Sapphire Skills Up
Having spent so much time trying to make the Night Elf faction happy I became fatigued with all that Azeroth had to offer. I had heard many tales from both Faust and Tiger about their adventures, and then young Knifey headed out in to the world to stab anything in sight. By the time I was ready to become a warrior it seemed like I had seen it all before, enough to make it less interesting. I found a second wind, perhaps prompted by Knifey heading through the Dark Portal to the Outlands, and his enthusiasm for the all the new sights, sounds and beasts to slay. Azeroth seemed exciting again, and the promise the Outlands more so.
Adventuring in southern Stranglethorn Vale, Dustwallow Marsh, and Feralas and the surrounding regions gained me plenty of experience and I soon was feeling quite positive about continuing. One aspect of my training that had been neglected, however, was my professions. I had tried to keep my training current when I was previously active, but it wasn't straightforward, which is partly why I had let them lapse since my break. After all, being a jewelcrafter and enchanter is not an easy combination, and it is only through the kindness of Knifey and his obsession with women with tails that I have a source cheap ore. Luckily, most of the jewellery that I create is magically embued, which can be disenchanted to feed my enchanting profession.
Being stuck for materials to practice jewelcrafting I ask Knifey if he'd kindly send me some mithril and perhaps thorium, and after wiggling my tail a little his little eyes bulged almost out of their sockets as he rushed off to find some ore for me. He ran around Tanaris, Searing Gorge and Burning Steppes mining all the mithril and thorium he could, and then found that he had a small stock of thorium ore left over in his bank after not needing it for his engineering schemes. Some time spent smelting later, but leaving some ore in its natural form for me to use my prospecting skill on to find gems in it, Knifey sent me two bulging post sacks of minerals and stone!
I get the ore delivered to the Exodar, where the jewelcrafter trainer resides, and start working on what I already know. With so much ore, and some gems horded in my own bank vault, I am quick to progress, and am sure to keep asking the trainer for new designs when I think I have the hang of the current ones. Each time I create something it is with a little regret that I disenchant it to retrieve the magical essence within, destroying the trinket in the process, but I know it will make me a more powerful enchanter, and I keep any pieces of jewellery that are outstanding or useful to me. After a bit of time I run out of enough ore and gems to continue usefully, keeping a few bits and pieces around for future sessions.
Enchanting is a little more difficult to advance, as the materials cannot be found reliably in the world. None of the dusts and essences occur naturally and instead need to be extracted from magical items, so enchanters generally have a secondary profession that feeds this destructive need. Disenchanting most of the jewellery that I make presents me with some excellent raw materials with which I can enchant quite a few items, and it enables me to learn even more formulae. The amount of raw enchanting materials I am able to extract doesn't quite match the effort I put in to making the jewellery, and even though I train my enchanting skill significantly I don't feel as expert in its use as I do with jewelcrafting.
In the session I was able to boost my jewelcrafting from around 225 skill up to 281, which is a good leap. It looks like I'll need to tease Knifey to get his mining pick out again before I can improve much further. My enchanting was raised over a couple of sessions, from around 220 up to 245 skill. The current formulae for enchanting require dream dust as a reagent, and I believe dream dust can be extracted from disenchanted items of level 50 or so. As Sapphire is still only level 45 I am happy with my progression with the tradeskills, keeping current with enchanting and now nicely advanced with jewelcrafting. I even sent Knifey a ring loaded with +agility to thank him for all his mining.