The holiday is over, and I’m relaxing back into my normal routine again. Bread is rising on the counter, and I got up at six instead or ten, and it feels less like vacation already. Which, really? Is fine with me – I was starting to feel like a thing that only bakes and spends money. Do you know I made seven loaves of bread in the last four days? Not that it wasn’t worth it, but dude, that’s a lot of bread!

So we hosted people during the days, and I spent the evenings playing in Azeroth, seeing what there is to be seen, and working on my pet project of becoming well loved by all the goblins.

Which I did manage around nine o’clock last night. – YaY!

It’s been a trip, for sure. I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to go for the 35 Exalted Reputations achievement (I was at 30), and figured that since I was already honored with all four Steamwheedle Cartel factions, it would be easiest to grind for them – after all, you get multiple reps at the same time, so essentially it’s one grind for all four factions. I killed pirates in Ratchett until Revered*, and then stocked up on bolts of Runecloth and rugged leather, and headed for Dire Maul to do the Free Knot quest. Which was removed from the game on Tuesday. Which was super annoying, considering that if I made an ogre suit each time I went, it was 450 rep all around for each run.

So back to killing pirates. Just for the record? Killing pirates gets old pretty fast. And also, they removed the ones in Ratchett. (Well, they may as well have – they moved them, spun down their numbers, and timed the respawn to the speed of suck.) I decided at some point that I would go kill Venture Company employees in STV (they give you all four reps), but there just weren’t very many of them, and the spawn time was super slow. And people were questing there – after the second time I accidentally took out the lvl 30 gnome mage with Starfall, I felt too guilty to hang around.

That’s when I decided to see if I’d missed any quests – Best Plan Ever. First and foremost, I love exploring in Azeroth – it’s the best part of the game for me – so I was already starting to ride around collecting flight points.  I turned on tracking for low-level quests, put on my Bilgewater Cartel tabard and queued up for randoms, and dropped in everywhere that goblins live to see what I had left behind.

I hadn’t left a whole lot, to be honest, but  I did leave some. And there were new Bilgewater quests to do that were super fun! I bombed and dropped life jackets from a hot air balloon in Tanaris. I checked out a secret lab and helped put out the fire there. I went for a ride on the rocket highway in Azshara and got a surprise achieve in the process**.
I saw the boat where the Raceway used to be in Shimmering Flats (where Shimmering Flats used to be – whoa!) and had a little chill up my spine.

Lastly I headed for Booty Bay, to see if there were any quests I hadn’t done there – when I was leveling I decided that I would do all the Booty Bay Quests in order to level faster***, so I wasn’t sure what would be left. Turns out there were a scant handful – some of them might even have been added since the Shattering patch.

That’s when I got in good with the pirates – lol whoops.

I had to kill a cow, steal its head, and put an oversized pirate hat on it. For reals.

Somehow without realizing it, I managed to get on a quest chain that gave me a buff called Piracy and had to swab decks for the Bloodsail! And hurl cannonballs from a rowboat at Venture Company oil riggers!**** And at the end of the long chain Booty Bay gets attacked by pirates, and it was up to me (little old me!), through a bombing quest and some direct killings, to save the town – ZOMG SO COOL!

And that’s how I got the goblins to loff me.
***

*Pirates in the zone you are killing them in only give rep for places you are not, after revered. For example, I killed pirates in Ratchett until revered, and then started to only get rep for the kills in Gadgetzan, Booty Bay, and Everlook. When killing pirates in Booty Bay, I only got rep for the kills in Gadgetzan, Ratchett, and Everlook. See the problem there?
**This is SO MUCH FUN. Start at the north terminal and ride it all the way to the end – it’s osm! Even better than the floom ride in Grizzly Hills (which is also super fun, btw).
***This was on a PvE server, for the record.
****Ok, Chuck – I found the start of this sucker (and I’ll repost on the guild site too). You pick up a quest from “Sea Wolf” McKinley and when you’re done with that, you can get the quest line to open up by talking to First Mate Crazz. When you hit the sixth link in the chain, you have to go do the Bloodsail quests (on their boats – you also get to hunt ninjas!) before you lose the Piracy Buff.