There’s something you need to understand about my people, and that’s that we have lived for a very long time in flat places. The idea of something that moves up and down rather than side-to-side is pretty exciting for us.

So when we started gathering together in larger camps, and learning about engineering from the goblins and orcs, pretty much the first thing we built was an elevator.

It was a hit. Up until then the most exciting view we could manage was climbing the totem pole when granny the fire-keeper wasn’t looking. Now we could see for, oh gosh, a couple of fields at least!

The elders weren’t at all sure if looking at more than one field of grass at a time was entirely within the Tauren national spirit, but the goblins told us that nothing can stop the Spirit of Progress. So while a lot of the elder Tauren went off to look for the Spirit of Progress and give it a good thrashing about the ears, the rest of us started building elevators everywhere we could find room.

If you are a Tauren coming to Thunder Bluff from the country, the elevators are the first thing you see, but you don’t need me to tell you that, because by the time you’ve bought a copy of this journal you will have spent all morning, and likely a picnic lunchtime, riding up and down in one and then waiting with nostril-flaring impatience to do it again in different ways, getting into charging contests with your cousins to see who gets to go next.

If you’re not a Tauren, and you’ve come to Thunder Bluff to see the lovely Mulgore countryside, you should buy a copy of this journal to read because you will be waiting in an elevator queue with your fellow Hordists for a long time. Let me offer you some advice:

When an empty elevator finally becomes available, let the orcs go first. Bless their hearts, they are as capable of queuing as the rest of us but when the elevator (or bat, or airship) arrives they get a bit excited and it’s all pushing and shoving and BY GROM and FOR THE WARCHIEF. Half of them will just run right out the other side and end up falling onto the picnicking elevator-tourists below anyway, so there will be lots of room when they’re done.

Do not get into an argument with the Mulgore Watchers over the wait or the fare; they don’t give a runny cow-pat about tourists. If you are extremely officious and must absolutely make your every discomfort and inconvenience known to those around you at all times, firstly how is your family in Silvermoon? — and second, you may address your complaint to the Council of Civil Grandmothers on the Elder Rise. These lovely and not-at-all foul-tempered persons can be found sitting around the eastern cookfire and knitting, and they traditionally will get up and go nagging anti-social Tauren who aren’t living up to their expectations. Going through the interrogations they give outsiders who complain about our behaviour will in no way make you want to jump over the side of the bluff.

Actually, you know, jumping over the side of the bluff isn’t a bad alternative to waiting for us to get bored of using the elevators.

Next time: How to Rent a Kodo, and Where to Stay in Bloodhoof Village.