NOVEL NEXT Book of the Dead
6/16 evening
Was I thrilled with how Ulduar went? Nah, not really, but it could have been way worse. I was pulled out of my stupor almost immediately this time, and thanks to the evac order built into Order 66 I hadn’t lost anywhere near as many people as in Uldir. More importantly, I was presented with good news the moment that I showed up at my home base in Kyrian form.
“The Scourge is yours, master,” Sylvanas purred. She had put on her transparent dancing outfit for the celebration and was nestled happily in my lap. “Everything that was once his is yours, myself included.”
In another life, the lack of purpose at this point was enough for her to question the value of existence and charge blindly down a dark path. Stress resistance is grand, isn’t it?
“You did well, pet.” I idly played with the breasts of this woman that could snap my neck with her bare hands even at my strongest. In my weakened dead state she could have done anything she wanted. She wanted to be my plaything, and as such pressed herself into my grasp. I would have started fucking her right there if my cock wasn’t already otherwise occupied.
I’d called in a certain pair to see to my needs while I went over some book keeping and decided on a few changes I intended to make to my newest high profile recruit. The Banshee Queen Sylvanas and the Blood Queen Lana’thel, both once consorts of his, now happily engaged in my pleasure.
Lana’thel had, at some point, reached a point of such disassociation with her old life as a blood elf Commander that she saw herself primarily as Arthas’s hand and lover. She resented any reminder of her life as a normal elf, and eagerly embraced her role in all its facets. I accelerated a repeat of that process, turning my sexy new vampire into an eager member of my harem who would really prefer to forget she’d ever been anything else. Right this moment, she was taking advantage of her lack of gag reflex and lack of breath to deep throat to a degree that would be dangerous for the living. I tensed up as I shot my load directly down her throat, causing Sylvanas to coo as I squeezed her breast involuntarily. “Me next?”
I’d considered inviting Jaina, Arthas’s once-girlfriend in life, but she would have brought sufficiently different energy that the power move wasn’t worth the trouble. The Lich King would be arriving soon, thanks to the new perk I’d picked up for him.
Spirit: As the Shadow Wills: all members of your retinue gain an innate subconscious understanding of your desires and opinions. For example, if they happen to meet an individual that you would like to capture but have never mentioned to them, they will instinctively know that you would like them to take steps to capture this person. Similarly, they will be instinctively wary of a threat you are familiar with but they have never encountered.
There had been no question. I’d gotten five options, but none of the rest had nearly the same level of raw utility as universally sharing my meta-knowledge. My isekais alone, mostly those in non-Warcraft worlds, would really benefit from the slightest bit of guidance.
The only other option I’d given serious consideration to had been one that would allow me to usurp positions of authority from those I had captured or killed. As much as it would have completed my domination of Azshara to steal her incredible approval rating and universal adoration, turning her into just a concubine to their glorious king, I try to let practicality have a say in my decisions.
In addition to the five choices for Arthas, I’d had a pick of three from a rather large list of ten options instead of my normal set of five. I wasn’t choosing those while I fucked the undead elf queens, don’t worry. I went through them ahead of time.
Strength: Siege Tank- If Keryn Sylvius is within the effective combat range of someone that actively seeks to kill or injure her, she will grow progressively more powerful over time. At 15 seconds, 30 seconds, one minute, 2 minutes, and so on she will gain one of the talents available to Sergeant Hammer on level up. She will be able to choose which one and will have instinctive knowledge of how to use them, and they will adapt to her own capabilities if she is for some reason unable to use her tank.
Agility: All Deaths are Final, I swear: Your enemies will be fundamentally incapable of recognizing your ability to resurrect. No matter how many times you bring back members of your retinue, all other people will assume that when one of them dies they are never coming back.
Stamina: Final Dungeon: Naxxramas will automatically heal any damage it sustains. In addition, it becomes a company sponsored dungeon. This means that people who live and work within it may expend about half their daily time and energy to cause it’s interior to grow without affecting its outer shell, create stable portals to other locations, and collectively create traps capable of threatening extremely powerful individuals. In addition, it becomes a company space with all the attendant benefits.
