Ohai! and a little extra!

Oh hey, I found my blog!!!

Besides RP writing for WoW and occasionally for LOTRO, I've semi-recently started dinking around with a story idea of my own. This will eventually be turned into a book of some sort. Someday. When I, you know, finish it. Eventually.

... It's just going slow, okay?

I have no interest at this point of actually getting it published, but while I whack away at it, I thought I might put up some tidbits here now and then. Constructive criticism and comments are much appreciated, since I have no clue what I'm doing.

So anyways, here's an introduction of 2 of the main characters, who are elves. Yes, I have elves in my book. And humans, orcs, goblins, and dwarves. And a mad necromancer to top it all off, because mad necromancers are fun. Right?

..... Okay, enough of this. Here it is.

* * * * * * *

The first time Bracchus laid eyes on his mate Dymera, she was less than a day old.

An old comrade from the Orc Wars was expecting his first babe, and Bracchus happened to be staying only an hour's ride when the happy event occurred. When he heard the news he had no objections to going and seeing his old friend's offspring. He arrived at the house and entered, to find that the infant was not happy at all about being out in the world; in fact she was squalling at the top of her already-considerable lungs, showing a hint of the temper she would have later in her life.

Bracchus felt a pull when he heard her cry, and followed it to the nursery, where the new father and her appointed nurse were frantically trying to hush her. The elven warrior drew close to the baby Dymera, brushing off his friend's apologies for the noise. He stared at the infant for several minutes, then gently took her from the nurse. The female elf started to object, but subsided at a word from her master, who was watching Bracchus intently.

Bracchus had lifted the baby to his face and was studying her curiously when abruptly she stopped her wailing completely, opening eyes of crystalline gold and meeting his gaze boldly. And Bracchus, the most dour elf in the whole elven army, who had never cracked a smile- or so it was said- during the entire War, suddenly found himself grinning like a fool.

A Personal Note from Buster the Cat

Halloween is still a week and a half away, but Buster wanted me to remind everyone that while most of us are thinking of costumes and candy, there are some not-so-nice people out there too. So keep your kitty-cats safe this year- keep them indoors whenever possible and away from the ones that use the holiday as an excuse for some unsavory activities.



If you have no idea what I'm talking about, there's a decent article here, with links to more info. Have a safe and happy Halloween, everyone!

Ilfariel & Elgo

Still been thinking about Lord of the Rings even when my internet is screwing up and I can't play. *ahem* So, I thought I'd figure out the story behind two of my characters.

I realized a long time ago that I'm a romantic. I like having my characters paired up with someone, because hey, no one really wants to be alone, right? So back when Ilfariel started getting into my head, one of the first things I thought of was "Is she in any kind of relationship?" It took a while, but I finally figured out that yes, she's with Elgo, my champ. They're very happy together, and planning on getting married as soon as the war is over. This is some of Fari's backstory, along with how she met Elgo and what proceeded from there. And yea, they're a pretty mushy couple, but it's cute.

The one thing I kind of regret is having only one account, which means I can't play them both together. So all their RP together happens in my head. But it works for now.

(Mild PG warning >.>)
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Ilfariel grew up in Gondor, the middle of five offspring. where she helped run her mother's shop while her father oversaw their "main" business. They dealt mostly with cloth and leather goods, importing and exporting both raw material and finished products, with success enough to make them fairly wealthy. The inevitable odds and ends from each shipment, and any new products that they wanted to test the market for, wound up in her mother's shop in Minas Tirith, which was also where the family home was.

Ilfariel's brothers were more than capable of helping their parents, and stood to inherit it all anyway, so by the time she was twenty she had decided to "find her fortune" however she may, and left with her family's blessings. There had been rumors and more concerning the war even then, and Ilfariel decided to head to Bree the moment she heard of them. Her weapon skills were sufficient that she thought she could help the guard there against goblins and brigands.

She was accepted, the moment she got there and spoke to the captain in charge in fact, and once signed in she was assigned a guide until she knew her way around well enough. The guide was a young man, about her age, named Elgo, a native of Bree. They got along famously right from the start, and after just a few months they seemed inseparable. The guard captain noticed this, of course, and began worrying about when he would have to split them up. No one patrolled with another- they just didn't have the bodies to spare, and the threat wasn't great enough- yet- to warrant more than single patrols. Still, he found himself putting off the moment that he would have to separate the two young guards.

After Ilfariel had been there four months, however, there was no more reason to delay it, and he finally pulled Elgo back to his former duties patrolling the southern Bree-fields. Fari he set to patrolling up around Archet, where she would have little chance of running into her friend. The separation was unexpectedly hard on her, and she found herself missing Elgo fiercely. Still, it took her a few weeks to figure out that she had been falling in love with the young guard.

She had no sooner realized that when something happened that was both good and bad. Good, because it distracted her from her thoughts- bad, because the thing turned out to be bandits and brigands near Archet. When she and her fellow guards had fought enough skirmishes to know this was not just a minor threat, Ilfariel was sent back to give the captain a report.

