05.17 pm
Well, as usual, Julian and I had an excellent time in World of Warcraft today! 🙂 We did die a couple of times, but we also covered an awful lot of ground! We started off by taking Wynterthyme and Mouselet out of mothballs, and sent them off to do the pre-Expansion “Scenarios”. These are not-quite quests, and not-quite part of the game either, at this stage – because they’re there to “set the scene” for everything that will be happening after the Expansion – to tell the backstory, and to lay the foundations for the story arc after the Legion Invasion. It’s a little complicated, because we did these Scenarios twice! First with Wynterthyme and Mouselet, and of course saw things from the Alliance side of the fence… and then we did it all over again with our Horde characters, Xãnthe and Jemimah (who also died a few times!) and so saw it from the Horde perspective.
The Alliance side: King Varian Wrynn summons all fighters to help repel the Legion, led by the totally evil Gul’Dan, so off we all go. By the time we arrive at the invasion beachhead, we’re part of a massive Raid Party (of other players) and it all gets terribly chaotic and messy. It seems that a couple? one other? important Alliance NPC character(s) was “missing” (I couldn’t quite follow it all – as I said – it was terribly chaotic!) and we had to find him… which we do. He’s being held prisoner by none other than Gul’Dan himself, but it’s a trap! Meanwhile, over on the other side of a vast lake of vicious neon green goop (“Fel”, or something) Vol’jin the War Leader of the Horde, and Sylvanas, the (rather gorgeous) leader of the Undead, are gathering to assist the Alliance. King Varian, Vol’jin, and Sylvanas have realised that none of them can overcome the Legion on their own – their only hope is to join together to fight this new, common enemy. Going back to the Alliance and the sneaky trap. Seeing the Horde over on the other side of the lake of goop, King Varian is relieved to see that help is on the way – but then all of a sudden they hear Sylvanas’ battle horn sounding a retreat, and thinking that they’ve been betrayed, Varian orders his people back onto their (flying) battleship. In the confusion, King Varian slips, and his friend (sorry, can’t remember his name!) holds out his hand to help him aboard the ship. Varian knows that he can’t escape, his people need to escape, and he’s holding things up – so instead of his hand, he puts a scroll into his friend’s hand saying “Take this to my son!” His friend nods, Varian falls, still fighting the Legion demons that are surrounding him. He fights his way almost to Gul’Dan, but sneering and laughing, Gul’Dan kills him, shattering his body with Fel power.
The Horde Side. Sylvanas, Vol’jin, and Thrall are also looking for the same “missing persons” that the Alliance are looking for (why, I’m not too sure!) They too go through the same chaotic fighting as their Alliance counterparts, and in the same way, discover this “missing person”, only from the other side of the lake of green goop. Sylvanas realises that it had been too easy – that it was a trap! Now, I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t remember how it happened, but Vol’jin is fatally wounded, and orders Sylvanas to get the Horde to safety. Sylvanas realises that she’ll be abandoning the Alliance, and she really doesn’t want to break her word – but Vol’jin has left the Horde in her hands. She sounds the retreat, and takes the Horde, and the dying Vol’jin back to Orgrimmar. Goodness only knows where Thrall was, or what he was doing all this time! (Thrall had once been the War Leader of the Horde, but had given it all up to follow his Path and become a Druid (?) – he’s immensely powerful and strong, so you’d think he could have done something to help save the day!) Huddled together in their Meeting Hall in Orgrimmar, the dying Vol’jin officially hands over the leadership of the Horde to Sylvanas… and breathes his last breath. Sylvanas rallies the Horde, who are none too happy about having the undead Banshee Queen as their new leader, but when she declares “Who wants to follow me to get revenge on the Legion for Vol’jin’s death!!” they decide that she’s maybe not too bad after all, and (apparently!) agree to her leadership.
Meanwhile, back in Stormwind, Anduin, Varian’s son – and now King Anduin – hears of his father’s death. He, like his father, realises that they’re going to need the help of the Horde – and the Illidari – to fight the Legion. Only two dissenting voices are raised – how can they possibly trust the Horde again, after the way they betrayed them when Varian was killed? They storm off in disgust – they’ll fight with them – grudgingly, says Lady Jaina Proudmore, but she will never let them into her city!
