Kazi and I had another roleplaying session with Aroqin and Radoslaw a while back that Kazi never got around to proofreading. Since I’m impatient and Kazi is sleeping after his graveyard shift at his new job, I’m going to post it without him getting a chance to edit it! Mwahahaha!

*cough* Check out our first RP session if you missed it/don’t remember it.

The setting for this one is Qin’s and Rado’s isolated camp in Arathi Basin, when they were in their mid-30s.

Settled into her sleek cat form, Aroqin studiously licks her paws clean. She is seemingly unruffled by the struggles the prone, bound man whose back she is posed on.

Nearby, Radoslaw enthusiastically takes flint and steel to a small pile of tinder, blowing gently as the first spark catches. The first glimmers of the fire shine dully off the black-dyed leather of his well-worn armor.

The captive attempts to throw the druid off, only to be rewarded by her sharp claws kneading through his leather armor and into his flesh. At this point, he stops moving and clenches his jaw grimly. “Is that fire almost ready yet, boy?” Qin calls over. “This warming pillow is rather difficult to hold still.”

“Remember, hon,” she coos to the Syndicate thief, “I could change into a bear if it suits my mood.”

Radoslaw chuckles a little as the flames take hold, piling a little more wood inexpertly on the pile. “Almost, Qin…this isn’t the driest wood out here.” The rogue takes little notice of the struggling Syndicate, entranced by the movement of the flames.

“Remember to build the wood in a pyramid shape, and put the softer wood on.” She turns back to the captive, grinning impishly as she murmurs in his ear, “The hard wood we’ll need to save for later tonight, won’t we darling?” The man growls an insult, for which Qin casually cuffs him on the side of the head. “So savage, these Syndicate,” she muses in Rado’s general direction.

Nodding absently, Radoslaw stacks the wood in what might, under special circumstances, be charitably called a pyramid, then walks softly over to the druid and her captive. “There we go, Qin, I got it going real nice now.”

So…what’re we doing with this guy, anyway?” he asks, prodding the man’s leg with a boot. “I could’ve knifed him a lot more easily than whackin’ his head like that.”

“He’s going to tell us all the little details of Stromgarde’s defences. Isn’t that right, hon?” She coos again. Another louder curse earns him a stronger cuff to the head. “It looks like we may have to teach him to play nice with us first.” She gives Rado a cat-grin.

First ensuring the man’s eyes couldn’t catch his face, Rado gives her a wink. “Aww…Qin, I just finished getting the rest of the bloodstains off of my shirt…not everyone can just jump in a river to wash it off.”

“I suppose you’ll be forced to wear your other leathers then, the ones that are already well-stained. I know the color of dried blood doesn’t not match the poison on your daggers but there’s no one here to see you.” She kneads her claws again, purring at the pained yelps the man beneath her makes. “Yes…no one to see or hear us for miles and miles around.”

Radoslaw huffs slightly theatrically, then sits cross-legged in front of their prisoner’s face. “Well, mister Syndicate, I suppose we’re gonna have to get down to business pretty soon…got anything you want to say?”

He punctuates his words by drawing one of his daggers and slowly drawing it across a whetstone, testing the edge on his thumb after every stroke.

The thief sits in stony silence for a few moments, before Aroqin steps from his back over his legs and once swiftly changing into a bear, sits down neatly on his legs. The man cries out in agony from his bones being on the verge of shattering, “I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything!” Shifting back into her feline form, she grins triumphantly at her companion. “Good to see that my feminine wiles work on a man as tough as this one.”

Radoslaw smiles back a touch nervously, putting his weapon to work cutting chunks of dried meat apart, occasionally popping one in his mouth to chew slowly. “That they do, Qin.”

Leaning down to address the now-terrified Syndicated, Radoslaw blinks inquisitively. “All right then, mister…what’s going on in Stromgarde, then? How’s your ‘prince’ have you fellows spread out?”

The prisoner babbles out the layout of their forces, along with the times of shift changes and even where they store their weapons. “But where the prince is, I dun know,” he admits with a nervous glance over his shoulder at Qin. “I report to one of ‘is lieutenants.”

