But best hold your noses, because it’s more Pepe LePeau action

First, the good news.

If you’re trying to farm up enough Lovely Charms to make your 4 Lovely Charm Bracelets for the daily quests, it’s not hard at all.

The best, quickest way I’ve found is to get one of the “Battle before the Citadel” style quests from Argent Tournament that send you to joust and kill Lieutenants or Commanders. 

Why?

If you’ve got one of those quests, then the area has the right critters spawned for you… and the Skeletons that you run down on your mount, the ones that veritably explode underfoot, and respawn faster than a sheep running at the sound of a zipper, drop the Lovely Charms… a LOT.

I was able to get about 20 Lovely Charm Bracelets after 15 minutes. That’s 200 Lovely Charms. Your mileage may vary.

Oh, and my technique? As a Night Elf Druid, I have the racial Shadowmeld… so I run around, grinding the Skeletons up and spamming my Shield… as soon as they finally dismount me, I instantly pop Shadowmeld, drop out of combat, and then pop Flight Form and go straight up. A quick trip to wait out the 2 minute cooldown and a new mount, and I’m back in the saddle again.

So, now the bad…

Once again, one of the achievements is to get a drop off a boss kill, which CAN be done on normal mode.

There are three bosses currently that can drop Red or Ebon Roses, and only one player in a group can loot them each time.

The three bosses are Maiden of Grief in Halls of Stone, Prince Keleseth in Utgardt Keep, and Prince Taldaram in Old Kingdoms.

I went into normal Halls of Stone with two guildies, we three manned the trash to Maiden, killed, ran out and reset three times, no sweat. All done, all got the Roses.

I then queued up for a random heroic, and got Utgardt Keep.

First warning sign, of course, is that myself and a Hunter are the only new players queueing in. A healer and another DPS clearly bailed on the group.

I catch up, they’re only at the dragons before the first boss. Whatever happened was so bad, two players bailed before they even reached the first boss. And one DPS is soothing the tanks’ ruffled feathers… “No, no, you’re not that bad, they he was just a bad healer, you were fine, he was to blame.”

We clear to the first boss, and yes, he is that bad a tank. He sucks. A Paladin that just cannot hold aggro to save his ass, even WITH Righteous Fury.

That’s okay, everyone has to learn somehow, right?

We get to the first boss, good old Prince, and of course, the Roses drop. Everyone Greeds (I pass, got my Ebon ones), and then… after everyone else has chosen, the tank, good old cocksucker Mindaltering – Alexstrasza (US) hits Need and immediately drops group.

Thanks, asshole!

BTW… please don’t defend the prick to me. I don’t want to hear it. Need the Roses, Greed the Roses, I could care less. If someone really wants them, they can do it on Normal a few times for a guaranteed drop. But you drop group without a word immediately after taking them (or losing on the roll) when you never warned anyone that’s the only reason you came?

Then you are in my opinion a complete prick.

Mindaltering – Alexstrasza (US) you are not only a prick, but I want to make this clear… I saw your tanking, and you SUCK.

Let this be a reminder… the Roses aren’t the only drops people will want, what with new pets and rare mounts coming from the Holiday boss event in Shadowfang Keep. So be careful, don’t be rude but watch how it goes, and don’t be a victim of a prick like him.  

Hey Mindaltering, grats on your Roses. Maybe if you were competent, someone would give you Roses, and your hand wouldn’t have to buy them for you again this year.

What a tool.

In the comments, Naturalregis made an in-joke about Kings.

Here’s the story. 

The very first run I did in the series as a Pally tank this last week, the first resurrection of my tanking on him in months, I got Violet Hold.

I saw there was a Death Knight in the group, and I “know” (see below in the comments for more details) Blessing of Might gets overwritten by the Horn of Winter, so I made sure I had Kings set up for folks on Pallypower instead on the fly, quick buff and off we go.

Death Knight says, “Kings”.

“Shadow, Kings” (Because, as the only Pally in the group, there is confusion as to which Pally I think he’s talking to?)

“Kings”
“Kings”

Now, I use Pallypower. When you are in combat, Pallypower grays out (for me at least), meaning I can’t cast it on the fly from the Pallypower panel, I have to manually cast it by clicking on Party Bars and Spell Icons. At the moment, guess what, I’m in the middle of trying to pay attention and remember how to tank groups in a heroic instance and hold aggro from strangers competing for damage meters.

This may seem elitist of me… but do we really need to be spazzing over Kings on the first pull of a heroic Violet Hold? Can we truly not wait five damn seconds? Is your extra 15 dps REALLY make or break for the srs bsns of VH?

Really?

This Death Knight is damn near chanting “Kings” in chat.

“Kings”
“Kings”
“Shadow, Kings”
“I need Kings”

Now, I’m getting pissed, and I’m also getting distracted and losing mobs and split pulls are flying all over the place and I’m getting frazzled and upset, I’m desperately trying to do my job and also figure out why he’s not getting Kings and what the hell is going on, and it just SUCKS. 

Why am I letting this get to me?

Because stupid ass that I am, if I’m not doing MY job and giving him the right buff, I want to fix it.

Then I stop, pulls or no, and scan every. single. buff. the Death Knight has…

He has Kings.

