Chas is dead

At least the World of Warcraft variant is. I haven't enjoyed playing WoW for a long time and was only continuing due to the social aspects and, frankly, addiction. I cancelled my subscription a few weeks back and had until September already payed for. I decided to see if I could find any compelling reasons to resubscribe in that time. Unfortunately, a mutiny occurred in the guild I was a part of. The instigators are supposedly in their twenties, but their logic and way of expressing concerns they had was adolescent at best. Persoanlly, not being aligned with the officers of the guild, coupled with some of those officers' reaction to the mutiny (which was just as bad), I found myself in a unique position to just get the fuck out of dodge. If you no longer enjoy the company you find yourself in, you have to go, no matter how hard that is, regardless of the individual friendships that still exist.

So, Chas, the World of Warcraft warrior, is no more. It feels good.

And here, for the sake of completion, is the final tale of Shac The Tank:

It's a sad day indeed, but it was bound to happen, and at last it has: the Ecclesiastical Authorities are on to me. They have discovered that my ministry is nothing but an elaborate tax rort and a thinly veiled attempt at getting around bigamy laws. Whether I was ratted out by some Judas or whether it was my "David Koresh 4 Lyfe" bumper sticker is irrelevant; the gig is up.

But I have some time before the narcs get through the temple door. I have barricaded it using the comatose drunken hobos who call this place home. The good constabulary are debating the merits of using a bulldozer to break the door down. One guy worries about the loss of hobo life. One ponders whether it is acceptable to destroy the door of a place of worship. The general consensus is that it would be a shame to damage the door, as it was made from the last of the Canadian Redwoods using child slave labour who were forced to work on the door until they died (hey, it was the most cost effective solution! The money I saved on the door meant I could get my gold plated merc: “The Chasmobile”! I think we can all agree, it was worth it).

So while they argue amongst themselves, I’ve got Harry “Gonads” McKenzie blasting out “Waltzing Mathilda” on the organ and I humbly present to you:

The Last Resurrection of Shac the Tank

With one last blow from his mighty axe, Shac slew the creature. He took a slug from his hip flask and waited for the usual sense of achievement, the elation of the kill, the sense of moral vindication and the warm glow of comradery. But something was wrong. None of that was there. Confused, Shac looked down at the creature dead at his feet. Why had he killed it? Why was he here again?

As had happened so often in the last three long years after his historic Hogger killing, someone had burst into the tavern where he was drinking and proclaimed, “Shac, we need your help!” As always, Shac was too drunk to understand, and thought someone was offering the next round of drinks. Gladly accepting, Shac constantly found himself in far away lands, storming some castle or compound, killing everything, presumably for some good reason. Each adventure provided Shac with priceless enjoyment. Until now. Shac didn’t even know what species the dead thing bleeding on his majestic plate boots was. All he knew of the place he found himself was that it was called The Temple of Emo and there sure had been a lot of whinging since they’d all arrived. Some were complaining that the leaders were idiots. The idiots had taken time out from drooling to complain that they should be leading. One guy was running around naked, dong slapping the creatures and, to the surprise of all there, had actually killed 2 of them with this method: one had died laughing, the other from shame.

Things certainly weren’t like the old days. The group of adventurers was moving on to the next area, to continue the killing and the crying. As Shac followed, his mind drifted back to past adventures, looking for answers.

***

The first great adventure, of course, had been the Hogger killing. With Hogger dead on the ground, Shac felt the elation of achievement and basked in the warm glow of the crowd’s cheering. It was when Shac realised that the warm glow was progressively getting hotter, that he noticed he was still on fire. (You will remember that Shac killed the mighty Hogger by setting his own alcohol infused urine on fire and burning the beast to a cinder). In fact, he was completely on fire. An ironically cold sensation rushed through Shac’s body, as he realised he was going to die. “This can not be happening”, Shac thought. He was too young to die. He was now too popular to die. He was a hero! Heroes don’t die! He had learnt in Warrior school that it was the greatest dream of every warrior to die in a blaze of glory, sacrificing their life for the greater good.

