Release the Hounds!

Apparently, I should have seen Star Trek over the weekend... I didn't. I'm holding out to get the IMAX experience. I figure, if you're going pay $9 for a ticket to a normal screen, $3 extra for the big screen isn't a stretch. Might as well do it right, right?

Also, it is now beginning to be "officially" summer. That is, colleges are starting to release their charges back into the wild. As always happens this time of year, that means raiding schedules are going to be thrown completely out the window. Our alliance is already seeing a marked decrease in sign-ups, but hopefully we'll be able to keep 10 solid people and maybe try out Ulduar in the WoW "off-season".

Remember, summer season doesn't mean "bad guild". People always freak out this time of year when attendance naturally goes down. The summer is a great time to retool, clean house, and try some new things in the game. Try to approach it with a healthy mindset, and you might be able to save yourself some headache.

I know Fuu and I are doing our part in ruining attendance, since wedding planning is definitely cutting into a raid night this week :-(. I'm not sure which one of us is more upset, which is a large part of why she is awesome. Guys, marry a gamer. Trust me on this one. Not only will they, you know, play with you, but they're also usually great problem solvers. This can greatly aid the marital process. That, and lots of beer.

I'm going to try really a hard to squeeze out some content this week, but my evenings are shot with meetings, so it's going to have to be mostly done at work. I think I'm going to try and put my Affliction Pet Guide together without the numbers I wanted to gather. I know there is a great chart of the average pet DPS on Elitist Jerks, but I can't get to it at work to reference it. If someone could email that to me, I'd give you mad props. It's pretty sneakily buried over there in all the craziness though. I wanted to give some numbers so you could see how I'm making my decisions (since it has gotten a tad more complicated since 3.1 to choose), but I'll probably end up just throwing it out there so you can read, judge, and comment.

Apart from weddings, summer stuff, and writing, I also got myself sucked into a book. Currently, I'm reading The Belgariad by David Eddings. Wonderful fantasy series, and really my first delving into the genre (*gasp*, I mean, I'd done Tolkein, but who hasn't?). I haven't mentioned it before... but I LOVE to read. I'm freakishly fast at it too. Kinda like Superman, just not in tights. Oh yeah, and I'm still toying around with EVE online too, which is another fun distraction.

So, sorry for the randomness, but my brain is stretched right now!

And in case you're wondering, the Darnassus mount vendor is north of the bank and surrounded by tigers. I just got exalted with them and celebrated with an 80G Stormsaber. This is a very fast mount. :-)

The "Real" Eye of Eternity Battle

The smooth, alien blue eyes were staring back at me, unblinking and foreign. A chill raced up my spine that had nothing to do with the traditionally low temperatures in Northrend. I stared back, unwilling to flinch in even the slightest manner. There was absolutely no way I was losing this battle. My eyes began to burn as I struggled to stay focused.

A single bead of sweat formed on my brow, threatening to drip down into my exposed eyes. I would not flinch. My very existence depended on it. How could I ever live with myself if I lost now? The bead began to swell as the sweat gathered, tingling at my forehead. The dry flickering of torchlight in my periphery threatened to steal my attention, but I forcefully pushed it from my mind.

Thin tendrils of smoke wafted lazily in front of my eye, seemingly unconcerned with epic battled that was taking place in its company. The unseen particles stung my eyes, and I silently cursed the Dwarves that I knew were sitting nearby, observing this titanic battle with pipes in hand. They should know better than to try and distract a warlock of my prowess. Why were they siding with my enemy anyways? Didn't they know how devastating the consequences of losing could be?

The sound of glass shattering filled the room and I thought perhaps that our little encounter was having unforeseen consequences on the world around us. The barmaid had probably stopped to stare in awe at the powers being unleashed before her, amazed such that she had dropped her wares. Or perhaps the shattering glass was a side effect of the extreme power crackling between two worthy foes.

I forced the distractions from my head, and nothing existed for me except for those two smooth, blue eyes. How strange they were in their terrible placidity. There was no iris that you might find in the human eye, no point of reference to grab hold of. Only a vast, terrible azure nothingness. The eyes of pure evil.

