This story is dedicated to all my lovely Horde readers (though I hope my Alliance friends like it too). Enjoy <3

“Throm’ka and at ease, soldier.”

“Throm’ka,” replied a young and snowy white tauren, dressed in mail and accompanied by a red lynx the color of a bonfire in the night. The cat’s yellow eyes glowed in the morning mists and the tauren’s breaths made puffs in the crisp air at Agmar’s Hammer. “Have you need of me today, sir?”

“We are always in need of meat from the elk to replenish our stocks,” replied Overlord Agmar gruffly. He must’ve noticed the ever-so-slight slump in the tauren’s shoulders, as hard as she tried to hide it, and it was this that caused Agmar to place a heavy, scarred green hand on her shoulder and say “Daughter of the Horde. You have done much with your diplomatic skills to help bring the Taunka into the fold. And you are a talented hunter who trains hard. This, anyone can see. But you are not yet ready to advance to our next outpost. Remember: all that you do here is in service of the Warchief and is as important as anything else in this war. Your time will come. Now be strong! Lok’tar Ogar!”

“Lok’tar Ogar!” replied the Tauren, feeling a bit revitalized and throwing a salute. Then she turned and headed out of the keep, her crimson cat right beside her.

Once out of the gates of Agmar’s Hammer she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, willing the power and warmth of the sunrise into her spirit and chilled body, and then pulled her prize Talbuk out of the nearby stables and headed southwest, where she knew by experience there were plenty of elk.

It wasn’t long before she spotted the plentiful herds of Snowfall Elk roving among the trees, trying to pick what forage they could from the snow and ice. As always, the tauren was a little disappointed by the lack of challenge they offered. Oh, the big ones put up enough of a fight sometimes, but with the help of her lynx who was growing ever stronger (much to his master’s great pride), this particular hunt wasn’t exactly something she could hone her skills on. As such, she was probably paying a little less attention than usual that day, slipping off of her Talbuk at a spot near a particularly large tree and deftly preparing her ammunition for the upcoming encounter. Her cat paced a little beside her, eager for action, and the tauren muttered “Patience, Alyosha… patience” to sooth him. He calmed down a little, and the hunter notched the arrow to her bow and aimed, ready to give Alyosha the command…

A flash beside her.

She whirled around to see a mass of feathers and fur: Alyosha tussling with a gray blur with a sharp blue beak. The tauren, who knew a good deal about the wildlife of Azeroth, only needed a second to register that whatever creature it was was not native to this region, which meant…

“Back, Tux,” a voice rang out. The elk scattered, and standing between the trees was a night elf, her skin a light, wintry blue, her hair a garish bluegreen, her armor well-crafted and intricately designed, albeit rather dirty, and her exquisite and deadly rifle pointed at the tauren’s heart. Her owl was perched beside her in a heartbeat, never once blinking or taking his eyes off of Alyosha’s, who, similarly, was standing by his master’s side, staring back unwaveringly. The tauren, though, was caught, like a small animal in one of her own traps. She had been reckless and now was paying the price. She could only hope for a swift death at the hands of her enemy, then, to avoid the dishonor of having made such a terrible, shameful mistake…

“Do you speak Common?” asked the night elf abruptly, in a voice that was clear but somewhat harsh in timbre, like the squawk of a crow.

The young tauren gulped, surprised at this twist. Best not to show fear, she decided at last. Perhaps she could trick her opponent into thinking that she had more with her. “Yes,” she replied as calmly as she could. “Some.”

The night elf seemed to nod slightly before letting out a chuckle and lowering her gun, though not her guard. “Relax kid… I’m not gonna kill ya. Out hunting, were you?”

The tauren blinked. Was it a trick? She briefly considered taking the opportunity to lift her own bow but then realized that the owl’s gaze was still boring into the back of Alyosha’s skull, and the night elf’s armor– no doubt granted to her from various generals and politicians for a variety of great feats and heroism– was a sign that this particular hunter’s skill far outmatched her own. No, she had no choice but to play along and see what happened.

“Elk,” she said simply.

The night elf nodded and spat a piece of bark gum into the snow. As she did so, her owl relaxed his gaze a little and stretched his wings, and the tauren marveled at the bond the two seemed to share and the synchronization of their movements and emotions. The elf was clearly of the school of beast mastery hunting, as was the tauren herself, and to truly become one with one’s companion was the goal of all beast masters everywhere– a goal that the owl and his master had clearly reached. “I’m Tawyn”, the elf said finally, kneeling down on the ground. “A hunter. And you…?”

The tauren was quiet. Should she trust this elf with her name? It was rare for her to come across one that wasn’t trying to kill her.

It was as if Tawyn could read her mind, and she snorted. “Look. It’s clear to me that we are both of the same mind. I can see that. And you’d have to be mighty ignorant not to see the same. Why would I want to harm you? There’s few of us in this world anymore to begin with.”

“You might be lying,” said the tauren.

“Perhaps. Everyone lies. And everyone jumps to conclusions.”

A brief moment of silence as the tauren chewed this over. Finally, she sat down herself and said “In my language I am called Mu’sha Nitawa; the Weapon of the Moon. In yours… Lunapike.”

“Big name.”

“It was given to me by a shaman at my birth. It had something to do with my… my colorings. You do not see many of us in my tribe that are pure white.”

“So they got big expectations for ya, don’t they?”

