Wrathion, the black dragonflight, and a pair of daggers

[Amanojorge]

Hey all! Before I post some screenies of tonight's "Reception of the Legendaries©", here's a quick summary of the questline:

The Red Dragonflight's Agent

The questline begins with Lord Afrasastrasz, down at the base of Wyrmrest. He basically says "pst, rogue, I have a job for you". Apparently, something happened that makes the red dragons require someone "discrete". "Go pick Hagara's pocket", he says, "for she has a Decoder Ring that you will need". And that's it, no more information. The quest is called, fittingly, "Proving your worth".

So, in this case, I was this rogue. And while Hagara was distracted swatting at a bear that was trying to maul her face off, I picked her pocket. Easy peasy.

I returned to Lord Afrasastrasz (yay, alliteration!) and showed him my prize. "Not so fast", he said. "You may have proven you can be a cutpurse, but the Red Dragonflight can't be seen working with the rabble". Not that I'd ever be seen at all, of course. Still, I asked him what he meant. "You need 10k gold, dude. To charge it and stuff. Just ask for my ethereal friend in Stormwind".

So I flew back to Stormwind on wings of darkness, wiping the blood off the many gold coins I'd stolen off the corpses of my enemies (actually I just hearthed, but let's pretend for the sake of theatricality). I payed the shifty looking ethereal and he told me to come back in 12 hours. In that time, I learned that many a rogue had come, payed the ethereal, and got stuck in the next few quests, unable to get a single thing out of them. Nice con, I thought. The Red Dragons must be getting hit hard by the recession.

Anyway, the next morning, charged decoder ring in hand, I headed to the Vermillion Redoubt to speak with Corialstrasza, another red dragon. There, I found the body of a dead thief and a coded message. What I didn't find there was a black dragon egg, which apparently was the problem. "The only purified black dragon egg, free of the influence of Deathwing and the Old Gods", the dragon lady said. So, I used my decoder with the coded message and what do you know? It guided me straight to Ravenholdt. "Ravenholdt? That den of two-bit thieves?", said Corialstrasza, puzzled. Lady, I thought, those two-bit thieves have the largest stockpiles of heavy junkboxes in Azeroth. I said nothing though, and went on my next mission: recover the stolen dragon egg.

While I flew over the ruins of Arathor, I thought about the stupidity of a thief that carries on himself his home address and then lets himself be killed. One or the other dude, never both! Anyway, I infiltrated Ravenholdt Manor and, lo and behold, I found the black egg in the basement.

In the Service of the Black Prince

The problem was that the egg was empty. "Dude, I'd been hatching since this expansion came out, years ago", a voice behind me said. "What did you expect would happen?".

I spun around and saw a black dragon in humanoid form, a little short for a dragon (well,there's always Chromie, but let's not take her into account here) and wearing a turban. Fortunately, my mask covered my face while i swallowed my laughter.

Wrathion hadn't been stolen, he said, but rescued. And, despite the help of the Red Dragonflight in cutting off the Old Gods' influence, he didn't intend to let me take him back so he could be their pet, or their trophy. Instead, he offered me a job.

Hey, I thought, working for the red dragons hasn't made me any money; in fact, it cost me 10k! What the heck, I'll do it.

Wrathion told me his plans involved me killing his father's former lieutenants around Azeroth, the ones that had flew under the radar and were lying low, biding their time. My first target was one Lord Hiram Creed.

Creed was holed up in Gilneas, where he had brainwashed a lot of folks into being part of his own private army. A direct assault by a single squishy worgen was out of the question. And since the army men apparently had a great anti-aircraft defense system in place, I couldn't do a flyover and get the drop on him. I'd have to sneak in.

Now, granted, I hadn't been in Gilneas City since it had fallen to the Forsaken's plague (damn you, Sylvanas!), but I didn't expect to find it crawling with dragonkin hybrid creatures. Anyway, I managed to infiltrate the military district and stab Creed in the back!

He didn't die right away though, so I had to kite him for a while and let my poisons do my work for me (I love you, assassination spec!). When he finally dropped, I took a vial of his blood as proof of my deed and headed back to Wrathion.

