NOVEL NEXT Zul’Gurub
6/14 morning
Matthias Shaw had been sending personnel to check in on Zul’Gurub before we spotted Hakkar, so we weren’t going in blind. So far we’d only been able to infiltrate the lowest caste among the Gurubashi; I hadn’t given Shaw a substantial number of necklaces so he was mostly using them for transformations. Information got back to Stormwind through their normal channels.
It seemed that the only irregularities in the last few days had been far above the heads of the average laborer; we probably wouldn’t need to destroy the whole damn city. A few distorted rumors filtered down about the high priests of the Loa staying in the temples for a day or two, and the blood god Hakkar had simply stopped taking sacrifices, but that wasn’t so strange as to raise red flags unless you were already paranoid. I of course was quite paranoid indeed, so I brought in my best rogues to infiltrate the temples. The war with the Nightmare had also processed to the point where I could have sent some green dragons along to work with the Loa, but to my knowledge Nefarian’s forces were mostly on this side of the veil. It seemed better to send my dream forces to work on my mission in Zul’Aman other than a few scouts.
While that was organized, I took a look at my newly completed missions and my current credit total.
Kaldorei Empire: Defeat Queen Azshara
Reward: Alluring Whisper Upgrade: Dirty Minds, Vashj regional upgrade
Not a bad haul, Talaada. Dirty minds was an upgrade to my Alluring Whisper that shifted it from a passive boost to a useful random proc. Whenever I was speaking to someone I found attractive, there would be a chance that she would randomly mishear something I said as a sexual proposition and be inexplicably down to fuck. From the description it seemed likely that exactly what she heard would be heavily dependent on what she enjoys in bed anyway, and she wouldn’t turn into a mindless sex zombie ignoring her other obligations. Furthermore, I didn’t directly have any control over it unless I shelled out another 10 credits, at which point it would go from a random proc to an ability I could trigger any time I was talking to someone I’d enjoy a roll in the hay with. Another one that would have been a lot more useful once upon a time, but it still would let me pull people off to the side pretty easily. Plus I apparently had Sticky Fingers now, so I should be able to capitalize on it pretty well.
Dredging
Raise and fully repair the Flying Osprey, found to the south of Menathil Harbor. Bonus if you do it without the knowledge of any sentient being outside of the retinue.
Reward: 10 credits, all lost crew and cargo of the Osprey will be restored to the day it sank and instantly captured.
Bonus: fully upgraded Arcane Sanctum
The 10 credits were the big winner here. The Sanctum was a decent building that gave me a lot of great stuff I already had in the form of other support casters and magic immune individuals, and the Osprey was… well, about a hundred military trained high elves with some admittedly quite expensive cargo. Around 2000 gold pieces worth of exotic goods from Silvermoon city.
Great. Throw it on the pile.
Space Goats Make Me Happy
Convert the Kurenai tribe of Draenei in Nagrand to the worship of you, fully abandoning the worship of the Naaru in the process. You may not personally speak to any of them until you have succeeded in this mission, or you will be penalized.
Rewards: 10 credits, 20 credit budget for demiplane upgrades.
I had a town to visit, and should probably appoint one of my stronger light users to serve as high priest over them. If they collectively worship me I think a community of draenei would be great. Maybe I could have Sally do it? After I captured Demetria, we collared Balnazzar pretty quickly. The Scarlet Crusade was almost completely under my control now, and they were learning all about tolerance and acceptance of people different from them while overcoming their past traumas. By standing in magic circles for 20-60 minutes each, binding their souls to me eternally. If it works it works.
Anyway, 40 credits. Even if 20 of those credits are in a special expense account, I can think of a few things worth spending on. My first thought was Armory before I remembered Kerrigan’s upgrade. If I could actually turn everyone in my entire retinue into a unit, the ability to outfit them all with equipment that didn’t fit their unit type was definitely still an upgrade but not anywhere near as big.
My second thought was All Roads Lead to Home, which would extend my ability to make portals to and from my demiplane to everyone in the whole retinue. It seemed like it would have a lot of utility, especially if it worked for people that didn’t have amulets. Giving everyone in the whole retinue much more convenient transport, a relatively safe fallback position, and the ability to leave waypoints they can return to later just seemed like good business sense. It was only 10 credits, so I could still get something else if I wanted.
I had 30 credits right now, and a fairly large pile of company swag. I looked over what was worth keeping and what was worth selling. There was plenty that I just flat out didn’t need now that I had so many methods of capture, control, and empowerment that didn’t rely on consumables. Even censers of dreams seemed like they’d be more use as credit chips than as an actually usable item; they were worth 5 credits each!
1 pocket watch tower, 2 corruption fruit, 2 orbs of entrancement (2 credits each), 2 savory Deviate Delight, 2 censers of dreams (5 credits each), rabbit insignia, Wrathtail Priestess skill chip (2 credits).
