Lolore: Worgens Gone Wild

[Paelos]

So, at some point after doing quests in WoW and realizing I never read the quest text, I wondered what I would learn if I actually went back and created a character while reading every quest. Also, since Worgen were new, I thought I would start there and create a sort of RP following the questlines of a disgruntled Worgen mage from his inception through the old world quests. I'll take it through the beginning and keep going with it if people like it. So here's the first part of the story of Tyrox, Worgen Mage:

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You know what life is like in Gilneas? It's boring. It's like being stuck in a prison. For years I've tried to break out of that place, but the gates and the mountains made that impossible. As long as King Greystash decided to keep that gates closed, I was screwed. Luckily, that changed the day I did.

Most adventurers I've met start their own stories about how their parents were dead and they had to struggle on against all the odds to become powerful heroes. My story isn't like that at all. Mom and Dad are alive, and they are decent enough people. They are just boring as dishwater and I hated being around them. Mom stayed at home, and Dad was a turnip merchant. My name's Tyrox, and I use fire to solve my problems.

So it's late October, getting colder, and people in Gilneas are talking about man-wolves. No shit. I thought they were crazy so I didn't pay attention to it. Also, it was usually the fat chicks who saw them, so I figured they were just trying to get someone to look at them while they talked. That was part of the reason I wanted to get out of this town. The chicks here are all large and dress like prudes. Hell, they are prudes. I'd heard stories about blue chicks beyond the wall who dressed all slutty and put out at the word Hello. It's probably crap, but it's gotta be better than Gilneas.

Anyway, where was I. Oh yeah, man-wolves. Turns out they weren't full of shit, but more on that later. On that day, I'm chilling at the square, looking for weaknesses in the gates, and I see Prince Douche talking to the guards about trouble-a-brewing! He's talking about evacuation. I'm thinking, holy shit! Finally, my chance to get out of here! So, I ask what I can do to speed along this merry process. He tells me to go check on some guard at the gate. I mock-salute and skip merrily to the gates. Well, not skip because that would look ridiculous and I have to maintain my cool, but mentally I'm skipping to my freaking-loo.

So, I check on said guard. Unfortunately for him, he's about 10 minutes expired. Claw marks, bite marks, the whole nine. Dead. Okay, so I head back to the Prince. That's when I notice we're completely surrounded by wolf-men. Normally, this would have shocked me. Right then, it was just pissing me off since I'm this close to getting out of here. I saunter right back up to the Prince and tell him what's what. I recommend we beat feet and get the hell out of newly adopted wolf town. He's like, "Grab some people from those houses and we can leave!" Ugh. Fine.

I should mention at this point that I only really knew how to do one thing well: toss fire at stuff. That doesn't make me much of a mage, but that's all they would let me do. My trainer Myriam said I wasn't "advanced" enough to learn the rest of my spells. Whatever. So, I start singing fur left and right on the way to some houses and let a few people too stupid to open their own doors out into the street. Good luck to you, dumbasses, I'm trying to get out of here.

So I head back to the Prince and tell him I let his people go. He asks where they are, and I tell him that wasn't part of the deal. So, he frowns and tells me to go find Gwen. She's gathering the people to get out. Alright, so I head on down Gwen's way, dodging all the guards fighting what they are calling Worgen. Gwen says to check on Myriam, who I find fighting several Worgen at once. She says it's finally time to teach me those spells she's been holding back. Oh I see. Getting attacked by hordes of giant wolf-men means shit just got advanced, huh? Whatever, bitch. So she teaches me how to fling spell fingers of pain at some of the Worgen. I feel better already.

Now, Myriam wants me to report to the King. Alright, things are moving up in the world. He's the man holding the keys. I go ask the King when he plans on bailing out. He tells me some bullshit tale about how we can't leave yet because he has to get some dude that rebelled against him out of jail, but he can't send anybody he knows so would I mind getting rebel leader for him? Um, how about no. That's crap. So I nod politely and go check behind him to see if the gate is open. It is not. Bastard. Alright, I have to play ball. So, I'm wandering towards the jail, which I find extremely stupid because we're all being held inside these walls like a giant jail, and Lord Tophat stops me. He says, "Oh by the by, would you mind slaughtering a few of those Worgen along the way, it would really help a bloke out!"

Yeah, sure. Why not. At least these lords usually pay well when they ask you to do stuff. So, I head inside and find the rebel named Crowley on top of the wall. He's got a buddy of his who's bleeding out. I tell him it's time to roll out of here, we're free to go. No, he wants to wait until his buddy is all patched up. Dude, you've been in prison for years and you want to wait now? Talk about institutionalized. I say screw it, and am ready to just leave his ass, but we get jumped by about 40 Worgen. So we all light into them like a furious storm of steel and fire, until all that's left are a bunch of smoldering wolf chunks. Finally Crowley agrees to leave.

When I get back to the King, I stop to tell Lord Tophat I killed those Worgen. He thanks me with 40 copper. Mental note, Lord Tophat is a dick. So the King and Crowley have a meeting of the minds and realize Crowley's got a stash that could blow this burg sky high. Guess who has to go grab the explosives? This guy! The King is really milking this thing. I head off to find Josiah who's supposedly looking after the stash. I find him all right. He's screaming about his head and his hands and not to look at him. I hooked up with a chick once who acted like that.

So I try to calm him down. Mistake. Fucker flips out, turns into a full-on Worgen and clamps down his jaws on my forearm. I shake him loose, just in time to watch his head turn into a red canoe. I turn around and there's miss Crowely holding a smoking shotty surrounded by two rather large dogs. Now, in the back of my mind, I know I've been bitten by a crazed beast. While wondering if I should tell anyone, I realize that doing so would probably earn me the same treatment as Josiah, so I keep my pretty mouth shut and play along. I plan on getting out of here no matter what.

I go back to find the King to tell him his stash is safe, but he's moved down the road. There are pissed off Worgen everywhere. He says one of his friends is back there. I'm like, well he's a goner. No no, King Greystash wants me to get back in there and get him. I'm going to argue, but I don't want to draw attention to the fact I may have the Worgen disease. So, I hop on a horse and speed off towards the square. I see the alchy hanging from a tree up ahead as I'm knocking over Worgen left and right on this horse.

Now, I could point out how badass this next part is, but I can't do it justice. You had to be there. I do a full on jump over three Worgen, grab the hanging dude from the tree as he's about to be bitten, turn around while putting him on the horse and light ten Worgen on fire as I complete a full flip back onto my horse. It was the best move I had ever pulled off to date, and it totally happened that way exactly.

So, I drop off alchy at the King and ask if we can go now. Sure, but we just have to fall back to some different gates. We get there and everyone assembles. King and Crowley start getting into an argument about impassable mountains and getting caught by the Worgen if we leave. I'm willing to chance it. Prince Douche says he'll valiantly stay behind to keep the Worgen off our backs. Good, take Tophat with you. Crowley doesn't like that plan and says he'll valiantly stay behind to fight off the Worgen. Like I said earlier, institutionalized. I'm all, hey good luck with that and start walking to the gate. That's when Tophat notices I've been bitten. He starts screaming about how I'm done-for and can't come with us. Thanks, dick. As I'm about to set the asshole on fire, Crowley puts his arm around me and says it's time for us to do something important and noble. Not. My. Style. Convict.

I have no choice in the matter it seems. I'm on a horse with Crowley and we're going to draw the Worgen's attention. Great. So we go tear-assing through the town while I'm hurling torches at everything furry I can see. It actually would have been a lot of fun if I didn't think we were going to get ripped to pieces when we stopped. We reign up in front of a church with cannons pointed out at the square. I jump behind one of those big guns and start blasting anything that moves. It helps, but not much. They just keep on coming, so we decide to fall back into the church.

