Why am I in a gnome's body? - Squigvicious

This is something I ask myself quite often. More importantly, why is it so important to find out what the Alliance kings are up to, and how will I be able to find out this information. Sylvannas thinks that once I've become more experienced, I will be able to find out this information. So far, it seems as if I've been assigned to menial tasks. Every time I even get near enough to hear what's going on, they don't seem to be talking of anything of great importance.

I tried going back to Tinwhistle and his assistant to see if I could be changed back into my natural form, but they said that if they did that, then they might not be able to transform me back into the same goblin as before, which could mean losing all that I've gained. In addition, the materials that are required for said transformation are quite rare indeed, and can only be found in certain areas of Northrend. I've been considering trying to go to my home island and seeing if the helicopter can make it that far, but alas, I worry about my skills as a mechanic, and whether or not it will hold up for the trek. So, I shall continue to muster on and learn what can be learned. I was fortuitous enough to hitch a ride to Dalaran, so I will listen in when I can to the generals there. I am hoping to make contact with some of the members of the Horde so that I can get the information that I gather directly to them. As of yet, the information is trivial, at best, so my current contacts are fine, but I have noticed that several of the other goblins are getting suspicious, and so I've had to pull back. They are the ones that believe in true neutrality. I dare not push my luck anymore. That's all for now. If someone reads this message, please send me a response.

So so sixty! -Squigvicious

I have reached level 60. (Actually, now 62, to be more accurate.)

I'm cruising around Hellfire Peninsula on my brand new helicopter and getting ready to head to Zangramarsh. I'm also thinking, now would be a good time to turn in some old quests. I even found some buddies to group up with to take out some giants and a nasty demon hanging out in the pools of...Agomar?

This second skin itches so bad...and I miss my sweetie. It's been so long since I've seen her. I'm thinking about having Tinwhistle and Grok change me back sooner. I guess until then I'll have to just cope.

Hakkar, - Squigvicious

I cannot wait to get out of this disguise. I dislike having to negotiate with these Alliance folks. They are so flighty and uncommitted. But, my undercover work is still in process. Honestly, I think that Grimble and Spark have forgotten how to transform me back into my natural state - goblin.

I am in this guild, and there is this guy who I find incredibly annoying. I was recruiting folks to come into Zul'Garub with me and he signs up. Then he leaves. I wasn't too concerned. Later he whispers me and says that he'll be able to come in about 15 minutes. I get as many people as I can, and we head into Zul'Garub. We had only the two bosses that have mounts and Hakkar on the list of things to kill. We're about to get to Hakkar, so I ask this guy if he still wants to come. He said he did, so I invited him. He then starts talking incessantly about how he wants to be promoted. I told him I couldn't as I gave someone else lead. Finally he gets his other friends in. And now he's going on about how he needs to be summoned. I asked him, doesn't he have a way to get here. He said no. We couldn't wait. So, he left. We lobbed off Hakkar's head. And everyone in the group was happy. I later apologized to this guy, dispite that fact that I didn't feel that I should have, saying that I was sorry things didn't work. I do have to put up with him on a day-to-day basis, so decided to settle the storm before it starts.

Prophesies and spirits, -Mula

I wish I had written this information down sooner, as the details have gotten fuzzy. Last Thursday, we were joined at our moot by another tribe. They were concerned about spirits that had become disturbed. I asked Rincewindy about this and he said that spirits don't like it when things are different, or changed around.

They also reported feeling the earth shake when they were in Orgrimmar.

I reported that Hallion, a dragon the shade of a reddish-purple, had destroyed the ruby sanctum, up in Dragonblight.

There were many questions asked, and it seemed as if there were more questions than answers. I have asked Rincewindy to see what he can find about Hallion's origins.

Hello Hallion, - Mula

I found myself joined up with the Reckless Mortals again, thanks to Senne. We entered the Ruby Sanctum and found Hallion in the center of a clearing. I was actually surprised to see how much life was in the sanctum. I don't know what I was expecting...maybe another barren landscape surrounded by lava...or a tundra of a wasteland...certainly not a rich vibrant forest. It was almost a shame that we would have to fight in such a peaceful area.

The fight started and we were doing pretty well. Then Hallion slips into a different realm. We all ran in after him. The battle continued on. Then, Hallion goes back into the normal realm...sorta. So, our ranged warriors went after him in that realm and myself and the close-combat warriors stayed in the twilight realm. After a delicately balanced battle, we succeeded in taking him down. I was thrilled to be a part of the success.