“What a pity that is,” the cat druid heaves with a sigh. She draws herself to her feet and pads over to the captive’s head, who valiantly resists flinching away. “If I see you again, darling, and if it’s for anything other than a pleasant dinner and a room at the best inn…” She eyes him appraisingly. “Well, hope that I won’t be hungry.” She smiles wide at him, long white fangs flashing in the light of the fire.

Radoslaw chuckles grimly, then pokes the man’s nose. “And she’s an honest one, mister…I’d believe her if I were you. She makes me look all sweet and tender,” he says warmly, gently tapping the captive’s head with a dagger. “You letting him off now, Qin?”

“Unless there’s anything you want to ask him.” She curls up near the fire, looking thoroughly bored at the pair of humans before her. “You’re more intimate with thieves and other shadowy characters than I am so perhaps there was something he ‘forgot’ to tell us.”

Radoslaw considers for several long moments, tapping his chin contemplatively. “Hmmm…how many agents you folks have with the League of Arathor? And don’t try to tell me you don’t have ‘em, I know you do.”

The thief hems and haws for a for moments, but a meaningfully impatient tab on Rado’s knife convinces him to open up. “Uh…I don’t know a lot, but there’s this guy we’ve been getting reports from…always contacts us by letter drop, signs it Erten. That’s all I know, I swear!”

Radoslaw nods thoughtfully, then turns to Aroqin. “All right, how’re we doing this? Just let him up?”

Aroqin yawns wide, smacking her maw together. After rising and stretching lithely, she assumes her night elf form, completely kitted out in thick leather armor. “I think I’ve found a use for that ram we stole from the Syndicate…” She steps into the trees, returning momentarily with a light gray ram in tow. “Mind lifting him up, boy?” she asks as she indicates the saddle of the creature.

Radoslaw nods, hefting the slight man with only a bare grunt of effort and settling him on the saddle, lashing the man’s bindings to the saddle, then turning to grin at Qin. “Anything else you want sent with him?”

The night elf reaches down to scoop up a chunk of dried meat and secures it to the saddle. “This will help you make quick friends with those raptors out there,” she says cheerily as she pats the Syndicate’s knee affectionately. As the man’s eyes bulge, she changes once more into a cat form and lets form a boisterous roar. The ram rears, almost throwing its rider from his seat, and charges off into the night-darkened plains. Qin sits down on her haunches, happily admiring her work.

Radoslaw wanders to stand next to her, watching the ram charge off into the distance. “Went pretty well, I’d say,” he says. “Seemed like we was bein’ pretty honest, at least. Gave us some good stuff to work with.”

He kicks the grass at his feet idly. “So how much of that were you gonna follow through with if he didn’t snap?”

Qin remains silent for a long while, staring out into the dark as her tail twitches from time to time. “Rams are not helpless, you know,” she finally murmurs over the sound of crickets and birds making their last calls before they sleep. “If anything even looks at them the wrong way, they’ll aim a kick for the head. That thief will eventually untie himself and eat the meat. It’s probably the best food he’s seen in a while.” She bats away a fly attempting to land on her nose. “I knew how much pressure his legs could take from my weight. And even if they had broken by accident, I would have healed them quickly and cleanly.”

She twists her head, glowing eyes focusing soberly on the rogue beside her. “That’s what it means to be a Phoenix, Radoslaw. These quests that we take on are to train us, not to declare our allegiances. Nor do we fight over the decayed ruins of a city so it can change from being in one mortal’s hands to another’s. No, our true goal is much bigger than that.” She pauses for a brief moment. “Perhaps a better question is how far would you have gone through with it.”

Radoslaw blinks, his stance betraying his sudden uncertainty. “Uhh…” he feebly replies, fiddling with a rivet on his armor. “I…dunno, Qin. I’m not sure how much I could just hurt someone, you know? Killin’ someone, fast and clean, that’s one thing, but…cuttin’ on them to make them talk? I just…don’t know…”

He falls silent, looking at the ground.

