"Lord Illidan has officially placed you in charge, Lyra." Kayn commented, though at the same time Altruis nodded as Lyra faced him, where the two elves noticed that Lyra had a smile on her face, "The Illidari are now yours to command, as Lord Illidan originally intended. Come, let us head upstairs and let everyone know the news."
Lyra nodded and followed after the pair of elves, silently glad that Lord Illidan, even though he was a soul that was wandering the Twisting Nether, was able to see that she had done what was considered impossible and had gotten Kayn and Altruis to become more friendly towards each other. As Lyra walked she noticed that Kor'vas and Lyndraxa were following them, indicating that they were eager to see what happened when the announcement was made to the rest of their forces. When they walked up to where the star map was located, and Lyra noticed that most of the Illidari were taking a break from their various activities, the group stopped and Kayn cleared his throat... though what was interesting was the fact that her forces stopped what they were doing when they noticed that the group had stopped by the star map.
"Illidari, we have contacted the Master's soul and gained wisdom." Kayn called out, to which he let the various races of their forces cheer for a few seconds, before he held a hand up and had them quiet down so he could speak some again, "Salute Lyra Heartstrings... our new leader!"
Almost all of the Illidari knew that Lord Illidan had placed Lyra in charge of the assault on Mardum, and had remained in power because Kayn, Altruis, and Kor'vas agreed that she was the best one to lead them despite the fact that she didn't have the many years of experience that their Master had. Now that they had been told that Lord Illidan had told them, by speaking with his wandering soul no less, the Illidari now knew that their Master had intended for Lyra to take up his position if something happened to him. Once they understood that, and Lyra's group nodded to them, the Illidari cheered much harder than they had done mere moments ago, though after a minute of doing that they quieted down and resumed their duties.
Kayn, seeing how the Illidari reacted, turned to Lyra and beckoned for her to visit the Matron Mother Malevolence, who would know the best way for them to get into the Black Temple so they could speak with Akama... and fight him if he decided to resist Lord Illidan's wishes. Lyra nodded and walked over to Malevolence, to which she quickly explained what they needed to do, where she also noticed that the Matron Mother was thinking about something.
"Getting into the Black Temple is going to be tricky." Malevolence commented, though at the same time Lyra nodded, because after the defeat of their defenders she suspected that someone had to have taken up residence inside the temple, "Following the break-in by the Council of the Black Harvest, Akama had his Sha'tari priests erect a holy barrier. It prevents my teleportation. However, I might know a way to bypass those protections and take us directly to the Temple Summit. Long ago, I had a... liaison with a certain high elf wizard named Lan'dalock. He later joined the Kirin Tor. If you were to ask him very nicely, and drop my name, I am certain that he would help."
Lyra had to admit that this was the first time that she had heard of the Matron Mother having a liaison with the Kirin Tor, especially since the group of mages had been on another planet when she had first met Malevolence, but she decided not to question what she was told. She was fairly certain that there was a history between her and this Lan'dalock, but at the moment she didn't want to spend more time figuring out something that wasn't important to her current mission. Since she wasn't going to ask anything about the relationship between Malevolence and Lan'dalock, and the Matron Mother was turning her attention to one of the other Illidari, Lyra excused herself and headed back towards the portal that would take her back to Dalaran.
When she returned to the city, however, she discovered that there was still a number of people gathering around the flight master and ordering flights to either Highmountain or Stormheim, making her wonder if the other heroes were having problems recovering the last two Pillars of Creation. In the end, however, she decided not to worry too much about what the other heroes were doing and headed towards where she had left Khadgar, because he would likely know where to locate the mage she was searching for. Sure enough when she reached the location she found Khadgar standing around, no doubt coming up with a way to fix Light's Heart so they could figure out what knowledge had been sent to them... to which he stopped what he was doing when Lyra asked about the mage she was looking for, where she was direction to the walkway above them.
When she walked up the stairs, and stopped beside the area that they had taken a portal earlier, where she spotted the projection of a mage reading a book... one that appeared to be the one that she was searching for.
