Luck o' teh Rogue

I've been slammed with work, so Kuan and Morn have sorta been chillin' in the new Garrison for a few days sending out missions.  But we see how the Garrison Resources build up, and decided Eeyan and Telt must get there sooner than later!

Tonight we got them there.  And what happens to Eeyan?  Epic Olin Umberhide and Ka'la, of course.

"Screenshot or it didn't happen" so here they are:

I'm enjoying both the Throne of Thunder and the Darkspear Rebellion. But there is one issue. One huge issue.

I have been playing wow for almost eight years now. Most of that time has been spent as part of the Horde. I've been playing Mornara since Wrath, with her as my main and tanking roughly since the Argent Tournament came out. Before that I mostly played my Troll mage Viljo, but did a bunch of dabbling with my Belf priestess Teltanara from the time that Burning Crusade came out.

I've learned through many years of repetition that there certain sounds that mean I've failed. I strongly associate failure with the sound of any member of the Horde dying. But it is worst with Orcs, Trolls, Undead, and Blood Elf death cries. Since DraNgNon plays Kuan, the male Troll Shaman, as her main I'm really sensitized to look around and try to figure out what messed up whenever I hear a male troll die.

Back to Throne of Thunder and the Darkspear Rebellion. ToT has the first three bosses entirely Troll themed. Technically they are Zandalari Trolls, but I still remember raiding Zul'Gurub when it was a 20man. The Zandalari are supposed to be our friends! It hurts that after all the help I gave them destroying Hakkar they are now working with the Thunder King to kill me.

Meanwhile the Darkspear Rebellion is part rebellion but mostly civil war within the Horde. I'm out in the Northern Barrens cutting down Orcs and Goblins. I absolutely flinch every time an Orc dies by my hand.

We know what you really look like

We are running out of room to store unopened lockboxes, so Eeyan and Teltanara are gaining their Pandaria experiences in Townlong Steppes now.

Townlong is on the other side of the Great Wall, and thus doesn't have a lot of rest, mailboxes, or flight points.  But it does have gear that really is solidly upgrades from Dragon Soul.  Practically speaking, that means we sometimes have to let the gear show off what it really looks like.

I'm not sure if she looks like a refugee from the Darkmoon Faire or an escapee from Hellfire.

I will point out that this picture shows the difference in polygons between Wow's pants and shoulders.  It's really tragic.  Blizzard should fix that.

Chromatic Champion & Alt Runs

Thursday night a little over two weeks ago Darkfall got a full 10man raid together and took down the last four bosses of DS. Without pugs it was a relatively painless experience. I say relatively because there was some funky lag and that caused several wipes on Ultraxion before we got him down. We also had a few pulls on heroic Blackhorn again. The lag bit us there too, but we did get farther than we had before. We had started a bit late between a few planned and unplanned people running late, so we only did three pulls on him for heroic, then I swapped it to normal and we handily wiped out Blackhorn and Spine.

But my big plan for the evening was to start on Kalecgos' platform. He was the last one we needed to do for Chromatic Champion. My plan was to go: Kalec > Ysera > Alexstraza > Nozdormu. It was actually a it of an anticlimax. I was expecting some hard coordination required to make sure that everyone single targeted the bloods down correctly. However, we had a really awesome set of dps, 3/4 of whom had lovely cleaving abilities, so we just aoe'd all the bloods. Between being able to do that and having Alexstraza up for three platforms (no need to try to time the blistering tentacles, she'd just burn them away) it was actually pretty trivial. I guess that the 25% buff is just that massive.

Speaking of the 25% buff: since we'd actually finished thirty minutes early there was discussion of an alt run. Everyone swapped to an alt except for one person who didn't have an available alt, and Caffinator joined us. It was excellent to play with him again. Honestly it really reminded me of running Karazhan again, what with him, and DraNgNon on Eeyan, and me on Teltanara. Oh yes, because of class/role composition issues I brought Telt instead of Viljo. Viljo was going to be the 3rd mage, and we were short on heals... It was 'festive'. At the beginning of the run Telt had such crappy gear that she wouldn't have qualified for LFR, and she's only run two of the Hour of Twilight Heroics.

