章 151: Charm R&D
5/23 late morning
Getting into the prison was harder than walking down the street, obviously, but Valeera was more than capable of it. The Skitterer was even better at not being seen, so there was no trouble tracking the whole way to the cell block. The prison had several poor bastards in it, and was overseen by a human woman, to my mild surprise.
I figured that she might be my ticket in, so I told the Skitterer to keep an eye on her. Not capture, just watch. A shame I couldn't teleport to the Skitterer, but it wasn't sufficiently independent to count as a member of the retinue. Valeera was going to scout the area and try to figure out where her friends would arrive from, mostly to keep her busy and make her feel important; I had Keryn at Thorium Point and Darcell at Morgan's Vigil, the two most likely avenues for approach. I should be warned ahead of time when Lo'Gosh's team is coming. I decided to wait until Valeera finished scouting and crashed back at Kam's place before I would go and grab Windsor.
Dremuus, Norin, Nadira, and a few trolls Melisara had picked up in the Hinterlands had set up a small concealed campsite on the side of the mountain overlooking the Wailing Caverns. So far they hadn't gone deep into the caves, just mapping out the first few tunnels; they haven't run into the Druids of the Fang yet, but have found one tunnel guarded by mechanical traps, mostly rigged to explode. It wasn't hard to figure out where the deranged goblin was hiding out.
I brought Dremuus along to guard me in case this test went as well as the last one; he was both a competent sneak and a badass. We got past the centaur guarding the oasis easily enough; they didn't really care if people could get in and out of the death cave, as they avoided it themselves. Said death cave was a little harder to navigate, but between us we could pretty reliably kill the twisted wildlife inside without raising a fuss or drawing attention, at least in the more sparsely populated upper reaches. I noted that Dremuus seemed taller, and his face was getting a bit more human-like. So corruption defense was undoing his broken status too? Neat. I'm sure his wife will be thrilled.
Mad Magglish, my mission target, was hiding out because he stole… eh, something valuable I assume. He was a quest target, a mini boss to be killed and moved on from. I was hoping that I could get him on my side with a Charming Curse, at least enough to open negotiations. When Dremuus got us past the dangerous passageway, we entered a small cavern set up for a small man to sleep in, and that's exactly what he was doing. Jackpot. I took a deep breath, and woke him up with Charm.
I just about passed out. Soul talent hasn't lied to me yet, so I'm inclined to believe it's analysis that the curse form of the spell would drain as much mana as it needed or as much mana as I could burn without seriously harming myself. If I wanted to charm a drunk flirt at the bar into sleeping with me, it probably won't cost much. If I wanted to charm a mentally compromised but paranoid hermit who normally attacks intruders on sight into teaming up and guiding my squad around the cave system? It cost a lot, apparently. I didn't actually pass out though, so I think it worked?
As I pawed at my belt for a mana potion to make the world stop spinning, I heard a scratchy voice. "Hey, hey buddy? You ok over there? That guy bothering you?" An edge of aggression entered his voice as he noticed Dremuus.
"No! This is my friend, Dremuus. We were hoping you could help us."
He kept an eye on Dremuus; the charm made him like me and put me on a pedestal, but he didn't necessarily trust my allies. He wasn't captured, not yet. He trusted me enough to put on one of the "communications necklaces" my team used, so that was easy enough to rectify. You see, the activation code was "I love you, Erich Bismark." Said four or five times, until it properly attunes.
He knew where the Druids were, and he knew the layout of the tunnels. In a 30 minute meeting, we had a fairly good map sketched out of the upper levels of the cave system. He labeled several dangerous areas like monster nests and unstable tunnels, including the way to the cavern system that the Druids of the Fang operated in. It wasn't hard to notice that the plants and wildlife became progressively denser and more dangerous as one got closer to the Druids; he only went that deep into the caves to gather fresh water from the underground river, and only on days where he couldn't get to the oasis past the centaur.
I checked my app, confirmed that drawing a map wasn't dangerous enough to count for mission completion, and tried something else. "Alright. So could you lead us down to the waterfall? I figure that's the path you know best, and it'll help us get in more safely. Deal?"
He grumbled a bit, but accepted the deal. He was captured after all; he didn't have to like it, but he would do it. I relied on normal stealth instead of my Stealth/fade combo, which was a bit less effective but let me recover my mana more quickly; that was definitely more important if we found ourselves face to face with a druid. Dremuus and I needed to kill a few snakes on the way in anyway. I wasn't very adept at moving through water quietly. Thankfully the snakes tended to go for me first, and I was both armored and immune to poison. The armor didn't clink as much as you might think, by the way.
