Slain by Elf

We have infiltrated Copperdell, a mining town for Borat that has convicts for workers. It recently underwent a revolution, for some reasons that are known and other reasons that we are uncovering. Our main mission is to bring peace to the town and not have the general resort to sending in the military to subdue everyone by force.

Earlier, we explored the mine, and found a nasty surprise that we are hoping will leave us alone until we can quell the riot, at which point we can perhaps deal with the situation more easily. Now that it is light outside, being early morning, we are investigating the houses and buildings that make up the town, hoping to unearth some evidence that acquits the inhabitants from the accusations made by the town's commander, accusations that enflamed some members of the town and started the riots.

Looking for buildings of interest we have already talked to the priest in the church, and are heading onwards. We are told that 'this way is the wrecked... umm... store'.

'I don't think I want to probe the rectum store. What other buildings are there?'

'Who's that?'

'That's the Maladorian peace envoy.'

'What's he doing here?'

'You may well ask that.'

'... what's he doing here?'

In other adventuring news, rogue level 40 got me the interesting skill of safe falling. When exploring the capabilities of this new skill I found out that it offers only a relative level of safety when falling. For example, it's still not safe to 'fall' off the Great Lift.

I need to make myself a parachute cloak.

After becoming Exalted with Stormwind I had to find a way to get another level and a half before I could ride around on a pony. A quick trip to Desolace to go down the scarlet path led me and my friends to the Scarlet Monastery in Tirisfal Glades. A quest to stab people to get an awesome sword and gain a bunch of experience seemed like a good idea to me, so we headed to Southshore to run up to the monastery. At least, I ran up there, the others rode on their mounts. Soon, my friends, soon.

It was a straightforward enough outing to meet new people and knife them in the kidneys, and went smoothly with no friendly deaths. And just as the death of Van Cleef heralded my status with Stormwind, the death of Mograine brought another milestone as I dinged level 40 at the same moment. Hurrah for Mograine getting me my pony! All I had to do now was buy one. That sounds pretty easy to achieve.

I used my hearthstone and got back to Ironforge. Even though I was gaining Stormwind reputation I have my home set in Ironforge, because I am a miner and engineer and running from the bank in Stormwind to the Dwarf Quarter to smelt ore and use an anvil gets tedious quickly The Great Forge in Ironforge is rather more convenient. From Ironforge I flew to Menethil Harbour in Wetlands to get my pony. Except you can only buy ponies in Menethil, there is no one who teaches the riding skill. For that, I needed to go to the Eastvale logging mill in Elwynn Forest, to the south. I jumped back on a gryphon and headed south.

Oh, but I was meant to hand in the Scarlet Monastery quest in Southshore to get the sword as the reward. Southshore is a short north-west hop from Menethil Harbour, and I was heading far to the south to Elwynn Forest instead. Arse. I made my way to the logging mill, got taught how to ride a horse for the bargain price of 80 gold, and spoke to the horse breeder to pick up my mount. I then realised that the horse breeder in Eastvale doesn't offer all the same horses as the fellow in Menethil, and the horse that I wanted in particular. So I had to run to Stormwind, instead of riding as I still had no horse, to catch a gryphon flight back to Menethil.

I trained my rogue skills whilst in Stormwind, so that I wouldn't forget, and jumped on another gryphon back to where I had just come from. After that flight I finally had my pony, a black stallion. It only took three flights and too much time and I still hadn't handed in the quest in Southshore so I had more of a journey ahead of me. As I had Kam Deepfury's head in my bag from my previous week's run in the Stockades, instead of flying I took my new horse for a ride through the Wetlands. I stopped at Dun Modr to get the bloody head out of my bag, then rode up through Arathi Highlands and on to Hillsbrad Foothills to Southshore. I made more of a chore in getting my pony and handing in the quest than running through the three wings of the Scarlet Monastery.