Lunapike was silent. She found herself judging the night elf’s expression. Her gaze was intense and somewhat stormy, but not unfriendly, and above all a sincerity seemed to lie therin. And so finally the Tauren continued. “I was supposed to be a mighty warrior, like my father and mother. But I chose to follow the path of the Great Hunt– and travel far away to befriend the creature I saw in my dreams, a cat the color of sunfire…” she broke off as she reached over to gently pat Alyosha. “My parents… thought I should do what I felt was right. The rest of my tribe was not so understanding. So I left. Now I travel and fight for the Horde.”

Tawyn nodded. “So that is why you are in Northrend?”

“Yes.”

“Hrmm,” grunted the night elf, lazily scratching an arm. Lunapike couldn’t help but notice how distinctly… un-night-elf-like she was. Surely she must have an interesting story behind her, thought the tauren.

“Why are you here?” Lunapike ventured.

“Me?”

“You.”

Tawyn chuckled. “I shoot things. Those things die. I get paid for it. And then I can buy ale for me and good quality meat for Tux here.” She ruffled her owl’s headfeathers and for the first time in their meeting thus far, Lunapike saw a lightness in the night elf’s eyes and an extreme tenderness in her touch.

“That is why you are here now, perhaps. There must be something that drew you here, initially, when the land was still raw…” hinted the tauren. “Something, or someone, or…”

“Sheddup! I’m a hunter, I walk alone, ya hear?” Tawyn barked, eyes flashing, and Lunapike, taken aback by the sudden outburst, dropped it.

Tawyn leaned her back against a tree trunk and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. She had regained her composure surprisingly quickly, it seemed. “Got tired of the politics. I live in Stormwind, ya see. I live among the humans, having long ago left my kind. But these days, y’see it everywhere, among every race. Hypocrisy. I wanted out. Northrend seemed like a good place to go. So here I am, and here I stay, for now.” She shrugged. Lunapike thought she saw something in the elf’s face that hinted at more, but she couldn’t be entirely sure, and she knew better than to suggest it again. So the tauren simply said “I see.”

And for a moment the two hunters sat quietly, their pets keeping watch, as the elk herds slowly started to move back in. At random Tawyn’s eyes flew open at some point and she leaned over toward Lunapike. “Listen. Do you wanna be a hunter? Really wanna be one?”

“Of course,” said Lunapike, a little bemused.

Tawyn paused for a moment and then continued. “I was once told that there were three things that matter to a hunter, and three alone: your pet, your gun, and your wits. To an extent, that is true. But never underestimate the value of a fellow hunter. We’re all we’ve got. We’re all we understand. We’re all we can trust. This supposed war between the Horde and the Alliance… between you and I… this is not as important as making sure the tradition of the hunt always continues.”

Lunapike nodded. “I understand.”

Tawyn stood up and brushed the snow off her legguards. Then she reached a gloved hand down to Lunapike, who took it and let herself be pulled up.

“Now,” said Tawyn, “let’s bag us up some elk.”

This story posted over at World of Matticus reminded me of an incident that happened to me about a year or so back and that miraculously I don’t think I ever posted about. Now because this did happen so long ago, I’m a little iffy on the details, but for the most part this is all true.

Let me set the stage… I’m in my guild (the big one, from back in the day, which I was an officer of and, for a very brief time, guild leader as well), a good many of us are online and I’m sitting around in Stormwind doing something or other. Suddenly I get a whisper from some random level 11 priest or something.

“can i join ur guild plz”

I whisper back the standard answer for requests like that. “Sorry, we aren’t recruiting right now.”

“prety plz i am a wow gm, wuldnt u like a wow gm in ur guild?”

*blink blink*

Guild chat time.  “Hahaha, hey guys, I’m getting a whisper from some guy who claims to be a GM and he  wants to join the guild.”

The response?  An overwhelming “omg omg let him join let him join!”

And so, grinning like an idiot, I invited him. And we as a guild smothered him with over-the-top adoration.

“Wow a real GM! Joining our guild! Such an honor! This is the best thing that has ever happened to me in game!” and et cetera.

“ty ty”

We continued to make it a big deal but our newcomer was quiet for a bit. I found him in Stormwind and noticed he was standing in front of the guild bank.

“can i get promoted”

“Why?”

“can i just get promoted plz just for 2 secs”

“Sorry, you haven’t met the requirements for a promotion yet.”

“wut r the reqiuermants”

“Well… you have to be active in the guild, and you have to be reeeeeeeeally good at RP.” We exaggerated that last part out a lot.

“wut is rp”

“It’s when you make a story for your character and make your character act the way you think they would.”

“o”

Silence.

“ya i have a rly gud rp”

“Oh? Why don’t you tell us a little about your character?”

More silence.

“cant”

“Why not?”

“because I am a GM lol it has to be secret”

“Oh wow, Blizzard GMs have to have secret character backstories? That sounds hardcore.  Your character must be really awesome!”

“ya it is rly awesome.   so can i get promoted plz”

“Nope, sorry, we only do promotions once a week at our guild meetings.”

“prty plz just for 2 secs”

“Nope.”

“but i am a gm dont u want a gm officer”

“You have to wait until the guild meeting just like everyone else.  As a GM, you should know all about rules.”

Finally the guy quit trying amidst most of us giggling up a storm in officer chat, and he logged out in front of the guild bank. We /gkicked him afterwards.

