User:Joshmaul/Saavedro of Stratholme/Deep Behind the Lines

Deception in Drak'Tharon


Saavedro was invited by a group of adventurers in eastern Northrend to venture into Drak'Tharon Keep, an ancient ice troll fortress that had been taken by the Scourge.

Entering Drak'Tharon's Hall of Departure, Saavedro saw dozens of slain trolls lying on the ground throughout the room, and dozens more undead trolls prowling the room. As they made their way through the Hall to reach the Warlord's Terrace, they encountered an undead dire troll known as Trollgore and destroyed him. Next fell the lich lord, Novos the Summoner, who attempted to beat back the war party with his summoned minions. As they exited the fortress interior, they began seeing less Scourge and more servitors of the Drakkari. In the Raptor Pens, they confronted a massive devilsaur known as King Dred and slew him as they made their way towards the top.

Residing at the top of Drak'Tharon was a massive creature known as the Prophet Tharon'ja, a guardian of some sort for the Drakkari Empire - seeking to maintain its power. Tharon'ja's powers included temporarily taking the flesh from their bones (a feeling Saavedro found most uncomfortable) and blasting them with powerful energy. But even the Prophet could not resist their strength, and he was destroyed. Behind him, he was thanked by a troll named Drakuru...who summoned his benefactor.

Saavedro had met Drakuru in the Grizzly Hills - imprisoned in Samir's camp at Granite Springs - and had tricked Saavedro into making a blood pact with him in exchange for collecting priceless artifacts of the Drakkari Empire, and summoning his soul using a powerful potion. In Drak'Tharon, Drakuru came in person...and so did the Lich King.

The Dark Lord commended Drakuru for his actions and rewarded him accordingly, placing him in command of Scourge forces in Zul'Drak - and warning that any foul-ups would be punished...

Azjol-Nerub: The Fall of the Traitor King


Returning to Dragonblight, Saavedro joined a group of adventurers serving at the behest of a nerubian named Kilix the Unraveler, who resided in the Pit of Narjun - the entrance to the inner sanctums of the Nerubian Empire. First, Kilix sent them into Azjol-Nerub itself for two high-priority targets: Destroying the eggs of Scourged nerubians, and to defeat the Scourge overlord of Azjol-Nerub...the supreme crypt lord, Anub'arak, who had escorted Arthas to Icecrown six years earlier.

With his party, Saavedro entered the main entryway towards the Gilded Gate that led into the Upper Kingdom. There, an undead nerubian vizier, Krik'thir the Gatewatcher, stood guard with his crypt fiend watchers. The fight was difficult at first, but once the party realized that the priests' magical shackles could aid the battle, things went smoothly. Upon defeating the Gatewatcher, Saavedro entered a deep, web-infested hell. A massive spider called Hadronox, a spawn of Maexxna - the spider matriarch of Naxxramas - was slaughtering the Anub'ar Scourge at the same time that Saavedro's party was, and eventually came up to the upper level (the webbing that served as the floor was relatively strong), where he was destroyed.

The party continued into the Brood Pit, where nerubian eggs waited for hatching. Standing on the center platform, waiting, was Anub'arak himself, with royal guards serving as sentries. Though kept away from the fight itself by a wall of webbing, Saavedro was able to keep a brother paladin (who led the attack) alive long enough to maintain Anub'arak's attention before finally destroying him. As requested by Kilix, Saavedro took Anub'arak's shattered husk and delivered it to him outside of Azjol-Nerub and was rewarded accordingly...

Deeper Than He Wanted: Into The Old Kingdom
After his victory in Azjol-Nerub, Saavedro was sent again into Ahn'kahet - the "Old Kingdom" of Azjol-Nerub, separated between the servitors of the Lich King and the Old Gods. The first two champions were Scourge - Prince Taldaram, a darkfallen warlord, and Elder Nakox, another nerubian vizier in Scourge service. As they entered the fallen Temple, Saavedro was amazed and horrified to discover a familiar enemy from the Ahn'Qiraj war: the Cult of the Twilight's Hammer. Led by the orc Jedoga Shadowseeker, the Twilight's Hammer were devoted to an Old God that Jedoga identified as "Yogg-Saron". Eventually, Jedoga was slain, warning that their "sacrilege" would not go unpunished.

Entering deeper into the temple, Saavedro saw creatures that horrified him. Kilix identified them as "the Faceless", servitors of the Old Gods. At the end of the great hall was a Faceless known as Herald Volazj. Though the fighting was fierce and several died around him as they battled the unspeakable evil, Saavedro eventually destroyed the Herald and made his escape from Ahn'kahet.

Saavedro's Revenge
Sometime after Drakuru's deception - and promotion to Overlord of Zul'Drak - Saavedro travelled to the Drakkari homeland himself and entered the service of the Argent Crusade. After discovering that Drakuru had been responsible for the attacks against the Rageclaw wolvar - who, until relatively recently, had been allies of the Drakkari - Saavedro was sent to a most unlikely source of aid in the battle against the treacherous ice troll...the Knights of the Ebon Blade, renegade death knights who broke away from the Scourge after the fall of the Scarlet Enclave.

Having given into his rage, Saavedro actually looked forward to working with the Ebon Blade. Upon arriving at their camp, Saavedro met with Stefan Vadu, the camp's leader, and sent him to collect hair samples from Scourged trolls (with the aid of a blind, deaf and numb skeleton named Nass, who had to be coaxed with a steel-toed boot). On one troll, he found a choker which he seriously considered wearing, but decided to ask the death knights' opinion first - what it could possibly do. Upon giving it to one of the captured Drakkari, it made him into a mindless Scourge - and this necklace had been intended for Saavedro himself, no doubt by Drakuru.

