//------------------------------//
// Order Hall: Mage Business 
// Story: World of Warcraft: The Ties that Bind 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
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While Lyra was busy carting off Light's Heart to the Fel Hammer, and storing it in the worst place that they could possibly keep such an important item, Trixie and Azuregos appeared in the Hall of the Guardian and noticed that there were a fair number of mages that hadn't been here since the last time Trixie had been here. Several of the mages seemed surprised to see Azuregos, as they had heard that Trixie was traveling with a blue dragon, but in the end Trixie was happy to see that her companion was welcomed with open arms. Some of the mages that weren't busy with Azuregos turned to Trixie and inquired about her shape, reminding her of her dragon feet and legs, the scales that were on her arms, her claw like nails, her dragon horns, and the tail that moved behind her.

Suffice to say that when Trixie explained what had happened to the mages, as Azuregos had told her anyway, she found that some of them were still stunned, as they had never heard of such a thing happening to someone, but she told them not to worry about her new form and walked down to where her command board was waiting. As she approached the magical command board, however, she found that Archmage Vargoth standing near it, though the look on his face told her that he was here for reasons that weren't connected to the Council of Six.

"Since the Broken Isles is the epicenter of ancient night elven learning," Archmage Vargot commented, though even as he spoke Trixie had the feeling that she knew where the man was going to say before he even finished speaking, "there must be countless magical artifacts secreted away in forgotten vaults and reliquaries. We must secure them so they do not fall into the wrong hands! Perhaps you should send a champion in search of them."

Trixie had to admit that she had no idea what other magical artifacts rested on the Broken Isles, besides the Pillars of Creation anyway, and she also knew that the Legion could still misuse the lesser artifacts in some manner to weaken the combined forces of the various Orders. She guessed that she could ask Kalec to gather some of the other mages and investigate one of the regions of the Broken Isles, just so they cover their bases anyway. Once she came to a decision he called for Kalec and explained the situation to the disguised dragon, while wondering what he was even doing here when he should have been focused on determining what was inside the journal that Maiev had given the Council, before Kalec nodded his understanding and departed from the Hall of the Guardian with a pair of apprentices following him.

Archmage Vargoth, seeing Kalec and the apprentices leave, bid Trixie farewell for the moment, claiming that he was needed elsewhere and had merely stopped by to inform her of the artifacts, before leaving the Hall as well... to which Trixie sighed and wandered over to a table, so she could read one of the books that had been stored inside the Hall. Based on what Lyra had told her it would take some time for Kalec to return with the apprentices, giving her the opportunity to see what sort of knowledge and artifacts had been hidden inside this secret place. That thought made her wonder if there were any artifacts she had recovered, as she had found a few during her travels, and she was fairly certain that one or two of them had magical properties... but she pushed that thought from her mind and focused on what the tome could tell her, and give her some insight as to why it was placed here in the first place.

An hour later, however, she was approached by a fire mage that was called Archmage Melis, where Trixie noticed that a pair amount of Archmages liked to come to the Hall of the Guardian and study the area, to which she closed her tome and turned towards the lady that was approaching her.

"Trixie Lulamoon, your champion and his apprentices have returned," Melis stated, though there was a smile on her face, which told Trixie that the lady was pleased that they were finally gathering up the other artifacts before the Legion got their hands on them, "it appears that they might have discovered some very powerful artifacts! Oh, and Archmage Vargoth's long-time apprentice, Ravandwyr, has arrived here in the Hall of the Guardian with an urgent message from his mentor. He will be waiting for you upstairs."

Trixie nodded and walked over to where Kalec was standing, where she found that the artifacts they had recovered, rather quickly she mentally added, were indeed powerful and made her wonder how she could have missed them when she and Lyra were exploring Azsuna. Then again she remembered that they hadn't actually explored any of the other ruins, which meant that it was possible that one of them held a few artifacts and would explain how she missed them, before she beckoned for Kalec to store them in the Hall, wherever they belonged anyway. Once she knew that the artifacts were here, however, she walked up the nearby set of stairs and rapidly found the mage that she was looking for, as Ravandwyr was standing next to a table... and that he, and Meryl, were apparently waiting for her.

