Chaitee Loses Her Job (Part Two)

Chaitee Loses Her Job (Part Two)

Chaitee got her boost because she claimed that the Auction House needed to be protected from marauding Horde. She didn't realize the complications that would arise from trying to level in order to have that protection, and running the Auction House. The two tasks often interfered.

She loves the time spent with Taz and Hati out in the open spaces of Highmountain. She is thrilled to find a second home at the True Shot Lodge and all that it offers her. Having her pets Taz and Stretch within arms length is also a benefit, which is why she stuck with Beast Mastery.

But she is reconsidering that decision. First, she has to ask herself if Beast Mastery is even the right spec for the job. After all, the job requires almost full time, on the spot monitoring to catch incoming Horde, including fights mostly at melee range within the confines of the Auction House. Chaitee had to admit that if her real role is protection of the AH, a better spec would likely be Survival.

In the back of her mind, Chaitee was thinking through again what Sista had told her. As Survival, she would be armed and armored in mail gear with a potent melee weapon that would include a combat pet for either tenacity (tank) or ferocity (DPS). Chaitee would be able to pick and choose which pet spec to take. At least that is what she envisions. Again, Sista's words came to her. Does she really want to level at the same time she is running the AH?

Sista again came to rescue. "What we need is a backup for Chaitee." That got Java and Rakta stirred up. Rakta went into hiding. But Java? Well, she and Tiphaine immediately went into a huddle between them.

Java is a plate wearing level 107 paladin. She'd make a pretty good guard for the AH, and has stayed current with her combat skills. Java added her own two coins to the conversation, noting that she already has three hexweave bags and the 26 slot Addie's Satchel. There would be no need to spend gold for personal bags.

Java's  main hurdle has nothing to do with her competence. Java is a flagrant clothes horse. Every bag in her bank is packed full of clothes. But that's the point. The clothes are in her bank, not filling her travel bags, and she has almost a hundred open slots to hold goods. This could be a win-win for all:

(1) Chaitee can focus on her leveling.

(2) Java, who would love to get some action, agrees to take over the Auction House, even if it means living in Stormwind.

Tiphaine showed a rare smile. For once her girls were working together. All but Rakta. That's for another time. For now, there is unity. Tiphaine had a parting incentive for Java. She will start her new job with 500,000 gold. Chaitee had amassed a million gold during her period at the AH. Tiphaine expects Java to seek that goal as well. 

PS - It will take time to get used to not seeing the name "Chaitee" plastered all over the Auction House. Instead, AH players are going to be wondering who this "Javajoo" person is.

Chaitee Loses Her Job (Part One)

Chaitee Loses Her Job (Part One)

Keya has her class mount now, and the family can try to get back into a more regular routine. Chaitee is back in the hot seat. Sales are down, profits have slipped, prices keep falling, and buyers aren't buying. For the first time in several months Chaitee has no backlog of goods - a backlog is when there are more than 50 goods already paid for sitting in the mailbox. Current as of Monday morning, there are only 43 items in the mailbox.

Chaitee has taken the severe step of holding back goods because prices have fallen below the cost to make them. The overstocked, under priced goods are being bought up and there is nothing Chaitee can do but wait it out. Her position NOT to buy up the bargain basement items has proved good strategy as there seems to be no bottom to how low prices will go. Bag prices have dropped to the point that materials are worth more than the bags.

Chaitee's personal leveling has been uneven. She is keeping up with her missions. She has only two followers so far and hasn't really needed a combat ally yet. Then again, she hasn't done much leveling for herself. Chaitee is 46% of the way to level 103.

She likes beast mastery, but she's struggled when she faces foes who get past her ranged attacks. Chaitee looks longingly at Keya's powerful defensive gear and wonders if she should consider changing her spec. She's considering Survival, where she can defend herself with ranged traps and a melee artifact weapon in close quarters. Her mail armor helps, as well. She got even more interested when she learned the Survival spec includes a pet. Maybe Tazzy can still be a working pet. Not sure.

Chaitee's main challenge for leveling is that she hasn't been able to work on it consistently. That's resulted in broken quest strings and missed opportunities. Sista faced that situation when she began leveling at the same time the guild was pushing her to get her professions lined up. Unfortunately, as a result, Sista may never be fully functional.

Chaitee spent some time talking with Sista. Sista has resigned herself to the role of collecting mats and making bags. She gets to travel, mostly on her way through Stormwind, including stopovers at Wyrmrest Temple in Northrend for Naxxramas work, and  the Twilight Highlands where she hunts Bastion of Twilight prey. Sista is content, if not happy. She advised Chaitee to make up her mind - take the Auction House gig and be satisfied with that, or seriously working on her leveling. Trying to do both at the same time is what got Sista messed up.

It was a lot for Chaitee to think about. She had to remind herself that only a short time ago she was a content level 32 Auction House hound, although she admittedly had aspirations for a larger role. Those aspirations came true with the Boost.