The captain was understandably grim when he heard her report, but then he surprised her. "I'll need to think on this before I send you back with new orders," he told her. "Also, I need to speak with the town's leaders. Why don't you take tonight and tomorrow off? I'll send someone for you when we've decided what to do."

Ilfariel was only too happy to follow his command. As she reached the Prancing Pony and was about to head inside, she was suddenly stopped by a hand on her arm. She turned and came face-to-face with Elgo. Without thinking, she gave a happy cry and flung both arms around him in a hug. Immediately she knew that that was not the proper thing to do, but by then Elgo had his arms around her too, and was chuckling in her ear. "I take it you missed me, too?" he asked as he, mercifully, let her go. Fari tried to hide her growing blush by straightening her jacket, which really didn't need straightened. "Well, I umm..." she began, then his words registered and she stopped, looking at him in surprise. "Too?" she asked, then blushed again. Elgo chuckled again as he took her arm. "Come on, love," he said gently. "Let's find a place less crowded for supper, eh?" Fari could only let him lead her on.

They found a quiet inn and had supper there, then spent the rest of the evening walking about town, filling each other in on their adventures, or lack thereof. Elgo mentioned that he'd had a few scuffles with bandits, but mostly the Fields had been quiet. He seemed as disturbed as the captain when he heard her tale, but they both agreed there was nothing to be done about it for now.

It was getting quite late by the time they reached the rented room Ilfariel kept in the city. Elgo paused at her door, suddenly looking very self-conscious but obviously reluctant to leave. Fari could guess what he wanted to say to her, however, and beat him to it when she asked him, very softly, "Stay with me tonight?" He looked at her, startled, then nodded and followed her in.

* * * * * *

Morning dawned with clear skies. Ilfariel woke shortly after dawn, taking a moment to simply enjoy Elgo's warm, strong arms around her before quietly slipping out from under the covers. She found her pants and a clean shirt and dressed quickly, then went to the window and stood looking out, thinking.

She heard a soft yawn behind her and turned to see her lover stretching and blinking awake. He spotted her and smiled. "Come here, love." Fari smiled back and crossed over to the bed, sitting on the edge near him. He brought one hand up to rub her back, looking at her face searchingly. "Any regrets, Fari?" he asked her softly, using her nickname for the first time. She shook her head firmly. "No, love. None from me." She quirked an eyebrow at him, and he smiled again. "No, love. And I love you. In case I didn't say it often enough before." They both chuckled, then he nudged at her. "How about letting me up, love?" he asked her, half-joking, and she grinned back at him as she stood.



They had all that day together, which they spent in the city and nearby countryside again, and it took little convincing for Ilfariel to get him to stay that night as well. In the morning, however, they left her room to find a runner waiting for her. The boy was clearly startled when they came out together, but was tactful enough to say nothing and merely handed her a note from the captain before trotting off. Ilfariel read it quickly, then looked at Elgo with some regret. He simply nodded. "Duty calls, m'love. Nothing to be done about that," he said, then gave her a quick hug and a kiss before letting her go on her way.

Ilfariel took her orders from the captain- they weren't much changed from their previous ones, just stating for them all to stay alert- and headed back to Archet. This time, however, she had memories of Elgo to warm her when she grew too lonely, and she knew he would be waiting for her whenever they could manage the time.

* * * * * *

They'd been together for almost eight months now. Ilfariel had sent a letter to her parents as soon as she could, and knew that Elgo had done the same, and now he was courting her truly, with her parents' blessing. Despite all the trouble from the war that everyone felt was coming, Fari couldn't be happier.

Silence...

I feel like I ought to apologize. I honestly don't mean to let so much time go between posts, especially since I don't like when other bloggers do it (apologies to all said bloggers, I meant no offense). The fact is that lately I've been so tired that I haven't had the energy to even think of a blog post.



Anyways, so what have I been doing lately? Mostly I'm still playing Lord of the Rings Online. It's fun, it's interesting, so... I've been getting a good bit done too- Elgo the champion and Solanthe the hunter have joined the others in my level-20+ group, and Ilfariel is up to 31! Wardens are still mega-fun, though champs and hunters are started to get up there too. My budding runekeeper has finally gotten some playtime as well, I got him up to 11 in one day (although he went back to gathering dust afterwards >.>).



Allods has lost it's shine for the time being, though I don't doubt that I'll be getting back on it sometime. The biggest reason for that is my brother's PC is having... issues. Yea, those kind of issues. So until he gets it fixed, he can't play, and that was the biggest pull for me as far as the game went. I do have my fingers crossed that he gets it fixed up soon.

WoW has been... well, just kinda there. I've logged on a few times for some RP, and gotten Lark exalted with the Silver Covenant finally to boot, but other than that? Eh. I am still writing stuff for it, just haven't been itching to play it lately. I guess I'm in the pre-Cata limbo that's claimed so many others.


