5/5 morning
In retrospect, going all night long with a woman the night before a day where you're planning on doing something risky and dangerous, such as laying to rest a powerful undead warrior, might not have been my smartest plan. Once Abby snapped, I'd been a bit surprised at how incredibly voracious she'd been. She hadn't wanted to even slow down, let alone stop, for hours.
When I finally insisted that we call it a night, she gave me a devilish little smirk. "Alright. I'll let you have a rest." I smirked back and thought that I'd definitely need to get her some proper clothes tailored as she threw on one of her old robes, now far too big on her and not even slightly flattering.
I pulled up my necklace, intending to teleport back to the inn. Instead, I discovered a popup for a new addition to my retinue. Under the retinue tab, I found a surprise. Someone named Lillibeth Dodds was captured. Not in the process of capture, just captured. She had the undead tag and a permanent status effect of "ghost". It took me several minutes of pondering to realize what happened.
That ghost who had been watching me since I'd gotten to Raven Hill must have gotten herself captured. I hadn't put a necklace on her yet, but there's one other way I know of that I can capture someone. A love confession from the girl in question. It can be encouraged or manipulated with magic, but it has to be honest. Last night I'd gotten a confession, dozens actually, from only one person; Abby. Who, in retrospect, had obviously been possessed. She'd gone from resistance and denial to absolutely caving in the blink of an eye.
The fact that it counted meant that, at least in the moment, Lillibeth had believed what she was saying. Nice. I might need to try this out, this might be a faster way to capture people. I had largely dismissed it as an inefficient method compared to necklaces, but getting emotionally vulnerable people to fall in love with you is hardly impossible. People in my old world did it all the time with nothing but a basic grasp of psychology and persistence. I wasn't planning on trying it without magic to back me up, just for the sake of the time investment, but it was definitely on the table.
I spoke into the air again. "Not bad at all. You've definitely earned this." I pulled out today's necklace, a copper chain with a small emerald, and started weaving ghost hair thread through the chain. It took around half an hour to get one length of thread through the chain, which would hopefully be enough. About two thirds of the spool was still there, and Abby could take it to continue her work on Stitches.
"Hopefully this works." I held up the amulet with the chain held as open and round as I could, and after a few moments, the chain shifted on its own slightly as a phantom head seemed to pop right through it. I let go, and the necklace settled onto invisible shoulders.
I couldn't make her into a different type of ghost, nor could I restore her lost abilities of speech and touch, but I could make her visible at least. It wasn't pretty, but I could do it. Lillibeth, as she currently existed, was a hollow, vaguelyhumanoid figure made of luminous rags and shadows. Her inability to speak made a lot more sense given that she didn't have a mouth, on account of her not really having a head. I wasn't sure why body talent wasn't fixing her up, but the best explanation I could give was that she didn't really have a body for the necklace to affect. Maybe I needed Soul Defense? That would cover damage to the spirit, right?
I shook my head, and decided to get back to business. I held my necklace in one hand. "You too." She mimed my action. "Ask for your profile. Transformation and disguises. I give you permission to do whatever you like with them. Feel free to experiment. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. We can work out more details later, eh?" She was busy spinning and holding up her necklace; seeming extremely excited to have something she could touch, and a person looking right at her as he spoke. "Also. If you ask for notes, you can write there and I can read it. Deal?"
She oriented herself towards me, holding onto her amulet, and in the Discord channel, the word "deal" appeared. "Oh. Include your name with these messages. I feel like this will become confusing if we don't start doing that." *Lillibeth I understand.*
When I pulled out my amulet, my mind wandered for a moment and I realized something; Abby was in the second to last tier of entrancement. At this point, her memories were entirely open for editing. I didn't really need to get her up to full mind break; she was well and truly mine already. There was only one thing left to do really.
"Abby. Look at this." She did, and her new face was much more satisfying to watch go slack than the old one. "You are Abby. A woman."
"I am Abby. I am a woman now."
"You've always been a woman, a beautiful blonde woman. One with very little interest in men."
"I'm a lesbian?"
"Until you met me, you certainly thought so; that's why it took so long for you to accept and enjoy yourself last night. Eliza was your lover, partner, and dearest friend, but not your wife. Neither of you have any need to be faithful to the other. You remember how much you loved her? You still do. Everything you did to save her, you still did. For Eliza, your best friend."
"Yes. I love Eliza. I'd do anything for her."
"And you would love to share her with me, once she's all better. Once she has been healed."
A lustful grin. "That would be wonderful."
