Whew!!

So, I mentioned not long ago how Kel was stuck on 98/100 mounts for her achievement. Well, today my OCD kicked in, and I had a little grinding spree.

First attempt- heroic Utgarde Pinnacle. No blue proto drake. :(

Next, Karazan. Midnight did not want to come home with Kel. :(

Next, heroic Magister's Terrace, with Pitch along in case the pet dropped. No pet, but Kel finally got some loot-luck. :D


Clearly, I need to have Pitch tag along more often... >.>

After that, PvP seemed like the quickest way to get #100, since Kel only had one of the PvP mounts, and had just over 800 honor at the time. Hooray for Isle of Conquest weekend!












Now the only problem is, pretty mount should have pretty pet to sit beside it (when it's on the ground, anyways). However, Kel would have to let one of her current pets go. :(

Although, I'm not really very attached to her snake, even if he is gorgeous. So it might be a possibility in the near future. For now, I'm going to bask in my accomplishment.

Which reminds me... This is only adding to the odd (but nice) trend, when every time RL starts getting too much to handle, something in this game happens to make it a little easier to bear. First the incredibly easy time I had with Max camping for Loque, and now this. It may only be a temporary distraction, but hey, I'll take what I can get. I may go back to feeling like crap tomorrow, but for today, life doesn't seem all that bad.

Unexpected

So, Max has been continuing his 'level to a certain point and then camp for a pet' routine. His current project was getting to 76 and then looking for Loque'nahak. The getting-to-76 part was easy enough, but I never expected the second part to work out this well.


Frozen kitty!


With his new buddy.

It was almost funny. I had both my acounts going, and was doing archeology on Rynia, pausing every so often to do a lap around the Basin. I had just finished one such lap, and decided to park at one of the gorilla spawn points to afk again for a bit. Well, when I stopped at the first point I reached, I swear something was telling me to go check the other spawn before I went back to Ryn. NPCScan went off as soon as I got within reach. It was almost like Loque wanted me to come find him.

He's not named yet. I'm thinking of just sitting Max and Kel somewhere and trying a few words in Darnassian, and see if something clicks. That will have to wait a while, though, because I'm already running late for work. >.<

/Waves

It's About Time

After too many heroic Sethekk Halls runs to count, Kel finally has mount #98.



I have to admit, I was really inconsistent while farming this thing. But still, it took a lot of runs for it to drop. I'm so happy I don't have to go back in there. (Until I get the crazy urge to have the mount on another alt... :P)

Kel finally got exalted with Gilneas a little before the Sethekk run, so the mountain horses made mounts 96 and 97. Now she just needs either a bit more luck on drops, (been farming the blue proto drake, and plan on going after the white hawkstrider too,) or a lot of pvp for the honor mounts. She's getting closer to having enough tokens for one of the Tol Barad mounts, too. (Getting the drake first because it's pretty >.>)(I just wish Alliance would have control of TB more often :\) I'm actually starting to believe she'll have the dragonhawk soon(-ish).

I've been alt'ing some lately too. My warlock Rynia got some End Time heroics done today, and got over 10 ilvls in the process. And my shadow priest Cadèrly is working his way through level 84. Which means soon I'll have yet another max character to grind gear on. Although, this time I think it's a good thing, because I've missed my lil priest. He's one of my oldest characters, the only one that got in any vanilla raiding content, (even if it was only a bit of MC trash farming and a couple ZG runs,) and he's been rather neglected since his faction change several months ago. It's been fun working on him, almost like spending time with an old friend that you haven't seen for a while. /nostalgia

Well, that's all I can think of for now. /waves

New doodles

I had another drawing binge a few days ago, and I'm pretty happy with the results.

First, my first attempt to draw some sort of humanoid-type. Here's a quickie of my worgen hunter Max, with his best friend, Jax the mastiff-



Jax actually turned out looking more like a boxer than a mastiff, but I'm not sure what to do to 'fix' it. Oh well, practice should make it better.

And now a random horse that I drew while trying to come up with another Jahira/Windstar picture. They were not cooperating, so this just popped into my head as a replacement. Or something.



Considering how long it's been since my last horse sketch, I'm kind of impressed with myself.

I've been bouncing between games a lot lately, depending on my mood and whether my brother (who just moved to the other side of the country for the next year or so) is online to pester. Which means I haven't really done much of anything interesting. I did manage to get Kel that fugly pink bird-mount from Love Is In The Air. She still didn't get her achievement/title, though. She still needs the rose bouquet and to throw rose petals on a couple race/classes. Hopefully I'll get it next year.

