Pook's Book

I stopped by the tavern last night for the first time in quite a while. The Shu'halo Paladin was there with some female hanging from his arm, smug as ever, and an Elf was in my place on the balcony of the house that overlooks the area. It was not a good start to the evening. The Elf relocated herself soon enough, however, and I reclaimed the location only to have the deader show up. He started needling me about Ravenfeather in front of the Pridehoof girl, and then requested the stone he gave me back. He crushed it and declared that we were enemies, then rode off to the Grimtotem camp to decimate it, or so he claimed. I hope that he actually did go. Ever since the Scourge attacks the braves have been in top form, and our ranks are still full of reinforcements from the Pinnacle. I suppose the narrow bridges proved easy to shake plagued people off of.

Lapu himself arrived during all of that, and we had a bit of fun with Snow that ended in him getting a bit battered. He sulked for a while that he always loses when I'm around, and then we returned to the house that he uses in town which was strangely full of passers-by and traffic. We turned away a dead cultist and the most vile dead Troll I've ever seen, and he asked me to join his tribe a few times. I asked him to join mine a few times.

And then his woman appeared out of nowhere and slapped him, several times. I had thought that they had parted ways, but apparently I was mistaken. It was fairly amusing until the parts when he said that it was my fault, and that all he wanted was simple company from more or less anyone. I don't know how it is that he can get so irritated at my harassment of the Paladin which is completely based in mutual distaste and yet he can openly tell two women at the same time that he hopes to be with them both without consequence. At least he had the decency to deny it when he was asked if he intended it to be both at the same time. He still laughed though. I stayed long enough to make sure that the Earthmother Herself had left and then left myself. It didn't matter that I didn't stay, so long as she didn't either.

Ancestors help me, why do I find him so charming anyway?

So, first things first, we lost Junior Magistrix Emberdawn. She was always talking anyway, I couldn't stand her, and really the nitwit didn't have the sense to be a Magister. A deceased Red Dragon fell from the sky onto her head and really, if you're going to have that little situational awareness? You don't deserve to live.

We all know how she got her apprenticeship anyway.

Rilien says that the city has been quiet enough of late that he thinks that he could possibly petition to be a personal escort to the team, what with us dropping like flies and all, and while I worry about the practicality of it I hope that he manages to talk them into it. I miss him, terribly.

Meanwhile, I received a disturbing letter from Tanthos that said that he was worried about me and thanked me, and so I knew right away that something was seriously wrong, and also said that Atalante was missing. Taken. I went to find him and he just looked awful, worse than before. I honestly don't know what's to become of him. He said that Atalante was taken by two people with potions, an Elf of some sort (he was vague on the details other than that they "glowed" but spoke Common) and a Tauren. Honestly at this point I'm convinced that they must have been Blue Dragons in disguise, but I have no idea why they'd bother such a ruse just to capture Atalante. He was powerful, certainly, or at least Earen Sunstrike was a Magister of some note, but of all the powerful mages in Dalaran why him?

I told him that I'd take him to the boxes on the Tundra. I was worrie thought that he might run off ahead with no assistance and so I reminded him that he didn't really know the way and I did. I'll likely leave the rest of the team behind, they're a hindrance and a nuisance to actually getting things done.

[Blah blah letter for Cirban and Emberdawn's superiors informing them of the death and the team's progress blah blah]

I think that Lapu may have fallen on his head during his time to the north. Possibly multiple times.

I must say, in my naive girlish dreams of having a man ask to take me on as a lifemate, back when I still thought such a thing was possible, I never quite pictured it as receiving a letter that said, more or less, "Well?" with a second enclosed letter of my brother's disdain for the notion when he was asked if someone could ask for my hand or whatever silly, senseless Human notion the man has gotten into his head.

I will not say that the notion is not appealing. It is. That is exactly the problem. I would not have the same expectations of a mate as I do of a man who occasionally turns up expecting food and sex. I don't think I would be able to find his romancing of the women to the North (and the South, and the East and the West) nearly as impishly charming.

Also, he doesn't bring me flowers. I am fairly certain that flowers are supposed to be involved, somewhere.

Still...I did not tell him no, exactly. There is no doubt that of all the men I've encountered, I could imagine being his lifemate the most easily. Getting along with him is...easy. For lack of a better word, perhaps just because I do not expect anything from him. But then there is my tribe, which he still has the silly notion that he's going to "rescue" me from. If he would just try it out, I still think that he would find that he is positively Grimtotem to the core.

