Seekers of the Epitaph: World of Azeroth

by Xarmar13

Battle of the Sunwell, Part 2: Invading the Plateau

Stella and the others soon returned to the Shattered Sun staging area where they spotted Voren’thal and Ishanah speaking with Sophia, Thanatas and the Horde group who they figured had just arrived.

Voren’thal spotted their approach and addressed them, “I have heard that you were sent to Magister’s Terrace to root out the Sunblade forces there. Did you find Kael’thas there?”

Raida nodded, “He made his last stand in the inner sanctum. We also had some assistance from Maiev and her wardens. They left with his head.”

The elderly elf was taken aback by the news of the Wardens being involved. Though this was the least of his concerns. The time had come to launch a full assault on the Sunwell Plateau.

Voren’thal discarded his distracting thoughts and focused on the task at hand. “Now that we no longer need to worry about enemy reinforcements we can focus on driving the Legion from this world. Several squads have already been dispatched to secure the entrance to the Plateau, though reports say that they encountered heavy resistance and suffered casualties in the process.”

“Do we have any info on what to expect in there?” Raida asked.

“We have some info. The Sunblade occupy Parhelion Plaza and they keep it secure with a number of fel-tainted golems. Beyond that, we may have to cut across the Dead Scar where that pit lord is waiting for someone to come fight him. Aerial scouts report that the felblood occupy the area just beyond the Dead Scar while scores of demons patrol the area around the Shrine of the Eclipse where the Sunwell is located. Any other threats are unknown at this time.”

“I saw what was going on in the Shrine,” Stella added. “The entrance is guarded by M’uru who appears to have lost all of his light and turned into a creature of void. The Legion is performing the summoning ritual as we speak.”

Voren’thal’s eyes widened by this information, “We have no more time to lose then, we must begin an all out assault to retake the Sunwell before it’s too late.”

The party nodded in agreement and went to get the Horde group who had just finished being briefed by Ishanah. Stella quickly filled in her part of the information which left the draenei in agreement with Voren’thal.

With the party united once again, they proceeded toward the entrance to the Sunwell Plateau, moving across a bridge that served as an excellent position for the marksmen against the demons and elves below.

The entrance to the Plateau was guarded by the Shattered Sun who allowed them inside where they soon found themselves in the plaza where a number of Shattered Sun warriors were being treated for their wounds while the field commander was keeping watch on the area beyond.

The commander noticed their approach and introduced herself as Captain Selana. She then proceeded to give her report. She mentioned that the Sunblade here were much stronger than anywhere else on the island but what drove them back here were the fel-powered golems.

Most of the golems were currently deactivated to conserve energy so she suggested taking advantage of this and killing any elves who attempt to reactivate them, however, Raida had a different strategy in mind. “Actually, my powers can detonate the power cores within the golems since they are using fel crystals.”

Selana considered Raida’s words for a moment but shrugged as they didn’t have any better strategies. “Alright, you can show me how you plan to deal with the golems starting with the one that is keeping us contained here. Also, there is a squad of Sunblade around the corner so they are likely to attack the moment you dismantle it. Unfortunately we are in no condition to assist you until reinforcements arrive.”

“We will take whatever help we can get since we will be up against Kil’jaeden himself before long,” Stella said.

Raida moved toward the archway into the next part of the plaza where a golem like the ones from Magister’s Terrace stood guard. She also spotted the squad of elves standing guard nearby. They seemed composed of mages, priests, hunters, warlocks and warriors. The hunters had dragonhawk companions.

The elves spotted her but were in no hurry to engage since they appeared confident that the golem would crush them if they crossed the archway. They didn’t expect a black beam to be fired from her eyes that broke through the golem’s shield and attacked its power core.

The resulting explosion left the enemy shocked by what happened which resulted in several of them being quickly slaughtered by Truth, Heartswell and Talia’s felguard. The hunters’ dragonhawks turned on their handlers who received a blast of fire to their faces which left them too blind to fire their bows effectively and they ended up hitting some of their allies by accident.

The group was in complete chaos which made them easy to defeat by the party.

“Impressive shock and awe,” Selana complimented. “One other thing I should mention. Some scouts spotted a blue dragon earlier but he appeared to be at Apex Point atop the plaza, resting.”

“Strange, the blue dragons here should be attacking the Legion forces,” Stella said. “Something must be wrong. We will check it out.”

