Cry Havok and Loose the Books of War

6/4 Early Morning

I was very nervous to realize that I didn’t have Nefarian on my target tracker anymore. I’d been relying on that a lot, honestly. I guess I’ll just need to rely on my multiple subverted spy networks and general surveillance… actually, I think I have a plan there. Filing away the thought for later. My biggest problem was probably that I didn’t actually know what Nefarian wanted. Even if I assumed he was just like in the game he wanted… world domination? Through bioengineered dragon minions? Which would imply that he’d be staying in his lab. It might be kicking a hornet's nest, but if I can rush him down that might be the best way to end this quickly.

I didn’t know enough to feel comfortable going in half cocked. Not yet. I needed to wait until I had Vaelen’s information, at least. He’s been observing Nefarian for months. I deliberately stopped thinking about PvP for the moment. I had missions to consider, and I didn’t want to get overly fixated.

The bug extermination mission seemed to be going well. According to reports we have just about wiped out the skorpid and worm populations of Silithus, but unless the Silithid all draw back to their biggest hives and have very strong defenses, I think I’m on track to finish at least that part. Similarly, if I can source the large pile of arcanite and elementium bars from the craftsmen in Shadowforge City then I should be in a good place for the rod. Broxigar and a nicer house were in the bag, at least.

Once the sheep was calm, Valeera had assassinated the Silithid lord to complete the minor mission. That meant I had the red string of fate upgrade now, which let me see people who would be willing to join my retinue, or at least have only mild resistance to it. It would be useful for picking out targets of opportunity while I do other things, if nothing else. I had professional recruiters that I could send a target list to.

The gorilla was dead, and I could turn my necklaces into wrist and ankle jewelry. Which was niche, but a necklace is more overt than an anklet, assuming you’re dressed in moderately concealing clothes. This could let my girls in enemy territory shift their jewels around a bit to throw people in the know off. Which might be much more important now.

Transitioning before I get hung up on Nefarian again, thank you. I sent out a note about that for my ops team to disseminate. They can handle it, that’s why I have minions. So. Minor mission?

Who knows what we’ll uncover?Retrieve Brann Bronzebeard’s letter from Hive’ashiReward: Seal of Joy

Hello beautiful. The reward does not excite me. The content of the quest does. Brann Bronzebeard is a famous explorer and foremost expert on titanic artifacts. He’s a celebrity in Ironforge, and King Magni’s younger, cooler brother. I didn’t even know he was anywhere near Silithus. If I can get my hands on him, he will probably be very useful for my new grand mission to unify the dwarves, and might even have specialized information about Ahn’Quiraj. Tonight, If I don’t have another job for her, Lividia will be attempting to retrieve the letter with her posse. My stealthy sorts are going to be busy with scouting out the upper Blackrock Spire.

Unusual OreConvince the Gravelsnout Kobolds to enter into a trade relationship with your retinue. Penalty if you capture any of them before quest completion.Rewards: 1 Credit, Pocket Watch Tower

Pocket Watch Tower: Assembles an orcish style watch tower over the course of 10 seconds. If at least one ally is within the raised cabin or on the observation platform, the tower will conjure and fire a spear at enemies nearby roughly twice a second.

Apparently one of the Devs likes kobolds. I needed more income, kobolds will trade earwax for gemstones if you can convince them to take you seriously, and the reward was an instant defensible building that had a built-in automated gun emplacement. This one was happening. So what about the exciting stuff: the new major mission? I finished two of those last night, and then Caledra killed the monkey. That meant a new major mission, right?

DredgingRaise and fully repair the Flying Osprey, a sunken Silvermoon Destroyer Ship to the south of Menathil Harbor. Bonus if you do it without the knowledge of any sentient being outside of the retinue.Reward: 10 credits, all lost crew and cargo of the Osprey will be restored to the day it sank and instantly captured.Bonus: fully upgraded Arcane Sanctum

Not exactly a sexy major mission. Dredging up an old shipwreck and restoring it to fighting trim? Hell of an investment of time and money. I’m pretty sure that I’ll effectively be building an entirely new ship while salvaging a handful of parts, at best, unless I can magically repair this thing somehow. Luckily, I do have a lot of ship builders from the Defias that I could tap, and wisps do have a magical repair ability. It might be possible. The question was whether the reward was worth the trouble right now. I wasn’t a naval guy, but ships usually have a decently large crew, right, and who knows what the cargo was? Yeah, I’m not convinced. Not enough to invest in more than an initial assessment right now, anyway.

