Screecher Spirits and Feralas

Technically I can make the claim that the instance group got together this past weekend.  We were all logged into WoW Classic at the same time for a stretch and shared some information and made some plans.  But it was otherwise more an afternoon of parallel play than a group effort.

The plan was small.  There was one more quest to run down before we headed on towards Zul’Farrak, one from Steamwheedle port called Screecher Spirits.  We were all going to go do that quest at some point, and Skronk and Ula were going to try and pick up a bit more experience along the way to get to level 47.  We would then be about as ready as we planned for the instance.

I started out at the flight point in Tanaris with Viniki.

Desert air base of sorts

From there the nearest flight point for me was at the far end of Thousand Needles, the little Alliance camp at Thalanaar.

Through Thousand Needles

That borders on Feralas, and from there I headed into the forest mess that is the zone.

Green dominates the palette of the zone, so much so that I almost didn’t see the two Horde NPC guards standing on the road as I rode on, stopping short when I finally saw them.

The rain made it harder to see…

I had forgotten there was a Horde camp astride the main road into the zone, Camp Mojache.  I had forgotten a lot of things about Feralas.  I am pretty sure at that point I had forgotten much, much more than I remembered about the zone.  But being there and riding through revived a lot of them, the ones that had sunken below conscious recall, as landmarks and names and terrain awakened them.

I couldn’t really remember where the vale screechers, the mobs for the quest, were, but the quest text said the south central of the zone.  I made my way around the Horde camp, first attempting to go south, only to find the terrain… difficult.  So I went back around to the north and managed to pass by, picking up a few areas on the map along the way.

In the western of the two valleys, between the ogres and the yeti and in amongst the bears and gorillas, I spotted my first screecher.

The bear invited himself to the party

The screechers were a bit rare on the ground, at least relative to the other mobs that I had to clear though in order to find them.  But I was able to find my quota in not too much time, though it was helpful that I only needed three.  I had wondered if this would be a good quest for the group, but I suspect that the four of us together at once would have needed to find a dozen of them, so maybe we were better off solo.

Skronk had mentioned that he flew into Feathermoon Stronghold, the Alliance flight point on an island off the coast.  I had forgotten that was there, but since he reminded me I decided to exit from there rather than ride back to Thousand Needles.  Being me, I also made a point of trying to get all the map updates along the way.  I think I managed it.

Feralas revealed

I made it to the coast, mentioning I had gotten my screechers.  Skronk said he had found them there on the coast, and sure enough they were about.  Our dozen might have been manageable there as opposed to deeper in the zone.  I waited at the dock for the boat to show up and take me to Feathermoon Stronghold.  I seemed to recall that this was a slow boat and that people often opted to just swim the gap, but I decided to wait.  I was sort of surprised when the boat arrived.

The boat arrives

My memory was of an elven boat model, though on seeing the standard vanilla boat pull up, I seemed to recall that the elven boats only showed up later, during The Burning Crusade perhaps.

I took the boat across the straights to the point where in ran between the two islands, then jump into the water.  You don’t get map updates on griffons and apparently you don’t get them on boats either, and I wanted to fill out the map.

Having done that, I made my way to Feathermoon Stronghold, where the boat was still waiting.  It is a bit of a slow boat I suppose.

The boat docked at Feathermoon

I ran around a bit and scoped out some of the quests.  I wasn’t keen on doing them with Viniki, he was already level 47 and I didn’t want to get too far ahead, but with alts in tow I tend to be on the lookout for quests they can run.

From Feathermoon it was back to Tanaris on the bird.

A straight shot back

From there it was off to Steamwheedle for the quest turn in.

Over at Steamwheedle

That gave me a lineup of seven quest for Zul’Farrak.

My ZF quest selection

Having that all set I got out my hunter, Tistann, and did it all again with him, gathering up some of the quests I bypassed with Viniki.

Zapping shore striders

He also stumbled across the leatherworking quests at Feathermoon Stronhold as well, so he has those to work on as well.