In sharp contrast to the players, the anxious Mar’alith was leading the way and rushing towards where his wife was.
Lu Li followed him, and was worried that Natalia would just kill him.
The Instance Dungeon had been dealt with and Mar’alith’s role had been completed, but Lu Li didn’t want to see that tragedy unfold.
Besides, if Mar’alith managed to save his wife, the quest reward was bound to be a rich one.
“Get ready to fight,” Lu Li reminded everyone.
He wasn’t so naïve to think that there wasn’t going to be a fight in the next section. He wasn’t counting on there to be a scene where the husband and wife would cry and embrace upon reuniting. Natalia was now an High Priestess of C’Thun and Lu Li and the others, including her husband, had just killed C’Thun in the Instance Dungeon.
As such, it was no surprise when she attacked once they met.
However, Mar’alith was shocked and didn’t even know how to fight back. If Lu Li and the others weren’t there, the commander of Cenarion Circle was likely to die.
“Breezy, block the attacks!” Lu Li shouted.
“Relax, it’ll be fine. I’ll keep this NPC alive,” Azure Sea Breeze said as he charged into Natalia’s petite body, but was sent flying. She managed to do this with just a wave of her Magic Staff.
She was nothing like a Priest in terms of their low survivability. She was more like a melee Magic profession.
“Lord Mar’alith, we must subdue her to use the Soul Shards of C’Thun. You will only have one chance, so if you feel like you are unable to fight then maybe we should retreat!” Lu Li yelled at Mar’alith.
Mar’alith couldn’t continue fighting on like this. It wasn’t that they couldn’t defeat Natalia, but there was no way that they could guarantee Mar’alith’s survival.
Mar’alith was the NPC and he had managed to survive until now because of his four Druid Transformations. He could easily survive Natalya’s attacks if he wanted to, but he was currently just standing there and probably wouldn’t last longer than 5 minutes.
When he finally heard Lu Li’s voice, Mar’alith finally came to his senses.
Yes, this woman wasn’t his wife. They had to restrain her and dispel the evil from her so that he could have his Natalia back.
Mar’alith quickly burst into action and was now taking part in the fight.
His wife was so beautiful that there had to be many people who wanted to be friends with him. But now, these friends were also helping him fight his wife.
This poor couple didn’t know that they would be repeating this process many times over in the future. At the very least, they would be doing this until C’Thun was nerfed enough that the players didn’t need to make use of Mar’alith anymore.
Natalia turned out to actually be a reasonably strong Boss.
However, she wasn’t as strong as C’Thun in the Instance Dungeon. Moreover, her husband knew her skills and was able to fight around her.
When Natalia was controlled by C’Thun, she stopped being blessed by the moon God Elune and instead turned to the Old God’s power. However, in terms of fighting style, not that much had changed. It was just the property of her attacks that had changed.
Mar’alith, who had been fighting by her side for countless years, could close his eyes and tell what skills she was about to cast.
With his reminders, Lu Li and the others sent Natalia Berserk without any issues. However, this was where the problems began to arise.
The question was whether they should kill her or not.
Mar’alith certainly didn’t want his wife to be killed. He just wanted to restrain her. If she was killed then he would be alone in this world.
“Stop! Breezy, just tank up. Healers, pay attention to his HP!” Lu Li cried out before explaining the dilemma to everyone.
This death would be a real one too – if they killed her then she really would be gone. Who knows? Mar’alith could even turn into a Boss if that happened and kill everyone. The Bosses that they were most afraid of were not the ones that had the most attack or defense, but the ones that could regenerate their own HP.
In general, Druid Bosses in Instance Dungeons were usually a severely weakened version of the profession.
Mar’alith wasn’t an Instance Dungeon Boss, but no one could weaken him. He probably couldn’t face C’Thun alone, but the players would rather face C’Thun than him. Mar’alith was such a strong Druid NPC that he was probably an Archdruid.
After everyone stopped attacking, only Natalia’s attacks were left.
Fortunately, her strength was quite ordinary, especially after she had finished going Berserk. There was no way for her to wipe everyone.
After the Berserk stage had ended, Natalya gained a weakness status effect.
Without Lu Li’s prompting, Mar’alith knew what to do. He went up and hugged his wife so he could place C’Thun’s Soul Shard onto her head.
It was like throwing a hot coal into water, as the C’Thun’s Soul Shard began to burn up all of C’Thun’s spiritual energy.
Mar’alith sitting around doing nothing either. His hand was filled with healing energy as he was a powerful healer himself.
With this two-pronged approach, the weakened Natalia tried to escape.
As she was struggling, she was doing a lot of shouting. The things she shouted seemed to make sense to those listening.
For example, she talked about the damage that the Titans caused to the mainland, and how if the Azeroth Titan woke up one day, they would all welcome the Drowned. She also mentioned some secrets about some other continents. These were things that Lu Li and the others didn’t know about. There were things that weren’t even recorded in the Stormwind City Library.
These things weren’t mentioned in the strategy guides, so it was likely that the officials would soon remove this part of the game.
Dawn’s lore and worldbuilding was quite complicated. For some people, Elune, who remained asleep, was Azeroth’s World-soul. They thought that she was the only true God on this continent.
Whether her presence was good or bad for the people living on the mainland, no one could really tell. But at least in the minds of the Night Elves, she was a positive force. Moreover, she had not just destroyed all the Orcs and the Undead, so the other Horde races still maintained a certain level of respect and fear for her.
As for what would happen if the World-soul woke up, it was generally believed that Azeroth would continue to exist even after that.
The appearance of Titans wasn’t something that had never happened before. And no one really thought that Azeroth itself was the World-soul. At the very most, it was the World-soul’s cradle, its homeland and nothing more. In the future, the World-soul might leave, but everyone would still be able to live on this land.
