If finding the location of the missing King was a challenge, getting to him gave us a new puzzle. "You could get a group and probably get in there," I told Tori, the highest level in our group. While Tori was leveled in the upper 50's, the rest of us had yet to reach level 40, so we would be no help at all against level 50 or 60 nagas.
"I'm squishy," Tori complained. "Besides, I'm not going to go without the rest of you. What's the point?"
"Can we get in without being seen?" Vrand asked.
"You might be able to, in your cat form, but the rest of us couldn't."
"Unless we had an invisibility potion," Brecki ponders.
"Do those really work?" I asked.
"They're expensive," Tori replied. I didn't bother to point out she hadn't answered my question.
"Not if you want to hunt murlocs," Vrand grinned. "There's a guy in Goldshire who can make them."
All I could say to that is – from the mouths of babes.
So, off to Goldshire we went.
Now murlocs are typically nasty, disgusting creatures. At least they are when they are alive. And I can tell you that dead murlocs are really just as nasty and disgusting. I can tell you this because when you introduce a level 55 warlock – no matter how squishy – into a community of 7th and 8th level murlocs... you get a lot of dead murlocs.
It took no time at all for us to collect the crystal kelp we needed and convinced the alchemist guy standing in the inn that he really really wanted to make us some invisibility potions. I can't take credit for that one – when you are a common alchemist hanging out in Goldshire, it's probably not a good idea to piss off the level 55 warlock... or her infernal.
We decided to wait until the next morning to attempt the suicide island run. And thus it was that the next morning we found ourselves swimming out to an island in the middle of the ocean infested by 8 foot nagas.
And no, I can't really comment on our sanity.
Contrary to our fears (or mine anyway), the trip went pretty smoothly. But then, that's about what you might expect from a guild run – no PUGs for us! We took our time, were careful and nope, the nagas never saw us coming. We made it past them into the cave and there...
...stood the king of stormwind.
My first impression was that he was young! Way too young to be the king, in my opinion. He has vivid green eyes and looked like he was once an extremely hot specimen of the other sex. At the moment, though, he had a long, disheveled hair that needed to be cut and he needed to shave badly. And he just looked tired.
He looked up when I accidentally kicked a rock. That's right, go Ms. Hunter!
"Who's there?"
The nagas were out of sight, so we willed ourselves visible again. An odd sensation, willing a potion to stop working. A little like the old phrase, "the trick is to realize there is no spoon." Yeah. A little.
The king relaxed when he saw us. "Visitors? Don't get many of those."
"They need to fix the bridge," I commented. "You're a little out of the way." Not sure what possessed me to make such a smartass comment to the king, but I think I was starting to lose my mind at this point. Two days in a video game can do that to you.
"Hmm..." Varian Wrynn studied me thoroughly for a long minute, then he inspected Vrand, Tori and Brecki. Finally, he said. "So. The patch worked."