Darnassus Likes Mae About 1000 more
I ran a few more Darnassus lowbie quests. It's silly how you click on a Beached Whale, swim and dive and click on a giant turtle skull and are rewarded with 400 reputation points, equivalent to five stacks of runecloth.
The questing moved on to Ashenvale. I ran around for a bit one-shotting mobs but I did get a bit bored with it. Less than 10000 rep to go now.
Taming the Beast
I had a hankering to try taming Rak'Shiri a rare spawn saber in Winterspring. He is a nice looking cat and has Dash three and I really fancied the challenge of getting him. It's a Hunter thing. I read up on it and got some tips on how to approach it (thottbot ftw).
I flew to Azshara and knocked off a silly quest to click on a book, then on to Winterspring. At Everlook I stabled Tiddles and summoned the level 55 Winterspring Owl I had tried before. I headed north towards Frostsaber Rock. On the way I abandoned the owl and tamed another owl, a level 57 Winterspring Screecher as this has an interesting AoE ability, the Screech. The screech was an AoE debuff, knocking the enemies attack points. The only noticable effect it had was to accidently aggro passing owls which would otherwise have remained neutral. The Owl was a good pet as soon as it was tamed, on a par with Tiddles.
I got to the hill overlooking Frostsaber Rock but no sign of my target. So many cats all around, level 57-60 but not hard to deal with: could finish off a level 60 in under 30 seconds. The stalkers are nasty, they appear from nowhere and all seem to be level 60.
I spent over half an hour there, I had realised the cat wasn't around and he's on a ten hour spawn timer so there was no point in waiting. I spent my time grinding on the cats, managing around 15000 XP/hr and collecting stacks of tiger meat. Not a productive use of time but I think I have realised one thing: I enjoy killing as a hunter more than I did with the paladin. With the Paladin killing things became a chore but it's not as bad with a hunter, I never get that 'here we go again' feeling.
I did the sensible thing: logged off for the night and came back 6am next morning. I looked around from my hill top but still no sign of him. I decided to wander around killing cats till I got bored. After five minutes I found him on the minimap! It's always good when this happens, my heart started beating fast, the thrill of the hunt! I abandoned the owl. dropped a freezing trap and lined him up for a concussive shot when another cat came along and I had to lure it into my freezing trap it and run. I got way from the cat but lost Rak'Shiri. There is no way Mae could kill one of these with melee and I have no kiting practise, although kiting would still be suicide, would run straight into more cats.
Now I was in trouble: surrounded by ferocious cats, some level 60 stealthed and no pet! I searched for Rak'Shiri, continually agroing cats and having to feign death. Died to three cats, not much I could do. Did the corpse run and carried on searching. Alchemy is useful: res and swig a wildvine pot which gives both health and mana. Thought about taming a very temporary pet but decided against to keep myself ready. In these situations my biggest worry is that another player will come along and kill my target. I had done a '/who winterspring' and there were four other players around and one was named 'noobhunter' or something with hunter in the name.
I found him again. He was alone. I laid the freezing trap, concussive shot, he was trapped and I started taming. Another stealthy cat appears! Argh. I have to ignore it and carry on taming. Would the cat attacking me interrupt the taming? The trap breaks and Rak'Shiri is attacking me too, what hope is there? But it worked! He was tamed and started attacking the other cat. I was panicky now, I had him but he was very unhappy and needed feeding but he was fighting. I used an unusual tactic: I let Mae die, ressed at the spirit healer, summoned him and fed him. There was no point in struggling to get away, I was finished in Winterspring anyway.
When he was wild, amongst the other cats he stood out, he is shiny blue and has green eyes that glow in the dark. Once tamed he seems, well, average. He doesn't stand out at all, no more impressive to me than King Bangalash. I've got him, I rose to my challenge but ultimately I don't think I will keep him. I have Dash 3 to teach to Tiddles and I have the story to tell. Tiddles is still one of the more exclusive pets in the game.
UPDATE: In Darnassus Rakky looks like this:
Too damn good looking, argh. Do I need anything other than two cats? I've already called him Rakky, think I'm stuck with him, at least for now.
UPDATE2: Damn, more I look at this picture the more I like this cat. I think maybe I had been looking at Winterspring cats for too long when I made my initial judgement. Maybe Mae will be the Crazy Saber Lady with three Sabers: Tiddles, Rakky and Epic. Kinda fitting as all three would have taken some effort to get hold of. Now to wait for blizz to come up with an epic flying saber. How long would I grind rep for one of those?
See what I mean about the shoulders 
Onwards and Upwards
Hearthed to Shattrath and hence on to Western Plaguelands to finish off the Cauldron quests. These weren't very difficult: the third Cauldron Lord spouted some bravado words to 'Cat' (haven't named him) but still died in nine seconds. Bestial Wrath ftw.
The turnins and a bit of grinding dinged Mae to 58.
That's the onwards part, upwards would be to Outlands, after all it is another planet which is pretty far up. But do I want to go there yet? I think Mae is ready, I'm impressed with how she handled the level 60 cats. However, I don't feel I'm in a hurry, she still has business in Azeroth, especially doing more Darnassus lowbie quests: only two levels to go to get that Saber! Right now there is probably more new stuff for me to do in Azeroth than in Outlands: done Hellfire Peninsular once, not in a hurry to do it again.
Peter's Moblog
Hey Peter, I'm getting lost with all the pets you have/had - can you list them briefly with their name and type; it'll make it easier to match your opinions with the pet type.
Thanking you.
p.s. I'm sticking with Denis(e) the ghostly sabre, still the best looking and I constantly get comments about her.