Nat Thoughts: Diaries of a Darkshire Girl

[Natasha Ebonlocke]

August the Twenty-Fifth

For the second week in a row, Natasha Ebonlocke found herself in the odd scene that was the seawater-flooded desert of the Thousand Needles. Now floating on an old rickety barge raised from the seafloor, not too far from a gaudy gnome-goblin joint-effort pleasure barge that seemed to be nearly the size of Lion’s Rest in Stormwind City, the barge featured scrap-wood walls around the barge’s outer railing, the chassis of what appeared to be a derelict ground vehicle, and two gnomish jet engines. Floating above the old gnome-goblin speedway where they’d raced their ground vehicles before the Cataclysm flooded the area, Nat, Celeste McCullough, and Penelope Boltbucket were working hard next to what looked to be an onboard drydock, where the chassis of the racer was sitting, dismantling another racer that appeared to have crashed into something. The pair of jet engines lay off to one side, polished up to a sheen and looking fairly new.

As the three worked, they brainstormed ideas for a racing boat, of all things. Nat had suggested that a knife-edged bow extending back along the hull, sleek and narrow, would reduce the seawater’s drag on the boat to next to nothing. Penny was thinking of placing the jet engines on either side of the boat, extended out a bit from the stern of the small watercraft on stout pylons to the engine nacelles, much like a flying machine with jet engines, or an airship with the same. They should be low, Penny suggested, and on the faintest of inclines instead of perfectly level, raising the boat slightly out of the water when running at full power to further reduce drag, and low, rather than high, so as not to drive the boat forward and down into the water, but not quite so low as to get water into the jet intakes. That was the real danger, Celeste had said, water getting into the intakes. But with a flat, borderline motionless body of water almost completely enclosed from the more turbulent ocean east of the Thousand Needles’ inlet, the “sweet spot,” as she called it, could be established. More ideas were had on how low to build the deck, as well as reducing aerodynamic drag by limiting vertical structures to just the pilot’s station, limiting seating to just one, and making the piloting station a knife-edge too, further reducing aerodynamic drag. Pretty soon, design brainstorms were narrowed down to merely how to decorate it: a white hull with fish, sea turtles, palm trees with duskroses growing in their shadows, and a crossed pair of arclight spanners were suggested, but without a way to paint them all on in a way that didn’t look like a mess. Names for the little boat were brainstormed as well.

When the conversation returned to the finer points of adding turbo boosts to jet engines, Nat felt herself a bit overwhelmed, as she usually did when Celeste and Penny’s vastly superior engineering knowledge had them talking shop to a degree that was beyond her. The pair seemed to almost be speaking another language as they dived into their packs for parchment and quills to draw up schematics. Nat moseyed over to her own pack, knowing this would be going on for a bit, for her own cherrywood quill case, inkwell of purple ink, and black leather-bound diary. Uncapping her inkwell and opening her quill case, she withdrew her ravenfeather quill, dipped the tip into her inkwell, tapped off the excess, and began to write in the next blank page.

Dear diary,

Boy, it’s been an unusual week… but it’s been a FUN one! Deathrolls this week lasted less than an hour before the few that came had to leave for other things that were going on, so that was a letdown, even though the game was super fun and silly while it lasted!

I also posted a poll on the wall in the Whitewind’s Grace to see which lead the group wanted to follow next. The poll listed the leads we all found in the Stormwind Royal Library still remaining to pursue. There is the book found by Tess with the lead to a powerful altar in the Blasted Lands, the book found that I found with a lead to a piece last seen in Hearthglen, the book found by Nah with the lead to the gauntlet matching the one I found while pearl diving with Celeste, which was last seen in Feralas and has been offered by the Kaldorei there in trade to us, and the book Mairy found with the lead to the Ghostlands. There's an asterisk on the Ghostlands that leads to a note in fine print at the bottom saying that the Ghostlands lead is still not ready, with apologies from Nat. All were invited to vote on their next lead, though it wasn't required!

Unfortunately, though, there were enough people that were going to be half an hour late, if not more, last night that we didn’t have enough to start, and beginning that late would likely have caused us to not have time for the entire adventure, so I had to call it off. We will try again next week… and THAT night will be on my BIRTHDAY! WOOHOO!

The most unusual thing has been this thing with the salvage we’ve been diving for in the Thousand Needles’ flooded gnome-goblin speedway that got flooded during the Cataclysm. The goblins that were approaching us last week when I was writing wanted to con us out of our coin and our finds, more than likely, we knew, and they did not disappoint!

They were coming up just as we’d gotten the chassis with the big, wide wheels and matching offroad tires onto the deck of the barge we raised from the bottom of the basin last week. Once the racer's chassis was lowered onto the barge, it was clear to see that it was of gnomish make; the lack of any sort of explosive propellant, and the presence of steam vents, made this clear. We were looking at these when the little goblin craft approached. The goblin who remained on the boat (there was another that had dived with a deepdive helmet to watch us raise the racer chassis), clearly the leader, hailed us.

"HEY!" he yelled. "What's the big idea?! You can't just come along here draggin' off all our stuff! That's a championship goblin racer, that is! You'd better have a good explanation for this, toots!"

Celeste put her hands on her hips, absentmindedly making the extra four arms from her FISH (Fully Integrated Submersible Helper, the self-propelled underwater backpack with deepdive helmet and four arms like spider legs that hold tools and have grabby hands on the ends) apparatus make similar motions. It would have been an intimidating sight if it wasn’t for Celeste’s colorful bikini, light blue with palm trees, kinda spoiling the image. Ha!

“Look, chump,” she said, sounding weary and disappointed. “You’re not talking to some tourist or junk scavenger here. I know my stuff!” She pointed at the wreck, the two mechanical arms on the same side point as well. “That’s a gnome’s racer. Just the quality of the engineering should tell you that. The racers your kind made tended to be mostly bombs strapped to a chassis. They exploded half the time they were used.” Ha! Celeste one, goblins ZERO!

The goblin stopped, warily eyeing the arms of the FISH. He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, having been caught in his fib.

"Yeah, well, uh... uh... uhhhhh... This here's a goblin racetrack, property of the Steamwheedle Cartel! So, what's down there is--.... Oh, uh… Miss Ebonlocke... Uh... Hey, we don't have to mention this to your boss lady, Nah, right? Or the baron, Marin Nogginfogger? We're gonna keep up the trade deals we got with the Whitewind Company, right?" Ha! He saw me, remembered the Company, and knew he was digging himself into a hole now! The goblin, intimidated by Celeste, bikini or no, and her FISH, as well as her likely superior knowledge of engineering, and also by the presence of a leading officer in a company his Cartel has multiple trade deals with, looked quite sheepish then!

"I did actually anticipate contact with the Cartel, Grux," I said, as sweetly as I could, enjoying watching as my words and grin cowed the goblin further. "I even figured it would be fair that we pay some fee or royalty to the Baron for salvaging operations here. But that'll be for goblin equipment, not gnomish. You DO know the difference, right? RIGHT? And I won't tell the Baron about this. I WILL tell the Baron that we're out here, and that we'll pay salvage fees on Goblin equipment. We'll decide on a fee, and I will come back to tell you precisely what it is, down to the last copper, and I'll have YOU take him every copper of it, where he'll count it out himself. You can manage that, right?"

The goblin, even though quailing before the intimidating Celeste and her FISH, looked deep in thought, his beady eyes darting this way and that.

"Well, uh... even so, I, uh... still and all, you see, uh..." the goblin spluttered out, his companion looking on with worry. Eventually the goblin saw there was no way out of the predicament he had brought upon himself and agreed. "Well, uh... a-alright... fine..."

The goblin sat grumpily on a chair on deck, looking on in defeated silence.

While I was talking to the goblin, Celeste spoke up, turning her back to the goblins as she did so and giving me a wink as a mischievous smile appeared on her lips as she spoke.

“Hey, Grux, is it?” Celeste began. “I can see you’re a reasonable goblin, just out to make a living. So how about a proposal that might give you a chance to earn from this?” Celeste toweled the water off her body (from having been in the basin raising the racer moments before) as she spoke, gazing at the goblin from time to time and speaking in an easy, matter-of-fact tone. Knowing Celeste to her very core, I could see the calculating look in her eyes as she gauged the goblin’s interest. “How about a race? Using only wrecks and salvage found here at the racetrack? My vessel against yours. If you win, you keep BOTH boats, which should either give you a tidy sum if sold, or get you fame and riches in the races here. If I win, I get FREE salvage rights here in the basin. Rights that I can transfer to a person of my choosing when and if I gain them. Whaddaya say, boyo?” She stifled a giggle as she did her best goblin impression. I had to giggle too, and nod; that was a WAY better idea than simply making him take salvage fees to Baron Nogginfogger!

Grux perked up again at that, seeing a chance to at least MAYBE still get something out of the deal.

"A race, you say, eh?” the goblin mused, looking the old rickety barge we’d raised from the basin floor over with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Fame and riches... You got a point there, toots. Heh... and my boat against that sinking wreck? You're on! Make sure to bring all the paperwork for signin' that over to ME when we're done racing!"

Grux turns to his companion.

"See that boat, Bikwix? It ain't even got a motor, see? And them metal patches all over the hull make it seem like the hulls in even worse shape than it looks, see? Easy win for us, see? See? See?"

The two turned back to Celeste, grinning and nodding, the mischievous glint now present in both their eyes.

“Aaah,” Celeste grinned back, “but I said A boat, which doesn’t automatically imply THIS old barge. Ten days. We each get ten days to find the parts we need. I already found a chassis. I suggest you get started, and soon.” She grinned and crossed her arms over her chest, the FISH’s arms crossing in front of her as well like a protective shell. “Also you have to agree that violence and sabotage against the opposition is forbidden. Before and during the race. Our engineering skills against yours, and that’s it. Agreed?”

I had to stifle a fit of giggles as I watched the grins slowly melt from the goblins' faces. They took a step back and huddled, alternately casting looks across to the rickety old barge we stood on. Celeste, Penny, and I could see them first pointing at the wreck we'd raised and looking optimistic, but then the MUTT, the Flying Nosebleed, the FISH, and even Penny's mechanical arms and legs began to make them looked panicked again. However, it didn’t take long until the obvious dawns upon them... if they lose, they lose none of their possessions! Their stakes for losing is simply that they can't bully the three of us into paying a tax on our finds. That, in exchange for potentially getting a boat Celeste hints at being far better than this one, perhaps even one as impressive as the MUTT? Greed returned to their faces, and then return to the railing of their ship.

"Ya got yerself a bet, toots!" Grux grinned malevolently. "The race is on! See ya in ten days!"

“Great! I’d wish you good luck, but you’re going to lose either way! Ha!” Celeste jeered at the goblins, then turned to Penny I. “Alright girls, we have ten days to show those goblins what engineering really is. I’m open to ideas though I have a few of my own.”

"Am I to assume," squeaked Penny as I giggled at the way Celeste had dealt with those goblins, "that you intend to deck out the Wave Dancer with any racing materials salvaged here, then return to leave them in our... well, not dust, but... ...wake?"

"Actually, no, Penny. It would be easy to grind those gobbos in the dust that way. I think the Dancer could already win this race, or close enough, as she is, but that's not the goal here. Although I think the goblins won't really use salvage only, that's what I promised we'll do. That means we can only use whatever we find here in the water. I know it's a bit of a tall order, but I have some ideas. First, we need to see if this racer chassis we brought up can be used as a framework for the boat. I'm thinking we make whatever we use as a hull as light as possible. Less weight means it'll need less power to move, as it won't push water around so much. We could use the checkered banner that indicates the end of the race as a sail, but we'd need some mechanical propulsion as well. Maybe a large fan or something smaller to use as a propeller."

"Great ideas, Celeste!" I said, proud as ever of Celeste. "And if we do use this chassis, I think we should elevate the flat bottom with an extended underside hull, so that we can shape it into a thin blade sort of shape, so we'll have something to cut right through waves with, rather than catch lots of resistance. I bet we can find some kind of fan down there. If we can connect it to an internal combustion engine, we'll have a good start on a small craft design that we can SMOKE those guys with!"

Celeste peered at the wrecked gnomish racer, clearly seeing the design I spoke of in her mind. After what seemed a rather long moment, she snapped out of it and grinned at me, saying, "Great, yeah, that would totally work. Something long and thin. Hardly any profile at all to slow it down. We'll need some extra salvaged metal for that, but I think that won't be hard to find. If we want to avoid dragging into the water, an underwater propeller won't help us. We'll need fans to push us over the water. I'll get that old racetrack finish banner before the goblins think about snagging it. We'll need to set up something proper to work with around here since, we don't exactly have a workshop set up. At least some surfaces to work on. Oh, and we can make this barge more cozy. We're going to stay here a while. I think the hull, or at least the deck, needs new planks anyways. Something to add to your list. I'll be right back!" She suddenly saluted and dropped into the water, the FISH mimicking the diving motion she made with her hands as she leaped overboard, Dordy barking at her all the while.

I worked on drawing up schematics for our ideas with Penny while Celeste swam off for the checkered banner for the sail. When Celeste returned, she said she’d decided to fix the barge first, knowing it would prove useful for the rest of their stay in the basin. We spent the rest of my final day of minication working on the schematics, and then, over the weekend, Celeste and Penny worked on fixing up the barge.

Feralas was not so far, so Celeste left Penny to look over the barge some more while she took the MUTT to harvest some deadwood (being sensitive to the orcs’ use of goblin shredders to annihilate part of Ashenvale Forest to the north only a couple of decades prior, she’d kept to the deadfalls at the outskirts of the forest, minimizing her profile and impact there, and taking only a small amount). The plans we’d drawn up, conveniently, also included ideas on how to raise a section of the deck so that we could work on our speedboat without crouching all the time. There were plans for a few work benches and tables, a slide to get the boat to water (a modified design of the dry dock we built for the Dancer) and even some privacy walls to keep the wind and especially prying goblin eyes away from their work, which were erected around the barge’s old railing around the boat using salvaged scrap wood found at the bottom of the basin. Celeste had in mind to build it all and figured it would take the better part of two days to harvest the wood and cut it into the right sized planks.

Progress on the barge was going smoothly while I was at work over the weekend. It was so excited to see how much they’d done after coming back from work every day! With Penny trying out the FISH a few times and bringing back potentially useful salvage, Celeste was free to spend the time required to fix our floating home away from home. Despite having removed most of the goblin-designs from the MUTT to make it her own, it remained that it was a machine perfectly thought out to cut and carry lumber. By the end of Nat's second work day, the rotted boards on the deck and sides of the barge had been replaced and the privacy walls raised, complete with narrow horizontal slits to see out of, small enough to prevent anyone seeing in without putting their eyes right against it. Sunday, Celeste worked on building the dry dock on the deck of the barge. By midday, since we hadn't brought enough food for such a long expedition (having planned only to spend a few days here and not challenge the locals to a race in ten days!), Celeste and Penny decided to visit Feathermoon Stronghold. Celeste showed Penny the few spots she liked in Feralas and told her about her family visits there. They took a bit longer than intended for lunch, they told me, but came back to the barge ready for more work. Celeste was happy, and maybe a tiny bit surprised, that none of the traps and booby traps she had set, in case the goblins had come spying while they were gone, had been triggered. Hardly believing that goblins would prove honorable, she churned around in her head a few more ideas to counter any goblin cheating, implementing those she deemed fit.

Monday morning, Celeste told us of some morning musings she’d had, after an initial shout of an idea drew us from belowdecks. She’d stood on the newly built roof over the opposite section of dry dock. She was thankful, she’d told me, that I had included one in my construction design. Not only would it allow them to work out of the rain if they needed to, it also functioned as a shelter for sleeping and eating in. Right now though, it afforded her a nice view of the basin. Using the magnifying capability on her Night Watch scope I got her for Winter Veil a couple years ago attached to her rifle, she slowly scanned the water, focusing on a specific section where another barge, covered with tarps, floated. Goblin crafts of all shaped and sizes buzzed around it. The goblins were hard at work, which meant her team would need to start on their own craft without delay. Noises below her told her that Penny and I were up and about. The smell of coffee drifted up to her.

Celeste glanced at their retrieved gnomish wreck. Aside from the chassis, and a few spare parts, not much else was useful from it. Penny had found a few things while salvaging, though! The mechagnome had already sorted the pieces with regards to their purpose. We had plenty of parts to couple an engine to a propeller. Parts to handle fuel and even a pump in working order. Most of it was rusted from the salt water and required cleaning. Penny had also brought back some metal sheets for the wave-cutting hull, but we would need more.

An engine was the primary target, though. With the MUTT, we could build a propeller, as long as they had the right metal. We’d need a mast for the sail as well.

She sighed. There was a LOT of work left, and parts were scarce. Maybe this bet hadn’t been the wisest idea, but here we were, and she’d see it through, she told us.

Too bad the racetrack was covered in water. There were plenty of racers at the time even some that… hold on… what if…

“Nat, Penny!” we heard her calling. “I think I might know where to find an engine, or at least useful parts!” Celeste Blinked down from the roof, an excited look in her freckled features as we rushed topside.

"What?!" I asked excitedly, handing her one of two mugs of coffee I’d brought up, hers being black. "Where do we find an engine and parts?!" I immediately found looking out through the viewing slits in the privacy walls, as though some splendid new wreck had suddenly surfaced right next to our craft or something.

“There used to be a racer crashed into the cliff wall around the raceway. I remember Mother showing us as a warning against uncontrollable technology. It might have been overlooked since it was way up the cliff. If it got knocked down, it might have tumbled to the base of the wall where no one would think to look for a wreck anyways!”

"I'll go and look for it right now!" I said excitedly. "I've been hoping for more adventuring after the workend!"

I headed off, water-breathing spell in place, and was gone for a time, searching the water. I spotted the linkage of a somewhat corroded racer dangling from cables in the water, just below the surface. Surfacing myself, I saw not one, but TWO jet engines, smashed into the cliff wall and stuck there, just like Celeste said! Celeste told me later that she could spot Onyx suddenly diving through the air to a spot along the eastern cliff walls. A small figure climbed aboard, sitting sidesaddle as usual, and Onyx flew off again, circling something beyond a trio of distant ships near the cliff wall once or twice before returning.

Once I reached the barge, I slid off of Onyx, giving him a few pats and letting him soar skyward again to ride the thermals once more.

"Well," Nat began. "I've got good news, and I've got bad news."

"The good news is... I've found the racer you described, and the entire thing is intact! The bad news? There’s a trio of PIRATE ships anchored around it!"

"But then, probably? more good news? is that the pirate ships don't seem to be anchored there specifically for that racer; it seems more likely that they're there to use that dock to get up to that little pirate village or holdfast up there on the cliffs above them. I think they like that one because it gives them a good view of ships entering and leaving the bay in the basin. Merchant ships can be spotted and attacked there."

Celeste, Penny and I shared a round of ice-cold moonberry juice, fresh from Feralas elves in a trade for fresh fish, as they discussed plans. The three of us came up with ideas, then refined them, keeping our favorite bits and discarding the bits we were less sure about. Eventually, our cups were empty, but our minds were full of their plan! We sprang into action!

I donned the FISH, diving into the water. It was my first-ever time getting to use it, so I was excited! Celeste Blinked into the MUTT’s cockpit, Dordy harnessed in with his aviator goggles, his feet up on the front of the cockpit to look over the sides, tail wagging, yip-yipping up a storm. Penny climbed into the Flying Nosebleed, and, together on the raft, they watch me through the clear water, propelling rapidly toward the three pirate ships about thirty feet below the water’s surface.

Reaching the cliff-hanging racer, I enacted my part of the plan. I slipped silently, slowly, toward the surface, attaching a number of ropes to the TWIN-jet-engine racer, as well as the cockpit in the back. Once the racer was secured, I quietly began to use the FISH's tools to dislodge the engines of the racer from the cliff's face. The pirates, what few weren't up in the village wenching and drinking, were either fishing off the opposite sides of their ships, swabbing the deck, talking to each other, and just generally paying zero attention to the cliff face. As long as I was quiet, I knew, I could do this...

Finally, I reached my goal... NEARLY dislodge both engines, but not entirely! I kicked gently off the cliff face, submerging into the water. Surfacing a bit further away, with a line of sight toward the group's barge and raft, I used the flat metal of the FISH's tools like a mirror to reflect sunlight at the makeshift raft we’d made last week, where Celeste and Penny were waiting to get airborne, back and forth, back and forth.

"There's the signal!" Celeste said to Penny, pointing toward the flashing lights off in the distance, only just above the gently rolling waters of the basin. "Let's go!"

Celeste and Penny started their engines. Penny took for the skies, zipping right overhead of the pirate ships.

"BOMBS AWAAAAAAAAY!" I could hear her cackling even from down where I was. "I always wanted to say that!"

Bombs were indeed away... STINK BOMBS! The pirate ships' decks were instantly pelted with green clouds of tear-jerking, foul-smelling gas, and the pirates' shouts can be heard above the din of Penny's engine.

"What's going on?! Wha-- ACK! I HAD ME MOUTH OPEN!"

"GAH! IT'S HORRIBLE!"

"SHIVER ME TIMBERS! THA'S TH' WORS'-SMELLIN' THING!"

"OH LIGHT WHY?!"

Penny cackled with glee, drawing the attention of the pirates away from Celeste and I by diving and swerving and taunting, ensuring the diversion is further cemented into place by also distracting them with all the stink bombs remaining that hadn't been used the last time I had distracted the Bloodsails south of Booty Bay for Celeste!

Meanwhile, Celeste rocketed high overhead in the MUTT, diving rapidly as she reached the site, skimming in low with one hand on the controls, and one hand outstretched. She was elected to this for her athleticism, and she didn't intend to miss this catch...

As soon as I was seeing the distraction, I moved quickly to get the ropes I’d rigged to the racer gathered up in one of the FISH's arms. The other three arms then worked to dislodge the twin jet engines from the cliff face. But then I hit a problem! They were STUCK! Celeste would be by soon! I COULDN'T GET THEM FREE! Oh, NO!

Celeste sped downward, pulling up hard before hitting the water and speeding past the first pirate boat. But she could tell something was wrong, too... I was still struggling with the engines. They weren't coming free! This was our one shot at getting the racer before the pirates wised up!

In the skies, Penny noticed the struggle, and the timing that is totally NOT working out between Celeste’s flight and my work to free the engines from the cliff face, even though this was our only chance to get the racer! She also noted that a few of the pirates had even regained their wits enough to bring a cannon about! She may be one of the poorest, least-upgraded Mechagnomes in existence, but she still has a gnomish brain! Mathematical formula, geological knowledge, and physics all flew through her brain faster than she was piloting the Flying Nosebleed through the air. Calculations completed in seconds, she SWOOPED down suddenly across the water, not zigzagging at all for the cannon, swooping right across the deck of the pirate ship and hurtling toward the cliff face some thirty or forty feet to my left. When she heard the command to fire, she pulled up HARD, flying right up the cliff face! The cannon fired! BOOM!

I gasped hard as Penny appeared to be flying RIGHT into the cliff! But then I saw Penny pull up hard, and the Flying Nosebleed went vertical! Higher and higher Penny climbed. Meanwhile, the cannonball impacted the cliff face!

WHAM!

I gasped again as the whole cliff face shook with the cannonball's impact, and the racer's jet engines were dislodged! They began to slide slowly down the cliff's face. Oh, NO! I knew they musn't get flooded with saltwater! Quickly, I used the FISH's arm that has all the ropes connected to the racer to toss them up high into the air...

Which Celeste CAUGHT! She could hear me squeal with glee as she used one of the MUTT's arms to quickly grab the ropes, letting them go with her free hand. The MUTT flew off... and so too did the racer! WOOHOO!

Meanwhile, Penny had flown vertically for too long! The Flying Nosebleed’s engines stalled! The FB (as Celeste calls it, liking that better than the FN) slowly cam to a stop, and then it began to tip over backward! Penny did several more quick calculations. She decided to let the backward tip-over happen. The momentum of the tip-over was frightening, especially as Penny made the mistake of looking down while momentarily suspended upside-down, but she was strapped in and at the controls, so she maintained her composure as best she could and let her big brain do the work. Flipping a few switches and turning a few dials, she then pulls back on the wheel, allowing the momentum of what was essentially a slow-motion backflip to continue until she was nose-down. She restarted the engine then, powering downward and pulling up on the wheel. The ailerons flapped upward on wings and tail and she let Bernoulli's Principle do the rest, knowing that air moving over the curved upper surface of the wing will travel faster, and thus produce less pressure than the slower air moving across the flatter underside of the wing. This difference in pressure created lift, which is a force of flight that is caused by the imbalance of high and low pressures, Penny explained to us later, and Penny was able to regain control and fly away safely! Now out of danger, Penny hooted with glee in her squeaky little voice, rocketing away from the Bloodsail ships to the relative safety of the barge. Looking back, she was able to see that the pirates, not wanting anything else to do with stink bombs, were NOT pursuing! But I was nowhere to be seen...

I had THROWN the ropes skyward as hard as I could, squealing with glee as Celeste caught the ropes and then grabbed them with one of the MUTT's arms. Kicking off once more from the cliff's face, I turned and dived deep, bottoming out at the basin floor and propelling myself forward quickly with the FISH. I resurfaced near the barge and raft. Celeste and Penny were just landing, looking around the water frantically. I called out and waved. They look relieved to see me! I climbed aboard with a grin; we'd succeeded, and THAT called for a party!

Breaking out more moonberry juice to celebrate, we looked over our newest acquisition. Though the wreck was several years old, the fact that it had been hanging up on the cliff for so long actually seemed to have kept it in better shape. Some superficial rust was present, but nothing compared to the one we had found at the bottom of the basin last week. As we eagerly inspected our prize, Celeste turned to me and said, loudly enough for Penny to hear…

“Great find! I already have some ideas on how to use those twin engines. How about that amazing flying we saw though? Not even Uncle Rugnar can make a flying machine move like our dear Penny! I think… we found our pilot for the race against the goblins, don’t you?”

I grinned happily, nodding in agreement, turning to look at Penny in time to see her reaction.

Penny gasped loudly, a tiny little squeaky gasp. She stared way, WAY up at the much taller women with wide eyes.

"Wow, ME?!" she asks Celeste. "But all I did was swoop a time or two!"

I looks to Celeste for an explanation of what had actually happened, having been down in the water with the racer at the time and missed most of Penny’s heroic piloting, and of course Celeste was all too happy to give it!

I found myself smirking a bit shortly into the story, then breaking out into a grin, then having to stifle a giggle. I LOVE it when Celeste hams it up like that! I was able to discern (between the bits about Penny dodging rockets fired from a goblin flying machine right on her tail, the bit about the pirates using a catapult to throw a pirate onto Penny's right wing, which ALMOST pulled her out of the cockpit, had she not done a very neat barrel roll and dumped him into the water, and the kraken that wandered into the basin and came THIS CLOSE to pulling the FB out of the sky with a flailing tentacle) from the thrilling tale Celeste told that Penny had done a rather beautiful job of flying while distracting the pirates with the swoops she really DID do, displaying excellent reflexes, timing, and a knack for piloting anything with a control panel.

Penny, having gotten used to Celeste's “slightly” embellished stories by now, enjoyed the tale thoroughly, fighting her own giggles and clapping at all the best parts, embellished or not. When Celeste was done, even Penny was convinced that she did a pretty good job! She accepted the position gratefully and humbly from Celeste, doing a tiny little bow and vowing to get to work on the racer immediately!

The rest of the day passed by pleasantly, with the work on the racer going on behind the privacy walls and progressing nicely. The racer chassis was cleaned, and Celeste had a options for mounts for the twin engines drawn up. It looked like the racer would be ready to go ahead of time, enough to decorate it, even, when we get that far!

Then Tuesday night was DEATHROLLS! It was super short, less than an hour, like I said, but it was fun while it lasted! It was me, Grim, and a couple of our Stormwind friends: Val, the Westfall human farmer girl and professional fighter, and Ka’Lare, the Lightforged Draenei girl. It was also gonna be Sama the Kaldorei druid girl, and another friend of Val’s that I’d just met, a Quel’dorei mage girl named Lilith, but the though two had seemed quite excited to come, they said they’d be late, and ultimately ended up not being able to come at all. Val was hoping her friend Van, the Kaldorei druid guy from last week at Bruuk’s Tavern, would come, but we never did run into him. I think all the disappointment was what had her a bit less lively than usual, and ultimately leaving, which basically ended the game, as Ka’Lare, who is close to her, went with her. Grim and I ended up going back to the Whitewind’s Grace, which was at Stormwind Harbor at the time, and hanging out with Nah (who had been unable to come earlier due to meetings with the board of directors, which she LOATHES) there, keeping her company while she restocked her rogue potions and poisons, so that was a decent end to the evening still!

But yeah, the game! We held it in Hops, Line, and Sinker Brewing in Boralus, a new favorite place! It was the second time Grim and I had ever played there, though we’d been there plenty of times in the past, and the first time playing there for Val and Ka’Lare.

The game started out on a really unusual note – on the initiative roll, where we all roll out of one hundred to see who will start off the first round, I rolled a one hundred out of one hundred! According to our rules, rolling that at any point in the game, even the initiative rolls, means that the roller gets to choose any other player, AND choose Truth or Dare for them! WOO! And, given Grim’s Dare to me last week to drink that potion Nah had made during the game in Booty Bay the week before that causes a full day of… well, nasty bowel issues… it was WAR! I Whisper Dared Grim to go roll around in the mud puddle out in the street near where we were (we were in the outdoor version of this indoor/outdoor bar, in the roofed but open-air bit), then go and hug Val and Ka’Lare. My hopes were that he’d have a hard time with it, and turn out all gooshed with mud on his clothes (especially as I was covered in dirt, twigs, and leaves from trying to take a boost up onto a wall to sit with Val, Sama, and Lilith earlier in the day, overbalancing, and going over the other end of the wall face-first into the bushes, stuck in the dirt like an arrow!), but he ended up, instead, stripping down to his underoos so he wouldn’t get his fancy clothes dirty (which had me blushing and looking away, which of course got me teased by the others even more). Then he slowwwwwly eased into the mud puddle, as Kul Tiran waters and puddles and everything are chilly even in the summers there, complaining loudly of the cold and promising retribution. HA! Then, as it was a Whisper Dare, Val and Ka’Lare never saw their hugs coming. That was a mistake! I should have said it out loud so they’d have warning! Instead they got gooshed with mud as well, which meant I was IN for it on their next Dares! Oops! And then, Grim came over and hugged ME! Now I was dirty, leafy, twiggy, AND muddy! GOSH! Then Grim got me AND Ka’Lare on the next Dare, so he had us chug a strong drink from the bar, dance on the table (I staggered all over the table in my attempts to dance, slapped myself in the face TWICE like I did one other night, then ended up falling down on my face, grabbing Ka’Lare’s tail on the way down instinctively, which made me blush more, as she calls those who hit on Draenei women lewdly “tail-tuggers,” and I blurted out that now I was one… oof!), and then go swim a lap around the part of the tiny bay that extends out behind the Hops, Line, and Sinker brewery. Now I was dirty, twiggy, muddy, leafy, AND soaking wet! GEEZ LOUISE! Not to mention already tipsy! Then I got Dared by Val to go sit in Grim’s lap for a couple of rounds, which were Truths on what a few of us wouldn’t and wouldn’t do for love, which generated lewder answers than I expected, and certainly nothing I wanna repeat! After the lap, I ended up getting Dared by Val, along with Ka’Lare who rolled a one during Truth or Dare rolls, to go over to the chef in the houseboat pulled up alongside the back of the open-air bar and tell him that we both, “had steaming sausages for his father.” OH GOSH! The guy was a good sport, though, having himself a good laugh at us as we blushed our way through it, knowing it was all in fun as he’d been near the Deathrolls game for a bit now. But still, that was embarrassing! Unfortunately, that was the end of the game, as Val, who had been a bit quieter while waiting on her other friends to arrive, stood up to go. So we said our goodbyes, and Grim and I went to the Whitewind’s Grace to visit with Nah, like I said before. Still, it was a good, entertaining game of Deathrolls, and I made it through without a single potion from Nah! I love Deathrolls! WOO!

Oops, looks like brainstorming on a name for the speedboat has begun! That’s all I had to my week anyway, so I’m gonna go join in! I can’t wait to see what the name will be, and what it’ll look like on the hull, and what the other decorations will look like once it’s finished, and I especially can’t wait to see this race happen! YAY!

Nat tapped off the excess ink into her inkwell with a smile, capping it off and replacing her quill in her quill case. Closing both, she returned them to her pack. Her coffee mug was empty. She grabbed it, inspecting the others’ mugs, and, finding those empty as well, she took them belowdecks to get more coffee. Upon her return, she found the ink on her diary’s pages dry, so she closed it and replaced it, her quill case, and her inkwell back into her pack, then rejoined the others.

The naming process was fun. Nat, thinking of Dordy’s usual zoomies he gets around the yard when he goes outside at home, especially in the mornings when she’s getting ready for work and he goes out of sight but she can still see the orange, fiery glow he gives off darting this way and that, suggested the Dordy’s Zoomies, as it was comparable with what they wanted this racer to do. Celeste and Penny laughed, agreeing with the reasoning behind the name. Nat also suggested the Engineer’s Pride, as this was the combined effort of three engineers to produce a fine display of engineering ingenuity, as well as Celeste’s Challenge, for obvious reasons. Penny suggested the Thousand Needles Queen, the Mechabarge’s Upgrade, a reference to the mechanization of her people, and the McCullough-Ebonlocke-Boltbucket Project, an apt name, though she also said it may be too cumbersome. Celeste suggested the K.E.L.P.E.,. which stood for Knife-Edged Low-Profile Engine, as well as the Penny Pincher, a name she suggested with a grin due to it being designed to be so small (in order to reduce weight and drag in order to make it faster) that it would almost literally be pinching even tiny little Penny, and also because they’d scavenged every bit of this machine before assembling it, “pinching pennies,” in essence, because they hadn’t purchased a single bit of it. Her final suggestion was immediately the group’s favorite: The C.O.M.P.A.S.S., or COMpetition Penny-Actuated Supercharged Skimmer! It came with the idea that the group could augment one of Penny’s mechanical hands to be an actuator, which is a servomechanism that supplies and transmits a measured amount of energy for the operation of another mechanism or system. Without Penny, in other words, the racer would not be operable, as her hands specifically are required for its operation, effectively making the racer thief-proof!

The group elected to name the racer the C.O.M.P.A.S.S., though they also liked the idea of affectionately nicknaming the ship the Penny Pincher, even though that wouldn’t be painted on the hull, as they found the name amusing and apt.

The rest of the day was spent cleaning corrosion, rust, and other grime off the machine parts, retooling this and that from their salvage, and beginning blueprints for the designs for the pylons for the nacelles of the jet engines, interspersed with breaks for rest, meals, and general story-sharing and laughter, with no small amount of metaphorical poking and prodding from Nat, grinning broadly and trying to get out of the others what they might have in store for her for her birthday next week! The goblins were hard at work on their own racer, working frantically, and the easy, confident sounds of good times being had by the women were worrying them. It was clear that, come race day, their hands were going to be quite full!

[Natasha Ebonlocke]

(Note: The following post includes lore written by Blizzard about a tumultuous time in Azeroth’s history, the War of the Three Hammers. This lore was written by Blizzard, and I take no credit for the story I include in this post!)

September the First

Sitting out on the veranda on the back of the House-On-The-Spire was always a pleasant thing to do. Suncrawlers, collected from the nearby Krasarang Wilds, flitted about, the little insects glowing like Winter Veil Lights. Indeed, that’s why they were brought here the previous Winter Veil, an addition to a series of planters with various flora bedecking the railing all around the veranda by Celeste to add to the festiveness of the house for the season. Adding to the ambience were the South Seas, extending southward beyond the spire as far as the eye could see, their waves heard gently crashing against the base of the spire where it protruded from the water, spanning much of the entry – protected also by sandbars from the roughest of the waves and the largest of the sea creatures – to Turtle Bay, and, subsequently, Turtle Beach. The smell of the salt sea air was different here from the last couple of weeks spent in the Thousand Needles, where the salt sea air was somehow hot, dry, and dusty. Here, though it was humid, there was a rich smell of damp, fertile earth and dense vegetation from the nearby jungle. It was home.

Nat sat on the veranda now with a steaming mug of hot coffee on the little outdoor end table to her right, which was flanked by her cherrywood quill case on one side and her inkwell of purple ink on the other. Her diary lay open in her lap, her feet drawn up into her chair with her knees raised in order to prop it up. In her hand was her ravenfeather quill as she flipped to the next blank page in her diary. Dordy was alternately curled up into a ball and dozing, or else wandering the veranda, sniffing here and there, or sitting to watch the suncrawlers in their planters and the brightly-colored frogs in the swamp pond. Next to her, Celeste sat in her own chair, poring over blueprints of the C.O.M.P.A.S.S., making a few final notes in the margins, which, when Nat looked, also included doodles. Smiling fondly, she reviewed the doodles from her seat that she knew she’d find entertaining. A few short doodles here and there of sailboats, a checkered flag at a finish line, and the odd fish and sea turtle bedecked much of the margins, though there were a few more detailed doodles. A mechagnome was depicted riding a rocket with a sail. Dordy was on another, aviator goggles on, his tongue lolling out and flapping in the wind as he piloted a dog biscuit with a sail that had a great flame belching out from behind it. In yet another, a goblin was cartwheeling through the air, seemingly just blown up a stick of dynamite with a sail he’d been piloting. Stifling a giggle, Finding it, she dipped her quill into her inkwell, tapped off the excess, and set to work.

Dear diary,

IT’S MY BIRTHDAY WEEK! WOOHOO!

I had an awesome birthday yesterday, too! Celeste brought me back to the spire (we’ll be returning to Thousand Needles on Monday to finish preparing the C.O.M.P.A.S.S. for the race, and then actually race it!) so she could do stuffs for my birthday!

Arriving early in the afternoon, Celeste proposed a bit of fishing. I soon discovered it was mostly a pretext on Celeste’s part to be alone together, as we didn't take the Wave Dancer, but instead stayed close together on one of the conjured icebergs she used to take me fishing on in Turtle Bay. More cuddling was done than fishing, though we did end up catching a salmon for dinner! Celeste directed the iceberg a bit further out so that we could look at the place they chose to call home. The bay with the Angler's Wharf and our home we built ourselves, way, waaayyyy up on the spire!

I enjoyed the fishing and cuddling on the iceberg quite a bit. We sat there and recounted many memories we made while sitting on icebergs here over the last couple of years. Funny stories from here and elsewhere were shared as we fished and cuddled. At one point, I even got to sit back and admire Celeste's fishing prowess as she managed to wrangle the aforementioned big ol' salmon for our dinner!

I enjoyed being home, too. Much as I was excited and happy to be in Thousand Needles preparing for the big race, I felt a massive surge of warmth and fondness to be home with Celeste, looking around and seeing Turtle Bay, Turtle Beach, the darkness of Narsong Trench below us in the middle of the bay, and, of course, the little stilt village of Angler's Wharf next to our house high, high on the rock spire.

After fishing and cuddling and storytelling was done, Celeste took me back up to our home and cooked me dinner while I sat out on the veranda – where I am now, actually! It was delicious! Salmon baked in a crust stuffed with lemon and hot peppers! YUM!

"Here you go," she said, giving me a cool glass of wine. "So, Dordy and I have a bit of a surprise for you. We thought about what you'd like for your birthday and we ended up with... well, you'll see. Come on boy, come here!" Celeste motioned Dordy forward, and I could hear the now-familiar sound of tinkling bells. The mystery of the bell on a cloth I’d been hearing during the week in Thousand Needles was finally about to be revealed! Dordy's tail wagged furiously, and he yipped a few times as he came to stand right next to Celeste, facing Nat. On his front paws, Celeste had attached a tiny bell. She calmed the pup down, then made an up and down gesture with her hands, on a steady rhythm. Dordy watched her closely, then started raising and lowering each of his front paws in turn, the bells sounding out a (somewhat) steady beat with the tinkling bells. It was sooooo adorable! Celeste grinned and produced a harmonica from a pocket. She kept raising and lowering her own feet, probably to keep Dordy concentrated on the correct beat. Then she did something that moved my heart in ways words on paper simply cannot describe. She and Dordy sang me a song they’d made up a routine for, just for me! It went like this:

We made a song a song for you

Our beloved Nat, we love you true

You make our days bright and shiny

You’re all we need to be truly happy

Dordy says thanks for all the food

You always brighten his mood!

He tried real hard to learn this song

But can’t keep the beat for too long!

I thought about making changes to the spire

To make it taller, to make it go higher

I don’t need to reach for the sky, that’s clear

Because I have my stars and moon right here!

So happy birthday Nat, we love you true

We couldn’t be this happy without you

You’re lots of fun and really amazing

And even prettier when you’re blushing!

AAAAWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!

Celeste sang and paused at unexpected moments to play a few notes on her harmonica. Dordy did his best, but his rhythm faltered about halfway as he simply got excited and started yipping along with Celeste, which nearly drowned out his adorable little bell. And then, when the song was over, Celeste laughed and made a bow while Dordy jumped on my lap, eager to lick my face. Celeste writing this song and singing it to me with Dordy playing along with his bell was the most heartwarming, touching, moving thing I’d experienced in quite some time! I LOVE my little family! They’re worth more than all of Azeroth to me!

Before the song, just sitting in the cool of the evening on the veranda amidst the glowing suncrawlers and listening to the colorful, pretty little frogs in the swamp pond we built before Thousand Needles, I felt like life couldn't get any better.

I was wrong.

Life improved in that moment when Celeste came out with dinner and wine, and even more when Celeste brought Dordy out, mysterious bell and all, for dinner and a show! I laughed and giggled through the song, too full of smiles to take a bite just yet, eyes fixed on my two little loves performing for me, my heart surging with love and adoration at the cuteness overload, and then, when the song ended and Dordy could contain himself no longer, tears of joy emerged from my eyes, and I snuggled in the face-licking Dordy as well as pulling Celeste in for a great, big family group hug, in which all the words I didn't know how to say in that moment were said instead with hugs, happy tears, and kisses. Finally, I was able to think of something to say. It's obvious, perhaps, but it was something!