“That’s what we’re here to figure out, boy.” Suddenly she lets out a jaw-stretching yawn and blinks with disinterest. “Plus I wouldn’t hurt such a good-looking man. I prefer…other activities with my play things.” She grins toothily and then glances over at the fire. “Now where did you put that other piece of meat? I’m starving.” She saunters back over to the camp, sniffing the air delicately for the food.

Radoslaw looks up, face quickly breaking in a cheery smile. “It’s all cut up for stew, Qin. Got the water boiling and what’s left of our potatoes and spices in with it…shouldn’t be too bad.”

“Well, come on then,” she urges with a touch of impatience. “I don’t want to start chewing on my own paw, boy.”

“All right, Qin, I’m coming,” he replies, and dumps the cut meat into the stew pot nestled in the growing coals of the fire. “Should be cooked enough to eat in a few minutes…I’m no fancy cook, but it’s better than trail food again.”

She sits down before the fire, nostrils flaring and tail lashing from side to side in anticipation. “I’m getting to the point where I’d gnaw on some leather if I could. Plus you know that all us night elves are used to eating moss and dirt anyways,” she comments with a flash of humor in her eyes.

Radoslaw looks sidewise at her for a few moments, then laughs. “I dunno about the dirt, but maybe the moss is why your hair’s so green,” he says, then looks thoughtful. “You ever eat raw meat, when you’re all fuzzy?”

She stares back at him steadily, licking her chops. “Do you really want to find out?”

Chuckling nervously, he ladles some of the thick stew into a bowl and all but throws it in his haste. “Here you Qin, no need for that!”

She gives a cat chortle and lays down to lap up the stew with her long pink tongue.

/waits for Pike to start drooling

My original thought had been a more evil-scientist-Dr.-Horrible kit but I can’t for the life of me find a lab coat outfit anywhere in WoW. If anyone knows where to find one, I’d love to hear about it.

After a series of frustrating pugs in Scarlet Monastery, one of us finally blurted out over Skype, “We could just do this damn thing all by ourselves!” There was a moment’s pause and then we began to discuss how, yes, we actually could duo the instance. With that, we ported to Undercity and booted it out to the dungeon.

Tuyok and Ghislain two-man Cathdral

Was it easier? Probably not. Was it faster? No, not really. But oh, was it ever fun. Without twitchy DPS breathing down my neck, I could get Kazi to bubble me and then pull the entire right side of the lower half of the Chapel Gardens. The pulls inside the Chapel itself were massive, with up to 20 mobs on me and runaways in every direction. We actually welcomed the additional mobs they brought back, myself especially because they only fueled my constantly depleting rage bar. I actually used my cooldowns to keep myself up.

You know what it felt like? Like for once, it was actually us against the mobs. With a pug, most of the time I’m more worried about what the rest of the group will do to screw things up, either by pulling aggro or pulling on their own. But here…I had a partner that I had complete trust in. I trusted him to keep me alive, to spam Holy Nova in the middle of a pack of mobs at the right time, to bring a mob aggroed onto him right to me so I could taunt it off, and to finish off the odd runner with Holy Fire.

Aroqin and Radoslaw take turns shanking an ogre

This sort of playing off each other has been repeated numerous times with us. Just take my kitty druid Aroqin and Kazi’s rogue Radoslaw. We’ll often position ourselves on either side of a mob, trading aggro back and forth between the two of us and using our special “shank them from behind” abilities when their back is to one of us. When we pull too many mobs, I switch into bear form and tank them while Kazi does, as he puts it, “terrible and possibly illegal things” to them. I have Healbot up for anytime I need to throw a quick Rejuv or Decurse onto one of us.

One of our most amazing quests was in STV. The quest was red to us and we didn’t even notice that it was until we were halfway into a deep cave, surrounded by mobs that were orange to us. Using a combination of stealth, distractions, and deadly attacks, we finally made it to the very back of the cave where the quest mob, also a red level, was waiting for us with his cronies. I turned into a bear and we pulled his buddies carefully when they had walked away from the quest mob. Then, we pulled the quest mob and he went down smoothly, even if it wasn’t quickly.

