章 109: Waiting for Sadie
5/16 lunchtime
According to Vanessa, Anetta would be fine in a couple hours with the dosage she'd gotten. I decided to let her sleep, antidotes were expensive, and had Dena tuck her into the spare bed. The one with Imriss in the closet. Maybe I should get set up in Ursula's house. It was pretty nice from what I'd seen. Actually, I'll put Vanessa in contact with Ursula. See if that basement can become a dungeon, and if anyone will be overly nosy about the butler disappearing. Hell, if her service staff is small enough I'll probably just capture all of them.
I spent my intervening time planning out some meetings. People I needed to talk to. Plans I needed to make. I decided to send out Lividia to take down Murk Eye, but she honestly wasn't powerful enough for me to be certain that she'd be ok if she did it alone. I figured it could just send her with all of my demons; Dena could serve as my nurse and steed until Annetta got better.
Plus, I wanted to start throwing demons at my problems. I'd turn another of them into a Satyr while I was at it; I really did want to know what the hell satyrs got out of the symbiotic link, and since they wouldn't really die if killed I figured throwing them haphazardly into deadly situations might do the trick. All I really needed was that they make sure Lividia didn't get overwhelmed.
To that end, I started summoning them and then frowned. How do I send them to Lividia when she needs them? I can't lift them and they don't have amulets. I eventually entrusted the amulet to Dena for a bit, and had her send each of them except for Pryzhum to Em. The satyr was too big for Dena to lift as herself, so I mildly bullied the noblewoman into taking on an ogre form to finish the job. After that I amused myself by turning her into a draenei, a night elf, and a high elf and modeling Paletress's and Vanessa's clothes from the closet. They seemed enchanted to fit anyone who tried to wear them, just like in the game. I'd need to remember that.
It was nice seeing Lividia when she came over for her briefing; I didn't actually expect her to be as concerned as she was. She created a nest for me out of the blankets and pillows on the bed, so that I wasn't just sitting on bare wood. While I explained the plan for Murk-eye and showed her where he was on the map and how to track him with the compass, she grabbed another trollsblood elixir for me and insisted that I drink it promptly. I had a timer for them that Abby had set up, and it was visible to everyone with a necklace.
She aggressively stared down Dena to assert dominance, our chatting mostly revolved around vague but plausible strategies for world domination, and when she left it was so that she could assassinate a fish man, but she was still basically just my girlfriend coming over to help nurse me back to health. It was nice.
When she left, I quickly started to get bored againI went into my notes and started writing out meetings I needed to have.
Onyxia: how best to deal with Nefarian. Both short and long term.
Argent Dawn top brass: making an alliance to deal with the Scourge
Ursula: turning her manor into a base ofoperations in Stormwind. Further training with demonology when I'm ready.
Those three slaves: see if they have any valuable skills to speak of
Vanessa: making the Defias loyal to me personally.
Vanessa and Onyxia: ending the war between the Defias and Stormwind
Talaada: her continued training and properly employing her as a proxy for capture
Yeah that should cover it for at least a bit. If Sadie was correct, she'd be here soon, and Talaada would join us as well. I had Dena transfer me back to the bed; best to at least try to get a bit more rest. Also: good news, when I took human form my dick felt basically fine. I think it's ready to go again; I might not do anything with Sadie during lesson time, but Talaada or Dena might have extracurricular activities planned.
••••••••••
Caledra Dawnbreeze was strangely calm as she left the Light's Hope Chapel, despite the danger she was walking into alone. She could respect the paladins' position, but she was still disappointed that she hadn't been given more assistance for her journey. Regardless, she was a Farstrider of Quel'Thalas and these were lands familiar to her, no matter how corrupted; she could navigate them unseen. Despite what some might claim, the Scourge were not truly everywhere in these woods, and the Lich King only rarely gazed through their eyes.
She had learned much about the nature of the necklace from the battle against the green dragon. That she could take a dragon's form was undoubtedly the most relevant piece of information. She looked up, seeing Gargoyles in the distance, patrolling the skies. Yes, relevant, but not to be relied upon. Short bursts of flight when she reached otherwise untraversable areas, but otherwise she would move on foot.
She had a ways to go, and had marked out the scourge strongholds along her path. An old Lumber mill, always kept heavily garrisoned to threaten the chapel. After that was the town of Northdale, which had once been such a charmingly rustic village. She'd gone there sometimes to purchase vegetables from the local farmers. As she walked through the woods, she sometimes happened across beautiful, young, too pale women picking berries from the rotting bushes, fishing in the fetid stream, or most heartbreakingly moaning and calling for help. All were traps, holdovers from early in the Third War when most men didn't know the signs of an undead woman. She avoided them, and used them as evidence that an ambush was nearby.
She'd also be moving within the territory of the Mossflayer tribe. Hopefully they were still around; she hated the forest trolls for their centuries of aggression towards her people, but they were another faction fighting the Scourge. She'd welcome the Amani Empire back in its entirety, if they could be bound by truce to focus on the undead threat.
She would not be sleeping until she arrived at Quel'Lithien, or was forced to turn back. She only hoped that she'd be able to make it there on her first attempt.
••••••••••
Ursula was quite open to the use of dark magic, and desensitized to demons. Demons tended to be cruel, and revel in combat. Any opportunity to cause pain was welcome. These druid spirits weren't like that. They were quiet; cold. Just as willing to kill, but they treated it like a chore. Something that just needed doing.
