Are you
sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.
Once upon a
time there lived a little troll named Sil who lived for adventure. One fine day
while exploring the beautiful and bounteous halls of Blackwing Lair he spotted
the chance to begin a new and fascinating journey through the lands.
The ground
shook as the huge draconoid fell to the floor, the whelplings around him
fleeing in horror at the death of their guardian. The raid gazed down at the
corpse wondering what treasures would be found on the body. Their looks of
wonderment turned to disgust at the emergence of druid and hunter loot from the
corpse. The little troll lashed out at the corpse in disgust when he remembered
in the corner of his mind that a stinking night elf in Cenarion Hold had
offered a quest to return the head of this magnificent beast. Drawing his
shining blade he sliced through the neck, inadvertently showering the looting
hunters with gore. Picking up the severed head he tucked it into his belt.
Realising it was time to continue through Blackwing Lair the troll attempted to
slip into the shadows but was thwarted by the huge head, still leaking blood
onto the floor. Undeterred by this the rogue, showing the same skill that
allowed him to stealth with a sword so large it makes taurens look small,
"hid" the head amongst his clothing and continued with his night of
raiding.
The call
for Ogrimmar portals that night was met with jubilation as the little troll
raced towards Silithus on the back of his wyvern. Holding his breath he raced
to the night elf in question and whipped the head out beneath his cloak. The
elf's eyes barely widened. The elf explained that in order to avoid Anachronus
simply eating him as soon as he approached the troll would have to prove his
worth by destroying the enemies of the dragonflight, namely Silithids. Drawing
his sword the troll launched himself off the hill and straight into Hive Ashi,
dismembering the first bug in an impressive display to sword sweeps and eye
gouging. Reaching down into the corpse he victoriously displayed the silithid
carapace. 199 to go. Almost ninety minutes later the
now bored and disillusioned troll reached down and plucked the 200th carapace.
Snickering in delight, he mounted on his faithful raptor and steered his weary
body back to the repellent elf. The elf chucked the carapaces into a pile and
remarked "41,800 to go". The roar of the troll could be heard across
Silithus and for a brief moment he tried to calculate how much rep he would
lose with
Days
blurred into weeks as the winter ravaged Kalimdor, until one day the spring
arrived suddenly. As many sentient beings are prone to do the little troll
decided to do a spot of cleaning, namely in his quest log. Quickly realising that
farming 41,800 carapaces would take more than 3 hours the troll devised a
cunning plan to get them all, namely slave labour. Casually mentioning that the
Silithids were capable of dropping some beautiful epics and that that they
might be worth farming, subtly dropping in that he also needed a drop or two,
he assembled a small but devoted team of farmers. This team farmed in droves,
day and night, to cull the bugs and seek out the juicy epics. With time running
out the troll summoned all available allies to him and in one night to cries of
"Kill them all" and "The only good bug is a dead bug", the
population of Silithus was decimated by the valiant trolls, orcs, taurens and
deadboys of Umbrage. As the night drew on, their number decreased until the
troll and his most faithful farmers ploughed on through the night in an effort
to kill enough of the annoying bug things. The sun rose and approached its
zenith as the weary troll counted up his carapaces. The cry went out "Only
fifteen left" and the weary farmers aimed for the nearest bugs in an
effort to finish and forever banish the memories of the past 24 hours from
their mind. The last bug fell and reaching into the corpse the troll drew forth
a beautiful jewelled amulet, the long promised epic. Tossing aside the
worthless piece of caster crap the troll grasped the last carapace and
staggered (vaguely) towards Cenarion Hold.
With the
mighty Anachronus appeased, the troll flew off to the Caverns of Time to
express his feelings about the pre-quest to the giant dragon. The weary
farmers, probably by then brain washed into following the troll wherever he
went, mounted up too, making a train of half asleep
hordies meandering across the desert. Talking to Anachronus the troll
discovered he had to return to Silithus and find the special crystal by the
gates. The party travelled through the desert studiously avoiding anything
resembling a hive. Spreading out they searched for the crystal running round
and round, wondering if it was invisible or if their damaged brains were only
capable of seeing bugs and nothing more. Finally the crystal was spotted, a
tiny spec on the floor. This discovery was not aided by the fact that Taurens
are very very fat and have a habit of standing ON things and not next to them.
