Dear Lord Ebonlocke,

I am writing to demand compensation for the romantic mini-break I foolishly booked in your grotesque little town. My wife and I have just returned from a weekend of pure hell in what you claimed was the most romantic place in all of Azeroth. I can assure you Sir, there was no romance in Duskwood (except for the occasional flirty glances Commander Althea threw my way when the wife wasn’t looking …but that’s besides the point).

My wife and I booked a room in the Scarlet Raven tavern after receiving your flyer through the door promising us peace, seclusion, a roaring log fire and a dinner of tasty crab cakes. Imagine then our horror when we first arrived at the inn. We were told that before we could even check in we needed to go out and collect the ingredients for our evening meal! And what ingredients – yes here comes the second bombshell – the crab cakes were made of spider legs! I have never come across such a thing in all my life. I mean horsemeat in Findus beef lasagnes yes – I’m a man of the world – I’ve heard of these things. But spider meat in crab cakes?! It beggars belief.

But out we went. And oh my poor wife – she had never held a weapon in all her life but off she ran with her dagger poised at the ready to try to take out the required number of spiders … and wolves too – beautiful Althea asked us to kill twelve of them – which I was only too happy to do for her of course. But then that bloody cook came along and took total advantage of us by demanding we also being back five wolf steaks for the evening meal. We don’t even eat red meat! (Mind you up until my weekend in Duskwood I didn’t eat spider legs either … now I can’t get enough of the little fellas, but anyway I digress….)

Yes my poor wife was out there with the dagger hacking away at whatever wolf or spider she could find. She was becoming infected by rabies and spider poison by the second. I could see it all from my position up a tree… I have arachnophobia you see, so unfortunately I couldn’t help out at all. She was in helluva state. As the poisons took their toll so her coordination became affected – in the end she was just lunging blindly in all directions. Thankfully I was there shouting words of encouragement from the tree (and telling her how many she had left to kill) and I think it spurred her on (although she got a bit carried away by the end and even put the dagger to my throat- don’t know what was going on there).

So finally she’s done it and we go back to the inn to hand everything over. By now, well you can imagine, I really want a hot bath and a lie down before supper (the wife is bawling her eyes out however and screaming she needs a doctor, but I put that down to time of the month and just offer her some chocolate….out comes the dagger again…bloody hormones). Anyway, we are then told there is more work for us to do before we can even see our room, more things to kill, more errands to run. By then I’ve had enough. “We’re not doing anymore,” I say firmly, “Come on Betty time to leave.” I think she understood me – but by now she was frothing at the mouth and blood was pouring from her eyeballs … she didn’t look her best I have to say and I was more than a little tempted by Althea when we walked by – but I’m a man who honours his marriage vows (unless it’s with someone who takes money for her services – that doesn’t count) and to the flight master we went to arrange our flight home.

So I’m sure you can understand why I’m seeking compensation. The holiday was far from what you advertised. If you do not reply favourably I will have no option but to take this further. The only bright spot of the whole weekend was running into that lovely chap Abercrombie. We did a few errands for him (well I did anyway – the wife was having seizures by this point) during a stop over at Raven Hill. Says a lot about your town that you’d leave a lovely old man to rot away in that shack – where’s your charity, where’s the town spirit? Anyway I left him practically dancing on the spot with all the things I’d managed to get hold of for him (odd requests but like most old people he was a little quirky in his ways– you’ve got to indulge the old dears and hope that they remember you in their will) and I left with a warm glow in my heart feeling that I’d done some good in that godforsaken town of yours, although you far from deserve it.

Anyway I await your reply and hope for your sake it includes a cheque with plenty of zeroes (and a number in front of the zeroes- don’t go playing silly buggers with me).

Yours expectantly

Mr G.R.Edie