A Death Knight Beginning and A Lich King's End

I rerolled a DK on an alternative server a few weeks back to enjoy playing through the starting area again now that I'm not such a noob and have some idea of the lore behind the characters I met there first time round. This just happened to coincide with a little thing called Patch 3.3 a.k.a. Arthas's Doom, or the official Blizzard title, Icecrown Citadel which will arrive in mere hours. Whatever you want to call it, the Lich King is gunna go down. Oh yeah!

Considering where I am with Deme right now, this is great timing, we're off to bash in KelThuzad tonight. If we just put Ulduar to one side it feels as though I am right in the middle of the Northrend battle, smack in the middle of the beginning of the Lich King's demise, with one eye on the horizon and the inevitable final goal.

Looking back on the death knight starting zone, I definitely took the phasing for granted in the past and I'm very glad I had the chance to run through it again. The quest I remember most is rescuing Koltira Deathweaver from the extremely annoying High Inquisitor Valroth. When I first tried this quest I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to kill that stooopid cloth-wearing squidgy, failing and then having to wait for Koltira to kick the bucket and the room to 'reset' as it were. This time round I think it still took me 3 goes to beat Valroth's head in.

I took great pleasure in taunting Noth with 'Where's Heigan?' especially since I was in the midst of wiping on Heigan a lot on Deme (for the second time) and spotting Gothik and thinking, 'You're not so tough! We one-shotted you!' was extremely satisfying. All in all, spotting the bosses that my raid group had recently slaughtered in Naxxramus was a real giggle. I also spotted a few people who I wondered about. Who the hell are these princely brothers? What happens to Orbaz Bloodbane after the Battle at Light's Hope?? Shamefully I've not met Bloodbane in Ice Crown yet and although I've bopped Prince Valanar in the Last Rites quest, I'd no idea at the time who he was. Having re-met him, I did wonder if he would appear in Icecrown Citadel and lo and behold, him and his dastardly brother are in league with Taldaram, yet another cheeky monkey who has popped again although we've all slaughtered him umpteen times in Ahn'Kahet. Maybe killing the Lich King is like killing the Sire of the Vampires, you kill the sire and all the others die too?

Whatever way the fight goes down, I'm just as excited as the rest of Azeroth.