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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jun 16, 2022 15:56:05 GMT
June the Sixteenth An invisible arcane barrier over the opening of a man-made cave did nothing to keep the pleasant morning breeze of Turtle Bay out, nor the sounds of a jungle beach morning, being designed specifically to keep chickens and other beings safe from falling out, and to prevent rain, predatory birds, flying insects, and other beings from entering. The calls of many tropical birds, the sound of a boat with a motor somewhere off in the distance, and the quiet sounds of the denizens of Anglers Wharf could be heard through the barrier, however, providing a pleasant ambience to the new, lowest sublevel of the House-On-The-Spire.
Adding to the ambience was the happy humming of Celeste McCullough as she worked, sorting out bamboo and other materials, arranging them in a certain way on the floor, looking very much like she was about to build something. Across the room from her was Nat, sprawled on the floor like Celeste’s building materials, but out of the way, her diary, inkwell of purple ink, and cherrywood quill case open before her. Noticeably missing was Dordy, the molten corgi nowhere in sight for once, though the two women did not seem troubled by this fact.
Nat was busy with her diary, dipping her ravenfeather quill into her inkwell and tapping off the excess before beginning to write, while Celeste rummaged about in her toolbox, collecting the tools she anticipated using for her task. Applying her quill tip to the pages before her, Nat began her week’s entry, looking exhausted but quite content.
Dear diary,
Well, I may have had pretty much nothing last week, but boy, I’ve got some stuff for this week!
First off… DEATHROLLS might be starting back up!
I came across my bestie Nah in Stormwind on Tuesday afternoon! We were trying to figure something fun to do, and decided to go on a hike again. We went the opposite direction of our last hike this time, opting to go from Stormwind to Goldshire (avoiding the town proper, wanting to get like, not creeped on by the people who hang out there) to Sentinel Hill to Darkshire to Lakeshire to not-Goldshire and back to Stormwind again. While we walked, we were still thinking of fun things to do. As it turns out, we BOTH miss Deathrolls! The rest of our usual group still seems to avoid conversation on it, which tells us they’re still largely burned out on it, but Nah is convinced we can find new players in Stormwind. I sure hope she’s right! I wanna play again!
A funny thing happened as we approached Sentinel Hill, though. We had a surprise visitor that told us there were horde in Duskwood, and that they had attacked a few Night Watch before fleeing! It seems it was a trio of Forsaken. One male and two females. As we were heading that direction ourselves, we agreed to keep an eye out for them and deal with them if we caught them.
The rest of the trip southward through Westfall passed without incident, and talk returned to Deathrolls. We figured we could get players if we asked around, but we’re in disagreement on how to go about it. Nah wants to simply just start up a game right in the city, but there’s a reason I always leave the city to play. When the taverns get crowded, you soon find yourself with like eighteen people or something that wanna come and play, and that’s like four or five times the number of players one should have for a game, as the more people you have present, the lower the chances are of any one player getting in on any of the action from one round to the next. Four or five is usually the sweet spot for a game. Getting like twenty crowding the table is too much! The other reason is that you can’t be selective of who comes if you’re playing where everyone can see you, and that’s when you end up seating people who have the worst of the worst of the worst of gutterminds, and the game becomes awful and nasty really fast! So I was trying to convince Nah that we should just ask around and find some a more mature sort of people to take to one of our usual game sites, like the Salty Sailor in Booty Bay or something.
It was around this point that we reached the cool, spooky covered bridge that crosses the river dividing Westfall and Duskwood. I love that bridge! We went in, and I was looking over the sides at the river and stuff, when suddenly, there was noise on the road ahead of us! Nah led the way quickly across the rest of the bridge so we could duck out of sight on the bush to the right side on the Duskwood end. Sure enough, there were three Forsaken coming down the road! And the intel we received was right; two females, one male! They were arguing about how to get to the Deadmines, with the male talking about going south after the bridge, which Nah and I know would just lead them right into the cliffs lining the southern border of the region and dividing it from Stranglethorn Vale. What a goof! HA!
Nah slipped out one of her throwing daggers at that point, not wanting to wait and see what mischief against the Alliance they had planned besides attacking Night Watch in Duskwood, and not wanting to allow them to reach whatever they had planned in the Deadmines. She threw the dagger, catching the male full in the chest! That sure stirred up the hornet’s nest! Good thing they didn’t know where we were, because they all had rifles! They were firing them haphazardly in every direction, but they still didn’t know where we were! Nah was still moving around and attacking from stealth, but I can’t sneak at all… The only option I could think of was to summon the one single minion I had that can stealth… Myrlia, my succubus. I really don’t like her very much… such an unsubtle show-off flirt! But, I didn’t want to leave Nah to deal with all three of them herself, so I summoned her from my hiding spot in the bushes and sent her off to ambush the one at the far back, so she could strike a time or three before the other two turned to see what was going on behind them. Myrlia, ever pleased at the chance to inflict pain upon a victim, proceeded to her spot as ordered, then popped in out of nowhere to attack the female at the back with her whip. By then, Nah’s relentless, stealthy strikes were already having great effect, and Myrlia was able to hold their attention long enough for my bestie to finish them off. They sure won’t be causing any mischief around here! I gave the next Night Watch I saw their location so the bodies could be burned before they could reanimate or something, and Nah and I set off back down the path again.
We were able to relax some after that, settling back in to our Deathrolls talk. We still haven’t reached a consensus about how to go about rebuilding a Deathrolls group, but I’m sure we will. We were still figuring it out as we passed through Darkshire, strolling on toward Lakeshire for a nice walk around the lake. We found a few people hanging out in the inn in Lakeshire, but they appeared to be having a rather private conversation, so we left and resumed our walk around the lake. Talk turned to a variety of other small-talk topics after that, and our walk through Elwynn Forest was pleasant. Nah wanted to avoid Goldshire again, and I did too, but she didn’t want to swim Crystal Lake, so I conjured a fel gateway that whisked us away to a central island near Goldshire, then another to get us to the shore on the other side, and then one more to cross the creek running down the gentle slope to the lake. From there, we found our way to the road into Stormwind, and by then, it was getting to be dinner time, so we went back to our homes for food. Outside of the run-in with the Forsaken, it was a really pleasant outing! I love hiking with my bestie!
Nat looked up with a stretch and a happy sigh. Celeste now had her bamboo measured and cut, and was now arranging it in place. Nat could see from here where it was going to go; a bamboo ramp on the far wall from the spiral staircase would lead up to a roosting platform, each supported with bamboo poles running diagonally outward and upward from the wall to the outer edge of the underside of the platform. Smiling fondly at Celeste’s simple but ingenious design, she watched for a while longer, then returned to her writing.
Another thing that happened is Celeste gathering bamboo with the MUTT for a chicken roost, rather than coop (being inside the Spire with an arcane barrier in place precludes the necessity of a chicken coop to protect them from birds and foxes) while I was at work this past weekend! She harvested from the bamboo rapidly encroaching on farmland from the border of the Jade Forest again, culling a threat rather than deforesting it in its natural place in the jungle to the east, so that’s always good. The chickens are in need of a good roost, too, instead of just running loose all over the new sublevel or else being cooped up in the cages we bought them in, so they’ll be happy to have a proper roost to nest in, in a comfortable, safe environment. Right now, she’s arranging the building materials and is about to start the ramp that will lead up to the roosting platform. We had to put Dordy outside, though… every time Celeste went to pick up the end of a piece of bamboo to arrange it in place, Dordy would grab the other end and play Tug-of-War and mess it up! It was great fun for all three of us, but eventually, we knew he’d have to go find an adventure outside somewhere in the yard or find a shady spot to snooze for a while if Celeste was going to actually get anything done. Now she can!
Nat looked up once more. Celeste was now cutting lengths of strong, thin rope to measured lengths, which, Nat was sure, would be used for binding the bamboo poles together to help make them into a ramp and platform. Smiling again at Celeste’s resourcefulness, she returned again to her diary.
Then there was the Whitewind Company expedition last night. It turned out to be something rather urgent, as Chun Wong Li, AKA Chun Sam “The Kite” Li, whose uncle told us he’d be staying in the Grummle Bazaar in eastern Kun-Lai Summit (where they sell Grand Expedition Yaks to adventurers) near the Temple of the White Tiger, was on the move!
I’d gotten word that Sam had broken camp rather suddenly and had made his way directly west, traveling the Burlap Trail! So we all met up – me, my bestie Nah, Aediae (AKA "Star," a Lightforged Draenei frost mage I think I’ve written about before that works for the Company), Tess, and Zarshal, meeting in the Grummle Bazaar to pick up the trail of the elusive Chun Sam Li.
We mounted up as soon as we were all assembled, riding hard on our ground mounts, as we wanted to follow the trail closely enough to pick up signs of the passing of a pandaren. The trail being well-traveled by grummle conveys and mules, no pandaren tracks could be easily discerned, and no luck was had at our first stop, One Keg, either. It was just a grummle wanting to sell us luckydos, and he hadn’t even seen Sam at all! But, as One Keg is up in a nook that’s off the main road a bit, we figured Sam had simply skipped the little grummle village and the locals hadn’t been at the edge of town looking down at the road when he passed.
Riding hard on the trail due west, we soon came to a fork in the road. The fork was guarded by a pair of hozen, and boy were they rude! The hozen seemed to be intent on attacking at first, until they eventually realized there was only two of them and five of us, not to mention a very strange sort of wolf with one of the elves. Becoming more pragmatic, they offered to help us in exchange for not being smooshed, but for a price... their leader, the Ook of Dook, wanted entertainment! We'd have to "get in da Dooker Dome!" if they wanted to know where the "fat dooker" went!
We conceded, following the contentious monkey men onward, again going due west. Sure enough, we ended up in a big hozen village, with a rather sloppily-constructed dome of very thick bamboo that looks like a cheap version of the arena in Gadgetzan in Tanaris. Beyond that was the fiery-eyed statue of a monkey head, standing as tall as the Dooker Doom! Inside the dome itself was one of the biggest yetis we had ever seen! Overlooking it all was a rather important-looking hozen on a platform at the top. It was the Ook of Dook himself!
The Ook of Dook agreed to what the other hozen had said, that he wanted entertainment, and he wanted it now, and if we won the fight, he'd share his information. The fight ensued immediately, though it was super scary! Star, and Tess and I got smashed pretty hard by a great leap of the yeti onto them, but Tess’s spirit wolf Palattu and my wrathguard Mek-barash, along with Star's capable frost magic, Nah going nuts with her pistols, Tess shooting the poor beast's eyes with arrows, and Zarshal getting all stab-happy overwhelmed the creature. It collapsed, and the Ook of Dook called for a halt! He seemed really upset about his yeti, which he’d named Chomp Chomp, being hurt!
Not wanting his prize yeti killed, he gave us the information we wanted. The "fat dooker" had indeed been sighted, and had even been seized and thrown into the Dooker Dome! But, Sam had climbed the inside of the dome instead of fought! He had escaped with his kite once more, soaring away from the dome toward the road. The Ook of Dook didn't know which way he went, but that his "traveling guarders" would have seen.
We returned to the guards that had brought them, standing at the entrance to the village from the Burlap Trail. One said that Sam had gone south, though he was pointing directly west. The other said, "No, stupid, that not south, that east! Fat dooker go east!" but was pointing west as well. HA! The two didn't seem to have a solid grasp on the four points of a compass, but they did seem to be in agreement on their pointing; it seems that Sam had continued his western travel. The two "guarders" got into quite an argument over which direction that way was called, which soon devolved into an outright fistfight, with many "dook-lickers" and "ook-suckers" being screamed out. GOSH! We left the two hozen to beat each other senseless and proceeded due west, hearing the sounds of their screamed insults and flying fists for quite some time before it faded behind us.
We eventually came to another fork. The left fork went down a hill to a gate in The Wall, the massive structure erected to keep the mantid and yaungol out. The right fork led to a small camp with Shado-Pan guards. Figuring Sam would seek refuge instead of danger beyond the Wall, we took the right fork. The Shado-Pan guards confirmed a young pandaren had just come through not long before, though he seemed to be fleeing something. Informed by Nah that the pandaren was wanted for theft and swindling, the Shado-Pan allowed us to pass and give chase, informing us that the pandaren had sought refuge in the Shado-Pan Monastery. They also warned us of conflict bringing the sha, and that, though the monks of the Shado-Pan Monastery would work to contain any sha to appear, they did not interfere in the affairs of outsiders, so we would have no help from them with Sam!
We found ourselves climbing in elevation enough that we were going into snowy areas, now. That was quite uncomfortable in summer outfits! We soon reached the front gate of Shado-Pan Monastery, where a Commander Shen-Li greeted them as they shivered in the cold winds of the snow. I was getting pretty cold by this point, so I used my mithril charm bracelet to change into her cold weather gear, but the rest didn't seem to mind the cold as much. Zarshal in particular looked comfortable, his thick fur coat protecting him from exposure to the elements.
Commander Shen-Li said he was expecting them, that the guards had already informed them of their arrival. That really surprised me! I was so in awe of the speed in which the guards down the mountain had relayed the news, wondering aloud if the Shado-Pan were really so fast that they had gotten there ahead of us and left already, or if they used some kind of zen or chi meditation to connect with the Commander on a mental or spiritual plane to relay the news. The Commander had a good, hearty belly laugh at that, then told me that his people have simply learned from those beyond the mists, and held up a comms device with a grin. How embarrassing!
Nah had herself a good, hearty cackle at that herself, and, still chuckling, the commander allowed us through, grinning at me still, which made me pretty much non-stop blush. Gosh!
Once inside, the training of student monks was in evidence everywhere. One master confirmed, rather curtly, that Sam had, indeed, passed through there, but returned to teaching his students without giving further detail. Zarshal scented Sam, however, picking up the same scent he had a couple weeks before, last smelled when Sam was escaping the group on the cliff with his kite. Following Zarshal as he followed the scent further in, we continued our search.
Finding two monks beyond the next building, in the yard, balancing on the toes of one foot on a pair of posts, Nah saw one of them giving an especially nasty look toward a natural land ramp at the far end of the next training grounds, muttering about shady characters not even dressed in Shado-Pan gear. Nah didn't have to press him for details hard. He simply pointed, saying the young pandaren was still there! Sure enough, up at the top of the ramp, dressed in white cold-weather gear, there was Sam himself, looking off into the distance, and holding a wooden crate of Kul Tiran design, obviously still holding the clues he looted from the sunken Kul Tiran ship, the Tidemaiden!
Nah came up with a plan instantly. She and Zarshal would approach in stealth and, if he escaped with his kite, Star and I would be waiting for him, remaining at the bottom in the training grounds to capture him as he landed.
Zarshal and Nah climbed the ramp, sneaking up on his left and right side, respectively. Zarshal reached out to seize Sam's left arm, which he pulled away from... only to find himself turning and coming face-to-face with Nah's flintlock pistols, point-blank! Nah made her demands known… surrender the crate he looted from the Tidemaiden, stop trying to steal the journal we bought at the pandaren black market auction house, and leave us alone. Sam recognized her and Zarshal from a couple weeks previous, but, still determined to get Captain Brian Brine’s journal and prove his worthiness to his love in the Eastern Kingdoms, Sam backflipped over them both, and escaped into the next building!
Emerging from the other side and continuing along, we found Sam again as Star and I caught up, standing at the end of a swinging bridge he seemed terrified to set foot on. Star and I approached him cautiously, keeping his attention, while Nah and Zarshal stealthed to his other side before appearing. Surrounded, Sam backflipped into the air again, this time spreading his kite and riding it across the bridge, as the other end was significantly lower, allowing for a glider to be ridden down to it. He’d done it again!
When we caught up, however, Sam was stuck before the doors of the next building, trying to convince the guards to let him in and shut all of us out, but, just as Commander Shen-Li had said, they do not interfere in outside affairs! Sam would have to deal with us alone, even if that meant facing justice. Sam then noticed us converging on him once more. Determined not to let him escape this time, Star attempted a polymorph, but Sam did a monk roll through the snow, throwing a cloud of snow in Star's face and blocking her view of him, thus escaping the polymorph. Doggone trickster! Unfortunately for Sam, however, Nah hit him with a leg sweep next, holding him still enough for my Fear spell. Sam leaped to his feet, screaming in terror and fleeing back toward the bridge!
The Fear spell wore off there, and we had him covered in a half-circle around the swinging rope bridge he was so afraid to set foot on. Nah made a very convincing persuasion attempt to Sam to hand the Kul Tiran crate over, in exchange for her teaching him other ways to win the girl of his dreams over. But Sam was desperate, lovesick, and desperately lovesick. He was having none of it! He was about to attack or flee, but Star then made another polymorph attempt, this time succeeding!
Sam had been talking when Star polymorphed him into a black cat, saying, "I can't give you this box, and I WILL be taking that journal! I must prove myself to Sam! I WILL win the love of my MEOW!"
Nah doubled over cackling like a maniac, slapping her knee at the timing of Star's polymorph. Sam was gone, and before them stood a very confused-looking black cat, with the Kul Tiran crate sitting in the snow beside him!
But that wasn't the end of Sam's efforts. Zarshal proceeded forward to take the box, only to find his hands the victim of the rage of a small housecat! Teeth and claws shredded the skin of Zarshal's hands, and Zarshal dropped the box! Nah darted in next as Star attempted a Cone of Cold. The spell missed, but it distracted Sam the Cat just enough for Nah to successfully grab the box! Star followed with a Frost Nova, snaring the cat in place, and we made our escape back over the bridge, turning the corner for Star to discreetly set up a portal to the Shrine of Seven Stars in the Vale of the Four Winds. Sam’s heart broke pretty hard at that… that was the saddest, most heartwrenching yowl I’ve ever heard a cat make! Poor Chun Sam Li! I hope he is able to find true love and happiness someday!
Once we got through Star’s portal and we were on the front balcony of the Shrine, Nah handed the Kul Tiran crate over to Zarshal, as the wooden crate had its lid nailed on tightly, and she was hoping Zarshal's worgen strength would be enough to rip it off. Zarshal gave it his best shot, and was successful in getting the lid off!
Inside, Zarshal found that the crate had been magically expanded, much like an adventurer's backpack. Inside were many sets of gear for cold-weather mountain climbing, including heavy garments of all shapes and sizes, mountain climbing picks, thick, fur-lined boots with spikes coming out of the toes, and quite a lot of rope.
The group speculated on what this meant. I proposed two possibilities. One: the captain had discovered the boots were on top of a snowy mountain before the horde and Alliance sank his ship, and procured the gear before then as well, with the plans to make a climb. Two: the gear was simply a standard load-out for a Kul Tiran ship, just to be prepared for any contingency. The group generally agreed that the boots must be on top of Kun-Lai summit, given the entire adventure from Sri-La Village to here, combined the knowledge from the High Elder that the young pandaren who had followed the turtle had wanted to hide the boots again, someplace where they'd never be found, so they wouldn't fall into the wrong hands.
With that, the group agreed to go back home to get the journal and read it to see if it and the gear in the crate would combine to provide a definitive conclusion. For the time being, however, it was time to head home for the night, another successful expedition for the Whitewind Company and Friends!
This morning, I set out early for Stormwind, as the Whitewind’s Grace is currently in the harbor there. I instructed a pair of the ship’s guards to take up post outside the door to one of storage rooms, where I placed the journal of Captain Brian Brine, with instructions to let the members of the Whitewind Company’s employees and outside contractors that have been going on the expeditions in to read the journal at their leisure. I also made an arcane illusion of the journal entries, so I can copy the captain’s writing onto my diary here. The writings are dated roughly ten years ago, written in neat, flowing, bold script that makes it easy to read. The entries are as follows:
Captain’s Log, first entry:
We have mission approval! Well, after a fashion. We will pose as a merchant vessel setting out from Boralus to establish trade with the newly-discovered Pandaren people. If we encounter the Horde or the Alliance, our cover should leave us neutral to their fighting over this new land. We are to decline any request from the Alliance to help to find their missing VIP, whomever that might be, that has led them to discover the misty continent to begin with. We are also to evade, rather than participate in, any military engagement, resorting to combat if, and only if, we are boarded or assailed on land.
We will set out tomorrow, and I am taking along several cadet crewman from the Kul Tiran Naval Academy for seasoning, as this is certain to be an easy mission (and I'll do my utmost to return them as fine officers Lady Katherine will be proud of!). Our plan to land on the north instead of the south of the continent should allow us to avoid much of the fighting. I confess, I am quite eager to be underway. Our true mission of tracking down and locating that famed pair of ancient elven boots will be the first step of many in recovering the entire suit. Imagine how magnificent it would look, assembled and propped on a pedestal in Proudmoore Keep!
Captain's Log, second entry:
We are underway! We have fair winds and following seas. Truly we are blessed by the Tidemother!
One of our cadets is still getting her sea legs. The youngest daughter of a mining family from Drustvar, she is the only one with no boating experience beyond a small rowboat for fishing in a pond. With patience, the young woman will get over her seasickness.
Otherwise, everything is progressing swimmingly. We are making excellent time. We should be in Sri-La before the crew knows it.
Captain's Log, third entry:
Becalmed, blast it all! The Tidemother is generous, but her children must also do their part. The oarsmen are mighty. We will cover what distance we can until the winds return.
Captain's Log, fourth entry:
Storms! False kraken sightings! More storms! Seasick crew! Tempers! It has not been a pleasant time for any of us.
Yet this is part of what sailing is all about, is it not? Enjoy the fair winds, batten down the hatches and weather the storms, row when the sea stills. And who does it better than the fine sailors of Kul Tiras?
Captain's Log, fifth entry:
SRI-LA AT LAST!
I must say, we had heard rumors of the beautiful splendor of the land, and the rich culture that extends even unto the buildings they erect, but nothing could have prepared us for the ornate architecture and the awe-inspiring jade-colored rainforest that rises on cliffs and plateaus and spires. Our lookout even spotted a massive structure in the distance that he described as a temple. I wish to investigate this if we can find the time.
We will be anchoring some distance off what appears to be a tiny, but beautiful, fishing village at the base of one of the cliffs. I've never seen anything like this village. It has buildings on stilts over the water, not unlike some of our own structures at home, yet the artistic quality of the craftsmanship and construction take my breath away. The village sits at the base of a beautiful waterfall of fantastic height, with a statue of some sort of warrior with a bestial head carved right out of the cliff face, and standing just as high! The crew and I stand in awe, and they and I cannot wait to put the rowboats in the water and reach the shore to meet the natives!
Captain's Log, sixth entry:
To say the natives are astonishing in appearance would be an understatement. They appear as white and black bears, yet they have human-level intelligence! Not since the discovery of the Tauren have we heard of such a people. Yet, like the Tauren, they have their own rich heritage, culture, beliefs, traditions, and so on. In fact, like the Tauren, they are a very likable people, albeit a people incredibly well trained in defending themselves, if it comes to that.
Yet they do not like to speak of battle; try, and most will shake their heads and mumble this word: "Sha." I must discover its meaning in the Common tongue, but they will not speak of it further.
They are an intelligent, cultured people, yet they lead an extraordinarily simple life that I confess to feeling some small twinge of jealousy of. Eat, drink, work only as much as you really need to, and then slow down, as "life is to be savored." Relaxation and happiness is a massive part of their central core values, it seems. They are an almost hedonistic people, but without the negative connotations that the word generally brings.
Yet the mission remains before us. The Pandaren people have heard of such a pair of boots, pointing up their rather harrowing route up the cliff face toward the plateau above when they speak. Apparently they were found somewhere, "Out there where Lui Lang went," which apparently means one of the other continents of Azeroth, if I understand their legend of a Pandaren named Lui Lang and his world travels upon the back of a giant sea turtle named Shen-zin Su. It seems a young Pandaren will, once in a while, come of age and decide to "Follow the turtle," setting off to explore the world, and one of them came across the boots somewhere upon his travels, fancied them, and returned home with them, making landfall here at Sri-La and journeying inland. We will do the same, and procure our next lead.
Captain's Log, seventh entry:
We are sinking!
Horde and Alliance ships have come to this place! In the night they came, either seemingly unaware of the presence of the other, and the crew and I woke to the sound of all-too-familiar cannon fire in the distance. I myself was reminded of the youth I spent battling the orcish fleets in Baradin Bay, and remember well the sounds of percussion aboard either navy's vessels.
Our failure to evade has doomed our vessel, Tidesage's blessing or no. An errant shot from one of the ships -- I know not which -- has struck our hull below the waterline. We are sinking.
I nearly wept to give the order to abandon our proud ship to its watery grave. It is some small consolation, I suppose, that the beautiful Tidemaiden will take her final resting place in a place so beautiful as this.
At any rate, I must follow my men as we attempt to make the safety of the shore and make new plans. If any should find this, if we should not return, please inform Lady Katherine that we tried.
Captain's Log, eighth entry:
I was wrong to despair.
Most of my crew and I have made it ashore. We lost our lookout to injuries sustained in a fall from the crow's nest. Two cannoneers were lost when the port side took an errant blast from the horde ship that came through their cannon porthole. We lost our cook to deep lacerations all over his body when the wall beside him burst from an errant Alliance cannon shot. He bled out on the beach.
Most of the crew sustained injuries, but the pandaren have aided us with something they call "chi mist." It is a most remarkable healing magic. Concussions (including my own), wounds, broken bones (including my broken arm), nearly all were mended before they could prove fatal. Alas for the cook! Alas for those who did not make it ashore for the healing!
We have recovered the remains and have made arrangements for them. The morale of the crew is low. I must keep them all busy, lest they sink beneath their sorrow.
To that end, we will press on first thing in the morning. The locals have advised us to seek out Tian Monastery, up the cliff and to the west. The High Elder there, they say, will know best what has become of the young pandaren who, as their kind say, "followed the turtle," an allusion to an old legend of theirs that speaks of a pandaren who sailed off centuries ago on the back of a sea turtle to see the world. To follow the turtle means to set off on one's own journey of the world, something that has been rare for their kind until they met those of us that are "from beyond the mists."
At any rate, the locals say the High Elder will know what has become of the young pandaren who followed the turtle and brought back the remarkable plate boots of the fabled armor of Princess Ariel Sunstrider. We will make for the monastery with all haste in the hopes of picking up his trail. May the Tidemother guide us.
Captain's Log, ninth entry:
We've made it to the Tian Monastery. The High Elder is, most unfortunately, disinclined to acquiesce to our request. The venerable pandaren master cites the reason given by the young pandaren who brought them back: that the armor, in the wrong hands, might, with its inspirational charm, be used to raise an army into a frenzy for a commander bent on conquest. As such, it was scattered to the ends of Azeroth upon Princess Ariel's death.
But, he sees our neutrality in the war. He sees our yearning to learn of history, and what he does not see is any lust for world domination in us. It is for this reason he is willing to give us the chance to prove ourselves. Some sort of trial is to be had in his monastery. We are to go to a peaceful little place called Greenstone Village for one week to meditate and train, to learn their ways, that we might prove ourselves in the trials. What these trials will mean, I do not know.
We shall find out in one week.
Captain's Log, tenth entry:
Our trials were a success, but a sobering one.
We trained in Greenstone Village in the ways of the monk. We learned of chi and zen and just as much of meditation and finding inner peace and balance as we did about basic hand-to-hand combat skills. We are by no means masters, but we have the beginnings of an understanding of their culture now. Lady Katherine Proudmoore will be pleased.
Of the trials, I can say little. Things happened that no one anticipated.
First, the High Elder sent us to dine at the monastery's banquet grounds. No sore trial, that, as the men were downtrodden, even after the week's respite at Greenstone Village. Yet the High Elder wanted to test our patience, I deem, to see if we had enough of such to sit and rest and dine instead of rushing off to our mission without taking care of ourselves first. The High Elder appeared as if out of nowhere as we finished up, telling us we had succeeded in our first trial.
The second trial was administered by a pandaren master who had us sit and meditate on things we would perhaps not have meditated upon of our own volition. Fears, hatreds, tragedies, anger, sadness. I cannot detail the stories told by my crew here, as I do not wish to violate their privacy. Suffice to say that they were many and varied.
What was most unanticipated was the manifestation of negative emotions into sentient beings of dark energy! The revelation was most disturbing. The pandaren master called the beings "sha." That concluded our trial. We had failed to contain our worst emotions, and the trial was a failure. We had one success and one failure. One more trial would be necessary to ensure our success overall, and to ensure the High Elder assisted us in our quest for the artifacts we pursued.
The third was fighting the sha in another area. We were met with success, though the sha tried us sorely, each sha against the crewman that produced it. The High Elder approaches. He will surely aid us now!
Captain's Log, eleventh entry:
This will be my final entry for a time.
The High Elder told us of the young pandaren who followed the turtle. He was last seen at the base of the Path of One Hundred Steps, some distance to the southwest, leading from the Valley of the Four Winds up into Kun-Lai Summit. We thanked the High Elder for his hospitality and his aid, and set out.
Following the endless stair was exhausting, but my crew and I were determined. The stair led into the misty mountains, where we found a tavern. There, the old innkeeper told us what he says is a very old tale of a young pandaren with a treasure from beyond the mists who feared what he had found, the more he learned about it. He had discovered a pair of beautiful plate boots that bedazzled the eye, stirring his heart to return to the lands across the seas and take up a banner in a glorious battle. He had gone on to learn that the entirely of this suit of armor had that effect on people, and was separated and spread across Azeroth for just that reason, and now he wanted to hide them again. The innkeeper then told us that relatives further along the path, in Binan Village, still remembered a story of the young man determined to climb to the top of Mount Neverest, to Neverest Pinnacle, to hide them in the most inaccessible place he could think of east of The Wall (an ancient edifice put in place to hold the insect swarms of the mantid in check).
As such, this being my last entry for a time means we will be leaving behind all nonessential belongings and supplies, so as not to be too heavily burdened. My journal will be left behind with a friend at Greenstone Village. They have graciously agreed to store our belongings for us until we return.
I dare not tell my crew, but I dread this climb. Being from a land of cold mountains, we do keep mountain climbing gear just in case, but that was lost when the Tidemaiden sank. We will have to make do without, in the hopes of procuring climbing fear from natives living near the base of the mountains.
This will surely be our sorest trial.
Ominously, that’s the last entry in the journal. Whether Captain Brine found the boots ahead of us and moved on with them, and simply didn’t have the chance to return for his journal, or whether he was perished in the climb isn’t known. But, we have powerfully magical or otherwise skilled fighters with us, not to mention top-end cold weather mountain-climbing gear, so I am feeling quite a bit more confident than Captain Brine did! I think we’ll find our first piece since I first stumbled upon the one gauntlet this coming week!
In the meantime, Celeste has her stuff arranged and is now ready to build, so I’m gonna wrap this up and go and help her. I can’t wait to see what the finished products looks like, and neither, I’m sure can the chickens! YAY!
Nat smiled down at the pages, tapping off the excess ink on her quill tip into her inkwell, replacing the quill into its case and capping her inkwell. She went upstairs to let Dordy in after that, since she’d be taking the other end of the bamboo poles instead of the little pup. When Nat returned downstairs, the ink on the pages of her diary was dry, so she closed it up, taking it, her inkwell, and her quill case upstairs, returning each to their proper place in her office. Heading downstairs once more, she went to Celeste, listening intently to Celeste’s plan to make a ramp on the far wall from the spiral staircase that led up to a platform with three roosts, one for each chicken, with comfortable nests in each. The herbs in the planters are hung high enough that the chickens won’t really be able to get into them, with the frosty herb planter being in between the roosts and the next planter, which would surely deter any attempt by a chicken to get into them. Nodding, Nat set to work, helping hold each bamboo pole in place as Celeste began to work on her structure. The ramp and roosts were soon completed, and the rest of the day passed in peace and quiet as the two rested from their week’s work in the living room, each engrossed in a book, or else playing with Dordy. It was quite a pleasant way to pass the final day of Nat’s minication!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jun 23, 2022 17:22:21 GMT
June the Twenty-Third There were new sounds to be heard at Anglers Wharf today. The sounds of the gently rolling waves, the calls of the gulls (and the anglers trying to defend their cut bait from them), the distant calls of jungle birds from across the bay, and, once, the yowling of a large, fierce jungle cat were now interspersed with the sounds of sawing, hammering, welding, and many other such construction noises.
The Wave Dancer was at its designated dock on the bayside piers of Anglers Wharf, and it didn’t look like itself at all! Nat’s purple umbrella, along with her chair with the purple cushion, were sitting on the wharf, the chair next to Other Nat’s chair, and the umbrella raised over it. All other decorative or otherwise extraneous trimmings had been removed and stored in crates. The Wave Dancer was now only recognizable by the lower part of the ship, painted white, with a long, undulating cloud serpent (the native dragons of Pandaria) on either side, and the words Wave Dancer painted on the side (having been named after Cloud Dancer, Celeste’s cloud serpent).
Aboard the boat, Celeste McCullough, Natasha Ebonlocke, and their Mechagnome friend Penelope Boltbucket were busy. Celeste and Penny were currently working on something extraordinarily complex involving protecting the MUTT, who was perched on the bow of the ship, stripped of all external armor coverings with all his wiring, tools, and other inner workings exposed, and the small water craft’s engines. The former was covered in a burlap wrapping, making it look like some kind of swamp monster, and the latter was now ensconced in a cage of steel bars welded quite close together. Nat, this level of engineering work being beyond her, was taking the opportunity to write in her diary. Exiting the boat, she took a seat in her chair on the wharf – the one that was usually on the boat – and flew Onyx up to the House-On-The-Spire, returning minutes later with her black leather-bound diary, her cherrywood quill case, and her inkwell of purple ink. Spreading the diary open in her lap, she opened her quill case for her ravenfeather quill and uncapped her inkwell. Dipping the tip for some ink, she began to write.
Dear diary,
Gosh, it’s been a big, big week, full of grand accomplishments! I’m very proud of everyone for all they’ve achieved!
First, there was this letter delivered to the house from Celeste’s uncle Rugnar! It surprised us; we were just sitting outside on the veranda overlooking the south seas behind the house when Celeste’s old drone showed up, the one she made while she still lived with Rugnar in Ironforge, and has been stored there ever since. The drone had doodles of it dropping really stinky bombs on little green guys… That made me laugh! The stinkbombs she rigged to drop on the goblin trying to scam people up in Grizzly Hills into being scared away from the streams for the big salmon run by rigging up a seemingly undead robot to stroll by people’s camps! HA!
Anyway, the letter it held from Uncle Rugnar, which Celeste held up for me to read with her, had two pages. One was a short note from Rugnar that simply said, “See you in a few days, kid. Give Natasha and the pup a hug from me.” The other was a rather glowing letter from the Explorer’s League commending Celeste and I on our work and theory during our expedition in Winterspring. It congratulated us on our methods and the cleverness of our (Celeste’s, really) theory concerning the possibility of possible dwarven construction there, despite the results being inconclusive. It also spoke of Celeste’s talents as a tinkerer, detailing her work on the MUTT for archeological work.
The letter goes on to state that the League wishes to conduct a survey in the Swamp of Sorrows in the hopes of finding other ruins beyond the one mostly submerged in the central lake there. The League proposes to hire Celeste as an engineering consultant and to see her talents for themselves. After which, should her skills prove up to their standards, they would seriously consider making her a full member of the Explorer’s League, Rugnar Darkdelver being her official sponsor in this.
The letter details the expedition itself, which would last several days. They are specifically interested in her boat with the glass bottom, useful in visual examination under the swamp’s waters, since the boat’s glass floor wouldn’t be bothered by the plants and debris on the surface of the water that might otherwise make a visual scan difficult from above the surface. Appropriate compensation for use of the Wave Dancer, expenses, and a retainer for her services are detailed at the end.
At first, Celeste was reading it out loud, but her voice trailed off as she began to realize the full scope of what was being proposed and offered here. I gotta say, I’m just as blown away! I’m thrilled for Celeste! Her love of archaeology could bring her many more adventures to come!
We spent a while packing for a week-long journey for her. The next morning, when I woke up, she was already up and in the kitchen with a pot of coffee, muttering plans aloud as she leaned on the counter and drank her coffee. I came in and heard stuff like, “…with a canopy over the Dancer and mosquito netting on all sides. Easier to use the boat as a place to rest too. That means I'll have to remove some things for fishing. Nat's chair will be placed on the Wharf so she can fish with our friends while I'm gone. The motor will need a debris cage around the propeller too... Maybe rig up a crocolisk repellent instead of one for sharks. We'll have to bring the MUTT for its water purification system and sentry mode... Rugnar will have to bring it or maybe I can perch it in front of the Dancer if I reinforce the front... I'll need a stronger pump if we need to clear a flooded ruin, some extra lights that resist water too…” Gosh, that girl is DRIVEN! Just another thing I love so much about her!
When she realized I was there, she launched full into her plans with me. She wanted Penny’s help too, so I flew to Halfhill to go and pick her up. Penny’s way better at engineering stuffs than I am! When we got back, I was given the task of removing anything that won’t be useful on the expedition from the Wave Dancer. Anything decorative or that might get stained by swamp water had to go! Everything that was removed went into a crate which was returned home with the MUTT. Penny was charged with welding iron rods close together into a cage that will be fitted over the boat’s propeller. This way the propeller will continue working (albeit at slower speeds) but won’t be damaged by submerged logs or rocks, or clogged with leaves and other plants large enough to get in there and tangle the propeller. Celeste, meanwhile, made sure the motor is clean and in perfect shape, giving it a tune up and an oil change. Celeste next had Penny solidify the front deck of the Wave Dancer so it could hold the MUTT near the front. Penny decided to add more struts between the pontoon floaters and the boat itself to support the weight, but warns that the MUTT would probably need to be made lighter a bit too, or at least a counterweight should be added near the rear to prevent the boat front leaning forward too much. Celeste is now building a canopy that arches over the top of the Wave Dancer. She’s making the posts and supports near the motor out of metal instead of bamboo, for the counterweight Penny proposed, and it should counter-balance well enough, we think. Also, once the Wave Dancer was stripped to its barebones function, we started making the MUTT more lightweight. To that end, we started removing panels from the MUTT and peering inside.
