Brick & Mortar

Year and Life in Review

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:38:25 GMT

I hadn't planned to do one of these, but after reading brodycatsmouth's, I feel like it's my last chance (for the decade, at least). So here goes the year in review (all dates are approximate since I'm not great at keeping good track):

January - Life is looking up! Creditors have been appeased and I just need a steady stream of regular paychecks to get back on track.
February - Hopeful planning that perhaps we'll get to take a vacation this year.
March - Ky falls and breaks her face. We get her fixed up, but it kills the vacation savings.
April - Only working half time now, just can't find anyone who needs work.
May - Found a little work. Worry and depression set in.
June - Feeling depressed. Write a chapter of "Brick and Mortar," but not playing much WoW (or doing much of anything else).
July - Not paying taxes. Will worry about it next April.
August - No work at all. Write another chapter of "Brick and Mortar".
September - No work. Writing constantly and posting chapters online.
October - No work. Writing. Posting. Job possibility. Interview. Offer. Decide to move and sell the house.
November - Mad dash to empty/clean/sell the house. Give Brandon away. Moving. Fall in love with Alabama.
December - Suddenly realize how insanely happy I am, and how perfect life is. Post the last of "Brick and Mortar," but am too happy to get depressed. Post tiny tidbits. Too busy to write seriously.

For my life in review, the dates are even sketchier. I may be misremembering some of the earlier events, but it was a long time ago and memories get cloudy:

1967 - Born in NYC.
1968 - Moved to Wisconsin.
1969 - Dated a rock star.
1970 - Toured with the Grateful Dead.
1971 - Moved to Puerto Rico.
1972 - Won the Nobel prize for economics.
1973 - Find the cure for cancer, but misplace it on the way to school.
1974 - Move to Missouri.
1975 - I'm the odd kid, but I make friends with the other odd kids.
1976 - I become the weird kid.
1977 - I become the obnoxious kid.
1978 - Other people hang out with me because I'm amusing, I guess.
1979 - Quite possibly as obnoxious as a human being can get.
1980 - Get my first computer. It's an Apple ][!
1981 - Get locked in a locker. Not very popular in school. Contemplate suicide a lot.
1982 - High school is better than junior high.
1983 - I suddenly realize that I don't have to keep playing in band. Quit and get happier.
1984 - Spend every minute with my friends.
1985 - Go to college. Lose virginity. Date and have fun.
1986 - Meet Dana. Fall in love.
1987 - Dana moves in. Life is good, but she complains that I don't give her time to study.
1988 - Dana is stressed out. Best friend commits suicide. Stop talking to all those friends from high school that I thought I'd be friends with forever.
1989 - Get married. Dana's parents stress me out.
1990 - Move to Kansas City. Get first real job. Graduate.
1991 - Life is wonderful! Buy my first house.
1992 - Buy my first new car.
1993 - I make a lot of friends and try the whole "suburban" thing.
1994 - Dana decides to quit working and goes back to school. It's a long commute, so I don't see her often.
1995 - Job may go out of business. Change to a job I don't like. Find out that Dana cheated on me. Contemplate murder a lot. Get divorced.
1996 - Depressed, but start dating again. Job goes out of business. Change to a job I hate.
1997 - Meet a cool guy. We quit our jobs and wander the country in a van, and have a great time.
1998 - Change to a new job. They go out of business too, but I start working for the customer. Write my first book.
1999 - Goldenwolf moves in. We create wolfhome.com.
2000 - On a trip to NYC, I met Ky and fell in love-at-first-sight.
2001 - Ky moves in. Towers fall and we're glad to have each other.
2002 - Work is going well, so we decide to move to Utah. Why not? We both work remotely.
2003 - Company sells out and stocks become valuable. Pay off house, and have money in the bank!
2004 - Have the house redone just the way we like it. Get married. Roommates leave.
2005 - A friend talks me into going into business. Lose my regular job. wolfhome.com crashes and I don't resurrect it.
2006 - New company is going badly. I do a lot of contracting to pump more and more money into it.
2007 - New company is sucking me dry. New roommates move in. Decide to sell company to my business partner.
2008 - Business partner takes everything without paying me any money. I get stuck with the bills somehow, but fearing for my credit, I pay them off.
2009 - Life gets good once more!

And that's it in a nutshell. I hope I didn't leave out anything major, but I probably did...

The Adventures of Naked Boy

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:30:39 GMT

The Adventures of Naked Boy
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Hey! This is part 2. Be sure you read part 1 first.

It was early in the morning before the Beautiful Gunsmith had finished replacing Naked Boy's horns. By the time he left the Great, Walled City, he could barely keep his eyes open.

Naked Boy longed for his bed, but his hut seemed so very far away. He could barely lift his hooves, and with each slow step the sand seemed to pull him farther and farther back. His strides became shorter and shorter, and soon he was not walking at all.

Naked Boy curled up on the beach, and drifted off to sleep. The warm sun was his blanket and the cool sand his pillow.

Naked Boy slept throughout the day, only waking as the tide began to rise around him.

All was right with the world. The boy had his horns and his ocean. What more could anyone want?

The waves washed him away, into the bay. He floated on his back, and kicked gently with his hooves. He put his hands behind his head and stared up at the clouds. He smiled at the seagulls, and they tipped their wings to him in greeting.

Suddenly, Naked Boy was not alone! Terrible, green figures emerged from the sea, surrounding him, and cutting off any possible escape.

Half fish and half man, and with eyes like dark red, dinner plates, they could only be murlocs. The leader of the murlocs grinned wide with huge, shark teeth, and his friends rattled their bright red spines in approval. The beasts smelled dreadful.

Naked Boy tried to swim away, but the grinning murloc was too quick. He tossed a heavy net over the boy and dragged him down, under the surface.

Panicked, Naked Boy struggled to get free, but there was no hope. His arms were trapped at his sides. He could do nothing but watch as the slimy creatures dragged him farther out to sea.

He held his breath and tried to relax, so that his air would last. Up ahead, he could see a large coral reef. They would have to swim close to the surface to avoid hitting the reef!

He waited and waited, stretching longer than he had ever held his breath before. Then, when for a brief moment the net broke the sea's surface, he sucked in the largest breath of air he could manage.

It would have to last him, for then they were over the reef and diving deeper and deeper into the darkness.

The surface faded away and the water grew cold. His lungs were burning and his head began to spin.

His ears began to roar, and the world disappeared into blackness.

# # #

"King Rask! King Rask!" the leader of the murlocs yelled. "We have brought you a birthday present."

Naked Boy slowly opened his eyes, surprised that he was not drowned.

"What have you brought me, Duke Murglegurgle?" the king's deep, sad voice boomed.

Naked Boy gasped in surprise at the sight of the king! Well, the head of the king, at least. The king's body stretched down into the deep dark, somewhere down past his flowing green beard.

Naked Boy gasped again when he realized that he had gasped in sea water and yet continued to breathe. Everyone knew that was impossible!

"A pet! A pet! We bring you a pet to replace the one that swam away." The murlocs bounced and danced around happily.

"I don't know why you bother," King Rask sighed. "No pet likes me. It will swim away. Just like all of the others..."

"Not this one, your highness!" Murglegurgle chortled with glee. "We have brought you a very special pet. A pet from the surface! If it swims too far away from the orb, then it will not be able to breathe. It will drown."

The murlocs looked at one another and nodded their bulbous heads in agreement.

"As long as you have the magical orb, it will not dare to leave you, sire!"

The king studied Naked Boy with an eye as large as the boy himself. Then he tore open the net with his bright blue fingernails, as if it were red ribboned wrapping paper. "Are you sure this is a pet, my dear friend? It looks like a man. A small man, perhaps, but I think think this is a person."

"No, your highness!"

The murloc's friends echoed a chorus of "No! No!" and "Definitely not!"

"Everyone knows that people wear clothes!" the duke explained. His friends tugged at their sharkskin loincloths and nodded. "Pets don't wear clothes, so it must be a pet."

Naked Boy cried out, "I'm not a pet, I'm a boy!" But despite the magical sphere's power to keep the boy breathing, it did not make it so he could talk under the ocean's depths. "Blurg murg blurgle mablurblegurgle!" was the best he could manage.

"D'aww! He just said, 'mablurblegurgle'. I'm sure of it! That's so adorable." The king grinned wide. "Don't you have an aunt named 'Mablurblegurgle'?"

"My wife's cousin, yes sir!" The duke grinned wide.

"I shall name him Gurgler. Oh thank you, duke!" the king laughed. "This is the finest gift that I have ever received."

"Happy Birthday!" the mulocs gurgled in unison.

When the cheering died down, the duke said, "It's all thanks to my magic sphere." He held the orb out and presented it to the king.

Naked Boy swam over to it and stared in awe.

The orb was a delicate ball of green glass that glowed with power, and illuminated the murky waters. It was about the size of the boy's head. Inside the ball, he could see a few small locks of dark hair that were tied up with festive ribbons. It looked like fine hair, like that from Orcs, not from Tauren. The orb opened at the top with a hole about as wide across as Naked Boy's muzzle.

The boy drew a little closer and tried to press his nose into the hole, so he could sniff the locks.

"Be careful, Gurgler," the duke said as he pulled the orb away. He patted Naked Boy on the head with his clammy, webbed hand. "The orb came from a distant continent. It is very fragile. It was given to my wife and myself as a gift, before you were even born. I could never replace it, if something were to happen to it.

"Let us retire to my villa," the duke boomed. "I have planned a feast in my main hall to celebrate the occasion!"

The king grinned wide and clapped his enormous hands together in joy. The ocean rang with what sounded like a clap of thunder.

Rask took Naked Boy gently in his hand and strolled away across the bottom of the ocean. The water wooshed by so quickly that it pressed the boy flat against the giant's hand. Naked Boy tried to shriek in excitement but it came out as just one long bluuuuuuuurb.

The murlocs swam alongside the king with furious effort. It was amazing to see just how fast they could move. With their arms and spines collapsed sleekly against their bodies, they looked like green sharks with spears and loincloths.

Soon, the party approached a steep-walled plateau in the water that was topped with a castle. The building was carved from a coral reef and surrounded with a beautiful garden. In front of the castle, the garden was mostly decorative; with great kelp mazes and topiaries. To the rear were rows of neatly-tended crops. Rows of sea cucumbers, clams, and even flounder stretched into the dark.

Dozens of murlocs had assembled on the barbican. Musicians and jesters entertained the guests while servants scuttled in and out, seeing to everyone's needs. Out on the grounds, some murlocs -- mounted on seahorses -- hunted a large cuttlefish.

The duchess -- a portly murloc with a fancy conch for a hat -- swam over to the duke's side, to greet the guest of honor.

"Duchess Bububurbleburble..." King Rask said with a smile, "you look positively radiant."

"Oh, your highness!" she twittered like a dolphin. "We're so glad you would let us throw you the little party."

# # #

The party lasted for hours, and Naked Boy played with the murloc tadpoles. They laughed and giggled when he tried to talk to them, but it didn't really matter.

They played many games, but regardless of how they began, they usually degenerated into a variant of "fetch" or "tag". The tadpoles were delighted to play with Naked Boy. They patted his head and giggled as he struggled to keep up.

The servants called the tadpoles to dinner. The murlocs sat down at the table and Naked Boy was given a bowl on the floor.

"Bluh ber bluh blurble!" he complained. The servant attending him smiled and kissed her clammy fish lips to his forehead.

# # #

"Wake up, little Gurgler," King Rask's whisper boomed. "The party is over and it's time to go home." He scooped the tiny boy up in his mighty hand.

Naked Boy yawned and stretched.

"Thank you so much for the party, my friend," the king thanked Duke Murglegurgle.

"We hope that it found your heart's every desire." The duke tried put his arm around his wife, and he gave her a squeeze.

"It did! It did. Well..." the king's smile faltered a moment.

"My Lord, is there something else that you wish?" the duchess responded.

The king looked again at the glass sphere he held, "Everything was so wonderful... but I don't suppose that this magic orb of yours could warm my cold feet somehow? I know it's a lot to ask."

"Your feet are cold, my lord?" Bububurbleburble asked.

"I feel silly even mentioning it," the old king said, "but the deep mud on the sea's floor is so frigid, and my feet have grown weary with age..."

"I'm afraid not, m'lord," the duke said sadly as he shook his head. "This bauble controls only the sea, and not the mud beneath it. It can never control the land."

The king frowned and great wrinkles formed on his face.

"Have you ever considered..." the duchess paused, afraid to overstep her station. Her face tightened, hesitantly. "I mean, you could sun them, up on the beach..."

"And walk on land?" The king scowled a foul face.

"Well, no, of course not!" she corrected herself. "I just mean that you could rest with your feet on the beach, where it is warm. And you could lie back, and sleep in the bay. Wouldn't that be nice?"

The duke and his friends nodded to one another, and agreed that it sounded wonderful. "I'd like to do that myself!"

The king smiled, and he drifted into his thoughts for a while, before his scowl returned. "I walked on land once, but there are terrible people that live on the beach; in huts, and in a Great, Walled City.

"They stuck their spears in my toes, and were most unpleasant. I didn't stay long."

The duchess frowned, but the duke's face lit up. "Well now, that's something that my magic orb could fix!"

Eyes of all sizes were upon him. "It could?"

"Well, sure!" he gurgled happily. "This orb controls the ocean. You can use it to summon a mighty tidal wave that will wipe the beaches clean.

"It will wash all the people from their huts and the Great, Walled City. It will suck them out, deep into the ocean, where they will drown." His dark red eyes glinted in the magic orb's light. "Then there won't be anyone there to stick spears in your toes, your highness, and you can rest them safely on the warm beach!"

Everyone was smiling now. Everyone except for Naked Boy, that was. His heart had stopped and his chest felt like it was being crushed.

"You're going to kill everyone? You're going to drown the Great Warrior, and the Beautiful Gunsmith? You want to kill all the Trolls and the poor, hornless Orcs?" Naked Boy shrieked. "How can you even think such things! You're all monsters!"

