Casual Huntering

Alright, I finally hit an accomplishment that many people will think isn’t much, but it was totally a big deal for me. I got my second character to level 80.

The funny thing is that my second character is a death knight. Shouldn’t they be the easiest class to level to 80??? Yes, I’m afraid so. So, how long did it take me to get the toon to level 80 though? Well, I rolled her the night Wrath of the Lich King came out, when everybody else was rolling death knights as well. So, it’s been over a year. I remember the death knight starting area being crazier than hell. My wife and I rolled death knights at the same time and went through the death knight begin area together.

Now my wife and I ended up parting ways at level 58. I really wanted to level this death knight. I know my wife is still a little mad at me about that. Well, we do have a pair of death knights that we are leveling on the Feathermoon server at least. Originally, the death knight was going to be my farming toon. So, I leveling mining and skinning on her. By the way, leveling mining can be a pain in the @ss! It took a good deal of time to level that high enough just to take it to the outlands. Since then I’ve enjoyed playing the death knight so much I’ll probably try to get her geared enough to do some raiding, and maybe someday I’ll try to learn how to tank with her.

Well, with my attention deficit problem it has taken awhile to get my first death knight finally leveled all the way. In the mean time, I’ve taken four other death knights through the beginning area to level 58. I don’t keep rolling death knights cause I love the class (I do actually love the class don’t get me wrong), but mostly because whenever you go to a new server, well you ought to roll a death knight. It’s the quickest way to make money and get established.

So, how long did it take to level the dk? When I checked the /played feature it said I’d played this character for 6 days and 13 hours. That’s nothing compared to my hunter, but its still a freakin’ lot of time to be playing a game. My next highest leveled alt is only level 36, my druid on Deathwing. Now getting the druid to level 80 will be much more of an accomplishment. Of course I think just the fact that when I leveled my hunter it was still back in the day before Blizzard increased the speed at which you could level. I tell you, by golly, back in the day the grind from level 40 to level 60 was really bad. And leveling in the outlands took a lot longer as well. So, in my opinion leveling a toon in vanilla WoW was much more an accomplishment than it is now. Leveling from 70 to 80 still takes a good long while, but much easier and more fun with LFG. I would quest while sitting in the queue and then I’d jump into a group and take out an instance somewhere. Keep going if they would or jump back to questing. It’s the ultimate help while leveling. You get good gear while getting a ton of XP.

Well, there you have it, I’m probably one of the most casual guys in the game you’ll know, of course the very fact that I’m writing a blog means that I’m probably not quite that casual, but now I have my second 80. Well, neither of them are geared very well, so I’m still rather pathetic.

Well, I woke up thinking that I was going to start my Valentines holiday with my toons. It did start today after all. Last year I got everything done with exception to the things that require you to be level 80, at the time, I still wasn’t, very sad I know. So, it’ll be a cinch to get this year. I already got the really difficult random drops. But as I’m running over to the inn keeper to start the once-an-hour routine (to hope to get the random drops on my DK) I notice that the inn keeper doesn’t have any thing for me at all.

Confused (as I assume most people in my predicament are) I turned to do some research and most people had great guilds how to get through the “Love Is In the Air” world of warcraft holiday for 2009 and earlier, not helping me at the particular moment.

By the way, here are some links with in-depth detailed information being updated as we speak: The WoWhead guide (which has usually been my favorite), the WoW.com guild (they’re updating as we speak as well), the WoWwiki guide (which tends to get updated much slower than the other two)

It appears instead of getting on once an hour, you need to instead do dailies to get Love Tokens, which then you can use to buy all of those difficult random drops (not so random anymore). You can also get Love Tokens by trading them in for bracelets which you can get materials to make them by killing regular mobs that you would be able to get XP for or would have even if you’re at max level. So, basically any mob that isn’t gray to you.  The drop rate is suppose to be roughly about 38%.