The bead of sweat had become a trail now, as the moisture dripped inexorably towards the exposed orb of my eye. I knew the end was near for me if I did not defeat my foe quickly. Briefly, I considered conjuring fire in an effort to swing the tides in my favor. Perhaps a small burst of shadow in the abysmal blue across from me would serve my purposes. Remembering my Dwarven audience, however, I quickly dismissed those thoughts. I had a reputation to uphold, and I didn't think they would let me live down that particular transgression.

My eyebrow twitched as the moisture mingled with the hair there, slowing it down for a moment and taunting me with thoughts of victory. Still, the eyes stared unblinking. Smoke wafted, light flickered, there was no change. The sweat slowly, agonizingly swept through my brow and perched on the inside of my nose. There it found the smooth slope more to its liking and began to gather speed. The end was near for me now, I knew. The droplet caressed the bridge of my nose as it raced towards my eyeball. I would not flinch. I braced myself for the agony I knew was coming, tensing my muscles as the bead charged.

A searing agony ripped through my body as the salty liquid breached the protective barriers around my eye. I knew there was no more fight in me as the burning seemed to engulf the entirety of the orb. It felt as though my eye might be flickering in sympathy to the torch on the wall behind me. Finally, conceding defeat, I blinked, and my breath whooshed out of me.

Two small arms flung around my neck and girlish giggling filled the room. I quickly wiped the tears away from my eyes and straightened up, glancing around nervously. The business of the inn carried on as if nothing had happened. The torch burned, unaware. The Dwarves smoked their pipes over tankards of ale, chuckling silently, their eyes screaming: You got beat by a girl. The barmaid casually swept up the floor on the far side of the room, glittering shards gathering in a pile, unconcerned.

"I win!" the adorable, blue eyed alien girl exclaimed. She released me from her death grip and sat back in her chair across from me, beaming radiantly. "What do you wanna do now mister man of shadows and fires?" she asked innocently, smiling wide and trying desperately, I knew, to kill me with cuteness.

"That's 'Lord of Shadow and Fire'," I reminded sternly. She giggled again. "The innkeeper keeps some animals out back," I explained, pointed to the rear of the building. "Let's go see if they like fire!"

Darnaa, the orphan, cocked her head at me, obviously unsure if what I suggested was allowed or proper. That was the problem with these space goats, always worrying about the "morality" of a casual burning. Couldn't they ever just have fun?

"Don't even think about it Fulguralis," the barkeep admonished, fixing me with a stern look after having noticed only my gestures. "I know what you're fixin' to do back there."

I sighed and stood up, shrugging innocently at the barkeep, "What? Me?" I pointed at myself. "I was just telling her about all the disgusting rats in your cellar." I lied.

"Yeah, I'll bet you were. How about you just get on your way? Weren't you going to take the girl over to the Portal? 'Tis not really a place fit for a girl," the barkeep shrugged, "but if you go quickly you might be able to squeeze in between one of the assaults."

"Sure sure, let's go Darnaa," I acquiesced, starting for the door. The small girl hopped quickly to her feet, sprinting over to me as if I might leave her (again), and then began skipping at my side. I looked at her curiously, still a bit wary about her kind. You know, children. Pure. Evil.

"Hey, Darnaa," I said excitedly, a thought popping into my head. "Remember when you made those elemental thingies appear?" She nodded innocently back at me, her eyes lighting up at the memory. "Do you think you could just make the one made of fire appear by himself?" I pressed.

Grinning, she closed her eyes and a few seconds later, a small fire elemental burned to life next to her. She looked at me proudly, pointing at the flame.

"Ha, awesome," I replied deviously. See, this wasn't going to be so bad after all, I told myself.
We exited the inn with the fire elemental in tow. I looked around.

There's gotta be something flammable around here somewhere.

Catching the Raiding Frustration Bug

It's seemed that a lot of my fellow bloggers have been recently been broadcasting their frustrations with raiding. From hardcore to casual, problems have seemed to be cropping up amongst previously successful groups. Some have blamed this one the ease of the originally offered raid content in WotLK. Some have pointed to different raiding ideologies and desires. Some have just talked about the changing nature of the game.

The bottom line, though, is that the end game raiding scene has changed in many ways with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Perhaps for better, perhaps for worse, but it has certainly changed. We have hard/easy modes, we have achievements, we have 10/25 mans, we have a plethora of different emblems. We have short raids and long raids. We have easy bosses and hard bosses. All this change has come at a price: our comfort with the game.

