Gabryell returned to the dorm with takeout, logged back into the game, and saw guild chat flooded with complaints. He frowned.
They weren't complaining about anyone in the guild. They were raging at the game company.
"Trash company. They stole the boss loot."
"Trash Blizzard. Secretly nerfed the boss drop rate."
"Damn it, we finally got the boss tag and it only dropped a garbage iron chest. Blizzard, screw you."
Knowing Gabryell would be confused, Carlos explained, "Not long after you left for class, someone found Stitches. Two or three hundred people showed up in Darkshire to kill the boss for loot. People from the guild put together a raid, got the tag on Stitches, and all it dropped was junk. Now everyone's pissed and flaming Blizzard."
Gabryell nearly laughed out loud. Looking at chat filled with people cursing Blizzard, he observed a moment of silence for them. Stitches wasn't even a real boss to begin with. It had no fixed loot table. It was just a hidden Easter egg Blizzard added.
"Poor Blizzard."
Let them complain. The game was lagging every few steps anyway, so this was a perfect chance for everyone to vent. Gabryell couldn't be bothered to stop them. He tabbed out and went back to working on his addon.
The prototype was basically finished. Since he was only level 30 right now, there was no point designing too far ahead. For now, he had only completed content for the first ten levels.
That was enough. He planned to mail it to Blizzard tomorrow night. With knowledge from the future, he was confident Blizzard would recognize the value of addons.
Before he knew it, it was three in the afternoon. Gabryell set his work aside, logged back into the game, and prepared to head to the northeastern Wetlands dragon cave to AoE grind whelps.
The northeastern dragon cave in the Wetlands lay along a hidden trail near the cave entrance, in an area players called Raptor Ridge. The mobs there were level 27 and above, mostly 28 and 29. Players questing in the Wetlands right now couldn't handle them yet.
Gabryell made his way to Raptor Ridge like second nature. The cave was completely empty. It was practically paradise for a Mage AoE farming pulls.
Nothing felt better than AoE grinding with no competition for mobs, and Gabryell happily kept AoE grinding nonstop.
Time always passed quickly while AoE farming. A flash of golden light burst from Gabryell's Mage as he hit level 31.
After reaching 31, Gabryell opened his friends list. Dreamshade wasn't leveling as fast as expected and was only level 32, currently in the Wetlands as well.
Gabryell sent Dreamshade a whisper, but got no reply. Clearly, a power-leveler was playing the account.
Only one level behind. Keep chasing.
Gabryell took a sip of water and went back to AoE grinding whelps. Frostbolt with no lag felt incredible. Compared to Classic, AoE grinding here was at least twice as easy.
"I should play a bit too. Can't let my level fall behind."
Carlos stretched and logged back in, ready to keep leveling.
"How's the website coming?" Gabryell asked while farming.
Carlos said, "Almost done. Should be ready to launch tomorrow."
Gabryell said, "Good. Once it's live, let's run Scarlet Monastery. Same as Deadmines, we'll record the whole run and turn it into a guide video, then post it in the major WoW TS servers. We'll lock the full video—anyone who wants to watch it all can go to the Azeroth National Geographic Forum."
Gabryell planned to use Scarlet Monastery to promote the Azeroth National Geographic Forum and draw WoW players there until they gradually started treating it like home.
"Scarlet Monastery? Where's that?" Igor asked, putting down what he was doing.
Hugo was interested too and looked at Gabryell.
Gabryell said, "Upper-right corner of Tirisfal Glades. It's where the Scarlet Crusade trains recruits. It's a big dungeon split into four wings. At level 30, we can start with Scarlet Monastery Graveyard."
Scarlet Monastery was a great place. You could keep grinding dungeons there from 30 to 40 before leaving. Of course, dungeon grinding definitely wasn't as fast as solo AoE farming. There were no level 60 Mages doing boost runs yet, so each run would take at least an hour. The XP couldn't compare to Gabryell solo farming.
"Ti… Tiri… whatever-fal? Damn, that name's impossible. How do we get there?" Igor tried saying it a few times and still failed.
Gabryell said, "That's Horde territory. The Undead starting area is Deathknell in Tirisfal Glades. On the way to Scarlet Monastery, we'll also pass by the Undead capital, Undercity."
Scarlet Monastery's biggest flaw was that it was in Horde territory. If Alliance players wanted to repair gear or sell items, they could only go to Chillwind Camp in the Western Plaguelands or ride all the way back to Southshore.
There were too many level 50+ mobs on the road to Chillwind Camp. Whether going through Andorhal or passing by the Bulwark, level 30 Alliance players would have to corpse-run their way through.
Going back to Southshore was too far, and without the more developed flight path network from later Classic servers, Scarlet Monastery wasn't a place Alliance players could stay long.
He had to admit, the flight system made life much easier, and Gabryell really missed it. When the time came to go to Scarlet Monastery, he planned to bring two or three groups, with a Warlock in one of them as a summon mule.
