I've never had the same wit or eloquence as some of our other news creators here. My steam comes from being bubbly, energetic and positive. That being said, returning to a fight that I never fought beside some of my raid-mates when it first occurred feels odd; something broken in the fabric of time but no less grand. Instead of focusing, however, on the sheer enormity of the problem before us, this time we cobbled together those skills that had been learned, trained and repeated ad nauseum across the years. It feels important to mention though, those feelings that all of us had at one point or another, standing in the Molten Core those many, many raids ago. Witnessing something so large that it stretches beyond the boundaries of your imagination. It forces the outer reaches of your impossibly small universe into the nothingness. We had banded together with twice as many people, but feeling twice as insignificant. Insects running rampant, as it were.

Walking calmly back into the home of Ragnaros now felt less like a retread of familiar ground and more like the complexity that was rightfully demanded of us now, experienced and older. It was the same evil beckoning us but with new tricks. Well, Firelord, we have them too. We have the benefit of wisdom, tenacity and renewed strength. But most importantly, friendship.

I feel like even though this is simply an end-boss fight and in many people's eyes, just a step towards eventual heroics, that it always makes us look back and reflect on things that have gone before. If anything, the real thread that ties those many wipes in the hallowed core to the many wipes now at the hands of giant flaming balls of death is our friendship. Sure, the tune may have changed over time, but the reprise remains the same. You could say that this is the real lesson from all of this.

It makes me sad then, that I've had to pick up the pen again in order to catalogue our triumphs. Not because I don't appreciate our victories, but because there are better men with better words and better jokes. And like Argat before, now Arnesca is leaving our raid in order to enjoy his days being a casual. Paladins are flighty creatures, having been in the raid for only 6-7 years at a clip, you know?

It feels so weird to suffer these changes but they are for the best and all stories tend to weave the same fabric. Despite all that, even with some of our elders passing on, we are witnessing the rebirth of something great. I don't know how the rest of this is going to play out, but we all know how it ends.

Falling off a bridge and pulling Garr.