Booty Bay, wouldn't that be awesome?'' Celeste grinned, pleased with the idea.
"Heck yeah!" Nat said, excited by that idea. "And dinner in the Salty Sailor!"
''I'll get changed into something more practical for jungle-hopping than a bikini, then we'll see about getting ourselves to the Vale,'' Celeste decided as she pushed the throttle on the Wave Dancer. Until the floating dock was built, it was still moored at the Wharf.
"Okay, me too! And our new boots!"
In the end, we decided that a trip out would take some proper planning to do, especially in an area with pirates and trolls in abundance, not to mention plenty of carnivorous local wildlife. We planned our trip that day, setting it for today, Thursday. The plan was, take a week off from all the working and just do all the nothing we can possibly fit into one week… and that much doing nothing was everything we thought it would be, and just a little bit more! What a great week off!
Early Thursday morning, we fitted Nosebleed with his new saddle on Turtle Beach. It took some smart wrangling to raise it up on the giant direhorn’s back. Once it was properly buckled in place, Celeste added her rifle and spear as well as some basic provisions.
“Hey, everything is in its proper place; I love it,” Celeste said. “The wool blanket underneath the saddle is a nice touch. Even if Nosebleed has tough scales, I like that the saddle won’t cause him discomfort. We’re about ready. I’ll need to change boots for my Boots of the Bay though to get us to Booty Bay.”
"That's so great for Nosebleed that we've got him so comfy!" I said happily. "I love it! And the saddle is already coming in so handy with all its pockets! Also, I've got my Boots of the Bay that I got last year if we ever need them too. For now, I'll use my new hiking boots!"
Soon we stepped out onto the docks of Booty Bay, both sitting on Nosebleed. Dordy had his own bucket seat in the back. The local goblins scattered when the giant direhorn walked onto the deck out of a sudden portal, not just because of his size, but because of how the wood groaned under his weight. One brave bruiser even tried to get us to pay an “extra weight” tax, but when Celeste (getting quickly annoyed) said that while they waited, Nosebleed might need to go to the bathroom, and did he know what direhorn droppings looked like? Their giant size and repulsive (here she really laid it on thick) smell? The goblin wisely didn’t bother us after that, and told them to hurry out of town. HA! Good ol’ Celeste! Celeste gave Nosebleed his freedom and let him go where he pleased after that.
I stifled a few giggles at Celeste's interactions with the goblins, especially that bruiser. I felt a bit self-conscious at my own extra poundage, which surely helped not at all, but soon enough, we were out of town anyway, largely thanks to Celeste's quick thinking with the goblins.
It was a warm and beautiful day as we made our way through the short tunnel and out the giant shark jaws into Stranglethorn’s jungle. The shade given by the leaves overhead cast a cool shade over us. The jungle was full of the cries of birds, buzzing insects, and animals calling to each other.
Out in the jungle, I breathed a sigh of happiness, glad to be out in the wild in the beautiful jungle on such a nice day. It was hot and humid, neither of which she was much of a fan of, but her current home had her used to it enough where it didn't really bother her. Some insect repellent, adapted from the repellent they used on the farm, kept the bugs from swarming too close, and thus the little family was able to enjoy their ride in beautiful Stranglethorn Vale in peace and comfort.
“Hey,” Celeste said conversationally as we slowly plodded along. “You don’t tell me about trade deals from Revilgaz anymore. Did you finally set him straight, or scare him off?”
"Erm..." Nat hummed after Celeste's question. "I-I'm not sure... maybe he gave up trying to scam us? Months and months of flagrantly awful, one-sided trade offers never got him anything but those terrible, awful, no-good, very bad deals from us. ...In other words, deals that were fair for both sides."
I giggled and grinned mischievously at that, leaning my head forward onto Celeste's shoulder, my arms around her Catch's waist.
“Well, I did trade him what was basically a twig for that painting in our room,” Celeste said, recalling trading away her mother’s old fishing rod. “Oakenbait. I can’t believe he fell for it. I guess he realized it wasn’t magical and just a piece of wood. He’s probably keen on everyone forgetting that. Doesn’t that mean Darkshire is going without bananas and things like raptor meat? I mean, no bananas anymore! THAT, that is cruel. So very, very cruel!”
Celeste gently nudged Nosebleed closer to some crumbling troll ruins, eager to take a look as they rode by. She didn’t stop, just reached into a pocket of her saddle and snapped a S.E.L.F.I.E. as Nosebleed lumbered past.
"Haha, I suppose he did," I grinned, giggling at Celeste's banana and raptor meat joke. "Though he hasn't stopped trading to us. It's just that it's basically been nothing noteworthy enough to write about. Equal amounts of this for equal amounts of that. Probably sees it as a way to make our trades boring enough to outsiders to make people forget about our trades altogether, maybe thinking that if people see our trades as boring, they won't think about them, which means he's spared the embarrassment of getting gypped on that one. That's my guess, anyway."
“Ah, that makes sense,” Celeste nodded. “Low-profile and all that. Hey look, that ruin has bits of paint still on it. Amazing that something like that is still there, despite the age of the ruins.”
We rode on in silence for a while, just taking in the mystical splendor of the old jungle.
“Hey,” Celeste spoke up some time later. “I think it’s the first time I’m letting Nosebleed decide where we’re going. I wonder what he’s thinking. Going for a stroll? Looking for water-- oh! No, there he goes. Just looking for a juicy plant to chew.”
Celeste laughed as Nosebleed stopped and began eating a plant with large and thick leaves that were very dark green in color.
I took long looks at everything: the paint on the troll ruins, the ruins themselves, fancifully looking into them as they ambled by for cool voodoo stuff... the thick, dark green jungle floor and all its foliage, the odd jungle cat or raptor here and there slipping through the foliage, eyeing Nosebleed and his three riders and not daring to attack, the tropical birds of paradise and parrots and parakeets that abounded in the branches, the flowers everywhere. It was all just so very beautiful, and, as Nosebleed went for his stroll and eventually stopped for a snack, I smiled. I knew Nosebleed was living it up, and this was the happiest I'd seen the usually stoic dinosaur in some time!
“I think he’ll be at it a while, Celeste eventually said after we hadn’t moved in a long time. “Let’s go stretch our legs. I can see a beach through the foliage. Looks like we’re right along the coast.”
Celeste blinked off of Nosebleed, then looked up at me.
“Can you blink down with Dordy, or you can toss him down? I’ll slow his fall with my magic!”
I giggled at the idea of tossing Dordy. I could Blink down with him easily enough, but with Dordy squirming in my arms trying to jump down after Celeste anyway, I just decided to let him have it. I stood him in my lap. He wiggled his rump a few times, crouched, yip-yipped a few times, and... JUMPED!
...Then slowly descended into Celeste's waiting arms, under the effect of a featherfall spell! Celeste dropped him to the ground and told him to stay close, which he did.
''Want me to catch you too?'' Celeste asked next, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.
"Hehe, erm... okies, sure, heh..." I giggled nervously. I steeled myself, then... sitting side-saddle as usual anyway, I SLID RIGHT OFF! "WWWWHHEEEEE!"
I, too, descended slowly, and landed in Celeste's arms. Unlike Dordy, though, I received a passionate kiss to help me ''recuperate'' from my ordeal.
I grimaced as I slid, knowing how clumsy I am, but I trust Celeste, so I slid all the same! As I slowly left contact with the saddle and coasted gently through the air and into Celeste's arms, I also felt a bit of a thrill! Then, of course, a huge blush as I was greeted with that amazing, passionate kiss... Goodness gracious!
Once everyone was on their feet, the three of us left Nosebleed to his lunch. Celeste hitched up her rifle higher up on her shoulder and they headed to the beach. Sunlight make the water glitter, and, even from the shore, we could clearly see the coral reefs and colorful fish that swam in the reefs close to shore. We even spotted the remains of a shipwreck further off, though the one where we found the gauntlet lay many miles to the North.
''We really should come back for a swim here soon,” Celeste said, likely feeling some nostalgia from that particular dive. “The water is so clear. Plus I still want to try and catch a mightfish bigger than the record that Mother caught.''
"Oh gosh, you brought our fishing gear?" I asked, delighted. "I bet you can do it! And she would be so proud to have YOU be the one to finally break her record! Let's go fishing!"
I helped Celeste get the fishing gear out, and off to the beach we went!
And now I’m just sitting here writing in my diary, wanting to capture the experience before I leave this place. After this, I’m going beach-fishing with Celeste! This trip is so much fun!
I can’t wait to see what we catch here, and how the rest of this fishing trip goes, and how dinner in Booty Bay with all the pirates and buccaneers and privateers and whatever else about goes! And I can’t wait to see how much more we get done on the lift in the coming week, either! It’s all gonna be so much fun! YAY!
Nat smiled excitedly, snapping her diary shut and returning it to her pack, poking her mechanical pen back into her mechanical inkwell and packing that away as well. She waded from the sandbar back to shore to stow her pack back on Nosebleed, gave him a few pats (he seemed to ignore her, still munching away at the treeline’s vegetation), and waded back out to the sandbar with Celeste.
Dordy, meanwhile, had seen Nat get up and pack her things away, met her halfway, throwing up a loud, hissing trail of steam as he came out into the water and then followed her back to the beach. Nat scooped him up after spending a moment with Nosebleed, carrying him out to the sandbar, though he eventually squirmed free and went back to wading and sometimes swimming (short corgi legs couldn’t touch the bottom sometimes!), throwing up more steam on their way back to Celeste. Nat scooped him up once more as they got within twenty yards or so of the sandbar, not wanting to scare away the fish they were hoping to catch.
Picking up her pandaren bamboo fishing rod, she baited her hook, then waded out with Celeste, her own boots off and pants legs rolled up as well, and made her first cast. She made sure to do it away from Celeste’s line, so their lines wouldn’t get tangled together, and also to stand just far enough away that their casts wouldn’t have any chance of snagging their hooks on each other.
It was a serene, peaceful time, standing in the small, gentle rolling waves, listening to the gulls and the jungle sounds, smelling the salt sea, watching ships sail this way and that off in the distance. There was a sense of peace and quiet as the two quietly fished in silence, a silence in which plenty of happy things were said between them, perhaps not verbally, as they enjoyed the calm and serenity together.
There was a lot of fishing to be done, however, if Celeste was to break her mother Eowithiel’s mightfish record, and a whole day ahead of them to do it, and so, the race was on!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Feb 8, 2024 17:28:36 GMT
February the Eighth All was quiet in the workshop under the House-On-The-Spire. The lanterns hung around the sublevel illuminated several half-finished engineering projects, two workbenches, a massive fishtank populated with robotic fish whose metal scales flashed and glinted in the light, the hulking masses of the MUTT and the Flying Nosebleed, and the sculpted art carved into the walls, the protrusions of which were sculpted to show everything from sea-floor plant life to fish and sea turtles, and which had been painted over to bring the underwater scene more to life. There was no clinking and clanging, no hammering, no welding, no grinding, no torches cutting or welding. There was nothing, save for the occasional flip of a page and the scratching of a pen on paper.
Nat sat at Celeste’s workbench in her workshop/hangar sublevel, her diary and mechanical inkwell before her, next to a steaming mug of coffee, which rested beside Celeste’s own mug. She had her own workbench now, and she’d had a lot of fun making great use of it, but for diary-writing, it was something she enjoyed to just work next to Celeste. Besides, it was something of an unspoken tradition now.
Next to her, Celeste was deep in her zone, concentrating fully on one of her mother’s notebooks, her concentration setting her face into an unintentional frown as she focused deeply on the words before her. Next to the notebook was a sheet of parchment Celeste was making her own notes on, trying to determine how best to set up a system to extract the natural oils within plants. A novice alchemist, this trick was still new to her, and she was determined to learn it and get it right!
Below the workbench, curled up into a ball and snoozing lightly between them, lay Dordy the molten corgi. A full belly of biscuits with sausage gravy and scrambled eggs had him sleeping off a food coma, which left the two women in total peace and quiet to do their work.
Nat smiled warmly at her little family doing their own things, then opened her diary to the next blank page. She took a fortifying sip of coffee, poked the button that popped the mechanical pen from her mechanical inkwell, applied tip to page, and began to write.
Dear diary,
Gosh, it’s been one productive, adventurous week!
You know those moments where you have a question, and you investigate it, and you end up with a lot more questions instead of answers? That’s what this week has been like! We finally completed the construction of the floating dock upon which the Spire’s cargo lift will be built, but we decided for heavier cargo loads, we’d need much stronger wood than just bamboo planks, and – well, I’ll just tell the whole story from the beginning. But yeah, every time we decided to do something, we realized we’d need to do something else first before that, then realized we’d have to do something else first before that, then realized we’d have to do something else first before THAT…
Celeste had gotten in a lot of relaxation over the workend while I was away, which made me really happy to hear! Sometimes she just goes on a tear working and forgets to take a day off! She got to go see Uncle Rugnar in Ironforge, drinking with him on the premise of helping me (in Ironforge on business) to see which dwarven ale we should set up trade deals for with my hometown of Darkshire. She and Uncle Rugnar got erm… a bit more than tipsy! Hehe. The following day, she basically slept the day away, taking a relaxing, lazy day off in peace and quiet at home. Good for her!
As planned, Celeste had added metal guides to the dock frame where it was threaded through by the anchoring poles. Now the dock’s frame was completed! Woo!
Long bamboo planks were stacked on the Wave Dancer. My chair had been left on the beach to make room for the wood.
“We’ll be done with the dock before midday I think!” Celeste said to me as she piloted the boat towards the Spire. “How about we do something other than work this afternoon?”
Celeste piloted the Wave Dancer effortlessly, the smooth surface of Turtle Bay, always an easy one for the straight and level stuff.
"Oh, sure!" I replied to Celeste. "What do you have in mind?"
''Well, I thought you'd like to go hiking up on Kun-Lai Summit. Go riding a yak in the cold?'' Celeste said, stooping to gather her tools for the upcoming job. It was a bright, sunny, and just above seasonally warm day. Celeste, in her work clothes, rolled up her sleeves to ward off some of the heat (her control of fire magic helped her stay warm but didn't really cool her off).
"Ooooh, a yak ride in the snow!" I said, lighting up. "That does sound fun!"
I helped Celeste gather her tools up and cleaned up any other mess in the area as well.
"Oooh, and I can wear my snow gear again, too!"
''Knew you'd like it,” Celeste grinned back. “C'mon, we have an easy job. Just fitting planks on the frame and cutting them to size. How about you measure, I'll cut, then you can nail them in place?''
She handed a measuring stick to me. It was long and thin, and scratches and numbers were evenly placed on it to help me check the length of what I needed to use in terms of bamboo lengths.