Yes, I said it. We are uncomfortable with the game as a community. The big change of an expansion came through and we all went: "Oh snap, shit's different!" Which can only be immediately followed by this internal dialogue: "Well, if everything's changing, what does that mean for me?"

That is the question being asked right now in hardcore and casual communities across Azeroth: "What's in it for me?" (Is that why you did this, Ray, for you?)

This malaise has not left my own raiding alliance unscathed. There is a great deal of frustration right now among our members who are itching for Ulduar when we haven't yet full cleared the 25-man flavor of Naxx. For us, getting 25 people together, focused, and efficient is a rather daunting task. We schooled the 10 man version, but we're still struggling through the 25 man stuff.

It isn't matter of skill. For us, it's a matter of seriousness. It's a matter of having too many different opinions and trying in vain to reconcile them with each other. We're a casual group of friends who want to see content. We open our arms to just about anyone with the same goals of "having fun" and "seeing end game content" without caveats. This has resulted in a melting pot of different raiding ideologies, however. We get people who want a lot of breaks, people who seem to always be late, people with tight time constraints, and people with neighbors who sometimes throw each other through the wall neccisstating a call to the cops (yeah, it's happened during one of our raids). You can't please all of the people all of the time, right?

So what, really, is the problem here? From what I can see, it's this: There are so many different end game paths, and we're not comfortable with it as a community. We haven't yet "figured it out".

You see, we've been given a whole bunch of new options when it comes to raiding at 80. Back in the day (which was a Tuesday), if you said you wanted to "see end game content", there was pretty much one path you had to follow.

In TBC, for instance, you did some 10-man Kara and got geared up. Then, you took your crew to some Gruul's and Mags for larger and harder raids. After than you probably went to SSC and geared through there. Finally, you might have seen the Tempest Keep, then Black Temple, then maybe the Sunwell (I never got past SSC, personally, but I think that's how you'd progress if I recall). The point being, there was pretty much one path to follow. In Vanilla WoW, I gather it was much the same.

In WotLK, we don't have just one path. We can start raiding in a bunch of different places; OS, VoA, and Naxx. You can start on 10 mans, or 25 mans, depending on your group. Then you can do Eye of Eternity if you gear through Naxx... but wait, you could also go back and try hard mode OS with drakes up. Or maybe you want to get all the raiding achievements because "just gearing up" isn't enough now. You need to "ace" the instance. With the addition of Ulduar, we see even more options. You can 10 or 25, you can hard or easy mode, you can go after more achievements.

Recall in TBC and before, we didn't have these options. Sure you could put them on "heroic" mode, but I think for the most part that people ran through one instance until they were geared enough to succeed in the next step. Then, you went to the next step and did the same thing there. As a group, there just weren't choices. If you joined an "end game raiding group", you knew what you were getting into. You would run some stuff until you got gear, then run some more stuff, going until your skill level was exhausted. The number of people needed may change based on where you're at in the progression, but it was the same goal.

Now, it's not so simple. You can join a purely 10-man end game group. You can join an achievement end game group. You could join a 3D and EoE farming end game group or just a "we've got Naxx on farm" end game group. The choice isn't just "casual" or "hardcore" any more, we now have a million shades of gray in between.

So now, everyone has an opinion, they have room to differ, and that's what we're hearing. We're seeing that while we all thought we had the same goals, we're actually a small bit different from each other. I mean a "gamer" isn't just a "gamer". You no long just have "casual" or "hardcore". What you have is people. And when you have people, that means you get a lot of different ideas and desires.

Not all of these ideas and desires fit together, thus we get friction. Friction we're not comfortable with. Friction we haven't had to deal with in the past. New game is new. Expansion is expanded.

I think at some point, as raid leaders, officers, GMs, and bloggers, we're going to have to realize that we're dealing with real people. We're in a massively multiplayer online game, and that means we have to deal with other people. It's going to be hard to condense everything into one common and cohesive goal or idea. We have a diverse game that is getting more diverse as it evolves. It's something to be proud of! We're a part of something that's pretty damn cool.

I suppose I'm just reiterating here what y'all already know. I'm not really offering any particularly clever solutions to the problems I've read about on the net. However, I am trying to identify and acknowledge the problem, because, as any good addict knows, that's the first step in breaking the cycle.