"Thank you so much, Celeste and Dordy!" I hiccupped. "I love you both so, so very much! This is SUCH an incredible birthday!"

The rest of the week had been good, too! I came back to the barge in Thousand Needles from work Sunday night to Celeste having cooked up one of her uncle Rugnar’s old favorite recipes: Crispy Scorpid Claws. Using more of the same spices from Tanaris for the turtle soup, Celeste roasted the scorpid claws over a fire, shelled the cooked meat then gently lacquered them with a mix of Feralas honey and Tanaris spices. The result was a savory, sticky food spiked on skewers. The night before that had been turtle soup, fresh-made from a hunt Celeste had made earlier in the day. THAT soup was accompanied by a hilarious story in which Celeste, Penny, and Dordy had been in a food fight during lunch on the Speedbarge that the goblins we’re racing had started by hurling first insults, then, eventually, food… food that had splattered all over Celeste’s fishing hat! BIIIIIIIIIG MISTAKE! Celeste and Penny had pelted the goblins like crazy with the Speedbarge’s food, Dordy had given chase, causing goblins to scatter in every direction, and he’d even started a fire when a blanket had been thrown over him to capture him, as his fire protection spells had been in need of a refresh in that moment, and I’d come home to a smoke plume rising from the barge later that night from the spot he’d scorched and left smoldering! OOPS!

We did name the speedboat racer we’re building in the Thousand Needles, too! The speedboat is now know as the COM.P.A.S.S., or the COMpetition Penny-Actuated Supercharged Skimmer! As written before over the course of previous diary entries, it’s built from the salvaged chassis of a racer found at the bottom of the basin in the Thousand Needles' flooded gnome/goblin racetrack combined with another racer pried from the cliff walls there that possessed two jet engines. Celeste salvaged the checkered flag banner that used to mark the finish line and is using it as wings to make it skim over the waves with even less drag than it already would have as designed! As an anti-theft precaution, the racer is built not only too small for anyone but someone the size of the Mechagnome ours from previous diary entries over the last several months, Penelope “Penny” Boltbucket, but its engines can also only be actuated by her, using a special tool built into her mechanical hands. Nicknamed the Penny Pincher as a play on words (due to it not only having been built for free by using salvaged components -- hence pinching pennies -- it also is small enough to pinch even little Penny, who fits in quite snugly).

Then, during the week, the aforementioned mystery bell and Dordy! I’d awakened early one morning to the faint sound of a bell, and the rhythmic stepping of feet, with Celeste encouraging Dordy to do something and praising him. THAT had ended with Dordy rushing to my camp bed on the barge and dropping dried turtle meat next to my head and licking my face like crazy. A few other times, I heard the same sounds, and, once, Dordy had come running by with a cute little bell sewn onto a little strip of cloth. Celeste was rather evasive when I asked her about it, but, knowing and trusting Celeste, I didn’t pursue it further. I figured I’d find out when she was ready to show or tell me what it was… and boy, did I! That SONG! That DORDY DANCE AND BELL! I still just… just… AAAWWWWW!

And that wasn’t all to my birthday, either… Tuesday was BIRTHDAY PARTY DEATHROLLS! Soooo many of my friends came to play! It was me, my bestie Nah, my old buddy Grim, my old buddy Mags, the Lightforged Draenei mage in our company, Aedia, nicknamed Star, and our new friend Val! We played in Binan Brew and Stew, the little inn in Binan Village in Kun-Lai Summit, Pandaria. We sat at the gaming table, where the dice and card table is all set up! It was neat!

The game was super fun, too! It started off with a bit of athletics. Val, athletic brawling champion that she is, held a handstand for a whole round! She flipped into and out of it, as well. I wish I could do that! I’d be just as likely to fall down, roll off the table, roll out the back door, roll off the back deck, and roll right into the lake! Nah did a bit of dangling from the balcony on another Dare, too… another thing I wish I could do! I’d likely just fall into a table and crash right through it! Then there were Dares for two people who were going to be coming in a bit late. I Dared Star to go up to Grim when he comes in, and, without warning, without context, walk up to him as he comes in the door, ruffle his hair, tell him he’s the best turtle-man she’s ever met, boop his nose, and then moo at him like a cow! Boy, was he confused when he came in! HA! Mags came in a little later down the road, and I had a greeting Dare for her too… I had Grim go up to her when she comes in through the door, kneel before her, swear your undying fealty to her, call her Queen, and vow to always be there to give her gummi wyrms (Mags LOVES gummi wyrms!), later, when she got there. Then there was a Dare in which Star AND Nah – now done with her balcony-dangling Dare and back with us – to go up on Val’s table and act out a skit in which they, a pair of heroic murloc adventurers, were there to rescue Val from an evil Tortollen that had captured and imprisoned her. It was soooo silly! By the end of the silliness, Val stated that she’d rather remain imprisoned by the Tortollen and be tortured. HA! Then there was one in which Nah and I got Dared by Val to take a running leap out the back door and into the lake. My bestie knows me well enough I’d be just as likely, if I try to run like that, to slam right into the door frame as go through it, so she YOINKED me up and ran while carrying me, which was REALLY FAST! Out the back door we went, and right into the lake! SPLASH! Oh gosh, I was wearing a dress, too, so swimming back was awkward as all heck! I had a change of dry clothes, but my hair was damp for the rest of the game! Then Val had a Dare for Star that made me realize something, something Mags herself even restated later, when she had gotten there… every time we come to Binan Village for Deathrolls, dating back to over a year ago when we’d played with our old friend Sansam that used to come to games, when she’d Dared me to eat that boiled silkworm pupa soaked in green tea (plus feed the rest of it, bite by bite, that I couldn’t eat, to the rest of the table), as well as when Cari and Maya had been Daring each other to eat gross things… every time we come here to play Deathrolls, someone ends up eating something icky and throwing up! I puked, Maya puked, Nah puked, Cari puked, everyone puked and had a great time! It’s practically tradition here now! This time, it was Val ordering a hot bowl of carrot soup, having Star use her mage frost powers to chill the soup, then eat it with the cold, soggy carrots. Star looked like on the verge of puking the rest of the night, especially after Nah, remembering the boiled silkworm pupa from last year, put one in a cup of tea and Dared Star to chug it all down in one hit. You could SEE the moment in which that slimy silkworm pupa slid down her gullet. ICKYYYYYY! Maybe we should use Binan Village as a game site sparingly! It wasn’t all nasty Dares, though, just those two! So the rest of the Dares were more calm, stuff like Nah barking at me every time I said “gosh” for the next three rounds. Needless to say, Nah did a LOT of barking! HA! Then Grim came in, and got the aforementioned greeting Dare from Star, which left him at a loss for words as he stood there. Then he started looking around at us, and Nah was like, “Come have a seat! Lotta lovely ladies lounging here! Heh… sounds like a tongue twister, that.” So I gave it a try, saying it three times fast. “Lotta lovely ladies lounging! Lotta lovely lady louning! Lounylounylounylouny!” Boy, did I ever mess THAT one up! HA! Nah and Grim arm wrestled. Nah took him by surprise the first round, slamming his hand to the table almost immediately, but then, best two out of three, Grim got Nah the next two rounds! He’s so strong! Then Mags came in, and it was time for Grim’s greeting Dare. Grim, remembering his Dare, got up and went to her, kneeled before her at the door as she came in, and said, “Good evening, your grace. I pledge my unwavering fleary to you. And I promise not to forget to give you gummi wyrms.” Well, not only was Mags, holding Thyzz (her favorite plushie, a giraffe!), TOTALLY confused, but the whole Deathrolls table busted out laughing! Mags bapped Grim on the head with Thyzz and was like, “What’s a flee-ree?” and I was like, “FEALTY, Grimmie, FEALTY!” Grim got to his feet, looking awkward, and was like, “Uhhh, yeah, fealty. And fleary. I will get back to you on what fleary is once I give it a definition.” HA! Nah, knowing Mags, produced a back of gummi wyrms from her pack, passing them quietly to me, which I passed along to Grim, who was seated next to me, as surreptitiously as I could. Grim took them and brought them out as though fulfilling his oath. That sure made Mags happy! She immediately opened them up and started eating one. Then she noticed the cold carrot soup Star had been trying to force down, putting two and two together and, realizing (as I wrote before) that every time we come here, someone is eating something gross, she decided to add her own bit of grossness to the Dare. She put gummi wyrms in the soup! But, as it became increasingly evident Star would not be able to finish it, Grim got Dared to work on it. He was like, “Great, now I’m eating cold-*ss soggy carrot soup with gummi wyrms in it. I am not happy.” Then after that, Nah got Dared to eat the last bit of it by Grim, who put even more gummi wyrms in it! Boy, that soup was sure getting around! I’m just glad Nah finished it before I could get Dared to eat it! Meanwhile, Grim got Dared to eat some of Nah’s ornamental hair leaves, Nah got Dared to demonstrate to Grim what a Thyzz was (as he had asked what the heck one even was earlier), complete with demonstration of a Thyzz by crawling around on all fours and acting like a giraffe, even eating one of her own hair leaves herself! Binan Village Deathrolls! HA! Mags got Dared by Nah to do a song and dance number with Thyzz, so Mags made Thyzz dance along the table while she sang. The song was like, “Me and Thyzz got a story for you to learn. All about our favorite color gummi wyrm! My favorite is lemon, I like yellow! Thyzz likes red, he is a strawberry fellow! Elsa likes red too, she is wild! One time a beggar came by for some coin, instead I gave them wyrms to enjoy! I dunno their favorite color, they were blind. I think they enjoy every wyrm kind!” HA! All that on the fly, too! Elsa is Mags’ girlfriend, by the way. They’ve been together for like a year! Then I had a Dare for Grim in which he had to get two full mugs of ale from the bartender, put one on his head, and let Nah throw the other full mug of ale at it to try and knock it off without hitting Grim in the face. However, Grim, not wanting to waste perfectly good ale, ordered two more empty mugs, bringing one to his crush, Nah, and keeping the other for himself to drink. He used the two empty mugs for the Dare. HA! Nah, of course, being athletic as she is, knocked the mug off Grim’s head without issue. Mags Dared Nah to paint a picture of Thyzz with her purple paint, using Grim’s ponytail as a brush. It turned out pretty good, but Grim’s ponytail ended up being dried together with purple paint! Oh gosh! Then she Dared Grim to paint a picture of Nah, but with a regular paintbrush. It turned out to be vaguely recognizable as a short-haired, sassy-looking Kaldorei! Ha! Then, a third song this week, and the first birthday song I’d gotten. Nah Dared Mags to sing a birthday song to me, but not the regular birthday song. Since she’d done so well improvising the last song, she had to improvise this one too! So Mags sang, “Happy birthday to Nat! Hostess of Deathrolls and all that! She is the most… nice! She rolls the best dice! She is another year older! Someone Dared Star’s soup colder! Even Thyzz says happy B-day! Hip-hip-hoo-ray!” Everyone laughed and smiled; it was such a cute little song! Then Mags Dared Grim to outsource a birthday cake for me. Grim got up and asked at the bar, but, though they were a bar and grill, they were not a bakery! So he asked around at other Pandaren, and no one baked cakes there that he was asking, so he started running around outside, yelling at the top of his lungs, “HEY! ANY OF YOU BEARS HAVE CAKE?!” HAHAHA! Finally, we hear him over the communicator, asking for a summon back… he’d gone all the way to a cake baker he knows all the way in NORTHREND DALARAN! Portal travel these days! When he returned, he had not one, but TWO cakes! One huge chocolate one, and one lovely pink one. The cake Dares ensued, of course, with me Daring Mags to fingerpaint Grim’s face with icing. Mags used chocolate icing to draw cat whiskers on Grim’s face, and used pink to make his nose pink. Grim turned and got close to my face and was like, “Meow!” Ha! Then Grim was in Nah’s lap feeding her cake, with Nah smirking and snickering as she does. I love my Bestie! But it turns out the gross eating Dares we seem to tend to do while in Binan Village STILL weren’t done – Star got to Dare me, and she brought me green curry fish, roasted fish jerky, pounded rice cake, and roasted bean buns, all stirred into a bowl. ICKY! I had to eat it as fast as possible to get it over with as fast as possible, but at least, as I finished, I was able to then blow out the birthday candles on my birthday cake and get rid of the taste with chocolate and strawberry cakes! YUMMY! Then I cut slices of both cake for everyone and passed them around! They loved it! Mags put gummi wyrms on hers, of course! Then Nah finally had the first Truth of the night full of Dares… A Truth from Mags to tell me why I’m her Bestie! Awww! What a birthday present! And Nah was like, “Bestie Natasha, you're my Bestie because you gave me hope in dark times; because you smiled when I was frowning; because you and I have been through so much together that we're thick as thieves, as it were. And I wanna let you know that I'll always have your back, Bestie, through it all.” AWWWW! I love my bestie! Everyone got all moved by the moment; even Grim was smiling around softly at us! By this point, it was getting late, so we did the MILLION-DIE ROLL! Rolling out of a million to start the round, instead of one hundred, as we often do for the final round of the evening. And, not wanting to exclude anyone for the final round, I decided that all would participate in this Dare! I got to Dare Star for this one, but, as I decided all would participate, Star was simply the one to kick off the beginning of this Dare: One-Word Story! It’s an old game in which you go around the group to tell a story, each contributing just one word that follows the word spoken by the person that preceded them. It often turns out to be the most hilarious story, and this one was no different! Everyone was pounding the table in laughter before we even made it halfway through! Then, when it was over, since I was writing it all down as we went along, I just HAD to pick it up and read the whole thing to the group. And it went like THIS: “The morning of the thirty-first was fun! There was multiple stinky bubbly farts floating through the air until hippos magically sneezed pigs. Then they escaped prison! Grim chased them across Stormwind! But they stopped said, "Oink!" So Grim decided to let the hippos eat the pigs. After that, Grim smashed the gates with his giant breadstick that smelled like Nah's perfume. Hippos are not mean people. They just like sneezing and farting pigs. Stinky poo-poo piglets flow smoothly from the backside. However, sometimes they stick their anuses where sesame seeds grow. But, gardeners flatten the land with hippos. Specifically, giant hippos. Grim managed to wrangle all with his trusty breadstick. Have you seen Grim and his breadstick? It's huge! Ginormous! After, hippos farted profusely, sang dwarven drunkards in silk lingerie tailored specifically for bearded wenches. Natasha blushed while farting again. This stinky poo-poo! People often wonder if Natasha sometimes farts hippos that sneeze pigs! The end.” HAHAHA! What an absurd story! I guess it turns out the plot twist to this story was that the pig-sneezing hippos were my fault all along! HA! After that, we hung out just a little bit longer, but, with everyone starting to get sleepy (it was past midnight by this point in time), everyone went home. Gosh, what a birthday Deathrolls game night! I LOVE Deathrolls! WOO!

Then, last night, after my ADORABLE birthday dinner and show with Celeste, once she and Dordy settled down for the night, I had my weekly Whitewind Company adventure! It was neat! We had decided the previous week, through a poll, that we’d follow Tess’s lead next (the details of how we got this lead being written in last week’s entry, I believe), which was something about a piece being mentioned as getting enchanted at the strongest, most powerful altar in the Blasted Lands. So, me, my bestie Nah, Grim, Tess, and our newly-returned buddy Gizwell Boltanchor, the luckiest gnome I’ve ever met! He believes that luck is always on his side, and I gotta say, I’m rather convinced of the same! Anyway, we met up at Nethergarde Keep and set out from there, fanning out across the skies to look for an altar that might match Tess’s description from her book. We knew there was an Altar of Storms, an orcish magical altar, in the Blasted Lands somewhere, so we were going to try to find it, but then, Giz and Nah both found altars! We flew to Giz first. He’d found one that absolutely SEETHED with fel magic. It had skulls piled up high all around it, and the gravelly land around it was all ash-grey and dead. There were fel runes inscribed into everything! Giz, lucky as he is, knelt down and found a few gold coins in the gravel! Then he found a grimoire of summoning, a book that tells how to summon fel minions. He gave it to me for safe-keeping, not minding (as many folks do) that I practice warlock magics. Tucked inside the front cover was a map! It showed the western Blasted Lands, including the other altar that Nah said she’d found, with stick figures penciled in around little nooks and crannies all around it. Apparently, whomever had used this altar was spying on the other one! Oh gosh! Finding nothing else, we proceeded on to the other altar.

As it turns out, Nah had found the Altar of Storms we were looking for! We looked around, using mundane and arcane as our investigative techniques. There were five smaller altars built around the main altar, which was as big as a small house itself, with a towering statue of a hooded figure standing behind the back altar (which Giz’s altar had had as well). Investigating further, Nah detected faint ley lines running from the back altar to the front two, which Tess and Giz had reported as being less potent in terms of detectable fel magic. Nah felt like the two altars, used together, would do something with the altar in the back by the giant statue. I suggested she and Giz try activating the altars, but Giz said he had a lucky feeling about Tess doing it instead of himself. Turns out, he was right! It’s so handy having him around! Tess and Nah found a skull pattern etched into their altars, with sockets for the candles that were placed all over the altar to be held. Filling the sockets, the candles all WHOOSHED into flame! How spooky! The light they gave off illuminated a pattern on both altars of a left hand… both matching the size and shape of a female Kaldorei, which, of course, Tess and Nah both are! Gizwell’s lucky feeling was right! Tess placed her hand on her altar’s hand pattern, but nothing happened. Nah tried the same, with the same result. We thought a moment, then realized, since the two altars seem to activate the rear one, maybe they should both try simultaneously. They did, and, sure enough, there was a whoosh of dark magic at the main one that startled us enough to turn around and look… and there, at the altar, was the ghost of a Quel’dorei noblewoman, and her two bodyguards, I suppose, which were a Quel’dorei spellblade (essentially an armored battlemage of sorts, used heavily by the Quel’dorei during the Third War), and a Quel’dorei footman! It was so spooky!

We didn’t know whether to attack or not, but the spellblade and the footman, though their weapons were drawn, were merely taking up a defensive position around the ghost elf woman, and not charging at us. Giz felt lucky about the idea of trying to charm the woman, so he hit her with a string of articulate compliments about her beauty that had her at a loss for words. It worked! She cooperated! She told us she was, indeed, the elf that had brought the plate armor suit of Princess Ariel Sunstrider to this altar, though the enchantment hadn’t worked, and she couldn’t remember why. She felt like there was a half of her missing. She later went on to say that the altar there hadn’t been strong enough; that they’d had to use ANOTHER altar up north, near Blackrock Mountains. She also let slip that this had been three hundred years ago. Piecing bits and pieces together, I realized she was talking about a time period that included the War of the Three Hammers!

This was a war in which, three hundred years ago, the Bronzebeard, Wildhammer, and Dark Iron dwarf clans had lived together in Ironforge, with the Dark Irons living deep, deep below Ironforge’s main halls, where the Bronzebeards lived, and the Wildhammers at lived at, or just below, the surface. The war broke out when a very old dwarven king had died, and the three clans had vied for the throne. The Bronzebeards, of course, won, and the Wildhammers and Dark Irons had been driven out. The Wildhammers went north and eventually founded Grim Batol in what is now the Twilight Highlands, and the Dark Irons delved deep into Blackrock Mountain. Emperor Thaurissan of the Dark Iron clan, wanting revenge, not to mention still wanting the throne of Ironforge, had summoned Ragnaros, the lord of the fire elementals, who was FAR too powerful for Thaurissan to control. Ragnaros basically blew up the northern two-thirds or so of the Redridge Mountains, which became the Burning Steppes to the north of Blackrock Mountain, and the Searing Gorge to its south. Ragnaros went on to enslave the Dark Iron dwarves, and there they were for the next few centuries, until Ragnaros’ avatar here on Azeroth was defeated by adventurers, and he was forced back into his own elemental plane, the Firelands.

Slave or no, Thaurissan still set out for Ironforge with an army, while his wife, Modgud, possessing a dagger infused with incredibly powerful void magic to the point of it being its own sentient, intelligent entity, went north with her own army to attack Grim Batol. Long story short, both Dark Iron armies were defeated, and the Dark Irons retreated into Blackrock Mountain, residing there to this day, nursing their hatred for the other clans and any other people deeply. Ironforge still thrives, of course, though Modgud’s dagger’s entity had haunted Grim Batol so severely with Faceless Ones and void shadows that it was terrible enough to drive the Wildhammers from it forever.

There are a lot more details to the story, but it would take quite a bit to write! So, fixating on our Whitewind story…

Nah, putting two and two together, realized when the ghost woman mentioned feeling like she was missing half of herself, and also that she had mentioned another altar near Blackrock Mountain being needed for enough power to enchant the armor to be as stimulating as it naturally was when Princess Ariel wore it, that she must mean the altar to the north must also be activated. From there, we decided that Tess and Nah, as their hands fit the altars they were at, would remain in place while Giz, Grim, and I flew north to the other Altar of Storms to try and activate it.

Sure enough, it was arranged the same as the one in the Blasted Lands! Grim and I placed the candles in the sockets in the skull patterns there, just like Tess and Nah had in the Blasted Lands, and, just like theirs did, our candles lit up too! I could see a handprint roughly the size and shape of my left, but Grim got overpowered by a smell of sulfur and had to move away quickly before he threw up or something. Giz moved into place, and found that the light was illuminating a handprint the size and shape of his left, as well! Putting our hands on at the same time, we got the same result as Tess and Nah… the ghostly elf woman, her spellblade guard, and her footman guard! With both altars activated, the ghost elf woman had enough of her spirit drawn forth to remember what had happened. Apparently, the Dark Irons had suddenly charged out of the neighboring Blackrock Mountain and attacked after the elves had finally succeeded in enchanting the armor to be as potently stimulating to war as it had naturally been when Princess Ariel Sunstrider wore it! The bad news was, the Dark Irons had succeeded in stealing a piece… Tess’s book hadn’t revealed which piece it was, or even that the Dark Irons had attacked, but now it was revealed by the ghostly elf woman that the legguards had been spirited away!

We got in contact with everyone over the comms, trying to figure out our next step. The Dark Irons had, according to the elf, quickly discovered the legguards’ magical power, and that particular battalion had gone with Thaurissan into Ironforge to try and attack there. We thanked the elf woman, and deactivated the altars by extinguishing the candles, sending her and her guards back to the peace of their eternal rest, and headed to Ironforge.

Landing in The Commons in Ironforge to regroup, it was decided that we’d head to the throne room to seek audience with the Council of Three Hammers – three hundred years after the war, the council had been formed with leaders from all three clans, working in relative harmony together to govern all three clans for the first time in over three centuries! They granted us audience, and told us that the Dark Irons had lived deep, deep below the main city, as we knew, and also that some of the Dark Irons had gotten back in there during the attack. The doorway to Old Ironforge, as it’s now called, was open, right there in the throne room! We went down the ramp, descending from the well-kept halls of the main part of the city and into tunnels that were much more run-down and filled with spiderwebs.

Down and down and down the tunnels wound, until we reached a vast cavern that seemed to be the size of a small mountain itself! High, high above us was the ceiling, and far, far below us was a lake of molten, fiery magma, enough to light the cavern without need for torches! The dwarf-made stone ramp extended through the air across the cavern, reaching a pillar of rock in the center that allowed another spiral down, down, down to the bottom, very close to the magma. I felt like I was gonna belt or something! It was SO hot there, way hotter than even the Great Force in the center of the main part of the city!

We found a dwarf there, too, deeply immersed in a book on the floor that he was reading while on all fours, a book written in dwarven runes. He was comparing runes on a huge door there to the runes in the book, muttering to himself. It turns out he was investigating claims he refused to believe, made by one of his cousins, that his father was descended from Dark Irons, and he was trying to disprove him by proving his family’s markings were on none of the old residences down here. But, he was willing to help us out, too! He said that there had, indeed, been a particularly driven detachment of Dark Irons, according to reliable historical sources, that had been there in the attack Thaurissan had made when he returned to Ironforge for the second battle, though they’d arrived too late to have enough effect, even with what some claim to have been a magical piece of elven armor in their possession that drove the dwarves to fight with passion. Beating a hasty retreat, the dwarves were last heard to have said they’d go and catch up to Modgud and attempt to help that attack instead. We thanked the dwarf as he returned to his project and went back up to the Great Forge. Reviewing the night, we figured our next stop would be Slabchisel’s Survey in the Wetlands, the closest Alliance camp to Grim Batol in the Twilight Highlands. We’d head up the old road from there and into Grim Batol itself, and, if the uppermost levels aren’t still too haunted, we’d investigate. Of course, it’s also likely that the Dark Irons with the legguards were caught away from the army on their way to it, or were overrun during Modgud’s retreat, and the legguards wouldn’t be in Grim Batol at all. We’ll see what we can see when we reconvene next week! I can’t wait to see what happens next!

In the meantime, more resting up at home after two weeks of working on diving, salvaging, and engineering in the Thousand Needles is in order, so I’m gonna go and do that! Gosh, what a great birthday week I’ve had! I can’t wait to see how the race goes next week, but I’m also enjoying the heck out of being home again and resting up from our work, too! This has been a super amazing birthday week, and I’m gonna go enjoy it some more! YAY!

Nat spent the rest of the final day of minication with Celeste and Dordy, resting up lounging around the house and talking, having lunch with Other Nat in Angler’s Wharf, where they had the first giant mantis shrimp tacos they’d had in a long time, then spent the afternoon fishing some more on another of Celeste’s icebergs, just enjoying each other’s company as Dordy lounged around on the iceberg until fish were caught, at which point he’d invariably dart around the little iceberg yip-yip-yipping madly, his tail wagging a hundred miles an hour, and, once, diving right into the bay and throwing up a huge steam cloud! Nat had to dive in after him to put him back on the iceberg while Celeste controlled it to steer it after them.

After a good laugh, they resumed their fishing. Fishing for sport, mostly, though dinner was caught by Nat this time, hooking another salmon, which was baked in lemon pepper juice and lemon pepper seasoning, providing a tasty, juicy meal that included buttered garlic bread and a tasty Pandaren brew, the first of those they’d had in a couple of weeks as well. With their bellies full, they retired to the sitting room, reading quietly together while sharing the couch until they were sleepy enough for bed. It was a great way to end the minication, and a great way to end the last day off of Nat’s birthday week. Nat didn’t know what fun and adventure next week might bring, what with the boat race, Deathrolls, and the weekly Whitewind Company adventure to look forward to, and she couldn’t wait to find out!

[Natasha Ebonlocke]

September the Eighth

The endless expanse of blue stretched on into infinity, though it was dotted with the odd cloud. In Pandaria, as anywhere else, these clouds took shape when stared at long enough. Here, a cloud shaped like a horse. Another like a tree. That one off to the right could have been the flagship of a whole fleet of Kul Tiran ships! Further down, a bear lumbered along, snuffling at the ground for roots and grubs. Or was it a boar, doing the same? Tilting one’s head back, there was what seemed to be a duskrose, the purple rose native to Duskwood.

Nat’s favorite was the one that looked just like Dordy the molten corgi, the elongated body of the cloud reared back on hind legs at a forty-five-degree angle from the ground, head held high, barking his happy feelings to the world. Pointing this one out to Celeste as they cuddled, Dordy perked his head up from between them, hearing his name and wagging his tail. Nat smiled, giving him scritches behind the ears, which helped him settle back in. Celeste pointed out one that looked like a fish nibbling at bait on a hook. Of course she’d notice one like that! The strange thing was, this one seemed to be wearing Celeste’s wide-brimmed fishing hat!

Visible from here were also Anglers Wharf, Turtle Beach, and Turtle Bay, though from their perch here, the little family were facing up at the sky instead. The breeze, slightly stronger than usual today, tended to blow strongly enough at times to cause a gentle swinging back and forth upon their new furniture.

Eventually, their talk settled into silence, and, after a while of just quietly enjoying their company, the two women reached for books they’d brought with them, and Dordy fell asleep. Celeste reached to read a little more in an Explorer’s League journal her uncle Rugnar had been kind enough to lend her. Nat, meanwhile, had her diary. With their two little folding camping tables set up on either side of them, Nat had a mug of coffee beside her opened cherrywood quill case and her inkwell of purple ink uncapped next to that. With her ravenfeather quill in her hand, she dipped it for a bit of ink, tapped off the excess, and began to write.

Dear diary,

I’m in a HAMMOCK!

I came home from work Friday to discover a whole new stack of bamboo sitting in the workshop downstairs. All Celeste would tell me, with a grin, is that she planned on “giving me the sky.” She’s so SWEET! But what could it be?! The next day, when I came home, I found out! It was a HAMMOCK! Celeste gave me the sky by setting it up below the veranda with a full view of the sky and the bay, and we’re laying in it right now! It’s like my birthday continued right into the weekend! Although I’m sure this will be for all of us, despite Celeste saying she was giving me the sky. It’s a family hammock, and it’s so COMFY! Celeste is tooooooo good to me!

It’s been quiet in the hammock this morning, too, just reading and sipping coffee with Celeste, with Dordy snoozing in between us, or else just gazing up at the sky and finding shapes in the clouds. It’s been really neat!

It’s been quite the last couple of days, too. My bestie Nah has needed peace and quiet and friends as she goes through some tough family stuff, so my old buddy Grim and I have hung out with her instead of going to Deathrolls and the Whitewind Company adventure this week. But this week wasn’t completely without adventure!

Monday was RACE DAY! It was time for Penny to show that goblin Grux what the COMPASS could do!

Celeste, Dordy, and I arrived at the barge early in the morning to finish prepping Penny for her upcoming race. I went to get coffee and breakfast going for us (including Penny) while she and Penny inspected the skimmer.

Penny had been quite busy while we were away! The fuselage, assembled as well as I could get it, was polished to a bright finish. The twin engines in front looked brand new, and the wings on each side cut into the shape or bat or dragon wings instead of the square-cut configuration Celeste had initially done. That was really cool! The design, Penny said, allowed for better control during sharp turns, something Penny noticed was lacking during a test run she had done under cover of darkness of a heavily cloudy night a few nights before.

Celeste presented Penny with a special gift she had made: a turtle-shell helmet on which she had doodled flaming gears! There was a little extra of course: a range-finder built into the helmet and displayed in a pair of goggles that came with it. It showed how far anything Penny was looking at was. It was the same sort of sensor most drones used to not bump into every obstacle in their path. It would help Penny immensely to plan on how to avoid obstacles on the race!

Penny was as delighted at her new turtle shell helmet with flaming gears painted on and built-in range finder as the Celeste and I were to see the sleek, glimmering finished product Penny had spent the weekend working on. Penny donned the helmet immediately, fiddling with the range finder, oohing and aahing at its capabilities and functionality. She leaves it on, going next to point out special features to Celeste and I.

"See the positioning of the engines in front of the wings?" she squeaks. "Even the exhaust will get used! It's going to be directed just under the wings, providing a bit of a lift. It won't be enough to make the craft fly, per se, but it'll bring it a bit more out of the water, increasing the skimming effect! And the rudder's built and positioned to give a sharper turn, too! I've also augmented the ship with a pair of water cannons! If there is debris in the water, these twin tubes, with an intake below the water's surface but behind closed doors to prevent hydraulic drag, will suck in water, direct it up above the waterline, and out the front, where two more small doors are shut for now to prevent aerodynamic drag! The water will BLAST forward, knocking debris out of the way! Neat, eh?"

Penny beamed up at us proudly, her rangefinder telling her the faces of her friends are roughly three and a half feet above her.

“This race is totally hours!” Celeste said, punching the sky and causing Dordy to run around the barge and barking madly. “We have time for breakfast and then I’ll do a quick fly-by over the race course to see if there’s anything amiss.”

"NICE, Penny!" I cheered, agreeing with Celeste.

"Oh, there WAS something amiss, only just yesterday afternoon," grinned Penny, a mischievous grin on her face under the helm. "There was a camera dangling from a rocket overflying the barge that stopped to fly in circles while facing directly down. I took a piece of scrap metal I'd cut off with the welding torch -- I gotta install one of those in a finger! -- and chucked it up toward the camera. Unfortunately, I didn't do any damage at all to the camera... but the good news is, it ricocheted off the camera and grazed the rocket... which BLEW UP! KABLOOEI! Haaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaha! The whole rig dropped into the drink before the goblins could peek at the camera's pictures!"

Penny cackled maniacally at the memory, doubled over and slapping a knee. Recovering herself, she wipes a tear of laughter away and nods up at Celeste.

"Alright, be careful up there!"

“Water guns?” Celeste said upon further reflection of Penny’s water cannons she’d installed in the COMPASS as she headed toward the Flying Nosebleed, which she usually called the “FB” for short. “Huh, maybe I could put something like that on the MUTT in MAD mode… I’ll be back in a bit!”

Celeste climbed into the FB and turned on the engine. Soon she was off into the sky and circling the basin. Penny and I watched her go higher as she flew over the pirates, then dipped back down to fly low over the waters. At some point she seemed to linger over a pile of debris, studying it, then turned her machine and made a beeline to Grux’s barge. The FB practically dropped right on the barge and Celeste stormed out of the cockpit, gesturing in a clearly angry manner. Boy, was she peeved!

Penny and I, meanwhile, were clearly all for MAD water cannons! We chattered a bit about how it could be used from the already-in-place water pump and storage system, when suddenly, the hovering FB at a debris pile on the water abruptly zoomed over to Grux's barge and Celeste goes off on them!

"Oh gosh," I said as I watched. "I bet she must think the gobbos did that... and she's probably right!"

Penny agreed, and we watched to see what happened next...

Celeste and the goblins seem to argue for a while, then, without warning, there was a flash of fire from Celeste and then an explosion on the barge, though not a large one! Minutes later, Celeste returned with the FB and docked it next to the barge on its pontoons.

"Ohmigosh!" I said when she got back, wide-eyed as Penny. "Celeste! What happened?!”

“Damn goblins… no good for nothing cheating sacks of…” Celeste muttered as she moved from the FB to the barge. “A mine, they hid a mine in the debris! Probably would’ve forced Penny to move close to it and set it off. It looks like a low yield mine, probably just enough to slow our craft down or damage it lightly…. I specifically said these kinds of stunts were forbidden!” She paced as she spoke, shooting dark looks at the goblins putting out the fire on their barge in the distance. It was a peculiar aspect of Celeste that despite all the terrible things in her past, she still tended to trust people at their word. She had clearly seen this race as a fun adventure while the greedy goblins, as usual, had other ideas. “They said it wasn’t THEIR mine. Just an old one that probably floated in from the sea or left by the pirates. So I told them they probably didn’t need the other mines stacked under a tarp I saw them hastily cover them with! Of course they started arguing but I didn’t care about their lies so I exploded the stack…” She sighed and looked at Nat and Penny apologetically “I’m sorry I got you into this. I don’t want you getting hurt, Penny, over a stupid bet…”

Penny looked up at Celeste and crosses her arms, still proudly wearing her turtle shell helmet.

"No dirty goblin will be scaring ME out of the big race!" she proclaimed. "I just survived three whole pirate ships with CANNONS last week! Do they really think they can scare me off with a few firecrackers?! I'll show them where Penelope Cognelia Boltbucket comes from!"

I stifled a giggle at that, grinning and nodding at Celeste before turning back to Penny.

"Well, Penny," I said. "It's your choice! We won't ask you to risk your safety for this, but if it's you choosing it of your own accord, then that's entirely your prerogative."

"Good," Penny said. "That's settled. Shall we smoke these little worms?"

Penny’s attitude was infectious, and Celeste finally grinned and nodded. “Alright, yes. Nothing changes. We know our stuff, the COMPASS is ready, and nothing those goblins can try will work! Be careful Penny, okay? I saw those pirates getting worked up; I wouldn’t put it past Grux to have made a deal with them. They might interfere… Nat and I will go with you at the starting line to cheer you on. After the food fight on the barge, everyone was forbidden to roam freely around the basin during the race, so we’ll have separate observation posts than the goblins too.”

Celeste produced a crude map of the basin. It showed the starting line around the last “needle” at the end of the Thousand Needles canyon. The observation posts were on top of the needles with funny little doodles showing where the goblins and their own team would be watching (goblins with sharp teeth and Dordy on the other). The circuit then circled around the basin, keeping the giant Speedbarge largely in the middle. Celeste explained that the race was fairly straight forward, each craft needing to stay within the guide buoys at all time. The track came close to the three ships of pirates we had to dodge last week to salvage that racer out of the cliff, something added by the cartel to add more pow to the wow, apparently.

My worry was apparent all over my face, I’m sure, but Penny's determination was just as visible. She studied the map while listening intently to Celeste's explanation, arms still crossed, turtleshell helmet still on her head. She nodded at each explanation, remaining silent, soaking it all in. I admit I had my fingernails in her cheeks, digging deep without realizing it, gasping at the part that showed how close to the pirates Penny would be getting. If the pirates started anything, I noticed, we'd be on the very far end of the basin from Penny, unable to help...

“Those pirates will likely be the crunch,” Celeste was saying. “The COMPASS is fast and maneuverable beyond any racer seen here before. They are expecting a boat and so far haven’t seen our craft. That’ll be your advantage, Penny. Any traps they might have laid will likely be hidden in debris or lightly submerged. By the time they see the skimmer, it’ll be too late to change their plans. Only those pirates are able to adapt, which is why they will be your biggest challenge.”

She knelt down and place herself at eye-level with Penny. “You’re a great pilot, Penny-dear, and I’m confident in your abilities. Just remember that your safety is what we really care about, ok? If things get too dicey, just bug out. I’d rather lose this race than lose you.” Celeste smiled and reached her arms around Penny to hug her.

Penny's focused, determined look gave way to a warm, heartfelt smile as Celeste went from discussing tactics to expressing her care. She hugged Celeste back, giving a good, warm squeeze, then nodded as she released her friend.

"Those pirates are adaptable, but their cannons are slow. I'll pilot in an unpredictably erratic course so they can't fire ahead of me to hit the COMPASS. When I get close to the pirates, I have a few tricks up my sleeve I'll be surprising them -- and hopefully, our spectators! -- with."

Penny grinned up at Celeste and I, a confident, determined grin that was a far cry from the helpless look we'd first seen on Penny's face when she'd limped towards us with her backwards foot on Mechagon Isle several months ago. She was clearly ready!

“Alright, we should go and take our places,” Celeste said as she straightened up, her determined look returning to her face, as it did to Penny’s. “The starting line is on the Northeast side of the needle and finishes on the opposite side. Nat and I will fly up to our observation post to cheer you on, but we’ll be on the lookout for goblin tricks too. Wait until the last moment to bring the COMPASS around to the starting line. Good luck!” Celeste moved to the Flying Nosebleed, leaving Nat and Dordy to fly up in the MUTT.

"Thanks!" Penny said, adding with a grin, "See you under the checkered flag!"

Penny climbed into the COMPASS as I scooped up Dordy and puts his aviator goggles on, which of course got him excited and yipping, his tail going rapidly, as he knows aviators means flying, and flying means adventure!

"Okay, Dordy," I said excitedly, after having Blinked up into the cockpit of the MUTT and harnessing Dordy in. "I'll need your help getting the COMPASS off the barge's dry dock and into the water!" I had fun that! I took Dordy's front left paw and uses it to twist a few dials and shift a few levers, and soon enough, the MUTT was in the air, hovering over the racing boat, and the winch was descending to Penny, who clipped it onto the COMPASS. With a mechanical thumbs-up skyward, Penny indicated she's ready for airlift! Then, with Dordy's "help", I got Penny up and over the barge's privacy walls and into the water. Penny detached the winch, giving another thumbs-up, and I retracted the winch and flew off to our appointed rock spire, telling Dordy it's just like the one we live on, but smaller. Dordy turned to lick my face, recognizing the word "home," and not much else. He was too excited about the adventure to come!

Penny, meanwhile, piloted the tiny Penny Pincher (again, our nickname for the COMPASS) around a floating Tauren totem log near the finish line, waiting for some signal from Celeste so she can bring the COMPASS around to the starting line as directed.

There were a handful of goblins already in their team’s observation post, laughing and chatting as if the race was already won. Celeste and I chose to ignore them, though their attitude only confirmed Celeste’s suspicions that they had dastardly plans set in motion! Penny was already aware that she’d have to be careful though so there was little else to do to counter the goblins.

A single telescope was placed on our team’s observation area. The telescope was well-made and had varying degrees of magnification. Clearly, it was gnomish made! Looked like they had fans! Celeste walked to the end of the post and waved at the gnomes on the Speedbarge. She received cheers from the distant crowd. That was neat! The goblins, not to be overlooked also strutted to the side of their post and even launched a few fireworks as their own fans cheered. Dirty rotters!

A voicebox on the needle, echoing speakers on the barge, announced that the race was about to begin.

Celeste hastily fetched a small flag showing A flaming gear and waved it to indicate that Penny should come out and get to the starting line.

“The contenders for the race are asked to move to their starting positions!” a nasally voice said over the speakers. “Grux, the goblin champion, is already in place, his rocket-boat looking like it will make short work of whatever his opponents are going to bring up!” the announcer continued, clearly a goblin or pro-goblin.

At the starting line, Grux sat astride a typical goblin device, a long rocket, painted red, with a grinning rictus in front. It floated on a set of two wide, flat floaters, with another floater in front for balance. Two vertical fins extended from the top and bottom of the end of the rocket, undoubtedly for steering.