The moral of the story is… if any of you aspiring *cough* Blizz GMs out there want a guild promotion, you’d better not only have a RLY GUD RP, but be willing to wait until the guild meeting! =P

The End. /bow

Our server’s top raiding guild since forever recently disbanded, and while this doesn’t affect me personally at all, it did get me thinking a lot about my past guild. Now I’m sure the story is one I’ve told millions of times, and as such I don’t want to recount the specifics in much detail here. However, I find it interesting that months later, the emotions are still there.

My current guild is one that is made up mostly of the “closest” of us from that particular old guild. So, I still have my best friends with me. In a way, the guild still lives on. But it’s different now. It’s small, it’s “casual”; it’s more of a “hangout in guild chat” type of place. There are (well, were) guild raids, but we had to look outside the guild and invite our “honorary guildies” in. Not saying that is bad at all, by the way. It is just a different modus operandi. Lots of times I log on and I’ll be the only one online.

Back in my old guild, there were always people online. At least five or six, often ten or more, and usually a good chunk hanging out on Ventrilo as well. People were clamoring to get into our weekly Karazhan run; we usually wound up short some role or other (tanks or healers most of the time, natch) but the other roles would be overflowing and we’d have people “on standby”.

There were “cliques”. There were the people that wanted to roleplay and there were the people who wanted to raid, and for whatever reason we had very little overlap. The result was groups within our guild that would stick with each other and not branch out very much. But we were friendly and very welcoming and brought in people from everywhere; the tired, the poor, the huddled masses so to speak, which may have been the root of the problem, but we couldn’t help it. That’s just how we were.

There was drama, oh there was drama. Some of it coined a phrase which turned into a little inside joke: “It’s not just epics, it’s T4!” due to the issues that ensued more than once when somebody– usually a guild newbie– would throw a fit after not getting that coveted token from Curator or Prince. I can’t remember whether or not this was our fault on just not making loot rules clear enough, but I do remember the drama that ensued.

There was burnout. Officers who felt overwhelmed by their duties. Active guild members who disappeared or went on hiatus. One of these “active members” disappeared relatively early on in the guild’s youth; when he finally came back towards its twilight weeks he looked around for a day or two and realized the guild was no longer the same guild, and quietly left. He was right, though.

Because somewhere along the way we had in fact turned into something different. Like an Oscar seeing a Needlefish from behind and assuming it’s a minnow (I have seen this happen at work by the way; don’t laugh at my analogy! >.>), we had bitten off more than we could chew. Tossed a snowball down a hill and found ourselves unable to stop it.

And so it was that the guild turned into sort of a big mess and my friends started leaving one by one and then the boyfriend (and guild leader) gave leadership to me in an attempt to see if I could salvage it, but it was really too far gone by that point. Plus, I didn’t like logging into the guild anymore since it now just seemed to be full of unfamiliar faces, so I spent the bulk of my time hiding on alts on other servers. Eventually I realized that this was just acerbating the problem so I passed guild leadership to a friend, hoping things would be fixed. Again, it didn’t happen. Most of my friends had already /gquit and not long after this my boyfriend did too, and while I hung on for a while I finally, late one night, quietly left myself– one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Not long after that, the guild dissolved.

I spent a few weeks guildless as I pondered what to do before realizing that my friends were actually the main reason I enjoyed the game and so I joined most of my closer friends from that first guild in our new, small guild. I’m happy now. Guild chat is sparse, but friendly; we still have the same Ventrilo server, although it is quieter now; and the biggest job the officers have is to come up with the wittiest possible theme for guild ranks. Plus, I seem to have fallen into the aforementioned “honorary guildie” status with a few other guilds to allow me to get my raiding in. Life is good.

Still, there are times when I miss what we once were. Being a part of something huge and big and seemingly omnipresent. Feeling like I was helping to lead a well-oiled machine. The machine fell apart in those last months, which is why it all started to go downhill. But at our peak, we really were something.

It was a train wreck waiting to happen, but like your first love, you can never quite get over it anyway. So here’s to you, Entelechy, wherever you are in the nether of the past.

I don’t know if I will ever quite forget that first odd feeling, nor can I still really compare it to anything else.

Lemme explain what I’m talking about.

There I was, level ten, on the trial version of WoW. I had little clue what I was doing. I was merrily questing in Elwynn Forest since a friend dragged me there from Teldrassil at the tender level of six. I’d kept my hearthstone set to Teldrassil in case I ever needed to return there in an emergency, because I knew I’d never figure out how to get back otherwise. So there I was, questing away and picking flowers because I trained in herbalism specifically to give my boyfriend a Peacebloom. (Yes, that is the honest-to-gosh reason behind what is still one of my professions.)

So there I was going around Raptor Striking things and having a grand ol’ time when suddenly I hit level ten and was informed by the hunter trainer that I was to return to NightElfLand to get my pet.

I was scared to death that if I went back there, I’d never be able to find my way back, but I really wanted a pet, so I took a last look around at Elwynn Forest and then used my Hearthstone.

Several hours later, having spent hours doing the pet quests and scouring the archives of the first WoW site I ever visited– Petopia– before settling on taming an owl, Tux and I were ready to head back. There we went, taking the boat and schlogging through the Wetlands and finally ending up in Thelsamar where I (finally) remembered about this strange concept called “Flight Points” and proceeded to fly back to Stormwind.

