章 268: Big Book of Plans
6/10 morning
Lividia is still pretty small as dragons go, so she only laid two eggs despite a rather active evening together. We placed them into a large furnace that appeared when I declared one of the guest rooms to be a hatchery; the Sweet Home upgrade had some perks. Ideal hatching conditions were hot enough that the average human would get badly burnt touching them, but it's best if the heat isn't from a magical source. The more magic the dragon is exposed to in the egg, the faster they hatch but the less developed their brain will be. Nefarian and Onyxia's clutch was kept in a naturally occurring sauna deep underground, for example. I honestly didn't know if that even applied when I had body tune up, but I was erring on the side of yes for the good of my children's development.
••••••••••
I didn't know where Nefarian was, unfortunately; he seemed to be laying low. In theory I could have Ironaya scouring the entire planet for him, but the way the disks worked didn't really make that an efficient method of tracking unless I had a starting point to work from. It would still be worth it if I could find a Titan Keeper with nothing better to do, but I'd already tried transforming other people into keepers. Aegwynn was pretty sure she could spoof a profile for someone, but there was a 2 week authentication process that required a Keeper's access codes. In other words, this would become much less of a pain in the ass in a few weeks, but that didn't solve my problems right now.
I had my spies keeping an eye out for Nefarian or his crystals, but Ironaya was needed elsewhere if we didn't have any leads. Capturing the Lich King would give me access to the single most overwhelmingly powerful military force on the planet, The Scourge. Some other groups may be in the running, such as C'Thun's forces in Ahn'Quiraj, but the Scourge's ability to produce and rapidly train powerful and tireless soldiers was incomparable to anyone except… Well, me.
I had a few options for rituals. A dedicated ritual space, an emotionally resonant archmage (Jaina) to lead the ritual, and his sister (Calia) being somehow involved netted me 4 resonance already. I could get up to 7 more by extending the ritual out to 24 hours and bringing in a hundred additional participants. Theoretically the number of people I could include was uncapped, but they all needed to be within the prepared ritual space for it to count. Ironaya's planned structure probably couldn't fit more than 400 unless they were packed in like sardines; I'd need 1000 to get past the next threshold.
Similarly, I could sacrifice additional materials for more resonance, but that only worked if they represented a substantial investment of time and effort on my part. At this point, the only thing that qualified there was my Pen of Written Ownership for one resonance. For the sake of completion, I could also sacrifice any of my arcane links permanently, but the helpful tooltips that popped up in my head informed me that this was serious. If I had Jaina freeze and tear out Calia's heart for an extra point of resonance, that would be it. No resurrection, not even from warranty plan. I still have somemorals; she had a family.
These were all based around Arthas of course; I didn't have any dirt on Ner'Zhul, the orc shaman that made up the other half of the gestalt entity known as the Lich King. As such, my soft budget was 7 if I had around 20 forsaken do a choreographed dance for 3 hours, and my hard budget was 12 for a 24 hour long ritual conducted by over a hundred people in which I destroyed my Pen. I looked over my options.
The cheap, easy, safe option was probably to capture the Lich King. 7 resonance, target just him, he only gets a few hours to react. The catalog implied that the "capture" ritual is the one that the target is most aware of, so if he could figure out where it was happening I'm sure that he'd try to stop me by any means he had. Of course, overrunning the Bulwark to get to the Undercity wasn't exactly trivial, or he would have already done it. No chance he could get to me in an hour, especially if I took even the most basic level of precautions.
The big all-in play would be to burn an entire day on this and capture not only the Lich King, but the entire Scourge. 5 extra resonance, a total of 12, would allow me to hijack the psychic network between him and his undead slaves in order to target the entire Scourge simultaneously. It would be one hell of a ritual, requiring immense coordination and protection. The full might of the Scourge would be laser focused on me for 24 hours, but if I pulled it off then I'd instantly multiply the size of my retinue by fifty, with quite a few heavy hitters included.
There were several intermediate steps possible, of course. Rendering all members of the Scourge permanently incapable of deliberately harming any member of the retinue would be the safest option for capturing the entire Scourge. It would be slow, and we'd need to work our way through the endless legions manually, but there would be no particular risk. Plus, even if Nefarian started poaching Scourge they still wouldn't be able to harm my retinue directly. Fun side benefit, that.
Making the entirety of the Scourge fall in love with me and let me know when they saw me was another option, but as many of the Forsaken members of my retinue will tell you, the compulsion to destroy the living can and will force you to kill what you love. It certainly would work faster than forbidding violence against my retinue, and it probably wouldn't trigger a massive reprisal, but it would still eat up days of my time to get love confessions from hundreds of thousands of beings. Honestly I'm mostly considering it as a desperate play to save my pen.
