It was a quiet Tuesday night. The whole realm of Silvermoon had seemed to pause and hold their breaths when we thought the patch would be released - but wasn't. Happy and Lost both noticed that Auction House buying dwindled and stocks of materials available hit very low levels. No buying and no selling, either. Now that everyone is certain of at least one more week of business as usual, we'll see if things pick up again.
The sign ups for the ICC10 and ICC25 raids are also lower than usual, and Wild isn't sure how he feels about that. Wild didn't sign up until Wednesday morning, but did end up signing up for both raids. It's hard to get motivated for the ICC10 raid, though, when it's apparent that we are simply farming the bosses we know how to kill, and not much else. There is some hope of progression with the ICC25 raid, but we still have a long way to go, and after having to cancel last Saturday's raid, I don't know if there are enough committed raiders in the two guilds to keep it alive. The real danger to the ICC25 co-op raid is the patch. Raiders will have to choose between ICC25 and ICC10 as we will no longer be able to raid both, and that will be the death knell for our co-op. There are moments when Wild wishes he'd stayed in FS - then again, FS leadership didn't really care if Wild stayed or not, and Wild wouldn't be raiding at all now if I'd stayed. Ok, so it's a grey, overcast early Wednesday morning and it's raining in Southern California. I need sunshine.
Chaitee and Javajoo brought a little bit of sunshine. Java cleaned up a few quests in Auberdine and Ashenvale to DING to level 27. He was now mature enough to wear his first helmet, [Tusken Helm], earned from the RFK runs, and wield [Corpsemaker], his new huge two-handed axe. Lost agreed to cough up the 90g required to buy the Crusader enchant for the axe, a bargain considering that the same enchant costs around 140g on the horde side. Hmm, might be some neutral AH business there. Philly and another certain party crafted leggings and a necklace for Java as well.
Dressed for Success
Java has been so busy of late that he had no rested xp left and needed a couple of days off. Chaitee, eager to take her new bow out for some fun, jumped at the chance for some action. Auberdine was her destination and the surrounding zone of Darkshore was her choice of hunting grounds. Java had just recently completed most of the quests in that area and gave Chaitee a thorough report. Java warned Chaitee, though, that Java was in his mid-level 20s doing those quests while Chaitee is still in her mid-teens. Be careful.
Armed with Java's advice, Chaitee caught the boat from Exodar to Auberdine, collected an armful of quests, and headed south along the beach. Despite the name, it was sunny on the beaches of Darkshore. Chaitee's flightless combat bird, Stretch, scampered along the sand, poking at the many crabs and seemingly without a care in the world. Chaitee was after the remains of sea creatures and turtles that had washed up along the shore. When she found her first one, it was guarded by several murlocs. Chaitee commanded Stretch to action, and the frolicking bird immediately came to full alert. That first murloc never knew what hit it when Stretch lit into the creature. Chaitee and Stretch had no trouble killing the murlocs. Further along the beach Chaitee started to see crabs that were a part of another quest Chaitee had. The level 15 crabs were a bit tougher than the murlocs, but with Stretch using his beak to break open the shell and Chaitee's fine bow sending arrows singing into it's flesh, the crab (and several others) fell to the hunting pair.
Just a little further south Chaitee was delighted to find the shoreline village of murlocs that was home to their leader, Murkblood, another quest. Chaitee had been cautioned by Java that Murkblood might not be around when she first approached the village. Java had killed several of the murlocs before Murkblood and several more of his minions splashed out of the waves, raced to the village and attacked him. It would not be a one-on-one fight.
Chaitee was standing atop a small dune looking down into the village. She counted ten murlocs, some of them packed closely together. In the midst of that tight group was Murkblood. Chaitee wasn't about to send Stretch into that mass of enemies, but she did think she could pick a few off along the edges of the village with her bow. Telling Stretch to stay put, Chaitee sent her first arrow into a level 15 murloc well away from the rest. It came bounding up the dune after Chaitee and when it got close enough Chaitee turned Stretch loose on it. Easy kill.
Chaitee selected her second target, told Stretch to wait, and let fly with her bow. The target started bounding Chaitee's way, and a split second later the whole group in the center came running with it, including Murkblood. Uh oh.
Chaitee turned Stretch loose on the closest murloc, got off another shot and backpeddled to get some more distance to lay in a few more bow shots. Chaitee looked for her traps. Oh yea, she's doesn't have traps yet. One murloc went down. She looked for her Feign Death spell. Oh yea, she doesn't have that spell yet, either. Two murlocs down. And then they were on top of Chaitee.
Now in melee range, she couldn't use her bow. Chaitee hammered away with her axe, using all two melee attack spells she owned, and was astonished that no more murlocs seemed to be dying, or even getting hit! Her own health was dropping fast. She cast her Draenei racial heal, cast a Mend Pet on Stretch who was in dire trouble, and hammered away some more. Miss after miss. What was going on?! Chaitee drank a health potion, and was out of ideas. Stretch died. So did Chaitee.
In the aftermath of that debacle Chaitee learned two things. One, that her main target, Murkblood, was not a level 15/16 like the other murlocs. Murkblood was level 19, three levels higher than Chaitee. That alone would have caused a few misses. Chaitee would likely have taken her chances against Murkblood anyway, figuring she could overcome that. Lesson two, though, is what sealed her fate. Lesson two is to always check your gear. The two handed axe Chaitee was wielding was relatively new. She had previously been using a two-handed sword and had had to see a weapons master to train to use the two-handed axe. She'd even spent some time questing with the axe strapped across her back, ready for use. But you know what, when you're a hunter with a bow and a combat pet, you rarely get within melee range of a target. Chaitee had trained to use a two-handed axe - but she never practiced with it. When she started trying to hit Murkblood with that axe, her skill level with that axe was ONE. She might as well have been hitting Murkblood with her bare fists for all the good that axe was doing.
Chaitee decided that she'd let Murkblood live for another day. She recovered her corpse and stomped back up the beach, heading north and back to Auberdine. On the way she attacked every crab she found along the beach, telling to Stretch to stay out of it and using nothing but the axe. That first level 12 crab she started hitting could have killed her out of pure boredom had she not told Stretch to finish it. The process of skilling up her axe was brutally slow, but it was a long walk back to Auberdine - and there were a lot of crabs.
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