And then he asked if the girl who would be sent to kill me were I to leave the tribe, likely silly Atsi trying so hard to be the next Snow, would be attractive. See, this is exactly the sort of thing I don't think that I am supposed to tolerate.

I'm pretty sure that anyone who would want to know already knows, but what the hey >D

Give me a character from any fandom or original work of mine, and I will talk about what he or she or it is like in bed.

We have lost the second member of our team. We narrowly avoided scrapes with our investigation of the area known as the Borean Tundra after encounters with huge animals known as Shoveltusks and Mammoths, the adult males of each species as it turns out are quite aggressive. There were huge creatures known as Magnataurs in a cave being controlled by butterflies, as far as we could tell, and rabid hunters loosed by that Nesingwary dwarf. Perhaps the oddest was a camp of mechanical gnomes whose souls needed to be loosed from their constructs, and, of course, more undead bugs.

The most relevant area, however, held what looked like runic circles filled with boxes, guarded by blue dragons and oddly-marked humans that appear to be mages. The Kirin Tor sent us in as part of an investigation, and as far as we can tell the dragons are capturing people and putting them in the boxes for who even knows what reason. Junior Magisters Sunstar and Firestrike had to be rescued from them and their dogs.

Proceeding on from the Tundra to an area they call Dragonblight, it was to those dragon hunters that we lost Firestrike again, who had wandered off from the group in an area they call Moonrest and really, if you're going to be that stupid I cannot possibly be bothered to keep you alive. We assume that he's dead at any rate. Or in a box somewhere. At this point I really could care less which. He was a complainer anyway.


( A report sent to Cirban and copy to Atalante )

Well, that didn't take long. There are nine members of the team left, down from ten, when Junior Magister Dawnglow was carried off by a giant bug more or less the moment we set foot out of this fortress and onto the wretched tundra. They've been searching the wriggling cocoons in the area for him or his remains, but nobody is hopeful.

Gathering information out here seems to consist of running menial tasks for the Orcs out here. There is a group of surly Cenarions who knew little to nothing about anything but stopping the hunting groups, and giant walrus men who seem to be having some problems with being enslaved by a curious group that is of concern to the Kirin Tor. There are also, as I had previously heard rumor of, hostile Blue Dragons...we all agree that this does not bode well.

I showed Rilien around Dalaran, and wasn't that just a fun basket of memories? "Oh look, this spire used to be blue, before it was crushed by a giant demon. Over here are the prisons where they held all of the Quel'dorei captive." I took him up to the lounge, though, and the view was quite nice.

Shathin continues to write, still under the delusion that we are or ever will be friends. I'm beginning to think that he won't believe it until I've reduced him to a pile of ash. And perhaps not even then.


Formal Report (copies sent to Cirban and Atalante)

The magical fluctuations appear to be more intensely felt up here. Spells are off, creatures are visibly changing, entire areas seem to have been affected by the relocation of Dalaran. The Blue Dragonflight apparently poses a worrying problem, we will look into this more in particular.

Junior Magister Dawnglow was lost in an undead insect attack on Warsong Hold. Please relay our condolences to his family and his co-workers.

Stupid big open inn rooms open to the whole stupid room.

Hammocks.

Mages.

Dragons.

Not seeing the children.

That stupid island full of Elves.

No privacy anywhere ever.

A city full of stupid people.

Stupid plans.

Backing out of stupid plans.

Stupid people who feel like they have to make rude comments about an Elf with a Tauren husband.

MAGES.

DRAGONS.

NO. PRIVACY.

I am NOT going ALL the way to a STUPID island full of Elves who might have who even KNOWS what friends too and might not even BE mages and might be all wrong TOO when there's a STUPID mage right HERE just because No's hooves are cold or whatever the STUPID saying is. Well I hope he was cold sleeping in his STUPID hammock by himself. I'm doing it, and I don't care if he helps or not. I'll take the Mage AND his stupid Wretched friend by MYSELF if I have to.

Somehow.

And I'm going back to the Inn in the middle of the city too, where at least there's a STUPID door that can be closed, not that it even MATTERS.

I don't like this one bit.

No and I got up to this Northrend place, which is very large and, No assures me every few minutes, very cold. It's full of bugs, and Scourge, and Scourged bugs, and the fortress we arrived at smells like Ironforge and too many people. There are Tauren here with squished faces called Taunka, and nobody knew the way to Coldara, not even the Elf that we asked.

