Saturday 30 July 2011

Kinda, Maybe, Sort Of.

So, not so long ago I finally got around to watching Kinda. It's an episode I've been interested to see for a while. I'd heard interesting things about it. That it was a bit odd, that it was a great story for Tegan, that it had a rubbish snake at the end.

And in many ways these are all true. It IS a bit of an odd story, with the Doctor and company pushed to the periphery whilst the script desperately tries to analogise a great profound SOMETHING. It's clearly meant to be about something, but I'll be buggered if I could say what.

Now, I have to confess I've always found the character of Tegan a little.... grating. She seems to just sort of hang around complaining a lot but never really doing anything. Like Martha in the new series I get the impression that nobody ever really knew what to actually do with the character. So, I was intrigued by the possibility of a piece that does something with the character. I have to say though that it wasn't quite what I was expecting. Rather than all the interesting possession stuff I had been led to believe they basically just put her to sleep for most of the story. Which, baring in mind that Nyssa already took one look at the script and went back to bed does leave us with an awful lot of Adric to contend with. The scary possession part is reduced to throwing apples at a man in a sarong (draughty) and 15 minutes of....


Which I admit is quite atmospheric and creepily staged, but I really did think the poor girl would have something more to do.

Then of course, we come to the Mara itself. Now, I know that the story has taken some flak for the realisation of the snake, but frankly I think that's rather unfair. As giant snakes on an 80s Doctor Who budget go I think it's actually pretty good.

SNAAAKE!! Snake! It's a Snake!!

No, the problem with the Mara is what a totally ineffectual monster it is. It achieves absolutely NOTHING, and is about as involved with the actual threat as Nyssa. Who, if you'll remember is enjoying some quite time alone in the TARDIS with the Doctors sonic oscillator. To "help her sleep". Draw your own conclusions on that.

Pass me the Phallic Screwdriver. Now go away.

Anyway, so The Mara possesses Tegan for about 5 minutes and gets lipstick on her teeth. Then it possesses sarong boy and gets lipstick on his teeth. Then it enacts it's evil plan to build a pretend robot out of sticks and get shot.

BY ADRIC.

I'm sorry, but when bloody ADRIC is kicking your ass you really need to rethink your career choices. Maybe try something in accountancy instead. Oh, wait, he'll kick your ass there as well. Anyway, the point is that for all the building up of the Mara as a big scary threat monster it doesn't actually present any danger at all. I mean, we're shown terrible visions of what will happen if the Mara is let loose, but how do they go?


Ummm..... 'kay?

The point is that the monster is completely irrelevant to the story, except as a distraction to pad things out to 4 episodes. The real danger is inside the dome as Hindle goes TOTALLY BATSHIT. He's the one that's planning on killing everyone. And that's all FANTASTIC. He's properly scary as he looses his grip on reality and becomes a steadily increasing danger to himself and everyone around him. But he does it all on his own. The snake isn't involved. There isn't even the merest hint the Mara had the slightest input. And the couldn't be, since he starts cracking up long before the Mara even bothers to turn up.

I guess what I'm driving at is that existentialist performance theatre isn't really much of a galactic threat.

Thursday 28 July 2011

Let's Play World Of Warcraft Postlude

There is, as far as I can see, only one real problem with World Of Warcraft:

It's not very good.

Really, there's just something about it that doesn't quite work on any level. Whilst it's not totally unplayable or anything it's just.....


Bland. Dull. Unexciting. Take your pick. The game is there, but that's about all. At no point did I feel particularly engaged in any aspect. Including my stated goal of simply mocking it. Whilst to start with I figured that doing this write up series would give me a few cheap and easy laughs, at the end of the day it was just more work than it was worth trying to wring comedy from the desolation of the game world. It turns out that there actually IS a limit to how many "kill 10 rats" jokes you can make.

This is perhaps part of the problem. Going through the small portion of the game I did nothing ever rose beyond the the level of fetch or kill D10 of whatever. There was no real sense of any story, or progression, or... well, ANYTHING. The only reason you move from place to place is that the quest givers where you are have slipped into a state of catatonia from the mind numbing dullness of the quests they're giving out. There is not even the slightest illusion of anything you do having even a marginal impact on any aspect of the world around you.

