Hydra Hijinks

This entry is mostly wishful thinking. :)

I've had a soft spot for hydras every since I first saw one ambling around the Zoram Strand on my original baby night elf character. They were such a unique looking creature, and I remember wanting to tame one so badly (only to discover later that it was not possible).

Since then they had mostly remained a pipe dream, a passing fondness that would emerge whenever I saw one in the wild.

In Wrath of the Lich King there was a brief period where a ghostly hydra could be tamed by mistake, thinking itself to be a crocolisk. A thrill of excitement went through me at the prospect of owning one at long last, so I tried to hurry and reach the point in the dailies chain where I could summon the Spirit of Atha. Sadly I was unable to win against the deadly hotfix date, and the hydra dream slipped through my fingers once again.

Hope is returning now in Cataclysm, however, with the promising change in pre-tamed Spirits of Atha gaining their own hydra family classification and special ability. Though there is still no definitive news on the tamability of the beasts, my obsession has been steadily rising and I'm hoping for the best in a future patch. :) *crosses fingers*

Anyways, all musing aside, I do have a planned tame should they miraculously become hunter pets at some point. The black Strashaz Hydras of Alcaz Island were love at first sight to me. I've found myself visiting them rather frequently, just sitting up in one of the towers or on the docks and watching them path around. I'll be naming mine Unagi should the day ever come.

I decided to take my aspiring friend on a journey to Durotar, so here are the photos from that trip:

A Toast to Rekk'tilac

The day following my wonderful Deth'tilac tame, I knew I had to head over to Searing Gorge to pay a visit to little Toast and thank him for his hard work. As I mentioned in the previous entry, Toast was one of the regular lava tarantulas I tamed who happened to stand out to me. I knew exactly which mob he was as he had a specific little area he patrolled around in. At the time, when I had given up on Rekk'tilac showing up and decided to grab one of the common ones, I emoted a 'hello' to the closest tarantula just to introduce myself, and it turned in its pathing and faced me. That solidified it.

Sabbath came along of course, as was only fitting, and when we arrived who should be there to greet us but Rekk'tilac himself! <3

What was even more surprising was the fact that Toast turned out to patrol right beside Rekk, and the two of them seemed to be pretty close!

I had a fun little visit with both of them, and after some silly tag games I decided I wanted to take Rekk for a little walk. Blackrock Mountain was right behind me, so we embarked on a little adventure. Toast walked us to the door but went back early, so it was just the three of us (Sabbath, Rekk'tilac, and myself) who continued.

Rekk seemed to thoroughly enjoy exploring the interior of the mountain! He was a little cautious on the chains, and there were a few tight squeezes in the tunnels, but he was exuding such a playful, inquisitive mood that we all had a lot of fun.

As the walk came to an end, I ran back to watch Rekk'tilac return to his regular patrol route. That's when I noticed a low level Paladin questing amidst the lava tarantulas, killing a number of them. I felt a quick stab of panic...I didn't want to see Rekk killed! Hesitating for only a moment, I ran back to him and began to guide him safely up the mountain, bringing him all the way to the peaks. Out of sight and out of harm's way. ^_~

I also want to thank Methuselah over on the Petopia Forums for capturing my little adventure in a Wallpaper form! :D

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.