Once Upon a Time: Mornara

 

Follow on to Shadow's Edge
 

~~~***~~~

The sun was just peeking above the horizon as Mornara made her way to the Trade District of Dalaran. Most of the streets were still in shadow, but various merchants were opening their doors or pulling back shutters.  She got a dark look from someone sweeping off his doorstep, but other than that most people are still too sleepy to pay much attention to her.  

"You stumble about in darkness. There is no light here. No mercy! Icecrown has claimed the souls of better heroes that you."

Mornara trips over the edge of a cobblestone that was hidden by a building's shadow.  She almost falls, but manages to catch herself on a nearby wall.

Mornara pivots so her back is pressed against the cool stone wall. She isn't sure where the voice in her head came from, which worries her. Oh, she knows whose voice it is. The Lich King has a very memorable voice. She just doesn't know why it was in her head right then. 

It wouldn't have been a surprise if she were still in Icecrown Citadel. She would actually expect it there. Ever since the forging of Shadow's Edge she's been hearing his whispers while in the citadel. And if she were still asleep it could quite easily be a nightmare. But hearing voices while you're awake? That's either crazy or about to get enslaved by the Lich King.

Again. 

After a while her breathing levels out and she continues on to the Jewelry shop. They always have extra work, even for Death Knights. Mornara picks up a work order for the day. Some of the parts she needs are not in stock so she heads out of Dalaran to get them. At Krasus' Landing Mornara mounts her drake. The drake surges in to the air with several strong wing beats and Mornara directs him towards the mountains to the north. 

One of the components she needs is a Vrykul Amulet.  However the Vrykul aren't exactly friendly with either the Horde or the Alliance, so their amulets aren't easy to come by.  The closest place to find Vrykul will be in Ymrheim, where the strongest of the Lich King's Vrykul warriors train and live. 
 

~*~

 
Mornara uses the ever present snow to wipe the blood off of Shadow's Edge and then slings the axe onto her back.  Weapon properly cared for, she pulls on one of the runes to heal herself slightly.  Only then does she inspect the bodies in front of her.  The third one has an amulet, which she roughly pulls off his neck and stuffs into her pack.  She still checks the fourth corpse, and grabs several silver from the caster's pockets. 
 

"Never have I had cause to regret sparing your life, mortal. Always, you continue to amuse me."

For a moment the face of the last Vrykul she had killed shimmers. It solidifies as a familiar troll shape. Mornara gasps and starts to reach for her axe. Before she finishes the motion the Vrykul's face is back to it's original shape. Mornara watches the Vrykul corpse closely for another minute.

She shakes her head and then lets out an ear-splitting whistle. Her drake dives down through the clouds and then backwings to a gentle landing. Gentle for a drake, but the breeze blows flurries of snow in her face and tosses her pigtails around. Mornara shields her eyes and then mounts up to head back to Dalaran. 
 

~~~***~~~

At the head of the group Mornara hacked and slashed. Shadow's edge cut a swathe through abominations, geists, and plague doctors. Behind and beside her the rest of the group fought with their own weapons and spells. 

Poison gas and toxic slime had been defeated.  The horrific giant abominations Rotface and Festergut lay dead in their respective chambers. The Professor was still to be fought, and who knew what foul concoctions he had brewed in his laboratory.

The group gathered and then charged up the ramp to the lab.  As the last tauren thundered into the hallway the doors behind them snapped shut.  Mornara and the other tank, another orc, rammed into the doors ahead of them. However, those doors stayed firmly shut. 

"You can't come in here all dirty like that! You need that nasty flesh scrubbed off first!"  The voice came from above and ahead of them, from in the laboratory.

The hallway started to fill with giant beetles. 

 

~*~

The bloated and plague-ridden body of Professor Putricide lay dead in front of the group. 

Underneath the gore and slime that coated Shadow's Edge Mornara could feel a change in the axe she held.  It pulsed with an feel similar to the unholy runes already etched on it. As Mornara watched, the unholy plague slime that coated it was pulled into the blade and only the gore was left on the blade.

