The profession quests of World of Warcraft: Legion are exciting. Cortyn raves about the quest line for Tailors.
Better than expected, darker than thought
For almost a week now, World of Warcraft: Legion has been available and I am slowly nearing the completion of all (non-repeatable) quests. As the final step, I have largely completed the professions and must say: Not bad, what Blizzard has delivered. Below are some spoilers regarding the story of the Tailor quest line. You have been warned.
To be honest, I didn’t expect much from the profession quests. And while many steps (in pretty much all professions) only involve: “Go to Dungeon X and bring us Item Y”, it is indeed the story-driven interludes that have stuck with me. As a Tailor, one quickly realizes that the fabrics of the Broken Isles are hardly usable, so one relies on the help of a local – the Nightstalker Lyndras.
After a series of missions, we invite the Elf in decline to Dalaran. Time and again, Lyndras disappears, and we catch him succumbing to the temptations of the city, trying to gain mana from every corner. One is never really sure: Is Lyndras just playing his role to get mana? Or is he genuinely trying to help us as much as possible?
After he disappears several times without a trace, it ultimately leads to a worse incident: Lyndras succumbs to addiction, attacks residents of Dalaran, and is imprisoned in the Violet Hold as punishment. When we go to check on him, his transformation into a Withered is already complete – Lyndras is gone, only his mana-hungry shell remains. I have rarely found it so difficult to kill an NPC (except for Val’Sharah – you know who I mean).
But that’s not the end of the quest line. To become better Tailors, the journey leads us to Suramar, where we join the Nightborne – those Elves who banished Lyndras and cut him off from the magic source of the Nightwell. The Tailors’ Guild of the “Leyweavers” accepts us, but only if we distance ourselves from Lyndras. To prove that we have no sympathy for the outcasts, we are to go out and extinguish the life lights of 25 displaced Nightstalkers. This “Kill 25 Withered” quest is just a small interlude, not very creative, but the feeling this quest evokes was suffocating. Each of the 25 “kills” felt wrong and like a betrayal to Lyndras, who had helped us for so long.
The whole quest line is overshadowed only by the last step of the quest line. The Leyweavers reveal to us, in exchange for a lot of resources and tasks, why their tailoring is so perfect. They use the “Queen’s Loom” for this – but it is actually just an ordinary loom. The true power behind it is revealed to us shortly. The loom is permanently enhanced with fel magic by demons of the Burning Legion.
The Leyweavers themselves have made a pact with Gul’dan – knowledge of the Legion in exchange for magical clothing which further empowers the demons. At the end of the quest line, we are nothing more than the outfitter of the Burning Legion, whom we have supplied with a lot of resources, and we wonder which side we are actually working for.
The entire quest line was so dark that I will remember it for a long time. For a mission that deals with something as trivial as a profession, I can’t help but praise it. Please more of that.