He HAS Kings!

The little worthless son of a bitch has Kings already! He had it the ENTIRE F’ING TIME!!!!

I type in chat, “You HAVE Kings, damn it! Shut up!”

There is a pause.

“Gimme Might”
“Might”
“Shadow, Might”
“Might”

ARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!

I said, “You don’t need Might, your Horn overrides Might.”

He replies back, “Do you see me using Horn?”

Then he resumes the chant.

“Might”
“Might”

So I replied with one word.

“NO.”

I actually, in real life, mimed a hand gesture of taking a rolled up newspaper in my hand, and swatting the Death Knight on the nose as I said it aloud to myself, drawing it out the way Lewis Black does…

“NO.”

Then I put him on ignore for the rest of the run.

I related the story in vent later that night… and now, SOME people won’t let it go. Ahem, [Regis], ahem.

Hey, if you think it’s that easy to make fun new post titles for over a thousand posts…. you’re probably right, but I do the best I can with what I’ve got under the hood.

I have an amusing story to share with you. I think it illustrates a few telling things about what we can get used to, and what we expect to see, and how we can sometimes ignore things until confronted with the one when you expected the other. 

Now that I’ve vagued that up for you as much as I can, I’ma gonna tell a story.

Once, last night, on a server very, very close to home…

There I am, continuing my experiments in tanking comparisons.

I’ve been tanking on my Druid, followed by tanking on my Paladin, mostly in PUG situations and comparing the general feel between the two. A post on that might go up later today, more likely tomorrow.

This has, by necessity, required me to actually tank a lot with both characters. To run a lot of things. To test a variety of instance situations.

It’s been lots of fun.

Whenever possible, I prefer to only run with friends, but I wanted to run several things in the shortest possible time so as to really hammer home my impressions of the classes while they were fresh. Also, I was testing the ease with which strangers without restraint could pull aggro off of me. My friends are actually smart players, so they don’t do dat. To get idiots and out of control DPS meter chasing freaks, I had to resort to strangers. So, that means running purely random pugs.

I love Gnomeaggedon, and I’ve tried to follow the ‘be positive’ meme he started, but I’m just gonna have to warn you; there might be some mention of asshattish behavior on the way. Sorry, I know. 

I know!

Over the last week, I’ve run a few things.

I’ll make one observation, which I swear is relevant to the story.

One thing that I’ve noticed as a key difference between pugs and playing with friends, is that in pugs people whom I’ve never met before will announce what the group will do. Not ask what the rest of the group wants to do, or make a suggestion as to what they’d LIKE to do. Just flatly announce what will happen. ”We will be doing X on this run.”

I’ve noticed it mostly because I wasn’t used to that approach in groups of players before. It’s by no means unheard of, just not something I was used to seeing consistently myself, unless from the tank, and even then it would be about 50/50 phrased as ‘what we will do’ or ‘what I like to do’, which is a slightly gentler way of saying the same thing, but leaves you more open to counterpoint. 

I can’t speak for other people’s experiences, but to my mind it’s unusual behavior in a group environment among social equals for one person to dictate to the rest. It stands out as rude, an attempt to remove the power of choice of other people by putting yourself and your own needs first, and requiring an awkward confrontation if someone else has a different idea.

It’s a negotiation tactic used to control a discussion and get your own way. If you make a pre-emptive strike to state what WILL happen, rather than phrasing it as a request and asking for consensus or other competing suggestions, than what you have done is forced anyone that does NOT agree with you to have to confront you publicly, to challenge you, and to face the consequences of bringing conflict and potential drama.

For many people… not all, but many, the easier route will be to simply shut up, keep your head down, go along, get the run done and move on. Maybe put that person on ignore, maybe not.

I don’t want to give the impression that I think being assertive is evil, or that telling people what you expect them to do is wrong. Not at all, I’m not some head in the clouds idiot. If you have someone over you in a position of authority, or you are someone who has the responsibility of seeing to it that things get done, then this is normal and welcome. Having someone responsible in charge providing clear direction, assigning tasks, or setting work priorities gets things done. They may be the wrong things if he or she isn’t open to learning and listening to the opinions and experience of everyone that is part of their team, but it gets things done. 

What I’m saying is that, in my opinion, when you’ve got a group of strangers who are all there for the same purpose, are there by their own consent to work together and offer their contributions to the groups’ success, and you have one person start tossing orders around and making unilateral decisions, it’s bullshit. Your mileage may vary. :) 

Okay, so there I am, running things on my Paladin. I’ve had a lot of fun runs, solid learning experiences, good times. Quite a bit of stress, but my studies and research are paying off. I’m using a Talent spec, Seal of Command and Retribution Aura along with Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous to optimise 5 person instance threat generation.

A word about that. I ain’t a Paladin tank expert. If you would like to learn more from actual experts about Paladin tanking, I direct you to Ardent Defender, Blessing of Kings, Honor’s Code, Righteous Defense, and Tankadin.com (my apologies to those I missed – Paladin tanks have a big blog community).

However, that being said… I am somewhat used to the concept of researching a class for myself, once in a while. I know what I wanted, to optimise heroic instance tanking and threat generation. I did heroic Halls of Reflection last night, and as they say about New York, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

I ran a few heroics with my friends Cal and Ely, as tank, heals, deeps. After each one, we dropped group to port out and then reformed to start the next one.

