NOVEL NEXT Stop! Thief!
6/11 Night
Emmastrasza sat in her cell in Stormwind, doing her very best to sort through her emotions. Alexstrasza’s flames had burnt away the overwhelming majority of Nefarian’s control, so she didn’t love him anymore. She did still think of him as her rightful ruler, and the most handsome dragon to have ever lived, but she could at least see those thoughts as unnatural even if she had difficulty getting upset about them. Her grandmother insisted that they would keep looking for a way to fix her, but she didn’t have much hope.
She couldn’t bring herself to offer any suggestions or cooperate with any experiments. The idea of acting against Nefarian horrified her on a primal level, and she was fully aware that Bismark was doing almost exactly the same thing to her with this necklace that Nefarian had done. Being a slave to a stranger didn’t appeal all that much more than being a slave to a known enemy, especially when she only intellectually saw Nefarian in a negative light.
She wanted to be on the same side as Alexstrasza again, but she knew there were only two ways that could happen. One was the death of her lord Nefarian, the other was the death of Bismark. She wanted Bismark dead so badly, just to make things easy. Surely with thousands of servants, Nefarian would end up ignoring most of them.
She was woken from her reverie by a man walking into her cell. Her heart thumped as she recognized Nefarian. Thanks to Alexstrasza’s flames, she didn’t feel the same immediate rush of submission and affection anymore. She did her best to glare at him with flat dislike.
“Emmastrasza.” He spoke with his deep voice, stirring lust within her. “I’m here to retrieve you, but we need to wait for the perfect moment to make our escape. You will pleasure me with your body while we wait.” Before she could process the strangeness of that statement, he pulled her by her collar close to him, and surprised her with a kiss. He usually didn’t bother with even that much foreplay with her. She lost herself in his scent; if she had no choice, she might as well enjoy it.
“Drop to all fours. I wish to breed you. You will carry a clutch of eggs for me.” The idea was immensely appealing for some reason. She hadn’t had any eggs of her own yet, but she’d always wanted to be a mother someday. Emmastrasza found herself getting into the act of mating far more than she expected. When she felt him release his seed into her, tremors of pleasure ran through her whole body. To her shock, she felt a cold, firm object pushed into her butt.
She whipped her head around and saw him. Her beloved master Nefarian smiled down at her possessively, then his beautiful voice rang out with a command. “Now then, I ask only one thing. Tell me you love me.”
“Of course I love you. I may have no choice, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.” His face melted away into a different dark haired man, and with a mixture of horror and joy she realized that it wasn’t Nefarian. It must be Bismark. “Oh. Oh no.” She had betrayed him. She served two masters now. How could she decide, the one who owned her, or the one she loved more than life itself… who also owned her just as much? As she considered it, the choice seemed obvious, so long as she didn’t need to hurt Nefarian to help Erich.
••••••••••
I checked the retinue tab and confirmed that Emmastrasza was a full member of the retinue now, though she had a unique “split loyalties” tag. I’d managed to compensate for my lack of binding on her with my multiple lures, and the Buttplug of the Devoted Lover sealed the deal. I doubt it would have worked if she hadn’t been collared for several days, cleansed of as much influence as possible, and loaded down with obediences that made it impossible for her to ask questions.
It was a bit worrying that this was possible at all, as Nefarian could probably do the same in reverse, but it had been a difficult enough process that I didn’t think it was likely to happen unless he kidnapped someone he perceived as valuable and I didn’t retrieve them for several days. Assuming he even put the effort in to make it happen. I had quite a few more resources than he did, at this point; this whole experiment had only been half an hour worth of effort on my part. All the prep work was handled by Alexstrasza, Tyrygosa, and my necklace R&D team.
“So Emma,” I saved her current mindset for later before plucking the cursed butt plug out. “How do you feel?”
“Awful,” she answered frankly. “The two most important people in my life are trying to kill one another and I sincerely doubt they will ever stop until one has been destroyed.”
