I have just so damn many, and I’ve shared a lot of them already. Playing my first character (nelf priestess) and switching factions because I saw a troll and became obsessed, getting lost in Undercity on the troll hunter I originally switched with (who later race changed to a blood elf hunter, and is now the CaramElf hunter we all know and tolerate) while looking for the Tauren Mill, so on and so forth.
But while Alynsa here is love, she is not my only love. And her stories, though fun, are not all of my stories. I’m’a share one from that nelf priest whom I picked up a year after abandoning her.
I have a deep fondness for Ashenvale. While Akashla-now-Alynsa did have some fun times there, those times were short. Both of my characters were on PVP realms in those Vanilla days, and I quickly learned it was quicker to level in those rarely-visited zones. But after Teldrassil and then Darkshore, my nelfy priestess just was not emotionally ready to run off and hide in some corner of a zone, mob-grinding for XP. I wanted to keep my night elf experience going, and Ashenvale was the next stop on that journey.
Vanilla Ashenvale was a bloodbath. It is so underrated for the world pvp that would happen. Everyone remembers the massive battles of Southshore and Tarren Mill, or the gank squads of STV, but nobody talks about the covert war for survival that was Ashenvale.
My first minutes in Ashenvale were escorting some lazy druid sleepy-head from… God, I think Grove of the Ancients to Maestra’s Stand? I’m struggling with the exact escort quest, except that you get ambushed by Twilights Hammer cultists along the way. And as a lowbie priest who just wanted to be a healer, with all my few talent points spread between Discipline and Holy, even two mobs at once was stressful enough.
But it was never just two mobs.
It was two mobs and a level 30+ forsaken rogue.
I had to restart that escort quest at least six times. And five of those times, as soon as I crossed some invisible line demarking where the ambushers would spawn, so too would the stunlock-backstab-death machine spawn with them. But maybe it was my determination, or maybe it was boredom. On that sixth time, it wasn’t me who got stunned. It was one of the ambushers. And then back to stealth he went. Suddenly progress! And… Another pack of ambushers. Low on mana, low on health, I’d be lucky to take even one mob out. Two was going to be certain- There’s the rogue again! He’s killing one of the mobs!! Ok then, maybe we’re gonna complete this quest after all!!
From there it was a relatively peaceful run to the turn-in spot. I did it!! Quest complete!! I have finally achieved-
And then the rogue killed me again. At least my quest was done. Welcome to Ashenvale.
…
Later on, I’d made it to Astranaar. No lie, it’s still my pick for most beautiful town in the game. I have spent too many hours in that town, either fishing as Alliance or fishing as Horde. I was struggling with questing because I was struggling with everything. And I had Tailoring, and needed wool cloth to hopefully make myself better gear, so I might be able to survive. Well, I happened to have a quest to kill some nearby furbolgs, and they happen to drop wool, so maybe we can kill two birds with one Smite?
The Tauren druid did not agree with my plan.
I saw him off in the distance, also killing furbolgs. But he saw me early on and never bothered to do anything about it, so I figured an armistice had been reached; I will kill mine, he will kill his, and we’ll leave each other alone.
I was wrong. He would kill his. Then he would kill me as I was killing one of mine.
But as I ran back from the graveyard, I remembered something about our fight. Unlike the rogue and every melee player I’d seen on my hunter, this tauren wasn’t moving around much. He just ran up to me, spammed attacks, let me spam mine, and because he had more health, he won. And I managed to get his health pretty low. All I needed to do was play a little smarter, a little better, and we can avoid another rogue situation!
I ress and see him not far off from where I left him. I take the risk to eat and drink, get that health and mana back up behind a tree. When I move, I see him fighting another furbolg, and I make my move.
Lead in with a smite. And another. Holy crap, he’s so focused on the furbolg, he isn’t even noticing me!! Smite again, and a fourth one too! His furbolg’s dead, and he keyboard turns towards me. He starts running. Shadow Word Pain as I start moving away, Shields up!! He’s at half health already by the time he reaches me. Psychic Scream!! Spam another smite which breaks the fear. Feel the Pain, tauren druid!! I’m doing it!! I’m gonna get an honorable kill!!
Who just cast that frostbolt at me?
Some dang forsaken mage must have been right around the corner or something, because the next thing I know, I’m getting hit by all kinds of spells, the druid’s all over me, and the Spirit Healer is absolutely giving me side eye. I did another body ress, but my one shot was blown and now I’m camped. And an orc warlock has joined them.
I ended up just logging off.
These might not sound like it, but they’re all fond memories. But enough about World PVP and how bad I am at it.
Let’s talk about Deadmines.
…
Who played Alliance in those early days before dungeon queues and doesn’t have fond memories of Deadmines? Everyone loved it, their first taste of big adventure. The Defias Brotherhood, Gryan Stoutmantle up on Sentinel Hill, a freaking pirate ship… Everyone loved it, right?
Wrong!!
I did not love it. In fact, I hated it.
To be fair, Deadmines was not my first dungeon. Akashla the troll hunter had IRL friends and coworkers who would gladly take me through dungeons (because I knew where they lived), and I stumbled my way into a solid group of fellow levelers who came with a good orc warrior tank, a friendly troll priest, a forsaken warlock, and they just needed two dps to join them until they met me. I ran through all four wings of SM, I’d seen the depths of Maraudon, I wiped the group in Ulduman, and I even proved clutch with my weird memory in Sunken Temple. Hell, I was already making gold at 30 by doing solo clears of Wailing Caverns, skinning the beasts for leather, auctioning the greens, and when it was all cleared? Fishing and cooking stacks of those Deviate Fish. I knew what needed to be known about running through dungeons, and I knew how important it was to keep that damn healer alive.
I probably should have explained this to the group I did my first Deadmines run with.
