[Event Series] Storytime with Daerion!

Gather round! Gather round friends! For tonight I'll be telling the story of Lil' Moby, The Legendary White Kraken, the terror of the South Seas, and captain Shmahab and his crew. No, this is not a story of glory and heroism! This is a story of vengeance and forgiveness...

Night had fallen over captain Shmahab's ship, the Hackling Harpoon, as it peacefully bobbed on the tranquil sea when the captain gathered his crew on the upper deck. His crew had shrunk a lot over the past years and now only six members remained: Kate, a swashbuckler; a mysterious dwarven steersman, commonly known as 'The Man'; Peppers, a small fel imp, wearing stylish pants and the First Mate; Bigglespip, an adventurer, photographer and fire mage; Anistasia, the only living deckhand, and of course, last but not least: Captain Shmahab.
When everyone had gathered, the captain spoke up.
"Friends!", he said, "Tonight we hunt! Tonight, we bring down the white monster! Tonight we kill Lil' Moby!"
On any other day, the crew would have cheered if they didn't know better, for he said this every night and never had they had the chance to bring down the beast, let alone even spotting it. The crew shrugged instead, gave him a few witty comments, which the captain quickly dismissed, and were sent to unbox the harpoons and cannonballs, to steer or to let down the sails. Anistasia and Kate, however, who were send to the cargo deck quickly ran into a small problem: The Hackling Harpoon was also being used as a smuggler's ship and as the two opened one of the crates they deemed to be a harpoon shipment, a shady cultist stepped out, threatening to sink the ship if they dared to touch anything in the crate. Captain Shmahab of course, as cunning as he is, quickly convinced the cultist to join his crew and brought her upstairs...

...Wait no, that's not how the story went... The cultist was cunning and threatened to kill him and then the captain asked her to help him kill the Kraken to which the cultist agreed as long as she... Aah whatever...

Several moments later, the crew and the cultist had gathered on  the deck again, aiming their watchful eye at the sea... For a second they thought all they were able to see was a butt-shaped island, on which two arguing goblins sat but this changed only a few instances later... A great rumbling could be heard coming from the depths... The sea grew restless... Lil' Moby! The enormous creature screeched so loud, it send Anistasia flying who was grabbed mid-air by the the beast. Kate and Bigglespip rushed downstairs arming the cannons as they awaited Shmahab's command. They took aim - and so did the cultist, who had hijacked one of the cannons on the upper deck, and Peppers prepared himself too of course, whilst 'The Man' did his best to keep the ship upright - and fired away, shooting a flurry of harpoons, cannonballs and fireballs at the glorious beast! Success! Or at least... That's what they thought. The beast slammed his huge fin in the ship's side, destroying almost half of the gun deck! Luckily, two cannons remained safely and were quickly armed again to prepare for another attack. Another salvo was fired! And again the beast slammed his huge fin into the gun deck, creating a huge surf which dragged the captain and Kate into the sea! And along with them, the cultist's crate, enraging the cultist. The two desperately tried to keep their heads above the water... Well, actually only the captain tried since he only had one leg. Kate suppressed her fears and bravely swam up to the huge monster's head trying to stab the abomination's eye as multiple shots were fired again and again! The beast screeched in pain and would reveal his tentacles, who were previously below the surface and grabbed the captain, lifting him up and bringing him to its mouth! Again, Kate took all her courage and swam to the tentacle, attempting to chop it off. Lil' Moby opened its mouth revealing multiple rows of menacing, razor sharp teeth and brought the cap'n closer. Hopelessly they attempted to bring the beast down with one last strike... But their attempt was futile.

The monster closed its mouth again and gently pecked the captain on the cheek. Only now the captain saw it: Such grace and beauty. Lil' Moby, who turned out to be a she-kraken, opened her mouth once more and Shmahab willingly swam inside, only to find his friends to be very much alive. Later on Lil' Moby and Shmahab fell in love, married and had many children. And that my friends... Is how naga came to be. THE END. 

Gather round friends, gather round! For I have yet another story to tell! This time it's about the murder at my own family's mansion: The Mallister Manor. Oh, what a tragic event that was. But what is even worse is that we never really got to know who committed this vile act, or why... We got a few good theories, thanks to the great detective Boris... Errrr, I forgot what his name was, doesn't matter now... Now that I think of it, he didn't really contribute directly to these theories as he got crushed by a chandelier the moment he entered the mansion...

The 'denizens', as Boris referred to them, gathered 'round the shattered chandelier. Most seemed shocked, few remained indifferent, but to their great relief, the detective got up. He seemed alright, no harm seemed to be done and he was about to get to work as he got hit by another chandelier, in exactly the same spot. - What? How do you mean this is impossible?! I'm telling the story here AND it's a true one by the way! Silence! - Now the detective seemed less lucky, and the mansion's personal and visitors deemed him to be dead. Of course, one of the butlers, conventionally named 'George Butler' immediately went to get his cleaning products and a broom to clean up the bloody mess. The others, except a noble lady, looked slightly startled. But not all hope was lost as detective Boris, who still seemed alive, reached out for the leg of Donald Harrington, a friend of the family, and commanded him to take the responsibility over the investigation, which the man did. As well as almost everyone else.

