|
Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Apr 7, 2022 12:45:52 GMT
April the Seventh The shrill cry of a seagull rent the still silence of the morning air as it flew along the beach, looking for breakfast. Over the breaking waves he soared, only flapping intermittently as he rode the thermals. His flight took him over the island Hozen village of Unga Bunga, where he knew from experience not to land, lest the violent creatures make a meal of him. Eastward he flew, through mists being burned away by the rising sun, savoring the warmth it brings. He continued on, smelling bits of scraps here and there, dive-bombing choice morsels from unwitting morning anglers and darting off before retribution could be exacted.
He met his match among the morning fishers of Angler’s Wharf, as he always did. This many anglers all gathered together drew gulls like flies, and they were always wary. He tried dive-bombing a bit of cut-bait, and was met with the same results as ever he did at the Wharf: swatting hands as fast as a Pandaren monk’s flying fists. He tried again and again, and each Pandaren defended his or her small catches or bait deftly. Dismayed, he flew off toward a different smell, high up on top of a rock spire. He couldn’t – and didn’t – know that this wonderful smell was bacon and buttered toast beside biscuits with sausage gravy. All he knew was, he wanted some. He flew up to the top of the rock spire, defeated again… the smell was coming from inside a building with open but screened windows! The gull flew off, looking for more small fries along the beach again after peering into one window in which a young woman with black hair sat at a desk with her breakfast and coffee, an open diary, inkwell, and quill case on the desk with the food.
Natasha Ebonlocke looked up at the sudden rustle of feathers, locking eyes with the seagull. A smile and a wave at the familiar creature resulted in nothing more than a flapping of great white wings and the bird’s departure. Nat watched him fly off into the morning mists, then returned to her breakfast, eating with one hand while getting set up with the other. Her ravenfeather quill occupied her right hand, and she dipped it into her inkwell of purple ink while munching on a bit of toast. Stopping before she begins to listen as she nibbles, she hears the waves of Turtle Beach far below, the distant voices of a few Pandaren at Angler’s Wharf, and the happy humming of Celeste issuing forth from the workshop downstairs, accompanied by light clanging and whirring and clicking as she repaired a mechagnome-designed robot. Smiling happily, Nat took another bite of toast and began to write.
Dear diary,
I had a pretty good week this week! It’s been a week of successes! A cleansed bay, a recovered robot, and an unfinished bounty now completed! Now I’m just hanging out, relaxing on my last day of minication before going back to work in Darkshire tomorrow. I sure had fun this week, though!
Monday, Celeste and I just sort of bummed around the house, sleeping late, having a nice big breakfast together, being lazy around the house and talking over plans to get that fish-making robot out of that underwater cave down under Turtle Bay. Then Tuesday, we actually went out to go and do it!
The plan was simple enough. Penny came with us to drive the Wave Dancer while Celeste and I dived with Dordy in his Dordy Bubble to check things out. We got no alerts from Dordy, so it seemed the coast was clear! We swam to the huge fishnet she had blocking the entrance to the cave, placed there a couple weeks ago to make sure no newly-crafted mechafish escape into the bay. Celeste brought a small fishnet pouch of tools, including an electromagnet she used to catch the few new mechafish that the robot had made. We got into place and, supplies ready, we enacted the plan!
Celeste radioed Penny from the radio in her deep-dive helmet (backed up by one of my water-breathing spells my uncle taught me), getting Penny to recover Dordy. She then activated the ballasts in Dordy’s bubble, which blew its air tanks rapidly to make him ascend. Poor Dordy was furiously pounding the pedals he’d been trained to use to maneuver in the water and barking, but to no avail. Poor little guy… but we had to keep him safe in case this went wrong!
Next, Celeste had me unfasten the left side of the fishnet in a hole large enough for her to slip through. She entered, electromagnet activated, and I could hear the thunks of the few mechafish swimming around in there as Celeste got them onto her magnet. When she had them all, she motioned to me to unfasten the rest of the fishnet. I swam around and got that done, then swam backwards a bit, pulling the heavy net out to the center of the Narsong Trench so it wouldn’t get snagged on any coral, then let it go. The rope net floated up toward the surface so Penny could recover that as well.
When I got back to the cave entrance and swam to the surface of the water within, I found Celeste talking to the robot in a low voice, kneeling next to it and fiddling with it. She was like, “Hello, my fishmonger. You and I will get better acquainted. I know you have a job to do, but maybe you’d like to try something else, hmm?” She spoke softly to the robot, who remained where it sat near the water. The robot ignored Celeste, not being programmed to respond to verbal communication after all. It had both hands in a fish basket, where it was assembling another mechanical fish. Next to it was a pile of scrap metal. It somehow knew to acquire raw materials for its work. That’s awesome! Celeste, looking at it, wondered aloud if the initial idea behind the mechanical fish was to actually recycle scrap metal, cleaning the island while creating something beautiful instead. That’s such a cool idea! I watched as she knelt in the sand next to the robot and unhooked the pearl net from the strap around her waist. Then she was like, “Now let’s see what we have here…” Celeste inspected the robot, pliers in hand. She used the tool to open a panel on the back of the robot, then peered inside. “Now then, if I recall… your power core should be riiiiiight here!” She reached into the robot and yanked out the power core. The robot froze as its energy source was removed. “That’ll do it. Bring the harness and ropes over would you?” She moved to look inside the robot again. The pliers ended up on the sand while she grabbed a small wrench from her net and tweaked something. Then she was like, “There, that should at least shut down its fish-making subroutine. Huh, this guy actually has more than just that programmed in. I’ll have to investigate more, but I wasn’t expecting something this complex. Maybe that explains why it made a lair in a safe place to work.” Celeste sat back and tucked her tools away.
The next phase of the plan involved something else we brought down with us, ropes and a harness. Celeste had me bring it all over, and showed me how to harness up the robot according to her harness design. We got him all secured up, and then Celeste sent me back to the Wave Dancer to help guide the robot in. Celeste stayed in the water to make sure the rope and the robot didn’t snag up on rocks or coral. I updated Penny on the goings-on in the water when I got back, and then Penny activated the winch. Celeste had it rigged to a crane on a tripod on the prow of the boat. She was breaking up a bit on the radio at first, but then she started coming in clearly, which was a relief. She was all like, “… ould be… go ahead and being it up. Slowly until the robot clears the cave.” She could be seen just outside the cave, one hand lightly touching the rope and the other treading water. “Here it comes… steady… steady… ok, it’s through. Bring it up. You can leave the robot hanging from the crane. It’ll survive until we reach the wharf.” The crane’s winch worked really well. Celeste says we’ll even use it for our next shark-fishing adventure, which sounds thrilling! I can’t wait!
Celeste joined Penny and I on the Wave Dancer as the robot was secured. With that done and the net removed, Turtle Bay was back to normal and the Mechagon fish problem officially solved! YAY! Penny and Celeste both were eager to work on the fisherman robot, though, so we quickly ferried it to the house-on-the-spire with the Flying Nosebleed and left on Celeste’s biggest workbench.
The return to normalcy of Turtle Bay called for a celebration! In Angler’s Wharf, and with hardcore anglers like Celeste and the Wharf’s residents, this meant a grand fishing session, and lines were dropped into the water all around the Wharf’s boardwalks. Before long, Celeste, Penny, me, Other Nat, and all the Pandaren caught enough fish for the celebratory cookout! Several different recipes were used to make this and that, turning the fishing session and cooking session into a huge buffet! The Pandaren all grinned and chuckled as Celeste recounted the events under Turtle Bay and in the cave, embellishing some like any good angler worth his or her salt should, which seemed to indicate that there may or may not have been encounters with a high-voltage electric eel, a hammerhead shark that thought better of snacking on Celeste when he got weirded out by her huge deep-dive helmet, and a school of tuna she had to deftly weave through with the robot on the winch in order to reach the Wave Dancer again. HA! I had a good giggle myself, exchanging knowing glances with Penny as Celeste weaved her grand tale. She sure is entertaining! I love this woman!
The rest of the day, once the mid-day party drew to a conclusion, was spent hosting Penny in the workshop as the three of us eagerly inspected and worked on the robot, with me gleaning as much engineering knowledge as I could from the other two. The day passed by pleasantly from there, and Celeste and I hung out and enjoyed each other’s company for a while after that until time for DEATHROLLS!
Deathrolls was yet MORE beach partying, with us meeting at the bar on the island beach off the west coast of Stormsong Valley, which we tried to do last week, but had to go to Pinky’s Groggery in Boralus instead because there were Naga about. The game had a good group, with me, Grim, and Mags there, along with a new friend that came in with Grim named Fae, which seems to be short for something. Fae is a Quel’dorei, and she was super shy instead of all haughty and stuff, but she warmed up to the rest of us by the end of the game, even dancing around on the table and yelling about penguins by the end of it! HA!
There were plenty of good Truths and Dares, with Truths ranging from food tastes to Grim telling a story about getting really drunk and walking up to a Kaldorei and mistaking him for a gnome, which apparently really upset the Kaldorei! Then Fae got me with a Dare to hop around the bar acting like an animal, and they had to guess what it was. I was darting around on all fours with quick, short dashes here and there, using my arm to mimic flicking a thick, fluffy tail, and pretending to find things on the ground and stuff them into my mouth, which resulted in my cheeks puffing out like crazy. Fae guessed right first – squirrel! Grim just had himself a good laugh watching me act like a squirrel, and Mags scolded me for spilling crumbs everywhere. Ha! Then I Dared Fae to grab the telescope on the table and check out Grim’s face with it and report her findings. She pointed it at his chest instead, where he wore a shirt that was open down the middle and showing a lot of bare chest, and she was saying stuff like, “I spy twin mountains rising through the dawn, covered in forest. I spy rivers and streams running rapidly through the forest.” And I was like, “Oh gosh, sweaty hamburger meat!” That made everyone laugh, and Fae blushed and put the telescope away. It was so funny! Then Grim got to Dare Mags, and he had her pick up a slice of the bread that was on the table and hold it up to her ear like a gnomish two-way radio, and tell whoever was on the other end of the bread-radio that she was “not in LOAF with” them. Mags did, except the way she was telling it, it seemed she was reassuring the person instead of breaking their heart, so that was good. Grim comes up with funny Dares! Mags had a Truth about the weirdest thing she’d ever eaten, so she told this story about how she hurt her shoulder once and went to Tialune for healing. Tia had her eat seeds that she used nature magic to grow inside Mags to heal her up! The seeds tasted weird, she said. Druidic magic is so weird! Grim had another funny Dare for Fae, who had to go grab this rope of sausage links off this plate that was on another table and wear them around her neck, then ask the other bar patrons and the bartender how they liked her scarf. This one drunk lady told her she had a nice scarf, and she liked how it was scented like sausage. HA! Another was throwing daggers at a dart board and wanted Fae to hold still so she could throw daggers into each link. Oh gosh, how spooky! Then the bartender told Fae that the sausage link scarf really brought out her eyes, and emphasized her hair, and told her she was really pretty. Then he started asking her if she liked long walks on the beach, fishing, and playing patticake. I was like, PATTICAKE?! GOSH! Fae got super embarrassed and came back and took off her sausage scarf and the rest of us had a good laugh. The night ended on a pair of Whisper Dares I got Fae and Grim with at the same time, since they both rolled ones, between the Deathrolls and the Truth or Dare rolls. I had Fae go outside the front door and yell to the others that were hanging out outside her favorite thing about Grim. Of all the things she could have screamed out, she chose, “Grim has muttonchops but no moustache!” HA! Grim was so surprised by her randomly getting up and yelling that, because I had said to Fae to wait a couple of rounds, when Grim least expects it, then do it without warning or context ahead of time. Grim’s surprise and confusion was so funny! A round later, Grim had to activate his Whisper Dare. He had to get up on the table and bounce around wildly and yell about penguins in his pants! Only problem was, Grim got to Dare me the next round, so he said, whenever he has to do his Whisper Dare, I have to join in! GOSH! Grim and I BOTH ended up bouncing around on the table, yelling about penguins in our pants! Fae’s turn to be all surprised and confused! But then she guessed it was the Whisper Dare, and, laughing, she jumped up on the table and joined in! Mags had gone home earlier, having gotten sleepy before the rest of us, so the night ended with the three of us dancing on the table and cracking jokes about penguins in pants, which progressed on to lots of “dad jokes” being made until we all finally got tired and went home to sleep. HA! It was a really great night! I love Deathrolls!
A flurry of feathers made Nat look up. The gull was back! It stood perched on the outside windowsill, peering in at Nat’s nearly-eaten breakfast, a hungry look in his eye. Nat stood with a bit of bacon fat, walking to the door and tossing it out to the gull, who flapped over to the patio to gobble it up hungrily. Glad Dordy wasn’t there to harass the gull and steal his morsel, Nat stepped back inside and closed the sliding glass door before the gull could get in. She smiled and waved at the gull as it flew off looking satisfied.
Nat could still hear Celeste humming happily downstairs. She could hear the clicking of a ratchet along with it, smiling even wider now to know that Celeste was enjoying herself. She figured Dordy would be downstairs with Celeste, as Celeste’s tendency to become hyperfocused on fishing or engineering work would leave her breakfast plate open to invasion. Fortunately for Celeste, Dordy can’t climb stools the way he can climb dinner table chairs, so her food was safe on the workbench! Nat wondered what Celeste was doing with the robot at this point. Reprogramming it? Rebuilding a part of it? Repairs? She wasn’t sure, but she was curious enough to find out, so she returned to her writing, figuring she’d finish up her diary entry and head downstairs to join her mate. Reaching for her quill, she tapped off the excess purple ink and returned to her writing.
Last night was the weekly Whitewind Company adventure! Me, Sparkles, Maya, Grim, and Zarshal had all gotten notices from the Company that we’d be continuing our search for Matilda Blackthorn, the Scarlet Crusader lady we’d only just missed nabbing in the Scarlet Monastery with Whitewind officer Lady Riven Summersong a couple weeks ago. Sparkles couldn’t come for some mysterious reason. Is she hurt yet again?! I dunno, but Maya came in her stead. That was good; Misery is effective, but that void elf creeps me RIGHT out! Anyway, we were meeting because the lead we’d gotten placed Matilda Blackthorn in Dragonblight, heading towards a meeting with an unnamed Scarlet Crusader person somewhere near Wintergarde, the Alliance fort there in the eastern reaches of the region. We all went there to the inn to meet up with Lady Riven… only to find my bestie NAH there! Nah’s been up there for WEEKS surveying the area around Icecrown Citadel now that the weird hole in the sky has closed up, and it was odd that we’d meet her in Wintergarde, especially without her knowing of our mission, or having even expected to run into us! And where the heck was Lady Riven? It was a good thing we had Nah there to lead us out, because Riven was missing! I hope she just had something hold her up, and wasn’t abducted like other Whitewind Company officers have been!
So it was that Nah led us out. We headed toward a nearby Scarlet Crusade camp to find additional intel on our lead so we could pinpoint Matilda. The Scarlets there weren’t talking, though, even after the group caught a couple of them and questioned them rather severely. We tried another camp, and this time, Nah had a new and different plan. One of her old favorite pastimes around Stormwind City: eavesdropping! We snuck up to a tent on the outskirts of town, and overheard two Scarlets talking to each other about how Matilda was on her way to the meet as they spoke, approaching along the road from the west. Mairy the Wildhammer dwarf had volunteered to be a distraction at the main path into the camp so we could sneak in close, though, and was doing her job a little TOO well. She was calling them all names and laughing at them because there was still Scourge all over Northrend, telling them they couldn’t even do their main job right. Once we had our intel on Matilda, we needed to leave, but she was drawing too many Scarlets to herself! Then she had to go and make it worse, throwing a SNOWBALL at one of them! Maya saved her as they were drawing their steel. She transformed into her druidic giant owl form and swooped in, grabbing Mairy by the belt and flying off with her at the last second!
The distraction THAT caused gave the rest of us a clear path to escape the camp, which we promptly did. Nah used an old rogue trick called the Cloak of Concealment to help us all get out of there unseen, and we ended up next to the river between Dragonblight and the Grizzly Hills, where we were able to mount back up on our flying mounts and head north to the road. Nah radioed Maya to come and join us at a crossroads, and from there, we headed west, looking in the distance down the road for any Scarlets approaching, as this would likely be Matilda Blackthorn.
We found her before we went too far. The mountain pass the road went through made for a great vantage point to overlook the snowy wastelands west of the mountain range, and we spotted her carriage off in the distance, being pulled by a pair of enormous horses. We set up our plan.
I would use one of my fel minions, the imp Wikpik, to stand in the road and stop the wagons by appearing out of nowhere and hopefully startle the horses and their driver. Then he’d stand there, still providing distraction in his own insolent way, buying Maya time to grow druidic roots out of the ground, which she said would be slow due to the temperature. Once the carriage was good and rooted, the trap would be sprung! Maya would use her teeth and claws in her cat form to sever the ropes and straps used to tether the horses to the carriage, rendering it immobile. Mairy would fly down from above on Twitchtail, her big gryphon, to grab onto the carriage. Nah and Zarshal would use their stealth abilities to get in close to toss luggage and stuff off to make the carriage lighter for Twitchtail to carry off, and Grim and I would support from the sides, cutting off escape routes from those within the carriage.
Once the carriage reached the mountain pass, I went Wikpik out into the road. Sure enough, the horses and driver were startled at the appearance of a random Legion minion that they stopped, and the driver could not make the horses move past the imp at ALL! Then Wikpik began really letting them have it! He was saying awful stuff like, “AAAAAAA! Oh, you’re human! I thought you were a vilefiend, with those teeth! They have so many gaps, it looks like your tongue is in jail!” and, “Wow, I gotta say, you sure are ugly, lady. I think the horse is prettier! You are more disappointing than an unsalted pretzel!” and, “Seriously, your teeth are so bad, I bet you could eat an apple through a fence!” and, “Where were you going, anyway? Can you take me with you? Forever? That way, I never have to kiss you goodbye!” and, “You’re like a cloud, lady! When you disappear, it’s a beautiful day!” and all the while, Maya’s roots were snaking out more and more over the road, eventually ensnaring and entangling the carriage’s wheels so thoroughly that it looked like it would never move again! Fortunately, the roots being Maya’s, they’d relent and let go when she changed her spell, when Mairy had Twitchtail ready to carry the thing off. Meanwhile, Wikpik was really cheesing off the occupants of the carriage, and they were starting to look violent and mean. Wikpik was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Why so violent? I thought we were friends! If you’re going to be two-faced, at least make one of them pretty!” Then one of the paladins spotted the entangling roots and gave a yell of alarm, and Wikpik responded, “AAAAAAAA! HAHAHAHAHA! GOTCHA, WITLESS! Honestly, if your brains were dynamite, you wouldn’t have enough to blow your hat off!” The paladin jumped at Wikpik after that, whacking him with the flat of her greataxe and sending him sailing through the air in a high arc. Wikpik, even then, could not stop making wisecracks. He was yelling as he sailed through the air, “I CAN SEE MY HOUSE FROM HEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeerrrreeee…” and then crumpled into a heap in the snow, far to one side of the road. Then he popped up once more, and was like, “HAHAHA! You’re goners now! But don’t worry, I won’t ever forget the first time we met… even though I’ll be trying hard to!” and, “Hey, I love what you’ve done with your hair! How did you get it to come out of your nostrils like that?”
With the trap sprung, Maya went into cat form for her next task, lunging at the ropes and straps and severing them with tooth and claw and springing back out before the horses could kick the suddenly-appearing great carnivorous beast. Nah and Zarshal stealthed in for the luggage next, with Zarshal tossing in a smoke bomb for good measure. The carriage’s load lightened considerably, and then in came Twitchtail! The carriage was too heavy still, though, and Mairy needed to make it lighter, so she waited and helped fight from above while the rest of us took the fight to those within to secure Matilda Blackthorn for the arrest. They had closed themselves inside the carriage, however, even though Maya had released the roots, because the horses were no longer affixed to the front of the cart, so it was still immobilized.
I drew deeply upon my fel magics at that point, nearly draining myself as I summoned nearly a dozen or so fel minions of various sorts and sent them after the cart. A shivarra got one of the doors open and reached in, her six arms grabbing people and tossing them out of the cart haphazardly over her shoulder. Nah pointed out that this was counter-productive, as we were going to use the carriage to carry off our prisoners to turn them in to authorities, so I had the shivarra stop what she was doing and stuff them all back inside the cart. The shivarra took the order to reverse her actions stoically, complying. She stuffed them all back in without bothering to be gentle, which riled them all up worse. Meanwhile, fel minions were spellcasting and biting and swinging weapons and, at my behest, knocked out most of the Crusaders instead of killing them, as we didn’t know which one was Matilda, and didn’t want to risk the kill. After that, the four Crusaders inside and the driver were all easy prey for the others. Zarshal leaped into the cart to wrestle with one that was holding a shield and trying to smash her way out of her door, which Maya, now in bear form, was holding closed, snarling in a horrifying manner through the window at the woman. Twitchtail tried to lift off at that point, but it was still too heavy! Nah yelled for Zarshal to hop out, and Zarshal was about to, but then the shield-bearing lady kicked him and made him FALL out! Z was okay though! After that, Twitchtail was able to lift off! Mairy got Twitchtail in the air, though he couldn’t gain much altitude with the weight. The horses pulling the carriage were left behind, as was the luggage. Someone’s about to find plenty of free stuff! Nah, ever the scamp, was snickering as she rifled through it, cracking jokes about “knicking their knickers,” which she totally meant literally. Oh gosh! Then the rest of us got back on our flying mounts and followed Mairy and Twitchtail as escort back to Wintergarde.
When we got there, we handed them off to the 7th Legion guys stationed there, who were all quite surprised to see a carriage coming out of the skies, let alone one stuffed full of wanted criminals! Their captain said he would see to it that the Whitewind Company would receive payment as quickly as possible from the Alliance for the bounty contract, and took the prisoners – carriage and all – off our hands for us. After that, it was time to get out of there. Dragonblight is SO cold, and we all wanted our nice, warm homes. Still, it was yet another thrilling Whitewind Company adventure victory to celebrate! YAY!
And now, this morning, it’ll be back to relaxing for the last day of minication, as Celeste and I try to figure out this fish-making robot and get it rebuilt and reprogrammed to tend a fish farm and make fish that are thrilling sport for Pandaria’s anglers! Penny will be over later after lunch, too, so that’ll make it a fun party! I’ll have to figure out what to do for lunch. This will be a fun day! I love this life!
Nat smiled happily as she finished up her entry. She tapped the excess ink from her quill back into the inkwell, replacing it in her cherrywood quill case and capping her inkwell of purple ink. She returned them to the large drawer on the side of the desk by her right knee, then finished off her breakfast and coffee as she thought about the week’s events. Diving for robots in underwater caves. Bouncing around on a table screaming about penguins in her pants with two other friends doing the same. Deathrolls chaos. Achieving yet another victory with the Whitewind Company. Time spent with family and friends at home and abroad. Nat finished her reminiscing as she finished her breakfast, now in high spirits. She closed her diary, the ink on the pages now dry, and took it to its usual spot on the bookshelf to the left of her desk. She took her plate, fork, and empty coffee mug to the kitchen, handing all but the mug off to the ROPHE bot for cleaning. She then joined Celeste downstairs, a fresh mug of coffee in either hand, figuring Celeste’s would be empty as well by now. Sitting next to Celeste, she was able, in time, to get Celeste to snap out of her focus and put her head together with Nat’s in solving the fish-maker robot puzzle. It occupied the rest of the day, and Penny coming over after lunch really helped make even more progress. Nat couldn’t wait to see what the mechagnome-designed bot would soon be capable of! It was sure to make for some exciting adventures in the future!
|
|
|
Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Apr 14, 2022 10:13:55 GMT
The House-On-The-Spire was unusually quiet this morning. No happy humming from the basement workshop. No clanking or clanging, no whizzing or whirring, no clicking and clacking, no buzzing or beating. Just the rustle of a desk having things taken out of it, a book withdrawn from a bookshelf, and human and canine footsteps making their way down a spiral staircase.
Nat settled into her stool at Celeste’s workbench in the basement, her view of the tranquil underwater scene painted onto the walls, added onto Celeste’s rock carvings of sea creatures, working to bringing her peace. Much more than this was the dazzling mechafish in a floor-to-ceiling fish tank along the east wall that was large enough for five adult Pandaren to stand in. It had artificial (though it was difficult to tell it wasn’t real) coral reefs rising to either side of it, lit-up rocks, a sand bottom, a deep-dive helmet with an artificial octopus peering out from its depths, and an open sunken treasure chest glittering to the brim with gold.
Nat watched the dazzling mechafish swim around through it all in the tank, sighing quietly. She could only just hear the gently rolling waves from up here through the slightly-open hangar bay doors as she watched the fish. She listened for a while, sipping at a hot mug of coffee with a smidgen of liquid hazelnut creamer, then eventually set to work on the diary before her on Celeste’s workbench. Finding the next empty page, she uncapped her inkwell of purple ink, withdrew her ravenfeather quill from its cherrywood quill case to dip for ink, tapped off the excess, and set to work.