~*~

Darion Mograine had inspected the axe after it was infused with the unholy slime of Putricide's death.  He told her that the axe would next need to be fed on blood.  His glowing blue eyes met and held Mornara's own as he informed her that it would require her own blood and her companions' blood.

The way to correctly feed the blade involved being bitten by Blood Queen Lanathel, and then biting the rest of the group. Mornara wasn't too keen on this idea. Lanathel's bites tended to turn you into a ravening vampire.

~*~

The final infusion required for the axe was frost.  Even better than the Lich King was the frost wyrm Sindragosa.  Her frozen breath on the axe and then her death would infuse the final magic into the blade. 

~*~

The axe was infused with unholy, blood, and frost.  The runes etched upon it glowed with the magics contained within.  They pulsed and flared at random. The axe was strong, but needed a way to store the power that the infusions had created.  Thus Darion Mograine sent Mornara back into Ice Crown Citadel to gather crystals from the various leaders that Arthas had favored. 

Heroic Lich King

Exactly one week ago I organized Darkfall's Monday night fun raid to go to ICC10 for the second week in a row. The previous week we'd killed everything in the first four wings. So this week we only had the LK left. Unsurprisingly I was able to put together a full DF raid. We actually had a few too many people and a couple people had to sit out.

It took us a bunch of attempts. We had the first phase and those stupid shadow traps down pretty well. Our only real problems were with defile. I hate defile. We went with a strat of popping lust in P2 and then in P3 when everyone jumped out of the sword we all run away to avoid the immediate defile. Barring a few messups due to lag spikes it worked like a charm.




I'm super proud of everyone who was there and the guild as a whole.

Icecrown Citadel Dialogue: The Lich King

Completing, at long last, my dialogue posts for Icecrown Citadel, here is the dialogue of the Lich King. I've had these images sitting around for a good 10 months at this point and have finally gotten around to captioning the cropped bits.

I have to admit that I really enjoy ICC, and I really like the Lich King fight. It's still challenging at level 85, espeically if you do heroic. And I think that this fight has some of the best dialogue. I particularly love the starting part. It's right up there with Lady Deathwhisper and far ahead of anything in the unholy wing.


The Lich King yells: So the Light's vaunted justice has finally arrived? Shall I lay down Frostmourne and throw myself at your mercy, Fordring?
Highlord Tirion Fordring yells: We'll grant you a swift death, Arthas. More than can be said for the thousands you've tortured and slain.
The Lich King yells: You'll learn of that first hand. When my work is complete, you will beg for mercy -- and I will deny you. Your anguished cries will be testament to my unbridled power...
Highlord Tirion Fordring yells: So be it. Champions, attack!
The Lich King yells: I'll keep you alive to witness the end, Fordring. I would not want the Light's greatest champion to miss seeing this wretched world remade in my image.


The Lich King yells: I will freeze you from within until all that remains is an icy husk!
The Lich King yells: The end has come!
The Lich King yells: Hope wanes...


The Lich King yells: The end has come!
The Lich King yells: No questions remain unanswered. No doubts linger. You ARE Azeroth's greatest champions. You overcame every challenge I laid before you. My mightiest servants have fallen before you relentless onslaught... your unbridled fury...


The Lich King yells: Is it truly righteousness that drives you? I wonder...


The Lich King yells: You trained them well, Fordring. You delivered the greatest fighting force this world has ever known... right into my hands - exactly as I intended! You shall be rewarded for your unwitting sacrifice.
The Lich King yells: Watch now as I raise them from the dead to become masters of the Scourge. They will shroud this world in chaos and destruction. Azeroth's fall will come at their hands -- and you will be the first to die.


The Lich King yells: I delight in the irony.
Highlord Tirion Fordring yells: LIGHT GRANT ME ONE FINAL BLESSING! GIVE ME THE STRENGTH... TO SHATTER THESE BONDS!
The Lich King yells: Impossible...
Highlord Tirion Fordring yells: No more, Arthas! No more lives will be consumed by your hatred!
Terenas Menethil yells: Free at last! It is over, my son. This is the moment of reckoning.
Terenas Menethil yells: Rise up, champions of the Light!
The Lich King yells: Now I stand, the lion before the lambs... and they do not fear.
The Lich King yells: They cannot fear...