So, besides all that? Haven't been doing much. I'm finally back to a normal schedule at work, though I can't say I'm really recovered from my crazy stretch. I do have another week of vacation coming up soon, which will just be a sit-around-home-and-recup type of vacation, so that ought to be fun.

It's starting to get... well, not cold yet, but chilly. Winter is definitely on the way, which I'm not really looking forward to, but oh well. We've just had a few days of rain, which compounds the tiredness, but it seems to be over now.

That's all I can think of for now. Hopefully I will think of interesting things to post in the near future, instead of getting ideas which I forget about as soon as I get home. >.> Til next time, ciao!

Why I Like Google

Out of boredom I was poking around on Google image search a few days ago, and I found some stuff I wanted to share. Meet a few of Lark's pets. >.>

Firstly, the first ever Tuah. Just add the scars on her ear and cheek.

I wondered what Quiloe looked like exactly. Then I found this. I'm undecided about the white spot on her chest- Quiloe might have one, but it's likely smaller than this.

Meet another of Lark's older pets. Rage was probably the biggest panther you'll ever see, with an attitude to match. (Yes, he's got his own story, which I'll probably finish someday. >.>)

And finally, here is... not a pet- this is what Pitch's catform looks like. Although you'd have to imagine it being jet-black instead of spotty-looking. :P

Still writing bits and pieces, and job has been killing me this week with a wacky schedule. I just finished working 6 days in a row with no days off, but I'm off tomorrow. Then I go back again for another 3 days straight. That's 9 out of 10 days at work, for those that don't want to do the math. Yeesh, no wonder I'm tired. -.-



/passout

Ilfariel: A Horse of Her Own

In honor of Lord of the Rings Online going free-to-play, I thought I'd post the one completed story I've written about my warden, Ilfariel. She adores horses, and she was a little excited *cough* when she finally got one of her own. (>.>) Enjoy!
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Ilfariel blinked at her captain. "The Lone-lands? Are you sure, sir?"

He nodded. "We're getting more recruits that we can handle at the moment," he told her. "We have enough men-at-arms here to keep the city safe, and they need someone with experience out there. I'd like for you to leave within the week, if you can."

She nodded. "I can, sir. It's just... unexpected."

He chuckled. "But not unearned. You've proved your worth many times over, Ilfariel, and now you can show it to others. Now, dismissed. You should start packing soon." She nodded and saluted crisply, then turned to the door. The captain stopped her, however, before she could turn the knob.

"Oh, there's one more thing," he said casually. "I'd like you to head north first, to the horse-farms. You'll be doing a lot more traveling at your new post, and I think it's about time you had a mount of your own." Fari whirled and stared at him wide-eyed, then broke into a wide, dazzling grin when she saw he was serious. Forgetting decorum, she swept out the door and was gone.

* * * * * *

Ilfariel stroked the bay gelding's neck soothingly as he tossed his head. The stableboy hovered near, watching. "He's well-broke, spirited but gentle, and real sure-footed. The boss wants a fair price for him, but the Guard's supposed to be handling that, so you shouldn't need to worry."

She scratched around the horse's ears as he nudged his nose into her chest. "I'll take him," she said softly. "What's his name?"

The boy shuffled his bare feet in the dust. "He doesn't really have a name, miss. None of our horses to be sold do. You can name him what you'd like."

Ilfariel studied the warm brown eyes that looked into her own, then offered an apple slice on her palm. The horse happily lipped it up and munched it. "I'll call him Villox," she said at last, and the gelding snorted his approval.


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(You know the best thing about F2P is? I get to play the game with my sister again, woot!)

/pokes blog

Nothing new and exciting going on right now. I started a blog post about Allods, but it's stalled out for the moment (writer's block on something not story-related? Seriously? O.o). I've got several RP stories cooking, but having so many in my brain is scrambling it. Hopefully I'll be able to sort them all out soon.

Still playing Allods for the most part. I've been on WoW a few times, mostly just for our RP nights. Quae's also gotten a level, she's 74 now. Shadow-priesting has been fun, kinda makes me want to skip getting her second spec, although I know I'll be drafted into healing eventually.

Work this week has been crazy because my store's been getting ready for inventory, which is happening today. And I got today off. Score!

Sketching is at a stand-still, but that doesn't bother me, since I know if I try to force something it'll look awful anyway. I'll get back to things sooner or later.

Buster has been incredibly clingy since we got back from the beach, which is understandable since he's a rather... insecure cat anyway. It is rather interesting having a 12lb.+ cat want to be on your shoulder all the time, though.