The arcane sanctum was neat; it was a fully upgraded building from the human tech tree that created magical elven units. The only problem? At this point it was redundant. Spell breakers were specialized in fighting enemy mages; I had dryads for that, though the spellbreakers were also reasonably sturdy front liners. Priests were healers and buffers. I could always use more of those, but I already had Druids of the claw. Sorceresses would be incredibly useful, with polymorph, slow, and invisibility spells… in a world where I didn’t have Doan teaching a class full of geniuses those exact same spells and more. I’d probably crank out a few priests and spellbreakers if I got the sanctum, but it would be a lateral move to make my army more flexible instead of a clear upgrade.

Desolace: Defeat Lord Vyletongue, Satyr of MaraudonReward: Mercenary Camp: Felwood

Not Theradras, eh? Guess that makes sense. I already had an orb of entrancement keyed to her… and should probably go and capture her ASAP actually. She’s going to want vengeance on Onyxia once she realizes I freed Zaetar, and is essentially the patron goddess of Centaur. That could get messy. Especially if she notices some people in Clan Leh’Prah are wearing the amulets that Onyxia told me she recognized somehow. On the other hand, if I capture her and get her to endorse Leh’Prah, all the other centaur can suck it.

I don’t remember Vyletongue and I don’t know how useful that mercenary camp will be. My best guess is that he’s one of the decoy final bosses of Maraudon; Theradras is kinda hidden if you don’t already know about her. What I knew was that he was a satyr, probably pretty tough, probably corrupting the environment as Satyrs are known to do. Good to kill, but honestly I think I’ll just have Theradras do it herself when I capture her. She’s beefy enough to qualify for a regional mission, and he’s shitting up her house.

Un’Goro: Defeat Blazerunner the Fire ElementalReward: The Golden FlameThe Golden Flame: this triangular artifact contains incredible power, split into three aspects: Power, Wisdom, and Courage. Its specific abilities will manifest based on which aspect its holder most values.

I squinted. Is that the Triforce? Because it looks like the Triforce. I’m not banking on the GMs giving me a wish granting magic item, but Ganon always seems pretty ok with only getting a third of it, at least to start with. I don’t know how strong Blazerunner is, honestly, but I doubt he’s so powerful that a small group of my strongest wouldn’t be able to take him. Plus. Well, regional upgrade.

Silithus: Defeat all four members of the Abyssal High CouncilReward: Land Talent + Sharing

Land Talent? Is that new? I looked it up.

Huh. One with the environment, drawing power from one’s surroundings, probably applies to Druidism, also helps with gathering natural resources. Yep. That’s useful. It looks like it’s soul talent’s more powerful and specialized big brother. I hadn’t actually tried learning Druidism much, but I knew that soul talent applied at least partially to it. Maybe it was like Arcane Magic and science talent? I could understand what to do with the power when it was in my hands, but I wasn’t getting any help with underlying theory without a different talent?

In any case, the problem wasn’t whether or not the reward was good. I’d do it just for the regional upgrade. The problem was getting my hands on the Abyssal Lords. Target tracking informed me that they weren’t on Azeroth. They were in the elemental planes. So I’d need to figure out some way to get them here before killing them, and unless they had terrible communication between one another, I probably needed to take them each down at around the same time or make sure that I capture them without anyone noticing anything wrong. I’m just saying, if one of my coworkers got called in for a meeting and then got shot, I might call in sick. If I remembered correctly there was a mechanic where you could call up mini raid bosses by cosplaying as high ranking members of the Twilight Council and copying their rituals, so that might work, but I don’t know how many times. I’m not going to rely on NPC level stupidity.

Missions assessed, I considered what I might do with the rest of my day. I needed to talk to Onyxia about Nefarian to get a better idea of what he was capable of and what he wanted, plus her person splitting spell. I needed to put my Pen to good use, and I had a target in mind for that. I needed to figure out how my new premium currency shop worked; it wasn’t done through the app. Instead I had an icon for it next to… Thunder Bluff? Ok then.

Meanwhile my retinue was still training, still exterminating, and still trying to make more money. I had a note from Aegwynn saying that she urgently wanted to spend some of her credits, which I glanced at and approved. She wanted to be a dryad or a hero? Dryad it is. I’m not planning on building a Tree of Eternity today, and neither of the heroes I have left particularly synergize with a powerful mage. Nozara had a financial proposal for me, which I’d probably need to get to at some point. Lillibeth was cracking on at Scholomance; she’d managed to capture one of the Barov ladies, so that’s some serious progress.

Irma had some financial reports… but I just couldn’t do it. I needed to move.