Illidan sent Lady Vashj and most of her naga ahead to scout out Dalaran and its surrounding ley lines in preparation for the attack. The former night elf would deal with Maiev Shadowsong himself. As long as she was living, she would be a thorn in his side. It was time to tear out that thorn and crush it beneath his heel once and for all.
Illidan and his remaining allies assaulted Maiev and her Watchers. The night elves were wounded and exhausted. They knew the battle to come would be their last, but they faced it with grim determination. Maiev’s only desire was that with her dying breath, she might have the chance to strike down Illidan Stormrage.
She would not get her wish.
As the battle unfolded, a force of night elf Sentinels and druids arrived. Leading them were Malfurion Stormrage and Tyrande Whisperwind. When Maiev’s messenger had reached them with news that Illidan had gathered an army and was seeking out demonic artifacts, they both had been horrified. Tyrande felt personally responsible for Illidan’s treachery. She didn’t regret releasing him. Given the circumstances, that had been necessary. But the Illidan she’d known, her friend and confidant from ten thousand years ago, was no more. In his place was something else. A monster little better than those that had invaded Mount Hyjal.
The night elf reinforcements turned the tide of battle against Illidan, and he escaped to the east, desperate to reach Dalaran. He could have used the Eye of Sargeras against Tyrande and Malfurion, but he could not bring himself to do it. Even though the two night elves saw him as a traitor, he still harbored feelings for both of them.
Much had changed in the Eastern Kingdoms since Lordaeron’s fall. The Scourge continued roaming the land, hunting down survivors and clashing with Alliance resistance forces. Yet Lordaeron was not the only nation struggling to cope with the aftermath of defeat. The high elves of Quel’Thalas had suffered just as many losses as their neighbors to the south. Not only had the death knight Arthas Menethil left the once-beautiful lands a blighted graveyard, but he had also tainted the Sunwell, the fount of arcane magic that was the beating heart of high elven society. Grieving for the decimation of their homeland, the high elves decided to call themselves blood elves in honor of their fallen people.
Arthas had also killed Quel’Thalas’s king, Anasterian Sunstrider. By right of succession, rule over the elves fell to the sorcerous prince Kael’thas Sunstrider, but at first he was nowhere to be found. The heir to the throne had been in Dalaran during his homeland’s downfall. When he received word of the attack, he rushed to Quel’Thalas. By then, the battle had already been lost.
The surviving elves greeted Kael’thas with thinly veiled resentment. Rather than fighting to protect Quel’Thalas, he had been in Dalaran. To many elves, it seemed that Kael’thas enjoyed spending his time in that distant city more than in his own homeland.
Kael’thas made no excuses for being absent in Quel’Thalas’s hour of need. His people had every right to be bitter. He resolved to prove himself to the elves and do whatever he could to rebuild their kingdom. It was not easy for him. In truth, Kael’thas had always felt distant from his people. They were largely insular and isolationist, but he had been quite the opposite. He had wanted to see the world, to interact with different races and learn new ideas.
He surveyed Silvermoon City’s ruins and attended his father’s funeral, but he struggled to connect with the elves. Nonetheless, Kael’thas continued trying. He did love his people and his kingdom, more than some elves might have known. And this love was what drew him to the tainted Sunwell.
Kael’thas was horrified at the sight of the Sunwell and the twisted energies swirling through its depths. Through his attunement to magic, he sensed that the fount’s dark power was gradually enveloping Quel’Thalas. In time, it would seep into the hearts and minds of the blood elves and kill them all. There was no means to cleanse the Sunwell with any certainty. Quel’Thalas’s other senior blood elves had come to the same conclusion. Along with Kael’thas, they decided there was only one way to stop the spread of the Sunwell’s toxic energies.
Kael’thas gathered the most powerful magi in Quel’Thalas at the fount. In unison, they conducted a great ritual that destroyed the Sunwell. A burst of energy cascaded out from the fount, obliterating the remaining Scourge in the area.
