I was sitting in raid chat on Ventrilo last night listening to the raid group wipe at AQ40 (I'm not elite enough for Molten Core...much less AQ40). They were having a tough time getting too far in and were getting frustrated. After their final wipe against very tough opposition the party disbanded. Some logged of other discussed doing other things or the ever popular “What do you want to do now” banter. I stayed listening through my headset since I like to chat with other members of the guild alliance I don’t normally have contact with. As I am sitting there, mainly eavesdropping, I hear the beginnings of an insidious plot. Someone makes what I think is a mad suggestion..."Let's raid Undercity". What!?!?

     I sat there not believing my ears. I am equally surprised to the fact that several people are chiming in support for this mad venture. I continued to listen as members of the guild alliance start figuring out the details. How many players do we need, how will we get in, what do we do when we get there, that sort of thing. They decided they needed a group of about 20 and enter the city from the back. After only a little more discussion they decided to attack the very throne room of Undercity. And we were not only going to kill the bosses but the Battle Masters as well. This means the hordies couldn't get into PVP queue until he respawned! This was hilarious! I sat listening for about 10 minutes as they gathered players together and making finally arrangements.

     I was already in EPL (Eastern Plague Lands) and just a very short run/flight to South Shore, where they had decided to meet. I couldn’t resist any longer. “Can Fur (my character) come along?” I asked. Most people didn’t even realize I was there since this was the first time I had spoken since I logged in an hour and a half earlier. Ryn piped up and said “Sure” and I started to get excited.  I soon got an invite to join the raid group and started my run/flight to South Shore. I met up with the rest of the group, around 17-20 of us from GA, and we made a long run/swim through several areas I had never been before. This is despite the fact I have been playing WOW since HOUR 1 and this character is lvl 60. We laughed as we came across several low lvl mobs that inhabit the area. It was either Ryn or Claire who laughingly said “OH NO A MORLOC!” and several others chimed in comical warning of such a terrible foe.  Someone one-shotted it and we all laughed.

     We snuck into the city via a back entrance through the sewer system. Luckily one of the members knew their way around the tunnels and warned us not to get into the water that was in the area. I am not sure what would happen if my character had jumped/fallen in but was assured that that was “bad”. We stopped short of our first obstacle, one of the big undead guards, and got a quick explanation of what/where we needed to go. I was surprised we wipeout what little resistance there was very quickly and encountered no real players in our way. I saw a couple of low lvl players but I think they were stunned to see that many Alliance player in the heart of there undead city.

     The Deathguard Elite that guarded the hallway that connected the throne room to the rest of the city were tougher than those we had previously encountered. There was a little work involved in dispatching them. We reached the doorway to the throne room and looked in to see a lot of heavy hitters. We also started encountering bits of horde players trying to attack us from the rear. Some ran in and around us but were not attacking for fear of being flagged for PVP and summarily wiped out. But none were a match for our numbers and skill and were forced to try and make us chase them into more Deathguard.

     From just outside the doorway we tried pulling one of the bosses and pulled the half the room…..that was bad. When I say “bad” I mean that I looked down at my keyboard for a split second to make sure I had my finger on the right keys and when I looked back at the screen I was DEAD!

     We all wiped and released for the run back. Since we were ghost this time we were able to take the short route and enter the city through the front door. Our leader (don’t remember who was in charge) told us to wait to res all at the same time. If we resurrected one at a time the guards that had respawned would make quick work of us. Ryn had a hard time finding here way back and several tried to give here directions but I believe someone finally had to go get her. So on a countdown, we all resed and opened up with everything we had to kill of the Deathguard. I again noticed several horde players running in and out but none were flagged for PVP so we couldn’t attack them till they attacked us. Yea that is a stupid policy when you are in an enemy city but hey what can you do.

     We rethought our plans and this time was able to pull the Frostwolf Emissary. We took him out without too much trouble. And again low lvl horde player would come up behind us an attempt to attack us from behind. Most would shoot then run out of site. They were attempting to get us to run into the respawned Deathguard Elite. But those that got too close were toast. We were about to make another pull when again half the room came at us.  We died. Not pretty. If I remember correctly one of the other hunters hadn’t put his pet on passive. When one of the horde players in the throne room shot him his pet charged into the room and agroed everything. We again made the run back and waited for mass res.

     This time we noticed several more horde players running around but most were low enough lvl that we weren’t concerned. We resed and setup for the next pull. There was a low lvl warlock in the throne room whose imp familiar was becoming very annoying. It would set in the door to the throne room and hit players with fireballs. We killed it and a minute later it was back.

     We then decided to go for the horde’s Battlemaster. We pulled him from the room and it was like a sea of death welling up from the pits of hell. There were Deathguard Elite everywhere as well as the Battlemaster. We were hitting them with every AOE we could muster. The chicken horde players were waiting for use engage the bosses, then attacking us while we were occupied with more important matters. They never tried to attack use face to face except when we were fighting gobs of Deathguard Elite. We got the Battlemaster down to about 30-35% before we wiped. Being pleased with ourselves that we were doing as well as we were we decided it was still time to call it quits.

     When we showed back up to res our bodies we discovered that not only had the Deathguard Elite respawned but now the area was heavily populated with horde players hoping to make easy targets of newly resed Alliance players. This was bad….Several of the horde players were lvl 60 and would no doubt be hard to bring down. That and the real problem, the Deathguard, made this a sticky situation. We waited a few minutes hoping the enemy players would get bored. But after a quick discussion we figure out that as long as our bodies didn’t turn to skeletons, they would know we hadn’t taken the safe res and would have to come  back. So were took a chance on a wild gambit. When we all resurrected, one of the mages would try and open a portal to Ironforge. Once it was open then he would let us know and we would try and port out. This would have to happen fast before what little life we had after res was taken by the horde. I took a deep breath, watched the countdown, then clicked the resurrect button. The room exploded in spells, clanging, and mayhem. I heard in my headset “It’s open!” and turned to see the shimmering portal just behind me. I, as well as the rest of my brave group, clicked the portal as fast as we could. The next thing I see I am standing in Ironforge in a clump of other raiders who had made their escape as I had.

     We quickly checked to make sure no one had been left behind. Though if they were I'm not sure what we would have done. It seemed everyone made it out safe. I thanked everyone for letting me come along and what a blast I had. I ran to a vendor and did a repair. 3gold, 85silver, not bad for that much fun. The sentiment was shared by all those who attended and no one complained about the repair bill. And we thought, we did really well with only 18 people, what if we brought a full 40?……