Hey Folks. Anna here. Arrens is still dealing with the job schedule of suck, so I’m taking over his blog again, albeit just for the morning (… this time). Hopefully you don’t mind TOO much, right?

How to maintain a Roleplay attitude when Life keeps you out of Game.

Roleplay is awesome. It’s addictive, and it can swallow up your creative mind and suck up your game time and sweep you away on a wave of nerdy bliss while you let your character run amok. It’s just gosh darn fun.

Unfortunately, sometimes real life kicks your nerdy fun time in the teeth. And sometimes, like one well known Professor Arrens Caltrains, that tooth-kicking doesn’t just up and go away after a few weeks. Sometimes it’s night shifts all the way down, and you’re left wondering how you’re going to manage to keep up with the commitments you made and the friends you love and the RP that makes you tick.

There is not, of course, an easy answer. (There rarely is, not for any difficult question, right?) But there ARE some things that you can do to make this whole situation a little easier to swallow.

Dislcaimer: This is for those times when you WANT to be in game, but can’t be – obviously not for things that take such emotional precedence as to keep you from thinking about character stuff at all. During those times, real life wins, you let the WoW stuff slide, and you don’t worry about it. Because Real Life > WoW. Always.

So here goes – how to Keep the Spark Alive:

The #1 most important thing is – Don’t Give Up.

Don’t go cold turkey; don’t assume that just because you’re not around during “normal” hours or the same hours that you’re used to, you’ll never get to RP again. Roleplayers – and roleplay by its very nature – are nothing if not creative. Sure it’s a bit of a shock at first? But you CAN make it work.

Very few situations mean that you’ll never get to log in again. Obviously some do, but this is not that advice column. This is for people who expect to still have some occasional game time, or expect the Sucktacular Schedule of Awful to someday change.

Other suggestions?

Keep up with the News

Read forum posts, ask what’s going on, basically keep in touch with the greater RP scene in your guild. Forum posts are nice because there’s no pressing timeline. You can read them on your lunch break, in the morning with your coffee, whenever you have a spare few minutes of time. Even if your character is sadly out of the loop, YOU don’t have to suffer that fate. It doesn’t take long to browse the forum and find out the general IC and OOC buzz.

Keep your character in mind

Do a little plotbunny hunting, talk to friends about the character – basically don’t let your character be a stranger. If you can work up a way to have a fic about why your character is missing, all the better. (Dark Summonings, anyone?) Fic, like forum reading, doesn’t require that you and anyone you write with be in the same timezone. You can fic at 4am when nobody else is awake and your friends can add things at 12:30pm when they’re on lunch. Flexibility is the name of the game here.

Stay connected

This is similar to keeping up with the news, but is one step more interactive. Talk to the people you RP with, even if it’s just loosely to go over RP ideas, and talk to them about not-RP things too. If your relationship is OK with it, email is wonderful. Even if all you get out of it is commisseration that your job now totally blows goats, you’ve created a communicative link and won’t have just “fallen off the earth.”

If you’re feeling rusty, don’t be afraid to admit it

It is totally normal to feel a little rusty or awkward when you try to do again something that seemed so natural a week or so ago. Creating a mental relationship with your character takes time, and if you can immediately slip backinto their skin, you’re a better RPer than I am. Remember that, especially in a close RP relationship (friendly or romantic), these are people that want to RP with you. If you’re feeling awkward, tell them.

Don’t be afraid to jump back in when you get a chance

Even if it’s only for a few days before RL kicks in again, it’s worth it to give it a try. You spent time cultivating relationships, and they don’t just go away magically. Even a little time spent in game can keep those sustained enough that when things change, and you’re around again, they’re still there.

Of course, sometimes things don’t change. Sometimes they continue to drag you away from the game and the RP that kept you sane.

In those situations the best thing to do is (any of our readers can probably fill in the blank here. Yep, you knew it was coming) communicate. Let people know. Encourage them to talk to you if they’re feeling out of things, and be gracious. Maybe a romance will need some time on “break” to prevent too much character injury. Maybe a romance will grow stronger through a series of emailed “letters” between characters that let you both keep that one little bit of RP going.

