The Great Thief

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

Druids also got adjusted; One area tweaked was their appearance. Cat druids had larger eyes and bird druids had fatter bodies. On the other hand, bear druids were more ferocious. The tree druids were like cute little tree people, and their healing had also been increased.

The Hunters didn’t change much. The main thing was an increase of their pets’ intelligence. Some pets could even say simple words.

Warlocks had an extra control skill, consolidating their position as the king of control.

Apart from this, there were some hidden changes. It was mainly related to the difficulty of Instance Dungeons, and it waited for the players to find out for themselves. Everyone realized that the Instance Dungeons that were originally extremely difficult had their difficulty reduced. A lot of people had also surged into the battlefield of Alterac Valley, wanting to fight with some foreigners.

However, Lu Li was more interested in the new Instance Dungeon. The instructions he had given to Ruling Sword earlier were very simple. It was to make sure they secured the First Clear of the Instance Dungeon. This new Instance Dungeon was about insects. There wasn’t much official info on the insects, but they also didn’t intentionally keep any information about them secret.

Assembling info about the insects and the quest became the main mission that Ruling Sword assigned. As long as the info was relevant it could be sent to the tactics group to collect. Any info about the insects, including info about what skills they used, were taken in to be analysed.

Lu Li himself went into Stormwind City’s Great Royal Library. Lu Li researched the early trolls of the past because insects and trolls once fought against each other. To understand someone, you can begin by looking at their enemy.

There was no concrete information about the origins of insects. Like many lifeforms on the Azeroth continent, they had appeared very suddenly, but still in an understandable way. We are also like this in reality, like the Cambrian explosion or the appearance of humans. It all feels very sudden to us.

It couldn’t be described in too much detail. How the ancestors of the insects were born in the sea, from how they went from being single-celled organisms to multicellular organisms. How they left the sea and crawled up onto land or how they evolved one step further to be intelligent insects.

Although the origin can’t be explained, but when they began to flourish can be discussed. It was when the Titans defeated the ancient gods of Azeroth, the first rulers, that a space was given for the insects to develop.

From the book The Origins of Trolls, Lu Li found some info about trolls.

16 000 years before Dawn, the insects already had their own civilization – the Azj’Aqir civilization.

They had established the third great empire of Kalimdor at the time – the Aqir Empire ruled over the west of Kalimdor. Completing the triumvirate was the empire set up by the trolls, controlling the jungles of the east and south – the Gurubashi Empire and the forest’s Amani Empire.

Aside from this, there was also Northrend in the far north, a small nation of trolls.

These intelligent insect-like lifeforms greatly desired expansion and were also extremely evil. The Aqir insects were devoted to eradicating all lifeforms on Kalimdor that weren’t insects. On this point, they were in agreement with the Wings of Death, but the Wings of Death wanted to rid Kalimdor of all life that weren’t Black Dragons. This was the standard display of evil. If Lu Li was like this, then he would definitely be called a war maniac or the Destroyer.

Two tigers can’t live on one mountain. It was impossible for these two bloodthirsty groups, the insects and the trolls, to coexist without war. The two had fought for over 1000 years. Although the trolls had never had an overwhelming advantage over the Aqir insects, in the end, the insects still lost multiple times in the war. It was really difficult to tell from the current state of Azeroth but at that time, the power of the trolls was really great.

The Aqir Empire split into two. Their subjects escaped to the far north of the continent, assembling there as they lived out a feeble existence.

Two Aqir city-states were established. In the barren land of the north there was Arj Nirab, and Ahn’Qiraj in the south desert. The trolls doubted that there were still hideouts of insects on Kalimdor, and indeed, their existence has never been confirmed.

First, let’s talk about Arj Nirab.

From the books The Annals of the Origins of the Undead – Ner’zhul, The Legendary Northrend and Those Years I was in Northrend, Lu Li compiled the information of the branching empire.

When Saar liberated his own brother Lordaeron, Ner’zhul continued to consolidate his base in Northrend. In the space above Icecrown, he established a giant castle to control his huge undead armies.

