5/31 Afternoon
Bismark knew. There was no other explanation. Somehow he knew he was being tracked, and had implemented something to scramble the signals. Clever. He gave no outward indications, but he was already positioning himself against the son of Deathwing. Nefarian would need to move quickly; unfortunately, as things stood he had no clear objective. Killing a human who spent most of his time teleporting around the world and who had a reasonably well manned stronghold to retreat to would be difficult.
He needed to counteract Bismark's plans, instead, and for that he needed to know what they were. He had few spies; they were inefficient and practically useless compared to magical observation, and Onyxia knew most of his agents. Torture would possibly grant him some information, but human minds broke notoriously quickly under duress. No. No, he needed to tap Bismark's communications somehow. For that, he needed to decode the signals. He had a few ideas.
••••••••••
After my tryst with Aegwynn, I had a far more relaxed meeting with Ysera, though the content was arguably much more serious. Generally speaking, Ysera and I exchanged stories about how the battles went. Her assault had been partially successful, managing to open a route into Zul'Drak and make contact with the Loa worshiped there. The wild gods lived in the Emerald Dream at least half the time, and would hopefully be powerful allies.
For my part, I winced when I heard about them. Poor bastards end up killed and eaten by their own worshippers in an act of desperation later. I'd need to do something about that, whenever I get to the point where I can spare troops to go to Northrend. Cannibalism is not an okay thing to do. In any event, Ysera was networking with her allies in the area. The next person she wanted to talk with was Freya, the Titan keeper of nature. Who… well, as far as I know she was still alive, but she was just a little bit corrupted by an old god.
"Be very careful. I think she may be compromised. It's just a feeling, but I've learned to trust these kinds of feelings."
She didn't really believe me, but nodded indulgently. "That would certainly be bad; she's guarding something very dangerous. I'll keep it in mind and take some precautions."
"I'm just saying, we may want to distribute the necklaces to powerful individuals not directly tied to the dream. Just as a precaution." Freya, Alexstrasza, Thorim, the wild gods; all excellent targets, and very important ones at that. She'd be more likely to listen once she was actually captured.
••••••••••
Tyrande was in a bad mood when I arrived, but that's to be expected. She wasn't angry with me, at least, so there's that. "Ah. Yes, Gargok. This is Erius, the representative for the green dragonflight. He's the one who helped cover our retreat."
"Lok'tar, dragon. You have my thanks."
"You were fighting my enemies alongside me. At that moment, you might as well have been my brother." It felt like the orc-appropriate thing to say, and he seemed genuinely touched by the sentiment. "I hope we can trust you to continue to aid us in this campaign?"
"Indeed. The sentinels and the Warsong clan are allies for so long as these dark invaders are in Ashenvale." I noted Tyrande's twitch at the orc referring to someone else as an invader, but she did a fairly good job of maintaining a diplomatically neutral expression for the rest of the meeting.
The plan was to wait a few days for reinforcements; Jaina could round up a proper force instead of just bringing herself and a handful of guards, and Orgrimmar was very close to the target portal. The outriders had sent back messengers asking for aid of the highest caliber from their Warchief. If he didn't come himself, he'd almost certainly send some sort of champion, such as Saurfang or Vol'jin, at the head of a column of troops. One of the "kills a hundred men without breaking a sweat" types, comparable to Varian.
Tyrande was mollified to hear that the coordinated strike plan worked; the pain of the loss was blunted somewhat by the knowledge that she had been playing a part in a larger conflict. Not enough for her to be happy about last night, but she was in visibly better spirits after the debriefing. Ysera had allies, and I had troops burning out all signs of corruption in the Caverns. The lives irrevocably lost were not wasted.
"The real reason I'm here is that I understand you have had partial success healing corruption. You see, we have both Fandral and Naralex, along with many Druids of the Fang, in custody. I have a feeling that we will need their strength. Is there any chance Elune will lend us her power to heal these men and women?" Naralex had proven relatively hard to heal with the Medallion, waking up for a few moments before passing out again. If Tyrande could fix him up, I should be Livin the Emerald Dream very soon. Fandral was less overtly corrupted than very successfully gaslit, but removing the hold the old gods had on him would probably cut down on his ETE.
"Of course. I will do all I can, but a miracle like this can be taxing. I'm not sure if I will be able to heal them both in one day."
"Understandable. Naralex then; he's in far greater need. Fandral is half purified, and should be fine if we keep him contained for a few more days. Naralex was being used as an active conduit for the corruption."