Then there is the cut scene that is still available to see in Dalaran where Fordring almost takes the crown of evil, but Bolvar takes it instead.


And we end up with a new Lich King. Someone who started out "good". Well, if you discount the mind controlled by dragons bit. But, regardless, we have someone who has good and noble intentions sitting on the Frozen Throne. Bolvar will devote his energies to holding back the Scourge.


~~~~~~
It drives DraNgNon nuts, but almost every time we pull Arthas I recite most of the starting lines. Especially the "you will beg for mercy - and I will deny you" part. I've only ever done the LK fight with Mornara and it's always poignant for her when the Lich King is being a bastard.

Icecrown Citadel 10 achieves

Monday night I took our fun raid to ICC for normal mode achieves. We didn't do anything on heroic. All we did was the ICC 10 Drake Achieve for every boss.



Well, almost every boss. We started a bit late, so the raid only formed up at 9:30. We got the achieve for every boss up to LK, though not every one need every achieve. In fact, I think most people were only missing at most six or seven achieves. But they were spread out over about 10 bosses.

Most of the achieves were rendered pretty trivial. With the massive health, damage, and healing buffs that we've all gotten from Cata things would have been pretty easy. When you add the 30% ICC buff on top of that some things were just silly. Mornara for example, had 226k health. I remember being really happy when I got her to 30k health in the middle of Wrath...

However, the Sindragosa achieve was NOT trivial. Her frost tombs are still pretty fatal. I think they do a percentage of your total health as damage while you're in them. Also, her achieve is All You Can Eat, which is to make sure that no one gets more than 5 stacks of the mystic buffet debuff.

It was brutal. We went with a 3 tank setup: Mornara, Wian, and Earthen, just so we'd have a little bit of leeway for stack dropping. There was at least one time where we had to wipe because I got pulled in for biting cold right before I could hide behind a frost tomb and drop my stacks. :(

We also had a fair number of unintentional wipes where multiple people got tombed. Either someone didn't see the mark on their head and tombed the entire group hiding behind the current tomb, or the previous tomb hadn't been broken out yet and we had a 3rd tomb up. And then, usually the person in the first tomb would die.

But we persevered! And it was a sweet sweet victory to get All You Can Eat.


Next week, we'll do an hour of fishing to work on the guild feast achieve and then go to ICC10 to finish up the last LK achieve. Been Waiting a Long Time for This I suppose the name is rather appropriate.

Kingslayer

Darkfall went into ICC tonight with a 10man raid. It was simultaneously frustrating and a cakewalk. The normal modes were way easy, and we had people who didn't care about either heroics or achieves. So we got the first 6 bosses on heroic, and then people wimped out when we wiped once on heroic Putricide. And there were a few people who through either malice or mistakes messed up some achieves. But we did get On a Boat and Portal Jockey so it wasn't a total loss. We also actually managed to kill Sindragosa on our first try despite having two people who'd never seen the fight before.

But, best of all, we killed Arthas the Lich King.

Our first try was not so great with people not letting me get the adds. So both me and the warrior tank, Wian, were obliterated by the disease during the transition to phase two.

Our second try was much better until we got to the second transition. Then a bad frost orb knocked 2 of our 3 heals and several dps off of the edge. Only Kuanchichi was left to heal, and Kuan was out of mana. So Wian went down, and a few more dps dropped. I grabbed Arthas and started tanking and kiting the spirits. Between my plentiful uses of cooldowns, self-heals, and the few heals that Kuan was able to toss my way I managed to stay alive for the next 10% or 15% of Arthas' health. Kuanchichi was super healer and even managed to toss heals on the only other remaining dps, so there was someone around to actually do damage. Miraculously we managed to bring Arthas to that magical 10% of his health where he decides to stop messing about and just oneshot us all. And then Tirion did his kill stealing thing and we won. The cut scene was also excellent.

I'll have screen shots and dialogue up later. It was pretty awesome.

End of Expansion Raiding

I'm not really sure when the release date of Cataclysm is. First I heard Nov 2, now that's "slipped" and it will be around the first week or two of December. Honestly I think that Dwism is partially correct, and Cata won't come until the shiny has been all the way worn off of Starcraft. Blizzard doesn't want to cannibalize their own subscriber base.

Now in the interim, Darkfall has been a bit slow on the raids. We've reduced to 10 man raids. There are a bunch of people who want to just kill LK and some people who want to do heroic modes and some other people who want to do achievements. It's making the 10man ICC a bit annoying.