Dear diary,
Well, it’s been a weeks of ups and downs! I’ve been pretty bummed because two different things this week got called off for lack of people.
First one to get called off was Deathrolls. I think people are finally burning out on Deathrolls after almost a year of playing, because faces keep disappearing from the group, even though nothing bad has happened. I think it’s just burnout. I might have to find a new group to play with!
Anyway, it got called off this week, because only one person showed. Grim. We had a pleasant time anyway, though! We were going to hold it at the north dock of Angler’s Wharf, like we have a few times in the past, so I was prepared for some water antics by arriving in my bikini! Grim and I just sort of hung out and chattered on for a while instead, and Grim has now decided to join the Whitewind Company! YAY! I got him a Whitewind Company communicator, one of the ones based on a gnomish design that Nah and I made when the Company first started, that Celeste came up with the idea for the color-coded light-up crystals last year to identify who’s speaking. I showed him how it works, and he picked it up pretty quickly. It’s going to be great being in the same crew with him again!
The other thing to get called off was the Whitewind Company’s weekly expedition last night. Only Sparkles showed up, and we needed more to accomplish our mission. I ended up just returning home and going to bed. The weekly mission is usually pretty popular, so it was weird to not have anyone. I guess people were pretty busy with other things already last night.
Another bummer is Celeste is gone for a few days. She’s off on her yearly camping trip with her Uncle Rugnar. I’m really happy that she gets to go and do that with him still! The pair of them always seem to feel really great after they get to go do that family tradition again! But I’ll miss her for a few days, too! Oh well. I know she’s safe, and happy, and having fun, and that she’ll be back soon. And I still have Dordy here!
Nat paused, placing her quill in her inkwell and letting it sit there for a moment as she reaches for her coffee and peers under the desk at the aforementioned molten corgi. The orange glow emitting from under Celeste’s workbench showed where he was. He was providing warmth for her feet where he was curled up under the workbench in front of them, quietly snoozing while he waited on whatever the next adventure would be. She was glad for his presence. Events and fun adventures would come and go, but he was always there for her. Smiling softly down at the little pup, she placed her coffee mug back on the table after one more dainty sip and reached for her quill with one more look at the fish tank. There were happier things to write about, too!
On a happier note, Celeste totally finished the mechafish tank in the workshop as a surprise to me while I was at work! When I got back from work, when the House-On-The-Spire came into view, my heart leaped! It always does when I see home, but this time, I had an added level of excitement. All the rice paper lanterns had been lit, and the Suncrawler beetles have had their pheromones sprayed on, the ones that cause them to light up the planters around the balconies like Winter Veil tree lights! I knew then that Celeste had something special planned, and when I got there, sure enough, she did! I could hear voices downstairs, so I went down there, and Dordy stopped me about halfway down, greeting me excitedly. I scooped him up and went the rest of the way in to see what was going on. Lots of our Angler’s Wharf friends were down in the basement workshop, where I saw the finished mechafish tank for the first time!
The mechafish in the tank were breathtaking, catching the lights around the workshop as they turned this way and that, flashing and shimmering like the smiles of my friends and family around her. Overjoyed, she enthusiastically thanked them all, finally turning to throw myself at Celeste for a big hug and kiss. Dordy, pinned between us as I was still holding him, squirmed and wriggled, eventually escaping the hug to plop to the floor and run yip-yipping around the party. I was ecstatic; now THIS is how you end the workend and begin the minication!
We had a big dinner going with our friends, too, sitting around the workshop and eating different sorts of seafood brought up by the Angler’s Wharf people. Mussels and scallops, lobster tails and crabs, shrimp and different sorts of fish. It was great! Celeste told me how they’d gotten it completed over the weekend as we ate. She had brought up glass panels her uncle had found for her, thanks to his contacts in the Explorer's League. All the display cases in the Explorer's Hall needed glass, after all. Celeste simply needed stronger and thicker panes. The operation was delicate, as the glass was just about heavy enough to really test the Flying Nosebleed's limits. With Penny's help though, all four panels arrived safely. With Penny delightedly holding the panels up using the MUTT's strong arms – she’s so overjoyed to be included in engineering things, unlike her past! – Celeste was able to sort of "weld" the panels together using heat from her rarely-used fire magic. The result was a glass enclosure without any cracks or weak points or metal frames! That’s so cool! This apparently took the better part of Saturday and half of Sunday. After a quick lunch and a relaxing hour of fishing, Penny and Celeste returned to complete the aquarium. Next was the water. Not something easy to pull up! The Spire had it's own integrated plumbing, but nothing that would fill the tank up in half a day. Oddly, perhaps, it was Penny who caught on to the idea that eventually worked. Celeste would freeze fresh water from the pond in mid-sized chunks. Since ice was lighter per volume than water itself, the Flying Nosebleed could fly up chunks without requiring some form of container. Once up on the Spire, the chunks would be left to melt in a tub and the MUTT's purification system and hoses – the system Celeste designed for clean water for camping with the MUTT – would pump clean water into the tank at a steady pace without disturbing the decorations within. What an ingenious idea! Most of the chore thus involved Penny flying the Flying Nosebleed back and forth, but she didn't complain; she was having fun, and besides, Dordy was allowed to ride along with Penny, aviator goggles and all!
The night ended pleasantly after that, with our Pandaren friends drifting off back home in twos and threes, bellies full, eyes dazzled, hearts warm from the nice little party with their eccentric (to them) human neighbors. Other Nat was there as well, and he stayed a little later with the last of the party, until he, too, went back home. After that, exhausted from three fourteen-hour shifts and one heck of a surprise party, I was ready for bed as well. What a great way to kick off the minication! This week may have had its ups and downs, but boy, does Celeste know how to LIVE!
Nat felt a bit better after writing down her happiest memories of the week last. She tapped off the excess ink from her ravenfeather quill into her inkwell of purple ink, replacing it in its cherrywood quill case. She capped off her inkwell, then reached for her coffee and turned on her stool to watch the mechafish for a while. Some floated idly, suspended in the water. Others were drifting slowly through the crags of the coral reefs, looking sort of lazy at the moment. A few were swimming more quickly, their fins and scales flashing as they caught the different lights around Celeste’s workshop. One appeared to be picking at something in the treasure chest. Smiling softly, Nat watched them for a good while, until her coffee was all gone. Turning back to her diary at that point, she closed it, the ink on the pages now dry. She took her diary, inkwell, and quill case upstairs, Dordy popping to his feet as though he hadn’t been asleep at all to follow her up.
With the diary replaced in its home on her office bookshelf and the inkwell and quill case returned to the side drawer of her writing desk, Nat grabbed Dordy’s aviator goggles and his favorite toy, Celeste’s oldest wrench. Dordy spotted these items and began yip-yipping and bouncing around; he knew it was time for fun now! Nat scooped him up, putting his aviator goggles on his head and heading out onto the front lawn, waving Onyx down from the skies. Mounting up sidesaddle as usual, Dordy held tight, she makes a quick flight down to Turtle Beach. Other friends from Angler’s Wharf spot the fetch game and come over to join, and an impromptu Dordy party is held, with Dordy playing keep-away from the entire party, wagging his tail and yip-yipping each time he’s caught and loses the wrench, knowing he’ll get to chase it and play keep-away again. The morning passes pleasantly, until everyone goes home from lunch. It’s a great way to begin the last day of minication!
|
|
|
Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Apr 21, 2022 14:19:26 GMT
Gentle, rolling waves slowly rose and fell, taking the Wave Dancer for a pleasant ride akin to that of a rocking chair. An endless array of stars sprawled across the night sky, unmoving, fixed in their dazzling display of distant diamonds. Those reflected in the water were much more mobile, rolling with the waves, though the broad path of the reflected waxing moon reaching out for the Wave Dancer off the starboard side was large enough to hold its ground. The breeze so far out on the ocean was pleasantly cool, the warm Pandaren air balancing the night winds to provide a pleasant temperature and the smell of the sea’s salt air.
Nat lay sprawled across the transparent bottom of the gift she’d given to Celeste this past Winter Veil, marveling at how far the small craft had come. What started as a half of a hollowed-out Kyparite tree was now a high-end fishing boat with a plethora of engineering additions – exactly what Nat had in mind when she’d given the boat to her tinkering-loving mate. Celeste now sat at the custom-engineered pilot’s console, her seat turned around backward to watch the four fishing rods they’d set up to dangle lines into the water as the Wave Dancer slowly trolled along. The boat had removable pontoons, a sonic shark repeller, a large, custom-built (by Celeste, of course) outboard motor, a winch rigged to the front, and a long list of other additions Celeste had built onto the boat, including a purple, cushioned seat with a purple parasol – Nat loved purple – for Nat to use as her own personal seat in the forward section of the boat.
Sprawled out across the transparent bottom of the boat with Nat was Dordy, the molten corgi splayed out on his side, snoozing as the boat gently rocked under the early-morning stars. Also with Nat was an open diary, an open inkwell of purple ink, and an open cherrywood quill case, with the ravenfeather quill in her hand. Nat lay on her belly, using the downtime in between hanging out with Celeste for the early-morning boat ride and then setting up the rods, and whenever something might bite, knowing that the downtime would be there as Celeste concentrated on her fishing, totally in the zone as she usually was when fishing or engineering. Nat looked over her shoulder and smiled at the back of the concentrating woman, then applied quill to paper, beginning her weekly diary entry.
Dear diary,
It’s been a cool week! Still no Deathrolls, though… I might have to either find new players, or else look for something else fun to do with my Tuesday evenings. I’m doing something fun right now, though! Deep-sea fishing with Celeste! We’re in the Wave Dancer, trolling lines along behind us the way we were when we first found those mechafish in Turtle May, with each of four lines at a different depth, baited with larger bait for larger fish the lower they descend into the water. I’m hoping we get some REAL epic fish fights going on!
We got to ride in the boat yesterday, too! Celeste took Dordy and I on a leisurely boat ride around the bay and even further up the coast, which is a bit more than we usually do, just hanging out in beautiful Turtle Bay, so that was cool! She made sure Dordy and I were well supplied in anything we needed to drink or snack on. That was so sweet and thoughtful of her! She even brought the Wave Dancer out further in the ocean at one point, and we had a big surprise! We got followed by a huge, gentle whale shark! We watched, awestruck, as the massive sea beast slowly swam close to the surface. Dordy was enthralled by another giant creature right there under the boat and barked at it several times, but the whale shark didn’t seem to care. I can’t even be sure it was specifically following us, or even noticed us! We watched the whale shark for a while, and then we returned to the calmer waters of Turtle Bay and had some fun swimming in the warm waters while Dordy hung out in his Dordy Bubble with us, bubbling his way under the surface. I had water-breathing spells on Celeste and myself in case we needed to corral the little guy, but he behaved himself! In the afternoon, Celeste and I played fetch with Dordy, throwing his favorite toy, Celeste’s oldest wrench, on Turtle Beach. There was a picnic for lunch in the form of smoked trout with cream cheese on bagels. Dordy, obviously, had his own to eat. It was soooooooo tasty!
When evening came around, and I went to my usual Wednesday night Whitewind Company contract mission with my friends, Celeste spent some time cleaning and tuning up the Flying Nosebleed in the hangar, kept company by her favorite pup in all of Azeroth, so she got to have a great night too! It was such a great day!
Dordy and I were really happy on Tuesday to hear two incoming flying machines. I got so excited, I almost threw the book I was reading – Celeste was back from her yearly camping trip with Rugnar! For just a moment, I thought I might be hearing someone else’s flying machines, because I didn’t hear the hangar bay doors opening, but then they landed in the lawn, and I saw it was them! Dordy went nuts, yip-yipping and bouncing up and down at the front door. I gotta say, I was about as excited myself! I had a lunch ready for their return, too! Shrimp tacos, fresh caught from Turtle Bay! Rugnar frowned at his and picked at it, and I was just horrified, because I thought I’d picked wrong, but it turns out he doesn’t specifically dislike tacos or shrimp; he’s simply, as Celeste later explained, a rather conservative eater, and wasn’t too sure about this fancy fare he was being served! Ha! I love Rugnar!
Anyway, Celeste and Rugnar told me all about their camping trip. Apparently, they’d had a huge flying machine race, a yearly camping trip tradition, right down the Thousand Needles canyon! There was quite a sharp debate between the two on who won; Rugnar insisted Celeste had cheated, and Celeste explained that the tips of the horns on the Flying Nosebleed’s chassis passed the finish line first. Rugnar claimed it’s the pilot that matters, not the machine, but his machine is shorter by a few inches, and he sits closer to the forward rotors. Rugnar, Celeste says, always won the races by a large margin, so they’ve never really settled on rules for close ties before now. Officially they’re ruling it a draw, but the debate rages on for the unofficial version! HA! I love these two!
Dordy ended up eating most of Rugnar’s shrimp tacos, though Rugnar tried his best to keep “the little gobbler” away from his shrimp itself! Rugnar and Dordy are always so entertaining when they interact! HA!
Also, they had the most wonderful surprise for me! Celeste and Rugnar, last remaining pair of their old family of years past, had always gone off on their yearly camping trips together, just the two of them. But, they told me, they decided during the camping trip that I was really a part of that family now, so I can go on next year’s family tradition camping trip! YAY! I can’t wait! I’ll need to build my own flying machine between now and then, so I can pit my own creation against theirs. I can’t wait to get that one started! But mostly, it made my heart swell SO MUCH to hear that they considered me part of their family, and really want me to come on their family tradition next time! It’s so sweet! I’m so very happy! YAY!
We had a really lazy day the rest of the day after Rugnar went home. We didn’t even unpack until after we’d had time to relax and catch up on things. We didn’t even finish unpacking all her camping things until the following morning! It’s been a really easy and relaxing week for nearly the entire week!
FLASH!
Nat started suddenly, the first glimmer of sunlight streaking across the boat. The sun was finally rising! Nat felt excited… one of the fish Celeste wanted to troll for, striped marlin, liked to sun themselves, floating around near the surface, and Celeste had said the huge, beautiful fish could be seen from the deck of a boat! Nat got up, heading over to Celeste and asking about them. Celeste shook her head, stating that it would be a bit more yet before the warmth drew them to the surface. They’d continue trolling in the meantime, but Celeste didn’t except the real fights to begin until the sun finished rising and was beginning to warm the shallowest depths of the deep sea. Nat felt only very slightly disappointed; excitement remained the predominant emotional state. Striped marlin, as explained by Celeste, was an epic fight, full of strength and speed and breaching jumps that would have the fighting fish leaping several feet above the surface in its attempt to break free! Elated by the coming adventure, Nat turned to head back to her diary to pass the time, restless in anticipation of the most intense fishing she’d done since the stunt they’d pulled with the Flying Nosebleed and a hammerhead shark in Turtle Bay!
The sun is coming up now! We’re all rigged up for marlin this morning, and I’m hoping for striped marlin! Apparently blue marlin is the very best sportfishing for the deep-sea stuff, but striped marlin provides the best meal, and is still a really good, tough fight! We’re trolling along at different depths, and the deep-sea fishing gear for the huge fish we’re after is all rigged up and ready to go. I’m hoping for something truly epic!
Until then, I’ll kill some time logging last night’s Whitewind Company adventure. It sure got crazy! A group of Explorer’s League dwarves had sent out a distress signal while out on a dig on all gnomish communicator frequencies. Apparently they were under duress in MULGORE of all places! The Tauren homeland! This promised to be a sticky situation, as the Explorer’s League had, in the past, invaded all kinds of lands for digs, with the Bronzebeard dwarves declaring all lands with Titan architecture to be Bronzebeard dwarf lands… and that included Mulgore, among many other places, which had started more than a few fights in the past! I sent urgent missives to the Whitewind Company members and our contractors that usually come along. Cari and Maya usually send someone along to help, as they have their own Voyager things to take care of now. But, Mairy, usually here for Cari, wasn’t available this week due to other work, and Maya’s usual covers were out too; that spooky void elf Misery hasn’t been heard from, and Sparkles is apparently laid up in bed after some sort of psychotic breakdown and is recovering. Replacing Maya this time was a new Kaldorei with green hair I met in the meeting spot I designated (Fort Triumph in the Southern Barrens) named Tessina Spiritwalker. She stumbled across our group after wandering Kalimdor for the first time in apparently decades, having been stranded on Exile’s Reach dodging ogres all alone with her spirit beast, Palattu, all these years. She’s missed out on a lot in all that time, so everything between the First War and now is all news to her! Also present was Zarshal, and my bestie Nah!
When Nah and Zarshal got there, I was already getting acquainted with Tess, as she liked to be called, and made the necessary introductions. Then we got airborne! The distress signal had denoted a digsite halfway along the western cliffs of Mulgore, so we flew high to remain out of bowshot from Tauren hunters on the Great Gate at the southeast of the region, and hopefully out of sight as well, while we searched for anything looking like a dwarven archaeology site.
Tess, whom I’d given a spare Whitewind Company communicator to borrow for the night’s mission, spotted it first, drawing us all to her position. We landed down the hill from it, and realized we’d guessed wrong about the distress signal… It wasn’t Tauren attacking the dwarves, but huge, raging EARTH ELEMENTALS!
I instantly found myself wishing Mairy was present. She and her twin brother have some shamanic ability, and Mairy could have calmed the earth elementals and helped us get the dwarves out sooner. But, as she wasn’t there, we had to come up with our own plan.
We surveyed the area, finding each of the five elementals blocking the entrances to five tents. There was an outhouse off to one side, and Zarshal said he saw an EYE peering through one of the knotholes at us! So we went over there to see what was going on, and it turns out there was a DWARF in there! Either that, or it was a really talkative outhouse with a dwarven accent! The voice from the outhouse told us that they had just set up camp and were about to start digging for titan relics, when the earth elementals exploded from the grounds and attacked them! He’d been in the outhouse… having a… well, I won’t repeat the vulgarities, but he was using it, anyway, when the elementals had attacked, and he’d been in there ever since! He was glad someone had a gnomish communicator in one of those tents to make the distress call with, though he seemed shocked that we hadn’t brought a shaman with us. We had to explain that the distress call didn’t explain what was attacking, and we’d assumed Tauren, because Mulgore. So short of that, he said to just use what he had around the camp, if the elementals would let them go for the items, so we did!
We spread out, and the elementals, focused on the dwarves they were angry at, didn’t pay us any attention. They just stayed where they were, keeping the dwarves hemmed in and not allowing them to come out of their tents. Nah found a powder keg behind one of the tents, a fuse sticking out of it that was dangerously close to a torch that was burning lower and lower, and wasn’t that far from the fuse’s tip. Zarshal snuck around another tent, finding a treasure chest that was locked, but seemed to weigh quite a bit on another side of that tent. Tess spread out to the far side of the dig site and found a table covered with supplies for the dig under a canopy propped up on poles, and found a long coil of fuse. I stayed with the dwarf in the outhouse and kept him calm and reassured.
When the others brought back their finds, the voice in the outhouse stated his plan for the items… One of our stealthy types, Nah or Zarshal, would sneak in with the powder keg and place it in the center of the camp, well within range of all five elementals. Then the fuse would go in, and be run back to where we were, by the outhouse. The stealthies would tap on the backs of the tents before that, though, getting the attention of the dwarf within each and bringing them out from under the back wall of the tent, hopefully without being spotted by the elementals.
That plan failed even before it started, with both Nah AND Zarshal getting spotted by elementals at the very first tent each went to! The elementals finally started paying attention to them, rumbling in their odd Kalimag language and drawing the other elementals after them. The voice in the outhouse shouted at all the other “lads” to RUN, and run they did! We all took off down the hill, with Nah simply rolling the powder keg into the middle of the elementals, who were now at the spot we were just at by the outhouse, lighting the tip of her arrow with felfire she had me conjure and firing it at the keg. I took a pretty hard fall down the short little cliff at the edge of the camp while the others ran down it more deftly, but at least we all made it out safe! The explosion that came after Tess’s shot was HUGE though! It echoed all across Mulgore! I bet the Tauren laughed, thinking the dwarves had simply blown themselves up! Zarshal went up with that spyglass that folds into a periscope that I built for him for his scouting and gifted to him during Winter Veil, and he reported that the elementals had all been blown to bits… and so had the outhouse, which he said was a disgusting mess now! GROSS!
We began trekking across Mulgore on foot at that point, heading to the Great Gate with no particular plan, as yet, on how to get the non-flying Dwarves through it, with the outhouse dwarf – introducing himself as Barnum Dustbeard – lamenting the loss of “Olivia” the Outhouse with a tear in each eye. We exchanged introductions with the others, too, learning that the other five dwarves were the Mountaindelver brothers: Slade, Sandrak, Eggbert, Golvin, and the eldest, Magni. As siblings with some significant shortage in maturity, they began exchanging insults as we crossed the grassy, verdant plains of Mulgore, growing louder and louder as taunting, mischievous banter began to grow into angry bickering. Before long, one of them said something about the other’s mother, prompting a furious protest, followed by more jibes from two more brothers, and drawing a boisterous guffaw from the fifth, who said they were all having a go at their own mothers, since they’re all brothers. Then he belatedly came to the realization of, “OI, tha’ means ME maw!” and charged at the others, fists flying! OHMIGOSH the din they raised! All five brothers half-disappeared into a dust cloud, kicking, punching, screaming insults with words and accents that prompted Z to ask if they were even speaking Common anymore, with Barnum Dustdelver diving into the fray, screaming at them to stop screaming before they bring the entire Tauren army down on them, creating as much chaos as they were!
Then, rather than the most predictable thing happening (Tauren warhorns sounding at the Great Gate we were approaching), it was Nah that broke up the fight… with one of her homemade stinkbombs! The dwarves froze, the horrid stench of the stinkbomb causing the dwarves to stop fighting, and the dust finally cleared, with each dwarf frozen in the act of something violent. Every bearded, dwarven face was wrinkled in disgust! Magni was on his back, his right leg twisted around the back of his head, his left hand around Sandrak's throat. Golvin was sitting on Magni’s chest, his right fist reared back to punch Eggbert in the face, who had his right leg pinned under Magni, with Golvin in a headlock. Slade had his face pinned into the dirt, his ample rear sticking up in the air, posed like an ostrich. Even Barnum was frozen completely still, his fists full of all five dwarves' beards, in the middle of the act of dragging them away. It would have been hilarious, if not for what happened next: a Tauren warhorn finally sounded from the Great Gate!
A mad scrum ensued as each brother tried to get up first, wanting to hurry to join the rest of us, who were taking cover behind one of the few huge trees dotting the region. Another fight broke out, with the brothers behaving like crabs in a boiling pot, each pulling the other back in, frantic in their attempts to get out of the open and behind the tree. The only thing that stopped them this time was a threat from Tess to haunt them all with her spirit wolf until the end of their days. Oh, the terrified looks they gave! They settled down immediately, Tess’s intimidation attempt having been a success. And none too soon… Two Tauren braves, armed to the teeth and riding kodos, had come into view across the plains and were searching for the source of the commotion! Fortunately for us, they eventually gave up the search and returned to their posts before finding us behind the huge tree.
This left us in a quandary. The Great Gate was on full alert now; there was no getting out that way! We were all wondering what we were going to do, as the rest of the region is completely encircled by cliffs, when Eggbert spoke up about a path leading right up the northern cliffs in a zig-zag pattern he’d found when surveying the area for potential digsites a couple of weeks ago. Barnum was irritated that Eggbert hadn’t spoken up before now, but Eggbert said that no one had asked. Tess calmed the dwarves once more, and we decided to take that route out… even though it meant passing the Tauren capital city of Thunder Bluff to do so!
From there, we took it easy, with Nah and I deciding to move from tree to tree, moving only when the eyes of the distant sentries of Thunder Bluff were pointed elsewhere. We cross the plains, stop and go, stop and go, until we reached the bottom of the cliffs themselves, with my idea being that we’d be visible in the open plains, but the only way we’d be visible at the base of the cliffs of Thunder Bluff was if a sentry were to lean out over the edge of the cliff and look directly down. That worked for most of the way… We even dodged the goblin zeppelin that goes between Thunder Bluff and Orgrimmar that way!
It wasn’t until we were very nearly past Thunder Bluff and beginning to set out northward to the cliffs that we were spotted. That was scary! Again warhorns sounded, and again we had to hoof it! The only good thing was, the Tauren of the city had to wait on their lifts before they could give chase, so we got a good head start! The bad thing was, I can’t run more than like twenty steps without falling flat on my face! None of the Dwarves had mounts with them, and they were terrified of flying with us, and besides which, I didn’t want to wave Onyx down from the skies right through a bazillion archers’ fire, so I summoned my Dreadsteed instead. In the heat of the moment, none of the dwarves panicked to see the fel mount, and I was able to ride to keep up with the runners!
We gained the cliffs without incident, though we didn’t see the path. Eggbert led us east, insisting the path was that way. Then, when the cliffs started curving southward and we ran out of Mulgore land to run (or ride) through that way, Eggbert turned us around, insisting that it was off to the left. With irritation coming from numerous Alliance races around him, Eggbert appeared flustered, especially when the warhorns started sounding from the plains instead of the bluffs – the Tauren had finally reached the ground, and could be seen in the distant, riding an army of kodos right at us! EEP!
