Waiting in Feathermoon

5/18 noon

I was asked to wait in a small room in the central building. I was offered some steamed dumplings and fruit juice, which I accepted. The night elves wouldn’t, and in all likelihood couldn’t, poison me. I realized before long that they probably thought I was a messenger, rather than a real envoy. After all, they had seen my dragon form. I was just a kid by elf standards. I could hear outside of my room the sounds of mobilization and preparation; apparently they had decided from my initial message that they should be ready to fight as quickly as possible. I’d be brought in to talk to the general when she needed to know their heading.

I appreciated the dumplings; I didn’t expect Night Elf cuisine to taste like Korean food, but it did and I loved it. What I didn’t appreciate was being left to cool my heels for more than an hour with a pat on the head and a snack. I couldn’t exactly teleport away; that would provoke questions. I decided to cool my heels for the moment, and checked my app. It was awkward pushing the amulet against my skin instead of just taking it out, but I was feeling extra cautious. Night elves are very twitchy around any kind of magic that wasn’t explicitly good in nature, especially at this point in the timeline. I definitely hoped they didn’t have the ability to sense that I was magically linked to half a dozen demons, for example, and most night elves even rejected basic arcane magic.

I was quite surprised to see a popup indicating that Onyxia had already killed Arcticus. I definitely had not been expecting that to happen this quickly; only a few hours had passed since I sent her out. Mark that down; giant dragons can destroy starting zone trash mobs really easily.

I went through the options like I usually do. I dismissed hybrid form almost immediately. For Lividia it would have been a substantial power up; for Onyxia it just made her more convenient to bring into small tunnels and such. Many whelps only got a bit more consideration. Swarms of minions is an intriguing option; neither whoring Onyxia/Katrana out nor flooding the battlefield with my own children are particularly enticing, however.

Broodmother was a good bit more interesting; I have a vested interest in getting more drakes in my retinue. The draenei seem to have somewhat dried up as a source for that, at least until I had some ghosts. Lividia would probably get a quick and cheap power boost, too. It would still be a bit of a weird power to optimize, though, turning one of my strongest assets into a breeding sow.

Craftswoman, which would let her hide my Jewels in other items, had a lot of potential, but it also felt like it would become redundant once I got my hands on Jewels of Discord, which made my necklaces deceptive to cursory magical surveillance. I wasn’t likely to get that in the immediate future, but I was making credits a bit faster these days, so it wasn’t out of the question to plan around it.

Very hard and very fast, pumping her physical strength and prowess up to being on par with a dragon aspect, was just too simple and effective. Like a piece of gear that just had perfect stats and no fancy special abilities. The dragon aspects are basically demigods, and even without their magic they were absolute units. There are things that would still be a threat to her by using magic, and it would be even harder to fit her through doors, but in an open field she’d trump almost anything that didn’t come with an entire army in tow. I was pretty sure that even without martial talent I was smart enough to identify the kinds of things that would be a serious threat to her and support her accordingly. Things like an entire squadron of griffon riders, one of the dragons of Nightmare, or the massed armies of the Horde or Alliance.

I was also pleased to find that the Murloc mission was complete, netting me a credit and wild immunity. Wild defense was one of the less tactically important abilities to get up to immunity, but I’m sure it would at least come up. Especially since I was going to have to fight a giant man made of fire in the middle of a volcano at some point. By the Light, I hope environmental defense works like an upgrade instead of there being some kind of cutoff point where my retinue goes from totally fine to instantly melted by convection because suddenly it’s bad enough to count as environmental defense instead of wild. If so I’ll have words for Auriel next time I see her.

Anyway: new mission just dropped. What have we got?

Ferocitus the Dream EaterRestore the sanity of the furbolg mystic Ferocitus the Dream Eater. You will be penalized if any outsider realizes you have an interest in him specifically.Reward: 1 credit, Greater Waters of Lethe

I checked my map. Teldrassil, the night elf starting zone. I was probably going to be in the area at some point, when I was I could send a couple of my rogues to toss a necklace around his neck. It might need to wait until I pick up corruption defense, but the actual time and resource investment will be very minimal. Of course that’s what I thought about An Intervention and that just sat in my log for far too long.

The reward was in the category I thought of as “capture enablers”. If I could get someone to drink greater Lethe water, they’d mentally become a blank slate. They were as good as captured unless I left them sitting around in public without any kind of personal identity. That would be a great way to find myself with another Ursula situation, but probably much worse.