One other thing that Trixie noticed was that Meryl appeared to be ill, which seemed odd considering that he was an undead mage, but she determined that it had to do with the Dreadlord that had been plaguing him for some time, though she pushed the thought away as she stopped beside the duo.

"Ah, Trixie Lulamoon, thank you for coming so quickly," Ravandwyr said, to which he glanced over at Meryl for a moment, as if he was making sure that the undead mage was alright, before turning his attention to Trixie, "I overheard that your champion discovered some sort of powerful magic emanating from the secretive Empyrean Society enclave in Azsuna. Archmage Vargoth asked me to request Meryl's aid in investigating it, but as you can see, Meryl is clearly too ill to travel at the moment. Would you be willing to go in his place? You will need to prove yourself in order to gain entrance. We should be able to find something sufficient in the Hatecoil Warcamp in Azsuna."

Trixie had no idea what sort of magic Kalec had found at this enclave, as he hadn't told her anything about it, but decided that getting mad over such a tiny thing wasn't the end of the world, because she trusted Kalec and knew that there had to be a reason behind him not telling her. In the end she decided that she would meet Ravandwyr in Azuna, though at the same time she decided that this time around she had best do this alone, which meant that she had to tell Azuregos the news. Truth be told she expected Azuregos to flip out and declare that he was heading back to the Nexus Vault, as that was his purpose in life, but as it turned out he was rather understanding of the situation and said that he hoped she could pull off this stunt of hers.

Once that was done, and Azuregos was fine with staying with the other mages, Trixie returned to Dalaran, headed for Krasus' Landing, and transformed into her blue dragon form, to which she got into the air and headed towards Azuna once more... and the Hatecoil Warcamp, where she had been taken with the intention of being turned into a slave. What surprised her is that when she flew over the warcamp she spotted a fair number of naga still patrolling the area, making her wonder why they were still there after the attack on their forces. In the end she decided that it was best if she didn't argue with what was happening, because sometimes the enemies she fought moved back into the area they were forced out of and had to be killed again... and multiple times after that until they got the message.

Trixie mentally sighed as she turned herself towards the ground and noticed that Ravandwyr was already waiting on one of the cliffs that overlooked the warcamp, making her wonder how he had gotten here so quickly... before she gently landed near him and reverted back to her elven form, to which she walked over to the mage that had called for assistance.

"The Empyrean Society is a dangerous cult." Ravandwyr commented, his head turned in the direction that the Society's camp was in, before he turned and looked at Trixie, "They claim to study all magic regardless of its source, but in reality they focus mostly on the forbidden. They will welcome you to their enclave if you bring them a magical artifact. The Hatecoil naga have found the perfect gifts; a Pearl of Arcane Wisdom and some scrolls from the depths beneath the Nar'thalas Academy. You  will have to convince them to part with a few. I will meet you on the road just north of the Empyrean Enclave."

Trixie wasn't too keen on just acquiring some magical artifacts and handing them over to a group that was bound to do something terrible with them, but then she remembered that she could always steal them back if someone in the Empyrean Society blew her cover. She would be amazed if none of the mages in the Society recognized that she was the Conjurer that commanded the mages of the Hall of the Guardian, especially since her body was half dragon, but then decided that she would have to gamble and see what fate dealt her. She then sighed as she jumped off the short cliff they were standing on and slid down the slope, allowing her dragon feet to steady her, though when she reached the bottom of the slope she kicked off the wall and jumped into the air... where she slammed an Arcane Blast into the face of a naga that happened to be passing by.

As Trixie hit the ground, and rolled back up onto her feet, she realized that the naga she had struck was a warrior and not a mage, which meant that he wasn't likely going to possess what she was after, to which she continued the search as she made her way through the warcamp. The fortunate thing was that because she knew the layout of the warcamp, thanks to her and her friends waging war against the Hatecoil earlier that week, she could easily navigate herself around to the areas where the mages were supposed to be. The unfortunate thing she discovered was that there weren't all that many mages around the camp and that some of them weren't even carrying scrolls, making it much harder for her to gather what she needed. The only silver lining was when she fought a powerful naga that was called Spitespeaker Lir'kess, who not only possessed the Pearl of Arcane Wisdom, but also three scrolls that were clearly taken from the Academy.