Instead of hoping to have enough luck to get the perm-pet Peddlefeet (ugliest one in the game), or the picnic basket, or the lovely black dress, you just buy them with the Love Tokens. Oh, and now there is a Rocket mount drop from the holiday boss.

There are plenty of other stuff you get to do, but this post wasn’t suppose to be a definitive guide, there are plenty other people doing all the work for that. I suggest that you go to WoWhead, for their “Love is in the Air” guide. Their guild will give you every bit of information you could care to know about the event (and some you probably didn’t care about).

So, I guess this is Blizzard’s answer to all of the complaints they had last year when many people weren’t able to finish the meta-achievement just because they weren’t able to get some random drop. The holiday changes from the hourly drudge to something that might actually be fun.  I think most of us don’t like much trying to get “random drops” to finish the meta-achievement. Many of us are attempting to do all of this to finish the big old grand meta achievement “What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been” so that you can get that 310% speed Violet Proto Drake. I know there are many people out there that were very diligent and already got this last year, but there are always alts and many of us weren’t cool enough to get it done.

So, get at it make love happen in your small part of Azeroth.

Okay, so I’ve decide to only post RP stories, or fan fiction, only on Fridays, I got the idea from PixelExecution who apparently has been doing this for a while. I never meant for this blog to be only about RP stuff, but that has become an important part of the game for me. During the month of December I guess most of my posts centered around the RP stories. Don’t get me wrong, the idea of creating a story for your character and then letting it loose, seeing where it goes, well, its quite fun for me. However, this is Casual Huntering, the blog where I discuss Hunter and Random topics.  So, I’m going to limit myself to just once a week, promise.

I’ve previously posted several of Praxton Seamsmith’s Adventures. This is the picture of the character I rolled for him. Don’t be deceived, Prax is much more lanky and nerdy looking than this, he’s also only 16 years old. We seriously need more control over what our characters look like, come on now!

Anyway, here is a little conversation that Praxton has with his imp Voljub after his first real training with his teacher Dreth (an undead fire mage that somehow found himself teaching an awkward young teenager, you’ll have to see previous Praxton posts to read more about how that happened). Praxton seems to have a knack for controlling and creating fire, but he’s also discovered an interesting ability to control a particular imp. This particular part of the story is more of a in-between, a segway into something else, next week will be much more exciting.

I do have to say, I haven’t written this on my own, I’m only playing the part of Praxton.  Moordeth has been writing the part of Naccar (Praxton’s father) and Voljub (the imp previously mentioned).

Voljub scampered up onto Praxtons shoulders and whispered to his Master “Can I call your teacher Mr. Cranky Loose Jaw?”

As Prax was walking down the tower he whispered to Voljub, “Yeah, sure, but not wh- where he can hear, okay?” Prax was starting to feel more comfortable with Voljub. As they walked he asked, “What er um exactly does it mean to be a warlock anyway?”

“Master, you want me disappear? Most old masters of mine don’t like to show me in the town square?”

“Oh, I dunno. I kinda wanna er talk. Can you um do the invisibility thing again?” Prax mentioned. Prax just remember that he need some supplies for Lore’s shirt (and his own “garment”), he began to walk towards trade district.

“Oh yes yes Voljub still be here. Just no one can see me.” He then quickly faded away. “A warlock is someone that can wield magic and can control and summon demons. That is how your father controlled me the first time.”

Prax whispered to his shoulder, “But how, er why do you um listen to m- me?”

“mmm Voljub doesnt know. I am forced to obey your commands because you hold the soul stone, that much is sure. You are very different from my other masters though. They wield dark magic on enemies. And with you, Master, I like fulfilling your commands. Mayyybe you received only part of your fathers powers. yes. yes? Voljub doesn’t know. Master Naccar never liked Voljub huh? He never summoned Voljub. Was it because of what Voljub did to his wagon years ago? It wasn’t Voljubs fault…” he said softly.

“Did you know my sister was in th that er wagon? I guess it wasn’t your f fault.”

