NOVEL NEXT Ancient Bookkeeping
6/14 night day 1
I looked through the list of options Talaada had prepared for me over dinner. Well, it was dinner by the locals’ standards; for me it was breakfast. I’d asked for a list of anything interesting, productive, or relaxing I might do while I was in the timeline. Since she needed to eat too, I invited my high priestess to dinner. Talaada and I sat on a divan together while a team of troll and tauren servants presented us with platters when we called for them.
“Tour the gardens, shop for magical clothing and trinkets, take in the sights, have a good look at the Well of Eternity… All good stuff, but I’ll probably save the sightseeing for later, when Lividia is available.” I shifted my focus onto one of the other lists, this one focused on interesting and useful people. “Damn, you’ve been doing a good job here. I’m not really feeling up to a meet and greet, but I think we have enough people to start in on some diplomacy, no?”
“Thank you, Prophet.” Talaada gave me a proud smile. “I was hoping you’d be pleased. We do have people working on a few promising locations. Based on your model, I’ve been following the suggestions implicit in our missions.”
“Those should definitely get priority, but you’ve been nearly doubling the local retinue every day. With a geometric progression like that we should be aiming higher.” I had a thought. “Speaking of, have you captured this world’s version of Xavius yet?” The father of Satyrs was still technically active in the modern day, though the green flight had broken his hold to such a degree that he wasn’t much of a problem anymore.
“Yes, of course.” She confirmed. “He was one of Azshara’s most loyal advisors. When she commanded him to submit to the ritual, he willingly did so. The entire court was captured within a day, and most of the city has been filing through the palace once she mandated the rejuvenation treatment. We’ve been setting up clinics in other cities as well; her public persona is one of the greatest boons we could have ever hoped for. They do not understand how true it is, but they fully believe that the ritual circles are for their own health and well-being.”
“Awesome.” I leaned over and kissed her full on the mouth, grinning at her shocked expression as I pulled away. “I knew I could count on you.”
“Thank you, Prophet. I live to serve.” She maintained a steady voice, but between her smile and the slightly unsteady sway, I could tell she liked that.
“I’m glad to have you. So, I’m thinking we could send Xavius into the Emerald Dream? We know what he’s capable of with an inherently destructive and obvious kind of corruption. I think he could do quite nicely for us with access to company assets.”
“Excellent plan, Prophet. May I make a suggestion?”
“Of course.”
“Turn him into a form that they won’t connect to Azshara.” She suggested, “If he succeeds, he succeeds and we can repeat the events of the main world with the other flights. If he fails, he can serve as a convenient antagonist in a drama.”
I stroked my stubble. “What do you think, do we go with demon or Old God affiliated?”
“Old gods, I’d say. It’s where his greatest power stemmed from anyway, and they’d be expecting it more than demons. Further, Azshara and I will be moving to counter and further pacify the old gods, won’t we? That would tidily remove us as prospective allies of his.”
“Good call.” I agreed. She preened at the praise. “I’m also going to request a map of Titan facilities dated at this point in history. I think they might be in a better state right now, which will hopefully mean their guard is down if a Watcher approaches them. How many people do you have access to that are really trustworthy? You know, people you can hand an open ended mission to and know it will get done.”
She wilted a bit at that. “I’m not actually sure. I have people who have proven successful using the current model, but I don’t know if that will translate to success against titans or dragons.”
“Yeah, that’s reasonable. Breaking into new markets is more my thing. I’m not going to complain that you’re too specialized in mass capture.” I laughed, “It leaves the fun part to me. Oh, speaking of mass capture. You were planning on upgrading Azshara’s Glamor spell with the Nymphomancy scroll. What was the result?”
“A mixed blessing,” she replied with a sour expression, “now it pushes those affected towards romantic love and sexual desire instead of general worship and adoration. It’s much more powerful on those who are sexually compatible, but substantially less effective on anyone else. It also causes them to want something from you, which can cause as many problems as it solves. At least it’s not purely sexual. It’s also dreadfully mana intensive. She’s very skilled but the woman has never once tried to optimize the damn spell for use outside of the Well’s radiance.”
“Are you working on that? I’m pretty sure you have a few hundred archmagi at this point, between Doan and the Highborne.”
