I gave up after the second attack, crouching down amid some weeds and hoping he'd just go away. But the little bugger soon spotted me. Instead of zapping me with a fireball, though, he just circumnavigated my brambles, hopped up and down a couple of times, then "/waved" to me using World of Warcraft's system of emotes.
While it wasn't the first time I'd been waved to by an Alliance character, whenever it happens, the gesture is significant. WoW characters can speak and understand only the languages of their factions. Alliance chat reaches Horde eyes as a jumble of seemingly random letters, and vice versa. The one mode of communication that both factions share is the emote system Blizzard has built into World of Warcraft. By targeting a character like Kamber, the gnome Warlock, and typing "/wave" on the chat line, I can create an "emote" that appears as "Arc waves to Kamber" in the chat window of both factions. Similarly, I can "/cheer" someone, I can "/thank" them and I can even "/spit" on them, as well as a host of other actions.
In this case, I just "/waved" back, but didn't move - until Kamber let loose his next emote, which resulted in, "Kamber motions Arc to follow him."
In fact, it took a couple of similar motions and a couple of "/nods" from Kamber before I was willing to move. Finally, though, I took a chance. Even if he leads us straight to his powerful buddies, I figured, we'll at least have moved a bit farther down the road.
We met up with the aspiring undead Warlock, DethKnight, and his young Sidekick, and a short "conversation" ensued as Kamber attempted to win the two lower-level players over to his plan. It went something like this:
Kamber motions DethKnight to follow him.
DethKnight laughs at Kamber.
Arc shrugs at Kamber.
Kamber nods.
DethKnight waves at Kamber.
Kamber questions Arc.
Arc shrugs at Kamber.
Sidekick pees on Kamber.
Kamber frowns at Sidekick.
Kamber motions Arc to follow him.
Arc nods at Kamber.
And then we were off. For the next 30 minutes, the four of us made our way through Arathi together, whacking the occasional raptor and generally hopping up and down along the road to the Wetlands. I couldn't resist /cheering for Kamber along the way, /saluting him and occasionally /bowing to him, despite the fact that his faction-mates around Tarren Mill repeatedly tried to kill my fellow Hordelings and me whenever they got the chance. Within the context of the game's lore, Kamber was my sworn enemy. But what was going on at that moment was more than the game, it was a few people deciding the game's fiction wasn't sufficient, and exploring a different way to work together in the world.
When we finally reached the Wetlands, Kamber spoke to an NPC, who turned out to be the same one we needed to kill for DethKnight's quest. When Kamber was done, we offed the poor guy - whereupon I felt it only polite to /apologize to Kamber.
