My new digs.

Recently I invested in some land out in Silverpine Forest. I went out to survey the property and all in all I was pretty pleased. Check it out!

Here's the mountain path leading up to my new abode. As you can see, I'm canny enough to realize that going into uncharted territory alone isn't a smart idea. So I brought Roger, my trusty dark whelpling pal, for moral support. Cattnys's job is to eat and/or seduce any creatures we may come across... not necessarily in that order. If you look off to my left you can see a small village at the base of my new mountain. This is Crystalisville, the denizens of which will serve me as vassals. One can never have too many witless nobodies to do one's bidding.



A gated courtyard. How classy! A little drab, perhaps, but I can hire a team of migrant worker dwarves to spit-shine it up for me. Note also that I have my very own team of security dogs. Once a year I'll let them all loose in Crystalisville just so there is no question as to who is boss.



There is, of course, always the question of what to do with the current tenants. I suppose I could allow him to live in the dank squalor of my castle and charge him some outrageous rent...



...but that would make me a slumlord, which is an insufferable blemish on my spotless image. I want to be feared, after all, not despised.



I met up with my realtor, who brandished a set of keys and agreed to show me around. Unfortunately, as soon as he opened the door he was ravaged and/or eaten by wolves. Not necessarily in that order.



There's also always the problem of what to do with the junk the old tenants leave behind. I guess they had to move in a hurry. There wasn't anything useful in this box, but the barrels were full of foul-smelling liquor, which will be useful when it comes time to pay my migrant worker dwarves.



I figure I can sit Jubjub on one of these horses and enter him in the Khaz Modan Derby. A jockey that small and a horse that evil are a lock to bring home first prize, no doubt about it. None of these beasts measure up to my own awesome felsteed, of course, but I would never deign to enter such a magnificent mare in so base a competition.



My new kitchen, fully stocked and fully staffed. I even have my very own butcher. I wonder how much those Defias cats are paying Cookie. I know it would probably be frowned upon by Big Brother Alliance to have a murloc chef in my employ, but by the time any government officials get out my way to complain about it they will have long been eaten by my pack of rabid security dogs.



I don't know who this joker is. I bet he's my butler or something.



This looks like it might have been used as a chapel. I plan to convert it into my master bedroom. First I'm going to have to write to my neighbors over in Tirisfal Glades to see if I can get an exorcist on the cheap, though... it'd be tough trying to grab some sleep with all that wailing and haunting.



The view from the balcony outside my bedroom is just breathtaking. I bet you could drop an orc off the side and the sound of his screaming would fade out long before he hit the bottom. This is important because, like I said, I'll be trying to sleep just on the other side of that wall, and that'd be pretty hard to do when all I can hear is the pitiful moans of a half-dead orc splattered against the rocks below my balcony.



You know, I envy the undead who get to fly all over Azeroth on the backs of oversized bats. Giant bats are about ten times cooler than hippogryphs, which makes them roughly one hundred times cooler than gryphons. Once I've tamed this bad boy I'll be soaring across the skies in style.



Ugh. These clowns weren't nearly this tormented before they picked a fight with me. I imagine they should have probably checked themselves, before they went and wrecked themselves.



This hayloft would make a great place to put any dwarven guests I might have -- they're certainly used to such rancid living conditions, what with living in Ironforge and all. And if you're asking what lodgings I have in store for my night elf guests, please refer to the balcony photograph a few paragraphs up.



The granddaddy of all rabid security dogs! I'll sleep soundly with this gentleman stationed at my courtyard gates, that's for sure.



I don't know what I'll do with all these voidwalkers. Maybe I'll trap them all in a huge glass pipe and charge druids and other assorted hippies two gold per hour to smoke them. Or maybe I'll make Kal'rath captain of the first ever demonic football team. Wait, no, that wouldn't work. Football is a full-contact sport and voidwalkers are utter cowards. A giant blueberry-themed hooka bar it is!



Uh oh... looks like the previous owner hasn't cleared out yet...



...I'll help him pack his things and be on his way. I wouldn't want to seem ungrateful or anything, now would I?