"It would be. But that's why you need to keep away from her until the process is complete." I released Abby from the orb. Abercrombie was gone now, there was only Abby left. "Anyway. There's one more thing I'd like for you to do. I need you to tell me what this does." I pulled out the tiny spray bottle of liquid consent; now that she was firmly in the retinue, I felt comfortable letting her examine the strange potion that the company had given me.
She took it with interest, and started puttering around her shack. "Do you know what any of the ingredients are? Or what it's called? A starting point would help."
"Liquid consent, and I don't know how it's made."
"Ah, good to know it isn't anything nefarious sounding." She started running tests on a tiny sample, basically a single drop. I occupied myself by watching Lillibeth playing with sliders, and called Drusilla's necklace to let her know that I was fine, just spending the morning with Abby. "Call me back if Ladimore comes around."
"A very interesting potion you have here. Would it happen to be related to these miraculous necklaces? For some reason I can't imagine you making either yourself." I smirked, and she kept going. "It's essentially a psychoactive poison. When someone is affected by it, any suggestion or or request they hear will sound extremely appealing. It doesn't override their other drives, like morality, self preservation, or self interest. Only someone with absolutely no self control would destroy their source of income for fun, even if they agree that it sounds like it would be extremely cathartic."
"I'm pretty sure I can find a use for that. How does it work? I'm guessing you spray it on someone, from the bottle."
"In the eyes or mouth, or an open wound. All of this together could probably put someone in a suggestible state for about five minutes. Interestingly, the dosage seems like it would impact duration, rather than effectiveness. It will absorb into the skin, as well, but it would probably only last about thirty seconds in that case."
"Well, I'm sure we can find a use for that. Any chance you could reproduce it?" Abby gave me a flat look.
"Of course. I need only a few minutes examining the magical aura of a sample of a potion to instantly divine its recipe. Especially one which appears to have been brewed by the titans themselves with unknown ingredients. I have heard that the trolls have something similar, if you're really that interested, but it tends to cause severe brain damage as a side effect. This doesn't have that drawback."
"I'll just have to be careful how I use it then, won't I?"
The day was off to a good start. Up next, I used fade to mostly blind and deafen myself and then teleported to Tony.
••••••••••
The big brawler had a small tent to himself, it seemed. He was asleep when I arrived, so I went ahead and dropped fade to wake him up. He went groping for his staff for a moment, but then recognized me and sat up with a yawn. "Hey boss. Need something? I got that promotion, so I'm gonna need to get my ass in gear, but I can probably make some things happen if you want."
"Same as yesterday. I'm hoping you can take care of a minor mission every day." I pulled up the log and dismissed yesterday's task.
It ain't much, but it's honest
Assist Ginger McGrubbins in tending to the gardens around the Tower of Azora.
Reward: herb tracker upgrade added to map.
"Huh. That'll probably take a while. If you can't do it without getting in trouble, don't. The reward seems useful but not incredible. Having someone with a little authority around these parts might end up useful."
"Thanks boss, but I think I might be able to swing it. I'll tell you how it goes."
I shrugged. Worst thing he could do would be to lose his job; I was pretty sure I could find a use for a big guy with a stick. Send him on a road trip, maybe. If he wanted to try something, I'd let him. I was headed back to Darkshire. I needed to at least make my first attempt on Mor'Ladim today.
5/5 late morning
I got back to the inn and gave Drusilla and Lividia each a good morning kiss. I was ready for a light breakfast, so I put on my Abercrombie face and robe and headed down to the bar.
Watcher Ladimore, her hair brushed and tied back and her armor cleaned and maintained, was waiting. She looked much better when she wasn't exhausted and took a few moments to groom herself. More importantly, she looked resolute, which was good. I may have every intention of adding her to my harem, but first we had a hard task to carry out together.
"Miss Ladimore. I trust you are prepared to go?" She nodded and joined me at my table. We exchanged pleasantries, but she wanted to get down to business as much as I did. I ate quickly. "I hope you know the location of your father's grave. This will be much easier for you and my nephew if you do."
"Yes. I used to visit it before the undead grew too great in number. I should warn you, killing undead near that graveyard should be kept to a minimum. When more than one or two are destroyed, the rest will grow agitated and start seeking those responsible."
"Oh, don't you worry. I have a bit of experience with such things. I'm more dangerous than I look." I'm not sure what riled them up the night I picked up Jitters, but I wouldn't be shocked if Lividia had started executing undead to try to make the streets safer or something. "I've been living out there for quite a while."
"I apologize. I didn't mean to imply otherwise."
