Building up and Out

6/7 late afternoon

Unidentifiable corruption of mind present. Reverting to prior mental state cache: 25 hoursThe entity was of the latest iteration of the titanforged beings known as “Vrykul”The entity was restrained her after her unprovoked attackThis unit may be corrupted, as may all keepers currently found in UldamanThe entity had used shadow magic in an attempt to correct aberrant thought processesThe entity had attempted to brief her on the current situationThe entity was employing dragons as its primary military forceThe entity employs beings which have some affiliation with the shadowlands; queries recommendedThoughts of the entity were complicated by romantic and sexual interest; Address at earliest convenience.Reason for reboot unknown, checking logs.Processing.Corruption by unknown forces caused an unprovoked attack upon retrieval team sent by new prime designate.

Ironaya finished her reboot and looked around. She was being kept in a rudimentary circle in a large field, observed by a small vrykul woman in a grey robe. The Curse of Flesh had substantially shrunk the mighty warriors over the years, not to mention how it made them mortal. It was good to see that they were still acting in accordance with the titans’ will despite everything.

“Monitor. I believe that I have been purged of corruption. The prime designate requested that I help him to access the Disks of Norgannon. I am proficient with their use at only a basic level but I believe I can get the process started.”

The diminutive being accessed the network that Ironaya had been patched into for debugging. “Hmm. No. It says you’ve still got 12 hours on the clock. Lord Bismark said those were too valuable for anyone that wasn’t fully secured. Instead I’m supposed to get your assessment of what you are capable of in the service of the new order.”

The New Order? Some truly cataclysmic events must have transpired to necessitate a name like that. It was fitting though; the beings roaming around the settlement she had been brought to were all cooperating with one another, but seemed to require near constant communication to know their place in the ever shifting weave. Likely an adaptation brought on to counteract the Curse of the Flesh. Further, they likely didn’t have access to the records found in Ulduar, or they would already know her role.

“Maintenance, first class. Builder, first class. Architect, second class. Logistical coordinator second class. Tactical coordinator third class. Combatant, fourth class.” Reinforcing her assessment of the New Order, it appeared that they didn’t even have records of the classification structure. How-

She explained. “My knowledge base is optimized for the construction and maintenance of Maker facilities. Though I was not designed to create original constructions, I have enough familiarity with the Makers’ design principles to reconstruct and add on to facilities of moderate importance using my own designs if circumstances require it. I have an understanding of the principles of resource allocation and acquisition sufficient to not require direct oversight. Though I have only the minimal combat ability deemed necessary by the makers, I have a large and durable frame and basic knowledge of both leadership and strategic principles sufficient to lead non-militarized units such as Earthen or Mechagnomes in necessary combat situations.”

The small vrykul woman nodded and updated the network. “Alright. We will get lord Bismark in to see if you can be promoted to active duty just as soon as he’s available.”

••••••••••

That was quick. I wasn’t expecting Ironaya to be captured in a few hours, so I’d written her off for another day. To be fair, she wasn’t actually captured, but she was cooperating. That was almost as good. Thankfully, I had a plan for her that would not require me to trust her with my giant set of relatively fragile satellite surveillance disks. At least not until tomorrow morning, when she’d be captured.

“Ironaya, right?” I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from her, so I started neutrally.

“Yes, prime designate Bismark.” Nice. So the amulet had somehow convinced her that I was the head titanic Keeper now? I could work with that.

“Our records are extremely spotty. We need to know the locations of as many Titanic facilities as you are aware of, as well as their contents and whether or not you and Archaedes have the ability to access them. If you access the amulet, you will see a map showing the current dispersal of our forces. Update it to include all facilities, color coding them based on how urgent it is to reclaim them. Assume that they are all at least as compromised as you were.”

“Of course. I will do what I can. Will that be all?”

“No. So I hear you are an architect, yes?” She nodded. “I have a device used to purge someone of corruption and bring them in line with our objectives. My current target for it is a human male who has been infused with the power of multiple artifacts from the realms of death. He is currently in command of several hundred thousand troops, which we could make use of. An appropriate facility would help to focus the Tantric Rod’s energy and make the process substantially more efficient.”

Capturing the Lich King would not necessarily equal the instant capture of the entire Scourge, but it would be close enough for me. Unfortunately, he was tier 8, male, and relatively inaccessible compared to Onyxia. I’d need to pump up the ritual and instantly capture him instead of a cheap option like playing with his heart. I had the resources to do so, of course, but it would still be tough.

I had considered Nefarian, Elune, or C’thun as well, but dismissed them for several reasons. First, the mission to defeat Kel’Thuzad would award me a tantric rod, getting me a regional upgrade for the Lich King. The return on investment for something that would have a net cost of zero was massive. I could move on to either of the others later.