We ran westward with all speed, finally locating the path. The bad news was, there were already a ton of Tauren here! The good news was, some of them were Grimtotem, the mortal enemies of the Thunder Bluff Tauren tribes! With every Tauren already occupied in a fight, we ran right through them, instantly gaining the path. We ran up as fast as we could, the dwarves huffing and puffing and complaining about the distance running. We went up and up and up the cliffside path, which got scarier and scarier as we went along, because it was so narrow, and no rail or any sort of guard on the edge of the cliff, so you could just fall right off if you weren’t careful!
Then we saw the scariest sight on the entire path… it was blocked by a pair of Thunder Bluff braves, with each warrior carrying a massive tree trunk log carved into a totem! How were we going to get out now?! Nah gave us our answer, wasting no time with negotiating. She simply drew the Negotiator and the Renegotiator, her flintlock pistols, and began firing! One shot caught the brave closer to the edge of the cliff in the shoulder, though the other took cover behind his huge totem. I sent my wrathguard, Mek-barash, in to help, with a pair of Dreadstalkers to fight as well. Tess sent spirit beast and arrows in as well, and Zarshal charged in with his daggers at the ready. A shuriken toss distracted the Tauren Nah hadn’t hit with her pistols, the shuriken embedding itself deep in the Tauren’s totem while Zarshal surprised him with a Shadowstep move to end up right behind him, stabbing him in the back with his daggers. The Tauren were eventually overwhelmed, with Tess knocking the cliffside Tauren over the edge (along with my Dreadstalkers, but they’re only Legion minions, so that was fine). The remaining Tauren became enraged at the sight of his comrade falling from the cliff, and turned around and raised his massive totem over his head, bringing the flat end down directly on top of Zarshal’s skull with all his strength! Zarshal looked SEVERELY concussed! All he could do was stagger around drunkenly and take swings at the Tauren after that. The Tauren eventually did overwhelmed by the rest of us, finally falling to the relentless firepower of Nah’s pistols. With the way clear, and Tauren charging up the path behind us now, catching up, we fled once more!
At the top, we found ourselves on a stretch of mountain ridge that divides Mulgore from Stonetalon Peak. The Dwarves had folded contraptions at the ready for just such an occasion: goblin glider kits! They sprinted straight for the cliffs of the opposite side, their fear of flying apparently not extending to gliding, and leaped right off! They aimed for the Northwatch Expedition Base Camp, which was friendly Alliance territory, and, more importantly, inaccessible from Mulgore by Kodo. The rest of us, far enough now from Thunder Bluff to call in our own flying mounts, took off after them with all haste, looking over our shoulders to see an angry horde of Tauren gaining the summit and roaring at us from where we’d just been moments before, shaking their weapons angrily as they disappeared into the distance. We’d made it! We’d escaped with the Dwarves!
Zarshal, still punch-drunk from the totem smash, managed to wrangle the treasure chest he’d found at the campsite down off his flying mount, and Barnum opened it for us with his key, giving out the promised reward for their rescue. Zarshal got some healing from an Alliance priest there, and an Alliance mage ported the dwarves and the rest of us home.
With the night over, Nah and I made plans to meet up again sometime soon to discuss another development from this week: with Deathrolls being a wash Tuesday, I was wandering Stormwind, when I crossed paths with Mags, who was with Sir Audric, a knight from the Quicksilver Company that her family owns and operates. She and the bosses of the company want to form a partnership with ours! They’d lost a boat to a pair of sea giants, and needed more shipping help from another company now. We discussed a coalition, though I’d have to finalize it with the bosses of my company. The coalition would basically involve teaming up with each other’s missions and stuff, which sounds fun! I can’t wait to see what comes of it!
For now, I want to wrap this entry up, because I’m so anxious to see what comes of this deep-sea fishing trip, and the sun is really coming up over the water now! I want to go see if I can really spot striped marlin sunning themselves in the water close to the surface! This is gonna be so much fun! YAY!
Nat grinned as she tapped the excess purple ink from her ravenfeather quill back into the inkwell, capping the jar and replacing her quill in its cherrywood case. These items went back into her pack, and she slid her open diary out of the way to let the pages dry. She was eager to see some real, live, deep-sea fish!
Suddenly, as if on cue, a dazzling display of fire out of the corner of Nat’s eye caught her attention: Dordy, going from asleep to wide-awake and zooming around barking his head off in the space of a bare fraction of a second, alerted Nat to one of the rods being bent double! She gasped as she realized which line it was… the one set to the shallowest depth was being pulled on hard! Had they really caught a striped marlin sunning itself right off the bat? Nat had heard it could take days! What LUCK!
Nat and Celeste raced to the aft end of the boat, Nat looking overboard to see if she could spot a fish while Celeste, much stronger and able to handle monster fish than Nat, took the rod. Dordy joined Nat at the back of the boat, watching the water as well, yip-yipping himself silly as he saw what Nat saw – there, right there in the water, was the biggest fish she’d seen since the hammerhead! With a small, sail-like and a long bill like a sword, narrow sword, the black fish with the white stripes flashed and glimmered in the water, fighting to throw the hook. Celeste waited for just the right moment, then… WHAM! She yanked hard on the rod, setting the hook perfectly! What followed was fully twenty-two minutes of the most intense fish-fighting Nat had ever witnessed, Celeste drawing the fish in patiently but forcefully, the striped marlin racing through the water this way and that way, reaching speeds that awed Nat thoroughly. She and Dordy watched the fish race around back and forth, back and forth, until suddenly, it dived deep, then stopped on a dime, swimming hard for the surface. Then, instead of stopping, it BREACHED! The huge fish burst high into the air, suspended for a moment gloriously, silhouetted against the huge, rising sun behind it, water cresting off its long, scaly body and huge fins, droplets of water catching the sunlight like a million diamonds. The moment made Nat’s breath catch, and even Dordy went quiet for a few seconds… and then it was over. SPLASH! The marlin landed back in the water, and the fight was back on! But that wasn’t the end of the show… The marlin breached several more times, bursting into the air with huge splashes and wriggling fiercely, Celeste powering it in hard each time, the fish landing in the water with more huge splashes. Finally, Celeste got it near enough to the boat to see the now-exhausted fish struggling weakly against the hook still. Nat gloved up, donning triple-thick leather gloves to take the line as Celeste had taught her earlier, helping Celeste draw the fish alongside the boat, then reaching down to grab the fish around the tail, right ahead of the tail fins. Celeste grabbed the bill with her own gloved hands, mounting the rod to take the fish. Together, they were able to lift the four-foot monster billfish into the Wave Dancer, thrilled from the epic fight. Nat winced as Celeste did what had to be done, the natural life cycle of the world continuing as prime predator took on prey.
When it was done and the fish stored, they settled back in, now fish-watching through the transparent bottom of the boat or by looking overboard, talking excitedly about the fish, Celeste ensuring Nat that she could do it too, given the gear they had. Nat was eventually convinced, and she decided to take on the next one, whenever it came. The deep-sea fishing day now on, the two settled in for the long haul, enjoying the day that was simultaneously exciting and relaxing, as well as each other’s company and Dordy’s. The day ahead promised to be an amazing last day of minication for sure!
|
|
|
Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Apr 28, 2022 13:08:48 GMT
Hunt… Seek… Destroy! Vile bugs… Begone from my territory! OH! More bugs! Caught the scent… little skittering things in the grass… When I find you… GOTCHA! Oh – come back! PLAY! Chase again!
The love of adventure that ran in the family living in the House On The Spire flowed through a young, energetic molten corgi as well, and he sniffed around the yard excitedly, tail wagging as he darted around to establish his territory once more, refreshing his marks all around the grassy lawn of the spire’s pinnacle. His own canine thoughts kept his mind going rapidly as he went along.
Crawling thing… no-no, hoppy thing! Hop after it! Hey, hopping is fun! Wait, what’s that?! Slippery, slimy, ooze-trailing thing… Too slow, no fun to play with! Lazy thing! HA! Back to finding- OH! Hoppy thing! C’mere! I- OH! Mark this spot too! Great, more hop! More hop! Oog… Full belly, maybe less hop… Sleep? YEAH! Snoozin’ time!
Dor’dieb McCullough-Ebonlocke returned to the front door of the house, rearing up on it to swipe at it many times with his paws in a rapid digging motion, his own form of knocking to let it be known that he wants back in.
Snoozin’ time! Yeah! Gonna snooze! OH! THERE SHE IS! INSIDE, INSIDE! Through here… Where she goin’? Place where she sits and makes scratching noises on white rectangle thing with purple goop? Sure! Snoozin’ time by FEET! Warm bottom paws of two-legged things! Maybe see other two-legged thing after snoozin’! LOVE my packmates! LOVE! But… Full belly… Snooze now… zzzzzzzzz…
Dordy went quickly to sleep at the feet of Natasha Ebonlocke, curling up into a ball under her desk and sleeping off a food coma from a heavy breakfast. Nat, meanwhile, had her diary, inkwell of purple ink, and cherrywood quill case all open on the desk, her ravenfeather quill in her hand and shimmering purple at the tip, a steaming mug of coffee in the other. Nat knew this wouldn’t take long, though, as there wasn’t a whole heck to write about during her weeks these days. Maybe that would change soon, though!
Dear diary,
Another slow week. I’ve done almost nothing this week. I need something to fill in the week a bit more, now that Deathrolls seems to have finally died off. Even the archaeology expedition with Cari and her crew is still doing excavating around Athriss with that steam shovel, so no new adventures to go on as yet. All I’ve done this week is go on the weekly Whitewind Company adventure last night.
That reminds me, though… As soon as Grim comes back from being away from the Eastern Kingdoms for a while, I plan on getting started with the project to locate and assemble the rest of this Quel’dorei princess suit of armor! I still have this lovely gauntlet, the one I found when Celeste took me pearl diving off the west coast of Stranglethorn Vale. The shimmering blue-dyed steel and its ornate truesilver trim and designs just BEGS for the rest of its assembly! Hopefully we can make a start on that this coming Wednesday!
Over this past weekend, Celeste worked on the mechanical fisherman robot we recovered from the underwater cave in Turtle Bay. She had it finished it by Sunday evening. It has a new coat of paint and is wearing one of Celeste's old fishing hats and some overalls. How very Celeste! She even gave the fisherman her Mother's old Kalu'ak fishing rod, which doesn’t function as a fishing rod anymore, but instead works as a tool to feed fish once we get ocean enclosure assembled for the fish farm. With that work done, she says all that is needed was to excavate the lower floor under the workshop for the herbology/alchemy lab and chicken coop and add the lift outside from the Bay to the Spire’s landing pad, and the ocean dock!
That reminds me of something, too… Yesterday, a few hours before the Whitewind Company expedition, I met up with my bestie Nah on the Whitewind’s Grace, where she was outside on the bow of the ship looking out toward the ocean, instead of in her cabin on the boat working on Company things. She was considering this partnership offer with the Quicksilver Company that Mags’ family owns. Sir Victor Moretti, one of the bosses of the Quicksilver Company, sent me a letter outlining a proposal to partner with us to help out with their shipping routes since, as I wrote last week, they lost one of their boats to a pair of sea giants. We’d like to meet up with Sir Victor as soon as possible and discuss terms, just trying to see what our respective companies can offer each other.
Nah was intrigued by another thing in the letter. There was mention of owning docks in Stormwind Harbor, Surwich in the Blasted Lands, and Sri-La on the northeastern coast of the Jade Forest in Pandaria, as well as dealings for port stays in Boralus, Booty Bay, Faldir's Cove, Ratchet, Gadgetzan, Sunsail Anchorage, Venture Bay, Valiance Keep, Suramar City and Gilneas. We’ve always just kind of paid docking fees wherever we stay. Nah wants to get some better deals going for our company as well, and, to that end, she’s already gotten us contracts for dock services from Stormwind and Boralus harbors, and is looking to buy docks around places for our exclusive use as well, so we don’t have to stay out in bays or off the coast of places until other ships leave to make room, or have to just drop anchor off the coast and take a rowboat in. That’ll be nice to have!
Another Whitewind Company project was the aforementioned weekly mission last night. That goblin we met while trying to find and recover our friend and fellow officer Lady Aedalia Songbird, the Quel’dorei archmage that taught me mage stuffs, had a contract for us. Violet Spunkwhistle is her name. She’d landed some merchandise at that dock near Moonbrook in Westfall, and wanted an escort for it through Duskwood until Steamwheedle goblins could take it at the border to Stranglethorn Vale. The goblins didn’t want to run the escort themselves, due to talk of increased undead activity in the forest lately. I have plans in the works with Father to go and clear them out again. I just wish they’d STAY gone! Anyway, we accepted the contract, so we headed to that cool covered bridge crossing the river from Westfall to western Duskwood last night at seven bells. I had decided to bring my horse I got from Father for my eighteenth birthday, Ebonhoof, with his old lantern rig for the back of his saddle. The strong, tall, proud black horse looked happy to be back home in Duskwood, and proud to light the dark paths with his lantern!
When we got there, my bestie Nah was there already, waiting with the goblin carriage, which had the unseen goods inside it. It was a stately-looking stagecoach, as the goblins like it. The driver was a prissy-looking goblin guy that was quite well-dressed and snappy-looking, though he looked the sort to have a meltdown if under duress. Inside the coach with the merchandise was none other than Violet Spunkwhistle’s own sister, Felicity. Gosh, is she demanding and mouthy! You can tell she’s rich and very used to getting her way! With us (coming in Maya’s usual place) was Tessina Spiritseeker, that Kaldorei huntress from last week in Mulgore, and her spirit wolf, Palattu. She has since joined the Whitewind Company! YAY! There was also Zarshal, as well as Mairy, but not her gryphon Twitchtail. When asked where Twitchtail was, she’d just frown and not say. She was really not in a great mood last night. I hope nothing has happened to her poor gryphon!
Nah began explaining the mission to us after we had all arrived, expanding on what she had sent to us in letters that explained this week’s meeting place and task. Felicity interrupted quite a bit, emphasizing heavily that the merchandise was of paramount importance, and must not be compromised.
After that, we got underway, making our way eastward along the road as Ebonhoof’s lantern lit it up for us, heading for the road in central Duskwood that turns south to the jungles of Stranglethorn Vale. It’s been gloomy in Duskwood, something Father and I have been discussing with other town officials lately, as well as the Night Watch. The trip passed uneventfully at first, with Tess talking about how much the land has changed since she got stranded on Exile’s Reach with the ogres so many decades ago. She literally knows nothing of the news of the world since before the First War! It’s such an interesting thing to see someone taking all this stuff in as though it’s all new. There’s a lot of explaining to do! She’s still fascinated by Zarshal and the whole Worgen curse thing, even! I explained to her that if she knows anything of her people’s druids’ mishaps with the Scythe of Elune and their attempts to take on a lupine form like Goldrinn, then she’d know the basic origins of the Worgen story, but she never really paid much attention to the druids, as she’s a very young (by their standards, anyway) elf. So the first part of the trip was a lot of talking with Tess, with frequent interruptions from the ever-demanding Felicity Spunkwhistle.
Eventually, though, we found the undead… or rather, the undead found us! We’d just passed south of Raven Hill, smelling dead things as the wind changed, and then we started hearing the rattling of bones. In Duskwood, that only means one thing! We surrounded the carriage, each of us facing out. Ebonhoof’s lantern lit up the area well into either side of the road. Sure enough, shadows began moving near us and then… an armored skeleton appeared in the road right in front of us! Then, behind us, two of those really agile types of geists cut off any possible retreat! We were SURROUNDED!
The battle started right up, with Nah’s elvish ears and Zarshal’s worgen nose having detected them first. Nah began firing at the skeleton with her flintlock pistol, and Zarshal took on a geist with his daggers. Tess had her bow and arrows, with Palattu the spirit wolf seeming eager to fight, his snarls and growls making nearly as much noise as Nah’s pistols. Mairy had her stormhammer and sword, and was helping Nah battle the Skeleton while Tess and Zarshal handled the wolf. That left me with the other geist!
I had my wrathguard Mek-barash charge in to that one, summoning in wild imps to help him out. But we weren’t expecting the geists to use their jumping ability quite so much… Zarshal’s and Tess’s geist leaped right over the carriage, landing up by Mairy and the skeleton in front in a single bound! Zarshal and Palattu had to sprint to catch up! Meanwhile, Nah was filling her skeleton’s armor full of pistol ball holes as Mairy beat it to pieces, and Mek-barash and the imps finally succeeded in dismembering and immolating their geist. Nah and Mairy finished off the skeleton, but the other geist leaped again, this time landing on the carriage and trying to tear into it! Oh my GOSH, the awful words the Spunkwhistle goblin lady was screaming! Mairy got rid of it, though, throwing her stormhammer at it HARD to knock it off. It went flying, and we ganged up on it and finished it off for good!
We continued on after that, with quite a lot of grumbling from Felicity inside the carriage, and the quailing driver, fearful of not only the undead and the spooky forest, but also of his goblin mistress, quivered his way on down the road, driving the carriage as fast as the slow-moving vehicle would go to try and meet the demands of the rich goblin within.
The trip went without incident for a while, until eventually, we reached the road that goes south from the east-west road and heads into Stranglethorn. But, when we got there, there was a battle already in progress!
Watchers Dodds and Paige, friends of mine from the Darkshire Night Watch, were there with a local alchemy apprentice named Fess, fighting off three clattering, armored skeletons! Mairy and Felicity wanted to leave the Night Watch to their work, but those are my FRIENDS! I couldn’t just leave them! Besides which, how would it look if the mayor’s own daughter passed right by town employees in danger and went about her merry way? Nah, Tess, and Zarshal agreed that my friends could use our help, so we rode hard to the Night Watch camp at the street corner!
I… have no idea what came over me in that moment. A feeling of wanting to live up to being mayor’s daughter, of wanting to fight like Thea fought all her life, not to mention all my other female friends that can fight when I can’t, came over me. I found myself not summoning in more fel minions to send into the fray, but rather, calling out to the Night Watch to stand and fight, to be brave, to scourge the Scourge from the forest, FOR DARKSHIRE! Then I rode Ebonhoof right to the fence, and JUMPED it on horseback! I’ve never done that before! Ebonhoof went right to the skeleton in the middle, the one assaulting apprentice Fess, and rode him down! I wheeled him around, reining Ebonhoof in, the lantern on the back of the saddle swinging wildly behind me and casting the oddest shadows all over the camp and crossroads. Reining Ebonhoof in caused him to rear up on his hind legs, his front hooves kicking out madly as he whinnied and screamed and snorted. The front hooves kicked the skeleton’s HEAD right off! He was still moving, though, still trying to fight, so Mairy helped fight it with sword and stormhammer while I had Ebonhoof kick him to pieces, still shouting mental stuff… Oh gosh! How I blushed after!
The rest helped too, of course, with pistol shots and the twang of bow and arrow, the snarling of wolf and worgen. Zarshal was becoming inspired by Palattu and had given up his conventional fighting method with his daggers, dashing into the fray on all fours and tearing Watcher Paige’s skeleton apart and smashing the bones to pieces. Nah shot the head off of Watcher Dodds’ skeleton, sending it rolling into the trees, and a few more pistol shots caused that one to fall apart. The fight was ours! WOO!
The Night Watch and apprentice Fess had sustained some light injuries, but the alchemy apprentice knew how to make basic healing potions, so he agreed to tend to their injuries while the Night Watch continued to hold their post. I sent word later that night to get them some reinforcements until the forests can be culled of undead again. In the meantime, we still had to get this carriage and screaming goblin lady down this south road, so we marched onward!
Soon enough, there was a lightening of trees visible down the road. Stranglethorn Vale was just ahead! But, wouldn’t you know it… Right as I expressed my relief that we’d passed the ogre mound without riling them up, danger reared its ugly head again anyway… This time, in the form of three obviously diseased ghouls! They smelled SO gross! And the green fumes coming from them… EW! Nah wasted no time with these nasty buggers… She drew BOTH her pistols and emptied as many rounds as she could into them, blowing nasty brains all over the road. Unfortunately, the two (of four) that she killed practically exploded with noxious fumes, and everyone on the road started getting really sick! And that was with two more left standing! I knew this situation was not tenable, so I stopped going light on fel minions for my friends’ sake and summoned in an entire horde… Mek-barash and four inquisitor’s eyes with their channeled eye-beams and dreadstalkers and felhounds and a shivarra and a felguard all popped in out of a nether portal and absolutely overwhelmed the other two, tearing them to pieces and melting them down with fel and shadow magic. But of course more noxious gas came, and the whole group started feeling really sick. I thought the goblin carriage driver would faint from the disgusting scene and how sick he was feeling from that and the fumes!
We headed on down the road once more, BUT… just before we crossed the border from Duskwood to Stranglethorn, FOUR more agile geists leaped out of the woods at us! They were trying to get the carriage ripped apart, which we absolutely couldn’t allow – we’d contractually agreed to keep it safe, and we only had to get it just a bit further on down the road!
Snarling wolf and worgen, pistol shots, roaring wrathguard, screaming Wildhammer dwarf, all combined to beat back the geists. Once, Mek-barash even took one of my wild imps and threw it like a shot out of a cannon at a geist that had gotten onto the carriage, knocking it off and sending it flying down into the road. Zarshal had one raised up by the neck, crushing its neck before slamming it to the road. Mairy and Tess both sent geists flying off the carriage too, and Nah was trying her best to get shots into the rapidly-moving targets with her pistols. Eventually, our combined efforts overwhelmed the nasty things, and they were all lying all over the road, mangled, hacked, mauled, shot-up, and scorched. There was nothing left now but to finish the ride into Stranglethorn!
Once we got out of Duskwood – thank goodness! – we were met by Booty Bay goblins, who would take over the escort from there. Felicity Spunkwhistle thanked us – well, I’ll pretend that was thanks, haha – and said our payments would be directly deposited into our banks within three business days. We thanked her as well, and everyone started heading home. I was glad to hand off Felicity to other caretakers, though I gotta say, I pity those poor Booty Bay bruisers who now had the task of escorting her to Booty Bay, and with a road a few times longer than the one we had to escort her for! Mairy started walking right back into Duskwood, alone, with still no Twitchtail to fly back home. I offered her a ride, not sure whether to ask about Twitchtail again or not, but she declined and walked off alone without another word. I’m really worried something has happened to her poor gryphon! Tess rode off on her own mount she brought, and Zarshal took his Pandaren jeweled panther he flies around on back to Stormwind. That left my bestie Nah and I. We decided to head to the Cathedral to get healed of whatever that sickness was that those foul diseased ghouls had. Fortunately, it wasn’t the undead plague! It sure was nasty though! After that, I headed back home to Celeste, tired and worn out, but thrilled from the adventures of the evening, especially with the chance to lead the Night Watch in battle like Thea used to do!
Now it’s time for another slow day. I usually need to take it slow after heavy use of fel summoning these days. I gotta put the feeling of all that power out of my head, because I can feel how drawn I am to it, and how I want so much more of it. The ambition of subjugating an entire pit lord sometimes pops into my head. Such thoughts must not be entertained! I can’t allow myself to be corrupted by fel magic! My uncle Kanrethad warned me about things like this when I was growing up and learning this stuff. I gotta keep my head!
So yeah, slow day today. I think I’ll relax and help Celeste draw up plans for that sub-level excavation and that lift up the spire. That sounds nice and pleasant! I have no idea what the timetable for all this will be, but it should keep us busy for quite some time yet! I can’t wait to get started! Life on the Spire is such an adventure! YAY!
Nat smiles at the thought of more engineering projects to come, tapping off the excess ink from her quill into her inkwell of purple ink. She replaces the ravenfeather quill into her cherrywood quill case, closing it and capping her inkwell and placing them in the desk drawer. More coffee is in order, so she heads to the kitchen to refill her mug, making a stop downstairs to pick up Celeste’s before heading to the kitchen to refill them both. She leaves Celeste’s black, the way she likes hers, and puts just a bit of liquid hazelnut creamer into her own, stirring it in, but not adding sugar. Her usual fare. She makes a stop in her office to close up her diary now that the ink on the pages is dry, replacing it on the shelf where it lives and picking up the two coffee cups to take back downstairs.
Wake? Feels cooler… PAWS! Where did bottom paws go?! Packmate gone! SEEK! Not in here… Not in food-eating place… Not in food-making place… OH! I HEAR! Downstairs, quick as a flash! GOGOGOGOGOGOGO! Knew it! LOCATED! BOTH packmates! LOVE both packmates! Happy! Return to snoozin’! FOUR bottom paws to snooze at now! Belly full… So… sleepy… zzzzzzzzz…
Finding Celeste still heavily focused on her lift plans (complete with an in-progress doodle of a direhorn standing stoically on a lift while a fiery little pup seems to be running circles around it and barking at it), she places the refilled mug of black coffee next to the diagram, hugging Celeste from behind before sitting down next to her, Dordy curling up at their feet under the workbench to return to his snoozing. Celeste, snapping out of it with the big hug, smiles up at Nat, and the two are quickly deep in discussion about how the lift will operate, and the most efficient and effective way to build and install it. The day flows by peacefully and happily with engineering schematics being drawn up, and the last day of Nat’s minication is a perfectly pleasant and relaxing one. Nat can’t wait for the workend to come and go, though… she still has the new project of assembling this Quel’dorei princess armor to begin next week when Grim returns!
|
|
|
Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on May 5, 2022 17:53:56 GMT
May the Fifth The Wave Dancer bobbed slowly, lazily on the waves at its dock at Anglers Wharf. The morning was filled with the mists of Pandaria, and visibility was limited to about fifty feet or so, but it was a pleasantly warm morning, so the mists would soon be burning off. The seagulls were at it again, trying to take advantage of the limited visibility to dive bomb choice morsels off the docks, especially from those using cut bait, but the locals were used to this sort of behavior by now, and very little was stolen. It made for an interesting bit of ambience for those aboard the Wave Dancer, but a pleasantly familiar, home-like sound as the two women worked on their respective projects aboard the small watercraft.
