NOVEL NEXT Status Updates
6/15 Night Day 5
Lividia and I had a lot of fun exploring Dazar’alor while Talaada was prepping the new branch office there. “Gold plated mesoamerican metropolis” is one hell of an aesthetic, and we had the run of the place. I had a bit of fun disguising us by taking on Titanic Construct forms and adding a few secondary troll characteristics. We could have slipped by as a couple of trolls, but we were having fun playing with our Glamour now that Lividia mastered it. Nobody was likely to question why Eros and Venus, the paired Loa of Desire and Devotion, made such a striking impression on anyone they encountered while touring the city.
Nobody in the highly polytheistic city was overly upset about the introduction of a new pair of loa, especially when they immediately put in a showing. We also came with a pre-packaged priesthood hand picked by Talaada from her most devoted apostles in Zin-Azshari, and could absolutely grant miracles. The other loa might be problematic, as they were spiritual beings that weren’t particularly easy to get a handle on and worship was a finite resource. Plus, as things currently stood I didn’t find any of the (mostly bestial) Loa particularly fuckable, so Tsundere Service was right out as a method to smooth over conflicts.
I didn’t worry about it too much; I did have a mission that would make sexy humanoid forms mandatory for all Loa, but even if I reoriented a substantial number of my forces towards completing that mission it would take weeks or months from this timeline’s perspective. I was just going to, ironically, have faith in my priesthood. After I gave them a w, of course. Just by walking around the city with a tour guide, we were lodging ourselves into the collective consciousness of the Zandalari trolls.
Trolls, at least ones with good posture, are tall as fuck. Even as Watchers, we were only a foot taller than the biggest trolls. Everything felt a little small, but not excessively so. We ate to excess, made deals with opportunistic petitioners, and generally just relaxed while training our magical endurance. After all, using up all of your mana is the best way to grow your pool as long as you don’t overdo it.
••••••••••
I received reports about what I missed while I was away, which I read over dinner while Lividia ate several spit roasted frogs the size of human men. She still had her auras up, so I have a creeping suspicion she was giving at least a few of the trolls present a food fetish. Oh well, eating and drinking restores mana so it actually served as a kind of endurance training. Or something. Maybe. It was good food, ok? I wasn’t eating as quickly as her but I was sure as hell enjoying it.
Apparently the assault on the Serpentshrine Cavern got a lot easier after I picked up Soridormi’s perk about an hour and a half ago from their point of view. Many of the highest ranking Naga officers are old, so old that they go back to before the shattering. Old enough that many had been Highborne elves in Azshara’s court; Naga who were born as Naga had an unfortunate tendency to be fairly stupid, loyal to the old gods, overly rigid in their thinking, or some combination of the three. A single point of contact could take control of the most revered caste among the Naga, and that absolutely included Vashj. Once we had her, the team decided to pull out and leave behind our newly captured team to “rebuild.”
The modern Vashj was a damn sight more mature and tactical than her ancient counterpart. Ten thousand years of active military service will do that. Hopefully she’d have an opportunity to come into physical contact with Illidan, who was currently the lord of Outland; even a moment of incidental skin to skin contact would do the job. If Vashj could take Illidan, Outland would be easy. Hell, the next step after that would be sending someone to Nazjatar so I could pick up Azshara’s modern counterpart.
Kael’thas, the king of the Blood Elves, would probably be extremely interested in learning about the return of the Sunwell. He and Vashj were allies, though I can’t say I know how close they really were. Close enough to exchange a message, though. Even if his response was to go back to Silvermoon city and imprison Anveena to be sucked dry… well, that would reverse in about a week with Anveena completely unharmed. Stress defense would handle the trauma, soul defense would keep him from draining more mana than she was willing to give, and her regional perk would subjugate the wills of anyone trying to use her as a mana battery.
With the three biggest, baddest regional managers in all of Outland covered, we’d just need to pacify the rest. I already had evidence that with proper management I could take over a fairly large community in a few days, and I genuinely doubted that any of the secondary factions left on the shattered world would be able to hard counter my go-to strategies. What was Gruul the Dragonkiller gonna do? Punch me?