The king and his murlocs stared silently at the boy.

"He's very... excited," King Rask said, having not understood any of the boy's gurgling.

"Don't you just want to hug him?" Duchess Bububurbleburble replied.

Duke Murglegurgle rubbed his webbed hands together. "Powers of the sea, I command you... Gather! Gather!"

And with those few words, the ocean began to swirl around them. Water began to rush in from both the deep and the bay, to be closer to the orb.

Naked Boy could wait no longer. He swam the short distance to the orb and grabbed it out of the King's palm.

"What are you doing, Gurgler?" the Duke asked. The water stopped swirling.

"I think he's excited. He must want to cast the spell, himself," replied the duchess.

"D'aww," they gaspsed in unison.

"Oh, silly Gurgler, you can't cast a spell." The duke took the orb from him and patted him between the horns.

Once again, the sea began to swirl in time to the duke's words, "Powers of the sea, I command you... Gather! Gather! Form up and gather into a mighty tidal wave!"

Although small and nearly helpless, Naked Boy could not let them do this terrible thing. He sucked in a great breath of seawater and began to beat his arms and legs against the tide.

He swam against the quickly rising current and the world slowed to a crawl. He had to get back to the orb. Only he could stop them and protect everyone back on land.

Closer and closer he drew, and slower and slower time crawled, until the orb was finally within reach...

He lowered his head and the seconds stretched into what seemed like hours. Slower, and slower, until time completely stopped when his truesilver horns touched the green glass.

The moment stretched in silence, and then suddenly, everything snapped back. The orb shattered into a million pieces. The light that glowed inside it blinked out and left them in darkness. The duchess shrieked. And the moving waters snapped still.

Naked Boy peered up through the depths.

Somewhere, far overhead, far up through layers and layers of ocean, there was air.

He wished he could swim up to it.

But his lungs were already full of seawater.

He had drowned the moment the spell was broken, and he knew it.

# # #

Gorrum was sitting upright in his bed, with eyes like saucers. He gripped the edge of the bed covers with both fists.

Ever so slowly, Johnny leaned forward and pressed his top row of teeth against the boy's warm fuzzy forehead, in a ghastly parody of a goodnight kiss.

He turned and snuffed the lantern. An inky blackness fell over the hut in an instant.

Well, here we are once again. That's all I've got. I sure hope you liked it. Take a moment and leave a comment. Let me know what you thought.

Was it scary? Or at least, would a six year old (or equivalent) child find it scary? Were you able to guess what the orb was? Don't feel bad if you couldn't. I didn't give enough clues, but I'm curious if anyone could put it together.

What should I write next? What would you like to hear? What would you rather I do differently?

As always, constructive criticism welcome!

The Adventures of Naked Boy

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 04:19:45 GMT

Had a real bad day today. Was in a hit-and-run accident. We're okay, but man I'm pissed.

Anyhow, I've been working on this short for a while. The ending isn't quite complete, but I'd really like to put something up. So here's the first half of a fun little tale that doesn't take itself too seriously.

If you read Brick & Mortar, then the setting should be familiar.

The Adventures of Naked Boy
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

The afternoon grew late, and the dinner dishes were put away. The boy played quietly on the beach -- building sand castles and poking at crabs with twigs -- but the corpse that stood nearby could see clear signs that the child was growing tired.

Johnny had been a family man and cooper, before the Plague had taken his life and his family from him. Although he would never forgive himself for their fate, his wife and children had been the fortunate ones. They had died quickly and were lucky enough to stay dead.

But that was then. The twisting threads of fate had deposited him here, in this paradise, and given him another chance. Not for love and for having more children of his own -- he was dead, after all -- but it gave him another chance to care about others. Fate had given him a chance to help nurture a child, and to see that he grew up healthy and happy, far from Johnny's ruined homeland.

The undead walked over to the boy and squatted down beside him.

"This crab is Rask; the king of all the crabs!" Gorrum explained to Johnny. "Rask is commanding the other crabs to attack the castle. And then afterwards, they'll throw a great feast in the main hall..."

Johnny and Gorrum stared silently, waiting for the battle to unfold.

His highness, King Rask, scuttled back into the surf.

A toucan called for its mate.

Gorrum scooped at the castle and flung the dry sand skyward. "Ka-boom! The castle is destroyed!"

The boy's golden eyes studied Johnny's face. "I'm not tired," he said.

Johnny lifted the child to his hooves and gave him a gentle swat under the tail, urging him back to the hut.

They climbed the ramp together (Tauren eschew ladders and stairs), and Johnny lit the oil lamp on the table. The circular home was small (for Tauren occupants, at least) and simple. Although normally cramped and busy, tonight it felt quiet and empty. A large sleeping mat and a small sleeping mat were positioned opposite the entrance. A small, conspicuously empty shelf was mounted between the two.

Beside the door stood a giant, empty armor rack, and two empty pegs. A third, empty peg was positioned lower. To the other side of the entrance, a simple table was surrounded by two large benches and a smaller, taller one.

A gentle breeze blew through the home and rustled the thatched roof. As with the other huts that dotted the beaches, there was no fire pit inside. All the cooking had to be done outside, so that no spark would land on dry thatch.

Johnny squatted before the boy.

"I could stay up," Gorrum said. "Mom will probably be home soon."

Johnny shook his head as he undid the buttons on Gorrum's vest. He peeled the leather away and hung it from the low peg.

"I could watch myself, you know," Gorrum said, sticking out his lower lip in a pout. "I'm not a little kid anymore," he explained as he untied his breeches.

Johnny nodded as he hung the pants from the peg.

"So I can stay up?"

Johnny mimed a sigh. It was for effect only, had had not breathed in years.

"But you just agreed that I'm old enough to watch myself!" the boy whined.

Johnny used his bony fingertips to brush sand from the boy's hair and fur. He was growing quite a mane of wild, black hair over his brown and tan pelt.

"It's just sand," Gorrum grumbled. "There's already lots of sand in the bed. Sheesh."

Johnny hit a tickle-spot under the boy's ribs, and Gorrum began to giggle. "No!" the calf bleated, but it was too late; Johnny was already tickling him with both hands. Gorrum rolled around on the floor and tried ineffectually to push the Forsaken's hands away.

When the game ended, Gorrum stomped to his hooves and made little fists beside his hips. He set his jaw and stared at Johnny with his most resentful glare. Johnny returned the stare with his usual, emotionless gaze.

Gorrum brushed the last of the sand away and climbed into the smaller bed. The undead tucked the cotton cover up, under the boy's chin.

"Tell me a scary story," the boy begged.

Johnny shook his head slowly.

Johnny's stories were most unlike those told by either of Gorrum's parents, but then again, Johnny was most unlike Gorrum's parents too.

The undead's jaw hung uselessly at an unnatural angle, and his lips were pulled back from his teeth by the dried jerky he had for a face. He made an unusual nursemaid for the tiny Tauren, but the boy did not realize. Gorrum had known the Forsaken since his birth, and presumed that every kid had a re-animated corpse to look after them when their parents were busy.

Johnny seldom spoke, but when he did, it was a most... unearthly experience. His voice was reminiscent of the wind. It evoked images in the listener's mind, even if it was not always clear how they got there.

"Dad said not to tell me a ghost story," Gorrum said, "but that doesn't mean you can't tell me a scary one. There's lots of scary stories that don't have any ghosts in them."

Johnny stared for a long time. The boy had a point...

# # #

Johnny spoke, and Gorrum imagined a boy who lived in a hut on the beach.

Of all the things to see and do in his little piece of paradise, the boy loved two of them most of all. First and foremost, the boy loved the ocean. He swam in its depths and played in the surf until his hooves grew soft.

His hair was always wet. His fur was always drenched. The boy usually remembered to undress before going swimming, but even so, his leather clothes were always damp with brine. When the saltwater dried, the soft leather hardened, turning them into an uncomfortable nuisance.

The boy draped the pants over a large, flat rock and beat the hard edges with another rock in hopes of softening the leather back up. Soon, the continued abuse turned the pants into shorts, and then into a loincloth. The vest survived longer than the pants, but they both were discarded eventually.

In time, the locals began to refer to the boy as "the naked boy," or simply "Naked Boy". Any other name he had before that faded away, like the memory of his clothes.

Naked Boy swam like a fish and hunted for clams. He leapt out of the water like a dolphin and rode the waves into shore.

But the ocean wasn't his only love. Oh, no! Back on land, Naked Boy narrowed his eyes to steely slits as his selected his next victim. He lowered his small horns and waited for the moment to strike.

Then, without warning, he charged at the seagulls that rested on the sand. He charged at the feral cats that stole the bits of gut that the fishermen left behind. He charged at the chickens that pecked the sand for bugs.

From time to time, a family of goats would wander down from the cliffs that overlooked the sea. Naked Boy would bellow in glee.

The grumpy old billy goats would try to claim a stretch of beach, and Naked Boy would not back down. He lowered his horns and charged at the goats. The goats would meet his charge, and for a moment, the world would be replaced with fireworks.

Naked Boy would laugh and butt heads again and again, until he flopped to the sand. Then he would giggle as the world spun.

But today was not an ordinary day. No, when Naked Boy stood this day, he spotted a most disturbing sight. There in sand were the shattered pieces of his broken horns.

Naked Boy put his hands to his head with a gasp, but it only confirmed his fears. His horns were gone.

What could he do? A Tauren without horns was not even a Tauren.

With his hands on his head, he covered his shame, and ran south along the beach, to the Great, Walled City. He knew he could get help there.

Naked Boy ran through the city's northern gate. A heartless Orc dared to laugh at the hornless Tauren. "Welcome to the Great, Walled City, Naked Boy," he chuckled.

Naked Boy felt the insides of his ears burn red. He wanted to lower his horns, and charge at the stupid oaf, but of course, he could not.

He ran on, past tradesmen and travelers. He tried to ignore the laughs and stares. He kept his head covered with his hands, so that no one could see.

Inside the city's eastern gate, he found a band of soldiers. The Orcs laughed out loud at Naked Boy's misfortune. A Blood Elf stared down his long nose at the boy. At least the Forsaken who was with acted as if he did not notice.

But Naked Boy didn't care about those men and their mirth. He wanted help from the Great Warrior that they were clustered about.

The Great Warrior looked up slowly. He was a huge, red bull -- as wide as a kodo and twice as tall. The giant Tauren was not amused, despite how his underlings slapped at his back. If anything, he seemed suddenly old, and a little tired.

"I thought we agreed that you would not return to the Great, Walled City, Naked Boy," he said.

"I had to come," Naked Boy cried. "I have broken my horns."

"A bull's horns grow about an inch every month," the Great Warrior explained with a sigh. He put on a reassuring smile. "If you show me how much broke off of them, then we'll know how long it will take for them to grow back."

Naked Boy steeled his nerves and slowly peeled back his hands so that the Great Warrior could see.

The Great Warrior let out a slow whistle.

"Will it take very long?"

"They've broken off below the surface," he explained. "Let's have a closer look."

The Great Warrior picked up Naked Boy and held him like a spy glass, peering into the holes in his head.

"That's not good," he said. "I can see all the way to Kalimdor."

He set Naked Boy back down on his hooves and put a heavy hand on the boy's shoulder. "I'm afraid that you will be a very, very old bull before they grow all that way."

Naked Boy was devastated.

"But, but without my horns... I'm... I'm nothing," he said, "I might as well be an Orc."

"I know," the Great Warrior agreed. He put a consoling hand across the boy's back.

"But on the other side of town, there is a Beautiful Gunsmith. She can form amazing things out of wood and steel. Perhaps she can make you some new horns, so you will not have to live your life as an Orc."

All around the Great Warrior, his Orcish friends bowed their hornless heads in shared shame.

# # #

Naked Boy walked slowly across the Great, Walled City with head lowered. He didn't bother to cover his head. If the people laughed, then he didn't even hear it.

A small corner of his mind was hopeful, but he was afraid to get his hopes up too high.

Naked Boy found the Beautiful Gunsmith at her forge. She turned when she saw him and smiled as if she could not even see his horrible disfigurement. "Well hello, Naked Boy! What brings you to the Great, Walled City?"

"I have broken my horns," he explained. "The Great Warrior said that perhaps you might be able to make some to replace the ones I have lost."

The Beautiful Gunsmith put her hands on her hips and tilted her head in thought. "Well," she said as she brushed her short, black hair back behind an ear, "a mighty warrior once came to me with a similar problem. He had lost his horns in a duel, and so I worked all night forging him new ones out of truesilver."

She bent down and rummaged through an ammo box. "Aha!" She pulled out two smooth pieces of metal that had been polished to a mirror surface. They were almost exactly the size and shape of the horns that Naked Boy had lost!

"Wow!" the boy gasped. "But if you made these for a mighty warrior, then why are they so small?"

"Um, well you see, truesilver is a rare and precious metal," she explained, "this was as big as I could make them.

"But that morning, the army marched off to battle, before I could put them in. He had to fight... without them."

Naked Boy gasped in horror. "Without his horns?"

The Beautiful Gunsmith nodded sadly. A single tear rolled down her cheek. "He died. Like an Orc."

# # #

I'll try to get the second half up next week.

Gorrum

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:25:13 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 13: Gorrum

Fall was in the air.

The leaves don't change here, but the winds shift. I was reclining in the sand with my back propped up on a small pile so I could look out across the surf.

I know it sounds stupid, but some of the best things in life are really dumb. I found that there were few things I enjoyed more than really squishing yourself into the cool sand and letting it get up under your tail.

Dumb, I know. But I could lay on the sand and watch the surf for hours.

Kaja curled up closer. I put my arm around her and gave her a squeeze. I breathed in the scent from her hair and grinned stupidly.

There was no denying the power she had over me. Just one sniff and everything seemed like it was going to be all right; that nothing bad could ever hurt us. I know it's a lie, but it's a lie that I grab with both hands, and I gladly ask for seconds.

Even when she infuriates me, as she often does, Kaja makes me deliriously happy.