Last night for example there were all three camps in the raid. About half of the people wanted to do some heroic modes and the other half wanted to do heroics and/or achievements. We failed at heroics and at achieves. It was rather lame. We did a terrible job of gelling as a group, so our attempts at heroic Marrowgar were 3 wipes before we called it and went back to normal mode. This is after one-shotting him two days previously. I'm not sure if it's sadder that we couldn't get him to start with or that we gave up after 3 tries. We almost had the Rotface achieve, but someone didn't want to do it so they merged their slime with the one I was kiting instead of forming a new one.

Anyway we got through the first 8 bosses. All that is left are the Blood Wing, Sindragosa, and LK. It wasn't a bad night of raiding, but it was boring and several achievements that easily were within our grasp were not done.

Continued Whispers

The Lich King is still talking to Mornara. Even after she's finished the quest to collect souls in ICC, she's still using the axe, and so still technically collecting souls.


The Lich King whispers: Come to me, pretender! Feed MY blade!

So, yes, Mornara is quite freaked out by the Lich King.

Raid Leading

Last Tuesday Kuan and I logged on for Darkfall's evening raid. I brought Mornara since we've had a pretty sever shortage of tanks. Hellshot, the GL was setting up the raid. He had too many people who wanted to come, but not nearly enough for a 25man. So we were doing a ICC10. Suddenly Hellshot decides that since so many undergeared people want to come he'll drop out. And just like that I'm main tanking and leading a 10man raid.

It was actually a pretty successful raid. We had a little bit of a problem to start with getting people who wouldn't disconnect. But once that was sorted out it all worked out. We entirely cleared the first three wings. Our only wipe was on BQL the first time we tried her. There was some confusion and we ended up with two vampires running about. But other than that it was a pretty smooth run. We even one shot princes when the other tank hadn't ever done that fight before.

Anyway while running from Festergut to Rotface we randomly triggered the second trap. We weren't expecting it, but I managed to react in time. This is what a well tanked and well AOE'd group of mobs should look like when dead:

Rocket Bear

Everyone needs to equip a rocketpack for the gunship battle. It looks rather goofy for everyone, but for some people more than others:

Shadow's Edge

Mornara finally got into ICC25 and killed Rotface and Festergut, and lo and behold no one else wanted the Acidic Blood from either of them for The Sacred and the Corrupt. I was shocked, and rather pleased to finally get those. Even if it meant that I bankrupted all of my characters to get the 25 Primordial Saronite and still had to get some from DraNgNon's characters.

Anyway, massive expense aside Mornara now has Shadow's Edge. It is a fabulous weapon and she's got it gemmed and runeforged for tanking. Darion Mograine, the leader of the Death Knights is the one who has set her on this quest. He is rather full of doom and gloom and threats about failure. In the actual quest where he forges Shadow's Edge for you he even straight out says that if you fail at this he will kill you. So no pressure!

The next step is to start the empowerment of Shadow's Edge. A Feast of Souls requires you to kill one thousand of the Lich King's minions. That is a lot of trips to ICC. Fortunately it doesn't matter if you are in 10 or 25 for the kills. Mornara is at a little over 500 at this point. It's taken her several runs so far.

Mornara has also discovered that the Lich King is watching her do this set of quests. He is now fucking with her head. It doesn't happen all of the time and it's not very repetitive. But just about the time she forgets The Lich King whispers her. It's pretty much entirely freaking her out. The last time Mornara got whispers from the Lich King she was still under his control. And she's starting to wonder, what with some of the things he's whispered to her, if getting freed wasn't all a dream...


The Lich King whispers: Never have I had cause to regret sparing your life, mortal. Always, you continue to amuse me.


The Lich King whispers: Take them, mortal, these souls will again be mine soon enough.


The Lich King whispers: Look at you, child; would-be wielder of souls... you can not fathom the power that lies at my command.


The Lich King whispers: The moment is soon at hand, mortal. You shall toil for eternity in a new Azeroth!


The Lich King whispers: Bring me your weapon, champion, that I might feed it the soul of its master!


The Lich King whispers: Remember hero: I, too, once sought a weapon of great power...


The Lich King whispers: I see you too are gathering souls for you own ends. Are we really so different, champion?


The Lich King whispers: Soon, mortal, you too shall have a blade for a prison.


The Lich King whispers: You stumble about in darkness. There is no light here. No mercy! Icecrown has claimed the souls of better heroes that you.


The Lich King whispers: More souls... yes, more... you will find it hard to stop, mortal.


The Lich King whispers: Your heart - its incessant drumming disgusts me. I will silence it as I did my own.


