Monday (15 Oct) - Zen Pilgrimage

Monday (15 Oct) - Zen Pilgrimage

Fist is a monk, and as a monk she has access to a portal called Zen Pilgrimage. The portal can be used at any time, instantly teleporting Fist to the monk starting zone of Wandering Isle. There, at the top of a tall, sacred building, Zen masters give out sage words of advice. Fist listens attentively, but she is really after two things. First, each day Fist can come to Wandering Isle and challenge a Zen Master. Sometimes more than one Master is available. Should Fist defeat the Master, Fist is granted one hour of +50% experience to speed up the leveling process. What I like about it, though, is that there's more to it than simply beating the Zen Master and getting the xp boost.

(1) The Challenges are actually useful. Each Zen Master focuses on specific spells and uses them against Fist. This helps Fist learn the spells she uses, or encourages her to use spells she might not be using. For example, one Zen Master repeatedly used her whirling dragon kick on Fist until Fist figured out to use her paralyze spell to stop her from chasing Fist down. In the heat of leveling Fist tends to stick with a few key spells to get the job done, so the Challenges help reinforce all those other spells she has. Fist has 27 spells on her button bars she is supposed to know how to use.

(2) If you get more than one Zen Master on a day, you can Challenge them both and earn an hour of xp boost for each. So defeating two Zen Masters grants two hours of xp boost. You can also defeat one, leave and use up your hour, and then come back and defeat the other Zen Master and get another hour.

(3) I found out today that there is a glitch. It may be a one time thing, or it might be a bug, but when Fist's hour of xp expired ... it didn't. The telltale showed zero seconds left, but it did not expire. Fist tested the glitch by comparing the xp she received from a quest, with the xp that wowhead said I would receive - she was still getting that 50% increase. I tried to keep her in game because I figured I'd lose it if Fist logged out. That seemed to work, but I did let her go AFK - and that killed the bonus. Fist will test that glitch again tonight since she has one more Zen Master to defeat. Back to Fist's grinding.

Fist could have continued questing in Winterspring, and still had all of Silithus to explore if she wanted. But new horizons beckoned to her in the sky. On Monday morning she made her way through Orgrimmar to the portal to the Blasted Lands, located in the Valley of Spirits. The portal took Fist to the camp outside the towering Dark Portal that is the entrance to the Outlands.

Fist was so focused on getting to work, she immediately took the offered flight from the portal area to Thrallmar, the horde fortress in Hellfire Peninsula. On Wild's advice, she then took flight on her own flying mount (how cool is that?) to the central hub of all Outlands - the city of Shattrath. Fist intended to set up shop at the Inn where Wild once lived and would work out of Shattrath instead of Orgrimmar or the various flea bitten inns around Outlands. To her great surprise she found Shattrath in the hands of Humans! Hostile humans, at that! Fist barely escaped attack when she tried to sidle up to them to see if they were, indeed, hostile. What is going on here? I could not find any information about changes, so I have to assume that it's because Fist has not done the right quests yet to open up the city to her. Hmm, I think it's time for Naithipe to make a trip to Outlands and see what reaction she gets in the City of Light.

When the idea was suggested to her, Naithipe seemed almost eager to make the trip. Following Fist's earlier footsteps, Naithipe went through the Blasted Lands portal and then into the Dark Portal to Hellfire Peninsula. Naithipe took the flight master to Shattrath, just to see if it would work. It did, and Naithipe then had to wonder if she would arrive surrounded by hostiles. Naithipe looked forward to that.

Naithipe was mildly disappointed that the guards around the flight master in Shattrath were in neutral yellow and posed no threat. So, Fist would have to earn her way into Shattrath, beginning at Thrallmar. Since both Naithipe and Fist were in Outlands, Naithipe hopped on her flying mount and flew to Thrallmar. Uncomfortable with strangers around, the two met at the top of the highest tower, with a view of the swirling dark skies and orbiting planets. It's quite a view.

It was also the first time the two had ever met each other. Mother and daughter. Together. What was said on that tower remained between the two of them. Philly seemed to think it went well with them. After all, there was no report from the Thrallmar sentries of any fighting inside the fortress at the time. What the two did not pay any attention to were the guards on their flying mounts patrolling the skies. Someone in the air, whether a guard or another visitor to the fortress, saw them up in that tower. And took two pictures, which began circulating around Thrallmar. Neither Naithipe nor Fist will comment on the photos, but I'm sure the photographer has gone in deep hiding, fearing reprisal from them both. 

Naithipe and Fist in Thrallmar

Fist Models her Towny Clothes

 The quests out of Thrallmar are all very familiar. Wild did not have the advantage of a flying mount that Fist has, but other than that things were very much like Wild remembered them. As usual, quests that once posed an incredible challenge have been watered down. The quest Cruel Intentions required killing an elite who was also surrounded by tough minions. Taking down that elite required help or excellent kiting skills - and patience - to take it down. Wild died many times before finally killing it. The elite is no longer elite. It was a level 63 vs Fist's level 60, but it was still no match. Fist was happy to get the xp, but was hoping for a tougher bout.

Despite the bonus xp, the grinding is going slower now since the xp pool is so much larger for each level. That was helped a little because Fist's guild reached level 4, which grants a 5% increase in xp. The bug in the Zen Pilgrimage did not happen with that second hour of xp boost, so that appears to have been a one time anomaly.

Fist is now level 63.