That feeling of flying over the waterfall from Burning Steppes into Elwynn is what I haven’t forgotten. It was a feeling of relief, but more than that– it was homecoming. I was very struck by this odd feeling. No video game yet had given me a similar feeling, and I’d played hundreds of them. Some of them I had loved dearly and felt very immersed in. But none of them made me feel like I was coming home when I entered a zone. This one did.

That’s when I knew that I wouldn’t just be playing the free trial.

That’s also when Tawyn’s character really started to materialize and when I knew I’d be happy on my RP server, despite my initial misgivings. Tawyn who felt more at home among the humans than among her own people. Tawyn who was good friends with the inhabitants of the dwarven district, who prefers guns to bows and who has never in her life owned a saber mount because she has always ridden horses (or mechanostriders, or polar bears… but mostly horses, I promise) instead.

And as soon as my gryphon landed– that’s also when I set my hearthstone to Stormwind.

So this was a long time coming. Two years, in fact. Since long before the title even existed. My inner RP geek is satisfied.

Blood.

It mingled with the dirt and the hair and the rough prints left in the crunchy dry snow, and Tawyn crouched over them, bits of leftover slush clinging stubbornly to her fingers as she ran them softly over the ridges made by this… creature.

For that’s what it was, something in the canine family probably, judging by the prints and the smell and the texture of the fur.

The night elf closed her eyes and breathed in the scent one more time before flicking her fingers behind her; one sharp motion that simultaneously shook some of the snow off and also beckoned a brilliantly hued magenta raptor to pad silently up behind her, his glittering eyes scanning the area and his breath coming in puffs in the crisp northern air. Tawyn never lifted her gaze from the tracks and finally she arose and slowly walked along them, followed closely by her raptor, Wash.

A faint rustle of leaves. She paused; the quarry was near. The blood pooled a bit at the base of a nearby bush, and a smell was on the wind– it was still alive. Tawyn bristled and instinctively reached for her rifle, and was comforted by its familiar touch, as behind her Wash stared unblinkingly at the bush, awaiting one command…

…that came in the form of his master loosening ever so slightly and breathing “easy,” the word itself a mere whisper, but enough for the raptor to relax his stance– just a touch– and return to his previous behavior of scanning the surroundings. The thing in the bush was no longer a threat.

Tawyn crouched down next to the bush; The Thing was cornered now and began making nervous growling and spitting noises– it was still willing to put up a fight, wounded as it was. The hunter peered in and saw a wolf of some sort staring back at her: bruised, beaten, bleeding. Its eyes flashing with anger and pain. Tawyn stared back, and the staring contest went on for quite some time before the wolf buckled, shutting its eyes and letting out a quiet whine of anguish. This was followed by a low and near imperceptible rumble. The wolf’s stomach was growling.

With movements that were slow and precise, as not to startle the creature in the bush, Tawyn pulled her backpack from off her shoulders, reached inside, and pulled out a piece of dried venison. She pushed it under the bush, a few feet from the wolf’s nose, and set it there. The wolf recoiled at first in fear, snarling, but Tawyn pulled her hand back quickly and simply waited.

For several long minutes, the wolf feigned disinterest in the meat and didn’t move. His eyes gave himself away, however, and then his nose, and finally he inched forward and chomped the meat down eagerly before returning to his original position. Tawyn pushed another strip of meat into the same place. The wolf only waited about half as long before eating, now, and the hunter noticed that his tail made a few weak thumps against the snowy earth– this was interesting in and of itself, as normal wolves did not wag their tails past their youth. A hybrid animal, perhaps? Or a young wolf? It was hard to say; the creature was slightly smaller than the average wolf but this could have spoken for either theory. Regardless, it was heartening to see the animal improving, if only a little.

One more strip of meat. This time, though, Tawyn held it out with her fingers, not letting go of it.

The wolf didn’t move, but he eyed the meat and Tawyn could tell from his eyes that he was considering it. The elf remained perfectly still, arm outstretched. Finally the wolf tenderly plucked the meat from her hand with his teeth and pulled back again to eat it.

Tawyn smiled thinly. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless, and a step in the right direction.

She next reached into her pack in pursuit of frostweave, and hissed a sharp Darnassian curse under her breath upon finding out she didn’t have any. She would have to go into town…

…she glanced back under the bush at the wolf. He was looking at her with a somewhat expectant expression now.

“I’ll be back,” said Tawyn softly. She stood up and motioned something to Wash, and he picked up on her cue and remained standing guard as she disappeared into the wood.

***

“Whadaya need today, Tawyn?” the pixielike gnome winked. “Here, sit down, let’s chat.” She seated herself by the fireplace and gestured for the night elf to follow.

“Frostweave,” Tawyn replied tersely, and if it was almost anyone else she would have refused to sit, but Trixy had rather grown on her so she pulled up a chair and sat down.

“Frostweave, hmmmm,” replied the gnome as she rummaged through a large sack. “I don’t know, I mean, I’ve got threads, dyes, and ooooh what’s this?” she pulled out some sort of shiny contraption.

“Trixy, I don’t mean to rush you, but we’ve… ah… I’ve got a bit of an emergency situation. D’ya know anyone who would have any, if you don’t?”

The gnome’s eyes glittered as she inspected the shiny thing, but she set it aside and stuck her tongue out in concentration and plunged her arm back into the bag and finally pulled out… some frostweave. “There ya go!”

Tawyn snatched it from her, ripped it in two, and began to nimbly shape the them into bandages. The gnome watched intently. After a minute or two she asked gingerly, “What are they for?”