“Yes of course. It’s taking a while to go through the whole thing though; you’ll understand when you see it.”
At that point, the moons vanished. Total, instant, unforeseen lunar eclipse. Nobody in my immediate vicinity panicked, but I suspect that caused quite a stir in town.
“Ah. I think Elune got my message. Talaada, how do you send out orders to everyone? I want the retinue to be on guard in case she actually retaliates. If we are lucky she will be sated with an angry omen, but I did just send a cum splattered empress to invite Elune to be next in line. I won’t be shocked if she’s violent.”
“Normally I send a mental note to our overlords and they distribute the information to their own teams. That can take hours, though, sometimes days for the stragglers.” She cocked her head. “I could always make a Royal Pronouncement. Or, rather, have Azshara do so. That will let us put our own spin on things.”
“Yeah, do that. I have an idea of what spin to put, actually.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” I smirked. “Azshara asked for Elune to become like a sister to her. Presumptuous as hell, but true by brotherhood definitions and most importantly it makes any retaliation just look like Elune bullying poor Azshara for being overly familiar.”
Talaada’s gentle face briefly adopted a predatory gleam. “Yes, I think that would do nicely.” Her eyes went blank as she started communicating with her overlords. I resisted the urge to distract her, and instead busied myself by checking my isekais. Well, just one to start with. There wasn’t much I could directly do to influence them, so I wasn’t in any particular hurry.
Onyxia
Possession: Aerith Primrose (T1)- you will take on the body, physical/magical abilities, and identity of Aerith Primrose, Dalaran flower pedlar.
Achievement Unlocked (Northrend)- you have been provided with a list of tasks to complete, derived from the events of the Wrath of the Lich King era. Each will have a corresponding reward for you and your patron, as well as a suggested first step based on your current status, but you are not required to follow that hint.
Alright, makes sense. Shame she got a massive nerf, but she’s still in my retinue. She still has defenses, shared talents, and shared lures. If I’m really lucky, she even still has magic circles. This could be worse. There was a “recording” of the events, which I started from the beginning. Why not?
“Huh,” I mumbled as a vision of her overtook my field of vision and I started hearing her internal monologue, “her look is a bit more on the nose than I expected.”
•••••••••••
Onyxia swayed in place for a moment as she fused with the flower girl. It wasn’t an unpleasant experience, but it was very disorienting for Aerith. A flood of petty information filled her mind; things like her daily route through town, her own address, the name of the elderly man she had just sold a flower to, and that he owed her twenty two silver for it. She plastered a smile on her face and held out a hand.
“Sorry. Just a dizzy spell. So, one black rose comes out to 22 silver.” It was a bit surprising to discover how much flowers apparently went for in the city of Dalaran, at least to the dragon in the driver’s seat, but it would likely mean an easier path for her financially. With that in mind, Onyxia slipped fully into character and finished out the route. A few more people made purchases, and an irritatingly large number of gawkers approached to chat and look at her wares without buying anything.
She was a bit more short with them than most would expect of Aerith, but she wanted to get home to her little apartment and do an inventory. Of course, the ones that seemed likely to give her money got more attention than normal for Aerith; more starting funds would surely help when she abandoned this insipid job. No matter how profitable, retail was beneath her.
**********
The flower sales faded in and out, skipping forward in a montage. I could force the recording to show everything in real time, but most of what I was missing was just her walking quietly and greeting random people while internally grumbling at the necessity. I decided to just trust whatever automated editing software I was working with to give me the highlights.
••••••••••
When she arrived home, a home that felt surprisingly comfortable and familiar, Onyxia entered the small solo apartment and sat down next to the magical garden bed that was the source of her wealth. She noted that she wasn’t at all tired; usually at the end of a long day she was at least slightly fatigued but there was no sign of that. She felt a firm sense of relief when she realized that her body had likely been tuned up automatically.
She had been terrified when she realized that her arcane knowledge, both her hard won self directed study and the advanced tricks taught to her by Doan, were gone. What little skill she had in physical combat as a humanoid was replaced with a rather rudimentary knowledge of proper staff fighting technique meant for self defense while wandering the streets. She could remember much of the procedure for creating a magic circle, but there were holes in the process that she simply couldn’t recall, though she hoped she might be able to piece it back together with time and effort. She was a mere Dalaran flower girl, but at least she was one with an excellent physique.
