Springing the Trap
5/20 near midnight
Tony was bored as sin, but his orders were pretty clear that he wasn’t supposed to talk to the apothecary that was monitoring him. The boss could check on him through the necklaces, after all. Melisara had figured out a while ago that if she alternated between allowing the vessel to think and fully suppressing him, he wouldn’t be able to reorient himself. She hoped that this would work to preserve her lady’s charm for a longer period.
The plan was simple: be in distress, with some plausible explanation baked in. Bossman would come and save him, as he’d done in the past. When Tony was able to get him alone, Melisara could switch from this uneducated grunt to the leader of the operation. While her control was at its strongest, she could gather the information she needed and then fully suppress the fool’s mind.
Once she had done that, she would have secured the Dark Lady a powerful asset. She wasn’t overly enthusiastic about spending a substantial amount of time as a man, but the report indicated that the necklaces could be used to substantially reshape the body. Hopefully whatever central control mechanism existed for them would allow her to transfer control to Lady Sylvanas, or barring that at least reshape the man into a form more to her liking.
These were the thoughts floating through the banshee-thug’s mind when she felt herself being pulled spiritually away from the table, a sensation that Tony welcomed with a sense of relief as she let herself fall into character. He found himself lying in a bed with a dwarven architectural style.
“Hey, you ok buddy?” A tall, extremely muscular human man sat next to her. His hair was starting to get a bit shaggy; he hadn’t gotten it cut since the first time Tony met him around a month ago.
“Yeah. Thanks for the save.” Tony reached out a hand, which Erich took, intending to help him stand. Big mistake. Melisara flowed through the skin to skin contact, seizing control of Erich’s mind and body. Tony’s eyes widened. A shame she would need to kill him; he seemed a nice enough sort.
She allowed the body to control itself at her behest at first. Erich was skilled combatant, it seemed. A few unarmed strikes to the throat and face had the orc silenced and disabled; she glanced around to try to find a weapon. She saw a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye, and shifted into a subtle combat posture. “Tony’s gone nuts. He tried to kill me.”
“Oh, shit? Really?” A glass orb appeared at the foot of the bed, and Erich instinctively looked at it. It was so… pretty…A tall night elf man seemed to fade into existence with a smirk. “Alright, Erich. Good job. I’m going to need you to go to sleep for a bit. Bring out Mina. Talking to myself is surreal.”
••••••••••
I looked at “Erich” with a smirk. I’d taken my Erius form to make sure that nobody was confused, but I was very pleased that I hadn’t needed to go with plan B. Abby had responded fully to Doris’s orb of entrancement while possessing him in testing, but given the state of her own mind, she wasn’t exactly a control group, you know?
My own necklace was loaded down with commands. They were all completely inert unless my own mind was compromised, but if this banshee had managed to get into my body she would have had quite a few restrictions on her motions.
Acting counter to Erich Bismark’s will; deep shame
Accessing the functions of the necklace: momentary amnesia
Questioning whether retinue members can be trusted; momentary amnesia
Acting as Erich would; Negative emotion reduction
Acting in the interests of the retinue; euphoria
Being in the presence of female members of the retinue; strong arousal
Little things like that; enough for Vanessa to manage “me”, Irma to manage logistics, and Onyxia to manage operations until she was captured.
Instead, plan A, to fool her into an Edwin alter (loaded up with the same compliment of obediences, save one) and use the appropriate orb of entrancement, was a total success. I checked her profile and was a bit disappointed to see that she was only at level one, but I wasn’t going to complain too hard about that. As long as she was looking out of Doris’s eyes, she was entranced. I almost felt cheated that hours of planning were going to waste.
“So, what’s your name?”
The large breasted woman answered “Mina.” Oh, so she was staying in character, eh? That gave me an idea.
“So it’s just Mina right now? Everyone else in your head is fast asleep?”
“Yes. Only Mina.”
“Are there two Minas? You can trust me. I won’t be mad.”