“Whaaaat!?” Voljub squealed, then he lowered his voice again “Voljub sorry sorry. Don’t send Voljub away pleeese! Master Volrac made Voljub do it. He said he had the two things he was searching for and that I must burn everything else. Please let me stay”

Prax held no animosity towards the imp. Besides he just barely found out about this sister. He didn’t know how to feel about all of this. How old would she be? Prax thought. “How c could you have known”, Prax whispered. “What was that disc my er da found, anyway?”

Prax reached his parents shop, his father was behind the front counter. Prax greeted his father.

“Hi Praxton. How did things go at the mage tower? I’ve told your mother this is a big job so you might be going back there often.”

Prax didn’t quite know how to describe his training, “Um, it was, er interesting. My teacher was um, a little bit confused about the er whole imp thing. He told me, to um, get training elsewhere, so I don’t, you know hu hurt myself. He suggested the university.”

Naccar was confused himself when the imp followed Prax. The mages had interest in him yet the imp followed him as a master. To the best of his knowledges mages didn’t control demons. “So are the mages going to continue training you as well?”

“Yeah, but my teacher told me that I er needed to um get additional tr- training for the imp thing.”

“I think you have a special gift son. You have mage powers but mages don’t normally control imps. Learning more about Voljub is a good idea.”

“Do you er know anything um about Stormwind university?”

“I know little. I know that the University holds skilled teachers of all kinds. If you search out a warlock trainer there they could teach you more about Voljub. I thought about doing it long ago for myself, but never did.”

Prax never imagined himself going to Stormwind University, it seemed only important people went to school. Prax nodded, he wasn’t sure what he thought about taking classes. He didn’t much want to talk in front of people. Prax was reminded of the fact that he was suppose to make a shirt for Loreli. “Dad, I um need to go buy some supplies. I just remembered.”

Naccar nodded “You don’t need to ask me, son. Come on back and pick out what you need.” Another customer entered and Naccar greeted him.

Prax went back to the supply room to see if they had the right supplies. Praxton kind of felt like Lorli deserved a high quality shirt, he started looking through the cloth they had available. Stacks up stacks, piles and piles of silk, mageweave, cotton, and other cloth. Where we the runeclothe? How frustrating, he thought. “Da, I’m going to the market.” Prax yelled out as he walked out the shop. He wondered if Voljub was still poking about. Praxton whisper, “Psst, Voljub. Are you still there?”

Voljub was happy his Master still remembered him. “Yes sir Master sir. I never leave your side, until you tell me to that is.”

Prax walked across one of Stormwind’s many canals, “I though, um, that eh demons were c- cruel and um vicious, b- but you aren’t.”

In a sulking voice the demon spoke “All Masters of Voljub force Voljub to do things. Yell at Voljub. Voljub has to obey no matter what.” Voljubs voice got angry, “Most times Voljub gets kicked. Voljub hated all races that could control. Voljub wanted to burn up all controllers.”

Praxton was surprised at how badly Voljub had been mistreated. “Are all warlocks like that?”

Voljubs voice calmed a bit. “No just most. All demons fight to get away. We no like to be controlled. Told what to do and all.”

“Why do you do what warlocks tell you anyway?” Prax was confused about the whole process.

“Voljub doesn’t know how Warlock can control demon. Only that it has to do with magic and the purple crystal. He that can push magic into the crystal can control Voljub. Master Naccar the first Master that not tell Voljub what to do. Ever. He would summon Voljub and not tell Voljub to do anything. Months passed. Voljub just watched and followed. Master Praxton very small then”

Praxton nodded as they continued to walk along a canal. So, Voljub has been watching him for a long time then? Weird. “So, what are the crystals anyway?”

“mmm Master Praxton asking very hard questions. Voljub don’t know. Maybe ask the University People Naccar talked about. Oh and Master, thanks for not getting rid of Voljub or for kicking Voljub around when you found out about the wagon…”

Prax entered Stormwind’s trade district, “yeah, I eh, do need to go there, but I’m no um looking forward to it.”