However, holy priest is super excellent to play. Even though I (and everyone else) was looking at buttons and wondering what they all did, it went reasonably well. I went into Chakra:Sanctuary and just kinda mashed Prayer of Healing and occasionally put down the Holy Word: Sanctuary. We did two heal Morchok and Yor'sahj, but Zon'ozz was just impossible with me being such a scrub. So one of our locks swapped over for that fight and it wasn't actually too bad.

Telt made out like a bandit from the three bosses we killed. She got the mace from Morchok and the leg token from Yor'sahj. I just need to get them enchanted and reforged and transmogged now. I'm so excited that Telt finally has a mace again, it's been a long expansion with her swinging a staff around. I'm looking forward to transmogging her mace to the ever lovely Light's Justice She'll look even more like she did in BC. I may even show her cloak and transmog it to Stainless Cloak of the Pure Hearted.

Mailbox Dancing

Ohhhh Myyy. (said like George Takei)

I just realized what outfit Telt will be wearing once Transmogrification comes out. Oh, yes.

Long, long ago Telt made an outfit. I'm not sure what I was thinking. It did take some work to get the pattern for Red Winter Clothes, so it could have been after that. Possibly it was when she got a hold of the Crimson Felt Hat from level 60 dead side of Stratholm.

Regardless, my snooty blood elf priest has an outfit called Mailbox Dancing.

Yes, you read that correctly. Hey, a young blood elf sometimes makes decisions that weren't the wisest at the time. Bloodthistle is not cheap, and a girl's gotta make ends meet somehow.

Another Announcement

Hot on the heels of yesterday's announcements and buff to tank threat, there are announcements about patch 4.3.

• The patch 4.3 raid will be Deathwing, the Abyssal Maw plans have been scrapped for now.


• There are allegedly going to be 3 new 5-mans. One of which might be a new place in Caverns of Time. All of them will actually be new dungeons.


• The Transmogrifier will be arriving to change the appearance of your gear.
  
  • You can only change to the same type of armor. Mail to mail, cloth to cloth, etc.
  
  
  • Legendary weapons are out. (I was already looking forward to Eeyan running around with those Warglaives all the time and am now disappointed.)
  
  
  • You probably will need to already own the armor you want to change appearance to, which only makes sense.


• Void Storage is a new sort of bank tab.
  
  • You'll have a large number of slots for storage of old armor.
  
  
  • It's likely that that old armor will lose enchants/gems/profession enhancements when stored in Void Storage.

Some rough thoughts:

Deathwing is the next raid boss we'll deal with. Great, I'll be happy to finally kill him, but I really hope that 4.3 isn't for a while. Darkfall is suffering summer doldrums, and only last night did we kill Shannox on 25man. I would really like to kill Ragnaros before the next patch. I'm not sure if that will happen, we're a good guild, but not a great one. It is possible, after all we got Cho'gall before 4.2. Either way I'm really not ready to start thinking about the next raid; I'm busy with this one still!

I'm glad that any new 5 man dungeons won't be recycled. I understand that Cata is about revamping Azeroth, but so far we've had a lot of repeats. Firelands is just Molten Core 2.0. BWD is BWL 2.0. ZG and ZA are, well, ZG and ZA. It really feels like most of what we've seen so far in Cata isn't new, its just redone. We're not really seeing any new stories, hopefully with actually fighting Deathwing that will change, and we'll see new stuff.

Transmogrifier and Void Storage. Okay, these I'm honestly excited about.

So far they have explicitly mentioned armor and weapons being the only item that can be stored in the Void Storage. I'm hoping that ends up including tabards. Viljo and Mornara both have several bags worth of old gear and tabards taking up space. In fact Viljo still has every awesome looking weapon he's owned, since he won the roll for the Azuresong Mageblade in MC at level 60. Mornara still has all the blue gear she got out of the DK starting area with. I know that Kuanchichi has all or most of the T2 and T5 shaman sets. Getting at least 3 bags worth of slots back would be so awesome.

The Transmogrifier is also rather intriguing. I hope that it will be the case that you have to actually obtain the armor yourself before you can transmogrify your current stuff to look like it. I approve of requiring that the armor type stays the same, plate to plate etc, and the class restrictions are kept, which only makes sense if you have to actually have the item before you can transmogrify your current gear to look like it. This sort of change, though, will practically require everyone to have an addon that puts current ilvl somewhere easy to see.