Celeste wanted me to begin removing as much armor plating as I could. Goblins, being “wimps” according to Celeste, like to make their shredders tough, but the MUTT is a tool, not a weapon, so any plates on the chassis, arms and legs could be taken off. It’ll turn the MUTT into a barebones skeleton with tools and wires for guts, but we covered all that up in burlap for the expedition to keep bugs and weeds out of its innards. With the plates gone, it was way lighter! There is an auto-wrench in the Flying Nosebleed’s toolbox. The power cell on it is still good. Celeste had me use that; it made removing the bolts holding the plates up easy. She also suggested I use the MUTT itself to hold up the plates and put them in the crates when they are loose. They’re too heavy for any of us to carry around, or even hold up to unbolt from the machine! Meanwhile Celeste wanted to rig a bypass for the pump though, so she can remove water from any ruins she might find without clogging the filter. It’s a good thing she thought of wrapping the MUTT in burlap after exposing its inner workings, I reminded her… we had a good laugh, remembering the spooky time we had last Hallow’s End in the desert of Tanaris, when that desert swift, the little lizard nicknamed the “sand-grave” for its defensive mechanism that gives off a powerful rotting flesh smell, that got into the MUTT last year to make it act up as though the archaeology site we were at was haunted! Penny looked to be deeply chilled by the story, but then laughed at the silly conclusion. It sure was scary at the time, but now it’s a fond memory!
Then THAT brought to mind the need for extra security for the MUTT against small critters, which made Celeste think of leathers. But, as we didn’t have time to go on a hunting and skinning expedition, what with the need to prep everything for Celeste’s Explorer’s League expedition, we didn’t think we’d be able to do that. But then Penny piped up, remembering the yak steaks that they sometimes serve in Binan Village, up in Kun-Lai Summit. Surely they’d have the hides from those! I flew up quickly with Penny to the little village in the Flying Nosebleed, and, sure enough, we got a great deal on two HUGE yak hides! They’re extra shaggy, though… wrapped all around the MUTT, with bits of burlap sticking out, the MUTT now looks ten times more like a creepy swamp monster! HA!
Today, we finished the canopy for the bug netting. Arches of bamboo front to back of the sitting area were installed, with the bug netting going over that. The cage is now on the motor. The swamp monster MUTT is now on the front. Celeste originally wanted to call this iteration of the machine the SMUTT, the Swamp Monster Utility Transport Tool, but she realized when I started blushing that that particular name means other things to the general population. Oh gosh! Haha! So she decided on a much more simplistic and direct name: the TOAD, or TOol and All-terrain Device. She’s so good at coming up with creative acronyms!
Our next problem to solve was how to get the Wave Dancer to the Swamp of Sorrows. I suggested opening a portal to there, like she had for the transport of the boat to Booty Bay, but Celeste explained that the magic for that portal already existed in her Boots of the Bay, the boots that act as a sort of hearthstone to Booty Bay, and she created the anchor for her portal off of those. But then we both had the same thought… Simply open the portal to Booty Bay for it again, and then just go around the cape and up the east coast to the Swamp of Sorrows!
That leaves just one more problem… The Bloodsail Buccaneers. We’re going to need a really strong invisibility spell to get around them without them seeing and attacking. Barring that, the MUTT’s MAD – MUTT Automated Defense – system, along with Celeste’s own magic, rifle, and spear, should stave off any attacks! I suggested this to Celeste, and that maybe I should make the journey with her, as Aedie taught me invisibility spells when she was teaching me how to reorient my spellcasting for mage schools of magic. That and my other magics would combine with the MAD and Celeste’s own skills to make a joke of the pirates! But Celeste came up with an idea even better than that… I’ll keep the Wave Dancer covered with an invisibility illusion spell, and keep them distracted from a different direction with the Flying Nosebleed. That flying machine is way more maneuverable than any cannon, so they’ll never even get a cannon lined up, let alone land a hit. On top of that… the stink bombs we were remembering from the salmon fishing in the Grizzly Hills last year will come in handy… imagine trying to line up a cannon for a shot when you’re being stinkbombed by a flying machine so badly you can hardly breathe without retching! HA! Moreover, the Flying Nosebleed’s engine sounds should provide explanation to the engine sounds they’re hearing from an invisible Wave Dancer – they’ll just think they’re hearing a particularly loud Flying Machine engine, especially if Celeste pilots the boat further away from the pirates than I fly! So that’s how we’ll travel… Boots of the Bay portal anchor to Booty Bay, bombing run on the pirates with the Wave Dancer invisible, motor on up the east coast of Stranglethorn Vale, and come into the seaside entrance to the big lake in the Swamp of Sorrows from the east, safe and sound! I’ll get her there and just travel back home when she meets the Explorer’s League there!
Celeste did her own bit of extra work on the boat last night, too, adding silly decorations to the TOAD to make it even more swamp monstery-looking. Penny wondered if the just-for-fun additions would diminish how serious Celeste looked, but Celeste simply replied that things like this were part of who she is, and if the League frowned on doodles and silly things sometimes, then it was better if she never joined them at all. I think they’ll be okay with them, though; the amount of drinking on the job and the amount profanity they use isn’t much more serious than silly doodles!
Nat looked up from her spot on the wharf, stretching and dropping her quill into her inkwell for a moment. Through the bug netting draped over most of the Wave Dancer, Nat could see the TOAD on the front of the ship, that end not covered by netting as the TOAD had a function to perform in the swamp uninhibited up there. The yak fur and burlap was open on a spot along the back of the TOAD’s right leg, where Penny was helping Celeste think up a new electrical engineering blueprint for some function or another. Celeste had her soldering and wire-splicing tools laid out around her. Nat looked up at the TOAD. The machine looked like it had risen right out of the depths of the Swamp of Sorrows, and it certainly looked like it’d be downright terrifying to encounter in that dark murk. The spookiness of it all was relieved a bit by Celeste’s silly doodles to make it look more swamp monster-like. The ingenious rig brought a warm smile to Nat’s lips. Celeste and her ingenuity! She wondered idly what Celeste and Penny work working on in that leg, but, knowing it was likely beyond her level of engineering expertise, she returned to her writing instead.
Besides Celeste’s major accomplishment in getting an invite for a tryout for the Explorer’s League, there was one more major accomplishment this week! I went with the Whitewind Company and outside contractors to chase our latest leads; the journal of Captain Brian Brine, and the crate we recovered from Chun Sam “The Kite” Li last week that he’d looted from the sunken Tidemaiden. As I wrote last week, the crate full of snowy mountain climbing gear and the journal that wrote of the Captain’s wish to climb Mount Neverest in Kun-Lai Summit in Pandaria to pursue the lead given to him from the innkeeper in the Tavern in the Mists made us believe the young pandaren that had “followed the turtle” over a century ago and returned with the boots had climbed that mountain to hide them there, deeply concerned about the power this suit of armor seemed to have to stir one’s heart to battle. He wanted to hide them again once he learned that the suit had been separated and hidden all over the world to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands, like those of someone bent on world conquest.
To chase down these leads, I had the Whitewind Company and outside contractors meet me in the Grummle Bazaar again, just like last week. It was me, Tess, Mairy, and Zarshal. Nah wasn’t able to make it due to a bad cold that was keeping her down. She was deeply missed!
The weather was warm during the trip into Kun-Lai Summit, but now, this close to the snowline of the mountains, the air was brisk and crisp. A gentle breeze brought slightly cooler air on occasion. The wind could be heard howling up at higher elevations, but for now, mostly all we could hear were the silly and borderline chaotic sounds the grummles make, whether organizing another trip along the burlap trail, or just going about standard grummle life here in the camp. The air smelled of grummle incense, with a bit of yak, yak manure, and the faint hint of something that brings to mind a frigid mountaintop snow.
The grummle there that organizes all the grummle caravans out from there and down the Burlap Trail pointed us in the right direction. We go straight north instead of following that western road, and we’ll see a ramp on the left that goes right up into the mountains. We followed his directions, and, sure enough, there was the ramp, right there on our left, just like he’d said!
We were riding the Whitewind Company Yak, the yak that Nah had procured from that trip from Halfhill to Paw’don Village a few months back. The one that we also used to transport those elven goods from Menethil Harbor in the Wetlands along the road up to Ironforge, where the two elves lived that were taking delivery. The yak was there to haul that big crate of cold weather gear, so we could transition into it once we got up to colder parts of the mountain. Tess and Mairy rode the extra seats on the yak, while Zarshal rode his panther. The yak took us up the ramp, and it was there that we encountered our first surprise.
There, right there, right at the top of the ramp, was a huge horde banner! The grummle never said there was a horde encampment in the foothills! We got to the top, and the various races of the horde present in the camp spot us easily enough. With the armistice in place, there was a wide variety of facial expressions to be seen as we looked from face to face. Hostility. Curiosity. Indifference. One vulpera and two pandaren each actually smiled up at us, though a Zandalari troll frowns at the trio in disapproval. In all cases, however, no advance toward the us was made, nor did any of them even reach for a weapon. There was an orc and a troll to our left on a higher ridge with a campfire and two tents, talking to each other in orcish as they looked at us. But these, though wary, made no advance toward us. It looked like we were in the clear!
Not wanting to go through the horde camp, we needed to find a different round. We looked up to our right, spying another natural land ramp that went up along the ridge overlooking the camp. Following it led us right to the snowline of the mountains. Snow started crunching under the yak’s hooves, paper-thin at first and splotchy, but soon everything was snow-covered, and the snow was getting deeper and deeper, the temperatures were dropping, and the wind was picking up, cutting right through our clothes like daggers. It was here that we decided to pop open that crate of cold weather gear we got from Sam that he’d looted from the Tidemaiden. Having stocked for all races and sizes, the crew had something to fit everyone, from little Mairy the Wildhammer dwarf to big Zarshal the burly worgen. It was all white with the anchor emblem of the Kul Tirans on it, but boy, was it cozy! We just pulled it on over what we had, keeping the extra layer. I doubt anyone wanted to take anything off up there in that temperature to put other stuff on to begin with anyway!
Once we had transitioned into gear better suiting the change in conditions, we pressed on. The heavily-trodden footpath led further and further up into the mountains, though it began to provide us frequently with a new problem: forks in the road! Me not really being much of a leader (leading is so scary!), I took votes from the group as to which way to go. The group voted unanimously at all forks except for one, in which there were four options instead of just two. We were evenly split, so Tess decided we should flip a coin. It came up heads, which had been designated to be the route Tess and I had chosen to go up some stairs instead of one of three super-narrow little passes up into more crowded hills, so we went that way instead. There was also one point outside what seemed to be a mogu tomb where we ran into a crowd of rather tormented-looking ghosts! They didn’t prove to be hostile, or even to notice our presence, so we hurried by them as quickly as we could.
As we approached what would turn out to be our final fork to choose between, we found ourselves right at the foot of a particularly tall mountain… Mount Neverest, just like in the pictures! I gasped, and pointed way up above me. Sure enough, Mount Neverest rose before the group... and rose and rose and rose, towering ominously over the land. Sheer rock cliffs were partially obscured by powerfully wind-driven snow that sliced sideways through the air instead of just simply falling. A ring of cumulus cloud encircled the peak, not far below the summit. The peak itself looked hostile, as though warning away all who would dare climb to the pinnacle. It sent shivers up my spine just looking at it! That pinnacle was way, WAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY up there, seemingly a whole world away, towering to a tiny pinpoint a vast distance above us and seeming insurmountable. Yep, that’s what we’re climbing! Gosh!
We chose the right fork here, as the left seemed to veer back down the mountain a bit. Right as we started going down the road, however, there was what looked to be the wreck of a cart, its pieces strewn about the road that was now totally covered in snow instead of being heavily trodden down to the dirt below. Further investigation turned up a boot sticking out of the snow as well. The top was in the snow, with the rest of it sticking out, as though it were still on a foot! There might be a BODY under there! The boot itself was just like ours, the white, fur-lined boots with a spike sticking out of the front for ice cliff-climbing, and it even had the anchor emblem of Kul Tiras on it! We might’ve been looking at a member of Captain Brian Brine’s crew that had come here over a decade before! The boot was a bit ravaged and bloodstained… judging by the ruins of the cart, as well, had this been an attack by one of those giant mountain yetis that live up here? We didn’t want to wait around to find out, and no one wanted to see a whole dead body, either, so we moved on down the road.
The road was blessedly straight and level, and came upon another grummle camp after a time. There were two grummles here, bundled up so heavily that the only way we could tell what they even were was from their diminutive stature and their speech. They had a yak as well. They said that his was the base camp for Mount Neverest climbers, and warned us of the dangers of climbing Mount Neverest. Blizzard cyclones, avalanches, utterly intolerable sub-zero temperatures, and falling snowballs were the worst of it. We definitely had a difficult path ahead, but we were geared up for just that! But then again, so had Captain Brine’s crew…
The grummles also negotiated a price to stable our yak, as the yak wouldn’t be able to make it up the mountain, due to steep and narrow parts of the path that would be too narrow for it to fit on. The price was four luckydos. I had no idea what they might consider to be a luckydo, but I did count out four gold coins for them. The grummles were really pleased! Shiny, shiny luckydos, four of them, just for them! I suppose if it works for them, it works for me! The grummles, yak experts like all grummles, took in the Whitewind Company Yak and stabled it, and we set off to the nearby foot of the path up the mountain, marked by a red pennant with a rope leading to the next pennant path marker.
The conditions immediately worsened on the mountain proper. The path was steep and grueling, and it began snowing. The snow was light here, but very quickly worsened, becoming walnut-sized flakes that blew every direction but down on the howling wind. It was sooooo cold! The cutting winds chilled even though the cold weather gear, though the gear was good enough that you could feel the chill, but you still kept warm.
We encountered the first obstacle – the boulder-sized giant snowballs the grummles described that we thought was an avalanche, but actually turned out to literally be giant boulder-sized snowballs being hurled down the mountain in torrents, as though by a few angry frost elementals! Trudging and climbing upward through the relentless storm of snow boulders, we were able to dodge most of them, but getting hit sure is something else… that weight of snow HURTS! And you’re just instantly chilled to the bone! It’s SO bad!
After that were the blizzard cyclones! The blizzard had gale force winds whipping up into a frenzy of cyclones twice as tall as I am, and one even picked me up and carried me several feet, my gear whipping around me in the wind like flags in a hurricane, and then it SLAMMED me into the snow! That hurt even more than the snow boulders did! And I was started to get so cold, I was losing dexterity… not that I had much of that to begin with! Everyone struggled with the cyclones. They were so hard to get past! That was the most awful snowstorm I’ve EVER been in!
Once we got past the cyclones and found the next flags and ropes leading up another slope, we found ourselves getting up above the storm, which Mairy said would eventually happen. The blue sky and bright sunshine and very calm breezes were a welcome change… but the temperature drop at that elevation sure wasn’t! It was though the air itself was a vast deep freeze, being draped around us like a blanket that, though completely still and inert, still seemed to encase us in ice that wasn’t there. It was THAT cold!
But then, luckily enough for us, just when we thought we’d go into hypothermia and have to abandon the trip up the mountain… we came upon a Shado-Pan mountaineer that had a post at a camp in a broad, flat area with a huge, roaring bonfire! The Shadow-Pan sure are some seriously bad dudes, hauling firewood up the mountain regularly enough to feed a fire! Well… either that or he simply flies it up and down the mountain. If only we hadn’t been needing to climb on foot to keep an eye out for clues, like that wrecked cart with that Kul Tiran mountain climbing boot sticking out of the snow, we could have done the same thing!
Anyway, the Shado-Pan monk was nice enough to share his fire with us, providing us with further warnings about climbing to such elevations. We all asked him about the boots we were looking for, but he had apparently never heard of them; he just kept asking why someone would take their nice, warm boots off at the top of the mountain in such conditions! So, with no further information to be had from him, and having warmed ourselves up by the huge fire, we continued on up the next slope.
It was here that we saw why the yak couldn’t come. This slow was super narrow, just a ledge along a cliff! The yak would have had a really difficult time here! We had a time of it ourselves. The air, though mostly still and sunny, was rapidly falling in temperature, and that slope was steep, narrow, and slick with ice and snow. The going was slow, but we made it to the top of that slope. Then we had our next series of nasty surprises…
First thing we saw was a poor grummle cliffhanger, frozen in a block of ice to the side of the cliff to our right, below us. There was no telling how long he’d been stuck there, or how long ago he’d frozen to death! Then we looked up… This ledge was about as third as narrow as my bed! Worse, it was the very pinnacle of this particular ridge of mountain sticking out from the main, so there was a drop-off on BOTH sides, very steep, and very, very high! Good thing there was no wind here at the time! The going was incredibly dangerous. We may as well have been tightrope walking thousands of feet in the air!
The rest of the nasty surprises were also clues that we were going the right way, at least to follow the Kul Tiran captain and his crew. I tripped over a lump in the snow, luckily falling straight forward instead of off the cliff on one side or the other! The lump turned out to be a frozen Kul Tiran man, one of the super scrawny ones you see around Boralus working near the docks, or on their ships. He had the same Kul Tiran cold weather gear we did. It was awful! But it showed we were going the right way, so we continued to climb higher and higher.
At the top of that narrow knife’s-edge of a mountain ridge, there was a nook, where we found a Kul Tiran cold weather cloak. Up a broader part, we could see the pinnacle just a dozen feet above us! We were ALMOST THERE!
Right before the pinnacle, though, we found a hand sticking out of the snow as though reaching for something. It bore one of the Kul Tiran gloves like we wore. Another fallen sailor! We didn’t want to see any more bodies, so we passed it by. Unfortunately for us, there was one more to see, and it wasn’t covered at all!
Going around the pinnacle as the narrow ledge of a path traced its way there, we gained the summit! WE’D DONE IT! CLIMBED MOUNT NEVEREST! But, there, at the top, was the uncovered body! It startled us to find it there, totally uncovered by some big blast of wind that had blown the snowdrifts right off it! And, judging from the extra-fancy gear it wore, not to mention a Kul Tiran captain’s had he’d somehow held onto on top of his hood the whole way up, this was Captain Brian Brine! The poor guy… He had completed his journey, but didn’t live to tell the tale!
Now that we were here, we began investigating the area. There was a low ridge blocking the wind on a couple sides, ringing the pinnacle in a half-moon. Tucked into this corner was the sitting statue of a blindfolded pandaren, including a story about a blind brewmaster. Imagine braving these temperatures long enough to carve a statue to such exquisite detail up here! I climbed to the top, others following. We were now at the very pinpoint tip of the entire mountain, and we could see for MILES and miles around us in every direction! The Jade Forest, the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, the Townlong Steppes, and the South Seas were all visible from here! It was spooky being on that edge, though, and I didn’t want to fall off a cliff, so I got back down to the little flat bit at the top we found the captain. The others followed as well, and the investigation began in earnest… especially as the temperature up here was so cold, and the air so thin, we could barely breathe, and we could feel our bodies slowing down quite a bit! We were worried about the earliest stages of hypothermia setting in soon. We had to find the boots, if they were here, and get down off this mountain FAST!
Tess sensed the boots before anyone else could find them physically. She, as a Kaldorei, could feel the powerful pull of powerful elven magic, coming from behind the statue of the blindfolded brewmaster. Mairy went to go and look, and found a pack, a sea-green pack with the anchor of Kul Tiras embroidered on it! As soon as we all looked at the pack, we could feel it… the magic within was calling to us, stirring our hearts. Mairy wanted to take the skies on gryphonback with a wing of Wildhammers and fly into a glorious battle. Zarshal was talking about taking up a noble cause all of a sudden, drawing steel in the name of Gilneas. Tess wanted to ride a nightsaber into battle with a grand army of Kaldorei sentinels. I even had to stop myself on the spot, suddenly beginning to incant a few words in Eredun to summon an army of my own, wanting to shout stuff like, “FOR DARKSHIRE AND DUSKWOOD! FOR STORMWIND! FOR THE ALLIANCE!” and start putting foot to booty in a noble campaign!
We remembered then the powerful magic said to have been used to enchant the boots. There was that book Zarshal had found in the Stormwind Royal Library when we first started researching leads that said that the elegant suit of armor Princess Ariel Sunstrider was, when she wore it, stirring enough to lead any and all elves into battle against their generational enemies, the Amani forest trolls. The book had gone on to say that the powerful, but completely natural effect of that image had been emboldened magically, by way of enchantment using the two old Altars of Storms in the Eastern Kingdoms, to increase the effect. Well, it certainly did that!
Mairy, shivering hard now, was all but demanding we flee the summit now, but I knew we better do one last thing… open the pack right quick, just to make sure we had really found the boots, otherwise, we might have to come back up and search for them! So, Mairy, still holding the pack, fumbled with numb fingers to open the clasp. She warned of a possible increase to the effect once we actually laid eyes on the boots physically, and I agreed. I used an arcane dampening field to dampen the enchantment upon them. Eventually, Mairy’s numb fingers got the clasp open, a soft blue glow illuminated the interior of the pack. The boots could be seen within, and boy, were they beautiful! Just like the left-hand gauntlet I found pearl diving with Celeste, these were finely crafted for a delicate little Quel’dorei princess, using blue-dyed mithril, with elegant, elaborate, ornate Quel’dorei designs as trimmings along the boots, and they were symmetrical with the truesilver. They were SO beautiful! Like, shockingly so, even after having already had that gauntlet for this long! I can’t even imagine the effect of the entire suit, with a gorgeous elven princess in it!
With confirmation of our victorious acquisition of the boots in hand, we were about to hurry off that frozen peak, when something truly horrifying happened… the Kul Tiran captain began to MOVE! Stirring a little, then moving a bit more, he soon stood right to his feet and then started LOOKING at us! That was all poor Tess could take. She fainted on the spot! He had these piercing blue eyes, and the hoarfrost that had coated his body for over a decade shattered with his movement and tumbled off in tiny crystals. His voice, sepulchral in undeath, issued forth from his mouth slowly, as though he’d forgotten how to speak. He’d been raised by the powerful magic of the boots and his unfinished business in life in acquiring them, and from having been around them for so long. He didn’t want us to take them! He feared we were conquerors, coming to take the boots to collect the entire suit and do exactly the thing the armor set had been separated and hidden all over Azeroth for! He even drew his frozen rapier and flintlock pistol on us at one point! I dunno if the pistol would have worked, or how brittle that long-frozen rapier might have been if attempted to be stabbed through so much fur, but I didn’t wanna find out, either!
In the end, we were eventually able to assure him that we had only good intentions in mind when he began questioning us about the Tian Monastery. Subtlely prying out of us what the name of High Elder Cloudfall – thank goodness I remembered what the High Elder’s name was! – and that we’d undergone and passed the same trials he and his crew had to be deemed pure-hearted, worthy seekers of the armor, he sheathed and holstered his rapier and flintlock pistol again. With that, his mind was at rest. He had a final request for us… With his speech slowing even more than it already was as he began to fall back into the gentle rest of death, he asked us to tell Lady Katherine that they’d tried, that they’d nearly succeeded. Then he mentioned two names, Trish and Johnny, saying that he missed them… then he fell back over into the snow again, dead. Gosh! I suppose Trish and Johnny are a wife and son? I’ll have to locate them, and the families of his crew, I suppose, and deliver the news… what a macabre task!
But by then, we were REALLY started to freeze, so we had to get outta there fast! Zarshal picked up poor, fainted Tess, and we made our way carefully down the mountain. Mairy warned us that it would be harder to get down than to get up, as exhausted and cold as we were, so we’d have to take extra care in getting back off the towering peak. Down the little spiral at the pinnacle, down that terrifying knife’s-edge ledge with the steep drop-offs on either side, down the next narrow ledge that led down to the Shado-Pan monk’s camp we went, stopping there for quite some time to warm up next to his fire. He was nice enough to make us some absolutely delicious hot spiced apple cider to help us warm up faster!
Now that we were able to move quicker, we went down the trail again, following the rope marker from pennant marker to pennant marker, descending back down into that awful storm again! The cyclones assaulted us once more, making us quite cold yet again, and we were shivering and yelling to hear each other over the storm again and barely able to see three feet in front of us! Further below those were some ice boulders again, and it was so bad this time that I thought we were surely done for, right before we got off the mountain! But then Mairy had had enough, and she yelled to the elemental spirits, “STOP!” and, shaman that she is, the spirits listened! The storm went away immediately! Too bad she didn’t get that upset earlier! Yet she warned that shaman magic is used to make requests, not demands, of the spirits, and making demands can anger them. She was sure the storm would return far, far worse, very, very soon, so we quickly hurried off the last few little slopes of the mountain, finding ourselves back at the Mount Neverest Base Camp once more, safe and sound!
The grummles got our yak out of the stables for us and handed it back. Zarshal had his panther follow behind the yak while he rode the seat on the yak Tess had formerly occupied, the yak being strong enough to handle an extra person. Mairy took the seat she had occupied, and I took up the reins. We rode down out of the mountain range, riding through the narrow little snowy valleys and crevices, retracing our steps through all the forks we’d chosen on the way up. Soon enough, we were below the snow line, passing the horde camp awkwardly once more, and riding back across the plains to the Grummle Bazaar. Mairy took her leave then, and Zarshal decided to come with me to help me debrief poor old sick Nah on the Whitewind’s Grace.
Once there, we met not only Nah, but First Mate Nate, who was making medicine and chicken noodle soup for my bestie. What a good guy! Zarshal laid Tess down in her bunk on the ship, with someone tending to her and watching for her to wake up from her fainting. We found Nah in the captain’s quarters, looking pretty sick indeed, coughing and sneezing up a storm. With Zarshal’s help, I told Nah basically everything I’ve just written here. It took well into the night, but we got her all updated, and we got the boots placed under heavy guard. The guards themselves seem to be stirred by the magic of the boots, even though still hidden within the pack and the arcane dampening field in place, to defend the pack at all costs. The enchantment is proving handy! If I weren’t so sure the gauntlet I found while pearl diving with Celeste is so secure under the arcane barrier and anti-magic enchantments we put in place when building the house, I’d bring that to the Whitewind’s Grace too! But then again, those who separated the armor had a point – it’s better off separated!
After that, Zarshal and I went back to our homes. It was super late, and we needed sleep!
And now this morning, Celeste is busy working on the boat and the MUTT – I mean, the TOAD, for now, I guess! – with Penny. They seem to be done with the complex stuff they were doing, so I’m gonna go see if there’s something my engineering skills are up to doing to help next.
Gosh, between acquiring the boots, FINALLY, and Celeste’s big opportunity with the Explorer’s League, it’s been a SUPER BIG WEEK of accomplishments to be sure! I can’t wait to see what happens next week, which lead we choose to pursue with the boots next, and to hear every detail of Celeste’s story when she returns from her week-long trip away! I’ll miss her while she’s gone, definitely, but boy, am I excited for her! This is awesome! I love life! YAY!
Gleefully, Nat finished up her diary post, tapping off the excess ink from her quill tip to place it in her quill case. She capped her inkwell, putting it and the quill case into her pack. Holding her diary open in her hands, she flew Onyx back up to the House-On-The-Spire to put everything back where it goes. The ink on the pages now dry as Nat entered her office, she closed it and put it back in its home on the bookshelf left of her desk as well. Hurrying back out to Onyx, she returned to the dock.
Dordy woke from his snoozing at her approach, barking and running around in circles on the wharf as Nat came in for her landing. Nat slid off of Onyx, scooped him up, and carried him aboard the Wave Dancer, snuggling the pup until he eventually jumped out to sniff around the TOAD. Deciding the best course of action was to unwrap the giant machine, he began tugging at a corner of the shaggy yak leathers around the left foot. Scooped up again by Nat, he found himself deposited on the wharf. Unphased, he immediately began darting around the dock, visiting all his friends there and receiving as many treats as his belly could hold.
Nat, meanwhile, was helping Celeste and Penny get the bug netting more securely fastened at the eyehooks at the side of the boat they’d once used to rig up ropes for shark fishing. That led to the telling of that tall fish tale to Penny, who enjoyed it thoroughly. In the end, the TOAD was finished just before nightfall and everyone went to bed, Penny borrowing the Flying Nosebleed to return home. The mechagnome promised to return to help with the canopy the next morning, since Nat would be at work. The day ended peacefully and quietly in the House-On-The Spire, with the week’s minication ending in relaxation around the house with Celeste. It was a perfect ending to a perfect week!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jun 30, 2022 12:59:54 GMT
June the Thirtieth The light of the stars and moon filtered in through the House-On-The-Spire, its open, screened windows allowing the cool night air to fill the house and moonbeams to illuminate it. Rectangular patches shone on the various floors of the house, including one enormous one from the wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling window along the back, which was crossed with two vertical beams and a high horizontal beam to frame out the individual panes of glass. The house was completely quiet, devoid of its usual noises of happy humming and mechanical tinkering noises coming from the workshop in the first sublevel, as one of the house’s usual occupants was far away this week, working on a special project…
In Nat’s office, the sliding glass door, its curtain pulled back, illuminated much of the room, as did the window over Nat’s writing desk. The light of the stars and moon was enough to work with for one who’d grown up in the dark forest of Duskwood, and indeed, Natasha Ebonlocke sat here now, her diary open in front of her, with enough light to write. Around her diary were her opened cherrywood quill case, uncapped inkwell of purple ink, and a large mug of steaming hot coffee. Up before the dawn this morning, she started the morning off writing.
Dear diary,
Well, it’s been a busy week, though not at all with the usual things!
First, there was a meeting Thursday afternoon aboard the Whitewind’s Grace. Captain Rona wanted to address the crew of the ship, and Aedia, the Lightforged Draenei mage in the company who goes by the nickname “Star” because of her astronomical hobbies, decided to sit in on it. Captain Rona was going on in that gruff worgen voice of hers and being very stern. She was talking about my bestie, the CEO of the company, being sick still, and that no one was allowed into her quarters except First Mate Nate, Star, and myself, and she wanted us to be in there as often as we can find the time to keep her cheered up. Well, no problem there! She also said that the second ship, the one proposed to be built to handle the shadier side of Company dealings so that Lady Whitewind’s namesake isn’t involved, has been approved by the board of directors! It’s going to be bigger, faster, and stronger. We have the funding. Now we just gotta finalize some blueprints and get it to the Kul Tiran shipyards we’re hiring to craft the thing! Next was two vulpera being captured and imprisoned in the brig. I’m not sure what they were doing that got them jailed by Captain Rona, but, knowing the Whitewind’s Grace’s history with the horde, it can’t be good! Captain Rona was being particularly fierce in her orders during the meeting that no one is to talk to them or help them out in any way, or she will personally “keel-haul” them straight to the Stockades! The crew is kind of afraid of her, so I don’t see them violating those orders. Equally adamant were her orders not to go picking fights with one of the recent new hires, especially not the demon hunter. The crew nodded again, fearing their captain’s wrath.
Of particular interest was the addressing of an issue I hadn’t previously been aware of. Captain Rona was telling the crew at large to keep flares on their person while aboard the ship and their firearms loaded, because apparently they’d been seeing “shadows” all over the ship! Captain Rona said she personally thought the lot of them were just seeing things and going “loopy” on her, but, as First Mate Nate reminded her, the ship HAD suffered Forsaken attacks in the past, so they’ve gotta be on alert with the strange new sightings.
Next up on the meeting’s agenda was talking about my bestie Nah’s BIRTHDAY! It’s on the fourth of July, which is when Stormwind and Booty Bay have their big Fireworks Extravaganzas each year, so there is every chance that most might not make it to Nah’s birthday party, as they’re doing things with their own families that day usually, but Captain Rona did want the crew to at least bid Nah a happy birthday if she recovered from her illness between now and then, or at least pass them along via Nate if not. One of the crew, braver than the rest I guess, put up a fearful, shaking hand, and, when acknowledged, asked if it would be okay to organize the crew into singing a birthday shanty to her, outside her door if need be. Captain Rona looked like she was going to strangle him or something, but then she softened, granting permission and directing him to organize it with Nate, Star, and I.
After that, the meeting adjourned, though I’d asked the captain for a word in private. I didn’t want to alarm the crew any more than they apparently already were, so I’d waited until after the meeting was over with to ask about those shadows the crew had been seeing all over the ship. Captain Rona said that the sailors would show up from time to time drenched in sweat, or worse, having soiled themselves, talking about a terrifying shadow with long ears and a hood. That sounds spooky as heck! The captain granted permission to look into it ourselves when we get time, so that’s gonna be something in the agenda for… maybe the coming week? I dunno just yet. But there’s a mystery to be solved here!
Friday evening, Celeste left right after I got home from work to go to the Swamp of Sorrows for that big meet-up and audition for the Explorer’s League! I’ve missed her quite a bit, but I’m so thrilled for her adventures she’s been having all week, looking for more ancient ruins beyond the Sunken Temple! Only issue was, getting her there past the Bloodsail Buccaneers!
The plan we’d developed that I wrote about last week worked like a charm! As it turns out, the pirates came to the same realization we had… the cannons weren’t able to be turned fast enough to fire off a shot at the Flying Nosebleed, so they didn’t even try! And the invisibility spell just before rounding the cape and coming into view, combined with the sounds of the Flying Nosebleed’s engines, worked to conceal the Wave Dancer’s passing! They did try a few potshots with their firearms, but the Flying Nosebleed was too fast to draw a bead on, and I kept changing directions randomly besides! And, to top it all off, Celeste’s stinky bombs worked like a charm, as well! The crews of the ships at anchor off the cape only tried a few shots at the Flying Nosebleed before the bombs of stinky green gas clouds had them dropping their weapons and rushing to the rails of the ship, looking like they were seasick! HA! Got ‘em!
The rest of the trip passed without incident. We were able to get north up the east coast of Stranglethorn Vale, past the Blasted Lands without incident, up to the Swamp of Sorrows, turning in at the east end of the big lake in the Swamp to go past the Sunken Temple to Marshtide Watch, the little lakeside Alliance fort in the area. I waited there with her until the Explorer’s League showed up. I got to meet them myself! They’re really smart dwarves, eager to learn and understand and discover! When they were ready to start the evening with their work for Celeste, I left them to it. I topped off fuel in Booty Bay, as they have that goblin oil rig nearby, and flew for home through a portal Celeste opened to the Shrine of Seven Stars in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms in Pandaria. I can’t wait until Celeste comes back with all the cool stories! This is gonna be great! I’m gonna have to go all-out on cooking and make her up a big welcome home meal!
Monday I got to hang out with Grim! I finally took him to go see the Whitewind’s Grace for a tour of the ship! Every deck, from the very top with the helmsman’s wheel and its fancy housing in the back, to the dismal brig down on the very bottom deck in the front of the ship, and everything in between! He saw the captain’s quarters, Nah’s quarters, the crew bunks, the cannon deck, the captain’s gallery, where she, Nate, Nah, and I eat, the officer’s mess hall, the crew’s mess hall, the ammo storage, supply storage, food storage, the works! It was a great time! He seemed really impressed with the ship! I hope he likes it just as much when we sail to Northrend next week!
Tuesday, early in the afternoon, I got a call over the Whitewind gnomish communicators from Star. Apparently, she and Nate were investigating reports of bioluminescent marine life around the northwestern shores of the Eastern Kingdoms. I met them on the beach of a small island in northwestern Gilneas, away from the still-dangerous plagued areas of Gilneas proper where Sylvanas attacked it back around the time of the Cataclysm, and sure enough, Nate had found a red starfish that was glowing blue! The blue seemed to be magical, and Star, being a very, very old Draenei mage, knew just the scrying spell to ascertain its nature. The glow did indeed seem to be magical in nature, though it seemed to be a very ancient magic, predating the time of the humans of the ancient kingdom of Arathor learning about magic and how to use it from the ancient elves of Quel’thalas, back when they first met.
This left us with a real mystery to solve! If this magic predated the humans of Arathor, then that left elves and trolls. Trolls used a more primal sort of magic they call “voodoo,” and this seemed to be more refined than that, leaving only elves… yet the elves of Quel’thalas didn’t really travel this far from their city at the time due to the war with the Amani Empire, the forest trolls who were trying to annihilate the elves at the time. Who, then, was using magic back then? The only remaining option was Highborne Kaldorei, yet those had largely disappeared – the whole reason the Quel’dorei (or High Elves) existed was because they were descended from the Highborne Kaldorei that had been exiled from Kalimdor by Malfurion Stormrage after their magics had drawn the attention of the Burning Legion, and they still refused to stop practicing them. So how does Highborne Kaldorei fit in?
Then it hit me… the Kaldorei Highborne had been discovered around the time of the Third War to mostly have dropped into the sea with Queen Azshara during the Sundering (when the Well of Eternity exploded ten thousand years ago and split Azeroth’s one huge continent into several smaller ones) and were magically transformed into the Naga… and THOSE buggers were all OVER the west coasts of the Eastern Kingdoms!
Star started thinking about the underwater Naga kingdom of Vashj’ir at that point, as magic this powerful wasn’t done by the small bands of Naga that roved the coasts around here. There was also the fact that Star and Nate had been there five hours before Nate finally found the glowing starfish. I started thinking about the Eastern Kingdoms as they were laid out on a map. Tol Barad is an island close enough to see the twin spires of rock rising from Vashj’ir… what if we went to the south coast of the southern half of the island of Tol Barad? Would we see, then, more glowing blue marine life?
Star summoned a portal to Tol Barad on the spot! Off we went, traveling quickly to the south beach. Immediately, we found loads of seaweed spotting the beaches, and within each were more glowing blue marine life! Crabs, more starfish, a few clams in the shallow water right off the beach, all glowing blue! Tol Barad was right in between Vashj’ir and where we were in Gilneas, so that answered why there was so much more here than in Gilneas. The tide must drift north from there. That also pointed to where a future Whitewind Company expedition would be heading… Vashj’ir! I can’t wait to go! This is going to be a tremendous moment of magical discovery!
There was a fifth thing that usually doesn’t happen this week, in regards to my earlier writing that it was a busy week, full of things that never happened, and none of anything that usually did happen. This week… THERE WAS A DEATHROLLS GAME! WOO!
