The Sabbath Approaches

Patch 4.2 has bestowed upon me one of the most amazing pets I have ever tamed.

Deth'tilac. A spider...one of my favourite creatures. A spider who uses the suffix of Rekk'tilac, one of my favourite arachnid mobs. A spider who is purple and black, my favourite colour combination. A spider whose name and abilities are all tied in to death metal, my favourite music genre.

I can't even begin to express the draw I had towards him. He was going to be mine, there was no question about it.

I joined the party on the PTR, letting myself progress through enough of the content to reach the Molten Front, despite not being fond of experiencing quest content on test realms and such. I just felt like I had to see Deth'tilac in person though, hoping to get a glance of him and get some practice under my belt for the eventual tame.

Weeks went by and I could never manage to meet him, however. He would always elude me by mere hours, seemingly avoiding me on purpose. At some point I decided to give up and just wait for the patch to hit live realms.

Fast forward to this past Tuesday.

4.2 is finally upon us, and I excitedly finish my first day of dailies. I knew that I had to do three days worth in order to unlock the Molten Front, and I wasn't going to miss any of them. I was determined to reach it as soon as possible.

Then I found out about a certain...occurrence. Kalli informed me that one hour before the dailies are scheduled to reset each day, there turned out to be a short period of a 'soft' reset. In other words...if you were quick enough, you could complete the dailies again just before they were about to reset, then once more directly after that when they reset legitimately.

I suddenly learned that I was able to do all three days worth of dailies, in what amounted to just one night.

Eagerly awaiting the 3am realm time marker, I went to visit Rekk'tilac, feeling that he should be with me for the tame. Unsurprisingly he wasn't home, however, as he was always fickle about appearing before me. xD I waited for him, alternating between checking his area and visiting Chatter and Chitter. Finally I settled on one of the regular lava tarantulas, choosing one that had been walking close by during my visit. He was later gifted with the name Toast for some inexplicable reason. Toast would be my taming buddy.

3am hits, the dailies do a soft reset, and I finish them within minutes, Kalli by my side along with my friend Gala. Only an hour left, at 4am they would reset once more, and that would be all I needed. Heart pumping like mad, I waited as the clock ticked closer and closer to 4:00.

It was an insane rush. As soon as those blue exclamation marks popped over the NPC's heads, I was in full out zoom mode. I was absolutely high on anticipation as I handed in the last quest and proceeded to finish up the final bits needed to get through the portal. I was on the edge of my seat, yelling at NPCs to talk faster as I felt a thrill of anxiety from others around me doing the same thing. Talk faster, fly faster, go go go!

I raced through the portal, agonizing over the last quests I had to complete inside, blindly shooting at things I was supposed to kill, swearing at Malfurion for taking his sweet ass time explaining something about a tree. Couldn't he see I was in a hurry?!

The dialogue finally ended, and I bolted across the terrain, grateful for my PTR knowledge of the zone or I would have been hopelessly lost thanks to not having a sense of direction. Kalli was on her way to grab Skitterflame for her troll hunter, and I knew exactly where I was headed. There seemed to be no one else around me, but I had tunnel vision as I sprinted towards the spider area and jumped through the gap in the wall.

Brilliant purple legs stretched out over the horizon, and I was suddenly face to face with the pet of my dreams. At that instant I was filled with an intense relief that Deth'tilac had never shown himself to me on the PTR. Getting to experience that meeting for the first time as I did right then...it was indescribable. I'll even admit that my eyes were a bit teary, I was so overcome with happiness and excitement.

I stood there for about 10 seconds, waiting for my brain to catch up with everything that was happening, then proceeded to to start the kiting. It was clumsy, I was so delirious from excitement and nervousness and shock. He reset on me three times, and then Kalli arrived to help. At this point my memory becomes extremely hazy. I think I entered some sort of crazy zen hunter state. I was on autopilot, my poor brain having melted down so my instincts took over. Concussive shot, serpent sting, frost trap, spider web, revive pet, repeat...I can't even remember clicking on the abandon portrait of poor little Toast, but next thing I knew I was staring at a tame bar casting down. Just a sliver left, hardly even a second, and...

BAM.

Black screen.

Wait...what?! I blinked, hardly daring to believe what was happening. My computer had shut itself off. At such a critical point. I scrambled to restart it, mind racing as I wondered if the tame had completed. It felt like an eternity as I impatiently waited for my computer to come back on, for WoW to start up, for my fingers to type my password in.

Even as I was mashing the enter button to get back into the world, though, I glimpsed something purple beside Vephriel on the character screen. Sure enough, I log back in and there's my beautiful spider at my side. The stress about killed me, but it was all worth it in the end!

Normally I don't care about such things as 'realm first tames', but as I stood there staring at my tamed Deth'tilac, knowing I was the first to see and obtain him on Nesingwary...it was a very cool, personal feeling. The whole thing just felt so fated, for lack of a better word. I was dreading the camp for this pet, fearing the competition and long hours I'd have to spend trying to obtain this amazing spider. He was there waiting for me though, and all I can say is that he's mine, and he's never going anywhere.

It took me a day or two to settle on a name for him, but he is now irrefutably known as Sabbath.