NOVEL NEXT Tit(an)s or GTFO
6/17 morning
“I am of course willing to do as you say,” Eonar noted, “but my very existence outside of a sanctuary like this one would be a beacon for Sargeras.”
“Just you?” I asked her, puzzled, “Not the other three?”
“He will likely investigate other titans of course,” she admitted, “but your world would not be a high enough priority to override his normal operations. In addition, he might attempt to establish a rapport with any young titans. I imagine he is quite lonely, and indoctrinating a newborn companion would no doubt appeal to him. I, on the other hand, am a known enemy and threat. He would bend all his resources towards a full scale invasion as quickly as possible.”
I thought about it. That could be bad. The entire Burning Legion breathing down my neck would still be pretty unpleasant as I was right now.
“So, say I do deploy you against C’thun. How long would I have, in your estimation?”
“As he is in this timeline, to my knowledge? Three to five Azerothian standard years.” She answered gravely. “If he continued optimizing his procedures for ten thousand years and has assets on your planet already, I suspect he could establish a beachhead in three quarters of a year. Perhaps as little as half.”
That made me smile. “Oh? Six months? Shit, in that case we should be fine.” I assured her, a smile spreading across my face. “I have only been in that world for two months and started as a standard human with a few perks. At my current rate of growth and with the assets available to me, I should be more than capable of countering him handily by then. Assuming they don’t blindside me with more PvP bullshit, anyway.”
••••••••••
Dremuus was fairly disoriented when he arrived at the Eternal palace. He was welcomed of course, but I could tell that the ostentatious architecture didn’t impress him. If anything, Azshara seemed to unsettle him a bit. She entered the sitting room with a box of fried dumplings shortly after he arrived, and crawled to the foot of my chair while we ate. Thanks to Anveena, she managed to believe that this was a power move over Lividia, who was sitting next to me.
Dremuus had been commanding my irregular ground forces. At this point that mostly meant Worgen and the Rampant Lions, though Talaada had also hooked her father up with a sizable force of Kaldorei soldiers and magi. I certainly had other forces in the area, but most of them were already organized in their own militaries. No need to dismantle the Cenarian chain of command or messily fold the Kor’Kron outriders and Silverwing Sentinels into one army, so long as they all agreed to cooperate under one supreme leader.
Perhaps the most substantial resource he’d been given was access to a blank check when it came to nerubian drones. Thanks to that, he’d been in charge of planning out the eventual opening of the Scarab Gate. He spent the last few weeks consulting with the veterans of the first War of the Shifting Sand and Xal’atath to build up a (hopefully) excessive network of fortifications.
At some point he’d wiped out the Twilight’s Hammer cult in the region, which unfortunately didn’t count as defeating the Elemental Dukes for some reason. My best guess was that they weren’t quite marked as “defeated” since only two of them had ever taken the field and one of them had been assassinated in the Firelands. Alas, I’d just need to make my way to Skywall. I was pretty sure Eonar could make it happen.
In any event, construction of fortifications and automatic towers had been ongoing for quite some time now. Theradras had industriously constructed a compressed stone shell around the area to prevent burrowers from escaping; with any luck the enemy would waste a tremendous amount of time trying to get through, only to find the second and third layer of subterranean walls.
I had a massive amount of raw power at my disposal; two full sets of dragon aspects, a handful of titans, dozens of heroes, the entire Scourge plus a company-empowered necropolis, the combined forces of the Horde and Alliance, the Scarlet Crusade, a legion of demons, the centaur khans… the list went on and on. Of course, I was up against an informed and prepared Old God. He was metaphorically strapped to a table and living off of 2 shots of espresso and a snickers, but he was still an entity I had no intention of taking lightly.
Of course, C’thun was known for his endless legions. In terms of raw personal power, he came in third among the four classic gods. Xal’atath was irritatingly coy about her own relative power, but if her estimates of the enemies numbers held up I’d be seeing her true form soon enough. I was looking at quite the harvest tomorrow, and then I’d be burning a few more amulets to see what a Void Titan looked like. If I could neutralize the endless swarm, no matter what means I needed to use, Eonar was confident that she could easily solo C’thun in his weakened state.
That was really what the whole plan was: bleed C’thun’s forces dry, then whip out a cosmic tier gardener to finish him off. She’d of course have backup in the form of Darcell, Lividia, and to a lesser extent Trixie, and I had a plan in the event that Neffie dearest decided to interfere. Those were, of course, just the plans I had personally had a hand in.
