User:Joshmaul/Saavedro of Stratholme/The Secrets of Medivh's Tower



After obtaining the Master's Key and gaining entrance to the forboding tower of Karazhan, Saavedro of Stratholme began devoting his energies to unlocking its secrets.

Into the Ivory Tower
Upon obtaining the Master's Key and returning to Karazhan, Saavedro was tasked to enter Karazhan by Archmage Alturus of the Violet Eye and locate the journal of an agent named Keanna, who died shortly before Karazhan was sealed off. To that end, Alturus instructed him to find Koren, a blacksmith who worked in the tower but was under the auspices of the Violet Eye. To reach him, they had to defeat a powerful foe, a death knight named Attumen the Huntsman. Attumen was quickly defeated and his spoils taken, before the remainder of the war party made its way deeper into the forgotten tower.

Upon speaking to Koren, it was obvious that the long years - nearly three decades trapped in Medivh's tower - had taken their toll on the spirit, who had some trouble remembering the details of his mission. However, he let slip (apparently unintentionally, as he was supposed to keep that a secret) that Keanna had stayed in the Guest Quarters, upstairs from the Banquet Hall. To reach the next floor, they had to enter the Banquet Hall and deal with the Steward of the Tower, Moroes - one of Medivh's original servants, and now the castellan to the new master of Karazhan.

Upon entering the Banquet Hall, Saavedro saw some people whose names he recognized, and whose families he had aided in his early training - noblemen from Darkshire. It was likely that these nobles were guests at a banquet being held as they waited for Medivh to make an appearance - though one, likely a relative of Ello Ebonlocke, the Lord Mayor of Darkshire, was of the opinion that the banquet was a waste of time because Medivh would never make an appearance. (He happened to be right.) Moving in quickly, the party kept the ghostly nobles at bay while they took on Moroes, who possessed skills akin to that of rogues - of much greater caliber than any Saavedro had ever seen. With powerful allies at his side, Saavedro remained vigilant as, in a short but bloody conflict, they defeated the undead Steward.

As his next point of reference was the Guest Quarters, Saavedro entered this area next and defeated the Maiden of Virtue, a Titan-like construct that was quickly and easily defeated. Saavedro, in a private moment, found this rather amusing; the Guest Quarters in Karazhan had become something of a brothel, with women of ill repute wandering its rooms and halls, and at the end of this hall was something calling itself the Maiden of Virtue. After clearing out the Guest Quarters of its unsavory guests, Saavedro recovered Keanna's log and - in a brief lull in the fighting in Karazhan - returned it to Alturus outside. With Keanna's log in hand, Alturus sent Saavedro back into Karazhan to investigate a demonic presence that Keanna - shortly before her death - reported was coming from the top of the tower. Afterwards, the raiding party went into the Opera House, where they had to endure some bad acting (including a ghostly tale of unrequited love, or an angry worgen who transformed the party members into little girls and chased after them in order to eat them), but came away with the prizes. In order to quickly reach the tower top, which was practically sealed off from the Opera House, they had to leave the tower entirely and travel up the outer ramparts to the side entrance into the Broken Stair, on Karazhan's shattered western face (the fragments, to Saavedro's surprise, floated much like the rock of Outland).

Battling arcane elementals and watchers on their way up the Stair, the raiding party entered the Menagerie, where they confronted a powerful arcane elemental known as the Curator. The Curator, as its name implied, was some sort of caretaker or protector of the Menagerie and whatever artifacts were within. With powerful arcane flares that disrupted the raid's attacks, the Curator attempted to prevent them from continuing on further into the tower, but in the end was felled by their combined efforts.

Into the Guardian's Library


Upon reaching honored reputation with the Violet Eye, Saavedro was tasked with locating Medivh's journal, a task that several other Violet Eye agents had been tasked with. The last to be sent in was a mage named Wravien, and Alturus sent Saavedro back into Karazhan to locate him. Stomach in knots, Saavedro went through Karazhan once more, past the Menagerie, and entered the Guardian's Library...a place that had formerly been the domain of Khadgar, Medivh's first and only apprentice.

What he saw appalled him; priceless tomes were scattered across the floor or, worse, burning in bonfires scattered across the labyrinthian corridors, ramps and stairwells. Saavedro managed to locate Wravien, who was so caught up in studying the books (or rather, caught up in the powerful magic of Karazhan) that he had forgotten his mission; however, he sent Saavedro to the warlock Gradav, who had been sent before. Gradav was caught up in some project that he could not set aside, and sent the paladin once more to another - Kamsis, a conjurer and the first agent sent into the tower.

Kamsis had indeed possessed the journal, but passed it on to another in favor of reading the scrolls. The other, she explained, was a man named Aran. Kamsis said somewhat casually that this Aran was Medivh's father. Saavedro was astonished; Nielas Aran had been dead for nearly sixty years, but having seen many unusual ghosts within the halls of Karazhan, Saavedro was not about to let surprise take him unawares. His mission was to locate and retrieve Medivh's journal, and retrieve it he would.

