Done Vacating

Had a wonderful time in the Outer Banks of NC with the family. Went fishing with the girls, went swimming with the girls, dug big ol' holes in the sand and built sprawling (but temporary, oh so temporary!) sand castles, and generally just relaxed and rested.

Oh, and I ran Aetherna through Dire Maul about three dozen times to Free Knot and push all her Steamwheedle faction reps to Exalted. That not only got Aeth to 30 Exalted Reputations, it put her to 33/35 reputations towards 35 Exalted Reputations.

Which may happen sooner than I thought it would! I ran into a prot pally last night who is also interested in grinding out BC dungeon reps, and we did two clears of Shattered Halls (normal and heroic) for about 5k reputation all told. If we can manage to get together a couple of more times, we can probably bang out our Honor Hold rep in another 3-4 runs, and then maybe move on to some of the other Outland dungeons.

Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention an earlier Shattered Halls run, where a guild mate (also an arcane mage) joined in and helped Aeth and a couple of mid-level 60's (another mage and a warlock) do a full clear. Revenge of the squishies! There was a lot of dying, a lot of crowd control, and in general, it felt like a challenge. Not an insurmountable one, by any stretch of the imagination; but it definitely had a different flavor than the silent, quick, 15-minute LK random heroics. Frankly, it was a complete blast, and probably the most fun I've had in game for weeks.

I also have a new justification for my reputation grind madness... the United Nations guild achievement. Raising 55 reputations to exalted as a guild? There's only... what, 50 reputation factions in-game right now, and another 7 on the way with Cataclysm? Oh, well. Guess that means I'm actually going to have to do Insane in the Membrane. Mayyyyyyyyyybe. At least, I've kept all the librams I scrounged up from my Dire Maul runs, and I'm starting to collect the items I'll need to push my Darkmoon Faire reputation to Friendly. Oy... come Cata, it looks like I may be leveling a Worgen Rogue scribe. Yow.

Some other tidbits from the past week or so:

Aeth managed to honor Uther as part of the Harvest Festival, which netted 550 reputation with the Alliance. I'm to the point where, barring potential rep gains from Cataclysm quests, the only way she'll get to Exalted with the Alliance is by doing holiday-related quests. Fortunately, it looks like I'll be able to hit that easily if I do all the Hallow's End and Lunar Festival quests this year.

Aeth also hit STV to dance with Captain Demeza to get her Pirate's Day achievement. I have to say, she makes a good pirate.

Oh, and in a heroic Pit of Saron run with some guild mates, Aeth managed to not look up, and so got another achievement (without really trying). Love it when that happens!

This week, aside from Honor Hold reputation, I'm going to be working on Keepers of Time rep as well - another 20 runs of Old Hillsbrad and Black Morass on normal mode will get her there, slowly. Something to do when nothing else presents itself.

Oh, and then of course, there's Brewfest... all Aeth needs to accomplish here towards the Long, Strange Trip meta achievement is to pick up Brew of the Month achievement. With that, she'll be one step closer (and really, only a Sinister Squashling away) from her Violet Proto Drake. I think I'm goping to try and get Aeven the stamina trinkets from Coren Direbrew, too. That should be a nice, simple test of her tanking abilities, with a nice little reward to boot. I wouldn't say no to a Tankard O' Terror, either :-)