I put my thumb and primary finger on one of her horns and gave it a wiggle. I could see her roll her eyes. She reached up and grabbed my right horn tight, and pulled my chin down to my chest, lifting some of her weight off of me.

She's so damn naughty.

I grabbed her bare butt-cheek and gave it a good squeeze. She giggled.

"I've got a patrol tomorrow. Just to the Mizjah ruins and back. Should be home by morning," I told her.

She sat up and worried at her lower lip a bit. "Crap. I'm smelting steel tomorrow. It's going to be a crazy day. Did you see how much ore the Goblins delivered?" She sighed deeply. "I'm exhausted just thinking about it."

I put my hand to her cheek and she smiled. "Every day's a busy day when you're Grom'gol's only gunsmith, right?"

She tilted her head and I closed my eyes. The kiss we shared was deep and passionate.

"Ew... kissing!" yelled a little voice over the sound of the waves. The little tan and brown Tauren boy ducked beneath a wave only to pop up behind it. "Rawr!" he yelled, making claw-hands in the air.

Part of me hoped that he would never outgrow the "monster stage". It was adorable, even if it was growing increasingly hard to come up with fresh and exciting bedtime stories each night.

"Don't you swim out too far!" I shouted. "The murlocs will get you! I've seen them do it!"

Gorrum spun around to look for signs of monsters. I wasn't crazy about naming the boy after Kaja's dad. I wanted to name the calf after Urlug or Molthor; but Kaja was right to point out that although those two friends meant a lot to me, they weren't really part of her life.

Kaja's dad, on the other hand, meant a lot to us both.

Slowly, a dead, clawed hand emerged from the surf on one side of the boy. Another dead hand emerged on his other side.

"A murloc!" I cried. Kaja put a hand over her face and shook her head.

Gorrum looked this way and that. He bleated in surprise as the hands grabbed him and slowly lifted him from the surf.

The calf struggled and his wet tail swung wildly as he tried to free himself from the Forsaken's grip.

"He's getting strong, isn't he?"

Johnny nodded at me.

"Throw me! Throw me! Throw me!" the child shrieked.

You'd never guess it by looking at him, but Johnny was a natural with kids. It probably helped that he didn't ever scold them.

He grabbed the calf by one arm and leg, and carried him near the shore. Then he swung him wide and Gorrum screamed with glee, "No! Owa! Halii!" The boy flew long and made a big splash among the waves.

"Again! Again!" I heard him sputter as he struggled to swim back to shore.

"We're both going to be busy tomorrow. Would you mind keeping an eye on the calf?"

Johnny nodded and smiled.

"But no ghost stories."

"Aw... But Johnny tells them the best!" the boy bleated.

"Absolutely not." I stood and scooped the wriggling boy up with one arm, gave him a bear hug, and handed him to his mother. She squeezed him close to her heart with her powerful arms.

They walked hand-in-hand back to out hut on the edge of the beach. Her copper anklet glinted in the sun. Even after a year together, her tail still hypnotized me.

I slapped Johnny on the back and put my arm around his shoulders. "Can you stick around for dinner?"

He nodded and I smiled.

Fin

Well, that's the long and short of Brick and Johnny's story. It took quite a while to tell it, but I hope you found it worth the time. I sure enjoyed telling it.

Take a moment to leave a message. Did you like it? Would you rather I had done it differently? If I write another, what would you like to read?

I'm not real sure what I'm gonna' do next, but I may post a non-WoW story. It's a pretty good tale, but since it's not WoW fanfic, I won't be posting links on wow_ladies or wow_fanart. If you'd like to follow it, you might want to friend me now...

A Little TLC

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:14:03 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Probably SFW.

Episode 12: A Little TLC

It was early in the evening before I could make my way back to Kaja's shop.

My left eye was swollen shut, so I navigated with my squinting right. Kaja was just closing up shop for the day.

"Can I help...?" she said, as she looked up from her sweeping. "Brick?"

I can't recall what she was wearing. I couldn't take my eyes off of her beautiful face. My heart was racing and my stomach tumbled. She burst into tears and rushed to me, throwing her arms around my neck.

"Oh Brick! I thought you were dead. I hadn't heard any word in months." She was sobbing now, clutching me tight.

I held her too. Despite all her muscles, she felt so soft and warm to my touch. I couldn't remember ever holding anything as soft as her.

Her ribs throbbed with each gut-wrenching sob. "Don't cry. Oh, please don't cry. I'm alright," I told her.

"No, you're not! Look at you!" She let go and put her calloused hands gently to my face. "Why? Why is it that every time you leave, you come back looking like this?" The emotion in her voice was so pure. The pain so evident. "Where will it end?"

I shrugged and tried to smile, but I could taste a lot of blood. I was sure my teeth were stained red, so I kept them hidden.

"Come with me." She grabbed me by the hand and dragged me along, up the circular ramp that connected her shop to her apartment. Despite all the time we had spent together, I had never been in her home before. I didn't take my eyes off of her, but my blood-encrusted nose feasted on the scents.

I wish I could describe the sensation! It was like I was entering her den and the smells here were all-things-Kaja.

I could smell her, and the clothes she wore. I could smell her personal treasures, and the possessions that reminded her of Agra and Gorrum. I could smell the letter that Innkeeper Thulbek had written for me. I could smell her work and her tools from the shop below. I could actually smell her passion for the things that she built, and the business she loved.

It was like I was wrapped in a warm cocoon of Kaja-scents.

"You're such a mess..." I could see the pain on her face. I hurt, but seeing the pain she felt was the only ache I could sense.

She peeled off my vest and guided me down onto her bed. It was the most wonderful sensation I had ever felt. It was like lying on a cloud. The mattress was lined with down and I sunk deep into its depths. Soft linen cloths were layered on top, scented with... I don't know what. They smelled like Mulgore during the rain.

The smell of Kaja's hair and sweat were in the pillow. I closed my eyes and drew it all in.

A soft oilskin lined the bottom third of the bed. It held my weary feet at just the perfect angle. I thought I would melt away into sleep.

Then Kaja was at my side, wiping my face with soft cotton cloth that she had dipped in cool water. "Oh, baby," she whispered, "you look like you went through a meat-grinder."

"That's a bit how it feels too. I think his arms got tired during the beating." I chuckled a little and felt a stitch of pain in my ribs. "Mostly he hit my gut. I think he got tired of reaching up to my face. Your father's a lot stronger than he looks."

Kaja froze in place. She wore the sort of expression that would follow being hit with a club. "Daddy? Daddy did this to you?"

I nodded happily. I felt free, as light as a bird. "He said I could wed you."

More stunned silence. Tears were streaming down her face.

"Well, if you want to that is..." My heart was in free-fall. I hoped that I hadn't done all this for nothing.

"Oh, Brick!" she gasped, and wrapped her arms around me.

I buried my face into her soft neck; and it was wonderful. I kissed my aching lips to her soft fur, once, and again. "I've missed you so much, for so long," I said. "I've thought of nothing else."

She sat up and stared at me. Her ears were laid down flat, so tragic. He face was so wet with tears.

I brushed them away with my thumbs. "I thought perhaps..." It had been so long. I tried to remember the phrase. "I thought that perhaps I could take you out?"

She shook her head no, and slowly pulled her blouse up over her head. Her body was so beautiful, so perfect. I put my hands up, to pull her close.

She put her lips to my ear and whispered so softly. "No, Brick, I think we should stay in."

Then her lips were pressed against mine. Our tongues caressed one another. Our bodies were tumbling gently over and over.

The little clothing we wore was discarded. Lips and tongues, exploring and caressing. I savored the little sounds she made, as if they were the finest meal ever cooked. Pleasure, and passion, and love.

She filled my mind and my senses. I could see, feel, smell, touch, taste, and remember nothing else.

Even the beating that I was never to forget was forgotten. Kaja was my world, and her soft body was my temple.

When our muscles could give no more, we wrapped our arms around one another. Panting, dripping with sweat, and listening to each other's heartbeats, we drifted off towards a gentle oblivion of dreams... dreams of our future together.

"I will love you..." I whispered ever so quietly to her.

"Forever," she completed not just my thought, but me.

A Scuffle With the Outriders

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 02:46:57 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 11: A Scuffle With the Outriders

Gorrum was not a difficult man to find. The first city sentry I asked pointed me to the Valley of Honor.

The sergeant's outriders were circled around the practice field, repeating their drills endlessly as Gorrum walked among them, yelling orders. "Again!" "Throw him!" "In the neck, not the chest!"

He saw me enter his circle and his face split open with a wide, froggy grin. "Brick!" he yelled, "I thought you had gone back to Mulgore by now."

I kept walking directly to him. Some of his men stopped their training to turn and watch. "I want to wed your daughter, Gorrum."

"Oh, do you now?" A silence fell over the field. All of them turned to watch. A few hooted and whistled in excitement.

Gorrum peeled off his shirt and tossed it to the edge of the circle.

"Yes, sir," I replied. "I like her and I think she likes me too."

"Well, we'll see about this." He stripped off his boots and tossed them aside. "Put up your fists, Brick."

"I'm not going to fight you, sir." Of all the reactions I could have expected, this would be the last.

"Oh yes, you will." He put up his fists and started circling around me. He tossed a couple test punches to see how I would react.

I moved to the side a little to avoid them.

"If you want my daughter, then you will fight me. It's the Orcish way for three very important reasons." He grunted in frustration. "Put up your fists, dammit!"

He jabbed me hard in the gut and I took it. I didn't want to hurt anyone, especially not someone important to Kaja.

"First off," he said, "we have this tradition so that I can reject you. If I don't think you'd be good enough for my daughter, then I can beat on you for as long as it takes to make you change your mind."

As quick as a thought, he crossed with his left and then his right, both square to my chin. The pain burst through my jaw like an explosion. I put both hands over my mouth and cursed into my palms.

The outriders cheered him on.

"I like you, Brick. You don't have much to worry about there." He grinned at me. "I think you and Kaja would make a great couple."

He landed a heavy upper-cut to my gut. He moved really quick, and hit very hard.

I put up my open hands, not to fight him, but to ward off additional blows. "Um, thank you, sir," I grunted, not quite sure of how I should react.

"The second reason is that it gives you a chance to demonstrate your strength to me. Show me some fists, damn you," he growled. "If you want to prove that you can take care of my little girl, then you better land some punches!"

I sighed and balled my fists. I took a tentative swing at his head, but he ducked easily around it. His men booed my weak performance. "Okay, so what's the third reason?"

He kicked me in the stomach and I doubled over in pain.

"The third reason is a reminder," he whispered in my ear. "You're going to remember this beating for a lifetime," he said, "even if it takes me all day to deliver it."

He brought his knee up hard, into my left eye. Stars and streamers shot through my vision as I fell to the ground. Someone was cheering, somewhere.

"This is a tiny taste of what my men and I will do to you, if you ever hurt my baby girl."

He kicked me in the gut.

"Now get up and fight."

The End of the Road

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:39:35 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 10: The End of the Road

It was still dark when I awoke, but the fire had burned out.

"I hurt..." I moaned.

"Mos def," the Troll beside me sighed. "Mi 'ope yeh caa tek mi sorry some day, Sleepy Bull."

"Where's Zasha?" I asked.

"Frocked," he replied, "an' on har weh."

I groaned again and the Troll nodded. He summoned a healing totem. "Y'caa sleep wit' dis."

# # #

No one was in a talkative mood the next day.

Family can be that way. You love them, and you want to bash their brains out with a rock.

We walked to Juba'jin and hitched a lift to Yojamba Isle. Before I knew it, I was back at the sweat lodge, with shovel in hand. I looked up to see Al'tabin squatting beside the hole.

"Molthor said y'back."

I nodded. "The sweat lodge collapsed. You guys get so much rain here..."

Al'tabin put his hand on my shoulder. Even though I was rested, healed, and fed, something inside of me... something deep down in my soul was tired, broken, and miserably neglected. I was at the end of my journey, but instead of rejoicing... I just felt dead. I let my shoulders sag and the shovel fall.

"It was a very long journey," I explained.

He smiled at me in a grand-fatherly sort of way, and smiled. "I'm proud a you."

His voice sounded like one I had heard so long ago, back when I was just a calf. A familiar scent made me smile.

Rut

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:17:23 GMT

Index: [Previous] [First]

Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 9: Rut

Do you guys have any idea how much fun I get out of picking where the episode breaks are?

No, probably not!

In other news, this is the last week of Brick & Mortar. The final episode is on Friday.

Waaaaaaah! I'm gonna' miss posting for you. :(

"Oh, Brick!" she gasped.

"Cha! What'n bloodfiah y'two dween?" Molthor shouted.

As quick as a shot, the Troll hopped over the dying campfire and was pulling me back by my right horn.

Hrm. How do I put this?

You don't do that.

You don't grab another guy by his horns; not unless you hate having teeth, that is.

Oh, now if a cow were to do it, then that would be something totally different. If Zasha had grabbed both of my horns and maneuvered my face into a spot where she wanted it, well that would have been quite all right. In fact, it would have been far more than "all right"!

But this tale isn't about what I would have liked to have happen. Sadly.

No, this story is about what did happen; and while I'm talking about it, let me just say that I do feel pretty bad about this. Orcs probably couldn't understand just what it's like to be in rut. Oh, they may nod and grin, but until you've experienced it, you just couldn't imagine it.

When a bull is in rut, there's only two things on his mind; one is the tender little gal who's moaning your name, and the other is beating on the other bulls until your arms feel like they'll fall out of their sockets. That's it. As opposite as they may seem, those were the only two things I wanted right then.

And they were both equally appealing.

I leapt to my hooves and I bellowed as loud as I could. Zasha had to scramble away, just to keep from being trampled by 800 pounds of enraged Tauren. I would have liked to yell some obscenities at the Troll, but I couldn't form words right then. The noise that came out of me, and shook all the birds from their nests, that was the purest representation of my thoughts.

I lowered my horns at Molthor and charged.

