Tag Archives: c’thun
Old God mop-up duty
Scouting reports have finally come in from around Kalimdor, after the business with the Old Gods’ spawn in Thal’darah Grove last week. The Twilight’s Hammer is definitely weakened and scattered in the aftermath of Deathwing’s defeat, but they’re still out there licking their wounds. As for the Old Gods and their minions themselves, that’s a little tricker. We don’t really know very much about the Old Gods proper – in the late stages of the war with Deathwing we kept hearing references to an Old God named N’Zoth, but we don’t have much idea where he’s hiding, or how many Old Gods are still out there, if any, or where they are.
That’s the thing about the Old Gods – however many of them are left, they’re hidden away somewhere, buried deep in the bowels of the earth or at the bottom of the sea. With the ones we’ve fought so far, C’thun and Yogg-Saron, we actually had a pretty easy time of it, since in both those cases they were contained in one location, and even then it’s hard to tell just how deeply and broadly they’d managed to take root in the surrounding area.
But for the ones still on the loose, it’s a whole other problem. All we really know is that there’s at least one more of them (strictly speaking, there’s probably at least TWO more of them, seeing as how the Twilights keep talking about the Old GODS rather than the Old GOD, or just plain That Dude N’Zoth), and that they’re located, well, DOWN THERE somewhere. Hell, one of them could be tucked away somewhere under Orgrimmar for all we know. I guess the Titans supposedly imprisoned them all underground, although, first of all, Titans, nice job letting the rest of us know where they ARE so we could maybe help keep an eye on them, or at least not go digging around too close and maybe accidentally let them loose delving too greedily and too deep, and second of all, bang-up job keeping the three we know about contained all air-tight like they have been. Hell, one of those three is STILL contained as far as we know, and it hasn’t stopped him (her? it? they? do we need to invent a whole new pronoun for these things?) from stirring up all kinds of trouble with Deathwing and Ragnaros and the Twilights.
And that’s not even getting into their fucking SPAWN, whatever the fuck that even means, like the faceless ones and the tendrils and whatever else. I mean, look at what happened in Dragonblight and you’ll see my point. Apparently these Old Gods have like a zillion of these creepy-ass offspring or minions or whatever the fuck, all burrowing around underground where they can just roll up on Wyrmrest Temple and pop out of the ground with those fucking gigantic living-mouths-with-tentacles, which by the way, what’s even the POINT of keeping the Old Gods “imprisoned” if they can apparently just shit out THOSE things at will and send them wherever they want?
So anyway, yeah. Old Gods suck.
Point being, the Old Gods are the real problem, but they’re also damn hard to pin down, so most of the time the best we can do is try to stay on top of the Twilight cult and hope that keeping them under wraps will help us put a damper on the Old Gods indirectly. Which brings us back to the scouting reports. We’re still seeing some pockets of Twilight activity in a few areas. In particular I’m getting some reports on a remaining enclave up in Mount Hyjal. I may make a trip up there to have a look myself. Not to mention it might be good to check in and get a little face time with Hamuul Runetotem, seeing as I never got around to sending him a “Get Well Soon” card after…well, you know. Although he’s seemed kind of uncomfortable around me ever since the first couple months I was Warchief. Not sure what’s up with that. Anyway, I’ll probably have a chance to talk to him soon.
Ahn’Qiraj
We’re not there yet, but things are starting to come together.
I met up with Garona in Silithus at the Scarab Gate. Based on the information we’d gotten from Skarr, the phylactery of Cho’gall is in Silithus (And by the way, did I mention I’m getting sick sick SICK of all the running around I’ve been stuck doing for this operation? Would it have killed them to set this all up within a few blocks?), and the final destination is going to be C’thun’s chamber in Ahn’Qiraj – but since we didn’t know whether it was already there, or going straight there, or somewhere else in transit, we decided to hit the end point first and see if we could work backwards if necessary. So we met outside the ruins and made our way into the old temple.
It’s been years since Horde adventurers fought their way through that place and cleared out the Qiraji that held the area, but it’s still creepy as hell in there. The walls look like they might as well be alive, twitchy and slimy, and even knowing the Qiraji are gone, you still can’t help feeling like at any second some giant bug monster could jump out of the dirt at you. You end up walking through the place with the weirdest uneasy feeling, like you’re constantly tricking yourself into thinking you just saw something out of the corner of your eye.