I’d missed Deathrolls so much! It was me, Grim, Star, First Mate Nate, Star, and Mags! We started off at Pinky’s Groggery, but eventually made our way to Hops, Line, and Sinker Brewery, all the way across the city, as we’d never played there before and Star, Nate, and I had scouted out all the taverns of the city earlier after our trip to Tol Barad, from the most run-down in the Boralus slums, to the most upscale in Upton Borough (where I found myself reminiscing to Star and Nate about how Celeste and I had had lunch while waiting on Frank the Fae to be crafted in the toy store, and Celeste, as she and I made the candleflames change colors and dance around our table at Pinky’s, had first told me she had feelings for me), and Hops seemed like one of our top choices. We played in the open-air part of the bar, right near the houseboats pulled alongside the back of the establishment selling food. It was great! Great drinks, great food, great company! And the view of the pretty city with all its saltwater canals and the nature views beyond the houseboats were great too!
Then there were the Deathrolls themselves… oh gosh! We went all-out this time! I ended up with entirely too much to drink due to a Dare from Nate right off the bat! Then we were talking about the Clam Club, where we’d found and busted Marcus Brinebreaker last year, and we’d shown Nate the club earlier. Star said that Nate saw plenty of the clams they had in that club, and that Nate didn’t like them. I said I dunno why; clams are good! I’d eaten plenty of clams! Big clams, small clams, clams closed so tightly you really gotta work ‘em good with your fingers to open them up to eat them, really loose clams, wet clams, dry clams (which aren’t as good)… and they were all LAUGHING at me! …It turns out that Star was talking about a different sort of “clams” altogether, because Nate had been blushing at the particularly scantily-clad women in that underground nightclub… GOSH! Oops!
But yeah… moving on… there was a Dare from Mags to get Nate and Star – who’d both rolled ones, between the Deathrolls and the Truth or Dare rolls – to run around Upton Borough (before we’d left for Hops in the Ashvane Company Yards) and find a lemon. First one to bring one back wins… and the loser has to eat the lemon! Star won, so she made Nate eat the lemon. Nate got her back with a few embarrassing Truths and Dares, and Star was talking about conjuring up more lemons, as she’s a mage, and making Nate eat THOSE as well, so now Star has a new nickname… Lemon Lady! HA! This one came about after Nate Dared her to change into a bikini (joining me, as I’d suffered the same fate earlier in the evening) and then stuff all the lemons into her top and bottom. Gosh, the lemons bulging out of the bikini looked so ridiculous! I had Star stand behind Nate and pretend she was on a motorcycle, and his ears where the handlebars. She was twisting his ears up and making motorcycle noises so loudly, and Nate just sat there looking all awkward. HA! Everyone except Mags, who had to leave a couple hours into the game, eventually had to join Star and I in swimsuits. So it was me, Grim, Nate, and Star, all in swimsuits, all having been Dared to dive into the water between the houseboats and swim around the little inlet there from the Tiragarde Sound, so we were all wet, sitting amongst a crowd in a bar that was dressed and dry. It was so awkward, and we were drawing so many stares! Yet that’s a part of the charm of Deathrolls! I love it! There was even a part where I had to go pretend to propose to this really, REALLY skinny Kul Tiran guy who was so drunk he barely could do more than eye me in my bikini and make comments. I don’t even think he registered he’d been proposed to before he blacked out on the spot in the floor from being drunk under the table by this slender, muscular-looking Kul Tiran sailor woman. That’s good, because all I was able to do was stammer a whole bunch and blabber on about bread… my flirting skills are basically non-existent! Then there was a Truth in which Grim had to answer a story about his most embarrassing moment involving a clothing snafu. He said it was when he was with a woman and almost got discovered with her by her husband, and she’d dressed him up like a woman and snuck him out. The husband had found him, and, thinking he really was a woman, was hitting on him pretty hard… what a dysfunctional couple! And how drunk was he, to find Grim to be an attractive woman?! HA! There was one, once I’d sobered up a bit, where I had to dance on the table in my bikini. For the first time in a long time, though I tripped myself up a couple of times, I at least didn’t fall off the dang table! But then Grim had a Truth for Nate, asking him if me dancing in a bikini on the table “does it for him.” Nate, blushing like me, admitted it did… Oh my goodness! Star had a clothing truth too… her most embarrassing moment was one I was actually present for. Her clothes had gotten damaged somehow, just before the first time I met her, and Nah, ever the troublemaker, decided to be nice and get her a new outfit… the outfit was so skimpy, Star was hiding in the bushes when I first met her! HA! That was her most embarrassing clothes moment! After that, Grim had a Dare for her, and that was to wear an outfit like my bikini, except dance on the table to get there… GOSH! Mags (who only somehow ends up attending the games where stuff like this happens – usually Nah, whose natural Kaldorei tendency toward nudism is compounded by her propensity for mischief-making) was commenting that Nah isn’t even here, and people are STILL getting “nakey.” Mags was talking a little bit later that Star is scary, because she’s big and glowy. I told her that Lightforged Draenei are our friends, and great protectors, and that their glowing is basically like a nice nightlight… it keeps the scary darkness at bay! Mags was like, “Don’t say that when her big nightlights are almost out on display!” GOSH! Then she was commenting on how the ownership of the establishment is happy we’re there increasing business, because gawkers. Goodness gracious! The one that really backfired on me, though, was a Whisper Dare to Grim… I had Whisper Dared him to wait three rounds, then, when he least expects it, without warning, without context, walk over to him, randomly put him into a headlock, give him a ferocious noogie, then slap him on the rear, and go, “Attaboy, Clam Boss!” But then, the very next round, I ended up rolling a one and Grim got to Dare me, so he Whisper Dared me to do the same thing to Star when he goes and does his to Nate! Oops! Needless to say, there was a lot of confusion on their side of the table, and the noogies and rear-slaps and “Attaboy, Clam Boss!” and “Attagirl, Clam Mistress!” really took them by surprise! Not to mention the laughs from the onlookers around the bar! HA! There were lots and lots more hilarious Truths and Dares, and to list them all would require several pages… it was that long and that good and that fun of a game! People are wanting to make this a regular thing again, and, though we may need to fill the table with two or three new regulars from new friends we might meet around Stormwind, we should be able to bring Deathrolls back to Tuesday nights! WOO!
The next night was gonna be the weekly Whitewind Company weekly expedition night. The crew had been on comms earlier in the afternoon, deciding which piece to pursue next. I’d posted on the walls of one of the meeting rooms aboard the Whitewind’s Grace a list of all the leads we found in the Stormwind Royal Library on the plate armor set of Princess Ariel Sunstrider, all the books and where they said which piece was last known to be, and the group ended up settling on going to Northrend to pursue the helm, the lead Grim found. But only two people showed up… Tess and Annasanna Moonbeam, a worgen druid healer that was coming in Nah’s place, as Nah is still sick. Grim didn’t seem to have his comms on when we decided on the time and place, so I guess he didn’t know. Zarshal had seemed eager enough to come, but never showed up and wasn’t answering comms when it came time. Mairy had let us know ahead of time that she’d be pretty late. By the time we called it off, though, it was too late to start, even if Mairy had joined right that moment, as it was sure to take a lot longer than the bit of time we had left. So that was a serious bummer. But, we’ll try to form up again next week!
Today, I plan on just relaxing. Dordy and I have the house to ourselves, so we’ll likely read and nap and fish and nap and read again. I’ll likely visit with Other Nat and the rest of our Angler’s Wharf friends. Maybe have lunch with Penny at the farm and visit with her to see how things are going. We’ll see how it goes! I’m mostly just eager to try and make time fly by as quickly as possible so I can get to the day Celeste comes back. I miss her, and I wanna hear stories besides! I can’t wait to hear how it went in the Swamp of Sorrows! I’ll know soon though!
Nat smiled at that happy thought, wiggling a bit in her chair in eager anticipation. She tapped off the excess ink from her quill into inkwell, capping the latter and replacing the former in its case. She replaced them in her drawer, then rose to refill her coffee. When she got back to the office, the ink on her diary pages was dry, so she closed that and replaced it on her bookshelf. The cool darkness of the kitchen awaited, and so did breakfast… She and Dordy both were looking forward to that, though they looked forward to hearing the sounds of happy humming and mechanical tinkering noises more!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jul 7, 2022 16:35:56 GMT
July the Seventh A dark, dense fog settled over the wharf this morning, though the warm tropical sun could be felt beginning to burn through the upper reaches of it. The cool mists of the morning were alleviated by this, and by the humidity in the air. Not that this stopped the early morning pandaren – and other races – fishing from the various piers at various heights around Anglers Wharf. They sat in chairs, stood, or sat along the ledges with their legs dangling over the edge, which meant dipping their feet in the cool morning waters if they were at the bottom levels. The area was quiet, each angler concentrating on their craft, using skills honed over lifetimes to reel in the big ones, though some looked up from time to time as the smell of many different breakfast foods began to emanate from the inn on the topmost tier of the little stilt village over the water.
In one of these chairs on the pier, a chair built usually for a boat with purple cushions and a purple umbrella to ward off direct sunlight (though there was none as yet) sat Natasha Ebonlocke, her diary in her lap. An opened cherrywood quill case and uncapped inkwell of purple ink rested on a small, foldable camping table to her right, and she held her ravenfeather quill in her hand, looking thoughtful… and rather tired. Dor’dieb McCullough-Ebonlocke, that beloved pet molten corgi and feaster of untended noms, was wandering around the pier, visiting with the usual friends of the family that liked to give him lots of attention, petting, and treats. With Dordy pretty much behaving himself, Nat left him to his rounds. Heaving a huge sigh, she put quill tip to paper, wishing Celeste were here to complete the family, fishing over the pier or working on the Wave Dancer, doing either with that intense look of concentration of hers, or perhaps accompanied by her happy humming of favorite songs.
Dear diary,
Wooooooooooooowwwww, has it been one seriously LOADED week! I was busy like every single day! There has been no shortage of action THIS week!
First, there was a report of Nah going missing from the Whitewind’s Grace this past Monday! I met Grim and Zarshal at the Whitewind’s Grace to respond to Nate’s call about her missing over the Whitewind Company’s gnomish communicators. When we got there, Nate told us that he’d gone in to check on her, but she’d already disappeared! There were no signs of a struggle, and no signs of forced entry, which allayed our most immediate fears about the shadows sailors had been seeing on the ship for a couple of weeks, the shadows with the long ears and hoods on. At least, mostly. But we still had to find my bestie, especially as this day was her BIRTHDAY! She HAD to be okay! It was her special day, and I had gifts for her, and we had a party scheduled for her at the Darkmoon Faire, including more DEATHROLLS, just for her!
I got Nate free of his duties to come and search with us. The idea was to check and see if she’d wander off on her own, poofing the way she does when she leaves when she has to go somewhere else, or wants to go home for the night. Nate said we should check her “usual haunts,” which range anywhere from the Cathedral of the Holy Light to the sketchy confines of the Slaughtered Lamb tavern, and everywhere in between, so we disembarked from the ship and made our way out of the Stormwind Harbor.
We decided to cut left past the Stormwind Graveyard to the gazebo overlooking the huge northern ponds first, as that’s one of Nah’s favorite places to go for some quiet time. But no bestie there! We continued the circuit around the back of the Cathedral, circling around to the front door. No bestie in there either! Zarshal wondered about going downstairs to the tombs, but I’ve never really known Nah to frequent all the skeletons and stuff down there (though there was that one memorable fight with a Kaldorei rogue that currently resides in our ship’s brig and a couple of death knights that are still at large down there that one time!), so we didn’t go down there.
Before going to the taverns Nah likes best, though, or Lion’s Rest, we decided to make a stop at her home in Cut-Throat Alley in the Dwarven District to see if she simply went home first. So we walked over that way, through the Shady Lady, the sketchy store that has contraband for sale if you know the people and they trust you, and out the back door to the little hidden alley where Nah lives. Typical place to find a Nah, I tell you!
It was here we found the first unwelcome surprise of the day. I went up and knocked… and the door, not completely closed, just… swung right open!
We had a debate there about whether to enter without Nah’s permission, and concern for Nah eventually won out over violating her privacy. We were really worried; we know Nah usually locks both locks on that door!
Entering quietly, we looked around. I got a couple of lamps lit. Grim found the first clue! He found an untitled black, leather-bound book lying on the floor. Not like Nah to throw her things around like that! Reading the book, Grim found it was hand-written in a sloppy Darnassian script. He knows Darnassian and Thalassian from his own time with elves, including a number of personal details about his personal history with a few in particular that are both happy and sad, so he was able to read the writing. Given the dates and the first paragraph or two per page, it seemed like he’d found Nah’s personal diary!
Grim closed the diary immediately after realizing what it was, not wanting to invade Nah’s privacy any more than he already had. He handed it to me, knowing I’m Nah’s best friend, to decide what to do with it. Zarshal was with Grim; he figured we’d better not get into Nah’s personal diary, but Nate, ever the logical one, thought that we should at least check the very most recent entry, just to make sure Nah wasn’t missing because she was in some kind of trouble (yet again). I was on the fence, myself. I didn’t want to violate Nah’s privacy either, yet, if she were in trouble, and the diary could help us, we might very well have to check and see!
In the end, I decided that we’d check the diary if we had to, but only as a last resort. We’d only just entered the house, after all, so surely there were more clues to be had! I laid the diary on her dining room table and looked around some more.
My search took me upstairs, calling Nah’s name out as I slowly went up, looking up toward the balcony for her to appear all the while. I got to the top of the staircase without her responding, faced with her bedroom door there on the balcony. The others came up behind me. Again, they thought it should be me to go in there and look, as Nah and I are particularly close, while they waited out on the balcony, so I reluctantly agreed and went in to have a look around Nah’s bedroom.
At first, I didn’t really see anything, but Grim had the idea to check for a laundry bin and see if there was any indication she’d come home from the Whitewind’s Grace to change before she went anywhere else. I looked, and, sure enough, I found a laundry bin! …I kinda wish I hadn’t; it was full of a whole bunch of undergarments! GOSH! And then there was this purple bikini made of Shal’dorei silk that had an embroidered pattern of duskroses and other emblems of Darkshire, including the Night Watch raven, on it, down at the very bottom of the bin. I dunno what that means, but I was certainly getting the heck outta that bin! Good thing it all seemed to be laundered already after I had my hands in all that!
Blushing madly, I turned to leave. But, just then, the soft sound of parchment falling to the floor made me turn around again. There, on the floor, was a piece of parchment that seemed like it had just fallen off the very edge of Nah’s bed! I went to check what it was, and it was a shopping list! Shal’dorei silk, a visit to the tailor’s shop, and a visit to the enchanter’s shop. It seemed like a recently-made list! This could be a sign that Nah had simply nonchalantly left the Grace without telling anyone, and was really okay! Though it still didn’t explain why the worried calls for help looking for Nah went unanswered by her, so it wasn’t definitive proof she was okay…
I placed the list back on the bed, and we went back downstairs, exiting Nah’s house to go to the shops mentioned on the list, making sure to lock both locks carefully on our way out. We were thinking of the two tailoring shops in the Mage Quarter and the enchanting shop right near the Stockades, so we made our way that way, but then we passed the tailoring shop there in the canal side of the Trade District, the one sitting canalside between there and the Cathedral District. Stopping in there, the nice lady said that a Kaldorei matching Nah’s description had been through there just this morning, right after opening time early in the morning, looking for Shal’dorei silk work to be done, but the lady didn’t have enough for what maybe-Nah wanted done, but she did say that maybe-Nah had moved on to another shop, so we thanked her and moved on. This was good news; evidence that if this elf matching Nah’s description was Nah, then Nah had wandered off the ship under her own power! Maybe this meant she also wasn’t sick with that respiratory infection anymore either!
The enchanting shop was next. I was worried about my bestie enough that I said something to the Kaldorei guy working in there that Nah usually says, then I instantly regretted it; I didn’t want to seem to be mocking his race! It was, “Ishnu’tissue,” which Nah says instead of “Ishnu-alah,” which means, “Good fortune to you,” or “Ishnu-dal-dieb,” which means, “Good fortune to your family.” Nah, ever the troublemaker, likes to say, “Ishnu’tissue,” so I blurted that out before I even realized what I was saying, and I was SO horrified at what I’d just done! But the Kaldorei guy was just like, “Hmm, yes, she said that too…” I instantly went from horrified to overjoyed; it seemed like Nah had really been here too! The guy went on to confirm that the person that said that matched Nah’s description, right down the to the air of permanent mischief and sly smirking! Nah really was okay, and really had been out and about on errands that morning! The only thing now was to continue following leads; it was important to find out that she was STILL okay, since she hadn’t responded once to any of the worried calls over the comms that afternoon!
From there, it was on to the two tailoring shops. Nah had visited the first one as one enters the Mage Quarter from the Trade District side of the canals where the enchanting shop is, and then we went to the one that’s up by the mage tower. Piecing the story together, it seemed like Nah had gone to the latter tailoring shop first, making her way downhill to the former, then to the enchanting shop last once she had the Shal’dorei order made. The former said Nah had a large order of MORE undergarments waiting on her to pick them up, and, if she didn’t come pick them up soon, they’d be sold to the public. GOSH! That one made me blush! And then the enchanting shop, having been her last stop, was where the Kaldorei guy in there said that Nah had mentioned wanting to visit the auction house next, likely the Trade District one, as it was nearby, so we went there next.
We asked Auctioneer Jaxon, who knew Nah from Nah’s regular visits, if she’d been in that morning. Turns out Nah had undercut quite a wide range of supplies for the Whitewind’s Grace, gearing it up for a resupply before our trip to Northrend, then had decided to go to the Darkmoon Faire to kill time before her birthday party that night. That was good news; the party was going to be starting in a couple hours! We went directly to the Darkmoon Faire!
Wandering the Darkmoon Faire a bit, we didn’t find a lead until we checked around the food stand. The tauren working the food stand said that a Kaldorei matching Nah’s description had indeed been by there, chowing down on carnie food, though she had suddenly bolted to her feet and sprinted off toward the petting zoo… and that was only mere minutes ago! I’d have thought then that we finally had definitive proof that my bestie was okay, but the way he described her suddenly jumping to her feet and practically fleeing had me worried still! We followed suit, making our way to the petting zoo and looking around.
We made our way past a huuuuuge rhinoceros, then past an elekk, squeezing by a trio of outhouses in a row as we walked by the fence to observe the magnificent creatures. Just then, we heard a REALLY LOUD trumpeting sound, and I thought it was the dang elekk! But, as it turns out, it was coming from the middle outhouse! OH GOSH! We were trying to listen for Nah, and that trumpeting noise coming from in there was drowning out a lot of the sounds of the place, so, before I realized it, my worry for my bestie had me doing something very unlike myself… I was pounding on the back of the outhouse with the side of my right fist a whole bunch of times, going, “HEY! WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE?! WHAT THE FUDGE IS THAT NOISE AND THAT SMELL?! YOU NEED A MEDIC IN THERE?! MAYBE A PRIEST?!” Oh gosh!
To my IMMENSE surprise, however… it was my bestie’s voice answering me! She was, “Oh, Light, this carnie food… …Bestie Tasha, is that you…?” It was my BESTIE in there! She was SAFE! …Well, I mean, kinda!
After everyone got over the embarrassment of the moment, relief settled in. Emotional relief, that is; Nah would need a while longer for physical relief apparently, so she advised us to go to the Tauren Chieftans concert that was starting up soon, and that she’d join us there. So, Grim, Nate, and I (Zarshal had had to leave on the way up to the tailor’s shop near the mage tower earlier that afternoon). She ended up making it to us just before the concert started, and we were able to enjoy the concert as the sky darkened and fireworks went off all over the place. A great way to kick off a birthday party!
Only issue was, of course, that this was the day of the annual Fireworks Extravaganza that happens every Fourth of July, so most were going to be with their families that evening, so the plan was actually to return the next day for the actual party itself, and this day would just be a hangout until everyone went home for their own family parties.
The next day, we all got back together for Nah’s birthday party! It was me, my bestie Nah obviously, Grim, Sparkles, and, sent by Mags from the Quicksilver Company to get to know us and establish a working rapport as she was going to be accompanying us to Northrend the next day in a healer capacity, a young human woman by the name of Annabelle Baker, a Paladin from the Church of the Light! She’s really super nice, and great fun at Deathrolls!
Deathrolls itself, played on the beach on my picnic blanket with the fish and fishing rod and sea turtles patches (I gotta figure out how to fix or cover up that part where I unceremoniously ripped off that skull patch) under the fireworks once more going off in the darkening sky, was kicked off my Sparkles getting a Dare to benchpress me… Sparkles, the Mechagnome that had been with us so very many times for Whitewind Company adventures before Tess took over for her spot, and always hilarious at Deathrolls games, was actually able to benchpress me with her two-foot-tall self, her mechanical arms giving her extra strength, though it was still embarrassing that all this extra weight I have made sparks fly from her elbow joints, and she was only able to lift me four and a half times… and then her arms popped loose from their joints! Just popped right out! GOSH!
After we got her fixed back up – thankfully, her limbs are apparently designed to easily snap in and out, allowing for easy repairs and upgrades – she suddenly, randomly, whipped out her present for Nah! It was a pair of gloves that have a switch Nah can activate that makes a short dagger blade pop out from the wrist! Sounds like a great rogue weapon in a pinch to me! Nah loves it! I bet she’ll get great use out of those gloves on missions! Then I got out my presents for Nah, as we were on the topic. She opened the first one, revealing a multi-tool pocketknife! I put a few types of screwdrivers, needlenose pliers, several different lockpicks, a few short knife blades of various sorts, a short, stout saw blade, a small file, a small mirror mounted on the end of a long handle, and a pair of narrow-bladed scissors. The handle is black with a duskrose on one side, and the outline of a hooded Kaldorei rogue (just the head) on the other. Now she has lots of trickster’s tools in just one piece, and symbols of our friendship together on it! I got the idea from something my father gave Celeste once! Memories of gifts inspired my other gift to Nah… a photo album, containing lots of the photos I once wrote about looking at with her in the living room of her house right after she bought it, as well as many more taken since! Some taken by me of Nah, some taken of the two of us as selfies, some taken by other people. Photos of us adventuring, playing Deathrolls at all our favorite locales, going out on our hikes together, some of Nah not knowing she’s been photographed, like one at Lion’s Rest, looking thoughtfully out over the sea from the cliffs at Lion’s Rest, or cackling or snickering at me while I blush for some reason or other, or her doing something zany or wacky in a Deathrolls game or elsewhere, and some of us sailing way out in the seas on the Whitewind’s Grace. In all photos, there’s a very obvious and warm sense of deep friendship. It clearly warmed Nah’s heart as she looked through it, and the hug that followed showed how much she loved it! Though I think I squeezed too hard, judging from the sound and smell that came next… oops… she REALLY should not have had that carnie food! EW!
The Deathrolls game itself was… weird, to say the least. First it was a whole bunch of pranks on Sparkles, once Annabelle got so hooked on her interest in Sparkles’ detachable limbs. Dares ensued involving them, including Annabelle kicking all that off with Daring Sparkles to take her arms and legs off and switch them around and play Deathrolls that way for a round. That was so WEIRD, watching Sparkles reach out with her hand-feet to grab dice and toss them onto the picnic blanket! It was also weird watching her cackle with maniac contemplation when she got to think of a Dare for me… and steepled her fingers as she thought with her HAND-FEET! Following that were dares for Sparkles to have her limbs in the right place, but backwards, which was WEIRD, though it also reminded me of when Celeste and I first met Penny, and some jerk had compensated for one of her legs being constructed poorly by putting it on the only way it would go in its current (at the time) state – backwards. Gosh! But Sparkles is thick-skinned and was laughing pretty hard about it, so we did too! Annabelle was getting pretty weirded out, which was weird in itself, as she was the one that started this whole thing, so I Dared Annabelle to use one of Sparkles’ arms to pick up the dice and throw them for a couple rounds, and she had to keep the arm with her the whole time! Then there was a Dare in which Nah rolled a one, and Sparkles rolled a one during the Truth or Dare rolls to see who gets to Truth or Dare Nah, which meant she had to join Nah, and Nah chose Dare, and I won the roll, so… I had Nah go sit behind Sparkles on the picnic blanket so she could hold her up, detach all four limbs, and use the four of them as puppets while Sparkles narrated the skit with Nah puppeting the limbs in accordance with Sparkles’ narrating. Sparkles, ever the maniac, started plotting world domination and revenge on the spot, and, though it was hard to say whether she was plotting world domination and revenge in response to what we were doing, or whether it was her just narrating a skit, Nah followed along anyway, using one hand to mimic Sparkles talking, and the world domination bit was that hand attacking the other three limbs to get revenge on all wrong-doers and conquer the world. It was confusing as heck to try to discern whether it was Sparkles narrating or getting mad about what was going on, and when I asked, Sparkles was like, “STUFF CAN BE TWO THINGS!” and Nah pantomimed the dominant hand saying that, and then she was like, “’Stuff can be two things,’ Sparkles Cogswiggle, circa… this year.” That was too much! I busted out laughing SO HARD at that!
Sparkles was done having her arms and legs messed with by that point, so the theme seemed to shift on to the potions on Nah’s belt. Annabelle started this one too, saying if we couldn’t mess with Sparkles’ limbs anymore, then we’d mess with Nah’s potions instead. From there, everyone, including Nah and Annabelle themselves, ended up having to drink Nah’s purple potions… which, she revealed to us afterwards, was a powerful laxative she used to incapacitate targets at need. EW! And we’d all DRANK it! Grim was like, “Is this stuff the reason why you blew up the outhouse last eve?” to Nah! EW, Grim! At least the purple potion was purple because it was made from Nah’s favorite drink, moonberry juice! It was super tasty, if nothing else! Then there was a Dare I had for Nah where she had to think of the weirdest thing in her bathroom at home… and then pretend to be a charismatic saleswoman for a few minutes, and make us a sales pitch for it! And what she had was weird, alright… she had, with her basic engineering skills, designed a backscratcher that also had what was something like… a crevice-scrubber or something? And it also had a long part that vibrates intensely… I figured it was some sort of massager. Nah had a good laugh at that, though I dunno why! But she said it was the Nah-Brand Mana-Scrubber-N-Rubber! Only five hundred gold, and it comes with a lifetime guarantee! HA! Meanwhile, we’re farting – mostly me – because of that potion, and it had happened so much ever since we drank them that Nah and Annabelle had worked out a penalty for me each time.. a Fart Jar! I would have to put a silver in there every time I did it! Gosh! That potion! Then Grim got it going with the Whisper Dares… He got Annabelle to distract me by taking her hair scrunchie from her wrist and tugging it back to shoot it past me. I was confused by that, but I wanted to be nice, so I reached over to grab it for her… and that’s when she took advantage of me being distracted by giving me a WET WILLIE! EWWW! Her finger went into her mouth, and then deep into my ear! SO gross! And Grim, I guess, remembered the Whisper Dare I gave him at Hops, Line, and Sinker Brewing last week in Boralus, because he had her say, “Attagirl, Blushmaster!” Gosh Grim! I got Grim back with a Whisper Dare of my own when next I got him! I had him say, “I gotta fart,” every time Nah rolls, and, “That fart smells delicious” every time Annabelle rolled! I gotta say, that’s the only time I’ve EVER seen Grim turn a bit red, but by golly, he sure did! Nah and Annabelle (Sparkles had had to head back home to her adopted kid by this point) sure were confused, but they eventually puzzled out the pattern! HA! Then Grim got me back with a Whisper Dare when Nah and Annabelle both rolled ones. Then he got me with a Dare shortly thereafter, and he Dared me to stand up and yell, “I LOVE MOONBERRIES!” (still thinking the moonberry juice laxative potion we’d all had to drink was funny) as soon as “something odd happens.” Then he nodded to Nah, who came to sit by me and LICKED me, and she was like, “Mmm, Bestie tastes like moonberries!” Then Annabelle, looking horrified and blushing, and reached out to squeeze-squeeze my rear, and she was like, “Nice bottom, captain, and uh… I love moonberries?” Then she just sat there and blushed at Grim while Grim had a good belly laugh at his Whisper Dares, and then I stood up after all that and yelled, “I LOVE MOONBERRIES!” at the top of my lungs! I thought sure someone somewhere was gonna yell something back, but no one ever did. What an embarrassing ordeal! There were way more hilarious Dares, and many embarrassing and funny Truths, but listing them all would take pages and pages! It was a good, long, fun game there, sitting on the Darkmoon Faire island’s beach under the stars and the fireworks! A GREAT birthday party for my bestie Nah! I had so much fun! YAY!
Nat looked up as a bright light reflected off the surface of the gently rolling waters of Turtle Bay. It was a ray of sun, finally piercing through the morning mists and reflecting off the surface of the water. Nat could see the vague, shadowy outlines of a few fish gathering near the warmth, thinking idly that the early morning sun might make a good fishing time. She made a mental note to share this thought with Celeste when she got back… and maybe she and Dordy would do some fishing when the mists cleared away this morning, in the meantime? That was a thought! She smiled at the happy idea, then dipped her quill for more of her favorite purple ink and went back to her writing.
Yesterday, however, was a far more dire day. It was the day we went out for our weekly Whitewind Company expedition, and boy, was it a scary thought, going where we were going… We were to meet at Menethil Harbor, and sail with the Whitewind’s Grace with its usual trade route to NORTHREND!
The mission involved me, Grim, Tess, Mairy, Zarshal, Annabelle Baker from the Quicksilver Company, and another of our own healers, Annasana Moonblossom, the Whitewind Company healer that has been involved in healing us on or after a few other missions, like when we came back from Pyrewood Village that one time after busting that cult last year. My bestie Nah sailed with us as well, though she was going on her own errand up there and would not be joining us. She was telling me she had new leads on Richard Riggermotor, the elusive, mysterious brother of Nah’s nemesis from a couple years ago, Rick Riggermotor, whom Nah had many battles with that year before eventually killing (and nearly dying herself in that fight).
I was in summer garb at Menethil Harbor, as it was summer in a hot, humid marsh, but, as the boat was magically sped across the seas to Northrend, it quickly got quite chilly! I was in what I usually wear around Stormwind in the wintertime, a long dress with long sleeves and gloves, as the summers in Howling Fjord are mild, and there is no snow. The cold was felt by all well before the lookout cried the spotting of land. A wall of cliffs soon appeared through the chilly mists, rising high into the sky. Unlike the ride into Sri-La Village in Pandaria, this spotting of cliffs brought with it no pleasantly warm breeze. The temperature was in the low- to mid-forties fahrenheit, though one might not be able to tell that much by the plentiful icebergs, dotted with penguins, at or near the cliffs, and the howling winds blasting in from the sea that surrounded the land on three sides and gave the Howling Fjord its name certainly chilled the area further!
The Whitewind's Grace aimed for a gap in the cliffs, entering a canyon, or fjord as they’re called, the narrow inlet of water running deep into the land between towering cliffs. The smell of wood smoke hung in the air, as well as an earthy, chilly scent that brings to mind the latest vestiges of autumn. Vrykul civilization was in clear evidence as the ship navigated the fjord, and the deep baritones of vrykul voices carried faintly on the winds.
Suddenly, as we rounded a bend and came into the broad expanse of Daggercap Bay, the towering vrykul citadel of Utgarde Keep loomed directly ahead! The icy temperatures, the history of this scary land, and that towering edifice of the vrykul drove one fact home with the force of a punch to the face... We're not in Pandaria anymore! Utgarde Keep was already making Northrend look imposing. Forbidding. Ominous. Freezing temperatures, hostile, barbaric vrykul, and something much, much worse loomed in this beautiful, yet horrifying, ancient land...
Yet, for all the anxiety the entrance to the land caused, I couldn’t help but be awed by its natural beauty. The winds brought with it now, besides the deep baritones of vrykul voices, a single, solitary vrykul flute, playing slow bits of songs from their culture. Daggercap Bay and the surrounding cliffs were dotted by not-unattractive vrykul architecture. They do have a beautiful building style, even if they are hostile and barbaric! The plateaus themselves, mostly tundra, though spotted by trees here and there, hosted a wide variety of life. Hawks, turkeys, wild shoveltusk boars, bears, wolves, and other beasts roam the land, while the waters of the fjord, bay, and surrounding seas teamed with their own life. The earthy smells and smells of wood smoke and general feel of autumn were so relaxing, soothing even the ominous, anxious feeling the known danger and history of the land brought. If not for the vrykul and other, worse dangers, one could really make a very happy home here!
The Whitewind’s Grace traveled through the bay, passing Valgarde on the left. The walls and other structures of Valgarde (long since completed and expanded upon since the time of the Alliance's campaign against the Lich King) rose around the dock of the small harbor. The little fort was busy and bustling, with traders, travelers, adventurers, laborers, and military personnel going about here and there on business of their own. Wanting to turn to mate up with the dock while pointing out of the bay toward the sea, the ship passed the Alliance settlement and veered right, making for a massive cave in the cliffs. There was a vrykul banner in the cave on a sandy little bit like a beach, with a huge bonfire burning washed-up bits of broken ships and docks and stuff. The cave itself wasn’t too dark, as it was just a shallow cut into the cliffs and soon made a half-circle out into Daggercap Bay again.
As we pulled up to the dock, the crew began work to secure the ship to the dock and do its usual duties here as part of its trade route, unloading food gathered at Sri-La Village in Pandaria as well as medical supplies, and Tisaani, our Lightforged Draenei healer, disembarked to provide Whitewind charity and taking care of any healing needed by the natives. Meanwhile, the rest of us went and asked around. Zarshal found a dwarven blacksmith, and Tess was pointed to Bertrand McSorf of the explorer’s league.
The dwarves were instrumental in helping us find our first lead, because, as Grim found a couple months ago in our initial research into the plate armor suit of Princess Ariel Sunstrider in the Stormwind Royal Library in a book written by Grugni Stonebeard of the Explorer’s League (which keeps reminding me of Celeste’s work with the Explorer’s League in the Swamp of Sorrows currently), what we’re after involves Stonebeard’s expedition to this land. The book Grim found in the library details how Stonebeard had sailed to Valgarde in the Howling Fjord, how he had somehow 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 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. So, we gotta retrace every step Grugni Stonebeard made in order to find the helm somewhere between Valgarde and Icecrown’s northern island!
Zarshal and Tess’s conversations with Dwarves both followed the same story… only a few years ago, a dwarf had come from the Explorer’s League with a team of fellow Explorers to find the helm, and that he’d talked about wanting to go up to top of the cliffs to the east, but, being on foot, he’d had to travel north through Utgarde Keep to find it. This was it! Our first lead on the helm since Grim found the book in the library! We thanked the people of Valgarde and made our way out the north gate, through a towering pine forest, heading right to Utgarde Keep.
A prevalent scent of natural pine and fir added to the earthy, chilly scents and the fragrance of woodfires. The towering pines blocked out the warm sun when passing through them, leaving an underlying cool temperature in the air that made me start shivering, being more used to the hot summers of Pandaria’s tropical southern coast by this point. Utgarde Keep now rose directly ahead, and, at its foot, it seems even more insurmountable and forbidding than the peak of Mount Neverest had a couple weeks ago when viewed from ITS foot! And the big skull carved into the front of it! Gosh! How scary!
Wyrmskull Village, the vrykul village across the little creek from Valgarde, is much less populated than Valgarde is, perhaps due to its proximity with Valgarde's front gates. The vrykul here did not, however, seem cowed by our group, being used to sorties made from the Alliance keep; indeed, the looks from the villagers were hostile and cold. They made no move of aggression, but they certainly seemed as though they'd have liked to!
We didn’t encounter trouble until the two guards at the base of the stairs going up into Utgarde Keep itself. These two did not want us to pass. There was talk about swimming across Daggercap Bay itself and climbing up to the cliffs that Stonebeard had apparently wanted to get up to, but in the end, the group realized they had as many healers as the opposing vrykul had members in their team in total, and that they’d just force entry. The vrykul immediately attacked, talking about doing gross things with our hearts! Zarshal, Tess, and Palattu engaged one, and the rest of us engaged the other, who had leaped right into our group and started whirling around with a Bladestorm attack! He didn’t hit anyone, as I had ducked only just in time and the rest managed to leap back out of the way, though his next attack, a cleaving swing with his two-handed greatsword toward Tess and Mairy, and then another attack at Grim, knocked all three of them to the ground! Annabelle immediately got to work healing, as did Annasana, because boy, did the others seem hurt! But then Palattu and Zarshal finished off their vrykul and came to help, and together, we overwhelmed the attacking vrykul and finished him off.
We went into the lowest non-sub-level of the keep then, looking around. Zarshal immediately scented more approaching vrykul with his worgen nose. Annasana found a hallway branching off to the right that seemed promising. Mairy, however, made the biggest find… a rectangular slate with dwarven runes on it! Being able to read the runes of her people, naturally, she picked it up and began to read. Apparently, Grugni Stonebeard had been immediately successful in finding the plate helm of Princess Ariel Sunstrider! He’d snuck up to the very pinnacle of Utgarde, finding it in that big stash of treasure adventurers to in to plunder from time to time, and made it back down to here with his head and those of his friends still intact, though they were anxious to make a hasty escape to the cliffs they’d wanted to travel to. Apparently there was some suspicion that intruders were there, and they wanted to leave before they were discovered!
By that point, we could all hear what Zarshal had scented before… a very large number of heavy vrykul footfalls heading down the next ramp of the keep, heading right toward us! We had to get outta there fast!
We went down the branching hallway Annasana had found, making a right turn where the hall turned and finding ourselves at another fork. Left was a hall toward sunlight with a ramp leading up at the end, and the sound of a waterfall. Directly ahead was another exit from the keep back to Wyrmskull Village, where we’d already come from. Making the left, we found ourselves in a manmade ramp curling around behind the massive waterfall next to the keep, which provided some really scenic views! But that didn’t last long…
Interrupting the scenery viewing almost immediately was a trio of more vrykul, cutting off our ascent from up the ramp from us, with the pursuing army of vrykul hunting for us gaining on us from somewhere behind! Three more warriors were facing us down. One went for Zarshal, who was out in front, trying to grab him and throw him over the waterfall! Zarshal did his shadowstep thing and ended up behind the guy, asking him if his mother never taught him not to go grabbing wolves and worgen before. Ha! Then things got grizzly from there… Burning starsurge and wrath spells from Annasana, very bloody attacks from Grim and his TWO two-handed greatswords, one in each hand because he’s so strong, Mairy and her sword and mace, and, from a nether portal I conjured up, something I have the strength to do once per weekly excursion… an entire army of fel minions! Everything from felguards to dreadstalkers to shivarras to wild imp swarms, and more, all attacking at once and overwhelming the vrykul, pounding them to a pulp, casting spells at them, all before I cleared them all away before they could get free and start their own rampages (not to mention not wanting to scare my friends with fel minion armies any longer than I really have to). Mek-barash decapitated one, Grim opened another’s throat, and the rest of the group managed to overwhelm one and send HIM the way he’d tried to send Zarshal… sailing over the ledge with the waterfall! One of them DID manage to get a hard charge in on Annasana, bashing her HARD over the head with his huge club and sending her flying into the wall. Annasana was able to heal herself with her druidic magics, and Annabelle healed her the rest of the way up with the Light, then fixed a few bumps and bruises on the rest of us to make us all good as new, and the fight was, by that point, over. We’d won again!