Nefarian, as a fellow tester, was uniquely positioned to maybe turn this around on me. Given that his entire gimmick was twisting magic away from his enemies and using it against them, it just seemed best to avoid it.

Elune still scared me, to be honest. I genuinely just didn’t know what she was capable of if I threatened her. Given that she was at least neutral towards me for the moment, it seemed like a bad idea to antagonize her. The biggest reason though? I didn’t have all that many links to her and she was very, very high ranked. I’d need to either lowball it and try to capture her indirectly, or create an extremely large and easily disrupted ritual to capture her with a single spell.

C’thun had that problem too, but was currently trapped in a tin can and could only really deploy swarms of angry insects to stop me until the Scarab Gate was opened. I could probably have turned this into a StarCraft map and held the line against an endless tide for a few days if I really wanted to. It would be hard, but it would also pretty much be endgame. There aren’t many things that could stop me with my own pet old god. The thing that made me worry was a certain being called Algalon the Observer.

Algalon was the regional manager for the sector of space around Azeroth. Or something like that. He had the authority to go full Warhammer 40k on my ass and glass the entire planet, and when an old god almost got out during Wrath of the Lich King he was planning on doing just that. Now that I thought about it, I had ways of surviving even that, but it would still be a huge setback if it happened. I smirked at the thought of winning my duel with Nefarian through flipping the table and causing exterminatus, but only in the abstract. I didn’t want that much blood on my hands, even if I could just bring back everyone in my retinue eventually. Until I could neutralize Algalon, I wasn’t going to even try to capture an old god.

I left Ironaya to her assignments and sat down to manage my bases. Zagara could change a lot if I wanted her to, but I decided to stay relatively mild with my new “nerubian” bases. I had her set up a few hatcheries in Desolace, one near Maraudon and one near the Leh’Prah clan’s campsite. Passive income is great, if you have the giant pile of resources necessary to set it up in the first place, and after keeping all of my demons home for just long enough to get todays payout I was rolling in credits. More than 14k, in fact.

I started with my standard order: 7 stone giants, 7 huntresses, and buying scrolls and staves. I used my new ancient of war to construct some glaive throwers to gift to the sentinels. I also built an ancient of wind and used it to turn 7 of my raw recruits into fairy dragons; magic immune little buggers that could phase out of existence to avoid harm. I polished off a substantial amount of my essence budget on the “reinforced hides” upgrade to make my non-elf units sturdier.

In order to make myself more immortal, I ordered Nozara to find me an isolated corner of Xoroth, maybe in the mines, where I could build an Altar of the Elders. There was always a chance that some unaffiliated demon would happen across it and destroy it, but the chances of that happening within 24 hours of me being killed and the altar at Twilight Grove being destroyed was approaching zero. I might want to build another in the Emerald Dream or the elemental planes later.

I had something slightly new to build as well: a fuck ton of new bases. You see, the centaur are a collection of clans with tens of thousands of members across them all. Theradras, as their progenitor, offered me a regional upgrade to instantly capture more or less the entire species. While any given centaur is worth much less than a green dragon, it was still an astoundingly large expansion of my retinue. Zagara, in turn, could build hatcheries that would serve as the cores of new bases and take advantage of this massive influx of troops.

I set up a hatchery at the primary camp for each of the five, now 6, centaur clans. I had too much energy and not enough essence already, but there was no real downside to having an absurdly large amount of energy. Especially since the Nerubian Queen, a light ranged unit with the ability to heal, could be trained at the hatcheries for only 150 energy. Zerg queens in StarCraft 2, the game Zagara was originally from, were meant to be kept at base or at least on creep. Even if that held true for their Nerubian counterparts, having a garrison of spine flinging healers guarding each hatchery would probably pay off at some point. I ordered 7, requesting that the weakest members of the Maraudine clan be sent to the temple for training.

For the sake of completion, I also built a moonwell next to each of the hatcheries. Even setting aside the mana restoration aspect, they were magically refilling reservoirs of clean water. Very useful for a society that lives almost exclusively in a blasted wasteland. The shockingly cheap Evolution Chamber buildings, rectangular buildings with peaked roofs, were dropped in next to the hatcheries to serve as warehouses or silos. I sent orders for Therazane to call her children to “her” new temples.

With some basic infrastructure built and a moderate amount of resources left over, I decided to splurge to buy a Chimaera roost. The giant two headed dragons were probably the only thing I could turn my small collection of two headed ogres into, and they were potent giant flying units. After that, I had around 500 credits left. The Maraudine had sent almost thirty of their castoffs to their temple. I shrugged, and in the spirit of experimentation ordered 6 batches of 3 zerglings for only 264 energy. Might as well know what they were like.