Before Tawyn could reply, she heard a familiar noise from outside, mingled with the calls of the soldiers of the 7th Legion. She leapt to her feet, dashed to the door of the inn, and pushed it open– to see the wolf limping painfully but determinedly into town, followed by an exasperated Wash who looked like he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to handle this. Some of the soldiers nearby were gaping and pointing their guns at the spectacle, although most of them looked like they weren’t about to waste any bullets on this, what with a greater threat outside the walls of Wintergarde. Besides which, Wash was a familiar sight to most of them by now.

Tawyn stood in the doorway, wondering at the unusualness of it all. Again, she was struck by that brief zap in her mind that there was something distinctly un-wolflike about the creature’s behavior…

The wolf buckled and Tawyn was out in a flash; bandaging his wounds with the Frostweave bandages she had just crafted and quickly mixing up some sort of salve with the myriad flasks and herbs she carried around in her pack and massaging the creature’s legs with it. The wolf stood steadfastly through it all, although it was clear that he was still in pain.

Tawyn heard someone approach from behind them– Zybarus, the stable master. “Zybarus thinks he likes you,” he said in his curious manner of speech, a slightly squeaky voice that for whatever odd reason spoke in nothing but the third person.

Tawyn shrugged and continued working. “People do strange things when they’re in pain. Animals do too.” Of course, she wasn’t telling the whole story. She didn’t tell the part about how she thought there was something unusual about this wolf. How he seemed to be acting like this wasn’t the first time he had extended trust to a person. She didn’t talk about his uncharacteristic tail wag.

No, she didn’t talk about how there was something unusual about this creature that she was determined to pin down. And perhaps it would explain the cause of his injuries as well– Tawyn leaned back and looked at him. A young and strikingly handsome creature possibly just hours before, he was now a wretched sight of blood and scabs and missing patches of fur. It would heal up eventually, but there would be scars, and he would never quite look the same. But his eyes were bright and Tawyn found that she thought the creature was, in his own broken way, still strikingly handsome.

“Your pet now?” Zybarus asked.

“No,” said Tawyn bluntly. Zybarus and Tawyn had a sort of odd love-hate relationship, one that the latter tended to form with others of similarly strong personalities, and this is what caused the stable master to grin and goad her on with “Ohh? But you’ve got a name picked out, dontcha? Zybarus thinks you do!”

Tawyn shot him a brief glower and then busied herself with adjusting the wolf’s new bandages. Finally, she muttered one word under her breath: “Perezvon.”

I’m not going to get all long-winded. I’m not going to get all sappy. I’m not going to turn this into a eulogy because I don’t think there’s a reason for it to be one.

I’m not going to say BRK was the first hunter blog I found, because it wasn’t. That credit goes to Lassirra at The Hunter’s Mark and I will give credit where credit is due. I’m not going to sit here and talk about how I found BRK at level 24ish and grew up on BRK Brand Baby Food, cause I’m sure I’ve mentioned that before.

I am going to tell you a quick story.

Today I got into an already half cleared Naxx25 PuG. Normally I bring Wash to my raids, but today I brought Locke, my kitty. Because it seemed appropriate.

Four Horsemen was the first boss we did, which made me happy cause it’s basically my favorite fight in the entire raid, and then we headed over to Noth. The raid leader said he would give away a free flask to the top DPS on the fight.

I looked around. I was one of four hunters. Every one of the others was cookie cutter Survival. Every one of the others outgeared me.

I looked down at my kitty. Us against the world. As it should be.

The raid leader asked to see the overall damage done thus far in the entire raid, as well. Someone posted it.

I got a free Flask of Endless Rage.

I’m not trying to say that I did the best DPS in the world. But I am trying to say that this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t stumbled across BRK and the rest of the blogosphere as a young level 20something throwing random talent points around and dying all the time. It goes beyond just DPS and performance, too– it’s about “Look at this amazingly fun class! *skips around with glee*” That‘s what hunter is.

Of course, as I think many of us sort of feel, you eventually “graduate” from the Alma Mater that is BRK-U, (though you never truly leave, of course), and that’s where the person comes in. I remember him IM’ing me when he added me to his blogroll, complimenting me on my writing. I remember shyly whispering him in game on his server and being chucked a guild invite. I remember meeting up with him in WotLK Beta and him dropping everything he was doing so he could come see if we could two-man Molten Core in the name of a Core Hound. He wasn’t shy about whispering me the second I logged into Beta every time after that, informing me that it was about time I showed up!, and the two of would begin us cracking jokes like old friends.

“Of my friend, I can only say this: of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most… human.” – Captain James Tiberius Kirk

In closing, I ask that you read my favorite BRK post of all time, ever, and then head over to the newest post and wish a friend good luck, if you would. We may not be able to read of his adventures and misadventures anymore… at least not for a while… but he is happy.

—

“Hey, Brain, what are we going to do tonight?”

“The same thing we do every night, BRK. Try to take over the world.”

They say every piece of loot has a story behind it, whether it be an exciting tale or a more mundane one. Let me tell you my latest story then…

I am sure most of you know by now that due to scheduling difficulties, I PuG a good portion of my raids. And PuGs are like that proverbial box of chocolates– you never quite know what you are going to get.

So I was sitting around in LFG last night, watching with a rather unamused expression as nobody seemed to be running Naxx. Finally, after several long minutes of running in circles around Stormwind, a glimmer of hope: “LF1DPS for a partially-cleared Naxx.”