"Okies!" I said. I took the measuring stick and measured each one according to a length determined by Celeste, marking a line across each one with a charcoal pencil for Celeste to cut. I handed the first to Celeste, then immediately went to mark the next.
As it was faster to measure and mark than it was to saw through them, I had a whole pile for Celeste in short order, and that meant that I was able to move on to the nailing. I moved each bamboo plank into place as I floated within the frame at first on a conjured iceberg, and then later, when there were enough planks for me to have a surface to be on, I went onto the new planks and knelt on those to hammer the rest in as Celeste got more sawed to length.
Work was done quickly, since it was a simple job. Finally, I stood on the floating dock and Celeste inspected the work from where she stood aboard the Dancer.
“It looks sturdy and stable. Walk around a bit along the periphery, see if it wobbles. With the guides, it shouldn’t, not a lot anyway.”
I felt a bit nervous walking around something potentially a bit wobbly, as clumsy as I know I am, but I did it anyway, walking around the edge of the entire platform...
The only wobbling, as it turned out, was just the slight bit allowed for with the guides, and that, though still enough to make me flail my arms in a bit of a panic to keep my balance, was sturdy enough – if even I could keep my feet under me through it, anyone and anything else could!
“Looks like we now have a proper, functioning dock!” Celeste exclaimed. “Good work! With the lift platform we’ll be able to free ourselves of the need to fly or airlift everyone and everything up to our home each time!”
Celeste hopped onto the dock and walked around as well, jumping up and down a few times in different places.
“Since we used bamboo, any deterioration over time will be easy to fix, but I think the wood will hold for a long while. Years, even.”
"YAY!" I cheered. "So it's totally done? Construction finished?"
“This is just the dock. We still need to assemble a sturdy cargo lift platform, but I can do that with Uncle Rugnar while you’re at work.”
"Oh, right, right. Erm... I could still help with that as well! Unless you're just wanting a break until the weekend?"
“We can build it tomorrow too. I was thinking we’d use stronger wood to lift heavy things. Redwood, in fact. From Grizzly Hills. Redwood is resistant to mold too, and rot. So half a day tomorrow to cut down a tree and then cut it into the sizes and shapes we need. Then another half day to build it. Spool the ropes on the winch and fix them to the cargo platform and we’re done! Easy!”
"Do we have to cut down the whole tree?" I asked with a slight frown. "That place is so gorgeous... lopping down a tree and just leaving a big unsightly stump would be heartwrenching... If we just prune a branch or two, then, as big as those branches are, could we get enough lumber from that?"
“Oh absolutely, of course. We could actually use any trees that fell naturally, if the wood is still healthy. You know… Mother has notes on making trees grow fast using an alchemical distillate of liferoot and silversage. There’s no rush to finish the cargo lift right away. I think we could apply it to where we cut off a branch. It should help the tree regrow the limb in weeks or months, not years.” Celeste said, thinking out loud. She was always eager to try her hand at alchemy. It was a skill she enjoyed, but couldn’t seem to fully master. Thankfully Eowithiel’s carefully preserved notebooks were a great guide for the amateur alchemist!
"Ooooh, that sounds wonderful!" I said. "I could help you make it before we go!"
“I have some liferoot left but silversage… Un’Goro remains the best place to find some. Unless we head over there this afternoon instead of Kun-Lai Summit… plus I need time to check the formula and understand its intricacies.”
"Oh gosh, we ran out of Mountain Silversage in the planters?" I asked, looking thoughtful. "I suppose we have quite a few stops to make now! Un'Goro Crater, Kun-Lai Summit, Grizzly Hills... I suppose we could do Kun-Lai Summit in the coming week if you wanna handle the potion first. It could be sort of a reward for jobs well done this week!"
“Oh no, we have a few in the lower level, just not enough for what I’ll need. I think the recipe needs silversage oil. You only extract a tiny bit per plant.”
Celeste looked at me, smiling. She always said my cheerful attitude was always so contagious! Hehe.
“Sounds like a plan! We won’t even have to dodge Mister Grumpypants. The silversage grows in the mountains and we can spot it from the air.”
"True..." I mused. "Though the first camp he attacked was on the edge of the mountains. But then again, we wouldn't be camping there; just flying around harvesting. We should keep our eyes and ears open. Maybe no machines, so we don't draw noise, and can hear any gigantic footfalls? Onyx could take us around."
“Yeah I’m pretty sure he’ll remember the sound of the MUTT or the FB. You’re right, he did come sniffing around the camp close to the mountains. I don’t think he can climb though so we’ll just stay as high as we can.”
"Right, yeah, if we just hop Onyx from outcropping to outcropping along the mountainsides, we'll be out of his reach, able to hear him, and not make noise to attract him or anything else. The flying pterrordaxes will respect Onyx's superior size and stay away as well."
“Awww, I wanted to make crispy pterrordax wings for dinner!” Celeste said, quite seriously but I know her like no one else, and spotted the slightest of crinkling around her eyes, revealing her bluff!
"Onyx can dive-bomb a pterrordax for us and pull away a meal, and without the risk of sounding off a rifle shot," I grinned, calling the bluff. "We can still have an exotic meal!"
“Riiiight, dragon-drool flavored pterrordax wings? Yummy!” Celeste made a face then giggled.
“He wouldn't slobber on them!" I giggled as well. "He'd just catch it and slay it for us! SNAP!"
“With his mouth, Nat!” Celeste replied with emphasis. “Tell you what, we’ll leave the pterrordax lunch for Onyx, and I’ll roast a nice raptor flank for dinner. We can snag one on the edge of crater easily.”
"I meant snap with his claws!" I giggled again. "Like a rip and a twist of the spine! But yeah, you're probably right. We can leave Onyx to enjoy his lunch and we'll snag a wayward raptor along the cliffs. Heck, maybe a raptor egg or two on the side..."
“For your breakfast tomorrow! Alright, now I’m hungry. I’ll make us some sandwiches then we can head to Un’Goro. C’mon, we can leave the Wave Dancer here now. This will be its permanent dock. Nice and protected from the sea winds by the spire.”
Unfortunately, we needed to get back up, but we had plenty of flying machines and friends for that. Celeste reached the FB, floating on its pontoons nearby. She started the engine and the rotors spun quickly, lifting the machine in the sky.
I followed Celeste up on Onyx, landing in the hangar a safe distance from the SB and sliding off, giving Onyx a hug around the neck before releasing him back to the skies.
I headed upstairs with Celeste, changing into one of her Whitewind Company expedition outfits – in other words, no dress, but pants, a light shirt, and my new boots gotten in Darkshire a couple of weekends ago from the leatherworking vendors!
Celeste went to make a quick lunch of BLT sandwiches. Dordy had been left in the house while they worked and was eager to see them. He kept running up and down the stairs, unable to decide on sticking with me or Celeste.
I eventually made Dordy's life simpler by completing my outfit and trekking back downstairs, the happy pup cradled in my arms. I quickly let him down to the floor when I saw my amazing-looking BLT (amazing because bacon!), where he immediately found his own sandwich and had it gobbled up before I even finished my first bite!
"Gosh, this is good," I said after her first bite, giggling at Dordy and giving him some of her crust. "Thanks, Celeste! I'm ready to go when you are!"
Celeste had wolfed down her lunch and said she didn’t need to change. She grabbed a sack to put the plants in, tucked a sheathed knife on her belt and grabbed her rifle.
“Right, let’s go! I’ll pop a portal to Theramore. Are we leaving Dordy here?”
"Hmmm..." I hummed. "If we're going for stealth on Onyx, he may give us away... maybe the pandaren kids at the Wharf would like to play with him for a little bit while we're gone? And then we can go get the plants, stop by the Wharf, and bring him home?"
“Good thinking! I think everyone involved will appreciate it! I’ll grab him and drift down. Join me there with Onyx, okay?”
"Okies!"
I got Onyx ready for an extra rider, something he hadn't done since the last Whitewind expedition. It was a simple, quick dive to the Wharf from the Spire, and I met up with Celeste, who already had a crowd of children and adults alike, ready to see Dordy, who was more than ecstatic to see them as well. He was gobbling up the treats they offered and quite a bit of attention!
“I think he’s all set,” Celeste said, laughing, then stooping down to pet Dordy. “Be a good boy now! Thanks guys!” she said to their Angler friends, then moved closer to Onyx and blinked up onto his saddle. Moments later the port of Theramore shimmered through an open portal over the bay.
I let Onyx fly through the portal himself. The netherdrake had been with my since my early childhood, when my Uncle Kanrethad had brought him to my as an egg (the lone wholesome reason for his visit to Shadowmoon Valley in the Outlands), and Onyx knew me – and Celeste, now – well enough to know what the portal was for. He also knew Kalimdor well enough to simply need to hear the name "Un'Goro Crater" to fly us both there on his own. With Onyx as a living, breathing autopilot, the trip was leisurely and scenic for his passengers!
“Down there!” Celeste said, peering over Onyx’s side with her magnifying goggles. “I see a large patch. It should be enough. Onyx will have to land on that peak over there! I can drift down directly on it if Onyx can hover over it! It’ll be faster if we go together but safer if one of us keeps an eye on the area. What do you think?”
"Slow is smooth and smooth is fast," I said thoughtfully. "I'll make for that patch there and keep watch, then you can blink back up onto Onyx when you've got the herb!"
Onyx heard and understood, and had his passengers in place even as I finished speaking. I gave Celeste the thumbs-up, letting her know I was ready for her to make her jump!
Wasting no time, Celeste jumped off and slowly drifted down, landing effortlessly in the patch of mountain silversage. Drawing her knife she knelt down and started cutting and collecting plants. She worked quickly, not wanting to stick around for longer than she had to.
On Onyx, I saw a few pterrordax flying over the jungle. The trees shook and a colorful snout emerged, trying to snatch a flying critter. Mister Grumpypants was still painted, the colors starting to fade after months of exposure to the elements. The giant lizard stopped and stared directly at ME! OH GOSH! It roared and started moving towards us, though it was still far away… UH OH!
I immediately dived close to Celeste, hovering just overhead and ready to dart away at a moment's notice!
"Celeste!" I called. "Big Grumpypants sighted, and he's sighted us! He's still some distance away, so you can still get all those silversage plants, but we gotta hurry; he's coming right at us!"
I held Onyx in place, held at an angle away from Celeste for when she had enough silversage for the potion and could blink back onto the netherdrake!
“We’re high up the crater’s side; he can’t just climb up!” Nevertheless, she started hacking away at the plants and stuffing them in her sack quickly. They could hear the thuds of Grumpypants’ steps in the jungle getting closer. Celeste stood up and blinked up behind me just as the monstrous lizard burst out of the trees, having jumped up to try to catch us. A giant jaw full of scary teeth loomed towards us!
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" I cried out, as Onyx quickly gained altitude with several powerful flaps of his wings. Within seconds, we were a couple hundred feet above the now-roaring, frustrated devilsaur, the sound of the dino's immense jaws snapping shut below them still ringing in our ears!
"Goodness gracious!" I blurted out. "That was SO CLOSE! Do you have enough mountain silversage now? If you need more, we can go down the other side of the mountains, ride around the outside of the crater to the opposite side, and make another dive in."
“I think I have more than enough, and enough of that grumpy lizard, too,” Celeste replied quickly. “C’mon, let’s head home and leave Grumpypants to his sulking!” A shimmering portal to Pandaria opened in the sky ahead of us.
“Got it!" I agreed. "Away we goooooo!"
Onyx once again knew just what was wanted of him before it was asked, and he wasted no time flapping through the portal!
We emerged on the other side just outside the Shrine of the Seven Stars in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms in Pandaria, glad to be back. Onyx zoomed us homeward, over the mountain peeks to the Valley of the Four Winds, over the verdant, scenic, gigantic farmlands of the region's Tillers, over the waterfall-strewn cliffs, over the jungles of the Krasarang Wilds, and over Turtle Beach and Turtle Bay to Anglers Wharf to pick up Dordy, who’d had himself a blast, feasting and playing and wearing himself out until all he wanted to do now was sleep! Celeste scooped the lazy boy – a rare condition for Dordy – up into her arms, blinked back onto Onyx’s back after they thanked their Wharf friends for watching and playing and feeding him, and then we soared back up to the House-On-The-Spire. We'd gotten what we'd set out for, and now it was time to research and carefully make a druidic tree-growing potion! WOO!
Since then, Celeste has been working on researching different methods for extracting oils from plants. Her mother’s old herbology and alchemy notebooks have really helped a lot, and she’s learning about steam distillation and hydrodistillation and stuff! After that, she’ll have to figure out what to do to make the potion itself, once she has the plant oils extracted. I’m gonna help as much as I can, but I know even less about herbology and alchemy than she does! Still, it should be fun, figuring it all out together!
So yeah, as I wrote at the beginning of this post, that’s how one project – building the cargo lift platform – turned into a Grizzly Hills trip, which itself turned into an Un’Goro Crater trip, which itself led to a Big Grumpypants encounter and rapid escape, and now it means learning to extract oils and putting together whatever sort of system that will make, all to prepare for going back to the original quest to build the lift platform. Hooray for chain side-quests! I think it’s entertaining how that worked out!
And this means lots more learning cool stuff, lots more adventures, and lots more crafting and building and brewing cool stuff next week! It’s sure to be an awesome week, and I’m so ready for it to get here! YAY!
Nat smiled as she finished up her entry, contemplating the beautiful trip to Grizzly Hills to come next week, and the next phase of the cargo lift construction. After that, there was still the hydroponics bay to craft! But one week at a time!
Nat ran her diary, mechanical inkwell – mechanical pen tucked in – and their coffee mugs back up to her office and the kitchen, respectively, and was downstairs quickly with two refilled mugs. Celeste passed Nat one of Eowithiel’s old notebooks, and Nat helped out with looking things up. They figured out how the oil distillation process worked, and Celeste began getting ideas for a simple little machine to work on, though she hadn’t yet decided whether to build it over Nat’s workend, or build it together with Nat the following week and hit Grizzly Hills the next week, or the end of the coming week if the machine went together quickly enough.
But that was enough for now. Celeste decided to decide later; it was the last day of Nat’s minication, and she wanted to have a bit of relaxing fun before she had to go back to work! Nat was all for it, of course, so they went fishing in the serene little creek Celeste had found while meditating a few weeks ago, getting in a few really good fish fights here and there in between quiet, meditative, contemplative moments of casting and reeling. Dordy was a good boy, staying fairly close and not making much noise. There were new scents and smells for him to explore, and that kept him occupied for quite a while. Onyx was there too, soaring overhead and finding himself a meal, though he eventually joined the little family and curled up for a nap not far from where they were fishing.