I talk now and then about how smooth Johnny is, but I don't think I ever gave the Troll proper credit. In one single motion, the witchdoctor planted a bare foot on the flat of my face. I bucked up reflexively, and the shaman spring-boarded up high into the tree branches, like some sort of side-show act.

I crashed into the brush, but was right back out, standing under where I saw him last. "Fight like a man!" I howled up into the darkness.

I remember seeing an inky black shadow detach from the gloom overhead. I couldn't make it out until Molthor's right heel connected with my left cheek.

Then I was on the ground, shaking my head, trying to regain my senses.

I looked up to see the Troll standing by his gear, now with his staff in hand. He shouted at me, "Mi bet dey callin' you Brick caa dat all is in yeh nappy 'ead!"

I charged at him, but found only open air where he had been standing. The witchdoctor was spinning overhead with staff in hand. He brought it down hard with both hands, landing the staff's head square on the back of my left kidney.

The pain was spectacular and radiating. I stumbled as I ran. I felt groggy and it took a few moments for me to untangle my horns from a bush.

"What is it with you Trolls?" I grunted. "Why do you try to take all the females for yourselves?"

"Bloodclot! Woulda gone back fi Orgrimmah 'sif nuttin' eva happen," Molthor spat.

I charged at him and he landed the staff on my right temple. My vision was replaced with flashes of different-colored lights, and I could feel my face plowing into the dirt, eventually stopping my forward motion.

I heard him behind me, jabbering like a monkey in a tree. "Den when Kaja ask what yeh dit in de Eastlands, yeh woulda said datcha met a ready cow. Datcha hung har knickers from ya horns an' rode har 'round de campfiah shoutin', 'hi ho, Mulgore!'"

My body felt so heavy. Climbing to my knees took an astonishing amount of effort.

"Da all-seer was right. Fate put mi 'ere, Sleepy Bull. Yeh needs mi fi be right 'ere, right now."

With no small amount of effort, I stood upright and loomed over the Troll. This fight would have gone so much better if I had been wearing my armor. Any clothes at all would have been nice.

"Give me that staff," I grunted like an animal, "I'm going to stick it..."

He gave it to me all right. Right in what Trolls call the mojo bag.

Test Chapter

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:46:35 GMT

Hey guys, I'm toying with writing another. But instead of having a main character that is simple and good, I'd like to write flaws into all the new characters. Big character flaws, like pride, wrath, greed, etc.

Have a peek at the following test chapter. What do you think of the characters? Do you like them? Do you hate them? Do you want to see them succeed? Would you rather see them fail? Are you curious enough about what will happen to them to follow along, or do you not care?

Please look it over and post a comment with your thoughts. Let me know if I should bother writing more. And if you have ideas/requests, then post those too!

Untitled
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman
Test Chapter

Jorren kept one eye on the top of the next rise as he followed the tracks.

The trail was wide and obvious. Even a rather dull calf could not miss it. So many hooves had trampled the tall grass flat, that it looked as if an elven road had been cut across the prairie.

As much as the large bull wished to catch up with his quarry, he had to tread carefully. There were clearly many interlopers ahead, and he had no one with him to watch his back. He would stand no chance, should he be discovered.

Jorren crept to the top of the next hill. He shifted forms mid-stride, slipping into a new shape as gracefully as he could dive into deep water. One moment he was a great beast of a man, with the legs, fur, and head of a bull; and in the next he was an enormous lion.

The transformation was not perfect, and never would be. Not even the arch druids could achieve transformation as completely as the lord, Cenarius, could. Jorren's chest was too wide in cat form to be that of a true lion. And the huge horns that graced his head when he had walked upright had not completely vanished.

For this, he was secretly thankful. Although all druids strive to hone their transformation skills, Jorren could not bear the thought of life without at least some trace of his magnificent horns.

Jorren felt that a Tauren's horns define him as a person. Even the short little things atop his head now -- horns better suited for a cow than a bull -- were infinitely better than having no horns at all.

The druid slunk close to the ground, with tail held low. It energized him, being so close to the earth. The long grass brushed across his face and chest. The raw power of nature kissed him and recharged him strength. He lived for this feeling.

Although no druid would ever admit it to their utankan, their tribe, he could never love them with the same sort of completeness. He could never feel the same sort of passion towards people. The love he held for life itself was without equal.

From where he crouched, he could see the trail arc down the slope and perhaps half a mile across the plains, before disappearing into the trees. He slowly scanned the valley ahead of him, looking for invaders. The late afternoon sun was behind him, comforting him. If anyone ahead was looking for a pursuer, they would have to stare into the sun to spot him.

The trail went through a muddy depression beyond a large boulder. He slinked ahead to the edge of the depression and transformed back to his Tauren form. On one knee, he studied the story told by the tracks.

Tauren do not have great vision, but their hearing and sense of smell are excellent. Jorren regretted that this day, as the trail left behind stunk almost as much as the invaders themselves.

Then he caught a different scent; another, more sinister smell. The musky, rotten smell of evil could not be completely masked by sweat and dung.

He felt it now. All around him, and for several yards in each direction. The precious land was dying. With his primary finger, he gently bent a clump of grass to the side so he could peer at the stems. He could see and feel the color draining out of the blades. They were slowly fading from dark green, to light green, to yellow.

Jorren stood and scratched idly at an itch. His eyes did not leave the grass, but his heightened senses reached out in all directions. He felt the life around him... and the gap in that sensation.

Then, in the span of a single heartbeat, the huge druid spun about, turning to face his enemy. The figure had been looming over him, silently, from a flat spot on the boulder. In one continuous motion, he plucked the creature from the rock, and pulled the large hunting knife from his belt.

# # #

Jorren held the tiny figure aloft easily with one hand. With his primary finger between the creature's shoulders and his thumb dug into its chest, the creature hung limply in the air -- seemingly oblivious to the knife the Tauren held at its throat.

"I was wondering when you'd notice me," it drawled with a dreadful gasp.

"How dare you set foot on this hollowed ground, corpse? How dare you touch Mulgore soil with your Plague-tainted feet?" Jorren bellowed, his nose nearly touching the undead. He snorted loudly, briefly blowing the Forsaken's filthy hair back from its nearly-translucent face.

"Silly cowboy," Stephen said in a condescending tone. He patted his decaying hand on the Tauren's furry nose, leaving behind a smudge of filth. "Do you really think that the Plague's spores have not drifted to Mulgore soil? That there is a corner of Azeroth that the Lich King's evil has not yet touched?"

Furious, the bull gripped the creature tighter, trying to squeeze the air out of its lungs. He desperately wanted to keep it from speaking more blasphemy, but it was a pointless gesture. The Forsaken's lungs had held no air in years. That he bothered moving his lips at all when he spoke, was really more of a habit than anything else.

"I'm impressed that Thunder Bluff's arch druids have held the spores' germination at bay for so long, and across an entire nation no less," Stephen wheezed. "But unless someone manages to expunge them, it won't last forever. The whole world will fall." He smiled a death's head grin.

Jorren's dark brown fur bristled. At nine feet in height and 800 pounds in weight, the bull was an intimidating sight. Two foot long horns of light brown keratin bracketed the Forsaken's head.

The druid shook his huge mane and long, braided beard in anger. "You are an abomination! I should tear you into little pieces and toss them in a bonfire!"

The undead returned Jorren's dark stare with clouded eyes. "I'm the walking dead, fuzzy. I've experienced more misery than you can even comprehend. Do you really think that any threat you could make would scare me?"

Stephen laughed casually, as if they had been discussing the weather. "Besides, it's not like I want the Plague to spread here. I envy those who survived the Plague's eruption.

"Hell..." He stared languidly at the druid. "I envy those who were lucky enough to stay dead."

Jorren shook the little man like a rag doll. "Why are you here? Are you following them too?"

"Let's just say," he grinned with an assortment of missing and broken teeth, "that they have something that I want..."

The druid's blue eyes opened wide. "The prisoner?"

"Prisoner?"

Jorren dangled the Forsaken over the hundreds of small "C"s covering the mud. He gestured excitedly with the dagger.

Stephen looked with disinterest. "Yes, they're centaur tracks. I've heard that they leave those behind when they walk through mud. It's fascinating really..." The hoof prints meant nothing to him, and he would not have cared if they had.

With the tip of his blade, Jorren drew a large circle around a single track. The creature that had made this print had much larger feet. And unlike the centaurs, this creature had cloven hooves.

"That's a bull's hoofprint," the druid growled. "They are clearly holding one of my people prisoner!"

The Forsaken shrugged. "Perhaps he is following them. Did you ever think..."

"Are you blind, corpse?" Jorren snorted. "The Tauren print overlaps the centaur tracks! And this print here has pushed into the edge of the bull's print. He is traveling with them, not behind them."

Jorren tossed the little man to the side. Vines emerged from the long grass and wrapped tightly around the Forsaken, holding him firmly in place.

Stephen sighed. "Perhaps he has sided with the centaur."

Jorren snapped his face to the undead's. "How dare you even speak such lies out loud! The centaur are our sworn enemies!" The vines sprouted thorns and tightened their grip. The druid's magic pulsed along with the swollen vein at his temple.

"You really don't get out much, do you cowboy?" Stephen chuckled. "I've seen things far more shocking than a traitor."

The druid turned back to study the tracks, ignoring Stephen.

The Forsaken stood there for a moment, waiting for more from the Tauren. Eventually he sighed. "Let's go ask them, shall we?"

Jorren turned back to Stephen, only to see him engulfed in a brilliant blaze of flames that burned black and violet. A second later, the flames extinguished, leaving only wisps of grey, foul-smelling smoke.

A charred, lifeless circle of earth surrounded the warlock. The land was not so much burnt, as it was scoured free of life. The sight raised a small lump in the druid's throat.

Stephen strode casually off down the hill. "Coming?" he called over his shoulder.

Compelled by a morbid curiosity more than anything else, the druid trailed behind -- at what he hoped was a safe distance.

# # #

Stephen walked down the slope and across the plain. Jorren nervously treaded a little closer.

"Over there," the Forsaken rasped, "a sentry."

The druid squinted his eyes. He followed along, but could not quite make out what the warlock had spotted.

Some day, perhaps in the distant future, the arch druids would teach him to transform into a bird. That would be wonderful, he thought, not only to be able to fly, but to see off, far into the distance...

The Forsaken made a complex gesture with his hands. Jorren couldn't quite make out the fuzzy blob that was charging towards them, but he had no difficulties hearing the pain in the cursed centaur's screams.

Stephen gestured again, and again, stacking curse upon curse on the charging centaur, but it clearly would not stop the beast from reaching him.

The druid fidgeted. Despite his desire to kill the loathsome monster, he really hated the idea of defending a Forsaken.

The sentry charged closer and closer. Finally, he leapt. Jorren leapt too, transforming smoothly into a gigantic (horned) bear.

The centaur ignored the druid entirely. He was so maddened with pain, so crazed with a need to destroy the warlock, that he did not even attack Jorren.

The centaur jabbed his spear around the druid, trying to get at the Forsaken, but the Tauren kept him just out of reach. Gigantic bear claws raked at the centaur's withers, but the creature did not seem to notice.

He shrieked as the pain climaxed. He dropped his spear and stumbled back a few paces. Then he seemed to lose his balance and collapsed to the grass.

Jorren stared with wide eyes and slack jaw as the creature writhed in agony.

Stephen walked casually past the druid and pulled a curvy dagger from his belt. He bent at the knee and drove the blade into the lower corner of the creature's horse-belly. He cut upwards, slicing through skin and genitals.

"So what's with that Tauren?" the warlock casually inquired.

The blade traveled up to the bottom of its ribs, but the centaur only screamed. He formed no words that Jorren could make out.

"...the one that's traveling with your band," Stephen explained.

He cut down now, across the base of the creature's horse-chest. Its belly opened like a trap door, spilling guts and ichor across the grass.

Stephen reached casually inside and pulled a length of gut out onto the prairie. Jorren threw up a little in his mouth, but swallowed it back down.

The centaur's screams were growing quieter now.

The warlock repeated the procedure on the centaur's human stomach. Its bloody hands tried to push the blade away, but they were losing their strength quickly.

"Surely you must know," Stephen said, "Is he your prisoner, your ally? What?"

The Forsaken spilled more guts. He pulled at a kidney, and inspected it like a piece of fresh fruit.

The screams quieted to a gurgle before dying completely.

"That was fascinating!" Stephen turned to face the bear. "Apparently centaurs have two sets of everything. Livers, guts, hearts... Weird. That makes no sense at all."

Jorren just stared in horror. He hated the centaurs with every fiber of his being. He wanted to kill them all, and though he had seen death many times, he could not feel okay about what he just witnessed. It was wrong in so many ways.

"We should check out how they fit together. Would you mind breaking open his chest?" He waited in silence for a response, eventually giving up with a shrug.

Stephen stepped over to the dead centaur's head and began to stomp on it. His dried-up body had very little weight, and so he was making little progress.

"Would you mind?" he asked the druid. He gestured at the centaur's head, but Jorren was still frozen in place.

The warlock sighed and fetched a nearby rock. Again, and again, he beat it against the creature's lifeless skull.

The druid transformed slowly back. He sat back on his heels and continued to stare. "Did he have what you wanted?"

The Forsaken looked up. "Hmm? Oh yeah. He had it, but I was unable to capture it. It's elusive." He shrugged. "Perhaps I'll get lucky next time."

With the excess skull broken away now, Stephen plucked out an eyeball and held it aloft by the optic nerve.

"Let's go take a closer look at their encampment, shall we?." He whispered a spell and the eyeball floated away down the trail, as if it were in the skull of an invisible man.

The Softest Fur

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 00:01:04 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Warning: Possibly NSFW. Sorry, guys, but hey, it's a holiday anyhow. Who's at work?

Episode 8: The Softest Fur

The sun had gone down and the fire was dying. The crickets were competing, trying to out-sing one another.

I laid down on my bedroll and propped my head up with one hand. Zasha was laying on her elbows, in the grass beside me. She was picking through clover, occasionally flicking one my way. It was silly behavior that made me grin.

