Sabre's Den

Storytime- Grizzly Spirit

2012-02-06T11:43:00.003-05:00

Max tossed another crumb of bread to the black-and-white creature sitting hopefully at his feet. He had been coming down from Amberpine Lodge to eat his midday meal on the slope by the river for a few days now, and the little skunk had appeared and started begging for scraps on the second day. Normally, Max wouldn't feed a wild animal, but this guy seemed harmless enough, and other than his begging, acted like any of the other skunks living in the woods nearby. Max took another bite of his sandwich, and tore off another bit of crust for his little friend. However, when he tossed it to the skunk, it didn't move. Max looked more closely at the critter, and raised an eyebrow in surprise at it's shocked expression. Before he could react any further, suddenly something gently nudged his knee.

Max turned his head slowly, and his expression matched the skunk's rather closely, as he looked straight into the eyes of a large, pale, blue-white bear. They stared at each other for several long seconds, then the bear lowered it's head to nudge Max again, this time on his elbow. Max realized it was staring at his sandwich, and slowly his surprise faded into amusement. He tore the remainder of his lunch in half, and held out a piece on the palm of his hand, ready to jerk it back if the bear was too greedy. However, instead of snapping the food up like most wild animals would, it snuffled at his hand briefly, before gently taking the sandwich in his shiny white teeth. It then dropped the offering, letting it fall apart on the ground, and proceeded to neatly pick up each part, first the bread, then the meat. It then turned back to Max and licked his palm, as if in thanks.

The bear settled down next to Max as he finished the rest of his lunch, eating more out of habit than hunger after the unexpected meeting stole his appetite. He noted, almost absently, that he could almost make out some of the grass and twigs that the bear was lying on, and he realized that it must be some sort of spirit. He couldn't quite decide what to make of that, except that it most likely explained the bear's intelligence and good manners. Tentatively, he reached over and touched the bear's back. Surprisingly, it felt very solid, with thick, rather soft fur covering a respectable layer of hard muscle. The beast made a soft rumbling sound, deep in it's chest. It sounded approving, so Max spent a few minutes on a good back-scratching. It wasn't quite as effective as it was in his worgen form, but he didn't want to break the peaceful spell by shapeshifting. Besides, the bear seemed appreciative enough.

Finally, Max gave a final scratch behind the bear's ears and stood. He had already taken twice as long as he usually did, and the hunters in the Lodge had given him a task to do, and he couldn't put it off any longer. The spirit-bear scrambled to it's feet right after him, and began following him up the hill towards the Lodge. Max paused, then turned around.

"A'right, just what d'ye think ye're doin'?" he asked, eyeing the big ghostly animal. And got his second shock of the afternoon, as he heard a faint but distinct voice in his head. "Friend. Follow." Max stared at it (Not it, him), then shook his head. "But... Wait, does that mean...?" he stammered, confused. The bear simply waited, looking at him patiently, but with obvious determination. Max finally snapped his mouth shut, and rubbed his hands over his face. "Well," he said finally, "If ye're gonna be talkin' in m'head, guess I should know better'n t' argue with ye." The bear nodded, his expression brightening, and he shuffled closer to gently bump his head on Max's chest. "We go. Together." Max gave a helpless chuckle as he nodded back, and together they continued back up the slope.

After a few steps, however, Max paused again, as something small bumped against his boot. He looked down at the little skunk, who stared back up at him hopefully. "Wait a sec... Ye too? Aw no. Ain't happenin." The skunk just continued looking up at him, and finally Max sighed in defeat. "Ye gotta be kiddin' me..." With his two new friends in tow, Max headed up to the Lodge, to get directions to the outpost where his next job would take him.

--------------
So, after about a week of camping, Max has his first spirit beast. And yes, I am now working on his non-combat-pet achievement, so he can get a Stinker. It is totally the fault of that darn mountain skunk that kept him company the whole time he was camping. My 'cute-resistance' didn't have a chance... :P

Update time

2012-01-27T16:39:00.004-05:00

So, I really don't ever intend to have long spells between posts. I really don't. It just sort of... happens. :\

To attempt to make up for this last one, let me mention that there is currently 2 RP things going on at the moment. One with Jahira, Windstar, and a couple other druids, and another with Max and Arnen. Yes, me and sis are finally getting the poor brothers reunited, hopefully sometime in the next couple days. In the meantime, I've been keeping myself busy in between work shifts.

Firstly, Rift-Kel is up to 47, almost 48. Leveling has been slowed lately, in favor of trying to work on professions, but I'm getting myself back in gear. Not much longer, and I will have my first non-WoW max-level toon. Which of course means I will get to start on the next one. >.> Most likely my lil chloro-mage Vanyell. Or maybe perhaps one of my Guardian characters. Hmm...

In Lord of the Rings Online, I have been tinkering on holiday festival stuff. Mostly doing the holiday quests and collecting festival costumes/housing items/ mounts. My burglar Daeren is my official mount collector, and he got both of the in-game mounts on the first two days of the festival. Then Turbine snuck a new one in halfway through the holiday, so I took him to grab it as soon as I learned about it. The festival is almost over now, and I think I'm a little burned out with it, so I probably will be getting back to normal questing/leveling now. Especially since the newest expansion has already been announced for this fall. Ugh, so much to do...

Finally on to WoW-related stuff. Kel has had her first attempt in the raid finder, and I think it went well. She didn't win any drops, but at least I didn't cause any wipes, and she wasn't last on the dps meter, either. My game did go down to 2fps, occasionally dropping to 1fps, during most of the boss fights (which I was expecting, my computer doesn't like 25-man raids). She is also finally almost done with her Molten Front stuff. Yes, I know, I'm a slacker. >.< She should only need another day, maybe 2, of dailies to recruit her last faction, the Ancients, and then she'll have a shiny new hippogryph.

Oh yea, she's in the Wildfire Riders now, too. It still hasn't sunk in completely, and I'm kind of half expecting them to realize their mistake and boot me out. >.>
(Just kidding. :P I <3 you guys)

Jahira has also been seeing a lot of play time. Not too long ago, I sort of realized how much I love her character, and how much I've missed playing her, so she's kind of taken over #2 priority, as far as gear and things. She is way behind Kel right now, but I've been slowly figuring out how to Boomkin with her. She just recently reached the ilvl required for the new Time heroics, although she really needs a new weapon before I'll feel comfortable taking her in there. Which means that Kal has also been getting some attention as well. I had (sort of) recently switched one of her professions to blacksmithing, and have been wearing out her gryphon's wings farming ore to skill it up. She's still working through Northrend levels, but it's so dead up there (harhar) that she has little competition for ore nodes, and it's going pretty quickly. The biggest problem for now is my attention span. I really don't mind farming, in fact I downright enjoy it, but a few laps around Howling Fjord and I swear my brain tries to shut itself off. :P

My brother has finally convinced me to give the PvP server Arthas another try. I only have 3 characters over there so far, a little forsaken warrior, a human paladin, as well as my blood elf hunter Kerrowyn. She has been so neglected on Feathermoon, with 4 other hunters for competition, I decided to transfer her to Arthas, for a couple reasons. 1- I wanted a hunter on that server, 2- I hoped a new server might get me to play her more, and 3- I figured that if I still neglected her, I wouldn't mind as much since it's not my main server. So far I've got her up 3 or 4 levels since the transfer, and while I've switched my 'lowbie focus' to my pally, I do intend to continue working on Kerro in the near future.

And finally, Max has been getting some infrequent play time as well, and is currently 71. It's amazing what a good motivator it is, just having certain pets planned for a character. It was not hard getting him to 69 for his Beast Mastery talent, so he could go tame his devilsaur Fury (formerly King Mosh). And now I keep thinking about the spirit beasts I want to find for him, which means the sporadic leveling will continue. Oh yea, and there will be Max stories posted soon, as well.

And I think that's enough for this Wall o' Text. Time to crank up my new Lacuna Coil album (which is amazing) and do some leveling. Soon as I figure out which game I feel like playing first. :D
/Waves

Why didn't I try this sooner...

2012-01-12T01:52:00.003-05:00

Sabre + Kibler's Bits = .....

Yes, he really is the same size as her mount. /boggle
(This is what happens when I get a cold and stay up way too late.)

Storytime: Giving

2011-12-29T01:56:00.003-05:00

Slow crappy computer and lack of WoW-time has not overcome holiday writing binge. /flex
And yes, I know it's a few days late. Enjoy anyways!

------------
Stormwind was glowing, multi-colored lights chasing the evening darkness away. Windstar and Jahira were perched on the roof of their little house, silently enjoying each other's company as they admired the view. Eventually Star noticed Jahira glancing in her direction, and gave her a questioning look. The elder elf just smiled and slipped one arm around Star's waist. "Nothing, my love," she assured her. "Just enjoying the scenery." Star blushed faintly as she rested her head on her mate's shoulder.

A few minutes later, Jahira broke the silence again. "Tomorrow is Winter's Veil," she said. "Greatfather Winter is supposedly arriving in Iron Forge and handing presents out to everyone."

Star raised her head, quirking an eyebrow at her tone. "'Supposedly'?" she asked. Jahira gave a slight shrug. "After all the years I've been around humans and dwarves, some of their habits still seem a little odd." she replied. "Sometimes I think they invent holidays just for the excuse to throw a party." Star chuckled quietly. "That's not necessarily a bad thing, is it?" Jahira smiled, giving her companion a gentle, one-armed hug. "Not at all. In fact, gift giving is one of their better customs, I think." She straightened, moving her arm from around her young mate and giving her an expectant look. "So. Ready for bed yet?"

*** *** ***
Star was woken up the next morning by the sound of voices, followed by the front door closing. She blinked sleepily up at Jahira as she came over for a good-morning kiss. "That was just Kal," the older druid said in response to the unasked question. "She needs a small favor, so I'll be a bit busy this morning. I should be done by early afternoon, though. Would a short visit to Moonglade sound good?"

Star nodded. "I can keep myself occupied until then. Would we be spending the night there? Or shall we just see how it goes?" Jahira pretended to think about it for a moment, then replied, "I think we'll see how it goes. For now, I need to go see about acquiring some silver."

*** *** ***
Two druids walked slowly around the southern shore of the lake. As they reached the first tiny inlet, near where the flight master kept her hippogryphs, Jahira stopped and turned to face Windstar. "Dearheart, remember our conversation last night? About Winter's Veil and my opinion about gift-giving?"

Star nodded, tilting her head curiously as Jahira took a tiny box from her belt pouch and handed it to her. She opened it carefully, then stared in surprise. "Jahira, I..." She slowly took out the small, silver locket inside, first admiring the tiny antler design etched into the outside, then opening it to find a miniature portrait of her and her mate inside. She finally looked up at Jahira's smiling face, her expression caught halfway between joy and tears. She reached for Jahira's hand, managing a very quiet, "But... I didn't get you anything." "Ah, love," Jahira replied. "You've given me more than you can imagine. I'm only repaying some of it."

The only response Star could manage was to pull Jahira into a hug. Which was more than enough of an answer for Jahira.

--------------
Kal tried to hide her impatience as she watched Channi pull the colorful wrapping off of the tiny box. She mentally thanked whatever gods were listening (again) that she was related to a jewel-crafter, as her lover opened the box, then, with eyes gone huge with surprise, she slowly lifted out the silver locket. The wolf's head etched on the outside glinted in the soft firelight coming from the hearth, and Kal knew she was going to owe Jahira a danged big favor for the gift.

Channi finally opened the locket, and smiled at the portrait of the two of them inside. Kal couldn't resist a smile in response, and she reached over to gently brush Channi's cheek with her fingertips. "You like it, hun?" she asked, already sure of the answer, but wanting to hear it anyways. The girl turned and threw her arms around the elf in a quick hug, followed by a much longer kiss, before she finally replied, "It's beautiful! I love it."

------------

I know Kal's part is short, but it's kind of hard to write about someone else's character (at least it is for me), especially when there has been no in-game RP between those two in months. Star and Jahira, on the other hand, have been stuck inside my head off and on ever since they 'hooked up'. It would be almost annoying if they weren't such total sweethearts with each other. :P

And in case anyone is wondering, yes, they did wind up spending the night in Moonglade. It's a semi-regular occurrence.

Anyways! Hope everyone had a good holiday. I, personally, am just glad it's mostly over. /Waves

I'm still here...

2011-12-21T22:48:00.003-05:00

Yes, I'm having another fail-blogger spell. Work has been insane with the holidays, and me and sis have been trying to get ourselves ready as well. And then there's the stupid $%^$ing virus that got on my good laptop. I'm having to use my old one for now, (thank goodness I've been keeping it more or less up-to-date) which now can only run Lord of the Rings. So unless I get desperate enough to borrow sis's old laptop, WoW is unavailable until my 'puter is cleaned up and fixed.

Lesson from all this? Never trust a website that has issues with pop-ups. Even something as innocent-seeming as a site for song lyrics. :(

This will likely be the only blog post I make til my good 'puter is fixed, since all my screenies and most of my story-related stuff was on that one. Good news is, my dad has a friend that can fix it. Bad news is, I have no idea how long it will take. Hopefully not more than a couple days. This old thing I'm using now has it's fair share of issues, and is slow as heck. If I didn't need my gaming fix, I would probably not even bother. *sigh*

#1 Reason Why Transmogging is Awesome

2011-12-02T01:23:00.002-05:00

Kalenedral has her Quel'Delar again.

/Happy sigh

Silence...

2011-11-27T22:38:00.016-05:00

Not much interesting going on lately. Mostly just goofing around on Rift, with occasional visits to LotRO or WoW. My rogue on Rift is 45 now, only 5 more levels til I can start seeing what the endgame content is like. And, ya know, start on my next alt. >.>

I've had some interesting things going on in my head, RP-wise. Such as Kal getting a new (and rather impressive) scar, and some back-story stuff for a few LotR characters. The only problem is getting everything sorted out enough to write out. There may be some Storytime posts in the future, but I don't want to make any definite promises. Because I have a bad habit of failing them. :(

One interesting (to me, at least) thing I've been doing is taking screenshots. Enjoy!

Some of these animals in Rift just can't get along...

Moonshade Highlands may be the prettiest zone in the game...

Iron Pine Peaks is second (although the constant snowfall makes me lag)...

Kelesaria the rogue got a new buddy, courtesy of the FaeYule holiday event (and lots and lots of dailies)...

The Defiant capitol, Meridian...

My champion Aravann got himself a fancy horse, and I spoiled him with a /mountrearup emote as well...

My hunter Kelvren in Evendim, another gorgeous zone...

Another shot of Evendim...

And I think that's enough for now. :P
Thanksgiving went pretty good for me. Having the whole weekend off, except for coming in to help another department Saturday night (fun and easy compared to what I usually do), helped a lot. Just have to make it through Christmas and New Year's now. It never stops surprising me how rude and impatient people can get during holidays. Angry people in the check-out lines, drivers in the parking lot acting like they're on the friggin' freeway, it's enough to make me want to hide at home until the season is over. I lost track of how many times some driver came within inches (literally!) of hitting me, whenever I'm bringing the shopping carts back inside. Come on, people, aren't holidays supposed to be happy? What's the huge rush for? Geez... /endrant

Anyways, hope all the (few) people that read this had a good Thanksgiving, and have a good (and safe!) rest of the holidays. /Waves

Meet Khaltagg

2011-11-09T22:30:00.005-05:00

Woof.

Lord of the Rings has a version of PvP, called PvMP (Player vs. Monster Player). Once you have a character at or above level 10, you can begin Monster Play. You can play as one of several different classes of orcs, as well as a spider, and a warg. Each monster is a counterpart to a Free Peoples class, with fighters, healers, and an archer. The warg is the baddies' version of a burglar.

Khaltagg is loads of fun. Monster Play starts you off right at max level, so you can head straight out into the Ettenmoors and start beating up Freeps (jargon for the good guys, us bad guys are called Creeps). There are also daily quests everywhere, and they all give destiny points (currency for training traits and skills) and most give infamy (sort of a cross between honor points and rep). Raising your infamy high enough gives you new ranks, which in turn raises your stats and gives access to more skills. So far, Khaltagg is rank 1, with only some limited play time in the evenings, when I'm bored but not sleepy enough to go to bed.

I'm planning a more or less IC post with Khaltagg in the (hopefully) near future. He may become something of a 'silly post' character, being a not-too-bright warg surrounded by not-much-brighter orcs, trolls, and goblins. We'll see how this goes. :D

Something I just found today, was a band in LotR, actually on the Laurelin server, that writes their own music and plays in public events. The band is called The Shades, and right here is an example of what talented people can do with LotR's music system.

And on that note, my minstrel Kyrreth is almost 28. Must go get a ding before this dang cold I'm getting makes me conk out.
... Well, at least getting sick might help my insomnia? :\
Anyways,... /waves

Ah, accomplishment

2011-11-03T01:19:00.005-04:00

On one hand, holidays usually mean that work is crazy and everyone is stressed out and cranky. But on the other hand, yay holidays!

Warcraft has been rather neglected lately, while I work on Lord of the Rings holiday stuff, and World Event stuff on Rift. My main character on Rift, Kelesaria the rogue, has been collecting the current event items to trade in for a pretty neat mount. Earlier today, after doing as many dailies as I can stand on my alts (yay for BoA items), her new raptor mount was 'leveled up' enough to use.

Yes, that is supposed to be a raptor. I have no idea what the idea behind the feathers and stuff is, but I still think it looks cool.

Lord of the Rings is having their Harvestmath celebrations, complete with a haunted burrow in the Shire. I have spent so much time inside that place, I don't even get lost anymore. I've been doing dailies on most of my characters there, too, to collect tokens for cosmetic items, as well as getting some pretty horses for several alts. In fact, for my burglar Daeren, I actually got both of the special holiday mounts. And I managed to do it mostly in one day! (That was a lot of tokens.) I haven't taken a lot of screenshots yet, but here's my minstrel Kyrreth, on Silver, and my champion Arrwyn, on Sable, both on the RP server, Laurelin.

I will admit that the festival has been frustrating at times. There are deeds (like achievements in WoW) to use a bunch of items with annoying effects during the holiday, and people have been abusing them left and right, without bothering themselves about whether their victims want their character to randomly faint, or cower in fear, or get mobbed by swarms of bugs/crows. It really isn't a huge deal, but when someone runs up to you without warning, and starts spamming the 'tricks' at you, it gets old really fast. The only reprieve is the fact that the items don't effect people on mounts, so my toons have all been sitting on their horses whenever I have to be around crowds of holiday-frenzied morons.

On WoW, Kel finally got her 'Hallowed' title this year. It only took 2 years for her to get that blasted squashling for her achievement. >.< She got the kitty familiar pet, too, but I couldn't make myself farm the dailies/candy buckets long enough to get her the mini wickerman. :( Oh well, maybe next year...

That's pretty much it for now. Time to make myself get some sleep before I have to face the craziness at work tomorrow. /Waves

On a serious note...

2011-10-24T02:48:00.004-04:00

So, I was poking around on blogs while trying to get sleepy enough to go to bed. I probably shouldn't be making a post when it's this late, but I really want to point out this right here.

Having been raised in a Christian home, and hearing the 'gay people are wrong' sermons, reading that post (and most of the comments) gives me some hope. Maybe not a lot, but some.

I'm going to make this short tonight, though I might maybe have some more in-depth thoughts later, when I'm awake and not in the beginning stages of a cold. For now, I'll just finish with this:

/Waves

The Last One (for now)

2011-10-14T01:45:00.010-04:00

So, remember when I mentioned in my last post, that I wouldn't mind having a go at taming Deth'tilac? Well, my trusty pet-finder (a.k.a. sis) finally spotted him today. See for yourselves:

On one hand, my arachnophobia is going crazy. *shudder* On the other hand, I actually sorta like this guy. He's not going to spend much time out with Kel, though. Probably just for PVP (gogo mounts for achievement) and to show off. I'm not sure if he's keeping the name either. I just haven't been able to think of a good one yet, so he's named after Kel's silithid, who he's replacing. Kel has a rename scroll in her bank, if I ever think up something better.

It was a surprisingly easy tame, to be honest. Sis came to help with Pitch, and she just kept Deth rooted as I sent in my trash pet for the Deth Strikes. Tamed him while still rooted, and then bam, new pet. This seriously is her last new pet, too, since I had to put her cat Damien in her very last stable slot to make space to tame Deth. Unless I do some stable-cleaning, which isn't very likely, since I'm pretty attached to all the pets she has now. That's okay though, Rajji still has room in his stables. And I am eventually getting Maxwill and Shadepaw leveled up. >.>

I'm still spending most of my game time on LotRO. On the RP server, Laurelin, my champion (and sis's guardian) are over level 20 now, and my minstrel just hit 23. My burgular on Crickhollow is almost 15, and my hunter 'main' on Windfola, the server we both originally started on, is 32. I actually spent some time today working on some of his older deeds. I think I've figured out my problem with playing on that server, as well, just by looking at the OOC chat channel. On Laurelin, it's usually quiet, with only a few guild/event advertisements, or a couple people goofing around. On Windfola today, the channel was full of trolls, arguing and name-calling, and just generally being disrespectful. It kind of reminds me of why I switched my WoW characters from Gilneas to Feathermoon. RP servers are just have nicer atmospheres, or something. I'm thinking of looking into how to transfer some of my characters, if it's possible and not too pricey.

And now, how about some screenies to finish:

My champ Arrwyn (playing her lute), with sis's guard Raedbor.

My burgular Daeren with sis's character (which I can't remember, because she hasn't been on him in ages :P) on their holiday mounts. I really love the horses in this game. :)

Outside the south gate of Bree. I just thought it looked pretty. >.>

And now, it's late and I must go sleep. /Waves goodnight

I don't even.....

2011-10-06T01:10:00.007-04:00

While tinkering around on LotRO, I was reminded that today was the last day for Brewfest. I hopped over to WoW to give all my available toons a Direbrew run, for fun and one last chance for easy shinies. Kalenedral wound up getting the kodo mount, which I was mostly 'eh' about, because she most likely won't ever use it. She also got one of the tanking trinkets 'stolen' by a mage. *grumble* Poor Jahira didn't get anything, and then it was Kel's turn. She got a tankard in her keg, my only character to get it this year (still no ram, though), and then on a whim I decided to go out to Hyjal and check for Magria. I really wasn't expecting anything, because it was around peak time for the server, so if one of the kitties had spawned, they would've been tamed/killed already. At least, that's what I was thinking as I flew Kel over to the spawn/patrolling route. Well, guess what?

And after the tame was finished, and my little blue kitty stepped to his place by Kel's side, I spent several minutes quietly hyperventilating over my keyboard.

Kel now has 8 spirit beasts. If I remember correctly, the only one she's missing is Ghostcrawler, who, as I've said before, I have no interest in. I can't ever describe the feeling when I saw the glowing shape on my screen and Silver Dragon blared out who it was. I was shaking so bad it seemed to take forever to actually get clear of the elementals, get Magria tagged, and wait for the cast bar to slowly tick down. Magria was a bit harder to convince than Ankha was, and for the last second or two of the tame I was wondering if Kel was going to live. But she made it, and now I officially want no more pets for her. Although, if I ever see Deth'tilac undisturbed, it will be very tempting. >.>

Kel and Sky had some bonding time while Kel did her Molten Front dailies, where I got to find a 'new friend'. A Belf hunter was doing the Shadow Wardens dailies, and she pulled her own version of Magria out to show off. There was a lot of emoting for a minute or two before we each got back to finishing our quests. And then to top it off, I saw another blue spirit kitty while killing spiders afterwards. It was really nice to see other people with that pet and not have to suppress any jealousy. :P

I'm not sure when my head is going to come down out of the clouds after this. Seems like lately, just when RL stuff starts getting me worn down and depressed, something happens that makes it all alright again. Not sure exactly how long my in-game luck is going to last, but man I'm enjoying it as long as I can. My only problem now is which spirit beasts Kel will have with her. Poor, poor Loq, he has so much competition now. Between him, Sky, and Icestorm, I don't know how much 'out' time anyone else will have. At least it might be easier to make myself keep grinding through dailies and heroics with her now. Although LotR is still taking most of my attention.

