Tuesday, 6:00 PM.
"Core raid is forming. Core players, type 1 for invite. Reserves, get in Ventrilo and stand by. Be ready the second we need you."
Every core raider had logged in early for Fearless's first official progression night, so the group filled within minutes.
"Once you're invited, head straight to Blackrock Mountain."
"We start at 6:30. Attendance DKP goes out then. If you're not inside by 6:30, you don't get the point."
"And don't ask for summons. Ask for one and you lose the attendance point. Warlocks, don't summon anyone either. Same penalty."
Gabryell wasn't going to train the raid to be lazy.
This wasn't a GDKP run where someone invited at the last minute might genuinely need a summon to save time.
They had all joined together.
If thirty-nine people could get themselves to Blackrock Mountain on time, the fortieth could do the same instead of sitting around waiting for a summon.
He had posted the rules on the Fearless site and dropped the link in TeamSpeak again before raid time.
In Ventrilo, open mic was disabled for most of the raid.
Only the four tanks, the DKP officer, and the class leads had speaking privileges.
Official progression wasn't going to be as loose as their Onyxia run the previous week.
Gabryell also switched the loot setting to Master Looter.
Ordinary green BoEs and crafting materials would go to the guild fund instead of being handed out individually.
Valuable greens were an exception.
Something like Lunar Wand of Healing would be auctioned as an off-piece, starting at 5 DKP.
Recipes were open to anyone with the relevant profession and also started at 5 DKP.
Tier 1 belts and bracers were Bind on Equip, so whoever won one had to equip it immediately.
Selling it on the Auction House was forbidden.
Anyone who refused would be kicked, permanently blacklisted from Fearless, and reported to the other major Alliance guilds.
Molten Core trash could also drop valuable BoEs such as Teebu's and Cloudkeeper Legplates.
Those followed the same rule.
If you won one, you equipped it.
Bidding started at the 30-DKP premium-item floor.
As far as Gabryell was concerned, Fearless was already being lenient.
Some hardcore guilds charged gear deposits or imposed far harsher restrictions on players who received top-tier loot, all to discourage someone from taking an item and immediately quitting.
Fearless wasn't going that far.
The raid flew to Thorium Point.
They were far from the only guild progressing tonight.
Nearly every major guild on Tichondrius was already making attempts in Molten Core, and Fearless was actually one of the later groups to begin official progression.
Several Alliance guilds were already gathering around Thorium Point when they arrived.
Plenty of Horde players were massing on their side as well.
From the opening of Molten Core through the Blackwing Lair era, Blackrock Mountain would remain one of the fiercest Alliance-Horde battlegrounds in the game.
Whichever faction lost control often had to corpse-run its way to the raid entrances.
The side with the numbers controlled the chokepoints and picked off stragglers while waiting for the rest of its raid.
Tichondrius was still relatively balanced.
There were about 1.2 Alliance players for every Horde player.
That wasn't enough for either faction to dominate Blackrock Mountain outright.
Whoever brought more people at the time usually had the advantage.
With roughly even numbers, execution decided it.
The ratio had only climbed to 1.2-to-1 because Thrall's death had given the Alliance even more momentum on Tichondrius, nudging more new players toward the faction and pushing the balance another tenth in their favor.
"Looks like we're fighting our way in."
Gabryell didn't love the situation.
The chaos was entertaining, but it made getting world buffs safely into the instance much harder.
That would be a serious problem once first-kill races became more competitive.
"We still haven't hit them hard enough."
He planned to raid Orgrimmar and Undercity often enough to keep the Alliance's momentum going until Tichondrius reached something closer to a 1.5-to-1 split.
"Mount up."
"Anyone with an epic mount, slow down and stay with the main group."
It didn't matter which faction currently had the upper hand inside Blackrock Mountain.
Gabryell was confident he could get Fearless's core raid through.
As they moved out, several small and mid-sized Alliance guilds hurried to fall in behind them.
Traveling as one large force was safer.
Nobody wanted to start progression night with a corpse run before even reaching the instance.
The forty-man raid quickly turned into a column of more than a hundred Alliance players marching toward Blackrock Mountain.
Any Horde players they passed along the road immediately moved aside.
Nobody was stupid enough to throw themselves into a force that size.
Bones littered the entrance to Blackrock Mountain.
There were even more farther inside.
The place looked like a battlefield that never stopped producing corpses.
"There's a Horde raid holding the entrance up ahead."
The Rogue scouting in front reported back.
"Push in! Wipe them and send them on a corpse run."
Mass PvP was one of Fearless's strengths.
A single Horde raid wasn't going to hold that entrance for long.
Fearless led the push.
The other Alliance guilds piled in behind them.
With such a huge numbers advantage, they crushed the Horde raid blocking the entrance and sent the survivors scrambling away.
"Haha! That was fucking great," Carlos said. "If we didn't have progression tonight, I'd stay here killing people all night."
He was still hungry for more.
With more than a dozen healers behind him, Carlos felt practically immortal.
A Protection Warrior in the middle of a mass PvP fight could take an absurd amount of punishment with that much healing support.
Gabryell had no interest in camping the entrance.
"Rez the dead, top everyone off, and don't get dragged into another fight."
"Everyone follow me. We're jumping."
He went first.
Dozens of players leaped into the lava after him.
The other guilds saw Fearless take the shortcut and followed.
That lava jump always claimed a few victims.
With so many people going at once, bodies started hitting the ground almost immediately.
Even Fearless lost several players to the fall.
The other guilds did worse.
Fortunately, the Alliance controlled the area below, so they could rez everyone on the spot.
Gabryell didn't give the people who died any grief.
Even with all his experience, he still screwed up that jump once in a while.
Once everyone was back on their feet, the group headed toward Lothos Riftwaker.
"Holy shit, I can't even click Lothos."
"Where the hell is he? I can't even see the guy."
The crowd had completely swallowed the NPC.
Clicking him was hard enough.
Seeing him was practically impossible.
A few Horde Mages dropping AoE into this crowd could wipe dozens of players before anyone even figured out what was happening.
"Forget Lothos."
"Everyone go through the window instead."
If they couldn't reach the teleporter, they could use the older shortcut.
"How the hell do we get through there?" Coldhands asked.
"See the little window to Lothos's left?"
"Jump through there. The lava below counts as the entrance to Molten Core."
The instance sat directly beneath them.
Dropping through the small opening bypassed the crowd around Lothos entirely.
It was an older way into Molten Core, but it still worked perfectly well.
The cramped area had turned into a complete lagfest.
Even Gabryell's computer, which could handle multiple WoW clients, had turned the game into a slideshow.
The window was only a short distance away.
Getting there through that mess was another matter.
He forced his way through the crowd and jumped first.
Once inside, he waited for the rest of the raid.
At this rate, everyone should still make it before 6:30.
It took roughly three minutes for all forty players to get through the window and into the instance.
"Haha! Finally."
"Thank God. That lag was brutal."
"Operation Lava Dive: success."
The moment they entered Molten Core, the lag disappeared.
Everyone could finally relax.
If the instance itself had run that badly, they might as well have called the raid and gone back to bed.
With all forty players inside, Fearless's first official Molten Core progression raid was underway.
The race for first kill had begun.