5/23 night
I set up shop in Katrana Prestor's quarters; I'd been putting off capture of the dragonspawn Royal Guard for far too long. I was going to be in one place compiling my notes for a while; Onyxia could send them to me, they could give their declarations of love, and I could mostly stay focused on book keeping. While I went over my plans and resources, dragonspawn were popping in, declaring their love, and then I'd send them back to Onyxia. Mildly distracting, yes, but well worth the trouble.
Lividia was at the Agamand Mills; being casually batted aside had put her in a bad mood, so she wanted to cause a bit of mayhem. Given that nothing irreversible could happen to her, full stop, I figured that letting her go ham on the grunt tier undead currently standing between my necromancers and their real prey would be a productive way for her to blow off steam.
If she got herself killed, I'd just charm someone else into bed. What happened with Paige wasn't exactly a bad thing as long as I picked better targets and mutually charmed them when I had nothing (and no one) more important to do. I could also just fuck one of the dozens of beautiful and willing women I already had in my retinue, but you know how I like optimizing my time; capturing someone while seducing them into a one night stand elegantly combined business and pleasure. If I opened with a bit of normal flirting to soften her up and make sure she wasn't already seeing someone, gay, or both, then the chances of this backfiring went down to almost nothing.
Maybe Jalinde, back at Quel'Danil Lodge. So far she hadn't been too receptive to Talaada, apparently, I could definitely enjoy an evening with a beautiful strawberry blonde elf, and most importantly she and I already had a modestly positive relationship. It should be much easier to charm someone who saw me as a handsome and heroic ally instead of an enemy mind controlling rapist.
I idly started marking off a short list of casual positive acquaintances that I could probably pull this trick off with, with extra emphasis on anyone who would be useful. It was a longer list than I'd expected; I had an unfortunate tendency to mind control anyone I found remotely interesting or attractive, but I also tended to move on quickly if I couldn't do so almost immediately. Porena at the Slaughtered Lamb, several sentinels at Feathermoon Stronghold (only once Tyrande wasn't a problem, naturally), most of the female members of the Night Watch (Now that I owned their commanding officer and their Lord Mayor), any given member of the Rampant Lions that wasn't already captured, and almost any female member of the Defias Brotherhood. Hell, Vanessa probably had a list of women picked out that she could send me with a snap of the fingers, drugged or sober.
Speaking of mass recruitment, the necromancers were working slowly. They had apparently torn into around sixty Scourge mooks, and captured four. One of them, Yulia Agamand, was even a banshee. A weak one that needed training from Melisara before she'd be useful for what I wanted, but Lillibeth and Mary had figured out possession-based-capture quickly enough. If the mills were cleared out enough to get to the crypts, then we'd properly hit pay dirt.
Of course, by the time that I had my ghosts mass possessing Scarlet Crusader trainees I would already have their leader, Sally Whitemane, under my control. In my bed too, probably, at least once or twice. I couldn't think of anyone I'd rather use the Nightmare Skitterer on; she was just the right balance of personal strength, uniquely useful powers, political sway, company rebates, and physical attractiveness to make her just about irresistible.
She had influence over a rather large and extremely hierarchical organization. I'd need to neutralize the mages first, but if she ordered that everyone wear these powerful new amulets that purified and perfected the wearer, making them immune to the scourge's plague and all forms of corruption and subversion in the process? No one at the Monastery would dare question her. She could subvert every scarlet recruit from that day forward, and probably their prisoners as well. Add on the mission to take her down, and I basically didn't have a choice in the matter.
Speaking of missions, I had several in the pipes and none of them overwhelmingly excited me. I was at the point where I could and probably should outsource most moderate and lower missions; Ferocitus the Dream Eater and The Stones that Bind Us were both definitely things that could be accomplished with a small taskforce, but Test of Faith required my direct involvement if I wanted the bonus and I just couldn't see myself taking the time out to do it. Bloodthirst was only going to happen if I could instantly resurrect the victims or I got a deluxe mission ticket.
Darcell had grown enough that she could go and free/enslave Candar Stouttaker. Well, she would go and make sure that she could manage it without alarming the boss, and then she'd do it if so. I did not want a penalty, and if Candar spent all of his time directly next to his master I'd probably just trade out the mission. Ferocitus could be quietly kidnapped, in all likelihood. I would send Imriss to cover that, sending in Ysondre or Emeriss at the last minute to put the poor bastard to sleep along with half his tribe.
One that I might actually do myself was Savage Fronds. Once I thought to check my herbalism skill chip I found out that savage fronds could be harvested from all sorts of powerful plant creatures, most prominently in the ruined city of Dire Maul. It seemed likely I might also be able to get at least some from the nightmare lashers, now that I know what I'm looking for. I'd send Tony and a few rangers to pick through the dead ones, but I'd be more likely to find usable fronds from the ones freshly killed tomorrow. If not, eh, grinding in Dire Maul might be good exp.