Now one of the side effects of my PuGging tendencies is that I have seen most of the starter bosses of Naxx a dozen times, it’s just the last few that I have yet to see. (In my experience, the main thing that prevents most PuGs from getting to those last bosses isn’t so much issues with the group performance, so much as people having to leave and constantly having to stop and find more people, which drags raids on for far too long and makes them end early.) Anyways, I was 100% okay with not downing all the bosses as long as there was a small chance I would maybe get to see the bosses I’ve yet to see, so I tossed the person a quick whisper, and after being informed “Yay, you win!” I was invited to the raid.

They summoned me in. Right in front of Four Horsemen. Not a problem, Four Horsemen is one of those fights I have pretty much nailed by now in terms of strategy and I actually rather enjoy the fight. I looked around at the people I was raiding with, almost all of them were in the same guild. They had a camaraderie to them and seemed to just be having a good old time. Good, gooood, I thought. Shouldn’t be too painful.

The raid leader began explaining the fight via a strategy that sounded unusual to me, but I was up for it. We got into position, and pulled.

…I’m really not sure how to describe how bad the subsequent wipes were. They were racecars careening off of tracks and exploding in a mess of fire and metal on a wall somewhere. They were people slipping at the top of the stairs while holding a bowl of soup and tumbling all the way down, making a huge mess. They were wipes on a fantastic scale. Every time we started again, we would try a different strategy, eventually settling on “burn down Thane”.

…have you ever seen the debuff on one of the Four Horsemen go up to six? Yeah, I didn’t know it could get that high either.

I pulled up Recount for the first time after the third or fourth wipe. I was the only member of the raid doing above 2k DPS. My pet alone was outDPSing someone. And that was when I looked around at these people I was raiding with. They were in blues and maybe a heroic epic or two. This was their first night in Naxxramas. And yet there was something about them, something that I couldn’t pin down…

We tried again, and again. As always, everything ended up in some sort of spectacular wipefest. We had to have a repair break and after yet another wipe the resto druid, who was not in the guild and had been pulled in as a PuG not long after me, began to despair over Ventrilo. “I get online and hope to get into a Naxx group tonight and we’re not even going to down Four Horsemen!” It wasn’t even a complaint or an insult or anything, just a pure sheer cry of sadness and frustration. Inwardly I found myself agreeing with him. And yet…

I thought I saw something out of the corner of my mind’s eye. My subconscious looked up and saw him there; the Deity of WoW Karma, a creature just as powerful and pervasive in this World of Warcraft as Elune, if not moreso. He was giggling at me, and there in my mind he painted a picture…

…a picture of a young group of friends all in one guild, sitting in Deadwind Pass trying to fill up our first ever Karazhan group. All of us excited and so full of hope. We pulled in a few unsuspecting PuGs, and told them right before we went in that we’d never done this before. We downed Attumen, we downed Moroes, and then we hit this wall with Maiden. Couldn’t down her. Pulled the plug on the raid having only downed two bosses. One of the PuGs was really frustrated with us. “You’re all terrible, you’ll never down Maiden!”

And yet we did, the next time we went. And every time we went we got a little farther and every time we went we had one or two PuGs with us.

There were the two people who did Curator with us. We had no idea what we were doing. Sparks were everywhere and we wiped and wiped and wiped. Patiently those two people told us what to do, over and over, until finally we downed that thing.

There was the priest who fell in with our little group and raided with us solidly for about a month, coaching us through Shade of Aran and Illhoof before one day saying goodbye to us and going off to make his own raiding group.

WoW Karma showed me all of this; the memories vivid in my mind. Suddenly a voice from Ventrilo shook me out of my reverie. One of the people in this guild.

“Don’t say that. We will down Four Horsemen. We will,” she said, her voice firm.

There was no room in that voice for uncertainty. I believed her.

We marched back in there for the… seventh, eighth?… time, and we did it. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because that’s how many people in the group hadn’t done it yet and we had to do it that many times for everyone to finally get it (for those of you who don’t know, Naxx bosses are largely “gimmick-based”… most of them have some trick to them that you have to “get”.) It was long and it was strenuous and there were six debuffs on us at one or two points but somehow the tanks tanked through it and the healers healed through it and the DPS was DPS’ing their quest-blue-clad hearts out and I felt like Wash and I had never before DPS’d harder in our life trying to pick up the slack, and we downed Four Horsemen.

We opened the chest; out tumbled some shoulders for me. I won the roll for them with some exorbitantly high number that I didn’t need to roll because I was the only one who wanted them anyway, which meant that I had officially wasted my one good roll for the week. I made a comment on this and was met with good-natured giggles from Vent.

This was followed by wiping on gargoyles and the longest Noth the Plaguebringer battle of all time, and then everyone conveniently deciding to be tired and ready to call it when we were at Heigan’s doorstep (a tad disappointing, I had FRAPS ready and everything so I could try to make a “Teach Your Pet To Dance” movie.)

And so I sat there with sort of a confused look on my face, clutching my new shoulders and my lone two badges, still a little bewildered at what had just transpired.

“I’ve added you to my friends’ list,” said one of the guild members. One who had giggled at my terribly dorky jokes I tend to make in raids. I glanced up at WoW Karma. He nodded at me. I nodded back.

“Thank you,” I said, “And thanks for the group!” and then I took my two badges and my clear conscience, and hearthstoned away.

