5/30 lunch
By the time I returned to the Twilight Grove, Darcell had finished her mission and was showing off the hammer she had been gifted by the Tauren wise man. Apparently he made very nice weapons, which he would offer to anyone that finished his trials. He'd been a little surprised and very pleased when Darcell revealed that she hadn't actually come for the reward, but for the test itself. I mean, she had come for the reward, but he didn't know that there was a 1 credit bounty and two magic items on offer. That meant another soul mirror and… what the hell is a coin of many faces, anyway?
The Coin of Many Faces: allows the user to, one time, swap identities with another person they can see. This swap lasts for 24 hours, but is absolute. It includes all aspects of appearance and methods of assessment; any form of analysis will identify the user as the target and vice versa, including speech patterns and metaphysical aspects such as soul reading.
Oh hell yeah. I sent that to Valeera immediately. The whole framing of someone aspect of her mission would be a cinch with this. Would it be mean to knock out a random student and steal their identity? Very much so. Would it stop me from getting a penalty at the expense of a crazy cultist that doesn't work for me? Probably yes.
I called Darcell over and explained the process to her. "You'll forget a lot of your skills, but you'll gain a new and very useful skill set almost immediately. Plus, you'll still be just as capable of learning as you ever were. In the long term, it will make you much more powerful. I did it myself, and I don't regret it a bit."
"Yes! Of course I want to be stronger!" I had been hoping for a positive response, but I only just then thought about how far she's come since I met her less than two months ago. She wanted to be strong. She wanted to be special. She was almost offended that I felt the need to ask.
"Well, then I think you'll make a damn fine demon hunter. You'll have to relearn a lot of the stealth skills you've picked up over the last month, but-"
"Fuck em. That was easy to learn. I wanna be able to fight!"
"Wish granted." We reached the altar, and I placed Darcell in front of it. As usual, there was no fanfare. No drama. The altar started glowing, but she was just sitting cross legged in front of it. Unless I wanted to stare at her and watch her transform into a night elf over the course of a few hours, there wasn't much for me to do here.
I did note that there was an extra option on the altar: resurrect Kathra'Natir. Pretty cheap, actually, at 170 energy. He was marked as a level 1 Dreadlord hero. Checks out; there aren't many "generic" dreadlords, but they were an undead faction hero in Warcraft 3. A bulky fighter with strong spells that lend themselves to fighting at the head of a melee heavy army, and the ability to summon extremely powerful beat sticks known as infernals. I might need to pay to get him into the fray tomorrow.
I went and sat around the firepit for lunch; normally I'd be training with Sylvanas, but she was participating in the planning for the Wailing Caverns. After all, she was a general before Varian was even born. I went over my new missions while I ate.
Out of his League
Assist Scarlet Crusade Messenger Meven Korgal in the process of entering a romantic relationship with Lillian Voss. Bonus if you do not capture either individual in the process.
Reward: 1 credit, Power Trader, 1 scroll of true resurrection, Lillian Voss will be sent to the Scarlet Monastery for training
Bonus: Stealth Skill Chip
Scroll of True Resurrection: allows the user to resurrect a member of the retinue, while also removing any deleterious physical or mental effects, regardless of the current state of their mind, soul, or body.
Ooh, that's a nice one. Gonna be hard if I want the skill chip though. I'm not really sure who Meven is, but messenger isn't an illustrious position and I did recognize Lillian Voss. She's the daughter of a high priest, a man only one step down in the Scarlet Hierarchy than Sally. Further, she's a living weapon; her entire backstory is being trained as an omnidisciplinary fighter, assassin, and magic user for the Scarlet Crusade ever since she was a child, and it paid off. Something made me doubt that daddy would support her starting a relationship with a random messenger boy.
The lack of capture seemed like a problem, but it wasn't half as bad as no mental influences at all. I was already starting to think of ways to do it. I… didn't actually need both of my Pickup Lines. So what I needed to do was capture High Priest Voss, get Meven stationed wherever Lillian is, and convince this lucky fuck to use the pickup line. Given how repressed she probably is, a tacit approval of the relationship plus an inexplicable attraction to the guy should hopefully cover it. I sent the plan to Sally; she had enough influence to pull this, even if it turned out that she didn't actually have control over military distributions. If she didn't, eh, maybe I'd use my Deluxe mission ticket, or just say screw it and forsake the chip.