Celeste had the outboard motor pulled aboard and half-disassembled, performing preventive maintenance on it, as it had seen quite a bit of use and was due for a tune-up. Bits that needed cleaning were cleaned. Bits that needed repair were taken out and repaired on the spot. Bits that needed replacing were replaced from a store of parts brought down from the workshop. She hummed happily as she worked, focused, totally in the zone, another bit of happy, home-like ambience. Dordy was with her, the molten corgi sniffing curiously at each machine part Celeste worked on, exploring the thing that usually roared loudly behind the boat, his tail wagging incessantly.
Nat was seated at the pilot’s console, using a bit of console between levers and buttons as a writing desk, enjoying the pleasant, misty morning, the ambience of home and family. Her diary was open between two particularly large levers, with her cherrywood quill case lying open to one side and her inkwell of purple ink open at the back of the console. Nat already had the tip of her quill applied to the next blank page in the diary, writing at a frenetic pace due to how very much she had to write about for once!
Dear diary,
OHMIGOSH! It’s been such an explosive week! The insanity! This week has been all a bunch of dangerous, near-death experiences!
It started off pleasantly enough. I came home from work on my last day to find that Celeste had gone to a bring-your-pet thing that Ruff Waters in Hook Point in Boralus was doing, where you bring your pet to the food court. They were going to have employees around to stop pets from getting into bad things and just help them socialize, but somehow, Dordy still got into some kinda sticky food or something, and Celeste was giving him a bath, which is weird, giving a molten dog a bath. Our funny family! Anyway, she said she had a surprise for me that she’d been working on over the weekend I was at work. I went downstairs to see what it was with her after the bath was done, and sure enough, there was a surprise, alright! The new mechafish tank was sitting there in the dark, with the lights Celeste wanted to install all throughout its little mecha-ecosystem all lit up! It was GLORIOUS! The coral reefs and little rocks were shining all over the mechafishes’ scales, reflecting off in prismatic rainbows, which was really neat! She even added a mechanized version of that Quel’dorei princess’s gauntlet we found while pearl diving, being worn around by a hermit crab mech that really moves around the bottom of the tank! It was SO COOL! I LOVE it! We’re gonna get a LOT of enjoyment out of that around the workshop! It’s so pretty!
Speaking of that gauntlet, though, we finally got that campaign started this week, but first, the final day of Cari’s archaeology campaign came along! Monday night, we went back to Zul Athriss, where we’d left off last time having discovered that ancient Highborn Kaldorei city, with its ghosts and its majestic statues, and we were trying to get that one door we found excavated with the steam shovel, so that took a few weeks. But Monday, we finally went in there!
We had to hurry, though; because the pirate ships that had been in the area like a brewing storm over the course of this whole expedition were massing… and then, sure enough, they ATTACKED! We were way up the mountain, of course, far inland, but the goblin port town below was getting hammered! Security forces on land and security ships in the water responded, and there was this massive battle going on! The Voyagers’ archaeology ship, the Vintage Discovery, was out there, right in the middle of the battle! It wasn’t being attacked directly, fortunately, but it was still in the crossfire! There was nothing we could do for the ship in the middle of the battle, us few with barely any weapons to speak of, so we stayed put. In the meantime, we went into this door, as everyone wanted to hurry and check out this place we’d finally excavated before the opportunity was lost from the invading pirates.
The first thing we found inside was this place, just a single room, was nothing but marble, top to bottom. More Highborn architecture, of course. It was circular, with marble pillars and a white and black marble tile floor, and there was this big pedestal in the middle with some sort of arcane orb on it, though it looked inactive. Everything had the dust of millennia on it, but when we got the dust off, we found old books and scrolls and manuscripts, all in an ancient Kaldorei dialect. I dug in immediately, though my education in Alliance languages didn’t really cover this ancient stuff, so it was a bit of work to really figure it out in some parts. Meanwhile, some of the others were also checking out the books and stuff, while the rest were trying to figure out what was up with that arcane orb. Someone suggested using the staff we got out of the first place we went into, where we discovered that room-filling holo-starmap that showed Kalanaar in red some distance away from Azeroth. So they got it all put together and then… POW! We were somewhere else!
We looked around, all confused at the sudden teleportation. There are usually bright lights and swirly arcane stuffs and whatnot before a teleportation, but in this one, we were in the round room one instant, and then, with no lights or sounds or anything, we simply… weren’t anymore. We were in a long hallway instead!
We made our way cautiously down the hallway, which had a lot of arcane barriers. Everything was still Kaldorei in architecture, the ancient Highborn kind, anyway, but I had the feeling we were nowhere near Zul Athriss anymore. Heck, I wasn’t even sure if we were still on Azeroth anymore! Were we now on the planet Kalanaar? Or was my imagination just running away from me at that point?
The hallway had a lot of places where there were arcane barriers up over what were likely other hallways or rooms or something. We stopped at the first one, and this guy with this funny accent named Marky, who pronounces his name, “Mahky,” that I’ve written about before, tried to end the debate of what we should do with the barrier by simply… walking up and hitting it with one of his weapons.
FLASH!
He was gone! There was nothing there where he stood except ash and bones! GOSH! Had he been killed?! We were all kind of shocked at his apparent sudden death, with tears about to come, when suddenly, he walked up to the group from somewhere behind us, asking what had happened! It was SO confusing! Had he been killed, and then brought back? Had he simply been teleported? In either case, what was up with the ashes and bones left where he was standing?! It was all so WEIRD!
Eventually, we figured out how to get a few of the barriers down, with the right sorts of arcane applications. But I kinda wish we hadn’t… It was just a house of horrors! There was what appeared to be an orc warlock in one room, a demon in another, a few elves in yet another, all being drained of their life force or something? And it was being twisted to power the arcane technology of the hallway we were in or something… I have no idea what was going on!
Then, at the end of the hallway, we found another hunk of arcane tech that reminded me of the orb in the marble room in Zul Athriss, and they decided to use it… BAD IDEA! The room dissolved around us, the floor fell away from us, the walls and ceiling and everything disappeared… We were just left there, suspended in blackness, just floating through what seemed to be the Twisting Nether itself! It was SO SCARY!
Then suddenly, there were these floating rock islands? Most of the group was able to float their way to this big rock island that could fit us all on it, but Cari and I both missed it! That stubborn mule was there with us, though, somehow, even though it had been left outside that marble room on Zul Athriss, which was lucky, because one of the things it carried in its pack was rope! Those on the island were able to throw it out to Cari and pull her in from her slow floating through space. Meanwhile, I was slowly floating further and further out into space, but eventually, after a few tries, Marky was able to get the rope to me next. I was saved!
I barely had the chance to reflect upon the fact that I could breath in this nether-area we were in, when Cari cried out, pointing off into the distance. There, just barely discernable at this range, was this HUGE floating island rock, and it had this big arcane dome shielding it from view! Then we were able to see lots of other little rocks like the one we were on. The guys in the group were able to sort of lasso bits of the further-away rocks, making us a rope link that we could pull ourselves along from rock to rock, constantly lassoing and tying and untying for the next rock, until we were able to make it to the giant island with the city. Once there, though, we were in for a real eye-opener… The BURNING LEGION was here, attacking the dome with those weird fel cannons they use!
There were some old ruins there that we could sneak through. We decided to try and stealth it as a group to get to the city. Fortunately, even my clumsy self was able to get past all the fel minions posted up out there. It was a harrowing experience with a few near-misses around some doomguards, but we made it! I was glad I didn’t have to try to subjugate them; I’m not entirely sure whether the others in the Voyagers approve of warlock magics or not. I mean, that’s why I learned frost magic in the first place from Aedie; I wanted to be able to cast spells to defend myself and my friends in a more socially acceptable way! So, as we made it past without incident, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Once we made it past and into the relative safety of the dome, we found ourselves on the outskirts of a MAGNIFICENT Highborn city. Like Suramar City, but far larger and far more grandiose! The outskirts, however, were forested, and, unfortunately for us, there was a giant, hunger moonsaber about, and it attacked us without any warning at all! Next thing I know, it’s got Cari, and she’s screaming as its jaws clamp down around her midsection and carry her off!
We chased after it, following the sounds of Cari’s screams, which were abruptly cut off after a time. Tears came again; I didn’t want to lose my good friend! When we got to the moonsaber, it was in a den, with bones of the carcass of a human female stripped clean of all flesh, and Cari’s glasses sitting there. It had eaten her that fast?! We were considering fighting the giant cat, but decided to collect the remains and grieve elsewhere. But then, who do we see at the pinnacle of the first outer rock the city was built on, in what looked to be an old Kaldorei inn? CARI! She was sitting there on the furniture, crying, talking about how she’d felt everything when the cat got her and finished her. It was AWFUL! Poor Cari wasn’t looking well after that… Gosh, I remember the time she and Maya went to the Lost City of Tol’vir and they said something about a brutal and gory triple murder that happened with the bandits there, and that plus the haunting of the Tidesage during the Brinebreaker investigation all happening at once had her down for MONTHS… Being eaten alive?! I hope this doesn’t mess her up for good! She’s such a good person, and I want her to be happy! I can’t imagine the agony she must have experienced!
We decided to stay and rest at the inn. I had no idea, though, how I was going to contact Celeste and let her know we were staying the night. Not while presumably on Kalanaar, another planet, without any knowledge of how to get back!
Time passed strangely after that. I remember reading once that time passes differently in the Twisting Nether than it does in normal reality. My most fervent hope was that centuries weren’t passing at home in the moments I was spending here. That would be so sad! As it was, I remember resting many times, as though we’d been there, what… days? Weeks? It was so hard to tell!
Eventually, though, after however long we spent exploring the city, we found our way to the palace in the center. We were, oddly enough, able to just walk right in! It was beautiful in there, too! If we thought the city was resplendent in its grandeur, it was NOTHING compared to this palace! Hanging gardens and marble everything and perfectly sculpted statues and the most elegant furniture any of us had ever laid eyes on, just to start! We explored for a while, seeing new breathtaking sights in every room, until we came to the pinnacle.
Here, at the center, at the highest point in the palace, we found yet another statue… Except this one appeared to be active, in some odd way. I volunteered to go check it out. Marky did too, but people reminded him that the last time he volunteered to go whack something didn’t work out for him too well, so I went instead. I used a simple scrying spell to attempt to discern what was going on with the statue, and I got this image in my head of the statue, which was a Kaldorei warrior woman astride a giant moonsaber, her hands each resting on an orb. Light magic flowed from one orb, and Void magic from the other. They conjoined in this crucible that seemed to be powering something. Then I heard the woman’s voice in my head! It was something about attempt number four million, three hundred thousand, something something specific number, and that the universe would be remade under her power, because Elune had forsaken them, and that she would rule it all as some sort of goddess or something!
Next thing we know, the ghost of that Kaldorei architect guy appeared again, pleading at us desperately to run, to flee the palace! He looked so terrified! But then, this flame came and burned him up! It burned up a GHOST! We never saw him again after that!
One other thing that my scrying spell had discerned was that the door to the main chambers of the palace could be opened with a single spark of mana. We did that, and gained entry.
There, right there in front of us, standing there in the flesh, was the woman from the statue that people seemed to fear when we first found Zul Athriss… Torisandre herself! She was magnificently dressed, and indescribably beautiful. She spoke to us with the same voice I’d heard in my head earlier… That made me want to heed the ghost and flee! But, she’d closed the doors… we couldn’t get out!
We had no choice but to stand there and listen to her talk to us about how Elune had forsaken her people, and that she had mastered all there was to master in every school of magic, and that she would use them now to remake the universe, and all she had lacked all these years was a witness to the birth of the new universe… but now, with us here, she had witnesses at last!
What followed was a series of the most casual use of the most powerfully magic spells I’d ever seen. Marky, in typical Marky fashion, wanted to do nothing but hit on her incessantly, getting more and more flagrantly forward all the time. She didn’t pay him much heed, though she did kill him many times in imaginative ways… With this place’s tendency to bring people back the moment they died, he just kept coming back and hitting on her more! It was so weird… Yet, no matter how horribly he died – burning to ashes and being smashed to a pulp and being hurled out of the windows to fall to the ground far below – he always came back and persisted! Meanwhile, Torisandre was still going on about remaking the universe… Then she started actually seeming to DO IT!
She turned to look out of the windows, casting her spell at length. This glowing arcane orb, much like the one in Zul Athriss, but far more ornate and fantastic, was gathering in power from around the room. The glass in the ceiling that showed the skies fell, the plates on the nearby table smashed, things began to shatter and turn to dust all around us. Worse, when we looked out the windows, the same thing was happening to the city itself! The entire thing was turning to dust, crushed, being absorbed by the orb and channeled into Torisandre. She was still channeling her spell, and, next thing we knew, the palace, the entire city, was all gone!
Suspended in blackness once more, we saw the spark of a light. Then another. Then another, and another, and another! Soon, sparks of light were all around us, growing and developing. Civilizations rose and fell on planets we didn’t know the names of. Golden ages were achieved, and then the extinction of the same species from some calamity or other. Time passed in the blink of an eye, and then, after what could have been seconds, or eons, everything just STOPPED!
Then, FLASH! We were falling through the air under a blue sky, toward sand! The sounds of distant cannon fire could be heard, and we seemed to be in the middle of some sandy, dusty, ancient, abandoned city. We got up out of the sand, brushing ourselves off, trying to figure out what the cannon fire was all about. Then we realized what it was… We’d been sent right back to Azeroth, and hardly any time had passed at all! The pirate ship battle was still on, and we were right back where we started, outside the door to that room we’d excavated! Weeks hadn’t passed by after all! Time sure passes funny in the Twisting Nether… The only thing we had to show for our efforts were these weird ancient-looking Highborn Kaldorei mirrors that were opaque and cloudy to anyone else that looked into them, but for us, we witnessed what Torisandre wanted us to witness each time we looked into it! Had she just messed with our heads? Had something significant really happened? Had anyone ever really, actually died? We may never know! The trip to Kalanaar, if, indeed, we had made it, had raised more questions than it had answered. One thing was for sure, though, no one wanted to go back there and find out more, especially poor Cari! This will be a mystery for the ages! I just hope I don’t end up having lots of nightmares about it or something!
Nat thrust her ravenfeather quill into her inkwell of purple ink, frowning, wanting to put the entire ordeal out of her mind. Bringing her back to the present was the first hint of a sunbeam attempting to make its way through the morning mists, warming her back. Coming back to the present, to reality, she looked around. The Wave Dancer was still lazily bobbing, almost imperceptibly, in the calm waters beneath the stilt village of Anglers Wharf. Celeste, with Dordy’s “help,” was still working on the outboard engine. A seagull was being brave, constantly diving in past a particularly irate Pandaren angler who was trying in vain to swat the bird away from his cut bait. Eventually, the seagull won, snatching up a particularly chunky piece and flapping off quickly, leaving the Pandaren behind it shaking his fist. The Pandaren grumbled, turning back to his fishing.
Nat forced a small smile onto her face. This was better than whatever Torisandre was trying to make, even with the seagulls that came after their bait sometimes when they’d fish around Turtle Bay. Being on Azeroth was one hundred percent better than being off questing through the cosmos. This was the world she belonged on, the world she wanted to stay on. She had learned her lesson. As grand and awesome and amazing as Cari’s adventure was, as thrilling as the story had been, she would always love Azeroth best!
Her smile grew. She took up her quill again, tapping off the excess ink into her inkwell. She had Azerothian adventures to write about next!
Tuesday, though, my bestie Nah and I decided to make an early start on that gauntlet quest! The beautiful blue mithril plate gauntlet with all its intricate, delicate truesilver trimmings, made extra-slender for the hand of what was likely a Quel’dorei princess. We really wanted to locate and assemble the entire suit!
To that end, Nah (drawing many looks and smirks while wearing this rather revealing new fancy dress and sporting long hair for once) and I, after wandering Stormwind and greeting a few people here and there around the city, decided to check out the site where Celeste and I had found it while pearl diving. We flew off for Booty Bay, hovering over the Bay while I tried to think and retrace my steps. Then, up the west coast of the Cape of Stranglethorn we went, memory of the trip coming back more and more the more landmarks I spotted. Finally, with the large sandbar island off in the distance in the north, and the motte-and-bailey holdfast of the horde they call Grom’gol Base Camp, we found ourselves hovering over the Vile Reef. This was it!
I slipped off of Onyx, dressed in my bikini already, splashing into the water with an underwater breathing spell on my bestie and I so we could explore more easily. The Vile Reef sprawled out underneath us, resplendent in color that brought the amazing fish tank Celeste built for me back to mind. The sun sparkled off of fish of many species, sizes, shapes, and colors, and the colorful coral reefs with their sea anemones and seaweed floating around captured our eyes and our imaginations. It was just so beautiful! I love diving around that area!
We found one ship soon enough, with the white unicorn head and the white circle around it on a black field being the ensign on the sails. The name painted onto the side of the ship denoted it as the Firefly, and the ensign denoted it as a Quel’dorei destroyer, only this one was lying in two large pieces, broken across the middle, with debris and its cargo strewn about along the trench it was sunk into. Nah and I searched it, and, aside from a few murlocs, didn’t really find anything of interest here. We proceeded onward.
Further away, and not in a trench, but rather, fairly close to the surface in shallower waters, we found two Quel’dorei frigates, sunken side-by-side. Each had a huge hole smashed in the bottom of its hull. The sails on either ship were bleached white by decades of brilliant sun and salt water, and they drifted in the currents in tatters. The name of the ship sitting more to the east was the Sunfish, and the one just to its west was called the Summer’s Glory. A trio of very Quel’dorei-sounding ship names! As usual, though, the proud elves refused to paint them on in Common, and used Thalassian instead. I continually find myself thankful for my education in Alliance languages! Useful even outside of work!
We went into the Sunfish first. There wasn’t much to see here, though we did enter through the hole Dordy made bigger with his Dordy Bubble, as I wanted to show Nah the place where we’d found the hermit crab wearing that gauntlet as a shell. Nothing further of interest was seen here. Just a bunch of hermit crab shells, and two more shells with hermit crabs actually in them. We left, wanting to explore the upper decks, though we found nothing further there, either.
In the captain’s quarters of the Summer’s Glory, though, Nah found a picture painted of a beautiful Quel’dorei woman that instantly made my self-esteem take a hit. The youthful-looking (even for a Quel’dorei) High Elven woman had the most beautiful face, with perfect blonde hair, her stoic, almost stern expression doing nothing to detract from her immaculate visage. Apparently enchanted for protection, decades of saltwater hadn’t done a thing to this little painting. She certainly looked slender enough to wear this slender gauntlet, though!
Finding nothing else, Nah and I decided to head out. Nah brought the picture with her, and we got the idea to visit the Stormwind Royal Library and see if we couldn’t cross-reference the picture with the gauntlet and see if they were connected. I had a sneaking suspicion they were, but I wanted to make sure! If these elven ships had been on a mission to recover this elven woman’s armor and reassemble it, it would make sense to have information on her aboard, including a picture. I was quite eager to hit the books when we reached Stormwind!
There were some nobles talking in the first corner of the library we went to when we got there, so we chose the far opposite corner to sit after we’d looked for books. Bringing our stack to a table, we sat down and quietly peered through dusty volumes for some time.
It took a bit, but we found what we were looking for! Nah found a picture of the Quel’dorei woman in a book on Quel’dorei genealogy, which featured the Sunstrider like prominently The picture was labeled with the name Ariel Sunstrider. The Sunstrider house has been ruling the Quel’dorei since they left the Kaldorei ten thousand years ago – this was a real Quel’dorei princess! We took out the picture Nah found in the ship and put it next to the one in Nah’s book. Sure enough, every single feature was exactly the same! We hadn’t quite expected to find her in THAT family line!
Later, I found a picture of the gauntlet in another book! More specifically, it was the entire suit of armor… with Ariel Sunstrider in it! The book said that Ariel had been a great leader of the Farstriders in her time, having been a source of much inspiration in the wars against the Amani tribe, the forest trolls whose lands the elves had unwittingly settled in when they discovered this continent after leaving Kalimdor, which had caused millennia of violence between the two races. Apparently, just a glimpse of Ariel Sunstrider, seated high on her gleaming white hawkstrider and wearing that beautiful suit of armor, was inspiration enough for the elven armies to fight to their fullest ability, down to the last elf, even without the impassioned pre-battle speeches she was known for shouting out to the troops before an engagement. I gotta say, even just the painting of her standing there in her armor was enough to fill my head with visions of her riding along the front lines of her army, giving such impassioned speeches to her troops before a brave, gallant charge, the wind whipping through her brilliant blonde hair and Quel’dorei battle standard alike, and the sun glimmering off her brilliant blue and silver armor, was nearly enough for me to be ready to charge a horde of angry trolls!
Eventually, though, I snapped out of it, coming back to the reality of a library setting, with many books in front of me to read through. Nah and I found a few more tidbits here and there, mostly just the same stories, though we did discover that she never went on to become queen. Her older brother, Gyl’thalan Sunstrider, was the heir, and was a great leader in his own right. Ariel’s military accomplishments, however, were the stuff of legend. I gotta talk to Lady Riven or her sister, the Quel’dorei Sentinel Jaslyn, and see if they have heard stories handed down about her, too!
Anyway, we ended the night on that note, having accomplished what we’d set out to accomplish – see who the gauntlet had belonged to! The next night, we’d revisit the ships with the Whitewind crew and associated contractors, and see if we couldn’t find any actual leads on where the rest of the suit might be!
And go back we did… It was me, my bestie Nah again of course, and our newest member, Tess, bringing her spirit wolf Palattu along as usual. There were also Mairy and Zarshal, though Grim wasn’t around like I’d hoped. Celeste had contributed to the expedition as well, crafting a smaller, hand-held version of her sonic shark-repelling device, which I couldn’t lift, so Nah decided to take that on.
Anyway, we met at that large sandbar island. It was hot, but the water we waded into for our dive, underwater breathing spells active, was perfect! Cool enough to cool off from the hot tropical sun, warm enough not to be chilly, and crystal-clear. We fanned out, heading forward in a broad horizontal line to increase our chances of finding that destroyer. It didn’t take long. We all converged on the site of the wreck, diving into the trench.
When we got there, the murlocs, surprised at our appearance, began gurgling through the water at us. We weren’t sure if they were scared, or if they were going to attack. Nah didn’t wait around to find out; she leveled that shark-repelling device at the nearest murloc and activated it, and boy, that murloc didn’t like that AT. ALL. He turned and hightailed it outta there in a hurry! Mairy used her Wildhammer shamanistic ability to get the spirits of the water to deal with another murloc that was over where she was at the aft section of the destroyer. The water around the murloc turned into a strong current, sweeping the murloc away, the confused murloc flailing and tumbling around as it was swept along the trench and out of sight.
Tess, however, had no device or shamanistic ability. She did the only thing she knew to do in such situations… Draw an arrow and fire. The arrow left contrails of bubbles in its wake as it wooshed through the water, driving deep into the skull of the doomed murloc. It bled a large cloud of bright red into the water, and we swam to get away from it.
Murlocs gone, we searched the elven destroyer. Mairy again used her shamanistic ability, calling on the spirits of the earth to deliver anything buried. She found a chest full of… I’m not sure what! It was a huge hunk of black metal, which, upon closer inspection, appeared to be lots of flat little metal discs, all fused together somehow. It was so weird! She said it looked like something an ogre pooed out. That’s so gross!
Nah was able to find another chest. This one had gold coins in it! There was the sun on one side, and what looked like a city of Quel’dorei architecture on the other. Further evidence, besides the ensign on the sails, that this was a High Elven ship!
That was all we found there, so we decided to move on to the elven frigates. But, while we were trying to get a sense of the direction they would be in, a shadow flickered overhead. Then another. Then several more! Within seconds, the entire area was flickering in oblong shadows from overhead! Looking up, we saw a horrific sight… drawn by the blood in the water from the slain murloc, there was an entire SWARM of SHARKS up there! They were circling in the water, looking like they were going to get brave and dive on us! We had to get outta there quickly!
