It was the night we had waited for, testing the mettle of GoB against the entrance mob of NToV, Aaryonar. This guy is the litmus test of a raid force. If you can get past him, you can do most of NToV and all the respect and cool loot that comes with being able to kill high-end dragons. Unlike WToV and HoT, this loot is not quest armor, it's the real thing.

Our trackers found Aaryonar up early on Wednesday morning and the word went out that if he was still up at 9pm EST, GoB would try him. A few months ago GoB tried him and wiped hard, three times. It turned into a brutal 8 hour CR. But, we had done more than 20 trips to HoT since then, training folks in dragon killing, farming better gear. Epics were completed, levels attained, etc. In short the force entering NToV last night was much more powerful than the one that was cast contemptiously aside last time.

This was a long one though. Now that we have trashed our faction, we had to pull the gallery and the hub before we could even enter NToV. That is over 20 HoT class drakes and wurms. And, you can't single pull most of them even with 2 monks. Then, you have to worry about back spawns, so you have to keep moving. But, the monks kept dying. So the rogue had to drag them out, we had to get them rezzed and rebuffed and back to work.

Once you get into NToV proper you have to deal with the rapid spawning chicken infestation. Wyvern hatchlings of various flavors abound, come in bunches and respawn every few minutes. Once we set up to pull Aary and his guards, I was placed on chicken duty. A whole group of high DPS folks and a cleric were on this. They are small and only level 46, but they are dragons, and need to be dispatched rapidly. While up they will harass medding casters destracting them from the important job of killing large dragons.

So, after a long long fight, Aaryonar succumed to the might of GoB at about 1:30am. The loot you ask? Well lookie here:

Reaper's Ring
Rocksmasher
Also, Aary's two gaurds each dropped a Silent Fang Necklace

On the way we had to do this other punk Ikatiar the Venom . He dropped 2 Ancient Wyvern Hide Tunics. It was a good night to be a monkie and a good thing too considering the number of times they died.