“Yes. But they melt together.”
“I understand. The visiting Mina needs to stay in character. It would be too dangerous to try to change bodies again right now. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes. Too obvious. In enemy territory. Don’t want to leave a trail of bodies.”
“So even if she doesn’t believe it, the new Mina will just go along with anything Mina says, right? To maintain cover? They are only words, right?”
“As long as it’s just words. I won’t betray my mistress.”
“Of course. I want to work with your mistress actually. I’d really like to cooperate. But for right now, I want to talk to my Mina, not the new one. So get into character!”
“Yes. Of course, my lord.”
“So Mina. How do you feel about me?”
“You are my lord and master. It is my purpose to fulfill your needs and act as you command. I am a puppet that can play many roles.” Oh yeah. They are all just acting.
“Actually, it’s not just that it is your purpose. You love me. Fanatically. No matter what persona you take on, even if you are pretending to hate me, you love me more than anything in the world. Romantically, sexually, platonically, as a friend, lover, and god. Do you understand?”
There was a bit of warmth in her voice as she answered, “yes. I love you so much.” I checked my app. That wasn’t quite enough. Probably needed her to say it while she was awake. Melisara was down to 72 hours though, but that might just be because of the trance she’s currently in.
Thankfully, I’d thrown in the love confession/validation combo as a substitute for acting like me. Just for this very occasion.“Alright. So when you wake up, you’re going to tell me you love me. Repeatedly. The other Mina will just be doing it to get in close to me. It’s very important that she does that. It’s her mission after all.”
There was a little bit of concern when I let her wake up; she was still only shallowly hypnotized, but apparently the suggestion about staying in character for the mission was the right one. Mina naturally mixed in the declarations of love for me with begging to be used as a sex toy, but if any of that found its way into the banshee’s programming I wasn’t going to complain. It took a few rather arousing minutes of groveling and begging for Melisara to be captured. That strong Forsaken willpower coming into play, I assumed. Once she was wearing the company colors, I wanted to see who I’d stayed up late to capture.
https://imgur.com/a/M1q5mcp
She was a redhead, and her hair and dress seemed to float a bit; not quite like she was underwater, but gravity was clearly just a suggestion. She didn’t have feet at all; the dress just trailed away into shadows.
“So, as I’m sure you might have guessed, you work for me now. For what it’s worth I don’t intend to harm the Forsaken as a whole and the Lich King’s destruction is definitely on my to do list.”
“I… thank you, sir. That means a lot. But I need to warn you, I’m likely being monitored.”
Dammit, there had to be a wrinkle. “How so?”
“Aelthalyste, one of my fellow banshee, is powerful in the ways of the shadow. She can peer through the eyes of those that she has a connection to. She was likely informed within a minute or two of me vanishing.” Oh yeah. Other people can do that too. Gonna toss the counter-infiltration then.
“Of course she does. Well, hello Aelthalyste, if you’re watching. Tell your dark lady that I don’t take kindly to attacks like this. If she wants to negotiate, maybe we can work something out. I understand if you all don’t trust me, and I definitely know what you are capable of, but most of our enemies are the same. Trust me. You want me as a friend.” As I gave this little speech, my mind drifted to the Relationship Shift rod in my inventory. Building up a bit of a rapport with her could pay off in a big way, if I couldn’t figure out a better way. “I’ll put Melisara here to work against your enemies, as a courtesy. I intend to conquer Caer Darrow and the Scarlet Monastery, and I would like to clear up the Worgen in Silverpine Forest at some point. If you work with me, you’ll find yourself in a far better position when we go, together, to destroy the Lich King. If you force me to, I promise you’ll lose more than you gain in a fight with me. I’ll contact you through Gretchen’s necklace when I have time.”
Man I hope she was actually using mind vision during that speech. I’ll feel really silly otherwise. “So, back to speaking to you instead of through you; so Melisara, who among Sylvannas’s enemies do you wish to strike at first?”