We headed out of the trench, deciding to go along the seafloor quickly before the sharks could dive at the cloud of blood. We were making our way outta there, careful to make no sudden movements and appear as healthy, strong fish instead of a meal. Eventually though, a blue shark and a tiger shark both left the swarm and came our way! I was able to use a Fear spell to get rid of the blue shark, sending it fleeing in terror, where it decided the murloc was the better choice after all, but the tiger shark was still heading at Zarshal! Nah leveled the shark-repelling device at the shark, firing off a blast. She missed! She tried again… another miss! The shark was too fast of a moving target! The rest of us were about to use our own respective abilities, but, then, just when the tiger shark had its jaws open wide to close around Zarshal, Nah got another blast of powerful sonic waves off… HIT! Finally! Z-Man was nearly shark food! The tiger shark reined in hard, shaking its head, then turned to flee in the other direction. Nah had saved Zarshal! WOO! Now we could go get to those frigates!
Fanning out again, we found them in no time, and we split up. I was with Nah and Zarshal in the Summer’s Glory, and Tess and Mairy were in the Sunfish. Nah found a couple of barrels of what might be long-rotted food, and a crate full of a vintage Quel’dorei wine… aged thirty-five years! Maybe it was somewhat new when they sailed? Zarshal found the ship’s navigation charts, detailing where they’d been on this expedition to get this gauntlet. Tess found the captain’s logs, though the protection spell against it might have been fading or something, because all she could make out was bits about having discovered, somehow, that the gauntlet was in some Gurubashi troll ruins, and that they’d gotten it out successfully. The final entry was cut off in the middle of something about sea giants roving the coast when they set sail to return home. That must be what sank the ships! Either way, this was it, though! Definitive proof, besides the gauntlet itself, that this had been an expedition to recover the fabled plate armor of Ariel Sunstrider, who the captain also wrote of by name! I didn’t find anything myself; I suppose I had used up all my luck in these ships when I found that gauntlet!
We left the ships then, deciding to do as Nah and I had the previous night, and find more information in the library. We had plenty of proof as to who the elf was that this armor belonged to, and that these ships had been here on an expedition to recover one piece from a known location. Now what we wanted to find was leads on the locations of the rest of it!
Before we got out of the water, though, we had another scare… Something HUGE and flat was coming right at us! Black on top, white on bottom, flapping a fifteen-foot-wide wingspan, the creature was on top of us in seconds. But, fortunately for us, what turned out to be a giant manta ray wasn’t aggressive toward us at all, and merely swam lazily by, disappearing out of sight behind the ships on its own journey to who knows where. Relieved, we were talking about the library again, when ANOTHER scare came through! This time, it was a twelve-foot-long HAMMERHEAD SHARK! It looked hungry, too, and it was making a bee-line for our group, apparently also smelling the blood in the water! Luckily, Nah was an expert on using Celeste’s shark-repelling device by now, and she got it with the first blast from the contraption, hitting it in the face and sending it reeling. The shark changed its mind in a hurry, giving us a wide berth and heading toward the general direction of the feeding frenzy. I pity any murlocs still left in the area then!
We hurried out of the water, having had our fill of giant sea creatures now. After grabbing our gear that some had left on the beach and finding out-of-sight places to get changed out of our swimming suits, we mounted our flying mounts, we took off into the air, making for Stormwind.
When we got to the library, we fanned out a third time. We pulled out many books on things like Quel’dorei royal history, famous armor suits in history, famous blacksmiths in elven history, and so on. It took time, but we were slowly pulling out more and more nuggets. It was lucky that royals always get so much stuff written about them!
Nah found a typical Nah interest – a collection of old news reports, full of spicy, scandalous stories on many Alliance leaders, major and minor, over the decades. It seemed to be a popular gossip column written by a High Elf named Rita Solsong. Scanning through, she eventually found a story on a left-hand plate gauntlet, the picture of which was nearly identical to the one I found at the Vile Reef! The story found here was a scathing report on a minor Kaldorei official who said he'd made the "find of a lifetime," and intended to locate and assemble the rest of the fabled Suit of Ariel Sunstrider! The scoffing report doubts the claims of the finding of the gauntlet, and says that the Kaldorei had gotten himself lost somewhere in eastern Feralas... a forest his own people inhabited for millennia!
We looked at the picture of the gauntlet the Kaldorei captain had provided before he left, which this Rita woman had gotten ahold of for her article. The left-hand gauntlet appeared to be the exact mate to the right-handed one I have! And now, it seems to be in Feralas? I need to head there, or at least send some letters there, and find out more!
Mairy found a book on Wildhammer dwarves, and their interactions with the Quel'dorei venturing down from the north. In it was a story about Gyl'thalan Sunstrider, Ariel’s older brother that Nah had read about the previous night! Apparently he was a Quel'dorei prince and heir to the throne, but spent much of his youth in lands that, in this age, belong to the Wildhammer dwarves. Who knows, modern-day Quel'dorei might still tell of his exploits in keeping the area free from the grasp of what otherwise would have been a full-scale Amani empire expansion, leaving their numbers in the area light, up until the point of the Wildhammer clan's original colonization of the area. Anyway, the book, a Wildhammer book written in what Mairy called “proper dwarvish runes,” spoke of the shoulderguards to Ariel’s suit being located in troll ruins there by the forerunners to the modern-day Reliquary, and being brought back to Silvermoon City! Unfortunately, according to the story, the crew with the shoulderguards had made it back to Eversong Woods and began traveling through it at the worst possible time… Arthas Menethil, now a death knight in the service of the Lich King, was now leading the Scourge through the elven lands, killing every living thing. Plant, animal, humanoid, everything fell before him, including, presumably, the elves carrying the shoulderguards of Princess Ariel Sunstrider!
Zarshal found a book that seemed to be a ship captain’s log, written by a Kul Tiran captain that specialized in ferrying and safeguarding valuable artifacts of the Alliance. Skimming through it, he learned that the captain of this ship, the Tidemaiden, was a man named Brian Brine. Captain Brine eventually wrote of a pair of ancient elven plate boots said to belong to one of the most famous sets of armor in Azeroth's history, that of Quel'dorei princess Ariel Sunstrider. It further detailed his final log as Captain of the Tidemaiden, in which he attempted to ferry the plate boots to Sri La in the Jade Forest in Pandaria. From there, no one knows what became of the boots. The log ends, recovered and brought to the library by some adventurer at some point. It seems the Tidemaiden had been sunk somehow, before the boots could be picked up. No one knows what happened to the crew to this day.
Tess finds a book in Thalassian on how to enchant elven plate armor. It makes a brief mention of the armor of Ariel Sunstrider in the index at the back of the book, though, when she flips to the noted page, no more detail is given beyond just stating that a powerful altar in the Blasted Lands had been used to attempt to bolster the already-powerfully enchanted armor.
I found a book written by a blacksmith from Hearthglen who details the differences between men and women as it relates to crafting plate armor for them. The crass writing is not at all sugar-coated made me blush SO HARD! I skimmed it anyway, eventually delighting to find a mention of a Quel'dorei blacksmith who had crafted an ornate suit of armor for an unnamed High Elven princess. It was of blue mithril, wrought with delicate, intricate truesilver trimmings. The blacksmith goes on to shamelessly detail the differences between crafting armor for a slender woman, especially in the bust, and crafting armor for heavily-muscled men. When I got over all the blushing, I showed the book to the rest. The human blacksmith that had written of Ariel’s blacksmith had mentioned having an unspecified piece of it right there in Hearthglen!
We were getting pretty excited at our finds. Again, it’s lucky royals get so much written about them! I wanted to go and find more while the rest were cataloguing the information we’d found. I got lucky, and found one last book! It was written by an Explorer's League dwarf that details a trip to Northrend. The back of the book covers the basic gist of the story -- how he sailed to Valgarde in the Howling Fjord, how he lost the famous helm of a Sunstrider princess named Ariel, how he explored the excavations of the iron dwarves, how he got involved with the Tuskarr, how he explored a haunted cave in the Storm Peaks, and, last on the list, how he braved the North Sea, kraken and all, to reach an island up there and climb the peak of the north-most point in all of frozen Icecrown. The maddening thing is, skimming the book never shows precisely -where- along the way he lost the helm! The final chapter of the book merely ends by saying the priceless treasure had been lost somewhere along the journey, before he could bring it back to Ironforge. GOSH! Where along the way did he lose it?!
So, we’ve got shoulderguards somewhere in Eversong Woods, boots somewhere in the Jade Forest, perhaps near the port of Sri La, the other gauntlet somewhere in Feralas, an unspecified piece in an unspecified location, but having something to do with some kind of powerful altar in the Blasted Lands, another unspecified piece last noted as being in Hearthglen, and the helm somewhere in the Howling Fjord, Storm Peaks, or Icecrown. Where the rest of the suit is, no leads yet, but we seem to be off to a remarkable start!
After conferring, we decided we’d first make a start on those shoulderguards lost in the Eversong woods. It’s horde territory, but danger is nothing new to us, and besides, the armistice is still in place. As long as we’re not acting in a threatening manner, we should be fine in the lands of people who were once allies. Heck, some still are, those Quel’dorei that never became Blood Elves, and the Ren’dorei that left them to come back to us. I think we’ll be just peachy!
Over the course of our deliberations, however, we had heard a few sounds from outside. Nah decided loudly to casually go outside for a stretch, and what else did she find but a VERY sketchy-looking eavesdropper wearing a bandit’s mask! He looked like a heckin’ Defias punk! The guy was oogling Nah, back in her fancy dress after the swim, and was tripping all over himself, unable to stop staring. He let slip a few hints that he’d been eavesdropping, and was apparently about to report someone what he’d heard. Nah drew flintlock pistol and scared him off, since our only other options were too horrible, abduction and imprisonment, or outright killing the poor guy. So yeah… competition! Looks like we’ll have some others pursuing the leads to this fancy armor. That’s not good! Who knows who might use its power to inspire to lead some big invasion of some nation somewhere? We gotta find it before they do!
That pretty much wrapped up our night. Nah took up all our findings and I checked out all the books we’d found from the librarian so we could take them with us. Nah said no more public talking about the new mission and stuff so no more giveaways happen, and I gotta say, I agree with her. From now on, we’ll be holding our meetings on the topic aboard the Whitewind’s Grace.
I’m not overly worried about a little competition, though. My friends and I have accomplished so much together! Whitewind Company and Friends! We got this! We’ll locate and assemble the suit, and figure out what to do with it from there, and the competition will have NOTHING on our team’s abilities! I can’t wait to see how things go! Eversong Woods next! WOO!
Nat grins confidently, affection for her friends filling her heart as she taps the excess ink from her quill back into her inkwell. She replaces the quill in its case, capping her inkwell and stretching. Deciding to see if there was anything her limited engineering expertise could do on the Wave Dancer’s outboard motor, she made her way back to Celeste. Celeste needed a few parts from the crate she’d brought down, and four sets of a specific combination of hardware assembled. Nat brought her the parts and placed the four sets of hardware in a row next to them, then went back and closed her diary, the ink on the pages now dry. She stowed it, her inkwell of purple ink, and her cherrywood quill case in her pack, returning to Celeste once again, who was now feeling more chatty. In between lessons on marine internal combustion engines, they talked about life in general, enjoying themselves as Dordy, now bored with the motor, dozed nearby.
The rest of the day passed quite pleasantly. After lunch at the Anglers Wharf inn, the little family took the tuned-up engine for a spin, making a few trips around and through Turtle Bay before finding a spot that Celeste said “smelled good,” for fishing. Fishing up their own dinner filled much of the afternoon with relaxation and a couple of thrilling fish fights, and they retired to the House-On-The-Spire for the evening. Nat’s final day of minication passed much more peacefully than much of the rest of the week, with the craziness of Kalanaar and the encounters with so many sea creatures and an eavesdropping bandit now behind her. As relaxing as things were, though, she was still fairly hyped… the new campaign to assemble a priceless ancient artifact was now full-go!
|
|
|
Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on May 12, 2022 14:56:46 GMT
May the Twelfth A steadily lightening night sky hung over the House-On-The-Spire, the odd star still twinkling here and there as a faint glow began in the east. A pleasant night air smell blended with the fragrance of blooming jungle flowers from across the bay and the salt tang of the sea. All was quiet, save for the quiet, distant murmur of a few early fishermen down the Spire at Anglers Wharf, walking around the boardwalks of the little stilt village over the water that they knew so well, the soft glow of lanterns lighting their paths. Morning was coming to Turtle Bay and its inhabitants. Thursday morning, in particular, and that means diary post! Nat, rising early herself this morning after an early bedtime the night before, sat already at her desk while Celeste snoozed. Dordy had already been out for a jaunt around the yard and was already snuggled with Celeste again after a light snack, knowing his breakfast would come later and tiding himself over with a few strips of smoked fish. This left the house quiet and dark, save for the lamp on Nat’s desk, which cast light upon things opened on her desk such as her diary, her cherrywood quill case, and her inkwell of purple ink. The window was open (with a screen to keep the bugs out of the house) to let the pleasant scents and the cool breeze of the night in, and the fragrances mixed with the smell of coffee rising with the steam from the mug on her desk. Her ravenfeather quill was already in her hand, and she was eager to hurry and write so she could surprise Celeste – and Dordy in the process – with a hearty breakfast in bed. With a smile on her face over that happy thought, she began her entry. Dear diary,
I don’t have a long post this week. In fact, it will be one of my shortest posts ever. Almost nothing has happened. There is no longer any interest in Deathrolls. Cari’s archaeology campaign has concluded. And, last night, I even had to call off the expedition to go after our first piece of Princess Ariel Sunstrider’s renowned plate armor!
At first it was just a change to the location we would visit. Things fell through with going to Eversong Woods, so we opted for a change to Sri-La Village in Pandaria. But then Zarshal, who had gotten himself into a bit of a scrap earlier in the week with some small group fighting some other small group, had to cancel his attendance, as he was still recovering from his injuries. Then Tess cancelled, and then Mairy, also having things come up. Down half our group, we had to call it off. It’s such a bummer! I was really looking forward to it!
But one thing that DID happen is that my bestie Nah and I FINALLY got to have that meeting with Sir Victor Moretti of the Quicksilver Company! With him was Sir Audric Steelemantle, the guy that usually attends to Mags that was with her when she told me Sir Victor had been injured in an attack but had written that letter proposing the business partnership between our respective companies. With Sir Victor now pretty much recovered from his injuries, we were able to set up the meeting, which took place at the Stormwind Harbor, near our respective companies’ ships. There was a table there just outside a tent Sir Victor had chosen, so that’s where we met.
There was more news to be had once we got there. The Quicksilver Company was now down TWO ships. One was being repaired from damages, in addition to the ship they lost to the sea giants, and they were running on two ships instead of four until the one ship’s repairs could be completed. That left them really in need of help, and we’re going to be quite well compensated for it!
That really helps us out, because, as Nah told Sir Victor, we actually have our own second ship in the works! More funding for the ship will mean it gets completed faster. Then we can take on quite a bit more work!
So, as it currently stands, our business contract with the Steamwheedle Cartel goblins in Fuselight-By-The-Sea, specifically their company located there called Quality Asplosions, is our only regularly-scheduled shipping route. The rest is just the Whitewind’s Grace ferrying us around to expeditions if it requires something big like a ship (like carrying lots and lots of cargo) instead of just flying and using portals. But now, as of this meeting, it looks like we’ll be sending the Grace from Fuselight-By-The-Sea to Sri-La Village to Gilneas to Suramar and then back to Stormwind and then Fuselight-By-The-Sea, in that cycle. The shipping plan we’re taking over for the Quicksilver Company until they get their fleet back in order is food from Pandaria to Gilneas, trade goods from Gilneas to Suramar, fine goods from Suramar to Pandaria. Stormwind and Fuselight-By-The-Sea are our own stops. In between all this, we’ll also have to divert the Grace from the routes as needed to handle our own expeditions. She’s going to be one busy vessel, that’s for sure!
I had a nice moment Sunday evening. I came home from work Sunday evening to find Celeste and Dordy out in the yard, Celeste leaning back on her cloud serpent dragon, Cloud Dancer, fast asleep, with Dordy dozing with her, and Cloud Dancer’s serpentine body protectively curled around them. That was so heartwarming, I couldn’t even bring myself to wake them! Dordy woke at the sound of Onyx quietly coasting in and landing, of course, and he got up and shook himself out, climbing over Cloud Dancer to come trot up to me. Cloud Dancer didn’t react to being climbed on by the little guy at all. What a great little family I have! Cloud Dancer and Onyx stayed with us after I went inside to get a book and a drink to come out and hang out with them. I sat next to Celeste to read with my drink as Dordy went back to snoozing. Onyx nudged up next to his aerial roughhousing buddy Cloud Dancer and curled up himself for a nap, seeming to find the scene as peaceful as I did. So it was that I came to rest leaning back on Cloud Dancer with a book and a drink, Celeste sleeping next to me with her fishing hat pulled low over her face, Dordy at our feet, Cloud Dancer wrapped protectively around us, Onyx snuggled in with us as well. If we’d had Nosebleed and Ebonhoof up there too, the whole family would have been enjoying the moment, but they were stuffing their faces across the bay, grazing on jungle vegetation at the back of Turtle Beach behind the statue of Liu Lang and his sea turtle Shen-zin Su.
Aside from that, nothing has happened. I wish I had more to write about. I really do. Maybe this coming week I’ll wander Stormwind more than usual and see if I can find some fun things there to do. Maybe even meet new people! We’ll see what happens!
With nothing further to write about, Nat tapped off the excess ink from her quill into her inkwell and replaced it in its case, closing that and the inkwell and replacing them in their desk drawer. Letting the ink dry on the pages, she went to refill her coffee and start on breakfast, pulling out pans and utensils and other dishes for cooking. Returning to her office, she closed her diary, the ink on the pages now dry, and returned it to its home on its bookshelf. That done, she returned to the kitchen, preparing breakfast as quietly as she could, smiling and humming happily to herself as she prepared Celeste’s and Dordy’s surprise. Dordy would likely awaken too early to the smells and likely the sound, but, as he slept under the blankets, maybe there was a chance she could sneak this along? Either way, the big moment would come soon! Great way to kick off the last day of minication!
|
|
|
Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on May 19, 2022 13:33:05 GMT
May the Nineteenth The waves of Turtle Bay washed gently up the sandy shores of Turtle Beach. The sound mingled with that of the denizens of the early-morning jungle – birds calling, monkeys chattering, a distant jungle cat yowling, and, at the edge of the rain forest, a direhorn named Nosebleed and a black stallion named Ebonhoof, grazing noisily at the dense foliage on the jungle’s edge. The salt tang of the sea’s air was also mingled, with that of the jungle’s many fragrances. Tropical flowers in bloom, the very faint scent of decaying foliage at the jungle floor, the smell of a recent rain, and the general scent of innumerable jungle flora species.
Also on this beach were a trio of tents around the remains of a large bonfire, being stoked back to life by Celeste, seated to Nat’s left, as Nat sat laid back in her full-length folding lounge chair nearby. Celeste’s quiet, happy humming joined the crackling of the steadily-growing fire, which added to the chorus of early-morning tropical beach sounds, as the wood smoke joined the early-morning fragrances. Celeste was going to prepare breakfast with Rugnar, who sat to her left side, and Penny, sitting to his left side, was going to learn more about cooking. After a lifetime of consuming nutritional paste from manufactured tubes on Mechagon Isle, cooking – and the culinary rewards of such afterward – was fast becoming a passion of hers. Her goal now was to learn campsite cooking. In particular, breakfast cooked over an open campfire. To say she was excited was to put it mildly. Penelope Boltbucket was practically bouncing in her camping chair, her feet dangling high above the sand. Nat made a mental note to craft her a seat better suited to her diminutive stature, so she could get in an out of it easier than she could this borrowed chair.
In the meantime, while Celeste tended the fire and Rugnar was teaching Penny how to make his famous biscuits with sausage gravy, Nat had her diary, inkwell of purple ink, and cherrywood quill case she’d retrieved from the House-On-The-Spire while waiting on the others to wake up. Her ravenfeather quill was in her hand, her inkwell of purple ink open and secured in the sand to her right, and her diary was across her lap. She lay back in her lounge chair, feet up behind her rump with her knees drawn up into the air to prop up the well-worn book. As the rest did their work, she did hers, penning her latest entry and summing up her week.
Dear diary,
It’s been a busy week! A fair amount more than last week has happened! For starters, the House-On-The-Spire is a whirlwind of chaos as work started on excavating the sublevel of the basement so that Celeste’s chicken coop and herb garden planters can be put in. Celeste’s Uncle Rugnar is here to help of course, using the guest bedroom for the week and piloting the MUTT during the days while Celeste takes care of the stone. As far as decorations go, this time Celeste is inspired by Dordy himself, molding streams of lava and geysers of fire. A column of dwarves with mining tools and a flaming pup barking at a large fire elemental are on one wall. It looks so good so far! This work has been continuing all week, and Penny was invited to help out with the excavation, too! She was given the MUTT to handle while uncle and niece worked on clearing and moving the stone. She’s doing so well with it! A real natural pilot! When I got home the first day they started, this past Friday, it was to Rugnar’s loud laughter as he related some funny stories of Celeste’s childhood to an avidly listening Penny. Everyone has had a lot of fun with the project this week!
After days of hard work, though, the House-on-the-Spire was quiet yesterday. The four of us, including Uncle Rugnar and Penny, decided we are taking a day off! Everyone woke up on their own time. Penny brought along breakfast rolls from the inn in Halfhill. The plan for the day: lazing about on Turtle Beach! WOO! Celeste planned on bringing the MUTT for a evening cookout, thanks to its retractable spit-arm tool she designed that turns on its own power. The Anglers at the Wharf were invited for dinner to thank them for their patience with the noise and dust of the excavation. For the day, though, it’s relaxing time. Celeste wore her sky-blue bikini decorated with sea creatures and matching paréo. Dordy was hopping around Rugnar, trying to steal his breakfast roll, while Penny, perched on a chair next to them, laughed to see their antics. It wasn’t ALL relaxing, though – Celeste leaned in with the cover of bringing me a cup of coffee, but really, she just wanted to steal my breakfast roll and make me chase her for it! That was fun, hehe. We went all the way into the water and even chased around on our conjured iceberg rafts for a while… until she vanished hers and dropped into like waist-deep water. I asked her why she did that, and she said it was to pull me in! She got my by the hands and yoinked me right off my raft, into the water! Gosh! We chased around a bit more, but eventually made it out and got new breakfast rolls, as Celeste had already tossed ours to Dordy before our chasing game, much to his delight!
We all enjoyed the rest of the day, alternating between playing with Dordy, snoozing, fishing (quite a bit!), and laughing together. The rest of the Anglers joined us closer to dinner time, and Celeste prepared the MUTT so it could slowly turn the hocks of ham and large fish our friends had brought over the fire. When it was time for me to leave for my weekly adventure with the Whitewind Company, Celeste bid me good luck with promises to wait for me by the statue on the beach for a late night stroll. I was able to stay a good while, though, as the adventure last night was right here in Pandaria! Sri-La Village! As such, I was able to stay with the party until our Anglers Wharf friends were drifting off back home with full bellies as the party died down again. They sure seemed to be okay with all the excavation noise after that beach party! In the meantime, I was really looking forward to that late-night beach stroll under the stars with Celeste!
Nat paused in her writing a bit, looking up suddenly with a smile. The smell of sausages frying over the open campfire and the drifting fragrance of coffee was now adding to the already-pleasant scents of the morning on the little beach campsite. Nat was looking forward quite a bit to sampling more of Rugnar’s breakfast cooking! The old dwarf had a twinkle in his eye as he taught little Penny to cook according to his age-old recipe. Penny herself was having quite a grand old time, laughing as she listened to Rugnar and Celeste trade funny stories from other camping breakfasts they’d shared throughout their lives, and Nat joined in with a few funny stories of her own about the pair. Soon enough, the sausage was done frying up, and was being crumbled to stir into the gravy Rugnar was now teaching Penny to make. The coffee was now finished as well, and Nat helped herself to some, sipping daintily at it while returning to her diary.
The adventure in Sri-La Village was the first step toward locating the plate boots of the fabled armor of Princess Ariel Sunstrider, a story that has largely been forgotten these days, but some lore masters and some books still speak of it. The blue-dyed mithril plate armor with its intricate truesilver trimmings added to the stunning beauty of the princess, who, as she sat astride her gleaming white hawkstrider ahead of her troops on a field of battle, made for an inspiring enough image that every one of them would have fought to the very last elf, giving their absolute utmost, even before the impassioned, heart-stirring pre-battle speeches she gave them before each conflict.
No one knows where every piece is, though we found some leads in books a couple of weeks ago. Boots in Sri-La, with a Kul Tiran ship captain named Brian Brine going off in search of them, but never being heard from again. Shoulderguards in the Eversong Woods somewhere, having been retrieved by the Quel’dorei from the Amani forest trolls and on their way to Silvermoon City before the Scourge’s rampage through their lands, when Arthas Menethil first attacked them. The left-hand gauntlet mate to the right-hand one I discovered in that sunken ship near the Vile Reef off the coast of Stranglethorn Vale when pearl diving with Celeste – that left-hand mate is somewhere in Feralas, and, according to my latest looks into the matter, the Kaldorei of Feralas have it, and seem to be feeling rather on the fence about it (they want quite a lot for it, yet their disdain for the Highborne elves they exiled from their lands has them deciding on only a tithe of its value in trade goods and general living goods). They want to meet the Whitewind’s Grace on the east coast of Feralas (I had quite forgotten the Cataclysm had turned Thousand Needles into an inlet, where the ocean has flooded in and stretches all the way to the eastern borders of that jungle). We have the helm narrowed down to… heck, somewhere between Valgarde in the Howling Fjord in Northrend, and some kind of icy island off the north coast of Icecrown. That’s kind of a lot of ground to cover! A needle to find in an entire field of haystacks! We’ll likely hit that one last. Then there are the two other leads we found, both of which are unspecified pieces of the suit, but one was last seen in Hearthglen, and the other, the only lead we have on it is something about an altar in the Blasted Lands, in which someone had found a piece and was attempting to enchant it even further than it already was. That’s a lot of leads to start with. Good thing people write about royals so much!
