What a long, strange trip it has been

Finally a year after I started this journey (I did take a long break in the middle to focus on raiding) it is complete!


I did 2,843 quests and all I got was this stupid T-Shirt ;P

I knew once I had Loremaster of Kalimdor completed it would be a downhill ride to finish off the meta.

I had only to complete quests in 3 zones of Icecrown-- Borean Tundra, Storm Peaks, and Icecrown Glacier.

I started in Borean and knocked out those quests and also completed the D.E.H.T.A's Little P.I.T.A. achievement. Nothing special, just save some animals, kill some bad guys, and then assassinate Harold Lane. Eco-Terrorism, for the win!

Then on to Storm Peaks. Some interesting quests there. I got to find out what happened to Muradin Bronzebeard.

Finally, Icecrown. The quests here are a pain in the ass. You only get a few at a time, and they take a while to complete. Then you have to fly back and forth across the zone a lot. This was slow going. It took me a couple really solid sessions to finish all of these quests. probably 8+ hours, and I already had 30 quests done when i started.

A very interesting quest series is in Icecrown. First, I had no idea at all you could go beneath Icecrown Citadel. That was crazy. Then, I did a quest where I ended up falling down this incredibly deep pit (you can't see the bottom from the top) and to my great surprise, fell into some ancient Nerubian city below. Wow.

I fell into a pit of water, were there was this shadowy shard. I touched it, and then I was warned that I should not have done that. I met this kid, Matthias Lehner down there, and as time went on, I realized the shard at the bottom was the frozen heart of one Arthas Menethil.

The boy's name, Matthias Lehner is an anagram of Arthas Menethil. Through the quests he offers, you learn more about the story behind the Lich King. This is one of those great quest chains where Blizzard does a great job of telling a story and rewards the player for paying attention and actually reading the quest text and thinking about what they just witnessed.

There is some speculation that this may just be an image created by Yogg Saron to do what the Old Gods do best-- manipulate the living; and this is not a projection of the last shreds of goodness left inside of The Lich King.

Anyone who has seen the Fall of the Lich King cinematic knows that Arthas is redeemed just before he dies, so the destruction of the frozen heart must not totally wipe out his humanity.