Aaaand I should probably go make myself try to sleep, it's getting late and I have work again in the morning. Dang I wish I could get my old schedule of afternoon/evening shifts back. I am so not a morning person. :P
...*stares and squees at Sky some more*
/Waves

Catching Up

2011-10-04T18:37:00.005-04:00

Okay, starting with WoW-

Jorren my death knight on Arthas is now Jhorren on Nesingwary. (His name was already taken on the server, and I'm getting tired of putting funky letters in my character's names. :P) I'm sort of unintentionally taking a break from him, but the next thing I'm planning for him is to start collecting a couple heirlooms. That means gearing up will take longer, but I really have been having more fun leveling my alts than grinding gear on my max-levels, so I'll deal with it.

Kel has yet another spirit beast in her menagerie. I took her up to Grizzly Hills and parked by Arcuris' spawn point. Another hunter was already there, so I logged her out there, so I wouldn't disturb the person that had gotten there first. Well, I logged on her again later, the hunter was gone, and guess who was just sitting down there waiting for me?

He's not going to be taking Loq's and Icestorm's spots as favorites, but I really like this guy. Yay glowbear!

So after all that excitement, I actually haven't even been on WoW for the last couple days. I've been getting back into Lord of the Rings Online. They just had their newest big update, and they changed/added a lot of stuff. Also, sis has been on with me a lot, and we've been trying to get into a little of the RP there. We made new characters on an RP server, Laurelin, and we each have one that we're trying to level together. Sis made a guardian, and I have a champion. I also made a couple alts to play with when sis is on WoW or at work, a minstrel and a runekeeper. Holy cow, did they change minstrels! I had one a couple years ago, when LotRO still required a subscription, and it wasn't nearly this fun. I've really missed the music-playing system LotRO has, too. The only thing slowing down my minstrel's leveling has been my habit of parking somewhere in Bree and playing her lute for the random people passing by.

(Have a random screenshot of Bree)

And... that's all I can think of for now, as far as games. Real life hasn't been all that interesting (or fun) lately. My job continues to tire me out, and the changing weather isn't helping. I think I would enjoy fall a little more if it wasn't for the fact that winter will be coming after. Though at least the next couple days are supposed to be warmer, so my achy joints won't be as bad.
/Waves

Meet Jorren (and bonus pic)

2011-09-26T02:44:00.001-04:00

Meet my newest level 85 character, and the proof that I really can focus on one character when I really want to.

Little bit of a story behind this guy. My brother wanted to make alts on a pvp server, and apparently he knew someone on the Arthas server. So me, him, and sis each made a toon over there, got them in a guild, and even got them all up a few levels. I had a tauren priest, sis a troll hunter, and brother soon had his typical small army of different alts. Getting to the point- our toons all reached the level where they got their first glyph slots, but the AH prices were ridiculous (the fun part of starting fresh on an older, well-populated server). So I decided to make a death knight, and power level inscription with him. Well, in the process of getting through the starting area, then the massive amounts of farming to skill his professions up, I wound up getting attached to the little guy. My little alts became neglected, and eventually I got tired of being broke all the time and dropped inscription for mining. After making sure he learned all the DK glyphs he could make, of course. >.>

Well, he's now 85 (obviously), and I'm having a ton of fun with him. I think this proves my little theory of needing to 'click' with a character to be able to enjoy playing it. (My 'lock Rynia is another example. I'd started and deleted at least 2 other warlocks before I created her.) The only real problem I have with him is the server, and it's more of a small annoyance than a problem. Apparently most of the Alliance on Arthas are jerks, who like to gank afk/lagging/stuck-at-the-loading-screen Hordies, especially if said Hordie is at least 2 levels below them. Getting ganked by epic-geared 85s in Northrend was a bit mind-boggling. (Do you people really have nothing better to do?) So, sometime soon-ish, he's gonna be switching over to another server, and my baby alts on Arthas will probably go bye-bye, although I may remake my undead hunter. Not sure where yet, but I'm leaning mostly towards Nesingwary, so Shadepaw can have a level 85 around to spoil her.

And now the next thing. This right here, this is what happens when my druid girls get stuck in my head. I wind up drawing the two of them in cute, affectionate, and/or cuddly poses. I'm trying to do a sketch of them both stalking something, but they refuse to cooperate with that. And yet I can do something like this one in less than a day. Argh, what am I gonna do with them...

...Obviously, love them and continue drawing cute, cuddly pictures of them. -.-
This is really making me wish I had the nerve to try drawing them in their elf forms.

I'm happy with the fact that I got their size proportions right this time. Windstar is a big kitty. Also, taking my sketchbook to work makes me return from my breaks late. :\ But getting compliments from my coworkers was a nice ego-boost. Which is something I've been needing lately.

And now I need to go try to sleep, so I can get through my work day tomorrow and be awake enough after to run Jorren in another heroic or two. And finish skilling his cooking up. :P /Waves

I don't even have words...

2011-09-25T03:45:00.007-04:00

So, you know how I mentioned looking for Skoll last night, when I had those two surprise tames? Apparently, he heard me. Or something. Because my sis found him waiting when she was out leveling her worgen druid. I am still completely boggled by this, so I'll just let the screenshots tell what just happened.

Just to give some idea of how I feel right now, I have been camping for Skoll off and on ever since patch 4.0 brought the new stable space. Since that was what, almost a year ago? I am just... wow. I think this actually beats my Loque'nahak camp, which was the longest and most frustrating camp that I have ever had. It still hasn't completely sunk in that he's finally Kel's.

The funny thing is, I don't even really like the Northrend worg models. They're way too skinny, they have a very awkward run, and the sounds kind of annoy me. I had started looking for Skoll just to get Kel all the current spirit beasts, just for the fun of it. I never really expected her to use him much whenever she did find him. But now that I finally have him, all that has changed. Just one look at that face totally makes up for any so-called 'problems' with that model. I seriously love this guy, and he's not going to be seeing the stables for a long, long time.

And one last thing- Thank you, sis, for finding Kel's three newest friends, and telling me so I could come tame them. And for being willing to share your computer yesterday, instead of making me wait for mine to start up. I <3 you. :)

Like Potato Chips...

2011-09-24T12:16:00.005-04:00

...You can never stop at one. Or three.

So Kel has two new spirit beasts, and neither one is the one I thought I wanted. I had been checking the cats' spawn/patrol route whenever I did Kel's Firelands dailies, hoping for Magria. I hadn't seen a whisker of any of the new spirit beasts, though I had heard of one Ankha tame that happened about 5 minutes after I left. So last night, after I had gotten home from work/grocery shopping, I was getting ready for a quick shower when sis asks me if I had anyone that wanted to tame Ankha. At first I was thinking, no, not Ankha, I want the blue kitty. Then I stopped and really thought about it. Coming to see Ankha wandering around on sis's computer convinced me. Fortunately, Kel had been logged in Aviana's shrine, so it was a short flight down, and there she was.

Kel already had an equipment setup to strip for the tame, which went smoothly. Ankha didn't even hurt Kel much, which should've been my first hint.

About 10 minutes later, sis called me again. Ban'thalos was up, which she thought was odd since he's supposed to share a timer with the kitties. Another hunter was there, but when sis whispered him, he said he already had Ban, so sis let me have her computer again to log on Kel. She had to get Kel onto the tree, and remind me to place my trap, and once again it was a perfect tame. Banny didn't even get off any moonfire spam.

It took forever to come up with a name for this guy, but finally 'Arrow' just sort of popped into my head. Being that this is a spirit beast, and the only bird-form one at that, I wanted it a little more 'special' for him, hence the funky letter. :P

Winter has bonded with Kel already. I would still love to get Magria, but I'm happy with her. Ærrow is getting along well too, but I'm not sure how much active time he'll get. But I am planning on taming Banny on Max, so I'm not worried about it.

Not long after this, sis's troll Booggah got a couple new buddies, which she tells all about here.

So, now Kel's ambition to tame every spirit beast in the game (except Ghostcrawler, sorry but I'm just not into crabs. Even shiny spirit ones) has been rekindled. The only thing that kept me from running to Northrend to check Skoll last night, was how tired out I was. And the shock of the two unexpected tames in such a short time. Kel is going back to camping him again soon, though.

So besides all the huntery stuff, I have had my druid pair stuck in my head a lot lately, and I have a new sketch of them done, and working on finishing another. I'll be posting them soon, along with a small RP update. And my soon-to-be newly 85 alt that has been taking up all of my game time. >.>
/Waves

Story = Art Inspiration?

2011-09-15T10:34:00.005-04:00

After that last story I did, I had a sudden urge to draw Rathiel. So, well, here ya go.

He's not a very pretty kitty. But then again, he's not supposed to be.

I've been continuing the story, but I'm not sure whether anything more will be posted or not. *shrug*

Well, that's it for now. Probably gonna have another WoW update soon-ish. Most likely to show off my newest level 85 character.

What? I've accepted the fact that I have no life. :P
Anyways... /waves

Storytime: "How long?"

2011-09-14T01:28:00.004-04:00

Random story inspiration FTW?

Little bit of backstory for this one- Jahira was the mother of twin boys, who both grew up to become druids. In the War of Shifting Sands, one of them was killed. The surviving twin went a little berserk, and when the war was over, he disappeared. Jahira thought he was dead as well for a few years, then she began hearing tales of a very intelligent cat, hunting the remaining Qiraji. She finally found her son, but he had gone completely feral, and it took days for him to even let her approach. Over the years, she has kept an ear out, and will periodically seek him out, to check on him and try to make sure he's doing alright. He roams over various places in Kalimdor, hunting not only the Qiraji, but anything he considers a threat to his people. This story is current in-game, after Jahira heard rumors of something killing orcs, which led her to Ashenvale.

++ ++ ++

Ashenvale, east of Silverwind Refuge

The white panther entered the clearing slowly, dragging her offering by the neck. Setting her burden down in the center of the glade, she looked carefully around, sniffing the evening air. After making a complete circle around the dead stag, she gave up and settled down next to it, waiting.

The cat woke to the predawn darkness, instinct holding her perfectly still until she could identify what had disturbed her. It took a few seconds for her to make out the darker shape sitting among the trees at the edge of the tiny clearing. Slowly, carefully, she sat up, unsure of his mood, but grew hopeful when he didn't turn and run. A moment later, the cat shifted into a female Kaldorei, long white hair shining faintly in the darkness. "Hello, Rath."

The shadowy shape didn't move for the first minute, then slowly stood and approached, revealing another cat. His dark, ash-grey fur blended almost perfectly in the darkness, the white-ish Elune markings across his shoulders barely visible. Other pale lines criss-crossed his coat, marking far too many scars. Jahira felt her heart clench at the sight of him. He was starting to grow his winter coat already, and that plus the darkness made it hard to see how thin he was. He was also favoring his right hind leg. Jahira bit her lip as he came up to her, sitting just out of arm's reach.

Jahira gestured at the dead stag. "I don't know if you're hungry or not, but.." she offered. Rath looked at her for a moment longer, then turned his head to inspect the deer. After a sniffing the carcass over, he began picking bites off of his favorite parts, pausing every so often to glance back at the druid. She simply sat still, watching him.

Several minutes passed, then, apparently satisfied, the cat turned back to the elf, sitting a bit closer. Jahira looked him in the eyes, and slowly raised one hand, fingers glowing a faint green. His expression hardened, and he moved as if to draw away from her. Her hand went still in midair. "Please, Rathiel," she asked softly, her voice catching in the middle of his name. He froze, staring at her, then laid his ears back and inched closer. She gently rested her hand on his head, and the glow intensified. He stiffened, then drew back as it faded, rumbling softly deep in his chest. Jahira let her hand fall back into her lap, and watched him as he paced around the clearing, testing his healed leg.

Jahira finally shifted back into her cat and stretched out on the grass, next to the stag's remains. Rath stopped his pacing, and for a moment he glanced back and forth between her and the forrest. After several tense seconds, which felt like hours to Jahira, he slowly walked over to her and laid down at her side. She turned her head to gently wash his face, as he grumbled quietly, shutting his eyes. They stayed like that for almost an hour, the white cat lovingly grooming the grey, while he eventually dozed for a little while. As the eastern sky slowly brightened, he abruptly raised his head. Jahira left off her grooming with a quiet sigh, causing him to turn his head to look at her. She shifted back into her elven form and returned his gaze sadly.

"How much longer, Rath? You can't keep this up forever, can you?" she asked, her tone pleading. His expression went stone hard again, and he looked away. Jahira bit her lip again, wondering of she should have kept silent. Finally...

"Nothing will bring Fauren back, but making our enemies suffer helps the pain." His voice rasped painfully, so hoarse from disuse that she could barely understand him. She looked down at her hands, clenched together in her lap, and closed her eyes. Then something gently wiped away the single tear that had escaped to roll down her cheek. She opened her eyes to look at the dark golden ones of her son, catching his hand and holding it up to her cheek. He allowed her for a brief moment, then gently pulled away, turned, and started towards the trees, shifting back into a cat as he went. Jahira could only sit and watch him vanish into the gloom. She finally pulled her gaze away from where he had disappeared, wiping her eyes and taking a deep, ragged breath. She stood and looked up at the sky for a moment, then fumbled her hearthstone out of her belt pouch, only to put it away again. She shifted into a stormcrow and took off into the air, turning northwest, towards Lor'danel.

She wanted nothing more at that moment than for Windstar to hold and comfort her, but she needed to be alone for just a little longer.

Catching up

2011-09-01T17:51:00.008-04:00

Work is making me feel very 'bleh' lately, but here's a few things I've been up to.

I have had 2 big dings in the last few days. First, Rynia the warlock has archeology-ed herself to 85. Then, I finally made myself get Jahira the last 5 bubbles of xp that she needed.

Both of them have run through the beginning Firelands stuff, and they have the ilvl needed for heroics. Rynia has even been in one, Shadowfang Keep, and has a pretty new robe from it. Jahira will be waiting a while though. I'm too much of a noob at boomkin'ing, so I want to look up stuff and get her some more gear before I attempt a heroic. Not to mention my other characters that have been so neglected lately. Kal especially has been begging for some attention. Ryn is definitely getting her share of play time, though. I'm amazed sometimes at how much fun warlocks are. There's just something therapeutic about setting things on fire... *evil grin*

I'm still trudging along with Maxwill as well. It's slow, with all my 'bigger' characters keeping me busy, but he is currently 64 and moving along. He also has (another) new friend. This guy is a strictly OOC pet, because, well, it would be hard to explain ICly why Max has a little patch of fire following him around...

My sis had figured out the trick to taming this guy, and bugged me to give her a hand, since it takes 2 people to make the pet explode in the taming process. And since I had to go along anyways, I figured why not get Max his own, before Blizzard decides to 'fix' the bug. It's an amusing pet, even though it has some issues with targeting (you can't click the pet, you have to click it's portrait next to it's owner's or use tab-targeting).

That's Max's brother, Arnen, played by my sis, in the screenshot. These two got seperated when Gilneas locked itself away, and haven't ICly found each other yet. I have some story ideas poking around in my head though, whenever Windstar and Jahira let them, and I might have some bits to post sometime. I need to keep pestering my sis as well. Poor Max has a couple issues, and having his brother around will help quite a bit.

And that's about it for now. Need to get some dailies done, and maybe see about getting a little worgen up a level or two. /Waves

I'm a slacker...

2011-08-26T02:36:00.003-04:00

Catch-up post coming soon. Getting back into the routine of work and trying to get enough sleep and etc. has been a little crazy.

That is all (for now). /Wave

p.s. Have a (old) random screenshot.

I love Vacations

2011-08-16T12:29:00.007-04:00

Been quiet lately because I've been busy with getting ready for vacation with my family. I am now in NC, the beach is awesome, and I'm already sunburned. :D (Not too badly though.) I've had some game time in the evenings, too, and have been trying to get stuff done on 3 different games. So far, Rift has actually been getting neglected (although I've finally got all my characters on one RP shard now), but LotRO is getting attention (I might even have a max-level character by the end of the year :P), and of course I've been doing stuff on WoW.

Kel is taking it easy with her dailies, mostly because I can't stand to do them more than twice a day, and I want my engineering toons to open up the recipe vendor. Rajji has been easier to do stuff with than Arien, so he'll probably be getting the shiny gun recipe first. And the scope. That scope makes me giggle every time I look at it. Blizzard does come up with some pretty fun stuff once in a while.

Speaking of Rajji, he has two new friends. First, I found Terropene wandering around his lava pool, and just couldn't help myself. I'm not sure how much time Fierro will be spending out of the stable, but fire turtle(!) is just too irresistible. Then I was herb-picking on Windstar one night, and she found someone wandering around Twilight Highlands-

I give up trying to keep track of how many cats he has now. Not even including spirit beasts. Paragon is his 4th lion, though. I think he has a total of 6 cats, with 2 cat-model spirit beasts. And he loves all of them. My troll is hopeless. :P

Side-note - I'm probably going to wind up taming Sambas on every hunter I have. :P Which is funny, because when I first saw him, I wasn't very impressed with his model, but I guess he's grown on me.

I've been tinkering on alts a lot as well, and I especially realized how neglected Max has been. So he's been getting some dungeon runs, and is up to 62 already. I wish I didn't hate questing in Outlands so much though, his gear is really pathetic. And the few things he could use from instances refuse to drop. /grumble He's found a couple new companions, as well. He finally has his first 2 tenacity pets-

I'm not sure if he's keeping the crab or not. I'm planning on getting him Jadefang when he's high enough (since Rajji's pretty much out of room), and he just hasn't been that big on tanky pets. The warp stalker may be turning blue later, too. I may be doing another post later, just to show off his pets and maybe have some RP background stuff, since I recently realized I have almost no screenshots of them and he's been so neglected lately. :P

And one last thing- my sketching has been a little slow lately, but I did finish a horse I've been working on. I admit the inspiration of this one (which I call 'Resting') comes from how tired I've been lately. :P

And that's it for now. Hopefully Warcraft maintenance is done, so Max can get another dungeon or two done. /Waves

Two days late, but..

2011-07-23T11:02:00.004-04:00

Rajji has hit the magic number, and got a bonus surprise achievement to boot. He then took a pass over Karoma's and Sambas's spawn points on his way to the portal to go train, but with no luck. He's started on Firelands, and is going to do Thrall's quest chain today. He actually dinged on Thursday, but I'm showing it off late because just after it happened my brother wanted to hang out (yay) and then yesterday I was so tired after work that I crashed almost as soon as I got home (boo). Have I mentioned I don't like my job very much lately? :P

I think my leveling binge is still going, but now I really want to work on some of my alts on other servers. Most likely Shadepaw, on Nesingwary, will be my next goal. If I can keep away from my rogues on Feathermoon. Talia, at 47, is the highest I've ever gotten with a rogue, and it's so much fun I really want to get her to 85. And then there's also Max, sitting at 59 and needing some instance runs for gear pretty bad. Having the healer in his last (and only) Ramparts run pointing out that he was last on the dps meter was kind of embarrassing. >.< And since I really hate leveling in Outlands, I think Kel/Windstar are going to be instance-running him through to 68 as quickly as possible.

I'm starting to count down to my vacation in August. My work schedule lately has been hectic, and I'm just starting to get sick of being there. The weather isn't helping, either. This has been the hottest summers I can remember in a long time, and while it's great for me, because I loooove hot weather, it also means that the managers and supervisors aren't letting me go outside and do my favorite job very much. No one seems to believe me when I say that gathering/bringing in the shopping carts in 90+ degree weather doesn't bother me. :\

But enough ranting about that for now. I have today off to spend with my troll (and some alts), and I have been seriously slacking on Kel's Firelands dailies. I must go fix that. :D /Waves

Trollin'

2011-07-20T16:30:00.008-04:00

In between doing Kel's Firelands dailies (and slacking off a day or two, work sucks), I have been steadily working on my next level 85. Really, it should have been Jahira, since she's my next highest, but all the fun hunter stuff has me working on getting Rajji up to cap. Currently, he's about halfway through 84, and hopefully will hit the big ding later today. If not, at least tomorrow I have a day off work.

In between questing and the occasional dungeon, I have also been filling his stable. Which is almost done, literally. He has maybe 4 empty stable slots, plus the one personal slot I keep open for if/when I find something special. He has a wider collection than Kel, although he seems to be turning into a bit of a cat person, er, troll. Along with his 3 lions (one of each color), he got Shango as soon as the mob was turned into that gorgeous tiger, and more recently got himself a frostsaber stalker. Drejan has clicked with Raj much better than I ever thought-

(Because troll + tiger is so full of win.)

He also got Hell-Hoot after the change that turned him lavender. Then, sitting in Orgrimmar one day, I noticed that Erthe seemed to be trying to perch on Raj's staff. It was kind of adorable. (And took a lot of timing and position adjustments.)

Rajji's been enjoying his new Sholazar pair, too. Although Snowcloud(Loque) has been getting a lot more attention than Azure(Aotona). (I need to fix that :P) And just today, he got his newest addition to the zoo-

Funny thing is, I was never that interested in Madexx before Blizzard started putting normal-spawn mobs with his model in various places in the game. I guess seeing the other versions of him made him sort of grow on me. Maxwill will be getting a non-rare version from Firelands when he gets leveled, but I wanted to get the 'real thing' for Raj. I had been hoping so badly for a blue version (favorite color ftw?), but Madexx stubbornly insisted on spawning green the last 3 times I know of; once when sis found him, once when I found his dead body, and finally when Raj finally tamed him. I did miss his spawn last night, but I'm almost willing to bet it was green too. Silly scorpid. :/ And if anyone's wondering, I sort of combined his name and color to come up with his new name. I think it fits. :D

I am getting a blue version of Madexx on someone, most likely Shadepaw whenever I level her up (which I'm working on as well). Rajji is more than happy with his new buddy though. Green pets seem to be sort of a theme with him, especially considering that he's likely getting Jadefang too, to go along with his green scorpid, chimera, warp stalker, and serpent.

And now one last screenshot: Doing the beginning quests in Twilight Highlands, Rajji was taking a boat back to the Horde warships, and I noticed Snowcloud actually following, instead of getting stuck on the shore like what happens going the opposite direction. It was kind of a 'awww' silly moment-

(Faithful pet refuses to be left behind.)

And now to go work on getting my troll to 85, most likely in TwiHighlands, since I'm a little tired of looking at Uldum right now (lol). /Waves

p.s.- In case anyone is curious, several of Rajji's pet's names I've gotten from a Drow translation website. Erthe, Elgcahl, Drejan, and Toryll have all come from that site. I would highly recommend it for anyone looking for something unusual. :D

Tinkering in the Firelands

2011-07-03T04:43:00.007-04:00

First of all, I love this patch. So much new stuff to do. Kel got to run through everything first, of course, and I have been trying to keep Bearkat up with her, even though the chances of him doing anything like raiding are next-to-zero. He loves Tol Barad, though. The Horde winning 9/10 battles isn't nearly as annoying now.

So, today I was doing Kel's dailies, after missing Ankha spawning (no big deal, I want Magria anyways). (And thank you, Novikova, for being awesome and telling me so that I have the spawn timer. :D) Running around exploring afterwards, I discovered three things. One, the lava spiders in Fire lands are skinnable (yay new farming spot?). Two, surprise achievement-

And three, Deth'tilac had spawned, and was being kited by a human hunter, with a couple friends-

After making sure the other hunter had things under control, I happily watched them whittle Deth's health down to the tamable point. And I may have cleared a couple spiders out of their kiting path. >.> I was too afraid of screwing something up to help with the kiting, and it was the only other thing I could think of to help.

I didn't get a screenshot of Deth and it's proud new owner, but it was pretty awesome to see that huge angry spider suddenly turn friendly. And shrink. A LOT. The other hunter was happy and grateful to me for staying out of the way and clearing the extra mobs. She even tried to give me some gold, but I refused. Getting to see the most epic rare spawn of the patch being tamed was more than good enough for me.

And speaking of achievements-

The Fire Festival is almost over, but I managed to beat down my procrastination and get the one single achievement that Kel needed for the meta. I haven't taken advantage of the free xp/gold from the bonfires nearly as much as I wanted to, but all the new patch stuff kept me too busy. That, and work. Darn my job anyways...

