Beta Journals

The Mage They Call Jayne(z), Part 6: The “Quest” in “Request"

The Mage They Call Jayne(z): The "Quest" in "Request"

There's a funny thing about NPCs. No matter how strong or badass or important they might be, they seem to always need you to do their dirty work. Sure, Thrall might be able to breeze through Blackrock Spire and crush Rend Blackhand's head with his massive, throbbing ...... finger, but he's got better things to do, right? Someone has to stand around in the throne room and glower at lowbies, after all.

So if badasses like Tirion Fordring, Thrall, and High Overlord Saurfang are seemingly incapable of doing their own dirty work, imagine how helpless all the other NPCs in the world (of Warcraft) must be. Really, it's a wonder we don't have to remind them to keep breathing!

After taking the Ancient Lift down to Kamagua, the village of the Tuskarr walrus-men-people-things, I discovered - surprise of surprises - that the Tuskarr were pretty much up a certain creek without a certain instrument, and needed me to help them out of it. But they were ugly and the whole place probably smells like fish, so I made the excellent decision to book it out of there. Oh sure, I'll help them at some point, but time to let 'em stew for a little bit.

Mmm, walrus-man stew...

Back on my Druid, I head on over to the Alliance stronghold of Westguard Keep, where I find a captured Goblin Zeppelin (complete with captured Goblin) awaiting adventurers. It turns out that the zeppelin is involved in a daily quest to ferry players around the nearby ice floes and drop bombs on unsuspecting pirates. Whom you'd think would be pretty suspecting by the fourth or fifth flyby. It's kind of like the Shattered Sun bombing runs, except much slower and you'll probably end up with a bunch of people all crowding on one zeppelin to try and get it done. That's why God invented grouping.

By the way? The nearby Ember Clutch - a grove of perpetual fire where the proto-drakes of the Fjord are hatched - looks really, really cool. Seeing as how the proto-drake whelpings actually look just like your normal, every-day baby dragons, I wonder at what stage of their lifespan they get smacked around with the ugly stick to become grown proto-drakes.

Also, it turns out that killing the proto-drake whelplings will actually piss said proto-drakes off, and they will come attack your keep. Whoops. Silly Alliance.

Since I don't feel like dealing with angry proto-drakes at the moment, I return to my Mage and head to Camp Winterhoof, where I'm asked to go help the Dryads in a nearby grove. All right, that I can do! Dryads are cute and friendly and totally not at all ugly smelly walrus-men or ugly angry dragon-man things. No, not Trogdor.

While some of these wintry Dryads are all happy and fine (and they're the ones giving the quests, natch), not all is happy in Dryad-ville. Some of the Sisters have been corrupted and driven insane, oh no! Also, some of their fellow Keepers of the Grove have succumbed as well. However, seeing as how the Keepers of the Grove are not cute and spunky, nor do they have jokes about "human calls," we don't care about them, do we? That's right, I thought not. So, off to kill the evil Keepers and save the evil Dryads!

However, I can't help but be a tad resentful when I save the Dryads and not a single one sticks around to, y'know, help me save the others. Ungrateful little ... aw, but they're so cute. I can't stay angry at them for long.