Once we were in, we took stock of the cavern, confirmed minor mission success, and got the hell out of there. I still had an hour or two left before I was ready for heavy casting, so instead I summoned Lividia and did a bit of book keeping. I'd finished a minor mission in a new zone; that meant a bit of company swag, a new regional mission, and a new minor mission.
The pickup line was a tiny piece of paper. It didn't have anything on it when I looked at it, but I guess that just meant it would only develop writing when I was ready to use it. I experimentally thought of Aelthalyste, wondering if a bit of soft compulsion towards finding me attractive would make the banshee priestess more or less amenable to me. She could take it as a shadow priest's special form of flirting, or as a very serious attack. Assuming she noticed the effect was unnatural at all, of course. The writing appeared, as I speculated, "give me a chance and I'll make you scream my name." I blinked. By the Light, that's the worst pickup line I've ever heard. I trusted The Company that it would work, but I cringed inwardly to imagine saying that to the austere banshee.
Moving right along, I'd set my missions to track Imriss, who was in the Badlands north of Blackrock Mountain, on his way to reunite Sha'ni Proudtusk with her grieving husband.
Bounty hunting tools
Hinder Lexlort of the Kargath expeditionary force by stealing the thorium chains and shackles he brought for capturing prisoners.
Reward: Muscle Memory Disguise
Muscle Memory Disguise: amulet based disguises also include a muscle memory package, adjusting the user's posture and movements to be flawlessly in line with their assumed identity. This is overridden by conscious effort or when acting out of character.
The reward was fine but didn't really excite me. The shackles would be a nice bonus, at least. Stealing something didn't seem like it would be too hard for one of my better thieves, or I'd probably have rerolled the mission. Darcell could probably handle it; I'd send Paige to relieve her at her post once Imriss arrived. As far as the regional mission, let's see what we've got.
Northern Barrens: defeat Lord Serpentis
Rewards: additional stock, creature defense
More amulets and a ten credit defense for something I was probably going to do anyway? Oh Company; you shouldn't have. I finally didn't always feel like I was working at a deficit with my jewelry, but if I ever say that I don't need any more necklaces you should be aware that I have been replaced with an impostor. Creature defense was nice for its own sake, but ever since I realized how rebates worked, defenses have translated to "box of credits that has its own benefits as well." Incidentally, of course I'll be getting creature defenseimmediately after exploring a network of caverns primarily occupied by territorial animalistic creatures.
Sadie was still out on patrol, so I just called in my warlocks. I was planning on swapping out most of my training tomorrow for a hero class, so I was actually going to be training them instead so that I wouldn't lose Charm. First though, I needed to learn more about Kathra'Natir.
••••••••••
I sat through a presentation on what they found. It wasn't very complete, but they were able to piece together that he was a powerful demon that had been around on Azeroth for a very long time. From their description, he sounded like a Dreadlord to me. Top brass in the Burning Legion, they had a distinct vampire aesthetic and a manipulative charisma to match. A single Dreadlord was responsible for the corruption of the Scarlet Crusade into a bunch of barking mad fanatics, for example.
They also knew why he was inside of Valeera: the curse of Kathra'Natir, essentially an expedited ritual to summon him using the target as a host, was sometimes used as a costly but fairly reliable combat spell by unethical warlocks. When cast, the spell would typically allow Kathra'Natir to possess the target rapidly, disable them temporarily as they fought him off spiritually, or kill them over the course of a few agonizing days of struggle. He apparently made a point of providing token assistance to those who gifted him a host in this way, and hardly ever betrayed them unless provoked. For someone who didn't care about giving a powerful agent of the Burning Legion a host on Azeroth to do with as he pleased, it was a great deal. It wasn't common for a host to survive long, but the particularly strong could last months or even years with or without being possessed. All Valeera needed to do was last another week and I could separate the two. I rather liked the idea of having a Dreadlord on my payroll.
Ursula was able to get the charm spell down after a couple hours of practice, including writing out a rudimentary grimoire for it. Succubi could do something very similar, so she was familiar with the concept. When I brought in Talaada, she practically frothed at the mouth at the possibilities, but had a lot of trouble internalizing it. She'd get it eventually, I was sure. Drusilla, sadly, would probably never be able to cast it, except perhaps as a shadow word. She just didn't have the mana capacity to use it in any kind of an effective manner. I, on the other hand, had enough mana to get back into the fray. I needed to get Windsor.
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