Hey! The King's Back!

[MongoJerry]

Note: Other Adventures of Neriad include:

• The Great Masquerade! (The Stormwind Raid Event)<>
  
• Onyxia<>
  
• Lord Lakmaeran<>
  
• Schooling Scholomance (Note: Image links broken until December due to bandwidth restrictions)<>
  [st]
  
  ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: Hey! The King's Back!
  
  I logged on for yet another appointment with death at the hands of Onyxia when I got this message from ZProtous.
  
  ZProtous: We found the king!
  Neriad: Oh, yeah? Where?
  ZProtous: Prost found him on some island near Theramore.
  Neriad: On Alcaz? Cool! Last time I went there, there weren't any mobs.
  
  
  
  Alcaz is a large prison island (think: Alcatraz) north and a little east of Theramore, in Dustwallow Marsh.
  
  But, wait! You might be thinking. Isn't the king that kid in Stormwind Keep? You know, the one who didn't help or react at all when his guards turned out to be dragonkin? Well, you'd only be partially right.
  
  This story is part of a long quest chain titled "The Missing Diplomat" that involves the Defias gang. It starts with a kid in the Cathedral in Stormwind who takes you aside and tells you to go talk to Bishop DeLavey in Stormwind Keep about "a delicate matter." Later, after beating up three informants, you find out two things. First, now that the original plan of the Defias gang has been spoiled, the Defias gang has moved to plan B: kidnapping a high-ranking Stormwind diplomat while he is traveling by boat to Theramore with the help of an undisclosed third party. Second, the high-ranking diplomat is the king of Stormwind himself.
  
  The story goes that when the Defias kidnapped the king, Stormwind had no choice but to crown the his kid king. The part where whatever plausibility there exists in the story falls apart is that the nobles of Stormwind have crowned the kid king and yet somehow managed to keep the fact that the old king has been kidnapped quiet -- as if the entire population of the kingdom wouldn't be wondering what happened to the old king. Oh, well, somehow we have to move past this point.
  
  Anyway, the currently implemented quest chain ends with you beating up a private who was involved in the kidnapping and ends up spilling the beans to you and Lady Jaina Proudmoore, the ruler of Theramore. Proudmoore takes the private into custody for questioning and tells you to come back to her later when she might have more information. However, neither she nor her aide, Archmage Tervosh, have any new information to give in the current patch (I checked).
  
  
  
  Alcaz is a beautiful jungle island and if it weren't for the two prominent guard towers, one might not suspect its dark purpose.
  
  
  
  However, one glance underwater shows that this is not a friendly place.
  
  
  
  The island is guarded by swarms of level 59-62 elite hydras and nagas, and it's not a place for the faint of heart. Using one of the perks of being a priest, however, I was able to Mind Soothe past all the guards along the trail.
  
  
  
  In the center of the island is a prison camp guarded by about a dozen elite nagas.
  
  
  
  However, by going around the back of the rightmost building and coming out where the guard tower is shown in the previous screenshot, I was about to find the entrance to the underground passage that Prost and ZProtous directed me to.
  
  
  
  The underground passage is a dark dank place, but there aren't any mobs there (yet?).
  
  
  
  At the end of the passage is a deeper pool and to go further, one must dive down into the water, swim through a short underwater passage, and come up into a chamber on the other side.
  
  
  
  And there he is! Hail the King of Stormwind! Standing in a pool of dank water...