In the distance, Celeste and I could see the finned rocket with its floaters. Then, with a cheer (and a bark from Dordy) we spotted Penny, slowly, deceptively easing the tiny Penny Pincher into place. The telescope was powerful enough to show Grux sneering and jeering at little Penny sitting so much lower in the water than he was, who was flagrantly ignoring him, looking confident at first glance, though those of us who know her well could tell there was finally an underlying hint of nervousness on her round little face. She busied herself fiddling with switches and dials. Then, with a grin, she looked right up towards the needle Celeste, Dordy, and I were perched on, waved once, then revved up the engines twice, and the deceptively small engine roared loud enough with the blasts that Celeste and I could hear it clear up on the spire! Penny’s gnomish and pro-gnome fans cheered nearly as loudly at that, and even some goblins on the Speedbarge looked impressed! Grux's sneer looked rather fixed and forced at that point! HA!

In answer, and to win back his fans’ attention, he throttled the handles of his rocket. Fire belched out from the rear of the rocket, shedding nasty smelling smoke that would’ve stung Penny’s eyes if not for the goggles she wore. The goblin fans cheered, the gnomish fans jeered in turn. The frenzy reached its peak when a sharp, high-pitched horn sounded from the Speedbarge. Grux took off a few seconds before the horn sounded, likely having gotten another silent signal first. Too late to do anything about that now! His rocket took off, belching a cloud of noxious black smoke, obscuring Penny’s vision. Grux took the time to jerk his craft left and right, causing waves that crashed into each other, complicating Penny’s path… He had a good lead of several hundred feet already, thanks to his early start, and looked behind him with a wicked grin.

The smoke obscured Penny's vision, but her intelligent gnomish brain had a concrete memory of what all was in front of her, though she couldn’t see it anymore through all the smoke. Gunning her own engines as the horn sounded, a third blast could be heard all the way up on the needle! The COMPASS SHOT forward, and was out of the smoke a second later!

Past the smoke, Penny saw the waves. According to her story she told us after, her dismay at losing Plan A -- keep in FRONT of the goblin from the start so he can't throw things into her path -- was quickly replaced by a renewed confidence as Plan D came to the forefront of her mind. She had a skimmer, and those waves in Grux's wake were going to be her advantage!

Penny's rangefinder told her distances continually, and she adjusted course slightly to her left: there was a wave approaching at eighteen meters and closing fast, and the right side was closer than the left. She turned her rudder right next, just slightly, aiming the cutting bow directly perpendicular to the wave to slice through it while a burst of power from her engines launched her forward, providing lift to the wings in the process.

"Waves? HA!" Penny scoffed. "More like... RAMPS!"

Penny powered forward once more right at the base of the wave, and the skimmer jumped the hydro-ramp and arced right up into the air!

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOO-HOO-HOO-HOOOOOOOO!"

Penny shouted with glee at the jump, feeling the spray on her face. She'd calculated the angles, distances, and speed correctly, and down she came on the back side of the final wave! Another blast powered her forward. She grinned forward at the goblin looking back at her over his shoulder. He wasn't too happy; she'd closed the distance between them by, according to her calculations, seventy-two percent!

Grux’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head when he saw the gnome’s outlandish racer actually fly over the waves and then return gracefully to the water. His lead was already almost gone, and, chances are, it WOULD be gone soon!

“Here’s something ya won’t see comin’,” I could see him mutter, reading lips through the telescope to see how he’d react to Penny’s big jump. He pressed down a lever on the right side of his rocket. Beneath the fuselage, a compartment opened, dropping half a dozen torpedoes shaped like fish (fishpedoes?). The ordnance started moving as soon as they hit the water and settled into a wide arc-shaped formation. They “swam” just underneath the water’s surface and sped in Penny’s direction!

Penny normally wouldn’t have seen them, but the rangefinder on her turtleshell helmet was picking up rapidly approaching objects…

Meanwhile, Grux was looking back and ready to press a button that would remotely detonate the fishpedoes. They weren’t meant to actually explode in balls of fire, as it turned out, but they would instead loose their payload of broken bits of debris found around the basin. To anyone wondering what would hit Penny’s craft (and not looking too closely) it would appear as if she struck debris floating just beneath the waves. That rotten, cheating goblin!

Penny spied several items dropping from Grux's craft, her eyes narrowing. Moments later, her rangefinder picked up the rapidly approaching objects. Putting two and two together, and knowing that nothing Grux could be sending her way could be anything good, and also knowing goblins love their explosives, she assumed the worst and comes up with a plan on the fly. She frowned mightily, knowing her plan will put her behind again, but it would be better than taking all those hits and having the COMPASS completely disabled! She waited for the objects to come close…

Suddenly, Penny pulled hard to starboard! The COMPASS responded immediately, zooming around in tight circles instead of working on gaining on Grux. Penny was ingeniously working on luring the fishpedoes tightly together, and it worked! IMPACT! They detonated, their debris payloads bursting forth in one spot!

Penny pulled hard to port this time, trying to pull away from the impact. But, one of the pieces of debris, a board with a nail in it, smashed against the starboard engine, causing it to first rattle, then cough, then splutter!

"BONZO'S BRASS BUTTONS!" Penny swore, pounding a mechanical fist down on the console. She then composed herself, straightening the COMPASS and pointing forward down the track again. Another lever is pulled, and the little doors covering the water cannons opened...

FFFFFFWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSHHHHH!

The water cannons blasted right into the debris, JUST as Penny shot through it, scattering it left and right and clearing her path! Gunning the engines hard, she began to close the distance to Grux, but that starboard engine was not sounding good...

Penny locked the engines into full speed ahead, powering forward and unharnessing herself from the cockpit. She strapped her turtleshell helmet on tighter, her dirty-blonde ponytail flapping in the breeze as hard as her torso garments as she climbed out onto the hull...

"MMF!"

Penny LEAPED off the hull, mechanical hands outstretched toward the cable attached to the damaged engine...

"HA!" Penny exulted, half-flapping in the breeze as her craft shoots forward. Hand over hand, she made her way up the cable, eventually reaching the engine and crawling on top. Leaning out over the front, she found the board with the nail in it partially obscuring the intake, held there by suction power across the front. Reaching down, she calculates angles, leverage, and power...

BONK!

Penny's fist came down on the board halfway between the end of the half flapping in the breeze and the engine itself. The leverage and applied power were enough to free the board from the suction of the engine! Penny turned, ponytail still flapping in the breeze, and LEAPED off the back of the engine! She caught the cable with her mechanical hands. With its downward angle toward the cockpit of the craft, she basically just ziplined back to her seat!

”YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE -- and I cannot stress this enough -- HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWW!"

Penny swung up at the last moment, spinning a calculated half-circle in the air and landing in her seat again! Harnessing herself back in, she looked up the track toward Grux and swore again. One hundred and nine meters! Gotta close the gap!

Grux howled in frustration when his opponent managed to quickly recuperate from his latest trick. It didn’t matter though; he needed her behind him for this next part of his fiendish plan, and he had achieved that!

One of the pirate ships had lowered its sails and was moving, cannon ports opened, to get into range of the racers!

Penny saw the ship’s cannons belching fire, and several plumes of water marked where shots had landed FAR away around Grux’s racer! Potshots to pretend they were making an effort to get BOTH racers instead of really only wanting to get the COMPASS. As Penny arrived within range, the great ship’s cannons erupted into a full broadside, sending dozens of cannonballs screaming in Penny’s direction!

“OOOOH I’M GOING TO ROAST THOSE GOBLINS!!” Celeste roared, fire creeping up her arms as she turned to snarl at the goblins in their observation post. They stopped snickering and laughing when they noticed her, scrambling to escape her wrath.

A female bruiser stepped into her path and gently shook her head as she looked at Celeste.

“That won’t help your friend, missy.” She said, not unkindly “Grux’ll get his just desserts, you can be sure of that…”

Penny snickered at the unwitting forewarning of the pirates' involvement -- they were certain to do the obvious, to fire at her now! It was time for that surprise she had up her sleeve for them...

Penny pulled hard to starboard without warning, turning hard TOWARD the firing ship! The racer hurtled toward the middenmast, or at least, the water-level of hull nearest to it. At the last possible moment, she pulled hard to port, sending a high wave and plenty of spray toward the ship! With the vision of the cannoneers inhibited, they frantically fired toward the epicenter of the waves...

...Which was right in the middle of the ship's hull! Penny had gotten so close, the middle ship's cannons couldn't fire, as she was within the minimum range of their firing arc, and the other two ships opened fire to get her, but they were now firing on their own ship! Screams of dismay and anger were shouted from that ship to the others, and, after several seconds, the cannonfire stopped. The ship had several holes blown in it, though none seemed to be below the water level.

As the spray subsided, damage reports came in, and all hands were tasked to quick repairs, before the ship could take on water. With that handled, the ship's officers looked overboard, snickering, expecting to see pieces of racer and gnome everywhere...

Imagine their surprise when there wasn't a race boat in sight!

In the distance, down the track and out of range of cannonfire, Penny cackled with glee to herself.

"Sorry, boys and girls!" she crowed, though of course the pirates couldn't hear her. "You'll have to get up earlier than THAT to outwit a MECHAGNOME!"

Suddenly, a loud CRACK was heard! Looking over the starboard side, Penny noticed a piece of the hull had been dented in, its weld popped loose by a cannonball, the corner of the square of metal curled inward and allowing bits of every wave she cut through to flow into the hull!

Penny immediately sprang into action. Unharnessing herself yet again, she turned to unbolt the upright seat back of her piloting chair and detach it from the cockpit. Locking her rudder amidships and the throttle ahead full once more, she grabbed the rail in one mechanical hand and hopped overboard!

Dangling from the side, Penny covered the hole with the seat back, using her two mechanical feet to hold it in place. Releasing it with her hand, she flicked open a couple of fingertips, gritting her teeth against the hard, gravel-like spray the water was throwing up at this speed, this close to the water's surface. Ponytail flapping in the breeze once more, she used the self-rotating sockets in her fingers to force the bolts on the chairs to pop right through the hull, thankful for the one upside to using old, salt-corroded, sea-salvaged scrap metal being that she can power bolts right into it!

FWOOSH!

A huge wave crashed into Penny, and she was jarred free of the rail! Flying backwards through the air with a loud scream, she managed to catch the starboard wing! Clutching the checkered banner with all her might, she flapped in the breeze, horizontal and parallel with the surface of the water!

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" she screamed. "ROTTEN GOBBOS! YOU'RE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN COUSINS MARRY!"

Forcing her blessedly stronger-than-gnome mechanical arms forward, she climbed, hand-over-hand, forward, still flapping horizontally, to the rod holding the banner. Hand-over-hand she went again, making her way to the hull. Grabbing the railing, she climbed hand-over-hand once more, reaching the seat back! One more bolt still needed to be fastened in... but where was it?! The bolt must have fallen out when that huge wave hit! She'd have to make do with three bolts holding the seat back over the hole, knowing it's nowhere near watertight. What bit of water it doesn’t hold out will have to just be compensated for! She climbed back up into the cockpit, getting back into her chair that no longer has a seat back and harnessing herself in once more.

"ONWARD!" she screams!

I, meanwhile, found myself looking on with her hands over her eyes, peering out with one wide, teary purple eye through two fingers. It was so, SO scary!

“Rot that gnome! How is she still in the race!!??” Grux exclaimed, his words visible to Celeste, who was having a turn on the telescope and reading the goblin’s lips now.

The raceway curved around the Speedbarge, and then it was a straight shot through to the finish. The gnome’s craft is just too fast to beat in a straight race, Grux seemed to realize. Still two tricks left up his sleeve though, we learned…

His rocket curved around the Speedbarge and shot for the finish line! Another button activated small explosives underwater that were attached to ropes. These held debris hidden under the water. When the ropes broke, the debris floated up to the surface just as Grux shot past. Barrels, crates, even the hulls of a wreck or three!

“Now I know you ain’t flying over those!” Grux laughed, setting his sights on the finish line and his prize.

As Penny neared the Speedbarge, the goblin fans pelted her with trash. It didn’t do any real damage, aside from messing up her concentration. However, the gnome fans surged to the rescue, and the deck of the Speedbarge turned into a huge, chaotic brawl!

"GAAAAAH!" Penny shouted as the trash rained down on her. Her concentration broken, she didn't see Grux's other trick. Moreover, she was distracted by the massive gnome-goblin brawl going on up around the Speedbarge's railings!

"YEAH!" she cheered. "HIT HIM AGAIN! PUT YOUR FINGER IN HIS NOSE! KICK HIS FACE AND PULL HIS EARS! AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA-- WWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHHH!"

Too late, Penny realized Grux's trap! Shipwrecks! Barrels! Crates! Debris EVERYWHERE!

Penny begrudgingly throttles down a little, taking the COMPASS through the debris field with a series of twists, turns, bursts through little straightaways, and, once, using a wave of water going around one ship's hull as a sort of ramp to skid UP the hull, the cockpit nearly sideways as she rides the side of the hull past a particularly thick cluster of debris! She has to come hard to port, though; the shipwreck's rudder is sticking out dead ahead!

Swearing in gnomish, she clears the debris field, now even further behind in the race because of that. Looking up, her rangefinder tells her Grux is now one hundred thirty-seven meters ahead!

I'M GONNA--"she spluttered angrily, before straightening out her craft, rounding the final bend around the Speedbarge, and pointing the COMPASS at the finish line.

Not knowing whether Grux has any more tricks up his sleeve or not, Penny decides there's nothing for it... it's now or never! Time for HER final trick! The longest straightaway in the track is now ahead, and this is the time for it!

Penny looked down at her console, grinning at her button painted with a flaming gear on it, just like Celeste had come up with. Looking up once more at Grux, she set her face in a sort of grim determination, curled up her fist, and slams it sideways down on the button!

Several things happen at once. A pair of fuel injectors, salvaged from the racer stuck in the cliff and reinforced heavily, pull from their fuel source. Connected is a fuel converter salvaged by Penny from the sea floor, which she had spent the better part of Sunday reinforcing and re-reinforcing for just this moment! It would have to be strong to handle her fuel source. The fuel converter does its job, and the fuel is used up all at once from one of two tanks. This fuel had come from an enormous sword sticking up out of the ground, visible for hundreds of miles around, and Penny had counted herself lucky to find a few pinches of it still remaining near the wound the giant sword had made in its new desert sheathe...

"STAGE ONE THRUSTERS, AZERITE ENGINES ENGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!" Penny screams with glee. Then:

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHHH!" Penny was THROWN back in her seat, which had no seat back! The harness was enough to hold her in place, however, and she was able to eventually right herself! The engines roared with the noise of what seemed like a Titan army, causing the brawling gnomes and goblins to stop pounding each other and hold their hands over their ears! The COMPASS surges forward, skimming up high enough that the cutting bow is only a foot and a half deep in the water, and Penny closed the distance on Grux considerably!

“WWWWHHHHAAAAATTTT!!??” Grux cried out as his opponent shot past him so fast it was mostly a blur. He pushed the rocket’s throttle down to the maximum, and the fuselage underneath him started shaking as the rocket roared forward!

This close to the finish, the two were neck to neck, Grux shouting insults at Penny as he pushed his craft to the breaking point.

And break it did!

The right floater gave way first. The support strut, built from reused, rusted metal, but not oiled and polished like Penny’s craft. It broke off and spiraled away behind the rocket, tumbling in their wake! With the rocket’s balance undone, the craft leaned to the right, causing the lower rudder to cut through the water at an angle. Grux’s rocket suddenly turned sharply into an unexpected SPIN! The hydrodynamic strain was too strong, and the lower rudder too, snapped off! With the sudden loss of friction from the rudder, the rocket stops spinning, pointing straight up instead! Grux screamed in panic as his smoke-belching rocket soared into the sky, out of control! The machine flew erratically toward the clouds and then suddenly nosedived, crashes, and explodes at the base of the needle where the observation posts were, just as Penny safely crosses the finish line! She did it! SHE’D WON! WOOOHOOOOOOO!

Moments later, Grux came slowly down from the sky, a parachute opened above him. He looked forlornly at Penny as she turned her craft around the needle and made a victory lap around the Speedbarge.

The goblin fans looked on in dismay, while the gnomes cheered wildly and set off fireworks and noise-making drones that were nearly as loud as the COMPASS’s engines!

Celeste cheered, kissing me and making Dordy bark his little head off!

Meanwhile Grux plopped into the water and nobody hurried to fetch him…

Penny told us the story of the big finish later, saying she’d winced at the sound of the support strut snapping off. Gasping as the goblin's rocket begins twisting violently, she veered slightly left, not so much as to point her away from the finish line, but enough to put a safe distance between the COMPASS and the out-of-control Gobborocket, as she’d been calling it. She crossed the finish line with fists raised, and, after her victory lap, powers down her engines enough to give a shout up to Grux!

"LET THIS BE A LESSON TO YOU, GRUX!" she yells. "WINNERS NEVER CHEAT, AND CHEATERS NEVER WIN!"

She made one more victory lap, standing up on her seat-backless pilot's seat and blowing kisses to the cheering crowd, really hamming it up as the fireworks and noise-making drones went off all around her.

Back on the needle, I was kissing Celeste back intensely as Dordy ran circles around us barking. Finally breaking away, I joined in with Celeste and the gnomes on the ship cheering. The race was won, salvage rights were now free with a legal and binding contract, and, most importantly of all, Penny was uninjured and doing just fine! WOOHOO!

Meanwhile, Grux was swimming slowly back to the Speedbarge. Embarrassed at his failure and shoddy engineering, none of the other goblins were heading out to help him. Then something unexpected happened...

The COMPASS changed direction, and Penny, demonstrating good sportsmanship despite all that happened, headed toward Grux! Reaching out a spare cable (for attaching the engines to the chassis) into the water to Grux, she helped him aboard and whisked him away to the Speedbarge. Embarrassed all the more for the act of kindness, he slinked off the COMPASS, heading inside the Speedbarge and far away from the festivities.

The festivities commenced in full when Penny came aboard the Speedbarge, with Celeste and Nat joining Penny on the Speedbarge after airlifting the COMPASS back to the relative safety of their raised barge. It was PARTY TIME!

After the uproar died down, a goblin named Pozzik, who was one of the bosses of the Speedbarge and therefore deemed himself one of the true owners (the other being Fizzle Brassbolts, his gnomish counterpart) of any salvage rights in the basin, came out on an upper deck of the Speedbarge and made gestures with his hands for everyone to quiet down.

“Well that was quite the show!” he started off. “Despite the odds, and thanks to some amazing piloting, Team uhhhh…” He looked at a piece of paper in his hands, then back to the crowd. “Team… Dordy won!”

Celeste, standing next to Penny and I, snickered while Dordy started barking after hearing his name.

“It was shorter than Team McCullough-Ebonlocke-Boltbucket,” Celeste whispered to Penny and I.

The gnomish fans cheered, and even most of the goblins, as they had enjoyed the race too, and probably attributed the loss to Grux’s incompetence rather than flaws in goblin engineering.

“Now as promised, salvage rights are awarded to Miss McCullough…” Pozzik said with a hint of disappointment over having to say it.

“Or a person if my choosing!” Celeste said, stepping forward. “And that person is the amazing pilot of our vessel, Penelope Cognelia Boltbucket!”

She clapped and motioned for Penny to step up. Fizzle, the gnomish Speedbarge boss, who was standing next to Pozzik, winked at Penny.

I had to laugh at the name and name-alternate Celeste had come up with for our team. I scooped up Dordy when he barked after hearing his name, and Dordy, knowing for some reason that he should be proud, props himself up and barked again, now high enough that his proud yip-yips are heard over the loudspeakers, to the general amusement of all assembled.

Penny stepped up onto a small staircase of progressively larger (though still very small) crates to reach the microphone that was set up for her use, with a wink back to Fizzle.

"Thank you all!" she squeaked. "I'd also like to thank my dearest friends, Celeste, Nat, and Dordy, as well as thank all those who value fair play and good sportsmanship!"

The gnomes applauded considerably louder at the last bit than the goblins did, and a laugh can be heard faintly over the loudspeakers, coming from the also-clapping Fizzle.

"I'd also like to thank Fizzle and Pozzik for the prize! Salvage rights here are good not only for the acquisition of material goods, but also for the exploration and preservation of the heritage of two great races of people here, the goblins and the gnomes!"

Nat claps as she smiles at the humility of Penny, stating the goblins before the gnomes there as another burst of applause and cheers ensued at her words.

"I look forward to many more visits to the Speedbarge in the future, and to the peaceful and prosperous relationship of all who coexist here together! Thank you!"

Penny stepped down again to lengthy applause and cheers. Smiling happily, she toddled along to take her place with her friends again.

“One thing before we start the celebrations!” Fizzle says, asking for the crowd to quiet down again. “It’s come to our attention that the goblin racer, Grux, violated the clauses of the bet and CHEATED during the race in trying to damage or harm his adversary…”

Most of the crowd booed as Grux was pushed forward by the same female bruiser who had stopped Celeste on the spire. She winked at Celeste as she gave Grux another firm shove.

Cries of, “Hang him by his ears!” or, “Make him swab the deck forever!” and other humiliating punishments were heard. The bosses both asked for silence again, and now Pozzik spoke.

“As the aggrieved party, Penelope Boltbucket, you’re entitled to speak on the matter. Getting caught cheating just isn’t good business!” Pozzik’s choice of words here were very goblin-like – cheating was fine; just don’t get caught!

“So what’ll it be?” he asked simply.

“You’re the one he attacked, Penny,” Celeste said. “This is your decision, but we know you’ll choose wisely, and we’re with you one hundred percent.” Grux just stared at the floor.

Penny looked a bit sorry for Grux, yet the attacks, ranging from insults to thrown trash to potentially lethal acts of sabotage, remained in her mind as well. She thought for a bit, then a mischievous glint shone in her eye as she grinned like a fiend. Stepping up to the microphone once more, she spoke in her squeaky voice again.

"Forgiveness is an important trait to practice," she began. "For my part, I forgive Grux. Yet with the absence of consequences, forgiveness can also lead to enabling of further malicious behavior. So, though I forgive Grux, it is my opinion that an inventory of time spent rigging traps should be taken. Multiplying that by five, that time should be spent on the Speedbarge, paying back his community in a GOOD way, by working to scrub it clean... FOR. FREE."

Penny stepped back from the microphone once more, stifling a grin at the goblin's penance of unpaid, unprofitable work time, a goblin’s nightmare!

“Well, that seems fair, miss Boltbucket.” Fizzle says, eyeing Grux. “Bit hard to evaluate how much time he spent on his plans. Probably had some help too. I’d say about twenty days passed in preparation for the race. Twice the initial time, as requested by Grux, if I recall. Let’s make it an even month, since I’m pretty sure he had help. So that’ll be five months of work on the Speedbarge. How’s that, Pozzik? Good for… business?” The gnome grinned at his counterpart, knowing he was basically forced to accept. Pozzik simply shrugged and nodded. It wasn’t his profits that were affected, and, indeed, his Speedbarge would be sparkling clean for five months, and he wouldn’t have to pay a copper!

Grux was taken away for the festivities that followed and put to work cleaning the lower decks. Penny was constantly crowded and prompted to retell her race again and again. Several gnomes and goblins were interested in looking more closely at the winning craft, which was brought onto the Speedbarge. Offers, each more extravagant than the next, were made in hopes if purchasing it. Celeste, if asked, only said that the skimmer was Penny’s to do with as she liked! She’s so nice!

During the evening Celeste ended up talking shop with a few gnomes and goblins who were curious about the MUTT and the FISH.

She was happy to reveal some of her secrets, but didn’t hold court for long. This was Penny’s day, in her mind, and she wanted to dance with me more than she wanted to chat about engineering.

Penny, meanwhile, felt another surge of pity for Grux. Five months of unpaid, unprofitable menial labor! A goblin's worst nightmare! But, when considering his actions, she felt that Grux should count himself lucky!

Penny had never been the center of attention before this. Usually, the stares she drew, if any at all, were a result of her cheap mechanical skeleton arms and legs. Now, she found herself not only the center of attention, but she was even being heroized!

Penny was bashful and stammered a lot at first, but then she found herself settling in, her friendly demeanor bringing her to forget the spotlight and just chat as though she were simply sitting amongst friends, as she did when just sitting with Celeste, Nat, and Anglers Wharf or Halfhill friends. The race had been exciting enough that she wanted just as much to gush about it as the gnomes and goblins wanted to hear about it. Penny went on at length, not even minding interruptions or demands for skips ahead or retelling bits she'd already told. She relished the party, food, and attention, making new friends among gnomes and goblins alike, with promises to come back and visit from time to time! How great for her, especially after her awful life on Mechagon Isle!

I was quite happy with Penny's good fortune! After a lifetime as a condescended, "under-upgraded" outcast, she was in the middle of good company and good food and drink. Following Celeste's lead, I just let her enjoy her moment in the sun as I danced with Celeste, having quite a good time myself, only chiming in on the story when Penny or one of her new fans asked me or Celeste about the design and building of the craft, or its salvaging. I, like Celeste, deferred all offers of purchase to Penny, who seemed quite keen on keeping the craft for herself and her two best friends, deeming it a sentimental value to great to sell.

The day after the race, Tuesday, it was time to leave. Celeste proposed to airlift the COMPASS to Pandaria so Penny could pilot it as often as she wanted! That sounds like so much fun for her!

Since the waterlogged barge we’d raised from the floor of the flooded racetrack when we first got her and had been camping on was a temporary setup anyways, it was agreed upon given to the Speedbarge for their use. Pozzik found himself almost happy with giving away free salvage rights now that he had such a functional new barge. Fizzle, of course, thought it was a wonderful gesture by Team Dordy. The two thanked us for bringing in so much business and excitement to their Speedbarge, and sent us on their way with free drinks for our rides home! That was so nice of them!

Our Angler friends were ready to join us in our return with a typical Angler party. Fishing and communal cookout on Turtle Beach, followed by a party and fireworks once the sun sets. What fun!

After the airlift home, Penny put the COMPASS through its paces for their Anglers Wharf friends in a concerted effort with Celeste as a show and tell of the race. Celeste found herself not even needing to embellish the story, so action-packed it was. Our friends at home thought the COMPASS and the story were both amazing, and they cheered the demonstration and the story. After the COMPASS was docked alongside the Wave Dancer at its pier at Anglers Wharf, the party calmed down in true Pandaren fashion. Relaxed fishing, relaxed beach party, relaxed feasting. The fireworks and the sunset were another wonderful addition to the party, with Celeste and I cuddling with Dordy during the fireworks, and Penny standing up on the base of the Liu Lang's statue to watch the fireworks over the heads of the sitting-but-still-taller pandaren. All in all, it was one heck of a relaxing evening! I loved it so much!

The story of the Great Thousand Needles Race will live in infamy, I’m sure. In the meantime, I gotta figure out what we’re gonna do the rest of the day. Probably just loaf lazily around in this hammock for a while. We’re so comfy here! I love it! Celeste is too good to me! I suppose now I’ll just enjoy the rest of the day with her. Maybe fish a little in the bay, or off the pier with Anglers Wharf friends, enjoying our return home after so many weeks in the Thousand Needles. Whatever we choose to do, I’m sure it’ll be a well-deserved day of fun and relaxation for the final day of my minication! YAY!

Nat smiled up at the clouds, which now seemed to show a mail draenei on the back of a pandaren yak. Giggling softly at the image, she tapped the excess ink off of her ravenfeather quill into her inkwell of purple ink, replacing the former in its case and capping the latter. She placed these on her hammock-side folding camp table and reached for her coffee. Looking to the right, she discovered Celeste had put her wide-brimmed fishing hat on, though it was to pull it low over her face and cover it, her Explorer’s League journal open face-down on her midsection, hands clasped above it as she dozed under her hat. Smiling fondly, she gently removed Celeste’s journal, placing in a bookmark and reaching across Celeste to place it on her folding camp table so it wouldn’t get messed up if Celeste stirred in her sleep. Laying back down in place next to Celeste in the hammock, she noticed the ink on the pages of her diary were now dry. Closing it, she returned it to her own table. Closing her purple eyes as well, she drifted off into a light sleep herself, dozing comfortably in the hammock, just like Celeste and Dordy were.

Awakening some time later in the day, the three (especially Dordy) found themselves hungry and ready for lunch. A few sandwiches were made, and then the fishing gear was brought out! The little family made their way out onto the Wave Dancer, ready to use it for the first time in weeks so the fumes of the gas in the tank wouldn’t go stale after all this time. Spending the rest of the day doing some catch-and-release fishing, they did end up bringing in enough giant mantis shrimp for shrimp tacos that evening for dinner. After dinner, a bit more time was spent in the hammock, in which Nat was able to get ready for “lame early bedtime for lame early work mornings,” as she referred to it. Still, early bedtime or not, Nat had had one heck of a great last day of minication, and she couldn’t wait to see what next week would bring!

[Natasha Ebonlocke]

(( Note: The following post contains a few mild adult themes and may not be suitable for all readers. ))



September the Fifteenth

The workshop in the first sub-level of the House-On-The-Spire was in use once more, though this time, no whirring, grinding, clicking, hammering, or welding of any kind was going on. A diary instead of an engineering project lay on the workbench next to an open cherrywood quill case, an inkwell of purple ink, and a steaming mug of hot, fresh coffee.

The real action was on the floor, where various piles of scrap metal, salvaged machine parts that turned out to be unusable due to the defects that had caused them to be sent to a Mechagon Isle junkyard, or perhaps due to saltwater corrosion from lying at the bottom of the flooded basin of the Thousand Needles’ old gnome/goblin racetrack, or else crafted by Celeste, who might not have quite been satisfied with her crafting of the part. The piles were sorted: stacks of square or rectangular metal plates, long metal rods, piles of roughly cubical parts, salvaged but inoperable gnomish power tools, and others lay in piles around Celeste, who was pulling them from a large storage chest and deciding what to use or not use for her current project while Nat sat at the workbench, getting ready to write in her diary.

Suddenly, there was a flash of fire!

Dordy the molten corgi darted into the room, picked up a metal rod longer than he was, and darted off with it! Trying to get through the door and escape with his prize, he found himself bouncing backward, the length of the rod too wide to get through the door! Celeste was on her feet with a shout to Dordy to bring that back, and Nat with her. The game was on! Keep-Away, one of Dordy’s favorites! Dordy, unable to escape the room, darted around. His next trick was to dive between the MUTT’s legs, usually a good trick! But, the length of the metal rod had the same effect here, and Dordy bounced off the MUTT and had to change direction! Celeste gave chase while Nat cut him off as he made a bid for the underneath of the workbench. Change direction, change direction! He darted off toward the pile, the length of the metal rod once again foiling him as he ran between two piles of parts. CRASH! A loud clatter of falling metal pieces joined the sounds of dismay from Celeste and Nat as the metal plates and the cubical parts went flying in every direction! Finally, Celeste and Nat managed to corner Dordy on the wall as Dordy stood there, wagging his fiery tail, eyeing the space between them. ESCAPE! He charged forward, attempting to run between them and escape the corner, but he was foiled once again by the length of the metal rod: this time, Nat and Celeste both bent down, having the same idea at the same time, catching either end of the metal rod and stopping Dordy in his tracks. Tug-O’-War time! Dordy lurched backwards several times, growling and wrenching the rod, but he was no match for two humans! The game had gone on a nice long time, but now it was over! Dordy sat back on his haunches after the metal rod was prized from his jaws, panting and wagging his tail, eyeing the scattered metal parts and wondering which he should try for next.

Nat helped Celeste clean up the mess, resorting the metal parts and stacking the metal plates once more before returning to the workbench with a giggle. She and Celeste loved Dordy dearly, but boy, was the energetic pup a handful sometimes! She sat back down at Celeste’s workbench, picked up her pen and dipped for ink, and began to write.

Dear diary,

It’s been a super fun week! I’ve been on an adventure and played in a silly Deathrolls game this week! I missed the Whitewind Company adventure again this week, so that’s a bummer. That’ll make a three-week gap with no adventuring with my other friends at all! But, what I did do, I enjoyed!

First, Monday morning, I was awakened by the sounds of Dordy barking in a way I hadn’t ever heard before. At first I only saw a big pile of green leaves moving towards me with purpose across the bedroom…

I went from bleary-eyed and confused to wide-eyed and alarmed in an instant! A blurry pile of green leaves that barks like Dordy, yet quite UNlike him... ?!?!

"EEP! WUZGOIN'ON?!"

More rustling of leaves and a bigger pile came into view, this one giggling like Celeste. Her hands appeared, and she pushed down the hood made from what looked like bamboo leaves and other plants sewn or attached to a camouflage material. The smaller bundle, it turns out was Dordy in his own suit! Once I got over the initial alarm, it was actually quite adorable!

“You’re looking at my new V.I.N.E.!” Celeste announced, her freckled face smiling broadly. “or, ‘Visual Identification Negating Effect.’ We’re going bird watching today. Cranes, actually. I like those graceful birds, which are important in Pandaren culture. I’m thinking about making a statue of one to decorate the living room, only I’d use spare parts and scrap metal for it. I need to take some S.E.L.F.I.E.s. of them though. I have a VINE suit for you too! Wanna come?”

I fully woke up instantly at the thought of the coming new adventure. I smiled and nodded, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and darting from bed, still in my sleepwear.

"Yeah, I'd love to!" she replies. "When are we going?"

I looked over Celeste's VINE, then Dordy's, the latter of which made me giggle.

"V.I.N.E., eh? I LOVE it! I can't wait to see mine! And the statue! It's gonna be AWEsome!"

“Hopefully it will!” Celeste agreed. “So long as we take great images. Dordy’ll have to be quiet too. He tends to get excited, don’t you, ya little rascal!”

Dordy, looking like a moving bush turned around in circles on the bed and barked as Celeste played with him. It was a great new game for him! He’s so stinkin’ cute, especially in his VINE suit!

“We have time to get a proper breakfast though first. At this hour the cranes are likely fishing in the shallow streams to feed their young. I don’t want to scare them off in case the VINE suits aren’t as perfect as I think they are.”

Celeste strode out of the bedroom, her suit rustling and shedding a few leaves on the way. Dordy barked and chased after her, though how he could see her remained a mystery. The hood was right down over his eyes! I guess his snoofer is just that good!

Downstairs, Celeste shed her VINE suit and Dordy’s, piling them with the one she made for me. Wearing small shorts and a strapless shirt (it was hot under the suit!), she started getting breakfast ready, as well as coffee.

I gave my VINE a once-over while Celeste got hers and Dordy's off. Putting it back where I got it as Celeste took the other VINEs to pile on it, I went with Celeste in the kitchen, helping with breakfast, occasionally sharing early tidbits with Dordy, or nibbling a bit herself as we cooked.

"So, what's the plan?” I asked as I got out some bread for toast. “Are we gonna wait for them to finish with their young, then try and sneak in?"

“Well…” Celeste answered, adding a bit of dried herbs from our garden in the lower levels to the eggs she was cooking. “I’m thinking they’ll likely be nesting in reeds near the waterfall or close to the beach. We’ll take Nosebleed upstream where the river is a bit deeper. They’ll likely try to catch bigger fish for themselves, so we’ll try and wait for them there.”

"Oh," I replied, now flopping some bacon into a frying pan. "That's a great idea! Then, no young with them, in case we accidentally scare them!"

“Mmhmm. Eat up! We’ll bring plenty of water, and I’ll bring some scorpid meat I smoked in case we get peckish. Might take a while before we see any cranes.”

"Right!" Nat agrees as she takes her own bacon, egg, and fried tomato sandwich to the table. "Maybe even a book for quiet time passing!"

Soon, breakfast was ready. Celeste brought the bacon and egg sandwiches to the table and sat down. Between bites, she talked about her sculpture plans, gesturing with her sandwich. Dordy watched closely, gobbling up any pieces of it that fell to the ground. I sat munching my sandwich (Dordy happily got the final corner crust piece, as he knew he would) and listened silently to the sculpture plans, the picture coming together in my mind as Celeste described it. It was sure to be awesome!

With breakfast done and cleaned up, we headed down to the beach. Dordy ran around in his VINE outfit like an overexcited bush, while Celeste coaxed the giant direhorn Nosebleed out of the jungle. Dordy, always happy to see his placid friend, barked up at him. The direhorn seemed to sniff the barking plant mass, then simply ignored him as always. Good thing he wasn’t hungry for some leaves!

“Alright, let’s go!” Celeste said, grabbing Dordy and Blinking up onto Nosebleed’s saddle.

I had quite enjoyed breakfast with my family. Cooking, eating, and talking with her family proved to be as great a way to start the day as always! I had slipped into my snazzy new VINE suit, just slipping it on over my older bikini, not wanting to mess up the one Nah got me for Winter Veil last year. The bikini was the choice because, in all this muggy warmth, a VINE would be about as much else as I’d want on, though a good, sturdy pair of shoes had come along with for protecting my feet against the rugged terrain we intended to visit.

Once Celeste got Nosebleed coaxed out of the jungle, I decided Ebonhoof could use some adventure as well, and Blinked up onto his back. Ebonhoof trotted along regally beside his friend Nosebleed, and together, with Onyx soaring high, high in the sky above with Cloud Dancer, the family was complete! I followed Celeste's lead, chatting merrily with her as we rode along.

Celeste decided to lengthen the trip before reaching the river. We made a slow, leisurely trip close to the ruins, and then looped around near the waterfall where Celeste had “proposed” to me in her own way. Reminiscing on the fond memory for a while was really sweet! I felt my heart flooding with warmth and joy as we looked at the site and talked of that night until we eventually left and rode onward. I had thoroughly enjoyed the extended trip with my dear family. I smiled around (and above) at the whole group gathered, leisurely riding along until Celeste announced our arrival at our destination.

We had reached the slow-moving river that snakes lazily through the jungle. Getting off of Nosebleed (who’s size and menacing horns did a great job of keeping our trip peaceful), Celeste slipped on her VINE suit. Dordy, somehow realizing we were keeping quiet, moved around the brush, sniffing with interest, but not barking. What a good boy! Celeste took a position at the base of a tree next to some bushes and sat down comfortably.

“I think here is good,” she said. “There’s a deeper pool in the river bend where fish go to rest from the current. I’m sure it’ll be a great spot for cranes to hunt!” She handed me a spyglass and took out her S.E.L.F.I.E. device.

I dismounted and sat next to Celeste at the base of the tree, VINE in place, finding a soft, comfortable spot to do my bird-watching with Celeste and Dordy. Accepting the spyglass, I nodded happily to Celeste, agreeing about how great the spot was. Alternately watching the river, my family, and looking for birds (and checking out other interesting sights and pointing them out to Celeste to look through the spyglass at), I sat and watched for the majestic birds the Pandaren loved and treasured so much.

The three of us sat in silence, enjoying the serene jungle. Dordy had long turned to dozing peacefully when Celeste gently tapped my arm, her suit rustling softly.

I had enjoyed the scenery quite thoroughly up to this point. This was what I had been waiting for! All the while we sat there, enjoying nature, I had watched and waited, waited and watched, just reveling in nature’s beauty and grace, and the presence of my whole household with me!

Eventually, however, I had stared at it for long enough, and, much as I loved every bit of it, I was ready to look at something different now while we waited. I took out the book I'd packed, reading over a chapter out of a thrilling novel before Celeste finally rustled her VINE suit quietly as she gently tapped my arm. I looked up, my gaze following the pointing of Celeste's SELFIE camera.

“Look there,” she whispered, pointing with a corner of her camera. A tall, reddish brown crane slowly walked along the opposite bank of the river. It was a lovely bird! The tip of its tail and wing feathers gradually changed to black while the crest on its head turned from reddish-brown to a more russet shade. It wasn’t a small bird at all, and everything about it, from its graceful movements to beautiful colors, made it seem quite majestic!

I had to quickly stifle a gasp – this was one particularly beautiful crane! I watched in wonder as it stalked slowly through the mud, picking and pecking its way through mud and water alike. Impressed and awed by its beauty and grace, I found myself agreeing with the Pandaren: this was one seriously majestic creature!

"Wwwwooooooowwwww..." I breathed. "That's so amazing! What's the plan?"

“I take as many s.e.l.f.i.e.s of it as I can and hope for different angles…” Celeste whispered as she raised her camera. The crane continued on its way, wading into the shallow river and peering into the water.

Suddenly, movement just above us drew our attention. A sleek black jungle cat stalked the crane, crouched on a branch above the us. It moved in complete silence, and the crane seemed completely unaware!

I nodded, just a little, not wanting to make so much movement or noise that we startled the crane, though a jungle panther stalking the river for breakfast as well, with its amber eyes set on the crane, might just do it anyway!

"Oh gosh!" I whispered to Celeste. "We should turn it into a sheep or something! Though that might scare the crane away..."

“I have an idea…” Celeste whispered softly, pointing at the branch the cat was on. “I’m going to light the branch on fire; it’ll make the cat fall. It’s right over the water, so you turn part of the surface to ice. We’ll send it sliding away downriver!”

Not waiting for a reply, as time was of the essence, she looked up and concentrated. A cluster of leaves just behind the cat burst into flames. The jungle predator hissed in surprise and panic. It scrambled to escape and, as predicted, fell from the branch that reached over the river…

I grinned; it was a nice, safe trick that would harm neither the cat nor the crane. I focused on the water beneath the cat just as the cat fell from the branch. Knowing it would be too shallow for a whole iceberg like the ones we conjure to fish on, I instead converted a thick, flat layer of water to ice, then, for good measure, one more patch of ice on the beach-side of the creek from it, big enough to expand and knock the cat's ice patch out into the current.

It WORKED!

The cat, yowling in confusion and frustration, landed on my larger ice patch just as the other knocked the patch out toward the current's strongest point, and the cat was whisked away!

I gave a silent cheer, then looked around for the crane. Had it been startled? Where had it gone?!

There it was… still in the same spot! The sudden arrival of a jungle cat had indeed startled the bird; it had squawked and fluttered its wings for a moment. Now, though, it stood quite still… and it was looking directly at us!

“Oh nuts, we blew our cover!” Celeste whispered, though it was probably too late for that anyways. But then the strangest thing happened! The crane opened its wings to each side, raised its beak to the sky and… held the pose!

Celeste shook off her confusion and quickly brought her camera up, taking several shots.

