Pandaria awaits!

Hail and well met, gentle readers.
Our RL Avatars are all abuzz with the latest news - when the next Expansion Pack event comes along, we in Azeroth will be discovering Pandaria!

Well, not 'discovering', exactly.  The pandaren already live there and we know the place exists - after all, Chen Stormstout was a significant figure about ten years ago, some of us Hordies stumbled across his Lost Keg in the Barrens (except the Cataclysm seems to have swallowed it) and Chen has also mailed some of his monastic disciples around, to select adventurers.

Incidentally, I am always amazed by our Azerothian mail services.  Not only does the mail get delivered almost instantly, and not only can you access it from any mailbox you see, all sorts of incredibly bulky and alive things get mailed around all the time.  Such as small pandaren monastic disciples.  While I might be an illustrious grand master engineer, not even I know how it works.  Some sort of extremely advanced portal magic, combined with a level of engineering I don't comprehend yet, I presume.

But anyway, I digress.  We know Pandaria must exist - we've just never got around to finding it.  There's been far too many things to deal with.  Similarly, the pandaren themselves must have too many things of their own to deal with to come and find us, because we've seen almost none of them.  Except for Chen, of course.

Well I for one can't wait.  Finally, after all the warfare and dealing with big bads, we'll get to go exploring, on an amazing adventure of discovery!  Not to mention, I can't wait to see the Pandaren at Brewfest.  Apparently they have an amazing brewing tradition.

I just hope there aren't any further cataclysmic changes to my abilities and how I do things.  I still haven't got used to what happened to all my abilities the last time, around the time of the Shattering.

Icky undead bugs

I be in me 83rd season of adventure, but I not even be done with Northrend yet!  I's still be participating in dat Tournament.  Da Lich King, he might be dead and buried, but de Tourney is still goin'.  It be a fun way to unwind.

Northrend be mostly behind me now, which be right good coz I hopes never to see another icky undead bug again.  Undead be bad, bugs also be bad, and icky undead bugs?  Dey be just about de worst ting I can imagine.

It's been a while

Hail and well met, gentle readers.

So where have I been, and why haven't I posted much?  There's been a lack of interesting things to mention.

Though I guess there was that time when the Zandalari tribe of trolls, former allies, suddenly decided to unite all trolls in a bid to overthrow everybody else in the world.  They incited the Gurubashi and Amani, and a whole lot of people had to go into Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman and show them whatfor.

But not me.  The Darkspear trolls at the entrance took one look at me and my armor and told me I'd just get splatted if I tried to join in.

Then there were the druids of Hyjal taking the fight to Ragnaros in the Firelands... and the shocking and extremely thoroughly demoralising sight of a night elf going bugnuts insane (how surprising) and almost killing Hamuul Runetotem.  While I was watching and powerless to do anything.  I must say, I was glad when we finally went up against that elf and showed her whatfor.  I was quite uncharacteristically glad to see her die.

Sure, her life hadn't exactly been sunshine and roses, but if an escaped refugee, well known for being completely bugnuts insane, suddenly shows up looking all firey and demonic and talking about serving a higher power, couldn't she have been a little more suspicious?

I haven't done much since.  They need help almost constantly in the Firelands so sometimes I go along.  With Leyara finished, I can't get all that fired up about it, though.

In other news, another Brewfest has come and gone.  I'd tell you more about it but most of it was a drunken blur.  I realised a bit later on that I now have a small pony as a pet.  She carries some magically refilling beer kegs on her back.  I'm not quite sure how or when I acquired her - I only hope she was legally obtained - but I thoroughly approve of my drunken actions.

In this case.

Oh, and Annekah has reached her 83rd season of adventure.  Which meant going to Northrend.  And seeing "icky undead bugs."  The less said about that, the better,

Vashj'ir was a dreary place. Don't go there.

Alright, I must admit all the underwater scenery, now that I think about it, was absolutely gorgeous. Though most of the time I didn't pay attention to the scenery because I was too busy fighting naga and otherwise trying to help the survivors get out of the place.

Then things took a turn for the worse when eldritch abominations started showing up.

Then they took even more of a turn for the worse when I put a dead deep sea demon on my head. (After all, it was dead, right? What harm could it do?) Turns out it wasn't quite dead yet.

I have no pictures of that occasion because I was rather more concerned with getting the thing off my head, but it was certainly memorable!  For all the wrong reasons.

Later on I was asked to put another deep sea demon on my head as a disguise. I made absolutely sure it was dead first.

In my normal form, with my horns poking through its tentacles.

In sea lion form.  It looks like some sort of demented diving helmet.

In cat form, with my horns outside the tentacles this time.  Worked a lot better.

You will notice no pictures of me in bear form with that thing on my head.  I tried bear form but that thing was much too tight.  Besides, I don't really do bear form these days, unless I absolutely need it.  It doesn't really feel like I'm a kung-fu bear anymore.

I'm almost done with Vashj'ir.  Everyone that was stranded there has been rescued, except for one, a quite insane human down there, called Budd.  I think I accidentally stole his barrel of gunpowder.  (I needed it to start a fire, it was just there, and he was nowhere in sight.)  He didn't realise it had been stolen and asked me ages ago if I knew what had happened to it.  I think I might have to go back down to Vashj'ir and see what I can do for him.