Postcards from Gameville

My dwarven comrade Kelvalron and I paid a visit recently to King Magni Bronzebeard.

The Loch Modan region is a welcome relief from the wintery Dun Morogh… for about two minutes. Then you realize what a flipping zoo Loch Modan is. If it’s not spiders trying to make you supper, it’s bears or boars or crocolisks or whatever those things are at the bottom of the loch. Still, I had been charged with showing young Randis around, so north we went along the road towards the Stonewrought Dam.

Our journey went mostly without a hitch, up until the point where we had to cut east across the land. That’s where we ran across an encampment of kobolds who had taken over the mines.

“You gonna fight ‘em?” Randis asked.

Of course not. We ran through between them, and the few who noticed us were frozen in place with a Frost Nova spell as we made it to the safety of the dam.

“That wasn’t very courageous.”

“I thought you wanted to see the dam, not battle.” I told him.

“This is such a cheap ride.”

“Are you paying for this trip?”

Randis grumbled. This sort of thing is probably why I’m not a father.

Randis’ mood improved once we reached the center of the dam, where we saw the amazing giant stone heads on the Wetlands side, and he was completely impressed with the dam’s size overall.

Randis had ideas about how to proceed. “You can do that thing where we float down after jumping off the dam, right?”

“No, I haven’t yet progressed that far in my studies.”

“Aw, maaaaan…”

Soon we were heading back through the kobold camp and through the gates to Dun Algaz. The Wetlands are as much as a zoo as Loch Modan, but I was even less equipped to deal with the wildlife. Soon a crocolisk had us facedown in the marsh. The graveyard is right near Menethil, so we just revived there and were done with it.

On the boat to Auberdine, I jumped on the prow and got down. Randis didn’t know what to make of this, probably because he hasn’t been out adventuring before.

So it’s been a while, but before I finish the Children’s Week story, I need to talk about an issue that I consider important… no, critical to my well-being. Some of you may consider this to be nitpicking, but honestly, it’s not your physiology we’re talking about here. The problem is simple yet alarming: when I sit down, my ass and legs disappear.

No, really, check it:

What in blazes is that?! Just because I’m wearing robes, my lower body becomes a pair of feet that create something for my upper body to float upon? Like I’m somesort of biped/hovercraft hybrid?

And look! You can see snow behind where my ass should be! Not only am I losing body parts, my robe has a hole in the back—which disappears when I stand up, however that happens. I’d say it was a feature if my robe was the product of expert gnomish engineering, but I got it off some human priest who likes to sew in his spare time. And without legs, my hands sink into my robe to rest on… nothing! You can’t even make a raunchily rude comment about this one.

Who do I talk to about this? The priests don’t have a “Rematerialize Lower Extremities” spell. I don’t trust the warlocks to summon something back. And what are the druids going to do? Seriously, I need this fixed, and I wager I’m not the only gnome who does.

Children’s Week! A time when adventurers selflessly donate their time to instill hope and happiness into those youths who have lost their families to the wars that have been waged across our lands.

In reality, this means you become a field-trip chaperone to a class of one, and all you need to do to qualify for the job is be level 10. I’m not entirely sure that’s a good set of qualifications. You could be level 10, summon evil demons from the outer regions, still say obnoxious things like “l0l u n00b pwned lern2play” on the general channel, and be controlled by someone who doesn’t even pay rent. Not exactly the kind of role model I’d want for a kid who’s lost pretty much everything.

I, however, being the bastion of respectibility and keen intellect honed by the scientific method, was perfectly capable to step up to the challenge of mentorship, and so I did. Randis was a plucky human youth. Plucky and freaking tall, I mean, I’m an adult and this kid stands taller than me, my hair notwithstanding!

Randis already had grand ideas of what he wanted to do. “Let’s go see the dam in Loch Modon!” he exhuberantly asked. “And there’s a pirate ghost by this lighthouse in Westfall and the bank in Darnassus looks like a bear!” And I’m like, uh, hey, kiddo, I’m 10th level, we’re not going to survive the trip. But Randis was persistent, like he had the best idea in the world, glowing above his little noggin.

I checked in with a priest friend of mine who sets me up with threads. He told me that he got temporary custody of Randis last year, and he wanted to see the exact same things. “Afterwards he wanted me to get Jaina Proudmoore’s autograph for him, and some ice cream.”

Right. Okay. I’m an adventurer, right? We can go visit a few siteseeing spots. How dangerous can that be?

The first time Randis and I died, we were running across the plains of Westfall. We had left the road to head southwest towards the coast, and at some point we got too close to some of those Defias rebels that camp there. One ran over and we couldn’t get away fast enough, and Nova Burst can be cast only so often. As Randis and I appeared as ghosts in the graveyard, I suppressed the urge to say something to the kid about this being exactly what happened to his parents. There’s a first time for everything when you’re that young, and I figured the next time I tell him, “Hey, don’t go over there or we’ll die,” it’ll have some deeper meaning for him.

But eventually we arrived at the lighthouse where the ghostly pirate captain was playing cribbage by his lonesome. Randis looked like he was going to hide behind me, but realizing that it would be physically impossible to do so, he went up to the ghost and said, “Hi.”

“Yaarrrr,” the ghost replied.

“Awesome,” said Randis, who immediately after had already had enough, despite his earlier enthusiasm. He started tugging on my sleeve to see the Stonewraught Dam.

We made it back to Sentinel Hill without incident, and from there we flew to Thelsamar.

Hey there.

Now, I could’ve say something like “Hi, I’m Eifle. I’m a gnome and a mage running around trying to make a living in the world of Azeroth,” but let’s face it: I’m really six feet tall, go by a name that isn’t a purposeful misspelling of a French architect, and I live in California. But hey, we need some frame of reference and suspension of disbelief if I’m not going to refer to my character in some weird sort of first-but-third-person sense. So.

Hi, I’m Eifle, a gnome and mage running around trying to make a living in the world of Azeroth.

/shrug

What’re ya gonna do.

Here’s me. Yeah, my hair’s pink, and I know that’s a stereotype for gnomes. Blame my mom. I think it’s kinda 80s. Certainly the height of my hair suggests tons of hair spray.

Currently I’m allied with the Pirate Penguins, who are less of a formal organization and more of an autonomous collective that get together here and there to delve into forgotten places, commit acts of heroism, drink much in the way of alcoholic beverages, and perform risky experiments in the interests of amusement, such as fighting gnolls in the Wetlands while naked and throwing oneself off of tall instances of geography. Good folks.