A month before the turning of the year, the Order, freshly returned from their victories over Diathonix, prepared to embark upon the time-honoured tradition known as the Trial of Piety. Starting from the abbey of Northshire, the knight-aspirants and followers of the Order would walk bare-foot to the Path of Uther, consecrating graves forgotten and cherished along the way.
Before they embarked upon this pilgrimage, however, they encountered a handful of orcish scouts on the edges of Elwynn Forest, each of which carried an obsidian pendant with the image of a mountain crossed with spears on them; a source of great confusion and frustration, for no records existed of such a clan or tribe in both Northshire and Stormwind. High and low, the Order searched for some indication as to who this enigmatic foe was, consisting of orcs and trolls, yet apparently owing no allegiance to the Horde, unless cleverly disguised.
Weeks passed with little word on the matter, and the orcs were assumed to belong to some fringe warband. The Order travelled to Northrend and did battle with the Horde proper there, and with the loyalists of the Banshee Queen, and afterwards returned to Stormwind for a much-needed rest of the Winter Veil festival.
* * *
Shortly before the dawn of the new year, the Order approached a blacksmith in Stormwind that was known to them - a Dark Iron, no less. Presenting the pendant to the blacksmith, and with a little coin to grease the cogs, Calaghan Cokefist reluctantly answered the questions of one of the Order's rangers, directing them towards an ambassador of the Dark Irons in Ironforge. He would not speak any further on the matter of the pendant, nor the icon that he clearly recognised, for it was not his place to do so.
Untrusting of this ambassador, Kurhrim, the Order attempted to glean what information they could from the official, but found the task to be difficult. Three of the Order's knight-aspirants were dispatched to speak with Kurhrim, who, upon finally being shown the obsidian pendants, sent them to deliver a cryptic letter to an associate of his elsewhere in the city.
Unbeknownst to the knight-aspirants, they had been sent on a trial. The ambassador's associate, a skull-keeping warlock by the name of Pyrox, immediately turned upon them, flying into a rage after reading the letter and theatrically cursing the ambassador of sending goons to retrieve his own head. Quickly subdued before he could put up a proper fight, the knight-aspirants attempted to interrogate the dwarf, who refused to speak on where his allegiance lay, or if he or the ambassador were in league with the orcs that had been seen near Northshire.
While Pyrox was quietly smuggled out of the city by one knight-aspirant for further questioning, the remaining two returned to Kurhrim, who duly informed them that he was aware of his sorcerous associate's whereabouts and all else that transpired in the skull-adorned storehouse. They were subsequently dismissed, told only that they would be contacted soon...
* * *
Returning to the Kingdom of Stormwind to join the rest of the Order in Lakeshire, the knight-aspirants went empty-handed, save for the subdued Dark Iron. It wasn't long before they were contacted, as Kurhrim promised, though the method of communication was far from a welcome one. The next day, the militia approached the Order to inform them of a trogg - of all things - requesting them across the bridge, whose life was only spared by the militiamen by virtue of the fact that it carried a letter and wore a belt with the sigil of Shadowforge City emblazoned upon it.
Reluctantly obliging by the instruction on the letter, merely "Follow", the Order trailed after the trogg into the hills to the south of Lakeshire, where at last their questions would be answered.
Atop the ridgeline, the Ninth Thane of Kol Ungor awaited them, clad in seething dark iron plate. Named and styled Angrune the Blackener, he at last revealed that the warband the Order sought was no other than the Charspear Legion, the unlawful inhabitants of the thane's own ancestral home of Kol Ungor. To the Order, he offered a deal - that they would aid him in ridding the dwarven hold, deep in the bowels of Blackrock Mountain, of this orcish menace, in exchange for leaving the spoils of war solely to him.
What lay in Kol Ungor, the Blackener did not say, but he was adamant in the knowledge that only he possessed the knowledge of how to reach the subterranean stronghold. First, they would need one of the runic keys to bypass the stronghold's defences, however, and that would require them to catch the Charspear Legion out in the open, in the ashswept wastes beneath Blackrock itself...
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