Collecting soul shards from these orcs was highly efficient with the druids help, so Ursula should have been more pleased, but it was all so unsettling. They would disable the orc, most often by wrapping him in vines, and one at a time wait until Ursula started draining the soul. Once the link was established, the orc would be summarily executed, most often being torn apart by a pillar of pale light, and Ursula would have a new soul shard.
Ursula reveled in her power as a warlock. But these druids killed the fun; next to them she felt like an appliance, a tool they were using to extract soul shards. She almost wanted to pick a fight with one of the spirits, just to prove to herself that they weren't really superior. That she was strong. Whenever her mind wandered in that direction, all three druids would turn to her, with their too perfect faces, and she sensed that she was tolerated, but only as long as she was useful.
They hated her the same way that they hated the orcs. Dispassionately, with no anger. She disgusted them. Ursula knew without a shadow of a doubt that they would kill her and dispose of the body if they thought that they could get away with it. The only good news was that her bags were rapidly filling with soul shards; she got a pop of dopamine every time one of them was made, but the fact that it happened so quickly made her feel unfulfilled. She could leave these psychos out in the field and go back to her own home soon, and then it would be Bismark's problem. Hopefully he'd give her something else to do, in better company.
••••••••••
Auffrey hadn't seen "defenses" from the company at work before yesterday, but they were quite remarkable. Ironforge was an oppressively hot city; apparently the dwarves didn't think anything of it, but building one's entire city around a cauldron full of molten rock seemed like a very strange choice to her. Of course Dun Morough is quite frigid, nearly perpetually buried in snow, but that would make Ironforge worse, if anything. She'd needed to strip off multiple layers of clothing when walking around the city yesterday.
They'd ended up spending several hours in a relatively seedy part of town, known as the Forlorn Cavern by locals, just because it had an underground lake. The whole cavern was shrouded in light fog, and it was pleasantly cool compared to the rest, if humid. Auffrey had no idea why this area was so dilapidated; if she had to live in Ironforge she'd purchase one of the houses here and start cleaning up the neighborhood herself! The cool darkness was very welcome.
Prudence was apparently quite confident in her ability to ward off any potential assailants, and Auffrey's own concerns primarily revolved around whether fireballs were an acceptable tool for self defense, so they'd agreed to spend the afternoon here. For the sake of their own hydration if nothing else; Auffrey was not very good at conjuring water.
They'd found a charming little dock where fishermen congregated, which the guards had told them was relatively reputable. They'd ended up chatting with a gnomish woman named Tansy Puddlefizz who helped run a fishing shop, and they'd purchased some fishing gear for a Necklace. As they'd hoped, the little pink haired woman had put it around her neck for safekeeping. To their mild shock, the easygoing gnome was very open to the necklace; it would take only a bit more than three days for her to be captured. They'd spent an hour fishing in the underground lake, figuring they could toss anything they caught in the inventory to be prepared elsewhere.
Then, all of a sudden, at around dinner time yesterday, the heat had evaporated. It had been hard to notice in the cavern, but when they'd walked back to their inn for the night, it had felt almost nice. The slight dampness of their clothes dried rapidly; it was still oppressively hot, but the heat never touched them.
Today, when they'd left by the front gate to go to Kharanos, they'd been warned to bundle up by a guard. Prudence had explained that they weren't necessarily going to be gone long, and they had amulets which protected against the cold. When they'd walked out into the sunlight, it was a bit chilly. But no worse than a late autumn day in Westfall. The wind blew, but it didn't cut through them like a knife. Their journey was really quite pleasant; neither girl had seen snow very often in Elwynn.
They had their orders; they summoned Dremuus, the foreign hunter, along the trail, and they made their way to the small town as he traveled out east. Neither girl was entirely clear about what they were doing here, especially since they didn't have a necklace to hand out. In the end, Prudence defied her name and managed to get Lady Elerian very, very drunk on Thunderbrew.
••••••••••
Tessa was not entirely sure why she'd been selected for this mission. She'd never been to Southshore before. She'd only rarely left Elwynn Forest until a few weeks ago. She had been a soldier during the third war, but she'd been garrisoned in Lakeshire then. Finding a princess in a foreign town was quite far outside of her skillset, but she'd do what she could.
She assumed that if the woman hadn't announced herself, she likely didn't want to be found. Southshore was part of Lorderon, one of the few remaining settlements that hadn't been overtaken by one form of undead or another. If Calia Menethil declared herself, she'd likely be recognized as the rightful heir to the throne, right? It was a throne which would realistically preside over Southshore and its immediate surroundings, but a throne nonetheless.
Tessa started by asking for a woman named Calia, providing a general description of her. Erich had shared a picture of the woman in the notes tab, apparently taken from the mysterious "Company" that he drew his power from. She claimed that she was sent by the woman's family, and wanted to know if she was ok. To her surprise, the copper novel tactic had worked. She'd been directed to the home of Calia Landon, who was married to one of the men in the garrison here. She had a daughter and everything. She looked about right, though the Calia in the picture was clearly undead. It had gone so well, so quickly, that Tessa wasn't really sure what to do right now. She hadn't been issued a necklace, Tony had already left, and she was supposed to serve as a relay point for quite a few elves. Tessa put in a request for an amulet and went back to the inn.
She'd come back tomorrow while the husband is away, unless Erich wanted to handle it himself. He was injured, but that didn't necessarily mean he couldn't talk. There was quite a gap between talking to a mother and fighting.
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