The event surroundin
the sealing of the gate unfolded before the farmers as they watched the shadowy
bugs and dragons battle before the gates. The arrival of the
mighty sons and daughters of the dragonflight and their desperate, and
ultimately successful, attempt to end the invasion. As the images faded
the revitalised farmers demanded more to do and the troll returned to
Anachronus to learn he had to speak to the 3 great dragons to recover their
quest items.
Sunken
temple was the first stop, with the troll blessing his ability to stealth as he
skipped the whole content and sneaked directly to the Spirit of Eranikus. His
jubilation was marred by the arrival of a night elf (though he was grateful it
was not a gnome) who divulged the steps needed to free Eranikus from the temple
and then arrange for his final redemption. The elf's honeyed words sounded
suspiciously like hours of farming, but hoping for the best the troll made his
way to Aszhara to seek out the mighty and wise Azuregos.
Briefly
regretting butchering the dragon the previous day the troll searched around for
the fat blue one but was unable to find him. Speaking with wise members of his
guild he was informed that he would be able to find Azuregos' spirit if he was
one also. Suspicious of being tricked into dying the troll nonetheless trusted
his faithful friends and launched himself off the Aszhara cliffs. Landing at
the bottom the troll was momentarily puzzled before remembering he had learnt
safe fall a few levels back. Muttering under his breath he launched himself
into the water and sat under the surface watching the bar go down. Boring. As the bar reached about 10% the troll rejoiced at
his incoming death. The bar then disappeared. Looking around he saw a warlock
swimming past him on the way to collect the dousing water for Molten Core.
Glancing at his buffs he was enraged to see he now possessed Underwater
Breathing. Resisting the urge to spam /very rude at the generous warlock the
troll decided on one of the most humiliating deaths possible and hurled himself
at the nearest murlock.
The Spirit
of Azuregos was about as helpful as a chocolate teapot and suddenly all those
memories of ganking him resurfaced and the troll inwardly rejoiced at the
remembered sight of his corpse. After a long and fruitless conversation it
transpired that Azuregos had given his shard to a minnow :/
A long quest chain involving a gnome in Tanaris was offered and the troll sped
on his way down there to get things started. The first part of the Azuregos
questline was to find a giant 500lb chicken and deliver it to the chef in
Tanaris. The troll gathered his friends around him and moved to Ashenvale to
start the collection of the nightmare fragments for the Eranikus summoning. The
joy of killing something other than a bug was obvious as the raid sliced
through the dragons in the hope of finding the fragment. This joy was slightly
reduced by finding it took 5 minutes to kill the dragons and then thirty
minutes for them to repop. The situation was further ruined by the dreaded
message "Dueling is not allowed here".
A voice
suddenly spoke, cutting clearly through the jabbering of the raid. It spoke and
people listened, a stunned silence followed. For the first time in living
history a member of Team Hunter had come up with a plan (well they had come up
with plans before but this was a GOOD plan). The raid split into 2 farming
groups, one travelling to Feralas and the other remaining at Ashenvale. The
poor travel sick troll was then yanked through portal after portal to
continually kill dragons. His teammates helped him along by directing him at
dragon packs and giving him a little push. Hour upon fruitless hour of farming
followed as the stubborn dragons refused to cough up their fragment. As the
fourth hour drew to a close the troll grew bored of the sight of dragons and
felt the urge to find and kill a 500lb chicken.
The raid
descended on the Isle of Dread like a tornado, tearing through the mobs that
inhabited the island the Umbling and Umblets searched for the giant chicken
slaying everything in their path in their eagerness. As the
raid split up more and more to cover the whole area a small group disappeared
into a huge cloud of lightning. The first warning cries reached the rest
of the raid as it became apparent that the boss had been aggroed without
warning. Cries of "Wait for us" echoed across the isles along with
animated discussion about how they engaged a giant chicken by accident. These
were succinctly answered by "WTF, it looks nothing like a [expletive
deleted] chicken". Fortunately the island was not that big and with
reinforcements flooding in from every direction to kill the "chicken who looks nothing like a [expletive deleted] chicken",
it was soon outclassed. The beast fell to the ground mortally wounded, and the
first of the Azuregos quests was swiftly completed. Amazingly a 500lb chicken
is very easy to carry.
