For archaeologists, exploring dangerous places around the world was a way of life. They had only two goals in life: exploration, endless exploration, and facing the deadly traps found everywhere.
Brann Bronzebeard was one of Azeroth's finest explorers. For the first two hundred years of his life, he had been like an unstoppable war chariot brimming with passion, leaving his footprints at historic sites all over Azeroth. He had fished in the Gurubashi Trolls' ruins in Stranglethorn Vale, excavated antiquities amid the great sandstorms of Silithus, and studied the ancient knowledge of the Tol'vir among the sands of Uldum. He had also been the first explorer permitted to enter the Halls of Origination, even bringing out the "Keystone," to say nothing of his recent adventures in Northrend.
With his apprentice Harrison Jones and his trusted teammates, he had roamed recklessly through Azjol-Nerub, the city of the ancient Nerubians. To Brann, that underground city, built in the Nerubian style, was nothing short of a treasure trove filled with knowledge. He absolutely loved it.
But just as he was preparing to delve deeper into the ruins of the Ancient Kingdom to prospect for gold, a letter from Dick summoned him to the Cold Storm Peaks. It was not to fight and kill on a battlefield or anything else, but simply because the legacy the Titans had left hundreds of thousands of years ago stood there.
The outermost Great Earth Temple-the Halls of Stone; the Halls of Lightning within, which housed the Forge of Wills and where the Titans had bestowed elemental power upon the Iron Burning Legion; and, deepest of all, the Titan city of Ulduar, the mythical ancient kingdom of living beings-to Brann, these were an utterly irresistible temptation. For them, he was even willing to abandon everything.
"Hey, Bronzebeard, I