So there we were. For months the Argent Crusade has been "training" us in and around their colosseum by having us joust, kill, retrieve and capture...just like common squires.

No more! We decided to enter the ring of stone for ourselves to see what they had in store for us, and why we had to be trained for it. Horb, a Forsaken priest who has far too much tactical knowledge to have been a priest in his life before the plague, filled us all in on the details of what were were to face. Jaxhan and Snikks would be at the front, taking the blows like only their plate-clad bodies could endure. Behind them stood a force of Zenithian might not many enemies had faced before: Stelutza, the treacherous rogue, Tuskanrai, the hunter with her trusted pet GIMP (I really should ask her how that came to be the beast's name), Angora, the moonkin that has been absent for so long along with his companion (though probably more like his master) Lyras, Moomooshaman and Cathartic took care of keeping everyone this side of death alongside Horb. Rounding out the group was me, the almighty Volnar! Scourge of the Scourge! Burner of the Burning Legion! Slaye.............Excuse the imp, he has been sent on a "holiday" somewhere in the Twisting Nether.

Argent Crusade Highlord Tirion Fordring announced our challengers. They had traveled all over Northrend in order to find the most fearsome beasts on the continent....and they may well have succeeded. Gormok the Impaler was the name of our first target, the magnataur had brought along a number of snobolds who not only threw fire bombs at us, but also jumped on our faces, beating on our heads to make it impossible for our spellcasters to focus. They weren't more than a simple nuisance though, and once they were incinerated, Gormok didn't last for long. Our next challenge were two giant Jormungar named Acidmaw and Dreadscale. The touch of Acidmaw's poison can paralyze any man within seconds but luckily we had known the one thing that removed it: the burning bile from Dreadscale's glands. After taking care of Acidmaw, Dreadscale suddenly became very angry almost as if he cared for the worm. Unable to keep them apart, we did the humane thing and reunited him with his fallen comrade.

Of course this wasn't enough for the Argent Crusade, because soon after the worms had been sent to their grave, the Highlord announced our next fight, the yeti Icehowl. Armed with breath so cold it can freeze us in our tracks and given to knocking us into a wall before charging at us, this fight could have been over quickly...provided that the beast knew to use both these abilities at the same time. But even though he didn't, the sight of a yeti several times your own size charging at you will give even the slowest beings on Azeroth enough reason to move out of the way. Icehowl provided even less challenge than the others for us though, and we moved on to our next challenge.

We all wondered what the Crusade would throw at us now, Had they captured Scourge to fight us? Would we face a horde of demons, warriors? Our questions were soon answered when the Colosseum doors opened and through them stepped....a gnome. Already working out how to season him after the kill, we stood by as he announced himself as Wilfred Fizzlebang and that he would summon a doomguard to fight us. Now I knew that a doomguard was a fearful demon (I had to take great pains to bind one to me, after all) but I wasn't prepared for what happened next. Of course the gnome screwed up and summoned an Eredar lord named Jaraxxus instead. Jaraxxus, as expected, was not pleased and robbed us of our kill! Naturally we could not stand for this and took on the demon. Fire, and lots of it, came at us from all sides and in all forms, and even though he found help in the form of various Infernals and Shivarra, we came out victorious in the end. Two down, two to go.

The next fight should have been against the Crusade's most formidable knights, but the Alliance felt shamed by the gnome's mistake and took their place. We faced six allies, a shaman, druid, warlock, priest, warrior and a paladin. Taking down both healers was the first priority, so I banished the druid while we took down the shaman. He would die next and just as I started to feel an itch, I noticed that the warrior was trying to kill me. a Death Coil made sure he was off my case and fleeing in terror as we killed him. I spotted the warlock going for me next, but laughed off his Corruption with a Shadow Ward and attacked back. As she was nearly dead, Horb yelled to take down the paladin first, but when it takes only seconds to kill someone, I don't switch before they fall. After the paladin fell, I was ready to announce victory, only to realize I had completely forgotten about the priest. In Varian Wrynn's words, they proved "hardly a challenge."

Our last fight would pit us against two Val'kyr that led a failed assault on the Tournament grounds. Fjola Lightbane and Eydis Darkbane seemed protected by forces beyond our comprehention. One was vulnerable only to damage from sources attuned to the light, and the other had that weakness to dark attacks. Luckily for us, attuning to either the light or dark allowed us to not only absorb damage from that particular Val'kyr, but to empower ourselves through it. Once we figured that out, neither of the two could stand in our way. We had bested the tournament, divided the spoils, and won.

Or so we thought.

As Highlord Fordring congratulated us on our victory, he commented that there was no challenge we could not face when united. This prompted the Lich King himself to enter the arena and boast that he had a challenge for us. He destroyed the floor underneath us and brought us to see a face we had conquered quite a while ago: that of Anub'arak!

Being dead does not mean the end of one's service to the Scourge apparently, but we had killed him before, we could do it again. He had learned a few new tricks since the last time we faced him, but he was still a coward who let others do most of the fighting for him. The smaller Nerubians he summoned to fight us were also very fond of burrowing into the ground to heal after nearly being beaten, but luckily Horb noticed a number of frozen orbs overhead. Bringing those down froze the ground to such an extent that it made burrowing impossible, allowing us to take the Nerubians down one by one, as well as providing safe ground whenever Anub'arak himself started chasing us in an attempt to impale us. Taxing as the battle was, we finally got to a point where the Nerubian King had seemingly run out of "normal" underlings to fight for him, so he ordered a swarm of insects to leech health from us to him, making him harder to kill.

It didn't work out as well as he'd hoped.

If anything, this last fight prepared us for what we would have to face inside the walls of Icecrown Citadel when the time comes to assault it. It shows us just to which lengths the Lich King is willing to go to fight us and in so doing tells us to be prepared for anything.

Bring it on, Arthas, Zenith will be there to meet whatever you choose to send at us.

-from the journal of Edhunt, Warlord of Zenith