key weekend

I had a moderately busy weekend in-game and ended up with a few nice new pieces of gear, as well as [Restored Apprentice's Key]. Woot!

Saturday night I was screwing around, PvPing a little, and trying to figure out what I was going to do when the scheduled raid fell through, because not quite enough people showed up. Guild chat was full of people looking for something to do, so I suggested, "We could help Wara get his Kara key," not actually expecting people to be interested. Almost before I knew what was happening, I found myself in a *fantastic* group, plowing into the Shadow Labyrinth. The balance seemed a little odd, but it worked out really well...we had three druids (representing all three branches of the talent tree), a mage, and a shadow priest. The fights weren't too bad, actually, although the fears from Ambassador Hellmaw were a serious pain in the ass and lead to my only death of the instance. For a guy who usually dies frequently, I was very pleased with my ability to stay alive. :) The gear drops weren't particularly useful for me, but I did get the [Brooch of Heightened Potential] from Blackheart the Inciter. "TIME FOR FUN!" Heh. After downing Murmur we swapped in another guildie who also needed the key fragment, grabbed it, then danced around for a bit.

Flushed with triumph and feeling only moderately tired (it was pushing midnight at this point back in reality), we pressed onwards to the second fragment. By this point we had lost our druid healer to PvP and our shadow priest had dropped out, so we were left with two druids and two mages. Not a good group to actually clear the Steamvault, so we decided to just run to the key. After an initial aggro (and subsequent death), I was able to stealth myself through the field of nagas to the pool where the second key fragment lies. Our other druid had the bright idea of giving the mages run speed potions, so between their invisibility and some quick running, they were also able to make it through unscathed. Well, relatively unscathed. Hurray! The second guardian was a piece of cake and we celebrated getting the second key fragment. By this point I was exhausted and called it a night.

Last night we make a quick run into the Arcatraz to pick up the third and final key fragment. Our group last night consisted of a warrior tank, myself and the resto druid from the previous night, and the two mages from the second key frag run. Arcatraz is pretty tough, man! Or maybe I'm just still undergeared and undertalented. We did reasonably well, though, wiping only once after an accidental aggro of a beholder-looking-thing. A death watcher, I guess it was. Before getting the key fragment, we took out Zereketh the Unbound, which was one hell of a fight. I think I acquitted myself well, battle rezing our healer when she went down about two-thirds of the way into the fight and keeping myself alive to spam moonfire at the very end when both our healer and at least one of the mages went down. /flex. He dropped the [Idol of Feral Shadows] which I walked away with. Hurray! We got ourselves resurrected and healed, then beat the snot out of the third guardian and picked up the third key fragment. Before logging I turned in the quest, so now I have the Restored Apprentice's Key in my hot little hooves.

Tonight (tentatively), we're going back in to to help Thrall escape from Durnholde Keep and to help Medivh open the Dark Portal. That means that by late tonight I may be able to enter Karazhan! W00t! Not that I'm actually ready for Kara, of course...my gear is still pretty indecent, although it is improving. I may even be able to consider heroic instances sometime soon...