Not Enough Rage

[Adenas]

Hi,

Some of you might see my "Not Enough Rage" stories on the journal pages. I wasn't sure whether to put them there as, strictly speaking they're not journals although they're based on my own experiences.

Anyway I have a huge backlog of entries which are being posted one by one as fast as the journal admin staff can get round to it (I think; they don't answer my emails usually) but wondered if it would be appropriate to post them in here first for comments/suggestions. I don't want to flood the forum with my awful prose but flicking through this I can see that most of you are a lot more accomplished than I am.

Anyway below is my latest entry. It kinda refers vaguely to some of my earlier entries. Any comments would be appreciated!

[Adenas]

Level 36 was a lonely place. Adenas sat by himself in the Booty Bay bar, sipping a grog that the bartender had served him. Despite the way the drink made everything go a little blurry and inserted amusing hiccups into his speech, he was bored and a little depressed. It was time to do some quests, he thought confidently. "LFG Panther Mastery?" he asked the world, hopefully. As usual, there was no reply.

Earlier that evening Adenas had joined a group with Erys who were off to kill the biggest raptor in the jungle. "Oh, this just gets better" said one of the group members immediately after Adenas had joined. Adenas had been confused; "what?" he asked of the group. "Your too low level n00b" the complainer had replied, "its a level 42 elite". The party had previously been complaining about a Level 38 who had joined. Adenas had left in bad humour.

The fact was Adenas *was* too low level, a fact he resented. Having no patience with the process of monotonously killing creatures by himself known as "grinding", Adenas had instead occupied his time doing other things, mainly resting in inns. In the meantime his fellow adventurers had shot ahead and were now an average of six levels above him. There was no longer any point in him grouping with them as they went off to exotic locations like Alterac and The Scarlet Monastery. Every time he did he didn't gain anything from the experience except for camaraderie and caused no damage to the high level monsters they went to fight. He was, in essence, stranded in Stranglethorn and his friends had left him long ago.

Adenas was just about to order another grog when a message came over the chat channel. "LFG scaring shaky" said the message. Adenas had done that quest, but scaring Shaky again was better than sitting around doing nothing. Soon he found himself in a group with a priest and a rogue. They trudged through the jungle paths towards the gorillas. The plan was this; they needed Elder Mistvale Gorilla entrails to show to Shaky in the hope that he would be dumb enough to mistake them for human entrails, and thus get scared enough to pay his debts. Quite why they needed eight entrails was lost on Adenas, as that equated to quite a hefty chunk of meat, but it was not his place to argue as the goblin who had commissioned the quest was paying nearly 50 silver for it.

The first gorilla fell quite easily to the rogue's stun and Adenas' axe. Unfortunately the second one's cries for help attracted five of his friends, who fell upon the hapless adventurers like only large gorillas can. Adenas bravely tried to get them all attacking him using a combination of taunts and nasty attacks. It was surprising how readily dumb animals with no grasp of language responded to allegations about their mothers' private lives, thought Adenas while happily swinging away with his sword. But his happiness was short-lived when he noticed his health which was plummeting rapidly. Turning to the priest, he cried "heal pls" but saw that the priest was busy healing himself. The rogue, sensing defeat had long since disappeared into the shadows. "Argh" cried Adenas as he awkwardly fumbled for the healing potion he kept on his belt for emergencies. But it was too late; before long Adenas was lying in the graveyard looking at the jungle canopy above.

Adenas left the group soon afterwards and returned to the bar, where the barman poured him a grog without having to ask his preference. "Fancy doing some quests?" he asked Fezarus over the chat channel. "Sorry, doing SM with Erys and Sitch" came the reply. "I hate this game" Adenas said to the bar in general, who to a man ignored him. But then, they were all NPCs. Adenas had another drink. He could feel the strong drink going to his head, or at least see it. The screen was so blurry he could barely see the barman anymore. "Yhre mhy besht friend" he said to the goblin, more for comic effect than because of sentiment. "Aht leasht u dont shod off to the shcarlet moneshtry wivout me!". The barman ignored him. Adenas downed another grog.

Adenas decided then that he would go and solo for the sake of his comrades in arms. Too long had he been whiling away his time in bars feeling sorry for himself: it was time for action and plenty of it! Picking his sword up from the bar, he staggered to the door and outside into the jungle. "I'll shhow them" he vowed, staggering down the main road northwards. Passing horde players looked at him curiously, but left him alone as he waved his sword at them drunkenly, a sign that Adenas believed proved he was invincible. "The shtinking horde fear me!" he exclaimed to the general chat channel, to no response.

He eventually reached the Kurzen encampment where he believed some levelling could be done. "Shoon I will be 40" Adenas stated confidently to a nearby Kurzen Medicine Man, who in response struck a pose and began to generate a ball of glowing magical energy. The shot hit Adenas in the chest, causing minimal damage. Adenas went straight into Bezerker mode, and with a roar staggered towards his attacker. As luck would have it all of his hits were critical and the Medicine Man soon lay dead at his feet. "Bashtard" he exclaimed, spitting on the corpse of the hapless wizard, and checking his combat log.

Adenas was not happy. "Only 25XP!" he exclaimed, then charged the nearest Kurzen Jungle fighter who went down in much the same way as the Medicine Man. Adenas fought his way erratically towards the mouth of The Stockpile, the cave where the Kurzen kept their supplies and where their leader cowered and plotted. Dead Kurzen fighters littered the ground. "I am a mighty warrior" Adenas yelled, and charged into the cave. Kurzen Commandos died one by one in much the same way as the jungle fighters. Eventually however Adenas stood at a crossroads where three Kurzen Elites stood guard. They charged him. Despite defending himself valiantly, Adenas died soon afterwards. The whole episode had taken ten minutes but gained him only 1000XP. There was a long way yet to Level 40.

Adenas returned to Stormwind in a stormy mood soon afterwards. It was clear to him that another strategy was needed.

[Inquisitor7]

Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with the exact mechanics of WoW, but still it is interesting how you integrate the gameplay with your story. Stylistically, there was nothing extravagent or over done, but the narrative had a very steady flow. This is both good and bad, good because it means things were never boring, bad because it means that you need to make the story more captivating. That doesn't mean you need to have non-stop action, and don't get me wrong, I think the basis of your story is good. My general suggestion, then, is to try and make the story as satisfying to yourself as possible, settling not for mediocrity at any point.

[Adenas]

Thanks for the comments, they're very helpful :)

[Adenas]

Poonsmllr The Orc sat in the long grasses chuckling to himself and staring at the road, invisible in Stealth mode. A level 32 rogue, he was feeling pretty pleased with himself. He played with his long serrated knife lovingly but inexpertly. "Ow" he cried as he nicked his finger on the sharp blade. "Shh" said Bootyluvr, a Level 60 shaman, who was standing a couple of hundred metres away from the road in some nearby bushes. Poonsmllr shut up; if it wasn't for Bootyluvr he wouldn't be a sergeant in the Horde army at all but a lowly private: a ganked rather than a ganker, a pwn3d rather than a pwn3, a n00b rather than elitt. Poonsmllr owed him a lot.

Soon a solitary Alliance warrior approached them from the south. This was what the two horde soldiers had been waiting for. Silently, Poonsmllr glided out to meet them. The Alliance warrior was blissfully unaware of him right up til the moment the knife slid into his back as he passed the rogue on the road. Stunned, the warrior could do nothing as the rogue stabbed again and again. Finally, snapping out of the knife-inflicted daze, the warrior let out a roar and turned on his attacker, his huge sword whirling in rage and gouging large cuts into the rogue's weak leather armour. Poonsmllr's health dropped alarmingly. The warrior seemed to have the upper hand.

A fireball the size of a house slammed into the Warrior and he dropped to the ground dead. Poonsmllr spat on the smoking corpse as Bootyluvr appeared from the bushes and danced a little jig. "Haha anuvver honurable kill" laughed Poonsmllr. "Get ready" replied Bootyluvr, "the graveyard is nearby".

The two horde comrades disappeared back into the undergrowth. Before long, Poonsmllr could see the warrior respawn and immediately the little +'s of first aid repairing rose from him, indicating he wasn't about to be caught napping. The warrior rotated, scanning the undergrowth, suspicious but unaware that Poonsmllr was standing by a tree some distance away. "Wait" whispered Bootyluvr, "we have 30 seconds before honor points are ready". Poonsmllr waited.

"Now" cried Bootyluvr. Poonsmllr charged but missed the warrior who already had his sword out and was furiously defending. "He expected me, but I've tagged him" cried Poonsmllr, and in response several fireballs came racing out of the undergrowth towards the hapless warrior, who soon lay dead at their feet again. Once again, Poonsmllr spat on his corpse and for good measure made a rude gesture to it.

The next time, the warrior tried to run almost as soon as hitting the ground and got perhaps ten feet before he was stunned and dispatched by a well placed fireball. He didn't appear after that. "He's watching, probably calling his friends" noted Bootyluvr. The two horde melted into the forest. "Let him fink were gone" said Poonsmllr, grinning wickedly from ear to ear.

Sure enough the warrior resurrected, and warily scanned the forest before running. This time he haplessly ran into a group of panthers who were prowling the forest floor. The horde warriors waited until the warrior's health was low and most of the panthers lay dead around him. "Now" said Bootlyluvr, and Poonsmllr sprinted towards him, catching him a glancing blow on the shoulder. The warrior ignored them, focusing on the panther which was causing his armour damage, a fact which only made Poonsmllr's job easier. With Poonsmllr and the panther attacking him, the warrior didn't stand a chance. After he was dead, a fireball from Bootyluvr soon finished the panther.

The next time, the warrior didn't even put up a fight. As soon as he resurrected he waved at the horde warriors. Poonsmllr was delighted; he would have some fun. He waved back at the Alliance warrior, who knelt before him in response. Poonsmllr laughed. The warrior waved again, before making off slowly through the undergrowth apparently assured of his safety. He was wrong. Once again Poonsmllr stunned him and Bootyluvr finished him off.

Poonsmllr loved the feeling of power this was giving him. The Alliance warrior was like his slave, completely at his mercy. There would be no help here - ganking happened all the time, and corpse camping almost as often, right under the noses of the server administrators who Poonsmllr knew would do nothing. "This is just normal PvP mechanics, n00b alliance" gloated Poonsmllr, mocking the attitude of official posts on the subject. Poonsmllr knew that at this time the few high level Alliance players that might come to this warrior's aid would most likely be busy in their high level areas, far far away. The warrior would either have to wait in ghost form, helpless and bored, or resurrect at the graveyard with an experience penalty and 75% reduced stats, rendering him an easier target than before as the two horde fully intended to pursue him to the graveyard and repeat the process. In the end, after ten minutes of waiting for a warrior who didn't appear, this is exactly what they did.

They were in luck, the warrior had just resurrected and bandaged himself and was on his way to what he considered to be safe ground in the nearby rebel camp. The two horde comrades chased him through the jungle, but the chase was short-lived. Soon once again the warrior lay dead at their feet, the penalty of his 75% reduced stats meaning that even Poonsmllr alone could make short work of him. Poonsmllr spat twenty times on the corpse and laughed mockingly. How dare his slave try to get away! he thought to himself. "We pwn3d" he said to Bootyluvr, who laughed long and hard.

In the World of Warcraft, they knew, the good guys almost never won.

[Inquisitor7]

Firstly, I realize that this story isn't exactly another chapter to your whole "Not Enough Rage" series, as it were. However, I think that it would be best to keep these stories in one thread, if only to save space.

Anyway, this was an interesting examination of what goes on in WoW. The writing was good, though I suggest being a little more descriptive in order to give the world a more lush feel.

[Adenas]

It's more of a skit, as it were, as I don't put Adenas in it but yeah I'll put them in one thread in the future. I'll try and add more description but I tend to find myself going a little purple if I do!

Thanks again.

[Inquisitor7]

I have combined the threads. I hope to see more from you Adenas, after all, you can only improve your writing skills.

[Adenas]

Adenas woke up in the inn in Stormwind. His room was sparten, the door lay open and for some reason a traffic cone had found its' way into the corner of the room. The remains of a goretusk kebab lay on the floor. Adenas groaned. "What happened last night?" he asked himself, and winced as a shot of pain reminded him that whatever it was had given him an awful hangover.

He sat up and donned his armour, being careful not to knock anything over in the wildly spinning room. Staggering downstairs the annoyingly cheery innkeeper bid him farewell. Adenas slouched off towards the cheese shop - in the absence of any greasy cafes in Stormwind some cheese would have to do to settle his stomach. Last time he had been in this situation he had headed for the dwarven quarter, but the dwarves weren't known for their culinary expertise and Adenas had no wish to repeat the experience of insulting a three foot innkeeper with a battleaxe wider than his arm by throwing up the [Gnomish Surprise] she had cooked for him.

Adenas arrived in the cheese shop. Slowly the memories of last night began to return. He remembered getting drunk in Booty Bay, attacking some Kurzen in a cave and being angry about something. He had returned to Stormwind using his hearthstone (a handy device which instantly returned him home; useful for a night out) where instead of retiring early he'd gone on an Ironforge-to-Stormwind bar crawl drinking large flasks of Dwarven stout. "I may suck at killing mobs, but I can handle my stout" Adenas said to the cheese vendor, who ignored him. The cheese vendor was a strange guy anyway and spent most of his time plotting and scheming instead of actually selling cheese. Adenas had himself done a couple of quests for the guy.

The cheese vendor's lack of dedication to his craft was obvious after the first bite. The cheese was awful. Throwing it away in disgust, Adenas checked his mailbox outside the bank. There was a note from Fezarus promising to pay him back the 17 gold Adenas had loaned him for his mount, which privately Adenas thought he would be waiting a long time for. There was a letter from Erys with two flasks of something alcoholic attached. There was also a note telling Adenas he was the beneficiary of an amazing business opportunity in Booty Bay and would soon be a millionaire if he would only pay some small lawyers charges.

