Iloam's blog

In 30 minutes I will see me wife.

She’ll walk t’rough tha door an look as stunning as ever. She’ll smell like jasmine an lotus oil. She’ll make a wee sound like fairies laughin as she walks wit ‘er bangles an jewelry jingling toget’er. Her skin will be t’e color of milky tea an just as warm an comfortin’ on me lips. She’ll --- Wait—will I kiss ‘er? Should I kiss ‘er?

All t’ings considered, it was a lovely sort of chapel. Smallish, wit a thatched roof tha’s long since caved under weight of snow an rain and an ‘eavy past tha it couldn’t bear. T’ere’s a sadness tha ‘angs in t’e air in Lordaeron; but out ‘ere, tucked ‘ard against t’e white capped mountains an softly fallin’ snow, it adds a still beauty tha yeh cannae capture most anywhere else.

Me boots is loud, crunchin’ t’rough t’e snow as I come off t’e overgrown pass. Almost lost it a few times under white powder as I’d veered off from t’e Thorondil River an inta starlit night. A lantern would’ve only drawn attention from all manner of unrestful t’ings out ‘ere, an I’ve got me ‘ands full as it is.

I lifted gloved fingers fer t’e iron gate as another ball of snow ‘it me square between t’e shoulders. From t’e balance of it, they’d packed it wit stones. A chorus of children laughin’ from t’e edge a t’e darkness sounded be’ind me. I turned me face over me shoulder, peerin inta empty night. Poltergeists. Wee snots ‘ad followed me t’e ‘hole way, jeerin’ an pullin’ at me boot buckle’s, slurrin’ an cursin, whirlin’ past me ‘ead in frigid blasts of screamin’ wind.

“Bugger off,” I growled inta t’e empty darkness. T’e snowfall twinkled back at me. “Yer goin’ ta ‘ave ta do much better’n wee pranks ta scare me off.” Brave words. I vaguely wondered ‘ow true t’ey really were as I turned back ta t’e chapel an pushed open t’e gate against a bank a snow. A crumblin’ stone wall lined ‘allowed ground in a pretty ring tha edged right up against t’e mountain base. In t’e starlight it loomed large an proud; a forgotten bastion guardin against t’e ‘orrors tha rose up and left a bloody wake across t’ese lands.

Me ‘ands are shaking as I turn the skeleton key in the attic door. Useful thing – lockin from the inside. The previous owner’s likely installed the feature ta keep thugs an robbers out. There’s a hidden vault in the wall an Gobbos aren’t known ta mess about with their priorities. But fer me, it’s completely opposite, innit? Lock the baddie in. Keep the monster in the attic, away from all the rest.

((I've been inspired by Ythgar's player being an amazing art power house this weekend. I realized I've written plenty but not ever actually done a drawing of the Ythgar/Iloam pairing. Consider that rectified! Not too racy but probably NSFW. Also if you are not into gay depictions, don't click.

This one is for you, Yth. You inspire me to try harder and be a better writer, artist, and intellectual type every single day ♥ So naturally I gift you with lowbrow smut!))

Hare snagged in the trap. Willing. Trembling.

Crave the heartbeat under me teeth. You bite first – spill the blood. She screams. No mercy in yer eyes.

We hunt as one. Rolling flanks an bared fangs, growlin’, feastin’. Helpless between us.

Full on fresh game, our hunger has only been awakened. We sate on each other.

Yeh have all the power but I claimed it fer meself.

Tethered to the bike, skirt hiked up an gasping, doe in the headlights. Life screaming past at 70 mph.

There’s so much potential burning through yeh. Rocket fuel in yer engine ready fer release. Eyes rolled back an pretty blush.

I’ll take yeh there.

I'm going to end up being one of those old codgers that tells young blokes tha there will come a time in 'is life where everythin is goin ta change an he'll be forced ta re-evaluate wots important to 'im. He'll no longer be the youngest, strongest lad in the pack of 'is mates. He won't get quite as tossed on weak ales an lagers. He'll prefer more refined spirits an need less of 'em ta get well inta 'is cups. Pretty young lassies will flit about and flirt with 'im, sure, but it'll be others they go 'ome with. He will go 'ome ta 'is wife at a reasonable 'our on week nights, mindful of the day job in the morning, an think about bigger issues than the tickets to the latest DFB match or how much petrol is in the mechano-hog.

