6/4 noon
I left a necklace with Princess Poobah, with orders to get it to Cairne Bloodhoof. I suggested presenting it as a cure for arthritis; the old chieftain was a badass but he was already complaining about his bones aching in Warcraft 3. Poobah had family connections, an interesting story to tell, and was much smarter now than anyone who previously knew her would ever expect. If she couldn't get a genuinely useful gift to an elderly chief, the tauren were a much more stratified culture than I thought.
I was pretty much booked all day with various meetings; next thing on my to do list was a chat with Leh'Prah. According to Tony, he'd asked very politely to meet with me, and his camp was the closest place to my real destination.
••••••••••
Leh'Prah was helping his hunting party to carry home a Kodo when a dark haired human stallion appeared before him. He was tall and muscular, in black armor of an elven style. He stood with relaxed confidence, and those accompanying Leh'Prah bowed their heads at his appearance.
"Bismark." It wasn't a question.
"Hey. I was in the area and Tony told me you wanted to have a chat. So, you want to tell me what you want first, or hear what I want?"
Leh'Prah noted that this being smelled of fresh water and roasting meat. How strange he felt himself relaxing without thinking about it. "I would know the price for your aid. There are costs too great for me to allow."
"Easy. I want the Centaur to stop trying to kill everyone that they encounter, and enter into a formal pact with either the Horde or Alliance. Your choice."
"You would have us share water with the Tauren?" They were ancient foes of their mother, who had attempted to slay her before the birth of the first centaur.
The stallion shrugged his shoulders. "Horde seems like a more natural fit, but I can talk to the leaders of the Night Elves instead if you'd like; you do have a connection to Cenarius after all. I've also been considering making my own third faction for people allied with me in particular, but it's a bad idea right now for economic reasons."
The elves were not much better than the Tauren, but at least the old conflict with them was based on the crimes of the centaur. They held the death of Greatfather Zaetar against the centaur. Many centaur secretly defended the crime as an act of defiance, but Leh'Prah saw it as the greatest act of weakness his people had ever committed. When one to whom they owed life had looked upon them with disgust, they had never even considered that the fault might lay with themselves.
"So what will the elves expect of us? Tribute? Blood? Penance?"
"Maybe. That's up to them, but I think I can negotiate them down. I've got a few things I can show them to put them in a good mood. All I'll hold you to is that you trade in good faith with me and my allies, when we have enemies you will help us fight them at a reasonable price, and that you be reasonably hospitable to visitors."
"I would see my people's land respected, and if we are dishonored we must have a way to receive recompense."
"That's reasonable. I am willing to arbitrate any conflicts. Not me personally, but I have trusted companions who are better at such things."
Leh'Prah did not trust this stallion. He did not trust his gifts. He did not trust his words. Everything he did was to the clan's benefit, but it felt like they were like the kodo herds to him. To be protected, even healed, but never respected. Never heeded. The question was, did Leh'Prah rebel now, or did he wait until the hunters came to take he knew not what?
As he looked at his companions, the answer became obvious. They were strong, they were honorable, they were respectful, and they were Bismark's. Leh'Prah did not have many followers of his own, not really. What he had were these servants of Bismark, who aided him because he was, apparently, a convenient and palatable rallying point. There must be some reason he had been chosen to lead, and the herd did obey his commands. For now, this was the best he could hope for.
"You will have your peace. If you betray us, I will do all I can to strike back at you."
"Fair enough! You can contact me again if you need anything. I will provide any assistance you request, if I can spare it. I have a few things in mind to do while I'm in the area, so expect updates soon."
Leh'Prah sighed and went back to the litter, they had prey to get back to camp.
••••••••••
"And now they dare to steal your father from me! There shall be death! Blood! Fury like none other!" The centaur gathered before Theradras were only the most conveniently available, but they were enough for now. A few hundred of her children, those chosen to guard this holy place, would be enough to bring word to their khan. The rest of the Mauradine Clan lived in the city outside, and would be the first to mobilize.
Onyxia had done something to Theradras, and only a few days later her love had vanished from his grave. The world was cold, and Theradras felt hungry again for the first time in centuries. If they would rob her of the one that granted her sustenance, joy, and purpose, they would feel the fury of a princess of Deepholm.
As she poured out her vitriol to her sweet children, she shared her strength with them as well. Their shaman relied upon pacts with minor wind spirits. That was more than enough in most cases, but in this coming war they would be conduits of their mother's rage. Even the men, deaf to the full depths of her speech, were flooded with renewed strength and vigor. First would come the purges of the disloyal of course. The Magram had not been providing proper tribute for some time, for example.
"Hey ugly. I've got something for you to take a look at." Theradras glanced over with one of her secondary faces and saw a human in dark armor holding an orb. A familiar orb. Onyxia's orb, for now too distant to ensnare her. She closed her eyes and relied on the touch of the earth to track him instead. She sensed him as well as more than fifty other bipeds.
More than half were the size of tauren, while the rest were light on their feet. Human, perhaps. Or elves. "Kill the intruders, especially the one in black armor!"
The battle started frantically, but she couldn't pin down the human in black. She would charge at him, or throw a boulder, and then he would magically be somewhere else. Over and over again this happened. Her useless children were of no help. Only around half of them even tried to chase him, while the other half were wandering around aimlessly and… bleating? That was the ones that didn't cry out oaths to the interloper and change sides. There was magic afoot. She charged the group instead. Clearly the one in black was a distraction.
As she approached them, Theradras was assaulted by bone deep cold. A chill which drained the strength from her limbs. She continued her charge, but she was slow. Slow enough that the mortals could simply reposition away from her. A thought occurred to her. She should open her eyes. She could see their magic users. Identify who to target. Then her children could fight better. It was so obvious, after all the man in black was only a decoy.