But when the Lich King expanded his borders, a single secret kingdom began to rebel against him. This ancient underground kingdom called Arj Nirab was established by a cruel race of human spiders. They sent out some elite troops to attack Icecrown. Ner’zhul realized that the spiders were completely immune to his mind control, and their strength was comparable to the undead troops.

The Spider Web Monsters, King of the Spiders, controlled a huge army, and also had influence over half of the tunnel network under the territory of Northrend. Their guerrilla warfare tactics made the Lich King wandered around aimlessly.

In the end, Ner’zhul won a difficult victory against the Spider Web Monsters. Under attack from the berserk Dreadlord and countless undead warriors, the Spider Kingdom of Arj Nirab became a land of ruins.

Although the Spider Web Monsters were mentally immune to Ner’zhul, Ner’zhul’s great Spirit power was able to control the corpses of the spider warriors. After Northrend had been unified, the Lich King began to carry out his true quest. The Lich King extended his sights onto human territory, and even summoned all the dark spirits that would listen to his voice.

The Spider Web Monsters, having been crushed in defeat, lifted their heads to the Lich. Some imagined that if the spider monsters had defeated Ner’zhul, then there wouldn’t be all this trouble afterwards. There wouldn’t be this new Horde, the Alliance and the Horde wouldn’t exist, and you couldn’t keep playing this game.

Let’s talk about Ahn’Qiraj.

Actually, the info in this area was easier to find. After all, the War of the Shifting Sands occurred not that long ago. A lot of people who participated in that war were still alive. And the effects of that war can still be felt today. What was important to remember was, insects and insect people were completely different things. Insects weren’t very smart. At the moment, there were a lot of places on the Azeroth continent, but insect people were intelligent lifeforms. Within insects, they occupied the position of commanders. At the moment, on the mainland, insect people barely existed.

The glorious Ahn’Qiraj Stronghold was originally was where the guards jailed C’Thun. The pitiful insects didn’t know this at all. They entered this stronghold and inside, they spread out and recovered their power. They tried, once again, to come out on the mainland and conquer the land. There was a surprising similarity with the trolls – they both wanted to recover their former glory.

At the same time the insect people of Aqir were looking to increase their power, they had already been corroded by the sealed C’Thun.

This branch of the Aqir insects began to be called the Ahn’Qiraj insects.

Although Azshara and her Night Elf empire once knew of the existence of this stronghold, it was forgotten over the long course of time. Also, this stronghold towered over the vast desolate Silithus Desert, where few intelligent lifeforms set foot.

It was only when the land of Silithus was revived under the leadership of Archdruid Fandral Staghelm that the Ahn’Qiraj again entered the sights of the elves.

In the biography The Son of the Archdruid, the author described in detail the situation of that time. The archdruid sent his own brave son, Valstann, as well as a group of druids he trusted, to go out together to do a quest.

They trudged back and forth in the sweltering desert, looking everywhere for an underground supply of water that could change this land into a jungle. Finally, Valstann led his comrades to go into the land where the Ahn’Qiraj were. Although numerous druids told him to avoid this area, Fandral’s son still went on ahead without turning back.

In the cold, lonely hall many Qiraj insect people were sleeping but they were woken up by Valstann’s rash entrance. And C’Thun had also realized the revival of the Qiraj insect people in the depths of Ahn’Qiraj, immediately sending numerous insect people to be driven into a great rage.

The high-level Qiraj insect people then organized the lower level insects, and with their numbers, they were a powerful group. They were like a type of scorpion – these evil insects had all sorts of different appearances, but everyone followed the will of the Qiraj overlord.

The existence of these Qiraj insect people absolutely shocked Valstann and the druids following him. They immediately got out of Ahn’Qiraj and established a little outpost in Silithus to monitor the movements of these insects.

The insects who forcibly occupied the stronghold became stronger and stronger every day. After a while, a general rushed out of the flooded tunnels of Ahn’Qiraj without warning, commanding a swarm of Qiraj insect people. They commanded many different types of scorpion underlings, completely swallowing up the surrounding wilderness. After this, they spread even further to other lands.