Now, to be fair, fetch and kill quests are (for good or ill) the meat of pretty much all MMOs to at least some degree. However one of the key things in making an MMO actually playable is how well they disguise this fact. Slap some half decent story and characterisation over the top and you'd hardly notice. Guild Wars achieves this possibly best of any MMO I've played, leading you from mission to mission and giving you objectives and challenges in the storyline. World Of Warcraft..... Didn't. At all. The only comparable games I can think of that are quite so nakedly grind based are those cheap looking free to play jobs that have been (mostly) translated from Korean by running the text fields through babelfish. Warcraft is slightly more polished it's true, but that's about all.

Of course, just being grindy isn't exactly the worst crime either. After all, if you've got a fun combat system it can be quite entertaining to chainsaw your way through hordes of enemies for an evening. Sadly Warcraft falls down here as well. Combat essentially goes:

10 find enemy
20 try and get the shitty targeting to lock on
30 press 1
40 press 2
50 press 3
60 GOTO 10
After a while you may unlock the ability to, in particular circumstances, press 4. It was not exactly what you'd call dynamic is all I'm saying.

At the end of the day, even when I'd actually committed myself to writing a series on the experience, even when I had a lot of free time stuck at home with very little to do, even then I had a lot better things to do with my time than play WOW. As guilty as I am of playing FAR TO MUCH of a variety of video games I just couldn't be bothered with it. And I've spent a frankly ridiculous amount of time writing up some books that cause me physical pain to even think about. I can't get that anyone would pay for the experience. Let alone sacrifice the levels of time and wallet that apparently they do. I'm aware of the possibility that maybe things get more interesting at some ill defined point down the line, but I really can't understand how you'd get that far. There are just so many other things you could be doing that would be more entertaining.


When I did this for Guild Wars I played right up until my trial expired. And then I bought the game. Although I was poking some fun I was also enjoying the experience. This time around I actually found myself avoiding playing and hoping that the the 10 day trial had expired already so wouldn't have try for another installment. I think that sums it up quite well.

Wednesday 27 July 2011

The Seeker

One of the wonderful things on blogger are the statistics. Now, I don't get many visitors of course, but it can still be fun to see what it is that leads the few happless souls who do stumble into my little corner of the blogotroplis.

It's always kinda wierd looking at the keywords, seeing how some random thing that I tangentally mentioned can suddenly spike som hits. And, given the someone eccentric nature of my discourse I have of course recieved some rather odd search impressions. But then this morning I'm idly looking at crap and wondering if I actually did mention My Melody directly in that comic con post when I find THIS:

No, I'm not typing it out. There are some things that should not be encouraged.

I MEAN WHY?!?!

Firstly, why is anyone actually searching for that in the first place? I mean, I know it's the internet, but come on. Really? Secondly, and I feel more importantly, why the hell is my blog showing up under that search? What exactly is it I've done to deserve this?

Oh. Yeah. Right. Could be.

Goddamnit.

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Let's Play World Of Warcraft Chapter 6: Shitness Protection Program

Assuming that the pills haven't kicked in yet, you'll recall that our last instalment found my embroiled in the madcap shenanigans of a fish obsessed zombie midget pedophile. Which I must confess is not quite where I saw myself ending up when all this started. Life is full of these little surprises. And, since I don't particularly feel like being on the end of any little surprises wielded by whatever passes for the Murloc special victims unit I decide it's time to get the hell out of dodge. Checking through my list of fetching and carrying tasks that are apparently so vital no one else can actually be bothered to do any of them I notice I apparently have an appointment with some of the bigwigs. Most importantly it's far away from where I am right now. So off we trot to pastures new.


Oh yes, this is VERY different. But wait, what's this?


Elves? FUCKING ELVES?!?!

Well, this explains a lot. If those pointy eared bastards are in charge it's no wonder nothing ever gets done around here. An elf couldn't even organize a punch in the face. The fact that they receive so many is simply a heart warming testament to the generosity of strangers.

Anyway, apparently I'm just in time for an important meeting. Some Orcish bigwig has popped up to witness some important demonstration. Some pointy eared slag on a horse starts mouthing off about how she's now got the dark evil power of darkness and can now animate whole legions of new zombies. This is then demonstrated on a convenient nearby mass grave. And sure enough, the dead RISE...


And then promptly all fall over again 30 seconds later. As demonstrations of ultimate power over life and death go it does lack a certain something. Like a result. Anyway, Orc boy politely makes his excuses and leaves. Honestly I think he's got the right idea. it's not like there's anything else to around here apart from argue about whether or not the sixteen bears you just killed had the right sort of entrails. So, where next?