"It's alright. I'm too old for field work anyway. Don't hold anything back, there might be things I forgot about. If I didn't warn Otto of something, then maybe you could."
"There are a handful of different types of undead out there. Skeletons, who tend to be old soldiers or mages and retain some of their skill from life. The ghouls are bestial and fast. They are probably some of the most dangerous individually, while the skeletons are more dangerous in groups. The zombies tend to be relatively weak and passive, and only try to attack if you get fairly close." Given that they were being deliberately raised by one necromancer, my best guess was that the zombies were kept away from danger so they could mature into ghouls. "Finally, there are dangerous spirits that can mess with your head, plant thoughts or impulses in your mind. They aren't common, but we haven't got many ways to ward them off. Unless you can fight them, I'd suggest leaving at that point. If the situation looks bad, we get out. We only have one life to give."
"All good advice. I'm glad Otto will have someone like you backing him up." Also that bit about spirits sounded badass. I was suddenly very excited to see what Lillibeth would be capable of. "I'll be seeing off my companion, Tessa, first. She's going to Northshire. Once I do that, I'll gather you and send you to meet my nephew."
I headed outside to the north part of town. As I did, I whispered into my amulet to Darcell. "Are you two somewhere safe?"
"Not particularly. But I could get to one of our hideouts if you need it?" She sounded a bit haggard as she spoke.
"Don't worry. It's no trouble, I was just seeing if I could give Tessa a shortcut. Is the gnoll situation going well?"
"Um. Yeah. I think so? Keryn seems confident and the gnolls started to fight each other." Neat. That sounds productive.
"Are you learning?"
"It's overwhelming, but amazing. There's so much to learn."
"You're doing good, I'll come pick you up when Keryn has finished her mission."
Having confirmed that Tessa was going to be walking, I turned to her with a smile. "It's been great. If you decide you want to join up with us, we'd be happy to have you. But go put some minds at rest for now."
I'd miss having her there as a bulwark, but having more than one non-retinue member along for a dangerous mission would make escape a lot harder, and I could call her back in a few days. In addition to that, I'm not joking about her needing to put in an appearance at Northshire. She'd blend in with the others I had Keryn and Darcell releasing into the wild with amnesia. I felt bad about the families of the ones who actually died. They weren't going to get much closure. Oh well, it was me or them.
I turned back for Darkshire, leaving Tessa to travel alone through the fog. I wasn't worried; she was kitted out with heavy armor and was an excellent fighter. She'd be fine.
"Abby. I'm going to be teleporting several people into your shack. One of them is a member of the Night Watch. Make sure anything alarming is out of sight, ok?"
"As you command, master. I'll clean up. Could you check on that zombie juice, by the way?"
"I'll get to it when I get to it. Oh. And tell Lilli to stay out of sight. I think the new blood would be shocked to see a spirit floating around."
••••••••••
I gathered Drusilla, Ladimore, and Lividia. We walked along the road out of town towards Raven Hill, but once we couldn't see town through the fog anymore I turned to the watcher.
"This may feel odd, but I promise it's necessary." I wrapped my arms around her waist, lifted her, and sent her to Abby's little shack. Once she was gone, I switched my face and clothes to Otto. "Right. You two get going to Abby's shack. I'll be joining you in a few." I gave them a minute or two so my timing wouldn't be too perfect, then sent myself to the gathering.
Abby was serving tea to the others, crowded around her tiny table. Lillibeth was nowhere to be seen, but I didn't know if that meant she was invisible or elsewhere. "Right everyone. This the new girl?" I dove right into the conversation the moment I landed in the room. "I hope you're ready, Ladimore. If we are real lucky we won't run into too much trouble, but I've got a bad feeling about this. The sun's up, the ghoulies are at their calmest. That means we should make our first trip out now."
Ladimore seemed faintly scandalized by my informality, but that was fine. It meant she'd be less likely to think "Abercrombie" was secretly the same person as Otto. "So you know our destination, right? Lead the way, we'll back you up. Today is scouting, unless we get lucky." Drusilla and I summoned our imps, and I cast power word fortitude on each of us, making us a bit healthier and resistant to harm while we were still in a safe place where I could drink and restore myself.
We headed out as a group, leaving Abby behind. Someone in our group using necromancy against the undead would be far too likely to raise suspicion, from both the enemy and Ladimore. If Abby instead stayed safely squirreled away in her shack, there was little to no chance of calling down a host of shambling corpses upon her head, not to mention the far worse possibility of resetting the timer on The Hermit. Plus, she'd serve as a waypoint to teleport to.
"Hey boss I think I managed-"
"Very impressive, but not now Tony."