For my group of friends, it means we really have to buckle down and communicate better. We need to be able to share our in-game desires and compromise on them. If you want to work well as a team, that means you may need to give a little bit.

"But its MY game," you say. "Should not I focus on what is fun for ME?". Sure, when you're soloing. But, my friend, you gave up the "me" when you decided to become part of the "team". Raiding is a team event, remember that. You may need to "man-up" some nights for the good of the team. Like real life, it's not always sunshine and butterflies.

If being part of a team is not fun for you, you may want to acknowledge that and recognize it as a personal problem and stop complaining about it. A lot of us officers, GMs, RLs, and bloggers are trying really hard to fit this game back into our collective comfort boxes, so we can make the right decisions and have the most fun even if it takes some "un-fun" effort. Why? Because it means something more to us than "just a game". Because when the going gets tough... and all that jazz.

For me, I'm confident my group of friends will be successful. We'll figure it out. We'll get better. That's the kind of people we are. At this point, you should probably ask yourself, what kind of person are you?

Look What I Did

Did big bad tanky need a spanky? You betcha!

And yes, I had the felpup out because we had the most random mishmash of classes which didn't result in my buff being overrun. In fact, we had to rearrange the group so we could down Emalon after this because we didn't have the right combination of healers and tanks. Still, what a fun fight. I was just a siege gunner, mashing away at my buttons and potshotting helicopters. I can't say I'm quite sure about what exactly happened, as I was just along for the ride, but if you're a siege gunner, nail those copters and spam your cannonball for the ground folks. Good times.

Oh, and if the tank comes at you, try and get your shield up before his little bulldozer thing punches you in the throat.

In other news, for the huntard in all of us, I found a good post over at Windpaw's World. While this is most certainly directed at a hunter button masher, Windpaw makes a wonderful (if long winded) point. The short story: sometimes its better to take a deep breath and slow yourself down than to try to button mash through your rotation.

This should be a no-brainer for an unforgiving spec like affliction warlockery, but it's still a valid point. I know in PvP on my DK I'm hugely guilty of button mashing at times, but controlled key pressing will ALWAYS win out in the end. It's okay to waste some GCD as you're learning a new spec or rotation to get it right, instead of just trying to hurry up and beat a timer. You have to have DPS before you can maximize it. Remember that in your endeavors.

Where did Fuu go? Oh Here I am :D

Hey Gang!

Sorry that it's been so insanely long since I've made a post but here I am :) Life has been uber crazy since 3.1 hit the fan. Not only in game but RL is just plain nutzoid!

In Game Madness:

- Playing with Dualspec & learning the ways of melee dps (lolret action): I still have yet to DPS in a raiding environment because of my Tanking Main. I've attempted a few times but we always come up short. :/

- Trying out all of the new dailies: I'm really enjoying all of the Argent Tourney & fishing dailies. The Wintergrasp Fishing daily is probably the funniest thing I've ever seen. Everyone flies into Wintergrasp and fishes right next to the flight path & NPC's. The opposite faction knows this little trick too but he doesn't know that when he comes over to instigate some cheap HKs, he's about to be beat down by 3-5 very angry fishermen with their fishing poles.

- Raiding: Fulguralis & I have yet to set foot into Uld. (except for last night he went without me) and be cool kids but our raiding guild isn't ready for that big step yet. We raid 2-3 times a week in 25-man Naxx to gear a few more people up so we don't get slapped in the face like noobs in Uld. I think I'm ready to tank it but I wouldn't mind replacing a few more pieces to be extra sure.

- The Back to Back Holidays: Noblegarden was cake only took me a whopping day to finish everything and get the title. Children's Week on the other hand has been proving itself much more difficult. I've finished everything except for that damn PvP crap! The Achievement: School of Hard Knocks makes me want to punt a puppy (or my orphan girl). Now, I've done all of these BG's successfully before but when everyone else has the same thing in mind, it becomes a cursing nightmare. I'll beat my head against a wall until I get my last 3 requirements then I'm taking some time off. Matron Fuubaar I shall become damn it!

Fulguralis finally told me that I wasn't allowed to PvP for a while.

- Recruit A Friend (or someone else's friend): Friday Night, I got a message from Fulguralis that one of his RL friends wanted to buy the game & do the Recruit a Friend to lvl up his first toon. So, motherly Fuu volunteers her time to be a good Officer & good Fiancee. I wanted to lvl something that I knew would be hard to do on my own so why not a clothie caster :)

Welcome Abigora! The new Shadowy Goodness.



