The Third war

=== The Third War ===
Prologue
Dalaran, Cross Isle, Autumn, Year 614 of the Light
The land was stained with the blood of men. Such stains had seemed to take to the sky as well, as it too turned a crimson pigment that mirrored the death of mortals.
Great citadels, standing for thousands of years, surrounded by a massive arcane-enchanted stone wall; many had fallen this hour; the darkest of hours. The symphony of destruction played its part everywhere the fight took it.
Once again, the land was besieged by conflict.
Above in the nearly undisturbed skies, the great shadow hung over them all. Only the greatest noticed it, and too late was their realization. From the north the undead Scourge had wiped across the land, taking those living and turning them into twisted mockeries of life that served their Dark Lord without consent. And such a distraction was all that was needed by the Lords of the demonic legions from beyond the world.
It was their time once again to besiege the world and bask it in their unholy glory. Time had finally come upon them as they passed through the great warps in reality that their earthen subservients had managed to create.
Despite the work of the Guardians of Tirisfal to ward them from the mortal realm for these thousands of years, the tides of darkness had returned, and the Reign of Chaos had begun…
Ruins of Caer Darrow, Quel'thalas-Lordaeron Border, End of Winter, 612, Two years earlier
The palpable silence filled the cold, dank air. Only the dripping of water was to be heard within the cavernous labyrinth of tunnels under the ancient ruins above.
It was in these dark tunnels that he had set to his task, assigned by the master. He had taken to zeal with his task, and quickly returned to this land to rally those who might listen to the callings of the great Lord.
And it was so that the Cult of the Damned had begun, spreading slowly, quietly, like a thin rattler snake in the blue-green grass of the Arathi-Highlands. It was here that he, Kel'thuzad Amar, had set the base to his work, the world oblivious to his and the Cult's existence.
Once, so long ago now, he had been the aspiring mage of Dalaran, the Land of Magic, home of the Wizard. He was a prodigy whom had risen through the ranks like the few others had before him. He had reached even into the Violet Citadel, into the Council of Air, before the truth had been revealed to him. As a prestigious wizard of rank he had accumulated a wealth that would make anybody happy, yet…
It was during the Second War against the orcish Horde that he had seen the true way of things. In those bleak times he had witnessed the true potential of magic, in the arts that the foolish, squeamish mages of the Violet Citadel had utterly shunned; the magnificent art of necromancy.
Necromancy!
The magic of trapping the blackness from the Great Dark Beyond and harnessing its infinite energy, to bring life back to those whom had been dead, in true words, the Art of the Dead.
Kel'thuzad Amar, he, had been so impressed with these magics that the demon-possessed orcish warlocks used, that against the strict will of the Council of whom had ordered him never to delve into the dark magics, had committed the so called crime anyway and began to dabble with its untapped potential secretly.
Yet the art had required so much of him, and he had not the power to fulfill its true potential, even as such a powerful wizard as he; at least, until the day he had heard the great Culling. It was the great thing that he had been searching for all these years, its tendrils of power calling out to those powerful enough to come to it, to serve it, to bask in its eternal glory. Here, he saw the ability to tap his true potential in the dark arts, and gain ultimate power next to the Caller whom had sent its culling across the land.
And so he had set his journey, resigned from the paranoid and fearful Council of Air and left the weak Dalaran for the last time as one of their mages. The trek was long, and over the months he found his way to the lands of northern Lordaeron, where he was able to procure a ship for his own ends. Once he had the transportation he was able to travel to the place where the power had first called from, the icy recesses of Northrend, a place so cold and desolate that it chilled to the bone whatever human set eyes on it.
But not he! Urged on by the promise of eternal power and paradise he saw the land as something near holy, it as home to the unbelievable power that had called out. And across this Promised Land he traveled for a long time, many times near death by his lonesome. But he had used his wit and skill of magic to keep him alive, to traverse the dark, unexplored, land.