From there, we completed the scenic trip up the ramp, curving to the right behind the waterfall, emerging from the vrykul-made tunnel to find ourselves atop the cliff, just like Stonebeard had wanted to go! Mairy’s slate had also mentioned the “southern cliffs,” so the crossroads we almost immediately found ourselves at was easy to choose between… the road to our right led south!
We found ourselves walking along the clifftop vrykul structures, strolling through the village of Nifflevar. The vrykul peasants here were just like the ones below in Wyrmskull Village… not attacking, but also giving us cold, hostile looks as we passed through.
Eventually, we found ourselves at a huge, HUGE bonfire, surrounded by wood-plank paths leading to the surrounding vrykul longhouses and other structures. Mairy spotted another of those rectangular slates here! Again, it was by Grugni Stonebeard, detailing an escape from Utgarde Keep and a foray into this village to rescue a captured member of his crew from the rune-seers there. He wanted to go from there to an Explorer’s League Outpost on the southern cliffs, which explained why he wanted to come up here! It ended with him saying he had to make another escape, as the gates were suddenly closing!
Then, just as Stonebeard’s unfortunate crew member had had happen to him a few years ago, two rune-seers and two warriors suddenly surrounded us and told us we weren’t going anywhere, and that we never should have invaded Nifflevar! The group had already elected to fight twice that night, and the gates, just like Grugni Stonebeard had written, were closing! Annasana thought quickly, conjuring up roots with her nature spells and rooting the group in place, and we made a break for it toward the gates! I had to use a warlock gateway to keep up with the far more capable runners, and even then, I only barely made it through the gates right before they could finish closing! We had to make a mad dash for it then, as the vrykul inside were screaming for the gates to be reopened so they could give chase! We rode south again, along another road, most of us able to wave in attendant flying mounts, or, in Annasana’s case, able to change into a stag. Annabelle rode with Zarshal on his flying panther, and Mairy ran for it behind us, surprisingly not falling far behind at all with her massive leaps and rolls forward!
With the clifftops giving way to a gently rolling tundra with few trees, it was easy to eventually spot the Explorer’s League Outpost that Stonebeard had been trying to find a few years before, though there was quite a scene going on when we arrived! Apparently, this dwarf named Lebowski was quite upset about someone having pooed on his rug! The other two Explorer’s League dwarves, Stanwad and Needlemeyer, were trying to puzzle out who did it when we made our approach. The two were arguing and were nearly ready to fight over the topic when we got there, and Needlemeyer sat back down while Stanwad answered our questions. It turns out that Grugni Stonebeard had indeed arrived a few years ago, and he still had the elven princess’s helm still on him! He had gone from there to explore Baelgun’s Excavation Site to the southeast! We had our next lead! WOO!
At this point, we were out of time, so we’ll be reconvening next week at the Explorer’s League Outpost to make our foray into Baelgun’s Excavation Site to see what happened to Grugni Stonebeard next! I can’t wait to see how it goes!
And then, last, but certainly not least, I was sitting at home this morning, enjoying breakfast with Dordy in the dining room and looking out the big wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the south seas, when suddenly something unexpected happened! Dordy suddenly got up from where he was dozing next to me, tail wagging furiously and racing to the door to the balcony, wanting to be let out. His sensitive ears had picked up quickly what I suddenly heard shortly thereafter: the familiar buzzing of Celeste's hook drone! The pair of us dashed outside as the drone buzzed into view and descended to my eye level. It beeped as its sensor detected me and the hook below it opened. A large, round tin container, sealed with wax, thumped onto the balcony floor. The drone beeped again and seemed to be waiting.
The tin box was covered in drawings and doodles of the TOAD, crocolisks, bearded dwarves and swamp trees adorned with moss. Inside, I found a leather-bound notebook about six inches by six inches and thick from all the S.E.L.F.I.E.s. inside. There was also a long letter rolled up into a scroll, and finally what looked like a flower pressed between two flat pieces of bark. The flower seems to have been dried to preserve its color. It has a large petal at the bottom and three short ones on top. The petals are a deep purple and the center of the flower gradually becomes a light sky blue. It’s SO STINKIN’ PRETTY! I love how Celeste thinks of so very many nice things for me! She’s so great!
I’m getting pretty good at this spell that copies letters and other writing over into my diary, making them appear exactly as the writer’s handwriting appears. I even got some doodles copied in! The letter reads as follows:
Celeste's handwriting is small and neat, with curves and lines reminiscent of Darnassian script, as it was Celeste's adoptive Kaldorei mother Eowithiel who had taught her how to read and write.
My beloved Natasha and Dordy,
I miss you so very much but thankfully the dwarves are keeping me busy so its not unbearable. So far things have been going smoothly enough, with a few notable moments. The TOAD is working great as is the Wave Dancer. The modifications we made are perfect. The canopy keeps our gear dry and the mosquito netting prevented us from getting eaten alive by all the bugs out here.
There is a doodle on the side of the letter here of a mosquito lounging in a reclined chair, drinking from a glass of blood with a straw.
The dwarves kept traipsing in and out of the Dancer, letting the bugs in. These guys just wouldn't listen! I had to create a fire to fumigate the interior of the Dancer and I forced the dwarves to wait outside. They were careful after that! Seems a few dozen bug bites changed their minds.
Another doodle here, this one of a doodle here of a dwarf with bug bites on his arms and legs. Everything above the beard lost in a cloud of smoke.
I helped build a search pattern over the waters with Uncle Rugnar thanks to a map of the Swamp one of the Explorers had brought along. We quickly set out deeper into the swamp. We didn't find much until the third day when one of the explorers said he had noticed a structure beneath the Dancer. The water was full of silt and mud though so we had couldn't see much, even with the spotlights I had to look into the water. So I moved the Dancer away and built a wall around the part of the swamp we wanted to investigate. I used the TOAD to pile dead trees around the place and patched it with mud. Then I hardened it with fire until the wall was mostly water tight. After that it was a slow process of draining the water sufficiently with the TOAD's water pump until we could see what was there. It turned out to be just petrified trees that were vaguely shaped into the corner of a structure. Nothing useful but the dwarves were impressed with my ability to quickly find a creative way to solve problems!
Building the wall and draining the water took a few days though. While the TOAD was pumping and watched in turn by different people, I got a chance to explore the swamp. No fish beyond small sickly ones, unfortunately.
Another doodle here, this one of a skinny fish with Xs for eyes.
Saw lots of very colorful frogs! You'd have loved to see them. Maybe I'll catch a few to bring back so they could live in the herb garden. Might lack bugs to eat though.
Another doodle here, this one of two starry-eyed cartoon frogs kissing.
Saw a crocolisk floating just below the surface of the water, only its eyes showing. It was sooo coool but scary how it was so hard to spot. I had to adjust the sensitivity of the TOAD's MADS system so it would better notice any coming closer to the Dancer. It was TOO sensitive though and the first night, it kept throwing flares and smoke canisters at every little leaf that twitched!
Another doodle here, this one of the TOAD shooting hundreds of flares and canisters at cartoon leaves fleeing in terror.
The dwarves were less impressed at that but the next day they laughed with good nature at the mishap. Some of them were most curious about how the TOAD worked after that and even helped me adjust its MADS system to something better.
I found the flower I included in the package while exploring near the pumping site. I was knee deep in muck and slime and cursing my constant need to see what's beyond the next dead tree when I stumbled on a patch of dry ground. Sunlight streaming down onto about two dozen flowers. They are absolutely beautiful. One of the Explorers showed me how to dry one to show you while keeping the colors intact.
We continued after that but aside from primitive arrow heads and broken pieces of pottery we didn't find much. I'm going to suggest trying to search higher ground. Maybe whoever lived here before would have preferred dry ground, only coming down to the swamp to hunt or something. We still have some sections of water to search but Rugnar can drive the Dancer while I search from the air with the TOAD. Maybe I'll find something we overlooked!
That's all the time I have for writing and my lantern is slowly dimming. The TOAD is making sounds like it's detecting something so I best check the perimeter. I'll send the drone in the morning so you'll know everything was ok. I guess if a giant swamp monster is about to eat me, you'll never get this anyways!
Another doodle here, this one of a five-headed crocolisk with bat wings, smoke coming out of its nostrils.
Oh and go ahead and put a reply if you want in the drone's claw. It's programmed to return to the Dancer.
Oh! Uhm, PS or whatever, I enclosed all the S.E.L.F.I.E.s I took so far. I'll need space for more anyways.
PPS or something! Give Dordy lotsa hugs for me and then lots more. I love you!
It really sounds like Celeste is having quite an adventure up in the Swamp of Sorrows! And the Explorer’s League dwarves certainly seem impressed with her ingenuity and resourcefulness, as well as her knack for archaeology! I’m glad she’s having such a great time!
I wrote her a letter back, too! I copied it to my diary as well! It went like this:
Dearest Celeste,
Wow, are you having an adventure up there! Thank you SO MUCH for the pictures and the pressed flower! It was all so beautiful, and so very sweet and thoughtful of you! I’m glad your having such a great time! You’re sure to have a place among the Explorer’s League after all this hard work and impressing them so much! YAY FOR YOU!
My week has been pretty busy too! Here’s everything that happened while you were gone:
(Here, I wrote basically everything that I’ve written in the diary entry, up to last night’s adventure in Howling Fjord, though I have no doodles for her, unfortunately. My artistic talents are basically nonexistent, though I wish it were otherwise!)
I can’t wait to hear about what happens next up there! And, even more, I can’t wait for you to get home! I certainly will give Dordy all those hugs, and lots more, all from you! Dordy’s been okay. He’s used to your trips away once in a while, so he doesn’t pine too much. I’m currently sitting in that chair you built me, on that dock we put it on, so Dordy’s enjoying himself around Anglers Wharf with all his friends here! He took off once after a fish right below where I’m sitting, during a waterside dinner with Other Nat and a few other Anglers Wharf friends earlier this week… Oooh, you should have seen the steam! He kept steaming himself for a few minutes after we got him back out of the water!
That’s about all that’s happened here, though. I gotta go back to work tomorrow, which means lame early bedtime tonight! But, Dordy and I are going to have some kinda fun adventure today or other before then! I’ll let you know how that goes!
In the meantime, I hope you keep having fun, and good luck with the work! Be safe! Definitely don’t get gobbled up my some weird swamp monster or something! Watch out for crocolisks! I’ll see you when you get back, probably with a welcome home party or something! Have a great day! I love you!
With all my love,
~ Natasha Ebonlocke
That’s about it for my week! It sure has been a busy one so far! The rest of the day should be pretty relaxing, or so I hope! I can’t wait to see what happens next week, I can’t wait to hear more about Celeste’s adventures with the Explorer’s League, and I definitely, definitely can’t wait for her to return home! In the meantime, I think I’ll take Dordy fishing! YAY!
Nat tapped off the excess ink into her inkwell, smiling with all those happy thoughts. She replaced her quill into its case, closing that and the inkwell and packing those away. She went to go find Dordy, who was snoozing outside the inn, looking stuffed. Apparently he’d had a second breakfast! The breakfast smells coming from inside and the way he kept licking his lips when he groggily, slowly got to his feet told the tale well. Nat giggled at the bottomless pit of a pup she and Celeste had, scooping him up and taking him back to her chair on the dock.
By this time, the ink on the pages of her diary had dried, so she closed this as well, replacing it, her cherrywood quill case, and her inkwell of purple ink back into her pack. Waving Onyx down from the skies where he was cruising the thermals, she mounted up sidesaddle as usual, riding with Dordy – now wearing his adorable aviator goggles – up to the house to trade diary gear for fishing gear. Returning to the wharf with Dordy, she waded through the shallow water to the nearby sandbar, then waded out past it to cast a few lines into deeper water, the bikini she now wore in place of a dress (so she could do some wading as she fished) allowing the warm sun and warm water to flow gently against her skin, always a soothing feeling. Dordy caused a few more steam pillars over the course of the morning as Nat fished, adventuring himself each time Nat hooked something, barking up a storm and trying to help Nat retrieve her catch. Most was a catch-and-release, though, as the morning drew on toward lunchtime, she did find herself with a mid-sized emperor salmon to take to the inn for lunch!
The rest of the day she spent relaxing at home with Dordy, reading, napping, then reading again until dinner, which was spent on the southern balcony of their home, sitting with Dordy and overlooking the south seas, moving eventually to the western balcony to watch the sunset. All in all, it was a wonderful final day of minication!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jul 14, 2022 14:20:30 GMT
July the Fourteenth The call of an early morning seagull broke the near-silence of the beach, previously home only to the soft sounds of small, gentle waves washing up on the shore and a gruff old dwarf and the bell-like tinkle of a mechagnome female quietly talking in low voices as they peered over schematics. Bellies full of the dwarf’s renowned biscuits with sausage gravy and a side of bacon combined with the peace of the beach to have everyone wanting to remain quiet… though all knew that this silence would eventually be broken upon the return of a flying device with an internal combustion engine possessing a vast array of tools.
Turtle Beach was, for the moment, still peaceful, and Natasha Ebonlocke had already reviewed the schematics for a bamboo dry dock, having indeed assisted in their design some weeks before, so the paper she had spread out in front of her was the pages of her diary, along with the usual inkwell of purple ink and cherrywood quill case, with a ravenfeather quill in her hand. Sprawled out on her picnic blanket in the shade of the jungle near Liu Lang’s statue, the one of the pandaren astride a massive sea turtle, Nat was leaving Rugnar and Penny to their familiarization of the schematics, having already gone over them with her friends and pointing out what they’d be doing. Onyx and Cloud Dancer were away getting breakfast of their own. Nat’s horse Ebonhoof, the black stallion her father had given her years ago that had the saddle with the lantern rigged on the back for riding in Duskwood, was with Nosebleed, Celeste’s enormous direhorn. The two were good buddies, generally living on Turtle Beach with access to rapidly regrowing jungle foliage, and there they grazed now, not far from Nat. Celeste was away, but not for a week or two this time. Bamboo was needed for the dry dock they wanted to build, and Celeste had taken the MUTT (along with Dordy, looking adorable as ever in his aviator goggles) out to harvest the bamboo that was, once again, encroaching on farmland in the Valley of the Four Winds from the borders of the Jade Forest. With nothing to do until her return, Nat had fetched her diary, writing materials, and picnic blanket, and was now prepared to write on the beach.
Dear diary,
CELESTE IS BACK!
It was actually a bit worrisome when I saw the Wave Dancer and the TOAD – the TOol and All-terrain Device, converted to such as a swamp archaeology tool from the MUTT, the Mobile Utility Travel Tool that she built out of the goblin shredder I bought her last year – sitting there in shambles when I got back from work Sunday night.
When I returned from her visit with friends after work, I first noticed on her flight that the Wave Dancer was docked at our pier at Anglers Wharf! Part of the canopy was crumpled near the front and there was slight damage to the boat itself. Mud and dead branches littered the bottom if the boat. Then I saw the TOAD standing on the landing pad up on the Spire, mostly covered in mud and dead leaves. Even the cockpit was drenched in mud. Most of the covering was gone, the yak leathers torn off. The machine looked relatively ok though. A trail of mud lead from the toad to the workshop where there was a pile of soggy, filthy clothes. Celeste’s Boots of the Bay and wide-brim hat lay on top of the pile. Ominously, several bandages with dried brownish blood stains lay in the pile. Dirty footprints (both human and clearly Dordy’s who likely had fun in the mud) trailed through the house to the bathroom. Celeste obviously took a bath here, as there was a lingering perfume from the soap she used (from Mags’ shop), traces of mud on the floor, and an empty wine glass and empty bottle of wine next to the bath. The house’s box of medical supplies sat on the bathroom sink, clearly used, including some of the first healing potions we brewed from the herbs we gathered and planted in our planters on sublevel two. I eventually found Celeste herself lying on the bed in the bedroom. Dordy was curled against her, dozing. Celeste’s right arm from elbow to shoulder and upper right leg were bandaged. Her hair was a mess and there were scratches and bruises in several places on her body. Despite that, she looked rather serene as she slept. When I nudged her gently to see if she’s only half asleep, she smiled a bit, mumbles that she’s ok, and that she loves me, and then went right back to sleep!
I had been worried, when I first flew home and saw the damage done to the canopy and the Wave Dancer itself, and, soon after, again when I saw the state of the TOAD. My engineering experience told me that these weren't damaged beyond repair, though these thoughts were in the back of my mind...
At the forefront was Celeste! CELESTE WAS HOME! But if the Wave Dancer and TOAD look like this, what does Celeste look like? Worried, I dashed inside, wondering if I’m just being silly to be this worried, yet that thought, too, was only at the back of my mind, and my concern for my favorite person in the world was at the forefront. I followed the trail of chaos breadcrumbs from the TOAD to the workshop, finding the muddy, bloody clothes there, my worry increasing. I followed the trail further, where it lead up to the bathroom. My worry was alleviated when I found the empty wine glass and scented Mags' soaps. There were medical supplies here, yet it seems like she was well enough to relax with wine and a bath!
The trail of chaos had ended there, but the trail of logic continues... Bedroom next! I checked the bedroom, and, sure enough, there she was! She was bandaged up, exhausted and sleeping, yet the serene look and steady breathing negated the visual effects of the messy state of her skin and hair. At the declaration of love following her nudge, I returned the same and allowed Celeste to sleep, to rest and recover, cleaning up the trail of chaos and mud and washing Celeste's clothes, hat, and Boots of the Bay. House and clothes cleaned, I chose to follow a course of wisdom and leave the TOAD and the Wave Dancer for the next day, taking a bath myself after my long day of work so I could crawl into bed with Celeste. Tired as all heck now, I curled up with an arm over Celeste and Dordy and fell asleep. I was just so glad that, whatever had happened, Celeste was safe and going to be just fine!
Celeste was slow to rise the next day, feeling sore and achy all over. Nevertheless she did eventually rise to settle into a comfy chair on the veranda overlooking Turtle Bay. I got up with Celeste, helping her settle in on the veranda with her blanket and a cup of coffee to relax while I made us a big, hearty breakfast. Bringing Celeste out a hefty tray, I settled in myself to listen, as Celeste wanted to tell me all about what happened since her update with the letter she sent, and I wanted to hear all about it!
It turns out Celeste had had an idea to check the hills overlooking the swamp, revealing a crumbling brick wall that was likely part of a bigger structure buried in the dirt and vegetation. The Explorers, eager to find something as the swamp so far was empty of further ruins, decided to investigate the ruins further. The TOAD’s digging tools proved to be a boon for the group, easily but expertly used to clear away the dead trees and dirt.
Too well, in fact!
Things were going great the first day. The ruins turned out to be much more recent, and of human make, but this was of interest regardless, and several artifacts were quickly uncovered. However, heavy ruins plagued the dig site. Celeste and a few Explorers had managed to erect canopies over the ruins. The problem was, having removed the stabilizing vegetation and dirt around it caused a LANDSLIDE! Celeste had tried desperately to harden the mud with fire, but, while that allowed the dwarves a bit more time to clear away, the mud eventually won out and swept the TOAD and Celeste, who had been piloting it at the time, down the hill and right into the danged SWAMP! A large dead tree crashed onto the Wave Dancer, damaging the canopy, the starboard side of the boat, and breaking the glass bottom… which was designed to be bulletproof in case of hidden rocks and reefs and stuff just under the surface of the water, which means that tree must have hit HARD!
The expedition had lost interest in the Swamp of Sorrows after that! A few of the dwarves even blamed Celeste, though she had laughed, and her uncle had yelled at them saying they were “old dundering fools with too much ale in their heads”. Most of the expedition, though, had helped Celeste liberate her boat and fix the broken glass bottom enough to get it home. She didn’t know if her application for the League would be in jeopardy, but her uncle and the most of the other dwarves had reassured her that they didn’t hold her responsible for the mudslide. Some had even said it had been refreshing to have someone so full of life and innovative along, so that sounded promising!
Then, Celeste said she planned on first cleaning and restoring the TOAD back into the MUTT, then building a dry dock from bamboo on the beach close to the river to repair and clean the Wave Dancer. She also said her uncle Rugnar had promised to come and help, too! WOO! I love it when he comes over! But first, he had wanted to file a complaint against the Expedition Members who had decided to blame Celeste for the decision to excavate the hill that EVERYONE had agreed to! Those poo-heads!
After that, I updated Celeste on my own adventures and games and stuff, like I always do the morning after, and then we just decided resting in the house or on the balcony would be the plan for the day. She slept a lot. She must have been really tired from two weeks of working hard in a swamp! I think her body also wanted rest in order to recover from her injuries. So we did that, and then, the next day, Celeste’s Pandaren friend Suyin arrived, brought by Cloud Dancer. The cloud serpent had apparently done this of his own initiative, though how he had communicated this to Suyin wasn’t clear, nor how he had know that Celeste might like some of her friend’s skills has a healer. What an intelligent pandaren dragon! Soon after Suyin’s arrival, the kitchen was cluttered with poultices and brewing teas. Suyin replaced Celeste’s bandages, fussed over her like a mother hen, and made her drink fragrant tea… just like she had with me once, down here on Turtle Beach, when I was recovering from injuries myself in a tent nearly two years ago…
Celeste was ordered to return to bed after an early lunch, and, by mid-afternoon, she was already feeling much better! Suyin’s so good at healing! She was recovered enough, even, to accept my invitation from the day before to go to the beach. Suyin declined to join us, but promised to return the next day to check up on her human friend.
Our Anglers Wharf friends eventually joined us on the beach or out on row boats nearby, aiming to catch dinner for everyone. It was clearly shaping up to be a welcome home party for Celeste!
Fish were indeed caught, and, while they slowly cooked over fires on the beach, everyone listened with rapt attention to Celeste’s exploits during her expedition. Ever the story teller, Celeste embellished the already interesting expedition with tales of savage jungle trolls, swamp monsters and giant crocolisks, to the amusement and delight of our friends who enjoyed tall tales, even though everyone could discern where Celeste added extravagant details. It’s always so fun to listen to her tell stories!
All in all, it was a wonderful afternoon and evening! Dordy played with his wrench, got more treats than any dog should have, and all the attention he craved. Throughout the evening, Celeste remained always close to me, clearly having missed me and apparently not willing to stray too far just yet. I decided to follow her lead, not going too far from Celeste either, making sure to remain close for her. Though Celeste hoped to watch the sunset on the beach, she fell asleep in my arms before that could happen. I considered waking her, as she’d wanted to watch the sunset, but, between Suyin’s orders for lots of rest and especially my own concern for her well-being, I decided to just let her sleep, figuring the sunset would still be there tomorrow to watch!
Celeste had apparently woke up the next morning confused to be in her own bed, from what she told me, wondering for a short moment how she even got there, until vaguely remembering missing the sunset and me helping her to bed with the help of Onyx.
Feeling quite refreshed and ready to take on her day, she had quietly gotten up before me, managing not to disturb me or even Dordy, who usually is quick to wake up and follow one of us out of bed! Moving quietly, she had headed downstairs to make coffee and breakfast sandwiches for us! She’s so thoughtful!
The familiar sound of a rotor announced the arrival of Celeste’s uncle Rugnar! Next thing I know, Celeste is dashing into the bedroom to warn me to get dressed, as we have a visitor, coffee being ready, and breakfast soon after!
I got up, dressed, and followed the smell of coffee and breakfast to the kitchen, smiling sleepily to see the ingredients. I followed the sounds of voices downstairs, arriving around the bottom of the spiral staircase just in time to hear a bit of Rugnar's speech and sense TROUBLE! Having a seat at my stool at Celeste's workbench, I placed my breakfast sandwich plate down on the bench as it cooled for a moment, turning to greet some people she's quite fond of, and, sure enough, it did indeed sound like trouble!
“… oughta tell ye meself…” I heard Rugnar saying. “Those old crotchety fools went right to yappin’… I’ll show ‘em what for when the time’s right!”
I asked what was wrong, and Rugnar was just like, “Ah lass, jus’ some weeds need pullin’. Yer girl here did some mighty fine work. I’m right proud o’ her, impressed even.” The old dwarf said, smiling fondly at me then turning to Celeste. “Yer mother’d be right proud o’ ye. Raised you solid, she did.” He grudgingly accepted a hug from Celeste then stepped back and went to his flying machine to fetch a satchel strapped to the side of the cockpit. He turned and tossed it to Celeste which she caught, but gasped in surprise at its weight, hefting it a few times.
“Yer compensation fer yer services. Reimbursement fer yer gear and damages ye had because o’ the Expedition.”
He turned to me next and he was like, “I’m guessin’ Celeste told ye about the mudslide? How a few of the Expedition members decided to blame her fer it?”
I had been beaming proudly at Celeste as Rugnar sang her praises, then looking curiously at the heavy bag, wondering if The Explorer's League had paid her in gold or something, but then frowned at Rugnar's question.
"Oh gosh, yeah," I replies. "She told me about that, and I think it's as much their fault as anyone's; they are delvers themselves, and should know what might cause a mudslide like that and come up with an idea to prevent it! It's not Celeste out to hurt people!"
“Aye,” Rugnar replied, “and that’s what the other Explorers reported. Celeste was the hired help and did as she was ordered. The other members praised her ingenuity and bravery. They all scattered when me girl here jus’ stood in front o’ that wave of mud and tried ta stop it.” Here he looked even more proud, if that was even possible!
“S’why the League wanted me ta give ye this lass..”
He dug his large hand into the pocket of his vest and grinned as he handed Celeste a badge… a shiny new badge certifying her as a junior member of the Explorer’s League! YAY! Celeste dropped the bag of coins she had been tossed and squealed with joy as she took the badge and smothered Rugnar in a hug! I found myself doing the same, a squeal and then a jump in after Celeste, joining in on a group hug and squealing with glee Celeste while Dordy, excited by the sense that something big was afoot, ran around the group hug and barking like a maniac, his tail wagging happily.
"Grats, Celeste!" I exclaimed. "I KNEW you'd get that! You're too amazing for ANY group to turn down! Here's to many, many more adventures! WOO!"
After that, Celeste quite proudly sewed the badge to her wide-brimmed fishing hat. It was rather early in the day, though, to have a party to celebrate, so she opted to clean the TOAD and restore it to the MUTT instead. It turns out Rugnar had already planned on helping with that, and the repairs to the Wave Dancer! He’s so nice! We ate breakfast, then moved back to the workshop where the TOAD was standing. Celeste sent her hook-drone with an invitation for Penny to come help with her engineering skills. There was also a promise of a family barbecue on the veranda, Rugnar having offered to cook his amazing beer-basted boar ribs! It was Penny’s first time trying this dish out, and she immediately wanted the recipe. No surprise there; Rugnar’s recipe is just so YUMMY!
The TOAD was cleaned up (which took most of the day as mud and debris had gotten to the inner workings) then the metal plates and tools that had been removed were put back in place. Trial tests showed the MUTT was back in working shape and running smoothly just as the afternoon was ending. Everyone was slightly exhausted and moved to the veranda. Cold beers were brought out and Rugnar started on his ribs. Though the mood wasn’t as festive as the previous day, it was certainly more intimate. After an amazing dinner (which Dordy got a full portion of thanks to Rugnar), we stayed on the veranda to watch the sunset and enjoy the peaceful tranquility of the glow flies.
Penny was invited to return the next day, as they would construct a dry dock from bamboo on Turtle Beach close to the jungle so ship repairs could be done in the shade without taking over all of the beach. The plan was to build a scaffolding wide enough for the Wave Dancer to rest on at eye-level. Nosebleed’s strength would come into play to pull the boat from the water onto the scaffolding.
So that’s what we’re doing this morning. Just waiting on Celeste to get back with the newly-restored and freshly oiled MUTT with a load of bamboo. Again, we’re harvesting from bamboo encroaching onto farmland rather than damaging the Jade Forest itself. Always plenty to be had, and it’s quickly replenished! I can’t wait for Celeste to return, so we can get started!
Then Tuesday night was DEATHROLLS again! Glad to see the game coming back! I suppose I did kinda need a break before, but I think I was still missing it anyway. Now that I’ve had that break from weekly games, I’m ready to get back into it again!
Most of the rest still seem to be the same, so most of the usual crew did not come. Mags did wanna come – she never got to play much so she never really burned out like we did – but she ended up having to do other things, which she wasn’t too happy about. Poor Mags! But GRIM came! I love playing Deathrolls with Grimmie! He’s fun!
Other than that, it was a completely new group of new acquaintances that had been told of the games by one of our Healers in the Whitewind Company, a Lightforged Draenei named Tisaani that I’ve written about a few times before. She actually wanted to work the bar and kitchen for us, so she didn’t play the game itself, but she was there, though out of sight! The friends she’d made and sent to us were a human girl from Westfall (with an accent to match!) named Val, a worgen guy named Mith, a human guy named Oli, a Kaldorei girl named Sama, an Illidari girl named Reyhn that I’d actually met a year or two before, another girl named Alva, and a Lightforged Draenei named Ka’Lare. Nine of us in all, including Grim and I, so I ended up having to make it two groups for a while, as the more people you have in a Deathrolls game, the less of a chance any one individual has of getting in on the action. We were in the Brawlpub, so Val, Mith, Oli, and Ka’Lare took a booth table, and the rest of us went over to our usual huge table on the other side of the bar at the back of the place. The beginning and end of the game, though, was just me, Val, Ka’Lare, and Sama, so those parts were just one group!
And of course, I end up being the first one Dared. Val had me stand up and yell, “I LOVE PANDAREN TENTACLE NOVELS!” at the top of my lungs! Oh gosh, that was so embarrassing! The rest of the Brawlpub people were looking at me so weird! There were Screw, Marry, Kill Truths and Truths about how many exes people had and a Dare where Val and Ka’Lare had to kiss, which was awkward, though they didn’t seem too upset about it, hehe. Sama got Dared to go change into her skimpiest outfit and wear that the rest of the game. Oh gosh! Ka’Lare had to chug a whole bottle of Dalaran White. I dunno if I could even drink a whole bottle of even just water all at once. My tummy would be so full! But Ka’Lare being a really big Lightforged Draenei girl, she did it! Then Grim arrived, snuck up behind me, and yelled, “HI ALL!” at the top of his lungs, right behind me, without me knowing he was even there! Scared me so stinkin’ bad! I jumped right up onto my seat! Then everyone else showed up, so that’s when we moved. Then the REAL chaos began!
First Dare was Grimmie getting me, and he wanted me to run over to the other table, and then, without warning, without context, give Ka’Lare (who was dressed for the summer in a shirt that exposed her abdomen) a big, loud RASPBERRY on her tummy! GOSH! So I had to go and do that, and the group looked up when we got there, knowing something was afoot, though they were still taken by surprise – especially Ka’Lare! – when I walked right up to her, knelt down in front of her chair, and blew that raspberry on her tummy! Everyone was laughing so hard at us, all confused-like and surprised, and it was just so embarrassing! Then we went back to our table, and someone from THEIR table sent Ka’Lare to our table to do it right back to me, since I was wearing a similar summer shirt! It was loud and long and tickled so much and I could do nothing but flail like a maniac and squeal! Everyone was laughing at us so much! Then I got to get revenge on GRIM! He chose Dare when I got him with the Truth or Dare rolls, so I had him get up and marched him over to the other table, and told him he had to say aloud everything I whispered into his ear. Grim went right up against their table, which made them all look up at him in curiosity, and he repeated everything I told him, each time I told him, alright! He was like, “I like to fart in the tub. Homemade waffles really hurt my buttocks. The ever-so-gorgeous (he added in that bit because he crushes on her pretty hard, hehe) Lady Nah is only made more beautiful by the leaves in her hair. If she grew two more arms I’d marry her. James Martin has seven toes. Do you guys have any bacon? Lampwick lunged luxuriously, lowering light levels luminously. That is all. You may pay me in hot dogs.” It was so funny, because they were all SO confused! Ka’Lare was convinced Grim was here to fart on Val, Oli was saying he had no idea what had just happened, and it was even suggested that this whole thing was some sort of demented puppet show! HA! Then we were back at our table again, and, as we were rolling, Mith the worgen came running over with a bucket of water, jumped up onto the table with it, and DUMPED it out onto his own head, splashing all of us! GOSH! Then, after the predictable wet dog jokes (hehe!) were made by a few, a few Truths went around, including one I had for Sama asking if she’d rather hook up with her biggest crush in secret, or not actually do it, but someone starts a rumor that goes all over that she had. Sama being a bit more of a private person like me, she chose the former. Then other such somewhat spicy Truths were had. Then Mith, who turned out to be able to stealth, just… APPEARED on our table again, yelling, “BOO!” at the top of his lungs at us! Started me every bit as bad as Grimmie had when he’d snuck up on me earlier! So of course I screamed again. Goodness gracious! Then there was another visit from them, with Val walking up seductively behind Sama’s chair and running a finger slowly across her cheek, asking her if she was from Northrend… because she could teach Sama how to arch her back. I didn’t get that one at all, but it sure made a few people gasp and blush! I’m guessing I don’t WANNA know!
By this point in the night, half the group (between the two tables) were getting sleepy and were ready to head out, so Val and Ka’Lare joined Grim, Sama, and I at our table. Just the five of us now! First thing that happened was Val got to Dare Mith and Sama. She did a Whisper Dare, which turned out to be them suddenly jumping up and talking to Ka’Lare and I like babies and wanting to pet us like we were pets! Weird! Val lost her breath, she was laughing so hard! Grim thought it was pretty good too!
Then the unimaginable happened.
Grim showed us some REALLY FANCY BALLROOM DANCING SKILLS!
Sama got to Dare Grim and Val both, and, as it turns out, the Westfall farm girl, outgoing and charismatic as she is, was able to turn on the charm on ol’ Grimmie too, and boy, did they ever cut a rug! Grim led the dancing, and it was some really chivalrous and fancy dancing! Val eventually transitioned the dance smoothly into a tango dance, and then Grim eventually transitioned it smoothly into some kind of rapidly twirling swing dance! Both adapted to the other’s transitions smoothly, and it was just all so marvelously well done! I never knew the ol’ grim-faced, dual-two-handed-sword wielding mega-warrior guy ever had this in him! It was SO SO SO GOOD!
Then Grim had a Whisper Dare for Sama, and, later, when Sama suddenly got up to act it out, I KNEW this was Grim… because next thing I know, Sama was coming over to me, licking my face, and going, “Mmmm, you taste like moonberries…” This was a direct reference to our game last week at my bestie’s birthday party! Then, keeping the Whisper Dares rolling, I went to the bar and got Sama a banana, passing it to here where the rest of the table couldn’t see it. Then, in three rounds, when everyone least expects it, she was to crawl across the table to Val, pull out the banana and seductively peel it open, while locking eyes with Val and eating the banana as seductively as she could. While we were waiting on that, I had to act on an earlier delayed Whisper Dare from Grim. I put my feet up on the table, leaned back, and announced to the table, “I blush so deeply because I am in constant thought of my dear lover. Even in moments like these, I cannot help but think of her wondrous self.” Which of course made everyone start making comments on which PARTS of Celeste I am thinking of! GOSH! I blushed so hard! Thanks, Grim! HA! Then I had a Truth from Ka’Lare on how I’d take one person from the table out for a good time. I said I’d take Grimmie out to a gnomish workshop to get his treadblade motorcycle upgraded a whole bunch, then out to a really nice tavern for a humungous steak and loaded baked potato and lots of beer, then out to an arena like this one here at the Brawlpub to have a good fight, or at least watch one! Total MAN night! Grim liked the sound of that! Then Sama suddenly got up on the table and did her banana thing while locking eyes with Val, and Val was SO confused, and so were the others! Val was leaning backward in her chair so far, with the front legs up off the floor, she almost fell over backward! HA! That one was great! Then, for the second time in three weeks of Deathrolls, I ended up having to take my erm… lower undergarments off and place them on the table. Then Ka’Lare had to do the same, but with the upper. We were both able to get these off without removing anything else, but still, that’s so EMBARRASSING! And me being my size, and Ka’Lare being a Draenei, both our smallclothes were anything BUT small! GOSH! Then I had another Whisper Dare for Sama to get up on the table and speak all fancy-paladin-like while fighting an imaginary foe that was trying to steal her bacon! She sure startled everyone when she suddenly LEAPT up onto the table and started throwing fists and elbows, and was like, “BACK, you fiend, you knave! Thou wilst not take mine holy bacon!” The others looked so alarmed! HA! Val was even hiding behind her chair, peering up at Sama like, “It took her WHAT?! Where’d ya f**kers get bacon?!” HAHA!
There were many more spicy Truths and hilarious (and often embarrassing) Dares, and all our newcomers had all expressed how very much fun they’d had! Maybe they’ll become our new regulars! Then we can have weekly games again, and everything will be like new! I love Deathrolls! YAY!
Last night, however, was a complete and utter letdown. I was hoping to get to the Explorer’s League Outpost in the Howling Fjord in Northrend to continue on with our weekly Whitewind Company expedition, but everyone except Grim had life stuff come up, so I ended up having to reschedule it for next week. What a bummer! But after that, I got to hang out with Grim for a few hours, so that cheered me up! Maybe next week we’ll get back to Northrend and see what was up with Grugni Stonebeard and his visit to Baelgun’s Expedition site! Here’s hoping!
