Tag: The Helvetica Venture

“Could you pass that? No, not the blue—yeah, the green one. Thanks.”

Felendren didn’t seem so bad; at least Helvetica didn’t think so. It wasn’t like he had any fight in him, certainly not while he was toking on the huge bloodthistle bong. Except that it didn’t look like any bong she’d ever seen in her life. For one, it appeared to be made out of a Burning Crystal—the shard truly took offense to this and continuously shook with rage, producing a strange humming noise. The bong itself burbled constantly with a green-orange fume, and a pair of red eyes glared lazily at nothing. They also seemed to have bloodshot lines running through them.

“Dude, I wish that I had asked that Shara Sunwing chick for extra crispy spider legs,” the wretched blood elf said for the umpteenth time. Apparently he had run out a few days after he’d been banished, something about having a tremendous case of the munchies.

On her way back to the Sunspire with her plundered goods, Helvetica began to notice a queer thing: cat corpses. All over the place. As far as the eye could see. Dead black cats, dead white cats, calico, torties, seal point, not a single one spared that unknown wrath. It seemed as if a family of rats had gone on a vengeful spree and slaughtered every cat in sight.

She had examined a cat once. “Critter,” it noted, “Level 1.”

She slices! She dices! She also makes kindling of vaguely anthropomorphic trees!

Not too far into the mission, Helvetica quickly found herself wading through cords of firewood as every tree-like creature in the area came for her blood. Between the snapping of boughs, limbs, twigs—and the shocked and startled expressions on the treant’s faces as she cleaved them in twain—she let all of her frustration out on the woody nuisances.

Of course, she had also carefully made certain no other players were camping them before she waded into the fray. She really didn’t want to deal with arrows-from-nowhere thudding into her kills.

“So, you just ran into it and this broke off?” It was Yasmine Teli’Larien speaking. She did so in a hushed, considering tone. Her eyes never left the shard of Burning Crystal that floated nearby and glowered with barely restrained menace, time-sharing between everyone in the group as equally as it could.

Helvetica’s return had assembled a small convention.

In the gathering were Kariel, the Rogue trainer; Sallina, the Hunter trainer; Arena, the Mage trainer; Jestenis Sunstriker—didn’t say what he trained, but from his gigantic sword and disapproving expression she figured that he was her mentor-to-be—and even Shara Sunwing, who sold stuff. Attracted by the commotion, like moths to a flame, two magical brooms also hovered nearby, followed closely by several cats. Always cats. The Sunspire was lousy with them and the amount of fur they shed seemed to give the brooms something to do in their down time.

On closer inspection the Burning Crystal reminded Helvetica even more of a glass of Mt. Dew that someone happened to be blowing bubbles into. All it needed was a crazy straw and it would be complete. Rough, white flagstones paved a circular area around the crystal and supported clusters of frilly benches and strange, hovering shelves filled with random books. Here and there a pot bobbed in the air, spilling over with ferns and flowers of various colors. All the while she stood and examined the area the crimson eyes of the crystal watched her with a plotting, voyeuristic glower.

Upon her arrival at the kill zone, blade in hand, Helvetica girded herself and made a few practice swings with her bastard sword. These warm-ups would have had more meaning, however, if she had anything to kill.

Helvetica felt overwhelmed by the sights, sounds, and throngs rushing all around her. Surrounding her, dozens of other stick thin blood elves slid past, their glowing eyes skittering by as luminous blurs. Once and a while a blue name floating above a pastel head caught her attention, such gems as “Bubblehearth,” “Omgelf,” “Dulcewynna,” and “Toosexyformysword.” She stared in awe at the alabaster ponderous curves and sweep of the tower she stood next to, a yellow inlay etching flitted playfully across the opalescent surface and transitioned across blood red pincushion bubbles before finally reaching the summit of the goldenrod and red roof.

The sight of the tower captured her attention so totally she didn’t look where she was going—or maybe it was the male blood elf, dancing and stripping down to his skivvies. None of this mattered, of course, because while admiring—and backpedaling—she bumped into someone else. They went down together in a mass of easily fractured limbs, bleached hair, incandescent eyes, and even managed to tangle their eyebrows.

The screen flickered and refocused on vision of verdant green fields, trees, and golden bordered buildings with a vaguely Arabian curvature. The view pulled forward as if it were a small child being dragged forward by the line of a kite and the voice dropped somewhat into a liquid baritone—reminding her somewhat of a movie preview announcer—as it began to narrate an eloquent and looping speech.

“For nearly seven thousand years the high elves cultivated a shining, magical kingdom hidden deep within the forests of Northern Lordaeron—”

“What’s Lordaeron?”