On the way back out, we decided to slip past all the orange-level mobs unnoticed. As a cat, Qin is stealthed better than Rado but she does not have his big bag of tricks. He distracted and sapped our way out of there, only fighting a couple of mobs when we absolutely had to. We would watch the way they were patting and would dash across through an opening as soon as we had the chance. We laughed and grinned at each other when we made it out and Kazi declared that it was the most fun he’s had on WoW in months. Why? Because it was just the two of us using our skills and experience to get something done.

Nalifi and Hyarima on the Zoram's Strand

We could be on any two characters and feel like we’re a real team, one that just knows what the other is doing and how best to act in conjunction with that. I mean, who would have thought that Kazi’s troll shaman Hyarima could have tanked most of a Deadmines pug at level, with my disc priest Nalifi bubbling and healing everyone? I’m not saying that we never make a mistake but we’re not the sort to never try anything beyond the ordinary. That trust that we have is what makes us work so well together and live through things by the skin of our teeth.

All of this brings something else to question. Why do we have to have a group of 5 for instances, with a tank, healer, and 3 dps? As much as I will preach how great the LFG tool can be, why must it be harder and less rewarding to get a mishmashed group of friends together to take on an instance? I distinctly remember completing Wailing Caverns with nothing but 3 hunters with tanking pets. Not to mention that I’ve pet-tanked heroic ToC without much difficulty. And I know that I’m not the only person that has brought this sort of issue to light.

Dear Blizzard, could we have a “queue with current party only” button? I mean really, who would we be hurting other than ourselves? We know what we would be getting ourselves into.

Two enter the Molten Core: a dragonling protection paladin and a amazing enhancement/restoration shaman.

These two…are OP.

We’ve managed a partial and two full clears of this 40-man raid. The partial was only because we were looking for Saraku’s T1 pieces and weren’t concerned with actually finishing the instance. The next time we went in, we decided to see if we could clear the place out. Kazi was enhance for all of it but the annoying naga boss who puts a curse on you that reduces healing taken by a whooping 75%. The other naga boss who has 4 healer buddies? Yeah, Kazi popped all his cooldowns and we sliced the first healer into tiny bite-sized treats. After you get the first one down, it just gets easier from there.

The tie for most annoying boss is between Ragnaros himself and the big fire elemental who explodes you and sends you flying into the air. The fall actually deals us more damage than the explosion itself. And Ragnaros can die…in his own fire? That knockback ability is damned irritating and it took us a few tries figuring out the best place to position ourselves so we don’t end up in the lava.

But all and all, it can make for a fun distraction. Saraku is just missing his tier chest piece for his knight-in-shining-armor RP set and Kazi now wants to get the lengendary mace made for himself. Not to mention the sheer amount of gold we get…I netted in about 140g before putting BoE epics on the AH. Ragnaros alone dropped 75g each for us. It’s a nice alternative to say running some dailies, wouldn’t you say?

So again, very sorry folks, and please disregard the random 10 posts all published on June 13, 2010 if you happened to receive them.

I also feel like I’ve done it all. All of the starter areas have been done several times, and I’ve seen all of the areas on at least 2 characters. Raiding has even lost its appeal as we keep trying to progress in Ulduar (aka seeing the same 4 bosses over and over again to get to the one we really want, only to spend an hour on him before needing to head off to bed). I like Ulduar, I really do. But I wish it was split up into several wings, each with its own lockout. We just don’t have the time to kill the same 4 bosses every night and still attempt at progressing. And don’t even talk about ICC…we can only get down Marrowgar. It doesn’t help that we’ve lost 3 of our members to an upcoming move so our attendance is low to begin with. So yeah…I haven’t even felt compelled to log in for that.

Then there’s Cataclysm coming. I’m excited for a lot of the new features they’re going to implement, including the redesigned leveling zones. Alts have been my normal time-killing activity but what’s the point when the content is going to change soon? It also doesn’t help that my home server is completely full, including slots saved for Cata characters. I’m always reluctant to delete a character and I don’t think I could ever delete an 80.

