Heffalumps and Warhorses

We spent quite a long time in Ironforge - so long that we didn't leave enough time to actually get out and do much. That may sound like it wasn't productive, but it was; I spent a while scanning the auction house for bargains to buy cheap and resell at a profit, and in the process I found a couple of things that'll help Kate out later (a bar of Truesilver and an Aquamarine that she'll need to make a sword that she wants). I also spent some time going through my character's armour and looking for better equipment on the auctions, and I found new leggings and a belt, plus eight (four for me, four for Kate) Thick Armour Kits that each add thirty-two points to armour, at bargain-basement prices.

Kate was still busy so I flew out to Refuge Pointe to find a few raptors to whack so that I could get level 35, and while I was about it I mined some iron, tin and mithril as I came across it. On the way back to Ironforge I detoured to Southshore to get some turtle meat so that I could stock up on 'cheesehead' Turtle Bisques, then it was back to Ironforge for cleanup and repairs. While I was doing all that, Kate was in conversation with a friend who has been very generous with cash, and who gave her quite a pile which she's shared.

Now, we've had the ability since level 30 to get riding mounts, but I was always under the impression that they were expensive. It turns out that I was wrong in more ways than one. For most classes it costs a gold piece to pay for riding training so that you can actually use a mount, and then another ten gold to buy a mount (actually you get a price reduction based on your reputation, so it's not quite that much). For some reason I was under the impression that training was much more expensive and that the cheapest mounts were at least thirty-five gold.

There is one limitation - you have to buy mounts from your own faction's vendors, which limits the kind of mount you can buy. In fact you can buy another faction's mounts if your reputation is Exalted - the highest reputation level you can be - but we're not that high with the other factions so as Draenei we can only buy Elekks, little Elephant clones.

As it happens I already had riding training, and I had a spell called Summon Warhorse that I'd got as part of my level 30 Paladin training. I'd never cast the spell to try it; I'd assumed that it wouldn't do anything until I'd actually bought a horse. Standing outside the bank in Ironforge, I moved the spell down onto my action bar and clicked it. Three seconds later, I was sitting on a horse (it looks pretty cool, too, like a Shire Horse with its own armour). I did some checking and found that this is a perk of being a Paladin (or a Warlock - they get a similar summon spell at level 30); you get the training, the spell and the mount for the cost of the training (a few silver, if I remember correctly).

We made our way out to the Exodar - the only place to buy Elekks - and Kate got her training and bought an Elekk (8g50s with the 15% reputation discount). Both the Elekk and the Warhorse add sixty percent to your speed, so we should be able to keep pace with each other easily. Kate feels dorky on the Elekk, so we might go and run some quests to push our rep with the Night Elves up to Exalted; Night Elves get Sabercats to ride, which look much cooler. In the meantime I may get me an Elekk too; I've got enough cash and maybe Kate wouldn't feel so bad if we both looked like dorks.