Eventually, though, Brann reaches a circular chamber with three gigantic stone faces built into the walls. Apparently, this is some sort of Titan computer or something like that. I'm not too clear on the details, but Brann seems to know what he's doing. Mostly, anyway - while trying to unlock the information he's seeking, he accidentally triggers the security mechanism, beginning the main event.
While running the dungeon, this was where we hit our first snag. The room in which you're supposed to fight off the enemies has a pretty awesome visual effect on the floor (and here are the stars again!), but at the time we were doing this, it was ... sort of bugged. Anybody, player or NPC, who stood inside the effect would be completely invisible and untargetable unless you were also standing in there with your camera positioned at just the right angle. Needless to say, that made things frustrating, because the only places you could accurately fight the attackers was along the rim of the wall.
Since the event fails and is reset if Brann is killed, we opted to clump up right on top of him (where we could see ourselves) to more easily protect him - but this had unforeseen consequences. As the event progresses, the three faces around the room open their eyes one-by-one, and shoot lasers at members of your party that damage anybody standing too close. By themselves, they're not too hard to deal with, especially if you can move away from them. We were all clumped up and afraid to move for fear of not being able to fight, though - and three converging lasers overwhelmed our healer very rapidly.
It's also worth noting that the ominous-glowing-laser-eyes totally reminded me of that one scene in The Neverending Story with the guardians that sensed fear or whatever it was they did. That scene scared the crap out of me when I was younger, and Blizzard cunningly twisted that mental scarring against me here. Well played, sirs. Well played.
The next time around, we stood outside the room, intercepting the enemies before they even had a chance to enter the Floor of Invisible Frustration, a strategy that worked out much more successfully (though if any slipped through the cracks it was a pain to pick them up again). After the conclusion of the event by the defeating of a remarkably unremarkable boss mob, Brann successfully broke through the security, resulting in a cutscene.
According to the tale, the Titans had originally designed the races of Azeroth to have mineral-like skin of stone and metal like the Iron Dwarves currently possessed. In fact, it was only through the corruption of the Old Gods that the mortal races were given this "Curse of Flesh." Incidentally enough, this same "Curse of Flesh" comes up all the way back in the Borean Tundra for Alliance players. But I skipped over that bit, didn't I? Whoops.
The implications of the information that Brann receives here are pretty heavy for the lore of WarCraft when you think about it. While it's true that my jaw was dropped down to my computer desk during the entire cutscene, it was actually pretty long - 5 minutes or so - especially given that it was just people talking (albeit with pretty sparkling light effects). On repeated runs of the dungeon, it might well get old, even annoying, especially given that you need to talk to Brann afterwards to be able to fight the fourth and final boss of the dungeon, so just leaving right away isn't really an option.
After all is said and done, Brann heads back to the main chamber of the Halls of Stone, standing in front of a massive sealed door that I, in all my observance, hadn't noticed before. Whoops again. We talked to him, and he opened the door to reveal the fourth and final boss of the Halls, Sjonnir the Ironshaper. Sjonnir has thrown his lot in with Loken, another Titan guardian-statue-thing, who has apparently decided that the Old Gods are the team to root for. Loken can be found as the final boss of the level 80 Ulduar wing, the Halls of Lightning.
Sjonnir isn't a very hard fight, with the only really notable part being the periodic summoning of a random add (we saw Troggs and Oozes) to aid him in battle. Otherwise, he seemed like a simple tank-and-spank, albeit one with a very cool atmosphere as befitting the rest of the dungeon. Of course, given that I was the one on add-killing duty, who knows? Maybe he's got some abilities that I just didn't notice.
We killed Sjonnir, collected our lewt, and that was that. Since his boss Loken is, as previously mentioned, chilling in the Halls of Lightning, I find myself wondering what the crew at Blizzard has in store for players for the Ulduar raid. Loken had seemed to be this expansion's Big Bad as far as the Titans were concerned ... who would they have that would be Bigger and Badder? The only thing I can think of is that we'll be pitted against the game's second Old God, Yogg-Saron (the specific one responsible for Loken's betrayal of the Creators).
I guess we'll just have to find out, won't we?
Right now, though? The next adventure isn't in Northrend, but Anaheim, California. I'll be covering the party at Blizzcon this weekend, so if you'll be attending ... maybe I'll see you there!
See you all next time!
-TMTCJ(z).