The Lich King whispers: Yes, do it! Create your monstrous new weapon. It too will serve me when your soul is mine.


So, yes, Mornara is rather freaked out by the whispers of the Lich King. However, she is determined to complete her weapon and kill him. Perhaps not in that order...

Plague wing

So I've been screenshotting the dialogue from ICC. I dutifully did this for the first wing, and I'm doing it for the Blood and Dragon wings. But I'm having a hard time doing it for the Plague wing.

The first wing, with Marrowgar and Deathwhisper and the gunship battle and Saurfang was really pretty epic. You get a feel for the brainwashing of the Scourge and the epic and continuing battle against both the Scourge and the Alliance. You see the sorrow of Saurfang the Elder and learn about honor from him.

The Dragon Wing seems to be pretty epic as well, You've got a gauntlet with the Argent Crusade and the Ebon Blade working together to clear the path. You're fighting to free a green dragon from the clutches of the lich king. Then you've got to kill Sindragosa, which is quite the epic battle.

The Blood Wing is mostly epic, but has a few silly vampire things in it as well. Compared to their 5-man and quest versions The Blood Princes are oddly difficult to kill when rezzed and buffed by the Blood Queen. The Blood Queen herself is a fun fight, and you get to be a vampire yourself. Thankfully there is not any sparkling.

But the Plague Wing is one big fart joke. Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide are all fart jokes. Rotface "made an angry poopoo." Festergut inhales blight gas until he vomits it all back out. Putricide drinks potions until he farts, throws slime, and generally is disgusting. I'm not feeling the epic or even the mildly heroic in the Plague Wing.

Color Coordination

It's summer. The current expansion is winding down. Starcraft 2 will be released next week. All of these things mean that Darkfall is having trouble filing a full raid. So tonight Mornara was asked to come tank ICC25.



Here she is in the Upper spire of ICC25. Doesn't she look pretty in her summer tabard? I had to go with blue so it would match her eyes.

The first 7 bosses were already down, but we managed to kill Princes. There were a bunch of failed attempts on BloodQueen and on Valithria. Mostly due to our pretty bad attendance/composition. But regardless of what we killed, Mornara got some experience tanking in 25man ICC. Trash is weirdly hard to deal with when you're not sure which tank is pulling what. I had a hard time determining if I should taunt or when I should run in to grab stuff. Boss tanking was fun, but a bit scary. Mornara was usually offtank, or assigned to run around an help as needed. It required a lot of situational awareness, especially on Valithria, and it was a lot of fun.

Icecrown Citadel Dialogue: Blood Princes

Blood-Queen Lana'thel yells: Foolish mortals. You thought us defeated so easily? The San'layn are the Lich King's immortal soldiers! Now you shall face their might combined!
Blood-Queen Lana'thel yells: Rise up, brothers, and destroy our enemies!
Prince Valanar yells: Naxxanar was merely a setback! With the power of teh orb, Valanar will have his vengeance!
Prince Keleseth yells: Blood will flow.


Invocation of Blood jumps to Prince Keleseth!
Prince Keleseth yells: Such wondrous power! The Darkfallen Orb has made me INVINCIBLE!



Prince Keleseth yells: Blood will flow.
Prince Valanar begins casting Empowered Shock Vortex!
Invocation of Blood jumps to Prince Taldaram!
Prince Taldaram yells: Tremble before Taldaram, mortals for the power of the orb flows through me!


Prince Valanar yells: My cup runneth over.
Prince Keleseth yells: Were you ever a threat?
Prince Keleseth yells: Blood will flow.
Prince Valanar yells: Beg for mercy!
Empowered Flames speed toward Rapunzle!
Prince Valanar yells: Dinner... is served.


Prince Keleseth yells: My queen, they... come.


As you can see there is a lot of Emo going around...

ICC10

Last night Kuan and Viljo went with Darkfall into ICC10. It was actually a very imbalanced group. We had 1 mage, 1 hunter, 1 druid, 2 DKs, 2 priests, and 3 shaman. Fortunately we actually had a good spec distribution: within that group the only overlap was a shaman who swapped from enhance to resto as we got to the harder bosses and needed 3 healers. I think the only buff we were really missing was Kings.

We pretty much trounced ICC10. We had a bit of a slow start as we were waiting for a healer to log, and when they didn't we had to find another one. Once we started we once shot the first 7 bosses. Yes, that includes Putricide. Our first wipe of the night was on Blood princes. Only having one melee meant that kuan and I had to adjust ourselves to take some shots from the empowered flame sphere. Previous to that Taldaram had an annoying tendency to cast it at our orb tank... Anyway once we realized that we killed him next attempt.

We even one-shot BQL. That part I'm extra-special proud about that. Especially since Viljo was the first one to be bitten. I wasn't expecting or even trying to get bit first. But I did manage to bite the right people when I was supposed to. It's easier on 10 man because there are fewer people to bite, and more time before your next bite, but really it just is a matter of paying attention.

