I woke up the same damn cellar. If you saw a sheep lying down in the middle of a floor in a cellar, wouldn't you at least make some attempt to move it, or at least find out why it was there in the first place?

I would have opened my eyes but based on today's previous activities I decided whatever was out there could wait a little bit. This obviously wasn't my day. If I looked around and found, say, a demon standing right in front of me, breathing heavily with spikes and bristles coming out of its flesh, I definitely would've lost it. But still, I had to take a look sometime, right? Might as well do it sooner than later, before someone decided mutton was on the menu.

A demon was standing right in front of me, breathing heavily with spikes and bristles coming out of its flesh.

Yeah, I lost it.

The next couple of minutes are still a blur, as I sprinted around the cellar, knocking over barrels and boxes and generally creating a gigantic mess. This was completely unnecessary, though. The demon didn't even freakin' flinch anyway; I just had to feel better. What I wouldn't have given for a cigarette and a club to the head at that moment.

I got tired after a while, I think. Walking was still pretty hard, so I was settled again for hopping. You all should know my "prancing" rule by now. Anyway, it only takes so long to get me pooped, and since the demon wasn't even moving at all, except for its breathing, I stopped.

Dark n' Spooky was on the floor. I musta knocked him over while I was throwing my hissy fit 'cause a big ol' keg was lying on top of him, and he just didn't look like a drinking man to me. I would've left him there, but he did talk to me before, and a guy with the ability to talk to sheep is either someone you pay close attention to or hang immediately, depending on whether your town hasn't hanged anyone out of spite in a while. Since hanging was off of my list of "Do's" for a while, I settled for pushing the keg off of him and, in a friendly manner, climbed on top of the overturned keg and jumped on his stomach. The Amazing Cottonball strikes again!

With a "hoof" he sat up and I was rebounded back to the floor. The demon at the other end of the cellar ran up beside him and snuggled into his arm like a sheep. I would like to take this time to mention that if I ever snuggled up against someone, it would be because I had recently been drenched in oil and set alight, and my dying gesture would be to make sure a tax collector shared the same fate.

Spooky McSpookerson in the corner there patted the demon on the head, and I actually got a chance to look at the thing without it being close enough to my face to resuscitate me mouth-to-mouth style. It kinda looked like a dog, except there was no way in hell I would let this thing live in my house. It had no eyes, which is wrong. It was spiky, which is wronger. It had black and red…fur?...covering it, with two enormous bone looking things coming out of its shoulder blades, which is the absolute wrongest. And Marshall Dugan was worried about murlocs. Anything with the ability to gouge out my eye just by flexing its' shoulders was number one on my fear-o-meter.

He looked at me, in all my puffy wonder, and said, politely, "Who are you?"

We know this dude talks to sheep. Why the hell not? "Lax. My name, I mean. Who the frick are you?"

He regarded me for a moment. I swear to God, if he didn't stop this mystical pausing at the end of every sentence one of us would leave the cellar with half an eyeball. Then I saw Fido and got my priorities straight in a hurry.

"I am Maur, the warlock" he motioned to the loveable wad of hell next to him. "This is my demon-pet, Fpshk."

Now, that's funny. There's not even a damn vowel in that word. Still, Fishk, or whatever, could probably eat me for breakfast, even when I wasn't a sheep, so I tried to stifle my laughter. If you try this, I do not suggest you try it while sheepinated. It does not sound right.

"Nice to meet you, Fhikish" I said with the clear clarity of a gargling frog being sat on by an Ogre. How pleasant. When Finnish didn't reply, or bark, or whatever, I said "He don't talk much, do he?"

"She. And no, not really."

I had almost had enough of this. If they were a couple, I was leaving him and Miss Unpronounceable for the rats to eat, providing I was tall enough to lock the door. Probably not, so I continued on anyway.

"How can you talk to me?" Seemed like a good question at the time, and anything that wasn't relationship based at the moment was good conversation.

"Remember that curse?" No, I completely forgot you freakin' tagged my butt with a demonic enchantment. "It's called 'Curse Of Tounges'. It makes you speak the Demonic language, and we're fluent in it. Well, I am. Fpshk can only speak it, nothing else."

"Okkaayy." We just kinda sat there. What do you talk to a sheep about? How's the weather? Eat any good grass lately? Bit the living crap out of Marshall Dugan in the past half hour?

"Sooo…" he said, starting to get up. "Why are you…intelligent? Any other animal I curse like that usually freaks out and talks in gibberish."

The dam broke. I told him the entire day, step by step, murloc by murloc, crazy marshall by crazy marshall. When I finished, I think he laughed for an entire twenty minutes until I walked up to him and slapped him across the face with one of my legs. There is something humbling in being slapped by a sheep, apparently, because he became his normal, brooding self again.

"Well I guess I could help you out" he said, and my day, for that one instant, was made. "Tomorrow, though." Damnit. "I'm waiting for a package here at the inn. I was going to get a room and the innkeeper told me to get some ale for myself, free of charge. I don't know why he did that." Because you scare the living crap out of anyone who's around you? Present company included? "Let's go ask the innkeeper for a room and tomorrow we'll head out for Stormwind, to the Mage's part of town."

We walked/hopped up the stairs and went up to the front desk. To present oneself to the innkeeper as a dark and spooky man with a demon from hell and a pissed off sheep is not the best way to make friends, and it took a while to persuade him to cough up the key. Unfortunately, what Maur had money-wise was the equivalent to the number of days I've woken up in a jail cell. Thirty-three copper was just under enough for one room.

"Is there some task we can do for you that would pay off the debt?" Maur asked. I, personally, would have threatened him with Fihsky, but then again, I was just a follower for the moment, and Shoulder Blades of Doom was not someone to cross. I then realized the immense irony in all of this, when I remembered my satchel on my belt had contained more than enough for five rooms, and was currently sheepified somewhere to my anatomy, like my armor and sword. If I cut myself and money started pouring out, I would simultaneously bleed to death and greed to death, and neither of those would help us out at the moment.

"Sure" he said, eyeing me. I got scared. "For two sacks of wool."

HELL no.