Blizz has put in the Gnomeregan/Echo Isles bits, so Rajast and Booggah will have some fun stuff to do. I'll probably get it done on Zuluu too, but I'm not really sure how much he'd care. :P

Pitch will be doing the Gnomeregan stuff, along with as many of my others as I can. Still feeling the pull for Allods more than WoW, though, so dunno how long it'll take. Heck, maybe it will keep me occupied until Cataclysm comes out. >.>

I got back into Runes of Magic for a brief stint, only to find that my characters had all their talent points reset and all their money gone. Still had all their gear/items/bank stuff, so no idea what happened. Maybe it was because of the account screw-up that happened a while ago. It's not a terribly big deal, since making money in that game is ridiculous. Samyth has almost as much as he did before already.

Ummm, can't think of anything else. Like I said, quiet week. Maybe something interesting will come up in the next week or two.

(Got some potentially epic RP planned out with Shaurria, Pitch, and Alanon over the next week or so. You should check it out. >.>)

Back Home Again

We are back from the beach, and while it's good to be home, I miss it already. The drive home was a lot quieter than the drive down, with a lot of rain. It had started raining before we even left, actually, which messed up some of our plans for the last day there. Me, brother, and sister had wanted to go to the sound and swim before we left, but when we arrived, this is what greeted us.


Yea, didn't even try it. We just turned around and headed back.

It is wonderful to be back on my desktop. The laptop works all right for trips and stuff, but it's old, laggy, and has no sound whatsoever. Now I can get back to playing WoW and the other games I like without worries. And I can get on Ventrilo again! Oh Vent, how I've missed you.

Sis and I spent most of our vacation free time playing Allods instead of WoW, and while I miss my in-game friends, the break has been rather refreshing. And Allods is a ton of fun so far, I know I'll keep playing it alongside of WoW now. I may have to figure out a future post about the non-WoW games I've been tinkering in, there's quite a few of those now. I think I might even be able to make it interesting.

Today will be mostly getting things together so I can get back into Real Life. We've got grocery shopping to do, laundry to finish, all that "fun" stuff. Hopefully I'll find some playing time after it's done, then tomorrow one of my best friends is getting married, so I'm foreseeing that being a little hectic. After that it's back to the daily grind of work and stuff. Hmm, I think I'm ready for my next vacation already. >.>

Vacation Day Four

Sunday morning was the first beach trip. The waves were a little rough, but we had fun the whole time we were there.


The only problem was... I got sunburned, despite the sunscreen I put on (have I mentioned yet that it's been ages since I was out in the sun?). It's not a bad sunburn, but it hurts, so I've been staying mostly indoors since.

The house we're all staying in is pretty nice, except for a minor*cough* ant problem. And we have a hot tub! Sis and I discovered we have a resident toad living here last night, but he was too shy for pictures. Maybe I'll get one next time if we see him again.

Today the older sis wants to go see this place called Roanoke Island (I think). It's supposed to be something like Colonial Williamsburg, so should be interesting. I'll try getting some pictures there, I keep forgetting about my camera until it's too late.

Driving to NC- Vacation Day One

I had to be up stupid-early for work, so I was a little worried about driving for 3+ hours right after. I forgot who was gonna be in the car with me. My brother and sister did a good job keeping me awake and alert (maybe a bit too good) and we arrived just fine.

So what good is a long drive without highlights? Here's some noteworthy happenings:

- Stopping at Chik-fil-a for food before hitting the road, and my sister dropped my straw underneath her seat. I had to stop the car so she could get out and find it.

-The surfer bar we drove past that sold "COLD BEEP". (Broken signs ftw)

-The bridge across the sound near here that has cobwebs decorating the siderails across the whole thing. Then I realized that most of the webs were occupied. By really BIG spiders. I developed a case of tunnel-vision after that. >.>

-The sheer number of ABC stores we passed once we crossed into North Carolina.

Can't remember much else. Tomorrow I believe we are hitting the beach first thing, so might have some pictures to post. Now I think I need to crash, it's been a really long day.

AFK for VACATION!!!!!

Yea, we're leaving tomorrow to head to the beach with the family. We will have internet, so I may put up a post or two if I find anything blog-worthy, but I kinda doubt we'll be doing much game-playing. Unless it's Allods or something- my brother's gotten me and sis hooked on it now.



Anyway, I'm almost done packing, then gotta go pick up a few things from the store. After that, I just have to get through work tomorrow, then we'll be on our way! Yay, vacation!

Achievement Spaaaaam

We had another non-raid raid night last night, but at least I was able to talk a few folks into doing some dungeons (yes, I take all the credit! Muahaha). We wound up 4-manning Violet Hold when the PUG healer suddenly dropped the group, but my buddy did a great job elemental-healing on his shammy while we finished up. Go go shammies!

Then a couple other guildies decided to run heroic Occulus for the achievements they were missing. Since that's the last dungeon Barraccus needed for his CotFW title, I was very.... enthusiastic about going. The run went nice and smooth, until Eregos went down. Then Barraccus exploded everyone's chat windows with achievement spam.


7 achievements at once? Yes please. And he has his title now! I think he's only my second toon to get it, mostly because no one ever wants to kill Malygos anymore. Heck, they'll even do Naxx before him. :P

Krallormu approves of the achievement spam.

