The Story of Vlad: Chapter VI, Familiar Faces

Chapter I, The Assault
Chapter II, He who resists
Chapter III, Rotten to the core
Chapter IV, The Resurrection
Chapter V, The Return to New Avalon

Jesus fuck. I finished it. It's only been three years since I last wrote a word about Vlad.

Amid the mist, a figure formed against the grey canvas at a slow pace. Its features became more accurate, its outline sharper as it moved closer, eventually contouring an image of a hooded woman. Her dark brown gown was wrapped loosely around her, hiding a curvy figure. Her face was partially covered by a scarf, yet leaving her green eyes, thick, dark eyebrows and a part of her forehead exposed to the humid air.

Despite the years and the shattering, the place was still tormented by the plague of undeath, holding the restless souls as prisoners in the cursed ghost town. The woman peered around as she walked as if looking for something, yet knowing where she would find it. The look in her eyes became more focused as she walked up to a small house. It lay in ruins: the chimney had collapsed through the roof, flames had coloured most of the wooden parts black years ago. She walked around it, dragging her hand along its scorched walls, until she suddenly stopped on the southeastern side of the little house. Next to the wall rested a mound; the final reminder of the nightmare, a waygate to the past. The woman crouched and peered at it. The unkempt barrow grew weed, which was an unusual sight in the long deserted township. While it showed no signs of tending, it emanated something comforting. The woman's face softened and her eyes got damp, finally allowing a teardrop to descend along her cheek.

A dried bough cracked under the pressure of a heavy boot. It startled the woman and caused her to cast a rapid gaze over her shoulder. A dark figure approached her slowly and calmly, stopping a few feet away from her. She pulled down the scarf that covered her mouth, stood up tardily and turned towards the figure that seemingly awaited her response to its presence. As the black saronite plate gave away his former alignment with ease, she spoke coldly, but with caution.
- I'm not sure how your kind has the backbone to step on these grounds anymore. I think it would be wise of you to turn around and walk away.
The figure gave the woman an echoing, nearly instant reply.
- Hello, Birgitta.
Her face was pale, her eyes wide open as she stared straight at the masculine figure. She followed him with her shocked gaze as he walked to her side. His sorrowful eyes descended upon the barrow - the barrow that so faithfully contained the remains of what was once the dearest thing to him. And as it succumbed to the chill of the grave, a part of him was buried as well.
- I thought... I... thought... you died, Birgitta stuttered.
- I did die, he murmured between his rotting teeth, granting Birgitta a grim glare. The woman swallowed, quickly realising the clumsiness of her remark. - Just if the light-forsaken bastards had left it there.
- They reanimated you into a monster... Where you behind th--, Birgitta took an abrupt breath, as if she had forgotten to breathe. - Did you kill Isa?!
Vladan narrowed his eyes visibly, still looking at the grave. He grabbed onto the hilt of his runeblade and pierced the ground with it, which caused Birgitta to gasp and take a step back in fear. Vladan turned towards her, still holding on to the tip of the hilt.
- How dare you even consider that?
- Since you still have your life, it must've cost that of others!
The words seemed to strike Vladan somehow. He pulled the sword out of the soil and peered at the glowing blade, turning the edge towards himself and away again.
- I should have ended it myself long ago, but I was afraid. Too cowardly to take my own life! he yelled and seemed increasingly riled for a moment. - I fear what awaits me, Birgitta, as foolish as I am to believe those holy rollers when they speak of the purgatory.
Birgitta remained silent, merely examining him, the expression on her face becoming less judgmental by the second.
- I must be in a dream, she whispered in disbelief.
- This, Vladan began, - This is as real as it gets. I've run away from it long enough. My life cost that of many, and most of all, that of my wife and my daughter. I'm ready for what comes.
As teardrops slowly descended along Birgitta's cheeks, a feeling he thought long forgotten awakened somewhere deep inside. A faint glimmer of clemency. Compassion.
- Vladan..., Birgitta's voice turned into a fragile shade of what it was just a moment ago, as if she had suddenly become scared of him. She slowly turned towards him, her mahogany hair covering most of her face. - I'm sorry.