As is becoming far too common, our breakfast is interrupted by a despatch rider with an apparently urgent missive. The last time we had a meal interrupted we finished anyway and then were surprised when we saw that the messenger had waited outside for us with his carriage, when we had unintentionally ignored the part of the message that urged us to make all due haste to the meeting. This time we made sure how urgently we were needed, finding out that we were expected half-a-day's horse ride away and that horses were already requisitioned for us. 'Splendid. As it is still morning and we are only expected today that gives us time to eat breakfast and travel for half-a-day and still turn up on time,' announces Dexter, and we finish our breakfast. Despite our sound logic the messenger didn't appear to be any less impatient for some reason.

After breakfast we got our new horses and headed off to Copperdell, where General Juthe awaited us. Before we got there, a suspicious-looking rock caught our attention, mostly when it turned out to be a large humanoid that wanted to eat us. Master of all knowledge that he is, Dexter tells us that we are fighting a mountain troll. With his new Wild Feat ability, allowing him to choose a different feat each day, Dexter wonders what feat to recall that would help with this fight. 'Maybe I should make use of the horse and gain the Mounted Combat feat.'

'That, or the 'Run' feat,' Ann See helpfully offers. But Tal just sees and excuse for a chance to draw blood, and the battle is engaged. It doesn't take too long to see off this wandering monster, although Dexter's knowledge of the beast is that it can regenerate, meaning that it could become a threat for other passers-by in time. Sadly, Dexter does not know how to stop this regeneration, and so we resign to simply being able to survive the encounter ourselves and hope that others do the same.

It is some distance down the road when something curious happens. We hear strange, guttural noises coming from Tal's direction. Okay, so not that strange, but they seem to be coming from the rear end of the horse. Not wanting a deathly sick horse, we investigate. It turns out that the sounds are coming from inside one of Tal's saddle bags. Opening it up we find the troll's head, conscious and regenerating its body. 'We wanted to stop it regenerating and hurting others, so I cut off its head and brought it with me. The body can't do anything without the head, right?' Tal explains.

We kick the head down the road and continue on our journey. glad that we don't have anything like a bag of holding, in which we might have found a whole troll at some point in the future.

I want a pony! Actually, I was hoping to get a ram as a riding mount for my gnome self. Normally gnomes get a Mechanostrider, and there's nothing wrong with that, but with the reputation system overhauled it is now far easier to gain exalted reputation level with a faction to let you ride a different mount. Lots of people aim to get a kitty, and for the obvious reason that they are good looking mounts. I have grown to like the ram, and as gnomes start in the same area as dwarves the initial reputation gains help you get started. But Knifey started out with an uphill climb to get to the same level as his friends, who had a head-start. I needed to gain levels quickly and I am most familiar with the human-infested Elwynn Forest, Westfall, Redridge Mountains and Duskwood quest areas. This is partly because I did them with my first character, but mostly because the Westfall quests are so bounteous and the quest mobs and items are evenly spread over the map enabling quest completion tremendously that it I ended up doing them with most characters so that I could level quickly. I have explored all the other areas, but for quick levels Westfall is the place to adventure for me.

So it was that Knifey headed to see Gryan Stoutmantle, stopping off to help horses and farmers along the way, and getting Baros Alexston's compass whilst I was there. I was planning to get some quick levels so that I would catch up with my friends and then head back to Loch Modan and Wetlands to rack up the Ironforge reputation so that I could get a ram. But the Stormwind reputation was increasing at a quick pace, and I remembered seeing gnome warlocks on their felsteeds and thinking how peculiarly good it looked. So it came to pass, quite naturally, that my plans changed and I decided I was going to get a pony instead. Not much needed to change with my plans for me to get my Stormwind reputation up to exalted, as I was still running around Redridge Mountains and Duskwood, I just needed to maintain my focus and plan a little. The only question was whether I could manage to gain enough reputation before I hit level 40.

I adventured further in Southshore and the surrounding area, also heading in to Arathi Highlands for the Stromgarde Keep quests. I did a couple of Desolace quests that were given by representatives of Stormwind, also heading that way to get the Scarlet Monastery quest. I investigated Kurzen's camp in Stranglethorn Vale to endear me further to Stormwind, ignoring the strangely partisan Nessingwary and his cadre, despite the number of quests they offer. And I was getting quite chummy with Stormwind, getting revered comments and expressions from the nobility therein. But it was not enough. My levels were climbing steadily as I completed all these quests and I was getting closer to being able to learn to ride, but without having earned the respect of the pony seller. Time to really suck up to the people that matter.