The party continued their advance through the plaza. They noticed that the elves who were actually prepared for them were using strong spells and had good equipment. Some elves called for their allies to provide a distraction while they activated the Sunblade Protectors. Raida allowed them to attempt to activate the golems but quickly attacked the deactivated golems’ cores with her Black Eye Beam which not only destroyed the golems but also killed the elves in the explosion.

As they continued, Thanatas decided to fill them in on some information they appeared to be missing. “So, the dragon that was mentioned is indeed a problem. The dragon is Kalecgos and his mind is being controlled by a nathrezim. You will need to find a way into the dragon’s mind to deal with the problem. Also, another threat which was not located by anyone is located in a sanctum guarded by the felblood. A pair of powerful eredar warlocks named Alythess and Sacrolash reside within.”

Thanatas paused for a moment before she remembered something, “Raida, you can claim the pit lord’s soul but the two eredar are off limits and Kil’jaeden will have to wait for a later opportunity.”

“I’m guessing this is another of your predictions?” Raida asked.

Thanatas nodded, “You will get your chance then. If you claim it too soon Sargeras might find a way to launch the future invasion himself instead of through Kil’jaeden and that might put Azeroth in an even worse position.”

Raida sighed in resignation, “Fine, I just hope this pit lord has an ability worth having.”

After cutting a path of destruction throughout the plaza gardens, the party soon found a set of stairs leading to the upper level, Apex Point, where they encountered more groups of elves as they moved from watchtower point to watchtower point. With each point they cleared out, a squad of Shattered Sun soldiers landed from their dragonhawk mounts to secure the point.

They soon reached a small structure that led to a straight walkway to their right which was patrolled by a golem which Raida quickly destroyed. They came across a platform in the center of the plaza where they spotted Kalecgos resting.

Going by Thanatas’ warning, the party cautiously approached the dragon until they walked onto the platform. Unfortunately, they couldn’t sneak past him as he sensed their presence. “So, you mortals have rushed headlong to your deaths. I shall gladly oblige!”

“Kalec, snap out of it!” Stella begged. “You have to fight that nathrezim within you.”

“Pity, I was hoping to trick you into killing this dragon. No matter, his body is mine and his mind will soon follow.”

Flutashe began the battle by grabbing the dragon’s attention. They didn’t want to attack Kalecgos but they needed to weaken him while they found a way into his mind. Stella matched her arcane attacks with his arcane attacks while the druid avoided the dragon’s claws and sidestepped his frost breath.

Every now and then, Kalecgos would unleash a blast of wild arcane magic which would have unpredictable effects. Sometimes it would be useful, sometimes it would be a hindrance and sometimes it would be worthless since the affected person lacked the means to take advantage of the effect nor did it hinder them.

As the fighting continued, Thanatas noticed a lack of a means to reach the nathrezim which meant that he was trying to be smart and not allow himself to be attacked. However, this would have only worked if Thanatas weren’t around.

Using her necrmantic powers, Thanatas slashed through the air with her blade and opened a rift into the spectral realm. “There’s your opening! If you’re going to face the nathrezim, now’s your chance.”

Raida spotted the rift and called out for Stella to follow her. The dracthyr quickly flew into the rift with the demon hunter, hopeful that the others could keep the rampaging dragon at bay.

Inside the other realm, Stella and Raida found themselves standing on a shaded version of the platform outside. A swirling arcane vortex surrounded the platform with Kalec and a darkened nathrezim fighting each other.

“Stella! Raida! I’m glad you two are here. Help me defeat this demon, I don’t think I can hold out much longer,” Kalec begged.

Raida used her Spectral Vision to make sure everything was as it seemed since nathrezim were notorious deceivers. When she saw that everything checked out, she nodded to Stella who then launched bolts of ruby flame at the demon.

The demon, Sathrovarr, grimmaced as he was forced to block the flames with his wings then teleported to the other side of the platform to avoid an overhead slash from Raida. “Pitiful mortals! Your coming here changes nothing! In the end, I always win!” He then placed curses on Stella and Raida that caused them to be burned by shadows only for Stella to break her curse. While the curse was made to jump to another victim when broken, Stella quickly figured out the curse’s spellwork and broke it before breaking the one on Raida.

Sathrovarr ended up focusing his attacks on Raida who he noticed fought like the Illidari. He then took note of the horns, hooves and wings which made him see that something was completely wrong. The Illidari were supposed to have been locked up in the Vault of the Wardens, so how was this one able to escape that fate? “How!? How are you still free!? Lord Kil’jaeden said that you would be imprisoned by the wardens.”