The private investigators set out to find clues and, hopefully, eventually, the murderer. The noble lady however went to sit in the kitchen, ate dinner, scolded the maid a few times, took a nap, became a demon and left the manor. - To this day we still don't know actually what happened to her. Back to the story. - The others didn't seem to mind and continued their search. Their search was indeed a success and they found various clues like a receipt for a "chestripper's" cage, a knife, bloodstains on a wall, a wrecked rocking chair, a decapitated bust, a picture of a unicorn and many more... Enough reason to blame each other and appoint several suspects. Luckily, the maid, Florence Beneyt, came up with a solid theory: Lord Mallister IIX had struck a deal with Constance Noring, one of the people present, and sold her a picture of a mythical creature called "unicorn". To her great dismay, this picture turned out to be a scam. It was actually a picture of horse with an ice cream cone strapped to his head. This drove Constance mad and caused her to sneak up on Lord Mallister when he was rocking his favourite rocking chair and bashed him, and his rocking chair, in the head in the most brutal of ways with a hammer.
When she told this to 'detective' Boris he immediately commanded the investigators to tie Constance up and 'store her away' in the smallest room of the manor. His nonprofessional ways sowed doubt in the minds of the 'denizens' upon which he revealed to be an artist who used the stage name 'detective Boris'. 'Detective Boris' then crept from under the chandelier, swung his legs over his shoulders and ran off on his arms...

Once upon a time there was a knight called Lanceafew. He was so ugly, so poor and so overly male chauvinist that no woman would wed him. The knight started to despair and eventually fell into depression. But, just as he was about to drink himself to death, an old smelly hermit came up to him and told him about a magical artifact called ‘The Manual of Ladies’. Legends told that this artifact would bring all unwed woman under the control of its owner. Knight Lanceafew immediately set out to gather a company of so-called: Donald Harrington IV, a descendant of Donald Harrington I and presumably the titans themselves; Bigglespip, an adventurer and former crew member of the Hackling Harpoon;  Bubba, a dumb, muscular, oily draenei-like creature; Linnia, one of the first pandaren adventurers;  Daisy O’Brian, a brave warrior and light weilder.
After a long travel, they finally arrived at the mountain of the legend. The hermit led the way and they quickly met their first challenger. A small imp, known as ‘The Riddler’. He demanded that if they were to pass to had to solve his riddle or turn back and never return… The ‘heroes’ took up their arms but the imp quickly responded.

“Deem thou I shall not fickle and foul.
My curse upon thee I shall not bestow.
Knight seeking out an artifact rare.
If thee can solve my riddle fair.

Don’t raise thy sword, me thou shall not bribe.
Please tell me what creature I’m about to describe.

Ever too hot burns thy desire.
But thou shall be consumed by that fire.
Thine options areth either black or white.
But thee must know neither is right.”

After a few guesses, which were all wrong, the imp shook his head in disappointment and helped them a bit by explaining his riddle. Finally Bigglespip, a night elf out of one of my former stories, spoke up and guessed the answer right: A woman. Glad the group continued and walked on to their next challenge.

Three caskets were sitting by a tree, inscribed with a cryptic message. A golden casket which read: Who chooseth me shall gain what men desire. A silver one: Who so chooseth me shall gain as much as he deserves. And one bound in leather which read: Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath. Donald Harrington immediately went for the golden casket and attempted to take it, wanting its loot and its worth in sweet cash. But as the casket didn’t budge, the muscular Bubba went to help him.  Their efforts were in vain. Meanwhile, Daisy O’Brian and Bigglespip went to open the leather casket, finding nothing, but passing the second trial. The others, who opened the other caskets, got dragged into the void and were forced to face ‘The Guardian’. Luckily for them, the two humble, or fashionable, heroes joined them. After some meaningless hacking, shooting beams of light, feather poking and Linnia being grabbed, Bigglespip decided she had enough. She slammed her staff into the ground and all sound disappeared. Out of thin air, captain Shmahab’s ghost ship had appeared and the cannons onboard started to fire their ghastly ammunitions at the void creature. The ship faded as fast as it had come and the heroes were thrown back into reality. They were now ready to face the last challenge.

A succubus awaited them atop the mountain. They only has one more question they had to answer right: What do women require most? After several male chauvinist answers like cooking for their men and living in the kitchen forever, oily muscles and ‘these’ cannons, and something about love, the male responders fell madly in love with the succubus and compulsively entered the cave. Now it were the ladies’ turns. Daisy O’Brian answered wrong too, and forcefully entered the cave too, feeling the need to judge the men’s behavior. Bigglespip however, who had sought out the aid of the old hermit, telling her the answer, in exchange for having his first question to be responded to with ‘yes’, was able to give the right answer: ‘What women most desire is the upper hand in all things. Complete mastery over men.’ The succubus perished, a pedestal appeared inside the cave and the curse upon the people inside broke. Everyone seemed happy as they finally found the ‘Manual of Ladies’ except for Bigglespip: The hermit had asked her to marry him and she was forced to answer his question indeed with ‘yes’. He then demanded his fresh bride to kiss him and he turned into a frog, claiming the curse was finally broken. Finally, Sir Lord Knight Lanceafew commanded all unwed ladies to cook himself a meal and everyone was fat, ugly, poor and happy.