Then came the first shock of the morning as Adenas checked which of his friends were up and about. "Fezarus is level 44!" Adenas said to himself, drawing confused looks from the lost newbies milling around him. Adenas was still level 37. It occured to him that he would never catch up now, and would probably not be able to play with Fezarus until the level cap at level 60. The second shock of the morning came when Adenas checked the time. "I've been asleep in that inn for a whole weekend!" exclaimed Adenas. The newbies backed away slowly. Adenas was struck by a sudden urge to kill defenseless animals.

He eventually decided to kill two birds with one stone by heading off into Elwynn Forest to wrestle unarmed with the wolves, boars and door-to-door salesmen there in order to develop his Unarmed skills and obtain meat to learn how to cook properly. Gleefully Adenas discovered that the weak animals took barely three punches to die, and soon the forest floor of Elwynn was littered with the corpses of dead animals and Adenas was laden with meat. He took it all to the warm kitchen at the back of the Goldshire inn where the man who had taught him to cook stood.

"Level 37 and you can't cook yet!" exclaimed the cook as Adenas inexpertly fumbled around the hearth. At least that's what he would have said if he wasn't an NPC, thought Adenas. After standing around rubbing his hands together which appeared to be the way you cooked things, Adenas had successfully turned the wolf meat and boar meat into the delightfully sounding [Charred Wolf Meat] and [Unidentifiable Burnt Boar]. With his bags packed to the brim with these succulant morsels he decided to sell them. "20 copper" said the innkeeper, to whom he attempted to sell. It was obvious that as a get-rich-quick scheme being a chef wasn't going to cut it in the World of Warcraft.

[Adenas]

I have combined the threads. I hope to see more from you Adenas, after all, you can only improve your writing skills.

Thanks. Would it be possible to change the thread title to "Not Enough Rage" as well?

Oh and I've been writing my blog every day for five years now. I doubt my writing standard will rise any higher than its' current low levels :P

[Inquisitor7]

As always, your posts are appreciated. Story-wise, your works are definitely not bad, and I think that as your writing skills improve your stories will as well. The most important thing is to practice and get input on what your doing wrong and what your doing right. Which is why we're here :)

Adenas woke up in the inn in Stormwind. His room was sparten, the door lay open and for some reason a traffic cone had found its' way into the corner of the room. The remains of a goretusk kebab lay on the floor. Adenas groaned. "What happened last night?" he asked himself, and winced as a shot of pain reminded him that whatever it was had given him an awful hangover.

Some very solid writing here. You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. Everyone can become a good writer, and I think you definitely have that potential. Just try to come up with interesting and nuanced ways of phrasing things. You don't need to make every sentence elaborate or profound, but experiment with style.

By the way, I noticed some grammatical problems, which I will take care of below:
Staggering downstairs the annoyingly cheery innkeeper bid him farewell.

The problem here is that the first clause makes it sound like the innkeeper is staggering downstairs, when I think you intended to say that Adenas was the one doing the staggering.


Last time he had been in this situation he had headed for the dwarven quarter, but the dwarves weren't known for their culinary expertise and Adenas had no wish to repeat the experience of insulting a three foot innkeeper with a battleaxe wider than his arm by throwing up the [Gnomish Surprise] she had cooked for him.

I must admit that I have used long sentences before, but I suggest being careful when using them. Here you used a couple conjunctions in rapid succession, and that, in addition to the lengthy clause at the end, give it a run-on sort of feel.

The other problems were minor ones dealing with punctuation mostly. I can point them out if you want, but I don't want to seem anal.

[Adenas]

Haha thanks for the comments. I think my major problem is I write these on the train in the morning when I'm not quite awake, and rarely proof-read them before posting them. These would more accurately be described as first drafts if I actually got round to producing a second draft.

You know, I noticed that innkeeper one too but wasn't really sure what to do about it. Obviously splitting it into two sentences would have been the way forward but it was early :) Same goes for the overly long sentences.

I have written another piece since the last one but I don't think it was as good story-wise, although it had it's moments it didn't go anywhere. I tend to write these without planning except in really rough terms and in that case I figured an ending would "come to me" - but it didn't. I might be entering a bit of a slow period for ideas, I get them sometimes.

Thanks again.

[Rulf]

First and foremost your style and your subject matter are perfectly paired. Your tongue in cheek manner about your well defined subject matter(AI meets fantasy sci/fi literature in a hobby form) is charming to the point of cute, and alarmingly creative and saucey. You capture the kitschy awkward of the game and infuse it with a splash of modern reality. Your highly entertaining style fits perfect with the game. I don't imagine you intend to change and I'm thankful for that. I just dont like this Inquisitor dude's apparent view that you should be the John Irving of WoW. I am very certain he/she has generous intentions and is a conniseur of literature, if not an accomplished writer. Yet it all comes across like Yo Yo Ma telling Angus Young he could one day become a good musician. Simply said style should always match subject, and that is an axiom that trumps all grammatical rules or outside preference. Errors sometimes are masterful.
PLEASE keep it up! :bigclap:

[Inquisitor7]

I just dont like this Inquisitor dude's apparent view that you should be the John Irving of WoW. I am very certain he/she has generous intentions and is a conniseur of literature, if not an accomplished writer. Yet it all comes across like Yo Yo Ma telling Angus Young he could one day become a good musician. Simply said style should always match subject, and that is an axiom that trumps all grammatical rules or outside preference. Errors sometimes are masterful.
PLEASE keep it up! :bigclap:

First of all, welcome to the forums! You are also welcome to your opinion, and I am glad to see a new face around the fan fiction forum. I certainly hope you will stick around and continue reading the stories posted here.

Now, I am merely offering my opinion to Adenas, and he is free to decide what to do with it. If I am coming across as overbearing, then I apologize. It is not my intent to appear conceited.

[Adenas]

First of all, welcome to the forums! You are also welcome to your opinion, and I am glad to see a new face around the fan fiction forum. I certainly hope you will stick around and continue reading the stories posted here.

Now, I am merely offering my opinion to Adenas, and he is free to decide what to do with it. If I am coming across as overbearing, then I apologize. It is not my intent to appear conceited.

I personally find Inquisitor7's comments very helpful and not conceited in the slightest. I am sure that even if I did find them thus it would not be intentional :)

I understand what you mean when you say that sometimes errors are masterful, but I would prefer to create understandable prose rather than difficult-to-read error-laden prose. It's not funny if no-one understands what you're trying to say after all, and I personally think that if my mistakes are pointed out to me then I will be able to try to avoid them in the future, which can only lead to better stories in the future :)

But thanks for the kind words about the stories, they're appreciated!

I have a couple more stories lined up but I'm not really happy with them at the moment and am thus gradually working on them. Unfortunately I've been pretty busy lately with stuff so haven't had as much time as I'd like to get this done :(

[Rulf]

I'm very sorry if I appeared to say Inqy7 comes off concieted. Merely wanted to say please be careful to not change your style while you improve.

[Adenas]

Not a problem mate. My style usually changes every time I put pen to, um, electronic paper.

Anyway I have three more journals to post so I'll do that later tonight sometime. Unfortunately they're not so good. It's the endings I'm having trouble with :)

[Adenas]

Adenas trudged wearily through the Hillsbrad Foothills. Everything looked the same to him; the trees, the grass, the prowling giant spiders which were called something different here but were still your basic prowling giant spiders... even the music that pervaded his skull was the same music that inexplicably entered his mind whenever he entered Elwynn Forest. Adenas was exploring, but after a long tramride to Ironforge and a connecting flight to Refuge Pointe in Arathi he was no longer keen.

"Where are you?" he asked Fezarus over their custom chat channel "javla" which he was reliably informed meant "Adenas is great" in Swedish, "I don't even know where you are! Never heard of that Ullman place!". Fezarus took his time to reply. Adenas half-heartedly whacked a spider that got too close, noting the way it satisfyingly jumped on its' back and curled up its' legs when it died.

He saw a passing horde player and waved. The horde hunter stopped and painfully weighed up the likelihood of being able to beat a Level 37 warrior before continuing on his way. Adenas shrugged. The horde were like that in his experience; always trying to kill you unless you completely outclassed them, in which case they were nice to you right up til the point their level 60 mate turned up and turned you into a charred smoking corpse without so much as a "thankyou for not ganking my mate". They were truly evil. The war was definitely justified.

Adenas flicked through his questbook but nothing took his fancy; they were the usual quests. Get such-and-such an ingredient for Mrs Maple's Mountain Stew, kill X mobs for Corporal Whatsisname of the Southbank guard, talk to Hard To Find Guy in the middle of nowhere to pursue your warrior training. Boring. Adenas trudged up the hill in the vague direction of the Alterac Mountains. Hopefully there would be something cool up there; people were always on about it.

Unfortunately even the fabled Alterac Mountains turned out to be a disappointment. Some grumpy trolls guarded a ruined tower in what Adenas supposed was the world's smallest mountain rage. It formed the rough shape of a bowl, surrounding the ruined troll-infested city of Alterac, and had some impressive snowdrifts but little else. A gnomish warlock stood at the top of the hill, flicking fireballs at the trolls. He looked as bored as Adenas was.

The gnome came down to meet him. "Quest?" he asked, and invited Adenas to join his group. "Nah just grinding," explained Adenas. "Follow" said the gnome and walked into the mountains. "This is hard" he added as an afterthought. Adenas shrugged and followed, although he suspected by the gnome's lack of conversation that he was a split personality of Chinese guys playing 24/7 to get as much gold as possible. They walked to the gates of the ruined city which were guarded by the largest trolls Adenas had ever seen. "2 at a time" said the gnome, before hastily correcting "er 1". The trolls were certainly tough cookies but provided great experience to the marauding adventurers.

Suddenly out of the blue came a voice. "Server shutdown in 15 minutes" it boomed. Adenas' gnomish companion cursed. "We have time to kill a few" he said. The adventurers proceeded further into the ruined city. The burnt wrecks of buildings surrounded them, infested with lumbering trolls. Adenas wondered what misfortune had befallen the town.

Then came the horde. There were two of them, who rode slowly over the crest of the ridge on their huge mounts and glared at the Alliance comrades with utter contempt. With a sinking feeling, Adenas realised that the horde as usual had the upper hand. He drew his sword. The icy wind blew patterns in the slow.

"Server shutdown in 3 minutes" boomed the voice from above. Adenas looked around in confusion. Sensing their chance, the horde charged and crashed into the alliance ranks like an avalanche of steel and scales. Adenas and his gnomish friend fought back desperately but it looked like they would lose. A fireball came hurtling out of the blue and suddenly the sky opened up to bring giant shards of ice crashing down on the hapless horde. Fezarus had appeared and the tide of battle was turning. Letting out a mighty roar Adenas charged. "Server shutdown in one minute". The Alliance and Horde clashed in an epic conflict. Nearby trolls charged into the melee and were slaughtered like lambs.

The world went dark, and when it reappeared a large swirling gate stood before Adenas, flanked by two solemn looking statues. A floating box asked him for his username and password.

[Adenas]

Adenas was now able to officially call himself a CLOWN. He had joined the guild, Crazy Lunatics Of the Wild North after a gruelling 12 question entrance exam which among other things asked for his name, whether he liked pie, and why there were two question 8's. Adenas could see these were his kind of people; people who took life in the World of Warcraft deathly seriously. It was nice to be among friends.

Unfortunately his fellow clowns didn't always agree. "Stop spamming the guild channel" they replied again and again as he asked what "FTW" meant for the sixtieth time. "For the warlocks?" asked Adenas with a hint of desperation? Perhaps it was one of those words that people used without understanding it; a kind of in-joke. "Free the whales? Flame the whoppers? Feed the world?"

Despite his many questions, Adenas was again bored. His remaining quests included a trip to a distant land called Desolace which didn't sound that appealing at all, in order to track down a Scarlet Monk who had gone there in a hissy fit after some argument. Adenas didn't remember the details, but the shadowy figure in the basement of Stormwind's Cathedral of Light had been adament that he go find the guy. What better time than now?

Adenas booked passage on a ship out of Mithril Harbour. The sea was a dull grey, and when he finally arrived in Theramore on the far continent a light fog lay on the sea. The moon was not out tonight and for the first time Adenas realised that Dustwallow Marsh wasn't named because of its' beach party atmosphere. Unfortunately Adenas wasn't familiar with the area. All of his attempts to gain directions were incomprehensible. The inhabitants of Theramore appeared to be complete morons.

"Ah... Desolace you say?" said a gnarled old man when Adenas asked him. "Can't say I've heard of the place... but I could direct you to a class trainer if you like?". The stoic footsoldiers that tramped around weren't much good either, and blatantly ignored Adenas. He walked further into the swamp, dodging the random dinosaurs which attacked him.

Presently Adenas came across a small camp by the side of the road. Three guards sat there, one with a giant question mark over his head. His name was Private Hendel. "What the hell, may as well hand this quest in" thought Adenas, but unfortunately Private Hendel was less than happy. "What?!" exclaimed Hendel when Adenas hit the complete button. "You think you can come here and accuse me of being a Defias spy?!". "Uh-oh" thought Adenas. "Taste my steel!" cried Hendel and paused ready to strike. Adenas carefully positioned himself away from the guard's friends before hitting accept, immediately launching into a frenzied defence as they fell on him. Fighting furiously, Adenas focused on Private Hendel somehow knowing that this wasn't a fight to the death.

He was right. Hendel and his friends didn't stand a chance, but before Adenas had reduced him to a bloody pulp a strange woman and a stranger man turned up, stopped and gave him a signet ring. Adenas was left somewhat confused. The attacking guards had disappeared into thin air. Muttering his thanks, Adenas continued his journey into the swamp.

Adenas saw many things on his walk to The Desolace. He saw Orcish strongholds, their ugly denisens peering through dark murderholes and patrolling mighty walls. He saw arid plains which stretched as far as the eye could see, filled with gazelles and giraffes. He saw spikey mountains, with trees like skeletons' fingers where living whirlwinds roamed. He saw a magical mountain retreat where Night Elves dwelt in their Japanese-style pagodas. He saw beautiful flying harpy women with wings who screeched savagely, but admittedly by that point he was drinking to pass the time as he travelled.

