Dragon Slaying

I wrote this story this weekend, and it is unfortunately, a fanfic. I don't particularly like writing fan fiction. It feels weird writing in somebody else's universe, which is based around a game where the "story" is centered around gameplay elements and can get very forced, at best.

However...I'm happy to write anything without ninja babies in it at this point, so I'm going with it.

The "Real life" story behind the story is that I finally took Onyxia down solo this weekend on my Paladin, and this is a celebration of that feat, of sorts. Since Blizzard is re-releasing Onyxia as a new 10/25 man raid instance in the next patch, this is very likely the last time I will be able to pull it off solo like that, so I'm actually quite proud I was able to get it done.

The young Paladin wiped the blood of the dragonkin he had just slain off his sword and walked around the corner of the cave. He was deep below the surface now. He could feel the heat of Azeroth's core surrounding him. The stench of sulfur assaulted his nostrils. As he walked down the small cave he saw it open up ahead into a gigantic cavern. And in the center of that cavern was Onyxia herself. He had found her at last. She hasn't noticed his presence yet. Good.

Gaston eyed the dragon critically. For a time, she had infiltrated the highest courts in Stormwind. In her human guise as the Lady Prestor, she had gained the confidence of the young Anduin Wrynn, erstwhile King of Stormwind. Her "advice" had nearly brought down a kingdom. At last the Paladin would test his strength against Onyxia the treacherous, daughter of the cursed Deathwing, sister of Nefarian, broodmother of the Black Dragonflight.

Gaston smiled wryly. Aiding the great Marshall Windsor, they had uncovered her masquerade and driven her from Stormwind Keep forever. After the events of that day, he had but one quest...kill the Dragon. It had taken him years to track her down this far and find her lair, deep beneath the swamps of Duskwallow Marsh. Now it was up to him to deal the justice of the Light to this conniving dragon at last, and avenge the death of Windsor.

Quickly and quietly, he checked over his gear. The plate he wore still shone brightly from the polish he had given it at the camp this morning, with the exception of the blotchy stains of dragon blood drained from the watchers Onyxia had left to guard the mouth of her cave. Dragon blood is a stain that would not polish out easily. Gaston grimaced at the thought. All his armor would be colored red by this night's end. The only question was would it be his blood or the dragon's? Time to find out.

He checked the sharpness of his sword and the strength of his shield. He prayed they would hold through the battle. "Nothing more to do but kill the bitch" he muttered under his breath. There was no shadow in the cave, nor cover to be had, so it was only a matter of time before she noticed the Paladin. There would be no surprise or easy stealth kill here.

So be it. Gaston raised his sword and charged.

He was halfway to her when the dragon lifted her head slowly and saw him coming. Angrily she arose to face the challenge. When he reached her, she struck out with her giant claw, but Gaston blocked it easily with his shield and cut at the skin on her forearm with his sword. His sword found her skin, but it didn't cut the flesh...her hide was just too thick. Ducking under another blow from her, he cut down her belly, but he still was unable to pierce the the skin. Behind her now, he tried cutting her hind leg, but the hide held together there as well.

Gaston swore. She had to have a weakness.

Suddenly felt a mighty gust of wind as her tail swung at him. Gaston tried to dodge, but it just came in too fast. He barely got his shield up in time, but the impact knocked him back against the far wall. Onyxia turned and charged after him, but Gaston quickly rose to his feet and stood his ground. He blocked several blows from her claws, and attacked her face, looking for a weakness. Any weakness.

Furiously, the dragon attacked him, but Gaston was able to block, dodge or otherwise avoid every blow. Roaring in frustration, she breathed fire at him, but Gaston shrugged off the assault and blocked the fire with his shield. Putting all the power of the light behind every blow, he attacked furiously to a single point above her left nostril. Perhaps if he focused on a single point, it would wear her down and the skin would eventually succumb to his assault and break.

For what seemed like hours, but could just as easily been minutes, Gaston hacked and slashed at the single spot on her head, trying to make the brood mother bleed at last. Suddenly, when he was about to give up on it and try another tactic, his sword broke through the skin, and he could tell he hurt her.

Roaring in pain, the dragon flapped her wings violently and took to the sky. Flying around the enormous cavern, she looked to rain fire down on Gaston and stay out of the reach of his sword. For any other mere warrior, it would have worked too.

Fortunately, Gaston was a Paladin of the Hand of Vargus and had other tools at his disposal. He focused the light of judgment on the spot he had weakened earlier with his sword and let loose with all the power of the Light at his command. Her screams echoed throughout the cavern and he knew he had hurt her again.

Unbeknownst to the Paladin, the screams had served another purpose though and had awakened a small army of dragon whelps and they came streaming out of the hatching caves on both sides of the cavern.

Just in time, Gaston saw them coming, and had to take his focus off of Onyxia to consecrate the ground beneath him, hoping it would keep the whelplings at bay. Apparently the brood mother's hold on her whelps was fierce, since they ignored the pain caused by the Holy ground beneath them and attacked with suicidal abandon.

