An Idiot's Update

So, being an idiot I left one of my power cables at home when I moved to my university accommodation this weekend just gone. Being a complete and utter idiot, I didn't leave a less important cable like my DSi charger, I left the one for my monitor. As such, I can't do the post I intended on writing because my backup option (my laptop with my PC's power cable plugged into the monitor) is an ancient piece of crud. Hoorah. In its place I guess I'll give a brief update on me, because what is a blog if not a place to be egocentric?

For me, 3.2 made early group finding into a mixed basket of hate, pity, vague hope and almost painful concentration. That is to say, some group members hated me for my comparatively tiny health pool; others recognised that gearing up a new tank has to start somewhere and were sickeningly sweet; more still saw me tanking well in sub-par equipment and added me to their friends list on the off chance that I might become useful; and I made use of every single tanking trick I know of in a desperate attempt not to die or let die. It was almost painful because I kept catching myself forgetting to blink.

Nevertheless, after an initially poor start (my first heroic was the Culling of Stratholme, in which the kitty druid took one look at my 21k health, scoffed and said "I'll tank", leaving me to put out a piddling 900DPS and acquire a painful headache) I have to say that every heroic has been an enjoyable experience. Once every group was in the instance and moving through trash at a reasonable rate they became much less critical of my tempered saronite and distinct lack of anything purple; in fact, I made a lot of friends with whom I'm still asked to instance fairly frequently. I've learned a lot and I'm eager to post in-depth about it here.

The other day, however, I found myself in my first ever VoA group. Thankfully, Moonglade's Horde population is small enough that no one insisted I have all the achievements that could possibly be linked to VoA success (unlike on Alliance side, where my priest was asked to provide Koralon 10 and 25 achievements, Epic and Got My Mind On My Money - apparently to prove that I at least had the money for enchantments at one point in time). Instead the group leader just wandered up to me in Dalaran, inspected my gear and gave me the thumbs up.

The other tank was a warrior. A much better geared warrior, in fact, sporting some awesome looking Ulduar25 loot. He was immediately awarded the post of main tank, which was something of a relief to me. The relief, sadly, did not last. The run went badly. Though we downed Koralon eventually it took a good five wipes to do so, after which the instance locked us out as no one had really been paying attention to the Wintergrasp timer. It shook my faith in my ability somewhat, to the point at which I made a post to WoW_Ladies hoping for some advice. And you know what? According to them (and hindsight) it was almost entirely the other tank's fault, not mine as I had initially expected. His threat was low, his kiting was poor, he was incredibly slow to taunt (to the point at which I found myself main tanking on a few occasions because otherwise DPS would have died horribly). Not just that, but he had an atrocious attitude. Although he barely spoke in raid chat, every time he did it was to insult someone.

I don't really understand why people act that way. My being terrified and his being terrifyingly unapproachable meant that we didn't swap notes much - I asked him once who his Vigilance target was and received no reply - and I believe that added to the number of wipes. It makes me wonder how many failures his attitude had caused in the past and whether he had even stopped to consider it. Probably not.

Later, of course, I checked Recount's breakdown of our healer's performances and noticed that the disc priest had been spamming Greater Heal on raid members, without touching Penance once. I wonder if he ever stopped to consider what he was doing wrong.

...Definitely not.

RP: Aelystriel and Jekavo

We will take the keep. Certainty is best, so we will take the keep. Speedy, crouched bodies slung low to the ground, we slither and hurry down the slope, down the muddy, slick, treacherous path of old, rotting planks dug deep into the earth: poor purchase, like cracks in ice. We do not fall; we are stealthy as cats, as hunters. We are silent. In my mind's eye we are silent, like rolling shadows surging soundless through the sleet, though rotting ears make out the steely clink of chain against the velvet hiss of winter wetness, of clicking bone and crackling tendon.

My rot. My bones and joints laid bare. My senses weak, watery like the air; crack of lightning barely noticed, so short and sharp and easily missed when truth seeps in past the eyeballs like the last stale remnants of a soon-forgotten dream. My mind's eye so sharp it cuts reality as I wish. Whether I wish. Regardless.

We reach the village and surge through the alleyway; his cloak snaps and twists like a threadbare flag, black wings from his shoulders, leather sails slapping the long curved planks of the enemy's wall. His mouth opens and words slip through the slat in the chiselled dome of his helm. Stop. Wait. Watch. Little point in explaining to him the futility of sight; little point in doing anything but what he says.

The sleet pounds down and the liquid in my head swirls like water in a bowl. My back against his side, my neck craning, my dumb eyes peering through the night, I look out at homes and workshops, stood in rows like gravestones, their peaked roofs stretched tall and sharp like the spires of towering cathedrals. Mausoleums. Unarmed men and women and children curled up asleep within, perfect to ambush, perfect to kill.

Redemption so far off now. Soul held far from the light, caged behind black protruding ribs like prison bars. Blood runs in my mind's eye, seeps through bedsheets from tears in flesh and wells and rolls on dusty wooden floors, through gaps 'tween boards and down to crushed earth. Colour and taste elude me, but my toes tingle in my boots. Blood rippling up against my feet: it gives a hollow, dying howl and grasps weakly at my ankles; it gasps and chokes; it begs. I smile with lifeless lips.

He jerks my elbow, scowls, blue eyes flashing with lightning or anger, hard to be sure, but he doubtless saw my glee and knows just what thought I relish. The drawing down of dark, rain-slicked brows, the tightness in his neck beneath his mail, the disgust in his voice. For god's sake, come. He knows and he hates and we run together like ink once again through puddles across the square, around a dead and blackened pyre, over a wooden bridge that shifts the pounding of our feet into the pounding of fists on doors: let us in, our advance must not falter, your gates shall soon fall.

Hiding, now, in a shallow alcove in stone walls, the leering mask of Utgarde rearing high overhead, towers invisible in the darkness past the guttering torchlight from a bracket not far from us, we hunker down. A guard patrols nearby, his hefty vyrkul face turned mask by the black shadows carving out his eyes and sunken cheeks. We do not fear him, though I imagine his harsh breath steaming through cold air right past our very throats. He is so close and yet so blind, too focused to see the foe crouched right under his nose in bright firelight.

The torches move in the distance and the guard cares only for them, and the guard's peers care only for them as they charge past us to the thundering bellow of the keep's great horn. Still, silent, splattered with the mud from their massive clunking greaves, not needing even to breathe, only to watch and wait and win, we see Ymiron's army pass us by in angry, somnolent single-mindedness. They go to kill our allies. They go to cost the Horde fifty excellent men.

We wait for them, then slip around the corner and through the arched gateway, into the vast, empty hallways beyond. We move, undetected, into the enemy's precious bastion with steel and apathy and hate and gunpowder. We advance upon the king himself and I think of blood and destruction and anything beyond my own rotting self with the bubbling glee of enforced ignorance. I think of what I can do, of what I will do.

We will take the keep.

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Written and posted at one in the morning, this entry isn't quite what I wanted. I shall probably edit it in future so that it isn't quite so... pretentious. Eheh.