North and South
Almost everything I set up for auction sold, so I had enough when we started to pay for the missing Paladin training that I'd had to leave the day before. After taking care of that and a couple of other things in the Exodar we used hearthstones to get back to Astranaar and checked over the open quests to decide what to do next.
North
There was a quest to the north, to grab the skull of a Furbolg called Dal Bloodclaw, and another to meet someone at a place northeast of Astranaar and give them the gem we'd taken from the murlocs at Lake Falathim - the gem, it turns out, being part of a powerful magic rod. Since these two quests seemed to be located close together it made sense to try to cover them in one trip. Accordingly we took the west road out of Astranaar and picked up a northbound trail not too far away that we'd seen before.
The trail led to an area filled with furbolgs, all level 27 and 28. Bear in mind that at this time I was level 24 and Kate was 25; nevertheless we don't have too much trouble taking on mobs three or even four levels higher than ourselves (and in fact we can usually each handle two at a time although it can get a bit hairy), so between the two of us we didn't have too much trouble with these guys. At one point Kate did get four on her back and I was actually able to keep her healed for a while, but then I ran out of mana and that was the end for both of us. Temporarily, of course.
Anyway Kate took down Dal and got the quest item and then we hung around whacking more furbolgs until he respawned and I was able to take him on (we didn't work grouped because doing that splits the XP and so it takes us twice as long to hit new levels).
From there we worked our way east to locate the person we were to meet for the other quest. It took a while but eventually we found the Moonwell - it looks like a kind of rustic hot tub - and our contact, who turned out to be a centaur.
We handed over the gem and that led to a new follow-on quest, to get a key from one of the treants to the northeast, use the key to get another part of the magic rod from a locked chest and bring it back to the moonwell.
There isn't a direct path northeast from there so we had to head southwest and skirt around the hills before we could get going in the right direction, and that brought us out on the road leading north into Felwood. We found the treants and each got our keys without too much trouble, then continued north. Kate found the locked box before I did, in some ruins just off the road - in fact I was standing almost next to it and still didn't see it until she pointed it out to me.
Since we were so close to Felwood we thought we'd carry on up the road to take a look, but that came to an end when we saw a 'level ??' mob ahead of us and that was the signal to head back to the moonwell. There we dropped off the rod parts and now we have another quest, to locate the last part of the rod. This is a 'red' quest (at least for me) and in any case is located somewhere we haven't found yet. We both had pretty full inventories and needed repairs, so we hearthstoned back to Astranaar.
South
We each had three quests that all meant finding Stonetalon Peak, so with repairs done and space cleared in our packs we took the east bridge out of Astranaar and then the south fork in the road. One of the quests gave fairly clear directions for finding the way to Stonetalon; to start, we had to find a tunnel through the mountains.
Not too far down the road we found a lake with an island in the middle, and we could see Stardust-laden bushes over there. Since we needed stardust for another of the quests, we swam over and picked what we needed. It wasn't without incident - there are creatures all around that can sprout roots around your feet to stop you moving, fire lightning bolts and in some cases create mini lightning storms right over your hat.
Back on the road we continued south until we hit the mountains then followed them along to the east until we found the tunnel. I'd expected that we'd have to fight our way through but we passed through without seeing a single mob or even any other players.
The quest directions said to go southwest, cross a lake then head north. After a false start or two we found the northern path. This whole region is desolate - deforested and burned out by Venture Company goblins. The lake is polluted with garbage and oil slicks.
The run north to Stonetalon Peak was pretty uneventful and it didn't take long to get there. I was expecting a town of some kind - a forge, somewhere to cook stuff, a profession trainer or two, maybe even Paladin and Warrior trainers. The reality is disappointing; as far as I can see there's an inn, a trader and a flightmaster. And that's it, apart from another Moonwell. (What are moonwells for?)
We set the inn as 'hearthstone-home' then, since Stonetalon has very little that we needed right then, opened up the flightpath and headed back to the Exodar. That just left one detail - the stardust that we'd picked up on the way, to be given to someone in Astranaar. The quickest way to do this was to hearthstone back to Stonetalon then fly to Astranaar and once we'd taken care of that we checked in to the inn there and quit.
We still have quests open in Ashenvale, and there's a big chunk of the eastern end that we haven't explored yet. That could be risky - I'm fairly sure there are Horde settlements out that way - so we'll have to decide which to do first: take care of the Stonetalon quests or finish in Ashenvale.
