5/21 night
Darcell had been largely left to her own devices for the moment. Doris was shadowing Kam while he tried to get in to talk to Emperor Thaurrisan, and Keryn had been sent to Ironforge to monitor some kind of situation with the king. That left Darcell on her first solo mission.
She'd been taught by Keryn to carefully observe her targets, and that's what she was doing. While exhausted and knee deep in ash, she was staring at a bunch of giant idiots eat poorly cooked meat and punch one another for no discernible reason. She kept track of who seemed to like who, who seemed to have existing tensions, and other social dynamics like that, but the ogres were blunt, brutal people who lived in cramped tunnels. They weren't very interesting, they weren't very bright, and the small cave she'd found to hide in wasn't very comfortable no matter what form she took while sleeping there.
Getting a call from the boss was an answered prayer. Getting a bit of backup would make this so much easier. She had flown to the top of the small mountain they used as a base, and entered their cave system from there. It was relatively lightly guarded. She avoided fights; she was a pretty ok fighter but she'd have trouble beating Tony, let alone one of these assholes. She had a magic dagger burning a hole in her pocket that might even the odds, but she still didn't want to risk it.
She got into a position where she could see the target, an ugly two headed asshole. He spent a lot of his time beating prisoners in some kind of ritual. No clue what the ritual was supposed to do, but it was pretty brutal to watch, and he kept getting new prisoners for whatever he was trying. One of them even haunted the area as a ghost now; the girl that would be joining the team once she was avenged.
Darcell got a good look at him, and then to her surprise he picked up his mace and crushed the knee of one of the ogres next to him. Just an absolute sucker punch. Everyone went silent, and the ogre magi seized up as the heads started arguing.
"No! Need better sacrifice for ritual!"
"But is Firegut! Not sacrifice!"
Whenever the suddenly maddened head got control, it kept swinging to break bones and skulls. The rest of the ogres rushed him, trying to subdue him, but he kept struggling and ogre camaraderie is a fragile thing. Soon the attempt to pin him down transitioned into an attempt to beat him down, and then to beat him to death. In a matter of a few minutes, the mission was complete. Damn. Well… better go collect Shani, I suppose?
••••••••••
I clutched my head; that had been painful, but very useful. Krom'Grul didn't deserve any better a death, but having to keep a hold of him until his fate was already sealed meant that I got to experience most of it first hand. Chalk up another win for stress defense. Even with that I needed a minute, but after a snack, a shadow word soothe, and staring at some pretty lights? I was ready to go over the spoils of my 10 minute workday.
Obviously I was glad to have another credit, but that's hardly the most exciting reward. The mirror was more interesting. It's effectiveness apparently went down with the power level of the target, but I wasn't really sure what that would even mean. I wanted to use it on Sylvanas, but of course I did. Some part of me wanted to throw everything I owned at Sylvanas until she was my eager sex kitten, just on principle. Unfortunately, almost anything I could do would be very risky. Risky enough that I wasn't going to do them while I was still working on the dragons, just in case it backfired.
The situation with Sylvanas was stable, so I was leaving her as-is for now. A plan was forming in my head that would be tremendously inefficient, but she was worth it. I could only think of a few people she actually trusted much, but if I could capture one of them and get them into a private conference with her, the Entrancement Orb and Burial Shroud could probably capture her over the course of a 15 minute meeting.
I knew just the man: Nathanos Blightcaller, her most loyal fuckboy. I mean champion. He was a badass, he was an asshole, he was unflinchingly loyal to Sylvanas. There might be more to him, but if so it never came up while I was still playing. More importantly, he was currently living alone in a shack in the Eastern Plaguelands, presumably because he was the only motherfucker hard enough to do so and the Banshee Queen wanted an agent in the area. He was as vulnerable a target as I was going to get for something like this.
That was a job for later, though. He wasn't going anywhere for at least a year or two, as far as I knew. Right now I had an updated mission log to check.
How about now?