The fighting was thick at that point. I don't remember much after that because I blacked out and woke up in a cage, covered in fur. Yep, I turned. I should point out it's not all bad being a Worgen now, but at the time, the situation was pretty dim. At that point, my good buddy Tophat struts up to me and starts talking down to me about shreds of humanity and how I should be put down. I decide  he had hours left to breathe. You know, once I got out of the cage.

[Paelos]

So to add insult to injury, Tophat throws me into the stocks and tells me that I ate Crowley when I turned. Oops. He wants to put a bullet in my head. Can't say I blame him, because I want to put a bullet in his. The alchemist intervenes though, and forces some god-awful concoction down my throat. It does absolutely nothing, but everyone else feels suddenly better about letting me out of the stocks, except Tophat. I say I'm just fine, and he's all "Up Yours, Worgen!" Whatever.

The alchy tells me he needs a bunch more shit to keep making more potions for me. Uh huh, you can kiss my ass. Tophat's standing there alone, so I walk up to him ready to rip his fucking throat out. However, he reminds me there are about a dozen guns trained at my head, and I had better not make any sudden moves until I prove I'm not a rabid beast.

Fine, I can pick flowers like a nice wolf-boy if that's what it takes to get out of here. I head down to grab the potion supplies when I hear a huge BOOOOOM in the distance. I look over at the shoreline, and wouldn't you know it? A giant horde of undead comes pouring off a fleet of tatter-sail boats that just docked. What are the fucking odds? I mean really. We just got our asses kicked by Worgen, I'm now a wolf-man myself, Tophat is still alive, and the undead pick NOW to decide to invade. Unreal.

Anyway, I decide to head back to the mayor and tell them, hey no big deal or anything, but there's a whole bunch of walking dead bodies that are wandering up the shoreline. You might want to get that checked out. Of course, who does the mayor want to check it out? Yeah. I think the rest of the men in this pitiful town are either dead or candyasses. Either way, the undead are in my way, so I go help out.

The Prince is down at the front line pumping undead full of holes. We're not entirely sure how you kill undead, but he has the brilliant idea that blowing them into a million pieces will probably work. Being the fan of fire that I am, I concur. So, I gather up about four kegs of explosives and proceed to stuff them on the heads of some wandering abominations. Don't ask me how. It involved a lot of hiding, jumping, and ninja-flipping shit I don't have time to go into. The Prince then lines up a shot from downtown and ... well let's just say I had to change robes when the entire operation was over. The good news is that seemed to keep the abominations at bay.

Prince tells me to go see Tophat. He's got a plan. Good. So do I. I go down there and play nice while Tophat tells me he's sorry about the "Up Yours, Worgen." Uh huh, and I'm sorry about that nightshade I accidently dumped in your wine. Enjoy your next cocktail, dick. Tophat tells me we need to take out the captains on those undead ships. By we he means me, while he sits back and enjoys his wine. For once, I'm fine with that.

The boats are just off the shoreline and the gangplanks are all pulled up. There isn't really a good option to get on them from the ground until I spot the catapults on the shore and get a fantastic idea. With the right calculations I manage to launch myself onto the deck of the ship in a spectacular manner. I did it on the first shot too...Ok, maybe the second...Ok, I overshot the whole damn thing, swam back and pulled myself up by the rope ladder. You happy? It's not all ninja-jumps and back-flips. Sometimes you have to do complicated math on the fly and forget to carry the one.

Once I'm on deck, setting undead on fire proves exceedingly easy. They all like to wear old dried out rages that act as natural kindling. Very helpful if you asked me. The Captains of course go down quick, and I'm back off the boats heading back to spread the good news. Crisis averted, I'm awesome. No, no, there's a Ranger Leader I have to take out using a pack of dogs. What? Why did she get off the boat? Why do I need a bunch of dogs? Better yet, why don't you send actual soldiers to take care of this? I saw like 50 down there fighting the regular undead.

Nope, apparently only I can blow the magic whistle that summons the dogs to kill this Ranger who just happened to get off the boat before I killed all the captains. I hope you're following this, because at the time I'm simply thinking that they were pulling me leg. Anyway, the Ranger's there, I summon the dogs, and they rip her to shreds. I honestly don't know why the hell I had to be there, because I didn't do anything but blow. Granted that's a talent for some, but nothing I want to be remembered for.

As I'm sauntering back to tell Tophat I've single-handedly taken care of the situation, the world starts a-rocking. I go out in the open and notice that a giant tidal wave just swept away the last 100 yards of shoreline. The Prince is standing there shreiking like a little girl and crying about how the men are drowning. Well, get in there and save them, I say. He can't swim, he reminds me. I'm like fine, I guess I can just doggy-paddle out there. He just stares at me. I guess nobody likes a pun in a time of crisis.

So, I swim out there and save a bunch of bedraggled soldiers who also apparently can't swim. First thing I'm doing if I'm ever in charge of this pathetic army: swimming lessons. We live on the fucking shore. I mean really. Oh yeah, the Prince is happy I saved the men, and says it's time we get everyone evacuated. Thank. God. Someone is finally on the same page as me. I head up to see the Mayor.

She says she's ready to go, but we have to get some citizens to come with us. I tell her if they ain't here now they ain't getting here. That didn't go over well. I was informed that nobody leaves unless we all leave. I didn't realize we had converted our government to a hippy commune when the tidal wave hit, because when the Worgen were attacking it was every man for himself. She's not budging, though, so I agree to go find these brave souls who didn't realize they were in mortal danger from the encroaching water and undead. The first step will be to get them some glasses.

The next part was truly stupid. I say that now because I can look at it in hindsight, but wow. Some people. I mean, you tell them the world is literally about to swallow them in a flood of walking corpses and rising water, and what are they thinking about? Their cat. Yeah. Little old lady wouldn't leave unless I found her cat. I'm ashamed to say I actually found the damn cat, too, because it's goddamn embarrassing. Now I realize that sometimes you just have to do something really dumb because it's the only way to get what you want. At the time, I just wanted to throw Grandma to the undead in pieces.

So I round up the wayward citizens, repair a few boats, find some horses, and locate a fancy dress for Grandma to wear when we finally get where we're going. That's what it took to get everyone moving in the right direction. Yep, I'm the town's bitch. At least the Mayor finally said we could go meet with the Queen in the Greystash Manor, and get the carriages ready to roll. I'm giddy at this point, because those carriages are going to take me further and further from this menagerie of idiots.

We have a few meetings in the Manor, and the end result is that it's time to get everyone in carriages and roll out. I man the driver's seat and start hauling ass down the mountains. As we're going, two ogres try to knock us over with boulders, but my awesome driving skills keep us moving right along. Unfortunately, the Prince's carriage isn't so lucky. I see him waving at me to stop as his carriage has overturned in the middle of the damn road. So, he can't swim AND he can't drive. I don't think the Greystash line is going to make it very far.

The Prince tells me we have a problem. Several carriages were hit by the ogres and ended up crashing. Now the people have wandered into the swamp and are being attacked by alligators. Seriously? We only went HALF A MILE. This is the worst road-tripping crew I've ever seen. Who crashes and immediately thinks, "Wow, I flipped my carriage over. Obviously, the next part of my plan is to wander into that gator infested swamp instead of just waiting by the road for help."

I tell the Prince they are goners. He disagrees. He also commandeers my carriage. So, that pretty much stopped that argument. I go help the stranded travelers from getting munched on by gators, and rejoin the caravan. The bad news is that the Forsaken Horde is literally right on our heels. Luckily, the Prince has a plan. He wants me to go piss off a huge Ettin. Yep. That's the plan. Apparently pissing off a large ogre will somehow keep us from dying to the undead army. He won't go into any more detail than that. I'm at a loss for words, so I just go grab the stupid banner he wants from the Ettin and run back.