For many weeks he traveled the cold land with naught but lowly servants paid for by his wealth, of whom slowly one by one died from exhaustion and the subzero temperatures. And as the days passed into weeks he discovered the ancient ruins of Ajol'Nerub, an intricate and fascinating ancient city created by some kind of long lost race, and witnessed the full glory of the Caller's armies, the undead beings so perfectly reanimated patrolling the ruins of the city and land with utter efficiency.
The day finally arrived, after what seemed like an eternity of ice and inky dark skies, that he arrived upon the spot that the power had culled him too. A great spire of ice, rising out of the glacial desolace that was the land. And upon the spire shot forth a brilliant blue light of unparalleled magic that reflected something of what was inside.
As he approached, the great voice called out to him again, and proclaimed itself to him. It displayed its power through magic and through might. Through both the beasts of the north whom he had enslaved with his mind, and how he directed them to battle as his armies.
The Lich King…that was the name of his new master. The Lich King told him of his plans, to spread the great wave of blackness across the world. Kel'thuzad's heart yearned for a position in the new order that this great Lich King told him, and for the power already shown and promised to him.
And so it was he was charged with the task of paving the way for the grand ascension of his Lich King; he was to gather a group of servants, loyal only to the Lich King.
And so Kel'thuzad returned to the lands of Lordaeron, and spread across the land the gospel of the Lich King. Forming this religion of the damned as he was commanded by the Lich King, Kel'thuzad came here to Caer Darrow to prepare for this war, the coming of his Lord. It was the Cult of the Damned that would first pave the path for the undead forces which would soon advance over this land.
Kel'thuzad sported sunken eyes, not from hunger or malnutrition, but from the feedback of his newfound power. His weathered, lined face was sported with a great white beard, and he was garbed in the black robes of the Bishop of the Cult.
Caer Darrow…a place of supreme magic; a battle site of the old Second War against the orcish Horde, once a home to the brusque and enigmatic High Elves of Quel'thalas. It was from here that he would base himself, and from here that the Cult of the Damned would spread to more and more of the northern provinces of this land, as it was already doing. The Cult had its agents in nearly every major city in Lordaeron, and their numbers grew daily. Above the secret labyrinth, the noble family of Barov had taken the isle for their own, creating a new thriving town of humans. It would be they who were the first victims of the dread Plague of Undeath created by Kel'thuzad's master.
But they could not be discovered by the authorities, lest they be taken into custody before the plans had come to fruition. If all went according to plan, if all went smoothly, quietly, the grand armies of his master would wash away the life from this world.
"Lord, the third Cauldron is sealed and prepared for transportation across this land" a voice cut through the thick air. To his right stood in the dim light of the stone room his second, Erpwold Dietrich, the so called Grand Inquisitor of the Cult of the Damned and a masterful necromancer.
Kel'thuzad lifted his bony hands from the pale parchment that lay on an ancient oak-wood table afore him. Already they had an overabundance of warriors on the ruins of the old battlefields of the wars that had taken place scant years ago, yet now, this Plague the Lich King had devised would create an even greater thing; something unstoppable, something that no Alliance, nor Horde could stop. It would consist of tens of thousands, nay hundreds of thousands of walking dead, chained spirits, and terrible beasts from beyond the world itself, their force growing every time one of their enemies fell.
"Very well my Vassal. It has been foreseen that our great crusade shall begin in the north of this land. We must move quickly, yet silently to plant the seeds of our enemy's destruction now that we are firmly based" Kel'thuzad rasped explaining to his Vassal the plan laid before him "The first target is here" he then said, pulling out an old piece of parchment that sported a crude map of northern Kingdom of Lordaeron. He pointed to a medium sized hamlet deep in the dense forested lands beyond a small range of mountains. Beneath the mapping of the town was sketched a name, Andorhol.
"This town is the main supplier of grain in the land. From its rich fields we shall sow the Plague, which will spread across the land and consume it, for us…" Kel'thuzad ended, dark eyes glowing in anticipation. Soon, the scourging of the land would begin, and the seeds of the future planted.