Archive for the ‘Travels’ Category
The Great Tickbird Caper II: Land of the Sauced
“Alright, tell me about the ‘kittens’.”
“Stop making air-quotes with your fingers,” said Tankspin. The goblin was looking nervously around the bar, where the three of us sat in cool shadow, out of the blast furnace of Gadgetzan’s central ring road. He’d ordered for the three of us, sizzling turtle-steaks cooked troll-style in fireweed curry. Desert goblins first tried to import familiar food from the east, but soon turned their genius for jury-rigging to the possibilities of desert cuisine. The hot, greasy food helps cool you off, while also increasing thirst, thus ensuring nicely-padded bar bills for the establishment. The local trick is to soak up the spicy sludge with hunks of Narisloaf, a kind of local bread that uses a ton of olive oil to thin out the millet flour – no grains in the desert, see, but the olives will grow near the salty flats by the ocean.
“Sorry, the kittens. What’s the deal?” I asked. Next to me, Crosseye the Tauren was picking miserably at his food. He was another brother with an unfortunate name; apparently when he was being born the lads had seen some poor dumb wolf, caught up in the chase, plough straight into a tree. This was the funniest thing that had happened all year in his village (Mulgore is close to heaven but there isn’t much going on), so he got saddled with the memorable moniker of “Crosseyed Wolf Ironhoof”. Not terribly bright and (unsurprisingly) given to melancholy, Crosseye seemed to be on a perpetual, self-imposed wandering exile, and was following Tankspin around for lack of any other destination.
“People come to Gadgetzan – all kinds of people – to escape the restrictions placed upon business by irrational nationalism, friend,” he explained. “Horde, Alliance – that doesn’t matter here. Only the colour of your coin. Tanaris is a gold-coloured land, and we are its priests! Gadgetzan is its temple!” He was waving his arms around expansively, while somehow ingesting, at the same time, a continuous stream of turtle curry and narisloaf.
Gadgetzan: The Great Tickbird Caper
Old Tauren joke:
“How can you tell if a goblin is trying to rip you off?”
“His lips are moving.”
—
If you’re following the same route south that I did, you might be feeling a little worried about the contents of your waterskin and ration pack at this point. Shimmering Flats and the Mirage raceway are a good place to let go of your worldly goods, intentionally or otherwise, and a bad place to acquire new ones. The Elders teach that each part of the Earth Mother’s body teaches us something about her; in Southern Kalimdor, you see her discpline. Mother made the desert, they say, to test the people’s devotion to the old ways.
But screw that, the goblins built a great big town on it and stuffed it full of goodies, so let’s get a room at the inn and sleep inside for a change.
It’s a Filky Business, Spruce
Shots of yours truly, on stage at the Spruce Winterspringsteen protest concert, in Freewind Post!
We were chiefs of the valley, out in Alterac
The dwarves come chargin’ up the hill, and we roared and sent them back.
Now there’s so much that grind and pick-up dungeons fade away
We got our own epic mounts to ride, and not so much time to play.
We stood side by side each one fightin’ for the other
We said until we unsubscribed we’d always be Horde brothers.
Dissertation Panic
Hallo, fellow travellers,
I have a stack of spasmographs and notes waiting for publication, but they will not be seeing the light of day for about another week, as my publisher has gone mad about finishing a chaper of his dissertation at the University of Silvermoon on the varying nutritional qualities of different types of dandelion or some elvish bullshit like that.
We will speak again soon!
Ten Thunders.
The Flats Diary
The Silverleaf 400 is the biggest racing event in Azeroth and frankly they don’t have anything like it on Draenor either. You can hear it a day before you see it. It echoes off the titanic walls of the Shimmering Basin and blows up so much glittering silt you can’t see anything in front of your face. Half an hour ploughing across the flats towards the race, you and your mount are the same colour and texture, packed with silty mud from head to toe, blind, thirsty, and cranky.
If you think that’s bad just imagine stumbling onto the raceway by mistake during one of the heats. Cursing and swearing about the dust and trying not to step on any scorpions, and then all of a sudden there’s a vortex of clear, hot air that spins you into daylight, which would seem like a blessing from the ancestors except oh shit it’s boiling off the front of a goblin rocket, it’s a sperm-shaped pocket of terrified wind trying to get the hell away from this piece of moving death – it’s so close on top of you you can see the driver trying to put out the fires that are all over the cockpit… good luck having any time to steer — no time, you dive to the ground and hope your mount has the sense to run
Tip Your Enchanter and Try the Veal
Pretty much every morning – or afternoon – I woke up in Freewind, there was a brass band playing behind my eyes and a game of orcish canasta winding down in my mouth. So I didn’t immediately associate all the ruckus I heard outside the tent with anything other than all the wine I’d drunk last night.
Turns out, though, that it was some kind of protest. Or, like a preliminary protest. A pretest.
Anyway, there was a milling crowd of slightly reedy, bookish types, some with kids on their shoulders and others with placards in hand, trying to get themselves organized for a march north across the Barrens towards a populated area and thus someone who might give a darn. Mingled among them were sturdier orcish types who I recognized as tradesorcs from the Pork Farmer’s Union in Orgrimmar, and at the head of the crowd was a guitar-wielding fellow in overalls.
“Who’s that?” I asked Manny Umpo, a troll drummer who was leaning against the tent post nearby and cleaning his teeth. While all this was going on, I realized my braids had collected an astonishing collection of cling-ons during the previous night’s festivities – bay leaves, clods of wax, bits of fruit, and – oh, ancestors, is this an eyeball? whose was it? euuugghhhh.
“’dat be Spruce,” said Manny. “He sum bigtime shouter from Durotar.”
“Spruce?”
“Ya, Spruce Winterspringsteen.”
Free your Wind and your Ass will Follow
Many people come to Freewind Post to find themselves. I don’t know why it takes them so long, it’s not very big.
It is, however, the site of the world-reknowned Free Wind Music Festival, and for a while after the Truce of Hyjal it was a little like New Dalaran is nowadays, but more affordable and much further from any swarms of undead. Freewind started out as a war camp against the centaur, then became a shaman’s meditative retreat, then during the lead-up to the end of the Legion War it was a rear assembly point for Horde supply trains. It was this period where they put in all the manitcore nests and navigated the flight routes from the Needles north to Durotar and the Barrens.
Grumpycloud Pinnacle, continued
Well, I know y’all have been waiting on me real patient-like, so I’m a might more embarrassed than usual that the sorry tale to follow is shorter than you deserve, and not terribly useful in terms of travel advice.
In a few short days we’ll be coming out with our Freewind Post edition, and I expect our journey together will get back on track, figuratively if not literally speaking.
Actually, there is a piece of practical advice in here, maybe two. One, just leave your childhood alone, let sleeping bullies lie, don’t try to change the past. Your time is much better spent fishing, napping and rambling than plotting elaborate revenge. Yes, Ms. Forsaken, I’m talking to you.
Take care, now.
Tenny
We shall hit the trail again
Well howdy there folks, It’s been a bit of a rough week chronicling-wise. I’ve been laid low by some varmint of a disease, which diminishes my enthusiasm for writing something significant. In addition my publisher has been distracted by something about massive effects. I think he has a new girlfriend or something. I’ll be filling […]