Now the important change from adding the Transmogrifier is what will I have Mornara, Viljo, and Teltanara wearing? Viljo I'm thinking T5, or maybe what I have him wearing in the Figureprint I got. Telt, I liked the Primal Mooncloth set, and perhaps ether the Ulduar or Trial of the Crusader tier gear. Mornara I need to take a look at the ICC sets. I suspect I'll want to go back an get all of that, and perhaps upgrade it to the heroic pieces. Since I didn't really start playing her in raids seriously until ICC I barely remember what the different tier sets were before that. Either way it's definitely time to take stock of all the lovely gear out there and start grabbing up any items I'm missing that are particularly fabulous.

Mechano-Hog!

For years now DraNgNon has been wanting a Mechano-Hog for Eeyan. Because really, what looks more bad ass than a rogue in a hog?



Samajaja, an awesome priest in Darkfall, was nice enough to give DraNgNon a hog as a birthday present. Eeyan promptly took a tour around Durotar with Telt in sidecar.




Pretty badass, no? Well actually there is something that looks more badass than a rogue in a mechano-hog.

A rogue in a mechano-hog with Warglaives of Azzinoth.

Zaela and Garrosh

Zaela and Garrosh sitting in a tree.
K I S S I N G
First comes Love!
Then comes Marriage!

...
Do I really need to type out the rest of that silly song?







But really I think that if Zaela and Garrosh got it on everyone would be a lot happier. She is a bit uptight and Garrosh is a warmongering fool. If Garrosh got laid he'd calm down. And if Zaela got laid she'd still be just as much of a badass, but would also have the 'I'm a sexy orc' card to play.

Garona

Look familiar?

Accidental Heroic

Yesterday I was home sick. After napping and other sick related activities, which I shall not go into, I woke up around 4-ish feeling slightly better. I went down stairs to the lounge and puttered a bit. Put some music on, petted the doggies, settled on the futon with some hot chocolate.

I logged in and did some WoW stuff, too. Khyrie got a level or two. Mornara did her daily JC quest and the fishing quest. I hopped on Telt and did the daily cooking and fishing quests with her, too.

Then I thought that perhaps a nice dungeon run with Telt would be a good thing. She's just at the point where normals are pretty ok. In theory, her gear is over the limit for running heroics. However, in practice I think some of the gear that is counting towards that limit is for her damage set. DraNgNon has been agitating for Eeyan and Telt to run heroics. Especially since Eeyan needs Chaos Orbs for the Blacksmithing. So I figured that a normal dungeon would be good for getting some more rep and maybe a piece of gear or two.

I queue Telt up and 7 minutes later the window pops up and I'm healing.

It was an in progress Halls of Origination. The gauntlet part had already been cleared and the group had clearly wiped on Anraphet. But I kept us all alive, and we handily killed him. We go up the elevator and also handily kill Isiset.

Well, perhaps not quite handily. These pulls were taking all of my mana. Even the trash pulls were leaving me with only mana left. It was pretty rough, the everyone was taking a lot of damage. I took a quick look at the tank's health and the dps of the group. The tank had a fair amount of health, was he just stacking stam and not picking up any mitigation stats? Hmm, the dps were actually not doing as much as Eeyan was the other night, in Halls of Origination, but as a group their average was at or above that previous group. So why were things taking so long to die?

Anyway we engage Rahj. Not too bad a fight, even if the mage decided that standing in my healing range was a silly idea. But then Rahj drops dead and Telt gets the achieve for HEROIC Halls of Origination. OMG Heroic! I thought this was a normal. My jaw literally dropped. I had healed a heroic, and I hadn't even noticed. I struggled a bit because I thought it was a crappy group, but, aside from frantically remembering all my mana regeneration tools, it hadn't been all that bad.

I even won the Chaos Orb.

Campfires

Eeyan and Telt went to Mt Hyjal to map the entrance to Black Rock Caverns. (Via way of Finkel's mole machine.)

There might have been some sillyness with lighting a fire under the world tree.



Cenarion Circle druids are so wierd.

the Plan

We decided our expansion plan Tuesday evening, but I didn't post it becuase work sort of interfered with execution here.

As Clara already posted, except without precise nouns, Kuanchichi and Mornara went to Vashj'ir, since that's where the shamany folks wanted Kuan to go. Eeyan and Teltanara, who neither yet have Crusader nor the Icecrown questing achieve because we are slackers, have been parked in Icecrown to work on those. And Viljo and Ikoli are parked in Orgrimmar, they will go to Hyjal per the Warlord's command board.

