Teu hummed to herself as she applied her shiny new Gnomish Army Knife to a King's Amber. Valyrie could barely watch; such a nice gem to be cut in such an amateur fashion! On the other hand, lately Teu had been making all sorts of neat things--target dummies (some of which exploded in a terrific burst of color when Valyrie attacked them), explosive sheep, and boxes and boxes full of saronite bombs.

"Do I get some?" Valyrie had asked, only to be met by an indignant puff of air and a five-minute lecture on how bombs are not for inside the house. As if the furniture didn't need replacing anyway!

It had brought a bit of company by, which was also welcome; Teu had mentioned that the tiny braided dwarf was coming over to help Teu put together her new robotic butler, who was apparently going to clean the house for them. Valyrie was entirely in favor of this plan. When the knock came at Teu and Valyrie's door, Valyrie hopped up and went off to answer it.

The braided dwarf looked up, and up, and squinted at Valyrie. "'Ey there, Miss Valyrie. Is Teu ready to get started putting her Jeeves together?"

"The butler? Yes, I think so. She's in the workshop, as usual."

"Thanks! I'll show meself back, don't trouble yourself a titch."

"Of course. Take care, have fun, all that stuff..."

"Will do, aye!"

* * *

Ovistine pulled the titansteel bar out of her pack and placed it carefully on the table. "There! Careful with it; I cast a levitate spell on it so it didn't weigh me down too much, but it's best to wait it out an' have the spell wear off before you start working."

"Oh! Yes, yes, certainly." Teu pushed her goggles up on her forehead. "It has been so much help, you and your expertise! So many thankings!"

Chuckling, Ovistine dug into her pack again. "You're welcome, lass. An' I brought you sommat else."

It was a Construct-Your-Own-Mechanopeep set, one which Teu had cooed over in the tinkering shop the last time she and Ovistine had gone out to shop for materials. She'd let it sit there, saying something about increased fees for outfit maintenance that Ovistine didn't quite catch, but with this plan of hers and Ethel's, Ovistine had seen an opportunity, and she'd gone back to the shop early this afternoon.

Once she'd figured out how to miniaturize the gizmos, the rest had been easy. Adjusting the parts to fit logically into the mechanopeep head had been a challenge, but a very welcome one. The holo-transmitter was even set up to project an image, a voice, or both, out of the mechanopeep's beak.

And, of course, she'd wired up the transmission recorders at home, made out of several databanks she'd recovered from Gnomeregan--she'd always figured they'd come in handy someday. More to the point, she had the data ready to print out on punchcards, so she could hand them over to Ethel if need be.

Of course, all this relied on Teuthida having the mechanopeep out of her packs, and that was something Ovistine couldn't control--but given her enthusiasm for tinkering lately, and the way she could customize the mechanopeep to have sparkles all over it, Ovistine thought the chances were quite good.

The parts for Jeeves she'd brought were just a backup.

It would have taken a far more experienced engineer to figure out what was going on; the Field Repair Bot 74A had been customized, but not in a way that was too terribly obvious. Ovistine encouraged Teuthida to use that bot's parts in Jeeves' head, and Teuthida cheerfully agreed. When Jeeves was finished, and Teu had hopped up to fling triumphant arms and tentacles around Valyrie, it was a matter of mere moments--and a quick flick of a gyromatic micro-adjustor--to get the recording and transmitting units turned on and working.

"Take care," Ovistine told Teuthida. Teu bent down and gave Ovistine an enthusiastic hug, too, and Ovistine squeaked a bit when one of Teu's tentacles brushed across her ear.

"Sorry, sorry! But yes, yes, thank you so much! And for the tiny peep!" She snapped her fingers at the mechanopeep, and it trotted over to her feet. "I will keep him out of harm's way! He can sit upon my totems during battle!"

"Good call, aye," Ovistine said. "Light be with you."

"The Naaru have not forgotten us," Teu said, and Ovistine nearly laughed--so many times she'd heard that phrase, but never in such earnest, at least not from a friend. "And the elements will be at my side as well."

Ovistine had let herself out, and after she hopped into her turbo-charged flying machine, she set the controls to autopilot and put her head in her hands for a moment.

Spying on the elf I--on the elf. It's come to that, has it?

She thought about the axe again, the way the runes had seemed to pulse. The way it had been cold to the touch, the one time she'd brushed against it. It feeds on souls, Valinar had said, and she wondered if he'd really considered what that might mean.

"No," she murmured, pushing the "manual" button again and drawing the flying machine out of its spiraling northward lean. "No, Ethel's right. They need us at their backs."