I collected cloth, lots of cloth. Wool, silk and mageweave were all handed in to the Stormwind Alliance Cloth Quartermaster. I risked upsetting new adventurers by running through Northshire Abbey, one-shotting all the wolves, kobolds and Defias members to help out the locals and gain their respect as being humble enough to remember them even though I was so powerful. My reputation increased by a couple of thousand points, but I still had a way to go. I could spend my time finding Stormwind diplomats the world over and doing what they required, hoping that it would be enough by the time I got to 40, or I could be more radical.

I was 38 and I still hadn't entered the Stockades, despite the warden being quite upset by the uprising. Maybe that was hurting my overall standing within the city, so I decided to redeem myself. I hadn't entered the Stockades because they are generally neglected, and for good reason as it is a claustrophobic place where the inmates have had their possessions stripped of them. It's difficult to fight in, with runners everywhere, and the mobs don't drop anything good. Without quests, there really is no incentive to enter. On the plus side, all the mobs are humanoid, making crowd control easier and my sap is useful, and it is small and quick to complete. But was I powerful enough to complete it at only 38, I wondered. I just got a more powerful sinister strike and upgraded my weapons to a sharper sword and dagger combination, and even got a leather headband instead of the cloth engineering goggles I've been wearing so far. I was optimistic, if not confident.

I asked the Stockade warden what his concerns were again, and previously had the good sense not to drop the quests from my log that I had picked up in Darkshire, Lakeshire, and Dun Modr, even though the latter, being given by a dwarf, probably wouldn't give Stormwind reputation (probably, because I still haven't handed it in, not having had opportunity to head to northern Wetlands yet). As I was going in, it seemed churlish not to do the dwarves a favour too. So Bazil Thredd, Dextren Ward, and Kam Deepfury needed to be killed for revenge or to quell the rebellious prisoners, and some draconian justice was to be meted out on the prisoners and convicts, whatever the distinction was between them, and I had to grab some headbands as proof whilst I was in there. I have my mission, I was heading in.

With careful use of stealth, my sap, and crippling poison and kidney punches to stop panicky, close-to-death inmates from fetching some friends the initial stages went quite smoothly. My tough leather armour was doing a good enough job of deflecting the blows from the relatively blunt makeshift weapons the prisoners were using. One or two prisoners called on a friend to help, but I was stabbing quickly enough for the occasional add not to be a problem, and careful enough with my pulls that I wasn't getting in to big trouble. I was pleasantly surprised by how smoothly it was all going. Kam Deepfury was killed, and I took his head as evidence. I got enough headbands from the prisoners, and had delivered enough justice on them for the warden to be happy. Bazil Thredd and his cohorts were despatched efficiently, although they beat me up quite well. I took Thredd's head as evidence of his death. I thought that would be sufficient. There was an awkward moment when approaching Dextren Ward's area when I had to pull more mobs than I was comfortable with. When I accidentally activated sprint (mapped to Opt-5) instead of kidney shot (5 by itself) to give myself a few seconds to bandage I got a bit worried about death, but some quick stabbing got me out of trouble with a little over 100 health to spare. I munched on some food and continued, getting Ward's attention by himself, and he was easy to take out without anyone helping him fight. I cut off his hand for someone to keep on a mantle somewhere. My bags were getting quite bloody, I was hoping it was worth the dry cleaning bill.

I survived a solo expedition to the Stockades! All six quests were complete, and I hadn't died once. I was quite pleased with myself. I ran around Stormwind, handing in the quests and assassinating Lord Gregor Escovar for kicks and reputation gains as a follow-up, before heading out to Lakeshire in Redridge Mountains to give a head or hand to someone. Whilst I was there I defeated the elite orc in the keep that was causing trouble for the town, gaining more reputation with Stormwind. Then on to Darkshire in Duskwood where I gave another hand or head to someone. The Stockade quests got me a good couple of thousand reputation gain, and I was finally nearly exalted. Just 400 more reputation or so and I would be there, ready to ride a pony in a level-and-a-half's time. And I knew just how to get that reputation: kill Van Cleef.

