The Great Thief

The quails in the Blackrock Spire looked cute, but they were actually quite evil.

The Blackrock Mountain rested on the edge of Lakeshire, in the Eastern Kingdoms. The background lore of the Blackrock Mountain could be traced all the way back to the War of the Three Hammers, which involved the Bronzebeard, Warhammer and the Dark Iron Dwarves.

The Bronzebeard Dwarves won the war, but the Dark Iron Dwarves weren’t willing to accept the defeat. They built the Thaurissan city at the bottom of Blackrock Mountains in an attempt to make their comeback.

However, the Bronzebeard weren’t interested in giving their enemies a chance. After they joined forces with the Wildhammer, they completed destroyed the Dark Iron Dwarves again. In this fight, they killed the Dark Iron Dwarf, Queen Modgud. In despair, King Thaurissan made a mistake that anyone could’ve made. He summoned Ragnaros from the lava depths.

Ragnaros had a fiery appearance.

Because the fire element planes were linked to lava, you could imagine that Ragnaros appeared from the ground in a huge hole, dripping with lava. This was how Blackrock Mountain was formed.

Then, Ragnaros proceeded to enslave the Dark Iron Dwarves and forced them to build the Blackrock Spire.

Just because the Dark Iron Dwarves became slaves to Ragnaros didn’t mean they had the ability to swim in lava. The metal bridge on top of the giant hole was built for these Dwarves. Players had to take the same route in order to enter the dungeon.

However, since this was a passageway, the bridge wouldn’t be small.

As long as players didn’t attempt suicide, they wouldn’t fall off the bridge and die to lava.

However, there would be quails hiding around the bridge that would blow at the passing players from the enemy faction.

This created an AoE spell called Typhoon. The attack was fan shaped and not only did it deal damage, but it also had a chance of blowing away the victims that were hit. Theoretically, this would be a very strong PVP skill, but unfortunately, it required a relatively long cast time. As such, it was most useful when casted by these quails in hiding.

Lu Li and the others had seen with their own eyes how a group of players got blown away.

It wasn’t realistic to expect to survive after falling off the bridge, and this was the same for everyone, even Lu Li. Not only would a player have to lose 5% experience, but there was also no way of reviving the player. The player might also lose their equipment and wouldn’t be able to pick it back up. Even with their team members standing around, they would only be able to watch as the System refreshed the equipment.

The reason why they were playing so carefully was because these quails were classed as Druids, so they could Stealth and ambush too.

After taking out two of the enemy Druids, Lu Li brought everyone safely past the metal bridge. As for the players from the same faction who ambushed them, Lu Li would hide beside them and if they started casting Typhoon, he planned to take them out.

Fortunately, the Druids that played here really cared about their factions and no one attacked their own allies.

The entrance to the Blackrock Spire wasn’t easy to find, but this was no issue for Lu Li. After all, many players spent so much time hanging around Blackrock Mountain. Hachi Chan was still dragging onto Remnant Dream’s tail, afraid that she might accidentally get lost if she zoned out.

After Ragnaros had been summoned, he enslaved the Dark Iron Dwarves.

This well-defended spire was designed by the Dark Iron architect, Krokuun. As a symbol of Dark Iron, the Dark Iron Dwarves controlled this spire for hundreds of years until the Tauren army marched through the Door of Darkness and headed north.

The Tauren in Azeroth could be divided by their skin colour. The most common skin was green, and were commonly found in Durotar. The most famous one amongst them was Thrall.

Another type were brown skinned, represented by Hellscream and his son. They were known as the pureblood Tauren, and greatly admired strength. In the past, Hellscream managed to complete an almost impossible quest with his axe and became a hero. When they went berserk, their skin turned red and they looked thirsty for blood.

Another type was the Blackrock Tauren. There was a hint of blackish-grey mixed in with their green skin. It was hard to tell if this was nature, but the only thing certain was that they didn’t belong to the Horde faction. They were more like the Tauren that had been cast out. Right now, they lived far away from the territory of the Horde faction and had become the most troublesome group to the human race.

In fact, when they once belonged to the Horde, this group of Tauren followed the army up north.

At Blackrock Mountain, they easily defeated the Dark Iron Dwarves and took over this Blackrock Spire. The Dark Iron Dwarves had to seek Ragnaros for help. However, he was still storing up his energy at the lava core, so the Dark Iron Dwarves had no choice but to retreat.

