“She’s in a better place now.”

How do you know?  We don’t know what lies beyond after death.  Various religious beliefs say that there is heaven, that there is no heaven, that there is hell, that there is no hell, that we get reincarnated,  that we just vanish…etc etc…And what is so wrong with where she was?  Saying that “she’s in a better place now” makes it sound like being here on this earth with me was not great.  Yes, she was sick, but before she was sick,  was her being with me worse than dying?

“At least she went in peace.”

Again, how do we know?  She was asleep, so we don’t know what was going on in her dreams.  Do we know for a fact that her dreams were peaceful as she died?  Did she dream when she died?

“I know how you feel.”

Do you now?  Do you really know how I feel inside? Did you watch your spouse of 15 years deteriorate slowly, living a miserable existence until they died as a nearly empty husk for a body?  If not,  don’t tell me you know how I feel.  If you have, I can believe it.

Ok, rant over.  Look, I’m not trying to say that I’m not grateful for the sympathy I’ve gotten from people since she passed away.  I am very grateful I have friends who care.  It’s just that those things we seem to automatically tell people have got me thinking about the meanings behind them.

Anyway,  still no luck finding work, and bills are starting to pile.  Social Security is now asking me to pay back the payment she got from them at the beginning of September, even though she died at the end of the month.  Like earlier this month,  I’m still asking for anyone who can help to please do so.  Click on the yellow PayPal button on the front page if you would please.  $5, $10, $25…anything you are willing to help with would be most appreciated.

/logout

I’m sad to say that 2 weeks ago on September 20th, she passed away from her brain degeneration disease. It’s been hard to be without her, but I’m trying to get used to the idea of her gone. She died way too young.

Unfortunately, now the hard part comes. Since I was taking care of her 24/7, I have no job now, which means no income. I’ve been trying like hell to find work, but it’s been scarce around here. On top of that, I have to come up with $1235 for her cremation, money which I don’t have.

So I’m swallowing my pride, and asking for anyone to help with donations. There’s a paypal donation button on the side there. If anyone can help, I will be greatly appreciative.

/logout

The stench in these caverns is strong.  It reminds me of something.  The smell of sulfur and brimstone invade my nostrils, burning my lungs with every breath. I stop to rest for a moment, breathing heavily.  Each step I take is more difficult than the last, but I must press on.  I must find out where the sounds are coming from.  Echoing through the caverns I hear the sound of hammers on metal, pounding furiously, followed by growling, like the sound of a dragon.  ”A dragon in here?” I think to myself. “Impossible.”  But I can’t deny the unmistakable sounds.  I move cautiously, as the light is growing as I get closer to the exit of the tunnel.  I see a bright orange glow at the end.   I finally make it to the end.  The tunnel opens to the mouth of a huge cavern.  Gigantic mallets on chains are swinging down, striking metal plates of some sort, glowing from the intense heat.  I squint my eyes as they adjust.

A giant creature…A dragon!  It turns to me, looking me in the eyes…  I hear it begin to speak

Pain…

Agony…

I sit up with a start, gasping for breath.  ”DEATHWING!”  I shout, startling the bluff watcher nearby.  He runs back to me.  ”What did you say?” he asks.

“Nothing, it was just a dream”  I tell him.   He nods and continues his patrol.

Calming down from the dream,  I slowly get up, stretching for a moment.  I must tell the Archdruid, Hamuul Runetotem, about the dream.  Quickly I walk around the corner to his tent, where he is surrounded by the druid trainers.  They are all standing close to him, fidgeting nervously.

“Archdruid Runetotem”  I say quickly as I approach him.  ”I must talk to you.  I had…I had a disturbing dream.”   The other druid trainers look at me, scowling as if I was intruding.  ”I apologize if I am interrupting, but it is important.”  I say to him.

He holds up a hand, as if to dismiss my apology.  ”It is alright young one.  You are Spiritfire, are you not?”