“Don’t worry Master, Voljub can help in many ways!” Voljub felt glad inside that he had made a friend out of his master. Master Praxton didn’t hit and he didn’t get mad when he found out he stayed with his family invisible for so long. Praxton was patient and kind.  That’s why Voljub liked him so much. The imp walked along side his Master with smile.

The idea of going to the university scared Praxton. He didn’t like talking in public, if he could help it.

Have you noticed that your work ethic and personality bleed into your playing style? I certainly have. I’m not saying I have a very poor work ethic, I don’t, I work just as hard as the next guy, I think. Well, okay, sometimes I can get lazy and when the game starts to look like work then I start to want to do something else. Also, I swear I’m ADHD, I swear it. I can’t focus on one thing for more than two minutes or so. That’s why generally I don’t have super long elaborate blog entries about one thing or another. Generally have a couple of paragraphs my brain is off somewhere else. Of course that’s not always true, but seriously.

I can’t seem to stay focused on one thing in the game anymore. I tend to sit down at the computer and think, “Hmmm, what do I want to do this morning?” and without fail I’ll do something random when I should be focusing on getting my hunter better gear or leveling one of my key alts. What do I do instead? I create a new character somewhere random. I believe I’m up to 31 characters across 8 servers. Now, I only care about 4 of those servers, but still, I’m spreading myself pretty thin. I know it would probably be better to focus on maybe only 4 characters. But right now I’d say that I’ve been working on 12 different toons. At least I never have to worry about running out of rest XP, cause there’s always someone that I can play with that has an ample supply.

So, what’s the problem with that? Well, I’m slow. Come on, I have a turtle for a pet! I work slowly, mostly because I have a limited amount of playing time. I play for an hour or two before I go to work and one night a week I’ll get on and do a raid with my guildies. Once or twice a week my wife and I will work one one of our 4 different couples in the game (we tend to try to give them names of famous couples, but that’s another blog post altogether). So, I’m limited in game play. I’d probably be just fine if I only focused on my Hunter and my DK, but I swear it’s addictive to be an altoholic. You find yourself rolling new toons all the time, sometimes with legitimate reasons, sometimes just because you thought it was a cool idea. I swear I’m going to have to go to a 12 steps program for this. But at least I know I’ll be in good company (looks at Anea).

(No the Picture doesn’t have anything to do with the post, I just like my turtles.)

Here I am sitting in yet another meeting, much of the meeting doesn’t apply to myself, but here I am. So what am I doing to keep myself mentally sane?? Yeah, I’m hand writing a post for my WoW blog. We’ll see if I can get off my rear end and actually get this typed into the computer. We’ll see. Wow, these parents are a little upset, very interesting, I’m very glad that I’m not the one running the meeting.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking. I try to avoid it, but sometimes I do think. When is World of Warcraft going to end and what are the players going to do. WoW can’t last forever, eventually it’ll have to come to some kind of conclusion, right? (Unlike this meeting, which is looking like it is going to last indefinitely). But with a game as popular as Warcraft, its life span will likely be very long. We have already had 5 years and we can probably easily be having 5-10 more. Maybe 10 years is excessive perhaps. Right now the technology is already outdated. Newer games are looking pretty good (have you seen any videos for Aion?). More and more games are likely going to siphon off players, come on its bound to happen. Some day another game with eventually exceed WoW in their number of subscribers. Someday.

However, I don’t think WoW will die at this point, just because someone has more subscribers, duh. There are people playing Ultima Online and the first Everquest aren’t there? MMOs don’t die so easily (unless they suck to begin with and were never able to get a following). When do you think blizzard would finally pull the plug on a dying MMO? Are they going to let the game go for the next 15-20 years?? Are they just going to wait till the game is no longer making money, I guess that would make sense.