I left the options to sit for later; there was no hurry, as Ironaya was going to take a few days to finish the work space anyway. I'd need to start people on learning the ritual, of course. Coordinating hundreds of people is pretty damn difficult, but I suspected that the details would be radically different depending on which ritual I went with. I reoriented towards more general bookkeeping.
First up, I needed to pick a regional mission for Cairne. The options weren't overwhelmingly exciting, but they certainly weren't bad. I immediately dismissed the option that would give me a tauren focused building; tauren warriors were certainly good, but they sure as hell weren't so much better than a crypt lord, mountain giant, or bear druid that I was willing to spend a regional upgrade on them. Spirit walkers were useful utility casters, they even had a limited resurrection ability (tauren only), but they just weren't in the budget.
The upgrades that made Cairne personally stronger in combat were also not too hard to dismiss. Giving him the powers of ETC from Heroes of the Storm would make him better at tanking, but I'm actively trying to move away from having big names solve all my problems. The only reason I considered it at all was the thought of having him train an elite group of glam rock Dommes to power slide into the enemy front line. It made me smile, but I didn't need it. Giving him the ability to stand up from death infinitely as long as he wasn't killed twice in 4 minutes was cool as hell, but he was just one guy; one guy I could already resurrect at an altar, no less.
The last two options were a little more quirky. Forever young would make my retinue more subtle by making everyone kinda ignore our immortality unless it would be useful to us. It would be nice for operational security for people to not be able to process the blatantly obvious signs that I'd subverted someone, but I already had procedures in place. Making someone look like their elderly self wasn't that hard, and it didn't actually weaken them much.
Revered Elder, on the other hand, upgraded love confessions. Not only would Cairne gain the ability to accept love confessions, taking some of the mental strain off of Talaada, all three of us would be able to accept "oaths of fealty or subservience" as substitution for love confessions. Conversion by the sword wasn't my preference, but it sure as hell wasn't any less evil an approach than what I was doing with Valeera. I took that one.
I also had quite a few missions finished from yesterday's blitz. My hunters had the brilliant idea of capturing and hogtying the yeti for later slaughter, but they had only managed to track down and collect half of their quota so far. Same with the nobles in Alterac; progress but not completion. On a more positive note, Nazgrel was retiring to start a family and raise wolves on a ranch. The murlocs were now the absolute lords of Darkshore by decree of the high priestess of Elune, but also friends to the night elves. Auffrey explained the benefits of trade to a bunch of kobolds. Theradras had hired a stone giant using normal bribery and promises of power and comfort. Aegwynn had worked out a method of portalling a few Draenei to Outland to spread the brotherhood's word to the Kurenai. Overall, a very productive day.
The haul was 3 Credits, a scroll of normalization, Brazzy's Gnomish Pleasure Device, a pocket watch tower, mission ticket, a corruption fruit, and a scrap of Nymphomantic lore. In other words, a scroll that lets me smooth over people's objections to big changes or outright retcon small changes, a taser that operates on pleasure instead of pain, an instant stone tower that I was probably going to sell for a credit, a fruit that makes people really open to compromising their morals, and a scroll that lets me make a powered up "sexy" version of a spell. Plus, new regional missions for Durotar, Darkshore, Azshara, and the Ghostlands.
Durotar: Defeat Zalazane
Rewards: Sympathetic Doll
Sympathetic Doll: if you have a sample of a target's body, such as blood or hair, you may permanently attune this doll to them. When so attuned, anything done to the doll will also be done to the target. Tier 5 or higher targets are resistant, eventually recovering from anything done to them through the doll as if they had an appropriate Resistance talent.
Ok, so we are counting the Echo Isles as part of Durotar? Good to know. Zalazane is a tricky bastard; he's incredibly good at avoiding death, requiring literal divine intervention to finally finish him off in canon. The witch doctor wasn't all that great at fighting, but he could Jedi mind trick invaders into thinking they had killed him, returning to the mainland with a coconut that they firmly believed to be his decapitated head. He had brainwashed the majority of the Darkspear Tribe of trolls into his obedient slaves with troll voodoo magic, and to be perfectly honest he'd be high on my list of people to sub in as if I needed to start over. Pain in the ass to capture or kill, unless mind defense let me completely ignore his first line of defense. The reward seemed useful, though I wasn't a fan of the diminishing returns on high value targets.
Darkshore: Defeat Aku'mai
Rewards: the world will shift such that male Naga are physically indistinguishable from female Naga, causing the entire species to consist of beautiful mermaids with the features of female elves.