The Ettin is of course, pissed off and chases me. The Prince takes the banner and tosses it at the Forsaken, spouting some, "NONE SHALL PASS!" nonsense. Funny thing is, the Ettin totally bypasses us believing the undead took his banner, and he smashes them into small bits. I'm literally stunned. There was no way in the history of stupid ass plans that this one should have worked. The Prince just stands there with this satisfied smirk on his face. Okay, douche, this round goes to you. Savor the flavor because it won't happen again.

We get back in the carriages and head the rest of the way to town, Stormcrag or Stormhinge. Stormsomething. It's not important. The end result is that I'm out of harm's way, I'm away from stupid people trying to lock me behind walls, and I'm pretty sure Tophat has enjoyed his last cabernet. Life is starting to look up. The Mayor thanks me for helping them get this far, and asks me if I'd like to take on some mercenary work for the new town? I like gold. I like killing. Yes, I will become a mercenary. In fact, this seems like a great career choice for an ass-kicking, fire-starting, cat-finding Worgen like myself.

[Reg]

This is great. Keep it up!

[WindupAtheist]

This is awesome. I demand more.

[Paelos]

So my first job as a newly appointed mercenary is to take care of some spiders. And I'm not talking about those wee-little things you can crush with a boot. I'm talking about a spider who's 20 feet tall and births pissed off 3 foot baby spiders. Needless to say, nobody wanted this job, but for the right price I agree to go take on this Broodmother.

There's only one thing you need to know about spiders. They don't like fire. Case in point when I start scorching this big-ass spider from a distance. It's legs go out from under it and it screams to summon all its baby spiders to help out. Lucky for me, I just learned how to freeze things in place. So, I freeze all these little bastards, light up the trees with some well placed fire balls, and turn the entire grove into one large spider bonfire. Now granted, the mayor is a little peeved because she wanted me to just kill the spider and not burn down an entire section of forest, but it's dead right? Nobody else wanted this job, I remind her. Anyway, I got paid.

Next the Mayor tells me that we might have some more information about the Worgen curse. It could be in a journal left behind by some dude named Bradshaw at his place. Now normally, I would just tell her to cram it and leave, but I do like a good mystery, and I am sort of curious why we ended up getting Worgen everywhere in this crappy town. I mean, there's got to be better places to invade unless you're undead. So, I go off to check out this mill. Guess what I find there? One of those hot blue chicks I'd heard about. No shit, she's standing there with her tits practically hanging out. She tells me she's a priest of some shit involving a forest or light, or a lighted forest. I was staring at her rack so I wasn't paying attention.

She says I'm being followed and I need to lose my tail. Hur-hur. She wants me to get captured by an undead hunter and then break out using her magic necklace. I ask why she has a necklace that gets her out of traps, does she like being tied up, and would she be into that sort of thing. Wink, wink. She frowns and clocks me over the head with her staff. Well baby, don't go dressing that way if you don't want a little wolf-whistle every now and then. I've been locked behind a wall with fatties for 20 years.

So I take the necklace down to the road and fall right into an ice trap. The undead hunter steps out of the shadows and is all like "Aha, look at how clever I am with my cleverness! The master will be pleased." Seriously, they all talk like that. It's like they got reanimated with half a brain. So I bust out of the trap with my own, "But wait, there's more!" and set his ass on fire. Did I mention undead hate fire? They do.

Anyway, I head back to the tease who calls herself a priest. She says that I need to go to some place where everybody is like me and I can belong and we can dance in harmony. You know, the general creepy cult spiel you get from those 50-yard-stare types who want you to get on a spaceship with a bunch of blue-horned goat aliens. Like those would fucking exist. So, I back away slowly and say I'll go check it out. From a distance.

Turns out the place she wants me to go is a hollowed out tree filled with Worgen. At this point, I think it's fair to mention that it rains all the fucking time in this town. I step outside, it's raining. I step outside later, it's raining harder. I step outside a third time, and it's raining fucking cats that crazy old ladies want me to find for them. No, I'm still not over how dumb that was, and fuck you for bringing it up. So yeah, just think about how all this rain gets together with a whole bunch of wolves living in a stump. The entire place smells like wet dog. And guess who's there. Worgen Crowley! I guess I didn't eat him.

The tree hideout has a few more elves in it, none of which respond to my advances. I'm starting to hate elves. They say there's some artifact that has to do with why we're all Worgen, and would I mind going to fetch it? Oh, and they give me a nice horn to blown on for help. Great, another adventure where I get to blow on something. If this catches on, I'm going to get a bad rep. I head up to the cabin anyway and summon a whole bunch of soldiers who kick ass while I steal this sword of Aluuuuuun or whatever.

I give it back to the priests and they are all, "Thanks, now drink from these wells and you shall be given back your free will." Ok, one, the wells were here the whole fucking time. Why did you make me go grab the stupid artifact? Two, I've already got my free will, thanks. Why do people keep insisting on making me drink shit? And Three, just take your top off already!

 Seeing as we're not getting anywhere with these bitches, I just drink the water. Everyone says, "Oooooooh be cleansed of your spirits, come back to the light." Nope, feel the same. Still a wolf. Everyone else seems to feel better. Like I was saying earlier, cult. Wolf-Crowley tells me that we had to go through the ceremony because the original Worgen were night elves who didn't care enough to stop changing into wolves, and they ended up passing along the wonderful wolfness to the rest of us. It's official. Elves are dicks.

At this point, Tophat bursts in with the King and demands we swear fealty to the throne. How the hell did he find this stump? Better yet, how the hell is he still alive? I guess he decided to switch to bourbon when I wasn't looking. Either way, I'll have to redouble my efforts to deal with this asshole. Wolf-Crowley asks the King if that's how it is? The King says not really, and shape-shifts into a Worgen himself. It's one big kingdom gone to the wolves. Tophat looks like he's going to shit a brick so I can't help but laugh. They all bail out when Wolf-Crowley agrees that fur is thicker than blood.

I head up the road to meet up with the group because Tophat and I have some unfinished business. Along the way I see our Alchy buddy moaning near a bridge. Apparently, Tophat has taken the king prisoner! Big mistake, bucko. Now I can take you down and it's nice and legal. First though, Alchy hands me a stealth potion and says he wants to assassinate Tophat's Lordly friends who helped out. Ah, random murder. It's the gift that keeps on giving!

So I go creeping up the paths, avoiding dogs, hiding in boxes, and pulling out all my best ninja moves. I get into both of their houses and blast the Lords into warmed over goo. The guards don't see a thing because they are probably the same crack troops that had problems swimming or killing spiders. For those keeping score at home, that's two lords down, one to go.

Back to the courtyard where Tophat is holding the King. I step out of shadows and tell everybody that the jig is up. The Lords are dead, and the King is free. Fucking deal. Tophat starts blubbering about how this wasn't the way it was supposed to be. The King tells him to fall into line. Tophat flips out and screams that he'd rather be dead than follow a Worgen. Then he runs headlong over a cliff. What a pussy. As he goes, his top hat falls off and I take it. I'm now a wolf in a top hat. I shouldn't have to mention how dead sexy I look in this thing, but I'm gonna. Dead. Sexy.

So I'm strutting around in my new hat, feeling bad ass. Tophat's dead, I took his shit, and the King is safe. It's rounding out to be a pretty good day. The King says he has a job for me that will pay well. He wants me to head over to the stables and talk to Crowley's daughter about taking back the city. You had me at pays well. I jump the first horse over there to find out what to do.

As it turns out, the undead have taken over a village and made the people work in the mines. Chick-Crowley wants me to save them. Um, why? So they can fight for the city she tells me. Right, so you want me to go bust out a bunch of people who didn't want to fight in the first place, and got themselves captured, because they are going to help us fight for the city. Are you for real? She says, well maybe I would rather just storm the entire village by myself and take out their two undead Captains? Yes, I would sweet-cheeks. You go save the miners and get the fuck out of my way.