Intelligence: Follow the String: Red String is expanded to allow tracking of slightly more things. A member of the retinue can focus to find a red string that will lead them to their own blood relatives, close friends, and timeline alternates.
Spirit: Holy Matrimony: members of the retinue who are married or otherwise formally bound to another romantically by some culturally significant ritual gain a lesser variant of Lividia’s Together Forever perk, including the summoning but with a drastically weaker healing effect. In addition, fate will conspire to keep them together if random chance or bad luck might randomly separate them so long as they maintain a mutually loving relationship.
Strength: Presentation: Undead and users of death magic in your retinue will gain a power boost if they lean into the aesthetic. This power boost will generally make them better in any death related fields they work with, usually boosting them by one tier if they are tier 5 or lower and making them generally stronger within their tier if higher. Acceptable aesthetics include but are not limited to goth, Victorian, day of the dead, heavy metal, and (if female) Bimbo.
Agility: Passing: Undead in your retinue will never be recognized as undead unless they want to be. Even their own closest family will only recognize that they are looking a bit sick (if male) or unusually good (if female) even if they have a huge chunk of their brain missing.
Stamina: Only a Flesh Wound: Fleshy undead in your retinue remain conscious and able to move their bodies so long as they have bodies capable of motion, even remotely piloting their beheaded corpse (though their mind remains in their head if they have one). In addition, they gain a healing factor slightly weaker than that of a troll, allowing them to eventually recover from any injury eventually.
Intellect: Skeleton Crew: Skeleton type undead in your retinue become hyper competent at following procedures, able to master any non-inherently-creative task such as piloting a vehicle, performing maintenance on a device, building something from a schematic, or working in a restaurant 10x as quickly as they otherwise could. This stacks with any talents you have, but the knowledge does not “lock in” until they have been doing the task for an amount of time comparable to their natural learning process.
Spirit: The Kiss: San’Layn in the retinue may convert enemies into captured San’Layn by draining their bodies of blood, a process which takes about three minutes on a helpless or willing target. This ability is normally restricted to the most powerful among them, such as Lana’thel.
Big list, and I got to choose three. Passing, only a flesh wound, and Skeleton Crew were easy to dismiss. They just weren’t impactful enough for my current army. Hell, Gamon was currently working on getting universal troll regeneration for my retinue anyway and that was half of what Only A Flesh Wound offered.
Presentation was a whole lot of time and effort on costuming for a benefit that was huge, but… honestly I didn’t think I needed more power boosts. The Burning Legion is probably the only army in the cosmos that can still threaten me now in a straight military confrontation. Maybe the Void Lords or the Army of Light, but they aren’t scheduled to be relevant threats to me any time soon. I’ll probably be able to use Xal’atath’s perk to mobilize a legion of old gods by then.
I needed utility; ways to make capture and expansion even smoother. That meant that Keryn wasn’t getting siege tank; if she had, I’d have been shipping her off to another world to take advantage of the guaranteed personal power boost. Isekais may be a side show, but I couldn’t help trying to optimize them.
The Kiss had a certain appeal until I realized that Lana’thel could just do that anyway. Giving all of my vampires a binding is great and all, but they can just learn how to draw circles like everyone else. If they have a willing or helpless target they only need like… seven minutes of chanting anyway. Barely an upgrade.
Follow the Red String gave utility to everyone in my retinue, but it was niche as hell. If it were offered as an option to buy, I might even consider it for a good price. However, it didn’t compare in utility to my other three options.
Holy Matrimony would allow me to send power couples on missions together, especially isekais, and more importantly it just seemed like a nice thing to have. It was sweet. I wanted the power of love made manifest, which made the choice for me even if it was a little less practical.