ADVENTURE! EXPLORATION! SALVAGE! PROFIT!

ATLAS TREASURE SALVAGE is now hiring! Adventurers, Tradesmen, Sailors, Academics, Accountants, Lawyers, Office Clerks & Secretaries, Cooks & Galleymaids, Engineers, Archaeologists, Jewelcrafters, Security, et all! Your services are needed at Atlas – Azeroth’s fastest expanding salvage crew! See the world- plunder its depths, sail its seas, soar to the stars and beyond! We want YOU as part of our crew!

All crew are guaranteed room & board, travel expense reimbursement, and AMPLE commissions! Visit our NEW OFFICE in Bladefist Bay and pick up an application!

((Warning: Some of these are mature with sexual themes or topics. Read at your own discretion. I have also left off tagging certain people because its more fun to guess))

39. Solid

There’s so much rage in me I can barely form words. It’s just screamin’ – me own screamin’, rantin’ and ravin’ over Theryl’s outraged demands fer me blood and Ythgar’s growling bass that rolls over me like hot waves of fire. I don’t ‘ear either of them anymore. Bloods rushing in me ears and I launch at him, daggers pulled, adrenaline pulsing through me like the unstoppable force of a tram through the mountain pass. Roarin’ silence, time moves so slow and so fast all once – I’m in the air as magic curls around me, flung out from ‘is person with the crackle of dark ozone and the chill of ice formin’ on ‘is skin hits me like a blast of Winter air. I descend on ‘im with me full body weight, crashing into a wall of muscle and he doesn’t even budge. Me neck whips back without the expected fall back but me daggers push into icy flesh with as much give as a solid side of beef hangin’ in the grocers freezer. He grunts, under his breath, but the victory isn’t nearly what I’d ‘oped fer. And now….. now I’m in his grip.

Redridge could’ve been a painting on a wall. The chilly sunlight filtered through the changing leaves in burnt umber and yellow and dappled across rolling hills. Passing clouds rolled by in large, cool blue shadows over whisperin’ pasture grasses. It was a sleepy sort of mid-day afternoon at the country estate. The leaves swirling in front of me on the packed dirt path were as mirthful as a pack of playful squibs. Their crisp laughter overlayed the quiet, interrupted only occasionally by the crack of a training whip or impatient whinny. Somewhere far off, me long ears could pick up the muffled baritones of men chattin’ and ‘aving a laugh over packed lunches and thermoses of coffee, but the grandness of the stable complexes made it difficult for even me to determine exactly where the sounds echoed from. Fer now, I was alone on me walk up towards the enormous stable house, and I much preferred it that way.

I hunched me shoulders, pushing me ears further against the protective collar of me navy peacoat, as a swish of chilly wind gusted through the complex. Me hands pushed further down into me pockets, finding the firm apple I’d knicked off a local orchard tree. I shouldn’t ‘ave been ‘ere. Not for a litany of reasons – which convenient to the guilt churning in me empty stomach – were at the forefront of me mind.

We've only arrived home from our weekend holiday early this morning, but I decided to come in to the office as some sort of show of support. I can't say it's a strong one, really. Mostly I'm a warm body and the lanterns are glowing, but I'm useless to any sort of actual work. Ace is in the lobby and there's tea and coffee brewing while she tackles the bulk of everything I'm not doing. There's all sorts of letters and scrolls on me desk to go through, and an unusual parcel wrapped in brown paper addressed to me from one Ixinane Stormcren. I'm avoiding that one.

The rain outside is keeping the office a bit chilly. I watch it come down sideways in thin, icy sheets of grey needles. The docks outside the window are slippery and miserable and most the veteran workers 'ave good enough mind to stand under Port Authority awnings an' nibble on hot fried sausages or chips until the dark, angry clouds pass over.

