Survival of the Fittest: A Hunter Dungeon Leveling Guide

"Who are these people and what's their average
net worth?  Do they even own guns?"

Internet, meet Frankie.  Frankie, meet the Internet.

This is Agatha Francesca Biznicks, "Frankie" to friends and potential customers.  She's the heir and owner of Biznicks Rifles and Ammunition, patent holder and exclusive dealer of the legendary Biznicks 247x128 Accurascope.  Basically, she's an RP character that I lost my gusto for not long after creating her.  But now she's going to be breathing new life into this blog, and hopefully into low level hunters everywhere, as the star of the first ever When Enraged recurring feature!

"Survival of the Fittest" is going to be your step-by-step guide to leveling a baby hunter through the LFD system.  It will be done sorta-kinda in tandem with the Glaivecow's Adventures of Prot Cow series, which is a similar project with, er, a prot cow.  Anyway, seeing as we're in the same guild with the same raiding schedule, we're going to at least be starting it off together.


Talents

So Frankie is level 15 and getting ready to head into her very first dungeon.  At this point she's got four talent points to spend.  I've decided to level her Survival because it's what I have the most personal experience with in Cataclysm and it made for a cuter feature name.  I really don't have much of a grasp on Marksmanship or Beast Mastery since it's been so long since I played them, and I'd hate to write a "guide" that had huge glaring errors in it.

Your first three talent points are going into Pathing, for a direct 3% boost to haste.  While haste at level 85 is a tricksy beast, with a single "sweet spot" for Survival and a handful of plateaus for Marks, it's easier to deal with while leveling -- more is better.  Focus drain is a big problem at the very earliest levels, and haste not only directly increases your focus regeneration, but it shortens the cast time on Steady Shot, which gives you additional focus regen.

The fourth (and fifth, when you get it) point is going into Improved Serpent Sting.  On its own it's not a super awesome talent, at least not until you get Serpent Spread later on, when it becomes part of Survival's fantabulous AOE toolbox.  But it is at least marginally useful in the sub-Cobra Shot/Chimera Shot levels, when you'll be manually refreshing Serpent every time it falls off.  Constantly.  FOREVER.  (The fact that I am personally awful at remembering to refresh DoTs is a big part of why I was Marks through most of Wrath.)

It's also your only viable dungeon-crawling option in the first tier.  Hunter vs. Wild was kind of hot back in the halcyon days of Ulduar -- its prerequisite was Survivalist, which gave the bonus stamina that HvW does now, and HvW itself converted a percentage of your stamina into agility.  Unfortunately, it's just a straight stamina boost now, and while it makes a decent PvP or soloing utility, it's not going to do us much good in the LFD queues.


Pets

Pets are a completely different mechanic now than they have been at any point in hunter history.  The short of it is that every pet family brings a different buff (to the entire party) or debuff (to the target).  These buffs and debuffs mimic those brought by different specs of other classes, so the best thing to do is see what's already being provided by your groupmates, and then fill in the most useful remaining spot with one of your own pets.

A good place to start for this is Zee's Raiding Pet Flowchart (shamelessly ganked from I Like Bubbles, where all good WoW flowcharts originate).  I have this in my "Important Shit" bookmarks folder where I can get to it quickly as people get swapped in and out of raid groups.

As you level a hunter, you gain the ability to have multiple pets "with you" at a time, which you can dismiss and summon at will, fitting in nicely with the whole "bring pet based on group composition" framework.  However, at the very beginning, you're only going to have one pet -- and none of those pets gain their special buff/debuff abilities until they reach level 20.  So for right now, it's not going to matter that much.

If you're looking on down the road, since you don't get Call Pet 3 until level 42, the first two pets you'll probably want to keep with you are a wolf, whose Furious Howl gives everyone in your party 5% bonus crit, and a cat, whose Roar of Courage grants Strength and Agility.  The wolf buff is going to be more useful to others in the party, while the cat's buff is the single greatest DPS boost to yourself.  It doesn't really matter which one you get first (since, again, you'll have both of them before their special abilities even become available).  Whichever one you think is prettiest.


Rotation

So now that you've got your character all tidy, it's time to figure out what the hell you're going to do!  When you first walk into either Ragefire Chasm or the Deadmines, your rotation is going to look like this:

• Hunter's Mark (before the pull if possible).
• Send your pet in to attack.
• Serpent Sting
• Explosive Shot.
• Arcane Shot if you have enough focus for it immediately after Explosive.
• Chain cast Steady Shot until Explosive Shot is off cooldown and you have enough focus for it.
• Refresh Serpent Sting if it falls off.