Between Tol Barad dailies, rewards from the beginning Firelands quests, and finding a couple decent deals in the AH, Bear's gear is ready for heroics. Windstar is about the same gear-wise, and the difference is pretty amazing. Star is killing her mobs in about half the time it used to take, and no longer has to heal herself after every single fight. She even managed to solo Tank the shark with her bear spec. Bearkat is beginning to collect some tanking gear, and I might even try to tank a normal instance sometime, just for practice. He's got a long way to go before I'll be comfortable tanking heroics, though.

And I think that's enough rambling for me. Must go get some sleep before the next Magria (or Ankha) spawns. /Waves

And another...

2011-06-15T10:59:00.003-04:00

I've been a busy leveler lately, it seems.

I may make myself stop leveling for a bit, to try to get my current maxed characters some gear. *Eyes Rajji* Uh, maybe...

Speaking of gear, a random blue trinket dropped for Kel when she was doing Tol Barad dailies, which she passed along to Windstar. It got her gear ilevel up enough so she can finally run heroics. The only problem is, she really hasn't been doing very well, even in normal dungeons.

It's kind of odd, comparing my two 'main' druids. Windstar actually didn't get much questing, after she finished Hyjal. Most of her xp came from farming herbs, for both her own inscription and my warlock's alchemy. (Both of which are maxed, even though my 'lock is still only level 82. /flex) She did do quests, but I hopped around the zones a lot, so she hasn't gotten many of the good rewards from the finishing quest lines. That trinket actually replaced a ilevel 272 quest reward from Hyjal. :\

Bearkat, on the other hand, has finished Hyjal and the main quest chain (the World Pillar) in Deepholm. He's also run more instances than Star. It's been easier to make myself quest on him, mostly because of all the unneeded rewards that he gets to disenchant. (Much more reliable supply of mats than getting random green drops from grinding or instances.) Also, I've noticed something that honestly confuses me a little. Everything just seems easier on Bear. He rips through quests and mobs that Star struggles with. Some of it might be that his gear is a little better, not to mention that he keeps all of his gear enchanted. But still, the difference is a little boggling. Poor Star struggles with dps in instances, seems to take longer to kill mobs, and dies at least once every time I do her Tol Barad dailies. Now, I haven't taken Bear to Tol Barad yet, but I'm not expecting any trouble for him when I do. He was also doing higher dps in instances at 82-83 than Star does at 85. I just can't figure it out. /scratch head

Well, at least part of the problem will be taken care of (hopefully) soon. Kel has been trying to collect the chaos orbs to make Star the epic leatherworking pieces. The only problem is the RNG hates me, but I figure if I run enough heroics, my luck has got to work out eventually. Of course, then other only problem is, that means I have to play Kel, when I really want to be doing things on my other characters. Thus, it has been going very slowly. So far, Kel has one orb, out of the 5 or 6 (can't remember >.<) that she needs for both belt and chestpiece. Argh.

Anyways, enough with the rambling/ranting. Time to do Bear's dailies, and maybe get a random dungeon or two. And wait for my latest attempt to download the PTR to finish. Hopefully it won't constantly crash this time.
/Waves

Another ding!

2011-06-11T23:55:00.004-04:00

So, two new things. First up, Arien has mined/dungeoned/quested herself to 85, finally. And I might have stayed up until around 3 in the morning to get it done. *cough* >.>

When my leveling OCD kicks in, it is really hard to stop when there's less than three bubs of XP to go. :P

Second, Kel got into a group of fellow Feathermoonies for a troll heroic, which wound up being Zul Gurub. First time in there for me since Blizz updated it, so it involved lots of dying, as I relearned the fights. The last boss failed to give Kel a shiny bow, but she did leave the place with a new friend.

It was a major pain to get this guy. I finally wound up asking everyone to go outside the building where the last trash pack (with a cat in it) was. I forgot to hit my haste pot before starting the tame, but she still barely managed to finish before the extra troll killed her. It was pretty awesome. :D

On a final note, I may possibly be doing a more serious post sometime soon(ish). I've been running across some stuff from other bloggers over the last several weeks, not to mention a lot of RL stuff going on lately, and it's all starting to make me think. A lot. So, well, yea. No idea when I'll actually be writing it, since it's not really an easy topic for me. So, umm, you've been warned? :P

Anyways! That's it for now. /Waves

p.s.- I had a little bit of RP with Windstar and Jahira that I might post, as well. Just a short bit involving what little I know of what happens in 4.2. (Spoiler: Windstar meeting Malorne will be so fricking epic.)

Updates with Pics

2011-05-27T14:39:00.009-04:00

Thanks to sis running around picking herbs on her Night Elf rogue, Rajji has some new buddies.

<3!!

Kel has finished her dailies for the Winterspring Frostsaber mount.

A little comparison of the cub's growth while he's being raised/trained, using Sabre for reference-
Baby cub-

And right before turning in to get the mount-

I love how they make the cub (and the raptor for the Horde's version) grow up as you complete the dailies. This also makes mount #85 for Kel. Only 15 more for her dragonhawk. :P

My brother convinced me and sis to make alts on the PVP server, Arthas. So far it's been fun, with my forsaken Death Knight only getting ganked once. Jorren is 65 so far, with his professions caught up (finally), and I have a couple others, too. Last night my little forsaken hunter trotted his level 19 self out to Loch Modan (with no deaths for the entire trip!) and got himself a pretty blue fox, and picked up a surprise croc on the way. The rare spawn wasp was up, too, but Haavic only has room for 2 pets with him for now, so I left Nix buzzing around for another hunter to find.

I also am almost done leveling 2 more of my Feathermoon crew. Arien and Jahira are both 84 now. I just need to decide which one to focus on for the last push to 85. Probably Arien, since she's a little further along, thanks to an evening in Twilight Highlands. Jahira also found someone passing through Uldum, and got a shiny achievement from him.

It's kind of funny, actually. When I found out about the achievement, my first thought was, "great, I'll never get it, my luck is never gonna be that good". And now I have it on, if I remember correctly, 4 characters. I guess it sort of proves that being pessimistic works, eh? ;D

And that's pretty much it for now. Hopefully I won't be going another 3 weeks+ before my next post, but we all know how well that's been working out lately :\
/Waves

Sometimes, I love people

2011-05-06T13:10:00.006-04:00

It started Wednesday night. I was doing Children's Week quests on alts (yay new pets!) when my sister asked if I had found Karoma yet. When I said no, she told me to get on Kel because someone was holding him. I was practically shaking the whole time I waited for hearthstone/portal/flying, but he was still there when I finally reached the shaman that had been keeping him hexxed. I was so nervous I put down the wrong trap (frost instead of freezing), but he was still hexxed, so I tamed him that way. And then had his portrait glitch so his pic was still a frog. /scratch head

HUUUUUGE thank you to Cheysa for holding him so patiently!

Then yesterday sis was on her hunter Lark, poking around for Northrend rares while waiting for her raid to start. She asked me if I was still looking for Gondria, so she could keep an eye out. She got to Zul'Drak and went to the first spawn point, and next thing I knew she was telling me to get over there. That was more nerve wracking than the trip to Karoma's spot, because first the boat took forever, then I had to fly all the way from Borean (Kel had been in Stormwind). Thank goodness I had recently gotten Kel her 310% flight speed, or I would have been bouncing off the walls with impatience. When I finally reached Lark and Gondria, the tame went perfectly.

So now my 'mission' of all the spirit beasts for Kel is almost finished. Skoll still stubbornly refuses to show himself, however, so I'm not expecting to get him any time soon. Although, with people like my sister and my fellow Feathermoonies, I am a bit more hopeful than I was a few days ago. I'm still not sure whether I'm going to hunt for Arcuris, though. I do like him, but I'm just not as 'into' bears as I am cats and wolves. If I happen to stumble across him, and sis isn't around, I'll definitely grab him.

And on a final note, Kel has been doing the Winterspring Saber quests, and I'm having a ball with the cub. Tossing toys and hunting for rabbit holes is just too much fun.

He's so darn CUTE!

That's it for now. /Waves

New stuff

2011-04-23T23:11:00.004-04:00

First of all, a bit of game news. After several days of on-and-off camping, Rajji has another new friend:

His name is Elgcahl, and he has 'clicked' wonderfully. I've had a hard time keeping chimaera pets, but there's something about this guy. Maybe it's the fact that I had to actually camp him, since before all I had tried was the white ones from Winterspring. The fact that it's Rajji, and not Kel, might have something to do with it too. Kel tends to be a bit pickier about her companions.

And now some RL news. My sister and me have finished moving into our new apartment. Our cat Buster spent the first day hiding under my bed, but by bedtime he was coming out to explore, and now he seems comfortable in his new 'kingdom'. There's still some unpacking to do, but it's really nice to have a place to ourselves, after sharing a house with other people for the last couple years. Hopefully we'll soon have internet at home, so we don't have to keep mooching off our parents' internet. >.>

That's all for now. Short post is short. :P I may have some Rift stuff soon-ish. Hopefully it will be interesting.
/Waves

p.s. Happy Easter, everyone!

Ugh....

2011-04-07T01:40:00.006-04:00

Real Life is being a little crazy right now. Work is wearing me out, and now me and sis are getting ready to move out of the house we've been renting with 2 other people, and into an apartment by ourselves. When I have the time (and energy) for gaming, I'm still mostly on Rift. I still come back to tinker on Warcraft every now and then, but it's mostly just been to say hi to people, and tinker around a bit. Like parking Rajji out in Azshara to look for the Evalcharr, the green chimera, who is being very shy so far. Raj has also been doing some dungeons and a bit of questing, and is 82 now. Bearkat is up to 83, and finished Hyjal. I think I'm going to do the World Pillar questlines in Deepholm on him before going out to Uldum. If I do instances with him as well as questing, Uldum might get him all the way to 85, then Twilight Highlands will be easy (and make a lot of money as well).

My cleric on Rift has been a ton of fun. She's almost level 30, and her melee-leveling spec is surprisingly resilient. I've been having fun pvping with her healing spec too, and Monday night, me and a buddy (on his 36 rogue) managed to duo the first instance. FYI, instances in Rift are hard! I actually half-soloed the last boss, because my friend died, so I ran around healing myself and putting DoTs on the boss until he could run back in and help finish him off. It was awesome, and nice to find out that I can manage healing in a new game. I'm still really nervous about trying to tank on my warrior though. :P And yes, my altaholicism has transferred itself over to Rift. Fortunately, the way the classes work, I just need one of each calling, and I can just respec whoever I'm playing however I want, depending on what I feel like doing at the time. Cleric is definitely my favorite, rogue and warrior are fun, but I'm having a hard time getting my mage to 'click'. I do like playing him, I just tend to get bored on him kind of fast. I've taken a few screenshots, which I'll probably post later, with a more detailed post about the game.

And one last thing, my drawing itch has been quiet lately, but I do have a new one of my druid kitties. Jahira and Windstar, in one of their favorite positions -

Aren't they cuuuuute?

And now to try to get myself to bed at a decent time. After one last lap to see if that darn chimera is out. >.>

/Waves

p.s.- My little depression problem has been a bit better lately, but that's something for another post. Later. Maybe.

A very delayed update

2011-03-13T23:28:00.010-04:00

Work and games have kept me pretty busy, so this stuff all happened a few days ago. :\ Bad blogger is bad.

I was tinkering on Lord of the Rings Online last week, when my sister announced that she found a lonely-looking wolf digging through some trash in the Hinterlands.

My lil blood elf Kerrowyn decided to come take a look, and she found a new friend -

Later, I can't remember if it was that night or the next day, I was on Rajji while afk'ing to browse Petopia's forums. Rajji still has a pretty small stable, so I was trying to decide on a couple new pets for him, when I found one of the threads on the Amani dragonhawk. I really like 'hawks, even though I don't actually use them very often, so I decided to take a trip to Zul Aman before the patch made it harder to get in. Many deaths and much frustration later, Rajji had two new buddies. Raj got a couple hexing sticks from trash mobs, and used them on some frogs. Mojo hopped into Raj's bags on the second one.

Now I just gotta get Kel in there and find her a Mojo. >.> And level Max so he can go get a blue 'hawk from Sunwell Plateau.

I found another interesting option on Petopia, but I decided my cat collector, Shadepaw, would be the one to hunt this one. She took a trip to northern Stranglethorn and sat around Pogeyan's spawn area for a little over an hour, taking a couple breaks to thin out the local panther population. There were several other people that passed through, either questing or possibly camping him as well, but Shade was the one that finally spotted him. I then discovered that he leaps at you when you start the tame, and that Shade put her trap a little far away. Pogeyan is so big, however, that it caught him anyways.

He is very shiny, and Shade loves him already. His new name is Loki, which is a Norse fire god, which I thought was appropriate for a cat with the title 'the Fire Spirit'.

And the last thing to update on is what I've been doing the last several days. One of my oldest WoW friends had been getting very tired/bored with Warcraft, and had switched over to playing Rift. Well, he talked about it so much on Vent, my resistance didn't really have a chance. Honestly, I've been getting a little bored myself, with getting 3 of my characters to 85 so quick, and the steady grind of dungeons and dailies. The only thing to break the monotony was RP, and even that was starting to get... well, not exactly boring, but really, I can only take so much sitting around while everyone else has conversations and storylines going on all around me. And the (very) few people I actually had any IC contact with have been busy doing other things, like gearing up for raids (which don't even get me started on that right now) and/or leveling alts. So I've been by myself a lot lately, other than some dungeons/battlegrounds with my brother on some baby tauren alts we had made. By myself = lonely = bad, bad depression fits. :(

So anyways, I've started playing Rift. I have a couple characters at level 10+ already, and so far it's been a blast. It's hard to say though, whether this will be a regular thing yet. Everything is still 'new and shiny', rifts are fun (though sometimes annoying when they open up on top of the area you're trying to quest in), warfronts(battlegrounds) are fun, even though the Defiants lose 80-90% of the time. And the game's storylines are awesome. Oh, and Defiants rock. Guardians are just a little too fanantical for me. (Just my opinion, if anyone that plays Guardian reads this, please don't hate me. >.<)

So, if anyone has noticed me missing from Warcraft (which I sort of doubt), Rift is why. I will probably be back eventually, because I still love WoW. I just need a little break. I'll most likely be hopping on now and then to check my toons and play with my brother. Just not very often, for now.

(I hope the last part does not sound like a rant, because it's not supposed to be. And I totally did NOT mean to turn this into a Massive Wall of Text, sorry. :P)

My new favorite things

2011-03-04T00:40:00.004-05:00

(Because some things are just way more amusing when you're sick.)

Lifegiving seed + Origami rock = fun times.

Good news and Bad news

2011-03-01T23:44:00.008-05:00

Getting the bad news out of the way first. I have a cold. I'm a bit peeved about it, since I've gone the entire miserably cold, snowy winter without catching anything, and now that it's starting to warm up, bam I get sick. Argh.

On to the good news! First of all, I have my third level 85 character-

About time, too. I seem to be developing a habit of getting a toon to 84, then suddenly not playing them for a while. Poor Star spent almost a week at <5 bars to level. /Fail.

But at least now she's done with leveling and can start kitty-fying the instances. Which was another point I failed at. She has spent less time in instances than any of my other characters. Her gear right now kinda stinks, being mostly green quest rewards and a couple crafted things. Hooray for Kel's leatherworking. :P

Next bit of good news, Max has a new buddy.

Huge thank you to my sister for this one. I had spent the previous night camping for him (and got 3 stacks of gromsblood and 2+ stacks of golden sansam and dreamfoil in the process), but had to log with no luck. Next day I had a pretty rough day at work, and went to lie down after I got home. Sis came and woke me up to ask if I had tamed this beauty, and when I groggily told her no, she told me he was up. She then let me use her computer to log on Max to go tame him, so that I didn't have to wait for mine to start up, possibly letting someone else find Olm before I could get there. /hug sis

Max is now 54, and just needs one level to get his big black kitty. I just need to pull myself away from all my baby alts that i've been working on lately and get him that one level. :\

Last thing I can think of for now, Kel's Charcoal is 85, and is the best tank she has ever had. I've been playing with her MM spec lately, since I've gotten way out of practice with it, and he has been holding aggro on the mobs like a champ, with her critting for 30-40k at times. Even if Kel does pull aggro, Kill Command will usually take it right back. And Shell Shield is awesome. It's a great visual reminder for when I forget to use Mend Pet, when he's tanking 2-3 mobs at once (I'm looking at you, Tol Barad villagers! >:|). By the time Shell Shield expires, Charcoal is almost back to full health. I really love this guy.

And that's it for now. Hopefully this danged cold will go away soon, it's seriously interfering with my ability/desire to do much anything other than sleep. :(
/Waves

Kel's stable is complete.

2011-02-24T22:34:00.006-05:00

And the last pet I wanted to make it so? This awesome (and adorable) lil bugger:

That's right, Kel has her little fire turtle. /Cheer!

Short(ish) version, I was questing on my cowdruid Bearkat, when someone in general chat announced that Terropene was up. I did nothing at first, sure that someone would get to him long before I could switch to Kel on alliance side. After a while, when no one seemed to be responding, I figured I would at least go see him. I flew Bear over to Terro's lava pool, found him, and just watched him walking around for a couple minutes. Still no one showed up. I decided, what the heck, let's just see if I can get Kel over here before he gets tamed/killed. I logged off Bear and onto Kel, took the portal to Hyjal, and flew down to the lava. My sister was also there on her troll Booggah, who was still level 80 and couldn't tame him. I refound Terro, still untouched, and sat to watch him for another minute or so. When still no one showed up for him, I gave up arguing with fate. I had switched to Kel's MM spec, so I silencing shot him, popped a speed pot, and hit tame. His fire attack still hurt even at level 85 with 100k hp, but I got him on the first try. It took a second to sink in, but as I looked at the shrunk turtle standing at her side, poking his nose into her pack for a treat, it finally sunk in that he was finally mine. I can't even describe what it felt like.

- - -
(Delayed holiday shenanigans)
A couple weeks ago, me (duo-ing Kel and Jahira), sis (on druid-Alanon), and our best friend (on his new-ish worgen shadow priest) went to get all the Northrend instance elders. Well, the elder in Drak'Theron Keep is right inside King Dred's room. We killed the first couple of packs to reach him, talked to him to receive our coins, and started to leave. However, a crazy idea stopped me. I had to argue with myself for a bit (what does Kel need 3 devilsaurs for, anyways?), but in the end, Dred just looked too darn lonely to leave behind. So, well,....

His name is Fury, which was a random suggestion from our friend. It fits him. :) I now have every color devilsaur in the game, with Kel's 3 and Rajji's white Ibite.

So yea, I think I'm pretty much done getting Kel any new pets. She has almost all the rares I wanted on her, and she's running out of space, and I want to keep a couple spots open for anything Blizz decides to toss at us hunters in the future. I think Charcoal, Rage, Loq, Ash (Ashtail the blue fox), and Arohk will keep her more than happy enough now. And of course, there will always be Sabre.

This does NOT mean I'm not going after any more rare/unique pets. I just have to level up some of my alts first. ;) Max has to level a bit more to get Duskfang, and needs to go look for Olm. He's going to be the lucky alt to get Jadefang, too. And my Hordies have been tugging at me lately, so Rajji will probably be getting leveled up as well, albeit slowly. Also, I think my Draenei over on Silver Hand will wind up being a fox collector. Maybe cats too, after randomly finding Humar on her a little while ago.

And that's all for now. /Waves

..../hugs Charcoal

Kitty comparisons

2011-02-23T02:43:00.008-05:00

Yes, I'm still alive. Just very distracted.

But anyways, something I've been thinking about lately is what my druids, specifically their cat forms, look like. The in-game model is great-looking, but not quite the same mental image that I get. So I'm imitating my sis, and giving everyone an idea of what the kitties would look like in real life. Hope you all like it.

Firstly, here's Windstar's cat form inspiration, a snow leopard:

Yes, she really is that fluffy. Especially in her winter coat.

Jahira is a bit leaner, with less fur, more like a mountain lion:

Of course, with their size differences (Windstar is almost 100 lbs. heavier), Star usually wins their wrestling matches.

I would have to poke around on Google/imageshack/etc. to find anything to match Bearkat, or my babies, Jorren the worgen or Razzu the troll. But to finish, here's a good picture of Kel's best friend Sabre. (Just imagine it in frostsaber pride watcher colors)

I'll have a very delayed post for holiday stuff soon (I hope). Windstar is also almost 85, so I'll get to brag on her soon too. :D
/Waves

Two Thoughts...

2011-02-05T04:38:00.003-05:00

First thought is this. I missed the previous '20 Days', and this one sounds fun, so I think I might give it a go. I may not do a post for every one, and they will probably be spread out over a long period, but by golly I'll give it a try.

Second thought is about this. I agree with everything my sister says, and have felt the same way for at least as long. The only reason Riatha and Caderly are still on Gilneas is because of finances, which is sorting itself out. I've already culled my character list, so I just have them and 2 horde toons to move, and space enough for all of them on Feathermoon. Although I may move one of my hordies to another server, possibly Nesingwary, I haven't decided yet.

As far as game stuff goes, Windstar is slowly coming out of her leveling slump, and should be 85 soon. Kal is almost done with Tol Barad rep/token farming (for now, at least), and then she'll have a shiny new sword and I'll feel like she's really ready for heroics. Kel is going after the holiday achievements, for fun and nerd points (and a proto drake ^.^), although I'm doing it casually, and won't be very upset if she misses any of them. I need to get back to her mount farming, she's up to 85 now, towards her dragonhawk. The raven lord should be even easier now, and I'm pretty sure she can solo Karazan for Midnight. I might give heroic Utgarde Pinnacle a try, to see if she can farm for the blue proto drake, but I'm not sure if that will be possible or not. I'll keep y'all posted on that. Oh, and she found a new friend, but that will be in the next post, maybe tomorrow.

Max is 45 now, and getting steadily higher. I fell a little behind on his professions, especially his herbalism, (because I forgot to train them like a noob) but they're almost caught up now. In fact, his skinning is almost maxed until Outlands. He's getting some good RP time, too, and might have found himself a friend. Maybe. We'll have to see. He just needs to be reunited with his brother (/pokes sis) and I'll be really happy.

And now I need to get what sleep I can before work tomorrow (or later today). /Waves

Max- Awakening

2011-01-29T22:25:00.003-05:00

(Meet my worgen hunter, Max.
P.S. This took forever to write. :\ )

Fear. Confusion. Anger. Pain.
He regained awareness to find himself in the center of a mob. Men surrounded him, muttering and glaring, while in the background, he could hear dogs barking. As his awareness grew, he could feel something biting into his leg, just above the ankle. A bear trap. Every movement made the steel teeth sink further into his flesh, so he tried to remain still. Then one man stepped forward and aimed a rifle at his head. Before he could react, another quickly grabbed the gun barrel and shoved it skyward. Yelling and gesturing, the two men argued for several minutes, while the rest of the crowd grew more and more restless. The barking grew louder, one dog's voice beginning to rise over it's packmates'.

The second man finally seemed to make his point to his comrade, releasing the gun and turning towards him. He tensed, sending another jolt of agony through his leg, baring his fangs in fear and pain. The man made soothing noises, slowly reaching a hand towards him. The mob around them had quieted, except for the dogs barking. He fixed his eyes on the approaching hand. No! Don't touch me! He felt the tension within him building, about to snap. Just as he was about to lunge for the threatening hand, someone behind the crowd yelled, and suddenly a gap appeared through the men. He glanced over for a bare second, then froze at the site of a huge tan mastiff charging at him. He managed to jerk himself back, the trap sinking even deeper into his leg, then the dog was on him.

The mastiff didn't so much as open his jaws. Instead, he simply leaped on top of the trapped creature, pinning him underneath his body. The dog glared challengingly at the crowd, the deep rumbling growl in his chest clearly aimed at them. The pinned worgen, half-mad with fear and pain, struggled, and the dog lowered his head to gently grip the scruff of his neck, like a parent scolding a pup. The man simply stood there watching, his expression changing from fear, to surprise, to something like amusement. The worgen finally went still, exhausted from his ordeal, and the dog released his scruff to gently snuffle, then lick, his face. The worgen blinked his eyes a few times, then looked up at the dog. His expression was visibly changing, as if he was waking up from a nightmare. His nose twitched slightly, and recognition slowly grew in his eyes. Then, faintly, ".....Jax?"

Crowly grinned triumphantly at the servant Godfrey had sent with him, then knelt down next to the pinned worgen. He carefully laid a hand on his shoulder, and told him, "Welcome back, Max."