I pull me mechano-guitar into me lap and lean over briefly to flip on the amp. An electric pop fizzes to life and fills the quiet office with a low, expectant hum. Leaning back into the comfortable leather of me captain's chair, I cross me boots at the ankle on the windowsill and adjust the guitar to a lazy angle in me lap. Me fingers slide along the metal strings and pluck out a few tentative notes I've been putting to a song I've been writing off and on while my mind wanders away from the work I'm avoiding.

((A little cartoon I drew tonight for fun. I like to imagine this is a candid cutting room floor shot from a promotional photoshoot Ace & Iloam were doing to advertise ATS. The background is totally a fake beach cutout some nasally obnoxious Goblin photographer brought in and stuck behind the desk. In my mind, Iloam is giving Ace crap about hamming it for the camera between shots, and she's going to pinch him really hard in about 2 seconds in retaliation. You may come up with whatever dialogue for them inspires you, though! I'd be amused to know what you come up with))

Hand painted gold lettering on a frosted glass door, rimmed with dark, unvarnished wood, states plainly: ATLAS TREASURE SALVAGE.

((The events in this blog took place between late May and mid-June 2010))

The days after meeting with the Marquis Vinguld and Hakkajin to discuss how to save Faraji were mostly lost to me now. Most of them I ‘ave no recollection of at all. I had fallen asleep at some point, and the evil in Ythgar’s runesword had sank her hooks into me well an’ good – cracking me mind open and turning me into a babbling, Scourge-obsessed nutter. There were a few vague memories, but they might ‘ave been nightmares or just fragmented images still floating around in me subconscious. I thought I remembered seeing Ixinane, like an angel washed in red light, in a back alleyway that stank of rotted trash. I remembered countless days of fighting side by side with Ythgar in the frozen North, an army of death knights at our command as we pushed further south, slaughtering everything in our wake. I remembered falling asleep in his lap, me arms curled around his thick waist, as I let sleep embrace me. 

The first solid, real memory in days was when I woke up. Me body didn’t ache with fatigue. It felt like I must have slept for hours an’ hours. I felt relaxed, bloody fantastic even. I was lying on sheets so fine that they felt like pure spider’s silk. The pillows under me head were as soft as clouds - enormous, fluffed and lightly scented with some sort of flower. The mattress neither too ‘ard or too soft, and lifted so high I felt like I could have been floating. I could hear birds singing but there wasn’t light in me eyes. It was as I lay there, enjoyin’ the quiet, that I realized it was quiet. The voices were gone. I let me mind wander, searching for them, purposefully calling fer their answer – but there was only the blissful, peaceful silence. Finally! Me lips had curved in a smile against me pillow as I stretched, loosening back and calf muscles that had been cramped with stress for far too long, when I heard the soft breathing in the room. Not asleep, just relaxed into a resting cadence. Deep breaths into a large chest – male, obviously – but so very subtly whistled through thin nostrils over mustache. Ythgar.  

((The following occurred over a month ago towards the start of Faraji’s "The Adventures of Sefu the Ravenous" blog series. I am far behind, but attempting to play catch up!))

I had a lot on me mind. This wasn’t completely unusual – I kept a lot in there most times: meeting schedules, running bar tabs, gambling debts owed to me, names and faces to avoid, Drunken Fishball League scores, delivery schedules for me clients, mana & thissle orders, produce Kharris wanted me to pick up, sailing conditions in Booty Bay, and so on. But this was on a completely different level. It wasn’t just me own inner voice bouncing around in there. It was mine. It was Mum’s. It was Ythgar’s. Strangest of all, it was Halodante’s.

“You’re here!” she giggled, her voice wispy and young – seductive in all the wrong ways – in me ear.

