He wanted to win by a landslide.

His guild mates would help him gain the advantage.

After the happenings in the courtyard, rumors spread quickly about the duel and while this made the city hum with excitement, it was subtle.   Most of the people, not being able to afford regular tickets to the arena, only knew of Aknul and Tyrae.  Few in comparison to Stormwind’s large population had actually seen them fight.   Most of the citizen’s carried on with their daily lives.   Goldshire still received new troops to be trained for the war, the workers near Sentinel Hill continued to work on their inn.  

Aknul saw all of this and new that in the grand scheme of things, the duel would more than likely be a small event in his life.   Even though he was a human and would not live as long as his elven and dwarven brethren, he’d already accomplished much in his life and would do more.   Some days he wished that he could live forever, to see all the great tales that have yet to be told by the world unfold in front of him.   Thinking back, he decided that was probably the reason that he’d started in the Arena in the first place, though, only having one parent, that could hardly afford a chunk of Stormwind Bleu didn’t hurt either.

He waded through the crowd outside of the auction house and nodded to the guard outside the bar as he entered his guild makeshift headquarters.   Like most of the bars in Stormwind, if it wasn’t for the open door, the candles would be the only illuminating objects in site.  

Seated at their normal table was Caubble, the Dwarf warrior, and Vassikus, the Night Elf priest.   Both were veterans in the guild and had shared more than their fair share of blood while at Aknul’s side.  

“Ha.   You finally made it!” yelled Caubble who’d obviously hit the ale pretty hard already.

“What do you mean?” replied Aknul.   He motioned to the bartender to pour a drink.

“We heard that you’re gonna be in some big duel.   Gettin’ inta more trouble, huh?”

“He’s always in trouble,” said Vassikus who picked up Caubble’s ale and poured it onto the floor next to the table, much to the dismay of both Caubble and the bartender.

“I was drinkin’ that!” whimpered Caubble.   Ale was a horrible thing to waste.

“You were swimming in it, but about this duel,” Vassikus said turning to face Aknul.

“Yah know, for a place as big as this, word sure does travel fast.”   Aknul sat down next to Caubble and gave him a new pint of ale which he dove right into.   “Tyrae challenged me, we all knew it was coming eventually.”

“I suppose, but what I don’t understand is that you already beat him once, so why does this matter?”

“Yeah, I beat him, but because of our Searing Gorge expedition, I wasn’t here for the past season in the Arena.   This was apparently sufficient time for Tyrae’s head to grow two sizes too big.”

“And now he wants to prove that he can beat you again?”

“Yup, and outside of our normal arena.”

“I heard, Gurubashi’s tough.   Why would he choose it though, you practically grew up fighting in that grungy old place.   Why would he intentionally give you the home field advantage?”

“Couldn’t tell yah, bet either way, I want the advantage to grow even more.   What else can we do to tip the scale in my favor?”

Caubble slammed the newly drained pint on the table.   “Well, I may’ve heard ‘bout this new poison, if you’d be interested in such things.”

Aknul turned to face him, he was intrigued.   “What do you mean by rumor?”

“Well it’s kinda less of one of them rumors as it is something that I have written down on this paper.”

Aknul snatched the paper that Caubble had just pulled out of his pouch.   He looked it over and layed it on the table.   “I have all but two of these ingredients, the Corehound saliva, and this flower, the Winterspring Wild Rose.   I’ve never heard of it.   Vassikus?”

“It’s, as you can tell, a rose from Winterspring, very rare, but I might know someone who has one, I’ll send a message ahead to him.   It’s the Corehound saliva that I’m concerned about.”

“Psh, the last time we crossed paths with one-o’-them beasts, it wasn’t that bad,” said Caubble.

“Not that bad?!” retorted Vassikus, “You were out for a week while I healed you!”

“Like I said, not that bad!”

Vassikus wanted to punch that stupid glare of Caubble’s face, or, at least, he wanted it to look like that was his intention.

The three guild mates had been friends for a long time and they all knew how their group dynamic worked, and it worked well.

Vassikus’s face lit up.   “Come to think of it, that Corehound tore the hell out of Caubble’s leg and hardly even bit down.   If we’re going to have to go get saliva, we should try and get a tooth while we’re at it.”

Aknul caught on to the idea.   “Arturius could probably make a mean blade out of one of those babies.”

“Good plan guys, but this is a bit too much plannin’ if yah ask me.   It’s too late to go out and start completing our to-do list, so why don’t we just relax and make up for that spilled ale and then some?” said Caubble, still wearing a huge grin.

“Dwarf’s got a point,” said Aknul.   “To the poison and the dagger, may the duel end swiftly and the day be dark so I can hide.”   Aknul laughed with his friends as they knocked pints together in cheers.

The hunter, Tyrae had come out of the Stormwind Tournaments the victor and yet so many of the tongues in the castle’s courtyard whispered of another name.   His whole life he’d been training to win in the tournament, and when he did, he was merely brushed off as if he’d just one the livestock contest in Goldshire.  

Few were able to afford the cost of the arena in Stormwind, so the only way for him to finally get the respect he deserved was to publically humiliate this rogue, Aknul, that seemed to be on the peasant’s words.  

He’d already sent a messenger to tell the rogue to come to the courtyard at noon.   Waiting atop his newly received red drake, he finally saw Aknul enter the square.   He kicked into the sides of the drake and lifted up on the reigns to lift off and head straight for the courtyard.  

Aknul had received the message and knew exactly what Tyrae wanted.   He was just a spoiled Night Elf looking for his time to shine, but when he got it, it still wasn’t enough.   The note had mentioned something about a duel but knew that such things were not permitted outside of the arena.

He took his daggers anyway.

Aknul heard the scream of a red drake and looked up to find Tyrae diving almost straight down into the courtyard only to have his dragon land hard and leave large dents in the recently cut grass.  

Tyrae could hardly think straight after seeing Aknul enter.   His rage had passed the point of no return.   He called out, holding nothing back, “Aknul.   Long have you been riding the tongues of these peasants, but no more.   It’s time for a true champion to gain the respect that he deserves.”   He willed the drake to turn around and prepare to lift off.   “In two days, we’ll meet in the Gurubashi Arena and find out who’s really the best.”

Aknul stood and watched as the hunter took off and disappeared over the tops of the shops in Stormwind.   At least he knew now what was going on.    

I want to join the game biz but I tend to procrastinate actually working on anything by playing games and calling it "studying", but such scholarly endeavors can only go so far, so as of tonight, I'm 1,232 words into a short story loosely based on a story that a World of Warcraft friend of mine has told me numerous times.   
 
Instead of procrasturbating, I'm cracking my knuckles, pulling my chair in close to my computer and hoping that the words flow out of my fingers into a magnificent work of determination and creativity which is actually not original and will later be proofread by myself and more than likely revised all to hell.   
 
Here's to The Duel! 
 
-Ian James

I just finished playing Alan Wake the other day and had a blast.  The only problem was that while the fourth episode was amazing, in my opinion, I found myself wanting to listen to the rock song that's played without having to replay the section.   
 
I started looking into the soundtrack and did end up bidding for it on Ebay, I also found out that it didn't have this song on it.  After a "WTF?" moment that was apparently shared by other forum-frequenters, I remembered that I was on the internet and that where there's info, there's a way to get it.  
 
What I eventually found was a website, oldgodsofasgard.com.  This little guy not only has the song I was looking for, Children of the Elder God, but also features The Poet and the Muse, another song by the Old Gods of Asgard. 
 
If anyone reads this, I hope that you're an Alan Wake fan and that you enjoy the website. 
 
-Ian James