Meet
Alisandre, Warlock of the Slutty Robes. Unfortunately for this poor little gnome, the person who controls her really doesn't have a clue what he's doing at times. As such, a simple quest to go look at an elite turtle turned into a continent-spanning orgy of confused exploration.
It was the Hinterlands, home of gryphons, trolls, and filthy dwarves. The quest was simple: find and take a photograph of Gammerita, a level 48 elite turtle. As you might imagine, Gammerita had a serious issue with having her photo taken, and she went on the attack. Like every warlock should be familiar with doing, I turned around and ran like a bitch. And kept running. And ran some more, because the damn thing was on me like a dog on a bone.
Once I finally came to a halt, I was in the far northeastern corner of the zone, well away from the safety that Aerie Peak provides. Since I was so far away, and I had no real idea how to climb back up the cliffs I had dropped down to get to the turtle, I had a grand idea: I'd swim north to the Eastern Plaguelands and get back to civilization that way. My hearthstone was still cooling down, so I couldn't just zip back in a heartbeat.
Oh dear.
As most of you probably know (and I do now), the Eastern Plaguelands are landlocked. But I had no idea. So I swam and swam for what seemed like forever. I saw no signs of any sort of civilization. So I kept swimming. And kept swimming.
I got my first glimpse of trouble when I saw that I was apparently
swimming through solid ground. But I persevered, continuing my long, arduous swim to something remotely resembling an actual zone.
Ah, there it was. I got that lovely bit of text that said I was in the Eastern Plaguelands. Finally, I just knew I'd find a beach of some sort so I could actually get on land.
I did. Sorta.
Out of nowhere, about twenty minutes into this little jaunt,
a night elven ruin appeared on the horizon. No NPCs, no enemies; just
me, my trusty felsteed, and an eerie sense that I was somewhere that I really wasn't meant to be.(This area is found
here on the world map, FYI.)
After seeing this, I got excited. Surely now I was close to getting away from this damn swimming. No such luck. I kept swimming west, knowing that eventually I was bound to hit a zone, whether it was the actual Plaguelands or somewhere else.
Then I got some welcome text: I had just entered Tirisfal Glades. Lovely, I thought...but then I took around. When I saw mountains in "Tirisfal" that
put Ironforge to shame, I knew I should probably buckle down for an even longer haul across the seas.
So I did what anyone would do: put myself on auto-run, open the map, and went to get some goddamn breakfast.
When I came back shortly thereafter, I was overjoyed. I could actually
see myself on a zone map. But although I was in the water on the map, a quick cancellation showed that I was, in fact,
standing on dry ground. I despaired.
I shouldn't have. The goal was near, the end was in sight. Sure enough, within a few minutes, I was on soil that actually existed on a map,
near a dead sea turtle just to the northwest of Scarlet Monastery.
It was about this time, when I opened my bags to set off fireworks, that I remembered the existence of my Ultrasafe Gadgetzan Transporter. Oops. :P
So there you have it,
a swim that nearly spanned a continent, seeing sights I'm willing to bet few people have seen before...namely miles and miles of uninhabited coastline and enough water to make you loathe the color blue. :P
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