Gaston blocked and slashed for all he was worth and was able to defeat the whelps, but almost too late he noticed the giant dragon had taken in a deep breath and breathed down fire at him so intense that if he had not surrounded himself with a shield of Light at the last second, it would have burned him to a crisp.

Angry now, Gaston refocused his efforts with the Light and attacked the dragon with renewed force to the weak spot on her face. In frustration, Onyxia abandoned her flying attacks and dropped back down from the sky to attack him with her claws faster than Gaston would have thought possible for such a giant creature. Blocking and parrying her attacks, her blows still struck with such force that he had to continually back up until he was once again with his back to the rear wall of the cavern.

Strangely, the more powerfully the dragon attacked, the more strength the Light gave to him. Gaston could feel the Light flow through his veins like never before and it gave him a surge of strength and speed that he would have thought impossible just a day before.

Instead of weakening, with every blow the dragon struck, Gaston grew even more powerful. Finally his sword was moving so fast and with such force, that it slashed through the thick hide of the dragon's face cleanly. Roaring with pain, the dragon reared up and Gaston saw his opening. Without thinking, he leapt up in the air, slicing his sword across her neck. As he dropped back to his feet he could hear the dragon collapse behind him with two thuds. A big thud for her body that made the earth shake and a smaller one for the head that rolled away from it's former owner.

He grabbed the head of Onyxia, throwing it over his Shoulder and turned to exit the cave. It would make a fine gift for a King.

Baby Ninjas

Well, I intended to post something on Monday, but every time I have sat down to write over the last few days, I've either been interrupted by work or I experience complete blockage.

For the record, I'm not talking about writer's block. I've never actually had that before. What I'm referring to is baby ninja reincarnation.

What is baby ninja reincarnation? It is an idea I had about Ninja's that are killed heroicly sometime in the distant past (probably feudal Japan or something) that wind up reincarnated, but keep all of their old memories.

So they are babies. That are ninjas.

I immediately dismissed the idea as completely dumb. I will not be writing a story about this. It is retarded. I will not sink so low.

BUT I CAN'T GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD. Right now if I sit down to write ANYTHING, I'm mentioning reincarnated baby ninjas!!! The more I try to stop myself from thinking about it, the more I CAN'T STOP.

Even when I'm typing up technical documentation at work. I have inserted an error code in a program that is literally "ERROR: Could not open socket. Please seek help from baby ninjas."

I have a story about these baby ninja's. They find each other in a nursery, train together, escape and plan to write a wrong by stopping an evil scheme to take over the world perpetrated by the ancestors of the feudal lord's that executed them.

For the record, I will not write this story. I refuse.

I can't get it out of my head though!! I have a sickness. Please help.

Serious Crimes!!

I told you it was weird...you have been warned:

My name is Dan, and I'm a cop. I run the serious crimes division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My task is to track down and apprehend the criminal masterminds behind plots to destroy American Grocery and Food Distribution Establishments. I'm the best at what I do.

Saturday December 1st
8:32am -- After a quiet jog around the neighborhood on my day off, I stopped by the office to catch up on a little paperwork when I felt a rumbling in my stomach indicating that I require sustenance. I break for the local breakfast chain resteraunt with the Golden Arches to pick up a Sausage McMuffin with egg, two hashbrowns and a coffee. Cream. No Sugar. Neat.

8:48am -- Consuming breakfast alone in my 1998 Bright Atlantic Blue Ford Escort due to restaurant facility cleanliness issues. I spill a little coffee on my seat cushion. Mental note: Must get new zebra striped seat cushion.

9:04am -- Suspect enters the premises and orders a Big Mac meal with a small diet coke. He is informed that they cannot serve big macs until 10am. Suspect is unhappy but settles on a McGriddle. Sausage. With Cheese.

9:08am -- Workers note the suspect obtained his food and cup for his drink. Suspect moves to vending apparatus to fill his cup with liquid refreshment. There is a large 'No Refills' sign decorating the apparatus.

9:23am -- I walk in to inform establishment management of suspicious, phlemn-like taste in my cup and offer to write a strongly worded letter to the supplier of their coffee bean product. I suspect their supplier has been comprimised by the CLO -- the Columbian Loogie Organization. This terrorist organization seems to have infiltrated every major resteraunt I frequent. Perhaps they know of my open investigation into their activities? Good. It means I'm getting close.

9:24am -- As I explain my offer to an oddly giggling manager, I see the suspect finish his meal and go to refill his cup, despite the prominently displayed signage. Code 487, theft in progress. I move quickly to apprehend the suspect, but slip and fall on the recently mopped floor. I think we may have a crafty villian here. This mastermind orchestrated the plot and timed the moment of his theft and escape with the laughing worker's terribly inefficient mopping duty. Round one goes to the suspect.

