The saga of Vacanahwe
This is one of those posts that will mean nothing if you don't play WoW. Just FYI. ;)
So I was bored the other day and decided to roll a character on a new server, because sometimes it's fun to start out with absolutely nothing, no higher-level character to quasi-twink you, etc. I picked Thorium Brotherhood, since auryanne plays there.
I made a Tauren hunter, a white cow with pigtails named Vacanahwe. I was quite pleased with the name, because it's got the cow pun (vaca) without being overdone like all the names with "moo," "milk," "beef," "bull," etc. Plus it sounds sort of Native-American-ish, which fits the Tauren culture. And it rolls off the tongue so well...vah-CAH-nah-way.
I got her to level 10 so she could get a pet. I had a few minutes left before the third of the sample pets expired so I was just running around killing random stuff to kill time. And what should I see, but Mazzaranache! The pink tallstrider rarespawn!
I had wanted to tame him on Jinzakar but could never find him, so she tamed a regular blueish strider and later got Dishnu the jaguar-style cat from the Barrens. I eventually went back and tamed Mazz on Jinzakar but by then she was around level 30 and having a level 11 pet really wasn't feasible, plus I needed the stable slot to tame animals to get new skills, so I abandoned him again. :-p
So there I am with a fresh hunter, ready to tame her first pet, and there's the pink bugger himself! Perfect! I let him kill my sample pet, since you can't dismiss those you get for your quest training, you have to let their time run out or have them get killed. ;) Then I began taming Mazzaranache, and poof! I got my killer flamingo! Woo-hoo! Another player was passing by and /cheered at me. ^_^
I had a stack of apples on hand to feed my new pet, since I was hoping to find this one, so it got happy right away. After a bit of thought I named her Maizie, which is similar to its original name but cuter and easier to spell. ^_^;
So Maizie and Vacanahwe went off adventuring together, finished up all the quests in Mulgore, and headed to the Barrens. After reaching level 16, I thought about what I wanted my second pet to be. I love the pink birdie but it can't learn some of the most important aggro-holding abilities, meaning its capacity as a damage sponge is pretty low and Vacanahwe got beat up more than she should have.
I have a cat and wolf on my dwarf hunter, Tinneleva, and Jinzakar has a cat, and I wanted to try something else without gimping myself too much. I decided on a bear. Now, what kind? The closest bears were the thistle bears in Darkshore and the ones in Ashenvale which are way over my level a the moment. I wanted to be different. Aha! I remembered there's a level 11 named bear in Dun Morogh that young dwarves and gnomes have to kill for a quest. It's at the North Gate Pass into Loch Modan, and the quest says you have to kill him in revenge for killing a dwarf. The only other white bears in the game are in Winterspring, and you have to be well into your 50s to have a hope of taming them. So, Mangeclaw it was! The only problem being how to get there!
Took zepplin from Orgrimmar to Undercity. Ran into Silverpine. Left Maizie in the stable at the Sepulcher. Tamed a random brown bear nearby to have as bait. Ran through Silverpine to the Hillsbrad border. Got swarmed by Dalaran wizards who killed my pet but I managed to run away into Hillsbrad. XD Woot. I took off my armor, expecting to die a lot. Just left on my shirt and cloak, since those don't take damage, and equipped my mining pick as a weapon, for the same reason. Heehee...
So off I go into Hillsbrad. The bears and spiders were red to me, in their low 20s, but I stuck to the road and did all right for awhile. Once a couple spiders attacked me but the "let them kill the pet while I run for it" strategy worked again. I got almost to where the road turns north to Tarren Mill before I actually died. I died once or twice more before I got to Tarren Mill, where I got the flight path, then continued on toward Arathi.
Everything in Arathi is Level ?? to me at level 16, but I stuck to the road and only aggroed one thing, a buzzard, that killed my pet but let me live. ;) I passed the Forsaken Courier and was very, very glad I was playing Horde. Heh.
Reached the Thandol Span with only two or three deaths under my belt. Not too shabby. Staying on the road and giving Dun Modr a wide berth, I got through the Wetlands to Dun Algaz without a single death.
