Tanked

Note: The character I play in World of Warcraft is named Chas. I have made him the "spiritual advisor" to his guild, which just means I sprout some tangential rantings on our guild website. Lately, I have been penning stories of a character named Shac. So, basically, Shac is the literary version of Chas, which is the digital version of the real me. It's getting complicated. I liked this story, so I present it here for longevity. Some/most of it will be completely meaningless unless you know a bit about World of Warcraft.

The Parable of The Alcoholic Tank

"Your momma's so fat, she could tank Ragnaros nude!", shouted The Bully. That's what started Shac on his path. The fact that it was true, and that she had once survived two Flames of Ragnaros while wearing nothing but a Crimson Felt Hat, helped steel Shac's resolve. Furthermore, The Bully, named Victor, would later hole himself up in his castle, which he had inherited from a rich aunt, bitter about not being able to go on raids with his guild as he refused to spec out of shadow. That settled it, Shac would become a warrior and one day take his revenge.

However, despite 60 seasons of training in the Warrior arts, Shac sucked. Despite his best efforts and his mother's gentle advice, delivered using a red hot poker and a scourge, Shac had trouble killing even the lowly rats which were in abundance around the Dwarven sector. What's more, Shac found he was losing aggro on Kobolds, despite being the only person attacking them. Shac was miserable.

Then, when Shac was nearly at the end of his rope, while chasing a particularly wily rat that had run into the local tavern, Shac ran into Gimboid, the Dwarf. An axe to the side of the face, a short run from the graveyard and an offer to buy drinks for the rest of the evening later, Shac sat down with the surly dwarf with a tankard of mead in front of him, and told him his sad story.

"Clothes", Gimboid advised, "that's the first step to becoming a mighty warrior. Then maybe some armour." This was news to Shac. "A weapon and a shield wouldn't go astray, either" Could it be that simple?

It wasn’t. Despite following Gimboid’s advice, Shac still had trouble. For starters, he had trouble removing the heavy plate trousers to bare his arse, as he had been taught in Taunt lessons. Even if he did manage to get them down, he couldn’t get them back up again quick enough to avoid a sword blow to his white meat. Dejected, Shac went back to the tavern and took up a new vocation: drinking.

He was a natural. Despite being a human, he could drink dwarves under the table. He quickly became noted in the community for his rambunctious singing and tall tales of rat hunting and Kobold slaughter. He was considered to be somewhat the village idiot, but people from all over would visit the tavern nonetheless to hear Shac’s jokes about Gimboid’s mother.

It was during a particularly animated telling of how Gimboid’s mother was having it off with Garr, thus explaining where all the lava surgers come from, that Shac fell off his bar stool, landing heavily on his arse. When he got up, he noticed that he had landed on a rat, killing it. His first kill! He didn’t inform the crowd of this achievement, however, as they were under the impression that the only reason there were rats still living was because Shac hadn’t run into them all yet. But the kill changed Shac. Suddenly he was invincible. He could do anything. And he knew what to do next. He downed the flagon of ale in his hand, ordered a Theramore Tequila as a chaser and two jugs of Tyr’s Hand Pale Ale for the road. With a steely look in his eye he addressed the crowd, who had all gone silent. “I’m off to kill Hogger”, Shac slurred, and he stumbled out the door. The crowd followed, in awe, for no-one had ever even pondered that such a feat could be done.

The road to Hogger’s encampment was long and arduous and Shac tired. So much so, that at each tavern along the way that Shac and the crowd entered to quench their thirst, Shac left behind a piece of his armour as it was all too heavy. At the Inn Like Flynn, Shac lost his sword in a quick hand of poker and his shield fell into the Searing Gorge when Shac was explaining how Gimboid had invented the frizbee as a method of getting a drinks tray to his mother’s mouth, as he couldn’t get past her gut to hand it to her.

So, by the time Shac and his followers arrived at the edge of Hogger’s camp, Shac was completely nude. It had been a while since the last the last pitt stop, and Shac was busting. He relieved him self on a nearby tree.

“What. The. Fuck are you doing little man?”, the tree said. Shac looked up, still urinating (it had been a long night of drinking), at a giant Hogger shaped blur.

Not quite understanding the situation, Shac lit up a pipe of some fine Moonglade Medicinal Herbs, and said “Shut up, it’s cold, allright”, took a puff of smoke and coughed through his pipe, launching the hot embers downwards through the air. They landed square on his still gushing member, causing Shac to scream in pain, the crowd to cringe in horror and his piss to catch alight due to its massive alcohol content.

The scene that ensued is now one of legend. As Shac flailed about desperately trying to find a way to douse his private parts, Hogger swung his axe trying to decapitate the source of this outrage. However, thanks to Shac’s intricate drunken swerving, Hogger found he was having trouble connecting with the small, naked, fire-breathing demon. Hogger was also confused, as he had generally thought demons’ mouths were higher up. So incensed was Hogger about not being able to kill this annoyance that he had not bothered to put out the fire on his leg. Noticing this, Gimboid, who like the rest of the crowd was running about trying to avoid Shac’s rain of fire, whipped his dwarven member out and followed Shac’s lead, spraying Hogger with his own rain of fire. Noticing this, Shac, who had given up trying to stop pissing and was now “going with the flow”, called out “Gimboid, your piss is weak, dude!” and he burst out laughing, causing some villagers to have to take evasive action.

Before long, most of the crowd had also followed Shac’s lead and 40 people all rained fire down on Hogger simultaneously, while Shac kept Hogger focused on him with verbal taunts about his heritage and burning piss jokes. Soon enough, Hogger’s armour was weakened by the uric acid and his flesh was burnt away. Hogger was dead.

And that, dear reader, is the story of the one and only Hogger kill. That one event gave us the phrases “Piss weak” and “Go with the flow”. It was the origin of using a warrior to hold aggro, the word “tank” (from “being tanked”), the 40 main raid group and, of course, the flame thrower.