Commander Mograine was up next on Sally's capture list; as things stood, she had already captured Interrogator Vishas and Arcanist Doan. Once she had Mograine, Houndmaster Locksey, and Champion Herod, that would be the entire command staff of the Scarlet Monastery; it'll be done by the end of the week, and then she can start in on support staff and other high ranking officers.
Thousand Needles: Defeat Amnennar the Coldbringer
Rewards: Deluxe Mission Ticket, paralytic poison, seal of joy, Quillboar will be redesigned to resemble Monster Girl Encyclopedia high orcs
Another difficult regional mission for the to-do-eventually list. Seriously? Minor mission rewards on a major dungeon boss? Amnennar is a Lich working for the Scourge, who has managed to convince the Quillboar to ally with him. He's a beefy boy with multiple armies at his disposal. They aren't exactly a world power, but the Quillboar are a militant nation of pig people.
As with most nations, I want to take over their entire society and integrate them into my one world order. It's just how I think these days. The Quillboar are pretty hierarchical if I remember right; hopefully it won't be too much trouble. They're better than gnolls, at least. Fuck gnolls.
••••••••••
Valeera was running faster than she'd ever run before. At first she'd been worried about Kathra'Natir, but if Erich said he was okay, she could accept his presence without much trouble. It helped that he wasn't just draining her mana anymore. Sure, he was still doing that, but she didn't feel the effects as much with soul defense, and he fed it back to her when she needed it. It was painful, but it made her faster, stronger, more alert. Overall, it was a good deal if he could be trusted, and members of the retinue couldn't betray one another, could they? I mean. Broll would be angry, but did he really need to know?
The infiltration of the school was going well. The front lock was rough, but nothing she couldn't handle. Kathra'Natir had this neat sleep spell he could use on anyone that was gettingdangerously close; she used the opportunity to slit a few throats and send the bodies away. She only needed to leave evidence of one guy. Well, once she got the coin that number went up to two. She'd been planning on letting herself be seen as a Scarlet Crusader, but this would make it way easier.
The doctor wasn't all that tough. He was stronger than your average guy, sure, but compared to how fast Valeera could move right now? He might as well have been waist deep in mud. When he did manage to get a hit in on her, the cut sealed itself the next time she drew blood. The fight didn't take long, and his yelling was definitely noticed. She had to move fast after she finished him off; somehow Kathra'Natir made the corpses vanish instantly when she touched them. That made it much easier.
She vanished from sight just before the first responder came in, and selected someone near the back of the pack. She held up the coin and suddenly she looked like, and was dressed as, a Scholomance student. The hapless bastard she used the coin on, in contrast, looked like a blonde human girl in a Scarlet Crusade tabard. She didn't last long when she was noticed, and Valeera slinked off, hoping that was enough of a scapegoat to count.
There were two stamps she could use, and she had 23 hours to use them and get out. Erich would be fine with it, as long as she got good targets. She was sure of it.
••••••••••
It was a little bit shocking when Valeera arrived with two desecrated corpses; corpses that she pulled out of a hero inventory. So she had access to Kathra'Natir's heroic abilities? That changed a lot. More prosaically, this was the first time in a long, long time that I finished two moderate missions in one day. There was no replacement moderate mission, just another regional one. This time for the Western Plaguelands, naturally.
Western Plaguelands: Defeat Grand Inquisititor Isillien
Reward: Instant Capture of Uther the Lightbringer
I had so many anti-scourge missions in the Western Plaguelands that the biggest baddie in the region was Sally's immediate superior? Sure, why not. I don't remember much about the guy; he wasn't a dungeon boss or anything. Probably an overhyped quest mob; I started playing late enough in classic that I never really did all the quests in Western Plaguelands, not if I could just head to Outland instead. Not a big deal, I didn't intend to fight him either way. No, much better to capture him through Sally.
He would have popped up on my radar at some point anyway, just for the sake of having more troops to use against Andorhol later. Getting an instant capture of Uther was a hell of an incentive, though. Uther was The Paladin. Oh sure, there were other big names among the paladins, but Uther the Lightbringer was the guy you point at when someone asks what a Warcraft Paladin is supposed to be like. Just a really stand up guy, with the strength and magic to back it up. Hell, the only reason that he didn't take the Lich King in a duel was that he hesitated to kill his former student. Went down to a sucker punch.
I didn't know if I'd get a resurrected Uther, if I'd capture his soul-self from the Shadowlands, or if I'd get a copy or something. Every single option I could think of was fine by me. It was hilarious to think that I was far enough along that I wasn't going to drop everything to get Uther as quickly as possible. Isillien was important enough in his own right that I didn't want to risk messing up my chances with him.