Real Life always takes precedence.

People can and will work with you while you get things settled, while your schedule changes, and while you figure out what you do and don’t want to continue doing in game.

And then, hopefully, someday things will change back, and you will get to dive back into the wonderful creativity of roleplay again.

Arrens the rogue is no longer.

Two nights ago, I logged onto him for the first time in months. Of no surprise to me, a whole lot of changes had taken place in the guild I once called home. Guild leaders changed, his status as an officer was removed, alts I had in the guild were demoted to “absent” and there was almost nobody online. As I said, none of this surprised me, but I couldn’t help but feel saddened by it.

Since making my warlock my main on Feathermoon and becoming wholly involved with the RP scene there, I had neither the time nor the desire to play a toon that had no purpose, no life. A nagging feeling in the back of my head wondered if I should just give him a fresh start with a transfer to my newfound server.

And that’s exactly what I did.

I logged onto Cenarion Circle to find the new guild leader of <Da Doctas> online. We chatted a bit and I apologized for my absence. As an officer, I always felt badly about not being around to do what my roles clearly were. There was no way I could fulfill those duties and still be such an active participant in the developing story lines some of you may have been reading here and on Anna’s site. She said she understood and wished me the best.

Thank you, Sidonwy. To you, to Ghosthorn, to Otto, to Kadros, to Imtariba and all the other Doctas; to Abominus and the <Grim Maw Clan>; to Redearth and <Ishnu Por Ah>; to Arjah and <Homeland>, thank you each and every one of you for inspiring and teaching this newb RPer. I am in your debt and wish you all the very best in all your endeavors.

To those of you Horde side on Feathermoon: Beware. Festin is here.

There are things we all enjoy about WoW that keeps us glued to the computer day after day. Some folks have been playing every single day since it was still in beta. Others, like myself, have been around since the start of Burning Crusade. And still others are new to the game, having only been introduced to it since the latest expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Yet something keeps us logging in every night after a long day of work or school and enjoying ourselves and spending $15/month to see our pixelated characters do their thing.

What I wonder is what is it that keeps you logging in? If you’re reading this site, odds are it’s RP-related. God knows, I don’t go giving any helpful hints on how to warlock or rogue. Is that the only facet of the game you enjoy though? What about queuing up for PvP in the battlegrounds? Are you an arena god? Do you raid with horrifying regularity to the tune of seemingly endless wipes in ICC-25 and an affinity for fish feasts?

And now for the hard question: Do you enjoy that aspect of the game you largely focus on? If the answer is “Yes,” kudos to you, you’re playing the game the way you want to. If the answer is “No” or you’re unable to make yourself say “Yes” for any reason, perhaps it’s time to reevaluate the status of your online time within Azeroth.

It should be noted that this isn’t a bad thing. Not at all! I’ve been there more times than I care to recount. Back in BC, I was raiding 6 nights a week 4-5 hours a day until we were finally able to down Illidan. And while I was happier than a pig in mud to have finally downed him, I had a sudden revelation. I didn’t enjoy myself. These 24 other people I was raiding with? Nice enough for the most part, sure. But there wasn’t a connection there. We showed up to raid, did what we had to do, got immensely frustrated far more often than exhilaratingly happy and then logged off for the night after passing out loot or paying stupidly high repair bills. There wasn’t any social aspect to the game, despite us all working towards the same endeavor. Guild chat was mostly non-existent. Raid chat was as well since all communications took place over Vent. There was individual happiness that never felt shared among the raid team.

So I quit.

I quit raiding. Hell, I quit the game for 4 months. My warlock’s gear was vendored or deleted, his bags and bank emptied and the character ultimately removed from my account and deleted as well.