(This is actually a modified version of the rotation I use at 85; I just sub in Black Arrow for Arcane if it's off cooldown, and use Arcane to bleed off focus if I cap.)

An important note: with as little haste as you probably have at this point, it's incredibly likely that ExShot will come off cooldown before you have enough focus to cast it.  That's okay.  Avoid the temptation to just go ahead and hit Arcane because you already have enough focus for it!  You'll just be pushing your glorious explosive victory back that much farther.

Macros

The only really useful thing you can macro together right now is Hunter's Mark with your pet attack -- saves you a keystroke at the beginning of the fight, and is helpful if you tend to be forgetful about one or the other.

/petattack
/cast Hunter's Mark

Simple as that.  I keybound it to Ctrl-1, where my pet attack has been bound since I first rolled Jez three and a half years ago.

Heirlooms and Enchants

If you want heirlooms, get the mail agility ones; they auto-convert down to leather until you train for mail.  The leather ones will work fine, too, up until level 50 when the armor specialization kicks in.  You don't get dual wield until 20, but the daggers are fine after that.  The bow is good too.  Enchant everything with the highest agility or attack power enchants you can find. (Ktok pissed me off when he mentioned he was going to be doing this section, because it was more work than I wanted to do, but then I realized how moronically simple it would be for a hunter guide.  Have fun with that parry-dodge ratio, little prot cow!)

And now that this post is over a thousand words, quite possibly the longest thing I've ever written on this blog, I'm going to let it go.  Sometime tonight or tomorrow, Frankie will be heading off onto her first big adventures, and we'll have a post about the dungeons lying between you and level 20!

A Drop in a Bucket in a Bucket Full of Buckets

(Keep reading that title and the word 'bucket' will stop making sense to your brain. Bucket bucket bucket bucket bucket.)

So Activision-Blizzard's earnings call went out yesterday, and the big thing that all the Warcraft nerds picked up on is that WoW's subscriber base has slipped from its 12 million high point to about 11.4 million. To put this into perspective, the State of Azeroth has slipped from just behind Pennsylvania (6th in the US) in population to being tied with Ohio for 7th. Oh the fuck noes.

Naturally, that bizarre breed of creature that likes to complain constantly about Blizzard while still paying to play their game* has pounced upon this news with great fervor. Surely their wanton disrespect for the wishes of [casual players|hardcore raiders|alt levelers|roleplayers] in making Cataclysm content [too easy|too hard|too fast|too slow] has come back to them and they're suffering for it. (And yes, I have personally heard ALL of those arguments.)

So I have two points to make in response to this.

1) This is not a massive blow to Blizzard. Guys, the 600,000 subscribers that the game has slipped from its peak is larger than EverQuest's entire player base ever was at a time. People who didn't play MMOs before WoW came around (including me, but my guild started in EQ1 and has a lot of vets from those days to offer perspective) may not understand exactly what an unimaginable juggernaut this game is. Any MMO that manages to get a million subscribers at one time is considered a runaway success on par with a Titanic or Avatar. Most game companies would shit bricks of cayenne pepper wrapped in barbed wire at the thought of having a subscription-based game with five million users. WoW is on a completely different plane of existence than the "MMO market". It is to MMOs what Windows is to operating systems. Yes, there's competition (more on that later) but it's going to take some kind of severe event to knock this game out of commission.

This goes for the people who keep postulating about Blizzard jumping on the free-to-play bandwagon, as well. If WoW goes free to play anytime in the next five years, possibly ten, then I hope one of you bastards has Will Smith's cell number because Mike Morhaime is a goddamn pod person. Despite the slump in subscribers, Blizzard actually made more money from WoW this past year, between sales of the expansion itself and (more likely) the craptons of premium services.

So no, they are not suffering.  Not even remotely.  With every expansion, new players come in and old players pick back up to see what's new.  And a little while afterwards, the newbies who didn't click with it and the oldies who remember why they left peter off.  Morhaime himself said it was a perfectly normal drop, it just happened a bit more quickly than it did with Wrath.  That could be tied as much to old WC3 players being more invested in the Arthas storyline as anything else.  Which brings us to the next point...

