A Totally Normal Morning

5/5 morning

In retrospect, going all night long with a woman the night before a day where you’re planning on doing something risky and dangerous, such as laying to rest a powerful undead warrior, might not have been my smartest plan. Once Abby snapped, I’d been a bit surprised at how incredibly voracious she’d been. She hadn’t wanted to even slow down, let alone stop, for hours.

When I finally insisted that we call it a night, she gave me a devilish little smirk. “Alright. I’ll let you have a rest.” I smirked back and thought that I’d definitely need to get her some proper clothes tailored as she threw on one of her old robes, now far too big on her and not even slightly flattering.

I pulled up my necklace, intending to teleport back to the inn. Instead, I discovered a popup for a new addition to my retinue. Under the retinue tab, I found a surprise. Someone named Lillibeth Dodds was captured. Not in the process of capture, just captured. She had the undead tag and a permanent status effect of “ghost”. It took me several minutes of pondering to realize what happened.

That ghost who had been watching me since I’d gotten to Raven Hill must have gotten herself captured. I hadn’t put a necklace on her yet, but there’s one other way I know of that I can capture someone. A love confession from the girl in question. It can be encouraged or manipulated with magic, but it has to be honest. Last night I’d gotten a confession, dozens actually, from only one person; Abby. Who, in retrospect, had obviously been possessed. She’d gone from resistance and denial to absolutely caving in the blink of an eye.

The fact that it counted meant that, at least in the moment, Lillibeth had believed what she was saying. Nice. I might need to try this out, this might be a faster way to capture people. I had largely dismissed it as an inefficient method compared to necklaces, but getting emotionally vulnerable people to fall in love with you is hardly impossible. People in my old world did it all the time with nothing but a basic grasp of psychology and persistence. I wasn’t planning on trying it without magic to back me up, just for the sake of the time investment, but it was definitely on the table.

I spoke into the air again. “Not bad at all. You’ve definitely earned this.” I pulled out today’s necklace, a copper chain with a small emerald, and started weaving ghost hair thread through the chain. It took around half an hour to get one length of thread through the chain, which would hopefully be enough. About two thirds of the spool was still there, and Abby could take it to continue her work on Stitches.

“Hopefully this works.” I held up the amulet with the chain held as open and round as I could, and after a few moments, the chain shifted on its own slightly as a phantom head seemed to pop right through it. I let go, and the necklace settled onto invisible shoulders.

I couldn’t make her into a different type of ghost, nor could I restore her lost abilities of speech and touch, but I could make her visible at least. It wasn’t pretty, but I could do it. Lillibeth, as she currently existed, was a hollow, vaguely humanoid figure made of luminous rags and shadows. Her inability to speak made a lot more sense given that she didn’t have a mouth, on account of her not really having a head. I wasn’t sure why body talent wasn’t fixing her up, but the best explanation I could give was that she didn’t really have a body for the necklace to affect. Maybe I needed Soul Defense? That would cover damage to the spirit, right?

I shook my head, and decided to get back to business. I held my necklace in one hand. “You too.” She mimed my action. “Ask for your profile. Transformation and disguises. I give you permission to do whatever you like with them. Feel free to experiment. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. We can work out more details later, eh?” She was busy spinning and holding up her necklace; seeming extremely excited to have something she could touch, and a person looking right at her as he spoke. “Also. If you ask for notes, you can write there and I can read it. Deal?”

She oriented herself towards me, holding onto her amulet, and in the Discord channel, the word “deal” appeared. “Oh. Include your name with these messages. I feel like this will become confusing if we don’t start doing that.” *Lillibeth I understand.*

When I pulled out my amulet, my mind wandered for a moment and I realized something; Abby was in the second to last tier of entrancement. At this point, her memories were entirely open for editing. I didn’t really need to get her up to full mind break; she was well and truly mine already. There was only one thing left to do really.

“Abby. Look at this.” She did, and her new face was much more satisfying to watch go slack than the old one. “You are Abby. A woman.”

“I am Abby. I am a woman now.”

