Fashioning My Cyber Microcosm: LFG For Wonderfully Unexpected Life.

Wow...

One can never say enough, that there isn't enough time in the world.

9 years ago, a lvl 60 night elf hunter (16 going on 17 year old me) wandered into Ironforge in the hopes of finding a raid party for Lower Blackrock Spire. Not for beaststalker's pieces like many hunters did, though that would've been neat to get (but gear hated this toon)... but to finally complete that stupidly long and arduous Kibbler's Pets quest in Burning Steppes that rewarded the worg pup. Why was it arduous? Except for the fact you had to run around all of Azeroth with your thumb up your butt doing menial things up close to opposing faction npcs, during that time they did not lessen the aggro radius of those npcs... so you almost always got hit, and then flagged for pvp... and then pwned by some high geared douche who had nothing better to do with his time than camp those doing this quest.

"lvl 60 hunter, LFG for LBRS!" I announced in gen chat, among the hundreds of LFG requests crowding the channel.

Minutes passed. *sigh*

Maybe if I state that I just want to do the quest, I thought to myself. "lvl 60 hunter LFG LBRS! Just want to do worg pups"

Instantly I got 5 whispers, and an invite. The invite was from a character named 'Meneldor'... at least it wasn't a stupid name like Ballzdeep, or god forbid Drizzt (or some variation of).

I joined the party.

"Meneldor: Welcome! Good to have you. We needed two hunters but our other one did not want to invite another hunter that needed the shoulders."

"Hi, hello... yeah, I just want to get my worg pup."

Upon arrival they inspected me and noticed that in fact I did not have the shoulders, or any piece of beaststalker set sans the bracers (which were bind on equip and totally buyable off the auction house) which sparked some doubt on their end. After reassuring them for the hundredth time, we finally fell into agreement that I was not a ninja...

"At least you're not geared the wrong way, just badly lol" the other hunter quipped. Yeah thanks...

When we came to War Master Voone we finished him with a swiftness most impressive, that I scarcely even remember the fight... and then the beastalker's gloves dropped.

"Uhh... so, is anyone opposed to me getting those? I would sure love them, heheh..."

Marianella looted [Beastalker's Gloves]

Things were looking up.

"Congratz!" I get in a whisper from this strange Meneldor person. "Thanks! This is just the cherry on the cake, if we manage to get the worg pups now, my month will be made." I whispered back physically jumping up and down in my chair.

Making our way towards Gizrul and Halycon... it was the moment I've been waiting for: Worg pups! It was a difficult task ahead of us, and very few people managed to catch a pup in the mess of the fight before everything died from over zealous aoe'ing mages. I think some did it just to screw with people on this quest.
Anyway, this Meneldor character was laying down the rules. Kill not the little worg pups, for the very reason he brought us all together was not to gain gear, but to get pups for everyone.

Score! A worg pup raid?! They are few and far between. Only a special kind of vanity pet lover would ever go to such extents (and I did-- after several years of playing Wow, I had over 300 vanity pets in my roster. Including all collector's edition and special event ones).

"Hells to the yeah, man! Thank you!" And suddenly the fight started... worg pups everywhere snapping at your heels while this giant mofo of a mother worg tried to kill the rest of us for disturbing the nest, and once you killed her and her pups, her even bigger lover would come and finish the raid off. It was one of the busiest fights in all the game at the time. Killing the worgs meant you could actually play, and possibly beat the Upper Blackrock Spire end boss-- whole other ball game, though. One would never PUG Upper, unless you wanted to die all the time. The last boss to Lower was a cake walk compared to the worg fight... I never understood the logic behind that, but I guess I never needed to. But anyway, I digress.

Once everyone was beaming with cages full of worg pups, I got another whisper from Meneldor. "I see you like worg pups-- how long did it take you to finish the quest"

I lied. "Oh, just a couple hours or so", but it was really a whole day affair for that unsolicited pvp...

"You must really love animals"

"How do you gather that?"

"I don't know, I just sense it"

"Ok..."

"Hey, I lead raids all the time, and I could use another good hunter. You're lacking in gear and I know how hard it is for hunters to find groups and all. We can help each other out."

"That would be great :)"

"It's settled then! My name is Travis IRL"

"Mine is Marianella"

"Oh I thought you named your toon from some book! It sounds exotic. Mine is from LotR"

"Thanks, I couldn't think of a name and my real name sounded elvish enough lol"

--------------------------------

A year after those humble beginnings, we decided to meet. And that, my friends, is how I met the love of my life.

So young, and full of hope.. and he with a full head of hair...

June 2, we celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary as two gamers/nerds would... spending the whole day gaming and catching up on Game of Thrones. Life is good.

I could never live a richer life...