2) This is not because of your pet problem with Cataclysm.  Sure, it might have influenced it some.  It may have played some part in the erosion.  But no one problem single-handedly caused half a million people to leave the game.  First there are the people that leave for all the normal reasons people leave: financial burdens, RL issues, just plain burnout with the game.  Then there's the aforementioned normal post-expansion dropoff.  A decent number of people did pick up RIFT (heck, so did I), but most of the ones who left WoW for it entirely were people who were already dissatisfied with WoW and probably would have left soon anyway.

And you know what?  For every person I've seen who did, I've seen at least one who went and tried it, was somehow disappointed, and came back.  (Even more who keep playing both!  Gaming isn't zero-sum, guys!)  For every person I've seen complaining that the raids are too hard and it's not worth playing anymore because they can't progress, I've seen another complaining that Firelands just needs to come OUT already because they're sick to death of tier 11.

So no, Bitchmoan McWhinypants, the loss of six hundred thousand players is not Blizzard facing their comeuppance for wronging you.  They're still making money hand over fist.  World of Warcraft is still the most popular MMORPG in the world, by light years.  And most of the remaining 11.4 million of us are still having a grand old time.

* This does not refer to players who sometimes have complaints, or even who often have complaints. I mean the people who write long rambling screeds on the forums on how Blizzard is the worst game company in the industry and treats them like crap and they've never been so insulted in their life and they want free game time for the 20 minutes they couldn't log on because their server was longer coming up than others on maintenance day. THOSE guys.

Portent Alliance Is Recruiting!

Does this sound like you?

Is schadenfreude your middle name? When I say I have incontrovertible proof that Kil'jaeden has a fetish for draconic bukkake, do you want to know more?  Do you subscribe to the radical notion that your guildmates and raid teammates are people as opposed to little blinky boxes in Grid?  Then Portent Alliance (Sentinels-H) may have a straitjacket with your name on it.

PA is a level 23 guild, currently looking for dedicated players to fill out an "upper-mediumcore" raiding team.  We raid from 8:30 - 11:30 Eastern on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday with old-world mount/achievement/legendary/RP gear farming on Saturdays.  Loot is distributed by EP/GP.  We're 12/12 in normal-mode Tier 11, and the third ranked progression guild on our server.  Currently running one 10-man raid, but we're looking to fill out the ranks enough to run two 10-mans, then move up into 25s.

Our schedule is relaxed, but our attitude is not.  We need people who can commit to raiding, show up on time, be prepared, know the fights, know their class, and be ready to rock a boss's face off.

We're in particular need of raid healers, especially druids, but any class and role is welcome -- we're just in general need of raiders.  Any other questions or requests for information can be directed at our guild leader, Ktok, on Twitter or on his blog, The Glaivecow.

20 Days of WoW, Day 2: Why A Blog?

Why did you start a blog?

Because Rilgon told me to.

Actually because Rilgon, Pike, probably Brigwyn and Ava and countless other people all told me to.  I was friends with a ton of WoW bloggers on Twitter already, and I kicked around the idea of starting a blog, mostly because all of my friends had them and I wanted one too.  I hesitated because I know how bad I am at following through on stuff, and because my biggest roadblock in any writing project has always been a lack of ideas -- I'm much better at the act of putting words together than I am at coming up with anything to day.  But it's fun, they said; we'll keep you going, they said; anyone can blog, they said; all points of view are valid, from the deep thoughts to the fluffy trivial things, they said.

So I started the blog, and promptly quit updating it ever.  Told you so.  :P

But hopefully this meme thing here will help me get going.  And there's also going to be a semi-more-important post coming immediately after this, so keep your eyes open, especially if you're looking for a raiding home.

20 Days of WoW Blogging! Day 1.

A wild Jezriyah appears!

Yeah, so there's new meme floating about -- the 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge.  For those of you who haven't noticed, I am in fact an incredibly sporadic and generally poor blogger, mainly for lack of any idea what to write about.  Much easier to just yell things at Twitter as they come to mind than actually try to create a coherent train of thought. So a challenge that actually hand-feeds me 20 days worth of things to post about may help to get me in the groove enough to blog on my own.

Or it may not, and I'll vanish again 20 days from now.  Who knows.

Anyway, the day 1 challenge: Introduce Yourself!  Which I may or may not have even properly done when I started this thing.