“Guess your master isn’t as all-knowing as he thinks he is,” Raida quipped.

Sathrovarr returned his attention to Kalec because fighting a demon hunter, especially of Raida’s caliber, was not a battle he would dare engage. He teleported away from Raida and attempted to attack the half elf only for a magic circle to activate under his hooves that left him temporarily frozen in time, courtesy of Stella.

While the demon attempted to break free, Kalec and Stella combined their magic into a powerful arcane sphere that they unleashed on Sathrovarr and knocked him into the arcane vortex.

“I thank you two for the aid,” Kalec said. “The demon has been expelled from my body and is now facing your friends outside. Jump into the vortex to exit this realm.”

The two nodded and jumped in. The next thing they saw were their friends and Kalecgos fighting Sathrovarr. The nathrezim was quickly overpowered and on the verge of defeat. He attempted to cast one last volley of shadow magic but stopped when he saw his chest impaled by a warglaive. “It can’t be! I am…never on…the losing…side…”

As the nathrezim dissolved into bats, the demon’s soul was pulled into Raida’s body. She wasn’t sure what abilities the demon would bring but she would figure it out later.

With the dragon free from the demon’s influence, he shook his body and tested each part of his body to make sure that everything was functioning properly. Satisfied, he turned to the party to thank them, “I am forever in your debt. Once we have triumphed over Kil’jaeden, this entire world will be in your debt as well.”

“You may want to go looking for your partner,” Stella suggested. “She may be getting worried sick looking for you.”

Kalec chuckled, “Yes, I should probably find her. She should be around somewhere.”

“Try the Dead Scar,” Thanatas offered.

“Very well.” Kalec then flapped his wings and took off toward the southeast.

The party decided to move forward. Another golem at the end of the path activated and attempted to stop them for the brief moment it took for Raida to destroy its power core. Around the corner they faced and defeated another group of elves before they entered a damaged chamber that had a number of floating crystals.

The room had a huge breach in the wall that opened the way to the Dead Scar below. The blighted land below had countless elf skeletons lying about along with a pit lord who appeared to have seen better days. Tall walls of flame formed a ring around the area. The demon sported many scars from past battles. There was also a lack of wings on his back which appeared to have been severed from his back a long time ago. His hands had been replaced with huge blades that could make someone think that he was part of the Shattered Hand Clan. A pair of wounds on his chest leaked felblood. His armor was composed of a worn green and black plate covering his barrel from the front and shoulder armor of similar design.

As they looked at the annihilan, the party heard a conversation coming from above. “Kalec, there you are! Where have you been?”

“Apologies Madrigosa, I ran into some trouble in my search of this complex. Thankfully some kind mortals were able to help me out of my situation.”

“I see. Have you located Anveena?”

“I was able to scry her location and the situation has turned dire. She is currently at the font as we speak. They are performing the summoning ritual right now.”

“Then we must make haste to the Shrine and stop them,” Madrigosa offered.

“They are probably expecting us to try and will probably have measures to stop us. We need to try to delay them until the mortal vanguard can reach the font.”

“You are entrusting the fate of the world to mortals?”

“Don’t underestimate them,” Kalec scolded. “They defeated the Old God C’thun and slew Nefarian. Mortals have greater potential than you believe.”

“We shall see…”

The pit lord, Brutallus, stared at the two dragons in annoyance as he was expecting one or both of them to fight him. “Puny lizards, come down here and fight me!”

Kalec looked down at the pit lord, “I think you have other things to worry about, demon. Your real opponents are near you.”

Sure enough, the party had finished climbing down into the Dead Scar and were preparing for battle. Brutallus was very nonplussed by this, “You leave me to fight puny mortals? Come down here so I can crush you for this insult!”

“What’s the matter, Brutallus, getting picky about your battles?” Raida taunted. “Afraid a bunch of mortals will humiliate you?”

“Grragh! Fine! I’ll slaughter you all quickly.”

The party moved to surround Brutallus who decided to attack the one who taunted him. His two large blade arms were not the easiest to dodge but Raida was a very nimble fighter. While the party attacked him from all around him, the pit lord would occasionally drop balls of felfire from his mouth that landed in random places around him.

The fight continued like this for a while as Brutallus continued to focus on Raida who continued to dodge his slashes. Sometimes he would empower his blades with felfire for a devastating slash which the demon hunter blocked with a brief fel barrier.

