Gabryell and the others grabbed a quick meal while they still had time and made it back just before seven.
"Everyone fly to Booty Bay and meet at the docks."
Gabryell invited everyone joining the Maraudon run into the raid and had them get on Ventrilo so he could command both groups at once.
ServerHeals logged in a little after six. The whale had equipped Staff of Jordan, and his full set of blue BoE auction-house gear was impossible to miss. The man looked like walking gold.
Besides ServerHeals, Smooch, already level 45, also joined the run. That brought them to exactly twenty players, enough to split into two groups and run Maraudon side by side.
Seeing twenty gryphons all take off for Booty Bay at once was pretty funny. They were practically stacked on top of each other.
"Haha, I'm the eagle."
Smooch, flying at the very front, was as lively as ever. "Follow me, everyone. I'll lead the formation."
Everyone was used to her chuuni act by now. Egged on by her, SevenDays said, "I'll form the neck."
"I'll form the body," Coldhands said.
Flying at the very back, Igor said, "I'll form the ass. Uh, tail."
He had almost said his usual catchphrase. Better be careful before the system censored him.
"When we reach Booty Bay, we'll take the boat to Ratchet. Ratchet is in The Barrens, Horde territory, but the town itself is goblin-neutral, so it's safe. Once we leave town, if any Horde flag first, kill them."
Gabryell was confident the low-level Horde players in The Barrens would not dare flag against a raid full of level 45 players.
The only thing worth worrying about was running into level 45 Horde players heading to Maraudon once they reached Valley of Spears in Desolace. Everyone was capped now. No one would back down. If they clashed, a big fight would be unavoidable.
Hopefully, they would not run into each other. The Alliance had no real advantage around Valley of Spears. Shadowprey Village was right nearby, while Nijel's Point was miles away.
David laughed. "Nice. Horde territory. Hope they actually flag up. Killing Horde on their own turf sounds fun as hell."
Ever since the Horde had corpse-camped him in the yeti cave, David had become the most enthusiastic Horde killer in the guild.
"Don't back down. Just fight," Susie said.
She was even more aggressive than he was.
Gabryell still hoped they could avoid fighting for now so it would not affect their Maraudon progress. But as the guild leader, he could not say that out loud and kill everyone's PvP hype.
When they arrived at the Booty Bay docks, their timing was perfect. The boat had just arrived. The few Horde players already on board saw the twenty Alliance players coming and immediately got off, but five stubborn Horde idiots chose to board anyway.
"We'll kill those Horde later," David said.
DontPanicHealz asked, "Can we kill them on the ship?"
He had respecced Shadow at level 40 and was now obsessed with it. Even at level 45, he still had not swapped back to healing, completely betraying the original meaning of his name and turning his back on Holy.
"Probably. Never tried it."
David asked, "If we PvP on the ship, will the goblins attack us?"
"If we fight while the ship is still in port, yes," Gabryell said. "Once it leaves port, the goblins can't get on board, so they won't interfere."
Goblin ships were annoying. Unlike goblin zeppelins, they had no guards on board. That made life miserable for Alliance players on Horde-dominated servers. Horde rogues could camp the ships at Menethil Harbor and ambush people nonstop, leaving Alliance players to die over and over on deck.
Alliance rogues could not easily do the same on zeppelins. The goblin guards would shut that down fast.
Most importantly, Vanilla ships had a brutal bug. If you died during a zone transition, you would resurrect on the ship. If you did not immediately jump into the water after reviving, you could get corpse-camped forever.
"Then once the ship leaves port, we kill them all." David was itching for blood.
"No need to kill them," Gabryell said. "I've got something better."
"What?" David immediately got interested.
Making Horde players suffer sounded more fun than simply killing them.
Gabryell said to the three Priests in the raid, "Priests, put Mind Control on your bars. We'll use it later."
ServerHeals, DontPanicHealz, and StyleOverStats replied together, "Got it."
Priests at this stage did not fully understand how powerful Mind Control could be. Most treated it like a gimmick and did not even keep it on their bars. Only later, when more Priests started experimenting with solo play and PvP tricks, would players realize how nasty it was. Along with Mind Soothe, it was one of the Priest's best utility tools.
"It's on my bar," the three said in near-perfect sync.
"When the ship gets halfway across, I'll Frost Nova the Horde in place. Each of you pick one target, Mind Control them, then jump them into the sea and let them swim home."
Back when WoW Classic first launched the Honor system, Gabryell had done this often on his Priest. Every Horde player thrown off the ship would freeze in confusion for a few seconds, then start raging from the water. It was hilarious.
"That works?" No one had ever tried it.
"You'll see. It's way more fun than killing them. Killing them just makes them mad. Dumping them into the sea makes them lose their minds."
That was how you really broke someone. When the ship reached the middle of the route, it was at its farthest point from land. Swimming back took forever, and swim speed was painfully slow. Anyone impatient enough might actually slam their keyboard.
"My Frost Nova is the signal," Gabryell said.
A gunshot started fights in old Westerns. Here, it was Frost Nova.
As the ship neared the middle of the sea, Gabryell found the right moment and cast Frost Nova, freezing the completely unsuspecting Horde players in place.
The three Priests immediately cast Mind Control on their assigned targets, turning the three Horde players friendly.
"Haha, that spell is disgusting," Igor laughed when he saw the controlled Horde players turn green.
Gabryell watched as the three baffled Horde broke free from the ice, only to be forced by the Priests to jump off the ship into The Great Sea.
Right then, the ship crossed into the next zone. The three unlucky Horde players were dumped in the part of The Great Sea farthest from shore. By the time they came back to their senses and saw the coastline in the distance, they were probably losing their minds in chat.
"Let's make this even better," Gabryell said. "Coldhands, after the zone transition, you take over with Frost Nova."
He had no intention of letting the other two Horde get away.
"Still throwing them into the sea?"
"No. After the transition, I'll open a portal to Ironforge. You freeze them, the Priests Mind Control them, and we send them to Ironforge for a tour. Let them admire the glory of our capital."
This was even nastier than throwing them into the ocean. Being merciful to the enemy was being cruel to yourself, so Gabryell felt no guilt at all.
"Holy shit, that's evil. If I were Horde and got sent to Ironforge, I'd uninstall."
"This is way better than dumping them into the sea. Imagine everyone AFK in Ironforge suddenly seeing two Horde pop out of a portal. They're going to get deleted."
"You're a monster. I love it."
After the zone transition, Coldhands immediately used Frost Nova, freezing the remaining two Horde players in place.
Having seen the miserable fate of their three companions, the two panicked. They immediately typed something in /say that Gabryell's group could not understand. Whether they were begging for mercy or cursing, no one knew.
Gabryell opened an Ironforge portal on the spot, and the three Priests rushed to Mind Control them.
By the time the portal opened, the two Mind-Controlled Horde players had already broken free from the ice. ServerHeals and DontPanicHealz, who were controlling them, shoved them straight into the portal.
"Ladies and gentlemen of Ironforge, dinner is served! Fresh beef, delivered right to your door!"
David shouted like the Alliance players in Ironforge could actually hear him.
"May the Holy Light be with them forever. Amen." Igor pitied the two unlucky Horde players.
Two level-40 Horde players sent straight into Ironforge.
Their fate was easy to imagine.
They would be welcomed with the full warmth of bored Alliance players who had nothing better to do.
If the three Horde players dumped into The Great Sea knew what happened to those two, they would probably consider themselves lucky they got Mind Controlled first. Swimming back through the ocean was still better than getting dogpiled by half of Ironforge.