Anyway, the group had originally voted on the shoulderguards in the Eversong Woods that the Quel’dorei almost got to their home, but, as things fell through with that one for the time being, they have now voted on Sri-La Village. As such, we sent the Whitewind’s Grace sailing down that way, partially for the mission, and partially for the beginning of the trade route that we took on for the Quicksilver Company, which starts there (picking up food and goods to take to Gilneas to those in need, as well as stops in Fuselight-By-The-Sea for our own engineering goods and ordnance on that contract we did with Quality Asplosions last year, Suramar for fine goods, Northrend for more aid work, with our own Tisaani the Lightforged Draenei going along to heal those in need and do charity work). Our plan was to have everyone take the portal to Pandaria and fly to the ship, meeting it just as it reaches the continent.
When I got there, I was reminded anew of the beauty of the little resort fishing village. The cool sea breeze brought with it the warm, humid air of a jungle. The salt tang in the air was met with the scents of dense vegetation. The distant sounds of jungle life -- birds, monkeys, and more birds, in the main -- mixed with the creaking sounds of the Whitewind's Grace as the crew slowed her down, readying her for a wakeless entry into Sri-La Village to come to the dock. In the meantime, the crew enjoyed the stunning scenery of towering rock spires rising from the calm, rolling waves of the fairweather South Seas. The approaching mainland brought with it more breathtaking scenery, including a neat little fishing village off in the distance, set at the base of a freshwater waterfall with a mogu statue carved into the cliff behind it, towering at the same height as the beautiful waterfall... Sri-La Village, in all its splendor!
We docked and disembarked, fanning out around the village while the crew took on the trade goods the locals usually sent with the Quicksilver Company’s ship. It was me, Grim, Tess, Mairy, and Zarshal. I dunno where Nah was; she had planned to come with us, but we never heard from her. Anyway, Tess found a Wildhammer dwarf fishing with the local anglers, which was a surprise, sort of! Mairy found the inn and talked to the bartender. Grim went to speak with the flight master. Zarshal hopped a little inlet to go to the far side of the village and found someone to ask. I was asking this Pandaren guy mending a fishing net. Only a few people said the name “Captain Brian Brine” really rang a bell, and all said to go see the innkeeper, who had a long memory for visitors. Sure enough, the innkeeper – who makes a mean stir fry by the way – said she remembered the name! The poor guy had been in the area only a few days, right when the Alliance and horde were first discovering Pandaria, before he got caught in the crossfire of a naval battle not far off Sri-La’s coast. His ship took hits, and was sunk! The innkeeper, Lana the Sea Breeze, as locals called her, advised investigating the wreck for clues, as it hadn’t been salvaged. They’re fishers, not divers, she said. But she’d also said that Captain Brine and his surviving crew had moved inland, refusing to give up on their mission. Everyone seemed to want to skip searching the wreck for clues and move inland right away to find Captain Brine, so who knows what we might have missed on the boat?
On our way up the path zigzagging up the cliff face, which featured a beautiful, ornate Pandaren arching bridge over the front of the waterfall about halfway up the cliff, a funny thing happened. Mairy suddenly started, saying she’d seen a flash of something red, and Tess had heard the shuffling of feet. But, when we investigated, we didn’t find anything! It was weird! We moved on afterward, but with a bit more of a lookout around us, not wanting to be caught unawares by someone we’d rather not be caught by.
At the top, we found a traveling fish peddler coming up the road named Bry Lang. The Pandaren had no idea who Captain Brian Brine was, but he did help us find the next place one would stop to rest if traveling inland from Sri-La Village: Greenstone Village, and we weren’t super far away! We’d just need to continue on southwest, and this road we were on would take us directly to it! That sounded easy enough!
Sure enough, we found a beautiful little Pandaren village, ornate as they usually are (especially in the Jade Forest), and, as it turns out, some of the older Pandaren here remember Captain Brine! Mairy found a blacksmith to talk to. Zarshal and Grim found a small monk training studio, which, of course the guys go there! Tess found the innkeeper, a Pandaren lady who said she remembered a “dashing young Kul Tiran captain” who had stayed there for a week and trained with the monks a little, though training in what, we don’t know. She said the same thing the blacksmith told Mairy, that, aside from monk training, the captain had done quite a bit of journaling, and that he had left his journal with someone there in the village that knew how to keep books and scrolls and stuff well. I figured that’d mean a scribe in some sort of inscription shop. I talked to some passersby wandering around the village and got pretty much the same, monk training and journaling, though they hadn’t mentioned the captain leaving his journal behind. Grim and Zarshal found out from the monk trainer in the studio that the captain had been training for something to do with Tian Monastery, which wasn’t far to the northwest from the village. Apparently they’d been and then, for some reason, returned to Greenstone Village to train in monk stuffs in order to go back! But why? No one seemed to know!
The group then elected, again, to skip looking for the clues, foregoing the captain’s journal to walk straight to the Tian Monastery. The road went up northwest as a left fork (the road came up from the south to Greenstone Village, forking left to Tian Monastery and forking right to Sri-La Village). We followed that road through the Jade Forest, but then we hit a wall! The road went not into the Monastery, but instead, into a mine in the side of a mountain! We were stuck! We looked around, and we found a dirt path, really something of a partially overgrown game trail, branching off to the left. It had many criss-crosses and stuff, so we didn’t know where to go from there. I thought that, as the monastery was to our northwest, we should follow the steep slope up the mountain to the left of the mine’s entrance, but Mairy didn’t wanna make the steep climb, so she elected to go south instead of northwest, going the long way around the mountain. Goodness gracious, did that take us far, far out of our way! We eventually came upon a more clearly-established dirt path that went northwest, but we were far to the south and already a good bit west, so I figured the road would pass the monastery a little TOO far to the west. We struck out northwest anyway, figuring we could adjust our course when we got closer to our destination.
But then something unexpected happened… A snake the size of a slender TREE came slithering right across the path! It went right in front of Mairy, who was leading the way up the road, and went RIGHT for her, seeming to think the Wildhammer dwarf was a small snack! It tried to coil around her rapidly, but she leaped away out of its reach before it could really get around her. I summoned a couple of imps quickly, figuring to bait it with more snacks, and meanwhile, one of the imps got it with a felfire bolt. That sure made it stop and rethink things! Then Zarshal got it with one of his blades, lopping its head right off. Poor snake! But it shouldn’t have tried to eat us! With that threat down, we moved on up the road.
The dirt path seemed to be a good choice; it led straight to a well-maintained cobblestone road! And what’s more, it was going right where we needed it to go! We were no longer lost-ish! I still thought we should have climbed that one slope right where the mine was, and that would have gone right into the monastery, but there’s still something to be said for avoiding exhausting climbs, and enjoying the scenery of Jade Forest in the process! Anyway, we took the road up, meeting with no further hostile wildlife along the way. Sure enough, we were soon spotting more ornate, expensive-looking Pandaren arching bridges over canyons and between rock spires. Those of us that have been to, or at least flown over, the monastery before – me, Zarshal, and Grim – remember the bridges from the air. We were close! We went toward one at one point, following a game trail toward it, and soon found ourselves reaching another clear cobblestone road! This one went up a rock spire in one direction to the bridges, and down a canyon in the other direction, which, as we could see ahead, led right into the monastery! We’d finally found our way to it!
We knew we’d found the right place when, as soon as we entered, we found an elder Pandaren leading dozens of young Pandaren through monk exercises in the first enclosure. Everyone there that was old enough to remember Captain Brine passing through a decade or so earlier, though, was busy! What were we going to do? But then Tess spotted another elder Pandaren up on a ledge, watching the instruction of the students below. We found some stairs leading up to the ledge he was on and went to go ask him about the captain. He said he did, indeed, remember the captain, which was awesome! He said we’d need to find the High Elder, though, which was less awesome… this place was the size of a small city! But, as the Pandaren instructor (named Xann) was adamant about getting the information from the High Elder, we had to go look for him anyway. He said the High Elder was in a tower at the eastern reaches of the monastery, so off we went. Bad start though… The path directly east led almost immediately to an exit. And wouldn’t you know it… We found ourselves at the top of the steep slope that went up from the mines the other road had ended at! We’d gone far, far out of our way after all!
Chuckling about that, we turned and reentered the monastery. We found a path that wound and circled and spiraled and wound some more, eventually turning to head east a fair little distance north of where we found Instructor Xann. The road went through more training areas and casual, social-looking areas and past a spot I could have sworn I smelled more Pandaren cuisine, though I didn’t see it. Then we found it… a tower rising at the far eastern reaches of the monastery!
We went to the tower, climbing rather a lot of steps to reach its front door. There we found a young Pandaren woman who didn’t remember any Captain Brine, though she did say we had, indeed, found the High Elder’s tower, and that perhaps he would remember the Kul Tiran man. We thanked her and went on our way, moving around the left side of the building as, much to Mairy’s annoyance, they’d fenced off their front door for some reason!
Through the left-side door, we entered the tower, immediately finding our way blocked by a pair of Pandaren monk guards. One male and one female, they looked rather imposing, staring menacingly at us with their arms crossed. They insisted that none pass to see the High Elder without first proving their worthiness… in hand-to-hand combat with THEM! Oh, NO!
Without magic, without weapons, I knew I was a goner. Fortunately, though, Zarshal and Mairy in particular out of the group (the rest did okay, though my attempts at karate chops were embarrassing!) made a pretty strong offensive against the guards, and, though Zarshal found himself kicked about the head and shoulders quite a bit by the male guard and really took a beating, they knocked the guards out cold! When the guards woke up shortly after the fight ended, they proclaimed us worthy, and let us pass. Not that they were any longer in any shape to stop us!
Sure enough, we found the High Elder at the top of the tower. He told us he remembered Captain Brine and his crew pretty clearly! That’s great! What was less great is, in order for him to tell us about the captain and his crew, we would first have to prove ourselves worthy to him. Reason being, people who wanted what the captain sought didn’t always have the best interests of the world at heart, and, as the famed suit of armor had been intentionally separated upon the eventual passing of Princess Ariel Sunstrider and sent to the far corners of the earth, then those who seek it would need to prove they didn’t seek it to inspire armies to dominance.
Wait, WHAT?!
Revelation!
So THAT’S why the armor suit was all over the place! It was deemed dangerous in the wrong hands! If someone decided to put it on some slender young woman to inspire troops to conquer other nations, apparently they could?! How AWFUL!
As such, the old Pandaren High Elder, who said his name was Cloudfall, said we would have one week to meditate on “inner peace” and “outer balance.” Then, we could return for the “trials.” I have no idea what he means, and he wouldn’t go into detail about it. I sure hope we aren’t in for something truly awful at the monastery next week!
After that, we had nothing else distinctive we could get out of the old monk master, so we thanked him for his time and headed home. The trip past those guards sure was awkward…
Anyway, with the night over, I went back to Turtle Beach. The trip around the beach was exceptionally beautiful and peaceful, all the more so while enjoyed with Celeste. Rugnar had returned to our guest bedroom at home to read, and Penny had retired to her little house at our farm in Halfhill for the evening. Dordy hung out with us, walking around sniffing things and marking his territory, and we could hear Nosebleed and Ebonhoof, again, munching at the foliage at the back of the beach. Cloud Dancer and Onyx had flown off somewhere to hunt. It was a peaceful little family stroll, and Celeste and I had some quality time together, alone. I told Celeste all about the mission, and we shared our speculation on what the trials might be, what might be up with the pieces we don’t know the location of yet or even have any leads on, and then just generally talked about life and plans for the House-On-The-Spire before returning to bed.
All in all, it was a fantastic little night, even if it was dotted a couple of times by little fights. I can’t wait to see what happens next with this campaign! And I can’t wait to see what lies in store for Celeste and I next at home! I love this life! YAY!
Nat finished off her writing when she smelled what she knew by now to be the finished product of Rugnar’s famous sausage gravy over biscuits. She tapped off the excess ink from her ravenfeather quill into her inkwell of purple ink, capping off the little jar and replacing the quill into her cherrywood quill cast. The diary was laid to the side while she refilled her coffee and dished herself up a plate. Once she had a heaping, steaming pile of a breakfast that was as bad for the body as it was incredibly delicious, she placed it at the end of her lounge chair to cool for a short moment, returning to her diary to close it, the ink on the pages now dry. She replaced it, her inkwell, and her quill case in her pack, to be taken up to her office in her house when the little group broke camp. That done, she sat sideways on her lawn chair next with her plate in her lap and her coffee mug secured down in the sand next to her, laughing with the rest of the group and sharing more silly stories, telling an enthralled Rugnar and Penny about her latest campaign with the Whitewind Company, and listening to old tales of thrilling adventures the others had experienced as well. It was a great time, and, when they finally broke camp, they were refreshed and ready to return to the excavation work.
Penny stayed with Nat to help clear rubble as Rugnar finished the excavation work, and Celeste made several trips back and forth to the edges of the Jade Forest to harvest bamboo that was, just like last year when construction began on the House-On-The-Spire, encroaching upon Pandaren farms and threatening to engulf them. Harvesting the bamboo once again with the MUTT, Celeste brought back quite a bit to use for the eventual construction of the dock at the base of the Spire and the lift they’d build from the base to the top. It was an enjoyable sort of work, filled with the excitement of home improvement and spending time with dear friends and family. A great way to spend the final day of minication!
|
|
|
Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on May 26, 2022 15:02:52 GMT
May the Twenty-Sixth Dim lights emanated from the darkest recesses of the coral reef, casting colorful lights and dark shadows alike around the locale, mesmerizing to any viewer who might happen past. Fish of different shapes and sizes occasionally caught the lights, reflecting them from their scales in brilliant rainbow colors as though being split through a crystal prism. Then the fish would dive back into or around the coral reef, and the colors would calm again. At the bottom of the reef, a lost deep-dive helmet seemed to house some tentacle-waving creature… had an octopus taken up refuge within? Deeper within the coral reef, the mysterious lights revealed, upon reflection from a passing fish’s scales, a sunken treasure chest, its lid having popped open to reveal a heaping pile of gold coins and other treasures that fill to the brim and begin to spill over. Most prominent of all, however, are the fish themselves, darting to and fro, this way and that, their brilliantly silver scales illuminating, in passing, the darkest recesses of the reef that the mysterious lights leave otherwise dark.
Suddenly, in front of it all, darted a MOLTEN CORGI!
“No, Dordy!” Celeste giggled. “The arclight spanner, not the gyromatic microadjuster! HEY! You bring that back!”
Nat laughed, turning and looking up from where she was sitting at the workbench as Dor’dieb McCullough-Ebonlocke ran in front of Celeste’s brilliantly designed fish tank with its realistic-looking coral reef and realistic-looking mechafish, playing Keep Away with Celeste, who wanted to train him to fetch specific tools for her, but wasn’t having much luck with the energetic, playful pup. She turned back to the workbench, where sat her diary, an open cherrywood quill case, and an open inkwell of purple ink. It was diary time!
As Celeste wrangled Dordy and got her tool back, still wanting him to fetch her arclight spanner, Nat turned back to her diary. She dipped her ravenfeather quill into her inkwell, tapped off the excess ink, and began to write.
Dear diary,
It’s been an awesome week! The excavation of sublevel two is now complete! Celeste’s uncle Rugnar has returned home to Ironforge, and Celeste has finished decorating the level with her fire magic. What seems to be everburning lava in the walls has been given the same fire protection spells as Dordy, so they can be touched and seem quite cool, yet they glow and shimmer and flash to light the room even before lamps can be brought in as they flow through their patterns. As I wrote last week, Celeste was inspired by Dordy himself, molding streams of lava and geysers of fire all around the room. A column of dwarves with mining tools and a flaming pup barking at a large fire elemental are on the far wall from where the spiral staircase has been added onto to get down here, just like where the fish tank is. The room is currently empty, but Celeste plans to have a chicken coop and a table for the herbalism set-up in here soon! I can’t wait to see how it all works out! It already looks pretty cool down there!
Aside from that, not much else has gone on; except for last night, when we went back to the Tian Monastery in the Jade Forest again for the Whitewind Company expedition on our quest to locate and reassemble the fabled inspirational plate armor of Princess Ariel Sunstrider! It was me, my bestie Nah, our new member Tess, and outside contractors Mairy and Zarshal! We met back at the Tower of the High Elder, the high pagoda that houses the sitting High Elder of this monastery on the east edge of the city-sized monastery. He was up there on his balcony, looking out over the monastery. He seemed pleased to see us back!
Last week, when we’d left, he told us he did, indeed, remember the man we sought who had, himself, been going after the part of the set he’d learned was in Pandaria: the boots. Captain Brian Brine, of Kul Tiras, and his crew had come here, and we had followed, only to learn his ship had eventually been sunk by the Alliance and horde that had also just discovered this continent, caught in the crossfire of the two factions’ naval battle. He himself had been ashore with his crew on this quest when it happened, but his ship was lost. Our group had elected to skip searching the wreck for clues, opting to immediately move inland from Sri-La Village in the Jade Forest, where it had sunk. Following advice from an innkeeper who remembered him, we followed the road to the next village, which was Greenstone Village. There, we had learned he’d spent a week in training and meditation at the monk-training studio there, journaling often. He’d apparently left his journal, among many other things, behind, opting to lightening his load and that of his crew as they’d be journeying on foot. We didn’t know what he was doing monk training and meditation for. We only knew that he’d next gone to the Tian Monastery to the northwest.
Well, we now know! Making our way there ourselves, we’d met the High Elder, who said that the boots were brought back by one of the few Pandaren to want to explore the world. The youthful Pandaren had lived over a century ago, but he’d found the boots somehow, saying that the whole set had been scattered around the world and hidden in order to prevent its legendary heart-stirring charms from falling into the wrong hands… hands that would use it to fit on a similarly-built woman to lead a massive army into battles and wars to conquer other nations, one Princess Ariel had finally grown old and passed away. The High Elder then stated he wanted us to prove our worthiness of the boots to him first, to show that our hearts held no longing for world conquest, before he would reveal Captain Brine’s next movements to us. To do this, he wanted us first to take a week and meditate on stuff like “inner peace” and “balance.”
So, last night, we went back. Most had seemed too confused on the meditation thing to really do it, but the High Elder didn’t seem to mind. He told us he had three trials in store for us that night, and that we would be commencing immediately!
And our first trial was…
…Go to the Banquet Grounds and enjoy dinner with the other Pandaren.
Wait, WHAT?! HA!
Everyone was good and confused by this trial, but Pandaren cuisine being renowned for its quality, no one was opposed! We followed the High Elder’s directions westward to the Banquet Grounds, finding two rows of very long tables there, half-filled by other Pandaren and even a Hozen?! Everyone there was eating their fill, looking relaxed and happy, utterly at peace with the world. It looked so nice! And I had to admit, with the aesthetics of the food and the wonderful aromas filling the air around the area, I felt much the same way!
We walked to the far end of the Banquet Grounds, where there was this wizened old Pandaren behind a half-circle-shaped counter. On the counter and all around behind him were several different completed or half-completed meals, all being prepared at once on grills, woks, steamers, everything! This guy was sure busy! Yet he seemed jovial enough to us. He was a Pandaren Master of the Ways, which is their term for a chef of Pandaren cuisine who has mastered the Way of the Grill, the Way of the Wok, the Way of the Steamer, the Way of the Pot, the Way of the Oven, and the Way of the Brew. This guy had all that back there! We ordered dinner, everyone helping themselves to a large plate of this and that. I had lemon pepper grilled salmon, egg rolls, and some bread, and all five of us availed ourselves of the pearl milk tea. We sat down, enjoying dinner, and this ENORMOUS Pandaren moved down the table to sit with us. He introduced himself as Xiao. Apparently, Xiao spent most of his time here. He described the rather busy meal schedule to us, which certainly explained his size… In summary, three breakfasts, four lunches, snacking in between snacks (?!), and three banquet-sized dinners! GEEZ! But he sure was nice and a good meal companion!
Then, out of nowhere, the High Elder simply… appeared! He wasn’t there, and then he just… was! It was so weird! Monks sure are good at this stuff! Anyway, he was there to congratulate us on passing our first trial. We had demonstrated patience and a willingness to prepare, before just running in all willy-nilly, headlong into the fray. He was now ready to give us our second trial!
He wouldn’t describe the trial to us, though, electing to send us west once more. We walked along the road after our meal, departing the Banquet Grounds (invited to come back at any time by the Master of the Ways for more food!) to travel the roads past beautifully ornate Pandaren houses and pagodas and stuff, staring around at the scenery rising all around us from outside the monastery and within – the towering rock spires and connecting bridges and spire-top buildings, all rising out of the most peaceful, tranquil, beautiful jungle in the world. Shallow, natural wading pools dotted the monastery, all with absolutely beautiful lily pads blooming and floating around, illuminated by stone lanterns and further decorated by things like statues of fish with fountains spouting from their mouths. The scenery wowed us thoroughly as we went along, and, before we knew it, we were looking down a ledge at the Ring of Inner Focus!
Following the road where it curved left and then right to go around the Ring and come to an ornate arching entrance to the walled-in training area on the far side, we found a number of students and a master monk named Master Chou. This middle-aged Pandaren greeted us, telling us we were expected, and inviting us to the center of the ring to… sit? Everyone had been talking the entire time about how we were now surely going to do some monk-style fighting, but this guy wanted us to sit around? Again, we decided to be patient, sitting in a half-circle around the master monk and awaiting instruction. He had us close our eyes, and find our inner focus, our inner peace. He wanted us to imagine it as a clear blue sky, devoid of cloud and tempest. (My idea of a beautiful day is a dark day with low cloud cover, slightly chilly temperatures, and a good, peaceful, cozy mist or even a very light drizzle of rain, but I get his point!) Next, he wanted us to explore what it is within us, within our lives, within our minds, that threatens that peace. Is it stress? Strife? Fear? Anger? Violence?
He had us focus on stress and strife. What is it that stresses us, or causes us conflict? Picture it, meditate on it, he said, allowing it to appear as the smallest of fluffy white clouds in our imagined blue skies, but then it expands… the fluffy white cloud is now darkening, billowing out, spreading across the peaceful, calm blue skies until the darkness and heaviness of the cloud causes a terrible tempest! Nah and Mairy both had immediate answers there: Nah looked slightly distraught, muttering something about her self-esteem. A bit of backstory there – a point of conversation numerous times in the past for Nah and I is that she still sees herself as this ugly, scarred-up, tattooed Illidari, and I don’t. Heck, even when she was Illidari, she had garnered a certain abundance of looks from men and women alike. But now, after her cleansing and scar-healing (in the ritual I wrote about in my diary on July First of last year… gosh, it’s been nearly a year already?!), she attracts attention from all over! Grim himself is infatuated with her! Anywho, Master Chou’s instructions to locate the source of our strife and stress particularly resonated with her and Mairy, who immediately flew into an angry tirade, muttering something about “draigs,” which is how the dwarven accent has them pronouncing “dragons” or “drakes” or something. She’s still very angry at the red dragonflight for all the death and destruction they wrought upon Grim Batol in the Second War, when the orcs were using the Dragon Soul to enslave them and use them in battle. Something about their mutterings really cast a dark pall on the group, and I could have sworn I sensed a palpable darkness emanating from both of them! I wanted to open my eyes to see if there really was a storm forming above us, like Master Chou wanted us to imagine, but I also didn’t want to fail the second trial, so I kept my eyes closed.
Mairy, meanwhile, was continuing to rage about dragons, becoming more and more violent in her speech as she went along, really building up a head of steam! In the process, the darkness around her was growing and growing and growing some more! It was really worrying!
Next, Master Chou asked us to find and face our fears. If our blue skies weren’t already covered by roiling tempest, then find our fears, allowing them to expand from fluffy little white cloud to a terrible storm instead…
Instantly, Tomlin, Celeste’s deceased twin brother, sprang into mind! His face, matching his sister’s in appearance and yet totally opposite from it with its expression of hatred and disgust, with his dagger point to the corner of my eye and his vicious threats and demands to leave his sister alone forever. I wanted to cry! The fear that came to mind when Master Chou prompted it was Tomlin, Tomlin somehow escaping the soulstone he’d been encapsulated in after Celeste rescued him from Torghast, Tomlin, coming for me with a year’s worth of compounding hatred – I had certainly not stayed away from his sister, outside of the brief time I had parted from her to keep everyone safe until we could deal with him! Tomlin, coming back with murder in his heart, determined to torturously destroy everyone and everything I loved, before finally coming for me in the end…
Immediately, as before, I began to sense more darkness. Again, I wanted to look up to see if I had really caused the storm described by Master Chou to spring into being, yet I kept my eyes closed, still determined to complete the trial successfully. As it was, I could hear the running feet of the students coming to surround all of us, a slight panic in their murmuring voices. The darkness that surrounded me was suffocating, horribly consuming. I was so frightened! It was almost as though Tomlin was sitting there with me, with my eyes closed, so that I couldn’t tell he was there, ready to do something truly awful!