Each of my armies had their own leaders, their own plans, and their own weapons and tactics. Dremuus, his Worgen, and my Fists would be all purpose reinforcements, deployed by the ops team to cover holes in the army. Varian and Saurfang would be observing an illusory sand table in Xin-azshari, allowing them to remotely direct the battle at 1/16th speed. The unified armies of Darnassus, Thunder Bluff, and Orgrimmar were enough to turn the tide in canon alone; I was pretty confident I could handle anything that C’thun could throw at me.
••••••••••
Abby was a little bit put out when I interrupted her on Purgation Isle. She’d been snatching up ghosts and using them to capture the few uncaptured folks at Southshore, but the spirits haunting the island were a bit much for her to handle in large quantities. I really had been planning on letting her have this one, but things just didn’t work out that way. Even more than Neltharia, I absolutely wanted to see what Eonar would get as regional upgrades.
The battle was barely worth describing. It was over too quickly. If she had been in her depleted state, she might have been in some danger, but like anyone found in the catalog she had been returned to her full power fairly quickly. Well, not her full power; if she was to be trusted she used to be stronger. Perhaps it was the power limiter on amulets slowing her regrowth to a drip-feed, or maybe she was just set to the minimum power level needed to do the handful of things she managed onscreen.
In any event, she selectively purged the entire island of any and all unapproved influences within ten minutes of setting foot there. Pulsing waves of nature magic tore through everything, about one being released every minute. The plant life flourished and became treant soldiers, the ruined old keep was disassembled, the ghosts were dispelled, and the mission completed. All the while she stood impassively, surveying the land.
I was reminded of Holy Nova, watching her work. A pulse of holy energy that only knew that it should make things better for the user; highly inefficient but still useful because it would pool anywhere that the caster was worried about, even without conscious thought. The pulses Eonar released were similar, but she had a specific end state clearly in mind. She took in the entire environment, decided how things should be, and made them that way with waves of energy meant to reshape reality itself. It was a little scary, if it weren’t for the fact that she was just as under my thumb as anyone else in the retinue.
••••••••••
I had one last thing I wanted to test, and I felt pretty dumb for not thinking of it earlier. I sincerely hoped that it would work, but even if I got mediocre results it still seemed like it would be worth a shot. First, of course, we gave a Tyreal skin to my very first knight in shining armor.
“Alright Tessa,” I placed the amulet around the white haired guard’s neck. “We are going to turn you into a Titan, and with any luck you will be able to function thanks to that skin. If not, don’t worry, Eonar and Illidan will work with you and get you up to speed just as quickly as we can.”
I blinked away from where Tessa floated a few inches above the ground, tendrils of pure light splayed out behind her to form radiant wings. The hope was that another powerful, physically oriented skin would serve in a similar capacity to Darcell’s demon hunter class. I’d chosen Tyreal from the handful of useful skins Chad had sent along mostly for his form of movement.
In Heroes of the Storm, Tyreal never actually walked anywhere. As a mass of positive energy, most of his body was essentially just light and sound crammed into a suit of full plate to make it easier to use weapons. As such, he generally floated a few inches above the ground, a method of locomotion that the skin imparted upon Tessa instinctively. It was unlikely to be as all encompassing as Evasion, but it still seemed like it might help.
It… kinda worked. Tessa was able to float around pretty efficiently, but her body was just as twitchy as anyone else. It meant she could skip learning how to stand, and she was fairly mobile overall, but she wasn’t going to be knitting scarves anytime soon.
“Alright, get her as ready as you can.” I told the small team of physical therapists. “Trixie, get over here. I need you to eat this grub. If we are lucky turning into a spiderling will help you move better.”
••••••••••
Eonar’s Perk
https://strawpoll.com/7rnzmNEVEyO
••••••••••
Company credit budget: 9
-1 permanent purchase: Lividia
-1 permanent purchase: Talaada
-2 Letter of Recommendation: Child by Lividia, Child by Azshara, Child by Aegwynn, Tony, Nefaria, Vanessa, Onyxia, Sylvanas, Sally, and Abby (subject to change)
-2 Meeting Place: Gain a permanent, generally quite small, Demiplane where you can meet with fellow employees of the Company you know. Within this demiplane you may relax for up to one hour per day and extend invitations to friends, allies, or enemies to meet, gamble, and trade resources. Acceptable trades and wagers will be overseen by the Testing Coordinators of each visitor’s world.
-1 Animal folk become more human looking, generally looking like basically attractive humans with pronounced animalistic traits.
-1 Female undead are always aesthetically pleasing and capable of having sex. Generally speaking they are also interested in having sex, though they are no less aggressive and only slightly less deadly despite that.
-1 PvP is never incentivized. Should two testers come into conflict it will be on entirely personal grounds. Drawbacks involving PvP can override this; you knew what you were signing up for.
Remaining budget: 0 Credits