An' I'll be damned if I let my elf walk in there without some way to know if he's safe. I didn't wait all these years just to lose him to the Lightforsaken Scourge.

Steady again, she headed back to the portals in Shattrath City, more than ready to be home.

How often do you get impatient for something big to happen for your character? Whether it's a wedding, a breakup, a character revamp, or just having the opportunity to RP with a well-loved but rarely-seen character, there are often circumstances that prevent us from being able to snap our fingers and declare "boom! done!" about something.

When it's a matter of lining schedules up, that can be frustrating. When it's a matter of many plots weaving together properly, that can be challenging.

When you are waiting for Cataclysm to come out so you can race-change your most-logged-in character and have her take over the mantle of the character you still consider your main, it can drive you UP THE DAMN WALL.

In a way, I kind of wonder if the impatience I'm feeling toward getting to play Ovistine full-time again is rubbing off on poor Teuthida. Teuthida's major plotline, I felt, had a lot to do with Kael'Thas -- she and Valyrie originally set off on the mission to retake Tempest Keep, ended up on the Exodar, and after many adventures, took the bastard down. Her real goal at this point has always been to help rebuild Shattrath City and try to help out at the orphanage. But off she trots into Naxxramas... Ulduar... Trial of the Crusader... Icecrown Citadel... not because she wants to, but because I love playing a shaman.

How's she doing now? Well, she's not really enjoying herself in ICC; she comes home smelling terrible, she's not entirely convinced Arthas can be beaten, and she simply doesn't have the same kind of background with the heroes of Azeroth that other people do. (She barely blinks an eyelash at Muradin Bronzebeard, and has yet to figure out why Muradin calling out "By me own beard!" makes several members of her adventuring party raise their boomsticks or steins in a loud /cheer.) Arthas, ultimately, worries her a lot, and she's not so sure her time is best-spent there in ICC, as opposed to being home with Valyrie or going back to Shattrath and trying to make sure a few orphaned Draenei have a really great next few years (even if the next few years are all that's left).

I, on the other hand, pretty much love ICC. The fights are challenging but not impossible, the plot is great, and I'm really excited to see how it all works out for us (PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NO SPOILERS). I'm really having a good time there, and it's nice to know that there's still so much new content ahead of us.

Mind you, there's an RP reason for Ovistine not to be in Icecrown Citadel right now -- with her memory and abilities as fractured as they are, she knows she can't be trusted to go into the front lines. She doesn't know when her healing abilities will be cut off again -- it could happen at any moment. She doesn't know whether she'll always be able to harness chaos and walk in shadows, or if that's at some risk of going away with the light as well. ICC is really dangerous, and Ovistine's not about to put her friends at risk by asking them to bring along a priest who may or may not be reliable, albeit through no fault of her own.

There's still Ovi's memory to sort out before she can really tackle the other alternative, the one she hasn't even thought about yet -- harnessing healing energies the way the Wildhammers do it. I have a character in play who's intended to be a possible pathway to that end, but I'm leaving my options open -- I don't want to lock myself into one true storyline, since I think improvising Ovi's story has been an awful lot of fun over the past several months. But at some point, I should probably write up a quick bit on Varrim Featherstoneshire (Fanshaw), a former gryphon rider who took a very bad fall and is not even a little bit happy about being grounded for the foreseeable future.

But here is my very quick first-wing wishlist for Icecrown Citadel:

* Saurfang throws Mark of the Fallen Champion on the warriors.

I would have settled for "on the melee", actually, until Valinar got marked one fight and immediately exclaimed "WHOO! Free rage!" Turns out if he gets marked, he gets so much rage he can afford to stance-swap. We have two to three DPS warriors and one warrior tank in our 25-man, and they're all damn good at using those rage bars; giving them all hawt free full rage bars is never bad.

And let me tell you: Chain Heal + melee = THING OF BEAUTY. Not that this is news; Chain Heal + melee is actually why I tried out resto in the first place (I had a group that was two feral druids, a rogue, and a warrior, and we wanted to go pwn a heroic), and ever since I have had a great enduring love for it. Give me three marked melee and I'm your shammy; keeping three full-throttle DPS warriors alive through that isn't a huge problem (especially not when you have talented HoTtie druids and paladins running around throwing bacon -- and, uh, Hand of Salv -- on people).

Our raid has totally gotten the hang of this fight, even if some particular versions of it are harder than others. We know not to stand in the Blood Beasts. Our tanks are pro. We spread out enough. So I am not, exactly, complaining about the fight mechanics. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't wishing for easymode heals mixed with holycrap hardcore deeps from the warriors on that fight.