At this point, Valstann went to his father for help. Fandral continued to organise a group of druids, sentinels, female priests and jungle guards. They responded to the threat of the Qiraj insect people with their own army.

At that time, the Archdruid Fandral Staghelm was an old, established and renowned Night Elf. In his youth, he was already an outspoken member of the Cenarion Circle. Staghelm, with his big frame and furious temper, made him a strong and scary druid in the eyes of everyone else. Because of this, he often went against his mentors. However, he was handpicked by Malfurion as one of his disciples with the most talent, out of all the students.

That battle changed fate for a lot of people.

The Night Elves repeatedly tried to drive every last one of the Qiraj insect people back to the sandy hill of Silithus. However, the insects were not so easily defeated and launched a counterattack. However, the Elves snatched the advantage from their hands again. The war had been going on back and forth for a few months, and the battlefield was full of corpses from both Elves and insects.

This was how the War of the Shifting Sands began.

Fandral and his comrades kept up the war on one hand, but at the same time, they established a lot of outposts in the south of Kalimdor. They relied on these outposts to continue this tragic war with the insect species.

In the end, the Qiraj insect people, were pushed back to their homeland of Silithus by the tenacity of the druids and their allies. However, just when victory was achieved, an unexpected reversal occured. Under the carefully planned fake attack of the Qiraj insect people, Valstann fell to the insect people’s hands.

Valstann’s death ruined the will of the Archdruid and many other Night Elves. The Qiraj insect people didn’t let this amazing opportunity pass. Again, they swarmed out of Silithus, attacking cities and breaking up camps the whole way, pushing their way into Tanaris Desert into the east. The insect people fought their way into the holy place of the Bronze Dragon – The Caverns of Time.

This hasty attack angered the Bronze Dragons, leading them to take action. Under the leadership of Anachronos, they assembled the help of the Red Dragons, Green Dragons and Blue Dragons, three large dragon armies. So, with the dragons added to the Night Elves’ battle array, they worked together to drive the Qiraj forces back inside the walls of Ahn’Qiraj.

However, even though they had the help of these giant dragons, the vast forces of the Qiraj insect people were difficult to completely eradicate. Fandral was worried and afraid that this war would never come to an end – thousands upon thousands of Elves had already lost their lives under the insects’ sharp claws. He really didn’t want to sacrifice any more of his own people. So, he and the dragons wanted to find a way to end this war immediately. They precisely wanted to lock up the insects in Ahn’Qiraj until the end of time. For this reason, the Night Elves and giant dragons assembled in front of Ahn’Qiraj to end the war. Fandral ordered his druids to combine their power, the Night Elves and Anachronos summoned broad barriers to completely seal off Ahn’Qiraj.

The dry land outside this cursed city was completely dried up. The wall made up of rocks and roots, would emerge at the right time. From underground a strong barrier of beetles would tower over the city, forever trapping the Qiraj insect people.

In the end, Anachronos created two magic weapons: the Beetle’s Gong, and the Shifting Sands Sceptre.

Right afterwards, the dragons gave the scepter to Fandral to keep. If there was a time in the future when they needed to step into Ahn’Qiraj again, he could use this magic weapon to open up the beetle wall.

Thus, the threat from the insect people ended. However, Fandral still didn’t feel safe. The death of Valstann still lingered in his inner heart. He then broke apart the Shifting Sands Sceptre and scattered away the many pieces of the sceptre.

When the War of the Shifting Sands broke out, the three giant dragons, Arygos, Merithra of the Dream and Caelestrasz sacrificed their own lives to create the beetle wall.

Although the beetle wall was successful in sealing up the Qiraj insect people, the insect empire was still biding its time for conquest.

Now, the prospect of equipment, gemstones, Reputation and Skill Points, as well as countless treasure had attracted everyone to bravely advance without fear.

This fight to the death didn’t end!