My name, for all you Internet creepers need to know, is Jezi.  (I do not actually think all people on the Internet are creepers; I just have a very uncommon first name that I try not to throw around.)  I live with my two unbelievably incredible parents in a painfully stereotypical Wonderbread suburb in the deep South.  I'm 25 and have a marketing degree that I'm currently making zero use of because lol, economy.  I'm currently working as a temp, trying to make enough money to pay off the last two BlizzCons still on my credit card in time to put next BlizzCon on it while also keeping my WoW account up.  Next spring, I hope to go back to school and get my master's degree in accounting, so I can do spreadsheets at stuff for a living instead of just for fun.

In game, I have several characters I hop around, but my raiding main and identity is Jezriyah, a troll hunter (currently Survival) of Portent Alliance.  She's actually my very first WoW toon ever -- the one I first created on my trial account.  She's changed a bit since then; I basically created her because trolls were the prettiest Horde race that I could make since a trial couldn't make Blood Elves.  By the time I got her into about the 60s, I'd fallen completely in love with the troll race and was completely ashamed of how cutesy I'd made her.  As soon as the barber shop went in, she got some big honkin' tusks and a mohawk, and aside from a few dreadlock phases, she hasn't looked back.  My current main alt project is a shadow/disc priest who's currently bubblequeueing her way through Outland.

I am a raider, in the upper end of mediumcore.  We have three raid nights a week; we were the third and so far last guild on our (admittedly not super-progressed) server to kill Nefarian, second Hordeside behind the server's progression juggernaut.  The guild is currently struggling a bit, with several of us (myself included) being very dedicated raiders, who study strats, know the hows and whys of our class rotations, and are able to give and take criticism without being hurtful.  And several of us... um, aren't.  So things aren't perfect.  But we're a super close, tight-knit guild, and I'd rather run imperfect raids with some of my best friends in the world than be a few fights more progressed with people I don't love as much.

So that's about where I stand right now.  Tomorrow will be why I decided to start a blog, which will be an incredibly short post.

Crowd Control

There were three of them in the open, a priest and two fighters. Two sharpshooters lurked behind them, camouflaged. Badly. Jezriyah shot Ailinea a knowing look; she chuckled and shook her head. Humans might have gotten the hang of tracking and shooting, but they made pretty terrible hunters on the whole. A part of her really wanted to give them a hug, point out that even the mage could see them, and offer to take them home to their mamas.

But they did have guns, and the five of them had already slaughtered their way this far into the Deadmines. Udiyvli gave a great roar, rushing forward and slinging her mace at the priest.

Five.

Pomaikai rushed in behind her. The young Sunwalker spun around as she ran through, throwing one hand out and shouting a sharp word in Taurahe. Light flashed from her fingers, and a beam of sunlight materialized from thin air, striking one of the fighters blind. He clutched his head and howled, crumbling to his knees.

Four.

As the other fighter lunged for Udiyvli, Ailinea raised her hands, fingers twisting delicately in midair. The soldier's muscles stiffened, weapons falling to the ground. He gasped for breath as his body spasmed, collapsing in on itself. A tortured scream leapt in pitch as he folded inwards, flesh consuming flesh until his whole form tucked into that of a panicked swine, squealing in terror.

Three.

Udiyvli laughed, stomping a mighty hoof against the craggy ground. The walls of the cave shook, and the two erstwhile snipers lost their footing. Grunjin barely missed a beat, his eyes narrowing in concentration. The soft green healing mist swirling around Udi's body extended, tendrils coiling about one of the men's ankles. It coalesced into squirming vines, which dug into the ground and clenched tightly around the target's legs. He yelped sharply, trying to jerk away from the thorns digging into his flesh.

Two.

Jezi smiled darkly. She ran her fingers through her quiver, quickly discerning the fletching by touch. The arrow she drew had a small, blown-glass tip, filled with venom drawn from a wyvern's maw. She notched the arrow, pressed the end against her bow to crack it open, and fired. It caught the last dazed rifleman squarely in the throat. He gasped deeply, inhaling the vapors, and was quickly overcome, slouching against the stone wall in a daze.

One.

It was only a few seconds later that the priest finally staggered back from Udiyvli's blows, looking frantically around for her compatriots. Horror dawned upon her face as she found herself alone, and her last screams never escaped the oncoming wall of light and fire.

The End of the Beginning

The silence was deafening.