Well, I'll still need a disguise in case the cops manage to get a description out of any of those Murloc children, so I guess it's time to go shopping. Luckily I've got a free bat ticket to the undermall. I have to confess that I find the public transport here a little.... confusing. Not so much that it's all done by riding on giant bats. Anythings better than the bus after all. No, the odd thing is that they won't take you anywhere that you haven't already been. Which, in my humble opinion, seems like an odd way to run a business. Can you imagine booking a holiday and then being told that the tour company will only pick you up on the way back?

Still, if were to seriously expect ANYTHING to make even the slightest smidgen of logical sense in this place then I wouldn't be able to take three paces without my head exploding, so whatever. let's just get on the damn bat.


And so I flown over hill and dale, down a cave, through some tunnels before finally emerging in a radioactive sewer.


Lovely.

Still, it's not all bad news. Whilst poking around the fetid malodorous alcoves I run across a "hairdresser".

Just think about that for a second. True, the hair and nails continue to grow for a time after death. But to the extent that it would make economic sense to open up a barbers shop in a land populated exclusively by the dead? The mind boggles. Anyway, I'm not going to question it too much, as a shave & a headcut is just what I need right now.

And yes. I did mean it when I said HEADCUT.


 Now all I need is a new dress and they'll never recognize me. Let's see what's on offer.



Knitted sandals? KNITTED FUCKING SANDALS? I'm a goddamn mage in an allegedly fantasy setting, not some goddamn hippy on etsy. Fuck you, fuck your children, fuck you life. Just give me the goddamn dress.


I feel so pretty. Or at least I would if could figure out how to use the black dye I got with it. Bloody child proof caps.

Saturday 16 July 2011

Let's Play World Of Warcraft Chapter 5: You Are What You Eat (Dead Things)

Having at least temporarily assuaged my rampant base jumping urges in the last installment I suppose it's time to get back to the plot.

And this time it's a VEGETABLE PLOT.

You may recall that one part of the arbitrary list of things to steal and/or kill (delete as applicable) I was given were some pumpkins. Apparently there was actually a reason for this, which puts it up beyond most of the other crap I've been doing. Apparently we're going to infect the pumpkins with plague, and then give them back to the humans who won't be at all suspicious. This obviously far more sensible than, say, just injecting the pumpkins with plague serum in the fields. I mean, a rotting zombie come up to you all like "here frail human, take this totally normal pumpkin that has clearly not been tampered with in any way as a token of goodwill from the hordes of brain eating horrors that plot the downfall of mankind" what would YOU do?


Well I'll be damned. They ACTUALLY fall for it. Still, in many ways I suppose that makes sense. After all, the only sort of enemy force that could be locked in stalemate with whatever mentally challenged reprobates are running this around here is one that is even equally as stupid.

Wait, what?

Anyway, what's next on the list? Oh yes, the madwoman in the attic. Now, as you may be aware I spent a large amount of time recently jumping off a tower as that was infinitely more fun than whatever it was I actually supposed to be doing. At the top of the tower is a zombie woman in a cage.


Obviously. I mean, where else would you keep it? Anyway, I didn't mention her before as she wasn't exactly the most interesting soul to chat with. That is, the stuck up bitch wouldn't talk to me at all. Anyway, thing is I found a note about her on the body of a guard I landed on defeated in single combat that mentions little miss superior, so apparently I have to go check her out. Again. Even though I've already been up there like twenty times.

Whatever. Any excuse to go up the tower again. After finding out she's got her name in the papers her mood brightens enough for to actually put some effort into telling me to go away. Bitch wouldn't know gratitude if I beat her death with it. It's just as I'm trying to work out exactly how one might accomplish just this that a rather large and heavily armoured human captain stomps up the stairs and...

Walks straight past me.

I mean, there I am. Being a hideous abomination. In broad daylight. Right in front of him. But does he even notice? Nope. Unlike literally EVERY OTHER living being I've encountered he doesn't try to kill me on site. I'm not quite sure why it is this strikes me as offensive. Still, it's all academic as he wanders of to Bitchy McBetterthanyou and then promptly keels over dead.

Well, that was worth it then. Only one thing left to do know I guess.

WWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

My wanderings next take me (via killing X of Y for dubious reward) to the town of Brill. Much like the almost village I first encountered it only seems to have about 3 buildings. Only, you know, they're BIGGER.