The source of her elation was the enormous, dark gothic club I was pacing in front of. It towered up into the Underbelly of Dalaran, built right into the stone – dank sewer water ran down the mossy, black stones and pooled under my boots as I stepped in puddles – the only sound echoing down the large annals of the floating city. Somewhere deep and far off, a pin prick of light cast creeping shadows that rats and frogs shifted through. Outside, it was noon – the sun high in twinkling blue sky with gauzy white clouds. Down here the club sat silent, waiting patiently for visitors to trickle in after dinner hour and fill its dance floors with writhing, sweating bodies. Overpriced drinks to be served, lines of mana dust to be snorted, pulsing music by the latest mechano-jockeys to be discovered. And then later, of course, it’s back rooms with bolts set into the floors and walls to be utilized in ways that I highly doubted the girl I was meeting here had even heard of. Had I been in a better mood, I’d have liked nothing better than to set about horrifying her by sharing just what she was to be walking into. But as it was, I was hardly of the mind to bother. 

“I’m ‘ere for Aji,” I reminded the voice, but we both knew it was half truth. I sucked nervously on the Thalassian Black bloodthissle cigarette hanging between me lips.

The leonine boy

standing in the sun; watching

over my future.

((Hello folks! I've had a couple people ask me whats going on with several plotlines right now that are pretty active. A few of us have been keeping up on blogging, while some of us (me) are not up to speed. Twitterbox is going crazy with clues, but I know it can be hard to piece things to gether. So - in an unprescedented, first time ever move - I'm going to be a bit unkosher here and post an OOC soap opera digest of things that have happened up until where we currently are. This is for the benefit of anyone following along and if it offends you its not actual writing, I'm onboard with you. I'm hesitant to do it myself, but I suspect some people want to know.

I'll be writing everything as centered from Iloam's timeline because well, I am him, and its hard for me to write accurate recaps of things that are happening to characters involved but I don't know exactly what they are roleplaying. Here we go:

While RP Haven was down I was awash in despair and had only my tears to comfort me! Cerwis (through no fault of her own) have me the idea to draw something. Please do not send her hate mail. She is an innocent in all this!

So I drew the studly Marquis Vinguld - evildoer of the other side of the fence! He is the chocolate to my peanut butter. As usual, here is the linework if you wanna color it better than I ever could (please show us if you do!). Check out the progression:

Oop! So Mairead asked me to draw her a picture. And then I did. And the linework looks like this if you wanna color it - cause frankly my coloring job is terribad.

Art is in the air! Got inspired to get out my wacom tablet tonight and do some drawing. Warning for mature content. May not be safe for work!

A few words can throw a bloke off balance with the same weight of a mace or great sword. Resulting in a stumble. A trip. A staggering fall.

When you’re outside the jungle and someone asks you to describe it, you’re likely to say “hot.” When you’re in the jungle and you want to describe it, suddenly your words get a bit more descriptive: “suffocatin,” “swelterin,” “blisterin,” “stiflin,” “mucky.” Un-bloody-bearable. 

The sun was beating down on us so ‘ard I’m pretty sure me forehead was developing a bruise. More likely it was the fairly nasty beginning to a sunburn that would end up in even more freckles for Kharris to count when I got back. She’d be having a field day with me shoulders and the tip of me ears as well. I felt a bit like a wee peach that had been shoved in a wet, muggy oven – my soft skin heating beyond its tolerance and bubbling up. I’d be cracked and oozing in a few days, without a good spell or healing potion.  

We were ambling along through enormous rubber plant leaves and swinging vines that brushed past our legs and shoulders as the raptor under us swayed through the jungle brush. I wiped the back of me hand over my forehead for likely the hundredth time that hour and it felt like I’d conquered Mount Hyjal in that single raise and fall of an arm. I bit back on the complaint about the heat that I wanted to pointlessly whine at my riding companion. I silently applauded my manliness in refusing to complain and then, as wantonly as any tartlette with a case of the vapors, leaned back against the enormous black Gurubashi pressed to me back. Balla’s skin felt cool and hard against mine and he smelled pungent – we both did – but it was somehow comforting. He smelled like the jungle; he smelled like sweat and sex and sun-drenched skin; he smelled a bit coppery and dirty from the grit of the ride and it was like laying against an enormous shadow panther. There were all sorts of nasties that could jump out at us at a moments notice and I should have had me guard up, but with him behind me, his arms circling to hold the reigns and his huge, bone tusks brushing affectionately against me shoulder as we rode towards Zul’Gurub… I embraced me inner dandy and laid back into his safety as me mind wandered over the exhausting events of the past few days. 