For now, I can hear the MUTT off in the distance! Time to clean up and get ready to build this dry dock with my family and friends! It’s gonna be a fun time! Celeste is even gonna bring Nosebleed over to pull the Wave Dancer out of the water and onto the dry dock! We’ll see how it goes! Time to get back to fun engineering projects! WOO!
Nat tapped off the excess ink from her quill into her inkwell, capping the latter and replacing the former into its case. She got up, packed these away, rolling up her picnic blanket as well. Returning to her diary, she found the ink on the pages now dry, and packed this away as well.
By this time, the MUTT was coming in for a landing, its giant claw hands holding massive ropes lashing together enormous matching bundles of fresh-cut bamboo, and Dordy, harnessed into the cockpit and wearing his adorable aviator goggles, with his feet up on the front wall of the cockpit and barking like a maniac to help announce their return. Nosebleed and Ebonhoof peered over at the group as they grazed on jungle foliage at the back of the beach, watching Celeste, who had Blinked out of the cockpit with Dordy in her arms and onto the sandy beach, help Nat, Rugnar, and Penny unload the bamboo and begin to lay it out according to the blueprints.
With four engineers and a MUTT, the dry dock was completed by suppertime. Supper was cooked by Rugnar, who had brought over food ingredients for the occasion, and had crafted four double-crusted minced mutton meat pies, which turned out to be beyond delicious! Dordy agreed by way of devouring his like a shark at a feeding frenzy, his tail wagging a million miles an hour. Beers with the taste of home (for residents or at least lovers of Ironforge, anyway) completed the dinner, and, bellies full, the group got Nosebleed all harnessed up and lashed to the Wave Dancer. The enormous direhorn pulled mightily, Celeste on his back to urge him forward, and the Wave Dancerwas dragged from the water up onto the dry dock!
By this point in the evening, it was getting late. Penny returned home at the family farm in Halfhill, Rugnar retired to the guest bedroom, and Nat and Celeste to their own room. Restoration and repairs to the Wave Dancer would be completed over the next few days by Celeste, Rugnar, and Penny, with Nat able to help a bit after her workdays before bed. All in all, it had been a great final day of minication, and Nat couldn’t wait for the next minication to arrive!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jul 21, 2022 15:45:34 GMT
(( Warning: The following post contains mild adult themes! ))
July the Twenty-First A soft green glow rested over everything in sight. The thick, vibrant green jungle of thick, towering, sky-caressing Kaldorei trees filtered in much more sunlight than those of Ashenvale Forest, shining through the lush green canopy to provide the green glow to the forest floor, its many slow-moving rivers, and, in one case, a small watercraft. With its engines off, the only sound to be heard was the twittering of jungle birds, the soft, quiet splashes and tinkles of slow-moving water, and, on occasion, the odd yowl of a jungle cat. A dragonfly could be heard and seen nearby, skipping along the surface of the tranquil river, looking for prey to catch. Once, the song of a Kaldorei male flitted through the trees, but, after a time, the song ended and was heard no more.
The Wave Dancer drifted along the Feralas river with its engine disengaged, taking the long, winding route through the forest by the power of the river’s slow-moving current alone. Dordy the molten corgi lay snoozing at the prow near Nat, who sat in her purple chair with her pandaren bamboo fishing rod lying on the floor next to her, the purple umbrella that usually extended above her folded and wrapped tight around its pole to allow a view of the stunning scenery of the ancient forest. In her lap now, as she took a break from fishing, rested her diary, and her hand now held her ravenfeather quill, with her inkwell of purple ink sitting uncapped next to her. Celeste sat in her captain’s chair with her murloc skeleton fishing rod in her hands, remaining near the controls to steer the Wave Dancer around each bend as she fished. As always when she fished, that look of complete concentration was on her face, and not even the happy humming she usually tended to do when working in her workshop broke the peace and quiet of the forest.
Nat smiled around at the scenery and at her little family once more, heaved a happy, contented sigh, and looked down at the blank page in her diary. It was time to write a bit more! She dipped her quill for a bit of ink and applied quill tip to diary page.
Dear diary,
It’s been a heck of a week! Lots of fun, lots of adventuring! WOO!
First off, Celeste’s uncle Rugnar stayed with us all weekend! He and Penny helped Celeste restore the TOAD to the MUTT, then fixed the Wave Dancer! And gosh, did it ever need it!
The plan was a simple and effective one: build a dry dock on Turtle Beach next to the creek, have bamboo rollers leading up to it from the creek, and have Nosebleed the direhorn use his massive strength to pull the boat up onto the dry dock! Ingenious!
I didn’t get to help out a whole heck of a lot, having been at work all weekend, but Celeste, Rugnar, and Penny sure got the boat restored quickly! Celeste and the others told me each night at dinner how they did their work. First, they got some water siphoned up into the MUTT with the water pumps, then Celeste focused it into a jet spray to hose off all the mud and other swamp debris from the boat. Once it was clean, they began repairs, hammering, sawing, welding. There were lots of stories and jokes shared between Rugnar and Celeste for Penny’s benefit, who still had yet to hear about the time they did this or that.
The next day, the repairs were nearing completion by lunchtime, though Rugnar still has an aversion to cuisine he’s unfamiliar with, so he had chicken while Celeste and Penny had some pandaren stir fry from Halfhill. Day three, the repairs were completed, and, when I came home, the Wave Dancer was back in the water at Angler’s Wharf! They’d spent the day adding all the comforts back to the small craft, including my chair that had been sitting for a couple of weeks on the wharf and its umbrella! The bulletproof glass bottom was crystal-clear and clean, the boat was sparkling, and the engine looked brand-new! They really did an amazing job on it! I just wish I hadn’t had to work!
Monday, Celeste mostly spent her day on the lower level, tending to the garden and chickens. Being the clever, prolific engineer that she is though, in the afternoon she started on a new project. A little pond with swamp plants she gathered during her expedition, as well as a couple of tiny but quite colorful frogs. The whole design looked like it was to be built into a basin made from welded brass plates and artfully nestled into a bamboo frame to fit the construction style of the house. The margins even had her usual doodles, this time, a bunch of brilliantly-colored little froggies! It looks like it’ll be a great piece of art when it’s done!
“I figure a nice bubbling pond will add to the veranda,” she was telling me. “It’ll let me grow some swamp-loving plants without cluttering the lower level. Plus those frogs are really cute. No need to approve or not right away. I’m hoping you can check my design, maybe make a few modifications. If you have a better spot for it or frogs kinda turn you off, I can just grow the plants in a hydroponic setup instead!”
We talked it over a bit, and decided to use burnished bronze, since regular bronze would stick out like a sore thumb both from the swamp pond, and from the construction and decoration style of the house. Artfully spattered with swamp mud, it shouldn’t be that noticeable. I was worried about the suncrawlers Celeste put in the planters around the outside of the house as decoration last Winter Veil, as frogs might gobble the colorfully glowing bugs up, but the frogs she showed me are too small to eat the big bugs, so they should be just fine.
Can’t wait to get the project started, and can’t wait to see how that one turns out!
Then the next day was DEATHROLLS!
My bestie Nah and I ran into our new friend Val in Stormwind, and we found ourselves telling her old Deathrolls stories, which got quite a few laughs out of her! Then we invited her to come to another game. This week, we were playing in the Dalaran Beer Garden, one of our old favorite playing spots!
This week’s attendance was the direct opposite of last week’s. Last week, we’d had a big group in Stormwind we were hanging out with already, but this week, we didn’t run into anyone along the way, nor was there anyone else in the group, so instead of eight people, it was just the three of us! Mags’ company’s healer Annabelle did get her invitation and come a few hours into the game, but Val was already getting tired by that point, so they were only at the table at the same time through one Dare, which was an embarrassing one for me in which I had to dance with Val like Grim did last week.
Holy smokes, it was SO BAD! Nah and Annabelle were laughing at me so much! I was trying to follow Val’s lead, but it didn’t go so well… Her first step was a backward step with her right foot. I tried to follow with my right foot in the same direction, but that meant that my right foot came down on her LEFT foot, which was still forward! OOPS! Then I did it like TWICE MORE! GOSH! And then, when she tried to do a simple slow dance to the dwarves’ music in the beer garden, I tried to go the same direction she was going, which, in a circle, meant I kept colliding with her! Oops! I finally realized I had to go the opposite direction for us both to move in a circle, but only after stepping on her feet a few more times. Everyone was laughing at me so much! I was red in the face, but I at least managed not to fall down when dancing for once!
The night kicked off with a Truth from Val to Nah about what she preferred. That’s all the detail I can write here without blushing so much I melt right through this boat and into this Feralas river! More on me being here later! Anyway, Nah got me with a Truth next about what the first part of a new person I look at is. I was confused as to what she meant, though I tried to answer anyway. Usually, when I meet someone new, I find myself blushing and looking away because I’m all awkward and stuff, but then, when I warm up to them, I find myself looking into their eyes, because like, I’m talking to them and stuff, right? Nah snickered at my answer for some reason, and Val called me an, “innocent bean.” I dunno what that was all about! Next round, Val rolled it… the dreaded 69! So… oh gosh… we had to explain to her what that meant in our games – you gotta point at someone at the table you’d do that with! Joke answers are fine, of course; so Val pointed toward the inn in front of the beer garden and said there was someone out there she’d do that with. She sure wiggled her way out of that one! I ended up rolling the one that round, though, and Nah got to Dare me, so she was telling me she had three Dares in mind, and I should choose my own fate: a number between one and three. Oh, no! I chose the only number between one and three, though I knew she meant to include the one and three: Dare #2! But then she was like, “Are you suuuuuuuuure you want THAT Dare?” and I was like, “Oh gosh, no, I pick three!” And she was like, “Are you suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure THAT’S the Dare you want?” And I started to really panic, and I was like, “NO! DARE ONE!” So then she was like, “Oooooh, Dare One… Oooooooh! Is that your fiiiiiiinal answer?” And I was all, “NO! TWO! DARE TWO!” She was really playing games with my head! Turns out Dare Two was a drinking game I had to play! Nah went and got three huge tankards of some kinda ale from the dwarven brewmaiden in the beer garden and bringing them to me. Every time she snickers at me, or I say some variant of “gosh,” I had to take a drink! Needless to say, I was getting quite tipsy in no time at all! And it didn’t take long to start… Val intentionally made me say “gosh” by getting me with a Truth on the very next round, asking me which magazine I’d pick up first: Playelf, PlayDrae, or one of the human ones. Goodness gracious! Celeste is human, though, so I guess I’d pick up one of those? Though those really aren’t my thing, and I have the REAL Celeste at home, so I suppose it’s not really a realistic scenario for me! I sure stuttered my way through the answer though… Oops… Blushtastic! Then she got me with a Dare, to call her the B-word… no way! The best I could do was to blushingly speed my way through calling her a “female canis domesticus.” That was it!
But then the worst one of the night happened… Val got me with a Whisper Dare… and GOSH was it AWFUL! I had to go sit next to Nah all seductive-like and tell her something that took FOREVER for me to stutter out halfway coherently, blushing like a tomato all the while and shaking like a LEAF! It took almost a full minute, but I finally got myself situated on the bench, leaning back on the table with my arm sprawled out in front of Nah, looking up at her (in horror!) and asking her, “Hey, girl, is your name Winter Veil? Because you’ll be coming soon!” GOODNESS GRACIOUS! When I finally got that one out, all I could think of to do was RUN FOR IT! But, awkward, unathletic, uncoordinated me… I tried to run, made it several steps, then tripped over my two left feet, faceplanted RIGHT in the grass, with my legs going op over top of my head from the momentum like a scorpion tail and my face skidding through the dirt. OUCH! They had to help me back to the table, I was so horrified! And I was like, “OH GOSH OH GOSH OH GOSH OH GOSH OH GOSH OH GOSH OH GOSH,” which meant I had to take like seven MORE big gulps of that ale and get even MORE tipsy!
From there, everything gets all fuzzy, though I remember constantly finding more grass and dirt to brush off myself. I remember they tricked me into saying the F-word somehow, which meant I was at that point my usually strong filter was broken. OOPS! And it was evident after that… Val had to do a Truth for me after that, and they wanted the kid gloves OFF, so I had to come up with something really spicy… so I was gonna ask her where the weirdest place was that she’d ever done what I, to my now-sober horror, referred to as, “the ol’ tap ‘n’ toodles.” They both looked at me like I had crocolisks crawling out of ears! So I had to explain what I meant, but I couldn’t make myself say the WORD, even with my filter being broken at that level of inebriation, so I made it even worse than if I’d just SAID it… I explained my question like, “You know… bringing an al dente noodle to the spaghetti house... bending her over a barrel and showing her the Eastern Kingdoms... bludgeoning the flaps... Cleaning the cobwebs with the womb broom... Tickling her tummy from the inside... Whitewashing the picket fence... Dropping the coin in the wishing well... Engaging in amorous congress... Taking the ol' bald-headed Gnome for a stroll in the misty forest... Smacking the salmon... Slapping sloppies... Rummaging in the root cellar... Quelching... Quimsticking... Finger-punching the rosebud... Playing a game of Mister Wibbley Hides His Helmet... Locking legs and swapping gravy... Loading the clown into the cannon... Having hot pudding for supper... Shellshocking the shellfish with a shallow shellacking... Doing the horizontal greased-weasel tango... Doing squat-thrusts in the cucumber patch... Entangling the lower beards... y-you know…” OH GOSH! Nah ended up on the bench, rolling around, wheezing with laughter, and Val was slumped over on the table, also wheezing with laughter, pounding the table with her fists… OH MY GOODNESS! It was so embarrassing! And her answer, when she finally recovered enough to speak… she’d done it on a Tauren caravan! OH MY GOODNESS!
And THAT’S what Annabelle walked in on!
She’d gotten there in time to see my bestie Nah and our new friend Val in tears, faces red, still laughing a bit, and Val telling that story, and me all dirty and grass-stained and drunk, now with one and a half tankards out of an original three of dwarven ale! Then I had to do that drunk dance with Val I mentioned. Even more embarrassment! Then Val had to go, but Annabelle stayed, so we still had enough to continue playing! I tried to say bye to Val, but, as Nah told me later, I was talking to a narrow fir tree in a planter there in the beer garden, that I THOUGHT was Val, because I was getting so drunk! OOPS!
I started off getting to Whisper Dare Anna with a delayed Dare, which turned out to be her randomly getting up a few rounds later, and, without warning, without context, walk over and sit next to Nah, gently take her nose and turn it a quarter turn, raise Nah’s arm up and leave it in the air, then tickle her exposed ribs. Hehe… that she confused Nah! But then she figured it out… Whisper Dare! Ha! Then there was the purple potions… the ones that have… adverse effects on the digestive system that Nah uses to incapacitate targets when on her rogue missions. That didn’t go well the day after her Deathrolls birthday party, and it didn’t go well this time, either! I spent all Wednesday hung over and… well, I won’t get into the rest of that! Ew! But this time, I had to pick and choose which herbs would go into the potion along with it! Turns out the liferoot and frost lotus I added provided strength and body to the potion, making what happened after it took effect a healthy thing, as liferoot is used in healing potions. And then there was the double-dose of it I had to take. What a horrid Dare! Then there were Dares like one from me to Anna, having to take off her socks with her teeth, a Nah Dare that had me having to call out, “Hullabaloo!” every time something happened in the drinking game where I had to take a drink, a Nah Dare to Anna in which she had to remove MORE clothing, which she’d learned from the last game to wear extra layers, so she had like gloves and pants under her dress and all kinds of extra stuff, just in case, me having to say if I’d ever stolen anything before, which wasn’t bad, because like, the worst I’d ever stolen is stuff like, when I’d stolen Celeste’s grilled cheese sandwich after she stole mine, just playful stuff. Then there was Anna singing a bawdy song in a Dare from me, Nah having to roll a die, rolling out of the number of articles of clothing she had on, and take THOSE off, which thankfully she only rolled a two and ended up just taking off gloves and socks, me Daring Nah to sit in Anna’s lap and seductively describe one of her articles of smallclothes… she did that one a little TOO well! GOSH! Then something happened that’s never happened before… EVERYONE rolled a one! Nah rolled a one in the Deathrolls round, and Anna and I both rolled a one in the Truth or Dare rolls! It was unprecedented, so I had no rule for it… I had to make one up on the spot! I figured, ROLL-OFF! Anna and I would roll once more to see who gets to Truth or Dare Nah, BUT! We’d both still have to join in, having rolled ones ourselves! A NEW DEATHROLLS RULE IS BORN! HA! Anna won, and she figured, Rock, Paper, Scissors game – single-elimination over two rounds, whoever is the last one standing gets to pick someone out that has to go home undressed! GOSH! Nah won, which was horrifying… but, being Kaldorei, she has no discomfort in being undressed, and, in a moment that showed a certain nobility of spirit that this trickster, this Scamp of Stormwind as some call her, sometimes surprises people with… she chose HERSELF! Spared us both! THAT’S why she’s my BESTIE! Yay for Nah!
It was super late by this point, and we were all getting sleepy, and I knew I’d be feeling the effects of that icky potion soon anyway, so we all decided to head home then. Anna and I ended up getting up to go look at the walls when Nah started shamelessly peeling everything off! Oh goodness gracious! Then she did her POOF thing, vanishing, which was merciful to us, not to mention a way for her to get home in that state without getting arrested or something. Hah! We said our goodnights, and headed home. And oh my goodness, was there one heck of a hangover, not to mention the effects of that potion, the next day! Celeste laughed at all the stories as usual, but took care of me all day. I love that girl! She’s too good to me! By the time the evening came around, I was pretty much ready for the weekly expedition with the Whitewind Company!
Nat looked up then, startled. Dordy got up as well, sprinting to the piloting station and barking like mad. Celeste had hooked something BIG! Nat placed her diary on the see-through floor of the Wave Dancer, dropping her quill tip into the inkwell, and raced to go see what Celeste had gotten hold of. Celeste was fighting the fish hard, reeling, yanking the rod, lowering the rod, reeling again. She put one foot up on the edge of the boat to brace herself, her look of concentration intensified rather a lot, as Nat looked on, leaning over the railing. Dordy was watching through the bottom of the boat, near the back now, having spied the fighting fish. Nat followed him to the back, now dropping to hands and knees, peering through the see-through bottom of the boat with her face near the bullet-proof glass.
There was a whole other world down here, which Celeste and Nat had, with Dordy, already investigated, of course. Peering down into the river, the elven waters proved to be crystal-clear. Moss-covered logs, gnarled, twisted vines, tree roots, and falling branches provided many nesting areas for the river’s fish, and places to snag one’s fishing line on. The riverbed itself wasn’t even visible, the jungle river having its own version of undergrowth. A wide variety of freshwater plants grew and thrived, providing its own soft green glow that complimented that of the jungle canopy above it. Tiny schools of tiny fish teemed here and there along the shores. A frog swam near them. In one case, a giant, brilliantly green, enormous snake undulated through the water. Nat was sure glad she wasn’t swimming in THIS bend in the river!
And then she spotted it… Celeste’s fish! It was fighting hard, the hook planted deep. Having long gotten over the worst of the bad feeling she got from this sight, she felt instead the thrill of the battle. During one brief moment, the fish went still, and she identified it. A mithril head trout! Being in a Kaldorei forest, the creature had grown quite a bit larger than the trout in human mountain and forest streams. This one was nearly as big as an average salmon! The fish tried and tried to fight free, but Celeste wrangled it in close. When it came alongside the boat, Nat leapt to her feet, going for the fishnet. As Celeste brought it to the surface, Nat scooped it up. Lunch was caught! Further catches would be smoked for later meals, the excess shared among their friends at Anglers Wharf, Halfhill, and other places on the pandaren continent. Nat scooped up Dordy as she saw Celeste going for her S.E.L.F.I.E. camera. Celeste held the fish up in one hand, propping up her murloc skeleton fishing rod to allow the fish to dangle while she held up the end, and the picture was taken, the beautiful Kaldorei jungle and river there in the background. Excited to get back to fishing, Nat hurried back to her diary after a celebratory kiss for Celeste while Celeste got the fish to the cooler. Picking up her diary and placing it in her lap, she pulled her quill from the inkwell, tapped off the excess, and got back to work.
Wow, gosh, I sure wrote a lot about Deathrolls! I’ve always written that if I tried to list every Truth and every Dare, I’d have pages and pages written, and sure enough, I did! And that was just the ones I remember off the top of my head! I’m sure there were lots and lots more!
Anyway, yeah, Celeste took such good care of me the following day that I was all recovered for the Whitewind Company’s weekly expedition, so I went! WOO!
It was me, Annasana Moonblossom, the worgen druid healer we had with us last time, Tess, and Zarshal. Grim is out of town with a group of other warriors doing some training, and Mairy was tired from her other job and resting in Stormwind with some friends there, so it was just the four of us! But, that turned out to be plenty!
We met, as planned last time, at the Explorer’s League outpost in southeastern Howling Fjord, atop the bluffs there, near the southeastern cliffs. The plan was, as the dwarf Grugni Stonebeard had told the dwarves at the little camp a few years prior, was to go and explore the Baelgun Expedition Site, which turned out to be overrun by iron dwarves and iron dwarf golems! The whole thing was a cliffside maze of scaffolds that zigzagged from the top of the cliff to the oceanside bottom, spanning a broad width of the cliffs, with a huge titan statue mostly uncovered, dug out of the cliffs! It looked like quite the maze indeed!
The group elected to descend the path that led off to the right as we face out toward the sea, and we soon found ourselves on a rickety old boardwalk that did NOT remotely look stable enough to be walking on! Anna, knowing how clumsy I am, assumed her stag form and got me to climb aboard. It was still scary! Way different than being up in the air on Onyx, whom I’ve trusted all my life, or the MUTT or Flying Nosebleed, their reliability assured now that there’s no one wanting to sabotage them! This time, I had to trust Anna. But I’ve known her well for over a year, so I did!
The boardwalk ended in a dead end, though there was a lift there that took us way, waaaaaaaaaaay down to the bottom, where the rocks looked like tiny insects. It was so scary! I was just hoping the boardwalk didn’t collapse under our combined weight! But, just as the lift started going down with us on it, something flashed and caught our eye, so we went back up! There, at the end of the boardwalk, was a rune! It looked like the Titan language! There was no one in our group that understood Titan, so we didn’t know what to do! Then Tess reached out and touched it. FLASH! It lit up! The spot where she touched it lit up with all these tiny little blue dots, and the WHOLE SKY WENT DARK AS NIGHT! Then there was this titanic-sounding voice that as like, “Rune of Stars: Activated.” Then we looked up, and we noticed that the stars were out of place! The stars in the sky didn’t look at ALL like their usual constellations! Was this some sort of Titan technology? A projection, and not the real sky? I figured it must be, because the dots in the quadrant of the rune Tess had touched moved, making a shape like a cow, and the stars in the sky in the corresponding quadrant moved to the shape of a cow as well! What did this even mean?!
Tess went and touched the rune in a different place, next to the cow. A dragon formed in dots there after another flash, and the stars in the sky moved to the shape of a dragon as well! More confusion! Tess touched the other two quadrants of the rune, and a knight and a plant elemental formed in the bottom left and bottom right, respectively, and the stars matched them in the sky!
We had no idea what to do next. But then Anna noticed that the dragon was facing the cow, and its shape looked like it was poised to swoop in to grab it. Then she followed logically that the knight might be the one to go and get the dragon. What about the other two? The cow might try to eat the plant elemental, which itself might be immune to a knight’s attack, its rapidly-regrowing vines able to fend off sword hacks to defeat the knight. And the knight would slay the dragon! She went and touched the cow rune. It moved from far left to near left, the stars in the sky moving to match it. The knight was now up next to the dragon, but it was facing out to sea instead of toward any other rune. The cow was now next to the plant elemental, but facing the group. The plant elemental was in the near right, facing off to the group’s right, away from the other runes. The dragon looked to be flying right into the armored knight’s attack! This didn’t make any sense at all! So, Tess touched the cow. Being touched a second consecutive time, the cow moved clockwise this time, though it still faced the group, facing the knight in the near left quadrant of the rune, with the knight facing it. But why would it take an armored knight to slay a cow? The dragon in the far right looked poised to get what it wanted, facing the cow, but the cow looked from the far left toward the knight in near left. It was facing a shape in the rune, but it didn’t seem to be the right one. The plant elemental in the far right was still facing away from the other shapes, facing off to our right, its tentacles outstretched in that direction.
We put our heads together, thinking. If the cow would graze on the plant elemental, and the plant elemental could handle attacking the knight, and the knight would slay the dragon, and the dragon wanted to eat the cow, then the shapes should be in that order. The plant elemental facing off to our right from the near-right quadrant of the rune gave a hint that the knight should be to the right of it. Moving the plant counter-clockwise would put it into its proper place, which would move the knight… to the near right, facing up toward the dragon instead of up toward the cow! Tess touched the plant elemental, which we’d learned by now would move it counter-clockwise, and a second touch moves it clockwise. The plant elemental moved into the quadrant the cow was facing, and the knight moved to the near-right, facing the dragon. Then it happened… FLASH! The whole rune and its shapes lit up, and we saw movement above us. The same pattern was in the stars, of course, except now, they were all MOVING! The dragon was flapping its wings mightily, swooping in on the cow, the cow was moseying toward the plant elemental, looking focused on it, the plant elemental was reaching its tentacles out toward the knight, and the knight was moving in a crouched stance, sword and shield raised, toward the dragon! The whole quartet chased itself in this manner faster and faster, until, FLASH! It all disappeared, and the sky went light again! The rune at our feet disappeared as well! Then we heard the titanic voice again: “Key of Stars: Activated.” What did THAT mean?!
With the rune gone, though, there was no way to tell what it meant, so we went back to the lift the next time it came up and rode it down, continuing to explore the scaffolding. There was a series of ramps and broad platforms with tables covered from the elements by hide canopies overhead propped up on poles, and each ramp up led to a new boardwalk or broad platform. Some led to ledges in cliffs, which, in turn, led to more ramps leading up to more platforms and boardwalks. We looked around for more runes as we went, eventually spotting two more: One right on top of that towering statue’s head about two thirds of the way up the cliff, and one more at the far opposite side of the scaffolding that was only about halfway up the cliff. The zigzagging maze led us to the latter first, and, sure enough, there was another rune here!
Tess, eager to see what happened next, rushed forward and touched the rune, knowing what to do now. But, this one was WAY different than the Rune of Stars! The same titanic voice spoke again: “Rune of Earth: Activated.” Next thing we know, the whole cliff and its scaffolding are rumbling, including the ledge we were on, and rocks were falling from the cliff, including from higher up above us! We all managed to dodge them, though!
When it stopped, the rune itself started glowing more, and then all the rocks that had fallen around us on the ledge and nearby ramp started arcing through the air, flying into the rune! I wasn’t so lucky this time; I took a shot right to the ribs! OUCH! Anna took one to the head, falling over and reverting to her worgen form, spilling me from her stag form’s back and onto the grass on the ledge. Oof! When we looked up, the rocks had formed an enraged-looking earth elemental in front of us, all white, and with weirdly cold-looking white flames! It started talking to us in this low, rumbly, super-slow voice, wanting us to “speak,” and talking of “anger.” Where’s Mairy when you need her! I bet she could have done her shaman thing, speaking to the spirits to calm it! That likely might have been some or all of this particular puzzle! And then, when we didn’t tell it what it wanted to hear, after Anna and I trying to calm it and figure out what it wants, and Zarshal and Tess speaking at it angrily, thinking that’s what it meant by “speak” and “anger,” it ATTACKED us!
The fight was chaotic! The earth elemental was doing another rock shower from the cliff’s loose rocks again, though I had Mek-barash and Kil’rek out by now, my wrathguard and my imp, respectively, and my Greater Soul Link spell had them taking whatever damage I’d take for me, so the rock that fell on my head affected Mek-barash instead. Meanwhile, Mek-barash was trying to bash the rock elemental to pieces with the flat of his axe, which wasn’t working, and Kil’rek’s felfire bolts were missing it, passing right through the gaps in between different parts of the elemental. Zarshal’s daggers were doing nothing to it, of course, though Tess’s enchanted arrows, her spirit wolf Pallatu’s jaws, and Anna’s Starsurge spells really did a number on it! Before long, the two of them had the thing shattered to pieces! The titanic voice resumed after the hard-fought battle. It was like, “Key of Earth: Activated.” That was a relief! I had expected another puzzle!
With the Key of Stars and the Key of Earth activated, we went to go check out that glow on top of the giant statue’s head. We went through a bit more of a zigzagging maze on the scaffolding, ending up at another broad platform near the statue’s head, slightly above it. Tess jumped right off the platform, onto the head, and she was like, “If this thing starts moving, I am definitely the new emperor of Azeroth!” HA! But me, however? No WAY was I following! I stayed on Anna’s stag form’s back, where I was safe! Acrobatics and I just do NOT get along!
Tess, however, as before, was eager to see what the next puzzle would be. She hurried to the rune, touching it. The titanic voice spoke again: “Rune of Titans: Inactive.” Then Tess was like, “TODAY, Susan!” and then looked at us and was like, “I named the rune Susan.” HA! Then Anna asked it why it was inactive, and the titanic voice was like, “Error: Rune of Stars: Active. Rune of Earth: Active. Rune of Iron: Inactive.” So there was a third rune we’d missed somewhere! Anna asked where it was, and it said it was attempting to scan the area for the key… but it couldn’t find it anywhere! It suggested the rune was either out of range, and/or buried deeply enough that the scanning couldn’t penetrate to find it. We peered around from there, searchingly. Then we saw it: a cave entrance along the path of the scaffolding we were already on! And Zarshal said he could tell there was a glow coming from the cave as well, only just barely visible!
We hurried along to the cave from there, entering and exploring around several bends. Tess tried calling out for it, yelling, “OH KEEEEYYYY OF IRROOON, WHERE ARRRRRE YOUUUU!” but it echoed so much, so loudly, everyone asked her to stop! We explored on in silence.
Eventually, we came to one wide-open area, a cavernous room where the patch veered hard to the right, then hard to the left up a ramp-like ledge before veering right, into the rock again, disappearing around another bend. Where the bend to our right in the big room was, there was an iron dwarf standing in front of a much smaller titan statue, the latter posed as though holding up something enormous that rested on his shoulders, the former, inactive, just standing there. There was a panel open in the back of his head, and an open crate of what looked to be power cells sat nearby. The power cells looked to be of mechagnomish make. Not like the mechagnomes from Mechagon Isle, like penny, but rather, the fully-automated robot ones of ancient Titan make!
Being the engineer of the group, I went around to have a look inside that panel that was open on the back of the thing’s head. I couldn’t see the flat bottom of the compartment, as it was actually taller than I am, even as a dwarf in appearance, but I could see the top and sides. I was able to see where a power cell goes, on the left! Zarshal went to the crate and handed me one, and I put it in place. The whole thing FLASHED and its eyes started glowing blue! But it didn’t move, so we stayed where we were too! Then the thing SPOKE! It was like, “Unit activated. Status: Head: Powered. Torso: Unpowered. Right arm: Unpowered. Left arm: Unpowered. Right leg: Unpowered. Left leg: Unpowered.” Another puzzle! Looked like we needed to power the whole thing!
I couldn’t see anything else from my height, though, so Anna came around to have a look. Her worgen height had her standing tall enough to see the bottom, and she spotted a hole the size of the power cells there next to the power cell I placed. Zarshal handed her a power cell, too, and she dropped it into the hole. We heard something whirring and clicking inside the dwarf, like the power cell had been moved or something. Then the dwarf said its head and torso were powered, but everything else was unpowered still. Is unpowered really even a word? Oh well, I suppose it is now! Silly mechagnomes!
Zarshal handed Anna another power cell, and she dropped it into the same hole. The iron dwarf said head and torso were powered, but everything else was still unpowered, and then it was like, “Power cell allocator: Power cell detected. Command input: Power cell allocation.”
Anna took another power cell after that, dropping it into the same hole. That didn’t work too well! The iron dwarf was like, “Error: Power cells stacked end-on-end in power cell allocator. Power overload detected.” Then this arc of electricity shot out and zapped the POO out of Zarshal! GOSH! Then the iron dwarf was like, “Command input: Power cell allocation.” Anna thought for a sec, then was like, “Eject power cells in power cell allocator.” Another oopsie! The iron dwarf was like, “Error: Not enough room in cranial compartment to eject multiple power cells simultaneously. Error: Power cells stacked end-on-end in power cell allocator. Overload detected.” Then it zapped Zarshal AGAIN! Oof! Anna tried to hurry after that! She was like, “Move the power cell to one of the arms.” That didn’t work too well, either! The iron dwarf was like, “Error: Specify arm,” and then followed immediately with, “Error: Power cells stacked end-on-end in power cell allocator. Power overload detected.” Then it zapped the POO out of poor Zarshal YET AGAIN! Z-Man was like, “AAAAA! …I hate it here.” Poor Zarshal! Anna hurried even more after that, ordering it to move the power cell to the arm on the right. Then Zarshal handed her another power cell, and I was about to speak up and say that that other power cell was already in the power cell allocator, but she beat me to it. She was like, “Hmmm… I go’ this. Move power cell to left arm.” The iron dwarf did as commanded, then it said its head, torso, right arm, and left arm were now powered, and the right and left leg unpowered. Anna dropped the next power cell in at that point, then ordered it moved to the right leg. Almost had another issue there; the iron dwarf was like, “Error: Relay systems in right leg malfunctioning. Auxillary systems activated… … … …… Power cell allocation complete. Right leg powered.” Whew! Narrowly avoided another zap to the guy by the power cell crate, I bet! Then one last power cell was dropped in, Anna moving it to the left leg. The iron dwarf was now fully powered!
It peered forward. With Anna and I behind the thing, looking into that open panel on the back of its head, and Z behind and off to its side by the crate full of power cells, it saw Tess first. It looked at her and it was like, “Entity spotted. Kaldorei. Female. Query: Are you the Maker?” It thought Tess was its MOMMY! How ADORABLE! Tess was like, “Uhhh… yeah!” Then it asked Tess for programming, and Tess was like, “Activate the Key of Iron!” And the iron dwarf was like, “Command confirmed. Executing.” Then the Rune of Iron had that same titanic voice as the others, and it was like, “Key of Iron: Activated.” Then Tess had the iron dwarf go join its mates outside. We had what the Rune of Titans wanted from us! WOO!
We went back outside. Tess was up again: the rest of us didn’t feel like ledge-hopping to that head now any more than we had earlier! She jumped out and rushed over to the rune and touched it again. The rune was like, “Key of Stars: Active. Key of Earth: Active. Key of Iron: Active. Key of Titans: Active. Pre-programmed command: Activated. Audio recording playback to follow. Stand by.” And then there was a dwarf’s voice! It was like, “Och, ye managed tae solve the puzzles set fer ya! Keep up th’ good work, and ye’ll be Explorer’s League members in no time! Next task: get back tae th’ road! It’ll curve south, then west, then on fer a wee bit, then north again. Follow it tae the soarin’ vrykul canoes! Good luck!”
Soaring vrykul canoes?! What the heck did THAT mean?! With no ideas as to what it was talking about, we headed back to the road to follow the dwarf’s directions, which seemed to describe a low, broad U-shape. We went south from where we were, then west for a good ways, riding hard on our mounts by this point. Eventually, we came to a huge, huge bridge, crossing the whole fjord into Daggercap Bay that the ship came in through last time we were here. Looking down, we could see that same ship suspended over the water in the canyon, still on fire and in one piece! Vrykul magic! Was this the “soaring canoe” the dwarf had talked about? Zarshal wondered aloud if we were supposed to climb down to explore it, but somehow, I don’t think crawling through a burning ship was Grugni Stonebeard’s intention, and besides which, we had only followed half of a U-shape, so we decided to ride on.
Chilly, howling winds aside, the bluffs at the southern part of the Howling Fjord are so beautiful! A sparse forest populated by everything from shoveltusk boars to wild turkey herds to hawks provided a scenic nature view, with the views from over the cliffs out over the ocean adding an enormous extra amount of beauty. I’d love to come back and have a pleasant little hike sometime! Cold weather gear would be needed, though!
Eventually, the road turned north again. We rode and we rode, eventually coming to a DEAD END! What happened to “soaring vrykul canoes?” I looked around, expecting to see like, hieroglyphics or something of vrykul canoes on rocks or something, but the only odd thing nearby was a wooden platform built with a broad wooden post holding up a horizontal pulley wheel as wise as the platform, with an enormous rope looping around it. We went up there, wondering what we were supposed to do next.
Then, suddenly, from somewhere below the cliff’s edge, a vrykul longboat, complete with vrykul-style carvings of dragon heads arising from either end and suspended from the main rope by attachments to the ends, rose up along the rope going around the pulley wheel, and it came to a stop right beside us! This must be it, the soaring vrykul canoes, “soaring” high over the earth when it goes over the edge of the cliff down the rope!
We clambered aboard immediately, with the ever-excitable Tess proclaiming, “Oooh, this is so awesome!” I was pretty giddy myself; it was really cool! The longboat went back down the way it came, and we passed another longboat going UP the rope, presumable to the opposite side of that platform we were on. Our longboat went down, down, down, gliding through the skies along the lift’s rope at an angle that had it going far more across the ground than it did down. It took us over quite a bit of sea-level terrain before finally coming to a stop at a snowy shore. Where the heck were we, and what the heck were we supposed to do now?!
We looked around, spotting a Tuskarr village just to the north of us, only a couple hundred yards away. This being the only thing of note (besides the beautiful scenery) here, we figured this would be the next place to go!
When we got to the village, the Tuskarr, a race of humanoid walrus-looking people, were going about their business there. We all fanned out, asking around for Grugni Stonebeard. It took a bit for the Tuskarr to remember, but then they did: Grugni Stonebeard had been here some three years previous, a group of Explorer’s League dwarves in tow. They also all said that the dwarf and his entourage had proceeded to the harbor, riding the great turtle they named Green Island westward to Moa’ki Harbor. We thanked them, meeting up at the huge bonfire at the center of the village to tell each other what we’d learned. Turns out we’d all learned the exact same thing! That was easier than normal!
That was all the time we had for the evening, however, so we agreed to reconvene here next week and ride that turtle, Green Island, westward to Moa’ki Harbor, and see what’s up then! For now, we were all tired, and it was time to go home!