I'd settled on warden for my hero class. Wardens were decent melee combatants, but were far more defined by their "spells" than their ability to mix it up in melee. I didn't really identify as primarily a melee combatant myself, so that was just fine. Blink, especially at the highest rank of power, would allow me to teleport frequently for a negligible mana cost. Fan of knives gave me a desperately needed aoe option, shadow strike was a brutal chunk of damage that slowed the target's movements, and Vengeance summoned a powerful spirit ally. All useful stuff covering a wide variety of bases.
It was a fucking hard decision; I needed to stew on it for a while and start actively looking for excuses to eliminate some of my options. The Demon Hunter was all about melee, and the Priestess of the Moon was extremely reliant on a bow for her attacks. Too specialized. With those two eliminated pretty arbitrarily, I had to pick between the spellcaster and the extremely mobile hybrid. I went with the one that would become incredibly mobile with a bit of experience.
Experience that I'd only get from killing my enemies or innocent loot containing monsters in the woods. Bringing a small elite fighting force to Dire Maul to kill corrupted treants sounded like a good way to power level if I needed to, assuming I could survive. Otherwise I'd be going the route of Lividia and scything through undead at the mills, or participating in a regional mission.
Of course, as much as killing dozens of creatures in order to gain both metaphysical and practical experience with my new skillset would be fun, I also needed to train myself as a magic user again. I already knew that I wanted to get back to being a shadow priest as quickly as possible; the sheer utility of mind vision and Charm would be worth the trouble alone, and access to spells that aren't paid for in mana had been useful more than once. Thankfully, Sadie was almost done with her combat mission.
I might also go for holy priest, though that was a form of casting that I had an abundance of in my current team. Of course, that also meant I had the best teachers available. Anduin and Whitemane, once their templates fully downloaded, would even be able to teach me super special npc and moba magic like mass resurrection, massive aoe sleep spells, and making all of my team temporarily invulnerable while also healing them, as long as they stayed near me. Of course, I was also about to get my hands on Light's Wrath.
I don't think I'll ever fully commit to being a warlock, but I could get cheap passive boosts by binding demons that were already captured. My team of Satyr had turned Fade from a fairly niche spell into a staple by reducing the drawbacks to a manageable level, and they would do so again whenever I could get around to it. The real question was whether I'd do anything else with the dark arts.
Warden would make me a competent melee combatant to start with and eventually a rather fearsome one just from level ups, but it might still be wise to train with Valeera or one of the Varians to become as strong of a melee fighter as possible. And of course I needed to relearn stealth, but that was pretty basic.
Finally, Sylvanas was currently my rival and I was going into an agility based class. If I had Dremuus or Caledra teach me how to be a hunter, more dark ranger abilities might just start spontaneously manifesting in my mind, especially if I'm dutifully practicing with shadow magic at the same time.
The Archdruid template almost seemed like a waste to use on myself. It would require training to use properly and I already had so many other things I needed to practice. The main benefit of using it would be to make it easier to formally gain control over the Cenarion Circle, but I don't know if I actually needed to be a druid for that.
I had a plan to capture Tyrande, and if I managed it I was sure that I could use her to capture her fiancé, Malfurion Stormrage. My team had only done their first expedition into the Wailing Caverns this morning, but Archdruid Naralex was in there along with his many corrupted disciples. There were only two other archdruids I was aware of from memory; Fandral Staghelm and Hamuul Runetotem, though I was sure more existed.
Between Malfurion, Naralex, Broll, and Ysera, I would be in an excellent position to snatch up more archdruids until such a time as I have completed Livin the Emerald Dream. I also knew of a few other people I might be able to get in my sway that would give me more clout among the tree huggers. For example, the leader of their largest military outpost has recently lost his wife to old god brainwashing; if I could get her back to him, I'd be firmly in his good books. Plus I'd have yet another high level priest; maybe with a few new shadow priest tricks.
I had my first grand mission all lined up, I just needed to get it done. Other than that, the big tasks still on my table were Ragnaros, Scholamance, and the worgen. The living volcano and necromantic Hogwarts needed investigation and prep work, but would become progressively easier to tackle as I picked up power and resources elsewhere. The worgen were being steadily chipped away at; I had 16 already from basically just having Stitches run around in the woods grabbing wolf men that couldn't really hurt him.
Tomorrow, I would finish up everything that I absolutely needed my current powers to do, and then I'd make the jump to Warden. Hopefully I wouldn't get another new bonus mission the moment I was done with my current one. I needed a fucking break.
I checked Lividia's status and saw that she was, indeed, dead. Mildly surprising, but honestly she was probably just being reckless. I told Onyxia to stop sending guards; I was done for the night and was going to go blow off some steam in my own way.
Jalinde wasn't interested. Played for the other team, apparently. For now. A much milder charm was more than enough to get her to accept a necklace as a gift of friendship, and to wingman for me with one of her other rangers. Another very fetching elf who was quite a bit more open to a roll in the hay. She wasn't exactly impressed with my performance, but when I realized she was losing interest I made sure we were both far too in love to care.