Eventually, Adenas arrived in Desolace rather worse for wear. The place was as bleak as he'd imagined - a vast plain dotted with the skeletons of some huge unknown beasts. He staggered up the hill to the city of Nijel's Point where it was claimed the Scarlet Priest would be. There was literally nothing there. "This place sucks" he informed the innkeeper who shrugged and sipped her milk.

The Scarlet Priest, Brother Anton stood on a balcony, gazing over the plains. "You don't look too pissed off to me" noted Adenas. Ignoring the comment, the priest turned. "Ah they said they would send help from the East" he said sagely. "Perhaps you're that help...?". Adenas immediately disliked his tone. "Of course I'm that help you old useless codger" he replied. "Good" said the priest. "Gather your courage and prove your allegiance - destroy the undead ravagers of Desolace, in the Valley of Bones to the south." he continued. "Do this, and the Crusade will embrace you.". Adenas didn't particularly want to be embraced by the crusade, especially if they all looked like Brother Anton, but grudgingly agreed. However his quest was just beginning.

[Adenas]

The Scarlet Monastery was an imposing building in the middle of the once prosperous region of Lordaeron, which sat in sprawling grounds surrounded by dark woods and the camps of horde armies. Its denizens, so Adenas had heard, were crazed religious fanatics, who worshipped red for some reason and had thus built their monastery out of a red-tinged stone. Perhaps they had thought it would give the building a specially demonic look, but privately Adenas thought it made it look like a nightclub more than a church. But then Adenas was no architecture expert; he had never claimed to be good at anything apart from whacking things on the head.

With him were Sitch and Erys, who had accompanied him on the long walk from Southshore - a bleak town near to the deceptively beautiful Alterac mountains. They had travelled through mountain glens, past ferocious lions and colonies of vicious murlocs. They had travelled past the giant magical purple dome of Dalaran, which was surrounded by bored-looking wizards and which Adenas still didn't really understand the point of. They had swam through the mighty lake which surrounded Jwjhdqw, and run beneath the battlements of Lordaeron which now were home to The Undercity.

Adenas had already made the journey many times with various groups who had often split up long before reaching their goal. There was something about the Monastery which dissuaded people from attempting the journey. Some said it was the fanatical Scarlet Disciples, who defended the monastery round the clock. Some said it was the perilous and long journey which was liable to take fifteen minutes through the depths of Horde territory. Adenas said it was the level 60 hordes that often camped outside the entrance to the monastery, killing everyone who got near for "honor points". By now Adenas knew the local graveyard like the back of his hand.

The adventure for Adenas had began on the other continent, where an impressed Scarlet Monk called Brother Anton had given a letter of recommendation to him after Adenas had successfully stormed through the undead hordes like a miniature whirlwind. He had travelled to Southshore where another Scarlet Monk dwelled, keen to join the Scarlet Monks in their fight, or at least keen to get some of the Scarlet Monks' cash. Unfortunately that monk had informed him that the Scarlet Monastery had been corrupted, and was actually helping the scourge that they had sworn to fight. Adenas wasn't surprised; he had already scouted the place out and found it less than friendly. The monk had tasked him with the assassination of the top three Scarlet Monastery people - a commander something-or-other, a high priest somebody, and bizarrely their dog trainer too. Training dogs was a vital part of the Scarlet Monastery's apparatus of fear? Adenas didn't think so. Nevertheless he had eliminated the priest and the commander. Only the dog trainer stood between him and the quest reward - an impressively large axe named Bonebiter.

Standing outside the gates, Adenas began to have his doubts. "You sure we don't need help?" he asked Sitch and Erys. "Nah" said Erys "Just the dog boss to kill". The adventurers walked up the stairs to the great hall where the entrance to the dungeons were located. To the left an archway led to the graveyard, whose denizens rather untypically for dead people refused to remain dead. To the right there was a door to the training grounds where the Scarlet Monks trained. Straight ahead there were two immense locked doors leading to "The Cathedral" where the high priest had once lived, surrounded by some impressive landscape gardening and loony followers and to The Armoury which was where they stored their fireworks, weapons, tomes of knowledge and beer.

Cautiously they entered the dungeon. The narrow corridors were red, the hallways were red - even the windows were red. "They're taking the piss" noted Adenas, nervously hefting his mace. They turned the corner to find a corridor packed with Scarlet soldiers, priests, monks and dog handlers. In common with all the bad guys in the World of Warcraft they were milling around aimlessly and took no notice when their comrades fell no matter how much noise you made killing them. "Lets go" said Sitch, and the three warriors ploughed into them with scant regard for life and limb.

The ninja scarlet monks were Adenas' favourite. They would yell curses about how the taint of the scourge was on him, then get quickly silenced as they discovered that their fists were no match for several hundred pounds of [Solid Mace of The Monkey] smashing into their head. The dog trainers were less fun, using their long ranged weapons to shoot Adenas from afar and calling their mates into the foray when he charged them. Nevertheless, the Scarlet hordes fell under the unstoppable onslaught of three warriors and they were soon standing before the dog boss. "We own" noted the adventurers. None had even died yet.

The dog boss was somewhat of an anticlimax. The man seriously liked dogs; not only was he surrounded by them when the warriors attacked, but also managed to call in several more as he was being battered to a pulp. Soon he lay dead at their feet. Heartened, the warriors decided to continue into the dungeon to kill the other leaders again.

One by one the dungeons fell to the lightning progress of the three warriors. Eventually they stood before Herod, the scarlet champion. He was a scary sounding man, mainly because he kept spouting rubbish about burning in the fires of wrath or whatever. The warriors decided to take it in turns to attract his attention while the others bandaged their wounds. The battle was short - three against one the Scarlet head honcho stood no chance, and an ill-conceived charge by some of his more idiotic followers after his death only served to fill the warriors purses full of copper coins.

Adenas did get a rather fine helm out of the deal however. It was a mighty scarlet hue, and boosted his agility by ten. Unfortunately Adenas couldn't see out of it properly. "Gotta sell this" he moaned as he once again bumped into one of the scarlet pillars on the way to the exit.

[Inquisitor7]

I am very impressed. All three of these were genuinely enjoyable, and your well timed use of humor and heightened diction made them all the greater. Unfortunately, the first of the three suffers from a handful of grammatical and spelling errors. Other than that, I really cannot think of any important flaws. Well done.

[Adenas]

Haha thanks. I think my writer's block is lifting a little now so I should be a bit better in future.

A little bit of trivia; Saturday's journal* was the last one written before the journals I began to post on here. So there will be only repeats of forum-posted entries on the Journal page from now on :)

* which is actually my favourite one so far - http://www.worldofwar.net/journals/index.php?id=1387

[Adenas]

Adenas was annoyed; he had just moved flat and the broadband company had not yet installed his internet connection. Sitting at his computer in his pokey flat, Adenas tried to pass the time playing Solitare. The classic game failed to interest him much since he had discovered the world of warcraft a couple of months ago. In disgust, Adenas turned off his crippled computer and decided to logg.

The next morning he woke up feeling rested and got ready to go to work. His boss had a new quest for him, developing some software for a new client. Adenas supposed it would mean lots of extra XP for him at the very least, so it was with relative eagerness that he travelled to the office. He was less eager about having to travel there by train. "Damn hearthstone cooldown" he noted to himself as he crammed onto a train full of miserable people who by and large paid him no attention. "Hate having to use the deeprun tram" he said to a nearby commuter. "Do u know any flightpoints around here?". The commuter smiled and nodded but didn't answer. "Farmer" said Adenas, dismissively. "Bet you don't even speak english".

Adenas' office was a generic office block near the centre of town. He walked past the Level 55 guard, who was seemingly asleep at his desk, and entered the lobby. Adenas' desk was through some double doors which notably did not contain a swirling purple vortex which would have flagged it as an instance to Adenas. Though it was early, the lights were on. "Someone might be grinding that room" thought Adenas. "Perhaps they'll want to group". Mentally preparing himself, Adenas cast Intimidating Shout to buff himself ready for his entrance. The Level 55 guard awoke with a snort and glared at Adenas reproachfully. Adenas was confused, it wasn't supposed to work on allied mobs.

"Ah there you are" said Adenas' boss when Adenas charged through the door. "Had a good night last night?" he continued, seeing Adenas' dishevelled state. Adenas did not reply but his boss gave him the quest anyway. It turned out to be rather more tricky than he thought; he was to hunt down 300 lines of code and two reports and bring them to a distant wizard who dwelt on client site. There was also a time limit to the quest, which had to be completed by next Monday. It was too hard for Adenas, who was conscious of the fact that he was only level 41. However his boss didn't provide the option to abandon the quest. "Don't be stupid" he said jovially "we'll easily make the deadline. Pub lunch today?"

Adenas soon got into the swing of grinding the code, despite the monotonous tedium. By lunchtime he had several lines of code although some were merely code scraps that would need a leatherworker with time to put them together into usable pieces of code. Adenas wondered how much they would fetch in the Auction House and while his boss was looking checked out eBay. His code appeared to be a unique item. No wonder the quest was so difficult, he thought: he could make a killing with these in Ironforge.

His boss wanted to give him another quest. They would travel to a local pub and consume a pub meal with associated mugs of dwarven ale while discussing the quest. It sounded a good idea to Adenas, who was bored of grinding anyway. The pub was only a short distance away. "Two mugs of cherry grog" he asked of the innkeeper upon arrival. The innkeeper gave him a funny look, as did his boss. "Um... a pint of lager please for my colleague and a mineral water for me" Adenas' boss corrected. "And we'll order some food".

They perused the menu. "I think I'll just have the cheese and ham sandwich" said Adenas' boss, examining the listed food. "Boiled clams please" said Adenas. "I'm sorry sir, I don't think we serve them" replied the innkeeper. "What do you mean?" asked Adenas, "It only needs a level 50 cooking skill. I could cook you them myself! Just get me the reagents". "Uh..." said Adenas' boss to the confused innkeeper, "he'll have the same as me". "What's up with you today?" he asked Adenas as they went to a nearby table with their drinks.

The beer didn't appear to have the same effect that it usually did. The screen didn't go blurry at all, and Adenas found it no problem to walk in a straight line. He experimented with putting the word "hic" on the end of every sentence, to see if that would trigger everything else. "So how's the assignment going?" asked Adenas' boss. "The quest... hic?" asked Adenas. "Uh..." replied Adenas' boss, looking rather flummoxed. "Yeah it's fine. I'm making progress... hic" continued Adenas. "Should get me loads of XP... hic". "Um don't we use Windows 2000?" asked Adenas' boss, obviously confused.

Adenas now felt the beer working; it seemed the hic technique was working. He returned to the bar to obtain some more beer. "How many silver for some grog? hic" he asked the innkeeper, who only replied with a dirty look. "Are you drunk sir?" asked the innkeeper. "No" replied Adenas. "The screen is still fine, I can see clearly. Maybe I have the full screen glow effect turned off though... hic". "Are you feeling alright?" continued the innkeeper, "I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about. And why do you keep saying hick?"

Adenas liked the pub. It was conveniently located for future quests, and despite the fact that it didn't stock his favourite beer he did like the alternative brews. He addressed the innkeeper again. "I would like to make this inn my home" he declared. "Whatever, man" replied the innkeeper, handing him another pint of lager. Adenas reached for the backpack where he stored his gold. "Don't worry mate, your colleague has put it on a tab" said the innkeeper before Adenas could pay him. Adenas supposed his boss had plenty of spare gold at level 60 so didn't argue.

Upon returning to the table, the quest-related mutterings of his boss soon faded into the background as Adenas consumed more beer and munched his sandwich. "Ah this has good regen" observed Adenas as he ate. "It's healing a lot of my HP... hic". "Um... we'd better get back" said his boss, glancing at his watch and looking rather uncomfortable.

They travelled back on the mount belonging to Adenas' boss, which Adenas thought was just as well as it was a long walk and would have probably taken him at least ten minutes running. "Nice mount" he said. "Is it an epic?". His boss was silent. "I'm not sure what's wrong with you today" he finally replied, "I think it's best if you have the afternoon off and get some rest. You seem like you need it. I'll drop you off at the station."

Adenas was confused. "You can't cancel the quest!" he exclaimed, "I'll definitely ding; it's worth loads of XP!". His boss wasn't dissuaded. "Uh... look I'm not cancelling the... er... quest" he replied slowly. "I'm just giving you the rest of the day off. You should get some rest. Perhaps see a doctor. I'll see you tomorrow morning". He dropped Adenas off at the station where all the NPCs were jostling on their way to wherever NPCs went during the day. The beer was certainly going to Adenas' head. "Damn lag" he observed as he bumped into several NPCs.

Soon Adenas was back in his flat, his computer still unconnected. He went to bed. The real world was certainly more confusing than the World of Warcraft.

[Bonegrit]

Brilliant! Just, brilliant...hic!

[Adenas]

Thanksh.. hic :P

[Inquisitor7]

Quite entertaining. My only qualm with it is that you kept using Adenas's name so much. I mean, it got on my nerves to continually read, "Adenas did *blank* and then Adenas *blanked* before Adenas..." I hate to harp on it, but it was the only thing that really stood out to me as a flaw. Otherwise you did a great job of applying WoW to real life. Good times, good times.

[Adenas]

Adenas bounded through the moonlit glades of Elwynn Forest, scattering murlocs, wolves and other small fluffy creatures as he charged headlong towards the small logging camp at Eastvale. Tonight was the night, he thought happily to himself, that he would finally be rid of the curse of having to walk everywhere. From now onwards he would no longer be Adenas the Mighty Warrior, but Adenas the Mighty Knight. His trusty steed would bear him into (and, he supposed, away from) battles, take him to faraway lands and impress all the women.

Adenas had hunted and killed many beasts to see this day, collecting and auctioning exotic items, neglecting the upkeep and repair of his equipment, hording every dropped penny and buying the supermarket's own brand food and drink. The process had taken what seemed like years of hard work but it was all worth it. At the end of it he'd had a whole ten gold coins towards his mighty mount; his armour might have been all rusty, his sword may have been little more use than a toothpick and his shield may have resembled a sieve but he finally had a vast fortune.

