(You can read all of Kaet’s adventures, starting with why I’m doing things this way, by checking out the series Table of Contents at the end of this post. Alternatively, if you are here primarily for juicy pet-related news, feel free to skip these bits — they’re optional.)

Well, since I now had a pet — three, in fact — it was time to pick up where I left off. I took the lowest of the three crabs, the red one, and started back on quests. Unfortunately, the first quest on the list was one I had meant to do on my way through Dun Morogh — delivering a weapon to Mountaineer Stormpike in Loch Modan. So I mounted back up (metaphorically) and headed back to dwarven lands.

I did take the time in Dun Morogh to kill Mangeclaw for Pilot Hammerclaw, although it ended up taking rather longer than it should have since a high-level troll was passing through and I had to wait for poor Pilot Hammerclaw to respawn so I could finish the quest. After that, Stormpike wanted me to go back to Stormwind with another order, this one for a  shield — so back to Stormwind I went! He also had some quests in the Loch Modan that I was probably supposed to do, but at this point I prefer to stick to human lands. (I’ve spent too much time in Loch Modan recently.)

Back in Elwynn Forest I realized that I didn’t have any food for my crab. Luckily, crabs eat fish and I needed to level up my fishing anyway. I hung out on the dock of Crystal Lake for a bit, until I had a goodly supply of fresh fish, and then, distracted by tradeskills, I leveled up cooking a bit and wandered off to mine. Eventually I got back on track though, taking out Princess and making a start on some more murlocs.

At this point I ran out of ammo. I hadn’t bought much last time because I knew I’d be switching to level 10 ammo soon, but in all the taming excitement I completely forgot to buy any! I was too stubborn to run all the way to Goldshire and back, though, so I finished up the murloc quest in melee mode, crab by my side. It took a little longer than normal, but not nearly as long as killing murlocs without a pet at level 9.

Somewhere in here the crab became Unruly (which sounds bad but is better than Rebellious  — I mean that he reached loyalty 2). I taught him Claw 2 (which I had conveniently learned off the Encrusted Surf Crawler when I tamed it in Durotar) and Armor 1. And when I turned in the murloc quest, I reached Honored status with Stormwind — so meleeing those murlocs was worth it!

On my way back to Goldshire to buy ammo I stopped in at the Tower of Azora. At the top of the tower there is a crystal ball, the Eye of Azora, that plays a cutscene-style movie, a bird’s-eye view of flying around a tower. I don’t know why it does this. I presume that there’s some lore reason. I assume that the tower you fly around is the Tower of Azora, although some of the details don’t look quite right to me. Oddly enough, I remember the Tower of Azora from my very first character during beta, before I discovered hunters. But I don’t know why I remember it. The memory seems to involve dying over and over again. Hmm …

Oh, and I took a picture: My unnamed red crab and I at the Tower of Azora, in the rain. Why is it always raining?

It continues to amaze me how busy Goldshire is. The streets are constantly littered with the bodies of fallen Horde and Alliance alike, and there seem to always be at least three duels in progress. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anyone selling level 10 ammo in Goldshire so I went back to Stormwind. I needed to buy my level 12 skills anyway, having reached level 12. I like level 12 — you get Mend Pet and Wing Clip, among others. I also ran into Corbenn from the hunter forums (and also from here, unless I’m mistaken), on a rogue, who was kind enough to say hello.

Then I headed back out to kill gnolls. I had heard about Hogger, but since I’m not normally leveling in human lands I wasn’t sure if people were being sarcastic when they said he was hard. I found out. :> He was tough, and I wouldn’t have made it at level 11 before I had Mend Pet, but with Mend Pet the crab and I were fine.

As an aside, I really like the look of the Mangy Wolves in Elwynn.

Is it just me, or has this become somewhat disjoint?

At any rate, after finishing up the last quest in Elwynn (and checking Thotbott to make sure I got them all), I headed off to Westfall. I was just shy of level 13 and my crab was just shy of level 12 (and at loyalty level 4 by this time to boot). Not bad!