"It's all lava down there. If we fall in, are we just dead?"
After entering Blackrock Mountain, the rolling lava below had a strange kind of temptation to it. It made people want to jump down in the most graceful pose possible, swim a few laps through the lava, and take a proper lava bath.
"If you fall in, you're coming out extra crispy."
"Look who's talking. You'd come out as fried chicken."
"Ahem. Ladies present, gentlemen."
Everyone was still in the same Ventrilo channel, so Igor and Hugo's trash talk came through loud and clear.
Blackrock Depths was located at the lowest level of Blackrock Mountain. For normal players visiting for the first time, the usual route was to take the chains down and enter through the central stone structure above the lava.
But Gabryell was not taking the normal route.
Veterans did not use ordinary roads.
"Everyone, follow me and jump."
Gabryell walked toward the passage that led from Blackrock Mountain to Searing Gorge, stopped at the cliff edge opposite the exit, and looked down at the lava below.
This was the fastest way to reach the lower level of Blackrock Mountain. Players entering from Searing Gorge could jump straight down from here and land near the platform outside Molten Core.
"Pay attention when you jump. Either jump straight into the lava below, or land on the little ledge sticking out from the wall on the right. If you land on the ledge, wait until you're full HP before jumping again."
He had to warn them. Otherwise, someone was absolutely going to die here.
In World of Warcraft, no matter how high you fell from, landing in deep enough water prevented fall damage. Under Blizzard's mechanics, lava counted the same way. A lava pool was still a pool. It just happened to be full of lava.
"Igor, don't mess this up," Gabryell said specifically.
This guy's hands could never quite keep up with his brain, and his sense of balance was terrible.
Thinking back to the five failed jumps during the Araj fight, Igor's expression stiffened.
"I won't."
That was exactly the kind of thing a person should never say too confidently.
The game loved slapping those words right back into your face.
Gabryell jumped first. A veteran like him did not need to land on the ledge. He went straight into the lava pool.
"Beautiful dive. Zero splash. Easy ten out of ten," DeathScum said.
With Gabryell demonstrating, everyone else began jumping after him.
Those who were confident jumped straight into the lava. Those who were not landed on the protruding ledge to the right, waited for their health to recover, then jumped again to avoid dying from fall damage.
"Igor, jump already."
Hugo had gone straight into the lava and was hopping around inside it, showing off like he had just cleared some impossible stunt.
Igor could not stand seeing him act so smug. He stopped hesitating and jumped.
And then—
He missed.
More precisely, he did not jump far enough and dropped almost straight down.
Crunch.
Igor's Paladin smashed into the sloped rock beside the lava platform. The fall was too high, so he took full fall damage and died on the spot.
He had fallen to his death.
"Hahahaha!"
A few seconds later, laughter exploded over Ventrilo. Then Carlos's voice came through.
"Igor, you absolute legend. You actually died to fall damage?"
Smooch giggled. "Igor, sweetie, that was pathetic. You didn't die in style. You died to gravity."
Out of the entire group, Igor was the only one who managed to miss the lava and die to the ground.
Yeah, that one was going to follow him for a while.
"Holy shit," Igor muttered. Even he could not help swearing.
"Hahaha! Igor, you're so bad. How did you even manage to die from that?"
Hugo was laughing so hard he nearly collapsed onto his desk.
A person should never get too carried away.
Smugness had a way of attracting punishment.
Hugo had completely forgotten that his Hunter was still standing in the lava. Since everyone had been busy laughing at Igor, no one had paid attention to his health.
"Idiot," Igor said coldly. "Aren't you dead too?"
Only then did everyone realize that Hugo's Hunter had been burned alive by the lava.
Hugo stared at his screen as it turned gray, completely dumbfounded.
"Sorry," Lunatori said softly. "I forgot to heal you."
"I'll res them," Danielly said.
Gabryell stopped her. "Don't. Since they're already dead, we might as well use it. Everyone take off anything with durability, then jump into the lava and die."
Everyone froze for a moment.
Not resurrecting Igor and Hugo was one thing, but why did the rest of them have to die too?
Gabryell explained, "There's a quest in Blackrock Mountain that you can only pick up in ghost form. Since two people are already dead, we might as well all grab it now and finish it while we're here."
It was one of those truly annoying old-school designs.
Dark Iron Legacy could only be accepted while dead. Only players in ghost form could see Franclorn Forgewright's ghost on the central stone platform inside Blackrock Mountain.
The quest had only one reward: the Shadowforge Key.
The Shadowforge Key opened several passage doors inside Blackrock Depths. Some classes could get by without it, but others absolutely needed it. For example, anyone who wanted to solo farm the Arena boss for gold, or Mages who wanted to farm Ambassador Flamelash for Burst of Knowledge, would need that key.
Gabryell definitely needed the Shadowforge Key.
Since Igor and Hugo had already died, he might as well take the opportunity to lead everyone through Dark Iron Legacy and get the key together.
Once everyone heard that there was a quest that had to be picked up in ghost form, they stopped questioning him. One after another, they jumped into the lava and died.
If a player died inside Blackrock Mountain, their ghost would appear at the Searing Gorge graveyard outside the mountain.
"Get used to this route," Gabryell said. "From now on, you'll be running back to Blackrock Mountain from here a lot. Learn the shortest corpse-run path now."
He was not joking.
In the future, when they progressed Molten Core and Blackwing Lair, their lives would basically be split between fighting inside the raid and running back to their corpses.
"Is it really that bad?" David asked, surprised.
"It's worse than you think," Gabryell said. "Once we start progressing Molten Core, wiping dozens of times in one night will be normal. Maybe more. If you can't even handle the corpse run through Searing Gorge, how are we supposed to keep raid efficiency up?"
The channel went quiet.
Dozens of wipes in one night?
Wouldn't that mean spending the whole night doing nothing but dying, running back, rebuffing, and wiping again? Wouldn't people go insane?
"Is Molten Core really that scary?" David still could not quite believe it.
How hard could one dungeon be, especially with forty people fighting together?
"Harder than you can imagine."
Gabryell did not bother explaining further.
If someone could not handle wiping for an entire night, then there was no point bringing them to progression.
What was one night of wipes?
In his previous life, the famous US guild Ascent had spent 154 days before finally killing Ragnaros and clearing Molten Core.
Another US guild, Ruined, had spent 69 days wiping in Onyxia's Lair before finally killing the black dragon herself.
Compared to that, one night of corpse runs was nothing.
In ghost form, they ran back into Blackrock Mountain, reached the central stone platform, found Franclorn Forgewright's ghost, and accepted Dark Iron Legacy.
"Everyone resurrect near the lower level, pick up the Molten Core attunement, then head into BRD."
The Molten Core attunement was one of the main goals of this trip. Only after completing it would they be able to enter Molten Core later and experience the terror of World of Warcraft's first 40-player raid.
After everyone resurrected, Gabryell led them to Lothos Riftwaker and had them accept Attunement to the Core.
Then he led everyone to the entrance of Blackrock Depths.
"Alright. Move to your party channels and enter the dungeon. If you don't understand something, whisper me."
Everyone quickly split into their assigned Ventrilo channels.
Once only five people remained with him, Gabryell said, "Let's go in."
Fearless had officially begun its first real Blackrock Depths run, and with it, the first step toward their upcoming Molten Core progression.