Once they had enough fish, it was time for phase two of Celeste’s plan – smoking the fish for dinner, and swimming in the meantime! With bikinis already on while fishing, they took a dip in the warm, tranquil waters, and Dordy joined them to explore a few bends in the water in his bubble. The swim was relaxing and fun, and all three members of the little family had a great time!
Dinner was a small affair, jade lungfish seasoned with lemon pepper and butter, with a salad from the Halfhill farm on the side brought from the house, and a wine chosen by Celeste – pinot grigio, a wine with bright acidity and green apple flavors, idea for seafoods, salad, and poached white fish. Dinner by a bonfire as the sun went down somewhere in the horizon past the Jade Forest bamboo jungle was a great way to end the relaxing afternoon and evening, and it was with great satisfaction that the little family rode Onyx back home.
Once home, a candlelit bath with bubbles ended the day, and Nat went to bed feeling like the week had been a really good one, close encounter with Big Grumpypants’ jaws notwithstanding! She thought ahead to all the things they wanted to do around the house, and how cool it would be once everything was finished and they were able to use it all. The lift, the hydroponics bay, and whatever else they might come up with for their home. It was sure to be a great learning experience for her engineering, a great introduction into herbology and especially alchemy, and a great time overall, and Nat was so ready for it!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Feb 15, 2024 13:06:52 GMT
February the Fifteenth The noise level was, perhaps, a bit higher than usual this morning near Anglers Wharf. The hustle and bustle of the Wharf was actually at its usual level, with anglers going to and fro, carrying tackle and fishing rods to this dock or that dock, the goblin ship sputtering and puttering as it powered up its steam engines, and Fo Fook the hozen screeching and flailing around as seagulls tried to dive-bomb his bait, mostly missing, but sometimes getting a choice morsel, their cries filling the air.
What made the noise level a bit higher than usual was the noise at the base of the enormous rock spire rising from the ocean near it. A young woman in a wide-brimmed fishing hat and a young mechagnome woman wearing welding goggles were there, welding and ratcheting and whirring and clicking away at a curiously tiny watercraft, and just generally adding to the din of the busy morning. Aiding and abetting the noisemaking was a molten corgi bouncing around the new dock there, attempting to get at any seagulls that might make their way too close. He was rather enjoying his game, his tongue lolling out as the seagulls swooped lower and lower, almost seeming to intentionally tease him. Here and there, the odd gull would alight on the top of one of the support poles at the corners, peering over the post with head turned sideways to stare at fiery pup, who would rear up on the post and yip-yip-yip at the gull until it flew off again.
Also on the dock was another young woman, this one sprawled out on the dock on her belly, propped up on her forearms with a diary open before her, an inkwell sitting next to a thermos of coffee.
Nat looked up at Celeste and Penny, who were working on the C.O.M.P.A.S.S. – AKA the Penny Pincher – in an attempt to re-secure a piece of machinery that she didn’t really understand, though it was apparently vital to the balance of the craft. It was a bit of damage left over from the goblin attack a couple months prior back in the Thousand Needles’ flooded raceway, and had only been detected when the COMPASS had been airlifted and flown through portals to Turtle Bay for Penny to take for a spin closer to home. Nat was in her new engineering clothes and vest, ready to come take a look once she finished up a short diary post she wanted to complete first. With the excitement of getting in on the repairs in mind, she smiled happily, poked the button on her mechanical inkwell that popped out her mechanical pen, applied it to the page, and began to write.
Dear diary,
Well, it’s been a productive week, though in ways I did not anticipate! Well, maybe a bit of it – Celeste finished the tree-regrowing potion her mother used to make! Now we’re ready to go harvest a limb or three from Grizzly Hills to make a good, sturdy lift platform for the spire lift! Gosh, we still need to come up with a cool, fun acronym or other kinda name for that… anyway… we’re ready to make our trip to Grizzly Hills now!
Another thing that happened is I found a new way to make a bit of extra gold on the side. I gotta run it by my bestie Nah first… no spoilers yet, but I have just a little something in the works to do soon! So that’s another productive thing that happened this week!
There’s also plans to dock a new craft in the works at the spire lift, so that’s another productive thing for the week! Other than that, it’s mostly been a week of relaxation and a bit of travel!
Celeste told me about her weekend while I was at work. She said she remembered peeking at her mother as she worked on her alchemy. Seeing her graceful mother create different potions and tinctures effortlessly had fascinated her! Later, Eowithiel had used her skills to help her mind forget the pain of losing her husband, Isral. Celeste had seen her mother withdraw herself into the oblivion of Dreamless Sleep potions. For a long time, Celeste had despised anything related to alchemy. Time had healed that wound, though, but the memories returned every time she tried to dabble in the art.
Right now she was finishing the last of the welding on the apparatus that would help her extract the silversage oil, a sort of steam distillation machine. It’s such a cool gadget!
A large copper still ended into a tapered point and an inclined tube with a coil. The plants would be steamed, extracting the oil as the steam rose through the plants. Once the steam passed through the tube, the cold water pumped through the inner coil would cause it to condense and finally drip into a container placed at the end of the tube. She would get a lot of silversage scented water and a thin layer of oil floating on top. Ingenious!
Finally the last weld was complete. Celeste planned on testing the still for any leaks but first… lunch.
Shrimp bacon alfredo sounded great…
The next day, she said, was a bit, unforeseen disaster! The whole house smelled like silversage. Not a delicate perfume, no. Rather a cloying, powerful scent. Oops!
Things had been going great. Just before noon, Celeste had enough oil for her needs. There were some leftover plants so she had started a last batch.
Happy that things were progressing, Celeste had sent her drone to Halfhill for lunch. It had arrived as planned and just as awesome and delicious as my note I usually write her before I leave for work had promised.
So much so that Celeste had ended up eating a little too much…
The hammock on the sky deck was so inviting and the sun pleasantly warm. She had just wanted to rest for a moment…
Unfortunately, her process in the workshop had continued unwatched. The boiler had grown so hot that the steam’s pressure had forced it out of the system through any cracks it could or out of the tube itself.
Dordy’s panicked barks had woken Celeste up. She had managed to shut everything down, but by then, it was too late!
So she had left the windows and doors opened (screens in place to keep bugs and other critters out, arcane barrier still over the property to prevent breaking and entering), and went to Uncle Rugnar’s, telling me over the comm to meet her there. Celeste had brought a fresh set of clothes and pajamas for me, or at least, whatever she could find that didn’t overpower my senses… She’s so nice and thoughtful!
“Yes uncle Rugnar, your pot will be fiiiiine,” Celeste said the next morning of the workend, for the third time, as she stirred some silversage water into the pot. The beeswax already in it turned a white-grey color from the perfumed water. At least it was a pleasant, delicate smell.
That hadn’t prevented Uncle Rugnar from complaining about her use of his best pot (he only had two and just one was big enough for her needs).
“Dordy! Don’t!” Celeste suddenly cried. Too late; the pup had managed to raise himself on his hind legs high enough to snag a yummy egg from her unattended plate. Not that she could blame him. The dwarven egg recipe I had told her about was amazing! Thankfully Bruuk’s wasn’t far!
“You could’ve kept an eye on my lunch you know…” Celeste said as she, almost absentmindedly, moved one of her miners to a mithril ore that her uncle had been maneuvering to get.
“What? How did you…?” He sputtered angrily, looking at his book on the game and glaring at it as if it had betrayed him.
“Uncle Rugnar, you always follow one vein at a time. All of your miners commit to a single goal. It’s easy to know what your plans are, and it leaves the rest of the board wide open….” Celeste said, shaking her head.
“A single focus. lass, tha’s got me through a lot o’ problems as a miner in me youth!” He said, stubbornly
“I’m sure it has but this is a game, not a real tunnel…”
“Pah! I’ll start the board over while ye get all three o’ us some more lunch.”
“The Feaster of Unattended Noms got some of yours too, huh?”
“Aye…”
Monday morning, we returned home. The house still had a faint odor of silversage but it was far more tolerable.
“I made you some candles with the leftovers from my oil making process,” Celeste said, handing me a cloth sack with half a dozen beeswax candles in it. She’s so great!
“You probably don’t need them right now; the house already has the scent. It’s the thought that counts, right?” She grinned impishly.
“Today I’ll get to work making the paste for the redwoods. The recipe isn’t hard, but I’ll need the morning. Then I think I’ll give our clothes and the bedspread a good wash, maybe hang outside to dry them where the sea breeze can freshen them up.”
"Okay, good idea," I smiled, taking the candles to the cupboard in the bathroom where I kept the rest of them. "And thanks for the candles! That's so sweet of you to do! I'm sure we'll enjoy them lots! I'll help you with the paste and the laundry as well. Or, if there isn't anything for a second person to do, I can get the laundry while you make the potion!"
“I didn’t want to burden you with cleaning up my sleepy mistake,” Celeste said, though she looked grateful for the offer to help. “If you want to tackle the laundry, I guess we could bring Dordy to the beach this afternoon, let him bubble around. I could go hunting and leave the MUTT to slow roast dinner on a spit. Uncle Rugnar might like to stretch his toes in the sand, and Wisps will enjoy the outing. I’ll be sure to invite Penny too.”
"Wow, sounds like quite a party!" I smiled. "I'll get started on the laundry right away, and by then, maybe we'll all be done with things and stuff, and Penny and Uncle Rugnar will be here! Gosh, a slow-roasted dinner from and open-air fire on the beach sounds like an amazing day!"
“Okay, great! I’ll call them on the comms, so they know in advance!” Celeste said. “I’ll make some coffee and bring some to you when it’s ready!”
A while later, I received my coffee, flavored with my liquid hazelnut creamer. Celeste said that Penny wanted to bring the COMPASS over to pilot on the sea here and not just in the sunken raceway, so plans were made to add a docking spot for it on the new dock. Meanwhile Uncle Rugnar had been snowshoeing in the mountains and promised to bring a nice boar for the spit-roast dinner. How awesome does that sound!
Celeste spent the rest of the morning grinding down liferoot and adding silversage oil to it until she had a paste that could be easily smeared on where the redwood branches would be cut.
I finished up the laundry, a task made more enjoyable with Celeste's coffee delivery. It took a few goes to get all the scent completely out of the sheets, but with a bit of work, I got it done! Woo!
I was excited about having the COMPASS closer for Penny to ride around locally. I helped make the plans for it, and then headed to the beach in my bikini to help set up the MUTT's spit roast attachment and get things ready for a fire for when the fire was needed.
Celeste made the necessary trips with the Flying Nosebleed, first opening a portal to Theramore to get Penny’s COMPASS, then another to airlift it from the Thousand Needles’ flooded raceway to Ironforge, then another portal for Uncle Rugnar from there back to the Shrine of the Seven Stars in Pandaria.
The COMPASS was airlifted to Pandaria and the fast boat had barely touched water when Penny cranked up the engine, zooming out to sea then back! She looked like she was having a blast! She knew she wanted to run a bit of maintenance on it, though, as she said something felt slightly off about it. That’s what they’re working on right now, in fact!
Once she was back from Ironforge, Celeste changed into a yellow bikini decorated with green palm leaves. She was soon on the beach, helping Rugnar to prepare the boar he had hunted for roasting.
With the MUTT stuck on spit-roast duty and my bonfire blazing merrily, it was time to enjoy the afternoon!
Rugnar stuck an umbrella in the sand and sat underneath it, his large feet buried in the warm sand. Whisperwings flew slowly over the shallow waters along the beach, apparently quite happy to do his own thing.
Dordy was quick to hop in his Dordy Bubble. He paddled off after a crab that was marching along the edge of the trench.
Celeste kept an eye on him, as did I, but mostly she cozied up to me, keeping her wife for herself. I love having her close, and she likes it too!
I enjoyed the fire-making, and the swimming after that, while Uncle Rugnar enjoyed the beach and cooked the boar. I swam past fish of all colors in the reef, a water-breathing spell on myself and my Catch. The two of us explored the trench for what felt like the hundredth time, and yet always feels like the first time, as there are different sea creatures and even different plant life here and there each time we go down there!
Today, it was a sea turtle adult followed by four sea turtle babies. They were so CUTE! Their big eyes and tiny, sleek shells followed the adult in a straight, single-file line as they moseyed on around the water. The turtles swam past another new addition, a massive whale shark! OH GOSH! The huge beast ignored us, moseying even more lazily itself, its enormous gills flapping in the water as it drifted along. It was so COOL to see it!
It’s always something new and different down there, and always something new to entertain Dordy, too, as Dordy followed his crab friend around, trying and failing to sniff it through the bubble. He’s so heckin’ cute too!
I felt deeply content on this deep swim with my little family. It’s days like that one that really make life great!
The afternoon and evening had been perfect. After a great meal on the beach, our little family, including Penny and Rugnar, stayed late on the beach, watching the stars twinkling in a clear night sky. Celeste sat close to me, a blanket wrapped around us both, with Dordy tucked in between us. It was only once the evening breeze started to cool down that we finally decided to call it a night. Celeste opened a portal for Rugnar, who headed home, with a sleeping Whisperwings in his arms and a smile on his face. Celeste brought me to bed, bikinis soon removed for some pleasant, romantic fun to end a wonderful day... I LOVE the primary day of the Love Is In The Air holiday! Hehe…
Today, we’re down at the new floating dock, just doing the aforementioned maintenance on the COMPASS. After that, we’ll likely take the day and just sort of relax, as traveling on a day when I gotta go to bed early for my lame early work morning isn’t always the best idea, and we like to just have a fun day off for my final day of the weekly minication anyway. It’s gonna be a great day!
Anyway, I think I’ll wrap this up and go see what I can do with the COMPASS engineering! I’m excited to get started on it! It’s gonna be so much fun! So yeah, that now!
Gosh, a trip to Grizzly Hills next, and then building the lift platform… we’re so close to completion on the lift construction project! I can’t wait to see how much further we get next week! This is gonna be so awesome! YAY!
Nat happily snapped her diary shut and poked her pen back into its place in her mechanical inkwell, returning all to her pack and hurrying over to the side of the dock to help. It turned out that the device in question was the rudder system itself, with a few bits of hardware having been jammed loose, and one bolt having been snapped. Replacement hardware was scattered along the pilot’s seat, and broken or stripped-out hardware was strewn along the edge of the floating dock. A side panel had been removed to get access to the inner workings of the rudder system, and Penny, being so much smaller and having so many extendable tools within her mechanical fingers, was head-first in the hole, reaching in and securing everything while Celeste passed her the hardware out of the pilot’s seat and took the damaged hardware Penny was pulling out.
