Valhalla

6/1 late morning

I teleported back to the Twilight grove, more than a little put out by my unproductive morning. It was probably going to be best for me to outsource a lot of the questing, at least in these early stages. I wasn’t the strongest piece on my side of the board, but I was definitely one of the more flexible and mobile.

I sent Ysondre to go check to see if any red dragons were at Wyrmrest and had some way of getting in contact with Vaelen; I could hope. I’d want her to come along to the sunken temple as well; more good healers are always good and she might be able to identify green dragonflight related things the rest of us wouldn’t.

I sent my dragon riders, wearing their green colors, to canvas Azshara. Azuregos isn’t exactly a subtle guy. He’s not very helpful, but he’s not evil either; he’ll probably just tell me where I’m going if I ask, then I can figure out the rest from there. Eranikus, of course, was already on the chopping block. The biggest difference was that I’d be throwing quite a few more of my resources at the Sunken Temple today, instead of perpetually putting it off.

Speaking of my resources, I still had other missions. I smiled to see that Bloodthirst had been completed. Murdering and resurrecting my new recruits was dark, but not really that big a deal in the long run. Especially with reasonably useful rewards. Mostly the orb of entrancement, honestly, but it’s all decent.

I decided to send the HUD upgrade to Melisara; having a ghost who could instant capture without an amulet magically appearing around the target’s neck would be just too good. I’ve had her drifting around Thunder Bluff possessing people at random, since she had the upgrade that makes her impossible to stay mad at so it didn’t matter if she got caught, but she had been seen enough times that it was time to send her somewhere else. I think I may send her to Shadowforge instead, and start specifically targeting Dagran’s enemies. I’m sure he’d like that, and his enemies are very likely to be my enemies too. I moved on to checking my new missions.

Wetlands: Defeat Nek’rosh Skullcrusher of the Dragonmaw clanRewards: Bottled consent

I do not remember anything about this guy other than his dad is a huge asshole that traumatized Alexstrasza back when his clan was still relevant, so I’m going to assume he’s not that big a deal. I’ll get to him when I get to him.

Zero ChillKill 30 Chillwind Yeti in Winterspring. You must kill them all over the course of one hour or less or you will be penalized.Rewards: 1 credit, Epic Purple Shirt, Entrancing Orb

Epic Purple Shirt: Once per day, the wearer of this shirt may use it to draw the attention of anyone within 60 feet that they desire the attention of. Those affected will be keenly aware of the wearer’s presence for 30 seconds, and may be mildly distracted by this awareness, but will not be aware that the user is deliberately drawing their attention.

Huh. Okay. I could probably do that myself, actually. Definitely if I brought a few friends. I may set aside an hour for this one; if I finish the Silithid objective it’ll be done within the day. Can’t go in all half cocked though; Winterspring is a high level zone and its yeti are probably very strong. I do not want another penalty.

I teleported to Feralas next, where my new base was being built around Emeriss in her Tree of Life form. She would be sleeping here, returning to the battle in the Emerald Dream. She still counted as a tree of life, though. To my relief, my resources were pooled. I would have almost been disappointed if I’d been able to set up a base and get multiple heroes at each one.

Congregating around the dragon tree were around a hundred ogres, but not the ogres I knew. They were quite a bit prettier, for one thing. The guys had physiques that ranged from body builder to sumo wrestler, but the formerly most common look of “flabby fat bastard” was… well, I saw one that looked like that. So it was still possible, but I think he might have just been an ugly ogre to start with. The ladies tended to fall on a spectrum of fitness model to exaggerated female body builder, tending towards the latter; not a one of them looked dainty, but we here at the Company embrace a wide variety of body types as long as they are hot.

New and improved ogress

This would matter to me far more if I wasn’t here to turn them all into demons. I called in all of the warlocks I had on hand; Ursula, Drusilla, Porena, and a dozen forsaken. I also had fifteen undead from the Cult of Forgotten Shadow, Vanessa, Natalie, and a multiracial gaggle of shadow priest trainees. It was time for a workshop on demon binding. I didn’t want the people who held the leashes for my demon goon squad to be going into the line of fire themselves; so far nothing has happened to Ursula or Drusilla, but when I became a warden my own demons had been sent adrift until I could relearn the basics of summoning.

As such, I’d be transferring the majority of my demons, new and old, to these people, who were being trained to serve as an ops center and support staff. About 40 people should be able to manage an army of well over a thousand respawning demons if I fully embrace demonic diversity, and I fully intended to add more people as time and training allowed. My actual warlocks would keep their own personal teams of demons, but they were here primarily to serve as mentors for the new trainee demonologists.