I walk right up to the first undead infantry I see and kick him right in the balls. Only they don't have balls anymore, so that proves totally ineffective. I fall back on my old standby, fire. Much more effective. Now, I could say it was ridiculously easy how I sashayed right into the middle of the town, scorched the two undead captains, and strolled back out twirling my staff while tipping my top-hat to the crowd. The truth is that I got my ass kicked. About 20 undead chased me around the town until they got tired and gave up. At that point I went around the back where the two captains were talking and pushed them off a cliff. Was it cowardly? Probably, but Tophat gave me the idea, and I'm not one for arguing with results.

I go back to tell Chick-Crowley how the town is safe and I rule. She informs me she got the miners out. Good for them. Make sure you don't give them anything pointy where they might hurt themselves. Now that we have ourselves a well organized militia (HA!) she says we're ready to take back the city proper. We're going to hit it hard at first light, and I better get some rest. I agree. As I head to bed around the battle campfire, it starts to rain again. Fucking figures.

[WindupAtheist]

This is way more fun than playing the game.

[Paelos]

Holy shit, I overslept. I hear the sounds of battle in the background and look around to see who's still there. I spy Prince Douche, and get all up in his face. Why didn't anyone bother waking me! He says nobody felt like poking a sleeping Worgen who might accidently set them on fire if he's cranky. Hmm, I am cranky a lot, so that's a pretty damn good reason. Touché. Alright so just point me at what needs killing.

The Prince says, alright we've given out all the guns, but I have this leftover sword. My job is extremely important, he reminds me. I need to take this really important yet somehow totally dull looking sword, run into the fray, and wave it over my head to rally the troops while yelling something inspirational.

...

Yeah, you read that right, he wanted me to take a sword into a gunfight and pump up the local idiots we've armed to the teeth fresh out of the mines. Do we keep a gun for the guy who has been kicking every undead ass since this thing got started? Nooooooo, here's your fucking sword, Wolf-boy, now get in there and show them how it's done. Ridiculous. I need a union rep.

So by the time I get up to the city, it's utter fucking chaos. The militia is running around like chickens with their heads cut off firing at anything that looks undead, half-dead, or sporting a slight limp. I'm just ducking out of the way trying not to get my head blown off by some trigger happy miner. Maybe it's best they didn't give me a gun, because I already would have popped about 10 of these guys for looking at me funny. Finally, I see a group of them semi-working together and running towards a HUGE undead monstrosity. On the way by, I jump out and yell, "HEY DIPSHITS! CHECK OUT MY FUCKING SWORD!" and wave the damn thing over my head like a jackass. Hey, it's what Prince Douche wanted me to do. I aim to please.

Much to my surprise, the crowd goes wild. Score another point for Prince My-plans-always-sound-retarded-but-actually-work. The guy knows how to think outside the box. Anyway, the militia gets all jacked up and charges the huge monstrosity like a bloody tidal wave of well-dressed fury. I think top hats are standard issue in the Gilneas army now. Can't say I blame them because they look spiffy AND nobody thinks a man in a top hat will shoot you. Until he shoots you.

Down goes undead fatty after about a million well-placed holes. Periodically, new guys show up, look at me standing there, and I give the them CHECK OUT MY FUCKING SWORD! routine again. It's like two shots of white lightning and a friendly squeeze on the ass. Works every time. Unless they are elves. Fucking elves.
Finally, my leadership skills and fancy sword waving get this parade of rejects to the main square where the King, his entourage, and the Undead Queen are all locked in glorious combat. It's quite the back and forth. He's hacking at her, she's shooting at us, we're firing at her, her minions are firing at us, and nobody is hitting the broadside of a damn barn. This show of aiming superiority drags on and on until eventually the Undead Queen says, "Fuck this, let's see how you do without your King!" and pulls out the super-secret arrow of Kingslaying doom.

Guess who comes in to spoil the fun? Yep, Prince Douche. He flies in from the side going all "NOOOOOOOOOO!" and takes the shot right in the chest. Ugh, dude. Really? That was completely unnecessary, she hadn't hit anything all day. Undead Queen is all taken aback because that was apparently the only arrow for Kingslaying she brought with her, so she runs off. The undead army needs to work on its logistics. I would have brought at least three arrows the way she was shooting.

So the Prince is dying, and asks his Daddy if he did good. The King is crushed and watches as his own son needlessly dies in his arms. It's sort of a touching scene and I do feel bad for the guy. I mean may not have been able to drive, swim, or fight, but I am going to miss his crazy ass ideas. Everyone's standing around looking at the scene. You know how it goes, something horrible has happened and nobody has any clue what to say, but they are all looking at me. So, I walk up to the king and whisper the only inspirational thing I can think of at the time. "Hey, sorry about your kid. Wanna check out my fucking sword?"

We carry the Prince inside, and I say I'll go find that Undead bitch that ran off. It's the least I can do. I grab another Worgen buddy and we follow the trail to a nearby Cathedral. The undead minions say there's going to be a meeting of the minds there in 5 minutes. How convenient for us. Just enough time to hide and get ready for an ambush. So, we rush inside the cathedral and park ourselves in the baptismal font. I'm just hoping the wet dog smell doesn't tip them off when they arrive.

Undead Bitch and her orc friend show up shortly, and proceed to exhange pleasantries. It went something like this:
Orc: Well this went fucking well. Did you notice how they just kicked your ass across three districts?
Queenie: Stuff it, greenskin. This is only a setback. We can use the plague if we need.
Orc: Hey, no plague. Warchief says plague bad. You're not still cooking that shit are you?
Queenie: Nah, I'm into my leftover stock now. I've moved my teams over to more noble pursuits. Like restoring our beloved covered bridges.
Orc: Good, because remember we're not the bad guys here. No Plague.
Queenie: Agreed, no plague. <Waits for the orc to walk off>
Minion: So you want us to stop producing the plague, mistress?
Queenie: Are you fucking kidding? Double production and test that shit on kittens!
Minion: It's good to be the bad guys. Hahahaha!

I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it. I also decided that since both of them that that battle-hardened look and were armed to the teeth, an ambush would have resulted in me decorating an Undead manor as a carpet. So we wait until they leave and report back to the King. He tells me they stole a large flying bat, and I should jump on it's back to rain hellfire down on our enemies. You don't have to ask me twice. Before long, I've turned half the town into a crater. Was it overkill? In retrospect, probably, but I say if you don't want shit to get blown up, don't give me a flying bat and a bag of explosives. Simple rule of thumb there.

Seeing as there aren't a lot of habitable buildings left, it's time to get the hell out of this burg, AGAIN. We save the city, we lose the city, we come back, we lose it again. Maybe if you stopped arming villagers and conscripted a normal army, these things would stay taken. The King tells me to take the tunnels, and here's a torch. Why the torch, exactly? Oh because the tunnels are infested with about a gazillion rats. Now, I'm not a pussy, but rats freak me the fuck out. I'm not exactly proud of the fact that I ran through the tunnel screaming like a little girl waving the torch yelling, "THEY'RE IN MY HAIR!" Still, I got out of the city in record time.

Alchy's on the other side. He said we've managed to piss off the spirits and we need to settle them back down. Ok, where's my settling sword? I think I dropped it when I was running from the rats. Oh well, tell the spirits to sit down and shut up. Instead, he says we can just take a few mementos from the graves and that should do the trick. Fine. So, we gather up a bunch of moldy shit and put it on the one big grave at the top of the hill. The King comes up there with his son's dead body and buries him. We all stand around nodding about how he wasn't a Douche even though he totally was.

Back to business. We're getting on a boat and getting the hell out of here. Finally! Oh no wait, the elves are the ones who brought the boats. Well shit. Oh and they are taking us to the Elf Capital. Double shit. Oh and before we can go, the orcs just attacked. Oh come on! Let's just take our chances on the boats. I'd ride with the devil himself at this point. No, instead I have to man something called a Glaive Thrower and mow down the orcs so we can safely leave. "Glaive Thrower" is elvish for Queer-Looking-Catapult, by the way.

