Gabryell did not explain what Mature Blue Dragon Sinew was for.
Right now, the item was not worth much because almost no one knew its real use. Whoever won it, won it. If Hugo needed one later, he could simply camp the Auction House and look for a cheap listing.
"Everyone roll."
Valuable BoE epics were always rolled by the whole group. Even if he told them this could be exchanged for Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina, the rule would not change. If a purple item did not come from a raid boss, was not Bind on Pickup, and could be listed on the Auction House, everyone had the right to roll.
Whether one of the three Hunters could win it came down to luck.
"Haha, I got it!"
And sure enough, a Hunter actually won.
Smooch rolled a 99 and crushed everyone else.
"I don't know what this thing is for, so I'll just put it in the bank for now."
Smart move. She did not rush to sell it and knew enough to stash it until its value became clear.
"What are you so happy about?" Igor immediately took his usual shot at her. "You don't even know what it does."
Smooch fired back without missing a beat. "Even if it's useless, you still lost the roll. Lowest roll in the raid doesn't get to talk."
Everyone had long since gotten used to the two of them sniping at each other, so they ignored it.
"Don't pull Scryer," Gabryell said. "Just step into the portal rune."
Once Scryer flew a little farther away, Gabryell led the group into the rune. The screen shifted, and they appeared on the mountaintop above Mazthoril.
Haleh was waiting there in high elven form.
Gabryell spoke to her.
The moment Haleh sensed the fragment on him, she frowned.
"I sense an aura of evil radiating from you," she said. "What are you carrying that gives off such a vile presence?"
Her expression turned cold as soon as she realized what it was.
"I should have known. A piece of the black dragon brood mother, Onyxia. How revolting."
As the Matron Protectorate of Mazthoril, Haleh had no love for Onyxia. The blue dragonflight and the black dragonflight had never been friendly to begin with, and Onyxia's habit of manipulating human kingdoms from the shadows only made her more disgusting in Haleh's eyes.
Gabryell handed over the Fragment of the Dragon's Eye.
Haleh explained what it truly was: a dragon scale, enchanted and transformed. Whole, it could have opened the way into Onyxia's Lair. Broken, it was useless.
To repair it, they needed one final material.
Blood of the Black Dragon Champion.
"A Black Dragon Champion," Haleh said. "There is one such creature now: General Drakkisath, leader of Nefarian's dragon army. Perhaps you have heard the name before. Bring me his blood, and I will enchant the fragment so you may enter Onyxia's Lair."
Haleh told Gabryell and the others to go to the Halls of Ascension in Blackrock Spire and find General Drakkisath.
In player terms, that meant Upper Blackrock Spire.
That was also why the key to UBRS was called the Seal of Ascension.
After accepting the quest, they could finally leave and head to Blackrock Spire.
"Everyone hearth or portal back to Stormwind," Gabryell said. "We'll regroup there and head to Blackrock Mountain."
He opened a portal to Stormwind, and the others followed him through.
Once they returned, they rushed straight to the flight master and flew to the Burning Steppes.
"After we finish this, everyone needs to unlock the Searing Gorge flight path," Gabryell said. "I'm not flying into Burning Steppes every time we come to Blackrock Mountain."
The Burning Steppes route worked, but it was farther and wasted too much time compared to Searing Gorge.
Several voices immediately answered over Ventrilo.
"Got it."
"Understood."
"We'll grab it."
They made their way to Blackrock Mountain with practiced ease.
At the moment, only a handful of curious players had wandered into the mountain, so the place was still quiet. That would change once everyone started progressing Molten Core.
Or rather, it would turn into a slaughterhouse.
Alliance and Horde players would turn Blackrock Mountain into a permanent battlefield. Every day, an absurd number of people would die here before even reaching their dungeon entrance.
Whichever faction was weaker on a given server would have to corpse-run their way inside.
"Ogabs, where's Blackrock Spire?" David asked.
"I remember you saying Blackrock Mountain has two main layers," he continued. "Blackrock Depths is down below with the Dark Irons and Ragnaros, while Blackrock Spire is up above under Nefarian's forces."
Gabryell led everyone toward the great iron chain.
"Blackrock Spire is basically two dungeons sharing one entrance. Go down after you enter, and you're in Lower Blackrock Spire. Go up, and you're heading toward Upper Blackrock Spire."
He continued while walking.
"LBRS is meant to be run as a party if you care about quests. UBRS is raid content. Right now, we can take all fifteen people into UBRS, which makes it much easier."
They stepped onto the chain and moved left.
