We moved into Ulduar proper, fighting through more iron dwarves and corrupted Titan constructs along the way. Taking the passage to the left led to the Archivum, where the Titans stored their most valuable data. However, we found the chamber guarded by the Iron Council, three of the iron army's deadliest commanders. It consisted of an iron vrykul named Runemaster Molgeim, an iron dwarf named Stormcaller Brundir and an iron giant called Steelbreaker.

When the fight began, we kept the three enemies seperated, wearing them down in turn, starting with Steelbreaker. The giant hit incredibly hard, peridocially charging his fists with Nature damage. Eventually Steelbreaker fell, but a portion of his power was transferred to his comrades. The next target was Runemaster Molgeim; his powers consisted of summoning a rain of energy bolts and creating runes of death that dealt alot of shadow damage to those standing on top of them. However, he also summoned runes of power that we used to increase our damage output.

After a bit of work he was also killed, transferring some of his power to Stormcaller Brundir. The iron dwarf was a master of lightning and threw out bolts of energy at our raid, in addition to a whilwind maneuver that was also charged up. His deadliest spells, though, were to explode a collection of energy into a point-blank nuke similar to Loken's and to take to the air, following random victims while channeling a rain of lightning tendrils beneath him. When he landed, we continued the fight and eventually defeated him. With a path into Ulduar opened, Brann Bronzebeard was able to access the Archivum and begin to search for any facts or data that could help us in the rest of our journey.

Another pic can be found in the Gallery.

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Guarding the actual entrance to Ulduar was a giant mechanical golem known as the XT-002 Deconstructor. This was another of Mimiron's creations, given the bizarre personality of a child along with its formidable abilities. With its warped programming, it considered us as little more than toys and when we charged in, it tried to see how much punishment its new toys could take.

The robot's main abilities were to infuse victims with Light energy that damaged anyone around them, and to inject dark matter into others that caused massive damage and a gravity effect to those nearby. It also periodically went on a temper-tantrum, stomping the ground and causing an earthquake. The robot expended alot of energy, so it had to power down to recuperate; when it did this, its mechanical heart was exposed and its "old toys" came to its defense. Scrapbots and walking bombs poured out from the junk piles around the courtyard, along with larger robot sentries. Dealing with all the machines began to overwhelm us, and we had to regroup to think of a new strategy.

Credit goes to Ceryph the rogue, who suggested we attack the heart as those attacks not only did 4x the damage, but would harm the Deconstructor's body too. Trying this new method, the fight became much more managable and we succeeded in defeating the machine.

Check out the pic in the Gallery!

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Having overcome our first challenge in Ulduar, we moved on to the lower courtyards. A batallion of Explorer's League marksmen had been stationed at a tower that had become the nest of Razorscale, an iron proto-drake. This drake was once Veranus, Thorim's loyal pet, but had been converted into an iron monster by Loken after he kidnapped his brother.

The Explorer's League troops had a plan to use harpoon guns to bring Razorscale to the ground, but needed time to prepare them. All the while, Razorscale was exhaling brimstone and jets of blue flames at us. Not only that, but iron dwarves and vrykul sprung up from the ground in their drill machines. We fought them off as best we could, and when Razorscale finally got clenched to the ground, her breath incinerated whatever dwarves remained. Eventually, she became so wounded that she couldn't fly anymore and went on a rampage on the ground. It was a catastrophy, with our forces dying left and right. In the end, it came down to Puriol, one of our shamans, who finished off Razorscale with a couple lava bursts.

Check out the victory pic/body count re-enactment in the Gallery.

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The first strikes against the malicious forces of Northrend had gone resoundingly well; Naxxramas was conquered and its master slain, bringing much-needed relief to the battered Alliance forces at Wintergarde Keep. Beneath Wyrmrest Temple, a deadly coup by the Twilight dragonflight had been put to rest. And in Coldarra, the Nexus War came to an end with the death of Malygos. However, the Alliance and Horde were still reeling from the losses suffered at the Battle of Angrathar, and were unable to cooperate when Brann Bronzebeard brought evidence of a dangerous faction coming to power in the north that could rival that of the Scourge.

The army of iron dwarves and constructs had not slowed down, despite the death of their master Loken. They now took orders directly from their god, the prisoner locked away by the Titans underneath Ulduar itself; Yogg-Saron. His influence had spread across Northrend like a cancer, causing madness and corruption everywhere it went. The latest and greatest casualties were Yogg-Saron's own wardens, the Keepers named Hodir, Freya, Thorim and Mimiron.

With support only from the Kirin Tor, the task of assaulting Ulduar's formidable defenses fell to the Explorer's League and anyone brave enough to help them. The members of Slane Baanrit joined their cause, and we started our advance by driving a fleet of siege vehicles into battle against the Flame Leviathan. This machine was a tank crafted and finely-tuned by Mimiron to block access to Ulduar's main entrance. It fired a constant barrage of rockets at our vehicles while trying to smash anything that got close to it. However, through strategic use of tar traps and exploding pyrite, we were able to destroy the machine.

You can see our victory pic in the Gallery!

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So, apparently Sartharion rose from the ashes. Let's assume a wizard did it. Regardless, we went back into the lair of the Onyx Guardian and boldly fought him while his Twilight drake lieutenants were still alive. They quickly joined the battle and stacked their auras, complicating the fight. Things devolved into chaos as void zones, whelps, fire elementals and brimstone chunks rained down on us from all sides. Eventually though we found a way to counter them and one by one the drakes fell, followed by Sartharion himself. As a trophy, one of Slane Baanrit's members took a Twilight drake home with them.

Check out the picture in our Gallery!

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