This time, after Utgardt Keep, I drop group, and Cal announces he has to go put some pants on.

I have to admit, Utgardt Keep speed run and guns are fun, but I know I’ve never had to go change my pants after running it. Still, best not to judge. (That’s a pally joke. Ha.)

So he’s off afk, and I go scurrying around farming some Titansteel mats since I want to have someone craft me the Saronite Swordbreaker plate tanking wrists, and I’m just 3 Titansteel Bars short.

After a bit, Cal says he’s back.

I queue up Looking for Dungeon, and as usual for a group with a tank, insta-form a group.

Boom! Halls of Stone loading screen forms.

I buff folks as usual, and right away the following pops up in Party chat;

• [player1]: We’re skipping the two optional bosses.
• [player2]: You pull as long as I’ve got mana.
• [player2]: I don’t run out of mana so you better not stop.
• [player1]: Let’s go, what u waiting for?

I pull the three dwarfs that like to pat near the portal entrance, we burn them down, and I’m thinking, “Wow, what if I wanted to do the two optional bosses? I can use the Emblems, myself. And what if *I* happen to be out of mana? Am I allowed to stop and drink? Do I need to raise my hand first and ask permission? Seig Heil!”

• [player3]: What are you standing there for, go!
• [player1]: Get moving, go, go!

Now, understand, the time sequence here is, 5 people appear in instance, I click the Pallypower buff button 5 times fast, then Avenger’s Shield the three dwarves and we burn ‘em down, then as I saw a third unfamiliar player name pop up in party chat, I paused for 1 second to actually LOOK at the names of who I was in group with, and what guilds they were from.

It almost takes longer to type that stuff out than I took to read the member names of who I was grouped with, and yet that’s how fast these were popping up.

What I was asking myself was, “How in the HELL did I end up with THREE asshats, when I joined group with TWO FRIENDS?!?”

Right about that time [player4] chimed in demanding I get my ass in gear.

That was when I realised the incredible mistake I had made.

I queued up in LFD without reforming party with Cal and Ely first.

Now, understand that I am actually IN VENT with Cal and Ely as this is happening. We’re chatting away, and I’m trailing off as it finally dawns on me that I’m all alone with these strange people, none of whom are guilded together, they are all spontaneously being making demands as I’m awakening to the concept that I didn’t intend to be available to join this group in the first place.

5 seconds have now elapsed without my moving, and as I let my friends in vent know just how incredibly dumb I’ve been, one of the pug group runs forward to pull the next group FOR me, to spur me on to action or something. 5 whole seconds! Omigawd, I know, right?

Well, that makes things easy for me. Incredibly easy. Every single one of the four players has shown the patience of a Mayfly, has been rude and demanding. I have two friends waiting to play with me, and I joined these morons by mistake anyway. My bad.

I grab the group that they pulled, take aggro and control them getting burned down, then grab a stack of Mana Strudel from the mage table, announce “You guys are on your own, go find yourself another tank to order around” and leave party.

I then spent the next 15 minutes of my random lockup hopping around Dalaran chatting. Cal went fishing.

For the rest of the night, every time I ate a Conjured Mana Strudel, I fancied I could taste the tears of selfish QQ flavoring the pastry… and it tasted delicious.

The moral of this story is, if I had zoned in to find out I was a dumbass for queueing, and nobody had said anything, or if people had done the customary “Hi! How you doing?”, I would have apologised to Cal and Ely for screwing up, but I totally would have run the entire instance.

If even only one or two people there were rude, or pushy, or demanding, I would have stayed and made the best of it. And it’s not like a tank doesn’t have a veto. As the tank, if I decide to run down and kill Maiden and get an extra Emblem for 2 minutes work, who’s to stop me? Is the rest of the group REALLY going to go on strike if the tank wants to pull a group of mobs? They may bitch, piss and moan, but are they really going to leave?

But when I zone in, and I’m greeted with four asshats… where is the incentive to care if I leave? Why should I endure your crap? What’s my motivation to be your bitch?

I hope you take away from this story three things;

1. I’m a moron. (Big newsflash there, huh?)
2. If people are friendly, even if it’s not what you intended to do, having fun with friendly people is the best part of the game. Why not stay and give it your best shot?
3. You don’t have to be anybody’s bitch.

If you join a group and are treated with abuse… then leave, RIGHT THEN. You do not deserve anyone’s abuse, and you do NOT have to take it. Whether in real life or in a virtual world, if you are in an abusive situation, do not be a victim. Do not suffer in silence. If you do not wish to be in a confrontation, if you cannot bring yourself to speak up on your own behalf… then leave. 

You, and your time, are worth more than that.

Someone says to you, “Hey, if you tell people how much you loved my product or service ‘X’, I’ll give you something. Money, a free product, whatever. Something. A free WoW Account. Just… don’t tell anyone that you’re getting this. Just act like you loved it and wanted to talk about it all on your own, spontaneously.”

That’s wrong. It’s misleading, it’s unethical, deceptive BS, and here in the US, if you’re a blogger, it’s actionable.