Unfortunately it hadn't been vast enough. "HOW MUCH?!" Adenas had yelled, to the general annoyance of most of Elwynn Forest, when the shady-looking horse dealer had first shown him his wares. "72 gold?! I'm buying a bloody horse not a unicorn!". The NPC had not replied but Adenas was used to that by now. "So how much to learn how to ride?" he had enquired hopefully, but with little luck. It seemed that owning and riding a horse in Azeroth was only for the privileged few; the creme-de-la-creme of society who could afford to blow the life savings of approximately 300,000 Murlocs on a better way to travel.

Fortunately things were looking up. A fellow guild member had loaned him 50 gold on the condition that he shut up for a couple of weeks, and the eccentric mage Fezarus had loaned him the rest. "Don't worry," the mage had said, "I can get it back in 10 minutes blasting Ogres". Not for the first time, Adenas envied Fezarus for his ability to farm high level mobs for exotic items as easily as Adenas was able to be killed by them.

Adenas neared the logging camp, pockets bulging with cash. The horse dealer looked a lot more pleased to see him now he had money. "Which of our fine steeds would sir be interested in?" gushed the dealer, presenting Adenas with a short list. "I want one with flaming hooves and tonnes of armour," replied Adenas "...oh and I want air conditioning and a CD player. And central locking. How much for one of those?". Unfortunately none of those features seemed to be available. The choices were a brown one, a brown-and-cream one, and a cream one. And you could only buy bridles.

"But I want a horse not a bridle" moaned Adenas. "They're the same thing" sighed the vendor. "Now are you going to buy anything or not?". Reluctantly Adenas parted with his newfound wealth and received in exchange a brown horse bridle which fitted conveniently into his rucksack. "I shall name you...." began Adenas dramatically, but tailed off as he realised that he hadn't really thought of a name for his steed. It would have to be a good name, like Silver or Hordeslayer or Murloceater...

"Adenas and Murloceater!" proclaimed Adenas, but it didn't sound right. Nevertheless he was eager to try out his new faithful companion and the name would have to do. Fumbling in his backpack, Adenas grabbed the bridle and suddenly with a flash of light his horse was there under him. "Cool" thought Adenas. With a whoop of joy Adenas dug his boots into the horse's flank and off they galloped. Clinging on, Adenas cheered as his steed lept over the fenced enclosure and onto the main Stormwind road. Newbies gawped at him as he sped past, waving and shouting "yeah" and "woo" every so often. Milling bandits, wolves and murlocs looked up at him as he galloped through their ranks, sending them scattering in fear. A quick swim through a lake caused his new steed to drown horribly, but fortunately the bridle appeared to magically resurrect it. Adenas was the happiest bloodthirsty warrior on the server. He felt invincible with his newfound speed.

It was time to take Murloceater through his paces on a really long trip. Fezarus and Erys were on the other continent, in Tanaris killing ogres. "I'm coming to you!" he exclaimed over the private chat channel and galloped towards the Deeprun Tram, Ironforge and Menthis Harbor. Lands that once wearily plodded by on foot sped past in a blur when mounted and Adenas was soon on the quayside waiting for the boat. "Behold: my mighty steed Murloceater!" he proclaimed to a waiting night elf. "That's stupid, horses eat grass" replied the elf. She obviously had no imagination, thought Adenas.

Adenas took the boat to Ratchet and immediately hit the road on Murloceater. He galloped through the dusty plains of The Barrens, through herds of giraffes and dinosaurs, stopping occasionally to harvest herbs. Eventually he reached a plateau. An immense drop was before him, a pair of rickety looking structures and two large horde guards. Adenas galloped past them but was caught out as some arcane trickery suddenly caused Murloceater to disappear from beneath him. He could see that the rickety looking structures were some kind of immense lift which could ferry people far down into the canyons that stretched as far as the eye could see below him. A pop-up message "Discovered: The Great Lift" confirmed his suspicions. Adenas contemplated just jumping for the hell of it but changed his mind when he looked down - it really was a long way.

Unfortunately the horde guards didn't want him there either. While one stared, bored, into the barrens the other let out a gutteral roar and charged Adenas. It was all Adenas could do to fight him off, but fight him off he did just as the lift arrived. With a laugh of Adenas jumped into the lift and plummeted to the valley floor where he was soon back onto Murloceater and riding off into the distance. He rode through twisting canyons, through the camps of strange creatures and through the vast dry salty bed of some ancient sea. Eventually he neared Gadgetzan, the location of his rendezvous with Fezarus and Erys. The town was a neutral settlement, beloved of bandits and outcasts and resembled something out of Star Wars. Adenas was disappointed to find that the bar didn't sell anything alcoholic. "What kind of crazy town is this?" he asked a nearby horde shaman who didn't reply.

Unfortunately the town was also famed for its gankers. Feeling invincible atop Murloceater, Adenas blithely ignored the Horde until it was too late. Before Fezarus and Erys could meet him they had attacked, ignoring the efforts of the bouncers to stop them, and Adenas had soon perished. It seemed that a mount wasn't the turning point Adenas had hoped for with his PvP problems.

[Adenas]

Hey I see what you mean about the "Adenas" stuff all the time. Unfortunately I wrote this one before reading your comment :P I'll see what I can do.

[Inquisitor7]

The last installment was quite pleasing. You are showing great skill in weaving levity and humor into your journals.


Adenas bounded through the moonlit glades of Elwynn Forest, scattering murlocs, wolves and other small fluffy creatures as he charged headlong towards the small logging camp at Eastvale.

Here is a good example. At first it seems quite serious, especially with the image of "moonlit glades," but, well, I don't need to explain the humor.

If I were to offer any substantial criticism it would be that the final paragraphs felt a little tedious in comparison to the others. Such things are sometimes unavoidable since not all content in a story is equal. Don't get me wrong, they weren't bad by any strectch of the imagination, but I think some tinkering could make them better.

Oh, and one more thing:
It was all Adenas could do to fight him off, but fight him off he did just as the lift arrived.

I think the first clause is vaguely phrased since it doesn't exactly what Adenas was doing to fight them off. With this in mind, a better way to put it might be, "All Adenas could do was fight him off," though this is just my opinion.

Anyway, I hope to see more from you. Thanks for posting!

[Adenas]

I had major problems with the end of this story; to be honest I wasn't sure where to finish it and that's a common problem I have with these.

I might write a couple more at some point but a couple of things in RL are conspiring against me;

1) I've moved house, and broadband has yet to be connected, so I haven't played WoW for what seems like aeons (no new experiences to base my stories on).
2) I'm now living nearer to work, so don't type these on the train anymore as I don't get enough time.

Such a hard life... :P

[Inquisitor7]

I had major problems with the end of this story; to be honest I wasn't sure where to finish it and that's a common problem I have with these.

I might write a couple more at some point but a couple of things in RL are conspiring against me;

1) I've moved house, and broadband has yet to be connected, so I haven't played WoW for what seems like aeons (no new experiences to base my stories on).
2) I'm now living nearer to work, so don't type these on the train anymore as I don't get enough time.

Such a hard life... :P

My suggestion about endings is to pick a place that strikes you as fitting. If you think an ending is weak, then chances are other people will too.

Anyway, I am sure we can all sympathize with you as far as not having enough time. Don't feel under any obligation to be super prolific. If you are writing for recreation, then do it when you can. We are all waiting for more from you, but it would be wrong for us to demand them if they caused you a lot of problems :)

[Adenas]

I was told at uni that most people remember the beginning and the end of a story, so if you get those right you can sometimes get away with a relatively week middle bit :) My problem is the way I write these.

a) I think of something I've done in WoW
b) I think "what parts of that event would seem a bit odd in the real world"
c) I think of a suitable place to start the story and start writing.
d) Eventually I run out of events and come to a natural ending, but it's rare that one of those events is suitable to finish on.
e) I make up some lame ending to try and bring the story arc to a close.

I would probably be best advised to plan a little better but it doesn't suit how I write these - which is usually on a small laptop sized "handheld PC" PDA on a train. Still as you say I probably should think of an event that would be suitable to end on before I begin writing. I need to end on a good joke, but it's rare! :D

[Rulf]

I just got my mount last night and the first thing I did was accidentaly drown him... I immediatley recalled this story. It's wierd how similar our experiences have been. Keep going.

[Adenas]

Two entries for you today. This one just wasn't happening for a while but I think I've managed to rescue it reasonably well. The next one concerns my alt, Sain.

The midday sun beat down upon the plains of Westfall. Adenas cast his mind back to the last time he had been here, way back in the days when he was a n00b fresh out of Elwynn Forest Academy of Killing Fluffy Creatures. His first experience with alcohol had been in Westfall; Adenas had supped homemade beer with his old friend Indomitus atop the grassy hills after completing a particularly idiotic quest a strange dwarf had given them; hops in exchange for beer. Westfall had also been the location of his first encounter with the demonic harvest reavers which plodded mechanically around the fields like giant metal zombies. They had sent shivers down his spine at the time. But then, in those days before the discovery of eerie Duskwood, he hadn't actually seen a real zombie.

Those days were long gone, thought Adenas. He was here to continue his studies in the art of fine cooking and was busy hunting the ingredients for Goretusk Liver Pie. Things that were challenging all those months ago were now easy; whereas an encounter with a boar used to often kill him, Adenas could now kill, skin and gut a boar in under ten seconds. The rampaging whirlwind things, which Adenas once fled from in mortal terror, were now reduced to a minor inconvenience. Adenas could literally wade through Defias camps, laughing as the feeble bandits frantically tried to fend him off, falling one by one despite their various claims that he would regret his actions, that The Brotherhood would be victorious, and that Adenas would be a good thing to sharpen their nice new blades on.

Soon Adenas was bored of goretusk slaying and returned to the three wagons that passed for a camp in the desolate Westfall area, where the traders stood 24 hours a day 7 days a week by a large fire. Adenas considered his situation as he rubbed his hands by the fire to cook the pies. He was obviously bored, he decided, if he was out in n00b areas cooking rather than slaying trolls, fearsome dragons and on certain lucky days ganking horde scum. So deep was Adenas in thought that he barely registered the arrival of the horde who strolled into the camp, swatting aside the Westfall defenders who ran to attack them.

There were three of them and they walked into the camp like they owned the place. Newbies shrank from them in terror, but Adenas stared at them impassively. They were more than a match for him, but he had lost his fear of newbie killing scum a long time ago and had other things to do. Wearily he ignored the newcomers and went back to his cooking barely glancing up as a fresh-faced warrior approached him. "Kill them" pleaded the warrior. Adenas studied the man's battered armour and ernest expression, sighed and carried on cooking. The newbie was obviously hurt, as he stormed off towards a group of his similarly low level friends. "WTF stupid lvl40, won't kill hordes FTW" they mumbled to one another. Adenas ignored them.

The horde attacked. While two of them attacked the newbies, wading through them like water, another - at least level 55 from Adenas' reckoning - approached Adenas. He spat at Adenas and attacked. The fight was relatively long, with Adenas holding his ground right until the end. A righteous rage filled him as he died - how dare these horde bastards attack the newbies, and people like him who were innocently cooking and minding their own business. They had no honour.

He woke up in the graveyard which was a short walk from the campsite. He called Fezarus who was more than happy to come along to hunt horde, and they formed a group. In ghostly form, Adenas watched the horde marauders like a hawk, noting their group dynamics and the way they mocked the newbies who were standing around like frightened sheep. Some newbies were alive, and being mocked by the horde - others cowered in ghostly form, waiting for someone to come and save them. Adenas waited.

Eventually Fezarus arrived on a gryphon. Silently, Adenas resurrected behind a nearby tent and healed himself with a bandage. The hordes seemed to be oblivious to the newcomers, and leered at them. As soon as Fezarus launched into "frost them to death mode", with a roar Adenas charged the nearest horde warrior and with a mighty sweep of his sword sliced through his hamstrings to slow him down so the mage could blast him. There was just enough time to hamstring another horde before the battle erupted into chaos.

Then the milling newbies charged into the fray, heroically crying "lol" and "kill the horde FTW" and "die gankers". Confused by the myriad of little attacks, the panicky horde tried to run but were cut down like dogs. Laughing, the newbies chased them across the fields of Westfall as they ran, Adenas and Fezarus and a few others mounted and giving chase. The glorious Westfall sun beat down upon the pursued horde and their Alliance tormenters.

Once the horde had died, several higher level Alliance soldiers stood guard amongst the newbies camping their corpses. Adenas sat back and laughed. The experience had given him a newfound interest in the game. From now onwards, PvP would be the name of the game.

[Adenas]

Sain materialised in a silver glade. The wind rustled the leaves of the surrounding trees and disturbed the wind chimes artfully hung from various branches. A thin mist curled off the surface of a nearby lake and the smell of incense filled the air. The latter caused Sain to cough which struck him as rather odd. Surely as a Night Elf he should be used to such things.

An Elf standing before him beckoned him over. The Elf was a Gardener, although he didn't appear to be capable of doing much gardening mainly as he didn't have many of the tools of the trade. He did however have a large sword. "The balance of the forest must be maintained" intoned the Elf, sagely. Unfortunately it seemed that maintaining the balance of the forest involved massacring lots and lots of wolves, spiders and demon thingies which Sain took to doing with glee.

Combat was an interesting experience. Sain had to suppress the urge to charge wildly at the nearest wolf and start slashing with a sword. He had vague recollections of the need to get aggro, and his artful handling of a bow seemed strange as if he was used to being more clumsy. Sain fired, and a wolf came bounding towards him. It took ages to die as Sain repeatedly hacked away at it with his puny [Rusty Knife]. When it lay dead at his feet, Sain was bemused to find that he couldn't skin it like he was used to.