On another note, Gorgatsuya has promised to make me a motor bike. I just need about 8,000 more gold to pay for the parts. I can feel the motor runnin' already.

Now for the hard part, -Mula

The forging of Shadowmourne is getting more difficult. Right now, I'm in a position where I could potentially begin to work on it, but it requires defeating some of the more difficult bosses in the Citadel. The first step, is to beat Professor Putricide while the axe has absorbed a particular essence...which can only be obtained while running around in giant construct. I am not familiar with the operation of this construct, nor am I completely familiar with the construct's role in the fight, which means learning from other's experiences.

The next step is to kill the Vampire Queen, but only after absorbing the blood essence. I hear I need to get blood mirror put on me, then be turned to a vampire, and then kill her. I am usually one of the last ones on the totem pole when it comes to the whole vampire blood sucking bit in this fight, so let's add another impossible task to my list.

The third step is to get the frost essence from Sindragosa. This might take some pre-planning. I am going to need to get a lot of frost resistance, since I will be needing to stand in front of the dragon when it's blowing cold air on everyone...and then of course, be able to kill it. No small task indeed.

Finally, the last bit should be relatively easier. Just got to collect 50 shards from the bosses. And...with one shard dropping off of certain bosses...well...depends on how well the raid is.

Then Shadowmourne is mine. And then I shall be splitting open the Lich King's skull with it.

I am hoping to be able to finish these tasks with the help of my guild members, but...I may need to call in some help from outside sources. I am suspecting that everyone in the raid will need to be well-geared...extremely well-geared.

Naxxaramas and some souls, -Mula

Monday, I was hanging around in Dalaran to see if anyone needed some help with Icecrown Citadel, and I heard that someone was looking for some help in Naxxaramas. So, being that I'd never been there before (apart from a couple weekly assignments), I signed up, and talked Aracna into coming, as well. She said she was dress shopping, but could go hat shopping in Naxxaramas. We made quick work of the critters running around and ran into Anub'Rekhan. He's very buggy and he summons bugs and spits out bugs. We stomped him good. We went along and ran into Grand Widow Faerlina and her cronies. She went down quickly. Finally we came to Maexxna, a big...no huge...ginormous red, yellow and black spider. (Lladywolf, you would have been terrified!) We, splattered it's guts all over the place.

We moved on to the construct quarter. We made quick work of Patchwork. Moved on to Grobbulus (a very strange individual) and took him out. We went on to Gluth. I was concerned that we'd have some trouble with the big pooch, because by this time, Aracna had left and if someone didn't slow the zombiechow from getting to Gluth, we'd have some trouble killing him since the zombiechow healed him up. I helped keep the zombies away from him, and we succeeded in killing him. We came up to Thaddius. He's got two guys on these platforms that we had to kill at the same time. The we had to jump over to the platform that Thaddius was on. I've heard it could be a difficult jump. I got a running start and leapt...and didn't quite make it. Several other people didn't make it, as well. We had to give it another go, since Thaddius used this to his advantage. We took out his buddies, again. This time, the priest made it easier for me and the others in our group and we landed on the platform. At this point, things get electrifying. I swear my hair was standing on end. I got struck hard and had to be revived. We ended up draining his battery dry...or smashing it to pieces.

We, came upon the Plague quarter. At this point we lost one of our dps, so I asked the guild if anyone wanted to come and Anca said she would. She came on to help take out Noth the plaguebringer and his skeleton friends. We came upon Heigan the unclean and after bathing in his acid baths the first time, danced him to his grave. After, Heigan, Loatheb was a breeze.

We had a little trouble the first time with Instructor Razuvious in the Military quarter, but caught on quick and ended up teaching HIM the lesson. Gothik the Harvester was next. We harvested him with ease. The Four horsemen, Sir Zeliek, Thane Korth'azz, Lady Blaumeux, and Baren Rivendare, I thought would give us a challenge, but we coordinated our efforts to beat them by splitting them up and taking 'em out one by one.

I was feeling very giddy by this time. And even though we were all very tired by this point, we decided to give the rest of the dungeon a go. We entered Sapphiron's chilly lair and were greated by the boney dragon. Well, we were greeted by it's frosty breath and sharp teeth and claws. We hid behind ice blocks and chipped away at the dragon until we could chip away no more.

We moved into the throne room where, Kel'Thuzad was waiting for us. He was finishing a conversation with the Lich King when we entered. At this point, he started sending his minions after us. We cut through the ranks and finally the lich decided to fight us with his own two hands. We were cutting him down and noticed that he was starting to sweat. He makes a quick call to the Lich King asking for help. The Lich King pretty much told him he was too busy, and sent a couple of Crypt Lords to join the fight. Seeing the panic on his face we doubled our efforts and started pushing him back. Next thing we knew, he on the ground and his "puppies" retreated to safer ground. And there was much rejoicing!