Not much else went on. I was having some issues at work today, however. I've had joint problems for years, now, and while it hasn't been worth mentioning before, today both my hips decided they did not want to work properly. It made for a painfully (literally) long day. But hey, I found that if I take enough of my painkiller stuff*, then everything kind of goes nicely numb. Doesn't help with the grinding sensations or the popping-out-of-place feeling, but at least the pain more or less stopped.


*(which I highly recommend for anyone that has pain problems, you can find it here)

Getting the Gang Back Together

Today was "run Turron through ToC5", "Do random stuff on Barraccus & Rajast", and apparently "Go play alts I usually ignore" day. Turron has some decent gear now (3k GS woot!), Barraccus is 10 frost badges away from his t10 legs, and Rajast has 6 of his twenty ravasaur teeth, plus got to 63 from doing random dungeons. Then my sister mentioned she was on her hunter Treng, on Wyrmrest Accord. That got me thinking, sooo....

Gwynifar is now level 11, up from 9, and has all her buddies back. Khlar helped escort her to Elwynn to reclaim Haiden, she braved Howling Fjord on her own to get Arthoas back, and then she and Treng were off to Azuremyst for their moths. The trip was every bit as eventful as it was the first time, and in the end Gwyn had Authir back at her side.





*Warm fuzzies*

So that was about it for today. Might go back to writing tomorrow, if my brain can function normally (aka not so omygollytired). I'm also starting to think about leveling Quae a bit, or maybe Shaur.

Oh, and I had a screwup with my Runes of Magic account (it got suspended "by mistake" somehow) but it's all fixed now. Maybe I'll try leveling my warden there. Or my druid. Or my warrior/rogue.....

Tales From the PUG (mild rant warning)

I've been in good PUGs and bad ones. Usually I don't say anything in my blogs about them, except for maybe a passing mention, but the ones from yesterday and today I felt were both worth a bit of blog space.

I've started running heroics with Turron for gear and badges. Haven't done that many yet, but I try to at least do one a day for the frosts. The randoms he gets are usually fairly easy ones, until yesterday. Yesterday, he got Old Kingdom.

I know OK can be a romp-fest if you overgear it like so many players do now, but that wasn't the case this time. He was in a group of fresh level 80s.

It was actually pretty fun. Since we didn't massively overgear the instance, we actually had to think about the pulls before we did them. We had to be careful of aggroing the patrols, manage everyone's aggro, and not simply run through willy-nilly. It was pretty awesome, felt like the old vanilla dungeons. People died, we even wiped once or twice, but everyone kept their cool and we went on.

Today's random put him in Halls of Lightning. For the record, I hate that place even when I do overgear it. But the group I was in decided to make it worse.

First off, Turron is still in mostly quest-reward greens/blues. He does maybe 1600 dps on a good day. And yes, I know that he's not that much help to most groups, but I do try to get stuff dead faster. It hasn't been helping that the RNG seems to be laughing at me- I haven't seen that much caster cloth stuff drop in ages. So gearing his dps set is being painful, as I'm spending the badges he does get on tanking gear.

So back to HoL. We are rolling along, the bear tank with an almost 6k gearscore is doing running pulls through the whole instance. I am running along behind him trying to whack stuff as best as I can, which resulted in my dps being abysmally low, but hey, no one's said a word yet. Then we get to the air elemental boss, whose name escapes me at the moment. Turron dies, but I brush it off, no big deal. Then the tank chimes in.

"Good, make him pay for getting a free ride."

. . . . . .

That is the moment that I realize that the tank and the other 2 dps are all from Burning Legion, probably a preformed group of friends. Only the healer (who was the nicest person in the whole group) and I were from different servers. So I came back with something along the lines of "Well, not everyone gets to level 80 with a 4k GS." Yea, I shouldn't be baiting them, probably should have ignored them, but eh. Elitist attitudes really bug the heck out of me. So then I get a spiel about how he farmed ToC 5-man until he had a 3.5k gearscore before he even set foot (paw?) in a heroic, and that's what I ought to be doing. He and the mage in the group actually went on about it for quite some time.

Me? I didn't say anything else, mostly because I just couldn't think of anything to say. Needless to say, I was rather peeved. And yes, that is what I probably should be doing, but that instance doesn't give badges, and that's what I'm in there for. I did wind up putting the tank and the mage on ignore, and the rest of the run was done in near-silence. We killed Loken with no deaths, and instance over.

He did at least drop a plate dps helm and the axe, so I finally got some upgrades. But yea, I think ToC will be getting a visit in the near future. A visit that will last as long as my guildies can tolerate, because I'm done with PUGs for the time being.

_________

On a brighter note, since we lacked the numbers for our usual ICC raid tonight we did ToC 10 instead, then went and paid Malygos a visit. Maly took some practice, but we got him down easily once everyone clicked. Now Barraccus just needs to finish heroic Occulus for his Champion of the Frozen Wastes title. (How he got as far as he is now without ever running H Occ is beyond me.)