Seeing as he was getting nowhere against Raida, Brutallus tried attacking someone else. Flutashe proved just as nimble as her sister. Though when he tried to empower his blades again to deliver a devastating slash, a black beam came from his side vision and struck one of his weapons, shattering it. The shards of the blade cut into his skin and caused him to spill his blood into the ground while felfire also began to erupt from the wounds. The process was repeated for the other blade, causing more green blood to spill.

With his weapons destroyed, Brutallus was forced to stomp around trying to kill someone but everyone managed to avoid his feet. Raida and Talia’s demons began to climb on the pit lord and cut into his hide with all of the strength they could muster while everyone else attacked from his feet. The pit lord continued breathing fire on everyone which did engulf a few people and force the healers to work harder to keep them alive.

Eventually his body began to leak even more blood and flames until his body lost stability. “Agghh! Well done! Now this gets…interesting…” he said before he collapsed to the ground. One last pool of blood spilled from his wounds before Raida called for her demons to return and the party backed away from Brutallus. They managed to find some cover behind some ruins before his body exploded.

With the pit lord defeated, the party took a few minutes to recover their strength. However, Raida continued to stare at the green puddle that was seeping into the blighted ground. Flutashe noticed her sister’s irritation and asked her what was wrong.

“I have a feeling that we aren’t done here just yet,” Raida replied. She spotted Kalecgos and Madrigosa flying toward them to assist them by putting out the fires for them to advance but Raida yelled for them to stay back as she had a feeling that something bad was coming.

Her feeling was answered a few moments later when the elf skeletons in the area began to glow green and assemble into a skeletal horde. The party soon found themselves surrounded by a large number of green-glowing skeletons armed with whatever weapons they had in life.

On their own, the skeletons were not difficult opponents. The years of lying on the blighted ground had left them brittle and their swordsmanship was standard for a guard. Talia and Raida’s demons smashed through many of the skeletons while Flutashe in her bear form shattered many more with her paws. Farra’jin’s earth elemental crushed many under its rocky fists.

While they were tearing through the skeletal horde, Thanatas noticed that the bones of the defeated still glowed and moved to the center of the inferno ring and swirled about as if caught in a vortex. She had seen things like this before when necromancers assembled something big. With all the elf skeletons in the area, there was only one type of creature that came to mind that could be formed from this vortex of bone.

The party soon finished off the last of the skeletons so they were able to see what Thanatas was staring at. “What is that?” Flutashe asked.

“I have no idea,” Raida replied. “I knew that annihilan blood was quite potent but seeing it capable of necromancy on this scale is a new one for me.”

“You better get ready,” Thanatas warned. “It looks like the mass of bones are trying to assemble into a bone wraith.”

“What is that?” Stella asked.

“Bone wraiths tend to form in places with a lot of restless souls and a lot of bones lying around. They either form on their own or require a catalyst, such as the blood of Brutallus. They are extremely powerful undead constructs.”

They would soon understand what the death knight was talking about as the bones began to fuse together into a massive form. The vortex began to narrow as a ribcage and pelvis formed, followed by a pair of arms and four sharp claws on its back. Several skulls formed over the ribcage while the remaining bones formed a long two-handed battle axe. The entire form glowed the eerie green color inherent in fel magic with the bones blackening.

“This is certainly an interesting turn of events,” Thanatas commented.

“You make it sound like this was unexpected for you,” Lokosh noted.

“That’s because it is.” She knew that since Madrigosa was not killed by Brutallus, his blood wouldn’t be able to turn her corpse into a bone dragon. Though in hindsight, she probably should have seen this alternative scenario coming, especially with all the dead around her. Shrugging, she mentally decided to name it Felbone because why not.

“All shall serve the Legion in life and death!” Felbone said as they raised their axe and swung downward, prompting the party to dodge and prepare to retaliate.

Felbone began emitting a noxious aura that made it painful to breathe but everyone endured. While Feloma and the spellcasters attacked the construct from range, Bella, Raida, and Lokosh had to jump up to attack the floating horror. Bella’s holy-infused hammer strikes were especially painful to the construct. Flutashe unleashed a wave of lightning from her bird form that made the horror growl.

