The Hand of Kharduum was defeated, its commander dead and the pit lord's fel soul unravelled by the chaotic enchantment of the demonslayer's blade. For now, Outland could know some measure of peace, at least from the hands of this demonic warhost.
In the meanwhile, the Order turned its attention to a quest that predated their latest followers - who themselves were soon to be knight-aspirants of the Order. It was the search for Brother Augustus, the cleric of Stratholme who had, many years ago, tended to the everburning flame which burned in the Alonsus Chapel. More than a year ago, the knights of the Order had investigated the cleric's whereabouts, and learnt of the sacred censer that he carried on his person: the Lightkeeper, which was used to store and safeguard the eternal flame should it ever be removed from the chapel.
Its last known whereabouts was here in Netherstorm, in the Kirin'var Village which once lay on the shores of the Devouring Sea. The settlement had long been destroyed by the forces of Kael'thas Sunstrider, and by the time the Order arrived it had been under the magnifying glasses of Silvermoon's Reliquary for more than two months. Ever last building had been searched, every last stone overturned, in search of whatever there was to salvage: everything from personal effects down to agriculture ledgers, most crumbling and rusted from exposure to the Twisting Nether.
Slipping past their base camp without being given a second thought, a few of the Order noted that the Reliquary had not been left alone by the Hand of Kharduum, whose corpses lay upon the approach to the pavilion above the town. Paying it no heed, they came upon two researchers in the Town Hall, and after a fiery interrogation learned of the Reliquary's mission in the town. It became increasingly likely, then, the Lightkeeper - if ever it had been there in Kirin'var Village when the Reliquary arrived - had been taken by the blood elves...
Here the Order stood, at the edge of an alien world, and all that stood between them and their holy quest were the sin'dorei archaeologists and their guards. In their mind, the elves trespassed upon Alliance lands, thieving from that which they had betrayed, and sullying the memory of the eternal dead. There was only one reasonable solution: violence.
They descended upon the Reliquary camp, swift and bloody. The elves, distracted by mana wyrms and manawraiths on the northern side of the encampment, were hasty to respond to the paladins as they hacked their way into the golden pavilion atop the ridgeline. After a short and ruthless battle, the entire encampment - already weakened from the demons' assault days prior - was in disarray, and the arcane fiends of the Nether laid waste to those that did not turn to meet the Order in battle.
And there, in the pavilion, they found it at last: the hollow, mithril sphere, with floral patterns cut out of its polished metal surface, upon which elven runes lay. Quel'felor, it was called in the Thalassian tongue - the High Flame, though it was nothing more than an empty shell now, inert and as cold as the void in which it had dwelled all these years. All that remained was for them to rekindle the flame, yet to do so would require them to return to Azeroth.
Unbeknown to the Order at the time, the key to salvation, to their return to their homelands, was a mere dusty scroll, stolen by the Reliquary and stored within an unassuming leather tube, whose contents did not find the eyes of their knights until many hours later...
The home stretch! 7 weeks later, the Order is on its way back to Stormwind. Will the chaos that has followed in their wake follow them there, too? Find out soon...
(for real, join)