I woke up this morning feeling much warmer than I had up there in the Howling Fjord last night! And it was a nice surprise that I woke up to, as well: Celeste announced that we were going fishing in FERALAS today! YAY!
Celeste wanted to fish from the Wave Dancer, though, which meant a tricky operation to get the thing all the way there. But, in true Celeste fashion, she already had a plan! A standard page portal to Theramore, with the MUTT on the deck and me in the Flying Nosebleed following along. Celeste would pilot the Wave Dancer through the portal, with me piloting the Flying Nosebleed in behind her. Then, we’d use the Flying Nosebleed’s and MUTT’s winches to lift either end of the Wave Dancer and fly her through the air from Theramore to the head of one of Celeste’s favorite rivers in Feralas!
We packed our fishing gear, food, and other supplies, and got an early start. The airlifting plan for the Wave Dancer went off without a hitch, so that was good! Then we lowered the Wave Dancer in the water, leaving the Flying Nosebleed and MUTT in the care of some local Kaldorei people in Feathermoon Stronghold that Celeste knew and trusted from her childhood camping here often with her mother, Eowithiel McCullough, since Eow had helped those Kaldorei out quite a bit in her time. I left Mek-barash to guard the boat, with an illusion spell on him to hide him so he wouldn’t alarm local people and wildlife, and to dampen the fel aura he cast, dropping both only if the boat is threatened. Meanwhile, we flew the machines to the stronghold, returning on the ever-present Onyx, who loves to follow along and ride the thermals as we go anyway, so he’s up there above us somewhere even now! The river we were going to be on for the day would eventually take us back to the stronghold, and our airlift out!
Since then, we’ve had a nice breakfast on the river, fished a bit, and then I started writing. Now that I’m done, I wanna do some more FISHING! Celeste has already got us lunch, a mithril head trout! It’s humungous from living in these magical Kaldorei rivers! Everything else will be smoked and saved, with the excess going to friends around Pandaria. The river is so scenic, so beautiful, and so serene, moving at slow speeds through this gorgeous jungle of sky-scraping Kaldorei trees. Everything is so quiet and still and peaceful! I can see why the Kaldorei people love to live here! This day is gonna be SO awesome, fishing with the Wave Dancer’s motor off, just trolling along at the river’s own slow speed. It’ll take all day to get back to Feathermoon Stronghold, and that’s okay with us!
As an added bonus: this fishing trip will serve as a scouting expedition for a CAMPING TRIP here next week! WOO! Celeste has been pointing out old favorite campsites as we’ve drifted along today, places with flat, soft ground next to the water, clear of trees and heavy undergrowth, and lots of shade. We’ll have to set something up to ward off critters from coming into the campsite, especially the giant SNAKES they have here! Celeste and I think the MAD – Mutt Automated Defense – should do the trick!
EXTRA bonus: Celeste told me we’re gonna have ANOTHER adventure sometime this summer! Diving in the Thousand Needles to find the old sunken racetrack the goblins had here before the Cataclysm, and see if we can’t salvage anything from the old racers, or other stuff, and basically just sightseeing a whole bunch! That’s gonna be SO COOL! I can’t wait!
For now, though… back to FISHING! YAY!
Nat smiled broadly as she finished her entry. She tapped the excess ink from her quill tip into her inkwell, capping the latter and replacing the former in its cherrywood quill case that still lay open next to her on the transparent floor of the Wave Dancer. Placing these in her pack, she went to go and take Celeste another mug of coffee. Returning to her diary, she found the ink on the pages now dry, so she replaced it, the quill case, and the now-capped inkwell into her pack and picked up her fishing rod.
Fishing in the gorgeous Kaldorei forest of Feralas… Now THIS was a great way to cap off the last day of minication, especially while looking out for camping sites and looking forward to the camping trip!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jul 28, 2022 16:55:26 GMT
July the Twenty-Eighth The soft green glow of the previous week once again illuminated the area. The towering Kaldorei trees of Feralas, filtering the sunlight through their leaves to the forest floor like a soothing light show. The summer season had the forest alive with life, with sights and sounds of birds, reptiles, small mammals and plenty of insects in evidence, with the occasional sound, tracks, or other traces of much larger animals. The air was a bit on the hot and humid side, but, being next to a calmly flowing river, that was easily enough remedied. The smell of lush vegetation and rich earth permeated the area.
All in all, it made for a perfect campsite, which is, of course, why Celeste selected it. The little clearing she’d chosen had their usual tent set up just against a large tree, the entrance facing the slow-moving stream, though a few dozen feet away from it. Off to the side, she had used the MUTT to dig a large hole in the ground and covered it with bamboo tied together and covered with branches. The hole, dug into the much cooler earth, held their fish and kept their catches cool during the day. A rack to hang and clean their fish stood near the stream. Another taller lean-to held a pile of their supplies, neatly packed in wicker baskets and hanging from the ceiling of the lean-to so the four-legged denizens of Feralas couldn't get into them. Off to the side, the MUTT clicked and whirred softly, in MAD mode. The trees and branches around the campsite had strings of lights that reached to the MUTT, powered by its power cells. A handmade fish smoker, much like the one Celeste had made in Grizzly Hills during the previous October’s camping trip for the salmon run there, stood nearby as well. Made from still-live sticks from the Feralas forest floor, it proved to be every bit as strong as the one made from the Grizzly Hills redwoods’ smallest branches. Next to a small campfire, two camping chairs, each with their own small folding camp tables at their sides, sat facing both the campfire and the calm, beautiful river, where a narrow rope extended across to the far side, drift lines rigged to catch fish extending downstream from it where the river had slowly pulled the lines taut.
It was here that Celeste currently sat, going back and forth between the fish storage and the smoker, smoking their catches for longer-term storage, Dordy underfoot as always, hoping for a dropped (intentionally or not) bit of fish to gobble up, constantly licking his chops and wagging his tail. Nat, meanwhile, was sitting also, her diary open in her lap as she sat next to the morning’s fire. A small folding camp table sat to her right with apple cider Celeste had made from apples purchased from Paw’don Village in the Jade Forest in Pandaria, as well as her inkwell of purple ink, which sat uncapped near her opened cherrywood quill case. Nat’s ravenfeather quill was already in her hand and dipping for ink. Tapping off the excess with a happy sigh, she began to write.
Dear diary,
Gosh, it’s been such a super relaxing week! More so with the weekly Whitewind Company adventure having been cancelled again. Availability of our members has been slim seemingly every other week, but luckily, Grim is back from out of town, and we figured if nothing else, we’ll DUO it ourselves if we have to! But yeah, in the meantime, its absence, though a huge bummer, has left the week to be a one hundred percent relaxing week!
The primary relaxation has been CAMPING! We went to the campsite we selected as we fished the Verdantis River in Feralas Sunday evening after I got back from work, and Celeste already had everything all set up in place for us and ready to go, set up much the same as the site and fishing gear and racks and smoker and stuff as we had in Grizzly Hills, so that was awesome!
She even had me close my eyes as we approached, as she wanted the unveiling of it be a surprise for me! Guided along by Celeste so I wouldn’t trip and fall, as I had not only my eyes shut tightly, but my hands held over my eyes as well, I couldn't help but giggle in excited anticipation as I moved along with her. When I was allowed to open my eyes, I threw my hands down quickly, gasping as I took in the beauty of Feralas all around me.
Instantly, I recognized Celeste's handiwork. Our tent, pitched with all its camping comforts near the river. Fishing stuff, the MUTT in MAD mode, and Dordy curled up on the camp bed. Smoking racks and a cooler built into the ground. A lean-to for supplies in wicker baskets hanging high to avoid the curious noses of wild critters. The strings of lights hanging around, a nod towards Celeste's tendency to decorate festively. This was a Celeste-built campsite, alright!
"Welcome to your Feralas camping week!" she had said, smiling at me, clearly happy that this was happening. "I took the liberty of getting everything ready during the weekend so I could bring you here today without any hassle for you. I hope you like it. Mother never wanted us to put up more lights than was necessary so as not to disturb the forest, but since we have access to power cells now, I figured a few festive lights wouldn't be a problem. I think it adds a magical touch to the campsite. Oh! As soon as the unpacking is done, we have a tiny bit of a tradition. You have to pick a title for yourself that I'll have to use for you as soon as you catch a bigger fish than me and I'll pick one too. Well I already have mine: Grand and Majestic Queen Celeste, Vanquisher of the Murloc, Dabbler of the Mechanical!" She laughed and made a sweeping bow to me that made me laugh. "First one to catch a fish gets to be called what they want, all of it mind you, until the other one of us beats the size and so on. Oh, trailing lines don't count. I installed drift lines across the stream to catch a large volume of trout. I can start catching lots of fish and bringing them to the Stormwind Orphanage like I used to." She’s always so thoughtful and sweet!
"Wooooooooow!" I exclaimed, my eyes wide and darting around all over, just as I darted around the camp, wanting to take everything in. "Coooooooooooolllllllll! Celeste, this is amazing! It looks so much like Grizzly Hills campsite, but much warmer! This is so PEREFECT!"
"And gosh, yeah, these lights shouldn't be too bad for the local critters. All the underbrush should help contain it as well. I love your titles fishing game too! That's so awesome! I will be erm..... erm..... ermmmmmmmmmmm.... Oh! I'll be Her August Grace, Empress Natasha, Royal Purple Majesty of the Duskwood, Lady of the Noodle!"
The trailing lines are working quite well, and, so far, Celeste has a dozens of smoked trout to give to the orphanage! The regular fishing we did during the days on the Wave Dancer has produced fewer fish, though. Celeste had caught the first few fish just after dawn on the first day, enjoying being called Grand and Majestic Queen Celeste, Vanquisher of the Murloc, Dabbler of the Mechanical. To fish, she unfailingly lifted her chin imperiously and gave a dainty, refined bow each time (and bursting into laughter each time). Eventually, though, sitting in my special chair on the prow Celeste made for me, I caught the biggest fish, a huge sunscale salmon! Neither of us had managed to beat my record, though Celeste still caught way more fish than I did. But, as Celeste insisted, rules were rules! So it was that Celeste graciously conceded defeat (and her make-believe throne) and scurried to do my bidding, curtseying every time and replying with, “Yes, Your August Grace, Empress Natasha, Royal Purple Majesty of the Duskwood, Lady of the Noodle.” HA! She’s so funny! I love her!
The nights have been great, too! Just relaxing at the campsite and stargazing through the gap in the forest canopy overhead made by this little clearing we found and enjoying each other’s company!
The game has yet to become tiresome, too, so I’m sure we’ll be playing it again in the future! Though I fully expect to call Celeste by the next title she comes up with, next time we have a fishing camping trip!
The river has been good to us this week. Between our trawling lines across the river and our own fishing from riverbank and boat, we got enough Feralas fish to last us a good while, AND enough Angler's Wharf friends, and, BEST of all, enough fish to stock the Stormwind City Orphanage completely! WOO!
Today, Celeste plans on smoking most of the fish so they will keep longer. It’ll take up most of the morning and part of the afternoon. I’ll be helping her after I finish writing. With my workend coming up, the rest of the day will be spent packing up the tent. If we have any time remaining when we’re done cleaning up our campsite (we wanna leave no trace, so the forest stays beautiful!), we might get just a bit more fishing in after that!
Tuesday night, more relaxation came, except in a city. DEATHROLLS! I visited with Stormwind friends, and we got a weekly game together! We played at that big bonfire in Upton Borough in Boralus. That was our first time ever playing there. It was really pretty and peaceful, just like this Feralas camping trip! None of the old crew were there, though. They’re still burned out. Even my bestie Nah only sometimes plays with me. But, I seem to have found a new crew of regulars! Returning from previous games, we had Anna (not our group’s healer, Annasana Moonblossom, but Annabelle Baker, the Quicksilver Company healer. How odd to have two healers named Anna!) Val, Ka’Lare, Mith, Oli, Sama, and a new one of “Val’s Pals,” as the charismatic woman’s ever-growing circle of is beginning to become known, named Nori!
It was a really good game, too! Mith, a druid, kinda likes to change forms a lot at random. I guess he gets restless or something. Well, Anna Dared him to start off the night, and his Dare was not to change shape back to his favorite form – bear – for the rest of the night, or his snazzy hat with the feather in it goes into the fire! Boy, did he look antsy then! Anna went on a streak of incredible luck after that, constantly rolling a twenty out of twenty on the Truth or Dare rolls, which, as always, means that player gets to CHOOSE Truth or Dare FOR the person that rolled a one. And not only that, but she constantly kept rolling a twenty out of twenty for a SECOND person that rolled a one during the Truth or Dare rolls! I’ve never seen that level of luck before in Deathrolls! It was like her dice were loaded or something! One example was her getting Mith again, as well as Ka’Lare, with a Dare not to swear for the rest of the night. Mith seemed to handle that well, but Ka’Lare, usually somewhat of a pottymouth, kept having to catch herself at the last second, so she kept going, “fffffffffffffuuudge!” or “fffffuuullllippin’!” It was entertaining! Eventually, Anna rolled a one, and she had a Truth about a time she did something she regretted. She confessed to letting her old retired father go on an adventure with the Quicksilver Company, where he and everyone else apparently got an itchy rash, though they eventually figured out what caused it and cured it. Then she said Victor lit Mathiac’s chin on fire for being bad in Dalaran. Gosh! Then Sama Dared me to climb the vines on the wall behind us with one of the huge sitting pillows near the bonfire and sit on top of the wall. Clearly she hasn’t known me and my lack of athleticism very long! Val did get up and gave me a boost, so that helped. I was even able to climb the vines like a ladder for a bit, until I got near the top and realized that I was stuck; the top of the wall extends out overhead and blocks further climbing, so I had to sit there in a cluster of vines for the next round, throwing my dice down that round from up high. Then, when I climbed down, the vines snapped, and I found myself swinging across the face of the wall and right into one of the big square pillars of it! OOF! I wasn’t seriously injured, though, so I returned to the game. I got to Dare Mith, too, and I put his big worgen self right in Val’s lap, and her lap had to serve as a pillow for Ka’Lare, who was laying down across the couch the two were on anyway. But then Anna turned the tables on me, and I had to go sit in Ka’Lare’s lap, where she was lying down. Then Nori had to go sit on her calves. Being a Quel’dorei, he wasn’t gonna squish her much. But yeah, five of us on the couch turned into what Anna referred to as, “the sitting pile.” HA! Nori was cracking jokes too. He was commenting on Ka’Lare, a Lightforged Draenei of the Army of Light, complaining about being squished, so he was like, “THOUSANDS of years spent fighting the Legion, and our mighty paragon of the Light is done in by the likes of us.” I had Mith quacking like a duck after everything he says for a few rounds, so that brought on some more laughs. A worgen quacking like a duck! Honestly it almost sounds downright terrifying. Mith was getting a lot of attention by this point. Sama even had to pick his nose! EW! There was one more genuinely scary moment, though. Nori Dared Oli (Val calls Oli Sheldon for some reason that I don’t know) with a Whisper Dare. Next time I know, Oli’s taking an EGG over to the couch where, by this point, it was back to just Val and Ka’Lare sitting, walking behind Val, and asking, “How do you like your eggs, Val? Over-easy, or…” and then he SMASHED the egg over her head, with the yolk and stuff exploding all in her hair and running down her head! And he finished, “…scrambled?!” Oooooh, Val didn’t like that one bit! A Westfall farm girl and champion of the Brawler’s Guild, she immediately jumped over the couch after him, and she was like, “YA DEAD SHELDON!” Ka’Lare stopped her from actually hurting him, though, so that was good! I got hit with a Dare I haven’t been given in a while… reading a Steamy Romance Novel out loud, and even do voices for the characters when they speak! OH GOSH! I barely made it a few paragraphs in before I had to shut the book fast and toss it back to Val, who Dared me to read it, blushing red like a tomato. Goodness gracious! I was barely even able to speak coherently through all the stammering after just one paragraph! There were many more hilarious Dares and lots of spicy Truths, though they’d take several pages to list them all. All in all, it was a really awesome, hilarious, fun game of Deathrolls, even if I ended up with vines and leaves in my hair from the vine-wall-climbing Dare for the rest of the night!
I’m really hoping to get back to the Northrend campaign with the Whitewind Company and our other contractors next week. I’m sure I will, though, now that Grim is back in town (he only just arrived right as Deathrolls was finally breaking up, so he missed the game, sadly!). Other than that, this week has been so great! And now it’s time to spend the rest of it with Celeste. Time to help smoke the rest of this fish and see if we can’t break camp with time enough left to fish our way back out of the river to return home! YAY!
Nat smiled, tapping off the excess ink from her quill tip and replacing it in her quill case, capping off her inkwell as she went along. Replacing both in her pack, she went to refill Celeste’s coffee and check in on her. Celeste was focused on her work the way she usually tended to get, but accepted her coffee refill with a grateful smile. Turning back to her chair, Nat returned to find the ink on her diary pages now dry. Returning this to her pack as well, she went back to Celeste, helping with the fish smoking process until they were done. Working together, this and the tasks of breaking camp and reloading everything back onto the Wave Dancer took much less time than they thought, and they were able to do a bit more trolling for fish as they exited the river, ending their camping trip on a high note instead of a work note, and with enough fish for a dinner with their Angler’s Wharf friends upon their return home. A perfect end to a peaceful, relaxing minication!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Aug 4, 2022 13:43:25 GMT
August the Fourth The humid air of the swamp was thick, almost stifling to breathe in. Even just breathing the air, one might worry about inhaling an insect or ten. The midges, the clouds of gnats, the mosquitoes buzzing around all over made visitors think twice about traveling further into the swamp. The smell of stagnant water added to the unwelcome air, a foul smell that welcomed all manner of life in its own right. Everything was hot, soggy, and mushy. Off the beaten path of the road, nothing seemed like it might truly be solid, even what bits of land appeared to be dry.
Within the mosquito netting of the Wave Dancer, however, solid footing and relief from the flying insects was found. The awful smells, heat, and humidity couldn’t be avoided, but at least one could remain dry (aside from the sweating) and not be eaten alive by the tiny flying denizens of the Swamp of Sorrows.
Nat sat in her purple chair, her diary in her lap, cherrywood quill case and inkwell of purple ink open on her little table next to her. She sat peering around, her ravenfeather quill in her hand. Celeste (in full fishing gear, including her wide-brimmed hat) had a quill in her own hand, seated in the pilot’s chair, sketching up a handmade pond in a massive basin, doodling tiny frogs in here and there. Next to her were two boxes: one filled with swamp mud and sporting several varieties of swamp ferns, lily pads, cattails, reeds, and other samples. The other held several small, brilliantly colored frogs. The frogs stuck to the side of the crate, visible through the many air holes carved out for them to breathe. Dordy the molten corgi was the only one not bothered by the heat or insects. He produced more than the swamp’s heat himself, and his fiery nature repelled any unwelcome visitors to his fur. He in the exact center of the boat, watching the goings-on beneath the water through the transparent bottom of the small craft, riveted by the swamp’s fish, frogs, snakes, and other things that swam below him.
Smiling around at her little family, and the memories they’d made this morning during their adventuring, Nat dipped her quill into her inkwell of purple ink and began to write, wanting to record her memories while they were still fresh in her mind.
Dear diary,
Welp, this week sure was different from last week! No relaxation with Deathrolls and friends, but there was plenty of adventuring! And what’s more… I’m on VACATION this week, so I don’t even have to go to bed early tonight! WOO!
This week, Celeste and I made a SWAMP!
Well, kinda.
Celeste had the really cool idea to make a pond in a huge basin that we could put on the veranda of the House-On-The-Spire as decoration, which I wrote about a couple weeks ago. She finished designing it last week, and we built it this week! It’s built into a basin made from welded burnished brass plates and artfully nestled into a bamboo frame to fit the construction style of the house. It even has a little bubbling fountain! Now we’re just bringing home swamp water, swamp mud, swamp plants, and swamp frogs for it!
We arrived in the Swamp of Sorrows, where Celeste had her inspiration for a swamp pond, with the Wave Dancer this morning, super early, getting around the Bloodsail Buccaneers around the Cape of Stranglethorn to get here same way as we did last week. They REALLY don’t like stinkbombs! HA!
We found a good spot to dock the Wave Dancer in Marshtide Watch, the little Alliance holdfast here in the Swamp of Sorrows, and found a good guide to lead us out into the swamp to places that are safe to walk. We collected several specimens of frogs and plant life! Dordy wanted to try to play with the frogs, and, once, a huge SNAKE! Oh gosh! We had to get him away from the snake quick and go a different direction! Celeste said if the snake had attacked, she would have temporarily removed the fire protection spells from Dordy so the snake would be repelled by his fire. We don’t want him to get eaten! Aside from that and Dordy getting a bit bogged down in the mud a few times, we got our plants and frogs without much incident, so that was good!
Now we’re back in the boat. Celeste is sketching where she wants to put what plants in the pond, looking out at the swamp often for ideas as she goes. If it weren’t for her wanting to get as good a feel as possible for the natural order of things while she does this, I bet we’d have been out of the humid, stinky heat a good while ago. Not that that bothers me; in fact, it adds that much more to the adventure! Roughing it! Braving the elements! Building memories to relive and stories to share with friends later on down the road! WOO!
Speaking of which, last night was the weekly Whitewind Company expedition!
Still on the trail of the helm of Princess Ariel Sunstrider’s legendary suit of plate armor, we returned to the Howling Fjord. So far, we’ve gone through a whole village, keep, and another village of vrykul, climbed around a giant cliff’s massive scaffolding built by iron dwarves to solve puzzles, rode “flying vrykul canoes” on a lift that runs them up and down ANOTHER cliff via ropes that go so far, the climb is nearly horizontal, and found a village of Tuskarr that, as it turns out, had seen Grugni Stonebeard, some three years before!
So far, this tracks with the research in the Stormwind Royal Library we all did that led us to Northrend in the first place: Grim found a book 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 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. ARGH!
Anyway, we met in Kamagua, the Tuskarr village we found at the end of our expedition last time. It was me, Annasana Moonblossom the worgen healer druid, Tessina Spiritseeker the Kaldorei huntress and Palattu her spirit wolf, and my good buddy Grim’Un Oakenshield, as well as outside contractors Zarshal Blackburne the worgen rogue and Mairead Brewbeak the scrappy Wildhammer dwarf kinda-shaman. And boy, was it chilly there! Even in the summer, the Tuskarr port was chilly!
Last time we were here, the Tuskarr had said that the Explorer’s League dwarves, led by Grugni Stonebeard, had proceeded on from there on the back of Green Island, the giant turtle the Tuskarr use as a boat! He’d sailed westward to another Tuskarr village called Moa’ki Harbor, so that’s where we went! It was a really cool journey too! We saw more of the cliffs of the Howling Fjord, Venture Bay at the bottom of the river coming down Grizzly Hills, the Forgotten Shore where Arthas Menethil landed his ships (and later burned them) before he became undead, a huge Scarlet Crusade citadel, more of Dragonblight’s frozen beaches, and then Moa’ki Harbor itself! It was cold, but a cool adventure in its own right, especially considering you can descend the stairs from the deck down to the side of the turtle, right at the surface of the water itself!
Once we reached Moa’ki Harbor, we fanned out, again looking for traces of Stonebeard’s passing through the village. The general consensus among the Tuskarr was, after they’d had time to remember, that the dwarf and his Explorer’s League pals had been there a few years before, eventually striking out northwest to find a bronze dragonshrine in the sand. That didn’t make much sense, sand in a snowy land! But then I remembered overflying a spot like that on the way to the Grizzly Hills a number of times, so off we went!
We had our gnomish communicators on so that whoever found it first could vector the others in. Anna ended up finding it first, then Tess, and they helped the rest of us in. We landed off to one side. It sure was a lot warmer right there than it was in the rest of Dragonblight! Looking around, we could see what looked to be a perfect circle of desert sand against a snowy mountain. Everything within the circle was warm. There was a huge dragon skeleton right in the center, curled up a bit, and, landing right in front of us, two bronze dragons!
First they were talking to each other while looking at us, talking to each other about us like we weren’t even there. Rude! Their names were Mizdirmi, a male, and Selarmu, a female, according to what they were calling each other. Listening to them talk to each other was so confusing! They were saying stuff like, “Reminds me of that time a few weeks from now when those gnomes came through,” and, “remember that dwarf that came by ten years from now with all those sticks? That was silly!” talking about the future like it was the past just as much as they talked about the past like it was the past! How WEIRD!
Eventually they started acknowledging us trying to talk to them, and Selarmu even remembered Grugni! She agreed to show us where he went from there. She was going to GUIDE us! COOL! Mizdirmi wanted to stay in the dragonshrine, so off we went, following Selarmu, flying once again.
We landed at the southeastern border of Dragonblight, on the near side of a cool covered bridge crossing the Dragonspine River and into the Grizzly Hills. From here, we rode on foot, as Selarmu tried to retrace the steps Grugni Stonebeard and his guys took along the roads there. It made for one heck of a scenic, beautiful trip through the Grizzly Hills redwood forest! The cold air became more tolerable, cool and chilly rather than piercingly frigid and biting like in Dragonblight. The forested mountain was as indescribably beautiful as ever, and that fiddler that lives there somewhere could be heard again, playing his slow fiddle beautifully as we rode through. It was really nice! Only issue was… Selarmu’s trip along the roads was really erratic! But, riding fast as we were, we were at least making decent time!
We passed Conquest Hold, where I had myself a nice laugh, remembering how my bestie Nah had once went to the bathroom on the side of the road where their ugly red banner marks the path into their hold, and she used the banner for toilet paper. How GROSS! But how FITTING for ugly horde banners!
After that was a trip through a really pretty, really cool hollowed-out log that crossed the river that flows down the mountain from along the elevated ridge of the region down to Venture Bay, then the road curved northward. We rode past Amberpine Lodge, through the broken remains of Vordrasil, the failed Kaldorei world tree that had not survived its roots touching Yogg Saron’s underground prison or something, through lots more scenic northern mountain forest, and eventually came to a stop at the base of a snowy mountain in southeastern Grizzly Hills. All the while, Selarmu had been talking about the future like it was the past, or turning left to go right, nearly doing a 360-degree turn in the process, and talking about how one day the Titan keeper Loken will become corrupt and the iron dwarves will begin attacking people and talking about the “curse of flesh.” She seems so time-confused… that all happened already, about a decade and a half ago!
Anyway, once we reached the base of that snowy mountain, she just abruptly left us and flew off! Above us was Dun Argol, a treasure trove of Titan history, so we felt fairly certain that that’s where Grugni Stonebeard had gone next, especially as much as Selarmu was talking about iron dwarves and stuff, which inhabit that old iron dwarf city. So, we headed up the mountain, climbing a twisting, winding road that went all the way to the top, where a huge building with a statue of an iron dwarf sitting on it was built into the side of the mountain.
Venturing inside, the first thing we noticed was how much colder it was in here than it was in the forest. Caves sure are chilly things, and just as much so when it’s a dwarven delving that has not a bit of fire for warmth! The second thing we noticed was the complete LACK of iron dwarves. What was going on here? Where was the usual hustle and bustle of the metal dwarves and their runic golems? The mystery deepened!
Spotting an elevator immediately at hand that went down to a lower floor we could see over a railing, we decided to check from the bottom up, as Anna was suggesting. We found the power core that powers the place down there, but still, no iron dwarves! Mairy did find a broken-off piece of an iron dwarf, and Tess found a crushed power cell. Looks like something did some damage to the iron dwarves! Maybe that’s why we saw none?
Biggest find was Anna's. She found a slate with dwarven runes, which is how Grugni had left chronicles of his passing through the areas we’d been to in the past! She passed it to Mairy, who translated the dwarven runes for us. Apparently, Grugni was pretty agitated, as the profanity on the slate was… creative, to say the least! Oh gosh! Grugni was evidently expecting to find rumors of a Titan artifact, a map of some sort, leading to some kinda cave in the Storm Peaks that he’d been hoping to locate, but, searching high and low for it, they’d never found it! So much for finding a lead to Grugni’s next adventure! But we couldn’t give up just yet… we went back up the elevator to keep searching.
Getting to the top of the lift, we finally found the metallic denizens of Dun Argol… and they looked none to pleased to see us! Oh, NO!
Standing in front was a runic war golem, fully powered! It was going on about purging the curse of flesh from the three iron dwarves standing behind it. Obviously, it was malfunctioning; the iron dwarves haven’t cared about the curse of flesh since Loken’s fall, and besides, the iron dwarves didn’t have flesh to begin with! Yet the runic war golem wanted to “purify” the iron dwarves of it! That sure explained why it took so long to find any iron beings, and why the power cell and broken-off bit of iron dwarf were laying on the floor where we searched downstairs!
Worse, the iron dwarves seemed to be malfunctioning as well. They were somehow seeing us as having the “curse of flesh” again, even though Loken wasn’t around to tell them that was bad anymore! Oh gosh! Looks like we were about to have a fierce battle on our hands!
Tess, always excited to have a fight, opened up with a shot from her bow and a command to Palattu to attack. Arrow and wolf found their mark, and the fight was on!
Grim stayed back to defend Anna and I. Mairy waded in with sword and stormhammer, bashing and hacking away. Zarshal had his knives at the ready, and even leaped right up onto the war golem’s back, stabbing madly away! I was summoning my wrathguard and imp, while Anna was hurling Starfire and Wrath spells at the mechanical beings.
The war golem, meanwhile, had turned on the iron dwarves instead of us. It zapped them with a cone of lightning, sending them convulsing on the spot for a moment! Then the iron dwarves recovered, but they ran right past the attacking golem, coming at us! Grim opened up then, whirling around with his giant swords in a Bladestorm, hacking and smashing! Anna hit with a few more Wrath spells, Zarshal was still dismantling the war golem from on its back bit by bit, and Tess and Mairy were wreaking havoc with their own spells. Only Mek-barash and Kil’rek, my wrathguard and imp respectively, where not having any luck, with Mek’s axe swings being parried and Kil’rek’s accuracy being poor with his felfire bolts this time around. But, between everyone else’s attacks, the iron dwarves were soon overwhelmed and smashed to bits! That just left the runic golem, who had sat down to repair itself from our opening salvo (which did quite a lot of damage!) while the iron dwarves distracted us. It repaired itself quite a bit, too, but not all the way. Once our attention was back onto it again, it stood up, going over to the railing. It was absorbing electricity from the power core down there! Then it turned around, and did a lightning storm in every direction! Mairy absorbed hers with the power of her stormhammer, reflecting it right back at the golem for some damage. Zarshal, riding the golem’s back, was able to dodge the worst of it, as he was so close to the golem and the golem wasn’t trying to shock itself. Mek-barash took the hit for Anna and I, as we were standing close together at the time, and Tess sidestepped the arcs of electricity zapping out at her, causing it to pass her and strike the walls instead. Grim took a hit, though, and he didn’t look too happy about it! The group opened up on the golem then. Arrows, daggers, swords, an axe, a stormhammer, a felfire bolt, and a Starfire spell all got aimed at the golem. The golem took shot after shot, eventually starting to break down, pieces of golem and its attendant hardware scattering in every direction! Finally, Anna got a particularly scary-looking glint in her eye, and absolutely ZAPPED the golem with a ferocious Starfire spell that burned so intensely, the golem glowed white-hot, MELTING DOWN on the spot! Anna’s skill was such that only the parts Zarshal was riding on the back of it didn’t get hot, and Zarshal was able to leap safely off. The chill of the dwarven delving had the white-hot molten metal cool almost instantly, and it hardened into a heap of solid slag on the spot, surrounded by smashed-up iron dwarf bits. That was the end of that fight!
After that, we were wary about finding more iron dwarves, but we still had some searching to do! We went upstairs another level, or at least Grim and I did. The others searched the wing with the ramp leading up to the upper walkways. Zarshal found the first hopeful sign… a table with old, empty ale steins and a plate with chicken bones on it. Iron dwarves and golems don’t eat and drink, so it looks like Grugni and his crew had spent some time here, deliberating on what to do next! Or at least, that was our guess! Then Grim, searching upstairs with me, found another slate with dwarven runes on it among some crates! He brought it to me, and Mairy came upstairs to see as well. I passed it off to Mairy, and she said that Grugni, still agitated and swearing fluently, had at least found a lead of a different sort… one of his crew had made mention of a cave in the Storm Peaks that might be the one Grugni was looking for. It was in the far northeastern corner of the region, just south of the chasm that separated the Titan city of Ulduar from the rest of the mountain range. Only problem was… it was HAUNTED! Oh gosh!
But at least now we have an inkling of what’s next! Haunted cave, northeastern Storm Peaks, but not past the chasm dividing Ulduar from the rest of the mountain range. I figured we could meet in K3, the goblin town in south-central Storm Peaks, and range out from there on our flying mounts to look for such a cave in that general area. With that, we adjourned, as our time had run out for the week. I told everyone their pay would, as usual, be direct-deposited into their bank vaults, and everyone headed out. I stayed with Anna, as we wanted a bit of a hike to sort of simmer down from the night’s excitement, so we went walking through the Grizzly Hills a bit.
During this peaceful walk, we discussed my bestie’s absence. She had said Monday on the Whitewind Company’s gnomish communicators, in a general company-wide announcement, that she was going to be spending some time in Northrend herself. She didn’t give a reason as to why, though she said she’d be back soon (which was why she hasn’t been with us on our own Northrend campaign). Anna and I were talking about how Nah had seemed to be a bit “off.” Grim and I had offered to go with Nah, but, though she thanked us for our offer, she never did actually accept. One of those lone ranger trips again, I guess! Though yeah, she really HAD seemed a bit off lately. I told Anna I’d talk to her when she returns and see what’s up, why she keeps going to Northrend these last couple of months. Hopefully she confides in her bestie, and I can help her out with whatever is going on up there!
With that, we parted ways, our hike having taken us to the Westfall Brigade’s encampment along the northern borders of the Grizzly Hills. It was time for bed. I can’t wait to see how things go next week in the Storm Peaks! WOO!
“NAAAAAAAAT!”
Nat jumped a bit in her chair, startled. She whirled around, seeing Celeste doing something strange… She kept hopping, almost froglike, around in the boat! Dordy immediately jumped up from watching the underwater life himself, running around barking like a maniac! What was going on?!
Putting her diary aside on the table and her quill into the inkwell, Nat darted over to Celeste. Then she saw what had alarmed Celeste and excited Dordy… THE TREE FROGS WERE LOOSE!
Somehow, the tiny, brilliantly colorful frogs had escaped their crate, and they’d gotten everywhere! A half dozen amphibious creatures were scattered around the Wave Dancer, their ability to stick to trees and such leaving one on the side of the pilot’s console, one on the side of the edge of the boat, climbing upwards and about to leap into a swamp pool full of predators, one hopping around fleeing Celeste, one hopping around fleeing Dordy, and one more stuck to the back of Celeste’s piloting chair. That left one more missing… but where had it gone?!
Celeste caught hers after a few more frog-like hops, restoring it to its crate. Nat scooped up the one about to leap over the edge of the boat to what would more than likely have been its doom, putting it back in the crate. The one Dordy was chasing was particularly difficult to catch, as it seemed to think it was fleeing a predator, though Dordy only wanted to play with it. Dordy hindered even more than Nat helped, sending the thing diving under, behind, and through other things on the ship. Nat found herself stuck under the pilot’s chair with her rear in the air, Celeste was leaning over the fish cooler, and Dordy was making so much noise, the entire swamp’s ecosystem was likely in an uproar!
Eventually, Celeste caught the frog, restoring it to its crate, though the fish cooler, thankfully empty this time as this expedition had been for frogs and plants, was knocked over and opened. Mugs of coffee were spilled everywhere, knocked over my Dordy’s careening around the ship like a maniac. The boat had somehow turned a 180 in all the ruckus. Yet somehow, the frog stuck to the side of the console and the one hanging out on the back of Celeste’s pilot chair were still there, ribbiting calmly away! These were scooped up and returned to the crate as well. But… where was the sixth frog?!
Nat returned to the fore of the ship, searching around her chair with the comfy purple cushions. Celeste hunted around the aft section of the ship, where they’d found the other frogs. Dordy sniffed around excitedly, darting too and fro, his sniffling the loudest sound now. Nat found nothing near her spot, and Celeste found nothing in the back. They began cleaning up the messes, the spilled coffee mugs and the cooler. With that task done and coffee mugs refilled, they resumed their search. Nat frowned… had the sixth frog leapt overboard to its doom, like the one other frog had been about to? How sad!
She turned around to suggest this possibility to Celeste, now looking up instead of down around the transparent floor for the first time… then began to point and laugh quite a bit! Celeste looked at Nat in confusion.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“LOOK AT YOUR HAT!” Nat replied, still pointing and laughing at Celeste.
Celeste pulled her hat off, staring at the front of it. There, on the front brim, sat the last frog! It had been on Celeste’s HEAD the entire time they’d been searching for it, riding around on her hat! Celeste joined in the laughter, as did Dordy, barking up at the frog on Celeste’s hat and leaping up to try to lick it and wagging his tail, though Celeste raised her hat up a bit out of his reach to protect the frog from becoming panicked by Dordy. Scooping it up, she returned the final frog to its crate.
“How about an arcane barrier around that crate,” Nat suggested, “like the one we maintain around the house to keep bad people, bad spells, and predatorial birds and annoying insects out?”
Celeste agreed, and the crate was protected by a barrier, this time to contain the frogs. They were headed to a paradise free of predators, with warm jungle weather, plenty of room, and a tree frog condo to call their own!
Messes cleaned up and frogs recovered – finally – the two sat back down to their work. Nat plucked her ravenfeather quill out of her inkwell of purple ink, tapping off a bit of excess and returning to her writing in her chair with the purple cushions.
Oof, we just had a bit of chaos here on the Wave Dancer – the tree frogs just got loose! It was hard to catch them all and get them back in their protective crate, especially with Dordy chasing one of them around, but we got ‘em all back! Celeste even had one we were looking for for forever on her HAT the whole time! HA! Anyway, they’re all safe and sound now, heading for a tree frog condo on our porch that will be a paradise free of predators, with all the room they could want, and plenty of natural bugs to eat that we can put into their arcane barrier-protected biosphere in the porch pond swamp thingy we built this week! They’ll be so happy! I can’t wait to get back home and see how they thrive! And I’ll have all weekend to do so, and the following week, because, again, I’m on VACATION! YAY!