"Because LBRS and UBRS share an entrance, you can technically bring more people into LBRS too. But if you enter LBRS as a raid, normal party quests won't count. So unless you're only farming gear, people usually run LBRS as a five-man."
"UBRS is different. Its important quests are raid quests, so a full fifteen-man group is the most efficient way to do it right now."
Gabryell led everyone to the broken gap.
Jumping across from here would bring them to the entrance of Blackrock Spire.
"General Drakkisath, the target Haleh wants us to kill, is the final boss of UBRS. When we go in for him, all fifteen of us can go together."
Gabryell jumped first.
Clean. Easy. No drama.
The others followed.
The gap was not that wide. As long as someone was not completely hopeless with movement, they should not fall.
Then again, bad hands were not the only danger.
Some people seemed to have been born without a sense of balance.
People like Igor.
"Hahaha, Igor actually fell," Hugo said, laughing as Igor dropped down and lost half his health.
Smooch immediately joined in. "That jump was shorter than your temper, and you still missed it."
Igor was furious. He did not even heal himself before running back toward the gap.
"Danielly, top him off," Gabryell said.
Exactly what he had worried about had happened. It was Igor's first time at Blackrock Spire, and of course he failed the jump.
Gabryell asked Danielly to heal him because he was afraid Igor would fail again and turn a bad jump into a corpse run.
Danielly quickly healed him back to full.
Igor sprinted, jumped, and finally landed on the other side.
"I made it!"
He shouted like he had just killed a raid boss.
Whatever. At least he was across.
Gabryell said, "Everyone split back into the three teams from earlier. We're not going into UBRS yet. We're starting with LBRS."
The order left everyone confused.
"Ogabs, aren't the quest mobs in UBRS?" David asked. "Why are we going to LBRS first? We have exactly fifteen people right now. That's perfect for UBRS."
"Yeah," Igor said. "Why waste time in LBRS? Let's go straight to UBRS, finish the quest, and then kill Onyxia."
He was already thinking about Onyxia's loot.
She was the Black Dragon Princess. She had manipulated Stormwind's court for years. A boss like that had to be loaded.
Gabryell did not hold back.
"With your current gear, you want to fight Onyxia? She'd use you as a toothpick."
Igor shut up.
Onyxia dropped Tier 2 helms. In terms of raid importance, she stood on the same stage as Ragnaros. Without a proper gear foundation, trying to kill her was pure fantasy.
Back in Vanilla, Onyxia's Lair stayed undefeated for sixty-nine days after release. In that era, a group that wanted real progress on her needed to at least graduate from the major level-60 dungeons first.
"Is Onyxia really that strong?" Susie asked.
"She's the princess of the Black Dragonflight," Gabryell said. "Of course she's strong. With our current gear, there's no chance we kill her."
He looked over the raid.
"After the attunement quests are done, everyone needs to hit level 60 as fast as possible. Then we start farming level-60 dungeons and building proper pre-raid gear sets."
"Without level-60 dungeon gear, forget Onyxia. We won't even be ready for Molten Core."
Without gear from the major level-60 dungeons, even the giants near the entrance of Molten Core could wipe them repeatedly, never mind the bosses deeper inside.
"So from here on out, our priority is simple: hit 60, chain-run level-60 dungeons for a week or two, then start progressing the 40-player raids."
Getting geared now would save them time later.
Trying to rush into Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair undergeared would only waste nights on pointless wipes.
"So you want us to run LBRS first for gear?" David asked.
"That's part of it," Gabryell said. "The main reason is that UBRS requires a key, and the key comes from LBRS. We need to do the Seal of Ascension quest."
He paused, then added, "I'll explain the key process in a bit. All three teams are going to work on it at the same time so we can get a key as quickly as possible and enter UBRS."
The three gemstones required for the Seal of Ascension had limited drop rates, so one run might not be enough. If all three teams farmed at the same time, collecting them would be much faster than relying on a single party.
Gabryell had already made the plan.
First, all three teams would fully clear LBRS once and get General Drakkisath's Command from Overlord Wyrmthalak. That way, when they eventually entered UBRS, they could progress that quest alongside the Onyxia attunement.
After one full clear, they would repeatedly farm War Master Voone, Overlord Wyrmthalak, and Highlord Omokk. Whichever team gathered all three gemstones first could stop farming LBRS and move on to completing the Seal of Ascension.
It was another unnecessarily long key chain.
Classic Blizzard loved this kind of thing: layered quests, low drop rates, dungeon loops, and just enough progress to keep players paying for another month.
And somehow, everyone still fell for it.