Looking back on it, that was more than a bit extreme, sure. But since then, I’ve reevaluated my personal status and goals in the games countless times (without deleting the characters again, natch). I’ve gone in spurts with what I enjoy about the game, with RP being the major draw that keeps me coming back for more. The other parts? I don’t raid much these days. Maybe I’ll do the raid weekly if I have the time and am even remotely interested in it. Most weeks, though, I pass because I just can’t seem to bring myself to care about it. PvP? I dabble in it, but I don’t do it every single day anymore because very few of my friends share interest in it to do it regularly. So playing alone gets boring after a match or two in Arathi Basin. Arenas? Haven’t set foot in one in a few months.

I’m ok with all of it. I’m fine with my emblem bought gear. I’m fine with the idea that I won’t down (or likely ever see) Arthas. Getting the Justicar title? Probably won’t happen for a very, very long time, if ever. None of that bothers me. Because my goals in-game are being met everytime I sit down to RP or write fic with Anna, Bricu or Loreli.

What about you? Are your goals being met?

Here it is folks, the last installment of Dark Summonings. If you’ve not been reading thus far, the story progresses as follows:

• Dark Summonings
• Into the Nether
• Into the Nether (2)
• Hillsbrad
• Into the Nether (3)
• Dark Summonings – Return
• Out of the Nether Again

Since Arrens can’t currently access his blog at work, this is Anna, posting for him. And, since I’ve got the ability to temporarily hijack his blog, I figure I can tell him thanks publicly here. This has been an unbelievable thing to write – both from the first nudges of the idea back in November (yes, it really was that long ago), to filling in the holes in the story, to figuring out just how much trouble we could get Arrens into. It’s been fun, but also challenging, and I’m really pretty darn proud of this.  Which is funny, since I’ve only done about 30% of the actual writing – most of this is Arrens in all his writerly awesomeness.

So thanks – for the late night conversations, the multiple google documents, the emailing back and forth to sort through plot while one or the other of us couldn’t actually be working on it at the same time. I can’t wait to see where things go from here.

And, just on a hunch? After the last week in game? It’s only going to be awesome.

<3

-Anna

*****

Arrens awoke the next morning still wracked with a mixture of exhaustion and pain. His entire body, down to the follicles of his hair, ached. He dragged a hand across his face and noticed the bandages and splints. Breathing was a chore, his ribs broken or bruised, he couldn’t be certain.

He looked around. He knew at first glance he was in some kind of barn. Covered in a thick fur blanket and a stove roaring with flame, the air was warm. Aely walked in from the outside with a feed bucket in hand. Arrens’ voice croaked, “M…my love?”

She smiled, sitting down next to him. “‘lo, sleepy. ‘m glad t’ see yir awake.”

He said one word. “Water.”

Aely turned and grabbed a small container of water from her pack. Holding it to his lips, he drank greedily, water spilling from the corner of his lips until he started choking. She set the container down. “Where…where am I?” he asked.

“Careful, dinna drown yirself. There’s plenty. Wir at th’ farm in Hillsbrad. In th’ barn, if ye’d no’ guessed it from seein’ Maera there.” She helped him sit up a little, stuffing another quilt and a pillow behind him.

He winced as he sat up. Looking down at himself, he couldn’t help but be reminded of the troll mummies he had seen in Zul’Drak. “What the fel happened?”

She laughed. “I figured ye migh’ be able t’ answer me tha’. Yva named ye proper an’ summoned ye back when ye called f’r help, an’ ye came through th’ portal half dead. Ye’ve go’ arcane burns on both hands, a broken finger, an’ some kind ay nasty netherburn on yir arm. All yir left ribs are bruised, an’ I think ye may ha’ broken yir cheekbone. Very least, sommat smacked ye in the head righ’ proper. Yir lip is bloody, an’ I dinna think ye’ve had anythin’ t’ drink or eat in some time. Ye’ve been asleep f’r close t’ two days, an’ ye’ve a proper fever.”

He looked down at his left arm; heavy bandages wound around his bicep. Sniffing it, he said, “I…I smell Liferoot, Steelbloom and Wintersbite. The burn…”

“’s one ay th’ worst I’ve seen. ’s no’ infected, but it may need t’ be cleaned out again. It’s… like t’ leave ye a proper scar. I’ll do as best I can wi’ it.”

