Beta Journals

The Mage They Call Jayne(z), Part 4: The New Adventures of Jayne(z) Quest

Unlike Valiance Keep, the town of Valgarde isn't directly on the coast; Daggercap Bay is a fair ways inland, connected to the ocean by a river running through the Fjord itself. As the boat winds its way through the cliffs and the mist on the water... it's actually a surprisingly breathtaking introduction, very cinematic and striking. Easily the coolest way to get to Northrend by far.

Unfortunately, it's also kind of long. Like, after zoning in, there's still more than 3 minutes of boat travel ahead of you before it stops at Valgarde. Sure, the passage underneath the flaming wreckage of another, less-fortunate ship and through the caves is really, really cool the first time, but it feels a bit unnecessary. It'd probably be faster to jump off and just swim the rest of the way to shore immediately upon entering Daggercap Bay itself.

(Random trivia: there are critter-type Turkeys running around Valgarde, and if killed their corpses look like a fully-cooked Thanksgiving bird. I laughed entirely too hard at that the first time I saw it).

Valgarde is filled with interesting characters (many of whom are questgivers): a gnome technician by the name of McGoyver [Pro], for one. There's also a Draenei shaman seated in a cloud of smoke whom I can only assume is perpetually high to the point where he makes Woodstock seem like a classical Wagnerian opera in comparison. There's a tough-as-nails officer giving an inspirational speech that seems to boil down to "Don't suck, or else you will die and become a mindless twisted cursed shell for eternity," (I'm inspired. Are you inspired? Good, we're inspired) ... and then Tirion Fordring, wielding the Ashbringer.

Wait, wait. Back up a second.

Yes, that's Tirion Fordring, all right. And yes, that's unmistakably the Ashbringer in his hands - all 88 DPS worth. Still in level 60 gear, eh, Tirion?

At this point, Ashbringer lore is slightly murkier than the water in the official Venture Company swimming pool, yes. First, its corrupted self was in the undead hands of its former wielder, Highlord Alexandros Mograine, back in Naxxramas. Hints were dropped that Mograine had a second son - unlike the traitorous one hanging out in Scarlet Monastery - who could be found in Outland and cleanse the blade. However, nothing ever really came of that.

In WotLK, there is another Mograine, though he's not in Outland, and in fact he, like his dad, is one of the Death Knights of the Scourge ... and he's wielding the Corrupted Ashbringer. Not sure how he got it, but eh, not much of a problem there (if you assume it stayed in Naxxramas the entire time during the move to Northrend). Without going into detail to the Death Knight starting quests - yet - the Ashbringer does seem to end up purified and in the hands of Tirion Fordring, Paladin Badass Extraordinare.

Makes sense, right? Fordring gets the cleansed Ashbringer and takes the lengthy boat ride to Valgarde, where he sets up shop and stands around looking cool and intimidating. Sounds fine to me.

Only ... one of the beginning Valgarde quest chains revolves around retrieving a sacred artifact and bringing it back to Tirion - or rather, his less-awesome companion - and upon completion of this quest, it's revealed to be... Ashbringer!

Er, forget all of that. I'll get to it later and don't want to spoil the surprise ... hm. It may be too late for that, I fear.

I can't help but wonder how, exactly, the canon will fall regarding Tirion's acquisition of the blade of the Scarlet Highlord; which of the two paths (or perhaps even more?) they'll end up going with. Will it feature in Naxx 2.0? Will it ever be an item that players can potentially acquire, or will it be NPC-only until the day the WoW servers shut down (or the final entropy of the universe, whichever comes first)?

Most importantly, how does this all fall into the Xanatos Gambit master scheme of Nat Pagle: master fisherman by day and evil genius supervillain mastermind by night?

Am I asking too many questions?

Find out all the answers next time*, when we continue questing in the Howling Fjord - and have our first face-to-face meeting with some King dude or whatever. I dunno. I think he's important. Name in the title of the game and all that stuff.

(*Note: May not actually find out all the answers. Or any of the answers.)

See you soon!

-TMTCJ(z)