Here in America, the Federal Trade Commission, also known as the FTC, published new guidelines last October that makes it absolutely clear that such deceptive endorsement practises aren’t allowed, even for bloggers on the internet.

You can always endorse whatever you want… but you have to admit up front that you’re getting a kickback for doing it. That you were paid, whether in goods or in services.

For us WoW bloggers, if you want to talk about how much you love a particular mouse, ventrilo service, headset, a Ferrari, book, etc… you have to be clear to mention whether or not you have received anything for providing your opinion in favor of that product.

Per the posting;

The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.

How will this affect the Big Bear Butt going forward?

Well, it won’t.

Despite what people who email me sometimes think, I’m not paid by anyone to write here, I’m not given anything at all by anyone. I don’t have ads, I don’t have paid link throughs, I don’t do paid endorsements, I don’t get services, nothing.

I did talk favorably about, and review, the book by Christie Golden called Arthas: Rise of the Lich King, but I didn’t even get anything for that. I received an advance copy to read to review, and as soon as I was done I gave it away. I also was alotted a certain number of books to give away as part of a promotion, and I was happy to do so, to benefit my readers, and I thought it great fun.

Doesn’t matter whether I got anything or not for that, of course, since I was up front about the whole arrangement. :) I be good with the FTC, dawg.

I write here for fun, and as I’ve said before, the day it’s no longer fun is the day I close up shop.

If someone were to ever wish to hand over any money to me, they don’t even get to hand me money for nuthin’… they have to get something for it, by buying a shirt or mug over at the Cafepress Store on my sidebar. :) And even if you decide you don’t like me anymore, at least you’ve still got a shirt to cover your naked bod or a container with which to hold your hot, steaming beverage. That’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick!

So, there shall never be any secret money-making shenanigans here at the BBB.

That being said, however… if anyone out there IS a Ferrari dealer and wishes me to endorse your product, you can reach me at tigerlordgm AT yahoo DOT com.

Just sayin’.

You may or may not know that, among the things I enjoy doing in game, one of them is collect neat non-combat pets.

I’m not a fanatic about it. No, not in the slightest.

I do not have most of the pets available from the Argent Tournament, although I did max out all reputations with Alliance.

I do not have any of the farmable rare Whelplings. I always wanted one, but never was able to spend more than a few hours grinding before my attention wandered away.

I’ve also never been any good with money, so I haven’t bought any through AH manipulations.

Still, I’ve been quite happy with the pets I’ve managed to get. I even reached over 75 pets a few months ago, and got the cutest little leaping baby deer ever, Little Fawn’s Salt Lick.

But there has always been that one pet.

The one which requires ridiculous dedication, patience, and above all else, luck.

The pet that is a menace to sanity if you can’t spend 12 hours sitting waiting for a single spawn, in the hopes it is finally what you want.

I am speaking, of course, about the Kirin Tor Familiar.

Yeah, after that lead up, I’ll cut right to the chase. Last night, I bagged the little bastard!

Isn’t he just the cutest?

I started my quest for this bad boy the first time Wrath of the Lich King was released, over a year ago, and visited Warcraft Pets (home of the wonderful Breanni), to see what might have been added.

Over time, Warcraft Pets posted a detailed strategy guide for what you had to collect (various specific books), where the various books spawned (all over Dalaran), the truth behind the deceptive fact that it wasn’t just ANY spawned book you needed at each location but only those with a specific title (The Schools of Arcane Magic: something something), that all sorts of other books can spawn in the same location as the one you want but don’t count, and that once anyone has read a spawned book, it would last for exactly 3 minutes for anyone to read before it went poof and vanished.

Yes, I wanted a pet, and Breanni did 100% of the work on researching how to do it. Thank you, Breanni! :)

I did very good on following the routes she proposed, and as I found the right books, I cut down on my route.

Eventually, I found myself needing only three; the Necromancy book from the second floor of the Legerdemain Lounge, and, amusingly enough, both books from the Violet Citadel.

Thanks to paying close attention to Trade chat (and didn’t that sear my retinas forever), I saw someone announce “Books up in 2nd floor of lounge) and I scurried my furry butt on up there just in time.

That was over two months ago. Well over.

Since that time, I have, when on Windshadow, made a point of ALWAYS logging out on the upper level of Violet Citadel, next to the bookcase, so that every time I came in and out I had a chance to see both books.

I saw a lot of books, all the wrong ones, but I bided my time. I was patient.

I became a lot LESS pleased with myself when I discovered, purely by chance, that if you’re standing on the balcony upstairs, and a book spawns downstairs, you can’t see it. You need to move your furry tail up and down the stairs to make sure you catch ‘em.

But then came LFD. And porting in and out of instances from wherever you happened to be.

That one thing allowed my chances of finding the right two books to skyrocket.

By standing in front of one of the spawn points I needed, I could do instances as much as I liked, and every time it was over, pop right back to Violet Citadel to find out if a book was spawned or not.

I tried addons, Higher Learning etc, but the timers never seemed to work on my system. Simply waiting, and logging in and out at the right spot, was what I went with.

That, and patience.