First, I needed to explain what was about to happen to the ogres. I blinked on top of an old stone ruin where I could be seen and started yelling. “Hello, my friends, and welcome to Valhalla! Here, you will become immortal warriors, to fight and die and get stronger every day!”

The ogres looked confused for a moment, then one of them realized what I was saying. “Smash?”

“Yes! Lots of smash!”

“Hooray!” “Me smash good!” “Smash! Smash! Smash!” Ok, good to know they hadn’t gotten any smarter or less violent. Maybe I really did need to spring for mind runes. Eventually, the cheering stopped and they were chattering to each other. One of the taller ones yelled up at me. “What smash?”

“Giant bugs! They crunch! Undead that squish or crack! Trolls who are crazy, sometimes!”

That got a few rounds of internal debate, but they were primed to accept my guidance.

“When?” Came another shout.

“Today, but only after you finish being made immortal!” That got a round of cheers, which I tried to cut off while pointing to my warlocks. “You listen to these pretty ladies! Do what they say, and wait your turn. You got that?”

And so the process began. Each ogre was brought over, given a necklace, and turned into a demon. About fourty, all female, were made into succubi. Those were each paired off with a single summoner, me included, for the sake of the shadow magic affinity they offered. Every little bit helped, and I can confirm that it stacks with Soul Talent. Any ogres that came off as smarter than average or who were already magic users were turned into Man’ari Eredar. Their mystics were a kind of very basic form of shaman, but lightning bolt plus healing is all you need for most combat situations if you’re already a giant hulking brute. As Eredar they’d be a bit weaker physically, but not so much as to be significant next to immortality.

The rest were turned into Satyrs, once I discovered that Nathrezim were still too alien to transform an ogre directly into. Had to use a full restore on that one; too much death magic baked into them. I’d try again once I had fatality defense. Not too big a loss; nathrezim are big and strong, but their power mostly came from eons of knowledge and experience. More satyrs would be fine; their mirror images were one hell of a force multiplier, just in terms of sheer confusion.

I had a small army now, around a hundred and thirty warriors. I posted an offer on the announcement board in the Twilight grove that I was requesting people interested in entering an eternal cycle of combat and resurrection, and had Yanca put out the word among the Rampant Lions and the worgen as well. Thrill seekers welcome; personally it doesn’t seem like a terribly fulfilling life to me, but if they volunteer to fight and die in an endless cycle of glorious combat, I won’t judge. Hell, once I own the Scarlet Crusade more fully I’m sure I’ll get plenty of volunteers.

Now the bad part: I had a disposable army, but it was an army consisting of a huge number of nearly naked people with fairly rudimentary weapons and extremely underdeveloped magical abilities. I could outfit those who particularly needed clothing, so basically everyone but the felsteeds and Satyr, with armor from my closet, as it was all at least slightly enchanted magical armor.

I started with my own succubus, Gerd. She may be a living exp boost for my shadow magic studies, but she was my living stat stick; she got first dibs. I suggested a red witch costume from Sally’s segment of the closet, and she was happy to put it on.

https://imgur.com/a/MusyeG6

I was very free with passing out the more novelty outfits, which the tastefully fetishized nature of Heroes of the Storm skins and humorous what-ifs of hearthstone gave me plenty of. It didn’t really matter if my troops were dressed as Vegas showgirls, sexy witches, vampire hunters, sentai heroes, or fairy princesses, now did it? Ok, it mattered enough that those outfits only went to the girls; I have some standards. The guys that merited their own armor, such as a handful of ogre shaman and Bartleby the now-sober veteran, were dressed as K-pop singers or wearing military uniforms from StarCraft, courtesy of Anduin. The protective value offered by this gear was modest and oriented towards spellcasters, but far better than fighting in a birthday suit.

The satyrs were mostly unclad, and armed with heavy weapons that emphasized strength over agility. They were still strong, but their natural speed and flexibility wouldn’t benefit them near as much when they couldn’t dance around easily. Oh well. We’ll figure it out later. Far more worrying were the succubi, who were absolutely not cut out for fighting with giant heavy weapons. Traditionally, succubi fought with magic or with long barbed whips (charged with magic). I’d need to train these girls, and given that they were almost all ogres an hour ago, I didn’t think they made the cut when it came to arcane magic lessons with Doan. I decided not to send them into active duty for at least a day or two while Ursula’s succubus taught them how to properly use innate Succubus abilities. It was either that or train them all with the ancient of war, which would be expensive even if I made them cheap archers.

Speaking of which, I had a thought. Could I use my base resources to more quickly do some of these missions? I couldn’t exactly sell the weapons and armor my “elves” used, but I was generating resources from nothing. I’m sure I could apply this somehow. Of course, everything comes with tradeoffs.