Everyone’s Plans go Smoothly
5/19 morning
Bossman said to get a necklace on some lady named Gretchen. Wasn’t too hard to find her; she was in the tavern. Not really sure why they had a tavern, or how they kept it running. Guess the answer to both questions was about the same; the undead only ate for fun. Meant customers would come in but you didn’t really need to put much effort into having a lot of stock. They just liked having a place to meet that felt comfortable.
She was sitting in a corner, wearing one of them masks some forsaken girls wore. Hers was a cat; he’d asked the bartender about those. She said a lot a girls end up looking kinda the same, so some ended up wearing something to make ‘em stand out. Some wore faces that were supposed to be who they used to be, some went with animals, some just had blank masks, which seemed like the opposite of making them individualized to Tony. Sides, just cause they were all hot didn’t mean they all looked exactly the same. He could tell the difference no problem. Usually.
Tony sat down next to Gretchen. Tony wasn’t a looker, but he hoped she’d at least talk to him. She seemed to just be staring at the fire. “Hey miss. You mind if I sit here?”
She giggled and chirped out. “Sure!” She shook her head and her voice went down an octave. “You may sit here, if you wish.”
“You ok, lady?”
“No, but I suppose speaking will help. I can feel the fog roll in upon my mind.”
“Fog?”
“The witless state. When I lose enough of myself for the Lich King to reclaim me. Already my titties,” she gave her head a firm shake, “my breasts have grown substantially, and my face is unrecognizable from what it once was. I won’t be much of a threat, what little martial prowess I have will fade with my wits, but it hurts to know that I won’t be able to serve our Dark Lady.”
“That’s rough. I might be able to help you though. I’ve got this necklace here; it makes you a lot better at holdin off all sorts of things. Poison, drugs, magic. I’m pretty sure the guy who gave it to me said it helped with stuff hurting the mind. Couldn’t hurt, could it?”
“Omigosh that sounds amazing!” She jumped out of her seat and into Tony’s lap with a hug. It felt pretty nice; she had long, silky hair and just enough padding to grab a hold of. She sprang back out of his lap pretty close to immediately, though. “It sounds too good to be true, in fact.”
“Well, I’ll admit, it might not work. But what do you have to lose? You’re already all giggly and forgetting yourself. Only other thing that springs to mind is finding a necromancer that ain’t with the Scourge and workin for them.”
“Unless you happen to know any Forsaken necromancers who… like, wanna do it,” she giggled at her phrasing, “I’m soooo not gonna do that. I don’t even wanna keep going as some bimbo if I’m not helping Sylvie.” She froze at that, realizing she’d just given the Dark Lady a pet name.
“Well I think I know just the lady. Girl by the name of Eliza, she can hook you up and get your mind back on track. Or, well, if she can’t you’re gonna be screwed either way, right?”
“I’ll try the damn amulet.” She avoided reacting to his use of the word screwed only with heroic force of will. “If it doesn’t work… we’ll see about this ‘Eliza’”
“Alright. So, how do you wanna pay for it?” Tony wasn’t a greedy man, but it’s way too suspicious to offer something like this for free.
“Like, if this was all some big scam to get me in bed,” her voice shifted from air headed to deadly serious, “I will gut you before I lose myself.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, ma’am. Coin’ll be just fine.” Damn. 50 silver was more’n Tony had ever handled in his life, but he still felt like he was undercharging. It was all she had, though.
••••••••••
The packing process wasn’t too bad. We didn’t need to organize, we just wanted it all in Dena’s dining room. There were archivists sorting through it there. As such, the members of the retinue could just grab anything that they could lift and send it along. Lillibeth grabbed a dozen old chairs, just because the craftsmanship was nice enough that she thought leaving them would be a waste.
Essentially, with nine people capable of teleporting anything that was presented to us, we could empty the building pretty quickly. Even faster when I opened a portal to the apartment and just left it open for people to haul stuff in. Quite a lot of what was present would be sold in Stormwind or elsewhere, just to give the elves some startup money.
As expected, gargoyles and a swarm of ghouls were quick to make an assault the moment that the Farstriders abandoned their defensive positions. It was no trouble; I had the portal at a central location so the defenders could all make their way into the apartment and slam the door. We heard shrieks and wet, gurgling war cries accompanied by airheaded giggles and excited shouts as the legion of the dead overran Quel’Lithien the moment they had an opportunity.
