Why didn't I try this sooner...

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

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!

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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...

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

Kalenedral has her Quel'Delar again.

/Happy sigh

Silence...

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

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

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