Shortly into the fighting, Felbone stuck its four claws into the ground for a moment before four giant spikes of bone burst from the ground in random places. Farra’jin and Stella were nearly impaled, though the spikes did give them deep cuts in their backs which Mena and Groun quickly remedied. However, the attack wasn’t over as the spikes began to crack and splinter. Everyone backed away just in time before the spikes shattered and bone splinters flew everywhere. Mena put up a large barrier with Bella’s support. The bone shards bounced off the shield and fell to the ground until the shards glowed green and reassembled themselves as small skeleton constructs.

Mena and Bella poured their magic into the barrier and let it burst, burning many of the constructs in holy fire. Stella conjured several pillars of ruby flame that burned the dead with life energies. She then sent several balls of the same type of flame at Felbone who snarled in response. In response, they sent a trail of green flames at the offending mage and several more trails in different directions. The party had to move to avoid the flames though a few more missed swipes of their axe caused more flames to spread toward them.

Stella attempted to weaken the flames with frost magic but the chaotic nature of the flames overpowered the arcane nature of the frost magic.

With the flames burning away the area, the party began to run out of room to move around which made dodging Felbone’s axe swings more difficult. It wouldn’t be long before they would be unable to dodge and would either suffer the full brunt of a giant axe swing or burn in felfire.

That was when Mena had a crazy idea. She mentally discussed it with Surprise before the darker side of the gnome took over. With some irritation in her voice, Surprise called out to Raida, “Hey Raida, how well can you manipulate the fires?”

The demon hunter gave the priest a questioning look, “Huh? I can’t get rid of it if that’s what you’re asking. Until the source is dealt with the flames aren’t going away.”

“Just answer my question!”

“Yeah, I can move some of the fire. Why?”

“Can you send it back to that thing?” Surprise asked.

“I can, but it won’t do much good.”

“Just do that and let me handle the rest.”

Unsure of her plan, Raida did what the gnome wanted and magically lifted some of the felfire off the ground and condensed it into a ball of green flame before she sent it at the construct. The flames were spreading over it but the bone wraith showed no sign of taking damage.

That was when Surprise conjured a giant eyeball which fired a beam of pure void and struck Felbone. Consuming chaos and consuming oblivion collided; two forces that should never meet. The reaction caused by the collision was highly volatile and resulted in a huge explosion that Bella protected against with a light barrier but the blast shattered it and sent them flying back to the base of the building. Though they were hit by the explosion, the shield did mitigate some of the blast so the party managed to escape with a few burns. The bone wraith, on the other hand, was scattered all over the area. The effects of the felblood faded from the bones as lingering void energies consumed the foul substance.

While the healers were busy patching the wounded, Stella asked Raida a question in hindsight of the fight, “Couldn’t you have used your Black Eye Beam to destroy that thing while the flames were on it?”

“I’ve never tried controlling felfire like that before so I couldn’t be certain whether they would stick to a fel-contaminated creature or not. There was always the chance that the flames would go out the moment I stopped controlling them. I’ll need to practice this in the future.”

Stella nodded in agreement before she assisted the healing effort with her red and green essence.

The urgency of the situation didn’t leave them with much time to rest so they kept this time short while Kalecgos and Madrigosa put out the fire wall with their frost breaths, allowing the party to move forward.

“We shall rendezvous at the Sunwell, good luck champions.” Kalec said.

“Be swift, we don’t know how much time we have left.” Madrigosa added. The two dragons flew toward the north.

The party didn’t make it very far after the fire wall due to a transparent magical barrier with a sun emblem in the center. They attempted to attack the barrier with their weapons and magic but their attacks proved ineffective as the barrier stood unwavering.

“This is a strong barrier,” Talia noted. “It would take incredible power to break this one.” She wanted to say an alicorn’s level of power but mentioning that would probably get her and her associates in trouble with their overseers.

“Normally it would take the souls of powerful beings to break this thing but we don’t have the time to search for that. So…” Thanatas pulled out her sword and activated a few runes on it which turned the sword black and produce an ominous aura. Everyone in the party could almost swear that they heard a large number of voices from somewhere crying out in anguish.

When the death knight slashed the barrier the wall turned black and the emblem turned a pale gray. This was followed by the sound of glass shattering as the barrier fell.

The sound had alerted the defenders of the next section of the Plateau and the party soon found themselves engaged in combat against a number of well equipped felblood elves. Some tried to steal their life energies or their mana, some summoned demons while others tried to strike at them from the shadows. Stella turned the ones who tried to drain them into sheep while Talia banished any demons that were summoned. With the terrace being a narrow path, Bella’s consecrated ground kept the assassins from ambushing them.

