The next WoW patch is getting a very emotional quest of great significance. You will have to make a decision that is very hard for the night elves.
World of Warcraft Dragonflight has introduced some of the most emotional and profound side quests ever in Azeroth. But one particular questline has apparently been saved by Blizzard until the very end, as it will only be released with the next patch 10.2.7.
It is about betrayal, how the survivors deal with it, and a rather dark story.
Spoiler warning: If you do not want to read anything about the storyline of this quest from patch 10.2.7, you should click away now.
What is the quest about? The questline begins in Bel’ameth, the new capital of the night elves with Malfurion. He wants us to speak with a young night elf named Kelestra. He has just allowed this elf to bury her family in one of the underground complexes.
Because Malfurion fears that this means Kelestra no longer has anyone from her family, he wants us to check on her.
After we speak with Kelestra, we help her collect special stones for the burial while she tells us her story.
Kelestra’s sister was a druid and very glad about it, as it would mean that she and her family could one day be buried together in one of the structures – a great honor for many night elves. But the day on which her training as a druid of the claw was completed was also the day the Horde set Teldrassil on fire and destroyed Darnassus.
When the evacuation began, the path to Darnassus was cut off. Kelestra’s sister led her and her family to the edge of the crown of the great tree and wanted the family to jump. The druid would use her magic over nature to ensure that the family would land safely on the ground.
But things turned out differently. When the family jumped, Kelestra’s sister was hit by a burning branch and lost her concentration. The whole family fell uncontrollably from the tree. Her parents and her brother died. Kelestra survived severely injured and thought her sister had also died.
At this moment, Kelestra reveals the name of her sister: Koroleth.
Who is Koroleth? Koroleth should be familiar to attentive players, as she appeared during the main questline in the Ohn’ahra plains. The night elf was the leader of the primalists in this area and had a rather distinctive appearance. Not only was she bald, but she also had significant burn scars on her face.
Koroleth is responsible for the centaur clan Nokhud turning against its brothers and sisters, leading to a major conflict that ultimately peaks in the dungeon “The Assault of the Nokhud”.
Koroleth’s ultimate goal is to gain access to the Emerald Dream, which the primalists wanted to secure.
At the end of the questline, Koroleth is slain by the hero – that means us – and has not been mentioned since.
Two decisions with significance
A druid named Rashan Stillbrook listens to this conversation and becomes angry at Kelestra. He reveals to her what Koroleth has done. As heroes, we also have the chance to make a choice:
- You can reveal to Kelestra what role you played in the story – after all, you killed Koroleth with your own hands.
- You can deny your own act and pretend you know nothing about it.
Kelestra cannot believe that her sister would do such a thing, which is why the journey to the guardians continues, who are holding some primalists captive. Here Kelestra learns that Koroleth joined the primalists after the Alliance signed a ceasefire with the Horde.
After Koroleth lost her entire family in the fire of Teldrassil, her rage against the Horde was so great that she could never make peace. Her baldness and the burn scars for which Koroleth was known came from the burning branch that had struck her.
At the same time, the primalists also reveal that the true goal of the prime incarnations, the destruction of the new world tree, had been kept secret from Koroleth. The primalists probably knew that Koroleth would immediately withdraw her support if she ever found out that she was working on the destruction of another world tree.
Kelestra goes to retrieve her sister’s corpse and returns to Bel’ameth to bury her. However, she is stopped on the way by Rashan Stillbrook and Malfurion.
Rashan does not want a traitor buried in the midst of the new homeland. Malfurion also admits that it is a difficult decision since he did not know Kelestra’s sister’s identity when he agreed.
Kelestra now asks us to help her so that her family can be buried together in peace. And that leads to the final decision:
- Should we help Kelestra convince the druids and have her family buried together in the structure?
- Should we refuse the corpse of the traitor and force Kelestra to bury her sister outside of Bel’ameth?
In making this decision, the game even warns us with an additional security prompt asking if we really want to make this choice.
What are the consequences of the decision? Depending on how we decide, we can convince Malfurion.
If we help Kelestra, then Koroleth will be buried with her family in the structure. As a consequence, Rashan Stillbrook disappears, angrily stating that “his brother died in battle against Koroleth. Where is his peace? Where is his justice?”
Kelestra then buries her sisters, and we can still talk to her. She speaks rather gently about her family and wants to remember Koroleth as she was back then as a druid before the fire of Teldrassil.
However, if we decide against the burial, then Kelestra carries her sister’s corpse out of the city. Even though she does not directly blame the hero for this decision, her words are noticeably more frustrated and furious – she is angry and seems to be like Koroleth.
What makes the quest so special? World of Warcraft rarely deals with such serious themes. As “heroes,” we slaughter through hordes of enemies and defeat bosses by the dozen, and rarely does that have consequences. That we are confronted with the sister of such a boss is a refreshing change. At the same time, the question of how to deal with the families of traitors is an interesting one. Can one forgive the dead? Should one still hate Koroleth after her death and deny her peace with her family? What are the consequences for those who are still alive? These are exciting and interesting questions – and unusually serious for World of Warcraft.
Whether this decision will have a long-term impact and perhaps shape Kelestra’s development in future expansions remains to be seen.
Another very good questline from Dragonflight deals with the blue dragons.
