I found another bit of scribbling from the olden days of MMOing. This one is based on WoW and looks like it was written in 2012.

I have NO idea where I was going with this. Once again, unedited and unfiltered and un-good, here’s a story about Traellan who I guess was a paladin?

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Traellan never knew what hit him. One moment he was strolling along through the canal district, the next something darted from an alleyway and knocked him flat on his back. Instinct took over and he rolled to his feet, reaching for the power of the Light with his mind, and for a dagger with his hand. Turning to his assailant, he was startled to find it was a young boy, his eyes wide with terror. Seeing the armor, the boy flew to Traellan, grabbed his weaponless hand and started tugging at it, making a sound like “Muh muh muh…”

“Calm down, lad! What’s the problem?” Traellan didn’t let go of his power. Clearly this boy was frightened out of his wits. “Take a deep breath lad and tell me what’s wrong.”

The boy bobbed his head, and finally got his lungs full of air, then blurted “A MONSTER!”

“Monster? Where?” Trae hadn’t heard any alarm from the guards.

“It came from the canals….it was the canal monster I think!”

The canal monster. Traellan had heard tales of this beast. A huge crocolisk that inhabited the canals. Some said it was an escaped pet that had grown fat on the detritus thrown into the canals by the residents of Stormwind. Others tell a more sinister tale: that it was intentionally bred by the Forsaken to be large and vicious, and loosed in the canals to feed on innocent flesh. Harmless pet or feral beast? Trae couldn’t take any chances.

“Show me!” he barked at the boy, who nodded. He seemed to take some comfort in the hammer that Trae now held at the ready. On the way back to the place where he’d spotted the monster, he recovered a fishing pole, a pouch of various baubles and flies, and an empty bucket.

“Dropped these.” he said, blushing. “Was fishin when I saw it. Here’s the spot.”

The dock was quiet now, but indeed there was a wet trail leading from the canals and up the road in a direction opposite the one the boy had taken.

“Well it didn’t chase you, lad. That’s a good sign I guess. You better head home until we know what’s lurking about.” Trae said, patting the boy on his head and giving him a gentle push to get him moving.

Once he was satisfied the boy wasn’t going to follow him, Traellan started following the wet trail. The streets were deserted, either due to good fortune or panic, but he hadn’t heard much in the way of shouting, so he hoped it was the former. He frowned when he saw the trail lead into the Pig & Whistle, thinking of how much torment the creature might cause in a closed in area. No time for stealth! Traellan broke into a lumbering run, his hammer held two-fisted in front of him. He burst into the ‘Whistle, bellowing a war cry and…and there was Zyneth. In an instance Traellan took in her bedraggled state and the fact that she was wounded. She must’ve been fighting the creature in the canals!

He ran to her side, standing in front of her protectively in spite of the fact that he knew she could squash him like a bug if she wanted to. He scanned the Whistle, his eyes growing accustomed to the gloom. A few patrons, leaning on the bar, looked at him and rolled their eyes, then went back to their ale.

Confused, he turned back toward Zyneth. “Where is it!?” he demanded, battle rage filling him with adrenaline.

Traellan continued to spin back and forth, searching for the Canal Monster. Then Zyneth said something about the horde attacking Stormwind again.

“The Horde!? The Horde AND the Canal Monster both attacking at once! This cannot be a coincidence!”

But Zyneth, being wiser than he, revealed her cunning plan. She meant to turn the Horde into crocolisk food. In other words, her plan was to turn their two foes against each other. Brilliant!

He turned to face her. “How are we going to do this?”

For the first time he noticed the fishhook in her eyebrow. He winced in sympathy, then before Zyneth could react he reached out and gave it a tug, meaning to pull the shaft through the wound in the same way one would remove an arrow.

“Ouch!” The unexpected sting caught Zyneth off-guard, and she pushed Traellan away. It wasn’t a particularly hard push for Zyneth, but she was much stronger than Trae, and he stumbled backwards. One boot hit a bit of slimy canal kelp on the floor, and his foot slipped out from under him. He pinwheeled his arms trying to maintain his balance, which unfortunately meant he was pinwheeling his great hammer as well. Losing his battle with equilibrium, he fell backwards across a table. Each of its legs gave way in a different direction as the table collapsed, sending chairs skittering across the floor. The table top hit the floor, then Trae’s armored back hit the table top, shattering place settings and flattening forks.

At the same time, the heavy head of the hammer came down on the next table over. Two of its legs gave out, and the table tipped to one side. All the contents of the table slid off and on to Trae’s chest. This included several small bowls of spices and a rather large pottery jar filled with a tomato sauce that was a popular topping for the chopped coyote steak sandwiches that the Pig & Whistle was famous for. The jar cracked open, covering the front of Trae’s armor with the sauce.

Without pause Trae leapt back to his feet, then let go with a tremendous sneeze from the spices he’d inhaled. He whirled, looking for the horde, looking for the canal monster, but finding only a sea of surprised and angry faces turned towards him from the direction of the bar.

“Of course they’re angry! They have every right to be, having their day disturbed by both the horde and the canal monster.” he thought to himself. Heedless of the red rivulets of sauce running down his chest, he approached the bar, leaving yet another trail across the tavern floor.

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And that is where it just stops. If I remember correctly there is, or was, a giant crocodile MOB that spawned infrequently in the canals of Stormwind. Does anyone else remember that?