Wake Up Feeling Like a Prophet

5/30 morning

The fanatical wizard was surprisingly fun in bed. Mila held me in equally high regard to a dragonspawn, since she saw me as a prophet, but she still had a firm streak of self interest underneath. She didn’t just want to please me, she wanted to impress me and curry favor. I’m not actually sure if I’d have even been able to tell the difference if I didn’t have communication talent, but the undercurrent of her trying to actively one up Lividia and keep my attention added a fun dynamic.

https://imgur.com/a/1dxcp54

Lividia, being Lividia, was completely unfazed by her wannabe rival, and communication talent worked with me to help me lead Mila on just a little bit; her own communication talent worked in my favor. Her enthusiasm and can-do spirit were very appealing, but there was no chance that I’d drop Lividia for her. I had about a dozen other girls I was already quite fond of, and several dozen more that appealed to me one way or another, but she didn’t know that.

Hey, if she really saw Lividia as a rival, maybe she’d even grow faster. I wasn’t entirely clear on how that worked. In any case, there was no particular rush to get everyone back out into the field. I issued my new Scarlet Crusade squad a few potions each and gave Mila a lesser magic wand with far more gravitas than it deserved. It was a practical weapon, something to help save her mana; there was a guy in twilight grove making five of them a day, so I could make them standard issue.

They stayed for breakfast and I explained to them that the Forsaken were fine, actually, as I was in the process of purifying them with my holy powers. They were to avoid combat with any sentient undead they might encounter. If they listen to the voice of the light, they should be able to sense who has been purified and who must be captured for that purpose. In other words, they should subdue and kidnap any sentient being that they can find who isn’t already in the retinue, if they can get away with it. Even the living. I kissed Lividia goodbye when they left through the portal to go and do their part for Tirisfal.I turned my sights to today's itinerary, going over my plans. Obviously step one was missions.

But that’s illegal!Bribe Jansen Underwood, Booty Bay Blacksmith, into knowingly fulfilling a commission for a member of the Bloodsail Buccaneers. You may not mentally influence him; you must provide him with something he considers worth it.Reward: Disposable Stamp

Well. That’s good enough that I can’t discard it. Wonder if he wants a willing sex slave? I haven’t got an obvious use for these fading dream mushrooms anymore. I’m too good at capturing people now that I have the swarm of ghosts learning shadow magic. Maybe animals… actually, no. That’s an idea. I can capture animals with the mushrooms and turn them into felsteeds. I quickly sent a note to Dena to purchase whatever the cheapest kind of animal that will eat a mushroom is. I need to flesh out my demon hit squad somehow; maybe I should just put out a call for volunteers to become Eredar and satyrs and what have you. I’ll also have Nozara start training the satyrs as mages; she’s probably my strongest mage at the moment. The one possibly stronger mage is Onyxia, who didn’t focus on standard combat magic for obvious reasons.

Right. Mission. I’d need to send someone with some business acumen to ask what he wants. I think I’ll go with Vanessa; the Defias Brotherhood was dissolving into the population of Westfall, so I could make more active use of her. I think she might also have connections to the Bloodsail Buccaneers, unless Hearthstone just liked playing up the fact that you fight her on a ship. Enough distractions, what about the regional mission?

Loch Modan: Defeat Chok’sul, Ogre ChieftainRewards: Normalcy

Normalcy: all outside observers will accept relationship dynamics within the retinue as normal and socially acceptable. This extends only to the relationships themselves, not specific actions; no one will bat an eye that you openly have three lovers, one of which is married to another man while another openly proclaims herself to be your slave. They will, however, object if you begin fucking one during an opera, and the husband may still feel jealous.

I hadn’t really noticed, but honestly that sounded like a nice little perk. It’s not exactly hard to just not mention the number of women you slept with regularly, but why should I need to bother keeping quiet? The acceptance of breaking taboos is more likely to actually be useful if I ever decide to fully embrace the dark side that is NTR. Actually, would this retroactively make Elune less annoyed with me? Maybe?

