The Legendary Collections in GW2 are interesting. Some are tedious and boring, while others are completely enthralling and delightful. The collection for the short-bow Chuka and Chumpawat is one of the latter. The collection begins with you going on a hunt for the legendary tigers Chuka and Champawat, which have been terrorizing citizens of Tyria as of late, and chronicling your adventures in a journal.

You start by first tracking them to where they have been hiding out. This takes you on a tour all over Tyria, following tiger tracks and moving from den to den. Periodically, you encounter the tigers themselves and have to fight them.

You are led from zone to zone and to many NPCs. On your way, you visit some truly spectacular locals you may or may not have known about:

All the while pursuing the elusive tigers.

Since I'm doing Chuka and Chumpawat, I decided I should have a job that can actually use Short Bow with some success. Ranger can use the weapon, of course, but it's kind of shitty at it. Thief, on the other hand, makes good use of the Short Bow. But I've, traditionally, hated Thief. That being said, I've become terribly impressed with Daredevil as an elite specification. I've had some spectacular Fractal runs with staff wielding Thieves dealing massive damage. So, I decided to give the job a chance again.

Meet 'Mucha Muchacha', my human Thief:

Her name is from the song of the same name by Esquivel. I started my Thief build on a Friday night after work, and plowed through to level 80 before the weekend was over. It was, undeniably, the quickest I've ever leveled a job in GW2.

I even managed to capture the exact moment, the exact kill that pushed me over 80:

It was a hell of a ride, and I enjoyed it greatly.

As I mentioned last time, I now have an end-game thief. She is now themed the way I want her, all that she is lacking is Chuka & Chumpawat. I went with T3 Human Cultural Armor for everything except the head, there I used a Monocle. With her Bo staff, she's pretty bad-ass looking:

She wound up looking like Black Widow, but that wasn't really my intention. Honestly, I had three goals in mind when I created her look:

• I wanted her theme to be complimentary to the red/orange of Chuka & Chumpawat.
• I wanted to use some of the blue dyes I have which I really haven't used (to date, I have a few characters that make heavy use of reds and purples, one that uses greens, one that is golden, and one that uses whites, yet I have some great blues like Zaffre that I've not used previously.)
• I wanted to use the aforementioned cultural armor and monocle.

They were teasing us with a Living Story Season 3 a few months ago, but they finally started it a couple of weeks back. This new season continues where HoT left off, and begins with a funeral for Eir:

From there, you are sent to Taimi's lab in Rata Novus where you discover that Mordremoth's death has wrecked havoc in the leylines around Tyria. In one place, Bloodstone Fen, which is north of Verdant Brink, you are dispatched to investigate an energy source and also pursue Lord Caudecus, a disgraced Krytan minister who had been involved in a plot to overthrow the monarchy.

When you arrive at Bloodstone Fen, you witness a spectacular bloodstone explosion which leaves the area in disarray. At the center of the blast, can be found a massive crater:

Inside Bloodstone Fen, you encounter the White Mantle (bad guys from the first Guild Wars) and discover Caudecus is one of them. You also have some pretty fun map-wide meta events to participate in including fighting a Justicar:

..fighting bloodstone beasts:

..and fighting Jade Constructs inside the crater itself. The crater is, frankly, stunning. The entire zone has a Elder Scroll's Oblivion plane feel to it, as well as harkening back to FFXI's Riverne with the floating islands.