Last chance to see ...

Leafy has done a Seconds before the Cataclysm video to remind us of what has been lost in the unfolding Cataclysm. For myself, I took a mini-ttrip around Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms last night, something of a farewell tour and last hunting expedition for Maebh.

Mae has something of a problem. She's a pet snob. Though she started her career as a hunter with run of the mill bears and cats, no sooner had she aquired a Ghost Sabre (still her main pet) than she decided that all her pets would be Rares. Prior to 4.0 the limit on hunters pets kept her aquisitiveness in check, but the expansion of stabling to 20 slots has caused her to cackle ... and spend long periods flying in circles hunting her prey.

In addition to Ghost, she had a spider (Naraxis, from Duskwood) and two spirit beasts - Arcturis (from Grizzly Hills) and Gondria (from Zul'Drak). Several others joined her menagerie on a temporary basis - Big Samras, the Sewerbeast, Olm the Wise - but ended up being dropped in favor of ofther shiny new toys (such as King Mosh from Ungoro Crater and Soriid the Devourer).

Over the last few days, she's gone on something of a collection binge. In part this was killing time before today's main event, but there was a solid reason too: the Shattering and Cataclysm will be removing certain mobs. This may well include some Rares - Petopia reports some rares as missing in action - not confirmed as removed, but not seen on the Beta server. Mae wanted to aquire some of those, so there was something of a rush to grab them before the Shattering.

At the weekend she aquired Logue'naq and King Krush in Sholazar basin (within 5 minutes of each other) - they're not on the 'last chance to see' list but they are pets she's been after for a while (only Skoll rates as highly on her wants list), then grabbed Uhk'lok in Ungoro and Timber (on the MIA list) in Dun Morogh. While hunting turkeys for Pilgrim stuff in Tirisfal she ran into the spider Sriskulk and collected her, then set about hunting the worm Grubthor in Silithus. She failed miserably on that and settled for adding the core hound Kurkan (from Azuremist Isle) to the collection.

Hunting Felwood for Olm the Wise (to re-add the 'mia' bird to the collection) also netted the wolf Death Howl and a second trip to Silithus not only turned up Grubthor but also the scorpid Krellack. Together with a re-captured Naraxis and a couple of other "pretty" non-rares (Scion of Quetzlun and a cursed offspring of Harkoa). That takes the menagerie to 18, leaving a few slots for her remaining prey.

Now the Shattering has occured, Mae has new prey. She wants a puppy so will tame either an Onslaught Bloodhound or a Blight Hound (since she can't tame a Worgen ...). She also wants a fox and here there's a rare, Ashtail, to fit in with her snobbishness. Come Cataclysm there'll be two new spirit beasts to hunt too, as well as the new shale spider class. Fun times ahead.