Nat was given the task of holding a measuring tape and continually making measurements from the outer hull to the bracket for the rudder itself, making sure the rudder remained at the center of the boat and didn’t jostle around while the hardware was being replaced. With Penny’s small size and advanced utility, Celeste assisting and just giving or taking hardware (a rare break for her!), and Nat keeping a watchful eye on the rudder’s positioning, the task was soon complete, and, purely to test the fix and make sure it worked and totally not for fun, obviously (the girls enjoyed mischievous grins at that), Penny climbed into the Penny Pincher, Celeste, Nat, and Dordy climbed into the Wave Dancer, and the three took off into the water. A boat ride all the way to Jade Forest and then all the way to the Wall along the border of the Dread Wastes at the far opposite end of the beach was prescribed by Celeste. Even as Celeste really put the Wave Dancer through its paces, the racing modifications and designs on the Penny Pincher meant that the tiny craft was, quite literally, riding circles around the larger craft!
The boat ride to the Jade Forest took up the rest of the morning, and the group rode ride up the river to Paw’don Village to make a lunch stop. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, a small salad, and Paw’don Village’s renowned apple pie for dessert fed the little family, and they felt powered up (and so did their boats, getting fuel in the area) for the trip to the Wall.
The afternoon’s trip was a fair amount more adventurous to Penny, who, regaining confidence in her little racer’s handling, was now riding the surf as they coasted along the beach, even jumping waves and getting airborne! The engine whined loudly without water to push, a healthy little roar that sounded like it was working at peak performance, and then Penny would splash down onto the down slope of a wave beyond the one she’d jump, riding it back down to the water’s surface, hooting with joy as she maneuvered for more jumps. Dordy yip-yip-yipped every time Penny got airborne, and Celeste and Nat cheered for the more impressive leaps.
Penny was clearly having the time of her life! She jumped waves and surfed and even rode through the tubular rolls of the water as the crests of the waves came crashing down to form water tunnels. She had an escort of dolphins at one point as well, and she stopped jumping the COMPASS to just sit and enjoy their company as they rode in the wake of the COMPASS and the Wave Dancer alike. Eventually the dolphins broke off, and Penny returned to her stunts.
The COMPASS trial run was clearly a resounding success! Nat felt pride in having helped restore peak handling to the tiny racer, grinning as she put a hand to the patch on her vest with her name and labeling her an engineer. This was great!
The only problem on the trip was the ride past Unga Ingoo. A series of tiny tropical islands arranged in a half-circle, the little land masses were home to an extensive hozen village, and, predictably enough, the hozen could hear the motorized crafts coming from a mile away, and were in canoes to try and catch one for themselves! OH, NO!
…Yet it wasn’t an issue for pilots like Penny and Celeste! After all, hadn’t they just broken a massive pirate blockade just a couple of months prior? What was a few monkeys in canoes?
Celeste, taking charge with her military tone as usual in times like this, quickly formulated a plan. The Wave Dancer would give them a wide berth, while the COMPASS charged RIGHT AT THEM! The hozen would, naturally, be focused on Penny’s racing boat instead of Celeste’s larger craft in that situation, and, as they appeared to be ridden down, their canoes shattered, Penny would simply do, at the last possible moment, what she’d been doing all afternoon long… ride the surf, find a good wave, and LAUNCH!
Ooooh, did the hozen freak out over THAT one!
The monkey folk screeched and hollered, ooked and dooked, diving to the bottom of their canoes and flailing their arms over their head to ward off the suddenly flying boat!
When they raised their heads to see if it was safe, Penny was already in the distance, laughing with her friends as they quickly put distance between themselves and Unga Ingoo!
Eventually, the Wall loomed in the distance, and the little family turned around to make for home. There were mantid there that could fly at speeds far greater than hozen in canoes, not to mention the deadly kraken that was known to have a lair somewhere off the coast of the Dread Wastes. Wisely, the group turned around and went back the way they came.
The hozen being a simple-minded folk, they tried for the boats again as the little family returned eastward, and this time, Penny had a new tactic in mind. With Celeste giving the hozen a wide berth again, Penny rode toward the hozen once more, this time, at the last moment, turning a ninety-degree angle at top speed and throwing a huge wave of water right at them! Several hozen were splashed out of their canoes, ooking and dooking as they climbed back in, only to flip the canoes from trying to get back in. Now ALL the hozen were soaked! As Celeste and Penny rode off into the horizon, the hozen were left to swim the waves to the mainland and wait for their canoes to float in so they could right them and return home. There would be no hozen pirating today!
By the time the little family returned to Anglers Wharf, Other Nat was discovered to be setting up a party on Turtle Beach! Apparently, fishing had been great this week! He had deep sea fish, shallow seas fish, and freshwater fish aplenty, and there were a few bonfires set up along Turtle Beach for the best of the pandaren to cook up all the fish, also smoking what wasn’t going to be eaten that night for storage for later, and donations to orphanages everywhere.
Celeste was in wide demand among the pandaren and other folk to tell another of her stories, and that was just fine with her – she’d just had a new experience that very day! After eating quickly, Celeste stood up to give the crowd what they wanted – a show with their dinner!
As the skies darkened, the stars came out, and the beach was lit up from the bonfires, Celeste stood impressively in the firelight, telling stories of dodging sharks in the water with the COMPASS and the Wave Dancer, using whitewater rapids as ramps to jump the watercrafts upriver to a village they wanted to have lunch at, whitewater rafting the boats back downstream to get back to the beach, getting out of the boats to ride dolphins – even Dordy! – and the dolphins not being ridden being smart enough to grab the mooring ropes of the boats and bring them along, and then Penny jumping thirty to forty feet at a time on waves as big as Anglers Wharf!
Celeste’s best stories came at the end of the show, where, on the way westward past Unga Ingoo, and again on the return trip eastward, they’d had a huge naval battle with the hozen! Nat manned the water cannon on the Wave Dancer, Celeste piloted, and Penny attacked the hozen blockade more directly! Then, just when Penny thought she was free… the hozen leader, a huge, hulking monster of a hozen, leaped right onto the bow of the COMPASS, brandishing a razor-sharp pirate cutlass!
Penny, unperturbed, leaped out of the pilot’s seat, grabbed the hozen’s own dagger out of its sheathe, and, right there on the tiny bow of the Penny Pincher, gave the most epic display of swordfighting over the water anyone had ever seen! Celeste whirled and swung, hacked and lunged, thrusted and parried and stabbed, silhouetted impressively against the bonfires behind her, which threw a long shadow over the beach toward the gently rolling waves and mimicked her every move in real time, demonstrating every move of the hugely embellished encounter as she told the tale. No one seemed to mind that Penny was dissolved into a fit of barely-contained giggles – such was the power of Celeste’s storytelling!
Meanwhile, Dordy, who was well-trained in COMPASS operation, Celeste swore, leaped into the little craft to keep it going during the escape while Penny sword-fought the hozen leader! What a good boy!
The duel of swords eventually came to an end when Penny, in a stroke of genius, decided to slash at the hozen leader’s cord, severing it and causing his trousers to drop to his ankles, revealing polka-dot knickers! The hozen, surprised and embarrassed, was easy, then, for Penny to grab an ankle, yank sharply upwards, and dump the would-be pirate right into the waves! The little family was victorious! And that’s what they’d just rode up to the party from!
Nat, thoroughly entertained and very well fed, was totally ready for bed by the party’s end, and she was about to stay and help Other Nat and Celeste clean up, but, having an early work morning, the two waved her off. Feeling both grateful and regretful about leaving the mess to someone else, she nonetheless remembered doing the laundry to clean up Celeste’s sleepy mistake early in the week, and was convinced that her being dismissed from the clean-up to go head to the bath and then the bed early was a fair trade.
Thus it was that Nat found herself in bed, smiling as she recounted the fun day and all its adventures and engineering successes and Celeste’s party entertainment. She giggled at the latter bit, then drifted off to sleep, already dreaming of the next week’s adventures. It was sure to be a great week, and, if Celeste had more embellished stories to tell anyone about it, then so much the better!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Feb 22, 2024 15:13:43 GMT
February the Twenty-Second With the worst of the winter over, the state of the northern mountain forest’s weather had returned to that of the previous autumn’s camping trip, or at least, it was climbing back toward that point. February would soon become March, and the sun would soon provide more warmth. The icy, frigid creek wasn’t teeming with salmon. Other than that, not much looked different. The patches of snow under trees that never allowed sunlight made for a beautiful addition to the forest floor of the mountain. The wind was frigid as well, but it wasn’t too bad when the wind wasn’t stirring much, and the forest blocked much of the wind in its thicker areas anyway. The icy air was still enough to add that smell of ice, snow, and winter to the fragrance of earth and wood and pine and fir. The only sound was the wind, save for that one lone fiddler that visitors and residents alike loved so much, playing songs here and there that echoed all through the redwood forest, serenading people and animals alike with its slow, lazy, relaxing music.
Nat heaved a happy sigh. Being back here, even if only for just a short day hike and work project, was a source of joy and contentment that words could never really suffice to describe. She knew they wouldn’t be making camp here; their task would be too short, and the task awaiting them at home required their attention. Still, she was grateful for the visit, and nothing would do but that she write the week’s diary post while she was here.
She sat down upon a freshly-sawn log that was ten feet in length. Sitting cross-legged on the log, she was able to place her diary, thermos of blessedly hot coffee (she loved being in the cold weather, but she still felt the cold, and needed warmth!), and mechanical inkwell upon the next log higher up the pile, another ten-footer, just like the rest of the stack.
The selected lumber had been harvested from a particularly massive redwood tree a good distance further back in the woods from the campsite, well off the beaten trail, so that a stump wouldn’t leave an unsightly blemish upon the scenery.
The MUTT stood by, powered down, engines off, nearby. She’d considered putting it in MAD mode in case of any grizzlies, but the buzz saw and the branch coming off was more than likely enough noise to scare them away, and she had Dordy to alert her of anything that might get close anyway, so the MUTT sat quietly, conserving fuel and ceasing its noise in the peaceful place.
Celeste, wearing spiked boots made for ice climbing and a matching pair of picaroons slung at her back, as well as her engineering outfit, was up the tree at the base of that branch’s stump now, a large jar of the plant-growing paste they’d made from Celeste’s mother’s notebook recipe in hand. She was applying it liberally to the stump, and already, a green shoot was sprouting out of its center. It was only a few inches long. Celeste sat and waited as it grew before her eyes. It was taking a while, but it was coming along!
After some time watching, Celeste took a tiny brush from a vest pocket, taking a bit more of the paste and applying it now to the little shoot. It almost seemed to expand in width and length on the spot, and Nat imagined it would soon be large enough for Celeste to venture out onto and continue helping with the paste.
Dordy, meanwhile, had found himself a patch of sunlight not far from where Nat sat at the log pile. The sun’s rays shone down to a small spot on the forest floor, and he felt its warmth, so he was in the middle of it, gnawing on one of his favorite two toys: Celeste’s oldest wrench! The direhorn horn tip had been left at home since the trip was only for part of the day, but Celeste said the wrench could be used for tasks on the MUTT if needed, and would placate Dordy when not in use, so it came with, residing first in one of Nat’s engineering vest’s pockets until they were ready to distract the molten pup and give him something to do. Well, now was that time, so that Celeste and Nat could work!
Nat smiled at her little family. Celeste hard at work on that branch, regrowing it, that familiar, endearing look of focus that brooked no distraction as she was in her zone, deeply immersed in her work. Dordy, lying on his belly, the wrench between his paws, the sounds of his teeth gnawing the wrench, knocking against it, faintly heard among the sound of the fiddler and the occasional breeze of wind. The noisy sawing work was over, peace had returned to the forest, and the blemish on the beautiful tree was already being replaced!
Feeling great about how they’d taken the time to clean up the mark they’d left on the beautiful northern mountain forest, Nat turned her attention next to her diary. She poked the button on her mechanical inkwell that popped out her mechanical pen, applied pen tip to diary, and began to write.
Dear diary,
Well, it’s been an interesting week! I got to hang out with my bestie Nah, work continues on the spire lift back home, and now, I’m in the Grizzly Hills, taking a bit of a break from working hard!
I met Nah in Stormwind last night at her request. We were just hanging out and talking at first, and we ran into a guy named Vince I vaguely remember meeting a few times some years ago in Stormwind. He was telling us he remembered playing Deathrolls in Kirthaven back in those days, but goodness gracious, I couldn’t remember! He said he only vaguely remembered it himself. But, if he knew the game, and knew we played in Kirthaven a few times, then I’m sure he must have been there! I just wish I could remember!
Anyway, yeah, after he left, Nah and I were talking for a while, and the subject rolled around to what she wanted to meet with me about. Apparently, she has an adventured planned for sometime in the near future in Tanaris! WOO! I’ve needed an adventure with the Stormwind friends for a while! Though I must say, the adventures Celeste and I get up to also help satisfy my appetite for adventure quite well too!
There’s only one problem, though…
I had to tell my bestie that, if we’re adventuring in Tanaris, and planning on stopping by Gadgetzan, I… MIGHT not be a face Nah would want seen on a mission she’s trying to complete…
Nah asked why, of course, so I told her I had a couple of tales to tell. We went from where we were hanging out – which was on the path from the Slaughtered Lamb down to the tunnel that leads to Lion’s Rest – over to a bench near the cliff at King Wrynn’s memorial, one with a view of the sea and the setting sun.
So, when we got there, we sat down, and I told her first of the boat race with the goblins of the Speedbarge, and how interactions with one of them, Grux, had prompted Celeste’s challenge. I told her of the salvage and building of the C.O.M.P.A.S.S., and how it stood for the COMpetition Penny-Actuated Supercharged Skimmer, and how it was nicknamed the Penny Pincher, both because we didn’t spend a bit on its construction, as it was all salvage, and because it was so tiny, even little Penny felt a bit snug riding in it! Nah had herself a good chuckle at the nickname! Hehe. I told her of the race, recalling all the tricks Grux had used to try to make Penny wreck, and all Penny’s ingenious counters, and her thrilling use of the waves Grux put in her way, where she’d jumped them and skimmed through the air using the COMPASS’s wings – made, as I’d told Nah earlier, from the checkered banner that had marked the finish line that Celeste had salvaged from the flooded basin’s floor – to clear the waves and land safely on the other side, having caught up in the process! I told her of how Penny had saved her secret weapon for last… the Azerite fuel booster! I told her of the big win at the last moment, and how Grux, attempting to set off his booster with his floating rocket, had blasted off skyward instead, and had to parachute down into the water slowly while Penny crossed the finish line. Nah loved it!
