A Time to Plan

5/16 early morning

I felt a bit better when I woke up. Not great, but better. My working arm was basically back to normal, and most of my torso was in pretty good shape. I had pins and needles beneath my waist, which I hope meant that my dick would be ok by lunch. No need for my legs if the girl is doing all the work, right fellas? I’m sorry, I have to find joy where I can right now.

There was a dark green potion on my end table, which I drank, and Annetta was sleeping next to me. Aww, cute. I woke her up, she cast a renew and checked my progress, then she left for the kitchen to fix me some breakfast.

I called up Sadie, “Hey. Erich here. How’d it go?”

“Oh. You can speak through this?”

“Yep. You can too, to anyone in the team. There’s some other things it can do on top of that, but transport and communication are the big ones. So, how did they take Caledra’s proposal?”

“Well… we haven’t had much success with the high elves up to now. Getting a request for aid troubles Lord Maxwell. He doesn’t know if he can trust it, especially with the strangeness of me vanishing for a time. There have been many attacks on the chapel, and not all of them have been direct.”

“That’s fine. I won’t be angry if they are slow to trust. I’ll just need to put in a bit of effort and earn it. While it’s important to Caledra, I don’t think her people are in much immediate danger. My visions tell me they will last for a few years yet.” Specifically until Cataclysm, though I definitely didn’t intend to make them wait that long. Caledra was a ranger. Maybe I could just send her to make her way home with an amulet alone, or with a small group? Presumably if she came from there she’d made the journey before. Yeah. I was going to go with that unless she objected.

And then… I could send them to Southshore, where Tony was! Who cared about immediately teleporting them directly to their new lodge? If I got them somewhere relatively safe, where they would be traveling entirely through friendly territory the rest of the way, that’s that job done. Hell, Quel’Danil lodge was in the Hinterlands. I could probably get military support against the dragon there, Emeriss, as part of the deal. An endless tide of robots was nice and all, but I was almost out of those and a few dozen Calendras doing hit and run would probably also do the trick, if I had an extra dragon or two thrown into the mix.

I pulled my newest necklace out of my inventory. The first was a complicated web of diamonds, so I tossed that back into the ether and pulled out a bronze pendant with an inlaid topaz. I sent it to Sadie, “Get this to Caledra, if you can. After that, come back here when you have spare time.” I got confirmation, and closed the line.

I moved on to my missions. As I hoped, Vanessa got the job done overnight. One more mission ticket in the bag, and a new regional mission.

Westfall, Old Murk-eye, raid leader of the Westfall MurlocsRelationship shift, disguise Etiquette

Scraping the bottom of the barrel there, eh? Murk-eye was a bit infamous, but a huge step down from Edwin. He was a pretty average murloc; individually not much stronger than his minions and with very little distinguishing him except that he pissed off a ghost pirate. Note: recruit ghost pirate?

Relationship ShiftShift the nature of a relationship between two people by pointing this rod at each of them and willing it. This will not change whether it is a positive or negative relationship or its intensity, but you may choose whether it is affected in one or both directions. For example, you could turn lovers into best friends or vice versa, or could convince one member of a couple that they were only ever friends. This would likely sour the relationship, as only one person will remember their original relationship; others, such as their mutual friends, will remember them as just friends. Similarly, a murderer and the lover of one of their victims who had sworn vengeance could have their relationship reframed into a bitter rivalry, the aftermath of a particularly nasty breakup, or even a particularly abusive marriage. Memories of everyone aware of the relationship will change to fit the narrative.

Disguise EttiquetteGrants all retinue members using their amulet to make a disguise a limited variant of communication talent, limited to informing them about general etiquette and social customs that their false identity would be aware of, and warning them when they might be in breach. It does not extend to particular interactions within smaller social groups of less than 10 people.

Pretty good rewards though. Not quite as much punch as hybrid runes or alluring whisper, but definitely usable. Plus, the fact that he’s an easy target means that I could “feed” him to one of my girls strategically. Probably someone that was giving me diminishing returns, or someone who had a unique skillset. Lividia and Drusilla could be brought up to par with the more elite members of my team, or I could see about pushing Doris or Abby to an even higher level. I was pretty sure Onyxia didn’t need the power boost, but I’d at least consider it.