No 6-month hunt this time...

2011-01-27T04:18:00.003-05:00

So, I had spent the day duo'ing Kel and my (not-so-)baby worgen hunter Maxwill through a couple dungeons. Max finally hit level 40, so I took a break to train him and get his couple pieces of mail armor out, then had a little RP time with him. I managed to get Kel's achievements for the elders of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor done at the same time. By then it was getting late, so I decided to see about maybe one more dungeon before bed. As I was about to start Kel heading to Western Plaguelands, to take Max through the last part of Scarlet Monastery (Cathedral), I randomly decided to run over to Twilight Highlands first, to give Sambas's spawn points a quick check.

I did my usual route, heading straight north to the spot on the ridge, then circling south. First spot, nothing. Heading to the next place by Thundermar, spamming my targeting macro, Sambas suddenly popped up. I just about had a heart attack as I found his position, landed, dropped my trap and hit the tame button. Then realized I had forgotten to use one of my haste pots, doh! That was the longest tame I have ever done, but nothing went wrong and after the flash went away, there he was standing beside me.

In celebration, I took him to Tol Barad to do my dailies, and then hunted crocs for leather until I was almost falling asleep. I love him to death already, though he won't be replacing Sabre as #1 cat for Kel.

I am so happy you have no idea. I was beginning to think finding Sambas would be another long, long nightmare of not seeing even a whisker in the wild, while seeing almost every other hunter on the server find him, similar to what I went through to find Loq. I am so glad I was wrong. Now the only reason for Kel to be in the Highlands is when she needs dragonscales for her leatherworking, and perhaps look around for Karoma once in a while.

And now I really should go get some sleep before work. /Waves

Malorne

2011-01-20T20:40:00.006-05:00

The stormcrow glided into the shrine, landing on the column next to the newly restored statue. It looked over the white marble stag for several awestruck seconds, then, with a single flap of it's wings, it swooped down to land before it. The bird disappeared in a puff of thick smoke, a slender Kaldorei female standing in it's place after the smoke cleared.

Windstar knelt reverently before the image of her patron. So many thoughts were racing through her head, she couldn't speak for several minutes. Finally, she stood and shifted into her cat form. Slowly she crept up to the statue, and settled between the huge stone hoofs. A soft rumble began in her chest as she basked in the peaceful quiet of the shrine.

"They all still say that you're dead," Star thought to the silent presence she felt hovering over her. "And perhaps they are right. But I know your spirit is still watching over us all. And maybe... perhaps one day... Aviana may not be the only Ancient that can be reborn." She gazed upwards at the stag's proud head, so far above her own. A gentle breeze blew softly through the shrine, ruffling her fur. She smiled, feeling as if her patron was answering.

Star lost track of how long she sat there, but finally the need to continue her missions for the druids of Hyjal brought her out of her trance. She looked at the setting sun and sighed, knowing it was too late for her to return that day. She stood, turned towards the statue, and placed one paw on a massive hoof. "I'll be back," she said quietly, "I promise." Switching shape quickly from cat to stormcrow, she leaped into the air, circled once over the shrine, and then turned in the direction of Nordrassil.

* * * *
Windstar has been a follower of Malorne ever since she felt the druidic calling. Seeing his shrine restored was pretty darn emotional for her.

More info on Malorne can be found here.

And #2

2011-01-09T02:19:00.005-05:00

Kal finally got level 85 last night, after being stuck at about 6 bars left for a few days. It took a while, since lack of sleep + long day at work had me dozing off at my desk every few minutes. She has a while to go until she's heroic-ready, but I'm not in a rush. She did get to go do her first round of Tol Barad dailies. :D

I am now back at the 'I don't know who to level next' stage, but I'm pretty sure it will wind up being Windstar. She is my next highest, at about 1/3 of the way through 82, and I have really missed my kitty. I may take the same method I did with Kel, which will be rushing her to each zone as soon as they become available, although I do want to get more of Hyjal complete. Because Star needs to see Malorne's shrine. *nod*

Back to Kel for a moment, she finally has gotten her first successful heroic done. A friend is trying to get a dagger from heroic Blackrock Caverns, and I got to tag along for today's attempt. The dagger didn't drop, but Kel did get a new helm. I really do want to apologize to the group for being rather grumpy for most of it. Lack of sleep + headache + having a few more 'fail' moments than I normally do = really bad mood. Hopefully my 2 days off work will help me catch up on sleep, and hopefully more game time will make me a bit happier.

That's it for now. /Waves

Happy New Year!!

2011-01-02T01:53:00.008-05:00

(Slightly belated, I know)
Hope everyone had fun and stayed safe. Also, I'm keeping my resolution of a couple years ago, to never make anymore New Years resolutions.

So, what did I start off the new year with? A drawing spree! Have some more cute druid kitties.

First, sleepy Windstar is sleepy. I actually started this a while ago, and just recently went back and finished it.

Star and Jahira having a romp. I'm not totally happy with how Star turned out in this one, but I guess practice makes perfect? Jahira, on the other hand, is gorgeous.

And now just being affectionate. <3

I may have the arts'ing out of my system for a little while, so hopefully I can get the stories I have poking around in my head written. My poor worgen hunter has been so neglected, RP-wise. Although a few quests, one dungeon, and one battleground got him from level 24 1/2 to 28 today. Yay!

/Waves

So, I started to doodle...

2010-12-27T00:28:00.006-05:00

And this happened.

(Windstar and Jahira, for anyone that can't guess)

Aren't they cuuuute? And yes, I may be working on a little bit of RP with the two of them. Stories may be incoming.

P.S. Good golly Windstar is a big kitty. /boggle

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T16:02:00.002-05:00

Everyone have a good (and safe) holiday!

A Bit Delayed

2010-12-19T16:43:00.003-05:00

I've been keeping myself so busy in-game (when I'm not stuck at work), I'm afraid this is a few days late. Sorry!

First of all, I have my first level 85:

Oh yea, Kel and Jahira are both on Feathermoon now, and I am so happy I don't know what to do with myself. My main characters are finally on an RP server, where they should have been from the start. It feels good, even if Kel does miss her old friend, who is still on Gilneas. Also, I've managed to get my second account, so I get to imitate my sister and RP with 2 characters at once. The first time I had Kal and Windstar on together, I kind of had a 'squee' moment.

Kel has also gotten the best achievement in the game (hehe):

I'm still figuring out which one I'm going to focus on next, but just with tinkering around while I decide, I have gotten Jahira, Arien, and Caderly (who is staying on Gilneas) up to 81. For the time being, I'm mostly trying to get Kel's gear up to heroic-level, and work on everyone's professions. (Most of Arien's level actually came from mining xp, hehe.) I'm also having fun with Kel's archeology, although my short attention span makes it a bit slow to skill up. Her pets are also taking turns getting leveled up, with her 'mains' (Sabre, Loq, her new shale spider/rock crab Shale, and a couple others I can't remember atm) all at 85 already. She has also discovered Tol Barad, and will be making sure to do all her dailies there whenever possible. (Yay, 2 mounts and a pet \o/ and some decent gear.)

And that's all I can think of for now. I promise I am finishing the story bit with Kal's reaction to the Cataclysm, it's just taking a while to get past 'ooo shiny'-inspired writer's block. Hopefully it will be done and posted before much longer. /Waves

Sightseeing

2010-12-04T20:04:00.006-05:00

Storytime is being briefly interrupted by a trip I took with my sister. Kal took her baby human hunter out to Gilneas on her motorbike, because she wanted one of the mastiffs. While we were out there, we took a trip over most of the zone, just seeing the place and plotting RP spots for Arnen (her human) and my yet-to-be-created worgen hunter.

Short explanation in case anyone gets confused. We're making these characters for RP, they're brothers that have been separated by the Greymane Wall for years, and will be reunited sometime after Cata becomes official on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to a new toon, new plots, and after seeing what Gilneas looks like now, I'm getting really excited about the new zone.

And now, have some screenshots:

There's no people in the zone yet, but me and sis might have found the brothers' home (Keel Harbor, second picture), and we've been working out some tentative details for their backstory. We just need the zone's population put in so we can find out if the house we picked will be full of NPCs or not.

Now I just need to think of/reserve a name for my worgen... :P I have also run into a bit of writer's block with my story. I know roughly how it will finish, but I haven't figured out exactly how it will get to that point. It's a little frustrating, but hopefully I'll get it finished soon.

And that's it for now. /Waves

Storytime: Cataclysm pt.2

2010-12-01T23:56:00.002-05:00

Have a sad-Kal-rant. Enjoy!

Elf and human sat next to each other on the edge of the canal, their feet dangling just above the waterline. Kal was slightly hunched, staring at her hands, amost as if she was deliberately trying to keep from looking at the wreckage across from them. Arien finally reached over to place a hand on her friend's shoulder.

"At least not many died, and none of our friends or family have been hurt, that we know of. And I can make you a new motorbike in a few days." Kal just gave a faint shake of her head. "I'm not really worried about the bike. And I am grateful nobody we know got hurt. It's just..." She finally raised her head to gaze over the still-smoking pit across the canal.

"We were there when I first met Windstar. It's where we first-." Kal cut herself off when she noticed Arien's faint blush, then after a moment she continued. "It's where that blasted thing attacked Channi. Which was awful, but it happening helped me realize how much I was falling in love with her. It's where she first kissed me. Where we first..." She paused again, glancing sidelong at her friend. "Yes, Kal, I know." Arien sighed quietly, her blush deepening slightly. Kal gave a very faint smirk. She quickly sobered, however.

"It feels like those memories have been violated. Like, with the place wrecked, they might just fade from my mind like...." She quickly glanced away, rubbing at her eyes for a moment. Arien simply sat and watched her, then finally reached over to gently brush the long scar running across her cheek with one finger. Kal's hand came up and caught Arien's, quickly lowering it back to the paladin's lap. Her voice was so quiet Arien could barely hear, and was slightly hoarse with long-suppressed grief. "Yes, that. And Alli. And Kira. And all of the short flings and one-nighters that I can't even remember the names of. I keep hoping and telling myself, this time it's different. That neither me or Channi are going anywhere. That this time it's gonna last. But all the others, they had messes like this screw everything up, too, and then boom it's over and we all move on. And gods, I'm getting sick of it." She abruptly stood and stalked off, in the direction of the Harbor. Arien was left sitting, watching her leave. After a moment, the paladin sighed again, rubbed briefly at her stinging eyes, then stood and followed.

I promise, this mood is going to be temporary for Kal. To be continued...

Storytime: Cataclysm

2010-11-30T06:02:00.004-05:00

Little bit delayed, I know. Work and spending time in-game tend to do this a lot. Short one this time, because I have once again stayed up way, way too late.

Kal stood at the edge of the new crater, looking at what once had been the Park. The canal bridge behind her was the only marker left to tell her that she was looking at the right place. As she stared blankly at the space the apartment had stood, the only place she had ever called 'home', she felt a trace of anger slowly rising through her shock and grief. She finally tore her eyes from the spot of broken pavement, and looked down at the wreckage in the deep hole that... something... had left. Just as she thought, she couldn't see anything that even might have passed for any of her or Arien's belongings. She finally accepted the realization that the two of them were left with what they were wearing or carrying, that all their other worldly possessions were gone beyond recovery. She absently thought to herself, Ari's gonna miss all her books. Oh, gods, where are we gonna sleep tonight? Maybe the Rose has our old room free. That'll mean no private time with Channi, but she's probably still busy somewhere. Oh bloody Elune, I hope she's okay...

Kal finally turned away, walking back to where she had left Myte at the other end of the bridge. She mounted, and rode at a slow walk in the direction of the Pig. When she got close, however, she realized that she didn't really want to be around people at the moment, and turned the 'saber towards the gryphon master. Perhaps beating in the skulls of a few of the scattered cultists would make her feel a little better. She suddenly heard static from her buzzbox, and reined Myte in. It was the private channel she and Arien used, so she quickly pulled it from it's pouch and turned it up.

"Kal, are you there? Please answer me."
Crackle hiss click. "I'm here, sis. Where are you? You alright?"
"I'm okay. Someone just told me that something huge just flew over Stormwind and wrecked it. Are you-"
"Only the Park, Ari. And yes, I'm fine, I was out of town when it happened."
"Sigh. Oh thank the Light. I'm coming home now. Want to meet me at the docks?"
"Coming in by boat? Sure thing, I'll see ya there soon." Click.

Holy bloody Elune, how am I gonna tell her...

(To be continued...)

At least someone is ready...

2010-11-23T02:14:00.005-05:00

So the world is getting torn apart tomorrow. (Or later today, depending on how you look at it.) I have to admit, I'm not sure if I'm ready for it. Kelesaria's good as far as gear and such, but Skoll is still eluding her, and I had really wanted him before getting swamped with distractions. Windstar is also in good shape, although she still doesn't have her title yet. Silithus isn't going anywhere though, so her rep grind can continue unimpeded. And I guess we still have a little over a week before the really major stuff becomes available, i.e. worgen and leveling and stuff.

There is one character, at least, that is ready and just waiting for the patch/expansion to hit.

Let me introduce Shadepaw. She's a new tauren hunter I created on the Nessingwary server, to eventually hang out with all the fellow hunter/pet addicts at Petopia. It's a normal server, so she doesn't really RP much, but she has her own personality, and a tiny bit of a backstory. She also has a lot of pets already. When I saw what was happening to some of the rare spawns in Cataclysm however, I just had to take her out and collect a couple more.

First of all, let me mention that I absolutely ADORE the saber-mount model. Cats in general are my favorite pets, but there's just something about that model in particular that makes me go "Ooooh". Every hunter I have that is a high enough level has some version of it, even though Rajji only has the spirit beast. (He's getting the new version of Shango asap, though. Troll + tiger = win!) So, when I saw Shadowclaw and Duskstalker's new looks, I just had to grab them, and Shadepaw just seemed like a good choice.

Shadowclaw was first, mostly just to delay having to ghost-run through to Teldrassil. Also, since he stealths, I figured he would be more difficult to find. I was right. It took a couple days of logging on Shade at his spawn area, alternating between standing at a certain spot and running all over the area spamming my target/hunter's mark macro, then getting bored and logging onto another toon to take a break. Then finally:

Duskstalker was a LOT easier, once I got poor Shade past Darnassus. (Although, it was slightly amusing to have her run through the portal at Ru-whateverit'scalled Village, then having her killed by the Darnassian guards before my loading screen even finished. Lag ftl?) After all that, I just had to run to his spawn area, and make a lap hitting my macro. She had him tamed before her rez sickness had worn off.

Might seem a little anti-climactic, but easy tames make me pretty happy. Now I just need a name for my soon-to-be white leopard. Shadowclaw is now Shado, but Duskstalker is getting such a different skin that I just can't think of anything that fits him right now. Something will likely pop into my head soon after his remodel, so I'm not really worried about it.
- - -
Work is still wearing me out, and I think I may lose what little sanity I have before the holidays are over, but at least busy = time going by quicker. The weather has been really weird all fall, though. For example, the temperature was in the low 70s today, and it's supposed to be the same tomorrow. But I also heard that Wednesday-Friday(?) was supposed to be yucky and rainy. *Shrug* Welcome to Virginia weather?

Anyways, two more days of work, then I am lucky enough to be off on Thursday.Yay! Right now though, it's bedtime. /Waves

Storytime- "Scratch"

2010-11-11T04:59:00.003-05:00

The wind rider cub that my sis got me is Kal's only in character pet, and this is how she found him. Enjoy!

Kal reined in her gryphon, wheeling in a tight circle over a tiny dark spot on the pale dead-grass plains outside of Warsong Hold. She landed, dismounted, and slowly approached the squalling creature, keeping an eye out for both the orc guards and the roaming undead that patrolled the area. Once she was close enough, she saw that the source of the plaintive cries was a tiny baby wyvern, young and very thin, but otherwise healthy-looking. She approached carefully, only to have the tiny thing scamper away, staying a few steps out of reach. Kal followed it almost halfway around Warsong Hold before she finally stopped, staring at the cub in frustration, and sighed. She turned in disgust and took a few steps away, then glanced back and stopped. The cub had followed her, and was still only about four steps away. The warrior quirked her eyebrow, then took a few more steps, watching as the baby toddled after her. She stopped again, and the cub stopped too. She absently scratched at the scar on her cheek as she considered what to do next.

Finally, she looked up and whistled, signaling Wings, who dropped from the sky to land next to her. The wyvern cub took a few steps away at the sight of the gryphon, then sat staring with his head cocked almost sideways. Kal dug inside one of the saddlebags and found some of her trail rations. She then waved Wings back into the sky, and turned back towards the cub. She held up a strip of jerky, and made a show of nibbling on it, then held her hand out. The cub stared, and took a step closer. Kal knelt down on the rough grass, and waved the dried meat at the cub again. A couple drops of saliva fell from it's tiny jaws, and it came closer, stopping again just barely out of reach. Kal broke a bite of jerky off, and tossed it next to the cub. It pounced, practically inhaling the tidbit. It's mind made up, the baby wyvern then scampered up to Kal and ferociously 'attacked' the hand holding the rest of the jerky. Kal gave a chuckle that was quickly interrupted by an "Ow" as the sharp claws missed the meat and found her wrist. She let him yank the jerky out of her hand and watched as he wolfed it down. He then looked up at her with an inquisitive "Rawr?", obviously wanting more. Kal slowly reached for him, and he stood still, only flinching slightly when she touched him. He allowed her to gather him up, and she whistled for Wings again. The cub had a brief moment of panic when the larger predator landed, scoring Kal's arms with his claws again, but she held on and crooned softly to him until he calmed. She climbed into her saddle, and urged Wings into the air and towards Valiance Keep, earning more scratches as the cub panicked again.

- - - -

The cub 'rawr'ed playfully as he swatted at Arien's hands. She giggled at him, and let him have the tidbit she had been hiding inside one fist. Kal chuckled too, and the paladin grinned up at her friend. "He sure is a cutey. So what do you think happened to him?" she asked. The warrior shrugged. "Most likely thing I can think of? The orcs tossed him out the door 'cause he's a runt. He ain't much bigger than a kitten, but his appetite and claws are big enough that I think he's older than he looks. He'll be lucky to reach half the size of the war mounts they're breeding out there, and they didn't want to waste space and food on him." Arien looked almost angry for a moment, then she shrugged, resigned. "Well, it's their loss. He'll get more than big enough for a good 'guard dog'. And even if he can't carry anyone, he can still follow you on Wings." Kal nodded, smiling at the baby contentedly. "Oh," Arien said, "What are we going to call him?" "I already thought of that, on the way home." Kal replied, and held out one arm. "His name is Scratch." Her arm was covered from fingers to elbow in thin, red lines, most of them small, but one or two of the claw marks were deep enough to possibly leave scars. Her other arm was in pretty much the same condition. Arien winced at the sight. "Um, do you want me to heal those? They have got to be pretty painful." Kal shrugged one shoulder unconcernedly. "They look worse than they feel. Besides..." She gave her friend an almost wolfish grin. "Sympathy from a certain someone is worth a few scratches." Arien blinked at her for a moment, then quietly covered her face with one hand, but not before Kal saw that she was trying hard to stifle a laugh. Scratch looked up at both of them, then gave a loud 'rawr' and pounced on Kal's boot.

Getting Closer...

2010-11-10T02:34:00.005-05:00

Cataclysm is creeping up on us, and I've been thinking (as I'm sure a lot of people have) about what I would like to do first once it's installed and the servers are up and (hopefully) running.

First of all? Take Kelesaria to Hyjal. It is one of the most important places for her, and after being locked out with the rest of the world, she wants to go back and see if everything is still in one piece, especially after Deathwing does his thing.

That said, I'm wondering now if Kel will be my first character to the new level cap. My sis is moving her two last RP characters from Gilneas to Feathermoon, and I really want Kel and Jahira to go as well. Having the entire Stormbough/Riversong crews together on the same server is just too good to not happen, plus the thought of my girls being all by themselves is sort of depressing. The biggest problem with that will be server space. Feathermoon is already full for me, so two characters will have to either move (which is getting a bit much for my bank account) or get hit with the delete hammer. The only character I might be willing to remove would be Tadrith, since Kel would take over the 'hunter' spot on the server, and I hardly play him anymore anyways. However, I really don't want to, because #1, he is 80, and I really hate deleting a toon I spent that much time and effort with, and #2, he is Windstar's brother, and I don't want him to become just an invisible player-NPC. As far as transfers, I could move my warlock to Gilneas, and take either Rajji or Taarren, both of whom just got transfered to Feathermoon, and move them to either Gilneas, or to Nesingwary, where I have started a new baby tauren hunter to possibly hang out with the people from the Petopia forums, who have made a guild there. One problem with that, however, is professions. Rynia is a tailor/alchemist, both of which I already have on Gilneas, and I would lose access to those on Feathermoon if she gets moved. The only other option is the one I really want to do, and that is to get a second account. I think I could afford the second $15 a month (especially if I just buy game cards), I'm just not sure I could justify the price of another game. Maybe Christmas might help with that? I'll have to wait and see for now.

Another thought on having a second account: Kal, Tad, and Jahira will be getting moved over to it, which means that Windstar and Tad could be in-game together. As well as Kal with either Windstar, Arien, or Riatha. Just thinking about it almost gives me happy-goosebumps.

Back to the thought I had started that paragraph with: With Kel possibly moving servers, Caderly will become my new main raider on Gilneas. I'm pretty sure my guild will want to start gearing for and running raids ASAP, which means I'll have to level him first. So Kel may have to settle for the #2 spot. I actually think I could live with that, to be honest. The quests would be less frustrating the second time through (I hope), when I would have an idea of what I'm doing and where to find stuff. And since it would only be the second character, I wouldn't be burned out or bored with the content yet.

Now about new alts... Worgen hunter and druid, and troll druid, are all definately happening. I'm not sure which server(s), and I don't know how serious I will be at leveling and gearing those characters, but new forms and pets are too much to pass up. There is also the possibility of Vanyell turning from Forsaken to Night Elf, once the highborn make the class available. I'm also planning on a tauren pally, who will be pure ret, of course. :)

And, well, that's all I can think of for now. I'm still thinking about that post sis did, and about the impact of Cataclysm on my characters RP-wise. Hopefully that will be sorted enough to actually write and post soon. I also have a short story written, I just keep getting distracted when I try to post it. I'll probably put it up tomorrow. (Err, later today?) But for now, dozing off at keyboard = bedtime. /Waves

Omigolly

2010-11-07T05:59:00.005-05:00

I got him I got him I GOT HIM!!!

Decided to do a quick fly-around in the Basin before bed, and there he was, prancing along up the west side of the zone. Just had to dismount, pop a haste potion, and hit the tame button. Nice, easy ending to a rather uneventful camp. Not nearly as long as Loque, though.
Now to get more serious about camping Skoll. Later, though. Must go try to sleep now (if I can after getting this awesome fella :D) /Waves

p.s. Yes, Kel has 2 devilsaurs now. She is keeping both of them. Also, will work on another 'update' type post soon. Sis has made me start thinking about the impact that the Cataclysm will have on some of my girls, too, so I'll have something about that as well. Hopefully within the next week or so, if my ADD will let me get my thoughts about it all in order. /Waves again

Update and Stuff

2010-10-21T05:14:00.003-04:00

As I write this...

Tadrith has gotten Aubri up to 80.
Kelesaria has done the same with Rhaj. Fierro the core hound is 2 bubbles from 80.
She has also tamed a jormungar worm. Shayd is already 80, thank goodness.
She is also beginning to Skoll-camp.
Kel, Jahira, and Arien have all gotten the Headless Horseman's mount. Caderly, Arien and Riatha all have squashling pets.
I have spontaneously decided to (casually) work on Kel's 100-mount achievement. She's up to 70 so far. This may take a while...
Windstar is helping sis's rogue Rillian get his Cenarian Expedition rep up. She might actually get her Guardian of Cenarius title before Cata comes out. Maybe.
I have been neglecting my guys on Durotan. I must fix this.
PetEmote, MyRolePlay, and WoWScribe have all been updated. This makes me happy.
Worms and core hounds have some very... interesting random emotes.

That is all for now. /Waves

Patch thoughts so far...

