From: Rivendare, Baron, Stratholm

To: Grimmtooth Wildhammer, Hunter, Ironforge

Subject: Damages

Mr. Wildhammer,

It has come to my attention that you have vandalized half of my city no less than fifteen (15) times in the past three weeks. Off the top of my head, this amounts to several hundred gold, a few dozen stacks of Runecloth, Various and Sundry bind-on-equip green, blue, and even purple items, and a few hundred scourgestones.

In addition, I have to tell you that the maintainers of my ziggurats are starting to get a little twitchy and are talking about raises or unionizing. The bosses, especially, have had to be disciplined severely on a number of occasions. You can imagine the effect on morale that that has. Ramstein has been especially troublesome, flinging bits of himself at me when he gets agitated.

And I am led to understand that I have you to thank for fifteen of the deaths I have personally experienced in the past three weeks. You should know that the fellow I work for is far more intimidating than yourself in this regard, so if you’re trying to frighten me, it’s not happening. Come to Naxx and we’ll talk.

I am  including for your perusal an itemized bill of goods for the items you have destroyed and/or stolen from my domain. I am not at this time billing you for counseling for my minions, but that is subject to change pending your response. Regardless, I expect you to cease and desist immediately, or I will levy the full amount for treatment as well.

Sincerely,

Baron Rivendare

Lord of Stratholme

From: Grimmtooth Wildhammer, Ironforge

To: Rivendare, Baron, Lord of Stratholme

Subject: RE: Damages

Mr. Rivendare,

You have my greatest sympathies over your mental anguish and property loss. However, it is my position that you and your minions are there for the very purpose of being slain and looted. As such, reclamation of spoils in this case is allowable under the General Articles of Roleplaying. In short, “finders keepers, losers weepers”.

I am willing, however, to compromise.

You have in your posession the reins to a magnificent undead steed. That’s all I’m looking for. For the past fifteen attempts, you have failed to give up the aformentioned reins, forcing me to return for another try.

It’s simple. Drop the reins, and you will rarely, if ever, see me again within the city limits of Stratholme.

Don’t make me come over to Naxx and spank your pallid butt.

All due respect to lackeys,

Grimmtooth Wildhammer

This weekend I have been enlisted in the cause of getting greens for Jasra so she can DE them for eternal essences or something like that. Also: lots of runecloth. So I broke out Saiph, my Gorilladin, and started at Zul’Farrak.

I want to be very clear on this: BRK is right. The Gorilladin is a magical being. With him leading the way, ZF fell inside of an hour.

Sunken Temple took longer to figure out than complete.

Scholo was almost doable at 70 with a cat pet. At 80 with a 75 gorilladin, it was cake.

Tonight, Strat. Live side completed, but I couldn’t get a crack at Rivendare. Finally our GM pointed out that I needed to clear all ziggurats as well as kill the bosses.  So, tommorrow: Rivendare. “Launch all zigs! For great justice!”

Jasra’s annoyed – she’s supposed to be the center of attention now. But I want Rivendare!!!

If I need to farm more, I’ll hit DM, BRD, and LBRS in that order. Or if I need higher mats, then I’ll give Ramps a try.  BRK says it’s so, so we’ll give it a shot.

After last week’s mostly successful solo in The Scholomance, this week I turned my eyes to the northeast: Stratholm.

Now, while Scholo has the distinction of being where the Scourge started in the first place, Strat is probably the most tragic tale in all of the land that used to be called Lorderon. On his “holy crusade” to rid the world of the Scourge, the “great paladin” (/spit) Arthas Menenthil decided to put the city to the torch – not because it had been taken over, but because it had been mostly taken over and the risk of saving the innocents trapped within was not worth it to him.

Aye, thousands of innocents died in their homes. Without trial, without recourse.

There is a special place in Hell for such as he, and I look forward to sending him there some day.

And having a few ales later, and visiting his grave.

At any rate, getting there was no problem, though I did have a brief incident with a Scarlet Crusade courier along the way. Not easy to solo, but possible, as I found out. Then finally, the first gate.

Beyond this point are so many kinds of Hell that one cannot enumerate them all without getting someone that knows how to count to keep track of them. To the south is the terrible Plaguewood, and just over the gate you can see a hint of the dread necropolis Naxxaramis.

I pushed on from there. The outskirts of Stratholm once held more people than all of Stormwind, Westfall, Duskwood, and Redridge combined, for a slight idea of what has been lost. It is overgrown with abombinations, odd plants and fungii, and of course the occasional ziggurat and necropolis. And lots of undead.
I finally arrived at the main city gates. Rumor has it that “Prince” Arthas (/spit) ordered the gates barred from the outside so that none might escape. For this he deserves extra-special treatment. I wonder what happened to the tortured souls that enacted his orders? Might they be one of the undead corpses I put down on my way here?

As I passed through the gates, I saw that I was , in fact, trapped, with the damned souls that live within! Thank goodness for hearthstones.

Down to business. Unlike Scholo, this place was nothing but challenges. The undead congregated in groups of approximately 10 each, with a good mix of casters and cloberers. I found out real fast that just plinking at them as Random keep them busy was not sufficient – when I started to heal him, and I heal I must, that would get aggro on me, too many to trap effectively. I had to break out the old frost trap and develop my kiting skills. Rapidly.

The downside to that was there were the souls of many innocents trapped in the city that would accidentally wander through and get caught in the frost trap, and then I would have to put them down, too. Not a pleasant task for a number of reasons.

From the streets within the city walls, you could see that it was still burning. How this is possible is fel magic that I cannot comprehend, nor do I wish to. I wish only for it to stop.

One thing that might be difficult for some to deal with while soloing is that there are a number of deadly debuffs, such as Cadaver Worms, which ekes off 150 HP per tick, and does so for 10 minutes. Thank goodness for Stoneform.

I made it up to the entrance of the Scarlet Crusade’s bastion within the wrecked city before throwing in the towel. This place was not built for soloing, in any fashion.

As I left, the great and terrible necropolis itself flew overhead, spraying its filth across an already shattered land. Perhaps some day I will join with a group of my peers and we will seperate the foul necromancer from his body.

I apologize for lack of photographic evidence, but tonight I got keyed for Karazhan. Much happiness. And our GM made BM look easy. Having a tank that will hold aggro is good, and a mage that will lay down DPS on the adds is good, and so forth. But having the strategy down is most important, and she did her homework and paid her dues. It was good.

We shall rejoice.

Edit: Forgot to mention that after the stress of BM, we headed off to Strat Live to help out a lowbie or two and just whack things over the head. As we entered the “Hoard” section, I couldn’t resist, and yelled: FOR THE HOARD!!!

Well, the GM got it. But she’s a smart gal.