“Fuck that”, thought Shac. Here he was dying in a blaze of his own alcoholic urine, naked in front of a crowd of people. Panicked, Shac started running towards the nearby river, passing through a faire, much to the shock of the faire’s patrons. (Incidentally, this is how Shac invented streaking). But he wasn’t quick enough. The fire won its battle against Shac, and he fell to the ground dead.

As the last moments of life faded from Shac, a soft female voice whispered in his mind, “Pleiades wishes to resurrect you. Do you accept?” What was this?

“Of course I accept”, Shac thought and suddenly found himself alive and well, standing next to a beautiful priestess. “Um, hi?”, Shac offered.

“Hi there, I saw you kill Hogger, that was pretty impressive. I’m Pleiades, by the way”, the priestess said.

“Nice to meet you. I thought I was dead”

“You were. We priests have made a deal with the Gods. We can ask them to bring people back from the dead, so long as they want to come back and, in return, we have to have sex with one or two of the Gods or their buddies every now and then. Mainly on religious holidays. It’s a bit demeaning, but it’s a small price to pay.”

“Wow. Thanks, by the way. Um, how come I feel funny, though? Are there side effects to being resurrected?”

“You’re just sober. Resurrection will do that”.

“Sober! Sweet fuck!”, screamed Shac as he ran full pelt to the nearest inn.

***

Back in the Temple of Emo, Shac smiled as he remembered the good times he had had with Pleiades, pausing only to wrench his axe out of the skull of the…um, whatever it was…he had just killed. He looked around. The other adventurers around him were all cheering his name. Except for a sickly looking gnome who was complaining that the name Shac violated some sacred law from his homeland. Shac looked back at a scene of carnage. Hundreds of these things were dead on the floor. While Shac had been daydreaming, he must have been helping kill them. He wondered whether they deserved to die to someone who not only didn’t know the reason he had killed them, but wasn’t even paying attention when he did. “Their loss, I suppose”, thought Shac, “They’re either too stupid to make friends with a priest, or they don’t want to come back and I’ve done them a favour. Why would you not want to come back?”. Shac never had an answer for this before, but a small voice in his subconscious was threatening to speak up. As Shac moved on to the next kill zone, he caught a glimpse of himself reflected in a pool of blood. He hadn’t realised how much his shoulders were slumped these days, and how haggard his eyes looked, even partially obscured by his massive helm. The reflected image reminded Shac of somebody…

***

Pleiades’ resurrection trick was a godsend for Shac. He could now fight while even more drunk, safe in the knowledge that should he die, his priest friend would be there to bring him back. Shac began to think that anything was possible. His first task consisted of getting himself killed in every corner of the world. He died to rats, gnolls, kobolds, murlocs and even a paladin. He then went on a three day bender and died of alcohol poisoning, just to prove it could be done. Each time a soft female voice would whisper in his mind, “Pleiades wishes to resurrect you. Do you accept?” and each time Shac wondered why the question was even asked and awoke sober and ready to drink again. Pleiades and Shac had made friends with a mage named Ven Ding who could conjure alcohol out of thin air, so Shac was never sober long.

While searching for something to die gloriously to in Desolace one winter day, Shac came across the mighty Horde champion, Rexxar. With his shoulders slumped and eyes weary, Rexxar walked the land with his giant pet bear, tired of fighting and tired of war. “Loser”, thought Shac, who rambled up to Rexxar and asked him to return the 20g he spent on Rexxar’s mother night before as he wasn’t satisfied with her service.

Rexxar didn’t even twitch. He simply said, “I was like you once. Do you know the last person I killed?”

“The audience at your last stand up comedy gig?”, Chas slurred.

“My priest. Do you know why?”

“He told you you were too old for him to love anymore?”

“You will one day.”, and with that Rexxar cut Shac cleanly in two. Lengthwise.

A soft female voice whispered in Shac’s mind, “Pleiades wishes to resurrect you. Do you accept?”

Shac said, “Yes”.