I checked everyone’s status and locations, noting that Abby and Drusilla were in Morganth’s tower. I guessed that made sense; he probably had evil books about dark magic. Bitches love evil books about their chosen field. I sent out a note to Irma to arrange for the tower to be secured. Tiny shacks with gore filled cellars are great and all, but this was free real estate.Something itched at the back of my head. There was something about that tower that made it a bad base… oh shit. It was being monitored. There was a wizard tower, Azora, in Elwynn. There was bad blood between the Archmage there and Morganth. And I’d stormed it with an undead and ogre army backed by my own troops. If I was very lucky, the scrying sensor didn’t see the Rampant Lions.

“Forget that last order. We can make arrangements when I get back to base.” If it was guarded entirely by ogres, undead, and demons, it might be written off as dark wizards fighting over resources. Given that the tower of Azora’s MO was deploying adventurers to solve all their problems, I probably had time while he ponders his orb or whatever archmagi do. I’d need to neutralize Azora though, probably, eventually. Not necessarily kill or capture. Just make sure they wouldn’t cause me problems.

Thinking of mages made me think. Maybe I could use my time a bit more productively. I poked my head out of the room and spoke to the two sentinels guarding the room. “Is there any chance you have an enchanter here in your fortress? I’d very much like to speak to them if you do. I expected to see your leader by now; I have something that I need examined. It may be important.”

As is my preference, I wasn’t lying. I had that ring Ysondre had. It was wrapped up in nightmares, far more than the other items had been. It might just be a coincidence, but my gut told me the ring was important and the Nightmare was actively trying to damage or isolate it. Ysondre could tell me more when she was captured, but maybe an enchanter could give me some hints.

The two sentinels looked at each other, shrugged, and flagged down another soldier. “Could you tell Xylinnia to come here? Apparently the messenger needs an enchanter. Sooner rather than later.”

“Thank you, ladies. Please, let me know if there’s anything at all I can do for you.” I got a smile and an appreciative glance out of one of them. The other, the one who called for the enchanter, rolled her eyes; apparently she was used to this kind of behavior out of her companion.

“I’ll be sure to come speak to you later, if there’s time. I’ve always been very curious about dragons. I’m sure there are all sorts of fun things we might share with one another.”

“By Elune, Renasha, we are on duty!” The flirty elf was appropriately chastened and averted her eyes. Ok. Good to know. I’m not sure if Renasha was particularly vulnerable to Stud Service or if she was just very sexually open and caught off guard by Alluring Whisper, but it was good to keep in mind that the lures wouldn’t have a uniform effect. If she had been alone I’m 90% sure I could have gotten Renasha in bed with me, but the other sentinel was either unaffected or just had far more self control.

“Yes. There are many things to be attended to. Pleasure can wait until our duties are fulfilled. I apologize.” I definitely didn’t have a problem with a blue skinned amazon being just a bit too forward with me, but her partner was right. Right now really wasn’t the time.

I only had to wait for about fifteen minutes for a silver skinned woman with blue-green hair to enter. She had a short golden rod sticking out of a satchel, and was the least muscular woman I’d seen since arriving. She was definitely still fit, but was much more “housewife who enjoys yoga” than “special forces soldier whose primary weapon is a longbow with absurd draw weight.”

Xylinnia

“Ah. You are the dragon? Xylinnia Starshine. Your name?”

“Erius”

“A pleasure. So you said you had some manner of item that needed to be identified?” She was eager; she expected a challenge, if the green dragonflight couldn’t do it themselves. Really it was more that I didn’t want to risk Eva; humans tended to be a bit less resistant to corruption than dragons. This lady, in contrast, was an unknowing but serious threat to me until she could be collared.

I put the strange nightmare infused ring on the table, and gestured at it. It was hard to see clearly, requiring close examination to recognize it as a ring at all; at a glance it was just a clump of red streaked gray goo with a small round object at the center. “Be careful. We are almost certain that the enemy has shielded it for some reason. We just don’t know why.”

She pulled out the rod and a small monocle, which she placed over her glowing white eye. She then proceeded to start chanting and waving the rod over the ring. Xylinnia studied it, and slowly stiffened. I started to realize she was in trouble when I saw her eyes drooping. I tried to shake her out of her developing stupor, then snatched away the ring. She curled over the table, and her breathing became slow and rhythmic. She was asleep, but mumbling something. “Message. S’a message.”

“Guards? Renasha! We have trouble!” I would have some explaining to do, it seemed. On a positive note, I’d probably get to talk to Shandris.