//------------------------------//
// The Eye of the Tempest, Part 1: The Phoenix Hall 
// Story: Seekers of the Epitaph: World of Azeroth 
// by Xarmar13 
//------------------------------//

With Serpentshrine Cavern cleared out, the party returned to the waterfall entrance to examine the consoles linked to the waterfall controls. After some close examinations, they found out that the terminals that locked the bridge in place also kept the waterfall mechanism active. With the press of a button the waterfall curtain deactivated permanently.

The Cenarion druids cautiously approached the entrance and saw that the ones who infiltrated the cavern had returned. The party gave the news that the leaders of the Coilfang Naga had been defeated to which the druids cheered for them.

The party didn’t stay long as they wanted to return to Shattrath to rest before they assaulted the next location. Stella opened a portal to the draenei city and emerged in the central chamber of the city. After telling A’dal that Vashj was defeated, the Horde and Alliance groups split up and took up quarters at the inns of the Scryers and Aldor respectively.

After eating the meal offered by their hosts, they discussed what they would do next.

“We need to return to Akama to inform him that one of his seers was freed from Vashj’s imprisonment,” Flutashe said. “I’m sure Akama must be worried about him.”

“Yeah, plus we need to be there when Lord Illidan gives the order to attack Tempest Keep,” Raida added.

“I can send you near his location if you want,” Stella offered.

“That would be appreciated.”

Stella opened a portal to Shadowmoon Valley which was only entered by herself, Flutashe and Raida. Once they crossed, they emerged in a location near Warden’s Cage. Stella offered to wait while the other two finished their business. Raida opened her wings while Flutashe shifted into her bird form before they flew off toward the underground prison.

Once they returned to Akama, they gave the news about what happened to Seer Olum. Akama nodded, “It is good to know that my friend has been rescued. I hope that he returns soon.”

As if on cue, Olum surfaced from the pool and approached Akama. “Akama, my friend. I take it that you have been informed that I was found out by Vashj’s followers.” He looked at Raida with uncertainty. “There was mention of a contingency plan in effect, what does it mean?”

“It means that Illidan is fully aware of our plans,” Akama responded. “Illidan set this plan up himself in the event that Azeroth became a threat to the Illidari. This phase of the plan summarizes the dismantling of the leadership of the Illidari which includes the deaths of Vashj, Kael’thas and Lord Illidan himself.”

“But why? Why would Illidan sacrifice himself?” Olum asked.

“Because Azeroth is the Legion’s true prize. Their forces must become stronger so that they can weather the tide once the Legion gets serious about their invasion. Lady Raida will oversee their development.”

“And what of us?” Olum asked.

“Once Illidan is defeated, we will wait and restore the temple to how it once was. Once the Legion begins their true invasion, we will answer the call to battle,” Akama replied.

All of a sudden, the air became heavy as a powerful presence made itself known in the chamber. A magical image of Illidan appeared before them.

“Akama, and I see that you are in the presence of Raida, good. I take it that the plan is moving along?”

Raida gave a sorrowful sigh, “Yes, Lord Illidan. Lady Vashj has met her demise.”

“Then she has moved on to fulfill her final mission,” Illidan said. “She will be missed, but we must now turn our attention to more important matters. The time has come to deal with the treacherous blood elf prince who dares make his secret deals with the Legion. Raida, take your allies and put an end to the traitors who inhabit Tempest Keep. Show Kael’thas Sunstrider what happens to those who betray the Illidari.”

Raida gave a deep bow to her master, “It will be done, My Lord.”

Raida and Flutashe returned to Stella who opened the way back to Shattrath where they regrouped with their friends. No explanations were necessary as their destination had not changed.

The next day, the party did their morning routine before regrouping with the Horde. Once they were ready, Stella brought them to Netherstorm, in front of Tempest Keep.

Once they were there, they ran into their first issue: the Horde still didn’t have the means to fly, except for Feloma, and the entrance to the keep had no land paths to use to get there.

Stella offered to fly over the the entrance to establish a dimensional anchor so they could reach the entrance.