Just as quickly, the crane lowered its head, shaking its wings before folding them back against its body. It resumed looking for fish in the stream as if nothing ever happened!

Celeste slowly lowered her camera, jaw dropped (though no one could see it), as she wondered if the bird had actually posed for us, or if it had been pure coincidence…

My mind had gone through the same roller coaster of emotions – a bit of a panic as I made eye contact with the crane, wondering if it would flee, and HOPING HARD that it wouldn't, then confusion as the crane stuck around instead of fleeing, then a sense of pure awe at the beauty and majesty of the bird as it posed, and, finally, as though sharing the thought with Celeste, a wondering if the bird had really just posed for them. It was such a magical moment!

Was the spirit of Chi-Ji, the Red Crane, perhaps, somehow involved? I recalled silently the legend of the Great Crane spirit. It reminded me of the Trial of Chi-Ji, which was a test of hope for Pandaren warriors, dating back to the time of the great Pandaren emperor Shaohao, who sought out the Red Crane when the Sha of Doubt had surfaced among his people. The Great Crane and Shaohao had conversed, with the former guiding the latter to find the hope within himself and cast off his uncertainty. Once the Sha of Doubt had been vanquished, doubt among the pandaren had as well, and the idea of hope began to blossom for the emperor’s people. To pass the trial of the Crane these days, warriors had to believe in hope, even during their darkest hour!

Had our combined hope drawn the Great Crane to influence the mundane crane before us, standing there fishing in its stream?

Celeste and Nat continued watching the crane for a while, the need to wait for good pictures now finished. Now we just wanted to watch it go about its business, and we were rewarded with several more good moments – stretching wings and beak to the sky again, more relaxing, idle picking and pecking through the mud and shallow water, a few small fish plucked from the stream and gobbled up.

I enjoyed watching the crane further, reveling in the awesome scenery, and not just the bird. The Krasarang Wilds, the crane, the river, even the hints of ruins here and there gave the jungle its own unique sort of beauty. Even here, in a setting as dangerous as a jungle, I felt the beauty of the land the Pandaren appreciated so much. Granted, the presence of Chi-Ji herself coming to influence a bird to pose for a picture was sort of silly, but it was an entertaining thought to have!

“Ok, let’s go,” Celeste eventually whispered. She picked up the dozing Dordy and we slowly moved backwards into the jungle until we were well out if sight and hearing range. I tried creeping out as quietly as I could (which, given my clumsiness, meant that we could have gotten out just as stealthily by setting Dordy loose in the undergrowth!).

“That was sooo awesome!” she said, smiling brightly after removing the hood of her VINE suit.

"Yeah!" I agreed with Celeste. "That was sooo cooooool! I loved every second of that! I bet the pictures turn out amazing, too!"

“Let’s hurry home,” Celeste said eagerly. “I can get the s.e.l.f.i.e.s out and start making drawings for my sculpture!”

Celeste wasted no time in calling Nosebleed, and I was next to her sitting sidesaddle as usual on Ebonhoof a moment later. She didn’t lead us on a circuitous route this time, instead making a beeline for the shore, and then home. The VINE suits were quickly shed and she hurried to her workshop to bring out the images in her camera. She didn’t really quite see the rest of the day. I settled back in with the book I brought with me and had been reading before the crane showed up on the couch in the living room, immersing herself happily in the novel while Celeste worked to develop her pictures, eventually getting up to cook a quick Pandaren noodle dish they both (and Dordy, of course) enjoyed for dinner. Celeste, in the zone as she usually gets when working, barely noticed her food and wine brought to her, or even noticed what she was eating, which made me giggle and smile, placing a barely-noticed kiss on Celeste's cheek before heading back upstairs to my own dinner and novel.

Sometime in the evening she brought out the images, which turned out great, along with a scrapbook and some pencils. She settled with me in a chair near the pond we built on the veranda outside and drew the statue that came to mind (along with doodles of a barking bush and a jungle cat skating on ice). She was more talkative in the evening, asking my opinion on her design. I had gone with Celeste outside with another glass of wine apiece, where I sat and watched Celeste sketch various ideas for their new crane statue next to the pond as they looked at the pictures. I laughed at Celeste's humorous doodles, as usual, smiling as my opinion was asked.

"Oh, yeah," I said, smiling and nodding happily. "Those are great designs! The crane looked so happy, so tranquil, so at peace with the world around him! It's a great idea for a statue!"

The rest of the night passed peacefully, with Celeste making sketch after sketch, pondering each pose, each design of the crane statue until we got sleepy and went to bed. What an awesome adventure we’d had!

FWOOSH!

Another flash of fire startled Nat out of her memories. Dordy was at it again!

Thinking quickly, Nat bolted to her feet, not running after Dordy this time, but rather, heading for the door. Closing it quickly, she cut off Dordy’s escape route to the rest of the house. From there, it was just a matter of cornering Dordy in the workshop/aircraft hangar!

Dordy’s fiery fur lit up the painted and sculpted rock walls, illuminating a sea turtle drifting idyllically past a shallow coral reef as he darted in to the pile of gnomish power tools, this time nabbing himself an arclight powertorch. Celeste acted quickly as well, putting the same fire protection spells she uses to make Dordy safe to be around on the gnomish welding torch, just in case Dordy activated it. Dordy, meanwhile, had already darted off. Finding his route out of the workshop/hangar cut off, he turned, sprinting through the MUTT’s legs, finding that he was able to make it through this time. Celeste Blinked behind the MUTT, causing him to throw on the brakes! Skidding a bit, Dordy turned on a dime and darted back through the MUTT’s legs again, once more out in front of it. No good! Nat was there! He turned and darted left, sprinting up a few crates and LEAPING through the air! He landed on the Flying Nosebleed’s wing, bounded into the cockpit, and threw his front paws up on the front of the cockpit, the way he usually does when harnessed into the flying machine and watching the clouds pass as he soars through the air. Dropping his prize, his imagination took over, and he barked as he flew in his mind’s eye, barking to Onyx and Cloud Dancer and to the MUTT, all flying in formation off his left and right wings.

SNATCH!

Celeste, Blinking again, had gotten into the cockpit in an instant, and now scooped up Dordy. Barking again, he squirmed in her arms and tried to lick her face, turning her stern expression to a laughing one. Her freckled face broke out into a grin, and, grabbing the arclight powertorch in a free hand, she blinked back down, sending Dordy over to sit with Nat under the workbench while she returned the tool to its pile.

Nat giggled, giving Dordy scritches behind his ears before returning to her seat. She picked up her quill once more, dipping for ink and immersing once more in the week she’d had.

Then Tuesday was DEATHROLLS!

We got to play on the water-level pier of Anglers Wharf again, right next to the House-On-The-Spire! It was me, my bestie Nah, Grim, our friend Anna from the Quicksilver Company that Mags and her family owns and operates, and, back for the first time since Nah’s birthday Deathrolls in early July, SPARKLES! The bomb-crazed mechagnome had surprised us all by coming to play with us again!

The game didn’t start off very fortunately for me. I rolled the first One, and Sparkles and Nah both rolled TWENTIES on the Truth or Dare rolls out of twenty, which means they BOTH got to CHOOSE Truth or Dare FOR me! Oh, NO! And, with so many potions having been drank during games since the last time Sparkles had attended (Nah’s Birthday Deathrolls game at the beach under the fireworks at the Darkmoon Faire), Sparkles’ first Dare was to choose two potions of Nah’s and mix them to see what happened, and Nah’s was to DRINK it! Nah has several different colors of potions, mostly stuff she designed a few months back for general roguery. There is pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, purple, clear, white, brown, and black! So much to choose from, and likely nearly all of it BAD! I did choose the red, however, as I happen to already know that’s Nah’s Crimson Vial, a makeshift healing potion of sorts that rogues drink. I also chose pink, as it’s similar to red, hoping it would be a similar potion too. Boy, was I wrong! But first, I had to mix them according to Sparkles’ instructions. Nah asked Sparkles what her instructions were for me, and Sparkles was like, “LIVE FAST DIE BEAUTIFUL!” which made Nah cackle maniacally, and then Sparkles was like, “Oh, you mean about the potion… Riiiiiight… pour in the red first, then the pink… then… swirl it around like you’re playing with the joystick of a goblin shredder!” I winced as I thought about Sparkles in the cockpit of the MUTT, the demolition-crazed gnome cackling with glee as she went on a rampage across Pandaria. Can’t have that! Anyway, I mixed the red and pink, swirling the vial around the way I imagined Sparkles would the MUTT’s control levers, and then watched to see what would happen. It was cool, actually; the red and pink fizzed and illuminated briefly, making me hope I hadn’t just been conned by Sparkles into making a homemade explosive device. The potion then settled into a dark pink – or light red? – color, and, when uncorked, the aroma was like pretty stuff I’d smelled during the Love Is In The Air festival in Stormwind. Then there was Nah’s part of the Dare… I had to DRINK it! Oh, NO! Chugging it down all at once, I found it had a pleasant sort of tart flavor. Then it kicked in… the way my body felt after drinking that was not much different than the way it felt after Celeste had spent an entire day during the Love Festival wooing me, and is certainly far to adult for me to want to write here. All I know is, I really, really wanted to get back to Celeste… but I was the hostess of this game, and couldn’t just ditch it! So, I had to sit like that for the ENTIRE NIGHT! And it was a long, long game, too! OOF! After that, Anna rolled a one, and she got Dared by Nah to jump off the pier and swim a lap around Anglers Wharf. Anna, born and raised in Lakeshire in the Redridge Mountains, happily obliged, being a water girl after all. She had a dress on, though, while I had come prepared to such a locale by wearing my Shal’dorei silk bikini my bestie Nah had gotten me for Winter Veil last year. How was she going to swim wearing that? Then she just… unfastened it and let it drop, right there on the spot! I had my hands going up over my eyes, but then I remembered – when Anna plays Deathrolls, after that first game where she had to take articles of clothing off from Nah Dares and had taken off gloves and shoes, she wears another outfit under the dress, just in case! So, there she was, in pants and shirt, swimming around the Wharf! HA! When she got back, though, her boots and flooded, and she had to take them off and pour them out. Oops! Then Sparkles got to Dare Nah, and she, too, it seemed, had learned from that Birthday Deathrolls game where the potions had first come out! She had invented a few of her own candies that had special effects. She took out a blue and a pink one, saying that one was basically a cure-all, and the other would make you feel worse. She Dared Nah to give one to me, and take the other for herself, and see if she made my condition better or worse! Nah took the blue one, giving me the pink one. Oh no, not pink again! We ate the candy. Nah seemed to enjoy hers, though mine turned out to be super bitter! It made me think of licking wet paint! EW! Turns out, the candies weren’t cure-alls and situation-maker-worsers, which Sparkles revealed with a maniacal cackle. It was just a good-tasting one and a bad-tasting one, and I’d gotten the bad one! Gosh! Sparkles had just made trick candies! Anna got revenge for me in the next round, though… one candy for each of our hair colors, so two black, one pink, and one red! Sparkles got one spicy red one that burned her tongue, two black ones that tasted like ash, and the icky, bitter pink one that I had! Next thing I know, she’s running all over the dock looking for something to drink as fast as she could! HA! Then Anna chose Truth after rolling a One after Nah got her, and Nah asked her what she guessed some of her potions might be. Anna said she figured green was mending, pink made someone feel the way I obviously felt, given my frequent squirming and looks up at the house where Celeste was, purple was “liquid… uh bathroom stuff, bad,” yellow was likely just pee (EW ANNA! Yet, given that one of my bestie’s nickname is Miss Troublemaker…), and that the clear potion extends effects. Nah snickered, not wanting to reveal all her secrets at once, though she assured Anna that the yellow was not, in fact, pee. WHEW! Anna was like, “Good, yellow is ‘safe,’” making it sound like she now thought the yellow was something even worse! Ha! Anna Truthed me next, making me describe how the potions I drank made me feel. That was embarrassing, even though I tried to be vague as possible! Meanwhile, Nah, studying the effects of her potions for later evaluation and possible modifications, wrote down everything I said! GOSH! Then there was a Dare on me from Sparkles to make a choice: either I eat some of her worst candies, or I get one of Nah’s purple potions (which makes the imbiber end up spending the whole day on the toilet) and give it to a man standing nearby, this guy John “Meat Hook” Marsock! Do I spare the innocent and take the purple potion yet again… or do I give it to the innocent and spare myself? Fortunately for me, John had been nearby this entire time and knew exactly what was going on, and had even heard Sparkles’ Dare. Oops! Hehe. I chose the purple potion, and I greeted my Anglers Wharf friend with a smile, announcing to Sparkles that I had just given him the potion, as Dared. John smiled, catching on, and said he knew just who he was going to give it to, a con-man goblin! Sparkles cackled at the twist in the Dare, though I made it up to her by promising to tell her how it went after John told me. He has, since then – the goblin con-man had ended up conned himself, with John “selling” him access to a public toilet, where the goblin lost an entire day of conning people to stay in! HA! Then I got Anna for a Dare, and, getting an idea, I beckoned Onyx down from the skies, then flew over to the jungle and gathered up a whole bunch of leaves, giving Nosebleed and Ebonhoof a few pats while I was there. Bringing them back to Anna, I gave them to her and Dared her to give Sparkles hair leaves like Nah’s! Anna did a good job, too! Sparkles looked almost mini-elvish! HA! Then I got Sparkles in a Dare, and had her listen to us take turns, three times apiece, making animal noises! There was squirrel, gorilla, goat, chainsaw (?!), space goat (in which Nah had Sparkles talking in a draenei accent, HA!), cow, seagull, devilsaur, fish, and YETI! She even did a “pirate goat” for Nah for a bonus! She really hammed it up on all of them, which was hilarious! Then Sparkles was out of time, and she ended up leaving… right as Grim got there late! The timing! I ended up having to go swim to the sandbar the Jinyu guy stands on usually and give him a high five. That’s Elder Fisherman Rassan, another Anglers Wharf friend! It was a refreshing swim, too! Nah had me sit in Grim’s lap (which, being soaking wet, got GRIM soaking wet! Ha!) for three rounds on the next Dare, and I got her back by having her make random silly faces and holding them that way. She hammed it up as much as Sparkles did, making the most absurd faces every few minutes and holding them that way until the next change. She was almost unrecognizable, the faces were so weird! I loved it! Then Grim Dared Anna to go get wet sand from the sandbar I had just went to and have Nah lie down while she’s making her silly faces, and build a small sand castle on her exposed belly! Nah ended up with a sand castle on her tummy while making the weirdest faces! It was so funny! Then something REALLY weird happened… Anna Dared Grim and I to go and swap clothes! Grim ended up wearing my bikini, which, thanks to Nah’s enchantments she had done on them, were form-fitting and would fit anyone it as on, which mean my bikini snugly form-fitted Grim! Boy, if I never see my bikini bottoms bulge out in the front like that again, it’ll be TOO DOGGONE SOON. Grim kept picking wedgies out, which made it even worse! I left my bikini soaking in hot, soapy water for like an entire day after that! Meanwhile, I’m wearing Grim’s black pants and fancy black shirt, which dangle past my feet and hands like a whole foot and a half, so that was awkward too! Then Anna and I both rolled ones, and Nah got us, so she decided to keep the fun going. I had to swap shirts with Anna, which meant I ended up in an entirely-too-small white shirt, and she got Grim’s oversized shirt, which seemed to make her happy as she flapped the long, dangling sleeves like wings. I also had to swap pants with Nah, so I ended up with her long leather pants, which I had to roll up like two feet, and she ended up wearing Grim’s pants, which were like wearing super-baggy highwaters to her. The whole group was now wearing each other’s clothes! Then I got Grim and Nah in a Dare. Getting an idea, I decided to get Anna back for starting the whole clothes weirdness. I Dared Grim to take Anna’s ankles, Nah to take her wrists, hold her up between them and, swinging her while counting to three, THROW her as far into the water as they could! With Nah and Grim’s combined strength, Anna really got some air time! She flew threw the air like a rag doll, splashing pretty far away into the water! She didn’t seem to mind, though, being a Lakeshire girl. She just swam back to the dock and stayed in the water for a few rounds, propped up on her arms on the edge of the pier and rolling dice. Then Anna Dared Nah to take my bikini top from Grim and hang it up somewhere like a flag. Nah snickered at that one, hopping up and taking my bikini top and dangling it from the top of the nearest lamppost, at the top left of the ramp up from the pier we were on. GOSH! Anna said people were going to think it was a brother now, and later even Dared Grim to go up to a Pandaren near the “flag” how much a lady of the evening cost! Geez! The pandaren, having been near enough to laugh at the game a number of times already, informed Grim that, unfortunately, Anglers Wharf was no such village. Thank goodness! Over the course of time, clothes continued to change wearers, with Nah even ending up in my bikini bottoms. I was embarrassed to see her slender, athletic form in them when she emerged from the house we’d been going to change (behind one of those cool folding partition walls where we could toss stuff over the top to each other, yet, once again, the enchantment she’d had placed on them actually had them snug on her. At least the embarrassing bulge wasn’t there in the front anymore! Meanwhile, Grim had his pants and shirt back, I was in a shirt fetched from my house and one of my skirts, and Anna had her stuff back. By this time, it was getting late, so we finished the night in the traditional way: THE MILLION-DIE ROLL! The way the rolls ended up, I got Anna and Nah to toss Grim into the water the way Anna had been tossed. Grim really went far too! And that’s how Deathrolls ended, with a SPLASH! HA! I LOVE DEATHROLLS!

The next night, though, Wednesday, was a bust once more. No adventure this week! It’s gonna be a three-week gap, now, before I’ve adventured with my friends! Oh well. I still got to adventure with Celeste again this week! That bird-watching adventure was the COOLEST! I’m really glad we got to go!

For now, though, I think I’ll help Celeste set up this sculpture. I’m sure there will be a lot of welding, soldering, bolting, and everything else going on! I’m also sure that this crane statue will be AWESOME! YAY!

Nat smiled happily, tapping the excess ink from her quill back into her inkwell and replacing it in its case. She capped her inkwell and closed her quill case –

FLASH!

No sooner had Nat snapped her quill case shut than Dordy had struck again! Whirling around, she saw Celeste chasing Dordy, bellowing at him to “GIVE THAT BACK!” Dordy, meanwhile, was leading Celeste on a merry chase around the MUTT, tail wagging a hundred miles an hour, often stopping on a dime and changing direction when Celeste stopped to try the same to cut him off. Around and around the MUTT they went, this away and that way, Celeste trying to be stern but enjoying the game nearly as much as Dordy, in truth. Nat laughed, getting up to help. Now cut off from both sides, Dordy went to his go-to trick of the day – dart between the MUTT’s legs!

Escaping his would-be captors, Dordy broke for the door. No good, still shut! He stopped and whirled around. PACKMATES! Undaunted by the two females in his pack closing in, he dove between them, the spark plug he’d snatched dangling out one side of his mouth like a cigar. GOTTA GO REAL FAST! Sprinting for the work bench, he dove under. No good! The short-haired packmate was under there with him in a second! He darted out the other end, diving through the legs of the longer-haired packmate, getting tangled in her long skirt. OOPS! His packmate ended up flopping onto the workbench on her belly, legs flailing as she tried to get back off it. Short-haired packmate! CHANGE DIRECTION! Dordy spun and made a beeline for the Flying Nosebleed, running up the crates and LEAPING through the air to the wing once more. He went to leap into the cockpit next, like he had earlier, but, in a flash of light, the short-haired packmate appeared there once more! Diving through her legs and jumping out the far side of the cockpit, he found his short-haired packmate hot on his heels! GOTTA RUN REAL FAS– UH-OH! RUNNING OUT OF WING! EEP! Dordy yelped in alarm, the spark plug falling out of his mouth, rolling off the wing, and crashing to the floor below as he threw on the brakes, skidding, skidding, skidding… NO GOOD! Gonna go off the end! Dordy yelped again, skidding over the tip of the wing’s end…

…And right into Nat’s waiting arms! She may not be able to run, especially along a sloping, narrow wing, but she can get lucky and catch from time to time! Dordy, relieved at his salvation, squirmed upwards in Nat’s arms and began to lick her face. Celeste had a slow fall spell cast on him that would have made him safe (and was how Nat had lucked out and caught him). She Blinked down from the wing, scooping up the spark plug and placing it back in its pile. Returning to Dordy, she gave him a good-natured scolding while wrestling with him in Nat’s arms. Dordy enjoyed the new game, wriggling between the two women until he began to pant from his exertions. Nat put him down, and he went to go have a nap while the two women went to work on comparing parts in piles to different bits of Celeste’s sketches. Work on figuring out a final plan for the crane statue took the better part of the rest of the day, and even a quick dinner of breakfast-for-dinner was eaten down in the workshop. It was a pleasant end to a relaxing minication!

[Natasha Ebonlocke]

(( Note: The following post contains a few mild adult themes and may not be suitable for all readers. ))

September the Twenty-Second

The scene in the workshop/hangar was once again one of a large amount of scrap metal, metal parts, metal rods, and broken or worn-out gnomish power tools, though this time, instead of large piles of either, there weren’t many of each left. They had all been welded, bolted, wired, tied, or snapped-on to each other, forming what was turning out to be a very convincing crane statue. Celeste was sitting on the floor next to a steaming mug of coffee, surrounded by her small piles of remaining parts, working on the right wing of the statue with her tongue sticking out a bit. Dordy was flopped over on his side next to her, snoozing, his legs jerking slightly as he dreamed of chasing whatever he was chasing. Nat was at the workbench, her diary open in front of her. She had her cherrywood quill case lying open next to her own steaming mug of coffee, her ravenfeather quill in her hand, and her inkwell of purple ink open to the right. She sat, watching Celeste work on the crane statue for a while before starting.

Celeste, meanwhile, had a statue of the crane as it had seemingly posed for them the previous week, one with its head held high, beak pointing to the sky, and wings majestically opened wide. Legs of long metal rods were connected by hinges from the hood of an engine, the feet made of bolts and nuts of different sizes and ending in claws made of wood screws. The body was made of a not-unattractive assembly of machine parts salvaged from both Mechagon Isle and the sunken racetrack in the Thousand Needles, resting on a slightly-curved-upward metal plate that the legs held up. The machine parts were assembled to be symmetrical, and ended up artfully arranged to look like the tiny protrusions of feathers. The left wing was completed, a few more long metal rods with feathers cut by a welding torch from another metal plate, artfully designed to look like very pretty feathers. The wing was held wide in its majestic pose, and the left was shaping up to look much the same as Celeste worked on it. The head, so far, was just a curved metal rod leading up to a gnomish power cell, obviously not the finished product just yet. Celeste hummed happily as she worked, a soothing noise that had Dordy sleeping (though, in the zone as she usually was as she worked, she didn’t intend, and, indeed, hadn’t even noticed) as well as helping Nat settle in to her writing. Smiling, Nat turned back to the workbench, dipped her quill for some ink, and began to write.

Dear diary,

Gosh, it’s been one weird week!

It started off well enough. Saturday, Celeste even surprised me at work by sending Dordy into the Darkshire town hall to find me and invite me to lunch with her at the inn! That was great! It really made my day! Meanwhile, she’s spent most of the last week working on that awesome crane statue, so that’s been really cool to come home to every time I set out and see how much it’s grown!

Then Monday, Grim and I went to go and visit my bestie Nah on the Whitewind’s Grace! When we got there, she was in her cabin with First Mate Nate, and she was all dressed up like a pirate! She was all talking like a pirate and stuff, and even Nate was doing it, though he seemed reluctant and sheepish. It turns out Nah was celebrating Pirate’s Day, the day in Booty Bay where Dread Captain Demeza sails into Booty Bay to recruit land-lubbers into her ranks! It turns out there were some activities to go and do in Booty Bay, so we did! Nah’s pirate antics were infectious, and, next thing we knew, Grim and I were heading off to change into something akin to pirate costumes and talking like pirates ourselves! Nate declined to come along, so it was just the three of us!

When we got there, we didn’t see the captain at first, but eventually, Nah spotted her… way up high on top of a dang roof! Fortunately, there was a way to get there by climbing the stairs from the Salty Sailor, through the inn above, out onto a balcony, and hopping down to the roof from there. Her entire crew was up there chatting merrily away, and the Dread Captain herself was staring out over the bay near the edge of the roof. First thing she wanted for land-lubbers to do was go and get some shark teeth. She wanted thirty-three! So, down into the water we went, which was in dire need of culling anyway, as there were like a gazillion sharks down there! With my water-breathing spells on my friends and I, and our respective abilities in combat, the sharks weren’t much of a danger to us as a team, especially as they weren’t big. We got enough teeth from the ones we took down, and, not to leave anything to waste, even sold the fish to the goblins! Dread Captain Demeza next spotted a shark that WAS big, an old one she had named Ol’ Eary, that had been causing the bay a lot of problems. Nah, Grim, and I went back into the water to get it for her, and our reward for THAT was a whole book apiece of pirate insults! Next thing we knew, we were back on the roof, yelling out stuff like, “I’ll devour your parrot, ye mutinous blowfish!” or, “Ye don’t need a sword! Yer face be deadlier! Garr!” or, “A black spot upon thee, ye barnacle-bottomed sluggard!” or, “Ye smell of fish an’ swine, ye mermaid-marryin’ monkey!” or, “Yer ship has more holes than a sponge, ye slack-jawed cockroach!” or, “Ye be as repulsive as a monkey in a negligee!” or, “’Tis good yer here! Ye’ll scare away the rats!” HA!

After the pirate activities were over, we still wanted to hang out, so we decided to go back to Stormwind, where Nah wanted to host a game of PIRATE DEATHROLLS! We played in the Blue Recluse, and my old friend from when I was in Grim’s old group came along, Erenari “Nips” Starwalker! He sat and played with us too! It was fun! Usually I just see him when we do keystone battles together, so it was nice to unwind with him and drink and play a game this time!

Nah decided to make her rules more chaotic, like she did in her birthday Deathrolls game. Stuff like, no more roll-offs in case of ties during Truth or Dare rolls, but rather, BOTH people get to Truth or Dare the loser of the round, and in the initiative to see who goes first, she surprised us by saying Grim starts us off, after having rolled lowest in the initiative roll, and other such changes that make stuff more chaotic! It was fun!

First round, I got Nah, so I Dared her to spend three rounds in Grim’s lap, and, each time someone rolls a one, since she’s still talking like a pirate, she has to say something flirty to him that a pirate might say! So she was like, “Yarrrrr, situate yerself, Grim, me booty’s comin’ in!” and climbed into his lap! Then, her pirate flirts were all, “Reckon yer cannon’s in need of a polish, eh?” and, “How’s yer hammock? Mine’s a bit worn down. Reckon we should share yours tonight!” and, “Rather comfortable to sit aboard the S.S. Grim’Un, so close to the middenmast!” GOSH! Then Nah got a couple of Dares in on me early in which she went to Joachim, the Blue Recluse’s Bartender, to mix weird drinks and make me drink them. I got so tipsy, I even skipped her once and rolled, and she was like, “Arrr, ye pirated me roll!” and then shortly later, she said that since I had pirated her roll, I have to choose who starts off the next round, instead of the usual next person in line after the person who rolled a one last round starting it, and I was getting drunk, so I chose Joachim to start us off next time! Oops! Nah was like, “Arrr, one of US, Bestie!” Oops! So I chose Grim! I eventually ended up Daring Nah to drink a mixture that, to her surprise, gave her the hiccups, and, with the Nature Potions thrown in, made her shapeshift into one of her druid forms each time she hiccupped! It did have one consequence I did not intend… Every time she hiccup-shapeshifted, she farted! HAH! So that went on for two days! Then she got me back, Daring me to drink what turned out to be a shrinking solution! Oops! I was less than four feet tall after that, and that one lasted two days as well! Then Grim ended up rolling a one with Nah getting to Dare him shortly thereafter, and Nah went to Joachim for yet another drink, still not letting us see what it was, and he was like, “Remember, I love you, be gentle…” and then Nah was like, “Yarrr, Grim, ye have a choice before ye! Make one o’ us lot drink this, or drink it yourself! But would ye really turn down th’ chance to drink a drink handcrafted by the one ye love?” Grim looked at the drink, at me, then up at Nah, then back at the drink, and, making up his mind after Nah’s question, downed the contents in one huge chug! Oh gosh! But it turned out to be fine; he said it was smooth, and Nah revealed that it was only goat’s milk, granting Grim his request to be gentle! HA! Then I got Nah with a Dare to call Nate back on the Whitewind’s Grace on our gnomish communicators, the ones that Celeste helped augment with colored crystals to color-code who was talking. Nah had to inform Nate that she had pooped today, with the communicator on speaker so all could hear! Nate started getting more and more awkward the more gross details Nah provided him with, and obviously had no idea why Nah was telling him all this. It was so funny, even though it was gross! Then I got Grim with a Dare to drink yet another drink I got from Joachim… only, what the group didn’t know is, I’d brought my OWN potions to Deathrolls this time! I slipped a Transmorphic Tincture into Grim’s ale, and had him down the contents! It turned Grim into a WOMAN with a big POOF! Everyone burst out laughing, even Nari, who could tell with his spectral sight what had happened even though Illidari can’t see! Grim was like, “What ish your problem?” And I got him to pay attention to the sound of his voice between wheezing laughs, and then Nari was like, “’Ey Grim,” and Grim turned to look at Nari and Nari started squeezing around his own chest and nodding at Grim’s chest, and Grim looked down and started grabbing THOSE, and he was like, “I got f---ing t-ts!” and then he was like, “…I need a mirror,” so Joachim gave him one, and he was like, “I am a fine-looking woman!” and then he unfastened his belt and looked down into his pants, and he was like, “Oh, now that is just wrong… where are Winston and the twins?” We couldn’t take it anymore after that; we were all three laughing, and I ended up in the floor laughing so hard! Fortunately – or unfortunately? – the potion only lasts five minutes, so that was all the antics we got out of Grim on that one! Nari had some good Dares, including one where I had to give him a pick-up line, so I had him feel my shirt, and I was like, “Yeah, you like that material? You know what kind of material that is? GIRLFRIEND material!” HA! He had another in which he had me stand up and sing a bawdy song, which was embarrassing! I sang that pirates sing in Booty Bay. It made me blush like a tomato! Then I got Nah with a Whisper Dare to go have a pirate-like argument with Nari’s left warglaive, so she went over to Nari and stared at the warglaive and just started bickering with it like, “What’d you say to me, you demon-eating b--ch? …What?! Nooooo, I can definitely hold my own, you ungrateful cheese-grater! …Oh yeah? Tell that to me again after you’ve been sent to the blacksmith’s to be reforged! How’s – “ and then she hiccupped again, turning into her bear form! She was like, “Well, that ends THAT argument,” and went to sit back down. Meanwhile, Nari, not having heard me Dare her to do that in the Whisper Dare, was all confused and just looking at her sideways the whole time! HA! He was so confused! Nah was explaining about Whisper Dares after that, and telling Nari she thought he had very nice weapons, and Nari was just like, “Naw, yer right; that one’s a right twit!” HA! Then there was a Truth from Grim on the biggest waste of gold he’d ever spent, and he told about having bought treadblade motorcycles for the leader and second-in-command of a group we used to be in together, and said that was his biggest waste of gold ever. I’ll say! That’s a grand total of two hundred thousand gold for people who turned on us! There were lots more great Truths and Dares, but, as there’s still ANOTHER night of Deathrolls to write about, I’ll wrap this one up with the final round of the night, which turned out to be Nari Daring Nah to go flirt with Grim while acting like a Tauren lady! HA! Nah walked over to Grim with her hands on her… udders… and erm… she started MOOOOOOOOing at him a whole bunch, and then she was like, “Hey cowboy, you’re looking thirsty tonight… lucky for you, milk’s on the menu!” OHMIGOSH! I was blushing red again, but Nari and Grim thought the mooing was so funny, Nari ended up wheeze-cough-laughing, and Grim laughed until he said he thought he might pee his pants! HA! What a great night of Deathrolls!

Then Tuesday was MORE Deathrolls! And, in honor of Brewfest returning for the year, I had thought about holding Deathrolls there, but then I figured it’d be us and the other revelers there just shouting over each other the whole time, so I figured I’d have Deathrolls in one of our old haunts, Anvilmar in Coldridge Valley in Dun Morogh, not far from the festivities! We were even able to hear them yelling from where we were sometimes!

It was me, wearing my pirate costume again, still tiny from Nah’s shrinking solution, and my bestie Nah, still hiccup-shapeshifting into different druidic forms, Grim, our friend Sparkles the bomb-crazy mechagnome, and our friend Anna from the Quicksilver Company! As hostess myself this time, I had them all sitting at the bar while I bartended and hosted. Nah, in honor of Brewfest, or so Miss Troublemaker said, had me make my own self up a drink and chug it down! I chugged a strong, frothy dwarven ale, which made me belch out a real window-rattling belch. Oops! Then Nah got Grim, so she had me serve him a drink that she wanted me to slip something into. It turned out to just be water; she was playing mind games with Grim to make him THINK something bad was about to happen! She didn’t tell him it was just water, letting him be anxious and his mind tell him that he felt odd all night! HA! Then Nah got to Dare Anna, too, who had gotten quite nervous over the effects of the shrinking solution on me and the hiccup-shapeshift-farting potion on Nah, and was hoping audibly that she didn’t have anything bad happen to her as well, so when Nah wanted me to mix something up for Anna, as I was still bartending as well, she slipped me one of her white potions. Then she was like, loudly talking about how I would never “poison” Anna, and made me promise never to do such a thing to Anna, but all the while was giving me this mischievous look, so I got an idea. I got out some milk and poured it into a goat skull mug, as Anna is really super nice, but also aspires to be a jousting champion someday, so, a nice drink of milk, but goat skull mug so she can look strong and scary while drinking it! A little trick I saw in Freehold once! I openly pocketed the potion instead of pouring it in there, a loophole in Nah’s Dare. She never Dared me to mix it in, and even made me promise not to! So, the worst thing that happened out of it all was that Anna ended up with a milk-stache! Nah also got Anna and I with more potions, this time ones that make us all sluggish and rag-doll-like and not wanting to move. Very inconvenient for Deathrolls games, but very funny to try and do Dares in that state! I was going to do the Transmorphic Tincture on someone at some point that night, but Nah and Grim spoiled it, telling all about how I had it and what had happened the night before, so I decided to save it for when it would be a surprise again in a future game. In the meantime, I got Grim and Nah both in a Dare once, so I told them that their penance for spoiler alerts was that Grim had to get on the bar with his shirt off and lie down on his back, and Nah had to pour honey I got from the bar on his chest and use these old burlap cloths to cut into strips and place them on Grim’s chest in a pattern that spelled the name NAH. Then, after patting them in and letting them sit for a bit… rip ‘em off! Grim ended up having Nah’s name basically waxed into his chest hairs! He grunted a bit each time Nah yoinked one off, but he really seemed to like it! Oh gosh! Then Grim got Anna and Sparkles to race each other around the building outside, and then both come in and drink two strong drinks apiece afterward, and the loser of the race had to drink a third! BREWFEST DARE! Anna took the lead early, with longer legs, but got bogged down in her dress in the snow behind the building. Sparkles was like, “HA! SPRINGSHOES! and used her mechanical legs to spring right over the big snow drift and take the lead! Anna ended up having to drink the third drink after Sparkles won the race! There was another outside Dare too, in which I had Grim go outside, still shirtless, flop down in the snow, and make a snow angel! It was a really good snow angel, and now we had three cold, snowy people, so we stayed in the bar past the great forge the rest of the night to keep warm. Then I got to Dare Sparkles and Nah, and, as Grim had headed to the restroom in that moment, I Dare them to go to Grim when he comes back and, without warning, without context, just… Sparkles sit in his lap and detach her metal legs and pretend to play the drums on Grim with her legs while singing a gnomish metal band song. Nah, meanwhile, would dance on the bar for Grim, while also singing the same song! Sparkles ended up choosing a song called “Bodies” by “Sludge Pool,” a gnomish metal band she likes, and Nah ended up hiccup-fart-shapeshifting into a cat, and dancing around on the bar like a cat while mewing along to the song! Grim was SO confused when he got back and Sparkles got into his lap and pulled her own legs off that he started swearing in consternation, and even more so when she started screaming the metal song out at the top of her lungs and actually drumming on Grim with her legs as she sang! It was SO FUNNY! Then, over the course of the rest of the night, I got Nah to get up on the bar with me (Anna was like, “Dwarves are going to throw silvers at you both.”) and have a swordfight with giant turkey legs I bought from the Dwarves there, which got turkey bits over both of us and those seated at the bar (Grim said he thinks he has more bits of turkey on him just watching Nah and I go at it than we did ourselves! Ha!), and then Grim and Anna doing the same thing with turkey legs later on! Anna beat Grim, surprisingly enough, but then again, Grim WAS pretty drunk by this point, and I even beat Nah! I am pretty sure Nah let me win, given that I was pretty tipsy myself, not to mention sluggish from her potion, and especially given that she’s a master at swordfighting, and I’m absolutely hopeless at hand-to-hand fighting, despite so many trying to teach me ever since I was a little girl, so that was nice of Nah! There was a Dare in which Grim got some red, gold, and black threads from a tailoring trainer there in Anvilmar and had Anna braid them into my hair. I got to get my hair done! Anna said it looked awful, just hair-noodles, but it was fun to wear even if it looked bad! Plus Anna said the hair-noodle-dreads were fitting, given my pirate costume, so that was cool! Then Nah just randomly got up and started pacing around going, “I like purple chicken people. BUT I HATE THEM CHICKENS IN THE MARKETPLACE MAILROOM! What is the purpose of chickens in a mailroom?! I don’t know! Is it because the Joopies run in Nagrand, or the purple chicken people there are really horde-controlled free people of purple majesties and we are all doomed… DOOMED, I TELL YOU! DOOMED!” We were all so confused! All except for… Grim! He thought it was funny as heck, and I remembered Grim getting up earlier to give Nah a delayed Whisper Dare a few rounds back. Nah was doing a Grimmie Whisper Dare! How funny! Then Grim ended up having to drink one of the pink potions Nah had me drink last week, and boy, the effects were a little too obvious… then Nah had to drink a pink AND a purple potion… she has to be all wound up and also have to stay on the pot for a whole day or two! Weird! There were so many more really great Truths and Dares, but holy smokes, I’ve written about two days worth of Deathrolls already! Time to move on! It sure was a whole heckin’ lot of fun, though! I love Deathrolls!

Then Wednesday was the Whitewind Company adventure! It was me, Grim, and Tess this time. Nah said she’d be along later, as she was getting held up with life stuff. Mairy is still too busy with her other job at the Cask ‘N’ Anvil in Ironforge, but might be along more after the busy season dies down. So, it was just the three of us to start off with!

We met up at Greenwarden’s Grove in the Wetlands, since the mission this time was to track the Dark Iron Dwarves that had last raided those elves we saw ghosts of last time and stolen the lost legguards of Princess Ariel Sunstrider’s legendary suit of armor and made off with them. I figured that, if the dwarf down in the depths of Old Ironforge was right, and the splinter group of Dark Irons had failed to reach Ironforge in time to win the day, and had turned to help Empress Modgud take Grim Batol instead, then we should track them in and out of the old Wildhammer stronghold, just so we didn’t miss anything, instead of solely focusing on Grim Batol itself.

Once assembled, we set out to the east, to the mountain pass that led up into the Twilight Highlands and wrapped around the mountain to Grim Batol’s front gate. The Wetlands had old ruins of old orc carts along that particular path that were decaying and sinking into the swamps over time, which was spooky. But then we got to the mountain pass, and found much more recent ruined carts… and these were dark iron! There were notes in there we found, from the more recent Dark Irons to have had the legguards, who were still keeping them secret from the rest of their people! It seemed the dark irons had wanted to spirit them away and use them in some scheme, and had recovered them somehow… from the carts here? It was unclear, though it seemed more likely that the carts were for a convoy to get the legguards OUT of Grim Batol, but what WAS clear was that they were heading deep into Grim Batol for some reason, maybe to get the legguards, even though it was clearly still haunted from the terrible Void spells Empress Modgud had used there centuries ago!

We continued on, spiraling up the mountain path that led to Grim Batol’s front gate, passing several more gates blocking the path along the way. They were orcish gates, with orcish spikes on them. Apparently the orcs had really wanted to guard Grim Batol well, back when they held it in the Second War! Eventually, we reached the gates themselves, and, steeling ourselves, we entered the Void-haunted ruins of the old Wildhammer city…

Instantly, we felt the presence of the Void. Though it was already dark in there, the Void darkened it still further, and we all heard the whispers in our heads of doubt and loathing, fear and despair, anger and hatred and rage, all seemingly stemming from the battle fought here between the Wildhammer and Dark Iron clans, haunted still from Empress Modgud’s massive use of Void spells here. We pressed on anyway, moving through the halls until we came out into a cavernous hall with a deep trench down the middle like around the outer ring of Ironforge, only this one dropped several hundred feet, displaying several lower levels of buildings carved into the mountain, illuminated by the molten magma down at the very bottom. It was so spooky!

Wandering through a place like this, imagine our surprise when we found a trio of RED DRAGONS already in here! They warned us against the Void spells, which we already knew about, but also something much worse… then they started speaking cryptically about “voidspawn” and “faceless ones” and worse things deeper in the ruins. They also mentioned something about being there to check on rumors of red dragon eggs in the ruins, though they’d only found old, unhatched twilight dragon eggs instead, and were just on their way out, not wanting to take risks for such things. They seemed distracted, too, something about some distant isle possibly beginning to awaken, though they didn’t seem to sure on the subject. Then they agreed to help us before leaving… One quick flight, down the length of this particular hall and back! We accepted gratefully, and the flight down and back revealed… darkness, darkness, and more darkness! It got unnaturally darker and darker the further back we went, and even torches and my natural night vision from growing up in Duskwood were hard put to the test. There were also many places where the ledge had crumbled, including a massive cave-in about halfway back that would force us into a detour, and then bridges that were either partially or completely destroyed over the trench down the center. When finished, we landed back where we started, and the dragons and our group wished each other good luck as they headed out of Grim Batol, and we headed further in on foot.

