章 119: Campaign Promises
5/17 night
Talaada was nervous to go to her uncle. Noboru was never a kindly figure in her life. Father said he was bitter because the light abandoned him, but Talaada understood now that the light must have abandoned him because he'd lost faith. The light, in its purest form, was love. To lose everything, even your own face, must have been so hard. She didn't blame him for becoming bitter, but it was holding him and his followers back.
Lady Onyxia's lair was a grand cave, with a huge vaulted ceiling. There were many small side passages, filled with eggs and small whelps wrestling and playing. They were so cute, but Talaada and Mary were here for a specific cave, guarded by an imposing dragonlike creature with a hulking humanoid torso instead of a neck. The "dragonspawn" let her through, somehow recognizing her as someone who should be here.
The men and women who had assaulted their camp had been fed a potion to calm them. After all, they had already proven dangerously unstable. Talaada brought them all fish, cooked by her mother. It was a small gesture of forgiveness, for these lost souls. Talaada wouldn't give up on them. She'd keep offering love until they accepted what was best for them.
••••••••••
"I don't know, Nozara. The master is a busy man, and a mortal. Still sleeps through the night as often as not. I can't just send you to him without confirmation first. It would be unfathomably rude to do so, you understand?" Zelena was milking her newfound equality with Nozara to the best of her ability.
Nozara had come dressed to impress a man. Instead of her normal voluminous robe she wore a small black dress that left a substantial amount of her rich scarlet skin exposed. Obviously she knew she was attractive to mortal men, and intended to leverage that. Zelena felt that the Eredar might find that a bit harder than she was expecting; Erich had multiple other beautiful women at his disposal.
https://imgur.com/a/k0tDbQS
"I've sent the message, but if you barge in on him with his mistress, he will likely be quite displeased. How about you just leave a message with me, I'll get back to you when he is ready to speak."
Nozara had no real leverage here. She could make Zelena's life hell, or kill her with minimal repercussions from the Legion, but then she wouldn't be able to contact Erich Bismark. Further, some part of her sensed that he wouldn't like his women fighting. That same inner voice dreaded the idea of displeasing him. Not because of the ensuing punishment, but because she knew she'd deserve to be punished. She tried not to think too hard about the fact that the only other being she'd ever felt this way about was the dark Titan himself. She very pointedly did not think about the fact that only rational fear of consequences bound her to the Burning Legion now.
••••••••••
Dremuus carefully pulled the stiff corpse down off of Bighorn's flank. It wasn't ideal, but he could at least leave the soldier somewhere his comrades would patrol. He'd be retrieved, and whatever rituals dwarves used to see to their dead could be observed. Closure could be found. Mourning could begin. It was all Dremuus could do.
He patted Bighorn on the flank and willed himself back to the camp; he wanted to see his wife and daughter. He would be able to summon Bighorn through their bond now, and Dremuus genuinely doubted that the squat talbuk would enjoy life in the swamp over life in his natural environment.
••••••••••
I'd been thinking I might go out again today and catch that ogre, but honestly I just didn't feel up to it. The nonstandard reward was good but it might make things a bit messy once I got myself an army. The item on offer was useful looking, but wasn't that exceptional. I could already disguise myself pretty well, just not instantly. I'm pretty sure that last bit was just rationalizing the decision to keep cuddling with a devoted dragon girl, but in the moment I really convinced myself.
Instead I got to planning. I only had ten days left to kill three big dragons. Assuming I don't get my shit kicked in again, that should be more than enough time. The Insignia of the Alliance was working on Ysondre somewhat, knocking off several hours a day from her ETE. I wasn't really sure if I could do better than Talaada at drawing her into the fold, but I did have Alluring Whisper now. Maybe I could become a bard and seduce the dragon with my enchanting voice? Personally liking or being attracted to me seems to be a weakness that the jewels can exploit. I marked it down.
Priority was absolutely getting these dragons knocked out. That meant that any time I wasn't training, I should be working towards the dragons. I would let my retinue handle anything outside of my focus; I really needed to get someone appropriate to Light's Hope Chapel and make an alliance, or maybe just start capturing their enchanters. For now I had Sadie hiding her amulet under her chainmail, but it was a bit of a time bomb if the wrong person saw it.
I started writing down my objectives and trying to sort them loosely by urgency and value. If something was both urgent and would have a high payoff, I labeled it high priority. I'd start in on those now if at all possible.
High priority
Capturing Ysondre- alluring whisper?
Taerar in Feralas - defeat with Feathermoon support
Emeriss in Hinterlands- High elf support, Wildhammer mercenaries?
Lethon in Ashenvale- amass forces for coordinated strike with 4 big dragons and remaining disposable troops (zombies, demons, and harvest golems). Go heavy on healers among dragon riders. Ground troops?
Protect Thaurrisan- dispatch a potential bodyguard to Blackrock mountain to infiltrate and offer protection. Monitor likely staging areas for assaults to disrupt or infiltrate.
Medium priority- time sensitive
Figure out where Lo'Gosh is. Capture or eliminate him.
Secure Light's Hope Chapel- capture or neutralize any/all enchanters, send Ambassador? Go myself?
Personal improvement
Train as a priest
Train as a warrior
Summon/bind more demons: voidwalker? Nozara?
Major long term goals
Take over Cenarian Circle- capture all 4 dragons; does that count for Reward for Service? Find/capture Archdruids: Naralex, Hamuul Runetotem, Malfurion Stormrage, Fandral Staghelm, others if available
Take over Scarlet Crusade- monastery first, especially Whitemane. Regional missio? Remove Dreadlord puppet master via any means necessary
Take over Scholomance: too many powerful mages; no necklaces. Jewels of Discord? Abby?
Capture Ysera: hopefully one of the big 4 knows where she is and can get close
Nefarian: manage him until he can be crushed or subverted. Jewels of Discord?
Low priority:
Securing the kingdom of Stormwind: Loose grip on most of it. Could be firmer.
Amass money: currently financially stable through Ursula and Dena, but not particularly affluent. Goblins?
Travel network: necklace in every zone allows for 24 hour or less travel anywhere in the world.
Demon Pokemon: capture a diverse collection of demons to get rebates and a growing army of respawning minions.
Mission farming: allocate extra resources towards doing missions, especially relatively easy ones. Anything big can be put off to the side for after dragons.
••••••••••
Well when you put it that way, it doesn't seem too bad. Of course, starting tomorrow I have about three days per dragon, with one or two extra days for wiggle room, depending on if I need to take them down by the start or end of the 28th. I've already decided to take on Lethon in Ashenvale last, so that means I'll be gunning for either Taerar or Emeriss on the 21st, as quickly as possible once Ysondre is in the party, depending on how receptive Shandris is. I'll either kill and resurrect them or get them into the team with the Globster, switch tracks to the other one. Once I have the Nightmare Skitterer from 3 victories, that will be my trump card for dragon number 4, which I should hopefully be able to grab very quickly.
After that, I'll be able to breathe and get back to business as usual, but with about half of the highest tier members of the green dragonflight working for me. I can probably cash in Reward for Service with the Cenarian Circle, either for the dragons or after saving Archdruid Naralex, who is currently trapped in the nightmare but relatively lightly guarded. He's just in a cave full of low level crazy druids and mutant animals; practically quaint. I'll even have a druid template I can put on myself or someone else.
First though, I have to get a whole lot of elves lined up and ready to shoot my enemies, and strengthen myself to the point where I'm relatively safe in a mass combat. I really did not want to do this whole recovery process again anytime soon, so having Varian teach me how to parry literally everything with a sword is extremely high on my to do list.
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