The server will restart in 0:15 seconds

You ever been logged in to WoW when they're taking the servers down?

Tuesday mornings. Planned maintenance. You're vaguely aware that a restart is coming, but you're merrily involved with your questing or grinding or whatever.

Then you get that rude awakening.

The server will restart in 15:00 minutes.

Now your sense of urgency kicks in. You start to quest a little faster. You start pulling more mobs a little bit more recklessly.

With each passing minute-long tick, your heartbeat increases, your sense of urgency heightens.

Then the real fun. At the 5 minute mark, they nail you every 15 seconds.

And it becomes frantic.

What can you accomplish before the shutdown?

The race against the clock.

Logged in this tuesday morning with about 2 hours before reboot time.

Was about 6,000 rep away from Consortium exalted.

Zaxxis Insignias in the Heap was the calling. Grinding grinding grinding. Slaughtering mobs. All morning. Chain pulling, keeping mend pet running, misdirecting more mobs whenever the cooldown was up, keeping snake traps up to grab as many mobs as I can, bestial wrath, rapid fire, blood lust brooch.

I was pushing so hard, I was actually chugging Fel Mana Pots from time to time to eliminate any downtime between pulls.

Making great progress, lots of Zaxxis Insignias, lots of Etherium Prison Keys. Nice.

Then the 15 minute mark comes along.

I'm 2,000 rep short, but I have enough mats in my bags to get 1,500 of it.

Cool, just need to grind out 20 more Zaxxis to get the remaining 500 rep.

Took 7 minutes.

Fly on up to Area 52 and cash in the Zax. Fly on over to the north west where you can do the Prison Keys.

For anybody unfamiliar, you use a Prison Key to let out a hidden prisoner. Sometimes its a bad guy, you kill him, and he drops a ticket that's redeemable for 250 Consortium rep. Sometimes its a good guy who smiles at you, and grants you roughly 500 rep with a random faction, not necessarily Consortium. The good guys don't give you the ticket for Consortium turn-in.

I need 313 rep to ding Exalted at this point. I've got two keys in my bag.

The 5-minute mark for the reboot comes up.

Use the first key.

Bad guy. w00t. Kill. Loot ticket worth 250 Consortium rep.

Use last key.

DOH. Good guy. Would have granted 500 Cenarion Expedition rep if I wasn't already exalted with them.

Grrrrrrrr. Not that it matters, because I'm only grinding Consortium rep for the sake of doing it. No real reward I need, maybe just the bigger monthly gem bag.

4 minutes left.

KK, why not give it a shot. See how many Zaxxis I can grab before the reboot. Just for fun. No way you'll have time to fly to the Heap, grind out 10, then fly back to Area 52 for the win.

I land at the Heap with 2:15 to go.

Grind grind grind.

Best. drop. rate. ever.

Only had to kill 13 mobs. Got all 10.

With 0:45 to go.

Heart is racing.

Took 30 seconds to fly up to Area 52 and cash in the last stack.

Ding Exalted.

The server will restart in 0:15 seconds

Maybe I'll go check out their faction vendor and see if I get anything nice. Perhaps a leatherworking pattern that's long since obsolete?

Sporegaar, you're up next. I want that 'shroomy tabard.