And the last bit of news- my sister and I have adopted a new kitty. She's one of several cats that have been hanging around the store where we both work. After two of the other kitties got hit by reckless idiot drivers, a couple of the stockers and a manager found homes for a couple of the others. Socks came home with us. Buster wasn't too sure about it at first, but they're getting used to each other, and now he keeps trying to get her to play tag with him. They're adorable.



/Waves :)

Storytime- Grizzly Spirit

Max tossed another crumb of bread to the black-and-white creature sitting hopefully at his feet. He had been coming down from Amberpine Lodge to eat his midday meal on the slope by the river for a few days now, and the little skunk had appeared and started begging for scraps on the second day. Normally, Max wouldn't feed a wild animal, but this guy seemed harmless enough, and other than his begging, acted like any of the other skunks living in the woods nearby. Max took another bite of his sandwich, and tore off another bit of crust for his little friend. However, when he tossed it to the skunk, it didn't move. Max looked more closely at the critter, and raised an eyebrow in surprise at it's shocked expression. Before he could react any further, suddenly something gently nudged his knee.

Max turned his head slowly, and his expression matched the skunk's rather closely, as he looked straight into the eyes of a large, pale, blue-white bear. They stared at each other for several long seconds, then the bear lowered it's head to nudge Max again, this time on his elbow. Max realized it was staring at his sandwich, and slowly his surprise faded into amusement. He tore the remainder of his lunch in half, and held out a piece on the palm of his hand, ready to jerk it back if the bear was too greedy. However, instead of snapping the food up like most wild animals would, it snuffled at his hand briefly, before gently taking the sandwich in his shiny white teeth. It then dropped the offering, letting it fall apart on the ground, and proceeded to neatly pick up each part, first the bread, then the meat. It then turned back to Max and licked his palm, as if in thanks.

The bear settled down next to Max as he finished the rest of his lunch, eating more out of habit than hunger after the unexpected meeting stole his appetite. He noted, almost absently, that he could almost make out some of the grass and twigs that the bear was lying on, and he realized that it must be some sort of spirit. He couldn't quite decide what to make of that, except that it most likely explained the bear's intelligence and good manners. Tentatively, he reached over and touched the bear's back. Surprisingly, it felt very solid, with thick, rather soft fur covering a respectable layer of hard muscle. The beast made a soft rumbling sound, deep in it's chest. It sounded approving, so Max spent a few minutes on a good back-scratching. It wasn't quite as effective as it was in his worgen form, but he didn't want to break the peaceful spell by shapeshifting. Besides, the bear seemed appreciative enough.

Finally, Max gave a final scratch behind the bear's ears and stood. He had already taken twice as long as he usually did, and the hunters in the Lodge had given him a task to do, and he couldn't put it off any longer. The spirit-bear scrambled to it's feet right after him, and began following him up the hill towards the Lodge. Max paused, then turned around.

"A'right, just what d'ye think ye're doin'?" he asked, eyeing the big ghostly animal. And got his second shock of the afternoon, as he heard a faint but distinct voice in his head. "Friend. Follow." Max stared at it (Not it, him), then shook his head. "But... Wait, does that mean...?" he stammered, confused. The bear simply waited, looking at him patiently, but with obvious determination. Max finally snapped his mouth shut, and rubbed his hands over his face. "Well," he said finally, "If ye're gonna be talkin' in m'head, guess I should know better'n t' argue with ye." The bear nodded, his expression brightening, and he shuffled closer to gently bump his head on Max's chest. "We go. Together." Max gave a helpless chuckle as he nodded back, and together they continued back up the slope.

After a few steps, however, Max paused again, as something small bumped against his boot. He looked down at the little skunk, who stared back up at him hopefully. "Wait a sec... Ye too? Aw no. Ain't happenin." The skunk just continued looking up at him, and finally Max sighed in defeat. "Ye gotta be kiddin' me..." With his two new friends in tow, Max headed up to the Lodge, to get directions to the outpost where his next job would take him.




