Over the holidays, one of the buds announced that he was ready to train as an Artisan Enchanter, the final segment to maxing the enchantment profession.

I was immediately suspicious. Other than expecting a “congrats” or some such, why was he telling us this? Because he sure didn’t word it like, “good news fellas, I can finally enchant your shit in a worthwhile way instead of those crapass enchantments I was giving you before” … it was more like “hey, I need to train artisan now” *insert uncomfortable pause in the conversation*.

And how I hoped my only commitment in this latest project would be tossing some gold his way.

Turns out his enchanter trainer is buried in the middle of an instance, lousy with elite mobs of our level. Ain’t that fucking great.

I was so sure he was mistaken, in fact, that I checked the web myself to make sure he didn’t have his facts confused. That kind of evil genius is EQ-type bullshit … which I might call Sony-type bullshit, but to be fair, EQ’s bullshit preceded Sony’s involvement by many months.

All cursing aside, he had to get to his trainer and Yours Truly was elected to assist him as the others were busy camping whatever crap they were camping — although can I help it that it’s 20 times easier for me to level than the other guys? (heh)

So off we went to Uldaman, and, for once, luck was with us as there was a group ahead, clearing the way to the Uldaman entrance. We popped inside and I had a look around to see what we were up against … dare I hope that the target NPC is near the entrance?

Of course not. Stupid bitch is about halfway through. Dare I hope that there’s some way to bind there or an exit so I don’t ever have to return when he needs more training? Again, not.

So we cleared our way into the instance, which was no small doing as this is typical Warcrack pathing with the mobs roaming in huge circles, always on top of each other. Getting a single pull is really more a function of dumb luck than patience or skill. I was chewing through heal potions like they were candy and burning my defensive talents as often as they would recycle.

We arrived at the final room before the reportedly easier area of Uldaman, in which the Master Enchantress bitch makes her home. We were still alive, although running low on combat supplies and definitely out of patience. I checked out this last room and motherfuck, there’s a named elite and at least two guards. (Named is my level or near, guards just under.)

I told my now-former friend that I’d give it a try, but let’s be blunt here: our chances … they ain’t good. He might survive one guard’s beating while I finish the named, but my chances of crowd-controlling the extra guard, surviving the named’s beatdown AND killing all three were almost none. We could try killing them one by one and zoning out, but the goddamn zone was several rooms back — we’d get our asses kicked the whole way. Oh, to have a healer on call at all times!

Anything goes wrong, even the slightest misstep, we’re graveyard-bound. He considered the options and conferred with the rest of the regulars. The brief convo was similar to this:

“*Foton’sRealFakeToonName*, you can’t take 2 elite guards and a named?”

“No, asshole, I can’t. If I could, I wouldn’t need you wankers.”

“You guys have potions, right?”

FFS. We don’t have fucking invulnerability potions, that was for damn sure.

Since I really hate the graveyard runs, I was relieved that the bud decided to wait until another could join us on this merry run through Uldaman. I don’t know if this enchanting thing is going to pay off big time some day, but I do know this much: Blizzard must really hate the enchanters.