5/15 just after midnight
I wasn't really sure exactly to what degree I'd be engaging with this, but I knew I was going to do something. At the absolute bare minimum, I knew one of the four was in a sheltered grove in the center of Duskwood. That was my turf, and I intended to protect it. On a less noble note, these dragons were powerhouses and I had a few methods of quick capture burning a hole in my pocket. The dragon-blood globster and the scroll of reanimation could both be fantastically useful in this situation; I would absolutely adore ending this event with two more elder dragons. The number of threats that couldn't be dealt with by a trio like that, especially with company defenses and whatever other forces I could support them with, starts to get quite small.
I was getting ahead of myself. I sent out a call for Onyxia, Vanessa, Abby, Talaada, and Irma to come to the apartment, and started stacking paper on the dining table. It wasn't much of a war room, but these were the closest things I had to generals.
I went over the map on my app, noting the locations of the four dream portals. They were helpfully noted, which was good. I had only vaguely remembered where most of them were. Ysondre in Duskwood, Emeriss in the Hinterlands, Taerar in Feralas, and Lethon in Ashenvale.
I brought in the girls and told them what I knew. There were four very powerful dragons, ones which Onyxia recognized by name and could confirm were serious threats, which I had been offered a substantial reward for defeating. I was operating on the assumption that each dragon would be supported by a small army of dragonspawn or something. I'd much rather be over prepared than underpowered when dealing with something like this.
According to Onyxia, Ysondre was a gifted healer. She was fairly magically oriented, had strong ties to the druids, being one herself, and lived among the elves in secret more often than not. If she's particularly good at magic and healing, I figured she would be as much of a back liner as any dragon ever was. Onyxia, with her added bulk from body tune up, thought that she could probably take her in single combat if she could get in close. So the question shifted to how to make sure that happened.
When Vanessa piped in and told me about an entire army of more than three hundred harvest golems she'd had in her back pocket, I kissed her. I didn't think they'd last all that long in a straight fight with a dragon, not if it had a functioning brain, but they might be able to overrun some dragonspawn. It was a shame to use them on this instead of Morbent Fel's zombie army, but he wasn't as time sensitive and would only become an easier mark as time passed. I didn't want to commit too heavily with people whose death would be both inevitable and upsetting, which meant the Lions were staying home and the Brotherhood of Love and Beauty would be mostly in a support role. Even the members of my retinue that were actually good enough in melee to put in a remotely good showing, like Tessa, Stitches, and Doris, would probably be better off kept far away from the army of only loosely controlled killbots.
I had five Nether Dragons, including Talaada and Melaar. They wouldn't be in any shape to do any trick flying, and had no experience whatsoever with fighting as dragons. They could each carry one ranged combatant, and collectively would serve as the kill squad for whatever allies Ysondre had that looked like they might get involved in the duel. Hopefully a fuckload of harvest golems would do an adequate job as a tarpit for any ground troops, but anything that slipped through the cracks would get piled on by everything we had available.
Of course the question was now "who to put on each dragon." In theory I could just have all of my spellcasters take wing themselves, but flying does have a bit of a learning curve to it and casting on the move is not easy. I was pretty sure I could manage it myself, I'd been flying around a good bit with Lividia, but Drusilla would definitely not be at her full capacity if I forced her to fly and cast at the same time. Someone like Annetta, who hasn't taken flight a single time yet, would be in an even worse state.
Abby was probably a shoe in. I haven't seen her in a fight many times, but the one time I did she disabled a fairly skilled assailant with contemptuous ease. Annetta may be included as a default, because more healers are always good. I'd consult with Drusilla, but if Ursula was substantially stronger than her she would probably make it onto the team by reason of raw power. Dremuus is a fantastic archer with centuries of experience in a paramilitary unit, so if we can get him a better bow he could probably put in a good showing, and Caledra would make the team too, for the exact same reason. If I was particularly lucky she might even have an extra bow… though they had very different builds. Would that be a problem?
Maybe there was some method for resizing a weapon I just didn't know about? Loot wasn't super common in this version of the world, but it was such an integral part of the fantasy of Azeroth that I'd actively complain about it if there wasn't some way. Filing that away for later. Planning time, Erich. planning.