Final Dungeon turned Naxxramas into the most elusive of all assets: a mobile company space. I had several dozen rapidly brainwashed Kul’tiras marines that had jumped through my portals that could attest to the futility of attacking my troops on my own turf. Well, they would if they weren’t busy providing stress relief from their cells. Making it a portal nexus too, and bigger on the inside than on the already massive outside? Absolutely worth it. A mobile unassailable fallback position was too good to pass up.
That left All Deaths Are Final, I Swear. It was a weird, quirky option, but it meant I almost literally could not lose to anything but an ambush love confession. Of course, Neffie was already gunning for that approach, but with this perk she’d keep thinking that killing me or wiping out my troops was a viable backup plan. This wouldn’t just counter her, either. Sargeras would expect that he could grind me down like he could most defending armies, and he’d never be able to realize that he was fighting the same people every day. Anyone else I might find myself fighting would fall into the same trap. I’m serious when I say this is the strongest form of loss prevention I’ve ever gotten.
When the Lich King arrived, I tossed a necklace at his feet. “Hey. Welcome to the retinue. Bad news, this one wants you punished.” I pat Sylvanas on the head where she was busily sucking on my balls, and she smiled evilly. “Good news for you is that I’m not very cruel. Put on the necklace and we will see where this goes.”
“As you command.” He complied, defeated. He didn’t even know what his fate was yet, but he accepted it. “What did you have in mind?”
“For the crimes of patricide, high treason, destruction of the second Lordaeron fleet, attempted murder of a foreign dignitary, breach of mercenary contract, attempted genocide, conjuration of a demon lord, breach of the Paladin code, and consorting with yon powers of darknesse, you are condemned to unpersoning.” I rattled off what crimes I could remember offhand, pointedly not including the culling of Stratholm. I’m genuinely not sure if I can condemn him for that one after Gadgetzan.
“What?” He was justifiably confused by my choice of punishment, since I’d made it up on the spot.
“Arthas Menethil is to be wiped from the memory of all members of the retinue currently wearing amulets. Officially, you will be killed and your power transferred to a girl, who shall serve as the Frost Queen alongside the Blood Queen and the Banshee Queen, acting as a general for my forces using your telepathic abilities. Kneel, and let Arthas be no more.”
Arthas, or rather the Lich king in all his split personality glory, could not refuse my order. He felt incredible pain from his necklace when he tried to defy me, but more importantly he was among the first to forget Arthas. Sylvanas went from glaring daggers at him from beneath my legs to a kind of mild curiosity at a new coworker as the Lich King’s body shrank and her Saronite armor shifted to follow suit.
When she settled into a kneel, I confirmed her new identity. “Queen Artoria, do you accept the duty of serving as Lich Queen? Will you serve me with every breath as the military commander of my shadow ops team when I have no need of you elsewhere?”
“As you order, my king.” She accepted the role graciously. In her mind, she was a Lordaeron noble with an eerily similar life to Arthas’s own real life and a personality that was 99% the same outside of her gender. No one would ever be able to see the difference, because nobody important would remember anything about Arthas but his deeds. To any vengeance seekers in my retinue, the Lich King had been obliterated and his soul condemned to his own sword. Speaking of Frostmourne…
“You will report to the ops team and hand over your blade.” I commanded, “It needs to be ritually bound to my will.” If Ulatesh was anything to go by, a ritual circle binding everything within should get the notorious soul devouring runeblade in line. From there I’d just need to decide on who’s using the damn thing. Same with Ulatesh, actually; Naxx just became self powered as a company space.
I still needed to figure out what I was doing with my giant pile of spoils, of course. Death Bringer Sonya, Teron Gorefiend, and Royal Apothecary Morales were easy; Sonya and Gorefiend were headed to the front lines and Morales would be showing Archaedes and the gnome squad her equipment.
