Thirty-Seventh

I thought I might try and take a minute or two to explain some of the places I've been referring to recently; Botanica, Mechanar, Arcatraz, Karazhan, they won't mean much, if anything, to people who don't play WoW, or who have only just started. Despite what some people will tell you, there are indeed people out there who haven't picked up WoW yet.

I'll start from the top, and plead forgiveness in advance if I end up patronising you. In WoW, the 'dungeons' are all instanced, meaning that when you and your group step into it, your zone into your own specific instance of that dungeon (frequently not an actual dungeon) so that no-one else can come along and steal your kills from you. At the moment, the instance most guilds are concentrating on is Karazhan. It's a tower which was home to an extremely powerful sorcerer called Medivh. He's dead now (probably) and the tower is now home to lots of nasty undead things which need killing. It's a level 70 instance, so it's end-game only, and only allows 10 players in at any one time. You can't just walk into Karazhan unfortunately; you need to be 'attuned' before you can enter, which means completing a quest chain. Part of this quest chain involves going into another couple of instances to retrieve parts of a key.

One of these instances is the Steamvault. It's an instance which is located in the ground beneath a large lake, and is populated by Naga, a kind of Elf/Mermaid crossbreed. Needless to say, they are not friendly. You don't need a key for the Steamvault, but unfortunately, it's still tough to find a group for it.

The other instance required for Karazhan attunement is called the Arcatraz. To explain this one, I'll need to get into some lore, which is really the point of this entry.

With the expansion, Blizzard introduced a new (non-playable) race called the Naaru. They're sentient energy beings who are apparently the embodiment of what is known as the Light in WoW. At some point in the past, the Naaru created a 'Dimensional Fortress' called Tempest Keep, which was capable of travelling between planets via some kind of magical teleportation. (On a side note - the introduction of this cause much outcry in WoW fandom, with a lot of fans accusing Blizzard of trying to shoe horn Star Trek style techno-babble into a fantasy game) The structure eventually came to rest in the Outlands the shattered remnants of the planet Draenor, at which point the Naaru departed en masse to explore and investigate. This was foolish in the extreme, as the Blood Elves in the Outlands, led by their charismatic and power-crazed Prince Kael'Thas Sunstrider, stormed the Keep and took control of it from the Naaru left behind to guard it.

Tempest Keep originally had four 'satellite structures' surrounding it. Shortly after the Keep was stormed by the Blood Elves, the Draenei (one of the new races introduced with the expansion, and disciples of the Naaru) managed to wrest control of one of the satellites and fled the Outlands. The three remaining satellites are The Arcatraz, The Botanica and The Mechanar.
The Arcatraz is/was the prison wing of Tempest Keep and after the takeover many of the prisoners have escaped and a constant battle rages within the structure, and neither side is happy to see you. To gain access to The Arcatraz, you need to complete a short attunement quest, which involves going through the other two wings.
The Botanica is/was the garden wing of Tempest Keep and is now run by twisted Blood Elf botanists, apparently twisting the flora there to meet their own needs.
The Mechanar is/was the engineering wing of Tempest Keep, and you'll run into plenty of mechanical nastiness in here.
To get access to all wings of the Keep, you need a flying mount. Druids can actually get there earlier, as they get a flight form at level 68, but even then you really need to be level 70 to contribute.

As yet, I haven't set foot in the Mechanar and I haven't finished a complete run through the Botanica, although I have managed to get into the Arcatraz thanks to some guildies who already had access.

For Karazhan attunement, you also need to do a couple of instances in the Caverns of Time, which are in the 'pre-expansion' part of WoW, where you go back in time briefly to help various important events in history happen as they should. You need to complete two of them, one where you help Thrall, the current leader of the Horde, escape from slavery years ago. In another, you go back in time to help Medivh (the same sorcerer I mentioned above) open the first magical portal to another world, setting in motion the events that lead you to the present day.

Let's see if I can boil this down a bit - To get access to Karazhan, you need to get access to The Arcatraz, and you need to run through The Steamvault, and you need to go back in time, twice. To get access to The Arcatraz, you need to run through The Botanica and The Mechanar. To get access to any of the last three, you must be level 70 and have a flying mount.

Confused? Wait until you see the rest of the attunements in the expansion.