With the
night dragging on the troll turned his attention to assembling the book
"Draconic for Dummies"(DfD). Reading the quest carefully the troll
set out to southern Tanaris to find the gyrocopter and swim south to "a
point of interest". Seeing an island far in the distance the troll set out
bravely, swimming towards it with all his energy. His joy at such an easy quest
was considerably reduced when he noticed the yellow fatigue bar dropping at a
rather alarming rate. Dead. The troll, displaying the
stubbornness his race is proud of, ran back to his corpse and continued the
attempt. Dead. Fresh Tactics! Casting an eye over the
late night allies he could call upon he managed to convince a troll of equal
intellect and a shaman that what they really wanted to do at 2am was try to get
to this island. Together with a pretty (but dead) warlock they travelled down
to formulate their plan. Assured by one party member that it was possible to
mount WITH water walk on the first 10 minutes was spent getting water walk,
mounting up and sinking. Realising he had been deceived in the most cruel
manner the troll settled for the age old 'run like the wind tactic'. Setting
off, believing the shaman would give all party members water-walk, the troll
jogged across the ocean, sprinting as the yellow fatigue bar ticked down.
Spotting the safety of the island the troll quaffed a pot and a healthstone and
made it. He turned around in triumph to urge his comrades on to find only two
of them had accompanied him. The shaman dashing for the safe spot died
0.00001cm from it. The other troll (also a rogue) forged onward, wearing not
his armour but instead a beautiful blue dress (male troll). Sadly this was to
cost him dearly as the lack of stamina on said dress ensured he did not have
the hp to make it and he died 0.00002cm from safety. The
shaman ankhed and ressed the dress-wearing freak. Looking around for the
warlock, the trolls were mortified to discover that she had been left behind.
The shaman protested innocence claiming he had buffed everyone.
The island
was a virtual paradise, inhabited only by three rather worried looking pirates
who, at level 44/45, were not in a position to threaten even a dress wearing
lvl 60. The luck of the trolls was rewarded by finding the items needed for THE
next step of the DfD (Draconic for Dummies) quest chain. It transpires the
"point of interest" needed was way closer to the shore and gave a
buff for super speed swimming! Anyhow the paradise island looked very appealing
and after a spot of light fishing it was remarked how idilic it was and a very
romantic spot. The trolls looked round mournfully, both wishing that the
warlock had been buffed and had made it across so perhaps they might enjoy some
light sunbathing. The shaman however did not seem as upset and kept glancing
sideways at the dress-wearing troll in a manner which suggested it might not
have been an accident that the female had been left unbuffed. Always able to
take a hint our hero took steps to leave the island asap.
The other troll followed very very very quickly.
Returning
to Narain (the gnome questmob) the troll agreed to undertake a rescue of the
gnome's book. Collecting a disguise he whisked himself to Winterspring to
perform the handoff of some fake gold. Drawing close to the spot he donned his
disguise, now appearing to be a GNOME! WTF! Close to suicide, the troll vowed
to struggle on and pumped his little legs as fast as he could in an effort to
get this over with. After a few seconds he realised he wasn't going anywhere.
Puzzled by this rather strange turn of events he glanced around to discover
that his new height meant that the bottom 3ft of his sword was now firmly
embedded in the ground. Muttering under his breath about genocide to all gnomes
he carefully freed his blade and, forced to hold it in his hand, continued
onwards. Reaching the ransom point the fake gold was placed and soon a gnome in
a weird flying machine arrived to pick it up. Sadly blessed with a rudimentary
intelligence the gnome saw through the disguise and feeling for his gyrocopter
called for "Number Two". A giant gorilla ran towards the brave
troll/gnome hybrid and attacked. Still struggling with being an
gnome and wishing to die, our brave hero put up slight resistance against the
90khp gorilla that hit him for 1.5k every hit. The troll breathed a sigh of
relief as his troll form was returned upon death. He returned to the point of
death and resurrected, fully intending to solo the fat gorilla now he was
restored to his troll glory. Just as he was about to engage it
, the cowardly creature depopped. While fully confident of his ability
to solo such a creature the troll realised that perhaps he was being selfish
and should allow some others to enjoy the fun also.