It's here I pick up some work with the Royal Apothecary Society. Now, there does seem to be much royalty involved. Or indeed much in the way of actual apothecarizing. But we get to make virulent plagues out of dogs blood, so that's fun. Or would be if there was any. See, there's something up a little odd about the local canine population. Other than the fact that they apparently wear trousers. I am of course sent of to trudge the countryside killing dogs and collecting their blood. Only most of them don't even HAVE blood. They're like reverse vampires or something. The literal opposite of bloodhounds. It's all rather confusing really. I mean, what makes them go? Marmalade? Grass and woodchips? There's gotta be SOMETHING in there, right?

It's at whilst I'm trying to work this out that I suddenly instead learn how to summon a water elemental.


I'm... I'm not quite sure how I managed that. From dogs with no blood to harnessing the elemental forces of nature. Maybe it's just pretending to be a water elemental? Maybe it's actually a DOG BLOOD ELEMENTAL?

Anyway, having scraped up enough congealed filth from the corpse of dead dogs I nip back to town for another lesson in brewing plagues. I give the apothecary his shit. He pours it into a glass of beer and tells me to give it to the prisoner upstairs.

"Here frail dwarf, take this totally normal pint of ale that has clearly not been tampered with in any way as a token of goodwill from the hordes of brain eating horrors that plot the downfall of mankind".

And that's another dead bastard to add the pile. Seriously, it's like they WANT to die.

After a little more sodding around with some taller dogs in trousers I'm sent off to check in with another apothecary.


DUDE. I will kill X of whatever you like if I can have your hat. No? Screw you then. What about his power packed giant assistant?


Wait. What the hell are you supposed to be anyway? Why is there a gay dwarf painted green standing around in a field in the middle of the kingdom of the dead?

You know what? Don't answer that. What is it stumpy here needs doing anyway?


He.... He wants me to chase CHILDREN around. Not even children. BABIES. Little fish people babies. Who look like this:


I.E. ADORABLE. And I'm supposed to run around after them. Not even being properly evil and killing them in a black sacrifice to our master Satan or anything. Just chase them around until they pass out.

I think we now know why sexdwarf here is hiding out in corpse town. Who knew that Murlocs had their own version of Dateline?

Thursday 14 July 2011

Let's Play World Of Warcraft Chapter 4: Times 10 To The Power

Dear diary, guess what I did today? What's that? Kill things in multiples of 10?


However did you guess? Slay the pumpkins, gather the farmers, battle the herbs and steal the warriors. Or something like that anyway.

But perhaps we should start at the beginning. After fleeing the last set of idiots who insisted on giving random and pointless things to do I find my way to the NEXT set of idiots who who insist on giving me random and pointless tasks to do. In order to punish a group of humans for living across the road I'm asked to go and kill their menfolk and steal their pumpkins.

Because nothing says vengeance like a lack of pumpkins.

Of course, all this is entirely futile. The human farmers have obviously found out about that whole not having to actually die if you don't feel like it thing, as they just keep coming back. Which is probably just as well, as considering how many of them there are and the fact that their farm is apparently only capable of sustaining a handful of pumpkins to eat the starvation and suicide rates are probably pretty high.

Speaking of which....


A high tower tucked away behind the farm and patrolled by a few guards with a deathwish.

Given that:

A - I am undead and thus immune to many things the living would consider fatal, and
B - Even if my body is destroyed somehow I can just pop back up after a quick jog on the astral plane, and
C - I am FUCKING BORED of killing these idiots and stealing their shoes

The logical conclusion is thus:


LOL.  Well, seeing as how I'm a ghost now anyway...


WWWWHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE..........................

Well, that was easily the most fun I've had yet. After spending a pleasant time killing all the guards, running up to the top of the tower and then jumping off I guess it's probably time to report back in. After all, if I don't go and say that I killed 10 farmers no one will actually notice the difference. What with them coming back to life again a minute later and everything.

Still, that's the requisite number of farmers "killed" chief. What's next on the menu?


Yeah. He wants me to kill some of the soldiers. The soldiers guarding the tower. The tower I just spent the last hour jumping out of. And in the process killed about 50 of the goddamn things. Of course, trying to explain to my current idiot that I've already exceeded his quota is about as much use fighting a bunch of guys who just keep coming back to life. But what can you? After all I need the money. I mean, it's POSSIBLE that one day I'll find a shop with something I actually want to buy in it. Right?

