May 7th
Dear Journal,
Remember that fellow that I wrote about before. You know the drunk Pandaren that was sleeping next to me in the bed at the Inn? Well, he must have been given the keys to the room or something because he has been my nightly bedmate ever since I got here.
Seems like he is in the same boat as I am. Yes, I finally built up enough nerve to talk to him. His name is Peiling Windsong and as he put it, he’s a stranger in a very strange land. I guess he was one of the more adventurous types of Pandaren and decided that he wanted to see more of the world than just the area he was from. So, he’s pretty much alone here in Stormwind as much as I am.
Funny fellow. Oh, we’ve decided to form kind of a partnership of sorts because we are both hunters and we both are planning on making a living with our bows. He’s damn good shot with a bow and we won’t even mention that he knows how to cook better than I do. Some of the stuff is amazing and the amount of food that fellow can consume sometimes makes me wonder what it must be like to have a whole group of these furries descend upon a town in a feeding frenzy.
He’s told me about the place he comes from and to be honest, I don’t think that I would have ever left. It sounds like heaven on Azeroth. Plenty of food, water and lots of farmlands. Now, I’m not really a farmer at heart, however, it is a great way to make a living and put down roots. I don’t think that I am that much of an adventurer like he is, I’m just a fellow trying to make a living the best way he can. He told me that the vegetables are as big as some of the farm-carts that we have here in Stormwind. Can you imagine a turnip almost as big as a house? I can’t. He also told me that the vegetables that we have here in the Eastern Kingdoms would have been fed to the hogs where he came from because they are too small to make up a good meal.
We actually went back to one of the companies that I had talked with before and they had some contracts for us to fill. Nothing real major because neither one of us has the coin to buy a decent mount yet. We couldn’t even afford a goat cart at this point. So, we took a few minutes to haggle with the manager of the company about the amount of stuff they wanted and how much they were willing to pay and came up with a decent price that was satisfactory for all parties concerned.
I guess the Inn in Old Town had a hankering to make up a bunch of that Westfall stew and that was one of the contracts that we got. Shouldn’t be that much trouble to trot down the road there and gather up the ingredients for them and shouldn’t take long – or so we thought.
Peiling spent a lot of time just looking around and then he’d look at me and ask me what happened in Westfall. Why had the land died? I guess he had never heard of the Shattering where he came from, so, I told him about the big dragon and how he was a sentient being that went insane and tried to destroy the world, or at least a good part of it. He didn’t seem to be all that shocked at the idea of a dragon doing something like this, he just kind of nodded his head and looked around some more.
The deeper that we got into the area gathering up the items that we needed, the more Peiling looked worried. I asked him if he was okay and he said he was fine, although he needed to meditate for a while on what he had seen.
Okay, this meditating thing is kind of weird. I guess the Pandaren see things that bother them and they do this heavy thinking and it makes it okay in their minds. Well, if that works for them that’s fine, however, I think it’s just a way to take a quick nap, if you ask me.
We had been kicking around in Westfall which looked just as bad as it did when I left or even worse. We had killed quite a few boars to get the meat that was required and the skinning wasn’t so bad. He’s definitely a good hand at skinning. I know that I was getting tired and thirsty from all of the work, so, we took a break down by the river.
That’s when Peiling announced that he needed to meditate for a while. Okay, he’s a big fellow and I am sure that the pace that we had been running all day was enough to tucker him out a bit too. A guy that big with all of that fur must get awful hot out here in the blazing sun This dustbowl where there isn’t all that much shade to be had without having to fight something for it. So, we headed down to the river where I knew there was some shade and a good place for us to set up a temporary camp.
We only have one tent between us and it would be fine for a couple of humans to fit in there, however, there was no way that Peiling and I were both going to fit in the damned thing. I thought that with him being a stranger in the country and all, I’d go ahead and let him have the tent since it seemed to be most hospitable thing that I could do at the moment. He told me “no” that I should use the tent and that he would be comfortable enough to sleep under the stars near the fire. That was fine with me, I think I had seen enough of the stars after living down here most of my life.
Well, Peiling was doing his meditation thing, I decided to go fishing for a while. I had a real yearning for some fresh fish. No, I didn’t want to make up a small batch of the Westfall stew because it wasn’t that much of a novelty for me. So, I fished, he meditated – I think he was really just sitting there sleeping as far as I could tell. I had fun just fishing and was able to get quite a few fish, I knew that in order to feed myself a decent meal how many fish I could eat, however, looking at Peiling, I decided that I had better double what I’d normally catch.
Peiling had some of that rice stuff that he had brought from his homeland with him and we added that to some water in pot and had that boiling away while I cleaned the fish. We were sitting there talking and he told me more about his homeland.
I guess he lived in a large farming community in the middle of the country and he was telling about how much it would rain there. Oh, what wouldn’t I have given for some of that rain when I was living here in Westfall? I had seen so many of the crops planted and they tended just dry up and die due to the lack of water. He also told me about the mountains near his home where these strange monkey people lived that would come down and steal their crops now and again.
He makes his country sound so beautiful and wonderful that it makes a fellow wonder why he left there. He told me that he had a yearning to see the other lands where the other people came from and he wanted to learn the ways of those people. He was just as curious about all the different races as we are about his people, I suppose.
He told me about how his country had been hidden in the mists for many centuries and that’s how they were isolated from the rest of Azeroth. I guess the sailors from here didn’t think it was such a hot idea to go into this giant fog bank, not with the monsters of the deep that might be lingering there. He was trying to explain to me about the traditions and beliefs that they held dear and it was mind boggling to me.
I go to church, pray to the Light and have faith that the Light will protect me, however, it really doesn’t stay in my mind all of the time – seems like the Pandaren do pretty much the same except that they have that feeling all of the time. They meditate on things and try to bring “peace and harmony” to their inner being.
How does one bring peace to your inner being? Well, the only way I’ve ever brought peace to my inner being is to drink myself into oblivion and pass out. That’s about as peaceful as it gets. He tells me that my people are driven by different things than his people in order to live. Well, yeah, it’s called survival – you work your butt off and you get money sometimes to get the things that you need. I guess we will have to discuss some more of this stuff for me to understand what all he has been telling me. He told me that I should go with him to talk to some of the monks that are living in Stormwind so that I could better understand what he was trying to explain to me.
All in all, I like the fellow, even with all of his strangeness and having him along with me while I’m out working is a whole lot better than running around alone. I had to laugh at him though, we were talking about the fact that we could go further afield once we get mounts and he wants to get a turtle from his homeland. A turtle? Well, I hope his turtle can keep up with whatever kind of horse that I can afford.
I guess we’ll be heading back to Stormwind later tomorrow and if we play our cards right, we should get there before nightfall, providing we don’t have to stop to “meditate” some more.
Jake