One thing I found was that, in the last major patch, Achievements you choose to track are persistant through logging. By tracking the Higher Learning Achievement and keeping it up all the time, it served as a constant reminder of my purpose… it kept it right up there and visible all the time. That really was a big help in staying focused and reminding me that, yes, after visiting the Auction House, I needed to port back to Dalaran.

If the Kirin Tor Familiar is a pet you have sought yourself, or if you ever wondered what it took to get one, I wish you luck and good fortune in your search, and I recommend you visit Breanni, bookmark her website, and pay homage to the mistress of pets.

She truly has the Higher Learning needed to get the quest done!

By the way, if you are pursuing the books yourself, and you have the great good fortune to find one, why not be a nice person, and call out in /Trade, “Book spawned right now in XXX location!”

I assure you, people WILL be watching, and will appreciate the help.

I’ts been a long, cold road without the flubbernumpers, and it’s nice to be able to look forward to more stories of their antics in the future.

My favorite has been Maurice, the Death Knight of Loooove, but I think it says a lot about Ratshag’s style that so many people HAVE their favorites in the first place. :)

Welcome back, buddy. I hope that the coming year brings hope, peace, and happiness to you and your family!

Jessie let go of her sword, let go of her focus on weapons and steel, and while still in midair, glanced back once as she soared in a long, low arc over the ground. Raktar had followed his parry around, and charged in pursuit after her, nearly within reach of her heels as she descended towards the ground.

As Jessie’s hands touched the ground, she remained in a perfect line, the force of her body flowing into and being caught by her coiling muscles, arms and shoulders drawing in, absorbing the energy. Just at the last moment, as her forehead came near to touching the ground, she allowed her balance to shift just slightly so that the last of her momentum carried her legs forward, up, up, just until her body poised for a moment in a perfect handstand perpendicular to the earth, leaving her looking, from upside down, directly back at Raktar as he rapidly closed the gap between them.

With an explosive shout of rage and fear, Jessie threw all of the strength in her coiled muscles into launching herself straight up, straight up in front of Raktar.

“My world, my rules, you bastard!”

The sword appeared again in her hand just as she knew it would, stabbing forward unerringly at Raktar’s face. With the impossible speed of a cat, Raktar stopped his pursuit in it’s tracks, and parried the lightning thrust with a cross body swipe of the axe.

As the axe head met the sword, Jessie flowed with it, adding her own desire to spin, to move, letting herself be carried with the push, letting Raktar’s blow send her spinning like a top, blade arcing with a flash to his right flank, where the axe should be out of line for another parry.

Raktar backhand parried it anyway.

The shock of it drove Jessie out of her calm center, and she lost her grip for a moment on believing she could float in midair.

With a crash, she fell to the ground headfirst, head spinning, but regained her calm in a flash and spun away again, sword gone, rolling fast, rolling away, getting some distance, the pounding of Orc feet hot on her ass.

“This isn’t happening, it’s not possible”, she thought, “He can’t be that fast, not here damn it!”

Jessie stopped her forward roll, spun around and in one smooth movement leapt to meet the charging Raktar head on, forgetting in her moment of panic and growing anger all that Fergus had taught her.

Sword appeared in her hand, silver and light, flashing in a straight up frontal attack on high line, but as Jessie leapt, so too did Raktar, leaping to meet her, his own weapon swinging in line.

Sword met axe as both twisted at the same time, moving past the other on their off sides, and kept on going, each pushing off of the other, edge to edge. Jessie touched lightly on her heels and spun around, only to see Raktar stop as well to face her.

Both of them were breathing hard, and for the first time, as Jessie scanned her opponent’s brow and eye and neck and chest to watch for signs of the direction of the next attack, she caught the unmistakable look of anger and confusion and even worry cross Raktar’s face.

All along, Jessie was taking a mental inventory of what she attempted, and what the results had been. It was starting to dawn on her that, no matter what she expected, and no matter what Gavin kept telling her, she hadn’t caught on in her gut that the dreamtime was not reality. No matter how big Raktar looked or how massive the axe should be, the Orc was almost as fast as she was, and moved as though nothing weighed him down. But at the same time, she met his blows and felt his parries, and there was no more force behind them than that of equal on equal.

Here, size and muscle did not translate to greater strength or power, bulk did not interfere with movement, mass did not hinder, steel did not slow.

“Dear Fergus,” she thought, “I’m not the lightning to his mountain. We’re just two rams butting heads in the forest, and it’s all about who can adapt the fastest. Can he learn to fight quick on his feet faster than I can learn to meet him toe to toe?”

Raktar looked back at her across the clearing, and his expression changed to a wide, fierce, delighted grin. Beckoning her to him with the axe, he called out to her in her own tongue, mocking her, cheering her on. “Come along, girl, what are you waiting for? Come and face me now. Come on!”

Jessie darted forward, all her senses, real or not, focusing down until all that she saw or knew was the massive Orc in front of her, his gray skin running slick with sweat around the leather.

She felt as if she were running down a tunnel towards the Orc, and knew that she was losing it, felt herself lose control on her center, knew that she should never let herself ‘tunnel in’ as Fergus called it, but she couldn’t help herself. Trick or not, she couldn’t stop herself from responding, her anger rising, the rage within her fueling her to move faster and get to grips with him, to cut that sneering smile from his fat gray face, to shut him up, to close him out, to get him out of her mind.

