Finished my trek to 34 in the Shimmering Flats, then headed by to Stormwind for another round of "Oh, my God-- where did the money go!?" Training skills, training pet skills, and a nice new weapon and scope watched nearly 10g evaporate into the ether. Fortunately, people seem to really like buying turtle meat, paying between 60s and 1g for a stack of 10, and I have no small supply of it after the Turtlegeddon that got me to this point.
I cooked some of the mystery meat I'd been collecting from scorpions and basilisks and that was enough to cap my cooking at 225. To go any higher, I'd need to pick up a quest in Gadgetzan, which required hunting level 40-something critters for eggs as well as other things. I'd need around a dozen or so plus other things and the eggs were selling for around a gold each in the AH, so that was just gonna have to wait.
My bank stays in a constant state of stuffed… and this is with me having 2 extra bag slots. I had created a bank alt, HiddenPocket, to store some of the things I might want to stockpile, but honestly I've been getting more use out of her just mailing her things and then rejecting the mail. This effectively gives me dozens of extra bank slots that last for a month for a couple of silver per transaction. Still, no excuses. Time to do some housekeeping, which meant it was time to throw even MORE money away and level up engineering.
I shoveled everything I could into Magrom's sacks and pouches. Anything leftover not remotely related to crafting got thrown up on the AH or into Fluffers' ravenous maw. Unfortunately, I'm to the point where new recipes are only available in Ironforge, so I had to commute to get any real work done. This led into a series of "Och! I cannae believe I forgots t' pick up MORE heavy stones." and another few gold disappearing into recipe costs and raw supplies. Net result? Magrom's now the proud owner of 190-something Engineering skill and a flock… a FLOCK…of exploding sheep.
These ba-a-a-a-a-ad boys will sit around for up to three minutes and charge off to the nearest threat leaving behind a crater of gunpowder and wool. They are decidedly a LOT more entertaining than the usual dynamite, grenades, and bombs, but are best deployed on battlegrounds that haven't been released yet. Guarding a flag? Plop down a sheep. You might get sapped or polymorphed, but that flag will be defended. Plus, exploding sheep sound.
To my disappointment, I still don't have a use for the iron I've been stockpiling. Mining continues to be my albatross. Although I can now mine gold I can't locate, I'm still a few crucial points shy of smelting steel, which is used for the more exciting engineering recipes I'll be getting to…probably next week.
But, with lightened heart, load, and pockets, I searched for adventure and found myself back in Theramore. The swampy, marshy lands of Thera--OH MY GOD THAT SPIDER JUST APPEARED OUT OF NOWHERE. Seriously, the place made me really regret scrimping on "Track Hidden", but it wouldn't have mattered because of all the beasts. The marshy terrain is surprisingly hilly with just enough cypress and tupelo trees to ensure you aren't going to see the spiders, raptors, and crockolisks that will start dogpiling on you out of nowhere. The coastline is densely covered with murlocs after a point and the turtles up to that point are fiercely fought over to complete a quest.
Consequently, I stuck to "the plan" of questing. One of the absolute joys of the zone is a couple of locations (notably a burned out inn), which have several interactable objects that give quests, but don't glow or have any indicator that they are special until you mouse over them. Literally, you're just told of an inn that was burned down at the Barrens border and actual exploration leads to quest discovery. That's the sort of thing that's so delightfully immersive about Classic. A Redditor summed it up nicely, "Classic is a videogame that tries to simulate a fantasy world. Retail is a videogame that doesn't want to be anything more than a videogame." (Which is fine. Different things for different people.)
Some quests were trickier than others. There was a painfully slow escort quest that took nearly every trick in my book to survive as the Escortee was hellbent on chain-pulling crocs. "TONIGHT YOU DINE ON MUTTON!", I screamed and supplemented my rifle with Woolen Hellfire. Even Fluffers survived with a scrap of health. We weren't so fortunate on a "collect 40 'unpopped' spider eyes from the mines near here" quest. I never even saw the inside of the mines, as the outside was thickly infested. "Poisoned, you say? For three minutes? 67 damage every 3 seconds? AND it stacks? Sucks to be you, Fluffers." *feign death* *spider is not fooled* *real death* Again and again.
Somehow through dogged (and wolffed) determination, we were able to complete it and a number of others, leaving the muck at level 35. Seeking drier climes, I returned to Hillsbrad… by way of Alterac, because idiot me forgot to pick up the Southshore flight point the last time I was there.
MUCH better than last time… I spent my last few minutes picking up over a half dozen new quests, ranging from killing tigers and yetis to hunting assassins and those coastal murlocs and…oh. my. god. "Collect ten turtle meat and soothing spices." So that's what they wanted it for.
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