The Tauren army rested for a bit after they captured the area, then proceeded ahead and left a portion of the army to stay here.

In the battle of Blackrock Spire, Orgrim paid a heavy price to take down Anduin Lothar, the commander of the Alliance. The situation had turned too sour to save – the Tauren had been defeated and most of them captured, including the Chief.

The Tauren army was defeated, but it seemed like this had nothing to do with these Blackrock Tauren.

They had been forgotten by Azeroth. If it wasn’t for the Dark Iron Dwarves that still fought with them or the arrival of Rend Blackhand and Maim Blackhand, these Dwarves may have still survived.

Blackhand the Destroyer was the Warchief of the Horde, controlled by Guldan. Both Rend and Maim were his sons.

Rend was the elder son of Blackhand, and had the battle talent and tactical thinking of his father. Along with his brother Maim, he was forced to age faster with Warlock magic that drained life force. The brothers and Orgrim were the important left and right hand of Blackhand.

During the end of the first Tauren war, Durotan died to assassination and many questioned if this was the work of the Blackhand brothers.

After Blackhand was killed by Orgrim Doomhammer, Rend and Maim were filled with fury and decided to take back the control of the Blackrock tribes. They swore to kill Orgrim and avenge their father. Although they earned some support from the Tauren and the tribes, even until this day, their wish remained unfulfilled.

Then, they were placed in charge to protect the Dark Portal, but were defeated by the Alliance army. In the end, the Dark Portal was destroyed and the two brothers were captured by the Alliance.

After a tough process, Rend finally escaped with his brother. Together, they gathered the remaining troops and took over Blackrock Mountain, using the Blackrock Spire as their main city. Over the past dozen years, they had constantly expanded their territory and threatened the peace of Stormwind City, located to the South of Blackrock Spire.

During the war to gain control over Blackrock Spire, Rend lost his only family.

Rend never managed to fulfil his dreams, and someone of great importance arrived within his territory – Nefarian.

Rend’s father was only a puppet leader and he also died. However, Nefarian’s father was the King of Black Dragons, the Earth protector of the past, and someone who could easily take on any other dragon protectors.

The Black Dragon Army was the greatest threat to the mortal world.

Under the lead of Death Wing, the Black Dragon Army had constantly invaded and destroyed the kingdoms of Humans and Elves over many generations.

Although he was defeated during the war of Grimtotem, he was fortunate enough to escape from death. No matter if he was captured or in hiding, one thing remained certain – he had no power over the evil Black Dragon Army.

Because Death Wing was hiding, his eldest son took up leadership and now led the entire Black Dragon race. This elder son of Death Wing was Nefarian, who was cruel and cunning. He used the Blackrock Spire as his fortress and turned the Blackwing Lair into his nest.

Nefarian used all sorts of dragon blood to experiment and finally created an army of colourful Dragonspawns.

With the help of his sister in creating these special Dragonspawns, Nefarian took over the entire Black Dragon Army from his father.

Alongside his fellow loyal dragons, Nefarian fought Ragnaros and finally took over the entire Blackrock Mountain and the surrounding areas.

He tried his best to replicate the glory that his father once had. After Nefarian captured the elemental slaves of Ragnaros, he was pleased and used them for his own evil cause.

When Nefarian conquered the Blackrock Tauren, he didn’t kill Rend. He needed a helper too.

On the surface, it appeared that Nefarian had formed an alliance with Rend Blackhand, when in reality, he was only using Blackhand’s tribe for his own goals.

The crazy desire of Nefarian to rule even drew out the Red Dragon, an enemy to the Black Dragon Army. Although Nefarian’s goals were clear, his tactics to accomplish his goal remained an unknown mystery.

With his control over the Black Dragon Army and the support from the multi-coloured Dragonspawn, Nefarian began to plan his counter attack on other dragons and the mortal world.

All of this meant that the Blackrock Spire was a part of the Tauren faction.

Actually, Blackrock Spire and Blackwing Lair were both forces of the Black Dragons and the Blackrock Tauren. The Blackrock Depths and Molten Core were forces of the Dark Iron Dwarves and Ragnaros. The two parties constantly fought in an attempt to gain complete control over the Blackrock Mountains.

Although the dragons possessed powers of dark magic, Ragnaros could use his fire abilities to give life to rocks. The two forces were on par with each other and the battleground became a mess.

This was such a poor location. Lu Li had always questioned why these two Bosses constantly fought over it.