Scarlet Monastery

~The Armory
We adventured through the first three instances of Scarlet Monastery a few days ago, with great success. We got some good upgrades and had no wipes, and concluded with killing Herod the Scarlet Champion in the Armory.

Pictured here is my new Chesterfall Musket (Fluoxx is afraid of it) obtained as loot from the Monastery. Also seen in picture below is a shiny new enchant to my Armor Piercer that was obtained during the AIE craft fair last Saturday (9pm-12).

~Craft Fair
Speaking of the craft fair, I dropped skinning and decided to pick up the enchanting profession. During the huge craft fair there were lots of donated enchanting dusts, and I leveled from L1 to L255 in one evening. The mats are getting expensive at this point, so I'm going to sit on it for a while and slowly collect some mats at good deals in the auction house. I have an awesome list of enchants I can do for my buds at this point, so just ask. Also during the craft fair, there were donated ores that I smelted to get my mining skill up, then returned the bars to be used by the engineers and blacksmiths. The fair was a little hectic, but was a great experience overall.

~Runetotem
Bacchus is still trudging along towards L70. I upgraded his mele weapon to the standard hunter pick for that level, the Crystalforged War Axe.

While still adventuring in Shadowmoon Valley, I stumbled upon Uvuros, a monstrous core hound. My thoughts turned towards WotLK and how core hounds can be a tamed. Uvuros would look awesome as my next pet. Notice.....I'm standing really far away from him (on hill background), using my Eagle Eye ability to take the pic.

Before going to bed at the Inn, I could not help but take this creative picture. It kinda looks like a massive new Druid helmet, but its really a wall trophy on my head. Hey....its not a lamp shade. I'll blame it on the Dwarven Ale!

~Authenticators
Have you got yours yet? I just did, and it works great! Only $6.50...that's cheap protection.

Level 70 on Horizon

Tyberiuss spent the week resting and waiting for his buds to come back to WoW. He sits snug at an Inn somewhere in the Arathi Highlands.....still at L33.

But this downtime for Tyberiuss led to much adventuring for Bacchus.

~Naxxramas
There was a server wide invite for a raid on Naxxramas, which Bacchus signed up for. It was organized for people to see this old world dungeon before it gets transplanted to Northrend in the future expansion. He was attuned and all ready to go, but we did not get enough people to show. The signups indicated that we had plenty of players, but the storms and high winds from hurricane Ike were later blamed for why there where so many no-shows. We (6 of us) did decide to at least go in and look around Naxx, only to have our butts handed to us on the first mob pull. The hosting guild is trying to reschedule the raid.

~Dragon Hunting
Bacchus attended a Titans of Glory event of dragon slaying, where we took on the two dragons at the portal to The Emerald Dream. Pictured here are the dragons Rothos, and Taerar (a possible spawn form the nightmare dragons). We were not able to finish off the the boss dragon due to lack of healers. So Bacchus was honored to be turned into dragon poop.

~Elemental Line-Up
During an interesting quest series that involved capturing the essence of the four basic elemental food groups (water, earth, fire, air), the quest turn-in netted this nice lineup of their forms being put to rest.

~One step from L70
While questing in Shadowmoon Valley, an early quest turn-in yielded enough XP to reach L69. He had all kinds of L69 gear stashed away (some made by my leatherworking profession) to change into, making for some nice upgrades. L70 here I come.......short lived level cap, as WotLK now has an official 2008 release date. Bacchus has all his gold ready to straight for the Epic Flying Mount, thanks to his little auction house buddy, Midgetfist.

~Meet Midgetfist
This is Midgetfist's usual spot, standing on a barrel in the auction house, trolling for good deals.

Don't feel bad for him, because he does have hobbies.....he trades and collects Darkmoon Fair Cards. Pictured here is his collection, showing him snapping up most of them. Since the fair recently came to Goldshire, he put up 3 completed decks on the AH for tidy profits.

Cooking and Enchanting

Tyberiuss - taking it easy this week I finished at L33, while killing jungle cats and raptors in Stranglethorne Vale. I also took time out to visit Wulan in Shadowprey Village (Desolace), achieving Expert cooking through the purchase of his cookbook. Next for cooking, I can see Dirge Quikcleave at the Gadgetzan Inn of Tanaris for the Artisan cooking quests.