“Yes, Archdruid.  Please, I must talk to you.  I had a dream about Deathwing.”  A collective of gasps and mumbling come from the trainers.  Hamuul nods his head.  ”You too, young one?”  He turns to the trainers. “It seems you aren’t the only one.” he says to them.

The ground shakes again, stronger than ever.  This quake is the worst so far.  We run outside of the tent to see what is happening.  Off to the north, we see the ground rise, moving.  The skies grow dark and fill with smoke.  Suddenly a sound fills the air, a screech of terror like nothing I have ever heard before.

“Over there!” someone shouts and points.  Through the smoke, a fire burns, and then he comes through…Deathwing.  He lays waste to everything in his path.

The smoke is thick.  It becomes difficult to breathe.  I see fellow Tauren collapsing to the ground, passing out from the lack of air.  The shamans in our tribe work furiously to ask the wind to push away the smoke.  It is a struggle as the elements were afraid of what is happening.  The druids including myself do what we can to ask nature to shield us from the smoke, trying to heal the land.  Once  the smoke is under control, the few shaman and druids that are free start to heal our fallen brethren.

Deathwing has moved on to other parts of the land.  I want to go help the others outside of Mulgore, but Hamuul stops me.  ”We are needed here, young one.  We need to take care of our own first.  We will help the others when we can.”  I nod, and continue to work.

To be continued…

It was late and I could not sleep. Visions of a catastrophic event have been haunting me. The elemental invasions are getting more frequent each day. Something is coming, I can feel it. Something told me that I should go out and see places before things change forever. It didn’t feel right going out in my battle armor, so I put on some simple leather clothing. It felt good to be in clothing like that again, remembering simple times, being close to the Earthmother. I admit, with the events of the late, battling the Lich King, I haven’t talked to the Earthmother in quite some time, nor have I connected to nature as much as I should. As a druid, I should be spending more time healing the lands. Yet, something feels uneasy. The land shakes and screams out in pain. I can hear it. It’s unsettling. Shaking the thoughts out of my head, I put on my favorite hat and headed out from Thunder Bluff on my kodo and made my first stop in Camp Taurajo.

Sitting in Camp T.

It has been a while since I visited this place.  It’s quite peaceful here, far from the Alliance.  I remember the day when I as a young druid set out from Mulgore for the first time and headed here.  I was in training to learn how to shift into bear form.  The first time I stepped hoof out here, I was wide eyed, and not paying attention.  I walked right into a stormhide and almost got myself killed.  I never ran so fast in my young life, and that was before I learned how to turn into a cheetah!   Something tells me I’m going to miss this place.  I don’t know why, but I have a foreboding feeling that this place is going to be overrun by Alliance soon.

Next, I headed south to Thousand Needles and made a stop at Freewind Post.   I spent a little time at the bonfire before taking a long look over the valley from up here.  It is quite an impressive sight.

Freewind Post bonfire

Overlooking Thousand Needles

From here, I made a stop through Shimmering Flats to take a look at the raceway.   I remember watching many a race here, tossing back a few cold ales while watching the goblins and gnomes race it out.

Mirage Raceway

I had to  take one last look at Daisy, the race girl. I wonder what will become of her?

Daisy

Next stop was Tanaris, and my old favorite fishing spot:  the docks at Steamwheedle Port.  As a young tauren, I spent many hours fishing on these docks, long before the dark portal to Outlands was reopened, and way before the Lich King made his presence known again.  Those were simple times.  How I miss them. It’s been ages since I spent any quality time here.  Perhaps I will have to make stop here later this week and relax, forget that the world is falling apart around me, and just enjoy fishing at this spot.

Steamwheedle Port. My favorite fishing spot

Next I made a stop at Orgrimmar, and landed to see the city burning again.  Sigh.  Another elemental invasion.  When will they stop?  What is causing this?

Orgrimmar in flames

I had planned to go explore further tonight, but I finally started to get sleepy and decided to make my way back home to my little hut in Thunder Bluff on Elder Rise.

