Stock Aides

Fun Fact: Despite being the cornerstone of commerce for the Alliance, Stormwind doesn't have a damn butcher. If I wanted meat for my wolf, I'd have to either risk life and limb cleaving it from the denizens of the world or go to the Lion's Rest Inn in Goldshire. No, not that kind of meat. Seriously, that's the nearest butcher. So back to Duskwood I go to murder a hundred of Fluffers' extended family.

A bit later upon viewing the acre of corpses, not for the first time I regretted dropping skinning. Still, Engineering has been paying off in sheer convenience as I replenish my own ammo stocks in the field. I digress.

With pouches bulging with wolf meat, I turn my attention to one last quest which rewarded a 12-slot ammo pouch (Heaven itself!) and finish it quickly with help from a couple of random people. At last, I can return to Stormwind.

My Expert Fishing book hadn't sold yet and with a 15 silver listing fee it was making me a little nervous. I took to advertising in trade chat. "Tired o' bein' limited to 150 fishin'? Don't wanna swim all th' way t' Booty Bay fer th' book? [Expert Fishing: The Bass and You] now on th' AH fer jus' 1g35s." Miracle upon miracles, it actually sold. Th' pets will eat tonight!

It was about this time I heard a group looking for "2 DPS for Stockades 25+ and good to go!". I hastily offer my services and am invited. There's a round of brief, "Hey!" and "How's your night going?" that's a welcome change of pace from the silent dungeon runs of LFG Retail.

I give a quick heads up, "Doing great! Growl is off, Pet is on Passive."

This surprised the tank, a Warrior. "And you're SURE you're a hunter?"

"Dispellin' the myths since 2004."

As an aside, with the passive pet, he only attacks what I tell him to when I tell him to and once it is dead he comes running back immediately. With defensive, as long as I'm in combat he will continue to chew on random things. This gets Really Bad Fast when you have a dungeon like Stockades that has a lot of human mobs that run when low on health. Cuts back seriously on those "Oopsie! Adds!" moments that make hunters generally reviled. Same thing would hold true for warlocks, but their imps are range attackers, so it's less of an issue for them.

What followed was an incredibly smooth and speedy run, so much so the healer remarked. "This is going a lot better than I expected. I'm barely having to heal."

"I could go full huntard if ya like."

"No… I'm good."

In the end, we finished five dungeon quests and walked out with packs stuffed with wool. Between that and the wolf meat, my inventory looked like a shepherd's nightmare. Fluffers would prefer cooked meat to raw because now he is DOMESTICATED and as luck would have it, I had the perfect recipe, but…since my cooking was maxxed out, cooking the food would be a waste of potential skill-ups. Unless… oh god, here we go again.

Fifteen minutes later, I'm making a corpse run in the Barrens because I'd forgotten the main path to Ashenvale is guarded by level 40 elite Horde guards. After some judicious sprinting and Fluffers' Noble Sacrifice, I'm able to break through and walk in the Night Elven lands for the first time. Absolutely beautiful. The forests are hauntingly serene and a stark contrast to Duskwood, which are serenely haunted.

I note the quests in this area are on par with what I should be doing and I may pursue those later.

After some futzing around, I locate the general goods vendor that sells the [Expert Cookbook]. Silly me, looking for a cook. I buy a single copy, learn it, and cook all the meat. Fluffers chewed happily on Seasoned Wolf Kabobs as I camped for the night.