- Birgitta? a yell reached the two from a distance.
- I'll be right there, honey! she replied fast, shamelessly disguising her voice chirpier.
Although she seemed doubtful for a short moment, Birgitta hastily scrabbled inside the neckline of her gown. She pulled out a small locket that appearead golden. It was attached to a tarnished necklace of different material, perhaps copper. She handed - no - threw it over to Vladan, expressing slight disgust at the thought of touching him.
Vladan, taken by surprise, caught the locket and gently embraced it against his palm. Upon raising his eyes from his hand, Birgitta had left. She walked hastily towards a horse carriage in the mist ahead. Vladan lowered his leer back to the small locket in his hand. Secured by the tiniest of locks, it snapped open with ease, revealing a daguerreotype of a girl no older than 15 years of age.

Her hair was dark brown, her eyebrows strong and her gaze steadfast. Her face carried familiar features, very familiar indeed. His eyes. Her nose. Definitely her bone structure, apart from the girl's jaw. His jaw.
- It couldn't be..., Vladan whispered.
Distant echos reached Vladan, who remained silent and frozen still at the grave.
- Is everything okay? Was that someone you knew?
- Just a familiar face from the past, that's all.

Find your way, my brave darklands' son

Wizards, kings, elves and trolls

Thank you, angels

I am now reborn

(Rhapsody of Fire - Son of Pain)

Level 100 shaman talents

As I first saw the level 100 talents for shaman on Wowhead, it didn't take long 'till I had found my favorite.

Yep. Storm Elemental Totem definitely sounds like the best choice for raiding, particularly when we're talking about single-target oriented fights. It also sounds like the best one for Brawler's Guild style soloing - and I do hope we get new Brawler's bosses for level 100, since that was definitely one of my favorite features in Mists of Pandaria. And of course I'll welcome any new elemental companion. What will this one be called, air or storm idiot? Gusting idiot? I do wonder, though, if it will either replace one of the existing elementals, or if it can be summoned simultaneously with either of the two.

At the moment I don't play enhancement on any shaman of mine, but I don't get the "I'm definitely not going to get that one" feeling from any of the talents considering that specialization. I have to say that none of the talents sound particularly exciting for restoration, at least from my point of view. So far it looks like I'll be going for either Storm Elemental Totem or Rainstorm on my resto shaman Damjan, who I've really enjoyed later in Mists of Pandaria.

For elemental, Rainstorm sounds like the average passive talent. Very simple, no need to worry about it or think about it. One that I might consider going for if I was new to the class, or if I didn't play it as main.

If Reach of the Elements was passive for elemental, I would probably go for it in most situations, even if they nerfed its AoE effect. Exceptions would be those where I need extra burst and the Storm Elemental would come in handy. With my current talents I've tried to maximize sustained DPS over burst, which is a decision I've been rather happy with. I'd like to continue doing so with a passive talent like this one.

Naturally some, or all of the talents will be changed somehow before they go live. For now, you can view all the current talents here. If we leave the shaman subject for a moment, some talents for other classes that I really like include Defile for death knights, With or Without You for hunters and Death from Above for rogues.

Community blog topic: What would you buy from the in-game store?

Here are my thoughts regarding WoW Insider's old community blog topic of the week. What would you buy from the in-game store?

I was one of those people who always swore they'd never buy anything from the Blizzard store. That they already pay enough for the game itself. Then came a time when I wanted to revamp my rogue, my second ever top level character. I ended up paying 20€ for appearance change. Later on I paid 40€ for server changes when their prices were reduced.

I would consider buying mounts or pets if they were ones I wanted really, really badly. Same with cosmetic items, but I guess the barrier for those would be higher. I've received two 20€ mounts as gifts: the heart of the aspects and the enchanted fey dragon, whom I wanted from the moment I first saw it, and named her Tiki Tiki. The golden dragon joined my squad early this year, and Tiki Tiki was an early Christmas gift.

I made no pro-alliance gingerbread this year, but nevertheless, I wish you all a merry late Christmas and a very happy new year!

Warlords of Draenor

I am shamefully uninformed about the subject, but I am sure the reason to that won't stay hidden for long.

I was afraid to be excited about the next expansion to begin with. For long it's been obvious that it would be something Burning Legion related. Now, it seems that the Burning Crusade is overall considered the most missed time period of WoW, as well as the best expansion. The mere thought of Blizzard trying to please the older players by bringing back Outland-ish locations and characters makes me grimace.