The loss of the fount was immediately felt by the blood elves. They had lived their entire lives bathed in the Sunwell’s energies, so much so that they had become addicted to arcane magic. Now cut off from the fount, they began suffering from withdrawal. The pangs of addiction would only grow more debilitating as time passed, and many elves would fall ill and become lethargic.
Though Kael’thas was troubled by this new development, more immediate dangers consumed his attention. The Scourge were still in firm control of Lordaeron. As long as the undead roamed the nearby land, the blood elves would never know peace. If Kael’thas and his people were to rebuild their kingdom, they needed to help the remnants of the Alliance defeat the Scourge.
BATTLE BETWEEN SCOURGE AND ALLIANCE FORCES IN THE THIRD WAR
Kael’thas’s father had seceded from the Alliance, but that did not stop the prince from lending aid to the faction. He gathered his healthiest soldiers and journeyed into Lordaeron to join the fight against the undead. The prince appointed a seasoned ranger named Lor’themar Theron to serve as regent lord in Quel’Thalas and watch over the rest of the blood elves in his stead.
Kael’thas’s departure did not surprise most blood elves. Once again, he was leaving behind his homeland and venturing to distant lands.
Though many pockets of Alliance resistance were scattered across Lordaeron, the largest group had gathered in Silverpine Forest. This force was led by a human, Grand Marshal Othmar Garithos. As the highest-ranking survivor of Lordaeron’s military, Garithos was leader of the army by chance, not because of merit. He was far from the ideal commander. Garithos was an ill-tempered and xenophobic man who scorned the non-human races in his ranks.
Prince Kael’thas Sunstrider and his blood elves were not spared from the grand marshal’s bigotry. When the prince pledged his loyalty to the Alliance resistance, Garithos accepted it purely out of necessity. He made no attempt to hide his disdain for the elves.
Despite the chilly reception, Kael’thas committed himself and his people to the war effort. The blood elves quickly proved themselves to be one of the most effective fighting forces in the Alliance army. They seized large swaths of land in Silverpine Forest and slowly worked their way toward the ruins of Dalaran. The broken city was still partially under the control of the Kirin Tor, but the surrounding land was swarming with undead.
As Kael’thas approached Dalaran, he made an unsettling discovery. The air crackled with unseen arcane energy, and the earth trembled beneath his feet. Somewhere near Dalaran, a storm of magic was brewing.
Whatever this disturbance was, it threw the Scourge into a frenzy. Undead streamed into the region in greater numbers than ever before. The blood elves braced against the tide of undead, and each day was a struggle to hold their ground. Kael’thas was in the midst of pulling his soldiers back from the front lines when he crossed paths with strangers from a distant land. After braving foul weather and rough seas, Maiev Shadowsong, Tyrande Whisperwind, Malfurion Stormrage, and other night elves had reached Lordaeron’s coast in pursuit of Illidan.
Blood elves and night elves shared a common ancestry, but their cultures were vastly different. However, Kael’thas did not find this off-putting. There was much he could learn from his distant cousins, perhaps even something to help ease his people’s magical withdrawal. When Kael’thas discovered that the night elves were hunting a powerful demon named Illidan, he theorized that the creature might be responsible for the anomaly in Dalaran. That would explain why the Scourge had suddenly become so frenzied.
Kael’thas agreed to aid the night elves in their hunt for Illidan Stormrage. After more
than ten thousand years of separation, the divided elven societies were working together for a common good.
The night elves were not the only ones hunting Illidan Stormrage. Through the eyes of the undead, the Lich King had seen Lady Vashj and her naga skulking around Dalaran. Their intentions did not become clear until Illidan later appeared in the city’s ruins and began his spellwork. He drew on Dalaran’s ley lines to amplify the Eye of Sargeras’s destructive potential. A rising storm of arcane energy slowly coalesced around Illidan, growing more powerful by the day.
The Lich King had always known that Kil’jaeden would retaliate against him. It seemed the demon lord had found a new agent to do his bidding. And a mighty one at that.
It was clear that Illidan would soon direct his immense spell at the Frozen Throne. Not for the first time, the Lich King was reminded of his one true weakness. He was trapped in ice, which made the entity an easy target for the likes of Illidan. The Lich King’s only recourse was to unleash the Scourge on Dalaran and stop the spellwork. The undead flooded through southwestern Lordaeron, but they reached Illidan too late.
