Piddly, Grablen, and Alteren:

No one suspected on the cold December day that anything special or spectacular was happening.
A lone figure sat in front of his computer (which had only been built that summer), shivering from the cold; his Nazi older sister controlled the thermostat.
He had been ordered to make an Amazon.com wishlist by his Mom.
She had claimed that it would be easier as well as cheaper to do as much of her Christmas shopping from the website.
So there he sat, clicking though a random assortment of items, trying to find something that suited him.
"Hmm..." Muttered the shivering figure, called Will.
"I've heard that the Halo novels are pretty good. Ooh they have a boxed set."
And with a few clicks his list was nearly completed, save one item he had been debating placing on his list: World of Warcraft.
At this point in time, the house in which these events had unfurled was newly built, and was only one-hundred feet short of the nearest DSL line.
As a result, the family had bought the next best thing: A little-known spin-off of DirecTV, which was called DirecWay, (the Internet branch of the Direc-brand), which was essentially a satellite-fed Internet service. And unfortunately, it had been described by it's owners as "Slow as Hell", and was not very popular.
Will thought of this as he moused over the "add to list" button on the World of Warcraft order page.
"Well, even if the game is great, our crappy DirecWay will ruin any fun that's there." He thought.
Grudgingly, he clicked. Fully aware that he was most likely wasting a good Christmas present on something that would be nearly-unplayable.

Well, to make a long story short, the neighborhoods that had been built recently had extended the DSL line the one-hundred feet required by SBC.
The house received the new fast Internet the following week after discovering this.
Unfortunately, Amazon.com was gummed up that year with thousands of other orders, so World of Warcraft did not arrive in time for Christmas, but rather in January of 2005.

Piddly at a young age in Ironforge

Alteren in Raven Hill Cemetary ~Level 30

A few thousand miles away, in the little-known state of Ohio, one Greg was purchasing the very same game. He had been given some money for Christmas '04, which he used to buy the game. He sat behind the counter of the mini-mart at the local gas station (which was where he worked), thinking of what awaited him in the game. He figured that he would try out the free fifteen-day trial, after which he would most-likely cancel his subscription. Once he loaded up the game on one fateful day, he became addicted almost as if the game's creator Blizzard had found a way to lace their game with a sort of virtual drug, which was obviously dangerously addictive. Greg decided that he wanted to max out a character one day, but now came the time to choose what kind of character this would be. He tried very many combinations of race and class, one of which was Darimm, the Dwarvish Hunter, as well as an Undead Rogue called Clawlevis.

Both were completely enjoyable for Greg, but subconsciously he had already decided to play a Warrior, one which would go to the very ends of the World of Warcraft, and achieve everything that young Greg hoped for.
This living legend, this epic being, was none other than Alteren.

Will wasted no time in starting what became a long-lasting addiction to the game the moment it arrived at the door, just as Greg had done.
Eventually he convinced he more-than-skeptical cousin Garrett that the game was not, in fact only for greater geeks and lesser nerds, and eventually Will shared his account with his cousin.
Immediately Garrett became as addicted as Will himself had become. Now came the question of whether or not Garrett would purchase his own copy and play it on his own computer at home.
But William persisted, and eventually won over his cousin's worries about paying to play a game monthly.
Will went with his sister to the local Best Buy on Friday, the 11th of March, and bought a copy of the game using the money he had been given previously by his cousin.

Young Grablen in Dun Morogh

Piddly (right) and Grablen (left) in their 30s sporting Azure Silk Hoods

When Will arrived home from his piano lesson that day, he crossed the yard and went through the gate that led to the back-door of Garrett's house to give him his copy of World of Warcraft.
He entered the house to find Garrett eating lunch and thinking of names for his character, which he had previously decided would be a Dwarf-paladin.
Since his old character had been named "Omnigrab", he was trying to think of something similar. William suggested Snatchgrab, but that was quickly vetoed.
Eventually they came to the name of Grablen, which sounded vaguely like a name, and also had something to do with grabbing things.
William stayed to watch Garrett create Grablen, just to make sure the name had not already been taken, then dashed home to create his Gnome character, which would be named Piddly, because Will thought this would be a funny and fitting name for someone that's only three feet tall.

Meanwhile, Alteren was quickly climbing the ladder of success, toppling even the mighty Garrick Padfoot, who stood no chance against Alteren's swift blade and knack for cheating death.
Once he had reached level nine, little Alteren saw a message from one Stavros. This was a humble request for others to join the freshly-minted guild called "The Swords of War".
At this point in time Alteren was completely guildless, and thus had no place to hang his hat.
So he answered the call and joined the guild after a short chat with Stavros, the guild master.
Only after traveling to the dry fields of Westfall did Alteren notice that his new guild was already beginning to wither; it seemed that the only ones ever to play were himself and Stavros.
The now-level-twenty Alteren thought about this as he entered a place called the Deadmines.
After completely annihilating one Edwin "Eddie" Vancleef, Alteren looked around and noticed that he had now attained level twenty-two. After deciding to have another go at the mines, (just for kicks,) he grouped with a nameless person that offered to bring some others along with them.

Stavros in Ironforge, late 50s

The Deadmines group that started it all

So Grablen and Piddly took the world by storm, although in baby steps at first.
But once they reached level twenty or so, the only way they could progress through the game was through one of the most challenging dungeons they had ever faced. (Which of course were the Deadmines.)
On their third attempt at the dungeon they grouped with a few random people, one of whom was Alteren, a Human Warrior that was around their level. He had agreed to help them with this painful undertaking.
As it turned out, Alteren had the same deranged personality and off-color humor as the two cousins, and so they all quickly became friends.
Since the cousins had been having no luck with finding a guild that would keep them for more than a few days, Alteren asked them into his own guild, which was called "The Swords of War".
They accepted his invitation into this guild (after Alteren sent word to the Guild Master) and there they met yet another person as odd as themselves: Stavros.

