Kinless' Chronicles

Whipped in Dire Maul. Creamed. Library is kind of cool.

Darkhoof's been holding on to the book, Frostshock and You, for a while now. A kind guildmate sold it to him for a very reasonable cost. The book was for a Shaman to return, Darkhoof's a Shaman, and the price was right. The book, a tome actually, seemed to belong to someone and I'd find that someone in the Athenaeum in Dire Maul. That appears to be a library of sorts. Don't know why they didn't just call it a library. Elves can be such snobs sometimes. (Wait.... Nevermind.)

I began assembling a party in Orgrimmar. From the guild I quickly had a Mage, who was on a quest to make better water, a Rogue, and a Druid enlisted. We only needed a Warrior to take the hits. All the guild's Warriors were otherwise engaged elsewhere.

What to do, what to do? In the public channel of Orgrimmar I announced "LFM tank for Dire Maul." Who responds to those kinds of calls? Hopefully I'd find a Warrior who had business of his own there.

Before long a Warrior responded. From a smaller guild. "Got room for a priest too?" Hmmm. Shackles and Priestly healing. I asked the party if anyone would care to drop and our Druid said he would. He'd just joined us to help out.

Excellent. Warrior and Priest joined us. And we set out for Camp Mojache where the team assembled. Feralas is a great zone. Provided you can easily handle the mobs, because the enemy tends to travel individually or in nothing more than pairs. Of the great battlegrounds of the world, Feralas is not one of them.

Riding to Dire Maul one is witness to the greater glories of the past. I understand the Elves originally built the place, but the scale is massive. So massive in fact that the Ogres have established themselves a comfortable camp here. With wandering packs of Hyenas and drunken Ogres you can well imagine it would be a dangerous place. (Dogs can, however, be a Tauren's best friend. I'll get to that yet.)

Well, being of the highest seasons (60) we all pass through the Ogres gathered about the entrance without drawing any attention to ourselves. It seems the more a threat you are to them, the less they will pay attention to you. That's not just Ogres but any mob in the world. If it were the opposite the 60's would be fighting every step of the way just to get around. And, too, the mobs aren't stupid. Tackling a 60 is certain death for them.

We entered our side of Dire Maul and got ourselves ready. Large lumbering trees walked past. One at at time, or in pairs. Those weren't our targets though. Our established tactic would be the Warrior would bring certain elementals to us at the door. If things went bad we'd simply head back to the portal and zone out. Our first pull, things go bad, and we portal out. I'm beginning to hate this place already.

Back in, we rezzed the fallen, and then continued. "Easy now." The 2nd pull, and the subsequent ones went well enough. The elementals all taken care of we quickly ran across the path, under a large pylon, and back up to the other side, past those wandering trees, to stand above this large sunken garden with a huge moving tree in it. This entity was some kind of Protector as found among the Elvish. But he wasn't our goal. We were wanting to get in the library. Or so I was trusting our Warrior to be leading us well.

We moved to the left and entered a room with ghosts in it. Curses. The Warrior attracted the attention of 6 ghosts and we were quickly killed. No nearby portal entrance to take advantage of. I ankhed, and rezzed the Priest. And we were immediately killed again by two ghosts that suddenly just appeared. Sneaky sneaky. Except we have the advantage of everliving life. They'd be ghosts forever.

We got the party back up, healed, and then reentered the room. We killed the guardians and moved to the far back where we encountered what appeared to be the ghost of an Elf. He was more material than the ghosts in that he appeared in the same form as he had in life. Though wearing cloth, he hit hard, and when he fell he dropped a nice set of leather shoulders. With Fire Resist so it was a particularly for the Rogue giving our new trips to the Molten Core where such gear is valuable.

We left this room and stood once more above the giant Protector. What would he drop, we wondered, if he was dead? With our axes flying we made quick work of it. A green staff. This mighty being and we get vendor trash off it? Nobody wanted it so the Rogue won it on the greed roll and would sell it for the gold to cover repairs.

We climbed back out of this sunken garden and prepared to move on. Looking over my shoulder I then noticed something unusual. A horse. Or the spirit of a horse. I walked back down and examined it. A fine beast. It's heavy hooves struck the rock floor in a way that no Tauren's hooves could, making a marvelously equestrian sound. This beast would make a magnificent mount for the stalwart.

Now Darkhoof does not know his way around Dire Maul and he simply followed the lead of the Warrior. But the Warrior was off on his game. Acting rather erratically. His friend explained to him that our goal was to visit the library, not to kill the Bosses of the place. But we moved towards another ghost filled room, and it again ended badly.

Four of us returned to life but the Warrior remained down. Apparently in some alternate universe his alter-ego was having issues with a girlfriend at the moment and he was not to rise again. Eight foot tall, five hundred pounds of brawn and attitude, and laid low by the flutterings of a female heart. I too have been felled by such and understood completely.

The Priest knew his way around, and knew what our goal was and motioned us to follow.

Back down to the sunken garden, and to a door. I possess a Crescent Key and had the door opened before the Rogue could get his lockpick tools out. We moved our way down this narrow hallway we found, killing the odd ghost and spirit on the way. At the end was another door. This door led to a large room which appeared to hold roaming groups of Wind Elementals. Like playing a childs game we waited for the right moments and made our way to another exit. This led down and down and at last we'd reached the Athenaeum.

This place was huge. And nice. A library and a museum and a laboratory all at the same time. The skeletal remains of a dragon suspended from the cieling, a great orb representing the globe we inhabit (or was it the stars that circled us?), elves making potions, and elves doing research.