After two days of goofing around and melting lowbie faces, I hit 23... and I'm addicted! I'm lvling with a paladin (which I cant help it to love). My major problem is that I keep running OOM on her. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I can only put up a DoT and then wand for the remainder of the fight. I keep aggroing off of him if I use anything more than a DoT, so I fade & continue on my journey of DoTing and laughing. There are so many interesting spells at my disposal that do gobs of Damage. I can see this little lady being something that I will spoil. I picked up enchanting on her and I'm just not sure if I really wanna invest time into Tailoring.

Anyways, conclusion on in game is that I feel like I have so much to do and I'm running short on it :(

Real Life Madness:

- Wedding shenanigans: Well, the clock is ticking and Fulguralis & I are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel (no... we aren't dying.) With a little over 2 months left until the big day, it's crunch time! Almost every hour of every day is accounted for. We did our gift registry at Bed Bath & Beyond (we wouldn't dare step into the Beyond section ahHHHHhhhhhHHHHH oh, here are the mugs) over the weekend and we actually had a great time together. Last weekend was flowers and you know Ful was pumped..... NOT. He was a good boy though and made it entertaining for me. We have meetings almost 3 times a week for something and most weekends are spent traveling to one of our parents houses for visiting.

So, that's what I've been doing for the past 3 weeks now. I was going to post about my new Tanking spec but it's not even that new. We got 1 new talent and it's not even all that cool. I'm still sporting a 5-60-6 MT raiding spec. If someone really is interested in my spec let me know and I can help you out. For now, I'm off! I promise I wont wait this long to post something fun :)

(because I know how boring Fulguralis can be... I'll try to save all of you from his warlockery drivel)

FOR THE LIGHT! (or shadow now?)

VoA Emalon Strat, Tips, and Tricks

If you've run the Vault recently or read about the game compulsively (likely if you're here), you probably already know there is a second baddie in the Vault. Archavon apparently decided to call in the big guns after getting beat on for a few months.

Enter his big brother: Emalon (are they actually related?). Emalon comes with four elemental adds. Batteries not included. Not suitable for toons under geared.

I actually haven't had much chance to go up against him since the initial blitz the first few days where everyone was complaining about wiping. This fight is actually not very PuG friendly, which is probably a good thing since it drops emblems equal to Ulduar (10 and 25 man respectively). Still, I wanted to throw out a few tips and tricks we learned the hard way (via going without guides on the first few days and just trying to learn it "on the fly").

First, here is the quick version of how the fight goes: You're going to want two tanks, one for the big guy and one for the adds. Both need to be tank geared and specced to tank some pretty decent damage. Your add tank will want to pick the fight by calling the adds all sorts of names, preferably how their mother is the big ugly thing standing in their midst. That'll piss everyone off, which is your goal. The second tank will want to peel the big ugly off and tank him to the back corner for his beat down.

Positioning is key on this, so make sure your add tank is at least 20 yds from the place where the big guy is tanked. Usually we do this with the main tank on the front right "green ball" thingy in the room and the add tank diagonal from them at the base of the steps. All of the ranged folks are going to want to spread out and stay spread out since he does a chain lightning attack that multiplies based on how many people it his. Thus, spreading out minimizes the attack and makes it manageable.

Here's a quick list of the three attacks you need to watch out for:

1. Train Lightning Surprise (aka Chain Lightning) - Multiplies based on how many people it hits. Not so bad on its own. Hits like a train if you're not spread out.
2. Super Nova Special (aka Lightning Nova) - Something like a 20k insta-clubbing. Melee will need to run out to avoid this. Luckily, he makes a big production of when he's going to do it, so you just need to be attentive.
3. The Living Time Bomb of Death (aka Overcharge) - Randomly picks one of the four adds, heals it to full, and makes it huge. After about 10s it explodes, pretty much wiping your party. You gotta DPS race it to death. (which is, you know, awesome for affliction warlocks). This ability should actually announce itself in your chat and raid.

