My Sweet New Ride

Beginning last night at L29, I had ambitions of reaching L30 before bedtime.

While Nowand and I did try to group up for some quests in Thousand Needles, that ultimately did not work out. However, I did meet some more guildies while questing in Ashenvale. It seemed that some of them were just a few ticks behind me while using the Tour Guide mod (the best thing for power leveling), because just as I would finish a quest they would wander into the same spot later. So, a few quests I did twice.....it's hard to say no to AIE family.

As my night wound down I found myself 2.5 bubbles from L30, and just picked up a quest in Sunrock Retreat to kill the Bloodfury Harpy Queen. Should I go to bed, or should I go cut off her head? The urge to complete my journey to L30 and pick up my new mount prevailed (/takes sip from 3rd cup of morning coffee).

So I set off to the Charred Vale to find her, but my concern was whether or not the quest turn-in would give me enough XP to make it to L30. I find her quickly, and she is surrounded by about 10 of her loyal subjects. This is going to take a while, I thought! But after studying her patrol route, I could see a weakness in her cover. I probed for the best angle on her, waiting for the right moment when she had the least amount of guards in proximity. Seizing my moment, I layed down a Freeze Trap and fired one arrow at the Queen. Perfect!....her screams only alerted one other guard and they both began their flight towards me and away from her group. Porkchop charged in and locked up the Queen quickly; and poof!....her guard got caught in my Freeze Trap, where it took a timeout to contemplate the rest of its short little life. Porkchop and I quickly finished off the Queen, and then dispatched the frozen guard.

After hacking off the Queen's head and shoving it in my backpack, I thought...that was too easy. And my XP bar still looked a little too far from the end, even considering the XP gain I would shortly get for the quest turn-in. So, I began my return to Sunrock Retreat, killing a few Fire Elementals and Basilisks along the way, hoping to rack up some more XP before the quest turn-in. But alas! .... here came one of my AIE shadows, strolling into the Charred Vale and looking for the Bloodfury Harpy Queen. Showing him the severed head in my pack, I escorted him to the best spot to wait for the queen to respawn. Soon enough she appeared amongst her guards, and she even had a new head ... go figure. So I helped this guildie kill her, but just before she died I pulled out the severed head and pointed it at her, yelling "In Your Face". She died with a very confused look on her new face......uh, of her new head (is anyone else confused).

Back at Sunrock Retreat, the quest turn-in pushed me to L30. You have to be quick on the shutter to snap this kind of picture....you only get one chance. See me glowing in Level 30 awesomeness (/roles eyes). L1-L30 in three weeks is good for me, considering my alliance Hunter is only L67 after 20 months of play. (click on any pic to enlarge)

Rubbing the growing sleepiness from my eyes, I took the final evening trip to Orgrimmar to purchase my sweet new ride (financed by Mohrn, my banker). I opted for the Timber Wolf variety because he came with an extra cup holder on the saddle.

~Final Notes
Reading from the WotLK notes, a pre-patch will come out soon. Some of the Hunter/Pet changes are supposed to take effect then, which will nerf the boar by completely removing the Charge ability he has. So I may put Porkchop out to pasture then .... I have a great spot picked out for him in the Redridge Mountains (/wipes tear from eye). You may see me soon running with a gorilla named Mugato (only those diehard Trek fans will get that one). While the gorilla had been a weak pet in the past, these coming changes will make him one of the powerhouses.

Asterien was MIA yesterday, but his eventual move in work schedule will have him power leveling past all of us when he has 5 days off in a row each week.

Nowand probably hit L30 as I wrote this, since he was L29 last night.

Mangolore has been having some extended summer fun (have you ever seen an Orc wearing a Hawaiian shirt?). We hope to see he and his totems back soon.

I have been networking within the New Members section of the AIE forum, and hope to soon get some more regulars added to our little group. Keep an eye out for these folks to join us:
Zeil (Rogue)
Hexpot (Warlock)
Rinion (Paladin)
Shadowfreez (Rogue)

Weekend Update - Level 29

Friday was a big evening for me, going from L26 to L28. Quest lines took me to the far north side of Ashenvale at Zoram'gar Outpost, and all over some deep caves of Thousand Needles. It felt strange seeing some of the old Night Elf Ashenvale stuff, but even stranger to have to kill some of them. Oh well, I dried the tear and moved on.

Back in Thousand Needles, I saw Gerp (the GM) running through one the cave passages I was questing in. I'm not sure what he was doing there....maybe farming rep or maybe ore. Anyway, he helped me kill a mob and afterwards Henry (his tiger pet) and Porkchop seemed to bond after sniffing each other.

Flipping back over to Runetotem, I tried to make some more progress on Bacchus....currently at L67. Man does that leveling go slow. Here is a shot of him flying back from the Isle of Quel'Danas after snooping around there. I don't know what this thing is, but I was worried about its airworthiness.....and I did not pack my parachute cloak. (click to enlarge any pic)

Back on Tyberiuss, Saturday saw some questing with Asterien. One of the quests invloved us killing a nasty hyena named Steele Snap. Of course, this guy comes with his own groupies, and Steele Snap did not give up his own rib bone willingly for the quest. So, we took it anyway. Ouch!

Sunday evening was filled with some questing with Nowand, where we took Steel Snap's rib again (he didn't learn his lesson the first time). Then, after stealing some eggs from those lion-bat looking things, I paused to take a wiz off this cliff. I think there was a Gnome down below.

After a dinner break and a 1.5 hour cable outage due to a local lightening strike, I got back on and dinged L29 on some final quest turn-ins.

The evening concluded with me sneaking past some L?? mobs to settle in at Camp Mojache in Feralas, grabbing flight point too.

Final Note - Hold onto your silk drops. At 150 First Aid, you can go to Brackenwall Village (just south of Ratchet) to train up and crank out some silk bandages. Also, Razorfen Kraul is still on our wish list..... so reply with your availability.

Taming My Final Boar

Hey guys,

I got on about 8:30pm last night. I saw nobody on-line, so I did a little begging in the guild to get an escort into Razorfen Kraul.

My objective was to get in there to tame my final boar pet. I like this one because of the cool looking armor that his parents have fitted him with. Doesn't he look tough? (click to enlarge pic)

My escort was a L70 Mage that was popping the mobs with Fire Balls and Arcane Explosion. About six pulls in we found a pit with a few of these boars in it. We jumped down there off a suspension bridge and the taming began.

I'm lovn him so far.

Well....this is my first stab at a blog. I still want to go into Razorfen Kraul with a regular group. Let me know your availability for this next adventure.