Well, then there’s always the talk of the next blizzard MMO (which may very well take them 10 years to get finished with). When do you decide that the newest game out there will pull you away from Azeroth? Is it the graphics and playability? I personally think that one thing that keeps you and me in a particular MMO is the relationships that we’ve forged. I myself don’t feel that I’ll leave WoW for a long long time. Not until the people I play with leave. Maybe if my guild on my home server told everybody, “hey were moving to X MMO for Y reasons, go buy an account and come join us.” At that point I would strongly consider it, and maybe if the WoW twitter world all decided to up and change MMOs. I guess there would have to be one bad @ss game out there for such a migration to happen. (And the meeting is still going strong, almost an hour long with no end in sight).

I also wonder, if eventually I’m going to leave WoW, then why am I bothering with all of this work. Ha! I guess you should be enjoying your self as you go, enjoy the journey kind of thing, and I have, I really have. Anyway, what’s your take on this? How much more life do you think Azeroth has for us? What would pull you to a new MMO?

Okay, I know its February now and I should have already made this post. I’m already a month behind. Well, if I would have made the post before this last weekend it would have disappeared. You see we backed up the blog early this month to move it over, but then we had some difficulties moving (mostly because I’m a noob when it comes to the technical stuff), but we figured it out! So, I’ve been waiting to post my Azerathian new year resolutions, so here goes.

• Level at least 2 more characters to max level before the expansion.
  • This should be so hard to get, I think… I have my DK at level 79.66 right now so we should just be about there in a little bit if I can stay focused.
• Finish the “What a crazy year” achievement and get my violet 310% speech proto drake on Aoirselvar.
  • On a side note, I want to get started working on this for my DK as well.
• Get my Dwarf Hunter raid worthy
  • I admit it, I’ve lapsed on this in the last couple of months. I know this should be easy if I focus, but every time I sit down to the computer I get side tracked by one squirrel or another.
• Learn how to tank on my DK and feral druid
  • I have not problem trying this out, my only problem is that I don’t wand the LFG to be my first attempt at it. So, I’m going to have to talk some patient guildies into letting me try this out, oh and my druid is only level 35 anyway, so it’ll just be swipe heaven I’m told.
• Learn to heal on my druid (hopefully duel spec sometime) and priest
  • Okay, so I’ve been wanting to try out other aspects of the game. I realized that the days of me being a one character player are over.
• Tank something I’m not suppose to with my turtle.
  • I’ve been obsessed with pet tanking since 3.0 and no one ever takes me seriously. I guess I can’t hardly blame them, but I think non-hunters don’t understand what a good tenacity pet can accomplish. Once we were trying to do the Brewfest holiday boss and we didn’t have a tank, not a big deal, it’s a pretty easy fight actually. So, I tell my boomkin brother that I’ll tank and he told me, “Okay, but you watch, I’m guaranteed to pull aggro off your tank cause I do super massive DPS.” I shrugged in return. He thought I was stupid and only was letting me do this cause it was an easy easy fight. So, at the end when he didn’t even come close to my turtle’s threat he was a little surprised.
• Write at least weekly with quality and at least somewhat useful posts here on this blog.
  • On a side note, I’m also determined about being better to not let this blog, twitter, forums, or another blog from affecting my work performance. I’ve been guilty of that in the past and I’m going to try to keep this to a minimum when I’m at work. Now I’m not saying I’m going to never do anything WoW related at work, I know that I can’t keep that promise.
• Obtain the 100 mount achievement
  • Do I dare put this as a goal for the year when I’ve become an altoholic? I don’t know, but this has been a fun thing for me on Aoirselvar, so far I think I’m up to like 75 or so.

At least that’s some of the stuff that I want to get accomplished. Well, see how the year goes, but writing it down I think helps you stay focused, something I have a problem with that I’ll have to write about on a different day.

Alright, as you can see, my blog looks a little different now. We’ve finally got the blog transferred to a new host, and I’m going to start writing again. Yay!