Prot paladin. Kitty druid. Holy priest. Your friendly neighborhood BM hunter.

And a Death Knight.

Our story begins in once upon a time in Howling Fjord, in Heroic Utgarde Keep. We get off to a pretty good start; we survived an accidentally too-large-pull (pet tank + Distracting Shot/kiting right before your pet dies = ftw!) and I even got to do a little chain trapping, which I miss dearly by the way. The Death Knight pulled aggro and died fairly early on, but he was rez’d and we continued on our merry way.

We get down to the that big fiery forge thing and we dispose of the groups there and our pallytank stops and says “Okay. I want to make this clear right now. I need aggro so I can get mana. So stop pulling aggro. Okay?”

Hmm. He did not specify who this instruction was directed to, but I woulda noticed if I’d had aggro other than purposefully (kiting/trapping/etc.) cause I would have feigned, and I hadn’t so far. And I really didn’t think it was the kitty because his DPS was, uh, less than stellar. So that left…

…our friend the Death Knight, who said nothing, although the fact that he’d been the only one who had died so far was some pretty incriminating evidence. Regardless, we continued on for a bit. Death Knight spoke up to voice his discontent about how slow we were going. To be honest, while we weren’t blazing along, I didn’t think we were going particularly slow either– I say this as someone who has run Heroic UK more times than I care to even try to count. Still, none of us said anything, and we made our way onward.

Downed the first boss without issue. Death Knight “accidentally” greeded the blue the rest of us passed on, despite the fact that he couldn’t shard it. Still, meh, no big deal. I’ve heard some people say that on their home server everyone greeds and on mine everyone passes and it causes confusion to server newbies, so yeah, no biggie. ‘s just vendor trash. We were about halfway to the second boss fight when Mr. DK decided once again, and a little louder and more obnoxiously this time, to point out that the group was slow.

Pallytank paused. “You want to tank it?”

Death Knight responded “with pleasure” or something similar, proceeding to make some remark on how good his tanking was.

Pallytank calmly sits down to drink.

Death Knight pulls.

Ten seconds later the priest is dead. Cause, um, everything had been on top of him. Instead of Death Knight.

No one really said a word although it was pretty clear what had just taken place. Pallytank calmly gets up from his drink and rez’s the priest.

And this is when Death Knight starts demanding that Pallytank pass him lead. “Give me lead please.”

No response. Pallytank starts to pull again and the four of us start doing our jobs. Mr. DK is standing back, still protesting and crying for lead. “C’mon, just for two seconds.”

“Why, so you can kick me?” asked Pallytank.

And then DK snaps. He says something about how much our group sucks and how stupid we all are (Pallytank in particular.) Then he leaves the group and hearths away.

Easily four-manned the rest of the heroic.

The Moral of the Story Is: Complain not about things if you can’t do any better yourself. Cause it’s gonna be reeeeally embarrassing if you fail, and you’ll probably wind up leaving the group and missing out on free badges. *nods sagely*

The End.

/bow

(Continued from Part One)

The Outland.

There were few that remained here now that most of the action was going on in Northrend. Oh, there were some armies still stationed here, and the younger adventurers cutting their teeth in this gods-forsaken land. But for the most part, there was nothing to be seen…

…except perhaps a bright pink raptor wreaking havoc on the moths in Terokkar Forest. And his subsequent containment by the Cenarion Expedition, who proceeded to bring the now caged creature to their main base of operations in Zangarmarsh.

“What do you make of this… creature?” Warden Hamoot asked Kameel, the Stable Master, as he gestured to the raptor furiously thrashing about behind bars. “He does not appear to be like anything else I have seen in this area…”

Kameel nodded. “He is native to the Wetlands in Azeroth,” he said in his deep voice. “How he got up here, I don’t know, but he does not belong here, and so long as he stays I do not think he will be happy.”

“Happy?” the Warden chuckled and lightly scratched his back with his mace. “When we found him he was terrorizing the creatures of Terokkar, they are the ones who only wish to be happy. But you are right, my friend, we must do what is best for this animal. There is a fear in his eyes, and I believe it may be driving him mad, if it hasn’t already. He should go back to the Wetlands.”

“The quickest way would be to take him to Shattrath and through the portal to the dwarves’ city, Ironforge,” replied Kameel. “From there, it would be a relatively short trip by cart to his native land.”

Warden Hamoot shuffled his hooves. He didn’t like using the portals, they relied too much on arcane magic in his eyes, and he was glad that this time he would have a good excuse to not have to use one. “Obviously you and I shall not be able to make the trip to the dwarves’ city, not with the Alliance and Horde still at odds as they are prone to be. You and I would clearly… raise a few eyebrows, so to speak, if we went. But one of our Night Elf colleagues, perhaps…?”

Kameel voiced his agreement and the two tauren went about deciding who the best representative would be as the raptor once again attacked the bars of his cage, letting out a shriek that sent the nearby sea birds soaring away.

—

“Tell that blasted thing to shut up!” the dwarf banged his gun against the bars of the cage, which only provoked the raptor further as the Night Elf druid escorting it tried to calm both of them down. “Why’d ya bring this thing ‘ere into Menethil Harbor anyway, boy? Couldn’t ya have just left it outside tha town?” the dwarf continued to thunder.

“I– I worry about being alone when I release it, just in case–”

“Bah, we could use less o’ those beasties around ‘ere anyway. I say we end the thing.”

