Ever since Gabryell posted videos of himself solo farming The Deadmines and The Stockade on the Azeroth Community Forums, more and more max-level Mages had started doing the same for gold.
Newer players who ran into them soon began asking for boosts.
Before long, an entire boosting market had sprung up around the two dungeons.
The Deadmines was quieter, but The Stockade had become insanely popular. Even without carrying anyone, a Mage could pull in around 20 gold an hour there.
It wasn't a fortune, but for a solo farm at the time, it was solid money.
"Mages are getting greedy as hell. People are charging three gold for one Stockade run now."
Gabryell had spent the entire day getting his four alts to level 50.
He was about to ask Coldhands for his account when he noticed people in guild chat discussing Mage boosts.
"Yeah. I was thinking about leveling an alt too, but three gold a run? At that point I might as well go grind mobs myself."
"Three gold isn't expensive. You want the Mage to spend his time boosting you for free?"
"Exactly. If he isn't making anything off it, why would he carry strangers through Stockades instead of farming for himself?"
"A 60-day game card costs thirty bucks. Everyone here is already paying real money just to play. If a Mage is spending hours boosting other people instead of farming for himself, of course he's going to charge."
"Looks like there are two prices now. Three gold if the Mage keeps the loot, five if you get everything. I'm broke, so three it is."
This was still the era of prepaid game cards.
As far as Gabryell was concerned, anyone charging only three gold a run was practically doing charity work.
If someone wasn't willing to pay even that much, there was no reason a Mage should waste his own time carrying them for free.
Five gold with full looting rights wasn't bad either.
The Stockade was easy to clear, and anyone diligent enough to loot everything could recover a decent chunk of the cost just from vendor trash.
He opened his friends list.
Coldhands was online in Maraudon.
"Any luck yet?"
He wasn't farming the purple-entrance-and-waterfall route. That method was still something Gabryell wanted to keep quiet for now.
Instead, he was farming Princess Theradras, still trying to make her cough up the Blade of Eternal Darkness.
Apparently he hadn't reached her yet, because the reply came almost immediately.
"I've killed her dozens of times and she still won't give it up. I'm staying here until she drops the damn Blade."
No standards whatsoever.
At this point, Coldhands would romance anything with a loot table if it could drop the Blade of Eternal Darkness.
Dozens of runs were nothing anyway.
For an account that had already seen the dagger drop once, the next one might take another thousand runs.
Or two thousand.
"Stop farming for a bit. I need your account."
"You want the account, or should I throw myself in too?"
"I need it to level my alts."
"How?"
"I'll give you my Mage alt, you lend me your Mage, and we'll run Stratholme."
Gabryell didn't mind showing him the two-Mage setup.
For most players at the time, controlling two characters properly might as well have been impossible. Plenty were still clicking half their abilities with the mouse and barely used keybinds.
And that was before hardware became a problem.
Most PCs struggled enough with one WoW client.
Running two could turn the game into a slideshow.
"Can your PC handle two WoW clients at once?"
That was the real problem.
If Coldhands's machine couldn't handle it, there wasn't much point teaching him the setup.
"Probably. I used to run two Ultima Online clients."
"And did it lag?"
Ultima Online was an old 2D game.
That told Gabryell almost nothing about whether the computer could handle two copies of World of Warcraft.
"A little, but it was playable."
Yeah.
That answer wasn't promising.
"How old is your computer? What are the specs?"
"Bought it a little over two years ago. No idea what's inside it."
Dead end.
"Forget it. Just lend me the account. Once my alt hits 60, I'll show you how to solo farm Scarlet Monastery instead."
That was the next-best option.
Nobody was selling Scarlet Monastery boosts yet, but the dungeon covered much of the 30–40 leveling range, so plenty of Alliance players still ran it normally.
Most max-level Horde players were busy farming their own gear and had little reason to travel all the way there just to gank lowbies.
If Coldhands learned the route early, he could become the first Mage selling boosts there.
It would probably make more money than farming the Zul'Farrak graveyard too.
"I'll send you the login over MSN."
"Good. That's how you should do it. Doesn't matter how well you know someone—always verify first."
The extra caution made sense.
Sending the information through MSN gave him a second way to confirm that whoever was on Gabryell's WoW account was actually Gabryell. If the game account itself had been compromised, a thief wouldn't automatically have access to that separate conversation.
A moment later, MSN chimed.
Gabryell Alt-Tabbed out.
Coldhands's dog avatar was flashing.
"Sending it now."
One last check.
If someone else had been controlling the WoW account, they wouldn't have known what the message was referring to.
"Send it. Once my alt hits 60, you can go back to dating the Princess."
That was enough.
The login details came through.
Then Gabryell saw the password.
citwmhg
He started laughing.
"What kind of password is that?"
A laughing emoticon appeared.
"Coldhands is the world's most handsome guy."
"Obviously. Just stating facts."
Gabryell sent back a smile.
"I'll be done in a day at most. If you've got nothing else to do today, make another account and roll an alt."
"Why? One character is enough work already."
"We'll be running more guild raids later. Having a few alts will give you more options."
He deliberately left out the GDKP part.
Aside from Gabryell himself, Coldhands was probably the fastest gold farmer in the game right now.
Put someone like that into a GDKP run and he would almost certainly become one of the biggest spenders.
That finally got his attention.
"Fine. I'll make a Hunter later."
With the account in hand, Gabryell logged in, used the Hearthstone to bring the character back, and headed for Stratholme.
The two-Mage route started at the back entrance and worked its way through the left side toward the front.
Each run gave roughly 18,000 to 20,000 experience.
The most efficient setup used three Mages and one Hunter, which could squeeze out a few thousand more XP per run.
The problem was that nobody knew how to run Stratholme that way yet.
Gabryell was confident he could pull nearly everything the route allowed and keep each run above 20,000 experience.
And XP wasn't the only reason to do it.
There was loot too.
Stratholme's mobs were high enough level to drop valuable gear, and landing even one or two good bind-on-equip pieces could be worth an entire day of gold farming.
Since the setup needed two Mages, only three spots remained for boosted characters.
For now, he logged Hugo's alt out.
His own Mage would hit 60 first.
Then he could come back for Hugo's Druid.
The three level-50 alts followed his Mage to Stratholme's back entrance.
Quite a few players were gathered outside, mostly max-level characters farming the undead side.
Seeing three level-50 characters heading through the back entrance immediately drew attention.
"Holy shit. Are those guys level 50? They're actually going into Strat?"
"They're insane. If they make it past the first pack, I'll eat my boots."
Everyone assumed the three low-level characters were clueless players who had wandered into Stratholme without understanding what they were getting themselves into.
Nobody considered another possibility.
Once inside, Gabryell used his Mage to open the gate.
Frost Nova.
The first pack locked in place.
He ran into the small chapel, jumped onto the candelabra, and waited for combat to drop.
The mobs followed him as far as the chapel entrance and stopped there.
While they were stuck, he switched over to Coldhands's Mage, slipped inside, and parked the character somewhere safe.
Once the trash reset, Gabryell jumped down from the candelabra and moved toward the entrance of the left passage.
The setup was ready.
His first dual-Mage Stratholme run was about to begin.