As he
travelled to collect some more gold he cast his eye about for potential
fighters. The dearth of warriors was a slight problem until he convinced a
druid that really what he wanted to do at 4.15am was tank a gorilla. Browsing
through the people in Ogrimmar his eyes lit upon two loitering members of
Maligned and a skulking Conviction rogue. These brave recruits were lured to
Winterspring by the promise of seeing a bear and a monkey fighting. Pausing
only to pick up the aforementioned shaman the six brave adventurers returned to
the ransom spot. In a display of typical gnomish intelligence the ransomer,
Doctor Weavil, fell for the same fake bag of gold, and amazingly saw through
his disguise again. This time however the giant monkey was thoroughly spanked
by the bear and the adventurers returned to Ogrimmaar to sleep.
The next
night and day the dragons of Feralas, Hinterlands and Ashenvale were
comprehensively slapped by Umbrage forces, ably aided by some outsiders. All
three Fragments from the trash were collected and the scene was set for some
serious outdoor carnage with the Twilight Corrupter and Eranikus. First though the team of 13 set out for Alcaz island, the home of
Dr Weavil. The troll, having been reliably informed
that Weavil was either a 5 or 10 man boss, approached with confidence and his
12 fellows grinned with glee at the thought or dismembering the little gnome.
Tactics were laid out "Just kill him", a tank carefully selected
"You're the only warrior, you tank" and the raid engaged. Dr Weavil,
grinning manically as he engaged us, mind controlled
the warrior who set about dispatching the raid while the Doctor set about
cutting through everyone with 4k hits. A lone voice was heard "Perhaps I
was wrong about it being 10 man", the troll
deciding that the fight was lost vanished leaving his fellows to be butchered
by the insane gnome and his new bitch.
The
decision to leave Dr Weavil until another day was made and the farming of the
other chapters of DfD was begun in earnest. The troll began in Undercity, using
amazing cunning and skill to gain the book there before turning his attention
to Stormwind. Sneaking through to the library the chapter was recovered and the
troll began to sneak out. Realising he was right by the throne room the troll,
possibly a little high from the stench of humans, decided he would see what the
lord kept in his pockets. Creeping forward he managed to get to within about
30y before he has spotted. Doing his impression of a Paladin the troll tagged evasion, swallowed a Limited Invulnerability Potion and
activated hearthstone. Sadly the potion ran out with about 2 seconds left on
hearth and the guards rather rudely interrupted. The troll muttering something
about wanting a full set of Lawbringer, tagged sprint
and vanish and fled from the city.
Blasted
Lands was the next step and once again the troll turned to his allies to
produce a farming team. Enough people were found, but disaster! No tank!
Fortunately the situation appeared to have been saved by the appearance of a
mighty warrior who agreed to help. The team was elated and made their way to Blasted lands. The troll arrived first, followed by the mage
and hunter and warrior. The warrior seeing the needed mob bravely charged into
battle against the 62e. The rest of the team sat on the ground wondering if
they should mention that the shaman was still in
The
following night was the zerging of Molten Bore, but before that the chance for
revenge on the gnome! Taking a raid of 30 the team cleared the area and sent in
the hunters to clear his house of annoying adds so we
could get the boss all by himself. This plan, while you might think was simple
and foolproof, ended up being decidedly trickier and as mournful voice over TS
declared that "this add is beating the [expletive deleted] out of
me", a quick glance confirmed the initial fears were confirmed and the
hunter had managed to pull the boss and pretty much all the adds at the same
time. Cries of "That's the boss as well you fool" were answered by
"oh yeah, i didn't notice". This uber display of pulling was followed
by a disgraceful betrayal by our healers who healed up said hunter instead of
leaving him to be decapitated. The gnome was handily destroyed and his diary
and chapter recovered without further problems.