The early levels flew by and Sain was soon Level 8. Night Elf living seemed to involve a lot of talking about the natural balance of things followed by a lot of hitting the natural balance of things with swords. Sain also couldn't understand the chief Night Elves' desire to live right at the top of a very tall tree, and then ask him to walk up and down repeatedly gathering water from a nearby well. "They must get a kick out of pissing off newbies" thought Sain angrily. Natural balance was all very well, but in his opinion it wasn't a patch on decent plumbing.

One particular quest was to locate some guy who had gone missing. Sain soon found him, hidden right up a ravine and surrounded by venemous spiders. "Help... me" he gasped when he saw Sain arrive, "I need an antidote quickly!". Noting the absence of any quest timer, and thinking the NPC must be pretty useless to be nearly killed by these pitifully weak mobs, Sain took his time. Unfortunately the guy didn't die before he got round to saving him.

Eventually, after several quests killing spiders, Sain was ready to leave the glade and enter the real world. Eagerly he set off down the road to who-knows-where to continue his quest. The road ran out of the conveniently-shaped natural bowl formed by the surroundng mountains and down into a long valley. Fearsome looking creatures flittered through the trees, but the windchimes which were still hung in the various branches still gave the place an eerie mystical aire. Sain alt-tabbed to Winamp and put on something a bit more tuneful.

He almost missed the daemon hiding in the trees, but the daemon had other ideas. "Pssst. Night elf" whispered the daemon as he passed. "You wouldn't be able to.... er... help me gather some reagents for a, um, project" asked the daemon. "Why not?" thought Sain. It was only a couple of panther skins, weird bat-like wings and some other crap and wouldn't take so much time. He soon had the daemon's required items. "I never thought I'd have a night elf doing my bidding" chuckled the daemon. "Now be off with you".

Sain was annoyed at the lack of gratitude but had to urgently find an inn to collect the pieces of gold some guy called Adenas was supposed to be sending him for some decent equipment and perhaps some beer later. Eventually he arrived in the Elven town of Dolanaar. Like all Elven towns, it contained a lot of trees and not much else. The inn was a tree and only had two beds, both open to the elements. Sain picked up the four pieces of gold Adenas had sent him, along with the effeminate pink bag he had sent them in. Supposedly a pink bag wasn't macho enough for the mighty warrior.

He looked around for some quests. A nearby tree looked relatively important, and had a couple of tough looking guys standing outside. Perhaps that was the Dolanaar head honcho's place, supposed Sain, home of Dolanaar's fearless leaders and their best quests. He was right, however it seemed he had committed a giant faux pas earlier by helping the daemon and Dolanaar's finest weren't pleased to see him.

"HOW DARE YOU AID THE ENEMIES OF TELDRASSIL!" roared the nearest Night Elf. Sain bristled. "What do you expect from newbies like me?" he asked indignantly, "Night Elf induction doesn't exactly tell you not to talk to the daemons...". "Nevermind" continued the Night Elf, ignoring Sain's protests. "I have a way you can atone for your transgression". The Elf began to detail a plan which was little more than an elaborate practical joke - collecting some sort of hard-to-find herb, spiking the daemon's drink and drawing a moustache on him when he was out cold. Sain couldn't really see how that would help the cause of the Alliance, and besides couldn't really be bothered. He declined the quest.

It seemed he was now an outlaw. Sain didn't care; he was bored of the Night Elves and their treehouses, "save the planet" lifestyle and general arrogance. He would seek further quests far away across the sea, in the lands that the mighty warrior Adenas inhabited and where he would already know roughly what to do on the quests. Hefting his pink bag, Sain trudged off towards where he figured the port would be. He had a long journey ahead of him.

[Inquisitor7]

Good as always, Adenas. You have honed your powers of description, as this passage illustrates:


Sain materialised in a silver glade. The wind rustled the leaves of the surrounding trees and disturbed the wind chimes artfully hung from various branches. A thin mist curled off the surface of a nearby lake and the smell of incense filled the air.

More importantly, I found both posts quite pleasing and interesting. Your use of humor really keeps things flowing smoothly, and adds to the enjoyment of the story. Keep it up.

[Adenas]

Thanks :) I wasn't sure if the plots were very good. Hopefully, with lots of holiday around Christmas and broadband now installed I can get some more inspirations for new stories...

[Rulf]

Glad to see some new posts and that your planning to keep up the good work.

[Adenas]

Adenas was a bit tipsy. He had been out with some friends, having discovered a social life away from the internet after moving into a new flat and suffering immense delays in the installation of a broadband internet conenction. Unfortunately during the prolonged lack of exposure to World of Warcraft Adenas had found that he had missed his friends and favourite Murlocs quite a lot. It was therefore with immense joy that Adenas came home after a night out to find that the broadband people had finally hooked him up. It was 1.30AM and he was tipsy and tired, but Adenas just had to play. His new 2Mb connection made short work of the latest patch download and he was soon ready to go.

"ADENAS!!!!!" cried Holynun as Adenas logged on for the first time in almost a month, materialising in the Southshore inn. "Er.. hi" replied Adenas, who had never met Holynun in his life. But if random people wanted to greet him whenever he logged on he wasn't about to say no. Perhaps his exploits were becoming so famous that people were treating him like some kind of Warcraft celebrity, he thought fondly. He would be like that Leroy fellow, just better at killing things, and have to travel around in secret in case hordes of fans found out where he was and mobbed him in their search for signed Murloc scales, official merchandise and requests for /hug and so on. Horde would bow before him rather than gank him mercilessly, Alliance would jump at the chance to group with the legendary Adenas and his trusty steed Murloceater. Adenas would be famous! The idea had a certain amount of appeal.

Unfortunately for Adenas' dreams of fame and fortune this wasn't to be the case; Holynun turned out to be one of Erys' alts. "Oh haven't you moved server?" he asked, disappointed that he wasn't quite the Leroy-like phenomenon he had imagined himself to be, but glad that Erys hadn't gone. "And what's all this Christmas stuff lying around?" he continued as for the first time he noticed that the dismal surroundings at Southshore where he'd last logged were rather festively decorated. Perhaps they even had mince pies, he hoped - the free apples they'd been giving out at Halloween helped a lot during difficult quests and Adenas never said no to free food.

Adenas was shocked to find that the long hours he'd spent WoW-less, or perhaps the beers he'd drunk that night, had really interfered with his WoW-playing skills. As he bumped into things trying to find the inn's exit, and accidentally dragged one or two weapons off his toolbars, Adenas wondered whether logging on to play had been such a good idea after all. The second shock came when Adenas met Fezarus again. The trigger-happy gnomish mage had climbed to the lofty heights of Level 60 in his absence, and now sported a staggering array of different ways to make things explode, freeze or freeze and explode. They met outside the icy gates of Ironforge and Fezarus challenged Adenas to a duel, which Adenas had to decline.

"Lets do Gnomeregan" suggested Adenas, after the two adventurers got bored of watching people duel in front of Ironforge. "Deadmines better" advised Fezarus, idly casting some kind of blizzardy spell at some nearby duellers. Deadmines meant Van Cleef, the Defias boss who inhabited an unusually-placed pirate ship deep in the Deadmines, and Adenas had held a grudge against him ever since he had effortlessly wiped parties that Adenas had been a part of several times in the past. His piratey followers had also been less than keen to die and leave a pet parrot on their corpse for Adenas to find, which for Adenas was a sore point. All of Adenas' friends had got one from previous Deadmines raids, and he had felt quite left out until he had discovered the "pirate supplies" shop in Booty Bay and purchased one himself. Unfortunately the novelty of a mute parrot flapping around beside him had soon worn off, and nowadays his feathered friend was kept shut in a bank vault. The cause of animal rights hadn't advanced far in Azeroth.

Fezarus set off down the hill and Adenas soon lost track of him in the swirling snows of Dun Morogh. "Where are you going?" asked Adenas of the empty air, and pointed up the path the way they'd come. "Deadmines is this way". "I'm already in Westfall" replied Fezarus. Adenas sighed and began the weary trudge back to the gates of Ironforge and the Deeprun Tram. Obviously some arcane portalling trickery was involved, he thought to himself. "You could have opened me a portal too" he grumbled.

Eventually the two adventurers met in Westfall and began their journey across the dusty plains. "Fezarus and Adenas Vs Van Cleef... bring it on" announced Fezarus to the guild channel, to complete silence. It wasn't exactly peak time for guild chat, thought Adenas, checking his watch.

The Defias guards around the entrance to the mine fell easily. Fezarus' strategy appeared to be the same as it always had been to tackle large groups of low level mobs. He would get a tank, usually Adenas, to run into as many mobs as possible and then run away, dragging the mobs with him. Then he'd freeze them all and perform some blasting spells that went "shooom" until they all fell down dead. It was scarily effective, and now that he was Level 60 Fezarus didn't even require a tank. The adventurers practically ran through the dungeon, enemies dropping like flies in their path. They were finding it was taking longer to loot the corpses for copper coins and equipment for alts than it was to kill the bad guys.

Soon, Fezarus and Adenas stood before the gangplank to the pirate ship's deck where the fearsome Van Cleef resided, guarded by two or more invisible bodyguards. On previous attempts to kill Van Cleef made as a young warrior, Adenas had mocked the concept of invisible bodyguards but had since had to revise his opinion of them after they had proved themselves quite a challenge. "Invisible bodyguards, like Cleef's invisible friends" he had chuckled in the past. Now he warily eyed the small dark hut where Cleef lurked and began his preparations for battle.

Fezarus didn't care. With a little whoop he charged at Van Cleef. The scene suddenly seemed to move in slow motion, as Adenas cried "nooooo" and Van Cleef shouted "who dares disturb me!?" in the style of the b-movie pirate he was. Despite the slow-motion actions however, the battle was short. Adenas stood by, dumbstruck as Fezarus froze and "shoomed" through Van Cleef and his invisible guards in a matter of seconds. The head pirate had just enough time to shout "fools!" before he keeled over. Fezarus danced a little jig.

The experience was strangely unfulfilling and it was getting late. "I'm gonna logg" Adenas told Fezarus, and the mage obligingly opened a portal to Ironforge. As he stepped through the swirling vortex into the cavernous halls of the Dwarven city, Adenas reflected that this was certainly the way to travel.

[Inquisitor7]

Animal rights in Azeroth? Hah! As always, your writing is fun to read, and I really can't think of how you could improve upon this latest installment.

[Adenas]

The wind blew fiercely against the window panes of the Lakeshire inn, at the top of which in a small room lurked The Oracle. On his desk lay the latest tech bulletins from the Almighty above but The Oracle had not the time to read them. He was predicting.

"I'm sorry I cannot answer that question" The Oracle spoke into the distance. "Yes I do think Paladins are overspecced but I can't do anything about it" he continued, in response to some other unknown person or thing. "Have you tried using the auto-unstuck command?" he spoke unto someone who was "stuck in the tree", a tree in a location which had not yet been adequately described yet.

There was a bang and a battered low level warrior burst into the room. "Yor money or yor life" he exclaimed, brandishing a large sword and waving it in a manner he obviously thought was menacing. The Oracle ignored him, however the warrior didn't go away. "J/k m8" he continued with an amicable grin, "my frend carnt log in and asked me to ask a GM 4 hlp". The Oracle sighed, and picked up the nearest wadge of troubleshooting answers. "Has he turned on his PC?" he asked with the patience of a saint.

"Corse" replied the warrior, but just as The Oracle was about to ask the next question on the sheet he launched into an angry tirade. "Why carnt Blizz run a decent server, there never making the server powerful enuff" he raged, "always lagged, always queues, wuz stuck yesterday at the downloading char list".

The rage washed over The Oracle like the sea washes over a grain of sand. He was trained for situations like this. Calmly, he reached for the Blizzard Customer Auto-Disposal Button and pressed it. "We're sorry for the inconvenience caused but can assure you that we're doing everything we can to resolve the situation" thundered the world. Then, after some fiendishly powerful mechanical sourcery in the world's distant air-conditioned French home, the warrior disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The Oracle returned to his duties. "I'm sorry I can't give your friend's user account details". It was early in his shift yet; this was not going to be The Oracle's day.

---

Yorus Barleybrew sighed as he examined the latest adventurer to approach him that day. This one was no finer specimen than the rest; he wore battered armour and wielded a rusty toothpick of a sword. Yorus had seen him from across the floor of the inn, bragging to his friends about all the Horde he had killed, and had been secretly hoping that he wouldn't approach, but approach he had. Wearily, Yorus launched into the same old spiel.

"Aye a fine warrior you seem to be..." he began, hefting his mug of ale. The warrior however didn't wait to hear the rest of the story, instead hitting accept almost immedately. Yorus hated that sort; in his opinion there was nothing more disrespectful to a reknowned quest-giver such as he, although he had to admit that the sort of adventurer who stood there for ages while he recited his quest story was usually a bit slow and difficult to deal with. Still better slow than rude, thought Yorus as he glared at the warrior, who didn't seem to notice as he turned and sprinted out of the inn with his friends.

He would be back shortly, having completed the quest in record time, Yorus predicted. He knew the warrior's type. Nothing would be good enough for him until the lofty heights of Level 60. In the meantime, Yorus would be standing here in the same spot with the same mug of ale giving out the same quest 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Yorus sighed and returned to his table.

---

Corporal Keeshan greeted the latest adventurers in the same way he always did. "Rescuers!" he exclaimed, "I had begun to give up hope of seeing my beloved Lakeshire again!". However privately he thought the latest batch didn't stand much of a chance of rescuing him. There were too few of them for a start, and they had approached him too cautiously - pulling each of the trolls guarding him and disposing of them carefully, methodically, one-by-one. Keeshan needed to move, and he needed to move quickly, and these lumbering fools wouldn't be able to keep up unless they were able to wade through the trolls like a knife through butter. Another agonising death awaited him soon, he imagined much to his annoyance. The gap between death and respawning was an eternity for an NPC - a negative state of being - and Keeshan never enjoyed it.