Coming up with a plan, Stefan sent Saavedro to collect ghoul slime and abomination guts - enough for some kind of disguise that would allow him to infiltrate the Scourge command structure and gain Drakuru's trust, then betray him and defeat him...but to make this deception such that Drakuru would be considered a failure in the eyes of the Lich King. Eager to put Drakuru's head on a pike for all to see, Saavedro agreed to the disguise, and entered the necropolis of Voltarus to do Drakuru's bidding.

Drakuru had taken western Zul'Drak already, but his ultimate ambition was to conquer the Drakkari capital city of Gundrak and claim all of Zul'Drak for the Scourge, as the Lich King had commanded in Drak'Tharon. Collecting crystals of Blight from the reliquary beneath Voltarus, defeating a lieutenant who had failed him and battling against the Drakkari themselves, Saavedro all the while undermined his efforts with Stefan's aid, diluting the plague cauldrons, destroying Scourgewagons and stealing some of the harvested Blight crystals. As he gained Drakuru's trust, Saavedro eventually was allowed into the heart of Voltarus and discovered Drakuru's master plan.

The Drakkari chieftains and warriors captured in battle with the Scourge were being converted using the crystallized Blight, becoming blightblood trolls that would assault Gundrak, their blood infecting their enemies with the Plague...turning them all against their brothers. Drakuru named Saavedro to command the assault...but he and Stefan had other plans. With the scepter he was given to enter the inner chambers of Voltarus modified to take command of a blightblood troll, Saavedro dropped his disguise...and with his commanded troll, attacked Drakuru at the top of Voltarus with the aid of a mage who had also been asked by Stefan to derail Drakuru's plan. With the combined strength of both themselves and their trolls, the deceiver was defeated. Just then, his master arrived, and Drakuru begged for aid against the double-crossers.

The Lich King's response was to explode Drakuru from within, his skull flying across the floor. With Frostmourne pointed squarely in his direction, the Lich King told Saavedro that he would allow him to live, seeing the potential within him. Screaming oaths of retribution as the Lich King departed, Saavedro did not realize that he was following the same path of another paladin before him...

Scourgefall: The Vengeance of Gymer


While searching for (and locating the corpses of) members of an Argent Crusade forward expedition, Saavedro encountered Gymer, the King of all storm giants. His brother Thiassi the Lightning Bringer, who carried the late Grand Necrolord Antiok on his shoulder in Dragonblight, had led Gymer into a trap and allowed him to be captured by the Scourge - so he would be turned into a flesh giant like Thiassi. Gymer saw that Saavedro was not Scourge and beseeched him to find a way to open his cage. In exchange, Gymer would take Saavedro into battle against the Scourge.

Saavedro agreed and, with the aid of Engineer Reed at the forward camp, constructed a large enough seaforium charge to blast open Gymer's cage. Gymer revealed that there were three major figures to take down in the Dead Fields: The Vargul leader Algar the Chosen, the flesh titan Thrym, and the darkfallen warlord Prince Navarius, the leader of the Scourge in Zul'Drak. With Gymer's power at his command, Saavedro wrote a place for himself in legend - riding on the head of the Storm King, wiping out an entire army of Scourge and their leaders. When Navarius fell, Thrym - Navarius' creation - came forward, and was the most difficult battle that Gymer and Saavedro faced. Upon the destruction of the flesh titan, Gymer brought Saavedro to the Crusade's forward encampment and deposited him there, thanking him for his assistance.

Vordrassil: Legacy of the Ancients


Returning to the Grizzly Hills, Saavedro went to Amberpine Lodge and was informed by a night elf druid of the creation of a world tree called Vordrassil. For some reason, however, the tree became corrupted, and the ancient kaldorei destroyed it before its corruption could spread. But it had rooted already, and corrupted the furbolg tribes. In their madness, the furbolg used Vordrassil's power to resurrect Ursoc, the bear Ancient, who was killed during the War of the Ancients ten thousand years earlier. But Ursoc had been corrupted by the same evil that had corrupted the furbolgs.

Realizing that the corruption spread beyond Vordrassil, the night elves sent Saavedro to contain it. To that end, he was sent into the trunk of Vordrassil, now the furbolg city of Grizzlemaw, where the Frostpaw and Redfang tribes battled one another for supremacy. There, Saavedro collected the seeds of Vordrassil to be destroyed, so that the tree would not regrow, and also burned a corrupted sapling at the center of that trunk to ashes, to be brought back for purification. To that end, Saavedro was sent to Ursoc's Den near the border of Zul'Drak to destroy the corrupted Ancient, and use the purified ashes of Vordrassil to put his spirit to rest.

After the investigation of Grizzlemaw, Saavedro received an urgent summons from Dalaran. It seemed that the Blue Dragonflight had found a way into the city...

The Violet Hold: Averting Disaster


Upon his arrival in Dalaran, Saavedro was escorted to the Violet Citadel and brought before Rhonin, the master of the Kirin Tor. Rhonin revealed that the Blue Dragonflight was using the city's dungeons as an entry point for an invasion of Dalaran, opening portals to summon reinforcements - much as the Infinite Dragonflight had while Saavedro aided Medivh in the past. As they battled portal protectors and elite Blue Dragonflight footsoldiers, draconic saboteurs broke in and freed several powerful creatures imprisoned within the Hold - first, the water revenant Ichoron, who broke into dozens of pieces and healed itself with the fragments, and the beholder Moragg. Finally, with the creatures defeated, the leader of the attack came forward - Cyanigosa, a lieutenant of the Spellweaver. Coming in human form at first, she transformed into her natural form and attacked.

With the aid of his allies, Saavedro struck the killing blow that destroyed Cyanigosa and ended the Blue Dragonflight's incursion into Dalaran. The threat had been contained...for now.