With that, Nat wrapped up her diary post for the week, tapping off the remaining ink on her quill and replacing it in its quill case. Capping off her inkwell, she returned it and the quill case to her pack, then went to go and watch the frogs in the crate for a bit. She saw how they’d gotten out – one of the air holes had been cut a bit too large! One was trying to squeeze its way out again, a sky-blue one that was almost neon in hue, with pretty black spots polka-dotting it. The arcane barrier kept it in, though, and it gave up its exploration here to explore elsewhere in its crate. Nat felt eager to get it to a more comfortable home, so she and Celeste untied the Wave Dancer at its Marshtide Watch dock, waved farewell to the human guide that they’d paid to lead them into the swamp, and pushed off. The man smiled and waved back at them as Celeste started the motor. The two set off back for the open ocean, Nat getting ready to lift off aboard Onyx with stinkbombs for any encountered pirates after casting another invisibility spell on their boat as they returned to Booty Bay to portal back home. The plan to get past the scatterbrained pirates worked, just like it did every time!
Arriving back at the House-On-The-Spire sometime later that afternoon, the two took the frogs and swampy plant life up to the pond they’d crafted that week and set to decorating it with the muddy water, planting the plants after. The frogs went in last, and they immediately seemed quite content. The fiery orange one found and ate one of the small insects they introduced into the arcane barrier-protected pond, and the rest, the sky-blue one, the brilliantly yellow one, the deep purple one (Nat’s favorite, of course), hot pink one, and the neon blood red one each getting somewhat out of sight behind a favored swamp fern or up the side of a cattail or under a swamp palm frond. Ribbiting softly, they added a quiet ambience to the veranda of the house, blending in pleasantly with the sound of the gentle waves rolling against the rock spire far below.
Later that evening, the little family had dinner on the veranda, with the suncrawlers – safely out of reach of the frogs, and too big for them to eat anyway – lighting up the evening in the planters along the railing of the house like Winter Veil lights as the trio of Celeste, Nat, and Dordy enjoyed a meal of their own, a spaghetti dish that Nat covered heavily with crushed red peppers, with a nice Pandaren ale to go with it. Listening to the waves, watching the stars appear, the suncrawlers light up, and the pretty tree frogs capering happily through their little pond, the family enjoyed the rest of the night in peaceful happiness and comfort. A great way to end the minication, usually, except this time… Nat was on a REAL vacation from work! She’d be home for the weekend with Celeste, Dordy, and her Stormwind friends when she had a whim to visit, and that made the night all the more perfect!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Aug 11, 2022 15:14:20 GMT
August the Eleventh An underlying chill was just barely discernable in the mostly warm stone home. Lantern-lit, the house under the mountain radiated a warm, happy, wholesome sort of feeling of being home, and comfort as well, despite being carved right into the core of the mountain. A faint hint of smoke, molten metal, iron, and stone blended in a pleasant sort of way under the smell of the fire in the fireplace. Dwarven comforts balanced out the slightly cramped close quarters of the home made for the smaller dwarven people. Comfortable sitting chairs, beds, dwarven pipeweed, good dwarven brew, and fine dwarven cuisine was also in evidence.
In the case of this morning, the fine dwarven dining meant a dwarven breakfast. Celeste’s uncle Rugnar was pulling out all the ingredients for his best biscuits with sausage gravy, as well as a rather unhealthy amount of bacon. Celeste was having a friendly argument over exactly how to prepare the gravy, though Rugnar’s recipe really needed no further perfection. Dordy was as underfoot as ever, nearly causing a few trips as he tried his hardest to get at all the food Rugnar was pulling out. Nat, her tummy rumbling with the thought of the soon-to-come Rugnar cooking, told her little family she’d leave them to it, heading to distract herself from her noisy stomach by writing her diary post for the week.
She went back to Celeste’s old room, sprawling out on the bed, laying out her diary in front of her and flipping it open to the next blank page. She opened up her cherrywood quill case, laying it on the bedside table next to her inkwell of purple ink, which she also uncapped. She dipped her ravenfeather quill into her inkwell, tapping off the excess and beginning to write.
Dear diary,
Wow, has this week been loaded! Lots and lots going on!
First, Monday, I went to go and visit the Whitewind’s Grace, when our Lightforged Draenei healer, Tisaani, came up to me on deck and told me that Nah had left for Northrend once again… only this time, it was because she finally found what she’s been looking for up there for like two months!
What I heard was chilling… Nah had apparently been tracking down Gandrayda, the Greater Sayaad she had consumed and merged with to become an Illidari many years ago, and Richard Riggermotor, the gnome warlock that had helped Nah get free of her Illidari stuffs last year with me, who was really doing it for reasons we don’t yet know that probably involve subjugating Gandrayda! From what Tisaani was telling me, Nah knew that, when she had been separated from Gandrayda, she hadn’t gotten her entire soul separated – one little bitty piece had been snatched away by the succubus, and this is why Nah has continued to deal with depression over the last year, any time we’re not around to distract her and perk her up… or, as she’s always told people since then, merely just “existing.” Then Tisaani told me that Nah had gone out that afternoon to go to the place she’d tracked Gandrayda to, to take the bit of soul back! But she doesn’t have the magic for that… she was going to need ME, and after the ritual we did at that Moonwell of Cleansing in Ashenvale Forest last year, I knew just what to do!
I sprang into action at once! Thanking Tisaani, I left the ship on Onyx and made a beeline for the mage tower. I took the mage portal there to Dalaran in Northrend, then flew with Onyx to Icecrown, using my “Clothing” rune on my mithril charm bracelet to change into my cold weather gear instantly. I flew and I flew and I flew, but I couldn’t see any sign of my bestie! So I landed, made a fire to warm up, while meanwhile conjuring up several Eyes of Kilrogg to fly out in all directions at once to track her down. I should have thought of that to begin with… I found her not too long after that, kneeling behind this big boulder just on the outskirts of a vrykul village named Ymirheim.
I flew the eye in front of Nah, letting her see it so she’d have a heads up that I was on my way. She smirked, waving at it, acknowledging that she knew it was me, so I dismissed all the Eyes and mounted up once more after covering my fire in snow. Flying on Onyx once again, I approached the village from below the cliff – Ymirheim is up on top of a frozen bluff in the center of an almost completely circular canyon in Icecrown – so as not to be seen by the vrykul. Landing next to Nah, I waved off Onyx, who was intelligent enough to fly down the cliff before leveling out and soaring off, climbing later to turn back and circle above us the way he likes to do, high above and out of sight, though his eyes can see us.
Nah looked pleased to see me, even though she’d left without me. I know she’d never ask me to come along to anything dangerous, but I also know that she knows I won’t change my mind if my bestie needs help, so she didn’t try to talk me into leaving. We were going to do this TOGETHER!
Nah confirmed everything Tisaani had told me, telling me that Gandrayda and Riggermotor were, indeed, in the village. She just didn’t know how to get to them, what with hostile vrykul wandering all over the village. She suggested to me that I use my own succubus, Myrlia, to use her stealth ability to go and knock out the nearest vrykul, this one manning a harpoon gun. When I summoned Myrlia, she immediately started flirting HARD with Nah, showing off and strutting around. I loathe her so much! Nah, of course, just snickered, thinking it was funny. I scolded Myrlia and sent her pouting off to do her job and knock out the vrykul. She did; the vrykul never saw it coming! Then we went into the village, Nah using her Shroud of Concealment rogue ability to keep us stealthed. We searched a few vrykul longhouses, not finding any sign of Gandrayda or Riggermotor, stealthing along as we went, Myrlia still stealthed there with us.
Eventually, we happened upon a house that had a particularly powerful fel aura emanating from it. We snuck inside, and, sure enough, there, under the ramp leading up to the upper room, were Gandrayda and Riggermotor, who had his own succubus, Selola, out! There was also a huge vrykul warrior in there! Nah snuck right up to the vrykul. I didn’t see precisely what she did, as she moved so fast, but suddenly, the vrykul looked DRUGGED! He swayed around, eventually passing out right there on the floor! Oh gosh!
We snuck over to a few barrels in the house near the ramp, eavesdropping. Gandrayda was talking about how badly she wanted Nah back. That was odd, considering what fel minions have to go through to be consumed by their now-host Illidari. But Gandrayda wanted to go back! Maybe she’d become dependent upon a host, appeasing her appetite for torment? She’d certainly tormented Nah the entire time she’d been merged with her, in many ways. At any rate, it was clear from what she heard that she really wanted Nah back. Riggermotor, who had been so eager to help get Gandrayda out last year, was talking about ways he might help her get Nah back, too. This contradiction really led me to believe Riggermotor had his own agenda, though we have yet to discern what that is…
Eventually, though, Nah had had enough. She stepped out from behind the barrels, revealing herself to the two. She said Gandrayda would never get her back, and the bit of soul Gandrayda is still clinging to, she’d be taking back! This, of course, immediately led to a FIGHT! Gandrayda went for Nah, I darted out with Myrlia to stop Riggermotor and Selola while Nah struggled with Gandrayda, and it was all just a big scrappy mess! Nah and Gandrayda looked evenly matched. I was going at it with Riggermotor, and Myrlia was fighting Selola! Eventually, Myrlia won her fight first. With Selola down, I sent Myrlia at Riggermotor. She quickly went to work, not fighting him, but charming him! SO gross! She was just wrapping him around her little finger, strutting around and posing and showing off, the floozy! Riggermotor was instantly distracted, just lapping it right up, instantly enraptured by her. While Myrlia had Riggermotor thoroughly distracted, I turned to help Nah, but, just then, Nah knocked Gandrayda out cold! We then turned to gang up on Riggermotor, who was starting to realize he was being had, but then the vrykul warrior was starting to wake up! Oh, NO!
I took advantage of the groggy vrykul’s drugged state immediately, showing him the two unconscious and one conscious succubi in his house. He was too drugged to ask what the heck I was doing in there, focusing on where I drew his attention instead. Then I pointed at Riggermotor, and told him that Riggermotor had been summoning fel minions right into his house! The loopy vrykul roared his fury, shouting challenges at the gnome and telling him all kinds of gross things he was going to do to the “little rat.” Riggermotor looked nervous and then terrified at first, but eventually mustered up his courage. He accepted the vrykul’s challenge, and, at Nah’s suggestion, the vrykul took Riggermotor outside to the village square to fight where everyone could see the duel take place. Nah’s so smart! We now had the house – and our captives – to ourselves! WOO!
With all our foes out cold – though with a badly injured Nah, by this point – we could finally do what we set out to do. It was time to make Nah whole again! A healthstone or two later for Nah, we knelt over Gandrayda’s unconscious form. Remembering the ritual at the Moonwell of Cleansing last year, I began doing a bit of prodding around magically to find Nah’s bit of soul in Gandrayda. I soon found it! I was able to isolate it, then use a drain soul spell to pull it off of Gandrayda. Nah was ready to take it back, but I suggested we take it to the Moonwell of Cleansing. It’d been on Gandrayda a long time, and, besides, I wanted to make like, triple sure that I hadn’t pulled off any of Gandrayda’s soul on it. So instead of infuse it back into Nah, I encapsulated it in a soulstone.
But now to figure out what the heck to do with our snoozing foes. There was only one way to send them back to the Twisting Nether… destroy them here. Nah got out her blades and did what she had to do to both Gandrayda and Selola. It was so gruesome, but they had to be dealt with so they couldn’t come back, at least not for a while. Covered by the sounds of the shouts and cheers and jeers of the vrykul villagers outside, Nah did her blade work rather lengthily and thoroughly, which made me a bit queasy, but it was clear their bodies here would no longer function. They’d be regenerating in the Twisting Nether for a while! I know they’ll be back one day, though. As Illidan Stormrage revealed during the Burning Legion’s last invasion of Azeroth, a being of the Legion can’t be killed on this plane. Only on Legion-controlled worlds like Argus, or in the Twisting Nether, can a Legion creature really be destroyed permanently. But for now, we were safe from further nonsense out of them!
After that, we still had to escape the vrykul village. We snuck outside, where Riggermotor was really giving the vrykul a hard time, though he himself seemed to be losing. We snuck over to where the fight was going on, on the edge of a high wall at the edge of the village. There was a steep drop-off from there. I got an idea from this, waving Onyx in once more. Onyx came swooping down in the distance, flying up low again, landing at the base of the wall, right up against it and out of sight of the nearby vrykul, who were at any rate still cheering on the fight. As bad as it was going for Richard Riggermotor, we knew it would only be a matter of time before the vrykul knocked him out FOR us. And sure enough, he did! I had a weird brave moment then, jumping off the wall and landing on Onyx. Nah scooped up the unconscious gnome, drawing the attention – and the ire – of the warrior and his fellow villagers, and leaped off after me, landing much more smoothly on Onyx than I did. I urged Onyx on, swooping immediately over the cliff and down the bluff, getting out of sight of the vrykul, who were either readying spells to fire at us as we fled, or else sprinting off for their harpoon guns. Staying low, I swooped near the ground, still out of the villagers’ line of sight, making a beeline for Dalaran as I navigated the deep canyon, around creepy old Icecrown Citadel, and through the last gate to freedom! Still not wanting to be seen climbing into the sky to Dalaran, I swooped low again in Crystalsong Forest, heading for a small Kirin Tor camp under the city, remembering the portal crystal there you can use to teleport from the ground to the floating city. That got us up there without the vrykul ever knowing, even if they were chasing us on their huge protodrakes they have there! We were SAFE!
After that, we still had one more thing to do. Ashenvale! I went to the forest with my bestie, and we flew to the Moonwell of Cleansing. Nah immediately started disrobing! GOSH! I went down to the path, sitting with my back to the scene, hearing Nah snicker behind me. Why are Kaldorei such nudists?! Nah told me she was just changing into her swimsuit. It turns out she wanted to take a dip WITH the soulstone to cleanse her bit of soul! Well, it made sense. Nah let me know when she was done changing, and I came back to the moonwell. I sat on the side while she descended into the moonwell with the soulstone she’d unceremoniously YOINKED out of my hands back in that longhouse after I’d gotten it out of Gandrayda. Such a silly troublemaker, my bestie!
Neither of us expected what happened next.
Before I could restore the soulstone’s contents into Nah, like warlocks do in combat at need, the Moonwell of Cleansing’s waters started GLOWING! It was a soft blue moonwell water sort of glow, and the soulstone DISOLVED! The bit of Nah’s soul was revealed; a nature-magic Kaldorei sort of green, with a tinge of sickly fel green on it. The soul bit floated down into the Moonwell of Cleansing, where the sickly green fel tinge to it seemed to flare up as though in agony, then it burned away, revealing a now-much-more shiny Kaldorei nature green soul fragment! It went right into Nah’s chest! Nah smiled as it happened, inhaling deeply, somehow looking happier, younger, and more whole instantly than I’d ever seen her look before ever! She sat, enjoying the sensation for a long while in silence, then rose from the moonwell. Climbing out, she still maintained that younger, happier, more whole look. She’s looked the same all week long! YAY!
We celebrated for a moment, then went home. We were pretty tired from the night’s events, and it was getting to be bedtime. But this is a moment I’ll always remember, a turning point in my bestie’s life. Her best years are ahead of her! WOO!
And that’s not all that happened this week! This Tuesday was DEATHROLLS! It was me, my happier, younger, more whole bestie Nah, our buddy and co-worker in the Whitewind Company Grim’Un Oakenbloom, our new Westfall farmer and Brawler’s Guild champion friend Val from Stormwind that’s been playing games with us lately, and a new friend of Val’s named Lina, a Quel’dorei woman that Val nicknamed Rat Queen for some reason I still have yet to learn. We got to play in the Salty Sailor tavern in BOOTY BAY! It was fun!
The game was a hoot right off the bat, too! Nah had shown up in her druidic cat form, which she only sometimes does. Meanwhile, our first-time player, Lina, rolled the first roll of one. Then Grimmie won the Truth or Dare roll, and he Dared her to flick a BOOGIE at me! EWWWW! Lina didn’t want to pick her nose, so she pressed one nostril shut with a finger, then exhaled sharply through the other nostril, and a booger really came out and stuck right to my chin! It was SO GROSS! I got up and dashed to the bar, where of course the goblin bartender CHARGED me to use one of his napkins to clean off my chin and soap it down real good. Ugh! My chin clean, I returned to the game, where they were all laughing at me and rolling again already. I rolled the next roll of one, because of course I did, and Grim won the Truth or Dare rolls AGAIN! He went to the bar where I did, and ordered a mix of three different hard liquors, a dash of fish oil, pickle juice, hot sauce, coffee, and milk. Then he brought it to me and Dared me to DRINK it! It was SO gross, and it burned my throat so much! I told Grim that getting me so bad twice in a row meant WAR, and I was determined to get him back! A short time later, I got my chance! I Dared Grim to go outside and do a BELLYFLOP into Booty Bay! Grim decided if he was gonna do that, he was gonna do it right. We followed him up to the very top of the inn, out where the bit of boat sticks out of the top, with the long pole going forward of the prow for the forward sail on an actual boat, stripped down to his undies… oh, GOSH… and LEAPED off the end at like fifty feet in the air! He did a perfect jackknife, bending in half and touching his toes before opening up at the last second and landing perfectly parallel with the calm waters for the most epic bellyflop I’ve ever seen! The loud SMACK resounded all around the bay, making people of all races all over the boardwalk cringe and groan and turn away. Grim didn’t sink much, so perfect was the bellyflop, and he was already swimming slowly, painfully, to the boat ramp to get out of the water and up onto the docks. We met back up down at the Salty Sailor, and the whole front of him was so PINK! He was like, “Now that’s what I call a pinkbelly.” HA! We agreed we were even then, and I got a beach towel from the bartender – overcharged, again! – for Grim to dry off with so he could get dressed once more, and then we resumed play. Val got to Dare me next. She’d found a rat up on the balcony overlooking the tavern earlier, and she Dared me to go up and CUDDLE it for four seconds! How gross! I got up, heading up the stairs once more, telling myself it was Dordy, and I was cuddling Dordy. Apparently, I was muttering aloud, because they could hear me going, “It’s Dordy, It’s Dordy, It’s Dordy, It’s Dordy,” over and over again. I caught the rat, sitting down and cuddling with it, still pretending it was Dordy. I was about to let it go when the four seconds was up, when suddenly, it leaped right into my shirt! I had on the white blouse I wear in the summer, tied up to open it up for hot weather, which exposes my midriff and… part of other things… which I don’t mean to, but it gets hot! Anyway, the rat went right in there! It was scratching me up something awful and I was squealing, and Val and Nah were laughing, and Val saw its tail sticking out at one point and grabbed it and got it loose for me, setting it free again. Oh, GOSH! How embarrassing! Then Lina, not being known as “Rat Queen” for nothing, scooped up the rat and named it Dordy on the spot! She was like, “He’s a Dordy little rat, see?” HA! The rat instantly warmed up to her for some reason. How cool is that! She had Dordy the Rat out on the table in front of her for the rest of the game. That’s okay; I still know there’s still only one Dor’dieb McCullough-Ebonlocke the Molten Corgi! My bestie Nah had a good one for Val, too. She Dared Val to talk to the rest of us like a pirate captain, and we were her crew, for two rounds. It was funny! Everyone got into it, talking like pirates and being Val’s crew. It was fun! Then Nah had an idea for a Dare for whenever she got someone again. She withdrew some herbs from her pouch: fireleaf, cinderbloom, and Akunda’s bite. Then she got some of the goblin bartender’s strongest brew, which turned out to be some incredibly strong moonshine from Moonbrook in Westfall, where Val’s from. Nah ground up the leaves and added them into the moonshine along with some hot sauce, stirring it up and putting the large vial on a burner from her alchemy kit. She had that going for a good while as the game went on. Meanwhile, I Dared Val to carry on Nah’s pirate bit, having a swordfight with an imaginary foe, still talking like a pirate captain. Val fought valiantly, scooping up Dordy the Rat, who was squeaking in her arm as she went along. She was like, “Arrr, Nat’s kinks, ye be after me again, I see! I fall not t’ yer temptations! Nay Dordy the King; we fall not to yer tempting tentacles!” I wasn’t expecting that at ALL! IT was so embarrassing! Val fought valiantly, eventually pretending to LOSE the fight, which was unexpected. She was like, “Arrr, Nat, yer kinks got me…” Oh my GOSH! How embarrassing! Nah, of course, mischievous as she is, was like, “Oooooh, Bestie, got something to tell me?” They were picking on me so much, and I turned as red as a tomato! It was worse, because what I didn’t tell them was that being a pirate one night in a roleplay with Celeste had happened the night we stayed at this inn when we first found that elven princess’s gauntlet in the sunken ship while we were pearl diving. Oh, GOSH… Then Grim got Lina with a Whisper Dare. Next thing I know, Lina’s up on the table, shouting, “THERE BE MIGHTY MINI PEOPLE IN ME PANTS!” What the heck, Grim?! HA! Grim kept buying people rounds, so that was good. Moonberry juice for me, mostly, as I’d already had enough of his “drinks” by this point! Then there was another where Lina, observing Grim hitting on Nah on and off all night as usual, Dared Grim to let Nah bite him in the rear… while still in her cat form! Oh gosh! Grim happily obliged, and my mischievous bestie gave a little cat-snicker, before sinking her fangs into Grim’s rump, nipping sharply, but not enough to draw blood. Grim seemed to enjoy that just a little bit too much! He turned around and gave a kiss to Nah on top of her cat-head, and he was like, “Thanks for not drawing blood… yet.” Oh goodness gracious! There were lots more hilarious Dares and more than a few spicy Truths some of them told, but rounding out the night was when I got to Whisper Dare my bestie Nah and Grim both, when they both rolled ones. I had Nah get up eventually and grab Grim’s ponytail, pretending it was a quill to write a letter to Baron Revilgaz to request for more scantily-clad women in his tavern. As it was a Whisper Dare delayed three rounds, Grim had forgotten I’d whispered anything at all to Nah, so Grim looked SO confused as to what the heck Nah was doing with his hair! HA! Though he did remember next that I’d Whisper Dared Nah earlier, and put two and two together. He’s no dummy! But then Grim got to do his Whisper Dare to Nah! He went around to her side of the table, asked to wear the flower crown Nah was wearing that evening (having been in her human form for a good bit by this point), and then placing it on his head. He then sat on the table in front of Nah, his dangling legs swinging back and forth, leaning back on his hands with the flower crown on his head and telling Nah why he’d make a MUCH better match for her than a goblin. Grim was like, “Unlike goblins, I can kiss you without getting a ladder first. I’m also much more handsome, and I even bathe regularly.” Then Grim started looking at Nah much more seriously. “I also make a better mate than a goblin because goblins won’t value you for you. Goblins only value beauty for the coin it will make them. I value you with true feelings for you, and I hold your beauty, kindness, and playfulness in the highest regards.” Awwwwwww! Then Grim got out this bag that clinked metallically, presenting it to Nah. It was a pair of jeweled daggers! The blades, Grim said, were black trillium from Pandaria, the handle made of elekk bone and wrapped in talbuk hide strips for grips, and there were emeralds the color of Grim’s eyes set into the pommel. Along the blades, Grim had engraved, “The beauty of Nah.” Grim was like, “Cheesy, I know, but it came from the heart.” Nah looked amused, accepting the blades with a word of thanks to Grim. Next thing I know, the two are setting up lunch together sometime! AWWWW! Is it finally happening?! Then Grim was buying everyone one more drink, and we ended up toasting friends, family, and shipmates! Then Grim was ready for bed, on that happy note, and the game drew to a close, Val and Lina having already left a little earlier themselves. It was late! But what an awesome game night! I love Deathrolls! WOO!
Nat looked up from her diary as the smells of sausage, bacon, gravy, and coffee began to drift into the room. Rugnar’s cooking now seemed to be in full swing! She got up and went to the door, looking into Rugnar’s kitchen. Celeste and Dordy were at the stove with Rugnar, Rugnar pointing at his cooking and giving Celeste a few more tips on what he referred to as “proper dwarvish cooking.” Dordy had lodged himself between them, getting his head a few idle scritches from the pair while they talked, as well as the odd morsel, which, of course, was what he was most after. Nat smiled, grinning at the back of her little family and went back to her writing on Celeste’s old bed.
Last night was loaded too! The weekly Wednesday night Whitewind Company adventure had rolled around, and it was time to get back to it! We met up in K3 as agreed last week, the little goblin outpost in the Storm Peaks in Northrend. Mairy was tired from her work at the tavern, so she opted to remain in Stormwind and relax with friends there. Grim was out of town. Nah was swamped with CEO stuff. So it ended up just being Tess, Zarshal, and I.
When Z-Man and Tess got there, I was already talking to this goblin lady named Gretchen Sparkfizzle in the inn, who had already told me she remembered the dwarves from three years ago, and how she was irate that they’d set off on a mission she’d sent them on and never did come back. That didn’t sound good! But Gretchen was saying that they’d gone off to find some women in the mountains who, “look cold,” because they were said to be beautiful, and Gretchen said there was no way they were hotter than her, and she’d told them to go look for themselves, and they’d have their proof! I held my tongue on that one, heh. Goblins! So apparently we had another stop to make before we visited the haunted cave we read about last week. We went up to the northwest to a mountain pass at the top of a tall frozen waterfall. We didn’t see any women, so we kept trekking through it, following the frozen river atop the waterfall upriver. We started seeing trees with giant nests hanging from them, and giant eggs around the bottom of the trunks. Something about it seemed a bit familiar to me… and then Zarshal saw the first of the women that “looked cold!” It was a heckin’ HARPY! And that woman looked cold, alright… she was wearing smallclothes that were even more scanty than the stuff Nah shows me sometimes to make me blush! Oh, GOSH! What the heck is wrong with harpies?!
Zarshal seemed to agree, talking about how the harpy was an oddball for wearing next to nothing in a freezing cold biome. We continued on, trying to ignore the harpy glaring at us from above (with my whole face red as a tomato), and then ANOTHER one came! This one was dressed the same way! GOSH! Tess, remembering her experiences with harpies during her decades stranded on Exile’s Reach, was strongly recommending a pre-emptive attack. Acknowledging that Tess was the expert, I let her open fire. Zarshal couldn’t reach the harpies from the ground with his daggers, nor could Tess’s spirit wolf Palattu, but Zarshal at least had his shurikens. He began flicking those skyward as Tess fired her bow, and I got Wikpik and Kil’rek summoned, my imps. Arrows, shurikens, and felfire bolts flew, and the second harpy dropped in a second. The first one that we spotted, meanwhile, had dived at the nearest member of our group, which happened to be Zarshal. Her taloned feet grabbed either side of Zarshal’s face, raking hard, but then an arrow in the eye from Tess dropped her two. What a gruesome mess! I had my back turned by this point, watching our rears, so I didn’t have to see the red snow. We continued on from their, finding another frozen waterfall we had to fly up on our flying mounts, then walking further upriver, still looking for signs the dwarves had been there.
The river forked here. There was a vrykul village upriver to our right, and more trees with harpy nests and eggs to the left, so we went left. There, we found another harpy, and then another behind that one, where the nests and eggs were thickest, and the remains of a talon-shredded mammoth or something in the center of the grove, having obviously been dinner. The harpy in the back was bigger than the one in the front, and glowed with power. Apparently, this was the harpy queen! Oh, NO!
This time, the hostile-looking harpies attacked first! The one in front got Zarshal across the chest, and the queen herself swooped down on Tess, grabbing her with her taloned feet at the shoulders and hoisting her high into the sky! Tess struggled frantically, but she was stuck, dangling like thirty feet in the air over the rock-hard, icy river we’d followed in! Zarshal and I took care of the smaller harpy first with imps and shurikens, though Zarshal was hurt again by that one, and now his fur was matted with his own blood. He looked pretty bad! But, we got the harpy down! When we turned, the queen had gotten angry at her fallen harpy. She swooped down and THREW Tess into Zarshal! It was like, a head-to-toe full-body contact, with the canyon echoing with the smack of noggin-on-noggin, as Tess crashed into Zarshal and they both tumbled back into the snow. That looked like it HURT! They got up, looking bad, and the harpy queen was already strafing across the group. Both my imps got raked and looked ready to drop, Tess and Zarshal were looking bad and on one knee each, and I had taken a talon myself, even, though the soul link spell made the imps take the damage instead. That dropped one of the imps, Kil’rek, leaving only Wikpik. Tess and Zarshal attacked with arrows and shurikens, wounding the queen, but she came down for another pass. That strafe destroyed both my imps! They’ll be regenerating in the Twisting Nether for a while before I can call them again… Gosh!
Then, just when it was looking like we were going to lose this fight, Tess opened up with her most powerful ability… spirit beasts, just like Palattu, materialized, this time in the form of eagles! The harpy queen was immediately suffocated under the great flapping things, and only her taloned black bird feet were visible from under the flock’s attack, though those soon turned red, as did the snow beneath her. The harpy queen, bright red now in her own blood, dropped from the sky, and the eagles dematerialized. But she wasn’t done yet…
The harpy queen began flapping her wings once more, but this time, not to fly – a great crackle sounded in the air, and then, right after I’d summoned my voidwalker Thogthang, a massive fork of lightning charged forward from her at us! Thogthang basically saved me there, though Tess and Zarshal now both looked like one more hit, however light, would be the end of them by this point. The harpy queen, having noticed Thogthang’s link to me had made him take the damage instead of me, cast a cyclone spell at me, and I was lifted up into the air and whirling around so fast it made me dizzy! I couldn’t do a thing! Tess, however, had one more arrow left. She fired it straight ahead, and it thunked right into the harpy queen’s chest, ending her for good. The fight was over! Thank goodness!
All the fight had gone out of us at that point, and we were totally ready to go back to K3, but first, so that our trip up here wasn’t for nothing, we wanted to find signs of those dratted dwarves! We did, too. This time, I found the slate. It was leaning against a tree, behind a harpy egg. None of us can read dwarven runes, and Mairy was still in Stormwind, so we took it down to K3 on our flying mounts to see if anyone could read it.
When we got to the inn, Gretchen took one look at us and directed us toward the goblin in the back, a little green guy wearing a bloodstained apron and holding a meat cleaver in his hand standing by huge slabs of meat on the table. It was a butcher! THIS guy was a healer? Gretchen was like, “Oh, yeah, he knows how ta take ‘em apart, and he knows how ta put ‘em back together! Watch this!” Then the butcher goblin grinned, lifting a big shotgun from the side of the table. He cocked the shotgun, pointing it RIGHT AT ZARSHAL! Oh, NO! But before we could do anything, he’d pulled the trigger! BLAMMO! Bandages, apparently soaked in healing salve, blasted right out of the shotgun and spread out all over Zarshal, covering all his wounds. The bandages slapped Zarshal hard, causing him to shout a few swear words, but then he calmed down – apparently the healing salve was instantly soothing, and Zarshal was healed up! The butcher repeated the shot at Tess, who was equally angry and the slap of the bandages at first, but then also seemed relieved at their effects. Thankfully, my minions had taken the hits for me, and I didn’t need to go through that! Gosh! Goblins!
Then Gretchen was like, “HA! Pump-Action Bandage Gun! Engineering at its finest! Anyway, whaddaya got? Did you find anything saying those dwarves found proof that I’m more beautiful than the women who “look cold?” We showed her the slate with the dwarven runes on it, and she called to a goblin bruiser guard outside named Snerk. Snerk came in, looking at the slate. He looked horrified at what he was reading, and I could tell he was doing some quick thinking. He was like, “Uhhh… uhhh… uhhh… It s-says that uhhh… well, of COURSE you are more beautiful than the cold women! WAY more beautiful! It says that they are hideous, and you are the fairest sight they’ve seen in a great long while, yeah!” The bruiser looked anxiously at Gretchen, who turned out to be thick enough to buy his act. She immediately started posing and strutting around, very proud of herself, though her strutting and posing is far less impressive than the way Myrlia does it. I knew on the spot I wanted to hand this slate off to Mairy next. Ha!
Anyway, we had our original mission still to complete! I packed the slate away in my pack, and we flew off northeast, remembering from what we read last week that the haunted cave we were looking for is in the northeastern corner of the Storm Peaks, just south of the chasm dividing the titan city of Ulduar from the rest of the mountain range. Zarshal found it first, and Tess was right behind him. I saw where the two of them were, down below me as I flew high on Onyx, and dived to join them. We descended into the cave from there, which turned out to be broad and cavernous, with a high ceiling, and also had an opening at the far side… with a cliff that dropped like THOUSANDS of feet into the chasm! We’d have to be careful for sure on that side!
First thing we noticed was that there was a rather eerie chill in the air here. The air was still, no wind, though there was the two openings on either side. That was odd! But there was also just this… CREEPY feeling about the place… It was so spooky! What made it much, much worse, was when we heard a young boy’s voice on the winds, speaking to us. All he said was, “I’m cold.” When instantly whirled around, looking in every direction, but there was no one in sight! Oh, GOSH! We wandered along anyway, descending down the ramp, being careful, as lots of snow had drifted in and had covered the whole cave floor in snow and ice. Good thing we had our cold weather gear on tonight!
We found our first clue at the first bend in the ramp, though it wasn’t dwarven. It was a human pack, with papers sticking out of it. It was written in Common, too! Apparently, this belonged to a human woman who had been brought along by an Alliance soldier back when the Alliance was first delving into Ulduar like a decade and a half ago. She was writing about how her cold weather gear protected her and her husband John enough, but her children, Timmy and Sally, being so much smaller and lighter, constantly complained of the cold. The page ended there, and the rest was just inventory lists of this and that. We headed further into the cave, having packed the pack of pages away.
We hadn’t taken more than a few steps before Tess started telling me to stop trying to pull her pants down. WHAT?! I wasn’t! Then she started looking down her left side, seeing her pants have an insistent, constant little tug at them, though there was no one there! Then we heard a little girl’s voice this time. “Please, miss, I’m cold.” Then it suddenly STOPPED! Then Zarshal yelped, as suddenly HIS pants had the little tug at the side, as a child does when trying to get an adult’s attention. This time it was the boy’s voice again. “I’m cold, mister.” How spooky! And how SAD! And then Zarshal’s ghost – if ghost it was – stopped too, just as suddenly! Now on edge, we finished rounding the first bend and delved deeper into the cave.
It was here that we actually SAW the first ghost… a transparent, ghostly, disembodied SKULL! It was speaking to us too! It was a man’s voice, saying, “Please, return my head to my body, so I can look for my family. I know they’re around here somewhere…” Oh my goodness! Still so scary and sad! Then the skull ghost just kinda faded away, so we continued on. We found another ghost deeper in, this time being the full body of a woman in a dress. She was looking for her husband, John, and her children, Sally and Timmy. She looked a little more hostile than the woman writing the diary page had seemed, so we gave her a wide berth as she continued her own search, ignoring us and calling out to her family. We were all starting to really feel our heartstrings tugged, even as spooked as we all were. We eventually did find a basket at the very bottom of the cave, where the ramp meandered to its lowest point before taking a final zigzag back to the large opening in the back of the cave over the cavern.
Zarshal and Tess were feeling too spooked at this point to open the basket, and I frankly wasn’t feeling like it was the best idea myself, yet I also noticed that none of the ghosts had actually attacked or anything, so I decided to see if there was a lead in here left by Grugni for future Explorer’s League members, like he’d said in his first slate we’d found in Utgarde Keep back in the Howling Fjord weeks ago. I found human clothes, spoiled decade-and-a-half-old food, more diary pages lamenting the weather conditions but speaking of success in Ulduar, and, finally, hidden away at the very bottom, another dwarven slate! Having found what we came for, we made for that cavernous opening at the back of the cave. With no wind, it was safe to mount up there and fly out.
Still feeling rattled from the nights harpy fights and scary sadness in the cave, we headed back to K3. The bruiser there was less reluctant to read this slate, since it didn’t say anything about Gretchen or other women being more beautiful than her, and he told us that the dwarves had discovered that the Alliance group taking shelter in the caves there had had some measure of success in Ulduar, and had eventually relocated to the Argent Vanguard in Icecrown to begin a new campaign… this time, against the Lich King!
This was it! The big one! Grim’s book he found in the Stormwind Royal Library, the one that led us here to begin with, said that Grugni Stonebeard had made his final stop in Icecrown before returning home to write of his adventures. Remembering that he hadn’t written exactly WHERE he’d lost the plate helm of the fabled armor of Princess Ariel Sunstrider, only that he’d lost it in Icecrown, and remembering that we hadn’t found the helm or any reference to it by the dwarves all along, we knew this final stop must be where it was! So, we’ll be reconvening in the Argent Dawn in Icecrown, presumably making a journey north toward the island in the sea beyond the kraken’s lair. GOSH that island’s gonna be cold! We’ll need to bundle up extra! I can’t wait to see what happens! It’s sure to be epic!
With that being the end of our allotted time, Tess and Zarshal headed back home. But I had one more stop to make – it was time to fulfill a promise to my good buddy Mags, who was, ironically enough, in Icecrown at the time, at the Argent Tournament grounds in the northeast corner of the region. The annual Tournament of Ages was being held there all week long this week, and I’d been looking forward to going and seeing all the stalls and stuff! Last time I went, every single night had like HUNDREDS of people there! I dunno who organizes it all, but Stormwind like nearly empties out, and people from all the realms come and meet there to set up booths for their stores, peddling everything from wondrous wares to common household items. There is also exotic food and drink, two different dueling rings where gladiators fight for championships, and a huge racetrack for mounted races, and so much more! I went there to find the booth for the Redridge Soap Company, finding right in the thickest of the crowd. Boy, did these booth have long lines! Fortunately, one of Mags’ guys, a guy named Mat in her company, was due in the dueling ring for a match, so the booth had emptied out so most could go watch the match. Mags, being more of a pacifist and businesswoman, had remained at her booth, so the nearly-empty booth seemed to have made people think that they were on a break, so I didn’t have a line to wait in! I was able to just walk right up to Mags! That was fortunate, as tired as I was from the harpies and the ghostly cave. Whew!
