Evida's Diary: Day 9 (part 2)
It was pointless to stay silent, if only because, if he knew to ask the question, he already knew the answer. So I told him about the two GMs, the letter bomb meant for me, the other letter bomb addressed to me, the BANG, and the hissing, and then the odd request to kill a gnome called Cuddlyheehee. I didn’t mention my conversation with that bastard Mr Chilly, or the fact that I still held his letter bomb behind my back.
“You do realise that if you had attacked me, you’d have gone straight to oblivion? There's a reason XGMs are near invulnerable.” he said.
“Oblivion? Isn't that the one about getting Martin to be Emperor?” I asked, confused. “Why would I go there?”
“What are you talking about? When I heard you'd bested Mr. Chilly I thought you had super smarts.”
“I'm testing you,” I lied. “I need to know if I can trust you. You could be bluffing me even now to make me let Mr. Chilly out of my bag and into your custody.” This surprised him so I continued my attack. “This whole thing could be a massive Chilly-inspired scam intended to eradicate all life on Azeroth except penguins and gnomes. In fact, you could even be Mr. Chilly behind that stupid beard.”
The XGM didn’t have an answer for that. “Um,” was the best he could do for a moment, so I pressed on. “How do I know that GM Unspellabull isn’t the innocent party here? Ok, he only showed up after Chilly’s bomb exploded, but then, you only showed up once I was contracted to kill you! You might be dodging certain exsanguination.”
“You can’t kill an XGM,” he said. “We’re made to be unkillable. At best you were meant to die in your failed assault so that Mr Chilly would be freed. You’re an idiot!”
“Listen,” I said. “I may be an idiot, but I have pets! And not just any pets either!
All hunters have pets,” he sneered in a gnome-like manner, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise really.
“Not like these pets. “These pets are annoying, really annoying! They’d annoy you so much you’d help them kill you just to make them go.”
There was a stunned silence. “Insanity!” he gnomed at last.
“Well yes, to name just one,” I said. “You’re just bite-sized to my pets. Remember that.”
There was a moment while we both wrestled for control of our tempers. I hated gnomes. Then I had an idea and I began to run flat out for the stable master. Pretty soon there was going to be a fight and I needed my pets with me.
“Bite-sized?” he spluttered.
“That’s right, shorty,” I sneered. I shoved the letter bomb back into my bag and quickly got the A-list pets out of the stable master’s clutches.
“Shorty?” I’d clearly hit a nerve.
“Sorry. I should have said charmless midget with delusions of grandeur. Little man syndrome, I think it’s called. You’re too afraid to show yourself!” As I spoke I was running back into the Valley of Strength with the pets streaming behind me, with the exception of Trollop who’d warped ahead and Wiggles who’d stopped to weave a passing goblin into a cocoon. “Fight! Fight!” I shouted, while Boggle yelled the same thing in the universal pet language and Insanity squawked for the hell of it.
“I am not short,” said the XGM. “I am small-boned. And I am way too tough to fight you.”
By now I was in the pub. “Gamon, there’s a gnome outside who wants to kill you,” I said. “He looks really weak.” I headed back outside in the knowledge that he was following me.
“You’re just scared,” I said. “Shorty Girlyheehee.”
“That does it,” yelled XGM Cuddlyheehee, and suddenly there he was in all his splendour, and I had to say that, with the sunlight of an Orgrimmar afternoon glinting in his hair and the breeze ruffling his robes, he really did look quite…… phenomenally ugly.
“Get him!” I yelled, and the entire contents of Orgrimmar Nagrand that hadn’t realm-changed yet opened fire or charged into melee. Rogues rogued, warriors spun like tops, druids growled, pallys did what pallys do, priests were priestly, shamans totemed, warlocks did their thing, mages maged, death knights did death knightly stuff and I tossed in crowd control, and of course, silencing shot and scatter shot since Cuddlyheehee was a caster. My pets tore into him like deranged psychopaths, which was normal, and other hunter’s pets looked cool and focused as they did their masters’ bidding.
In less than three minutes it was over. Orgrimmar was silent. There were many dead, including Gamon, which was good, and absolutely everyone else except me, which was not. The gnome was still on maximum health, the pets had run off when their masters died, my pets had run off when they felt like it, and I was standing there, waiting for my last ten hit points to disappear.
“Ok,” I said. “You’re a lot taller than I expected.”