((Jan 27th at 8PM Server Time! Fray Island! Original Post Here! Bring your friends and lots of booze!))

((The following letter is dropped off in the early morning for delivery to Lady-Convocate Rosewater as a generalized complaint. If the guard who took the letter is questioned on the identity of the citizen, he did not get the man’s name. Description would be given as a tall, lanky Elf of mid-adult age with copper hair and freckles. The man seemed to have a brogue accent of lower class when they exchanged brief greetings. Clothing would be described as “dark”, but nothing standing out in particular to the guard’s mind))

To the Lady-Convocate Rosewater,

To Lord Jasper Nox,

As we discussed, I’ve been shopping the antique market for what’s available and worth your time and gold these days. Here is what I’ve managed to find that I think your Mum or yourself would quite fancy…

Prismatic Black Diamond encrusted panther brooch in gold plate metal. Inlaid Bold Dragon’s Eye gems for eyes. Zandalarian empire. 45,000 gold.

Sceptre of Khorium make, hand-painted scene of the death of Modimus Anvilmar along the handle. Ornate only – not for practical use. 78,000 gold.

Dazzling Seaspray Emerald tear drop pendant on finely-woven Cobalt chain. From the kingdom of Quel’Thalas. 25,000 gold.

Twin rings of Sparkling Fallingstar Diamonds in Truesilver. Etched with marriage inscriptions and blessed by Onu. Only sold as a pair. 20,000 gold for both.

My commission any finds is 10% off the top. I will take care of any pick up or delivery you require, no matter location or time constraints. Your rapture – as always – is my primary concern. If nothing on this list is to your liking, there is word of trade opening up in Gilneas from unofficial channels. Should this be something that captures your interest, my commission will swell considerably and travel expenses would be required upfront.

Looking forward to laying eyes on you again,

Iloam Blacksong

It's early evening in Dalaran and I’m standing in the window to Kharris’ wee flat, watching her - quite lovely - backside sashay on her walk to work. I don’t know if she knows I watch her down the street. I don’t even know if she’d care that I do. But I still do it. That’s what we are now – I suppose. I just hold my breath and hope she notices, hope she cares, hope it makes a difference… even though deep down, I know it’s unlikely. We’re nearing something. Whether it’s an end or just another strange direction is yet to be seen. I think we’re both riding blind in this one. 

We'd only been back from our mini-holiday to Winter Spring a few hours. The cold still seemed to follow us wherever we went, and Kharris' wee Dalaran flat had a permanent draft rolling over the floorboards no matter how much we tried to get warm. There were parcels of presents and netherweave bags exploding with clothes and perfumes and bottles and pots and pans all over the place. It looked like the place had been ransacked by Defias - so when she asked me to pop round to the club and pick up a few items from her dressing room while she stayed behind to tidy up - I was half-way out the door before she could even complete the list of items she needed. 

Dalaran had been cloaked in darkness of night, but as usual, alive with activity and magic despite the light rain. Lights spilled out and reflected on the oily surfaces of puddles oozing along the cobbled streets, and it wasn't hard to follow the stream of young party goers, heavy addicts, dodgy looking perverts and various Underbelly sorts to The Nathrezim.

I'd been by once before with Kharris as she'd led me through the back mazes of hallways and doorways that the dancers and staff used, but it was still rather cramped and confusing - barely enough room for two people to squeeze past (as is often the case as lassies in nothing else but a bit of gold powder and a pair of stilettos would fly by, giggling or barking orders at a staff member, to get to her cage and begin her shift). Once I'd found her dressing room and put her items into a small box, wrapping it in cloth so it wouldn't be soaked through by the time I got home, I was ready to get the hell out of there. I'm not much for small cramped spaces; especially after the fairly recent memory of being wedged, bloodied and broken, into a frozen cave crevice somewhere deep in the Nether as a Demon breathed down my neck washed over me.

Doodling sexually suggestive positions from last nights RP while at work. DONT ACT LIKE YOU'VE NEVER DONE IT (;O_o)

If anyone wants to color it that would be super awesome :)