While Stella was setting everything up, Bella decided that it would be a good time to get some information about the place from Raida. “So, what do you know about the keep, darling?”

“The central hub of Tempest Keep is known as The Eye. It’s not as big as Serpentshrine Cavern, but the chambers are pretty big. It’s pretty much four chambers and five hallways. 

“The first room we will come across will be The Phoenix Hall, named by Kael’thas since he keeps his pet phoenix Al’ar in there. He will be one of our targets. 

“The west wing is a workshop called The Crucible where blood elf and mo’arg engineers build their large-scale projects. One report I got from one of my demon hunters was that they were building a fel reaver in there. If they’ve finished that then we are going to have a fight on our hands.

“The east wing is The Solarium where the blood elf astromancers are trained. Astromancers are mages trained to use the nether energies in the air to channel potent arcane magic. That area’s pretty damaged because of all the spells flying around. Solarian, the high astromancer, is the head instructor there and will be another target. 

“The Tempest Bridge is our ultimate destination in this place. It’s usually guarded by energy beams so we will have to find a way to deactivate them. Kael’thas keeps his most trusted advisors near him and he will be guarded by the Crimson Hand, his royal guard.”

Once they were ready, Stella opened a portal to the keep’s entrance and ushered everyone through. As they emerged from the portal to the entrance platform, everyone readied their weapons and prepared to enter the keep.

Cautiously, the party advanced into the narrow hallway, using the doorframes as cover. They quickly discovered several squads of blood elves along the hallway. They were mainly astromancers and warriors but Bella could sense the Light within some of them which meant that they were blood knights, blood elves who stole energies from a naaru to wield their power.

Bella frowned as she saw the blood knights as perverted mockeries of true paladins.

There was also a group who walked along the hallway inspecting the troops. This one appeared to be an officer but they didn’t seem particularly strong.

The party carefully engaged the squadrons along the hallway while avoiding the officer for a time. Bella used her power to show the blood knights how a real paladin fought while the others took out the warriors and astromancers with Stella making sure the mages didn’t try anything dangerous. They fought through three squads and took out the officer who was a skilled warrior.

Sophia sensed the presence of a mind behind her. She looked and found that there was nobody there. However, the mind didn’t project any hostility toward them so she ignored it for now.

They soon reached the end of the hallway where they entered a huge room with a crystal center floor where several falconers were walking around with flocks of dragonhawks. There were two ramps leading to an upper level with several balconies. Large dragonhawks were flying along the upper level. The walls were crimson and the lighting crystals gave off a scarlet glow. Several black banners featuring a crimson bird with its wings raised to form a circle decorated the room.

Flying high above the room was a large majestic flaming bird giving off waves of magenta light as it flew around the room. The sight was breathtaking as the phoenix brought awe to everyone in the room.



It was too bad that they had to kill it.

Clearing the room was a trivial matter since the dragonhawks greatly outnumbered the blood elves in the room and Flutashe’s ability was able to work on them. However, her ability didn’t work on Al’ar because he had a magical connection to Kael’thas. 

Once the dragonhawks had eliminated the falconers, Feloma used her pheromones to tame one of them while the others left the keep. The hunter named her newest addition Summer.

Since Al’ar wasn’t coming down to fight them, they had to move up to the next level to fight him. Moving up the left ramp, Lokosh, Flutashe, Bella and Raida positioned themselves on the nearest balcony before Stella flew up and launched an icicle at the phoenix. Al’ar was immediately infuriated and flew down to the balcony to attack.

The party quickly felt the intense heat of Al’ar’s rage as he pecked at the melee members with Bella and Lokosh’s shields blocking ones meant for them. Raida’s warglaives parried attacks on her while the bulk of Flutashe’s bear form absorbed most of the attacks against her.

Realizing that Al’ar was getting nowhere with his attacks, he flew over to an adjacent balcony before he unleashed the heat in his body to burn the party. Talia quickly summoned a black structure with a skull on top of a circular portal. Another appeared next to Al’ar. “Jump through, now!” she commanded. Everyone obeyed the order and jumped through the portal which placed them at the balcony that Al’ar flew to. The battle resumed as before.