The first time I entered the Deadmines I hadn't got the quest to kill the Defias boss, and once I got the quest it had lingered in my log for ages, even after it had turned grey, because of the potential reputation gain and the neat chestpiece, the Tunic of Westfall. I abandoned the quest, as I knew I wouldn't be going in there with the main group, and I also knew that if I wanted to complete it I would have to head back to Westfall to enter the Deadmines whereupon I could pick up the quest again as well. As it turned out, a friend turned up with a shaman who wanted to kill Van Cleef, so we went in as a pair, a 38 rogue and 25 shaman. It was going to be a bloodbath.

The fighting in the Deadmines oddly enough didn't go quite as smoothly as my solo run through the Stockades. I thought this was odd, but realised that I was being more reckless because of the lower levels of the mobs, having a companion, and having a companion that could heal. I wasn't stealthing as much initially, nor sapping one of the mobs. It was an all-out stabathon. Nearer the end I collected my bloodrage and calmed the killing down a bit, but another mistake in intentions, trying to ambush instead of sapping, caused the death of my companion as I tried unsuccessfully to stop Captain Greenskin and his little helpers from noticing her. A quick corpse run and we were back facing Van Cleef. A proper sap of one and and some quick blades led to Van Cleef's quick death, and his minions fell soon after. Another head was cut off and put in my bag. That made four heads, including the orc in Redridge Mountains, and hand all stored in my bag in one afternoon.

Gryan Stoutmantle was happy to see me. Really happy. I was happy to see him too, because of the green flourish that signalled my new status as exalted with Stormwind. I considered it quite fitting that it was the death of Van Cleef that ultimately gained me my status. I had gathered almost no experience points for the whole of my adventures that afternoon, but my reputation had soared. My pony is assured.

Knifey has been running around the familiar lands of Westfall, Redridge Mountains, and Duskwood, trying his best to gain as much experience as needed to catch up with my friends. With some excellent help from Azrail on how to stab effectively I was able to knife my way through level after level. A run through Gnomeregan, whilst too low even to pick up the quests, nabbed me a neat sword as well, boosting my DPS considerably. Armed with some sharp stabbing tools and knowledge on how to use them I found myself being most capable, and my experience helped me adapt to different mobs and skills. For everything else, there's Auctioneer.

With Knifey starting on an entirely new server to me there are no relatives, or alts if you like, available to send some big bags or a few gold to get me started. I could say that this made things a bit tricky, but no more so than any other player and the world should accommodate new characters so that there aren't frustrations with lacking money for training or necessary items. It's nice not to have to worry about this kind of thing, and to be able to buy necessary equipment upgrades without having to forgo training as well. So I have been taking advantage of being awake whilst the world sleeps, because of differing time zones, and snapping up bargains for PROFIT.

My guild leader was quite surprised when I said I had 100 gold to spare to open the guild bank and traded her for it. Frankly, I misremembered what she had said and thought I needed to get 500 gold to start the bank up, which was why I was being ruthless. Still, it allowed me to spare the money and still have enough left to keep playing the market. My mount at level 40, some 8 levels away now, is assured, and just yesterday I upgraded my weapons to a 19 DPS sword and dagger set for a measly 4 gold for the pair. I'm doing well.

Meanwhile, in the actual world, I occasionally get challenged to a duel. I don't know what it is about duelling, but many people seem to think that not being afk is implicit consent to start a duel. Personally, I want more permission sought than simply having the duel flag drop down from above before I agree to fight some random stranger. A quick whisper asking if I want to duel may even get agreement, but just challenging me automatically makes me lose interest, but that's just the way I am. I try not to take it personally, and I hope the anonymous duellists don't either.

