Capítulo 136: Ah. Crap
5/20 night
I had a bit more time left before I'd be ready to go to bed, so I figured it would be best to go check on Xylinnia again, as well as waking her up with the medallion. Hahrana was my closest teleport point, so I disguised myself as an orc and appeared at camp Mojache in her tent. I was a bit surprised to find that it was a workshop, full of heavy leather armor in the process of being made and repaired.
The Tauren woman was startled by my appearance but instinctively recognized me, like most of my girls do. She was as tall as Nozara, but heavier, with broad shoulders and thick muscles. She turned to look at me expectantly. "Well?"
https://imgur.com/a/hahrana-ironhide-bHaqk65
"Oh, nothing. I'm just passing through." She nodded curtly and turned back to the mannequin she was working on. Having been dismissed, I glanced around and then jogged out of the camp, activating stealth and fading myself slightly to avoid drawing unwanted attention. By wing I was able to get to the island fortress pretty quickly, though I needed to shift from black to green mid-flight to get into character as Erius.
I went over my quest log and notes while I flew. I was thinking I wanted to do some more missions after this dragon situation was over. I was pretty sure I could do at least a few of these solo now; I could almost certainly mind control that ogre and get him to piss off his companions, for example.
The dragons were too valuable to ignore, but it really felt like they were taking over my life for half a month. I also wouldn't have most of the Quel'Lithien rangers for the next fight. I could still flood the area with harvest golems, but I was increasingly worried that might not be enough. If they had more developed ancients, or swarms of lashers? Hell, if they just had more Druids I might be in a bad state. I didn't have another I-win button, and I didn't actually know how either of the remaining dragons fought. I really didn't want a bloodbath, but they honestly seemed like they were getting stronger faster than I was.
Maybe I should stand next to a road and promise magic necklaces to random passersby if they agreed to cull my enemy's numbers. I got a good chuckle out of that idea. A shame the actual adventurer population is so damn low. But the goal isn't actually stupid. If I could thin them out a bit, the fight might go more smoothly. It's not like I had the element of surprise; the nightmare clearly knew I was coming.
While I mused about that, I checked status reports and the like. Nothing too exciting for the most part, I honestly doubt you all care that much about recruitment numbers for the Lions or the fact that Auffrey and Prudence had gotten to Menathil Harbor. I needed to ask for more details about Westfall; they were playing some kind of deadly game with fake battles over there. What got me actively worried was a note from Tony.
*Hey bossman. This lady came by and has a bunch of questions about you. She seems important, and like she's gonna want to talk to you later. I've told her what I know, but don't be surprised.*
It was a bit concerning. I didn't know what exactly Tony had said, but he knows way too much to be telling anyone about me. At minimum I was going to have a chat with him about phrasing. I couldn't really check up on him with mind vision on the wing, so I tabled it for now. I woke Xylinnia up as normal, had her tuck the amulet under her dress, explaining that more skin contact would be good for the process. I treated it like a medical checkup; there was nothing too major I needed to do, I just wanted to make sure nothing was going wrong. She could go back to work while the amulet kept "purifying" her. Naturally, she had a mental block on examining it.
I offhandedly informed Shandris, through a runner, that I was late because we'd just gotten into quite a battle and successfully captured another dragon; Lady Emeriss was in the process of being purified. I scrawled a report about how the battle went; it was a bit vague on the composition of my forces, implying that it had been a joint venture between the high elves of Quel'Danil, Stormwind's army, and the Green Dragonflight.
"We have two more left. The one here, and one in Ashenvale to the northeast of the Splinter Tree Post. I believe we should be ok here once Lady Tyrande arrives, but I will need to focus my efforts on Ashenvale until she does." I considered asking her for reinforcements there; I was pretty sure that she could get a few hippogriff riders into the area, at least. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be enough to matter if I wasn't able to employ everything I had at my disposal. If they saw a troop of heavily armored Satyr or undead leading the charge, then they would be sure to start asking uncomfortable questions. A few archers on what amounted to flying horses wouldn't be worth the trouble unless I could be certain to collar all of them before they got back to tell tales. I mouthed a few pleasantries and teleported out, back to my apartment.
I knew that I really needed to check in on Tony; I felt bad that I hadn't noticed and checked earlier. What I found wasn't terribly promising; the poor bastard was strapped down to a table. He wasn't struggling or in pain; in fact he seemed pretty relaxed for the situation, and his eyes were closed. I urged him to open his eyes and look around a bit. I saw a Forsaken woman wearing a porcelain rabbit mask that had bright green lenses for eyes, lazily noting the motion and the time in a small notebook.
I tried something that seemed like it might work; mind vision operated on sympathetic links or line of sight. I could see this forsaken woman right now, so logically I should be able to use mind vision on her, right? The jump to the rabbit girl wasn't too difficult, but I felt stretched out, like Tony was a window and I was reaching out of him towards something just barely in reach. I don't think I could comfortably chain more than one or two of these together.
I got only a loose glance at her notebook at first, but getting her to go over the list she was keeping was very easy. She was bored as hell. I didn't blame her. These were the highlights, easily the most exciting bits, of her evening.
7:32 cooperated with guards to be restrained. Confused but unperturbed.
7:35 attempted to initiate conversation.
7:48 stopped attempting to initiate conversation temporarily
8:02 requested food. Gruel provided.
8:22 requested information on experiment. No explanation provided, as per orders.
8:40 feigned sleep
9:02 stopped feigning sleep, sang a Stormwind field laborer's song.
9:10 closed eyes, began dozing
10:14 opened eyes, examined room.
That was the highlights. The times when he actually did something. Yeah, this was looking bad. I pushed the rabbit girl to talk about why Tony was strapped down. I got some pushback. Quite a lot, actually. My best guess was that she'd get in trouble, or maybe this was just the willpower of someone capable of defying the Lich King.
"So, feeling antagonistic yet? Angry? Uncooperative? Planning on teleporting away?" She drawled out in a bored tone. "I'm supposed to keep track of your emotional state, but what do they expect? You were charmed by the dark lady herself!"
Tony gave her a distinctly puzzled expression, with a flash of surprised irritation mixed in. My stomach fell as communication talent quietly informed me that this was not entirely Tony. He was possessed. Then it clicked. They knew that the amulets removed mind control, and they were testing how long it would take.
I almost summoned him to the apartment, just to get him out of there, but realized that might backfire massively. I didn't have any more protection from possession than Tony did, or at least I didn't know how much more I had as a moderately powerful priest. I needed to be smart about this.
They hopefully didn't know that possession meant that they counted as wearing the amulet, or at the very least I hoped it did. When I checked, I found one "Melisara" listed as being 163 hours from capture. She had the body jack and undead tags; there's our culprit. I could trap her in Tony's body until she was on board, but as nice as getting a banshee on the payroll would be, I didn't just want a banshee. I wanted their queen.
I called in Onyxia, Vanessa, Doris, Talaada, Eliza, Abby, and Irma. "Alright ladies. I have a plan. It's a bit risky, but I think that we should be able to pull off something really special if it works."
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