2010-10-17T00:56:00.007-04:00

In spite of most of my favorite addons being borked(/cry @ PetEmote and MyRolePlay), I have been busy the last couple days. It was mostly herb farming for the first couple days, to get everyone glyphed up, but I've done some pet-grinding and a couple heroics on some of my guys/girls, and here's some first impressions.

Hunters - I love focus. LOVE IT. Also, my hunters have almost all their old buddies back. Rajji has Razer the raptor, as well as all 3 of his lions (one of each color). He just needs to retame his serpent and he'll be all set. Tadrith has Aubri the dragonhawk and Treyvan the bear (his spirit beast has been renamed, of course). Kel has... way too many to remember. But I'll try. Tyran the devilsaur is back in the stables, as well as her owl Verdan, who will become ghostly when Cata goes live. And Ruggs the rhino, Shimmer the moth (who is white this time, since my lowbie orc alt has a blue one), and Kymeera the chimera. And Rhaj. Dear Rhaj, who was her very first pet, who kept the name through several skin changes, from nightsaber to black panther to white tiger. He had to go bye-bye when she got Sabre, but now he's back, and likely to be the first of her new ones to 80. I never realized how much I missed him until I went to tame him, but seeing him back at her side just feels... right. And yes, there will be a story later.

Paladin - HOLY FLIP BLIZZARD!!! Arien is more fun than ever. I love holy power, I LOVE the new ability, Templar's Verdict, seeing it crit for over 10k on a training dummy made my eyes almost pop out. Word of glory is awesome too. Instant heal with no mana cost? Yes please. (So useful for kiting Chillmaw.) Her dps has seen a pretty hefty increase, and with the new awesome currency system, she's going to be getting her couple last ilvl 200 items replaced before long. Short version: my pally addiction has been renewed.

Druids - I am sort of 'meh' about feral now. I haven't actually done anything with my feral druids yet (too busy with hunters), but the talent tree is a tad disappointing. Bear tanks should be happy, but the kitty side seems too shallow, with too many bear-oriented 'filler' talents to reach the good kitty ones. Balance does seem to be more fun now, though. I am liking the new eclipse system, and Starsurge is awesome. I will most likely be taking Jahira and Windstar through heroics soon to tinker more with both specs. Once I can make myself leave Arien and my hunters alone for a while...

Mage - Holy cow, Vanyell is fun. He has his water elemental (and named it Ty), and Ice Lance, and some pretty cool talents. And mana brownies. And space on my quickbars, after having all his port spells consolidated similar to the call pet setup. He's 45 now, btw, and possibly will become one of my 'mains' in Cata.

Warrior, death knight, warlock, rogue, and priest - I haven't really done anything with Kal, Riatha, or Caderly yet, so that will have to wait for a future post. The new stuff for shadow priests look danged awesome though, and I can't wait to start trying it out. I haven't done much with Talia either, though I did get her spec'ed and glyphed (more or less). She on my list of 'lowbies that need to be leveled', though, so she'll be shadow-stepping her way along sometime hopefully soon. Rynia has gotten some playtime, and the new stuff for 'locks is fun too (even when all the fun stuff keeps proc'ing right as the mobs die). I really oughta get her up to 80 before Cata comes... :\

Shaman - Taarren's elemental spec is even more fun than before. Unfortunately, her haste seems to have gone down, so she's not doing so well in heroics because stuff dies before she can do much more than drop her totems, fire nova, and flameshock. She had gotten to play with Earthquake though, and I like it. Finally shamans have some real AoE! I haven't even done the talents for her enhancement side, because I really believe I'll just be ignoring it, like I have been. I'll fix it up and test it out sometime, though.

And that's all I can think of so far. I've got another post, about what I want to do before Cata and what I want to do first when it comes out, sorting itself out in my head, so that may be coming up hopefully in the next day or so.

/Waves

New Old Friends

2010-10-13T07:32:00.004-04:00

I will try to get a better post about how much I love this patch sometime when I haven't been up all night. For now, have a happy reunion. :)

That's right, Kel has her baby back. Boo yea.

Hunter + Boredom = ...New Pet?

2010-09-30T01:19:00.006-04:00

Boredom can make me do some really off-the-wall stuff sometimes. Like today. I had been poking on the Petopia forums, and just for kicks, I read the thread about how to tame The Beast in LBRS. I had never been a fan of core hounds, with their loud footsteps and annoying growl, but the thought of my 'uber huntress' having a pet with a 'boss' tag was very tempting.

So I'm off work today and tomorrow, and I took a day from my new LotRO addiction to tinker on WoW. The Beast was still in the back of my mind, and when I got on Kel to do a holiday Direbrew run for some easy frost badges, I decided what the heck. She has a lot of older tier gear in her bank, because I am a packrat (in-game, I'm not nearly as bad irl), so I got out anything with +haste on it, and regemmed them with haste gems. Then mailed her some worg meat for buff food, and some speed potions and elixirs. Then finally I felt like I was ready for an attempt.

After a few tries, I figured it wasn't going to work out. Her cast time for tame beast was still too long, and he kept knocking her back and interrupting it. I couldn't find the forum post to get more ideas, but I did discover that one of the PVP trinkets has a nice chunk of haste. A bunch of stone keeper shard turn-ins and a couple battlegrounds later, with the purchase of a rep belt with more haste, and a couple more gems, I decided to try again. She had over 600 haste rating by then, all buffed up, but when she got back to the Beast's room and had another go, it still wasn't enough. This was getting a bit discouraging, and I didn't know any shamen that could have come helped with heroism, so I was about to give up. I decided to have just one more try, though. And guess what?

I have no clue what happened that time, but IT WORKED!! My lil hunter has tamed a boss. /flex Now I just need to wait for Cataclysm and more stable slots, so I can start planning my King Krush hunt. >.>

The only bad part is that Kel had to let Tyran the devilsaur go. I'm going to miss him, but really, it's just a temporary separation. And he really was the only 'expendable' pet she had. He'll be one of the first she re-tames after the expansion, though. But for now, Kel has a big drooly puppy to level. Even if you can't tell because of the boss skull on his portait. /grin

/Waves

Storytime: Young Kal

2010-09-28T02:13:00.003-04:00

Have a random Kal story. I don't think I've ever really mentioned just how close Kal and Riatha were before Riatha was killed and reborn as a Death Knight. Riatha pretty much raised Kal, acting as mother, sister, and best friend to Kal for most of her life. Even after her transformation, Ria is still always there for her 'baby sister'.

Riatha followed her ears to the source of the whimpering she heard. Sure enough, there was her sister, huddled in a corner of the small parlor, trying to stifle her tears. The young Sentinel-in-training deliberately bumped a small table just hard enough to rattle the knick-knacks sitting on it, letting Kal know she was there without startling her. The tiny elven girl looked up quickly, but then relaxed when she saw who it was. "Ria, didn't see you there, sorry," she mumbled. Riatha came over and sat on a nearby couch, looking her sister over critically. "Okay, who was it this time, babe. The boys again?" Kal sniffed as she joined Riatha on the couch, huddling on one end. "Nah, was the girls this time. They was all playing dress-up, and when I told 'em I didn't wanna join, they started callin' me names." She turned her head, trying to wipe her eyes against her shoulder.

Riatha gave a quiet grunt, and began looking inside the drawers of the table, pulling a hankerchief out of the second one. She leaned closer to her little sister, gently wiping her eyes, then handing the hanky over so Kal could blow her nose. After doing so, Kal rested her chin on her drawn-up knees, staring at the opposite wall. "Why're they all like that, Ria? All they care about is how pretty they think they are. It's so bloody boring." Riatha stifled a chuckle, and replied, "Don't say that around Mother, you know she doesn't like that language. And I don't know. I guess some people are just like that. Not everyone can be as eager about learning to fight and scout as you, you know." She reached over to ruffle Kal's hair, making her duck, grumbling. Suddenly, Kal sat up and leaned over to give Riatha a hug. "Least I got someone to talk to 'bout it. Even if we don't understand 'em, we can still complain to each other about 'em, right?" She grinned mischievously up at her sister. Riatha grinned back, and returned the hug warmly. "Right."

Distractions

2010-09-21T04:15:00.002-04:00

So, I'm still keeping pretty busy. Lord of the Rings Online is now free-to-play, which means I got to dust off my 2 accounts and get back into the best game environment I've ever found. Yes, I have 2 accounts. I blame a mix-up with the 2 trial versions I got to tinker with before I got addicted-I mean- started playing my own 'real' account. Although I have spent most of the time on said 'real' account.

It's nice playing a game where when a question is asked, even if it's the 347th time for THE EXACT SAME QUESTION, and instead of sarcasm or even downright cruel answers, people actually give help. I think the main frustration with WoW lately has been that so many people decide to be complete jerks, mostly because of the LFD tool. Why give the effort to be nice to someone you'll likely never see again, right? Uh, wrong, for me at least. LotRO has the best community I've ever played in, which I have missed, even more than fun, addicting professions and the amazing music system. (Seriously, Blizzard, put a woodworking profession and a music-playing system in WoW and I will love you forever.)

Well, besides beating up wild animals, bandits, and orcs on LotR, work has still been seriously kicking my tail, although, if I'm careful, I don't hurt quite as much. And in addition, Kal has been poking in my head, and I've been writing a ton of stuff about her. Nearly all back-story stuff, since current RP is pretty much non-existent for now. The one or two times I have been awake enough to participate, nothing has been going on, and the times stuff actually happens, I end up hearing about it from sis after I wake up from crashing as soon as I got home from work. I really do miss my friends, though. And Kal misses 'her girl' too. *sigh*

And now I get to grab about 3 hours of sleep before my next long shift at work. *grumble,why do I keep doing this,grumble* /sleepywave

Woot!

2010-09-12T03:55:00.009-04:00

Yay for accomplishments. His tailoring is ~440 now, too. He had his ebonweave robe and gloves and a bunch of other stuff made, all ready to wear when he dinged. Then I went and completed all but Occulus for his Northrend dungeonmaster, so he could learn the Wispcloak pattern. On a whim, I decided to try one heroic before going to bed, and guess what popped? Occulus. So he can make the cloak now, and has a spiffy achievement.

I spent today on Allods, leveling my caster-spec priest (who happens to be also named Caderrly. I'm good at names, aren't I? :P), who is now about halfway to 18.

(Why yes, he does have a funky-looking bishop hat. Feel free to laugh at it. :P)

I'll probably be back on WoW tomorrow. (Er, later today?) At least, around work and stuff. Honestly, if my bank account wasn't finally getting a little less depressing, I would be really hating my job right now. Worse than I already do, I mean. From last Friday, 9/3, til Tuesday, 9/14, I will have worked 10 of the 12 days. My joint problems are making me pretty danged miserable, and the fact that the weather is changing towards fall doesn't help. Cold nights mean waking up stiff and sore, and having to face a day at work just makes me want to hide under the covers and not come out ever again. It is nice not having to worry as much about paying my share of the rent, but sometimes I wonder if it really is worth it. /Sigh

Although, on a good note, last Thursday I got to help rescue a kitten from a car engine in the parking lot.

And with that, I must go sleep. /Waves

Been Busy... (lots of pics)

2010-08-29T00:52:00.012-04:00

Sorry for the long /afk again, but I've been distracted lately. I've actually been taking a small break from Warcraft to try out a new game my brother plays, Allods. So far it's been a blast. Not quite as addicting as WoW, but a lot of fun. And the gameplay and graphics are at least as good as WoW. Have a few examples:

Some of the scenery-

There are critters EVERYWHERE in this game. And they are all CUTE!

While tinkering on that stuff, I've been doing a project with Caderlly, my little Forsaken shadow priest. I was planning to server/faction switch him, but before I did, I wanted the ravasaur mount (because I heard that it turns to a winterspring frostsaber for faction switchers). So for 21 days (I missed one day, I'm bad), Cad was out collecting meat, eggs, and feathers for his tiny baby ravasaur. I finished it Thursday, and today did the switch. Ta-da!

(No shadowform, so you can actually see the pretty mounts :P)
That's one toon off Durotan, 3 more to go. Hopefully it won't take a few more months before Taarren gets her turn. I'm getting back into WoW again too, so Cad should be 80 and hitting heroics before too long. I'm kinda sorta hoping to get him geared quickly, so I can start trying to get him into raids on occasion. I love raiding on Kel, but she's getting most of the gear I want on her, and it would be nice to have something different to do. Plus, Cad was my main raider horde-side during BC, and I've missed him. I just hope my guild will cooperate with him staying shadow. I haven't touched his holy off-spec for several levels now, and I don't really like priest healing, or healing raids in general. I may even respec his holy side to a shadow PVP spec, haven't decided yet.

And now I think I've rambled enough for now. Hopefully the next update will be sooner. And will most likely have more Allods in it. >.>
/Waves

Have some new arts

2010-08-09T23:36:00.006-04:00

I actually did these a while ago, but I've been too busy/distracted to put 'em up here.

First- Have a Jahira (about to pounce on someone, most likely her brother):

And a wolf, inspired by one of the pictures on my calender:

And finally, meet Kelesaria's best friend, Sabre:

That one was just a quick sketch, nothing fancy. Maybe someday I'll add some details, like his stripes and stuff, but I'm not nearly as ambitious as my sister is with her drawings. :P

And that's it for now. My RP itch is starting to come back, but now everyone is tinkering on alts, or on vacation, or something. It's getting a bit frustrating. And more than a bit lonely... So I usually go back to my own alts, or leveling Feathermoon-Riatha's professions. Or watching Cataclysm stuff on youtube. (Can't wait for worgen omygolly.) At least my own vacation is coming up soon. Yay for a whole week away from work! /Waves

p.s. Nightwish's album Dark Passion Play is AMAZING!
p.p.s. Have you ever had something you wanted to tell people, but you were too afraid of how they would respond to actually say anything? It really stinks.

Short Post is Short... sort of

2010-08-03T03:04:00.000-04:00

Not much going on. Kel's guild raided ICC again, but I was only there for the first night (Wednesday). The reason was, Friday night me and sis went to hang out with our brother and some friends, then Saturday was a friend's engagement party. Perhaps I should feel guilty for skipping on the raids, but you know what? I had fun for the first time in... well, a very long time. WoW has not been the fun distraction that it used to be, and I think it has been good for me to be around people, especially family. There has been almost nothing to do lately except heroics, dailies, and rep grinds, and it's all just getting a bit boring. Especially since one of my friends has suddenly been MIA, and another has been distracted by Starcraft 2. Don't worry, I'm not quitting the game or anything, not even close. I'm just sort of taking it easy with it, until the expansion comes out.

On that note, I have rerolled Kalenedral's sister Riàtha on Feathermoon. Since my financial situation has yet to improve, and I had made a character to hold the name, I decided to just level that toon, instead of transfering my 80 from Gilneas. Only problem so far is, I have no idea what to do proffession-wise. She has mining right now, for money, but I'm not sure whether to take another money-maker, or try (again) to skill up a blacksmith.

Work is still wearing me down, but my hours are slightly better this week, so at least my paycheck will be decent. Maybe. I hope.

And it is way too late, and I haven't been sleeping well lately, so I'm off to bed. I need to stop trying to write blog posts this late, I really do. /waves

More in ICC

2010-07-25T17:59:00.005-04:00

Kel and Co. went back to Icecrown over the weekend. Friday night didn't go so well, as it was a 'learning night'. We wound up beating our heads against Putricide for several attempts before we gave up. We made progress each time, though, so we weren't too disapointed. By the end we were consistantly getting to phase 2, and even got to phase 3 a couple times. We just had trouble with getting the slimes down before the transitions.

Saturday night was better. We still took a few attempts, but we were getting to phase 3 almost right off the bat, and still improving each try. Finally:

We got him down quick enough, we had time to start working on another new boss. The officers decided that Dreamwalker would most likely be the easiest to learn, so we headed over. Again, it took us a few tries with killing adds fast enough, and in the end we had 5 healers (2 pallies and a druid on the dragon and 2 more druids on the raid), and it finally clicked:

Fun times. :D

Oh yea, we did VoA right before ICC on Saturday, and my sis's DK got his t10 gloves. /score

Can't wait for next week! /waves

Raiding again (finally)

2010-07-22T23:28:00.003-04:00

It took a week after the GM's return, but we finally had people show up for last night's raid. I've missed raiding, so it was pretty dang fun. We took out Jarraxus for the weekly, with one practice wipe (>.>). Then it was back into ICC, where we discovered the pity buff was up to 30%. Geez.

It all went really well. We one-shot pretty much everything, except for one wipe on Festergut. Not even sure what happened, but we got him next try with almost a minute before the enrage timer. Then had the easiest Rotface fight ever. It was getting late by then, so we're gonna start at Proff P. Friday night.

The best part of the whole night?

Kel got a new toy. Lady Deathwhisper finally decided to be nice and drop her bow. Kel's next 3 kill shot crits after equipping it were all for 22k-26k. (Her previous best was somewhere around 21k or so.) Needless to say, I was very happy. Then after we were done for the night, she had enough frost badges to grab her T10 gloves. Happy happy hunter.

I'm still working on alts, but I'll save that for the next post. Oh, and a little bit of good news: stuff at my job has been a little better this week, so my depression is somewhat better. We'll have to see what next week will be like, but for now, I'm doing okay. Only problem is being scheduled for 5 days straight, but most of them were short shifts, so I didn't get as many hours as I would have preffered. And I'm tired and sore as heck. Only one day to go before I get a day off to rest, though.

And that's it for now. /Waves

On a happier note...

2010-07-19T12:49:00.004-04:00

Yay, my first level 80 death knight. And another toon to grind heroics with. /Sigh.

And I was working on the Sons of Hodir quests when she dinged. I think every one of my toons have been on that chain when they hit 80, except one. I think it was Tadrith, iirc.

Now Rynia the warlock and Caderlly the priest get to compete for my short attention span. Two clothies, eek.

Nothing else interesting going on right now. /Waves

An Update and an Apology

2010-07-16T21:36:00.003-04:00

Well, I have been working on alts a lot lately. My tauren druid Bearkat is 76 and tanking stuff like a pro (which I am not, har har). Talía the Belf rogue is slowly getting up there, sitting at 26 now. Rynia the warlock is almost 74 and going through the Wrathgate quest chain. My undead shadow priest Caderlly is 74 too, and doing Wrathgate from the horde side. And my death knight Riatha is finally up to 79, and working on getting her to 80 next. I have been doing a little bit on my neglected draenei shammy too. She is dual specced for elemental now, and I'm trying to collect some caster gear for her (with help from a friend). On hindsight, I probably should have just saved the gold and respecced her, rather than buying her dual spec. Oh well.

As far as my 80s go, Kelesaria is trying to start raiding again. My GL is no longer MIA, and the guild is trying to get going again. Only problem is, all our regulars from before are now MIA most of the time. /Sigh. Jahira has switched her resto spec for a tanking spec, and it's been pretty fun. Playing Bearkat made me realize how much I've missed bear tanking, and it's been good to have Jahira back at it, after being a guild tank for the end of BC. I still run into the random jerks in LFD, but hey, that's what /ignore is for, right? Windstar has been getting some play time, even if it is only to run around picking herbs for Rynia's alchemy. I've missed my lil kitty, and I may start playing her more after I get bored with my leveling binge. My tauren shaman Taarren has been getting somewhat geared up. Switching her back to elemental was definately a good idea. Enhancement was fun, but there's a lot of little details to keep track of in order to play well, and I was getting slightly frustrated with it. Elemental is quite a bit simpler, and tons of fun. Rajji and Tadrith have sadly been neglected. Not that I'm getting tired of huntering, it's just that, when I do want to play a hunter, I want to be on Kel. And honestly, it doesn't really bother me that much.

And then there's Kal. Argh. For reasons that I will get into in a minute, I haven't been able to do much on Kal lately. I have been doing her JC daily, and sometimes I'll do a heroic as well, but then I get bored, or something, and switch to another toon. I really want to play Kal, but when I'm on her... I don't know.

I think mostly, it's just that I have been really depressed lately. Depression is a problem I have had for the last couple of years, but usually I'm able to distract myself from it, with friends and WoW. This time around, however, nothing is really working. Trying not to go into details, but I have just been feeling frustrated, ignored, and alone lately. My brother (when he is not at his base in another state) and one of my WoW friends have been helping, but really, there's only so much they can help me with right now. My schedule and other issues at work, and a ton of financial problems, have only been making it all worse. My job makes me tired all the time, I have health issues that I don't have the money to fix, and I have been having trouble sleeping, even when I'm worn out from work.

So, the point to all this is, I want to say I'm sorry to my Warcraft friends. I don't know if anyone has even noticed my absence from RP time, or when I'm hiding on different servers/factions. But right now, even as lonely as I feel most of the time, I'm just not much fun to be around. I'm trying to get myself over this, it's just taking a while. Hopefully I can be back hanging around with everyone soon, without the bouts of self-pity and grumpiness.

And getting back to my problems with playing Kal... All I can say is, it's just too hard to play a character that is suposed to be happy, as well as being in an awesome relationship with someone she adores, when I am so miserable and lonely. Not to mention the fact that Kal hasn't even seen 'her girl' in-game in weeks. Again, I am sorry. I just can't keep this going on my own, so I'm resorting to avoiding it. The worst part is, all my other RL problems are making it hard to care (much).

This has been one of the hardest posts I have ever written, and I'm probably going to be second-guessing posting it at all for a while. But I wanted the (most likely) few people who know me, who actually read this blog, to know what's been going on.

My 2 cents on RealID forums.

2010-07-08T21:00:00.005-04:00

So, this thing Blizzard wants to do with the forums, with putting people's real names on their posts, is ALL OVER the blogosphere right now, and I've been reading a lot of it, and this is just my simple opinion.

Bad, bad idea.

Seriously, what are these guys thinking? ARE they even thinking?? First of all, as BBB pointed out, this won't stop all the trolls, because some people won't care. Heck, some people might even be encouraged by this, I don't know.

Second, this is a frickin' game, NOT Facebook. I have a Facebook (and I am proud to say that everyone on my small list of friends are all people that I know). As one person stated, in a epically awesome post, most people come to Warcraft to escape the real world. We don't want to add RL social garbage to it.

And thirdly, as others have also pointed out, this is a HUGE breach in personal security. Just because some people don't care, or have common names, that doesn't mean everyone does. I haven't been stalked or harassed personally, but hearing about others that have scares the crap outa me. The fact that I have discovered, through a website someone linked, that there are exactly 2 people with my name in the U.S. just makes it worse. Only the fact that I am one of the most boring people on the planet makes me feel any better. Anyone trying to stalk me/steal my identity/what have you will be very disappointed. And thank goodness my ex was never the stalker/vengeful type.

I have never posted anything on the forums, and now I never will. (Not that I would ever have anything worth posting anyways, since I don't do theorycrafting and I'm too shy about my RP stories to put any in such a highly-trafficked place.) I don't plan on quitting, because the game itself is still fun, and it is still my main form of escape, and stress relief. If Blizz keeps up with this garbage, though, I'm not sure how long it will truly be an 'escape'.

I have been playing this game since vanilla release. Thinking of this makes me very sad.

"Chosen"

2010-07-03T04:21:00.015-04:00

(This may be a couple days late, but work/gametime has kept me very busy lately.)
So, after many many weeks of saving every copper I could, and getting lucky with finding a battered hilt cheaper than the usual buyout price, Kal has a Quel'Delar. It was totally worth it. Besides it being the best weapon you can get outside of raids, the questline was epic, in every sense of the word. I don't want to give any spoilers to anyone that wants to go through the chain themselves, but here is a bunch of screenies I took while going through it all. Possible spoiler stuff at the end. And I did miss taking screenshots of a few steps (because I was geeking out so much I forgot).

My favorite part? When Kal was purifying the sword, and Lor'themar tried to take it and got tossed across the room, and Auric told him, "Quel'Delar is not chosen, it chooses it's master." Kal actually felt very humbled that such a powerful weapon chose her for it's wielder. Almost every step of this chain gave me goosebumps, but that part of it was just amazing. I think it was even better than seeing her name yelled across Dalaran.

In other news, Rynia the warlock is now level 70, destruction is still the most fun spec EVER, and Kal and Channi are Flame Wardens. Yes, they did most of it together. The fact that the two of them have had almost no in-game time together lately just makes the achievement even better (even if RL depression problems made me a grouch for a lot of the bonfire collecting/desecrating, sorry Channi :( ).