As I mentioned, I am uninformed. Very much so indeed. Regardless, I think it's rather worrying that the feature I am most excited about is the item level squish. I am not overly worried about it, though. As with Mists of Pandaria, my excitement for the features grew over time, so I'm definitely giving myself more time to acquire information about Warlords of Draenor before my final judgement.

I have to say, however, that having kind of missed out on the whole draenei scene in Outland, I'm excited to really dive into the world and heritage of my main character Nicasia. I think it will bring a lot of depth to her character, as well as make the leveling (and playing overall) experience enjoyable, in-depth and interesting.

But still:

What I had time to Fraps before my PC broke - again!

The title says it. Here are the most recent Menagerie raid videos from Siege of Orgrimmar. I would most certainly record more, as Menagerie is nearly at Garrosh, but Saturday morning my PC showed no signs of life. Therefore it's leaving home yet again to be fixed, if it can be fixed that is. It may be that they will just give me a new individual. In fact I hope they finally would.

Either way, I am working on building a supermachine of my own. My budget is around 1500 euros and I'll probably get around to buying stuff around the change of year. If you have any suggestions for what pieces I should consider, I'd love to know! I'll just say that I'd like to go for nVidia this time, instead of AMD Radeon.

One of my favorite items ever

I've got Valor of the Ancients on Argent Dawn. For once. I don't think I've had it more than three times since Mists of Pandaria came out, and definitely not on AD. All thanks to the dream I had the other night: I was gearing up my rogue and got all sort of awesome loot on him. Well, the loot hasn't been exactly as it was in the dream, but I'm not complaining. Anyhoo...

Dragomirov was a couple of hundred valor away from his 522 tanking ring, so I thought I'd run a couple of heroics. While the healer was "getting bored with healing" and killing his boredom by running ahead whilst I was tanking the previous pack, and pulling the next one, sometimes dying doing so, I was close to leaving when we reached Armsmaster Harlan in the Scarlet Halls. I however stayed, unaware of the fact that I'd experience some of my biggest W00T moments ever in the game.

The item I have cried after the most since the pre-Pandaria patch, one of my favorite items ever, has made a comeback. Tabard of the Scarlet Crusade dropped and I won it. There it is, resting peacefully in my monk's inventory. Granted, Jester has nothing to do with the Crusade, but this makes me incredibly happy, for I thought the tabard was gone for good. The item holds incredible RP value for me, because many of my characters are somehow related to the Scarlet Crusade.

Despite the drop chance being as low as 0.08%, and the fact that you no longer have multiple mobs dropping it in the same dungeon, knowing that the tabard is back makes me incredibly happy. That is all I have ever asked. It is completely enough for me. Thank you, Blizzard, thank you!

Vlad, Eleenha and Angelus, you'll get your tabards now!

Aimless

Aimless is the best word I can come up with to describe the way I feel in the game at the moment, and have felt for a few months now. I thought I was just getting bored with the game, but as I've pondered my situation the past few days, I've come to the conclusion that I'm a bit lost and uncertain about my purpose in the game.

Raiding has always been my main end-game activity. I don't know how I should say this, but our raid group has changed a lot and after my three month break due to technical difficulties, I no longer feel at home in raids, despite the fact that I love raiding just like before. I've always been a lone wolf online and offline, and I find it difficult to integrate into groups. It's almost like I don't even want to. I think coming up with a new storyline with characters that I could play and level might help during these kind of times, but inspiration for that is also hard to find. I'm also relatively fed up with Moonglade, as I even transfered four characters over to Argent Dawn, but that's a whole different issue again. I can't leave Moonglade, period. Nor do I want to, since all the people I enjoy playing the game with are there. It's complicated.

With nothing better to update this time, I'll end the post with a couple of screenshots from Twilight Highlands. BioShock Infinite has been a huge deal in this house recently, and seeing those zeppelins and industrial pipes made me want to do something like this:

A whole new spark

Good evening! After a long while, I come bearing good news.

