It began so very simply. A courier delivering our supplies to a man who lives out of the way in Eastvale went missing with his supplies. Thinking little of it, Hellbourne led a small group to investigate. After a small but heated exchange with a peasant, we found our man. A former warlock who decided to abandon his magic after an accident corrupted his hand, he now lived out of the way with a wife and children. He needed regular supplies from the Tower of Krasha to keep his corrupted arm in check. With a little help from Calaara’s time magic, we followed the courier’s trail back to his landing spot, which is where we found footprints, mixed with murloc prints.
Following the prints, we were saddened to find the courier dead and half-eaten by… zombie murlocs. We dispatched those murlocs with ease, but considering a presence of a ghoul among them, it was a strange occurrence. Furthermore, the courier’s package was taken by someone else onto the Stone Cairne Island.
We naturally followed the trail onto the island where we finished off more zombies assaulting a mysterious high arakkoa. Calling himself Kora Narash, he gave us a dire warning – the Tower of Krasha is in danger, and Lehba, the loa Verroak angered, has returned. If that wasn’t enough, the sky above Icecrown has been shattered and the Lich King is no more. Without its master’s command, the restless Scourge will become an even greater threat to this world…
As Kora asked us, our minions arrived two days later at the tower at the Three Corners in Redridge, and found it has already been under assault of waves of infectious zombies. Our mysterious new ally was standing atop the tower and arguing with the captain. After he delivered a badass boast about the realities and worlds he has visited, he told us he had a plan. A troll lich was after him, and had just appeared before us to taunt us and to send more zombies after us. Once we dealt with the assault, Kora told us his plan – we have to simultaneously deal with the troll lich, to free Kora to act, and to find the troll ritual the tribes used to drain the power of their loa. Kora would then use it on Lehba to destroy him for good.
Soon after that, we came to Dalaran to meet with Krasha at Tiarawyn’s apartment and report back on this mysterious high arakkoa. Krasha was skeptical and obviously didn’t trust him with the power of a loa. However, he very quickly figured out Kora’s real identity. It was, of course, an anagram. An incomplete one. Kora Narash was no other than Orkan Krasha, the missing nephew from a parallel reality, who left after having all corruption purged from his system by an Avatar of Aman’thul.
Even if we didn’t trust Orkan, we still went with doing his plan, but we’d end it our own way. First, a group headed by Bra’tan went to Zul’Gurub in order to find the ritual. After a brief confrontation with some guards, we learned the Gurubashi were accepting all troll refugees fleeing from the zombie madness outside its walls. We went into the city in search of a bokor – or witch doctor – who would be able to help us and found a troll that helped a different group couple of months prior – Ati’bon. The old troll turned out to be an old friend of Bra’tan’s, who helped him get into the temple when the latter was young. Bra’tan said that was impossible, since Ati’bon was old when he – now an old timer himself – was young, but we continued to follow his clues.
We went down into Venoxis’s old temple and found the ritual there, but before Ati’bon could give it to us, the spirit of Venoxis appeared and claimed the old troll was a liar. We decided to trust Venoxis after all and Ati’bon was furious, revealing his true form.
It was Lehba all along. Even back when he helped us with the sauroks.
As he fled, he released a horde of zombies into Zul’Gurub. We dispatched those in our immediate vicinity and left Zul’Gurub in a hurry. The ritual Lehba left was “poisoned” and we had to go to Northrend to find the real one.
We quickly went to Zul’Drak, the area that used to be the scene of some of the greatest loa sacrifices in history. We went into Quetz’lun’s temple with an old Krasha worker, Rokh’dan and to our surprise, found a skeletal mage being chased by zombies. As the skeleton asked us for help, we killed the zombies and then figured out what’s happening. Turns out the man, called Gaylord B. Rotmeister, Esq., was a memeber of Arthas’s expedition to pursue Mal’ganis and has been a mindless Scourge member ever since. Only recently, he’s recovered his wits and witnessed “stranged winged creatures” coming out of the shattered sky. This must be a val’kyr, and it looked like it went after the same thing we needed.
We went into the heart of the temple and what we found was not a mere val’kyr. Although we didn’t know it at the time, it was a mawsworn kyrian from the Maw itself, who arrived to take the ritual before we could. Although it gave us a beating, we killed the monster and managed to resist its strongest powers. With the kyrian gone, we claimed the ritual and went back to Orgrimmar with our new, skeletal friend.
At the same time, a group led by Tiarawyn went to Eastern Plaguelands in search of the lich who was harrassing Kora/Orkan. It was hard to pick out the trail of a lich in the whole swarms of undead going about during a Scourge invasion, but Tiarawyn managed to find a signature that kept going back to a secluded ziggurat. We followed that trail, and found it protected by a number of ghouls, including a smaller one yelling “Timmy!” Castillian distracted the zombies with some meat strapped onto a treant – the best plan we could come up with – and dealt with the remaining ghouls.