And now I've stayed up way too late again. Danged insomnia. :(
/Waves

Kalenedral - Scars

2010-06-23T11:00:00.004-04:00

((So this took forever (darn you writer's block), but hopefully it will be worth the wait. I think I should apologize for the Massive Wall o'Text, but what started as just a simple story behind one of Kal's more prominent scars sort of turned into an important part of her backstory. This happened roughly 100 years before present-game-time, give or take a decade or so. PG-13 warning))

Kalenedral yawned as she nudged Nyte back towards the caravan. The start of the route was always the hardest, when leaving the comforts of a town for the rocky beds and dull trail rations of the road. Doesn't help when you stay up half the day, either, she thought, glancing at the guard commander. As if sensing her gaze, Tal looked back at her, and winked. Glancing around to make sure no one else was looking, he mimed a yawn at Kal, then grinned. Kal grinned back, shaking her head, as she approached.

"All clear to the road, sir." she reported. Tal nodded, and turned to signal the drivers to begin the journey.

The trade route between Astranaar and Feathermoon Stronghold was fairly easy most of the time, but it was long, the trail switching back and forth and detouring around mountainous regions most of the way. There were several places along the route where centaurs could attack, and a few points near where tauren tribes gathered, but enough guards usually deterred any attackers. The caravan was currently departing from Feathermoon, heading home to Astranaar, taking with it furs, ore, gems, and several old relics found in the ruins scattered across the mainland. It did pay very well, which mostly made up for the length and possible boredom of the trip.

Kal had dismounted briefly, to give Nyte a snack from the pouch on her saddle. When the drivers called out their readiness to start, she swung up onto his back and prepared to take her usual place, at the point. As she trotted her saber along the train of wagons, Tal watched her closely. She glanced back as she passed the leading wagon, and he caught her eye, giving her a slow wink. She flashed him a warm smile, and urged Nyte into a lope, as Tal called for the drivers to start.

- - - -

Talathian had joined the caravan route about a year after Kal. Within the next year, he was in charge of the guards. Calm, quiet, but forceful when necessary, he was a good commander, never asking any of his fighters to do anything that he was not willing to do himself. Kal wasn't sure exactly when she had fallen in love with him, but when the first tentative attempts at flirting began, she was quick to respond. The other guards found it amusing, and never said anything about the pairing to any of their superiors, at either end of the route. The drivers, of course, kept to themselves mostly, and hardly seemed to notice.

They were an unlikely pair, their personalities so different that some were surprised that they didn't drive each other crazy. Tal was quiet, level-headed, and didn't like drawing attention to himself unless it was necessary. Kal, on the other hand, was cocky, self-confidant, and could be hot-tempered at times. The two of them were practically inseperable, however, at least when they were on the road. Their differences seemed to balance each other, rather than cause problems. The level of respect they had for each other made sure there were no problems on the job, either. Kal had no trouble taking orders from her lover, and Tal always made sure she knew the reasons for those orders. All in all, it was as close to a perfect relationship that either of them could have asked for.

- - - -

The journey was looking to be completely uneventful, for the first couple days. The weather stayed reasonable, the road hadn't had any recent rockfalls or other obstructions. As they passed the border between Feralas and the land known as the Desolace, however, Kal began seeing some disturbing signs. At first she thought the hoofprints were just from random hunting parties, but over the next few days, she saw more and more of them, always in the same direction as the caravan route. Centaurs appeared to be stalking them. Or leading them, Kal couldn't tell which. And leading them could only mean one thing: a possible trap or ambush. As they neared the border of Stonetalon Mountains, she began spotting the tracks more often, and in even larger numbers.

"Tal," she called, reporting her from her latest scouting trip as camp was being set up for the day. "I found more hoofprints. Same as the last few times, fresh, leading our trail, and way too many of the urfes for a simple hunting party." She looked at him nervously as he watched the caravan, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Alright, m'love, maybe this is something serious, but what can we do about it? We're going as fast as we can now. Any faster and the horses will start wearing out, then we will be in trouble." He shrugged in frustration. Kal rubbed a hand over her face, her own frustration matching his.

"I still think we could try pushing on through at least part of the day. Maybe start a bit later so everyone gets some extra rest first. It will be unexpected, and might throw these bloody centaurs off our track," she responded, with a slight grumbling tone. The helplessness and uncertainty of feeling like they were being hunted was finally beginning to wear on her nerves. Tal finally turned towards her, as the last tent went up, and the cooking fires were all lit. He carefully looked her over, noticing the faint signs of stress she was starting to show. He stepped closer, putting his arms around her waist and pulling her body close against his own.

"I know, and it just might work, but I would like to see you convince all these people to change their habits. You know how set in their ways most of them are. Night has always been the time we are strongest, and it just seems to make the most sense for them if we are moving then. Please, just try to stop worrying about it? Just for a little while." He raised one hand to gently brush some stray hair out of her face. "I can think of something I'd much rather be doing than arguing over this..."

Kal looked up at him, and gave a slow, wolfish smile. Tal leaned down to give her a kiss, and slowly guided her towards his tent. Any thoughts of food or rest were quickly shoved to the back of their minds, as they tried very hard to make each other forget their troubles. At least for the next hour or so.

- - - -

Tal carefully untangled himself from Kal, settling down next to her close enough so their bodies were still touching. "Sweet holy Elune, Kal..." he whispered, panting slightly. She chuckled softly, curling close against him and nuzzling his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer and murmuring in her ear, "Love you." "Love you too," she whispered back. They were silent for several long seconds, then, "You know.." Tal began, thoughtfully, "When this trip is done, we should take off for a bit, just us two." Kal raised her head to look at him, one eyebrow raised. Tal grinned at her, a glint of mischief in his eyes. "It would be nice to really be alone for a few weeks. I've been saving for a long time, and I know you have too, so we can miss the next trip, if we wanted to." Kal nodded, a thoughtful smile on her face. They both suddenly looked at each other, identical grins on their faces. Tal voiced the thought they both had first. "Your mother is gonna be so scandalized." They both chuckled at the thought, then Kal settled back down again, her head resting on Tal's shoulder. She lay still for a long time after that, just listening to him breathe as he fell asleep.

- - - -

Tal watched Kal for several seconds, trying to make sure she really was still asleep and not just pretending. He leaned down to kiss her shoulder, only to have her eyes open before he had touched her. He completed the motion anyways, and she gave him a slightly-sleepy smile. "Someday," he whispered, "I'm going to wake up first and surprise you." "Keep dreaming, love," was her reply. She started to say something else, but then he kissed her again, and they quickly forgot about everything except each other for a while.

After the conversation, and the things she had found while scouting the previous day, Kal's lovemaking might have had a bit of desperation in it. Tal gave no indication of noticing, but he did hold her for a bit longer than usual, when they were done. Eventually, however, they had to get up and face the long night on the road.

Kal tried to ignore the vague sense of dread she was feeling, which slowly got stronger as the night passed. Finally, she was getting so jumpy, she came back to the caravan and sent two other scouts ahead to the point. She rode Nyte up and down the line of wagons, watching the sides of the trail for anything threatening, but seeing nothing. Tal stopped her only once, as the pre-dawn light began brightening the eastern sky. "Kal, I know you're nervous, but please, try not to do anything crazy?" he told her, looking at her worriedly. She could only look back at him, and then offer a sort of half-nod, half-shrug, then she went back to her 'pacing'. She began wondering if she should ride out to check on the scouts.

- - - -

The attack, beginning at dawn as the drivers were starting to look for a likely camping spot, was sudden and vicious. With no warning from the scouts, the centaurs opened fire on the wagons, aiming for drivers and horses alike. The drivers tried to make a run for it, but when the lead horse of the first wagon went down, it started a hopeless tangle. Kal choked back a cry of mingled anger and frustration, and turned Nyte back to the caravan, urging him into a flat run. She charged past the line of wagons, straight at where the arrows were coming from. She barely heard Tal's yell of "Kal! DON'T!!" as she flew past, pulling her sword from it's scabbard. The dim-witted creatures didn't even notice her, so intent on the wagons, until she was close enough to see them through the rows of bushes they were using for cover. There was only enough time for a couple arrows to bounce off her breastplate, then she was crashing through their cover, sword swinging. Nyte struck out as well as he could without losing his stride, and several of the beast-men fell.

As she swept past the line of archers, however, she looked up and saw just how much trouble they were in. A huge, milling mass of the centaurs were forming ranks for a charge, and she could see at least three clan banners. Several dozen centaurs, at least, perhaps close to a hundred, were about to overrun the caravan. Nyte stopped and spun without any guidance, and they charged back through the archer ranks, taking several more out as they rushed back to the caravan. As the warrior broke free of the bushes, she felt an impact in her left shoulder. A moment later, burning pain raced down her arm. Her adrenaline quickly dulled it, and since it wasn't her sword-arm, she decided it wasn't important. Kal headed straight for Tal, and quickly gasped out her warning, "They're gonna charge. Three clans at least." He stared at her for a single second, then his eyes widened and he spun, shouting orders. The wagons that could still be moved were pulled into a defensive half-circle, and the horses were cut free, with the idea that anyone that survived could track them down later.

Kal finally took a second to look at her shoulder, and angrily tore out the crude arrow she found buried in the muscle. She dropped from Nyte's back, letting him loose to wreak what damage he could, and began trying to help Tal get the drivers away from the wagons and running for (hopefully) safety. A pair of Sentinels followed them, for protection. The rest, along with the mercenary guards, began preparing to buy the drivers as much time as possible to get away. She then suddenly heard a loud roar, followed by what sounded like a stampede, and realized they had just run out of time.

The following battle was a chaotic mess. Kal lost track of how many centaurs she hacked, slashed, or stabbed. Her sword arm grew tired, then sore, then went numb, and still she fought. When her sword was too heavy to lift, she switched hands, fighting left-handed and ignoring the stabbing pain from the arrow-wound in her shoulder. She caught occasional glimpses of Tal, either fighting the beast-men, or perched on some part of a wagon, feathering them with arrows. He always seemed to be alright, so she quickly turned her attention back to her next target.

A mistake was inevitable, as tired as she was. She was holding off two centaurs, and didn't see the third come up behind her. A split-second flash was her only warning, and her automatic reflexes saved her when her body was too fatigued to respond on it's own. The descending axe, which had been aiming to split her skull, instead only sliced down her cheek. She spun, disemboweling the centaur, then suddenly the two in front of her were down as well, one with an arrow through it's eye, the other choking it's life out through it's gaping throat. She looked past the bodies and saw Tal, panting heavily and covered in blood, most of it not his. She barely registered that fact, then realized the fighting was slowing down. A look at the sky showed it was almost noon. As battle rage faded, exhaustion began setting in.

Tal caught her good shoulder as she staggered slightly. "It's over. There's too many, and most of the fighters are dead," he told her, a grim expression on his face. "C'mon, we have to get away while they're picking over the loot." Kal looked over his shoulder and saw that he was right. With most of the fighters dead or run off, most of the centaurs were breaking into the wagons, pulling out crates and sacks to look through for.... whatever it was they had wanted. She shook her head slightly, looked at Tal, and nodded. They took off, running as fast as their weary bodies could manage, then suddenly they heard a shout. Several centaurs had trapped three drivers against a wagon, and were toying with them. The two warriors reacted instinctively, charging the beast-men from behind, and each cut down one before the rest realized they were being attacked. Most of the rest were quickly dispatched, but one broke free and ran back to the other wagons, calling an alarm. Tal turned to Kal, a desperate light in his eyes.

"Go, get them out of here." he told her, in his do-not-argue voice. She tried anyway, "No, come on, we both can. You-" He cut her off. "There's more elves stuck back there. I'm going to try to help, then we'll muddle the trail as we catch up, in case the urfes try to track us. Now go. GO ON! I'll see you again soon." She stared at him helplessly for a brief moment, then grabbed the front of his armor and pulled him into a quick, hard kiss. She pressed her cheek against his, and breathed into his ear, "You'd better." She then released him, turned to the terrified drivers, and herded them off, following the faint trail of the other escapees.

The bedraggled group finally caught up with the rest of what was left of the caravan. All but two drivers had gotten away, but only four of the twenty guards, mercenaries and Sentinels both, had survived, including Kal. She surveyed the little group for a few moments, then, when no one made any move to take charge, she called out, "We need to move. We need shelter, and a hiding place, in case any of those things try to hunt us down." At the alarmed looks most of them gave her, she quickly assured them, "I don't think they will, they seemed like they were happy to loot everything and go their way, but better safe than sorry, eh?" The other guards, and two of the drivers that seemed to be in better shape than the others, began guiding the group towards a boulder-strewn ravine, with plenty of shade and hiding places.

Kal stood still, staring back down the trail. A worried expression was crinkling her forehead, and she didn't even notice when one of the drivers, a tall slender female, approached. The driver cleared her throat slightly, making Kal jump. "You coming? These people need someone steady to watch over them. I think anything bigger than a bug is going to set them all into a panic, right now." She gave a weak attempt at a chuckle, then gave Kal a curious look when the warrior didn't move. Kal shook her head. "I gotta go back and check things. Tal should be coming soon, and I want to meet him. He may need help with any injured with him." The other elf looked at her carefully for a long moment, then nodded. "I guess I can try to keep everyone settled for a little while. You just hurry back now, okay?" Kal nodded absently as she spun on her heel and strode back the way they had come, worry giving her a small spurt of new energy.

She hadn't gotten very far when a familiar "Whuff" made her pause. Nyte trotted up to her and rubbed his massive head against her, carefully. She gratefully rubbed his ears as she inspected him. He had a few minor cuts, but seemed mostly unscathed, so she swung up onto his back, guiding him back towards the caravan. She mentally cursed Tal and his sense of responsibility the entire way back, keeping an eye out for any sign of him or any other stragglers, but finding nothing.

The sun was beginning it's westward descent as she approached the ruined wagons. Everything was still, no sign of the centaurs, but no sign of any elves either. Kal felt her heart clench in her chest with fear. She urged Nyte into a cautious trot, then slid off as they reached the nearest wagon. Before she could even begin searching, a quiet cough guided her to him.

Tal was lying, half on his back and half on his side, next to a pile of centaur bodies. The bodies of several other elves were mixed in with the beast-men, but Kal had eyes only for the fallen warrior. She thought he was already dead at first, but when she knelt next to him, he opened his eyes. Kal choked back a sob at the sight of the wounds that covered his body, and the gritty dirt she was kneeling in was saturated with his blood. He blinked a couple times, as though not sure if he was really seeing her, then reached a hand weakly towards her face. She caught it and held it up to her unmarred cheek, as he tried to speak. He coughed again, lightly, then cleared his throat, spat out a small glob of blood, then tried again.

"I'm so sorry, Kal," he whispered hoarsely. Her eyes stung with tears as she understood. She didn't even try to say that everything would be alright, because he knew better, and they had never been less than completely honest with each other. She softly replied around the knot forming in her throat, "I know, love. You tried." "Love you so much," he whispered. A sob broke free from Kal's tight control, as she answered him, "I love you too..." Tal's fingers moved slightly, as he tried to stroke her cheek, then his eyes rolled back and he went limp, his last breath rattling in his throat. Kal pressed her face against his hand as she let go of her control, and she cried brokenly over his body for what seemed like hours.

Finally, Nyte interrupted her mourning by coming behind her and gently nudging her back. She looked at the saber through sore, red eyes, then looked back at Tal. She slowly lowered the hand she had been holding, resting it on his chest, and stood shakily, leaning against her mount. A shout got her attention, and she looked up at the small group of elves approaching, all on sabers and several leading horses. The female driver from earlier led the way over to her. The elf looked down at the mess of bodies, and grimaced, shaking her head sadly. "I was afraid of this, when you were taking so long," she said quietly. She looked at Kal, saw the condition she was in, and slid off her saber. "You okay?" she asked, then quickly answered herself. "No, of course not." She sighed, then motioned towards the others. "We were starting to get worried, and then a bunch of our sabers found us. We found the horses on the way back here. We figured that if the vermin left anything, we could hitch them up and go collect the rest of us." She looked around at the wagons. Several had been broken into so badly that they would be useless as shelter, but a few were still in good enough condition to use. She pointed this out to Kal, who nodded, took a deep breath, and began directing a couple of the drivers to start hitching up. The rest of the group helped Kal with sorting bodies, and building two pyres with the remains of the useless wagons. The centaurs were mass-piled onto one, set ablaze, then ignored. The dead elves, except for one, were laid out neatly and respectfully, then set on fire as the Sentinel guard that had come with the group spoke the last rites.

Kal took Tal's body a short distance apart from the rest. The look she gave anyone who approached told them all that she didn't need, or want, any help. She built a small pyre, laid Tal on it, then piled the weapons of several centaur at his feet. Before lighting it, she took a moment look look at him one last time, gently stroking his hair and then bending down to kiss his forehead. She then took a step back, and set her torch to the base of the wood. As it caught, she turned away, not able to bear the sight of her love burning. When she turned, she found the rest of the elves waiting, ready to go. She looked at them all, then gave a nod, mounted Nyte, and led them away. She did not look back.

- - - -

Kal made them all press on, instead of turning back. When someone tried to argue, she merely looked at him, and asked, "Do you really want to go back through that place?" That shut everyone up, and she had no trouble for the rest of the nightmare journey, even when she forced them to reverse their schedule, traveling by day and camping at night. She drove them mercilessly through Stonetalon and the Barrens. Then, finally, almost a week behind their normal schedule, they crossed the border into Ashenvale.

- - - -

The remains of the caravan slowly limped into Astranaar, among the shocked stares of the town's inhabitants. Nyte strode over to the town's elder, and Kal leaned wearily over his shoulder, to look the elf in the eye. "Get your people to help. Now." she ordered hoarsely. He blinked at her for a brief second, then spun around and began shouting. Sentinels and various others were quickly helping the drivers unhitch the half-foundered horses, and the local priests began looking after the all-too-few remaining guards, and the few drivers that had been hurt in the escape. One priest finally gathered the courage to approach Kal, who was still sitting on Nyte's back, watching the proceedings impassively. "Warrior, I need to look at that cut on your cheek," he said, his tone making it a request rather than an order. Kal stared at him blankly for several long seconds, then slowly slid off Nyte's back. The priest had to catch and steady her as her knees buckled, but then she regained her balance, and walked unaided into a nearby building, which was being set up as a temporary healer's station.

Inside, the priest washed away the dried blood crusting Kal's face, and winced at the long slash running from just above her ear, across her cheek, all the way down to her jaw. "Much deeper and you wouldn't be able to chew on this side," he muttered quietly to her. "Hold still, this might burn a bit. And will most likely leave a pretty impressive scar." He held his hands towards her, hands already glowing softly with Elune's light. There was a very slight burning sensation, as Elune's powers cleaned the wound and sealed the skin and muscle, but it was less than what Kal expected. Her mask slipped just enough to give the healer a faint, grateful smile, then the blank expression returned, as he bent his attention to the arrow wound in her shoulder. He was able to heal that perfectly, leaving only the barest trace of a scar, which would likely fade completely with time. Now if only the scars on the inside would fade, as well, she thought to herself, as the lump in her throat threatened to choke her yet again.

"Me? A hero? Nah..."

2010-06-21T01:52:00.008-04:00

((*Ahem* So, Windstar has been very quiet lately, but all of a sudden today, she decided that she wants to say something. She's been MIA for a while, and for anyone that doesn't know, it's because she's been trying to help in Icecrown. Since work makes it hard for me to commit to a raiding schedule (even if I could find a raid with a opening for a kitty DPS), she can't really be in ICC with her friends, so she's finding her own way to fight the Scourge. She would say that it's not much, but it's the best she can do.))

My friends are all in Icecrown, actually in the Citidel. This... actually scares me. A lot. I know they can all take care of themselves, and they'll watch each other's backs, but I still worry about them all. I mean, Bricu and Threnn have a little one, and Aely is getting married sometime soon. And Feliche... he may say he's just a big dumb warrior, but he still gives the best back-scratches.*purrs*

...I'm not a hero. I'm just a cat that wants to help. My friends are the heroes. And by Malfurion's antlers, I'm going to make sure nothing sneaks up and tries to get them from behind.

So, Riders. Go do what you do best. I'll be out here, doing my own small part. And hopefully, when it's all over, and the Bloody Prince is taken care of for good, we'll get to have our own family celebration in the Pig. That's what's important, you know. Family and friends. That's what we're fighting for.

Never again, my friends...

What's New

2010-06-17T04:23:00.004-04:00

Well, for starters, obviously I'm playing with the new design feature I just discovered. Other than that, lots of leveling, farming, and heroicing, and finally getting some of my RP itch scratched.

My warlock Rynia is now level 60. Have I mentioned yet that I love heirloom gear? I'm having waaaay too much fun with destruction, especially now that she finally has Shadowfury. I feel sorry for her poor voidwalker, whenever I bother to have him out. He just can't hold aggro against Ryn's crits, so I usually have her imp out. The imp is suposed to be the best pet for destruction anyways, amirite?

My recent profession switch with her seems to be working well. She had been herbalism/alchemy, but since I got rid of my death knight-tailor-bank alt, I dropped herbs on her to pick up tailoring. She had enough cloth from her power-level-instance runs (thank you, Takani :D) that her tailoring hit 300 right after she dinged 60. Windstar has been picking her herbs, so her alchemy hasn't been neglected either. So far, I'm very happy with how she's coming along. And this is for the third (at least) attempt that I've made at playing a 'lock. I guess this proves even more, I just have to get a character to 'click' in order to actually enjoy playing it.

Tadrith's heroic grind has been slow but fun. I've missed playing a hunter, with my raiding guild's GM MIA for the last month. I'm trying to be careful and make sure I don't get burned out, and so far so good. His leatherworking is taking forever to finish, though. It gets almost rather depressing to farm up 3 stacks of borean leather, then turn it all into heavy leather, and wind up with exactly half of one stack. I really wish Blizzard would lower the conversion rates for making heavy leather (and bolts of cloth, while they're at it).

Kal has been slightly neglected lately. The RP scene has slowed down recently, so I haven't really done much except log on for her jewelcrafting daily, and usually a daily heroic. I really ought to be running more than one a day on her, since she can start collecting DPS gear, now that I'm mostly happy with her tanking set. And arms DPS is flipping fun. She had a short spell with fury as her dps spec, and she did do a little better, but I missed the playstyle of arms and had to switch back. The only problem is, I had been doing so much RP with her, that now that there isn't as much going on, I get bored and wind up hopping on someone else. Good for my plan of getting as many alts to 80 as possible before the expansion, but bad for my desire to play her. However, there has been a few scattered bits of RP for me to sneak into, so it's getting a little better.

And while I'm mentioning Kal, I have been working on some bits and pieces of her backstory. IC-ly, she's actually not that old, but she's managed to do quite a lot, most of it involving getting into trouble, and collecting scars to show off afterward. I had some pretty major (and annoying) issues with writer's block, but it seems to finally be working itself out. The story I'm working on now, if it turns out as well as I'm hoping, will be pretty epic, and might have to be in more than one post. It's still in the rough stages right now, but hopefully I can keep up my writing binges and get it finished, or at least get to the point where I'm happy with it. Because, honestly, when are people's stories ever really 'finished'? ;)

And on that note, it is way too late, and I have to work tomorrow. Er, later today. :\
/Waves

Boredom, meet Emeriss....

2010-06-12T20:28:00.005-04:00

What happens when a bored druid sees a dragon yelling challenges across the Hinterlands? This does:

Atempt #1 was solo. He doesn't hit hard (not on an 80, at least), but then I discovered his sleep gas cloud, the hard way. Splat.

My sister brought her hunter Wildlark over for attempt #2. While we waited for Star's debuff to go away, Takani joined in. Tak tanked, Lark pewpewed, Star did her tree thing. We did ok for a bit, but then the gas clouds got us again. Triple splat.

Attempt #3, same setup, but we payed more attention. And guess what?

Boo yea, baby.

Besides random silliness like this, I have been working on a couple other stories. Tad's spirit beast tames, and something from Kal's past, to be exact. Writer's block fails, but I am slowly working past it. So expect more in the hopefully-not-too-distant future. >.>

/Waves

And another joins the ranks...

2010-06-02T23:40:00.004-04:00

Say hello to my third level 80 hunter. And 8th level 80 overall. :P Maybe I really do have no life...

