[00:04] now finished and for some players Azeroth will never be the same. The online discourse for this one has been fierce. Today, we're going to focus on questions. We saw Turalyon and Alleria
[00:17] disappear into the Dark Well and then a week later we saw them be followed by Xal'atath and thousands of her devouring host and that's not even to mention everything that would happen the next week with the campaign's finale. So,
[00:30] decades of lore that have never really been talked about in their foundations wondering what the hell's going on or you just want the story all wrapped up in one place with all the lore context you won't have seen, well, good news is
[00:45] you won't have seen, well, good news is this video will have you covered. Sunwell cuz it's driving all of this. So, this was the Sunwell originally, a So, this was the Sunwell originally, a blue mossy looking well of arcane power.
[01:00] Here it is corrupted by the fell and here it is as blessed by Velen and of course ready for void invasion, which is what happened in Midnight and led to us getting the Dark Well. You see, the Dark Well exists because Xal'atath built the
[01:15] void spire as a big focusing lens for Lura's power. She then ripped Lura out of Alleria at the top of the void spire and shot that down from Voidstorm corrupting the Sunwell. We'll go into details on that later, but for now just
[01:30] know Xal'atath absolutely got what she wanted, which is access to the world soul. And if you're wondering where Alleria and Turalyon are, well, they're probably going to be wherever Xal'atath now is. So, probably titan machinery
[01:46] let's refocus on the story. So, we're now up to the finale of March on Quel'Thalas. We go into the raid, Lura gets defeated and everyone finds themselves scrambling for a solution to the Dark Well. But in the meantime,
[02:01] there's a spot of politics to do. So, Lor'themar tells us to find Grand Magister Rommath because it is time to welcome the void elves back to welcome the void elves back to Silvermoon.
[02:14] exiles of Silvermoon home starting with the void elves. Now, their exile has not lasted as long as the other groups and unlike the high elves, they were fully course, over the years since their exile, they've proved themselves such as
[02:29] they've really been alongside us through K'aresh and a trusted >> In patch 11.2.7, Alleria started pulling the threads back together. He found
[02:41] Umbric and Lorthemar and convinced him to return to Silvermoon. Then in the short story The Void Between, Umbric gathered the Ren'dorei, which is just void elf in Thalassian, and brought them to the borders of Eversong. He told the
[02:55] sentries that their exile was over and that they would come to defend the exiled person, you can't unilaterally declare yourself unexiled by just "Trust me, bro. I'm here for your benefit." And who comes to deal with
[03:10] this border situation? Well, none other than Magister Rommath. He appears to enforce the exile, but it quickly does become clear that these guys have got a history. Turns out these guys used to be friends. They were part of a powerful
[03:23] trio of magisters that also included a fella called Dark'han Drathir. You may not recognize his name, but basically, he's the guy who sold Silvermoon out to means, don't worry, I'll get there in a few minutes. Now, around this time,
[03:39] which is many years ago, Umbric first started dabbling in the void, but after Arthas plowed his way through just destroying everything and of course leading to the fall of the Sunwell, well, Umbric went deeper into the void.
[03:53] The reason why is fairly simple. They were all completely addicted to magic, magic that they were getting from the Sunwell. So, with the Sunwell being Borked, they were going through withdrawal. It was a brutal desperate
[04:06] time and while Umbric was exploring void stuff, Rommath instead followed their prince Kael'thas to Outland, at which point the events of Warcraft 3, Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich
[04:20] King and every expansion up to the end of Legion happens. And then Umbric just uh he goes too far experimenting in the void. Now, I know that's a bit of a huge understand is that it's at the end of Legion that Alleria slurps up Lura,
[04:37] >> the big naaru that we only just dealt with. That means void stuff was happening. People were getting interested in it and Umbric was obviously one of those people. But the thing is, his research and an incident
[04:49] involving Alleria leads to Lor'themar basically saying, "You guys are exiled. You have to go. You have to leave." And that's because Alleria just walking close to the Sunwell almost led to complete catastrophe. Now, let's cut
[05:03] forward to the present day because it's the old friendship between these two characters that finally breaks through Rommath's fear of the void. And in a touching moment, he reveals he didn't destroy Umbric's research materials. In
[05:16] a way that may seem weird. Rommath didn't trust the void. He was almost afraid of it, yet he did not destroy those research notes. Likely because he still valued that old friendship from back in the day. He just couldn't bring
[05:30] level, it's nice, but it's not all that happens because Lor'themar signs a decree giving the Ren'dorei free passage into the city with Umbric's old lab serving as their embassy. Now, as you can see, the Ren'dorei returning to
[05:44] Silvermoon does make sense here. It was set up in quests, in old lore, in short stories. That all works, but the next tribe to return from exile, well, they have got people talking. So, let's deal with that story.