Raktar stood and waited for her to bring the fight to him, and met her sword with his axe, head to edge, blow for blow, moving his feet in a shuffling dance, always in balance, always in tune with the rhythms of his swinging arms, moving the axe in ways that an axe should never go as he blocked and parried her strikes.

It wasn’t effortless, it wasn’t silent, and it wasn’t easy. Both of them were trying as hard as they could to get their blade in the other’s flesh, and make it count. The clearing echoed to the sound of their harsh breathing and grunts of exertion.

Raktar chose to stand his ground, turning and twisting but holding his place, letting the fight come to him, while Jessie flowed around him, darting and rolling around, always trying to catch him off balance on the flank. No matter how they tried, neither could move faster than the other, and neither could overpower the other. Raktar spent more time on the defense, while Jessie was clearly more comfortable with the low lunge and distracting feint, but the more they fought, the better they learned the other’s style, and the clearer it became that they were evenly matched. Too evenly matched.

Jessie knew her focus was too narrow as she kept up the attack, as she tried to keep the pressure on, but the chance moments where she glimpsed the face of Raktar gave her hope. The Orc was clearly uncertain, emotionally off balance. Whatever his intentions, he wasn’t bringing the fight to her; he wasn’t in it nearly as much as she was. Maybe he didn’t have the heart, or maybe whatever shreds of his soul that had caught up in the axe weren’t enough, but Jessie could feel herself coming closer and closer to getting through his guard.

He was definitely weakening faster than she was. And damn it, he was getting closer to her own size as well! Hah!

As the Orc blocked a low slash with his axe, he growled out, “Why are you helping Far Dreamer, girl? What are you getting out of it?”

Nice try, Orc. Distracting an opponent with bullshit nonsense was a trick older than Fergus, but that’s all right. Two can play that game.

“What do you mean, monster? She saved my life and brought me back from death itself. I didn’t see her freeing your ass from the axe, now did I?”

Raktar let loose with a terrible laugh, a deep, thunderous sound that chilled Jessie to the heart. He swung his axe to the attack with a great sideways sweep that Jessie deftly rolled under, and called tauntingly to her as she stopped just out of reach.

“Did she not? And yet here I stand, face to face with you! And more, can’t you feel it? Can’t you feel my power? I was bound to the axe for four full seasons, and with each kill, the axe drank deep, but my soul drank as well. Look upon me! Do you not feel my strength?”

Jessie leapt once more to the attack. As she swung her blade in yet another futile blow, she had to admit, the presence of Raktar was different from both Gavin and the Katarese. He didn’t just feel more powerful, he felt wrong, twisted. His presence sickened her. Just being near him was akin to the feeling she once had had when breaking open a pastry to find it rotten and filled with worms on the inside.

That wasn’t going to stop her from kicking his ass, though. Swollen on stolen souls or not, he didn’t move any faster or hit any the harder.

“Wasn’t any of Bane’s doing, grayass. All she did was break you free to steal your power, and give it all to me. How’s it feel to be cast aside?”

Raktar seemed honestly amused, the grin from his black chuckles still wide upon his face.

“Hah! I’m not trying to distract you, fool, I’m trying to get through your blind, stubborn  anger! Shut up and listen to me!”

“You say you hate me, you hate Orcs, and you hate everything about us. Isn’t that right,  girl? You set yourself against us, against my entire people! You say you want us all to die, you want to bathe in a sea of Orc blood!”

Jessie laughed in delight and charged in, blade slashing high and low. “Damn right, grayskin! I want to see you, your clan and your whole people dead, from one end of the mountains to the other!”

Jessie paused for just a moment, locked eye to eye with Raktar. She whispered, as if to herself, as if to a lover; “Oh yes, Orc.  Oh my, yes. I want to see your people burn.”

Raktar lunged forward, pushing hard, sending Jessie spinning backwards, off balance, half trotting, half running to regain her footing. Raktar pursued, axe swinging low, and Jessie deftly hopped back rather than risking a diving leap. She was becoming well aware of how fast Raktar was able to change directions of his axe in mid stroke.

Raktar growled as he chased after her, breath coming in great rasping wheezes. “Orcborn or not, Far Dreamer is one of my people, blood of my blood, clan of my clan. Even now, she fights to save my people, to free them from their chains. And you’re helping her. You’re helping us. You help the blood of my blood to survive!”

Jessie was so overcome with rage, blindsided with a burst of fury from her soul, that she lost all sense of what she was trying to do. In mid-block, she shifted direction with her blade, and sought to cut the sneer off the gray skinned bastard’s face. She forgot about distractions, about playing her own mind game. Raktar had gotten right to the heart of her own misgivings and fear.

As Raktar blocked, he twisted the haft of the axe to shift her reach on her hilt, and grabbed her wrist with his massive left hand. The sword edge stopped within a hair’s breadth from his eyes, and he held her there, axe to sword, holding her fast, both straining against the strength of the other. Both tried to get their blade through the others guard by sheer force of will, and crush their enemy completely.