Stuff and Things

I have actually been busy! But I still want to sleep all the time. Ugh, work.

First off, Turron the warrior has an achievement. It happened in the middle of an instance, so no cool screenshot cause I wasn't paying attention (I was more focused on, you know, hitting things dead >.>). So have a cheesy make-up pic.

I have an 80 that isn't a druid or hunter or death knight. What is this I don't even.

Also, now that he's capped, I have no inclination whatsoever to run any heroics on him. QQ.

Thing the second- I had Rajast in Un'goro to skill up his mining, cause it'd be nice to actually be able to gather the stuff he keeps flying over. And while I was there, I had an Urge. Soooo...

Omygollyit'slittleandtinyandcuteandSquee!

Okay, I'm alright now. But seriously, look at the size comparison. I don't remember it being that small when Kaledain and Khaotic were raising theirs. >.>

Thing the third! Lark's stable is now full. This is an IC pet- she has in fact already been "introduced" and I'm trying to think up a story for her now. It's also Lark's first female pet! *gasp*


I also spent a few minutes on Taurros the cowdruid, and while I was doing the cooking daily I noticed this.

Read that carefully. Do you see the problem here?
. . . . . . . . . .




VEGETABLE STEW DOES NOT HAVE MEAT IN IT CHILLED OR OTHERWISE OKAY? OKAY!

Geez.

Citadel, Take 2

Our second night in ICC went rather..... uh, wipefully? We spent the night on Professor Putricide, and while we didn't get him down, we were at least learning the fight. So last night, when we went for round 3, we had a better understanding of what we were doing.

The end result? A new boss down! Woohoo!


After that was the expected debate on where to go next, and we decided that trying Dreamwalker would probably be slightly less painful than the Sparkle Princes. So on to the Friendly Internet Dragon (tm) we went.

Raid composition took a while to figure out, but we eventually had 3 healers go portal-hopping, while two others stayed with us dps'ers. When we finally won the fight, it may have startled me a bit when Valithria suddenly hopped up and nuked all the remaining baddies. Maybe. Just a little. >.>

Fun stuff! I think we can probably add Dreamwalker to the list of bosses we can down regularly, too. Putricide..... well, maybe a bit more practice first.

Best part of last night, though? Running VOA before we hit ICC, and having the DK dps gloves drop from Toravon. Barraccus was the only DK in the raid. Now I can save his frost badges for his t10 pants. Score!

Back To The Citadel!

We finally had enough people around to do some raiding last night. First off was TOC for Jaraxxus, because he was the weekly raid and thus needed to be dead. Then after a minor roster shuffle, we were off to ICC.

With a PUG pally offtank, who managed to annoy all of us, I think, in one way or another. But oh well.

It was great to be back doing stuff. I hadn't really realized how much I had missed Barraccus. And hitting things. And seeing shinies (even if it's cloth shinies that I can't use). And, well, you get the point.

Barraccus was a bit of a loot ninja- he got 3 upgrades. Morrowgar dropped a nice tanking neck that I won the offspec roll for, then later after the Lootship fight he picked up some main-spec boots. This was where the pally started getting annoying. Apparently everything that dropped was an upgrade, as he picked up a caster sword with +hit (meh, noone else wanted it), then rolled on the boots, and at some point (I forget which fight it was) he wanted to roll on some cloth bracers that also had +hit. Those went to our mage, but the fact that he wanted them kinda irked me and a couple others.

Pro tip: Pally healers don't need +hit. And that's overlooking the fact that they're cloth, not plate.

Anyway, moving on. We knocked down Saurfang with no trouble, and he dropped the 2-hand axe. Now, I had been waiting for a 2-hander to drop and for me to win it, because I've been wanting to go back to blood or unholy on Barraccus. Since he's been dual-wield frost so far, and it would technically be an offspec roll, I waited for the lootmaster to call OS, then rolled on it then. Thankfully no one wanted it for main-spec. I lost the roll, but our pally main tank won it. A little further into the instance, he handed it over to me.

O.o *cue happy music*

I wound up waiting until after the raid was over before respeccing- Barra's unholy now- and then ran a quick heroic to test it out. I liked the numbers and can't wait to try it in a raid, though he still has his frost dps spec just in case.

Back to the night's raid..... We usually clear the first wing, then flail at Rotface/Festergut for a bit before calling it. This time, we got them both down. BOTH OF THEM DOWN. That was an awesome first for us. Friday night we go back, and we'll get to start off on Putricide first thing. Or maybe Blood Wing, who knows.

Now, I know that the probable main reason we did so well was because the "pity buff" is up to 30%? But still, it's nice to be able to work together and get stuff dead. If we have to be buffed out the wazoo to do it, well, it's fine by me. And that's all I will ever say about the ICC buff. (Maybe. I think.)