••••••••
Naralex was not in great shape, but he wasn't corrupted per se. He reminded me of Ysondre; extremely compromised, but he wasn't mutating or anything. He was strapped down, just in case, but thus far he'd been completely limp. No signs of life but some faint snoring.
"Here he is. I have other work I must do, so I hope it is okay if I leave. I'll be sending in one of my lieutenants to check on him and ferry you back." I waited to be dismissed, as was polite, and left the room. I came back two minutes later as Elyssa. You might find yourself asking why, but remember: good first impressions can drastically reduce ETE, and my lures work on anyone. My hope is that Naralex will be more amenable, even subconsciously, to the idea of utter submission to a sexy elven amazon instead of a buff human guy. In both cases he'd see me as a green dragon wearing a visage, but presentation matters, people.
The process of healing him was actually pretty quick. Around half an hour and a flash of light later, Naralex was awake. He was groggy, and by the vitals on his profile that had been brutal for him physically, but he was awake. It also absolutely blasted away three days from his ETE, leaving only around 80 hours to capture.
"At last, I am awake!" He was breathing heavily as he looked around the room of my apartment in a daze. "Lady Tyrande, I'm honored. Thank you."
"Your thanks belong with the green dragonflight, Archdruid. They delved deep into the caverns where you were being held to save you. I only took the final steps." Oh look. Four more hours off.
He tried to stand up and bow, but he was unsteady on his feet. I pushed him back into the bed one handed; he was not a particularly muscular elf, and I was a particularly muscular elf. "You need your rest. There will be time for your work to continue later. For now, I need to discuss something with you." I handed him some conjured bread and water. Nice and easy on the stomach.
"You are not the only archdruid to have been targeted. Fandral Staghelm has gone mad and Shan'do Stormrage is trapped in a nightmare even deeper than your own. We ask that you go to Moonglade serve as a provisional leader to the Cenarian Circle, only for as long as is needed to call an assembly of the archdruids. You all need to be made aware of the problem, and inoculated against it. We are at war, and most of your companions don't even know it. Do you have any kind of signal my agents can use to be sure that they listen and come when called?"
••••••••••
Sylvanas and Lillibeth strolled into the Mo'Grosh ogre mound of Loch Modan. The girl was growing proficient with her magic, a replica of the powers that came so naturally to Sylvanas after her capture. As her banshee captured the ogres that approached, the Dark Lady explained.
"To control someone in this way, you must impress upon them your importance. I typically impose love upon someone. People act irrationally for the things they love most. It works best on the selfish, the listless, and the self hating. Those who love nothing are unprepared to think clearly when suddenly one person feels more important than anything else, and if they cannot dismiss the feelings as irrational or counter to their values, they solidify and become unshakable. I have found that it is a fairly effective tool when used against the Cult of the Damned, but only if they believe I am aligned with the Scourge at first. The Lich King's Domination is far stronger than a trifling charm."
As she spoke, Sylvanas idly shot the two headed ogres that she saw. They were inconvenient to control, requiring twice the effort for barely any additional value. In fact, it was worse than that: they could only be turned into two headed creatures by the necklaces, apparently. Better to just kill and reanimate them later.
Lillibeth practiced her charm on any ogres that got into range. She was inexperienced, but it seemed likely that it would be a magnificent tool during her infiltration. Scholomance had been a thorn in the side for far too long. Seeing it bent to the master's will would be magnificent.
As her banshee exhausted themselves with possession, Sylvanas slowly transitioned to more arrows and charms of her own, and requested that more spirits be sent. Only around forty of the nearly two hundred ogres had been captured through possession, and only four more were charmed into compliance.
However, it was easy to stall for time with the powers she had been granted. If she shot one, even with a glancing shot, it would keel over in pain for several seconds. She didn't actually need to kill many of them at all thanks to that, so she tried to avoid unneeded deaths. In the end, even with every spirit that could reasonably be spared, they only captured a hundred ogres for the master.
Chok'sul, for whatever reason, was immune to her new paralytic arrows. He fell quite easily to the good old fashioned poison tipped ones, however. She smiled; the reward was such a small thing, really. Her master would be able to openly do as he wished in a romantic context? As if anyone could stop him regardless? The ogres seemed far more useful, especially with his plan to convert them into demon shock troops. He'd had a mysterious little smile, however, as he'd given her this mission. Perhaps there was yet more to it.