If I remembered right, the ogres in Loch Modan were well fortified elites. They were entrenched, and an open assault would probably be dumb. As such, better to take advantage of the fact they are a bunch of weak willed ogres and pull a mass capture. Sylvanas could handle this one, when she had a couple hours of free time. She was easily important enough to deserve a regional upgrade.

Speaking of mass capture, I also needed to do Bloodlust and I realized the most obvious solution to my problems: capture them first, then murder and resurrect them. It was so obvious, I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it sooner. Probably the instinctive revulsion at the concept of murdering innocents. But I had tier 2 of stress resistance ever since we captured that Paladin chick at the party. I might need to start paying more active attention to my feelings to be sure I don’t turn into a psychopath. Eh. It’s probably fine.

The centaur and Freeing Zaetar are in the same region, so I can’t help but think of them as related. I’m probably going to capture Theradras at some point, but I was in no hurry to do the mission; it would be nice to get the deluxe ticket and some credits too, so I’d try diplomacy first. Most important, it seemed like an eminently doable major mission that I could knock out quickly and efficiently if I put my mind to it. I needed one of those if I wanted to have another grand mission to focus on.There were three main tasks for the day: the Wailing Caverns, collaring the ladies of Theramore, and getting in contact with Pai to set up Lillibeth’s infiltration. If possible, I’d also like to get into the Molten core and capture literally anyone there. I sent Moira one of my five necklaces for her hubby, and set aside three more for 2 archmagi and an archdruid. That left one that might make it to a ghost this evening if nothing else comes up. Which it probably will, and I really shouldn’t be annoyed by the constant bombardment of high value opportunities, but I am.

The last thing I need to do is shift to a more education based focus for my army. I have soul talent sharing now; that means that around a week of focused training can turn anyone in my retinue into a fairly strong magic user, and a dedicated afternoon can turn them into a dragon wearing a visage. I don’t think I’m ever going to deploy another person beneath tier 4 into the field. Preferably all at least tier 5. I’m going to be relying a little bit more on my strongest people for at least a week while everyone else gets up to speed.

Aelthalyste in particular would be running an experiment with my remaining Tabula Rasas and any volunteers. Could she reshape them mentally into copies of herself through prolonged possession and shadow magic? Should I have every single ghost who isn’t actively capturing people possess one of my stronger magic users as a kind of apprenticeship? I was probably going to at least try that last one. I also needed to see how complete the transformation of the ghost currently possessing Natalie really was. If she was essentially a fully realized (if powered down) copy already, I should probably cycle someone else in. Also, give her a name of her own. Selena? Tally?

••••••••••

I made my way to Twilight Grove, called up Varian and Onyxia, and started laying out my plans for the assault on the Wailing Caverns. In between discussions of how to fully utilize all the resources we had on hand, I checked the stats for my base and was floored by how much energy I was getting. Over a thousand, almost 150 more than yesterday, just from all of the high elves turning into dragons and going up a tier or two.

I asked around to find out why, and the answer was surprisingly obvious: addiction resistance wasn’t addiction immunity, so the cravings weren’t entirely gone. Dragons, on the other hand, didn’t have an innate mana thirst built into them biologically. That was the socially acceptable reason that was cited by most, but I could tell through communication talent that getting to design your own appearance, the large boost to strength and durability, the ease of access, and the general lack of downside contributed quite a lot. I was amused when one woman told me quite frankly that it was because dragons don’t have a monthly cycle and dodging monthly discomfort was appealing, so I bet there are other side benefits I haven’t even thought of, as well.

It wasn’t too hard to pick what to spend my energy on when I realized how much it would cost to upgrade my units’ equipment, and how little upfront benefit that would give me right now.

By contrast, a moonwell and another hero would be online and providing benefits today. I set aside the resources to transform Darcell when she finished her mission; it looked like she was flying out of Camp Mojache right now, so I think that should be in an hour or two if I remember the quest chain right. She’d be an excellent demon hunter.

I went ahead and picked up Ultravision too, giving my units superior night vision. Here I was thinking night elves had that naturally, but what do I know? It’s cheap. The rest of my energy would go towards purchasing 8 more wisps. If I ever reach the point where I don’t need a lot of essence per day, I can just turn them into ancients.