The adventurers conferred briefly among themselves. Their leader appeared to be a gnomish mage, who gave instructions quickly and succinctly to the others. It didn't sound a bad plan to Keeshan, but it was obvious the adventurers hadn't attempted the quest before. Keeshan began to move at a quick walking pace out of the cave and much to his annoyance the adventurers stuck to him like glue. "GO SCOUT AHEAD!" he wanted to scream at them. There were shedloads of trolls between him and freedom. Well, that illusion of freedom, anyway. Keeshan had been freed many times and none of those times had lasted. He had faded away time after time, just after reaching the Lakeshire bridge, and after a period of nothing had ended up back right where he started for the next batch of hapless adventurers to "save him".

Keeshan saw a troll down a side passage and charged, drawn by an irresistable urge that seemed part of his very being. A stupid part, he had to admit. As a supposedly wounded Alliance soldier lost in the depths of a troll-infested cave, if left to his own devices he would have probably pursued a more stealthy course of action. But then he wasn't left to his own devices. The hapless adventurers came to his aid relatively quickly but he was still severely injured before the troll lay dead and he was able to dash back to where he had charged from.

Against all odds, the adventurers managed to get Keeshan outside the cave and to a further group of adventurers who had already massacred the guards who waited there. Keeshan began to hope; perhaps this time would be different. Perhaps he would get to the bridge and not fade away but be allowed to return to his home, to his vaguely-remembered family and comrades in the Alliance army. "Ah! Almost home!" he exclaimed as a breeze wafted his face, and inside he cursed the scripting that made him say that every time despite bitter disappointment after bitter disappointment.

The journey from here on was relatively easy and as per his script, Keeshan started to jog. The familiar stone bridge loomed ahead, beside which his commanding officer Marshal Marris stood; eternally on duty. "Ah you're found Corporal Keeshan" Marris congratulated the adventurers as he always did. "Here is a reward for your trouble". As soon as the words were said Keeshan began to feel the familar feeling of fading and the world got further and further out of reach. It would seem this time would be no different to the others. Idly, Keeshan wondered whether the next group to rescue him would at least have a nice-looking Night Elf to look at.

---

Lyria Du Lac stood outside the Goldshire Armoury. This wasn't what she had had in mind when she had joined the mighty Alliance army and agreed to become a Warrior trainer. She had been stuck at level 20 for almost a year now, helping countless rookie warriors gain the skills vital for the Alliance's cause, but where was the career progression? Why wasn't she level 60 by now?

"Because I'm stuck here" she thought bitterly to herself. She idly wondered whether she could maybe rebel a little; maybe teach an aspiring warrior the wrong move, or overcharge them so she could go out and get slaughtered in Stormwind on cheap Dwarven Ale. But even that latter course of action was out of bounds to her; the average training only earned her a couple of measly copper coins and the cheapest booze was several silver at the least. Besides the copper mysteriously disappeared whenever she earnt it.

Lyria had never been to Stormwind. She occasionally heard stories from nearby groups of newbies, who talked eagerly amongst themselves of the sights and joys of the big city, and had spoken now and again to the travelling baker who had wandered as far as the Eastvale Logging Camp. Lyria often imagined what the great city was like. There were tales of towering statues, depicting noble warriors from history; tales of shops in their hundreds, with bustling crowds of one or two player characters where people could buy whatever they desired; tales of deep canals and murky dungeons and magnificent cathedrals.

Some adventurers sped by on their mounts, armour glittering in the sunlight. Lyria gazed after them with jealousy - among them was Adenas, a level 42 warrior that Lyria had remembered training all of those years ago when he was just a novice with a rusty sword. None of her old students ever came round to see her; Goldshire was far too much of a backwater for idle visits and the flight routes passed it by. A level 12 warrior in battered armour approached her and perused her price list solemnly. Lyria sighed and prepared to teach Rend level 1 for the millionth time.

[Bonegrit]

Once again: Simply. Freaking. Brilliant.

I loved the oracle.

[Adenas]

Once again: Simply. Freaking. Brilliant.

I loved the oracle.

Haha thanks :)

I'm sure The Oracle will be appearing in many more stories, especially considering all the lag and connection troubles I've been having lately :D

[Adenas]

"WHY ARE YOU ALL STILL HERE!" yelled Adenas at the top of his voice at the assembled crowds. The new 1.9 patch had linked all the auction houses of Azeroth together, yet it seemed that all of the Alliance still enjoyed standing outside the one in Ironforge, running Auctioneer, having little pointless duels and trying to find groups. And of course, causing lag. It was this lag which caused Adenas to almost fall into the pointless chasm thing that cut through the square like a deep knife wound, and not for the first time cursed the Dwarves who built it.

The new patch had also severely screwed up his add-ons, Adenas grumbled to himself as his interface displayed more popups than a worldofwar.net hosted site. "Could not bind to interface/lua.xml" intoned the world, sagely. "Could not find blizzmobs.wtf" it continued after Adenas kept clicking OK. "Missing varbind interface/addons/auctioneer" popped up another dialog. Adenas logged out.

---

The Oracle was having a heavy day. The new patch had taken him somewhat by surprise, which he figured could mean that perhaps he wasn't such a great oracle after all but was probably more down to the fact that no-one told him anything around here. Many people thought Blizzard Entertainment was unresponsive to it's customers but The Oracle knew better. Blizzard was like a fawning murloc to it's customers compared with how it was with it's Oracles. No official declaration had wound its way down to warn him before the impending doom that was this month's content patch, and the sudden rush of problems as people logged on that morning were giving him a headache.

He'd even had to give individual responses to some of the questions instead of consulting The Big Blue Book, so rushed was he. The Big Blue Book contained the sum of all knowledge, or so it seemed sometimes, but it's major flaw was that it didn't get updated instantaneously with the most cutting edge excuses and platitudes. Well, that and the fact that some of its sections were just bizzare. For example there was a very large section dealing with the possible legal implications of the breakdown of in-game marriages and the splitting of epic items between distraught ex-spouses, which included a handy list of ten things not to say. Number six was The Oracle's favourite; "FFS it's only a game".

The Oracle checked his messages to see what the inhabitants of Azeroth were asking about today. Several were complaining about the delays in retrieving character lists. The Oracle pasted the official line back to those; the generic response that had taken a crack team of lawyers almost three months to wrinkle every possible hint of meaning from. "We're sorry for the problems you're experiencing" it began, but privately The Oracle wasn't sorry. He wished they would stop whinging. Could they not see that Blizzard had the development team working on it? Granted most were on holiday, a couple were off sick and the guy who knew most about the login code was most often locked in the disabled toilet screaming obscenities, but working on it they were. The inhabitants of Azeroth should give him a break, thought The Oracle bitterly.

The Oracle was bored of technical questions; it was time to deal with a few abuses of game T's and C's. "Dear GM pls ban Mightywarrior32 as he is using racial slurs" read the first ticket. The Oracle read further and decided that calling someone a "stupid tauren moo" was probably not a racial slur as defined in the Big Blue Book, even though Blizzard encouraged its agents to deal severely with such issues. Was a tauren even technically a race? The Oracle didn't know, but he did know he didn't like gnomes. Maybe he was a racist.

"Dear GM please can I have the following items for Christmas. A [Pony Bridle], a new pair of [Mighty Socks of the Monkey] and a fix for the bloody connection issues everyone is having" read another in-game ticket. The Oracle liked the odd humourous one as much as the next guy, mainly because it didn't tow the official line, but there had been quite enough whinging about the lag lately. The Oracle didn't have any connection issues, but then the server was only sitting a few hundred metres away. He clicked the autoreponse button solemnly.

---

Adenas had disabled his mods and was out helping newbies. His fellow adventurers were only a few levels below him, but he had taken pity in their non-mounted selves and had decided to help them collect Stromgarde badges off the pesky militia who infested the Alterac Highlands. Gladly, time and again, he had charged the nearest militia mob with scant regard for life and limb. The party of adventurers were soon sitting at the base of the flight of steps which led up into Stromgarde's imposing keep, a trail of militia corpses littering the stoney road below.

"Oi! Dumb warrior dood" whispered Whiskey, a level 32 Paladin. "Stop pulling all the mobs at once!". Adenas ignored him; the Paladin was probably just jealous of Adenas' large axe Bonebiter and mighty steed Murloceater. "Do you want an apple?" he asked the horse with affection. Unfortunately the horse was in Adenas' backpack and would have ignored him anyway so the question was misinterpreted somewhat by the rest of his party. "No I don't want a stupid apple" replied Whiskey, "I want to survive an encounter with a mob for a change". "I was talking to the horse" continued Adenas. Whiskey glared at Adenas.

Maybe helping newbies wasn't his thing after all, thought Adenas. A new message indicator appeared by his map, and he wondered excitedly what it might be. Perhaps a letter from someone asking him to log on later so they could go adventuring? Maybe a letter naming him to an exulted position within the guild? Perhaps one of the old women he had spent hours collecting ingredients so they could make pies fancied a chat? Making his excuses, he left the group and headed towards what he thought was the nearest mailbox, in distant Southshore. He rode through miles of countryside, through a huge ruined wall build ages ago for who knew what reason and finally dismounted at the inn.

"Your auction of [Rusty Shortsword] failed to complete" read the message. Once again, Adenas wondered why. He would have been thrilled to get a sword like that for the bargain price of twenty silver when he was a low level warrior, he thought to himself. Disappointed, Adenas wandered over to the griffon post; he would go get drunk in Ironforge and see if anything commonplace then magically became interesting.

Some action was what he needed.

[Adenas]

Would like comments about this one, if possible, as it's a slight departure from the norm for me. I'm not sure whether it's "too serious" for Not Enough Rage :) Anyway, enjoy...

Bonesmasher the Troll paced the ruined stone steps wearily. He had no idea what it was that he was supposed to be doing. As far as he could tell the tower behind him contained absolutely nothing except for a few boxes, and the surrounding ruins didn't contain anything else of much interest either. But this was Bonesmasher's whole world; the ruins and the other trolls which inhabited them in a close-knit group. And for some reason, others in the world of Azeroth also coveted his small spot.

Bonesmasher looked around at the other trolls which surrounded him. Over by the wall, Skullsplitter was off gazing into space as he normally did. Wisebeard the shaman fidgeted nervously next to a collapsed statue. In the ruins of a burnt out building sat Thighbreaker and Nosebleeder. Or was it Handbreaker and Necksmasher? Bonesmasher wasn't entirely sure as their names weren't displayed above their heads like those of the marauding adventurers who now and again came to terrorise their little encampment.

Ah, the adventurers. Bonesmasher knew not why they came, but they always came in great numbers. They would come from the west, where solitary Footstomper roamed, and kill the trolls one by one until they disappeared into the tower which Bonesmasher was standing next to. Then after a while they would come out again, although they wouldn't appear to be carrying anything in addition to what they had when they entered. Time and time again Bonesmasher had tried to communicate with them as they massacred him and his friends, but his confused pleas for mercy must have come out as growls of rage as the adventurers never listened. Fortunately through some arcane trickery of this area the trolls always came back to life after the adventurers had been and gone. Some of the more superstitious ones attributed this to a benevolent troll god called "Lol" which they had heard several parties of adventurers mentioning by name. Bonesmasher himself was a believer.

Initially the trolls had been quite pleasant to the adventurers, but being killed time and time again had since made even the most patient troll angry and quick to attack anyone who came close. Only Bonesmasher still held any hope that the adventurers could be communicated with and perhaps reasoned with. Surely whatever they went into the tower for could be accomplished without the loss of innocent troll lives?

An ominous silence arose from the west and Bonesmasher mourned the passing of Footstomper once again as he spied a small group of adventurers approaching. "They're coming again!" he warned his friends and all around him trolls made their own preparations for the oncoming onslaught. There were only two adventurers this time; so maybe the trolls stood a chance and there would be no further deaths today. At least, Bonesmasher hoped so.

Unfortunately it was not to be the case. One of the marauding adventurers kept disappearing, and then reappearing to devastating affect next to unsuspecting trolls where he would unleash a devastating barrage of attacks to which there seemed to be no defence. The other adventurer often charged in to help but didn't appear to do much damage by himself. Maybe he was the other adventurer's baby, thought Bonesmasher.

However, baby in tow or not, one adventurer seemed to be more than enough and each troll fell in their turn. Soon the trolls were in a pitched battle with the adventurers inside the tower itself. Somehow, in common with the other adventurers that came here, they had managed to activate some kind of defence system in the tower which had created a load of strange watery creatures to attack the trolls. All was not lost however, thought Bonesmasher as he noted with approval that the adventurers were slowly being overwhelmed.

The weaker baby adventurer died in a barrage of attacks. The other adventurer disappeared into thin air, as some of his kind were wont to do. Mourning his lost young, perhaps, thought Bonesmasher as he gazed around the scene of devastation. The corpses of his friends littered the little tower and the steps up to it. Bonesmasher shouted a prayer to his god Lol for the dead, beseeching Him to kindly return his friends soon.

However Lol appeared to have other ideas. Instead of resurrecting his friends, Lol decided to show mercy to the mourning adventurer and a couple of minutes later the weaker adventurer appeared in a distant corner. Bonesmasher eyed the little person curiously. He didn't appear to be much of a threat without his friend, but then he was a baby adventurer. As if he wasn't in a tower surrounded by pissed off trolls whose friends he'd just massacred, the adventurer calmly sat down and started to eat a loaf of bread. The callousness of the adventurers enraged Bonesmasher, but then he looked closer at the tiny baby adventurer. He didn't appear to be too angry; perhaps he knew not what he was doing. It was, after all, only a child. Bonesmasher decided to try to talk to it.

The adventurer finished eating, stood up and shuffled to one side. Bonesmasher turned to watch it. It then began to bounce around in small circles. Bonesmasher wondered whether it wanted a truce; it was, after all, surrounded by angry trolls. Perhaps this was his chance to communicate with the adventurers and make them leave him alone. Or maybe the baby adventurer was just playing little baby adventurer games. Either way, Bonesmasher had to try. His eyes followed the baby adventurer as it bounced around the room.