How we are trading off on these we're not yet sure, nor have we tried any PvP since Cataclysm dropped. Kuan and Mornara are already 81 and all 6 are building up rest. We've been basically trying to get Eeyan and Telt some dailies and a handful of non daily Icecrown quests in before bed. However becuase guild rep apparently trumps any other rep quests could give, Eeyan might not get his last Exalted rep from the Valiant dailies. Viljo and Ikoli have been cooling their heels. I imagine it will all pick up after today, when we'll have more time.

Blue Drake

Occulus used to be one of the more annoying heroics in Wrath. People didn't like that you had to ride on drakes and try to kill Eregos. It was hard to navigate in 3D when you weren't sure of where to go. And admittedly before they added scaling to the drakes it was actually hard to kill Eregos. But with the drakes scaling with gear and the current level of gear inflation its actually a pretty easy instance.

However people seem to have built up some sort of allergy to Occulus. They don't like flying on Dragons. They don't wanna have to fly around. So Blizzard started bribing people to go to Occulus. In addition to the regular 2 frost badges you get from completing a random you also get a Cache of the Ley Guardian which always has 2 extra badges, usually has a gem plus, and rarely rarely has Reins of the Blue Drake



Yep, that's Telt on her brand new Blue Drake.

Sparkle Pony

The Sparkle Pony, aka Celestial Steed, has been added to the Blizzard Store. This means that for $25 you too can own this mount on all present and future characters. It'll even scale with your riding skill.

I am kind of disappointed. When I first saw the data-mined images of it I was thinking it would be some super extra rare drop from Hardmode 25man LK. Or perhaps that there was going to be some extra reward for getting Starcaller or the Astral Walker.



Additionally I'm disappointed because that mount is ridiculous looking. And not ridiculous look-at-my-awesome-gladiator-mount type of ridiculous. No, no, though there were plenty of people running around Dal and everywhere else on them. This is more the like-OMG-squee!-I-am-shiney type of ridiculous. I swear there was a sparkle infestation in Dal.



The only people I can really see riding the sparkle pony are pallies. And particularly male BE pallies. Everyone esle seems a) not flamingly gay, and b) not 5 years old. Ok, perhaps I could also see human male pallies riding them.



Just look at that! Who of my characters would ride one of those?

Viljo has his raptors and war bear. HE doesn't need no stinking sparkle pony! And he already gets teased about his robes. No way is he going to ride something so potentially emasculating.

Teltanara has the flying carpets that she painstakingly sewed herself. And she has the red hawkstrider that she earned at the tournament. Maybe if she were shadow specced, she would ride one, but only ever in shadow form.

And let me tell you Mornara isn't going to be riding the sparkle pony! Not only does she have her skeletal mounts, but she would also never be caught riding something so terribly frivolous. Hello? Terrifying former agent of the scourge? This does not involve sparkles.

Vault of Casino

Last Saturday I slept in a bit. DraNgNon had been playing WoW, but she woke me up and told me to log Telt on. I did as she logged off and I was promptly invited in to heal a 10man Vault of Archanvon run. Despite my trepidation and the creation of a fail angel just before Toravon died all the bosses were one-shot.



I was not surprised that Telt hadn't previously killed Toravon or even Koralon, but I really thought she'd killed Emalon, and certainly that she had killed Archavon...

Anyway we killed the bosses and finished up just in time for DraNgNon to finish making tasty breakfast for both of us. I win!

Chicken

In the past Teltanara has been accused of riding a chicken. I am here today to prove that is a foul and untrue statment. In my defense I present this screen shot:



See! That gnome (ick) is riding a chicken. An actual chicken! Telt is riding a hawkstrider. Not a chicken!

the New Eeyan

Eeyan and Telt pulled Halls of Reflection, which they still hadn't done, for their random daily last night. They also pulled three rogues as the DPS. This simply didn't work and after vote-kicking the tank, then wiping to red despite replacement better tank, the rogues dropped group. We oneshot everything once a ret pally and a mage were pulled in.

Last week, when running Forge of Souls, Eeyan picked up the axe [Nighttime]. An evaluation of it showed that it was not a big enough increase over the ever-cool-looking [Calamity's Grasp] to be worth switching specs until Eeyan got a decent sword for the offhand.