Al’ar occasionally switched to different balconies which was followed by Talia creating gateways to the ones the phoenix flew to. However, on occasion, Al’ar flew to the top of the room before molting his feathers and sending them flying all over the room like darts. Sophia raised a psionic shield to protect them from the quills.

The fight lasted a few more minutes before a few more icy shots from Stella’s ice spells caused the phoenix to dim and blacken, turning into ash.

Most of the party breathed a sigh of relief, except for Talia and Stella. Thanatas was glad at least one of them realized something.

“Don’t let your guards down, fools! This fight isn’t over yet!” Talia shouted.

“What do you mean?” Lokosh asked.

“Do you fools not know what a phoenix is or what it was capable of?”

“It’s not like we see their kind in the wilds, so we have little information on them,” Bella said.

Stella explained, “Back when Kael’thas was a member of the Kirin Tor,  he gave a lecture on the nature of phoenixes for the archives. One particular feature is that they are capable of–”

Suddenly, a burst of flame erupted from the center of the room. The party looked down at the lower level and found Al’ar had returned in his full glory.

“...being reborn from their ashes.”

The party quickly jumped down to the lower level to face a now furious phoenix. Lokosh, Raida, Flutashe and Bella rushed in to fight the creature once again. Al’ar wasn’t playing around this time as he changed tactics and began unleashing every ounce of heat that he could produce. Stella quickly cast heat resistance spells on everyone while Farra’jin set his water totem to add to their resistance.

Al’ar began setting areas of the floor on fire by throwing more quills around him. Stella countered this by overcharging her icicles and sending them into the flames. The ice shards exploded on impact and put out the flames.

The phoenix suddenly flew toward the ceiling before he glared at Stella. He then curled up into a ball and transformed into a flaming ball of rock which fell toward her. Stella managed to blink away in time and everyone nearby moved away before the meteor impacted the area she was in. Al’ar reformed in a burst of flames a moment later.

The explosion from the meteor caused several smaller phoenixes to form. The Embers of Al’Ar picked random people to attack and flew toward them. Lokosh rushed toward the phoenixes and slammed his shield into each one to get their attention.

Lokosh and Raida attacked the embers while Bella and Flutashe focused on Al’ar. The party continued blasting the phoenix from a distance while the mage continued putting out his flames.

Raida killed each small phoenix one by one but after the first one she had to be more careful as the smaller birds exploded upon death. It didn’t help Lokosh when she started blasting them with her crystal and fel combination since he ended up getting caught in the blasts.

It wasn’t noticeable at first, but Sophia picked up on the pained look on Al’ar’s face whenever an ember died, as if their life was connected to his. As he repeated his Dive Bomb maneuver, creating more phoenixes, it became apparent that the smaller birds were still a part of him and their deaths were gradually weakening him.

After several minutes, Al’ar began to dim again. One last small phoenix death soon became too many as he collapsed in a heap. He gave one last weak squawk before he became motionless.

The party spent a whole minute waiting to see if Al’ar would rebirth himself again but he showed no signs of getting back up.

Thanatas broke the silence, “I don’t think he’s getting up again. He made the mistake of dividing his soul into fragments to attack you with. Each death destroyed part of his soul so there wouldn’t be enough of him to rebirth when he died again.”

The party breathed a sigh of relief and took a break in preparation for the next big fight. During this time, Raida offered some guidance to help them devise their next plan of action. “From here, we can attack the west wing where The Crucible workshop is located or we can attack The Solarium in the east wing.”

“That means attacking the engineers or the mages, right?” Mena asked. Raida nodded slowly.

“Either side will be dangerous, let’s vote,” Stella suggested. “All in favor of The Crucible, raise your hand.” Lokosh, Raida, Flutashe and Mena raised their hands. “Those in favor of The Solarium?” Farra’jin, Talia, Bella, Feloma and Groun raised their hands. Stella abstained to keep the number of voters odd. “Solarium it is.”