What I find amazing however is when someone tries to start an obviously imbalanced duel, where the character challenged is clearly no match. For example, if there is a large discrepancy in levels. I don't understand how someone would even want to duel someone twenty levels below them, because it's such an arbitrary difference imposed by game mechanics and shows in no way a difference in skill or power between players. But some level 51 warrior challenged Knifey when I was just 31. 'Do you think I'm an idiot?', I asked, wondering what the hell he was even trying to prove. I ignored him when he asked for 'just one' and went on killing the quest mobs I was after. Except he wouldn't let me. He kept challenging me and just to encourage me he ran around tagging all the quest mobs, trivial for him to kill with his extra levels, so that I had nothing to kill and had to duel him. Or so he thought. I used the time waiting for the mobs to respawn not to duel him but to put him on my ignore list and report him for harassment. I try not to be petty, but mob-stealing just because I won't duel someone twenty levels above me is being a report-worthy dick. After that, I stealthed on, targeted a mob I didn't care about and, as I suspected, dick-man used target-of-target to attack him, trying to grief me further, at which point I found my real target and continued to do my quest. He got bored with not annoying me and wandered off, thankfully, and a GM may have had a word with him later.

On the better side of friendliness, I previously had met up randomly with a dwarf priest in Raven Hill Cemetery where we teamed up to kick some righteous undead buttocks, with his shadow powers and my stuns stopping them from even touching us half the time. We even took down Mor'Ladim, the level 32 elite, without much fuss, just the two of us. That was fun, as was our encore of killing Eliza, the bride of The Embalmer. Another day, I killed Morbent Fel with my friends, who seemed a bit easier without any cohorts to help him out.

A new face appeared in the World of Warcraft, in the realm of Draenor. Knifey, the gnome rogue, joins his friends in the quest to be a hero. Picking up a kitchen knife I set off to start stabbing monsters in a brave tale of nominative determinism. After stabbing some wolves and getting the meat off their flanks I am rewarded with a knife that is slightly more befitting a rogueish type, and almost doubles the amount of damage per second (dps) I can do with a dagger. What joy, to stab with more deadly force! I imagined that if my luck kept up I could become a real threat to Nefarian, Lord of Blackrock himself within a matter of hours.

Of course, my luck didn't keep up, but I wasn't really paying that much attention to it. I was getting trained to deal more damage, and to have new abilities, but I stuck with my Anvilmar dagger, doing its puny just-under 2 dps. Mobs just weren't dropping anything I could use. Sure, there were axes and maces, and the odd two-handed weapon, but I can't use any of them. At least, not without spending what seems like a godly amount for someone so young to get trained in that weapon. No, I'd need to stick with daggers until I have made the fortune that was 10 silver to get trained in swords. Even then, I'd need a sword to drop.

My plight wasn't highlighted as effectively as when I reached my tenth level and I was asked to steal some documents from a rat. Sure, I'll do that! I didn't even need to ask why, that's how much I was born to be a rogue. I tip-toe my way in to the rat's shack, and am a bit disappointed in his not having a candle to steal whilst I was there, delve in to his pocket without him feeling a thing, and make off like a bandit back to SI:7 in Stormwind. Some shifty-looking fellow thanks me and gives me a shiny dagger indeed! 6.8 dps!

I run around with a crappy skewer for 8 levels before I get an upgrade. That's just not on, frankly. For a class that needs a good weapon to do damage, and being a damage-dealing class, it strikes me as absurd that there isn't either an intermediate quest that offers a better dagger or a more dynamic drop system that can account for what a player is more likely to need. I really don't want to see another two-handed axe when I am still struggling with a dagger I got at level 2, thank you very much. I could go to the auction house, but as few white items, and no grey items, are listed it gets more expensive than buying weapons training for a grey drop you get, so that is not really an option either.

On top of that, at 10th level I got to dual-wield. Woo, feel the power of my two daggers! Except the quest I just completed gave me one good dagger, and the only other weapon I can use was my previous best weapon, the crappy 1.9 dps dagger. Great. Feel the power of one of my daggers, and I'll tickle you with the other to open your defences, you cur!

