My card, sir.

My colleague is a singer, and has a lovely voice. She is also a true nerd/geek/dork. Her daughter (age 11) has plans to marry Dr. Who.*I am not joking.** The point is, she bursts out in random songs, and one is from the television show "Have Gun, Will Travel," which goes something like this:

Ballad of Paladin

She was singing the first few bars today, and having one of our helpful hallway conversations, and I told her every time she pipes in with that theme, it reminds me of great paladins I have known, and how my current paladin, Luperci, is feeling a bit spooked right now. I am over the stink-eye shaman, but it made for a good laugh, because when I related my story of why poor Lupe is making so many rookie mistakes now, we thought of those people in our lives who do the same things to us. We know of one young man who told the nicest of people FU MISS ______ like he was saying "Howdy. Somewhat a common occurrence, though: call it an occupational hazard.

Which led us to this: What is you could create characters with amalgamations of people's names whom we love to hate? 

Charles Dickens was a master of this, as of course, Shakespeare. Naming characters as their natures is a great literary device that helps bring the character more to life. 

Think about this, and get back to me. For the young man who is the chaos creator, we decided he would be an orc warrior, stomping around, and be named "Mikillaria." Only funny if you know him. 

See? Once in a while I get to 'speak geek' with my colleagues. 

*The eleventh incarnation, not the old one.

**Her sweet little boy piped in, while she was singing this in the car, "Mommy, you know a paladin is a holy warrior." Yup, she knew.

Drabble for a tank: Ozruk

Ozruk. Head-on. Fear folded, tucked away.

“Ready?”

The gang of four standing at her side had no idea how loaded that question was. Cutting into his craggy midsection, his breath smelling of putrid talcum, like a damp baby. Hammer cracked rocks. Matty’s elements were weak. It takes too long to cut a rock with water.

Hooves, sliding, digging in, retrenching. The warlock decimated the obsidian pustules of his scaly, soulless shell. The healer kept her heart beating. The others: abandoned. Not very champion like.

“I may never be as beautiful, or as silvery-tongued as she.”

“But I brought him down.”

Luperci's first encounter sparring with Ozruk.

Inside Joke.

"Gratz, Toilet!"



Best line, ever:
"Everytime you kill Ingvar the Plunderer, a Toilet gets his wings..."




Theme songs:
Harvey Danger: Flagpole Sitta
"I'm not sick, but I'm not well.."

Rolfe Kent/Desert Ride/Men Who Stare at Goats

Postscript: I would love to continue this journey of leveling with you, but I know schedules and life may demand otherwise. If I could have materialized chicken soup, hot compresses, juice, and tea you know I would have. But damn, you are funny when you're all hopped up on cold meds. I am not interested in leveling Lupe fast, or on her own; I learned more about tanking in those dungeon runs with you than any other resource. Healer, heal thyself - get well soon, and let's see if we can get our own 'gratz toilets.'


...and: the true heroic gratz to you for being the hero to the one who needed a printer cartridge when you were in that condition. Truly a champion, my friend.

Message received.

Curse you Oceanic time zones, always being a day ahead and garnering the sun's love before the rest of the world. Even though the Dutch and a hefty chunk of Captain James Cook are responsible, I blame Queen Victoria, with her sun-never-setting-on-the-British Empire form of manifest destiny. It is because of her that I am suffering from sleep deprivation this morning. In other words, English is spoken in many other time zones than England. Which means, when I put out the call to English-speaking friends around the world, it may not be on my padded, wimpy schedule. And if Greenwich Mean Time wasn't enough to spring a cog in my clock, to make matters worse, it is a rainy, sleepy morning here in the great northwest: the sun doesn't show much love to us here regardless of time zones. Azeroth does not recognize circadian rhythms as scientific fact. However--when I put the call to adventure out there, I won't grouse when it is answered on someone else's punchcard. Especially when considering the advice and guidance I received are invaluable.

(I am a blathering idiot in any language this morning, and my coffee is getting cold...)

My friend: I did take notes. Everything you shared makes a lot of sense. I will practice. I will stand strong. Be confident. Your lessons will aid me whether or not we will meet again soon.

