World of Warcraft®

Part 1

Calejo watched Glippin with a growing sense of unease. The gnome was scampering around assembling and disassembling parts with apparent randomness. The assembling was gradually outpacing the disassembling and a strange machine was slowly beginning to take shape. It was an all steel affair with a dangerous amount of rotating parts tucked underneath a mesh platform that one was, apparently, suppose to stand upon.
"Glippin, what is this thing again?"

Glippin shot her a stern look. "I told you, this is my answer to the problem of Winter Veil!"
Calejo shifted uncomfortably, the sword at her side swung lightly in its scabbard.
"And just what is wrong with Winter Veil?"

"Goblins dressed in costume, of course!" exclaimed Glippin. He let lose a "Humph!" and returned to tightening an oversized bolt on the rickety platform of his machine.
"Of course," answered Calejo without any conviction.

"Why are you bothering me anyway?" asked Glippin. "Should you be out doing Paladiny stuff?"

"I am doing Paladiny stuff. Gentyl asked me to keep an eye on you."

"Aww, is she worried about me?" Glippin chuckled. "It's very touching. But she needs to know I'm just not a one woman gnome."

"You're not an any woman gnome," snapped Calejo. "And keeping you safe is only my secondary objective."

"Secondary? Whatever could be your primary mission? What's more important than keeping me safe?"

"Keeping the world safe from you, of course"

Glippin feigned shock. "Safe from me? I'm the world's bestest protector!"

Calejo croseed her arms and looked down at Glippin sternly. "You've been put on trial at least three times for setting fire to Stormwind, bombing Stormwind, and... didn't the last one involve an avalanche of giant cheese wheels?"

"That wasn't me!" insisted Glippin. "That was the Mozzarella Mafia!"

"Right," said Calejo with a doubtful tone.

"And the other incidents weren't my fault either. I was totally acquitted in those trials."

"By reason of insanity."

"Hey, I didn't know my lawyer was going to cop a plea!" shouted Glippin angrily.

"You represented yourself!" Calejo shouted back.

"Oh, yeah." said Glippin ruefully. He turned back to tightening the oversized bolt. "It won't matter anyway. Everyone will forget all about that stuff once I succeed in giving them a Winter Veil without a bunch of costumed goblins running around."

Calejo rubbed her face with her hand and shut her eyes. If only she had studied more. She could have risen up the ranks. Perhaps she would have been in hand to hand combat with an orc right now. Orcs were nasty, but very upfront about wanting to kill you. You always knew where you stood with an orc. Calejo sighed, dropped her hands to her sides, and asked, "So how is this machine you are building going to save us from costumed goblins?"

"I'm glad you asked!" chirped Glippin with glee.

Calejo suspected she would soon wish that she had not asked.

"This machine turns people into goblins, but without the costumes!"

Calejo looked puzzled. "That's... great?"

Glippin rolled his eyes. Clearly it was the fate of all geniuses to have lesser minds not understand their work. "Just help me out with the test run," he grumbled irritably. "When I'm standing on the platform, yank the main control level."

Calejo shook her head and held up her hands. "Oh, no! I'm not helping you blow yourself up. Actually, I probably should be stopping you from turning this... contraption on."

Glippin didn't like where Calejo's line of thought was taking her. She was heading down the path from unwilling witness to active interferer. It was time to act! He yanked on the control lever and then jumped on the machine's platform.

Nothing happened.

Glippin frowned.

The machine exploded.

Part 2

There was a great deal of smoke and noise. Calejo coughed and then ran into the burning debris hoping to save Glippin. Through the smoke she saw an outstretched hand. She grabbed it and dragged its owner clear of burning machine.

As they moved out of the smoke, Calejo noticed that the arm was green. She was holding onto a goblin. The goblin had an ugly little face, but sported facial hair that matched Glippin's beard.

"Well, I don't know if the exploding part was suppose to happen, but your machine did turn you into a goblin. And you don't appear to be wearing a Winter Veil costume, so I must admit your machine is... or was... a success. "

The goblin grinned and nodded. He brushed himself off. And then said something to Calejo in Orcish.

Calejo's eyebrows furrowed. "I don't recall the Winter Veil machine's changing someone's language... Did you add that into your design, Glippin?"

The goblin shook his head, said something else in orcish, and then ran in a circle panicking.
"Calm down, calm down!" ordered Calejo. "We'll just have to wait till the effect wears off and then you will be fine."

The goblin nodded and the two sat down to wait.

Time passed.

The sun set.

Finally, Calejo voiced what they both knew.

"It's not wearing off."

This set off a new round of panic from Glippin the goblin. He ran in circles, waving his arms over his head, and screeching in a mixture of what Calejo thought was goblin and orcish, but speaking nether language, she couldn't make sense of any of it. The screeching hit a pitch that caused her to cover her ears.

Glippin suddenly darted off towards the woods. Calejo ran after him, but as she tromped through the underbrush, the little goblin was soon out of sight.

She yelled "Glippin come back!" but there was no response.

