Slain by Elf

Grimlor, a dwarf paladin, runs with me, a night elf warrior, down from Razorfen Kraul after defeating the humanoid pigs inside, with the help of the druid Cyrancuse. We are heading back to Thalanaar to hand in proof of the demise of the boss of Razorfen Kraul, in the form of her pendant. The journey to Thalanaar meant travelling through Thousand Needles. That itself is hardly problematic, despite the number of beasts that roam there, as there is a fairly decent road running the length of the canyon, which the beasts tend to keep away from. The main problem is getting down in to the canyon in the first place.

To get to the canyon floor from the Southern Barrens there is really only one option, which is to take the Great Lift. This is a tauren construction that has two lifts operating side-by-side traversing the great height from the top of the canyon right down to the ground below. The only problem is that the tauren don't really like enemies using their lift, proabably for fear of sabotage, so they post a couple of guards to protect the top. The best option for travellers wishing to descend is to time the arrival of the lifts, which arrive and drop at different times, and run past the guards at the right time to catch one going down. The guard will then return to his post rather than chase you down.

Grimlor and I are hiding from plain sight, studying the lifts, determing when they come and trying to work out how quickly we could run to get in to one of them. With a glint in his eye Grimlor makes a wager. 'I bet I'll get to the bottom before you do, Tiger', says he. Looking at his short, stubby legs compared to my tall, slender frame, I accept his bet, and make a break for the left-hand lift. Grimlor calls out that I've made a bad choice, a chuckle in his voice, turning to go for the right-hand one instead.

Sadly, this shout attracts the attention of the tauren guard, and Grimlor is pursued as he stomps along the wooden platform to meet the lift that hasn't arrived. Meanwhile, my timing turns out to be pretty good, and the lift arrives a few seconds before I reach the end of the left-hand platform I have sprinted down. I step in to the lift and turn to see my dwarf friend just about out-running the tauren guard, lift still not close to being at the end of the platform. Yet he still shouts out that he'll beat me to the bottom!

And with that, he jumps.

Well, the tauren does indeed stop pursuing Grimlor, and Grimlor manages to reach the bottom of the canyon before me, by quite a time difference considering the head-start I had. Sadly, he is slowed somewhat by having to wander from the nearby graveyard as a ghost so that he can reinvigorate life in to his still-warm corpse, perhaps not appreciating just how far down the canyon floor was from the top. This allows the lift time to reach the bottom so that I can jog past him casually. He still won the wager, though, even if it took somewhat extreme measures. I don't think I'll ever fully understand dwarves.

This entry was posted on 9th August 2006 at 8.47 pm and is filed under World of Warcraft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.