Chaitee has a lot to consider.

Slayer's Felbroken Shrieker

Slayer's Felbroken Shrieker

To Fel and Back

Wow. Despite all of the dead ends and mistakes, Keya has finally gotten her class mount. And it was well worth it. Her new mount is AWESOME! Keya already has a nickname - Shriek. Okay, not very original, but Shriek likes it. Other names considered were Bug, Wasp, Stinger, Nasty, Menace, etc.

The actual capture and subduing of the shrieker was exciting. Given Keya's penchant for getting lost, she did lose the trail a couple of times while chasing it down. Keya persevered, though, made it behave, and gave it the "you are mine" stare right out of "The Dragon Riders of Pern." Look it up.

Keya's mount Baby pictures! Everyone say Awwwww.

Give a Little Smile

In the below Shriek stars lovingly into Keya's eyes while Keya opens her arms.

Shriek stars lovingly into Keya's eyes while Keya opens her arms

Just a sample of the uniting of Keya and Shriek. The details of the quest chain may get it's own blog post.

Race to the Finish

Race to the Finish

It is late, but Keya is still up, jacked by the progress she has made late into the evening.
Adding to the day's accomplishments, she added the following:

Step 10: Self-Fulfilling Prophecy  (NEW quest complete, 8 world quests, DONE)
Step 11: Intolerable Infestation (slay 50 demons, DONE)
Step 12: Relieved of their Valuables (3 wyrmtongue caches, DONE)
Step 13:  Take Out The Head (kill three rare elites). Killed the elite fish Aquex right away for her first elite kill. Killed Flllurlokkr. Killed Xorogun Flamecarver (first encounter for Keya, the elite's main weapon was wind). DONE.

It is now morning. No, keya did not stay up all night. She wants to be fresh and ready to finish this thing.

Step 14: Championing Our Cause (complete a mission from the order hall with a Broken Shores destination . .  . preferably with a connection to Legionfall). This morning Keya opened the mission "Hard Target." The mission takes place at the Broken Shore and will take 16 hours to complete. Keya believes that she doesn't have to wait for the mission to complete. She went to Khadgar and he allowed her to move on to the next step.

Step 15: Strike Them Down: Slay 100 demons on the Broken Shore. The spiders at the Grotto were easy to slaughter. DONE.

Keya is beginning to feel . . .  well, anxious. Things are going very well, but the real event is getting closer. She fears another failure. Or another unforeseen roadblock.

Mother Malevolence calls for Keya to return to the Mardum. She quickly reports in.

Mother Malevolence asks if Keya is ready.
"Damn straight I am," she replies with a rush of adrenaline.
Satisfied, Mother Malevolence hands Keya the quest, "To Fel and Back." It has finally come to pass.

    Keya is on her way to earn her class mount. 

Adding To The Cause

Adding To The Cause
Things Can Change Quickly

Keya has fallen upon a video that may help her put more of the pieces she needs to get her class flying mount. The you-tube video begins at Delivery Point in the Broken Isles.

(1) Malev Shadowsong is there to complete the quest "Strike Them Down."
(2) Upon completion the player gains the achievement "Breaching the Tomb."
(3) The next quest is "Livin on the Edge"
(4) Mother Matron Malevolence then offers a quest
(5) That opens the "To Fel and Back" quest

Issue: It appears that all the requirements of "Breaching The Tomb" must be completed before the above quest will appear. The problem is that Keya can't figure out how to complete the eight requirements. There are no open quests for any of them.

Another tact - Keya is now using a guide to walk through the Breaching the Tomb quests. For once this guide seems to know each step and how to get to them. Steps 1-7 Keya had already completed, although she didn't know that at the time.

Step 1 and 2: Armies of Legionfall/Assault of the Broken Shore (completed)
Step 3 and 4: Aagen Point/Veangence Point (completed)
Step 5: Begin Construction. (completed)
Step 6: Defend Broken Isles (completed)
Step 7: Champions of Legionfall (completed)

Step 8: Shard Times (NEW quest completed) - This is where Keya started completing additional pieces of Tomb all by herself.

Step 9: Mark of the Sentinax (NEW Quest completed)
Step 10: Self-Fulfilling Prophecy  (complete 8 world quests) - 7/8 done

    Keya did an exhausted run of several hours, hoping to earn one more Broken Shores world quests. She killed elites by the handful and even wacked Aquex, the floater that hangs out by the sunken ships. Got some goodies, but no world quests completed. She may end up waiting until the next day. Brutallus is up and is definitely a world boss, but he is needs a full scale raid to bring him down. No one wanted to try it.

At this stage of progress Keya is literally humming with excitement. Sure, there are still six more pieces to finish the puzzle. But everything looks good so far. Things will again get interesting when "Breaching the Tomb" finishes.

But it's not over, and there may still be roadblocks not yet encountered.

