I pulled in as deep a breath as my gag allowed and began relaxing my body. I used a little trick I'd learned in college. I imagined that a friendly squad of squid were massaging every muscle on the bottoms of my feet; the tension began to drain.

[…] if I had foretold these things as they were to occur, I wonder if the pause before the storm would have been less awful, and our ride campward less sedate.

In the mean time, however, he himself (understand; the young Nobilis) had seen that a fine smoke issued from the nostrils of the steed, and as he stooped down, he had immediately pulled forth a lunt, almost of a finger's length, the which was yet burning, and which a knave had privily poked into his nostrils with a needle.

Since the patch I have been randomly DCing and it's at times completely game-breaking. For example,just now my Paladin was questing in Thou Needles, and I DC'd several times within a few minutes.