Then I told her of the houseboat project a few months ago, and how the goblins had tried and tried to sabotage it, as Grux and his cronies were still quite, quite sore over that boat race, even though all that stuff was way back in late August and early September of the year before last! Gosh, the attack where they burned the dock while we were away on the water trying to enjoy our day fishing and swimming, and the attack while Celeste was in Un’Goro Crater and Penny and I were asleep in the middle of the night, and how we’d blasted them with the water cannons, and all my fel minions were storming the camp to help fend the goblins off, and how the MUTT in MAD mode was blasting off flashbangs and other charges left and right, and how the midnight attack had ended with a full group of goblins soaking wet, shivering on a tiny ledge of rock at the side of the basin’s cliff!
In short, as Nah summarized, having me along on the Tanaris mission would spell trouble for the mission!
Nah’s plan was a simple one… find some disguise to put me in, and an excuse as to why I’d be wearing such things, so that no one in Tanaris would even look twice at me. Nah came up with a full pilot’s outfit, right down to the pilot’s cap and aviator goggles and scarf, and said I’d be posing as a Whitewind Company pilot!
I agreed, as Nah, a VIP of a major company, arriving with her own personal aircraft and her own personal pilot would be a VERY big deal for the goblins, who are, of course, always impressed by money and status!
I still don’t know the mission details yet, as Nah herself says she’s still putting it all together, but I can’t wait to see what happens with it! I’m really excited for it!
After that, it was getting late, so we headed to our homes, and bed.
Then this morning, Celeste and I decided to make our way to the ever-beautiful Grizzly Hills, now that we’re finally prepared to harvest that lumber for the spire lift!
Oh, but before that, Celeste apparently had herself quite a weekend while I was at work! First, she showed up to Darkshire on day one of my workend, as I’d told her about some traveling actors that I was playing hostess to, which meant I’d just be watching their comedy, action, and Azeroth lore shows all weekend for work! Ostensibly, I’m taking notes for how it all went, townsfolk morale as the show goes on, and taking care of our acting guests’ needs, but really, it was mostly just me watching the shows, so that was easy!
Anyway, Celeste had showed up for the shows as well, with Dordy’s old Nosebleed direhorn costume on, talking about how Dordy had to do his part as an actor and stuff. HA! How adorable he was! What a great idea Celeste had!
Day two, Celeste told me of her trip to the Halfhill farm to visit Penny. Here’s basically what she said, talking to Penny about getting the PEBBLE (Penny’s Blaster Ball and LEgs, the machine that worked much like a tiny gnomish mechatank that we’d used in the Mogu ruins for the Explorer’s League expedition under Krasarang Wilds), thinking of making it go over the water like a water strider!
''No, like a water strider. You know, those thin insects with long legs that seem to walk on water?'' Celeste asked Penny as she enjoyed her lunch. They were sitting on the steps of Penny's house after working the farm in the morning. Nosebleed was even there to help. They used his great strength to dig a line to the river, planning to finally use the river water for irrigation. Both Penny and Celeste were covered in mud, but they enjoyed the work!
Currently, Celeste was talking about her idea to allow the PEBBLE to reach the House-On-The-Spire's dock so she could visit when she wanted without us having to fly her each time. ''The PEBBLE isn't light like a water strider. I know those insects don't break the water's surface tension, but your machine will definitely sink. Maybe floaters? Actuating the legs in a circular motion in turn, one side at the same time would make it move. Like skating on ice... I guess it's either that or add a propeller, but that would be a weak point on the PEBBLE's armored hull. It was made airtight though, no? In case of methane leaks? We never tried just making it walk on the bottom of the water. Then you could just climb the Spire with it!'' Celeste was excited about that plan, and thought they should try it the next day, supplying Penny with a Deepdive helmet in case the machine flooded because they missed a leak.
Celeste was back at the farm early in the morning. Penny, Celeste and Nosebleed (with Dordy attempting his best to annoy the ever-stoic Nosebleed) worked to lay down the pipes from the river to the farm and close the ditch. The pipe had been made from salvaged spider-tank legs with the servos and wires removed then soldered together. Finally they returned the ground (mostly) to what it was before. Just the patch of ground over the ditch looked overturned, but it would be back to normal soon enough. Penny had some ideas for pumping the water using a windmill that she wanted to work on. They left it at that for now, and went to Paw'don village astride Nosebleed for some lunch. Celeste had yak pot pie, because she'd never had it before. She thought the chicken pot pie was better, though, and she grabbed one of those to share with me for dinner when I returned home. She’s so sweet and thoughtful!
In the afternoon, a bikini-clad Celeste was standing ready in the Wave Dancer. Dordy was having fun in his bubble. Celeste had put a blinking light on it, and now she could see where he was even from the boat. It actually made the fish more curious, because of the lights, so the pup had more close-encounters than usual, which made him as happy as ever! Meanwhile, Penny was closing the hatch to the PEBBLE. They had tested the integrity of the seals on the central pod and both were confident it wouldn't leak. They did install a blow-out feature on the hatch in case water started seeping in. Penny wouldn't be able to open the hatch due to the water pressure, so now she could blow it off with a small directed charge placed on the hatch's hinge. They’re so smart! They think of everything!
The mechagnome then directed the PEBBLE straight into the water. Celeste tracked her movement on the shallow sea floor, with Penny giving her the usual precise commentary about the machine's progress. Finally the machine went straight up the side of the Spire with the suction cups Penny had thought of to install to climb the mogu ruin walls with. That’s so cool!
With that test done, Penny could come visit us whenever she wanted, without requiring a lift up! Awesome!
When I returned home that night after my final day of the workend, I found Celeste and Penny playing Miners and ores. Penny was arguing about the game not being logical. The dwarves didn't have supply lines, beasts of burden to carry their gear, and knew in advance exactly where the ore was without proper geological surveys. Still, her analytical mind helped her win against Celeste just about half the time. Celeste was glad to have someone to play with when I was away who offered a nice challenge, especially as my beginner’s luck was wearing off, and Celeste had adapted to how I play already!
The week was relaxing all the way up to this morning (which was still relaxing, in its own way, working hard in the beautiful, chilly Grizzly Hills!). Now we’re here harvesting lumber!
Celeste had landed the Flying Nosebleed with a muffled thump on the campground near our treehouse in Grizzly Hills. Dordy was already squirming to go out and play, and she barely had time to remove his goggles before he scampered off. He’s so dang cute!
Blinking out of her flying machine, Celeste stepped back to leave space for me to land the MUTT.
Once both machines were safely on the ground, the two of us decided to check the treehouse first before we go harvest lumber.
Ashes in the firepit indicated that it had been used at least once. The supply of smoked salmon was gone, replaced by deer jerky and a small earthenware pot filled with honey. There was a new-looking blanket with the piles of fur. A note, written in a feminine hand, said: “Thank you for the shelter! It really saved me when a sudden snowstorm caught me by surprise. I refilled the provisions I used. - Scout Captain Carter.”
I was already thrilled to be back to one of her favorite places in the whole world, and now this!
Gosh, I was out of the MUTT quickly, dashing around, checking on the campsite, then up quickly into the treehouse. The note we found made me even more excited – we'd helped someone survive and even be comfy in a snowstorm!
"WOO US!" I cheered. "Gosh, we got to help someone stay afloat! I guess we don't have to restock a thing, either! Anyway... where should we work?"
''Somewhere where there are a lot of trees,” Celeste said, returning to the forest floor with me in tow, “so the immediate impact isn't too obvious. Hopefully the regrowth with the salve will be fast, but anything else we can do to improve things, the more we do it, the better. We should check the branch we pick for birds nests, too. We'll use the MUTT for now, and airlift the logs back home with the FB. Then we'll just have to cut the wood into proper planks, sand them down, and we'll have a very nice cargo lift!''
"Okies!" I replied, nod-nodding. "Maybe back in the woods just a bit more, away from camp? If it's off the trail and away from the trees, maybe it won't be seen quite so much."
I returned to the forest floor with Celeste, blinking into the MUTT.
"I'll just walk the MUTT along behind you until you find a good spot! Unless you wanna do the cut yourself? And how are we going to scan for nests? Are you just gonna blink up onto the branch to check?"
“For the nests, I’ll use my drone. It’s in the FB’s storage. Chances are, the branch will be too high, so it’s safer to cut it with the MUTT.”
She went to her flying machine to fetch her drone, then set off in the direction that I had indicated.
After about twenty minutes of walking, we found a long, mostly straight branch, thick enough to serve our purpose. Celeste set her drone up to check for nests. It was programmed to take S.E.L.F.I.E.s all over the branch.
“Alright, it’s good!” she said after carefully examining the images. “Cut it when you’re ready!”
"Right!" I said, lifting off after having watched the drone do its thing from my seat in the MUTT's cockpit, which was standing on the ground. I went lifted off and flew close to the base of the branch to get maximum lumber, then grabbed the branch with the MUTT's claw hand and got the buzz saw going with the other arm as I hovered in place.
"Probably going to need to clear the area under the branch," I said over the comms as I worked the saw. Already, there was a good notch started. "Grabbing this thing at the far end instead of in the middle, I think the branch's other end will fall to the ground. We'll need to get Dordy reined in and make sure no other critters are under it. Also... does your slow fall spell work on branches?"
“Good idea,” Celeste’s voice answered over the comms. “I don’t see why not. I’ll get Dordy away, but I think the saw scared everything else away.”
Celeste called Dordy to heel and moved away from the area, but stayed within range of the branch with her featherfall spell.
I nodded at the Celeste's wisdom, realizing the saw would definitely scare away anything wild and get them to safety. I blushed a bit at having not already realized that myself, getting back to work.
Within a few moments, the branch was sawed off, ready for Celeste to catch it with her slow-fall spell!
"TIIMMMMBBBEEEERRRRR!" I called out over the comms, then giggled. "I always wanted to say that!"
''And you said it like a natural! Nat the Logger!'' Celeste laughed as she moved to inspect the branch which had slowly drifted to the ground, Dordy on her heels. ''Let's get this cut up into sections, about ten feet long. It's the longest the FB can handle without having balance issues in the air. I'll set up some stands to cut them into planks. Maybe find a nice shaded spot in the Krasarang Wilds, close to Turtle Beach. Once the branch is cut, we can use the MUTT to chain them together. Could you handle the cutting, Nat? I'll climb up the tree and use the salve to help the branch's regrowth.''
"On it!" Nat nodded, heading ten feet down the branch and getting started. I had on some safety goggles, being right in the path of the spraying sawdust and woodchips, so I clamped them back down again and went back to my sawing work. Ten feet, saw, ten feet, saw, repeating all the way to the end. After that, I sawed off the secondary branches so that the logs were smooth. Once done, I used the MUTT's claw hand to make a neat stack of the wood!
"There, done!" I said, turning the MUTT around (though its legs and feet were still pointing the other direction) and looking up the tree at Celeste.
Celeste had climbed up by making herself lighter with her featherfall spell and using her picaroons to hoist herself up, using the boots with the spikes in the front secure footing into the tree trunk. Smearing the thick paste on the cut branch had been easy, but now came the waiting game. Still, there was a good coating on it, and that’s what she had hoped for.
That’s what she’s working on now, too, growing that branch. She has different-sized brushes for different stages of the growth of the branch. Now that I look up, I she’s already sitting a good fifteen to twenty feet out past where she started! Gosh, that druidic potion is AMAZING!
She looks like she’s running out, though. I can see her using the largest brush to scrape the sides of the jar as she puts the last bit on the end of the branch. Pretty soon, the base of the new growth will be as wide as the stump, and it’ll look like it was never even touched with a saw to begin with! That’s so cool!
Anyway, since she’s just about done, I’ll wrap this up. It’s been such a cool little week! I can’t wait to see how the next phase of construction of the spire lift goes! And I can’t wait for the adventure in Tanaris with my bestie Nah! It’s gonna be such a cool week! YAY!
Nat smiled as she hurried to put her writing things away. Back went the pen into its slot on the inkwell. Back went the inkwell and the diary into her pack!
Celeste was already finishing up, having shimmied back to the base of the branch, using the last bit of the druidic paste to get the last of the stump another layer, and a bit more around the base of the new growth to help it expand out until it matched the width of the stump, where, Celeste told Nat, it would cease its rapid growing and return to its normal growth rate. She and Nat both were pretty impressed by how well the druidic potion worked!
Celeste suggested a celebratory trip to the Amberpine Lodge for lunch after that. Nat agreed happily, and they flew the MUTT and the Flying Nosebleed back to the creek, then down along the creek to the warm, friendly, familiar sight of the Lodge.
Dordy, having spent the morning with Nat, now rode with Celeste in the Flying Nosebleed. He had his adorable aviator goggles on, his long, broad tongue lolling out, flapping in the breeze as he reared up with his front paws from his place harnessed into the cockpit to get the view and feel the wind on his face.
They arrived at the Amberpine Lodge in short order, landing at a flat area nearby and walking a short distance to the Lodge. There had been a hunt by the locals lately, so there was a hot, steamy elk stew in the large cauldron over the fire, and the local residents were getting through it pretty quickly! Celeste found them a table, and the little family sat down, Dordy under the table sniffing hopefully at the scent of the stew in the lodge.
The aroma of the elk stew, with local herbs and spices and veggies, was absolutely mouth-watering! Local mountaineer brews were on tap as well, as were fresh bread and butter and side salads, and that made the celebration of a job well done that much better! The stew warmed them inside and out, the fire in the lodge was large, roaring, crackling, and quite warm, and all in all, it was definitely a winner!
The little family left with their bellies quite full, and even Dordy was doing his “I’m so full!” waddle instead of running around at top speed! They got back into their flying machines and headed back to the campsite, then slowed as they reentered the forest to fly back to the log pile.
Everything was just as they’d left it, except for the foliage on the newly-regrown branch already looking fuller and greener! Celeste and Nat exchanged a grin at the satisfying outcome of their work, and then Celeste set up the plan.
First, it wouldn’t do to simply leave the campsite without enjoying it, right? Nat grinned as Celeste grinned with her suggestion, and Celeste moved to the Flying Nosebleed’s cargo hold… and pulled out their fishing rods and tackle boxes!
Nat gleefully accepted her rod and tackle box, and the two made their way to the campsite and its creek, casting a few lines, enjoying each other’s company, laughing as Dordy would yip-yip-yip his molten head off at everything they caught.
At this time of year, many were thrown back, but Celeste did manage to snag a largemouth bass, easily the biggest catch of the day by far (and winning Celeste the traditional game of “Who Can Catch The Biggest Fish?”). Nat couple a couple of rainbow trout as well, and both had caught a good few fish apiece that they’d had fun reeling in but released back into the creek for being too small.
The afternoon wore on into evening, and the sun began to set. Celeste said they had enough fish between the three for dinner, with the largemouth bass being big enough for both of them, and the two trout surely enough for Dordy, especially after his enormous lunch he’d had earlier. So, as light faded and the air became much colder, they packed away their catches and their angling kits, now hurrying back to the log pile.