In the absense of things to do, I've found an entirely new spark for WoW. I never would have admitted this while it was the present feeling, but I almost got bored of the game during the spring. I didn't particularly feel like logging in and I only really did so for the purpose of raiding. I had no projects regarding leveling or gearing up. But now, as I am unable to raid with my guild, unable to run dungeons, unable to explore the new heroic scenarios, I've been doing LFR on most of my maximum level characters. Nicasia and Vladan are quite nicely geared and well able to do Throne of Thunder, but in addition I am working on Raleigh's (holy paladin) and Jester's (brewmaster/windwalker monk) gear to get them into ToT as well. Raleigh is currently lacking three points. Jester's situation still looks a bit grim with an item level of around 465. Oh, and by "doing LFR" I mean relying entirely on the performance of the 24 other people - but hey, three, two and even one FPS is better than no FPS at all. Positive thinking all the way!

I do miss raiding a lot and I hope to get my primary PC back soon. I have given full raid leadership to a very trusted officer with whom I've been raiding since early Firelands, so there should be no more raid burnouts for me. I'm actually really looking forward to being "just a raider" without so much responsibility. Of course I'll still be doing the usual yelling of things and whatnot, but I'll be doing it because I like to do it, not because I must do it. What I am most of all looking forward to is not having to look after others so much, and being able to look after myself more when it comes to raid performance.

Something interesting I've noticed for the first time in my WoW life is that I feel ever so slightly bored of elemental shaman - which I find completely normal, considering I've had an elemental shaman as my main since late Wrath of the Lich King. I sure have respect for our offtank, who has had the same character as his main since he started playing in vanilla. I still intend to raid with Nicasia as I am able to, but I may look into the possibility of raiding with Vlad, for example, when possible. I had a ton of fun tanking and DPSing Dragon Soul with him in late Cataclysm. My gear lacks behind severely compared to the rest of the raid group, anyway, so it won't make much difference which character I am on. Nicasia will continue to be my main character, regardless of who I end up raiding with, though. We've got such a long history.

I am absolutely loving the 5.3 fact that you can choose to get loot for a different specialization! It's enabled me to work on Raleigh's gear through LFR. I wouldn't dare attempt to heal with craptop. I also think it'll be a good help when getting Vlad some new tanking gear, as I don't enjoy tanking LFR. So, yay for 5.3, yay for gearing up, yay for WoW.

20 Days of WoW blogging #10

Check out Spellbound to learn more about the challenge!

Day 10 – Blog/website favourites

Some of the first WoW blogs that I visited were It's for My RP Spec! and The WoW Debutante. It's a real shame that the former is no longer active, and the latter one's author stopped playing WoW. Both inspired me greatly to create a WoW blog of my own. Before coming across them, the thought of blogging about WoW felt nearly absurd, but once I read them more it began to feel like something I'd love to do myself.

Although guides and other informative stuff is useful and handy, as a blog follower I prefer humane blogs over "professional" ones. Don't get me wrong, I read both types regularly, but I love to read blogs for the people behind them. The more the blog represents the author themselves, the more personality it has, and the more interesting it to me. This I've certainly adopted as my personal blogging style as well, but that is mainly because I have no potential to write a more professional blog. I can only guide you towards listening to heavy metal!

Some WoW-related websites that I visit regularly or for certain purposes include Icy Veins, my number one helper when learning a new class or spec. Icy Veins is also my personal favorite when it comes to class guide sites; WoW Professions that I couldn't do without when leveling most professions; Wowhead for news and information regarding items, titles, events in particular, and Wowpedia for lore.

20 Days of WoW blogging #9

Check out Spellbound to learn more about the challenge!

Day 09 – Your first blog post

In case this means my first blog post ever, I must say that is too far in the past for me to remember. My guess, however, is that it was a blog on the Finnish blog hosting site Vuodatus and likely contained boring things regarding my uneventful life. I was a kid back then anyway, what else could you expect?

Nicasia and Lanfranco in the first background image.

On Adventures my first post saw daylight on the 6th of May 2012 looked like this. The blog had a different layout then and went by its working title Gloria, gloria Nicasia. The name changed to Adventures of the Hex Machine a couple of months later. The first post introduced me and made an attempt to describe what I am like as a blogger. Mainly it was just rambling that I tried to keep together somehow. Overall it was a pretty good first post, considering it was written by me, heh. Since then I have also learnt to remember to name posts!

