Children’s Week

Children’s Week is another World Event, running during the first week of May.  I was told there were a few pets available during this event, so barely needed any encouragement to check it out.

My first child was the Orcish Orphan, picked up in Orgrimmar.

He had a couple of quests for me.. he wanted to go and ride the Rocketway in Azshara, go and meet Sylvanas in Undercity, and see the Fallen Chieftain, Cairne Bloodhoof, over at Red Rocks where there was a little ceremony led by Bairne.

After that there was icecream, kite flying, and toy swords bought for the other orphans..

I got a choice of pets and picked up Whiskers the Rat 🙂

Over in Shattrath, my adopted child was a Blood Elf Orphan, who also wanted to travel.. to Sporeggar in Zangarmarsh, to the Throne of Elements in Nagrand, where she got herself burned when she went too near to Incineratus, the Fury of Fire, and off to the impressive-looking Dark Portal in Hellfire Peninsula.

Her next quests had us travel to Silvermoon to see the Elite Tauren Cheiftain, which I had only seen in Blackrock Depths before, and over to the Caverns of Time, where I got her a Toy Dragon.  Nothing for the other orphans back in Shattrath this time, but a second pet for me.

I picked up Sleepy Willy, who is a non-combat pet like the rest, but he can also attack and kill critters..

He is fairly ugly though.. my “pity pet” as another friend dubbed him. 😉

The last Orphan was to be found over in Dalaran, and I picked Roo, the Oracle Orphan, rather than the Wolvar.. next time, puppy-man!

Sightseeing this time took in the Biggest Tree Ever, a massive tree housing furbolgs in Grizzly Hills, the Bronze Dragonshrine in Dragonblight, and off to Winterfin Retreat in the Borean Tundra, where I vaguely remember questing a long time back!  After those, it was over to the Shaper’s Terrace in Un’Goro Crater, where I ended up collecting Dinosaur Meat for my Venomhide Hatchling, before taking my Orphan to meet the massive Etymidian..

..and then on to meet Alexstrasza, and then back to Dalaran for more toy buying at the Wonderworks.

After taking Roo back to the orphanage, I got the Curious Oracle Hatchling in the mail 🙂

Two more pets came along this day: the De-Weaponized Mechanical Companion, from Vorlak..

..and the Panther Cub from the Zandalari missions around Stranglethorn Vale 🙂

Archmage Xylem’s Random Tasks

A while ago, a friend directed me towards the Image of Archmage Xylem, and a series of quests involving some rather random puzzles.  It seems that he’s meant for mages only, so I had to pretend to be a mage by approaching him wearing a dingy Wizard’s Hat.  After the errands he and his apprentices set me, he took me off to Arcane Pinnacle for the interesting quests..

Watch Your Step was the first of these, which had me being propelled up the ledges by magical jump pads while tagging conduits and trying to avoid detonations that would send me flying off the edge and into the water.  This was more tricky than expected and I got thrown into the water a few times!

I could have flown up instead, but that would have been cheating 😉

Once at the top, there were three more trials: the Trial of Fire, the Trial of Frost and the Trial of Shadow.
The Trial of Fire required hopping around over runes while avoiding the fire..

As there was a little bolt of fire travelling to each rune that would be on fire next, it was easy to see which were clear, and therefore safe to stand on for the next round of fire.

The Trial of Frost was next, and more difficult than the Trial of Fire.  This was set on a plateau which had three spheres which put out a frost burn affect, and frost runes on the ground which you could stand on to be propelled upwards.  The challenge was in collecting 20 stacks of Essense of Ice, which could be collected from Frost Orbs which appeared around the hazards.

I found the rotating frost burn effects hard to avoid, especially as I couldn’t out-run them.. fortunately they only removed one stack of Essence of Ice per hit.  The frost runes were mostly beneficial, though I did get thrown when I didn’t want to a few times, landing in the path of the frost burn.
Eventually I picked up enough stacks to complete the challenge 🙂

After that, I expected the Trial of Shadow to be more difficult, but it was surprisingly easy.  Once a Weeping Soul was summoned, it came straight for me in a nice predictable line.. this made them very easy to lead over rune traps!