บท 134: Miscellaneous Evening
5/20 late afternoon
I brought up the list of enchanters at Light's Hope Chapel, and it was both long and distressingly impressive.
"So you're telling me that there are sevenenchanters, and one of them is an Archmage?"
"Yes. It's apparently very common among the higher ranked members of the Brotherhood of the Light and the Scarlet Crusade to learn how to craft armor, at least for yourself. Some of them are very specialized; I was especially confused to find out that Rohan knew how to make armor out of necrotically charged bones."
"Who is Rohan, exactly?"
"He's a fantastic dancer and a master assassin for the Scarlet Crusade. He actually commutes to and from the chapel somehow."
"Commutes? Through the plaguelands?"
"Somehow he is able to get to a place called Gadgetzan to attend a discotheque most nights, assuming he doesn't have a mission."
"Gadgetzan? The city on the southern tip of Kalimdor?" The Plaguelands were on the northern tip of the Eastern Continent.
"Is that where it is?"
"Ok. We are going to stick a pin in that one. So… Mataeus the Wrathcaster?"
"Horrid man. I don't know why even the Scarlet Crusaders tolerate him. He uses fel magic, and I think he might only be here for the opportunity to destroy things without punishment. But he is very powerful.
"Ok. Scary guy…"
"All are of roughly the same caliber, save Wilhelm. He's probably the most widely skilled at crafting and repairing magical items, but that is all he does. The rest have various other duties and a more specialized understanding of how to make their own equipment."
"So, what? Half the top brass at this place are all enchanters?"
"More like a third, and all of them affiliated with the Crusade are only there sometimes. To negotiate and coordinate."
We went over the rest of the list and I quickly realized something: this was not going to be easy. Hell, it might not even be possible. Unless I could simultaneously collar eight fairly high ranking members of the Argent Dawn and Scarlet Crusade at the same time (yeah right), I'd need to use alternative methods or catch them outside of the chapel. At which point I'd probably have to kidnap them, or get them distracted for a week, or something like that. Did I have the time to invest in this?
I let Sadie go back with a letter and a bag of dry beans one of the girls had picked up at some point. I was just promising them support if they needed it; I had other things to do, but if the chapel was assaulted, I'd be happy to send in Ysondre. Or Noboru; that might go over well.
••••••••••
I had one more prize from capturing Emeriss that needed assessment: the mushrooms. When I checked my inventory closet I found a small tray full of dirt holding a single white mushroom with a cap the size of my fist. I went over the description in my inventory.
Bed of Fading Dream Mushrooms: Generates one Fading Dream mushroom per day, which rots and becomes useless after 24 hours. Any being who eats a Fading Dream mushroom will be instantly captured, however they will also undergo near total amnesia. They will forget their name and past, as well as any and all skills and learned powers which would elevate them above tier 1. Nothing prevents them from relearning those skills, but the initial knowledge and capabilities are irrevocably lost. Abilities which are instinctive or innate to the target's species are unaffected.
So, instant capture of literally anyone is great. I will not knock that. The part where they are reset to factory settings is just a bit more questionable. It would be a massive waste to capture anyone who brought anything to the table with this, not to mention kinda evil. So basically I needed to think of this mushroom as equivalent to killing, morally speaking. It's a deadly poison that will leave behind a blank slate.
The fact that it's a pretty big mushroom isn't ideal either. I can't exactly slip this into someone's drink. So basically only for prisoners or people under the effects of mind control, barring elaborate mushroom based culinary substitutions.
So in summary: these mushrooms will allow me to, once per day, kill someone that I can force or convince to eat a large white mushroom, and as a result get a captured person with minimal skill in any given field. Yeah. I can probably use this.
I had about seven prisoners in my closet right now; I could probably get together with Sadie or Talaada and capture all of them with mind control, but I could also just force feed them mushrooms. Lucky for them, I had something more pressing to use these on.
The worgen were pretty ideal. They were already pretty close to being completely lost. "You could have saved them" is a lot easier on the conscience than "you destroyed them," especially when the person you didn't save is living a happy and productive life under a new name. Unfortunately, Imriss was only about halfway across Duskwood; I had an hour to kill before I'd have access to captured worgen.
I talked it over and ended up sending Faith to work with the Rampant Lions, where she could hang out with at lease a small number of Defias mages and not have to see Vanessa in her new state just yet. That conversation ate up maybe ten minutes. Mind vision practice it is!
••••••••••
I checked up on Nadira first. According to my map she was near the Crossroads, a large Horde town, moving Northwest. Hoping that it would work, I'd firmly grasped my amulet before starting a mind vision spell. When I tried to speak through it, no dice. I looked through her eyes and saw that she was jogging and occasionally consulting a map; a real map, on parchment. I briefly considered using mind control to make her speak and try to communicate with her that way, then realized that would be both exhausting and stupid and ended mind vision.