It struck Jezriyah suddenly just how cold it was.  Granted, they were on top of the Citadel itself on a platform made of ice -- the chill was no surprise.  But her vision had been so tunneled since the fall of Sindragosa that now, at the end of the long final battle, it seemed that she was standing at the foot of the Frozen Throne for the first time.

The shock was beginning to break, now, and the ten of them began to grasp the gravity of what had just occurred.  Qoholeth, head bowed in thankful prayer; Alessandrae crumbled on the floor, head in her hands, Ygdrasill on one knee and holding her tight to his chest.  Peccator quietly healing the last of the group’s wounds.  And Udiyvli, ever the leader, shaking snow and sweat from her mane as she walked towards the fallen Prince’s prone body, opening the small cache he had possessed.

“Jezi!”  She gestured briefly, and the hunter walked over, to be presented with one of the stranger crossbows she’d ever seen.  “I think you’re the only one of us who could make use of this.”

Jezriyah took the weapon gingerly, turning it over in her hands.  It was a Scourge weapon at first glance, with all the skulls and spikes and deathly trappings they’d been so fond of.  But its lath was awfully long, and made of a completely different wood than the other pieces of the weapon.  She squinted, and turned it on its side.  “Huh.  Looki’ this, Udi.  S’jes’ a longbow attached to a secon’han’ stock.”

“So it is,” the warrior murmured, brow furrowing.  “And look at the detailing on the front.  That’s not even Scourge, it’s--”

“--elvish,” Jezriyah finished.  Their eyes met for half a second, the same idea flitting across both their eyes.  She bit her lip.  “Linny may know... Tayllia would fa’ certain.”

“Know what?”  Ailinea drew closer, pulling her hood back over her head and tucking her shivering ears underneath it.

Jezriyah reached over and brushed the snow from her friend’s shoulders affectionately.  “Th’ origin a’this weapon.”  She held the bow out with her other hand.

The mage’s breath caught in her throat -- Jezi was certain that was her answer, but she waited for confirmation.  Ailinea ran her fingers over the lath, seeming to feel a remnant of arcane power in it.  “It’s definitely quel’dorei in provenance,” she said slowly.  “And... I can’t speak for certain of who it would belong to, but... it’s much more ornate than anything a lay ranger would have carried in battle.  It must have belonged to a Farstrider of significant rank.”

The three of them exchanged quiet glances.  “Actually askin’ be th’only way ah kin think t’be sure,” Jezriyah murmured.  She looked to Ailinea.  “Would -- would you be willin’ ta come wit’ me?  Ah always feel so out-a-place down there...”

“Of course.”

They approached Qoholeth after he’d finished his prayers and helped Peccator and Bosorn with the last of the immediately-necessary healing.  “Q, dear--”  Ailinea rested a hand on his elbow.  “Do you think you could get us in touch with the right people to obtain an audience with the Dark Lady?  We... need her advice on a subject of some import.”

The priest blinked slowly, before offering a soft smile.  “I find it hard to imagine you’d be able to avoid addressing her, considering what just happened here.”

“A valid point.”  Ailinea glanced between her two comrades.  “We’ll all need some time to rest... and it’s much later than it feels now.  The day after tomorrow, perhaps?”

“Ay, tha’ soun’ good.  Poor Miga’s got ’is leg nearly tore open.”

“Oh, goodness, I didn’t even see that.  Let me go have a look...”

---

Jezriyah did notice a few odd looks as she headed towards the Royal Quarter, but not nearly so many as there would have been were she not accompanied by a blood elf mage and Forsaken priest.  She was grateful for their presence as they stepped into the imposing confines of the Banshee Queen’s throne room.

“Your Majesty,” intoned one of the officials, reading from a scroll.  “Priest Qoholeth of the Undercity, Dame Ailinea Phoenixborn of Silvermoon, and...”  A momentary pause, as usually came from the eastern races.  “Jez... rye-ay, of the Darkspear Tribe.”  It was wrong, but not as badly wrong as it had been said before, so she let it be.  “Veterans of the battle at Icecrown Citadel.”

It was at this last statement that Sylvanas’ gaze turned sharp, her jaw setting as she looked at them appraisingly.  “Thank you, herald.”  She looked around the room briefly.  “You are all dismissed; we require privacy.  You may return after our visitors have left.”

The circled Deathguards bristled.  “My Lady, as your bodyguards--”

“These soldiers are known to me; they pose no risk.”  Jezriyah’s spine straightened uncomfortably at that revelation.  “You will be told when you may return.”