So I'm driving this fruity looking thing across the plains, tossing whirling death at whatever gets in my way. It's brutally efficient while also looking completely silly. I make short work of the invading orcs, and head back to the boats. Can we leave now? Of course not, there's an airship that's keeping us blockaded in the port. Newflash: That ship's in the air, we're on the fucking water. It's not possible to blockade us from the air. Let's just go!

Nope, we wait on a strike team. And we wait. And we wait some more. Time was of the essence about three jobs ago, I remind them. Nobody seems to care. I wish I still had my sword. Eventually, we hop on some ugly birds and fly up to the airship. We light into the orcs. I am literally a ball of pissed off hell-fire. I want to get off this fucking rock, and these green bastards are in my way. We make our way down into the hold set some explosive, steal another bat and fly away just in time to watch the thing go off. I screamed out "GILNEAS! FUCK YEAH!" as it blew up. It seemed cool at the time. Don't judge me.

As I hop on the boat with the rest of the refugees, I take one long look back at Gilneas. It was my home at one point, but I'm off to a mercenary life of bigger and better things. Still, there are a few things I will miss, most of which involved explosives. The undead can have this place for now. I've got a whole world out there waiting to hand me cash to set stuff on fire.

Next stop, fruity Elf Land. I need a drink.

_________________________

Little bit of Housekeeping. At this point Tyrox is level 14, and he's a fire-specced mage, obviously. I've left out a few quests along the way because I simply couldn't make sense of them in the narrative. There's no way Tyrox would have done them, even though he actually did.

I'm also doing this with no heirloom items or cash given to the character, so he's going to be rocking crappy bags for a while. Oh and he's a miner because I needed one later on for my 85 blacksmith. I will be heading to Darkshore next to do the quests over there, after a quick stop in Darnassus.

[Ingmar]

I think maybe the italics is a mistake for readability purposes.

[Paelos]

I think maybe the italics is a mistake for readability purposes.

No problem, I removed those.

[Reg]

Darkshore was where I lost interest in my Worgen druid. Hopefully, you can power through the boring part and get out the other side.

[Soln]

great stuff.  Thanks for giving me a reason to keep reading f13 

[WindupAtheist]

"Hey, sorry about your kid. Wanna check out my fucking sword?"

Can't... stop... laughing...

[Sheepherder]

You know what kills laughter?

Playing BGII.

And yeah, this is awesome.

[Paelos]

You wanna know what a long boat trip is like? Imagine sitting around with a bunch of blue-skinned, pointy-eared goofballs who only want to talk about trees. This is them: "Aren't trees great? Let's list 100 things we like about trees and compare notes together to see if we have anything in common. You put down leafy? So did I! Best friends forever!" I tossed one of them overboard when he asked me what kind of tree I would be if I could be a tree. They left me alone in the hold after that.

After what seemed like a month but was probably three days, they dropped me off on the dock of their capital. Holy shit, this is what happens when you let purple drink too much and throw up all over your island. Seriously, this place is a fucking eyesore. If the purple docks and purple portals with purple highlights around their purple leaves didn't set your eyes on fire, certainly their purple waters with purple roofs...you know what, I can't do it justice. There's no purple left in the world because the elves took it all. Fucking deal with it. Use maroon in a pinch.

So I see Alchy, and he says to go up through the portal and see the new digs the elves set us up with. I go through the portal and immediately run into a bunch of trees wandering around. Yep, walking trees. I shit you not. Oh you didn't think trees could walk? Obviously you're not feeding yours enough purple. The tree waves at me on the way by and just wanders down the path to talk to a bigger walking tree in front of what looks like a giant bear, but is in fact another tree. I get it now. Elves hump trees. Mystery solved.

I go to see where the King and Crowley are set up and surprise, surprise, they are living in a tree. Bet you didn't see that one coming. They tell me the elves specifically grew this just for our people and isn't it lovely? Um, did you ever hear of a house? I know you have because I was in Greystash Manor not a week ago before I accidently but deliberately blew it up on the back of a giant flying bat. I mean for Crowley I get it because he's gone from prison to leaky stump to functioning tree house. At least he's moving on up. Still, everyone seems happy enough with it, and they invite me to stay a while and listen. Yeah, I'll pass.

I'm getting ready to go anywhere else but here when an elf priestess walks up. Not just any elf priestess, this is apparently THE elf priestess. By the way, if you're an elf chick, do you have any other options besides priestess? I mean do they have elf clothes-washers or hookers? If you see any, clue me in because I'm getting nowhere with the religious types. Oh yeah and another guy is with the High Priestess. Imagine an elf had a four-way with like a bear, an owl, and a deer, and then grew a ridiculous beard. You picturing it? Gross isn't it. You sick fuck. Anyway this affront to God is apparently another leader. I think they must get chosen in a contest of who looks the most absurd. It was a landslide victory for this dude.

They are all, "Hope you like the new treehouse. Time to pay up!" The King says, "I know just the guy!" and he winks at me. Yippee. So, they send me off to the island on the back of some flying bird that looks like a stag. I land on a dock in some place called Darkshore. There's another chick elf waiting there, and obviously she's another priestess. Behind her is a dead elf. She says they had to evacuate another town and there are still some survivors out there. Ok, so what is killing elves? She doesn't know, but it must be horrible, please go check it out.

Alright so before a big battle I get all pumped up. I talk myself into it like I'm gonna fuck up some huge monsters that are slaying elves. They will rue day I showed up in Darkshore! And I go charging out the door like a bat out of hell, waiting to toss fire at the those son of a bitch monsters. I see dead elves everywhere and they are surrounded by, get this, one foot tall water elementals. Yep, ten water elementals that barely come up above my shins have managed to slaughter half the male population of this town. Holy hell, what I wouldn't give for a Gilneas miner with a gun right now.

So after composing myself from the sheer shock that this town was almost conquered by water, I smoke them all and find the rest of the pitiful elves. I head back and tell priestess #15, ok debt covered, see ya later. Nope, that was just the first part. They want me to find out why the wildlife is getting corrupted. Um, who cares? You see it's causing them issues because the crabs are getting tainted, and elves are getting sick from eating the crabs. No problem, I can help you here. Stop eating crab. Where's my money?

Apparently elves love them some crab, so I have actually do some research. Luckily, there's a gnome in town who's been working on the problem. His name is Cranktoggle. Yep, have a good giggle. Lord knows I did. How do you get taken seriously in the scientific community with a name like Cranktoggle? I mean unless you wrote your entire dissertation on beating off, I don't think anybody's making it past the cover page. All in all, I manage to stop chuckling long enough to see what the gnome's plan is.

Turns out he wants me to go kill some crabs and put their guts into a machine. Apparently, that will tell him where the corruption is coming from. I'll save some time here. The crabs were eating a dead bear that ate diseased rats that were infected by smaller demons who were working for a larger demon living in a cave that used to be a night elf until he fell to the dark side and declared war on Darkshore. Simple right? You know what would have been a better plan there, demon guy? Just fucking attack the town. Midget water almost pulled it off, I don't think you would have had any trouble. Anyway, it's his loss because I blew him up. Where was I? Oh yeah, so the corruption is gone and the debt's covered. I can finally get to doing my real job, which is "fire-for-hire". I thought it was catchy. I made up business cards. Tell your friends.

First job is from a poisoned elf who wants me to find his lost bear. He says it's really important because the bear is the only family he has. Ok, that's not creepy. It's his silver though, so off I go. Easy enough because the bear is about a mile down the road lying unconsious and surrounded by two deer-elves. Is everything cross-breeding in this fucked up country? Seriously, would it be racist of me to just say, "Hey elves, stop fucking trees and animals, alright?" I mean, granted I'm a walking wolf-man, but you're not going to catch me giving a handy-j to a maple anytime soon. I have limits.

