Time Flies When You're Downing Bosses.

It's already Friday? I haven't posted since Tuesday!? O.O

I wanted to have a nice juicy lore post for you today, but I haven't had time to research anything. I might make special weekend post for this. I know there's stuff I want to look into and share with all of you.

As far as guild stuff, this week has been busy! Tuesday night we joined with Brothers of the Fallen who needed some help filling out a raid. They had about 18 people, and asked us to supply some extras. We took on Gruul, and won! A couple of the people pining after the Champion of the Naaru title were able to grab that. Since it hadn't taken us that long to get Gruul down, we went and killed Magtheridon again for good measure. The guild we were with is a bunch of Tier 5, Tier 6 people, so they made it look easy. Unfortunately, this meant that Lal and Elionene were no longer available to get the title because we wouldn't be able to kill Magtheridon again before the patch hits on Tuesday, but I don't think either of us really cared that much.

It's of interest to note that none of the three bosses we killed, High King Maulgar, Gruul, or Magtheridon, dropped any T4 tokens for hunters. Each one of them dropped two "of the defender" and one "of the champion" tokens. It was actually kind of eerie. I think Lal snagged a T4 token for priest pants. She's totally decked out now.

After the raids we did a quick run of regular Botanica with a friend who just got to 70 on a pally tank alt. It was actually pretty fun. Easy and quick. After that we went to heroic Slave Pens to turn in the quest from killing Gruul and Nightbane. Sheesh! That was a full night.

Wednesday night's guild meeting was replaced with a meet and greet tavern role play event where instead of strictly going over guild business in character, we just talked and drank, and casually brought up events coming up in the future. Then Lal and Salthier got to go to Magisters' terrace with the same guy who had a pally tank alt. It was a bit stressful. Lal and I had never been there before, but overall I think I liked the instance layout, and the bosses were a lot of fun.

Last night we finally did our Heroic Shadow Labyrinth run. Ugh. What sadistic developer created this place? We did pretty well up until Blackhand's room. Every pull seemed to cause a wipe in there. I think I finally figured ou the pull order and we were able to do the 6 mob pulls without wiping. When we got to the third boss, Vorpil, who had given us a headache and stopped our progress the last time in Heroic Slab, we surprisingly killed him after only one teleport. I was happily surprised. And we all /cheered.

Murmur was a bit of pain. But we ended up going with the stay put strategy. We all ate the sonic booms and just kept up a lot of heals on everyone. On our third attempt, the tank went down at about 12% on Murmur, but we managed to get him the rest of the way down anyway. There was much rejoicing, and the tank got away with a pretty cool polearm and shield off of Murmur.

The officers in Veritas have been heavily discussing the future of raiding and role playing as we get to the expansion and make our way into Northrend. Some of it has been a little confrontational, but think we all feel like we want raiding to be more fun than taxing, and role play to remain a central part of our guild. It should be something that everything else revolves around. So we're working on role play and lore incentives for the guild to explore Northrend. We're sort of waiting for the in game world event to start it off, but each day gets me more and more excited. A lot of people are getting a little bored now, or tired, or both. Hopefully the expansion and even the patch next week will breath some new life into people.

Lessons in Lore - Malygos, The Spellweaver

Malygos is the Dragon Aspect of Magic, and the leader of the Blue Dragonflight. At the beginnings of the world, the Titans left the dragon aspects in charge of affairs on Azeroth. Alexstrasza, the life giver, of the red dragonflight. Ysera, she of dreaming, for the green dragonflight, who we talked about before in reference to the Emerald Dream. Nozdormu, leader of the Bronze dragonflight, keepers of time, and the ones in charge of the Caverns of Time. And lastly, Neltharion, the earth warder, master of the Black Dragonflight, who corrupted, is today known as Deathwing.

Back in the day, before the war of the ancients and the fall of Neltharion, Malygos and his blue dragonflight were most intent on the uses of, the science of, and the art of magic. They were the most knowledgeable of the flights. Neltharion and Malygos were very close, as like to each other as brothers. This made it all the worse for Malygos when Neltharion betrayed them. Neltharion created the Dragon Soul, perhaps influenced by the Old Gods, and sought to bring the whole of the dragonflight under his power. Malygos was tricked into believe in the Dragon Soul was beneficial, and helped to convince all of the other dragons to join in giving power to the Dragon Soul. Instead, it gave Neltharion, now Deathwing power beyond power.

Deathwing proceeded to attack the dragonflights, nearly eradicating the entire host of Blue dragons. Malygos, retreated to his abode in Northrend, rendered mad by the loss of his fight and the betrayal of the Earth Warder. It would be many years before he was heard from again. The dragonflight was eventually able to free them from Deathwing's control, but the Dragon Soul, now called the Demon soul, ended up in the hands of the Dragonmaw orcs, who used it to capture and enslave the red dragonflight. The tale of their internment at Grim Batol is told in The Day of the Dragon by Richard Knaack. Krasus, of the red Dragonflight seeks the aid of Malygos to free the Red dragonflight. Malygos is at first reluctant, still mad with his loss. Krasus is eventually able to convince him to help by explaining how Deathwing is still at large, and was not completely defeated during the War of the Ancients. In the end, Alexstraza is freed along with the rest of the red dragonflight and pledges to assist the humans in their time of need for their part in rescuing her from the orcs.

The reason that this is important now is that we will be able to see Malygos at work in Northrend. It seems he has finally awoken from his madness, but he has seen what has become of the world over the last 10,000 years and is displeased. The humans are using arcane magic in greater amounts, and he fears that they will draw the burning legion to the world much like the High Elves did in Azshara many years ago, at the time Malygos lost his sanity. So he decides the best thing to do is wage a war against the humans, and especially against the wizards of the Kirin Tor. In response, the Kirin Tor move Dalaran to fight a double war against the Lich King, and against the Blue Dragonflight.

I'm actually a little upset by this development. First of all, I find it confusing that Malygos, who is one of the oldest and wisest of the dragon aspects, thinks that war with the Kirin Tor is a good option. For one thing, we've already beat down the Burning Legion in Outland and at the Sunwell. It's not like all the magic use is going to really cause them to be any more of a threat. On top of that, he's supposed to be coming OUT of his madness, but it seems like he's just jumping into a new madness, as the actions he is taking now have repercussions beyond just a typical war, such as the harnessing of ley lines and the effect that has on the world. So Malygos, who should know better, is creating new problems by trying to war against a single problem. On top of this, because of her oath to the humans, Alexstraza and the red dragonflight are helping the Kirin Tor fight against Malygos. I don't see how this can end well.

Malygos will be a raid boss in Northrend, similar to the Onyxia and Magtheridon now. Will we really be able to kill him? Is that the only way to handle the situation? And what will the repercussions of killing a dragon aspect be? I am at least looking forward to how these questions will be answered. And I'm thrilled that we'll be able to participate in these raids and the lore with 10 people.