The party walked up to the second level where they exited the room into a hallway that was filled with more blood elves, though most of them were astromancers of various skill levels as they found when they fought. The novices fought with basic mage spells such as fireballs and arcane missiles while the more skilled ones used more advanced spells. There were also a pair of arcane golems guarding an adjacent hallway that was blocked by a field of energy bars.

Stella was able to drain one golem and overload another which sent many of the enemy mages flying into walls where Feloma ended them like they were part of a shooting gallery.

Another group of mages awaited them at the end of the hallway. Stella simply put them to sleep with a Dream Fog before she incinerated them with a Flamestrike.

As the party entered The Solarium, they quickly noticed the state of the place. The ceiling was shattered which allowed the energies of the arcane storm to seep into the room. Groups of elves gathered around the alcoves of the room while a few patrolled around an elevated platform where a blood elf in warlock garb stood.



“I don’t think I need to tell you that the woman in the center is Solarian,” Raida whispered.

“Why does her face look like a voidwalker?” Mena asked.

“She is the sole survivor of the Ultris incident. When the manaforge exploded, she was exposed to the energies of the void rift. The exposure made her more powerful but her mind is likely fighting off the whispers that came as a side effect. I imagine that she will lose herself before long.”

Solarian soon discovered the intruders at the entrance and called for every blood elf in the room to attack. She joined the fray as well, “Tal anu’men no sin’dorei!” she shouted in Thalassian, the language of the blood elves.

The next few seconds became a brawl as the ten of them fought off the army of blood elves. Feloma had Autumn run through the crowd clawing at their legs while Summer flew around breathing fire on them. Talia and Raida summoned their demons and had them slaughter the elves around them. Leech and Talia’s felhunter gorged themselves on the elves’ magic while Truth and Talia’s felguard tore through the mages like a lawn mower to grass.

Stella kept Solarian under control by countering her spells and stealing the spells that the astromancer threw at her. Solarian countered Stella’s magic whenever she tried to go on the offensive but she was also dealing with a dracthyr mage who blinked behind her and sprayed her with acid. Solarian blinked away a moment later.

Stella sensed where the astromancer disappeared to and went after her. In the meantime, more of Solarian’s agents teleported into the room and fought the rest of the party. They were quickly disposed of.

Stella and Solarian returned to continue their magic duel though it was clear that Stella could match her every move and still have her draconic abilities which she had no answer to.

“Enough!” Solarian shouted as she had enough with the fight and pushed Stella away from her with an arcane explosion. She then began pulling more of the storm into herself. The energies reacted with the void energies within her body. “I call upon the fury of the cosmos itself!” The energies soon transformed the elf, wrapping her in shadow while dark purple and gold armor appeared around her bulbous form. She became an armored voidwalker.

Solarian began throwing bolts of shadow at Stella who blocked them with a barrier before she returned to the others. She then began casting her attacks on the others.

However, they never connected as the shadow bolts vanished into thin air.