Right so I got off track. There's a bear on the ground. The deer-elves want me to get some ingredients for them to heal him. They need the hair of three different animals, but it must be obtained peacefully or the spells won't work. Uh-huh. This doesn't involve setting things on fire. I must say I'm at a loss. In the end, I just cut a deal with a fur trapper I met on the road. What? That was peaceful. I certainly didn't kill anything. They didn't know the difference anyway.

The deer-elves do their little ritual and tell me I need to breathe in the smoke and choose an animal spirit. Yeah, I don't go in for these kind of hippy shenanigans. In case you haven't noticed, I've already got an animal spirit. Fucking wolf-man here. Let's just get this over with. The deer-elves get all frowny and try to talk me into communing with nature, but that goes nowhere. Finally, they just agree to wake up the stupid bear and I take him home. Only the bear's owner is dead. Great. So who the fuck is supposed to pay me now? I'm pretty sure the bear doesn't have any fucking cash on him. Lesson learned. From now on, it's money up front.

The rest of the elf jobs go pretty much like that while I'm in the town. Somebody asks me to do something really stupid that seems easy, and at the end of the day I end up blowing up herds of murlocs with exploding decoy robots. Ok, that one was actually kinda cool, but it was the only one. I'm a sucker for explosives. The rest of them just plain sucked. Find this, shoot that, eat this, touch that, where's my this, blah-blah-blah. I don't know how elves get dressed in the morning when they have this many everyday problems. Eventually I weed through enough petty bullshit to catch the eye of the local military commander. He's got a real job for me. Good, because if I had to dive for clams again, I was going to torch this stupid town.

[Sheepherder]

Seriously, would it be racist of me to just say, "Hey elves, stop fucking trees and animals, alright?" I mean, granted I'm a walking wolf-man, but you're not going to catch me giving a handy-j to a maple anytime soon. I have limits.

Cribbing notes from WUA?

[Paelos]

Heh, to be fair, I play all my heroes as a goody two shoes guys usually. Tyrox is actually a composite character of letting my own evil side out, mixing it with WUA's style, adding a dash of Haemish, and putting it in a blender with the rest of the F13 cynicism to see what happens.

[WindupAtheist]

Cribbing notes from WUA?

There was a UO thread around here where Azaroth made some negative comment about one freeshard operator "ripping off" features from another, and my reaction was to basically call bullshit because they're all ripping the entire game off from EA in the first place. The same principle applies here.

I don't own the copyright on the concept of a cranky psychopath protagonist describing his RPG adventures in a conversational "fuck my life" sort of tone, we're both ripp-- reinterpreting other people's work anyway, and frankly Paleos has a much more difficult subject to work with in a tightly controlled game like WoW than I did in a game like BG where you can literally kill a questgiver if you think he's too stupid to live.

Plus his shit's funny.

[Sheepherder]

Hey, I don't think it's wrong.  It's just comforting to know I'm not the only person now incapable of seeing a druid in-game without prefixing it with "badger-fucking."

[Paelos]

Yep, purple animal rapists. All of them.

[Reg]

I'm guessing you're having some trouble getting through Darkshore too huh?

[WindupAtheist]

I imagine he's looking at notes consisting of "collected 10 bear asses, got some silver" times a million and wondering how the fuck to write them up into an interesting story. If he can get a single fun moderately-sized entry expressing the gist of each zone he'll be doing better than I expected. If he just writes up a few of the better zones, he'll still be doing very well. If he just goes "Fuck this!" then I'll understand.

[Paelos]

I imagine he's looking at notes consisting of "collected 10 bear asses, got some silver" times a million and wondering how the fuck to write them up into an interesting story. If he can get a single fun moderately-sized entry expressing the gist of each zone he'll be doing better than I expected. If he just writes up a few of the better zones, he'll still be doing very well. If he just goes "Fuck this!" then I'll understand.

Sort of. Part of the reason I got so many episodes out in a row was that I was snowed in last weekend/week in Atlanta and had nothing better to do. 

But seriously, next update is coming out tonight when I get home to write up the stuff from my notes I put together this weekend.

[Paelos]

After some cajoling and negotiating on what my services were actually worth (HINT: I do not accept payment in the form of animal friends, gross) I finally decided to check out the elf leader's big problem. I headed off to some ruins to find five elves standing in a hole, looking out over a field filled with a hundred trolls digging up stuff. I ask what the hell is going on? They inform me that these trolls have invaded and started mining in their lands, but due to the previous problems with the corruption, water elementals, and not being able to find their asses with both hands, they can't kick them out.

Naturally, I ask why the trolls bothered to invade this area just to do a land survey. Is there gold in them thar hills? Of course not, they are digging for elven artifacts. Trolls, looking for elven artifacts. Wouldn't they prefer troll artifacts? What the hell do these artifacts even do, I ask? The elves don't know. Oh I get it now, the trolls wanted elven artifacts that the actual elves have no idea how to work, making them somehow extremely valuable. Obviously they had to invade to dig, stopping just short of the elven town that they outnumber 20 to 1. I need to find a Troll bookie because they really don't understand odds at all.

The elves want me to go set a few troll diggers on fire to show them who's boss, and see if I can steal what they are digging up. That's all well and good as I excel at killing and stealing. I make short work of a few hapless diggers and nab at least 10 artifacts, but the elves didn't think that was enough. They wanted me to go to the troll warcamp nearby and rescue a couple of prisoners they took while causing as much havoc as I can. Now, I saw this warcamp on the way to killing diggers, and it probably had about 30 well-armed Horde soldiers in it, not peasants holding picks. I say I'm not going without backup. They say I shouldn't need any. They heard how I cleared out an entire village of undead back in Gilneas. I knew that lie was going to bite me in the ass.

Off I go to the warcamp, and I have no fucking idea what I'm going to do. Then it hits me. I go back to where all the corrupted crabs were on the beach and gather up about 20 of them in a box. I take that to the warcamp and set the thing on the road with a note that says, "Hey Mon, enjoy me crabs." Now, I play the waiting game. After about three hours, I see five trolls go running for the latrines. They have the runs something fierce. As they are all taking a dump into a giant ditch, I decide that would be the time for a perfectly placed fireball up their poop-shoot. Nothing makes a distracting explosion like fire and troll shit.

So as the rest of the soldiers are trying to put the fire out, I sneak into the back of the war camp and try to find the captured elves. I see one of them lying on the ground, but she's like, couldn't you get here faster? And then she died. It was like she held on just long enough to tell me I sucked. What a bitch. The other elf is in a cage and much less bitchy. She wants me to get the key from her torturer and set her free. Easy enough. I add one more troll flambé to the bunch, and I let her out of her cell. She says if we can make it to the docks we can escape. I point out that there's this thing called a road back behind the camp that will lead us out of the camp instead of right back into the fray. She disregards my sage advice and instead runs off back into the war camp. Naturally, I did what any self-respecting Worgen would do in that situation. I left out the back. What kind of scout runs back into a war camp to escape anyway? Better that she's off the payroll.

So I report back to the commander that too bad, so sad, they are all dead. Pour some of that deer-piss you call liquor out on the ground and let's get on with our lives. She agrees and thinks I should focus on the two troll assistant commanders that are leading the invasion. Apparently the head guy is hard to find and is protecting himself with some sort of magic shield. Whatever, I ask where these guys are. She points me in the right direction, and hands me a poisoned spear. It's very important, she reminds me, because these trolls are very powerful and that spear will severely weaken them. Uh-huh.

I find the first co-leader at the bottom of a well. Seems like an obvious place for army strategic planning. I proceed to jump out from behind a pillar, yell AHA! and throw the spear at the troll. Now, for those of you paying attention so far, you'd know I'm a mage. The extent of me using weaponry of any sort is this stick I carry around to whack idiots that ask me dumbass questions. Or poke hot chicks with. I call it my Soul Pole. Alas, I'm not the most athletic son of a bitch in the world. So, my aim was a bit off. Well, way off. I throw like a girl, ok. The spear went ten feet and rolled to hit the troll in the foot.