Throughout, Zarshal and Tessina alone seemed to keep the darkness at bay. Fears and conflicts and angering things were voiced by them, everything from monsters to being lost and alone on a deserted isle, surrounded by ogres. I could feel the darkness begin to form around where I knew they sat, but it instantly dissipated each time.
Master Chou next bade us open our eyes… and we were all VERY surprised to see the darkness manifested around us in the physical realm!
It was the SHA!
One of the first things the Alliance, and I guess the horde lamers as well, discovered about this land when they first discovered it was that strife, conflict, fear, violence, all negative emotions manifested themselves down here as amalgamations of negative energy. These negative energy amalgamations were called “Sha” by the Pandaren people, and was one of a few reasons why they strove for peace and happiness and contentment in their lifestyle and culture. But now, here they were, right there with us!
The running feet of the Pandaren students had been them coming to surround each sha, keeping it at bay. Master Chou began to identify them for us by name. The Sha of Loneliness and the Sha of Stress were small ones, barely bigger than Dordy. The Greater Sha of Anger and the Greater Sha of Fear were even bigger than Draenei guys! But Mairy’s sha, the one she’d been apparently growing with all the aforementioned building up and building up of violent speech, was identified as a Major Sha of Violence! It was bigger than a large room in a house, towering over us at height of a two-story building! It was SO SCARY!
Once again, the High Elder appeared out of nowhere! He seemed as unworried about the sha as Master Chou, though he did frown at their presence. He told us we had failed the Trial of Inner Peace, but that all was not lost; we still had the Trial of Balance left, and, having passed the Trial of the Banquet, the Trial of Balance would be the tiebreaker! This was our last chance to pass his trials and get his knowledge of Captain Brine’s movements! He directed us onward from there, giving us directions to the Ring of Balance, another walled-in enclosure down another road to the southeast. We followed the road there, this time even getting to go over a couple of beautiful, ornately decorated Pandaren-style arching bridges that went from the spires of a couple of small rock spires rising from either side of a pair of shallow green chasms, the first of which had yet another cobblestone road running under it. We found ourselves soon in the Ring of Balance, which, again, was filled with students and a master monk, this one named Master Rong, whom Mairy was immediately referring to as “Long Dong Rong,” which made no sense to me. Anyway, we were ready for our third and final trial!
Master Rong told us that, as the previous two masters had also stated, that he was expecting us. He somehow already knew of our failure at the Trial of Inner Peace – that High Elder sure gets around fast for an old guy! – and that now was the time to redeem ourselves. Redemption was coming along behind us, he said, and sure enough, we turned around, and what did we see? All the students from the Ring of Inner Focus bringing along all those sha we caused to form! Master Rong informed us that failure to discipline the mind and allow ourselves to dwell on negativity was not a dooming thing, but that, indeed, there was still a chance to conquer our negativity by facing our fears, our stresses, our strife, and conquering them! This pretty much told us what we were in for next… We were going to have to FIGHT THE SHA!
Nah wasted no time, drawing her daggers and running across the Ring of Balance and diving right into the Sha of Loneliness, engaging the sha of her worst fear with gusto. Zarshal took on the Greater Sha of Fear, while Tess engaged the Greater Sha of Anger. Mairy turned with a rage to the Major Sha of Violence she’d caused to spawn and then apparently to grow and grow and grow into the towering menace it now was. Her rage and violent speech toward it was still making it grow EVEN MORE! That left me with the Sha of Stress. Everyone now engaged, the battle was on!
It… started off poorly, to say the least. Anger and Stress were both casting their dark pallor over group members at random, and both of them were successfully hitting Nah, as chance would have it. Anger hit Nah first, causing her to enrage! She seemed to lose all control, attacking different sha at random, assuming her druidic cat form, and utterly losing her dang mind! GOSH! Her big cat roars echoed around the surrounding rock spires as she pounced and clawed and shredded and ferociously bit every sha in sight! She was doing twice as much damage, but seemed to have no control over herself at all! I’m just glad it was only the sha she was angry at! Stress hit her too, though that didn’t manifest itself until later in the fight, when the enraging spell wore off of Nah, and the stress caused her to be so distracted that she couldn’t defend herself properly.
Tess, Zarshal, and I were in something of a battle of attrition with our own targets, though Tess soon destroyed the Greater Sha of Anger, stopping the enrage spells it was attempting to cast. She turned to help Zarshal, who was on the shoulders of the Greater Sha of Fear, stabbing it relentlessly with his daggers, and when it was destroyed and dissipated, Zarshal fell a little from where its shoulders had been, though he landed okay. My fel minions were starting off poorly against my target, though I did eventually got Stress destroyed. That just left Loneliness and Violence!
Mairy had gotten the worst start of all of us. The Major Sha of Violence had reached down and grabbed her, hoisting her like twenty-plus feet into the air and attempting to crush the life from her! It wasn’t until Tess had destroyed Anger and then helped Zarshal finish Fear that she was able to turn and help Mairy. She sent her spirit wolf, Palattu, in to get him. Palattu bit Violence right in the butt! How ironic is that?! The sha roared in anger, but dropped Mairy!
It was then that Mairy came to her senses, realizing how the sha worked. Now, instead of violently raging at the sha and speaking violent threats to it, she… calmed down! Instead of constantly growing it, she realized the effect the violent hatred of the dragons had been having on her all her life since the Second War. The violent bitterness she showed so often while out on missions turned to Mairy now talking about how she refused to be ruled by bitterness about her past any longer. She would release the hatred, release the past. She wanted no more of it! She wanted peace in her life! The more she spoke, the more she let go of old hatreds, the more something strange happened… the Major Sha of Violence was actually heckin’ SHRINKING! It shrank down to the size of the Greater Sha of Fear and the Greater Sha of Anger, no longer towering above us like a building, but instead, now the size of an oversized Draenei guy. It was still trying to be violent, turning away from Mairy (as it could no longer feed on her) to attack poor Nah, who, by now, had destroyed Loneliness on her rampage but also free from the enrage spell that had worn off. Stress’s spell still distracted her, causing her defense to not quite be where it usually is, and she got smashed by an overhand strike from the Greater Sha of Violence’s fists! This was the point that I had finally gotten Stress destroyed, and was now turning to help with what had previously been the biggest sha of the group, but was now shrunken, and the last remaining sha. Mairy, however, seemed to have this one under wraps. She was still continuing to let go of old grudges, old hatreds, old rages, forgiving and coming to peace with her past. The sha shrunk again! It was now barely bigger than Dordy, the way Stress and Loneliness had been. Mairy continued her release and forgiveness, becoming calmer than I’d ever seen her before, calmer even than the time she had us over to the Cask ‘n’ Anvil in Ironforge to serve us drinks (before the discovery of the wolpertinger among her casks). The Sha of Violence shrank yet AGAIN, now half the size of my imp! Mairy’s final words of forgive and forget were spoken, and the tiny sha, the one that had towered over us like a building and had lifted Mairy just as high to crush her, now half the size of an imp, suddenly just… popped! Much like holding up a mechanical fan to the center of a thick plume of smoke over a fire, the thing just disappeared with this “puff” sound, poofing on the spot and dissipating! Mairy had done it! And what a surprise, to witness such a massive turning point in someone’s life like that! WOW!
With all the sha now gone, destroyed, shredded to wisps that floated away on the wind to dissipate altogether, Master Chou congratulated us. We had passed the Trial of Balance! Then, almost expected by this point, High Elder Cloudfall just… appeared yet again! He agreed with Master Chou, congratulating us on a job well done! We’d brought balance back to our turbulent minds, and mastered our most negative emotions. He now deemed us truly worthy of his aid in seeking the armor of Princess Ariel Sunstrider, confident now that we had no thought of conquest or evil intentions for the powerful ancient artifact hidden away in our hearts!
With that, the High Elder told us what he knew of Captain Brine. He and his crew, too, had passed the trials. It seems this is what they had stayed at Greenstone Village to meditate and do monk training for a week for! He had moved on from there to pursue a new lead: the High Elder had last heard that the youthful Pandaren traveler that had brought those boots back over a century ago had planned to take them to the bottom Veiled Stair, also known as the Path of a Hundred Steps, intending to journey with them up the stairs to begin the next stage of his journey. Unfortunately, he knew of no further word on the young Pandaren, and, despite inviting Captain Brine and his crew to return for rest and relaxation after their quest was complete, he had never heard from them again either!
So, it looks like the next stage of our journey, like the young Pandaren traveler from over a century ago, like Captain Brine and the crew of the Tidemaiden over a decade ago, will begin at the bottom of the Veiled Stair! I can’t say I’m excited about some kind of endless stair like this Path of a Hundred Steps, though… that sounds exhausting to climb! From there… I have no earthly idea what is in store for us next! But I’m excited to find out! I can’t wait for next week’s mission! WOO!
For now, this training with Dordy isn’t going so well. Celeste seems like she could sure use some help wrangling the little guy. I’m gonna go and help with the training! I can’t wait to see Dordy all trained up-like and being all helpful and stuff… When he finally understands and is doing it, he’s going to be so proud of his little self every time he helps out with a fetch! It’s going to be so stinkin’ cute and adorable! I love this little guy! I love Celeste! And I love this life! YAY!
Nat smiled at the happy thoughts of the future with Dordy helping her and Celeste, tapping off the excess ink from her quill into the inkwell and replacing it in its case. She capped her inkwell, then turned to suddenly dive after Dordy, catching him around the midsection as he fled a laughing Celeste with a torque wrench in his jaws. But, before she could get the wrench pulled free, Dordy wriggled loose! Leaping from her arms, he tore around the workshop, Celeste and Nat laughing and chasing him. Eventually teaming up to corner him, they were able to corral him once more, this time freeing the wrench. Celeste decided to try again with a simple hammer, pointing at the hammer and saying its name several times. Dordy finally caught on, going over to grab the correct tool! But… another game of Keep Away ensued! Nat got out of the way of the chaotic chase that happened next, opting to close her diary, the ink on the pages now dry, and take it, her inkwell, and her cherrywood quill case back upstairs to her office to place them where they go. When she returned, the chase was still on, but now less chaotic. Feeling she wasn’t too clumsy to help with this one, she pitched in once more, eventually teaming up to successfully corral the happy little pup. The “training” proceeded for much of the day, until all three were exhausted. Deciding to relax outside, much of the rest of the day was spent in the Krasarang Wilds just leisurely hiking and fishing for small fries in the small streams there. It was a perfect way to end the last day of Nat’s minication!
|
|
|
Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jun 2, 2022 16:23:54 GMT
June the Second Early morning sunlight streamed across the entrance to the newly excavated sublevel on the House-On-The-Spire, illuminating lingering dust that floated through the sunbeams. The sublevel was, as yet, empty, save for hanging planters dangling from the opening of the cave. The sublevel glowed with its own lighting from within, the fire magic depicting dwarves mining near lava streams and lava geysers, with a molten corgi in one area barking up at a far larger fire elemental. Between this and the sunbeams glowing only just outside, the sublevel needed no lamps. The opening of the cave itself faced Turtle Beach and the Krasarang Wilds, just across Turtle Bay.
The hole excavated into the side of the sheer cliff face of the spire rising out of the water was protected by an invisible arcane barrier, then camouflaged by illusion magic to appear as it always had, touches added by Nat to the excavation Celeste had done, so that the rock spire would appear as pristine and natural as it always had. The arcane barrier kept airborne critters out and would stop people, molten pups, and, soon, chickens, from falling out and off the cliff.
It was at this opening Celeste stood, planting seeds in this planter, an uprooted herb or three in that one, humming happily as she worked. Nat lay sprawled across the floor of the empty sublevel, her diary open in front of her, her cherrywood quill case and inkwell of purple ink open as well, her ravenfeather quill in her hand. Enjoying the cool of the interior rock floor in the encroaching summer, she was flipping to her next open page in her diary. Finding it, she dipped her quill in her inkwell, tapped off the excess, and applied quill tip to page.
Dear diary,
Gosh, what a fun week it’s been! I’ve gotten to travel all over with Celeste! It’s been a certain reversal of roles, really; usually I’m home with Celeste and I do my traveling with the Whitewind Company. But this week, we’ve been picking herbs and plucking plant seeds from all over Azeroth, and the Whitewind Company adventure was rather close to home! Isn’t that weird?
It started after a hearty breakfast of steak and eggs with seasoned potatoes and grilled peppers (Celeste decided to forego the spicy bits, but Dordy sure didn’t!). Turns out we needed that energy… Celeste’s plan was to fly the Flying Nosebleed all over creation! Dordy was really excited when she got out his aviator goggles. Goggles mean flying, and flying means adventure! Without room for two in the Flying Nosebleed, I piloted the MUTT along with, figuring to use its storage compartments in its torso to help carry cargo. We took it easy at first, just getting some local stuff. Any grassy area in Pandaria has green tea leaves, so that was simple. Rain poppies, silkweed, and sometimes fool’s cap we knew to be near water, right around rivers and lakes and such. Snow lilies only grow in high elevations with snowy weather, so we had to get up to the higher elevations of Kun-Lai Summit for those. I’m going to have to maintain frost spells on them if we want them to survive here in this jungle! A little luck was involved in our search as well – we even found a golden lotus out in the Townlong Steppes!
After that, it was portal work. Celeste had spent all weekend while I was at work delving deep into her mother Eowithiel’s old herbology journals, researching where to find what herbs for which potions and elixirs and such. We went to Elwynn Forest for peacebloom, easily located blossoming all over the forest floor. Silverleaf was found around the tree trunks of the great trees there, just like Eow had written. Earthroot was, sure enough, all over rocky rises and the little foothills of the mountains around the north and eastern part of the forest. We had to dive for stranglekelp off the coast of Westfall. Given its name, we’re deciding to enclose it in Turtle Bay with another invisible arcane barrier, not wanting it to spread and “strangle” the ecosystem down there. I dunno if that’s a real possibility or not, but why take the chance? Then Eow’s journal noted Mageroyal growing around the Redridge Mountains in lower elevations, in places with good sunlight. Briarthorn, often with swiftthistle, grows near trees and other large plants, like wild shrubbery and bushes. Wild Steelbloom takes the place of earthroot the further from Elwynn Forest you get, growing and blossoming bright yellow atop rocky rises like earthroot does. We found kingsblood in Stranglethorn Vale, growing in the sun. Eow said liferoot grows by rivers down there and in other regions, so we found that there too. Fadeleaf was harder – Eow had written that you really, really have to peer through other shrubbery to find it hiding in there. Coincidentally enough, that’s used for invisibility potions, just like liferoot is used for healing potions. Interesting stuff! Khadgar’s whisker grows near trees like silverleaf does, the further you get from Elwynn Forest. Goldthorn blossoms in the sun, and purple lotus is a rare find anywhere, but we got a couple of those as well! Ghost mushrooms grow in deep, dark, damp caves, more often closer to Lordaeron than to Stormwind City. Golden sansam can be found where earthroot and wild steelbloom grow, except in somewhat more barren areas. Sungrass grows in areas further from Stormwind as well, blooming in the sun. Blindweed and sorrowmoss dictated trips into the Swamp of Sorrows. Heat, humidity, and swarms of bugs, not to mention the potential for quicksand, made that one a pretty unappealing trip, but we got it! Grave moss can be found growing in graveyards. That was a spooky sort of trip in Duskwood, but one I’m not unfamiliar with making, having grown up there. We did have to immolate a few zombies, but that’s just life in Duskwood!
Some herbs that grow in the Eastern Kingdoms we didn’t have luck finding, so we went to Kalimdor, where another herb grows that is only found there: Gromsblood. Eow speculates that where Grom Heckscream – well, his real name is different from Heckscream… oh gosh… – anyway, Eow speculates that the herb began to grow where Grom’s corrupted blood (from when he drank the blood of Legion pit lord Mannoroth to empower himself to defeat Cenarius, but later spilled his blood when he and Mannoroth killed each other) spilled caused the growth of this strange herb. The herb spread from there. We also found mountain silversage growing on hills and mountainous rises, dreamfoil growing in the same areas, and one really odd black lotus.
Growing with Kun-Lai Summit’s snow lilies in the planters with frost spells on them are Northrend herbs like goldclover from grassy areas with bright sunlight, tiger lilies from watersides, Talandra’s rose and adder’s tongue, as well as Storm Peaks and Icecrown herbs like lichbloom, icethorn, and frost lotus, up in the coldest reaches of the frozen north. Boy, did we have to dress warm for that one!
That took all of Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday morning, we built and hung the planters, using the MUTT to harvest enough bamboo to build them, with more set aside for when we’re ready to build the henhouse for the chicken coop. The other continents of the world still await our attention, but for now, we have enough herbs to be starting up with! I can’t wait to see the finished project!
Then, when I was done Wednesday morning, I went to Stormwind for the afternoon. There I found my bestie Nah! She was wandering around when I bumped into her, and she decided to show me something new that has just been added into the city.
Heading toward the Stockades, we found a huuuuge stable, as though small drakes could fit in there! There was also some sort of cart filled with goods from all over, ranging from murloc plushies to a very expensive-looking and delicate Shal’dorei vase. A dwarven worker was there by the tree planter in the middle of that square, pounding a huge wooden peg into the cobblestone. At first I thought that the ice cream lady and her cart had been sent packing. That was sad! But then Nah showed me where she’d moved across the square, in that little corner between the Stockades and the ledge of that giant half-circle fountain going around Lion’s Rest. What a relief! WHEW! She’s still there, and just in time for summer, too!
As we were speculating on what it was all for – we think stables for something very, very large, along with some kind of huge new vendor coming in the future – we found a dwarven lady that seemed to be the boss. She told us of a worker that had ran off with some stolen goods down to the Stormwind Harbor. She paid Nah and I to go and make him bring them back. She said if he wouldn’t talk to us, we’d have to throw this briny seawater at him. GOSH!
Sure enough, we found a shady-looking Quel’dorei guy with a crate that looked like one of the dwarven lady’s crates. He was flat-out ignoring us, so Nah suggested I do the “honors.” I knew I wouldn’t be able to hit him even from the eight feet or so away with the bottle if I threw it, let alone shatter it on him, so I… I… I sort of went right up to it and smashed it over his head. Oh goodness! Sure enough, the guy dropped the crate and fled! We took the crate back to the dwarven lady, who had another job for us… smashing more bottles over three dwarven worker’s heads who were long, long overdue from their lunch breaks and were slacking off around the city. Nah and I got them too, and they were so shaken by the wrath of their dwarven boss lady, they were already back and working by the time we got there ourselves! The dwarven lady thanked us and paid us in gold for our services. That was nice!
After that my bestie and I decided to go for a hike. We passed through the Stormwind crowds and made our way out the gate, decided to hike the old Stormwind-Goldshire-Lakeshire-Darkshire-Sentinel Hill-Goldshire-Stormwind circle. We pointedly avoided Goldshire proper, electing to hike around the town so that we could give a wide berth to the regulars there. One thing is for sure: if even NAH finds someone a bit too wild, I DEFINITELY don’t want to be anywhere near them!
Outside of that, the trip was super enjoyable and relaxing. The view was scenic, the weather perfect, the breeze cool and pleasant. Nah and I were talking about the upcoming mission to Pandaria to follow up on our latest lead, the one that High Elder Cloudfall sent us on. He had sent Captain Brian Brine there, saying that that was the last place the young pandaren who had “followed the turtle” had been sighted when he had come back with the boots of the fabled armor of Princess Ariel Sunstrider, and the story of how the full suit of armor had been separated to prevent its heart-stirring, inspirational presence from falling into the hands of someone bent on conquering other nations. Nah and I were speculating on what we might find there, stuff like maybe old Mogu traps, or hostile people. I wasn’t so sure on either, as it was a public road, and somewhat well-traveled. I was more worried about things like rockslides or wild beasts. It wouldn’t do to get eaten, or crushed by an avalanche!
As we crossed into the Redridge Mountains, we found ourselves talking about our friend Mags. I showed her Grey Manor, where Mags lives, as we strolled through town, and the huge garden where Mags grows all her soap stuff. Lakeshire is such an epically beautiful little town! Mags and the rest of the citizens are so lucky to live there! We even went around the lake once after crossing the bridge, or at least, the end of the lake that Lakeshire sits beside, where Mags’ garden extends, though we made sure not to trespass without any of her or her family there. That was a really nice, scenic hike! After that, we headed back west, taking the fork southwest at Three Corners to continue our hike on to my hometown of Darkshire.
Darkshire was nice and cool and shady, albeit a bit gloomy and cobwebby. But, such is home for me! I’m used to it! Nah is used to Ashenvale, where she grew up, so she didn’t have an issue with the darkness either. The conversation during our hike turned to Nah’s own leads on the orc warrior that had slipped through our grasp a number of times. She has identified him as “Fendark,” an orc warrior of some renown among his own kind. Oh, if they only knew how many times he had fled battle to escape from us! Anyway, Nah says that the goblin we met in Gadgetzan in Tanaris a few months ago, Violet Spunkwhistle, will help us track the orc down and put an end to his threat to the Whitewind Company, and his abductions, for good!
When we went into Westfall, crossing over the really cool, spooky old covered bridge to exit the forest and go into the golden farmland, conversation turned from Violet’s help in finding the orc to the help Violet wanted from us. We all got a letter in the mail this week from Nah about it. Actually, I should make a copy here… the magic Aedie taught me when she was teaching me mage stuff should help make it quick. Just a spin on illusion magic…
Nat dropped her quill into her inkwell and stood up quickly, prompting Dordy to leap up from his snoozing, his tail wagging. He shook himself out, trotting after Nat. Celeste, in the zone, as usual, while she worked, didn’t seem to notice, still happily humming and churning the soil in one planter meticulously, as noted in her mother’s old journal. Nat sped up the two flights of stairs to the ground level, entering her office (careful not to actually run, knowing she’d just trip and probably just go rolling down the spiral staircase or something). She opened her flat, broad middle desk drawer, retrieving the letter from Nah and speeding back downstairs, Dordy following her up and down, looking excited, his tail wagging. When Nat sprawled back out on the floor and plucked her quill from her inkwell again, Dordy lost interest, sprawling out on the cool floor himself and returning to his snoozing.
Okay, this is the letter Nah wrote, a copy of it, anyway:
Dearest Whitewind associates,
HI! It's me, Nah, here to let you know of an interesting opportunity coming up this Tuesday evening. I will warn you, this -will- take place on Fizzle and Pozzik's Speedbarge in Thousand Needles, which is Neutral -at best-, but there is every likelihood that the Horde could be involved with this opportunity. Fair warning, in case you're of the disposition to shoot first, ask questions later.
Anyhow, this opportunity comes in the form of some interesting arrangements with Gadgetzan, primarily involving the addition of a second trade route to the Whitewind Company's repertoire, focused around a hypothetical second ship of ours. This supposed trade route would involve Gadgetzan, Booty Bay, Fuselight-By-The-Sea, and other neutral Goblin territories, all with some pretty risky piracy endeavors. But, in order to establish a reasonable connection to Gadgetzan - and therefore to Kalimdor - we're being tasked by one Violet Spunkwhistle to do a bit of... infiltration.
See, Violet Spunkwhistle is fascinated by Fizzle Brassbolts' and Pozzik's Speedbarge, such that she would like a copy - or photograph - of the blueprints of the Speedbarge itself, which are supposedly in the shared hands of Fizzle and Pozzik. Failing that, she is perfectly fine with taking some photographs of some of the ship's restricted areas, such as the engine room, as well as photographs of any mechanisms used to propel the ship, among other things.
If we're successful, she claims that she'll allow us to visit her own Speedbarge anytime we'd like, be it for parties or if we just miss her that much, hehe. Well, provided she finds the resources, crewmembers, and the like involved with something so monumental. Of course, she'll also bend the ears of the neutral Goblins at Gadgetzan to allow our ship(s) to dock there and resupply as necessary. We get access to an additional trade route - albeit a risky one - and she gets a chance to make her own Speedbarge.
Of course, this isn't time-sensitive or anything of the sort; if this upcoming Tuesday won't cut it, then next week would also do; really anytime would work, so long as it was soon-ish. Oh, and I'm been informed that Spunkwhistle has also been asking members of the Horde to assist as well. Mostly Kezani Goblins, Vulpera, and anyone with a brain, so, again, fair warning to those that wish to venture to this Speedbarge. This isn't meant as an excuse to fight the Horde, mind you; we're already knee-deep in Alliance-Horde controversy thanks to the orc named Fendark, more on him later. Point is; if you come, it's a stealth mission, and I highly recommend some patience with regards to the locals there; the Speedbarge hosts both Goblins and Gnomes, after all.