[06:02] uh we got to deal with with a far larger problem because there are groups of elves who truly hate each other on a deep level that that does also involve the the murder of countless civilians. So, this will be fun. Okay, we have the
[06:19] Sunreavers. They are blood elves who traditionally were more loyal to the city of Dalaran than they were to Silvermoon. And we've also got the high Horde. Now, we're sent to Aethas Sunreaver. So,
[06:33] we get there, all of turns out they've done most of the quest for us. He's talking with Vereesa Windrunner, who is the leader of the Silver Covenant, and and have agreed to put aside their differences to protect Silvermoon. They
[06:48] call their agreement the Silver Sun Compact, which has had a lot of people asking what the hell a compact is. It's not like the two factions have merged, but then we do get a tabard to represent the compact, which does kind of feel
[07:01] like they're merged. And this has got a lot of people asking, "Are the high elves done? Have they just returned to Silvermoon and it's just one big city full of happy elves?" Truthfully, it's actually none of those things. High
[07:15] elves still exist. They get an embassy. Now, an embassy means that they're still citizens of a foreign nation. There can still be hostilities. That being said, it does feel weird and to understand why it feels weird and how it was executed
[07:30] and why so many die-hard lore nuts, people who go back to the Vereesa novels released before Warcraft 3, so we're talking 25 plus years ago, if you want to understand why they're losing their minds, we need to go back to why the
[07:44] high elves left Silvermoon in the first place. So, it's time for some place. So, it's time for some generational trauma abridged. long before you see them in game and long before even the likes of Prince
[07:59] Kael'thas. It actually goes back to the Second War where they were in the Alliance, technically a different Alliance to the one the players play as Horde we know as the Old Horde, not the one the players end up joining. I know,
[08:12] a little bit confusing, but anyway, here's the deal, right? Orcs pour their basically go all the way up the Eastern Kingdoms. It's a big old disaster. Eventually though, this Alliance does push them back. Anasterian felt humanity
[08:26] Quel'Thalas to the orcs. Now, that's only partially true, but he still felt that the ancient oath binding their peoples together had actually been paid. He felt, "Look, loads of us have died.
[08:39] I kind of thought you'd be able to. So, you know what? Our debt's paid. That's it." And with that, the high elves retreat through their enchanted doors
[08:51] and lock them behind them. And they just kind of retreat from the world. But this does not work for every one of these elves. There were magi in Stormwind, paladins in the Silver Hand, Farstrider lodges strewn across the Eastern
[09:03] Kingdoms. If you were say leveling up your newbie dwarf in Loch Modan, you would have seen a weird elf building in this dwarf zone. Well, that's because it was a Farstrider outpost. Hell, there were even high elf pirates living in
[09:15] were even high elf pirates living in Ratchet. But most of all, many many high elves lived in the city of Dalaran. And these elves would be the core of a faction we call the Silver Covenant. That's the one led by Vereesa
[09:29] situation. They've closed off their civilization, but loads of their people are still strewn all about the place. Now, before long, the events of Warcraft 2: Beyond the Dark Portal happen and eventually we make our way to Warcraft
[09:43] 3. And Warcraft 3 was not a good time for these elves. Now, Prince Kael'thas was in Dalaran when the Sunwell was destroyed. He then returned home to find destroyed. He then returned home to find 90% of his people dead. He stabilized
[09:56] the Sunwell and he renamed the high elves blood elves after all the blood that had been spilled. And quickly, he and those around him discovered that without the Sunwell, their people were falling into arcane magic withdrawal.