She wandered around for another minute or two, collecting two more scrolls from the naga mages, before she retreated back to where Ravandwyr was standing and told him the good news.

"Good. Now we should be able to enter the Empyrean Society enclave and have a look around." Ravandwyr said, to which he beckoned for Trixie to follow and continued talking while they walked, "We don't know much about the Empyrean Society's activities here, but now that you appear to be a new recruit you should be able to ask some questions and take a look around for the strange magic Archmage Vargoth detected."

When the duo stopped near the entrance of the enclave, too close for Trixie's liking considering that the mages from the Society could see the two of them, they moved behind a rock and Ravandwyr started speaking to a blood elf called Esara Verrinde, who worked with the Magisters. Trixie didn't know much about the Magisters, considering that they were a part of the blood elf government in some manner, but they were also mages and she hoped that Esara was on their side. As it turned out Trixie and Esara were going to play the part of two new recruits for the Society and offer them the items Trixie had recovered, to which the two of them walked down towards the entrance and spoke with the first person they encountered... who happened to be a human mage.

The lady Trixie spoke to claimed that none of the Society members would speak about what they were doing here until someone named Marlan 'evaluated' their gifts, which meant that they had to find this person and talk with them... but as they did so, and moved through the enclave, Trixie noticed that some of the mages were staring at her. This would be one of the few times that she actually cursed Azuregos for giving her that necklace and infusing her body with the essence of a blue dragon, as she was sure that those that were staring at her realized who she was. Everything then went sideways when Trixie found a fel tome sitting out in the open, indicating that the Legion had some hand in using the Society, which in turn caused the Society mages to turn on them... along with the man called Marlan personally confronting them.

Suffice to say that Trixie wasn't too impressed by Marlan's abilities, as she and Esara were able to defeat the man within a matter of seconds, which caused Aluneth to brag in her hear about being an incredibly powerful staff... and making Trixie wish that she didn't have a staff that talked and reminded her of her old self every time it spoke up. Once Marlan was dead, however, Trixie formally issued the order that the Society was to be put down for attempting to harness magical energies that they could hand over to the Legion, as she had seen this so many times in the past and wasn't going to let the corruption spread this time around. She and Esara then went to war against the lesser mages that made up the Society, throwing magic around at each other from a safe distance while being absolutely sure that nothing got too close to where they were standing.

While all of this happened Trixie made sure to collect each and every fel tome she could find, that way she and her fellow mages in the Hall of the Guardian could decide whether they destroy the books or lock them away so they couldn't be used by their enemies. Once Trixie was satisfied with the results, with the Society destroyed in such a manner, she and Esara turned to the one building that was in front of them and, after shattering the fel rune with a blast from Aluneth, they walked inside... only to see that Ravandwyr, who must have checked the building out without informing them of what he was doing, was frozen in place. There was also another high ranking mage of the Society standing in the room, one that also intended to kill them with her spells, but unfortunately she didn't stand much of a chance against Trixie's empowered spells, as she blasted her target so hard in the chest that she went flying into the wall and stopped moving entirely.

As Esara freed Ravandwyr, however, Trixie ran over what the Society mage had said when they entered the building, that Archmage Vargoth would hear of this intrusion... and, to further her confusion, the nearby chest held both a missive that came from the Archmage, as well as the very journal that Maiev had given to the Council. Trixie growled as she looked at the items, as she had to wonder if the Council of Six had been compromised as well, but instead of openly accusing Vargoth of a crime she needed answers and evidence... to which she and her new companions, who she might consider to be her newest champions, teleported back to the Hall of the Guardian. There she could figure out what was going on and who was really on Azeroth's side... and, more importantly, who was a traitor to the cause.