At last, a group night that was going some place besides the Scarlet Monastery! Not that SM is a bad place. It is quite well done. But after 10 rounds there, we were ready for some new sights and sounds. Well, sights anyway. Razorfen Downs (or Swineberry RFD as the locals call it) held new sights but and old sound for us; the sound of squealing porkers. Oh well, I have been having a sound issue with WoW since the 2.0.3 patch came out (sounds get stuck in a loop) so I was playing sound off. Still, I could hear each piggy death through Skronk’s mic, so it was like Helter Skelter was happening in the neighbors yard while we played.
Anyway, it was Saturday night at 10pm and we were ready to go:
40 Mage – Ula
40 Rogue – Blintz
39 Warlock – Bungholio
39 Priest – Skronk
39 Warrior – Earlthecat
The first thing we had to do was get the quest “Bring The Light.” Skronk grabbed the quest from Archbishop Benedictus in the Stormwind Cathedral before hand, but then found that he could not share it with us. You have to deal with the Archbishop directly it seems. The summoning stone at RFD got a workout from us, since Skronk, Earl, and I were there, but only Skronk had the quest. So Earl and I each recalled one at a time, got the quest, then got summoned back to the South Barrens. Ula and Bung, who had not yet joined us, picked up the quest then got summoned out as well.
On our way into RFD, we also picked up the quest “A Host of Evil” from Myriam Moonsinger thinking that this was a quest that could be done while we were in the instance. We were wrong, but I will get to that.
Once into the giant hog skull that is the way into RFD, we had to fight to the actual instance line. The instance itself is, mercifully, not as big or convoluted as its across-the-gold-road neighbor, Razorfen Kraul. Once you enter you can bear left or right depending on which mobs you are after.
We went to the left and started fighting out way in. We had to take some care with our fights, as there are very few solo fights in RFD. Instead, the mobs come in bunches, usually mixed up elite and non-elite, ranging in size from 3 to 6 mobs. And there are also small groups, usually pairs, but sometimes triples, or patrolling non-elites, just to liven things up a bit. On the left side, the patrols are boars running through the corridors, while on the right, they are skeletons roaming around.
We held together well and fought our way past the giant idol, through corridors, past a giant gong, and up and almost to the slave pens before somebody said, “Giant gong? Don’t we do something with that?”
Oh yeah, the gong. So we ran back to the gong. This summons a boss mob. You actually have to ring it three times to get to the boss, but don’t ring it three times right away, as each ring summons a wave of spiders.
Big spiders.
The first wave is 8 non-elite spiders that rush in from either side of the room. We dispatched them handily.
The second wave was 4 elite spider that also came from either side. This was a bit of a fight, but no worse than some we had faced already. Spiders do not cast nor do they run away.
The third wave, summoned by the third ring of the gong, is Tuten’kash, a huge spider best not viewed by children before bed time. He was a fight, but manageable by our group, and down he went. He was nice enough to drop the Carapace of Tuten’kash, a nice plate chest piece for Earl to use at 40.
We headed back to the slave pens, back to the last group between us and an escort quest, when we decided to detour off to the right and take on the skeleton mosh pit first.
This is really a sight to be seen. It consists of a giant pile of bones, on top of which there is a giant skeleton. Before the bone pile is an array of smaller skeletons. All of the skeletons are dancing the undead “heavy metal” routine. Again, this is a must-see for a tour of Azeroth.
The small skeletons are not elite, so we started by trying to pull some of them off of the crowd before we took on Mordresh Fire Eye, the giant skeleton in question. We managed to pull and kill one skeleton by proximity, but our next shot brought the whole crowd, including Mordesh.
Oh my!
Seeing an angry heavy metal crowd run at you can be unnerving, but we managed. Earl got right on Mordesh and I got behind him while Bung and Ula let go with the AOE on the mosh pit crowd. Mordesh went down, dropping Mordesh’s Lifeless Skull, an off-hand item that nobody wanted and which got disenchanted to a small glowing shard.
Here we are atop Mordesh’s pile of bones after the fight.
So many bones
Done with Mordesh, we crossed the bridge between his area and the slave pens, knocked off the last group between us and the pens, and headed in. We spoke to Henry Stern who taught most of us how to make goldthorn tea, though he taught Skronk, our alchemist, how to make mighty troll’s blood potion.
Then we spoke to Belnistrasz, which kicks off a quest called “Scourge of the Downs” that quickly leades to an escort quest called “Extinguishing the Idol.” You follow Belnistrasz, a quick walker at last, to the giant idol that we passed by earlier. Once there, he goes to work on it. But while he is doing that, a continuously respawning stream of mobs attacks you, trying to kill him. We got tied up in the running battle (you are never out of combat during this it seems) and lost track of our guy, who got killed off before he was done. Quest Failed! Oops.
And you cannot just restart the quest. You have to reset the instance. Oh well, we will have to come back again for that one.
That blown, we ran back to the entrance and too the right path.
The first group on that path is five elites that nearly did us in. We had to run out of the instance and regroup.
It turns out that the group of five elites is a pretty useful gate keeper. If you can take them down, you are probably ready to finish off that section of the instance. If you wipe there… well… you do not have far to go in order to try again.
We managed them on our second try and proceeded around to the base of the spiral. None of the groups were as tough as that first group. As we hit the base of the spiral, the Glutton wandered by. We tagged him, pulled him back, and took him down in pretty short order. He yielded up the Fleshhide Shoulders, which I got. They are not the best looking set of shoulders, but they were an upgrade.
That aside, we started fighting our way up the spiral. The spiral is a big cinnamon bun shaped rock, glazed with aggros, and featuring Amnennar the Coldbringer at its pinnacle. He is the big boss we needed to kill for the quest “Bring the Light.”
So up we went. Fight after fight, around and around, until we finally crested the last rise and stood atop this stone pastry of doom. Across from us was Amnennar. He has no minions hanging about or other distractions, so we went after him.
Amnennar does summon some spectral help during the fight. Several groups of ghost-like creatures sped past Earl and I, and went after the casters. Unfortunately, Ula seemed to be their prime target and she died just before the fight finished.
Still, we won. Skronk revived Ula and then we checked the loot. It was Earl’s night, as Amnennar dropped the Icemetal Barbute, another nice plate piece for him when he hits 40.
So we were done inside the instance, but noticed that we had not advanced the quest “A Host of Evil” at all. We left the instance and found that we needed to kill mobs around the stone boar skull to finish that off. We even got the Kaleidoscope Chain as a drop, which also went to Earl on the roll. After we slew, we turned in the quest to Myriam Moonsinger, then recalled home.
Back in Stormwind we turned in “Bring the Light,” which has a nice weapon and necklace reward of its own, plus some very nice experience. So nice that Ula and I advanced to level 41 and everybody else came within an exp bubble or two of 40. We should all soon have mounts.
We still need to come back to do the quest “Extinguishing the Idol” and maybe find a rare spawn for once. Our luck so far has been zero on rare spawns.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 