Guild Stories: Corrupted Brood

Hello, my still faithful (I hope) blog readers. Since we’ve started the guild, I’ve been writing up summaries of our stories there on the guild Discord, but I never published them out to the public. I figured people would be interested in hearing what happened to Krasha since, so I’m sharing the Discord summaries here.

OOC

Krasha came to us with a new job – he needs to craft an insanity-protecting cloak, like the ones Wrathion hands out to the real heroes. However, Wrathion doesn’t like him much for some reason and refused to help, so we had to make our own the hard way.

First order of business, we needed to find a collector in Shadowforge City who had a taxidermied black dragon and gather the scales of that dragon. We delved into the city and went through some rough individuals to find him. After Elranei mind controlled a ruffian who worked for the collector, we finally visited his home, but further attempts to control the collector himself were proving difficult. As we soon found out, the man went to the Twilight’s Hammer to use his taxidermied dragon to transform himself into a drakonid, and then he mind controlled his own wife. Sadly, we had to kill him, since the dragon was fake now, and then skin him, or rather his drakonid form, much to Charlie’s chagrin.

Unfortunately, the scales of the drakonid were not fitting for Krasha’s purposes, as there was neither enough of them, nor were they corrupt in the right way. So we went to Outland to try to skin the dragons hanging off the spikes of Blade’s Edge Mountains. That’s when we were surprised by two very much living black dragons, Sabellian and his consort Samia. We had to abide by Sabellian’s demands and do a task for him first – kill a grandson of Gruul who’s been causing Sabellian trouble. After the gronn gave us quite a beating before dying, the black dragon finally allowed us to skin one of his dead brothers. And that material was finally good enough.

Our last task was to acquire the recipe for the cloak, and we had a perfect target to get that from. A Blacktalon Agent called Sheba was spotted in some shady parts of Old Town and as we went to confront her, she fled using magic, and we apprehended someone we needed for other reasons (see below). When we followed Sheba, we found a strange, red portal below the Pig and Whistle. As Theramas investigated it, it turned out to lead to a parallel universe. We left to prepare for that trip and secured the red portal.

A bit later, we followed through and found an alternate universe where the blood elves were never Horde, and Scarlet Crusade was openly preaching hate on the streets of Stormwind. Following Sheba’s trail, we found her in the library where she set a trap for us, but we managed to convince her to bargain with us. As it turns out, she’s no Blacktalon Agent. She is the Black Queen – the female version of that universe’s Wrathion. After giving us some powerful magical artifacts, Sheba gave us the creepy recipe, calling for the blood of a holy man and the hair of a living unicorn, and we finally had everything we needed for the cloaks.

Doing Sargeras’s Bidding

Previously on Arakkoa Chronicles: Kingdoms of Azeroth

Having little other choice, I played along with the mission Anduin/Sargeras gave me for the time being. I embarked on a trip throughout the Eastern Kingdoms with the stated intention of reaching Dalaran. However, while on my way north, I kept looking for ways to sneak away. I concluded that probably the only people capable of sending me back are the bronze dragons, and they live in Kalimdor. Obviously, I inquired Abbot Turalyon what do they know about Kalimdor and he spoke of it like about a myth – speaking of minotaurs, centaurs, harpies and “other mythical creatures”, including some unfounded tales of “minotaurs” (read: tauren) being carnivorous and living in labyrinths. Seriously, who makes those up? Tauren and labyrinths?

Most of the trip went pretty smoothly, at least its early parts did. Elwynn Forest is very similar, and yet oddly different. I never spent much time there, but I think the trees are all different, probably because the orcs never ravaged these forests. Redridge was a bit greener than you folks may know it, and it was definitely calmer. While in Redridge, I briefly spoke to a man called Tirion Ellerian, but I don’t know if he’s of any relation to the Queen of Stormwind. We then went on to Burning Steppes which were still, unsurprisingly, burning. They lacked a giant statue of Anduin Lothar though, as well as there being no orcs running across the landscape. The Dark Iron Mountain, as Turalyon insisted on calling it, was still considered a dangerous place because of the black dragons that keep lairs in there, but the Dark Irons themselves were apparently gone after Magni Bronzebeard collapsed the central pillar and destroy Shadowforge City.

Searing Gorge bore more trails of the war between Dark Irons and Ironforge, as especially noticable in the Cauldron, where all the Dark Iron machinery was in ruins. It was here that we first heard of some people called “Blackwyrm Cultists”. Turalyon explained they were dangerous and crazy people who worshiped not only the black dragons, but their mysterious masters as well – clearly the Twilight’s Hammer of an Azeroth with no orcs. When we came up to the gate between Searing Gorge and Loch Modan, we realized it was barred, due to the war and dwarves officially keeping out of it. Seeing no way to open it and not wanting to lose our time on killing that stupid thunder lizard, we had to go through the Badlands.