So yeah, the place is definately a fixer-upper, a little drafty, and overrun with untamed wolves and rats. But I think with a few new tapestries, a little bit of elbow grease, and a direct conduit to the Infinite Plane of a Wailing Damned it might actually be quite cozy. On the other hand, it isn't exactly centrally located... it might end up just being my summer home. Not as pretty as Darnassus, I'll grant you, but I'll take feral dogs and murmuring ghosts over those pompous night elves any day of the year.

My personal life is none of your damn business.

It would not be prudent to disclose the reasons for my absence. You, dear reader, as someone who is (presumably) not a warlock, could not hope to fathom the trials and tribulations I have endured these past few arduous months. And I, a humble girl of simple beauty and considerable dark skill, possess far too much modesty to gloat about the achievements I've amassed and the personal victories I've won in that time. I don't kiss and tell. So we will leave that topic aside, and begin a new one.

Unless you're a dwarf, you've probably noticed by now that I don't share much practical information about myself. Some people think I'm an egoist; they're wrong, of course, and people who confuse majesty for mere ego are well beneath my notice (and the notice of all but the dirtiest, most gutter-splashed denizens of the Steamwheedle Cartel). No, I'm no egoist; a true egoist would leap at every opportunity to list, in great detail, everything they consider an accomplishment, no matter how miniscule.

You'll notice, for example, that you do not know my level. "Level", of course, is a worthless badge of false respect worn by adventurers in Azeroth which basically amounts to how many monsters they've killed. One's level ranges from one to sixty; presumably the level one adventurers are the least experienced and the level sixty adventurers are the most prominent. However, only the daft put stock in such things. We have all met far too many exceptions to these rules. We have all seen the truly braindead level sixties who barely know which end of the sword to use, while at the same time we have all met the level ones who mow through creatures with such talent and finesse that we can't help but stand for a moment in awe. Well, you stand for a moment in awe. I don't stand in awe of mere mortals. You get my point.

Equally troubling are the adventurers who are so quick to list each individual item in their considerably vast warddrobe, as though fishing the half-shredded blood-soaked remains of a magical cloak out of the husk of an ex-dragon is worth having a party for. They give these fabulous adornments elaborate names like "Netherwind" and "Lawbringer" and "Dreadmist", and label them with extravagent blue or purple letters. This practice, too, does not interest me. Such items are useful, no doubt, and in some cases even worth the extraordinary trouble they take to acquire, but they are not symbols of one's skill, power or honor.

Let's try a thought experiment. Pretend, for a moment, that I'm not a fantasticly powerful warlock. Pretend for a moment that I don't command the forces of evil to do my bidding, that I don't commune with demons and that I can't do incredible things with magicks black and ancient. How would you know? You wouldn't. It's possible (only in this thought experiment, though) that all these stories are merely stories. I could be a wage-slave broom-pusher in some human monastery, writing my dark fantasies about demons and spells during the long, sleepless nights. I might be an undead bookseller, sparse memories of my former life intermingling with the literature I peddle, causing the two to fuse into one. For all you know I'm just a very, very articulate troll.

I'm not any of those things, of course. My only point is I could be, and you'd never know. Well, except for the photographic evidence in the sidebar. But whatever.

These words are about Azeroth and the people around me, not about me, myself. Anything you think your feeble mind has inferred about me from these writings is almosst undoubtedly wrong. It isn't your business what level I am, what I choose to wear and for what stat bonuses (or, more likely, for what fashion trends I choose to start), what dungeons I visit, and whom I consort with when Big Brother of the Alliance isn't looking.

I might be level sixty. I might not be. I might rank within the top hundred in Warsong Gulch. I might not. I might have a full set of Shadowweave gear. I might not. None of that is relevant to my mission here.

I guess what I'm saying is (and understand this is a considerable moment of weakness I will probably regret later) Azeroth is an interesting enough place without having to list all one's own winnings and losings to make it so. After all, my ultimate goal is to rule the place. The only way to do that is to, at first, step back and observe.

True power... that will come later.