The whispers got worse the further we went in. The spooky whispers got more intense, and, in between them, we could also sometimes hear a dwarven woman’s voice shouting at the top of her lungs, seeming to urge on an army, commanding them to slaughter everyone and everything they found that wasn’t a Dark Iron Dwarf. The shouts would come out of nowhere after long periods of silence, echoing all up and down the halls, which would startle us so bad every time!

It wasn’t long before the voidspawn the dragons talked about appeared. They popped out at us from next to a massive pile of bones, dark purple blobs, almost black, about the size of a gnome, coming at us in twos and threes. I had my imps, Wikpik and Kil’rek, out, firing felfire bolts at them. Tess had Palattu the spirit wolf and her big gun, and Grim had his swords, and together, we were able to overcome each pack of blobs easily enough, though the fights were beginning to wear us down a bit.

Further and further down the dark halls of the old dwarven city we went, hearing whispers and violent, raging shouts, and sometimes feeling like the battle were unfolding right around us, Dark Iron against Wildhammer, shouts of fury and pain and fear echoing all over! We pushed on anyway, not about to let a bunch of noise turn us away. On and on we went, fighting blobs and pushing in deeper and deeper, eventually reaching the caved-in spot we overflew.

From here, we saw a smaller side-hall opening up onto our left. This was the detour we’d seen from the air on dragonback! We went in, and, around a couple of curves, we were surprised have our eyes dazzled by a brilliant orange light!

Grim Batol, as it turned out, was designed very similarly to Ironforge: great halls in a circle around a molten center that was used as a Great Forge. The magma here was very bright and kept the whole, enormous cavernous room very hot! But, that didn’t keep the voidspawn away; more blobs attacked us the further around the forge we went! We fought our way full-circle around the forge, reaching another little side-hall on the other side of the magma part that led us back into the hall we were in, and on the other side of the cave-in! Our detour was a success!

Unfortunately, that’s also where things got even worse. The shouts got more violent, the whispers more spooky. The voidspawn were more ferocious, and the darkness more intense. Down and down we pushed, finding more giant piles of bones, featuring everything from enormous ogre skulls to tiny gnomish bones, and everything in between! We even found twilight dragon eggs, like the ones the red dragons had spoken of, and Tess even took one! I hope that doesn’t turn out badly for her…

The worst moment yet came when we tried to cross a bridge that had mostly crumbled away, leaving only a narrow center in the middle with no walls and a very long drop into magma down below. It was scary! We crossed the bridge carefully, but we were stopped halfway across… a dark shadow there stirred, and from it emerged a Faceless One! I’d only ever read of these before, and seen pictures, and neither words on paper nor spooky pictures drawn or painted could do it justice. Tentacle-faced things with tentacle arms and no actual face, towering high above us and likely several hundred pounds heavier, it cut off our path across the bridge. Then, behind us, another voidspawn blob cut off our retreat! We were blocked onto the narrowest part of the bridge, with no walls on either side to catch us if we stumbled and stop us falling into the molten chasm! To make matters worse, the faceless one cast a sleeping spell on Grim, leaving just Tess and I standing! Oh, NO!

Then luck turned our way… NAH showed up! Having tracked us easily enough by following the trail of destroyed voidspawn blobs, she’d caught up with us just on time, and attacked the voidspawn from the shadows with her flintlock pistols that was separating her from us! Following her lead, I had my imps attack it as well, as did Tess with her gun and spirit wolf. The voidspawn didn’t last long, and Nah joined us on the bridge to face down the faceless one!

The faceless one proved to be a much tougher foe, however. It had a black smog of Void billowing out of it at us, which didn’t feel too great! It also destroyed Kil’rek, one of my imps! He’ll be in the Twisting Nether, regenerating for a while before I can call him again. Nah and Tess fired their guns at the thing while Palattu laid into it with jaws and claws, and I had my felstalker Thooghun summoned to help, along with Wikpik still firing felfire bolts. The faceless one tried more sleep spells and even a void eruption, but, though that did some damage, everyone stayed on their feet! But then I lost Wikpik, too, when the thing was finally destroyed… it fell right on top of the imp and smooshed it flat! EW!

We continued on across the bridge, making our way down the hallway. We found another pile of bones, and we were investigating, when Tess said she’d seen the flash of something small and red, about six feet off the ground, that was gone when she turned to look at it. At this point, we remembered similar occurrences in Pandaria and Northrend… were we being followed? Then Nah had a lightbulb moment… the man wearing a red mask sort of like a Defias bandit that had been spying on us when we were in the Stormwind Royal Library, back before we even went to Pandaria for our first campaign for a piece of the armor suit, listening to us read aloud from books on the suit of armor! He had hit on Nah when discovered, being really suave, as I recall, and maybe wrote about? I think I did, but I forget, but anyway, Nah was having none of it! She pulled her flintlock pistols out, the Negotiator and the Re-negotiator, and pointed them at him, telling him to scram. The guy changed his tone really quickly, and he was like, “AWW, HECK NAW, GURL! YOU CRAZY!” and took off running! He’d let slip something about a benefactor of his, though, so we were sure we weren’t the only ones chasing this thing, yet we’d forgotten about the thug himself. Had the few flashes of sightings of red, and the time Palattu had chased something around behind the back of the Black Market Auction House in Pandaria, been this guy following us the whole time? Nah even things it might even been a whole army of such bandits! Oh gosh! I do surely hope not! But we’ll see what happens with these weird sightings… maybe we’re just being paranoid, and no one is really having thugs follow us and watch what we do with all the armor!

After that, we continued on down the hallway. But then we came to another caved-in part – the floor had caved in to the lava below, leaving just a ledge there with nothing on it! However, across the trench from us, another side-hall loomed in the darkness, so we went around the end of the trench to it, Grim now carried over Nah’s shoulder as he slept, the sleeping spell still in effect. We were just about to enter the side-hall when TWO MORE faceless ones loomed up out of the darkness! Oh gosh!

An intense fight ensued, Thooghun the felstalker joining in Palattu the spirit beast, the former fighting with needle-teeth jaws and antennae that drain and eat magic, the latter fighting with jaws and claws and a magic of his own that reduced the defensive capabilities of his targets. The faceless ones fought back hard, doing quite a bit of damage to Tess and Thooghun. Tess in particular was hurting after the battle was won, the Void magics they’d used on her leaving her in really bad shape. She was down on one knee in the back, her gun down on the floor by her side. I had to conjure healthstones for the group after that, as we had no healer with us this time. Void eruptions and Mind Flay and Mind Sear spells had done their damage to the group, and my felstalker was on his last legs himself! Only Nah appeared to have escaped without damage. Consuming our healthstones and taking more I’d conjured, we headed into the side-hall.

Down stairs and around twist and turns we went, deeper and deeper, on and on, until we found a huge, cavernous room… and it was full of RED DRAGON EGGS! But, lurking there were two more faceless ones… and even a huge, towering, thirty-foot-tall Faceless Horror! The kind the old Black Empire used to use as generals for their Void armies!

We snuck in, keeping to the shadows, making for one faceless one that was messing with the red dragon eggs on the left, and then Nah opened up on it with a shot from her pistols, Tess sent Palattu in with another defense-reducing attack spell, and I sent in Thooghun while Tess fired her gun! The pre-emptive attack had the element of surprise, and the faceless one immediately took quite a bit of damage! But, its counter-attack destroyed Thooghun! One more minion that I won’t be able to use until it regenerates in the Twisting Nether… Then I got out my voidwalker, Thogthang, whose Void aura reduces the defenses of enemies just like Palattu’s spell does, as well as reducing vision of enemies, making their attacks more inaccurate. Palattu and Thogthang really swung the battle for us, especially as the other faceless one and the faceless horror both heard the battle and immediately came to join in! Thogthang took a hit, Palattu took a hit, and the rest of us evaded. The first faceless one fell quickly, but the Void general was just getting warmed up, it seemed… the thing made a sort of Void storm in our midst, something that looked like drawings of a hurricane when viewed from above the storm, that sort of swirl, only dark purple to the point of being nearly black! The Void magic was moderately damaging, though Thogthang, through the warlock spell Greater Soul Link, was taking the damage for me. I just wish I could say the same for Nah, Tess, and Palattu, especially as that storm lasted the rest of the battle and was doing damage even when the faceless horror was casting other spells!

Meanwhile, the violent shouts and dreadful whispers we’d been hearing the entire time were becoming more and more frequent, violent, and dreadful! Tess, however, had a brilliant trick up her sleeve! She asked Nah and I what our favorite animals were, and, despite the desperate situation we were in, I couldn't help but giggle and go, "DORDYS!" Tess asked what a Dordy was, and I summoned an illusion of Dordy and explained he was Celeste and I's pet, and Tess snickered and used her wild spirit beast spell to conjure a whole pack of them that brought down the other faceless one! Nah said nightsabers, so she had a whole pride of those tearing into the faceless horror! Meanwhile, Nah herself was really going off on them, smirking at the Dordys and the nightsabers and pointing her flintlock at the faceless one and faceless horror, and blew huge holes in them, causing extreme damage to both!

Once we were able to overcome the second faceless one, thanks mostly to the spells Palattu and Thogthang had going that were reducing enemy defense and attack accuracy, the faceless general got desperate, and cast a powerful spell… and what seemed to be Empress Modgud herself, as well as a dark iron reaver and a dark iron flamecaster, all appeared in our midst, screaming death and murder and mayhem at us! It seemed all was lost, yet… they never attacked! They just shouted and looked horrifying! I suppose Nah must have noticed this, because she ignored them and went for the final standing enemy, the faceless horror. She must have been out of ammunition, because she had her blades out now, and was stabbing, slashing, and hacking away at the thing, Grim still asleep and snoring on the floor behind her! Tess was still blasting away with her gun and shouting commands to Palattu, and I had shadowbolts and demonbolts flurrying in on the faceless horror. Meanwhile, the Void storm was still swirling, the thing was casting Void eruptions and trying to cast fear or sleep spells on us, and Thogthang was trying to cast an Insanity spell of his own on the faceless general!

Eventually, the thing was overwhelmed, and, thank GOODNESS, the dark iron dwarves disappeared when the giant Void creature fell over dead with a loud crash! We were SO glad we didn’t have to fight one of the most powerful dark irons of all time! The creature had just conjured up ILLUSIONS that it must have hoped we’d stop attacking it to turn and fight against! What a crafty creature!

From there, it was time to investigate. I knew I’d have to see about sending word to Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight in Northrend about the red dragon eggs, especially since the way was now clear, or perhaps to the much closer Vermillion Redoubt, where the red dragons of the Twilight Highlands roost. I ended up choosing the latter. In the meantime, Nah and Grim had found a skeleton in the back of the room. It wore Dark Iron armor! Moreover, the skeleton wasn’t three hundred years old… likely closer to three, given the gross bits of beard and stuff that still lay on the skeleton. There was also a pack nearby that Nah investigated. It turned out to have orders written in dwarven runes, which she can read! She said it was orders to the dark irons making off with the legguards three years ago to bring them back to “the mountain,” which likely means Blackrock Mountain, but also alerting them that the Bronzebeards of Thelsammar had found out about them and their plans!

Thelsammar is a Bronzebeard dwarf village in the Loch Modan region… looks like we found our next lead! We’ll have to find out if the dwarves there caught the dark irons and took the legguards or not. If they have them, perhaps they will be willing to negotiate a deal for them! Granted, such a thing will be priceless… we’ll have to see how it goes!

With that, we headed out, with promises that the payment of gold would be delivered as usual. Nah carried the amazingly STILL-sleeping Grim out over one shoulder, and, thankfully, the trip out was easier than getting in, as we’d already cleared the path, and no further sighting of a flash of red or anything else happened, either. We got home safe and sound!

For now, though, it looks like Celeste could use a hand with the wing on the statue she’s working on. The machine-part crane is nearly done! It’s going to look SO good when it’s finished, wings all spread wide open, head in the air, beak upward, looking all majestic-like! I can’t wait to see the finished product! I can’t wait to see what next week brings us, either! YAY!

Nat smiled, tapping off the excess ink from her quill into her inkwell and capping it off, replacing her quill in its case and snapping it shut. After another sip of coffee, she went to go help Celeste hold the now-completed feathers she’d cut and shaped from the plate of metal so that she could solder them onto the wings, strengthening the attachment with her welding gear after the task was done and Nat’s hands were safely free of the wing. Once the welding torch started up, Nat knew she needed to turn away from the brilliant flame of the torch, so she returned to her diary, the pages now dry, and closed it. Taking her stationary upstairs to her office, she deposited the diary back into its place on her bookshelf to the left of her desk, and the inkwell and quill case into the desk drawer at the bottom right.

Returning downstairs, Celeste was still welding, so Nat decided to get started on lunch. By the time the sandwiches and fried potato wedges were done, the welding was too, and a break was taken for lunch… and then for FISHING! The Wave Dancer, its overhaul long since completed, made a smooth ride around Turtle Bay, and, later, up one of the twisting creeks, and a bucketful of giant mantis shrimp and even an emperor salmon from the creek was caught, and, upon returning to Angler’s Wharf, given to Other Nat to share with the other villagers there in what turned out to be a quiet, pleasant little party and feast for Celeste, Nat, Dordy, and the village. All in all, it was quite a relaxing end to the minication, and, after hearing about the crane statue from Celeste during the feast (featuring a story in which the pictures were taken even though the Mogu had invaded and sicced a whole pride of jungle panthers on them), the villagers were just as eager to see the finished product as Nat was!

Would it turn out to be as amazing as they all anticipated? It sure seemed to be shaping up that way, but only time would tell!

[Natasha Ebonlocke]

September the Twenty-Ninth

Sunlight streamed merrily into the corner office Nat’s writing desk sat in. She felt like it had been eons since she had used it. There was always something going on in which she was writing somewhere else. The workshop, the Wave Dancer, Turtle Beach, Anglers’ Wharf, the veranda wrapped around their home, and so many places. This time, her diary was spread open on the writing desk she always used to write at, with the window above it that showed Turtle Bay, Turtle Beach with Liu Lang’s statue, and the Krasarang Wilds beyond it.

Nat peered out the window, spotting Celeste’s direhorn Nosebleed and her own black horse her father had given her for her eighteenth birthday, Ebonhoof, grazing lazily on the foliage at the edge of the forest. They tended to stay near each other as often as not, enjoying each other’s company. Nat smiled at that. She was glad her happy little family all had at least one friend to hang out with. With that thought, she peered to the right, out the sliding glass window where she had spotted Celeste’s cloud serpent Cloud Dancer and her own onyx Netherwing drake Onyx, skimming over the waves for their own breakfast. She looked back at the beach itself. Celeste had Dordy for company, carrying him around and talking to him, pointing out various spots on the MUTT, which she was busy testing out to make sure everything was fully operational for an upcoming extended trip she would be taking. The MUTT stood on the beach, activated, turning at the torso this way and that from time to time, which, Nat knew, meant the MAD system was online. Celeste was pointing at the MUTT now, and Nat could hear her explaining to Dordy how it worked. Dordy, of course, couldn’t understand Common, but knew enough to know something was going on, causing him to constantly try to wriggle up to lick Celeste’s face. Still smiling, Nat opened her cherrywood quill case and uncapped her inkwell of purple ink, dipping her quill in and tapping off the excess so she could begin writing.

Dear diary,

It’s been a pretty relaxing week! Not much went on this time.

We did get the crane statue finished, though! It looks great! Celeste got the idea to put it in a corner with windows on each side, opposite the fireplace, where it has jungle, beach, and ocean background! I had quite a bit of fun that morning, helping Celeste finish the statue by handing her requested pieces and parts and tools. Dordy had quite a bit of fun "helping" as well, bringing them pieces and parts and tools in a roundabout way (Keep-Away!). Then, around the statue itself, Celeste added the finishing touches to the crane statue’s base: a half-ring of earth where she planted some real jungle plants behind the statue while in front she placed glass to simulate a bend in the river. It looks so beautiful, just like the crane, the Krasarang Wilds, and the crane’s river all came right to our house! It looks so stunning!

Moving the super-heavy statue was a project in itself, involving the MUTT and the ROPHE. Using the MUTT and the ROPHE was fun as well, airlifting the statue out of the hangar with the MUTT and putting it on the veranda above, then using the ROPHE’s strength to pull the statue along a line of rollers while Celeste and I took the rollers in the back and put them in the front to continue the rolling. Care was taken not to scratch or scuff the flooring up as the statue came off the rollers and onto the floor, and the decoration of plants behind the tech statue was fun as well, and, I agreed with Celeste, quite a breathtaking little scene, especially with the jungle, beach, and ocean scenery behind it through the windows.

When it was done, it looked so glorious, with the sunlight streaming in around it, sparkling off its metal surfaces and causing it to glow as its beak and wings stretched majestically to the sky! Celeste said she was glad we were able to immortalize that amazing afternoon, and I agreed, saying that I'll always remember that adventure when I look at it, and I'll always think of how our entire family, big or small, land-walking or airborne, was there with us for it!

Yesterday, Celeste finished packing for another Explorer’s League adventure! She’s going to Uldum with them. Her checklists are as complete as she can make them. She now just needs to make sure the MUTT and its MAD system works perfectly. She’s gonna be the expedition’s quartermaster, cook, excavator, and security, since she’s got the MUTT. She’ll be sleeping in one of the canvas tents they supply, and she’ll be setting everyone up some cooling and heating units like the ones she brings when we go camping together, and they’ll be powered by the last power cells we have. We’ll need to make a trip for more in Mechagon, as she’ll be using up all the ones we have left. That’ll be fun!

At first, though, Celeste didn’t seem as enthusiastic about this trip as she did the one a while back where they went to the Swamp of Sorrows. I thought maybe it was because of how a few of the dwarves last time blamed her for the landslide, but then she said it was it was a bit of that, but mostly because of the way the dwarves aren’t having her do anything of particular importance to the project. Guard, cook, quartermaster, and digging, but no actual research work and learning about the digs and where to go next. Just the grunt work. Being doubted was reminding her of others who just doubted her all the time, from her brother growing up all the way to someone we used to be friends with. But she also said it’s only her first trip besides her audition in the swamp, and she’s just a Junior Member, and that maybe after getting to know the members during the trip and gaining their trust, they’ll let her do more.

After that she cheered up! She started talking about treating them to her uncle Rugnar’s recipes, glazed scorpid and biscuits and gravy. Fresh trout. She’s gonna make sure they realize that an expedition with her is like nothing they’ve ever experienced! No reason she shouldn’t enjoy herself! She likes camping and fishing. She even got the idea to bring Nosebleed! She said they could use his cargo nets to keep the scorpids and hyenas out of their food and gear, and that she can use those nets as a hammock, too! It’s been a while since she brought him along for more than short trips like when we went bird-watching to find a crane for statue photographs!

Later in the day, Celeste tried on a variant of an outfit she wanted to try out. loose robes made from an opaque but light material. With it she also wore a head covering that left only her eyes and the top of her freckled cheeks exposed. She made it herself, to help keep her light skin from burning. She spun in place to show me her desert-brown outfit and asked my opinion. I said it was lovely and functional, an ingenious design, as always! But I also said she should be careful... last time she modeled clothes for me, it led to our first kiss, back at my old house in Darkshire. What a moment that was! But yeah, Celeste’s desert outfit should keep her safe from the sun, and maybe some goggles will keep the sand out of her eyes when the wind picks up. She always thinks of EVERYthing! I am so proud of her!

Then Tuesday was DEATHROLLS! This time, I had a special surprise for everyone! In honor of Brewfest, I held Deathrolls in the Grim Guzzler in Shadowforge City in Blackrock Mountain! Thanks to our alliance with the Dark Iron dwarves these days (despite what rogue splinter groups tend to do from time to time), we were able to get in and play! It was me, my bestie Nah, Grim, Anna from the Quicksilver Company, and Sparkles the bomb-crazy mechagnome!

Right off the bat, Nah and Anna both rolled ones, and I rolled a twenty, so I got to choose Truth or Dare FOR them! What a start to the game! So I did a Whisper Dare, as Grim was running a little late with an errand he had to complete first. When Grim gets here, without warning, without context, Nah would go to Grim, Anna would go to Sparkles (who had no idea what I was whispering to the other two, so no warning or context for her either!), and, putting a hand in front of their mounts and pointing it away from them like a mouth, they would move their hands to mimic talking, which talking to each other in dwarven accents, with Grim and Sparkles as their puppets! HA! They were so confused! They had no idea what was going on when it happened later on when Grim showed up! Though eventually Grim, used to these Whisper Dares, eventually figured it must have been me! He’s a smart one! Also, when I was going to Nah and Anna to whisper their Whisper Dares to them, Sparkles said it’s never a good sign when you’re left out of these things. All the while I was whispering, she was going on about begging someone to take care of her adopted son Bren and she kept making dying noises. HA! Sparkles also had a good one in which she Dared me to bark like a dog every time someone rolls a one, and then say something good about them. I pretended to be DORDY! That was fun, and so was getting to say nice things about everyone! Then Anna had a Dare for Nah and I both, since we both rolled ones. Get an empty mug apiece from the bartender, and have a race! Run down to the lower room and fill the mugs and bring them back! Loser has to do something bad. I was like, “Spoiler alert: I’m about to do something bad.” I guess Anna was the only one there who has never seen me run! I can’t make it more than like twenty steps without falling over… and it went about as expected. Nah gracefully sprinted over to the huge ramp down to the lower level of the Grim Guzzler, while I stumbled, veered hard left, and ended up falling down in a bellyflop on a neighboring table being used by drunk Dark Irons. They had a pretty good laugh at that… gosh! Then I got up and tried again, and, just as Nah finished her race with a full mug, I ran right into the pillar at the top of the ramp! Oof! Then I ran down the ramp, or tried to. The broad stone handrail-kinda-thing on the right tripped me up, and I fell onto it and slid down face-first, then crashed to the floor in another bellyflop! OUCH! Then I got up and tried again, eventually making it to fill my mug and getting back to the ramp. Too fast! I slipped up while running up the ramp, my full mug went flying, and I slid down the ramp on my back again! Eventually I just decided to walk, as the race was over. I was already soaked in ale as it was, and the entire Grim Guzzler was guffawing at me! Anna then announced, with confirmation from Sparkles, who she had told beforehand, that the whole race was a sham, and the real competition was to return with the fullest mug. Nah’s was fuller, so she STILL won, but Anna felt bad that her Dare had backfired so spectacularly, so she said the bad thing I had to do was simply to just chug the ale, as I’d been through enough already. That was easy enough, after all I’d just been through! But I wasn’t the only one that had to go careening down the ramp – Grim got Dared by Anna to roll down a barrel! I got up to watch, and, when Grim crawled into a barrel we set up at the top of the ramp, I asked Nah how hard she could front-kick with the bottom of her boot. Grim, from inside the barrel, heard me, and we could hear him go, “Say what now?!” Nah just snickered, and… WHAM! Grim went like SO fast! All the Dark Irons at the bottom of the ramp scattered, but they had a good laugh! Grim sure was woozy when he made it back out of the barrel! HA! And of course the potion shenanigans continued. Nah got Grim, Sparkles, and I to drink the indigo-colored one for the first time at any game… it turned out to be the PURPLE potion, mixed with the blue, and the blue enhances the effects of her other potions, so the effects were instantaneous… I’m sure getting tired of spending so much time on the can! At least it cleared up quick, and everyone else had a good laugh at all the things we were screaming! Anna got a pink potion for the first time from Nah on a Dare. She sure was squirming the rest of the night! Then there was one moment where we were rolling dice for the next round, and Grim seemed to sort of zone out for a bit, and Nah was like, “Roll for us, Grim!” And he snapped out of it, got down on the floor, and rolled around! HA! Grim’s got dad jokes! I eventually got to Dare Nah to lay on the floor on her back with her face under a giant keg while I turned on the tap, and drink like a dwarf that really likes her brews! She didn’t make it too long before I had to turn off the tap. Doh! She had brew all over her, just like me, and Grim told her she looked a little wet behind the ears. HA! Then Grim had a really sweet answer to a Truth I gave him in which I asked him whether he’d rather have a perfectly-grilled and seasoned steak with a loaded baked potato and grilled, seasoned shrimp as the sides, BUT, he has to eat it alone, and not with his crush Nah, OR… would he rather have to drink the pink, indigo, and black (the one that darkens everything to where you almost can’t see a thing) potions from Nah, and then eat a plain mean of bread and water, BUT, he gets to have dinner with Nah. Grim thought for a moment and was like, “A randy, sh**ting, blind idiot, but I get bread and water with Nah, or a delicious meal alone. As much as I enjoy her company, I think that she might not enjoy the smell, having to lead me around, and having to fend off Winston, just for bread, so I would not put her in that position. I think just the steak dinner.” Awwww! Grimmie’s such a great guy! There were many more really funny Dares and a few spicy Truths. It was a really great night at the Grim (Grim joked that it was his bar, named after him! HA!) Guzzler! I love Brewfest! And I love DEATHROLLS!

Last night, though, the weekly Wednesday night Whitewind Company adventure didn’t happen, as everyone was already too busy doing other things. That was a serious bummer, a real let-down. But, there is always next week!

In the meantime, I’ve got one last day to enjoy with Celeste before I go back to working fourteen-hour shifts, and she goes off to Uldum with the Explorer’s League the day after that, so I’m gonna go spend time with her now! YAY!

Nat tapped off the excess ink from her quill, replacing it in its case and capping off her inkwell. She returned these to the desk drawer by her right knee, then got up to refill her coffee. The ink on the pages was dry when she returned, so she returned the diary to its spot on the bookshelf. Leaving with her coffee, she turned to look back into her office again with a smile. She was glad to have gotten to use it again, much as she enjoyed writing elsewhere as well! Turning away, she went upstairs to change into her bikini. Celeste looked like she could use some more company on the beach as she tested out the MUTT’s features!

The rest of the morning went well, with Celeste, Nat, Dordy, Nosebleed, Ebonhoof, Cloud Dancer, and Onyx all remaining within sight of each other, each pair doing their own thing together. Nat lounged on the beach with Celeste for a good while after the MUTT’s checklist was completed, and eventually they decided to go fishing. A few were caught and grilled right there on the beach with Other Nat and a few other friends at the Wharf. The evening closed with the happy couple returning home with Dordy to spend the rest of the night quietly enjoying each other’s company for bed. Nat would miss Celeste while she was gone, but it was a great last day together before the trip! Nat was already happily making plans for Celeste’s return after her week away, and she couldn’t wait for that moment to arrive!

[Natasha Ebonlocke]

October the Sixth

A heavy thunderstorm raged outside the House-On-The-Spire. The winds howled furiously, blowing through the trees and sending them waving in a dance that set the jungle of Krasarang Wilds alive. Debris and waves alike pelted Turtle Beach, and the statue of Liu Lang near the edge of the jungle was draped heavily with tropical foliage. The inhabitants of Anglers Wharf had shut themselves in and taken refuge (much like the suncrawlers in the planters around the veranda of the house had taken refuge underneath the planters, clinging to the pots and waiting out the storm), and the boats tethered all around the little stilt village rocked and bobbed in the waves, sometimes bumping noisily against the docks, though the storm wasn’t enough for them to cause any damage. The heavy rainfall limited visibility to about twenty feet or so even when the lightning flashed, and the sound of it combined with the occasional peals of thunder to drown out all sound outside.

Inside the House-On-The-Spire, however, the inhabitants were snug and cozy. This time of year brought rains that were relatively cold, and chillier winds, so the fireplace in the sitting room was crackling merrily. It’s warmth spread through the house, including into Nat’s office, where she sat at her writing desk, with Dordy the molten corgi curled up at her feet. The fire protection spells kept him from burning anything, but he was still quite warm, a comfort to Nat in the chilly storm. Between the warmth of the pup, the warmth of the fireplace, the warmth of the steaming mug of hazelnut coffee sitting on the desk next to her open diary, and the warmth in her heart at remembering her week with her friends and eagerly anticipating Celeste’s return from her journey to Uldum with the Explorer’s League, Nat felt quite comfortable this stormy morning. Smiling, she withdrew her inkwell of purple ink and cherrywood quill case, uncapping the former and opening the latter to withdraw her ravenfeather quill. Dipping it for a bit of ink and tapping off the excess, she put quill tip to diary page, and began to write.

Dear diary,

Well, it’s been a pretty slow week! Celeste has been gone on that Explorer’s league excavation in Ulduar all week, and the weekly Deathrolls game didn’t happen because everyone was busy with life. That was a bummer; this week’s Deathrolls was going to be AT Brewfest itself, with all those Brewfest brews from all those vendors, and all the other shenanigans going on there, so it was going to be the big game to cap off Brewfest! Oh well, maybe next year! Dang it…

I did get a letter from Celeste this week, though, sent by her long-range drone, sort of like the ones the gnomes use! It also came with a bouquet of fragrant desert flowers! They’re sort of reddish in the center and turn to yellow at the tip of the petals. They’re so very pretty! I put them on my bedside table to help me sleep at night! The letter was super sweet too, and she really sounds like she’s doing well down there and having fun! I’ll use that magic copy spell mages use like I have past letters here. It’s so handy! This is the letter:

Dear Nat and Dordy,

The excavation is going well. I’ve noticed a few impressed looks on the faces of the dwarves with my cooking. The glazed scorpid is really a favorite!

I had to fix some faulty cooling units last night but otherwise everything is going without any problems.

There’s another engineer here, a draenei! We’ve started spending a lot of time together, talking shop. Her knowledge is more related to long distance communications but she was impressed with the MUTT.

Tomorrow the expedition is moving deeper into the ruins and they’ve asked me to bring the MUTT in to clear some sand. I’ve talked to the archeologists a bit and I am learning a lot. I’m told I have an inquisitive mind and that my hypotheses are very sound. I think I’m making progress!

The flowers enclosed are growing around the ruins. They have a very lovely perfume and bloom at night! I’ll try and bring some to plant at home!

With all my love,

Celeste

She’s so sweet! And she’s so smart and resourceful, she’s pretty much blowing those dwarves away, impressing them so much!

I sent the drone back with a note from me, contained in a very small wooden crate salvaged for the parts within it from the junkyard at Mechagon Isle. On top of the box is a handprint of my right hand in purple ink, and a paw print of Dordy's front right paw scorched onto the top right next to my print. Within the box, along with the letter I wrote back to Celeste is a bouquet of long, deep, narrow jungle flowers of dark purple with blue veins and blue edges around the tip. I really hope she likes them! She’ll have a bit of home with her on her trip, too! I’ll copy the letter over here too:

Dear Celeste,

Thanks so much for the absolutely beautiful flowers! They're so pretty, I decided to keep them on my bedside table for the smell and the view to help me sleep!

I'm glad the excavation is going so well! Between the cooking, the repairs, the intelligent questions, and impressing another of their engineers, you really seem like you're carving out a place for yourself there after all! Way to go, Celeste! I'm so very proud of you!

I'm glad you're learning so much, and your hypotheses are such good ones! You'll be a full-fledged Explorer's League member before you know it!

I'm looking forward to having a few more of those desert flowers around the house! The fragrance and the way they bloom at night are both right up my alley! I can't wait to see a few around the house!

Be safe, and have fun!

With all my love,

~ Natasha Ebonlocke

I hope she likes her letter, and mine and Dordy’s prints, and her flowers! I can’t wait until she gets home!

Wednesday, we were able to get back to the weekly Whitewind Company adventure! Last time, we tracked the legguards of Princess Ariel Sunstrider’s plate armor suit we were after to Thelsammar in Loch Modan! They arrived there only in the last few years, so there's every chance someone's got them locked away, hidden quietly from the village at large. We decided we’d be meeting there in about to start off with, and seeing if we can find, and negotiate with, the current holder!

When we got there, it was me, my bestie Nah, and another Whitewind Employee, Tessina Spiritwalker, the Kaldorei with the spirit wolf Palattu that usually comes with us. Grim was trying to make it in, but he said over the comms that he was having equipment trouble and couldn’t make it. That was a bummer! But, we did have a surprise companion join us partway through… more on that in a sec!

We met up in Thelsammar as planned, strolling through the little dwarven village and checking around for the magister, a dwarf by the name of Bluntnose, according to my contacts. It’s a pretty little village, nestled into a dip in the hills around Loch Modan, with homes built right into the individual hills. The road dips down into the center of the village and comes back up again, going west to east off the main north/south road. Through it we searched, greeting friendly dwarves (many of them looking a bit hung over from Brewfest) as we went along, until we eventually found a black-haired dwarf that identified himself as Magister Bluntnose!

This was it! The moment of truth! Did he have the legguards?!

We chatted him up, and he was pretty talkative, so I decided to cut to the chase. I approached him and whispered to him what we were after, not wanting to be overheard speaking about the priceless artifact we were after. The dwarf was like, “YE WOT MATE?!” He was so surprised we even knew that the legguards existed, let alone knew that he had them! He was not too keen on admitting that the legguards were there, yet it was pretty easy for Nah to persuade them to part with them for his own safety. Apparently, he’d been nervous about having them in town, as Thelsammar isn’t really built to withstand a heavy assault, and the dwarves there aren’t equipped or trained like soldiers, either.

The deal he worked out with Nah in the end was that if Nah and her company would take the legguards and keep them from the Dark Irons that would likely use them to overrun Thelsammar and other dwarven villages, then she could have them, although it seemed a shame to give up an artifact that as, as he put it, “worth more than Thelsammar and all the surrounding land,” so he decided to add in another trade deal: Thelsammar had hides, crops, brews, stone, and lumber to trade. Of course, we can get those things in pretty much any land, but to make the deal more worth the village’s time, we decided to agree to a permanent trade route with them to get them general goods and fine goods that they can’t get locally. The deal is supposed to be worked out another day, once we had hurried and gotten those legguards out of there.

After that, Magister Bluntnose went into his home, where we could hear furniture being dragged across the floor, then a rug being rolled up across the floor, and then the two Kaldorei women, Nah and Tess, said they could hear a combination lock clicking, and then the heavy door of a safe swinging open. Magister Bluntnose returned a moment later, bearing a crate large enough that it could hold a dainty Quel’dorei princess’s plate leg armor. He seemed almost eager to hand it over to Nah. Something that priceless being handed over that readily, he must have really been terrified of possessing them!

And then, just like that… MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! We had the legguards! A bit anti-climatic, after all we went through to locate them, but oh well, we had them!

…Or did we?

Just then, there was a SHOUT! A woman with a dwarven accent, something about how she’d been saying all along that the legguards must have been brought here, and now she knows for sure!

Magister Bluntnose yelped and turned to sprint inside, slamming the door behind him and locking it. The other dwarves were doing the same, taking cover behind the heavy stone doors of their homes. They must have been really worried about this invasion coming one day!

The shout had come from the east, over the next rise. Descending the little hill path from Magister Bluntnose’s home, we looked, and saw half a dozen dark iron dwarves, all riding those molten corehounds from deep in the bowels of Blackrock Mountain, and all armored up and prepared for battle! They must have thought this was going to be an easy snatch ‘n’ grab run, though, because they had no weapons on them! We were able to figure out from their talk that the two leaders, a Dark Iron male and female, were a married couple, with one lieutenant among them and three more hardened soldiers. Armored as they were, they looked like a fight that would be much too overwhelming for our little band!

Sure enough, they WERE!

They charged at Nah, who was holding the crate, each of them making a grab for it in a sudden tussle, knocking me down in the process as they tried to rip the crate from Nah’s hands. Oh gosh! But then, Nah just POOFED! Disappeared into thin air! The leader lady got REALLY mad about that! Next thing I know, she GRABBED me! Just yoinked me off the ground and tossed me over her corehound. Turns out this one was armed after all – next thing I know, she had a small DAGGER to my throat!

That’s when I felt my heart break… as Matilda held the dagger to my throat, she was also talking about cutting me open and having me “bleed like the stuck pig I was.” Having a knife held to me while being called a pig brought to mind that terrifying night that Celeste’s twin brother, Tomlin, had done the same thing, calling me a “sow” as he held the knife point to my eye. Remembering what I’d had to do that night at Tomlin’s orders – go back home and tell Celeste I didn’t want to be with her anymore and never wanted to see her again, or he’d kill me and everyone I ever cared about – broke my heart all over again, and I could not hold back the tears. The last thing I saw before the tears clouded my vision was Nah looking infuriated at the painful memories Matilda had just caused me to relive, and I knew, then, that Matilda was in for it, though that was a thought at the back of my mind, barely there, mostly smothered by the anguish I felt at the memories I was reliving… the night I had to resort to what was basically a mind-controlling charm (from my succubus) to force Celeste from my home… the way a bully once had, which had hurt Celeste to have done to her by someone she respected and cared about and looked to as a leader… because nothing else would get her to leave my side. The pain was unbearable!

Meanwhile, Nah tells me, Tess had gotten into an insult war with their lieutenant, Goslin Fireeye, a young but battle-hardened Dark Iron woman with a shaved head save for a fiery-looking mohawk, plate armor that almost seemed to gleam with fire, and an eyepatch over one eye. Tess had ensnared her in her hunter’s net, and the two were going at it with insults back and forth. Oh, GOSH, some of the unrepeatable things they said to each other! Goodness GRACIOUS!

The hostage situation going on at the same time there was SO scary! The lady, whom the dwarves called Matilda, or “Mattie” for short, demanded that Nah come back out with that crate and give it to her, or she’d KILL me! That was SO SO SO SCARY! Nah reluctantly emerged from the shadows, holding up the crate. There was another mad scramble for it, and Matilda’s husband, a dwarf they called Blaze Bronzebane, ended up with it in his hands. Nah’s last attempt to do something about the situation was successful, though… She was able to rip the crate open, sending the Dark Iron dwarves into a frenzy! The power of the enchanted armor of Princess Ariel Sunstrider took hold over them, and they got into a frenzy, roaring about completing the mission they’d been on for years at all costs! I thought they were going to hand me back over to Nah and leave, but they didn’t! They rode right off with me, riding too fast for Nah and Tess to reach their mounts and give chase!

They still had Goslin netted, however, so rather than resort to slow tracking to find me and the dwarves, they decided to interrogate her, Nah later told me. She wouldn’t say what she actually did to Goslin to get her to talk, so I’m guessing it was something really bad that I don’t even want to think about! However, looks like they got her to talk, because they were riding south through the mountains and the Valley of Kings, giving chase to us! Nah said she’d also poisoned Goslin with a numbing poison that made her slow to think and move and stuff, so she wasn’t able to get out of that net and chase us down very quickly, either!

Further down the path, while my friends were interrogating Goslin, the dwarves that had me had stopped. Matilda was urging the group to go up a side road that went up into the low cliffs that overlooked the road to set up an ambush, while Blaze was furiously demanding that they continue back to the Cauldron, which makes me think of the enormous quarry in the Searing Gorge that the dark irons have been working for decades. If they disappeared into the Cauldron with me, they’d have a veritable army of Dark Irons imprisoning me, AND the power of the enchanted armor on their side! I hoped like crazy that my friends would catch up to me before then, especially as, being bound and gagged as I now was, and having been caught without a single fel minion at my call, being outnumbered by dwarves possessing enchanted armor that spurred them into a fighting frenzy was not a situation it would have been smart to try and fight my way out of single-handed!

Fortunately for me, though, Nah and Tess showed up during the argument, and Blaze demanded that Matilda abandon her ambush idea and ride with all haste back to the Cauldron. The arrival of pursuers and the way the enchanted armor drove people into a frenzy to do battle for a noble cause and complete a mission had the dwarves turning and riding hard for home, determined to finish the years-old job of getting the legguards home!

Nah and Tess gave chase, both of them going for Matilda, who had me, instead of going for the armor. They should have gone for the armor first! I’m just one person; the number of people that might fall with that magic armor in the hands of hostile Dark Irons was way more important!

Yet go after Matilda they did, for which of course I am eternally grateful, even if I disagree with it! They landed hit after hit on Matilda as the chase ran through the hills and toward the Stonewrought Pass, the tunnels that led from Loch Modan’s Valley of Kings down into the Searing Gorge’s Dustfire Valley, at the northeast corner of the Gorge. They were almost to the tunnel when we heard HOOVES behind us!

Looking back, just like Tess and Nah did, I saw who it was… not the dwarf Goslin they’d left behind, but ANNABELLE BAKER! Our priestess friend from Mags’ family’s company, the Quicksilver Company, had arrived! She later said that she’d gotten the letter of invitation to Thelsammar for the opportunity to earn gold on a mission, and had heard what happened after arriving a bit late and hearing that Nah and Tess had ridden off south, and she had given chase! Our chances of success had just increased measurably!

After that, however, Goslin Fireeye DID arrive! She was bearing down on Anna from behind! I didn’t see what happened next, however… the Dark Irons had gained the Stonewrought Pass, and were riding hard down into the long, dark tunnel… and now my friends were all out of sight! Oh, NO!

It wasn’t long, however, before they caught up again. I heard shouts, including one powerful command from Tess, and then… a whole stampede of SPIRIT CLEFTHOOF BEASTS was in the tunnel with us! Nah and Tess had done some damage to the corehound Matilda was riding, and it was falling behind, so the stampede hit the corehound and threw Matilda and I off! I saw Matilda go down under the force of one of them, and then another got me in the head, and I fell down and knew no more.

I came to sometime later, with the chase still on! I had no idea what had happened in the tunnel, but Nah filled me in:

Nah had ridden on the heels of the stampede, Tess with her. Tess had leaned down off her mount as she rode by Matilda’s unconscious form and slung dwarf over her mount, binding her as she rode. Anna was holding off Goslin in the rear, and had also produced a pretty good Light barrier spell that Matilda had tried to Blink through with her mage abilities, though the barrier still slowed her mount down, causing her to begin to lag behind the others, and presenting her as a prime target for the group’s attacks. I had wondered how the rest of the dwarves were getting so far ahead!