I brushed them off the blanket, and back onto the grass.

"What did you wrap that fish in? It was so strange and delicious."

"Fadeleaf," she said with a smile. "It grows all over Stranglethorn. It's tasty, and it's full of vitamins. Oh, and if you squeeze out the oil, you can even make a few potions with it."

I wanted to ask her more about the potions, but my mind was feeling fuzzy again. I told myself I was tired from the long journey, but I didn't feel the least bit sleepy.

Zasha grabbed a big handful of clover and then scooted over close to me. She sprinkled them slowly over my head. "Such strange weather we have here in Stranglethorn," she whispered.

Her breath was hot and sweet on my face.

I eased myself closer to her and she leaned in to me. I closed my eyes and our lips met. They were so soft and wonderful.

I put my arm around her and pulled her close. Her body felt so warm next to mine.

She slid her tongue inside of my mouth. I took it gently in my lips. It was so nice. Thinking was so hard now that I didn't even try.

I slid my hand inside her untied vest, and cupped her breast. So wonderful and perfect. Her hands were on both sides of my face, softly pulling me closer.

I felt so hot. I was stripping off my clothing. I didn't need it. She was taking hers off as well. Underfoot looked up at us a moment, before yawning and curling back up to sleep.

I pulled her close and slid my hand down her back, caressing her soft fur. She put one arm beneath me and the other on one of my buttocks, gripping it tightly. She pulled her naked hips up against my own.

I was in heaven. I put my hand around the base of her tail and gripped it tight. She made a wonderful little sound, that I could not describe. She took my lower lip lightly in her teeth, and ran her tongue across it.

I rolled on top of the little, white cow and she wrapped her muscular legs around my waist. I kissed her neck and savored the soft smell of her ears.

Then I trailed kisses down her neck, to her collar bone, and to her breasts. I cupped the soft pillows in my hands and licked her nipples gently. She sat up slightly and caressed my head. Her lips were on my ear, whispering, urging me on.

I worked my way farther down, kissing her ribs, and then her stomach. I put my tongue in her belly button.

Then I scooped my arms beneath her. She put her legs around my neck. She ran her fingers through my hair, and my kisses lined her belly.

I wanted her so badly.

Story Hour

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:02:42 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 7: Story Hour

I hurried to catch up with Zasha and fell into step beside her. Her bright leather armor didn't match, but she didn't seem like the sort of person who would care. In fact, it seemed to suit her well.

She wore a rifle across her back, and a small hunting knife on her hip. She traveled remarkably light, without even a bedroll to her name. She had a sunny sort of the-world-will-provide personality too. With her colorful armor and bright white fur, she almost seemed to glow from within.

"So what are you doing here, in Stranglethorn Vale?" I asked.

"Hunting," she said. "There's an old kook named Nessingwary who's set up camp by the banks of the Nazferiti. He'll buy the hide of any critter bigger than a squirrel."

"So you're out here alone? What about your utankan? Where are they?"

"I'm never alone! Underfoot goes everywhere with me." She smiled her sunny smile up at me. "Besides, bulls are so infuriating this time of year. They're always fighting and showing off. Everywhere you look, they're trying to get in your face. It just makes you want to scream, you know?"

I had no idea what she was talking about, so I nodded and smiled.

"I prefer guys who are more independent, less worried about what others think of them." She kicked idly at a rock with her hoof and sent it flying. "So what are you doing out here, Brick?"

"It's a long story."

"Good." She grinned. "I like long stories."

# # #

I pulled my hauberk over my head and sighed in relief. "I've been sleeping in my armor for... I don't even know how long. It feels so good to get that off." I folded it carefully up and began unbuckling the rest of it.

"So let me get this straight," Zasha said from the log she sat on, "A human woman, whose own daughter you killed -- even though you were holding her prisoner in her own home -- helped sew up your wounds?"

I nodded as I put away the last of my armor.

"That's just crazy. If someone was holding me prisoner, there's no way I'd help them sew up their wounds. Forget that!" she laughed.

"Well, to be fair," I explained, "I think I was making her angry by bleeding all over her house. She probably figured that the sooner I was mended, the less mess she would have to clean up."

Zasha snorted and gripped her sides in laughter. "No way. That's funny, but I don't believe it. No one cares about cleaning that much."

"Oh no? Johnny," I said, pointing at the rogue, "before we left, what did she give you to give me?"

Johnny's creepy, air-escaping voice answered, "Soap."

"That's right, a bar of soap." I put my hands on my hips to protest her disbelief. "I slept all day in this woman's house, laying in a puddle of my own blood, stinking like a ghoul, and she gives me a bar of soap.

"Hang on!" I opened my bedroll and pulled out the sliver that I had saved.

She put it up to her nose and sniffed. "Human-made soap? You're serious, aren't you?"

I nodded and she wiped some tears from her eyes. "I'm glad I ran into you guys. I would never have believed this story if it had been told by anyone else."

Zasha

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:49:22 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 6: Zasha

I'd like to insert a special thank-you to ghostmoon who was kind enough to loan me her character, Zasha. Hopefully I managed to portray her in a favorable light.

The next day, we hit a fork in the road that led us South. We were home free. I could feel it.

The days passed and the trees grew denser. We began to see vines and ferns. There were birds singing here. The most we had heard in Duskwood was the unearthly calls of ravens.

"We mek in Stranglet'arn yet? T'ink we muss be." Molthor said.

I tried to find any landmarks on the map, but the more I stared, the more it looked like chicken scratchings. I handed the parchment to the witchdoctor, and he grabbed it out of my hands.

We were almost home. I was done navigating. I was done leading.

"Mi t'ink we be," Molthor said as he studied the map. "Muss be rope span fi dere Naz'friti. We see dat, den we be in Stranlet'arn fa real."

Molthor amused me. He was acting like a little calf. With each hill, he dashed to the top to try and get a better view.

He didn't seem to take much of an interest in any of the people in his life, but he was so excited about being home. Although I clearly wanted to be back for different reasons, I couldn't really blame him. If I were this close to Orgrimmar, I would be bouncing down the trail too.

"Dere! Dere!" he shouted. He dashed away and Johnny and I jogged to catch up.

There indeed was a wide rope bridge over the Nazferiti. The river was deep, and fast-flowing, through a relatively narrow gap in the rocks. Mid-way across the bridge was a Tauren woman with a wolf, fishing over the edge with a pole.

Molthor had run to the far end of the bridge and was on his hands and knees, kissing the ground. The woman waved at us and I waved back.

"Your friend sure seems happy," she said as we approached.

"He's glad to be back," I explained. "My name's Brick. This is Johnny. That's Molthor over there."

She smiled and shook my hand. "Zasha," she said, "I call my wolf 'Underfoot'." She scritched the big grey beast on its neck and it cuddled up close to her. He took no interest in either of us.

She was cute and curvy. Her fur was all-white, and contrasted sharply with her long, black mane and tail tip. Her short horns were dark, and lightened near the tips. She smelled nice.

"What are you staring at? Haven't you seen a fishing pole, before?"

I smiled at her. "A friend of mine had one, but he never showed me how it worked."

It was a fascinating gadget. She even showed me how to use it. She held her warm hand over mine and I tried to cast the line, but hook caught on my tail. Pulling the barb out was not a pleasant experience.

"It's harder than it looks," I admitted. "I think I'll stick to fishing with nets."

When Molthor got tired of waiting, he approached us on the bridge. "Mus go."

"Where you boys headed?" Zasha asked.

"Yojamba Isle."

"Juba'jin," Molthor corrected me. "Fishin' village, dis. From dere, we tek dem boat fi Yojamba."

"Okay, Juba'jin, apparently."

"Oh, I know where that is. It's about a day's walk from here. You won't make it before dark," she said.

Zasha sized up the string of fish she had strung from the bridge. "Y'know, I may have caught more than I can eat. If one of you would like to gut them, I could share..."

Molthor's jaw dropped open. I didn't need to ask him what he thought of the idea. "For a bite of fish, I would carry you to your campsite!" I told her.

Then she did the most peculiar thing. She grabbed my left butt-cheek for a moment and winked at me before heading off down the bridge. "C'mon, Underfoot, let's go," she told the big wolf.

The Living Dead

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:16:58 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 5: The Living Dead

A few days later, we made it to the road. I'm sure it had a name at one point, but I didn't know what that was.

This was no simple cart path. It would have taken years, or even decades to cut and place all the millions of cobblestones that stretched from Moonbrook to Darkshire, and to build all the culverts that kept the rain from washing it out.

I suppose it sounds silly that I'm waxing on about a road, but seeing it really helped put the war into perspective for me. Oh, we had seen a few abandoned villages here in Duskwood, but that didn't make so much of an impression on me. My people are nomadic and we "abandon" our villages several times a year.

My people don't have any real roads, but if we did, they would be nothing like this. This was the sort of construction that civilizations undertook when they lived in the same place for centuries. When the humans left, they abandoned an entire country -- not just a remote outpost, but a land where people must have lived for generations. They abandoned infrastructure and trade routes.

It was really quite grim, when you thought about it.

# # #

I felt safer walking on the Duskwood road than I had crossing over the roads in Westfall or Elwynn Forest. I figured that no men would be patrolling this land.

In a way, I was right. The patrol we encountered two days later were a half-dozen strong -- skeletons armed with swords.

It was eerie fighting with such impossible creatures. They had no muscles anchored to their bones, but still they moved somehow. They charged at us from out of the darkness and I swung my axe in wide arcs, to keep them back. I caught two of them that moved too close and cut them cleanly in two.

The severed pelvises rattled around on the ground, helplessly, but the torsos did not stop. They grabbed the swords they had dropped and continued to crawl towards us. I had to take a step backwards with each swing, just to keep both sets at bay.

Johnny tried to fight them, but despite his skill, his daggers were useless against the fleshless fiends. They had no guts to spill, no arteries to open, no blood to poison, and no tendons to cut. When it was clear that he could not help, he fell in behind me, to keep out of the way.

Molthor on the other hand, was invaluable while fighting the skeletons. His magic blasted the enemy back, and tore limbs from bodies. He opened the holes in their forces, and provided the opportunity for me to get in and cut them down.

Soon, all six of them were freed from their legs, and reduced to crawling. An unexpected glee came over me and I chopped them to little shards. I chopped them until they couldn't crawl, and then I chopped them more. I couldn't explain, but the mindless violence was so liberating. I didn't want it to end.

Molthor put a hand on my shoulder and dragged me away from the pile of shattered bones. "Dey dead, Sleepy Bull."

"They were dead before they attacked us!" I bellowed at him.

"Mi sayin'," the Troll said slowly, "we clear now."

I nodded. "Clear." I stripped off my hauberk and laid down on the road.

Molthor squatted down next to me and Johnny stood nearby to keep watch. "Ya fine, Sleepy Bull?"

I nodded and closed my eyes. "I'm hot. Why is it so hot here?"

Marriage

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:05:32 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 4: Marriage

Neat. Johnny's story set a record number of hits for people checking it out on the day it was posted. I guess there's a lot of Johnny fans out there. Clearly I need to do more undead stuff.

In other news, you guys are going to be soooo angry.

There's an upcoming episode that's a heck of a cliffhanger. It's probably the most hangy of the cliffhangers in the entire story. I knew it when I wrote it. That's a good thing!

But what I did not realize, at the time, was that it was going to be a Friday episode.

This Friday, in fact.

So, um...

Enjoy! :)

We traveled during the day and set up camp at night. Between the long summer days and a determined pace, we were making great progress.

And from what we could see, it seemed that Johnny was doing a fine job. He would scout ahead, and then wait for us to catch up. Occasionally, he would wait at the top of a hill and signal left or right as we approached.

After three days of travel, we encountered our first resistance. Despite the care that Johnny had taken to steer us around danger, a group of four ghouls wandered right into us.

I actually did smell them coming. Ghouls stink like bloated corpses, and the stench is enough to turn your stomach. But unlike many of the Scourge, ghouls move quickly. They swing their arms in wide arcs as they run.

By the time we noticed them, it was too late to escape. They had spotted us.

Unlike Johnny, ghouls aren't so much the reanimated dead. It's more like they are living creatures that have been created from pieces of the dead. The Lich King's alchemists built the creatures for clearing out unarmed towns.

From what I could see, ghouls were equal parts teeth, claws, and appetite, but intelligence doesn't appear to be in the recipe. If you handed a ghoul a sword, it would probably put it in its mouth. They don't use weapons, and they would attack even if the enemy outnumbered them a hundred to one.

Needless to say, they were little match for three well-armed fighters.

We dispatched them easily enough, and thanked our good fortune that we had someone like Johnny to keep watch. It was easy to imagine how the fight could have gone, had they attacked while we slept.

# # #

I looked up when I noticed the Troll was speaking.

"Y'got hard ears." The campfire reflected off his blue face-paint, giving him an other-worldly look.

"I was listening! I was." I tried to remember what he had said, but couldn't. "Okay, I guess I'm a little distracted."

Molthor grinned with his eyes. I had been around him long enough now to learn his visual cues. Having large tusks changes a lot of things that you might not otherwise guess. "Dun need fi tell me 'oo ya t'inkin' 'bout. S'all ovah y'face."

I put my hands to my face for a moment, before realizing it was a metaphor. I smiled and drooped my ears in embarrassment.

"Gween wed dis garl back in Orgrimmah, right?"

"Wed?"

"Yeh, orc way a dis; ya lib togedda."

Ooh, living together. That sounded nice. I'd be able to see her every day. "Do you... do you think she'd want to?"

"'Ow mi know? Neva seen dis garl!" The witchdoctor cocked his head and stared at me. "But she gib ya dis locks 'air, dat so? Muss mean sumt'in'."

I opened the hand that was holding the lock. I held it to my nose and breathed deeply. It had been so long since I last saw her. The scent was getting faint; the hair was smelling more like my bedroll and less like Kaja.

I imagined her smile. I imagined watching her face while she slept. "I guess I'll ask her when I get back..."