10:03am -- I pull the survellience video of the store, confiscate the contents of the trash recepticle, and call in a fingerprint team to dust the table where the suspect allegedly consumed his McGriddle breakfast sandwich for prints.

10:08am -- Call in the DNA team to gather evidence from the store. There is a lot of trace evidence to be gathered here, but we can start by running all of the DNA we aquire through our database of known code 487 suspects and start narrowing the suspect list and questioning for alibis. Meanwhile, I take to the streets.

10:36am -- I start with the local neighborhood, going door to door asking if anybody has seen any suspicious persons walking through their neighborhood carrying what appears to be a small soda from the local establishment. Looks like a dead end. Or the neighbors aren't talking. Could they be part of a larger ring of refill thieves, covering for their co-conspirators?

10:49am -- I call in a favor with the boys at CIA. They are going to put a bird overhead and see what the satellite imaging from this morning tells us about our perp.

11:43am -- DNA calls and tells me we have 1,462 individual DNA samples collected from the facility, including 397 felons, 12 known child molestors, and what appears to be donkey semen. I'm fairly certain that the suspect was not a donkey, but I'm not ruling anything out at this point.

12:32pm -- Finally have the results back from the fingerprint lab. They had 24 individual samples from the booth occupied from by the suspect, and none match any of the DNA found. I must take care to remember: Donkeys do not leave fingerprints.

2:18pm -- The boys at Langley have come back with survellience footage tracking the suspects movements from the time he left the facility to his place of employment. He works at a Starbucks down the street, a competing breakfast chain. It is possible we are dealing with something deeper and more diabolical, which could include corporate espionage. And how does the donkey play in? Nothing on the satellite about the donkey. Too bad.

3:41pm -- Called in the SWAT boys and went to Starbucks. Took the employees downtown for questioning.

4:12pm -- The employees prove to be tough nuts to crack. Their story is that they don't know anything about masturbating donkeys or international refill thieves. We will see.

5:56pm -- Made the call to send the employees to Guantanamo for a little sweat in the hot box. Maybe a little Water Boarding will get the truth out of them.

6:43pm -- The threat of incarceration in anti-terrorism facilities seems to have put a chink in their armor. One of the employees claims responsibility for the orginal theft. Still claims ignorance of the donkey. Tough nut to crack. I ship him off to the interrogation experts at Guantanamo to see if they can get anything more. A few years with them, and the conspiracy will be revealed for certain.

All in a days work...at SERIOUS CRIMES!!!

Away from the blog

I've been away from the blog for a little bit (In fact, both blogs), mostly due to a few things going on right now.

My biggest thing is Job related: I found out in early May that all of the projects my team has been tasked to work on in in Fiscal Year 2010 (which starts in July) are currently unfunded. What does this mean?

Well, that is the big question...

First, they cut all of the contractors on my team. This included a couple who had been here for 3+ years. Very sad. They also killed any part time help, which included the replacement that I use when I go on vacation (I'm currently the only individual in the company who does my particular job).

Currently their 'plan' is to cross train someone to do my job. Someone who has never done any of the things I do, and already has way too much on their plate with their current job to ever really dig in depth on my stuff. Basically it means to me that when I go on vacation I can expect that I will spend the next month fixing whatever the other person screwed up. Lovely.

Also, because I have no funded projects, I will be 'cross-training' over to another function as well. Yup...I get to screw things up for another person while *he* is on vacation. Lovely.

Anyway, due to this mess I've been writing a bunch of things. Writing proposals for my current job, hoping to sway management to divert some funding over to some very important projects. (They actually funded one of those proposals in the final budget, so yay!). Also, I've been polishing up the various resumes, code samples, and other things I will need if something turns very wrong and I do wind up looking for another job (not likely, but never hurts to be careful).

Lay offs are possible, but on my team there are other, more likely candidates...so I'm not overly worried, though (obviously) I still hate to see anybody go at all.

In addition to the 'serious' stuff, I've been playing a little (a lot) of WoW, playing Rock Band with the kiddos, and writing some short stories that I don't really care to publish at all right now...probably ever. Currently all the stories seem to come from that very crazy place in my brain and they...don't really make a hell of a lot of sense (to anybody but me. Scratch that....even I'm confused sometimes).

Still, I'm entertained by the writing, which is the only good reason to write.

As an example, I wrote a little short story about a Reality TV show that uses the same techniques that shows like CSI use to catch murderers (DNA evidence, fingerprints, audio/video dissection, etc), as well as 'enemy of the state' style satellite surveillance, SWAT teams and FBI agents.

...All to catch people who shoplifted 99c candy bars from grocery stores. It is told in 'dragnet style' from the perspective of the lead investigator on the case. I call it 'Serious Crimes!!' and it made me laugh. But I doubt it would make anybody else laugh and it is decidedly from that strange and bizarre place in my brainz that really should never be public on the interwebs, heh.