instances and incidents

never can get the hang of if i'm doing an instance or an incident. it's a blindspot term for me. i don't know why. in any case, everyone knew what i meant when i climbed aboard iron fist legend brah's excursion into uldaman.

we started out fine after a long and arduous journey to get to there thanks to my not having been there before. with the new patch in place this kind of journey should be pretty much obsolete which is fantastic. this night however, brah was kind enough to walk me there so i wasn't splatted by the locals - a distinct possibility considering where i was and my current level.

in the end, though, we made it, and we slid past the minor irritants guarding the entry and into the instance proper.

brilliant.

we had with us some guy called squawk, and he was the biggest of us warriors (of which i think there were three), so he strapped on a shield with great reluctance - although i don't know why as i figure if you survive does it really matter what you're wearing? in any case he ditched the board after a while anyway.

we did the first place and it was brilliant. just killed everything in sight with a great rending of splashy effects and sounds. just graceful. brought an honest tear to my eye. however, the second part where we needed to go to get mak's enchanting skills upped was just a trifle harder...

see, there were these scorpion mobs coming at us in what seemed a horde. they just ploughed into us - usually aiming at me for some reason and went totally berserk all over us. we survived well, with only myself struggling like a loon to keep swinging at the little terrors.

unfortunately, after this part we found a lot of level 40 something elites and i became obsolete - unable to score a strike. so, as we killed the goblin hugging machine (see photo), i pretty much only hung out round the edges picking off the lower level 38 elites instead. greatly disappointing.

then we were led out through a backdoor much to our confusion, by squawk, who then hopped his kodo and just rode off into the sunset with some obscure reference to meeting up with some iron fist reinforcements who had arrived at the front door to uldaman. why he decided to do that is a mystery but not nearly as mysterious as why he seemed to think the front door to uldaman was in orgrimmar...

in any case, i enjoyed the hacking (the little we had), and tried to meet up with shaniqua and shull who had arrived at the front, but i got lost, then cornered by a couple of elites and just couldn't break through as they began respawning all around me. i ended up hearthing and just getting grumpy at stuff instead.

then last night we went to the scarlet monastery. with brah, mak, shull and zuri it was an iron fist event, and as such a mostly successful one. we went down the first arm and just blew through it with ease, picking up some delightful stuff and then deciding to go right on in and doing the cathedral.

we destroyed everything in our path and had an absolute ball doing so in even some of the most hairy moments i've ever seen while playing the game, and my new skill sweeping strikes is just bloody well saving my life.

shull pulled masterfully at the cathedral proper and we learnt a lot through the experience, i think, and only died a few times when mobbed or caught by a respawn from behind. the killing of the bosses went fairly smoothly, but was definitely helped by mak doing a masterful job on the crazy lady at the end.

all in all, a genius night made poor only by my having to talk with the girl of my dreams as i struggle in my life to make sense of the world around me and the whole unfairness of it in relation to me, myself, and the happiness i should have had at her side but which seems terribly unlikely. well. it wasn't poor because of her, because she always makes me smile. but, poor because i spent a long time with her and everyone got tired of waiting for me and left. i'm really sorry, guys, but it's a sad time of my life for me.

a sad story made less sad only by the fact that it inspired me to run off into the wilderness and in a frenzy of speed and alarm to kill everything that moved with such dedication and focus that, somewhere around 2am, i exploded with that joyful mix of light and sound to become a level 38 orc warrior of DOOM!

brilliant stuff.

all in all a successful and highly entertaining evening.

so, as i leave you now, let me leave you with my last two poetic dedications from my levelling to 37 and then 38:

a whirlwind axe is a mighty weapon
designed by hell and built in heaven
see my axe - i'll swing it
see my level - i'll ding it
just like this second i turned thirty-seven!

and

i was bred to fight and raised to rage
for my axe and i had a war to wage
and though it's come late
i think it's worth the wait
cuz it ain't every day you turn thirty-eight!