Kill a big ugly hydra, introduce futa mermaids into the setting? Sure, why the fuck not. There was a fortress to storm, but I had an unstoppable warrior I wanted to break in anyway. If Broxigar could solo Blackfathom deeps, with or without buffs, he deserved a regional upgrade.
Azshara: Defeat Magus Rimtori
Rewards: Buttplug of the Devoted Lover
Buttplug of the Devoted Lover: this cursed buttplug removes the user's need to defecate and can not be removed except with the consent of the Beta Tester. When inserted, the victim will fall madly in love with the last person they have had romantic or sexual contact with. All of their own goals, desires, and wishes will be secondary to their devotion to this person.
Weird reward for taking down some random blood elf mage. I don't remember Rimtori, so I assume she's no one of particular significance. She's also a blood elf, of course, so might as well start Anveena's career of subduing blood elves in my name. I'm sure Rimtori would make a delightful sheep.
Ghostlands: Defeat Dark'Khan Drathir
Rewards: Demiplane or Dungeon upgrade
Of course I could also have Anveena go kill her own stalker, but honestly she's already reduced him to ash in the comics and it didn't take, so I don't think she's the right girl for the job. Some of you might wonder how a species with an infinite wellspring of magic could have been overrun by a horde of zombies, given how absurdly powerful arcane magic is. The answer is Dar'Khan Drathir, the betrayer of Silvermoon. While Arthas Menathil was still a mere death knight, Dar'Khan sabotaged some of the High Elves' nigh-impenetrable defenses in the hope that he would be granted immortality and power. Given how many times the fucker has died since then, he certainly got that immortality. Capturing him would probably be the way to go; if nothing else having a functionally immortal elf magister would be a good addition to the retinue.
The rewards would add extra functionality to my pocket plane; either making me and my retinue more powerful while there and allowing me to impose laws that apply to visitors, or allowing me to upgrade my bases with defenses and portals. With substantial investment of credits, I could basically become a god within my demiplane, or turn my dungeons into nigh-impenetrable fortresses with various useful functions like recruitment centers and minion spawning pools. Definitely worth looking into.
Finally, I had a few new regular missions. One minor, one moderate, one major. First up, let's look at the major one.
The Ultimate Betrayal
Convince the Loa Halazzi, Nalorakk, Jan'alai, and Akil'zon to lend their support to the blood elves of Silvermoon City. Bonus if you also establish a priesthood for the Loa among the elves, integrating the wild gods into elven society.
Rewards: 15 credits, Equivalent Exchange, all Loa will adopt appealing female humanoid visages to interact with mortals.
Bonus: Tsundere Service
Harsh. The name wasn't lying. The Amani and the High Elves have been enemies for millennia; having their patron gods switch sides like that would feel pretty bad, I imagine. The rewards were decent, though the visage thing was pretty much just fluff. It was great to know that Halazzi would be turning into a catgirl, but was it actually useful, or anything I couldn't have managed on my own? Not particularly. On a more positive note, the bonus would give me an intermediate goal to work towards while I conquered the blood elves. I'd probably need to capture all four gods and then set them up with small cults of captured blood elves. Maybe I'm a little too free with the capture of random strangers. Oh look, a moderate mission!
Arugal's Folly
Assist Dalar Dawnweaver in breaking the curse upon Pyrewood Village. Bonus if the curse is lifted before Arugal knows of your attempt.
Rewards: 1 credit, Khadgar's Pipe of Insight
Bonus: Worgen gain a psychological weakness, causing them to submit utterly to anyone that defeats them in combat.
Khadgar's Pipe of Insight: anyone who smells the smoke from this pipe gains a profound clarity of thought, causing them to regenerate mana at an accelerated rate.
I'll look into it but it seems like a pain in the ass. If I remember right, the curse of Pyrewood Village is that they are all worgen, but only at night. It's a bit of a big ask is all I'm saying. Dalar had better have a plan, because mass capturing worgen is a pain in the ass. I might even ticket it if I got a good minor mission.
Dalaran protector Rane Yorick
Arrange for Deathstalker Rane Yorick and Dalaran Protector Elmo Abjurus to enter into a relationship in which one is utterly subservient to the other. You may only capture one or the other or this mission will fail.
Rewards: temptress bell, mages and soldiers from Dalaran will employ a variant of the frost armor spell that fully replaces armor, but which looks like a semitransparent skintight bodysuit.
That is not much better. Ugh. Fuck it, I'll leave this for later; I'm gonna check in with the bronze dragons.
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