The troll looks at the spear, looks at me, and was like really? That was the plan? I have to admit it was embarrassing. I just shrugged sheepishly and then turned him into a blackened mess. Trolls don't have a lot of defense against a blazing discharge, spear or no spear. Those elves are fucking liars. The other leader met the same fate, minus the embarrassing spear toss because I sure as fuck wasn't going to try that again. If any elf hands me a spear one more time I'm just gonna light their pointy ears on fire and say "MAGIC FINGERS, BITCH!" Then walk off.  

I get back to camp, and the elves tell me they have figured out the good news. Hooray! All I have to do is go kill a bunch of troll shamans for their amulets and then they can take their power and imbue them into a magic arrow that will pierce the shield that the troll leader is using. What the hell? I have a pretty solid grasp of magical bullshit, but I'm clearly not advanced as elves who believe that they can somehow make a necklace into an arrow. In fact, this sounds like the spear incident all over again. I am not amused.

Still, their coin clinks in my pocket, so I slaughter some shamans. Enjoy being one with the earth, dipshits. By the way those totems are completely hilarious and pointless. Am I supposed to be intimated by the fact you can surround yourself with glowing stones? All they did was provide nice mood lighting for their corpses. I bring back the amulets and the elves "imbue" their magical arrow. I'm pretty sure I saw them just pull one out of the bin, but whatever. I'm supposed to take this arrow up to another ass-kicking elf on a ridge who has their leader cornered in a cave, and she will shoot it at him. Thank god, because I think we all know how that would have gone if you gave me the bow.

On the way through a cave up to a ridge, another elf stops me. He says the road ahead is impassable because the trolls have taken over the villages. Great, so what now? He says they happen to have an Ancient that I can ride into battle to kill the trolls and set their buildings on fire. An Ancient is essentially a giant ass-kicking tree. So, I jump on the back of the tree of doom, and he proceeds to wipe all the trolls and their buildings off the planet. It was total carnage. Troll bodies are flying everywhere, buildings are going up and blue flames, and I just sat back and enjoyed the view. It was awesome. Can I keep it?

Of course not. After we were done, I had to wonder what this highly effective killing machine is doing up on the ridge. Where the hell was this thing when I needed to take out the war camp full of trolls and rescue the damsels in distress? He mutters something about budget cuts due to a sexual harrassment suit they lost in Elves v. Badgers. Those fucking badgers are teases. Dressing all like that with their stripes. They had it coming.

Finally, I get up on the hill to give this bitch her mighty arrow. She charges into the cave with her buddies and me on her heels, finds the shielded troll leader, nocks the magical arrow, and misses. Un-fucking-real. The troll just smiles and freezes her two buddies to ice. She's all DO SOMETHING! So, since I'm behind her, I lift up her shirt. While the troll is all mesmerized by elf boobs, I hit him in the head with my staff and knock him out. No magic shield can stop my Soul Pole. Giggity. The elven bitch is kinda pissed, but I explain "when in doubt, whip em out." I'm all about results.

At the end of the day, I head back to elf town to talk with the head dude about the job. The town is safe from encroaching archeologist trolls thanks to yours truly. The head elf thanks me and says I am now a friend to the elven people. Whoodefuckingdoo, where's my money? I get paid, and I notice that he's got a new friend. Seems Grimclaw, the bear of that dead guy, has latched onto the head elf. He says he finds the bear's presence, "extremely comforting." That bear is a gold-digging whore. Anyway, the head elf tells me to talk to one of his soldiers about a problem to the south. Apparently a group called the Twilight Cult has moved into their territory and started worshipping gay vampires, or something. I can't allow that.

[WindupAtheist]

Good times. I declare this a new f13 thing. If you write a radicalthon story that includes elves and/or druids, token reference to badger-fucking must be made. 

[Paelos]

Funny part is the Grimclaw thing isn't even a joke. I didn't have to stretch to work in an animal sex reference. Here's the exact text from the head elf,

"I just want to offer my sincerest thanks for all that you've done for us. In my grief, I'm afraid that I didn't extend the gratitude that you truly deserve. We may not have made it here without you. Know that you will always have friends here. And you needn't worry about my loneliness. Grimclaw has taken to keeping me company, and I have to say he's a more comforting companion than I would have expected."

Is there anybody who read that and didn't think, wow, he's doing that bear?

[fatboy]

Great read, Paelos!!  Keep it up.

The troll camp stuff.....it has been a while since I played an Elf, but I don't remember any trolls.  Are you still in Darkshore?  Is this the new quest line from Cataclysm?

[Paelos]

Great read, Paelos!!  Keep it up.

The troll camp stuff.....it has been a while since I played an Elf, but I don't remember any trolls.  Are you still in Darkshore?  Is this the new quest line from Cataclysm?

Yeah this is the new shit in Darkshore. There are trolls digging up relics everywhere to the north of the elf town, and a sizable camp with a dock run by the Horde. They are called Shatterspear Laborers, and I've slaughtered them by the dozens now. 

[Prospero]

Now I don't need to resub! Nice work Paelos.

[Paelos]

After a large victory I like to kick back, relax, and get blind-ass-stinking drunk. As I'm sitting in the tavern enjoying large pitchers of dwarven ale, guess who wanders through the door? That crazy scout from the war camp that tried to escape through the middle of the enemy. I guess she made it out alive. Good for her. She sees me sitting there and gets this really pissed off look on her face. She stomps over to where I am and starts high-pitched screaming at me about abandoning her and how could I just walk away? I casually (and drunkenly) defend myself by slurring, "Hey baby, it's called strategic withdrawal. Come back to my place and I'll show you."

At that point she punched me in the face. There was a scuffle. I don't remember much of it, but I do remember being escorted out of town and tossed onto the beach. I woke up as the rain was hitting me in the face with sand in my crack. Seems I lost my pants somewhere. I guess I'm not as much of a "friend to the elven people" as the head guy thought. Better stay out of that particular town for a while until things cool off. Some people just don't know when to stay dead. So, I gather myself up, find my pants hanging in a tree, and set off down the road to a nearby refugee camp that I'd heard about in the tavern. I'm guessing they have work, or coffee, because I've got a wicked hangover.

Turns out they do need some things done. All these people are refugees from Auberdine, which has been taken over by air elementals. I'm hoping they are larger than my shins, because that would be really embarrassing if air took over where water failed. Yep, they are about my size, so they present a reasonable challenge. For some reason the elf tells me that I have to get the elemental's bracers and toss them in a moonwell so they won't be summoned again.  As I'm dumping all this trash in their sacred pool of light, I notice a ghost elf staring me. She says the spirits are restless in this place and she needs me to draw them to her. When are spirits not restless? All I meet are spirits that need to settle the fuck down. You're dead, take the time to reflect and stop being such a douche. Anyway, I ask what she's going to pay me. She says there will be no money, but on my deathbed I will receive total consciousness. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.

I collect the stupid spirits of her dead friends and bring them back. I'm not sure how I did that, I just poked their dead bodies with my Soul Pole until a blue floaty looking thing started following me around. I assumed that was it. Now she directs me at a giant purple orb at the end of the dock as the summoning portal for a giant badass who is about to destroy Darkshore. I'm like, bitch look around, this place is practically fucked already. She's like no, it could get worse, this guy is going to make it fall into the ocean! Ugh, fine that is actually worse.

I take the spirits to the orb and a huge floating elemental boss appears. I take one look at this thing which is about 50 feet tall and practically shit myself. Guess I'll be using that "total consciousness" a lot sooner than I expected. The boss says, "FOOLS, I WILL CRUSH YOUR TOWN! BWAHAHAHA!" Yeah, we got that. I guess when you're huge, you don't have to be clever. But the spirits are all "Not so fast!" and they rush him. The big dude screams like a stuck pig and shrinks down to my size. Hey, I can handle that. Does fire work against sentient air? Yes, yes it does.