We found a tower full of mages who had us try and find out what was happening by torturing a man they had us capture. As it turns out, it's much, much worse than we thought it could be. Ephe was already up here and she came out to hear it for herself.

I don't know if everyone will do it. No says Xa'ru will, but nobody is sure about Sihu, and I don't remember who else was involved who's still alive. Fortunately they said that we wouldn't all be punished if some people didn't go through with it. All I know is, we have to get back to the children. I'll do what they ask if it means that they'll let our debt be settled and we can get back to the ship and the children as soon as possible.

I've been a minion to worse than them before.

( Shaali goes on at length, about Death Knights, reappeared friends and her new assignment )

Thank the ever-benevolent sun, Athane Blacksun is back.

He said he was assigned to a mission of some kind outside the city. I could care less. He's back. Back, and has resumed his command. Not eager to be demoted myself, we went to the Overseer to work out the circumstances of the transfer of the unit, and I presented my case for joining the Magisterium. The unit has long needed a Magistrate for the judgment, arbitration and sentencing of the prisoners that we arrest, and I laid out my suitability for the job.

Despite Blacksun like the unmitigated bastard that he is trying to cut down my ability to do his job in his absence - and that, by the way, was priceless. Oh, no, you're welcome for making certain that you had a job to return to, for building and growing the unit, recruiting capable people, securing our alliances and going through piles of unimaginable shit to maintain the public image of the unit all while never breathing a single negative word about you and your disappearance. It's just lovely to be spat upon after going through all that for your sake covering the job that you didn't even think to have seen to while you were flitting about the SUN even knows where doing the Nether knows what, having your wife looked after, protecting the city from the single worst disaster to befall it since the original invasion and seeing us through to the restoration of the Sunwell and not even expecting a single "Thank you, Shaali, for all that you've done, good job" but at the very least not wanting to be cut down in front of our superior when I sought to defend my work and better my position. And where some people would have clawed and clung to power and made you fight for your Command back, I was actually willing to have a peaceful transfer of power back to your hands even after all that time and all I'd done but no, somehow that was just awful of me

...yes. That was annoying. At any rate, despite all that Cirban grudgingly admitted that they had an available position in the Magisterium and that I could indeed see to the duties of the unit's Magistrate and become his personal apprentice.

I was grateful enough for the opportunity to gain a foothold into better things that even that didn't sound too bad at the time. I'm quite certain that it will be awful, but there is no way that it could possibly be more awful than the job I was doing. No more patrols, no more standing in my foot-ruts in the Exchange and bearing whatever insults the passers-by care to toss. I will dearly miss spending as much time at Rilien's side, but at the same time it's an immense relief to not be his direct superior anymore. I can't help but think that he will make a better Lieutenant for Blacksun than he did for me, just due to the lack of a conflict of interest. And he can come and visit me in the Spire, and no doubt the Overseer has a desk somewhere, and we can break it in after-hours.

Also, there's a giant hole where Dalaran used to be and the area is filled with magical residue. If I had to guess from the remaining runes and resonances I'd say that they teleported it somewhere, and the missing land mass underneath leads me to believe that it must either be in the sky or in the ocean. But where?

The Scourge have been turned back from the cities. From listening in on conversations at the tavern there is an Apothecary who devised a new cure of a sort. There are reportedly still attacks out in the world, but in mostly isolated areas that the tribe does not occupy. The camp was not overtly affected, not many people come out to where the Grimtotem are and it was where people are that they struck.

Lapu is   not doing well. He lost some of his armor along the way and seemed overly distracted about it. I do not think he has been resting well. I don't

The one he needs right now is someone whose first instinct on being told that his first Horde military unit was wiped out is not to go on a diatribe about how this is what the Horde does and how much that proves her point. She is much missing, he says, but I am certain she's fine. The living incarnation of the Earthmother amongst us is unlikely to fall to something so minor as the Scourge. He has become too much involved, but there is no telling him that. This may be the first true strife he has seen in his life, and all there is to it is to see that he comes through it whole. I wanted to offer gestures of comfort, but he was very  closed-off. I suppose he will deal with this as men do, however that is. Punch something. Or mate with something. Hopefully if he decides to take the latter course he will contact me.

