Lucky dozes

Death to Onyxia!

Since everyone can’t get enough of World of Warcraft geekery, we killed the black dragon Onyxia tonight for the first time:

“Red Snow”

For those wanting me to get to work on The Novel, I’m currently in research mode and hope to start writing in earnest in the next month or two. In the meantime, there’s a few warm-up exercises I want to do.

Among them is this, a quickie little World of Warcraft piece. It’s for a contest to win two months of playtime, so I thought it would be worth knocking something out. “Red Snow” tells the tale of the battle of Alterac Valley from the point of view of my dwarven hunter character, Ringo Flinthammer. Hopefully it’s not totally incomprehensible, but it’s written for an audience already familiar with the world of Azeroth:

At last, the fire was crackling merrily. The dead tree had caught in the branches of another as it fell, which had kept the dead wood off the snow, and allowed the limbs to dry out nicely.

And with that, Ringo Flinthammer tromped through the snow to the corpse, while the great white owl watched patiently. Ringo took an axe from his belt and, gripping a dead limb distastefully, brought it down. The desiccated flesh gave off little smell as it parted, which in a way made it worse.

The body was four years dead, struck down in the early days of the Third War, a peasant from the Kingdom of Lordaeron, killed by an infection hidden in grain which was then turned into bread. They were not allowed to rest easy, however: The Lich King’s plague had jerked these corpses back onto their feet like hideous marionettes and marched off to war. Later, a faction of the damned had rebelled against the Lich King and joined the Horde, but at the end of the day, this was still an innocent victim of the cult whose body had been turned into a weapon.

Ringo chopped apart the body of the undead rogue, tossing each piece into the fire, one by one. The dwarf knew the shadow priests of the Horde could reanimate this corpse again, but he would make it as difficult as possible.

Read the rest here. It’s just under 3,000 words total.

Send for Help: “Long Distance Goodbye”

NPR hasn’t yet really perfected their podcasts, but they sure are enthusiastic. One of their newest podcasts is the Open Mic series, a theoretically daily podcast of songs by unsigned, independent and self-produced bands. As with any independents, there’s sometimes a good reason they haven’t been snatched up by a major. But not always.

Send for Help is a San Francisco-area four-piece and the first band to really stand out to me on Open Mic, in a show last week. Check ’em out.

Kitten update

A week-plus after moving in with us, Lucky has been eating Kitten Chow like a champ, and has visibly grown in the week and change she’s been in the house. Hanna, on the other hand, still seems to want milk — she gently bites our fingertips and then licks them, in a vain attempt to get them to lactate — and has remained a little overwhelmed by her new home, although she’s coming around, even if she’s not the affection monger Lucky’s turned into.

On the other hand, Hanna is also turning out to be the extreme sports athlete of the kitten world, including amazing flying one-paw grabs of the scratching post, followed by her swinging her whole body up atop it. And this from a kitten who, seemingly just days ago, couldn’t reliably climb it. I pity the first mouse, bird, frog or lizard she comes across.

I’ll be taking the pair of them to the vet this morning for their first-ever vaccinations and a check-up.

• Post-vet update: The kittens are settling in well.

  Lucky has pretty much accepted us as her family, and is a total attention whore and just enjoys being around us in general. She got her first set of vaccinations yesterday, and the stress and the shots sort of upset her — she threw up last night and was sort of dragging otherwise, but she’s back to normal now. She’s also visibly grown in a week, and the Kitten Chow has added about an inch and a half to her length, muscle is covering up her little bird bones and her coat is turning from fuzz to fur.

  Hanna took a little longer to get used to us, but has discovered the whole world is fascinating and plays, plays, plays. She hasn’t gained the size that Lucky has, and still seems to want to nurse, with gentle nibbles followed by licking of the fingertips a regular thing. She’s from the same litter as Lucky (and is, in fact, the other half of the litter), so there’s no reason I can see for her to be behind in this regard. I’m hoping she’ll catch up by the time the next vaccination appointment rolls around on December 17.

  Oh, and these two are perhaps the most savage kittens or cats that I’ve ever come across. In addition to tearing apart two pulling toys, they’ve ripped open two furry mice, which I haven’t even seen adult cats manage.