“It…it wasn’t just some horrid dream then, was it? I…I didn’t just imagine it all…” His head drooped and his eyes started to water. “Aely, I…I did something…or thought I did something…terrible. I’m not…I’m not sure what’s real or not anymore….”

“Yir here, an’ safe. I’m real. This place’s real. Best we c’n tell, ye spent th’ last weeks in th’ Nether – where things are no’ what they seem. Promise. Dinna think o’ermuch about it, yeh? We’ll get it all sorted. Ye need t’ rest, an’ mend. ’s why I brought ye here.” She kissed his forehead gently, running her fingers through his hair. Arrens involuntarily flinched away from the touch, wincing in pain before settling back down.

Aely pulled away. “Ligh’, I… ‘m sorry, I dinna mean t’…” She reached out to touch his face again and then hesitated. “I’m sorry, Love. ‘m sorry.”

He looked at her bleakly, his face full of pain and confusion. “No, no, it’s just…gods…” He slumped back down causing a sharp pain to shoot along his left side. He groaned in pain before continuing. “Aely, I…I killed you. With my own magic, I killed you. And Tarquin. I saw it. I remember it all. That was no dream. I used real magic, arcane magic, to engulf you, Tarquin and myself in flames! This…this can’t be real!” His voice began to strain with panic.

Aely blinked, hesitating before she spoke again, as though she wasn’t sure what to say. “Love – it’s a’right. I’m here. Ye dinna kill anyone. If it burned ye as well, how did ye live? Why would ye try an’ kill me anyway? Settle yirself, yeh? It’s a’right.”

“No, godsdammit!” he yelled. “It’s not alright!”

Slowly and painfully, he pushed himself away from her, managing to sit up. “Don’t you see? You’re /dead/! This can’t be real! This…this is a trick. That’s what this is. A trick!” His eyes darted around the room as he searched for the hidden hints that would prove this was all another fel dream, a look of panic creeping along the edges of his face. “You’re….you’re a ghost, that’s what you are! Come back to haunt me! I…I won’t have it, Aely! Get away from me!” He tried scrambling backwards in an attempt to get up. Each movement caused sharp pains from each of his numerous wounds, and he became more and more pale with each passing second.

Aely’s face ran a gamut of expressions, from confusion to shock to fear, finally settling on something like horror. Still, as soon as he tried to push himself up to stand, she moved quickly, wrapping herself around him, one arm behind his shoulder, the other around his back, effectively pinning him beneath her, murmuring into his shoulder about not making his injuries worse. He screamed and fought, bandaged hands vying for purchase along her back, grabbing handfuls of her hair and tearing at her shirt, until what little strength he had gave out, and he lapsed back into unconsciousness.

He did not hear her sobs.

*****

He woke some time later feeling groggy and ready to sleep again. Darkness had settled over Hillsbrad, the only light coming from a small lantern and the the faint glow from the stove provided a means to see around him. Aely stood nearby, facing away from him while she got herself ready to sleep. As she pulled her torn shirt over her head, he saw her back, rippled with scars; the scars she had shown him what seemed like a lifetime ago and which were still a part of her she hid at every turn.

Scars.

Again the image of Aely and Tarquin flashed through his mind; long, thieves fingers gliding up the smooth skin of her back, stopping to tilt her head back at him. He was certain he had killed them both, but there had been no scars there. Her voice had no inflection either, no Lordaeron brogue.

A dream…

As the realizition struck him, he fell asleep once more.

*****

Arrens woke to find Aely sleeping soundly next to him and the sun just beginning to break in the distant horizon, soft rays of light peeking through the barn windows. He stretched slowly taking account of what still hurt and what was finally starting to feel better. His left side ached dully, but to his surprise did not give the sharp pangs he had expected.

He propped himself up and looked at his hands. The bandages had been replaced some time over the course of the night, the dressings clean and free of any bloody stains. He carefully removed the bandage from his left hand and inspected it. He could smell the salve that Aely had placed upon it the night prior. Unable to see any noticable scar tissue, he flexed his hand and curled it into a fist. It caused no pain at all. He started the same procedure with his right hand before feeling the splint around his middle finger. Erring on the side of caution, he replaced the dressing as it had been in order to allow it to set properly.