Over the
past few weeks the little troll, mightily bored of going to this place (Molten
Core) had been devising ways to make the trip more interesting, and implemented
some of these little tricks to "aid" the trip. Getting warlocks to
cast rain of fire on the healers during Gehennas and watching them run around
in terror, triggering all the warrior/rogue bandage cooldowns on Geddon and
snickering as they can't bandage and ofc the ever popular run at the mages
while bombed all appeared to him as very entertaining ways to spend time
[Disclaimer: Trying any or all of these things might not be conducive to a
smooth raid]. All these were to no avail though as Molten Bore lived up to its
name. Ragnaros was dispatched and his chapter of the DfD retrieved.
With the
quest almost completed a Winterspring farming team was assembled and ventured
into Darkwhiper Gorge to retrieve the chapter from there. The little troll,
never having been there before, was overjoyed to see Succubus with no warlocks
about! After a lifetime of being slapped by warlocks for flirting with their
little pets the troll happily moved towards them. His enjoyment was
considerably heightened when he heard the quite charming noises they made as he
thrust away from behind. Sadly this joyous farming session was cut short when
the 15th or so mob dropped the chapter. Remembering to mark down this place as
a possible holiday destination he joined the rest of the guild in preparing for
the fights against the Twilight Corrupter and Eranikus.
The troll
once again donned a gnome disguise and penetrating the heart of the dorf
kingdom located some valiant warriors from the alliance side. As the hordes of
Umbrage descended upon duskwood, a legion of griffins flew out from Stormwind
carrying some fearless alliance members to Duskwood to fight alongside them in
days reminiscent of the alliances of old. As the troll entered Duskwood the
Corrupter whispered in his mind, taunting him and daring him to take the shard.
Happy to finally be able to admit to hearing voices in his head the troll
merrily informed the assembled throng.
Overcoming
their language difficulties the two sides prepared to take down the Twilight
Corrupter in a tactical fight. The Umbrage maintanks briefly allowed themselves
to be mind controlled and buffed by the evil lolladins and readied themselves for battle. The combined forced of Mythical
Honour and Umbrage quickly subdued the annoying satyr, in the end losing only 2
people during the fight. After mocking those who died the guilds each made
their way to Moonglade to witness the summoning of Eranikus.
Remulos and
the troll summoned the evil dragon and after a brief hiccup the two guilds
scoured the town for shades, swiftly finding them and dispatching them.
Delighted to find that he had dedicated healers the troll hurled himself into
battle desperately trying not to get pvp enabled so that Thunderfury would not
attempt to debuff the whole of Mythical Honour. Eranikus was dual tanked by a
fearless orc warrior and Remulos with Tyrande spamming massive heals. As
Eranikus approached death he called out for redemption and was forgiven by
Tyrande and Remulos. The fight was over. The bloodfueled Umbrage members,
surrounded by cheering
As the
final day approached the troll and his friends prepared for the Blackwing lair
clearance needed to gain Nefarian's shard. For the whole day the sound of pots
being made could be heard throughout Ogrimmar and the troll stocked himself
full of items, even going so far as to leave his beloved lockpicks in the bank
in favour of more pots.