Travelling up to a large door at the top of a long series of ramps and staircases, the party opened it to reveal none other than the ghost of Nielas Aran himself, trapped within the bounds of his son's tower. The years of death had apparently not dampened Aran's formidable magic, as he was able to blast the party with powerful arcane explosions and shards of ice, as well as immense flame wreaths that - if anyone moved - would cause massive explosions that would kill everyone in the raiding party. After a battle that seemed to go on forever, Aran was defeated, and the journal taken from his ghostly hands and delivered back to Kamsis. After Aran's defeat, Saavedro stepped out onto the Master's Terrace and read the page marked by Kamsis. It revealed a vision from a time before Saavedro even knew Karazhan existed - an event that occurred during his early teens, nearly forty years earlier.

The Vision
Medivh had been standing on the terrace as the blue dragon Arcanagos, a servitor of Malygos the Spellweaver, approached. The Blue Dragonflight had apparently detected powerful, evil energies within the tower of Karazhan, and Malygos sent Arcanagos to parley with the Guardian of Tirisfal, in order to get him to leave the tower before the situation spiralled out of control. Medivh seemed almost arrogant and condescending as Arcanagos pleaded with him to leave. Realizing that he would not be persuaded, Arcanagos prepared to attack. Medivh launched a powerful fireball towards the dragon, which was reflected back at him by a powerful magic aura. Injured by the attack, Medivh gathered the power within himself (imbuing his spell with some of his own life essence in the process) and launched a powerful fire attack at Arcanagos, breaking through the dragon's defenses and causing him to burn up from the inside. Arcanagos flew away and crashed into the side of the mountain south of Karazhan.

With this information, Saavedro returned to Alturus, who sent him to find a bone of Arcanagos from where he crashed into the mountain. It was found not far from where the confrontation took place. In order to obtain the portion of Medivh's arcane essence, they had to remake the dragon, destroy it, and take the essence from its body. To that end, Alturus sent Saavedro to Outland, to Kalynna Lathred at Area 52 in Netherstorm. In exchange for the aid necessary to reconstruct the dragon, Kalynna wanted two tomes - one from the Sethekk Halls of Auchindoun, the other from the Shattered Halls of Hellfire Citadel - as payment.

A Game of Chess Against the Guardian of Tirisfal


As they approached the top of Karazhan, Saavedro and his comrades stepped into what appeared to be a large chess board set up on the floor of the room. Standing nearby was an "echo" of Medivh. Saavedro suddenly understood that this was a large gaming hall, and in order to continue to investigate the summit, they had to defeat Medivh in this odd game of chess.

The "pieces" were figures from around the time Medivh had lived; one side Alliance, the other Horde. The "kings" were Llane Wrynn, King of Azeroth, and Blackhand, Warchief of the Horde; the others were orc grunts and human footmen, warlocks and conjurers, necrolytes and clerics - beings that had been involved in the First War between orcs and humans, decades before.

At the raid leader's behest, the raiding party took positions behind their select pieces, to take control of them. Saavedro, as a healer, chose the human cleric as his piece of choice, and wielded its holy powers to great effect to keep the King Llane piece alive long enough to defeat the Warchief Blackhand piece. The game was over relatively quickly, with the "echo" of Medivh conceding defeat after the fall of his king (despite attempting to cheat to defeat the raiding party), and granting a small, dusty chest as the prize. Saavedro took from it an unusually-shaped shield that would grant him more healing powers. Equipping the new shield on his left arm, Saavedro continued on with the raiding party, inexorably towards the top of Karazhan...and perhaps beyond the tower altogether.

A Prince of the Eredar: Confronting the Demonic Presence


As they reached the tower summit, Saavedro could see the skeletal remains of gryphons - undoubtedly those used by Medivh to travel to and from Karazhan - circling around. He could sense the evil presence that Keanna's log had described as he drew nearer. Entering a side room from Medivh's chambers, Saavedro and the party were suddenly...somewhere other than the halls of Karazhan. They had entered Netherspace, the domain of the new master of Karazhan...Prince Malchezaar.

This, Saavedro realized, was the demonic presence that Keanna had found.

Steeling himself before the formidable powers of the eredar Prince, Saavedro remained close to his seasoned raiding party as they prepared to do battle with the demon. The Prince was probably the most powerful being Saavedro had ever faced, and he felt a small twinge of terror at the immense energies of evil he wielded. Malchezaar summoned very powerful infernals, and enfeebled the minds of the others, weakening them almost to the point of death. When the battle continued on, Malchezaar attacked with axes summoned from the Nether, and several of Saavedro's comrades fell to them. As the battle winded towards its end, Saavedro was wounded nearly to death when Malchezaar threw one of the axes, which flew around and struck the paladin in his abdomen; only the presence of a skilled priest prevented his death. As Saavedro bled on the ground, the paladin Aerindel struck the killing blow that ended Malchezaar's reign and destroyed the demonic presence that had dominated Karazhan.

The Grand Restorer
After endearing himself to the Violet Eye, Saavedro was summoned to the gatehouse of Karazhan to be named as a Grand Restorer of the Violet Eye. Archmage Leryda, one of the leaders of the Violet Eye, took the Violet Signet from Saavedro's hand and empowered it to its full power, creating a ring equivalent to that worn by a member of the Kirin Tor. Departing Karazhan feeling more empowered than ever, Saavedro now prepared to find his destiny beyond the halls of Karazhan.