Finding Work
5/23 afternoon
I’ve had a rather productive evening today, I must say. I checked in with the Feathermoon Stronghold and found that they were prepared to make the attack at any time. I slipped Xylinnia a necklace that she could hide under a few layers of clothing; she could tell me when Tyrande arrived. When she did, I’d gather up my posse of green dragons, “Esmerelda” and the draenei included, and provide some heavy support. I fully intended to let the Pope of Elune handle the heavy lifting on this one, while risking as little of my own retinue as possible.
Possibly a bit rude to let a bunch of strangers fight my battles for me, but I was pretty sure an actual professional army supported by around 20 dragons could take them, and they really were a serious threat to the night elves. Also, I reminded myself, I literally brainwashed everyone in my retinue. I was making a random collection of strangers fight my battles anyway.
I had actually managed to get through most of my to do list, the only thing left was using the Skitterer for a proper capture, which I was thinking could wait a day. I currently had the Skitterer functioning as a camera on the interrogator, but I was starting to think that wasn’t the best use for it. Instead, I set it to tracking the movements of Broll Bearmantle. I suspected that if I sent it after Varian, it might just end up back in Stormwind with my Varian. This way, I could track the strike team and Valeera could meet up with them before they made their attack.
Right now I could either try to expedite the capture of Valeera, then have her function as a camera/teleport point, then capture the interrogator and use her to do the swap for Windsor… or I could have Windsor and Valeera feed them the information that Katrana Prestor is the only person they can trust in Stormwind, and deal with them later. They were still a threat, but they seemed relatively managed for now.
That left me with several hours to kill, and I decided the best use of my time was starting to break down Moira’s entourage. Unfortunately, they weren’t idiots. They stubbornly refused to run off into dark alleyways and make themselves vulnerable to charm based ambush by me. To counter that, I brought in Keryn. Keryn was the best person in my team when it came to observing groups of people and analyzing their weaknesses. I didn’t currently have her doing anything that actually required her specific skillset, so I brought her to Stormwind to watch the Dark Irons.
Assuming that Moira wasn’t going to walk around surrounded by twelve armed women at all times. I could slowly subvert the whole honor guard. Charm, my lures, a bit of seduction, and possibly some banshee intervention could all be employed over the course of a week; if not, I could probably get them into my apartment for the trip home and flood it with mind numbing incense.
Today would just need to be prep work and observation, then. They were all working in groups of four, even when they weren’t on duty, they were usually gambling or drinking in the next room over. Moira herself was the one acting the most like a tourist, visiting the galleries and library in and around Stormwind Keep, going to the cathedral, eating with the King, and generally just acting like the visiting dignitary she was. Onyxia was attempting to manage her, but Moira was fairly dismissive of Lady Prestor’s suggestions. Sometimes Moira would send one of her actual servants to go do something for her, but usually they would only be gone a minute or two; frequently just long enough to get one of the palace servants to come to Moira’s rooms.
As such, I was rapidly out of things to do. Again. I wanted to use charms to capture people, but that spell was such an all or nothing play that I was scared to use it freely, even though I was going to lose the spell tomorrow. The long term power boost would be worth it, but I was absolutely going to pick up shadow magic again as quickly as I could. Fade, mind vision, mind control, and charm were way too strong for me to leave them on the table for long, not to mention that Sadie was still developing her strongest spells.
Of course, I wouldn’t just be losing shadow magic. I’d generally be taking a big dip in efficacy. I did have one thing I was planning on doing that would require me to go in with my full strength: capturing the Blightcaller. I knew where he was, I had a small army at my disposal, and I was as strong as I was going to be for a while.
His home wasn’t labeled, but it was marked on my app’s map with a little house all the same. I teleported to Sadie’s location, where she was trudging along with a team of warriors, paladins, and priests on their way back to Light’s Hope. Faded and stealthed, I made my way southwest. As is my tradition, I checked over my missions. Darcell had not disappointed; the shackles were dutifully stolen, a minor mission was completed, posture and movement training was added to my disguises, I had a new regional mission, and I had a new minor mission.
ReunitedFacilitate Thal’trak Proudtusk sleeping with his wife again, as he remembers her.Reward: Censer of Dreams
Oh? I liked the sound of that. I haven’t used the censer of dreams yet, but I had plans for it. I suspected that Sha’ni would not object to sleeping with her own husband. It didn’t seem like it would be too hard to reshape today’s mushroom eater into a facsimile of Sha’ni’s old body for her to possess. She could provide whatever excuse she wanted at that point, and her husband probably wouldn’t complain. I sent the instructions to Vanessa and Sha’ni, and it seemed like the biggest hurdle was going to be Thal’trak letting her out of his sight long enough for her to help with the reshaping process. This mission would probably be finished tomorrow, after a late night, with Sha’ni “miraculously” resurrected in the morning. I’d leave it to her how much she wanted to explain to her husband, with some obvious exceptions.
Badlands: defeat Grimlock, chief of the Stonevault Troggs of UldamanRewards: The Innkeeper’s Daughter
Ah, not Archaedes? That actually makes sense. Poor guy is one of the few dungeon bosses in lore who wasn’t a threat to anyone. Just wanted to be left alone guarding a titanic external hard drive for his boss, and it’s entirely canon that a bunch of random yahoos kicked his door down and killed him for it. Lucky for him, I already know approximately what’s on the Disks of Norgannon and right now I didn’t really care enough to get the more detailed version if it requires murdering a bunch of innocent rock people fresh out of their stasis pods. If I had all the time in the world, I’d go capture him and make him give a guided tour for a laugh, but even that didn’t seem like a good use of my time.
As far as what the mission actually is, instead of what it isn’t? Killing troggs, how original. The brutal little cavemen tended to attack people on sight; I don’t think anyone will miss them. The innkeeper’s daughter was a haunted hearthstone, as I recall. Which I’d probably give someone as a poison gift. Capture the ghost, hand the powerful and valuable artifact to someone I want to capture, they get possessed by the ghost later. I didn’t really need a hearthstone for its intended purpose after all; my necklaces did something substantially more flexible already.
I landed a bit to the east of the Marris Farmstead and started summoning. I didn’t want to turn this into a giant general melee with the Scourge, so while I did summon my dragons and had Ursula give me a soul stone, I had everyone but Lividia stay in their Visages and step lightly. Onyxia, Ysondre, Emeriss, Varian, Lividia, and five of the dragonspawn royal guards. I was pretty sure we could take him even at his strongest with a team like this, let alone his current state.