So lo and behold, what should drop in the end of Halls of Reflection but [Liar's Tongue]!!! And nobody else wanted it. So now Eeyan is Combat Swords, or rather H&S. I've never had him Swords before.

Here he is waiting on the steps of the Bank of Dalaran for Teltanara to come enchant the weapons.



Respeccing is expensive when you're dual-spec'd! Ugh. Anyhow for raiding, after comparing them, I used the spec (right out of Elitist Jerks), and for farming/outdoor questing, I have this spec. I haven't re-glyphed him yet.

Random observations

I've not jumped all over the game in the last 3 days since the patch dropped, mostly because of work. But I've played some and here is what I have experienced and learned. Most but not all of it is patch related.

• Northrend Inscription Research actually stops working, once you've learned all the glyphs you can use at level. Imagine my surprise to find out that now Ikoli is 73 it starts working again. So I've resumed building Ikoli's ... Inscription Resume.

• There are a lot of changes in Icecrown that aren't really part of the Citadel. A shrine, for example, has been added with Blood-Queen Lana'thel talking about a broken blade (Tolkein is rolling over in his grave). This is related to the new 5 mans in a way we shall soon discover; she is also a boss in Icecrown Citadel in the part not yet unlocked.

• Speaking of the new 5 mans, Sylvanas is the quest giver. Blizzard is clearly using a new voice actress for her; the difference grates on the ears since they did not replace her normal emotes.

• Timear is boring now and gives no quests. His stuff is replaced with random dailies you access from LFG. His achieve is now a Feat of Strength.

• Proof of Demise is now a weekly raid "...Must Die!" quest. Yes now I'm echoing the patch notes. The first one is Ignis. We will make sure to do these with Eeyan and Telt. That achievement is also a Feat of Strength. As far as I can tell there is no achieve for all the "...Must Die!" quests, which I interpret to mean they are leaving it open ended and will assign them in weekly server updates.

• The first boss in Icecrown Citadel, which has been acronym'd to ICC, is Marrowgar. New art - awesome. Old tactics - he's basically an uncomplicated combination of Leotheras, Patch and Najentus. We down'd him our first time in there, the second try ...after we got past the strategy writeups and realized what we were seeing.



• It appears that tabard rep now applies to all four Horde Expedition factions. I know, "tabard rep" is a misnomer as those reputation gains are what you get when you wear anything but a faction tabard. Anyhow Kuan & Viljo's Taunka and Hand of Vengeance rep shot up when they went into a 5man.

• ditto for some, but not all, of the Tourney dailies.

• Forge of Souls was a straight shot. I would rate it easy. But Kuan healed in a pug our first (and thus far only) time through, and he had to work for it; we had a few deaths and a wipe even. So some might dispute my "easy" rating. Honestly though, you're supposed to be struggling through an instance.

• Forge of Souls is pretty. Blizz continues to rock the art with the undead instances. I loved Stratholme in "vanilla" for all the detailed art, and I love this.



• The pug was cross-server! I hate pugs in some sense. The above screenshot is everything wrong with the pugs, as well as illustrating a lot of what I've typed in this entry. Notice the pug-badness even is contagious to me, there I was the healer, idle and targeted on Viljo. The lock is not targeted on the skull and has pulled a mob with AOE damage into the casters. etc.

Once Upon a Time: Teltanara

 

My proper name is Telta'anara, which means "Over-shadowing Sun" in Thalassian, however, those not of the Sin'dorei mangle the accent.  In the world outside Silvermoon city and the Evensong woods I go by Teltanara.  I am a priestess of the Sindorei, and you are honored to have me heal you. 

I am a child of the dark times.  I was only a young elf when Arthas burned a swath through Evensong Forest and fouled the Sunwell.  My parents were killed in the defense of our city.  I barely remember the time when magic was plentiful and unfouled in our city.  A time before the weakness of our current magical hunger. 

When it was shown that I had an aptitude for the priestly arts, I was sent to training.  I learned my lessons well, and learned just as well the things that were unsaid but just as directly taught.  Good things come to those who take them, for nothing is free.  This lesson was driven home early on, when my instructors taught me of the value of Power Word: Fortitude.  I was told to cast the spell on at least 5 guards who were still defending the scar that Arthas carved, and which the undead still follow to attack us.  By the time I had returned to my teacher, people had already told her of the wondrous blessings I had cast on them.  They looked up to me, and all priests, for that. 