Okay, probably not. But if it's a choice between aimlessly roaming the countryside in search of herbs and mathematically precise groups of wolves with rabbits feet who wear gloves and their sword wielding bat friends or standing around doing nothing then...

WWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Tuesday 12 July 2011

Let's Play World Of Warcraft Chapter 3: Slowly Comes The Deathmoose

In our last installment if you'll recall we went out to kill a random number of animals. Guess what we're going to do today?


Close enough. Only this time it's spiders. Variety is the spice of life. So I guess it's only fitting that monotony is the spice of death. Anyway, apparently giant spiders have infested the local gold mine. So, rather than clearing it out, destroying eggs or doing anything remotely sensible I'm asked to nip over, kill a handful and then come back having achieved nothing useful. Which, since I'm getting paid I promptly do.


Well, that was fun*. What's next?

*may not contain actual fun

Well, try to stay with me here. Seems there's some rebel zombies who want to attack the "village". Now, rather than going straight off to fight them I must first go and find the festering idiot man-child who has dogged my every step since I woke up in the graveyard this morning. Of course, he won't actually HELP in anyway. That would be a bit to obvious. No. He'll just stand by a tree, a nice safe distance from the enemy camp whilst I go and do all the hard work.

THANKS.

So anyway, leaving him to cower in a puddle of whatever it is that passes for cowardice in the undead I trudge up the hill and into the pitched battle at the enemy camp. There's apparently an infinite number of psychotic assholes leaping around. They were all like:


And at first I was like:


But then after a bunch of them suddenly appeared right behind me I was all like:


Ah. Dead then. Again. Well, all things considered I suppose it's a blessed release really. This whole undead slayer of random quantities of things bit wasn't really working out so well, and that whole bit with the rabbit footed wolves was far to confusing. Maybe it's better to just slip away into peaceful oblivion....



OH GODDAMNIT.

So now I'm the ghost of a zombie. Wandering around a twisted nether dimension completely bereft of anything resembling intelligent life. So, business as usual then. Guess I'll go for a walk and see where I died. I mean, what else is there to do?

Just sayin'
Anyway, where was I?


Hahahahahah. Look at that dead bastard. Hey, what does this do?


OH GODDAMNIT.

Not only am I once again cursed to walk the land of the living from the neck down, not only that, but now I find that the way to cheat death is to simply wander around the astral plane until you get bored, at which point you just pop back into existence? WHY THE HELL AM I A FUCKING ZOMBIE IF IT'S THAT BLOODY SIMPLE?!?!?! Seriously, did nobody think to mention this before? It's no wonder these here zombie bastards are so upset. Judging by the way they keep popping up from nowhere and the fact that I've killed their glorious leader no less than 5 times in a row I'd say THEY'VE worked it out. Wouldn't you be pissed of to discover you'd been turned into a festering zombie when you were but a short walk from being properly alive again?

Screw this noise. I'm going away for a while.

Monday 11 July 2011

CONtretemps

So, I went to the London Film & Comic Con on Saturday. I'd never been to a con before, so it was an interesting new experience.

Well, that's not STRICTLY true. I have, after all, been shopping and spent far to much money before. Just not usually surrounded by quite so many nerds. There was quite a bewildering array of things on offer. I know there were talks and stuff as well, but it turned out the only one that I'd really have been interested in happened before we got in. Maybe if they'd actually bothered to list any of them on the goddamn website we could have arranged to go early. Ah well, such is life.

But the shopping! As I said, there was much. Many and various THINGS. And I didn't even get everything I wanted. There was some Yu-Gi-Oh stuff and Doctor Who minis that I was going to back for, but when the time came my mind and body were broken and I totally forgot. Which is kinda annoying. If you want a good idea of the breadth and depth of the prizes on offer, aside from the fact that we spent nearly a whole day trawling up and down the dealers aisles, allow me to demonstrate.


You see those cute Sanrio characters?

I NOW HAVE PORN OF THAT. In soviet Japan Rule 34 is Rule No. 1. And it's mandatory.

Aside from the Doujin stand and the wizards hats the other highlight of the day was, for me, getting a photo with Sylvester McCoy. Because to a child of the 80s Doctor Who fanboy like me he is unto a GOD. I'm not going to post it of course. Aside from the simple principle of putting a wretched visage such as my own online, the simple fact is that my idiot grin and rigid posture make me into the human equivalent of a massive boner. Which on sober reflection is of course entirely accurate. Even aside from being a massive cock most of the time at the moment my entire body was an erection.