After saving Auberdine, which seemed sort of pointless as the elementals had already killed everyone left, I tell the refugee camp that it's safe now. They tell me that Malfurion Stormrage is back and he's at this vortex thing on the hill, and I should go see him. Yeah, Stormrage is that weird stag-bear-owl-beard thing I met in Darnassus. He's standing the middle of a tornado, holding a hand in the air. He says it's taking all his power to keep this land from being ripped apart, and he needs help. He wants me to get the Wildkin, Furbolgs, and Ancients here. Um, Beardo, all you're doing is putting your hand in the air. I'm sure you can invite your own friends to the Tornado party.

Beardo says he'll reward me greatly if I can convince people to come, so off I go. I can think pretty great when it comes to rewards.  So I go to find an owl in a cave who wants me to do him a favor before he'll come along. Nevermind that Beardo is holding the world together with his hands, Owl-guy, I'm sure I can take the fucking time to pick up feathers off the ground so you can put your buddies spirits to rest. Asshole. I bet you taste like chicken.

Next I meet the big tree who also wants a favor. I'm shocked. He wants me to take out all the elementals that have infested his ruins. Dude, I rode around on one of you people and took out like a hundred trolls, can we try that again? He says that he doesn't let lesser races ride him. So I've met my first racist tree on my travels. It would have been something to jot down in my diary if I kept one, but they are for pussies. Except for this log, which is not a diary at all. It's a log. A manly log for badasses. Yes there's a difference. Shut up.

After more elemental killing it's off to the furbolgs. Guess what they want. If you guessed a kick in the ass, you lost. That's what I wanted to give them. In reality, it's several fucking favors. They give me a totem and tell me to fill it up with dead fire elementals, then take to the top of a ridge where I defend it against fire elementals, and when that's done it will sooth the fire elementals. You know what would sooth me? If you would just shut the fuck up and walk 50 feet up the hill instead of making me jump through fiery elemental hoops like a goddamn circus poodle.

Finally, I do all their stupid favors and Beardo's three buddies come with me to the whirlwind hootenanny. Beardo looks around and says that something's missing. No it's not, numbnuts. I gathered a owl-man, a bear-man, and a walking tree. I'm not sure we can get more ridiculous. Oh but we can! We need a dragon, and it lives in a dream. The FUCK? I actually asked the walking tree if Beardo had lost it. I long for the days when I was worried about walking corpses instead of trying to follow this nonsense. Instead, Beardo wants me to go in a cave, find a portal, go into the dream, which has become a nightmare by the way, and let the dragon out of the dream so she can close a portal in the real world that's letting in bad things. My head hurts.

So I go to the cave. Evil seems to be drawn to caves. Everytime I have to go kick something's ass, it's holed up in a cave somewhere. For once I'd like evil to live in a mansion with a large wet-bar. Where was I? Right, caves. They suck. But I head into this one, see this green portal at the back, and step through it. I see the dragon lying there all chained down. She says her dream has been corrupted by walking nightmares, and I need to kill a nightmare to get the key to her chains. How does one kill a nightmare exactly? I'm glad you asked. You see it's really about owning up to the fact that you're in a nightmare and accepting the things that are outside of your own control...Hahaha, I'm kidding. I just lit them on fire.

Unchained dragon and I fly out of the dream, which was also in a cave, and settle down with Beardo's rag-tag crew of manimal friends. With our combined powers, we are able to close the portal that was ripping apart Darkshore. I'm glad that's over. Beardo's "great reward" turns out to be a pretty spiffy vest and enough coin to keep me from pitching a fit. I still didn't like the Owl's bullshit. Beardo points me in the direction of a buddy of his who lives in a grove, and has a job for me.

Beardo's buddy is on the front lines of a conflict with this Twilight Hammer group. They are digging something up in the distance, and he wants me to sneak in there and find out what they are up to. First trolls, now these guys. Why does everyone keep showing up to this place with shovels and a bad attitude? There must be a travel brochure out there I'm not aware of. Come to Darkshore: A great place to dig up worthless shit! Bring the whole army!

The good news is that the druid gives me a potion that turns me into an invisible panther. So that's pretty cool. I go all stealth panther into the Twilight camp and find out they are digging up a huge statue of something called Soggoth. Apparently it has something to do with the Old Gods. Whatever ole' Soggy was, he sure was ugly. The thing looks like a giant elephant-squid hybrid with flippers. These people need better taste in their deities. I would have created a god statue with like huge tits or something.

I go back and tell the druid these people are in fact digging. Soggy's name makes him uneasy. He says we need a horn to stop them from summoning him into this world. Of course we do. Because obviously the only think stemming the tide from massive elephant-squids taking over this patch of dirt is our ability to play a bugle. We'll all stand together, holding hands, and defeat your evil with music, you nasty squid-god. Just watch, man! It'll be totally righteous. God I hate elves.

The druid sends me to find a stag-man who has this horn. Finally, something that isn't in the hands of someone in a cave. When I arrive, the stag-man is dead, and the horn is gone. Fuck. There's a dead naga near the corpse. I go back and tell the druid, "Hey dude, crazy Naga stole your horn." He informs me the Naga Warlord must have taken the horn back to their cave. You know what, I knew it. I was just setting myself up for this kind of disappointment that always ends up with me in a cave. I had this one coming. So, I go to the cave which happens to be on a secluded island.

I battle my way down to the bottom of this shiny-new-and-not-at-all-exactly-like-all-the-other-caves-I've-been-in cave, and I find the Warlord. As he lays on the ground smoldering, he cackles at me that it was all just a trick. The horn isn't here, it's on top of the island, and it's being used by naga priestesses to summon the Mother Naga here from the depths. Naga, please. I just went through this entire cave for nothing. Now, I'm really pissed. I head up to the top and find the four naga bitches summoning stuff around the horn. I kill them all, but Mother Naga shows up anyway. Oh and look, Beardo's here! They have a little back and forth where she tells Beardo , "Haha, totally fooled you. I'm actually attacking Hyjal and you're wasting your time here. In your face!" Then she ports out. Skank.

Beardo says he has to head out for Hyjal. He hands me the horn to go take care of Soggy. I roll over there and find the place crawling with elephant-squids. I blow the horn and it summons a bunch of Ancients who descend on the elephant-squids in an epic battle. I managed to just stand out of the way while they tear Soggy apart with their trunk limbs. I do love watching the Ancients do what they do. If it wasn't for all the elves hanging around them, I'd probably want one as a pet.

So Soggy's dead and I've saved Darkshore. For good this time. The druids get together and give me a hearty slap on the back and enough gold to keep me drunk for several weeks. Which I fully intend to do after this insanity. On the way back to elf-capital, I see a big board for mercenaries. Seems there's trouble in a place called Ashenvale. I'll have to check that out in about a month after I get the smell of vomit and cheap hooker out of my cloak.

[WindupAtheist]

General thumbs up post!

[Reg]

Made it out of Darkshore! Way to go.

[Paelos]

Made it out of Darkshore! Way to go.

It took some moxy. I left out the quests where I had to do even more shit for Furbolgs and flying around the zone bomb-healing wildlife before running into a pack of prospecting dwarves who wanted me to build a house for murlocs.

There was already enough ridiculous crap in these questlines without trying to work that in.

[fatboy]

Excellent job - keep it coming.  You actually made Darkshore *seem* like an interesting place - which I'm sure it was not.   

I have a minor request - if you could add some character information (Level, etc.) every once in a while for use as a frame of reference. 

[Paelos]

Tyrox is level 24 at this point. He's a black/grey wolf-mage fire-specced in a top hat and a vest.

Here's an armory link for relevent stats: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/proudmoore/tyrox/advanced

[Paelos]

Ok, opinion time from the readers. I need to know which zone you would rather me hit next on this journey. Here are your choices:

1 - Ashenvale
2 - Duskwood
3 - Wetlands