On a side note: I was back in Icecrown Citadel with my bidding buddies last night. This time I actually had 1700 gold to potentially spend. There was a ring that dropped, but the bidding went up to 3k, but no matter. Most importantly, I collected the 1000 souls needed for Shadow's edge. And I have to say, it was due to the fact that we wiped while trying to heal Valithria Dreamwalker. If we'd been successful, I would never have gotten the needed souls last night. Now comes the hard part. But, I'll tell you about that on a later date.

Have you noticed. -Squigvicious

Did you notice that the more experienced you are the longer the wait time on random dungeons is? It is true. That is...until you reach 80.

Another surprise hit me yesterday. I maxed out my lockpicking skill. I wasn't progressing in my skill and I was wondering why. Then, after asking in trade, turns out lockpicking works like weapon skills. Makes sense. I am so relieved to hear this. Now, as long as I pick 5 locks per level, I'm good!

My engineering and mining skills are falling behind. I think I might need to farm 'em next time I'm out. I've gotta find some mithril, though. And I'm starting to get to areas that have thorium, and dark iron.

Anyway, I've been grinding real hard gaining experience. I'm now at level 51. I'm hoping to reach 80 by the end of the year.

So, way to blow a dungeon. We're in Blackrock depths. The tank goes into the area with all the dogs and guards. He pulls the first group, then the next, and the next. Naturally, he dies. I'm running for my life, trying to turn invisible and failing. So, I leave the party, hoping that this will take me out of the dungeon before I get torn apart by a hundred angry dogs. It doesn't. So, I'm dead, and groupless and still in the dungeon. So, I've gotta get rezzed and run back. And now it's saying that I can't get into another dungeon for 30 minutes. Talk about a long wait. Because, once you ditch the group and have to wait that amount of time, you've got to wait even longer to requeue for another dungeon. So, learn from my mistake, don't leave the party. But, it didn't matter that much since I had quests to do and locks to pick and plenty to do. Yeah, don't leave the party unless you got stuff to do or want to let someone else have a go (i.e., switch to another character).

Nefarious down! - Mula

That's right. And that also means that the only raids that I haven't completed through to the end are Naxxaramas, Icecrown Citadel, Ulduar, and Ruby Sanctum.
I think it would be really wishful thinking to hope that I would be able to finish these before the end of the year.

Blackwing lair is one of the more...trickier...of the classic raids. First thing you have to do is go into Upper Blackrock Spire and kill this guy who flys around on a dragon. Then you can go into Blackwing lair through Upper Blackrock Spire, or grab something off the dragon-rider's body and get attuned to the crystal that teleports you to the dungeon. Anyway...

Once you get into blackwing lair, the first room, you've got to mind control a dragon and have him break all the eggs. Of course, it's not that easy. While someone (usually the tank) is MC-ing this dragon, all these dragons and orcs come out of woodwork and start attacking. (At least I thought they were orcs.) Anyway, once the dragon eggs are squished, you've got to attack the MC-ed dragon...while the mobs still keep coming.

Then, once that dragon is killed, you go into the next room. But, wait there's more...mobs that is. They are still coming out of the woodwork. So, you've got to kill this big red dragon, keep the mobs in check. So, we kill the dragon. And the mobs are still coming. Finally, we kill them all. We're able to rez the tank and move onto the next room.

This room, there are lots of dragon whelps. And a few bigger dragons. And did I mention the poison gas? Yeah. Makes you go super slow. So, we're "running" through this room, but everything is going in slow motion except for the bad guys. Eventually, you get to this dragon guy. So we all put our backs to the wall and he's knocking us back into the wall. Can you only imagine if we hadn't been against the wall. Gah! So, we killed him.

The next room wasn't too bad. Just deadly. There's bomb throwing goblins and a big dragon flying around the middle of the room. We were able clear that room out pretty quickly. Went up the stairs. Took out some more...surprise...dragons! Learned how to smelt eternium(?) ore off the dead body of a gobbie. Took out two more dragons at the top of the stairs. Opened the gate and there was this two-headed dragon doggie. I ended up tanking it. And we killed it.