"̶̟̯̦͋͑̈Ļ̵̈́́̉ȍ̶̡̀ǫ̸̣͇͋̀̋͠ͅk̷͙̼̟͋͘s̴͕̕͠ ̵̼̹̽́l̸̨̺̓i̴̤͇̎̋ķ̶̨͖̂͑e̵̗͕̐͐̇́ ̵̢̗͎̓̋̅̆ś̷̥̺͝ớ̵̢̨̟̱͂͋m̸̢̲̟͍̐͒e̶̎̓̒̃ͅo̶̰̣̦̭͆̓̚͠n̵͇͚̒̑͑́ȩ̴͖͈̈́ ̷͎̯͍́̀͋̚͜h̴̛̬̬̬̃̈́̉ͅa̶̬̿ͅs̸̥̬͙̉́̚ ̸͔̾͋b̷̨͔̍̇̿̕͜ë̶̮̬̫́é̶̝̺̯̒́n̴̯̺͔̊̿͒̄ ̴̻̤̬̂̿̕d̶̪̞͑͒à̸͍̥̻͕b̴̢̳̯̀̓͊b̴̢̧̥̗͆l̵̰̞̝̗̉̔̓i̸̼̦̇͜n̶͎͕̖͊́g̷̙͂̉ ̵̧͒͝ͅi̶̲͌̆̀̏ͅn̵̩̏̈́̒͝ ̴̡̞͈̲̌̍͐p̶̝̒͜o̴̭͂̌͘w̶̥̮̽͂̎͜͝e̴̲̅̇r̸̜̾́̆̕ͅs̸͖̞̝̈́͛̚ ̵̮̭͇̥͆̽b̶̖͑̇̍͝e̶̯̐̎y̵̝̮̒̌̊ơ̵̺̜̙͛̀̑n̶̻̞̦͈͑̋̈̇d̶͓̫͔̼͆̍͘̚ ̷͔̈̓̈́t̶̝̟̬̫͠h̴̻̐̾̑͠ě̴̞i̴͙̪̣͙͐r̴̙̳̤̞̎ ̸͖͐̎c̵̝͙̯͈̒ơ̶̗̣͍̓͝m̷̹͖͎̔̽̏p̸̹̺̿͐r̷̪͔̫͈̅̔̎e̷̢̜̻͍̅̿͘h̷̗̖̤͝ě̸̢̅͠n̶̨̙͘͜s̴̗͚̀̕i̴͕̼̫͒̋̈͊o̷͖̽͒ṉ̵̝̫̀́.̵̪̖̰̻͆͗́͊.̷̢͍͚̥͋̇.̸̖͍̦̳̓͋͝"̶̹̜̞͖̍ a voice whispered to the transformed astromancer with a singsong tone. 

Solrian looked around for the source of the voice but saw nothing at first. She suddenly saw many armored voidwalkers appear around her. They began to slowly move toward her repeating “One of us…” with distorted voices. She quickly noticed herself becoming drowsy and the feeling was growing the closer the voidwalkers got to her.

The party was looking at the astromancer in confusion. They watched as she desperately launched shadow bolts all over the room but hitting nothing but the walls. Given her state and the fact that she seemed like she was attacking like she lost her mind, they had a good idea as to why.

By the time the voidwalkers made contact with Solarian, she could barely stay awake. Her consciousness began to fade as darkness took her. As her mind faded to nothingness, another was satisfied with the morsel that was devoured.

Solarian’s voidwalker form fell apart, revealing an unconscious blood elf lying on the floor. Her face revealed for all to see. But they knew that she would never wake again.

Leaving the scene behind, the party backtracked their way back to The Phoenix Hall. They then headed into the other hallway into the west wing.

As they walked, Mena asked the question that everyone was curious about. “I’ve been wondering, for the layout of this place and the fact that we’re supposed to be in a tower that seems as tall as Karazhan, the spatial proportions of the exterior and interior don’t match. Why is that?”

Everyone else looked at each other for an answer but they all seemed at a loss. Even Thanatas had no idea. In order for the layout and outside to match, the outside would have to be in the shape of four large structures connected to one another or the interior would have to be shaped in a way that would require climbing many floors like Karazhan.

Realizing that they were wasting time wrapping their heads around the mystery, they decided to drop the matter and continue into the west wing.







Twilight rubbed her temples as she felt a headache coming on. “Midnight…” she called out.

“Already placed in your schedule,” Midnight replied. “The earliest I could put you in was early next week. You have too many important meetings in the next few days to set it any sooner.”

Twilight sighed, “That’s fine, I’d like to have words with the world design teams and the dungeon design teams who were in charge of designing Draenor. We can’t have designs that are incompatible with each other or Mena and the others might get suspicious.”

She slumped in her chair and silently prayed that there wouldn’t be any further irregularities anytime soon.







As they entered the west wing hallway, the party quickly found that the corridor was being patrolled by only arcane golems. Stella wasted no time draining and overloading the golems. One of the golems was next to an energy barrier where the overloaded arcane energy blew out the generators. As long as no engineers came by to repair it, they would have access to the adjacent hallway once they cleared out whatever was in The Crucible.

Once they cleared out the hallway, they entered a room that was as large as the Solarium but was intact. A few arcane golems patrolled the room alongside a number of blood elf and mo’arg engineers. There was also an inactive fel reaver in the back of the room.