Sleeping

As I laid my weary body down on the rug,  a bluff watcher passed by, asking me “Are you ok, Spirit?”  I just nodded and gave a weak smile, answering “Yes, I am fine, thank you, friend.”

But am I really?  I can’t shake these feelings of dread, of what is to come.  I thank the Earthmother that my mate, Amaya, passed on many seasons ago.  She was a druid as well.   I wouldn’t want her to go through what I am going through right now.  Our land is trembling, crumbling.  I feel every plant and animal crying out in fear at what is happening around us.

Closing my eyes I wondered, what will I wake up to in the morning?  What is to become of our world?

I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.

Overall though it was enjoyable. We saw a lot of good costumes, which I got pictures and put on my facebook and will also be posting here and on the guild website soon. One highlight of the day was a chance meeting with Oxhorn (Brandon Dennis) of Wegame.com who does a lot of very cool machinima. We were walking back into the building and he was coming out, as we almost bumped into each other, and I recognized him immediately.

The costume contest was cool, and the dance contest was great. I’ll post more detailed information about that later. Tonight, I’m tired, just had some dinner, and a few drinks, and am ready for bed.

/logout

Tonight I got to meet Cadistra of my favorite WoW comic, WoW, Eh?. She’s really sweet and even nicer in real life. I even got druid hugs! Yay!

Well, that’s enough for tonight, getting a nice buzz going and gonna log into WoW.

/logout

We all said we wouldn’t yell and scream when we did it, but, yeah, we all yelled, cheered, screamed, etc.  It was worth it.

Big thanks to Theshat for finding a new strat that helped us a lot in phase one, that pushed us into phase two with no trash and the raging spirit down to next to nothing.

And of course, here is the obligatory screenshot of the guild after downing him, and the achievement screenie too.

Of course, now the real work begins…Heroic 10m ICC!

/logout

Saturday, being that our The Lich King fight didn’t go so well, Theshat and I  found ourselves in a [For The Horde!] run.  It was a lot of fun going from Alliance city to city and killing their leaders.  Of course, it didn’t hurt that we both got our [Black War Bear]s.    

Sunday, we also finally managed to get our [Glory of the Hero] achievement completed.  The one that has been our bane for some time now was [Less-rabi].  It took us two tries, but we got him on the second try.  The reward for that final meta-achievement was [Red Proto-Drake].

Our guild is growing, getting a good family feel again like it was once before.  I have great expectations for There was a problem. You're most likely blocked by the armory..

Not much else to say tonight, so I’ll close with

/logout

So, after putting it to a vote to either start fresh next week or extend the lockout so we can take on The Lich King, the vote was unanimous.  This is what we’ve been working hard for, and now it’s within our grasp.  Just for shits and giggles we started the event to take him on with very little preparation.  Some of us have watched the videos once or twice and skimmed over the fight, but for the most part, we were winging it.  We actually took him down to almost phase two before we all wiped.  I’d say that’s not bad for not knowing what we were doing.

Next friday, we take him on.  We are all spending the week studying the fights in and out, reading the strategy guides, watching the videos over and over, until we have it memorized.

Spiritfire, The Kingslayer.  Has a nice ring to it.

Wish us luck!

/logout

We were somewhat surprised with the pvp element for the meta, [School of Hard Knocks].  What we thought would be the most difficult part turned out to be the easiest.  In Warsong Gulch , the alliance came into our flag room, picked it up, and them dropped it for us many times over.  We did have to yell at a one or two idiots who took that as a sign to try to kill the alliance rather than let them be, since they were trying to help us, and we were returning the favor for them.  In Alterac Valley and Arathi Basin , it was the same.  The only hard one was Eye of the Storm .  There, the Alliance were zerging the flag, making it hard for us to get our achievements done.  Ultimately though, we did it, and are happy.

We still would like to get the Dalaran Orphan quests done, but are still bugged.  We did them when they put them out in 3.2, but since they still haven’t been reset, we can’t do the other ones.  Here’s hoping they fix them.

There’s more to talk about, raiding and such, but I’ll save that for another post.

/logout