---

Adenas was off to kill trolls with his guildmate Marglur, a level 60 rogue who had given in to Adenas' constant whinging on guild chat and agreed to help him clear a few of his Alterac quests. After escorting a suicidal night elf through the Go'Shek Farm, the next quest on Adenas' list was the retrieval of certain mystical objects from a tower in the mighty abandoned fortress-city of Stromgarde.

The tale behind the objects was no doubt an interesting one, full of magic and intrigue, but Adenas hadn't spent much time looking at it. All he knew was it was something to do with trolls, involved magical things and was related somehow to some guy called Trelane. The quest giver was a mage who stood all day down in Refuge Pointe instead of getting off his ass and getting the trolls sorted out himself, so Adenas didn't respect him much. Mages weren't Adenas' favourite squishies at the best of times anyway.

Soon the two adventurers stood outside the one bit of Stromgarde still inhabited by Alliance troops. Ahead of them lay a long passageway between two walls, and blocking that passageway was one of the largest trolls Adenas had ever seen. Enthusiastically, he charged. Blow after blow rained down on the troll but much to Adenas' dismay they hardly caused any damage at all. Then, like a shadow Marglur stealthed in from the side, and after a couple of swift backstabs the troll lay dead at their feet. The two adventurers proceded in this fashion until they finally stood at the bottom of the steps to the tower. Above them stood four very fierce looking trolls.

Adenas slotted the enchanted gem thing the wizard guy had given him into a stone at the base of the tower, and almost immediately afterwards the sounds of pitched battle erupted from inside the tower. The trolls outside didn't seem to notice, and Adenas charged them, only to find that their friends were waiting around the corner. He soon lost sight of Marglur in the ensuing melee, as he jumped from ledge to ledge in the tower trying to avoid the slashing axes of the trolls. But it was no use. Adenas died and woke up in the graveyard at Refuge Pointe.

"Sorry mate gotta go AFK for a bit" whispered Marglur. "np", Adenas replied, nursing his wounds. He began the long jog back to Stromgarde.

Eventually he reached the ruins of the tower once more. Looking around for somewhere safe to rez, Adenas spotted a little alcove in the corner. Only one solitary troll was anywhere near, and after much thought Adenas estimated that it was too far away to be pulled into combat. He came back to life and immediately reached for his backpack and a nice loaf of bread. Marglur would be back soon, and then the carnage could resume.

The solitary troll was looking at him. Adenas stared back, and after finishing his bread moved a cursory few steps to the right, deeper into the shadows. Curiously the troll followed his movements. Delighted by this strange coincidence, Adenas began to jump around in circles while he waited for Marglur.

---

Bonesmasher watched the little adventurer jump around and wondered what it was trying to say. Experimentally, he growled a question but there was no answer from the tiny man. Suddenly the bigger adventurer reappeared nearby, and the adventurer stopped jumping about. Bonesmasher was about to jump around himself to see if that would elicite a response from the bloodthirsty marauder, but before he could move a sharp pain shot up his side. Roaring in rage and fear, Bonesmasher turned to meet his assailant just as a clap of thunder confused and disorientated him. The pain grew unbearable and the world unsteady. Bonesmasher lashed out and his huge fist connected with something, but he was getting weaker by the minute and deep down he knew it was over. With an enormous thud he hit the ground, and the world faded from sight. He cried out for Lol with his last breath.

---

"Did that troll just say lol?" asked Adenas, confused.

[Inquisitor7]

I wouldn't say it was all that serious. Really, it struck me as being satirical. I am not sure if that was your intention, but given the situation presented here, I can't help but come away with that conclusion.

[Adenas]

Thanks for the comment as usual :)

I see what you mean by satirical but that wasn't really the intention. To be honest I didn't have any motives like that, I just wondered "wouldn't it be weird if you saw it from the troll's point of view and disregarded all prior Blizzard lore regarding why they're there". You'd end up with some trolls who got attacked all the time for what they saw as no reason. Perhaps a bit of a dumb scenario, but I found it funny ;)

Anyway for my next trick it's back to PoV stories from some NPCs I think, so normal service should be resumed shortly :)

[Rulf]

I believe you accommplished what you set out to, and I enjoyed this as much as any previous.

[Adenas]

Tanaris was an unforgiving place. The dunes stretched to the horizon, dotted with vicious scorpions, hungry jackals and horde gankers as far as the eye could see. Here and there the ruins of ancient civilisations poked through the sand. Adenas thought there were a little too many ancient ruins in Azeroth for a world which had only existed since 2004. Who had built them? An ancient race of bored Blizzard employees? Nobody knew, and those that did were long lost beneath the sands.

Adenas arrived in the independant town of Gadgetzan on a griffon from Theramore. He was travelling to meet a couple of guildmates for a very important quest to kill some kind of giant tree things far off into the desert. As the only non-squishy there, Adenas was certain he had a vital role to play. The tree creatures would tremble at the sight of him! Not wanting to be late, he took his trusty steed Murloceater from his pocket, climbed on and set off into the desert.

Not for the first time he wished he didn't have so much armour on as the sun beat down mercilessly on his head despite it being early evening. He rode through the Abyssal Sands, privately referred to as the Abysmal Sands, and eventually reached the oasis in the desert where the tree creatures lived. His guildmates were no longer there, having been wiped by one of them earlier. Adenas supposed that had something to do with the "cloth in front" policy Stormshroud followed; he was sure the mage thought he was a warrior most of the time, as the Gnomish mage often charged right into the thick of battle and occasionally used his staff in a decidedly non-magical manner.

Killing of the tree creatures was a remarkably easy affair. The technique invariably involved Stormshroud shouting "CLOTH IN FRONT" and charging at a big group of them, making shooming noises and generally getting their attention. Adenas would run after him and try to taunt the creatures, usually without much success as by that point the other members of the party would open up with the entire contents of their spellbook and it would be all Adenas could do not to get too hurt as magical things exploded around him. Once the smoke cleared, Adenas would be in the centre of a large group of dead tree things. He'd usually be cowering, which didn't befit a mighty warrior but which did keep the long walks back from the graveyard down to a minimum.

To add to the fun there were a couple of horde players who appeared to have the same task. Adenas glared at them with hatred, mainly because he recognised one from an incident elsewhere in Tanaris, which for a while had involved some fine cross-species communication before descending into a brawl involving at least ten pirates, several dock workers, a parrot or two and the painful death of all players concerned. These hordes were certainly up to something, Adenas thought to himself as he sat cowering within another circle of burnt tree-thing corpses. They were obviously waiting for reinforcements to arrive.

But no reinforcements arrived, and the adventurers managed to complete the quest with relative ease. Next up was the elimination of a nearby troll camp, which was hard as the stupid things kept coming back. The group's strategy was much the same as with the tree creatures - the stupid but surprisingly effective cloth in front strategy followed by magical annihilation and Adenas cowering in the aftermath. Towards the end of the carnage, Adenas took to riding around on Murloceater taunting the trolls from afar. Most followed him to their deaths at the hands of the trigger happy squishies. One or two trolls definitely shouted out Lol as they died, and Adenas wondered whether the 1.9 patch had introduced some kind of bug.

One final challenge awaited the brave adventurers, and that was the slaying of a mighty dragon - Occulus - who inhabited a spot in a hidden valley in the middle of the desert. Despite the dragon's size it was able to feed itself on rocks and stones, with the occasional foolhardy adventurer acting like a kind of irregular vitamin top-up. A formidable foe for the adventurers indeed. Unfortunately one of the adventurers had to leave at the behest of his wife. Now, they were only three.

"I don't think cloth in front will work" said Adenas, noting the dragon flapping around randomly. It was quite a big dragon. Fortunately, Stormshroud seemed less keen to follow his usual strategy. This called for some action. How hard could one flying lizard be? Adenas charged.

The squishies' cries for him to wait for their mana to recharge were drowned by the roar of the dragon as it evaded Adenas' charge and whacked him hard. Fireballs and arcane explosions slammed into the dragon from the squishies but didn't seem to be doing too much damage. Adenas immediately began to regret his charge but didn't have long to think about it. Dodging to the side as the dragon's claws came raking towards him, he fumbled for a health potion and swigged it. That bought him a few useless seconds more, however he was nevertheless soon standing in Gadgetzan's sandy graveyard miles to the north. His companions joined him soon afterwards as the angry dragon turned on them one by one.

"Oops" said Adenas. "It was immune to my arcane attacks" noted a confused Stormshroud. "We'll get it this time" vowed Warcrow. The adventurers trekked off towards their corpses.

The dragon seemed to wear a smug expression as the adventurers materialised a safe distance away. Adenas glared at it. Before the dragon was merely another annoying flying thing to be brutally massacred for experience and loot. Now it was personal. The adventurers made their preparations; healthstones were produced, buffs were applied and Adenas even ate some stew to make sure he was well fed and not getting those inconvenient hunger pangs while fighting which could be so distracting. He took a potion which promised on the label to give him a huge armour bonus which he had gotten off Warcrow but which Adenas had seen for sale in some of the more grey markets of Gadgetzan. He even took a rage potion for the first time ever in order to get more hits in.

Adenas charged again, this time with the full approval of Warcrow and Stormshroud. Adenas roared with rage, and slammed into the dragon sundering its armour and generally trying to get its attention. The dragon responded, and Adenas' health bar started to collapse. Magical bolt after magical bolt shot into the dragon from afar and Adenas noted with approval that the strategy was working. Unfortunately so carried away with dragonslaying was he that he forgot to swig a health potion. Before he realised his mistake he was dead again and the squishies soon joined him.

"Oops" said Adenas, again. "That was even worse than last time!" noted Warcrow. "Third time lucky?" offered Adenas. Fortunately his guildmates weren't too concerned with the Adenas-inflicted wipe and again made their way towards the dragon which Adenas was sure was silently mocking them as it flapped across the arid plain. This time he would be ready, vowed Adenas. He would be on-the-ball and use the potions in good time to survive the attack. That dragon was as good as dead.

The adventurers lined up for a final attack. The dragon ignored them. With a roar, Adenas charged as before. Things exploded. Debris flew. Adenas' axe edged nearer to 0% repair. Adenas used his healthstone as the dragon pummelled him. The adventurers seemed to be winning, with Occulus at just over a quarter health and falling fast. But Adenas was also losing health fast. Just before he was completely dead, he clicked the [Superior Mana Potion] on his toolbar. Nothing happened.

Adenas materialised in the graveyard and soon afterwards so did his comrades-in-arms. "It wasn't me guv, 'onest!" protested Adenas in his finest Cockney, which wasn't that fine. "I couldn't click me poshuns!". The dragon was still alive but its' death would have to be another day; Stormshroud needed to return to the real world and Warcrow fancied a spot of something peaceful where he wasn't liable to be gouged by a huge dragon. Something like fishing. Reluctantly, Adenas let them go. The dragon would have to die another day.

On departing the dragon's nest the adventurers swore an oath to return. Adenas idly wondered where he could obtain a large amount of dynamite from. Adenas the Dragonslayer? He liked the sound of that...

[Inquisitor7]

Another enjoyable update. I didn't notice any spelling or grammar errors, and your style is as fluid as ever. Keep it up.

[Adenas]

Hey thanks for the reply.

I'm beginning to lose interest in N.E.R. so will probably cut down on the number of updates, and only post things that lend themselves well to the format. In the meantime I have a couple of other ideas I'm going to work on.

[Adenas]

The last week had been filled with instances.

Adenas loved the swirly things, with their high number of green item drops, general lack of horde and general sense of accomplishment when you completed them. Unfortunately you also needed other people to play them, and that was always a problem for Adenas. "LFG Mauradon, me a mighty Level 47 warrior" said Adenas proudly to the Looking For Group channel. The denizens of Ironforge ignored him and carried on with their general day-to-day activities of selling "FREE ENCHANTS COME TO IF BRIDGE", "WTS [Traveller's Backpack] 8g" and some 14 year old kid yelling the word "boobies" at the top of his voice again and again.

"I'm a mighty warrior!" continued Adenas to the massed ranks of indifferent mages, warlocks, warriors, paladins, hunters and rogues. There were no plumbers in Azeroth noted Adenas. Perhaps when the drains blocked someone called a Gnomish engineer? Everyone was a soldier, especially now the war effort had begun with the aim of opening the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj and unleashing the murderous silithid that had been locked up there for eternity. Come to think of it there weren't any tax collectors either, and Adenas briefly wondered how this war against the horde and now against the silithid was going to be paid for. He was a bit of an anti-war protestor when it came to the last one, despite being a mighty warrior. Adenas just couldn't see how opening up another front for the already overstretched Alliance army would help matters at all.

But back to the problem at hand. Adenas had found it easy to get a group for the dungeon of Zul Farrack. Even the dungeon of Uldaman, famed for it's Indiana Jones-style setting and giant stone things that came to life was relatively easy to join a group for with the help of some high level members of his guild. But Mauradon? Not a soul wanted to travel to Desolace and Adenas couldn't blame 'em.

---

Two days later, Adenas was standing at the north corner of Felwood, a dank and dark place in an area of the world that Adenas unfairly described as "nightelfland", usually while spitting. Adenas didn't much care for Night Elves with their floppy ears, tree-hugging philosophy and weird open-air living style. But he had to admit at least they were on his side. These Timbermaw Furbolgs which were blocking Adenas' way definitely weren't.

He had finally gotten to Mauradon with a guild party made up of some people at his level supported by some very heavy squishy firepower. They had breezed through the dungeon which was one of the biggest Adenas had ever done, killing giant creatures, collecting little gems and watering plants (Mauradon was kinda in nightelfland, so some of the quests were far too tree-hugging. Fortunately the plants spawned murderous water creatures when they were watered, so Adenas didn't get too bored). Eventually they had faced down a giant vision of beauty which Adenas' guildies called "The Princess", who reminded Adenas of the pig of the same name all the way back in the Redridge Mountains. After despatching her they'd all jumped off the hugest waterfall Adenas had ever seen and dispatched a large crocodile which was swimming around minding it's own business below it. Adenas had gotten a rather cool axe called Gatorbite from the exercise, as well as a crash-course in base jumping.