22 credits, 52 total. Once I sold these, I’d be able to get the full powered version of Kerrigan. Upon further review it seemed like she’d be “merely” tier 7, as she was only getting the full powers of her playable self in StarCraft, but that still would probably include a huge number of demonic upgrades to my nerubian tech tree and the ability to crush sci-fi mech suits with psionic power at sniper rifle range, among other more esoteric abilities and a general power up. It was a good thing that I caught that before I spent the credits. I might have sent her to try to 1v1 C’thun or something if I’d thought she was a full Xel’naga.
So what was new on my to-do list?
Ancient Zuldazar: Defeat King Timalji and Queen Wasi
Rewards: Blessed Talent
Blessed Talent: Fortuna and her peers smile upon you. Higher powers, whether they’re deities, demons, or merely greater elementals or other spirits, will warm up to you more quickly than just anyone. Blessings or gifts given to you will be more powerful or useful, and curses or smitings aimed at your enemies will be more effective, scaling to how much the specific higher power likes you compared to who- or whatever you’re calling upon them for.
If you are a god, the use of your own godly powers benefits from Soul Talent instead. In that case, if you also have Talent Sharing for this perk, it will remain useful for anyone in your retinue who calls upon your power.
Talaada had her next mission, probably with Azshara’s help in order to get the mission reward. The reward seemed somewhat niche, but maybe it would help me seal the deal with Elune? I was probably going to leave missions to Talaada for the foreseeable future. She was more patient than me, and as of today she had control of the most powerful arcane empire in Azeroth’s history at the height of their power. It let me focus on Nefarian, the War of the Shifting Sands, taking over the Scourge and the Dwarves, and other “modern day” things. Not to mention that it was probably a good bit more efficient in terms of earning rewards.
After that, I used my charge of instant resurrection on Tyrande and teleported to some of my lower ranked agents operating in Zul’Gurub. I wanted to be on hand if anything exciting happened.
••••••••••
Darcell moved quickly from shadow to shadow. It was easy to avoid the gurubashi priests in the temple of Hireek. The bat god preferred a dark environment, and Darcell’s enhanced senses could pinpoint the locals by hearing. The Defias footsoldier turned demon hunter had one major advantage here: she could hear the whispers from Nefarian’s crystal, and her blindfold would protect her from seeing it. Hell, with all the bats moving around with echolocation, Darcell had an incredibly accurate image of the area. She made her way to the heart of the temple easily enough, and found High Priestess Jek’lik.
Jek’lik was seated upon a throne, guarded by a handful of witchdoctors while she sat limply and stared into the distance. She had a crown on that looked kinda similar to company amulets through aura sight, which was almost certainly bad news.
Darcell: *I’ve got a target here. She looks like she’s wearing a Company artifact.”
Wendy: *Tactical assessment? Can you do a smash and grab without creating a fuss?*
D: *Not solo. There are four of those witch doctor guys in the room and I’m not sure if I could kill all of them alone. Not without making a lot of noise. What’s the status on the rest of the rogues?*
W: *One moment. Keryn is currently disguised as a servant in the Temple of Bethekk. She’s visually identified a crown on the high priestess there similar to what you’ve reported. Lord Erich, Lilian, and Kerrigan have been deployed to the other temples but have so far not made visual contact with the high priests. Lady Vanessa is working with the shadow operatives to quickly convert lower ranked individuals. So far her team have captured about 20 isolated individuals.
D: Do we have anyone that might be able to take down 4 strong spellcasters without anyone noticing through the door? I could open one of those new gates and pull her out.
W: Do so and stand by.
Darcell waited almost half an hour before she felt Tyrande’s shroud swirl around her. Over the course of a single minute, all sound in the room ceased, the four guards became busty women, they were escorted out by the Medivas, an orc man Darcell didn’t recognize threw Jek’lik over his shoulder and hauled her through the portal, and 5 retinue members stepped in, looking nearly identical to the original 5. They would live in a state of relative luxury until the city was fully taken.
Across the city, Keryn watched as the high priestess of the panther goddess stared blankly while her companions had their minds crushed by Xal’atath. Valeera cut the throat of high priest Venoxis while he sat in a stupor. The other high priests were confirmed to not have their own VR helmets accelerating their entrancement; they could wait, at least a few hours.
••••••••••
The crowned priests were already at their 3rd or fourth tiers of entrancement, having lived the last day of their lives in a fantasy world designed to break them down and turn them into Nefarian’s devoted slaves at a highly accelerated rate. Jek’lik was easy; we pulled out one of our confiscated crystals from Gadgetzan and swapped her perception of me and Nefarian. She went down on me almost immediately when I asked her to, and declared her love and devotion to me without hesitation.
Bethekk needed an hour in a circle, and Venoxis would hopefully be resurrected or reanimated by his companions without further intervention on my part. The crowns vanished immediately when each of them was captured, presumably returning to Nefarian, but damn I was glad that I didn’t need to slaughter another city. Just… explore it and kill anyone who was already subverted. Much better. I might actually be able to take Uldir and do the Lich King Ritual today after all. After selling off my excess swag, anyway.