Adventures in Beta: Draenei Shaman, 6-10

I logged back into my draenei shaman where I left her -- stuck in Azure Watch, with a handful of new quests and no professions. Having already decided on jewelcrafting for my Blood Elf Paladin, I was stumped on what to give my shaman. I decided to pick up leatherworking and skinning so I could at least make some of my own armor - after all, it's not like I was out to make a ton of money on the test server. But there were no leatherworking trainers in Azure Watch (and no jewelcrafting either, which shocked me.) The local guards advised me to head to a furbolg camp in the north, filled with new allies that would be happy to teach me how to skin and make clothes.

I went up a small path to the north, which led me directly to the furbolg hold. The area in-between was filled with stags, nightstalkers and corrupted plants, and reminded me of a better-planned Darkshore. I talked to the furbolgs, which quickly presented me with a problem: I don't speak Furbolg. I went into their main hold to look for some sort of translator, but instead, I came upon what looked like the scene of a bloody battle between furbolgs and owlbeasts. I noticed that the surviving owlbeasts were level 10 and decided to head back to Azure Watch, where hopefully there would be a quest to get a translator or something.

But until then, I had a couple of quests to complete. I killed some white stags for their meat, used a net to catch some fish, and gathered some vines for my draenei brethren. While exploring the area around the stags, I stumbled upon an Alliance camp, populated by ... things. They looked sort of like humans and sort of like dwarfs. I saw a couple of questgivers and a long beach with a couple of ships. My heart began to sink. "Please," I thought, "please don't let these quests involve murlocs." Fortunately for the Alliance, and my sanity, I just had to help them make stew and collect some belonging stolen by goblins. None of the questgivers seemed too excited to see a strange new race from a crashed spaceship.

When I returned the quest, I got a little more information on why that was. Turns out the Alliance ships had crashed on the shores of Azuremist Isle, stranding them. I also learned some more about the relationship between the night elves and the draenei - the night elves are fearful of the draenei, who are related to the demonic eredar. I like anything that night elves hate (see: Illidan), so I began to warm a little more to the new alliance race. In short succession, I was told to go preserve some night elf ruins by killing naga, and to pillage those same night elf ruins for artifacts. I decided it might first be prudent to head back to Azure Watch and report the Alliance to the other draenei.

I learned a little bit more about the draenei and the night elves when I used my horribly low drop-rate vines to cure an injured night elf priestess, who ranted at me and then went into a coma. Further attempts to cure Bitchy McNightelf failed, but did get me to level 8 and a quest to decipher the furbolg language. The draenei scholar had me read a parchment and look at a totem, whereupon a furbolg ancestor appeared to lead me to the next totem. At the totem, a furbolg gave me wings and sent me to jump off a cliff and cross a river to Totem and Ancestor #3. By this time, I could understand enough Furbolg that I could tell he was asking me to swim along the bottom of the river. (The swim speed/underwater breathing buff helped with this too.) At the final ancestor, I learned all of the Furbolg language. He turned us both into and led me to another furbolg village, where I was kindly asked to free captives from cages. Like every furbolg quest anywhere, this was a giant pain in the ass. Each cage needed a key, and not all furbolgs dropped keys, and there were patrolling mobs ... anyway, it was bad. It was a neat quest overall, but dang, did that last part hurt. I soothed my pain by looting some night elf relics and killing naga.

I then had a choice of two paths: go north and deal with the owlbeast/furbolg fight, or help the stranded alliance kill a naga chieftain and find out who is betraying the Alliance. I chose to head north, so I upgraded my spells and went to meet the furbolgs. I was asked to kill some ravagers (a new species that looks disturbingly like Silithids) and retrieve goods from murlocs (ick). While gathering the supplies the murlocs stole, I came upon a blood elf rogue. God, they're everywhere, aren't they? He dropped a communique that revealed the blood elves had put a bounty out on draenei.

I was asked to search Stillpine Hold for anything interesting. I discovered a lot of owlbeast, a couple of crystals, and a GIANT TERRIFYING CORE HOUND. Also, a very nice shaman who gave me three six-slot bags and told me to run back and get my level 10 shaman quest before completing all the Hold quests. I ran back to Azure Watch and talked to my trainer, who told me to go to the Emberglade and talk to a fire elemental. The fire elemental sent me to the cave to grab a torch, which I did (killing the core hound and the chieftain in the process.) I was sent far to the southwest to kill an elemental being worshiped as a god. Along the way, I took out the naga for my "be nice to the alliance" quest and discovered a missing fisherman whose family had been slaughtered by the worshipping owlbeasts. I successfully summoned and killed the elemental, finding the remains of the fisherman's family in an owl along the way (ew.)

While I was on the island, I also found the cove where I was supposed to hide, disguised as a tree, to hear the Alliance traitor's meeting with the Goblin chief. It turns out (spoilers ahead) that the Alliance traitor and the Venture Company are working to undermine the Exodar (the draenei ship) and become rich, at the order of Kael'Thas (the Blood Elf prince in Outland,) who is angry at the draenei for stealing his ship. Sounds like a complicated plot - way too tough for a level 11 shaman. I settled for killing the traitor and was rewarded with my choice of hilarious weapons - and a glimpse into Kael'Thas's mind.

I returned to the fire elemental with the ashes of his fallen prodigy, and was told to deliver them to the Exodar. With my Fire Totem firmly in hand and my hearthstone set to the draenei capital, I called it a night. Next up, Bloodmyst Isle!