When she opened her eyes, it was to a small humanoid dragon hovering near her face holding the beautiful, beautiful orb…
••••••••••
I clicked my tongue and a small team of newly captured centaur wrapped an anklet around Theradras's leg. I'd thought that upgrade was sort of useless but honestly wrists and ankles are so much easier to slap something onto than necks. Now that Theradras was neutralized, I could take a look around at the results of the battle, the first of many like it hopefully.
Around ninety of the centaur were now indefinitely transformed, physically and mentally, into sheep. Doan's first batch of students had only needed one more day of training to master many of Aegwynn's most fun crowd control spells. Far less efficient than mass death, but polymorph gave me shelf stable prisoners and I was just about out of worgen that needed conversion. Mila in particular had come in clutch; as a frost mage she'd been able to slow Theradras down, which essentially neutralized her. I'd need to have her study with Jaina; it was a specialization worth a bit more focus.
The Dommes had come into their own, finally living up to their name and employing shadow magic in combat. Most were only able to use seduction, a similar affair to shadow word charm, but enough could use more complete domination magic that I had a dozen new centaur warriors. Another two dozen were from more specialized shadow priests from my newly formed field recruitment team, led by Natalie and an outright giddy Vanessa. She'd just mastered mind control today and was ecstatic at the opportunity to use it to enslave people in my name. I gave her an affectionate head pat when she presented me with two centaur priestesses. She practically swooned.
Unfortunately, Theradras's mind was actually quite tough according to Natalie. She might be able to expedite capture with focused effort, and I ordered her to do so once we got Theradras back to Valhalla, but she wouldn't be cracking today in all likelihood. She was collared and entranced, but she didn't have much of her willpower tied up in mana, so our most reliable method of weakening people was a no-go. Damn girl. It's annoying and futile, but I respect it.
The last of the centaur, those that none of my spellcasters had the mana to permanently neutralize, were beaten up until they died, surrendered, or went unconscious. All would join the retinue in time, by whatever path necessary.
••••••••••
I had the closest thing that the centaur had to a centralized priesthood under my thumb now, so I sent them out to make pronouncements on the legitimacy of Clan Leh'Prah. The khans would have too many questions and might rebel if I jumped straight to declaring him high khan over all centaur, but most would accept that he had Theradras's favor without much complaint. Once I saw who was waiting at Valhallla, I had a thought and declared him to be the chosen champion of Zaetar. After a short consultation with his sister, of course.
Lunara
At the moment Zaetar was a giant crystalline acorn, and would remain so for another day or two. Lunara, however, was fully active and almost as good for what I had in mind.
"I think they have potential, especially under someone like Leh'Prah. Of course, I'm also cheating." I tweaked her bare breast and gave her a smirk, to which she rolled her eyes. As a purely spiritual being she didn't have much sex drive, but she was also entirely without shame. There was a certain amusement in touching her however I wanted and her just not caring. Of course, she was a deer from the waist down, so there were natural limits to my interest. "They will follow me and, if any of them are problems, they can be corrected. I really don't think I'll need to reformat the brains of an entire species, just give them guidance. I'm not going to lie, I think Zaetar might have managed this a lot better. I wasn't there, but they don't seem so unreasonable as to have just killed him for absolutely no reason."
The dryad shrugged, "He was always a bit of a hot head. I'm not really one to talk, of course, but yeah I could see him being a bad teacher if his kids got rowdy."
"They need better examples, and I think you can provide that. I want you to go and live among Clan Leh'Prah and choose some to train to fight like you do. I can make them dryads so that they have a head start, but they respect strength and you're a very powerful warrior." I wasn't kidding there. Lunara was a Dryad, but she wasn't just any dryad. She was the first daughter of Cenarius; a Heroes of the Storm original character meant to be a dryad badass enough to step into the ring with big names like Sylvanas, Varian, Tyrande, and Ragnaros.
She couldn't teach total magic immunity, nor did she have it. I'd need to transform any of the students she decided to favor if I wanted that to become standard issue, which I did, but sending Lunara to live and teach among Clan Leh'Prah would have four main benefits. First, it would help stabilize them by introducing a role model that fits into their own cultural identity as warriors descended from Cenarius. Second, I would be exposing them to a woman that could kick their asses which would blow their minds, shortly before reintroducing Zaetar who was a heavily Magic based man to further break down inefficient gender roles. Third, it would directly result in a unit of elite magic-proof deer-girl warrior women and that seemed like a net positive to any military organization. Fourth and perhaps most importantly, someone at Blizzard's art department really likes Lunara; I have a ton of alternate outfits for her that will only resize to fit on female centaur shaped people and I'd hate to see this collection of agility boosting bikini top/girdle combos gathering dust in my closet. The Christmas themed ones in particular I wanted presented as some kind of ceremonial garb for my own amusement.
I'd need to look into hybrids for Cenarians, too; the children of Cenarius have quite a few useful traits like an affinity for life magic and generally high magic resistance. Not immunity, but resistance is still handy enough to want it spread around.
"I'm not really free, Bismark. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done to the East. I just came to pick up Zaetar."
"It's being handled. The green dragonflight is entirely immune to the nightmare's corruption now. You're needed here." She wasn't happy, but she didn't keep arguing either. I summoned Zaetar's collar and gave it to her. "So I can contact you, or the reverse." Once it was around her neck I gave her a strong familial connection towards the centaur. They were her nieces and nephews, after all. She seemed a little more resigned to the arrangement after that.
Speaking of green dragons… Yeesh there were a lot of them at Valhalla now. Mostly sleeping.