The engineers weren’t difficult to dispatch, though the elven engineers used devices to protect the cores of the golems so Stella couldn’t overload them. The elves threw bombs at the party which Mena decided to play catch with as she grabbed bombs in midair and hurled them at the golems which damaged their armor. The mo’args launched sawblades at the party which Raida was quick to deflect toward the golems. The blades either dented the golems’ armor plating or they became lodged into the armor.

Once the golems stopped functioning from the abuse they took from their engineers’ tools, the party turned those same tools on the engineers. The battle turned gruesome as the bombs and sawblades left the engineers in pieces. Blood and viscera flew around.

One elven engineer managed to slip away in the chaos and fled toward the fel reaver. The party failed to notice him in time before he managed to activate the colossal construct.

The fel reaver appeared slightly different from other fel reavers in that its furnace was glowing purple instead of green. Other than that, the chassis was still the same colossal mechanical construct that the Legion mass produced.



“Behold!” the engineer cried. “We modified this fel reaver to run on nether energy. We did what the Legion could not! All that remains is a field test. Crush them all, Void Reaver!” Whether it was the engineer’s carelessness or the Void Reaver not being programmed to be careful, the construct moved a foot over to where the engineer was and stepped on him like a bug.

The Void Reaver scanned its surroundings and spotted the group. After a brief scan, it decided to mark them as enemies. “[Alert! You are marked for extermination!]”

As the construct moved toward the party who readied themselves. The Void Reaver’s steps caused the room to tremble and made standing difficult.

The party scattered and dodged around the steps of the machine while also dodging its fists. They had to be even more careful against the construct when they found that it was programmed to kick them. Such an attack could spell the end for any of them.

“[Calculating force parameters.]” the Void Reaver said before it began repeatedly pounding the ground, causing tremors all over the room and knocking the party to the ground. They barely managed to avoid another stomp from the machine as they rolled out of the way..

As the fight was progressing, orbs of arcane energy flew out of the Void Reaver’s reactor and violently exploded over a wide area. Stella, Mena and Feloma had to run away from a few. However, most of the orbs flew toward Sophia and Thanatas who blocked them with barriers of energy or bone.

The two cousins observed the battle progress. It was slow going, but there has been some damage inflicted upon the machine. Raida’s combination attack was causing minor damage to the armor plating and Feloma’s explosive arrows were causing small dents, but they weren’t causing any real damage to it. Realistically, attacking a massive mechanical marvel with medieval might and magic may have been a bad move.

Somehow, Mena managed to jump onto the Void Reaver while it was distracted. Once she reached the lower torso, she pulled out some tools and began removing bolts and screws. She also appeared to be using a welding torch that appeared to be powered by a purple cube like the ones the party saw in the Mechanar. For some odd reason, the torch appeared to be melting through the Void Reaver’s armor like butter. She welded together joints that were not meant to be welded and this weakened the machine’s mobility.

Mena climbed up to the Void Reaver’s head component and cut her way into it. From there she began to tamper with the wiring within. Before long the Void Reaver began to twitch as its systems were no longer functioning optimally.

“[Alert! Tampering detected within the central processor. Recommended: remove tampering…Danger! Self destruct mechanism activated. This unit will self destruct in one minute.]”

“Uh oh! That wasn’t meant to happen!” Mena exclaimed before she grabbed all of her tools and put them in her hair before she floated down to join the others.

“What did you do?” Raida asked.

“We need to get out of here, fast!” Mena hurriedly explained. “The nether reactor is going critical and I don’t want to be in this wing when it does.”

Not wasting any more time, the party returned to the Phoenix Hall at a breakneck pace. They turned a corner once they entered the room moments before a massive explosion erupted beyond the door. The entire keep was rocked from the blast as the explosion obliterated a huge chunk of the tower.

An alarm blared throughout the tower. This was sure to draw in more of Kael’thas’ troops to investigate. Though with the entire west wing annihilated, there was only one way they could reach the bridge now. The next hour was going to be intense.