From there, it was easy enough to get everyone to Quel’Danil by lunch time, with a quick detour to visit Ysondre to minimal effect. When we arrived, Talaada and I both cast Fortitude spells on most of the rangers before they left with Caledra to scout the portal. I don’t really know how much it helped their cravings, but it seemed like the neighborly thing to do.
The rangers had strict orders to avoid getting into serious fights; if they found the core of the enemy forces they needed to get out of there, fast. In the meantime, while they did that I intended to follow my new schedule and work with Sadie and Talaada in the name of the Light.
••••••••••
Talaada was at a bit of an impasse, with her understanding outstripping her power. She could cast healing spells and summon shields, but she didn’t have much endurance for it. So we put her to the unpleasant task of emptying her own mana bar and drinking water to refill it. She was sent to Quel’Danil so that it wouldn’t be wasted.
Meanwhile, Sadie revealed that we needed to go and find targets to practice on. Naturally the rapidly diminishing clan of gnolls in Redridge served well enough for Sadie to delve into dark secrets. There was an old mine that still served as a stronghold for them.
“There are… creatures. Small ones, which seem to feed on the focus and vitality that you lose when in a sufficiently stressful situation. I think I can pull them out, and give them a physical form.”
We found a few gnolls and Sadie proceeded to do just that, manifesting an indistinct shape for the invisible creature. I could see tentacles and a huge toothy jaw. It was unpleasant to look at, but I recognized it for what it was: a shadow beast. A small monster that high level priests could summon to assault the enemy and drain mana, feeding it back to the priest.
It was small, around as small as Lividia’s dragon form. That comparison came to me only after it lunged at me when I smote the gnoll, incidentally. Sadie was able to force it to stand down, but only after it had scored a bad scratch on my forearm and tried to snap at my nose. I was glad for this morning; the little bastard was fast and would have probably taken his pound of flesh if I hadn’t spent the whole morning defending against a tiny person who was faster than me.
“Stop! Stop! Oh I am so sorry. It’s very aggressive, but I didn’t realize it would attack you too.”
“To be fair, I took his meal.” I’d blasted the gnoll once Sadie conjured the little beastie, thinking we might be able to look it over. That was a wash, too. The creature seemed to disintegrate a few seconds after it stopped trying to eat me.
“I don’t think it’s meant to exist like that. But I think I could have made it last longer.”
“Is that just a guess or is it guidance?”
“I honestly don’t know. If it’s guidance it’s much more indistinct than any of the other ideas that are pressing in on me.”
I scratched my chin. “Well, it’s possible it would have lasted longer if we’d let it attack anything successfully. So that’s worth checking. In the meantime, see if you can develop your idea for Mind Vision. The one where you can take direct control of someone. I think that will have a lot of applications.” I was willing to put off giant monsters dredged out of the mortal mind if the alternative was mind control.
••••••••••
The amulet was fascinating. Vance understood why Gretchen had brought it to him, but was quite embarrassed to say that he could only scratch at the surface. He made wands and rubbed dust into shirts to enhance their wearers stamina, and this… this was forged by the gods, or near enough to them.
The biggest surprise was actually that it seemed like it would do what the strange orc claimed. There were powerful spells of preservation and protection for the mind. It wouldn’t just stop deterioration, it might reverse it. The spells of binding were impressive in their scope, but almost expected; a bit unusual in that they seemed like they’d work just as well on a living soul, but that was only a matter of power. The Lich King himself had been dominated by his predecessor for years.
“This belonged to a necromancer, you said?” Vance asked Gretchen as he continued to navigate the labyrinth of spells within the gemstone. He just wasn’t up to the task of parsing it all out.
“He claimed to know one that worked for the Forsaken; I don’t know if she’s, like, his buddy or if he’s totally whipped. He had minion vibes.”
“You did well bringing this to me. I think we need to go to the Undercity. The Dark Lady will want to know more of it.”
“I’d do anything for Sylvie. Like, if I do anything to hurt her just kill me.” Faithful to the last. Vance hoped that they’d be able to repay her quick thinking with something better than that request.