The blog's first background was the result of a great idea and bad editing. I made a kind of a promise to myself in the first post:

My goals for this blog include not posting anything empty, which to me means something without even the slightest meaning or story behind it.

And I have kept that promise. WoW is far from being just a game to me, and that is all this blog is about: my experience in the World of Warcraft.

An unplanned break

Hello everyone!

I've been an extremely inactive and indifferent blogger in March, for a reason. I hate vague explanations that strive to invoke curiosity within readers, and I don't want anyone to think that is my aim. I will, however, say that due to an event, a big and sad change has taken place in my life. I decided I wouldn't write about it yet at least. Perhaps I will one day, but for now I will not, and I won't stress about it. It's enough as it is. I intend to just live one day at a time, and learn to live with the change.

I haven't stayed away from World of Warcraft because of that only. I encountered an issue that caused my PC to shut down after spending a few minutes on the game. I am hoping a Windows reinstallation will fix this, so I am currently working on that. It's something I was planning to do anyhow, so now I have a very good reason to complete the project. It just takes a while to save all the files and things I want to save.

As I leafed through a few screenshots on my old laptop, I got reminded of how much I enjoy World of Warcraft. That was why I decided to try to get back to the game as soon as possible. Those screenshots featured absolutely horrible graphics, because the PC was horrible for gaming. When I played on that machine, I thought the bad graphics made my playing experience worse. Now that I play with good graphics primarily, I realise that I couldn't have been more wrong.

All in all, I will be back in the game soon. I will finally begin to gear up properly - I've done a horrible job so far! I also heard Menagerie has done a great job progressing through Throne of Thunder in my absence. Well done, you all!

I think I was working on the Felwood quest achievement then.

This made me want to re-mog Vlad's stuff.

Sha of Fear video

This one is indubitably a bit late. I uploaded it in a hurry and immediately went to pick up my visitor, who stayed with me for a week, so there hasn't been any time to update the blog. My life is now, sadly, back to normal again.

The visitation had a perfect timing, because Menagerie managed to clear the current content on the last raid day that my visitor and I could attend. We missed out on two Throne of Thunder raids, but as I get back to the world of raiding on Sunday, there will be more raid videos soon enough. I have been busy and more or less exhausted the entire day, but I am certainly looking forward to experiencing the Isle of Thunder and everything else that 5.2 has to offer.

Tsulong & Lei Shi videos

Pushing through four new bosses during the same lockout is definitely our record!

HoF & ToES videos

Here are some recent Menagerie raid videos from Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring.

Screenshots on a Saturday

Fallen soldiers taste the steel of death, the daylight dawning
Sun will shine upon the lives of burning hearts of ice
As you break through the boundaries of life, this feeling of despair
And they die in their sleep for the world that will not care
You feel lost in this labyrinth of pain, this sickening dismay
There's a voice inside that's calling another wasted day

(DragonForce - Soldiers of the Wastelands)

Those times I wish WoW was "just a game"

I have no idea if I am yet in the state of producing any kind of intellectual text that is not completely overrun by emotion and comparable to drunken Facebook messages that should never have been posted, but I just have to do something. I have to try to get at least a few sentences out, because that contributes to me eventually feeling better.

I'll start by saying that WoW does not feel good at the moment. WoW is not my haven right now. Logging into the game is not the moment I forget about things, but the moment I get close to something I have remembered all along. It's like a drug addiction and I cannot decide whether to wean myself once and for all, or whether to reduce the dose slowly. And what that dose is exactly, I don't even know. Another question I keep asking myself is if I should let the sha infest me for as long as I become immune to it, or at least numb, or if I should try to push it away.

Truth is that WoW is not just a game. While I now wish I didn't always stick my heart in absolutely everything I do, that is exactly what makes WoW as it is. It's a game people play with their hearts. They've grown up with WoW and experienced life-changing events as a person who plays World of Warcraft. That's not to say I'm happy with how I feel, because it's bloody hurts. But that's life, and that's WoW. WoW is the only game I am willing to play even when it doesn't make me happy, and I don't even know why that is. Maybe it's special, maybe I'm just tied to it. Quitting WoW was never an option. Maybe it wouldn't make a difference if I did, maybe some people's WoW days would just shape back into what they were before they knew me. But I don't play World of Warcraft because it's a good game. I play it because it's my game, because it's permanently a part of me, whether I want it or not.