Sighing she pulled out a piece of paper. On it was written two items. The first read, "Primary objective - keep the world safe." Next to this she wrote, "Success." The second item read, "Secondary objective - Keep Glippin safe." Next to this she wrote, "Failure."

Sadly, several months later an enormous dragon would cross the world and force Calejo to scratch off the success.

Gentyl left the kitchen and went back to her office to finish cleaning up the chicken feathers and raisins. The problem with sweeping up chicken feathers when you're aggravated is they just ten to fly around more. After several minutes of swinging the broom around like a sword at a well-deserving practice dummy, she slowed down and carefully pushed the feathers and raisins into a pile. She had just finished gathering the last of them when Calejo walked in.

"Sepha. It's good to see you." The young paladin looked at the basket full of feathers. "Are you starting a new craft?" The tone was almost hopeful.

"Eh? Oh, no. I'm still an engineer. Apparently Surabar, Savengriff and Twobits were involved in a chicken pillow fighting business while I was gone. My office seemed to be the idea location." She looked at Calejo. "You didn't know about this?"

Calejo chewed on her lower lip. "No, ma'am. I was keeping the world safe and watching Glippin like you instructed. It's kept me rather busy."

Gentyl dropped the last of the feathers in the basket and sat down at her desk. Finally, something was going right. Well, sort of right. that damnable dragon had definitely raised havoc with the safe world concept. "Sit down. I understand Glippin probably kept you busy. I don't really understand how such tiny people can create so much chaos."

"Yes, ma'am." She fidgeted in her chair. "Speaking of chaos...."

Gentyl ground her teeth and then stopped when she thought about Imperon. "What did Glippin do?"

"He had good intentions."

"They always do. The roads to the the nethers are paved with good intentions and gnomish contraptions."

Calejo brightened a bit. "Exactly!"

"So what did he do?"

"He was going to save everyone from the goblins dressed up in Winter Veil costumes."

"Why did everyone need saving?"

"That's what I asked him. He felt it was important so he built a machine."

Another machine. Glippin and his machines never turned out well. "And what did this machine do?"

"Well," Calejo hesitated. "It actually turned him into a goblin."

Gentyl waved her hand. "That's nothing to be concerned with. Those disguises never last."

"Actually, in this case, it did. Glippin's a goblin."

"I'm positive I saw him when I rode into town."

"No, he's a goblin."

"Is it possible it split him and he's a goblin and there's still a gnome?"

Calejo looked doubtful. "I suppose anything's possible. He's a, was a gnome, after all."

"Indeed. Anything was possible with gnomes. Abon turned herself into a gnome and could never change herself back. Iecia had a sister named Lecia. I always thought they were mirror images of the same person." Gentyl leaned back in her chair. "Well, nothing to be done for it. We'll just have to see what happens."

Minwin had watched the gnomes get turned into a goblin from her stealthed vantage point. She was patient. She could wait for them to depart. Besides, this gave her time to make sure the contraption worked. It didn't look like the goblin was turning back into a gnome.

She slunk away until she was far enough that no one see her. She reappeared, mounted up & ran to Northrend where Winterkiss was studying. She knew a way to turn Wilberriez back into a goblin.

Winter drug Wilberriez by the hand to the machine Min had described to her. This was proving rather difficult because he was digging his feet in the dirt rather firmly.

"Come along Wilberriez. This will make you a goblin again. Min promised it worked."

"No way, no how. I have unstable molepules after the LAST machine. Stupid transporter." Wilberriez morphed from a bloodelf into a troll. Winter gestured & her water elemental Walter moved up to help push Wilberriez closer to the machine Glippin had built. "I don't want to get turned int nothin else." Wilberiez wailed. "I'm good Wintersmooch. Reeeeeeaaaaaaally."

Winter gritted her teeth & cast feather on the rapidly changing Wilberriez. Now he was an orc. That didn't last long. He morphed into a tauen. Winter & Walter pushed the struggling tauren into the machine & Winter gestured again to move the lever. She barely got her hands out of the machine in time afte shoving Wilberriez back into it as he was changing again. He'd almost escaped.

There was a lot of blowing snow & fog as well as a bright light. Winter stepped back & bumped into Walter. The water elemental moved closer. "You would like that. It's snow." Winter muttered. Walter tried to look dignified. Then he played in the snow a little. Winter studied the platform & bit her lip. "I hope this works...."

At last the light dimmed & the air cleared. A tiny green body lay on the platform. Winter carefully checked Wilberriez's pulse. He was still alive & he was a goblin again. Glippin's device certainly had worked. "Wha?" Wilberriez started to come around. Winter drew out her mirror & showed Wilberriez his reflection. "Ah'm a goblin again!" Wilberriez crowed. He looked again. "An Ah'm GREEN! I'm not purple no more!" He got up and danced around. "I'm green I'm greeeeen. Ain't no going back. Greeeeeen." He ran back to the mirror & gave it a big kiss. Winter just shook her head & smiled.

"We need to get out of here Wilberriez. Who knows when other people are going to show up & I have some important studies in Dalaran that I have to get back to. Let's go take you by Da Doctas clinic though, just to be safe. We should get you checked up."