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Friday, May 20, 2011

Favorite Items In Game (Day 5)

Fridays is turning out to be the day I do my 20 Days Of... posts, it seems - so be it! Today I'll talk about some of my favorite items in game, and I got remarkably nostalgic about it all! I was surprised. Anyway, a few items jump to mind immediately.

For instance, I have saved almost every single tanking sword I have used since the beginning of Wrath in my bank. From Broken Promise and Slayer of the Lifeless in Naxxramas to Stoneguard and Titanguard in Ulduar, from Crusadr's Glory in ToC to The Facelifter in Icecrown, I have them all saved and stored, polished and gleaming.

I remember fondly, the old Librams now bereft of their unique status among Paladins as tomes of holy power - how I loved to collect these sacred relics! Reduced to stat-bricks, but no less evocative for their names. There is My Tier 10 Paladin tanking set saved in a bag - every item I ended Wrath in, all the blood poured into heroic ICC collected in vivid detail. Or even further back, my full Tier 4 tanking set on my druid - the first collection of real raid gear that I was able to put together. Just wearing it brings back so many memories.


Or perhaps, specifically, the items connecting us to the old gods. My warlock collects these. I might even endure Archeology just for a Puzzle Box of Yogg'Saron. She has the Vanquished Clutches of Yogg'Saron, and I'm hoping to be able to add the Vanquished Tentacle of C'Thunn to her RP set for double the fun, along with Terestian's Stranglestaff from Karazhan, she can be a creepy little critter sipping wine in a basement in Stormwind, plotting to gain even more power and control over the old-gods (deluded thing that she is.)

Still.... if I had to choose one thing, a cherished item that I actually still possess and cannot endure to loose, it would be something I acquired when I leveled my druid way, way back in 2007 (he was my first alt, but quickly became my main.) I found it in Ashenvale, while falling in love with the zone, I completed a particularly arduous quest that had me running to and from the Barrens (this was in the no-mounts-before-40 days) and received an item as a reward. It was a small bottle full of a silver light called the Light of Elune.

All gloriously-geeky Tolkien  references aside, even as a fresh scrubbed noob that I was at the time, the item shocked me. A one time use complete immunity for all damage for 10 seconds? It sounded incredible, it sounded like something I should save, for what, I didn't even know at the time, but save it I did, I placed it in my bank and I looked at it every so often, wondering what I could use it for.

As I began to raid, and we started wiping on Prince in Karazhan, I thought, maybe I could use it here, to give us a few seconds for the healers to top me off when he's really far below - but back then, you couldn't use potions in bear form. Could I shift in and out while throwing a glug in between without getting hit by the boss? The anguish tore at me, and I decided it wasn't worth the risk.

With Wrath came the promise of being able to use potions in game. At last! Here was my chance to put it to work! But it was too late, I had moved on to my Paladin and so the Light of Elune sat in my bank, glowing with unbelievable power, leaving a small puddle of light. And then, with the Cataclysm, the item fell out of the rewards list, no longer available, as if the goddess had withdrawn her favor from a broken land.

When I leave the game or when they shut down the servers, I imagine I might take it from the bank, after all, to the side of Mystral Lake in Ashenvale where I acquired it, lo all these many years ago, in the broken ruins of Silverwind Refuge, which was solid back then. Sentinel Starstrike has moved on to other things, and the place is given over to roaming elementals.

I imagine the old druid might pour the light of the goddess back into the lake from whence it game, watch it swim like quicksilver, to the reflection of her mien in the lapping water, perhaps rise into the air in small motes like silvery fireflies, and return to the world, some of its wonder which was bottled up, if only for a brief time.

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