He had finished his preparations. Illidan directed the tempest of arcane energy at the roof of the world, channeling its fury into Icecrown Glacier. Even Lady Vashj and her naga were awed by the display of raw power. The influx of magic caused the land itself to buckle. Massive fissures erupted, not only near Dalaran but in regions across the world.
Illidan ignored these unintended effects as well as the Scourge army closing in around him. While his followers held the undead at bay, he focused his mind on Icecrown. Wave after wave of magic pummeled the ice. The bombardment finally cracked the Lich King’s prison, leaving the entity exposed. A few more strikes were all that Illidan needed to extinguish the lord of the Scourge. But as he prepared his final barrage, chaos engulfed him. The combined night elf and blood elf armies crashed into Illidan’s forces.
The fighting soon reached Illidan himself, and the night elves threw his spellwork into disarray. The Eye of Sargeras crumbled before him. The quaking earth stilled. The roaring storm of magic above Icecrown Glacier went silent. In an instant, Illidan’s victory had turned into disaster.
He was furious that the night elves had inadvertently saved the Lich King, but they felt no remorse for their actions. Illidan’s spell had devastated the land, and it would have led to even more destruction if they hadn’t stopped him. In Illidan’s view, the night elves were being shortsighted. They didn’t understand that they would need to be ready to sacrifice everything to destroy the demons and their creations. The elves didn’t have the will to fight Illidan’s war against the Legion.
And Illidan did not believe they ever would.
Illidan Stormrage knew Kil’jaeden would show him no mercy for his failure. He still had much planning to do in his war against the Legion, and drawing the demon lord’s ire at this fragile time could destroy his plans forever. He needed a refuge to escape Kil’jaeden’s wrath and gather his forces, and he settled on the world of Draenor. He had first glimpsed it in Gul’dan’s memories, a realm left mostly dead and barren by the rampant use of fel magic. Its grim state had not bothered Illidan. If most of Draenor’s creatures had died off, it would make it easier for him to carve out his sanctuary there.
But that would only be possible after he replenished his ranks. Most of his forces had perished at the battle within Dalaran’s ruins. Lady Vashj and her surviving naga had managed to slip away from the fighting and take shelter deep within nearby Lordamere Lake.
Illidan ordered Lady Vashj to find new allies for his army. In the meantime, he would scout the lands of Draenor himself.
He had discovered a tear in the fabric of reality near Dalaran. Unbeknownst to him, this was where Kel’Thuzad had opened a portal to summon Archimonde and his Legion vanguard into the world. The bridge between Azeroth and the Twisting Nether had long since vanished, but a small rift had been left behind. Illidan used it and the knowledge from the Skull of Gul’dan to weave a new portal, one that led to Draenor.
Illidan expected to step into the world from Gul’dan’s memories, a dead place ripe for the taking. What he found was the shattered realm known as Outland. Numerous portals shimmered across the wasted landscape, each one leading to an unknown corner of the cosmos. Through these rifts, the pit lord Magtheridon and a host of demons had reached Outland and laid claim to much of its lands.
The presence of demons troubled Illidan, but he could not return to Azeroth. The night elves would cast him back in his old barrow prison the first chance they had. Illidan’s only hope was to stay on Outland and bring it under his control. The broken realm could still serve as a staging ground in his war, but only after he cut off the Legion from the world and dealt with Magtheridon.
As Illidan scouted the Legion forces on Outland, he sensed that someone was hunting him. But by the time he made this discovery, it was already too late.
Maiev Shadowsong and her Watchers had followed Illidan from Azeroth. Without his naga or the Eye of Sargeras, he was easier prey. Maiev outmaneuvered her nemesis and imprisoned him in an enchanted cage, one specially crafted to hold the former night elf and neutralize his sorcerous powers. After so many months of hardship, vengeance was hers.
