Western Ashenvale

The Zoram Strand is the coastal region on the west side of Ashenvale. We went there from Astranaar to explore and to run two or three quests. The area has a lot of Naga and a small number of Hydrae (the first time I saw one I thought I was looking at two Threshers close together) but it wasn't too tough.

After that my inventory was full to bursting with stuff picked up from the Naga so we hearthstoned back to Astranaar to sell stuff and get repairs.

We decided to head west again to find Lake Falathim, needed for another quest, but on our first foray we didn't find the place. We explored the area south and west of Astranaar, including two shrines one of which was filled with some fairly tough enemies. But eventually we found that we'd gone round in big circle and come back to Astranaar.

Since we were so close we went into Astranaar for repairs then made an unplanned trip to Auberdine - partially for reasons I'll describe shortly, but also because Astranaar doesn't have a forge and also, strangely, doesn't seem to have any kind of cooking facilities.

When we got back to Astranaar we took the road back to Maestra's Post and struck out west and south. According to the quest information Lake Falathim is west of Astranaar so the only place left to look was the area between where we'd just been and the Zoram Strand but there are hills in between. It turned out that the lake was there, on the north side of the hills from where we'd looked before, and infested with murlocs. We cleared up two quests around there - one to find someone who turned out to have been got by murlocs, then another to reclaim a gem from those murlocs - and I think it was about this time that I hit level 24.

We took off back to Astranaar then flew to Teldrassil/Darnassus for training... only to find that Darnassus doesn't have a Paladin Trainer, so after doing a little business there we took the boat to The Exodar.

My inventory and my bank slots between them have been getting pretty choked with mining and blacksmithing materials, many of which I have no use for so at Kate's suggestion I decided to use up as many of the metal bars as I could to make axes and armour for auction, then I also auctioned a lot of the excess raw materials. This cleaned up a whole bunch of space in my inventory and I'm hoping it'll bring in a decent pile of cash - not least because my Paladin training cost most of the money I had on me (or rather, had left after buying a couple of 12-slot bags) and I still have a couple more skills I need to buy but couldn't afford.

So after doing our business we quit for the night in The Exodar so that we have access for the training immediately when we start again and hopefully have some more money available from the auctions.

High Level Idiots

One of the reasons that we had to take off to Auberdine from Astranaar was that a level 68 Undead Mage (player) decided to wipe out the Weaponsmith while I was in the middle of selling stuff and getting repairs then started following us around and hitting me with Polymorph spells. No doubt this dope thought it was funny, but the larger question is that I'd like to know what the point is of going to an enemy town just to knock down the NPCs.

This isn't the first time we've seen this - it happened to our Mage and Rogue at Sentinel Hill and again in Lakeshire, where a group of Horde players laid siege to the place by whacking the flightmaster. Is that all there is to do when you get to those high levels? I hope when we get up there I can find something a little more interesting to do.