Anyways. Two of his pets (his jormungar worm Jervan and spirit beast Treyvan) are already 80 as well. I queued him for a random soon as he dinged, which popped way earlier than I thought it would. It decided to toss him into Forge of Souls, which was interesting (and not in a good way). He hadn't even trained his lvl 80 skills yet, and he had Jervan with him. It was a pretty overpowered group, though, and he didn't do too terrible. He even got a couple upgrades, some leather shoulders, from a greed roll (lucky me?), and a staff. He has already collected quite few badges, and has the badge necklace. I just need to get him a new ranged weapon (hopefully not a gun) and he'll be all set.

I have more thoughts, but my killer headache is making it hard to concentrate, so I'll save it for another post. /Waves

So, umm, guess what again?

2010-05-30T00:13:00.005-04:00

So, I was leather farming in Zul'Drak on Tad, and I ran across a certain someone. I just could not resist. >.>

Tad has 2 spirit beasts. He has 2 more to go. Muahaha. I may also be the biggest hunter geek ever, which is not necessarily a bad thing. >.>

(Not sure if this one's name will stick, good thing Windstar can make him some rename scrolls. :P
Also, Tad is 78 now. 2 more levels til my third 80 hunter. :D)

Oh Hey Guess What?

2010-05-22T17:43:00.003-04:00

I am a happy, happy hunter right now.

I can haz spirit beast #3?
(2 Loque, 1 Gondria)

I only had to camp the Basin for about 2 hours this time. It might actually make up for the 6 months of frustration that Kelesaria had, hunting for him.

For anyone that might be interested, it was about 2:30 server time, by the gorillas. (Roughly 64.77)

Storytime: Meeting the parents

2010-05-21T03:19:00.005-04:00

(Sorry for the latest silent spell, here's a story to make up for it. Possible PG rating, maybe.)

Arien finished her classes at the Cathedral for the year, and had an unexpected couple weeks before the next ones began. Since the holiday of Winter's Veil was approaching, she asked Kal if she wanted to come along for a visit to Arien's parents. The elf agreed.

They started for Eastvale a few days before Winter's Veil, taking with them the gifts that Arien had bought for her parents. Kal had never celebrated the holiday, so Arien got to tell her friend all about the history and customs as they rode. Arien had remembered to write a couple days in advance, to tell her parents about the extra guest, so they wouldn't make Kal uncomfortable, either. At least, she hoped they wouldn't. They finally arrived at the cottage, to find it empty. "They must be at the tavern," Arien said, thinking out loud. "Let's leave our stuff and meet them there." Kal nodded, looking slightly nervous, and they dropped the packs in a corner and headed for the cluster of buildings that marked the main area of the village.

Arien stopped outside the door of the tiny tavern. "Kal, please don't mind my father, if he seems a little rude. He just doesn't meet new people often, and you being an elf will be even stranger for him." She looked at her friend almost pleadingly, who nodded, reaching to take Arien's hand and giving it a quick squeeze. They entered the tavern, and Arien scanned the few faces in the room, looking for her parents. She spotted her mother quickly, and hurried over, waving. Mother saw her, and quickly set her tray on the bar, smiling as she came to meet them. "Ari, we've missed you so much," she told her daughter, giving Arien a warm hug. She then stepped back to look at Kal, who stood motionless, with her arms crossed over her chest. "And this is your friend. Kal, isn't it?" Kal nodded and held out a hand, which Mother took and gave a gentle squeeze. "Is Father in the kitchen?" Arien asked. Mother nodded. "Give him a minute, he's still working on the stew. He should be out to check on the crowd soon."

Sure enough, after a few more minutes of small talk, a stocky, bearded man came in through the small doorway in the back. Arien waved and called him over. "Father! Hi, this is my friend I wrote about, Kal." She gave him a hug as soon as he reached them. Father returned the hug, then gave Kal a slow, measuring look. Kal simply stood there, then offered a hand after a moment. Father looked at the hand for a second, before taking it and giving a firm but cautious shake. They chatted for a few more minutes, until finally Father looked around the room. "Gettin' busy in 'ere. You care to 'elp out? Or would ya rather 'ead back and rest from yer trip?" he asked Arien. She wrinkled her forehead slightly, in thought. "Well," she replied, "we are a little tired, but I think I can help with handing out dinner, at least." Kal quickly spoke, for the first time, "I'll help, as well." Arien's parents seemed slightly startled for a second, then gratefully accepted Kal's offer.

A little over an hour later, the small crowd were all happily eating, many of them finished and sipping their ales, and Mother insisted that Arien and Kal go back home to rest. Father then surprised them by telling Mother to go with them. "You go get 'em all settled, I can clean up m'self, just for tonight." She finally agreed, and the three of them went back to the cottage. Once home and inside, Arien's mother turned to the friends, forehead wrinkling slightly. "Ari, I'm afraid we don't have an extra bedroom," she said uncertainly. "That's fine, Mother. Kal can sleep in the loft with me, we brought extra blankets," Arien reassured her. Mother's wrinkles deepened slightly at that, and at Kal's confirming nod. Arien looked at her, puzzled. "Is that okay?" she asked. "Oh, yes, it's fine," Mother answered, rather quickly. Before anything else could be said, she was heading to the small closet next to the stairs, getting a few more blankets out.

The beds were made and the girls' things were put away, by the time Father came home. Mother met him at the door, and had a brief whispered conversation with him as he came inside. Arien and Kal were warming some cider by the hearth, and pretended not to notice. They gave each other half-curious, half-frustrated glances. Arien could only give her friend a slight shrug, not certain what her parents' concern was. Her parents finally came inside and settled, and Arien passed out the cider. Kal sat back by the hearth, as if trying to be inconspicuous. She had a couple different possible ideas of what Arien's folks were concerned about, and didn't want to make anything worse for her friend. Finally, though, she needed to get away from the nervous glances the two were giving her, when they thought she wasn't looking. She stood and told them, "I'm going to check on Nyte. He's not used to being out of the city, and I want to make sure he won't spook the horses." They all nodded at her, with Arien giving her a strange look. Kal just gave a tiny shake of her head, and walked outside to the stables.

Once the warrior was out of sight, Arien turned to her parents in time to catch another look between them. "Is something wrong?" she asked. "Nothing is wrong, Arien," her mother began. Her father then cut her off. "We've just 'eard some strange stuff about Elves out 'ere, from passing adventurers," he told her, looking uncomfortable. "We're a bit worried that yer friend might be, uh, well.." He trailed off, uncertain of how to put his concerns. Arien had been around enough adventurers herself, and a bit of understanding began to show on her face. "You think she and I might be..." She looked blankly at the slight, embarrassed nods her parents gave her in response. She blushed slightly, then it faded as indignation took over. "Well, you can stop worrying about it. We are more like sisters than anything else. And besides, even if Kal is like that, I am not, and she would never make advances on me when she knows I wouldn't want her to." Her parents still looked uncomfortable, but now also relieved. Arien shook her head in mingled disbelief and frustration. "I'm going to go check Faithful. We'll be back in a few minutes." She stood and walked out.

Arien went inside the stable, to find Kal perched on the dividing wall between Faithful and Nyte. Soft rumbling sounds from Nyte's stall told anyone in hearing range that the 'saber was sleeping peacefully. The warhorse stuck his head out over the stall door and nickered at her, and she gently rubbed his nose as she looked up at her friend. Kal just sat and watched her soberly, as the paladin told her, as briefly as possible, what her parents concerns were. When she was finished, Kal looked down at the floor, expression unreadable. "And, uh, what do you think about it?" she asked quietly. Arien raised an eyebrow. "What does it matter?" she began, and then paused. Kal glanced quickly at her, then back down at the stable floor again. "Umm, Kal, are you like that?" Arien asked, hesitantly. Her eyes widened at Kal's nod. She opened her mouth, then closed it, as she tried to think of a response. Finally, "Well, umm, that is a bit of a surprise for me. You seem to hide the fact pretty well." Kal just gave a slight shrug. Arien looked at her closely for a second, then stepped closer and put a hand on the elf's knee. "Kal? You don't think that matters to me, do you?" Kal finally looked at her, blinking in surprise. "Shouldn't it? I mean, uh..." The warrior actually flushed slightly, making Arien's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. "Well, I think maybe I should tell you that I think you're very attractive. I just figured that you weren't interested, so I never said anything. Because I would rather be friends than nothing." Arien nodded slowly, making Kal blink in surprise again. "Well, um, thank you, I think. But I'm afraid you're right about me not being interested in, uh, that. But, I definately want to keep our friendship. You're like a sister to me, Kal. I can't imagine not having you around. And well, I love my parents, but living in a tiny village like this, it kind of makes them not very open-minded. About a lot of things." Kal grinned, then hopped down off the wall to wrap Arien in a hug. The paladin hugged her back, smiling. "Well, I think they might not stare at you as much now, if you want to come back in," Arien said. Kal nodded, and followed her back into the house.

(Bit of random info: There are exactly 3 people that can get away with calling Arien 'Ari': her mother, Kal, and, more recently, Alanon. It is a personal form of endearment for her, not to be taken lightly. If anyone else even tried, they would most likely be totally ignored, or possibly asked not to refer to her by that name.)

Expansion thoughts

2010-05-06T14:35:00.007-04:00

So, apparently some Cataclysm stuff got leaked. Blizzard may or may not have wanted this to happen, but I think that's beside the point right now. I just thought I would share my 2 copper on the subject.

What I have seen of Cataclysm looks awesome. I am really excited about it. I can't wait to play a worgen, or take Kelesaria to Hyjal, or fly around Azeroth taking way too many screenshots. Some of the class changes make me go 'squee' (hunter pet stable changes? o heck yes please). Some of them make me go 'meh' (don't mess with my beacon, dangit. And I love my trees /sadface). But honestly, you know what?

It's not here yet.

As fun as it is to see new stuff, and plan what I'm going to do first, and all that, the expansion is still a long ways away. It's just now hitting alpha testing. It still has beta after that, and then who knows how much more tweaking before it comes out. And before all that, I still have alts to level (the rogue and warlock will be 80 before then, I swear :P), gear to heroic-farm for, RP stuff to do, and a new raid to hope that I can get into. Kel's guild hasn't faced Arthas yet. My horde alts are still wasting away on a server I don't want them on anymore. There is just too much to do right now.

I haven't clicked any links in Panzercow's blog post. Yet. I might later, but really, I have too much fun stuff going on now, to get too worried/excited about stuff that could be several months away.

Storytime: Meeting

2010-05-03T04:25:00.003-04:00

(Arien meets Kal. Enjoy!)

Arien's father had finally been talked into letting her go to Stormwind to be trained as a paladin. She was happy for the opportunity, and she enjoyed her training, but going into the second year at the Cathedral, she began realizing that she was lonely. The rare short visits to her family helped, but as her training progressed, her relationship with her father began feeling strained, as he continued to criticize her teachers and mentors. Her mother remained supportive, but Arien still didn't really have any friends close enough to talk to.

One day, during a break in her studies, she heard someone crying as she was walking across the courtyard. It was fairly common for people to come to the Cathedral to seek comfort or grieve, but the absolute heartbreak in these sobs made Arien pause. Unable to help herself, she sought the source of the sobs, only to stop in surprise when she discovered it was a Night Elf. The female Kaldorei was sitting, hunched over, on one of the benches under a shade tree. Arien stared for a second, then approached. When she reached her, the elf looked up with pain-filled eyes. "She's dead, I know she is. Oh Elune, why?" Arien felt a stab of pity for the elf, and quickly sat down, offering a shoulder she was quick to accept. Her sobs started again, and Arien simply held her, murmuring softly in her ear.

Finally the elf seemed to regain control. She sat up, as Arien kept one hand on her shoulder. The paladin dug a hanky from a pocket and handed it to her. After wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, the elf looked at Arien with piercing, pale blue eyes. "Thank you," she said. "I'm Kal." "I'm Arien. I'm studying here to be a paladin." Arien replied. She gave Kal's shoulder a comforting squeeze. "You want to talk about what happened?" she asked gently. The elf's eyes began watering again, as she looked away, and began speaking quietly.

"My sister is,... was, a Sentinel. Her squad was sent to Northrend almost a year ago, and what was left of them just got back a few days ago. Riatha wasn't with them." Another tear slowly ran down her cheek, only to be wiped away. Kal blinked at Arien in surprise, seeing the sympathetic expression on her face. This was something the proud elf would have normally spurned, but it seemed so honest and genuine, coming from this paladin. It touched the solitary warrior, seeing a human acting so selflessly.

The Cathedral's bells began ringing at that second, startling both of them. Arien glanced towards the doors, then back at Kal with an apologetic expression. "I'm afraid that means I have to go back, but we could meet later, if you want?" Kal nodded, reaching up to touch the hand still on her shoulder, simply saying, "I'd like that." Arien smiled. "Do you know where the Pig and Whistle Tavern is?" Kal nodded, and they arranged to meet for supper. Arien stood and went back inside, pausing to wave at the door. Kal waved back, then leaned back against the tree, closing her sore eyes wearily.

Random stuff..

2010-04-29T14:28:00.006-04:00

First of all, my raiding guild on Gilneas is back to a schedule that works better for me and my sister. They had been raiding Tuesday night, which is RP night on Feathermoon. Since right now, RP > raiding, we were both missing on day 1 of ICC stuff. (Guess what? The bow dropped on the first night I missed. Our rogue got it because he was the only person there that could use it. /sadface) They did this because that night worked better for the other guild we raided with (because we don't have enough core people to run even 10-mans right now). Well, there was some drama with the other guild, so now we're back to raiding Wednesday nights. We have to PUG a spot or 2, but last night went pretty well. Festergut still eats our faces though. :\ And the blasted bow did NOT drop. Again. *grumble*

Feathermoon has been tons of fun. Between RP stuff with Kal, and leveling her, I haven't even played on any other server for a couple weeks, other than occasional raids. And I'm actually pretty happy about it. Heck, I haven't even played any other character for several days. I never thought warriors were so much fun to play. :D Oh, and the biggest news for Kal:

(Look, it's not the Hodir quest chain! ;)) This makes, um, (counts on fingers)6 lvl 80s for me. I think this means I officially have no life. :D

After dinging, I went through her bank and the AH, and she is ready to start tanking stuff. I will still be very wary of PUGs until she has better gear, but she is defense capped, with decent HP for just starting out. I will probably be going through the armory and looking at other tanks, to adjust her spec, but since I'm not sure of her ever getting in a raid, I'm not going to worry if it's not 'perfect'.

On the RP side, she is a lot happier now than the last few days. The haunting mess has been taken care of, and her friends are safe.(Right here has all the awesomeness of Maggie Maunt's ending) So now, she and Channi have more time to relax together. We are planning more mischief for them to get into, but for now Kal is happy to just be able to hold Channi without worrying if an invisible leper gnome is going to attack either one of them again.

And that's all I can think of for now. WoW is calling me, and Kal has dailies to do before her first trip into heroicing. /Waves

Storytime: Hauntings

2010-04-25T23:47:00.003-04:00

(Brief intro: The Wildfire Riders seriously ticked off a powerful Cult of the Damned member, so she sent ghosts to several Riders as well as a few associates. One of the people being haunted is Channi, a young Death Knight, who Kal has become quite attached to. This takes place a day or two after Channi is attacked by her ghost.
Links: The Riders' hauntings are here, and Channi's latest gnome attack is here.)

Kal worriedly watched over the still form on the infirmary bed. Channi was sleeping again, after the University's healers were done looking her over after her move from the Cathedral. With her closed eyes hiding the blue Death Knight glow, she looked so small and helpless. Kal swallowed hard, and reached out to carefully take Channi's nearest hand, simply holding it. Bloody Elune, how did I let this happen..., she thought guiltily. When she had suggested the girl stay the night at her apartment, she had been hoping that Arien's presence might keep the ghost at bay, but she had been proven wrong. And although Channi was doing fine, just needing to rest from the ordeal, and the healing afterward, Kal still felt like she shouldn't have had to go through it. She sighed quietly, rubbing a hand over her face.

A gentle bump from a feline nose on her arm brought her out of her gloomy thoughts. Windstar seemed to be reading her mind, and was staring at her disapprovingly. "You had no way of knowing this would happen, and the nature of these hauntings means you couldn't have done anything more than what you did. Stop moping about it, or Channi might wake up, see your face, and think she did something wrong," the druid scolded. Kal blinked at her, then looked back at Channi and nodded, realizing she was right. Her free hand reached over and began rubbing Star's ears gratefully. She chuckled softly. "You know, Arien has been telling me the same thing. I guess, if both of you think that, maybe I should listen." Star just twitched her ears, but her expression looked amused. And perhaps slightly smug. A minute later, two of the University healers headed in their direction. Kal saw them coming and grimaced. "Guess visiting hours are over," she said to Star. She gave Channi's hand a slight squeeze before letting go, and waved placatingly at the healers as she slowly stood up. "I know, I know, I'll go quietly this time."

Kal and Star left the infirmary and headed towards the canals. Once out of the mage district, they both paused. Star looked up at Kal. "Um, my brother is here for a few days, and I think I'm going to see him for a while. He doesn't come around very much, and I've missed him. I'll meet you at home later?" Kal nodded. "Okay, Star," she replied. Star unshifted, hugged Kal, then shifted back to a cat and trotted towards the Park. Kal watched her go, then turned and headed for the Pig. Dear Elune, I wish this 'haunting' mess was over with, she thought wearily.

Why?

2010-04-16T22:21:00.004-04:00

So, I really don't like QQ PuG stories, other than for amusement, and I have passed up blogging about some real whoppers of my own. But this? This just boggles me. First thing the healer does is start putting the star raid icon on my head. Then I get this:

Seriously, dude? You think you run the show because you are suposed to keep my little green bar full? Just WHO do you think is keeping all those mobs from coming and eating your face?

I really would like to know, if anyone can tell me. Why does everyone hate the tank? I have had my fair share of horrible tanks on my DPS toons, but playing Kal, I have realized just how hard tanking is. And the funny thing? I didn't have any of this during lower lvls, like around the 40s. It wasn't until Outlands that everyone started with the 'GoGoGo' and the huge attitude problems.

So now? Kal, who I originally rolled for the express purpose of being a tank, is now going to queue as dps, unless I have friends with me. And only to get quests done. I have too many RL issues for this game (which is the only real stress relief I have) to add more.

And that Nexus group with the jerk healer? Left as soon as I was out of combat from the first pull. I would wonder how long it took to replace me, but I really can't make myself care.

Updates 'n' stuff

2010-04-08T22:40:00.005-04:00

Bad blogger is bad. Neglected blog is...yea.
Anyways!

Work schedule is being crazy right now, so I've been half-asleep most of the time lately. I am so NOT a morning person. -.-

I have been on a huge leveling binge with Kalenedral, my warrior. She is currently 64. She will not be 64 for long. >.> A few thoughts PVE-wise: Revenge is hax. I love warrior tanking. Death grip should be taken out of the game, or at least become a lvl 80 skill. I hate PuG fail groups. Seriously, if you jerk dps'ers think I'm going too slow, feel free to leave. AND STOP PULLING FOR ME!!!.../rant off

Where was I? Oh yea.

In between leveling, I have been RPing with her a lot too, and she seems to be making friends. She has also met Windstar, ICly, and, well, I may be posting snippets of how they're getting along soon-ish. >.> (It is also kind of frustrating, because I would love to have them together in-game, but I would need a second account, which is out of my budget right now. /sadface)

I have also been doing Noblegarden holiday stuff on Star. I did it all on Kelesaria last year, and it was pretty easy and fun. It's her in-game title, in fact. Last night I made a very important discovery....

Bunnies can ride mammoths. This is just too darn cute.(That is actually Kal, doing some holiday RP. Fun times :D)

And on that note, time to get another level or 3 on Kal. /Waves

Storytime

2010-03-30T03:06:00.006-04:00

(Uh, think I ought to give a PG warning for this :P Also, intro is quoted from the Great Bear Spirit, in Moonglade, and is the very first lesson young druids learn, when starting their training down the feral path. It is the closest thing to a life-motto that Windstar has.)

Strength of the body is the power and swiftness of action. You must keep yourself fit at all times, both physically and mentally. The bear's girth highlights it's strength, as it is a ferocious foe in combat. The bear's girth, however, belies it's agility and sharp mind. These are surprises you will use to your advantage.
You must rely on the strength of the bear's body in order to master the way of the Claw.

Strength of the heart is what gives you the resolve to take action... action that is rooted in intents that are pure and forthright. To keep the balance is not to be complacent or banal.
You must show resolve for that which you believe in, and you must be willing to fight for it. The mother bear shows endless conviction in protecting her young, as does the elder bear protecting his den. It is this resolve, this strength of heart, which you must come to know if you are to master the way of the Claw.

- - - - -

Windstar stood before the large stone, the pouch of powder in her hand. She took deep breath, preparing to face the powerful moonkin known as Lunaclaw. The words of the Bear Spirit ran through her mind again. Muscles tensed, as ready as she could get, Star turned the pouch upside down over the stone. The dust glittered in the perpetual dusk that shrouded the moonkins' territory, then faded as it touched the rock's surface. Everything seemed to go still for a moment, then the air rang with the bellow of an enraged moonkin. Star whirled towards the entrance of the cave, as a huge creature charged down on her. The following fight was furious and chaotic, but finally Lunaclaw fell. Star approached cautiously, to make sure it was dead, when it suddenly lunged at her with a final desperate cry. One massive claw slammed into Star's side, and the world went dark with the pain. She barely held on, and managed to call down a strike of moonfire on the beast, which finally dropped dead.

Star fell as well, but then looked up as a dim light glowed in the small cave. Lunaclaw's spirit looked down at her, almost apologetically. It stoood, waiting, as she gathered what little strength she had left, and dragged herself nearer. At the spirit's feet, she collapsed again, rested for a moment, and then somehow managed to stand. She held one hand to her side, feeling the blood running through her fingers and down her side. The spirit looked her in the eyes, and she could hear it's voice in her head, commending her on the fight. As the spirit faded, she managed somehow to focus well enough to cast the spell to teleport herself back to Moonglade.

Remulos was meditating in his grove, when two of the wardens came, half-dragging a limp, bloody Night elf. They carefully set her on the ground, then one responded to his unasked question. "Lunaclaw. She won." He waved them away, then lifted the elf's head, to look at her face. He gave a small start as he realized it was Windstar. His forehead furrowed with concern as he looked her over to find the source of the blood that covered almost her entire left side. He finally had to peel her soaked shirt away from where it was sticking to her skin, and found the long gash on her ribcage. He grimaced at the sight. The gash went from just under her shoulderblade, along one of her ribs (which was badly fractured), and finally ended directly underneath her left breast. White bone showed through the raggedly torn skin and muscles. Remulos sighed, realizing that he couldn't leave her to her heal on her own. Even if she didn't bleed to death, an injury like this would leave her semi-crippled for the rest of her life. He closed his eyes, bent over her, and began casting his healing spells.

- - - -

Star slowly regained conciousness. She managed to open her eyes, and looked around, disoriented. Eventually, she recognized the room, and realized she was still in Moonglade. She was lying on her back, in a bed in one of the inns. She began to sit up, then stopped with a strangled gasp as pain lanced through her side. She forced herself to relax and slow her breathing, and gradually the pain receded to a bearable level. Slowly, she looked around, trying to not move anything besides her head. On a table near her right side, she spotted a small note. Carefully, Star reached for it, and managed to open it one-handed. It was from Remulos.

Windstar,
I healed enough to keep you alive and prevent you from becoming crippled. The rest is up to you.

She couldn't help a small wry grin. Honestly, she was surprised he had let her be taken into Nighthaven, but she supposed he didn't want her taking up space in his beloved glade. She dropped the note back onto the table, closed her eyes, and tried to rest.

Two days later, Windstar stood in front of a mirror in her room, left arm carefully raised so she could inspect the gash on her side. Most of the torn muscles had been knitted back together, but the skin was still a mess, with a long and painful scab running along her rib, and there was an enourmous blue and purple bruise that covered her side, from armpit to just above her hipbone. Her fractured rib was mostly healed, as well, but she still had to be careful about taking deep breaths. She looked soberly at the wound for another moment, then turned away from the mirror and allowed the nearby warden to wrap a bandage around it. She then grabbed her shirt, pulled it on, and hobbled out towards Remulos' shrine.

