Hugo's Night Elf Hunter finally reached level 10, and Gabryell personally helped him run the character from Darnassus to Stormwind.
The method was simple: take a boat from Darnassus to Darkshore, then another from Darkshore to the Wetlands. After arriving at Menethil Harbor, jump into the sea and swim along the coast until you reach the area northwest of Ironforge in Dun Morogh, then find a place to climb ashore.
Once on land, find a way to die. Your spirit will appear at the graveyard outside Ironforge. Talk to the spirit healer there and resurrect with weakness. After reviving, head to the Deeprun Tram and ride it to Stormwind.
This route was at least an hour faster than corpse-running all the way from the Wetlands to Ironforge, and for now, only Gabryell knew about it.
"Holy crap, Boss! That's a huge boss!"
Watching from the side, Hugo jumped when he spotted a giant plesiosaur swimming past the tram windows.
Every Alliance player gets startled the first time they ride the Deeprun Tram and catch a glimpse of that creature in the tunnel water, thinking it's some kind of world boss.
Gabryell's first time hadn't been much better. Curious, he had even ridden the tram back and jumped off halfway to check it out.
"You know the Loch Ness Monster, right?"
He smiled. "That's one of Blizzard's Easter eggs. The giant plesiosaur is called Nessie."
"A monster that big—there's no way it wouldn't drop something good."
Igor leaned closer, eyes shining.
Gabryell shook his head. "Forget it. It's just an Easter egg. There's no way to get in there and fight it. Even if you somehow glitch inside, it still wouldn't drop any loot."
The moment Igor heard that, he lost all interest.
Trying to motivate him, Gabryell added, "Hit 60 sooner. Later we can go hunt some world bosses."
"Do they drop badass gear?"
"They do."
"Then what are we waiting for? Invite Hugo already—let's get back to leveling."
His mage was already waiting at the tram station. As soon as the train arrived in Stormwind, the invites went out.
"BentArrow joined the guild."
"Lunatori joined the guild."
The guild already had more than thirty members now, so one or two new joins didn't cause much excitement anymore.
"BentArrow joined the party."
"Lunatori joined the party."
The party was finally complete.
Party Leader: Ogabs (Mage)
Members: Egides (Warrior), Grada (Paladin), BentArrow (Hunter), Lunatori (Druid)
"I picked up a class quest. Looks like it lets me turn into a bear," Lunatori said after joining.
"No need to rush that," Gabryell replied. "Right now our priority is leveling."
Back in Vanilla WoW, many class quests didn't give anything essential and could be skipped. The important ones could always be done later at a higher level.
Besides, he wasn't planning on relying on a low-level bear form to tank anyway. Egides was already the main tank.
"Alright."
"Let's head to Westfall."
He typed in party chat. They had already wasted an hour in Stormwind, and players were starting to reach level 9. Once more people hit 10, Westfall would turn into a fight over mobs.
Leaving Stormwind, the group moved around Goldshire, past Mirror Lake, through Westbrook Garrison, and into Westfall.
"Everyone grab the quest."
At Furlbrow's Farm, Gabryell walked up to Farmer Furlbrow and accepted it.
"Let's try to clear Westfall in half a day. Tonight we'll run The Deadmines."
The lowest-level mobs there were already above level 10. Normally players avoided fighting enemies higher level than themselves, so the zone was still practically empty.
For now, only their party was there.
"This reward's nice—an 8-slot bag."
Ever since Igor got his first 6-slot bag at Northshire Abbey—and heard Gabryell's story about the legendary one—he'd become obsessed with bag space.
He had replaced his original 4-slot bag with a 6-slot one. Gabryell had three bags equipped, while the others had two or three.
"Grab the collection quest while nobody's around."
The handfuls of oats for the quest respawned slowly and were scattered all over the fields. When Westfall got crowded, collecting them became a nightmare.
With Gabryell leading, everything went smoothly. Even the tougher mobs were easy for a five-man party.
During the questing, he also helped Hugo tame a Goretusk.
With the new pet, the group's strength improved again.
"I don't like boars."
Hugo clearly wasn't impressed with his first pet.
"Just use it for now," Gabryell said. "When we get to the Badlands later, I'll help you tame Broken Tooth."
"What's Broken Tooth?"
"A level 37 rare cat with insanely fast attack speed."
Hugo's eyes lit up.
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's hurry and level into the 30s—I want that pet."
"I'm hungry. I'm going to grab something to eat."
Lunatori's comment reminded the others they had been grinding for half the day without lunch.
Gabryell opened the social panel to check the server's progress. Aside from a few players reaching level 11—probably doing the early Westfall quests—none were a threat to their group, which was about to hit 14.
"Alright, let's grab food first. We'll keep leveling after."
After all, they couldn't let the only girl in the group go hungry while the rest kept playing.
"Holy crap, it's already two o'clock."
Igor glanced at the clock in surprise.
Time always flew by when you were gaming. Once you got immersed, you forgot about food and sleep.
"If Lunatori hadn't reminded me, I wouldn't have even noticed I was hungry."
"Yeah, my stomach's already growling."
Gabryell wasn't made of iron either—he was hungry too.
"So, food break first?"
"Sure."
The others all agreed.
He turned to Lunatori. "Let's take a half-hour break. Then we keep leveling. Sound good?"
"No problem."
"Alright. Everyone log out at the inn next to Sentinel Hill. From now on, try to log out at inns or in capital cities. Logging out there builds rested XP much faster than in the open world."
Back in the beta, dying actually came with an experience loss penalty. The rested system was introduced partly to offset that.
Although the penalty was removed after launch, rested XP remained. Logging out in inns or capitals let you build it several times faster than logging out in the open world.
Lunatori headed to the inn and logged out immediately.
Carlos, Igor, and Hugo followed right after.
Only Gabryell stayed online.
"Gabryell, why aren't you logging out?"
Carlos noticed his expression had suddenly changed.
Gabryell pointed at the chat window. "David just whispered me. Take a look."
The three leaned closer to the bottom-left corner of the screen.
They would've been better off not looking.
The moment they read it, they were furious—especially Carlos, the PvP fanatic.
"What the hell is this 'Madhouse'? They think they can threaten us? Let's wipe them."
The whisper from David read:
"Guild leader, are you there? We're questing and recruiting near Goldshire when a guild called Madhouse whispered us and told us to get lost. They said if we keep poaching their recruits, they'll start PKing us and make sure we can't play on this server."
"We didn't want to make a scene, so we didn't say anything in guild chat. We whispered you first so you could decide what to do."
"They just whispered again. They're giving us ten minutes to leave. If we don't go, they say they'll corpse camp us off the server."