Luperci practices her listening skills...

Like any role we play or job we take on, there are two layers: the physical and psychological. The physical, or the actual mental and kinetic skills are one area: this takes practice, training, and education. The psychological: guess that just depends on our mood, or who we are at our core.

Ironically, during a training dungeon run, encountered a shaman, an enhancement shaman no less, named Diiva, who was less than ladylike (but was very diva-like, so Dickensian named). Scoping her out on the armory, I see since a few hours ago she has even gone up a few levels, and she was already a few levels above Luperci. She had a few things to say. But what she didn't know is that Luperci has turtle wax on her shoulders, so a lot of trash is going to roll right off. It has to as a tank. Diiva, and others like this character, should be proud of their ability to have amazing DPS, but not proud of it when it comes at the expense of the group, its safety, and success. If you're pulling aggro and killing un-targeted mobs to get your Recount score higher, okay. Fine. But you can't put that on a resume.

However, DPS ducklings: I swear, if you make it tough on my healer, ever--we're going to have a one-sided chat. I'll be right, and you'll be wrong. I can be pretty damn concrete when I need to be. (I'll leave the abstract-random nonsense to Matty.) But warriors, death knights, and shamans: understand this: My kindness is my strength. My compassion is my armor. And at my core, I can be a great defender. Queen Victoria and I have a bit in common perhaps.

Theme song: Two Against One/Danger Mouse

Undelivered letter.

In an unlit corner of a cobwebbed closet, a letter went undelivered, unread, and unloved. It gained its power by it's not being received more so than if it had. Both parties assumed the worst: each thought that the other was ignoring or, worse, abandoning the other. The insecurity that rattled their rib bones, hardly protecting their hearts, gave clearance to these notions, instead of just assuming the most logical, and true explanation: that there was good reason and cause for not hearing from each other. Indeed, if they had known, they thought of each other often, and with loyalty and friendship.

Fortuna is a slippery girl, and quite careless, and she is the one who slid the scroll off the stack and blew it into the space, lost, as if down a mine shaft with a dead canary. No one sang of its presence, or sounded the alarm when the letter was lost. (An echo of a giggling goblin could be heard, though, if you listened carefully..)

The letter said:

My dearest friend and champion, 

I fully understand your duties lie elsewhere, and your loyalties are true and sure, but I must urge you to please send word of your health and happiness to me if you can. Our mutual friend, the little gnome, is wasting away; she won't eat, or drink, and her water minion has grown moldy and mildewy. She has gone into seclusion, and only her death knight serves her now. She is not healthy. I am faring much better--my weapons are sharp, my armor is bright, but my heart is conflicted. I miss your presence, but do understand that, however selfish it is of me, that you must serve others, and seek more golden, fortunate boons than what is offered here. There are greater rewards in other worlds, or at least I've been told. Some news that may interest you: my sister Luperci has reached a substantial level of training, and seeks one of your acquaintances in the healing arts. Perhaps you know of a priest who would enlighten her path? She still struggles with holding the monsters close to her, but indeed, is coming along. Her success depends upon the aid of a skilled healer: she is humbled by this. (And we both know the necessary arrogance of paladins: it is their survival and their fatal flaw.)

Please send word -- your friend, M

Instead of doing the logical thing, which would have been simply to send a second letter, just to make sure, she waited foolishly. She imagined he had been cannibalized by trolls. Or skewered by murlocs. Or ripped by talons of basilisks. These were her nightmarish worries. But then, she remembered that nothing got past him, nothing hurt him, and she took a deep breath, and reassured herself. All would be well. Or it would not. Or it would.

But those are the swirly-thoughts and spinning, ever-collapsing-on-itself conclusion: when there is no word, our minds fill the void for us. Nature, and hearts, abhor a vacuum.

Lupe has a few drinks after a bad dungeon run...Sorely kept buying rounds...

 Postscript: Luperci is Level 70. There is a wide swing between dungeon groups: there are those who allow her to set the pace, and those who don't. It has been a very different experience being on this side of the shield to say the least.