A wise man with a beard once said, "The value of achievement lies in the achieving."

I'm not sure what that has to do with killing Illidan, so instead of thinking about it I made a sticker:

It didn't come easy. After coming all this way a number of people apparently realized that they'd rather not see Illidan die, and went on to better things. Half the roster had to be replaced, and as it stands the raids look very different from what they were a month ago.

There were discussions in private vent channels that lasted long into the night, summits with ambassadors from rival guilds, and conferences to address the rampant paranoia that spread through binds and tells like parasites on an Illidan phase 1 gone horribly wrong. It took a lot of time, arguing, and compromising to get the whole thing back on track. Let me share with you an excerpt from one of our most heated debates:

But all turned out good in the end. We solved the attendance problems, everyone learned to get along more or less, and as a result we have a very smooth Illidan kill to show for it.

Ok, that last part is a lie. And so is the screenshot at the top of the page. The kill actually looked more like this:

And sounded kind of like this:

[Raid][Ilon]: Fuck! Kain is dead!
[Raid][Mordral]: Dicks.
[Raid][Soco]: Fuck shit bitch
[Raid][Arcnova]: He's at 3%!
[Raid][Bake]: Fuck it just wipe
[Raid Leader][Kain]: YOU MOUTHBREATHING CLOWNS, IT'S DEMON PHASE, I DONT TANK
[Raid][Bake]: O shit, that's right!
[Raid][Bake]: Burn him quick, healers help dps!
[Raid][Yukomo]: what the f*ck, keep Trusken healed!
[Raid][Amahu]: *bong bubbling*
[Raid Leader][Kain]: SPREAD OUT SHIT
[Raid][Nevvy]: warriors stack on me for rage, quick!
[Raid][Dalmation]: Burn him burn him omg
[Raid Leader][Kain]: KILL THE FUCKING SHADOWFIENDS
[Raid][Cdubbz]: *bong bubbling*
[Raid][Psyche]: fuck i have shadowfiends
[Raid][Sarrlock]: me too
[Raid][Anubis]: fuck i do too
[Raid][Arcnova]: lol look Trusken has them
[Raid][Choko]: fuck I have them too
[Raid][Choko]: fuck
[Raid][Kazajin]: oh wieners i'm dead *slurp*
[Raid][Trusken]: dps him he's at 1%
[Raid][Leapidus]: more dps on illidan!
[Raid][Choko]: he's kneeling wtf?!
[Raid][Soco]: fuck it's the transition
[Raid][Auxi]: he's at 1% still
[Raid][Ilon]: FUCK
[Raid][Yukomo]: f*ck mothertrucking b*tch sh*t
[Raid Leader][Kain]: wait i think we killed him
[Raid][Kazajin]: what?
[Raid][Psyche]: did we?
[Raid][Bake]: maybe
[Raid][Ahwawa]: wtf this wasn't part of the minigame
[Raid][Dalmation]: he's talking or something
[Raid][Yukomo]: wait he's dead!
[Raid][Everyone]: omg omg yay woohoo etc.
[Raid][Ilon]: i think i just came
[Raid][Kazajin]: wienerz

There was some failure. And if it was Bear instead of Tolandruth in the raid, we wouldn't even have an ankh to recover from it, and the loot would have despawned. Which is probably what we deserve after a shitshow like that.

But as they say in Canada, a kill is a kill, and after rezzing everyone and equipping our new items we'll stand around and pretend we're pro or something.

We've come a pretty long way. Addiction was made a little over a year ago, and here we finally stand at the end of the content we set out to conquer. The journey was long, and many people came and went. This first kill is dedicated to all those that stopped playing due to real life issues - believe me, I know how you feel. Often I myself questioned if all of it was really worth it. But then I remembered what "real life" was like. Let me tell you a story of a typical college party, an episode from a few years ago:

It begins with myself and a few friends standing around on a lawn outside a frat house. The night was uncharacteristically quiet. The beer pong tournaments were over, the drama was over, the fights were over, the cops and ambulances had come and gone, twice. With the slam of a screen door a girl walks out onto the lawn. Let's call her Kelly. She was stumbling somewhat, eyes glazed, all thought concentrated entirely on putting one foot in front of the other while trying to balance a plastic cup filled with hard lemonade and cherry vodka and other girl drinks that you'd have to ask Bear about.