With that in mind, you just need to get the positioning down and then go to down on the big guy. As soon as he starts the time bomb ticking, you'll need to switch all DPS over to burn that sucker down. We've found it really helps if someone can watch the timer between time bombs to give the melee a head start to get over to the add tank. Also, to make targeting easy, recall that the time bomb will be the one that is larger than usual and also that just got healed to full. This makes it a little easier to pick out from a crowd. Also, if you use DBM, he gets a skull I believe.

After you burn the bomb before bursting, baby, you're all going to go back to the boss. At this point, you've got the fight down except for one small trick for your add tank. You see, the boss has a fetish with the number four and won't be happy until he's respawned one of his precious adds. This dude spawns from the boss with a fresh aggro table. That means its probably going to bee-line it for your MT healer. If your add tank anticipates this, they can have a taunt ready to go and the world keeps on spinning. If not, you can lose a healer pretty damn quick.

We've also had our main tank and/or another DPS plate wearer pick this guy up initially to keep it off the clothie and give our add tank more time to pick it up, but the ideal thing here is to trust your add tank to be quick on the keys.

Once you get that guy safely picked up again, you're back where you started and you just rinse and repeat until the boss falls. There is an enrage time, so you can't dawdle, but if you can down those pesky adds quick enough, you probably have the DPS to beat the big guy in time too. Just try to be as efficient as possible with your switching.

There are two other little tricks we've used to make this a bit easier too.

First, if you all stack up behind the tanks at the start, it can make the pull a bit cleaner. We were having our pally tank shield pull the adds, but this means one add doesn't get hit and would often veer off to the nearest person on the steps while the rest were running at her. Stacking up behind her avoids this as they have to run through her consecrate to get there. The main tank just runs right through her stuff to taunt the boss and start getting set up. Everyone else gives it a second, and then runs to positions.

Second, we try to let the add tank know exactly where our main healer is going to to be standing. Trying to pick out the healer after that add spawns when you're all spread out can be tough on a tank. Make their lives easier by letting 'em know where you'll be. It's to save your life, after all.

Finally, there was one thing we never figured out how to deal with. When we switch to DPS the time bomb add, how does one counter a chain lightning attack during that time? We were running melee heavy and having four toons including tank plus four adds in there creates a massive chain lightning that has one shot our poor tank on a couple occasions. I'm not sure there is a solution for this other than don't do it with three melee DPS and/or hope that he doesn't do his lightning attack during that 10s window. Any thoughts on that would be appreciated.

I know there are probably other, better guides out there, but I wanted to make my slim contribution to the interwebs, since I was proud that we basically learned this stuff on our own before later consulting a guide on wowwiki and saying: yeah, we were doing that right. I wonder if anyone's been having a lot of success with pugging this one? It would seem to require a lot more communication unless you happen to be in a crazy uber group. Any of the rest of ya's got some good tips for this?

Magical Backpack Is Magical

Thin droplets of icy mist needle my face, quickly becoming painful as I settle my dragon into a tight, steep spiral towards the camp below. I welcome the pain, as it reminds me that I'm in control. Calling upon the power of demons can be quite fragmenting to one's mind. Sometimes it's refreshing to be reminded that I am indeed still human.

At the last moment, I pull up hard on the dragon's reigns, causing her to spread her large wings out majestically and hover for a second before lightly touching down. Gusts from her wings startle the nearby horses, who whinny in protest. The stable master shoots me a glare of annoyance in response.

Guy's a jerk anyways, I recall. Weren't they all? I mean they sit around all day and make you take their crappy horse out and do battle on it. I have a perfectly good steed, thank you very much. It has big spikes and flaming hooves. What do you have? That's what I thought... nothing! Did you steal your steed from a Demonic Lord? I think not.

Reaching into my magic backpack, I withdraw the wooden lance and shield combination that had been given to me back at the tournament grounds. Don't ask me how the over sized lance fit in there... magic backpacks are magic. Striding over towards the annoyed stable master, I ignore his glare as I pick out which one of his plain and uninteresting steeds I'll be torturing for the next ten minutes.

Near the fence surrounding the makeshift camp, I spot a bridled horse that looks more pissed to be here than I am, if that's possible. Perfect. I approach the horse and grab it roughly by the reigns, expecting it to shy away or rebel against my authority. It just stares angrily back at me. This is going to be fun.