I ventured into the tavern late at night to grab a handful of candy in passing. It tastes terrible but it is free, and we rarely have sweets in camp. I had briefly pondered giving some to Graybear, but I'm certain that the Pridehoof girl will only let him chew on fallen tree-bark and berries so as not to end the life of any natural thing or some nonsense.

Well, unless he is also living with Dakos. I am certain that he will not allow the boy to be raised soft. But I believe Dakos to also be the sort to come down firmly on the anti-candy side of things.

( Zombie attacks and an attempt at a date... )

When we first started to receive reports of the Scourge causing the other continent some problems, we didn't think much of it. One would think we would have learned from the last time. I went on with my night, I was upset at Rilien for I don't even know what reason now, I spoke to Vi'le about him leaving soon. It seems his fangirl harem has expanded to include that Human girl which is just so endearing, and I hardly had a chance to talk to him before he was running off with her yelling about candy. And Rilien truly worries that I might leave him for Vi'le? He must be blind. And possibly deaf. There is some sort of event tonight that he wants to come out for. I asked Rilien to come with me. Even if he ruins the whole thing with glowering snappishness at least I'll have someone to talk to without having to stand in a queue and only having a bare few moments before the next random person is flailing for attention.

Granted, with the state of the city what it is now I'm not certain we can attend after all. We were warned by a Tauren from one of the Horde military units that the plague was spreading far faster than before and that there had been serious incursions into Thunder Bluff and Shattrath. I posted the Corporals at the Orb and Rilien and I took the gates, and Felatha patrolled the interior of the city.

I don't think even one of us had a wink of sleep last night, and indeed there were a few incidents of having to cure people who were ill. The Argent Dawn has set up postings in the city as well.

If it was up to me, we would shut Silvermoon down - nobody could come in or go out until the threat has passed, but with summoning, hearthstones and portals I'm not certain how that could be enforced without a giant barrier over the entire city. Still, I will speak to the Overseer about the situation and see what can be done in terms of instituting martial law and restrictions on people's movements.

I have taken some small amount of petty pleasure of late in poking at the Shu'halo who thinks himself a human Paladin who hangs about the tavern when it's open. Atsikala, in a surprise trip out of camp (at least that I've seen, I have no idea if she is still trailing me or not) joined in the time before, and this time I teased him while in human disguise. I swear, the Orcish thralls are always so humorless.

Things with Ravenfeather continue to   go. As they do. He is so very himself. There is really no better way to describe it than that. On telling him about how people were occasionally forced into the tribe for murdering its members when he wanted to kill some other Grimtotem female he'd seen about the Barrens for some reason (he claims it wasn't Atsi, although if it was I think I'd be more inclined to tell him to go ahead,) I asked him if he'd seen the Pridehoof girl about with the brand on her arm. He gestured to the area of his chest and said if the brand hadn't been about there, he wouldn't have noticed it. That more or less sums up all interaction with him, ever.

As we were talking the Troll arrived, and Lapu was right. His hair looked as though it had be grazed upon by a pack of wild gazelle or something. Lapu and I were discussing said Grimtotem that he'd noticed skulking about of late, who I have no idea who it is he could be talking about, and he and the Troll traded insults and swaggering as males are wont to do. As he left, however, the Troll made a snide remark about me not succeeding at not being "that woman." Because I was talking to the man. But I suppose to a Troll, talking to a person does mean that you are having some sort of illicit affair with them.

The fact that he was right is completely aside from the point. He could very well could have been wrong. Ravenfeather went to go talk to or attempt to beat on the Troll, and I am not certain what transpired exactly but when he returned we made plans to see one another in two days. He told me straight out not to share more than acid barbs with the Shu'halo Paladin. The point is of course quite moot as I'm certain he would rather drink from a waterskin filled with molten lava, I wouldn't bother to waste the time and effort even if it would knock him down from his self-righteous totem a notch or two. But still, Lapu's rather ironic posessiveness was amusing and endearing anyway. I might toy with seeing if I can make him jealous (with a better target than the Paladin) just to see how he reacts.

Blessed sun above, the Sunwell...

((An arcano-inscribed image is tucked into the pages))

They put hairstyling salons in the savage cities. Why in the world they would be there and not here is beyond me, but I visited the one in Orgrimmar while passing through and had them do something about the bothersome mass of my hair. It was taking too much time every day to get it teased, slicked, smoothed and pinned into place, and so I had them cut it drastically short, in a new style I hadn't already seen on every single other Sin'dorei woman in the city. It looks nice, I think. Clipped and professional, and the lightness of my head with all that hair gone is surprising. I even had them work in a bit of my original color in the ends. It went white in Dalaran, but so many did with the shift to Fel power it's an unpleasant lingering reminder of loyalty to the King.

