5/27 late afternoon
Natalie and I left the basement where several furbolg were now securely bound, with Ferocitus in tow. He had taken a bit more effort than most to capture, enough that I really hoped this wasn't normal for a Furbolg, but it was worth it for the mission completion. He was a pretty low end druid, but more importantly he was a bipedal bear taller than a night elf and twice as wide. A bit surprising given how runty they come off in game, but these guys are big and fairly strong. He was a low level quest mob, so I wasn't expecting too much, but some of my best friends are low level quest mobs.
Lillibeth arrived by apportation as we were starting to settle in; she seemed flustered for some reason. "Done, then?" I asked her, and got a nod. I walked over and gave her a kiss that she was extremely receptive to; I really should give her more attention. "Good job." She had a dopey grin as I pulled away, and we sat together on a bench in the town square.
Around us, the outskirts of Raven Hill were being reinforced. Emeriss was doing the lion's share by growing a thorny hedge encircling much of the town, forcing anyone who wants to enter or exit through two new "gates". Those gates were chosen because they had sturdy houses on either side with windows that could be used as murder holes, and roofs flat enough for archers and spellcasters to perch on. Ideally Emeriss will be able to use her sleep fog on the worgen as they all funnel into this corridor, and any that we can't stop that way will still be caught out in a vulnerable position.
The worgen don't seem to be in a hurry to attack us, so we are just monitoring them until we are ready. Once that happens, we have a few plans to try to agitate them and take out their leaders. Ideally through capture, of course, but I have a superior force of fucking werewolves about to attack my secondary base, so I'm willing to kill a few if I have to.
In the meantime, I had downtime. I figured it would be best to let Natalie and the spirits rest before the big fight, so capture was suspended. That meant it was time to work through some bookkeeping; after all, I had three freshly completed missions, hadn't spent my energy and essence for the day, and really should use the archdruid template on someone. I'd put enough work into getting it, after all.
I started with the fun stuff; regional mission upgrades. Naturally, I was immediately disappointed. Oh sure, it could have been way worse, but I was really hoping to turn Emeriss into an overpowered anti-corruption crusader. Alas, it seemed that any given member of my retinue was limited to one upgrade. On a positive note, this meant that I could effectively boost people by sending them to complete a regional mission with pre-buffed people. It was a short list, but it had some heavies like Onyxia and Sally.
The options I got were interesting, mostly utility focused, and distributed randomly across my entire retinue. I discarded Gilnid becoming immune to fatigue immediately; I already wasn't really taking advantage of his output. I really should, though. Thanks for the reminder, Company. Sildia becoming a better feral druid with some kind of charmy magic duelist powers was cool. I'd be excited if I got it as a mission reward. It didn't make the cut with this competition though.
Caledra getting education talent was definitely one of the cooler options. If I'd gotten this as an option two weeks ago I'd have probably gone for it. However: I was running out of vital things to pick up. I had Jewels of Discord, and was about to get 10 credits dropped in my lap for 100 Wolf Moon. I could probably splurge for real talent sharing instead of the bootleg version. There was a little bit of competition, like expanding my apartment into a manor house, mind runes, or more lures, but I've gone long enough without those things to see them as luxuries.
That left the two unique options. Recruiter and Easily forgiven. Recruiter would turn Auffrey into a powerful… well, recruiter. As effective as Talaada, possibly moreso. I'd be more likely to send her to wander the streets of capital cities looking for easy marks than anything else, but she'd be able to scoop up every mid life crisis looking for eternal youth, every parent with a sick child that no one else can heal, every beggar who just wants a better life, and every lonely person that would love to join a community where literally everyone they don't mortally offend will like them. And that's just the ones who would be inclined to join for the passive benefits. It was good enough that I was planning on sending the classics on every regional mission that was remotely in their weight class, just to try to get it later. However, Easily Forgiven would give me tactical advantages I couldn't ignore.