For a time as a young elf I succumbed to the magical hunger that plagues us all.  I tried bloodthistle.  The rush was so addictive.  I could heal myself faster and kill the undead more efficiently.  But it's ill effects were terrible, I had to keep taking it so I didn't feel bad.  The power was so addictive.  I finally stopped myself, and vowed never to take bloodthistle again.  While it might give me extra power for a time, it made me sick and weak afterward. 

When I left Evensong Woods and ventured into the Ghostlands, I encountered the Forsaken for the first time.  They were once the humans of Lorderon before the Plague turned them into undead.  They claim to not be under the control of the Lich King and are led by Sylvanas Windrunner.  These Forsaken say there are here to help us reclaim our land.  I did not trust them at first, when they were human they failed to aid us enough.  Why should it be different now that they are undead?

I met Sylvanas Windrunner, the Dark Lady of the Forsaken, for the first time after helping to clear out the scourge in the Ghostlands. I had been directed to kill as many scourge as I could in the former Windrunner estate.  When I looted the body of one of them I found an amulet that, though I did not know it at the time, had been a gift from Lady Alleria to Lady Sylvanus.  Not knowing if the amulet was a new magical weapon or just decoration I took it to the Magistrix of Tranquilien.  She directed me to the chief Forsaken present, and he bade me journey to Undercity and present the amulet to Sylvanas.  Sylvanas was not pleased to receive such a gift.  It, and I, reminded her of the life she had lost.  For she had once been Ranger General of Silvermoon.  Despite her rudeness I stayed and heard her sing her grief to the world.  I grieved with her for all that was lost of Silvermoon. 

When I had become skilled enough in my arts that I would not embarrass the Sin'dorei, I was sent to the Warchief of the Horde.  We Sin'dorei were treated badly by the bigoted alliance and have now allied with the Horde.  I was told to help the Horde however they desired.  I don't trust the Orcs or the Trolls, and the Tauren are too full of druidic magic, but Sylvanas leads the Forsaken.  It was never explicitly stated, but my lessons had taught me that they would only help us if we helped them. 

I am an enchanter, and when I was wise enough to learn more enchanting I persuaded a troll shaman to accompany me into the depths of Uldaman, a Dwarven excavation site.  There I paid a human to teach me more of the art of enchanting.  It was not cheap, as learning never is, but it was well worth it.  The troll's price for helping me was that I would then perform enchants for him and disenchant his unused armor and weapons.  This shaman is strong, and for his help in the future I barter my services now. 

I have also met an undead rogue, named Eeyan, who is friendly to me.  He does not seem to be the brightest, but he is good at killing things.  I enchanted a mighty weapon for him recently.  He told me how after much searching for all the materials necessary he had finally been able to make it.  His skills in reducing the numerous enemies in front of us to corpses is quite useful to have around.  And with me healing him he is even more effective.

The undead rogue and I recently went into the Temple of Atal'Hakkar with several other adventurers.  There trolls attempted to summon an evil god into the world, but the green dragon flight stopped them by sinking the temple under the swamp.  However the evilness of the god has corrupted the dragons. So we fought against both the dragons and the trolls.  They all fell before us, and upon looting the body of the chief of the trolls I was able to get a kilt.  This kilt will help me more than the pants that I was wearing previously, but it is strange to be wearing a skirt again.  I had just gotten used to the pants I had made myself.  And it is strange to think of the kilt as having come from a troll, I have cleaned it quite thoroughly several times and I think I finally have the troll stink out of it. 

Eeyan, in return for my help later, has consented to help me kill the Scourge in the Western and Eastern Plaguelands.  The scourge there are stronger than the ones I was used to in the Ghostlands.  Fortunately they all fell to Eeyan's sharp blades and my wand and magic.  We even helped out Nathanos, the Champion of Sylvanus. 

Eeyan was also kind enough to lend me the gold to purchase my epic hawkstrider.  Though it is stereotypical of me, I choose the Swift Pink Hawkstrider.  My intent is not to be girly, the pink hawkstrider is really red, not pink.  However that has not stopped Eeyan from teasing my about riding a "chicken" that is pink.  Ah well I suppose that is a fair price to pay for having such a fast mount. 

