Lockbox Explosion

Lockbox Explosion

Rakta was too lazy to do any leveling, so she badgered Chaitee to let her play the Auction House for awhile. Chaitee was on a roll, hot on the trail of enough gold to tip the pot over the 800,000 gold mark. Rakta said she needed a few sangrite to help her level. Chaitee waved her away muttering something about useless warriors. Rakta kept hanging around, though, making Chaitee more ornery than usual.

"Go stand around somewhere else!" Chaitee growled. "Better yet, haul that chest to the back and get a ticket for it from the Auctioneer. Buy an ice cream or a draft beer or something and then get out of my way."

Chaitee stomped off, yelling bids at the Auctioneer.
Rakta watched Chaitee for a few more minutes.
Then she sidled up to the chest and tested the lid.
It was locked.
Rakta reached into a pocket.
She slipped a jeweled lockpick into her hand.
There was a short "click."
Rakta slipped away.

Chaitee found Rakta two hours later. She was standing at the Dalaran Merchant's Bank.
"Where is my chest, Rakta! That chest was full when I turned it over to you!"
"Working," Rakta shot back. "I'm testing the value of 425 and 550 chests by picking those locks."
Chaitee started to argue, but then had a second thought. "What are you getting from those chests, Rakta?"
 "Between 25-35 gold and a piece of i300 level gear. The 550 chests drop 30-50g and an i780 piece."

"Ok, just a minute." Chaitee checked the going price of sangrite, the mat that Rakta uses to pick the locks. They were selling at 18g apiece. "Hmmm." The profit was fairly small, but it did make money.

"What level of lockpicking can you handle, Rakta?"

"I'm maxed at 750 so far." Which may be max level for chests, Chaitee thought. She made her decision. Chaitee bought 200 sangrite on the spot and told Rakta she could pick locks for as long she was gaining jewelcrafting levels.

When she had finished opening all of the boxes, Rakta went from JC 260 to JC 315. At last, Rakta has something productive to do. One interesting thing - When opening lockboxes one can receive a lockbox! And sometimes there are two pieces of gear instead of just one. Even after getting all that done, Rakta still had over a hundred sangrite to make more keys.

Maybe Rakta could set up a stall and spend her day opening lockboxes.

 PS - Rakta belatedly learned that her jeweled lockpick could be mailed to others and can be sold on the Auction House. So anyone can open locks simply by buying keys? That seemed too good to be true. And it is too good to be true. The key states plainly that the owner be at least a  level 1 jewelcrafter in order to use the lockpick. I think. Rakta has already opened all the chests in the bank. The final check will be when Sista comes back from her next run and has a few chests to open.