The Great Pandarian Staff Swindle (Or how I discovered a hidden social welfare system in World of Warcraft)

Every monk has its demon, they say. Even if that monk is a digital furry and his demon, a somewhat dodgy idea of digital opportunity. As a returning World of Warcraft player, I found myself experimenting with my first Pandarian character (and my first monk) and right there -Quest number one - I made an unexpected discovery. The objective was to go get a staff and return to the master. But, because I really like using that unlock feature on WOW, I clicked it a second time after taking my staff. And discovered that it was possible to take a second staff. As I continued, I began to wonder about this possibility. How many staffs can you take from the training ground? In the interests of scientific enquiry (of course) I decided to create a second Pandarian monk to find out. That's when I found out that the Wandering Isle was generous beyond belief.

My (second) Pandarian helped herself to almost a backpack full of staffs. To exchange those staffs for currency, she needed to reach a merchant. This required her to complete Quests 1 and 2 first before she could begin her neferious dealings. Quest 3 involved sparring with the Huojin trainees, but at this point she was able to go AWOL instead and track down the nearest available merchant.

It was slightly risky, because to reach him she needed to move through the aggressive Fe-Feng, without yet having achieved the ability to heal herself, if injured.

Lee Sunspark - blacksmith and 'fence'. It was slightly risky, because to reach him she needed to move through the very aggressive Fe-Feng, without yet having achieved the ability to heal herself, if injured. She had the luck of the devil, though, and was able to return to the training grounds without incident for a second load of staffs. Yes, even after handing in Quest no 1, you can still take as many training staffs as you want. At this point, I deleted the little guttersnipe and switched back to my original Panderian. But, here's where it gets crazy. 14 training staffs = 1 silver 56 copper. After 75 trips, she would see her first gold. 75,000 trips and she would have over 1000 gold, while still a puny level 3. Okay, it would be v-e-r-y time consuming. And boring after a while. There are many better ways of earning gold. And World of Warcraft is about more than gold. Isn't it?

Review: The Tower at Stony Wood by Patricia A McKillip

The Tower of Stony Wood begins with the deceptive simplicity of a medieval style fairy tale. A lady in a tower and a knight on his dark charger. But the first lady we meet is no princess, but merely an errant baker's daughter who has sought to escape from her chores in a mysteriously magical place she does not quite understand. And the knight has to be persuaded by an unlikely tale to leave his somewhat happy life for a quest that may not even be real. And so the layers begin.

For there is more than one tower to explore and more than one enchantment to challenge. As the hero of this tale, Cyan Dag is a likely knight - the provenance of his family name is his main inheritance, but he lacks the means to woo the lady he loves. Melanthos is compelled to stitch together sense of faraway mysteries, but she does not quite realize that the greatest enigma has tangled itself into her own family. And then there is Thayne, who needs magic, but must also learn what to do with it once it finds him.

The characterization is stellar and enables interactions to be emotionally realistic throughout. Even relatively minor characters like Regis Aurum, Anyon and Gentian feel authentic throughout. Melanthos and Sel are exquisitely rendered and it's wonderful to encounter a female trickster for a change. The atmosphere of magic that permeates the story makes the plot seem hazy at times, but I suppose that is in the nature of tales of fantasy.

The Creation of Fiction (a story of the universe)

Once upon a time, the great pools of energy that whorl and moved about, were like a canvas and all souls used them to create the ever-changing art of lives and worlds. Change was the only constant. If one soul said, my hair is purple, it was so. If another said, I want rain, it was so. All were like gods, co-creators in the playground of the universe. Anything was possible.

One day, one of the souls did not like the way things were going in another's world and said, "You are dead." The other soul was snuffed of its life, but someone else observed the interaction and said, "He will be alive once more." And, because all stories were equal, the one who was dead, became alive again. But his enemy was furious. He muttered and huffed and puffed, searching for a way to permanently destroy his rival. One day he found it. In the presence of all, he declared, ONLY MY STORY IS TRUE. ALL OTHERS ARE UNTRUE.

A shudder went through the fabric of the universe. There was silence for a long time. Eventually, someone tried, "I have a farm of dinosaurs." Nothing happened. The world had changed and reality had lost the ability to flow and alter with the thoughts of all. Will it remain permanently locked, or is there a way to fix this? This is my riddle and another koan. What words will undo the creation of fiction and liberate the universe to become once again, like it was, a world drawn by the stories of all?

(t.y.m.)

An experiment in story-telling: How to make a wizard's spectacles

For several years, I have participated in the live reading event called Bloody Parchment, which makes up part of the literary component of the SA Horrorfest. Following the success of these readings, I have for some time been playing with the idea of using my youtube channel to launch an experiment in story-telling. Most writers are unaware of the potential of youtube to showcase their work. I thought it might be interesting to revive earlier traditions of verbally sharing fiction, albeit through a new platform.

The upload embedded within this blogpost, 'How to Make a Wizard's Spectacles' is my second attempt, but the first one I'm going public with. Following feedback on the first (unlisted) video, I decided to keep the format simple. Just voice and text.

As other members of the Adamastor Writer's Guild (of which I am a member) have expressed interest in the project, I am not ruling out the possibility of featuring stories by other writers. For the moment, I'm just seeing where this leads. Hope you enjoy it.

Not Quite #fridayflash fiction - Alice by the Sea

There must be tens of thousands of little girls called Alice in the world. Some of them are not so little and not so innocent, but if we wrote down stories for every Alice that lives, breathes and swallows pills, they could fill a library, all by themselves.