"Excuse me," Lyra said, doing her best to sound like she was lost in her attempt to find someone, to which the mage actually looked up at her, "are you Lan'dalock?"
"That I am," the mage replied, though at the same time he closed the book he was reading and looked at her with his full attention, which meant that he was curious about her, "and you must be Lyra Heartstrings, the friend of Trixie Lulamoon. What can I help you with?"
"Malevolence, the Matron Mother that serves as the Shivarra leader for the Illidari, sent me to ask for your help," Lyra answered, knowing that Malevolence told her to drop her name to enlist the mage's help, though she hoped that the mage would help her quickly and get back to his duties.
"The Matron Mother?" Lan'dalock inquired, though that was followed by him coughing for a few seconds and looking around surreptitiously, before turning to Lyra once more, "Yes, of course. Anything for Malevolence. How, what exactly do you require my help with?"
"We need a method to pierce a holy barrier that protects against fel energy," Lyra explained, knowing that it was best to keep most of the details to herself, though the brief explanation was best for all of them, "Malevolence seemed to think that you had such a method."
"A holy barrier that protects against fel magic, you say? I have just the thing to bypass it and enable Malevolence's teleport to whatever your destination is." Lan'dalock stated, to which he moved over to his pack, which happened to be physically here and not a protection like the mage himself, though as he glanced up for a moment he spotted an imp holding onto a book, "Sneaky! Look there... that imp just made off with it!"
Lyra barely had time to stare at the imp before it hopped over to the stairs and charged towards the entrance of the building, to which she jumped over the railing and glided down towards the lower floor and smacked the imp as it tried to open a portal to whatever Legion world it had come from. Before she actually had a chance to kill it, however, the imp recovered immediately and ran out onto the streets of Dalaran, forcing Lyra to follow it as it ran into a store called The Wonderworks. She had actually never been inside the shop before, but as she walked inside she found that it was pretty much a toy store of sorts, though as she looked at the shopkeeper she spotted a suspicious crate resting nearby... though when she approached it the crate charged towards the opening and the imp broke out of his disguise, attempting to leave her behind once more.
The imp then charged into another shop, The Scribes Sacellum, though Lyra didn't have to search for her target at all, because the owner had spotted her and the imp enter and immediately pointed her to where the imp was hiding, causing the critter to abandon its hiding place and charge outside once more. The imp than made its way into The Legerdemain Lounge and charged up the stairs to the floor that contained the rooms, though Lyra offered one of the owners a shift apology for the trouble the imp was causing before she found where it was hiding. It was at this point that she found that her target was trying to open another portal, which resulted in a failure thanks to her catching it one more, though the imp threw itself to the streets and ran towards Krasus' Landing.
Since Lyra spotted what appeared to be an invisibility spell go off, by the imp no less, she glided to the street and activated her Spectral Sight, where she spotted the imp in the distance, to which the imp noticed that she was looking at it and ceased creating another portal. That was when the imp leapt up several pieces of stone and stopped in an area where it believed that she couldn't touch it, where it started building another portal so it could leave Dalaran behind. Lyra, on the other hand, had other plans as she rapidly ascended the same stones that the imp used and, in a moment of quick decision, cut the imps head off... stopping its escape attempt and allowing her to claim the book that Lan'dalock had been about to give her.
She quickly made her way back to where the mage in question was projecting an image of himself, mainly so he knew that she had acquired the tome, before she headed back to the Fel Hammer... where she presented the book to Belath, as Malevolence was busy at the moment.
"I'll make sure to give the grimoire to Malevolence so that she can unravel its mysteries... though while she's doing that, however, we have some Black Temple scouting to conduct." Belath commented, to which he accepted the tome that Lyra had presented to him, though at the same time Lyra noticed a grin had appeared on Belath's face, "The last thing we want is for you, the new leader of the Illidari, to teleport right into a trap and get captured or killed in the process. We must discern their force structure, patrol schedule, new defenses, and what Akama eats for breakfast. I would suggest that you send our Broken warriors to handle this, as they'll be able to blend in with the rest of Akama's Ashtongue forces. We'll get what we need to know from the ones that make it back. A champion handler or two can scout outside the temple."