I located what seemed to be the right librarian, and returned the tome to him. Now, I must ask, what is a tome, of value only to Shamans, doing in an Elvish library? What mysteries are these Elves hiding? But he was a grateful man and gave me a trinket for my effort. It was blue, Elvish in creation, and possessed rather nice magical value. +23 to my spells and healing, and +10 Fire Resist, it would be of use both in day-to-day work, and to my visits to the Molten Core.

Our Mage was shocked, however, to learn he'd have to find another elemental in Dire Maul. The Water Elemental boss. The library had not been his end goal. However, with our Warrior gone, still lying dead outside of the ghosts room above us, there was no longer a possibility with our group to accomplish that and so we called it mission complete.

I waved to the Priest, a decent fellow, as he and our Rogue hearthed home. The Mage took the rez sickness and ran to Camp Mojache.

I did not hearthstone back to Orgrimmar because I had one other thing to attend to back in Camp Mojache. It seems a colleague of one of the Tauren there had a friend go missing. I had found his remains in the library as well. Lucky for the Elves he was not suspended or made an exhibit in any way.

I returned to my body and picked an exit at random and ran for it. I was struck down by Gordok Ogres gathered around a campfire in a new part of Dire Maul. I ran back in and reentered to regain my corporeal self. I composed myself, regained my health, my mana, and smoothed my fur, and proceeded to continue on.

At exiting I happened across a little fight. A guild Warlock and two others were battling a Night Elf. I was not sure of her crime or transgression, but a guildmate was attacking her so I helped. She quickly dropped. "He said, she said" can be amusing at times, but in this case, with an insurmountable language barrier, there was none of that. "Kill, or be killed."

Now I must also ask, why can I speak with these Elves here in the library, clearly understanding their tounge, but I can't speak, even if we both try, with the Night Elves of the Alliance? I've encountered Elves across the world and I can communicate with them fine. Unless they are with the Alliance. That is a shame, I think. Though we might be enemies, we also happen to have similar goals. We both fight for the same causes, the Tauren and the Elves at least. We defend Nature, wishing to restore it to balance where we find it out of balance or corrupted. We both fight the Scourge and wish to deny Evil it's sway over the land. We both hold sacred the Emerald Dream. Our two nations otherwise similar in outlook, are led by leaders in opposite and deadly contradictory directions.

For truly, the Trolls are an evil race. That is well known. If you doubt me go visit Hakkar at his altar in Zul'Gurub. The Undead are unnatural. And though allied with the Horde they do have their own reasons for doing so, and their own goals for an endstate to our world. The Orcs are a foreign race, with no place for them in this world. This world did not bring them life as a Mother would and they should not expect it's shelter, and the sooner they return to Draenor or the Outlands the better for Azeroth. Should they wish to remain and assist in the fight against the Scourge they should ever be mindful they were once it's servants and it's a debt they owe the world. But, I digress.

Following the death of this Night Elf my guildmate entered the instance on his own mission and I moved to the exit. On the way out I passed a level 60 Gnome Mage. Surely he had business to attend to, as did I, so I passed without much remark. He sheeped me from behind.

This was probably the most interesting PvP encounter in a long time. Getting sheeped by a 60 Mage, who then winds up the next spell while you search for grass to nibble, has to be a quick way to the dinner table with a side of greenbeans and potatos. I did not have my PvP trinket ready since I'd eagerly equipped my new trinket earlier. The gnome's spell flew and struck and with a puff of wool I was returned to my old self, and damaged quite a bit. We then began our little tussle, me attacking with my dagger, he just bouncing around as gnome mages do. Bringing up a new spell, I interrupted with an Earth shock, and the battle continued. He was having the better of me though, but both of us were getting into the danger zone, and then I noticed a pack of hyenas behind him, heading our way. I backed him in their direction and hoped for the best.

Both of us were damaged pretty badly. My health was in the red, his in the orange. Then, not blinking away he is all of a sudden locked in a block of ice. Safe it would seem. But, and I can't explain it, the hyenas caught wind of him, him! and not me, and attacked him. I moved away to the exit as I saw all the dogs descend now on the mage. As I entered the hallway out I recieved notice that a Master Sergeant had just been killed and I'd received 69 Honor for it. I healed myself and continued on to Camp Mojache. Thank the dogs for that one.

And I must add, if the response of a gnome mage is to sheep all passing enemy, then gnome mages should not expect the enemy to pass them unmolested anymore. Death to gnomes. You've poisoned your own homeland and you only bring further destruction to the rest of the world with your explosives and weapons and fuel consuming contraptions. Death to all gnomes and the world will be a better place for it.

And with that Darkhoof returned to Orgrimmar and called it a night.

---

Oddity, the Orc Warrior, was sent back into the arena, to fight once more in Warsong Gulch on behalf of Thrall's forces.

There was a time when the Horde could do no wrong. Every battle in Warsong Gulch was a victory. The Elves and Gnomes would scatter like chaff in the wind.

But nowadays it is different. Since when did the vendors start selling backbones in Darnassus and Stormwind City? Two forays into the Gulch and the Horde was handed two losses. Though, it being Monday night, it could be the kills were the important goal, not the wins. Regardless, Oddity retired to his fishing spot outside in the Valley of Strength. Letting his white kitten out of the cage to stretch it's legs and turning his attention to catching a few fish for supper for them both.