She walked a couple of steps onto the lawn. "Walked" is a relative term, since her movements consisted more of falling onto the ground, crawling, getting up, taking a few weaving steps, then repeating the process. Anyway, one way or another she got to the middle of the lawn, not too far from where we were standing. At that point she stopped, thought about something for a second, then dropped her pants and took a shit on the grass.

Now, taking into account all of the alcohol that was consumed, it didn't seem too surprising at the time. At that point in the night, I would have likely believed anything I saw.

There was a man named "John" there at the party, a local legend of sorts, and an honorable member of the "party planning committee". As a college hockey player he had lost many teeth and even more brain cells getting into fights with angry Canadians during matches. This, along with a tendency to achieve feats of retardation that nobody even dreamed possible, was the primary source of his fame.

So John walks out that same screen door roughly an hour later (my sense of time may have been a little off). He's barefoot, having lost his flip-flops earlier that night by throwing them first at girls that tried to leave with somebody else's alcohol, then at the vehicle in which said girls made their escape.

Then there was my friend Mike. Mike is that guy that always wears a nice shirt and has a great smile in every picture, the guy that your mother always talks about and says "why can't you be more like HIM?". He's also THAT GUY that you sometimes see in the background of Facebook pictures, blacked out drunk, screaming at the top of his lungs and wearing nothing but a cowboy hat. He doesn't remember any of these episodes of course, but at some point between the tenth shot and the fourth kegstand he starts believing that he's the world's greatest stripper, and hilarity ensues.

Anyway. John walks out the door barefoot. Mike fortunately has his clothes on still. He breaks off from our group and goes to talk to John, trying to tell him something, and laughing hysterically in the process. Mentally, John is somewhere between being utterly confused and beating someone half to death with a hockey stick. The two keep trying to communicate, but don't get very far. To make an already long story a little shorter, at some point during all of this John steps into the feces that Kelly left on the lawn some time ago.

And he slips and falls. He says "fuck" in a loud slurred voice, picks up the now-empty beer cup, and gets back on his feet. Now, at this point he had not yet realized exactly what had happened. The lawn was wet, and parts of it muddy, so even a sober person may have trouble fully grasping exactly what happened. He then reaches down to wipe the "mud" off his leg, which means that it's now on his hand, and this he wipes on his shirt. Then he smells the air. And a second time to make sure. And with a slight twitch in his face he realizes that something is very, very wrong.

Mike meanwhile is on his knees, holding his stomach and laughing hysterically. I don't know if people can really die of laughter, but for a few terrifying seconds I was sure his head was going to explode or something. John meanwhile is staring intently at his soiled hand. His other hand drops the red beer cup, and goes to his stomach, and he proceeds to violently vomit onto himself and Mike, who may or may not have pissed himself right then and there while stale beer and EasyMac poured down from above.

College life is fun. To this day Mike and John and even Kelly view themselves as heroes for having played a part in such an epic event. And sure, I think it makes for a good story — but quite honestly, looking back at it, sitting home on a Thursday night and hearing "Who will be next to taste my blades?!" for 4 hours doesn't seem so bad.

And now, the moment that we've all been waiting for, the reason why we tried so hard to kill Illidan in the first place. Below is the picture of Kazajin, the Master Squid himself. Just think of this picture every time he speaks. And remember that on every boss fight, the fate of the entire raid depends on this clown successfully applying a Misdirect to the correct target and getting off a few shots before dying. Be afraid.

I really don't know what to say, except maybe "oh wieners".

Our adventures continue in Sunwell, where items are better and bosses are harder, and the first step to progression is ensuring that all squid are extinct. Join me next time.