I’m still kind of a noob when it comes to blogging  (which is sad cause I’ve been WoW blogging for over a year now). So, moving over the DNS for the domain casualhunting.com was a challenge for me (even thought it should have been simple), but whatever. Here’s my new home now. Now I need to get my header up, write some real WoW posts for a change, and figure out what the h3ll I’m doing.

Anyway, I’ll be poking about a little more often now. If you don’t mind.

Just thought I’d write a quick note. We just got back from Las Vegas a couple of days ago, its not the same when you go with little children, you don’t spend as much time at the strip. But it was nice to get away.

I don’t want to write too much. I’m in the middle of moving to a new hosting and we’re using a backup of the blog previous to now. So, no new posts will be moved over. So, we’re kind of in limbo right now.

I finally tried the LFG dungeon finder. It was smooth and very DK heavy (which was fine since I brought my DK for the party).

Oh, and I’ve been trying to catch up on podcasts. I only have like 20 podcasts that I download on a regular basis. I’m trying out some new hunter podcasts. There are a ton of them out there. I’ll have to put some reviews on here for them.

I have some great ideas for the 2010 year. It’ll be a fun year. Stick around.

Well, I’m taking a short break from WoW (ha! like a week or so). I’m going to be out of town till the new year, should be interesting. Any road trip with 3 children under the age of 5 is interesting. Luckily we’ll have grandparents with us so we’ll have some extra hands. I’m going with my in-laws which some people would think would be horrible, but I actually prefer my in-laws to my own family. They’re much more sane. And we would never do a trip on our own at this point. It just wouldn’t be all that fun. Well, I guess we would do a trip to the park.

/sigh

I’m also in the process of changing hosting, so I’m going to limit my postings right now till the change takes place (mostly because we’ve already got a back up so anything I write before the move will disappear – including this posts).

Just to let you know what I’ve been doing in game (so I can count this as a WoW blog post). I’ve been leveling my DK lately, so far she’s all the way up to 77. And no, I haven’t tried the LFG tool yet, I was going to try this morning, but I was having connection issues. So, some other time, perhaps it’ll be my new year resolution or something.

Anyway, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all that jazz. See ya next year.

In this part of the story Praxton’s trainer Dreth discovers that Praxton is able to control an imp as well as wield fire. And Prax needs some more int so that maybe he can manage his mana a little bit better.

Prax felt sick to his stomach and tired.

Dreth assessed the situation, he counted the hounds cheerfully, “1.. 3.. 6… 8″ he hummed intermittently.

Prax felt something stick in his leg. He remembered the crystal, the imp.

“I’ve seen worse.” Dreth glanced back at Praxton. “Well, what are you waiting for? Death?” Dreth’s bony ribs shook violently as he laughed. Dreth bowed before Praxton, with one arm extended. Clearly an invitation to open fire.

Praxton slip his hand in his pocket and whispered, “Psst, Voljub could use some help about now.”

That small breeze Praxton felt the day before hit him again and the next second Voljub appeared at his feet. “Yesss my master?” Voljub looked around.”You like dogs master? I don’t like these kind. Always they smell bad.” Voljub just raise an eye brow and showed his spiky teeth at the undead man. Then turned to look up at his master.

“um, voljub, do you er um mind helping us out with the um hounds” Prax said quickly while trembling.

“What in Azshara’s name is this?” Dreth furrowed his rotting brow inquisitively, first at the imp, then back to Prax.

Voljubs turned so he and Praxton were back to back. His hands went up so his palms were facing the hounds looking at him. Both his hands lit up in a blaze of fire.”Reeeady when you are master.” He gave the undead man a quick smile before looking back at the dogs.

Prax wasn’t sure why he summoned Voljub, he wasn’t sure what he expected. The reaction he received from the undead mage startled him. What had he done wrong? Prax just didn’t think he could have survived this encounter by himself. Prax looked back at Dreth; he was intimidated and he wasn’t sure what to say. He saw both the imp and the undead mage waiting for him as the darkhounds grew closer. Prax was yet again left speechless. One of the hounds was growling only a few paces away. He quickly turned swinging the staff wildly easily missing the hound. Prax tried to swing again, but the dog was too quick. What am I doing? Prax thought.