Valithria was also a speedy one-shot, and then we were on to Sindragosa. Her gauntlet wiped us once because at least 3 of us had never seen it before. We only had time for one try on Sindragosa, but we got her down to 28%. We had a couple of deaths mostly due to people never having seen the fight before, but I think we'll kill her the next time.

Then it's on to the Lich King.

we were doing so well...

and then we were dead.

Icecrown Citadel Dialogue: Valithria Dreamwalker

Valithria Dreamwalker is the first real boss of the dragon wing. She is a big green dragon who has been captured by the Lich King. She starts stunned and at half health.


The Lich King yells: Intruders have breached the inner sanctum. Hasten the destruction of the green dragon! Leave only bones and sinew for the reanimation!
Valithria Dreamwalker yells: Heroes, lend me your aid. I... I cannot hold them off much longer. You must heal my wounds!

When Valithria Dreamwalker is at 75% health she is feeling a bit better. Not well enough to actually help out, but better enough to tell you about it.


Valithria Dreamwalker yells: My strength is returning. Press on, heroes!

Once you heal Valithria up to full she breaks out of the stun and puts the smack down on everything. This has two affects. First it ends the encounter as she utterly destroys everything you were fighting, and makes them cry for their Scourged mommies. Second it entirely fubar's the dps meter for that fight and any pending ones, as she just did on the order of metric mega-shit-tons of damage in one instant aoe cast.


Valithria Dreamwalker yells: I AM RENEWED! Ysera grant me the favor to lay these foul creatures to rest!

This fight does bring the epic. Here you are defending a green dragon while you heal her up. It's a big old spotlight directly on your healers. This is good when you win, and annoying when you don't.

Also Valithria's voice reminds me of Jaina in Mt Hyjal. It's not the same voice actress, but it's got that same sort of over dramatized air to it. Which when combined with repeated calls for saving really gets on my nerves.

Icecrown Citadel Dialogue: Sister Svalna

In ICC, once you get through the lower spire and fight your way past Deathbringer Saurfang and into the Upper Spire you have some choices to make.

Well first you must make it past the deadly steam boss. It's like the slimes after Patchwerk all over again, except this is only a test of patience. Seriously all you have to do is not get hit by the blue gas. Just wait for it to clear, and then run past the jets. Wait for the next set of jets to clear and then run through them too. It's not hard at all, just requires patience.

Anyway, once past that you open up another transporter, and can go any of three different ways. Left to the Plague Wing. Forward to the Blood Wing. Right to the Frost Wing.

The beginning of the Frost Wing is full of frosty-type vyrkul and a few Ashen Verdict champion types who are there to help you.


Captain Brandon yells: By the light, the transporter worked!
Captain Rupert yells: I can feel the Lich King reaching out... watching us.
Crok Scourgebane yells: Our champions have lost much blood in the struggle to activate the Scourge transporter. We must be prepared to return the favor. Follow me, men!


Crok Scourgebane yells: Ready your arms, my Argent Brothers. The Vyrkul will protect the Frost Queen with their lives.
Captain Arnath yells: Even dying here beats spending another day collecting reagents for that madman, Finkelstein.


Crok Scourgebane yells: Enough banter! Our champions have arrived - support them as we push our way through the hall!
Sister Svalna yells: You may once have fought beside me, Crok. But now you are nothing more than a traitor. Come, your second death approaches!



Crok Scourgebane yells: Quickly, push on!
Captain Brandon yells: No amount of healing can save me now. Fight on, brothers...


Captain Rupert yells: It was... a worthy afterlife.


Crok Scourgebane yells: Her reinforcements will arrive shortly, we must bring her down quickly!
Sister Svalna yells: Foolish Crok. You brought my reinforcements with you. Arise, Argent Champions, and serve the Lich King in death!
Sister Svalna yells: Come, Scourgebane. I'll show the mater which of us is truly worthy of the title of "Champion"!
Captain Rupert yells: Ther is no escaping the Lich King's will. Prepare for an explosive encounter!
Sister Svalna yells: What a pitiful choice of an ally, Crok!
Crok Scourgebane yells: I'll draw her attacks. Return our brothers to their graves, then help me bring her down.


yells: What? This strength...? All of the pain is gone! You... must join me in the eternal embrace of death!


Sister Svalna yells: Perhaps... you were right, Crok.


Captain Rupert yells: What an... explosive ending!
Captain Brandon yells: I'm sorry...
Crok Scourgebane yells: I'll remain and inform Tirion of our progress. You must press on and bring down Sindragosa. Lok'tar, champions!
Captain Arnath yells: The loss of our comrades was unpreventable. The lived and died in teh service of the Argent Crusade.