When I got there, the Black Prince seemed a little surprised to see me, but no more than his lackey, Fahrad. I was given a pair of daggers as a reward, Fear and Vengeance. "Yeah, I know they're just above heroic dungeon power right now, but hey can be made better! You belong to a guild, right? Cause you're gonna need their help".

And he told me to gather elementium gems from his father's lieutenants, which I did thanks to my friends in Twilight. I also got Icemunch and Grendeel killed a couple of times, but whatcha gonna do, right? So a couple of months after killing Creed I headed to Ravenholdt Manor once more.

Wrathion took the gems, cackled once or twice in a fit of fratricidal glee and sent me off to kill another rogue black dragon. This time, my mark was hiding underground, beneath the abandoned ruins of Karazhan. I sneaked past the dragonkin guards once more and, when I saw my target, I recognized her face! It was Nalice, the black dragon that once stood on the top of Wyrmrest Temple during the War of the Nexus. She'd even sent me on quests and everything!

Meh, I thought. I never liked her anyway. It's not like I'm killing a nice dragon like Chromie...

Nalice put up quite a fight, I even had to Shiv her a couple of times! But she went down, of course. I took the required vial of blood and returned to the Black Prince.

Dude, you should call yourself something else, I thought on my way back to Ravenholdt. There's already Will Smith who, granted, is also Fresh, and, well, Prince.

I landed to find a pleased Wrathion and an ever more restless Fahrad. As promised, my daggers were imbued with power and returned to me as The Sleeper and The Dreamer. Suiting names, since they matched the lazy, half-lidded eyes that had appeared in the middle of each blade.

"I know they look nice right now", Wrathion said, "but wait till you come back in a couple of months with more elementium gem clusters!".

Weeks passed, Deathwing's lieutenants died, and Shadowwolf rezzed me more times than I could count. But at last, tonight, all the elementium gem clusters were gathered. I flew through a magic portal and over the mountains to deliver the loot.

By now Fahrad was outright sweating at the sight of me, but hey, who am I to judge. I walk around all day, all covered with fur and dressed all in leather, you can imagine the smell. Anyway, Wrathion looked more pleased than ever and sent me on my final quest: kill his father, Deathwing (again...). While I walked out the door I heard Fahrad's muttered complains about trusting me and the Black Prince's response. "Don't worry", he said. "This is, most assuredly, a suicide mission..."

And while I did die during the fight with Deathwing (dammit, Geos!), Twilight vanquished the Destroyer once more and I looted a piece of his chin (don't ask me...). I flew along with the rest of the raid towards Ravenholdt, and when I exited the tunnel in the mountains, I found the aftermath of a battle, of which Wrathion had emerged the victor...

[Amanojorge]

But wait, there's more!

[Amanojorge]

In conclusion: this whole questline serves as a kind of epilogue for the death of DW and the Aspects losing their powers. In a way, I think Wrathion reflects the newfound "freedom" of the mortal races, with a twist: while the heroes of Azeroth have "earned" their people the right to decide their own fate, by proving they're capable of facing whatever is thrown at them, Wrathion takes control of his own destiny by force, through deceit and assassination. Whatever the means (or the cost), though, both us heroes and Wrathion now have a blank slate on which to draw. I read somewhere it won't be long before we find him again on Pandaria. I, for one, can't wait to see whether we're on the same side...

Finally, I want to thank you all, my friends in Twilight, for giving me a home on Azeroth from the very start. The legendary daggers are just the icing on the cake; what this guild has given me since the moment I arrived is a sense of belonging, of camaraderie, and friendship that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. My blades and loyalty belong to Twilight!

Ahem. Anyway. Let's go gank some noobs, shall we?

[Amanojorge]

Also, don't you love how, powerful as he may be, Wrathion is just a whelp in that last screenshot?

[Icemunch]

gratz again aman!

[Lord Entropy]

Nice writeup and grats!

[Kothnok]

Great writeup with copious amounts of nice pictures and well written text =)