The Mage They Call Jayne(z), Part 3: Vikings and Spiders and Drakes (Oh My)! : The Mage They Call Jayne(z), Part 3: Vikings and Spiders and Drakes (Oh My)!

Vikings and Spiders and Drakes (Oh My!)

Yes, yes, the Vikings were last time, but I realized we hadn't done the requisite Wizard of Oz joke yet, so you'll just have to deal with it. Ha!

Right, anyway. Where was I? Oh yes.

After burnin' and lootin' our way through the Vrykul stronghold of Utgarde Keep, our ragtag bunch of sort-of-heroes decided that we weren't quite done yet. Plus, the instance servers were relatively stable, and we'd rather not chance staying outside when we could get both perfectly good XP and decent loot from in dungeons. When I say "perfectly good XP," I actually mean pretty damn good. Perhaps it's been adjusted for the beta, but when mobs are giving 2,000 XP a pop minimum (granted, while rested) with certain bigger ones giving upwards of 5,000? It's pretty fancy, let me tell you that.

So the plans were made, and we were off to another dungeon! One server crash later, our healer was nowhere to be found - but luckily enough, we had a replacement in Meditation, the official holy Priest of the Awesome Brigade. Give him a hand, everybody!

After some deliberation, we were off to Azjol-Nerub. Unfortunately, Northrend is actually rather huge, and none of the flight points I'd picked up while traipsing around Howling Fjord were anywhere close to my destination on the far Western side of the Dragonblight. In retrospect, it would have probably been a much better idea to simply port back to Orgrimmar, take the zeppelin to the Borean Tundra and run from there, but better ideas and common sense are for wusses.

So I hoofed it. With the Tawny Windrider They Call Terrence out of commission until Cold-Weather Flying at level 77, I was stuck with my trusty Swift Olive Raptor. That is, er, the Swift Olive Raptor They Call... Benny. Yes, Benny.

I may be wearing that phrase too thin. Hm. Oh well, what's done has been done.

My planned route went up through the Grizzly Hills - which interestingly enough remind me of the redwood forests out in California for some reason - and into the Dragonblight. After the fairly lush vistas of both the Howling Fjord and the Grizzly Hills, the Dragonblight is a rather jarring change. As one might infer from the "Blight" portion of the name, this isn't a very pleasant place to visit. Not exactly one of Northrend's premier vacation spots, if you follow.

Dragonblight is ... well, if you asked me to describe it in a single word, I'd grumble at the request because distilling an experience into a phrase let alone one measly word sort of cheapens the whole thing - but I digress - the word I'd choose is "haunting." It's kind of like what you'd get if you took Tirisfal Glades, got rid of most of the Forsaken stuff, and covered it in snow.

Yes, it's certainly bleak, but it doesn't quite have the same atmosphere of ... well, hopelessness that we see in zones like Shadowmoon Valley or the Blasted Lands. It doesn't come across so much as a warzone - which it certainly is, but we'll get to that in a future installment when I actually get to explore the place - as it does a, say, cemetery or tomb. Given that it is, in fact, where dragons that have lived centuries if not millennia come to die, I'd sort of say that that is, in fact, what it is. Couple that with a pinch of Titan stuff that feels genuinely ancient and an absolutely gorgeous and eerie piano soundtrack, and you have a zone that has made one hell of an impression on me though I feel at a loss for words to explain exactly why it's done so.

Anyway, tangent. To sum that up: I think the Dragonblight is really damn cool. At the time, though, it was more of a headache than anything else because it is a zone meant for characters around level 73 and 74, and I hadn't even hit 71 yet. Combined with a lack of any real roads for a solid quarter of the zone in the middle, and you have a recipe for frustration.

On the plus side, though, I did pass by (or rather, below) the renovated and relocated Naxxramas. That was kinda cool. I'm hoping that they'll have that ready to go before the closed beta ends, since I'd love to check it out and find what's changed.

After a few minutes' worth of riding through the zone and dodging level 73 kobolds (the mere existence of which gives me a small headache - I mean, these guys could probably take on, say, Baron Rivendare or Rend Blackhand which is slightly strange as far as lore is concerned) I finally made my way to Azjol-Nerub. After a few minutes' worth of prompting and explaining by my party members, I realized I was supposed to actually jump down into the spider-hole to get to the instance portal instead of standing around and scratching my head in confusion.