~~~
Crok is the Ebon Champion, and there are four other Argent Crusaders with him. They are the questgivers from Zul'drak. And not the same ones die each time. I took the following screenshot from a different run. This time Arnath didn't survive:

Captain Arnath yells: Never... could reach... the top shelf...

Shadow's Edge

Darkfall killed Festergut for the first time a couple of two weeks ago. It was quite exciting, and we actually did a good job of pulling together and kicking Festergut's ass.

The most exciting part of this was for Darklite. He is top ret pally in Darkfall. For a long long time he was the only ret pally. And he has very much paid his dues, as part of that time was during BC, when he was close to last on any damage meter you cared to run when we were in Mt. Hyjal, SSC, and TK. But now karma has rewarded him. He's usually one of the top three dps, swapping with an awesome hunter and our excellent cat druid depending on the particular fight.

Anyway, when Festergut fell over dead in a pile of unnameable parts Darklite received Festergut's Acidic Blood


Highlord Darion Mograine says: So, it has begun...
Highlord Darion Mograine says: Behold! The binding of the sacred and corrupt; the forging of Shadow's Egde, a weapon of untold potential!

Highlord Darion Mograine says: Bend it do your will, and yo shall wield unspeakable power!
Highlord Darion Mograine says: Fail, and your soul shall forever be it's slave.

Here is Darklite with a shiny new weapon.

I'm not entirely clear on the entire rest of the chain, but I believe that the next thing Darklite has to do is gather souls. Something like 1000 souls in ICC have to be killed while he is wielding Shadow's Edge. Or possibly he has to give the killing blow? As I said, I'm unclear on what needs to happen next. No matter what though, that weapon is awesome.