Fun with Gnomes

A few months ago I rolled a new character in the World of Warcraft, a Gnome Warrior whom I dubbed Gnomadic. Gnomadic's goal in life was to cross the ocean to Kalimdor and visit the Horde in their capital city of Orgrimmar, and he succeeded at this. Now in the World of Warcraft if a player enters one of the opposing faction's capital cities he automatically gets flagged PvP, which means he can be attacked and killed by any member of the opposing faction. So by entering Orgrimmar, Gnomadic became flagged and despite being a very low level character some members of the Horde still felt compelled to kill him, but that's ok; I was in their city and some people are just afraid of Gnomes ;) Gnomadic hung out in Orgrimmar for a bit and even danced with a female Troll before I logged out to play on one of my regular characters.

A few days ago my niece was introducing WoW to a friend of hers. She'd rolled a new character and she asked me if I had a low level character so I could join them. My lowest character was Gnomadic, but he was still in Orgrimmar on Kalimdor; my niece and her friend were in the Alliance starting area on the Alliance continent known (rather boringly) as the Eastern Kingdoms. So I logged on Gnomadic and activated my Hearthstone, which teleports me to the Inn I'd last chosen to call "home". It teleported me to the Goblin village of Ratchet, just a little way down the coast from Orgrimmar. Fortunately there's three boats that sail from Kalimdor to the Eastern Kingdoms, and one of them leaves from Ratchet. But the boat from Ratchet would take me to the Goblin port called Booty Bay, at the southernmost tip of the Eastern Kingdoms, and separating Booty Bay from the rest of the Eastern Kingdoms is Stranglethorn Vale, a jungle filled with level 30 to 40 critters who'd just love to snack on a low level Gnome.

Now as well as the port, Ratchet has a Griffin Post, which I could use to fly to different cities in Kalimdor, except when I spoke to the Flight Master he told me I didn't know any other places to fly to. The next closest city with a boat to the Eastern Kingdoms is a little ways south of Ratchet, but again I'd have to brave level 30+ monsters to get there. Just then the boat pulled up to the dock and I made my choice. As I ran towards the boat a Horde player coming the other way couldn't resist having a swing at me. When I'd logged in I'd still been in Orgrimmar which had flagged me, and I'd remain flagged for at least five minutes. Sitting on the boat was a hairy experience because taking the same trip were two Horde players of considerably higher level than me, who could probably kill me in one hit if they so chose.

As we sailed across the ocean the uncertainty of the moment was very nerve wracking. If I died out here I didn't know what would happen to my body. Would it fall into the water, or would it remain on the boat? My spirit would spawn at the nearest GY and I could ressurect there, or I could resurrect at my body if it wasn't at the bottom of the ocean. Fortunately we made it to Booty Bay without incident.

As I ran down the pier towards the hub of the town, one of the Orcs from the boat attacked me from behind. The level disparity meant I had no chance and death came quickly. But Booty Bay is a neutral town, neither Alliance nor Horde; both sides are free to visit as long as they do so peacefully. The Booty Bay Militia who keep the peace were quick to retaliate and they snared the Orc with nets, holding him in place. Outnumbered and unable to run the Orc died almost as quickly as he'd killed me.

The Booty Bay GY is just outside the front gate so I walked my ghost inside and resurrected at my body then tracked down the Booty Bay Flight Master...who gave me the bad news that Gnomadic's lack of knowledge of the world meant he still could not fly anywhere. To get to the lowbie area where my niece was I'd need to swim up the coast, a trip which takes 10 to 15 minutes but which would be considerably safer and less stressful than running through the jungle and dying repeatedly at the claws of lvl 35 Tigers, Raptors, Gorillas, etc.

As I ran back down towards the dock the same Orc decided to attack me again, but this time I actually survived his first blow. The Orc must have thought he'd take me out in one hit again because he didn't stop to finish me off, choosing to leap off the side of the dock instead. But he didn't count on the Booty Bay guards and their lightning fast reactions and once more their nets snared him, practically in midair, and he died yet again while I stood by laughing my arse off. To really add insult to injury the second Orc had seen the whole thing and he burst out laughing as well.