Felwood and the Burning Steppes

Felwood

We’d never been to Felwood before, although our Draenei friends had got close while exploring Ashenvale a long time ago. We had a quest to complete there – to gather slime from two different kinds of living ooze – and another to meet someone in Winterspring, the region to the north-east of Felwood, so we decided to go ahead with these quests.

We made our way to Astranaar in Ashenvale then rode east and north. Completely uneventful, all the way to the Felwood border. Felwood is long north-to-south, narrow east-to-west, and once past the border at the southern end we took advantage of that fact since it made it possible to explore the whole region fully.

We worked our way north, with me mining mithril wherever I could find it and Kate picking up herbs; the hostile creatures in the area were all around level 52 give or take a level or two – tough enough to be a challenge but not so tough that we were ever in any real danger. Along the way we found the oozes we had to whack for the slime-gathering quest, but all in all it was very straightforward.

By the time we’d reached the border with Winterspring we’d completed the map and picked up another quest or two in the area, although there are a handful more we could go back for if we want to later.

There’s a tunnel leading through the mountains into Winterspring, and it brought us out just a short distance from the person we were supposed to meet here for the last quest; with that completed our time was up so we hearthed back to Ironforge for the night.

The Burning Steppes and Level 54

Although we’d left a couple of quests open in Felwood and Winterspring, we had another couple of high level quests in the Burning Steppes and we decided it was about time we took them on. I was actually thinking about doing the Sunken Temple quest in the Swamp of Sorrows first then finishing our exploration of Deadwind Pass on the way to the Steppes, but that Temple quest involves going into a dungeon and from past experience we knew that dungeon quests can take a very long time, so we decided to leave that for the time being. Instead, off we went to Lakeshire and hit the road north into the Steppes.

Our first quest here was to pick up twelve relics from the ruins around the centre of the region. The way north from the Redridge Mountains side is pretty heavy with Dragonkin, Whelps and a fair number of adult Dragons, mostly around the level 54 mark, and I found things getting pretty hairy when I was attacked by two whelps and a wolf at the same time.

The area around the ruins is patrolled by some fairly huge golem-like creatures and fair number of dwarves, many of whom carry either guns or poison-bladed daggers; those little buggers are pretty quick, too, and I had to use Seal of Justice on the ones with guns because otherwise they had a nasty habit of running away and shooting from a safe (for them) distance. All the same we soon had all twelve of the relics we needed, and along the way we both hit level 54; we headed north to find the person we needed to meet for the second quest. That quest of course led to another, in which we have to find her brother – and bring back his head. Nice family.

We spent the rest of the time making our way west to try to finish mapping the region; unfortunately we didn’t complete the job, because thanks to me not being careful when reading the map we’d missed out a fair chunk of real estate at the eastern end of the Steppes. Never mind – we’ll go back soon and take care of that.

One thing we did find that was of particular interest is the large building in the mountain area in the north-west; I think the Blackrock Depths dungeon is inside there somewhere and if I have my information correct, this is the place where the explorer Leeroy Jenkins gained his fame. Sometime soon I’d like to stand on the same spot, just so that I can say that I have.

The End of Un'Goro

We went back to Marshal's Refuge and took on as many of the quests as we could there; these were all high-level quests (relative to our starting level of 50, that is). We were already close to level 51 and it didn't take long to hit that, but in a couple of very productive sessions we powered all the way through to level 53. Quests we did included gathering some power crystals, knocking down Pterrordaxes (think Pteranodons), fighting our way in and out of a cave filled with Gorillas, and taking the head off a particularly nasty (and huge) Raptor. There were so many quests I can't remember them all.

Un'Goro is level heaven - with so many quests in a relatively small area, and so many high-level mobs around (including level 52-56 elite lizards that patrol the west and southwest) it's a great place to power through.

Our last session in the area cleaned up the last of the quests, with one exception - an escort quest to get someone called Ringo back from the volcano in the centre of the crater back to Marshal's Refuge - it should have been easy but we blew it and probably won't try again.