The varied guards and ambassadors in the room all filed out, most of them looking quizzically or suspiciously at the troll as they left.  The doors were pulled shut, and Jezriyah stood awkwardly before the Banshee Queen of the Forsaken.

“Word of Arthas’ fall reached the Undercity almost instantaneously,” Sylvanas said, her voice perfectly even -- if she had any emotional reaction to this news, she certainly wasn’t showing it.  “You and your comrades have won an incomparable victory for all of Azeroth, and not least the Forsaken, including myself.”  Her voice softened.  “It is not often I find myself in a position to offer my sincere gratitude to anyone, but you have all certainly earned it.”

“It be nothin’ compared ta your own sacrifices fo’ your people, Your Majesty,” Jezriyah said slowly, the words carefully rehearsed -- both for content and to minimize her heavy island accent.  “But tha’ is part of why ah wished ta speak wit’ you today.  We... obtained some items from Icecrown after th’ Lich King’s defeat.  One of them in pa’ticular we think may have belonged to you or one of ya colleagues.  An’ we wished ta return it to you if dat were th’case.”

She unwrapped the bundle of linens wrapped around the weapon and stepped forward to present it to Sylvanas, her head bowed slightly.  “It seems t’be an elven longbow, attached to a crossbow stock...”

The room went silent as Sylvanas took the weapon, examining it closely.  Jezi searched her face for some hint of recognition, but found none, until the Queen spoke.  “This is the Heartseeker,” she said brusquely, “or at least it once was.  It did belong to me, though it wasn’t my preferred weapon.  It must have been taken from the Farstrider base after Silvermoon fell.”

Jezriyah bit her lip, unsure how to react to the matter-of-fact way Sylvanas spoke of such terrible events.  “Then ah’m glad to have returned it to you,” she finally said.

Sylvanas scoffed.  “I appreciate the sentiment, I suppose, but I’ve certainly no need for it now.”  She offered the weapon back to the troll, who took it gingerly.

Jezriyah glanced to Ailinea.  “Ah s’pose we could return it to th’ Farstriders fa’ safekeeping, den.”  Her mage friend nodded her approval.

The Dark Lady’s eyes shifted downward to the stout gray wolf at her visitors’ side.  “Whose companion is this?”

Jezriyah smiled without thinking of it, patting her partner’s shaggy mane.  “This be Mig’atali.  He fought wit’ us at th’ Frozen Throne as well.”

“Indeed.  A hunter of your people, then.”  She looked at the troll for a long moment before speaking again.  “What sort of weapon do you use now?”

“Oh--”  She pulled the bone bow she’d salvaged from Icecrown from its place on her back, holding it out for Sylvanas’ inspection.  “I go’ it from some skeleton archer t’ing up nort’.  It ain’ much for finesse, but it hit like an angry kodo.”

The Queen’s nose wrinkled.  “Standard Scourge craftsmanship.  Strength in numbers.  Ten thousand shambling skeletons firing these and something’s bound to find a target.”  Jezriyah couldn’t stifle a soft laugh -- it was just the comment she’d have made herself, and the reminder of the inviolable Dark Lady as a fellow marksman made her smile.

Sylvanas caught the expression and returned it, though in a distant way that seemed to chill the room.  “Silvermoon and the ranger corps have more than enough left to remind them of the scourging of Quel’Thalas.  As the rightful owner of the Heartseeker, I think it fitting that you wield it.  It would serve Azeroth better in the battlefield than displayed on a wall.”

Jezriyah’s eyes shot open.  “I -- yah Majesty, I couldna possibly --”

“Enough.  You are both devoted to the defense of your people and capable of facing the most dire threats our world has seen.  Consider it your just reward for your contribution to the war effort.”  She let her gaze flick between the three of them.  “Have any of you further business?”

They did not, and after another minute or so of formalities, they were escorted back onto the streets of the Undercity.  A few minutes after that, Ailinea had summoned a portal, and Jezriyah found herself back in Orgrimmar under the pounding heat of a Durotar drought.  She thought of visiting her parents, but instead headed to her own small rented room upstairs from Kaya’s gun shop.

The Heartseeker was wrapped carefully in a thick bundle of linen, tucked under the bed with the rest of her battle gear.  She might get it out in a couple of days on the training dummies, get used to firing with a trigger again -- but for now, the war was over.  Azeroth was safe.  It would be a long time before it was needed again.