Note on the journey to Nerdville: WoW update

Time to update you good folks on how my WoW characters are doing.

Night Elf Hunter chick
My elf is now at level 18. She's learned how to skin critters and to make basic leather attire out of their hides. This gives her a little extra income besides the copper coins that she finds on some of them after she's finished them off. At first it bothered her to rob them of their dignity by stripping them of their skin, but eventually she reasoned, "Well, hell! They're dead! What do they care?"

In case you're wondering, when she's "skinning" a critter, all she does is have one hand make a circular motion for a few seconds over the palm-up other hand with a "shwrrrrip!" sound effect. There's no bloody mess of her actually removing a hide from a carcass, as the dead critter is still lying there with its fur once she's done with her hand motioning, and yet somehow she's got its hide . I'm absolutely certain that truly skinning an animal looks much, much worse, but if WoW tried to accurately depict an animal being skinned, PETA would probably skin the creators of WoW.

Anyway, my elf has gotten quite skilled at the bow. In fact, she's dying for a new bow - especially one with greater range. The critters she's dealing with now are higher level, and they're harder to kill - even with the grizzly bear that she now has as a pet (by the way, she named him "Yogi"). She had initially reached new levels pretty quickly, but lately she's slowed down, because not only are the critters harder to kill, but they often will attack in groups instead of coming one at a time like she's used to.

I think that in the past week, she's gotten killed more times than in the previous 3 weeks combined. If she's killed in a cave of critters, she sometimes have to get killed two or three times before she's finally out at a safe distance. I know that I'd hate to be killed two or three times just to get out of someplace. I've also been to parties that probably would have been the death of me two or three times to escape.

Fortunately, my elf's been invited to join a guild. She couldn't join at the time she was asked, because apparently people still on their free WoW time can't join guilds. But that free month ended on Monday, so she should be good to join now. She's already made a couple of online friends who appreciate her pet bear and her long range attack skills. I've found that some quests are much easier when you team up with others. It's a lesson that my dwarf character is still trying to learn. Oh yeah - let's talk about him now.

Dwarf Warrior dude
The dwarf is now at level 10. He's getting killed much less frequently, as he's gotten really good at swinging the double-bladed axe that he now sports (When he first got the axe, he exclaimed, "HAHA! A warrior's weapon at last! Fantastic!" and couldn't wait to go knock off a boar or three). He's also picked up a couple of skills: mining and metalworks - both of which he calls true dwarven callings.

He seems just as happy mining for copper as he is taking an axe to a bear. With his new axe and skills, he seems just a tad less cantankerous now - although he still feels the need to express cantankerousness from time to time so as to remind me that he's a dwarf. He takes to dwarven behavior like Worf from Star Trek takes to being a Klingon.

Anyway, he's gotten quite skilled at both mining and metalworking. He's got the physique for both, as both skills require a good deal of upper body strength - and he has that. He's also got a nose to know where certain lodes of metal are nearby, and before you know it, he's there with a pick in his hand, picking away the metal. Then he takes the fruits of his labors to nearby Ironforge, which is the capital of dwarfdom. Ah, does he go on and on about Ironforge! He should be a salesman for trips to there!

Oh! Not only that, Brewfest is also in town! Brewfest is a festival that celebrates the drinking of alcohol! Basically, it's the dwarven equivalent of Oktoberfest that many American towns celebrate. After a few ales, the dude is dancing like Michael Flatley! Well, maybe not quite like that, but he's got more twinkle in his toes than I ever expected him to have.

As he got up to level 10, he was able to handle most of what came at him, but now he's starting to run into critters that even his mighty double-bladed axe can't take down in a few swings. Now he's taken to teaming up with others more often than he's done in the past. Not only that, he was invited to join a guild! Right now, he can't join for the same reasons as my elf character, but I think he'd be willing to join this guild, despite his taciturn personality. The reason? It's a guild of dwarves!

And that updates you for now. More to come at another time, of course.