We ran into a small pack of Twilight guards as we got fairly deep into the temple, and I probably don’t need to tell you how that went for them. (Heh.) We finally reached C’thun’s chamber in the heart of the temple, where we found a pair of Twilight cultists unpacking several crates of random conjuring doohickies and reagents, arranging them around the room… And by the way, as if the place didn’t already have enough creepy factor going for it, some of C’thun’s remains were still there. Dead for years and it’s still there, looking fresh enough that you’d half expect it to wake up. Maybe those Old Gods have something about them that prevents them from decomposing the way the rest of us do when we die. Curse of flesh, right? End to end, I’m pretty sure this stop is going to do wonders for my dreams come nighttime…
Anyhow… the cultists weren’t much more of an issue than the guards were, other than the fact that these guys needed to be taken alive, what with them probably knowing the most about what was going on. Still, it didn’t take too much doing to subdue them, and then Garona and I dragged them off into separate rooms to question them separately. No comment on how much beating either of them ended up taking. Just take my word that they’re both still alive. Mostly. Can’t go killing THESE cultists just yet, at least till we’re sure we don’t need any more info from them. Anyway, point is, we were able to get some information from them.
The phylactery isn’t in the temple now, but is being moved around the zone to prevent it from staying in one place for too long. There’s a Twilight agent going around with an entourage from camp to camp while the cultists here get everything ready for the ritual. Once they’re ready, they’re supposed to send up a signal, and the courier will know to make the final delivery.
I’m FAIRLY sure I can persuade them to fill us in on how they’re supposed to give the signal. (Heh.) Which means that (a) there’s no signal going out until we let it happen, and (b) we can control when it DOES go out. Which means, now we’re in business.
So here’s the plan.
Garona’s going to stay in Ahn’Qiraj while I head back to Orgrimmar and arrange for a Kor’kron stealth team to head down to Silithus quietly. We’ll move them into the temple, set up shop, and then once we have the place secured and have all the back exits and trap doors covered, we’ll give the signal for the Twilight courier to bring home the phylactery. After all, if it’s on the move all over the zone, why spend our time chasing it all over the place, when we can just have it hand delivered, right?
On my way out of Silithus I stopped at Cenarion Hold and talked to Commander Mar’alith. As a matter of fact, when we were first heading to Silithus, I kind of figured Cenarion support might be handy before all was said and done, so…spirits help me…I sent a letter to ol’ Lather-on-us in Northrend. I figured since he’s wanting to make nice with me now that he thinks I’m cutting back on the veal (HAH!), he might be able to put in a good word for us with his Cenarion friends. Pretty much just told him we’re working on an operation against the Twilight’s Hammer, who want to destroy the world, and if they do, it might be bad for the animals. That perked him up right quick.
So Ma’alith knew I’d probably be coming, and he’s agreed to help with the operation by stepping up the Cenarion patrols of the zone to make sure no cultists leave Silithus without us knowing. Meanwhile I’m having an entire battalion posted in the passageway between Silithus and Un’goro Crater, and putting the Kor’kron Air Guard on constant patrol around the zone. Between us and the Cenarions, nobody, but nobody, is getting out of Silithus without our say-so. Which means the phylactery is sealed up in Silithus, not going anywhere, until we get our people in position to spring the trap.
And speaking of which, on my way up to Durotar, I’m making a stop at Brackenwall Village to talk with Krog and the others.
Hold on tight, kids. I have an idea.
[Header image provided by Clara from Come Get tha Voodoo, via Rioriel of Postcards From Azeroth. Click here to see the souped-up Postcard version!]
Good news and really, really bad news
First the good news.
I just checked in with Krog and Draz’Zilb at Brackenwall Village, and things seem to be lining up on a couple fronts. For one, everything we learned from Skarr seems to check out. Draz’Zilb seems pretty knowledgeable on this kind of creepy black magic type stuff, and according to him it would make sense that C’thun’s chamber in Ahn’Qiraj would be an ideal place to pull off a resurrection once they have the phylactery. From what he said (if I remember this right – there was a whole lot of hocus-pocus necro-babble), since Cho’gall tried to revive C’thun in that chamber, and actually let himself become an avatar for C’thun at one point, the surrounding area should be attuned to his essence in a way that will help focus the incantation. Apparently that’s the trade-off for this kind of ritual – restoring somebody’s spirit from a non-living vessel doesn’t take a whole lot of magical energy, but it does need something attuned to that particular spirit in order to focus the spell properly, as opposed to living vessels, which I guess actually keep the essence better preserved but require an immense amount of power to unlock. So considering the Twilight ties in Silithus, this lines up pretty ideally for them.
