the sleep from which some will never awaken

Kaurinka felt like she already knew Ardenweald. One winter when she was an adolescent, she had gotten pneumonia and nearly died. She remembered little of her illness, except that it had seemed that while her body lay delirious in her tribe’s longhouse, her spirit had wandered freely over the dark, snowy landscape around the camp. Out of the corners of her eyes, she’d caught glimpses of towering, sigil-scribed trees with swirling, starry canopies, and underneath them, smaller trees, or maybe bushes, laden with glowing blue globes — but when she turned to try to look at them straight on, she saw only the normal, familiar trees. What was that place?, she had wondered many times during all the years that had followed. And now, here she was. If I had managed to find that place, and walk between those trees, she realized, I would have died.

~*~*~

I felt much weaker in Ardenweald than I had in Bastion or Maldraxxus. Enemies were harder to kill and took off more of my health in the process. I was using Regrowth more-or-less rotationally just to stay alive, which makes me rather worried for the survivability of my other characters.

Although I did a couple of side quests in Bastion with both Kaelinda and Kaurinka, I ignored side quests entirely in Maldraxxus. I wanted to know the whole story of Ardenweald with Kaurinka, so she did all the side quests. In the process, I discovered that for each zone, there’s one Achievement for completing the main storyline of the zone and another Achievement for doing all of the side quests* — and that both Achievements are required for each zone to complete the Loremaster meta-Achievement. Unlike Legion and Battle for Azeroth, side quests are not optional for Loremaster**! Fortunately, Loremaster is an account-wide meta-Achievement, so I can continue with my original plan of having the character who will pledge to the Covenant of each zone do its side quests — Keliora will do all the side quests of Bastion, Kalaneia will do all the side quests of Maldraxxus, and Kaelinda will do all the side quests of Revendreth — while all the others just barrel through the main questline.

Between the Rest that I accumulated last week and doing all the side quests, Kaurinka was 58% through level 59 when she finished the main zone storyline. She’ll now slumber in Ardenweald until Kaelinda has activated Threads of Fate, then use Threads of Fate to select the Night Fae as her Covenant and level the remainder of the way to 60.

Lorewise, Ardenweald delivered on the themes of heartbreaking loss and sacrifice promised by its Afterlives short. I found Niya’s story to be particularly moving, in no small part because of the wonderful voice acting. When she sat down to grieve for her lost village, I was seriously concerned that we might come back and find her, too, fallen to the mysterious masks, until Te’zan decided to stay with her and comfort her.

Even though she had spent relatively little time in Drustvar, Kaurinka immediately recognized the shape of the masks, the blue-and-black aura of the magic, and the cross-hatched runes of Ardenweald’s invaders as characteristic of the Drust. That Ardenweald was beseiged by the Drust — an Azerothian foe — could not be a coincidence. Kaurinka wondered where Sylvanas Windrunner’s hand was in this. Unless the Drust were actually from some other realm of the Shadowlands — that place “Thros” they referred to, perhaps? — and had merely somehow broken through to and settled the region of Kul Tiras that was named for them long ages ago in Azeroth’s past?

Ursoc is still lost; Ursol will be forever without his twin and the Furbolg forever without one of their gods. But I was comforted, somehow, that in Droman Aliothe we have a counterpart to Ursoc from another world. Our world has lost one of its Wild Gods; she is a Wild God who has lost her world. Though she is bound to Ardenweald now, might there perhaps be a connection or crossing over of some sort to be made?

Kaurinka suspected who the mysterious young wildseed might be as soon as the Nightmares manifested. She recognized the companions who appeared in the Dreamer’s visions, though a soul from another world, experiencing the same visions, would only have known the relationships of those companions to the Dreamer. It broke her heart all over again to relive Ysera’s fall — even more so to relive it in first person. And her heart swelled with joy when Ysera was reborn. But how curious, that the Winter Queen had referred to Ysera as being “of my sister” and “her pet”! She must have been speaking of Eonar, so what was the true connection between the rulers of the Shadowlands realms and the Titans?

~*~*~

* There’s one side quest chain, however, that doesn’t unlock until after you’ve chosen your Covenant (though it is available to players of any Covenant); I assume that it’s the same in the other zones.

**I sure hope the full Explorer meta-Achievement isn’t required for flying, because this time around it requires uncovering the map, getting all the treasures, and doing all of the rares (each as its own separate sub-Achievement) in each zone to complete, and I don’t want to do that!