Stella and Raida flew upward and landed behind the group of enemies which left them surrounded on both sides and disrupted any defensive formation they might have had. It wasn’t long before the corrupted elves were defeated.

They traveled along the terrace which was a linear, yet winding, path. They encountered more groups of felblood though they also heard a voice from somewhere nearby calling for imps. It wasn’t long before they spotted red imps running toward them from ahead. Raida took flight to get a view of where the imps were coming from and found that they were coming from a small building ahead. Imp after imp appeared to be leaving the building and moving toward the party.

The demon hunter landed near the party and explained that they were in a gauntlet scenario and that they needed to keep moving to reach the building to stem the endless waves of imps.

Farra’jin used his fire elemental to distract the imps and tricked them into exploding on it which its fiery body absorbed while he and everyone else took out the squads of felblood elves on their way forward.

They soon reached the building and took out the commander which caused the felblood summoners within the building to stop what they were doing and attack which proved to be a futile effort.

With the summoners defeated, the party moved through the small building and faced more groups of felblood. They moved down a flight of stairs toward another building that was guarded by more felblood though this group seemed determined to keep them out of the sanctum behind them.

However, the elves fell like the rest so they were able to enter the sanctum which was lavishly decorated like every blood elf-built room. The only source of light in the dark chamber came from the sun outside. The entrance had a pair of ramps along the wall that led down to the main section of the chamber where a pair of scantily clad female eredar stood. One was red skinned while the other was dark gray. As the party entered the chamber, they could hear them uttering something alternately.

“Misery…”

“Depravity…”

“Confusion…”

“Hatred…”

“Mistrust…”

“Chaos…”

“These are the hallmarks…”

“These are the pillars…”

The two then looked up toward the party and spoke in unison, “We shall instill these into your hearts as your souls burn for eternity!”

Raida warned that Alythess, the red eredar, specialized in fire magic while her dark-skinned sister, Sacrolash, specialized in shadow-based physical attacks.

Farra’jin set his water totem to resist Alythess’ fire spells while Bella’s holy aura protected everyone from Sacrolash’s shadow magic. The sisters worked well in unison as they teamed up against Lokosh to burn the orc in shadow and fire, badly injuring him. Groun spent a few seconds getting him back up.

Even when Flutashe and Bella tried to get one sister to fight them, the two chose to single one out and pick them off. Their teamwork was causing the healers some strain as they struggled to keep up with their combined assaults.

Raida decided to break up the coordination of the sisters by placing Alythess in a fel prison while everyone else attacked Sacrolash. The dark eredar unleashed an explosion of shadow before rushing toward Alythess’ prison. However, Raida was expecting this as she struck the sister in the legs with a Black Eye Beam which encased her hooves in crystal. “Sacrolash!” Alythess cried out just before a bolt of fel magic struck the crystal and annihilated the eredar in a large explosion.

The red eredar cried out in fury which helped her to break out of the prison. With her sister dead, Alythess claimed part of her sister’s soul and gained some of her shadowy magic. She turned her baleful gaze to Raida before throwing a barrage of fire at her. The demon hunter easily dodged the spells before she called Leech, her felhound, to briefly lock her out of her fire magic.

With the disruption, Alythess quickly found herself being struck by various types of magic from the party before Lokosh slammed her with his shield hard enough to send her flying back against a wall.

Before she could react, Raida was in her face with her blades wreathed in felfire a moment before a diagonal slash cut her in two.

After that battle, the party needed to rest again. From this point they were nearing the sacred font of power. In fact, they were directly beneath it. However, to reach the Sunwell above, they would have to go through Kil’jaeden’s elite forces.

Within the hour, either the Sunwell would be liberated from the demons or Azeroth would face a demonic invasion that they were not prepared to face.

Author's Note:

As I wrote this, my original idea was keeping Madrigosa from dying and throwing out Felmyst, turning this into a 5 boss raid. But I reconsidered that as I tried to think of a good replacement. When I thought about where they were, a place where countless elves made their last stand keeping Arthas away from the Sunwell, I realized that there had to be hundreds of skeletons laying around and since Brutallus' blood can animate bones, I got the idea to replace Felmyst with a bone wraith. The image comes from The Desolate Host from the Tomb of Sargeras raid.

One more chapter until the Burning Crusade arc comes to a close.