Molthor shook his head. "Mi dun t'ink it work dis way. Ya s'pose fi ask har fadda, Sleepy Bull." He shrugged. "Yeh, dis righted. T'ink fi 'im say-so."

"I spoke to her dad before I left Orgrimmar. I wanted to know if I should buy a gun, but instead he told me a lot about Kaja growing up. It was really confusing." I scratched my head. "Do you suppose he thought I was asking if I could wed her?"

"Dunno. What 'im say?"

"Something about sharpening his axe, and an old maid. Oh, and that he cheated her somehow. Does that mean anything to you?"

Molthor shrugged and looked at Johnny. Johnny shrugged too.

"Well, he did say that I should talk to Kaja and spend time with her. That part was pretty clear."

Molthor smiled again and slapped my shoulder in a brotherly fashion. "Dere. Ask 'im, mon. Seem like 'im easy widdit."

Duskwood

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:24:54 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 3: Duskwood

We didn't talk the next day either.

I cared a lot for Johnny, and although I could never really understand what he had been through, I got the general gist of it.

The Lich King had released The Plague upon the humans and turned them into the Scourge, an army of mindless monsters. The Plague ruined not only the people, but the land too. Those that were not killed, fled in horror.

It took years before some of the undead could break free of his control, and proclaim themselves the "Forsaken". If anything, it was a mercy that he could not remember his days as Scourge. No one needs to know what sorts of things he had done during that time.

The Lich King had left some of his Scourge here in Duskwood. This was not an army. These were not his reserves. The Scourge that remained here were a residue; forgotten and aimless. They were like armed bear traps left behind by a careless hunter.

In a way, that was good. They would not be organized. They would not be looking for us. But if they found us... well, it was best not to think about that possibility.

I wanted to lead the party South, around the Scourge, but I was finding this increasingly difficult. I felt hot and irritable. I wanted to take off my armor and sling it over my shoulder.

What was wrong with me? Was it Johnny's disturbing story? Was it the lack of sleep?

No, I didn't think so. I had been fighting this feeling for a while, now. I felt distracted and fuzzy.

I really wanted this quest to be done. I didn't want to tell anyone what to do anymore. I was tired of being responsible all the time. I needed to go back to Orgrimmar, and to see Kaja again.

I know that sounds cliché, but I was finding it hard to think of anything else. I closed my eyes, and she was there. And even when my eyes were open, I found my mind was thinking about her, instead of the danger around us.

Something had to change. If I didn't do something soon, I was going to get us all killed. I was sure of that.

# # #

"Johnny, do you think you can lead us through Duskwood?"

He looked up at me with what I can only guess was surprise.

Molthor's painted face looked positively pale in the campfire's glow. "Ya t'ink dat wise?"

If anything, Johnny's story had rattled the Troll even more than it had rattled me. But I had been with the rogue longer, and I honestly believed that he had come around. I knew that I could trust him. Molthor was not quite so ready.

"I'm not sure. But if Johnny is spotted by Scourge, then they may not see him as a threat. They may assume he is one of them. Neither you nor I can pull that off."

Plus, I wanted to add, I've been daydreaming ever since we crossed the Nazferiti...

Johnny thought a long time before giving me a solemn nod. I looked to Molthor. He thought even longer than the Forsaken before nodding.

"Good." I rolled out the map. "I think we're right about here. There's a road to the South, and Raven Hill is here.

"The Alliance lost Raven Hill to the Scourge years ago, so it's safe to assume that it's still occupied. Either way, we'll need to give it a wide berth.

"Get us to that road without being spotted by Scourge, and we should be in Stranglethorn Vale in no time at all."

Johnny's Tale

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:11:32 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Warning: This next little bit is... well... it's not right. It's just wrong. Is it NSFW? I have no idea. It probably shouldn't be read by anyone, whether they are at work, or at home. If I had to label it something, it would be Not Save For Reading Before Bedtime. In fact, it's probably the most f-ed up thing I've written since I finished my first novel. And I hope for your sake that you didn't read that.

If you're smart, you'll give it a miss, and pick up the story with the next episode. I don't think you have to read this bit, or anything. I'm not going to quiz you on it later or something.

For those of you reading on, yeah this is a very different style than the rest of the tale. I wanted to capture Brick's experience, as confusing and disjoint as it was.

Episode 2: Johnny's Tale

If I lived to be twenty, I didn't think I'd ever get used to Johnny's ghost whispers. His voice was less like talking and more like a dying gasp. It wasn't so much that you heard his words or didn't hear, but the images made it into your mind somehow. You saw what he described, even if you didn't really follow how.

I saw them. I saw Johnny with his family. Johnny was young and strong. He wore his hair in a short braid, and smiled easy. He was kneeling in the simple shop that was built-on to their simple home. A wide variety of well cared-for tools were neatly arranged on the wall.

Johnny was assembling a barrel of freshly-dried oak, and laughing at his son's antics. The girl was learning to walk with her mother's help, and the boy was chasing after a toad that was trying to hide in the long grass. They both had their mother's hair; long, brown, and curled.

His wife was a beautiful and deeply religious woman. Not stern, or strict, as you might expect, but she believed that the Lord would protect them in all things.

She cooked the meals, and cleaned the home. She took them to the simple church in the simple town's center, and sang the simple hymns.

She taught the children to pray each night, before bed. The girl was probably too young to understand, but she seemed to enjoy the ritual and the quiet time with her mother.

They held their hands together, and closed their eyes. The boy recited the words he had been taught and the girl mimicked them as best she could. Her mother squeezed her close and encouraged her.

She tucked the children in and kissed them on their foreheads. She closed the door and returned to the master bedroom.

She opened her robe to the moonlight and exposed her bare body for Johnny to see. There was no appeal for me in such a skinny, hairless creature, but there was for Johnny.

Then his hands and lips were on her, and I grew increasingly uncomfortable with the memories he was sharing. He could taste her sweat. He was caressing her softest parts. Her legs were wrapped tightly around his naked body, urging him on. Her lips were on his ear... her tongue... crying out, begging for the release that only he could give her.

I started to feel dizzy and confused. This wasn't right in any way. The line between what he was telling us and my own thoughts was blurred. The emotions were right, but the sights and smells were wrong. They tumbled over and over, hot and sweaty in the moonlight. I was there, and so was Kaja.

Kaja was naked and beautiful. My hands were upon her, my lips. I wanted her so badly that I could not think straight. She was in my arms, strong and muscular. I was holding her to me. I would do anything for her. I needed her so badly.

The lovers were tumbling over one another. Human parts and Tauren parts were co-mingling in impossible and ludicrous ways. Was it my mind spinning, or were the bodies? It was a dizzying jumble of desire and lust.

Then they were apart, Johnny and his wife. They were laying side-by-side, slicked with sweat in the summer moonlight. He was out of breath, and she spoke of how she would love him forever.

I felt out of breath too. More than that, I was uncomfortable and out of place. I wanted nothing more than to run from the circle of firelight, to flee. But I I felt frozen to the spot in which I sat.

Then it was day and he was laying in bed alone, still slicked with sweat, but now woozy and ill. The children were there, beside the bed, asking if daddy would be alright.

The priest was there, saying prayers and reassuring Johnny's wife.

She tried to make him eat. She tried to get him to drink. But he was too weak, too tired. The smell of food made his tumbling stomach hurt more. He was wasting away.

Day and night and day and the dim of dusk. Everything was confusing and vague, hot and sweaty. The house smelled wrong. The fresh air had a tinge of decay.

He was out of breath again. They were tumbling on the bedsheets again. Her legs were wrapped around him.

She was crying out in his ear, begging for release. His hands and lips were upon her. Gripping. Tasting.

In some ineffable way, I was there still. It was my hands on Kaja's body, my lips on her fur, her screams in my ear. I didn't want this, but I did. I hungered for her in a way that I never had before. I needed her like I had never needed anything else. I felt the madness.

Then they were apart, Johnny and his wife. Lying side-by-side and slicked wet in the summer moonlight. He was out of breath again.

He could hear the drips. Drip. Drip. Drip. Rubies sparkling in the moonlight. Crimson drips splishing into a large puddle under the bed.

The sound was maddening; the endlessness of it.

He could feel his humanity dripping away...

Leaving him, blessedly, without conscience...

Leaving him with the final memories of his loving family...

The sound of their screams...

The taste of their flesh...

# # #

We didn't talk any more that night.

I couldn't sleep.

Fording the Nazferiti

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:32:09 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

OMG! Final part!

Part VI
Episode 1: Fording the Nazferiti

We cautiously left the home and followed my compass, due South. We didn't waste time sneaking or trying to cover our tracks. Speed was all that really mattered now.

With a pace somewhere between a march and a jog, we crossed through woods, streams, and over roads. With every dog bark, we froze in place, worried that it could be another team, searching for us.

At mid-morning, we hit the river. It was even wider and wilder than the tributary we had crossed earlier. According to the map, there were no bridges across this river for a hundred miles in either direction.

"Dun got 'nuff oil leff. 'Nuff fi maybe one, maybe likkle more," Molthor explained. My heart sank a little. "We mek fi de beach. Sum'un gween 'ave a boat. We teks it, an' cross."

I listened for dogs, worried that we might not have the time. "No, I have a better idea," I said. "Molthor, use all the oil on me." He looked confused, so I insisted, "Do it."

The witchdoctor rubbed the remaining oil over my hooves and performed some arcane gesture over them. "Done, dis," he said.

I picked the little rogue up under one arm and grinned. It was like he weighed nothing. "Get on my back, Molthor. Hurry!"

The Troll climbed aboard and held on like I was a swaying tree. I started to run, out across the water. It was the most weight that I had ever carried, but I didn't care. The water was holding up my weight and I was grinning from ear to ear. I could hear Molthor cheering from my shoulders. "Taz'dingo!" We won. We won.

"If you ever... tell anyone..." I huffed, "that you rode... a Tauren... I will deny it."

We reached the far shore and I literally tossed the two of them onto the banks before collapsing into the cool mud. I rolled over, exhausted; panting, laughing, and crying all at the same time. I just let the sun shine on my mud- coated face and let the tears run down from my eyes. "We did it."

The Troll and Forsaken eventually peeked in on me. I would not have noticed, save for the shadows they cast over my closed eyes. "Yeh gween lay 'bout all a day, Sleepy Bull?"

I put my hands behind my head. "Yup. You might as well set up camp. I've earned a swim."

Johnny crouched down and handed me a small, off-white object.

I sniffed it. "Soap? Where did you...? Did you steal this from the farmer and his wife, or did they...?" I noticed my own aroma. Two weeks without a bath was one thing, but two weeks in armor without a bath was something entirely different. I smelled like a box full of dead things.

"Very subtle, Ma," I chuckled. "Very subtle."

Johnny actually grinned. With as dry as his skin was, the effect was quite ghastly, but it meant a lot to me. More than he realized, I'm certain.

# # #

We retired around the campfire that night to talk and laugh. Johnny had caught some fat rabbits, and Molthor had roasted them on sticks. I had done my part too, and worn the soap down to a little shard that I had saved as a memento.

We couldn't stop smiling, even as we popped the steaming-hot meat into our mouths.

"You may have lived as a Troll and a Forsaken, but you are both my family now." I wished we had some mead to toast our success.

"Me folk gaan be shock," Molthor teased. "Dey know 'bout dem two bwoys, an dem garl, but dey neva guess dey 'ad a Tarren an' a juju-bwoy also."

"You have a brother and sister? You've never mentioned them."

Molthor shrugged. "Mi dun know 'em good, Al'tabin grow me since mi been a li'l pickney. Been fi Zandalar one time, some year back. Me sissa got pickney fi har, now." He didn't appear particularly interested in them, and was quick to change the subject. "Yeh got bruddas an' sissas, Brick?"

I nodded happily. "There were two boys and two girls born on my year."

"Cha, dey barn a same year as you," he said, "dey nah yeh bruddas an' sissas, dat so?"

The Troll was so puzzling with regards to family. "Of course they are. The entire utankan is my family."

He didn't seem to want to press me on it. "'Ow 'bout you, Johnny?" Molthor asked.

Johnny stared into the fire a while. I didn't figure he would say anything.

He surprised me.

First Aid

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:35:05 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 12: First Aid

"Kyaan wait nah more," Molthor whispered to me.

I nodded and began to strip away my armor. The witchdoctor took the woman's sewing supplies from a basket and extracted a needle and thread.

Fortunately, Rotten-tooth's sword had caught the back of my forearm and not the front. The wound would have been far more severe, had he managed to sever the veins or tendons in my wrist.

The Troll gestured over my wound and the thread began to glow. I struggled with the tiny needle and tried to stitch the wet, furry skin closed with one hand. My fingers were simply too large, and the task was a nightmare for me.

The mother, watching keenly, finally made a frustrated sound. She grabbed the needle from me and took over the stitching, jabbering the whole time in Common.

"What har sayin'?" Molthor asked.

"No idea," I told him. "Probably something about me being incompetent, or complaining that I'm getting blood everywhere, or perhaps she's hoping that we can leave sooner once she gets this done. Who knows?"

Molthor continued to gesture, and the woman continued to stitch the glowing thread. I watched in amazement as the wound closed. The bleeding stopped and the stitches faded, leaving only a scar behind. It was fascinating, and not near as painful as I had expected.

I wasn't confident enough in my Common to ask them their names, so I nicknamed the parents Ma and Pa. It seemed to fit them.

Johnny entered the home, dressed almost entirely in the swordsman's leather. He carried the chest piece under an arm.

"Doesn't it fit?" I asked him.

Johnny gestured again to a spot on his chest, below his left nipple. I leaned a little closer to try and make out what it was. It looked like a feather... a couple of them, actually.

It dawned on me at last. "Fletching!" I turned the rogue around to find the bolt's shaft protruding a ways out from a point just beside his spinal column. "Ouch," I gasped. "I guess this might make it hard to put that armor on."