Kill Gor'marok the Ravager in Tanaris. Bonus if he is unaware that he is in danger five seconds before he dies.
Reward: 1 credit, Ore Tracker, Mission Ticket
Bonus: fiendish contract
Fiendish Contract: any single agreement written upon this paper and willingly entered into by two parties becomes unbreakable. Both parties must be fully in control of their own faculties and aware of the nature of the contract when making the deal. One use.
Are they seriously giving me repeats now? With worse rewards, too. Come on you cowards, offer me another tantric ritual for killing an ogre! It checked out, though. When I was at Northshire, the prospect of getting to Tanaris and killing an ogre chieftain would have been a huge investment of time, risk, and resources. Now? Honestly I could probably just air drop Stitches and the demon squad tomorrow morning and have it be done by lunch. I wouldn't get the contract, but I'd get my tenth credit; that's enough to buy addiction defense like I promised. You know what? Fuck it.
"Onyxia. There's someone I want dead tonight. Here's the mission. Handle it. Use any resources you think you need, as long as they are disposable or you can bring them back in good condition." I sent her the coordinates and watched her leave her lair on the map. The rush of power that came from giving that order was great. I'd come far. There wasn't even much chance of this backfiring; nobody liked or cared about the Dunemaul ogres, and Onyxia could easily claim that she was just blowing off some steam.
Speaking of backfiring, I had my regional target for the Burning Steppes and was not surprised in the least.
Burning Steppes: defeat Nefarian
T1, T2, T3, T4, and T5 Capture Coupons
Capture coupon: redeemable for the capture of any individual in the catalog of the appropriate tier (or lower).
Setting aside the fact that the tier 1 and 2 coupons were completely useless unless the catalog updated or I could use them on people not in the catalog somehow, that was a lot of value. Not really worth the trouble given what I needed to do to get them, but 35 credits in gift cards would absolutely get some use whenever I ended up throwing down with Nefarian.
Only the free tier 5 really piqued my interest; I can think of three problems I was currently facing that would be almost instantly solved by one of those, and several more that weren't relevant just yet. The tier 4 would probably be used to get a backdoor into Kharazan or Gilneas, and the tier 3… well, I had no clue who Lucille Waycrest was, but Lorna Crowley would certainly be worth having if she was free.
I looked around and saw a few dozen people had been warped in; almost twenty healthy looking High Elves, a dozen draenei dragons, and the four draenei that had once been human were looking around and setting up camp. The hidden basin was quite large, so I didn't think they'd run out of space any time soon.
"Alright everyone. This is the beginning of a home for all of you; hopefully some proper buildings will be erected soon, but you should be safe enough as long as someone keeps watch on that portal and that small entrance right over there."
I put a rather grudging Emeriss to the task of creating some shelters for the new townies; according to Ysondre making elven style tree houses was really her primary skillset, but she was less than enthused about it. Hopefully that would fade with corruption defense.
Compared to the lead up, the things I stayed up late for were rather anticlimactic. Xylinnia handed over the necklace quite happily, understanding that it was something of a time bomb so long as she had it. She would help me later, for now she was a modestly powerful and trusted enchantress who had been firmly moved out of my way.
https://imgur.com/a/wtpCzLy
Witherwing didn't require any direct intervention on my part, but I figured I should send Nozara and Zelena my extra necklaces along with orders to use them cautiously, or send them back if they can't come up with anything. If two demonesses couldn't come up with a use for mind control necklaces, what is the world coming to?
My income came all at once on midnight. First day's income was 30 energy and 60 essence. More than enough for that new Tree of Life. I set a wisp to the task immediately.
I had done quite enough tonight. Tomorrow would hopefully be the right time to strike in Ashenvale, at least a first assault to thin their numbers. Once I got the nightmare Skitterer, I could use it to finish off the last dragon, or possibly to fast track one of my other projects. Who knows what exactly I'll use it for, but it'll be used for something very quickly.