“You’ve always been a woman, a beautiful blonde woman. One with very little interest in men.”

“I’m a lesbian?”

“Until you met me, you certainly thought so; that’s why it took so long for you to accept and enjoy yourself last night. Eliza was your lover, partner, and dearest friend, but not your wife. Neither of you have any need to be faithful to the other. You remember how much you loved her? You still do. Everything you did to save her, you still did. For Eliza, your best friend.”

“Yes. I love Eliza. I’d do anything for her.”

“And you would love to share her with me, once she’s all better. Once she has been healed.”

A lustful grin. “That would be wonderful.”

“It would be. But that’s why you need to keep away from her until the process is complete.” I released Abby from the orb. Abercrombie was gone now, there was only Abby left. “Anyway. There’s one more thing I’d like for you to do. I need you to tell me what this does.” I pulled out the tiny spray bottle of liquid consent; now that she was firmly in the retinue, I felt comfortable letting her examine the strange potion that the company had given me.

She took it with interest, and started puttering around her shack. “Do you know what any of the ingredients are? Or what it’s called? A starting point would help.”

“Liquid consent, and I don’t know how it’s made.”

“Ah, good to know it isn’t anything nefarious sounding.” She started running tests on a tiny sample, basically a single drop. I occupied myself by watching Lillibeth playing with sliders, and called Drusilla’s necklace to let her know that I was fine, just spending the morning with Abby. “Call me back if Ladimore comes around.”

“A very interesting potion you have here. Would it happen to be related to these miraculous necklaces? For some reason I can’t imagine you making either yourself.” I smirked, and she kept going. “It’s essentially a psychoactive poison. When someone is affected by it, any suggestion or or request they hear will sound extremely appealing. It doesn’t override their other drives, like morality, self preservation, or self interest. Only someone with absolutely no self control would destroy their source of income for fun, even if they agree that it sounds like it would be extremely cathartic.”

“I’m pretty sure I can find a use for that. How does it work? I’m guessing you spray it on someone, from the bottle.”

“In the eyes or mouth, or an open wound. All of this together could probably put someone in a suggestible state for about five minutes. Interestingly, the dosage seems like it would impact duration, rather than effectiveness. It will absorb into the skin, as well, but it would probably only last about thirty seconds in that case.”

“Well, I’m sure we can find a use for that. Any chance you could reproduce it?” Abby gave me a flat look.

“Of course. I need only a few minutes examining the magical aura of a sample of a potion to instantly divine its recipe. Especially one which appears to have been brewed by the titans themselves with unknown ingredients. I have heard that the trolls have something similar, if you’re really that interested, but it tends to cause severe brain damage as a side effect. This doesn’t have that drawback.”

“I’ll just have to be careful how I use it then, won’t I?”

The day was off to a good start. Up next, I used fade to mostly blind and deafen myself and then teleported to Tony.

••••••••••

The big brawler had a small tent to himself, it seemed. He was asleep when I arrived, so I went ahead and dropped fade to wake him up. He went groping for his staff for a moment, but then recognized me and sat up with a yawn. “Hey boss. Need something? I got that promotion, so I’m gonna need to get my ass in gear, but I can probably make some things happen if you want.”

“Same as yesterday. I’m hoping you can take care of a minor mission every day.” I pulled up the log and dismissed yesterday’s task.

It ain’t much, but it’s honestAssist Ginger McGrubbins in tending to the gardens around the Tower of Azora.Reward: herb tracker upgrade added to map.

“Huh. That’ll probably take a while. If you can’t do it without getting in trouble, don’t. The reward seems useful but not incredible. Having someone with a little authority around these parts might end up useful.”

“Thanks boss, but I think I might be able to swing it. I’ll tell you how it goes.”

I shrugged. Worst thing he could do would be to lose his job; I was pretty sure I could find a use for a big guy with a stick. Send him on a road trip, maybe. If he wanted to try something, I’d let him. I was headed back to Darkshire. I needed to at least make my first attempt on Mor’Ladim today.