After Illidan Stormrage’s defeat in Dalaran’s ruins, Tyrande Whisperwind and Malfurion Stormrage returned to Kalimdor. Though the night elves sympathized with the plight of Lordaeron’s defenders, it was time for them to go home. Nordrassil was in a weakened state, and the elves needed to do everything in their power to rebuild the wilds and secure the second Well of Eternity.
With their departure, Kael’thas Sunstrider and his blood elves rendezvoused with Othmar Garithos and the rest of the Alliance forces. They took control of Dalaran and transformed it into their base of operations. Efforts began to rebuild the ruined city.
Reclaiming Dalaran should have been a momentous occasion for Kael’thas, but it was overshadowed by the effects of his people’s addiction to magic. He and his elves tried to draw on the city’s convergence of ley lines, but they could not gather enough power to satisfy their cravings. The pangs of withdrawal became more pronounced and debilitating. Even Kael’thas struggled to bear the burden.
Serving under Grand Marshal Garithos only increased Kael’thas’s aggravation. The human constantly belittled the elves and relegated them to menial tasks. A rift formed between Kael’thas and his commander, and it grew wider by the day.
Lady Vashj and her naga were aware of this rift. From the shadows, they had been watching the blood elves. Lady Vashj had seen the fatigue set in on Kael’thas and his people as they struggled to cope with their addiction. She had also seen their morale dwindle under Garithos’s mistreatment. They were almost ripe for conversion to Illidan’s cause.
Lady Vashj approached Kael’thas, and she convinced him that the naga meant no harm. She explained that her kind were eager to destroy the undead and that their battle outside Dalaran had been the result of a grudge between Illidan and the night elves. The naga had no ill intentions toward Kael’thas, she assured him.
Kael’thas was initially wary of Lady Vashj, but he would soon see her as a more trustworthy and dependable ally than Garithos.
Before long, the Scourge launched a counterattack to take Dalaran and crush the Alliance resistance. The battle would be one of the largest waged in Lordaeron since the kingdom’s fall. For Kael’thas and his blood elves, it would be the last they would ever fight under Garithos’s banner.
As the Scourge advanced, part of the undead army began amassing on the Alliance’s flank. Garithos dispatched blood elves to the new front and commanded them to stop the undead before they reached Dalaran. Kael’thas and his people obeyed, but victory seemed impossible. Garithos had divided the blood elf forces, keeping most of their soldiers under his own command on the main battlefront. The Scourge were poised to overrun Kael’thas when aid arrived from Lady V
ashj and her naga.
Kael’thas had little choice other than to accept their help. His decision saved his life. With the naga, the blood elves halted the Scourge advance, protecting the main Alliance army’s flank and allowing it to drive back the undead assault.
When Garithos learned what had happened, he did not praise Kael’thas; he condemned him. Like most humans, the grand marshal considered the naga to be sinister creatures, little better than the Scourge. Kael’thas’s alliance with them was seen as an act of unforgivable treason.
Garithos bound the blood elves in chains and locked them within Dalaran’s dungeons to await execution. Kael’thas was stunned by his treatment. He had weathered his commander’s bigoted ramblings, but this was too much for him to bear. Down in the dark corridors below Dalaran, he lost all faith in the Alliance.
Once again, Lady Vashj appeared in Kael’thas’s moment of need. She slipped into the dungeons under cover of night and extended him an offer. The Alliance had nothing to give the blood elves, but Illidan…Illidan could give them everything they wanted: freedom from their chains and their addiction to magic.
Seeing no future for his people in the Alliance, Kael’thas Sunstrider agreed to join Illidan Stormrage. He could think of no better alternative. Even if Kael’thas somehow escaped from Dalaran’s dungeons, he would return to Quel’Thalas as an outlaw and a failure. He could not face his people again until he had found a way to help them.
The path to saving Quel’Thalas did not lie on the world of Azeroth. It lay beyond.
The Lich King had survived Illidan Stormrage’s attack, but he would never be the same. His essence was bleeding through the crack in the Frozen Throne. As his power escaped, his hold on the Scourge weakened. His once-oppressive will slowly faded from the minds of many undead in Lordaeron. They felt something familiar returning to them, something they had lost in death.
World of Warcraft Chronicle Volume 3 Page 11