Lyra nodded and called Asha over to where they were standing, where she inquired if the demon hunter would like the chance to scout out the Black Temple and watch over a few of their Broken warriors while they gathered information on Akama's forces. Asha seemed pleased with the idea and agreed to take it on, to which she collected a few of the Broken that were being trained in one of the corners of the Fel Hammer, before they wandered through the portal, headed to Dalaran, and found a portal that would take them to the Outlands. Since it would take them some time to finish their scouting missing, and she had no idea how long that would actually take, Lyra went over to one of the corners of the ship, sat down, and did one of the things she hadn't done since Maiev had freed her... she meditated.
She honestly had no idea how long she sat in her corner and meditated, because she only used this back when she first started training with the Illidari and needed to calm her troubled mind, but eventually someone coughed near her and she opened her eyes... to which she found that Asha's party had returned with their findings, which had been given to Malevolence some time ago. Lyra nodded and pulled herself up, to which she walked over to where the Matron Mother was standing and inquired as to how things were going... and if there was anything else that needed to be done.
"Belath is such a dear. Very thoughtful of him to arrange for some scouting." Malevolence said, though at the same time she glanced at the number of people in the area they were in, taking in the numbers that she mentally counted, "I do hope that not too many of the Broken died to get us this information."
"From what I was told they were very careful in getting this information," Lyra replied, though a part of her found that getting this information, without someone being found out, made things seem far too easy, meaning that they had to be walking into a trap of some kind.
"In any case, I now have the means and the perfect location within the Black Temple to make our grand entrance." Malevolence stated, though Lyra had to smile, because that meant that the Matron Mother had found something inside the tome that would allow her to penetrate the barrier, "I will need but a moment to summon a gateway to the Black Temple. Stand back, please."
Lyra took a step back and watched as Malevolence used her magic to open a portal that would take them to the Black Temple, someplace that she hadn't been to since she and the others had been captured after they returned from Mardum with the Keystone. Once the portal had been completed, and Malevolence said that it was ready, Lyra and a few select Illidari, her champions to be precise, walked through the portal and headed to the Black Temple. The group prepared themselves as Malevolence cast her magic and sealed the door that separated them from the rest of the temple, to which Lyra and the others walked up the stairs... where they discovered that Akama was actually waiting for them to arrive.
"Ah, I see that you have arrived at long last," Akama commented, to which he picked up his weapons and turned to the group as they approached him, though while Lyra's companions drew their various weapons she did no reach for the Twinblades just yet, "and, as I was expecting, the only one to not have their weapons drawn is the latest recruit... now turned leader of the Illidari, as Illidan intended."
"We did not come to fight, Akama," Lyra said, hoping that the leader of the Ashtongue would be willing to speak with them, otherwise things were going to get nasty as she beat him into submission, as she knew that she didn't need the help of her companions this time around, "We spoke to Lord Illidan's soul not long ago and he told us that you were the only person that knew the entirety of his campaign against the Legion... and that we would need your assistance in bringing it to reality. We came to ask you if you would join the Illidari and aid us in bringing down the Burning Legion."
Akama stared at Lyra for a few moments, making her wonder if this was truly going to break down into a fight between the two of them, but all she could hope for was him to see that she hadn't come here to fight and that she wanted his cooperation in defeating their common enemy. A few moments later, however, Akama let out a sigh as he sheathed his weapons and stared at Lyra, his silent gaze telling her everything that she wanted to know.
"I would be honored to assist you, Lyra Heartstrings," Akama replied, though at the same time Lyra could have sworn that she noticed a hint of a small smile on his face, before he beckoned for them to lead the way, "Come, there is much to do and a short amount of time to do it in."
Lyra smiled as she, her companions, and Akama walked back to where Malevolence was waiting, because things had turned out much better than she had originally intended... and it felt good to solve some issues without having to resort to killing whoever disagreed with her, which seemed to be the norm in Azeroth.