Anyway after getting my fast mount Eeyan decreed that since he had helped me so much it was time for me to help him.  Therefore we went through the dark portal.  It was my first time going through the actual portal.  I have been going to Shattrath and learning the more skilled aspects of Tailoring and Enchanting there, but I had never gone through the portal directly.  It was strange to follow in Kael'thas' footsteps.  Though I do not think that I shall help Illidan or the Burning Legion ever. 

Once we were through the portal, I went to Thrallmar and aided the war effort there.  The fel orcs are making a nuisance of themselves in their citadel.  So Eeyan and I and a couple of others went into Hellfire Ramparts and killed as many of them as we could.  We did this a couple of times and were quite pleased to rid the world of a few more fel orcs.  And the commander of Thrallmar was quite pleased to receive proof that the guards of the Ramparts had been dispatched.

I have recently been perfecting my tailoring.  My skills are quite good, and I specialized in primal mooncloth tailoring.  When I choose that specialization I was taught several recipes that only those of that specialization could learn.  They are several very special armor pieces that will boost my healing when I am powerful enough to wear them. 

Recently Eeyan and I helped the Violet Eye, the mages of Dalaran, discover some information about Karazhan, the last residence of Medivh.  In the course of our research Khadgar told us that if we really wanted to know more about it we would need our own key.  After fighting many monsters and gathering the separate pieces that Khadgar had hidden around Outland we had to travel back in time to the original opening of the Dark Portal.  There we gave Medivh the reassembled key of Khadgar and in return Medivh gave us his very own key. 

The gaining of this key is a rite of passage among those in our guild.  They helped us at every step of the way, but we still had to go through all the steps.  Also once we had this key we could go into Karazhan, and kill the monsters and undead beings there.  Sadly these undead won't stay dead very long and our guild regularly kills them.  Fortunately not long after Eeyan and I had received our keys we were invited to go with our guild to Kara.  There we received many pieces of fabulous loot that dropped off the undead creatures of Karazhan.  Consequently I am a much better healer and less likely to die and Eeyan is also a lot more deadly. 

After this trip to Karazhan I was occasionally invited to go with Darkfall to help fight more creatures.  I have helped to kill Gruul, Magtheridon, and some of the lieutanants of Lady Vashj and Prince Kael'thas in Serpent Shrine Cavern and Tempest Keep.  My abilities as a healer, while not as powerful as some of the other members of the guild, are still strong and have been helpful. 

Now the Lich King has awoken and is sending his minions out of Northrend to fight us.  He unleashed a plague of undead on us again,  and it took much work of the Forsaken Apothecaries to defend us against it.  I aided the Argent Dawn in fighting it as well. and for my efforts they let me purchase their tabard. 

The ways to Northrend are open.  The Horde, and also the Alliance, are fighting their way into the newly opened continent.  Teltanara and Eeyan have gone to Undercity to catch the blimp from there to Vengeance Landing, in the Howling Fjord.  There we help the Forsaken Apothecaries set up their research to brew some sort of plague to help defeat the lich king.  Telt and Eeyan also helped the Taunka and the Kaluak to fight against the Lich King and deal with the changes that his newly active armies had wrought on the area. 

Once they were done in Howling Fjord Eeyan and Teltanara went to Dragonblight.  That is where the dragon flights and aspects were created and empowered by the titans.  The whole area was currently under heavy siege by the Scourge.  Dragonblight is where the dragons came from and it is also where they go to die, so the Scourge wanted all of the skeletons of dragons to make in to frost wyrms.  Telt and Eeyan reported into the apothecaries at Venomspite and helped there, and reported to Agmar's Hammer.  There they went to rescue the Taunka and deal with the attacks of the Scourge. 

Once all was made ready they joined their friend Evallen in the attack on the Wrathgate.  They watched, unable to stop it, as the apothecaries betrayed the horde and attacked horde alliance and lich king.  Then they reported to Thrall and helped Thrall and Sylvanas retake the Undercity.  And until Jaina interfered they were helping Thrall kick the King of Stormwind's butt.  Unfortunately the stupid humans, ignorant and xenophobic as ever, blamed all that happened on the Forsaken.  Instead of listening to Thrall and Sylvanas about the betrayal from the apothecaries and Varimanthas. 

