5/19 afternoon
The scouting teams were very successful; nobody soft or careless had lasted long on active duty in the Plaguelands. They'd gotten a headcount and it was as I'd feared. More reinforcements had kept flowing in from the dream, establishing a beachhead and even starting to fortify the old ruins around the portal.
Things could have been worse; there weren't five times as many dragonspawn and druid spirits, just about 8 dragonspawn and 40 druid spirits. About double what Ysondre had had, there. They had more diverse troops, though. Nearly a hundred masses of creeping vines crawled around with red flowers for heads, like some kind of angry floral octopi. I remembered these things from WoW, mostly enough to dismiss them as a major threat individually. These guys tended to serve as swarms of popcorn mooks to use AoEs on, rarely elite even if they were in a dungeon. The numbers made them a threat, but they were probably disposable footsoldiers.
Far more concerning were corrupted wisps, nature spirits made from dead night elves. These little balls of light were the builders of the night elf faction in the RTS games, and seemed to be reprising that role here. There were only about four of them around the portal, and they seemed to be guiding the growth of huge masses of thorns rapidly sprouting from the ground; one ranger saw a lasher budding off of the vines, and they seemed to be intended to encircle the portal as a fortification. I really didn't want to have to assault a fully built RTS base pumping out disposable mooks, and I was pretty sure that the last two dragons would be even further along.
I was hoping to not lose as many rangers as I had harvest golems. These were allies, not disposable minions, and I'd like to think that I wouldn't see them as disposable even if they had been captured. I was able to bring Varian in to discuss the plan f or the assault; honestly I just watched and learned while he, Caledra, and Onyxia planned out the battle, answering the occasional question about the capabilities of the troops. I had no illusions that I was a tactical genius, at least not yet. So far my command experience consisted of trying to replicate very basic tactics I knew about from history and being an enthusiastic but mediocre player of Total War.
What the adults in the room came up with wasn't excessively complex, but it would hopefully get the job done without exposing my forces to more danger than necessary. The rangers would bait out the enemy land troops, drawing as many of them as possible out of the protected enclosure. The portal seemed to rely on the close proximity of the dragon, based on what we had seen in Duskwood, so hopefully Emeriss wouldn't follow. Even if she did, we would be splitting their forces. Whichever group was more vulnerable could be smashed.
It put a lot of initial danger upon the rangers, but Caledra insisted that they could manage hit and run tactics without any trouble. They'd also be backed up with a force of land troops led by Varian and Stitches that could get stuck in, assuming that they had a good opportunity to assault the flanks.
Meanwhile, a flying force similar to the one that had assaulted Ysondre would attack Emeriss if she was isolated, or support the ground troops otherwise. With any luck, having a giant dragon tank and a giant dragon healer working together would make it fairly easy to subdue my second green dragon. I intended to approach with stealth and apply the globster, far more carefully this time. If we could get Emeriss under control that way, we could turn her on her former comrades. The rest of the dragons would be around primarily to screen that fight, just like last time.
I intended to have Abby at least try to command one or more of the wisps if she could, and anyone that went down without dying would get a collar. They creeped me the fuck out but those three corrupted Druid spirits were doing good work decimating the gnoll population. I would never have all of the captures that I wanted, and I was starting to think I'd need to make peace with that. I'd capture any that I could, though.
••••••••••
Ysondre's ETE wasn't moving at a terribly high speed from her brief wakeups, so I decided to borrow the medallion for my first check in with Xylinnia. I had already given her a standard combination of obediences. Feels shame if she thinks ill of me, physically cannot say defamatory statements about me, thinking about me reduces her negative emotions. You know. Standard preliminary sex enslavement stuff. I'd wake her up, and if I was very lucky she would even stay awake but "need to keep it on until her body and mind were fully purged of the nightmare's influence." Too easy, nothing but skill.
I noted that I had an orb of entrancement available, and idly considered using it on Shandris, but dismissed the thought almost immediately. I could probably capture her very quickly, before Tyrande arrives, but only by having her seclude herself and ponder the orb for most of three days. Abercrombie had only had one person who gave a shit about him, and Vanessa had been able to smooth over Edwin's abrupt disappearance because she had clout. I didn't have anywhere near that much influence over the night elves yet.
Once Feathermoon calmed down and Shandris was isolated from anyone that might be capable of calling me on my bullshit but Xylinnia, a normal collaring would do just fine. Hell, they could be passed out as commendations for all the top officers or something. Gifts of thanks from the green dragonflight for their exemplary service.
Xylinnia was tucked tightly into bed when I arrived, and her guards were relieved when they saw the Insignia of the Alliance. They were mass produced in Stormwind and were a known quantity. A few of the sentinels even had their own, but a normal non-company version of the insignia would get clingy with whoever used it first; no one else would ever be able to activate or benefit from the insignia without an extended attunement process. It was a flaw of the design that made them vastly cheaper to produce, at the cost of making it impossible to pass them around as needed. A common tactic for magic item creation, apparently. They naturally assumed I was giving a fresh one to her when I pressed it into her hands, and seeing something familiar put them at ease.
She woke with a start, going very pale as her eyes opened wide. I was hoping that the nightmare wouldn't have as strong a grip on her, but had a few questions to focus on first, just in case she drifted off again immediately.
"Xylinnia, are you awake? Can you hear me?"
"Yes. Yes, I can. Erius? That's what you were called?"
"Yes. Good, good. You were examining an item. Do you remember what it was?"
Her eyes started to grow distant. The timing was too perfect; asking about the ring was putting her back to sleep even faster than Ysondre. "It was a signet ring. Shan-do Stormrage put a message into it. I couldn't…" and she was out again. Damn. Lucky me, I still had the insignia and I knew it worked for tomorrow. I checked my amulet and she'd moved forward five hours; nice.
Shan-do loosely meant teacher in night elven society, but there was a connotation of extreme spiritual respect. More like a guru than professor. Shan-do Stormrage was also known as Malfurion Stormrage, the first and greatest of the elven Druids, and incidentally Tyrande Whisperwind's husband. He's kind of a big deal, and a message from him probably qualified as such too.
Moreover, the revelation gave me more credibility. Showing up with a magic ring wrapped in nightmares was potentially a Trojan horse. Showing up with a message from the Druidic pope that happened to be wrapped in bad juju was a feather in my cap. Lucky me. Shandris wasn't here, but there were two sentinels watching and listening unobtrusively. Huh. Actually one, now. Apparently that had been considered worth a real time update. I bid the sentinels adieu for now, leaving before I needed to answer any questions.
I was a bit surprised to realize that I had a bit of extra time. There wasn't really much else I could do right now to prepare for the battle with Emeriss and everything else was largely squared away. I had a meeting with Nozara planned, but other than that I had the whole evening to myself to fritter away on side projects. Nothing major, nothing that would come with commitments or risk serious injury, but I had an opportunity to do some things I'd been putting off.