"Holy crap, Horde territory? You've got to be kidding me," Igor cried out.
Hugo said in surprise, "We're going into Horde territory? Isn't that super dangerous? If the Horde sees us, they'll definitely jump us."
Carlos, on the other hand, was excited. Going into Horde territory meant there might be PvP, and he'd been itching to smash a few Horde players for a while now.
"It's fine. We'll go through Silverpine Forest. The Horde players there are low-level. They won't dare touch us."
Gabryell didn't want to corpse-run through the Western Plaguelands. He believed that if they brought two or three groups, then as long as they didn't run into a big Horde raid, low-level Horde players wouldn't pose much of a threat.
Alliance and Horde hadn't really clashed yet. Low-level Horde newbies might not even understand how to manually flag for PvP in Horde territory. Since Silverpine Forest and Tirisfal Glades were both Horde zones, if they didn't know how to turn PvP on, all they could do was stare.
"Then we need to hurry up and hit 30 so we can go to Scarlet Monastery."
The thought of fighting Horde instantly filled Carlos with motivation to level.
"Igor, Hugo, let's bring Lunatori too and go questing together."
Gabryell said, "You can add a Warlock too. DesertWanderer from the guild would be a good fit."
DesertWanderer was the highest-level Warlock in the guild. He was the same level as Carlos and the others, so he'd fit right in with their questing group. That would make a perfect five-man party.
When they went to Scarlet Monastery later, Gabryell planned to bring him along. Whenever the group needed to go back and resupply, they could rotate people returning, then have him summon everyone back.
Carlos invited Igor, Hugo, and Lunatori to the party.
"I'll whisper him in a bit."
Gabryell kept solo AoE grinding whelps. By the time he hit 33, Carlos and the others should be close to 30, and then he could leave the Wetlands and level somewhere else.
"Leader, you there?" Snowlily sent him a whisper.
After finishing a pull of whelps, Gabryell replied, "You done with class?"
Snowlily said, "Yeah. Leader, everyone says you played beta and know the game really well. I wanted to ask—how does a Priest kill mobs faster? I run out of mana after only a few casts, and I've already died several times because I went OOM."
Priest leveling before 40 really was miserable. If a Priest wanted to level quickly, they absolutely needed a good wand. Wands helped Priests far more than Mages or Warlocks. A good wand could easily double a Priest's leveling efficiency.
Gabryell asked, "What wand are you using now?"
Snowlily linked a wand. It was a level 5 green wand.
Gabryell said, "That wand's way too low-level. The DPS is terrible. I happen to have a level 20 wand. I'll mail it to you when I get back."
Snowlily asked, "So I just wand mobs to death?"
Gabryell said, "Right. Open with Mind Blast, then put up Shadow Word: Pain, then shield yourself and wand. That saves mana. If mana still feels tight, skip Mind Blast and just use Shadow Word: Pain, then shield and wand. That still kills mobs fine."
Gabryell had played every class, but the ones he knew best were Mage, Priest, Rogue, and Hunter. Mage was his main. Priest was the class he rolled for GDKP runs to make gold. He made Hunter and Rogue back in The Burning Crusade specifically to get Warglaives of Azzinoth and Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury.
"Max out Wand Specialization, Improved Power Word: Shield, and Spirit Tap. If you level with the shield-and-wand setup, you'll barely need to stop and drink."
Gabryell added, "So every so often, you need to replace your wand with one that matches your level. Nature, Frost, Fire, Shadow, Arcane—the damage type doesn't matter. What matters is high DPS and fast speed."
Snowlily said, "Thanks, Leader. You're amazing. Would you be willing to mentor me? Then if I don't understand something later, I can ask you."
A mentor?
Gabryell hadn't expected Snowlily to ask him that.
There was no mentor system in World of Warcraft, but that didn't stop players from doing it privately.
Taking on a Dwarf Priest apprentice wouldn't cost Gabryell anything. If Snowlily became his apprentice, she might feel a stronger sense of belonging to the guild.
The benefits outweighed the drawbacks, so Gabryell made his choice.
"Sure. Then I'll take the role. From now on, if there's anything you don't understand, come to me. If there are quests you can't do or mobs you can't beat, come to me for that too."
Snowlily said happily, "Thank you, mentor. You're so nice."
She switched fast. It seemed she had already accepted Gabryell as her mentor.
"Mentor, I'm going to grind to 20 first." Snowlily remembered the wand Gabryell was giving her required level 20, so she eagerly went off to level.
Gabryell said, "Go ahead. Once you hit 20 and switch to the new wand, leveling will speed up."
Unexpectedly taking on an apprentice didn't disrupt Gabryell's leveling pace at all. After ending the whisper with Snowlily, he went right back to AoE grinding nonstop in the Raptor Cave, determined not to stop until he'd AoE'd every last raptor in the cave to extinction.