After the Wrathgate battle Eeyan and Teltanara continued their journey.  They traveled to Grizzly Hills and helped the Taunka and the Orcs there.  They also ran into a curious troll.  He wanted their help to fight against the scourge in Drak'tharon Keep.  So they did a bunch of quests to help him.  This culminated in their fighting their way, along with several other people, into Drak'tharon Keep.  However it turned out that this troll, Drakuru, had lied to them this whole time.  They weren't helping him fight the Scourge, they were helping him fight as part of the Scourge and defeat the remaining Drakkari trolls.  It was quite a nasty shock to both Eeyan and Telt when Drakuru summoned the Lich King at the top of Drak'tharon Keep.  Telt watched in horrified fascination as the Lich King turned Darkuru into a full fledged member of the Scourge. 

Telt and Eeyan wandered to the Storm Peaks.  There they found the goblins at K3 bemoaning the recent kidnapping of most of the men in the encampment.  So they went up to help rescue them.  This lead to uncovering the whole point of the Vyrkul work at Brunhildar.  Which was to find a new wife for Thorim, and thus pull him out of the stupor he'd been in since Sif had been killed by Loken.  After getting disguised as Vyrkul women and defeating all the challenges of they Hyldsmeet, Eeyan and Telt went to meet Thorim.  Their disguises did not fool him, but he realized that his moping served no purpose.  So they helped him mend his argument with the Sons of Hodir and rearm himself.  Unfortunately when he went to confront Loken everything went badly.  Loken had been watching and manipulating all along.  While Eeyan and Telt were unable to intervene Loken summoned some evil tentacle things and captured both Thorim and his drake Veranus. 

After Loken captured Thorim, Eeyan and Teltanara returned to the Sons of Hodir.  They told them of what had happened.  The Sons helped to plan an attack on Loken, which Eeyan and Telt gathered a few friends to carry out.  It was an epic battle, but Loken fell dead.  Teltanara's healing skills were sorely tested, but it was a good learning experience for both her and Eeyan. 

Recently Teltanara and Eeyan ventured into Naxx.  They went on two separate occasions.  And while the second time was not as successful as the first they both gained several upgrades.  Eeyan especially made out like a bandit.  It truly is the luck of the rogue that he received so many lovely pieces of gear.  He even got a most awesome fist weapon off of Kel'thuzad.  Teltanara lacked the best enchant to put on it so we convinced our bear friend, Cemaros, formerly Leif, to go with us to Karazhan so that we could kill Moroes and Telt could get the Mongoose enchant. 

Teltanara has not yet ventured into Ulduar, but she has tried out a small version of the new arena that Tirion Fordring and the Argent Crusade have built.  Healing the heroic is challenging, but the arena itself is quite boring.  Having the enemies come to you to fight lacks a certain adventuring spirit.  At least the Argent Crusade is free with their rewards.  In fact they are often too free, and Telt's skill as a dis-Enchanter is very handy. 

Achieve-O-Rama!

Kuanchichi and Viljo went to Old Kingdom with Naleana and Ahngusbeaf and Sunuru. It was the daily heroic so we all wanted some badges. In the usual way of things I like OK. It's got a couple of bosses with fun mechanics. Especially the end boss where you have to kill a copy of all the rest of your group. Unfortunately we ran into bugs on both crazy-cultist-lady and Herald.

Crazy cultist lady had about 10 of her elite minions run up the stairs and start beating us as soon as we pulled her. They aren't supposed to do that. But after a wipe we made sure they didn't do that again, and killed her handily.

Herald Volazj was more of a pain, with a much more difficult to work around bug. When he cast insanity each of us was faced with several copies of our team to defeat. Viljo was prepared to deal with the rest of his team, but not three copies of the rest of his team. So we wiped on him twice. The third time we actually managed to all survive the insanity, and killed Herald in 1:59. Just one second in time to get the speed kill achieve, Volazj's Quick Demise, for everyone in the party. It was epic, but usually I prefer not to have to work around the game's bugs.

After that DraNgNon and I were going to go to bed, but we were tootling around doing a few dailies and crafting stuff and Teltanara got pulled into VOA25. It was a good group, so it all went quite smoothly. Apparently Telt had never done any of VOA25 before. So she got all three kill achieves.

While Telt was in VOA, Rahlenti asked in guild chat if there was a shaman who wanted to be part of a Sarth+3 zerg attempt. Kuanchichi said yes and after several wipes Kuan is now the proud Kuanchichi of the Nightfall, and has the achieves Twilight Duo and Twilight Zone