But ask yourself this, how much mileage can you really get out of 'one pill makes you tall' and 'one pill makes you small' withing beginning to repeat the pattern, again and again and again, like a row of warped mirrors in the madhouse.

I'm going to tell you about an Alice that simply got fed up with it all and took a Path of Whispers, away from all the White Rabbits and Mad Hatters and Murderous Queens until she came to the sea.

The wind blew her perfectly brushed blond locks into a wild nest of disarray and the spray of the ocean splattered the unblemished pinkish white skin of her bare feet. She was happy, but still the possibility of being discovered loomed like a distant storm cloud on the horizon.

She did not bring much, but she still had two pills left and without hesitation, she popped the pill that makes you small under her tongue. That was the one that always shocked your senses - a swiftly impacting sensation that made you feel as if your weight had abruptly tripled. Followed by your ears popping and then a disorientating light-headedness, as if the see-saw that had just plunged, now swooped back up again. And finally, that dry burning at the back of the throat. Yep, that was the pill alright.

... and grains of sand were now sharp pebbles and rocks of quartz... The cold brine of the sea, the stabbing sunlight. Everything overwhelmed, as Alice stumbled to find the nearest haven of sanctuary within a sea shell.

Its smoothly curved pearly walls were easy on the eye, except in those places where they caught a glint of sun. That hurt. The surface felt good on her cheek, but the best and worst thing about the shell was the music you could only hear from the inside...

I know you've probably held a shell to your ear, but this is very very different. A secret that shells have kept very well is that they only let you hear what they want you to, and that corresponds roughly to what they think you expect to hear. A roaring whoosh and most people will wander off, none the wiser.

But each shell distills the vibration of the waves to a fine and delicate series of melodies that never escape. Each shell tunes the vagaries of the wind to secret arpeggios that might have been the undoing of Paganini and each shell blends the harmonies of the shifting sands outside to something rare and exquisite.

Before Alice, no human had ever been an audience to the overpowering symphony of the sea.

Madness conducted the little spikes of intensity that rose and fell, drilling against the inside of her skull during the first movement.

There was no interval, no break, but the shifting carried her to a scary sort of sane that gnawed and grinded relentlessly against its confining prison of bone.

Then, it broke barriers and spilled....

Her mouth was open and her throat vibrated with a high-pitched fluting whistle. Was she still listening to the music or had she become it?

Sensing a new element, an enhancement to its features, the shell had worked the dimensions of Alice into its music, bouncing new improvisations off her form. That was the way of the shell. It employed everything within its environment in the greater quest for audial excellence.

The girl thought tone was god and tried to move towards it. Then she decided that tone was the devil and tried to move away from it. Because the music surrounded her, the results were exactly the same.

She crawled towards what felt like the heart of the sound, its crescendo whorling around and around, in colors she could almost see.

The music changed, becoming cold and wet. The vibration of tone lingered in echoes, but it was passing. She had found the mouth of the shell, but outside, she still felt as if she had no skin, no hair and no face, even. She was nothing more than a pulse that continued to go ah-ah-ah-ah-ah, without end. She could not even tell whether she still crawled or had stopped. She might have hugged herself, had she been able to locate any of her limbs.

She had no awareness of time passing, but after a while, she realized that the music had shifted from being an event to becoming a memory. She felt her fingers curled around her toes and slowly the rest of her body came back online.

She opened her eyes. She had to brush rags of hair the color of sleek seaweed from her eyes. Her skin was tinged green, hands and feet webbed. The girl called Alice swallowed hard, but then she remembered that she had wanted to be different.

Something grubby and white stuck to her palms. She stared at it for a long time before realizing that it was the remains of the pill to make you tall. Painstakingly, she licked her hands until they were clean. Then she got up and walked into the wild and the deep.

(t.y.m.... thank you to my inner muse and guide for coming through for me, once again)

Holly Black introduces the worlds of fairy to the mortals of Ironside

Weird exotic looking Kaye has always seen fairies - Spike, Gristle and Lutie when she was young. At sixteen, her life is unconventional in a different way. She is the responsible adult, taking care of her wild rock chick mom Ellen. But when they hit a dry spell and are forced to move back in with Kaye's grandmother, the faeries return to her life in a big and perilous way. First there is Roiben, knight of the Unseelie court, whom she rescues from an injury. Then the thistlewitch reveals a startling new truth about Kaye's origin, and finds Kaye experimenting with new abilities, while her every move also endangers her friend Janet, and Janet's brother, Corny. Meanwhile, Samhaim nears and with it the time of the tithe, a sacrifice ment to bond the solitary fairies to the Unseelie court for the next seven years. What role will Kaye play in this? And what other double crosses are on the cards? Soon, Kaye is not sure who is friend and who is foe.

And if you enjoyed this, the good news is there's more where that came from. In 'Valiant', human girl Val leaves home after finding out a shocking secret about her mother. In New York City, she befriends Lolli, Sketchy Dave and Luis, who live somewhere in a disused section of the underground, hiding the magical secrets of their existence in the dark. When she herself becomes involved in the affairs of Ravus, who is really a troll, she has to find out who has been killing off the exiled fairies of the city.

'Ironside' returns to the further adventures of Kaye, now armed with new truths about her real identity, but still as confused about where she truly fits in, as her destiny shifts her between two conflicting courts of fairy, and she is charged with solving an impossible riddle to win the love of a king and perhaps save him in the process. Ironside, by the way, is how the fairies refer to our world.