Metaphorically speaking.

Anyway, as cool as that was it did sadly lead to the only major problem of the day. Which was trying to collect the damn thing. Picture if you will a thousand sweaty, exhausted and cheesed off individuals, clustered round a small table, desperately trying to collect their pictures as the clock inexorably counts down towards chucking out time and NOBODY HAS A CLUE WHAT'S GOING ON. Eventually I managed to recover mine with 10 minutes to go. Which was rather cutting things fine. To say the situation lacked organisation is rather like saying the cold void of interstellar space lacks a breathable atmosphere. I'm not convinced they were quite prepared for the Karen Gillan sessions that had completely sold out well in advance of the day thus not really providing them any reasonable excuse, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, despite the trauma of the last hour and a half or so it was actually quite a fun time out. Which baring in mind my rather fragile mental state is pretty impressive. May have to try it again some time.

Once mind, body and wallet have recovered, anyway.

Sunday 10 July 2011

Let's Play World Of Warcraft Chapter 2: Back In The Village.

And so, with frightening ease, we find ourselves at the gates of the village of Deathknell. Who, frankly, need to have a serious talk with whoever it is that's running their tourist board.

Bring the whole family!

I mean, I get that the major features of the place are graveyards and mildly disinterested undead wandering around, but Deathknell? Really? The whole setup seems pretty odd frankly. There are a whole THREE buildings in use. Outside of the stockade surrounding these 3 buildings there are plenty of disused structures, but no one seems in any hurry to occupy them, possibly due to the hordes of harmless skeletons that wander aimlessly around  like pedestrians in search of something that isn't another bloody starbucks. Seeing as how there's lots of them, and seeing how they're harming no one, the first thing I'm asked to do is kill an arbitrarily small number of them.

His name was Albert. He was only looking for a picnic site.

This of course serves no readily apparent reason. The blading deathmurder I unload into these hapless deadites doesn't seem to significantly reduce their numbers. AT ALL. As soon as you've finished burning one of the hapless sods 3 more wander by, idly wondering if you're doing some sort of street theatre or something.

He was so cuddly. And now he's dead.

It's not ALL murder though. Whilst I'm wandering around the outskirts of town (I.E. actually the middle of the village) I'm also tasked with gathering dead bodies. Which seem to grow like mushrooms in these parts. Although perhaps gathering the bodies of the slain is not a strictly accurate description. If we're being completely honest here my job is to point out dead bodies to my idiot companion.



Who apparently has never seen one before and therefore doesn't know what one looks like. And can't remember even after he's carrying like six of them piled on his back.


After escorting the festering man-child back to what passes for civilisation in these parts (I.E. 20 feet up the road) I collect my reward and am given an important communique.


Hmm, a summons from the Mage Trainer Isabella. Clearly this be important for her to send a scroll all the way to the head priest guy. I better prepare myself for a long and arduous trek. Where in the world could she possibly be?


Oh fuck you. Fuck you right in the ear. You're telling me that the person STANDING NEXT TO ME had to write you a letter to for you tell me to go and see her? WHEN SHE'S STANDING RIGHT THERE?!!?! When she could have just asked herself? Gods, even if she's shy why not just ask you to ask me? WHY THE LETTER?!!?!?! If you waste enough paper do you think you can make a zombie tree or something?

Anyway, after repeatedly beating my head against the wall I have a quick chat with my wasteful and socially awkward new chum. She then tasks me with a quest to buy spells from her, proving both that maybe not everyone around here is quite as stupid as I'd previously thought and that I'm clearly in the wrong line of work.

After politely declining her offer to help out a certain Nigerian prince she apparently knows, I head off out of town to find out if punk is dead or not.


Turns out it is, but it's willing to pay me to mutilate animals. Thus confirming everything your mother ever told you about those nasty boys down the road. I'm not quite sure why exactly it is he's just hanging around on the road into town, but I'm going to guess he's handing out flyers for his mates band. Anyway, like most people I've met so far he asks me to kill an arbitrary amount of the local fauna. And then cut off bits of them and bring them back because.... apparently you make armour out of wolves feet now? It's either that or he's got a fetish. Either way I'm not sure I want to think about it to closely. So I pop off and set a few passing wolves on fire and then saw of their legs only to find....


THE WOLVES HAVE RABBITS FEET.



I think I'm done here.