Thursday, July 16, 2015

[WoW Fanfiction] Tanla in Paradise.



Tanla Crystalsong was in paradise. Or about as close you could get to in Azeroth. She was lying on a hammock, that was gently swaying in the breeze, she had sunglasses, she had a nice swimsuit, her drink was fruity and alcoholic, and best of all the air was warm and the sun was shining.

It was a goblin run resort, which basically meant if you had money, you could stay. They were very subservient to good tippers. Thanks to her own efforts and her ex-probably-dead-husband, she had money galore. She could pretty much spend the rest of her life on this island in the south seas. She had her own house-hut, comfortable enough even if it wasn't her tower. The goblins didn't mind if her experiments occasionally exploded as long as she paid for any damage done. One goblin had even come to take notes about one spectacular mishap, hoping to replicate it for some bizarre invention.

"Excuse me, madam." One of the goblin servers said after a polite cough.

Tanla opened her eyes and turned to look at him. He didn't have his usual tray. "Yes Kainkle?" It was important to learn the lackey's names, that with gold insured excellent service.

"We have a slight problem that we hopin' a mage of your calibre could possibly help us with?" He looked nervous. It was never a good thing when a goblin looked nervous; massive explosions, chaos and destruction generally rained down shortly there after.

"It's possible." Tanla replied, sitting up. She finished off her drink with a large swig and swung around so she was sitting on the hammock, feet on the ground.

"Wonderful! You see, we're havin' a slight problem with a sea giant."

"A sea giant?" Tanla echoed. It was a long way from home.

"Yes, apparently a neighbouring resort decided to send us a present. Very nice of 'em and all, but he's demolished the steam rooms and is heading towards the stables, we were hopin' for some help from you. In exchange, we could offer you a complimentary stay for say .. a week?" He winced at the word complimentary. Must be bleeding the little guy to give anything away.

"While normally I'd argue for a month's free stay, you guys have been really good to me and treated me like a princess. The least I can do is take care of a sea giant for you!" Tanla got off the hammock, grabbed a small pack, and started towards the stables. "I cleared a few of those out of Booty Bay."

"Er, would you like your robes, madam?" Kainkle asked, scurrying to catch up with her.

"Nah. Won't need 'em."  She did, however, reach into her pack and pull out her staff. It gleamed in the sunlight, seeming eager for battle.

Kainkle looked at her dumbfounded at her pulling a very large staff out of a rather small pack.

"Magic." Tanla told him with a wink.

"Yes, madam." He managed.

Tanla strode north-east until she could hear the sounds of destruction. Horses and other creatures were making a racket, the sea giant was roaring, the goblins were firing guns and throwing dynamite, it sounded like chaos complete. Tanla almost missed the challenge of battle; almost.

Coming into sight of the monstrosity, she looked up. "Well." she managed. It was a very large giant and it was wearing dwarven made armour. It's club looked like it had been made out of ironwood and then runed into the next life. It didn't look like there was a single piece of its surface that was uncovered.   Her bartender was, at the moment, loading a rocket launcher. She supposed she better help rather than open a portal to Silvermoon and go shopping.

"Oi! Ugly!" She shouted.

The giant ignored her.

"Oh, that's it." She summoned arcane energy and hurled it at the giant's head. "HEY! YOU!"

The giant roared as the energy knocked him off balance. He turned to look down at the mage in a bathing suit and wearing sunglasses. He leaned down and roared at her.

The reward for his roar was a blast of magic right down is throat.

The giant made a most interesting noise and wavered around, holding his throat and almost crying.

"Are we killing or capturing, Kainkle?" She asked the server. He wasn't quite hiding behind her, curled up in a ball.

"Uh.. We don't have nowhere to keep it." Kainkle managed. Apparently stress was removing his normal snotty server speak and sending him back to goblin.

"Death it is." She said with a happy smile. She'd have chosen cake.

The giant was still being peppered with bullets when a huge rocket his knee. The giant roared again and started hopping around. Tanla fired several bolts of arcane energy at him, causing him to get even more off balance, and he crashed over. Unfortunately, he landed on the stables. It didn't look like any of the creatures housed there were squished. Hopefully they'd all escaped.

The giant was thrashing around as goblins with pitchforks, spears and shovels were starting in. "One moment!" Tanla called, gathering energy from the ether. She was gathering a lot. Almost near her full capacity of control. She then released it, sending it hurling towards the giant in two massive bursts, both sending him up into the sky, to land again with sick thuds, energy buzzing and snapping all around the now rather fried, and quite dead, giant.

The goblins all turned to stare at her.

"Well, I didn't want anyone getting hurt." It might inconvenience her. She was booked for a massage later, after all.

The goblins thanked her profuseley, some of them might even be sincere, but she managed to weedle two weeks free out of them. Tips not included, of course.