Some of the quests we closed are of course parts of quest chains, and so lead to other quests. Most of the follow-on quests were also in the Crater, and of course we completed those too, but there are three or four follow-on quests that'll take us to other areas; we have a couple that we'll have to go back to Feralas to finish, for example.

However I think our next destination will probably be Felwood; we have a quest there and according to WoWWiki this is higher level again than Un'Goro, so there'll be more XP, and there's also supposed to be more herbs for Kate to pick up and more ore for me (gold, mithril, truesilver and thorium - all good for pushing up my mining skill and making a bunch of money in the process). Felwood leads through into Winterspring, where we have another quest to close.

Level 54 isn't far away and I'm hoping Felwood will give us enough quests to get us to 55; at that level, we get our Death Knights.

Return to Un'Goro Crater

We didn't go back to Zul'Farrak yet - among other things, one of the quests there still needs us to grab a hammer of some kind from the Hinterlands, so we'll almost certainly take care of that so that we can complete all the remaining quests in one trip.

Instead we headed southwest from Gadgetzan to find Thistleshrub Valley, where we had a quest to knock down a number of Thistleshrub Rootshapers and Gnarled Thistleshrubs; these guys are level 48-51 and weren't any kind of a problem.

After that we went northwest and down the trail leading back into Un'Goro Crater. The last time we were there it was very tough; we were about level 45 and just not strong enough. This time, five levels higher, we're much better matched.

We started off with just two quests in the Crater - one to gather Un'Goro Soil, which is apparently dropped by every living thing in the region, and another to get sticky tar from the elementals around the ponds in the northern part of the region.

So we started whacking raptors and lizards in the south, making our way west as we went so that we could fill in the missing parts of our maps. The creatures start at around level 51 in the area where the trail opens up onto the crater floor, but they get tougher as you go west with level 54 and 55 beasts showing up. In a moment of madness I took on a huge level 53 elite lizard - and won, getting over 1200 XP in the process.

It took a while to gather all the soil we needed - the quest called for twenty piles and the drop rate isn't so good - but we got there in the end. In the process, as we explored, we picked up three other quests - one when we found a damaged boat laid up on the edge of a pond, another when we found a battered journal and another from a guy standing around on the rocks on the southern border. The first two of those didn't mean doing much; just closing out at Marshal's Refuge. The third meant collecting some meat from a dead raptor.

We didn't get to the Sticky Tar quest, but we did manage to complete all the others we'd taken and because of the high level mobs in the area we got enough XP to push us to something like three quarters of the way to level 51. And we also finished mapping the area.

With those quests done we returned to the guy in the south to close out his quest (and get another) then rode to Marshal's Refuge for two of the others. That just left the Un'Goro Soil, which had to be taken to Darnassus, and the Thistleshrubs for which we had to go to Steamwheedle Port. The XP from all the quests left us just a a little way short of level 51.

There are at least half a dozen more quests we can pick up at Marshal's Refuge and with the Crater being as high level as it is, I think our next trip will be specifically to take on some more. We should hit level 51 very quickly and one more good session like this last one may even see us to level 52.

Level 50!

We took a trip out to the Hinterlands for a quest that involved grabbing an Ancient Egg from a cave in the far southeast of the region. We hadn't mapped anything of the Hinterlands beyond a fair sized chunk at the western end near Aerie Peak, so we decided to take the opportunity to explore the whole region and fill the map in.

As such it took us quite a while to reach the cave where the egg was, all the way whacking owlkins and wolves, but most of the time we were fighting our way along the road that wound and zig-zagged through a city-like structure surrounding the cave entrance - this whole area was filled with level 47-49 baddies with level 50 and 51 mobs appearing as we got close to the cave itself.

Inside the cave things weren't so bad; some caves we've been in are complicated enough to get lost in, but this one was relatively simply laid out so we were able to find the Ancient Egg we were after and get out again with very little trouble.