( (Work ranting...) )

I can't think of anything else to do but to give up.

No keeps saying he and the children can be my strength. The children aren't here, because if they were I might hurt them, and No has been the only thing keeping me here and safe and able to not listen for a while but it only works for a while and he's getting tired. No matter what I do it keeps getting worse and stronger and louder and meaner. He keeps saying that it will be over soon, but how? He says he has a plan, he says Acilius has a plan. What can they even do?

I can't escape the consequences of the mistakes I made. They're mine to pay and nobody else's, and the longer I hold back the worse it will be. It's my fault that I was stupid enough to make the promises that I did. I made them thinking that they would never be called in. It would be so long until I died, I thought, and by then the Lich King would have been defeated a long time ago.

But now there's a plan. Something big is happening. It's not just me, he's calling everyone, I can feel it. Calling in all the things he was promised by stupid people like me.

The city has stopped moving. It's going to be soon. Something big soon, and then I don't know if it'll matter how well the children are hidden. I know exactly what he's planning, he says it again and again.

The light will be corrupted, everything will burn.

How am I supposed to protect a city that doesn't want to be protected?

How am I supposed to fight off people who cannot be fought despite using every ounce of the power of three people at a time?

How am I supposed to uphold the law when the prevailing opinion is that blatant attacks in public and the deepest disrespect for any form of authority are both perfectly all right and should not be punished?

How am I supposed to continue doing a job when even my closest allies abruptly turn on me to side with people they barely know?

I have had enough. The city can burn for all I care. I very much doubt that anyone but the other guardsmen angling for my position will even notice I'm gone, and at this point I am very nearly ready to say that they are welcome to it, and the grinding of their soul into a fine powder that comes with it.

((OOC note: Shaali will be hanging out at home in slippers and her bathrobe for a week while Rilien is on RL vacation, being snarly and emo.))

The Professor walked up and casually announced that he'd eaten a man last night.

Kitron launched into a long and detailed rant at the Overseer about every slight and flaw in the unit. Thankfully the Overseer was largely unimpressed, but apparently rumor has reached even him in his spire that I am somehow "overinvolved" with the Professor, and I was strictly forbidden from speaking to him about non-business matters while on duty. The fact that Kitron would turn on his unit like that is also disturbing behavior in someone who would in theory like their career to advance. I will attempt to wake him to the political realities of the world, but if he doesn't open his eyes and shape up very quickly we're likely going to lose another good guardsman to naieve idealism.

We were summoned to run off Soluthos and his woman from the spire, who left by way of a giant drill machine like those Dwarves had. I arranged for the Department of Calculations to send him a bill.

Asher is running all about the world, fighting, knocking over things with his dragonhawk, and forever begging for gold.

Rilien wants to go look for Rosie. If we cannot turn her, then it will become necessary to destroy her and that will very much upset both him and Asher. The two of them, from what I recall, were very close. Still, there is nothing to be done for it than to tuck in and do the very best that we can.

Well, that didn't last long.

I ran away, but I guess I should've gone further because Shaali and Rilien found me in the city and were all flipping out at me in front of everyone and the Professor and Ragdoll. It's not like I went off and blew through a case of potions and sold myself into a life of crime or something, I joined the Farstriders just like they said I should. And then they were riding my ass all night about how hard it was gonna be, like I've had it all easy until now or something.

I dunno, we talked and stuff though and things seem cool for now, so I guess I'll stay here. For now.

I tamed my first pet hunting companion like they want us to call them, a dragonhawk named Hank. Hank's kind of got a complex about being a froofy girly dragonhawk I think, but the more we work together the less it seems like he wants to set my face on fire so that's cool. Shaali and Rilien say I've gotta keep him in my room even though the whole house is all set up for her fucking bird made out of fire already, so I don't see what the big deal is. And he eats almost anything, including Shaali's cooking which is awesome because then I can just sneak mine to him and she doesn't freak out about me not eating something that tastes like week-old cat. I swear to the sun I don't know how Rilien isn't dead yet. Maybe he lost his sense of taste in the invasion or something?