One Foot Out the Door

6/14 late evening

The Tomb of Tyr was not somewhere I’d ever been before, even as a game location. I knew, broadly speaking, that it was somewhere in Tirisfal/ Tyr’s Fall Glades, but beyond that my knowledge was purely theoretical. Thankfully, I had the architect on retainer and Sylvanas’s deathstalkers to draw upon for information.

The Deathstalkers of Undercity knew about the Tyr’s Guard, an isolated cult devoted to protecting the tomb in secret. It was kinda hard to keep an enclave of living mid to upper tier paladins secret in a country where most people had transformed into the ravenous dead. The order had guarded the tomb, hidden at the bottom of a lake in the Whispering Woods, for thousands of years with a playbook based around being unremarkable farmers and woodsmen surrounded by mostly polite human neighbors. The Scourge threw quite a wrench in that dynamic.

Despite that, they had been declared extremely low priority. They were fanatics of a sort, but not particularly violent. They wanted to be left alone in their tiny forest and were strong enough to make the worgen of Silverpine seem like the better value proposition. Less individual strength, less individual power, more trees. The Tyr’s Guard were good neighbors as long as you left them alone, and passively wiped out wandering Scourge in the area. Why bother them?

Apparently you bother them so you can steal their most sacred relic, but in my defense I also have resurrecting their god on my to do list. It evens out, right? Their whole community was only around 40 people, most of whom were adult combatants. I needed more troops, and it seemed best to bring people who knew their way around the area.

I brought in enough capture specialists to overwhelm their resistance, ending up with a whole order of paladins within the hour. Some of them were a bit blonder and perkier than they were before, but come on. Look at my high priestess. Dour middle aged men just aren’t my thing even in traditional dour middle aged man roles.

They were less useful than I might have hoped, admitting that they had mostly sealed the place off generations ago. Some ancient king I was apparently supposed to know the name of had forced his way in and ended up damaging a lot of the magical defenses in the process before dying. That wouldn’t be near as big of a problem if Tyr hadn’t been sealed away along with the K’thraxxi that killed him. The Old God minion in question was literally immortal in the same way that the Old Gods are. Well, Xal’atath claimed that “death does not work for them the way it works for mortals,” but I wasn’t in the mood for a detailed technical explanation.

The injured K’thraxxi was more “depleted” than dead, and shadow magic leaked out of his body. In the right conditions, which Ironaya’s wards had been designed to prevent, he could corrupt the area around him. He would summon void entities and infect mortal minds, which could in turn feed him and resurrect him. Ironaya and Xal’atath were both quite puzzled that he hadn’t spread his influence far more, perhaps even woken up, if the wards were mostly disabled.

We moved in quickly and in force, and as advertised we found a substantial number of flesh beasts, corrupted insects, and voidwalkers guarding the area. The slightly more surprising part also neatly explained the irregularity: Thoradin, the first human King, was holding back the tide with his retinue. He was most certainly dead, but magically charged places had a tendency to make that substantially less relevant. In honor of his long service, I clapped a necklace around his neck and led a charge into the depths of the tomb, where I gave the semicomatose Zakajz a lovely new friendship bracelet to help clear everything up.

He wouldn’t be captured for a while, not unless Xal’atath could work some serious magic, but I could rip the sword out of his forehead once I implemented a new rule on him that he would make no attempt to affect anything outside of that room.

Strom’kar, Thoradin’s ceremonial weapon, was a giant slab of metal that no mere mortal had any business swinging around outside of a JRPG. It had been basically functional for a gigachad like Thoradin despite its unwieldy size, but it had mostly been intended to serve as a symbol for a new kingdom. Of course, that was before it spent more than a thousand years passively absorbing power from an old god-adjacent monstrosity.

“It’s supersaturated with void energy.” Archaedes informed me, "I would need to make rather large changes to The Silver Hand to optimize it for your fighting style, but given the unusual nature of your inventory I think we might be able to make Strom’kar work for you.”

“How long is that likely to take?”

“Not very long, perhaps a day. I just need to reinforce it to ensure that you do not face backlash from its use. Most mortals would go mad if they attempted to use this for more than a year or two. Your immunity to corruption would prevent the worst of it, but it’s still a highly toxic substance. Best to implement some shielding.”

“Make it so. Are you and Ironaya good to handle things here?” I looked over at where a team of my lower magi were chanting in a circle around Zakajz. It was altogether too large to fit in a small circle, so a huge proportion of the circle’s budget went into size and power. It would take three days to capture the big bastard; long enough that I was considering just locking him up and coming back in a week, when the amulet finished him on its own.

“Yes, Eros. We can implement your will while you rest.”

••••••••••

I did intend to rest, but first I had to travel to Zin’Azshari via time gate. Even before that, I needed to pick up a few people. Space Truckin was, in its entirety, a bit of a lark. That didn’t mean I intended treat it totally flippantly. I wanted a little bit of variety with my first few homegrown isekai protagonists, so I brought in a handful of fairly different individuals.