So that's about it. Wound up taking an unintentional nap before raid, so I didn't get anything done with anyone else. Today will be Level Alts time, then we go back to ICC Friday. Might have something else interesting to report by then, we'll see.

Now What Was I Doing Here...?

Ugh tired. Had to get up at the crack of dawn on my day off to take my car to the shop, which feels like it messed up my schedule (day off wut? where?), but at least now my car has new tires! This was my first time buying new car tires, I feel like I've graduated from something.


I am in Warrior Mode at the moment. My warrior Turron is now 78 and closing in on 80 fast. I've just noticed that when I pick a character that I Really Am Going To Level Next, I usually wind up on a totally different one..... But on the bright side, this will be my first 80 that's not a druid, hunter, or death knight!

Ilfariel has stalled out a bit at 24, because the WoW bug has gotten bigger than the LOTRO bug. I do plan on getting back to her, just not sure when yet.

I recently ran into an interesting PUG that I thought was worth a mention. Shaurria got Ahn'Kahet for a random, and two pulls into the instance the dps warrior ran into both of the groups that sit there. Much death ensued, and as we all ran back from the graveyard (and the healer quit the group -.-), this little gem happened.


This just makes me wonder if he would have cared that after the fiasco was over, we got a new healer, new dps, and finished the instance with no problems. I don't think that qualifies as "biting the dust".

Also, most people would feel compelled to smudge out the names to "protect" the guilty party. I have no such problems, so if you happen to see this guy... yea, you've been warned.

My writing bug has bitten me big time, I foresee another Massive Wall O' Text(tm) incoming. Don't say I didn't warn you. And speaking of which, I should go write some more now, so See ya!

Understanding A Character: Lark

First things first, have a Lark song. Hopefully this post will explain a bit how it fits her.

I mentioned before that I had a few things occur to me regarding Lark. I'm attempting to remember what they were, and also try to make them make sense. Bear with me here.

Lark is a complicated character (I know, I know, who isn't?). Trying to figure out how she'd behave in a scenario, and figuring out why she acts that way, is part of what makes her interesting.

First and foremost is her... gimmick, I guess I'll call it. That one thing that starts shaping who she is. Every character has one (or if they don't they're a fairly boring character imo), and Lark's is based on when she was growing up. Her storyline is that her older brother was a hero, the kind you read about in books and comics- he somehow always managed to not only be in the right place at the right time, but always came out on top, to boot. Then came the War of the Shifting Sands, where his luck ran out and he was killed. The details on that haven't been worked out and aren't really important, because he isn't the focus of the story, just a part of it.

Lark, the real focus of this story, was born twenty years later, so she never knew him. She literally grew up hearing stories of her brother, the hero, and as she got older and passed her coming-of-age, her parents began telling them a bit differently- instead of "this is your brother, see how great he was?" it became more like "this is your brother, don't you want to be like him and make your family famous like he did?" Yes, that's a bit harsh, but Lark's family wasn't really the loving, caring, be-who-you-are type. Needless to say, Lark decided that no, she didn't want to be a hero, because heroes usually wound up dead (oh, hey, like her brother did, huh?). After a little over 4 centuries of this, she decided to leave home and strike out on her own.

Enter Lathenil. He is possibly the most important figure in her history, because he did a lot to shape her into who she is now. Lark had no money when she left home, just her nightsaber and her bow. After a couple years of roughing it, often camping out rather than renting a room in a house or inn because her finances were so tight, she meets a random druid who takes a shine to her. Lath helps her find work, opens his home to her, and then gets her into his company of caravan guards. That began the best period of her life.

Lath was more than just a friend that helped her out. Up to this point, Lark had heard nothing but how great her brother was, didn't she want to be like him, you don't want to let us down now, do you? When she left her home, she accepted in her mind that she was a failure for not living up to her family's expectations. Lath never treated her as such. From the moment they first met, he treated her as herself, as someone that was worth something without being a "hero". This was a totally new experience for Lark. He was her lover, partner, confidante, and in some ways, her mentor. In the one story I wrote about the two of them, he proposed to her and she accepted. That might not seem like a big deal, until you think that at that point, Night Elves were immortal. She would have spent the rest of eternity with him. That's not something she would have taken lightly.

In that same story Lath is killed, so their future never happens. At the time of his death, Lark has the more pressing issue of simple survival to worry about, but you can believe that she grieved for him once she was safely back in civilization. Lath's death was the beginning of a trend that has affected Lark deeply. She lost her first pet only a couple years later, to a centaur attack similar to the one she lost Lath to. Her next pet, and her next lover, had similar fates. Over the centuries this has repeated, until now Lark believes that whoever she gets close to will die, sooner or later (more likely sooner). This haunts her more than she'll ever let on.