Frustration and Blind Alleys

Frustration and Blind Alleys

Keya is losing hope. It's clear she is getting nowhere despite how many missions are run from the Mardum. It doesn't matter how many billions of artifact power is produced if it doesn't get her closer to her class mount.  In fact, her goal seems further and further away.

Keya chases shadows, hopes, and fantasies. "To Fel and Back" has become a taunt instead of a goal. She'll never get there. There is no direction to follow.
Her latest mantra was to complete "A Classy Outfit," which then followed "A Glorious Campaign." She finished the achievements, but nothing came of it, and there it died.

Trying to find further help, she stumbled into "Breaching the Tomb" an even larger set of tasks tied to the Legionfall campaign. Is that campaign tied to her class mount? Just how many campaigns are there, anyway? Campaigns everywhere - Legionfall, Campaign, Class, water bucket brigade, etc etc.

She tries to be positive. For instance, the "Tomb" campaign has 15 tasks but seven are complete (somehow). That still leaves eight NOT completed. Will "Tomb" do it for her? Who knows.

It's easy to get discouraged. The two parts Keya attempted for Tomb, she completed successfully. But as usual, she got no credit for doing them. Mark of the Sentinax sent Keya to kill three elites. Those elites took a horrendously long time to die, all three of which Keya soloed (not all at once, of course).  Not to mention getting shot at from the Sentinax itself. No quests were involved. Keya simply taunted the Sentinax to rain fire (which it did) and she still hunted the elites down and killed them. Which is probably why she got no credit. No quest.

Where are the clues she needs to open the quests she needs? Of course "To Fel and Back" is the true starting point to earn her class mount, but where is the thread of quests that gets her to that point? It must be somewhere in the 79 parts laid out for the Demon Hunter Campaign quests. There isn't much point in randomly doing dungeon and raid quests, most of which will have nothing to do with the class mount pursuit.

Keya can't find it. What more does she have to do? Why are there no quests?
She has the title. I AM THE SLAYER! Yet again . . . Where does she go from here?

A Classy Outfit (Finally)

A Classy Outfit (Finally)

With the outstanding assistance of Almond and Rockhammer, Keya finally completed the achievement, "A Classy Outfit," earning the Breeches of the Shattered Abyss by completing the Maw of Souls dungeon. The run was a lot of fun, and of course successful. The Halloween costumes were a nice touch and had Keya in stitches (literally)!

Maw of Souls Victory!

Rockhammer Rocks!

Almond Keeps Us Alive!

Proving Keya Did It!

Now it's back to the grind on the Class Hall effort. Keya had hopes that this achievement would open up Keya's class mount, but apparently there is more work to be done. Keya is now pinning her hopes that the snarl is with the class hall missions. Keya has 6/6 followers, three of which have completed their leveling. The other three still need to finish: Alari the Soul Eater, Belath Dawnblade, and Lady S' theno.

On more mundane issues, Keya puttered around with the Netherlight Crucible again but, in her opinion, she should be spending her AP on getting from AP 65 to 69, which is the next tier. The ever expanding cost of AP is now at 20.5 billion for one upgrade. In regard to her three relics, two are at Level 2 (of 3). Perhaps the next AP expenditure should be to get the third relic to level 2. The dang process is very confusing, with no good idea in what order things should be upgraded. It's all a great mystery that costs Keya immense amounts of AP (Artifact Power). She has "only" 12 billion at present.

Don't forget about Chaitee! While she must keep up with her Auction House duties, she's played hooky a number of times, excited for the action and getting her pets some well deserved activity.

Stable Master "Pan The Kind Hand"

Chaitee was all over Stormwind trying to find a stable master. Given her rookie status and being green behind the ears, she had a hard time figuring out why the two stable masters she tried to contact were no longer practicing.

The "Aha!" came when she realized that she's not in Draenor anymore. This is Legion, and things are different. Chaitee knew where she should have gone at the beginning - The True Shot Lodge in Highmountain. She immediately flew out there. Chaitee found the stable master, Pan The Kind Hand (yes, that's his name), soon after she arrived. She was very pleased and excited to see that her other pet, Stretch, has been taken good care of all this time. Stretch and Taz are the only pets she has trained, something Chaitee will want to add to in time.

Chaitee also learned that there was a special flight master for hunters. He's on the opposite side of Krasus Landing in Dalaran. Only hunters can use it via a short flight and then an instant portal directly to the True Shot Lodge. Very cool. Keya was curious and walked over there, but the spot was vacant. Apparently, he only appears to hunters.

Chaitee may want to work a little harder on her leveling. If the Auction House continues it's free falling prices there might not be a market left. Example: A week ago stormscale was selling at 17 gold each. It's selling for 4 gold now.

Chaitee's entourage continues to grow. First it was just her and Taz. Then she picked up Hati. And now she's added her combat ally. She is an army of four now, 40% of the way to level 102.