The original Morales was a medic from StarCraft, promoted to Hero status in Heroes of the Storm. Not unlike Lunara, who was a heroic super-dryad. All well and good, but while Lunara’s abilities were all innate, Morales was using specialized equipment that I could probably reproduce with Archaedes. Learning how to use a suit of power armor that turns you into a team fortress 2 medic with Science talent is a lot easier than learning how to be a powerful priest with Soul Talent, and is far less dependent on one’s individual affinities. Queens were still perfectly adequate as basic ranged attackers and spot healers, but dedicated medics could keep a mountain giant up and running under fire for a long, long time.
The fully upgraded Temple of the Damned offered a fast track for necromancy, a substantially beefier but more specialized anti-mage, a reasonably strong support unit that can heal or restore mana in a large aoe. All units that would slot into the legions pretty nicely, and capped off with a seriously fascinating option: Banshee Possession.
Yes, I know that I already have ghosts, but banshee in Warcraft 3 worked a bit differently. Total and irrevocable destruction of the banshee’s body, total and irrevocable possession of the target. I didn’t particularly want to train any actual people as possession fodder if they were going to be destroyed, but if I trained “mindless unit” banshee they might be viable as budget Skitterers. They couldn’t possess anyone particularly powerful, but they could very quickly shove a spike of allegiance into any “normal” target for a very manageable essence cost. Of course this was all speculation and I wasn’t exactly hard up on capture options, but it was still potentially huge. That’s of course also largely ignoring the banshee’s utility as a support unit, cursing people to forget their martial training and creating powerful antimagic fields.
The company swag was being sorted into immediately useful and not immediately useful. Anything I could quickly deploy in the middle of a fight like the paralytic poison, or which could do something I couldn’t reproduce easily, like the Heart Stealer, would be set aside for later. Anything that just seemed like a redundant hassle, like the Fiendish Contract and the Power Swaps, were going to the Darkmoon Faire for credits. The new Tantric rod was, of course, a keeper.
Finally, I had three new Deluxe Mission tickets. I liked the results I managed just picking up a few regional missions. I’m likely to do that again, but perhaps not immediately. I have a few more regional missions left, after all.
All told, it was a good haul. Of course, perhaps the most valuable thing I got yesterday was a new page on the PVP tab. It was a log, containing an explanation for how Neffie kept getting away from me, and almost as important how she’d randomly turned into a Yandere. The exciting bit, though, was the timer letting me know I had three days to hunt my enemy down. She was vulnerable right now, and she wouldn’t be in a few days.
I was scrambling the troops anywhere that she might be hidden. I was pretty sure she wasn’t in Gilneas, Outland, the Firelands, Skywall, or another timeline though I still had people looking. Pandaria was possible, but my best lead there was sending Rexxar to hunt down his friend Chen Stormstout and hoping the Brewmaster would know a way back to his ancestral homeland. The Amani were unfriendly but didn’t seem like they were compromised, same with the Drakkari and the Razormane. Kezan, the goblin capitol, was compromised but I was already clearing it out. Alexstrasza offhandedly mentioned that there was a chain of islands called the Dragon Isles somewhere, but apparently they are cut off from the rest of the world so they seemed unlikely to be a haven.
The number of places that Nefarian could plausibly hide was shrinking fast, and I didn’t have many blind spots left. The island chain of Kul’Tiras was about to face a wave of Scourge troops, Vashj was trying to get a messenger sent to Nazjatar to proc Across All Timelines on Azshara and acquire a hub for undersea exploration, and I had a free day to overrun Ahn’Quiraj. 100 credits could go a long way and there was no way in hell that Neffie would risk herself in the field when she was fresh out of old god minions and get out of jail free cards.
All that being said, that was a problem for tomorrow Erich. I was in a substantially weakened state, I had tens of thousands of new retinue members and dozens of new toys, and I’m not exactly a brilliant investigator at the best of times. I was going to take another week off so I could come back with a clear head, and more importantly I was moving all of my top researchers and production specialists to help me find some way to take down an old god. I had a few ideas, but most of them were probably stupid and testing all of them would take time.