***

The reflection in the blood reminded Shac of Rexxar, that’s who. Could it be the day had come that Shac was tired of fighting, tired of war? Shac emptied his hip flask and asked Ven to refill it. Ven immediately launched into a tirade about not being appreciated, about the worthy contributions mages make to any endeavour, about how he hadn’t gotten any new sandals for months and blah, blah, blah…Shac certainly was tired of the whinging. While Ven continued, Shac turned his attention to the man the group had slaughtered their way to get to, who was sitting calmly in a decrepit stone throne, next to a balcony that looked over a massive cliff face.

“Who the fuck is this?”, Shac asked the group.

“This is Lord Victor Wristslash. The scourge of The Temple of Emo.”, someone answered.

“Oh right, yeah, I went to high school with him. He once called my mother fat. So, apart from that, why are we here to kill him?”

After much shuffling of feet, twiddling of thumbs, some erring and arring and the sounds of a fight between the nude guy and the gnome about who had killed more dragons, someone offered, “Um, because we want his shoes?”

Shac walked up to Victor, sighed and asked, “Hey Victor, been a while. How’s things?”

Victor replied, “Not bad, Shac, yourself?”

“I could be better, to be honest. My life has become one kill after another and I’m not sure why I bother anymore.”

“I know how you feel, dude, people come in here, day after day, kill all my friends, kill me and take my stuff. Then, after a while, the spell placed upon this temple by a miserable bastard of a God that I once offended resurrects us all and another group comes in. There’s an entire factory of goblins in the back room churning out shoes to keep up with the demand”

“Holy shit! That’s fucked up!”

“I’ll tell you what, how about I just give you my shoes and we can call it even?” With that, Victor took off his shoes and handed them to Shac.

The second he took them, the crowd erupted in a cacophony of complaints. “How come you get them, I deserve them more than you?” said the gnome, “This is bullshit, I killed 87 Shades of Whinge and I haven’t had new shoes since yesterday” said a night-elf violinist as a tear ran down her cheek, “I’ve never gotten any loot”, said the nude guy.

Shac turned to Victor, a moment of quiet understanding passed between them, and he said, “Mate, you owe me one for all those cracks you made about my mother at school”

Victor replied, “Yeah, that’s fair enough.”

“Keep the good looking priest over there alive, will you?”

Winking, Victor whispered, “No probs, Shac, she’s certainly an upgrade to your mum!”

Shac let out a tired laugh and walked over to Pleiades and handed her the shoes just as Victor bellowed, “I’ll settle this! If you can defeat me, the goblins will provide shoes to each and every one of you! Prepare to face my minions. Let the games begin!”

With that, the group took their usual positions behind Shac, ready to lay into Victor while Shac bombarded him with verbal taunts about the size of his shoes, angering him enough that he didn’t think once about simply killing the weakest, but deadliest, members of the group first. Just as Victor was about to attack, a cross dressing druid launched into a tirade about Shac still using his axe and not carrying a shield and that if Shac could do that, he should be able to be in moonkin shape and blah, blah, blah…

Shac eyed Victor and said, “Kill him first, then the ones in the dresses”, and he jumped off the balcony to his death. Above him, Victor wiped the group off the face of the planet, except for Pleiades, to whom he said, “Hey there, gorgeous, res Shac up and we can all go for a beer”

“Great idea” Pleiades responded, “ I can wear my new shoes! They’re gorgeous. Can your goblins make them in red, though?”

Taking her by the shoulder, Victor replied, “Sure thing, while they’re doing that, come meet my puppy”.

Down at the base of the cliff, as Shac lay crumpled and bleeding, a soft female voice whispered in Shac’s mind, “Pleiades wishes to resurrect you. Do you accept?”

Shac said, “No”.

Zizou is the new Chuck Norris

Boom, headshot

It may have cost France a World Cup, but Zinadine Zidane ended his career the way he played it: With complete football skills, masterful leadership, inspiring talent, uncanny goal scoring ability and moments of gut churning violence.

Bring on his movie career. I, for one, would like to see Zidane, Cantona and Vinnie Jones in the one movie. A Guy Ritchie Bond film, perhaps.

Um, excuse me while I ring my agent...