As luck would have it, Stavros quickly became friends with them as well, and had already been friends with Alteren for some time, and as they later discovered, Alteren was one of the founding members of the Swords of War.
A good amount of time passed before anything bad happened to any of them. In fact, for a very long time the worst thing to happen to any of them was complete exhaustion, which meant they could not play more until they slept a bit.
But nothing lasts forever, not even the happiest of times.

Alteren began wandering around aimlessly around level fourty-eight, for he had quickly run out of things to do. So after taking a heavy sigh, and trudging off to do a quest that felt like it would never be done, Alteren bumped into a Dwarf-Priest the went by the name Doubledee.
Alteren enjoyed the company of this Dwarf, happy to have someone else to talk to besides the sometimes eccentric Grablen and the oddly-shaped Gnome, Piddly.
Dee and Alt got along famously while they murdered the monsters that were aimlessly roaming the countryside, apparently in search of their own demise.

One day, Stavros suggested to Piddly that they should try to restart the guild because most, if not all of the members (save Alteren, Piddly, Grablen and Stavros), were never played by anyone. Stavros wanted to start fresh. And so once all of them were online at one time, he did just that.
Gone was the frilly blue tabard with the red crossed swords; gone was the small family feel of the guild in question; and gone was the name "The Swords of War".
The new guild was called "From the Ashes", in honor of the Phoenix. (For when a Phoenix dies it is reborn from it's own ashes.)
So it was settled. The new guild now had new members to bolster it's ranks, and new faces to poke fun at.

Everything was perfect.

From the Ashes usual online presence

Piddly, lvl 40, riding Ozzy in Dun Morogh

But then one day Piddly was traveling on his blue Mechanostrider named Ozzy, (Graben was off smashing innocent rabbits) when he received a private message from Stavros. He seemed distracted, Piddly noticed, and told him that he planned on leaving the newly founded guild soon.
"Pick a new Guild Master, Piddly," He said.
"Then tell me who you've chosen, then once I promote them I'm outta here."
Eventually Grablen and Piddly decided that their good friend Alteren should receive the promotion, because that way neither of them would get a slightly-more-inflated ego.
So it was done; Alteren was promoted and Stavros left. (Piddly suspected that Stavros was in fact a small Chinese boy, sitting behind his father's computer, playing through a complicated and altogether amazing set of macros, but he never shared this with anyone.)
And everything once again was alright, but only alright.
Alteren struggled with his newly-inherited guild, and found that it was nearly impossible to inject new life into this dying creature.

As Alteren at last attained level sixty, he finally decided what should be done. He would merge From the Ashes with another, larger guild.
He had a few options to consider, but he remembered his experience with Doubledee and inquired to her about merging with her guild, "The Rebels".

Piddly logged in one night to find that Alteren was no longer in From the Ashes anymore, and had gone over to a much bigger guild, filled with strange people with strange ways and even stranger odors, while leaving his old companions in the dust!
"But why?!" Cried Piddly, feeling distraught.
But quickly Alteren filled him in on the facts.

Fact number one: Alteren had decided that they should merge guild with The Rebels.
Fact number two: Alteren did not like being the guild master.
Fact number three: One of these facts is not true.

But everything went smoothly, or as smoothly as it could.
Save one small person whom nobody else had payed any attention to, at least when they could slink away unnoticed.
This one person was none other than Evilsteve.
Evilsteve was a loud, obnoxious person who hailed from the great state of California (or so he claimed), where the sun is bright, and most of the people are not.
Evilsteve was the epitome of counter-knowledge, the height social retardation: Frankly, if he got any worse then he wouldn't know how to blink.
Every single person in From the Ashes had each attempted to do something nice for the lad; something that might help him change his erroneous ways; but alas, it was like trying to teach a dog the Rhumba. (Or was it the Tango...?)

Alteren, level 60, Ironforge

Angry Piddly

So at least one good thing came from this new merger: Nobody told Steve.
Eventually he came online about a month-and-a-half later, to find a now-58th level Piddly in a dungeon.
He asked Piddly why the guild had evaporated, and why it had gone away, and why the guild was no more. He asked where all the people had gone, where they were, and where he could find them.
Piddly told him as little as he could, in hopes of keeping Steve out of the new guild.
Steve told Piddly that recently (During this very conversation, in fact), his own guild had dropped him (for reasons unknown to anyone, save Piddly, or anyone else who had ever talked to Steve for that matter,) and if he could join Piddly's own guild.
He now realized that it was the time to speak. There would not, could not be anymore beating around the bush. He knew that it was time to tell Steve what he knew.
Very carefully he thought out his response, and typed it in so Steve could see...

[Piddly]: Hell no, Steve.

What followed was a barrage of F-words, S-H-Words, M-F-Words, and B-S-H-Words that will not be repeated here. (All of them uttered by Evilsteve himself, and none from Piddly.)
Slowly Piddly talked Steve into a corner, and very calmly told him that he simply was not welcome.
Steve spluttered for a moment, awestruck.
The he muttered something about making his own guild, just for outcasts like himself.

(Eventually it turned out that Evilsteve was a small Chinese boy playing on his Father's computer, though he was making his friend read and write everything, since he was just not that bright.)

But at the end of the day, when everything was said and done, Piddly, Alteren, and Grablen, had had a very good time with the game. Right now they are all max levels, and still enjoying themselves.

And there is the tale and Autobiography of the three.

Resting after slaughtering skeletons in Raven Hill Cemetary
From left to right:Grablen,Piddly - Back: Alteren