That was all just a side hustle, though. I had far more immediate concerns. One of the first things we’d be doing when I got back to the main timeline was taking the Lich King. The Scourge was, for now, still reeling from the loss of Naxxramas. The ritual was primed and ready to go, and the payouts would be insane. I had three rather large missions that would be completed overnight: defeat Kel’Thuzad, Defeat Amemnar the Coldbringer, and take Andorhol for the Forsaken.
That was two regional upgrades, 20 credits, power swap: necromancer, 2 deluxe mission tickets, Death Bringer Sonya, a tantric rod, power swap: T5 Undead, a paralytic poison, a seal of joy, Royal Apothecary Morales, a Heart Stealer, Luxury goods: Masks, a Fiendish Contract, and the redesign of quillboar to make them a bit more appealing to me. I was going to make BANK on this one. In fact, the only problem was that I wasn’t going to get quite as much out of it as I theoretically could.
I had two deluxe mission tickets sitting around. There was nothing stopping me from using them on minor missions. I sent out an order to send a pair of my blue dragons to Icecrown and the underground city of Azjol’Nerub as quickly as possible. They were to turn invisible and avoid contact with Scourge forces. Their only job was to secure two more regional upgrades; given how juicy Kel’Thuzad’s regional mission reward was I was pretty sure that Arthas and his left hand man Anub’arak would be far more profitable than anyone else the system might latch onto in those areas.
••••••••••
The agility enhancing leather gear wasn’t ideal, nor was the heavy staff, but Aerith appreciated the equipment that Hierophant Liandra had managed to find in her size from the Druids for the Ethical and Humane Treatment of Animals armory. Caroud had seemed more than a little bit disturbed by the pleasure she took in caving in the poacher’s skulls, but it had been easy enough to make him think she’d just gotten caught up in the DEHTA’s pro-wildlife fervor. In reality, it was just a power trip.
Onyxia understood the value of secrets, lies, and manipulation. She enjoyed them, she really did. Turning an enemy or even just some idiot like Caroud into a useful tool was practically orgasmic to her. It wasn’t all good, of course. It was slower, more tedious, and as often as not less efficient, but it was ultimately more useful to accumulate long term benefits than to set everything on fire with brute force. However, thinking that she simply couldn’t crush her enemies no matter what might happen had been torturous.
She had thought herself entirely at Caroud’s mercy. She had been a hanger-on, an accessory. Crushing a few human skulls and shrugging off a few stab wounds made her feel so much better. She had her fallback position, and appreciated it far more than she ever had as a dragon, even though she was objectively much weaker now.
She also welcomed Liandra’s assistance; as a Druid of the Talon she was not primarily a combatant, but she was competent in a wide variety of areas from scouting to magical healing. Onyxia found her idealistic prattle tiresome, but she felt comfortable with another retinue member to rely on. Almost in spite of herself, she became fond of her strident eco terrorist companion. There was only one problem: she had no idea how she had captured the elf and that irritated her. How could she take advantage of whatever binding she’d been granted if she didn’t know how it worked?
Onyxia didn’t have any way of knowing about Soridormi’s perk, and she only got one use of it for every main timeline day. From her perspective, every 16 days she would randomly capture someone she came into physical contact with. It was a real shame; she had an extremely powerful tool but wasn’t likely to be able to use it to its full potential because she was working blind. She was smart enough that she might be able to puzzle it out from 3 data points, but that would still take 2 months to have a meaningful chance to use it tactically. Frankly, she was lucky to have randomly yoinked a reasonably powerful druid; Gamon picked up a bartender with his charge.
In any event, the two girls had managed to convince a few of the other Druids to commit to supporting the Dalaran forces at the Amber Ledge. As is so common in activist circles, there were a few guys who were literally just there to get laid and they stuck out like a sore thumb with Red String of Fate. Liandra needed to be pressured into it, but Aerith couldn’t risk alienating Caroud while he was still useful and Liandra didn’t actually need to sleep with them. Just imply that she might.
••••••••••
Defeat The Lich King
Rewards: Teron Gorefiend, fully upgraded Temple of the Damned, seal of Joy, your necromancers may reanimate any corpse into any kind of undead.
Defeat Anub’Arak
Rewards: Deluxe Mission Ticket, Underking Anub’Arak skin