Thrifty-lynne and Iron-lynne had not been in Anvilmar long when the big earthquakes happened. As the dwarves scrambled to set their holdings to rights, the troggs attacked more fiercely than ever before. The Mountaineers hurried to evacuate the farmers and craftsmen to the security of the Anvilmar town hall. The trogg numbers were so overwhelming, however, that they gratefully allowed any who had a desire or aptitude for combat to help. The troggs were enraged — the earthquakes had collapsed their caves, too, and they blamed the dwarves.
Presently, the twins received Consecrated Runes from Bromos Grummner, a local Paladin. He invited them to learn more of the Light from him. Koral accepted this training eagerly, but Karol shook her head, saying, “Ah, sister, ye know that I haven’t a head for book-learning.”
The older threat of the Frostmane trolls, whose battle with the dwarves for supremacy over Dun Morogh had long idled in stalemate, could not be forgotten, either. Unlike the troggs, the trolls seemed to be more bewildered than angry. The twins felt rather bad about killing the trolls at first, when they realized that the caves in Coldridge Valley were essentially the Frostmanes’ nursery.
I knew that “whelp” meant “offspring/cub/puppy”, but I somehow never realized before how very tiny the Frostmane Whelps are. In size, they truly are Troll children…
But trolls that were small would soon grow up into trolls that were tall. The troll youth training under Grik’nir were certainly a more worthy foe.
After a couple of weeks, the fighting with the troggs and the trolls dropped off into a lull. The leaders of Anvilmar decided that this would be a good time to send the twins back to Ironforge with a request for more supplies and other support.
The twins’ gear does not yet differ because the quest rewards at level 5 are all still white and stat-less. Koral, with access to the Seal of Righteousness and Judgement, was noticeably more powerful than Karol. Karol’s fights with Grik’nir and the rogue fire elemental were close battles, whereas Koral easily overwhelmed them.
It occurs to me that the most difficult aspect of the Thrifty challenge, not training any new abilities, will essentially become obsolete in 5.0, when new spells will be automatically learned in the field at level-up, without having to go back to a city to visit a trainer. It will still be possible to level spec/talent-less, in Ironman fashion, and that challenge will probably become more or less difficult on a class-wise basis, depending upon how abilities are shifted between being baseline and spec-specific.
Given how long it’s taken me just to get the twins out of Coldridge Valley and on to Kharanos, and the number of other projects/distractions I’m working on, they might be lucky to get to level 20 by the time 5.0 hits. In the meantime, I don’t know to what extent I’ll feel like keeping up an RP-type story about them, but when I do play with them, I’ll continue to post my observations about the similarities and differences between the two challenge playstyles.
Kamalia et alia 