Star paused at the archway of the shrine, waiting until the Keeper noticed her. He was meditating, as usual, so it was several minutes before he looked up at her. Remulos nodded slowly, and said, "Good to see you up again, Windstar. I supose you will be departing soon?" She nodded back. "I was heading to the wind master now. I just wanted to say thank you." Remulos waved a hand absently, but Star could see the affectionate gleam in his eyes. "It was nothing," he told her. "Although, you may want to remain at home and rest for a few weeks. Maybe find a hobby to work on. It would be a pity to reinjure yourself, after I had to put you back together." Star grinned. "I may just do that. Malorne's blessings, my friend." He waved again, smiling at her this time, and she turned and walked slowly to the flight masters.

- - -

About two weeks later, in Stormwind:
Tad winced as he examined the still-raw scar running across Star's side, careful not to touch the blue-green bruises. "You know, sometimes you make me glad I wasn't called to be a druid." he told her, jokingly. Star chuckled, pulling her shirt back down. "I don't think I'll be going anywhere for a few more weeks. I think I'm going to go visit that old scribe near the canals. It seems like an interesting proffession. At least it will keep me from going out of my mind with boredom, while I finish healing." Tad looked at her incedulously. "You have a mind?" he asked in feigned shock. She swatted his shoulder, and he laughed as Keenath barked in protest. Star laughed too, then suddenly sobered as she remembered. "Tad," she began hesitantly, "something went wrong, after Lunaclaw hit me. I couldn't heal myself. I don't know why, but I couldn't." Tad looked at her, concerned. "Uh, that is not a good thing to hear. If you can't heal yourself when you're hurt that bad, what good is being able to heal in the first place?" He winced again. "That probably didn't sound right, but you know what I mean." Star nodded. "I do, and you're right. Perhaps it's just a block I have to work through. I just need to practice enough." "Uh," Tad said worriedly. "I hope that doesn't mean you're gonna go get yourself hurt again. Can't have my sister getting more impressive scars than me, you know." He ducked, laughing, as Star swatted at him again.

Muahahaha

2010-03-24T01:42:00.004-04:00

Woohoo, achievement spam. Another Crusader toon, yay! Funny part was, Windstar wound up with 24/25 of the marks to finish it off last night, so I had to wait until today, then go do ONE single daily. Kind of a *lol/facepalm* moment.

Working on more artz, will have a couple to post soon-ish. It's been ... interesting ... trying to do online stuff lately, cause I got a hacker scare a few weeks ago. Many, many virus/malware/spybot scans seem to have cleared anything that may have gotten on my 'puter, so I think everything's ok now. I have been doing most of my internet stuff on my old laptop, though, just to be safe. And I'm changing my WoW password every week or so. I do have an authenticator, but any little bit helps, right?

Work and roommate issues have had me very tired and depressed lately, so I don't have much of anything else to tell about now, and I need to go sleep soon. Some possible good news, though, is me and my sister are starting to look for our own place to live. So maybe one small part of my depression might be 'fixed'.
/Waves

p.s. Been getting Kalenedral into some RP, and I have discovered that she has a very good personality for the moods I have been in lately. I still love to RP with Star, but her personality is just a little too quiet and sweet-natured for the funk I've been in for the last couple weeks. Although I think the approaching spring has given her a small case of blues. This also makes me wish for a second account even more, it would just be so nice if I could have her and Tad hanging around together in the game. I have had some ideas about Star meeting Kal as well, but I'm not too sure about it yet. ..And I'm rambling again. :P
/Waves again

I found it

2010-03-14T15:09:00.002-04:00

Here is (one of) Windstar's theme song(s). This band is amazing btw. Metal rock ... with cellos.

Apocalyptica- Hope

More Sketches

2010-02-25T01:30:00.006-05:00

Did a couple more drawings, and thought I'd share. I think my druid cat forms are getting a bit better.

Windstar, just chilling. And thinking.

My other Night Elf druid, Jahira.

I did this one a while ago, but I wasn't happy with it, so I went and fixed some things. Also, this is Star's winter coat, so she's a little fluffier than usual. :D

And a couple more random, non-WoW pics. Have a couple horses. >.>

And that's it for now. Maybe someday I will get the nerve to try drawing people. I have some things in my head I would love to try to get on paper, mostly my pally Arien with my sis's druid, Alanon. Maybe something with Arien and Kalenedral, too. *Thinking* Anyways, time to go sleep. /Waves

It's about time ...

2010-02-23T00:13:00.003-05:00

So, I finally was able to transfer Arien and Kalenedral to Feathermoon. \o/
I had some issues with Arien, the transfer was rejected the first time, with no reason given. Second try worked fine, however. I'm now thinking of how to get them introduced into the RP circle Windstar keeps company with.

Kelesaria finally finished all her valiant dailies, with the Argent Tournament. I had to take her to draenei-land and do all the starter-zone quests to reach exalted with the spacegoats, but it was fun, and worth it. Crusader Kel now has enough dailies to get 10 champion's seals a day. Hello, new pets and mounts!*rubs hands in glee* And Kal got to bring a couple heirlooms with her for my baby rogue on Horde-side. Now to do it all again with Star and Arien. :P

And now it is late, and I'm sleepy. Going to see if Arien can meet some people tomorrow night, after some Windstar-RP time. There's a pretty awesome story-line going on with some of Star's friends, you can see more about it here. Star is actually getting to help out a little with parts of it, too. I'm pretty excited (and a bit worried about poor Loreli).

Well, goodnight for now. Hopefully will be doing more writing, now that my main RP toons are all on RP servers. Already working on a little something with Kal and Arien. >.>

/Waves

Birthday! and a short funny

2010-02-20T14:33:00.003-05:00

Today is my and my sister's birthday, whee!

So, last night was raid night for our guild on Gilneas. We did the weekly, cleared ToC10, and then went to grind some Ashen Verdict rep. Kel was standing around in the instance, as we waited for a couple non-guildie friends and one or 2 PuGs to get there. She had her darting hatchling out, and had some fetch balls in her bags, so I thought I'd play with my pet for a bit.

Fist of all, when raptor hatchlings carry the ball back, they hold it in the side of their mouths. It is cute. Then, when Kel tossed the ball for the third time, Little Dart decided he didn't want to fetch it. He wanted to go do his 'run-like-a-madman-leaving-a-trail-of-dust' thing. So Kel was standing there, with the fetch ball sitting a few steps in front of her, wondering where the heck her pet went. When I finally realized what happened, I LAUGHED. Fun times. :D

In fact, I was laughing so hard, I totally forgot to take a screenshot of it. /Fail.

And now off to do family-birthday-type stuff. /Waves

Catching up again

2010-02-14T12:25:00.006-05:00

I don't intend the long silent spells, but work and health issues have been making it hard to come up with anything worthwhile to write about. So, here's a bit of what I've been up to. I'm afraid it will be pretty short.

I'm sketching a little bit again. Got a new horse and new Windstar I'm working on. Will post them when I'm happy with them.

Speaking of Windstar, she is back in Stormwind for a while. She will most likely be very quiet for a while, until she rests/heals a bit. She has also realized how much she missed her friends, especially Shaur and Tak, and probably won't be going anywhere for a while. She even missed Pitch. A little. >.>

My guild on Gilneas is starting to raid again. Wait, let me clarify. The guild that one of my friends started, that everyone switched their toons to, is starting to raid. The old guild has gone almost totally stale, since the GM let a friend take over her account, and has been totally MIA since. The other officers got fed up with not being able to do anything about recruiting, setting up raids, etc., so one of them turned his alt guild into our new raiding guild. There was a tiny bit of drama involved, but for the most part it went smoothly. Ok, back on topic. We have been doing the weekly raid, as well as ICC rep farming runs. There has been talk of going back to Ulduar and TotC, since we're not geared enough for ICC yet. Kelesaria has the friendly version of the Ashen Verdict ring, and just got enough frost badges for her new cloak. Jahira and Arien have been sadly neglected, other than Jahira's jewelcrafting dailies, and occasional tournament dailies on Arien. The new guild wants everyone to have a single raiding main, though, which for me is Kel, so I'm not really bothered by it. Arien will eventually be moved anyways, with Kalenedral, and will have a lot more people to do stuff with, so I'm considering this a temporary lull for her.

I have been alt-ing a lot lately, too. My 40-something mage Vanyell has gotten a few random dungeons, and a Peddlefeet pet. My baby druid Skypaw has done a few dungeons as well (I love tank insta-queues).My rogue Kalirra has been resting while I try to decide if I want to concentrate on Sky, then use him to get her some heirlooms. Mostly I just want the daggers. Keeping weapons up-to-par can be such a pain. My warlock on Feathermoon, Rynia, has also been getting a lot of attention. She's now lvl 36, iirc, and still going. Star has been trying to collect stone keeper's shards for the staff (because hit rating for lowbies is yummy), she already has heirloom shoulders, and I've been slowly getting badges for a robe. This goes to prove, I guess, that it isn't really the class I have problems with, because I have never gotten a 'lock past lvl 20 before. Rynia, however, is fun. I do kind of wish her demons had more interesting names, though. I really need to start getting her into some RP, too.

And that's all I can think of for now. /Waves

Theme Songs

2010-02-05T17:07:00.005-05:00

I have been listening too itunes a lot lately, and thinking about some of my characters, and I think I've figured out theme songs for a couple of them.

For Kelesaria, I'll Survive, by Lacuna Coil.

Arien is definately Skillet's Awake and Alive.

For my warrior Kalenedral, Breaking Benjamin's I Will Not Bow fits her pretty well.

Those are the only ones I have figured out so far. Windstar is not cooperating with finding her theme. There's one or two songs that are close, but don't quite fit her. Guess I just need to keep thinking (and listening) for a while.

/waves

Congratulations, Draxuul-Arthas

2010-02-01T16:04:00.005-05:00

Welcome, Draxuul of Arthas, to my new Jerk of the Month Club. You get the dubious honor of being the first member that was truly awful enough for me to want to share your complete lack of regard for anyone but yourself.

So I was on my shaman Taarren, trying to get her daily herioc done. The first instance to pop was Halls of Lightning. First thing I noticed? Except for one little undead (mage I think), it was all tauren. Warrior tank, DK, tree druid healer, and me. It just struck me as slightly amusing. It started out fine, tank keeping aggro, healer keeping me alive when I attacked the wrong mob, DPS doing their job. Then a blue dagger dropped. I was the last to roll, and I noticed everyone had hit 'greed', except the druid, who hit 'need'. I thought for a second about hitting 'need' myself, and then, if I won, calling for a /roll, but then I decided not to bother, and hit 'greed'. It took until the next pull for anyone to say anything.

Mage: need?
Druid: lvl'ing a rogue
DK: wtf
Mage: rogue not here
Druid: its a f'ing blue worth 7g
Druid: qq
Me: .....
Druid: either you stop qq'ing or i stop healing
Druid: choose
Me: ..... are you serious

At this point someone pulled the boss, along with the group he was near. I think it was an accident. We wiped. Apparently the druid wanted us to kill the boss with the buff on him, so he didn't even bother healing when we pulled. Everyone just dropped the group at that point.

So it seems that a blue item worth only a few gold is enough for someone to throw a hissy-fit over, when someone else didn't like his decision to be greedy. Just forget about the dagger, I really don't like the item anyways, I think the stats are horrible (just my opinion guys, don't flame me). It was the druid's attitude that bugged me. He was the second-to-last to roll, so he saw everyone else pick 'greed'. He deliberately chose to screw over the other people in the group, because he wanted this item, which he even said was hardly worth anything. Seriously, he could have hit 'greed', and if he lost, he could have asked the winner if he could have it, 'for his alt'. I know I would have given it to him, and the rest of the group seemed like decent people, until he pulled that little stunt.

And then, after that, he takes advantage of his role as healer to attempt to blackmail the rest of us into shutting up. That, sir, is a seriously low thing to do. And then letting us all wipe, because he wanted to (in his words) 'choose the hard one'.

So, thank you Draxuul, for showing what a complete, total blit you are. Thankfully, my ignore list will keep me from ever having to deal with your elitist, self-centered bullcrap ever again.

And I did get Taarren's heroic done. It was Nexus, with a DK tank that chain-pulled the entire instance. It was awesome, except for the fact that I was low on mana the first half. The hit-rating trinket did not drop though. :(

"Just call me ..."

2010-01-24T12:51:00.007-05:00

Titles can be fun. Especially when you aquire them by doing fun things with awesome people. I know Spirit Bond has already done a post on this, but here is my take on it. :)

Windstar, Arvoss, and Rhokk got to go along for a 'dragon killing' run last night. We started with Malygos, which just happened to be the last kill Star needed for her Champion of the Frozen Wastes achievement. For the record, I had never gotten past the start of phase 3 on Maly. My raiding guild that Kelesaria is in just never got it together to finish him off. I have at least one other character (Kel), maybe more, that are only a Maly kill away from their Champion title. So I was a little bit nervous and very excited at the same time, going into the Eye. We wound up taking 2 or 3 tries, but he went down in the end! :D (With me watching from below, where I had landed after dying, lol.)So now:

This will be her current displayed title for a while, until I get my lazy self going on her Guardian of Cenarius. Darn Silithus rep grind. :\

After that was Sartharion, with all 3 drakes up. Now that was exciting. I wound up having to help with showing some of the people where to stand for the lava waves, and we still wiped at least 4 times. It was still fun, though, and we got him down eventually. Then the rogue in the raid managed to vanish after he was dead, so at least 1 person was saved a bit of repairs (lol). Star didn't win the drake mount, but o well, it was still tons of fun. I love dps-race boss fights. :D
Also:

Onyxia was after that, after a bit of raid reorganizing. We one-shot her, easily. One or 2 people died in phase 3 (poor Arvoss), but it was pretty uneventful other than that. The fight is still fun, though, so that was fine with me. (I think sometimes it was a good thing that I never got into raiding in vanilla WoW, because so many of the current raids feel so new to me. Yes, even Naxx is still fun, I don't care how much 'better' the level 60, 40-man version was.) No good druid drops, but Rhokk got Ony's head, and Arvoss got the misleadingly-named gem bag. (Seriously, 'Sack of Gems' only has 1 gem in it? Come on, Blizzard, change it's name or add a couple more gems, please. :P)

The very best part of the whole thing? Windstar got to be a kitty for the entire run. I did offer to heal if we really needed it, but honestly, her feral gear is so much better than her resto set, and I think the fact that she pulled 4k dps or more for every single fight (after Maly, with the dragon-back phase and the fact that I died, I'm not sure if that counts, and she still did over 3k dps in that fight,) bears me out. I have actually been thinking about her specs lately, though I might make a whole new post on that, as it may get pretty rambly.

And now I'm off to continue my slow progress on my warrior Kalenedral. Even though my finances won't let me transfer her and Arien to Feathermoon just yet, I still want a high-level warrior to play with, dangit. Especially after that one warrior tank that was in my PuG Pit of Saron (on Jahira as the healer) yesterday. Warlike from Ragnaros, you rock.

/Waves

p.s. Btw, any rock/metal fans that don't have Breaking Benjamin's Dear Agony album: go get it now, it's amazing.

Catching Up

2010-01-20T11:02:00.005-05:00

Sorry about the blog silence lately, but I've been having a lot of RL junk lately. Plus, I haven't been doing much to blog about, and I really prefer to put interesting stuff in here, rather than just tossing up a filler post about more heroics or something. But here's a little of what I've been up to:

My baby rogue on WA is now level 20, with her mount. I have also discovered that the quest line for her poisons and stuff is borked for blood elves, which annoys me. It's no longer necessary for poisons, but the recipe for thistle tea is a really nice reward, and now to get it, I have to put a ticket in and wait for Blizz to send me the quest items. At least, according to Wowhead, they will. Anyways, still need to finish with my DK's proffesions so I can level her and grab some heirlooms for Kalirra and my druid Skypaw. Yay for having 2 leather wearing dps-type classes.

I have also been spending time on Durotan, with my tauren shaman Taarren. My sister has finally gotten her druid Taurros to 80, so I wanted Taarren (a.k.a. LT, bit of a story there) to be able to join in the heroics. Finally, yesterday:

I have lost track of how many toons I have gotten to 80 while doing the Hodir questline. Kind of funny, actually. So now I have an 80 shammy, and in the quest grind, she is revered with Sons of Hodir already. I'm pretty sure they did something with the rep gain of the quests, since she hit honored turning in Thorim's armor, and iirc, that used to only get to friendly. Not that I'm complaining, just feels like I'm out of the loop or something. Her gear is still pretty wimpy right now, though I did buy her the giantmaim pants and new weapons from the Hodir vendor. She's still going to be running some normal level 80 dungeons for a while though. I have heard so many stories about dps being 'carried' through heroics, and I don't want to add to them. Maybe I'll get lucky with some ToC runs or something.

On Feathermoon, Tadrith is 72 now, and has a new pet. I got a chimaera, since Kel had one for a while and I like them, but all my other BM hunters' stables are full. Tad's is too, now, so I don't know what I'll do when he hits 76 and starts Loque camping. Keenath is still sitting in there, so he might finally be going bye-bye. There is Aubri the dragonhawk too, but I really like d'hawks too, so I really don't want to let him go. Argh.

I'm kind of in a RP slump right now. Between job issues, and my sleeping schedule becoming a bit more normal (so I'm usually starting to doze at my keyboard when other people are just starting to show up in the Pig), I just can't get into it very much right now. So poor Windstar usually just sits in her little 'den' under the stairs and watches people. It doesn't help much when the characters that have become her friends are moving along with their own story arcs, which Star doesn't really have a part in. It's actually rather frustrating, because I really like being around the Riders, but it gets boring and slightly depressing watching everyone else doing their thing, while Star just sits on the side. Lonely druid-cat is lonely.

So, that's my main reason for my alt'ing right now, I think. Just trying to find stuff to do. I'm actually trying to work out what to do with Star, while I try to get my own frustrations taken care of. We'll have to see what happens.

Anyways, enough with my boring personal issues. :P Off to find something to do til time for work.
/wave

Ok, This is silly...

2010-01-09T11:55:00.003-05:00

Pitch seems to have taught Windstar a new trick...

To see what I mean, first look at this.

And now...

Cats are silly. :P

As Promised

2010-01-07T12:34:00.005-05:00

Latest Windstar sketch -

I'm not totally happy with it, but I can't quite place what's wrong. I think it turned out okay, though.

Anyways, off to tinker on WoW til time for work.

/waves

p.s. I really need to look into a scanner or something. :P

Procrastination is pwned (by OCD)

2010-01-07T01:07:00.008-05:00

About time too.

Today I spent most of the day on Arien. Started with a few heroics, and when people wanted to take a break, I finally finished something I had been wanting to do since Arien started Northrend. I finished her Argent Dawn rep. It took a lot of undead-killing.

But it was totally worth seeing the title next to my little holy warrior's name. :D

Argent Crusade was the first Northrend rep that I got to exalted with her, so Argent Dawn was the only thing left, and she was almost halfway through revered when I started. One full clear of Scholomance got her from 9k to around 11k rep, then turning in all the scourgestones made it about 14k. Then I discovered she hadn't even been to Light's Hope yet, so I ran her there, in between a couple more heroics, and did a couple quests, 2 of them inside Stratholme. That got her most of the way, so another partial run in Scholo, another quest complete, and more scourgestones, and boom, exalted. Yay!

Then to celebrate, I went and got her t9 pants. That's another blue gone from her ret set, just need new helm and bracers now. Plus a ring and a trinket. Then I can start getting t9 healing gear. Fun times.

On another note, I have started leveling Tad again. He is now in Northrend, and just dinged 69 before I got too sleepy and had to log off. He still has a ton of rest xp too. Not to mention his 2 heirlooms. Letting heirlooms be mailed cross-faction is possibly the best thing Blizzard has ever done. My tauren druid Bearkat took my leather heirloom shoulders from Durotan to Feathermoon, so Tad is now using them, since I seem to be in a Horde slump right now. He also has the bow, a present from his sister Windstar. It is so nice to not worry about how gun-happy Northrend is. :D

Last thing, I have been working on another Windstar sketch. I'm too tired to get it on my 'puter to post it now, but I will get it up for inspection ASAP. Hopefully tomorrow. Now off to bed for me.

/waves

What I've Been Up To

2010-01-03T05:26:00.005-05:00

Well, my job has been screwing up my hours, so I've had more free time for WoW, now that the holiday craze is settling down. One of my co-workers mentioned that it should be temporary, and should be back to normal in a couple weeks or so. I sure hope so. Much as I do not like my job right now, being able to pay bills is good. And I really, REALLY hate job-hunting. :(

I've gotten my new laptop mostly set up, with WoW and all my addons, itunes, Runes of Magic (which I hardly play anymore), and stuff like that. It is so much fun being able to actually run around in Dalaran now, without horrible lag. I don't get stuck on loading screens much anymore either. Yay!

With the Christmas break, the LFD groups have all been full of jerks and noobs, which have seriously lowered my desire to camp heroics on Feathermoon. On Gilneas it isn't as bad, because my guildies have been on a bit more, so I can group with people I know. We sometimes have to PuG one or two, but it's still fun because most of the group knows what they're doing. Arien has recently gotten 2 pieces of her ret t9, and several drops for her healing set. Today, I actually healed a full run of all 3 ICC heroics, and I think I did all right. She still needs some stuff, like a new healing libram and cloak, but I'm getting pretty happy with her gear. Her ret set still has several blues to replace, though. On that note, any sort of advice on which holy libram to get would be welcome, since I'm still pretty much a noob with pally healing.

And besides all that, I've been working on more alts. I have made a couple on Wyrmrest Accord, another RP server, just for kicks. So far I have a Tauren druid and a Belf rogue, and a Nelf death knight that I just made a couple days ago. I may transfer a couple others over from Durotan, since I haven't really seen any of my old friends/guildies there for ages. That will have to wait for my job to sort out, though.

My job issues are also making it harder to move Arien and Kalenedral to Feathermoon. I want to move them together, and I just don't know if I can spare the $50 right now. But I really want to get them moved and get it over with. It's getting pretty frustrating. :(

Speaking of Kal, I've been doing some random questing on her recently. She just dinged 41 earlier today, and is over halfway to 42 already. Having 3 heirlooms (shoulders, chestpiece, and weapon) is so awesome. I also went ahead and got her dual spec, though she won't actually be tanking much of anything until Outlands at least. I don't trust the lowbie LFD yet.

My troll hunter Rajji has been casually looking for Arcturis, the newest spirit beast, but no luck so far. It has mostly consisted of logging on him, sitting by Amberpine for a few minutes, then getting bored and hopping on someone else. I'm hoping to maybe get lucky sooner or later, and honestly I don't mind if it takes a while. He has Gondria already, and I don't play him much anyways. In fact, I have been toying with the idea of transfering him to Wyrmrest Accord and switching him to a worgen, when Cataclysm comes out. I have already decided to do that with my priest Caderlly, I just don't know which server I want to put Cad on yet. Either Gilneas or Feathermoon, I think.

I seem to be mostly over my cold, finally, except for the cough, which is usually the last symptom to go anyways. Still (sort of) glad I'm not working as much for now, though, since hacking myself hoarse is not fun when trying to work (and gets me some funny looks from the customers).

And that's all I can think of for now. May possibly be more stories soon-ish, if I can get myself away from WoW long enough to actually write stuff. ;)

/Waves

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T13:04:00.004-05:00

As far as New Year's resolutions go, I will be keeping with the one I made many years ago, which was to never make any more resolutions. So far I'm keeping that one pretty well. ;)

Sorry for lack of posts lately, still getting over my cold, and it's been kind of busy lately. I may be even busier soon, trying to find a new job. We'll have to see. I'm just getting really tired of 1. a manager that seems to hate me, and no idea why, and 2. they just cannot work with me on my schedule. I got 10 hours this week. 10!! I have a $400+ rent each month, besides my WoW subscription and a couple other bills. I'm getting sick of the teenagers with no expenses getting hours over the adults that actually have bills to pay. This is not the first time my schedule has been short, either.

And I'm cutting this rant short, it's almost time to go spend the holiday with family. Hope everyone has a happy (and safe) New Years!
/waves