The great
journey began at 1930 with the guild knowing they would have to basically halve
their previous best time to complete the quest. The assembled players held
their breath as Vael was triggered and the timer started to tick. Showing
remarkable focus and drive the rogues failed to over aggro and dispatched the
mighty wyrm in record time. Barely pausing for breath the guild cut a bloody
swathe through the trash until the mob that started all this madness stood
before them. With Broodlord and Firemaw quickly dispatched the hated trash were
engaged and true to form did their best to slow the raid down. Filled with
nervous energy the guild stood before the 3 Wyrmguards at the Ebonroc pull. The
guild chat was silent but it was clear that the same thought was filling
everyone's mind "Please [insert relevant diety name] don't let it be 3
green mobs". The pull was made and the first call went up
"Bronze", a collective sigh of relief could be heard. The second call
of "bronze" was greeted with less relief and the third
"bronze" was met with a hail of rather colourful phrases especially
in the rogue channels. Delighted to see an Ashkandi wielding warrior who given
the chance would kill everyone with his whirlwind, the rogues valiantly charged
into combat. And died. The slow process of grinding
down bronze mobs continued until the last one fell to the ground. Next was the
turn of Ebonroc, a mob which delights in getting himself into bugged positions
and resisting taunts, even he was aware his time was up and died in short
order. The troll glanced at the timer and realised to his delight that there
was still plenty of time left and this feeling of joy was enhanced by the fast
dispatching of Flamegor and then the final 3 wyrmguards.
Confronted
with the sometimes vanilla, sometimes tricky Chromaggus the guild waited to
find out his abilities with baited breath. The incinerate
was greeted with a cheer as the timer to the second breath counted down. The
dreaded Time Lapse struck. While not a lot more difficult than the others the
Time lapse dog does take longer to kill, not the kind of thing that is desired
on a timed run. The tanks fought valiantly for aggro and the healers kept them
alive admirably. The dog lay dead and only the Lord of Blackwing stood before
them.
The raid prepared for Nefarian, not knowing which colours would swoop
from the doorways and if they would spell the doom of our attempt. The games began and the mobs poured
out from the doors....... into a solid wall of steel and hate. The first mobs
died so fast that it was hard to even see the colours as the uber buffed raid
ripped through them. The desire to beat the encounter was clear as each person gave
100% and the mobs were scythed down like wheat. Nefarian as ever did his best
to be an annoyance as he danced around shadowbolting people.
As the last
of his minions died the Lord landed and despite his best efforts to trundle
around and kill the healers and rogues his attention was forced onto the mighty
tauren in front of him. His best efforts to turn away from this figure were
thwarted and when his summoned minions were comprehensively decimated he knew
his time was up. As his final few hp were removed the guild as a whole glanced
down at the timer to see if there was time for a victory celebration or if it
would be a mad teleport and ride as the final seconds ticket down. Three hours
and twenty eight minutes. The troll's heart swelled with pride.
The guild
was eager to complete the questline and there was only one thing left to do.
Kill the minnow that Azuregos spoke of and retrieve the final shard. The troll,
doing what rogues do best, relieved the guild bank of some Elementium Ore, and
diamonds and flew down to tanaris to construct the second most expensive item
ever. The rest of the guild located the maelstrom that was home to Maws. The
magical portal that whisked the troll to the raid appeared and the mass water
walk buffing began. Accompanied once again by the Dr Weavil look alike, who
seems to have become an adopted mascot, the raid prepared for
the final summon. The troll having heard that the minnow (read as giant
shark) insta killed the first person on the hate list did what all good rogues do
in such times. Summoned and vanished. This effort was rewarded as the shark
proceeded to chomp down on the first warrior dealing around
10,000 damage in the first second. Determined to avenge the death of
their beloved orc the rest of the guild filleted said shark and basked in the
glory.
The little
troll, both weary and elated, made his way slowly to Tanaris. Standing before
the mighty Anachronus he handed in the last of the shards and there in the
desert was gifted with the Sceptre of Shifting Sands.
Acknowledgements:
This quest is truly a guild effort. The amount of effort put in over the last
week has been phenomenal and every member of the guild can feel justifiably
proud. I would also like the thank Mythical Honour for flying to our aid on the
Twilight Corrupter and Eranikus, both were awesome encounters when played
without lag, we were honoured to share them with you. Special thanks to Yu who,
as ever, accepted his ganking with good grace, as well as to Arakasi, Root,
Arynn and Vansire. Many thanks also to Raspi, Holte and Tiramus who were insane
enough to still be awake at 4.15 and happy to help. Thanks also to Bodoka and
any others who i have forgotten who helped us to farm the Fragments from the
dragon trash. Most of all my thanks to the guild though who
pulled together superbly, farmed with purpose and cleared BWL in such an
impressive time.