Taking a deep breath, I headed into the tunnel. I passed a level 16 human cloth-wearer on the way, and /mooed at her. ;) She ignored me but I sure she was going "WTF?" Someone had recently killed all the orcs in the passes, so I lucked out there. I charged into the third tunnel, knowing there would be Level ?? dwarven mountaineers about.
There were, and they didn't like me. Fortunately I didn't have any armor on, because I died like four times getting through those last two tunnels, even with my pet as a distraction. Stupid dwarves. Once safely into Loch Modan, I re-equipped my armor and messed around by the kobold mines for awhile, leveling my mining and taming boars and bears.
Unforunately, I forgot to equip my usual axe so I was trying to kill a bear with my mining pick. It wasn't going well and I had just a sliver of health left, when a Level 19 gnome mage jumped in with a well-timed arcane explosion and saved me. I cheered and thanked him, then sat down to eat back into full health.
The gnome stood there for awhile, no doubt wondering what the heck a level 16 Tauren hunter was doing in Loch Modan, trying to kill a bear with a mining pick. XD Apparently he didn't know that custom emotes don't work cross-faction, because he kept making "strange gestures" at me. Over and over. o_0 I ignored him and went back to killing kobolds and mining copper.
He followed me, not helping me kill anything but not interfering with me, either. He left for a little while, then, when I was south of the mines taming a boar, he reappeared, now flagged for PVP and still making "strange gestures" repeatedly. I /giggled at him and went about my business. He stayed close to me, no doubt hoping I'd accidentally click on him. :-p I decided to bore him by fishing for awhile in the loch. He ran in circles around me, again no doubt hoping I'd click on him instead of my fishing bobber. *roll eyes*
Eventually he started to dance with me instead. I danced, too, then went back to fishing. Apparently satisfied that I was neither stupid enough to click him, nor hostile enough to attack on purpose, he gave up and left me alone.
I worked my way down to the South Gate Pass, where I again disrobed to face the Level ?? dwarven guards. Except when one came running at me, I sort of accidentally clicked to attack the guard before they attacked me. Got PVP flagged. Oooooops. I did several more corpse runs to get through the pass into Dun Morogh.
Once there I made out like a bandit mining copper. I ended up with over 70 pieces or ore! Woo-hoo! I also tamed a snow leopard, another boar, and a wolf, trying to pick up a few new skills. Finally I got bored with dodging guards and wandering around, so I headed up toward the North Gate Pass in search of my quarry.
I died two or three times getting through the pass, until finally I reached the valley where Mangeclaw lives. I carefully picked off the two snow leopards who guard the entrance to his lair, then rushed in to tame the bear. I didn't think to get my mana back, so when the first Tame Pet spell failed I was, well, screwed. I just let the bear kill me since I didn't want to have to wait for him to respawn. >_< I came all the way across the world to tame that stupid bear, and he killed me! Doh! (I got a good laugh out of the irony, though.)
One corpse run later, I tried again, this time at 100% health and mana, and successfully tamed myself a white bear. Yay! I hearthed to Thunder Bluff to face my repair bill, which turned out quite small since I made most of the odyssey naked. LOL!
I leveled my fishing skill for awhile in the pond by the TB bank while thinking of a name for my new pet. I settled on Polarpuff, which isn't the most authentic RP name but was too cute to pass up.
A level 22 troll hunter was giving away Blood Shards for the Camp Taurajo quests, and since I'll be doing those fairly soon I decided to grab some since they were free. I was also very, very broke and I figured I could vendor some extras. ^_^; He gave me 49 shards, which was crazy but awesome.
He told me "Nice bear!" and I got to tell him a bit about my adventures taming her. He brought out his pet, a turquoise raptor from Wailing Caverns. He must have inspected my gear to see how crappy it is because he offered to make me something better with his leatherworking. As it turned out he didn't have the mats to do much, but he made a pair of pants that was a VAST improvement. I thanked him profusely and offered him Crafted Heavy Shot (I'm an engineer) but, being a troll, he uses arrows. Oh well, he said it was no big deal and to enjoy. :)
Vacanahwe drifted off to sleep in a hammock in Thunder Bluff, wearing new pants, with her white bear beside her.