We finally got to Nefarious. He was sittin' on his throne chillaxin'. We told him he didn't have a permit for all those dragons. He didn't like that. He started sending his dragon minions after us. Not cool. So we killed them. Then HE changed into a DRAGON!!! So, we had to fight him. Then he brings all his dragon minions back to life. Yeah, the ones that we had killed, and we killed 'em again. And we killed Nefarious. Chopped his head off and one of the other fellows I was grouped with said he'd show it to the right folks. And that was that.

Burn out

Ok. How do you know you're suffering from burn out in WoW? Another list. Feel free to comment and add :)

1. You started out doing 20 daily quests a day for money, you're now down to 4.
2. You're 12,000 points away from getting exalted with a faction and you've been like that for about 6 months, even though the faction has sweet rewards.
3. You're doing the bare minimum to keep your character(s) up to par.
4. Your alt's are having trouble staying in the guild they're in...getting kicked out because of being a no-show.
5. Your mail that your alt sent an alt has bounced back to the sender and is down to 3 days left.
6. You're new character you made failed to get to a mailbox in time to receive the starting pets and mounts.
7. You become one of "those" people. You know, the grumpy/bored ones that are trolling in trade.
8. You've made, yet again, another new character that will never make it past level 20.
9. You've made a new character of a race you can't stand, just to troll in their trade chat.
10. You're tired of running around, tired of killing things, tired of gathering things, and tired of trolling.

Ten signs you know you're never going to see the end of the dungeon.

1. You've barely stepped in the dungeon when the tank is already running ahead and grabbing a large group of bad guys.
2. You say "Hello" or "Hi" and nobody says "Hi" back.
3. The tank is wearing dps gear.
4. The healer is wearing dps gear.
5. You're two mobs into the dungeon and someone has started griping about someone else.
6. You're two mobs into the dungeon and the party has died...again.
7. Turns out that the tank's gear is in much need of an upgrade. This could be because he/she is wearing leather when he/she could be wearing mail. There could be severely horrendous items equipped, such as level 5 gray items in a level 15 dungeon.
8. The tank cannot maintain aggro, resulting in ... more griping!
9. Either the tank or the healer leaves. This results in a mass exodus. Who really wants to wait for another tank or healer?
10. 2+ of the players in the group are under 13. (Sure, this one can't really be proven as a deciding factor for failure, but...)

Lady Vashj defeated, -by Mula

I signed up for the raid for Serpentshrine caverns last night, as I have never been there before. I thought it would be a fairly quick raid, and that I'd still have time to go the that evening's moot. We started at 5:30 server time and were decimating the opposition. I was thrilled to finally be able to kill the lurker that I'd fished up a few weeks ago. We got to Lady Vashj and were pulverizing her when she thought it would be a great idea to put up her shields. She started sending her minions after us. We were killing the minions but could not figure out how to defeat her. Meanwhile, she was getting bigger and bigger and stronger, as well. Needless to say, she forced us to retreat. We gathered a few more folks and found out that we needed to get an item from some of the tainted elements that were spawning. That item could be used to break her shields. We took her on again, and all went according to plan. With her defeat, I have completed all of the Outland Dungeons! It was a big surprise for me!
Unfortunately, as far as time goes, it went 1 hour and 15 minutes past the 6:00 moot start time. ((and I also would have been on time for picking my husband up from school, if we'd killed Vashj on the first try. I guess 15 minutes of hubby aggro was deserved.))

Things are looking up!, -by Mula

So, it was a busy day for me, yesterday. Did a quick run through Zul'Aman. Found this troll guy and saved him. In exchange he gave me a ragged voodoo doll. I was baffled as to what to do with it. He said that there was someone in Shattrath that would like it. Oh-kay.

Also did a quick run through the Vault of Archenon.
And a quick run through Ulduar to take down Ingvar (sp?) the flame keeper. That was interesting in the fact that the tank wasn't tankly enough. I went to repair and the bill was 115 gold! I hadn't repaired in a while, though.

I was about to call it for the night when Senne (from the tribe) asked if there was anyone who'd want to come for a fresh run through Icecrown citadel. I had been in Zul'Aman at the time and was on the last boss, so I said that I wanted to go. Got finished with the trolls, and made my way over to the citadel. This was an amazing group! And also was the first time I'd raided with them. We blew through the first half of the dungeon. We downed Professor Putricide like he was nothin'. We blazed through the vampires. Got through the queen in 2 tries. We downed her just as she was about to go apeshit! By the end of the night, we only had two bosses left. Syndragosa and the lich king. It was truly phenominal! I even got an upgrade for my shoulders and new plate leggings! And to top it all off, I am two frosty emblems from getting a better helm! And...and...ack!, I need more gems!!