Speaking of regional mission promotions, Talaada’s limited soul talent was going to get a workout while I’m bedridden. I had missed a lot of the battle, but I’d seen a bit of what Sadie was capable of and by the time I was walking I wanted my retinue to have at least three people on that level: Sadie, Talaada, and me. I wasn’t sure exactly how much we would be able to learn in three days, or how much Sadie might grow into Confessor Paletress in that time, but we needed to start somewhere. Sadie had told me that more healing wouldn’t do much more than ease the pain when my limbs were this far gone, but not much does not mean nothing, so I was absolutely ready to be the target dummy for Talaada’s early lessons. Until then, obsessively going over missions.

The path of the armorsmithBring Gromnus Steelshaper a hand crafted ornate Mithril breastplate, made according to his specifications.Reward: mission ticket

Nope. Not worth the materials, time, or effort. Down with mission tickets. Hard Pass.

An Earnest PropositionConvince Raena Flinthammer to assist the mercenary Deliana in acquiring 15 blood samples from the beasts of Winterspring.Rewards: Mission Ticket, Seal of joy

What? No! That is so much worse. Convincing someone to go to another continent to fight some of the highest level animals in the setting is not even close to being a mission proportional to a mission ticket and a seal of joy. Not even remotely. You know what? Fuck Ironforge. Tony, you’re getting tomorrow’s minor mission.

Unless I wanted to antagonize the Argent Dawn, I couldn’t just steal one of their priestesses full time, not until I had a more solid alliance with them. So I’d only get her when she was off duty or could otherwise be spared. That meant that I needed some other way to kill time, beyond getting lessons from my hot teacher. I made a list, taking another swig of potion. It had a syrupy texture and an aftertaste like muddy leaves. I could already tell I’d hate these potions a few days from now.

I started by planning what everyone else would be doing. Making an itinerary of things I was capable of doing felt like it would be a bad move. I might depress myself if it’s too short, and I’d be at a loss if I made a list and then ran through the whole thing in a day or two.

Alright. Heavy combat may need to wait. Not only did I intend to monopolize the best healer in the retinue and most of the good trollsblood potions, all of my dragons except Talaada are in recovery after that chain lightning. I’d love to take the opportunity to burn down the Raven Hill Cemetery and get my damn cape, but we chewed through a lot of our potions and most of Ursula’s soul shards. My team needed to recover before going to war again.

Of course, I don’t think the Tower of Morganth is going to be very heavy on dragons. What with it being indoors and all. A strong team of ground troops, who didn’t use magic, the same ground troops that I didn’t want to risk against the dragons, would tear through the gnolls and dogs. Hopefully they could then kill the big baddie at the top. I wanted more potions and soul shard consumables if they’d be going in with few or no healers, though. Maybe Hamhock or a couple of these ghost druids could serve as support, but they’ll be a distinct minority. I’ll save the exact composition for when the souls have been harvested.

Alright. That’s two people sorted: Drusilla and Ursula farm soul shards for the next big fight at the tower, preferably by burning through gnolls or Blackrock Orcs with some of the more open minded of the rampant lions. Eh, fuck it. Drusilla with a few Lions handpicked by Irma, Ursula teaming up with the new druids. I wasn’t sure if I trusted them to interact with the nightmare any further, but slaughtering trash mobs seems entirely within the twisted phantoms’ wheelhouse. For added points, have the druids and Ursula masquerade as gnolls so that any retaliation is to my benefit.

Obviously I wanted to set things up near the other nightmare dragons. I might be able to launch another tide of harvest golems at one of them, but it probably wouldn't work as well with fewer golems and more enemies. I’d like to have allies. Looking at each of the locations, I considered my options.

In the Hinterlands I was already planning on bringing along some high elves, but it was also close to a rather powerful faction: the Wildhammer clan of dwarves. The Wildhammers are a bunch of absolute mad lad griffon riders who are sort of members of the Alliance, but only loosely. I’d expected to see more of them, they were the fast travel system in the game, but the one or two times I’d asked around about griffon riders, mostly out of curiosity, I’d found out that they mostly just carry mail and news as they patrol from place to place. Hiring one to give you a ride is not as easy as I’d been led to believe.