[10:11] And without a new source of power, he basically feared his people could actually just die out. So, what he did is he took the best and the brightest, and he left Eversong. He joins a remnant of the Alliance up north where a human
[10:25] Garithos was so racist that the blood elves left, and then were imprisoned in Dalaran, and then ended up going on this crazy journey, which we, by the way, play in Warcraft 3, with Illidan. We go to Outland, we go to Northrend, crazy
[10:40] old time. And throughout it, Kael'thas's motivation is quite simple. Illidan offers him a solution to their problem, a solution to the lack of magic. That solution is control over fel magic. Now, that knowledge then spread back to
[10:55] Eversong, where the blood elves, so starved of the Sunwell's energy, began sucking the magical essence out of living creatures. You see that in The Burning Crusade cinematic. Now, the high elves who had
[11:08] stayed in exile or had been disconnected from the Sunwell long enough to not really feel its thirst, they looked on, watching their homeland descend into this fel-infused ruin. And they were disgusted. Soon after, the blood elves
[11:23] would go on to join the Horde. And the high elves, who were veterans of the Second War, many of whom had their families slaughtered by orcs, well, they were pushed deeper into the Alliance. They were now a people sundered. But,
[11:36] there is one more player to set up in this story, and that is Arthas Sunriver. And this is a story that, to put it bluntly, has a lot of war crimes in it.
[11:51] and we've got a lot to thank him for. He helped raise Dalaran into the sky. He was on the Council of Six. He worked closely with Rhonin, the then leader of the Kirin Tor, to fight Malygos during the Nexus War, the one we fight in Wrath
[12:04] of the Lich King. And if the name Rhonin sounds familiar, it should, because he was Vereesa's husband. And this is where the trouble starts. Just before Wrath of the Lich King, Arthas convinced Dalaran to allow blood elves back into the Kirin
[12:18] Tor, and those that followed him took his surname, Sunreaver. They became known as the Sunreavers. Now, Dalaran at this point became a neutral faction, but Rommath feared that the Sunreavers were actually just more loyal to the Kirin
[12:33] Tor than they were to Silvermoon, a kind of self-imposed exile. Now, whilst that was happening, Vereesa was gathering the elves of Dalaran to form the Silver Covenant. She, of course, opposed the Sunreavers' admittance to
[12:46] the city. Big reason being, well, the Alliance and the Horde were enemies. So, there's a lot of tension, but then Malygos launches war against all magic users. Obviously, this impacts all of them. And that's why, in Wrath of the
[13:00] Lich King, we see a Silver Covenant area and a Sunreaver area of Dalaran for the Alliance and the Horde to go to. And before long, a raid group worth of us go into the Eye of Eternity and defeat Malygos, meaning the Nexus War is won.
[13:15] Not long after that, the Lich King gets defeated, and not long after that, Thrall abdicates, and Garrosh ends up being warchief of the Horde. Do you know what Garrosh wanted? He wanted a faction
[13:27] war. And to get it, he baited the Alliance into sending their armies to Theramore. The Alliance thought, "Oh my god, the Horde are going to march in Theramore. We're going to get completely wiped. We need to get our forces there."
[13:40] Just that Garrosh actually planned to drop a mana bomb on the city, which is Warcraft's version of a nuke. So, it's fair to say tensions are rising. Now, at this point, Dalaran sent a deterrents force to Theramore, but Arthas sent
[13:54] Thalen Songweaver to lead that force. And it turns out, that guy was a Garrosh loyalist. And not only that, he's also the guy that built the mana bomb. And in
[14:06] appointing him to lead this force, Arthas had basically just placed him in the perfect location to guide in the mana bomb. But luckily for us, just as the bomb fell, Rhonin teleported to Theramore and personally took the brunt
[14:21] of the explosion, leading, of course, to his death. And though the city was now a crater, he did succeed in saving many people. Now, at this, Jaina was furious. She founded Theramore. Vereesa had just lost her husband, and Arthas had lost
[14:37] his friends and ally. Of course, Arthas wasn't fully aware of all of the mana bomb plan. Now, this tension then boils over in Mists of Pandaria. There's a whole plotline that I'm not going to fully do here, but all you basically
[14:53] need to know is that Garrosh abused the Kirin Tor's neutrality to bust through Kirin Tor's neutrality to bust through their portal network and into Darnassus. have the Sunreavers allowed the mana bomb and Rhonin's death, plus countless
[15:08] others, they now let Garrosh use Dalaran's portal system freely. Obviously, very much bad for the Alliance, and it's a whole thing that almost ends in Anduin dying. And so, with the Sunreavers being the people who
[15:20] enabled all this, it was finally time to just get rid of them. Now, at least that is what the Silver Covenant thought of the Sunreavers. Arthas thought differently. He tried to explain that all factions had their traitors, and
[15:33] that these acts were done by traitors who were loyal to Garrosh, not him, not Dalaran. But, it doesn't work. Jaina, Vereesa, and the high elves were having none of it. And so, they violently purged the city of all blood elves. And
[15:47] I do mean all, not just everyone who puts up resistance, but even civilians. There are shop NPCs that were there in Wrath of the Lich King who canonically die in this purge. It's really quite brutal. Now, Arthas does survive, but he
[16:02] obviously hates the Silver Covenant now. And that is why he's, well, so hot and fiery about all of this in Midnight. But, knowing that lore makes some of this dialogue feel a little bit weird. When he pins the purge of Dalaran on
[16:17] Vereesa's grief about her husband, he never mentions that he was personally close to Rhonin as well. He doesn't mention that he felt remorse for Rhonin's death. Oh, the hatred certainly does still exist, but it's not really
[16:31] addressed beyond a few casual lines about Arthas still feeling rage. But, for whatever reason, he can see past his hatred, and he accepts the Silver Covenant into Quel'Thalas. They open a joint embassy and a very specific form
[16:44] of alliance, a compact. This case, the Silver Sun Compact, named after both of their own names. So, with that, the Silver Sun Compact exists. And with the new, shall we say, slimmed-down and decentralized Kirin Tor still reforming,
[17:00] you know, after Dalaran got blown up, well, I think we can be sure we will see more of these characters and more of this story. Okay. All the elves are now back, and that means it is time to degunk the Darkwell.