I walked through and found myself in the courtyard of Azshara’s palace, flanked by Onyxia, Ursula, Imriss, and a criminal gofer by the name of Gamon. We were immediately whisked away to a meal that was prepared for us, and we were soon joined by two more people: Lady Vashj and one of Doan’s local students, a man named Chadro’thar. I’d specifically ordered Talaada and Azshara to give me time to talk to this group before we planned out my own itinerary.

“You have all distinguished yourselves in your respective fields or otherwise caught my attention.” I began, “I have recently gained the ability to send someone to another world, where they can act as my agent. I’ve chosen you six to be the first to go.” I held up a hand to stop any questions. “The primary things I know are that you will return to me safely if you are killed, I will probably not be able to contact you for some time, and the process of sending you will be unpleasant. I know quite literally nothing else; your primary task will be scouting and experimentation.”

“This is intended to be something of a reward.” I assured them, “You will, potentially, get to experience life as I have. Exploring a world and conquering it with excessive powers is quite a thrill, let me tell you.”

As I fielded questions and went over a handful of Magic Circle configurations I thought would serve them well, I looked them over. They each brought something to the table that would hopefully provide valuable intelligence, and as a purely coincidental side note all but one of them had a preference for women. If I’d be getting some kind of cut of their profits, that could be important.

Onyxia was, by a substantial margin, the strongest person I’d consider sending on a trip like this. She was a triple threat of physical, magical, and social aptitude. Assuming that the people I sent wouldn’t be nerfed into the ground, she’d be fine anywhere she ended up. Even if she was, she was resourceful enough that she’d probably be able to leverage my shared talents, defenses, and lures. She was also, however, not quite the best in any of the fields she specialized in, which meant I could afford to lose her. At this point I had multiple dragon aspects, everyone in my retinue was a social butterfly, and I had dozens of mages on her level.

Speaking of Doan’s students, Chadro’thar had been one of the best at capturing people in the last month here. He would go out, frequently multiple times a night, and come back with another woman to collar and capture. Usually they were a bimbo by the time they got home with him, but not always. He had as much raw power as any of Doan’s students, but he was mostly distinguished among them for his silver tongue. Despite all that, Talaada seemed to find him annoying. Promoting him out of her hair was an excellent opportunity for her, and I decided to allow it.

In a similar vein, Vashj had appropriated retinue assets to speed up the capture of Azshara. It was resourceful, ambitious, and successful play, so a direct punishment would feel wrong. However, the stealth punishment of sending her away from her cushy lifestyle and sapphic idol in the form of a special mission seemed like it would be perfectly adequate. In addition, she was objectively quite intelligent and eager to please; she’d probably do quite well in the field. Finally, she was a Naga Sea Witch whether or not she was actually a Naga; as a hero unit, I could load her down with a handful of cheap company assets that would hopefully give her an edge. If not, I’d find out how that works instead.

Speaking of experiments, every experiment deserves a control group. In this case, that control group was two guys: Imriss and Gamon. Imriss was my first green dragon, barely out of the whelp stage of his life cycle. He was a decently tough fighter and very fast, but it’s pretty hard to distinguish yourself in an environment like this. He’d served as a messenger and teleport point for me back when my staff was still lean enough that I didn’t just have a massive network to facilitate movement. He was borderline useless to me now but had provided an excellent service once, as such he was due to be rewarded.

Gamon was an option mostly because I knew he had potential. In classic wow, Gamon had been a target that rogues needed to pickpocket for a certain quest. For programming reasons, that meant that he needed to be attackable without consequences. He was in a fairly public location, so randomly killing Gamon for no reason became something of a meme. In later expansions, he worked out and became a high level elite; eventually he even became an assist character in a raid boss encounter. Gamon could be a hero of the Horde, so hopefully that meant he would rise to the occasion.

Last but not least was Ursula Deline. She wasn’t my strongest warlock anymore, but she had a hobby that I approved of for the sheer ballsiness. She had a harem of pretty brainwashed girls. She didn’t even use my amulets half the time, she’d just put a ton of time and effort into learning how to properly cast Charm. Given that we had similar taste in women, that could only end in good things.

••••••••••

“Alright Gamon. Yup. Lay right there and don’t move.” I spoke as the heavy cart moved into place. “You’re doing great, just close your eyes.”

I backed away from the road and gestured for the captured guard. “Hyah!” The cart lurched forward, propelled by arcane force alone. When it severed Gamon’s spine, he felt no pain.

“Alright. That’s the last of them. Time to take a fucking nap.” I followed the guard away. It was time to actually sleep. I’d have days left over even if I slept in, so I fully intended to enjoy my vacation.

••••••••••

Ursula Deline: Diablo 3, outskirts of New TristramQuirks: translated skillset, plotline structure, fully external rewards

Chadro’tharn - Personal Nexus CoreIn-game purchases, Player gonna Play, Under Siege

Gamon: Dun Morough, immediate post CataclysmAchievement Unlocked

Imriss - Nagrand, Outland, During reign of IllidanPossession: Garrosh

Onyxia - Dalaran, War against the Lich KingPossession: Aerith Primrose, Achievement Unlocked

Vashj - Rogue Camp, SanctuarySkill Tree: Lightning Sorceress, Plot Missions, Randomly Drops