Lark's in-game introduction began when she met Pitch at a random nameless tavern. Since then, she and Pitch have become closer than she really wanted to be. He is her friend, and she's gotten dependent on him enough that she doesn't want to lose that friendship, but she's in constant fear that his association with her will cost him his life at some point. So for anyone that knows them in-game and might be wondering, that is why they are not "dating". It isn't really Pitch's doing that they aren't- it's Lark's.

She had a similar dilemma when she found her spirit beast, Komah. Her moonstalker Tuah had been with her for 4 years; she knew he would die sometime, and by then had accepted it as she accepted everything else her life threw at her. But Komah is different. Being sentient, she can speak with him same as with any person (sort of), and so he's more of a friend and partner than a pet. When she met him, she knew that if she accepted him as a pet he would likely die because of it, and to have the life of such a wonderful animal, and demi-god to boot, cut short because of her was nearly more than she could stand. She did take his offer, obviously, and she lives with the pain it causes her without complaint, but it's still there.

So. Getting back to Pitch again, I wondered a time or two why she was so attracted to him. The answer finally came to me- Pitch reminds her of Lath, whom she still loves and misses. Oh, she knows that Pitch isn't her long-dead lover and never will be, but the similarity is enough that she finds a great deal of comfort from him. He cares for her, gives her the space and privacy that she needs, and yet is always there when she needs him. In turn, she helps steady Pitch, whose spontaneity would get him into a lot more trouble otherwise. They balance each other nicely.

That being said, I don't see them ever becoming an official "couple". Lark's fears are too great, and she cares for him too much. To put it bluntly, she could live happily just being friends with him, even if it was strictly casual (aka no more bedding him), if it meant that he was alive. Letting him get too close would only be a death sentence, she believes, so she keeps that little bit of distance between them. Pitch accepts this without question; he figures that if he needed to know her reasons, she'd tell him.

Now this may make Lark seem to be a gloomy sort of person, but that isn't usually the case. Her life, instead of making her bitter and withdrawn (well, maybe a tad, but still), has instead taught her to take the good moments as they come, and enjoy them while they last. She tends to live in the moment a lot, and not worry about things until she has to. All of this together makes her an absorbing character to play, and is probably why she's become my RP main ever since I first created her.

And all this is because of a druid that never actually existed. Funny how that works, isn't it?

(P.S. I may do a story about when Lark first meets Lath. I've had bits and pieces of it running through my head, and will probably sit down and write it all out sometime. Muahaha)

*Knock, Knock* Anyone Home?

Ugh, what a week so far. I think I'm compiling a list of the things that drive me crazy at work, and most of them have happened this week already. Still adjusting to the schedule shift too, so yay, tired! >.>

I'm still playing Lord of the Rings Online mostly, but I usually get on WoW for a bit before bed. My poor shammy Rajast is still sitting around in Hellfire Peninsula; after getting him to Outland and level 60, the incentive to continue playing him has mostly gone away. He'll get there though, don't worry.

I am still loving my warden Ilfariel in LOTRO. I think it kinda resembles playing a pally, with her shield and damage-reduction skills, self-healing, and..... kinda low dps. But still, she's fun. And she has ranged attacks! Much better than your average low-level pally.


She's level 23 and has her mount now, too. Did I mention that she has a thing for horses? Well, she does.



See this? This is one reason I love this game- the graphics. The lake looks like you could dive right in.


In other news, Lark got back to her caravan-guarding roots. This was a fun bit of RP, I wish I could do this with her more often. Pitch didn't go along, mostly because I figured it'd be too hectic trying to control 2 toons at once.

I'm feeling an itch to level my priest and warrior on Gilneas now. With Shaur nearly 76, and all my other toons except Davoss already at 80, they'll be my next closest to cap anyways, so might as well, right?

Lark has been poking my brain lately. I've been tinkering with a story post for her, but it's coming slowly (writer's block ftl). I also need to finish the backstory bit I had going with Pitch, because I'm working on the next stage now.

I've made some realizations about Lark over the last couple weeks, and I may have to expound on those soon. That will probably comprise a blog post all its own, though, so for now I will leave it at that.

I've been doing some writing about Ilfariel too, but nothing major. Usually it's been a few sentences here and there about whatever point in her questing has been affecting her the most. I may post a couple up here anyway. Her character and personality is interesting so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing how she develops.

Oh, and our GM on Gilneas is back! We are slowly returning to the killing of internet dragons- slowly because after he's been gone for a couple months, some of our regular attendees have gone kinda MIA, so we have to round them up again (that is a rather interesting visual right there >.>).


So! Hopefully things will be a bit closer to normal soon, and I can quit being a zombie most of the day. Time will tell.

Hi

So. This is the spot where I'll be sticking the more random things that pop up in my head. My other blog, Spirit Bond, will now be reserved for World of Warcraft-only writings, mostly my RP stories.

Still messing with designs and templates and stuff here, so don't be surprised to see some changes now and then, til I figure out what I like.

Expect to see.... well, I don't really know what will show up here. But it should be interesting. To me, anyways. Ciao!