I logged into World of Warcraft last night and I wasn’t on but a few minutes when I received a message from a friend of mine I met in my ex-guild:

“You wanna run Onyxia’s Lair?”

I logged on determined to level my mining but he said, “Come ON, it will be fun!” so I said, “Sure…why not? I’m on my way”. It was just the two of us…two Level 80 Death Knights. He realized Ventrilio was still working from the ex-guild so we hopped on.

I arrived and he started with the instructions on what was going to happen, what to do, what to avoid, etc. I had been in Ony’s lair before but I was with an 80 Paladin and Druid…more along for the ride than anything else. I was so excited to be there the first time I remember her throwing me back and going up in the air where I couldn’t hit her. He was well aware of my instance shyness (okay, fear) but kind of forgot as he was telling me my instructions. I gave a nervous laugh and he laughed…said it was going to be fine.

He was tanking and ironically I had one hell of a critical strike right when he did an Obliterate. What that means is that I hit for a lot of damage, drew aggro away from him, and I couldn’t heal myself because no diseases were on Ony because the Obliterate wiped them all away. I died, and that caused him to die. We ran back, no worries about the wipe, and went at her again. This time she fell and I squealed with delight.

And laughed.
And clapped my hands.
And squealed some more.
And laughed some more.

He couldn’t help but laugh because I was so happy. He kept saying he couldn’t believe I was THAT happy. I told him I couldn’t put into words how happy I was. He was so glad I was happy he said, “Well, what else can we do?” and I said, “He asks the chick that doesn’t run instances” and he came up with Zul’Gurub. I heard of it but I didn’t know where it was. He said go to Stranglethorn Vale, amazed that I was “that much” of an instance noob.

He had not done the instance in years, didn’t really remember what happened with the bosses so we were winging it. We didn’t finish because it was late, he had to go, we started horsing around as we wiped – but we had a great time. It was EXACTLY what I needed. We both screwed up and died but the world didn’t come to an end. One time he aggro’d about 10 mobs. Another time we killed a boss and out of no where something like 20 mobs (spiders I think) came at us. My ghoul, on passive, was feared into some mobs. We were feared or knocked back into mobs – it was hilarious and fun. He was eating muffins, took pictures and showed them to me while we waited for diseases to wear off. We sincerely had a blast.

I conquered my last demon from 2008. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I see my weak points and I came up with a plan to improve my play style. In the oddest of circumstances I met what seems like a good friend in World of Warcraft. He was patient and understanding of my fear while he teased and joked with me keeping it light. Towards the end I was plotting strategies “We should knock out those mobs then I can bring out the ghoul and gargoyle without worrying about fears…”.

I’m happy. Thank you Brett…you’re the best!

Completely cheesy but I have tears in my eyes writing this. I’m that damn happy and this happened about seven hours ago. Tyme White…ran an instance…and pvp’d, and I’m level 80, and I have my first purple piece of gear…