I gripped the shaft firmly and pulled it out, straight. He didn't react, and no blood or gore poured from the hole. I handed the crossbow bolt back to him. "Souvenir for you."

Molthor and the human woman tended to the gash in my leg, and soon the bleeding had stopped there too. I thanked them both.

From my purse, I took one of the gold pieces that Keelhaul had given me and handed it to her. I felt bad even having the dirty money. I couldn't think of a better use for it.

Ma's eyes opened wide. It was unlikely they had ever held more than silver or copper before. She tried to give it back, but I would not let her.

Suddenly I felt very tired. I leaned up against the healing totem that Molthor had summoned and closed my eyes.

# # #

When I awoke, a candle burned on the table.

"Wake up! Wake up!" I jabbed at the Troll. "We've slept through the entire day!"

Molthor scrambled to his feet and strapped his pack across his back. It was anyone's guess how close the other search parties might be to us now. We needed to hurry.

The human family still looked frightened, but resolved. They were eager for us to leave, of course, but they no longer seemed worried about what we might do to them.

There was a brief discussion between Ma and Pa. She gestured at him and then handed me a large loaf of bread. I expressed my sincere gratitude for it, and their kindness in general. It smelled delicious.

Even without understanding all the words, I could infer the debate over the how you should treat people who keep you captive in your own home. I imagined that Ma had said something along the lines of "You may run this home, mister, but I run the kitchen!"

It made me grin, regardless of how close to accurate it may have been.

Wow, that's the end of Part V! We're almost to the end of the story now. I hope you have enjoyed it.

Juju

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:56:06 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 11: Juju

Molthor pressed his wrists together and gestured at the fleeing swordsman. A blast of arctic cold erupted from his hands and slammed into Rotten-tooth's back. It didn't knock him down, but it did slow him to a crawl.

I saw the rogue leap up on his back and drive both daggers down into the human's neck.

I turned away. I didn't need to witness it.

"Ya look a been tru bloodfiah," the witchdoctor told me. Molthor, on the other hand, didn't have a scratch on him.

"I'll survive. Can your magic heal me?" I asked.

He nodded. "But we gaan need fi sew up ya cuts. 'Fore yeh bleed out."

Johnny returned from his gruesome task. "Are you okay?" I asked.

He flicked casually at some filth on his chest.

"Good. Johnny, check if that guy's armor fits you. Molthor, grab our packs. I'll meet you both inside."

# # #

I knocked on the door and stuck my hoof in the crack when it opened. The single-room home erupted into screams as I peeked in.

I saw a man and a woman inside. The man was greying at the temples, but seemed otherwise young and strong. The woman was stout and buxom. Two children clung to her arms, a boy and a girl. They both seemed to be around Urlug's height, or a little taller.

The woman and children cowered in the back of the home, and the man positioned himself between us.

I knew I was quite the sight. It was unlikely that they had ever seen a Tauren before, much less had one crouching underneath their ceiling. Plus, my weapon and armor were coated in blood. It could not have been a pretty sight.

I let them scream for another moment before putting a finger to my lips. I made a shushing noise.

Molthor came in behind me and set our packs on the floor. I leaned my axe up against the wall.

The home seemed tiny, especially with the two of us taking up space in it. There was a table and chairs, a bed, and a fireplace. I would never be able to sit on their chairs without breaking them, so I kneeled before the table and tried to ignore the throbbing in my leg. I gestured for them to join me. "Come," I asked in Common.

I waited at the table, and surveyed the remains of their breakfast. It looked so good. I wanted to help myself to some of the fried eggs and ham. I wanted to grab the bread, but this was so much more important.

"Come, please," I asked again.

Realizing that I was not going to give up, the father took a seat opposite me. He looked quite brave, considering. His face was sweaty.

The woman and children took up position behind him. She put her hands on his shoulders. It would have to do.

I gestured to Molthor and he handed me the mojo. I unwound the necklace from the bundle and set it on the table in front of them.

The man picked up the necklace and glanced at it, but his focus was clearly on me.

"Daughter," I explained.

That got his attention. He looked at the necklace again and I could see it click in his eyes. He burst into tears. The mother grabbed it from him. She clutched it to her breast and began to scream and wail. The children screamed too.

The boy child surprised me. He screamed something in Common. "Murderer?" I would guess. He grabbed a knife from the table and leapt onto me, stabbing the blade into the center of my chest.

I saw him coming, but I just didn't have it in me to stop him. Fortunately, the blade could not penetrate my mail.

I plucked the blade from his hand with my thumb and primary finger. I didn't know what else to do, so I put my hand around his back and held him close for a few seconds. Then I picked him up and handed him back to his father.

I waited a while for the wailing to stop, or at least grow quieter.

I didn't know enough words of Common to truly express my feelings, but even if I had, what could I truly say?

One word that I insisted Kaysha teach me, "Sorry."

Wow. Did you ever think he'd get the necklace back? I was starting to think we'd never get here! Poor Brick can die happy now. Oh sure, it would be nice if he could make it back to Orgrimmar... alive...

Regardless, we're finally in Alabama. I'm working a real job again. We're moved in to an actual house (It's a rental that I'm not crazy about, but it's only a year. I can live with it.) and no longer living in hotels.

I want to thank all of you guys for your support. Your positive comments about the story have kept me treading water, and your encouraging words about moving have helped keep my spirits up.

Thank you.

Three Against One

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:33:11 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 10: Three Against One

I stood and waited. I was glad we got a chance to prepare for the attack, and that our pursuers would have to fight winded. We needed every advantage that we could get.

The dog was the first to reach us. It was a large, wet, shaggy thing with dark fur. It bounded out of the trees and slammed its full weight into my chest with easily enough power to knock a human to the ground. I had to take a half-step backwards myself.

The beast bit viciously at my chest and arm. I felt a little bad for it. This dog wasn't truly my enemy. It was a shame to kill it. It was just a tool used by our pursuers.

But then again, I thought, the men in the woods were not really my enemies either. My true enemy was the Alliance, and these men were just its tools. I grabbed the dog's head with one hand and peeled it off of my chain mail. I cracked it like a whip and tossed the carcass to the side, outside of the ring of totems.

My real concern was the men behind the dog. I gripped the axe tightly with both hands and bellowed into the woods, "Come and get me, you néchis!" I screamed. Birds scattered from their perches, flapping away from the noise.

The three swordsmen emerged at a more measured pace. They began to circle around me, taking up flanking positions. A few arrows flew past from the man in the trees. I knew there was nothing I could do about the archer, so I kept my attention on the swords.

The man to my right was a coward, and would be the first to die. He had large arms, and held a two-handed sword out in front of him, defensively, trying to keep some distance between us.

I didn't look directly at him, but even with a side-ways glance, I could see the fear in his eyes. He wasn't ready for a real battle. The expression on his face said it all. He had hoped that some other search party would find us first. Even now, he was praying that I would lay down my arms and let them take me prisoner.

The man to my left was an experienced fighter. With a short sword in his right hand and an axe in his left, he did not tremble in fear. He was looking me over, and deciding how he should best begin. It was clear that he was not in charge. He was waiting for the third man to attack.

It was the man in front of me who had my full attention. He was calm and collected. He had tan, craggy skin, and a rotten tooth right in the front of his smile. His hair was long, blond, and oily. His armor was old and black. It looked very well-maintained. He carried a short, narrow sword in each hand.

Rotten-tooth spoke in Common. I don't know why he bothered. I'm sure he was telling me to surrender, but it was a waste of his breath. I might one day put my neck in the hangman's noose voluntarily, but it would be for a noble cause. It won't be because I'm afraid to fight.

I didn't bother replying. This wasn't what I was waiting for.

The axe-man to my left gasped in pain. That was my cue. I didn't look at him, but I presumed he had a dagger lodged in one of his kidneys.

I spun around the coward on my right and brought the axe down hard, slicing him from neck to hip. The axe-man would be locked in battle with Johnny, so I positioned myself so that my axe was between Rotten-tooth and myself.

Rotten-tooth grinned at me. He had lost one of his men, another was mortally injured, and he grinned at me? He held up one of his swords and the sunlight shining behind me glinted off the crimson on the blade.

That's when I noticed the throbbing in my left arm. He must have slid the blade underneath my hauberk somehow when I spun. I didn't dare take my eyes off of him, but I could feel the blood dripping down my arm.

This guy was fast... scary fast. I didn't dare swing the axe. It was far too slow a weapon against someone who could move like Rotten-tooth. Although not designed as a jabbing weapon, I tried to catch the swordsman with the axe blade's toe.

He was not intimidated. Instead, he fell back and tried to run a sword up my hauberk's other sleeve, failing only at the last minute.

He laughed out loud and I could feel a slight panic in my guts.

Rotten-tooth charged quickly and there was no time to bring the axe around. Instead, I kicked forward, trying to catch him in the chest with a hoof.

One of his blades snagged momentarily in my mail, but the other slid up under my cuisse, and buried itself deep in my thigh. A flash of pain burned up my leg.

He was taking me apart, bit by bit, and I had yet to even nick him.

He laughed again and sweat began to pour down my face.

There was a sickening gasp behind me. I didn't dare turn to look, but a moment later, Johnny emerged to stand at my side. Now I was the one who was grinning.

We tried to flank Rotten-tooth, but the best I could manage was to limp. He continued to maneuver around the two of us, keeping myself between him and the rogue.

Finally, a leather-clad shape emerged from the forest. I glanced up, worried whether it would be the witchdoctor or the archer who had emerged victorious...

While we were momentarily distracted, Rotten-tooth took off running at full speed.

There was no way I was in any shape to give chase.

Elwynn Forest

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:14:42 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 9: Elwynn Forest

My knees struck the river bottom and I tried to gasp in surprise, only to suck in a lung-full of water. I sputtered. I choked. I stood upright.

I had made it so close. At least I was in the shallows.

"Mi madda caa run fasta dan dat, Sleepy Bull," Molthor shouted from where he squatted on the bank. Johnny stood beside him, without even the decency of acting winded.

"You did good," I told the Troll as I pulled my weight up beside him. I flopped down hard on the bank. "You did good."

"We nah clear yet, mon."

He was right. "They'll probably double back to the bridge and pick up some additional search parties. Probably more dogs too." I rolled over on my back. "We won't be able to hide. Are we close?"

Molthor took out the mojo, closed his eyes, and turned slowly around. "Yeh, t'ink so. Stronga now dat we 'pon a rivah."

"Okay, let's head out."

It felt strange to be out in the light, but it also felt long overdue. Tauren are made for long-distances. I'd rather walk sixteen hours a day, than sneak around during the darkest six.

Elwynn Forest was still farmland, but far more wooded than Westfall had been. The trees aggressively reclaimed any land left fallow.

"Molthor, Johnny... keep your eyes open for anything that could help hide our tracks, or cover our scent. Streams, rocky ground, pig pens..." They nodded as one.

Molthor lead us through woods and streams. I wanted to lead, but I was finding it increasingly difficult; not only because I couldn't use the mojo, but I also felt hot, and I was finding it hard to concentrate. I was relieved to hand over the burden to the witchdoctor.

There was a distinct urgency to our pace. No one spoke. We didn't stop to eat or plan, and only paused long enough for the Troll to use his mojo.

We walked through the day and the following night. Even I was starting to feel worn out. Molthor looked like he might have pushed himself too hard.

The sky was starting to lighten when the witchdoctor peeked out of the trees and across a large plowed field. "T'ink we 'ere. Dat likkle 'ouse dere."

His words were enough to lift some of the weight off of my shoulders. "That's great! Johnny and I will go in and return the necklace. Molthor, you keep watch outside. It shouldn't take long, and then we can head South."

There had been no time during the last day to consult my maps, but I suspected that we were close to Elwynn Forest's southern border. If we could just cross over to Duskwood, then we'd probably be clear of pursuit. It would be foolhardy for the Alliance to chase three lone Horde onto Scourge land.

Molthor put up a hand. "'Old up," he said.

I heard it too. A dog. It wasn't just a farm dog tied up behind a house, either. This was behind us, on our trail. You could almost hear him baying, "I found them! This way! This way!"

"How far?"

"'Alf a mile," the Troll said. "T'ree swordman, wearin' hides. One bowman. One dog."

We set our packs in a pile. I walked a little ways out into the field, and turned back to face the trees. The sun would be behind me. That would help. I wanted them to focus on me.

"I'll keep their attention, but I have no shield. Molthor, you stay in the trees. Take out the archer, or I'll be helpless. Johnny... do what you do best."

Molthor used his magic to call upon the elements. They coalesced around me in the form of four small totems, one on each compass point.

Standing inside the totem ring felt wonderful. The magic coursed through me and help rejuvenate my tired muscles. I swung my axe and let it cut the air. Whatever fate this battle held for me, I was ready.

Flight of the Tauren

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:56:25 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 8: Flight of the Tauren

The mighty Nazferiti separated Elwynn Forest from Duskwood, and a wide tributary to it flowed from the mountains surrounding Stormwind. One way or another, we were going to need to get across.

With so few landmarks to judge by, it was difficult to say exactly where we were. My best guess was a day's walk south of the bridge the connected Westfall to Elwynn Forest, but there was no way to be sure without approaching a populated or well-guarded area.

There were more roads here. More roads than appeared on the map. I didn't know if we were lost or if the map was incomplete. I hoped for the latter.

As we crossed the third road of the night, a raspy voice whispered "Patrol!" We sprinted for cover without looking back. Fortunately, there was a small stand of trees, only a hundred feet ahead.

Only once we were in deep cover did I dare turn and search the darkness for signs of pursuit. "What did you see?" I whispered to Molthor.

The headhunter didn't say a word. Instead, he pointed to Johnny, to indicate that it had been the rogue who had called the alarm. It took a moment for this to sink in. Johnny had actually spoken, and on his own, no less. This was, after all, only the second thing I had ever heard him say.

It was quite the time to have a breakthrough!

I scanned the darkness, but didn't see a thing. Then I heard the jingling of metal and the sound of galloping. I smelled the horses.

