Made a long long push to level up and did! But it was long. Did the training, cleared out all the big-time loot that I had picked up while getting all that experience points. Now what? T’paw off doing Scarlet Monastery with group, no one else around….. I know — I’ll take The Retribution Live Tour out on the road! Where? Uldaman!

So I hopped a gryphon and headed over there. Knocked off a lot of things on the way in…. ran ahead of a group of undead characters so they could play without me getting in the way…. and then I went into an instance – all by myself. It was certainly familiar to me. This was the first place I’d ever been summoned to, and how I met my regular gang. But! I’d never been in charge of getting around in there. No matter. I had no quests, only my agenda: kill anything that even had thought about killing me.

And I did. I had so much loot that I had to stop and throw away the odd scorpid claw and bat wing spine. Back in my earlier days I didn’t know so much about area of effect things but that door has been opened of late and so I went in looking for scorpids- huge scorpion like things that run in packs and poison you and nip at you…. But they were mine!

They weren’t the hardest group I encountered (that would be the three 40+ elite guys at the very end, one a caster who was resisting a few of my spells…) but it cheered me that these had been so scary then and now — not so much. Exciting as all get out though!

And then it was on to Scarlet Monastery with T’paw who needed to finish a quest. I got into an area of it I’d not been in before and it was more than hairy and ok, we both died once – mostly from surprise when a big crowd of bad guys rushed us. BIG crowd! But we tried again and pulled it off.

That’s the report from the World!

So I didn’t realize I was pushing on so much when suddenly I was in that sweet spot just before the end of a level. I think that’s only in my mind but it seems like a flow moment where things are easier and everything just happens. And then it was over. Level 68! I went back to “town” and did my training, dumped my bags at the auction house and returned to Outland. What to do? What to do?

Sometimes in the past I’ve gone on a a little vacation and just travelled around a bit. I might do that tomorrow, maybe take The Retribution Live Tour out on the road. But instead I decided I’d go back and try a quest that had been too hard before. Too many game characters, or whatever. I figured it would either work, or they really did mean it was for a group!

In I went. I knew that speed was important because the characters respawn pretty quickly, closing the way behind you. Although deliberation and patience are good, too much delay can be bad if it undoes what you’ve worked to do – make the bad guys go away. My practice in reducing battle time seemed to pay off here for sure and as long as I stayed in control it went as practiced. When something else happened, it got dealt with. Lobby area, first room, second room, re-remove those in first room too close to door…., hallway into third room, third room…. Big demon there with quite a few different characters to be dealt with first. Although the characters themselves were a bit lower in level than me, they were fierce. Onward until everything was dead. The loot was mine!

And it was then I realized that I must have been holding my breath for part of all this – my pulse was definitely up! I guess that’s what a good adventure should do – test your skills and abilities and make you step over your limits if only slightly (this was more than slightly for me!).

And after that I rested.

One of the lessons of life is that you have to take happiness where and when you find it, pretty much no questions asked. So among the things that brought me happiness this week:

• Your Fireball crits Clefthoof for 2313 Fire damage.
• Clefthoof is afflicted by Slow.
• Clefthoof suffers 23 Fire damage from your Fireball.
• Clefthoof suffers 23 Fire damage from your Fireball.
• Your Arcane Blast crits Clefthoof for 1990 Arcane Damage.
• Clefthoof suffers 23 Fire damage from your Fireball.
• You are afflicted by Arcane Blast.
• You have slain Clefthoof!

Yes it’s true – I sat back in my chair and thought – dead in two spells? really? Notice he didn’t even hit me (thereby incurring damage from hitting my armor). This big lumbering beast took two shots with the residual damage from the first and fell down. Almost makes up for the things that take me down before I can get off anything meaningful in their direction, LOL.

After a day of questing and a rather intense go around with some northern ogres, along with a lot of chatting, my druid friend Thunderpaw and I landed in the auction house at the same time. I look up from posting items for sale to see our two kitty pets sharing a moment too. Little kodak moment there….

In the world closer to home, the daffodils are bravely pushing on despite recent coldness and snow. There is no doubt in their minds that someday soon a warmer, sunnier version of spring will arrive and they’ll be ready to convince us that winter is finally gone.

Screenshots of my recent adventures in the World of Warcraft. Some of the scenery artwork is just fantastic!

The adventure itself continues. After the last big push to level up, I took part of a week to travel around, help some other folks and came up with the idea of the Retribution Live 2007 Tour. This is where I go into an area I was in long ago (usually to give an assist of some kind to another character) and, well, as long as I’m in the area, I beat the heck out of whatever it was in that area that did the same to me many levels ago. See how that works? Of course, now the playing field is more level or tipped in my favor! Let me tell you, silly as it seems: Retribution is sweet!

It doesn’t help me move along in the game but I like to think of it as a type of closure and that must be a good thing right? Special shout out from the Retribution Live 2007 Tour goes to Thunderpaw who turned me into a weapon of mass destruction at Deadmines. Never finished the whole thing before and it was a thrill to do it all myself (ok, he killed a few parrots…) whooot!