Arrens looked down at his left arm. The large bandage was still there, stained slightly. He sighed deeply and left it alone.

He looked down at the sleeping form beside him. Aely’s back was turned to him, long strands of loose red hair covering her face. Gods, she’s beautiful, he thought. He carefully brushed several of the loose strands of hair back and bent down to kiss her carefully on the cheek.

She startled awake, smiling and turning towards him. Her smile faded within seconds, and she looked at him uneasily. “I… Love?”

He smiled warily and lightly dragged his hand across her face. “I…I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. For…for scaring you, for leaving you, for…” He took a deep breath in an attempt to regain his composure. “I…I know what happened. Or, rather, I think I do. The Nether. It…it wasn’t a dream. At least, most of it wasn’t. I was there. I was summoned to the Twisting Nether by an Eredar named…”

“Kro’thar,” she said.

“Yes. Kro’thar. He…he attempted to make me serve him. And in doing so interjected visions in my mind. Visions of…of me…hurting you. I’m not certain why. Perhaps as a means to break me from all I hold dear in my life. Perhaps merely to be a vile, vindictive son of a succubus. I’m don’t know. But…but the fever…” He slumped down slightly, unable to look at her for fear of breaking down.

Aely hesitated for a moment, and then sat up. “I… it’s a’right. I’m fine, an’ ye are nearly so. An’ by th’ look of ye, th’ fever’s broken too. It’s a’right, love.” She wrapped her arms around him carefully.

Arrens hugged her back, holding her as hard as his injuries would allow. He buried his head in her hair and told the story from the beginning, as best he could remember it, from the fel-tainted dream of Kro’thar bringing him to his knees in class to giving full descriptions of how Stormwind was perceived, to him setting her apartment ablaze with arcane fire after catching her in bed with Tarquin. “When…when I woke, I…I saw a succubus and a felguard. They were joined together, but they were burned nearly beyond recognition. I…I wonder if I caused that. If they were, perhaps, the visual representations of…of what was in that dream.”

“I… dinna ken. It’s possible, e’en probable really. Ye carry wounds frae a dream, so it serves wha’ ye could also do damage there. I dinna understand how th’ Nether works, an’ after all tha’? I’m no’ sure I’ve any desire t’ ken. ’specially since I’ve been hearin’ ye an’ sommat e’en feelin’ injuries since ye … left.” She let him lean against her as they talked.

“No, I’d not wish /anyone/ to go there. When…when we were able to talk while I was there, I was still uncertain if…if it was the real you or if it was merely my mind playing tricks on me again. But I…I think I’ve figured it out. Before I was summoned away, I…I linked our souls. Have you noticed anything else untowards besides being able to communicate with me?”

Aely nodded, pulling back from him slightly so he could see her hands. She channeled Light into them, watching as the golden glow saturated her skin. Frowning, she stopped and tried again, but everything seemed normal about her spellwork.

“Is… something wrong? Were you unable to harness the Light?”

She shook her head. “No, ’s just tha’… well, when ye wir gone, I had wee shadowy cobwebs under th’ glow, like there was sommat oan my skin. It started when ye left, so it’d make sense wha’ it was th’ same thing tha’ let me hear ye… ‘cept it’s back t’ normal now. I’m no’ sure wha’ t’ make ay it.”

He looked at her with mild surprise. “I’m…I’m sure it’s nothing to be concerned with, my love. If you’d like, I’ll do some research on it once we return to Stormwind.” Aely nodded, and he continued. “Until then, would it be too horrible of me to ask that you simply lay with me and…hold me a while? I’ve missed you, my love.”

Fluffing up the pillows behind her, Aely scooted back slightly, letting Arrens settle himself next to her, his head nestled against her shoulder. “Love, I’ve naught t’ do bu’ get ye mended an’ well. I’ve missed ye, an’ we both need th’ rest. We can stay here ’s long as ye like.”