We decided that we had had enough of Maraudon in our two runs and turned our gaze towards Sunken Temple, or The Temple of Atal’Hakkar, to give it its proper name.
The Temple of Atal’Hakkar out in the swamp
But there was some preliminary work to be done. Some of it was the usual rounding up of quests for the instance. Oddly, my usual starting point for that, Icy Veins, doesn’t seem to have the instance on their list.
Nothing between Maraudon and Dire Maul?
Still, there are other sources. And some of those quests have lead-ins that we need to do, staring with one to just find the temple.
But there were also some special quests to pick up. At level 50 all of us were offered a class quest, and while they all have different starting points, they all end up in the instance. (WoWhead has them all listed out.) So we set out to get those ready.
Between the four of us we had to go to the Blasted Lands, Un’goro Crater, and Azshara.
The warrior quest was in the Blasted Lands and I had already been out there with Viniki to do the first part of it. That, and the fact that it was somewhat on the way to any place else we were headed… not too far from the boat out of Booty Bay… made it the starting point for the day. We got on the bird and headed to the Blasted Lands.
Making this even easier, I had already scouted the next step, which just involved killing a variety of mobs who were all located in and around a cave just south of Nethergarde Keep.
It all fits on one little map section
We landed there and Skronk got to use his newly acquired group fortitude spell to buff the group.
Everybody at once
It requires a reagent, which means something else to keep track of, but it gets everybody in one shot and takes less mana than hitting us one at a time, a process that was requiring a break for a drink in order to complete.
We rode out and were able to pick up the kills we were trying for fairly quickly. The only problem we ran into was a Servant of Allistarj, a mob that just refused to die. You would knock them down to one hit point, and then nothing would stick.
The Servant of Allistarj abides
We ended up having to just run away from them if we ended up aggrod. That was a minor inconvenience, but it did slow us down a bit. Later I looked up the mob and found that you needed to get them to one of the local pylons to finish them off. That would have been handy to know at the time as one of those pylons is literally in the background of the above screen shot.
Still, we wrapped things up and I was able to update the quest chain with the Fallen Hero of the Horde just over the zone line in the Swamp of Sorrow.
Quest update please
From there we were off to Un’Goro crater and the druid quest for Moronae. That meant a boat trip, some flying time, and a ride across Tanaris to the pathway down into the crater.
The path is at least well marked
There we needed stingers off of the Gorbashi mobs, which are in the south end of the zone. The quest notes say they come off of the bugs in general, but we only ever got drops from the wasps. Given the low drop rate, we were there hunting for quite a while.
A stand up fight or another bug hunt?
We persisted, killed a lot of bugs, then finally got the final drop. Then there were some bloodcaps to be found, but those drop from the bloodpetal sprouts around the zone. We found some of those fairly readily and were able to finish up and update the quest back at the path down to the zone. From there we needed a devilsaur.
However, time ran out for Moronae. He had announced a hard stop time, but misunderstood and discovered that time was when he actually had to be at his destination so the stop time was moved up considerably. We had just enough time to run over to Marshal’s Refuge and the flight point, where he camped.
With Moronae out, the next stop was Azshara, where both Skronk and Ula would find their quests.
Azshara is a zone I mostly think about in its post-Cataclysm, crazy goblin rocket ramp state, a much different place than the WoW Classic version of the zone.
A Panda riding the rocketway during Mists of Pandaria
Even getting there was a bit of a chore. We decided that the nearest flight point was in Ashenvale, but that required use to ride almost the full length of the zone before Azshara finally came into sight.
The bridge into Azshara
We remembered enough to go grab the flight point that, for the Alliance, is off to the right almost immediately after entering the zone. Then we went in search of the quest giver Ula needed for the mage quest line.
This led to one of those quirks of the old days. The NPC she needed to speak with is in a tower in the zone, but it is up on a ledge and you need to use what is essentially a teleporter in order to get up to it. We found the area from which you teleport.
This will get you to the tower level
There is an NPC there you need to speak to in order to be teleported. But you don’t just ask him to send you or click on a cog wheel item. The NPC has a quest, and you take the quest, then complete the quest, after which you get teleported.
The quest isn’t part of the mage quest line. Anybody can do it. It is just one of those things that probably got setup before somebody decided on a standard way to teleport people. Blizz wouldn’t do this as a quest today. But back then, a lot of things seemed like they were figuring it out as they were doing it.
The quests themselves, it was a two-parter like mine and Moronae’s, were straightforward enough. Go slay, get drops, return, go slay some more, get more drops, and you’re done. We just had to go find the mobs.
Riding around in the high plains of Azshara
Skronk’s quest was even more simple. We had to find a quest giver then run off to slay some non-aggro mobs for drops. The drop rate was low, but we had the area to ourselves, so we were able to kill steadily until he had the final drop. Both sets of quests took place in the same area of the zone.
Around here, which is the only part of the map I have filled in
Once everybody had their quests turned in, we were about set.
We still have to go back and finish off Moronae’s class quest preliminaries, as well as running down any lead-in quests, so there might be another week of ground work. But we should be able to get into the instance soon.
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