[17:19] generations of grief being quickly resolved in a handful of quests, it's now time to go and cleanse the Darkwell. But, we don't want it to be the Sunwell again. I think by now everyone's realized that these
[17:33] fonts of insane magic are perhaps a bit more trouble than they're worth. So, it has to be something else. And by chance, Silvermoon's best magisters have figured out a solution. And that solution is get a bunch of magic things and throw them
[17:47] But, this time, instead of just artifacts of the light that we pull from crypts [snorts] in the chapel, no, we want to make it a little bit balanced, not just light stuff. And that really is about as far as the logic goes with this
[18:02] But, it does still have huge consequences. So, Vereesa and Arthas bring the Crown of Anasterian, the last high king of the elves, which isn't really an object of great power, but basically it's something that they think
[18:15] they can present as a symbol of unity. But, of course, as we've established, But, of course, as we've established, the exile of the high elves did begin under Anasterian. So, it's still a bit weird. Now, the nightborne then bring a
[18:28] fruit of the Arcan'dor, a cute reminder that truly anyone can kick their addiction to a magical well. The night elves then bring some moonwell juice in the hopes that will also help chill out this new well. And then, Umbric throws
[18:42] in a void crystal to concentrate the void already in the well. And finally, Liadrin sparks it with a flash of light, and it transforms into something wholly new. With all that, we get our new well. It's a calm, radiant one, and [snorts]
[18:57] one that we damn well know is just channeling pure old world soul energy. is what the characters in the story actually think. And they all agree that it's a tempered-down version of the Sunwell, and that it will not replace
[19:11] the power of the Sunwell. But, hopefully, it will keep Eversong in the sun, and the elves won't have to revert to wacky, world-ending magical shenanigans to cure their addiction again. Liadrin announces that this is
[19:23] now the high home of the elves, which is just an English translation of But, you can see the framing. It's a home for all of the elves. Happy, happy. Now, did Blizzard just speedrun getting all the elves back and all the elves
[19:37] home? No, I don't think they did. There's still plenty of tension between of people. But, maybe the more important question is, with how this stage of the story went down, and how fast it went down, and in such a low number of
[19:53] quests, well, it does have a lot of people thinking, is this earned? Does it feel credible based on my experience playing the game? That's why it has so many people scratching their heads. But you see, there's a little more to this
[20:06] because with the Donwell lit, Umbrick and Rommath finally hint at where Turalyon and Alleria may have gone. They simply say that she's gone somewhere below. And hey, look at the cinematic.
[20:19] If you're wondering, where did Xal'atath go? The answer's simple. She went into if you go deep enough and you keep going, Australia. But here, it's actually the world core. That is where
[20:32] the world soul, Azeroth, is, right? So, we have Rommath hinting at that. And at Y'Shaarj's ear off about the Sunwell being filled with the world soul's voice. Put two and two together, you get the world core. Something established in
[20:48] The War Within, but >> very much leaning on all of the Titan since the beginning of World of Warcraft. And if you ask me, it's Warcraft. And if you ask me, it's probably patch 12.2
[21:02] got a big project brewing in that as we speak, but I've still got you covered for today because we've explained why Xal'atath found a way, the why and the how, to hotwire the void into the world soul using the Sunwell. It's in our
[21:16] first Quel'Thalas video, and you can watch it by just clicking the link.