Airlifting a massive bundle of logs ten feet long up through a forest canopy was likely to result in a tangle or three, Celeste mused, so she quickly came up with a plan involving her hovering with the Flying Nosebleed over the tree canopy, with Nat making trips up through the foliage with the MUTT’s claw hand holding a log at a time to insert them into a loop of chains dangling from the Flying Nosebleed’s winch.
The plan worked well, and within ten minutes, the entire pile of logs was in the loop of chains dangling from the FB!
After that, with Dordy riding with Nat this time in the MUTT to enjoy the rides up and down the trees, Celeste opened up a portal to the Shrine of the Seven Stars in Pandaria from her seat in the FB. She flew up over it, lowering the logs into the portal as she worked the controls to make the flying machine descend, disappearing into it herself shortly thereafter. Nat flew in after that, and the portal closed behind her.
Nat emerged from the portal to find Celeste hovering several meters away. Once Celeste saw Nat come through the portal, she turned and made her way carefully back to Turtle Beach in the Krasarang Wilds, taking it easy with the immensely heavy load she was carrying. Nat followed close behind, just far enough back that the wake in the air from the flying machine wouldn’t throw the MUTT off, ready to provide assistance if the load did anything wonky.
They made it back to Turtle Beach without incident, however, and Celeste gently lowered her load to the sand. Nat blinked out to unhook the chains once the slack was back in the chains, and then blinked back into the MUTT. They flew back to the hangar/workshop of the House-On-The-Spire after that, taking their freshwater catches from the icy northern mountain forest streams upstairs to the kitchen. Before long, mouthwatering aromas of pan-seared, seasoned fish filled the kitchen!
Dinner was served with grilled, seasoned asparagus and corn on the cob – both fresh from their Halfhill farm – and a good wine Celeste had picked. Dinner on the veranda, in the warm, tropical air, was quite a different feel from their earlier cozy lunch. It felt less of adventure and more of happy retirement, both of which always felt great for meals. As such, it had certainly been a great day!
After dinner, the sun had finally gone down completely, and Nat headed to bed. Work came early in the morning, so it was time for sleep! She went to bed thinking of the Grizzly Hills, and Tanaris, and goblins, and lumber, and engineering, and construction. Smiling happily, her thoughts helped her drift off to sleep, already excited for what would come next!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Feb 29, 2024 16:40:02 GMT
(( OOC note: The following contains mild adult themes, and is absolutely not intended for readers under 18. )) February the Twenty-Ninth All was quiet in the House-On-The-Spire this morning, and all was dark. The sun had yet to rise, and the lights were all off in the home. All except for one…
There was a single lantern lit in the Nat’s office.
And there sat Nat, her diary open on her writing desk, her mechanical pen and inkwell off to one side. There was no coffee on the desk with her as there usually was – not yet – she didn’t want to awaken Celeste and their houseguest with its heavenly aroma quite this early! Even Dordy was still upstairs, curled up under the blankets and snoozing the last vestiges of night away with Celeste.
With the lack of coffee aromas, the house currently had a pleasant mix of the fire in the hearth staving off the night’s pleasantly cool chill, the salt sea, and a faint smell of the earthy jungle across Turtle Bay. The only sound in the home was the occasional crackle and pop of the fireplace. Even the gulls weren’t stirring yet! Outside, the last bit of glowing, pulsing lights from the suncrawlers was fading away as the night waned, and the moon and stars shone from a clear sky to sparkles off the gentle rolling waves of the bay.
Nat had her office door closed to contain the light of the lantern, which was dimly lit at the opposite corner of the office so that she’d have enough light to write by, but also not so much light that she couldn’t see the light of the moon and stars in the sky or the water.
She thought about her busy week, absentmindedly twirling her mechanical pen in her fingers. It was almost tiring just thinking about it, but heck, it had been quite productive!
Smiling happily, she applied pen tip to blank diary page, and began to write.
Dear diary,
Holy smokes, I’ve just had the busiest week I’ve had in a long time! It was a full week, that’s for sure!
I learned a lot more engineering stuff, got a lot more engineering work done, and the spire lift project is really lifting off! I think we’ll have it finished soon, and will be able to move on to that hydroponics thingy next!
But before that, I had another adventure too…
My workend started off with me in Booty Bay! I was supposed to go there to unravel a whole bunch of tangled verbiage and awkwardness in trade contracts with Baron Revilgaz, the head goblin of the Steamwheedle Cartel town, and I had Night Watch guards coming with me to help protect me against any retribution from the Baron, in case he objected to any trade deals that I call off that are unfair in his favor. Between my magic and their steel, I felt safe enough!
And yet…
As I walked on the docks of Booty Bay, I had time to take in the sights. Goblins moving about, either unloading docks or hawking questionable wares. Several people were fishing on the docks. One of them was eating her lunch, staring out at the horizon, her face hidden by a wide-brimmed fishing hat. I saw the fisherman rip off a piece of her lunch and give it to Dordy.
Wait, what?!
Dordy?!
My gasp of surprise made Celeste look up as she tipped her fishing hat up a bit and wink at me. Cool as a cucumber, she continued to eat her lunch. She subtlely pointed a bit further down the docks where Penny was haggling, or pretending to haggle, with a goblin for some useless trinket. Then Celeste pointed behind her, where I spotted Uncle Rugnar sitting in the shade beneath one of the upper walkways, laughing uproariously as he told some sort of stories to a lanky goblin. It seemed that Celeste had decided to bring secret backup in case things got dicey with the goblins! Gosh, she’s so great! Plus it was always nice to fish in Booty Bay! Goblins aside, I knew it was one of Celeste's favorite places, since it reminded her so much of her mother who had been here often for that same reason!
Celeste was gone by the time I was done with the goblins and heading home to Darkshire. I even got to try some of Other Nat’s crab cake sliders, his special of the day! Apparently Dordy hadn't eaten them all on the docks of Booty Bay!
My next two workend days were in the office, writing up new long-term trade deals to replace those I’d scrapped with the Baron the day before, so Celeste stayed in Pandaria.
She had eventually decided to cut the Grizzly Hills redwood lumber at the farm. The sawdust and wood chips would be used for their neighbor's livestock, and getting bits of wood and splinters mixed in with the perfect sand of Turtle beach wasn't as appealing anyway. Nor was choking the forest floor in layers of sawdust if they had set up in the jungle, as Celeste had previously intended.
So, Penny helped airlift the wood to a section of the farm that wasn't currently in use. The two friends worked together most of the morning. They first built a stand to place the branch sections on. It raised the wood about four feet off the ground, making cutting it into planks easier with the MUTT's saw. The logs were cut lengthwise into two inch thick planks, an operation which took most of the morning. Over a shared lunch of delicious, authentic Beef Chow Fun from pandaren cooks in Halfhill, Penny had the ingenious idea of adding a sanding tool to the MUTT's tool arm, instead of sanding all the planks by hand. The two engineering buddies actually spent most of the afternoon thinking up ways to achieve that, and a few other ideas for the MUTT that weren't related to sanding at all.
I found Celeste on the veranda in the evening, adding notes and doodles to her notebook of ideas with rough schematics of the “sand-hand,” as Celeste and Penny had dubbed the sander tool. So far it was a large, flat and round pumice stone that would rotate really fast. There was Beef Chow Fun and a side of egg rolls for me in the oven. She’s so thoughtful!
Celeste had wanted to go to Lakeshire for a fishing party I told her about there on my final day of my workend, she really did, but that cargo lift was starting to weigh on her mind. She promised me that they would attend next time, or just go the two of them with Dordy. I’m looking forward to that!
Instead, she worked on the MUTT in the workshop, removing the saw hand to have room for the sander hand. The motor to spin the saw blade would be used to spin the sanding stone, which made things way simpler! Uncle Rugnar had promised to find her a good stone, and was somewhere on the coast of Stranglethorn at the time, looking for one. The limestone formations there are perfect for the job!
That morning, when I woke up to the smell of fresh-brewed coffee, I found Celeste sitting cross-legged on the bed, wearing a simple nightshirt and working in her notebook. Dordy was curled up between them.
I found my coffee on my nightstand as I awakened. I sat up in bed as well, taking my mug and sipping. Mmmm, hazelnut!
"Good morning, My Catch!" I smiled at Celeste. "Thanks so much for the coffee! Whatcha workin' on?"
“The design for the sander hand,” Celeste said casually, handing the notebook over. “Here, I wanted you to take a look, and I think you could build it, actually. Most of the workings are already there. It’s just a matter of linking the mechanics. Whaddaya say?”
"Oh gosh, m-me, work on the MUTT?" I replied, looking nervous. "O-okay... Erm... I-I'll try..."
I looked it over in one hand while I sipped my coffee from the other. There was a rough schematic on the page, along with doodles of the MUTT half-buried in sawdust. I giggled at the doodles, then nodded as I looked it over.
"Well, that looks straightforward enough,” I mused. “I suppose we already have the parts. Just need that stone... I-I'll give it my best shot!"
“You’ll do fine,” Celeste said with casual confidence. “Even if you break something, it can be fixed, but you won’t break anything. This’ll be a nice practice for you, adding a new tool and testing if the controls work. I’d love to have the MUTT turn into something we both work on and improve together. Uncle Rugnar should be here by lunchtime with the stone. Plenty time to relax and take a look at what parts we’ll need, right?”
Next thing I knew, though, Celeste had somehow lost her shirt, and she joined me under the covers for some… relaxation we could share together… Oh gosh…
I had started to get up from bed and take the schematics downstairs to begin work, but I found myself... overtaken. I hadn't expected this! A surprise, perhaps, but a pleasant surprise, at that...
All thoughts of engineering practice were forgotten as I slipped into the bliss of Celeste's relaxation ideas...
Before long, we found ourselves past breakfast, through a morning of discussing and improving the schematics, and then in the kitchen, Celeste making noodles with shrimp for lunch. Uncle Rugnar had messaged that he would be here soon with some stones!
“First, we’ll need to see what size stone would be best,” Celeste was saying as she cooked. “Thick enough not to crumble, and large so it covers a lot of surface. Too heavy, and the tool won’t have enough torque to turn it. Maybe something as heavy as the saw blade, even if it’s thicker and smaller?”
I had set about de-veining and shelling the shrimp while Celeste handled the noodles.
"Okay," I replied. "Sounds like a plan! Hopefully your uncle will have at least a few like that..."
Rugnar’s flying machine was soon heard, followed by the thump of it landing in the hangar. They heard Dordy bark a greeting and Rugnar’s laughter.
“Good day to ye lasses!” Rugnar said, coming up to the ground floor. “That lunch I smell? Got yer stones. Left ‘em in the workshop.”
I looked over my shoulder from the kitchen counter, where I was prepping the shrimp.
"Uncle Rugnar, YAY!" I cheered. "Hi! A-and yep, this is lunch! Have a seat, and food will be ready soon! Thanks so much for bringing the stones, too!"
Uncle Rugnar took a seat and Celeste handed him a tankard of ale to quench his thirst after a busy morning.
“Did you find some large ones?” Celeste asked as she returned to the noodles. “We’ll have to cut one in the shape of a perfect disc. Any weight more on one side than the other will make it wobble.”
Rugnar thanked his adopted niece for the ale.
“I did ye better, me girl. Got them already cut in Ironforge. Different sizes, but all o’ them round!”
"Oh, that's thoughtful of you!" I smiled, finishing off the last shrimp and dropping it into the bowl and passing the bowl to Celeste. "Thanks!"
I moved to wash her hands, then looked to see what I could help with next as I chatted happily with my little family.
Celeste handed me a fresh cup of coffee.
“You have time to show Uncle Rugnar the schematic for the upgrade you’ll be installing. I’ll finish making lunch.”
"Oh, okies!"
I went upstairs for the schematics notebook we’d been looking at in bed that morning, hurrying back down, Dordy on her heels the whole way. When I sat at the table, Dordy jumped up into Uncle Rugnar's lap for attention and pats, which Uncle Rugnar was happy to provide. I began showing Uncle Rugnar the schematics. The wiring, the hinges for moving parts, the rotor for the stone, the works! Uncle Rugnar nodded along, puffing at his pipe and sipping at his ale thoughtfully as he watched and listened.
When I was done, I looked up at Uncle Rugnar, eager to hear his thoughts on the subject.
Rugnar gave me an appreciative nod.
“Usin’ the existin’ workin’s ta power the sanding stone? It’ll save ye days o’ work! Careful though; ye can spin a sawblade right fast, but ye’ll need ta go slower with the stone, or else the friction’ll burn the wood. Don’t make the planks too smooth, either; they’ll get slippery when it rains.”
Just then Celeste finished her cooking, and brought lunch over for everyone.
"Right,” I nodded, seeing the wisdom in the last bit Uncle Rugnar added. “So a bit of roughness to provide traction for rain, or maybe any waves that start splashing upward a bit. Got it."
I took my plate of shrimp and noodles with a smile and a word of thanks, giving a piece of shrimp to Dordy before digging in myself. Dordy happily wolfed the meat down, then dived into his own plate of shrimp and noodles. I knew he'd be thrilled if it were possible for him to understand how lucky he was to be physically different sort of dog able to handle a diet of people food, whereas a normal dog wouldn't.
I pulled my mind back to the conversation at hand, and Uncle Rugnar and I sought Celeste's opinions as we ate.
“I have been thinking about that, actually,” Celeste said thoughtfully as she sat down to her lunch. “The saw blade makes a really rough cut. Splinters and sharp edges everywhere. Sanding it down to a comfortable but rough finish would be better. I also plan on adding spaces for water to run out through. I wanted to cover the cargo lift platform with a thin vine mesh for traction, but I think your idea is simpler, Uncle Rugnar. Can you help us get that part right?”
Rugnar gave her a nod and a wink. It seemed like that’s what he had planned all along.
I grinned a bit, picking up on that as well.
"Gosh, this thing is really coming together!" I said between bites. "I'm also thinking of half-circle metal loop thingies – I forget what they're called – bolted around the frame. That way, we can lash down heavy cargo securely, and have something to clip the ends of the chains or straps we use to the frame around the edge of the lift platform."
“Gunwhales,” Celeste said, identifying the hardware I described, “like in the Dancer. Well, the ones on the dancer have these wing tips to thread a rope around. We could use the same thing.”
The conversation continued through lunch, which was finished not too long later, with Rugnar and I praising Celeste’s cooking.
“I’ll clean things up,” Celeste said, after thanking us with a grin. “Nat, would you be okay starting on the sander arm with uncle Rugnar?”
I finished up my lunch as well, relinquishing my plate to Celeste.
"Sure!" I replied. "C'mon, Uncle Rugnar! To the workshop!"