Further, if she had body tune up she probably also had soul, communication, martial, and science talents, a huge list of functional immunities, and the Red String of Fate. She also still had her amulet… sort of. She was quite frustrated to open up the menu and find a far slimmer list of options than she’d ever seen. No shapeshifting. She couldn’t become a dragon again, not even a young one. She couldn’t even change her face. She was stuck as Aerith Primrose. That didn’t bother her much, thankfully. She felt just as comfortable playing the role of Aerith Primrose as she’d ever felt as Katrana Prestor. Damned inconvenient, though. She’d need to harden her public persona a bit or she’d lose her mind.
She took a deep breath and decided to focus on what she did have instead of what she did not. A map, and a list of achievements. It was startling to discover that Dalaran, a city in the Hillsbrad Foothills, was floating above central Northrend for some light damned reason, but Aerith’s memories filled her in on the political situation. The Kirin Tor had moved the city to wage war against both Malygos and the Lich King for reasons that were above the flower girl’s head. Useless.
Regardless, she had a wealth of missions to pursue. They were unfortunately quite vigorous for the most part. Icecrown, the region to the northwest, boldly opened its list with an invitation to “defeat the Lich King.”
Defeat the Lich King
Reward: Capture/resurrection of any one member of the Scourge, alive or dead, current or former
Patron: Undead tech tree unlocked
Hint: Join any military organization
Seeing as that would be quite a big ask for even her true self and the reward was somewhat anemic, she opted not to aim directly for the top. Icecrown was rather repetitive in its suggestions: Join a military organization. Well of course, it was the stronghold of the Lich King. It was not the first step.
She switched over to Dalaran, and her mood continued to sour. This list was painfully short.
Become an exalted champion of the Kirin Tor
Become an exalted champion of the Sunreavers
Become an exalted champion of the Silver Covenant
Prevent the prison breakout in the Violet Hold
Receive a commendation from the Dalaran Postmaster
She bitterly looked at the only one that seemed plausible at her current power level; after all, the Dalaran mail system was famously run by powerful magi. She could, perhaps, make some useful allies before leaving.
Receive a commendation from the Dalaran Postmaster
Reward: instant capture of Katy Stampwhistle, Postmaster’s Assistant
Sponsor: 1362 slabs of Solid Stone
Hint: Find and deliver lost mail.
Why? Why stone? Why such a specific number of slabs? The Postmaster’s assistant would potentially be of use as she was likely a mage, but finding and delivering lost mail was hardly a trivial task. What was she to do, stalk the postman in town and hope he dropped something? At least it would be in character for Aerith, for whatever that was worth.
Onyxia ate some toasted cheese on bread, thankful to have received some rudimentary skill at cooking, and checked the other options available to her. Most areas other than Dalaran and the Crystalsong Forest beneath had more than a dozen tasks equivalent to a moderate, major, or regional mission. Few were easy, and most were at least potentially quite dangerous. The few simple sounding missions, such as collecting frostberries, were placed in locations that were intrinsically dangerous like active war zones.
She needed to grow stronger, that was certain. She needed equipment, training, and pawns. After a long period of considering her options, she settled upon a rather dangerous but potentially profitable option. She set out and looked for an officer to help her accompany the Dalaran Military as a volunteer and camp follower. Nearly every location that had Violet troops stationed in contained at least a few missions she might do, and Aerith remembered hearing that the Kirin Tor was arbitrating a partial truce between the Horde and Alliance while they faced the Scourge. The pay would be better if she fully enrolled as a recruit, but her movements would be substantially more restricted.
She touched up her makeup, pulled on her jacket, and headed to a bar. There was a very good chance she could sweet talk someone into bringing her along. If she was very lucky, she wouldn’t need to sleep with them. If she was even luckier, she would and they would be pliable. Who was she kidding; with the red string of fate she’d surely be able to find someone worth seducing. The real question of luck was whether or not they’d be any good in bed.
Aerith prowled out that night, and almost in spite of herself she kept an eye out for any fallen mail.