There were at least two of them, a mounted patrol. That was bad. We might have been able to out-run men, but never horses.

The patrol had left the road. They rode back and forth along the edge of the woods, so they obviously had spotted us. I hoped only that they hadn't gotten a good look. Perhaps if they had been far enough back, then they would have only seen movement. We could have been loose cattle, or brigands, even. They may not have realized that we were Horde.

They searched for quite some time before heading off. I exhaled a long, quiet sigh of relief. "We should press on, before they come back with reinforcements."

Instead of leaving the woods, we pressed on through them, headed East, towards the river.

The woods were small, and soon we were at their edge.

"Dem bwoys comin' 'gain," Molthor said. "Four ridahs dis time... two dog."

Dogs? Hiding was definitely not an option. We sprinted from the trees. I could just barely make out the river ahead. The sky was starting to lighten.

I still couldn't see the riders, but I had no reason to distrust the witchdoctor's farsight. We tumbled down a long slope to the river's muddy banks.

I was not prepared for just how large the river would be. We had many streams in Mulgore that we called rivers, but they were nothing like this. You could not throw a rock from one bank to the other, it was that wide. The skies were turning pink and I could see swirling eddies in the water.

If we abandoned our armor and weapons, then we might be able to swim to the other side without drowning. It would be easier if we had the luxury of choosing a better spot to cross, but that seemed unlikely.

I could hear the dogs.

Johnny looked to me for direction. "We stand and fight," I declared. "Is there place where they won't be able to fight on horseback?"

Molthor was rummaging through his pack. "Nah, 'old up. Gib me ya hoofs."

The witchdoctor pulled out a small vial of oil and rubbed it on our feet. An arrow landed in the grass beside us. I could see the riders now, rushing towards us, but they were still too far away to get a good shot.

"Gwan, den!" he shouted, the Troll sprinted out across the water, running for the opposite bank. I had no idea what sort of magic made this possible, but I was not about to question our luck. Johnny and I ran too.

I saw an arrow or two splash into the water. "'Urry!" Molthor shouted. He was a quick one, and was getting a good lead on the rogue and myself.

I ignored the attack and ran, never looking back. It was a wonderful sensation. I could see the currents swirls around us, and feel the cool water splashing over the tops of my hooves, but somehow the water held up my weight as if I were running on grass.

I couldn't hear the dogs, or the horses, or even the jangling of my own armor. The sounds of rushing water filled my ears the fresh smell tickled my nose. I just focused on the far bank and ran.

Closer. Closer. The edge was so close now. The splashing of my hooves on water. Splashing. Splashing.

And then suddenly, the magic was gone, as if the spell had never been cast.

With one mighty "Sploosh!" I was underwater. The weight of my armor dropped me hard, like a stone.

Pining for Home

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:36:29 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 7: Pining for Home

The ground was soft, so we followed the fence lines across the countryside. I walked on the pasture side of the fences, Johnny on the outside, and Molthor, well, he walked across the tops of the fences, as easily as the two of us covered open ground.

It might have been a needless precaution, but I figured that my hoof prints, if spotted inside a field, would raise no more alarm than Johnny's boot prints, if spotted outside. Unless someone was really looking for us, there would be no reason for anyone to presume there were any Horde in Westfall.

Before each dawn, we bedded down in woods or haylofts. During the summer, farmers have no reason to spend much time in their barns. They let their livestock out in the morning, and corral them back up at night, but with the summer's green pastures, they had no need of hay.

At night, we would take whatever food we could quietly steal. We helped ourselves to fruit, eggs, vegetables, some meat from a smokehouse, and once we even found jars of preserves in a storm cellar. I had not realized how much happiness a tiny jar of strawberry jam could bring.

We didn't dare make a fire, so we had to eat what we found in the state that we found it. The fruit, carrots, and smoked meats were great, but the raw eggs and potatoes were disappointing. Molthor and I saved our potatoes in our bags. Eating them was far better than going hungry, but we continually hoped to find more interesting meals. Many nights we did not.

Potato nights were quiet nights.

We felt safe enough to whisper conversations as we walked. That helped keep our spirits up. Unfortunately, the conversations usually degenerated into a discussion of what we missed most.

"Crusty bread... still warm from the oven..." I sighed happily.

"Spotty yellatail," Molthor suggested, "tenda, butt'ry, wit' a likkle squeeze a lemon."

Ooh, that was enough to make my stomach rumble. I resisted the urge to bite into another potato. "I miss my utankan."

"Yeh?" Molthor asked. "Dun miss a village much. Ya, dem folk a nice 'nuff, but dey jus' folk. Radda spen' mos' a mi time wit' miself."

Wow. That seemed so strange. Tauren are such a social people. The tribes may be secluded, but the people seldom are. It's a rare Tauren that goes anywhere by himself.

"I miss Kaja," I shared.

"Ya miss a cow, mon? Ain't dat strange fi Tarren?" Molthor asked.

"Yeah, but she's an unusual Tauren." I explained how Kaja had been raised by Orcs and didn't act like I expected her to act. It was a long conversation, but it felt good to talk about her. Johnny had been a good listener, of course, but I found that I enjoyed talking with Molthor as well. At least he understood that women were desirable, unlike Urlug.

The witchdoctor chuckled. "A Tarren in lub? Neva t'ought mi see dat."

I felt very conspicuous. I wondered if I should have shared so much. "Pretty strange, huh?"

Molthor reached down from the fence where he walked and put a hand on my head. "Sun's strange. From all dem light dat burn in a sky, none odda blaze so." He chuckled. "It dun mek it bad, seen."

That made me feel a bit better.

I asked the Troll about the women in his life, but he didn't have much to share. He said that he had never met the right one, whatever that meant. Perhaps there were other Troll men in his village that were bigger and stronger than he was.

Molthor continued to use his mojo, and we spent two weeks traveling across Westfall. Tensions grew as we neared the border. With each passing day it became more clear that we would need to cross over into the Elwynn Forest.

Even Johnny seemed a little apprehensive about what challenges might lay ahead as we neared Stormwind.

Friend or Fetter

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:15:29 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 6: Friend or Fetter

The next three days could not go fast enough. I threw myself into my work. I picked up all the Common I could learn. I charted Molthor's readings. And when the time was close, I planned our departure with Garr.

I did not talk about my feelings. I did not discuss the raid. No one aboard needed any idea that I didn't want to be a pirate, or that I didn't think I was one.

Fortunately, Garr didn't give me any grief about leaving. He told me that there was no way he would even try to pick us back up when we were done, but that was hardly any surprise. I hadn't expected a lift home, and frankly, I'd rather walk through enemy territory than spend more time in the company of criminals.

He even told me that we were welcome to become permanent members of his crew. Not an offer I was interested in, but at least it showed that he couldn't sense my regret.

I thanked Garr, said goodbye to Kaysha, and that night we rowed ashore with one of the nicer Orcs aboard. Karg seemed like a decent enough guy, for a pirate. We rowed to a lonely beach that was far from any village on our map. I unloaded my gear, and shook hands with Karg, thanking him for the help.

I watched him row back into the darkness.

I was so angry with Molthor that I could chew iron ore and spit nails. I ground my teeth as I pulled on my armor, unable to contain it for another moment. "I can't believe you didn't tell me that the Riptide was a pirate ship," I grumbled.

Despite the darkness, I could see the shock on Molthor's face. "Nah wan' be a pirate? Wah mek y'pick a pirate boat?"

"How the hell could," I started to yell, and then remembered where we were. I lowered my voice. "How the hell could I know it was a pirate ship? That was only the third boat I'd ever been on. And the other two were just little fishing boats."

The witchdoctor shrugged. "Ya mi fetter. Mi trapped a dis life, so as you. Mi 'ave ta 'elp. Mi nah gaan letcha down. Gaan 'elp ya, even if mi got t'be a pirate. Al'tabin say it muss be so."

"This is madness. Madness." I scanned the cliffs and looked for an easy way up. They didn't look too tall.

"'Ear dis, Sleepy Bull. Al'tabin see evra-t'in," Molthor explained, "Mi ma an' fadda, dey bring mi a Al'tabin twenny year ago, when mi were a li'l pickney. 'Im grow me. 'Im say mi letcha down. Ever time, some'ow.

"Den mi spend da las' twenny year to mek ready. Helped ever'one who ask mi fi dis. Mi waited fa one a dem a be you. Mi nah gaan letcha down. Gaan be deh fi you dis time."

"That makes no sense," I grumbled, "You don't have any idea what I need. Help me? That could mean anything. Perhaps you were supposed to help me by keeping me from becoming a criminal! Did you ever think of that? Or perhaps the help is in keeping me alive, or keeping me from doing something immoral. By just following blindly along... you're... you're not helping."

Molthor looked stunned. "Failed yeh... again," he gasped.

"You haven't failed me," I snapped. "I'm just disappointed. I'd appreciate it if you'd try to be more like Johnny. I mean, we look after each other because we're friends. We care what happens to each other.

"Stop treating me like your fetter, and try treating me like a person."

Molthor was quiet a while as we climbed the small cliff that edged the beach. "Mi try harda." I slapped him on the back and everything seemed okay.

Beyond the cliffs were a small wooded area, and beyond the woods were farms.

As it turns out, farmland is actually pretty easy to sneak across. Farmers work all day, and none of them have any reason to be up at night. Patrols keep an eye on the cities and roads, but who would search farmland for invaders? We moved quietly, but still made decent time.

Bloodsail Brick

gre7g.luterman@gmail.com — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:12:27 GMT

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Brick and Mortar
A World of Warcraft Story by Gre7g Luterman

Episode 5: Bloodsail Brick

The Riptide moved like a fish, and the coastal ruins and fishing villages of Stranglethorn Vale sped by.

Molthor used his mojo every evening after our chores were finished, and I plotted his best guess at a heading on the maps.

Sadly, the magic was not as precise as was looking at a smoke plume, but I was not losing hope. Even if we couldn't pinpoint our destination from a distance, at least we could be confident that we were headed in the right direction. The angle of the readings did seem to grow a little shallower with each passing day.

After six days of travel, we saw the last of Stranglethorn go by. The dense, humid jungles gave way to more familiar, deciduous woods of Westfall. It wouldn't be long now until we could select a point of departure.

That evening, shortly after I had climbed into my hammock, there was a great commotion aboard. Bells rang... crew members ran this way or that on the decks above my head... orders were shouted. I was exhausted from a long day of work. I wanted to know what was going on, but I really didn't want to get out of my berth.

Then the first of the cannons fired.

You can't imagine just how loud those things are, especially when you are below decks when they go off. My ears were ringing.

I was up and running. I grabbed my axe and considered throwing on my armor as well. Chain mail is a wonderful thing. It can save your life. But wearing it aboard a ship is not without risk. A heavy axe is easily dropped, but if you went overboard with armor on, you'd likely hit the bottom long before you got it off.

I knew nothing about firing cannons, or naval warfare, but I was prepared to repel boarders. I was prepared to kill if I had to.

More cannons fired... more, and more. Despite the open seas, the air filled with gun smoke. It was dark out, but I could see flames through the smoke. I worked my way slowly towards them to see if I would need to bail water to try and douse them, but I hit the bulwark with my knees. That was a good sign. It meant that the fire was on the other ship.

The two ships were very close now and I could hear orders being shouted on both sides -- both in Common, unfortunately. With a bone-jarring thump, our ships made contact. Grappling hooks were in the air.

The Riptide was a few feet taller than the other vessel, so it would be an easy jump over and a simple climb back along any of the ladders hanging from our bulwark. I could see various enemy crew members scrambling around the other ship's deck, but they were working to control the fires, and not trying to come aboard.

I kept an eye on them all, my axe at the ready, and prepared to attack, should any of them advance.

They were Night Elves, all of them; distant cousins of the Blood Elves that had joined with the Horde. The Tauren had always regretted that the Night Elves hated the Orcs so. It caused them to side with the Alliance, and cast their lots behind humans; men who feared all who looked too different from themselves.

It was a shame, really. The Tauren and Night Elves had so much in common both culturally and spiritually. We could have been the best of allies, instead of foes.

My shipmates did not wait for the battle to come to them. Instead, wave after wave leapt down on the Night Elves and brought the fighting to them. The elves unsheathed their swords and fought back. I did not understand the nature of this battle, but I had given my oath to Garr, and sworn my loyalty.

I leapt down and gave it my all. There were a few Night Elves among our crew, but they were dressed very differently from these. The crew of this ship were outfitted in light and flowing garments. Our crew was dressed in leather. Between the fires and the glowing whisps used by the Elves to light their vessel, I could differentiate the combatants easily enough.

I struck one elf low, and severed his leg cleanly at the thigh. Another came at me from the side, so I spun my axe in between us and bellowed loud. He backed quickly off, to find a more suitable opponent.

The battle raged all around me. Blades flashed and blood sprayed. On three separate occasions, I came dangerously close to receiving a mortal wound. But the spirits were kind and the battle decisive. In what seemed like only moments, we tossed our weapons back aboard and scrambled back to the Riptide.

Then, we had cut ourselves loose of the grapples and were sailing away at top speed. The crew cheered wildly. They drank and danced. They cheered some more. Soon, they broke out into song.

We all celebrated as the fires grew dim in the distance. We had won.

# # #

In the morning, we assembled as a group on the main deck of the Riptide. Four of us had been lost, and one had suffered a grave wound to the side of the face, but the remaining nineteen had escaped unscathed.

No one mourned the dead. No one consoled the injured.

Captain Keelhaul congratulated us for our victory, and then began to divide the booty. Two shares for Keelhaul, two-and-a-half shares for Salthoof, one-and-a- quarter share for the new boatswain, and so on down the line, depending on time with the crew and whether we had boarded the other vessel.

My stomach tumbled and tumbled with confirmation of what I had done. My share of the loot did not soothe it.

I had slept precious little that night. My mind replayed every moment, from my first meeting with Garr, until the end of the battle. I analyzed and over- analyzed all the clues.

Where had I gone so wrong?

When had we become pirates?