That aside, if there was any faction inclined to hear about a giant psychotic dragon in their territory and immediately saddle up, it was the Wildhammers. They’d put in the work, too. Many of the griffon riders are shaman, skilled at throwing explosive hammers that return to their hands, or cutting out the middleman and shooting lightning bolts. They might be able to win the fight themselves with a bit of warning. Of course, they’d also be more likely to ask questions if I did anything too “fun” and would almost certainly expect a share of the loot. Possibly the corpse, too. Dragon parts are great crafting materials if you aren’t overly concerned about the fact that they are sentient people.

Feralas has Feathermoon Stronghold, one of the largest night elven military bases in Kalimdor, led and named after General Shandris Feathermoon, who was probably the highest ranking night elf I knew of that wasn’t basically a demigod. Maybe Maiev Shadowsong outranked her. In certain contexts.

In any event, if I approached them wearing scalygreenface or had Ysondre do the talking for me once she was feeling better, I could probably get the full support of the Sentinels. They might even believe me when I said that it was important to disable, rather than kill, Taerar. They were also, however, definitely among the most judgy factions about things like warlocks and necromancers, so I’d need to leave Ursula and Abby at home if I brought the sentinels.

Ashenvale was probably the worst situation. I might be able to get some support, but almost certainly not from the Alliance; they’d need to march an army through enemy territory to get to the portal. The Horde would probably also be willing to join in on a good scrap if I presented myself right, just like the Wildhammers, but unlike the Wildhammers their nearest settlement is a logging camp. A highly militarized one, but still. They were here for trees, not dragons. I think this one might be the last one I do, and I’ll bring the remaining harvest reapers along, and probably also go ahead and use the Nightmare Skitterer on Lethon just to be extra sure it all goes according to plan. The positioning is just shit, but hopefully a 4v1 elder dragon battle with a robot army fighting in the background and a fucking Xenomorph thrown in for flavor would resolve in my favor. If everything between then and now goes well.

Well. With at least a cliff notes version of a plan for each of the dragons in place, what else?

I noticed that Tony was in Southshore. I got a little smile. “Hey, Tony.”

“Uh, yeah bossman?” I heard the clink of him putting down a cup.

“I want you to look for a woman named Calia in Southshore. She should be a mother of one daughter, and her husband used to be a soldier but I’m not sure about now. She used to be the princess of Lorderon, and I want her to wear one of my necklaces.”

“Uh. Sure; any reason you got me doin this? I’m pretty sure people will be nervous if I start asking around.” Shit. He was right. Tony is a cool dude but he’s also a giant bruiser. Hmm. Tessa. She could play the part of a messenger sent to covertly find a princess, I think. More importantly, through the power of sexism and classism people will be less threatened by the pretty blonde woman in shiny plate armor asking around than the actually less dangerous and less heavily armed man. In an ideal world I’d send Vanessa, but she’s kinda busy with the Defias for now.

Note to self: if Tessa can’t find Calia, send Vanessa and Darcell together. Or Prudence, once she has her own brain again. I need Darcell to start picking up infiltration and spycraft. In the meantime, “alright, fair point. Once I send Tessa to relieve you, I want you to get close to this monastery in Tirisfal, without making contact with the people there. You think you can do that? I’ll send someone to swap places with you later.”

“Oh yeah. Sure, that I can do. Do I get to know why I should avoid them?”

“They are kinda nuts. If they think you might be infected with the plague or a threat to them, or if you happen to meet someone particularly dickish, they’ll just try to kill you on sight.”

“Ah. Ok. Yeah that checks out.”

“Stay safe.”

Last but not least, I sent Eliza orders to catch and cage some worgen. She had authority to use any of the undead or ogres in the area, especially Stitches, but not humans. That was another thing I’d been putting off too long.

I wanted to get someone on the job for Mori Hildelve, but I wasn’t sure who yet. Probably Dremuus, but he would cause a fuss if I just had him suddenly appear in the middle of Ironforge. Even if I transformed him or disguised him, he reeks of fel corruption. Prudence and Auffrey would be heading to Kharanos next; I’d just have them call him on the way there then part ways.

My stomach rumbled. What was taking Annetta so long? I’d gotten a bit hyperfocused, but she’d been gone for more than an hour at this point. I was starting to worry.