It all went… Not fine, but less stressful before the ship. By the time my gear broke and I needed to hearth to Darnassus to repair and pick up food for the hunter’s pet (I was legit more upset that this hunter did not bring his own food than anything else in this run. Amature hunters, pft!!), I’d died enough times that I could navigate our group’s way back to the dungeon portal after they summoned me. But while the progress was slow, it was at least progress.
But then…
That freaking boat.
After Smite died, I warned them. I freaking warned them. “Guys, you all keep dying because a dead healer cannot heal you. I don’t have to have ran this dungeon before to tell you that this looks like it’s going to be bad. Go slow. Keep me alive, and I’ll keep you alive. Remember, these guys run and get friends, we’ve seen it this whole run. Don’t let them do that or I die. And if I die, you die. Let’s be smart and not die.”
“rofl omg noob healer just gogogogooooo”
And thus began my personal gauntlet.
Making matters worse, as anyone who played during Vanilla might know, the pirate boat had all manners of weird ramp glitches. Like sometimes, you’d get aggro from mobs a floor or two above you, who’d pick up every stray mob in their way. Or the mob you pulled would path all wrong and run away from you to get to you, and pull an extra group. Or you’d have a clear path between you and the tank, but for no reason at all, he’s out of LoS.
A good group can compensate for this.
This was not a good group.
By the time we got to the top, my anxiety was higher than my repair bill. To this day, I will swear on all I hold sacred that the single reason my priest did not get riding at 40 and had to wait until 41 is because I was still paying for that repair bill. Death after death after death on that ramp. A part of me is still dead on that ramp.
But at least we were at the top. Three packs of mobs to go, and then we can kill a Vancleef. What could possibly go wrong?
A warlock. That’s what could go wrong.
See, this warlock had already done Deadmines. And his last group? They barely died at all. And he had a trick to make sure we did not die this time.
Get on the paddlewheel.
See, if you jump on to the paddlewheel, the mobs can’t reach you. That’s what the healer told him. So get on the paddlewheel, pull everything, and we can DPS down all three packs at once.
I had my doubts about this plan as soon as I read it. Not because of any knowledge about the possible outcome, but because this warlock who claimed to have run Deadmines already hadn’t said a single thing this whole run. Not when we got lost in the foundry and ended up going back up the same ramp we’d just gone down. Not when we were at a loss on how to get through the door to the cove and only managed to luck our way into a solution when the second warrior went to run back for no good reason and stumbled into the side tunnel with the cannon charge. Not even to warn us about the potential problems with the death ramp.
But with the tank, the other warrior, the worst hunter and the warlock getting on the wheel, I just gave up my good senses and got on the wheel with them. The hunter pulled one group, the warlock pulled the other two, and…
Evade bug.
Because of course that’s what happens when mobs can’t reach you.
In a panick, the second warrior jumped off the wheel.
Still evade bugged.
Then the hunter, warlock and tank jump off the wheel.
Still evade bugged.
Because I’d cast Renew on the tank as soon as I got up on that wheel.
I was top of their aggro meters, and they craved night elf meat.
While the other four are still trying to figure out what’s going on, I’ve already figured it out. I ran the math in my head. I knew the outcome. I looked at my hearthstone cooldown: 20 minutes. I saw only one way out of this mess.
I lacked the patience to stand up there for a third of an hour, watching death stare at me in the face. And I knew these people who could not hold aggro would not suddenly be skilled enough to handle three packs of mobs while also keeping themselves and me alive. There was only one avenue left open for me.
I jumped off the side and into the water. And then I hit Fade.
I started swimming to the shore, watching as my group’s health bars quickly fell away. I knew these mobs would follow me all the way to the entrance (or more likely would kill me before that), but I did not care. I would not be the first to die this time; I’d be the last. It was no longer a test of how many trash mobs we can kill before they kill me; now it was a sprint to see how close to the entrance I could get before I died.
It was as I left the lumber room that I realized the mobs hadn’t killed me yet. One member of our group still stood; the warlock had jumped back on to the wheel. I glanced over at chat and he’s screaming in full caps, full obscenities for me to come back. Just come back, ress the group, we can still do this!!! I pause long enough to tell him I’m still in combat and can’t ress. Then I go back to running.
As I pass through that instance portal, he’s still typing all the most obscene stuff he can think of. The tank’s castigating him, the second warrior is trying to play peace-maker, the hunter whispers me and thanks me for the food. I ran out, then told the warlock to jump off the boat, I’ll run back in and ress him once combat drops, and we can continue. He does as he’s told, I go back in… And wait. I eat, I drink, I rebuff myself. I start running back, but I’m taking my time now. The warlock goes from raging to pleading to whining, and eventually gets shouted down by the others. I travel up the ramp, I find the perfect spot where I can ress everyone without getting attacked, and I tell them what needs to be told.
“Enough (forking) around. I’m the leader now. This is my group now. If we’re going to continue, you will do what I say. You will obey your healer. If you don’t like it, this is the last spell I will waste on you. I have fifteen minutes before my hearthstone is off cooldown, and if we’re not done by then, then we’re done regardless. Do. You. Understand?”
I want to lie and say things went great after that. The trash did finally go down without trouble, but VanCleef’s surprise adds wiped us the first two tries. On the third we killed him, and my lovely pirate shirt chest armor dropped. I expected the warlock to roll for it, but he didn’t. Maybe he felt bad over the wheel debacle, or maybe he had something better. Cookie went down without a fight, and I also got his rolling pin mace.
Deadmines broke me. But from the wreckage of my sanity came enlightenment. Because it was in that pirate cave that I learned the most important lesson I ever learned in World of Warcraft.
If I am the healer?
I am the boss.
Or I will let you die.
.