I was lucky enough to get high-enough level to attempt a run through the Deadmines with my friends, helped by the recent reevaluation of the instance levels so that you don't start out facing kittens licking your face and end the instance being crapped out of a dragon. This made it much easier to survive, being a few levels lower than recommended. I also ended up getting the Buzzer Blade that drops from Shredder, which gives almost 15 dps! This was just a few levels past getting the 6.8 dps rogue quest reward dagger. Wow! On top of a sword that had around 8.5 dps I was now much more stabby than before, and I could feel it in the wild. Stabbing horizontally, vertically and diagonally, I was the Connect 4 of stabbing, and monsters and beasts were dropping much more quickly. This is what it is to be a rogue. And this is what it should be like.

I hope this trend doesn't continue through the mid-levels, where I struggle to get any decent weapon, and thus maintain my dps, without having to be in a group and running an instance or paying over the odds for a weapon on the auction house. The one benefit to being higher level is that I know have some money to spare, and I can afford to buy something off the auction house. If times get desperate, I now have that option, whereas it was not available before. Oh, and don't get me started on bag space. HULK SMASH LACK OF BAG SPACE.

Before patch 2.3, I, as my warrior Tiger, was lingering around wondering when I'd finally be able to rescue Marshall Windsor from his prison in Blackrock Depths when I realised that, being level 70 and all, I would be able to manage it with just a little bit of help. I'd tried it solo before, but being a protection warrior and lacking some damage-dealing capabilities and healing I'd been overwhelmed at one point and didn't feel like fighting my way back again. As luck would have it, two companions, Grimlor the paladin and Mellica the mage, were around and neither had ventured to see the dread Onyxia or explored the dungeons necessary to gain access to her cave. A quick pair of invitations later and we were heading to Blackrock Mountain.

First on the adventure agenda was to visit Windsor, and after Grimlor found a crumpled up note we had good reason to do so. He sent us off to kill a couple of people, which we did, and as we were heading deeper in to Blackrock Depths we decided to complete a second attunement whilst we were there and so nabbed a fragment of the core. Giving that back to some elf chap we thus became attuned to Molten Core, now freely able to enter the fiery depths of the world, as long as we take some more friends. But that was just a side quest, and so we head back to Marshall Windsor with his tasks performed.

Now we break him out of gaol. We clear a path from his captors, but Windsor has apparently been trapped inside for too long and is itching for a fight, as he manages to seek out anything moving that we haven't killed and starts smacking on it until it stops moving. It would be fine if he'd just admit that he had some pent-up rage, but he kept on shouting cries of redemption and other such nonsense, which was a bit of a cop-out. With some hefty firepower from Mellica and nifty healing and smacking of maces by Grimlor, and with me at the front keeping all the mobs focussed on my solid but surprisingly skimpy full plate armour, we chopped our way through the mobs with ease.

We took the news of Windsor's release to Stormwind, where he met us. We were greeted as some kind of saviours, with guards of all ranks bowing down before Windsor and being astonished to see him alive and in the city. With Windsor calling out to Lady Prestor that her days were numbered, for some reason, we attract a fair bit of attention as we stride purposefully through the city to Stormwind Keep, and have a full retinue as we reach the throne room. Windsor confronts Prestor and, to our amazement, she transforms in to the dragon Onyxia before our eyes, flying away as the king's guards turn in to dragonkin bent on our destruction. Windsor is more than their equal, and with our new level cap of 70 we too are able to engage them meaningfully. They are all killed with relative ease.

Now we get sent around the world in order to craft a talisman that will grant access to Onyxia's cave in Dustwallow Marsh. Once we have the base pieces we are told we need to imbue the talisman with the blood of Drakkisath, the boss in Upper Blackrock Spire. This presents a little problem, as none of us have the key to UBRS. But never fear, this weekend is all about going new places and exploring, so we decide to get the key! We head in to Blackrock Spire, and head down instead of up. We are quite capable of taking on each mob in the depths of the Spire, and find the four gems needed to make the key to the Upper Spire. Then more travelling, as the key to the Spire is formed, and another dragon is slain (by an elf, naturally).