Nah had also leaned down as she rode, scooping me from the tunnel’s floor and slinging me over her mount the way Tess had Matilda, and the two rode hard after the dwarves. Meanwhile, Goslin couldn’t get past Anna, with the speed she was riding. The group hurtled down the corridor of the Stonewrought Pass tunnel, emerging later into the dry, dusty, hot Searing Gorge. The ashen valley had quite a difference in temperature from the autumnal Loch Modan, but that did not deter my friends!

It was then that I came back to. Anna had apparently healed me as she rode with a healing spell of the Light! I found myself across my bestie’s mount. With the memory of everything that had happened that night, and finding myself fully healed and strong again, I summon Enkil-belan, my Dreadsteed, the fel horse with its horns, bathed in green fel fire. Scooting off Nah’s horse and onto it, I rode side-saddle as usual, bearing down hard on the dwarves with my friends!

The road forked immediately ahead, one going straight, the other curving off to the right. The dwarves had turned that way, heading into a shallow and quite narrow pass through the hills on the left and the towering cliffs of the Gorge’s northeast borders on the right. The dwarves had nowhere to flee but forward, and that simplified things!

Tess stopped the chase dead in its tracks in the next instant… another NET TOSS! She got Blaze with it! The Dark Iron boss was YOINKED off his corehound, the legguards still in his hands! The frenzied dwarves stopped immediately, turning to charge Tess and pummeling her with their fists. Meaty smacks echoed through the little valley as they beat on Tess and tried to yank her from her spirit moose mount, though Tess remained astride it and was able to fend off the attacks. Anna had her healed in a trice, and Nah, in all the commotion was able to STEAL THE LEGGUARDS BACK from the dwarf boss!

That didn’t sit well with the magically-frenzied dwarves, however… the Dark Irons turned from Tess and immediately surrounded Nah, each one trying to take the legguards back from her! It was four onto one, with Goslin in the rear trying and failing to get past the valiant Annabelle. I had my imps, Wikpik and Kil’rek out by this point, but first things first – I had to get those dwarves off of my bestie! I cast a fear spell on their leader, Blaze, and he ran screaming in terror back toward his mount, though his erratic running pattern never did get him there.

Nah took the opening Blaze left in the half-circle of dwarves that had her basically pinned to the cliff wall, charging RIGHT THROUGH IT! The dwarves were unable to stop her, and, to top things off, Tess had thrown one of those tar traps hunters use right into the dwarves’ path, and it exploded with sticky tar, ensnaring them and making it a long, slow slog to get out of the massive puddle! Nah was now FREE, and she HAD THE LEGGUARDS!

The dwarves were too numerous and too heavily armored for us (not to mention Blaze likely being another mage) to risk taking them out in a direct fight of attrition, so Nah, having what we came for, gave the order to leave them in our dust and get the legguards back to safety!

WE HAD DONE IT! WE HAD THE NEXT PIECE OF THE ENCHANTED PLATE ARMOR OF PRINCESS ARIEL SUNSTRIDER!

We rode hard then, overwhelming Goslin Fireeye in the rear to get past her, heading back the way we came. Nah gave the order to split up, causing them to have to follow confused tracks in the hopes that one trail would lead to the legguards. Over the comms, she gave the order to meet back up at Ironforge, at Bruuk’s Corner. One of our old favorite Deathrolls haunts would give us a refuge to stop and catch our breath after the exhausting night, and, should we make it to Ironforge, the five remaining Dark Irons would be stopped at the gates with too few numbers to invade the capitol Bronzebeard Dwarf city.

Back up through the Stonewrought pass I rode, Nah and Tess having gone routes that I didn’t see and Anna having turned south, the opposite direction of Stonewrought Pass. I rode back up the steep incline through the Valley of Kings in Loch Modan, taking the first of the paths on the left that would lead into Dun Morogh through still more tunnels. Emerging into the snowy heights of the Bronzebeards’ territory, I could hear snow crunching and then sizzling as it melted under the heels of my dreadsteed. A cold wind tore through my sweater and cut right through to the skin, and my hair streamed out behind me, but still I rode, not wanting to be caught alone by Dark Irons. I passed a few Ironforge Mountaineers, however, and that made me feel more safe – the dwarves with their trusty blunderbusses would give the Dark Irons pause, and, having seen me fleeing something, they were immediately alerted and ready to ambush any pursuer, so I knew I was safe then. Yet I rode hard for the greater safety of Ironforge, eventually reaching the narrow land-ramp that headed up to its gates. The mountaineers I passed here also paused to look for pursuers, and even the drunken revelers down the mountain to the left at the Brewfest grounds could tell the difference between the racing rams that had been going up and down the mountains and this fel dreadsteed, and knew something was up.

Yet I never saw a single Dark Iron, and I was in the city before I knew it! The intense heat of the city’s magma core had me warmed up in minutes, and I found myself arriving at Bruuk’s Corner almost simultaneously with Anna, Tess, and my bestie Nah!

Bruuk Barleybeard was at the bar as usual, though he knew that even the odd occurrences at Deathrolls games when this bunch showed up was different than the odd occurrence of us suddenly showing up here looking disheveled, exhausted, and quite serious, let alone the unconscious Dark Iron dwarf lady slung over Nah’s shoulder! He offered us all drinks on the house and left us alone, knowing already our favorite drinks. That was kind of him!

The four of us talked about what to do next. Matilda, it looked like, was in for some Whitewind’s Grace brig time. Boy, those cells are getting full… we’ll need to do something about that. Maybe send some to the Stormwind Stockades? Tess and Anna, meanwhile, headed for home, with the promise of the usual delivered gold for their work. Nah and I went to the Grace, where we were met by First Mate Nathanial Seabreeze. Nate took Matilda off our hands and got her into the brig while Nah and I talked about what would be next.

It wasn’t long before Matilda finally woke up. The enraged screams were audible all the way up in Nah’s plush cabin on the ship! Nate showed up a bit later with a red mark on his forehead that might be a lump and/or a bruise soon. He said that Matilda had, indeed, woken up, and was proving to be a bit of a handful, and had headbutted him! Nah, still in a dark, furious mood over having seen the tears on my face from the memory I’d had to relive, immediately strode downstairs with a purpose. The screams were instantly silenced, and Nah came back up, reporting she’d given a kidney punch to the raging dwarf and then poured a sleeping draught down her throat. Oh gosh! I suggested next to Nate that he get an area of effect silencing spell put over the brig so that further outbursts wouldn’t disturb the rest of the ship. That and the wards that prevent magic users like Matilda from being able to use magic at all, especially to escape, should keep Matilda in check!

Nate took his leave then, to contact the Kirin Tor about getting someone to use such a spell, and, at Nah’s behest, also maintain that spell and the magic wards regularly. That oughta cost the company a pretty penny, but at least the brig will be thoroughly secured!

Nah and I went back to talking about what would be next at that point. It seems like we have the other gauntlet still waiting on us in Kalimdor. The last we’d heard, the gauntlet would be available for trade for a tenth of its worth in general and fine goods, which will be so much cargo that we’ll need the Whitewind’s Grace to carry it all there. Whew! Then we’ll need to meet the Kaldorei people that have it on the east coast of Feralas, which means sailing through the Thousand Needles. The ship should fit, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Then we have an unspecified piece of armor remaining in Eversong Woods or the neighboring Ghostlands, the old Quel’dorei forests at the northern end of the continent, and another unspecified piece in Hearthglen, just there for us to trade for it as well.

Nah’s vote is for Kalimdor next, it seems. I’ll have to post another poll up to see where everyone wants to go next, so I can get the next mission prepped!

In the meantime, I’m just relaxing for my final day of minication! Dordy and I are going to go fishing later, if this big storm raging right now clears up. If not, we’ll enjoy a nice day inside, maybe with some games for Dordy to play, followed by a good dinner, and then unwinding with a good book before bed. It should be a pretty good day! I’m also really looking forward to is next week’s adventures and games with my friends, and ESPECIALLY for Celeste’s triumphant return from her dig! I can’t wait! YAY!

Nat smiled at those happy thoughts as she tapped off the excess ink from her quill and replaced it in her quill case. She capped the inkwell, placing that and the quill case back in the side drawer on her writing desk by her knee. Sitting back in her chair, she looked out the window into the storm and its visibility-limiting rain. There was a quite a storm out there! But that was okay, because she was in here, safe and sound in this strong house she had built with Celeste and their Anglers Wharf friends, with a warm fireplace heating the house, a warm cup of coffee, and a warm pup at her feet. Smiling, she sipped at her coffee for a while as she thought about Celeste’s adventures and her own, until eventually snapping out of it. After one more sip of coffee, she set it down on the table. The ink on her pages was dry now. She picked it up, standing to return it to its place on the bookshelf.

Her movement woke Dordy, who was suddenly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, knowing that the writing was over, and some sort of adventure or other fun was usually in the works next.

And he was right!

Nat, hitting on another idea, went down to the hangar. A yell and a wave brought Onyx the wispy Netherdrake into the hangar, water pouring off him. Onyx loved to play in storms, and he always seemed to be safe from lightning strikes up there. This knowledge brought an idea to Nat’s mind, who set up a strong covering on his saddle big enough to hold a gnome, made from bamboo with tightly-bound, thick canvas. Inside, she strapped down a short note to Penny, inviting her over for the day to while away the hours in the storm with some company!

Penny arrived a short time later, and the rest of the day was spent playing games like Keep-Away with Dordy and his favorite wrench, Tug-o’-War with a bit of rope tied into knots on the ends, and, when he was finally wearing down, sitting with him on the floor in front of the fire, gently rolling a ball back and forth between Penny and Nat, with him tiredly but eagerly chasing after it, often intercepting it, though he was tired enough that he’d bring the ball to Nat or Penny afterward for them to roll again instead of fleeing with it for Keep-Away.

After that was a dinner of smoked salmon, fresh-baked bread, and a salad made from veggies from their tiny farm near Halfhill Market. Nat, Penny, and Dordy all ate their fills and then some, and then Penny headed home, leaving Nat to unwind for bed with a good book, stretched out on the couch in front of the fire, with an exhausted, full-belly Dordy curled up on her feet and keeping them warm.

Bedtime followed sometime later, drawing the minication to a close. Nat took a deep breath of the fragrant, night-blooming flowers on her bedside table Celeste had sent her from her dig, and smiled. She knew Celeste would be back soon, and she couldn’t wait, nor could she wait to see what the next week with her friends would bring her!

[Natasha Ebonlocke]

October the Thirteenth

A cool breeze drifted through the jungle of the Krasarang Wilds. The tropical region might be warm year-round, but the cooler time of year did make for some relieving winds from time to time that blew the branches of the jungle trees and gently shook loose bits of foliage from the canopy. That foliage drifted through branches high enough to see the ocean to the south, and the cliff marking the beginning of the Vale of the Four Winds to the north, but then fell through to a darker area below, devoid of sunlight, making for a wondrous sight of shadowy undergrowth amongst thick tree trunks, with jungle streams trickling past here and there.

One such stream flowed noisily into a pond, in which stood a massive direhorn. The direhorn’s great crest and three massive horns protruded from its head, from which dripped streams of water of its own, evidence of a recent drink from the pond. The rest of him dripped water as well, due to the scrubbing being done by a slender, athletic-looking woman with short, strawberry-blonde hair and hazel eyes, the former largely covered in a wide-brimmed fishing hat. The woman muttered about dry, damaged scales, and about still finding desert sand in them. In between the mutters were calming, soothing words to the direhorn, who seemed no more affected by the words than he was by the odd occurrence near his great reptilian feet: a molten corgi steering a bullet-proof glass bubble with fins controlled by pedals zooming around in the pond underneath the direhorn, his barks mostly inaudible through the bubble and the pond water as he bumped Nosebleeds legs with his bubble time and again, continuing his lifelong quest to finally goad Nosebleed into playing with him.

Nearby to Celeste McCullough, Dordy, and Nosebleed, Ebonhoof the black stallion stood, munching idly on jungle foliage as he watched his enormous friend get his scrub-down. He whickered and stomped lightly, causing Natasha Ebonlocke, sprawled across her picnic blanket with her diary, inkwell of purple ink, and cherrywood quill case open in front of her, to look up. She saw Ebonhoof twitch an ear and blink at her, then look back at his friend. Nat assured him that Nosebleed would be okay, that Celeste would take care of him, giving him a few pats on the lower leg from where she could reach, then returned to her diary after a giggle at Dordy’s underwater antics, with her ravenfeather quill in hand, dipping it for ink and tapping off the excess before setting to work of her own.

Dear diary,

Boy, it’s been a busy week! First was Celeste’s return from her week-long expedition with the Explorer’s League, which I was SUPER excited to see when I came home from work Sunday night! I’m so glad to have her back! She even planted more of those super pretty desert flowers in front of the windows that get the most sun! They can’t be outside due to the tropical storms we sometimes get, but they can stay inside where it’s dry, with the sunshine coming through the windows. They look so pretty, from inside and outside! Then there was the recruitment of a new member into the Whitewind Company! YAY! Then there was DEATHROLLS! And we even got to go on an adventure with Maya’s friend Suji, a Pandaren hunter who had a mission for us she was hired to do by Maya to investigate cultists!

Celeste’s return was pretty eventful. There was lots to unpack, lots of news to hear, and lots of work to do!

The news she had was good. As a brand-new, junior member, Celeste wasn’t in on the major stuff, like the research, the planning, and what to do to find things and then what to do with the finds. She mostly stayed quartermaster and cook, aside from using the MUTT to dig things out of the sand. Her talents were vastly appreciated, though, and she has already received offers to join other expeditions in the same capacity! That’s awesome! She hasn’t said yes to any of them yet, but I think she might soon! She loves archaeology, and the Explorer’s League will give her the opportunity to do it with a real team, and the funding to do so! She also made that draenei engineer friend that she mentioned in her letter I copied over last week, so that was great too!

Aside from the unpacking, there was a lot of maintenance work to do on the MUTT. The wind really kicked in lots and lots of sand into the MUTT’s inner workings, so Celeste has spent a lot of time taking it apart and cleaning the sand out and reassembling it. It’s been a real project!

Nosebleed’s hide took some damage in that desert sun. Lots of scales dried up and got brittle and stuff, and what didn’t fall off has needed a daily scrubbing. Celeste is giving him a bath right now. Everything came off: cargo nets, saddle, bridle, reins, and all. Then she lead him with gentle tugs into the jungle to the large pond at the foot of the cliffs overlooking the Wilds. Nosebleed gratefully trundled into the pond until he was fully under the water. Only his nostrils, eyes and great head and horns were above the water. Celeste let him linger there as long as he wanted, playing with Dordy meanwhile before letting him excitedly climb into his Dordy Bubble to go and play with Nosebleed. Finally, Nosebleed turned and walked out of the water to look for nice, tasty leaves to chew, which he can reach from belly-deep in the water, what with the jungle foliage being so thick. His buddy Ebonhoof, my horse, is here with him, so that’s making him happy too, and we can hear Onyx and Cloud Dancer playing on the thermals overhead, out of sight through the jungle canopy, so the whole family is here! While Nosebleed soaks in the pond and munches on leaves, Celeste is giving him a proper scrubbing, cleaning his scales of sand and dirt. His scales had become a bit dry from the desert heat, and his hide irritated from bits of desert sand that had blown in on the dry winds, which Celeste is still finding bits and pieces of, and she’s been looking through her mother's old alchemical notebooks to see if there was a salve she could make to help him.

That leads to the next bit of good news… she found one! What’s more… we’re going on an ADVENTURE to get what we need! YAY!

We were sitting in the living room, enjoying a quiet breakfast and coffee the other day as I read a novel and she read through her mother’s notebooks. Celeste suddenly burst out laughing, which startled me! She raised the notebook to show me the source of her mirth: the page in the notebook detailed a salve made from stranglekelp, which, apparently, is good to treat mild rashes and allergies. There is a doodle underneath a perfect drawing of a stranglekelp leaf, which Celeste obviously made. It shows a cartoonish girl with pigtails and a pink dress laughing at a boy with an angry face and red splotches on his arms an legs. Celeste drew flies around the boy and in a child’s blocky letters wrote: “STINKY!” HA! It really made me laugh to see it, and it warmed my heart to see Celeste be able to look back on her earlier life and it not be one of those moments she’s saddened by. Apparently, anyway, stranglekelp salve is super super smelly! But, it also works on rashes and stuff, so that’s awesome!

And that led to the news – Celeste had a story, followed by an idea: Tom had gotten a rash after stumbling into a patch of nettles or something. He smelled like salty, dead fish for several days after that, and the smell just wouldn’t wash off! Celeste said it made him made every time she pinched her nose… HA! She then said she might have found a few salves she’ll need to help Nosebleed’s scales. She’ll need mountain silversage and kingsblood, among other things. Kingsblood should be easy to get at the markets in Stormwind, but silversage… mother noted that it was most plentiful in Un’goro Crater. Well, Nosebleed will fit right in there! Celeste said she’s been wanting to try some armored barding on him for a while now. Might be a good opportunity to test it! Then she was like, “Care to join me, in an expedition where giant beasts roam, and even the plants want to devour you?” And I was like, "Oh gosh, YEAH! The site of our first Whitewind Company Adventure together! The memories! Remember your ingenious colored crystals idea for our communicators? We still use those! Heck yeah, I'd love to adventure there with you again! Are we gonna go camping and all?"

So that’s the news, and that’s the plan! A return to my first-ever Whitewind Company adventure with CELESTE! Our first time there went well, but that was just for a few hours. This one will be a whole week or so of camping! WOO! Celeste said she’s thinking on a campsite up in the crater to the north, where the silversage is more easily found. Nosebleed will enjoy the humid jungle air, a great change from that desert! She also said that any camping trip lasting more than a day will require some safety measures. No elven druid to keep the crater’s beasts calm, so that means scent decoys, the MAD system, probably more armor on the MUTT, and maybe that armored barding she was talking about for Nosebleed himself! Worst-case scenario, I also need to use my wrathguard Mek-barash, which animals naturally avoid, but that would also mean a bit of a general fel aura around the camp, which might not be too enjoyable, so hopefully we don’t have to go that far, and the MAD system on the MUTT will work out just fine! Gosh, I can’t wait to go on this adventure! I just hope we’re able to prepare for it soon enough, so we can stop Nosebleed’s discomfort! Either way, this adventure is sure to be FUN!

Other than that, we got a new recruit into the Whitewind Company too! Erenari Starwalker, known to some as “Nips” due to his habit of never wearing a shirt – gosh! – is a friend Nah and I, among others in our group, have been running with for well over a year on various adventures and keystone battles and such. He expressed an interest in the Whitewind Company, so we set up a meeting with him aboard the Whitewind’s Grace yesterday afternoon before the weekly adventure. It was part him interviewing us to see what we’re all about, and part us interviewing him for a position. He then decided to join us as a contractor for missions! WOOHOO! It’ll be so good to have him around on our adventures! He’s such a strong fighter, and he’s so smart, too! I can’t wait to adventure some more with him!

Tuesday was DEATHROLLS! We got to play in Kirthaven, which was great! It was me, my bestie Nah, our friend Sparkles, Anna from the Quicksilver Company (who was sore from her paladin training, where “they make you hold a shield and beat you with swords and tell you to eat more food,” HA!), Sparkles’ friend Xamaran the Ren’dorei that the rest of us got to meet for the first time, our friend Mairy the Wildhammer dwarf that has had real life stopping her from coming with us for a few months, and, for the second time, Erenari! Seven in all – good thing those chairs in the Kirthaven meeting room are so wide; I was able to double up with my bestie, side by side, since there are only four of those huge stone chairs to a table, and good luck dragging another stone chair from another table! Sparkles even sat on the table itself, since she’s too tiny to see very well from the chairs. HA!

The game started off being eventful right off the bat… Sparkles, in the first round, rolled the dreaded sixty-nine, which, according to our rules, means you have to point at someone you’d do that with, whether seriously, or just a joke answer. Tiny little Sparkles pointed at the tallest person in the room: Nah! Oh gosh! What is wrong with us that we have this rule?! HA! How embarrassing! I ended up winning the Truth or Dare rolls after Nah lost that round, so, as I knew we had more coming in (Anna and Xam were going to be late, as was Erenari, and Mairy was a surprise late addition!), I Dared her to, when they come in, to stand up and greet them each as they came in, offering to do weirder and weirder things for them… offer to get them drinks, to get them food, to shine their shoes, to massage their ears, to trim their toe hairs, and so on and so on… HA! Talk about some confused people coming in! Then of course, as I’ve written in the past, Sparkles remembers people better by the nicknames she gives them than she does their actual names, so Sparkles introduced Xam to us as, “Spooky,” and then Nari, who arrived at the same time, paused and froze as Sparkles went, “I’m gonna call youuuuuu…” and he was like, “Oh no…” and Sparkles was like, “Scary!” HA! Then Nah was like, “Shifty (herself), Spooky, and Scary, all under the same roof. That won’t be confusing at all.” Hehe! Erenari promptly nicknamed Sparkles “Smalls,” to which Sparkles immediately retorted, “I was calling you by what you look like, not what you have!” Oh gosh! And Nari was just laughing and he was like, “Spicy. I like ‘er.” Those two are going to be a riot together! Nari particularly enjoyed the old stories about Sparkles, like how the last time we played in Kirthaven, we shot Sparkles out of a catapult, and how Sparkles once climbed into Grim’s lap (who couldn’t make the game due to life stuff) during a game and pretended to play the drums on his head while scream-singing the song “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor” by the gnomish rock band Sludge Pool, and how Sparkles invents questionable things like electric panties. Oh gosh! Sparkles, due to a Nah Dare, ended up having to spend rounds in different people’s laps. She’s so tiny that it wasn’t an issue, except for poor sore Anna, for whom the last thing she needed was metal legs on her lap. Oof! The way the lap Dares ended up, Xam the Ren’dorei ended up on Nah’s lap for a few rounds, which meant three “Tall Ones” all crowded into one chair, while Sparkles had an entire huge empty chair all to herself! HA! Nari had a truth for Xam in which she had to say who she’d most likely blame a fart on. She said her cat! How funny! A farting cat! Well, they do actually do that! Sparkles had Nari for a Dare, and she asked Xam what her favorite color was, and she said purple (woohoo! Another fan of purple!), so she handed Nari one of her trick candies, a purple one. Nari made the absolute most horrible face, and was like, “What th’ shards was that?!” It turned out to be a candy that was first salty, then sour, then spicy! Oh gosh! Sparkles, meanwhile, was still doing a bunch of lap-sitting for Dares, and Xam held Sparkles up like she was a baby, and Anna reached out for her the same way as Xam passed her over. Hehe! Sparkles was complaining about being “passed around like a d--- party favor.” Ha! Then one of my favorites of the night: Anna’s TRIPLE DARE! Anna got Sparkles, Xam, and Nah all at once (due to the rule about having to join in on the Truth or Dare if you roll a One during the Truth or Dare rolls at the end of each round), so she Dared them to a competition to do push-ups, and the winner got to Dare the last-place finisher to do something, so Sparkles (who won with her mechanical arms and very short distance to have to push all the way up), playfully acting fed-up with the lap Dares, had Xam sitting in Nah’s lap, which was how the aforementioned three of us in one seat and Sparkles with another all to herself happened! HA! That was a great set-up by Anna! I love it when she comes to games! Then Sparkles Dared Nah to try one of her red trick candies. It turned out to be mega-minty, and Nah could barely handle it without spitting it out! Gosh! Nari had a good Truth for Sparkles, recounting the dumbest reason she’d ever gotten stopped by someone in the Stormwind Guard. Sparkles said she’d once been snatched up by someone and hung from a tree by her mechanical feet, and she couldn’t get free! Then the guard came along and found her and charged her with loitering! HA! Then Mairy rolled a one hundred out of one hundred to start the next round, which, according to our rules, means you get to pick any person in the group, AND choose Truth or Dare FOR them! And doggone it, she picked ME! She Dared me to do a headstand on Nah’s shoulders! Oh gosh! She knows I’m like the least athletic person ever! Sparkles reminded me of the F.A.D. (the Fall Avoidance Device) that Maya had hired her to invent for me for a Winter Veil gift last year, so that was a good thing! I ended up, what with the FAD and my bestie’s strong arms guiding me, able to do the headstand on top of Nah’s shoulders, though not without quite a bit of awkward stumbling about first, and I had to have a third point of contact – my head on top of my bestie’s! Then, when I tried to get down, I FELL, of COURSE! And the FAD activated, which had me drift off to the side… RIGHT TOWARDS NARI! Nari ended up catching me, with Nah catching me as well, so that was okay, and Nah swung me around while I fell in slow motion to put me back in my spot on our chair again. Geez Louise! And all the while the PEANUT GALLERY over there – Anna, Sparkles, and Mairy – were making a bunch of comments the entire time, like Sparkle telling me that Nah’s hands were slowly moving toward places on me they shouldn’t while I was trying to balance, and Mairy talking about how I should get back down by falling with style, and how I certainly had the fall part down, but no style at all, and Anna being baffled by the “strange and cursed Nat-dance,” and lots of other things… Gosh! Nari had a Truth for Mairy about the worst gift she could think of that she’d give Sparkles. Mairy’s joke answer before her serious answer was, “If’n ye ask her, it’d be the gift o’ me friendship.” HA! Then she started talking about how she’d gift her a wrench, and it’d be the wrong size for anything and would never work. Oh gosh, what an awful gift idea! Hehe! Nah then got the second roll of sixty-nine of the evening – it almost never happens, but this time, twice in one night! Oh gosh! And then, just to embarrass our newest player, she booped Xam’s nose, and said that was her answer. Goodness gracious, Xam looked so embarrassed, she didn’t seem to know what to do or say! HA! Nah got me with a Dare in which I had to drink the potion that makes my lower half lose all energy and makes me go all rag-dolled again, so I got her back with a Dare to lay down seductively across the table, pretend Nari is a rooster, and flirt with the rooster! Nah laid down across the table as Dared, and then went, “Hey, there, Rooster. You’re looking like quite the early riser. I’d like to see that crest of yours sometime, you know…” while stroking the table in front of her slowly with a forefinger to add to the seductive scene. Nari burst out laughing, pretending to fan himself, and then was like, “Ten of ten, would recommend.” Haha! It was so much like the time she had to pretend to be a tauren woman and hit on Nari the last game he came to! Gosh, there were so many more good Truths and Dares, too, and the night was super fun! Less awkward and borderline lewd than some of the players tend to get, so a bit tamer, which was a really nice and relieving change, and still every bit as fun and funny! I had a blast! I LOVE Deathrolls!

Then last night was the weekly Whitewind Company adventure! This time, since we’ve just recovered the legplates of Princess Ariel’s armor, and haven’t yet chosen which one to pursue next. (We’ve still got leads to pursue like the book I found with a lead to a piece last seen in Hearthglen, the book found by Nah with the lead to left-hand gauntlet last seen in Feralas that has been offered by the Kaldorei there in trade to us, and the book Mairy found with the lead to the Ghostlands. I gotta get that posted on the ship!)

For now, we accepted a mission brought to us by Suji, the pandaren hunter who went with us on the first-ever Whitewind Company mission, the one to the Badlands that began with us fighting Dark Iron Dwarves to recover a prototype high-tech blasting cap that would secure us a trading contract with Quality Asplosions, the goblin engineering firm operating out of Fuselight-By-The-Sea there in the Badlands, and ended with us fighting first pirates, and then a whole KRAKEN! This time, however, Suji wanted us to help investigating a camp of Twilight’s Hammer cultists in Silithus!

I was surprised to find that the Twilight’s Hammer are still being a problem, as their heroes and leaders were all wiped out years ago. Yet there still seem to be a few patches left of them, scattered around the world here and there, still clinging to bygone beliefs and old hatreds. The numbskulls!

Anyway, it was me, my bestie Nah, my old buddy Grim, Suji of course, Mairy, for the first time in months, and, fresh out of his recruitment interview, Erenari! We all met Suji in Silithus, under the shadow of the giant sword that the dark titan Sargeras plunged into the earth. Gosh, the shadows and the eye and just the sheer SIZE of it hurts my eyes to look at! I just faced away from it the whole time. It was giving me a headache! And the heat there in the desert, and the dry, sandy winds… UGH! No wonder the cultists were never found here! Between the climate and the awful sword, no one else wants to go there! If you ask people about the sword and what they think might ever be done about it, they don’t even wanna think about it either! They just go, “What sword?”

So it was from a rise on a ridge raised by the sword’s plunge into Azeroth that we scouted from range. I used an Eye of Kilrogg to scout ahead first, with Grim’s suggestion that we might attack the camp by using one of the old bug hives to come up into it from underground by surprise. It was an ingenious idea on Grim’s part, though unfortunately, it looked like all the hive caves had all been caved in by the dark titan’s attack. It was worth a look, though!

From there, we headed north, moving to our left across the desert sand to approach the camp to our northeast by heading to the entrance to Ahn’Qiraj, the old Silithid city. To our surprise, however, we were ambushed before we even got to the camp!

Before us stood two giant desert spiders and a giant scorpid, each nearly large enough to ride! One of them hurt Nah, one of them destroyed my imp Kil’rek, sending him back to the Twisting Nether for regeneration for the second week in a row, and one of them hurt Suji! But, we got them in the end! My imps didn’t do much with their ear-scorching insults and shockingly foul mouths, as they were insulting arachnids instead of people, but Nah blew one of them away with her pistols, Suji and Mairy finished off another, and my dreadstalkers crunched their way through the exoskeleton of another and demolished it. What was left sure didn’t look edible enough for Celeste’s increasingly popular glazed scorpid meals!

We continued on, heading toward Ahn’Qiraj. Hugging the cliffs, we moved closer to take a look at the Twilight Hammer camp itself, and it was immediately apparent that there was a magical barrier around the cultists’ perimeter! Runes protected it from four sides, with the barrier seeming to be originating from the center of the camp. Then Suji told me that, as the only “finger-wiggler” among the group, it’d be down to me to try and scry the weakness of the barrier. I did so, and it turned out that the rune barriers guarding the main barrier were absurdly simple ones: hit them once, with a spell or with physical force, and it would fall! Suji’s idea, then, was to split us up into groups after giving us all explosives that, she said were built by Sparkles. Knowing Sparkles’ work on crafting explosive ordnance, I knew these would be highly effective on just about anything! Those barriers would not stand a chance! Nari and Grim guarded our backs from the knoll we were on, keeping an eye on things and fighting off anyone that discovered our staging area, or approached us from the back. Suji and Mairy went left, along the cliff face, toward the two runes generating the outer barriers on that side. I went with my bestie Nah to the right, southbound, to take the two rune barriers on the other side down.

I used a mage invisibility illusion from my days dabbling in the mage variety of my magics, sneaking across the sand with Nah, who was stealthed herself. Following her, we reached the runes on that side. Right near them, however, was an outhouse, with two guards with towering shields guarding a ritualist! We were thinking about what to do, when one of the two guards, moaning loudly about not knowing he was drinking a dairy product, was leaning his shield against the side of the outhouse and rushing inside. The noises and moans from inside the outhouse were terrible, as was the smell, and I am definitely in no hurry to experience something like that again! Nah, of course, found it all terrifically funny, and had herself a good, long snicker. But, we knew we had work to do, so, now that the numbers were evened up, Nah snuck forward, drawing her long dagger from its sheathe. A black, viscous potion was applied to it next. I have no idea what it was for, but Nah snuck up to the ritualist from the shadows and sliced the ritualist with the poisoned dagger, then held her still with a hand over her mouth. I knew I had to stay stealthed, so I had no alternative but to summon my only stealthy fel minion… my succubus, Myrlia. That unsubtle show-off! She immediately began strutting around, being all seductive-like, which just irritated me. I commanded her to go silently finish off the ritualist, and she got him around the throat with a single whirl of her whip and squeezed tight. I hate doing stuff like this, but, as these ritualists routinely sacrifice living people and basically want to burn the whole world and everyone and everything living in it, I suppose it had to be done. Myrlia could have at least made it quicker!

That left the other guard, who was surprised to have Nah and Myrlia pop out of nowhere and take out the cultist he was charged with guarding. He swung his towering shield in front of him, easily able to duck behind the thing with his whole body and peer over the top. Myrlia cracked her whip, attempting to get in behind the shield and find a gap in his plate armor, but was unable to do so. Nah, snickering at the noisy, smelly misfortunes of the guard in the outhouse that had no idea that anything was going on mere feet from him, so distracted was he, attempted an attack on the guard outside and was similarly rebuffed. Myrlia saved the fight here, standing there wearing next to nothing and pouting, pursing those ridiculously full lips of hers in a full pout up at the guard as she gave him the puppy-dog eyes. The guard, viewing the full scope of Myrlia now, fell for the pout! To my surprise, he dropped his shield! It just… fell right over in the sand! From there, Nah and Myrlia were able to make short work of him, with Myrlia continuing the distraction by sashaying up to him, hips and other things twitching and bouncing, curling a leg and an arm around his body, her hand at the back of his helmeted head, stroking gently. His mistake! Nah’s dagger and Myrlia’s whip did the rest, and the guard fell. Then Nah, snickering with that look in her eyes that I know means some mischief is coming, took out some adhesive putty or something from her rogue bag of dirty tricks and sealed the outhouse door shut! Then, to make it worse, after we had destroyed the runes for the barriers on that side and we were leaving to rendezvous with Mairy and Suji, the guard finally finished up and realized he was trapped in there… and ended up shoving so hard that he TIPPED THE OUTHOUSE OVER! He could hear him screaming about having gotten it in his nose as we left! OH GOSH! EEEEWWWW!

Meanwhile, all the time we were working on the cultists and the barriers, Mairy and Suji were at work on the other side. First one blast, and then, some time later, another blast, told us that they’d been successful with Sparkles’ charges on the barriers as well! Nice and stealthy they’d been about it, too! Mairy and Suji are really, really good at what they do!

When we met at the center of the camp, we found a far more formidable arcane barrier than the four on the camp’s perimeter had been, one being maintained by a trio of rather frail-looking cultists inside it. It was going to take quite a bit of work to down this one… especially as it was guarded by three ogres wearing full plate armor and carrying hammers as big as I am!

I attempted to cast a Fear spell at one while another charged at Nah. The spell failed, much to my chagrin. Myrlia, meanwhile, landed a hit on the other with her Lash of Pain spell, which is a Void whip to compliment her physical one. Mairy had the third ogre’s attention, and was holding her own rather well! Nah, meanwhile, had avoided the ogre’s charge and had whirled around behind him, jumping onto his back and attempting to find purchase with her dagger. She wasn’t able to get through the plate, however, and was shaken off. I realized how dire the situation was then: two towering, bulky, full-plate-wearing ogres versus pistols, whips, and daggers. Not happening! I switched tactics then, going for the big guns, though it’s really draining for me to do so: I summoned a full swarm of imps, eight of them, and sent them leaping forward into the pair of ogres, detonating them on impact. The ol’ Implosion trick! The ogres were blasted into oblivion! Victory!

I went around the barrier to go and check on Mairy’s fight more closely. Suji was holding her own as well, but it seemed to be Mairy that was really going to town on the ogre. Mairy wasn’t able to get past that armor for a while, but she did have the advantage of speed; the ogre was only able to swing that massive hammer so often! Mairy, dodging strikes and having her own strikes glance off of armor, found a gap between the gorget and head, exposing a bit of throat when the ogre raised the hammer high over its head, winding up still further by letting the hammer come down behind himself. Mairy threw her sword then, and it sank sickeningly through the ogre’s throat. The weight of the sword did the rest, and the gurgling ogre fell over backward and was soon still. The fight was won!

Next was the barrier itself. The terrified cultists inside were trying to do everything they could to maintain the barrier, and, though they were able to regenerate the barrier as we attacked it, they weren’t able to regenerate it fast enough, and, with Nah and I now using the Sparkles-designed charges Suji had given us before we moved in on the camp, the barrier eventually dropped! By then the bloodlust and fury of my friends was showing on their faces, so I stayed back while the grim work of the others went on, until no more screams from the cultists could be heard. Goodness gracious…

I thought then that the camp was done, but then their LEADER came up behind us! A powerful fire mage, the guy came up roaring and screaming behind us, a human male that seemed to be a bit nearer to Nah’s height than to my own. One thing we had going for us, however, was that the men were fighting elsewhere, while the leader here had nothing but women to look at. I wished he’d look at my eyes instead of… elsewhere, like he was, though Myrlia, of course, reveled in his attentions. Still, him being distracted was better than the furious screaming he was doing earlier, and we were able to surprise him with our combined attacks. Nah and Mairy took some burns, but they’ll be okay! Between the four of us and Myrlia, the guy was soon completely overwhelmed, and we left what was left of him there on the sand. Victory! The camp was now all clear of cultists! WOOHOO!

From there, we went to the main structure in the camp, an enormous tent that seemed to thrum with magic from inside. Investigating, we went in and found what almost seemed to be a sort of wheel the size of a giant cart’s wheel made of a scroll wrapped back on itself, one with unrecognizable language written onto it. It rolled and rolled in place, seemingly powered by a very large orb hovering in the air in the center of the wheel, one glowing with magic. Nah and I agreed that it seemed to be powering the wheel of parchment, and Suji went forward and poked the orb free and caught it as it dropped, causing the whole magical mechanism to stop.

That done, Suji declared the mission accomplished, and, as a parting gift to the Twilight’s Hammer, decided to rig charges all around the camp. Soon as all of Sparkles’ bombs that Suji brought with her were planted, we mounted up on our flying mounts (I love how Onyx will go anywhere with me!) and took off. With the camp far below and far behind us, Suji triggered the detonator, and the whole camp went up in explosive flame and smoke! We landed on the ridge we’d first met on, and Suji handed out a bag of gold to each of us for our work. Mission accomplished! WOOHOO!

And now, today, being the final day of minication, I’m just relaxing at home with Celeste, or at least, near home. Celeste is still scrubbing the big guy down, so I think I’ll wrap up this diary entry and wade on into the pond myself and scrub the other side! It may be the final day of this week’s minication, but at least I get to spend it with my family! YAY!

Nat smiled at that happy thought, tapping off the excess ink from her ravenfeather quill into her inkwell and replacing it in its case. Closing the inkwell and the case, she returned them to her pack. Clad already in her bikini in anticipation of doing a bit of wading and swimming in the nice, cool jungle pond near the beautiful waterfall, she got up and collected a thick, strong cloth and a good horse brush and walked into the water, getting her feet wet a bit to get used to the temperature difference. That done, she went back to her diary. The ink on the pages now dry, she replaced that in her pack as well, then turned to wade further into the pond. Drawing even with Celeste on the other side, she felt a bump at her right thigh. Looking down, she giggled to see Dordy bumping against her in the Dordy Bubble in greeting. Reaching down, she patted the Dordy Bubble, which seemed to satisfy the fiery pup, who then turned and went back to playing his game of bumping the bubble against Nosebleed’s legs and underbelly. Nosebleed, as usual, barely seemed to notice, even with the muffled barking Dordy was doing. Nat giggled at the silly puppy, continuing her work on Nosebleed.

The work continued through lunchtime, at which Celeste declared Nosebleed done for the day. She and Nat agreed that it’d be good to get that salve crafted for Nosebleed’s scaly hide sooner rather than later, as this scrubbing was always a very time-consuming part of the day. Both women loved Nosebleed dearly, and did not rue the time nor effort to do it, but it would still be a relief to get him more permanently cured of his hide irritations.

Following the scrubbing was a pleasant lunch of sandwiches and fresh water, boiled by Celeste’s fire magic for purification and then cooled by Nat’s frost magic. Next swim in the pond with Dordy, while Ebonhoof came to wade into the pond and munch at foliage alongside his friend, and Onyx and Cloud Dancer came down for a drink and then to nap at the water’s edge on the other side of the pond. Dordy had a great time swimming with Celeste and Nat, and eventually, they were worn out. They decided to finish out their trip with a bit of fishing in a different pond (surely the fish wouldn’t be biting in this one after a direhorn, a horse, a rambunctious, fiery pup in a bubble, two swimmers, and two dragons had spent so much time here), which yielded dinner enough to share with Anglers Wharf friends.

Dordy, free of his bubble, was glad for the visit to the Wharf, where he made his rounds, visiting with friends around the beautiful little stilt village over the water and getting all the snacks and petting he could manage. Celeste regaled the Wharf with tales from her Ulduar adventure, which involved sand tornadoes shaped like mummies, scorpids big enough for dinner and small enough to sneak into your sleeping bags, and, once, a sphinx that told riddles that, she swore, if you got wrong, you had to spend an hour as a toad! Nat laughed, enjoying this version of events as much as their friends did. After dinner, a quiet night at home was spent in the living room, Celeste reading more of her mother’s notebooks on the best way to make that salve for Nosebleed, and Nat immersed in her novel. It was a fitting, relaxing end to the minication, and Nat was eager to see what next week held. A visit to Un’goro so quickly? Maybe the next undertaking in the campaign to collect and assemble Princess Ariel Sunstrider’s armor? More hilarious Deathrolls? Only time would tell!

[Natasha Ebonlocke]

October the Twentieth

RRRRRREEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

The sound of a devilsaur’s terrifying scream echoed through the primal jungle of Un’goro Crater. The vicious creature was nowhere in sight, and the scream sounded a good distance away, but it was blood-chilling nonetheless. The jungle itself was worrisome enough, a different sort of jungle than that of the Krasarang Wilds. The trees were indescribably tall and thick, the jungle vines treacherous, and the undergrowth filled with creatures ranging from flesh-eating insects to violent little lizards to, worst of all, plants that seemed like normal plants until one gets close, but then turns what seems to be a flowering bud toward it’s unsuspecting victim, opens up to show a full set of needle-sharp teeth, and chomps down on its unwitting meal.