Good loa do I feel bad, though. There's no denying that. I absolutely hate feeling this way, but I also see melancholy as something beautiful. I'm emo like that, yes. Or just too much of a Finn. I can't help but wonder what things will be like from now on. Maybe now I can complete Loremaster of Outland and take some pleasure in it. Maybe now I won't feel like interfering someone else's domain. Or maybe I will find myself sitting on that bridge in Howling Fjord just staring at Skorn, because that view makes my soul rest. But what do you do when absolutely everything reminds you of something in particular? Do you just colour new content with new memories, or is it just a matter of getting used to it? Time gilds memories, does it not?

Nicasia's transmog in the spotlight

I'm no fashion blogger, but I've stuck to my main character Nicasia's transmog for quite a while now. I'm still not bored of it, so I figured I'd share it. It was the result of a sudden impulse, not the most serious one either, yet I am quite happy with the result.

My goal with her mog was to show as little skin as possible - quite unusual for a female draenei, eh? And to make it black. It had to be black. The belt is not entirely fitting, but I've loved it since WotLK. It was the first thing I bought with my emblems of... frost, valor, what were they again that bought you 264 gear? Although I do miss her signature look, the "frost shaman" that goes with her backstory, I am sticking to the following for now - probably until I get a 1-hander and a shield.

Earthfury Helmet
Ironaya's Discarded Mantle
Cloak of the Brood Lord
Chestguard of the Lasher
Gloves of Taut Grip
Waistband of Despair
Leggings of Dubious Charms
Stillwater Boots
Jin'ya, Orb of the Waterspeaker

Something to always be noted with Nicasia is that she does not show her hair. Not unless it's an intimate situation, and well, she doesn't end up in those very often. So now I would love nothing more than a black mail hood.

What gear means to me

Item level this and that, don't you just hear that everywhere? I must admit I do keep close track of my item levels as well, and I would like to take a moment to explain why that is.

Most of all, gear means access to me - in more ways than just one. Having good gear gives you a VIP pass past all sorts of queues. While it's been long since I bothered pugging anything at all (excluding LFR), I am now looking into the opportunity of achieving the impossible via OpenRaid.eu, and I do feel that my item level is going to make a difference on that path. And whilst, very much thanks to the looking for raid system, there are well-geared people, who are more or less hopeless when it comes to playing the game, it becomes very important to realise that good gear does not equal good performance. Just like bad gear doesn't equal bad performance. Yet gear does set limits. Gear is the canvas you paint with your skill. To me, this represents access, as I find soloing content a very enjoyable way to spend time on the game.

In addition to that, gear can also be a personal achievement. It tells others I've been there and done that - hopefully also earned those pieces somehow. I don't really raid with anyone else but guild mates, and I am usually the loot master. I'm not really too fussed about winning as much stuff as possible. If the item's stats are better for someone else that needs it, I have no problem giving it to them, as long as I can trust that they will continue to put their effort in raiding with the group. After all, the point is not to acquire as much for yourself as you can, but make decisions that benefit the group as a whole. How I feel about raiding and loot is similar to - and please do forgive me for this allegory, it just happens to be perfect - relationships and sex. I wouldn't get into a relationship for sex, but it's a nice extra that comes with it.

What does gear mean to you? How important do you consider it?

Last stage of Dragonwrath! & other dragons

If I had stuck to my original schedule, I would have finished my Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest quest line months before the release of Mists of Pandaria. Sadly I spent ages attempting to collect cinder, but was too lazy to get 1000 of it until yesterday. Thanks to a very nice guild run in great company, I am now on the last stage of the questline called Heart of Flame. At the last stage I must siphon 250 smouldering essence from dead Firelands bosses with the power of Runestaff of Nordrassil, and steal Ragnaros' heart. After this task, which will, knowing me, probably take months, it is time for my very own staff party.

Earlier that day we also got around to killing Sinestra in the Bastion of Twilight.

That Garalon we love

Who would grow tired of watching a berserk as awesome as Garalon's, anyway?