I’ve also been putting a lot of work into web hosting and designing lately (there’s more about that on my non-WoW blog), as well as making the completely new Bloodriver site. My renewed interest in this has also left me feeling a little blah about WoW.

So all of this resulted in Kazi and I not really touching WoW at all for a couple days. We watching some Mystery Science Theater and played some other games. Warcraft 3 proved to be cool but I can only play the same RTS for so long. We could not for the life of us get Age of Mythology to connect using GameRanger so that was quickly abandoned. Dungeon Siege 2 was going great until two crashes left my character far behind Kazi’s (WTB autosaves) and combined with the frustration of high level mobs in the worst places, it’s been pushed to the side. We started playing Neverwinter Nights together, which Kazi has never played and I’ve always enjoyed playing. The pace is a little slower than what we’re used to but hey, at least it has a great story line and autosaves!

I think we’re slowly starting to get back into things now. With the upcoming announcement of Real ID being implemented with the next patch, we saw an opportunity…the chance to play more not just cross-faction but also cross-realm while still being able to stay in contact with our friends. This is just about as good as more character slots per server would be. So in a sort of impromptu preparation for that…we rolled a couple of Alliance on the Farstriders server. We chose Farstriders because a) it’s an RP realm and we like those and b) that’s where Fhionn is located and guess who had enough money to buy us bags?

Well, at least buy bags for Kazi’s dwarf paladin. I, on the other hand, rolled a death knight, a class I hadn’t touched since I had my troll DK Githinji commit suicide. And because I wanted to boost their numbers…I made her a female dwarf. I think this character will last longer than poor depressed Githinji. I was already joking about calling her undead mount Sparkles or Rainbow, and how my corehound minipet was feasting on the bones of my enemies. I’m still fleshing out her character concept but I think it’s safe to say that she will not be the depressed sort.

However, if you don’t see me post for a while, that’s probably because Kazi and I are kicking it in another game or watching some movies or something.

But if you already think that this blog has some sort of time schedule, you are sorely mistaken, dear readers.

So in lieu of a post that actually requires me to write, >.> I give you a long overdue and hopefully entertaining episode of The Adventures of Kazimierz and Saraku!

Hidden Tauren House

This first video is Kazi and Saraku’s visit to the little tauren camp that rests in the mountains between the Barrens and Mulgore. This place is of particular importance to me because when the wall-walking trick was still in-game, I discovered the way there all on my own when I was still a newbie (Niqora was level 40ish or something) and it was my very own secret spot. I was saddened when they removed wall-walking and thus removed my only way to get to “my” house. With the introduction of the zeppelin that travels between Thunder Bluff and Orgrimmar, I was able once again to visit my favorite spot in-game (although now it’s less special now that everyone else can too). Regardless, it was great fun to wander around it again with my adventuring partner, Kazi.

Jumping Off Tall Things

Everyone knows the Temple of Storms in Storm Peaks, right? It’s only one of the tallest things in that game that you can get to the top of. In the next two videos, Kazi and Saraku get a bunch of their friends together to participate in an activity that in character, Saraku calls “jumping off tall things”. In the first video, we slowfall/levitate all the way to the Emerald Dragonshire in Dragonblight. In the second one, we make it to Venture Bay in Grizzly Hills.

By “we”, I of course mean the people who were lucky enough to remain within casting range of the mage/priest. Poor Kazi.

He has written some great posts, including a very interesting one about the possible culture cuisines that the races of Azeroth could have. For those of you interested in lore or roleplay, I highly recommend that you take a look at it.

If you have any interest in playing a shaman, he also wrote two very well summarized articles about enhancement and restoration gameplay. He is very skilled at playing both of those specs (even though he doesn’t like to admit it ) so he knows what he’s talking about.

Please give him a visit and let him know what you think of his posts and shiny new theme!

Anyways, the reason I couldn’t think of a title is because this is an update on all my characters and stuff. I’ll try to keep it short and sweet so I don’t bore you all.