North
There was a quest to the north, to grab the skull of a Furbolg called Dal Bloodclaw, and another to meet someone at a place northeast of Astranaar and give them the gem we'd taken from the murlocs at Lake Falathim - the gem, it turns out, being part of a powerful magic rod. Since these two quests seemed to be located close together it made sense to try to cover them in one trip. Accordingly we took the west road out of Astranaar and picked up a northbound trail not too far away that we'd seen before.
The trail led to an area filled with furbolgs, all level 27 and 28. Bear in mind that at this time I was level 24 and Kate was 25; nevertheless we don't have too much trouble taking on mobs three or even four levels higher than ourselves (and in fact we can usually each handle two at a time although it can get a bit hairy), so between the two of us we didn't have too much trouble with these guys. At one point Kate did get four on her back and I was actually able to keep her healed for a while, but then I ran out of mana and that was the end for both of us. Temporarily, of course.
Anyway Kate took down Dal and got the quest item and then we hung around whacking more furbolgs until he respawned and I was able to take him on (we didn't work grouped because doing that splits the XP and so it takes us twice as long to hit new levels).
From there we worked our way east to locate the person we were to meet for the other quest. It took a while but eventually we found the Moonwell - it looks like a kind of rustic hot tub - and our contact, who turned out to be a centaur.
We handed over the gem and that led to a new follow-on quest, to get a key from one of the treants to the northeast, use the key to get another part of the magic rod from a locked chest and bring it back to the moonwell.
There isn't a direct path northeast from there so we had to head southwest and skirt around the hills before we could get going in the right direction, and that brought us out on the road leading north into Felwood. We found the treants and each got our keys without too much trouble, then continued north. Kate found the locked box before I did, in some ruins just off the road - in fact I was standing almost next to it and still didn't see it until she pointed it out to me.
Since we were so close to Felwood we thought we'd carry on up the road to take a look, but that came to an end when we saw a 'level ??' mob ahead of us and that was the signal to head back to the moonwell. There we dropped off the rod parts and now we have another quest, to locate the last part of the rod. This is a 'red' quest (at least for me) and in any case is located somewhere we haven't found yet. We both had pretty full inventories and needed repairs, so we hearthstoned back to Astranaar.
South
We each had three quests that all meant finding Stonetalon Peak, so with repairs done and space cleared in our packs we took the east bridge out of Astranaar and then the south fork in the road. One of the quests gave fairly clear directions for finding the way to Stonetalon; to start, we had to find a tunnel through the mountains.
Not too far down the road we found a lake with an island in the middle, and we could see Stardust-laden bushes over there. Since we needed stardust for another of the quests, we swam over and picked what we needed. It wasn't without incident - there are creatures all around that can sprout roots around your feet to stop you moving, fire lightning bolts and in some cases create mini lightning storms right over your hat.
Back on the road we continued south until we hit the mountains then followed them along to the east until we found the tunnel. I'd expected that we'd have to fight our way through but we passed through without seeing a single mob or even any other players.
The quest directions said to go southwest, cross a lake then head north. After a false start or two we found the northern path. This whole region is desolate - deforested and burned out by Venture Company goblins. The lake is polluted with garbage and oil slicks.
The run north to Stonetalon Peak was pretty uneventful and it didn't take long to get there. I was expecting a town of some kind - a forge, somewhere to cook stuff, a profession trainer or two, maybe even Paladin and Warrior trainers. The reality is disappointing; as far as I can see there's an inn, a trader and a flightmaster. And that's it, apart from another Moonwell. (What are moonwells for?)
We set the inn as 'hearthstone-home' then, since Stonetalon has very little that we needed right then, opened up the flightpath and headed back to the Exodar. That just left one detail - the stardust that we'd picked up on the way, to be given to someone in Astranaar. The quickest way to do this was to hearthstone back to Stonetalon then fly to Astranaar and once we'd taken care of that we checked in to the inn there and quit.
We still have quests open in Ashenvale, and there's a big chunk of the eastern end that we haven't explored yet. That could be risky - I'm fairly sure there are Horde settlements out that way - so we'll have to decide which to do first: take care of the Stonetalon quests or finish in Ashenvale.
posted by Pete Ford at
11:35 AM
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