Meanwhile, the misdirection operation in Dustwallow Marsh seems to be working. Draz’Zilb has been putting on some regular pyrotechnic shows both in the village and around the general area, to make it seem like they’re up to something, and we’ve been sending out search parties of ogres and orcs alike to play up the appearance that we’ve got something brewing. The Grimtotem seem to be taking the bait, since attacks on the village have been happening more frequently the last few days. So far so good.
Now for the bad news. And…yeah, I actually can’t believe this one. I have to admit, at this point I can’t say I’m totally unaccustomed to shooting myself in the foot somehow, but OH COME ON.
So, remember a few days ago, when Garona and I met that blood elf guy at the Steam Pools resort? Johnny Awesome? (Yes, really.) Yeah, and remember how he wanted to help out, and do some quests for me personally? And how I sent him off to Thousand Needles or Tanaris to keep him busy?
Yeah, well, guess who I just heard back from.
Lakota Windsong, one of our main tauren operatives in Thousand Needles.
And guess who turned up looking to help, and got sent off on some tasks for Lakota?
Yep, you guessed it. Johnny Awesome.
Oh, and guess who APPARENTLY was also down there in Thousand Needles, unbeknownst to anyone except for Lakota Windsong and a few others who neglected to tell ME for what reason I CANNOT FUCKING IMAGINE, and who APPARENTLY had been captured and was being held by the Twilight’s Hammer cultists down there, that is until one Johnny Awesome happened along and FUCKING HELPED HER ESCAPE and now she’s ON THE LOOSE again??
MAGATHA FUCKING GRIMTOTEM.
…
…
YEAH. YEAH. YOU READ THAT RIGHT.
Excuse me one second.
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TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-SEVEN THOUSAND GALLONS OF WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK, DUDE!!!
Oh but wait, you want details? Sure! Absolutely! LET ME GIVE YOU THE FUCKING DETAILS!!!
APPARENTLY, after Magatha got her ass booted out of Thunder Bluff, she went into hiding in Thousand Needles, and when the Twilight’s Hammer started stepping up their activity there, they captured her along with a batch of others. (NICE HOW THEY WERE ABLE TO TRACK HER DOWN RIGHT OFF LIKE THAT, HUH?? YET ANOTHER BANG-UP JOB BY MY CRACK TEAM!) So when Lakota sent Johnny Awesome around to help clean up the Grimtotem mess down there, Magatha started sending messages to the stupid elf to get him to release her pet wind serpent Arikara. Along the way Johnny Awesome also killed Arnak Grimtotem and Isha Gloomaxe, so okay, good news there, since that takes out the braintrust that had been coordinating all the ogre business in Feralas and Dustwallow, but whatever, because along the way, Johnny Awesome ALSO managed to round up a batch of ancient tauren relics – the Writ of History, the Rattle of Bones, and the Drums of War – and ended up fucking handing them OVER to Magatha.
Because, get this, after he’d done all this good work killing off these high-ranking Grimtotem, Johnny Awesome got sent to the Twilight outpost to check up on Magatha…and not only does he fucking HAND OVER THESE RELICS, but he goes out and acquires ANOTHER powerful artifact called the Doomstone…which he ALSO fucking HANDS OVER TO MAGATHA…and THEN, just to finish up, HE FUCKING FREES HER FROM THE TWILIGHTS AND LETS HER SKIP OFF ON HER MERRY FUCKING WAY!!!
I…
It…
He…
SLDKGJSHFGKJSHF GKUSDFJHGKLJSDFHGN KLSJDHFGKSJDH FGKUJSFG HKSERHTGLIKU HTGLISERHGJK,LDLI UGBYHSGITYH EIRGTHLER HGTLIEAHGLJK SADEHGLJKAEHGL JSERGLSELIGU HSGRHSERGHERGH
[Insert vocabulary failure here.]
So, yeah. Before I forget:
IMPORTANT NOTICE TO ALL LOYAL CITIZENS OF THE HORDE, FROM YOUR WARCHIEF: Effective immediately, THERE WILL BE A REWARD OF TEN THOUSAND OF ONE MILLION OF MORE THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY COUNT TO BE PAID TO WHOEVER DELIVERS TO GROMMASH HOLD THE MUTILATED (but identifiable) CORPSE OF ONE JOHNNY AWESOME.
(Additional note to Wega and/or Uukra: If it’s you, there might be a dinner date in it for you. Consider it your incentive.)
THAT IS ALL.
P.S.: The FUCK!! AAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