With that done we headed north to finish mapping the bits we hadn't already covered, knocking over more owlkins and wolves as we went along. We'd entered the Hinterlands with perhaps three-quarters of the XP bar to fill and I didn't think we had much of a chance of getting the next level, but we'd knocked down a pretty huge number of owlkins, wolves and bad guys and as Kate filled in the very last missing section of the map, getting the achievement in the process, the XP was enough to tip her over to level 50. I was just a little way behind and all I had to do was take down four or five level 41 wolves to hit 50 myself.

It was getting late but with the new level there were some things we just had to take care of - we went from Aerie Peak to Steamwheedle Port by way of Menethil Harbour and Theramore so that we could hand over the Ancient Egg for 8500 XP, then hearthstoned back to Ironforge to deal with our overstuffed packs, and last but definitely not least we went to our respective class trainers - I picked up a new spell (Holy Wrath, I think it's called) that'll do something like 500 Holy damage to any bad guys within ten yards, which should be very useful.

All in all, a very productive trip even though we actually only took care of one quest. For our next trip I think we'll be returning to Zul'Farrak to complete the two quests left over from our last trip there, and if there's time we have two quests in the Un'Goro Crater to deal with; maybe we'll explore that whole zone while we're there. We might even make level 51 in the process.

The Scarlet Monastery

With the thanksgiving holiday and other things going on, we had a stretch of four or five days where we had no time for anything except auction house scans.

When we were able to get back into things we decided on a plan to take care of a bunch of 'grey' quests; we could have simply abandoned them but many of these old quests still give decent reputation points even if the XP is negligible. Accordingly, we went back to the tower inside Stromgarde Keep in the Arathi Highlands to take care of one quest then west across the sea to Desolace for another; while we were there we had Nat Pagle's fishing quest to deal with (we'd already caught two of the fish we needed and just needed the ones from Desolace and Feralas) so we went out to the west coast of Desolace and then from there went south into Feralas. Once we'd taken care of the fishing quest we took a boat from there out to the Night Elf settlement, giving us another flightpath.

That left just one remaining grey quest - we have to go into the Badlands for that, and with no other reason to head that way just yet we've decided to wait until we're ready. Instead we flew to Southshore and went west into Silverpine Forest so that we could both finish mapping that area, then north into Tirisfal Glades where we had a level 40 quest to take care of in the Scarlet Monastery in the far northeast.

It took two trips. The Scarlet Monastery actually contains three instances, all filled with level 34-39 elites, and the quest involved knocking over four level 40 elite bad guys spread around those instances. The first one wasn't too hard to find, being right there in the first and most obvious instance. What's not so obvious is that the other instances are hidden behind two doors that are locked and require the Scarlet Key - and the key is in a trunk in the first instance. We wasted quite a lot of time looking all around the monastery and the first instance, sure that the guys we were looking for were there somewhere.

Once we realized that the other instances were hidden away we unlocked the door to the Cathedral and went through, and it didn't take long to find the second bad guy we were after. After clearing a way through to the altar, where the bad guy was, we went for him. This was my idea and a bad mistake... all the other guys in the Cathedral ran in to help out, and that was that. By that time it was late so we went back to resurrect and went back to Ironforge for the night.

The next day (yesterday) we went back to finish up, now that we knew what to do. Back in the Cathedral we took on all the guys in the aisles and the side rooms, leaving just our number two target baddie, then went after him. He wasn't too hard to handle but as soon as he was down, target baddie number three showed up and resurrected him - so now we had both of them to deal with. It was a bit of a fight but as level 49s we outclassed the two level 40 elites and it was soon all over.

That just left target baddie number four, in the Armoury in the last instance. This took a lot of time because we had to fight our way all the way from the entrance to the circular room at the back where our man was, but once we'd got to him it was all over quickly. One big shock at that point was that a whole bunch of level 30 trainees ran into the room; I thought we were dead but they were relatively weak and Kate managed to knock most of them down with one of her blast effect spells.

With all four bad guys gone we hearthstoned out to Southshore - we'd reset our stones to the inn there on the way up - and closed out the quest before flying back to Ironforge.