“Haha” Voljub chuckled “Master a funny one. Voljub help, yes, you will see.” He pushed he puny arms outward and fire ball after fire ball shot out at the hounds facing him. One leaped at him but he quickly backflipped out of the way then lit him up. “Focus Master you can make bigger fire than Voljub.” With the hounds facing Voljub now burning or running Voljub climbed up on Praxton’s shoulders so he and Praxton could face the remaining hounds.

Looking upon the remaining hounds, Prax felt his confidence increase. He focused his emotions and energies into heat. The familiar warm tingling sensation flowed from his body to the staff, which he consequently released in bursts of flaming waves. The flames shoot in a half circle spread incinerating the remaining dark hounds, Prax’s knees began to shake, he felt light headed. Black spots speckled his vision as Praxton Seamsmith collapsed.

Dreth clanked his hands together (his version of clapping). He couldn’t help feeling proud of his young acolyte. He knelt down next to Praxton and pulled a blue vial from his belt. He gently opened Prax’s mouth, and dumped the contents down his throat. “I think you’ve had enough for one day my boy” He pressed his fists together again and conjured up another portal. “Come, let’s get us back to Stormwind”. Dreth stood patiently next to the open portal.

Prax felt rejuvenated, but still sore. He got up slowly heading towards the portal. He looked back briefly. “Voljub, are you coming?”

Voljub followed his master “Yes yes Voljub follow you anywhere Master. So Mr. Loose Jaw here is Masters friend?”

“Yes, he’s a friend. He’s my teacher.” Prax told Voljub as he headed towards the portal.

“A bit unconventional for a mage… but effective, I must admit,” said Dreth. “We’ll talk back at the tower.”

Praxton felt relief entering a portal for the first time, he gave one more quick glance back at the dark gloomy landscape before he entered.

Voljub stopped at the feet of this teacher. Looked up and asked “You always walk around hunched over like that?” He only got a grunt as a response. Voljub jumped a little startled by the undead man and scampered off after Praxton.

“Demons,” Dreth sighed. He entered the tower through the portal and saw Praxton standing with Voljub at this side, “Good to see you on your feet boy.” “I believe an explanation is in order.” Dreth looked down at Voljub, who was now running in circles around his master.

Voljub stopped his victory celebration when he felt the mood of the room change. He just sat down on the floor quietly beside his Master.

Prax held out the purple crystal for his teacher to see, “My father er, hm g- gave this t- to me. Thought it er would help my t- training”

“Indeed. And your father is a warlock I presume?”

Prax looked confused, “N- no, he’s just a t- tailor.”

“A tailor who can summon demons? Sounds like a warlock to me. It’s not really my business anyway. What matters is that he’s here now, and the demon seems loyal enough. I see no reason why you shouldn’t employ his help if he’s willing to give it to you. Although, you may wish to wander over to the university to make sure he poses no threat to your safety.”

Prax quickly nodded his head.

“And Praxton?”

“Voljub help Master Praxton with anything! He Voljubs favorite Master. The others were all mean and crazy. Cept for Master Naccar…

“See if you can’t fashion some sort of garment more suitable for your class.” Dreth handed Praxton 4 bolts of mageweave.

Praxton nodded again, as he was reminded of all the chores he needed to complete. He looked back at his teacher, “Do you er need me to um come back tomorrow?”

“By all means. You still have much to learn.”

“er, ok- kay.” Prax wasn’t sure if he was suppose to bow or do something to show respect, so he attempted a half hearted bow. Prax was a little disoriented after walking out of the portal. He then saw the exit portal and headed out of the tower.

“Ha!” Dreth held out the sides of his robe and curtseyed in return. “And RELAX boy. There is no need for formalities among the Forsaken.” Dreth swatted Voljub on his butt with the blunt end of his staff. “Now, off you go!”