Tanla waved to the resort staff who were now trying to figure out what to do with a very dead giant. They'd probably smelt the armour, cut the giant up to bits to sell said bits, and claim the weapon was some ancient artifact and charge people to view it. The little green guys were creative that way.

A short walk and she was back in her hammock, enjoying the breeze and wondering how long it'd take before Kainkle came by with something alcoholic and fruity.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

[WoW Fanfiction] Kittens are friends, not food. (With apologies to Kavo)

(Guest Appearance by Kavo

So there I was, walkin' through Orgrimmar, not a care in the world, when my stupid imp decided that a kitten would make a nice snack. Now, most people's imps liked snakes, snails and rats. Not mine, oh no. He had to snack on cute furry things, like bunnies and kittens and puppies. He said it was more evil, taste was irrelevant. Now, I don't let him eat those things, especially the bunnies 'cause they tend to be packin' heat. Gartbug wasn't even particularly bright for an imp. He didn't just decide to grab a kitten, he had to grab a high druid's kitten. Hasn't he seen the horns on a Tauren? They stomp lil'gals like me for breakfast! Well, maybe not breakfast 'cause they're grassatarians, but they still stomp!

So I go to grab the imp, and stupidhead goes and jumps out of the way cackling. Oh, I get it, he's not actually hungry, he's just tryin' my patience. You'd think the burp-stench would know by know that I don't have any patience! Especially not for lower-than-slug-slime imps!
Every time he goes and tries something like this, it makes me look bad to the other warlocks. Oh, just light him on fire, they'd say. Just shove him in a box and gas 'em, they'd say. It doesn't work - none of it does. I've tried to return him to sender half a dozen times, but he just keeps comin' back like some sort of damned cat.

"Stop that imp!" I yelled. Pride be damned, if he ate that kitten my ass was grass anyway.

A tall drink of water, a hunk in robes, a six pack hiding, yummy, yummy, gobman, pointed at Gartbug and be damned if ice didn't form under the little git's feet, causing him to splay every which way. The kitten went flyin', the ice mage snatched the kitten out of the air, twitched the pointing finger and suddenly Gartbug, the felburned little shmuck, was encased in ice! Mr Delicious held out the kitten, "Your kitten, ma'am?"

"Er, well, not my kitten." I offered, grabbin' the offending fleabitten furball by the scruff, "But Druid Whiteleaf's. But not feeling like being turned into mush.." I couldn't help but shrug and look up at the dish bein' served hot. I was about ready to toss the kitten over one shoulder and climb him like a monkey up a tree. What can I say? A girl's got needs!

A truly gobbie grin was my reward, "I somehow think, misbehaving imps aside, you can take care of yourself."

"Sometimes." I couldn't help being honest, I mean, it was the worst policy of all polices, but sometimes you just had no choice. I mean, fibbin' about ones prowess might, hypothetically, lead you to findin' yerself with twenty-something sweat-stink crazy strangers staring down the glutten of a huge ass black dragon with teeth bigger than the egos of death knights. An' then you'd find yerself wondering if the dragon would eat the first person to run screamin' back the way you'd all came. "The succubus is even more trouble." I finally said. Fessed up, even.

The grin widened, " I do recall something about a sucking succubus incident a couple of years ago..?"

Was there anyone in any dimension who HADN'T heard about that? How was a girl supposed to live down that? There was a reason I didn't summon Bitzy very often! I decided a quick and subtle subject change was in order, "I'm Lare." I said, sticking out the hand that wasn't holdin' a squirming baby feline.

"Kavo," He said, still grinning before leaning forward, takin' my hand kissin' it! I almost swooned. I think it's called swoonin' anyway when every bit of you tingles, the city gets dark, and you think about bein' face first in the mud. Or it could just be Deathwing Strikes Back; Revenge of the Idiot Dragon. I mean, Thrall SAID the dragon was dead, but that idiot orc says all sorts o'things, most of them nonsense.

Fortunately, sanity returned before I did swoon. "Whatcha want?" I asked, warily. I mean, tasty he may be, but hand kissin'? Seriously?

"At this time? Nothing." His eyes twinkled with delight, "But I think we can agree, you owe me one." He dropped my hand with a flourished bow, winking before sauntering off.

Well, shit.

He turned around, walking backwards, "Your imp should thaw out in an hour or two."

Just what I'd needed, to find a cart in downtown Orgrimmar in rush hour. I'd have to hoof it over to hippie-moo central, convince a druid I'd saved her precious kitten and get her to send one of her more muscles than brains warriors over here to cart the the mucus infested little toadcrawler home. With my luck, he'd thaw in time to light something important on fire.

I smiled and waved my fingers back at the departing ice mage. Yeah, I even waved with all my fingers, why get a debt called early? Stinkin' goblins.