With the key in hand, we head back to the Spire. This time we head upwards, and start hacking and burning our way through the orcs and dragonkin who clearly have some kind of animosity towards each other, as when we kill orcs the dragons don't help, and when we kill dragons the orcs don't help. If they teamed up no one would likely bother either of them. A quick Leroy Jenkins moment in the hall of eggs leads us up and on to Rend, and we get to wave at Victor Nefarius before we kill his buddy and dragon mount. We stop off to say hi to The Beast, but we caught him at a bad time, and his stupid random fears and knockbacks are enough to convince us to leave him alone and we continue on to General Drakkisath.

We get to Drakkisath's chambers with relative ease, encountering strong resistance but nothing that overcomes the three of us. We've got a well-oiled killing machine in our trio, and it's wonderful to be so well matched and capable, knowing that each of us plays our role as a professional. The General doesn't look happy, and he has a couple of lieutenants to keep us busy. We chat for a bit about whether this is too much for just three of us, and decide to give it a go. Alas, it is too much, again because of the special abilities the general possesses, conflagrating me, as the tank, and with only three of us attacking that leaves not much option for where he attacks next, either the squishy dps caster or the important healer. We ask for help.

Help turns up in the form of another friend, a warlock. Making us four, and giving us the power to chain-fear one of Drakkisath's lieutenants, we head back to his chamber. This time, with one less mob to tank and some more, shadowy firepower, the General and his dragonkin are despatched. The warlock gets some new robes as a memento, and we help ourselves to the dragonkin's blood, needed for the talisman. Oh, and whilst we were heading up there we stopped by the quartermaster in Blackrock Mountain and got some orders. By doing so, and branding ourselves on the object behind Drakkisath, we become attuned to Blackwing Lair. It is attunement weekend, after all.

We head back out and start travelling again, finding the person who can bind all the objects in to the talisman, with which we are proudly presented. Three instances, two continents, and many dragon kills to our belts and we finally have access to Onyxia's Lair. And all of it, bar one final boss, achieved with three people.

The highlight of the weekend was popping in to Molten Core to face the two Molten Giants at the start. As a lark, the three of us decided to take on the pair of them, to see what we could do. I tanked the two giants at once, Grimlor kept me alive, and Mellica threw her arsenal at one and then the other. It was quite a challenge, with them being so big as to fill my field of view, and their stuns and knockbacks needing to be mitigated as well as keeping up enough threat on both of them so that the healing aggro didn't pull the second from me and Mellica's damage didn't pull the first on to her. And it wasn't that smooth, but it was the first time my companions had set foot in the Core and the first for me as a warrior. The first giant fell! The second chased us out of there, although at least one of us was a ghost by that point. Even so, we had killed in Molten Core! I had tanked two Molten Giants simultaneously, and we had killed one of them with only three people!

What an enjoyable weekend.

The netherwing drake mounts became available some time back in the Outlands, and are large, cool-looking dragons that you can fly around on. To get one of them you need to prove your dedication to freeing their race from the Dragonmaw Orcs, and you can achieve this through performing various tasks that promote the eventual freedom of the drakes. One of these tasks is to locate any netherwing eggs and return them to a double-agent goblin working for the netherwing within the Dragonmaw camp. These eggs are rare to find, cropping up randomly in the wild, and are much sought after by anyone wishing to ingratiate themselves to the drakes. An egg that is discovered is normally harvested quickly.

It was unusual, therefore, to see an egg that had players gathered around it but still hadn't been picked up:

I am in the centre of the picture, orc-ified. The netherwing egg, out-gassing slightly, is sitting on the wooden platform just above and to the right of my orc-head. The other four orcs on drakes are all other characters in their own orc disguises, wondering just how to get that egg. They are wondering how to get the egg because those two large humanoid drakes with blue axes are elite warriors who can cut most mortals down in two or three blows of their weapons. Anyone getting close to the egg gets noticed before they can snatch the egg away.

Such a tantalising target! Never before have I witnessed such attention to an item that is impossible to get, such is the draw of reputation-bestowing egg. Everyone is so close, yet so far from the egg.

In the end, the two non-orcs on my right, with whom I used to raid and were teamed together, had a winning plan. One caught the attention of the two guards, pulling them away from the egg whilst his partner harvested it. Teamwork wins the day!