I've been camping the TLPD for the last week.
By "camping," I mean sitting over the frozen lake at Bor's Breath with my NPC-Scan/Overlay running, WITHOUT moving, every waking minute of the day. By "camping," I mean avoiding sleep in order to be up at ridiculous morning hours when I have a better chance to be alone. I've been SEARCHING for months, but truly camping for this last week.
Even on a fairly empty realm (Nagrand EU), there are people coming and going, and I've gotten to know a few of the other campers. I've gotten two guildmates their Skolls--one of them had wanted one for ages, both were very happy to get him. I've killed four Vyragosas and seen two more killed while watching their exact flight patterns. I've then waited patiently for the half hour for her corpse to despawn before dutifully relogging to delete my cache. I've also been keeping a log of the sightings. I've learned that being stubborn and refusing to relinquish my camp spot to others--sharing it instead--is the only way to stop myself from being forced to move every couple of minutes. I've learned that I have it in me to heartlessly kill someone who turns up PvP-flagged and refuses to move. I've been using the Eagle Eye chain macro to quickly check through all of Storm Peaks for my spawns.
I've named some of the trees here; the snow-covered pines at the north of the lake have a nice family with well-behaved kids. And whenever I tell anyone that, they leave me alone quickish
I've spent hours and hours sifting through TLPD forums--the Resource site and Ponderance's forums, the Wowhead pages, WoWiki/WoWpedia info, Petopia forums, EU Hunter forums and more. I've spent hours and hours playing a mirrored Robot Unicorn Attack and the heavy metal version, both addictive but loud enough to possibly obscure NPC-Scan's drums, and thus I keep them windowed above where my alert would flash.I've also learned which of my fellow campers are friendly sorts, and which are jerks--there's a lot more nice than mean. I've had random people whisper me telling me they've seen me sitting there, that I must really deserve this mount and that they wish me luck/have their fingers crossed for me.
I've also had that horrible moment. I waited 20 hours awake, maybe 24, before finally crashing and going to bed one night--and some randomer casually told me they'd seen the TLPD corpse over the Engine of the Makers not a half hour after I'd gone to bed. I physically felt ill.
I've gotten to the point where I'm keeping out specific pets, specific mini-pets or using specific mounts in the hope that one is a good-luck charm. I'm sloooowly starting to lose it out here... So cold-looking, pale and dismal. It's depressing but I'm stubborn, and either I'll go nuts or find this damn drake!
The worst part? ...I don't even really like it. I'm a mount collector and I couldn't find a "correct" camel statue in Uldum--got three duds--and figured I'd try this. And now it's a moral imperative. I'd sworn after Gondria (who I named Nightmare and later abandoned because of the bad camp memories) that I'd never do this again, yet here I am.
Wish me luck, because apparently those bastard Old Gods are sinking their dirty claws into my mind while I sit here, and I'd rather not stay too much longer...
Vyragosas Seen: 9
I'll keep you updated!