My enthusiasm perked Dordy up, who had previously been half-dozing after a full belly of his lunch and additional morsels passed to him by his family. He yip-yipped and leaped to his feet, shaking himself out and trotting after me. Uncle Rugnar followed as well, chuckling quietly at my energy and excitement.
When Celeste arrived downstairs after cleaning up after lunch, she found Rugnar adjusting my elbow so that the screwdriver I was holding was positioned to properly drive a bolt straight downward, instead of at an angle, which, the old dwarf was saying, would strip out the threads of the screw otherwise. I was nodding and adjusting accordingly, smiling as the bolt suddenly seemed to go in much more smoothly!
“Well,” Celeste said, leaning on the workbench to peek at my work, “things seem to be progressing here! How are we doing? Did you pick out a stone yet for the sander?”
I nodded, putting my screwdriver on top of the MUTT's head for a moment and hopping down from the stool I was standing on. The bolt was still had the top quarter or so of its length jutting out of the rotor for the sand-hand, but I'd get that finished off in a moment. I walked over to my shiny new workbench, turning to Celeste with a smile and picking up the stone. To my surprise... I was able to lift it!
I stood there, blinking in surprise, staring at the stone, then, with a confused look, held it out to Celeste.
"Gosh, that stone is light..." I said.
The stone was the right balance of dimensions and weight. Uncle Rugnar had picked out a pretty good one!
“Limestone is lighter than typical stone, that’s right,” Celeste nodded, accepting the stone and looking it over in her hands. “If we used it to sand down or polish anything tougher than wood, it would just grind down the stone instead. This’ll do nicely. Good job, Uncle Rugnar!” She said to him with a smile. “Now, we just need to install it and get to sanding those planks!”
"How do we anchor the stone to the machine?" I asked. "Drill in some sort of bit that will stick in the stone that has screw threads inside it, and thread that onto the rotor? Or what?"
Celeste looked at me, offering an encouraging smile.
“So just essentially replace the saw blade with the stone?” she asked “That’s how you would do it?”
"Wasn't that how we were already planning to do it?" I asked, looking a bit confused now. "I was asking how the mechanics work of attaching a rock to a machine..."
“Yes, that’s how it’s done,” Celeste said, nodding and smiling encouragingly. “You had the right plan. I just wanted to help you realize that. Sorry if it came out wrong. With the size and weight of the stone or the saw, it’s better to use something attached to the disc rather than clip it in place.”
Celeste picked up the large saw from the removed saw hand to show me.
I nod-nodded, understanding dawning over my face.
"Ah, I see," I said. "Okay, lemme get this last bolt secured, and then I'll move on to that step next!"
I hopped back up onto my stool, grabbed the screwdriver off the MUTT's top, kept it a bit straighter like Rugnar showed me, and got it the rest of the way in. When I was done, I began getting the fitting secured into the stone for its attachment to the disc. When that was attached, I grabbed the edge and spun it a few times, then turned to Celeste and Rugnar to see what they thought.
Celeste moved closer, using a straight piece of metal to check if there was any offset or wobbling then pronounced it perfect!
''Nice work Nat! Looks like it's turning properly. Spin it up with more speed, and we'll see how it reacts to centrifugal force!''
Celeste and Rugnar both stepped back, as this was the last testing point, and the one most likely to fail. Unfortunately, failure would likely mean the stone would break and spin off quickly away from where it had been attached. It simply spun faster though when I increased the speed, though! Yay!
The quick tool creation ended up working like a charm, and we thus decided to start sanding down the planks that had been cut during the weekend immediately.
We went to the farm, where we found Penny busily tending to the crops. I was left in the MUTT's cockpit, and Celeste and Rugnar teamed up to carry planks to the raised supports. It took a few tries to get the surface roughness right, but soon, work flowed easily!
I was secretly glad to be left in the MUTT cockpit for a couple of reasons.
First, it meant that Celeste trusted me to do this job without messing it up, which meant the world to me!
Second, it meant that my embarrassing lack of physical strength would not be on display for all to see, nor my clumsiness, when I tried to carry something heavy and walk at the same time… Oh gosh!
Once I got the hang of sanding it down to soften the corners and remove splinters, but leaving it rough enough for surface traction, I was able to speed up my work a bit. Getting used to the handling for the precise working of the levers didn't take long; I was used to that from using the saw-arm already in the Grizzly Hills last week!
It had been a productive day, and everyone (Penny was invited too) headed to the House-on-the-Spire for some cold drinks and shredded boar meat sandwiches, thanks to a gift Rugnar had brought along from Bruuk's Corner in Ironforge. We enjoyed a comfortable evening watching the glowing bugs on the veranda. Celeste made sure I was close, keeping me warm with her magic and a blanket that we shared.
Earlier than usual, everyone was tired and falling asleep. Work was scheduled to continue the next morning to build the lift platform itself, and thus complete the latest renovation project we had set our minds to. Uncle Rugnar opted to sleep in the guest room so as to prepare us breakfast the next morning, which is this morning (again, Penny has been invited)!
I had had a great time doing all the engineer work that day, which was yesterday! I went to sleep feeling quite satisfied with how the day had turned out. The feeling of satisfying accomplishment was further supplemented by the feeling of having had a great time with family and friends and a full belly, and, by the time the night on the veranda watching the waves and the glowing suncrawlers was over, I felt quite happy indeed! Sleep came quickly, easily, and happily, and I drifted off to sleep with a smile on my face!
So now, I’m up early because I’m excited to get started finishing off the last stage of the project and finally have a working cargo lift for the spire like we’ve planned for like two whole dang years! WOO!
…But that’s not ALL the productive work I’ve done this week!
Yep, even after the workend and the lift stuff, I made money in TWO more ways this week!
The first was from a new friend my bestie Nah and I made this week named Cynsol! She’s a Quel’dorei with black hair that she keeps in a really long, lovely braid, and glasses. She’s an artist! She also does all kinds of different scribe work, too!
At first, I was just thinking of getting a portrait done of my bestie Nah and I together, but then she was telling us about this calendar girl project she does…
Oh. My. Gosh. This calendar girl project…
It’s erm… Well, it’s… certainly full of… images! Oh gosh!
And yet, I remember the album I gave Celeste for Winter Veil this past year of poses of myself made with my S.E.L.F.I.E. camera, so I figured, maybe she’d like one of these as well! Hopefully I can keep it all a secret and not blurt it out until the calendar is published and I can surprise her with one! Hehe!
I wasn’t ready to do anything like… well, like what the other ladies have done… but for this, she PAYS people instead of having to be PAID for her work, so… heck, it sounds like fun… Besides which, she told me that stuff like what the other girls did can’t go on the cover of the calendar, because that’s what’s seen on store shelves, so… I figured, heck, if my bestie Nah and I can make a scene worthy of making the front cover, and it doesn’t have to be like what the other ladies did? Well, that, I can do! Nah, of course, will shamelessly do pretty much any sort of posing, and is even considering going All. The. Way. for the next issue… Oh gosh!
Next, we needed a background, and a theme…
In the end, we decided to go to Bel’ameth, the new Kaldorei capitol they’re like, speed-growing off the west coast of the Dragon Isles. It’s so awesome that they’re getting a new one after having lost Teldrassil! We found a nice massage parlor there that let us do our art on one of its tables. That was nice of them!
It was good to have found a massage parlor, because, with Cynsol liking to make her art with some sort of theme in mind, and our idea – an original idea that hadn’t been done in any previous calendars yet, according to Cynsol! – had been to do a massage scene, and Nah had been the want wanting to do the massaging. So, next thing I knew, I was lying down on the massage table with a towel around me, then unwrapping myself after lying on my belly, leaving it only over my backside. Then I propped myself up on my forearms, with my forearms crossed on the table in front of me, ensuring nothing more was shown than might be seen in my bikini.
Nah was doing the massage in her absolutely most skimpy bikini for the pose, and she was supposed to be working on my lower back, so that I could prop myself up a bit. Goodness gracious, that was the most… blushworthy thing I’ve ever done!
The painting was done rather quickly, though, like maybe an hour and a half, and I gotta say, it turned out REALLY well!
I can’t wait until the calendar is published! I dunno when that’ll be, however, as Cynsol still has like four or five months worth of models to find, hire, and paint. Who knows how long that will take! It was super fun though, even if I was embarrassed the whole time! Hehe.
And then there was Tuesday… Oh gosh, my first adventure with the Whitewind Company in eons! It was gonna be me, my bestie Nah, Aloranelle Dawnwind – AKA Lora, the Quel’dorei sniper we adventured with during the campaign to find Princess Ariel Sunstrider’s legendary suit of armor – and my good buddy Grimmie, but Grimmie ended up having to cancel at the last second do to other life things going on, so that was a bummer. But still, the three of us did well enough!
The mission?
There was something going on in the desert in Tanaris that Nah had gotten wind of, some new, small goblin cartel that had splintered off from the Steamwheedle cartel. Nah had a contact in the Steamwheedle Cartel that she talked into giving her intel on the new cartel, and now Nah was ready to go see what they were doing out there in the desert.
The new cartel had the most ironic name… Nah said it was called the Misnomer Company. HA! The contact she was talking to in Gadgetzan, though? Goodness gracious, none other than Violent Spunkwhistle, that goblin lady that had hired the Whitewind Company for a one-night mission Nah led, where we’d escorted a caravan of hers from the Westfall coast, through Duskwood, and into Stranglethorn, all the way down to Booty Bay. That goblin lady hit on me SO MUCH! GOSH! It figures that’s who Nah’s contact would be again this time!
Anyway, apparently, the Misnomer Company taken over the old Dunemaul Compound, which was a huge ogre encampment years ago before adventurers had cleared them out after the time of the Cataclysm. There was something secret rumored to be hidden in there, and our mission would be to go and investigate!
There was just one problem...
I may or may not entirely have the favor of ALL goblins in Gadgetzan…
Nah asked me what I meant, so I told her all about the COMPASS’ construction the September before this past, as well as the houseboat construction this past December, and all the trouble with the goblins. I told her the full story on both accounts, in full detail, and, though she found the stories to be riveting, she also had to acknowledge that we’d need to go in disguise, as Nah herself, being well-known as being my bestie, might also find a bit of resistance from the Gadgetzan gobbos.
So, what did my bestie go and do, in true Nah fashion?
She decided we’d all go disguised as members of the Wastewander Bandits, the notorious, dangerous nomads of Tanaris! Gosh!
So, we dressed up like they dressed, with desert sand facemasks and all, and headed out.
We took the Stormwind Lake portal to Uldum, where we rented out a few camels to ride from there into Tanaris, so that we wouldn’t be spotted landing in Tanaris itself and blow our cover.
Our first obstacle, however, rose up in front of us before we even reached Tanaris… a whole dang river to cross!
The current was too strong to ford, and, riding north, we found that the river came from a lake at the base of a cliff, so there was really no getting around it. Only one thing for it…
We had to cross using my fel gateway!
The gateway was sure to give us away as NOT being Wastewander Bandits, but, as it was night time and no one was around anyway, I decided to quickly chance it. I cast my gateway, we zipped through it across the river, then quickly rode away from the gateway, as the gateway would take several minutes to fade.
From there we rode through a pass in the cliffs, spying a caravan incoming from Tanaris that had wagons pulled by kodos.
NOPE!
We dodged around them, silently riding left as we exited the pass into Tanaris, hugging the cliffs and staying in the shadows until we passed the caravan unseen. Whew!
After that, we rode across the chilly nighttime desert sand dunes for some time, passing numerous giant scorpids and desert snakes, eventually coming up upon the Dunemaul Compound.
Sure enough, the old ogre encampment was swarming with goblins! None seemed to have gone to sleep just yet, and the outer limits of the camp had patrols of two goblins apiece going all over the place in it.
Nah had us hold up and think for a while. The numbers were far greater than anticipated! It would have been great to have Lora thin their numbers with her rifle – something Nah assured us would be justified, as, by all accounts, these goblins were definitely up to something absolutely perilous and devastating to a very great many lives – but Lora didn’t have her silencer with her. We’d have to sneak in and go melee for this! Oh, NO!
It went smoothly enough at first. We snuck in through the cover of the night’s darkness and started searching tents that didn’t have any goblins in them. At first we didn’t find much, just desert survival supplies and a surprising amount of coin (which my snickering bestie suggested we do the goblins a favor and hang on to for safe keeping), but eventually, Nah found some documents in some sort of goblin code that she said were basically the proof we were after, or at least, the tip of the iceberg of such.
Eventually, though, I spotted a patrol heading right to the tent Nah was in. Uh oh!
I quickly and quietly alerted Nah of the incoming pair of goblins over the comms, and she stealthily exited the tent and showed them something sharp.
A while after that, however, we knew we were about to be blown… there were two patrols coming to where Lora and I were searching, and from both directions! We were sure to be spotted, and there were just too many, and too far apart, for all to be silently silenced!
I cast Curse of Tongues at the goblins so they couldn’t yell out an alert, but it was for naught – Lora was already taking aim and firing! We were going loud!
Lora got one of them, and the other was confused by the sudden, unexpected shot, not to mention his inability to speak in any language he recognized anymore, which slowed him down quite a bit!
Meanwhile, cries of alarm were going up all over the compound! Oh, NO! The hornet’s nest was stirred up this time!
I turned, casting the Shadowfury spell at the other incoming patrol, which stuns all targets in the designated area with a blast of shadow magic. That bought us some time!
Nah was catching up to us by then, stealthily slipping through the camp, and she dispatched the goblin I’d cursed.
Moments later, however, the other patrol was free of the stunning spell, and they were making their way toward where they’d heard Lora’s gunshot! She was in trouble!
Lora lobbed a grenade at them, but they saw it and chucked it back. Lora had no time to grab it and throw it again, she knew, so she dived for a sand berm, but she still took a bit of the shrapnel from the blast! Oh gosh, was she bleeding!
A healthstone later, and she was looking like she could move again, but now, more goblins were coming at us!
I had to think fast. If I started swarming the compound with fel minions, they’d know we weren’t really Wastewander Bandits raiding their encampment, and word would get back to Gadgetzan of who was REALLY wreaking havoc out here if any of these gobbos escaped!
But then I remembered one fel minion who could stealth… I hate summoning that one, the unsubtle, strutting, smirking show-off… but I had no choice…
Myrlia had to come to the party.
I summoned my succubus, sending her after the patrol that I had stunned before…
BANG-BANG!
The Negotiator and the Re-Negotiator, Nah’s flintlock pistols, rang out from some distance behind the patrol. Now there was mass confusion – how many raiders were there, what kind of guns did they really have, or is it just one gunner that’s just moving around and firing from different positions?