"This is Erich Bismark. Report your situation." I heard her continuing to jog as she answered through the amulet.
"Yes, Warchief. I've been given a list of places that match your description. I'm headed to one now. The bull man-"
"Tauren."
"Yeah. That. They offered us silver if we brought back water and plant samples from all the oases." That sounded familiar. I think that's the quest chain that leads you to the caverns in the first place.
"Well, gather them while you're there. If there's someone else looking into this place, I want to work with them. In fact, let them know that you're working for the green dragon Erius." If it gets back to the Cenarian Circle somehow, which is very possible if a Tauren surveyor is involved, I want them to be able to connect the dots. Erich can be the guy building up Stormwind, Erius will be the young green dragon single handedly coordinating a war against the nightmare in Kalimdor. In fact, maybe I needed to talk to this guy? If he has any pull I might be able to get a bit of support, or at least legitimacy, from the Horde in Ashenvale.
I checked Imriss's progress and decided he was close enough. I took my dragon form and appeared in midair next to him, waving him off to keep going. We were flying over the woods to the north of the Night Watch camp, and I had a plan. I'd been mulling over how to make use of Emeriss, you see. I think I came up with a good option.
I pulled the corrupted dragon out of my inventory, and for good measure summoned the three druid spirits. I had a very bad man who needed killing, and he had an army of undead. I also had a group of four complete fucking psychopaths that were at least partially compromised by a force that probably hates me and at the very minimum has noticed my existence by now.
Remembering how they thought of me, I decided to go evil overlord on this one. "Kneel" the women, one grotesque and three uncannily beautiful, fell to their knees immediately. "There is a male necromancer to the west of us. He has occupied a building in a graveyard." I showed them the headshot of Morbent fel, each in turn, though only Harnea had an amulet. Each got a set, steely glare in their eyes.
"I want you to largely ignore anyone alive except that man. Tell anyone else to leave, beyond that do not harm them, or corrupt them, or capture them, or otherwise interact with them unless they attempt to harm you. Have I made myself clear?"
"Yes master. It shall be as you say."
"Good. Also, don't get yourselves killed, don't get yourselves too injured, and do not corrupt the ecosystem further. I don't want to come back to a field of poison mushrooms and evil thorns and whatnot."
"We obey."
I took off. I didn't think that having a high level druid or another greater dragon getting a regional upgrade would be a bad thing, Nightmare shenanigans or not. More importantly, I could hopefully strike Morbent Fel off of the to-do list. I'd need to wait and see how it went, but I sincerely doubted that he'd be much trouble for this team. In an extreme worst case scenario he might seize control of one of the Druids, but even that would be temporary with mind defense.
••••••••••
By the time I arrived at Raven Hill, the undead hadn't started acting up yet. I was glad of that, it meant I could sneak into the shack where Eliza and Abby, in her gnoll body, had already set up shop. I warned the ladies, who were in the process of preparing a few dragonspawn corpses for reanimation, that Morbent Fel was about to be attacked. It seemed unlikely that his initial response to a random dragon attack would be "better lash out at my dangerous neighbor," but better safe than sorry.
"Also, Abby. I want you to take on an apprentice. I want to see if possessing someone can be used as a training aid and this is a pretty ideal time to find out."
The gnoll had a pained look. "Who is it?"
"Lillibeth. I'm hoping that she will have an affinity for it, because she was undead herself for a time. If not, no harm done except a week or two of headaches for you."
Her eyes softened a bit. "Fine, but I don't intend to go easy on her." We summoned our dear former ghost girl, and I left them to it. I had worgen to capture. I had the medallion of the Alliance ready to snap them out of rages. I had a mushroom that would wipe someone and capture them instantly. I had a mission asking me to gather them up.
I started with the girl I'd collared the day before, who according to her profile page was named Dasha. "Morning, Dasha. I'm sorry I startled you. Are you more ready to talk now?"
Alas, it was not to be. She was getting ready for capture, but for now getting her to swear her devotion was still the big sticking point. She was just too awkward; she still panicked and wolfed out. I needed to sooth her next time, I think. Or add an obedience that reduces negative emotion. I was wasting medallion charges this way, and I wanted this automated enough that I could get three or four worgen per day.
The male worgen in the left cage was a much more cut and dry capture. I mind controlled him and commanded him to eat the shroom. I had a bad headache after that, but it had taken around 30 seconds to capture him. He stood and looked at me, head cocked to the side, still seeming quite feral but submissive to my authority. I checked my app and the ticker did not consider him to be restored yet. So what the hell am I doing with him now?
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