In a single day, Gabryell had leveled three alts to 60.
That kind of leveling speed was absurd.
At this point, he was probably the only player in the game who could pull it off.
Now that he had another level-60 Mage available, he returned Coldhands's account.
The show-off had already used the downtime to make a Hunter alt named RiddenRider.
"Tell me that name isn't perfect. Rider and ridden, all in one."
Coldhands was smug as hell.
After Onyxia had turned the tables and ridden him instead, he had decided to immortalize the humiliation in his Hunter's name.
Gabryell ignored the chuunibyou clown and headed for the Ironforge Auction House to list everything valuable he had farmed that day.
He had even lucked into a BoE epic—the second one he had ever seen while solo farming, after Gut Ripper from his Zul'Farrak graveyard runs.
Lucky?
Hardly.
He had farmed more than ten thousand gold and seen exactly two BoE epics.
At this point, he was starting to wonder whether his account had some hidden bad-luck modifier.
"A few hundred gold for this should be fair."
He listed the epic necklace.
Jeweled Amulet of Cainwyn (Epic)
Binds when equipped
Necklace
+18 Intellect
+10 Spirit
+8 Stamina
Requires Level 55
With three useful stats and a hefty amount of Intellect, it was a solid necklace for casters.
Mages and Warlocks who didn't have Star of Mystaria could make good use of it, and it was perfectly serviceable for healers who hadn't found a better dungeon neck yet.
Besides the necklace, he had picked up several blue BoEs and listed those as well.
Two Traveler's Backpacks had dropped too.
He equipped both immediately.
Now all four of his bag slots held 16-slot bags.
Controlling two Mages and farming all day had been exhausting.
Once everything was listed, he logged off to rest.
"Going out for another all-nighter?"
It was Saturday, so none of them had class the next day.
Judging by Carlos's clothes, he was clearly getting ready to spend another night at the internet café.
Carlos finished putting on his shoes.
"They want to try again, so I'm going with them one more time."
By "they," he meant the guild members.
ServerHeals was organizing another Molten Core progression run.
In fact, he had already led two groups that day.
The afternoon group had wiped until the raid fell apart.
"We're going too."
Igor and Hugo had spent all day listening to people in guild chat talk about how brutal Molten Core was.
Eventually, they couldn't resist trying it themselves.
"Go ahead. If you can't take it, come back and sleep."
Gabryell was starting to wonder whether all these all-nighters would eventually kill the three of them.
Then again, they were young.
One or two more probably wouldn't finish them off.
"You're still not coming with us?" Carlos asked.
He shook his head.
"The guild's official progression raid is Tuesday. That's when I'm going."
"Flasks, elixirs, and everything else cost a fortune, and I'm running low on gold. I need the next two or three days to farm enough that we don't run short once progression starts."
Carlos sighed.
"Too bad we can't take some of the load off you. The three of us are terrible at making gold."
Gabryell smiled.
"Your alts are already 60. Mess around with them tomorrow and see what you can farm."
He wasn't expecting much.
All three of them together probably couldn't match what he could farm by himself.
Carlos, Hugo, and Igor headed out for another all-nighter, leaving him alone in the dorm room.
As he shut down his computer, he thought back to the afternoon raid.
"ServerHeals did pretty well today. I could let him lead the second raid team later."
He had listened in on part of the run, and the guy had done a solid job leading it.
The real problem was the roster.
Player quality varied wildly, and a large part of the raid was so undergeared that they could barely contribute inside Molten Core.
With half the group badly undergeared, the result had been easy to predict.
They had done even worse than the group from the night before, wiping for three hours before finally calling it.
The new group ServerHeals had put together was different.
Most of them were the same players who had gone in the previous night.
With that experience behind them, there was a real chance they could bring down at least one of the entrance giants.
Even one kill would be progress.
Molten Core trash could drop BoE Tier 1 belts and bracers, so there was always a chance they would walk away with something valuable.
If one actually dropped, it would be a huge payoff regardless of the class.
Of course, without DKP in place, everyone would probably fight over it like crazy.
Gabryell just hoped one piece of gear wouldn't be enough to start guild drama.
"Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself."
Probably.
First they had to kill the giant.
With their luck, they'd probably get nothing but vendor trash anyway.
He slept straight through until morning.
When he woke up, Carlos, Hugo, and Igor were already back and dead asleep, catching up on everything they had missed overnight.
He left them alone and logged into the game.
"Scum, how'd you guys do last night?"
DeathScum was online.
He had gone with the overnight progression group and apparently had no intention of sleeping anytime soon.
"We got the giant down to 17%. Seventeen! We almost had it."
So much for Gabryell's worries the night before.
"It felt like we were just missing a little damage," DeathScum continued. "If our DPS had been slightly higher, I think we would've killed it."
For a loosely assembled raid with a far-from-ideal composition, getting an entrance giant down to 17% was already impressive.
Molten Core was brutally unforgiving when a raid lacked gear, coordination, or damage.
"I heard Madhouse killed both giants."
"They did," DeathScum said. "But they got stuck on the trash right after that and couldn't push any farther. Wiped another ten or twelve times, then called it."
That didn't surprise him.
One of the worst things about Molten Core was the sheer amount of trash.
It felt like seventy or eighty percent of the raid was spent clearing mobs.
And it never seemed to end.
Once Zul'Gurub opened, plenty of players would lose interest in MC altogether.
The place was long, tedious, and packed with trash.
Without Thunderfury dangling in front of them, even fewer people would keep coming back week after week.
Madhouse was already showing why it had become Tichondrius's top guild in Gabryell's previous life.
Right now, they were the only guild that had made it past both entrance giants.
Halalei, Freedom, Westreach, War Angels, and the other major guilds were still stuck there.
He hadn't checked the Horde guilds yet, but he doubted any of them had made it farther than Madhouse.
"At this pace, they probably won't even see Lucifron for another two resets."
Madhouse might need another two raid lockouts just to reach the first boss.
The bigger danger was taking the wrong path—ignoring the bridge on the left and pushing straight toward Gehennas instead.
"It's time to start preparing for MC."
There were still three days left.
That was enough time to stock up on consumables for progression.
Gabryell had already promised that the guild would cover everything used during official attempts.
He wasn't about to turn around and make the raiders pay for it themselves.
Three days should be enough.
For Fearless's first progression reset, he wanted them to reach Lucifron at the very least.
If things went well, they would kill him and move on to Magmadar.
"Let's start small."
"We kill Lucifron this reset."
"If that goes well, we take a shot at Magmadar."
It was a realistic goal.
A raid reset lasted an entire week.
And with someone who already knew the content guiding Fearless's core team, Gabryell had no intention of settling for less.