The two strained against each other for a long, hard moment, and then Raktar sneered in Jessie’s face. “You hate us? Scream your hate to me, little girl. I know you hate. I feel it now, burning within you. It’s all around us, lighting the sky the color of blood and death. I taste it with my every breath.”

“Tell me, little traitor. How can you make yourself aid Far Dreamer? How can you pledge to help her in her quest to free my people, if this hate in your heart is true?”

Jessie clenched her jaw, feeling like her teeth would break off from all the effort she put into pushing Raktar’s axe aside and sliding the edge of her blade across his leering, grinning, mocking face.

She spit her hatred in his eyes, Raktar now somehow reduced to a size to match hers. Her need to get to grips with him, to cut him, to kill him, to shut him up was driving her into a frenzy. Nothing existed in the world but the need to destroy him. “I’m not helping her to free your people! I’m helping her to free mine! If the Orcs are freed of the Dryad’s false rage, then the war might stop someday!”

Raktar continued to hold fast, staring her directly in the eyes, face close enough to slap. “Ha! Bullshit! I know hate, girl, I know what real hate is. Real hate is a burning fire in your gut, a roaring, wrenching, savaging blaze that feeds on every thought of inflicting pain on the enemy, of making them suffer, wanting nothing more than the cursing, whining misery of your enemy, NO MATTER WHAT THE COST. So what if some humans you’ve never met will keep fighting forever, so long as more Orcs get to die?

“You hate, I know it, I can feel it, you bleed black venom from your heart, but still you help us, you help my clan, you help my blood sister on her quest to save my people.”

Raktar pushed back at her, releasing his grip on her wrist, a sudden shove that broke their stalemate and sent her staggering back across the clearing, a perfect moment to take advantage of her distraction and flash of sudden terror.

Instead of chasing after her and exploiting his sudden break, he stood there and screamed back at her as the veins pulsed in his throat. “Admit it! You don’t hate us, or you’d never be here having your guts cut open and your flesh set on fire to save us! You’d find some other way! So, who is it you really hate, girl?”

“Who do you really, truly hate?”

The question echoed inside Jessie’s head, and she tried to throw it off, to focus on protecting herself, on fighting. She had to keep fighting. It was all a trick, a distraction.

But the longer Raktar stood there, unmoving, watching her with a strange mixture of anger and frustration on his heavy face, the more time the words had to echo, and they continued to build in strength within her mind rather than fading away.

“Who do you really hate?”

Who do you really hate, Jessie? He’s right, it’s not him, the sight of him sets my blood to boiling, but it’s not a touch on the real rage in my guts. Who do you hate, Jessie, come on now, damn it, cut through the bullshit and lies, who do you hate with all your heart?

WHO DO YOU HATE?

Jessie felt her doubts, the rage and pain and confusion that had been in her mind all along, whether she recognized or admitted to them or not, finally stand out stark and clear.

She did hate. She hated with a black, terrifying intensity. Even now, as she broke free, blindly, recklessly, knowing not what she did or how she was doing it, she felt the hate coiling and beating within her heart.

She opened the eyes of her mind to truly see what was there to be seen, and saw the horrifying results of her self-deception.

The clearing of her youth, of training sessions and successes, was long gone. In it’s place was revealed a plain as black as a moonless night, and the black sky above was lit only by the constant pulsing of red and purple arcs of lightning forking across the heavens, like the flashing lights seen when she would close her eyes and press upon her eyelids with her fingers.

They stood facing each other within the true nature of her soul, surrounded by the terrible storm of her rage. All along, she had been lying to herself, denying the rage, pretending it was gone, claiming to have found peace, to be at ease, to be centered.

She was utterly filled with rage. Filled with hate. No more lies. No more denial. She couldn’t pretend anymore, no matter how hard she suddenly tried.

And Raktar still waited for her. 

Jessie felt herself at a moment of choice; to fight the hate and rage, to deny it’s having any strength or control over her, or to give in, give herself over to it, body and soul, to take the rage and become one with it, and let herself go.

She chose.

Jessie released her fear, and opened herself fully to the hatred within her soul. She saw, finally, with open eyes, exactly what was within her, and knew that it was fully and completely her own. No outside agency, no strange workings of magic within the axe, not even her time among the dead could be blamed. The hatred, the rage, every stray thought and feeling she had ever repressed and pushed away, they were all hers and hers alone. And she would deny them no more.

She tore her heart wide open and accepted it all, and along with the hatred came a dark power, and a feeling of almost boundless, endless space.

She was no longer trying to ride the lightning, she was the lightning, and she exulted in the exhilarating freedom of being swept away, out of control, without restraint or any possibility of being stopped. 

Jessie’s entire being erupted towards Raktar in one overwhelming, unmatchable wave of fury.

Even as she swept, all hatred and power without form crashing directly into Raktar’s face, she felt herself unravelling, and although she had no idea what would happen next, although she desperately feared what was on the other side of this release, she let everything she had ever restrained or feared within her soul out, and shoved it all down Raktar’s throat in one final, primal scream that could no longer be contained.

“Damn you to hell, you bastard, the thing I hate most is myself!”

All there was in that moment was a woman filled with grief and rage, a woman that had tried to learn to be a warrior, who had dreamed of being a protector for her family, a woman who had been far away with her friend practicing the sword when her family needed her the most. A woman of great heart and passion who had been too far away to do aught other than scream in rage and helplessness as everyone she had ever known or loved died in the blackened remains of her only home.