The town was much more occupied than I remembered. It seemed like there was a skeleton on every street, not helped by the fact that fog obscured my view quite a lot. Luckily, both Lividia and Ladimore seemed to be able to see well enough. Lividia didn't need further explanation for me, but Ladimore seemed to be holding a bloodstained bone in her off hand, along with her currently unlit torch. One of Eva's charms? With that in mind I looked her up and down and she had several small tokens of bone or severed claws. Any advantage you can get, I guess.
It was a tense, quiet trip. Sound carried well through the fog, and we didn't want to draw the wrong kind of attention; I suppose that's why the night watch doesn't wear heavier armor. To my surprise we never actually entered the cemetery itself. Instead we drifted along the outer fence, avoiding conflict as well as we could. Checking my map at one point, I confirmed that Lillibeth was shadowing us in the fog.
We arrived at a small plot of land with a handful of simple graves. "After the way he died, they put him in the criminals' plot. Not really part of the main graveyard, but they weren't going to just throw a paladin in the river." Ladimore was speaking quietly, but clearly. Unfortunately, the criminal's plot was still graveyard enough to have a handful of undead, a pack of six ghouls, lazing about it.
Lividia served as my eyes for this, "They are each sitting at different graves, my king. Just staring into the distance." I wasn't sure if they were sentries, or if a group of zombies had been raised and left to fester here at each of their own burial plots until needed.
"How long you reckon we have to work if we rush these lads down?" I asked Ladimore. We needed to at least check the grave, after all. If his spirit was hanging out here even as his body wandered about, we could have our chat and get the hell out.
"A few minutes. They'll start moving towards us immediately, but the nearest gate is a short jog away." I nodded.
"Alright, so we get in closer, Dru and I will take two of them out, and when they rush us you and Liv keep the rest off us." She seemed worried, but nodded. In particular she seemed very skeptical of Lividia's ability to fight. I didn't blame her, Lividia's visage made her look like a woman ready to go to a modestly fancy party, not a fight.
The plan went even better than expected. After one of the ghouls had its head blasted by a firecracker and another was rapidly incinerated, we heard the sound of scuffling in the distance. Only two ghouls came rushing at us out of the fog, and they were greeted with impish fireballs and warriors protected by shields of light. Ladimore held her sword out steadily and the ghoul practically impaled itself, after which she bashed its head with her suddenly blazing torch. Lividia pounced on the ghoul, meeting it in midair, and wrestled it to the ground with tremendous strength before bashing its head open against the ground. The skin on her hands and knuckles split, revealing the scales underneath. As she stood triumphant, however, the rips in her skin and dress fused shut and ordered themselves, leaving no signs of the struggle except for somewhat mussed hair. Even her fingernails looked manicured and lacquered.
We rushed towards the sound of fighting, and saw two ghouls tearing each other apart. Taking note of a relevant bit of information, I incinerated the one that wasn't wearing Lillibeth's necklace. The Lillibeth ghoul, covered with claw marks and burns, stood and gave a triumphant "ryeaaah!" with jaws that couldn't form human speech anymore. Then the necklace seemed to dissolve, and a tall, beautiful, and familiar woman appeared behind it as it started limping towards us. We made quick work of the newly aggressive ghoul.
Lillibeth had taken obvious cues from Abby. In fact, looking her up and down she had almost exactly the same look I'd given Abby this morning. There were only two differences, at all, that I could see. Her shiny, shoulder length hair was chestnut brown instead of blonde, and instead of a ratty old robe her hourglass figure was wrapped in a corseted dark grey dress that blended with the dark atmosphere, especially at the ends where it turned into mist itself. When she noticed me looking her over she beamed at me and gave a little twirl. I gave her a nod and a smile, but there was work to be done.
https://imgur.com/a/sYgJmpL
Ladimore made a beeline towards her fathers grave and knelt. She seemed to be praying, presenting the ring. "It's ok, we forgive you. We just want you to rest." A lot of that sort of thing. I checked my app and got my hopes up for amoment, but the new mission was just the new minor mission after Tony handled the gardening. Capturing someone, no less. I went back to the main menu and notes was lit up.
*Lillibeth He is not here. He is bound to this place, but only as a refuge.*
I looked over at my newest recruit. "Elaborate?"
*Lillibeth I can see the tether. He is somewhere within the graveyard. Perhaps if he were injured, he would need to return here for a time?*
I sighed. "Arright lads, let's pack up. Bad news is that this didn't do it. Good news is that Lilli found us a new lead. Worst news? The lead's behind a small legion of the dead."
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