I found it strange that the Alliance members had that discussion about the Illidari and the Horde, but at the discussion between Sylvanas and the Horde, after Vol’jin’s death, only the Illidari were mentioned… does Sylvanas feel too ashamed for having broken her word to the Alliance that she feels they’ll no longer trust her? Did I miss an important part of the conversation while I blew my nose, or something? I have no idea – hopefully all will be made clear in time! 😉
Now, I’m quite aware that most of you aren’t even remotely interested in all of the above, but I thought I owed it to posterity to bring you all up-to-date with just why Julian and I are running these pre-Expansion “Scenarios” – apart from the fact that you can get some really “Fat Loot” from them.
So after we finished fighting and dying as both Alliance and Horde this afternoon, we then picked up Dulcineà and Tourbillon, for their final romp around The Hinterlands before they move to another Realm – so as you can all see, we had an amazingly interesting and exciting day today! 🙂
And now on to the “good” bits! 🙂
Food stuff. Last night for dinner we had the most delicious little piece of fillet steak, with chips, half a tomato, and steamed green beans. For dessert I had a “bald-kiwi-fruit” brown skinned Nashi pear, and one of those really weir textured but still very yummy Chocolate Chia Pods. Today for lunch we had ham, cheese and tomato toasties, made from that tasty whole-meal bread with tons of sesame seeds in the crust, and of course tonight’s traditional Sunday dinner was omelets, with bacon, cheese, tomato, fried onion, and some chopped up green capsicum in them. I know I say it every Sunday night, but this time I think Julian really surpassed himself – my omelet really was one of the best I’ve ever eaten! And for dessert I had an “Eve” apple (because it was slightly smaller than the gigantic “Jazz” apples in our fruit bowl!) and an Apple Le Rice.
Weigh-in this morning. Tomorrow morning, I’ll probably go up a couple of points, because this morning I went down 6! I went from 66.3 kg yesterday to 65.7 kg. Well, at least it’s a start, because looking at the state of my swollen feet, there’s still plenty of fluid to shift! 
And that brings me back again to tomorrow, which looks like it’s going to be a pretty busy day – just for a change! 😉 The oven repair-man will be here tomorrow morning between 8 and 8.30, and our cleaning lady will be here around 9.30-ish. Josh will be here tomorrow afternoon, and in the middle, we have to go out so that I can change over a jumper I bought because it’s the wrong size (don’t blame me if half the clothes I buy are size 14 and the other half are size “S” – and sometimes, even though they all either say “14” or “S”, some are too big, and some are too small! Go figure! I really wish there was some way to make, or even to force, manufacturers to standardise sizes!) I must also do my homework too, and look for some reasonably priced towels. The last time we went towel shopping, I only bought two towels, and two hand towels, because they’re really too expensive for what they are! Yes, they are good quality, about the right thickness, and a pleasing colour, without too much of that fancy hemming and/or pattern (that always shrinks, the very first time you wash the damn thing, pulling the towel horribly out of shape!) but they’re not made from spun gold, for crying out loud! Sheesh, talk about the Emperor’s New “Terry-Towelling” Tracky-Dacks Clothes! Anyway, two towels and two hand towels just aren’t enough, so I’m going to try Amazon, and see if I can find anything cheaper online! Mind you, I’d only buy one first, to see what it was like in real life – what looks like a nice pale blue online might turn out to be some hideous shade of cyan in the bathroom – and besides, you can’t feel what they’re like – they might be all scratchy and horrible! I also need to get a whole lot more magazine holders – at the moment my desk and my side cabinets are acting as “proxy magazine holders”, and I’m rapidly running out of room for my cups of coffee! Anyway, that’s about enough from me for this evening – do call back again tomorrow night – to find out if the oven got fixed, or if the repair-man gave it the last rites and told us to get a new stove, and whether I managed to change over my jumper or not (we still have the receipt though!) I’m sure you’ll all be anxious to know how much my weight went up, seeing as it came down today, and you’ll probably also want to know if I found any suitable towels to order, or if I managed to lose myself in WoW again, instead. But until then, do try hard to bee good, remember that there is no greater loan than a sympathetic ear, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm and dry, because even when you don’t think it’s going to be cold or wet, remember that this is Melbourne… but above all, please… don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 