With Easily Forgiven I'd become conditionally immune to PR. Anything Melisara or someone she possesses does will be edited in everyone's minds to have nothing to do with them over the course of a week. I'd need to deal with the immediate fallout, yes, but I could send Melisara to do just about anything and get very limited blowback. Hell, it only edited negative opinions, so I could do something extremely controversial and then reap the benefits while the drawbacks faded away. I chose that one.
The options for Lillibeth were easier. I almost chose the one that advertised turning her into a death knight, but on reread it was actually for Abby, and only gave her martial talent. Giving an undead necromancer martial talent would, in fact, essentially make her a death knight; I still felt like they were trying to pull one over on me. I dismissed the option to give her soul talent or possess people like a banshee for the same reason I dismissed trainer: they would become completely redundant, hopefully soon.
The decision was then easy because turning her into a reflavored dark ranger hero did everything that the other options did, if with extra steps. Gaining Morbent Fel's ability to displace damage? It's cool, but as a Hero I can just resurrect her for a fat stack of energy. Touch based charming? The dark ranger's ultimate ability is a ranged charm spell that can be used in combat to instantly make someone change sides. Making her better in a fight with talents? I can assure you that as a hero I'm quite a bit better in a fight now; my style needed to change but I'm already above where I was pre-warden, if we are going off of combat efficacy as opposed to utility spells. Sure it would require more effort, but the upper limits of Lillibeth's potential as a hero were so much higher.
I watched Lillibeth closely as I selected the option. Very little changed; I think she might have gained an inch of height, and her simple green dress and necklace were replaced with a hooded black robe. Almost certainly stowed in her inventory. She didn't physically react at first, but when she noticed that she was wearing a hood she was more than a little bit startled.
"Congratulations, Lillibeth. You are now a…" I checked her profile, "Dread Necromancer." I gave her a quick rundown on what being a hero meant, and why I'd given her this power.
"I need someone to infiltrate Scholomance. If anything, it's become more important since we got the mission to take Andorhol. You have the exact right combination of traits to go and be a new trainee at Caer Darrow, so I'm going to equip you as well as I can for it."
She seemed excited at the prospect. I was expecting fear, but I'm not complaining. "I'll take care of it. You won't regret choosing me, I swear it."
"I know I won't. Short term, though? Get ready for the battle, at the choke point. I need you close to the battle to soak up experience." She rushed off to do just that.
Back to normal missions, then.
Ferocitus came with a greater water of Lethe; that may sound redundant with the fading dream mushrooms, but while the waters reset someone's memories, they don't set them to tier one. Or capture them, incidentally, though that's probably just a formality most of the time. If I can get someone to drink it, then they are as good as mine.
Speaking of things that are mine, so what did I get as a new mission?
The Butcher
Kill Doctor Theolen Krastinov of the Scholomance, then find and destroy the remains of Eva and Lucien Sarkoff. The faculty of Scholomance must find and punish an inaccurate culprit or you will be punished.
Rewards: 1 credit, instant capture of Eva and Lucien Sarkoff
Well then. I think this is an actual quest; if I'm remembering correctly Eva and Lucien were the head maid and butler at Caer Darrow. They didn't go along with the cult and were eventually tortured to death, so they aren't exactly powerful or influential, but they do know the layout of the building and are… well, ghosts. Which means they will be useful to me. Though from the sound of things, Sylvanas had been captured and immediately started collecting enough banshees to make them redundant.
Most of them, like Aelthalyste, had other jobs to do, but a substantial percentage of Forsaken High Command were under my control as she passed around necklaces and had her banshee each possess one person and pledge themselves to my service. I had almost sixty new members for my retinue just from Sylvanas, though they were mostly bureaucrats, researchers, and her personal guards.