The jungle was hotter here, too, being surrounded by deserts, yet humid beyond description from its own water sources that included hot steam vents, hot springs, and even tar pits. The massive foliage seemed to rival that of Kaldorei forests, and the hot sun overhead turned the jungle canopy into a sort of green lens that bathed everything around in a green light. Everything everywhere was hot, humid, and full of things that wanted to eat you.

Such were the thoughts of Natasha Ebonlocke, sitting in a camping chair and leaning over a camp table beside a fireplace that didn’t even have a fire going until cooking was necessary. In front of her was her diary, opened to the first blank page, her inkwell, opened and freshly filled with purple ink before the trip, her cherrywood quill case, opened with her ravenfeather quill in her hand, and her travel thermos, closed to keep the bugs out and her chilling spell in on the water from the streams they’d purified for drinking.

Nearby was Celeste, sitting on the fallen log of what might have been a tree anywhere else, but here in this primal, prehistoric jungle, was merely the branch of one that had fallen off. Celeste sat with her pants legs rolled up and her bare feet cooling in the water, with Nosebleed the direhorn in the stream in front of her. Celeste was surrounded by an assortment of items as well – the first batch of the reptile-healing salve Celeste had found in her mother’s notebooks, which Celeste was busy applying to Nosebleed’s broad crest and his back, where it was most needed, a telescope for keeping an eye on devilsaurs that got within visual range, her rifle, lying with the safety on in a groove in the log next to her to her right, and her spear, butt in the water, leaning up on the log to her left.

Nosebleed, Dordy, and Onyx (Cloud Dancer was always happiest remaining in Pandaria, and Ebonhoof the horse was too prime a target to bring here, and the warmth of the Krasarang Wilds were hot enough for the cold-weather-built horse without subjecting him to even worse heat and humidity such as that of the Crater) were clearly happy here. Nosebleed found the hot, humid jungle quite to his liking, while Dordy, being after all a molten corgi, didn’t mind the heat at all, though he steamed quite a bit when chasing small things through the foliage nearby. Nat wondered how his yip-yipping didn’t attract much larger primal jungle creatures as he adventured and explored, but was thankful that he hadn’t… yet. Still, it was nice to see him enjoying himself, as it was nice to see Nosebleed looking much happier than he had when he’d come home from the desert of Uldum with Celeste with dry, cracked scales falling off his mighty hide. The heat, humidity, and healing salve seemed to be working wonders for him. Onyx, meanwhile, had powerful thermals to ride, and seemed to enjoy suddenly swooping down through the jungle canopy to whirl overhead, check on his family, then swoop away, either back to the high thermals or through the jungle to hunt.

Nat smiled to see her four-legged family so happy. She and Celeste were happy as well, though they were here much more for work than for play. Nosebleed needs a healing! The camp here reflected the work: multiple tent structures instead of just one. One for Celeste and Nat to sleep in, one to store work supplies and tools, and one for, oddly enough, the mechanical fisherman that had somehow stowed away from their Mechagon Island adventure and had caused all that trouble in Turtle Bay a few months earlier, crafting and releasing schools of mechanical fish that had upset the ecology in the bay. Now he stood, repurposed, beside a portable boiler, completely idle.

With work of her own to do now, however, Nat dipped her quill for some ink, tapped off the excess, and began to write.

Dear diary,

Gosh, it sure has been one heck of a busy week! Celeste and I have spent the week in Un’goro Crater, there was a Hallow’s End-themed Deathrolls costume party game played in Darkshire’s Hallow’s End-decorated inn, Nah and I met our Quicksilver Company friends Annabelle, Mat, and Nate, in Stormwind City and got to hang out with them for a while and invite the two guys to Deathrolls games, and then there was a Whitewind Company adventure all the way up in Eversong Woods in Quel’thalas! I’ve been all over the place this week!

Un’goro Crater was actually yet another of Celeste’s ingenious ideas. She’d been combing through her mother’s old herbology and alchemy journals, and found a really great recipe for reptile hide-healing salves! Her mother’s notes stated that the silversage worked best when used fresh. Considering the quantity she needed – her mother had used small quantities to treat Whisperwings the sprite darter, who was very much smaller than Nosebleed – the only way to make this work do everything on site… IN Un’goro Crater!

But that meant a lot of tools and alchemical apparatuses, and it was a time-consuming process. The silversage had to be properly pruned and the remaining buds crushed into a paste. The paste had to be mixed with oil (preferably plant-based, but oil from whale or sea lion blubber worked too) and the mixture left to seep for several hours. Meanwhile, the Kingsblood had to be steamed and the steam cooled until the plant’s oil, lixiviated out of the leaves by the steam, could be collected. That part was more delicate to do, as there would only be a thin layer of oil on top of the water obtained from the cooled steam. The Kingsblood oil had to be mixed with the seeping silversage in less than twelve hours after the latter was picked, or else the salve lost potency quickly!

Celeste said she’d spent half of Sunday morning in the living room while I was at work this past weekend, wondering how she could even pull it off. Gazing at the crane sculpture, absentmindedly petting Dordy who was lying next to her, she suddenly figured out how it could be done!

She raced down to her workshop, an excited Dordy on her heels. Sitting in a corner, almost forgotten, was the mechanical fisherman from Mechagon which had caused so much trouble with its constant fabrication of mechanical fish!

If its innards could be repurposed to prepare alchemical ingredients, in an autonomous body, the little mechanical guy could do a LOT of work on his own!

She could rig up a chamber for steaming the Kingsblood easily enough. All she needed was a boiler with a net at the bottom and a spout at the top with a coolant filled jacket. Just normal cold water would do! She’s so smart!

Excited now, she didn’t even bother to change out of her pajamas and started working. I ended up finding her in her workshop later that evening, grease staining her arms and pajamas. She was very tired, but smiling!

''It works, it works!'' Celeste's shouts were heard coming from her workshop, followed by the sound of her running upstairs. She carried a small jar of pinkish goop that gave off a fragrant smell and showed it to me proudly.

''The mechanical fisherman made a proper batch! I have to test this on Nosebleed, but I'm sure it's the correct result! I can start with the scales around his eyes and mouth with this batch, and, once we're in Un'goro, it'll be easy to get the rest done!''

She set the jar on the coffee table in the living room and settled onto the couch next to me. ''Tomorrow, we should be ready to go to Un'goro and set up camp. We'll need to use both the FB and the MUTT to airlift our gear there, but setting up shouldn't take long. You're still up for it, right?'' she asked, but her expression showed she already knew my answer!

My expression matched Celeste's as I answered the challenge.

"You bet! But how did you already make some? Did we have some mountain silversage among our herbs in sublevel two? I can't remember precisely what we had off the top of my head."

I was already on my feet, eyeing the upstairs bedroom and then the floor, thinking about loading up the MUTT and FB for the trip to Kalimdor.

Celeste had indeed kept a few pots of silversage in the second sublevel as it was a very useful healing herb. Not nearly enough to treat a giant like Nosebleed, but just enough to test out the recipe, and her idea to use the mechanical fisherman’s help producing more of the salve faster.

Celeste took a trip down to the jungle to test the salve on Nosebleed and returned with the news that it seemed to already have an affect, helping his scales look less dry and cracked, which was awesome!

The rest of the day was spent preparing the camping gear and getting everything ready for transport. The MUTT had and extra layer of armor for the trip to dino-land, which made it heavier, and even its countermeasures (both lethal and non-lethal) were made bigger. The MUTT looked more like a war machine than a useful tool for a quirky engineer. It wouldn’t be able to carry as much cargo because of that extra weight, though. Celeste worried the FB wouldn’t be able to pick up the slack, so she reluctantly decided to strap some overlarge saddlebags onto Nosebleed. With his damaged scales, she feared making things worse by putting his tack back on so soon, Nosebleed didn’t seem to mind in the least, keeping that same stoic expression on his face he wore when Dordy was yipping and nipping at his heels in his everlasting quest to get Nosebleed to play with him.

I found myself as impressed as usual as I watched Celeste form armor from scrap plates from our Mechagon Isle junkyard adventure, as well as with Celeste's ministrations for Nosebleed and her use of the newly-named "Fishguy" (HA!) to assist in the process of crafting the salve. I helped as much as I could with everything, and especially with the packing, and went to bed that night worn out but excited!

I was given the heavier MUTT to pilot. Dordy (wearing his adorable aviator goggles) and Celeste took the FB. A portal and an over-land flight that took most of the day later, and finally we settled down onto a mountain plateau overlooking the crater. Nosebleed was brought through a portal and immediately went to taste the local flora growing around the camp we began to set up. Together, Celeste and I set up the tents for sleeping and to shelter their cargo, as well as the mechanical fisherman and the small boiler Celeste had rigged for the Kingsblood.

The trip was fun, with me getting to handle the heavier MUTT and keep it airborne with its extra weight and the awkward handling that came along with it. Succeeding in the challenge, I landed in the camp grinning, and immediately set to work with Celeste getting the camp set up and the tents raised, heading first to our cargo tent to get Nosebleed's tack off him as quickly as possible, even though he didn't seem to mind having it on. Two full days of work later (packing and then traveling and unpacking to set up camp the next day), I went to bed even more tired than before, but still every bit as excited!

By the end of the day, everyone was exhausted really(except Dordy), and Celeste and I went to sleep, serenaded by the soft clicks and whirs of the MAD system as well as the unfamiliar cries of the giant beasts living in the crater below.

“Kingsblood,” Celeste said as she munched on some toast the next morning. “I didn’t get the chance to get what I need from the Stormwind markets. Getting that will be a priority, as Fishguy can start on producing the oil while we explore the crater and gather the silversage. I think the FB can easily airlift the bushels we need from there to here.”

The following morning, munching on toast as well (mine had a sunny-side-up egg on it, which was really yummy, and I was busy preparing another as I munched my first), I listened to Celeste talk about kingsblood.

"The trip took most of the day to get here,” I replied. “Who is gonna stay with the camp all that time, and who is gonna fly to Stormwind for Kingsblood?"

Sitting and musing for a while, I came up with an idea quickly.

"Oh!” I said. “You know, Dustwallow Marsh isn't that far to the north from here, and it has plenty growing there naturally! Just on the other side of the Thousand Needles canyon from us! One of us could head up there and pick some and bring it back! While we're there, we could see if there is some for sale in Theramore!"

“Just a portal to Theramore would cut the trip in half, at least,” Celeste answered. “I’ll take the FB and head over there. Meanwhile, you could take the ARMUTT (her new name for the armored MUTT: The ARmored Mobile Utility Transport Tool!) for a spin. It’s got a closable top now, just a metal dome with a few reinforced portholes. Let me know if the visibility is ok. Careful with the right arm; I removed some tools and added a high caliber gun in there. It’s that button with an angry face doodle you must have noticed getting here. Explore, map out if you find clusters of silversage. I should be back before dinner.”

"That sounds good!” I replied back. “I'll work on that!"

I finished up my breakfast with Celeste, then got the dishes washed and put the food away. After that, I Blinked up into the ARmored Mobile Utility Transport Tool with Dordy (aviator goggles on, the little cutie!) curled under one arm and got myself situated. One pre-flight check later, and I was in the air!

Celeste was right to mention checking visibility. The dome reflected light off itself if I got over the canopy of the jungle, with the sunlight glaring through, or else casting reflections on the dome. Under the canopy, however, was a new and different problem. The jungle's humidity was causing the dome to fog up! Maybe some sort of ventilation type of mechanic to get the fog off, and some sort of dark tinting on the windows to protect from sunlight? I jotted these notes down at the bottom of my map, where I was marking mountain silversage herb clusters.

Above all, I was avoiding the big, angry doodle on the big red button. I was avoiding the big devilsaurs and other things just as much, but I really wanted to avoid shooting up all the wildlife if she could help it!

Working hard, Dordy and I managed to find and map out several clusters of mountain silversage, working the hours away while Celeste was off at Theramore, hoping nothing bad would happen to any of us.

I continued to fly around in the ARMUTT, mapping out locations all along the cliffs of Un'goro Crater. There was a run-in with a plant that had tried to chase after the ARMUTT, and had even gotten its jaws around a leg before Dordy's barking alerted me to its presence. A few shakes of a lever, and the ARMUTT's leg had shaken the creature off. Flying away, there was more mapping done, though I had drifted near the gorilla cave over the course of the mapping. A massive silverback, seeing an intruder as big as he was, had come up and begun roaring and pounding on the ARMUTT with its fists, even going as far as to throw its POO at the dome! Luckily, none of it went through the portholes in the bulletproof glass. Still, Dordy seemed just a little too interested in sniffing it. Gross! I grimaced, conceding defeat and flying away, not wanting to hurt the gorilla by fighting back, and worried that he might hurt his fists pounding on the armor. The gorilla roared and beat his chest in victory as the ARMUTT zoomed away!

By the time Celeste got back, most of the poo had been blown off in the slipstream of the ARMUTT's flight, but I was still SO embarrassed to bring it back in such a state! With apologies to Celeste, I Blinked out of the cockpit with Dordy and hastily cleaned up the mess, washing my hands thoroughly before helping cook up a dinner of primal jungle forest fish.

Celeste had returned with a large cargo of Kingsblood just around dinner time. She shot a bright red flare from the FB to warn me of her return. By the time I got the ARMUTT came back to camp, Celeste had almost finished stacking the herbs in the production tent. Fishguy stood by the boiler, waiting patiently to start.

Celeste listened with interest to my improvement suggestions for the ARMUTT’s dome. Not every suggestion could be rigged in the field, of course, but she said she could very likely add a ventilation system for the cockpit!

After a quick dinner, the two of us went with Dordy to gather the silversage that grew closest to camp where I’d marked it on the map. With some on hand, Fishguy could make a few batches during the night!

The after-dinner silversage gathering went off without a hitch! I only hoped that, over the course of the rest of our camping trip, they didn't encounter anything REALLY terrifying, like a devilsaur... hopefully next week, after work, we won’t have the poo hit the fan (like it did the ARMUTT cockpit dome)!

I did take a couple of trips away while Celeste relaxed at camp in the evenings. The first was for DEATHROLLS!

We went to my hometown, the spooky town of Darkshire, where the inn was decorated up all spooky with jack-o’-lanterns and paper bats dangling from the ceiling and spiderwebs with huge paper spiders in them, green and black candles with green and black flames, and even a giant tub in which to bob for apples! It was fun!

It was me, my bestie Nah, our friend Annabelle from the Quicksilver Company who brought her friend and coworker Mat, Xamaran, the void elf woman that Sparkles brought last week to the Kirthaven game, and, for the first time in several months, MAIRY! And, for the first time in even MORE several months, my old buddy MAYA! Grim is still swamped with life stuff, but still seven players was plenty!

I went in the black witch robes and pointy witch’s hat that I first met Celeste in, with the addition of a skeleton-hand witch’s wand! Celeste loved the outfit! Nah showed up in a skimpy-top druid’s robes, with shoulderguards that had nature stuff carved into it and green dragon wings, and a crown of flowers on her head that complimented the hair leaves well. She had got for a Ysera (the green dragon aspect) look, and she called herself Nyserah! HA! Maya came as a silithid cultist witch with a spooky hood on, Anna came dressed head to toe, helm and all, in yellow armor and proclaimed herself to be a banana named Bananabelle, her friend Mat came with skin painted green and a green goblin mask so he could be a goblin (as well as a bar of soap on a rope around his neck, a nod to when we were hanging out in Stormwind City Monday evening and he was playfully doing sex-appeal versions of advertisements for the Redridge Soap Company that Mags runs), Mairy came dressed up as Sparkles’ robot J.E.F.F. (the Jovial Explosive Freedom Fighter Sparkles used to bring to Whitewind Company missions), calling herself his cousin JIFF, which I guess the I must have stood for IMplosive? and Xam came as some kind of Eldritch creature with a spooky, shadowy head elongated into a sort of wicker snout. Spooky!

Everyone had fun checking out each other’s costumes and making comments and jokes, with Mairy ending up eventually wanting bananas after all the banana jokes, and Bananabelle was just like, “please don’t eat all my brothers and sisters!” Ha! Nah had even brought an entire sack full of candy, calling it her, “Trick-or-Treat bag!” Some candy would just be candy, but you never knew when you were gonna get a trick one! She invited everyone to enjoy as much of it as we liked, which was really super nice of her! Eventually, we all settled in and broke out the dice!

The game started off great right off the bat, too! There were a few Truths to warm up, like one where Nah was chosen by two different people in a question about who they would want with them if they were ever stranded on a desert island, then Nah got Dared by Mat to take the bar of soap on a rope around his neck and do her own version of a sex-appeal soap advertisement for Mags’ soaps. Rolling a one during the Truth or Dare rolls and having to join in was Mairy, so Mat had them both dancing on the table while Nah did her advertisement. Nah was going for a seductive dance while Mairy shook the table with a sort of river dance that’s native to her Wildhammer clan. Nah was dancing and going, “See these moves? See how smooth this skin here is? Redridge Soaps will do all this for you and more; it’ll give you that silky touch you desire!” Oh gosh! She had me turning so red! Meanwhile Mat, who has a thing for Kaldorei women, was grinning up at her and going, “I’ll buy that soap for SURE, now…” Oh goodness! Meanwhile Anna was just shaking her head and saying, “I think it’s good that Mags isn’t here right now…” HA! Then FOUR of us rolled ones… me, Maya, Mairy, and Anna! Xam got to Dare us, so she had us all try Nah’s candies, which so far had been either really good candy, or different tricks like flavorless mush, or rock salt, or super super super sour apple! I got one that burst in my mouth and filled it up with what tasted like stale water. EW! Maya got something super stinky that apparently tasted as bad as it smelled, because next thing I knew, she was projectile-spitting it out into the inn’s huge fireplace! Mairy got something that, fittingly enough for her robot costume, tasted strangely metallic and not at all sweet or good. That one ended up in the fire too! Oh gosh! Anna alone was lucky that go-round, getting a cinnamon candy she enjoyed. That was good for her! Then Mat got Nah with a Dare, and he’d heard all about Nah’s potions in recent Deathrolls games, so he had her select three potions while blindfolded, put them on the table, and let him shuffle them around. Then she’d pick one while blindfolded and drink it! Unfortunately for her, she ended up with the pink potion, the hyper-libido one! OH GOSH! She spent the rest of the night either in her druidic cat form, or else squirming in her seat with her mind in the gutter! Goodness gracious! Nah got him back by having him eat three candies at once. He never did say what they all were, but boy, did his eyes go wide! He sprinted for the door and we could hear him blowing chunks all the way inside! EW! Meanwhile, I’d been doing my own Trick-or-Treating that night, rolling a die to see whether I’d give my victim a Trick or a Treat. Some people got tasty drinks from all around the world, along with little Hallow’s End decorations around them like the green and black candles or a cookie that was supposed to be shaped like a defiled soul, or a spooky orb I found in my bank vault that looked like it had spirits inside it, and sometimes people would get a TRICK! I had lots of Hallow’s End costume wands, and, from time to time throughout the night, I ended up turning people into ghouls, geists, ninjas, pirates, banshees, cats, soooo very many different things! It was such fun! I also got Mat and Maya to drink a potion apiece out of a pair of old stinky boots I’ve fished up. It turned Mat into a woman, and Maya into a man, reversing their genders just like it did for Grimmie in that game in the Blue Recluse! Fortunately for them, it only lasts five minutes, but it was still a FUNNY five minutes, with them looking quite alarmed! HA! I got Xam with a good spider costume wand, intoning in a witchy voice that she should join the bug cultist, Maya the Spider Queen! Maya was like, “SWEET! LEMME SEE YOUR MANDIBLES!” and leapt out of her chair to sprint around and look at Xam more closely as a bear-sized spider! Oh gosh! Then Xam got me with a Truth in which I had to tell a story I hadn’t ever told anyone before… unfortunately for me, I’d just helped myself to another of my bestie’s candies, and gotten a taffy that glued my teeth together! I tried as hard as I could to tell my story, but all that came out was, "Erm... Wernce, Er trerred ter terk ther horse mer ferther gert mer fer Wernter Verl ern rerd ert errrl therr wayr ter therr bearch, bert Err gert sterrped ber gerblirns ern Berty Bayr ern therr trerred ter merk mer payr mmf fee fer rerdrin threr therr tern, bert Err rerd awerr rerry ferst ern derdn't payr erm nerfin'!” Everyone was laughing at me, but that was the best I could do! Hehe. Then Nah told me drinking something, especially wine, would dissolve that particular taffy. So I did, and my jaws were freed from each other! They were still a bit sticky, though, so when me, Mairy, Anna, and Xam all rolled fours in the next roll, and Xam got to Dare us, she was like, “DOGPILE THE CAT!” Nah’s kitty-eyes went wide; Mairy was already bellyflopping off the table, screaming out, “WILDHAMMER!” Xam was too cautious of pink-potion cat to do more than kneel beside her and put a hand on her fur, but I went and tacklehugged her, and then bit an ear! Anna, still quite shy and leery of Nah after the things she’s done and said because of the pink potion, decided to simple go and wrangle the kitty tail. It was a funny moment! But then it got serious… there was still a bit of taffy on my teeth, as it turned out, and my teeth were now glued to Nah’s ear and wouldn’t come off! Oh gosh! Maya gleefully grabbed some wine to “help,” which mean it went all over my face and Nah’s head and all down our fronts… but hey, at least it worked! HA! There were lots more spicy Truths, lots more hilarious Dares, lots more nerve-wracking Nah-candies, and lots more Trick-or-Treat costumes wands and tricks and treats from me, but a whole seven-person Hallow’s End-themed Deathrolls costume party listing the entire thing would take up several pages! I just know it was a seriously fun game, and I’m glad the holiday will be going long enough that we can do it one more time next week as well! WOOHOO! I LOVE Deathrolls!

Then last night there was the Whitewind Company’s weekly adventure! I’d posted a poll in the Whitewind’s Grace about which lead to pursue next – we still have an unspecified piece in either the Eversong Woods or the Ghostlands in old Quel’thalas, an unspecified piece in Hearthglen, and the other gauntlet left in Feralas, with those Kaldorei having agreed months ago to make the trade with us. It being Hallow’s End season, the group voted mostly for the Ghostlands! I knew it was going to be all the more spooky for being during this season!

As a reminder, this lead was found by Mairy in a book written by Wildhammer dwarves, written in dwarven runes. Among other things, the book details an unspecified piece that had been found in the Hinterlands by Wildhammer dwarves and given to Quel'dorei in the area to carry north to Quel'thalas, though the unfortunate convoy is believed to have been lost when Arthas Menethil began the massacre of the High Elves in the Eversong Woods.

Given this information, I believed we should begin in the Eversong Woods, at the opposite end of the Ghostlands, and work our way in, searching any old caravan wreckage we can find. It was a slim lead, as these have likely been picked clean, but I figured we might glean something better to go on!

At any rate, my plan was to be starting as far away from the worst of the haunted areas as possible, saving them as a sort of last resort destination to search, because Hallow's End is already spooky enough without having zombies and skeletons dancing all around us!

Nah, meanwhile, had gotten ahold of folks earlier that day on the comms with the following message: “Heyya, Whitewind Company. This is your CEO, Lady Nah, speaking. Recently, I’ve gotten some reports that there’s something going on at the digsite in the Badlands. Something about suspicious figures looming around Uldaman. Probably some drunk dwarves or some troggs or whatnot, but I’m going to scout ahead, since I’m already in the area. If anything happens to me, you know where to find me. Anyhow, see ya when I get back!”

That was going to leave us without Nah, so I got in touch with a Quel’dorei ranger in our employ that I believe I’ve written about in the past: Lady Rivenori Summersong, one of our Freelancer trainers. Knowing the area well, as it’s her homeland, I figured she’d be a good guide, and she was!

Thus it was me, Riven, Maya, and Mairy (Grim still being out with life stuff going on, and Tess off on a personal hunting quest of her own), a rather unusual crew, as none of our current regulars were there, yet a fun crew, as our old regulars were back! We met at the north end of the Dead Scar in Eversong Woods, not too far from the Silvermoon City walls, which meant we had to be careful not to be spotted by icky hordies. Working our way along the path, we began to come across the old wreckage almost immediately. There were meatwagon wrecks, the old gory, macabre catapults Arthas’ undead armies used as siege weapons, littered with a veritable carpet of elf bones and skulls, and also the wrecks of elven carts and their spilled cargo, which, somehow, had never been opened and looted!

The first cart proved fruitful: Riven found an old, ornate helm, and Maya found a journal written in Thalassian. Riven traded the helm for the journal, opening it up and beginning to read it in Common to us. Maya, meanwhile, ended up discarding the helm, finding it a lovely piece, but unremarkable in comparison with the armor of Princess Ariel, and didn’t even want to bother taking it to the auction house to sell it! Riven, meanwhile, was reading bits and pieces of what turned out to largely be an elf guy pouring out his heart into the pages, detailing in a rather flowery elven prose his love for the woman he was pursuing. It was all so very sweet! It also made the others want to gag. HA! But there were also tidbits in there about an unspecified artifact they were carrying that absolutely must make it to Silvermoon City in Quel’thalas at all costs. Was this the unknown piece of the princess’s armor that the Wildhammers had given the elves to take home with them?

We were interrupted then – a spooky skeleton had appeared, just as we were hearing the rhyming yells of the Headless Horseman in the distance, who was attacking a blood elf village! The skeleton wandered toward us, and, it just being one lone, unarmed skeleton, the group basically just scoffed at it, and Mairy was like, monotone, “Oh nae. A skellington.” Ha! Riven casually shot an arrow at its skull, which knocked the skull off and caused the skeleton to collapse on the spot. Gosh, that was easy!

Then Maya suddenly started… she said she’d heard a voice! Something about, “already got more pieces than me,” and it sounded human! Was the hired thug Nah had chased off at the Stormwind Royal Library months ago still following us, as Nah had suspected that day in Grim Batol? We looked, but we didn’t find any sign of anyone with us, nor hear any more voices. If it really is that thug guy, he’s good!

A number of fights ensued, very short fights in between crates and carts we were searching in which weak ghouls and skeletons came at us only one or two at a time, and were destroyed before more than one or two people could even attack. Easy!

We came upon a particularly large cart eventually. This one had a huge crate full of shields with Quel’thalas’ insignia on it, as well as a smaller one full of arrows, the latter of which Riven took quite a few of, restocking her quiver after the shots she’d fired that day, finding the Quel’dorei-fashioned arrows quite to her liking. Meanwhile, I’d found an armor inventory list. Most of it was boring, just a list of crates holding cloth, leather, mail, or plate armor… though the last bit was intriguing… there was a priceless artifact, gained from the Wildhammer dwarves, stored and hidden in one of these crates! That had to be the unspecified piece of the princess’s armor!

From there, as we got closer to the Ghostlands, the easy skeletons and ghouls had given way to stronger enemies like powerful skeletal mages and armed, armored skeletal footmen. The fights were harder, but nothing we couldn’t handle. Maya casually popped off skeleton heads in her worgen form, Mairy smashed them to pieces with her stormhammer, my fel minions bashed them or immolated them, and, once, Riven, who’d already gotten several with her bow, had a lucky shot that slipped through the ribs of a skeletal mage, ricocheted off the inner curve of a rib, and continued to quite rapidly ricochet around in there, knocking off ribs and spinal vertebrae until the friction struck so many sparks that the thing’s robes caught fire, and the whole thing fell apart and burned in a heap! Wow! It was such a cool shot! The worst, though, was when Maya got a particularly powerful druidic Starsurge shot off on a ghoul, boiling it where it stood and causing it to burst all over us! Gross-NESS!

Meanwhile, we’d been seeing a lot of ghosts, as well. One would appear, and then fade, and then another elsewhere. Slowly though, over time, we began to realize that it was the SAME ghost all the time! Eventually, Maya pointed it out, like, “Hey, is that someone’s ghost?” and then later, when it appeared again, she started talking to it. It turned out to have not been a coincidence, either; the ghost started talking to us back! It turned out to be Fiona Suntreader, a Quel’dorei commoner that, as it turns out, had been part of the escort for the armor piece when Arthas’ army attacked it! Wow, what luck! And here we’d been ignoring her all this time, thinking her an irrelevant third party! Gosh! What’s more, she confirmed that the “priceless artifact” we’d read about in the journal had, indeed, been a piece of Princess Ariel Sunstrider’s armor!

She agreed to help Riven guide us, knowing what the crate with the armor piece would look like when she saw it. She also spoke with great dread concerning where it MIGHT be, like, “If it is there… no… I will not speak the name… but if… it is THERE… woe betide us all…” and stuff like that.

We went along the Dead Scar, going up and over a huge hill, finding a row of four meatwagons at the top, and these looked to be in working condition, unlike the wrecks we’d been finding and inspecting to see how they work along the way this far! The only bad thing was… a skeleton, a ghoul, a skeletal mage, a skeletal footman… and, this time, a skeletal commander, in heavy plate and bearing a massive shield and sword!

The fight started immediately, with the caster in the back of the group throwing fireballs, frostbolts, and arcane blasts into our group. Maya revealed the full extent of her powers then, showing her interest in… insects? Healing chiggers?! Oh gosh! Healing chiggers, buffing beetles (which had also melted the locks off of a couple of chests full of coins and gems we’d found along the way with their venom), chitinous spike carapaces for extra armor for us that shot spikes out at enemies when attacked, all kinds of weird stuff! She was getting to be one powerful druid! Or, as the Gilneans call their druids, “harvest witches!” She really swung the fight for us, helping us to quickly whittle down the weaker skeleton and ghoul and then mostly healing and buffing us while the rest of us finished off the remaining skeletons. Riven got a few good shots off on that skeletal mage and destroyed it, while Mairy took the footman apart along with my wrathguard and imp, even causing quite a lot of damage when I summoned all the fel domination power I had and opened a nether portal, temporarily loosing three dreadstalkers, a felguard, a shivaran, and four inquisitor’s eyes to bash them up before they disappeared back into the nether. The commander was soon the last one standing, and the rest of us overwhelmed it, though it was hard to beat even by itself. But we did it, we destroyed the armored commander skeleton and were free to check out the row of meatwagons!

My interest in engineering had me looking over the gory, rotten mess to see how it worked. I couldn’t help myself. Then, much to my own surprise, I found myself climbing in and testing out the controls! I pulled one lever, and the catapult in the back launch a big bowl of meat chunks forward, arcing high and over the hill, tumbling down the far side. Oops! Maya got into one as well, and found out how to get it to move and steer. Riven got into a third, though Mairy found the whole idea too disgusting to pursue and came with us on foot. Together, the three of us went down the hill on the far side, with the ghost, Fiona, walking with her.

Eventually, at the bottom of the hill, we found a huge mess of carts. Beyond that was a river, one dividing Eversong Woods from the haunted Ghostlands, where Arthas had done a particularly brutal amount of damage and had left filled with elven ghosts and even small pockets of plague. We were about to get off the meatwagons and search through the crates and stuff when it happened…

THUMP.

THUMP.

THUMP.

Maya was like, “That sounds like an abomination,” and Riven was nodding, like, “A very LARGE abomination.”

The ground shook more and more, and then, sure enough, the biggest, nastiest, meanest-looking gas mask-wearing plague spreader abomination, towering sky-high at about thirty or so feet tall, with an incision on its gut hanging open and guts hanging out and smelling even worse than the ghoul Maya had burst with her starsurge spell came over the rise on the other side of the river, crossed the river in a single step, and stood right in our path, blocking about twelve feet of width of it!

Riven wasted no time gawking at the hideous monster. She screamed out one word: “FIRE!” and all three of us immediately let loose with our meat wagons, showering the abomination with meat chunks that added to its gore and stench and even knocked even more of its guts out of its belly. It was SO FREAKIN’ GROSS! But then the thing was just like, “SPILLGUT HUNGRY! SPILLGUT EAT TINY CREATURES!” while casually stuffing its guts back into itself and coming right at us! We all fired again, causing even more damage to the monster and backing our meatwagons up, and the thing was already looking bruised and battered. Mairy was having a particularly good fight, foregoing her weapons and using her shamanic magics. Earth, wind, fire, and water alike were zapping, slapping, and crushing the monster, and, with Mairy’s shamanic magic along with three meatwagons, the thing began to weaken!

Scariest, though, was when it picked up Maya’s meatwagon. It pulled back its gas mask not to reveal a grotesque face, but something even worse: it HAD no face! Just one huge cavity that took up its whole face and was nothing but square, cubical teeth! It put Maya’s entire meatwagon into it and bit down hard, causing Maya to duck within the thing. She was trapped!

Riven and I fired as fast as we could, getting shot after shot off, while Mairy continued to zap and pummel the thing with her magics. That, combined with Maya able to reach the firing controls on her meatwagon, did the trick! Maya’s meatwagon fired meat chunks at building-destroying force at the back of the thing’s… throat? while the catapult mechanism itself slapped the roof of the thing’s mouth-cavity-thing and knocked a few teeth out, while also hitting with forward motion hard enough to launch itself backward out of the thing’s mouth-hole. She fell thirty feet to the ground, which seemed to shake her up some, and her meatwagon was a destroyed mess at this point, but we’d teamed up and done it… the abomination fell to the ground, falling apart at the seams, and moved no more! Now, if only we had been able to do something about the smell…

After that horrible ordeal, it was so late at night and people were so weary from all the fights and all the nasty stuff and the late hour that people were just ready to call it a night. So, this coming Wednesday, we’ll meet back at that spot, picking up the search along the Dead Scar where we left off, progressing over the river into the Ghostlands to continue our search. The ghost, Fiona, agreed to meet us next week as well. I have no idea what next week will hold, but gosh, I sure hope it’s not as awful as that night was! I know it’s Hallow’s End and all, but GOSH!

In the meantime, Celeste is finished up with Nosebleed and ready to go out for more silversage, so time to wrap this up! I hope we don’t run into any devilsaurs! I also hope we’re able to find lots and lots more silversage, because a direhorn this size really needs lots and lots of salve! At least we got the worst damage to his hide handled and done. Soon, he’ll be totally healed up, with a happy, healthy hide, ready to go back home to the Krasarang Wilds and have adventures! YAY!

Nat smiled as she tapped off the excess ink from her quill, replacing it into her quill case and capping off her inkwell. She replaced these into her pack, then went to let Celeste know she was ready. Celeste nodded, filling Nat in on her plan to work their way east instead of west, as gorillas would be somewhat easier to fend off than the devilsaurs and suddenly-alive-and-hungry plants further west. They could save that for later. Nat nodded, heading over to get the ARMUTT started up, then returned to her diary. She closed the book, the ink on the pages now dry, and replaced that in her pack as well, then got Dordy’s aviator goggles out. Dordy, always ready for adventure and knowing that his aviator goggles meant a fun flying adventure, immediately stopped his adventuring through the undergrowth of the jungle and came to Nat, rearing up on her legs and yip-yip-yipping, wagging his tail as he got his goggles on. All geared up, they returned to Celeste, ready for action. Nat couldn’t wait to see what the rest of the day’s adventures would bring, and, apparently, neither could Dordy!

[Natasha Ebonlocke]

October the Twenty-Seventh

The jungle of Un’goro Crater was as hot and humid as ever, the emerald green light cast by the sun through the lens of the canopy lighting up trees as wide and as tall as the enormous trees of any Kaldorei forest. The undergrowth of the jungle teamed with life, from prehistoric-sized insects to small reptiles and mammals, gorillas and giant dinosaurs, massive fish and tree-branch-sized snakes and carnivorous plants. The rich, moist, earthy smell of the jungle pervaded the area, and all around was flora and fauna that seemed collected from an entire distant jungle planet and crammed into one single crater here on Azeroth.

Up one of the trees, near the center of the crater, the foliage seemed even thicker than usual. The view of the tree’s trunk at around thirty feet or so was entirely obscured. If one were to venture closer for a look (if one would even be looking that high up a tree in the middle of a dino-infested jungle), one would find a mesh woven from vines and entwined with foliage around a strong platform built all around the tree trunk, a mesh that one could see out of, even if it couldn’t be seen into.

On this platform, in this “blind” as hunters call it, sat Celeste’s and Nat’s camping chairs, next to a chest enchanted by Nat’s frost magic to keep skins of water cool. Lying behind it was Celeste’s spear. Celeste currently lay on her belly on the platform floor, using a rifle with a black scope with a dark raven on the sides, the insignia of the Night Watch and a gift from Nat two Winter Veils prior. Celeste peered through the scope, keeping an eye on the jungle. Totally in the zone, as Nat had long known she gets when focused on a task, she remained wordless and silent. Once in a while she’d crawl to a new position and scope out a different angle, or else grab a flask (also enchanted with Nat’s frost magic to keep water cool) from her hip for some water.

In one of the camp chairs sat Nat, her little folding camping table set up to the opposite side of her chair from the enchanted chest of waterskins. On it sat her inkwell of purple ink, uncapped, and her cherrywood quill case, opened. On her lap sat her diary, also opened. Ravenfeather quill in hand, Nat sat thinking about her week for a while. Then, with a smile, she dipped her quill for some ink and began to write.

Dear diary,

Gosh, it’s been a week full of adventure… and danger!

This Un’goro Crater adventure to heal up our good friend and family member, Nosebleed the direhorn, has been crazy, and so has the Whitewind Company adventure in the old Quel’thalas forests! Rampaging devilsaurs, ghouls and ghosts, flying dinos and carnivorous plants, liches and zombies! OH GOSH!

It all started while I was at work Friday. Celeste had gone out with the ARMUTT to collect some more silversage for Nosebleed’s healing salve. I came home to quite the story...

Celeste piloted the ARMUTT back to camp, the machine’s arms laden with bushels of silversage tied with a string.

Dordy’s growl was the first sign that something was wrong. With her limited visibility, Celeste didn’t see the deep print in the ground until the ARMUTT stumbled into it, sending silversage flying everywhere. She managed to get the machine back up and then raised the cockpit hatch before taking a look around.

The machine stood in the center of a devilsaur print and by the looks of it, a really big one! It was pointed towards camp, which was even worse! Celeste checked the safety on her new high caliber gun. Once she was certain it was set, she blinked out of the ARMUTT with her rifle in hand (though it’s caliber would likely only annoy a devilsaur rather than damage it). She inspected the barrel of the high caliber cannon in the ARMUTT’s arm, removing dirt that got into it after the machine tripped into the footprint.

As ready as she could be for anything, she returned to the ARMUTT and piloted it back to camp.

Celeste was relieved to see that the prints turned around before they arrived into the campsite, though the devilsaur must have gotten a good look at it from how close it had come.

Nosebleed stood stock still, not even munching on some plants. The direhorn stared with his slate-blue eyes at where the devilsaur had gone.

Celeste put the ARMUTT into MAD mode just at the perimeter of the camp, facing the crater. Its heavy cannon was primed to fire if needed.

Blinking out with Dordy, she went to Nosebleed and soothed him with soft words and caresses where he liked. Dordy seemed on edge, hardly barking up at his huge friend and throwing furtive glances towards the crater.

Once the silversage was placed where Fishguy could use it, Celeste climbed up a tall tree inside the camp’s perimeter and scanned the crater with the Night Watch scope on her rifle.

“Where are you…” she muttered to herself as she scanned the treetops below.

One if the flying lizards living in the crater took off from a tree, screeching in annoyance. Just below the trees shook and a large dorsal spike crested over the treetop. It was mottled black and blue and probably as tall as Celeste. If that was indeed a dorsal spike, then that meant the creature it belonged too was likely quite large… probably the largest in the crater!

The fact that it had come so close was alarming. Nosebleed must’ve have convinced it that there was easier prey elsewhere. The devilsaur probably didn’t know what to make of the tough-looking direhorn! But what happened when it got hungry enough or territorial enough to decide to test Nosebleed in a fight?

Celeste was confident Nosebleed wouldn’t back down, but that devilsaur was huge, bigger than her friend. She didn’t want to see something happen to Nosebleed. This trip was to help him heal, not put him into danger.

“So how do I keep something that big, strong, and violent out of the camp?”

The ARMUTT’s MAD system would help, but if she guessed the devilsaur’s size correctly, it would only slow it down.

The easiest and quickest solution for now was to hide. She set up nets covered in local flora around the camp, tall enough to block the camp from view. After that, she’d see in her mother’s journals if she had any ideas on how to mask the camp’s scent…

By the time I returned home from work that evening, the plant-covered nets were in place, blocking the view from the crater side. Nosebleed was munching on herbs, several salve-soaked blankets covering his back. The ARMUTT stood just behind the nets, in MAD mode, clicking softly as it stood guard. Meanwhile Celeste was back up in a tree, rifle in hand as she watched the crater.

The devilsaur had come closer twice after she had arrived with the silversage. Once while she was working on the netting (the MAD system had activated, throwing bright flares at it first and making loud screeching noises that sent it away) and a second time a few hours later. The beast had stopped near the camouflage netting, sniffed the air, and wandered off.

It would be back, Celeste warned. She would stand guard tonight. Her mother’s notebooks mentioned some sort of nectar from local vines that smelled quite strong. Placed downhill from their camp, it would mask their scent. She planned on getting some and spreading it around later the next day.

After a long part if the night spent watching the crater below, Celeste finally crawled into bed. She was satisfied the devilsaur wouldn’t come around for some time, as it usually seemed to be active when the sun was at its warmest around noon until early evening.

She mumbled goodbye to me the next morning as I left for work and kept on sleeping through the morning.

The following day after work, I came back to another chapter in the story from Celeste...

A loud BANG had awakened her quite suddenly, followed by Dordy’s low growls and even Nosebleed trumpeting a challenge.

She hastily donned her clothes, picked up her rifle, and rushed out of the tent. Part of the plant mesh was torn up, but there was no sign of the devilsaur. Smoke slowly wafted from the tip of the ARMUTT’s arm cannon. That explained the loud noise! Dordy closely at her heels, she went to check on Nosebleed, and then carefully moved to the torn mesh.