--------------
So, after about a week of camping, Max has his first spirit beast. And yes, I am now working on his non-combat-pet achievement, so he can get a Stinker. It is totally the fault of that darn mountain skunk that kept him company the whole time he was camping. My 'cute-resistance' didn't have a chance... :P

Update time

So, I really don't ever intend to have long spells between posts. I really don't. It just sort of... happens. :\

To attempt to make up for this last one, let me mention that there is currently 2 RP things going on at the moment. One with Jahira, Windstar, and a couple other druids, and another with Max and Arnen. Yes, me and sis are finally getting the poor brothers reunited, hopefully sometime in the next couple days. In the meantime, I've been keeping myself busy in between work shifts.

Firstly, Rift-Kel is up to 47, almost 48. Leveling has been slowed lately, in favor of trying to work on professions, but I'm getting myself back in gear. Not much longer, and I will have my first non-WoW max-level toon. Which of course means I will get to start on the next one. >.> Most likely my lil chloro-mage Vanyell. Or maybe perhaps one of my Guardian characters. Hmm...

In Lord of the Rings Online, I have been tinkering on holiday festival stuff. Mostly doing the holiday quests and collecting festival costumes/housing items/ mounts. My burglar Daeren is my official mount collector, and he got both of the in-game mounts on the first two days of the festival. Then Turbine snuck a new one in halfway through the holiday, so I took him to grab it as soon as I learned about it. The festival is almost over now, and I think I'm a little burned out with it, so I probably will be getting back to normal questing/leveling now. Especially since the newest expansion has already been announced for this fall. Ugh, so much to do...

Finally on to WoW-related stuff. Kel has had her first attempt in the raid finder, and I think it went well. She didn't win any drops, but at least I didn't cause any wipes, and she wasn't last on the dps meter, either. My game did go down to 2fps, occasionally dropping to 1fps, during most of the boss fights (which I was expecting, my computer doesn't like 25-man raids). She is also finally almost done with her Molten Front stuff. Yes, I know, I'm a slacker. >.< She should only need another day, maybe 2, of dailies to recruit her last faction, the Ancients, and then she'll have a shiny new hippogryph.

Oh yea, she's in the Wildfire Riders now, too. It still hasn't sunk in completely, and I'm kind of half expecting them to realize their mistake and boot me out. >.>
(Just kidding. :P I <3 you guys)

Jahira has also been seeing a lot of play time. Not too long ago, I sort of realized how much I love her character, and how much I've missed playing her, so she's kind of taken over #2 priority, as far as gear and things. She is way behind Kel right now, but I've been slowly figuring out how to Boomkin with her. She just recently reached the ilvl required for the new Time heroics, although she really needs a new weapon before I'll feel comfortable taking her in there. Which means that Kal has also been getting some attention as well. I had (sort of) recently switched one of her professions to blacksmithing, and have been wearing out her gryphon's wings farming ore to skill it up. She's still working through Northrend levels, but it's so dead up there (harhar) that she has little competition for ore nodes, and it's going pretty quickly. The biggest problem for now is my attention span. I really don't mind farming, in fact I downright enjoy it, but a few laps around Howling Fjord and I swear my brain tries to shut itself off. :P

My brother has finally convinced me to give the PvP server Arthas another try. I only have 3 characters over there so far, a little forsaken warrior, a human paladin, as well as my blood elf hunter Kerrowyn. She has been so neglected on Feathermoon, with 4 other hunters for competition, I decided to transfer her to Arthas, for a couple reasons. 1- I wanted a hunter on that server, 2- I hoped a new server might get me to play her more, and 3- I figured that if I still neglected her, I wouldn't mind as much since it's not my main server. So far I've got her up 3 or 4 levels since the transfer, and while I've switched my 'lowbie focus' to my pally, I do intend to continue working on Kerro in the near future.

And finally, Max has been getting some infrequent play time as well, and is currently 71. It's amazing what a good motivator it is, just having certain pets planned for a character. It was not hard getting him to 69 for his Beast Mastery talent, so he could go tame his devilsaur Fury (formerly King Mosh). And now I keep thinking about the spirit beasts I want to find for him, which means the sporadic leveling will continue. Oh yea, and there will be Max stories posted soon, as well.

And I think that's enough for this Wall o' Text. Time to crank up my new Lacuna Coil album (which is amazing) and do some leveling. Soon as I figure out which game I feel like playing first. :D
/Waves

Why didn't I try this sooner...

Sabre + Kibler's Bits = .....



Yes, he really is the same size as her mount. /boggle
(This is what happens when I get a cold and stay up way too late.)