Hopping into the saddle, I guide the horse out of the busy camp and into the wasteland that is Icecrown. The chilly sleet continues to pelt my head, so I flip my hood up, taking care to avoid the heavy gem as it flings down towards my nose. Looking around, I survey the area. There seems to be nothing except frozen rocks and uneven tundra. The lack of living things resonates deeply with me in a way that only a warlock could understand. Or maybe one of those undead fellas. They're a smelly lot, but I'm generally okay with that. Nothing that a little fire can't cure.

I decide I'd better go about activating my magical defenses. Who knows what's hiding out here, right? Icecrown isn't exactly know as the "friendly" zone (OOC: though it is of Texian size). Reciting the spell taught to me back at the tournament grounds takes only a minimal focus, and I am quickly rewarded with a red magical shield revolving around my body. Now, I'm not too crazy about the aesthetics of this spell, as I'm far more partial to fire and shadow, but at least it's red. Still, I don't understand why a spell meant to protect my steed orbits me, but I guess you'll have that when you trust those damned elven sorcerers for magical advice. The nether addicts.

I was about to repeat the spell again for added protection when a bolt of lightning from the sky slices down through the air, zapping my horse in the butt and removing the protective spell I had just cast. What in the unholy hell was that? I look around for the source and spot an ugly looking gargoyle hovering about a stone's throw away. Reaching into my magical backpack, I'm amazed to find a short spear inside, presumably made for throwing from horseback. I don't remember putting that in there, but I suppose stranger things have happened. I mean, magical backpacks are magical, right? Besides, there was this one time with a Dwarven barmaid...

*Zap!*

Right, annoying gargoyle. Focus.

I chuck the spear at the gargoyle, hitting it in the face and dropping like a stone. Hitting the ground, it shattered into a plethora of small pebbles. That was easy, I thought. Then, since I appeared to be alone again, I decided to go about recasting the protection spell.

*Zzzaaap!*

Another one? Seriously, these things are really annoying. Reaching into my bag, I withdraw another one of those crazy spears and hurl it at the flying creature. Once again, I was rewarded with a very scattered pile of pebbles.

*Zzzaap! Zzzaaap!*

What the hell? Two more? Were these things breeding or what? I guess we did just have the Noblegarden celebration, and that's all about new life, right? No wonder I hate it...

My already peeved horse is starting to get really irritated at my lack of provided protection, and stirs restlessly under me as if to emphasize the point. I reach into my backpack to grab two more spears and take care of this annoyance.

*Zap! Zap! Zap!*

My horse, completely unenthusiastic about the situation we now find ourselves in, decides to rear up, shucking me from its back and sending me unceremoniously to the ground. With one angry glance back at me, he trots back towards the camp with an almost contemptuous gait.

*Zap! Zap! Zap! Zap!*

Aw, hell no! My horse is gone, you did NOT just shock me you little bastards. You're making me angry, and trust me, you won't like me when I'm angry.

*Zap! Zap!*

All right, that's enough of this shit! I quickly cast the spell to call upon my full demon powers, transforming my visage into a horrific winged terror. Violet lightning crackles along my shadowy body as I stretch my wings out menacingly. Let's do this.

Quickly I cast the spell to corrupt each of their souls, following quickly with a curse of agony. As they begin squirm uncomfortably in the air, I fan my rage into to full inferno, surrounding my body with a furious green flame. Charging the lot of them, I engulf them in the green fire, delighting in their horrific squeals.

Mmmm fire... *Fwoosh*

Several charred corpses drop to the ground, disintegrating into ash at my feet. Ash, not pebbles, that's more like it.

*Fwoosh Fwoosh Fwoosh Fwoosh*
*Zap?*
*Fwoosh!*

Breathing heavily, I survey the scene around me. Naught is left but some lose pebbles and a whole lot of ash. Even as I watch, the steady Icecrown wind begins to scatter these remains, leaving little evidence of the slaughter that just occurred.

The sleet begins to sting my face again, alerting me that I've reverted to my human form. One can only stay a demon for a short period of time before permanent corruption occurs, you know. Sighing longingly at the aching void left by my more powerful form, I call for my dragon.

Gracefully, she swoops down from high in the sky where she'd been circling... or doing whatever it is my dragon does when I don't need her. What a beautiful creature, I think as she lands lightly in front of me, a faint flame smoldering in her nostrils. Heat radiates from her body as I climb on her back before patting her lightly and we take to the air, heading back towards the makeshift camp.

That horse and I are going to have words...