Mags had a lot of specials made up for the Tournament of Ages beyond her usual scents, so that was cool! She’d made up four scents of every city! It was so cool! I picked Ironforge and Boralus. I was going to go with Stormwind too, but I wasn’t sure how Celeste would feel about the city she’s reluctant to go back to (and for good reason), so I skipped that one. Ironforge is where her uncle Rugnar is from, and Boralus is a city we both love for its fishing, commerce, and generally cool and beautiful layout, with all the canals and stuff running through the city and part of it being actually on stilts over the water. It’s so awesome, and so were the scents Mags had made up! I bought Ironforge bath bombs, a five-pack of all five scents: smoke, honey mead, cinnamon, clove, and iron. Smoke and iron have proven to be woodsmoke from a nice chimney and a rich earthy smell with a strangely not-unpleasant metallic tang to it. The others smell just like the real things! Boralus had three scents, so I bought the three-pack, which was salty sea air, seaweed, and citrus. It’s like magic how real the smells are in the bath bombs, and how surprisingly pleasant even the stuff like iron and seaweed smells! You can really tell Mags is a second-generation (her aunt did this before passing it on to her) soap specialist! Her family’s been doing this forever! I went ahead and got the usual five bottles of stuff, too, the liquid soap, shampoo, conditioner, hair serum, and lotion, in all the Ironforge and Boralus scents, except instead of the usual two, I got THREE of each of the Ironforge ones this time! I had come to the Tournament of Ages prepared to SPEND! It only comes but once a year! This time, I even bought beard oil in every Ironforge scent… the stuff from Ironforge reminded me of Celeste’s uncle Rugnar, so I got him a bottle of every kind of thing, and the five-pack of bath bombs in every scent! Then, of course, every order comes with a free bar of Hearthsoap, a bar of soap that looks exactly like a hearthstone, so one of those too!
It turned out to cost a lot… two gold coins, and I even had to stand there and count out SEVENTY silver coins! That always takes so long! But I got Rugnar’s gifts and bath stuff for Celeste and I all taken care of! I headed off then, promising Mags to spread the good word about the very best bath products in the world! And I did, too! I went around announcing it all throughout the crowds, doing so as I walked through every huge cluster of people and announcing it once apiece. All up and down the tournament grounds I walked, until I’d hit all the crowds. Then, who should I find, but my bestie Nah, finally done with all her CEO work and rounding out her night with a visit to the tournament grounds! I told her about Mags’ stand, knowing Nah loves to visit Mags’ shop, and led her there. Turns out my announcing might well have had an effect… there was a line when we got back this time, and boy was it LONG! We stood there in line, Nah and I, talking to various friends of ours that spotted us and walked up, including a few new Pandaren friends Nah had made. They mentioned something about a giant ghoul Nah had apparently had a run-in with before. She’d never told me about that! Now, apparently, not only did I have a story of earlier in the evening with the harpies and the haunted cave to share with Nah, but she had a story she needed to share with me! We got to the front of the line by this point, though, so Nah had to place her order. She got the Tournament of Ages city special too, though she went with Suramar scents and Darkshore scents, loving Shal’dorei and Kaldorei stuff as she does, as well as her usual lavender scents. She got bath bombs and a bottle of everything except beard oil, of course, in all three scents, lucking out enough to only have to count out one single gold coin. Nah got her bag with a bar of Hearthsoap, and we thanked Mags and got out of the way of all the customers behind us. Mags really had her business booming! I told Mags I’d gone around putting the word out, though there was no way of knowing, of course, whether all these people were suddenly here just because I’d said something. But she said thank you just in case, and goodnight, so my bestie and I bid our friend a fond farewell and wished her luck and grand profits, and went on our way. By this time, we were sleepy, so we went home for the night after farewells of our own. The Tournament of Ages is so much fun! I gotta get here again next year and do more stuff!
This morning, Celeste contacted her uncle Rugnar and asked if we could drop by so we could bring him gifts. Curiosity got to Rugnar, and he said yes! So now we’re here in Ironforge. He LOVED his gifts, though he had his gruff manner of harrumphing over soaps and asked Celeste if she was hinting at him needing to do something. Celeste laughed and said no, and said that I was simply out shopping and had thought of him. Rugnar was trying to be all manly and talking about girly soaps, but I could tell he loved them, and the scents were manly enough, especially the smoke and iron, so he seemed happy, really!
Right now, Rugnar is thanking us by making us breakfast! His famous sausage gravy over biscuits, with bacon on the side, and lots and lots of strong, dark dwarven coffee! It smells just about ready, so I’m gonna head to the kitchen and find a seat! No doubt Dordy’s already found his! HA! I love visiting Rugnar in Ironforge! YAY!
Nat tapped off the excess ink from her quill with a smile, replacing it in its case and capping her inkwell. She packed these away in her pack, getting up to go check on her little family (and to see if breakfast was ready!). Dordy was under Rugnar’s heels, of course, getting in the way and rearing up on the stove with his front paws on the hot metal often. Being a molten corgi, this didn’t hurt him; indeed, he seemed to enjoy it. He was wagging his tail and constantly sniffing the air, looking quite excited. Celeste was sitting at the table, chatting animatedly with Rugnar about breakfasts they’d shared with Rugnar when she was a kid. Nat smiled at her family, not wanting to interrupt Celeste’s story, and returned to pack her quill case and inkwell into her pack. The ink on the pages of Nat’s diary was dry now, so that was packed away as well. She returned to the kitchen once more, with that task complete, and took a seat beside Celeste. Soon the storytelling was from Rugnar, and then Nat herself, and before they knew it, steaming plates of biscuits with sausage gravy and unhealthy amounts of bacon were on the table (an under it, with a certain fiery little critter with a ferocious appetite diving in face-first!), and the storytelling continued as the happy mealtime was shared among the family.
The rest of the day was spent visiting the museum in Ironforge, shopping around various stores in the city, as well as the auction house, and then relaxing in Rugnar’s home until it was time for Nat to go to bed. They were going to head home, but Rugnar insisted they stay the night, as it was closer to Nat’s work in Darkshire, so they agreed. Celeste would pack up the next day and fly everything home in the Flying Nosebleed.
All in all, it was a wonderful visit with Rugnar in the magma-warmed, magnificent dwarven city of Ironforge, and a great way to end Nat’s vacation!
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Aug 18, 2022 15:28:36 GMT
August the Eighteenth The desert sun beat down on an odd sort of scene, which itself contained several more oddities. First, the desert here was flooded with water. An immense basin, surrounded almost completely by sheer cliffs, contained seawater instead of hot sand. An opening to the east gave evidence to where the sea entered. Second, to the west, the water stretched through a narrow canyon pass, in which rather a lot of red rock spires emerged from the water to rise high above the surface. Third, these distant spires had interconnecting bridges, with what seemed to be tauren tents arrayed around the peak of each one. Fourth, in the middle of the basin, an enormous, decadent boat, covered in strings of brightly colored lights, spinning cogs, black-and-white checkered flags, and pipes, ducts, and steam vents of all shapes and sizes. Fifth, surrounding this lively boat floated lazily a black-and-white checkered banner, debris from smaller machines and rather a lot of wooden planks, and, in one case, a tent. Perhaps the oddest of oddities in this watery desert was a very small barge that didn’t even look like it should be floating. The wooden planks of this boat were waterlogged and rotten. Bits of them appeared to be crumbling and blowing away on the wind, though in increments too small to cause any alarm. Odder still were the young woman in what seemed to be a rebuilt, flying goblin shredder, another young woman wearing a backpack that had four arms emerging from it that curled forward like a spider’s legs, and a very small gnome with mechanical arms and legs. Easily the oddest of all was a small dog on board, a corgi, that seemed to be made of molten magma, within a bulletproof glass bubble with pedals inside that seemed to control maneuvering fins outside. On the barge’s deck was the chassis of what seemed to be a mechanical ground transport with broad, thick tires. The chassis was low on the tires, mere inches from the deck. All in all, it was an odd sort of day!
Natasha Ebonlocke piloted the rebuilt flying goblin shredder (the M.U.T.T., or Mobile Utility Transport Tool) to a very odd makeshift raft made of barrels and crates lashed together, parking it and using a mage’s Blink spell to transport herself to the deck of the odd little barge. Celeste McCullough was doffing the spider-armed backpack and placing it off to the side, and Penelope Boltbucket was within the interior of the chassis, peering at metal ducts leading to what seemed to be steam vents. Dor’dieb McCullough-Ebonlocke was lifted from the Dordy Bubble by Celeste after her spider-armed backpack was off. He set off to explore the chassis himself, sniffing it all over, investigating it with as much interest as Celeste, Nat, and Penny were now doing.
Nat was able to keep up with the technical jargon of the two more advanced engineers on the scene for a time, but eventually was overwhelmed. As Celeste and Penny excitedly brainstormed ideas too quickly, in jargon too advanced for Nat’s fledgling engineering ability to understand, she excused herself, leaving them to it and heading to her pack. Finding a shady spot on the side of the superstructure of the barge that was well within line of sight of the ground transport’s chassis, she reached into her pack, withdrawing an inkwell of purple ink, a cherrywood quill case, and a thick, black leatherbound diary. She opened her diary to the first blank page, opened her quill case to withdraw a ravenfeather quill, and opened her inkwell to dip the quill in for some purple ink. Tapping off the excess, she began to write.
Dear diary,
What a super fun week it’s been! And so full of thrills as well!
First, Celeste took our mechagnome friend Penny and I on that trip to the Thousand Needles’ sunken racetrack, the one that got flooded during the Cataclysm. We’ve been here all week, minus Deathrolls and the Whitewind Company’s weekly adventure, both of which were huge successes!
Celeste even built a new invention! The F.I.S.H., or Fully Integrated Submersible Helper! I thought she’d been swimming when she first showed it to me; she was all wet! But then it turns out she’d tested it by dunking her head underwater in our mechafish tank down in her workshop! HA!
The FISH itself is an efficient design. Very impressive! She led me down to the workshop to look at it. On her workbench sat something that looked like a large mechanical spider attached to a modified deep-dive helmet. To the helmet, Celeste had attached two lights on each side, as well as a magnifying lens that could be moved via a small arm fixed to the side. A long slender metal fin crested the top of the helmet and extended several inches behind it. Two tubes, one larger than the other, snake down from the back if the helmet to a backpack. The larger tube was connected to a cylinder and the other to a Mechagnomish power cell encased in a waterproof enclosure. From the sides of the backpack, four mechanical arms extend. Various tools are fixed to these arms, including a circular saw blade, a gripping hand, and smaller tools like pliers and screwdrivers. Finally, the bottom of the backpack has a small retractable seat and a propeller underneath. Celeste explained that if you flipped the seat you could safely turn on the propeller and, holding the arms, move faster underwater. The crest on the helmet is used to help steer the propeller seat. With it being off, it was folded back, the seat vertical, and the propeller aiming down. What a cool and handy invention!
We packed quickly, got Penny, and traveled to the Thousand Needles, confident that the relationship Nah and I have set up with the goblins of the Steamwheedle Cartel will assure some measure of cooperation with the goblins of Gadgetzan and the Speedbarge here. Worst case scenario, I think they simply charge us to remove salvage here, which, after the Freehold Fracas in last year’s Brinebreaker/Tidesage adventures, we can easily handle, having looted all that stolen gold and other treasure that Captain “Big” Willie Johnson, and his first mate, Rosie Palms, had stashed in that one wrecked ship on that big rock spire.
Getting to the Sunken Raceway Ruins was easy enough with flying machines and Onyx, thanks to a portal to Theramore, though that meant leaving the Wave Dancer behind this time around. The three of us flew over the port city and headed south along the coast, without worrying about encountering the horde since the Armistice remains in place. We had agreed in advance to do a few fly-overs once they arrived at the track to spot any floating pieces that could be used as parts of a raft Celeste had in mind. Some time later, we had managed to scrounge up a few barrels and crates. I went a bit further with Onyx while the other two were lashing the parts together with ropes, and I found something I thought also might be useful in getting us a floating surface to rest the machines on! In a shallow part of the water, the wreck of an old barge was just lying there at the bottom. It seems like it got hit by a cannon or something, but otherwise, I figured it might be seaworthy enough for our needs. Leaving our gear and half-finished raft in a hidden spot away from prying goblin eyes, and watched over by the MUTT's MAD system, the three of us took Dordy and went to inspect the sunken barge. Penny manned on the Flying Nosebleed and operated the winch, and Celeste and I went underwater with Celeste operating the FISH and me with my waterbreathing spell that warlocks use so we could take a look. We managed to find and patch the hole in the barge's hull with spare pieces of sheet metal we found on the bottom of the sea floor. By then, it was getting late, so we agreed to camp out where we had stashed our gear, sleeping under the stars with minimal comforts, which was fine, because hey, grand adventure! We planned to go out again the next day and use the MUTT to pump out the water from inside the barge's hull and see if it could float!
After a short night, we were up and about early, eager to get the derelict barge up to the surface. After some consideration, it was decided that the half-finished raft would be used for the MUTT to stand on while it pumped the water out of the barge’s hull. It could hover over the water, but Celeste doubted it would have enough fuel to do so until all the water was pumped out. With me at the controls of the MUTT and Dordy and Penny in the Flying Nosebleed standing by as it floated near the raft, Celeste dropped into the water, equipped with the FISH. With its array of tools, she attached the MUTT’s water intake hose to the top part of the barge and sealed off any holes as air was brought it thanks to a simple hose attached to the raft. As water was sucked out, air was pulled in to replace it. There were several holes to plug and Celeste was underwater for close to two hours!
By midday, the barge had started to loosen itself from the sea floor and bobbed in the waves. Celeste estimated that it would be completely afloat by mid-afternoon. While we waited, Celeste suggested that Penny, Dordy (in his bubble), and I start exploring the racetrack for any interesting salvage. Meanwhile she would rest in the MUTT’s cockpit. Leaving the Flying Nosebleed to its pontoons and the MUTT on its makeshift raft, Penny and I took a dive with Dordy in his Bubble, with my underwater breathing spells on us as we went.
Once underwater, I peered around at the curious underwater world sprawling out before her as I broke the surface. In the distance was a massive whale shark, dead, draped over a crag in a fissure where part of the race track used to be before the Cataclysm. Diving further as Penny branched off, I spotted the checkered banner at the finish line and goes to have a look. The finish like was in shambles, of course. I was just glad the outhouses are not still having anything awful floating out of them! The spectator stands were wrecked as well. I turned in the water, looking about for tech to salvage.
A short distance away, I spied a typical goblin attempt at a racer – it was just a rocket on wheels, with another, smaller rocket in the back! If the rocket was dry, it would definitely not be safe for use!
Eventually, I came across the chassis of what looked to be a Gnomish racer. The engine had been salvaged by a previous diver, it seemed, but the thick, broad offroad wheels of the racer looked to be brand new. Rising to the surface, I looked around to get my bearings, then spied the MUTT. Diving again, I swam off to Celeste, indicating what I’d found as best as I could while underwater, then gave Celeste a questioning look, as though seeing if wants the wheels and their tires or not.
Celeste looked at me as I indicated something interesting is found, then hurried to put on her FISH backpack to join me. She took a while to inspect the racer, turning on her helmet lights and using the magnifying glass to peer more closely at a few murky things. Finally she grinned at me and gave me a thumbs up and a nod. A compartment in one of the FISH's spider arms opened, and a small balloon popped out, floating up to the surface. Celeste attached the thin rope tied to the balloon to the wreck and indicated that they should return to the barge.
"Awesome find Nat!” Celeste said, which made me smile proudly. “I was hoping to find something with an engine, but a chassis with proper wheels will be useful too. We'll need to bring the wreck up onto the barge to get a real look at its innards and see what potential it has, but I'm very optimistic!." Celeste kept the FISH on and waited until Penny had rejoined us on the barge to continue. Dordy, in his bubble, was chasing after a slow turtle and was left alone, though everyone kept an eye on his fiery ball moving around underwater.
"Okay,” Celeste mused, “so I think we need to bring the barge close to the wreck Nat found. The balloon I attached to it should be visible just above the water. I made it a deep blue though so as not to draw the goblins' attention to it. WE know where the wreck is, though, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. We'll attach a rope to the Flying Nosebleed and tow the barge to where we need. Once we're there, we'll have to move fast, as that will definitely draw other salvagers to the area. I'll jump in and use the FISH to attach ropes to the wreck, and we'll use the MUTT to pull it out of the water. Penny, you'll be in the Flying Nosebleed, and Nat, you take the MUTT, okay?"
"Right!" I said, ready for action. She Blinked up into the cockpit of the MUTT as Penny climbed up into the Flying Nosebleed. Celeste connected the towing cable to the barge, and away we went!
At first, we were free of competition, but then a smaller boat appeared, coming from around the back of the Speedbarge, the giant gambling and racing boat that the goblins and gnomes compete on. The boat approached at full speed, but didn't come close enough to hail the group. Instead, they circled the site at about half speed. In the distance, we could see a goblin perking up, pointing at the balloon as he's suddenly spotted it. Another goblin dons a deepdive helmet and quickly dived into the water.
The goblin was visible to Celeste in the FISH now, and she was also likely able to spot the boat up on the surface as it circled. The goblin swam down to some thirty to forty yards away from Celeste, watching closely as she attached the ropes to the wreck. The goblin surfaced with Celeste, or nearly so, watching the wreck's progress as it ascended on the ropes. He returned to his boat, being helped out of the water by his comrade, and the boat approached a bit closer.
Once the racer’s chassis was lowered onto the barge, it was clear to see that it's of gnomish make; the lack of any sort of explosive propellant, and the presence of steam vents, made this clear.
That’s where we’re at now. The goblin boat that’s spotted us is still watching closely. We’ll have to be careful!
That’s not all that happened this week, though… besides camping out here, I’ve had a couple of visits with friends. Tuesday was DEATHROLLS! It was me, my good buddy Grim, Val, Ka’Lare, Val’s bestie Van who’s a Kaldorei guy, and Lina, the Quel’dorei friend of Val’s that we met last week in Stormwind and played with in Booty Bay. We got to play in Bruuk’s Corner in the Military Ward in Ironforge! I haven’t gotten to play there in ages! YAY!
We played upstairs last time, so this time, we played downstairs, next to the bar. It was lively that evening; a bunch of dwarves had come in and were all talking at once upstairs. Then some kind of bar brawl broke out up there! It sure was noisy! They didn’t stay as late as we did, though, so the bar eventually calmed down.
The game kicked off with a few variations of Screw, Marry, Kill as Truths, as well as some other spicy Truths, and then Val posed the first Dare… She gave one of her smut novels to Lina to read out loud… oh my GOSH, it was so BAD! I couldn’t stand it! I was red as a tomato by the end of the first paragraph Lina randomly picked out of the middle of the book! Then the next round, Lina and I BOTH rolled ones, and Val got the Truth or Dare rolls win, so she Dared us to BOTH be the characters in the book and read their lines out loud! GOSH! I almost couldn’t even do it! I’m not sure if I was even coherent through all the stuttering I did… Things continued swirling downhill from there, as Grim, remembering the potion Nah brewed last week at the Salty Sailor but never got the chance to Dare someone to drink, the one she had me help pick stuff for… Grim Dared ME to drink it! Oh, NO! That’s moonberry juice, moonshine, lots of different herbs with fiery properties, Nah’s mega-laxative potion she uses to incapacitate targets sometimes, and hot sauce! It felt and tasted like someone set moonberry juice on fire, and the rest of the night, I was getting teased HARD for all the noises my rear kept making… GOSH! Then Val and Ka’Lare, who are a couple now and were sharing a seat with Ka’Lare sitting in Val’s lap, both kept getting Dared to spend a round or three sitting in everyone else’s laps. They didn’t like being split up! Hehe. Then Val and Lina both rolled ones, so Van Dared them to get up on the table and sing a bawdy song. They did a duet about a man that got drunk, and a pair of women looked under his kilt while he was passed out to see if it was true that men don’t wear anything beneath their kilts, and one of the women took a blue ribbon from her hair and tied it around his… then the man woke up later and was like, “Lad, I don’t know where you’ve been, but I see you’ve won first prize!” OHMIGOSH! That had me totally beet-red! Then there was one where I got to Dare both Ka’Lare and Van, and I had Ka’Lare making a different animal noise every time Val rolled, and Van speaking in rhymes, except instead of rhyming his own words, he had to rhyme everything Ka’Lare said. With Ka’Lare making animal noises, that meant absolute chaos at the table with her and Van making the silliest sounds and rhymes! Then by this point I was drunk from that potion and the free round of drinks Bruuk announced he was giving us when we first came in, as he was so happy we’d finally come back to entertain his tavern with our Deathrolls antics, so I ended up Daring Van to hit on Bruuk! Bruuk was a bit taken aback at first, but, loving it when we come bring entertainment to his tavern, he got into it, flirting right back! Then he muttered something about hoping his wife never hears about this. Ha! Then Val Dared me to motorboat Van’s chest. I had no idea what that meant, so she told me to put my face in Van’s chest, rub it back and forth, and make engine noises. Van being a Kaldorei, he was already bare-chested, so it was easy. I was confused as to why I was doing it, but I put my face in there, ran it back and forth, and went, “Vroom! VROOM! Vroomvroomvroom-VROOMVROOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM, vrroooooooOOOOOOMMM, VRRRROOOOOOOOooooooom…” a whole bunch, which made the rest of the table crack up, and Val, barely able to speak from rolling in her chair, sounded like she was trying to tell me I was doing it wrong. I dunno! Then I had one where I Dared Ka’Lare and Van, who both rolled ones, to give Val a Wet Willie in each ear! Van did the conventional wet-the-finger-in-the-mouth bit before sticking it into Val’s right ear, but Ka’Lare, still seated on Val’s lap, used her TONGUE! GOSH! Meanwhile, the whole night long, I was still having… issues… from that potion Grim had me drink that Nah brewed last week, so Val Dared me to NOT do… that… for a whole round. If I couldn’t do it, I had to pull a blanket all the way over myself and live with the… issue… under there for two whole rounds! Of course, I didn’t make it all the way through the next round, so under the blanket I went! Gosh, it smelled horrible before long! And my hair was all messed up by the end of it, and the moonshine and the mead had me so drunk, I must have looked like one of the homeless in Stormwind or the Boralus slums! Then came the final round of the night, as we were all getting sleepy… and I got to Dare Val! I had her involve the final two players remaining at the game this late, Van and Ka’Lare, and what she had to do, which I told her in a Whisper Dare, was get Van to her right side, as Ka’Lare was sitting on the left side of her lap. Then she takes one of each of their hands, and use them as puppets in an epic clash of good and evil, then finish it off with a cessation of hostilities in which the two puppets become romantically involved. Ka’Lare was good, Van was evil, and the epic battle she put on between the two was vastly entertaining, and it ended with Val putting the tips of their hands together, and going, “Now, KISS!” It was so funny! What a great night of Deathrolls! I love that game! WOO!
BIG NEWS, TOO!
Monday night, I found Grim in Stormwind, and we went for a walk, and we found this familiar-looking gnome in Lion’s Rest… GIZWELL BOLTANCHOR! I think I last wrote about him in my diary when we came back from rescuing Aedia Songbird, Quel’dorei archmage of the Kirin Tor and a ranking officer in the Whitewind Company, from the cultists up in Pyrewood Village in the Silverpine Forest either earlier this year or sometime late last year. This was the first time I’d seen him since then! He says he’s back in the city now, and is looking for work! WOOHOO! Grim and I immediately led him to the Whitewind’s Grace, where we found First Mate Nate. Nah was out on business already, so Nate and I gave Gizwell his interview, and then invited him to the Whitewind Company! GIZ IS BACK! WOOOO!
Then last night was the Whitewind Company’s weekly expedition! This was it! The big one! ICECROWN!
We knew from the book Grim found in our Stormwind Royal Library research that Grugni Stonebeard had found the plate helm of Princess Ariel Sunstrider somewhere in Northrend, then lost it somewhere along his journey. We hadn’t found it in any other place we’d tracked him through, and his book said his last trek was into Icecrown before he returned to write it, so we knew the helm would be there!
It was me, my bestie Nah, Grim, Tess, Zarshal, and our newly-returned member, Gizwell! We met up in Dalaran’s Beer Garden in Northrend’s Dalaran, then, once assembled, we flew north into Icecrown, where a group of people I’d told our group awaited us to escort us. Strength in numbers! We landed in the middle of a snowy mountain pass that sometimes dropped off to a cliff on the left as you go along it to show you the canyon that circles around to Icecrown Citadel. More ice than snow there. For us, we were close to the eastern borders, where the snowy pass/ledge shelf hugs the border of the Storm Peaks mountain range, so we were like, knee-deep in snow!
The people we met there were a human paladin woman named Allison, a worgen sellsword guy named Garret, a human sellsword guy named Jax, and a Bronzebeard dwarf mountaineer named Aiken. Together, we set off toward the north, tracing the last known trail of Grugni Stonebeard before he went north to the island off the north coast of Icecrown’s northern cliffs. It was SO DANGED COLD! We trudged on, the bigger guys in the front clearing the paths with their big ol’ tree-trunk legs through the snow, the rest of us following behind with rather less snow-kicking to do, all of us bundled up quite heavily in cold weather gear.
Before long, sometime half-expected did happen, but with a very unexpected twist! The wind kicked up, and it was a total white-out! Snow blew thickly around us, obscuring our vision, not even allowing us to see our own feet, let alone each other! If we shouted over the screaming, wailing wind, we could hear each other somewhat. But the unexpected twist? The wind’s wailing actually sounded like a woman wailing in the distance! Gosh, it was so spooky!
Eventually, it died down, and we made our way onward. But then, people started SEEing things! Some were reporting seeing the shadow of a very lithe person off in the distance in the snow, and the wailing was coming from that direction! Zarshal could even smell DEATH from that direction! It was scary, but the scariest thing was when the other worgen, Garret, suddenly began to panic, telling someone… or some THING… to stay away… and then he must have gotten SNATCHED!
We could hear him screaming, though his screams quickly faded into the distance, then disappeared altogether. When the wind and snow next died down, he was missing! Oh, NO!
It happened again further along the icy shelf. This time, the dwarf, Aiken, disappeared during the windstorm! And Tess was able to see the lithe shadow this time, and she said it had glowing red eyes! Nah could see it too, and made Tess not shoot it, because it seemed familiar to her for some reason. Then I could see it too… it had a hood, long ears, glowing red eyes, and the figure of a Quel’dorei woman. It was a DARKFALLEN! The Dark Rangers of Sylvanas! She faded away before Nah or Tess could approach her, and then the winds and snow died down as well. Aiken was missing, and now it was just our group, plus only Allison and Jax from the other!
We set off again. We went a good distance without any wind after that, but then it picked up yet again! The snow drove into our faces, and we couldn’t see our own feet again. We were yelling to each other and stuff… and then I felt something grab ME! I kicked and screamed and yelled, but I could feel myself YANKED off my feet, rising high into the air, and flying through the snow at top speed, all the while being bearhugged like crazy! I screamed and screamed, but I couldn’t tell if anyone could hear me or not over all that wind! Then I blacked out, and when I came to, I was in the middle of this stone henge, still on that icy shelf, laying in Grim’s arms. Nah was there, looking deeply out of it, exhausted, and bleeding from the left knee. Zarshal was bleeding from his right shoulder. Tess and Gizwell looked pretty out of it as well. Garret and Aiken were there, too! They were tied to the stone henges, and I could feel where my wrists had been chained to it as well. Allison and Jax were also there… they must have been snatched at some point too! There was a small gnomish airship hovering overhead, lowering a winch with a harness on it to load our four escorts, still unconscious, aboard to take them to Dalaran. Tess and Giz, both looking the worst for wear, also went back on the airship. I had no clue how I’d gotten there, nor the others, nor what the heck had even happened!
Nah, Grim, and Zarshal filled me in. Apparently, after I’d been taken, Allison and Jax had also been taken during different windstorms. Following the icy shelf/mountain pass north, the group came upon us tied to the stone henge, and, not one, but TWO Dark Rangers were standing there guarding it, and they both had banshee properties about them, just like Sylvanas! Their bows and their banshee screams had really done a fair amount of damage to the group, but Nah had apparently suffered the additional trauma of being POSSESSED by one of the banshees! She’d shot Tess’s Spirit Wolf, Palattu, with a pistol shot before Palattu had done his spirit bite thing, where he goes past the flesh and sinks his spirit teeth into a being’s spirit or something. I dunno how it works, but it’s really cool, and it drove the banshee from Nah, and the group were able to subdue both of them after that and rescue us!
By this time it was late at night, so Tess and Giz, being in the conditions they were in, rode back with the others to the Dalaran hospital for treatment. Zarshal, Grim, my bestie Nah, and I pressed on – there was still the island north of the frozen northernmost cliffs of Icecrown to go and explore!
According to Grugni’s last slate we’d found in that haunted cave last week in the Storm Peaks, the Explorer’s League dwarves had decided to continue following the path of the tragic family of ghost in that cave, following the ghostly woman’s diary, written while she yet lived, which said that the Ulduar mission had been a great success, and that an expedition north of Icecrown was next, to the island there. All the while, we’d been haunted by two children who kept telling us they were cold, a young boy and a young girl, though we couldn’t see them. Tess and Zarshal just kept feeling the insistent tugging at the sides of their pants legs that a child might use to get the attention of an adult, and hearing (sometimes being the only one to hear) the pleading of the cold children. The mother’s ghost and the father’s spectral floating skull we were able to see, looking for their children, wishing they could provide them with more warmth, but the children remained invisible. Grugni’s group had evidently experienced the same thing three years before, and followed the woman’s diary to their next site in Icecrown, which was this island!
We flew north from the stone henge to a barge we’d found pulled up on a bit of sand and cliff-fallen pebbles and such. Wanting to take a long, slow look into the water for the helm in case it had been dropped into the sea (and definitely not relishing the prospect of diving into THAT frigid sea to retrieve it!), we took the boat north to the island. That was a mistake! The rumors of the North Sea Kraken were real, though it wasn’t a giant octopus or squid. This one was an aggressive fish larger than the Whitewind’s Grace! It took quite a bit of work to navigate through all the abandoned ships and shipwrecks and avoid the fish that seemed to be hunting us, but we made it to the island okay! We never did see the helm, so we figured it must be on the island!
That island was COLD!
There, on the frozen roof of the world, the sky was perpetually dark, the wind never stopped blowing and cutting like knives through even our cold weather gear, and the snow was so frozen we didn’t even sink through it!
Here, the path forked right and left. The group chose left, and we found ourselves climbing a steep mountain path that started going left, but soon curved to the right. Following it, strange things started to happen.
The ghostly children were back, though they didn’t seem to recognize us from the cave. How they were haunting both places at once was a magical matter of space-time that I don’t want to even begin to guess at, but there they were! The same invisible children’s voices were saying the same things, and this time, it was Nah and Grim who were feeling the tugs and hearing the voices. As we continued on, they faded away, and we saw the woman’s ghost once again, first looking for her children, then reliving what seemed to be the passing of the girl child, who she called Sally, who she was sad to have not been able to keep warm. When she faded, we pressed on, eventually coming upon the floating spectral skull again, who seemed to be raging furiously at his group’s quartermaster for not providing his children with enough gear to keep warm. Pressing on after he, too, faded away, we found that the path led to the entrance of a short cave! More of a den, really, this one had the enormous banner of a Kvaldir – the seafaring tribe of the vrykul – planted in the back, and a barrier of spikes around one side. We went in, getting in out of the freezing wind, already feeling better, though the cave itself was still cold as ice.
Grim and Nah went looking around, and they found something curious off on the far right side of the cave. Investigating, Grim found a toy sword, toy shield, and toy bucket helmet arranged on the ground, with a set of dwarven runes etched into the stone in front of it. Next to that, Nah was looking at a doll, frozen stiff, with frozen flowers laid across its lap. In front of it was the same set of dwarven runes Grim had found.
We didn’t have Mairy with us, or that one goblin from K3 in the Storm Peaks, but we DID have my bestie Nah, who herself is an Alliance language buff. She read the runes out loud. Each said the same thing, except the one in front of the toy sword, shield, and bucket helm said Timmy, and the one in front of the doll with the flowers laid across its lap said Sally. Each said, “Taken too soon. May the Light keep them always.”
Meanwhile, I’d found another dwarven slate, the ones like Grugni’s been leaving behind in all the places he’d been. It tells a similar tale to our own, and states that he’d found the frozen remains of the family, the parents having doffed their cold weather gear in an attempt to save the children, only to suffer the same fate their children suffered anyway, and that he’d taken their remains to find their next of kin in Stormwind for a proper burial. Throughout was stated the sadness he and his group felt. I’ll say – it was super super sad alright, and we were feeling it the whole time!
At this point, we were starting to experience the ghosts way more often, and this time, it was all four members of the family! The children were pleading with Zarshal while the rest of us were looking at our finds, and Zarshal had the idea to start a fire in the cave and direct the children to what they had been seeking the last two times we’d encountered them. Suddenly, finally, the ghosts of the children were visible! Timmy, a boy of about eight, and Sally, a girl of about seven, appeared next to the fire. The spectral skull of the father and the distraught ghost of the mother appeared next to them, and they all looked RIGHT AT ZARSHAL! The ghosts had never seemed to notice us before, aside from the invisible pleas of the children, so that was SO spooky! But, it was okay! They were thanking him… BY NAME! Zarshal Blackburne! That was scary too, but really, Zarshal is now a HERO! All this time, a physical manifestation of what they wanted was all it took to put their spirits to rest, and, by the fire, huddled together happily for warmth, one by one, the ghosts faded away, and we heard and saw them no more from there.
After we’d gotten over the mixed feelings of happy and sad from that moment, Nah remembered something else she’d read on that slate that made her stop and think. Grugni had expressed that he’d been so sad, he felt like he’d lost something important, though he was too sad to stop and think and try to remember what that might be. In his book in the Stormwind Royal Library, Grugni had written that he’d lost Princess Ariel’s helm… what if the helm was RIGHT HERE IN THE CAVE WITH US?!
With newfound energy, we began searching the cave. Zarshal and I went to the back of the cave, closer to the Kvaldir banner, and we both instantly had the same reaction at once… this HUGELY inspiring feeling came over us, and we felt moved to FIGHT for a noble cause! Zarshal and I both began bellowing out battle shouts at once, our spirits moved mightily to do battle for a righteous cause! FOR THE ALLIANCE! FOR THE WHITEWIND COMPANY! We were ready to charge, to fight, to die, if need be, all in the name of some noble cause… all we needed was the right cause to fight for!
Nah and Grim were really confused! Grim was asking us what the heck we were suddenly shouting about, and Nah started to, but then something triggered in her memory, something she’d heard of from that expedition to the top of Mount Neverest in Pandaria… the plate boots of Princess Ariel Sunstrider, the powerful enchantment placed upon them to replicate the powerfully inspiring aura Princess Ariel gave off when she wore it while sitting astride her horse at the front line of a soon-to-be battlefield compelling all of us atop Mount Neverest to take up a noble cause and FIGHT!
Then it got hold of GRIM!
Nah was obviously feeling it too, fighting the urge (and sometimes failing) to shout like the rest of us were, forcing herself to look for what must be the plate helm Grugni lost. Grim, meanwhile, was shouting inspiration to us, as well as barking commands. I was to summon my fel hordes while Zarshal infiltrates enemy lines to assassinate enemy leaders and Grim himself wreaks havoc on the front lines! We were SO ready to carry out our orders!
Nah, meanwhile, had found a dwarven pack behind the Kvaldir banner, its top flap partially opened, and a blue glow emitting from within. Having the presence of mind not to go nuts like the rest of us, she shut the flap TIGHT, and the helm’s influence – because helm it was! – on us faded!
Coming to our senses, we marveled in awe at the inspiring presences the Quel’dorei princess must have been. We knew we had what we’d come for, though! The plate helm of Princess Ariel Sunstrider, the one we’d been following Grugni’s trail around for several weeks to find, was finally OURS! WOOHOO! With the pack in hand – shut tightly – Nah led us from the cave, back to our flying mounts that had followed us in case the North Sea Kraken wrecked our ship. We mounted up, flying south out of that cold in a HURRY and back to the warmth of the Legerdemain Lounge, far to the south in Dalaran. From there, we spoke our thoughts on the tragedy of the human family, Zarshal’s simple heroics in finally getting the spirits of the family to rest, and the awesome power of the beautiful, enchanted helm. After that, Zarshal and Grim bid their farewells, and we told them their gold for the adventure would be direct-deposited into their bank vaults as usual. I went with Nah back to the Whitewind’s Grace, where Nah collapsed onto her bed in her cabin. First Mate Nate came to take the dwarven back to the Kul Tiran marine guards aboard that were hired to protect the boots, and place the helm with the boots. Those marines, inspired by the enchantment on the armor, are VERY gung ho about keeping that armor safe!
After that, Annasana Moonblossom, who’s come with us on several of these Northrend missions, but was on standby tonight, came to heal up Nah’s leg wounds and other maladies at long last. I left Anna to her work, as it was time for me to be getting home as well.
I need to get to the Whitewind’s Grace again today, or sometime soon, and post a poll to see which lead the group wants to pursue next. We’ve still got the Ghostlands, Hearthglen, general Eastern Kingdoms, and Kalimdor to solve! I can’t wait to see where we go next! I’m so excited!
Uh oh… those goblins are coming over to the barge to see what Celeste and I have gotten hold of down at the sunken racetrack… I’d better help Celeste! I hope this goes okay; I want to stay and explore and adventure more here in the Thousand Needles’ sunken racetrack some more! YAY!
Nat tapped the excess ink from her quill into her inkwell with a smile, one tempered with curiosity and a little worry at the approaching goblins. She replaced the quill in her quill case and capped her inkwell, placing these items in her pack. Moving to the forward area of the ship, she watched the goblin craft motor its way over, the goblins looking stern. It was going to be a moment before they reached the little raised barge, so Nat went back to her things. Stowing her inkwell and quill case in her pack once more, she closed the diary as well, the ink on the pages now dry. She replaced that in her pack as well, closing it securely and moving forward again.
The goblins were nearly within hailing range now. What would happen next? Nat leaned forward, her hands on the rail, waiting to see…
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