Here I was, finally hitting level 50. The grind had been long, but now I was on the cusp of greatness, or at least a cool new mount. The guild was oddly quiet for a Saturday morning. Only a few familiar names blinked online: Aramai, our resident badass, and Charize, my in-game Ma.
Let me tell you about Charize. She was an elderly gnome mage with a sharp, sarcastic wit that could cut through the toughest plate armor. She could roast anyone with a one-liner, and her sense of humor was about as dry as a dwarf’s ale mug after a night in Ironforge. Naturally, I adopted her as my in-game Ma. Her hilarious quips made her impossible not to love. Plus, she had that “wise old gnome” vibe down to a science.
As we were sitting around, Aramai piped up, “Why don’t we start the Un’Goro Crater quests? Good XP and the place is… interesting.”
Now, for the uninitiated, Un’Goro Crater is like stepping into the Jurassic Park of Azeroth. It’s this wild, untamed jungle in Kalimdor, filled with ancient creatures, terrifying plants, and mysterious crystals sticking out of the ground. You’ve got dinosaurs wandering about like it’s some prehistoric paradise, along with giant bugs that just love to make your life miserable. Think thick jungle, vines everywhere, and a whole lot of what the hell is that? moments.
Aramai had her own fondness for the place, probably because it was one of those zones where you couldn’t go two steps without getting jumped by some enormous lizard. “It’s good for leveling,” she said. Sure, if getting chased by raptors every two minutes counts as good.
Charize wasn’t convinced. “I’m not exactly in the mood to get eaten by oversized lizards, darling,” she deadpanned. But being the trooper she was, she finally agreed to tag along. So off we went, the three of us: Aramai with her no-nonsense attitude, Charize with her biting sarcasm, and me, eager to see what kind of ridiculous adventures we’d stumble into next.
The journey to Un’Goro was filled with banter, mostly involving Charize cursing at every wild animal that tried to take a bite out of her robe. And then we arrived.
Un’Goro Crater unfolded before us, with its lush green landscapes, towering cliffs, and of course, the terrifying roar of dinosaurs echoing in the distance. We hadn’t even made it ten steps before a giant pterodactyl swooped down from the sky, screeching like it had just spotted a tasty gnome for dinner.
“Great,” Charize muttered. “It’s a bloody buffet, and I’m the main course.”
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Aramai, ever the optimist, chimed in, “This is perfect. Loads of XP. We’ll level in no time.”
After fighting off some raptors and marveling at the sheer absurdity of the place, we decided to take on one of the local quests: Chasing A-Me 01, which sounded simple enough. All we had to do was fix a mechanical gorilla. Easy, right? Well, not quite.
As it turns out, finding the mechanical parts was only half the battle. The other half? A seemingly endless army of real gorillas, charging at us from every direction. And what was I doing in the middle of this primate chaos? Skinning them like a madwoman, that’s what. Every time one hit the ground, I was on it faster than you could say “gorilla leather.”
“Why are you skinning them all?” Charize asked, dodging a gorilla’s swipe.
“Because it’s free loot, Ma!” I shot back, skinning yet another one as it hit the dirt.
Aramai laughed, watching me frantically click on every fallen beast. “You’re going to make a fortune off these hides.”
“Or be buried under a pile of them,” Charize quipped, casting Frostbolt at yet another charging gorilla. “Either way, we’ll have stories to tell.”
After what felt like hours of fighting and skinning, we finally repaired A-Me and sent her on her way. The quest was done, but we weren’t. Because that’s when we stumbled across the legendary Un’Goro Disco.
As we wandered deeper into the crater, killing random beasts and avoiding anything that looked like it could squish us, we stumbled across a cave. Now, caves in Azeroth usually mean one of two things: treasure or a gruesome death. But this one? It was completely empty. No quests, no monsters, no danger—just a quiet, serene cavern filled with multicolored crystals.
Aramai and I walked in and stood there, taking in the sight of glowing crystals shimmering in the low light. It was oddly mesmerizing. There was something about the way the colors danced on the walls that got to us, and before I knew it, Aramai did a /dance emote.
Not one to pass up a good opportunity, I jumped in too, typing disco inferno into party chat, and before long, I was furiously typing out the lyrics to the song.
“Burn baby burn, disco inferno!” I typed, while Aramai’s character twirled and grooved. The two of us stood there, in an empty cave, surrounded by glowing crystals, dancing like idiots to music no one else could hear.
Charize stood at the entrance, watching us with the kind of expression a tired parent reserves for their hyperactive children. “You two need help,” she said, but I could tell she was holding back a chuckle.
We continued our impromptu disco party for a solid five minutes, spinning, twirling, and typing out lyrics until our fingers hurt. The absurdity of it all made it even better—there we were, in the middle of Un’Goro Crater, surrounded by dinosaurs, and what did we do? We found an empty cave and threw a virtual dance party.
Eventually, we stopped, partly because we were laughing too hard to keep typing and partly because a giant gorilla decided it didn’t like our dance moves and charged at us from outside the cave.
“That’s our cue,” I said, and we legged it out of the cave, barely dodging the angry primate as we made our way back into the jungle.
It may not have been the most dangerous adventure, but that empty cave in Un’Goro? That was our disco.