At the far edge of Southshore's Alliance graveyard stood Helcular's Grave. A Horde player carrying Helcular's Rod, charged with the power of the Flame of Azel, the Flame of Veraz, and the Flame of Uzel, could click the grave to turn in the quest.
Once the quest was turned in, Helcular's Remains would spawn on the spot: a level 44 elite with a fairly low health pool of only 4,180 HP.
If you thought Helcular's Remains was just a level 44 elite with 4,180 HP, you would be dead wrong. In early World of Warcraft, if there wasn't a level 60 Alliance main or an Alliance raid nearby, a single Helcular's Remains could wipe out all of Southshore.
That was not an exaggeration. In early vanilla, Helcular's Remains had an extremely, extremely, extremely busted ability: Summon Helcular's Puppets.
Helcular's Puppets were level 42 normal mobs with skeleton models and only 160 HP. A level 40 character could easily one-shot them.
And yet, those same Helcular's Puppets—the kind of mobs you could kill with a single swing—had the ability to wipe out Southshore. Even Southshore's level 55 NPC guards would still be overrun.
Endless summoning.
Helcular could summon puppets without limit, in numbers unmatched throughout vanilla WoW. Given enough time, the entire town would be buried beneath a skeleton swarm. As long as Helcular wasn't killed, Southshore's destruction was inevitable.
UndeadSlayer crossed the river from Tarren Mill to the opposite bank, took a wide detour to the riverbank across from Southshore's graveyard, then stealthed across the water and slipped into the graveyard.
During the closed beta, UndeadSlayer had once seen a Horde player summon Helcular, so he knew where Helcular's Grave was. He arrived in front of it and clicked to turn in the quest.
The quest was completed, and Helcular's Remains was summoned.
It did not attack the now-visible UndeadSlayer. Instead, it ran to the center of the graveyard and began summoning its skeleton army, unleashing its frenzied revenge on Southshore.
UndeadSlayer appeared, and the nearby Alliance players immediately spotted him. Countless attacks flew toward him. He did not use Vanish. Vanishing while surrounded by enemies would only get him found again.
"Feel Helcular's wrath."
After summoning Helcular, UndeadSlayer died with no regrets. He laughed loudly, looking forward to the sight of the Alliance being slaughtered by Helcular's skeleton swarm.
"There's a boss!"
"A boss summoned by the Horde!"
"Holy crap, it's so high level. Everyone, kill the boss and loot the gear!"
The players around the graveyard all switched targets to Helcular. Unfortunately, they were only in their twenties, so their abilities were basically useless against him.
In other words, they all missed.
Melee players had it even worse. The moment they ran up to attack Helcular, a single crushing blow one-shot them.
"This boss is insane!"
The surviving players gasped. If the graveyard had not been right in front of them, they probably would have lost all courage to challenge Helcular.
"Damn, he's summoning little skull mobs!"
"They only have 160 HP. Kill the little skeletons first!"
Based on normal game logic, players fighting a boss would usually clear the adds first.
Unfortunately, Helcular could not be judged by normal logic. His summoning was endless, and his cast speed was absurd. He barely stopped at all.
When the entire graveyard was packed full of skeletons, the surrounding Alliance players felt their scalps go numb. The hot-blooded excitement they had felt while crushing the Horde earlier turned ice-cold from head to toe.
"Holy shit, why are there so many little skeletons?"
"Is this ever going to end? How many is this bastard going to summon?"
"This is terrifying. Are we even supposed to fight this?"
"Trash Blizzard," followed by a string of curses that the system automatically censored into garbled text.
No one could withstand the skeleton swarm. In an instant, every Alliance player around the graveyard hit the floor. Only a few players on the outer edges sensed something was wrong, turned, and ran, narrowly escaping disaster.
Southshore's level 55 NPC guards saw the endless sea of skeletons and charged at Helcular with longswords in hand. Unfortunately, they were blocked by the swarm. Before clearing out the countless skeletons, they could not even touch Helcular.
Helcular unleashed his full power, causing the Alliance's rear near Southshore to collapse.
"Leader, Leader, something huge happened!"
Gabryell noticed trouble in the rear. Before he could ask what was going on, guild chat was flooded with messages.
"Something big happened at the Southshore graveyard. The Horde summoned some crazy boss there, and it killed everyone we had near the graveyard."
"This boss is ridiculous. Even the NPC guards are getting overwhelmed."
When Gabryell saw that something had happened at the Southshore graveyard and that the Horde had summoned a boss, his heart tightened. He immediately understood what had happened.
"Everyone, get away from the Southshore graveyard immediately. Do not rez near the graveyard. Stay away from Southshore for now."
Carlos asked, "Gabryell, what happened?"
Gabryell said, "The Horde summoned a quest elite: Helcular. He's a level 44 elite."
Carlos said, "Level 44? With this many of us, shouldn't we be able to kill it?"
Gabryell said, "Helcular has an almost broken ability. He summons level 42 skeletons with only 160 HP. As long as he isn't killed, he'll keep summoning them endlessly, and he summons them extremely fast. In a minute or two, they can fill the entire graveyard."
"Holy crap."
Carlos cried out, "Then what do we do?"
Gabryell stayed calm under pressure and called out, "Everyone else, keep hitting the Horde main force. Don't let them break through our line and reach Tarren Mill. Everyone in my party, follow me back to Southshore. We'll help the NPC guards take down Helcular."
Gabryell made the severity of the situation clear.
"If Helcular doesn't die, Southshore's NPC guards will be wiped out. Once the other Horde guilds arrive, we'll have nowhere left to fall back to. We'll go from controlling the fight to being forced onto the defensive."
Dreamshade, who had mic privileges, said, "Ogabs, I'll bring my elite squad to help you kill Helcular."
Dreamshade was a beta player too and knew how terrifying Helcular was. At their current level, killing Helcular while he was surrounded by a skeleton swarm could only be done by throwing bodies at him.
Gabryell said, "Alright. Dreamshade, have your Madhouse elite squad help the NPC guards clear the skeleton swarm. I'll try to burst Helcular down before the adds get out of control."
For the sake of the bigger picture, Dreamshade had no objections. If Helcular wasn't killed, the Alliance would lose Southshore. Without Southshore as a foothold, their advantage could very quickly turn into a disadvantage, and they might ultimately lose tonight's major battle.
Southshore could not be lost.
Helcular had to die.
Gabryell commanded his party, "Everyone in my party, return to Southshore with me. The rest of you keep suppressing the Horde. Don't let them break through and interfere."
Helcular was friendly to the Horde and would not attack Horde players. If the Horde were allowed to regroup with him, the chances of killing him would become slim.
Dreamshade said, "Everyone in my party, return to Southshore with me. Groups one, two, and three, go to the front line and help suppress the Horde main force. Groups four and five, keep holding the line and make sure the Horde in Tarren Mill has no chance to break out."
The elite teams from Fearless and Madhouse returned to reinforce Southshore from the left and right, charging toward the graveyard.
The actions of these two elite teams would determine the outcome of tonight's Battle of Hillsbrad Foothills.