And next time I'm bored with my characters on Shadow Council and Stormrage, I'll see what the future holds for her! ^_^
So I was bored the other day and decided to roll a character on a new server, because sometimes it's fun to start out with absolutely nothing, no higher-level character to quasi-twink you, etc. I picked Thorium Brotherhood, since auryanne plays there.
I made a Tauren hunter, a white cow with pigtails named Vacanahwe. I was quite pleased with the name, because it's got the cow pun (vaca) without being overdone like all the names with "moo," "milk," "beef," "bull," etc. Plus it sounds sort of Native-American-ish, which fits the Tauren culture. And it rolls off the tongue so well...vah-CAH-nah-way.
I got her to level 10 so she could get a pet. I had a few minutes left before the third of the sample pets expired so I was just running around killing random stuff to kill time. And what should I see, but Mazzaranache! The pink tallstrider rarespawn!
I had wanted to tame him on Jinzakar but could never find him, so she tamed a regular blueish strider and later got Dishnu the jaguar-style cat from the Barrens. I eventually went back and tamed Mazz on Jinzakar but by then she was around level 30 and having a level 11 pet really wasn't feasible, plus I needed the stable slot to tame animals to get new skills, so I abandoned him again. :-p
So there I am with a fresh hunter, ready to tame her first pet, and there's the pink bugger himself! Perfect! I let him kill my sample pet, since you can't dismiss those you get for your quest training, you have to let their time run out or have them get killed. ;) Then I began taming Mazzaranache, and poof! I got my killer flamingo! Woo-hoo! Another player was passing by and /cheered at me. ^_^
I had a stack of apples on hand to feed my new pet, since I was hoping to find this one, so it got happy right away. After a bit of thought I named her Maizie, which is similar to its original name but cuter and easier to spell. ^_^;
So Maizie and Vacanahwe went off adventuring together, finished up all the quests in Mulgore, and headed to the Barrens. After reaching level 16, I thought about what I wanted my second pet to be. I love the pink birdie but it can't learn some of the most important aggro-holding abilities, meaning its capacity as a damage sponge is pretty low and Vacanahwe got beat up more than she should have.
I have a cat and wolf on my dwarf hunter, Tinneleva, and Jinzakar has a cat, and I wanted to try something else without gimping myself too much. I decided on a bear. Now, what kind? The closest bears were the thistle bears in Darkshore and the ones in Ashenvale which are way over my level a the moment. I wanted to be different. Aha! I remembered there's a level 11 named bear in Dun Morogh that young dwarves and gnomes have to kill for a quest. It's at the North Gate Pass into Loch Modan, and the quest says you have to kill him in revenge for killing a dwarf. The only other white bears in the game are in Winterspring, and you have to be well into your 50s to have a hope of taming them. So, Mangeclaw it was! The only problem being how to get there!
Took zepplin from Orgrimmar to Undercity. Ran into Silverpine. Left Maizie in the stable at the Sepulcher. Tamed a random brown bear nearby to have as bait. Ran through Silverpine to the Hillsbrad border. Got swarmed by Dalaran wizards who killed my pet but I managed to run away into Hillsbrad. XD Woot. I took off my armor, expecting to die a lot. Just left on my shirt and cloak, since those don't take damage, and equipped my mining pick as a weapon, for the same reason. Heehee...
So off I go into Hillsbrad. The bears and spiders were red to me, in their low 20s, but I stuck to the road and did all right for awhile. Once a couple spiders attacked me but the "let them kill the pet while I run for it" strategy worked again. I got almost to where the road turns north to Tarren Mill before I actually died. I died once or twice more before I got to Tarren Mill, where I got the flight path, then continued on toward Arathi.
Everything in Arathi is Level ?? to me at level 16, but I stuck to the road and only aggroed one thing, a buzzard, that killed my pet but let me live. ;) I passed the Forsaken Courier and was very, very glad I was playing Horde. Heh.
Reached the Thandol Span with only two or three deaths under my belt. Not too shabby. Staying on the road and giving Dun Modr a wide berth, I got through the Wetlands to Dun Algaz without a single death.