My troll shaman Zulrea hit level 80 oh…a couple months ago now. >.>Yes, I’m that bad at making these updates. Regardless, this makes her third level 80 and although she’s fun to play, I haven’t been gearing her as aggressively as I did Niqo and Saraku. I blame it on heroics burnout. But I did get her the Noble title and completed all of the other Noblegarden achievements in 2 days. Not bad for a casual. I enjoy healing on her the most so the couple of T9 pieces I have been getting her have been for that spec. Her elemental set…languishes greatly.

Raiding recently has been awesome for Niqora. The other weekend Bloodriver took on OS, EoE, and Onyxia all in one night and didn’t have too much trouble smashing them all into the ground. Malygos and Onyxia had given us problems before so they took a few tries. Niqo can now proudly boast her Champion of the Frozen Wastes title.

Then last weekend we entered TotC-10…and completed the entire dungeon in a single night. I personally had never seen beyond the spiky worm beasts and apparently the furthest some of them had gotten before were the Faction Champs. So it was quite a thrill to make it through all of it in the first night, even if we had wipes. We just bulldozed through it like we always do. As my guildmate Cedd commented to me: “Bloodriver: we hit our heads against the wall until we make a hole.” We are tenacious if nothing else.

Yesterday I got it into my head that I wanted Ashen Verdict rep with Saraku so he could make Niqo the epic arrows she’s come to love. It was surprisingly easy to get enough people to come with me for trash runs. We had to switch out people a couple times (RL comes first after all) but we killed enough trash so that people who had been there since the beginning went from completely neutral to friendly by the end. They all seemed pretty happy to get their rings, happy enough to even want to come back tonight for some more.

Niqora’s little sis Anuniaq is now level 60 and in the Outlands, having been reunited with her childhood friend Halruum (Kazi’s tauren warrior).  She’s been sitting at level 40-ish for a long time and it’s good to get to level a hunter again (but oh how I missed Steadyshot).

Tuyok the warrior, and Niqora’s adopted son, has gone from fury to prot since I discovered that I liked tanking with him the best. Figuring out how to stance-dance was a huge factor in making that decision. >.> He’s in his early 30s now and has made friends with a Forsaken priest called Ghislan (Kazi has discovered a love for discipline priests). Together they make quite the odd couple…a frail-looking undead man next to a hulking tauren bull.

You’ve already seen Aroqin the night elf druid featured here in some RP sessions that Kazi and I have been having. She’s also in her early 30s and she is happily bounding about as a kitty. As happily as a grumpy sarcastic elf can be that is. I’ve discovered that I also like tanking with her on the side (kitty is her first love, bear comes second). Apparently I’m fairly good at it, if the pug person who told me that I’m the best low level tank he’s ever seen is any indication.

I really have developed this gravitation to tanking, haven’t I? >.>

In all of these, some characters have gotten deleted, namely my bank character Valraen who never got past level 10 and my draenei hunter Brighit who I never could find the perfect pet for. In my defense for deleting Brighit, I intend to have at least a goblin hunter once Cataclysm comes out, possibly a worgen depending on what forms the worgen druids will get. A hunter for a hunter is okay, right? >.> I swear I’m still a petoholic!

And last but not least, a shameless plug for my guild. Bloodriver on Wyrmrest Accord-H is now recruiting. We invite anyone of any level or class who wants to join our wonderful family. We do light roleplaying, raid casually, play lots and lots of alts, run random heroics, and hang out in guild chat. Sometimes we even break out into song on vent.

For you Alliance folks, our sister guild Obsidian Phoenix is also growing and is a military style light-medium RP guild who is focused on the whisperings of the coming Cataclysm, ignoring the petty squabbles between the Alliance and the Horde. Players who don’t roleplay are also welcome. And check out the cool website that I’m making for them.

If you’re interested or want to ask questions, just comment on this post or find me on any one of my characters on Wyrmrest (they are listed on My Characters page).

Edit: I forgot to mention that I managed to sell my Battered Hilt for a nice chunk of gold. Here’s to endless possibilities!