The most powerful people working for her justified the use of proper collaring. As such, I immediately sent her the rest of my amulets for the day, which she immediately forced onto Balnazzar and High Apothecary Putress's necks. The Dreadlord knew enough to need to be restrained for a week while the amulet did it's work, but Undercity was mine. Just like that. It was almost anticlimactic, but there was very deliberately nothing that could stop Sylvanas from doing as she pleased in Undercity.
I was going to need to have some fun there tomorrow. I haven't seen Sylvanas in person before, but I look forward to seeing every inch of her, and maybe between fun times we can make plans. There was a war to win in the Plaguelands and a Scarlet Crusade to take control of, after all. If I managed to take Andorhol now, I'd get one of her sisters. Sylvanas may be the biggest name of the three, but all three of the Windrunner Sisters are faction leaders of one stripe or another with tremendous personal power.
She also, in less sexy but still great news, had quite a few rebates. That's 50 credits spread across 9 different defenses; in terms of immediate payoff, that was 4 credits from Wild Defense, and Soul Defense was fully paid off. Life drain isn't ubiquitous, but it's common enough that being heavily resistant will probably pay off at some point.
To distract myself from the possibilities of having a pet Banshee Queen, I shifted focus to Twilight Grove. My income was continually going up, so I could pay for a bit more every day. Today, I wanted to test something, so I called in Gretchen. She was somewhat redundant as my point of contact with the Undercity now, and those who had been watching her were among the first captured through possession.
I set her to be trained as a Huntress, the night elf light cavalry unit. I wanted to know if this would resurrect her, and Gretchen was already tier one; this would be a pure upgrade for her. She wouldn't be done until late tonight, but it would be a good test. I was thinking of ways I could give the male undead of the world their physical sensations back without turning them all into women. I was also open to futas as a solution; they weren't really my thing, but I imagine many men among the forsaken would take being turned into androgynous women with dicks for the ability to enjoy physical pleasures again.
I still had 310 energy and 85 essence after that, so I looked around for other options. I was starting to think I might end up with substantially more energy than essence, especially if I kept turning all of my civilians into dragons. Maybe not yet, but if I was going to focus on upgrades and experiments? I could just buy as many wisps as possible to maximize my essence income, but I wanted to diversify.
I had one of my wisps turn into an Ancient of Wonders; an item shop. At first it wouldn't sell anything really worth the energy cost, just cheap consumables. The really good stuff, like a scroll that would let me make a portal straight to the Twilight Grove and a potion that makes the drinker entirely immune to magic for a while, would have to wait until I had upgraded my Tree of Life. What it would do immediately is unlock the backpacks upgrade, giving most of my units their own small inventories. Just like heroes had, though much smaller and possibly with extra restrictions. It was pretty cheap and made my units better, which is right up my alley. The last 120 energy I had went towards wisps; there was nothing else I could afford, so the default would be wisps for as long as I had supply to spare.
Finally, I had an old buddy who had earned a reward. I summoned Tony to Raven Hill, and gave him a smile which he found more concerning than reassuring.
"Uh. Hey bossman. You need something?"
"Yes. I need to give someone something that will give them power."
He seemed skeptical. "You mean me? This mean I'm gonna be in the front lines now?"
"Maybe, especially if you feel up to it, but honestly it seems more likely I'll just have you gathering more valuable materials in more dangerous locations. We have alchemists who can make some great shit with the right herbs. Oh. And I'll have you do a shift in the clinic we are setting up here; you should be able to heal."
"Alright. I can live with it; whenever you're ready, boss." He stretched his arms out, as if to say 'hit me.'
I imbued one of my earliest hires with the power of an archdruid, and I was a little bit surprised to see absolutely no physical changes. He kept looking at me questioningly.
"I did it. It might take a minute to kick in. Stay out of the fight until you know what you're doing, ok?"
"Yes sir." He teleported over to the Grove. Probably wise.
I checked in with the guards, and it seemed like we were in good shape for the attack. It was time to start picking fights. I cracked my knuckles and called in every possession capable ghost wearing a necklace. Time to go piss off a pack of wolves; wish me luck.