But now he needed to hand a "seed of life" to some hippy guy in Moonbrook, and was informed that the only way to Moonbrook if you'd never been there before was through this narrow tunnel in the mountains. A tunnel inhabited by vicious Furby-looking creatures called Furbolgs, or Furries to their friends and mockers. In order to pass through them you either had to fight your way through or befriend them by killing their enemies, who were supposedly more rabid and nasty in a strangely cute way. Adenas wanted nothing more than to charge through, axe whirling, but had heard that these furry creatures might be useful friends to have. He was going to play their little game for now.

The Bad Timbermaws were called Deadwood, although probably not by their friends, and lived in what Adenas thought looked like a peaceful little encampment down by a lake below the Timbermaw's tunnel entrance. Unfortunately they were in the middle of being massacred by a group of high level horde. Adenas watched from above before making his way down to try and pick off one of the solitary ones away from the horde. Adenas and the Furbolg weren't away from the horde for long. Soon, a level 55 shamen was helping kill the Deadwood Furbolg Adenas was failing terribly to kill. Then he killed Adenas too.

The graveyard was a long walk away and Adenas had no wish to repeat the walk. The only thing for it was to charge through the Timbermaw's caves, he thought to himself. After all, how long could they be? He carefully rezzed away from the horde and made his way back up to the road where he mounted Murloceater and equipped his shield. He wouldn't be able to fight the Timbermaws so speed would be of the essence. Dangling the [Carrot on a Stick] he'd gotten from somewhere in front of Murloceater, he dug his spurs in and they charged towards the tunnels ahead.

Adenas rode at full pelt past the first of the Furries, which roared and ineffectually swiped at him as he passed. However much to his surprise he didn't get far. Suddenly without warning disaster struck as Murloceater disappeared into thin air and Adenas was forced to run on foot. Furry after Furry piled on him, but Adenas valiently struggled on without lifting a finger to defend himself. He eventually fell next to a bridge where several other Furries stood right in the middle of their cave, guarding a junction. The caves seemed to go on for miles.

Adenas ran back to where he died and considered his options. Adenas' heart sank as he realised it was going to be harder than he had thought. Moonbrook was a long trek away down tunnels full of patrolling Furries, and his only other option of seeing whether he could somehow rez at Moonbrook's graveyard was quickly dismissed as he realised the ancient and powerful gods of Blizzard would probably have thought of that and stopped it. There was nothing to do but continue. Cautiously, Adenas' ghost flitted through the tunnel to the very limit of where the world allowed him to rez. He paused for a Furry to pass on patrol up the corridor. Then he came back to life and started to run.

Roars of rage came from behind him, even though the Furries were seemingly looking the other way and couldn't possibly have seen him. Nevertheless Adenas appeared to be the faster runner, thanks to what seemed like years of practice running away from things. The light grew as he approached the exit, but disaster struck again as after rounding the final corner Adenas ran straight into a Furry guard post. One of them stunned him and he knew it was all over, again.

Fortunately the next rez was all Adenas needed. After coming back to life, it was merely a short run past one last infuriated Furry, out of the entrance and off a cliff before Adenas finally entered the hallowed glades of Moonbrook. He whooped for joy, "I BEAT THE FURRIES!" to which someone yelled back "THAT'S NICE FOR YA". Adenas didn't think he was sincere, somehow and the elation didn't last long. No-one hung around Moonbrook, despite the recent "Lunar Celebration" and Adenas soon discovered that this was because Moonbrook was boring. Adenas handed in his quest and got a few thousand XP for it. All in all, he wondered whether it was worth it at all...

[Adenas]

The windchimes chimed in the magical forests of Tendrassil. Sain the Night Elf Hunter stalked through the short grass in the vague direction of the big green arrow which symbolised his friend Weavervine the Rogue, who according to his minimap was stood right next to the mighty Mage Fezarus. Sain had never met Weavervine but knew him well. They would have fun playing tonight, he predicted.

"OK I'll roll a priest" said Fezarus to the group chat, and disappeared. Sain stumbled into the clearing where the mage had stood to see Weavervine inexpertly trying to stroke a cat from a distance. Well, it looked like stroking, until Sain realised with amusement that the rogue was trying to backstab it. He hefted his bow, and after a few shots the cat fell dead to the ground. Laughing, Sain approached the rogue, who was taking some time to adjust to the fact that the cat had disappeared from view and was looking around for his foe. The rogue saw Sain approaching and turned his way.

"So what's the plan?" asked Sain as he arrived. The plan it turned out was to do a few quests; any would do. Sain didn't hold out much hope that the tree-hugging Night Elf lands would have much in the way of interesting quests, but he was willing to give it a shot.

Fezarus rolled a female Night Elf priest called Fezlet and soon appeared next to the adventurers. They set off into the depths of Tendrassil, hunting spiders and furbolg ambushers: strange bear-like creatures that the Night Elves claimed used to be druids until they went insane and decided to live in a hole in the ground. Or something. Sain was just happy to fire at them with his bow.

Their new characters weren't coming easy to any of the group. Weavervine would sap a solitary mob then wait patiently for it to unfreeze, a process which Sain would cut short by accidently auto-firing, and would occasionally run ahead to fight new mobs forgetting about the ones that Sain and Fezlet were already dealing with. Fezlet couldn't seem to shake the urge to run into the middle of the action and try to make things explode, except that being a priest all she could really do is just stand there while mobs swarmed around. Sain had to resist the urge to charge at all the mobs and found it tricky to keep his distance so his bow would work. The lack of taunt was also a problem when Fezlet attracted the attention of any nearby furbolgs. What kind of a moron couldn't throw a few choice insults at a mob? wondered Sain as he fired his bow in the general direction of the mob that Weavervine was concentrating on.

But the adventurers soon got better as they ventured slowly into the main cave of Furbolgs. Soon, they had collected all of the relics required by the chief night elves. Despite them supposedly being unique each adventurer had an identical copy of each one. Sain soon reached level 10 and the ability to tame a pet, so bid goodbye to the group for the time being. Nervously, he approached the pet training guy in Doloran.

"Use this taming stick to tame one Spider" intoned the pet guy. Sain obviously wasn't expected to start big. "Er, how?" replied Sain, after being handed a stick which contained precious little instructions. Nervously he walked up to the nearest spider and tried to use the stick. To his surprise he stuck his arms out and began to make beseeching gestures to the wild animal who responded as any wild animal would and attacked him. "Screw this" thought Sain, and threw the stick away to pull out his dagger. Soon the spider was lying dead on the floor at his feet. "Now that's what I call tamed" thought Sain to himself.

Unfortunately it wasn't good enough for the pet trainer, who patiently gave him another wand and bid him try again. This time Sain let the spider attack him and after what seemed like an eternity sticking his arms out and making little hearts float up the spider was his new pet. "I name you... manspider!" declared Sain, before realising that there was no way he could keep the beast. The pet trainer was impressed but got Sain to tame two more beasts before he would let him have the pet training skill; an owl which made annoying screechy flappy noises as it attacked things, and a kickass Moonstalker cat which unfortunately Sain couldn't keep.

As soon as he had been given the skills to train a real pet, Sain went out straight away and got a pet Moonstalker, which he called Neko the Wonder Cat (Neko to his friends). There would be some serious kicking of ass ahead.

[Adenas]

The Alterac Valley battleground was, in common with all battlegrounds that Adenas knew in Azeroth, located through an unlikely cave formation with fortifications placed strategically outside. This was Adenas' first attempt at a battleground. He had been planning to grind Rock Golems in Searing Gorge but some ganking horde who had decided to camp the flightpoint there had quickly put a stop to that. Adenas had died twice before he'd gotten bored of the whole thing and joined his Alliance comrades fleeing back to Ironforge. Moping around in Ironforge wasn't an option, however, hence the trip to Alterac Valley to join a group of his guildmates in battle.

Adenas stumbled through the tunnel, passing dwarven soldiers who marched up and down for no particular reason and into the dungeon-like swirly vortex which sat a good way into the cave system. Bizzarely he was given the choice of two parallel universes, named simply "Alterac Valley 1" and "Alterac Valley 2". Those mages at Blizzard had no imagination, thought Adenas to himself.

He emerged from the warmth and sunshine of the Hillsbrad Foothills into a snow-covered valley where the skies were grey and sullen. Adenas had heard of microclimates but this seemed a little ridiculous. But, being no metrologist Adenas took Murloceater out of his pocket and mounted, riding fast towards the nearest blobs on the minimap that he assumed represented his comrades-at-arms. He arrived to witness a scene of total carnage.

The valley below was full of red and green shapes, moving around each other in fluid combat. Mages shoomed giant fireballs at each other, warriors darted in and out of the fray trying to hamstring their opponents so the mages could get them, priests healed furiously and rogues tried to sneak past the lines of warriors and attack the squishies at the rear. Shamans walked blithely through the fray untouched - everyone knew better than to take them on alone. Occasionally people asked for invites to join the raid. Some Orcish guy kept yelling "Kill them now" or words to that effect. Adenas was surprised he understood him; Orcish hadn't been his strong subject at school.

Unfortunately the whole scene was like a slideshow for Adenas who didn't have the best computer in the world. Warriors, like their mage comrades using blink would be in one place then suddenly appear ten feet away. The frames per second indicator at the top of Adenas' screen showed the figure 9.6 in angry red letters. Adenas shrugged and jumped into the fray.

He targeted the nearest horde player and hit charge. The horde player who was a level 60 warrior resisted, but undeterred Adenas quickly hamstrung him and spun away to find another enemy. Unfortunately another enemy found him first. He was immobilised, along with nearby comrades, by an mage's ice trap and was blasted at from afar. Soon he lay, slain, on the valley's icey floor a mere five seconds into the battle.

Adenas awoke in a graveyard a few feet from the battle. He wasn't sure but surely that meant that the Alliance were losing this bout? In the spirit world even more than the real world, the whole battle was a confused maelstrom of whirling steel and exploding things so Adenas couldn't really tell what was happening. In front of him, a tired looking Alliance spirit started to cast a spell. Suddenly Adenas was back in the real world with full health and alongside some of his fallen comrades who enthusiasticly jumped back into the fray. Adenas hung back; after all he'd already died once already.

Suddenly he was thrown into the air, along with all his nearby alliance comrades. They picked themselves up off the floor and launched back into battle. Adenas yelled "what was that?" at his fighting comrades. No-one replied, perhaps they were too busy shooming things. Adenas eventually realised he meant the weird creature that was flapping above their heads out of the range of his sword.

Fortunately for the war as more Alliance joined the battle the horde were pushed back. War for Adenas was easy. He would run at the nearest horde, hit hamstring and try as many debuffs and buffs as he could before dying. If he didn't die for some reason he would charge at the next nearest horde and repeat the process until dead. Once dead he would res at the nearest possible opportunity. Rez. Die. Rez. Die. Rez. Die. Rez.

Occasionally Adenas would try something more adventurous, like scooting up the side of the mountain and dropping down into the midst of the horde. That was always fun as they invariably all jumped at him, and with no consequences to pay Adenas loved every minute of it. The alliance forces slowly drove the horde back to a flaming bunker further down the valley. However the horde still controlled most of it the map, mainly due to their superior organisation from what Adenas could see.

Except for a couple of Horde combatants. There was an orcish warrior called Mills who would often charge into the fray in much the same way as Adenas would, but who instead of being ignored as harmless by most of the Alliance like Adenas was by the Horde he was immediately obliterated by the nearest mage which was usually Fezarus. Seemed Mills was a guildmate who had deserted and joined the horde. Adenas wondered how an orc was ever part of the alliance forces.

The futile nature of a war where nobody died was not lost on Adenas, and eventually he became bored. One of his guildmates suggested he leave by typing /afk. Adenas left the battlefield just as the hordes began a massive counterattack. He was immediately deposited inside the cave system, disorientated and confused. He also appeared to have a scared-cat debuff which would prevent him from running back.

Despite his newfound PvP skills, Adenas still managed to get ganked on the way back to Ironforge. Some things would never change.

[Inquisitor7]

I knew I had forgotten something- that something was missing from my usual diet of ficticious writing. Of course, it was this ever-enjoyable tale of yours, Adenas. I hope you will keep it up. I will admit, though, that while these past few installments were not as humor-heavy as other, earlier ones were, I still found your writing good enough to keep me reading.

[Adenas]

Heh thanks Inquisitor!

I've taken a break from my Not Enough Rage series for a while as I noticed the quality was decreasing and I just wasn't in the right mood to keep churning out substandard work. Instead I wrote some stuff for the Worldofwar.net newsletter - interviews by a fictional gnomish journalist called Ratchet which I found really easy to write and which were quite funny I think.

However recently I can't get in touch with Paralax anymore so I've stopped sending him my updates. I hope he's OK. If you're reading this Paralax, please get in touch.

In the meantime I am currently writing another Not Enough Rage story which is coming along nicely and I'll post it here as soon as I've finished.

I might think of a new fictional comedy series to start: I have a couple of ideas I'd like to throw around. Not Enough Rage is good but I really enjoyed commenting on current events related to WoW through my Ratchet stories :) Maybe I'll post a few on here - the newsletters they were included in are quite old now and not available online from what I can tell.

Anyway thanks for asking what I've been up to!

[Anyee]

As a relative newcomer to the thread and the forums, I am rather fond of this story and wonder if you'd be willing to do some editing so that I...or you...could add it to the Dark Library.

[Adenas]

Hi Anyee.

I'm not sure whether this series is designed to be a story as such. I basically use it as a prop for gentle mockery of the concepts behind WoW. It wouldn't stand well as a piece of fanfiction with a proper plot etc - all it really is is a serious of amusing and not-so-amusing situations strung together with no overarching theme. I suspect even with editing there would be something wrong about any work based on this. Plus the characterisation isn't really there - my characters are very very shallow as again they are just props for comic effect.

If I were to write something for TDL I'd write a whole new series or a new story using the encounters in this as an inspiration. As it is I don't think I'm really in the mood to write at the moment so that's not looking likely any time soon.

Sorry :(