All this rushed against the soul of a being that represented all the death and hopelessness and despair she had ever known in her life.

There was no contest.

As the essence that was once Jessie crashed fully against Raktar’s soul, the flashes of red and purple dimmed, muted, and mixed with the endless black, surrounding, engulfing, consuming.

And then, all that is or would ever be of Jessie erupted in one final, blinding burst of soul-shattering light.

I find I have nothing of value to say, assuming I ever did in the first place.

Nothing about Bears, nothing about patch changes to instances, nothing about playing at all, nothing about the game or the life outside.

Perhaps it’s simply depression, or the winter blahs, or perhaps it’s a function of how busy I am with more important things like work and family, I don’t know.

I do know that since Sidhe Devils blew up a few months ago, the game feels a lot different for me now than before. Most of it has to do with trust issues, of course, and the baggage I have in my head from years of cheerful upbringing, but I learned long ago that just because you can identify something with logic and reason, that doesn’t necessarily change the way you feel about it at the time.

It’s not the only thing going on, but it’s certainly a major contributing factor to my blahs.

Wherever my head may be at, I don’t have any inspiration to write anything. And if I don’t have anything useful to say, best if I don’t say anything at all.

I’m sure things will change, and I’ll have an attitude adjustment soon.

Looking back on things, I’ve mostly been cheerful and optimistic for years now, day in and day out, even with the occasional rants, and I think that might qualify as crazy all by itself. Hmmm. 

I just wanted to let you folks know that there won’t be any real bloggage until I get my words back, and get my head screwed back on straight.

Thanks for your time, and have a fun week.

BBB

Along those lines, Cassie put up the Black Temple on our raid calender, and the Sidhe Devils went in tonight and for the first time sought to explore it’s vast, cavernous interior.

Most of us had never seen it, and of those that had, we didn’t have any that had gone the distance. Most of the boss explanations we gleaned from World of Raids or Wowwiki, and then we winged it.

There were anywhere from 12 to 15 of us at any given moment, all but 2 level 80.

We had two tanks to start, myself as Feral Druid and Caladorn as Prot Paladin, and Sux as Feral Druid backup in case we needed a third. We quickly changed the plan to being one tank, me, and Sux as second tank if and when we needed one, which was rarely.

We went in with three healers, Jardal on Tree duty, Shadewynn on Priest and Kitsen as Shaman for a nice rounded mix.

Everyone else was DPS, and a lot of that was melee.

We cleared Black Temple, a new group learning as we went, in 3.5 hours exactly (30 minutes of that spent taking an afk break for bio), without a single wipe.

In fact, the only fight that we found truly taxing was Mother, and the Illidari Council of course.

Over the course of the evening, we reached Honored with the Ashtongue, we witnessed epic struggles, took part in bringing down Illidan Stormrage himself…

…and saw the drop of a legendary Warglaive go to Kaelynn the Rogue.

It was a wonderful night, sure to be remembered for a long time. Having nothing but friends by your side as you fight legendary battles, rather than pugging another meaningless heroic, is a priceless gift.

If you’re in a guild with a bunch of friends, and you occasionally find yourself at loose ends trying to think of something fun and different to do… why not give it a try?

I leave you with a few parting snapshots. :)

The guy with the script.

There WILL be a script.

Whether the game he intends to run will be relentlessly structured with little room for wiggle (or originality), tight as a railroad…

Or whether it consists of no more than a written paragraph to kick things off; ”You all meet each other, friends of long standing, at your usual table in the Pig and Whistle Tavern. Suddenly, a passing stranger gives out a groan of misery and collapses onto your table, knocking beer tankards aside in disarray. A knife is stuck in his back hilt deep.” and that’s actually all the GM knows, and plans to make the rest up as the night goes on.

Either way… there is a script. Even if he’s making it up on the fly, the GM is still making up a script as he goes, moment by moment, trying to take the actions of the now and see how he can fit them into something fun. “Something fun” meaning a story of some sort.

It’s the same as writing a story… but when you say the characters develop a life of their own… by God, you mean it!

Most GMs I’ve known lament over the destruction innovative players will cause to their carefully laid plans.

They’ll wax nostagically, wistfully over their carefully laid plans, their subtle undercurrents and subplots, their dramatic theme and awesome backstory that makes this the BEST STORY EVAR… if it weren’t for those damn kids.

Me, I come from the chaos school of role play. In California, we called it the Surfer Style RPG Kung Fu.

Come up with a story you think is awesome, spend lots of time on it, knock yourself out. But as soon as you start playing,  always keep in mind, the players’ characters are what the story is really all about, those self centered little bastards, and when they do something completely unexpected, don’t just sit in shock and brainlock at them bringing in the Spanish Inquisition (nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!), take it as a direct challenge to see thier introduction of derailing ingenuity, and raise them a “What the hell? Holy shit!” shocking plot twist.

That’s why, when I see a comic strip like the one here at DM of the Rings, while I’m laughing I’m thinking “Oh, what a glorious bunch of bastards those players are… and how I would make them pay. And they’d thank me for it.”