Taking a deep breath, I headed into the tunnel. I passed a level 16 human cloth-wearer on the way, and /mooed at her. ;) She ignored me but I sure she was going "WTF?" Someone had recently killed all the orcs in the passes, so I lucked out there. I charged into the third tunnel, knowing there would be Level ?? dwarven mountaineers about.
There were, and they didn't like me. Fortunately I didn't have any armor on, because I died like four times getting through those last two tunnels, even with my pet as a distraction. Stupid dwarves. Once safely into Loch Modan, I re-equipped my armor and messed around by the kobold mines for awhile, leveling my mining and taming boars and bears.
Unforunately, I forgot to equip my usual axe so I was trying to kill a bear with my mining pick. It wasn't going well and I had just a sliver of health left, when a Level 19 gnome mage jumped in with a well-timed arcane explosion and saved me. I cheered and thanked him, then sat down to eat back into full health.
The gnome stood there for awhile, no doubt wondering what the heck a level 16 Tauren hunter was doing in Loch Modan, trying to kill a bear with a mining pick. XD Apparently he didn't know that custom emotes don't work cross-faction, because he kept making "strange gestures" at me. Over and over. o_0 I ignored him and went back to killing kobolds and mining copper.
He followed me, not helping me kill anything but not interfering with me, either. He left for a little while, then, when I was south of the mines taming a boar, he reappeared, now flagged for PVP and still making "strange gestures" repeatedly. I /giggled at him and went about my business. He stayed close to me, no doubt hoping I'd accidentally click on him. :-p I decided to bore him by fishing for awhile in the loch. He ran in circles around me, again no doubt hoping I'd click on him instead of my fishing bobber. *roll eyes*
Eventually he started to dance with me instead. I danced, too, then went back to fishing. Apparently satisfied that I was neither stupid enough to click him, nor hostile enough to attack on purpose, he gave up and left me alone.
I worked my way down to the South Gate Pass, where I again disrobed to face the Level ?? dwarven guards. Except when one came running at me, I sort of accidentally clicked to attack the guard before they attacked me. Got PVP flagged. Oooooops. I did several more corpse runs to get through the pass into Dun Morogh.
Once there I made out like a bandit mining copper. I ended up with over 70 pieces or ore! Woo-hoo! I also tamed a snow leopard, another boar, and a wolf, trying to pick up a few new skills. Finally I got bored with dodging guards and wandering around, so I headed up toward the North Gate Pass in search of my quarry.
I died two or three times getting through the pass, until finally I reached the valley where Mangeclaw lives. I carefully picked off the two snow leopards who guard the entrance to his lair, then rushed in to tame the bear. I didn't think to get my mana back, so when the first Tame Pet spell failed I was, well, screwed. I just let the bear kill me since I didn't want to have to wait for him to respawn. >_< I came all the way across the world to tame that stupid bear, and he killed me! Doh! (I got a good laugh out of the irony, though.)
One corpse run later, I tried again, this time at 100% health and mana, and successfully tamed myself a white bear. Yay! I hearthed to Thunder Bluff to face my repair bill, which turned out quite small since I made most of the odyssey naked. LOL!
I leveled my fishing skill for awhile in the pond by the TB bank while thinking of a name for my new pet. I settled on Polarpuff, which isn't the most authentic RP name but was too cute to pass up.
A level 22 troll hunter was giving away Blood Shards for the Camp Taurajo quests, and since I'll be doing those fairly soon I decided to grab some since they were free. I was also very, very broke and I figured I could vendor some extras. ^_^; He gave me 49 shards, which was crazy but awesome.
He told me "Nice bear!" and I got to tell him a bit about my adventures taming her. He brought out his pet, a turquoise raptor from Wailing Caverns. He must have inspected my gear to see how crappy it is because he offered to make me something better with his leatherworking. As it turned out he didn't have the mats to do much, but he made a pair of pants that was a VAST improvement. I thanked him profusely and offered him Crafted Heavy Shot (I'm an engineer) but, being a troll, he uses arrows. Oh well, he said it was no big deal and to enjoy. :)
Vacanahwe drifted off to sleep in a hammock in Thunder Bluff, wearing new pants, with her white bear beside her.
And next time I'm bored with my characters on Shadow Council and Stormrage, I'll see what the future holds for her! ^_^