Let me tell you, it’s odd but refreshing to see Badlands not completely torn up and without the giant mark in the middle of it that looks as if Deathwing landed on it with his gonads. Just as I was starting to wonder what’s going on with Theldurin the Lost, a man I had contact with in our reality, a group of Blackwyrm Cultists appeared and demanded us to kneel before their dark masters. Little did they know, I only kneel before my dark masters, so we had to kill them, including “Theldurin the Mad”, their local leader. For the rest of the trip, Turalyon kept bugging me about the spells I was using, having never seen a druid in battle before. Oh yeah, did I mention Sargeras gave me that human disguise? I should’ve mentioned that earlier. I pretended to be an old human hermit called “Deckard Cain”. What, they never heard that name before.

Unfortunately, the dwarves have erected another gate in the pass just north of Uldaman, barring all entry to their territory from the south. This time, however, we got to talk to the dwarves manning it and with some mental gymnastics, we were able to convince them to let us through. I still don’t know how we were able to do that. Nevertheless, when we go to Thelsamar we went through another control. We had to some basic illusions to conceal my Outland herbs, but we were finally allowed through. We continued on fairly peacefully through Loch Modan and to Dun Algaz, finally leaving to the Wetlands. At this point I thought of running off to Menethil Harbor, but I realized that even if it exists in this timeline under another name, they likely won’t have ships sailing to Kalimdor.

When we were almost through the Wetlands, we got attacked by another group of Blackwyrm Cultists, this time led by a giant gnome who I did not recognize at first. Deformed by some magical experiments, he looked like some unfortunate, inbred half-dragon. Only when he opened his mouth, I knew who we were facing – “mighty Millhouse Manastorm” who was trying to light up “our sweetcheeks”. Unfortunately, at this size, his pyroblasts were the size of a small meteor so we could not afford to wait or even kill him. We ran as fast as we can, as he continued to devastate the local flora. We quickly made it through Thandol Span, which he was far too large to cross.

As Abbot Turalyon prepared to sleep, I decided to try another way of getting off the Eastern Kingdoms. I remembered there are pirates in Faldir’s Cove and as soon as Turalyon was soundly asleep, I ran away. To my surprise, there is no “Faldir’s Cove” in this timeline. There are just Stromgarde Docks, which I didn’t even know the city had. In the morning, Turalyon started looking for me and told the Stromgarde guards that I’m a senile old hermit who may have wandered off into the wilderness. They found me near the city and I agreed to rejoin Turalyon, knowing I have to keep playing along for at least some more time.

Rest of the way through Arathi Highlands and Hillsbrad Foothills was pretty uneventful, at least until we realized where we found ourselves. Through my spyglass, I noticed an army coming from the north, from Tarren Mill, under Stromgarde banners, headed by Danath Trollbane. From the south, from Southshore, was coming a Lordaeronian army led by Uther, a simple knight in this timeline. Realizing we found ourselves right on the frontlines, we quickly hid in a nearby cave. You know the cave under one of the Fingers of Hillsbrad that is full of yetis? That’s where we hid. There were no yetis inside, and I cannot explain why. From our safe hideout, we observed the battle and although Uther was still quite a formidable commander and fighter even as a knight, his army was still defeated. As we would later learn, Uther was captured during the battle and transferred to Alterac’s dungeons as a valuable hostage.

With the battle out of our way, we continued across Hillsbrad Foothills, around the Fingers, and finally came across the Dalaran Plains. Some of the local farms were burned, and the farmers explained to us it was done by a Lordaeronian commander, Garithos. Without much trouble, we finally got to Dalaran. Abbot Turalyon found us a nice accommodation with a view on the Cross Isle (it still exists in this timeline) while I looked for the Violet Citadel to check the situation in the city. You would be surprised how odd this Dalaran felt. I’ve never been to old Dalaran before, and the structure of the city was completely different than its current one. That was, unfortunately, the most pleasant of the surprises there.

When the Supreme Magus was supposed to do his proclamation to the people of Dalaran, I expected Jaina, who Turalyon informed me to be the leader, but instead I saw Kel’thuzad. As it turned out, Jaina fell ill with a mysterious disease and remains in a coma. While she was gone, Kel’thuzad took her duties as an Acting Supreme Magus. This really complicated things if I wanted to get out of helping the Scourge, and it seemed at the time I would no longer get out of that.

Next on Arakkoa Chronicles: Damaging the Timeline