“I don’t actually want him dead, for what it’s worth.” I argued. “I’d much prefer to keep him around as a member of my retinue.” Probably as a female twin to Onyxia, but still. He was a worthy opponent. If I could manage it he was going to be in my harem when all was said and done.
“I doubt he’d like that though; he hates the idea of anyone else having power over him.” She said it with sad fondness, like she was describing an endearing quirk.
“I don’t like my girls to be unhappy.” I pressed, “Is there anything I can do to help you feel better? I can do almost anything except erase your bindings to me or Nefarian. Do you have enough books?”
She sighed. “Maybe something to do with my hands? I’m out of practice but I’ve knitted before. Yarn?”
“Sure, I’ll have it sent to you,” I smiled, “I promise that if I win, I’ll do my best to make sure everyone comes out as happy as I can manage.” I left the relatively young dragon in her cell. She seemed like a sweet girl, and I fully intended to give her some company in the future, ones with a similar mental condition.
I didn’t exactly have a direct use for her off the top of my head, not when she might compromise any mission which conflicted with Nefarian’s interests, but she was firmly out of the conflict between the two of us and would be hard for him to deploy against me even if he got her back.
••••••••••
I waited next to Nanna’s spotter wearing my Eros persona, going through my options for spending my credits. From Talaada’s updates, the paper trail had served her pretty well, but after palming a corruption fruit off on Auriel I had ten credits again. I settled on Science Talent for my next purchase.
Compared to Martial or Soul talent, it was a lot more situational. It allowed me and my team to understand more complex mathematics, physics, and technology. It was far more oriented around understanding how things worked than its upgrade, engineering talent, which would help in the production of new original designs, but it should be very helpful in studying and using gnomish or Titanic technology.
I already had Isiset working with my R&D team to teach my gnomish engineers how to integrate mana into their designs to create technomancy. They were in the process of hooking Ulthalesh up as a kind of mana core for Naxxramas; using the spirits within to gather and store energy would allow the scythe to power not only the engine, but the large array of energy based weapons Stevie’s team had integrated into the ship’s design. They had also tried using a few of my amulets, but apparently the near infinite power supply stored within each jewel was a closed system that teleported a few feet away if they tried to use it for anything unauthorized. Science talent could help them train up all of the assistants and the spirits themselves into proper techs capable of building, repairing, and operating all of the new systems.
Archaedes could also use the extra edge; I had him studying my company swag to see if he could replicate it. If he could, then he could make blueprints and share the designs to the rest of my retinue. I only really needed one super-engineer to design new things if I had other people capable of implementing his designs. Not only did I have one, I was planning on capturing a few more within the week. Engineering talent just seemed like a credit trap with that in mind; having more genius engineers would be great long term, but it didn’t feel like it would pay off quickly.
I saw a request from Talaada that intrigued me: sending her my minor missions. The idea had some real promise. I’d unlock fewer regional missions unless she started traveling around a lot, but even if it took her three days per minor mission, Talaada could probably pound through four or five minor missions every prime-timeline day. It was worth experimenting with, at least. I’d very much like 5 credits worth of swag per day.
••••••••••
I teleported into the small storage chamber where Nanna was hiding, less than a minute’s walk from the Forge of Wills. It was currently synthesizing another batch of Iron Dwarves, according to Nanna, and getting to the control console should be a straight shot. We were far away from her post, but close enough that she could probably explain away why she was here, while being close enough that the automated defenses wouldn’t intercept my teleportation or cleanse my invisibility long before I got to the console.
Invisibility. Nanna opened the door. Time warp to accelerate my personal timeline. Blink. Write. Blink. Done in under ten seconds, pulled out by my spotter moments before the alarm properly started blaring.
Nanna rushed to investigate, giving her an alibi so long as nobody started asking about the timeline too closely, and everyone present realized that Keeper Eros was the proper administrator for the use of the Forge of Wills. Several messages asking for me to authorize various uses of the Forge were sent to the Halls of Origination within minutes, answered by Rajh acting as my secretary. For my part, I was heading to bed to give my prime consort some individual attention. Tomorrow we were planning on dealing with Gadgetzan before it could properly become a problem.