Either way, one of the patrolling goblins fell, and, unlike with the stun spell, this time, he didn’t get up.
The other suddenly found himself with a black leather whip coiled around his neck. Myrlia had snuck around behind him, and the face of a stunningly beautiful woman leaning over his shoulder, purring out, “Do you want to play with me? I want to see inside you…” I gagged a bit, knowing full well that that sadistic creature meant that quite literally. I was not hoping to see gobbo insides this night!
Gunshots rang out then, and Nah and Lora finished off Myrlia’s prey. That didn’t stop her, however; she gleefully went about doing what she wanted, even if the goblin wasn’t alive to feel it. I quickly snapped at her and ordered her to stop it. Gosh, she’s the worst…
Nah directed me to loot the goblins. Looting the messed-up one was awful, but I found more coin to divide between us, lots of ammo for the guns the goblins had but hadn’t been able to fire, and waterskins. I looted the gold, tossed the ammo (as it was the wrong type for Lora’s rifle), and grabbed the waterskins too. I didn’t want to drink after the goblins, but looting them would help our cover as seeming like Wastewander Bandits.
We blasted our way through the compound next, coming up on a huge rock spire that had a cave gouged out in it by many years of erosion by desert sand. There was a rather important-looking goblin in there, and a huge chest of some kind, likely holding the secrets Nah was investigating to find!
Three goblins manned the door, though. I backed up, letting Myrlia have this fight, still not wanting to give myself away as a warlock instead of a bandit. Myrlia stealthed up with Nah and Lora, and we scoped out the goblin trio.
The three had riot shields at the ready, and the grenade that Lora chucked at them was blocked from getting behind them. The shields warded off the blast. Gosh, she wasn’t having much luck with those things this night!
Before the goblins could recover, however, Nah had already Shadowstepped behind one of them, and Myrlia had dashed in behind another, and now the two goblins on either end of the line of three were in real trouble!
Nah had a dagger through the base of the skull of her goblin, and Myrlia was whispering something alluringly into her goblin’s ear, her arms around him in what appears to be a lover’s embrace, but next then I knew, her claws had found her mark and made another mess. Geez! I wish I could have used some other creature!
The one in the middle, meanwhile, threw down her riot shield as the chaos suddenly erupted on either side of her!
“Aww, crap,” she yelled as she fled. “I ain’t gettin’ paid enough fer this!”
“Don’t let her reach Gadgetzan, or we’re blown!” Nah hissed over the comms.
Myrlia immediately dashed after the surprisingly fast goblin, attempting first to flick her whip in a coil around the goblin’s ankles and trip her up, and then attempting to get it around her throat and yank her back, but missing both times, as the goblin was zigzagging erratically.
The maneuvering also caused Lora’s shots to miss, and I was starting to think the goblin was going to get away, but then Nah managed to Shadowstep behind the goblin to catch up and did a quick bit of knifework. Good ol’ Nah!
She and Lora made it back to the entrance of the cave, where the important-looking goblin was contained, as I was covering the entrance, since me trying to run is a dang joke!
Nah and Lora quickly converged on the goblin, Lora covering the target with her rifle, and Nah advancing on the goblin man with her blades drawn.
Myrlia, under orders not to reveal herself and blow our cover, was meanwhile speaking from the shadows, attempting to seduce the goblin into revealing her secrets. Goodness gracious, the things she was saying to the goblin… I can’t even repeat them! She’s so revolting! The goblin somehow was able to resist Myrlia’s seductive voice and offers for certain acts issuing forth from the shadows, which, I knew, must have infuriated Myrlia to no end!
Nah and Lora ended up being the ones to succeed this time. Threats of calamitous bodily injuries of gruesome sorts were enough to get the goblin to tell us that everything we wanted to know could be discovered in the chest.
After that, he just… abandoned his post and made a break for it!
He never made it to the door.
Myrlia’s whip cracked once again, and this time, her ankle-coil attempt worked!
Nah, knowing that this was one of the masterminds behind the Misnomer Company’s most sinister, evil plans, said in her Wastewander Bandit accent to end the goblin and take his stuff.
“With pleeeeasssuuurrrrreee…” Myrlia purred, strutting alluringly as she dragged the goblin off out of the cave and into the darkness by the whip she still had coiled around the goblin’s ankles. A moment later, shrill screams were coming forth from outside, and I had to dart outside and yell at Myrlia to stop that immediately and just end it again. Gosh, I despise her so much!
She came with me back to the cave after looting the goblin (I had Myrlia loot this time, because what a mess…) revealed some blood-spattered but important-looking documents, as well as a rather swollen bag of coins! Nah had lucked out too, hitting the jackpot in the chest!
Stolen supplies, by the looks of what they had, including war rations, water, medicine, and ammunition. A stockpile of combat resources… Looks like the Misnomer Company was prepping for something big… and very, very violent! It was good we stopped them!
I dismissed Myrlia to sentry duty at the door, and we discussed what we found. Lora suggested that this all means they have something similar deeper in the desert, and Nah agreed. It seemed like a waypoint, a stopping point for a caravan. But of what, and from where to where?
Further reading of the documents showed that the caravan left Gadgetzan under cover as being something else, and was bound for Silithus. Silithus? Why there? It also listed using the Dunemaul Compound as a waypoint, as it was abandoned and, therefore, discreet. Well, not anymore!
After that, Nah decided to loot the entire chest and get back to Violent Spunkwhistle in Gadgetzan. I dismissed Myrlia and summoned Mek-barash, my enormous, towering, muscular wrathguard, not worried about protecting my cover now that all the Misnomer Company goblins had been dealt with. Mek-barash was there to do all the heavy lifting. Nah brought the camels to the cave entrance, and Mek-barash worked tirelessly, running back and forth with the contents of the giant chest and loading them up. He looked furious at being summoned for something so trivial, but then… Oh well. Mek-barash always looks furious! He’ll just have to deal with it.
We went back to Gadgetzan then, and, to our surprise, we were stopped at the gate by the goblin bruisers there. It seemed they’d been having trouble with the Wastewander Bandits as well, and they didn’t wanna let any in!
Nah mentioned Violet Spunkwhistle’s name at that point, however, and threatened to tell Violet that her invited guests (us) were being detained at the door by some random bruiser. The bruiser wilted at that threat, and let us pass. Gosh, Nah’s so great to have around!
We got through Gadgetzan, and were eventually pointed out the opposite gate toward the dock at the beach. There she was… the flirty goblin lady herself. I was so glad I was in disguise…
And yet, that didn’t seem to matter. A flirty grin and wink was cast in my direction. Gosh! But then it made sense – if she knew who Nah really was under the disguise, then she knew Lora and I as well… Goodness gracious…
Anyway, she told us the next job was to take the incoming boat to Booty Bay and forward everything we’d learned to a contact there in the little pirate port town.
The boat ride was fast, even though it had to go to the other side of the world. The magic of Kul Tiran tidesages, I suppose!
We arrived in Booty Bay without incident, still in disguise, and discreetly met with Violet’s contact. Telling all we learned didn’t take long, and Nah, Lora, and I left, still under the cover of the dark of night. We made it out of town, and our mission was over… for now!
We all agreed that it seemed a visit to the desert, perhaps even Silithus itself, would be next in the cards, whenever Nah might get that set up. With that in mind, we were all ready for bed. It was time to go home!
I mentioned a week or two ago in my diary here that there were plans to do something outside of adventuring with my family soon… this and the painting with Cynsol were it!
And now, finally, a much longer and more active week is done. Goodness gracious, it was a tiring, action-packed week, but I enjoyed the heck out of it! I can’t wait to see what Nah and I get up to next, and I can’t wait to see what the spire’s cargo lift and then the hydroponics bay look like, either! This is all gonna be so much fun! YAY!
Nat’s usual smile at wrapping up her diary post suddenly broadened as she poked her mechanical pen back into her inkwell and put it in its desk drawer – she’d thought she’d heard some heavy footfalls attempting to stealthily come down the wrought-iron spiral staircase, and now, she was suddenly smelling not only fresh-brewed coffee, but also Uncle Rugnar’s famous biscuits with sausage gravy!
She hurried to slip her diary back into its space on one of her bookshelves, blew out the lamp, and exited her office to the kitchen. Uncle Rugnar, sure enough, was in there cooking!
Rugnar grumped light-heartedly at having been caught cooking, as he’d wanted to surprise us with the food when it was done, and yet even then, the heavenly of coffee, biscuits, gravy, scrambled eggs, and bacon had awakened Celeste and especially Dordy early, and they padded into the kitchen next. Celeste sat with Nat at the table after a sleepy smile and good morning kiss, and Dordy was immediately under Rugnar’s feet, getting in the way, his tail wagging as he smelled the glorious meal being prepared.
Celeste was soon on her feet again, darting to the front door as we heard a tiny knock somewhere near the bottom of it. Penny was answering the breakfast invitation!
Penny sat on a stack of books at the table, ready for another round of Uncle Rugnar’s highly-favored breakfast of choice.
Breakfast was a lively affair, starting with conversation about Rugnar’s cooking, then breakfasts past, then breakfasts during adventures past, then adventures themselves. By the end of it, everyone was roundly entertained, and had full bellies. Even Dordy was snoozing over in front of the fire, sleeping off his food coma.
The little family decided to move to the living room with him, sitting in the comfortable furniture, talking about adventures ranging from the most recent family trips to Whitewind Company expeditions, to Celeste’s childhood adventures with her brother and adoptive parents.
Eventually, the full-to-bursting feeling faded, and the little family felt like getting out. Celeste, having spent a bit of time during the previous weekend in Booty Bay and then hearing of a visit to Booty Bay from Nat when she discussed the Misnomer Company adventure, decided that a family Booty Bay fishing trip was in order!
Plans made the previous day of finishing the last step of the spire lift were postponed to the following week, and soon, Onyx, the MUTT, the Flying Nosebleed, and Uncle Rugnar’s flying machine were all flying through a portal to Booty Bay!
Upon arrival, Celeste found her favorite spot at the docks, and fishing gear for all was unloaded from the FB’s cargo hold. The goblin bruisers who’d tried to tax Celeste for bringing Nosebleed onto the docks a few weeks before eyed Celeste thoughtfully, but eventually decided better, and took their antics elsewhere once Celeste gave them the evil eye!
The morning passed, and quite a bit of fun was had! It turned out that a small school of halibut, usually a fish that swims in deep water, had ended up somehow driven into and trapped in the bay somehow, and, before they could find their way back out, enough thrilling fish-fights had ensued that now the entire pirate town was getting in on the act! Pirates, legitimate sailors, privateers, and goblins alike lined the docks, and the halibut school was thinned considerably before it escaped back into the sea.
To the shock of the entire town, a new record was set on the biggest halibut ever to be caught there – by the tiniest person present!
“Penelope Boltbucket” read the name on the picture that hung in the Salty Sailor from then on, along with, “401-pound/182-kilo halibut” and “Booty Bay record!”
Penny looked quite sheepish in the picture, waving a tiny mechanical arm and hand at the camera and smiling shyly.
The fish had nearly jerked Penny into the bay when it’d first been hooked, but, with those mechanical enhancements for legs and arms, Penny had demonstrated a remarkable strength for her tiny size, and, though it exhausted her to do so, she’d gone up and down the docks, reeling, yanking, fighting the fish away from tangling the line around the support posts of the docks in the water, always keeping the fish in front of her, and, eventually, she hefted the entire fish right up through the air and onto the docks, all by herself!
The cheers that erupted all over the town – everyone could see the fight, due to the U-shaped nature of the docks – brought a tear to Penny’s eye. She’d been an outcast all her life, a poor Mechagnome with poorly-made, poorly-attached prosthetics, made to scrape her living in the junkyard up on the surface of Mechagon Isle, but now, she was a hero!
The halibut was given over to a taxidermist at the suggestion of the cook to whom the fish had been taken. This was a trophy, he said, and it should be mounted on Penny’s wall! The little family quite agreed, as did all those in attendance, and Penny found herself quite the celebrity in the Salty Sailor tavern soon after, and the little family soon found themselves with as much free halibut – cooked to amazing perfection – and drinks as they could possibly partake in!
Eventually, the afternoon wore on, and the party subsided. Celeste decided to take the massive amount of halibut pressed upon them by admirers out of town and build a smoker. Escaping the throng, the little family found themselves a peaceful, empty stretch of beach, and Nat got to practice building a smoker from wood, the way Celeste had taught her in the Grizzly Hills during one of their salmon run camping trips. Penny helped, as she wanted to learn how to make one as well, and Nat happily taught Penny everything she’d been taught by Celeste. Rugnar had known how to do this for several decades, so he just watched, smoking his pipe and making suggestions from dwarven-style wilderness smokers he’d built himself. The finished product was a masterpiece of human and dwarven survival construction!
A few logs had been rolled up around a campfire built a short distance from the smoker, and the little family enjoyed drinks and more storytelling, including a rousing rendition of the fish fight as Penny gleefully recounted her experience.
Eventually, all the extra halibut was smoked. The family doused the fires, covered the ashes with sand, rolled the logs back into the brush, and disassembled the smoker, returning it to the jungle floor. Leaving no trace, they returned the beach to its previous pristine state.
Next stop, according to Celeste, was Stormwind!
They flew to the orphanage, and nearly all the smoked halibut was given away, save for a bit for their own meals in the near future. The matron and the children were really excited for the meat, as the matron had a hard time getting meals of the more enjoyable sort for that many children. The children themselves had a great time playing with Dordy for a while as the matron cooked!
Eventually, the family left, not wanting to take any food out of the mouths of the children (and having already had a considerable amount of halibut to eat that day anyway!), and returned home through a portal to the Shrine of the Seven Stars.
Celeste looked relieved to be gone from Stormwind, still not a fan of the place, given her past experiences there. Yet she always loved visiting the orphanage and helping the children, so she was quite happy she went!
By the time they reached home, the evening was wearing on, and Uncle Rugnar and Penny were invited to dinner. A simpler meal, as they’d had such a huge lunch. Sub sandwiches, simple cold cuts, cheese, veggies, and whatever condiments each preferred, as well as local Stormstout brews. A quiet, tired dinner was enjoyed on the veranda, and soon, the stars were beginning to peep from the waning light of the evening sky.
Worn out from a thrilling day, Uncle Rugnar and Penny decided to retire to their respective homes from the evening. Celeste and Nat gave them each a hug, and saw them out from the hangar. Dordy got a few more pats, and their guests departed.
Tired as all heck now, as Nat put it, she went to sleep, and Celeste followed a couple hours later after some reading on the living room couch.
Nat fell asleep very soon after her head hit the pillow, with a huge smile on her face. It had been quite the minication, and she was so ready for the next one!
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