The devilsaur had obviously tried to get into the campsite. It wasn’t a dumb beast after all. Dordy sniffed the ground and helped Celeste find some blood. The MAD system must’ve managed to hit the devilsaur! Well, that explained why it had left!

With this new information, Celeste figured the creature wouldn’t be deterred by just adding a scent mask. It knew they were there, despite the camouflage.

That meant the camp had to be moved, hidden, and their scent masked.

Celeste sighed and slung her rifle over her shoulder. She was here to heal Nosebleed, and it certainly wasn’t an overgrown lizard with an attitude that was going to stop her!

Determined, she set to work packing camp, thinking the devilsaur would lick its wounds for a while and probably not even show up until the next day.

In the end, Celeste had actually done a bit more to make sure her family was safe.

The camp was moved west around the crater several hundred feet. The equipment tent and the tent that houses Fishguy and the boiler were close together with a rocky wall behind it. Nosebleed had access to the jungle, but both his zone and the tents were now protected by long sharpened stakes planted into the ground and aimed away from the camp, a task that had been easily accomplished thanks to the ARMUTT’s tools. The stakes wouldn’t completely stop a devilsaur, but they might wound it, and would certainly make it pause!

The lodgings for Celeste and I were now up in a tree, just beyond the devilsaur’s reach. It was basically a platform with a canvas stretched over it for a roof and mosquito netting all around. It actually ended up more comfortable this way, really, as the open sides make it cooler at night and allow the most breathtaking views of the crater! It also protects us from carnivorous plants and jungle critters that can’t climb.

Celeste had repaired the torn camouflage netting as well, and placed it again facing the crater, hiding the camp from sight.

By the end of the afternoon, Celeste had managed to find the odorous plants she needed: large yellow-green bulbs growing from vines found near the lava vents in the center of the crater. When smashed open, they give off a sharp ammonia scent that stops your breath! Not the floral odor she had expected, but it works! So as not to disturb the camp’s occupants, she had been forced to scatter them lower downhill, further away from camp than she would have liked.

Exhausted, she ate an unappealing meal of dried nuts and hard biscuits, but the camp was as safe as she could make it, and that made her proud!

When I returned to our first camp from work, a note carved onto a piece of bark detailed, with a map, where the new camp is. The ground was covered in devilsaur prints, though from where I was, safely up in the air, I didn’t notice the wreckage of the campsite.

Once I found the new camp, I discovered Celeste slumped and asleep in one of our folding camping chairs up in the tree platform, facing the crater, her rifle leaning against her. She had undoubtedly fallen asleep keeping watch from on high while the ARMUTT stood sentry below. Dordy, meanwhile, was sleeping comfortably and soundly on our bed.

Thankfully, the new camp and defensive measures proved good enough to keep the devilsaur away this time – after I left for work, much later in the morning, Celeste found she’d slept soundly and woke fairly refreshed.

She headed out around mid-morning with Dordy and the ARMUTT to find some more silversage. While the treatment was working wonders for Nosebleed, she needed a few more batches to heal him fully.

Somewhere along her excursion, she noticed a stain on the ARMUTT. It seemed the machine had crushed some flowers, and the plant had left bright red pigments on its hull. Checking the stain and rubbing it between her fingers, Celeste's creative mind suddenly got an idea. A silly, wonderful idea... and a bit of vengeance while she was at it!

She continued to work most of the day on Nosebleed's treatment, sending for food in Theramore with the help of her hook drone. Halibut was on special in the inn there that day, as well as imported Barleybeard brews, I’d told her in my morning note to her I usually leave when I go to work. It was a fish she really liked, and she was glad Nat had told her about the special. Hard to resist a good Barleybeard brew, too!

By the time I’d gotten back home, Celeste was be up in the tree camp. Salve-soaked blankets now covered Nosebleed's tail and underbelly. The direhorn seemed to be dozing near the jungle, clearly at peace and enjoying the healing. Celeste was sitting cross-legged in bed, wearing only some thin nightclothes due to the heat of the day still lingering. When I got up to the platform, she told me about her day and part of her new plan: we would make a sleeping poison, something powerful enough to put a devilsaur to sleep for some time. Her mother's notebooks have several recipes for sleeping draughts, Eowithiel preferred not killing foes as much as she could. Celeste warned she'd need to test a few recipes and would need ingredients probably not found in Un'goro, but her plan's endgame was worth it: once the devilsaur was asleep, she (with my help if I was willing, which of course I was!) would paint as many giant and silly doodles on its hide as they could! HAHAHA! A lot of pigments could be sourced right here in Un'goro and Feralas, she was saying, and she giggled just at the idea of what she intended to draw...

I had sleepily cackled like a maniac over Celeste's plan when I'd gotten home. I couldn't wait to get started on it! I listened intently to Celeste describing her day, and how she'd come across the pigments that had given her the idea. I was also smiling to see Nosebleed so cozy in his healing salve blankets, and proud of Celeste for her healing and fortified camp-making skills! The stakes, the elevated house, and the ARMUTT were far more than I'd ever have dreamed up myself!

Then came the minication! I was awakened early Monday morning by the sound of laughter and Dordy barks coming from below.

Eventually peeking down from the platform, I saw Celeste, dressed and wearing her signature wide-brim hat, playing with Nosebleed.

The game involved giving one end of a bundle of long leaves to Nosebleed while trying to pull on the opposite end. The direhorn seemed to just simply chew without effort, dragging Celeste around, who was trying as hard as she could to pull the leaves out of his mouth, with no success at all. Dordy, meanwhile, alternated between barking at Nosebleed and trying to help Celeste by taking a hold of the bottom of her boot and pulling her back. HA! It was so funny to watch!

Nosebleed didn’t have any salve soaked blankets on him, his latest treatment done. From up high, it was obvious how much his scales have improved! He was looking so great already!

Smiling to have awakened to the happy sounds of my family at play, I decided to get up and catch a short ride on Onyx to go down and join in. I jokingly decided that two-on-one wasn't fair to Nosebleed, and joined in on Nosebleed's side of the tug-of-war game. I am nowhere near as strong as Celeste, and maybe only just a bit stronger than Dordy, so I pretended to be all super proud of myself when Team Nosebleed never lost the vine of leaves! HA! I was as happy as blanketless Nosebleed at how the trip was turning out, even though I was also anxious about the upcoming trip to knock out the devilsaur, or Big Grumpypants, as I call him, to prank him! Yet I was also really excited about finishing our mission to heal Nosebleed!

Celeste left Nosebleed alone after a while, and we went back up to the tree camp for breakfast and to plan out the day.

“Making the sleeping poison will probably take a lot of traveling. Dreamfoil, mostly. It was mother’s perfume too. Lovely smell,” Celeste said over a shared coffee. “For the size of our intruder, we’ll need purple lotus too, and Grom’s Blood. I’ve got some good drawings of the plants from Mother, and where to find them. Feralas for the purple lotus, Felwood for the Grom’s Blood. There should be Dreamfoil here in the crater, though closer to the center. Considering the devilsaur, that last part might be tricky…”

"Oh gosh," I said. "We'll need some dreamfoil in order to make the devilsaur sleep, so that we can go to the center of the crater and get some dreamfoil!"

“Yeah, I realize the irony…” Celeste said, glumly.

I sipped at the coffee, thinking back as I flipped the bacon in the frying pan.

"Wasn't there also Gromsblood in Desolace?” I asked. “I think it's a little closer than Felwood."

“Yeah,” Celeste replied. “But it’s more potent in Felwood, though.”

"Ah, gotcha. Felwood it is, then! What shall we do for dreamfoil?"

“I’ll take the ARMUTT,” Celeste said thoughtfully. “I’ll fly it into the crater and search for it from ground level. You’ll be on overwatch in the FB. I got some stinkbombs left, and a few flares, too. I don’t need a lot of dreamfoil. The recipe is potent with small quantities of each herb, though I’m going to make ten times the dose, just in case. Mother notes that the recipe itself should make a kodo sleep for twelve hours.”

"Twelve hours on a kodo, and ten times as much for this!" I exclaimed, my purple eyes wide as I dumped bacon onto Celeste's plate beside a biscuit smothered in sausage gravy. "That oughta knock that giant scaly grump out for sure!"

“Yeah, though I don’t know if devilsaur metabolizes the poison the same way. Lizard versus mammal. Technically a lizard in a hot area has a higher metabolism. We’ll see.. the ARMUTT is armored to withstand a lot of pressure, but probably nothing like a devilsaur’s jaws. I’ll need you to act quickly if one gets close. Just long enough to give me a chance to get it airborne, considering the added weight.” She nibbled on a strip of bacon, giving a piece to Dordy who waited (im)patiently next to her chair. “Dreamfoil grows close to the ground, in open areas. With a proper telescope, you could spot them from the air for me.”

I nodded slowly, nibbling on bacon of my own (which Dordy eyed even as he ate Celeste's, before getting the last bite of mine tossed to him). I moved on to her biscuit and gravy, sipping at coffee before finally answering.

"Well then, let's hope ten times that of a kodo's knockout dose is enough!" I said eventually. "I'll do my best to pilot the FB and use the telescope. I think I should be able to spot it; the color and shape of it differs enough from typical jungle plants just enough that it should stand out a little."

“Plus dreamfoil has some purple in it, right?” agreed Celeste. “Just at the tips of the leaves? That should draw your eye!” She grinned and finished her breakfast. When all was done and washed up, she said she’d get into the ARMUTT for preflight checks and gave me my Whitewind Company communicator and took a short range transmitter of her own so we could talk to each other.

“The MAD mode will be online at all times,” Celeste explained. “With the limited visibility in the cockpit, I’m not taking any chances. I’ll head to the bottom of the hill and wait your all-clear to proceed. I’ll be under some trees for a while, heading to the center of the crater. Your visibility will be limited from the air, but I’ll keep you updated on my progress.”

"Right!" I agreed. I helped Celeste wash dishes after breakfast and then Blinked into the FB after pre-flight checks were completed. When Celeste was ready, I lifted off, hovering directly overhead of Celeste and the ARMUTT at all times. I left Dordy (adorable aviator goggles on!) with Celeste as an additional early warning system, in case Big Grumpypants, got close. In the meantime, I'd be waiting, telescope and stink bombs at the ready!

Once Dordy was safely strapped in (she didn’t want him bouncing around if the ARMUTT was attacked), Celeste throttled her modified goblin shredder forward.

“Proceeding into the jungle,” I heard my gnomish comms unit chirp. “I expect to be out of sight for about twenty minutes or so. I’ll update you regularly.”

“Nothing so far…”

“Found some plants that will help with yellow paint. Putting a marker in the ground. Moving forward.”

Celeste was about halfway under the canopy when she said…

“It’s quiet. I’d have expected to kick away a few carnivorous plants by now, or to dodge a flying lizard or two. Instead it’s just this serene forest. A few giant bugs though which Dordy likes to bark at. Halfway there!”

Just then, over the treetops, I noticed some branches moving a few hundred feet away from Celeste. Then, ominously, a long, mottled dorsal spike crested through the treetops…

Thus far, I was just radioing back acknowledgements, confirming each time that no danger is in sight at that time. Eventually, however, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up when Celeste mentioned a sudden lack of wildlife around her. It's just like when something big and dangerous like Mek-barash, my fourteen-foot-tall wrathguard, is out and about...

But then I saw that dorsal spike cresting the canopy of some of the smaller trees…

"CELESTE!” I called out quickly over the comms. “Your five o'clock! I think it's Big Grumpypants! He's stalking you, moving right toward you, but quietly! LOOK OUT!"

I pulled up on the FB, taking the aircraft a bit higher to move about halfway between the devilsaur and Celeste so I could keep tabs on both, stinkbombs at the ready...

“What?” Celeste called back. “I don’t see it! I’m throttling up the ARMUTT, heading East to the crater center!” Dordy’s low growl piped through the radio as Celeste spoke.

Whether it was the sound of the FB overhead, or the fact that Celeste pushed the ARMUTT into a sprint, the devilsaur roared in challenge and took after it, disturbing the trees violently along its path.

Suddenly there were several bright flashes of red and white light under the cover of the trees as the MAD system activated… but the devilsaur hardly even slowed!

Then, as it got closer, I could hear, even over the FB’s rotor, the high-pitched siren from the MAD system. It only made the devilsaur angrier and it roared loudly again!

“I’m almost there,” Celeste called over the comms again. “I can see bright sunlight up ahead. Dordy, quiet! Nat, it’s almost on top of me! I have one last resort… move up in front of me and get ready with those stink bombs. As soon as I clear the trees, fly as low as you can and drop them right on its head!”

The panic in Celeste’s voice was obvious, as was Dordy’s mad barking in the background. Suddenly, I heard a loud BANG! That was followed shortly by two others in quick succession!

BANG! BANG!

The devilsaur roared even louder and the terrifying sound of giant teeth crunching down and screeching into metal was heard over the radio. My eyes misted over… the devilsaur had caught Celeste! I was so terrified! I didn’t want to lose her, and I definitely didn’t want her to die the agonizing death of being eaten alive! I dried my eyes as zoomed in as fast as I could…

For a long moment that felt like an eternity, there were no more sounds, then suddenly:

BANG!

“NOW!” Celeste shouted in the radio as the ARMUTT burst from the forest at a dead run. The machine’s right arm (which held tools, not the gun) hung a bit awkwardly from the main chassis, giant teeth clearly having torn up the armor and the precise mechanisms inside.

Right on Celeste’s heels, the same devilsaur that kept hounding them over the last few days came loping after her. A bleeding spot on its snout and on its chest showed where some of Celeste’s shots must have hit, though they looked too small to really bother it. Its giant strides gave it an advantage and it was closing in quickly! Oh, NO!

I gasped as the devilsaur tore off after Celeste as they both burst into the clearing with the volcano. Still feeling frantic at the sound of the crunch down on the ARMUTT, I sped forward, shot out from over the canopy of the jungle after the ARMUTT and Big Grumping pants, then turned a half-barrel roll as I entered the clearing and using my upside-down state to swoop through the latter half of a loop to level out straight. My 180-degree-turn complete, I zoomed toward the trees, finding Celeste fleeing the rain forest – and Big Grumpypants – with the ARMUTT at a sprint.

Thinking fast, I knew I’m an awful shot at throwing anything, and was as likely to hit the ARMUTT with a stinkbomb as I was the devilsaur, even as huge as Big Grumpypants is. New plan: I flew directly over the ARMUTT, making a straight line between it and the devilsaur. Then, instead of throwing stinkbombs, she simply drops them overboard. A rapid drop of stinkbombs expands into a straight line of solid stink-gas right in its path, then, getting another idea, I flew RIGHT AT THE DEVILSAUR'S MOUTH!

Pulling up at the last second, I dropped my final stinkbomb, just as the jaws o' doom opened. Timed right, the stinkbomb fell right into the creature's mouth! YES!

"HA!" I exulted over the comms. "EAT POO, BIG GRUMPYPANTS!"

The devilsaur stopped running! It gasped and wheezed as stinky green smoke billowed out of its mouth and nostrils. It shook its great big head from side to side, trying to get ride of the powerful odor. Celeste stopped her run and turned her machine around. Several flares shot out of the launcher on the ARMUTT's back, bursting near the great brute's head. That combined with the mouthful of powerful stinkbomb, and much more of it between it and the ARMUTT, seemed to convince it that there was easier prey to chase. It turned, slinking off into the jungle.

For a moment there was silence as everyone gathered their wits, and then my radio crackled, and Celeste's shaky voice simply said, incredulously...

"I... I didn't know the FB could be flown like that..."

I had cheered as the stinkbombs and the flares drove the beast off in search of easier prey, and felt beyond relieved to hear her love's voice after that moment of silence that followed. I turned to zoom over near Celeste in the ARMUTT, observing the damage.

"GOSH, I'm so relieved to hear your voice!" she exclaims. "A-and I didn't know it could, either... just a knee-jerk reaction, I guess... I'm just SO GLAD YOU'RE OKAY! And I'm SO PROUD OF YOU! Your armor and your flares and your stinkbombs all worked out! You're so good at this stuff! But gosh, Big Grumpypants really did a number on the ARMUTT's arm..."

“Yeah,” Celeste’s voice came back over the radio as she wiggled the lever for the arm, making it swing and dangle uselessly a bit. “It’s toast. Nothing I can fix in the field, either. I guess we’re lucky in here that the armor held. I must’ve zinged it hard enough with the gun arm, because it stopped shaking the ARMUTT like a doll. Dordy’s okay too. He’s a bit more quiet than usual, but I think the sound of your voice was enough to bring him back to tail wagging mode. Anyways, let’s get that dreamfoil while we can, and I’ll get this thing back to camp. At least there’s nothing in Felwood as big as that devilsaur…”

"Oh gosh, then I'm glad you got it with the gun arm! And I'm glad Dordy's getting over the shock already!"

The rest of the day was much easier. The trip to Felwood by air (we both went on Onyx’s back) was uneventful, and the gathering of the gromsblood was quickly done. The pair of us then headed to Feralas. Celeste checked the river streams for purple lotus, giving time for me to catch our dinner with my pandaren bamboo fishing rod.

I was relieved to fly out of Un'goro for a break and head to Feralas. Choosing the campsite we stayed at earlier in the year, I landed and set myself up for fishing while Celeste, taking Dordy along so he can "help" her, went off in search of as much purple lotus as she could find.

I caught a trout, but deemed it too small to feed the three of them. Stringing it up, I fished until I had a couple more. Celeste returned while I was stringing up the third, which was fortuitous timing! The trout all went onto Onyx's back, who'd fished a bit himself and had already eaten well, and our little family returned to Un'goro Crater.

While I cooked the trouts, Celeste started working on the sleeping poison for the devilsaur. The methods used in the concoction were complex, though, and she decided to continue the next day instead.

As we ate my hopefully perfectly-cooked trout, Celeste listed the different parts she’d need to fix the ARMUTT. A trip to Mechagon was definitely going to help, but she’d have to make a lot of parts in her workshop too.

I listened carefully to Celeste's plans for the ARMUTT repairs as I helped myself to fresh trout, utterly delighted at the idea of a return trip to Mechagon. I suggested Penny's help for that one, Penny knowing the area and Mechagnomish technology as she did.

With plans in mind for the future, I went to sleep with Celeste and Dordy high up in their camp tree in the Crater, thinking next on drugging a big mean dinosaur so that we could draw silly things on it. Silly suggestions for doodles were proposed by both of us until soon we faded into sleepy whispers and tired laughter before we dropped off to sleep for the night.

During the next day, Celeste wanted to gather the plants, bugs, and minerals she'd need to make the pigments required to prank the devilsaur. Considering the latest foray into the Crater, going out in the ARMUTT was out of the question, so she made a new V.I.N.E. suit made from the local plants. Walking sneakily enough around, she doubted the devilsaur would take notice of her, small as she is!

The suit was easily made with the mesh used to hide the camp. Celeste set off just before lunch with a large empty backpack under the VINE suit and her rifle. She promised to be careful and that would just turn invisible and run right back if the devilsaur got too close.

She returned about an hour and a half later. From her backpack, she removed several flowers (yellow, purple, and blue), a bunch of dark red and crumbly stones, and a jar filled with beetles sporting bright green shells. Everything needed to be crushed and diluted in water. The more paint she'd need to make, the more diluted the colors would be. A devilsaur colored in soft pastel colors was just as funny, though, so she didn't mind. She suggested that I could help to crush the ingredients using a heavy pipe from the ARMUTT's broken arm and some wide pieces of bark stripped from nearby trees. The pigments would then remain on the pieces of bark, under the storage tent, until Celeste could get some pots from Theramore the next day.

While I did that, Celeste worked on the sleeping poison with Fishguy. It was a delicate process that required her complete attention. Even Dordy was prevented from entering the tent. She worked distilling the poison well into the evening, finally coming out with a single vial of thick green liquid with red swirls inside it.

I spent the day helping Celeste by crushing the pigments for her while she made the V.I.N.E. suits and then the sleeping poison. By the time she was done, there was an ample supply of yellow, purple, blue, and green pastel colors to paint Big Grumpypants with!

"Done!” Celeste announced later that night, emerging from Fishguy’s tent as I came back from the Whitewind Company adventure (of which I shall write soon!), having completed my own task with the pigments before heading out. “I hope it works. The trick now will be to shoot the devilsaur with it. I can modify a rifle round for that, but I'd need a shot at the throat or underbelly, somewhere soft, anyways. Tomorrow, I'll head to Theramore to get some pots and brushes for our paint. Then I'll need to get a last batch of silversage for Nosebleed. I think we can prank Grumpypants in two days."

"I hope it works too!" I said. "I think we can crawl in close easy enough with the V.I.N.E. suits. We'll just have to get the brushes and pots! I'll be ready to go whenever you are!"

I sat in thought for a moment, then spoke up again.

"Hey, the big salmon run is going on in Grizzly Hills soon. After we prank Big Grumpypants and get Nosebleed back home, wanna go up there and fish for orphans again this year, like we did last year?"

"That's a brilliant idea, Nat!” Celeste replied. “I'm sure the orphans will appreciate the extra food, and camping in Grizzly Hills is definitely a favorite. I could use a relaxing break just fishing in those cold mountain streams."

"Nosebleed should be fine with the last batch I applied to his scales today,” she continued. “I can send him back to Pandaria tomorrow morning. We won't need to worry about the camp while we're stalking the devilsaur. Speaking of that, we'll need to take it slow tomorrow (we’d decided we’d do it the next day instead of in the aforementioned two days). Without the ARMUTT or aerial support, we'll be basically protected only by the VINE suits. We'll set out early, since Grumpypants is more active near midday. We can build a small blind up in a tree in the forest where we saw it yesterday. Hide the blind with more plant-covered meshes and spread some scent blocking plants around us. We'll only have to wait and hope it passes near enough, but it won't be able to see or smell us. I want to go through with this prank, but not if it puts us in too much danger."

Celeste reached to grab Dordy and pull him between the two of us. Dordy squirmed a bit at first, but was glad for all the lovin’s too!

"I think this little guy should be sent back home too. Penny probably wouldn't mind taking care of him. Up in that blind in the tree, I don't want him barking and revealing our position. Or falling off and getting hurt. One of us could take him home via portal early tomorrow morning and head back here after both Dordy and Nosebleed are settled."

"Yeah,” I agreed, smiling at Dordy and cuddling with him between us a bit more. “If we get up early enough, we can get home and back with our hearthstones and then a portal back to Theramore, then just hop over the Thousand Needles canyon on Onyx for a faster trip in. Then we can get that big meaniehead back GOOD!"

I giggled with Celeste as we again fell asleep that night with fading whispers and fading, sleepy laughter about what we'd paint on Big Grumpypants...

We woke up early this morning, setting out in the ARMUTT and FB loaded with building materials (the tool arm, after all, was still functional!) after a nice, heavy breakfast to sustain us. Finding a suitable tree for the blind Celeste wanted to build to stake out the devilsaur, we hastily got the platform built with Celeste in the ARMUTT working the tools. Next came the foliage-entwined mesh to hide our spot, followed by an unloading of supplies like a frost-magic-cooled chest of water and food for lunch, as well as a first aid kit full of healing potions and the like. Returning to the camp, we set the ARMUTT and Flying Nosebleed back down, then made our way back to the blind in our V.I.N.E. suits, worn over backpacks full of further supplies, gathered and packed as last-minute thoughts. Celeste carried her rifle and spear with her.

So for now, here we sit, waiting on the middle of the day to come and Big Grumpypants to show himself so he can get what he deserves…

I’d have thought that breaks taken throughout the week to go and visit friends and go on another Whitewind Company adventure would have been less dangerous.

I’d have thought wrong!

First off, Deathrolls never happened this week, with the big weekly storm lasting fourteen hours instead of just one and keeping me and who knows how many others from emerging.

Then the next day, Wednesday, there was the Whitewind Company adventure, and our return to the Eversong Woods. Like last week, it was me, the Lady Rivenori Summersong of Quel’thalas, Mairead Brewbeak the Wildhammer dwarf, and Maya Maxwell, the Gilnean that didn’t often show her worgen form except when a fight was sure to come.

As agreed last week, we met in the Eversong Woods, at the end of the Dead Scar where it meets the border of the little river that separates Eversong Woods from the Ghostlands.

As if that alone isn’t spooky enough for a Hallow’s End season adventure, we were looking for our ghostly guide that we came across last week. Imagine seeking out ghosts during Hallow’s End! How scary!

We didn’t find her at first, but then Riven was like, “What was that ghost’s name again?” and I was like, “Erm… Fiona Suntreader,” and then the ghost just… materialized out of nowhere, and she was like, “…I heard my name…” GOSH! How spooky can she get?!

Our smelly meatwagons were still parked right where we’d left them, too, so, just like last week, Maya, Riven, and I mounted up once again, crossing the river and traveling the Dead Scar right into the Ghostlands.

It got dark fast, going there. The sun sets early that far north, this late in the year, but it was especially true in the haunted Ghostlands. Through mud we rode, crunching through bones under the meatwagons unseen under the wet dead earth. On we trudged, the earthy wet smell of the mud and the haunted forest not entirely masking the smell of death and decay.

It wasn’t long before we came upon the wreckage of a meatwagon next to a creek, destroyed during the elves’ resistance. Searching it, we found an elven suit of plate armor, blue like the princess’s, and hopes rose… until we realized that some of these pieces – legplates, boots, a gauntlet – were duplicates of what we’d already found, except nowhere near as ornate as the princess’s. Moreover, the nearly insatiable drive to do battle wasn’t stirred within us. We concluded that this headless corpse, mangled by the broken meatwagon, would have been an elven officer, but not the princess’s armor.

Maya went worgen form to swim into the creek and dig out the suit. Bones fell out of it, a whole skeleton’s worth, minus the skull. Then she got out and shook herself out like a wet dog… a six-and-a-half-foot-tall worgen shaking herself out with the power of a monsoon, soaking everyone! GOSH!

I found the helm a good distance away in the mud. I tossed it to Maya, though I missed, and it landed in her meatwagon she’d climbed back into, near her feet, and the SKULL popped out! Oh gosh! The elf must have lost her head during the battle! How morbid!

There was also a ghoul that came at us! Wearing a brown plate helm and nothing else, holding a sword and a wooden shield, the ghoul came at us. We were all set to fight it, but Maya rushed it with her meatwagon and skewered it on the front spikes! EW! And Mairy wanted to ride along for the next ghoul skewering, in Maya’s meatwagon! She LIKED it! Gosh, how gross!

There were more wrecks along the Dead Scar to search. Riven and Maya kicked open boxes at one wreck, and each found letters written by someone named Mortimer Deathrattle… a definite Cult of the Darned member’s name, if you ask me!

The letter Riven found was from Deathrattle to Arthas, seemingly written during Arthas’ conquest of Quel’thalas, as it made references to the campaign along the way of it informing him of the finding of a curious artifact that stirs the living cultists to want to drop their magic work and join the battle more directly, driving them nearly out of their minds with the joy of battle. That HAD to be the pauldrons of Princess Ariel Sunstrider that we were looking for!

The letter Maya found was from Deathrattle to an unnamed subordinate, orders to take the pauldrons, which the elves had hidden in a small crate inside a massive crate of plate armor, to the rear of the convoy to keep it safe until Arthas could come back and check it out himself.

It seemed that the letter Riven found never made it to Arthas, however, as it was stuck there in the mud in that crate, so that was good news! I shudder to think what the Lich King would have done with it!

Fiona, however, was struck with dread, just like she’d been last week. The ghost was muttering anxiously about how something might have been moved to the rear, to “THAT awful place…” though, just as she had last week, she refused to speak the place’s name.

Urging us on past the few remaining wrecks along the Dead Scar, we eventually came upon a massive stone wall, perhaps fifty feet high, and twenty or so thick. Ominously, it was decorated with bones, and an enormous stone skull was hewn from the arch over the gate, which was, just as ominously… open.

”…Deatholme…” Fiona whispered out, finally speaking the place’s name. Gosh, it must be spooky indeed for even a ghost to be so afraid of it!

Worse still was the smell wafting out through the giant gate. The smell of rotting flesh, and not twenty-year-old corpses, either, from the time of Arthas’ invasion. FRESH corpses, lots and lots and lots of them, all rotting together. It was the most horrible smell EVER!

And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the bits of ground to either side of the gate’s entrance suddenly stirred! One hand per side burst forth from the ground, rotten, desiccated hands that were soon followed by the rest of the bodies. ZOMBIES! TWO zombies! The one on the left drew two cruel-looking daggers and immediately disappeared, vanishing into stealth. Not good! The other wore caster robes, and fire flickered from its hands as it charged up a fireball… and sent it RIGHT AT ME! I ducked in my meatwagon, luckily avoiding the blast. But the rogue zombie appeared out of nowhere right in front of Maya in HER meatwagon, raised its daggers into the air, pointed down, and slammed them downward, stabbing Maya inside the collarbone on both sides of her head!

In her worgen form, Maya was able to cope with the damage and the pain, and, being a restoration druid, she was soon able to heal herself. All of us, my wrathguard and imp included, ganged up on the rogue immediately, and soon it feel, skewered by arrows, hacked up by a wrathguard, eaten by the weird bugs Maya summons, and so many other injuries. Then Mairy turned her shamanic magics on the caster, taking its fire shield and getting the elemental spirits of fire to tighten it up on the zombie mage, burning it to a crisp… yet still it stood, still it cast spells! Riven put arrows in it while Maya healed herself, Kil’rek the imp immolated it still further with felfire spells, and Mek-barash, charging in and howling with that inhumanly deep wrathguard voice of his, swung his great battleaxe right to left and hacked its head right off! It fell in a heap of charred EW and ICK, and we proceeded in through the gate.

The smell in here was much, much worse, stifling, making it difficult to breathe. The smell of rot was made worse by the view… ziggurats and a slaughterhouse and so much other foul stuff, with a great tower right in the middle topped off by another impossibly gargantuan stone skull!

The road went up the hillside that Deatholme was built on, circling the horrifying place within its walls. Fiona pointed us left first, grimacing as she strode through the place, yet insistent that she would not be able to find her final rest until the artifact she was charged with protecting was recovered and made safe at last, after all these years, so we continued on.

Fiona steered us into the first structure on the left as we went that way along the road, though it seemed to just be a stone canopy – an enormous, heavy stone roof, decorated in bone shapes hewn from the rock, with arches all around its perimeter instead of walls. Nothing was to be found in here except the scattered bones of the dead, so we returned to the road and our meatwagons, more bones crunching under the wheels as we circled around with the road and up the hill.

The second building was a ziggurat, and the feeling of unease grew within us by an order of magnitude as we strode through the chilled stone halls, eventually coming upon a pit filled with a plagued green fluid. Searching around, Maya and Riven found a book that details the necromantic practice of sacrificing living cultists to draw out their spirits and turn them into invisible shades that they use for scouting and spying.

We found it no coincidence, then, when the feeling of chills passed through us, as though ghosts were moving right through us, quite suddenly and without warning! We knew that, despite the ominous emptiness of Deatholme, we were being watched!

The dread feeling of being watched and the unease of the strangely empty undead stronghold grew and grew as we left the building and went into the next ziggurat, avoiding the slaughterhouse entirely, as people seemed to not want to witness the horrors it must hold within.

Searching this one, Mairy found a book she couldn’t read (she only reads dwarven runes) that also had a picture of a ziggurat much like this one, with its icy crystal swirling with frost magic and all on top, firing frost magic at invading elves.

Maya found a letter from a cultist that didn’t appear to have ever been sent out, written in ink so black it seems to suck the very light out of the area around it and into its dark depths. The letter described a powerful artifact arriving for Arthas’ inspection when he has the time, but also a warning to keep it safely enclosed in its crate, as looking upon it stirs the heart into a battle-crazed frenzy. The letter concluded with thoughts from the writer on keeping the treasure for himself or herself.

Riven found a map of Deatholme, with a route from the building we stood in to the skull-topped tower in the center, with a picture of a large crate and an armed escort.

Putting everything together, it seemed that the pauldrons had indeed com to Deatholme, and had first arrived at this defensive structure, and then was ordered to be moved to the center tower!

Feeling the shudders of what had to be watchful shades passing through us again, we left the ziggurat and headed down the road along the map’s route to the central building. Parking the meatwagons outside as usual, we got out and headed inside…

This building was immediately different from the others. It simply had hallways, sloping downward, that circled and rejoined and split again, always going down, down, down under the earth. It got colder and colder the more we went down, eventually leveling out into a room so dark, it, like the ink in the letter Maya found, seemed to suck the light right out of it and into its dark depths.

I use a fire spell to light a fire in the center of the room, but all it did was vaguely show the walls. It was too dark to see anything else! We searched around the room, but only Mairy found something… a huge crate, bearing the seal of Quel’thalas!

Standing up on her tiptoes, she peered inside, her eyes beginning to adjust to the unnatural darkness. Littering the bottom were bits and odds and end of Quel’dorei plate armor. Reporting her findings to us, we began to look around a bit more, our own eyes beginning to adjust at this point.

Scattered around the crate, mostly against the far wall, was quite a lot of Quel’dorei plate armor! Remembering that the pauldrons had been confirmed earlier to be hidden in a crate of plate armor inside another, smaller crate, we knew they had to be close…

And yet, it was not so. We found the crate, alright, but it, too, was empty!

Fiona, up at the top of the first flight of stairs and looking down at us, moaned in dismay. She’d never be able to find her final rest if the pauldrons were gone, and no lead on them to be found. We looked up at her… and nearly screamed!

There, at the top of the stairs, floated the top half of a skeleton, ensconced and hooded in flowing black robes that hovered over the landing and had no skeletal legs or feet sticking out the bottom. An icy aura surrounded it, one that would have caused any living thing to feel its frozen presence. What was worse was that it was clearing wearing the ornate, beautiful plate pauldrons of Princess Ariel Sunstrider… AND IT WAS HOVERING RIGHT BEHIND FIONA!

Fiona, hearing me shout a warning, turned around. It’s… spooky… to see a ghost gasp, and not hear it, due to their lack of lungs… But gasp she did, looking up in fear at the horror floating right in front of her.

”What’s the matter, Fiona?” the lich asked sadly, in a voice that seemed to come from some distant place, reverberating around the stone room. “Don’t you recognize me? But you said we’d be best friends forever…”

”Sophia…” Fiona said in horror. “Sophia Solara… it … it can’t be… you’ve become a… a lich…?”

”I have,” Sophia replied, running a skeletal hand over Princess Sunstrider’s pauldrons, still sounding sad. “I… I couldn’t help myself. The moment I laid eyes on these pauldrons, I wanted them. I wanted to don them… to use them… to stir our people to battle the way Princess Ariel once did, to lead us to victory against the horrors brought to our beloved forest home by the human prince! But then HE came… Mortimer Deathrattle… he promised me the power to do that and more… he offered this, or he offered death… Of the two, I chose POWER!”

“Deaders are all alike,” Mairy scoffed. “Join us, er die, an’ both are the same thing! Ye really gotta work on yer recruitment spiel!”

”But… but why betray us?” Fiona asked, nearly sobbing now at the revelation of her dearest friend’s fate, peering brokenheartedly at the stolen pauldrons of the princess she wore. “This artifact was never meant for you, for us! It was to be kept safe, not carelessly used with wanton and reckless abandon!”

“You must believe me,” Sophia replied, disregarding Mairy’s perfectly good point. “I only wanted to repel the invading tyrant, yet I simply fell to a different tyrant, a lesser one in service of the greater one. Mortimer Deathrattle… another lich… yet he did not know the power the pauldrons brought me, even in death, even as a lich… the power to free me from Arthas’ control, to compel our kind to KILL Mortimer! And kill him we did, and now I rule Deatholme!

”And now,” Sophia continued, pacing around, her black velvet necromancer’s robes billowing out softly as she hovered back and forth on the landing. “Now… now I find that I no longer care about that, about Arthas, about Quel’thalas… now I find that all I care about… is how DELICIOUS the sound of a beating heart is… and how I hunger, always hunger, to rip them out… I find that I can’t STAND the living… the hunger they bring me… I bring them here by the scores and SLAUGHTER them, hungry for their deaths… yet my hunger is never sated… and you have brought me so many more living things… THEY will sate my hunger!”

And with that, Sophia screeched out a spell, and a blizzard of icy shards bombarded the whole room! That HURT!

Meanwhile, the silence and emptiness of Deatholme was explained – the stampeding feet of innumerable undead forces pounded and thudded overhead, coming out from their hiding places to execute the ambush Sophia must have had lying in wait for us. She’d likely seen us a long way off, approaching the wall, and planned her ambush for when we’d be trapped in this room with the only way out blocked!

Fiona drew spectral daggers, though I’m not sure they would have been any use against the icy skeletal lich. Riven drew her bow, Mairy her sword and stormhammer, and Maya summoned more of her weird bugs. I had Mek-barash and Kil’rek out in front of me, my own spells at the ready.

We attacked!

Fel minions and arrows alike flew at the lich, as well as hordes of odd beetles from Maya’s robe sleeves that swarmed the lich’s skeletal face, spewing acidic venom and ripping off bits of bone and ice. Mairy got the elemental spirits of the earth to tear off a chunk of wall and throw it at the lich, though the lich deflected it and send it to the foot of the stairs with a cone of cold spell. Fiona didn’t seem to mind the chunk of earth going through her twice, nor spells or arrows or Mek-barash, charging in with his axe.

Sophia’s screams, like her voice earlier, seemed to echo from someplace distant as she cried out in agony from the attacks. She made way for the first arriving undead, five unarmed skeletons that were sprinting down the stairs.

”FOLLOW THAT SOUND!” Maya said, drawing our attention to the distant sound of Sophia’s voice, as it seemed to come from somewhere else. “A lich must have a phylactery nearby! Everyone looked around quickly, and I got an Eye of Kilrogg summoned to assist with the search.

Meanwhile, the skeletons were attacking! They came down in force, one at me, two at Maya, and two at Riven, though Mairy was out of sight, having found the phylactery already. We fought off our skeletons, and suddenly, a loud SHATTER was heard around the corner to the right of the stairs, where Mairy had found the jar. She’d broken it!

Sophia’s shrieks became louder at that, the phylactery that binds her to this world destroyed, and lights began to pop and flash all around her, and then… BOOM! She BURST! Shards of ice and bone SHOT all around the room, ricocheting all around us! I used the wild imps I had out to intercept them, though it destroyed the imps. Riven hopped, skipped, and flipped around, deftly dodging them. Mairy was ducking in the corner of the stairs and the wall, avoiding the lethal shards that way. Maya extended her hands, an insectoid carapace forming around her to deflect the shards. We’d done it! We’d finished off the lich!

The pauldrons, meanwhile, had fallen with a bouncing clatter down the stairs, resting at the foot of them. Immediately, two things happened: one, the skeletons stopped attacking us and wandered mindlessly on the spot, with the thunder of the main force of Deatholme stopping on the stairs overhead, audibly wandering back up the stairs and out into Deatholme proper, and two, the pauldrons, no longer affecting the enemy, began to affect us instead! Used to it by now, I resisted, though a few shouts of, “FOR THE ALLIANCE!” and, “FOR AZEROTH!” erupted from somewhere deep within me, as I felt the urge to take up a sword and shield and charge across the battlefield… maybe even storm Icecrown Citadel itself, if Arthas had still been in there! Riven and Maya, however, feeling the effects for the first time, were far more in a frenzy. They were trying to resist, having been warned of the effects of the enchanted armor ahead of time, but it was even more difficult for them than it was for me! Finally, Mairy had the presence of mind to go and find that smaller empty crate we’d seen earlier (with a few shouts of, “WILDHAMMER!” thrown in as she went along) and grab the pauldrons, slinging them inside and slamming the lid on shut. With the pauldrons locked away, the odd rush of hearts stirred to battle faded, and we stood there panting, eventually gathering our wits enough to get the heck outta there!

Riven took charge of the crate, declaring she’d see the pauldrons safely back to the Whitewind’s Grace. Maya and Mairy were ready to just head home, but I went with Riven, always there to escort these pieces when we find them. We thanked Maya and Mairy as we exited Deatholme and back out onto the Dead Scar to retrieve our flying mounts, with promises of gold delivered to their vaults as usual for their work.

Landing some time later on the deck of the Whitewind’s Grace, we were met by First Mate Nathanial Seabreeze, who, as usual, took the crate belowdecks and returned with the word that it was now securely stored and guarded by the same Kul Tiran marines that guard the rest of the suit we’ve found so far. They sure are all gung ho, those guys! The effects of the armor compels them to guard it with their lives, so I’m sure they’re secure and not going anywhere!

After that, I thanked Riven and First Mate Nate and said goodnight, making my trip back to Un’goro Crater, ready for sleep after an exhausting evening, and wanting to go to bed early to get up early the next morning anyway… I still had the Big Grumpypants prank to take care of!

And with that, here I sit now, up here in the blind, waiting on Big Grumpypants. It should warm up enough here in a while for him to get active and get out and about… and then we’ll show him what for! Gosh, I can’t wait to go and paint still stuff all over him! I hope others see him and spread the news of the strange sillies suddenly appearing all over him! HA! I love this stuff! I can’t wait to prank Big Grumpypants with Celeste! And I can’t wait to see what the next camping trip will hold for us either! YAY!

Smiling, stifling giggles to remain quiet in the blind, Nat tapped off the excess ink off into her inkwell, capping it off and replacing her quill in its case. Returning these to her pack, she took a long drink of cool water, the day already getting hotter and more humid in the jungle as the sun began to move across the sky overhead of the canopy. Taking up her spyglass, she took a look all around the whole platform around the tree herself, looking with Celeste to see if there were any signs of Big Grumpypants yet. Finding none for now, she returned to her diary, the ink on the pages now dry. Returning that to her pack as well, she went next to Celeste with the spyglass, belly-up, helping her look. Still no sign of the oversized devilsaur, but, she thought, stifling another gleeful giggle, when they did find him, they sure had something GOOD planned for him! She couldn’t wait to see how it went…