Sincerely, Lady Nah, Chief Executive Officer of the Whitewind Company
P.S: Blah, blah, blah, the jargon I have to spit out is insane.
The contents of the letter and the conversation we had as we hiked through Westfall make be think that I will likely be sitting this one out. I am certainly too much of a liability in this one! First, my deep loathing of the horde usually causes me to be cold and… unkind in the things I say. I’d personally rather battle them than befriend them. Secondly, with all the infiltration Nah says will be going along as they steal the blueprints and whatnot, I’d be a bad fit, as clumsy as I am. I think I will definitely need to find someone to send in my place! Hopefully that all goes well!
Everything was small talk by the time we reentered Elwynn Forest, and Nah was talking about napping by the time we reached (and gave another wide berth to) Goldshire. I walked Nah back home, or nearly there, where she then poofed for a nap. I wish I could just poof like she does! Anyway, I went back home from there, as it’s close to where our mission was going to be, to prepare.
A few hours later, I was at the foot of the Veiled Stair, or, depending on who you ask, the Path of a Hundred Steps. Tess flew in not long after, and then Mairy. Nah arrived last, looking a bit bleary-eyed still from her nap. What we were NOT expecting, however, was a pandaren there at the bottom of the stairs, dressed as a Valley of the Four Winds civilian, smiling at us.
The young pandaren introduced himself as Chun Sam Li, which instantly made the group suspicious. Nah asked what kinda pandaren name Sam was, and he said Halfhill farmers usually have such names, just like old Mister Mudclaw, leader of the Farmer’s Union. Then he said he was sent there by the High Elder over at Tian Monastery to guide us. I hadn’t expected that, as High Elder Cloudfall hadn’t told us he’d send us a guide. That was a nice surprise from him!
Ol’ Sam led us up the stair from there, and it wasn’t long before Mairy and I were huffing and puffing and complaining about the stairs. Mairy said she missed flying, which secretly makes me believe even more that something awful has happened to Twitchtail… poor Twitchtail! Poor Mairy! She still wasn’t telling, however, so I didn’t press. Fortunately, whether by Sam’s guidance or by the sheer unlikelihood of it ever happening, we ran into no bandits or ancient Mogu traps, and, soon enough, it was finally over! The stairs ended, and we ran into less steep sloping paths to finish making our way up the mountain. A wild goat bleated at me, which was weird, so I bleated at it back. That made Nah snicker and start cracking goat jokes at me, which was entertaining enough to take my mind off of how tired I was from the climb. Then it got to the point where even the athletic Nah was wishing for a tavern to take a break in!
Well, she got her wish! We finally, at long last, found our way to the top of the stair, where the old Tavern in the Mists still stands. There we had milk tea from the innkeeper, and Mairy even found a natural hot spring behind the tavern, where two massive pandaren guys were relaxing. With the steam it was giving off, no wonder this tavern was called the Tavern in the Mists! Ha! Mairy got in herself, laying back on the bank with her feet in the water, seeming to take a nap. It looked like Nah, Tess, and I were going to be doing the investigating!
Nah was chatting up the innkeeper, and Tess and I were talking to an old middle-aged pandaren guard who looked settled in to a degree that suggested he’d been posted here a very long time. Nah knew enough of history and such to engage to innkeeper alone, but Tess, the Kaldorei woman who’d been stranded at Exile’s Reach with the ogres for several decades, had missed the myriad events of the last century here on Azeroth, and would need my help.
Tess and I discovered that the guard had, indeed, been posted here for a long time. Tess asked him if he remembered a man with a crew who might have passed through here roughly a decade ago, a Kul Tiran captain named Brian Brine. The name did, in fact, seem to ring a bell with the old guard, and he says he remembers the man passing through here, saying nothing more than that he was making for Kun-Lai Summit, though he wouldn’t speak a word on the nature of his journey there, and neither would his crew.
Nah had been asking the innkeeper for more recent things, asking if the innkeeper had heard any interesting rumors in the area recently. The innkeeper began to give Nah local news of grummle traders, yaungol raids on Binan Village just on the other side of the mountain from the Tavern in the Mists, someone being paid a remarkable sum – three gold coins! – by the Black Market Auction House for some old journal picked up in Greenstone Village near Sri-La Village in the Jade Forest, in which the writer seemed to be speaking of traveling from Kul Tiras to seek treasure, more rumors of grummle traders wanting to sell yaks, and a story from Halfhill Market about a human couple that had excavated a second sublevel out of their house on a rock spire in Turtle Bay that had made quite a bit of noise for some days, though they’d made up for it with their neighbors with a grand party and feast for their local friends, and lastly, news of Pandaren Masters of the Ways having a cook-off in Halfhill Market in which the level of competition was producing dishes fit for monarchs!
Nah, Tess, and I thanked our interviewees and went looking for Mairy. When we found her borderline napping with her feet in the hot tub, I was just started to speak to her to wake her up when Tess, ever as subtle as a frying pan to the head, decided to wordlessly upend one of her waterskins over Mairy’s face! The testy Wildhammer dwarf was on her feet in an instant, ready to fight, but she soon calmed when she found out we were on the right trail. A journal in the Black Market, and news of Captain Brine having been on his way to Kun-Lai Summit!
Through all this, our guide, Chun Sam Li, had sat quietly in a corner, drinking milk tea as well, paying close attention to both conversations, but now was on his feet again, ready to guide us onward. Sam led us from there to find the Black Market Auction House, a shady set-up originally founded by Madame Goya, who has since moved to more lucrative locations. The remaining pandaren here still had a selection of various odds and ends, an exotic pet, and a few grandiose-looking bits of random armor pieces (though none of these were the boots of Princess Ariel’s armor suit). Also, sure enough, they had a sea-green leather-bound journal with a big anchor made of monelite (a Kul Tiran metal) embossed on the front! It had surely been a fine-looking thing in its prime, a journal fit for a captain in the Kul Tiran navy!
What we hadn’t expected was another bidder. Some pandaren farmer-looking guy walked in, saw how excited we were over the journal, and picked up that it was essentially a route to treasure. Wanting a fortune for himself, he bid on it, taking up the auctioneer’s opening declaration of one hundred gold… GOSH! They only paid three gold for the thing! These black market guys! Seriously! Anyway, the pandaren farmer and Nah bid back and forth, and the higher Nah went, the more nervous the poor Pandaren looked. Finally, after Nah bid a hundred and twelve gold, he blurted out that the bidding was nearing his life savings, and soon after, he jumped up from one gold increases to almost a ten gold increase, bidding one hundred twenty-two gold and some silver and copper change! It was a very specific amount, so I guess he’d just bid his life savings! Nah outbid him with a single old piece once more, and the auctioneer went once, twice, and then SOLD! to Nah! The farmer trudged out, disappointed, but vowed to be back with his savings once more someday soon. The auctioneer turned and gave the journal to Nah, who turned to me with that signature mischievous smirk of hers, and asked me to pay up. She better believe I’m getting reimbursed for this, though! This was a Whitewind Company purchase, after all!
Sam, who had waited outside the for the entire affair, began to look even shiftier than when we’d first met him at the bottom of the Veiled Stair. He said we’d likely want to get to a nice, quiet place, free of all these eyes and ears, as quick as we could, so that we could read the journal without eavesdroppers getting leads of their own. The group was even more suspicious of him now, but we went along with it.
Sam’s biggest mistake was his next mention of the High Elder. High Elder Wong, he called him. That brought to mind the blushworthy joke Mairy had made last week, calling Wong “Long Dong Rong,” which I’ve since been enlightened to the nature of (something I could have done without learning!). Mairy remembered the joke too… and remembered that Wong was the name of “that sparrin’ lad,” not the High Elder! The High Elder’s name had been Cloudfall! Tess was all for shooting him on the spot, and indeed, had an arrow nocked to her bow and was ready to shoot him right in the eyeball or something! Sam kept spluttering and trying to correct his mistake, but was only digging his hole deeper. In the end, right before Nah or Mairy could pounce, he did a FLIP RIGHT OVER OUR HEADS! He took off up the path, making for Kun-Lai Summit, shouting something about how he’d gotten the clues from Captain Brine’s sunken ship fair and square, and how, without them, we’d never have enough in the journal to pinpoint the location of the boots, and how he’d soon have the journal too!
We took off after him, of course, or at least, Tess and Mairy did. I was just standing there blushing, knowing how I couldn’t run or I’d fall down. Nah, knowing me well, shapeshifted to deer form, lying down for me to mount up. Next thing I know, I’m flying right up the hill, soon catching Mairy, Tess, and Tess’s spirit wolf Palattu! They were able to trip the pandaren up, and attacked! Mairy went for a few punches, Tess ordered Palattu to do some kind of spirit wolf bite that reduced the pandaren’s ability to defend himself, Nah darted forward to get the guy right in the face with her hooves, and I had a wild imp and my succubus, Myrlia out, with the latter attempting to use her various forms of restraint to stop the guy fleeing. No good! Even a bit beaten up, Sam fled further up the path!
We reached a calm water that was nonetheless very close to the top of a waterfall, and two boats. It was very clear what Sam’s plan was then! Mairy darted forward with her sword, slashing the ropes that held the boats, and the water slowly but surely pulled them toward the waterfall, and down they went! Nah got the guy with another hoof, I had Myrlia shackle the guy with one of her chains and leather cuffs (I hate how much how that fel show-off has restraints just like Nah sometimes jokes about using for… for… oh, GOSH…), and Tess had Palattu give the guy a REAL bite this time. But, Sam, beaten up a bit more now, was still able to knife-hand chop the shackles on his left ankle, and, sans boats, he dived right into the water! Even swimming upstream, he was able to follow the river right into the cave it was flowing out of. The rest of us dived in as well. I may not be able to run without falling down, but by golly, I can swim fast! Though still, it wasn’t nearly as fast as the athletic Kaldorei Tessina, or the even faster druidic dolphin form Nah uses in the water. Mairy, however, kept to the left bank, running alongside us.
The dark gloom of the cave and the rushing water of the subterranean river did not work well for us… we LOST him! No one was able to see which way he went when we came to a branch of the river that went off to our right. Had he gone straight, or had he gone right? Good thing Mairy is a Wildhammer shaman! She bent down, touching the water, asking the spirits of the water to reveal his location to us. The waters obliged, and Mairy announced that he had headed down the branch to the right!
We took off that way, blessedly able to swim downstream this way instead of up. When we reached the light at the end of the tunnel, we caught up to him, pulling himself out of the water as it ended in a broad flood of knee-deep water with lots of lily pads floating on it, a high cliff at its edge. The battle resumed, with another defense-reducing spirit bite from Palattu, more flying fists and feet from Mairy, and another crack of the whip from Myrlia, but the guy fled again, even as hurt as he was!
When we emerged from the dark gloom of the cave and into the bright sunlight in the shallow pond, we discovered that he’d disappeared by the time our eyes adjusted to the light. Tess, however, with her sharp Kaldorei ears, heard footsteps on wooden stairs and then on land… coming from above us! We looked high up in the air, and found Sam running up a wooden staircase that led from rock spire to rock spire, climbing ever higher up the surrounding cliffs. We took off after him, me astride Nah’s deer form again, and eventually caught up to him on an incredibly long, gently sloping bridge that seemed to be headed toward a ledge that extended deep into the cliffs, a few hawks flitting about over it. The fight resumed once again!
By this time, I was irate enough that I forgot about my fel minions completely and ran right at him for a punch! Dumb move! Clumsy as I am, I WHIFFED! My momentum carried me a full three-sixty, and RIGHT OFF THE BRIDGE! I fell further and further and further, feeling my fall somehow slowed, until I landed gently in the shallow pond… HUNDREDS OF FEET BELOW! Thank the LIGHT for Maya’s birthday present! The F.A.D., or Falling Avoidance Device, that she’d had Sparkles make for me had been sort of an embarrassing gag gift, but boy, it sure came through this time! I could hear my bestie’s frantic shouting down the cliff to me, so I figured I’d better get back up there and let her know I was okay, let along get back up there to help my friends capture Sam! Reluctant though I was to bring yet another fel minion into their presence, I summoned Enkil-Belan, my dreadsteed. The felfire-bathed warhorse with its twin horns bore me quickly up the mountain to my friends, and Sam, who was telling us they’d never stop Sam “The Kite” from acquiring his prize. Next thing I know, Mairy is beseeching the elemental spirits of the air to blow him off the bridge right after me, with a gale-force wind! Sure enough, Sam was swept off the bridge… Only to show us why he bears the nickname “The Kite!” A pandaren kite folded into place as he fell, and he glided gently away from us, sailing a long distance to the cliff at the edge of the pond below, and circling around the mountain towering high above it, to its left, and out of sight. He’d escaped all the way this time!
”Awww, REALLY?!” my bestie Nah griped, and the rest of us certainly echoed her sentiments. He’d gotten away with whatever he’d salvaged from the sunken Tidemaiden in Sri-La Village, but at least he hadn’t gotten Captain Brine’s journal!
We made our way up to the ledge where Sam was retreating to, where the bridge and stairs came to an abrupt end. Sam had been making his way as quick as he could to this obvious dead end, and we wanted to know why.
When we got there, we found out.
There was a family of pandaren here, and they looked just like him! Same style of dress, and, more telling, same features! The first pandaren we saw had the same eyes, and the same brown patches around his eyes. There was another pandaren behind one of the two buildings here, balancing on one foot atop a narrow wooden post, that could have been Sam’s twin! This must have been his family, and his home!
The one with Sam’s eyes and eye patches was building… a boat? Atop a mountain? That confused us, but we let it go. We asked if he knew the guy who had been yelling as he glided away. He did recognize the voice, dropping his hammer and turning to face us, sighing heavily. Apparently, the pandaren we knew as Chun Sam Li had been born Chun Wong Li, in this very village! He’d gone to “follow the turtle,” the seldom-pursued course of the usually tranquil, home-loving pandaren, and met a girl named Sam in the Eastern Kingdoms somewhere. He’d fallen deeply in love with her, but she had jilted him. Sam, deeply smitten and deeply heartbroken, had apparently tried and tried to pursue her, but she refused him at every turn. Chun Wong Li vowed then that he’d make something of himself, returning rich and famous to win her hand. It was then that he’d taken her name for his own, learning that it was a common male’s name, though short for Samantha. The uncle told us then that Wong had heard rumors of a group pursuing a long-lost treasure, a priceless suit of armor belonging to an ancient Quel’dorei princess. Tracking our efforts to the Tian Monastery, he’d begun to follow us, against his family’s wishes. Wong had brought deep shame with continual swindling and petty misdeeds ever since he'd met Sam, the uncle told us. It was his desire for fame and fortune – for Sam’s heart, really – that led him to mislead us at the foot of the Path of a Hundred Steps, and now, he would stop at nothing to achieve the goal ahead of us!
Poor Chun Wong Li… Yet, his actions are inexcusable. Heartbreaking unrequited love or not, he should not have done as he did. Nor can we allow the plate armor of Princess Ariel Sunstrider to end up in the hands of someone so desperate! We have to get there before him!
The uncle’s parting words were of Wong having said something about spending a week after today’s excursion camped out with grummles in some kind of yak farm in Kun-Lai Summit. I know the place; that’s where I bought a Grand Expedition Yak for Celeste and I! Next week’s mission will be to head there and catch him as he emerges! We thanked Wong’s uncle, who had introduced himself as Chun San Wo, and started heading home, our night’s mission now over.
Next week’s mission should get us pretty far! I have a feeling we’re really closing in on the end of this part of our campaign to assemble the armor and get it someplace safer! We got this!
Next week will also be either more herb-searching on more continents, assembling the chicken coop, or both! I can’t wait for that either! I had fun adventuring with Celeste Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday morning too! The new sublevel is gonna look so cool when we’re done! YAY!
Nat tapped off the excess purple ink from her quill tip into her inkwell with a smile, capping the latter and putting the former in its cherrywood quill case. She closed that up as well, then rose to her feet, where Celeste was now ready to withdraw the frozen herbs of Northrend from the enchanted frosty cooler they were stored in. Nat cast a lingering frost spell on the planters, dropping the temperature to a little below freezing on some, a little above freezing on others. The frozen planters began to slowly form frost crystals from the humidity of the jungle air. Celeste began preparing both sorts of planters for planting, tilling the soil with her fingers. As Celeste followed her mother’s journal’s instructions, Nat went back to her diary, closing it up now that the ink on the pages was dry. She took it upstairs to her office, along with her quill case and inkwell, putting everything where it goes, then returned downstairs, Dordy again following along, tail wagging.
Nat returned to help Celeste moments later, taking over for the frozen planters as she enjoyed the cold much more than Celeste did. Celeste took the chilled planters, and both worked to till up the soil. Nat transferred the seeds from the cooler to the planters, each one according to Eow’s instructions, placing them atop the soil while Celeste warmed herself up inside her fire shield for a moment. When all the seeds were in place, Celeste emerged from her fire shield, then began making the little holes for the seeds, again, each one according to Eow’s instructions. That finished, they moved away from the frigid little corner of the hanging planters, warming up with their still-steaming coffee that Celeste always easily kept heated.
Warmed now, they moved on to the easier herbs. Some soil was rockier than others, some drier, as each planter was designed to meet the conditions for each herb that Eow had detailed. This work went easier, as did the rest of the day, which ended in a pleasant evening fishing excursion to the Jade Forest, followed by a meal in Paw’don Village, accompanied by Dordy and their friend Penny the Mechagnome, in from her daily work at their farm in Halfhill. All in all, it was a nice, pleasant, relaxing way to end up a rousing adventure of a minication!
|
|
|
Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jun 9, 2022 12:20:24 GMT
June the Ninth A cool breeze blew gently through amber waves of grain, alleviating the heat of the summer sun and bringing with it the rich, earthy smell of vast spreads of farmland. All was quiet, save for the odd cluck of one of the chickens in the cage and the occasional creak of a windmill. Birds flitted through the air, and, in the distance, a wild boar could be seen grazing on wild wheat as well. Some way away, a narrow road, lined with short stretches of wooden fencing here and there and overgrown with wild wheat along the edges, sometimes bore a traveling adventurer or an armed militia fighter of the Westfall Brigade.
In a clearing (fresh-made from Nosebleed the direhorn’s stomping about and wild wheat feasting) near the Saldean farmstead was spread Nat’s picnic blanket, the purple one with the patches of fish, sea turtles, and fishing rods, and what seems to have been a skull-shaped patch that had casually and unceremoniously been ripped off. On it sat an empty picnic basket and a small sack containing a bit of trash from a meal. Laying across it was Nat, with an open diary, inkwell of purple ink, and cherrywood quill cast in front of her. Off to one side, Celeste lay back on one of Nosebleed’s massive legs, the ever-docile direhorn remaining still for so long as he munched lazily on wild wheat that Celeste was actually napping against him, the straw hat she wore for the trip pulled low over her face to keep the sun out as she slept off the food coma from a heavy lunch. Nosebleed himself wore an enormous straw hat, which still drew giggles from Nat. Next to Celeste was Dordy, a straw hat of his own fitted onto his head. The molten corgi was napping as well, though he repeatedly leapt to his feet to excitedly investigate any nearby noises or smells. Onyx was visible, high in the sky, riding the summer’s warm thermals, though he had steadfastly refused a straw hat of his own when Nat tried to test hers out on his head. Still, he looked as peaceful as Nat felt, soaring around, wings outstretched, almost seeming to be napping himself up there.
Nat smiled over (and up) at her little family from under her own straw hat, relishing the peaceful moment after another quiet giggle at Dordy and Nosebleed’s straw hats. She felt like a nap herself after lunch, but first, she wanted to get her diary post done. Ravenfeather quill in hand, she dipped the tip into her inkwell, tapped off the excess ink, and applied quill tip to diary page.
Dear diary,
Well, it’s been a slow, slow week. Nah had that infiltration of the Speedbarge planned in Thousand Needles Tuesday evening, but, due to a lack of personnel, she had to cancel it and reschedule it for next week instead. Then the Whitewind Company expedition to go track down Chun Wong Li, alias Chun Sam “The Kite” Li, got rescheduled for next week as well. In short, almost nothing has happened this week, which has been a real bummer!
I say almost nothing, because Celeste did have a great trip for us planned for today! It’s time to go to Westfall and get CHICKENS! I was excited for the trip all day yesterday, and so was Celeste, weaving us all straw hats to look the part… Dordy included! She fitted a straw hat to his fiery, fuzzy head, and HE LOOKS SO STINKIN’ CUTE! And Nosebleed looks HILARIOUS in his! When Celeste finished the hat big enough for his enormous noggin and fitted it onto him, he looked SO ridiculous! Celeste looked at me, and I looked at Celeste, and we both looked at Nosebleed, standing there all Nosebleed-docile-like in his straw hat, staring at us with that vacant expression, and we just busted out laughing like so hard!
Anyway, we teleported to my anchor spot for teleports near my house in Darkshire, where we got to visit Darkshire friends and say hi only briefly to my father, as he was working, but always seems to be as happy to see Celeste as he is to see me! The ride west on Nosebleed and Onyx, who never seems mind a good run on a road, was dark and cool and uneventful. Then we got to cross that cool, spooky covered bridge, and we burst into Westfall, the sun on our faces, amber waves of grain billowing all around use, and grassland wildlife spotted here and there. We took the fork in the road from there north, making our way through and beyond Sentinel Hill, finding Farmer Saldean and his wife Salma, from whom Darkshire buys most of our poultry, eggs, and grain. He taught us a lot about raising and caring for chickens, and even taught us a few new recipes for chicken and eggs! We bought three chickens from him, as well as some wheat to try and bake our own homemade bread! That’ll be fun! And tasty!
After that, we made our way to other farms, as Celeste wanted to see if any other farmers would have other tips Saldean might not know, or at least forgot. Farmer Furlbrow, up north at his pumpkin farm, taught us a few extra tips to discourage predatory birds and coyotes (the latter of which we don’t need to worry about at the House-On-The-Spire) from getting into our chickens, involving scarecrows with lightweight aluminum pie pans that blow around and make a racket in the wind, which scares critters off. We also bought a few hand-crafted burlap sacks from him, great for carrying and storing grain! We already have giant Mogu pumpkins at the farm in Halfhill, so we didn’t buy a pumpkin. From the Molsen farmstead, we bought this tiny version of a harvester golem, which Dordy is going to LOVE chasing around, just like Celeste’s tiny voodoo figurine she found last year! We learned about windmills at the old Alexston farmstead, and Celeste even bought schematics for one from them, just in case she wants to install one at our farm at some point. The old Demont place never really got rebuilt after the whole Defias debacle, so we couldn’t learn or purchase new things about chicken care there. Daphne Stilwell still has her little beachfront apple orchard on the cliff past the Dagger Hills and Deadmines, and taught us how to build a chicken coop that is super secure and will keep bugs out, even, but that the chickens can push their way out of when you unlock a little swinging door, hinged at the top corners, near the floor, if they feel like roaming around and you unlock it to let them get in and out. We bought apples from her to supplement the picnic we had planned. They were super tasty! I wish the Dead Acre, the farm near that cool, spooky covered bridge coming out of Duskwood, would get replanted. That one got burned by the Defias and has been empty and overgrown ever since. We probably could have learned and bought cool stuff from there and the old Demont place both!
After that, we returned to the Saldean farmstead, where Nosebleed had knocked down some wild wheat growing outside the Saldean property. We can see the east-west road and the north-south road forking from here, where the road comes west out of Elwynn Forest. I spread out my old picnic blanket here, and we had a picnic of really tasty thin-sliced yak steak sandwiches, with cheese made in Halfhill, and some of our own veggies from our own farm! Then of course Daphne Stilwell’s apples, and to drink, one of Uncle Rugnar’s favorite Dwarven stouts that he gets from Bruuk’s Corner, the tavern right near his Ironforge home that we used to all play Deathrolls at (I miss Deathrolls!). The picnic was so tasty, and the weather was so pleasant, that we are now all sleepy! I think I’ll relax for a little nap myself!
I wish I had more to write. This is such a short entry! But nothing else has happened this week, aside from a few really fun hangouts with my bestie Nah in Stormwind, sitting at the Lamb or walking around the city and talking and laughing. Outside of that, it’s been one of those super slow weeks. But, that’s okay! We have a lot planned for next week! That’ll be fun! I can’t wait!
Nat smiled sleepily, her excitement for the coming week already mounting. She tapped off the excess ink from her quill tip into her inkwell, capping that and replacing her quill in her quill case. She sipped at her Dwarven stout, finishing it off slowly as she idly watched a beetle crawling along the stalk of a trampled bit of wild grain. Knowing this area, the grain would straighten itself out in a few days, and the evidence of Nosebleed’s feeding frenzy would be gone. Nat finished off her stout, blinking drowsily. The peaceful calm of Westfall, the warm sun, and the pleasant breeze were conspiring with Nat’s lunch to send her off to sleep just like Celeste and Dordy. She closed her black leather-bound diary, the ink on the pages now dry, replacing it in her pack, along with her inkwell of purple ink and her cherrywood quill case. Remaining in place on the picnic blanket, she rolled over onto her back, did a Celeste with her straw hat, pulling it low over her face, crossed her arms behind her head for a pillow, and drifted off to sleep. Now this… this was living!
|
|