This meeting was primarily for swiftly taking down Ysondre, but we also looked into sending people to help us position ourselves for the other three. The portal in the Hinterlands was conveniently pretty close to Quel'Danil Lodge, so Tony was already headed loosely in that direction. He wouldn't be there for several days, but that just meant we would probably handle that dragon last or second to last. The Feralas portal wasn't exactly close to Onyxia's lair, but it wasn't too bad. About two days travel by wing, mostly over relative wilderness. The Ashenvale portal would have been around three days travel by the same method, but a straight line would take us directly through the airspace of the orcish capital city of Orgrimmar and very close to a contested warzone, where both sides had flying cavalry. The Night elves might hold their fire if I sent a green dragon, but the orcs probably wouldn't. At this point in the timeline even the "good" dragons were, at best, a bit aloof from the mortal races. At worst they tended to kill intruders on sight.
Vanessa left early on and kept in touch via her amulet; she was getting the engineers to start steering the harvest golems to the target area. Apparently Gilnid the goblin was the head engineer in control of the harvest golems, so it would go a bit faster than expected. My goal for today was that we'd have the first dragon taken care of by afternoon.
Of course, I had one more major concern: I needed to get Lividia out of the way. She simply did not have the power level needed to be anywhere near this fight and I didn't want her to get hurt. She'd been watching the planning meeting with great interest; I needed to give her a job that made her feel important. Of course it was Lividia, so just about any task I gave her would probably morph in her mind into a vital mission I couldn't trust to anyone else, but I didn't want to lean too hard on her own mental gymnastics to keep her happy. It felt just a bit too much like emotional abuse.
In the short term, Vanessa was arranging for the Harvest golems and Talaada was collecting her kinsmen. Onyxia was canceling all of her appointments for the day, Irma was gathering up Annetta and adjusting today's patrols appropriately. Abby was standing by with an unexpected level of anticipation at the prospect of bloodshed. Me? I needed to try to get back to sleep so I'd be fresh when Ursula was finally captured.
Trying to cool myself down, I did what I could from the apartment. I woke Tony up with orders to send Caledra to the apartment when she woke up, and I prepped Prudence to meet up with Auffrey for her day trip, necklace in tow. I decided to keep the other three jewels in reserve, just in case an opportunity arose; I was going into an unknown situation and I was pretty sure I could just slap all three necklaces onto my Defias prisoners even in the worst case scenario. In the best case, I'd capture some kind of powerful trash mobs as part of a combo platter, and in the middle case I would distribute them according to my schedule, as the Light intended.
As I lay in bed with my prime consort, trying to sleep, I checked my missions to see if today's moderate mission had come out.
The Lost Pilot
Avenge the death of Mori Hildelve. Bonus if you return him to life and allow him to avenge his own death.
Reward 1 credit, dwarven women will become more attractive and open to sex with non-dwarves, orb of entrancement, mission ticket
Bonus: Creature Defense
That's a lot of rewards, but not the most valuable ones. Hotter dwarves is definitely not something I'll complain about, but it's also not something I suspect I'd ever go out of my way to get. The orb was something I was a bit more excited about but wasn't shiny and new, and the mission ticket was… fine. The bonus was pretty great; both the assurance that my girls wouldn't be attacked by random animals while camping and the hidden benefit of getting 10 credits from rebates down the line. Just a shame that I was almost certainly not going to be able to get the bonus unless turning him into a zombie counted. So, I mean, it's worth checking.
••••••••••
Ysondre flopped to the ground, exhausted. She and her companions had finally found a safe pocket within the Emerald Dream. Recently it seemed as if everything she encountered was corrupted. She would keep fighting for as long as she needed to, even if she truly was the last sane member of her dragonflight, and she was starting to worry that she was. For now though, she would defend this patch of ground that hadn't been reached yet. She was so tired of fighting, but she couldn't give up. This world was worth fighting for.
The sleepwalking dragon couldn't see her companions' corruption. She worried, but she didn't question their silence. She didn't notice that she wasn't in the dream anymore, and she certainly wouldn't notice that any intruders from this side would be, in all likelihood, completely free of the nightmare.