Once more into the heart of Blackrock Depths, this time for sure. Our goal was to clear up the remaining quests, see the sites, get attuned to the core, and generally be able to move on to something else. So, after a free ride and then a death fest, we went in for the third plunge as follows:
56 Warlock – Bungholio
56 Mage – Ula
56 Paladin – Vikund
57 Priest – Skronk
57 Warrior – Earlthecat
Our first goal was to get into the bar. That sounds like my goal every Friday night for some points in my youth.
Anyway, we had been to the bar last time around, so it meant re-tracing our steps though the center circle to the side door up and across the draw bridge, around the corner and through into the manufactory and at last to the bar.
We managed to do this without dying much. Actually, I think we only lost Ula once before we were at last in the bar and ready to commence.
With that, we had to pick a fight with Ribbly Screwspigot, since last time around inventory issues kept Skronk from collecting his head to finish a quest. Skronk also managed to get killed during the fight, but with a paladin along, there is always backup ressing to be had.
Still, Ribbly was nice enough to leave behind the Wayfarer’s Knapsack, which Skronk won on the roll.
We then went the route of the of the Love Potion quest with Mistress Nagmara to get out the back door of the bar and into the rest of the instance. We picked this quest up the previous week and, fortunately, some of us put in the effort to collect the items for the quest. This worked out much better than our beer brawl last time.
I was not one of those people, so no quest reward for me, but as a group we were able to progress. Here we are, out the door. You can see the legs of Mistress Nagmara and Private Rocknot below the stairs. They were down there making out. Or so their emotes seemed to indicate. They seem to be awfully far apart for anything intimate.
Out the back door and through more… well… yard trash… until we got to the Mold Foundry, which is occupied with golems, each with two or three non-elite casters in support.
Unfortunately, even a non-elite caster can lay down some heat, and in our first run it was almost a wipe as we went in with the usual “Plan A” approach.
After cleaning from that first fight, we used a bit more caution and had Earl tank the golems while the rest of us cut up the casters then went to his assistance and eventually we took down the local boss, Panzor the (not quite) Invincible.
That lead us to the Summoner’s Tomb and the seven ghostly dwarves, a series of battles, one after the other, with seven named dwarves, the result of which gave us access to the next stage of the instance, The Lyceum, and The Chest of the Seven, which yielded up the Legplates of the Eternal Guardian, a nice set of legs for Earl.
The Lyceum was a new experience. The place is crawling with groups of non-elite, low hit point mobs that respawn very quickly. You have to plow through them, find two specific NPCs, slay them, loot torches from them, and light two braziers to get to the next stage.
The non-elite mobs were, well, about as threatening as soap bubbles, but were fun to nuke. Consecrate for the win!
It took us a while to find the right NPCs, but we got through eventually, and to the next stage, the Iron Hall, home of Magmus, who looks remarkably similar to Bal’Gaer from the end of the Dark Iron Highway and who gave us some trouble on our last visit.
The fight there was a bit easier. Magmus does not get any helpers during the fight. However, the Iron Hall has a series of niches along the sides, each of which has, essentially, an immobile golem with a flame thrower. So if the fight starts in the wrong location, or if you stray the wrong direction, you take some serious fire damage.
Magmus went down, we ran through the flames like kids running through the sprinklers, only our screams were a lot less joyous, and finally got to the last room, The Imperial Seat, home of Emperor Dagran Thaurissian and his kidnapped and mesmerized companion, Princess Moira Bronzebeard.
This room proved a bit of a challenge, once we cleared out all the yard trash. We were there to rescue the princess (how noble!), but in her mental state, under control of the Emperor, she was helping him out. And since she is a priest, she heals while he fights.
Our first round ended up in a wipe. We tried to kill off the Emperor quickly, while ignoring her, and ended up dead.
For the second round, we off tanked the Princess to keep her occupied, while again trying to melt down the Emperor as quickly as possible. The Emperor has a habit of going magic resistant every so often, but we had enough firepower to bring him down.
We ended up in the throne for our group shot, and were done with the instance.
Except we still had some business with Marshal Windsor.
So we went all the way back to the Ring of Law area, killed of everything in a three mile radius, and then released Windsor and followed him all over the place while he settled some scores, helped out a friend, then, at last, told us it was time to go.
Now we were done with the instance. Oh, and somewhere in there we killed some mob that finished a quest that gave us access to Molten Core as well.
Tired after a long run, we decided to put off the final stage of the quest with Marshal Windsor, the part that involves all sorts of NPCs shouting in Stormwind, until next time.
And once we do that, we have to decide what instance we should hit next time. We have a few choices now, as we rapidly approach our debut in the Outlands.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 