Who is Martin Victus? SPOILERS for 3.3 PTR

Yes, there be spoilers. BIG HONKING HUGE ONES. Continue at your peril.

No really, there are, stop reading NOW!

Why are you still here??? I'm gonna spoil you!!!!!



Right, now they're gone, let's take a look at the two new wings of the 5 Man Icecrown Citadel Instance: The Pit of Saron (so more of Martin later, coz we'll meet him there) but firstly, the Forge of Souls, which is where we start our journey... and where we meet the New, Improved Jaina Proudmoore.

As you can see she's had some extensive plastic surgery, been down to the Mall for some decent armour (where's the belly button piercing though?), and has the look of a woman who really wanted just to study but ended up having to drag hapless explorers around Icecrown on potential Suicide Missions. We meet her with the customary yellow ? in the Forge of Souls where she gives us the first of a sequence of quests, making this entire dungeon feel very similar to the Magister's Terrace experience. What has changed most noticably is what you'll recieve as a reward:

Still a lot to do here as you can see as that's the Old Jaina Image on the quest completion tab. In a very welcome development, quest rewards now give you a visual indicator of how much reputation you will be awarded for completing them. This is no doubt to work in tandem with the questing improvements we've discussed previously on the Map screen.

The hastily formed five man group of hapless explorers who I pulled together at nine am this morning completed the instance with no deaths on Normal difficulty and in less than 30 minutes. We experienced a variety of trash and two bosses: Bronjahm and the Devourer of Souls, which shares the same model as the Reliquary of Souls from Black Temple (which now explains some of the QQ-ing I've read about Blizzard recycling boss content.) However it's just a visual resemblance; both fights are non static, involve brains in place and could quite easily catch out the less experienced dungeoneer. I won't spoil details but the second fight especially is not easy, even on Normal, and both should provide a decent challenge in Heroic Mode. Once you've cleared these two... well, that's it. Instance is complete, you've done your quest and if everything was fully functional there'd be a portal to take you and Jaina directly to the Pit of Saron. For us, we have to run back to the start. It's not easy being a trailblazer you know...

 Bronjahm meets his end in the Forge of Souls

You enter the Pit of Saron straight into a fight, which doesn't end at all well if I'm honest. So then it's up to you to round up a new set of soldiers for the new challenge ahead, and to destroy Scourgelord Tyrannus, who sits atop a Frostwyrm who is strangely familiar... but more of that later. For now we have a new quest from Jaina: destoy the end boss and free 20 slaves along the way. The Pit is big with a large variety of trash, both static and otherwise, and some real care will be needed in Heroic not to come a cropper as you clear to the first boss: Forgemaster Garfrost. Once you have him down (watch the rocks, they're big and they hurt ^^) you'll find you've freed a large number of captive slaves as well... amongst whom is the mysterious Martin Victus. He quickly organises the fighters into a coherent group and readies them for the fight... but there's one more boss to remove first, the Leper Gnome Krick and his abomination sidekick Ick (did I really just type that?)

Mark 2 Jaina gives the orders in the Pit of Saron

And here is where we get a HUGE indication as to our goal in this 5 man: Krick reveals that Frostmourne, Arthas' sword, apparently resides unguarded in our ultimate destination: the Halls of Reflection. This is big news for anyone who knows just how important Frostmourne is to controlling Arthas himself, if you did your quests in Dragonblight and paid attention. This also ties in very well with the Quel'delar questline which we know will be running in Icecrown at the same time: perhaps Jaina will use this sword in battle against Frostmourne itself. What could be more likely however is that the 5 man dungeon will alter Frostmourne as a weapon, in a way similar to the way the Ashbringer was uncorrupted by Fordring. It's all speculation at the moment though because the last dungeon is not yet available.

Once we have the bosses in the lower quarry dead it's a rolling gauntlet up to the top tier and the last boss. If you hate the ice from the sky that is a part of the Hodir fight in Ulduar you won't like this run either: there's a cave to negotiate with the White Circles of Terror appearing with scary regularity. Once we're up, Martin appars with a load of freed slaves and keeps the Scourge at bay while we fight and dispatch Tyrannus. Now here things are a little unclear, and I'd need to run the dungeon again to check, but I'm 90% certain when we killed the Scourgelord we also freed his frostwyrm mount.... who just happens to by Syndragosa...

The Mysterious Martin Victus, with Sindragosa behind him

So currently I have more questions than answers concerning the Lore ramifications of what I've seen, but I'm left with a profound sense of building up to something REALLY special in the third wing of this dungeon. The design of these two wings so far is spot on in my opinion: linear progression, challenging fights and (I hope) rewards that justify the effort. There's also a tangible sense of major events just beyond our reach, which I like a great deal. Of course we had no loot and I think many of these fights may well get harder, but if this is what we have to look forward to on the 5 man front I do get the feeling that Icecrown itself is going to be VERY special indeed.

More PTR news as we get it :D