A woman’s voice yelled something out in Dwarvish, and the dwarf yelled back “Dearie, ye can’t take away mah gun. It’s a dwarf’s solemn right to have a gun in one hand and an ale in the other–”

Simultaneously the woman snapped something back; the Cenarion escort said “Please, I’ll handle it,” and the raptor screeched out to the heavens as the curious Night Elf hunter approached. The boat from Northrend had landed and was soon to depart, but no commotion was going to take place without Tawyn’s investigation, whether or not she might miss the boat. A druid and a dwarf were rather feverishly discussing something, she observed, and in a cage was a brilliant magenta raptor…

He glanced at Tawyn. Tawyn blinked.

“…Wash?”

In an instant the raptor’s screeches took on a more pleading tone and Tawyn was at the cage. “Let him out. Let him out!” she roared, and it was somehow a bestial enough threat that the dwarf backed away and the druid fumbled at the lock without question.

The padlock fell away and the small crowd that had gathered tensed. The raptor, now quiet, slowly padded out of the cage, off the wooden cart, and up to Tawyn. The hunter reached down and gently stroked his head without a second thought. “What’s wrong, boy…?”

Still, he was silent. Tawyn stared searchingly into this eyes; there was pain therein. Not physical pain though– he had seen something. Something bad…

She thought about how she’d released him in the Outland. Perhaps, on second thought, not a good idea. So much chaos up there–

“You,” she looked at the druid. “What were you doing with him?”

“We– the Cenarion Expedition– found him far from his home, and he was not happy. We were simply bringing him home, to release him here. That is all. I hope I did not interfere with anything…”

“No,” Tawyn smiled thinly. “Thank you for thinking of what was best for him.” She looked down at the raptor. “You’re home now, and safe. Go on now.”

Wash stood his ground; clearly he wasn’t intending to go anywhere. There was still pain in his eyes, but something else too…

He wanted to help.

Tawyn realized what this meant, and nodded. Then she turned and headed towards the ship to Howling Fjord. Wash followed.

“Where are you going?” asked the druid.

“Northrend,” replied Tawyn.

“And why are you taking… him?”

“Because… we are partners.”

And with that the hunter and her pet got onto the boat, and sailed away into the mists.

(The End!)

There was one she still missed.

Tawyn had long felt a connection to the beasts of the world. In her childhood she would climb up the trees, barefoot, to sing with the birds; an attempt at flight had bruised her kneecaps but not her admiration. She crawled into bushes and out of them again, burrs stuck to her tousled hair, in pursuit of all manner of tiny crawling things, and there were some nights that she would howl at the moon like a wolf. Her parents had shaken their heads at it all and pondered aloud if she would maybe make a good druid, but the druids said she lacked the patience for the art, and thus she followed the path of her family and joined the school of the hunt.

Her training had gone well; while she lacked the eye of some of the more gifted sharpshooters she made up for it with her passion and her love for the whole idea of the bow and arrow. Still, to her, the most important part was the communion with the animals, and the seemingly magical gift that enabled a hunter to tame a wild companion of his or her choosing. This was how Tawyn had encountered Tux the owl, and later, Locke the tiger and Eltanin the windserpent as well. There were no words in either Darnassian or Common to describe what these beasts were in relation to Tawyn, suffice to say that like her gun, and her wits, they were an extension of herself.

And yet there was one other– forgotten? No…

For the months had stretched into years and through this time Tawyn had had “trial runs” of sorts with various creatures, who she would release back into the wild upon realizing that they simply were not right for each other. But there was one–

A fierce raptor from the Wetlands. Tawyn was captivated with them the first time she saw one, stepping gracefully through the reeds to ravage a crocolisk. To tame one would be to capture a summer thunderstorm in a bottle.

So she did.

She named him Wash after a great hero from stories she’d heard of faraway lands, and she knew right away that he was different.

Wash was headstrong and stubborn, and didn’t break easily. Tawyn would give him a command, and he would do the opposite. She wouldn’t give any commands and he’d run off and attack something. And yet there was something that made Tawyn unable to release the raptor, and something that made the raptor unable to run away in the night. A growing, begrudging kinship. For they each saw themselves in the other’s eyes.

A month passed and it became clear that as the battles became more fierce and Tawyn ventured to more dangerous lands, it would be imperative that she had the trustworthy and steadfast Tux by her side. And so it was that she took Wash to a nearby stable master that she knew, and entrusted him in her care. Wash fought and resisted but Tawyn promised she would be back.

And she was– many, many months later, when her fighting prowess had been much improved and she remembered the fiery little raptor from the Wetlands. It wasn’t fair of her to keep him captive like that when she had other pets at this point. She had been putting it off, selfishly perhaps, but she knew the right thing had to be done.

Thus Tawyn took Wash far away, to a beautiful clear river in Nagrand. He was happy to be out and about, and cavorted around with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. But when they reached the river Tawyn gave him a pat and said “You’ll be happy here… there’s lots of room for you to roam around”…

…and then she released him.

Wash blinked and gave the night elf a quick indecipherable look, and then he was gone, off among the grasses and trees somewhere.

Tawyn watched him go.

—

The hunter glanced around the fire. Tux was perched on a log, Locke and Eltanin were curled up on the ground by her feet. They appeared to be asleep, though each was actually opening an eye every so often and scanning the surroundings. Tawyn reached down and gently scratched Locke behind an ear, and his subsequent growl of contentment made her smile.

But there was one she still missed.

(To Be Continued!)