Mohrn, my banker, took a little time away from the AH and spent his efforts in leveling his Enchanting skill. He is now maxed out at 150 and can provide you fine folks with all kinds of very inexpensive enchants to your gear (see pic below for options). Mention this ad and get a 100% discount on all enchants if performed within the boundries of Undercity....he hates to travel (offer cannot be combined with the Cenarion X-Plan).

Nowand will be on a one-month break soon, beginning on Sept 16. We hope to all get some great play time with him before his break.

Vynaron (our semi-regular Priest) is still picking up the loose ends due to hurrican Gustav in his home of New Orleans. We hope all is well with him and family.

Mangolore is back in action. Doing some extended playing, he achieved L30 and obtained his wolf mount. Gratz!

Asterien has been involved lately with the details of his family's first home purchase, and getting moved in. Cable hookup and sore back willing....he should have his L30 Warrior back in action soon.

Ok folks....here are some dungeons we should have our eyes on for progression. Let me know what your availability is like.

The Scarlet Monastery:Graveyard (30-32)
The Scarlet Monastery:Library (33-35)
Razorfen Downs (34-37)
The Scarlet Monastery:Armory (35-37)
The Scarlet Monastery:Cathedral (36-40)

~Runetotem
Bacchus has been doing some heavy grinding. Saying goodbye to Nagrand, he got this great pic of Durn the Hungerer, a giant who patrols the area of the Oshu'gun Spirit Fields. He had to stay far ahead of this guy for fear of getting stomped into a mud hole. Even at that distance Durn's size is impressive! Bacchus later traveled into the new site of Shadowmoon Valley for his continued adventures and also hit L68.

~Big News
> In the upcoming patch before WotLK, leveling from L60 - L70 will get easier. There will be a 30% decrease in XP required for each level, and a 20% increase in XP for mobs kills. Woot!

> For any other Hunter readers, BRK (Big Red Kitty) has an awesome new podcast out now that gives great insites about our class changes coming for WotLK. Just look up BigRedKitty in the iTunes store to find his podcast.

Porkchop's Nightmare

Friday’s adventures took us into Razorfen Kraul, the ancestral home of the Quilboar.

The dungeon was not that difficult, with only one death occurring when a bad alignment within three mob groups ended with us fighting all of them, and Nowand dying.

Vynaron the Bloodelf Priest made a return visit (last seen him in Shadowfang Keep) to our group this day, and took care of the healing duties and revival of Nowand.

Guest spot was filled by AIE guildie Druid named Aquen, who took the off-tank duties.

Returning heavyweight, Asterien, plowed through the mobs as our main tank, and took home a nice new shield and sword in the loot drops. Rumors of him being seen later, grazing with Aquen have been flatly denied.

Nowand and Tyberiuss supplied the DPS, with both of us hitting L31 by evening’s end. Loot for me included a sweet Armor Piercer …now that is a stat stick!

An odd quest for some of us involved letting loose our caged gophers to go hunt down some blue tuber roots in the lower parts of the dungeon. However, the poor critters kept getting into trouble as they would wander into the Quilboar dens while sniffing out the roots.

The most memorable boss was Agathelos the Raging, a collosal armoured boar. He was kept in a short tunnel guarded by several quilboar who maintained a field to keep the monstrous creature penned in. This fight kinda freaked out Porkchop. I had rescued him from this dungeon a week ago, and now asked him to go back and fight his big daddy Agathelos. Porkchop is slowly getting back to his old self. Any care packages sent to him should include Goldenbark Apples, his favorite.

Agathelos the Raging

~Other Questing
A few days later, questing brought Asterien and I back to Thousand Needles, where one quest involved piloting this remote controlled robot into Alliance territory to retrieve a sample of water from their moonwell. Shown below is picture of Asterien next to the noisy contraption.

~Back in Runetotem
My wife got the urge to play, so off we went to finish some quests in the Redridge Mountains. She advanced two levels, finishing at L25. During a trip to Stonewatch Keep, she grouped with a former ToG Priest who now hangs with the Shady Grove guild.

Being a little spooked by the next area of Duskwood, Nahrcissa cuddled up with this bear rug before falling asleep …… restlessly dreaming about future fights with giant spiders and fiendish ghouls.