What remained inside was however far stranger. A peculiar abomination, speaking in proper Common, albeit using Orcish words like “Lok’tar Ogar”. And it also had a gun. After briefly controlling the abomination, we learned it used to be a Thunderlord Clan orc, who is now aligned with something called “The House of Constructs” in a place called “Maldraxxus”. And his master sent him to help our lich quarry. Once the control broke, we finished the abomination and went inside.
Another protector awaited us there, but no lich. An ancient troll corpse held onto the lich’s phylactery, and once we dispatched that monster, we held the key to defeating Zul’teb of the Crossing.
Using the phylactery, Tiarawyn tracked it down to a troll temple in Zul’mashar. The once vibrant troll city was now little more than a graveyard. A graveyard from which new troll zombies erupted regularly and joined an ongoing march towards Quel’thalas. In the middle of the city, we found a strange troll, looking sick enough we couldn’t tell if he was undead. He did, however, have a runed shovel, and once we didn’t disperse at his order, this undertaker now attacked us. “I used to bury them all my life,” he said, “now that death is here, I dig them back up.” With little trouble, we killed the undertaker and continued on towards the pyramid. Atop it sat not just Zul’teb, but also his new ally. A bone-white drust, or rather an image of one, who left us alone with the lich because of his failure to stop us.
The battle with Zul’teb was hard, although Tiarawyn’s command of his phylactery made it easier. In the end, he managed to down her, but in the very same act, he made her drop the phylactery, which shattered it, and killed the lich. Although the others helped Tiarawyn up, she was still wounded. Nevertheless – the lich was beaten and with the other group finishing their part at the same time, we were ready to deal with Lehba.
We gathered in a cave in Kul Tiras picked out by Kora and met him there. However, Verroak soon appeared and unmasked him as his nephew Orkan. The Krashas got into a heated family argument, before Verroak left us with a vessel meant to contain Lehba’s power once it was drained. He would not trust Orkan with it. Verroak left to prepare in case Orkan fails, as the younger arakkoa started summoning the big bad loa.
Waves upon waves of troll zombies and drust crashed at us, and we were starting to weaken, when Lehba finally appeared. Once his allies were all dead, Orkan taunted Lehba into walking into a loa trap. Lehba seemingly took the bait and was drained and seemingly died, but still claimed he won. Although the power filled the vessel, we still heard an ominous laughter, as the same dark cloud emerged from the now still form of Ati’bon. He knew about the ritual and didn’t care, claiming he’s become “something more” since his deal with the Jailer. Now that we were all stunned, Ati’bon stole Orkan’s rift-controlling remote and fled using our rift, claiming he shall now have his vengeance.
Not long after, a distressing alert went out to all Krasha minions. The very hear of our operation at the Lehba Island was under attacked by troll zombies and drust, all minions of the vengeful loa. When Raylen and Nahla arrived on the Island, they found Orkan scheming with a surprising returnee, Yu Gwai, and a remete from Djedsut, Satiah Nefertari – a woman who once tried to woo Verroak and seems to have settled for his nephew. Orkan has a new plan, it turns out, but he needs to prepare. As he and Satiah departed, Raylen, Nahla and Yu Gwai left to deal with the invaders.
On the way to the main camp, they met Ethan, fleeing from zombies and drust. Once they dispatched his attackers, he said he was scouting out the rift they were all coming from when he was attacked by a dragon-like monster from the Shadowlands. Once he crashed, the monster was gone, but the zombies were now chasing him.
All caught up, they all went together towards the rift, guarded by zombies and drust. We quickly deal with them, as well as the soulseeker Ethan met before, and stood before a dilemma. Someone would have to go through the rift and retrieve the remote. Or, if we don’t have any other way, destroy it and be stuck in the Maw, the realm where all the worst souls in the universe are sent to. Since no one else was heroic enough, Raylen took that risk and went through – only to see the remote in the hand of none other than the Jailer himself. Seeing no other option, he shot the remote, angering the Jailer and closing the rift behind him.
With Raylen gone and Mortimer and Calaara catching up to us, we continued on towards the main camp, as we were still under attack. Furthermore, Lehba himself was still here, ripping through the defenders to taunt Verroak. The old bird turned Wild God emerged in his Wild God form and began a mythic battle in the sky above us, as went on towards the main gate, under siege by the drust commander we met before at Zul’mashar.
We fought Tiglath Pileser, the drust commander, and managed to ward off most of his most dangerous spells and heal through the rest. After surprising help from Gornn, a gronn in Verroak’s employ, we managed to take down the drust, but much to our shock – Krasha was losing above us to Lehba.
Soon, Lehba crushed Krasha and the old bird fell to the ground, dead, as the big bad loa gloated now all that’s left will be ash… until Orkan and Satiah returned with their spell.
Using the power that was drained off of him in the ritual, they banished Lehba back to the Maw, and although he taunted us he would return even if it takes a thousand years, we won. At the cost of losing Verroak Krasha himself.
Orkan proclaimed himself the new boss according to Verroak’s own succession laws, and told us to return to our homes, while he rebuilds the base… and the whole business.
The Arakkoa Chronicles 
Leave a Reply